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vg-sanctuary · 3 years ago

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Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling

Moonsprout Games - Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC - 2019

I don't like the core gameplay of 99% of all RPGs, but the ones I do like have been some of my favorite games I've ever played. case in point, Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling, a modern interpretation of the classic Paper Mario formula and an ideal example of indie developers adding to the legacy of a cult classic. its main feature is turn-based combat with action commands, like old Paper Mario or the Mario & Luigi series, and strategy in its intentional design and small health and damage numbers that goes way beyond "spam damage and heal every third turn, use mana items as needed". (in case you want to be 100% blind for your playthrough, past the Keep Reading link are some very minor spoilers: an item a specific cook can make after a side quest, some basic enemies, environments that are about halfway through the game, and the names of some medals.)

“wow, vg-sanctuary posting about a game that's not even two years old at time of writing? and it's an RPG? are you not a retro/legacy blog anymore? who are you and what have you done with the writer?” I still am a retro/legacy blog, mostly, just this time I thought I'd share something that its developers still get money from, and whose developers aren't mega corporations. and I just beat it, enjoyed it, and really felt like writing about it because it still doesn't have the popularity it deserves even after that puppet guy on YouTube talked about it. not that this post is going to reach any significant number of people, but still. I'll write about some more indie games sometime in the future. (and indeed I am writing about another RPG and you better believe it has a lot to talk about.)

anyway, Bug Fables starts with a brash little bee called Vi and a polite and honorable beetle named Kabbu wandering into an explorer's guild and not having a partner to join the guild with. they reluctantly decide they're going to fight together because companionship is a requirement for this guild, foiling off each other and sometimes off their third friend Leif, a blue moth they find in a cave, for the whole game. every character has a distinct personality and all the party members get some valuable character development through a side quest, which I really liked, but I'm no connoisseur of RPG stories. while I'm on story, people that come here looking for a well-made world will get what they want from the many optional lore books hidden around the world.

the plot becomes more complex and compelling as the game continues, though it generally lets gameplay take the spotlight. which is great, because the gameplay is also mostly great. about a third of it is doing puzzles on the overworld using the abilities of each character to move forward a la the Mario & Luigi series. they generally make use of whatever your newest overworld ability is, and some areas early on have inaccessible things you have to come back to, sort of like a Metroidvania except it isn't required to do this for progression. some puzzles take longer they could because they involve using Kabbu's horn to repeatedly fling an ice block many times over a distance. it's never egregious, but it could have been faster if the guy would use his arms. this is a minor caveat and not a majority of the game.

a lot of people probably don't know how the combat for this or Paper Mario works, and it's really important to Bug Fables, so I'll explain that here. it's turn based, which is typical, but basic attacks and skills need you to time a button press to do as much damage as possible. you can also time a button press when an enemy attacks to take less damage. Paper Mario and Bug Fables also both have medals instead of other equipment that give characters higher max HP or a new skill, for example. you have limited medal points and stronger medals require more points.

this is going to sound like a lot, but any RPG's combat will sound like a lot if you try to detail it in a single paragraph. the game introduces these things slower than I am here. in Bug Fables specifically, the character standing in the front of the group does one extra damage but is more likely to be attacked, and you can pass turns from one character to another in exchange for that character dealing one less damage (which is a lot because basic attacks only deal two damage by default). certain enemies can only be hit by certain attacks; some enemies fly, so Kabbu can't hit them until Vi knocks them down with her beemerang. not a typo, beemerang. and many of Bug Fables' status effects have upsides -- being paralyzed reduces damage taken everything by one, poison has many medals that make it a good thing, and being asleep heals the sleeping character every turn. there are others that are straight up bad things, though, and usually don't come until later. all of this adds up to even small encounters having strategic depth, which is great, and if you don't feel like small encounters you can just avoid them. skills that would typically be relegated to one character, like healing and support skills all going to one, are instead split between party members to make decisions more difficult in a good way. there's also a lovely medal that instantly kills any enemy the game deems too easy for you, sort of like in Earthbound.

I figure I spent more time doing housekeeping like cooking (simple A+B=C or A-becomes-B crafting), buying items, and arranging medals in Bug Fables than in any other RPG, which is because it was designed that way. by the way, cooking recipes start hidden, but a foodie at each restaurant will share some strong ones for free, which is a big help early on. anyone who's played The World Ends with You (i.e. me) will be spoiled by its excellent quality of life: no consumable items and you instantly heal to full after every encounter. it makes items seem like a ridiculous formality that RPGs only still have because they've had them for years, but in Bug Fables any item that isn't simple healing -- a lot of them aren't simple healing -- has great strategic use, and the exact way you spend your medal points can determine whether you win or lose any fight, especially bosses. for example, one character having one extra damage for two turns when they typically only do two is pretty important, especially when they use an attack that does multiple hits, and having it in item form saves valuable medal points and skill points. part of that time was kind of a waste, though, because I generally had one set of medals I use for multiple enemies and one I use for single enemies like bosses. being able to save loadouts would have helped a lot. I would like to compliment Bug Fables on allowing you to restart any boss with different medals without having to repeat cutscenes, and commend it for letting you do-over your level up bonuses late in the game when it starts to matter.

it's not like spending a lot of time on strategizing before fights is strictly mandatory. I was mostly playing on hard mode where enemies have more health and more difficult attacks, and mostly with a medal called Hard Hits that makes all enemies deal one extra damage in exchange for extra money after each fight. it can be less difficult if you'd like, but it's never mindless; even if you're doing a strategy that manages 20 or 30 damage (again, a lot in this game) in a single turn, it takes effort to choose your medals to do so much damage and actually play the strategy out in combat. the combat strategy is the best part of Bug Fables, and it makes each fight almost like a puzzle. I've typed some form of "strategy" six times so far, which is fair because it's the best part of Bug Fables. don't let it put you off, though, it's RPG combat strategy, not chess-like or RTS or something, so if you've enjoyed any other turn-based RPG it should be easy to get used to.

it's also worth mentioning the ample side content. each chapter of the game unlocks a handful of side quests, some about trading, some about combat, and almost as many bonus bosses as main bosses. you're allowed to fight them fairly early on, and a few become available after the final boss that are actually a bit harder than it in classic Paper Mario fashion. basically, if you like Bug Fables, there's a lot of it to play. there's even a trading card minigame because of course there is. it's fairly fleshed out, too, and unlike the one in Chocobo Tales the animations between turns don't take six years. the reward for the whole card side quest isn't something that's important for combat, so you can skip it if you don't like it; I didn't especially like it so I think that was a great decision on the developers' part.

rewards for some of the other side content, though, are so good it's kind of a wonder they can be completely skipped. it doesn't make the game harder to not have those skills or medals, but they are some of the best in the game and undeniably really useful. they make great side quest rewards in that sense, but it's important to know for the people that usually wouldn't do side content. I don't know if that's a common kind of player, but just in case. (this game's 100% achievement has been earned by a sky-high 5.9% of players on Steam. usually it's more like 2% or less. the point is none of the extra content is overly obtuse.)

I will complain about the forced stealth sections though. and be astounded that they fixed the main issue with them in the last stealth section. these are minor caveats and take well under an hour total unless you're really, really, really bad at sneaking, but they bothered me when I got to them. I mean, I understand why they're in the game, I understand why Zelda has them, but I didn't really like them. the main issue for all but the last stealth section is that there's no vision cone or other indication that "if you stand here they will see you" or even an opportunity to recover from mistakes which are incredibly important for playable stealth. the last stealth section does have a vision cone and does have an opportunity to recover from mistakes, which is a great step up. I would like to use even more italics to remind you that these sections total less than an hour of gameplay. Zelda: Breath of the Wild's forced-ish stealth was much worse than this.

I don't know where else to put it, so I'll add here that the soundtrack is great and the graphics are perfectly Gamecube-y and the sprites capture the cuteness of Paper Mario really well, even though they're, you know, bugs. each environment is distinct and themed well, and each one’s music matches well. I really wish I knew how to talk about music because there are a lot of different songs in this game that work well for what they go with. boss music sounds intense and boss-y and appropriate for each boss you're fighting, the not-music hits just right, and everything else feels good. some songs use Nintendo 64 MIDI instruments, which I loved. and the bee boss music has a synth that sounds like bees buzzing.

anyone that likes RPGs -- and even some people that don't -- will probably enjoy the story and strategy that make up the excellent Bug Fables. it goes beyond being a homage to Paper Mario and becomes its own thing entirely, though its roots are obvious from the art style. not that this takes away from it -- Paper Mario is a great legacy, and this manages to be even better. for all its little bad things there are a dozen great ones. I admit I haven't played the classic Paper Mario games, but this made me want more -- I guess I'll have to go back while I hope for Moonsprout Games to continue forward.

#bug fables #bug fables the everlasting sapling #my writing #this was also on amazon luna but i didnt figure anyone would care if i omitted it #also screenshots i took myself wow

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lyssaloveesmagick · 3 years ago

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Hi. Can I please get a free reading about how my love life evolve? Thank you!

All right, so I'm just reading was super interesting I for sure had a new experience here with the way the cards fell out and the story was told. By the time I got to the end of the reading I feel like the reading took a complete turn and double down on some of the meanings so I don't normally do two paragraphs but I did here so if one of them doesn't resonate maybe the other will or maybe they tie in together - which is my guess... Either way I hope you found this in-depth reading to be helpful on some level! Here it goes, the overall energy for your reading is the need to make a decision- Gemini energy. In your past energy I do see a masculine energy. I kind of feel like maybe the relationship with this person started off really passionately but as time went on the relationship took a lot of hard work to maintain and ended up being more material & security-based. I see emotional immaturity, lack of use of skills, low energy, maybe even bad sex, good intentions, dwindling affection, revisiting the past, attempt at recovery & desire for fulfillment. It looks to me like that relationship definitely ended or is ending in some way. I can see now that you're in a period of what feels like renewal, but it carries a sense of deception. That deception is largely self-deception, maybe there's a lot of fighting in this relationship and you're telling yourself that you're happy, or maybe you're telling yourself that you believe them when you really don't and if that's the case then I clearly see here that there's a reason as to why you shouldn't believe them. However roles could be reversed and you could be deceiving your partner. In your future energy there is a younger romantic energy, it could be the return of someone, they carry third party energy and it's like a separation but there's resistance to the separation on your side. Someone is ignoring the truth. This third party energy also represents the desire to create & share - they have lots of sexual energy & i get the idea that they really really want commitment and to come together under one roof- maybe a poly situation?.

I think now that I've completed the three rows of cards that I pulled out and now that I'm looking at this message with an understanding of what's going on on the surface now that I'm looking deeper at it, if you were in a polyamorous situation I would absolutely agree that it shows up here in that way. I could definitely see two masculine energies in the past were neither of them are really living up to their full potential one of them is already connected materialistically with an emotional history while the other stumbled in a little prematurely. That would leave you in this current energy with all of these emotional opportunities literally surrounding you but either way I see two people who are physically separated but staying up late at night thinking about this connection... Which would make a lot of sense because there are three energies under this household in the future, but there's still this feeling of mental separation and changing emotions behind this new person who is coming in I feel like it's the same person who is separate from this materialistically connected masculine. They are definitely transforming in some ways, it's kind of like a rejuvenation which gives them a lighter energy. I keep hearing "when 2 becomes 3"

Good luck!

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notasdriedapricots · 4 years ago

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The Tender Trap: The Origin Story

This is just pretty much a disclaimer for the disaster that’s coming.

I TALK A LOT OMG HOW DID YOU KNOW? Here's a TL;DR: -The Tender Trap is canon as shit, because I never intended to write a fic, and much less to publish it, but one thing lead to the other and I ended up kinda liking it. I love them so much. There's quite a lot added to it, but there's still a fair bit of the original thing in there, because again, that was the original goal. -However, if you think there's too much still there, let me know! I think I've modified it enough, but that's only my opinion. -If you catch technical mistakes, grammatical errors, weird vocabulary... let me know! English is my second language. -There's an after-villa sequel in the oven that has more angst (the game doesn't leave much space for that) and honestly is more fun. Or at least I've been having so much fun with it. I have to finish it first, though. I might hate it by the end, but we'll see. -Funny story: It was untitled for months. The day I randomly found a title while listening to Ella Fitzgerald, I kinda decided to 'fuck it, just upload it somewhere'. And so here we are. That was literally yesterday. -The first real chapter will likely be posted on AO3 on Thursday/Friday, depending on how much longer I keep messing with it :D

800 words of me rambling under the cut. How annoying is that.

I transcribed the whole goddamned game. In past tense instead of present, mind you. As one of the most popular memes in my country preaches: Why? There is no 'why'?

Well, there is. Just for clarification, that transcription is not what I will be posting. I'm not that dumb. No, I wanted to add nuances to the story without altering it, so I used what the game gives us as the skeleton. I wanted to see if I could make nonsense dialogue and the whole amnesia deal make sense by turning it into inside jokes, sarcasm, and anxiety. (Prosody is a wonderful thing). I tried my best to not contradict what has been explicitly said, regardless of how. much. I. wanted. to. change. it. That was the challenge, to reframe it so it made sense. Did it interfere with the 'creative process'? Nah, it was pretty fun, and I work well with a structure in place. The post-villa thing is way freer and oh god it's so over the place I have to put some order to that I don't even know where it's going but I found out I love writing domestic shit and I LoVe Lucas' mother.

This idea lead up to extending some scenes, adding others I felt were missing, composing internal monologues... And I ended up writing fiction again after like ten years. Which is not a "take it easy on me" card, by the way. Be ruthless, I can take it, mainly because I did this just for fun. I know I'm rusty, what's new? I know it mainly shows in the first chapters because the game forces a pace that's too fast and too slow at the same damn time and there's only so much my brain can do. I might rewrite them at some point, who knows. Also English is not my first language, so I can only hope there's something that sounds hilarious in there somewhere that you can point out so we can laugh about it. Let me know! I've loved this language since I was three, I want to use it properly. Also punctuation is sometimes different (commas and the necessity of explicit pronouns in English are a pain in the ass compared to Spanish) so you're welcome to correct that as well if you catch a mistake. So I don't intend to put myself at the same level as some of the fantastic writers in this fandom; you keep writing art, I'm just here for shits and giggles, and because this was insanely fun for me.

But going back. I started getting sidetracked, as I tend to do when I write, as you can see, so I had to get the scissors and cut those parts that weren't adding much to the main plot (telling Gary to apologize to Marisol is very nice but this chapter is already over 8000 words long, SIR) to make room for other parts that needed more depth, so amongst other things we have the emotional breakdown and apology we deserve after CA (or at least one that makes me feel bad, I don't know) and a lot of chats so these two actually get to, you know, know each other? Oh, and smut, ejem. Yeah. That.

In between I wrote half the after-villa sequel, canons for Liz, headcanons for Lucas, (head)canons for them together, pages and pages of questions and answers from both of them, fashion headcanons, families and exes, best friends; I put together pinterest folders with pictures of so (so) many people, clothes, apartments; I even wrote a musical episode where Liz has a karaoke battle with her ex in a jazz joint that's one of my favourite things because the songs are just *chef's kiss* I mean, Liz singing 'Cry me a river' is so cathartic... Anyway I started adding shit, mostly thoughts, to the game's dialogue, and it ended up in this abomination that never intended to be anything but fun. I'm not particularly proud of the first couple chapters because the cut/don't cut thing looking at the wordcount, trying to decide if I butchered the original dialogue, reduced it to a general paragraph, or pretend the scene never happened, all while having a chapter that was too short to split into two (or that would have one of them containing too little new stuff) but so long to be just one... was painful. I'm still dealing with that as I tweak the next chapters, but as soon as I have a somewhat definitive word/chapter count, I'll let you know. Just know that it's long, so do with that what you will.

SO, welcome. Take a seat, help yourself to a drink, and stay for as long as you like. When I got into this I went to the ball, so now I'm just dancing.

#TTT #dont say i didnt warn you #lets gooo

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diveronarpg · 5 years ago

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Congratulations, DAPHNE! You’ve been accepted for the role of BIANCA. Admin Minnie: We were honestly thrilled just to see your name again, returned to us in the flesh, but to see that you were applying for Bunny? And to actually read this work of art (read: your application)? The other admins can attest: I was copy/pasting whole paragraphs from your application and drooling over every word. You’ve captured every intricate, glittering detail that makes our Bunny unforgettable and deliciously mean. With a meticulousness and a great deal of fun that I think Bunny would envy, you’ve done her complete justice — in fact, you may have even done better than our little Bunny deserves. As the person who plays Maeve, I’m being entirely selfish and taking a moment of silence to applaud you and wish you a very warm welcome back! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Daphne Age | 23 Preferred Pronouns | She/her Activity Level | I will generously rate myself a 7/10 given the current situation, but the next two weeks might be a bit more on the 5/10 side until I get some things sorted out! After that, I’m all in. Timezone | EST

IN CHARACTER

Character | Bianca / Bernadette “Bunny” DuPont

What drew you to this character? There’s a running theme in stories that children symbolize some form of uncorrupted good. They’re humanity’s saving grace, so blameless in their innocence that they somehow become our last hope for redemption in worlds tainted by the actions of mankind, and in the Bible, Jesus even says the kingdom of Heaven belongs to people like them. Then there’s Bunny’s namesake, Saint Bernadette Soubirous, who had her first vision when she was fourteen. The Church exhumed her body on three separate occasions almost half a century after her death, and every single time, they found her corpse completely incorrupt and untouched by decay. To christen Bunny after her is so extreme a juxtaposition that it almost feels blasphemous, and yet it’s so slyly irreverent that it strikes me as being exactly something Bunny would do herself if she could. Because as much as she would have you believe she’s saintly, and as much as her identity capitalizes on the pretence of girlhood, make no mistake: Bernadette Du Pont is as corrupt as they come. And if Heaven truly belongs to people like her, then we should be scared, because where Saint Bernadette never decomposed from the outside in, Bunny reeks of rot and ruin from the inside out. It’s the kind of heavy-handed symbolism that I (and Bunny) just can’t resist, and I think a love for the worst kinds of irony and references that go six feet under (heh) is something we both share.

As that one saying famously goes, there’s something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls. Bunny is no exception to the rule. I’m fascinated by what drives her, because all her antics are motivated by a lack of motivation, and yet interestingly enough, the boredom that drives her isn’t out of deprivation; it’s built from a constant exposure to excess. Easton was defined by the fact that he had nothing, but Bunny sits at the other end of the extreme. I wanted to know how things might look from the side where the grass appears to be greener. What are the consequences of being spoiled rotten and drowned in adoration, and how does someone who’s developed so high of a tolerance derive satisfaction from what they haven’t had to earn? It was only after years of being the perfect daughter that Bunny must have learned the answer: you pry it from the hands of those who would do anything to keep it. Bunny is remorseless in her mischief. She’s a hellion of a girl, a thoroughbred so pure that all sorts of nasty recessive traits have manifested in her personality, at least under that polished veneer, but she lacks a certain seriousness that would otherwise classify her as being Gillian Flynn-esque. What she lacks in seriousness, however, she makes up for in facetiousness, and I think that helps to make her nastiness more palatable, as well as loads more fun. Fun isn’t the type of character I normally gravitate toward, but I’d love to try my hand at someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously (despite still demonstrating the capacity for occasional emotional depth). In Bunny’s life, it’s Bunny’s world, and in Bunny’s world, she plays both the princess and the pauper; the bratty little girl and the darling of Verona. But, as she often tells herself, there can only be one Bunny, and so there are certain moments where her true self must show through; where she’s prone to break character, if she’s truly as incorrigible as she seems. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of it with Bianca, but trust me when I say that no one would be happier to see how far we could push her worst possible interpretation. So Bernadette was a saint, you say. She couldn’t possibly have anything other than good intentions, never mind that they’ve only ever said one thing about good intentions in the first place. Let them eat cake, Bunny laughs from up high, surrounded by her festoon of sweets. Some will think her naive; others will think her cruel. Both, however, are right.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character?

I. CARTE BIANCA Okay, so let’s be honest. The Capulets aren’t doing so hot, and the Montagues are absolutely killing it right now, so maybe, just maybe, looking like a Montague sympathizer might not be the worst thing in the world? I keep coming back to how Bunny’s already had to rely on their mercy not once, but twice—first with Hector, and then again with Brielle—and not once, but both times, she somehow ended up with a Montague who happened to be more forgiving. Sure, we could write it off as luck, but we’re talking about Bunny here! She’s spent her entire life looking for ways to work things into her favour, so if she doesn’t see that as an opportunity to milk the situation for all it’s worth, I’d be hard pressed to believe it. I’d love to see her approach Brielle, or even Henry or Genevieve (with regards to how things played out with Hector) under the guise of common interest, or maybe even a debt to be repaid. Her name’s already been soiled, so why let that go to waste? Thanks to that video, everyone thinks they know where she stands. She was given bad cards, but not the chance to play them just right, and if Bunny had her way, she’d have you believe that she intended for it to happen from the start. So let’s go back to the beginning, then. Let’s explore the consequences of that incident, and see her try to talk her way out of trouble. We already know her strengths don’t lie on the front lines, but that’s not what makes a well-rounded team. I say, let Bunny do what she does best. Sure, it’s risky business. Sure, the Montagues might skin her alive. But maybe, just maybe, just maybe, it’s exactly what the Capulets need.

II. FOREVERLAND, NEVERLAND Bunny’s been friends with Juliana and Maeve for as long as she can remember, but the truth is that you can be acquainted with someone for a long time and never really know them. The romantic in me loves that melancholy thought: the idea that, once upon a time, things were simpler, and that it really wasn’t so long ago that they were children with few worries who needed little in common to get along. But life can change very quickly, and both Juliana and Maeve have responded in ways that prove they’re more mature than Bunny ever was. Whereas before they might have been too young to know any better, I’m sure that now they’re starting to realize that Bunny wasn’t always a good friend; Bunny, on the other hand, has stagnated. Life was good for her in her childhood, so it’s not surprising that she wouldn’t want to leave it behind. And then there’s Cyrus, who only galvanizes that. I think both of them are absolute drama queens, and so he and Bunny bring out the worst in each other, but in the best possible way. It’s fun as hell, but in this sense (and this sense alone), Bunny is aware that she’s somehow fallen behind, and it makes her insecure and gives her reason to resent the girls. I want to see how what’s left of their surface relationship falls apart at the seams as they’re forced to confront more stressful matters around each other, and as Bunny’s true nature becomes more apparent, I want one of them to call her out on it. Because aside from Katarina, who mainly does it out of spite, I don’t think anyone’s ever told Bunny something that she might not want to hear, even if it happens to be for her own good—and I dread to think of how she might take it.

III. THE IMITATION GAME Bunny’s biography mentions that she has a penchant for forgery, which, frankly, is also no surprise given the emphasis she places on appearances. But that says a lot to me about Bunny’s strengths: not only does it reinforce her ability to pretend (and double as a microcosm of her personality), it means there’s an actual tangible use that comes from her eye for detail, which is super exciting for a number of reasons. This is prime ammunition for heists in the making! It’s time for the Caps to snatch some Montague valuables from right out from under their noses!! Not right away, of course; Bunny doesn’t share anything of her own accord, not even her talents. And nothing paints a funnier picture (literally) than a privileged white girl trying to navigate the shady underbelly of the black market herself, but you can bet she’d be damned if she didn’t try. Fortune favours the bold, and so I’d like to see her succeed and maybe even rope one or two people into her growing little business, particularly those with more savoir-faire in the area than she. But fortune is also fickle, and what I’d like even more is for it to eventually blow up in her face, for her to end up in hot water with powerful clientele, and for the Capulets to have to pull her out. (And if Katarina should be involved in this, even better. Let the sibling chaos ensue.) Because then, you see, Bunny owes the Capulets big time. Then, she has more reasons to do things for the mob—you can tell that right now, her heart just isn’t in it—and less of a need to prove her loyalty. And that’s when the fun can really begin.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? Yes! We’re told to kill our darlings, after all, but I’m banking on the fact that only the good die young.

In-Character Interview: The following questions must be answered in-character, and in para form (quotations, actions written out if applicable, etc). There is no minimum or maximum limit for your response - simply answer as you would if you were playing the character.

What is your favorite place in Verona?

Oh, thinks Bunny. She doesn’t bother trying to mask her delight. It’s a difficult question; with so many excellent answers, which should she tell him? Perhaps the Phoenix and the Turtle? It does have its own homely charm, she supposes, but as a lady, she is well-travelled, and the truth is that it simply can’t hold a flame to the grand old cafes in Paris (a good cafe au lait and pain au chocolat has always been preferable to an espresso, in her opinion). Or perhaps she should say their home? The Du Pont villa is nothing short of magnificent by anyone’s standards; Bunny has spent many a day inside on her favourite chaise longue with a Sidecar in one hand and Cicero in the other. But still no, she decides, and quite vehemently, at that. It’s too mundane to make a memorable answer.

“Favourite” is such a big commitment for a word, and Bunny considers it deploringly, like a child asked to pick a single toy from their treasure chest. Why choose one when you could have them all? That’s just it, she decides. She will not pick. She will have all of Verona, or she will have none of it. Bunny smiles at her interviewer, now satisfied. “Do you have children, Signore?” She asks him, making sure to do so shyly. He answers no—a little too quickly, a little too eagerly—and though she pretends not to notice, Bunny’s smile grows ever so slightly. “Well,” she continues, eyes wide, “when I am a parent someday, I should like to be a good one, and good parents love all their children equally well, do they not?” The interviewer agrees. It’s rather unfortunate that her parents don’t fit this syllogism of hers, but Bunny doesn’t blame them, of course. It’s different when the choice is so obvious.

What does your typical day look like?

“In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stretches. After I remove the ice pack, I use a deep cleansing pore lotion.” Bunny pauses to gage the man’s reaction, but her interviewer doesn’t interrupt. So she continues. “In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face, an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply a herb mint facial mask, which I leave on for ten minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine.” The man finally cracks a smile. For a moment, Bunny thinks he understands, and she beams. That is, until he ruins it by asking if that’s the secret to having such perfect skin, because if it is, he ought to let his wife know.

Bunny flushes with anger. She can’t understand why he would interrupt her perfect charade with such a stupid question. First of all, her glowing skin is a culmination of the best Du Pont-Alescio genes; second of all, his poor wife is probably an old hag, which means that unless she bathes in the blood of virgins, she might as well submit to her fate of being ugly for the remainder of her life. She wonders if he knows how easy it would be to ruin him—for her to approach his wife alone, inconsolable and in tears—and it calms her enough to smile down at her feet, as if the pinkness in her cheeks comes from humbly accepting his compliment, rather than shirking him for his attempt. Realizing that her clever little reference is wasted on him, Bunny then switches over seamlessly. “And then I have dance practice.” Bastian and Eleonora had been all too happy to keep indulging a hobby they thought she’d truly shown interest in; what she’d really shown interest in, however, had been the studios themselves and their many mirrors.

“I always drop by the Phoenix and the Turtle on the way back, if only to say hello to the lovely Signora who manages the cafe.” Truthfully, Bunny’s never met a more insipid woman in her life. But she of all people understands the importance of building rapport, and in this case, it comes with free pastries and a cozy nook by the corner window (which she’s unofficially claimed as her own space). “If it’s a nice day, I might go for an afternoon picnic at the Twelfth Night garden with Juliana and Maeve.” On the odd occasion that she does, this is, without a doubt, her least favourite part of it—which is why she says it if it’s a Nice day, because if she doesn’t feel like playing Nice Bunny, weather unpermitting, then absolutely nothing makes it worth the company. And even if it is a Nice day, it’s still a Maybe, because Verona is small, but the male brain is smaller still, and Bunny supposes the lack of real estate in both means that somewhere along the line, they had to sacrifice creativity. A pity, really. She’s long since lost count of the number of times she’s let a boy take her there on a date, if only because she’d been bored enough to pluck at their heartstrings like a harp.

And when it isn’t a Nice day, the interviewer wants to know? Then she might seek out a certain gentleman caller, while making it known that she truly had nothing better to do. “Then I’m home before sundown,” Bunny yawns delicately instead, as if the mere thought of it brings her fatigue. There is an idea of Bernadette Du Pont, you see, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real Bunny. Only an entity, something illusory. Maybe that’s why she loves the pointless falsehoods of routine.

What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

Bunny stills, suddenly very attentive, and wonders if this is a test. How was it that she’d accepted a hand to pull her back up, and that it had somehow dragged her down with it instead? Her lip trembles. It was the principle of the matter. Don Capulet had told her so himself, Regina Daly only waiting for him to say the word, and for the first time in her life, sitting there in his office, Bunny had been afraid. In that moment, she’d understood that there were some things from which her parents could no longer protect her. For so long, she’d been perfect. She’d set the bar high, and then higher still, until eventually she’d outdone even herself, and down she’d tumbled. It was fight or be sentenced, and so reluctantly, she’d fought, not with a gun or with her tears, but in one of the few ways she knew how: Don Capulet could deny her clemency, if that was what he wished, but he could not deny that she was truly her parents’ daughter.

Perhaps he’d changed his mind and now meant to first humiliate her. Was that what they wanted, she wondered? For her to beg forgiveness, to carve out her pyrite heart with the broken crown that came from old nursery rhymes? No, Bunny decides, casting those horrid thoughts aside. Taking that Montague boy’s hand had never been the mistake; the mistake had been thinking she was immune to making them. She’ll save her tears. They’re as precious as they come. She won’t apologize for putting herself first—not here, not now, not ever again. So Bunny sits up a little straighter. She lifts her chin and props it up on her elbows, putting on her best impression of a particular look she likes to call Bonjour, Tristesse. “Finding out how many calories are in the almond croissants at Phoenix and the Turtle,” Bunny says cheekily, her voice filled with a wistful regret. As if that had ever stood a chance at stopping her from eating them. The man laughs at this and agrees that their croissants are to die for, but Bunny can tell that he’s already writing her off as another vapid heiress. Hasn’t he ever seen what rabbits can do to a garden? This, she supposes, is the worst of her vices: not pride, nor greed, but a voracious appetite in all things bad for her.

What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

Bunny is all smiles again, pulling a golden heart-shaped necklace out from under her collar. The craftsmanship is absolutely exquisite for such a tiny piece of jewelry, and she knows it. Usually, she prefers to be more coy about who gave it to her��leaving it up to the imagination, she finds, is so much more en vogue—but she sacrifices her love for the air of mystery in exchange for the completeness of her story, which in some cases, can be equally as important. “My parents had this made in Tuscany for my eighteenth birthday,” she begins. Bunny turns the heart flat on her palm so that its apex faces the interviewer. At the bottom is a hole just big enough to fit a key. It’s a locket. “You can see the four chambers well enough, but it only fits the portrait of one person inside.” She has always made sure to phrase it exactly the same—that way, it prompts people to ask her whom she holds closest to her heart. It’s worked every single time but one, and the interviewer, of course, is not that exception. Some people guess her father; others her mother; others still guess Katarina, of all people, and Katarina, snorting, had guessed that she put herself (the closest guess by far, as Bunny had indeed briefly considered it).

“Both of them are bankers,” she says, as if a single person in Verona doesn’t know who her parents are. “And Maman has always said that secrets are as good a currency as any other.” Bunny pauses for dramatic effect and lowers her eyes; withholding information has never been more enjoyable. “I’m sure you of all people, Signore, should understand that I do not give them away freely.” The interviewer smiles and closes her fingers back around the necklace, clearly charmed by her answer. Bunny remembers Cyrus with his head in her lap on a dreadfully sunny Sunday afternoon, reaching up unprompted to examine her mechanical heart. Although she’d delivered the exact same spiel, he’d said nothing until she’d grown impatient and asked if he didn’t want to know. “I’d wager you put nothing in there,” Cyrus had mused finally, tugging on the chain to pull her closer—just close enough to see the smugness in his eyes. “Am I right, darling Bunny?” She’d swatted him away crossly. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Bunny had said, her mood now soured. She would die before granting him the satisfaction of knowing that for once, he had been right.

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

The sunlight streams through the curtains, hitting the windowpane at an angle that almost feels like a spotlight. Her thoughts? Bunny wears her allegiance like a pageant sash, and she’s long since tired of this flimsy title she hasn’t earned. Some boring old man said once that there was no avoiding war. But she’s distracted, and can’t quite remember which of them had said it—not all of them are old, but all of them are men, and most of them are boring, so who can blame her, really? Her thoughts, thinks Bunny with a callous satisfaction, would shock this man into cardiac arrest. But the show must go on, and so Bunny Du Pont, ever an advocate of the people, folds one leg over the other and schools her features into the perfect combination of innocence and remorse, intent on giving him exactly just that. If the interviewer has any remaining doubts, then this should throw him off her trail for good. “It’s awful,” Bunny says softly. Her breath catches in her throat. This much, she doesn’t have to fake: it’s so bland of a statement that she almost chokes on it (at the very least, it’s on brand with that terrible video). It’s not that Bunny doesn’t find the war quite awful; just that she finds it awfully tedious. Sure, the violence had been somewhat exciting at first, but her amusement for even that has already worn thin, fading with the shine of all things new. The burden of responsibility, on the other hand, has not. Bunny chews on her lower lip, her eyes already dewy, but not quite for the reason he thinks. Still, she decides to give the poor man one last chance. “I don’t suppose you have a penny, Signore?” The interviewer does not. Bunny pouts. Ah, well. World peace it is.

In-Character Para Sample: (tw; suicide)

JAMES DEAN AND THE (FRENCH-)ITALIAN DREAM STARRING THREE-TIME IMAGINARY AWARD NOMINEE, BUNNY DU PONT*

Lately, Bunny’s been having the same dream.

She’s sitting in the second dining room of the Du Pont family villa (the one her parents normally reserve for their important guests), still clad in her silk pajamas and about to reach for a strawberry meringue, when suddenly, over the tiers of cupcakes and chocolate fountains and swan-shaped fruit centerpieces, she notices an incredibly calm (and almost certainly dead) young man in a red jacket and jeans slouched at the other end of the table.

The first time it happens, she almost topples forward into the custard pudding.

“Hello, Bunny,” says the American movie star. He looks as if he could have walked straight out of his poster last month at the Rivoli, and Bunny wrinkles her nose, as if by refusing to acknowledge his presence, he’ll get the message and walk straight back (he doesn’t, of course; to think she would have learned by now). He’s got some nerve to be smoking a cigarette in the comfort of her very own home, especially when he comes unwelcome and uninvited.

“Put that out, please,” Bunny sniffs. The please is ornamental—let it be known that Bunny Du Pont was raised with nothing less than impeccable manners—but she only deems it fit to address him once it becomes apparent that he isn’t going anywhere. Movie star or not, there are no exceptions. Bunny Du Pont doesn’t dream about boys, not even for James Dean. Quite the contrary, in fact; they dream about her. If there’s one place she can afford to be candid, it’s in the safety of her own conscience, or a lack thereof, and so a triumphant little smirk settles on her face, her cheeks going rosy with pride.

“So the dead do dream, then?” James muses. Bunny startles, unaware that she spoke out loud. Then she remembers that here, of all places, she doesn’t have to, and sneers at him sweetly.

“Well, you would know better than I, wouldn’t you?”

He shrugs, unperturbed. “So would Roger O’Hara, I reckon.”

The name of the mild-mannered boy who’d helped her through school wipes the sneer right off her face. Sweet, poor Roger O’Hara had been the smartest boy in her class. Then he’d gone back to America for school overseas and ended his life a month after. It didn’t take, they’d said, but what exactly didn’t take wasn’t altogether too clear. What was clear, thought Bunny, was that it was incredibly rude to imply that she was responsible for his mental state of being, just because she’d coerced him into becoming second-smartest—

“What’d he like to call you again? Jenny?”

It had been a running joke between the two of them: the Hare and the Bunny, Roger and—

“Jessica,” Bunny says, reluctant.

His annoyingly perfect brow furrows.

“Right,” James says finally, taking another puff of his cigarette. “See, that was after my time.”

“Oh, don’t be pretentious,” Bunny frowns. She throws a grape at his head to emphasize her disapproval, and yet can’t help admiring his (or would it be considered hers?) dedication to character. James—er, Not-James—is only herself, after all. How else would they be able to understand each other? He knows everything she does.

“And a little more,” Not-James tacks on helpfully. Bunny glares.

Why couldn’t it have been Donatella or Mademoiselle Bardot?

The fourth time he shows up, Bunny decides to try a different tactic.

“You know,” says Bunny, with far too casual of an air to be up to any good, “that car crash was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to you.”

She peeks at him over her cuticles. Not-James watches her, eyebrows raised, gaze steady. He doesn’t take the bait. Well, she decides petulantly, that’s all fine and good. She doesn’t need him to egg her on anymore: she’s already so far into her bratty little whirlwind of a tantrum that she might as well commit. Everybody only loves him because he’s tragically and woefully dead, anyway, so the sooner he knows the truth, the better.

“If you were alive,” Bunny says matter-of-factly, “you would have just grown old and become a washed-up has-been.”

Like the rest of us will, she leaves out.

Not-James stubs out his cigarette. Bunny stares at him defiantly, eyes glittering, her hands bunched into fists, and for a second, victory tastes sweeter than anything in front of her. But then he stalks over, crosses the table in less than five strides, and knocks her chair over so swiftly that she can’t help but let out a rather unladylike shriek, flailing helplessly as James Dean sweeps her off her feet. The world slides forward, her chair tips backward, and Bernadette Du Pont finds herself falling almost all too suddenly, sinking down through her family’s treasured antique ceramic tiles and into a rabbit hole of darkness with no end in sight.

“Self-pity ain’t a good look on you, Bunny,” the so-called man of her dreams calls down from above. “See you on the other side.”

When she sits up in bed, she’s shaking. Not out of fear—okay, maybe slightly out of fear, but mostly out of fury—and she pushes her sleeping mask off in a frantic sort of frenzy, well aware that if anyone could see her right now, they’d be laughing at the sight of such a tiny girl, trembling with more anger than her body could ever hope to hold.

See you on the other side, he’d said ominously. Bunny fumes. It’s insulting in every possible sense of the word, no matter whether he meant the world of the living, the dead, the awake, or the has-beens. Self-pity? Bah humbug! She’ll show him the other side. Bunny goes to sleep that night on ten milligrams of Niotal, and when she wakes up the morning after having slept like a baby, she preens in contentment at her own cleverness—that is, until she sits up. Not-James is lounging casually in her armchair, flipping through a newspaper printed from the day he died.

“Don’t you dare Adele me,” Bunny warns, cutting him off before he has the chance to ask who that is.

She flops back down onto her bed and stares at the ceiling.

Well, fudge.

LA FIN

*Note: no Bunnies were harmed in the making of this production.

Extras:

Character inspirations: Veruca Salt and Marisa Coulter are the big ones; also Florence Pugh’s young Amy March, Amma Crellin, Margaery Tyrell, and the Princess from The Swineherd

((I just want to say that I got more carried away with this than I expected!! So thank you for taking the time to go through this, especially if you made it to the end! :) ))

#accepted #accepted: bianca

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inventors-fair · 5 years ago

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Commentary: “New” Name

So let’s try this: Under the cut, I’ll do everything card by card and commentary for each. Every card will be included, and you’ll see whether or not they’re a runner-up in the name. We’ll talk about what’s working, what’s not, and how the card can be improved. Sounds good? Sounds good!

In general: It’s interesting how a majority of these cards opted for “cool mechanical aspect” over pure flavor, and I like it! Wording for most of these was on point, and there were a couple of tricky ones that you guys handled quite well. Don’t forget that if you need help rendering a card in text or with MSE. That’s what we’re here for!

@dabudder — New // (in) Town — [RUNNER UP]

I’m a huge fan of Aftermath/Split naming conventions being broken. You could do “Best (in) Show,” “Tongue (in) Cheek,” etc. I believe that first ability should read “Target creature...of turn. If you control no other creatures, put a +1/+1 counter on it.” The “Then” isn’t exactly necessary. I think Town is fine as well, and I appreciate how it works late-game. It’s an interesting flavor choice as well, and I don’t know if you need the text for it. You have a loner at first, and a community later, right? But I saw your original flavor text, and I’m not exactly sure what you were going for. Regardless, though, the gameplay is good enough.

EDIT: I completely forgot to give this card Aftermath when rendering it! My apologies, Budder. Everyone, uh, just ignore that.

@fractured-infinity — Rite of New Beginnings

I appreciate the simplicity of this design. As a sideboard piece, I don’t think it necessarily has to be rare? It’s narrow enough for uncommon in my opinion. I have questions about whether or not the first wording has any precedent, or if it should simply be “destroyed.” Land sacrifice makes the breadth of this card a little awkward. I’m enjoy how the recursion calls back to the “Rite” aspect, how it’s almost like a seasonal ritual, a renewal.

@gollumni — Ignite Anew

The flavor here is interesting. We should talk about proper modern wording, though, and how cards should be formatted. The first thing to keep in mind is to have clear sources and complete sentences: “Ignite Anew deals 3 damage to target creature. It can’t be blocked this turn.” And with a card like this, I highly encourage you to add flavor text. Even if it can be conveyed through a card like this (and I understand where it’s coming from), you should take up that space on the card and expand it into its world. Very few cards with that space can get away with it.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Unknown Newcomers

This is a fun little effect that prevents precombat ETB effects and hasty attacks, which I like. It is quite narrow, though, considering that they can play things during their second main phase. In terms of wording, I think you can change “at least one” with “a” and get the same effect. I feel that the flavor text is telling a story in medias res, which is fine, but there’s not a whole lot to resonate with it. I feel that a broader method of storytelling would make it more effective; it’s still entertaining, though.

@illharg-the-rave-boar — New Friends

I was wracking my brain the other night, and I’m just wondering what sort of deck would need this card, and I’m not sure. In order for the card to be effective, you’ll need a couple creatures on the battlefield, and a couple creatures in your hand - and by the time you get to nine mana, shouldn’t you have a more or less empty hand? If you’re trying to get around counterspells for your creatures, what’s to prevent your opponent having a spell for this card as well? Instant speed is good, and makes me think about Dramatic Entrance, but with this I’d rather be playing something like Through the Breach or a similar effect. It’s just too big at a point in the game where the effect is almost negated by how far ahead you should be already.

@mistershinyobject — Embrace the New

Oh how I would have loved for this to be an enchantment. This, I believe, is a card where the “Then” clause should follow and be one sentence. What a build-around-me card. As a sorcery, it doesn’t really feel great to play because of how easily it could be responded to to negate the effect. An enchantment with the breakthrough counter being an ETB could make for a buildup long-term effect that I think this card is going for without the one-or-nothing potential failure. Good ability in theory, but I’d feel terrible about a four-mana cantrip in practice.

@misterstingyjack — Renewed Bond

Actually, behind the scenes, this inspired some designs with having Character Pair Decks, with two planeswalkers that share a kind of bond and play with each other. So there’s that! in terms of the card, it’s a decent uncommon in a post-WAR world, although it is rather narrow. Because of the “this way,” I believe that the if-clause should make this one large paragraph. It feels odd, as in-pie and in-flavor as it is, to have damage prevention on a Gruul card at first. But I mean, I get it, it makes sense. It’s unfortunate that you have to control two planeswalkers for this to work. I imagine if WotC made this card it would have to be a rare because of the reference. Then again, you’re the one bringing Chandra and Nissa together and not them, so who am I to talk.

@nine-effing-hells — A New Road Beckons

There’s a lot of nice stuff happening with this card and a lot that can be improved upon. As a mythic, what is this doing that would necessarily warrant that rarity? Getting lands is powerful, but not so much that it would warrant that much warning. This isn’t the green mythic I’d like to see in my pool. As a rare, I’d be much more receptive. I do enjoy how synergistic things look here. Why does III have you put the cards down from your hand? How many lands are going to be in your hand at that time, and what is the purpose of that effect? Two wording things: firstly, you don’t need that reminder text on the III ability; secondly, because a card you own can’t be put into a graveyard that’s not yours, you can say “your graveyard” instead of “a.” I believe that’s proper.

@partytimesdeluxe — Begin Anew — [RUNNER UP]

I used to play a Brago deck, you know! And it was powerful. And it had a lot of infinite combos. And it was a pain in the butt. This card? This card would have made a LOT of infinite combos happen a lot easier. Now, it’s a runner-up because of the idea and because Boon turned me onto it. I’m realizing now that it should at the very least be a rare, and hoo boy there’s the chance IMO that this could break UW in commander. For a powerful card, you pushed the envelope, and that’s commendable. In limited, this card would be quite interesting.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Patron of New Zendikar

At eight mana, this card in limited says “you get a bomb and draw no lands for the rest of the game.” And that’s a little bit of an issue. It’s a 16/16 all upside almost at a minimum. It’s easily blinkable, and massive in every regard. In short, good gracious, this card is just a little too powerful in anything you’d want to play it in. The ideas are all sound, mind, but man, this card would be an auto-include. Still, nothing like a giant thing to put into perspective how crazy card effect combinations can be.

@shakeszx — New Ideas

Again, we highly recommend adding flavor text, to add depth to the world and space to the card. I’d like to know more about where this character is, where things are taking place, all that good stuff. As-is, the strength of this card feels undermined. Additionally, a three-mana instant that can draw you four cards and discard one for UUR? I don’t like calling “busted,” but that’s a bit of a busted effect. It’s wording in an interesting way, though, and I’m wondering what else can be used with doubling effects in this capacity.

@teaxch — New Tricks — [RUNNER UP]

Again, Boon turned me onto this card. It’s super flavorfully cute. At first I misread this like Demonic Pact, but nope! And I liked it a lot more. And I realized that this card should be at least four mana. Kenrith comes to mind, and goodness gracious this is an equally almost-mythic effect. It’s just a fun card with a bunch of goodness attached, but I would cost it a lot less aggressively to prevent it from taking over games.

@tmstage — On Wings of the New Dawn

Just for wording’s sake, I think there should be a second line instead of an “if” clause: “As long as you control an Angel, creatures you control have first strike.” I don’t know how constructed formats would take to this card, if it alone would make mono-white viable. It’s a major and massive effect! If it was +2/+1, it might be a little more balanced. I’m worried right now about it potentially warping the environments in which it’d be present. But the feeling that you were going for in flavor text and flavor in general is pretty awesome, so there’s that!

@top-hat-von-rattle-bones — New // Known

I’m a little confused as to what your naming intentions were. New to Known? It’s a concept but not a common phrase like “rags to riches” or the like. Conceptually, I think this card would play well, and there’s not much else to say there. The self-exile on Aftermath works well. Don’t forget to ctrl+R to get reminder text in MSE. For “New,” I believe it should be two separate lines like in Opt. For “Known,” “graveyard” needs to be uncapitalized and it needs to target a card in your graveyard, I believe. Should it say “another” since it can target itself? That’s a question for the ages.

VasNirada — Festival of the New Dawn

I was warming up to this card, but the fact that you have to leave the cards in exile for seven turns feels rough, aligned with the fact that you have to exile your hand upon entering. I’d rather be playing something like Outpost Siege which lets me have an option and doesn’t make me exile my hand, or Light up the Stage which gives me another turn to play it. I think the fact that I wanted to love it makes up for it somewhat, right? Let’s talk about wording. Here’s how I believe each line should be edited:

“When ~ enters the battlefield, exile all cards from your hand. // At the beginning of your upkeep, exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn. // At the beginning of your end step, if there are seven or more cards exiled with ~, sacrifice it and return all cards exiled with it to their owner’s hand.”

How do you guys like this method of commentary? Is it too long, too much? Any comments or critiques are welcome! New contest tomorrow, so be prepared, and thank you for all your entries.

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #contest #entries #name with new #commentary #inventor's fair #question

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whisperingmagick · 5 years ago

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Special Announcement + Readings!

I have a little bit over 200 followers now, but I decided it would be better late than never to post this! Thank you all so much for the follows! I know I’m not always active on here, but please know that it does make me smile each time I see a notification informing me that I’ve gained a new follower! :) In celebration for this, I’ve decided to open up all of my readings and make them free for the rest of the year. I know that’s a huge commitment, but I want to do better on here and become more active and I think this would be the best way to do it! Plus I want to do my part during these troubled times and help people the best I can. Below, I will give you all of the details for each reading!

As mentioned above ALL readings below are free. However, I do have one requirement for those who participate. I am really trying to get my name out there - that’s another reason why I’m opening these up - so I would really, really appreciate it if you could possibly leave a review in my asks afterwards. You don’t have to get too personal or anything, I definitely respect your privacy, but that would make my day. :) You are also welcomed to leave me a tip if you’d like. Definitely not required, but you can find my paypal right here.

Pendulum - Free! Want just a quick and simple yes or no for your question? Feel free to ask for a pendulum reading!

1 Card Spread - $1 USD Free! The one card spread is very useful should you need a quick and simple answer. Oftentimes people may use a one card reading for a simple yes or no question or if they would like, I can also give them a paragraph of general advice that is related to their question. It’s a very flexible spread!

2 Card Spread - $2 USD. Free! A two card spread isn’t so much different than a one card spread. However, two card spreads - at least in my opinion - are excellent spreads to use regarding relationships. The two cards can represent you and your lover/crush/soulmate and help you answer certain questions in that area of your life. Two card spreads also can give general advice should you be stuck on choosing between two things and unsure of what you should decide.

3 Card Spread - $3 USD. Free! A lot of times, three card spreads symbolize your Past, Present, and Future. Out of all of the spreads here, this spread is the greatest spread to use if you simply want an outlook on your life. How far you’ve come, what you can improve in the present time, and what you can expect in the future.

4 Card Spread. $4 USD. Free! My four card spread is very useful if you need in depth advice about a certain matter or if you simply an in depth general outlook on your life. Please keep in mind that I am not a doctor and therefore cannot give medical advice - but anything else on your mind I will certainly answer to my best ability! Because this is my most expensive spread - you can expect a paragraph dedicated to each card giving you information and my own personal interpretation of what I believe the card is telling you.

Custom Tarot Spread. Free! Have you ever come across a spread that looked really cool to you and made you wish you could have a reading based around it? Well, I’m now offering an option where YOU can pick the spread you would like me to do.

Aura and Energy Readings. $4 USD. Free! My aura and energy readings go together. It’s a reading for those who are curious of what sort of energy they emit and what colors stand out the brightest to them. I will explain in detail of what these colors mean in your case and how your energy feels to me. There will also be an option to request if you’d like me to write it down on a document so saving it will be easier for you!

Astral Body Readings. Free! My Astral Body Readings mainly focus on what I see when I travel through Astral to you. It's a bit of a process, but honestly it's one of my favorite readings to do. When I visit you - I'll be writing down how your astral body appears to me - it could be some sort of creature - or it may look humanoid It just depends on the person. I'll also be tuning into your energy signature and a lot of times I'll write down what I believe your strengths are and also your weaknesses and areas you may want to consider working on. It's a fairly detailed reading and most of the time it takes me a day to complete one person, so I may only be able to accept a few people at once for this one! For this reading, each person will get a personalized document sent to them.

If you have any questions for any of these readings, feel free to ask me! Please note that you can request a permanent document for any reading above if you’d like. I’ll be doing the readings through messages privately, but if you’d like yours to be public and are cool with it - feel free to tell me!

#200 followers #thank you so much #witchy blog #witchblr #witch community #free readings #occult #magick #tarot readings #divination #aura readings #energy readings #astral readings #magic #special event #pagan #wicca

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nshah2 · 5 years ago

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First Part of Story Lolz: The first step into the cavern isn’t that dark. People believe it is but they’re just intimidated by the dark green moss that grows around it along with the spiky vines. Marie Jane? The Marie who likes to switch between Mary because it makes her feel chic? Oh she was just flabbergasted to the even proposition of stepping one Louis Vuitton, red high-heel in there. Even so, she was curious about the bright side of the cavern, as much of an oxymoron of that statement is. Everyone is.

Alex Lyres, skinny jeans and long sleeves, brown skin or hairy arms, one of the two, that is unsuspecting of outside analyzing, and depressed green eyes. They fell silent in front of the cavern, walked in slowly in a trance of the great things that awaited, pushing away the wispy spider webs and teething bats. I hope she doesn’t get lost.

Kamila Civet, she ran. She ran straight in, we hardly saw her anymore. She’s addicted to the cavern, she likes to run through all of it. She can’t handle the darkness though, it pushes her out with sharp black nails, sometimes it only used two, sometimes it used all.

The cavern does terrible things, it made me lose what was alread lost.

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Chapter 1:

A tip of a black word that could have meant to be blue grazes me everytime I step out of my house. Ten thousand words clutter the pages of others' mother tongues, so you can imagine the scars that yielded me weak to the eye of the majority. Fading away into the deepest shadow of Oaktown High seemed to cloak me with the power of moving through the halls without being at a sword's end, or at least at one I could see. I had grown comfortable with this lifestyle because it’s all I knew along with the wrappers of mistakes in my closet. But please do not play the chorus of slow violin notes because I am not my paragraph, I am my essay.

I couldn’t say the same about Mary Jane.

Gaggles of laughter follow her tall figure, swaying with her long blonde hair. Skinny arms wrapped around the shoulders of her companions whose skin is as unblemished as their reputation. Longing stares from the girls and boys who smile for status. An idolized individual that excelled at whatever you did not. “Okay, okay, listen!” Samia Davenport tries to reason, “Ignore the fact he’s a ginger. He’s cute.” Mary squeezes Samia’s face and squeals, “My little babushka is growing up. She likes men who aren’t on reality T.V too!” Samia swats her arm away, trying not to laugh. “Oh shut up, don’t deny that Dave Hansen is absolutely my soulmate.” Dave Hansen? Interesting, stupid choice. The boy who spread a rumor about you being homeless in eighth grade? The boy who chopped your hair off in ninth! The boy who smirks and everything feels like a blissful high, a serenity of happiness flooding through your brain. Too bad he likes Maya, who dismissed half of his heart with a slur that demolished him into succumbing to a camp which told him, be Christian, not you.

They’re idiots for craving such expensive baggage because they know they can’t have it, though I can’t fault them. I’ve -however- learned to push my credit card back into my pocket and tame my legs to walk out of the store.

Mary nods with disinterest as she eyes Ms. Alejandras classroom. “Wait up, okay?” She grinned at Samia and rushed in the door. “Ms! Ms. Alehandra, I was wondering if I could obtain some extra credit?”

“Mary, just turn in your missing assignments . I’ll give you 50% for each.”

“I lost all the papers.”

“I can print new ones.”

I watch the exchange with dancing pupils, careful to not let my shadow get into the light. Mary has fists furrowed into small pockets with inching frustration poking out of them.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Tapping on the linoleum floor, 1, 2, 3, 4…

“It’s uneven. It has to be 0-5, 5-10, 15-20. Right now if I do an extra credit assignment it’ll finally be 0-5.”

“Does it have to be in 5s?”

“More satisfying in 5s ma’am.”

Ms. Alejandra adjusts her long brown pencil skirt and touches Mary’s shoulder. “Read a book after you complete your missing assignments and then talk to Dr. Vienna.”

Mary sighs, she nods a quiet thank you and walks away with red fists and a crippling smile. “Did you get the extra credit?” Samia asks. Mary laughs , “No, that idiot was like ‘oh just talk to Dr. Vienna after you do it. Like oh cause he always helps, blah, blah.”

Dr. Vienna, the man who thought if you met him or his staff every night at 8:00 pm to get your daily fix of yellow, blue, pink, or green you could be cured from your worries. I mean, he’s not wrong. But yellow turns to blue and blue to pink and pink to green and then thousands of green clutter a controlled mind.

“What did you say?” Samia asks.

“I was just like ‘Yeah, sure, whatever haha.”

“I would have just cleaned her room right then and there, just ignore her and start cleaning.”

“Oh, if only.”

A familiar buzz sounds through the halls. A calling for lost luggage, they want to keep alive. Too bad our owners aren’t coming to pick us up any time soon. Airport security was a hassle enough the first time.

Most of us groan and walk to the assigned seats and watch the numbers. Dr. Vienna sits with the ones who watch too carefully. “Don’t you wish you were like them?” Says the blonde girl next to me, tapping my shoulder. “No Kamila, I don’t.” She rolls her eyes, “Well then you're crazy, imagine how easy it is for them. I can’t believe some of these girls came voluntarily. It’s like being Albert Einstein and then going to a camp that teaches you to be dumb.” Kamila eyes her cheesy potato cubes and boiled egg on veggies. She stuffs all of it in her pocket, one egg slice, one cube, one veggie at a time. Staring, being mesmerized by the girls who grasp control over uncontrollable behaviors. I want to tap her shoulder like she did to me but I know she’s so much more cluttered than me, she would trip over all her the mess in her brain to think that’s pretty. Mary walks to our table with her plate of food, a lunch of one cookie, one apple, two pieces of lean fish, a salad, and a baked potato. “Just be balanced.” Mary said, smiling shiny white teeth. “Do you really want to go into the cavern just to look like that? They’re miserable.” Kamila glared back, “Oh please Mary. All 5’8 of you would want to sit there and look like that. Everyone does.” Mary sits down, “Of course everyone does. But it’s not worth it. Besides, the cavern is so gross and if you go the wrong way you are done forever. You don’t even get to be them. “

Kamila scowled in disgust, “Ugh you know nothing! I already did, I got lost too but I’m going to go back and find my way in.” Mary laughed, “Kamila, you're going to go in there and never get out. You're going to want to keep going. But you won’t be able to. It’s like a cigarette, you’ll be addicted.”

“What’s the cavern?” I popped in. They looked at me with shock.

“You don’t know what the cavern is? It’s literally why almost everyone is in here. What are you in for then?”

“My parents got sick of having a kid who doesn’t know how to love them.” My flat response. It didn’t even feel like I spoke, I just opened my mouth and the words fell into place. The ones I was hoping would never come out.

“Oh.” They said in unison, eyes wary of the girl they once thought was innocent. Would it be better if I had gone into the cavern first? Got addicted to it, whatever ‘it’ may be.” Uneasily Mary explained, “If you haven’t gone into the cavern, it’s best you only know it by its code name. It’s not actually a cavern.”

Kamila joined in, “I came in here for other reasons too, then I learned about it and started. You need something to distract you here. I mean but if you haven’t started it, find something else.”

“Just tell me what it is.”

They both looked at eachother, they seemed indecisive. Should we tell her? I could practically hear the words they looked at each other with. It couldn’t be that problematic, could it? “I’m sure I’ve heard of worse.” They both shook their heads. “It’s not that you haven’t.”

Kamila tried to explain.

“It’s just that you can’t try it once and be done. If you try it, you're done for. It’s not murder obviously, it’s...it’s like everything bad on this world is labeled in colors. Blue for normal, green for normal but you're slipping, orange for hey this is getting bad, and red for you messed up. The cavern pushes you to orange right? But then you like it so you keep going and slip down to red. Then it's like...it takes all of it’s rocks and barricades you with them. The oxygen is slowly slipping away, you know you will die. But in your mind that's worth it so you either die or someone pulls you out. Hardly ever does anyone pull you out though.”

Chapter 2:

All week I had been curious to what the cavern was, jumping at any chance to pull the answer out of unsuspecting victims. Yet they always hushed me and pointed at a staff member or harshly whispered something along the lines of “if you don’t know you don’t need to. I shouldn’t be talking about this here.” Yet in every location I could find with every set of people available, the answer was always the same. Actually that's a false statement, as time went on the answers became more general and specific at the same time. The cavern was so wide, it had such an in depth storyline but from physical appearances it was normal and forgettable. The cavern came off as a stranger to me, a human I did not know who has a story that would make me cry if I read it.

“Mama used to say that my eyes were a gift from the desert, that they were a sandy brown drought. “

That’s cute.” Commented Kamila. “My Mom used to call me a little bird. Since my legs used to be really skinny and I liked to wear my halloween costume wings like almost every day.”

“Did I say that out loud?” I ask.

“Yeah, you do that a lot, ponder quietly with a mysterious look on your face and then randomly drop in the crumble of words in your head.”

“Oh.”

I’m pretty sure Mom used to say something like that. That my eyes seemed to get lost in the colourful realm, speechless to the greenery of new ideas and scenarios. I guess the cavern was a new scenario. I had spent two years at Oakwood, never once did the word cavern actually mean anything to me than the base definition. I suspected it was a hangout for teens to maybe drink or smoke, that’s why they called it addicting. But Mom also used to say “Your never far off from the truth once you make an assumption, your penny isn’t in the fairy’s hand but it’s going down the well, it’s getting closer.” It could be about smoking or drinking, but then they would have used another example to compare it to. Reverse psychology? No, in the span of a few seconds they wouldn’t have been intellectual enough to corroborate such an intricate plan, unless they did... But they aren’t exactly top of the chain in terms of intelligence.

No, they certainly weren’t. One blank page could hold wiser knowledge than their brains could ever learn in their lifetime. Maybe the way they mindlessly transferred their thoughts onto a piece of a paper got them an A, but they have no street smarts. A ratio that didn’t match Mary's agenda would throw her off her high horse into the dirt. If Kamila spoke a word everyone didn’t agree with she would resort back to the deep depths of her mind, not caring about the cobwebs and dirty floor. Everyone in this school is like this, stubborn, selfish brats who didn’t realise that sticking your nose in a book doesn’t make you a genius. It makes you an average person who gets a teacher's signature on her report card with a happy face sticker. Wow, good on you, a happy face, that’s going to get you through life? A happy face?

“Little Madam, the one in the blue dress? Oh where is she, is she sticking out because of her oh so obvious dress? Or the fact that she isn’t hearing anything I’m saying?”

Everyone laughs with pasted smiles for an objective. Everyone knows Ms. Alejandra picks favorites. It’s all objective. Even her damn joke is objective, a power move, calling everyone out and making them laugh about it. Keep laughing, I’m not a clone.

Definitely not a clone of her favorites right now.

“Yes, Ma’am?” I speak, keeping my dignity upheld.

She sighs with annoyance, “Can you tell me what I was just explaining about chain rules?”

Chain rules, chain rules, chain rules...She must have just been covering it today, that fatuous fool Kamila was correct. The cavern was good for distracting you.

“I’m not sure.” I say, my voice felt like a particularly bad day on the ground near the Pacific Ocean in the Philippines.

Another sigh, this time with actual disappointed eyes. Did she expect me to know the complications of a couple of Xs and numbers labeled under-

“The derivative of f(g(x)) . g’(x) will always be f'(g(x))⋅g'(x).”

Everyone turned around to the raised hand and straight face of Alex Lyres. A matty mess of short, dirty blonde hair, bangs almost cocealing the never turned off glare in her green eyes. Her limbs were long and skinny and danced in the wind every Friday where administrators let her be `recreational”.

Alex Lyres who sits at the table with Dr. Vienna every day and goes to him personally for three green ones every night. She speaks seldom but when she does her words dive into your mind and almost as quickly as they come in, evaporate. She would know about the cavern, she was at the table Kamila admired specifically because people who were there went in the cavern. Or should I say, went in too deep. But I’d have to rephrase my wording into a more casual conversation. You don’t just light a candle in a monster accompanied by darkness, you wait for the perfect time.

Tick, Tock.

One-Forty. Two-a clock.

The bell dings its warning signs and Alex lifts her legs off the seat. In quick movements she makes her way to her bedroom. The teacher gives her that stern ‘what do you think you're doing’ look and she starts to slow down, hanging her head a little lower.

“Alex! Hey!”

She looks around, uncomfortable that her name has been brought into the spotlight. Don’t worry Alex, give me the answers and the switch gets clicked off.

It gives her a chance though, a chance to slide her feet across the marble floor, static building in her soft teddy bear socks.

“Alex, hey can I ask you something?”

“Sure, um…?”

I disregard her blank stare, notioning me to give out my name. My name has never been uttered in the walls of this wretched place and it never will. I won’t give it that power.

“How do you do it?”

It’s like her facial features immediately morphed into a sweaty recognition about what I’m about to say.

“How do I do what?”

“Y’know…” I push, “How do you do the...cavern?”

She looks at me for a couple of seconds before shaking her head and storming away. I chase after her which isn’t hard because she speeds with caution. Why? We aren’t allowed to run in the halls but we can speed walk. She’s not going to get in trouble for speed walking.

“Yeah, I am.”

“I said that aloud?” I really need to stop doing that.

“No, I can just see it in your face. You're confused on why I look so cautious. Yeah, I will get in trouble if I’m going ‘above average speed’ or whatever.”

My hand instinctively goes to grab my chin, I pause indecisively. It’s extra but it’s what you're supposed to do when you're confused. “Why?”

“Why do you think?” She snaps.

“I don’t know, why are you specific?”

“Not just me, everyone else in the cavern.”

My mind jumps back to the main objective and I robotically move myself into a more sympathetic position. Arms crossed with pouty eyes, “Why wouldn’t they let you run just because you’ve been in the cavern?”

“Again, why do you think?”

“I don’t know?”

She looks at me up and down with quizzing eyes, her disbelief is obvious. I’m not sure what I did wrong, I guess I really need more information.

Her eyes widened with shock, “Oh my god, are you that one girl who's trying to find the cavern? Oh, my friends told me you would try to find me, just forget about it!”

I don’t care about much at all. The world is a blank page I’d like to keep clean, showing interesting written words I can not erase. If I try, the eraser marks will clutter what could have been a precise story of nothing. If I don’t care, nothing happens which is easier than risking your life for a second of happiness that will wash away. Yet, now, there are no warm arms to welcome me into a hug. No one is waiting for the three special words from me anymore. My desire from others has faded away to a past sentence no one will ever flip a page back to again. No one wants me, I have no purpose. It would make the three years pass a little bit faster, maybe once I’m out I can prove I am still deserving of those arms.

I’m not playing by a script anymore, the stage has disappeared. Emotions come rushing back as the dam has broken with that one phrase. I can’t forget about it, I can’t be denied again. Just give me something to latch onto, please.

My voice cracks and eyes water, alien sobs escape my cracked lips. Alex watches as I fall to the ground. I can’t understand why I’m crying. I don’t know what’s going on. I just know that I still feel no matter how much I want to deny. Suddenly I feel those warm arms I’ve been longing for since the first day I stepped foot into Oakwood. Alex cloaks me in kindness while I stare blankly at the dizzy walls. “Are you okay?” Alex asks.

“No.” I reply.

Alex sighs and pulls me up, “I...do you consider yourself-like...doomed? Do you think of yourself as a time bomb?”

“No, that’s idiotic.”

She looks at me with eyes that are confused, “When you get out of here, you have hope?”

I’m about to say yes, yes of course I do. I don’t even deserve to be here, I didn’t do anything. I’m fine, I-

The strong glass walls reinforced with thick creamy clay blocks show me a reflection of a stranger. I can’t speak for her.

“I don’t know.”

“Ok.”

Alex starts walking down the hall so I follow, feeling sheepish and insecure. What just happened? Her dorm room is void of decoration and sound, an echoless big room.

She motions for me to go in, so I do.

“You want to know what the cavern is?”

“Yes, obviously.”

“Ok, choose.”

She lays out three items on her bed, “Choose one.”

There is a toothbrush, a jug, and a box with cloth inside.

“How did you get this all? The toothbrush isn’t used right?”

“On my rare free days, I collect what I can.”

“You hid this? I’ve heard of smuggling phones, but a humongous jug?”

“You’d be surprised what siblings can smuggle in for you when they're giving you ‘clothes’?”

I look at the random items, “What is the point of these? What are you trying to prove, just tell me!”

She looks at me with annoyance, “Do you want to do this my way or get someone else's help. Trust me, if you really want to know you're going to do it my way. No one is as sadistic as I am to help you.”

Chapter 3:

I took the toothbrush, unsure of the faith that comes with it. I already have one so it just lies in my cabinet drawer, waiting for it’s mysterious day to arrive. I’m not sure really what or how this will lead me to the cavern. I’ve been trying it out though, in every situation I can’t really find a way to use it. So, again, my only choice is to hint a subtle lie, a little dancing shadow among the white imperial clouds. I hinder my speed from each class so Kamila’s wistful, disorganized eyes can zero in on me. Her being, well her, she’s obviously going to ‘casually’ speed up to me so she can initiate a conversation about her busy schedule. I’ll listen, or at least pretend to, while she goes on about being so tired her eyes nearly popped out from studying so she couldn’t get that one math page done and can she copy mine?

That’s boring and I don’t have time though.

“Hey! Were you waiting up for me?” Kamila asks, tapping my shoulder.

“You can copy my math page Kamila.” I say dryly, she's not the only one who's tired from studying.

“Excuse me?” She asks, tone offended. She walks in front of me and places her hands on her hips. “Why would you think I need that?”

“Why else would you be talking to me?” I ask, did I misread why she always sped up to me in the hallways? I’m not in any clubs, I don’t think I can help her with advice for that.

“What the hell do you mean? ‘Cause you're my friend?” Her structure relaxes a little bit, seeing my face soften into a concerned look. I wrinkled my nose a little more so I look less offensive and more defensive. ‘Slouch a bit, look down. She’s mad.’ I think to myself. It’s working.

Then the words set in and I stop for a second. The definition of a friend is a person you have a bond of mutual affection with.

“‘I’m not affectionate towards you.” I say.

Kamila looks at me with that studying eyes of hers, “Yeah, so?”

“Then we aren’t friends.”

“Yeah, but-”

“There is no “but”, that’s the exact definition of friend.”

She sighs with frustration, “Do you like garlic bread?”

“What does that have to do with-”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

She pulls out a dictionary from her satchel, “The definition of like is to have love, respect, and admiration for something. Tell me, do you admire garlic bread?”

“To be honest, food is quite neutral as a whole to me-”

Her face looked tired and annoyed so I cut it off.

“No, I don’t admire garlic bread.”

Her face transforms from drowsy monday to a bright sunday morning, “Exactly!” With that, she strided off with her red sneakers bouncing off the marble floor through the endless hallways. I never got to ask her about the toothbrush.

Why are people so complicated? I don’t understand any of them. Why doesn’t anyone want anything from me here?

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onionjulius · 6 years ago

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bidonica replied to your post “Thanks to all you guys’ help with the Tarot of Ice & Fire thing, I’m...”

uuuhhh those are 100% Sansa traits in the Queen of cups *wrings hands* maybe some historical Targaryen might fit? But I'm shit at remembering those

IKR? I feel there are a lot of cards that fit Sansa at some point in her story. Eight of Swords for her captivity in KL, Six of Swords for Alayne (escaping the PW), Nine of Swords right after Ned dies.

Right now I have Sansa as the Star, which I’ve seen people like in other tarot decks.

As the Star follows the Tower card in the Tarot, it comes as a welcome reprieve after a period of destruction and turmoil. You have endured many challenges and stripped yourself bare of any limiting beliefs that have previously held you back. You are realising your core essence, who you are beneath all the layers. No matter what life throws your way, you know that you are always connected to the Divine and pure loving energy. You hold a new sense of self, a new appreciation for the core of your Being.

The Star brings renewed hope and faith, and a sense that you are truly blessed by the Universe. You are entering a peaceful, loving phase in your life, filled with calm energy, mental stability and more in-depth understanding of both yourself and others around you. This is a time of significant personal growth and development as you are now ready to receive the many blessings of the Universe.

With the Star card, anything is possible and the magic is flowing around you. Your heart is full of hope, and your soul is being uplifted to the highest of highs as you realise that your dreams really can come true. Allow yourself to dream, to aspire, to elevate in any way possible so you can reach the stars. They are right here waiting for you.

You may also want to find or rediscover a sense of meaning, inspiration, or purpose in your life. You are making some significant changes in your life, transforming yourself from the old you to the new you and, in doing so, you are bringing about a fresh perspective: “Out with the old and in with the new!” You are choosing the highest version of yourself. This is a profound spiritual journey that will bring greater meaning and purpose into your life and will renew your inner energy. Strip back any limiting beliefs, facades, or deceptions, and live in your authentic nature. Be open to new ideas and growth, and listen to the still voice within.

The Star also suggests a generous spirit. You want to give or share your wealth with others to help transform their lives. Yours is an open heart, and you now want to give back the blessings you received so that others may benefit.

This also reminded me of Bran’s line, “I’m not broken either.” But it fits maybe with Sansa feeling stronger in the walls of her snow Winterfell.

Here’s some paragraphs on Queen of Cups:

The Queen of Cups is nurturing, caring, compassionate and sensitive. When you see the Queen of Cups in a Tarot reading, you are embodying the ‘nurturing mother’ energy. You support others by listening with your heart, being compassionate, and caring for them deeply. You are empathic and can sense the needs of others easily by tuning in to your intuition. And you hold the space for others to express their emotions and be their truest, most authentic versions of themselves. You have mastered this in such a way that, even though you hold space for emotional expression, you don’t take on other people’s energy or emotional issues because you are well-grounded emotionally yourself and know where to create a healthy separation.

The Queen of Cups suggests that you are highly intuitive, creative, and in flow with the energies around you. In your interactions with others, you can easily read other people and get a sense of how to communicate effectively so that you both feel heard and understood. Others may come to you to confide in you or talk about their personal issues relating to relationships, emotions and feelings, because they trust you and know that you always have the right solution. You can easily tune in to what others are feeling and can help them make sense of it in a sensitive and compassionate manner. You may be a healer, counsellor or intuitive coach; or maybe just a very good friend. You see the Divine in everyone you meet.

In your creative projects and endeavors, you ‘feel’ your way into them, trusting your heart and your inner guidance system to lead you in the right direction. You know when something feels ‘off’ and you pay attention to this, even if it doesn’t make rational sense. You may also be in tune with the cycles of the moon and nature in general, using these cycles to manifest your goals and live your dreams.

When the Queen of Cups appears in a Tarot reading, you are being asked to trust your intuition and pay attention to your feelings and emotions. Lead with your heart, and not your head. Be open to receive the intuitive messages that are flowing to you, be it through your dreams, meditation or visualization. And ‘feel the feels’, even if those feelings are initially difficult or challenging to deal with; you are stronger than you realise.

Does one feel more like Sansa than the other? Is one more of a complete take?

#replies #bidonica #solicitations from the peanut gallery #fandom funs #tarot of ice and fire #sansa stark

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hwan-g · 2 years ago

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AHHHHHHH I’M SCREAMING AND CRYING AND THEY’RE BOTH HAPPENING SIMULTANEOUSLY, MARI. You need to know this!

You just made me so excited, you’ve no idea. I can’t wait to fall back into my Ravenclaw chapter and put a thousand more little Easter eggs and character traits on the characters. I really hope I do justice to every House, and I’m definitely pushing myself creatively while having an absolute blast! I’m gonna reply to this comment from the bottom up, because I have a lot to say back. I apologize in advance omg—

The potion. Oh my, I’m just so sorry to anyone that thought I’d be normal about Slytherin Minho and his scheming. Cause I’m not. I will never be. I have a lot building up to his chapter, and I’m saying this right now—that ending will be a loooong ride. Who expects Minho to not have an extensive list on why he does what he does and why he is the way he is? No one, I think. That man is one calculative devil.

I laughed at the ‘hum of fall’ yelling. I don’t know why. Don’t ask. I just—I love you. Thank you for noticing my desperate attempts at sounding poetic about nature. It’s really all thanks to my experience writing HP fics on AO3 since I was fifteen years old. In no level have I ever been normal about this, Mari. I’ll take you up on that marathon ANY TIME. I do them myself every week. Oh, and that Quidditch talk? I had no idea what I was doing half the time. I’ve genuinely never written an action scene like that, and I thought I’d fucked it up at least a dozen times. You eased my mind saying that, so thank you so freaking much. 🤍

The MC has many layers to her. She’s one of those people that adapt their personality to whomever they’re hanging out with, yk what I mean? We’ll get to explore more of her on the second chapter, with a certain study buddy that rhymes with whipped top-of-his-class tea loving tarot card reader. Ugh, can’t wait for you to meet him, I’m writing him for the girlies that get it! Speaking of getting it—

Changbin. I didn’t do what needed to be done this chapter, but I’m making it all up in the Ravenclaw one, I promise. After my recent obsession with a certain Vice, Bin has transformed himself into an important member of the HP gang. What you said about him is all canon; he’s a capable person, an excellent Quidditch player, and a loyal friend. The glue that holds everyone together, seeing as he connects the Ravenclaws to the Gryffindors and later on the Hufflepuffs as well (with some help from the MC.) This is why I chose to make him an Auror, someone who’s trustworthy and both physically and mentally capable of taking on all sorts of wizards and dark situations. We haven’t seen the last of him, I guarantee that.

Because I knew Gryffindor is your house, I made sure to not let you down! I really hope I did a good job, and I’m so glad you said you had fun reading this. What else could Chan be except the captain of the team and royalty of the Common Room? I mean the guy screams go-getter with an ego complex that’s loyal to one woman only. I had to. I just had to.

Thank you for going into depth with this, Binmari. I’m so glad to call you my friend, and I WILL, in return, leave an extra long paragraph on chapter two of roses. (I am now convinced my essay on chapter one was lost. Alas, it cannot be recreated but I shall try my best 💪🏻) LOVE YOU!!

DAWN TO FLIGHT 🚂 chan & changbin.

part one/four of the skz go to hogwarts! series.

MOODBOARD | PLAYLIST

pair. quidditch captain! chan x fem! reader (+ changbin, minho) | genre. romance, slight angst, smut | warnings. profanity, food, possessiveness, unprotected sex, dirty talk, manipulation, brief mentions of dark magic | word count. 8.6k

synopsis. history will include him in its thickest books. but you? if you stay with him, you’ll be nothing but a mention, an afterthought. ‘she was there, but he was bigger than life,’ and it’ll be true, but it will all be for him, and it wasn’t jealousy or envy—

“Alright everyone, gather up!”

A crisp autumn morning, trees naked of leaves, mountains in the process of preparing for winter, and the Great Lake, its vast deepness, all the creatures concealed beneath the freezing waters—it was Quidditch time. The first practice of the season.

And Chan’s last year as the captain of the Gryffindor team.

Laughs echoed in the oval pitch, five-hundred feet long and one-hundred and eighty feet wide, with the tall spectator towers, four colors to them but switching down to two every match, to signify the playing squads. Red jerseys and flowing capes, helmets, gloves, and brooms of every kind looked back at the leader, ready for some flying action after a long summer break away from Hogwarts. The castle in question appeared grand as ever from afar, its stone walls and top peaks standing proudly, indicating centuries of magic and wizards alike.

“Quit your yapping!” Changbin barked, coming to stand next to his best friend. The murmurs of the crowd seized immediately. “Go ahead, captain,” he smiled brightly at Chan.

Chan smirked, nodding at him. “Thanks for that,” he turned to address his teammates. “Welcome to another year of Quidditch. As you can see, one of our Chasers, as well as our only Keeper have graduated, leaving us no choice but to hold trials for new members. I took it upon myself, Bin here lending me a hand on picking out their replacements.”

He gestured at the unfamiliar figures standing awkwardly at one side, not quite blending in with the rest, brooms clenched tight. The two oldest broke in toothy grins, trying their hardest to reassure. After all, the age difference wasn’t that significant.

“This is Jake, a Third Year student, and Eunwoo, our fellow senior. They’re both excellent fliers that will hopefully help lead us to victory against the Slytherins.” Snickers all around, whispers of not-so-kind words spreading among the team. Chan chuckled, sharing their sentiment. “Yes, no one counted on the loss of last year, but we’ve held that Cup, we know its weight, and we know exactly what to do and how to play to earn it again,” he finished his pep speech with a clap of his hands. “So, then, if everyone’s ready, a round of applause for our new friends, and let’s begin!”

“Let’s fucking go!” Changbin shouted, lifting his broom in the air, before mounting it and flying away to his spot as a Beater, alongside Jungkook.

Practice lasted nearly two periods, the captain dimming it important for everyone to get accustomed to the way the new boys moved around, and of course, to teach them all about their positions. Jake had been recommended by Hagrid, mentioning how he met him back on his First Year, and how much of a natural he was on his broom, passing the class with flying colors, and afterwards helping him with miscellaneous tasks that included heights much taller than the gatekeeper could reach. Eunwoo had played once before as a Seeker when he was much more compact sized and curious about the sport. Then, he’d resigned as classes got more difficult, assignments multiplied, and time was of essence.

Seventh Year seemed like a good year to return to it. It was everyone’s last opportunity to enjoy flying before heading off to jobs at the Ministry, or studying in Trade School, or returning to Muggle life. Their last chance of being carefree, doing something they love unapologetically, without regrets.

For Chan it was one step before going professional, chasing after his dream of being part of his home country’s regional team, the Wollogong Warriors. Australia was an ocean away from England, he’d left it for Hogwarts at an early age, but his heart would never forget his roots, his birthplace. When he’d moved into his dorm, the Warriors poster with the moving team members lining up for the picture, had been the first thing he’d taped on the headboard of his bed. A reminder to never lose focus of his one true love, of what he'd been shown of magic, of flying, at the mere age of six. Being a half-blood, the balance between the two worlds, it was as easy as breathing to him. Because he’d been raised in a loving home, because no one refused him his real nature, what he was, what he’d grow up to be.

Unlike some, Chan had a purpose. A premeditated life. Regional, then international. And no one would get in his way, no one dared. No one could. Being captain of the Gryffindor team was just the start.

“Time!” he yells, flying close to Jake who paused his movements to stare at his captain. “Good play, mate, but you see what you just did there is called stooging. Not more than one Chaser can enter the scoring area,” he explained, patting the boys’ back encouragingly.

“You’ll get the hang of it,” Changbin offers, flying past them with his bat.

A slight drizzle made everyone look up at the gathering clouds, a nasty storm winding up to fall upon the grounds. They agreed on doing a few more rounds before Chan called it a day. They all had classes to attend pretty soon, anyway. Not to mention his growling stomach.

“This would be a good time to end it. Great job everyone! Don’t forget, we only have two more practices before our match with Hufflepuff, so please take care of yourselves, and I’ll see you around.”

“Fuck yeah!” Jungkook exclaimed, earning a few whistles and claps.

As everyone landed on their feet, running to escape the rain that grew stronger with each minute, Chan took shelter under the gateway of the field, catching his breath before heading to the Great Hall for some lunch. Changbin stayed behind as well, talking to you about Seeker techniques.

You’d been their Seeker since your Third Year, getting better with each match, winning them the Cup twice. An important member of the team, no one could disagree, but also—his childhood friend, his first friend coming to Hogwarts, and eventually…his fuck buddy.

“Well, why are you just standing there, Bang Chan? Let’s go, I’m starving,” you speak out to him, lifting the hood of your cape, conjuring an invisible umbrella with your wand. “Get under, losers.”

Changbin huffs, his brown hair getting in his eyes, heavy with humidity. “I’ll have you know—”

You sigh, your lips turning inwards into a thin line. “I don’t care, Seo. I’ll leave you to drown. Who forgets their wand? What kind of wizard—” and the bickering continues, the two of you going at it tirelessly, as you make your way to the castle, the yet unchanged green scenery stretching before you.

Chan, ever the smart guy, keeps his wand with him at all times, exactly for situations like these, and fixes himself an umbrella as well, walking alongside you, enjoying the pattering of rain, the way your fingers search for his own, the faintest of touch between you, as you make Changbin go red with embarrassment, your teasing overwhelmingly immodest at times. He doesn’t miss the wink you throw him out of the corner of his eye.

He smiles to himself.

Passing through the Entrance Hall, you cast a drying spell on the three of you, taking off your gear as you head to the Great Hall. It’s uncommonly quiet as you take your seats, the long tables mostly empty, albeit for a few students snacking on fruit and nuts, finishing homework, or reading to themselves. The big windows bleed a cloudy blue over everything, the rain finally taking its full form, hitting against stone, against grass, against still water. You’re smack in the middle, the Gryffindor bench facing straight ahead to the headmaster’s seat at the teacher’s tabletop. McGonagall had gone completely soft on them, what with it being the last year before her retirement and losing the Quidditch Cup, rather unfairly if you might add. Slytherin colors were pretty, but everyone held a certain pride for their Houses; it had nothing to do with prejudice.

Not anymore.

Chan waves to the Ravenclaw table, Jisung hunched over thick books, a big teapot at his side. He seems entirely lost within the words, scribbling away with his quill, but his head snaps upwards, his eyes dazed, as he waves back mechanically.

“Don’t go crazy over there, yeah?” the captain calls out, and Jisung grins, soft hair covering his forehead.

“Assignment due this evening, Bang. Need the credits.”

“He’s a lost case,” Changbin muses, his signature smile in place as food appears in front of them. “Merlin’s beard, is that orange cake?”

You giggle, and dig right in. “You’re the lost case here, Binnie.”

Silence falls upon you as plates clink, utensils move, the pea soup and bread disappearing in record time, pumpkin juice clenching your thirst, cake satisfying your sweet tooth. Changbin’s tooth, especially. That man has an unmatched weakness for dessert of all kinds, it’s unbelievable, yet his physique is even better than Chan’s, something you thought impossible. You’d witnessed his naked upper body and all its glory last year at a game of ‘truth or dare’ in the Gryffindor common room, drunk on firewhiskey. It had been a chaotic night, and most of it a blur, really, but this one thing you remember.

Well into the game, he’d taken a dare. ‘Do fifty push ups shirtless.’ It’d been one of the girls that often followed him around after classes, and she’d said it bravely, like she’d rehearsed it a few times. He complied, of course, jumping at the opportunity to show off his toned arms and chiseled abs. Quidditch helped immensely, but this was work done mostly by himself, in his room. You knew because Chan joined him frequently, the two of them working out into the late hours of the night, when everyone else was asleep.

You also did things after hours, after everyone else had gone to bed. But you’d rather not talk about that, the mere thought painting your cheeks a flushed shade of pink.

“We need to talk strategies,” Chan spoke, his serious face on, as he leaned closer to you. “The new guys are good, but they need to get better. We can’t afford to lose matches.”

“Give them some time, mate, yeah? Jake hasn’t played a game in his life,” Changbin reasoned, enjoying a bite of baked orange.

“That’s true,” you agreed. “Not to mention Jisung’s reading, have you forgotten?”

“For fuck’s sake, not this again.”

Chan’s eyebrows rose. “You don’t believe in Divination, Seo? Is that why you failed so miserably?” His and your eyes meet, the teasing ensuing like it’d never stopped to begin with.

Your friend rested his head on top of his hand, feigning annoyance. “You two idiots are so incredibly gullible, it’s laughable. Seeing the future? What’s next? Flying unicorns?”

You laugh, holding your stomach, the enchanted ceiling thundering. “Says the one that attempted to give them wings as a gift for his sister's birthday.”

“I almost succeeded,” Changbin makes a face, giving up. “Who knew pegasus' really are mythical.” He fake-sulks for a bit, serving himself another slice of cake, gulping it in four bites. “In any case, how’s Slytherin not winning, giving us the Cup by default? There are other teams besides theirs.”

Chan looks at you and you look back, blinking. The silence is deafening. Changbin realizes, choking on juice. You smile, patting his head. Rude.

“Wow. That’s shit spirit for our fellow Houses, isn’t it? Shame on the both of you.”

“All I’m saying is,” the captain raises a leg up on the bench, popping a grape in his mouth. “As long as they don’t get it, I’m fucking content.”

“We’ll discuss strategies at the next practice, okay? I have Charms to attend. Please go to class, N.E.W.T’s are a thing, you know,” you get up, blowing a kiss in their general direction, and wave again at Jisung. He smiles in return. “Both of you go shower, you stink.”

“Love you too, baby girl,” Chan retorts, a lazy smirk on his face.

Your elective courses were giving you a hard time already. You’d never been a top student, nor were you looking to become one now, but your grades had, at the very least, been average, passing you through your exams easily, staying between Acceptable and Exceeding Expectations since your Fifth Year. All this, on top of Quidditch, and wanting to internship at St. Mungo’s—it was too much, you would suffer in ways you’ve never experienced before, you could already tell by the strain on your neck, that ache running down your spine, the thud your bed made every night you’d fall on it.

September hadn’t even ended yet. You sigh as you tighten the hold on your books against your chest, walking to your fourth and last class for the day—Potions. You’d bumped into Changbin earlier, him on his way to Transfiguration, you running a quick errand for your teacher before the subject began. The truth of the matter was, your friends were on a different wavelength than you, and because of that, you’d see them less and less over the course of this year. Chan had taken it upon himself to overlook First Years’ flying lessons, giving his all to that sport he loves so much, with only a couple selective classes to fill in the blanks, and Changbin wanted to become an Auror, so his time was spread across a few things, Defense against the Dark Arts being one, spending his weekends at the Ministry of Magic, and Quidditch bringing you all together.

Meanwhile your dream was to become a Healer, someone that’s supposed to know all, or at least a bit of everything, so in that way, you think you set yourself up for insanity from the get-go. Working hard for extra credits, spending awful hours in the library alongside Jisung, the two of you skimming through countless books, empty teacups, and ink-stained sleeves. If you didn’t have magic, you’d think it impossible for a person to graduate from this school. It was a nightmare already.

But you did it all, anyway. At least there were no wars to be fought, like times passed, at least no dark wizards threatened to burn the world down, kill innocent lives, rule in blood. Just the hum of fall, the sound of lightning over the mountains, early starts in your days, and late notes, draped over answers, and essays, and ancient scriptures written in calligraphy, words unrecognizable—

Sitting down at your usual place in the very front, you waited for your professor, making small talk with your classmate; a pale, Hufflepuff girl you shared a ton of other classes with. She suggested studying together later that night, and you agreed, excited for a different library partner. You liked Jisung, but he was too quiet when focused, too much of a bookworm. Not a bad thing, of course, but not a particularly good match to your more animated character.

“Good evening, class,” the professor entered, smiling kindly.

After the resignation of Slughorn, Potions had never been the same. And still, that old man had half a mind teaching, the other half rubbing shoulders with the rich students, inviting them to his exclusive club every single year. You wondered what it was like back in the day when Severus Snape taught. You figure it was glorious.

“We’ll go over a Sixth-Year potion today, something I’m sure you’re familiar with. The Draught of Living Death.”

His robes swung with him as he turned his back to the rest of you and started scribbling instructions on the board, guiding you through what you’ll need, encouraging you to light the fire under your cauldrons. You take a peek at the back of the class—Kim Seungmin, Head Boy of Ravenclaw, Lee Minho, pureblood of Slytherin, his desk tidy, his fire lit, his eyes shining in the dark ambience of the room. He notices your stare, stares back. You gasp, turning away in a hurry, embarrassed. You’ve never talked to him, yet you grew up together inside the walls of this very castle, shared similar tribulations, and had mutual acquaintances. It was funny, really. You were a muggle-born, and did not belong in this world, learning the same things as him, excelling in them, waving your wand around.

In a different time, you’d be ridiculed for it, he’d hunt you for who you were, what you represented. But as it is now, in modern days, long lines of aristocracy, money dating back to the sixteenth century, mansions with engravings of his very name on his doorstep still very much present—he did not care for such insignificant things, not anymore. None of them did. The wizarding community had shifted, it had finally changed to tread with the footsteps of the times and age. You’d been glad for it, although couldn’t quite shake the feeling of your fellow muggle-borns, how they didn’t have the same privilege you do now, to live free, without shame, amongst people who’ve known this incredible thing since they were born, when you’d only learned of its existence a mere few years ago, through a letter that would change your entire trajectory.

What a strange feeling. Carrying the weight of history.

“Who can tell me the seven ingredients of this potion?”

You raised your hand immediately, eager to voice the answer, and gain your House some points. So were other students, apparently.

“(Y/L/N), go ahead,” he signaled to you, the lines on his forehead carved deep, that friendly smile never leaving his aged face.

“Valerian root, Moondew, Flower head…”

After class ended it was already dark, the grounds illuminated by the flames of torches. Making your way with the Hufflepuff girl to the Great Hall for dinner, (her name was Chaeyoung she’d introduced herself); she’d seen you around with the boys, but was too shy to approach you, was very glad when you did. Loud voices, and relieved students filled the corridors, ready for some food and a good night’s sleep, and you couldn’t agree more��if only you didn’t have to spend most of your night at the dreaded library, with its frightening silence, and tall bookshelves that stretched as far as the eye can see.

“Hello, Gryffindor girl.”

Your yawn was cut short, books clutched tight against your chest—next to you, falling in step, was Royalty Incarnate Lee Minho, the very guy you failed to look straight in the eye only moments prior. You both blinked at each other, as your feet instinctively stopped moving.

Chaeyoung eyed you strangely, as did most students that passed by you. Minho seemed to pay them no mind, as if they didn’t even exist. Such was the nature of Slytherins, encasing themselves in glass, stepping over everything that did not serve their purpose, going through life aloof, unapproachable. What was this boy doing with you, then? What was his business?

“Can I help you?” you prodded him to continue, curious.

Dark purple hair falling into round, glittery eyes—for many centuries now, you’d learned, this was the Lee family’s signature give-away; silky, prune colored hair. Just as was Hwang's slitted, serpent-like shape of the eyes. There’s been so many of them, the line running so far back, that these things have developed a pattern, a tradition. Like freckles or moles for the Muggles, but grander, more distinct.

He gives you a quick smile, kind but impatient. He really is very handsome, you think, but— otherworldly, not to be messed with, not to be touched. Dark magic in human form. The only student to have a Phoenix feather wand core in all their school years. Powerful. You’ve only known him by rumor, never by fact.

“Certainly,” he replies curtly. “You are to be a Healer, yes?”

You furrow your brows, no idea as to where this was heading. “Indeed.”

Minho grins at you, then, all perfect straight teeth, boyish charm. “Excellent. A very promising intern, I hear.” To your evident confusion he provided an explanation, “My family is directly involved with the hospital. I require your assistance,” he stopped mid sentence, and glanced at Chaeyoung who was listening in.

“Excuse us,” he spoke politely, grabbing you by the arm. You looked at him bewildered, but followed along just for the sake of understanding why, out of everyone and especially a Gryffindor, would be his first thought of selfless aid?

“I am in the process of starting a very intricate potion, Ms. (Y/L/N), and having heard of your Potions grades, as well as the exemplary impression you’ve left on the Head of St. Mungo’s, I just had to recruit you,” he finishes, and gives you one long convincing look, before moving away, his touch dropping from your aching arm.

His words don’t quite register in your ears. Sure, you were a fairly good student and tried your absolute best with your internship, but what sort of potion couldn’t be followed with simple book instructions and a friend’s support?

Minho’s eyes flashed. It dawned on you. Unless…

“This isn’t school related, is it?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Bringing your books closer to you, your mouth turns into a thin line, disapprovement on the ready. You did not know this boy, had nothing to do with him, and certainly owed him even less. What he was asking of you was—ridiculous. Insane. Intriguing.

“And what is your purpose with this potion, Lee?” you asked after a short pause.

The Slytherin straightened his back, smoothed his expensive robes with one hand, and glanced at you over his nose. You did not break eye contact, determined to get the truth out of him. Serpents had a way of manipulating themselves out of situations—you’ve seen all of their tricks.

“Step the fuck back, Minho.”

A body crashed onto yours, enveloping half of you into big, muscled arms, a familiar cologne invading your nostrils. Bang Chan to the rescue, as always, Changbin close behind, both clad in warm, red sweaters with your House emblem. Looking up at your best friend’s angular face, you couldn’t help but notice the barely contained possessiveness he’s been letting himself show more and more lately. Both boys had always been protective of you, but considering the last relationship status change you’ve had with the captain, it made the dynamic strange, the waters untested. You, unsure of how to feel when he acted like this.

The purple haired boy smirked faintly, hands raised in front of him. “No trouble here, Bang, just small conversation between classmates. We’re allowed, are we not?”

Chan’s hand squeezed your shoulder, a silent question. You nodded your head, something he saw out of the corner of his eye, his hold relaxing slightly. Nothing changed in his stance, though. Defensive, ready to kill for his own—a true Gryffindor, through and through.

“What would you have to say to my girl?” It felt like time stopped, as soon as he uttered the word. “Say it, then. Go on.”

People were beginning to gather; Changbin cleared his throat in warning. You looked around, sighing as you did. It always had to be a showdown, a fight for dominance with Chan. Feeling your blood boil, and your nerves strain in the back of your head, you jerked away from him, Minho smugly watching you do so, hands coming to clasp together behind his back.

“Let’s go, Chaeyoung,” you said to your new friend, desperate to leave all three boys stewing in their own testosterone.

“Seems like you jumped the gun there, Christopher, yeah?”

“(Y/N),” his voice yelled after you. “(Y/N) wait, goddamnit!”

“Let her go, Chan.”

“Like hell I am,” was the last thing you heard, before the same arms pulled you towards the opposite direction of the one you were heading, the Hufflepuff girl gasping audibly at your capture.

“Listen to Changbin, Bang Chan,” you warned him, fighting against his scorching touch.

“When do I ever listen, baby girl?”

His breathing erratic, eyes determined, mouth set, the Gryffindor took you to the West wing of the castle, away from everyone else at this hour of the evening, and shoved the both of you inside a forgotten closet, wand out to mutter, “Capacious Extremis.”

The space enlarged twofold at once, and you were able to wiggle out of his vicious grasp with a forceful tug. He let you, that dark gaze studying you intensely.

“What the fuck was that?” you demand, beyond furious with his caveman behavior.

He huffs, passing a hand through his disheveled hair. “Never fucking mind that—what were you doing with Lee Minho out in the open like that?”

You scrunch your face. “‘Out in the open’? What does that even mean?”

“You know what it means.”

He stared you down with hard eyes, trying to figure you out. That’s what Chan did the most; tried to figure everyone out, what made them tick, what was the thing closest to their souls. So he’d be prepared, so he wouldn’t lose. You sigh, suddenly exhausted. It was a wise choice you’d made long ago, picking your fights with him.

This one just wasn’t worth it.

“We were just talking, Chan,” you move your feet to close the gap between your bodies. “I promise.”

Another thing about your captain—he will never waste a good opportunity.

Your lips smash together as his arms wrap around your waist and back protectively, possessively. He groans into the kiss, his tongue taking yours for a short dance, a fight of sorts, pleasure shooting through you like an arrow, like all the other times before, where he’d cornered you, asked for your surrender. Snatched you, anyway. He had this instinct of knowing what you wanted, what you most craved.

Right now it was him, what he offered. His hands on you, fingers tracing their way back into places he’s explored before, has owned countless times after hours, in beds, couches, cold astronomy stairs, closet walls…

“Obedient, are we now?” He mumbles smugly against your mouth, trapping you between his firm chest and stoned wall.

You grab the sides of his face and bring him back in, savoring the minty taste of his full lips. His hands immediately disappear under your robes, lower themselves to your skirt, pulling it up, sinking into the wet fabric of your cotton underwear. You gasp, and let out a broken moan, pressing into his calloused palm, loving the friction it provides for your aching pussy.

“Shut up and fuck me, Bang Chan,” you whisper in his ear, as you cup him over his trousers. He hisses, cursing your name. You smile. “Think you can do that?”

Chan chuckles darkly, rubbing circles over the small bundle of nerves at the top of your cunt. You roll your hips on his digits, holding onto him for dear life, nails digging on his broad shoulders, stomach churning, his cock stirring for attention in your other hand. Your lip trapped in between your teeth, you unzip his pants, dipping in his briefs in search for that delicious length that has filled you so many nights. And days. Some afternoons, after practice, not so far away from the rest of the team, something you both had giggled about, the exhilarating feeling of getting caught messing with your minds—

You’ve fucked a lot, you realize, cheeks burning. But it always made sense, it always felt good. You’d told yourself when it stops being those things, you’d walk away, but as he pulls your panties down, and you guide him to your entrance, sloppy, wet kisses running down your neck, to your collar, over your breast, you think it might not be so easy, after all.

Chan sinks inside you slowly, growling as he does. He squeezes your ass, your thigh circled tightly around his hip, but it’s not enough. Not for you, not for him. He needs more, he needs control.

“Jump on me, baby,” his voice is soft but the command is curt.

You lose contact for a split second as you slightly jump in his arms, the hardness of the wall digging into your back. The pain barely registers in your brain, as he slams into your cunt with fervor this time, the stretch incredible, his length hitting the deepest spots inside of you, so deep you feel him in your tummy. Your head drops on his shoulder, and you’re unable to control your moans, your very self, as skin hits skin, the sound filthy, sweat dripping from your forehead and staining his sweater, his hot breath on your cheek, whispering incredible things, words that will have you seeing stars—

You’re so fucking wet for me, baby girl, clenching around my dick so good, go on, take whatever you need, you know I got you, I’ll give it to you, love, let me see your face, let me see that pretty fucking mouth. Fuck, baby you’re so wet…

Your thighs hurt where he holds you, but your release is so close you couldn’t care less about bruises and soreness. You use his shoulders to sink down as he pistols up, the both of you entirely focused on getting off, sex in its most primitive form. You miss the eyes full of awe, of adoration, or more like, you ignore them. You won’t comment on the way he presses his mouth on the apple of your cheek, either, your name nothing but a ghost of a whisper on his tongue, a way of pushing himself forward, of bringing you to your climax.

“Come on, baby girl, give it to me. Give me a good one, milk my cock, that’s it, fuck, that’s my girl, such a good little slut, aren’t you?” He grunts on your skin, moving his lips to your ear, picking up the pace, tearing you from the inside out. “For me. Just for me.”

“Yes, yes…” you moan, and clench around him one last time, your body convulsing, vision blurry.

He chases after you, thrusts fast and precise, spilling around your tight walls, his load hot and sticky, and he wants nothing more than to—your legs touch the floor at once, as his hands grab your face aggressively, bringing you in for an open mouthed kiss, sweaty and breathy, mouths dry and searching, always searching for each other. You’d be lying if you said this didn’t mean more sometimes, somehow.

Sometimes it’s everything, it’s all that holds you down, that could hold, gravity meaningless pitted against Bang Chan and his warmth, the way he envelops you in his arms, the safest place in the world. As you play side by side, as you fight for the same cause. It’s easy and it’s familiar, and it’s home. As natural as breathing.

“Tell me you’ll keep your head straight,” he says seriously, looking down at you worriedly. “Minho is…” his dark eyes cloud over, “Don’t go making deals with the devil on me just yet, you hear me?”

You sigh into him and he shakes you gently, getting your eyes on his face again. “Please, (Y/N)?”

You nod, rubbing your wet thighs together, remembering you have a library date with a girl you left behind unexpectedly. What must she be thinking?

Oh, but who cares? This was so worth it.

“Okay. If it means that much to you, I won’t.”

“You promise?” He doesn’t let you go.

“Yes, Chan,” you say pointedly. “Jesus.”

He cleans you up with a quick spell, his hands raising your panties up your hips, touch lingering. You wiggle out of his grasp, giggling. He smirks, still crouching down as you open the closet door and walk away from him.

“Leave him out of this!” He calls out behind you.

“He’s your God, too,” you sing teasingly, making a run for the Great Hall.

The fourth Saturday of September, just before Hallowe’en, Gryffindor competes against Hufflepuff.

It’s a tough match, only for the incessant stormy weather that’s been building up, turning the field into a muddy mess, clouds hanging low for days, visibility incredibly poor. Practice had been good, but not great and flying conditions were, to say the least, not ideal, but the team has had to go through worse, and so they’d persevere as they always did, with a strategy set in place, everyone knowing exactly what they were supposed to do, instructed down to a T.

Bang Chan yelled for Jake to watch out as Yang Jeongin, a Fifth-Year Beater knocked one of the Bludgers his way, bat swinging, competitive smile on his pale face.

Jake momentarily lost control of his broom, cursing as he came down fast, holding on to the wooden stick for dear life.

Chan motioned for Changbin to go help him, as he pushed through the two Chasers standing in his way, Quaffle under his arm, heading straight for the opponent’s hoop. Thunder cracked as the ball went past the Keeper and into the big ring behind her, earning Gryffindor another point.

“Fuck yeah!”

The towers burst into applause and cheering, a small Second-Year boy announcing the success of his Houses’ team, praising the captain. Chan threw his fist in the air, basking in the attention and excitement of the crowd, Changbin and Jungkook flying close to clap his hand and back, as they flew past and back to their positions.

“Another great goal from captain Bang Chan! We’re counting eighty points, so far, to Hufflepuff’s sixty.”

The game had been in progress for two hours now, but the adrenaline rushing through Chan’s veins, his ego inflating, expanding over his team, his boys (and girl)—it meant everything. Tiredness was just a concept in front of all this; glory and winning, for an athlete, was greater than anything else. Nothing could come close, could compare. Perhaps, with the single exception of you bouncing on his cock, head thrown back, nails digging into his skin, absolutely beautiful in your vulnerability.

But the rain grew nastier, colder as the end was still nowhere in sight. You’d been searching through the heavy clouds for the Golden Snitch nonstop since the game had started, with not much luck. You’d encountered the opposing team's Seeker once or twice, but for the most part you were flying solo, half blind, while your team fought the good fight underneath you, compensating for your apparent bad seeking skills. You were frustrated, growing angrier by the minute with yourself for losing the small golden ball so fast. If only you could get one good glimpse of it…

“Losing your touch, (Y/L/N)?” Kim Sunoo teased, shouting over the rain as his broom whooshed behind you.

“Not a fucking chance,” you yelled back.

“C’mon, let’s fly above!”

One reason you enjoyed playing with Hufflepuff—this. The healthy competitiveness, the good spirit of the game, and a promised fun time, nothing less nothing more. It was such a stark contrast to Slytherin’s sinister, sneaky way of navigating through the game. And the injuries were considerably fewer, as well, the stakes never higher than necessary.

Above the storm, it was quiet. Peaceful. The both of you halted your brooms, stilling for a second, scanning the serene skies for the Snitch. Sunoo frowned, disappointed and embarrassed to go back down with empty hands, and you were too, determined to find the freaking thing and end this forsaken match—

There. On the horizon, much closer than it looked.

“Bye, Sun!” You laugh, as you rush towards your desired target, hand outstretched, so near you could feel it, taste it.

Victory.

“Hey!” You heard before you dipped in the clouds, the rain and clapping of thunder entering your ears once again. It did not matter.

You had a clear view of the ball, and you’d get it. No matter what.

“A missed shot from Sim Jaeyun, a shame for the Gryffindor team!”

Not for long, you thought as you willed your broom to fly faster, wiggling your fingers as if that would be any help to achieving your task, the Snitch teasing you with its whimsical moves. You were relentless, though, years of experience preparing you for its mood and difficulty to attain.

You really just had to go for it.

So, you did, Sunoo flying dangerously close, his own hand reaching. In your attempt to trap it in your palm, your broom tumbled and knocked you over. A scream tore from your throat, lightning flashing, as you almost lost control and fell off your trusted stick—if the Hufflepuff hadn’t helped you upright, his grip tight on your shoulder. Your heart beat fast, as your eyes went wide, head snapping his way.

“Thank you!”

The Fifth-Year smiled at you, his cheeks rosy and cute. “No problem. Go before I come for it.”

You nodded quickly, and parted a cloud appearing on the field waving your fist around. The crowd watched you fly to your teammates, the intensity of the rain calming down as if on cue, Chan the first to notice your arrival.

“It seems (Y/L/N) (Y/N) has caught the Golden Snitch!” Roars sounded off like sirens. “Gryffindor wins!”

The colors on the high towers then show yellow and red, proud and bright, even amidst the grayness, and you grin wide and content, as you come face to face with your best friend and captain. Your boyfriend, he would correct you.

He’s glowing, wet and exhausted, pearly whites showing. “That’s my fucking girl!” He barks, as the entire team erupts in celebratory song.

‘Come around and see

Gryffindor will win

With Bang Chan in our team

And (Y/N) as our Queen

Gryffindor shall win!’

The common room was rowdy, to say the least.

Seventh-Years had snuck alcohol in from The Three Broomsticks Inn apothecary, and were currently helping themselves and others to a few cups of it. The fire was lit, the walls rich in color, the music blasting and the portraits laughing and discussing their own years at Hogwarts, their historical wins against the other Houses and their parties that lasted until the early hours of the next day, charms keeping the voices and ruckus from echoing throughout the rest of the castle.

Bang Chan and Changbin were busy being obnoxiously loud and quite drunk in the middle of the room, many students gathering around them like true fans, asking the two make-believe celebrities of Gryffindor all sorts of questions they had absolutely no problem answering. Your boyfriend was sprawled over the leather couch, freshly showered, brown hair falling over his eyes in loose curls, as his most trusted friend occupied the armchair, a mug of firewhiskey filled to the brim, making his eyes glossy and his mood light.

You shook your head at them, chuckling softly as two younger girls approached you, congratulating you on today’s win. You thanked them politely, popping a few nuts in your mouth. You could never be them; the center of attention, the center of the universe, it felt like sometimes, but you were just as deserving of praise and honor as them. Being a Seeker was hard enough, but being held at the same standards as Bang Chan?

Impossible. You wondered how he did it, then reminded yourself that he was born for this. Fame, prestige. He loved it, lived for it, and had dedicated his entire life for it. It was second nature to him, but to you?

Oh, but it’d end soon enough. And then a whole other chapter would unravel itself for you to tread carefully through it. The rest of your life, your career, what you’ve been working so hard towards. Quidditch was a hobby, and a damn good one, but it wasn’t the end goal.

Chan finds your gaze and holds it, smiling suggestively your way, and winking. You smile back, lifting your cup to him. He beams, and your heart swells.

You loved him but this, whatever you two had, would end too. And none would be the wiser. You couldn’t call it a waste of time; after all, for what it was, it made sense. Plus the sex was incredible. But you couldn’t ignore the cold, hard truth—he’d leave for Australia, and you’d go into intensive training at the hospital, books and medicine being more than enough to fill your time.

He’d ask you to go with him, and you’d get defensive and ruin your friendship. He’d get mad and you’d go months without communication, until finally you’d hear news of his dating another girl, someone that could keep up with him, and break your own heart ten times worse than before. It would play out exactly like this, because that’s the natural way of a relationship between an athlete and a bookworm. There’s no meeting halfway for them, there’s no meeting at all.

You notice a couple making out on the stairs going up to the dorms, a full table of Six-Years playing cards, and your team preparing for butterbeer pong, a tradition of yours at this point, introduced years ago by a muggleborn that established it as the game-to-play after a successful match. It was harmless enough.

Except for the fact that your captain was an incredibly competitive and stubborn man that took everything way too seriously.

“Round!” Changbin roars, as all the boys cuss and down shots of firewhiskey at once. “Fuck, that’s what I’m talking about.”

“One hell of a headache is waiting for you tomorrow, Bin,” you comment as you near the long table the game is about to take place on.

Chan is helping set the cups in order with his wand, Jungkook filling them with the appropriate amount of the beer concoction, the red of their wool sweaters in such contrast to their pale complexion.

“I’m a wizard, honey, I’ll make it go away before you can say Merlin’s full name.”

Everyone in close proximity clutched their chests, laughing at the burn. You raised your eyebrows daringly. Challenge accepted.

“Sure, though not a very good one, are you, honey?” You retorted mockingly.

“Well, shit, you got me there.”

The room burst in ‘ooh’s’ as someone lifted your arm, declaring you the winner of this little showdown. Chan chuckled, the side of his mouth lifting, admiring your proud face. He was next to you before you could even blink, taking you in his strong arms and crushing you against him, lips on your ear, breath warm, comforting.

“You’re trouble, you know that?”

You smirk, pulling away slightly. “The best kind.”

His hand snaking its way around the nape of your neck, he brings you in for a kiss. You could taste so many things on him, but you think his heart was the most rewarding of them all. Your foreheads touch, as everyone in the room fades away, light years away, the two of you holding gravity, and the fucking axis of the very earth in place.

Nothing mattered when you were with Bang Chan, and you were beginning to think that wasn’t such a good thing, after all.

“The only kind,” he swears. “The only one I want.”

The game starts with Eunwoo missing a clear shot, and paying the price for it. After him, Jungkook follows (three wins in a row before ultimately losing), a giddy Changbin nearly ending the game at once with his excellent performance, but not before knocking everything over as Jungkook tackled him for “cheating.”

“No one leaves until I have a fucking turn!” Chan barks, and the team scrambles to pick up the mess, setting the table for their leader.

The entire common room gathers with bated breath to watch their captain win against beer and plastic balls, and you can’t help but marvel at the way all seems to still for this man. He carried such power, such influence, and he was the nicest thing around. Always fair, loyal, a sweetheart to his friends, a general out on the field. You’d follow him to battle if it came down to it, as would literally every single person in this room.

It was very sudden, your need for oxygen. The air was stifling, everything moving in slow motion as Chan succeeded in putting the sixth ball in the glass cups. A new song is in the process of writing itself for your favorite boy, you sense it in your bones, in the way the people in the portraits haven’t said a word since he started playing.

History will include him in its thickest books. But you? If you stay with him, you’ll be nothing but a mention, an afterthought. ‘She was there, but he was bigger than life,’ and it’ll be true, but it will all be for him, and it wasn’t jealousy, nor envy—

It was confidence in knowing you deserved better. The best.

“Where are you going?” He asks, when you move away from his peripheral vision.

Heads snap towards the question, curious.

“I’ll be right back,” you announce, drowning. “Please don’t follow me,” you continue in a smaller voice, hoping he hears you.

And it must’ve been something in your stance, or your face, or your eyes, who fucking knows, because this time—

He doesn’t chase after you. He listens.

Your feet take you to the Great Entrance.

For what time it was, you expected no one else to be around, making it easier for you to break down and cry after a long, stressful day. You weren’t particularly keen on letting anyone in on the small fact that you were losing your entire mind over how hectic your life had become, and you certainly weren’t about to be reckless about being out of your dormitory after hours.

It was fairly simple to move around the castle at night, though, if one was careful enough. There was only one teacher patrolling the corridors and they were currently located on the other side of the staircase, giving you the go to make a run for it.

You’d also placed a silencing charm on you, for good measure, because you weren’t about to be the person that gave and took away points from their House all in one day.

You never counted on coming face to face with Lee Minho like this. He took notice of your nervous state, and it was then you noticed the pin on his robes. Head boy, you shut your eyes tightly, cursing yourself inwardly. Of course.

“I take it your midnight stroll didn’t go exactly as expected?” He comments sarcastically, but his tone is flat, and his perfectly shaped left eyebrow is raised.

He’s taller than you, not by much, and you guess the authority he holds also gives the illusion of height, multiple books hovering in mid air behind him. You guess he was making his way from the library to his last patrol of the night before resigning to the Slytherin dorms in the dungeons.

It really was just your luck bumping into him, wasn’t it? Especially after that one awkward evening a couple of weeks ago, his proposition still unanswered days and days after. Minho blinked twice at you, seeming to be waiting for your answer to his remark.

You snap out of it, biting your lip, and you see him follow the movement indifferently, your cheeks turning red under his intense stare. He doesn’t seem to pay your embarrassment any mind, though, as he deems you unworthy of his time and goes to pass right past you.

“You still haven’t told me,” you call out. He stops. Turns. You hesitate slightly, “The reason why you’re making an illegal potion.”

He muses your words for a second, turning them over in his mind. “Not so much illegal, as…frowned upon.”

Huh? “Well, what is it?” You press, taking a brave step forward towards him.

His beauty is unparalleled, only perhaps, and you do not say this lightly, second to that of Hwang Hyunjin’s, making it so incredibly hard for you to look at him straight on. His eyes are so big and glittery, looking as if they’ve swallowed entire stars in them, and his jawline is so sharp and sexy it feels like you’re cheating on Chan just by glancing his way. He looked immaculate, even at this late time, and you’d blame it on the pure blood thing, but Changbin was upstairs making a fucking fool of himself, ten different stains on his clothes, drunk beyond all reason at this point, you’d bet good money on it.

Not Minho. Never Minho.

“It’s dark magic, (Y/N),” he nears you slowly, taking his sweet time with a prey like you. “Necromancy.”

You looked at him, and looked again, just in case he was making some sort of sick, twisted Slytherin joke that you didn’t understand and were just another victim of. Dark humor is eclectic, yes, but harmless in the long run. Unfortunately, he wasn’t batting an eye to your reaction. If anything, he appeared to be…disappointed?

It was hard to tell through a million layers of frost.

“Dark magic is illegal, Minho,” you say and you feel like the dumbest person alive at that moment.

He stares at you like you are. “Many would disagree,” he retorts calmly. “All magic is the same to a wizard.”

You tilted your head, begging for him to be joking, and certainly not enjoying the glamoured jab at your blood. It was petty and so below who you perceived him to be, that you had to second guess the way he worded it in order to keep your sanity.

And your points.

“You want to raise the dead?” You whisper incredulously.

He smiles briefly at that, but his mask quickly falls back into place. “I’m offering you a chance to make one of the most difficult, intricate potions known in magic history. The craft is something that interests you, correct?”

You stutter, feeling like you’re being manipulated into something completely out of your comfort zone. Despite this knowledge, you can’t bring yourself to refuse.

“Yes, but I would very much like to stay out of Azkaban if I can help it.”

He considers you seriously, then. You almost think he’s gonna turn around and dismiss you, considering you unable to complete his task, but then he takes one step closer and gazes at you through thick eyelashes.

“I’m enchanting skeletons for Hallowe’en.”

You squint up at him. “You’re lying. You don’t need a potion for that.”

His lip twitches, and you think you see a ghost of another of those rare smiles. It’s gone too soon for you to tell. A purple strand of hair falls in his eye, and your fingers itch to touch it.

“Will you help me?” He chooses to ignore your statement.

“Now I’m helping you?” You challenge him, before you can stop yourself. “Where did all those other fancy words go?”

Minho drinks you in, every single one of your features being studied, before he pulls back, a breathy chuckle escaping his pretty mouth.

“I can see what he sees in you.”

“Don’t make this about him.”

There goes that infuriating eyebrow again. “Oh?”

You roll your eyes. “I’ll help you,” you repeat the, apparently, Slytherin taboo word. “If you tell me what I’m getting myself into.”

Your breath gets stuck in your throat as you see him lean towards you, his cheek touching the side of your face, a woody scent enveloping your senses. You’re unable to move, it seems, he has you under a complete spell—and it’s not the one you cast with a wand. I underestimated him, you think, panicking.

“A revolution, sweetheart,” his enchanting voice whispers in your ear. The castle stares back as your eyes glaze over with numbness. “Your name in history books. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”

And it shouldn’t have taken you as long to figure out as it did, Chan’s words of caution ringing true in your head, because nothing could be clearer, really—

Lee Minho is a Ligilimens.

tags. dedicated to @streetlight-s 🖤 | @ughbehavior, @cb97percent, @koorminii, @hellishmoons, @lix-ables, @americanokisses, @j-0ne25, @danyxthirstae01, @she-wintersoldat, @fa3body, @letterstolilah, @exclusivej3ss, @seungschacco, @heeseung-lover686, @heetr, @arieslost, @skz317cb97.

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