#I love Silas

[beastliness]

POV: you’re being flirted with by a beautiful sailor who calls you “blind as a bat” and “just about the biggest mark I’ve ever seen,” but also “forbidden fruit” and says you have “an arse [he’d] gladly break one or two of the commandments for”

[averseunhinged]

it's wip wednesday again and i've been working on slogging my way through finishing things, one agonizing paragraph at a time. however! i think i finally unpacked the last of my notebooks and found this. idk when i'll get back to it. i have a pretty solid amount of it written, know where it's going and how it ends, but there's a middle bit i'm still not sure how to do.

it's canon divergence from the prom episode on, with klaus and caroline and silas's twisty machinations.

“How are you putting Shane in my head? It's, like, an illusion, right? And I'm the only one who can see it. So, you must be getting it from somewhere, but is that really him, or are you what my brain thinks an evil college professor would look like?” Caroline frowned as she thought back over the past months. “I don't think I met him.”

“No,” Silas said. “You do tend to have your own separate storyline, for better or worse.”

She blinked and reared her head back. “Excuse me?”

“Never mind. The hybrid is very fond of you. You weren't a player in my game until now, but your mind has a fascinating complexity.”

Caroline bared her teeth in a cruel parody of her pageant smile. “Please tell me you're not flirting with me by reading my mind. There is so much wrong with that, I can’t even begin to get into it, and I already have one morally bankrupt megalomaniac to manage. I do not need a second constant disappointment.”

“You're mean,” Silas said pleasantly with a quiet laugh. “In all those legends, they only ever spoke of my love’s sweetness and beauty, but a handmaiden wasn’t a servant. They were friends, companions–close as sisters. Qetsiyah had loved me from childhood, but my darling girl didn't care. She was greedy and wanted me for herself. She wanted me, eternity, and the world as well. I only want her. Stop worrying I'm going to be like Damon.”

“Not super-thrilled about you hanging out in my head.” She crosed her arms over her bodice, the beading digging into her skin and the corset constricting her ribcage.

“Are you super-thrilled about anything to do with me?” he asked with a surprising dry humor. “You don't give a damn about the cure. You never did. Don't deny it.” He held up one hand to quiet her when she tried to protest. “I'm in your head. I know your little, secret shames. The only thing that matters to you about any of this is the number of unnecessary deaths. No, I don't mean your witches.”

Silas moved to her, step by slow, even step. She would not move back, wouldn't show that much weakness, even if he could pluck the fear of the closeness of his body right out of her mind.

“I said secret shames. You wear the witches where everyone can see, because you think you’re supposed to. It's the others you hide. You're glad the hybrids are dead. They hurt you, stole away the boy you thought you loved. Plotted without your knowledge, because they didn’t trust you to agree to your hybrid's permanent incapacitation, and made you confront the envious, jealous, hateful beast he can be long before you were ready. And the council of fanatical imbeciles? You may have known them all your life, but it didn't stop them from hurting you. Do you have any idea what they planned for you? Experiments, Caroline. Supposedly to advance modern medicine, but in truth, humans love having an excuse to hurt something.

“It's certainly not the hunter boy I ate, because deep down inside, you know he got what was coming to him. Face it: it's your hybrid's brother and every last one of his line you mourn, because you might not be sweet, and you might not be kind, but you have a just heart. You know it was wrong. An entire line. Do you want a number? Do you want to know how many that boy and his sister murdered? No?”

Caroline tried to back away from him, his rapid-fire recitation chipping away at her bravery. He cupped his hands around her bare shoulders and held her in place in a gentle, but unyielding grip.

“Over seventeen thousand. That is the sort of atrocity a doppelganger is capable of, addled by a sire bond or not. Kol was prolific and his children followed suit. You wouldn't know the sort of vampires he created, but I have to admit, I think they were my favorites. He turned libertines. Actors and singers. Cyprians and courtesans. The makers of his favorite spirits. Particularly creative chefs. Like calls to like, of course, and when the time came, they sired more of their own. A line of hedonists who lived for a good time. For joy. For fun. All dead in the search for my prison. No wonder you contain so little sympathy for the Gilberts. You should have killed the girl when you had the chance."

She struggled against his hold in earnest. He gave her shoulders a fatherly pat and let her go, but her dress was heavy and awkward, and her heels weren't made for the uneven terrain of the woods.

"Whoops!" He steadied her when she tripped and nearly fell backwards, one hand around her upper arm, the other on her shoulder. "Sorry about the inappropriate apparel, but there's a time and place for everything."

"You couldn't have kidnapped me earlier, when I was wearing flats?" she complained.

"Afraid not. Like I said, it’s all about timing. I’ve had eons to plan. Don’t worry so much. Your disappearance has already been noticed.”

She didn’t want to admit how much of a relief it was to know she hadn’t been forgotten. Fury rising at her own pathetic, needy anxiety, she demanded, "Why are you being so nice to me? You've been terrorizing everyone for weeks! You made Klaus maul himself. I had to dig around in his back with pliers! And I know you were torturing him while you looked like me."

"Do you think you'd be happier if you were uglier, Caroline?" Silas asked conversationally, ignoring her question. "I know you wonder why people always want you, but they never, ever love you. You're clever, though. You've turned being underestimated into an art form."

Her mouth fell open in shock. "I have not! I'm not--it's not--"

"Manipulative? On purpose? I'm in your head," he reminded her. "You can be honest with me. It was so easy to get to him while I looked like you. Of course, that's not entirely your doing. The curse, killing his father, his mother pretending to love him, family no longer willing to endure his abuse. He's been turned around and tied in knots until he'd do nearly anything for a kind word from you. I cupped his face in your hands, and he nearly broke apart into pieces. So desperate for your gentle touch. Asleep and awake, he dreams of you. The fantasies that torment him the most aren't the ones of your body that make him take himself in hand." Silas leaned closer to her, nearly nose to nose. His borrowed brown eyes were dark and terrifying in their gentle, knowing sincerity. "He doesn't want to long for a life with you, of travel and family, home and love, but he does, Caroline. You can't fathom the atrocities he would commit in your name. The degradation he'd endure for your approval, for the blessing of the only god he knows."

"Let me go," she insisted, panicked and shrill. "Let me go!"

When he did, she pushed him back and bent over to unbuckle her shoes. It was a relief to drop them carelessly, even though her stockings would be ruined. She hadn't had any illusions about this being the perfect night she'd constructed for years, but it was destroyed beyond anything she could have planned for.

"I could help you with your hair," Silas offered. "You've barely noticed, but the pins are digging into your scalp."

She dropped her second shoe and stood up, clenching her hands into fists to stop their trembling. "Does that mean I'm not going to prom at all?"

"I can't be sure." He shrugged and admitted, "I don't think so, but I've been wrong before."

[sewnwithfate]

I just finished The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaimen and it’s literally so good, I think it might be one of my favorite coming of age books.

[whumpy-wyrms]

blaming dead plate on my sudden interest in cannibalism and gore and dismemberment. very silly times

[thewardenshand]

best part of the locked tomb is if it was ANY other story naberius would be the number one guy. he’s a prince and somehow also a bodyguard and he’s a gifted fighter and devoted to the princesses and he has swoopy hair and dreamy eyes and no one gives a shit, because they’re all married/gay/focused on the actual plot. naberius is the lost love interest from a shitty ya fantasy novel that culminates in a love triangle between him, corona, and silas. this man is harry styles in a room full of lesbians

[godsleastwanted]

girls who look like they want to cut you open😋

[sticcmann]

wheres the silas birchtree fanart at. i need it

[clovreat3r]

Made in the Image of Bill

Closeups of the quality gets roasted (just like bills family) ->

[pigeon-princess]

A few locations in Barovia Valley that our party has seen so far

[meo-eiru]

It’ll enter from one ear and come out from the other, he’s too busy thinking about how much he loves you🫶

(BDKDJDHDJD HE’S SO CUTE YOU DREW HIM SO CUTELY I WILL EAT HIM NOM NOM NOM)

[jadecantcreate]

shepherd!! 6/12 promised drawings for shepherd’s and victoria’s semifinal win

(a little more. yk. than intended skjkj its a little treat for the men lovers out there)

and shepnax doodles <3

thank you to szare (@/szaryherbatnik), @/emc2beans, and @/bakugo-th for the ideas <33

[silawastaken]

something I feel like people miss while reading stormbringer is this line from the second chapter when Dazai and Verlaine met:

'Nevertheless, Dazai continued to slaughter his enemies and serve the Port Mafia in order to force himself into an even darker place.'

So, "why does Dazai stay in the mafia for so long?"

Because he wants to be in a bad place. He wants to commit these atrocities to further dehumanise himself. He wants to alienate himself and is determined to convince both himself and everyone around him that he is a terrible thing, the 'black wraith of the Port Mafia' who had no empathy or sense of humanity.

That's why he stays in the Mafia, that's why he works so hard in the Mafia, that's why he does what he's told. He's an automated killing machine capable of planning out and causing mass destruction, and his fuel is self-hatred.

He doesn't take pride in his 'accomplishments' in the mafia because, again, he doesn't actually want to succeed in the mafia, he wants to prove he's a bad person. He's not in the mafia to try and find a reason to live anymore, his reason for that is Chuuya, he's realised he's not going to find it in the mafia, even if he's not going to admit it until the dark era.

He probably feels a sense of guilt and disgust, but refuses to acknowledge it because he thinks that as something inhuman, he isn't meant to feel things like that, and the more he does, the further he removes himself from any sense of remorse, until he doesn't feel it any more, and probably still hasn't processed even in the ADA.

He stays in the mafia, and does the things he's told with such accuracy and deadliness because he thinks it's the only thing he can do, and he can use it to prove he's no longer human.

[n0anix]

something about love and worship

[sweetm0uringlamb]

ethel cain performing at the greek theatre in la

photo credit: @artziety on instagram

[mrrwsoup]

🕯️ valentine & silas ⛪

[ikurko]

look at him goo