#3 crows conjure

[obeythebutler]

Ways in which You, the MC, raise the Characters Blood Pressure

All characters, except Luke

Cw: suggestive, spoilers and lesson 16 mentions.

Lucifer

You arranged the bottles of liquor in his study. It is order, you claim. In height and color, but for Lucifer it is chaos. It is a mess, he declares, his hands having to re-route every time they search for the intended bottle.

You do not wear weather-appropriate clothing. Look at the waistcoat on him, MC, with gloves and a dramatic flair which mimics a peacock. It is about to snow, and you do not have a jacket on. You're not cold, you affirm, but the goosebumps on your skin say otherwise. What a pity, here, have his coat.

You send him those god-awful, brainrot reels on Devilgram and expect him to watch every single one. Not his feed, not his brick, but it is there thanks to you.

You decide to climb the shelves to reach for the jar of choco-chip cookies. Yes, demons are taller, but please just use a stepping stool or ask for assistance. Imagine his plight when he walks into the kitchen half-dead from exhaustion and sees you scaling the shelves like a monkey, feet and hands gripping the wood for dear life.

You act flamboyant. Not too much, but with your head held high and that smirk on your face, fully aware of your capability and achievements, throwing him a sly glance as he takes the coat off your shoulders at a ball in the Demon Lord's castle. It gets him weak.

You participate in his brothers tomfoolery. They decided it would be a great idea to rearrange the dining room's furniture. Everyone is bickering about the ideal placement, there are streaks on the floor, and is that fire???!!! Mammon he can string up in the living room, Satan and Belphegor can be on bathroom cleaning duty, but you—what does he even do with you?? When you sheepishly apologise and give that godforsaken smile, he has no choice but to relent.

You get a little too buddy-buddy with Solomon. He's from the human world, sure, it is natural to bond with one of your kind, but when he sees you two together with almost identical smirks on your faces his brows furrow. In resignation. And a little bit of trepidation. What are you planning, MC?

Mammon

You threatened to take away Goldie when he did not listen to you. Stack it away nicely in a place where he can't reach it. Maybe the freezer. Maybe the toaster. He doesn't know.

You run headfirst into danger. Listen, Mammon knows you are very strong. Capable and headstrong. But please, please, MC, thats an Abyss Snake! Those creatures have venom so potent it can obliterate demons, and you are a human! Blessed, even though, but still, have some consideration for his heart before he runs after you, who is insistent on petting it.

You get a little too close to others. Nothing wrong with that, but his brain can't stop but cry out in protest. Biology deems it so. He's your first man! Don't you forget it! Lesser demons don't get too close though, because his scowl is enough of a warning. And he's not just all bark. Second-oldest, don't you forget.

You own him. Others demons trying to get close to him, subtly trying to slot their bodies against him at a club, or even in public. You glare and with ease tug Mammon towards you, until your lips nearly touch, intent on showing them that he's not available. Only for you.

You ate his noodles, leaving none for him.

You don't pick up his calls when you're in the human world. Crows he can send in every corner of the Devildom to look for you, assured of your safety and wellbeing. But in the human world, he can't. Six missed calls, MC, better pick up the seventh, before he decides to conjure a portal and come down there.

Leviathan

You criticised the figurine in his room. It looks weird, you say, like a blob of soup. It's magic munchkin from Igotreincarnatedinto soupduringtheTangdynasty, he says. Normies don't appreciate art. Hmpgh.

You cosplayed as Henry 2.0. and crept into his room at 3 am. Imagine his plight when he opens his eyes because he feels as if someone is watching him, only to see you decked out in full fish, contacts and all. He woke up the whole house with that scream.

You don't react to every single Devilgram reel he sends you. Friends send each other reels, sure, but these are fifty reels in a span of an hour. Just an hour.

You denied sleeping in the bathtub with him when you came over to his room for movie night, choosing to sleep in your bed instead. You claim its because the bathtub is uncomfortable. He assumes its because you hate his presence. Please just bring a mattress next time, MC, our Envy Avatar is in low spirits.

You take control. Shoving him against his chair, sitting on top of him as if you own him. Your smile is just a tad cruel, hands finding their way to the spots where he reacts the most. It makes him go blank. Please don't stop please please please

You stare at another demon too long. His envy can't help but take over. What is it that the demon have that he does not? What is it that enchants you so? Self-loathing follows after.

You forget to send him AP and receive it from your daily in-game logins. Sin.

Satan

You took the liberty of arranging the pile of books in his room. Like Lucifer, he has a natural order for them in mind, which you disrupted. Physics on the left, biology on the right and astronomy in the middle. Now its alll goneeee. No order. Chaos, however orderly they make appear.

You pet a cat and did not send him a picture. He knows from the cat fur on your clothes and the happiness on your face. Where is the kitty, MC, send him a pic now. He needs to meet the feline.

You asked Solomon for help with your studies. Sure, he's a very, very renowned sorcerer with whom even the demon likes to debate with, but study sessions are you and Satan's thing. Not with Solomon. Now you have got two intellectuals helping you study, as Satan acts passive-aggressive towards the sorcerer.

You two throw debates on random topics head to head. Intelligence is sexy, and that smile when you've outwitted him? Satan is about to swoon like a Victorian woman.

You don't walk alongside him. MC has the habit of frolicking along the path like a sheep. Cute. Maybe they have a faster pace than him. But he can't help but feel as if you are trying to avoid walking alongside him, unintentional that may be.

You add irrelevant items to the shopping cart when you both are out. Stick to the budget MC, stick to the budget, Satan chides, as he slips in a pack of the chocolate you prefer into the cart.

Asmodeus

You used a beauty product which he hates. Yes, that chaos snail cream is trending right now, but it gave him breakouts! Stop that, MC, here, use this instead!

You don't comment on his latest post/story/reel. You've been too busy with studies and Sorcerer society, we know. But you know he anticipates your comments the most! He wants YOU to look at him!!! Admire him!! You better add some heart emojis next time, MC.

You insist on cleaning together. He denies. At first. Complains all throughout, then insists on taking a bath together to get cleaned off.

You go out in public wearing an outfit that would have been put together by the enemy of fashion themselves. No, MC, you're so sexy haha please don't go out like that, when you've got Asmodeus right here to style you! He's already taking off your jacket and shoes, ready to drape you in finery. Always looking like a snack, his MC.

You see him for him, not for Asmodeus, Jewel of the Heavens. Your Asmodeus. Not the public image of him, not the impression he's curated of himself, but just the the person you see at home. At his most vulnerable. This sets him on fire like nothing else. Also when you match his freak

You insist on doing his nails. He's sweating for his life as you work on his fingernails. A very interesting choice of color there, MC, and oh, this nail buffer, seems a bit too.....rough.

Beelzebub

You don't look both ways before crossing the street. Sure, you are an accomplished sorcerer, but the inhabitants of the Devildom are still getting used to the law and order declared by Prince. That includes speed limits. His heart nearly jumps into his mouth during those moments.

You surprise him after his Fangol match. Him, all sweaty and red in the face. You, electrolyte in hand and that saccharine-sweet smile on your face that makes him weak. You could shove him against the wall and he would crumble.

You don't think before taking risks. Nothing peeves Beelzebub more than when you disregard your own safety. Please think twice before making hasty decisions that involve potential injury. For his sake, please, and the integrity of your physical body. Let him fuss over you.

You don't try your hair after you bathe/shower. You'll get a cold, he says, and a hairdryer is already in his hand. Sit down MC, and let Beel dry your hair. It will be quick.

You go out without him to eat. Eating together is love for Beel, nothing better than sharing a meal with your partner. So please don't deprive him of your company, MC, food tastes better when you are there with him.

You kill a fly. That was his friend, MC. His pal.

Belphegor

You downplay your injuries. Anyone who saw you fall down the stairs in the library knows that it would have hurt. You laughed and walked it off. He noticed the way your pace faltered, the hiss of pain when no one was looking. Please, take care of yourself, MC.

You leave hair ties around the house. Belphegor woke up to one next to his pillow, another on the RAD bench. One on top of the cabinet. And it drives him crazy. You're wondering how your supply of hair ties is running out fast, meanwhile, his supply is full, ready to be given when desired.

You put him in his place. He knows he's bratty at times, being the youngest comes with its own traits. When you bite back at him, grabbing him by the hair, showing him how brats are treated, he's gone. A demon deceased. At your mercy.

You make cow puns. Yes, he can talk to cows, yes, his clothes have a similar pattern. But enough with the jokes now, MC, go along and get mooooving—

You take his favourite pillow to be washed. It is dirty indeed, but Belphegor cannot sleep without it. He's sitting by the washing machine and waiting. Until its ready to be used again.

You crack your fingers. The sound can't help but remind him of that time when you fell down the stairs, and he watched from above in damned glee—until he saw the expression on his brothers faces and the way you gasped in pain. Please do not do it in front of him.

Diavolo

You decide to serve him pickles. It's good to try new things, you say, content on eating your own serving of pickles. Diavolo stares at the offending item as if it has committed regicide.

You make him finish his work. Yes, there is a pile of reports waiting to be signed, but its only a ten minute break, MC, what harm can it do? You're like Barbatos sometimes, hovering over him. Maybe if he jumped out the window to make an escape it might work.

You challenge his authority. Diavolo has been questioned plenty of times in the past, when he was still new to governance without his father overseeing affairs. The House of Lords opposed many of his orders. But you, you are different. Standing in front of him, challenging his opinion, so bold in stating your opinion and your claim. On him. Only him. Excuse his meetings for an hour, minimum, there is a very urgent matter right in front of him, one whose wishes he's willing to bend to eagerly.

You team up with Solomon. Diavolo cannot tell what you two are planning. Nothing but chaos is guaranteed. He's already bracing himself for a surprise.

You refuse to accept his gifts. You deserve the best of the best. What do you mean, MC, that this hundred thousand jewellery set is too much? that the piles of gifts outside your room is too much? None of that now, none of that.

You wear a strong perfume. His nose is sensitive, and the scent is so harsh that it makes him nauseous. Too polite to comment, he silently bears it while you wonder as to why he keeps leaning out of the window. Maybe there's something going on outside.

Barbatos

You don't tie your hair up while cooking. It gives him the ick like nothing else can, and before you can even start on chopping up the potatoes he's already working on tying your hair, clips and a headband magically appearing.

You showed him Ratatouille. Barbatos dropped the item he was holding. You thought he had gone catatonic after.

You serve him instead. He's accustomed to being the one assisting others, but when you do it it's different. When you straighten out his tie in the way you deem satisfactory, hands running down his chest for a brief moment, he's a demon gone.

You decide to make tea incorrectly, or incorrect in his eyes. The temperature has to be a perfect 40 degree celsius, MC. Ginger has to be shredded, not cut. Milk has to be warm, not straight from the fridge. MC—just let him—he'll do it. Just sit down and he'll make you a cup. With a bloody strawberry pastry.

You went inside his room, and ten different versions of you came out. He had to spend an hour trying to ensure all your versions did not meet each other, with Diavolo asking for him every fifteen minutes.

You go to the port market without him. Sacrilege. When he sees you with fresh groceries in hand, Barbatos feels betrayed. Without him?! He'll subtly make quips at you, and the next outing will be at the port, and you're going to be besides him. For safety, he says.

Simeon

You decided to stay at Purgatory Hall for the night, but not in his room. See, MC, he has a bed right here for you! And cookies!! Four pillows!! Please don't deprive him of your company.

You fold clothes incorrectly. The sleeve is hanging out, wrinkles already forming on a pair of trousers. The handkerchief is crumbled up into a ball. Simeon just sighs. Takes the clothes from your hands, gently sets it aside.

You act as the knight in shining armour. Sweeping in with just what he needs. He gazes at you in longing, perhaps one of a thousand years. Just kiss him MC, he'll be so good. He promises.

You text him in lingo he does not understand. "So true, bestie." ??? "Not very sigma of them." ???? "I've got major tea about the two demons who made a ruckus during curses and hexes." Tea???? Send him some reels, MC, maybe then he will get it.

You chew on a pen. People do it when they're in deep thought. Sure. But Simeon can't help it when he sees the indentations left on the body and the head. That poor pen. Crime committed.

You decided to teach Luke slang. Now he's cursing like a sailor. What will he do now, MC? Look at that sweet boy, now yapping. You've spoiled him with bad influences. How will he undo this?

Solomon

You don't sit on his lap. Never mind that there are plenty of seats around. His lap is the best seat. The chair on which you are currently sitting on feels like nettles. The sofa is too hot. His lap is the only option left.

You get a little too close to Asmodeus for his comfort. Solomon can't help but feel a pang of jealousy in his heart when you warm up to him. He's not so subtly interrupting you both, and acts as if everything is alright. Yeah, just apply that facemask on him too, he'll eat the cucumber.

You shove him into a nearby closet or an empty classroom. He barely has time to breathe before you are on him, hands fisting in his shirt, all his senses occupied by you. It drives him mad like nothing other.

You wake him up in the morning. He's catatonic at that hour. Any attempts to wake him up will be met with groans and grunts. Shaking him awake does not work. Mandatorily kisses are prescribed to wake him right up. Doctor, he needs them to wake up!

You deny his help. He knows you're a capable sorcerer, your power immeasurable. But let yourself rely on him sometimes, he's more than happy to help you. He'll drop everything to come to the aid of his beloved apprentice.

You dress up to go outside, expectedly staring at him. Solomon's sweating bullets internally, wondering if he missed a date. A special event. His book lies abandoned while he racks his brain. Was it today? Or tomorrow? Oh no no no no

Thirteen

You brought a bug in the house once. Claimed it cute and adorable. Thirteen climbed on top of the closet, did not come down till you let it outside. Banned, she tells you, from bringing them inside.

You didn't admire her latest creation well enough. She spent such a long time on it, MC! The giant bazooka!! And you gave it a glance and nodded!! Her heart!!

You get too chummy with Solomon. She declares it a crime. His cooking made her see stars during the day, and she woke up a whole day later on top of a bridge. Why do you have to hang out with that loathed sorcerer, MC?

You give her that smug smirk of yours, and she feels weak in the knees. Getting too close to her, acting so nonchalant. Her heart is doing cartwheels in her chest.

Mephistopheles

You forget titles while referring to Lord Diavolo. It's "Your Majesty," and "Lord Diavolo," MC. Don't be so rude towards his sovereign. He'll spend the whole day correcting you.

You ruffle his hair. Such an innocent gesture, but Mephistopheles can't help but stutter when you do it so casually. He's stuttering. Face hot.

You don't read the latest edition of the R.A.D. newspaper. He spent so long proofreading and collecting information, MC. And you still haven't read it. The demon is hurt. Better read it now, MC.

You bring out a chihuahua from your bag and place it on the desk. During a meeting. The tiny thing trembles. He sighs.

Raphael

You sew hastily. He can see the haphazardly put together stitches. Raphael is already gesturing you over, needle in hand. Sit down and let him fix it.

You find yourself in trouble due to the brothers shenanigans. He walks out of Purgatory Hall and sees you upside down on a tree. He sighs. Takes his spear and removes the branch, catches you in his arms.

You manhandle him. Something about the way in which you effectively guide him away from your path by grabbing his hips, or even pulling him closer gets him going.

You stop him from sampling Solomon's cooking. Its a culinary delight, he says. It is assault on the tastebuds, you claim. He's offended, already grabbing a spoonful of his food. Heaven, he sighs.

[biwitchenergyz]

That Thing Called Love

Chapter 2 of 3: Sweet Death

(Warnings! This work contains references to suicide, period-typical racism and sexism, as well as mentions of the KKK!)

Amongst the hanging herbs and the glittering crystals of your home, loneliness sank into the very air. It had been five days since you kicked Remmick out. Leo wandered between rooms, meowing a call that remained unanswered. 

You didn't cry, although sometimes you felt you would from the sheer loneliness you felt. Annie came by after you missed a market trip, and you couldn't explain your distance or your melancholy. It seemed so silly when confronted by your sister, whose own grief was so much more real than yours. 

“Sun’s gonna set soon,” Annie observed with one hand held out to block the light of the sun from her eyes. Five days ago, you would have settled into Remmy’s room with Leo resting on the bed and your grimoire in your hands. When the sun was gone, you would have opened the shutters and cracked the window for your little crow to feel the breeze.

“Go on home. Nothing good comes out at night.” You remind her. Annie smiles like she's thinking you finally understand her worries, and she kisses your forehead, which brings tears to your eyes. She doesn't see them as she leaves, and you're so thankful she didn't notice it.

Leo lay on the dining table; you watched the pink sunset glow against him. Sitting with your head on your knees, you closed your eyes for a fleeting moment. When you opened them again, it was night.

“I ain’t scared of the dark,” you begin to talk, wondering if Leo will listen like Remmy did. “I love the night and the moon. Why should a creature of the night be any different?” You ask, but Leo doesn't respond; he doesn't even look at you, the damned cat.

“I ain’t never been lonely. I never missed Benny boy or Annie or anybody when I was alone. So why would I miss some silly bird?” Pure frustration filled your tensed muscles. Maybe it was the understanding in his eyes, or the specific little gifts he left you, but for some reason, you felt seen for the first time since your mother passed. 

Even after you tossed him to the curb, he still came back. Never knocking on the door or trying to get your attention, he left gifts instead. Bundles of rosemary on Tuesday and quartz from the river on Wednesday. Thursday, it was a group of colorful rocks. Friday, he left mourning glories, and Saturday, it was a brand new copy of The Conjure Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher. 

Each gift more meaningful than the last. He knew you, not because you willingly told Remmick, but because you bared your soul to Remmy. You hated the feeling of anger, it coursed through you like poison. Remmy was more than a bird; he was a demon of night, and he had willingly deceived you just to learn the most intimate parts of your life and the things you wouldn't even tell your sister.

Tap, Tap, Tap.

Nobody knocked on your door at night or during the day. He didn’t have to knock, not after you had given him a permanent welcome to your home, even though you had done it under false notions. Still, you were glad that he gave you simple respect, so you opened the door.

“I could fix ya’ car.” Remmick’s hair was neater than when you kicked him out. Most importantly, he was clothed. His pale frame was covered by a light blue button-up shirt with sleeves rolled to his forearms. Navy blue jeans looked nice on him, so did the belt he cinched around his hips and the suspenders he added purely as an accessory. “I know you ain’t got that boy to fix it no more. Figured it’s the least I can do.”

You laughed, “What would you know about cars?” To be fair, he had a physique similar to Benny and the other town mechanics. Strong frame, not as imposing as the farmers, but just as capable. He didn’t seem as sheepish or timid as he did when you last saw him. There was an ease to the way he leaned against your porch, potentially a facade. 

“Been around since they made 'em. Did some work as a mechanic for a while back in the day.” He shrugged, naturally reminding you that this man was not like you. Though he appeared to be in his late 20s to early 30s, there was something much older in his eyes and his mannerisms—an ancient being masquerading as a boy.

“I’ll let ya’ try. Doesn’t mean you get to come in.” You retort, reminding him that he is a stranger to you. “I ain’t forget what you did and I damn sure haven’t forgiven you.” He nodded slowly as if he was trying to show his understanding. Without turning your back on him, you scurried back inside, locking the door. 

An hour passed, and you weren't even sure if Remmick was still outside. You changed into your white chiffon nightgown before letting Leo out to use the restroom and wander the grounds. Taking a seat on the porch swing, you caught sight of Remmick, suspenders falling from his shoulders and dirt covering his pants. He had found the toolbox you kept in the back seat; it wasn’t yours to keep, truth be told. 

“Figured you’d given up by now,” you hollered from the porch. Remmick would have heard your euphonic voice even if it were mumbled under your breath. His slightly pointed ears perked up, grinning as he sauntered over to the porch. So enraptured with the soft lines of your face, he hadn’t noticed the thin fabric of your nightgown until you were right in front of him.

“Well, I-I couldn't leave ya’ without a car,” his breath hitched at the sight of you, and his words stumbled out clumsily. In truth, he never lustfully considered your body. Even when he climbed into your bed at night, he was obsessed with the honeyed tone of your voice, your sparkling eyes, your soft and rich skin, and the way your curls fell around your face. The curves of your body were unfamiliar to him, but suddenly they were invading his mind.

“Remmick, your drooling.” His blue eyes, pupils blown wide and dark, shot up to your lips. Blood that was not his own rushed to his face and brought a bright red flush to his cheeks and ears. Quickly, he wiped the beady pearls of his saliva away from his chin. It entranced you, reminding you that this man was a predator, animalistic and primal.

“Are you…hungry?” Your eyes searched for Leo, begging him to return so you could go inside. The tabby cat was below you, standing at Remmick's side and brushing against his jeans—a fur-covered traitor.

“Nah. I ate earlier, sugar.” For a minute, his words felt casual, like he ate the same dinner as you, and not the blood of his prey.

“How did you eat the berries and nuts? When you were a crow.” Remmick thought for a moment, not as though he were crafting a lie but more like he was trying to explain. He inched up the stairs, making his way closer to you.

“When I was turned, my creator drained me of all my life's blood.” Remmick began, deliberately closing the distance between you two until he was directly in front of you as you sat on your swing.

“I don’t have blood of my own; that's why I have to take it from others.” You ignored the pang in your heart that came from the grimace on his face. “When I drink blood, it flows through my veins, and for a few hours, it's like being human again. I have a heartbeat, the ability to taste food and all that human shit. Blood powers damn near everything in the body, without it we’re just shells.” He shrugged his shoulders, “At least that's what it’s like for me.”

“It only lasts hours?” You couldn't imagine the misery of not being able to taste all the delicious food in the world. You’d die without Annie's famous fried fish.

“Depends. When you found me, I’d sucked two humans dry, filled my veins for a few days. Without new blood, the old dries up and everything’s useless again.” You expected disgust or hatred to curl in your stomach, but it never came. How could you blame him for surviving when you would probably do the same? You don’t ask for further details, right now you understand enough, and one thing is clear: Remmick did not choose this life.

“So what do ya’ think?” You inquired, slightly nodding towards the red Cadillac. Remmick misses the movement; his eyes are focused on the way your hands curl against your gown. He looked up, examining you from the roots of your hair to your bare feet.

“I like it.” He retorted.

“Talkin’ bout the car, Remmick.” He looks back at the Cadillac.

“Oh, it should be good.  Just needed to adjust the motor.” You nodded along, not understanding the more technical terms he started to use, but it was nice listening to him explain it. Clearly, he knew what he was talking about. He motioned for you to follow him, and reluctantly, you made your way to the car as he started it to confirm it was working properly. 

“Seems good.” You hesitate when he leaves the front seat and stands in front of you. “Suppose we could talk on the porch if you had any groveling or apologizing ya’ wanted to do. ” For an unknown reason, you felt the need to let him explain himself. You didn't regret kicking him out; it was the safest thing to do, but his constant attempts at forgiveness were enough to make you want to hear him out.

The two of you sat together, the porch swing once felt so big when you snuggled into your mother's side, now it felt crowded as if you were practically sitting on Remmick's lap. You didn’t realize the closeness it would bring. If he felt uncomfortable, he didn't say or show it.

Dying to fill the silence, you open your mouth to find words, but Remmick beats you to it. “ I was tryna’ get away from some dangerous people.”  He hesitated, trying to choose the best parts of the story to tell without scaring you away. “They wanted to kill me, but naturally, I deserved it. Not all my kind can shapeshift, you gotta be stronger and older than the rest. I know I'm older than most.” He chuckled, a low and joyless sound.

“Don’t know why I can do it besides, only thing I can turn to is a crow.” Remmick looked off, watching the property line like a spooked animal. Leo bounded back up the stairs and jumped right into Remmick's lap, casually affectionate.

 Absentmindedly, Remmy stroked the cat's fur as though it were the most natural thing to do. His navy blue eyes still examined the forest. You could never keep track of what color they would be next, but you were starting to understand. At his weakest, most human moments, his eyes were naturally blue. Still, you didn't know what to make of the changes.

“Think they shot at me with silver bullets, one must have clipped me because I could only go so far before falling.” Remmick ran a hand along his previously injured shoulder. “Was tryna crawl deeper into the woods. Then you found me, I’m mighty thankful for ya. I woulda’ve died out there.” His strong hand rakes through Leo’s dark fur, and the cat stretches his paws out as he soaks in the attention.

“I was too weak to turn back, but when I got better, I started sneaking out to feed,” Remmick explained everything as if he were teaching you basic English. There was a familiarity between the two of you, despite your eagerness to ignore it. Sitting on the porch together reminded you of late nights with a good friend. 

“Why come back if you were healed? Why’d you leave all those gifts?” You asked, finding the questions easier than asking why he crawled into your bed dressed down to his underwear. He didn't speak for a while. With a Gallic shrug, he let the air go silent. You let him think, listening to the black field crickets and the occasional purr from Leo.

“I thought the gifts were pretty, reminded me of you,” He began slowly, testing the boundary of what you would let him say. “As far as why I came back, I wanted to—never had a pretty girl takin’ care of me. And you're so damned smart; listening to you talk was the highlight of my day. Guess I took a liking to you.”

Brazenly, you tugged at one of his suspenders, trying to get him to look at you. He did so, slowly turning to meet your playful gaze. His eyes appeared glossy, desperate for something in the same way Remmy’s eyes had so often looked. “For what it’s worth, I took a liking to you, too. In crow form, that is.” You pull a soft laugh from him as he places a contemplative finger on his lips. 

“Perhaps, you could like the human side too? If ya’ got to know 'em.” Remmick's voice was unsure, feeble like the first call he made when you found him injured in the woods. Everything you learned was screaming at you to get rid of him. He’d confessed to being a vampire; he was something monstrous, the very creatures Annie had warned you about. 

Still, he was Remmy. The little crow that listened to you attentively and left you gifts that proved you had captured his attention. His presence made you realize you were lonely out here, even though you liked to pretend you weren’t. You wondered if your eyes mirrored the same desperation that his did.

“I could,” You began slowly, torturing the man for fun.“If you were to promise not to hurt me, because if you tried, I’d have to hurt you back, and it’s damned hard to get blood out of clothes.” He nodded vigorously, his eyes wide like you were giving him a gift, something more precious than just your reluctant words.

“Wouldn't hurt ya’. Never even thought of it.” He promised like he had something to prove, like his life was on the line. 

The eagerness he held was strange to you. Nobody had ever craved your attention, even the boys who tried to convince you to marry them were only after the prize of having you on their arm for show.

To them, you were just a pretty girl with a good enough income, but to Remmick, you were something to yearn for. He might kill you, might tear your throat out and leave you drained. His fanged canines promised this, but his eyes told a different story.

“Got work in the morning,” He knew this, he remembered your schedule. “I wouldn’t mind a certain boy coming back tomorrow. Preferably, at sundown. Any later and I might forget he exists.” You stood from the swing, bending down to pull Leo from Remmick’s lap. His eyes trailed the dip of your nightgown, and he swallowed hard when your fingers brushed against his thighs to pick up the sleeping cat.

“I-I’m sure he wouldn't mind that either.” Remick stuttered, lifting one leg over the other in an attempt to hide his lap. You didn’t notice. With Leo securely clutched to your chest, you used your elbow to push the screen door open. Without a goodbye, you closed the door, resting Leo onto the dining table so you could lock the front door. 

Remmick didn't move for nearly an hour. His head fell back against the wall, his long pale neck bared before the moonlight. I’m no child, he reminded himself. I am older than most who walk the earth.  

He couldn't explain the weak feeling in his knees or the way he constantly felt bested by you. The ancient vampire was no stranger to women; he was married once before, and he’d had a history of lovers, human and of his kind. Still, he was a stranger to genuine feelings that did not derive from lust or physical desire. 

Remmick finally leaves, wandering away from your porch desperately trying to figure out the feeling that settles in his chest like an anchor tethering him to you.

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

True to his word, Remmick broke through the tree line just as the sun fell away from the sky. You were back on the porch swing, with Leo lying at your side. The first thing the vampire noticed was the length of your hair, wet from a recent bath and longer than usual. Your scent hit him as he climbed the wooden steps, vanilla and lilies.

“You sittin’ out here waiting for me, sugar?” Try as you might, you couldn’t deny it. You sped home from work, made dinner as fast as you could, and took a long bath in vanilla extract and essential oils. You told yourself you would do it for anyone, just trying to look nice for a friend.

“Might be.” You teased, smoothing the lines of your skirt. His hands traced your movements. The outfit you wore was delicate. He’d seen you in it before, a white sweater-blouse with a high-waisted linen skirt and a black belt, more appropriate than your nightgown, but pretty all the same. Everything looked beautiful on you, he figured it was you who made it so. 

“Where do you go when you ain’t with me?” It was a question you pondered all day.

“Ain’t been in Missippi long enough to start a new life yet. I just came down from North Carolina. Got hurt on my third day in this damn place.” There was humor in his words, like he was used to the odds being stacked against him. “Usually, I find an abandoned home outside the town. Fix it up, get a simple job, and stay for as long as I can before the town notices all the missing folks and that I don’t age like them.”

“Do you make friends?” Remmick tilted his head, similar to the crow’s behavior, and he pondered your question as if it were something so confusing that he’d never thought of it. You imagined it was nice at times, traveling around and being someone new. You also imagined that it got tiring.

“I’ve made a few. Made some of 'em like me. Rare I meet another one of' my kind, but the friends I’ve turned are always with me, and I’m with them.” He tapped the side of his head, showing you where his friends were. “We all travel around, sometimes we meet. I don’t mind being alone, though. Grown accustomed to it.”

“I thought I was, too.” The ‘before you’ hangs heavy in the air. You didn’t mean to voice it aloud, but you couldn't help it.

“What, bout that fiancée of yours…boony?” Remmick asked.

“It’s Benny,” you correct. “I loved him, well enough. I couldn't balance my grieving sister and a needy fiancé, so I called it off. Not sure I would have been happy as his wife.”

Leo hops off the swing, stretching his arms out as Remmick steals his spot. The leg space you had disappears, but before you can throw them over the edge of the swing, Remmick takes the underside of your knees and lifts your legs onto his lap. He doesn't mind the weight on him; in fact, he seems to like it.

 You're stunned for a moment, but you won’t let him get the best of you. Sighing contentedly, you lean back into the porch swing until your thighs lie atop Remmicks, and your head lies on the armrest. You enjoy the way Remmick looks down at you and forces himself to look away.

“Mama always said a woman's duty was to her husband and children.” You watch Leo roll around in the dirt. “Don’t need none of that. She had a husband, and it killed her. She had me, and I couldn't even save her. I've got Leo, maybe he can be my only son.” Remmick laughs with you, a melody forming between the two of you. 

“You’re a good mother. Leo’s nothin’ but fat and happy.” It was nice to have someone who would agree with your little fantasy world, where you didn’t have to marry and your cat could be your son. 

“What about you? Didn’t think I noticed the ring on ya finger? Figure you have a wife and kids somewhere. Little vampires, perhaps?” As you observe him, Remmick gently tugs your skirt back into place, pulling it from where it's slipped up your thighs down to where it's meant to be at your ankles. He places his left hand right above your knee, the hand bearing his golden wedding band.

“Had a wife once. No kids, thankfully. Don’t know if I coulda’ve made it a thousand years as a father to little ones.” You make a mental note of that; he’s older than you originally thought. Still, you relax further into him as he taps his ring finger against your knee. “Liadan, that was my wife's name. Don’t remember what she looks like; it was arranged anyhow. She was a kind girl, didn’t fit well with me. I’ve always been a lil’ wild. Ain’t the proper way to behave.”

“Fuck propriety.” Your laugh startles him; he wasn't expecting it. “The best people aren’t always well behaved.” Danger encourages you to wink at him; you do it without hesitation. It’s funny to watch him squirm, his Adam's apple bobs, you wonder if he's trying not to drool again. You think he might eat you, yet you’re not afraid.

“Benny boy, that’s what the town calls him, he wanted a wife like the bible talks about. He didn’t want no witch and sure didn’t want no sinner.” The moon caresses your face, edging you on as you slip into a more casual way of speaking. “Ben liked me in the sunlight when everything had to be done a certain way. Told me he was gonna keep me from the dark, and it made me feel sick.”

“You’re gorgeous at night.” Remmick bites his tongue, shocked at his own words. “Sure, you're beautiful in the sunlight too, but you're made for this,” he gestures towards the darkness around you, lit only by a pale glow. “Thought you were an angel the night you found me. You were glowing like one, lookin’ like sweet death.”

Speaking like a poet yet refusing to meet your eye, Remmick was glad that he had not fed yet, or else you would have seen a flush on his face and potentially felt him poking against your legs. His thumb brushed the fabric of your skirt, circling the space below your thigh. He bites the soft skin of his lip, hard. Sick delight courses through you, entranced by the sheepish way Remmick avoids your gaze.

“Crows are known to be gift bringers. They like giving shiny things, and they never forget a slight or kindness.” It’s so random, so uniquely you, that he throws his head back and laughs. A real, genuine laugh, showing his fangs and closing his eyes. 

Despite his reaction, you continue, “They hold funerals and mourn their dead. Most importantly, they form bonds; it's not always exclusive, but sometimes, if they are lucky, they find the right one and mate for life.” You’re not sure if he remembers it, but last night he questioned why his second form was a crow. After talking to him, you feel you've figured it out.

“You’re so precious, sugar.” Remmick reaches out to push stray curls out of your face. You flinch back at first, gripping his wrist with your nails until you see the kind light in his dark eyes. From his sculpted jaw to his curved nose, you never paid too much attention to how naturally handsome he is. It’s subtle, but when you notice the curve of his lips and the strength of his neck, you feel compelled to let him do as he pleases. Cautiously, you release his wrist so that he can touch your curls.

 Remmick's thin, shapely eyebrows curl up like he’s in pain, but he smiles all the same. His hand doesn't leave you; he cups your cheek within his palm. You notice that his eyes are dark again, shining obsidian. You reach out to take his hand within your own, but he pulls back. Gently, but rushed, he places your feet back on the porch and stands, moving away from you.

“You've got work in the morning!” He shakes his head like he's waking from a trance. “ Sleep well, Lassie!” You look down at Leo, scratching at the screen door, when you look back up, Remmick is gone.

[mr-crawlings-wife]

No Way Home

Prologue-3

Previous part, Masterlist. Next part

Warnings: ooc

"Off With Your Head!" Riddle yelled the incantation and almost instantaneously a heavy heart-shaped collar was conjured around Grim's little neck.

Kalim rubbed his neck, "Ooo- wouldn't want that happening to me ever." I remained silent.

"MYAH?! What are you doing?!" Grim was stupified, as if he fully expected himself to be able to get away with destroying all this furniture.

"The Queen of Heart's Rule 23: 'One must never bring a cat to a formal affair.' " Riddle retorted.

Who is that? The Dowager empress? Not a consort for sure...... Queen...must be a small land that she rules over..

"Your very presence here is a violation of order. You will vacate these premises immediately." Riddle demanded.

Does the Queen of Hearts fall ill in the presence of a cat? Or is it simple disdain?

"But I ain't a cat either!" Grim attempted to argue. If you looked close enough you could almost see the sadness slowly clouding his eyes. But it didn't last for long as his gaze soon became fierce and determined.

"Don't try to collar me! I'll burn it right off! " He opened his maw to its full capacity and exhaled with all his might.

But nothing came out except humid air.

"Huh...? Wh-what gives? My fire ain't workin'!" He seemed shocked but there was an underlying hint of devastation.

"Until I deign to remove that collar, you won't be using any magic. You're naught but a pet cat now." Riddle seemed quite pleased with himself. His arms crossed and his chest slightly puffed. A proud man.

" M-meoWHAT?! I ain't nobody's pet-NOTHING!" Grim was quite offended.

"Oh, you've nothing to worry about there. I certainly have no interest in having you as a pet. The collar will disappear once you're removed from campus."

The silver headed man that really didn't contribute much to this goose chase, spoke up. Showering Riddle with praise.

"Ha-HA! Good show as always, Riddle. You're signature spell locks down any magic. It's quite handy."

They seem to be quite friendly with eachother. Perhaps they're of the same ranks. Colleagues, maybe. Though, Riddle doesn't seem all too fond of him.

Something about the way he speaks sounds like he has ulterior motives.

Crow man knocked the tiles with his cane, "THROW HIM OUT! I shall spare it from being served as dinner. My, but I AM kind." but his commands seem to carry no weight.

Crickets.

" ...Someone take this away, please."

The Silver head from before instructed, a smooth hand rubbing his temples.

Everybody seems to carry a disdain for the headmage.

A boy with teal hair, like the ocean water on a sunny day, stepped up and seized Grim by his scruff.

"Nooooo! Let me gooooo! You fools better remember my name! Cause I'm gonna go down in the annals of magic history! Just you wait!" His voice faded out as he was carried away. If you looked close enough you could see the tiny beads at the edge of his waterline.

"Poor guy." Kalim mumbled from beside me.

I don't particularly share his sentiment. I can't help not feeling anything for the beast that chased me around. But it sure is a tragic thing for his dreams to be crushed in such a way. I don't give it further thought.

I walked towards crow man, bowing low, my voice hopeful. "Sir, dince you can perform magic, is there a way you could send me back home? If you would be so kind."

Crow man smiled instantaneously at my words."Yes, I AM kind. But how come? You don't want to remain here? This is the first time a student has refused enrollment." His confusion appeared to be genuine.

"Well my liege-"

"Can she really be a student here if she's a magicless normie?" That glass slate spoke, it's voice mocking. It floated over to where me and crow man were standing. Coming face to face with its headmage. Practically inches from my back.

He has basically locked me in place.

"Wouldn't that be outrageous headmaster?“

What pleasures does he get from mocking me?

How does the glass slate even qualify? I thought the requirements were to be human?? Or... at least humanoid...

I have the urge to stand up straight and project this glass slate across the podium. And I do. I don't know what seized me. Perhaps spite.

"Right you are Shroud." Crow man hums, looking away just as I stand up and yeet the thing, but it regains balance quickly and knocks the back of my head with it's... strangely metal like body?

"I'll circle back to you later." Crow man puts his hand on my shoulder, as I rub the back of my head. A snort and cackle coming from the slate of glass.

"He means nerver..." The blond man's whisper echoed from behind me.

Crow man faced the chattering students and clapped once, "Well, that was quite the unexpected fracas. I hereby declare that orientation has concluded."

Raising his hand, he gestured in the general direction of the glass slate, the blond man, the silver head, Riddle, Kalim and the lazy man.

So all of them are people in power.. WAIT THE GLASS SLATE TOO??

"Housewardens, please escort your students back to the dorms."

But then he frowned, "...Hm? Come to think of it, I don't see Housewarden Draconia of House Diasomnia anywhere."

"And that surprises you? Dude's a total recluse." The lazy man drawled as he stretched and yawned as I was sweating bullets. Worried about what would happen to me for disrespecting the sentient glass.

Kalim perked up, "Wait a sec... Did anyone even invite him?"

This Draconia seems to be a prominent figure.

The blond man picked at his nails as I bit my cheeks and glared at the floor., "If you're that worried about him missing out, maybe you should have told him yourself."

Kalim shrunk back, sheepish. "Maybe, but I don't know him too well either..."

"Draconia... Like, Malleus Draconia? THAT Draconia?"

"So it's true? He really does go to school here?"

"Yikes."

Mutters floated through the crowd of students.

This Draconia must be a feared individual.

"Ah. Just as I'd expected." A deep and rich voice spoke.

I turned around to put a face to the voice.

And it was hard to believe.

This man looked like a child.

He was almost as short as me...

"I figured I'd come down and see for myself whether Malleus had made an appearance."

I took deep breaths to calm myself as he spoke.

So Draconia is a last name. To call such a feared individual by their first name. This boy... he's close to Draconia. Which means he's also powerful.

All this powerful people surrounding me and the reality of magic existing was eating away at my composure. It has been for a while...I just didn't realize how small I felt until now.

Not a single mistake is to be made...

"But once again, he was evidently not informed that his presence was required at an official ceremony." The child like man breathed a sigh and shook his head, revealing strips of bright pink in a canvas of ebony.

"You have my sincerest apologies. I assure you, this oversight was in no way intended as a snub." Silver head apologized with a light bow.

"I mean, you must admit, he's not exactly the easiest person to strike up a conversation with." Riddle attempted to justify.

The child like man didn't remain for longer to hear their excuses. "No matter. All who were assigned to House Diasomnia, follow me. I just hope he doesn't sulk about this."

Sulking? My if Draconia is a feared individual with lots of power, these people are jesters. Ways to dig your own grave.

I stood on the podium with my back to the sentient mirror as each 'housewarden' escorted the students out. Kalim waved at me with a smile before leaving. I waved back but didn't return the smile. I felt too nervous to smile.

It didn't help that the sentient glass gave me one last hit to the head before leaving.

I sincerely hope that was it being playful.

Crow man then turned to me, "Well, Maomao. This is a most unfortunate turn of events. I'm afraid that you will not be attending Night Raven Collage after all."

I'm glad, truly.

"Surely you realize that I cannot very well admit a student with no magical ability to my academy."

"It is understandable sir." I hung my head low and bowed. My eyes staring at the floor.

"But worry not. The Dark Mirror will see you safely home. Now, step into the gate, and visualize the place you whence you came." He gestured towards the coffin.

The coffin-? Where did that come from....

I didn't question at and quickly layed myself inside. The lid shutting shutting into place and locking me inside.

Here's to hoping he doesn't bury me alive for looking at him when we first met.

"O Dark Mirror! Return this soul to where it belongs!" He chanted.

Silence followed.

Crow man coughed, "*Ahem* L-let us, er...try this again. O Dark Mirror! Return this soul—"

"There is no such place."

What does that mean?

“What?“

"There is no place in this world where this soul belongs."

"None?"

"None."

I clawed at the padded interior of the coffin, a sudden tightness in my chest.

"How can that be? My, but today is a veritable cavalcade of impossible phenomena!"

"......."

"This has never happended throughout my long tenure. I must confess that I am at something of a loss."

"From what land do you hail?"

Is he asking me?

"Li, Chang'an, red light district." I responded. I was unsure if he even heard me from beyond this coffin. I've surprised myself with how well I'm taking all this. No panic, no sharp breaths or clenched palms...

"I'm afraid I am not familiar with such a place." The coffin lid flew open, to reveal crow man walking past me and towards the door.

"I am intimately acquainted with the origins of every student who has ever come here, and yet... This mysterious homeland of your eludes me." He was stroking his chin deep in thought as I rushed out of the suffocating coffin and followed after him.

"Let us go to the library and look it up, shall we?"

"Yes sir."

Taglist: @kittycat246 @wutap @coffee-or-hot-cocoa @boredselkie @krysthalina @frostines-blog @anastasia-426

[altocat]

Part 3 starts in pitch blackness, only a sliver of white blurring in the middle of the screen. The shot tilts slightly, slowly spiraling into the white. We're in a sterile clinic room, the woman on the bed struggling to bring her child into the world. The sounds of her screams are muffled in the background, followed by the gradual wailing of the baby. We can't see what's fully going on because the images are blurred and only half-visible. But we begin to hear her weak cries of protest, a looming shape brushing between the sea of bodies, retrieving what it was seeking before moving closer towards the camera, cradling a squalling silver-haired baby. It's Hojo. And he's moving away, closer towards the screen, coming closer towards us, his back to the woman on the bed. And all we can hear are Lucrecia's haunted wailings in the background to return her child, the baby's cries growing louder and louder before we cut to black again and reveal the game title and opening credits sadfghmgfds Hollow plays. But at a slower pace, darker, the lyrics different, no longer belonging to Cloud...but to someone else.

The kinds of lovely creations @rosy-crow and I conjure on a typical sunny Saturday afternoon 😈

[crow-aeris]

Mermay Day 18: Selkie

After settling in with the Waynes and finding freedom in his new family, it's time for Tim to conjure up a plan to rescue his mom.

Find the fic: here

The masterpost: here

tags under the cut

this is also part of my other selkie!tim series

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne, Janet Drake & Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Alfred Pennyworth, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne

Characters: Tim Drake (DCU), Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Janet Drake, Alfred Pennyworth

Additional Tags: Mentioned Bruce Wayne, Mentioned Jack Drake, no capes AU, Alternate Universe - Selkies, Selkie Tim Drake, Jack Drake is Not Tim Drake's Biological Parent, Good Sibling Dick Grayson, Good Older Sibling Dick Grayson, Good Older Sibling Jason Todd, Good Sibling Jason Todd, Good Sibling Damian Wayne, Bad Parent Jack Drake, Good Parent Janet Drake, Mentioned Barbara Gordon, MerMay, MerMay 2025, traumasmermay, traumasmermay2025, crow’s 2025 mermay, No Batcest | No Batfamily Incest (DCU), Alternate Universe - No Batman, no beta we die like my sanity

Series: Part 6 of Mermay 2025, Part 3 of Of sharpen edges weathered by gentle hands

[rookamell]

I just have a very cursed image in my brain because ok imagine its the end of veilguard and they've just saved the world. I, personally, am incapable of having Lucanis lock Illario up for various reasons but thats another post. So at the epilogue party (that we should have FUCKING gotten bioware) everyone is dancing and having a good time and celebrating not dying in whatever building in Minrathous they could find that wasn't destroyed (I'm leaning toward it being Dorian's house for various reasons but idk how I'm gonna spin it that it didn't get demolished) and I was trying to find someone for Illario to dance with because I think it would be cute for him and Lucanis to just share a 'I'm glad you're not dead' look over their respective partners' shoulders and I was like hmmm out of everyone in the game who would have the least amount of scruples about dancing with someone who 1. Is a crow 2. Worked with the venatori 3. Sold his own cousin to said venatori 4. Faked his grandmother's death 5. Fumbled his entire super evil plan to become first talon... who would look at this morally bankrupt man and only be able to see 6'5" or whatever he is well-dressed (because you know he conjured up 5 new shirts for the occasion) well-groomed extremely handsome Antivan man who managed to get a cut on his face that rogueishly accentuates his eyebrow just so and the only answer that popped into my head was Isabela

[macbethsymphony]

The Swordsman and the Blacksmith | Chapter 18

Roronoa Zoro x Reader

Chapter wc: 2.4k

Chapter rating: SFW-ish

Content/Warnings: NSFW, 18+, Fem!Reader, Enemies to lovers, SLOW slow burn, Eventual smut

Summary: Your skills as a blacksmith have made you desirable to both the government and pirates. You know you have to leave this island if you want to escape your fate, but that doesn't make the choice of leaving any easier. Roronoa Zoro is intrigued by your skills as a blacksmith. Your work is like nothing he's ever seen before. Unfortunately, you're hot-headed and he's rude and you both definitely hate each other.

Chapters [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]

Masterlist

Slowly crossposting from AO3 Feel like binging the rest of it? it's all there!

Chapter 18: You're Drunk

You sat alone on the deck of the Sunny, bathed in the soft glow of moonlight as you sifted through page after page of research. The weight of the knowledge pressed heavily upon you, each word a reminder of the darkness your abilities could conjure.

Chopper had been revolted when he’d looked at it moments before. You now understood why. The blatant disrespect for human life was baffling, disgusting.

Your fingers traced the jagged edge of the black-bladed dagger resting beside you, its presence a tangible symbol of the atrocities the marines had brought into the world. With a heavy sigh, you lifted your glass to your lips, draining the last remnants of the amber liquid within.

You closed your eyes as you attempted to process the horrors contained within the documents, the pain, the suffering. The silence of the night enveloped you, broken only by the gentle lapping of waves against the ship's hull.

“Everything alright?” Sanji's voice cut through the stillness, concern evident in his face as he approached, wisps of smoke curling from his lips into the nocturne air.

You glanced up, meeting his gaze. You watched as white tendrils contrasted with the darkness of the twilight sky, enticed by the alluring sight of the swirling smoke. "Does it help?" you asked, a hint of curiosity in your tone, gesturing towards the cigarette dangling from his fingers.

Confusion flickered across Sanji's features at your unexpected question. "What?" he replied, caught off guard by your inquiry.

"Smoking," you clarified, reaching out tentatively for the cigarette.

Sanji hesitated for a moment, his expression reflecting a mix of surprise and uncertainty, before wordlessly offering you the cigarette. As you took a cautious drag, the acrid smoke filled your lungs, an unfamiliar burning causing you to cough and sputter violently.

Sanji couldn't suppress a laugh at your reaction, the sound echoing softly in the night as he watched you with amusement, a flicker of warmth in his eyes amidst the darkness.

“Oh gods” you rasped between coughs. “This is foul.”

You laughed along with the chef.

"Maybe smoking isn't my thing," you admitted with a wry smile, handing the cigarette back to Sanji.

He chuckled, shaking his head. "It's not for everyone," he replied, tucking it back between his lips and taking a long drag.

Leaning back against your chair, you let out an exhale, the weight of the research still heavy on your mind. "Thanks for checking in," you said, genuine gratitude in your voice as you turned to Sanji. “This is terrifying,” you admitted. “But I’m alright.”

Your eyes scanned the deck habitually in search of the swordsman unsuccessfully.

“He’s up there,” Sanji pointed at the crow’s nest.

You couldn’t help the little huh of confusion that crossed your lips nor the blush that settled on your ears at the chef’s amused smile.

“We got another one?” You gestured at the half-empty bottle on the table.

He grinned at your request. “Anything for you mademoiselle,” he cooed.

You shambled up the ladder to the crow’s nest clumsily, stumbling through the trap door.

“I come bearing gifts,” you announced after an annoyed scoff graced your ears.

As you stuttered into the makeshift gym, you couldn't help but feel a rush of embarrassment at your less-than-graceful entrance. Zoro's amused grin only added to your flustered state, and you couldn't resist shooting him a playful glare as you regained your composure.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," you muttered, rolling your eyes as you approached him.

Zoro's grin only widened at your antics, but there was a warmth in his gaze that eased the tension in your shoulders. Despite the chaos and uncertainty surrounding you, there was a sense of familiarity and camaraderie in this moment, a reminder that you were not alone.

You reached into the bag slung over your back, retrieving the half-empty bottle of liquor you had brought with you. With a flourish, you presented it to Zoro, a mischievous glint in your eyes.

"We got another full one too," you declared, holding out the unopened one in your other hand with a smirk.

Zoro's expression lit up at the sight, a pleased look crossing his features. "Looks like you're finally learning," he remarked, accepting the offering with a grateful nod.

You couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction at his response, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips. “I swear you’re the worst influence on me, with all of your drinking,” you stated as you made your way over.

He scoffed at that. “More like you need to learn how to drink, without getting wasted every time,” he joked softly.

“That would take the fun out of it,” you said jovially, ignoring the jab.

You settled beside Zoro with a soft thud, your shoulders almost brushing. “Any luck with Uragiri?” You asked, eyeing the sword in front of him.

He took a long gulp out of the bottle in his hand an annoyed expression on his features. “Not yet,” he answered bitterly.

You laughed quietly. “Stumped? I can help if you beg,” you joked.

“I’m not gonna beg,” he mumbled against the glass.

You snorted. “It’s an eager little one isn’t it,” you mused anyway. “It yearns to please to a fault.”

The silence dragged on, his gaze on you, trying to grasp the meaning of your words. He chuckled. “You always talk in riddles when it comes to your swords,” he remarked with an annoyed tint to his voice.

You smiled, unable to deny the truth to what he'd just said. “Fine,” you sighed. “I’ll explain it in a way you can understand, swordsman.”

You took a slow sip seeking what you wanted to say.

“I was young when I forged it” you looked at the blade, memories playing in your eyes. “It was over a decade ago, I guess… but that’s not the point” you rambled on your hand reaching for the steel.

He didn’t urge you on, waiting patiently for your mind to make sense of your thoughts.

“What I’m trying to say is it’s the same as I was. Eager to please that is.” Your fingers danced along the edge. “Or terrified to disappoint.” You mumbled as you remembered the frequent and violent wrath of your mentor. “You need to be reassuring and kind but firm and guiding.”

You glanced at him, gaze hazy.

“It’ll match your commands then, that’s how it reverberated my haki,” you finished, an expectant look in your eyes.

As the weight of your words hung in the air, a playful smirk tugged at the corners of your lips. "Of course, you wouldn't know anything about being reassuring and kind, would you, swordsman?" you teased, your tone laced with a hint of mischief.

Zoro's eyebrows furrowed in feigned offense, but there was a glint of amusement in his eye. "Hey, I can be just that when I want to be," he retorted, his voice tinged with mock indignation.

You chuckled softly, the sound dancing between you in the quiet of the crow's nest. "Oh, I'm sure you can," you replied, your tone dripping with sarcasm. "But I wouldn't want to overwhelm you with all that tenderness."

Zoro's lips twitched into a smirk, his gaze locking with yours in a silent challenge. "Tenderness is overrated," he declared, his voice low and husky. "I prefer a more... direct approach."

A shiver ran down your spine at the suggestive timbre. You couldn't help but meet his stare with a playful glint in your eyes. "Is that so?" you countered, your own tone taking on a teasing edge.

With a boldness that shocked even yourself, you closed the distance between you, your movements slow and deliberate as you leaned in closer to him. The warmth of his breath ghosted over your skin, sending shivers down your spine as you felt the heat of his proximity.

"Careful, swordsman," you murmured, your words barely above a whisper, your lips tantalizingly close to his. "I might just take you up on that direct approach."

Zoro's breath hitched, his gaze flickering with a mixture of surprise and anticipation. His hand reached out, fingers brushing against your cheek in a gentle caress that sent heat coursing through you.

Before anything could progress further, you leaned back with a playful smile curling your lips. "Are you squirming, swordsman?" you teased, your tone laced with mischief. "I think I like that."

A low groan of annoyance escaped Zoro, though the hint of amusement in his eye betrayed his facade of irritation. You laughed at his reaction, the cheery sound echoing softly against the windows.

"You're impossible," he remarked, entertainment coloring his voice as he shook his head in mock exasperation.

You couldn't help but giggle at his response, a sharp contrast to his own low laughter.

Taking a moment to collect your thoughts, you sighed, gazing out into the twilight beyond the crow's nest. Your hand found the dagger at your side, unsheathing it and twirling it idly in your fingers, its weight a constant reminder of the darkness you faced.

With a determined exhale, you set the dagger aside, deciding it could wait. It was not something you should deliberate so carelessly. Its plea for freedom, something you wished to honor. Instead, you reached for the bottle you had brought along, the amber liquid offering a temporary reprieve from the pressure of the incessant deliberations in your mind.

“I’m glad I chose to come with you guys,” you admitted, eyes still lost in the obscureness of the exterior.

He hummed in acknowledgement.

You took another sip, your gaze drifting back to the swordsman beside you. His sharp features were highlighted by the soft glow of the moonlight, casting intriguing shadows across his face. You couldn't help but notice the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed down the contents of his own bottle, the gesture strangely captivating.

Your eyes surveyed his lips, remembering the way his breath had ghosted yours back in that storage closet. So close yet so far.

Suddenly, the words spilled out of your mouth before you could stop them, shattering the silence that hung between you. “Wanna fuck?” you blurted out, the question hovering in the air, heavy with unexpected intensity.

He choked, the abruptness of your question catching him off guard. Coughing fiercely, a crimson blush crept up his cheeks, betraying his flustered state.

Seizing the opportunity, you moved leisurely, straddling him as he struggled to regain his composure. You waited patiently, a knowing smile playing on your features as your fingers traced the sharp contours of his jaw. Your lidded eyes flicked between his gaze and his lips, anticipation simmering in the air.

“Do you wanna fuck, swordsman?” you repeated, leaning in closely once his breathing steadied, the words hanging between you like a bold challenge.

“You’re drunk,” he replied, his hand moving softly to play with the delicate skin of your nape, his fingers tangling gently in your locks.

An amused smirk tugged at the corners of your lips. “You said that last time too,” you observed with a small frown.

He closed the distance between you imperceptibly, his smile hovering at a tantalizing proximity to your lips. "I don’t fuck drunk girls," he stated, his breath intoxicatingly warm against yours.

Undeterred, your fingers grazed down along his Adam’s apple, tracing a path across his collarbone. “I may be drunk,” you began, your hand laying flat over his heart, feeling its steady rhythm beneath your palm. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t know what I want, swordsman.”

In a bold gesture, your other hand found its way to his, silently directing it along the bare skin of your outer thigh. You guided his touch lazily, leading it to the rising hem of your short skirt.

“You’re drunk,” he started to reiterate, his voice stiff with restraint as he leaned back against the wall. “And I don’t fuck drun-”

But before he could finish his sentence, you closed the gap between you, capturing his lips with yours.

A surge of electricity coursed through you, igniting a fire that had been smoldering between you for far too long. His initial resistance melted away, replaced by a hunger that matched your own, his lips moving eagerly against yours.

The taste of him was intoxicating, a heady blend of sea salt and the liquor you had shared earlier. With each kiss, the world around you faded into oblivion, leaving only the two of you locked in a moment of mutual desire.

His hand, which had hesitated at your touch, now explored with a newfound confidence, tracing the curves of your thigh beneath the denim of your skirt. His nails grazed the soft skin near your ass, the sensation sending a shiver down your spine.

You pressed yourself further into his chest, seeking more, wanting to melt into him. Your hands found their place at his nape, fingers twisting in his hair with need. The grip in your locks tightened almost painfully as he deepened the kiss, his tongue dominating yours dizzyingly.

You moaned, a wanton sound muffled between you. You felt his satisfied grin on your lips at your compliance. For a timeless moment, you were lost in each other, surrendering to raw unbridled passion. There was only the two of you, bound by a connection that transcended words and reason.

But just as suddenly as it had begun, the kiss came to an end, leaving you both breathless and reeling in its wake. Zoro's gaze, dark with desire, met yours in a quiet exchange that spoke volumes, a silent acknowledgment of the unexpressed truths that hung heavy in the air between you.

For a heartbeat, neither of you moved, the weight of the moment lingering like a tangible presence in the space between you. Then, with a reluctant sigh, Zoro pulled away slightly, his eye softening as he searched yours for any sign of regret or uncertainty.

Gently, he pushed you off, his touch tender yet firm as he rose to his feet and stepped away from you. He grabbed Uragiri from the ground before turning from you, his footsteps echoing softly against the wooden floor as he made his way toward the trapdoor of the crow's nest.

"You're drunk," he repeated, his voice a low murmur that lingered in the air, disappearing as he descended down the ladder, leaving you alone in the quiet solitude of the crow's nest.

You let yourself fall back against the windowed wall, laughing in disbelief.

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Masterlist

[sudokuplayer]

MY LOVE IS A WEAPON THROWN ONTO THE OBLIVION OF YOUR BODY (taken from booklet of original art and essays by Sufjan Stevens, written to accompany his new album Javelin)

read essays ↓

1.MY LOVE My first love was an involuntary sound – the music of the spheres – a subdued, white-noise shuddering of my heart, a fluster of hummingbird vibrations that I could taste in the prenatal hemispheres of my mouth, body against body and brain against brain, two conjoined selves conjuring an off-shore thunderstorm in the horizontal distance, dazzling with flashes of metallic music and elemental chaos in the safe harbor of my mother’s womb. There was no light and no dark, no semblance of simile or semaphore. There was only the blurred and audible presence of a distant and divine voice hovering above the waters where I balanced between the prism of absence and presence on an inflatable dirigible of sea foam, wandering into the oleaginous abyss with a half-smile of hazardry and wizardry – my maiden voyage into the “unbeknownst” of oblivion. For what did I really know at this point in my primordial mindlessness? Nothing at all. I was struck dumb, created from ignorance and ether, first without function or features, then without order or form. I was sensation and consciousness postponed, a wet and placid portion of monotonous fruit cut in quarters awaiting heaven’s blessing. My only occupation at this point was to occupy, be occupied, preoccupy, and prevail nature in a womb-world of benevolence and buoyancy. The music of the heartbeat of the universe danced me to sleep. Within this realm, I was love and life supreme, undivided by thought, word and deed, a small promise kept until the act of doing would undo me for good. My birth was my undoing. And then I was born into oblivion.

2.IS I remember in college, falling in love for the first time, two spring months of rapture, residing on the tail end of a helium balloon. I was so giddy about everything: washing the dishes, tying my shoes, scrambling eggs, binding books, pulling berries off juniper trees. My infatuation had such an arrogant persuasion on the world around me. Everything as metaphor ascribed with romance. I remember, while mowing lawns on the college campus, finding an injured fledgling crow by the dining hall. I carried it to the biology lab, where we called a woman who ran an animal sanctuary from her home. She met us on a bike with a wicker basket. “You are doing the universe a great favor,” she said, holding the bird to her breast, like Mother Goose. The event provided endless fodder: for prose poems and folk songs and long conversations on the roof of the aspirin factory, where we got drunk on Boone’s Farm sangria, speculating on cosmic intentions and the order of the universe. So much meaning, so little time. I was young and dumb and in love. Guided by a perverse curiosity and a voracious sensation-of-the-imagination pivoting at the tip of my tongue, I marveled at the mysteries of life laid out before me, awaiting in the calm commotion between innocence and experience.

3.A WEAPON And then experience pummeled me. Many years later, after the long-suffering exhaustion of life had driven me into the bleak underbelly of realism, my most profound thought was sad and static: that nothing really matters, nobody loves me, and loneliness would always be my most devoted companion. In my new sobering worldview, absent of love, I began to encounter everything as an object without meaning, without modifier. The homeless man selling day-old newspapers on the subway was just a homeless man selling day-old newspapers on the subway. There was no metaphor, no rapture, no cosmic intentions. I had to ask myself: does this make the man, the newspaper, the subway, or myself any less meaningful? No. Quite the opposite. For what resided in that substantial vacancy where I was always prone to symbolize the world to death is exactly what I needed right then: Opportunity. Presence of Mind. Peace On Earth. Stable Stoicism. Absence of Metaphor. Responsibility. And Hard Facts. That was my prayer: to shake off the doting artistry of an over-eager poet with a proclivity to create dreams from doldrums; to approach the world as a concrete object, a thing to be held, not a thing to behold, or allegorized; to remain at peace and in careful jurisprudence in spite of the resentful intonation of my overarching loneliness that devastated innocent bystanders with all the magic castles of the imagination. I told myself: I must snuff out the candle of candy-corn dreams. I must soldier on like a dead-end daydream undeterred. I must be steadfast in the stolid presence and essence of common sense and survival. I must be true to life internal and reside in resignation at last.

4.THROWN My second love was less ecstatic, but more tragic: the “gift” of sight – an elemental flash of lightning, which struck me like a bag of metal shavings thrown out onto ice reflecting back at the centerpiece of my sternum. A sucker punch to the chest. My cold consciousness came into sharp focus, rattled by illuminating waves invading everything around me. The light was loud and extraordinary. And even with my eyes closed, my pupils began pontificating at the pornography of sight, and I was momentarily carved into madness. Seeing is believing is birth. I shuddered and shirked at the tangible evidence of something else – the others – the imposition of a sensation outside myself, in which everything was separated into opposable armies: the land from the waters, the air from the earth, the seasons from the doldrums, the seen from the unseen, sin from sainthood, light from dark, good from evil. Everything was put in its place by the curse of namesake. The world was now before me, beneath me, above me, and ultimately against me, a pressure foot pressed down on all sides. I felt a cold claustrophobia, empty and alone, trans-natal and tragic, baffled by the violence of this new environmental context. And to think I was just a silly beansprout of a thing shivering under the medical lights, squirming like an open earthworm, now tasked with this terrible act of naming. God gave me a pen and a pad of parchment paper. “Transcribe your feelings and your findings,” she said. “Do your thing. First thought, best thought.” I did as I was commanded, a dutiful sea urchin inching its way to the possibility of words and wisdom.

5.ONTO A world without language was once the indication of certain death. Soundless, voiceless, nameless vapor. A typography of empty vessels. The void! But now, what of the tragedy of names, spoken into existence with the demystification of words? I was culprit and complicit, identifying all the divergences, differentiations, variations, permutations, diversities, dichotomies and double entendres. Categorizing the animals, cutting them down to size, organizing the parts of the body with the parts of speech, a fanatical grammar-game of possession, domination and death. I had to ask myself: Is this manner of identification in the name of higher knowledge even if it disregards purpose, analysis, and compassion (observation absent of intention)? And how could it be undertaken without idolatry and ulterior motive? I desired the objectivity of the photography of the baby-brain, whose fuzzy visionary reception was a delightful nebula of perfumed consciousness and joy. I wanted to see the world coherently and without discretion, discernment, reduction, and deduction – unintelligible intelligence. Instead I began to perceive how intimate knowledge generates prosperity (fullness) and progeny (fruitfulness) – of ideas and offspring. To be “made known” was to be consummated: “Adam knew Eve” – intercourse as discourse (knowledge as physical/sexual engagement). To know someone was to take possession (to gain access, in confidence and with confidentiality). The exchange would potentially unveil the secret knowledge between lovers (the nominative ordinances of arousal) – wherein posterity would become the observable antecedents of this sacred wisdom, and pleasure would be its misfortune (of infatuation and love, of chaos and order). My sexual discourse began to die a slow death of observation and objectification, a nonsense category of substances seen and deemed believable, predicating a cosmic break from the universe: a psychic rebirth, from which invisible things transformed into figures of speech, wherein figures of speech were left dead in the wake of rivulets and rivers, drowning in a molten waterfall of dread, where they would meet their maker in linguistic whimsy. My death was now new life. My reincarnation, a reverse sublimation. I was made known; therefore, I knew nothing.

6.THE For a short time, my pet peeves were my shortcomings: dry skin in the morning – brushing off the bed sheets with bits of outer insulation from my body. Was I molting? I needed to drink more bitter herbs, I thought. I had chronic stomach pain, below the clavicle, a small fist of air. Sweet antacid, mint leaves, fennel seed tea. Invisible Anxiety. The pain in my leg: a hypochondriac’s dream. Soothing myself with palm oil and camphor. Small applications on the surface. At dinner with guests, supplementing aspirin with ice-water, saying very little otherwise, a friend agreed with everyone’s assessment: “Yes, sometimes you are cold and unfeeling. You could warm it up a little.” My apparent coolness – was it a matter of objective safety? That remote vacancy which I brought to every engagement, keeping the world at arm’s length, the anthropologist’s vantage point, sustaining the presumptive: was that my vocation – the judicious spectator, an odd outlier outlining all this activity while staying behind the line of sight? As the youngest sibling, I was always evaluating my older sisters with fierce judgment from the corner of the room, just out of reach: eavesdropping on phone conversations, catching glimpses of padded bras, curling irons, and maxi pads passed between casual doorways. Taking stock of the panoply of premature adulthood (teenage pregnancy), unruly rebellion (sneaking out at night), clumsy and combative excursions with our wicked step-mother (cat fights with elegantly finger-nailed fisticuffs). I watched from a dutiful distance, careful not to engage, harboring a catalog of tragicomic events and all their moral assessments in order to avoid the worst-case scenario for myself. I was in the world, but not of it. I learned from the mistakes of others: that I was nothing more than a mistake waiting to happen, potential energy. I learned from the mistletoe to keep watch overhead so as to avoid the dangling modifier of accidental affection. I learned from the stone in my shoe to keep walking through the pain with a staggering refrain in my step, a constant reminder of the brokenness of my body and the indefatigable self-loathing of my own self-consciousness.

7.OBLIVION My third love was a surprise affection – ticklish touching and tender swaddles of terry towels and cotton cloth wrapped in armfuls of goose down feathers transfixed in the careful undertaking of childcare. A sensual delight! I was an object to be objectified, a thing to squeeze and prickle, caress and carry about in a breadbasket. I grew from a pinecone to a pine tree, from a newt to a dinosaur, from a poppy-seed to a poppy flower bursting with fireworks. This love then transferred its fornications onto something wet, wild and ornithological – a flying, feathery python ascending to its countenance as a bastion of bridegrooms in a flaming aviary chariot of leathery kisses all aimed at my elbows. Hope is a thing with bird feeders. So I watched the feathered fowl crowd around the seeds and suet, grubs and grains with dinosaur intensity, beaks and claws doing their vast prehistoric business with messy execution. My lovers cawed at their community of plumy mishaps like transcendental mother hens: nuthatch and creeper, tanager and titmouse, blue jay and junco gallivanting together like an armful of woolen throw blankets clapping the dust from their ornamental features. Our fairy dance of foreplay lasted for days. Cat calls as birdsong with balloons, iambic pentameter poems, chimes that rhymed with clanging crystals hung on fishing line, and all the fanciful costumes with sequins and fringe, flowered bell bottoms, metallic body suits, reggae music, ballroom dancing, charm bracelets, diamond rings, glimmering little earrings with fly-fishing ornaments, and, on the last day, a very long and serious monologue about global warming. Our lovemaking was quick and witty, a little slutty and clumsy – nothing more than a jaunt, a quick choreography of slaps and body slams, two pigeons in a mosh pit, working things out in juvenilia. Nature had done its work. Afterward we lounged together in the afterglow with soft pillow talk and dreams of nest eggs and parenting, protecting, foraging, feeding, and changing diapers, all the domestic labors of love. But for now, in a warm bird bath, sunning ourselves with a glistening glow, I could only think of the sweet bliss of here and now, the wetness of loving kisses on my nape, my neck, my back, my rump, my foreshortened wings and a sweet nectar nightcap. Hope is a thing deferred, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.

8.OF My fourth love was peripatetic: a suitcase stored in an overhead bin on an airplane. Things beget things beget responsibilities. I procrastinated my life by traveling far from it. A day before the voyage, I stayed up late in the polar forces of the night, diligently packing the baggage on the couch, opened up like can of tuna fish, a glass of lemon juice on the nightstand (master cleanse), the Siamese cat washing itself, the dollar store dishes in the sink, my dirty clothes in a paper bag. The last time I had left for this kind of trip, my things were in boxes in one room on the second floor of a gated town house in God-knows-where, New York. Now everything had been transferred as in a swap meet, boxes upon boxes, things upon things, other voices, other rooms. The living room was a labyrinth of speculative journeys, a crossword puzzle of travel prompts. Outside, gale force winds rose to the occasion, knocking on the windows like unwanted guests. I imagined the weather overtaking everything in an apocalyptic frenzy: cups and saucers trembling in tongues, plastic wrap coming undone in a transparent wedding train, pillowcases falling over our heads like hard hats, ceiling fans circumnavigating the neighborhood like helicopter rides, the colored crayons on the kitchen shelf thrown asunder to make slapdash hieroglyphs all over the window panes, the mysterious penmanship of the gods! My mind was preoccupied by disaster, a force majeure, an act of God, a ball of yarn, and the four horses of the Apocalypse. I wanted nothing of it: this origami suitcase lifestyle of travel and transition. I wanted to be here and now. I wanted silence, solace, and stillness. I wanted the simplest of things: a bowl of vanilla ice cream, a warm bath, and a quiet place to sit and stitch my hand-crafted cross-stitch of rainbows and sailboats framing a sexy cartoon portrait of Dionne Warwick diligently working the lines for the Psychic Friends Network from way back in the 1990s, when every solution to every problem was just a phone call away.

9.YOUR History repeats itself, defeats itself, cheats itself, berates and beats itself. I am not historic. I am histrionics. I must hate my mother and my father. I must hate myself and take up the cross and be born again. In this way, my fifth love was an immutable shadow following me with sticky tricks and schemes, a cancerous contamination of the mind that could only be cured with the deadly venom of a cone snail. I couldn’t quite shake it, the cobalt-blue memory of a ghost haunting my sophistry, a prescient reminder that the knowledge of faith and the substance of hope were right behind me this entire time (and not something to pursue, or follow, like an ornamental object on the horizon, dazzling, elusive and alive in the distant future). The Divine Inside was a “previously known encounter.” I could never see it face to face, but only feel it in my shadow, the former patterns of an aura left behind, pushing forward, pursuing, persuading, steering and navigating my memory through the valley of the shadow of death. I wanted so desperately to “have and to hold” the real substance of things (evidence!), the physical, intimate engagement with the body and the blood, which I actively sought out in transcendental activity, prayer and supplication, the sacraments, the feasts of the saints, a metaphysical substance to salivate and sublimate within the natural order of things. But this was a false pretense. God is not natural, but supernatural. The real material of divinity is ineffable, unassailable, unknowable, unutterable, and unreal. The evidence of providence is not within our line of sight, nor within our grasp, but instead beyond and behind our physical kinesphere. It is unapproachable, unspeakable, unobservable, and ultimately “erstwhile”. And yet still we continue to feel it “under our skin” and “within the universe” of our own personal history: The Past/The Passed/The Repossessed. God is our delayed consciousness – the nameless, faceless dichotomy of our secret truth. And we are made in its indistinguishable appearance. Therefore our own true “image” is without a name or a face – a baseless, shapeless cloud hovering above the waters, a countenance of empty atmosphere (signifying nothing) – a gothic apparition, a vision of love, a dance of the eternal travesty of life, a burrowing beetle of impenetrating curiosity. Digging for the true grit of life in the eternal dirt of the universe. 

10.BODY  My last love was a kind of science fiction. I was out running errands at the mall when I saw a fleet of lampshades falling like flying saucers from the sky. The alien robots came to me in an escalating beam of light and said: “We come in peace! The obverse seeks to make its face shine upon you, while the inverse hides in shame.” They did their thing with my body, prodding and poking around for some good news, but at first I would have none of it. I struggled and squirmed under nylon restraints strapped onto a stainless steel operating table. I was a basket case of curmudgeonly vitriol, pointing out everything that was wrong with the world around me: Fossil fuels. Cancer. Money. Greed. Sales Tax. Frozen Yoghurt. Religion. Varicose Veins. Junk Mail. But the alien robots were unflappable. They said, “We just need a little DNA, not a diatribe,” while swabbing the insides of my mouth with a cottony Q-tip. Then, after careful intubation and a slow drip of aesthesia, I eased into the abyss. They removed my clothes and covered my body with a marshmallowy spray foam. They swaddled me into a warm cocoon of maroon goo, where I remained in stasis to the end of the ages, slowly resuming into the soft, pillowy features of my former self – pre-natal, premature, pre-conceived – a slippery and succulent primordial membrane of soupy warmth and illuminating agency awaiting, once again, the cosmic journey laid out before me like a yellow-brick road of possibilities – the secret oblivion of love, the “unbeknownst!” Within this pinprick vision, I saw a tapestry of afterbirth in afterglow as an addendum to an immaculate after-thought of rapturous joy. I was born-again in fullness and truth. I was a peanut. I was a pretzel. I was a pan-fried shrimp. I was pandemonium personified. I was once again myself waiting to happen again and again and again and again and again … until the end.

— Sufjan Stevens

[dellamortte]

Ship Sleep Dynamics

tagged by @fellamorte !! thank you ahhh 🧡 and i will tag @lizardperson, @kindlyfeline, @blightedcrow, @mt07131, @derivaderci-says and @rsenak (sorry if you've already been tagged!! feel free to ignore <3)

Deanna & Lucanis

How often do they sleep together?

Post-Veilguard, they sleep together almost every night unless one of them is away. They don't sleep together during the events of the game until their love scene together but there is one moment when Deanna falls asleep on Lucanis' shoulder when they are both sat on the red couch in the dining hall during their hour together at night.

Where do they sleep?

During Veilguard, they both sleep in their rooms (or that one night after the love scene, they both somehow fit onto that green chaise lounge- I think that because the Lighthouse shifts and changes to fit everyone's needs, it would magically make the couch bigger to fit the both of them comfortably). After Veilguard, they both move into Villa Dellamorte at some point (or get their own place... I'm not too sure yet ahh) and share a bedroom, with one of those big purple 4 poster beds that we see in the game!

How do they prepare to sleep?

Lucanis definitely reads books to help calm his mind and get him ready for bed, Deanna would write in her journal about what happened during the day or about any thoughts/feelings she has at the time. Because they are both Crows, they would also make sure the area is secure, windows/doors locked, check that their weapons are within reach/stashed in their hiding places, just in case. Deanna might even do a quick count of all her poison vials to make sure none are missing/have been tampered with. (I also do like to think they keep small daggers under their pillows...) When they are in bed together, they would hold and soothe each other by just being soft and gentle with their bodies. And also, they would reassure each other that they are both still here and that this is real. 🥺

What do they wear to sleep?

Deanna wears a dark purple silk nightdress or one of Lucanis' shirts, especially if she's sleeping without him and wants to have something that smells like him. I personally think Lucanis would sleep in his underwear... he probably does own fancy silk pyjamas but doesn't use them, maybe only during winter.

Do they cuddle?

Absolutely!! They will fall asleep holding each other and wake up still in each other's arms, or if not, they will gravitate towards each other and cuddle until it's time to get out of bed.

What are their preferred sleep positions?

Lucanis loves to have his head on Deanna's chest or nuzzled into her neck. He wants to be as close to her body as he physically can and Deanna loves to hold onto him when he does this, with her hands free to stroke his hair or his back. Their legs will be intertwined. But on the nights where Deanna is feeling low, they will switch positions and she will have her head on Lucanis' chest whilst he holds her. And if they are both Going Through It, they will lay face to face, with their foreheads touching, holding hands.

How easy do they fall asleep?

Deanna struggles with falling asleep after what happens to her in the prison of regret. She is terrified that she will "wake up" and find out that all of this had been a dream or a vision conjured by Solas and that she is actually still in the prison. Lucanis finds it easy to fall asleep being with Deanna, as she soothes and comforts him so much. But whenever they are sleeping on their own away from each other, it takes even longer as both of them are feeling worried about how the other is doing/have to deal with their nightmares on their own.

Do they toss and turn a lot?

I actually think that they wouldn't, considering they tend to sleep in each other's arms and there's not much chance to move without disturbing the other.

Do they snore?

No, they don't snore. During their Crow training days, they learnt a way to sleep making as little noise as possible.

Who hogs the blanket?

They would both kick the blanket off the bed if they get too warm during the night. They'd rather get rid of the blanket than move away from each other.

What do they dream about?

Deanna would have a lot of nightmares, still thinking she was in the prison of regret or about her guilt for what happened to Varric and Harding and all the other things she blames herself for. She would also have nightmares about losing Lucanis and the nights when she is sleeping alone, she has those dreams more frequently. Lucanis still has nightmares from the Ossuary, where he 'wakes up' back in his cell and all of this had been a dream and Deanna wasn't real, just something his mind created. But eventually Spite would "eat" his nightmares and help to stop them from happening so often (I like to think that Spite would do this to Deanna too.) But eventually Lucanis will start to have his usual dreams of forgetting his boots/being naked from the waist down like the dreams he mentions to Harding hehe.

How easily do they wake up?

Deanna is usually the first to wake and Lucanis is more reluctant because he wants to stay in her embrace and not let her go/face the day. Spite on the other hand is always awake and becomes too impatient if Lucanis takes too long to get out of bed.

How awake are they afterwards?

Deanna will wake up quite alert, even if she had bad nightmares. Her Crow training means that she can function pretty well whilst running on a few hours of sleep. And Lucanis has become very dependent on coffee by this point, so he probably won't be fully awake until his first coffee of the day. (He loves to have his coffee with Deanna in bed or out on the balcony, watching the sunrise together. Enjoying his favourite drink whilst being with the love of his life. Those are moments he treasures the most, because he's never felt more at peace.)

[indiestsnake]

Hi Indie! Glad to know you like my AO3 comment, now I can die happy. qwq

Seriously, chapter 49 of TFW was incredible. I do not know what sorcery you conjured to be able to write such deep characters, but I was fully immersed right from the starting sentence.

You and @paradox-crows have inspired me to start working on a RW fic of my own. The problem is that I haven't read a book in years, haven't done creative writing since middle school, and am currently having an aneryusm trying to worldbuild and plan out the plot.

Do you have any tips for a newbie writer like me? Everything I consider when planning seems to lead to more questions than answers. My current plan is to just start writing the scenes I have in mind and see what comes from that.

aaaaaaa hooray!!!!!! it still makes me so happy to know I inspire ppl that’s so COOOL ough

alright so. I’ll work off it being w RW fic but this main tip really applies to any story

outline the beginning and the end. where the story and characters start, and where they will be going. knowing where you’re headed with a story is vital to actually making your character arcs and foreshadowing feel good. I’d also recommend planning out some of the bigger in-betweens of plot beats; for example, when starting To Find Warmth I defined the end, beginning and when the main couple gets together. also if ur writing a romance, plan that moment when someone confesses. it’s imporant :3

Then, you literally just start writing. Get an idea of where the characters go and then nudge them along, and develop the story as you go. in the case of fanfic, this is why a lot of fics are written chapter to chapter. In the case of a book, this process would take place silently over a decently long time as you develop your story.

If you’re looking for writing/trope advice you can slowly subsume into your brain without just. reading a book, check out the Trope Talks series by Overly Sarcastic Productions on YouTube. I get a lot of my knowledge from watching those over and over for fun ._.

and just to round it off, here’s an important idea to keep in mind.

tropes are not inherently bad. tropes are storytelling tools, ones used often because they work. don’t be afraid to take inspiration from works you like! this story doesn’t have to be an innovative masterpiece in fiction or the equivalent of discovering a new color or smthn. it just needs to be yours.

you can always come by for more advice if you want!!! even if I am. largely unqualified to give it by a traditional definition. i try my best :3

[miradelletarot]

Hello my lovely!

Here is a song to hopefully inspire you. Sending you love. <3

OK my dear @sorceresssundries. I truly hope you like this. I'm deeply sorry it took me so long to finish this, but I yeeted my soul from the depths so I could finish it. (Not beta'd so please no one come for me if there are any mistakes or anything.)

Just letting y'all know...It's sad, but tender. But also sad. I'm sorry, but also suffer with me.

Also uploaded to AO3 SFW, but cw for implied death. Words: 1453 ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Somewhere

Gale opened his eyes, blinking a few times until he adjusted to the sunlight that filtered in through the open window.

He sighed once he realized that he was once again alive to see another day. With an outstretched hand he slid his fingers along the empty sheets where Tav used to lay. The sheets were cold and vacant, but if he tried hard enough he could still smell their unique fragrance embedded into the mattress. Yet another reminder that they were no longer by his side, another day he must wake up alone.

Every day took more effort than the last to rouse his aging body from the bed that slowly became his prison. After a while, he fell into a routine. He’d wake, longingly caress Tav’s side of the bed, pad over to the bathroom and stare into the mirror vacantly studying the man before him, a man he no longer recognized. The years have clouded his eyes, his long hair and beard were unkempt and wiry, and it seemed a new wrinkle would appear every day. Why did he bother looking? There wasn’t anything to see anymore.

He shuffled to the kitchen and stared into the larder only to sigh and walk out without anything to eat, retreating to the terrace with a book that he would barely read.

Books were nothing more than words on old pages, strung together in meaningless clusters without form or understanding, food lacked flavor and excitement, his natural curiosity waned until it vanished into the unknown depths of forgotten brilliance. But there he would sit, the terrace his only refuge, and the comfort of holding a tome he’d never actually read.

The words on the page began to bleed together resembling spilled ink to his tired eyes. He sighed and set the book aside, resting his hands in his lap as he closed his eyes. For a moment, he took in the sounds of the sea below, slipping into a trance from the rhythmic ebbing and flowing of the waves rolling along the shore.

Astra navigabimus. More than anything these days, that incantation was the only thing that brought solace. Gale preferred his time in the Astral Sea, the most beautiful illusion he ever conjured, especially when he made Tav.

He stood at the edge of the astral waters, his bare feet kissed by gentle laps of water as he took a moment to center himself, and gaze into the expanse of his new reality.

Off in the distance was the small boat he brought Tav to their first time in the illusion. His crows’ feet deepened as he smiled longingly. He walked across a narrow path of stepping stones, traversing the empyrean sea until he reached the aimlessly floating craft.

Once he climbed in he could feel the depths of the water beneath him as the boat rocked, taking a deep breath and relaxing his shoulders as all the stress and tension he left behind in the material world melted away. His body ached a little less here, the weightlessness of the world around him made him feel anew.

“Gale, my love!” His eyes sparkled as Tav materialized before him, conjured together with shimmering stars and swirling colors. “You came back to me.” They smiled, their longing evident in their ethereal gaze.

“Of course, dearest. My heart beats only for you, my love.” He extended his hands to Tav, his fingers delicately tangling with theirs.

The longer he stayed, the more detailed Tav’s form became until they resembled their mortal body, though never quite becoming as real as Gale desired.

“Gods I miss you, Tav.” “I miss you too.”

He leaned in to press his forehead to theirs only to be met with no resistance, and merging with their celestial manifestation. His hands slipped from theirs as he leaned back, retreating from their incorporeal touch. Yet another reminder of what he’d lost, what he’ll never get back.

Tav reached out and placed their hand on Gale’s cheek. “You look tired, my sweet love.”

He sighed as he leaned into the tingling sensation that resembled their mortal touch. “Perhaps I am, but I’m worlds better now that I’m at your side.” His eyes softly closed as he leaned into the feeling, illusory as it may be, he didn’t care.

Tav watched him, their gaze curious and almost vacant, silently observing the withering man before them. After a moment, they pulled their hand away as it came to rest in their lap.

Gale’s eyes shot open as the tingling feeling vanished instantly. For a moment, he was reminded of the emptiness he felt when they died. He slowly turned his head towards the shore, just beyond it a swirling void daring to suck him back in, and return him to the dismal existence he left behind as he sat in meditation on his terrace.

“Gale? What troubles you, sweet love?”

“I should go back,” he whispered as he turned his somber gaze back to Tav. “I cannot stay long. You know that.”

Tav rested their hand on Gale’s, the other tilting his chin so he could meet their starry gaze. “Stay with me. Please don’t go.” Their eyes swirled like shimmering pools of stardust, capturing Gale in a mesmerizing, breathless reverie. “I love you.”

Gale released a soft, shuddering breath as their words drifted over him. “Gods I love you, too. More than anything,” he breathed. “Then stay.” Tav’s insistent plea was like a prayer. “You made this place for us. For me. It’s so lonely without you.”

“I’d drift along this endless sea with you forever if I could, my love.” “Then come with me.” The boat remained steady as Tav stood and extended their hand out to Gale. “Leave the boat behind, and come with me.”

“Leave the – I don’t know if I can…” His brow furrowed as he considered Tav’s words.

“You can. I’ll be with you. Just take my hand.” Tav’s face fell as Gale stared at them in disbelief. “Remember what you said to me once? ‘Don't be alarmed – I’m here with you.’” They paused, gently raking their fingers through his hair and caressing their hand down, coming to rest on his cheek. “I’m right here. I’ve got you. Just take my hand…let me show you the world you created for us.” Without tearing his eyes away from Tav, he reached up to his cheek, and wrapped his hand around theirs. The boat rocked as he stood, and he froze. Uncertainty flickered in his aging eyes as he wrestled the war between the safety of his tower, and the blissful peace of his illusion. The water rippled out from the boat, and he watched as they grew and faded out in the distance, far beyond where he’d ever gone before.

But Tav would be his anchor, his guide, his beacon. Tav was his reason for living those many years ago. They were always his light. Never leaving his side, even when he didn’t realize how much he needed their strength. Their compassion.

Tav watched him with that same vacant, ethereal gaze, their wisping form patient and still.

Gale let out a deep, shuddering breath. “Alright,” he whispered. “Alright…I’m with you, my love.” He smiled as the fear in his chest gave way to an eerie sense of calm and safety washed over him. “Show me more.” Tav burned brightly, smiling with unbridled joy. It had been years since Gale had seen that smile. They stepped out of the boat and stood on the water. “It’ll be alright. I have you.” He took another breath, steadying himself before he stepped over the starboard side of the boat. The water rippled as his feet touched the surface, and he tightened his grip on Tav’s hand on instinct.

“Are you ready?” Gale took a moment, letting the words sink in. He had expected to feel more scared and uncertain, but all he felt was peace. Safety. Like the journey he was about to embark on was the most sure thing he’d even done in the world. “Yes, my love. More than anything.”

Tav stepped closer, lifting their joined hands slightly as they laced their fingers together. A bright light emanated from their bond, and Tav leaned in for a kiss. Gale sighed softly as their lips met his, closing his eyes as he melted into Tav’s embrace. 

Little by little his corporeal form faded and drifted into the sea as Tav’s light poured into him. They pulled away and smiled, gazing at their love before them.

He looked younger. His tousled hair flowing like stardust, eyes bright and swirling like nebulae.

“Come, my sweet love,” Tav smiled. “I’ve so much to show you.”

[zorosjuicymelonsx]

Finding You

A/N: Happy Valentines Day!

Dropping in with another chapter! When I'm writing this story, I honestly feel like such a Zoro scholar with how much I sit there and think about how he's feeling XD ya boy is not very expressive but he's still my pookie bear <;3

I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, I don't think this is much of a warning but just in case; you get a bit of acid in your throat from anxiety/shock if ya know what I mean or ever experienced it. There is some fighting but I've not gone into the whole blood thing so its just actions but I know some of you guys do not do well with blood.

Without further ado, I'll be back next week to drop the next one!

Chapter Four Previous Next

A few weeks had passed since your arrival and you managed to settle in with everyone…all except for Zoro. Since your duel with him, he’d made every effort to ignore you. From aired hellos when you greeted him passing by to moving seats away from you at meal times when you tried sitting next to him to him spending more time in the Crows Nest away from everyone.

As disheartened as you felt, you knew you couldn’t force him to talk to you. You assured everyone that you were okay. You spent most of your nights trying to wrap your head around the possibility that something could have tampered with his memory, removing all signs of you in his head. The mere thought of the endless possibilities made your blood boil and kept you from falling asleep soundly.

To keep yourself busy and away from living in your own head, you’d throw yourself into sketching; deciding to start a new project involving drawing everyone on the ship secretly and framing them to hang in the galley. You were able to draw Luffy fishing, Usopp training with his slingshot, Nami in her study working on her maps, Franky fixing the mini-Merry and Chopper taking a nap in his infirmary. You were grateful for your memory as it was getting harder to remain inconspicuous, almost getting caught by Brook whose lurking ghost form had almost given you a heart attack but not before you were able to slam your sketchbook shut and lecture him on how not to sneak (or fly?) up on people.

You’d also been spending more time with the girls on the deck lounging in the lawn chairs, the concept of relaxation foreign seeing as you’d spent so long journeying around the world. Aside from your usual training which you conducted almost every morning, you asked Jinbe to train you in fishman karate, fascinated by the art which he graciously agreed to do for you.

Today, you had planned to sketch and relax to take a break from your usual training schedule.

As you made your way up to the table on the deck, your sketchbook and pencils ready in your hands, you could hear Sanji and Nami in the kitchen quietly speaking. You moved away from the gap in the door, positioning your back against the wall with your ear inline to listen in. You knew you shouldn’t but you couldn’t help after hearing the concern laced in both their voices.

“Nami-swan, we really need to get a stronger lock for the fridge.”

“Sanji-kun, we need to make do with the supplies we have until we get to the next island which won’t be for at least another week.” Nami sighed out heavily.

You frowned at the topic of the conversation, instant guilt seeping in as you felt responsible for the food shortage. You’d outlined that Sanji probably shopped for the 10 of them, an additional person would add strain especially when an appetite like Luffy’s existed. An idea came to mind and you decided to end your eavesdropping. You moved off the wall and peered your head into the kitchen. This caught Sanji and Nami’s attention, both offering bright smiles of welcome to you.

“I’m sorry, I was listening to your conversation. i-I think I can help.” You offered a small apologetic smile.

You explained your idea to use your devil fruit ability to conjure a hole onto an island you visited before from memory that you knew you could get food supplies from. You explained that your ability allowed you to revisit places out of memory or to visit random locations but at your own risk.

At first they both sat in silence thinking of your proposition. Then Sanji protested against the idea and was adamant they could make supplies last till then. Nami counter argued and saw sense in this idea to save them time and strain. Sanji looked at Nami hesitantly before sighing and nodded in agreement.

“Is there anyone you want to bring with us?” You asked Sanji.

“Not at all Y/N-chan, I’ll get ready for our trip.” Sanji said excitedly, his eyes bore hearts at the thought of spending time with you. He danced away to the pantry to get his bags and ready himself for the trip.

“I’ll have someone near the hole ready to take the bags off you guys. I’ll brief the others.” Nami said as she got up and gave you a hug of appreciation.

You hugged her back, grateful for the opportunity to prove yourself to everyone.

You left Nami and Sanji, dropping your sketchbook off back in your shared room. You then headed to the area of the deck where you’d previously made the hole. As you took a deep breath in, clearing your mind and holding your right hand out, you envisioned the other side. You chose to picture a quiet open space of land on an island you’d visited a year ago that you knew would only be a short walk away from the market.

You wouldn’t be able to close the hole until you and Sanji were completely finished so choosing a secluded area was a must away from prying eyes.

With the hole open and ready, you turned back to the door that went below deck to see Sanji approaching you with some empty bags in his hands. Behind him, you could see Nami, Usopp and Brook holding Luffy back. You had to hold back a laugh from the kerfuffle.

With Sanji now standing next to you, you turned to him, gesturing to follow you as you jumped into the hole. As you now stood on what now appeared to now be secluded farm land, the path to the market however remained the same as you’d remembered it. You looked at Sanji who now stood next to you, smiling before pointing to the pathway as you started walking. Sanji briefly stood in awe at the hole, the coolness of the smoke clouds prickling his skin.

“Ohhh Y/N-chan is so talented! MELLORINE.” Sanji sang out, taking out his box of cigarettes from his pocket to pull out a smoke as he started walking to catch up with you. You were usually not a fan of the cigarette smell but you became quite used to it and found yourself thinking that it would be quite weird not to smell smoke from Sanji.

You briefly explained to Sanji that they would need to be swift as keeping the hole open for long periods of time would affect your energy reserve. With this, Sanji vowed to do his best, zooming past you on the path to the marketplace that could be seen from their current distance.

Meanwhile…

“Witch let go of me.” Zoro keened forward, teeth bared out and his ear hot and sore from Nami pulling him from it. He just wanted to nap. Nami stomped forward, her grip still tight on Zoro’s right ear towards the hole you left on the deck. Zoro noticed the hole, feeling a sense of panic twinge him at the thought you were behind the hole.

Both reaching the edge of the hole, Nami let go of Zoro and pushed him down to sit on the floor.

“Now you’re going to sit here and wait for Y/N and Sanji to come back. You should be grateful, your wife offered to help us out.” Nami lectured, and Zoro let out a ‘ha?’ despite being completely aware of what was going on. He’d overheard Nami briefing everyone and he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it despite feeling slightly grateful that you offered to help.

“Why do I have to do it? Isn’t it Jinbe’s turn to help anyway?” Zoro argued, rubbing his hand against his ear to soothe it.

“That's when we get to the next island and quite frankly I’m fed up of watching you avoid Y/N like she's diseased. Now you wait here and if I see you even moved an inch you’ll be sorry.” Nami threatened with her fist balled to his face before walking away, briefly turning her head back to dart threats from her eyes.

He huffed, sulking as he crossed his arms and sat cross legged against the ship. Since his duel with you, he avoided you. Whilst Zoro had accepted that you and him were married, his mind in his resolve that he didn’t want to commit himself to anything or anyone but his ambitions. What he couldn’t explain was the dull ache he felt in his chest whenever he was actively avoiding you and seeing the brief displays of disappointment that flickered on your face. He was adamant it wasn’t guilt or regret. He rarely felt those emotions and when he did, they were much stronger. He couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was but he chose to ignore it.

Time had passed and Zoro was feeling restless, becoming more annoyed that it was you and especially the shitty cook he was waiting on.

“Fuck this.” Zoro angrily mumbled to himself.

On a whim, he sat up on his knees and decided to crouch over to stick his head in the hole to see for himself what the hold up was. He briefly felt a chill run down his cheeks and neck as he plunged his head into the clouds of smoke.

Now Zoro was rarely surprised. He hadn’t anticipated that as his head reached the other side of the hole he would come face to face with you on the other side. His breathing halted, voice choked in his throat holding back any sound as his eye met with yours. He noticed how wide your eyes were with shock, you clearly hadn’t anticipated seeing anything come through the hole. He was so close in fact, he could feel the warmth radiating from your face onto his from the flush of pink that bloomed on the apples of your cheeks.

After a few more seconds, he quickly shot his head back out of the hole, landing on his bum as his whole face burned with embarrassment. He didn’t have quite enough time to recover his breath completely before noticing a masculine hand poking through the hole with a bag in grip. Zoro jumped into action and reached out to grab the bags, setting them to the side until all the bags were collected.

Once the bags were set and he thought it was over, out of the corner of his eye he noticed you trying to emerge through the hole, your smaller hands were gripping on the edge of the deck. He sensed you were struggling and before he could stop himself Zoro stood up, grabbed your wrists and pulled you out of the hole, bringing you to stand in front of him.

You were too embarrassed, trying your best to avoid his eye. He noticed the flush that was still painted on your cheeks. His eye traced over your features briefly, noticing the smoothness of your skin and the thick curl of your lashes. You could feel his gaze on you and eventually built up your courage to look up at him. His large frame towering over yours as your eye bore into his grey iris. Your eyes flickered to his scar, you’d been tempted to trace over it with your fingertips. You’d wondered what exactly happened to his eye but despite that, you couldn’t deny that it added to his ever-growing handsomeness.

You gave him a small smile but didn’t quite get enough time to thank him before Sanji jumped up from the hole, anger evident on his face as he walked to stand in front of the swordsman.

“Oi marimo, what the fuck were you thinking? You almost gave Y/N a heart attack with that stunt!” Sanji began shouting.

“None of your damn business cook.” Zoro bit back angrily.

You reluctantly moved away from Zoro and Sanji, their impending fight would surely go on for some time as you turned your attention to the open hole.

Once the hole was closed, you slowly sat down on the deck and laid back with your eyes closed, your attempt to hold onto the last bit of energy dissipated.

Zoro didn’t know what made his mind wander back to you during his argument with the cook. His eye had gone past the blonde hair to see you lying on the floor. Abruptly ending his petty fight with Sanji, Zoro walked past the cook to go over to you. Sanji looked back at the swordsman fuming, clearly not satisfied with the ending to their fight. Upon seeing you on the floor and realising why Zoro stopped, a quiet ‘shit’ came out of Sanji as he also made his way over to you.

“Y/N-chan, are you okay?” Sanji asked worriedly.

You looked up to see Sanji and Zoro watching you. You politely nodded, not wanting to make a fuss.

“I’m okay, I just need a min-oof.” Cut off mid sentence, Zoro picked you up bridal style and carried you over the deck towards the girls cabin ignoring the cooks swearing behind him. Zoro really didn’t understand what possessed him to do this. It was like his mind lost control and it had been pure instinct that led him to this.

You let him carry you, all your energy was spent and you were too lethargic to protest against it. You had to stop yourself from snuggling your face into his chest, remembering how much you missed being close to him. You ended up hearing a couple ‘ooos’ coming from Nami and Usopp.

‘You didn’t even know they were watching you…how embarrassing!’ You mentally groaned knowing Nami would definitely tease you about this later.

The sounds across the ship dimmed as Zoro continued to head under the deck.

After a quick wrong turn and correction in direction, Zoro finally made it to the girls cabin. He pushed the door open with his back and walked over to the first bed he saw. He gently laid you down, carefully unfastening your sword from your waist and leaning it against the bedside table. Your head hit and slowly sunk into the pillow, your head and body feeling heavy. Before you could say anything, Zoro grunted out a quick ‘thank you for the food trip’ and left the room swiftly. You couldn’t do anything but stare at the door he left. The exhaustion kicked in, lulling you to sleep for the rest of the afternoon.

After closing the door, Zoro’s grip on the door handle tightened.

‘Why did I do that?!’

Zoro thought, questioning himself.

Zoro felt overwhelmed and decided he needed a drink.

————————————- ⚔️✨ ————————————

Night fell as you slept peacefully for what you predicted was at least a few hours. The abrupt sound of breakage and shouting, hearing unfamiliar voices was what woke you from your slumber. Opening your eyes without letting yourself blink out the sleep, your adrenaline kicked in as you rushed out of bed and grabbed your sword. You slammed the door open, letting it hit the wall behind as you ran out to the deck to see the commotion. What you could only describe the scene unfolding in front of you was chaos; the Sunny had been invaded by pirates! You could see your crew scattered around fighting against the invaders, noticing one of the sails was set on fire that lit the ship in the darkness of the night.

“Oh my god.” You whispered under your breath amongst the sounds of clashes and scrapes of weapons.

Taking a quick breath, you lunged with your sword at a group of unsuspecting pirates quickly bringing them down. You felt the floor vibrate behind you from the sound of running, whipping behind you to see you were almost about to be jumped by another group of pirates until Luffy swung his stretched leg to kick them off the ship into the sea. You looked up to see your captain swinging across the ship like a monkey, truly living up to his name.

As you scanned over the rest of the ship, you saw your crew were holding their own fights until you noticed Chopper was struggling to hold his against another group of pirates. You ran towards him, shouting for him to duck as you slashed the pirates across their chests, dropping one by one to the floor. You quickly glanced down at Chopper to see he was alright, he looked shaken up with tears in his eyes filled with appreciation. Just as you were about to grab him and take him to safety, another pirate walked into your vision.

“Go Chopper, I’ve got this.”

You quickly signaled Chopper to leave as you readied yourself, the young doctor not needing to be told twice as he ran to safety.

Bringing your attention to the pirate who now stood a few feet away in front of you, you noticed he was well kept for a pirate compared to others you had met before. You couldn’t deny he was handsome, his black hair kept short, his strength illuminated through the strong body covered in fine, expensive silk. You didn’t let that distract you as you felt his dark energy practically seeping from him. He held a large, bejeweled royal blue sword in his right hand.

‘Why did he seem so familiar?’

You readied yourself, your sword held strong in your grip. You weren’t going to let him hurt anyone.

“Angel, it doesn’t have to be this way. After all, I’m only here to claim what's mine.” His deep voice resonated out as he grinned.

“Don’t fucking call me angel, who are you?” You angrily bit back as you pointed your sword at him.

“I’m Enver…we’ve met before but you don’t seem to remember me.”

“Why are you here?” You eyed him suspiciously, scouring your memory to try to pinpoint where you could have supposedly met him with no luck.

“Why, I’m here for you.” His voice exhumed confidence. You tried to swallow your anxiety down, feeling acid lodged in your throat and your heart beating faster than it ever had before.

“What do you want with me?” You cautiously persisted, trying to keep your voice from breaking.

He chuckled darkly before taking a step forward and leaning in to face you at your level.

“To be mine.”

————————————- ⚔️✨ ————————————

[5mcsinatrenchcoat]

THIS TECHNICALLY DOESN'T CONTAIN SPOILERS BUT IF YOU'RE UNAWARE OF THE CAMEOS IN THIS GAME AND HAVEN'T MET THE LORDS OF FORTUNE YOURSELF YET — SCROLL PLS <3

So. About the Lords.

Listen I agree that some factions in DAtV are kinda toothless compared to their established lore, but I need people to realize that Lords of Fortune canonically started as a bunch of friends who decided that sharing info and the cut is more fun and productive than stabbing each other for it. That's it. They thought of the name while drunk. Drinks at the local tavern are free if you come back with a glorious story. That kinda thing. They straight up started a commune and adopt people who don't have anywhere else to go.

They're the most classic adventurers guild ever.

And it's easy to guess that all their rules like not stealing culturally important Qunari relics are quite literally due to being Isabela's friends and Isabela having lived through the events of DA2.

The Lords and the actual pirate armada that Isabela commands maaaaybe overlap, but aren't the same thing. How many actual pirate Lords we see? They're adventures, monster fighters, dragon fighters, seers, etc, these are NOT the same people that give others hell on the sea and pillage and plunder. They never claim to be, to my knowledge!

And their fighting pit rule about "only willing participants" refers to YOU, the challengers who come seeking glory. Your enemies are conjured by the pit itself. I'm guessing by those very spirits the fighting is supposed to entertain and please. All those venatori and darkspawn aren't "willing participants" somehow, they're not real. And the point is in the show and glory, not some literal test of worth and blood like, say, the Provings.

I understand people being unhappy with the Crows' cruelty being swept under a rug and contained in some occasional banter. Or with Minrathous suddenly forgetting it has slavery (somewhat justifiable-ish by the fact that we never see the rich parts of the city, but still). Or, hell, with Solas's fearsome agent network being non-existent.

But Lords of Fortune? If I remember correctly, we didn't even HAVE any lore on them beyond being adventurers/treasure hunters and wearing their achievements as trophy gold on their outfits.

They didn't have lore to defang, they never claim to be THE true actual pirates that Isabela commands. Them being a bunch of adrenaline junkies who mostly care about having fun and one-upping each other's crazy stories instead of dying alone in a ditch doesn't exactly counter anything except for our expectations. Their codex says what they are exactly without any contrast with what we see in-game.

I personally think it's fun. My only qualm with the faction is that I'd like it to be more relevant to the plot. They and the Mourn Watch are the only ones who don't have some major main-plot thing happening in their faction. Then again, it makes sense. They aren't an organization, they're a guild to get jobs and boast about your adventures at. What you do while you're away is mostly your deal. Unless you piss off Rivaini nobles or come asking for help with the world ending.

(Oh my god they are a fucking Fairy Tail guild)

[merrock]

event: Hallo-Week

location: all around Merrock

date & time: October 25 - November 3

ooc duration: same dates

It's time… to get your spook on! We know how much this town loves Halloween, so we've rounded up as many Merrockites as possible to get fun things happening in town, whether it be movies, spooky fun activities, party nights, or anything that your haunted little hearts desire.

Please note: for the kids, trick-or-treat will still be happening on Halloween (October 31st), so make sure that you have candy ready to go, to treat them right! Or else… you might find yourself getting a trick. You can go door to door, do the trunk-or-treat, or head to the nursing home to get candy!

Dive under the cut for a complete list of things happening in and around Merrock from October 25th until November 3rd, and have fun!

DOWNTOWN

bookends -- book sale on all horror novels

brownstone inne -- ghost stories in the hotel lobby (& refreshments)

cityview park -- pumpkin carving & painting contests, various craft stations set up (for adults and kids)

cobblestone cafe -- pumpkin spice everything

the holiday shoppe -- 50-75% off all Halloween decor

mack's -- special seasonal pumpkin menu

merrock railway -- haunted train ride

the mirage -- spooky karaoke in the speakeasy (come in costume!)

mods -- flash tattoos & face painting for kids

stubs -- nightly Halloween movies (see below!)

touchback -- spooky cocktails & drinks

town hall -- Halloween safety demonstrations

vibrations -- monster mash party night all week-long (come in costume!)

STUBS:

All movies will be available on the Stubs app, as well, for you to watch at home! There is a small charge for each film, but the money goes straight to the theater. Early films will play at 6PM, late at 9PM.

October 25 -- Casper, Friday the 13th.

October 26 -- Beetlejuice, Pet Sematary.

October 27 -- Addams Family, Nightmare on Elm Street.

October 28 -- Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, Psycho.

October 29 -- Nightmare Before Christmas, Scream.

October 30 -- It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, Carrie.

October 31 -- Hocus Pocus, Halloween.

November 1 -- Coraline, Child's Play.

November 2 -- The Haunted Mansion, The Exorcist.

November 3 -- Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Craft.

ALSO AVAILABLE: Monster House, Halloweentown, Goosebumps, Practical Magic, Sleepy Hollow, What We Do in the Shadows, Ernest Scared Stupid, Scared Shrekless, The Witches, Death Becomes Her, Poltergeist, Happy Death Day, Jennifer's Body, The Crow, The Lost Boys, Rosemary's Baby, The Conjuring, The Invisible Man, Trick 'r Treat, Totally Killer + more.

COASTAL AREA

anchors away -- seasonal drinks and pumpkin beer

breathe in -- yoga & pilates with the Sanderson Sisters (come in costume!)

cassidy's candies -- mega discount on all Halloween candy

from brush to canvas -- autumn/Halloween paintings exhibited

the lighthouse -- ghost stories at the top of the lighthouse

the marina -- haunted boat rides (murder mystery style)

mawk tales -- seasonal spooky mocktails all week

sea breeze -- special Halloween flavors available

SUBURBS

aster playground -- pumpkin painting, various kids games set up

benny's -- massive Halloween decor & costume sale

children's museum -- various halloween-themed activities

community center -- costume closet open for takers

the creamery -- black & blue milks available, halloween ice creams

cul-de-sac diner -- halloween-themed meals (& specials for kids)

flour co. -- decorate your own pumpkin cookies

the fun spot -- horror skate nights (come in costume!)

the great escape -- horror escape rooms

memorial library -- spooky story reads, horror book displays

pinecrest cemetery -- cemetery tours (not haunted; respectful)

treasure chest -- 50% off all fall and Halloween decor

COUNTRYSIDE

the barn at lake malory -- haunted houses; family friendly (for kids & easily scared adults who want to take it easy), supernatural/fantasy (medium), slasher (scary).

handpick'd -- specials on seasonal wines

harmony ranch -- haunted hay ride & corn maze

hideaway market -- trunk or treat sponsored by takato's (come in costume!)

lavender lane -- pumpkin, mums & fall favorites on deep discount

little chapel -- ghost stories (with surprise haunting)

north shore -- trick-or-treating with senior citizens (come in costume!)

paradise gardens -- seasonal fall/halloween displays

pet haven -- free treat to all pets that show up in costumes

pine grove gardens -- true merrock horror / scary stories

state park -- spooky walks along the trails (very kid friendly)

the wheel -- 50% off all halloween related items

ADMIN NOTES: have at it! If you want to post costumes, they can be done any time through the week, whether you're partying at Evolution, dressing up to work at your business, or just want to get spiffed up for actual Halloween. Please tag them with #merrockfashion. Socials can be tagged with #merrocksocial, as well. Please do remember to tag anything with trigger warnings if it veers into triggering things, such as excessive blood! You can do other things for Hallo-Week, like having a slumber party and watching movies at home with your bestie, roasting pumpkin seeds, going out to toilet paper someone's house (please have permission), this is the perfect time to just have fun with anything that has to do with Halloween! <3

[tenebriskukris]

An Exhumation Of Hikaru Kamiki's Character Intermission II: An Eclectic Assortment Of Thoughts And Ruminations

Spoilers for the entirety of Oshi No Ko below.

These are some various thoughts about Hikaru that don’t quite fit with the pacing of this essay but I found important enough to include here for various reasons.

I’ve often seen hints of people using the songs from the anime as a foundation to interpret Hikaru’s character—which might as well be putting the horse before the cart. It’s the same reasoning to why I heavily dislike 45510 being used to justify Nino’s character being used to misdirect the readers during that interval where she was the red herring antagonist of the series. 

If this material was so necessary to understand important facets of the character, then why wasn’t it included in the manga itself rather than in a side story or in an adaptation? Why didn’t the narrative take the time to organically flesh out a character of some importance if they were going to make said character an important piece in the manga?  If one has to rely on side material to fully flesh out a character and tell a coherent story then more often than not said story will fall flat in certain aspects simply because not all the fans of said story are going to go out of their way to read the side material.

On that note, the songs might be good materials to use as supporting evidence to interpret his character, but using them as the lens and main focus to interpret a character which the narrative has already painted so clearly as little more than an antagonistic force responsible for so much of the series’ conflict simply reeks of bad reading comprehension and a willful disbelief of the events of canon. One simply can’t interpret a character without accepting all the facts about him and the sheer fact is that Hikaru was a murderer—one can rage against how his character ended up but to deny that he did commit those atrocities goes against the entire point of his character in the first place!

One of the other things I’d like to touch on is an interpretation that I’ve seen floating around online a couple of times that I find laughable but found the time to talk about here. It’s one that places Hikaru as some sort of godlike figure or possessed by some supernatural entity throughout the series. Funnily enough, it is one that I put some stock in as a joke when I used to believe that the series could conjure up some good writing and give some payoff to the little mythological references it posed. 

It is also an interpretation that is completely divorced from most aspects of logical reasoning and fundamentally misunderstands Hikaru’s character.

The interpretation, from what I remember of it, goes something like this. Due to the fact that Ruby calls herself the embodiment of Amaterasu in Chapter 3 and the fact that Crow Girl describes those who reincarnate as gods—ergo Aqua and Ruby—that would mythologically place Aqua as X. After that, it’s a hop skip and a jump away from getting to the interpretation that Ai is actually an embodiment of Izanami and Hikaru as an embodiment of Izanagi since from actual Japanese mythology, Amaterasu is a child of Izanami and Izanagi. If I’m wrong about any part of how the interpretation goes, then that’s on me for not wanting my braincells to commit seppuku reading a bunch of slop that’s somehow of an even lower quality than the last few chapters of the series. In any case, I’m relatively certain that’s how the story goes. Maybe they’re calling Hikaru another god now, I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter because the foundation behind it is just as rotten as the last few chapters of the series.

I don’t think I need to enumerate all the reasons behind it for those without sufficient reading comprehension but I’ll do so anyway. While Ruby did claim to be the incarnation of Amaterasu in Chapter 3, similar associations simply aren’t seen in Aqua, let alone for Ai or Hikaru in a clear manner throughout the manga. There is no real hint that Ai or Hikaru were divinely blessed or cursed within the bounds of canon a way that would indicate that it was due to any supernatural creature nor that their existence is even relevant to them beyond their own relationship with Aqua and Ruby, two characters that we know that Crow Girl has been watching over. It’s little more than using the series’ small mythological references and stringing them together to create some sort of warped narrative without acknowledging any of the logical facts presented by the series.

Now let’s talk about some more topics that don’t require me to bemoan about reading comprehension for the nth time. I was posed this question by some of the people that have heard me bemoan about this bitch of a series and I think it’d be pertinent to answer here. Do I think Hikaru was supposed to have been defused after their first confrontation and that the manga was pushing Nino as the final antagonist of the series? I dislike engaging in this sort of speculation but that’s the entire point of this entire section so I’ll indulge in said speculation.

The truth is I simply don’t care about either scenario. Whether Hikaru or Nino was going to be the final antagonist after Hikaru’s confrontation with Aqua doesn’t matter because in both cases it would simply be a badly executed mess. We already know where Hikaru went with the antagonist title. A very shoddily written confrontation between the protagonist and our antagonist. Nino would be worse, even, because so much of her character is locked behind a fucking SIDE STORY that the narrative didn’t even have the decency to show us on screen. Not to mention if Aqua was already aware of Nino’s instability that would’ve been an easy capture and turn in and then we’d simply have no conflict if Hikaru was to turn himself into the police. Of course, these are all hypotheticals. I’m under no delusions that the alternative scenario would be better written than the slop we got for the final chapters of the series.

What does Hikaru even do as an antagonist? He is mysterious for 2/3rds of the series before unveiling his sad and tragic backstory and then confronts Aqua twice before Aqua pushes him off a cliff in a double suicide. Sure, he’s affected things in the series but all of those are so indirect and happen before the protagonists are even born that it feels like he isn’t even focused as an antagonist in the series. He certainly doesn’t get the kind of screentime and character depth that other characters has. Kana Arima, the second most useless human being in this cast of characters within the story, has more screentime than the series’ main antagonist! You simply can’t get good payoff to a story when your main antagonist has less depth and screentime than a useless side character!

There is a question that I’ve seen some talk about and that I think I want to give my two cents on now that the story is pretty much finished with Hikaru. Was Ai wrong in asking Aqua to and save Hikaru? From what we’ve just seen during his final confrontation with Aqua—absolutely—but this isn’t a flaw on Ai’s part. Ai made that plea to Aqua under the assumption that Hikaru wasn’t, y’know, the reason that Ai died in the first place? Or that he manipulated Nino in order to get Ruby killed? Or, a murderer in general, really! I can’t fault Aqua for going against Ai’s wishes to save Hikaru here after he tried to kill Ruby like that. At a certain point you can only help someone who wishes to be helped, and from what we see from Hikaru’s current last words that man is definitely not someone who wants to repent for his sins.

Another question that’s been on my mind is the following: Does Hikaru engender sympathy as an antagonist? This is a question that is highly dependent on the reader and their viewpoint, but I’ll first bring up certain beats of his backstory again. Hikaru was a victim of the darkness of the industry that was trying to find solace with the one person he could connect to wholeheartedly before he was rejected by said person on a note that ripped up all of his trauma to the surface. Does that justify in any way any of the horrible things he did afterward? That much is up to the reader and how you interpret him.

My two cents on it: Absolutely not. It isn’t just that Hikaru murders people that makes any sympathy towards him plummet out the window much like the manga’s writing quality in its final few arcs—but the method of which he murders people. He doesn’t kill people like Ryouske or Nino, where they just went up to their victim and stabbed the shit out of them. No, he kills people indirectly, more often than not using proxies so he couldn’t be held accountable, as we’ve seen with Ryousuke and Nino in order to keep his hands clean. It’s a more unsettling form of murder compounded by a whole heap of manipulation that he performs so that Hikaru doesn’t have to stick his neck out. He has to consciously choose which actions will push a person who is unstable—since this is a trait that Hikaru can use to manipulate people easier—to murder another living person over a vast period of time. Ryosuke and Nino’s crimes were ones of passion and obsession. Hikaru’s crimes were a result of a calculated effort meant to push those who were unfortunate to murder. There’s no contest that I think the latter is much more insidious and deplorable.

To top it all off, his last words as he sinks to the ocean floor were that he wished he could kill his own daughter to feel closer to Ai! Hikaru may have had a sad backstory and motives for his crimes, but at the end of the day the man is still a murderer. No matter what kind of “noble” soul he might’ve had that the manga might have us believe—which is funny because there’s nothing about Hikaru as he is now nor before that would make me put the word “noble” to him—at the moment he’s nothing more than a deluded murderer that needs to be put down to save the people who can still be saved. Ai may have loved him as he was when he was younger, but the man who insidiously manipulated others to serve as tools of his demented needs is no longer that troubled boy that held onto Hoshino Ai like a lifeline. I doubt that Ai would look on him with any sympathy after everything he’d done—not to mention his actions to try and kill Ruby, one of his last links to Ai—and honestly, neither do I.  There are other CSA victims that don’t go out and murder people in an attempt to deal with their trauma and suffering. There are other people who have been completely destroyed after a bad breakup and don’t go out killing people in order to cope. There are people who’ve had their entire world evaporate into smoke after a single bad day after an uncountable number of bad days and never took other people’s lives into their own hands. Judging Hikaru based off who he was and what happened to him rather than who he is now and the choices he's made reduces him to his trauma and deprives him of his agency in the fact that he did make bad choices. There can be sympathy for the person he used to be—sympathy for the child swept away by the darkness of the industry and forced to suffer because of it—but also condemnation for the lives of the people that he has ruined in his attempts at reaching out to the only person who he’d ever truly loved after he’d callously pulled the strings in order to orchestrate her death.

>ACT III ACT II ==> >EPILOGUE ==>

[hauntingmothgirl]

About me <3

Im a 20+ year old girl with a love for vintage, history, and all things spooky.

I am a pirate enthusiast, cryptid lover, divorced dad music listener, horror buff.

My interests are: ┃dnd┃vampires┃gaming┃cryptids┃creepypastas┃anime┃horror games┃2000s horror movies┃paintings that make me cry┃halloween┃bones┃dark photography┃Religious imagery in art┃y2k┃anything vintage┃my kitties┃moths┃halloween┃the undead┃Jesus┃cosplaying┃moths┃weeping angels┃true crime┃bone┃saws┃possums┃rats┃bats┃occult┃fantasy┃ghosts┃sirens┃wendigoon┃basically any monster┃clown figurines┃victorian dolls┃the medieval┃crows/ravens┃goth clubs┃mythology┃atlantis┃mermaids┃dragons┃vikings┃old hollywood┃diaries┃silent hill weather┃any church or gas station on a foggy night┃comics┃the creepy┃the paranormal┃1800s┃

Tastes:

┃goth┃emo┃scene┃y2k┃post punk┃gothic rock┃screamo┃new wave┃darkwave┃classic rock┃punk rock┃pop punk┃midwest emo┃yallternative┃2000s rnb┃rap┃essentially anything┃50s-60s music┃

Fav characters:

┃misa amane┃draculaura┃sibby┃love quinn┃harley quinn┃Alice cullen┃starfire┃catwoman┃dracula┃chica┃bridgette bardot┃barbie┃wendigoon┃hawkhatesyou┃tinkerbell┃bela dimitrescu┃loeylane┃cjades┃

Games:

┃skyrim┃resident evil┃silent hill┃outlast┃fallout┃alice madness returns┃bg3┃fnaf┃mw2┃

books:

┃haunting adeline┃pride and prejudice┃the seven husbands of evelyn hugo┃my life at rose red┃blue is for nightmares┃im thinking of ending things┃the haunting of hill house┃the hunger games┃

Artists:

┃kesha┃halsey┃avril lavigne┃evanescence ┃paramore┃melanie martinez┃flyleaf┃billie eilish┃lana del rey┃ethel cain┃stevie nicks┃ptv┃sws┃creed┃

Media:

┃deathnote┃berserk┃soul eater┃the phantom of the opera┃nosferatu┃jersey shore┃the conjuring┃the roommate┃disturbia┃rose red┃midsommar┃13 ghosts┃house of wax┃the messengers┃twilight ┃jeepers creepers┃H20 years later┃labyrinth ┃ghost ship┃haunting of hill house┃YOU┃gothika┃thebatman┃scream┃RED┃coraline┃monster high┃ncis┃criminal minds┃alice in wonderland┃sanrio┃nana┃supernatural┃gilmore girls┃bridgerton┃ahs┃mlp┃the crow┃k-12┃priscilla┃

hehe did this for fun :)

very long but pls interact im very friendly