#I’m still fleshing out the plot for it but it’d be set in my AU after Susie gets redeemed

[sweetandglovelyart]

If I posted a fanfiction for Valentine’s Day would anyone read it? 👀

[roosterbox]

Been thinking about adding to my old Domestic Mpreg Cherik AU series recently. I meant it when I said the series wasn’t completely finished, lol. Even though it’s been years and years now, I never forget. Ever.

It would be a mid-quel. That is, it’d be set between Restless Evenings and As Night Falls. The problem is, the series as a whole is so cute and wholesome and “everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.” But this story… would not be. This story would hurt. A lot. In the worst way. (what’s the worst thing a pregnant person/couple can experience? yeah, that.) But I still feel like adding it, just to further flesh out the universe overall. I’ve had the basic idea for it a long time, and I’m just now actually starting to focus on it. This particular plot point has always been in my timeline of events for this AU, I’ve just skipped over it because reasons. I’m sure you get it.

If I do end up writing it, I may just have it be a side story. One you can read (if you’re brave), or that you can skip if the subject matter is too much for you (and it may be). I completely understand if that’s the case. Probably won’t be written for a while, but just so you know: the wheels are turning.

[masonscig]

water

wayhaven summer fic #5

pairing | nate x ramona

word count | 2.1k

warnings | mention of sex, an innuendo

author’s note | i tried to figure out how to get around nate’s aversion to water, and i hit a wall so... i dug around it and decided to write an actor!au !!!! i’d seen a comic months and months ago by @/pvnkvampr and another one that i can’t seem to find again, but i wanted to take that and apply it to nate and ramona! nate’s the type to fall in love with his costar after years of working together and you can’t convince me otherwise. also, to clarify !!! the beginning of the fic is supposed to be like nate x ramona’s romance route so any of the exposition centered around their relationship being fleeting/him being deeply in love with her is nate the character rather than the actor! (you’ll see lmao i’m definitely overexplaining) this is a bit of a stretch bc they’re on the water... and ramona drinks water. but whatever it works !!!!!

•─────────────────•

She was standing on the edge, looking out at the glimmering water, the sun, high in the sky, skipping off of each wave like a smooth rock.

The wind whipped her hair, tossing her short curls until they were unruly, and she was smiling.

Her grin was wide, eyes closed, as she inhaled, drinking it all in – the sunshine fueled her.

Half of Unit Bravo were under the deck, quietly stewing in annoyance. They’d given up complaining to Ramona, though. Frankly, she didn’t care.

Farah was passed out on the floor underneath a sliver of shade at the top of the yacht, chest heaving as she slept soundly. Ramona had taught her how to swim earlier, and she’d used all of her energy flailing around determinedly in the relentless July rays.

Nate watched her as she held her arms out to her sides, fingers outstretched, chin tipped towards the sky.

She was unbridled joy held together by the strings of her bikini, and she radiated a warmth that could rival even the summer sun itself.

So unrestrained that changes didn’t phase her – most conflict rolled off her shoulders in a way that startled Nate, a being who’d existed for hundreds of years and had seen the best and the worst of it.

Nothing baffled him more than this part of his existence.

The way love fell into his lap and he didn’t have to try anymore. 

But despite it all, he’d deluded himself into thinking it was permanent – they were permanent. And they weren’t. And that was okay.

“Oh, you’re back!” She grinned, stretching her arm out until her fingertips grazed his bare arm, her palm warm against his skin. “I was wondering what you were up to.”

“I had to do a quick wellness check of our crew –”

“– Oh my god, are Adam and Morgan still seething down there?–” She asked, cutting him off with a laugh.

“– Very much so, I’m afraid,” he said, his mischievous smile betraying his tone.

“I thought a tiny little shindig would be better than a huge shebang, you know?” She turned in his grip, back against the railing, his arms curled around the bare skin of her waist.

“You’re still trying to stump me? Give it a rest, love,” Nate laughed into the thick mess of curls at the top of her head, pressing a kiss to her sun-warmed strands.

“I will say a phrase you don’t know and then you’ll owe me some juicy Agency secrets,” she giggled, snaking her arms around his neck.

“Like what?” He asked, lips straining at corners, his grin threatening to falter.

“Like how the hell does Morgan wear jeans and no underwear? That’s something I can’t for the life of me wrap my mind around,” she all but shuddered.

“That’s an answer you’ll have to coax out of her, unfortunately.” He said, a bit distracted.

“You know you can keep your Agency secrets, mister secret agent. I have no need for ‘em,” she stuck her tongue out, still stained bright red from the margarita she’d finished hours before.

He must’ve looked puzzled, because she continued, inching in closer until he could feel her everywhere and it wasn’t in the least bit appropriate.

“We both know you have even juicier secrets to spill,” she said, before leaning in to whisper the last bit, her fingers tangled through his hair.

“And I’ll lap up every last drop of ‘em,” she murmured, kissing his earlobe.

The pads of his fingers were sunken into the flesh of her hips, and he tried desperately to anchor himself to spare the others, but he couldn’t get a grip on anything but her warm, warm, sunkissed skin –

He blanked.

His thoughts were scrambled and he couldn’t form words. Couldn’t recall the words he needed to say. But he could see the paper so clearly –

“Line?” He mumbled, feeling her go limp with disappointment in his arms.

Farah groaned from across the deck.

“Cut!” The director yelled, and all but stormed over to him. “What happened out there? You were on a fuckin’ roll! The chemistry was insane. God, I wish you could’ve been watching –”

“Don’t make him feel like shit over it, Craig,” she gently warned, stepping forward just a bit until she’d angled her body between them. “I flubbed my lines all last week and he was so patient with me.”

Craig sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, the wrinkled skin between his brows crinkling even further. “Alright, alright, I get it. Not gonna hound you over one take, but I need you to get it in gear, man. We’ve only got a couple more hours of sunlight in this godforsaken shitheap, and we’ve gotta wrap this part up so we can film the sunset kiss –”

“I understand. I won’t mess it up this time,” Nate promised, glancing over to his co-star with an apologetic smile.

Ramona shrugged, waving his statement away. “It’s fine, seriously. I’m totally okay with running that again.” “Speak for yourself! I’m dying out here,” Farah called from across the deck before turning back to the hair and makeup people, pursing her lips for more lip balm and sunscreen. “Please get it right this time, Agent Sewell.”

“That’s just the name of my character –”

“I’m well aware of that,” she yelled, cutting him off. “Method acting. You get it.”

His co-star shook her head, patting him on the back. “Don’t mind Miss Hauville. She’s just upset she was dragged out here to lie down on a hot sundeck like a dead body for half of an episode.”

He laughed at that, relieved that his co-star was keeping things light.

Truth be told, he’d had a rough time getting his on-screen family to cooperate with him, much like the character Nate Sewell.

Adam’s actor was a notoriously nice guy, but he had a knack for intense method acting, so he’d been a stoic asshole for months – there was no getting through to that guy when he was in filming mode. Morgan’s actress was a bit of a wildcard. She was fucking the executive producer and everyone except Craig knew it.

Farah’s actress was arguably the biggest success of them all – she was constantly booked and busy and effortlessly making headlines. And it was becoming increasingly obvious that she was only there as a favor, not because she wanted to.

She was a film star who never touched TV, but hell, she was half the reason millions of people tuned into the pilot episode.

The Wayhaven Chronicles wouldn’t be the same without her, or Ramona’s actress, the fan favorite. Yeah, she was the protagonist, but the cast, crew, fans, and everyone alike loved her.

And he had a bit of a crush.

He was aware that on set romances usually fell apart before they could really begin, but he couldn’t help it.

Not only did he spend nearly all of his free time with her running lines and hanging out in her trailer, but to make matters worse his character was canonically falling for hers, and… he found himself enamored with her, too.

He’d never admitted it out loud, and probably never would, but it was getting harder and harder to push those feelings away when they had to share an on screen kiss.

Season one wasn’t too bad, considering they were just testing the waters to see who the fan favorite love interest was out of the four of them, but by the end of it, social media had all but rioted to lock in the “Natemona” romance plot.

And there they were, well into season two, a handful of kisses shared (a lot more than that considering the reshoots and the practicing) and a plot decided.

And he was into her – way more than he’d like to admit.

The rest of filming went pretty smoothly. He got over his nerves and kissed her like a champ, and they got patted on the back for their realistic chemistry by all the execs and producers on set.

When they finally broke for a quick food break, she followed him to his trailer.

“People are gonna eat this episode up, huh?” She asked, closing the door behind them and grabbing a water bottle from his fully stocked mini-fridge.

“Surely they will,” he agreed, stepping around her to grab his salad from the fridge. “If they were rallying for the relationship before, they’ll be vindicated this episode.”

She laughed into the rim of her bottle before chugging it. “So why were you frazzled today? Something at home?”

He eyed her, raising a brow.

She held her hands up in mock surrender, before plopping onto the couch across from him. “You don’t have to answer, dude, I’m just lending my ear.”

He chewed thoughtfully, trying to choose his words wisely. He swallowed, took another bite, chewed.

His mind was just as blank as the deck scene.

He shook his head before setting his food down. “I’m sorry I’ve been off today.”

“I don’t care if you’re not feeling like yourself. It’s normal to have an off day. I just wanna know if you’re okay,” she said with a tenderness that he’d never heard from a co-star before. 

“To be quite honest, you’ve been distracting me,” he admitted, timidly.

She pursed her lips. “What can I do to fix it?” 

He squirmed in his seat. God, this was a lot harder than he thought it’d be.

“It’s, uh, nothing you can really fix. It’s all me.”

“Well, what can I do to help?”

He shook his head again, glancing away from her.

“Look, I know Craig’s been rough on us this week, but don’t let it get to you. We can practice more –”

“It’s not that, I promise.”

She waited, sensing that he had more to say. He took a deep breath, then continued.

“It’s something I don’t want to admit to you. It’s embarrassing.”

“Honey, my last job involved waxing places that would make your grandmother gasp. I promise nothing phases me,” she joked, running a hand through her hair.

“There’s… quite a few lines Nate says this season that I’ve resonated with,” he started, trying to figure out what he was gonna pull out of his ass.

She sipped her drink, waiting.

“Things like… ‘I care for you, Ramona’ and, uh, ‘You’re important to me’,” he said, twisting the ends of his summery button up shirt between his fingers.

“Yeah, same here. We’ve become really close –”

She stopped abruptly the moment she noticed the look in his eye. And the subtext hit her like a truck.

“The things Nate feels for Ramona… I find myself feeling for you,” he admitted, hesitantly, looking anywhere but her face.

“If you don’t feel the same, that’s okay. I’ve just developed a bit of a workplace crush that I can’t quite shake, and that’s my fault –”

She stood from the couch, and he glanced up at her, finally, nervous to see how she’d taken it.

And before he could register what was happening, her lips were on his – a sweet tender kiss. 

One that, scarily enough, felt exactly like the last time they’d kissed. And the time before that. And the time before that. And the time before that. 

When she pulled away, she cupped his cheeks with the softest touch in the world, gazing down at him with an expression like she’d gotten the best news of her life.

“Those kisses weren’t just practice to me, either,” she whispered, stroking the pad of her thumb across his stubble. “I just wasn’t sure if you felt the same.”

He blanked. Again.

He couldn’t find any words, so he did what Nate would do. What he wished he’d had the courage to do for over a year.

Gently enclosing his arms around her waist, he tugged her down to the couch with him, planting kisses across her face, cheeks, nose, lips, over and over and over, revelling in the broken giggles that erupted from her.

Maybe allowing the essence of Nate Sewell and how he loved pervade his life over the past year and a half of filming was the right step. It’d gotten him the girl, after all.

[darkpoisonouslove]

Keep You Alive

Summary: An arranged marriage could be the end of the world for a queen whose heart is not her own anymore. It’s when Griffin has to make sure it won’t be the end of her life, that fear truly sets in in the place of trust long gone. Bringing back something dead will be a feat – magic or no magic. And the strongest magic in existence is against her. AU.

This has sat unedited for a long time and now that I felt the Griffin and Valtor feels returning, I finally broke it out of its little prison. What can I say? I'm a sucker for arranged marriages.

CW for some violent descriptions, mentions of blood and murder and sexual content.

Griffin's heartbeat punctuated each of her steps into the cold stone of her bedchamber. Their bedchamber. At least for the night. In the morning things would be different.

Her palm was clammy in Valtor's warm grip that never faltered despite the discomfort that had to bleed through to his end as well. He'd barely let her out of his reach all evening, and not once out of his sight. If he'd chosen to share her life and she'd agreed for her own sake and not that of her kingdom, it would've moved her, would've sent flutters through her heart. She wasn't above romance. It was above and beyond her.

Now the treacherous organ had leapt in her throat beating as if the tremble in her vocal cords wasn't straining her composure and self-control. The door closed behind them – her guards sealed outside to leave only silence in which her pulse pounded against her ears. And his. The quiet couldn't hide her like the celebration had.

Her wedding had been one of great splendor, talked about in the whole of the Magic Dimension. A feast of bread and wine from the rich wheat and grapevines her land bore. Silk and jewels from Valtor's mothers. No parental blessing or a hand to lead her down the isle where he'd waited like death coming to claim her at the end of the line. She should have taken another path but there'd only ever been the one for a queen with the naive heart of a free woman.

Valtor had unveiled the world in front of her only to capture her eyes in the frozen cage of his. He'd whispered a compliment of her beauty on the tail end of his loudly proclaimed vows of emptiness. He'd kissed her hand countless times with his burning lips and her mouth only once. But once had been more than enough to stain like the pouring wine. Spilling red. Dripping blood. The words were spiraling in her mind like the rusty railings of the winded staircase she was tumbling down. Right to where her own bed awaited like a tomb for the coffin of his embrace.

His arms were around her and pressing the smooth fabric of the dress into her skin. Like an ice block sticking to her flesh to rip it off upon removal. She'd bleed to death but her foolish heart only pumped her veins fuller of red too dark to be a precious stone. She could almost smell the smoke rising from the ashes in her lungs where his breath lingered. But fear was good. Fear made you alert and sharpened your senses. Fear kept you alive. And that was her one goal tonight – survive her own wedding night.

Valtor's deft fingers found the laces of her bodice to differentiate from the stillness of his hand back when hers had rested in it. He'd been... not inept–as much as she wanted to call him that, she couldn't afford delusions–but stilted, as if the life had drained from him. And now he'd drain hers instead of working for the creation of a new heir for her kingdom. There'd be no more heirs if she didn't play her role right, no more autonomy... no more peace.

Her lips were swallowed in Valtor's kiss silently slithering over her senses like a starving snake. His fingers threaded in her hair to make the elaborate hairdo–designed to hold the crown on her head–give way like a broken dam with just a few strategical touches. The pull of his power was wringing tears from her soul as her hair spilled down her figure just like his breath flooded her lungs. He had more magic than her, his mothers more still – the only ones to still yield the craft in its full potency. She had to count on their arrogant use of it, on their lack of strategy to defeat them.

The taste of sweet wine and sugar from the buffet of pastries was bitter all the way into her throat with his tongue shoved in her mouth as if to block out her air. Their first kiss had been far less vindictive out there in public and she had to give him credit for his own acting if not anything else. He was at least putting decent effort into her assassination.

It was her own breath assaulting her ears once he let her have a gasp of oxygen. She was panting next to his barely quickened inhales, the puffs of cool air in a jarring contrast with his flushed cheeks. His adrenaline had to be rushing as high as hers. The only thing they had in common was the opposite ends of her murder they stood on.

"You're breathtaking," Valtor lied through his teeth, his facade impeccable with all the magic underneath filling potential cracks. All she had to fight him with was her own wit and skills.

She let a smile crawl on her face despite herself. If it were as breathtaking as he claimed, he'd drop dead from suffocation. And if not, it would be a horror show to haunt him for his crime against her. "Are you sure at least half of it isn't just the dress?" She wanted it gone as much as he did. At least then they could stop pretending this farce had anything to do with love or her happiness. It was all about politics. That was all her life was ever going to be. Funerals over politics.

"To be honest, I haven't even noticed the pattern." That would be hard to believe if not for his keen gaze keeping track of her mannerisms and words in search of telltale signs about her awareness of the truth. "I've been thinking of what's underneath," he sent her stomach lurching at the thought of what would come after the stardust of her wedding crumpled in her feet. After her death.

"Why don't you find out?" her voice tempted, no deception in play. "Or are you afraid?" Challenges were the way into his head. She'd figured as much while he'd been prying around into her heart. He hadn't had one for her to return the favor. "I didn't bite when you pulled off my veil." She hadn't had to. He'd bitten the bait as the wedding ceremony dictated.

"Did you expect me to be bolder?" Of course not. He was no fool despite his arrogance. "We were in public."

"You've been a perfect gentleman all evening." Except for plotting her murder. She was no fool either. "Why don't you drop the act?"

The lightness dropped from his face leaving serious features carved in ice. He'd be the most gorgeous statue she'd seen. Instead, he was the vilest being she'd encountered. A charming prince to her face and a murderous backstabber when she turned away.

His fingers reached under the fabric and she assisted the dress off of her body to spare herself his prints on her skin after the few times she'd let them leave his mark on her being. His gaze was more than unbearable, flaying her alive for him to wear her title as his own once her kingdom was annexed by his mothers' empire to be erased from history. No name would mark her downfall, nor that of her land. No grave would remember her existence. So she wouldn't remember his in her being, wouldn't let him leave traces of it on her body. Not again.

Valtor let her step out of the dress of her own volition–a last courtesy to himself as he devoured the sight of her nakedness after he'd taken her underwear along with the masquerade–before pushing her back on the bed with the roughness of an animal. Something sparked in his eyes that could have singed her with a surge of passion had she chosen him to bed her. Now it was just a dull pain in her lower stomach from the nerves knotting themselves there as she waited to be burned alive.

Instead of his magic it was his scorching skin on top of her pulling a squeak out when his weight pinned her down and her nipples brushed his chest. He was lying on her, naked in the second it'd taken him to climb over her despite the stumbling from the wine or other intoxication. His hot flesh roused goosebumps on her own as her stiff muscles writhed in confusion below.

The hum he stole from her with his kiss carried her unbridled surprise like a charge of magic. She was revealing herself, caught off guard by his naked frame. His cock was pressed into her hip, hard as a rock and bruising her with the pulse of arousal it sent through her despite the cause of it being her own blood in his mind's eye. And his hands grabbed her thighs pulling them apart to open her up to him and fill her with the impulse to give in. His hot mouth on her neck singed her alertness and his muscles pressed into her, crushing her resistance.

He reached between them and a whine tore from her lips. Enough to startle both of them with her genuine desperation and distract him to give her the time to catch herself. All thoughts of his cock emptied from her head. Only the memory of the liplock she'd had on him was left after the wave of his magic, tangible even to someone with much less of it.

She grabbed his wrist with a couple inches to spare between her throat and the razor sharp point of the dagger he'd conjured. "If you kill me, you'll be dead by the next full moon." Her eyes burned into him the same way his skin did under her hand as he drove the blade through the air between them. His strength ate away at hers while his magic scorched her fingers like he'd set them on fire.

The blade stabbed through the bed on her left piercing her ears with the wail the mattress gave. It was like a shriek of death and the cry of a newborn all at once. She was alive. She just had to keep it that way.

"I've poisoned you," she fired out before he could change his mind and slice her throat open anyway. She held his gaze as it flared, the intensity of it licking at her to consume her or melt her skin.

"Wine?" was all he asked as he sat on top of her, his arms trapping her between them like thick steel bars.

"No." That would have been too risky with so many people around. "It was my lipstick." He'd ingested the poison at the wedding ceremony. And she'd ingested it, too, from his tongue stuffing her mouth. "It's a slow poison. Designer. It's tied to the phases of the moon and I'm the only one who knows the antidote." She'd been tempted to use belladonna and be rid of him, watching him struggle as even Belladonna failed to help her son. Even her magic wouldn't be able to counteract extract from the plant. But Griffin didn't want the revenge of the three witches. She wanted them to leave her alone. "It needs to be taken every month. Otherwise, the newest tide of the poison will kill you. So if you want to live, we're stuck together," she had to sell this even without his charm at her disposal. Considering she wasn't entirely convinced of being his only option. He always had tricks up his sleeves. Could she count on him being naked when he'd pulled a dagger on her out of thin air? "No more weapons in my presence. And you can't go to your mothe-"

"I won't." The reply caught her off guard again unlike his mothers' departure in the late hours after the wedding reception. They'd distanced themselves as insurance in case something went wrong. They'd renounce Valtor's actions and have an alibi. He was on his own as well. Under their control.

"You understand that I find that hard to believe after your attempt on my life." She could still see the gleam of the blade – brighter than her eyes and colder than his. It was just her magic suppressing the shaking of her muscles that nearly left her wishing for the fire he hadn't used on her. Or for the heat of his body. His erection still burned against her skin.

"I wasn't going to kill you," Valtor's words had her teeth grinding together before she could swallow the load of crap he was trying to feed her in revenge for the poison.

"Were you planning on keeping a lock from my hair then?" She'd push him off of her but just the thought of any more of him touching her was too much. She couldn't stand the beauty of his appearance and the ugliness of her own attraction to him despite the knowledge in her head.

She'd known his behavior had been an exercise in decorum and his courteousness had been practiced. Yet she'd still fallen for his horrible attempts at jokes that had been too genuine to be anything but, for his sharp mind that couldn't have been an imitation just like the diamonds he'd given her, and the look in his eyes when the sparks had died to leave behind an emptiness begging to be filled. She'd sworn no one could fake that. He'd deceived her and she had to accept it. Sooner if she wanted to be alive for the later.

"I was going to use the dagger, yes," Valtor had her attention pinned to the bed with a knife as well, dissecting it with the emphasis in his voice, the frustration in it. As if she was the traitor between the two of them. "I was going to draw blood from the hollow of your throat to bind us together with magic."

"What?" The hollow of her throat? How was that an explanation? A justification of his actions? Was that supposed to make her feel better? She was a sacrificial lamb in a game of politics, nothing more. She wouldn't be able to look at a chess set ever again even if she got the opportunity, if she survived her wedding to him.

"My mother can read minds."

Lysslis. Then her plan would have been no more than a delay of the inevitable. If Valtor wanted it, she'd die after Lysslis read her mind for the antidote. She was fully dependent on him slicing into her neck like she was a woodcarving.

"I was going to bind us together by mixing our blood. That way when she tried to read one of our minds, she'd see nothing. As if the 'voice' has jumped into the other."

Vocal cords. Her throat. Griffin brushed her fingers over the delicate flesh. He would've given her a fighting chance against his monstrous family and she... She gasped. She'd poisoned him in return.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She'd poisoned him. Poison! She'd thought he was her murderer. She'd swallowed her heart about a thousand times that day alone, the broken pieces slicing through her insides every single one of them. If she'd leaked blood, she would've flooded the whole planet. If she'd let herself cry, she would've shriveled into nothing after the sorrow had spilled from her body. "Why didn't you tell me? You should have told me!"

"I couldn't risk it. I thought she might read your mind."

Her blood froze solid in her veins when she had to move. What good was being safe in the future if she'd betrayed the past to his mothers? She had to warn-

"She didn't deem it necessary," it was the disgust with which Valtor spat out the words rather than their meaning that left her shivering as the ice freed her. "Probably thought it was a waste of efforts since you were to die anyway. They were so secure in their victory. I couldn't risk putting you in more danger. Or myself." His hesitation clenched her heart with her own distrust mirrored in him. "It would've been harder to keep my plan from her if I'd let you in on it. Our interactions always linger on the surface of my mind."

She was flushing again, this time from the warmth of the confession accompanied by that of his skin against hers. She laid her hand on his chest covering his heart, no flinching from him to choke her. "Valtor-"

"I thought you trusted me enough." His gaze stabbed her with the icicles it shed right over her vulnerable flesh. "I would've explained. I wanted to make it as painless as possible and sex magic can be used to a great degree for relieving distress, both emotional and physical."

Oh. Well, she hadn't known that. She had the archives she'd inherited from her mother and knowledge she'd gathered with Ediltrude and Zarathustra and Faragonda and there was still much more. He knew more than her after studying under the only ones that still possessed primal magic. All she'd had in her mind had been the warning she'd gotten and the dagger he'd held above her ready to shatter her skull.

"You were terrified of me," Valtor cupped her cheek and the familiar tenderness had her shaking as the terror oozed from her pores to stick to her skin. So much for her collected facade. "I thought you were just nervous because of our wedding night but you thought I'd kill you? Did I fail that hard at conveying my feelings for you? I know I was being subtle but I was certain we were on the same page."

They had been. They had been and then that page had been torn out of her hands. Her eyes welled up with tears when Zara accidentally tore a hair while braiding her locks but she hadn't even been allowed to cry or scream at his assumed betrayal. She'd had to keep her agony inside where it'd charged at its prison and broken all of her bones.

"I had a source that informed me of the plans for my assassination. A source that I've known longer than you," and that was miraculously still safe thanks to both their unassuming power that was safe in Griffin's mind, "and when you never tried to hint something was wrong or warn me in any way... it sounded reasonable."

They'd said they'd wanted a peace treaty between the Ancestral Empire and the Council's Sovereigns and their allies. Then why pick her as a side in the marriage? She was barely on peaceful terms with the Council, only thanks to her connections and her refusal to bow before Belladonna and her sisters. She'd been the perfect victim to show both sides what happened to anyone who opposed the Empire. Killed. Her kingdom annexed. Her heritage erased like it'd never existed.

"You should have told me before pulling a dagger on me." Even if she hadn't asked before she'd poisoned him. She couldn't have afforded it but he could have explained once in the safety of her bedroom. He'd acted every bit as suspiciously as she'd expected him to.

"Griffin, I'm so sorry you had to go through this," Valtor pulled her into him and she inhaled him. Still, she couldn't nuzzle her head in the crook of his neck, couldn't even hold on. "But poison?" Valtor's wide eyes betrayed his worry. "I never realized your extensive herbal knowledge could be used to such a hostile advantage." The joke fell flat and his chuckle broke its spine with nothing to land on. "Please, tell me there is an antidote that will neutralize it for good."

Griffin nodded. Of course, there was. She wouldn't have put on her lips something that could kill her if she skipped her monthly maintenance. The whole point had been to remain alive. "It will take time to prepare, however."

"Then it will be our second order of business. We still need to bind our blood together." His fingers wrapped around the hilt of the dagger and his muscles met no resistance pulling it out of her poor mattress. She was the one swallowing at the screech the insides of her bed made as the blade slid through them on its way out.

"Do we have to do this right now? Can't it wait? At least until the morning?" Possibly never? The only thing she wanted was to curl up in a ball and sob her eyes out, every shuddering breath a reminder that she was still alive. Though, a knife to the throat was definitely preferable to Lysslis in her head. Or Belladonna's frost and Tharma's lightnings coursing through her veins.

Valtor studied her for a moment, the blade motionless in his hand yet it drew her cautiousness. Her gaze darted to it to return to Valtor just as quickly but the message was clear. "You still don't trust me." No question about it. It was a fact. To both of them now.

"I want to. I really do."

The softness of his hair between her fingers. The warmth of his laughter vibrating in her ears. The hardness of his erection pressed into her. She wanted to feel all of that without flinching every time he lifted his hand to stroke her cheek or slid it down her body to grab at her curves. But it wasn't up to her. They were alone in the bedroom but there was a whole kingdom that she carried on her shoulders. She couldn't stumble and shatter it. Not after she'd refused to bow and let it be taken.

She shook her head. "I know how this game is played." He'd been honest with her but not open. Even his reasons couldn't illuminate the shadows of doubt in her mind where the monsters hid from obliteration. She just couldn't close her eyes and turn their shine on the inside to free herself of the creeping suspicion. She didn't have that power.

"I am not playing a game. And neither are my mothers."

Valtor raised the dagger and Griffin pressed herself into the mattress even though she had nowhere to escape. A jolt shook her when Valtor pierced the headboard with it leaving the blade sticking out. Her headboard. As if ruining her mattress hadn't been enough.

"We don't have to do the spell at all if you're not comfortable with it. But once my mothers learn you're still alive, there will be retribution. Towards both of us. We have to be ready for anything. They knew I was fond of you and thought it a bonus test of my loyalty. It would be in our best interest to get this done as soon as possible." Valtor shuffled down, letting the world loom over her without his body on top of hers to shield her.

"Wait!" Griffin grabbed at him, relieved by the pause that followed even if the silence wound tight around them with nothing more she could say. Everything turned to ash on her dry tongue despite how hard her voice clawed at her parched throat.

"I can't watch you flinch away from me. It's the same as stabbing me with the dagger." His tired eyes skipped into the distance as if to find support of his words in the past. The realization gripped her throat worse than slicing it open would be. "If you can't trust me, then don't cure me from the poison. It will be torture to live when I've finally found someone I could love and then driven them away," he slapped her in the face without even moving. Maybe that was the key to the impact. He was as still as a statue. Cold, hard stone colliding with her fragile flesh.

"I wanted nothing more than to trust you but you never tell me the whole story," she sat up. If he viewed her as an opponent, then she'd be one. "First, it turned out you were their son, then, you showed me you had magic, and now all of this. I try to understand but every time I feel secure in our relationship and in knowing who you are and what I mean to you, you crack in half and there's a whole another person under the crumbling shell... and I need to start again."

"If I wanted you dead, I would've killed you already," Valtor's irises were bursting with flames. A sight very similar to Tharma when she got angry.

Griffin closed her eyes and pushed her frustration out through her clenched teeth. "And I can still kill you." Looking at him hurt with his insistence to follow up on her threat, every step they made leading them closer to that despite their unwillingness. "This is getting us nowhere." She had no strength for more. They had to put an end to all that.

She spun around and grabbed the dagger, pulling it from where he'd wedged it in her headboard. It took up the last of her energy and she was running only on resolve as she pointed the sharp tip towards him. Slowly she inched closer until the edge of the blade was pressed in his chest to no reaction from him. He stood there like he was made of stone but he wasn't. The heat of his skin was tangible on hers and his hot blood would spill if she applied gentle pressure.

"Well? Aren't you scared?" She was putting all her efforts into steadying her hand. One wrong movement would be fatal whether she cut through him or not.

"Afraid of what? Put this into context so I can be fully honest with you. Not leave anything out." He was pushing on purpose and she had to stab him just for that. He was lucky he was her weakness.

"Afraid of pain? Of humiliation?" She'd seen his ego. If it stood between them, he wouldn't see anything over it and if she poked it, he would never forgive her. No matter what he said about his feelings for her. His ego was his weakness and it could be exploited against both of them.

"What humiliation is there in being claimed by a woman?" Claimed? Did he think she was going to cut a brand into him? After he challenged her to kill him? "You are my queen and I vowed to be yours." She leaned forward, falling, the dagger nipping at his peck before she could brace herself against the bed. "I meant that, whether you believe it or not. And I am yours to kill, too."

"What about pain?" her voice trembled with the weakness she couldn't afford in her hand.

"Pain... Pain is a reminder. You can only feel it if you're alive. Breathing is pretty much a guarantee for pain but at least you know you are still in the game." Much too poetic for her. All she got from pain was pain. It was why she'd asked him to be careful with his words.

"What about pleasure?" she lowered her arm, the dagger still clasped between her fingers but now too heavy to hold in vain.

"Pleasure doesn't tell you anything. Not even if it's real or not. But it sure leaves you wishing it was." Valtor looked at her, his gaze clutching hers. "You want the truth? I did consider killing you with this dagger. I was afraid of what defying my mothers would mean. So I considered completing their order. Once again. Like every single time before but I couldn't use my magic. I would take the dagger and carve it into your heart until there was nothing left of it and all your blood was soaking my hands, my skin, all of me. Until your pain soaked all of me so I'd remember–always–that I was alive and you were not. That you'd been alive until I'd spilled all your pain and left you to die to save my own skin." Valtor paused, drawing in a shaky breath. "I can't watch you bleed, Griffin. But I will if it means you're safe. I will cut into your throat and hope the burning reminds you that you're still breathing. I know that's familiar to you, it's real. And you're the most real-"

The dagger clanked against the floor. Somewhere in the far end of the room. Somewhere they wouldn't have to look at it and he'd only be able to look at her.

The sound broke them loose from their respective traps and she lunged at him. Valtor met her halfway, opening his mouth for her tongue to claim him, this time truly. Not like those kisses before that they'd both poisoned. They didn't have to be each other's pain. Only each other's lives. No matter what had been carved on their beings by uncaring hands and pointy words.

Valtor laid her back down on the stabbed mattress. His care morphed smoothly into passion as his hands roamed her body squeezing at her curves and caressing her responsive flesh. She threaded her fingers in his long blond locks to hold his mouth where she could reach it and suck on his lips, trace her teeth over them and nip at his pain receptors.

His hand traveled down her body in lieu of his busy mouth and found its way between her legs to stroke her willing arousal to the surface of her being after the heavy conversation. It didn't take long for her nipples to perk up against the warmth of his chest. His fingers dived in her wetness after a couple pulls on her purple strands once he got the hint of her own tugs on his hair even if some of them had been just passion and not a hidden message.

One last reassurance sought–as if her frantic breathing was not enough confirmation of her craving–and Valtor filled her. Too slowly for the pleasure to explode inside her, her lungs only fully expanding once his whole length was inside her to breathe in their closeness, no fear tainting their joint existence. It was just the thrill of Valtor's touch that set her skin ablaze and sent her heart racing.

The chamber was filled with their shared sounds, a whole concert taking place in private and leaving no room for the stifling silence they'd entered to. The air around them was alive and vibrant with their movements–maybe even some magic–as she met the thrusts of his hips and he left hickeys wherever the hitches in her breath drew him like a map.

Her nails dragged over his back to leave her own traces and hold on as she pressed her cheek to his chest listening to the deep groans he spilled for her. It wasn't the pain that made him tremble like the strings of a harp under her fingers, nor was it fear. It was the mark of her presence that drove his voice inside her mind and if he could trust her pleasure, she could trust his pain, his blade in her throat.

She bit into his shoulder and held on like a bloodthirsty hound while the waves of orgasm shook her. If they took her away, she'd carry a piece of him with herself. His arms around her held her in place, though, held her whole and the confession of her pleasure tipped him over the edge of his own orgasm.

"Griffin," the strained grunt of her name against her ear was like a gunshot missing her body but still carving into her ribcage. Only, it didn't dig into her heart.

It cut it loose from all the strings it sliced itself onto every time it moved, shaken off her throne by the hands grabbing for her crown. She was safe in Valtor's lap, in his arms.

[bestworstcase]

Any RTA OC's not from your awesome brain you find interesting?

well i’m a big fan of @party-of-art’s CTA au in general and ilione and alphecca in particular! they’re both very nicely fleshed out and also hit specific tropes that i just like a lot (lio having this easy confidence and swagger and then just the chaotic bone dumpster fire that is al) + well-integrated with the setting as a whole + nice art and more recently fic. all very neat. and still on the subject of CTA i’m also very fond of hemlock’s violante because i love. evil ladies without a shred of conscience. 

the second installment in @ancientriverbed’s little series of missing episodes, tenebrism, has a disciple OC whom i adore (anton!) - i’ve expressed before that i wish there were more disciple OCs simply because i think it’s a fantastic way to introduce eccentric villains of the week into plotted fics and tenebrism is a really good example of how well that works. 

hemlock abandoned the strings sequel before she actually. properly showed up but striga is another OC of hers that i like. another disciple who had some neat stuff going on with cass post-strings. 

these like half-count as OCs since they were originally conceptualized as official characters but i dig the V7K characters and i like seeing what that corner of the fandom does with them and how widely interpretations of the character notes we have can vary.

i feel like the fics i read don’t have a whole lot of OCs? partly i suppose because there are a whole lot of minor characters in tts who get very little development and are therefore fertile ground for fleshing out and slotting into place to play whatever narrative role is required rather than creating an OC, and partly because i tend to be drawn to rewrites/canon divergence fics which again sort of de-incentivize adding OCs to the narrative just by virtue of treading the ground of canon but in a new way. 

and then also the, like, four people and a shoelace corner of the zhan tiri fans part of the fandom aside, i’m mostly in this as a cass fan and it seems like the cass side of the fandom is overall the side of the fandom least interested in coming up with OCs? with a couple notable exceptions like era. i see a lot more OCs coming from the varian and new dream areas of the fandom and brotherhood OCs are a thing also but since i’m not as deep in those corners i’m a lot more out of the loop vis a vis notable OCs. 

but i love OCs in general !! like bitter snow has scads of OCs partly because the story is pretty wide in scope but also because i just really like designing characters, and by the same token i really like uh, “meeting” new characters created by other people? especially through the medium of fic or a large volume of content generation like the CTA crew, or discussions/conversations—every now and then i’ll see an OC in the tags presented with the, like, art + key bullet points format and i’m always like “neat!” but i really enjoy it when there’s more material to dig into. [i also think i just have a hard time with the key character bullet points thing just in general—trying to do it with my own OCs gives me headaches lmao—so for me it’s def not the ideal way to get introduced to new characters because my brain just does not grasp information very well that way]

um some other types of OCs i’d love to see (+ why)!

- saporians, separatists or otherwise (@quoththecomic’s emily is saporian and i really like her! and also quoth’s sort of fairytale-ish take on all the saporian lore and stuff in general) - canon had a real dearth of diversity in the portrayal of saporians that was a. not very naturalistic and b. created some really unfortunate implications that i have talked about at length and i think it’d be cool if there were more OCs around to fill in this kind of... blank spot in the canonical lore? where’s all the saporians guys. 

- disciple OCs, as noted. such a good opportunity for villainous eccentrics while still having a virtually boundless range of things that you can do with them. 

- normal coronan OCs - again, just to kind of flesh out the world more. fics and other fanworks don’t have the same technological limit on how many characters you can pack into a fictional city and nothing helps a place feel more alive than cramming it full of people from all walks of life.

- dark kingdom OCs who are not part of the brotherhood - i have nothing whatsoever against brotherhood OCs but i’d be really interesting to see other people tackle the ‘ordinary person’ dark kingdom citizen experience. there were a lot of refugees in those gondolas, y’all. and since they all fled the destruction of their homeland you could plausibly stick a DK OC pretty much anywhere. 

- for cass-centric post-canon fics in particular i would love to see more OCs in the vein of CTA, just people cass meets on her journey outside of corona - i don’t want her to be lonely aljsdfdsks

[delicatelyherdreams]

Pragma(tic) 2: He Becomes a Trespasser

Pairing: Persephone!Bucky Barnes x Hades!Reader

Summary: In a world where the old gods never truly died, you must learn to navigate your way through the ups and downs of immortality. And if living forever wasn’t hard enough, an ancient evil is now threatening to break free after centuries of silence. And as if that still wasn’t hard enough for you, now a pesky and infuriatingly handsome god is trying to wedge his way into your life. Gods, work, love, and conflict—what more could a goddess need? [Hades & Persephone AU]

Word Count: 4402

Warnings: Language

Pragma(tic) Masterlist

Previous 1: Her Morning Takes a Turn

The sun was golden against his skin, shining on the tan color he had come to acquire after so many hours out in the light. It beat down on the flesh, warming it and relaxing him. His arms were folded behind his head as he reclined on the grass. It was soft and cool on his skin; Crete always did have the best grass for lying on. His eyes were closed against the bright light, the rays illuminating his eyelids and highlighting the veins that ran through them. His chest rose and fell with even breaths. If one didn’t know any better, they’d say he was asleep.

But he wasn’t. The young god was just lounging about, listening in on the conversation that was being held not five feet away from him.

The two voices were of young men, one angry, agitated, and fidgeting, and the other slightly exasperated and amused. 

Steve, a naiad, was talking with quick, jerky gestures. He was riled up, clearly upset, but not quite enraged. His fists were balled up tightly, almost as if he wanted to punch something. “...the bastard said I couldn’t do it,” he ranted and raved. “He thinks that because I’m a water spirit, I can’t get jewels like that.”

Sam, a dryad, was watching his friend skeptically. He tended to be the more level-headed of the three, always the mediator to calm Steve’s need to prove himself and Bucky’s somewhat erratic tendencies. He was the one to stop the two before they got themselves killed. “Steve,” he started in an attempt to reason, “it’s not worth your time. So what if you can’t get a ruby to prove him wrong? You’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

“Like what?” Steve asked with scalding agitation in his voice. “Like guarding Bucky?”

The young god’s eyes opened at the sound of his nickname and he sat up to look over at the two.

“No offense Buck, but really, you can protect yourself most of the time.” Steve turned back to Sam, his gaze hardening once more. “I want to do more than just be a bodyguard.”

“Like what? Like getting a ruby to prove some stupid nereid wrong?”

“Exactly!”

Bucky’s eyes danced with amusement, catching the sunlight up above and shining. He was always finding humor in his friend’s need to prove himself. Steve has always wanted to be the bigger man, be the one who’s worthy, be the one who can be more than he is. Ever since they were little, when Steve was small and scrawny, he’d been taking on dangerous and daring exploits, fights, and anything else he could get his hands on to prove himself. And even now that Steve was an adult with body mass, muscle, and strength to rival the gods, nothing had changed.

Steve frowned as he began to plot. “Now where can I find a ruby?”

“At a mortal jewelry store, probably,” Sam quipped. “But you know we’re not allowed to go there. Winnifred would have our heads. Besides, we don’t have any money to buy them.”

Steve’s lips turned down in a pout. “Dammit.” He scrunched up his face as he thought. “There’s gotta be some other place we can find them.”

“I’ve heard they’re usually in caves,” Bucky chimed in.

“Caves…” Steve repeated when suddenly his eyes lit up. “I’ve got it!” His whole body turned to Bucky, his eyes wide, his lips parted, his body straight and ready for action. “There’s a ton of caves down under. And the queen is literally the goddess of wealth. If anyone anywhere were to have a ruby, it’d be down there. Now, Bucky…” His voice quieted and his eyebrows knitted together, silently begging Bucky to do something.

Bucky simply chuckled, knowing full well what his best friend was asking of him. “Oh no you don’t. Don’t be giving me those puppy dog eyes. You know my mom would kill me if I went down there.”

“But Hades is dangerous and you’re a god, man,” Steve moaned. “You can’t die down there, I can. Your mother will never need to know about this. C’mon, do a brother a solid?” He tilted his head to the side. “I’ll owe you for the rest of my life.”

“Don’t do it, Buck,” Sam piped up. “Your mom will find out some way or another and we’ll all be screwed. Steve doesn’t need to get a ruby to prove himself. He’s just asking for trouble.”

“Oh come on, it can’t be hard to sneak in and grab one small ruby,” Steve whined. 

“Or it could be extremely difficult and get Bucky in trouble.”

“He’s in, he grabs a ruby, he’s out. Easy!”

“No! Not easy. He’s gonna—”

“I’ll do it.”

“I’m sorry, you’ll what?”

Bucky shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ll do it. I’ll run down and grab Steve a ruby.”

Both Sam and Steve were shocked. Neither of them thought the young god would actually agree to this crazy plan. But Steve just beamed at him. “You are the freaking best.”

“I know.” Bucky barked a laugh and rose to his feet, the grass wedging in between his bare toes. “But how the Hades am I going to get down there? I don’t think the Underworld is on a map and has a giant sign saying ‘Congratulations, you’ve reached the Underworld.’”

“Well duh.” Steve rolled his eyes and looked around at their surroundings.

They were in a clearing on the island of Crete. It was a quaint little place separated from the mortals and their cities. Sitting at the base of Mount Ida, the clearing was directly below the Dikteon Cave where the Olympian queen had been hidden as a baby. The whole area was coated in her magic, especially that cave, and her magic did some weird things to the rift between worlds.

Steve pointed up at the cave’s mouth. “See that up there?”

Bucky had to squint, but he could see it. “Yeah.”

“When Hades was finishing up the Underworld and securing it, she wasn’t able to close the rift between the Mortal World and the Underworld in that cave. The familiar energy from her sister was too strong and it’s been open ever since. That’s your in and out. It should deposit you right next to a cave if you’re lucky.”

“Please, I was born lucky!” Bucky brushed off his jeans and started walking towards the mountain. “I’ll be back!” he called to his friends before pushing on to find a path up to the cave.

The mortals had tried to pave paths to the cave, but none of them got very far. The residue from Queen Carol’s aura kept them far away from the cave. No mortal could get within a hundred yards of the mouth of the cave. Luckily for Bucky, he was a god.

He marched right up the side of the mountain to the mouth of the cave and stepped inside. He could feel the temperature drop about ten degrees as soon as got an inch inside and the hairs on his arms bristled. A shiver ran down his spine to the tips of his toes, setting an uneasy feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. He shouldn’t have been there. He was a god of spring and new life; he had no business being among the dead.

If his mother saw him now, she’d be furious. Winnifred, the goddess of the harvest and agriculture, may have seemed kind and gentle, but she was strict and her wrath was untamable and wild. If she were to be disobeyed, she would guarantee that those that opposed her direct orders would pay for it. 

Bucky loved his mother to death, but even he had to admit that she could be way too strict sometimes. She insisted that Bucky always dress properly and in a modest outfit, never permitting him nor his friends to dress in anything less than a pair of nice jeans and a pristine shirt. She required them to have limited access to the Mortal World, stating that they should only go if it was absolutely necessary. She didn’t like them frolicking among the mortals because they were Olympians, and above the humans. 

She didn’t have many rules, but she did have one that was absolute: never have any contact with the Underworld or the dead. They were too dangerous for a young god like him.

Bucky couldn’t believe that he was breaking his mother’s most important rule, but at the same time, he was exhilarated. He’d never dared to do something so bold and it was showing. His palms were sweating despite the freezing chill in the air and his heart was racing fast in his chest. He was nervous. He shouldn’t have been there, but it was too late to go back now.

He pushed on, going deeper and deeper into the cave. The air changed around him, growing cold and unforgiving. It was dark and empty and lifeless. He was not in the Mortal World anymore. Bucky took a breath and took a final step, coming out of the cave and entering a chasm.

His breath got stuck in his throat.

He’d heard stories of the Underworld before, he’d heard descriptions of it, but nothing could’ve prepared him for what it actually was. 

It was magnificent, regal, and impressive. With towering mountains in the distance on which a large mansion stood on top of, expansive fields of flowers, and hundreds of thousands of people milling about, Bucky was in awe. He couldn’t believe how organized and calm the realm was; he’d always thought that the Underworld would be savage and ugly, but here it was calm and silent.

He could’ve stood there for hours staring at everything around him and taking it all in, but he was on a mission. He had to find the ruby. 

He put his head on a swivel, looking from side to side as he searched for a cave. Rubies formed in caves; they had to be there. It wasn’t long before his eyes landed on a single cave carved into the side of a wall, a single river flowing into the mouth of it. Granted, that river was made of fire, but Bucky didn’t think anything of it. He assumed that most rivers in the Underworld had some quirk about them and that this one was that it was on fire.

He slid along the side of the Underworld, getting closer and closer to the cave. He wanted to be in and out before he could be caught. He slipped into the mouth of the cave he saw and turned to face it.

The place was colder than the main part of the Underworld. His hairs were standing on end and he had a dreadful weight sitting in the pit of his stomach. Something was not right about this place. It felt bad; it felt evil.

The young god clenched up on himself, his shoulders rolling in as he attempted to shake the feelings but they refused to disappear. Yet, he pushed on.

It was dark in there, he had to give his eyes some time to adjust to the absence of light. When he could finally see again, he scanned the walls of the cave, his eyes peeled for anything shiny and red. It couldn’t be too hard to find a red jewel, right? 

Wrong. 

Upon further inspection, he noticed that there didn’t seem to be a single sparkly object in this godforsaken cave. Every rock was bleak and dull, only clothed in greys and blacks. There was absolutely no color in the cave. Bucky was starting to wonder if he’d ever find a ruby here. Maybe they just weren’t in this cave. Maybe he was in the wrong place. But he didn’t have much time to ponder that. The sinking feeling in his gut was growing heavier and heavier with every step he took in. He shouldn’t have been there. There was something massively wrong with that place. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

But it put its finger on him.

Bucky jumped when he felt something thin, hard, and bumpy touch his skin and latch onto his ankle. A scream tore out of his throat as he snapped his head down and kicked wildly.

A hand, skeletal and white, had grabbed him and was holding on for dear life. It didn’t want to let him go and it pulled him closer to the body that was attached to it.

Bucky had been too preoccupied with searching the walls to notice the mass of bodies that were starting to pile up around him. There were dozens, maybe more, of skeletons and spirits crawling their way to him. They almost seemed drawn to the life that oozed from him. And, surely, as soon as they touched him, he could feel them trying to steal the life from him. He felt listless and drained when they touched him, and he could tell that they were nothing but evil.

How had he gotten so far in without noticing? Was he that much of a fool?

Apparently so.

The spirits around him collected around his feet and reached up, clawing onto his pants and dragging him down.

He struggled in their grasps, doing his best to fight them off, but every time he shook one off, two more would take its place. They were slowly overpowering him, pulling him closer to the ground where more of them could absorb the life from him. He could feel the toll they were taking on him, and he hated himself for feeling so weak. He’d never been so powerless before, and it scared him. For the first time in his relatively young life, he was truly afraid. 

With his mother around, he’d never had anything to fear. But his mother wasn’t here now and he was alone. And this was the end.

The spirits dragged him down to the cave’s floor and swarmed him, clamoring on top of him to maximize their hold.

“I don’t want to die” was the only thought running through his head, but Bucky simply closed his eyes, too afraid to do anything else, so he could wait it out. It’d be over sooner or later, and he was too tired to do anything to stop them. His energy had been drained. Maybe a nap would be nice and when he’d wake up, this would be all over. Yes… A nap sounded delight—

“Hey!” an angry and powerful voice boomed, the sound filling the cave and drowning out everything else.

The hands-on his body stopped dead in their tracks. It shouldn’t have been possible, but now Bucky felt their fear instead of his own.

“Get your hands off of him!” the woman yelled again, her voice filled with more power than Bucky could’ve ever imagined hearing. 

The spirits obeyed, at once letting go and scurrying away from something—or someone—behind him.

Footsteps slammed against the rock beneath them, growing louder and louder as the mystery woman marched to Bucky. A hand latched onto the collar of Bucky’s shirt and yanked him back away from the spirits. A two-pronged bident took his place, swinging at the spirits menacingly and driving them away. It glowed the faintest blue in the darkness, illuminating the faces of the damned.

The ghosts and skeletons shied away, curling up on themselves and scrambling to get away as they hissed. They were obviously afraid of the person it belonged to.

Said person tightened their grip on Bucky and began to drag him out of the cave, the bident staying in front of him as they aimed to protect him. 

Bucky tried to turn his head back to see his savior, but he couldn’t turn his head very far without being stopped by the hand on the back of his neck. 

She pulled him out of the cave, past the river of fire, and threw him on the dead grass outside. 

He landed flat on his ass with a satisfying “oof”. His hands shot back to catch him before he could fall on his back and he looked down at his body.

His once white shirt was now a dark shade of grey and torn and his jeans were torn nearly to shreds. There were scratches, scrapes, and bruises covering his legs. Little rivers of ichor ran down from the cuts, coating his skin with gold. He looked like a war-torn battlefield. His mother was going to kill him. If those spirits hadn’t finished the job, she sure would. He was dead meat. Steve and Sam better start planning his funer—

“Just what in the Hades were you thinking? Are you trying to get yourself killed?” the same voice from the cave demanded, only this time, she seemed more pissed than powerful. Her voice had lost the booming effect it had previously, but it was still sharp enough to send shivers down his spine.

Slowly Bucky lifted his eyes. The first thing he saw was a pair of black flats below black pleated pants. Looking further up he saw a black blazer covering a dark grey shirt, and further up still, he saw the face of a woman. She was quite beautiful in the way that something cold and hard like a statue was beautiful. He would’ve admired her features but he was too afraid of, and yet so enchanted by, her eyes. Her eyes, unlike most, weren’t a brown, blue, or green; no, they were red—a bright and fiery shade of scarlet that seemed to glow in the darkness of the Underworld. They held him trapped, hypnotized by the brilliant color.

He felt so small beneath her gaze, even though he was comparatively larger than she was. 

She radiated power as she glowered down at him, the bident by her side making her even more intimidating. Her lips curled back in a snarl. “I asked you a question; answer me!”

Bucky flinched and started to stammer out, “I-I...”

She seemed exasperated by his loss of words and bent down to him.

He shied away, afraid that she was going to attack him, but she simply grabbed onto his wrist and pulled. Her skin was shockingly cold against his flesh and he inhaled sharply.

She dragged him to his feet and began to pull him after her as she walked away from the cave. She was beyond angry and that made her scary. The only saving grace was that her bident had seemingly melted into thin air, probably stored in some magical pocket somewhere. She was trembling with rage as she began to rant and rave, her grip never once loosening. “Of all the idiocy I have seen in my life, I have never seen someone as stupid as you. What kind of imbecile walks into the pit willingly? Do you have a death wish? Gods, it is not my fucking job to save daredevils from the edge of the pit.” 

Bucky only stared at her, filled with confusion. His mind was racing a million miles an hour and he asked, “The pit?”

“Tartarus, you insolent fool!” she snapped, quickening her pace as she pulled him towards the place he’d come in. How she knew about the exit, Bucky didn’t know, but she continued speaking, “The prison of the worst souls known to man, the titans, and any monster you could dream of. How could you possibly—” She froze in her steps as if it suddenly dawned on her that she didn’t know who Bucky was. Rigidly, she looked over her shoulder, her red eyes glaring at him. “Who are you?” 

“M-Me?”

“Yes, you!”

Bucky blanked. Who was he again? He could barely remember under her intense gaze. “I’m, uh… I’m Bu— James. I’m James, god of spring, son of—”

“Demeter,” she spat out, her voice dripping heavily with venom and contempt. “Great. Just fucking great. You’re a new god. And not just a new god, the fucking son of Demeter.” She pinched the bridge of her nose in between her thumb and forefinger and heaved a great sigh.

He stared at her, even more confused than before. “H-Her name is Winnifred,” he stuttered out, his voice cracking.

She rolled her eyes. “Same fucking difference. It’s the same woman.”

“Well, yes, I suppose. But wait! You know my mother?”

"Of course I know your goddamn mother. She hates my guts and I'm not too fond of her either.” The woman squeezed her eyes shut and let her head fall back with an even louder groan. “Gods, she's probably going to think I kidnapped you or something! Do you realize what you being down here means?" 

“I—”

“Of course you don’t! How could you? You’re just some young, stupid, idiotic god who thinks he can go anywhere he pleases. Well, news flash, you’re not allowed to roam my domain without my permission. This is not a place for the living, and you’re lucky you escaped with only minor wounds.”

“Your domain?” Bucky furrowed his brows, his steps faltering. “Wait… Then, you’re—”

“Hades,” she confirmed. “But that’s just what the mortals call me. You need not know my name, you only need know that you have to leave. You were never supposed to be here in the first place and you will never get in again.” She dragged him towards the cave he’d entered the Underworld through and yanked him in.

Crossing the threshold, he could feel the immediate change in the air. He could feel life surging back to him as they entered the Mortal World. He could also feel Hades stumble as if the sudden rush of life was startling to her.

She pulled him through the Dikteon Cave and out into the sun at the mouth of the cave. “Where did you come from?” she demanded, her voice low and cold as her hands.

Bucky pointed down towards the clearing where he could just barely make out the figures of Sam and Steve.

She let go of his wrist and grabbed his upper arm instead. “Hold on.”

He didn’t get a chance to ask her what she meant, because she leaped up into the air and off the side of the mountain, pulling him with her. The wind whistled past his ears as they fell, and he had to trap the scream that was rising in his throat.

They landed on the edge of the clearing, the ground trembling beneath them. She released Bucky, throwing him forward a bit before straightening up and glaring at Steve and Sam who had started running over.

With her shoulders rolled back and her body completely in the light, Bucky could now observe her fully. The red had faded from her eyes, revealing a wonderful shade of (e/c) that had red-rimmed around the iris. Her skin was devoid of life and she had deep, dark circles covering the skin beneath her eyes. Bucky hated to admit it, but she almost looked dead. She was unsettling but in a gorgeous, powerful kind of way.

Steve ran over to Bucky’s side, his face panicked. “Buck,” he breathed out, ��are you alright? What happened?”

“He went where he had no business going,” Hades answered, her voice agitated and disgruntled. “You two are his watchers, no?”

“U-Um, yes, Ma’am?” Steve responded, thoroughly anxious.

“Then fucking watch him,” she snapped, her voice suddenly growing in volume. “The Underworld is no place for fledgling gods who have no experience in the real world.”

Sam turned to Bucky, his eyes wide with alarm. He probably wanted to say something in their defense, but the only thing he asked was, “Did you get the ruby?”

Bucky could’ve smacked him.

Hades glowered at Sam. “What ruby? Explain yourselves.”

Bucky gulped. “It’s the reason I went down. My friend wanted a ruby and I thought I could find one in the Underworld and I…” He couldn’t even finish his sentence, realizing how stupid it was under her incredulous look.

“You mean to tell me you went to fucking Tartarus for a ruby? A single ruby that’s worth hardly anything to a god?”

“...Yes.”

She barked a bitter laugh, doubling over and placing her hands on her knees to steady herself. “I can’t believe this.” She held out her fingers, maintaining a small gap in between her thumb and forefinger, and a single, raw ruby, red as blood and the size of a large pebble, formed out of thin air. “Here. Take your damn ruby.” She chucked it at the ground at Bucky’s feet before narrowing her eyes at him. “You got what you came for, and now you have no reason to return. If I ever, and I mean ever, catch you in my realm again, I will teach you why the mortals call it Hell.” She spared the men one last snarl before taking a step away from them, digging something out of her pocket, and dropping the minuscule item on the ground.

At once, the ground trembled and shook and a hole opened up at her feet. The ground swallowed her, pulling her into the depths before closing up again like nothing ever happened. In her place stood a single flower with an elongated stem and a spike of white blossoms: an Asphodel.

Bucky’s gaze switched between the flower and the ruby until it finally settled on the jewel. Slowly he reached for the ruby and picked it up to examine it. It was heavy in his hand, beautiful and clear. It filtered the light that passed through it and cast odd shapes that mimicked its raw cut in red on his palm. But it wasn’t the ruby itself that mesmerized him, it was the color; the same color of her eyes. Bucky was certain that that shade of red would be burned into his memory for all eternity, and as he stood there with Sam and Steve fawning over him making sure he was okay and talking about getting him cleaned off and changed into new clothes because he “reeked of death”, he couldn’t help but think of her: Hades, the woman whose name he did not fully know, but whose face had suddenly washed over his mind and infiltrated every nook and cranny of his thoughts. His grip tightened over the ruby and he smiled to himself softly.

Next 3: Her Head Aches

[doctor-bus]

You've been visited by the random OC question fairy! :D ~☆

If your character had to choose one favorite memory, what would it be? How about their worst memory? Why would they pick these two memories? 

Aw, what a sweet ask! Thank you for the visit, OC fairy. Here's a little drink for you before you continue on your way 🌺

As for the answer (keeping it semi-vague since I mainly use them in different aus with my delightful friends, and also under the cut for length lol):

Lou: 

I feel like her best memory would probably be something sweet and simple. She didn't get a lot of simple pleasures in her early life, and would probably relish in the firsts. Getting a fun girls day out with her friends, maybe post-plot, where she's not on edge and looking over her shoulders constantly?? That'd be a great memory. A fun day where they got to just goof off and unwind, maybe hitting up a bakery and trading bites of the pastries they got, maybe doing some window shopping. One of those simple days that you never forget. 

BUT if we're talking strictly within canon, not including friend's ocs (Hi @randomhatthief hi @d4zed-dre4mer ily) I'd say her best memory is probably her first night of real freedom, fresh air on her tongue, starry sky stretching out into infinity above, a never-ending tapestry of brand new possibilities she never dreamed she'd have. Moonlight shining off Virgil’s hair as he tells her in urgent, hushed tones to keep her voice down, his hand shaking in hers even as the beginnings of what could, maybe, possibly be a smile tug at the corners of his lips. From anxiety? From exhilaration? From hope? A twisted concoction of all of the above?? And Darwin trailing behind (assuming this isn’t a Junebug au, in which he usually fares far better), hands sturdy and stable in all the ways Virgil’s aren’t, seeming like he’s really a part of this new world to explore with his moonlight hair. Normally still as stone in body and mind, but now moved quite easily, the hope of home overcoming him, or so she’d assume. It was hard not to be enamored with his tales of a home worth having. It’s a very intense moment all around, for sure. She never quite gets over the image of the sky that night. 

As for her worst memory? The starry sky may never truly leave her, but even more pervasive is the smell of ash, the overwhelming suffocating heat, the sizzle of flesh, the desperate helplessness of knowing exactly what’s coming and knowing she can’t even react-- she can’t let it get to her, it’ll just be worse if she shows she’s afraid, she can’t, she can’t make it worse, but it’s already so bad-- no, it’s fine, it’s fine it’s fine she’s fine she’s fine she’s fine-- 

She doesn’t have a gas range or a tea kettle in her home, once everything is over. Never.

Virgil: 

HM. I honestly might have to think about this more, but for now I’m going to say best memory is probably something similar to Lou in the sense of being post-canon once everything is settled and he’s got some peace in his heart? A house full of mechanical projects and plants and cats, and good friends if he’s lucky. Acts of mischief pulled off most expertly, escape artistry without the burden of life-or-death danger. 

Sticking to canon-only, my-ocs-only though: I think it’d again be similar, but the relief and awe would set in later than Lou. I think it’d only really sink in once they’re somewhere secluded and quiet and can take their first real break from running for a while. Sliding down the wall, exhaustion battling the adrenaline battling the need to keep his head, but finally getting the rush of holy shit, I did it, we did it, we’re all here-- and the absolute giddy pride it’d bring. A bubble of high-strung laughter now that it’s safe netting him fretting from Lou, advice that he should really be resting now-- but holy shit. Holy SHIT. They pulled it off. Verifiable Houdinis, free and clear. Having gone through the thistles and found home in the briar. I don’t think there’d be a greater high. Of course, they can’t let their guards down yet. The story has just begun, there’s far to go and dangers innumerable ahead. But for that one fleeting moment??? Sweeter than he ever dared to dream. 

As for his worst memory, it’s not something he can remember well. That’s probably for the best, the wavering soap-bubble moments he can recall haunt him. His arm never really recovered, not all the way. Marred and aching and, in his eyes, ugly. Faint flashes-- sharp nails digging into his wrist-- thrashing, the strain of his shoulders yanking, desperate-- the burning, the godawful burning, each moment feeling uniquely unbearable, absolutely unendurable, spreading out from a pinpoint to submerging his entire elbow in a furious smolder-- the endless din splitting his head in two, throat raw-- vague shapes, familiar colors, mixed up voices, all swirled around and swirled around again. It still gives him trouble, and no less as time goes on. Still, for as much trouble as time brings, it also carries with it some consolation. It’s done now. It’s over. And he’s never, never going back. 

Darwin:

All of his best memories are of home. He’s a simple man, he’s never wanted the chaos and excitement that has always seemed to- literally- haunt his every step. He just wants his family. His grandmother’s old kitchen table, dark sturdy wood with its decorative swirls, a bit scratched up after years of use but so inviting. The sunflowers in her garden, and slow afternoons pulling weeds wordlessly side by side. He’s never felt safer, more loved, than when he was under her roof. While he always knew he’d grow up and leave home, in nearly every scenario he’s yanked away far too soon. He can’t ever regain the time lost, but he can still find his family, make sure they’re well. Have another long, lazy summer afternoon, the kind where the air clings close to skin and brings a general dampness with it, the smell of dirt and the promise of future rains. Tying baby saplings to twigs, a gentle nudge to help them grow strong, not unlike his grandmother did for him when she adopted him. 

His best memory, his sweetest moment, would be returning to that. It’s not really over for him until he’s home, and his grandmother (so much older, so much smaller than he remembers, or maybe it’s that he’s so much taller now?) in his arms. 

Before that moment though, it’d just be the collective memories of home he yearns so desperately for. He wants to go back. He has to go back. He will go back. 

His worst memories? One would think, based on the above, it’d be the sudden departure. Being yanked away by people you don’t know to an unknown location, not even knowing if your family is safe, not even knowing if they’re still looking for you or if they’ve accepted the rumors of your demise. And certainly, that memory is bad.

But some things? Some things are worse. 

Having your body hijacked by a malicious stranger? Being a danger to others through no will of your own, a mere marionette in the hands of a being who should have passed on in peace but instead is determined to drag your life down with theirs? That carries a more visceral fear. His grandmother always seemed to have good sense about these things-- keep him safe, keep those around him safe, know her baby would come back sooner or later. This is the sort of thing you have to prepare for when adopting the posterchild for creepy horror movie kids everywhere and deciding to alter that fate. But I’m sure it didn’t make it any easier for her, to see a stranger with a familiar face. The possessions would never last too long, but they were always the worst. The ache after, bone-deep and throbbing, as he came back into himself. The disorientation of lingering ectoplasm in his system. The chafe from restraints on the unfortunate off chance they became necessary. And worse, the first time it happened away from home, in a new place with new people who don’t understand and don’t know to stop him. Sure, it usually isn’t bad-- a lost and confused soul who simply needs a little help getting to their ultimate destination. Some encounters downright sweet. But the evil souls would leave an impression. His catholic upbringing already had him wary, but nothing teaches as well as first hand experience. 

[seyaryminamoto]

Hello! Sorry to double up on questions this week. I wanted to say that I (somehow in the last 2 days . . .) read through all of Sokkla Saturday entries (actually, I read most of them twice). I think they're all absolutely fantastic –– remarkably creative with the prompts and well done. Acknowledging your note at the end of the last entry, do you think you ever will flesh out these AUs a bit more (even in other one-shots)? Especially the "arranged marriage" AU (but the others too...)?

xD thanks for the love! Those stories were a lot of fun to create, lighthearted detours on my main endeavor can be lots of fun often.

The truth about most those stories is that they were mostly AUs and ideas I had thought I’d never write and didn’t think I could really work with in the future, due to Gladiator consuming all my existence. I actually started out planning on making small stories for the Saturdays (the first two should be evidence enough, they weren’t even 5K each! xD), but once I hit the third prompt... I just went wild xD

The arranged marriage idea came from pondering which of my many AUs could ever result in Hakoda and Ozai deciding to arrange their children in marriage. Granted there are many ways to make this happen, but then I remembered the idea that was directly opposite to Gladiator, basically, with Aang breaking out of the iceberg earlier rather than later... and it just spiraled into that crazy huge AU that absolutely should be expanded upon xD Whether by developing how this other iteration of Team Avatar worked, or by showing how much the world has changed and how different it is from canon through exploring Sokka and Azula’s relationship... it would be fun, absolutely.

The Space Sword expedition was a story I never finished, a plot I had come up with ages ago, seriously, back in Gladiator’s earliest days, with a friend. That friend no longer writes, but I figured it’d be an interesting idea to take that plot bunny and properly explore it the way we intended to, ages ago. Basically it’s the same storyline we had thought of, but probably resolved far more smoothly than we initially planned.

And well, Azula being captured by the Gaang instead of Azula capturing any Gaang members was another AU from ages ago. In fact... 

I can’t find the original post anymore, but about three years ago I drew the very scene of their first kiss from that story. It’s not 100% accurate, I suspect? x’D but I’m sure the scene is recognizable anyway. I won’t lie, I’d really love to figure out what comes next in this one. I stopped where I stopped because it felt right... but there’s quite some story to develop in this particular AU, especially after Azula openly betrayed her nation.

Then the assassination attempt at Ba Sing Se was, ages ago, meant to be a potential lead-up to a story I never finished either :’D originally, they weren’t meant to go as far as they do in the Saturday story, and instead they would have consummated everything later. At this point, it’s safe to say the way it turned out in Matching Heartbeats is a million times better x’D and yeah, it was another idea I was kicking around in my head for years, seems like people too often focus on assassination attempts on Zuko, but there’s other big heads of state who could potentially be victims to such schemes... and frankly, poor, trusting, hopeless Kuei is probably the easiest one to murder for political motives. Still, it’s evident the whole core of that story isn’t the assassination, but rather, Sokka and Azula getting stuck in a very cramped closet. That was the real point of the whole thing x’D

Then Evil Ursa AU... that idea has been living rent-free in my head for ages too x’D it was the first plausible idea I ever had for how Azula could ever be banished the way Zuko was, down to even being kicked out along with Iroh. It’s probably the darkest of all the stories, definitely pretty horrific considering how damn nasty Ursa becomes... I took some probably obvious inspiration from Cersei Lannister in making Ursa as cruel as she was, though of course, Cersei still loved her children in general... whereas Ursa here just loves Zuko and Zuko alone :’D she’s really just an expansion on her canon character in this one, but it was a lot of fun to see how things can turn out if Azula has that strong a reason to fight against her nation and oppose the reigning “Fire Lord”.

The Yakuza AU is probably the odd one in the bunch because it wasn’t plotted ages ago, but instead very recently xD it may seem strange, considering it’s the longest? But yeah, I outright answered an ask about how I imagined these two in that setting and... my brain may have broken a little over the sheer potential of it xD the kicker is that while I’m far from a yakuza expert, I may have looked into them more than most people do? Been writing stories featuring yakuza since... 2009? x’DDDD so I may have jumped a little too quickly at the opportunity to situate Sokka and Azula in this setting, though I still did extra research because damn, the world of yakuza tattoos is pretty intense. This one definitely requires some expansion, the clan war was absolutely only going to get weirder from that point onwards, alliance or no... especially once Ozai found out what was going on with those very strange, weeks-long tattoo sessions xD maybe one day I’ll figure out what comes next here, maybe...

The source of the final story was a friend’s suggestion that maybe someday I could write a Zuko who supports and even pushes Sokkla together, rather than opposing them, seeing as that’s how most of us characterize him in our stories. I didn’t really plot it out until this prompt was selected, but the seed of the idea was in my head since a long time ago and I just decided to let myself go with what might come from it xD

Aaaand that’s where all the more ambitious stories in Matching Heartbeats came from! :D Not that you asked about this directly, but who said I wasn’t the type to ramble? X’D

In any case, I would love to expand some of these AUs some more, especially Arranged Marriage, I melt in your hands, Making a deal and the Yakuza AU, absolutely true. But as I can’t say I ever will have that chance, I did my best to condense the main anecdotes of all of them into those oneshots because I may not have time to develop them some more... but if the opportunity ever arises, I’ll love revisiting these stories, any of them. In future events perhaps? :D I’ll keep everyone posted if I ever do! :) thanks for the support and the interest!

[winchest09]

Our Virtual Lockdown - Lowdown

Hey everyone!

Our lockdown livestream was once again one filled with laughter, smiles and support and it warms my heart to see so many of your faces each time we do this. 

6 and a half hours we were talking…SIX AND A HALF and again, I loved every single second. It was so nice to see so many gorgeous faces, and I’m so happy that so many of you joined us! The support from you guys for each other, the love in this fandom; I can’t express how much I adore it. 

Me and @katehuntington​ love holding these events and we are already planning the next live stream (date to be announced) but it will be soon!

This is the lowdown for the fourth lockdown party!

Below you will find:

Everyone who joined - their tags, what’s coming up fic wise and their masterlist.

Q & A with our writers and readers. 

Blogs who want to help with your writing

Can you help us?

Fic & blog recs

Announcements

So without further ado… *cracks fingers*

To everyone that joined…

You are the guys that make it the live stream what it is.  So below is a list of everyone who was on the chat last night accompanied by their masterlist and what they have coming up soon! In no particular order…

@katehuntington​: Kate is currently working on the next instalment of Ride With Me, All I Want and she has JUST posted an adorable little oneshot/drabble called Wedding Bells! 

Her masterlist can be found HERE

@flamencodiva​: This babe is currently working on a multitude of things and we are super excited to see them come out. She wasn’t with us for as long as normal so we didn’t hear what she was working on at the moment but we know its gonna be good! Head over to her page and send her some love! 

Check out her masterlist HERE

@whatareyousearchingfordean​: Alex is currently writing the ending to her Jensen fiction Et Cetera AND she has decided her next fiction!

Firefighter Dean x OFC Marina. From what we’ve already heard...it sounds amazing! I won’t give away any plot points that we were told just yet but it’s one to be put on your watch list! 

Her masterlist can be found HERE

@talesmaniac89​:  This beaut also has a lot that she’s working on at the moment. The next instalments of The Man in Apartment 43. The next chapters of Lost (which is a little darker), she’s also working on a Heist AU and something that we’ve had a sneak peak at! 

She’s created a fake website called HunT and is creating a social media AU set in the universe. The whole story will be told through text messages and emails. It’s NOT one to miss!  

Check her out guys, her masterlist is HERE

@superfanficnatural​:  This babe is currently working on the next chapters of The Bringer of balance as well as the next chapters of The Choice! The fifth chapter of Bringer of Balance came out two days ago. Also working on a Oscar Isaac request as well as a new Smut Series, RPF Series and Benny x Dean smut! 

We’re living for it! 

Go and give him some love, his masterlist can be found HERE

@emoryhemsworth​: This beaut is still fleshing out the series she was writing last time we did the lockdown and she is also working on a sequel to a previous fic called Because Of You. The sequel will be in the hurt/comfort category so she is definitely gonna be stretching those angst muscles!

Check our her masterlist HERE:

@malfoysqueen14​: This lovely lady is new to the Supernatural fandom and is trying her hand at writing fanfiction! Her first fic “White Flag” is Dean x OFC and it’s going in a very interesting direction! Worth a read!

She hasn’t yet got a masterlist but you can check out White Flag HERE

@ellewritesfix05​: Another new writer to the Supernatural scene but guys, she’s a doll and her writing has me smiling! She’s currently working on a fiction called “Midwife Crisis” and it’s so good. 

You can check out her masterlist HERE

Me: I’m currently working on two series, Life for Rent and Man’s Best Friend! I also have a couple of Dean series being worked on in the background as well as a couple of oneshots…one which is gonna be called “Wasted on You” 

Watch this space!

To the new writers…

These guys are all new when it comes to terms of writing and are yet to create masterlists for there work. However, we do know that some of them have W.I.P’s right now and we are SO excited to hear more about them next time we do another stream. 

Fingers crossed, we’ll see some content from them soon! They have some amazing idea’s that I, personally, cannot wait to read!

Remember guys - we’re all here to love and support you! My inbox is always open if you want to talk fics, want me to look over one etc.

Go and follow and give them some love!

@janicho88​ @imjustadrummer​  @impalaprincess​ @waywardbeanie​

and to the readers that joined…

@leissa1287​ and the few nonnies we had! 

We love you, we thank you for reading and we thank you for all the support and love you give us constantly. Thank you for joining the chat and we hope you had an amazing time <3

————————-

Q & A with our writers & our readers! 

During this live stream, we asked everyone to join in and to ask the writers and readers some questions! We had a few so the write up for this is below! I hope you enjoy reading them. 

Q) What comes first? The title then the story or the story then the title? 

Most of us: (in chorus) Stories then title. 

Mert (superfanficnatural): All I will say is, summaries are the devil!

Alex (whatareyousearchingfordean): If i’m honest, I don’t like the title Et Cetera so I’ve decided that I will be changing it once I get to the end of the fiction. 

Me (winchest09): For me it depends, sometimes I can get a story from a song and the title just fits. I had Life for Rent as I started writing it. Other times, when it comes to oneshots, it’s always the story that’s there but I have no idea what to call it and i’m bugging Kate or Sian (@deanwanddamons) for help!

Kate (katehuntington): I think of the story entirely first. I need to know what’s going to happen and I have to plan it all out and once that’s done, I can then think of the title. I like to put the title in the dialogue sometimes too. Ride With Me is gonna be a line in the fic!  

Alex (whatareyousearchingfordean): Yeah, if i can’t think of one (a title), I  generally pull a sentence from the line of the fic. A line that is of some significance or that could be important to the story.

Emory (emoryhemsworth): I love it when fics do that!

Q) What’s the way you write a series? Chapter by Chapter or have it all set out with a start middle and end before you set out to write it?

Mert (superfanficnatural): Chapter chapter but it kinda depends on the fic itself.

Elle (ellewritesfix05): Chapter by chapter!

Alex (whatareyousearchingfordean): Chapter by chapter but it depends on my mood. 

Me (winchest09): I generally have it all planned with my start middle and end. At least bullet pointed before i divide it into my chapters. But it’s all subject to change. Fics take their own life sometimes and you just have to roll with it. But i like to have a direction in mind. 

Kate (katehuntington): I do the outline, but I usually writer chapter for chapter publishing wise. But I definitely know where I'm going before I put down the first words

Q) Do you guys (writers) know how many chapters you’ll have when you start?

Kate (katehuntington): *laughs* No.

Me (winchest09): No, not all! I never expected Life for Rent to be this long and yet I still have chapters to go. I’ve also had to split chapters too with how long they’ve gotten!

Mert (superfanficnatural): Sometimes but not all the time. 

Q) Do readers feel pressured to leave feedback?

Shelli (waywardbeanie): No, not really. 

Emory (emoryhemsworth): In some instances...yes. When blogs point out and make people feel bad for the lack of feedback. I understand it’s important but it does add the pressure to leave a comment. 

Q) What do you do if you get writers block?

Angel (malfoysqueen14): I read comments, or I like to speak to people who are interested in reading my fics. Talk the story over with them, get the buzz going again. 

Emory (emoryhemsworth): I get up, walk away and have a break from it. Take a shower, have something to eat, have just ten minutes for myself then come back to it with fresh eyes. 

Kate (katehuntington): I feel like 70% of the time, I cant get it out. I can’t get the words out. I wish i could push over 1K a day but sometimes it doesn’t happen for me. 

Angel (malfoysqueen14): Another bit of advice would be to just write, even if its terrible or you think it’s terrible. Put it down and get some words out!

Alex (whatareyousearchingfordean): Yeah I agree. For ‘Et Cetera’ I actually wrote part 17 before I wrote anything else because that’s what I had the inspiration for at the time. Then I had to work out how to link it all but I got there. If that doesn’t work, then change projects for a bit and start something fresh. 

Kate (katehuntington): Yeah that’s what I did and why I wrote ‘Wedding Bells’. It definitely helped. 

Q) Do you write it chronological order or not?

Mert (superfanficnatural): Sort of. Like, in my head when i’m writing, I envision the scene, then as i’m typing i can see where the scene could go, like I have many different options to go down. Then i pick one as I get there! 

Kate (katehuntington): Yes, cause i feel like it’d be swiss cheese if not. Full of holes! *laughs*

Me (winchest09): No. I always think I’m a little bit of a strange one for this but I write all over the place. I can write the ending first, then the beginning, then the middle. I’ve got a scene written in my ending but i’m nowhere near that yet! I write what I have the inspiration for at the time then thread it all together. 

Emory (emoryhemsworth): My inspiration always comes out when i’m at work when I cant write. 

Me (winchest09): Oh that happens to me all the time! Especially when I’m driving! 

Angel (malfoysqueen14): I end up writing notes on pieces of receipts *laughs*

Shelli (waywardbeanie): A good idea maybe to record notes on your phone!

Mert (superfanficnatural): Yeah spit out ideas on your phone. That way when you feel like you’ve lost the inspiration, you can always listen to it again and it’ll give you the spark back to write it! 

Me (winchest09): Ok random...and this might make me look crazy but...does anyone else act out their dialogue?

Everyone: Yes! 

Me (winchest09): Thank god! *laughs*

Mert (superfanficnatural): It’s actually a good idea because it can help you channel the emotions. 

Q) For someone who hasn’t written smut before or had any experience to go on, what do you do?

Kate (katehuntington): Watch porn *laughs*

Me (winchest09): Read, read read read. Fanfic, normal books, talk to someone you’re comfortable with about it all, get them to have a look over your stuff if you want them too.

Kate (katehuntington): I have the perfect post to help with synonyms! It’ll be included in the lowdown (Check below in the need help section) 

Mert (superfanficnatural): Definitely ask someone that you speak too to beta it for you if you want them too! 

Alex (whatareyousearchingfordean): What also helps if you don’t have experience with a partner or a partner. Experiment with yourself. You’ll know what feels good and how to describe it. 

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Need Help with a fic?

We’ve got you covered!

Need to has out a plot with someone?

The lovely @malfoysqueen14​ has offered herself up to be a plot buddy to anyone that needs it. Stuck on a plot point, want to talk through a story line with someone? Give her a message! She’s here to help <3

Also want an aesthetic making for your fictions? 

She also wants to help people by putting her photoshopping skills to use! Want an aesthetic being made? Give her a shout! 

Need help writing those all important fight scenes?

Give our babe @imjustadrummer​ a message! They are filled with knowledge and even give us a demonstration on how to punch correctly on the livestream! Definitely one to have on your contacts list! <3

Need help with research for a fiction?

The most wonderful @waywardbeanie​ has offered herself up to be a researcher for anyone who wants help with their fiction. She has been a die hard SPN fan forever and she’s like the Ellen of our live stream.

Need a researching buddy? Give her a message! She’s a doll <3

Need help with some sweet smut writing?

Our girl @katehuntington​ has got you covered! Check out this link HERE

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Can You Help Us?

We are putting out the bat signal for our lovely @imjustadrummer​ who is after a blueprint to The Bunker’s garage! If anyone has one or know any information about layouts...please give her a shout! 

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Fic & blog Recs!

In our live stream, we want to highlight what we’ve been reading and the amazing authors behind the words. So below is a list of all the fics that we recommend for some good ol fic binging!

Fic Recs

Sons of Lawrence by @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan​

Summary: You ran, ran as far as you could from your previous life, ran so far you ended up in Lawrence, Kansas of all places. You had no intention of getting involved with the most notorious biker gang in Lawrence, a biker gang that trafficked illegal drugs, weapons, and anything that might make them money. But Dean Winchester was impossible to resist. One look into those green eyes and you were gone. 

The Man At The Side Of The Road by @supernatural-jackles​

Summary: Driving down the road, going well over the speed limit. You come across a man walking in the opposite direction with a bouquet of flowers in his hands. His head cast down as he walked. Your gut instinct is telling you to check on this man, no matter what your parents told you growing up. Little did you know just how much this would change your life. Dirty Little Secret by @pink1031​

Summary: You are a new character on the show Supernatural, a new hunter named Riley. You are just starting your second season as a regular. Even though you have known Jensen for years and have been close friends, your relationship grows into something more during filming.  You both know that you shouldn’t act on your feelings but you just can’t help it.  What will happen if you do? 

Nicotine by @talesmaniac89​​

Summary: Dean has his vices, but they all pale in comparison to how he craves you. Yet he pushed you away, leaving him gasping for air.

Side by Side by @talesmaniac89​

Summary: You go looking for Dean on the eve of another hunter’s death anniversary. Knowing he’s lost, and needing to comfort him.

You’re Home by @impala-dreamer​

Summary: N.A but this looks like a must read! 

Home Is Where You Are by @muggleishly​

Summary: N/A but this looks adorable! 

The Voices by @fictionalabyss​

Summary: N/A but this looks angsty AF. Go read!

Who Do You Think You Are by @flamencodiva​

Summary: Dean and Y/N have a friends with benefits deal. But what happens along their journey.

Every Time You Leave, I Hit Rock Bottom by @arazialotis​ 

Summary: Scenes from the up and downs of Dean and Y/N’s relationship as they struggle to balance his life as a hunter.

Sky Full Of Stars by @smol-and-grumpy​ 

Summary: He’s Dean Winchester, ex mobster boss, still a little cocky, less ruthless and not at all short tempered anymore. Instead, he thinks he’s hilarious (she doesn’t agree, though). They both try to live a quiet life. And Dean hopes, very hard, that his former life won’t come knocking at their door.

Cross My Heart by @smol-and-grumpy​

Summary:  After opening up a letter, the life as she knows it, changes forever. Her husband hires Dean Winchester to protect her but is Dean really who he said he was? And is her husband really worried about her safety?

One Good Reason by @sunlightdances​

Summary: Dean never brings women back to the bunker. It figures the one time he breaks his own rule, the state issues a lockdown. Navigating the next month is an exercise in trust, patience and falling in love. 

Protector by @fictionalabyss​

Summary: I couldn’t find a summary but this is a Biker AU and it looks AMAZING. 

Shattered Like A Stone by @thoughtslikeaminefield

Summary:  The Mark is demanding and the demon in Dean won’t deny it.

Marked by @there-must-be-a-lock

Summary:  This is a story about trust and control. It’s about the Mark of Cain, trauma and recovery, BDSM, vulnerability, honesty, and the marks we leave on people we love.

Playing Pretend by @supernatural-fangirl1967​ 

Summary:  When you confide in a stranger that you need a date for a week with your family, you don’t expect him to show up offering his help. You try and act like a happy couple, but things get complicated when you start to actually fall for this man. Could you pull it all off and get through the week as more than friends, or do secrets from his past show up to ruin it all?

Logged In by @talesmaniac89​

Summary: Sam tells Dean and the reader about a new online community for hunters and they both scoff at him, but secretly use it and end up drawn to each other.

Shackled by @itmighthavebeenintentional​

Summary: After nearly ten years, Sam Winchester calls Miriam Bard to collect on a life debt. Unfortunately for Miriam, Sam leaves out a few important details.

Blog Recs

@ne-gans​ , @saxxxologybookshelf​ , @negans-lucille-tblr ,  @samsexualdeancurious​ by @emoryhemsworth​ 

“I really love these blogs and the work they produce! Some stuff is only available on patreon but if you love their work, it’s definitely worth it”

@promptandpros​ by @superfanficnatural​

“This blog writes a lot of male reader fictions! Check them out! “

@impala-dreamer by @katehuntington​

I love her stuff. I love that she can do really angsty fics and then come up with crack fics off the top of her head, fics that have me laughing my ass off. Check her out! 

PHEW! I definitely think we have enough fics on here to last us for a few days if not weeks!…don’t you? ;) Please guys don’t forget to give these writers some love when reading their fics, comments, reblogs, asks. It means the world.

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Interested in roleplaying & DnD?

@imjustadrummer​ has set up a Dungeons and Dragons campaign set in the Supernatural (main) universe!

If you’re into role playing, fancy bringing one of your OFC’s to life or just wanna be badass yourself…why not consider joining?!

All the information you need on this is HERE

Make some new friends, live out your dreams of being a hunter, angel or demon and HAVE FUN!

————————-

ANNOUNCEMENTS!

We some wonderful announcements to make once again!

Firstly...

Mert ( @superfanficnatural​ ) on June 6th, our darling Mert will be in the @spnfanficpond​‘s discord channel as a special guest! He will be there to give advice to anyone who wants it from the male point of view. Go over and say hi! 

Please note that to do this...you will need to be a member of the pond to participate in this but it’s super simple to join, the how to is on the page, and we are all a lovely bunch of coconuts (didleedum). But seriously...we are all lovely and friendly. 

Secondly...

Me and the wonderful @katehuntington​ are excited to announce that we will shortly be launching a podcast series! The name is still pending however we will be talking about all things fanfiction, all things life and everything else in general! We will have special guests, we can take questions or talk about issues that you guys wanna go over! 

Watch this space...

Thirdly....

This is only for you guys in the USA but wanna receive birthday texts from the darling Misha...we have his number for you!

3234059939

Have fun! 

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I think that’s it!

Thank you so much once again to everyone who joined the chat, we had 6 hours of laughs and i cannot wait to do it again. I’d appreciate it if you could share this to spread the love of the fics and authors on here!

Keep an eye out for the next date for our next livestream! It will be in a couple of weeks, date to be announced. If you guys have any idea’s or want something included, let us know. If you want to be tagged when we announce, let us know!

@deanwanddamons - tagging you babe as you asked so you can catch up on what we talked about <3

THANK YOU.

xox

[i-will-physically-fight-you]

Gibbous Chapter 8

Chapter Title:  One Swallow Does not Make a Summer

Summary: It’s fine. Everything is fine. (It really isn’t)

Pairings: platonic lamp, platonic sleepxiety lets finally be honest with ourselves

Chapter Word-Count: 6024

Warnings:  unresolved grief, past minor character death, panic attack, crying, panic/anxiety, emotional abuse/gaslighting, dissociation

Previous | Present | Next

AO3 Link

Hi, apparently I don’t know how to write 2k chapters anymore, guys I’m sorry.  Special thanks to @theeternalspace for her continued support for this AU in terms of brainstorming/cheering me on and to @stillebesat who beta’d this chapter, helping point out plot inconsistencies & grammar stuff. 

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“Hey Virgil, it’s time to get up.”

Virgil grumbled, shifting in his bed, “Don’t wanna.”

A chuckle, “Are you sure? Your dad is making his world-famous pancakes. Better get up before he eats them all himself.”

“Pancakes?” Virgil asked, looking up at last at his mother. Her dark hair was pulled into a loose side ponytail rather than her typical bun. Little curly wisps escaped the ponytail, kindly framing her face. She wore a yellow sweater with a goofy sloth face on it, something that was definitely his father’s.

“I knew that would get your attention, my little poet.” She grinned, affectionately booping his nose.

“Moooom,” Virgil groaned, because he was nearly thirteen and entering preteen angst. He was too old for boops and cutesy nicknames. His parents didn’t quite seem to get the memo just yet.

Mom kept smiling at him, wide and bright. Like she knew something he didn’t.

“What?” Virgil demanded, tilting his head sideways in confusion.

“Oh nothing,” She said, hands gently cusping the sides of his face, “I’m just thinking of how old you’re getting and how proud I am of you.”

“For what?” Virgil asked, confused by her words. He knew his parents loved him. They often proclaimed that with words and hugs. He could take being loved. But being proud of him? That was a completely new territory. He hadn’t done anything to earn this sentiment. He wasn’t the Grade A Student or the Star Athlete. He was just Virgil. An anxious preteen who liked listening to MCR. He didn’t get why his mom would be proud of that.

“Because you never give up, regardless of what life throws at you.” Mom said softly before pressing a kiss to his forehead, “I love you, Virgil.”

“Love you too,” Virgil mumbled, cheeks burning as he threw his arms around Mom for a quick hug. Never gave up? He wasn’t sure if that aptly described him. He felt like a colossal coward, one who always ran from his problems rather than face them. Maybe he’d managed to trick his parents into thinking otherwise. A pang of guilt hit him from that thought. Like a dodgeball during recess. Still, he couldn’t deny the warm, grateful feeling that crept inside of him.

Virgil withdrew from the hug and leapt out of his bed. When he reached the doorway, he paused to turn back at his mother, “C’mon! We have to go downstairs before Dad eats all the pancakes, remember?”

 “Oh yes,” His mother said, following behind him, “how could I ever forget that?”

As they descended down the stairs, Virgil could hear pancake batter sizzling and his father’s attempts at singing.

“Just a small town giiiiirl, living in a lonely wooooorld!”

Virgil loved his dad, just as much as his mom. He loved how enthusiastic the man could be. His dad put his whole heart into everything he did. Even if he wasn’t great at them. It was an admirable quality to be sure. It still didn’t mean Virgil didn’t wince a tiny bit from his dad’s screechy singing.

“Please make it stop,” Virgil whispered underneath his breath.

His mom shook her head, looking more amused than anything else. He supposed it had something to do with how they first met doing a duet at a karaoke bar. He heard the story a gazillion times by now, but it never got old. Especially with his father adding new details every iteration. His mom would hover nearby, correcting him in an exasperated but loving way.

“Hello Dearest.” Mom said, startling Virgil out of his thoughts. He looked up to see they were already in the kitchen. Huh. He must’ve gotten lost in his thoughts or something.

Dad gasped, putting a hand to his chest in a playful offended way, “Love, is that my sweater?!”

Virgil’s mom easily towered him by a few good inches. Some people made fun of Virgil’s parents because of that. They said it was weird for the woman to be the taller one in a relationship. Virgil never understood that arbitrary reasoning. Not when his father looked up at his mother like she was his whole universe. His whole sun, moon, stars and everything.

“Is it? I found it lodged in my drawer. Almost like someone hastily stuffed it in there without paying attention to which dresser they placed it in.”

His dad spluttered at a loss for words and Virgil snorted. He couldn’t help it. Not when his dad was a walking, breathing cartoon character. Anyone could read him like a book from his facial expressions alone. He kept spluttering, his eyebrows nearly flying off his face and eyes as wide as saucers. One unsubtle wink directed towards Virgil told him that it was mostly an act on his part.

 “Well, uh, may I offer you in some….pam-cakes?” His dad asked, redirecting the topic from his haphazard attempt at house cleaning.

Pamcakes. A pun on his mother’s name—Pamela. Oh my god, he said that every time. His mom always rolled her eyes at it, lips pressed together to keep from smiling. She was supposed to be the stoic foiling his comedic. Yet it fooled nobody at all. It was why his dad did it every time, knowing she secretly loved it.

Mom rolled her eyes as always before leaning down to accept a kiss from him, “You may.”

“Really? Right in front of my pancakes?” Virgil said, pretending to gag. As a growing preteen, it wasn’t cool to have your parents be all mushy in front of you. Even if he still thought of them as the coolest Mom and Dad ever. They chuckled, breaking off the kiss.

“Virgil, someday you will find someone you love very much and then you’ll understand why I am obligated to kiss your mother every time I see her.” His father grinned, flipping the last set of pancakes on the griddle.

“No I won’t, because kissing is gross.” Virgil said, childishly sticking his tongue out because technically he was still a child.

“Afraid of catching cooties?” Mom teased.

“I know those aren’t real, Mom.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain of that,” His father said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “The Cootius Amor is a very real disease. I was under the affliction of it, suffering heart palpitations and an upset stomach. You know what saved me?”

“What?” Virgil asked, despite being suspicious that he knew the answer.

“Your mother!” He fake-swooned, taking the pancakes off the griddle and bringing them to the kitchen table. Mom snorted, trying to maintain a calm composure and failing.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I think you mean ridiculously in love with you.” Dad said, grinning widely when he managed to get an actual laugh from her this time. Then they kissed again, causing Virgil to groan yet again from the syrupy sweetness of it all. But he wouldn’t have any other way. This moment was perfect, a moment he could relive a million times. He knew this, because he had done so.

In this perfect idyllic moment a startling realization hit Virgil. Something he always inevitably realized. Something that he should’ve realized from the start. Something he wished wasn’t true. Because this moment, this shadow of the past, this wasn’t real. He hadn’t been twelve years old for awhile now. A decade almost. The same amount of time since he’d last seen his parents alive and in the flesh. 

This was all just a dream.

God, every time he had this realization it hurt so much. Sometimes he was able to forget his parents were dead. He’d gotten very good over the years at distracting himself. The truth felt far-off in the distance, almost unreal. He envisioned them as simply being elsewhere. Too busy for him to call or visit. As much as that illusion hurt, it was better than simply accepting reality.

Other times, he was forced to be very cognizant of their deaths. The hole in his heart became an expanding void. One that threatened to engulf him whole. Those times he just wanted to lay in his room and just cry. Where all he wanted was their comforting embrace, their words of assurance. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t allowed that. It’d been almost ten years—you’d think by now he would be past the grief.

But accepting their deaths almost felt like a betrayal. Almost as if he believed they were still alive hard enough, then it’d come true. They would come find him and be a family again. If he accepted their deaths, they’d be lost to him forever. He knew it was stupid and didn’t make sense. It still didn’t stop him from trying.

As uncertain as Virgil lived his life, he’d always known without a doubt they loved him. When he made mistakes or failed, they didn’t berate him. Rather, they came alongside him to help him understand and grow past them. So of course fate snatched away the most important people in his short lifespan. He missed them so much.

This was what made dreams like this difficult. Because for a brief moment, everything was back to normal again. They were always so vivid too. He fell for it every single time. It was cruel to gain them back in this temporary sort-of way. As cruel reality crashed into him every time upon waking up. It made him simultaneously want to sleep forever and not at all.

“Virgil, are you with us, bud?”

A hand touched his shoulder, shaking it gently. Virgil didn’t feel it.

“Little poet, your dad and I had a talk regarding your birthday—”

“—tell you something—”

“Virgil, please listen—"

Virgil’s lungs seized up. His breaths came out short and shuddery like a car engine struggling to start. Tears stung his eyes as a harsh sob escaped him. Mom? Dad? He couldn’t hear their voices anymore. Nor was he sitting at the kitchen table, bright light streaming into the window. He laid on a soft surface, his surroundings dark and murky. He was awake.

Awake and with the wound of his dead parents ripped open again. He bit back another sob, sweeping the grief underneath a metaphorical rug. Just like his dad and his cleaning tactics. Maybe Virgil did take more after Dad than he thought he did.

He forced himself to breathe, taking in one shaky breath in at a time. He’d managed to get it mostly under control when an alarm blared. A loud, discordant sound of chaos in the midst of stoic silence. Virgil screamed in fright, hitting his head on something as he jolted forwards. Work—he had work today, didn’t he? Cathy was going to be upset if he was late again—wait no. That wasn’t right. He didn’t work there anymore.

The alarm wasn’t right either. It sounded different than the one on his phone. He glanced around the room, aptly thinking, “Well, this isn’t my room.”

It was dark to discern much, but the one key factor was the window. It had a thick shade better at blocking out sunlight than Virgil’s blanket-duct-taped-to-the-window solution. The bed was nicer, the bedsheet soft and not as threadbare worn as Virgil’s. Where was he?

He couldn’t remember. It was nothing but fuzzy tv static sizzling inside of his brain. Like someone changed channels and he didn’t have the remote to change it back. Oh god, please don’t tell him he drank too much and went home with a complete stranger. He couldn’t handle even the thought of it.

Something shifted above him, causing him to realize this was a bunk bed. It creaked as a blanket dropped to the floor. Or rather, a blanket containing a bundle of something.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Blanket Bundle muttered, slapping a blanket-covered appendage over the Alarm’s OFF button. Virgil inhaled sharply, causing Blanket Bundle’s attention to snap towards him. Fizzy, curly hair spilled out of the blanket, framing a very recognizable face; Remy. He stood there, black shades absent. Virgil had seen him without them before, of course, but it was weird. 

He couldn’t shake the image of Remy with red eyes. Even though Remy currently stared at him with hazel eyes, an unidentifiable emotion within them. His eyebrows slightly raised, his lips curved downwards. Remy almost looked…worried. But then he cleared his throat and with it his expression changed at once.

“Hey Virge,” Remy greeted, casual and cool as usual, “How are you doing? Did you get good beauty sleep?”

Virgil hated that first question. It was too big and ambiguous. Way too much currently for his brain to grasp. Not to mention nobody truly cared about the answer to the question. It was just a thing people were required to ask others. As to the second question, well. He definitely didn’t get good beauty sleep. So he decided to answer neither of them.

“I’m hungry.” Virgil croaked, surprised by the hoarseness of his voice.

“Breakfast yes,” Remy nodded sagely, “The most important meal of the day. Follow me this way, my good homo sapien.”

“Homo sapien?”

“I’m practicing vocab terms for biology,” Remy rolled his eyes, “Like gurl, do not get me started on my biology professor. She’s part of the rhetoric that refuses to see vampires, homo sanguis, as anything but diseased homines. Like, I can’t even!”

He paused, as if waiting for a response. Virgil offered nothing but a blank stare in return. Something was wrong. He didn’t know what. He still couldn’t remember how he ended up at Remy’s dorm room.

 There was also Remy’s behavior to consider. The vampire was a flurry of activity as always. Never one to remain still if he could help it. He moved about the room, putting his sunglasses on as he ranted. Yet something rubbed Virgil the wrong way about it. Virgil couldn’t tell if he was reading into things but it was too fluid and smooth. Perfect to a degree that was unlike Remy’s usual chaotic brand of energy. 

“Anyways,” Remy said, rolling his eyes, “I may be a ‘diseased human frothing at the mouth for blood’ but even I have learned some basic skills like cooking to blend in.”

“I don’t even know how to cook.” Virgil blurted out.

“Yeah well neither did Betsy back in the fifties but did that stop her from criticizing my prized quiche? Oh no!”

Virgil followed Remy into the small dingy dorm kitchen, still baffled as hell. As much as that confusion ramped up his anxiety, a small part of him wanted it to stay that way. It warned him he might not like the truth. In the same way he tried ignoring the reality of his parents’ death.

“So!” Remy said, rummaging through the cupboards, “What are you hungry for? Pancakes or omelets?”

“Omelet please.” Virgil muttered, barely withholding a shudder. He didn’t think he could stomach pancakes after that dream with his parents. He sat on a stool, his legs tucked close to his chest.

Remy, thankfully, didn’t comment on it.

“Good choice, my roommate would probably murder me if I took from his pancake mix. Even though he definitely drank the last of the OJ and left the jug in there, biiiiitch. Good thing he’s not here because I’d give a piece of my mind. He’s not getting away with that easily, no mad’m!”

He casted a look towards Virgil as if saying “Roommates am I right?” and Virgil forced a laugh. It was a pastime of theirs to complain about their roommates. Alongside with discussing their favorite bands, of course.

Remy cracked eggs against the frying pan, his mouth still going a mile a minute. He flipped from one topic to the next, never settling on one for long. There was a high pitch to his voice, an almost nervous energy to it. Like he was putting on a performance for Virgil. Something for him to take comfort and solace in. It grated on Virgil’s nerves. Virgil wanted to call him out on it. He wanted to demand Remy to cut it out. He wanted to know what was going on.

Yet, fear held him back. It clamped down on his throat, like a bear trap and refused to let go. It told him it was better to say nothing than to possibly risk inciting Remy’s ire. Even if Remy had never been angry with Virgil before, did he really want this to be the first time?

So he sat there, too foggy-brained and half-asleep to say something. Or at least, that was what he told himself. A small part of him appreciated the mindless chatter Remy provided. It was a distraction from the daunting feeling he was forgetting something important.

He went to pull out his phone. Just to check the time—maybe scroll through tumblr real quick. Nothing big. He slipped his hand into his pocket, coming into contact with something jagged. Not smooth.

The tv static in his mind dissipated. Crystal clear HD images flooded his mind. The text from Patton. Jerad jeering. The chase around the apartment. Jerad gripping his wrist, squeezing it tightly like a boa constrictor. Dangling over the street far below. So close to plunging to his death. His phone falling, falling, falling to the ground. Into a tiny million pieces. Virgil fleeing, panic pulsing through his veins. Remy? Remy was there. He comforted him. But none of that made any sense. Just like a dream. It had to be a dream. No, a nightmare.

….He had to wake up.

Wake up, wake up, wAKE UP!

“Virgil!” 

Someone shouted something. His name? He couldn’t tell for sure over the raging storm of panic consuming him. Just like it did last night. No that wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. If he repeated that to himself, it’d come true. As true as his parents weren’t dead. Just simply…not around.

Burning. The smell of burnt food invaded his nostrils. He tasted something salty. Tears? He felt a wetness on his face. A hand rested upon his own, fingers thrumming against his knuckles. Singing. A voice low and strained. As if overcome by some sort of emotion.

“We’ll carry on, we’ll carry on, and though you’re dead and gone believe me—”

“Your memory will carry on.” Virgil croaked, causing the voice to stop.

He didn’t wake up. He still sat on the kitchen stool. Only now Remy sat beside him. His expression indiscernible due to his sunglasses. The broken pieces of his phone still dug into his hip. Virgil always found reality more frightening than nightmares could ever be. At least you could escape nightmares. You couldn’t do that with reality. At least not as easily. Virgil swallowed.

“Remy?”

“Yeah?”

“I think the eggs are burning.”

“Well fuck the eggs,” Remy scowled, expression softening as he squeezed Virgil’s hand, “Right now the only thing I care about is making sure you’re okay.”

The intensity of Remy’s words spooked Virgil a bit.

“Well, maybe you should turn the burner off? Just in case it starts a fire?” Virgil suggested weakly. 

Remy stared at him for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly and rose to do just that. He leaned against the counter, facing Virgil once more. His lips twitched downwards but he otherwise maintained a blank exterior.

“Virgil, are you gucci?”

“I’m fine.” Virgil said before he could even think.

“Are you sure of that, hun?” Remy said, raising an eyebrow, “because I found outside my dorm last night and you didn’t know who I was at first. And then—just now…”

“Wait, you found me outside your dorm?” Virgil gaped.

He didn’t pick a particular destination when he started running. He just ran and ran, the world one big blurry ball of nothingness. Did he subconsciously run to Remy, hoping to receive comfort? What did that say about him? For being so needy and dependent on Remy? No wonder he seemed so upset!

“Virge, did someone hurt you?” Remy asked.

Virgil jolted, completely unprepared for this question. It seemed to come out of nowhere, not at all connected to the conversation at hand. Remy’s eyes drifted away from his face, looking at something in Virgil’s general vicinity.  He followed Remy’s gaze to a purple splotchy bruise on his wrist, its tendrils spreading out like a spiderweb. No, a hand. Jerad’s hand. Squeezing like a claw machine and he the hapless stuffed animal trapped in its grip. Virgil’s breath hitched.

“Nobody, I—I just hit my hand against a doorknob, that’s all.”

Remy’s frown deepened. He stepped towards Virgil, who barely repressed a flinch. He looked away, unable to maintain eye contact. Not with the unusual ferocity that emanated from Remy.

“Vee, I’m serious,” Remy whispered, crouching beside him, “I don’t care who it is. If it’s that idiot pup again or even Boss Man. Tell me their name and I’ll beat them up for you.”

Virgil’s breath hitched. Remy was a vampire--one that happened to be centuries old. He’d known this, of course, for some time now. But during that moment, the full weight of it Virgil. Even if Remy didn’t drink human blood now, he had to at one point. Right? Or at the very least, you don’t live that long without committing some violence acts. Did he really know the real Remy?

Paranoia aside, he couldn’t fight other what-ifs attacking him. What if Jerad hurt Remy? What if Jerad found out about Remy’s a vampire? What if Virgil caused the death of his first true friend in a decade?

“N—no one. It’s no one, Rem, I swear,” Virgil said, fear coiling around him like a python, “It’s just sometimes, I get panic attacks. L—like they suck and stuff, but there’s nothing I can really do about it.”

He snuck a gaze up at the vampire, heart hammering away at his chest. Remy’s eyes peered above his sunglasses, narrowed. Remy didn’t believe him. He didn’t need verbal confirmation, he just knew it. Virgil gripped the side of the breakfast bar, searching. Looking for something, anything to help him escape this conversation. A clock. One of those digital ones that contained both the date and time. Tuesday, 9:51AM.

“Okay I won’t—”

“I have to go.” Virgil interrupted, shooting up from the stool. So abruptly that the stool fell onto the floor with a crash. “I—I’m going to be late. I’m supposed to be at work by now—oh my god Logan’s gonna kill me.”

“Wait!” Remy stepped in front of him, “I think you should play hooky.”

“What?” Virgil said, one decimal away from screeching.

“Call out of work,” Remy suggested, “Logan will understand. He’s not that bitch Cathy. And if he doesn’t, I’ll make him.”

For a second he saw the flash of someone else in Remy’s place. A huge, hulking silhouette. A shudder ran through Virgil’s spine. He moved away from Remy, shaking his head.

“No, no, it’s fine—I’ll be fine. I have to go. I just—” Virgil took off, unable to finish that sentence without a sob escaping.

He ran out of the dorm, out of the university campus and to the city beyond. He ran, running from his problems like always.

“Virgil!”

He shrieked, halting to a complete stop. Remy was there, almost as if he just appeared. Out of thin air, no less. Because with Virgil’s head start, he shouldn’t have been able to get to his side so easily.

“What, Remy?” Virgil snapped, hands forming fists at his sides. He couldn’t do this, not now.

Remy didn’t recoil. His sunglasses fully covered his eyes, masking his expression again. Instead he offered something black and soft towards Virgil. A black jacket, one Virgil never saw him wear before.

“It’s always pretty chilly in the library, you know.” Remy shrugged, looking away.

Virgil saw through Remy’s words. He was offering him a way to hide the bruise from visible view. Something that hadn’t crossed Virgil’s mind, really.

“Thanks.” Virgil swallowed, taking the jacket. He slipped it on and left without saying anything else.

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

When he slammed Logan’s office door open, he expected to be faced with lots of angry lecturing for his tardiness.  He did not expect concern and understanding from Logan. Like, at all. Somehow that scared him more than the alternative. Why was Logan being so lenient with him?

Sure, today was a fluke. He was usually great at being there on time. A tiny bit of him was relieved about it after everything. The rest of him held its breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. While it didn’t exactly drop just yet…well. The black jacket Remy gave him hadn’t completely worked.

“Virgil, who gave you that bruise?” Logan asked, staring into the depths of his very soul.

He’d freaked out at that question. Just like Remy, but worse. He spoke sharply to a werewolf who growled at him just seconds prior. Logan had been upset to see that bruise—just like Remy. Most people appreciated others showing an interest in their wellbeing. Not Virgil. It terrified him for reasons he didn’t quite understand himself.

The rest of work resumed as usual. Virgil drowned himself in the mundanity. The only thing that existed in the entire world was the library. His whole purpose? Working the front desk. Helping patrons the best he could. Sorting and putting books away. Telling a rowdy studying group to quiet down. Before he knew it, he was clocking out for the day.

That was when everything threatened to fall apart. He didn’t have anywhere to spend the night. He couldn’t crash at Remy’s again. Because if he asked Remy, then the vampire would really know something was up. When it wasn’t, not really. Just a spat between roommates. Sure, it ended in a broken phone, but it could’ve been worse. Like falling to one’s death—

Virgil took a deep breath as he walked the front entrance of the library. His movements stiff and mechanical. As if someone else was manipulating him to walk like strings to a puppet. He could do this. He just had to take things one step at a time. Literally.

Step one, leave the library. Simple, easy. He could do that. Once outside, he’d figure out the rest. Step two? Find somewhere to stay the night. Less easy.

The library’s automatic doors slid open and the last bright, brilliant rays of the sunset greeted him. A swarm of blackness attacked him next. He jerked backwards, hands automatically reaching to grapple with the thing that caused it. He stared down, eyes stinging, at a very familiar black plaid hoodie.

 “You actually caught it! I thought you’d fumble it like a dumbass.”

Virgil stopped breathing; Jerad. He stood there, hands haughtily crossed against his chest. Had he been waiting outside for Virgil? And if so, for how long? Virgil couldn’t take him on in a fight. He had to flee—run back into the library. He didn’t move. He remained rooted to the spot, muscles locked in place as Jerad advanced. To pummel him, or worse yet—kill him.

All color left his face as Jerad raised his arms and…hugged him? Or at least Jerad’s version of a hug. A tight, vindictive squeeze that Virgil had grown used to over the years. It still did nothing to diminish the fear swelling inside of him.

“Aww man, you should see your face! You look like you thought I was gonna punk ya!” Jerad crowed as he released Virgil.

“I—you—the phone.” Virgil stammered, unable to form complete sentences. Jerad didn’t get angry. He just laughed, slapping Virgil’s back in what was a friendly gesture. Virgil winced despite it.

“Oh that! Shit man, you know I don’t really mean anything when I lose my temper. I just can’t control it, ya know?”

Virgil silently nodded, unable to trust his voice in the moment.

“Besides, that thing was old and already falling apart! You know what you need? The latest greatest current smartphone out there! My treat!”

“Wha—” Virgil barely squeaked out before Jerad dragged him off to a cell-phone store. Jerad rambled about stuff on the way there. Virgil couldn’t hear him over the roaring of his heartbeat in his ears. He clung to his hoodie in one arm as if it was a stuffed animal. He couldn’t think. His mind was a myriad of white noise. This couldn't be real, right? He had to have fainted or something. Please let it be so.

“—huh, Virgil? What do you think of this one?” Jerad said, nudging him.

Virgil blinked, spooked to be faced with a display of smartphones. Somehow, they were already at the store. He bit his lip, eyes widening at the price tag.

“I—it’s—I don’t know,” He glanced over to a cheaper phone at the other end of the display, “I like that one.”

“C’mon Virgo! This one comes with a protective screen cover! That other one doesn’t,” Jerad scoffed, leaning in closer, “Do you really want another shitty phone that’ll break like your last one?”

Those words sparked a rage inside Virgil. A fire burned in the pit of his stomach as words materialized at the tip of his tongue. It was Jerad who threw the phone from a five-story balcony. Jerad who always mocked Virgil and acted like throwing money at the problem solved a situation when it didn’t. Not really. Jerad who insulted his friends. Virgil wanted to scream at the top of his throat obscenities at him.

“N-no.” Someone said out loud, shaky and uncertain. 

Virgil jumped a bit at the sound, glancing to see who it was. It sounded familiar. He looked to see Jerad staring right at him, smirking. His stomach churned as a wave of realization crashed into him. Oh, oh. That had been him, he’d been the one to say that. But why? That had been the exact opposite of what he meant to say!

He didn’t have much time to process it before Jerad clasped him on the shoulder, chuckling.

“That’s what I thought! Lemme just—”

A loud obnoxious 80s rock song interrupted him. Jerad fished his phone out of his pocket, groaning upon seeing the caller id.

“Ugh, it’s my mom again. You’re lucky your parents are dead, Virgin, because they are so fucking annoying.” Jerad rolled his eyes, declining the call as he strode off to find a store associate.

Virgil stood there, withholding a flinch. Because he knew if his parents were still alive, they wouldn’t be proud of their son. They’d be absolutely repulsed by his cowardice.

He watched as Jerad chatted up the store associate, his back facing Virgil. If he couldn’t stand up to Jerad—this was it. This was his chance to flee. To run off while Jerad was distracted. Maybe he could run to Remy again. They could get an apartment together, away from both their annoying roommates. They’d laugh together and watch awful movies for the sake of ridiculing them.

 They’d be the best of friends until Remy grew sick of him. Until Virgil became annoying and obsolete to discard like an old flip-phone. Remy was immortal, just like Patton and Logan. It was really all a matter of time before they confirmed his suspicions. They’d get tired of him. It happened. It always happened to everyone in Virgil’s life. Why wouldn’t it happen to them? They’ll eventually grow tired of him and he’ll become their next meal. He’d be an idiot to think any other way.

Virgil turned to look back down at the phone display. He swallowed, unable to dislodge the lump in his throat. His vision spun a bit, his stomach nauseous. He couldn’t move a muscle, just like a statue. Perhaps he could try becoming one. All they did was remain motionless all day and let pigeons poop on them. He’d be better at that than being a human being.

“Virgil!” A hand took hold of his shoulder, forcibly turning his body around to face a new direction. Virgil glanced briefly down to see he was still flesh-and-blood. Not a ivory stone statue, free of all his troubles and misery.

“Virgil, this is Jeff,” Jerad said, gesturing to the store associate, “He’s gonna help with getting your new swanking, danking phone!” Jerad fist-pumped the air, letting out a whoop. 

Virgil locked eyes with the poor slightly frazzled store associate named Jeff and did a small nod of recognition. As if to say, “I’m sorry to be the cause of your agony.”

He knew what it was like to deal with customers like Jerad. He hated knowing it was his fault they were in the phone store in the first place. Virgil sharply exhaled, eyes blinking rapidly to stop the tears from forming. If he couldn’t keep himself from crying then he was truly pathetic.

His awareness grew blurry, almost foggy. His body moved out of its own accord, nodding along to the conversation and following after Jerad. Normally this type of thing would’ve freaked him out.  Given all the panic already present in his body, it might’ve killed him on the spot. Instead he couldn’t bring himself to feel the twinges of anxiety. Or frustration, anger, disgust. Nothing. A numbness took hold of him, wrapping around him in a cold embrace.

Jerad purchased the new phone, true to his word. He fiddled with it on the walk back to the apartment, ogling over its features. Virgil’s legs faithfully kept walking, each step closer to the apartment. His heart beat right on time, his breaths slow and even.

“Let’s take the stairs, get some exercise in today.” Jerad suggested and Virgil’s head jerked in agreement. They took the stairs, five flights and all. Virgil wheezed at the end of it. The pain of getting insufficient oxygen made him feel alive again for the briefest of moments. It ended sharply with Jerad laughing as he patted Virgil’s back.

“I see someone skipped leg day!”

A feeble imitation of a laugh croaked from Virgil’s lips. Jerad shoved his key into their apartment door and unlocked it. Virgil followed him in. Jerad stopped abruptly in the middle of the living room, causing Virgil to almost run into him. He turned around, the new phone clasped in one hand.

“Hey man,” Jerad began, offering the phone toward Virgil, “we cool?”

Virgil spat in his face.

Or at least that sounded better than what actually happened. 

“Yeah, thanks.” Virgil said. He took the phone from Jerad and headed off to his room. 

He sat on his crappy bed, swaddled in his raggedy purple blanket. He looked at the phone, at its glossy smooth screen. It was fine. Everything was fine. Virgil had just overreacted, that was all.

Jerad was not that bad of a guy. He was a jerk, yes. He liked to jerk Virgil at times, get inside his head. He was the jerk that threw Virgil’s phone down a five-story balcony. But he was a jerk who made up by purchasing a brand new one. The phone currently in Virgil’s hand.

His old phone couldn’t compare with this one. Not with its cracked screen and bad battery. This new phone had the latest technological achievements and best camera lens. He wouldn’t have this if it wasn’t for Jerad.

It didn’t stop him from wanting his old phone back. He’d felt so proud to own it after scraping and saving for it. It was dumb but he’d named it Taran and treated it almost like a friend, no more than that. A lifeline that got him through life no matter what punches it threw at him.

 It was okay. He knew eventually it’d break on him. It didn’t matter how it broke in the end. Really, it didn’t. He just needed to move on and stop mourning an inanimate object. Maybe he could name this new phone Taran II in remembrance or something. It was fine.

Virgil kept staring down at the phone, into his reflection in the phone-screen. He looked past greasy hair and dark eyebags into dull, defeated eyes.

He threw the phone onto the ground, unable to bear the sight any longer. He curled up in his bed, head firmly pressed against his pillow, and cried.

[dreamsafterhours]

college boyfriend!markhyuk au series: III (donghyuk's pathway)

a universe in which roommates!markhyuk meet each other's s/o in class

markhyuk are roommates, my/n and dy/n are roommates, mark and dy/n take classes together and so do donghyuk and my/n — how will their fates intertwine?

genre: fluff pairings: mark+my/n (fem), donghyuk+dy/n (fem), platonic!mark+dy/n, platonic!donghyuk+my/n format: dotpoint AU universe: non idol, college bf warning: some swearing

masterlist

or click here to meet your soulmate, eng lit!mark!

II ⇤ | III | ⇥ IV

III: 별빛이 내린다 샤라랄라랄라라 (2+2=4)

the meeting of two souls: donghyuk & dy/n

welcome! back and to the next part

in which things actually happen! yay

so. up until this point

it’s been quite obvious i hope

that this is the one where The Soulmates Meet™

and this one right here is the one where donghyuk meets his future wifenew best (not) friend

dammit this is a set plot with SET relationships

yeah

major spoilers for future parts but hey :) y’all know it i know it let’s just.

let’s get to it!!

that day you accidentally sleep in after a late night and walk into your lecture looking pretty trashier than you would normally a few weeks into the first sem and you’re already tired it’s okay bby aww

and mark suggests skipping the next lecture and going for coffee instead

you’re like ok lmfao free coffee for me yay thanks marcus i owe you one

and to make up for the lecture he suggests he join you and your roommate with his own roommate in the library later that day to study the material you’d missed out on

so you’re like sweet study group hell yeah and apparently his roommate is also in biomed like your roommate? hey they might get along pretty well it’d be nice to have roommates in the same faculty hey

little do you know you little cutie you uwu

mark takes you to a cafe to buy you your favourite drink and a croissant bc you skipped breakfast again and he cares about his friends ok plus he was eyeing that donut next to the savoury menu in the glass cabinet and he would have felt bad if he got something to eat and you didn’t

you sit down, sipping your drink at the window seats and wishing your fatigue away

laughing with mark about what you slept so late for

my/n had been ranting about her love life again or perhaps lack thereof,,

don’t worry tho

after you’d gotten her to sleep, you’d gotten major feels for an essay question that you’d been tasked with due in a week but you hadn’t touched it until last night

staring at the prompt for at least half an hour trying to get your head around it and wondering what the hell you’d write about

but like they say

starting is half of it

so when you start spinning your words and getting into the writing mood

you accidentally wrote an entire draft without realising

albeit being full of loose ends and points you need to refine, etc., it was a decent body of work that you’d tackle for a few more nights before turning in

a skeleton, you’d called it

“a skeleton?”

“yeah. next thing i need to do is.. flesh it out”

“.. literally”

cue mark’s small pause

/inhale/

/MANIACAL LAUGHTER/

you know how mark’s laugh is very how do i put this into words hm dictated

you can HEAR each HA and they’re separate syllables yet sometimes they can vary in tone and length right it’s usually the more consistent HAs before he kinda loses it and starts throwing himself around

it was that laugh

honestly man finds everything funny his laughing threshold seems so low

and no matter how unfunny you are he WILL laugh at anything you say

and you’ve been doing it a lot lately

you could say literally any random thing and he’d already be ready to laugh (see Figure 1.1)

Figure 1.1

you: /snort/

mark, already giggling: “what”

you, still sniggering: /touches his elbow/ “arm knee”

mark: /inhale/ gotta live and breathe that oxygen

mark: HAHAHAHAhahAhaHAHAhahAhHa (decrescendo.. cRESCENDO)

^ that but looped, with intermittent slaps to your arm

anyways you never fail to make him fall out of his chair in laughter

but enough of that. dy/n is donghyuk’s y/n for a REASON ahEM

so after you finish up your breakfast at the cafe you go back to your dorm to take a power nap and recharge before your library session you were going to stay awake but mark forces you to take a nap and you’re like bro you just fed me caffeine now you want me to sleep??

then he tells you he ordered your drink decaf

you turn to him real slow

“.. you sick traitor. how dare you besmirch my name so. you scorn my forefathers and our dependence on the holy bean’s juices. betrayal runs rampant in your soul and mine stands at the mercy of your choices, them informed by the devil himself”

mark: /shrug/ “placebo effect yeet. hey, it worked for a bit. now you should really go home and get your sleep”

and he drags you back to your dorm and waves you off before going to his next class

you’re lowkey grateful for it tho when you take a shower and collapse onto your bed, falling asleep in what you think could be half the time you usually take

dreaming about losing your airpods and mark yelling at you to be more careful and then you two fighting bc you’d just lost your $300 bean sprouts but you could have sworn he took them

then police sirens went off out of nowhere and both of you were being arrested for assault and thievery

why you were the one being arrested, you had no idea but it’s a dream nothing follows the guidelines of hard reality anyway

just as you’re about to be handcuffed, you think to yourself, nope. i have a library session to attend. ain’t nobody got time for this shit

and you just

wake up

but the sirens are still continuing?? so you’re like ? is my building surrounded

they’ve come for me

even though you haven’t exactly broken any laws or have you

and you realise it was the alarm you’d set in time to get ready for your library session

so you grab your stuff and leave for the library, double checking with your roommate over text to make sure she was on her way

her lab class was taking longer than usual so she tells you she’ll be 10 or so minutes late

so you tell her you’ll be saving a seat for her and call mark to let him know you’re on your way to the library

“oh i’m already here lol. alright, i’m waiting for you outside”

and sure enough, you see him leaning on the wall of the entrance, eyes on his phone

you consider calling out to him but before you actually do, he glances up and spots you walking over tf do you have psychic spatial awareness mark

smiles and takes his corded earphones out

“you seriously need to upgrade those”

“they work fine”

“nop i’m getting you airpods for your birthday”

“dUdE thEy’RE tOo ExPEnSiVe. nO dUDE NoO”

“nOP. i’m GOING to buy you EXPENSIVE BEAN SPROUTS for your LIFE DEBUT ANNIVERSARY and you CAN’T STOP ME”

at this point i should just put /MANIACAL LAUGHTER/ and you should know what laugh i’m referring to

/MARK LEE’S MANIACAL LAUGHTER/

/MLML/ for short

nvm it’s fine it’s kinda fun to type /MANIACAL LAUGHTER/

literally mark laughs in bolded italics i’m just sad i can’t underline it on tumblr unless it’s a link lmfao

n e ways

i digress

you shush him because you’re about to walk into the library

“qUIET DOWN marcus” turn that sh down for quiet new dawn

the library is almost full for the day but after a minute or two scouring the building you find an empty four seater in the middle of nowhere it’s CRAZY you can NEVER find a MIRACLE like this life couldn’t get better

i’m sorry

you speed walk to claim it even though there was no one else in your vicinity to threaten your territory

mark laughs at you trying to get to the table as fast as you could without all out running

getting out your things, you send a photo of your seat to your roommate and tell mark to send it to his roommate as well so they know where to find you

you start watching the lecture online while taking notes and since you’re not in the lecture theatre you can talk more audibly with mark not that you don’t talk in the actual lecture too,,

maybe you do text a lot,,, during class

mark usually says things like “.. implications of what now?? interpretation of huh?” to which you reply “i want cheese when i get home”

and he has to stifle his laughter while you keep your straight face and continue writing your notes he admires this ability ngl

and so while you’re watching it on your computer

you can say things like “fuck. i want pickles”

and mark will /throw himself back/ and cackle and probably say some shit like “DIDN’T YOU HATE PICKLES??” between his giggles

and you’re like “yeah. fuck pickles but like. fuck. pickles”

he almost falls off his chair at this point

but when he balances himself again he spots someone down the corridor and wave them over

“oii! over here dude”

you turn to glance at them to expect his roommate, but you see your own roommate talking to someone and wave her over as well

“heYY my/n”

you see the other person turn to your roommate and tell her something, , then she says something back

which is apparently shocking to them, because he glances over at mark and then at you

and then he looks again when your roommate points straight at you

to which you’re like ?? hi? y u look me

and then they both start laughing

you wonder if they were laughing at you or smth until mark’s like “tf is that idiot doing”

and u look at him like ? what idiot

“that idiot. the idiot roommate i told u about. the one who called u a homewrecker”

and you’re like

wait

[info clog]

wait

[error]

“wait”

“what”

“that’s your roommate?” u point at the boy next to my/n, who r both still laughing at something going all “wOW r u KIDDING” he has a loud voice

and mark’s like “? yeah”

and you go

“.. the girl next to him is my roommate”

mark: “wait what”

that’s what she said

at that point they’ve made their way over to the table, still trying to hold in their laughter

you start to introduce your roommate to mark, who’s still confused by the situation

you: “mark, this is my/n, my/n this is mark”

my/n: “nice to see you again mark”

you: “wait. again?”

mark: “yeah we’ve met. hi my/n”

you: “what”

mark: “yeah”

my/n: “yeah”

his roommate: “yeah”

you:

you: “i feeling like i’m missing something here”

turns out

surprise surprise

that one friend that my/n had made in her biology class was mark’s roommate oh my god they were roommates

whose name, you are told, is lee donghyuk

magical moment

us watching: heh 🤤

u can’t help but do a lil body scan from head to toe bc he a fine piece of cake we all know that

honey skin, oversized white t shirt, black pants, sneakers and lighter brown hair that looks fluffy the type of fluffy that makes u wanna touch it

yes he’s good looking. yes

yaaaaas

then mark tells him your name

“she’s the one i said reminded me of you”

“r u talking abt me behind my back marcus??”

donghyuk laughs and holds out a hand for you to shake

“what kinda coincidence is this?? i adopt your roommate, you’re dealing with mine”

“oh you’re gonna have to get in line to adopt her, i’m her legal guardian, sorry donghyuk”

to which he goes

“lmfao then we’ll both be her parents”

“k but i’ll keep her on the weekends. you see her on the weekdays”

then he wipes his smile off his face and he’s like “who said we’re split”

mark and my/n are doing the /MANIACAL LAUGHTER/ at this point

mark: “so ,, seriously what are the chances”

you: “this quartet,, it’s fate guys it’s fate there’s no way about it”

yes it is. yes. it is

even that four seater table was free because of fate

donghyuk: “this calls for drinks later. we all free? no 9am classes tmr?”

my/n: “we have a physics prac at 8:30 dingus”

donghyuk: “ah shit”

you barely got any notes for that lecture for at least an hour because you end up talking altogether throughout the session but once you remember you’re in a library to study you request a ceasefire and agree to study for a bit which,, you gotta admit ,, isn’t really productive because you’re so excited to meet someone new

but the best part about the day was when you notice how many times mark is glancing at your roommate while she’s reviewing her notes, completely oblivious

donghyuk complains that he’s hungry after another hour or two and you suggest you all have dinner together

donghyuk leans back in his chair in a stretch, his jumper lifting up a little over his jeans and showing a bit of his belly “ah i’m craving chinese”

you perk up, “mE TOO”

so you all go to your favourite chinese place just outside campus where you find out that mark and my/n have the same taste and so do you and donghyuk

he points and u and goes “oH?”

“jjAMPPONG? U TOO?”

“the ONLY DISH EVER”

mark and my/n: jjajang is fine : )

you and donghyuk: “JJAMPPONG IS SUPERIOR”

give him a bro five with the shoulder bump and everything

the boys walk you and my/n back to your dorm afterwards

donghyuk and my/n end up walking in a pair and mark walks alongside you

mark mentions how it’d be fun if you made a group chat together

you: “do it”

“i don’t have your roommate’s number tho”

you’re smiling wickedly at his reaction “?? ASK HER FOR IT”

“dude what?? no u make one and i’ll add donghyuk to it”

“bRO JUST ASK”

“wHAT NO U DO IT THEN”

so u go

bet

and you call out the two biomed kids walking in front of you

“hey donghyuk! give me your number i’ll make a group chat”

“sure lol” and you open up a new contact to let him type his number into your phone

he saves his name as hot boi hyuk ✌🏻

which you just leave bc you’re busy making the group chat

mark is still astounded that you asked donghyuk for his number so easily

you: hi hello good day

my/n 🌸: yeetus meetus

hot boi hyuk ✌🏻: bow before me

you: here before me lie the beginnings of a new era

you: one born from blood and stone

my/n 🌸: tf is she saying

hot boi hyuk ✌🏻: idk but lets go with it

you: together we rise from the rubble and sort through the debris

hot boi hyuk ✌🏻: yas queen

my/n 🌸: i hate this gc already

you: and we WILL REBUILD THIS EMPIRE

read by marcus the fool 🤡 at 8:21 pm

safe to say you stay up for a good while talking on that group chat while mark just sits idle,,

you honestly don’t know if he’s consciously reading or not maybe he just left his phone on the chat

and thus our quartet is complete,,

and they all lived

happily ever after

but this isn’t the ending tho is it

wink wonk /waggles eyebrows/

this is but the epilogue to the prologue

that doesn’t make sense but n e ways

our quartet has not yet become two pairings

y’all just don’t know what the future has in store for you :)

click here to meet your soulmate, eng lit!mark!

II ⇤ | III | ⇥ IV

taglist: @lavellanfriendliness​ 

shoot me an ask if you’d like to be tagged in future parts!

[ibijau]

Burn it down AU // on AO3 // extras on AO3

Things do not go as planned in Nightless City. Lan Wangji worries. Nie Huaisang plots.

warning for some violence (canon typical levels I’d say?)

Nightless City had never been Lan Wangji’s favourite place to travel to, but after years of abandonment, it had become truly ghoulish. In certain places, the lingering resentment was so strong it became nearly impossible to breathe. In the bitter wind, Lan Wangji thought he could still hear the shrill notes of Chenqing playing a deadly melody. In every shadow, he half saw the shape of Wei Wuxian, fractured by too many losses, on the verge of shattering beyond repair, taking hundreds down with him.

Lan Wangji could have happily lived to immortality and never set foot again in this cursed city. It must have shown. Several times, Nie Huaisang tried to order him away, saying he was perfectly capable of handling his brother’s body, even if Nie Mingjue really had turned into a fierce corpse and needed to be subdued.

“I’m not much of a cultivator, but even I can take care of a fierce corpse,” he boasted again and again with an empty smile. “Go wait for me in the nearest town, Wangji. It’s a family problem anyway, and I’ve made you help enough already.”

“We’re family,” Lan Wangji said at last, when he grew tired of his husband trying to send him away.

After this, Nie Huaisang grew quiet and stopped insisting that he could do this alone. 

It wasn’t until they arrived to the spot marked on the map that Lan Wangji understood where, exactly, his brother-in-law’s remains had been hidden. He felt nauseous at being once more in front of Wen Ruohan’s palace, where the remains of the Wen siblings had been scattered to the winds, Wei Wuxian’s last friends, the last people he had cared about.

The place where the entire cultivation had united together, just as tightly as they had during the Sunshot Campaign, and announced that they had decided who their next enemy would be. The place where Wei Wuxian’s death had been decided, where he had lost what little he still had and snapped over the bloodied corpse of his sister. The place where…

“Hey, stay with me,” Nie Huaisang called to him, grabbing his sleeve and pulling lightly, the way A-Yuan did sometimes. “So, this is the right place, uh? Heavens, it looks even worse than in my memories. Remember that archery contest, at that last conference the Wens held? Damn, I remember the party after, it was so awful. The alcohol was so cheap. Talk about disrespecting your guests! Ah, not that it’d matter to you, of course. I wonder how the tea was?”

“Bad,” Lan Wangji managed to answer, taking one shaky breath after another. “Cheap.”

“I knew it! And the food was awful as well. There was that weird dessert… did you have any of the desserts?”

Lan Wangji dived under more recents memories and tried to remember that conference. It felt a lifetime ago. It was, in a way. They had all been different before the war. Sometimes, it all felt like a dream. And in that dream, he could not remember whether he’d eaten the dreadful desserts Nie Huaisang apparently recalled with such clarity. Thinking about it helped a little, though, forcing him to focus on something other than his last visit to Nightless City.

“No desserts,” he still said, since that seemed likely. He took a deep breath. Now was not the moment to break. He could do that later, when they had recovered Nie Mingue’s body and Nie Huaisang no longer needed his help. “Give me a moment. Then I will see if his soul can be reached.”

“Should I be silent, or keep talking?”

“Hm. Tell me more about the desserts,” Lan Wangji ordered, looking around for a place where he might sit without covering himself in filth.

With Nie Huaisang still clinging to his sleeve, he found a spot at last, not far from where his brother and the other sect leaders had stood to… but no. Lan Wangji pushed away that memory, and forced himself to listen to Nie Huaisang’s graphic description of what he claimed were the worst tanghulu he’d ever eaten in his life. The mindless chatter only stopped when he took out his guqin and played a few notes, bringing him if not peace, then at least clarity. 

"I will try Inquiry," he announced. 

"You think it will work on Da-ge?" 

"No," Lan Wangji admitted, and immediately something crumbled in Nie Huaisang. "There are other spirits lingering here. One might help." 

Lan Wangji played the notes that commanded souls to come talk to him. In an instant he found himself surrounded with the screams and rage of all those who had perished in this cursed city. Several ceremonies had been performed to put them to rest, but with so many having died, and in such a violent manner, it had not yet been enough to calm them. 

In vain, Lan Wangji tried to call forth the soul of Nie Mingjue. All that brought him was a dissonant mass of spirits trying to seize his guqin, either praising or cursing his brother-in-law for his actions in Nightless City. Lan Wangji played a few more notes to calm them before trying a different question. Had they seen Jin Guangyao come to this place in the past year? 

Less spirits rushed to him this time, and Lan Wangji was able to select the strongest one among them to answer, one single word. 

Yes. 

The spirit, a fallen Nie disciple, had trained alongside Jin Guangyao during his time in Qinghe Nie and thus knew him very well. He had no doubt that it was him, having caught a glimpse of his face. After further interrogation, it revealed that Jin Guangyao had come there to bury something, and it was able to give the precise location, hidden under a large paving stone. Lan Wangji thanked the spirit, promised to see what could be done about another calming ceremony, and turned to his husband to share the news. 

"Let me guess, he hid Da-ge's body under the spot where they took the oath, didn't he?" 

"Hm." 

"Theatrical bastard," Nie Huaisang hissed. "Wangji, if you want, I'll handle the rest alone. I can manage." 

Lan Wangji shook his head. 

"A fierce corpse is not a person. What we find might attack you."

"But still…" 

"I won't let A-Yuan be orphaned again." 

That cut short to all of Nie Huaisang’s protests, as Lan Wangji expected it would. 

Together, and with both of them equally uneasy though for different reasons, they went to the spot indicated by the spirit. It was barely visible if one did not look for it, but among the paving stones there was one that appeared to have been unsealed. 

Without saying it, Lan Wangji knew that Nie Huaisang and him were thinking the same thing: that stone did not look large enough to cover a body, let alone that of a man as tall as Nie Mingjue. Still they knelt on the ground and got to work, carefully lifting the stone, then digging the soil under until they found a box. 

That box itself was nothing special. It was made of black wood and carried no particular mark. And yet powerful dark energies surrounded it, barely contained by a great number of peculiar talismans drawn in blood. 

"I've never seen those talismans before," Nie Huaisang commented in a weak voice, clearly trying to ignore the more glaring issue. That box that was little more than the length of Lan Wangji's arm. 

"I have," Lan Wangji announced, though he could not quite remember where he might have seen them. "It will come to me." 

Nie Huaisang nodded weakly. He brought one hand toward the box, as if to brush his fingers against the wood, but stopped short of touching it. 

"Wangji… That box… It's really too small, isn't it?" he whispered. “Do you think… do you think he cremated him?”

“Hm.”

It was a likely possibility. It would have eliminated any traces of the crime, and made it far more difficult to summon Nie Mingjue’s soul to testify regarding his own death. 

It would definitely have required an accomplice though, because the fierce corpse of such a man would not have allowed itself to be destroyed so easily, and Jin Guangyao’s cultivation was what it was. Besides, the talismans on the box did not look like ordinary ones. There were few methods that called for the characters to be drawn in blood, and currently the most famous one was Wei Wuxian’s demonic path. Considering that Lanling Jin had been the one to get its hands on most of Wei Wuxian’s notes, that they had infamously hired a person such as Xue Yang to make sense of those…

“That talisman, isn’t it different from the others?” Nie Huaisang suddenly pointed out. “Look, it has one stroke less than the others.”

Before Lan Wangji could stop him, Nie Huaisang reached for the faulty talisman. As soon as he touched the paper it consumed itself, allowing an intense burst of resentful energy to be released from the box. Nie Huaisang cried out in surprise or pain, while Lan Wangji, acting on sheer instinct, jumped to his feet and drew his sword. Before Bichen was fully out of its sheath, the box’s lid was shattered as a lone arm burst out of its confinement.

In the split second it took Lan Wangji to comprehend what was happening, the arm launched itself at Nie Huaisang’s throat since he was closest, and alternated between trying to strangle him and clawing at his skin. It did not stop its assault until Lan Wangji slashed at it with his sword, distracting it from its victim. For a moment the arm, as if enraged, tried to attack Lan Wangji, blindly clawing in his direction and narrowly avoiding being cut to pieces by Bichen. Quickly though, it lost interest in that fight. Twice Lan Wangji managed to stop it, but in the end the arm avoided his attacks and returned to assault Nie Huaisang who was still kneeling on the ground, trying to stop the gashes on his throat from bleeding out.

Nie Huaisang screamed in terror and pain when that ghoulish arm seized his own, digging its claws into his flesh. 

The arm was not merely tearing at him now, but instead dug its fingers into the skin of Nie Huaisang as if it sought to get under it. With each passing second, the poor man fought a little more weakly, his skin growing paler until Lan Wangji took his guqin again and hurriedly played a song to calm the arm. It took effort, and a few tries, but after a few minutes he managed to pacify the arm. It fell to the ground, as did Nie Huaisang, pale and whimpering in pain but still alive.

Keeping an eye on the now immobile arm, Lan Wangji hurried to Nie Huaisang’s side and used every bit of spiritual energy he could spare to stop the bleeding. Even when he was done, Nie Huaisang would not stop trembling and crying.

When his eyes fell on the arm, he screamed in rage and horror, the noises resonating in those vast, empty spaces. 

“I have to get him back,” Nie Huaisang hissed in a broken voice when he calmed down. “And then I’m killing every single Jin in Lanling.”

“You won’t.”

“I certainly want to! They butchered him! No, not even butchered,” He corrected with a hysterical laugh. “Butchering, that calls for skill. I could cut a body better than that and I will when I get my hands on Guangyao! I’ll dig up his mother and father and show him how it’s done, I will...”

“Huaisang, calm down.”

“My brother! They took my brother and did this to him, and you want me to calm down? If it were Xichen, if it were A-Yuan, would you be calm? I’ll make them pay! Every single one of them, I’ll make them pay!”

Unsure what to do when faced with such desperate rage, Lan Wangji forced himself to put a hand on his husband’s shoulder, hoping to provide some comfort. His hand was slapped away. Nie Huaisang had too little strength left at the moment for it to sting, but the message was clear. Comfort, for now, was not welcome.

Instead, Lan Wangji turned his attention back to the box and, having seen its content, he realised where he had seen those talismans before. They were eerily similar to those Wei Wuxian had used to contain Wen Ning before his conscience was returned to him. They were not quite as neat as the ones he had seen during his brief visit to the Burial Mounds, and if anything, they seemed to have been traced by someone who had only the vaguest idea of the proper way to write characters, but they were still the same ones.

“Demonic cultivation,” he announced to Nie Huaisang, hoping to distract him from his rage. “To contain and conceal.”

Nie Huaisang did not answer, his eyes fixed on the arm. He reached out for it and, with some hesitation, picked it up to hold it against his chest, cradling it as if it were a child.

“We can try the spell again,” Lan Wangji offered. “We might find the rest of him. Even if we do not, this is proof something evil was done to him.”

“He got rid of Xue Yang,” Nie Huaisang mumbled, tightening his hold on his brother’s arm.

“Hm?”

“Guangyao. He got rid of Xue Yang. You say this is demonic cultivation, and Xue Yang was the only person they’d found who was able to make sense of Wei Wuxian’s work. He wasn’t purging his sect and starting anew, he was getting rid of witnesses.”

“It is still proof.”

Nie Huaisang laughed. “Proof of what? The spell we used to find it is a secret Nie technique, it’d be easy to say we lied about its effects, or that I tricked you and used you for my nefarious plans. This arm could be anyone’s. I know it is my brother’s, I know it, but it’ll be my word against Guangyao’s. People don’t like him, but I think they like me even less.”

An unfair statement, in Lan Wangji’s opinion. Lan Xichen believed and trusted them. Jiang Wanying probably had more sympathy for and trust in Nie Huaisang than in his brother-in-law’s half brother who had just usurped his nephew’s inheritance. The older Madam Jin might share that sentiment.

But all that, of course, was on a personal level. Lan Wangji was starting to accept that natural inclination, and things as unquantifiable as honesty and truth, did not matter as much as his sect’s rules had led him to believe.

“We find the rest of his body,” Lan Wangji insisted. “When we are away from this place, I will try Inquiry again. We will find proof.”

Nie Huaisang appeared unconvinced by that promise, for which Lan Wangji could not blame him. After a shock such as this, hope would have been difficult to muster even for a man not already as close to despair as Nie Huaisang was.

--

They left Nightless City after carefully replacing the paving stone where it belonged and taking great pains to hide that it had been moved. The box they took with them, so they could inspect it later at their leisure to look for clues. The arm, of course, came as well. 

It took Lan Wangji great efforts to persuade Nie Huaisang to put the arm back in its box, and to put that box in a qiankun bag so it would be easier to transport. Even then, Nie Huaisang insisted to be the one to carry it, clinging to it as tightly as he had done with the arm itself.

Nie Huaisang did not speak on their way out of the city. He did not speak when they stopped for the night at a small, struggling inn that still survived on the outskirts of Nightless City. He did not speak when Lan Wangji used the different Nie spells he had been taught in a fruitless attempt to locate the rest of the body. The rest of Nie Mingjue must have been better sealed. If not for that mistake with one of the talismans, it was likely that they would never have found even this much.

As promised, Lan Wangji attempted to play Inquiry for the arm. It was all in vain, and Nie Huaisang remained eerily silent. The only sound he made all evening happened when the arm, which had stood perfectly still so far, started moving its fingers of its own accord and appeared to point in his direction. Nie Huaisang cried out and nearly fell down in fear, but before anything could happen Lan Wangji quickly calmed the arm once more, this time putting more power into it so that hopefully it would not trouble them again until the next evening.

When Nie Huaisang went to bed, he took with him the qiankun bag, as if scared that someone might take his brother from him again. In the morning, he looked somehow more tired than when he had gone to sleep, and remained uncharacteristically quiet.

That silence remained as they made their way to the Cloud Recesses where they needed to see Lan Xichen and announce that their plan was not going quite as smoothly as they had all expected. It was unsettling to see Nie Huaisang so quiet when Lan Wangji had never known him as anything but loud and animated both at the heights of his joy and in the depths of his pain. And yet, Lan Wangji did not know how to comfort his friend. All he could do was offer his presence, and be ready to help, should it be asked.

--

When they arrived in the Cloud Recesses, their first stop was to pick up their son. There was no shyness this time, but a lot of tears as A-Yuan left Hou Tianjian's side and ran into his father’s arms. He wrapped his arms around Lan Wangji’s neck nearly tight enough to choke him. It was good, after those difficult weeks, to be home and have his son with him again. Nightless City had reminded him bitterly of his errors, but at least A-Yuan was proof that he had not entirely failed Wei Wuxian.

When A-Yuan noticed that Nie Huaisang was there as well, he made it clear that he wanted to be in the other man’s arms now. Nie Huaisang indulged him but made a great show of complaining and lamenting that the little boy was starting to get too heavy for him. A-Yuan appeared very amused by those protests, but grew serious when his eyes fell on Nie Huaisang’s neck where he still bore marks of the arm's attack.

“Nie-ge is hurt?”

Nie Huaisang laughed awkwardly, and balanced A-Yuan against his hip so he could free one hand and pull his collar tighter against his skin.

“That's nothing,” he said with a too wide smile. “Your Nie-ge is clumsy and fell into some bushes. Let's not talk about it, right? It's very embarrassing for poor Nie-ge.”

“Does it hurt?” A-Yuan insisted, reaching out towards some of the scabs that couldn't quite be covered by the fabric. Nie Huaisang grasped his wrist and stopped him before he could touch.

“The worst wound is to my pride,” he replied with false assurance. “A-Yuan, I love you but you're too heavy. Go back with your dad now.”

“Nie-ge looks tired,” A-Yuan commented as he was handed back to Lan Wangji. “Did Nie-ge and Father work a lot?”

What little cheerfulness Nie Huaisang had managed to muster thus far appeared on the verge of collapsing, and so Lan Wangji took it upon himself to come to his rescue.

“We were busy,” he explained. “We flew from very far and for many days. It can be tiring.”

None of it was a lie, even if it was far from the entire truth. It seemed to satisfy A-Yuan who even took it as his chance to ask whether he too would soon learn to fly on his sword. Lan Wangji thanked Hou Tianjian for her help, gave in to her request that Lan Jingyi come play in the Jingshi someday, and then the three of them left together. The rest of the day passed not unpleasantly, with A-Yuan detailing everything he had done since Lan Wangji had last seen him. It was painful to know that he had missed several weeks of his son's life, but A-Yuan did not appear to resent his absence too much this time. Somehow, that made it worse, as if the child had just grown to accept that it was normal for him to be left behind.

As the bell of curfew rang, there was a knock on the Jingshi's door. Lan Wangji, after checking that A-Yuan had truly fallen asleep, went to welcome his visitor. It was no surprise to find his brother on his doorstep. In truth, they probably should have gone to see him as soon as they had arrived in Cloud Recesses, but without ever saying it, Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji had agreed that being with A-Yuan was more important. Their quest had met little success, but their son needed to know they hadn't abandoned him.

Lan Xichen took one look at the both of them, and his face hardened.

“I gather that things did not go as we had hoped?”

Nie Huaisang, who had been sitting at the table, a fan in one hand and a book in the other, flinched at the question. He dropped the book and immediately grasped to the qiakun bag that he still refused to be parted from, except for when Lan Wangji was forced to calm the resentful arm it contained.

“The situation is more complicated than expected,” Lan Wangji stated, inviting his brother to sit before launching himself into a short explanation of what had happened, wanting to spare Nie Huaisang from having to recount those events. Even just hearing an account of what had happened seemed nearly too much for his husband who grew paler and more closed off as the explanation reached its end.

Lan Xichen hardly fared any better.

“I cannot believe Jin Guangyao would go so far,” he whispered in a trembling voice. “Doing something so horrific to a man he once called his brother...”

Sitting next to him, Lan Wangji patted his brother's shoulder. After days of dealing with Nie Huaisang's worsening mood, it was almost shocking when the comforting gesture was not rejected.

“Maybe we can act even with this alone,” Lan Xichen suggested with a sigh. “It is not the strongest case we could be making, but...”

“I am not taking risks,” Nie Huaisang hissed, grasping his fan tightly. “This isn't enough proof. I cannot... I will not take the risk of accusing him now. He'll just find some new lies to throw around and look for ways to destroy the rest of Da-ge's body and then he'll have won. I can let him gloat a little longer with his perfect sect, his perfect wife and his perfect son. I'm patient. I'll find my brother's body, and that will be proof, and then nothing will stop me from avenging Da-ge.”

“Huaisang, it might take a long time,” Lan Xichen objected. “And you will have to interact with him frequently. Can you manage that?”

“Of course. Er-ge should know better than anyone that I'm quite good at not showing when things affect me.”

There was something nearly cruel to Nie Huaisang's smile as he said that, and he appeared to enjoy the way Lan Xichen tensed at the veiled accusation.

“We must use that other corpse finding spell,” Lan Wangji intervened to ease the tension and get them back on track. “If Huaisang is willing to teach me, I will go to Qinghe with A-Yuan and...”

“That won't be necessary,” Nie Huaisang cut him. “Not yet, anyway. That last spell is... cumbersome, it requires a lot of preparation and certain... elements to be gathered.” He snickered. “Actually, that spell is almost outright demonic cultivation, if I'm honest. I'd rather you not be there as I get it started, although I will need your high cultivation to really get it going when the time comes. But until then, I'd prefer if you stayed in the Cloud Recesses. It's A-Yuan's home, and yours as well.”

“You should not be left alone,” Lan Wangji objected.

Nie Huaisang shrugged, but did not try to deny that statement. That only served to worry Lan Wangji even further and judging by the look on his face, Lan Xichen felt similarly.

“Huaisang, we are on your side,” he said softly, reaching out to take his brother-in-law's hand. “Let us help you.”

Lan Xichen's hand was slapped away.

“This isn't your problem. Da-ge was my brother, my family, my responsibility,” Nie Huaisang snapped, before taking a deep breath and forcing himself to smile as he fanned himself. “I hope that didn't sound ungrateful. I am so, so thankful for your help, especially Wangji. But I have asked so much already, and this spell... it really is too much, considering Lan rules. I'd rather not bother you with the details, since they would displease you. Honestly, they displease me as well, and I know Da-ge disliked this spell, as did our father. But sometimes, there is no choice, is there?” Nie Huaisang chuckled lightly, his smile turning vicious again. “It's not like I can grab San-ge or Xue Yang and shake them until they tell me what they did to my brother.”

“Some of the purged demonic cultivators have been exiled, not killed,” Lan Xichen remarked. “Perhaps one of them might know something. Mo Xuanyu lives not far from Gusu, I could visit him.”

Nie Huaisang appeared to give that idea some thought, his fan stilling in his hand.

“Anyone who knew anything useful will have been killed,” he eventually remarked, hiding behind his fan. “And San-ge always said Mo Xuanyu was an idiot, so I'd be surprised if he had really dealt with any demonic cultivation. More likely, it's just a convenient excuse to get rid of another candidate to leadership of Lanling Jin. I'm ready to bet that stupid kid has been accused of every crime under the sun in Carp Tower. It is useless for Er-ge to go meet him, he will not have anything interesting to tell us. No, the spell is our only chance. It will find Da-ge... in time.”

Lan Xichen nodded, but appeared disappointed that his attempt to help had been so quickly rejected. Considering how little else he could do due to his position and the guilt he held regarding his part in the murder, Lan Wangji imagined his brother would have been glad to do anything to help in any way. Ultimately though, Nie Huaisang was right: Nie Mingjue had been his brother, and it was his duty to avenge him. They could offer their help, but he had to accept it.

Besides, although Lan Wangji was asked to continue living in the Cloud Recesses, so far Nie Huaisang had said nothing against visiting Qinghe. Even if he later objected to the idea, Lan Wangji would simply ignore him and go anyway. A-Yuan would surely start missing his Nie-ge too much otherwise, and Nie Huaisang loved the boy so much that he would not be able to protest once they were there.

Lan Wangji had made mistakes in the past, but he would not allow another friend of his to self destroy in the name of righteousness.

[baronvontribble]

okay. alright. i’m doing it. here’s a list of AUs that i have toyed with for the robot and marshmallow, none of which have solid titles (and i will answer questions about any of them):

the big story: the one for publishing, so far. both the most finished and the oldest original story. Adam is a runaway police robot who comes to a group of sympathetic humans to find a new body and a new life as a free man. Ted is part of that group and ends up helping him. goes HARD into the AI minutiae and modern concepts about robotics in a five-minutes-into-the-future setting. tackles mental illness, disability, and is generally super soft and low-key.

team winions: workshopped but not written. still nailing certain things down. basically Ted’s the main support on an esports team and Adam is his newly traded-in DPS/lane partner/AD carry. over the course of a season they do the cute bonding thing, and they and the rest of their misfit team eventually secure a finals win for an NA region that’s pretty much never won anything before that. oh, and this one has art! i mean it’s an old art from when i was first thinking of having Adam be on another team instead of a new trade to the one Ted’s on, but STILL AN ART.

(the one who gets traded away is Owen; Rani swaps to top lane, and Angie and Malak stay in the same positions.)

post-apocalyptica: this was an idea for a platformer. basically, the world has ended. Ted wakes up from complete stasis in a hospital after a few hundred years - healed of whatever it was that got him into stasis in the first place - to find that no one’s left but robots (not androids, though) and a voice on a headset. the voice guides him through the ruins of the city to find meds and possibly other survivors (a thing the voice doesn’t recommend). but when he finds those survivors, he finds out that they were woken up too. by the same voice. every single one of them rejected it once they found out what it’d done, and now they’re fighting the robots to ‘take back the city’.

the voice expects Ted to join them at that point, but he doesn’t. instead he asks where the voice is broadcasting from. then he goes all the way to the top of a ruined skyscraper, and on the very top floor he finds Adam hooked up to a bank of servers. this is the last android, trapped by the limitations of his own memory-bloat, kept functional by a mess of wires that connect him to his own massive server room of a brain. upon seeing this, Ted sits down, unpacks his lunch and his meds, and settles in to try and make the guy a little less lonely.

space, idea 1: one of two different ideas that i’ve considered the two goobers for in the same universe; at this point i’ve decided that if Ted gets one, then someone else will have to get the other, because I want to reuse my goddamn space universe. barring that, i could use another idea for a framing device, but i’ll talk about that later. for now, we will say Ted is in training to become a human partner for a ship pilot AI. or was. he’s being threatened with getting kicked out.

why? who knows. it’s Ted. that is not the point. the point is that he is given an opportunity to redeem himself by joining an experimental program that will give him telekinetic powers via alien spores, but to harness them he has to have nanotech and an AI implanted into his nervous system to monitor and regulate the bits of his brain that will spontaneously burst into irreparable cancer the moment he starts the treatment. the cancer is the flipside of a radical regenerative ability that the spores also cause.

Adam is the AI, one of many. he doesn’t want to be there. none of them do. it’s a last resort assignment given to AIs that are about to be sent to run remote He3 scoops out in the sticks. Ted is also one of many humans and most of them are pseudo-dropouts for one reason or another just like he is. very few of them are well-adjusted, and the usual anime training school shenanigans ensue.

but then a dark thing happens. a test subject who was thought dead seemingly comes back and starts killing the AIs, which can potentially kill the people who really need them in their brains. panic ensues; the leader of the program tries for as long as he can to cover it up because it’s a skeleton in his closet, specifically, but eventually it comes back to bite him and everyone else on the station. so it’s up to Ted and Adam and their friend-group to save the day and get everyone who’s still alive off the station in one piece.

space, idea 2: Adam is a freshly minted AI who has a problem: he goes through partners like other people go through shoes. technically he has the right to refuse anyone for any reason, but his handlers think it’s getting a little ridiculous that he’s refused so many. it’s also expensive to keep trying to match him up with people again and again, and no algorithm can really predict the personality profiles that’ll end up being compatible with him since so many have proven not to be.

then Ted stumbles into his airlock, and he gets An Idea: the human can’t act in ways that are incompatible if his good word is the only thing keeping them from getting arrested. so, he takes advantage of the opportunity and says he wants this one as his partner. this one that’s an actual criminal.

his handlers give up, and this is how the story begins. i don’t know where it will go from there. maybe i’ll use my conspiracy plot where Zach’s trying to start a galactic civil war and they uncover his machinations together. or maybe i’ll use the Fermi paradox plot where they’re scouting and they find a Pioneer-level probe out in space only to find its planet of origin completely dead except for a lone caretaker AI overseeing the stored memories and personalities of a million long-forgotten souls. it’s the kind of setup that can go anywhere.

the framing device: but then there’s this. this thing i thought of to tie them all together. if i start with the last and write the rest, then this would be the thing that let me keep writing AUs with abandon: the VR idea. set in my space universe, it would be a procedurally generated full-immersion VR experience compatible with both humans and AIs that allowed them to live fully fleshed-out alternate stories for themselves, either alone or with others. the stories would follow narratives, have plots, have stakes; the promise is that you can spend your time in the sim being the storybook version of yourself.

now, there are settings. when you go in you can tweak the realism, set up what tags and genres you feel like going for, how much drama you want, how much violence you’re feeling up to seeing or experiencing. and all of it is safe, controlled, and probably really expensive. but it’s supposedly the best vacation your credits can buy you without having to go offworld, so it’s an immediate sensation in-universe.

this would be how i’d tie it all together. and i could use it for multiple character pairings. i could even reuse characters if i said it stored imprints of previous users or had stock characters. but for Ted and Adam? they’d use it as a way to meet and fall in love and be with each other in a thousand timelines across a thousand different worlds, and they’d never get tired of it.

anyway, yeah. those are just the ORIGINAL ones. i’d write them in WoW or Shadowrun or Divinity: Original Sin or Dragon Age or Mass Effect or Stardew Valley or Slime Rancher or Cyberpunk or DnD or Fallout or Starcraft or Overwatch or ANY universe if i thought i could get away with it. these boys will always jump into any AU i dip my toes into, and be the first to volunteer themselves for any plot i come up with. if i bring one, the other is coming too in one form or another. that’s just how they are.

now you all know why i never get anything done that doesn’t have them in it.

[lightlorn]

Ship bias for your KH Muses! :D

i am a flawed human being. ll accepting.

Aqua:

Terraqua. This ship is part of the reason I kept crying so hard in KH3, now catch me admitting that on the internet. I love the way they are there for each other in spite of their stark differences, and that they have a lot of unexplored, threadable area in both their coming of age and post-KH3 timelines. Plus any ship I can draw a parallel between my fandom otp and another ship is a good ship.

Xemqua. Nomura was setting something up here and he dropped the ball and I will not take that lying down. You’re telling me they don’t even so much as look at each other during the DLC? Dishonorable, Nomura, truly despicable. There’s so much to work with there, what with the armor and the way you can read a lot of Xemnas’ closest allies in the Org being answers to Terra’s inner circle. If Nomura won’t give me their story, then I’ll write it with a partner.

Aqua/Larxene. There’s basically no other adult women in this series and I am a simple dyke seeking the wlw. I think it would make a fantastic opposites attract cliche with the added bonus of someone that won’t take Larxene’s attitude lying down while simultaneously being able to match her step for step. The Taming of the Nymph, coming soon to an AU near you.

Eraqus:

Xehaqus. This is my end all, be all OTP for the fandom. I have spent almost 100 dollars overall at cons commissioning art of these idiots. They are my phone background and lockscreen. I have an entire fic in my head of their apprentice days and frankly if Dark Road does not live up to the relationship development I have hyped up in my head I will go canon divergent. These fuckers are beautiful and heartbreaking and awful and wonderful and I love them. Bring me all the Xehaqus.

That’s it. I’m so disappointing. I have like one or two OC for him ships and I mean whatever happens in RP happens if relationships develop but oh my God. Xehaqus consumes me.

Invi:

Real talk my Invi is a lesbian and my take on the Foretellers is that she sees them all as her siblings underneath all of her posturing that it’s nothing personal, so I don’t even know what the fandom ships for her are. I’m not even sure who is available to ship with her. Throw whatever of age lady muses you have at her, mutuals, and let’s see where this goes.

Isa:

Isalea. Akusai is also good, but there’s something about their life together after the war ends when they are trying to rebuild and find everything they lost that speaks to my soul. I would never say that if I see an Axel/Lea it’s ‘on sight’ shipping because that’s shitty, but I will say I am that Saix/Isa that is always down to discuss your take on their dynamic and see what we can cobble together.

Xemsai. This will never be a healthy ship, I think, based on the fact my Saix is as likely to use his alleged loyalty and affection to try and get some form of control over his Superior, but there’s a lot that could be fleshed out here. Whatever heart he grows will always belong to his oldest friend, but he will do whatever it takes to see his ambitions fulfilled. He’s trying to use the creature that has used him for over a decade. God. The potential.

Xigsai. By the same card as above, I think if Saix clued into Xigbar being more than simply a bombastic menace, he could try and pull the same using sex and false loyalty to obfuscate his true means on Xigbar. The difference being that Xigbar is, at heart, far more deadly and aware than Xemnas is when it comes to the bigger picture. It’d be Saix putting himself in the mouth of the beast willingly, and not expecting how deeply those teeth can cut when they snap shut on him.

Roxas:

Full disclaimer: I am 25 years old and fleshing out the romantic drama of a teenage boy is not something that super interests me. That said, I do like the concept of Roxas and his brand new heart forming all kinds of bonds, and him eventually starting to register feelings beyond the platonic for certain people. So as far as character development goes, i can see him taking interest in the following:

Hayner. There’s something so coming of age adolescent aggression as a front for latent or closeted affection about them in the simulation, and in the real world they have endless potential. I think Roxas could definitely feel safe enough around Hayner to have something more develop feelings wise. Also Hayner has muscles and that makes Roxas 404 error sometimes regardless of shipping, just as a general Roxas thing.

Xion. It’s a cliche, to be sure, but depending on the Xion and their development, I can see Roxas starting to feel more at home in her presence after they’ve had time to heal and become their own people. This isn’t an on sight shipping thing, and in fact I am super selective about this even while shipping it, but there’s groundwork for a good dynamic and a sort of reunion between them as whole people who come to appreciate each other as more than their initial, shallow idea of friends.

Namine. Was not super hip on this as a kid, especially when I was less discriminating in my Xion tastes, but as an adult I can appreciate their bond. They have a lot of the same trauma in terms of being dehumanized and used by two separate factions in setting, and the two take a lot of risks for one another within the data Twilight Town. I think there’s something to be said for them both to have irrevocable individuality and come together and develop as more than friends over the years.

Riku. Is it trashy? Yes. Is Roxas still tied to Sora somehow? Yes. Would it be hilarious to see Roxas turn a would-be rivalry into accidental flirtation because he’s confused about his feelings? Yes. Riku just standing there suffering while Roxas demands they engage in a passionate battle of lips -- WITS. I don’t even know how serious I am in shipping this, but Riku being Roxas’ emotional training wheels amuses me.

Aaaaand you can’t really have biases for an OC because at that point anything with plot potential, chemistry, and aligning sexualities goes so instead I am just going to shout out Kokoro’s established ships + the muns for being so good to my little mary sue.

Xemkoro/Foxhole. I don’t know how me dipping my toe in the water of shipping with Lucky by saying ‘hey my OC and your Xem could have a cool dynamic’ became like... my entire shipping brand, but here we are. Their entire dynamic breaks me, the way Xemnas is clinging to a past that he wants so badly to have been a part of while Kokoro can’t afford to look back anymore, working too hard to meet future goals is... Everything. Especially in the fact she regards him as a person without hesitation or knowing how much that will come to mean to him. There’s so many layers to them, and they truly work to earn their happy ending, and that is everything to me. Here’s to successful risks and their payoff.

Aquoro.  Everything my gay little heart ever wanted: the dichotomy of childhood romantic friendship giving way to adolescent rivalry and a shell of what your relationship used to be that appears so often between girls. That they also represent the Responsible Daughter and Rebel Daughter in Kokoro’s secondary verse, furthering the gulf between them as Aqua continues to follow the Master’s teachings where Kokoro embraces her own ideas about what Eraqus preached is... Chef’s Kiss... And through it all, it’s still Aqua that Kokoro wants to find the most, the one for whom her heart breaks the hardest when she sees what became of her. I owe Lucky my life for giving me this phenomenal wlw content.

Koterra. Kleffy does spoil me. The difference between what Terra dreamed of as a boy and what their reality became, where she is instead his knight and protector while he calls the shots as part of reclaiming his identity is perfect. The way they grow from teenage misunderstandings and dick moves into adults that have a touch more kindness for one another is also good, because it’s all about the character development. Their bond is strong and their support for one another immeasurable. I am heterosexual for one (1) ship. All because Kleffy came up with it on the spot and then put in the effort to make it work, God bless em.

[littlemisssquiggles]

Squiggles, would you happen to have any predictions or theories for v7?

Hmm at the moment, not much anon-chan. The onlytheories I have for V7 are what I’ve been repeating mostly since the end of V6.My hunch is that V7 will focusheavily on Weiss’ side of the story with her family affairs. As hinted with the reveal of Adam’s scar, there is definitelysomething fishy up with the SDC regarding their treatment of their employed Faunuslabour; among other things.

Not to mention that if I recall correctly,Jacques told Weiss back in V4 that she doesn’t know the lengths he had to go throughjust to keep their family business afloat. Throughout RWBY, darker implications regarding the SDCsince Jacques’ rise to power has been subtly dropped. There is no doubt in mymind that there are unspokencrimes regarding Jacques and the SDC that need to beuncovered.

Beyond that, there is still the mystery of what happened to Nicholas Schnee. Where is he? All that was said was that he was forced to retire early and hand thereigns over to Jacques due to body ailments as a result of over exposure todust working in the dust mines. Other than implying that Nicholas returned tohis family who missed him, there has been no further indication to suggest thatNick is deceased. And if NicholasSchnee, the legit original founder of the SDC isstill alive then perhaps part of Weiss’ story for V7 will involve Weisssearching for her grandfather and meeting him for the first time.

And this is a good titbit since I believethat the location of St. Nick rests inthe hands of Weiss’ alcoholic mother whose beenmissing from the story up until this point. I think this fact could involveWeiss finally confronting her mother for answers about her grandfather whichcould lead to their opposition. Beyond mentioning the possibility of herfighting with their father, not much is known about Weiss and her relationshipwith her mother. We haven’t even seen Mama Schnee in the flesh as yet and I’minterested in seeing how coming to face to face with her mother again willimpact Weiss.

And don’t even get me started on the untold story of Weiss’ former relationship with heryounger brother Whitley. Apart from the SDC, thereis still a lot of stuff we don’t know regarding Weiss and her family. All themore reason for me to believe that that’s a storyline that deserves its ownvolume, perhaps even two.

The SchneeFamily Affairs and the Crimes of SDC is what I’mexpecting to be the main focus ofV7. I’m also curious to learn more about the connection between the Schnees andGeneral Ironwood. I used to believe that Ironwood only sharedclose affiliation with the Schnees due to Winter but…I can’t help but feel thatmaybe it’s the other way around. There seems to be an untold history between Ironwood and Jacques.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s through herfather how Winter was first introduced to Ironwood. There is definitely more to be exploredbetween the ties with Ironwood and Jacques which is great.

The Schnee Family Affairs and the Crimes ofthe SDC also tying into the heroes’ reunion with Ironwood would be nice sinceit wouldn’t have to a separate plot on its own. If everything connects to eachseamlessly then that will eliminate the Atlas Trilogy making the same mistakeas Mistral. But that’s just me.

Another thing I’m curious with V7 is if we’llget to see our heroesexposed to what it’s like to study at Atlas Academy. One of the disappointments I had with the Mistral Arc is that ourheroes never got to experience what’s like to train at another huntsmen academy.

I figured once RNJR got to Haven Academy, wewould get to see them reuniting with familiar faces who are known students ofHaven (like oh I dunno…the remaining three members of Team SSSN perhaps) aswell as see what the teaching culture was like at Haven. What kind of colourful huntsmen and huntresseswere employed as teachers at Haven and what were their teaching methods like compared to that of our known teachers from Beacon like Professor Port and Dr. Oobleck?

This was what was missing for me from the Mistral Arc.Despite being in a newkingdom and exposed to a differentculture, we never saw our heroes experiencing that cultural change. According to Nora in V6, they never left the house. We never got to seethem actually exploring Mistral and by the time we got to V6, we had to saysayonara to Mistral for good.     

I’m praying the CRWBY Writers learnt from theMistral Arc and will make up for this in Atlas. ForV7, I want to see our heroes enrolled temporarily at Atlas Academy to continuetheir huntsmen training. Atlas is our chance forour heroes to be under a school setting for the first time since Beacon so it’dbe interesting to see how our heroes would feel being exposed to the Atlas school culture. What is the Atlas schoolculture and howdifferent is it from Beacon? Whoare the people employed as professors at Atlas? What are their backgrounds? Howdifferent are they from Beacon’s professors or will they be Atlesian counterparts who willremind our heroes, such RWBY and JNR of certain professors they remember fromBeacon?

Picture an Atlesian version of Professor Port or a gender bentAtlesian version of Dr. Oobleck?

How will our Beacon students and our theirrepresentative from Mistral (meaning Oscar) fair under the boot camp setting ofthe Atlas Academy?

Speaking of which, if the heroes attend Atlas then thiswill be Oscar’s first time enrolledat a huntsmen academy! For all the Pineheads with their StudentOscar headcanons and AUs, this could be your goldenopportunity to see it become canon! Picture Oscar Pine in an Atlas Academy uniform!

We can even have a Jaundice parallelbetween Jaune and Oscar where Oscar is struggling at Atlas. Mostly in the practical combat-related subjects. In the academicpart, Oscar shows an impressive knowledge of his historyfor all kingdoms including Atlas; not from Ozpin’s memory archive but mainlyfrom his days of reading up a lot on everything thanks to his aunt’s library ofbooks back on the farm. I’m still sticking to my guns on my Pinehead headcanon of Oscar havinga photographic memory that makes him an exceptional scholar sincehe’s able to retain and recite everything he reads.

So when it comes to books, Oscar is neargenius level giving Weiss a run for her money. However Oscar is still not that confidentin his fighting skills and this is the part where we can have Jaune offer to coach Oscar and help him out with his combat skills similar to how Pyrhha helped himout.

This also presents the potential for Ruby to offer to have private practice sessions withOscar, just like Pyrhha did for Jaune which can opena leeway for our Rosebuds to bond more. I mean we have seen these two traintogether. Speaking of which, why did V5 make such a deal about Ruby needing tohone her hand to hand combat skills yet we never see her actually use it likeat all after V5? She didn’t even use it for V5 (and no, her head-buttingMercury mimicking Ozpin’s cheap shot doesn’t really count). I would definitelylove more Rosebud bonding momentsover training together for V7 because it candefinitely parallel Jaune and Pyrhha bonding during their sessions.

Either can work for me but I definitely wishto see Oscar bond with Jaune more because it will definitely help their relationshipas potential teammates. I’m still gunning for that JNPR Revivalwith Oscar. Still holding out for that and I think V7will be the volume that finally does it.

Apart from attending Atlas, another thing I’mhoping for with V7 is our heroes exploringAtlas. It is for this reason why I’m awaiting Team FNKI’s glorious return. Who else are going to help ourfish out of water heroes get into the groove at Atlas Academy? Not to mention, who else isgoing to take our heroes exploring the fun parts of the city? I am definitely banking on FNKI beingour team’s tour guides of Atlas. At least the fun parts of Atlas thatWeiss may not know about because I doubt she would have been allowed to go toplaces like that under her father’s authoritarian control.

Neon promised for her and Flynt to take theheroes partying sometime so that’s another thing I’m holding this series to.Seriously having the heroescontinue their training at Atlas Academy will be perfectincentive to have them reunite withTeam FNKI which can lead to them going partying in Atlas.

Not to mention that having Weiss reunite with Flynt again could tie into heraffairs with the SDC. Back in V2, Flynt told Weiss that his dadowned a cosy little dust shop until the SDC ran him out of business. I’mcurious to know if Flynt’s dad still owns his dust business or at least did hisbest to retain it despite the SDC giving him a hard time.

In the World of Remnant episode on the SDC,it was noted that the SDC eliminates its competition so I’m curious to know what kind of methods the SDC adopt to chase away their competitors. Perhaps through Flynt, Weissbegins her own mission that leads to her uncovering all the underhanded waysher father incorporated to keep the SDC afloat; including threatening their competition.Imagine Flynt informing Weiss about her father still trying to keep hisbusiness open but lately the SDC has been giving him the stink eye.

Like imagine Flynt’s dad being the stubborntype to still keep his shop open despite the fact that the SDC has taken away mostof his customers, all except for FNKI and some students of the Atlas Academywho use the Cole family as their main dust suppliers. Picture Flynt’s fatherbeing threatened by the SDC and it reaches to the point that they stage break-insand arson attacks against the shop, an incident that truly opens Weiss’ eyes tothe company’s actions---her father’s actions.

And this in turn sparks a thread for Weiss tounravel about the true crimes of the SDC. Perhaps this is something that Weiss pulls all of her friends into helping heruncover including FNKI. Speaking of FNKI, I can’t wait to see whothe K and I characters are in FNKI.

Do you knowwhat would be interesting? If Flynt is the sole human member and leader of a dominantlyFaunus huntsmen team. So far we’ve seen huntsmen teams with eitherone or two Faunus members. It’d be a cool twist if allof Flynt’s teammates are Faunus. A part of mealso wants Flynt andNeon to be dating to give me that interracial,interspecies love. I definitely loved the dynamic betweenFlynt and Neon in V2.

Loved their teamwork so it wouldn’t surpriseme if they’re either super close best friends or…a couple or…super close best friends who secretly want to be a couple but stickto being friends for other politicalreasons. Maybe the racial divide between humans andFaunus is more hostile in Atlas to the point that it affects Flynt and Neon’s relationshipespecially when they’re out in public. Imagine there are people in Atlas whofrown upon a human romantically involved with a Faunus despite science provingthat humans and Faunus are compatible are capable of having healthyrelationship just as much as same species relationships.

Now that I think about it. Interspecies love between humans and Faunus is a topic that yet to be discussed in the Faunus politics so perhapsAtlas could be the setting for that and it could start with Neon and Flynt,maybe?

Maybe they are couple and have to deal with people’sprejudice or Maybe they want to be a couple but one of them is afraid to pursueit beyond friendship because of the prejudice. Do these two even have a shipname? What is the name of theFlynt and Neon ship? These are the questions Iask, okay.

I actually want the Schnee Family Affairsside of Atlas to be stretched for 2 volumes or at least done in a way where itleads cleverly into another important side of the story. There is so much stuffto cover in Atlas that I am curious to see how the Writers are going to handle all of it. For Atlasthere’s:

What did Ruby buy for everyone at the thriftshop at the Mistral Train Station (we never got to know what that was?)

The Schnee Family Affairs

The Crimes of SDC

Meeting Penny’s Father/Creator

The Relic of Creation

The Vault of the Winter Maiden

The Identity of the Winter Maiden or thecandidate to become the Winter Maiden

The Return of Penny Polendina

Watts and Tyrian and what’s they’re up to inAtlas

Cinder and Neo and what their story is goingto be like in Atlas

The Kingdom Mantle---will the heroes get tovisit it?

Where in the world is Nicholas Schnee?

Maria’s Eyes and who is her tinker that shegoes to every 10 years to get her eyes checked? (Would actually be pretty coolif the same person Maria goes to check her eyes is the same inventor who madePenny)

More Silver Eyes training for Ruby becauseall things considered, she hasn’t mastered her eyes as yet!

Speaking of Silver Eyes, Ruby’s real trial by fire that involves her rematch with Cinder/Neo

Atlas Academy

Team FNKI Reunion

General Ironwood and his rising PTSD/Fearfollowing the Fall of Beacon and Ozpin’s death

How Ozpin’s death affected Ironwood

General Ironwood and his relationship/historywith Jacques

General Ironwood and his relationship/historywith Jacques that involves Winter

Winter Schnee

Winter Schnee’s reunion with Qrow

Winter’s history with Qrow

Team JNPR Revival with Oscar

Heroes meeting Jacques Schnee

Heroes meeting Whitley Schnee

Heroes meeting Klein and Mama Schnee

Weiss’ confrontation with Mama Schnee

Oscar’s actual Character Development

Ozpin Forgiveness

Oscar’s Deep Dive into his Mind to find Ozpin

Oscar’s Past

Oscar’s relationship with Ruby and how thatis going to grow before the inevitable kidnapping

Oscar getting kidnapped

Ruby getting kidnapped

Oscar and Ruby getting kidnapped

The Flying Beringels

Salem…possibly showing up in Atlas

The Fall of Atlas

Atlas Aura Experiments!

Atlas Aura Experiments that might involveOscar and Ozpin

…and the list goes on! This is just off thetop of my head and already you see there is a plethora of things the CRWBYWriters have to cover in Atlas.

I just hope they do a better job at structuringeverything this time so it feels like a solid cohesive trilogy like Beacon asopposed to a disjointed mess that sadly fell flat in the middle like Mistral. Butagain this is just my opinion.

But yeah, basically all of this are my theories and hunches for V7. That’s my answer. I hope I actually answered you well enoughanon-chan.

~LittleMissSquiggles(2019)

[marisexmas]

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 18, 20, 21 for Klug Sig (lol why not i enjoy seeing you blabbering about your otp hahaha)

aaaaah thank you for giving me a chance to ramble more about this ship!! here we go

3. What is your favorite AU/prompt idea/trope for your pairing?

I really like the fairly-popular “sig is doing bad in school so klug has to personally tutor him” narrative. I even wrote a fanfic with this plot a while back~

4. Do you prefer canon ideas or do you have your own headcanons for them? 

as with most of my ships, I prefer to stick to canon as closely as possible while still putting my own little spins on it. the great thing about puyo is how fleshed-out but also paradoxically vague its characters and settings are, so that gives me lots of room to throw around my own ideas. sig and klug in particular have a lot of lore surrounding them, which makes it fun to think of different hcs for them!

5. Favorite canon moment of them?

I really like this whole scene, both for how stupid it was and for how klug managed to go with the most ambiguous-yet-vaguely-suggestive phrasing possible (when he could’ve easily shrugged it off or just straight-up admitted he knew nothing)

6. Least favorite canon moment of them? 

they appear together so rarely that I honestly appreciate any canon moment between them I can get, but

klug Why ;_;

7. Favorite headcanon trope/idea? (Your own or someone else’s)

I’ve seen other sigklug shippers draw talk about scenarios where they have fun teaching each other about their respective interests (sig taking klug bug-catching and klug taking sig stargazing) and honestly I will Always Adore that prospect

8. Least favorite headcanon trope/idea? 

for a while, there were posts floating around the puyo tags about sig eating bugs, and. those made me sad for reasons I don’t believe require explanation ;v;

9. Favorite aspect of them/their relationship dynamics?

the whole “opposites attract” idea plays into it a lot, I think. klug is clever, quick-minded and talented with magic, but he’s also hot-headed, arrogant and overly emotional/prone to putting unnecessary stress on himself. meanwhile sig isn’t as quick-witted and takes more time to process things, but he’s also more calm, relaxed and self-assured. it definitely helps that they’re somewhat connected by canon lore via the demon in klug’s book, giving me even more justification hehe~

10. Least favorite aspect of them/their relationship dynamics? (Can be headcannon)

probably just the fact that they both tend to be pretty aloof when left to their own devices. they’re not outwardly friendly or extroverted like amitie, so they almost never make much effort to talk to each other/anyone else unless something is pushing them to do so

11. If they aren’t a canon pairing, how would you get them together? 

it’s definitely not something that would happen all at once. it’d probably emerge after they’ve been going to school together for a few years, and perhaps learned more about sig’s nature and origins as well as the whole sealed demon business

but then again, puyo isn’t really the series for that sort of story is it? so I’m perfectly fine with the ship remaining a part of my headcanons~

18. Did you once/ever dislike one/both of them?

the worst I can say is that I was mostly indifferent to sig before I became active in the fandom. but now I think I like him more than klug, who’s always been one of my favorites ever since I first played fever 1 back in 2004.

20. What made you decide to ship them? 

honestly, the biggest thing that led me to ship them is the canon lore that connects them, and the idea of them trying to sort it out together...

21. Favorite genre for them? (Angst, fluff, etc.)

fluff with the occasional dash of angst feels right for them. puyo is a fairly upbeat series, but it also gets dark sometimes, so I feel that shipping fanworks are best when they follow a similar pattern.