#MURDERED FOR THIS BOY TO BE BORN ONLY TO CAST HIM OUT

[z0mbride]

i’ve never been an fan of Aegon but 30 minutes into ep 1 of s2 i feel so bad for him. he is really just a boy and of course he has stupid reckless violent and disgusting desires and doesn’t understand his role beyond taking what he wants and being loved and the sheep scene just :( he is an awful person but it is easy to see how his role has shaped him to be this way and those little moments where he just wants time with his son and to please his people and he wants fairness make me feel for him

[lovl3igh]

"they made greens worse in show to push blacks agenda" "they made blacks worse in show to push green agenda" truth is they made daemon and viserys worse and greens are now arouse sympathy and rhaenyra is made more soft and all that destroys mostly female characters and is for more drama and to push whole tg vs tb thing for bigger marketing while saying that's not what we supposed to do (season 1)

and yes, greens are worse in the books, making alicent innocent in the beginning and stating murder of luke as accident was to make them look better. and yes daemon was more "grey" character in the book, while in show almost every scene who was supposed to make him look like good father, husband or just vulnarable guy was cut out or belittled, his relationships make him look like bad guy - killing rhea, admitting to not fully loving laena, abusing nyra - instead of book!daemon who is against everyone but his family (except of green side), there's show!daemon who goes against his family or ignore its' members. and yes there are things when the greens are shown worse than in the books and black better than they were written

but changing ages of characters harms team black only. and since there's many changes of those and that's of many important characters it DOES make team black look worse and makes team green victims

1. alicent instead of being adult woman going against little girl (alicent 18yo and rhaenyra only 9) is now teenager sexually abused by viserys who is even older than her in the show than in f&b. being rhaenyra's peer - and her former friend - also changes the dynamic because now people claim rhaenyra caused break up of their friendship as if she wasn't just suffering 14yo. no, alicent is no more adult woman climbing for power and acting against child, it's a teenager abondoned by her best friend after being force into relationship with much older guy

2. jace, luke and dragon twins aged up - now in book it was 10yo aemond who attacked 3yo joffrey and then fought 4yo luke and 5yo jace*. in the show 11yo (according to s2 timeline) aemond is fighting four kids in the age from 8 to 10. so he doesn't attacks children at least 2x younger than him but is jumped by almost his peers. poor aemond, right?

*before someone say "jace was 6 and luke 5" - jace was born in late 114 AC and luke in late 115, meanwhile laena died at the beggining of 120 AC, which makes them 5 and 4 years old respectively

3. we don't have actual age of twins but looking at actors' ages, jaehaerys and jaehaera were 4, maybe 5 years old, tho in s1 they looked like toddlers. now it's not a big book to show change, 6 to 4yo, but it still look kinda worse to murder boy who barely stopped being a toddler than 6yo

4. daemon fell in love with laena when she was 22 (!!!). she wasn't a teenager. she wasn't also 12yo when offered by her parents to viserys. making her younger in the show made daemon, corlys and rhaenys look worse than in f&b (the only person who looked "better" - there's no good word for that i'm afraid - in that situation was viserys, who decided to marry 15yo and not 12yo. good for you, pedo?)

5. joffrey being 6yo with baby dragon makes rhaenyra look worse and like an oathbreaker. sending baby dragons to the vale instead of dragon who can at very least carry his rider doesn't look cool even though was funny for a second, because she technically didn't break her word, she DID send a dragon, even two, but that was a loophole

6. not exactly the same but - fabien frankel and matt smith' casting. i'm not saying they don't play their characters well or anything. that's not the point. the point is that fabien was born in 1994, matt smith in 1982 and milly alcock in 2000. there's 12 years age difference between fabien and matt but between cole and daemon is supposed to be only a year. now daemon is still called a groomer and cole is not because he is played by a guy only 6 years older than milly. and there are also people who now call him a victim and not rhaenyra

so yeah, i don't really wanna see anymore how much blacks look better in the show than in the book and greens worse... because that's not true. yeah, there are things done that make tb look a bit better but the show started with making the greens victims they weren't at all in the book and a lot of that has to do with ages changing

[bookwormbynight]

please tell about your lawlight hades and persephone au 👀

Oh boy here we go lol.

Alright so its title was "Seasons Don't Fear the Reaper". The cast went like this:

Persephone (goddess of spring) - Light. He doesn't know his actual parents, probably gods, but honestly he could have also just been another instance of castrated-testicles-fall-into-the-sea-and-make-a-hot-person, fuck knows. Aphrodite found a very pretty baby and adopted him. He cultivates gardens because he connects better with plants than people, likes to experiment with it, and he's not really ever let out of the house, so he doesn't have anything better to do.

Hades (king of the underworld) - L. He's the king of the underworld by technicality, but he actually devotes himself to and is seen as the god of posthumous justice, because he likes to spend his time unwinding murders back to the living for fun. I'll talk more about underworld worldbuilding in a hot second. Also, L grabs Light because the Oracle said that Light was the one, and L was like “fuck it, he’s hot”. There’s really no feelings on either side at first.

Aphrodite (goddess of beauty, love, sex) - Misa. If you know Aphrodite myths, enough said.

Charon (guide into the underworld across the river Styx) - Watari. I haven't thought about him too much, I just want him there.

Thanatos (personification of death, god of the dying) - Ryuk. He's going to be Light's first friend in the underworld, because Light isn't gonna like L very much at first lmao. He's also the one who tells Light about The Rule.

I don't have a solid plot but here are some bullet points I got going for me:

Light hangs out with mother-approved naiad friends at the base of a waterfall for a bit, until he manages to slip away thanks to an intense storm. Unfortunately for his bid for independence, he gets entranced by a red tulip (plucked) in his path, and stops to examine it. From where the flower left the ground, a hole opens up, until it’s wide enough for L to fly out, scoop Light up, and drag him down to the Underworld.

Misa comes back to collect Light, and discovers that he’s disappeared. She flies into a horrible rage and turns all the naiads into sirens as punishment. You bet your ass she throws a tantrum and murders some nymphs and shit. Also she makes the entire animal kingdom infertile out of spite (she calls it mourning).

Light gets to hold Ryuk’s death scythe bc That Image (he has a fleeting thought to just fuckin take it and run)

A scene where Ryuk is eating apples in the garden, (talks about human world apples being better but), Light reaches for one, and then the exposition about the rule with underworld garden fruit (i.e. it binds you to the place) bc Ryuk is an asshole but a good frien :)

A scene where we acknowledge the fact that humans are using the nickname "L" to avoid calling the death god’s attention by using his true name… L (“what is L short for, anyway?” and L just gets the most shit-eating fucking grin because humans really fucked that one up and he thinks it's HILARIOUS). This is rooted in superstition that actually surrounded Hades and Persephone at the time the myths were formed.

Anyway Earth's going to shit because Duh, and Zeus (just called the King, only ever going to be mentioned and the reader will never see him) finally relents to what he views as Misa's temper tantrum, because sacrifices have stopped, and humans are panicking because no babies are being born and neither are any of the animals they work with. I'm thinking maybe after 7 months, because that's approximately how long Light and L interacted face-to-face total in canon. The King tells L to give Light the fuck back. L does not tell Light anything about any of this.

L discusses a plan with Watari after a week or so of keeping it from Light (Zeus is coming to get Light that day) - Light was eavesdropping. Obviously, this is an asshole move so Light fuckin socks L across the face, especially since they had been kind of falling in love yotsuba--arc stockholm-syndrome style, so it feels like betrayal even though it's not at all surprising.

MY FUCKING NOTES-- ONE LITERALLY SAYS "Rain scene(?) Can it rain in the Underworld??". I've decided yes it can because I need that. Another one says "When Light first got brought there his whole scheme was just to escap but oh nos! It backfired!" 😭 help

Light weighs his options while in a garden, realizes he doesn’t want to leave anyway, and remembers the foreshadowed thing Ryuk said about food grown in the underworld (L didn’t know about this rule - it’s Ryuk that’s the crazy fuck bringing non-dead souls into the underworld and vice versa, just because L doesn't leave the house enough to think of that). He plucks a pomegranate, eats some, and goes to L and demands that they bring him to Zeus when Zeus comes.

The Underworld:

Souls don’t go on living after death - that defeats the purpose of death. The underworld, or the land of the dead, just stores the souls, which would be everything that made up an individual, but the souls can’t be conscious or anything without a body because that’s the other half of what makes a person. Maybe the souls should be like dim little stars? According to this one website I found, souls supposedly went down there to slowly fade into nothingness. I guess they would disappear when there is nothing tethering them to the Earth any longer. Coco-style.

The underworld is also supposed to be UNDER the earth, but it also seems to be imagined in the modern day as vast, with high high high ceilings and lots of mist at the top ig, although it’s dark and shadowy.

THE FUCKING FLOWERS hoo boy are you ready for this shit I spent fucking ages researching flowers I could draw upon within the story because Light is a flower boy and then used NONE OF THEM because THIS is what made me lose passion about this thing but here you are:

Anemone (red) - tragic love (sprung from Aphrodite’s tears mixed with Adonis’s blood as she tried and failed to save his life)

Baby’s Breath - everlasting love, or new beginnings (really good for weddings and births)

Basil - murderous intentions, or romantic intentions (apparently it started as a symbol of hate in Greece because the name recalled a literal monster, implicitly cursing the Basilisk upon the person you sent it to, and then morphed into a declaration of an intent to marry in Victorian England - an enemies to lovers arc if I’ve ever seen one)

Belladonna - silence, death, poison

Blackthorn Blossom - this plant made up Jesus’s thorn crown, but the flowers are gorgeous

Camellia (red) - honorable death, or eternal love

Carnation (pink) - heartfelt gratitude and motherly love (given on Mother’s Day in the West)

Carnation (red) - love (common Mother’s Day gift in Japan but romantic in the West)

Cherry Blossom - rebirth, renewal, spring

Chrysanthemum (white) - death, mourning, grief, devotion, loyalty (funeral flower, especially for those who died young)

Daffodil - prosperity, or rebirth and spring, or regard and esteem (also called the narcissus)

Daisy - childhood, innocence

Hibiscus (red) - love, delicate beauty, brief existence (withers within a day of blooming)

Orchid - fertility, elegance, charm, beauty

Poppy - consolation, eternal sleep, peace in death

Rampion - the German word for the plant is ‘rapunzel’

Rose (red) - romantic love, desire

Rose (white) - innocence, virtue, purity

Spider Lily - final goodbye, death, funerals

Do you have any idea how much fucking time it took me to research these goddamn flowers fuck you Persephone and fuck you Light

Tulip (red) - a love confession, passionate love (apparently created from the blood of a Romeo-esq dude in Persia who committed suicide when he falsely believed his beloved had died)

Violet - watchfulness, modesty (created by Artemis to protect her nymph from Apollo’s advances)

[botslayer]

Horror Theory: Just Men Behind The Masks

So I just rewatched Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon. A 2006 deconstructionist horror film. And I have a thought for the rest of the horror community to chew on:

A lot of people mention idly that this is a "Shared universe" film. That this is a universe where Chucky, Michael, Freddy, and Jason (All of whom are name dropped) exist. Which heavily implies the rest do, to. I have a different idea.

This is a universe where those STORIES exist. Fred Kruger may have been a real person. Jason Voorhees drowned at camp that fateful summer. Charles Lee Ray was gunned down in a toy store. Maybe even Michael Myers went to the asylum and got out.

Here's the kicker tho: If you pay attention, at least, it's implied that the characters as we know them are fake. The only one I'd be willing to say exists properly from the first movie is Michael.

Spoilers ahead but the guy up top is the titular Leslie Vernon... Except no. He isn't.

The Dr. Loomis to Leslie's Michael (The in universe term is "Ahab.") is Doc Halloran. Halloran reveals and Leslie later admits he is not Leslie Vernon. His real name is Leslie Mancuso.

(Incidentally, yes. That is Robert Englund as Halloran. A+ casting.)

At the end of the movie, after carving a bloody swathe through a bunch of people, Leslie is "killed" by the survivor girl, Taylor. When asked if Leslie is dead, she says "I don't know what he is." Halloran reflects on the idea that Leslie was "Just a man."

We spent the entire movie up to this point getting into Leslie's head, learning how he does things. Seeing all the preparation not only he, but the other slashers put into the things the do. Why is Jason's Machete indestructible but all the other tools around break with one swing? Sabotage. Why are windows usually stuck? Nails. Why do tree limbs break right away and cars not start? Also sabotage. Stuff like that.

We also find out that Leslie Vernon was very likely a real person but has been dead for twenty years. At the very least Leslie Vernon is a popular folk tale around the town, Mr. Mancuso is just piggybacking off it to do some murder in the interest of making his survivor girl stronger and doing good for the world through evil.

(Pictured: Leslie Mancuso as Leslie Vernon during his killing spree)

The story of Mr. Vernon, the dead man, is that supposedly a bastard kid was born to a married couple (possibly through rape.) They worked him like a slave, forcing him to till fields with nothing but a hand scythe until he murdered both of them. The town found out and a mob of people drowned the boy after the murders and his body was never found as the water was too cold, so he never came back up. Turtles picked his bones clean.

Twenty years later, Mancuso took on the name and started plotting to murder people at that farm house. The rest of the movie is the set up and execution of that murder plan.

So what does that say about people like Michael, Jason, Freddy, and especially Chucky?

We'll start with the man who started it all. One tragic night in 1963, a young Michael Myers murdered his older sister with a kitchen knife. No one knew why. No one understood his motive. But the fact remains he did it. A little before Halloween night 1978, Michael escaped the mental institution he was in and went on a killing spree for reasons not everyone will know but was injured and eventually stopped by Dr. Loomis and a local baby sitter, Lori Strode.

I see this as being the thing that inspires that most horrible of things in-universe: Copycat Killers.

They mention directly that Michael has done his attacks on Haddonfield at least 4 separate times. I don't know much about Halloween as a series so I don't know what movies that number specifically is referencing but I'm willing to suggest the first two movies are billed together as one attack because it was basically one protracted occurrence. At the end of which he was blinded and then set on fire, burning to death.

Later movies retcon that death but logically, the real Michael is dead in this universe. Later instances where HE supposedly attacks are the works of more calculating, crazy people like Mancuso. His whole deal is "We set things up like this, we figure out how to do that and yadda yadda."

You could easily apply most of what he says and does to people who can act out just like he does. Bullet proof vests, gel applied in spots to stop bleeding. Breaking into people's houses and cutting the power and telephones, etc. I think the other supposed three attacks in the BTM universe are people who took on Mikey's coveralls and a replica mask, were in some way stopped or got away, and then were either replaced by new fakers or maybe continued being Mike a time or two before being stopped. This could also theoretically riff on the idea of Michael using body doubles to fake his death in some of the movies.

Alternatively, The real Mike could still be at the Smith's Grove Sanitarium in this universe. He never got out but his legend made a perfect starting point for people to latch on to and start "being him." Or he may be a local legend with no real basis in reality.

The problem is we don't have any further context for the four attacks that happened. So... Yeah, this is nine tenths me BSing.

How about Jason? The Crystal Lake killer and my personal favorite?

I think the most likely case of what happened with Jason in the universe of BTM is that Jason Voorhees did actually exist. He did drown that one summer. Some years later his mother would go on to slaughter a bunch of camp counselors before the camp could reopen. Note the thing about how slashers need a story like that which would naturally draw somebody.

So I think it's worth considering that the "dozens" of people "Jason' supposedly has killed over the years we're actually the works of either one faker or multiple fakers who've taken up residence at camp Crystal Lake over the years. This is because while we don't have any real evidence that Jason is 100% real we do have evidence that sometimes people will take up these mantles just to take them up if it's the convenient one to work with and use for your own ends.

If you go to Jersey and you want to start offing people, why not try and find a way to pin it on the Jersey devil?

So you have this local legend of a kid who drowned in a lake and his mom goes on a murderous rampage. So what are you, an up and coming slasher going to do? Well you start acting how you think Jason would act. You put on this facade and start doing damage to people. Given a lot of the stuff Mancuso does that actually makes him look undead, a talented enough makeup artist could actually theoretically make themselves look like a super deformed crazy guy like Jason or even like Freddy... Speaking of.

I think the most likely course of Freddy's history here is that he did still kill around 20 kids at some point in the past. And then the people got together and they burned him to death in the boiler room.

However I think maybe there's a chance he survived and went on to not so much invade people's dreams as he did perhaps start drugging people and then torturing them. Alternatively his "Slasher" copycat started doing that.

We know that in the actual nightmare on elm Street movies Freddy likes to get in your dreams, play with your fears and even use some of your greatest strengths against you, because he just can. Now imagine someone with the face of a burn victim breaking into your house at night, drugging you or gassing you up in a way that makes the whole world feel very dream-like, and unreal, and then butchering you.

I think it would especially be very easy to reframe a lot of the ways in which these people turn up dead as Freddy simply doing things that he knows because it's established in the BTM universe that a lot of these killers will stalk their victims from months at a time.

That one scene in dream Warriors where he turns his hand into drug needles and injects a girl with them? Well that could be suggestive of the idea that instead what Freddie actually did was drug her and then make her OD in her sleep.

A lot of the kills all of these guys do could be someone embellished like that one time that girl was force fed things until she choked to death in her dream, in real life her windpipe just kind of collapsed if memory serves. As if something had been weighing down on it.

Then again, maybe most of the kills from all the movies we know didn't really happen. Michael being strong enough to pin a guy to a wall using a kitchen knife is otherworldly in its own way. Like. Maybe that didn't happen that way. It's just the rumor mill circling around.

Now. The last one. My personal least favorite. Chucky. AKA Charles Lee Ray, the Lakeshore Strangler.

Charles Lee Ray killed a good handful of people as a normal adult but in a crime gone wrong, he got gunned down in a toy store somewhere in Chicago. In the universe of the Child's Play movies, he uses a voodoo spell to put his soul in a "Good Guy" doll. He then uses a normal little boy, Andy, to go kill his partner in crime, Eddie and then spends the rest of the series hunting for Andy so he can be human again by putting his soul inside of Andy. Or just trying to kill him in three and I think Curse's after-credits.

In universe, I think what really might have happened was Charles swore bloody vengeance on Eddie and the cop who killed him, expecting to escape. He was then killed in the store either trying to get the drop on the cop or just get out. The hideout Charles and Eddie, who escaped custody, used to use, exploded in a random gas leak incident.

But urban legends have circulated over and over. That it was Charles' ghost possessing a Good Guy Doll. That a little kid was seen on the train carrying one such doll heading toward Cabrini-Green. Etc.

Now, I'm not 100% sure how later appearances by "Chucky" would go. Like. How do you fake a killer doll? Tiny Animatronics? A REALLY short guy? Leaving them as calling cards? I dunno. But it is just another guy piggybacking.

The only cue that anything vaguely supernatural is happening in this world is at the end, Leslie is alive after having his head crushed and being burned, but, to his credit, he was established to be a pretty tough bastard up to that point and the press was only turned enough to lock him in place and hear one squelch. It probably did damage but it also probably didn't do enough to put him on ice. So it's fairly ambiguous and still probably means killer dolls aren't a factor.

In summary: Behind The Mask is not a universe where all of our favorite killers exist. It's a universe where their legends exist and people who want to do evil become those legends. For a time at least.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

[cookeybg]

Gotham Possesses

A cryptid Batfamily AU in which Gotham is the main character and follows its journey to consciousness as it follows its Bat and Birds. Chapters are short and a bit gloomy.

Main Characters: Gotham, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne

Honorable Mentions: Joker, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Riddler, Cobblepot (Penguin), Two Face (Harvey Dent), Superman (Clark Kent), Superboy (Jon Kent)

No romantic relationships

Stuff to know: Cryptid Batfamily, grim, Melancholic mood, Angst, this chapter has mentions of drug use, murder and unsolicited touching

Word Count: 933

[Here's my table of contents]

Chapter 10 - Gotham Watches

Death. That’s what happened when their warmth seeped into me, emptying, leaving behind a husk, a body no longer needed. Death. I had been born because of it, awakened. Death. It hung over me, clung to my Bat and our Birds. It tittered in the jester’s presence, in his arrival, in his exit. In the wake of a bullet fired. In the hands of anger and in the perception of love. In the tumbling of a dear butler, a father, when his neck snaps as he lands crooked. A kiss to the lips and he’s back, dazed, in pain, bound to me and the manor he holds so dear. Tethered to my shadows, forever serving in our love for our Bat. He moves on, dusts himself, there is dinner to be served. It is the thing that the living must always meet, the thing I greet and make my own. Their souls and warmth fuel me, a near endless supply. It is a curious thing, to watch them. I float around a young girl, she sits in the dark, I’m her only company. She is not afraid, not happy, used to it. She was told to never turn on the light, never answer the door, the phone. When she was alone she was to stay hidden and wait. A door opens quietly, she stiffens, then relief as her mother calls for her in a tired voice. I move on. I linger in a building where the jester laughs maniacally in his glass cage. He suddenly stops and stares, his gaze following me, his smile widening, unnerving. I stay away. Slither past the female jester, the blue cold man, the green woman who sprouts life on my soil, the man who mumbles riddles, the female cat whose too familiar with my Bat. All uninteresting, captured. Much more fun when they are free. I slip through old brick loosening the mortar. I caress a young woman, passed out on the cold floor. Her skin nearly as cold as the stone. She smiles as her final, shuttering breath escapes, a needle tumbling to the ground. My senses alert me to look up. I see a red cape fly by, avoiding me. As he should. His presence casts a heavy shadow, my Bat does not see me when he’s near. Leaves with him for periods at a time, far from my gaze. More often than not my Bat tells the red cape, whose skin is far too warm and whose smile reflects the sun, to stay away. It’s satisfying. I dance in the clubs, enjoying the manic thrum, the unbridled joy of its patrons. Some if not most, using something to increase their vivacity. Not all will make it through to morning. A hooked nosed man in a black hat smiles from the second floor window. Plotting, monocle gleaming.

A boy steals a half drunk bottle that his father was hugging in his sleep. The boy tosses it out the window, the sound of shattering glass echoes down in the street, not uncommon. He huddles under his blankets a bag of frozen peas pressed to his let eye. His mother won’t be back for another few hours. I hear the mumbling of a man, arguing with himself. A silver coin gleams under the dim light of an abandoned building. He shoots his gun when the coin lands, a body falls to the ground, warmth seeps into my earth, salty. Another body to be sunk into my harbor. Laughter distracts me away. I sweep in on a lovers cuddling, enjoying the images playing on a screen. His arm loosely dangling over her shoulders. Her gaze is reminiscent to how I stare at my Bat. The man will be gone by morning, he was never planning to stay, he will not let her know. Life glows within her belly. New potential. I sink down into my depths. There’s a meeting, men and women in white masks. Myths, creatures that should not exist. Watching, just as I do. Abominations that must be purged, a new mystery for my Bat. I waft upward through the grates. I watch a man, shivering, digging through the trash amongst the rats. Searching for something, maybe food, maybe something to numb. Unsuccessful, he moves to another dumpster. I wrap around the clock tower, a red headed woman sits typing furiously on a computer. She also watches and observes as much as I do. I help her steer the cameras in the right direction. A female bat stands beside her, stitched mouth, silent. My first bird sleeps contorted, on the manor’s couch. Tired from a long grueling night. My second hugs his knees to his chest, woken from his sleep. I encourage him to calm and close his eyes. My third hasn’t gone to bed, wide eyed and wired, placing theories on a board. My fourth has escaped, our bond shows me that he is in another city, asleep next to a body far to warm to be human, far too bright. My Bat, with labored breathing, is forced to dream. Forced in bed by the older man. I shape my shadows into hands, they aren’t perfect, sharp ends. I slide them down his overheated chest. My shadows press into his skin, ecstatic with the proximity. I lick his wounds to try and heal them quicker. He tastes sweet. He is not bound to me, not yet. I wait in anticipation for when we can be one, and settle on his side content. I will continue to watch, I doubt I will ever tire of it.

The end!

I hope you have enjoyed Gotham Possesses. I will be posting it on Ao3, maybe tomorrow. I'm a bit sad about it ending but also proud of myself. This is the second thing I wrote that I posted and was super nervous to do so. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with reading this and endured my lack of editing.

I will be planning a series of POVs from the birds. I hope you look forward to them :)

Please feel free to comment, I get rly happy when I see your reactions.

[mousy-nona]

Half My Soul (As the Poets Say) 1/?

They called him Menoetiades. They called him Patroclus. 

But he knew himself to be Alastor, in this incarnation and in every other. 

He was born a prince, among jewels and fur. Here is a little known secret: when a prince is born, he is born with a crown on his head. And even if someone were to throw the crown away, the boy does not forget the weight of it. 

A prince is always a prince. His city might cast him out, his father may strike him down and send him away, they could take his title, his wealth, his armies – but they would never be able to drain the blue blood flowing thick in his veins. 

And so when his father exiled him to Phthia (you’re a freak! An abomination of nature! I would rather be childless than have a killer for a son!) he went with his head held high. As if his crown still sat heavy in his blood-red hair. 

The only thing he’d said to his father before he had left was: no one cared when it was a servant boy. 

Menoetius had sneered, but when he turned away from Alastor, there was a glimmer of fear in his eye. Why? Because he feared a man who could kill a prince as easily as he could kill a farmer’s son? 

Phthia was rich in soil and boys. Alastor stared eagerly, drinking in the unfamiliar sights, his eyes open so wide they caught the sunlight there like rubies in firelight. His native land had been all shadows, darkness and fog for miles unending. Phthia, on the other hand, was drenched in sunlight. Everything was bright, even the palace itself. It was the home of a hero – the mighty King Peleus, blessed by the gods, who had known Heracles and Jason both – and the stories of his great feats were written in the mosaics on the wall. 

As a disgraced ex-prince and a known murderer, Alastor was given a tiny bunk in the darkest corner room, which he shared with six other boys. No matter. Within a week of Alastor’s too-sharp smiles and his jokes about accidentally slipping and falling in the dark as he twirled his knife, the other boys slunk away to sleep in the courtyard, the olive groves, the stables – and Alastor had a room for himself.

The next week he figured out why there were so many boys in Phthia. King Peleus was building himself an army. Every day and sometimes well into the night, they were forced to do drills, run sprints, fire arrows, and – his personal favorite – spar. Alastor found he was particularly skilled with the spear, the sharp point finding its target again and again and again until even his teachers looked a little pale at his deadly accuracy. 

He was the best – aside from one. 

Achilles.

The first time Alastor saw the Prince of Phthia he thought: so the gods are real after all. 

Then he thought: why is he so short?

Achilles was carved from sunlight and grace. He had one foot on the back of a man’s head and one of his arms in a death grip, and he made the awkward move look like a song. His every movement was fluid and quick, more water than man. 

But his golden skin, his golden hair, the golden tips of his tunic – that was all divine grace. 

Achilles was the son of a king, but he was also the son of the sea, and Alastor shivered at the echoes of Thetis’s power that shimmered just underneath his surface. Alastor’s mouth started watering. The power of a god…what did that feel like? What did it taste like?

He must have made a sound, because Achilles looked up then, and their gazes met. 

If Alastor had had a heart, it would have skipped a beat. Red eyes. Just like his own.

“What are you doing?” He asked, cocking his head as he watched Achilles twist the man’s arm as easily as someone might pop the cork from a wineskin. 

“Stopping a thief.” Achilles’s voice was soft, almost musical. “This man was taking from my father’s stores.” 

“Why don’t you kill him?”

Achilles shrugged. “He doesn’t deserve to die.” 

“You’ll let him get away?” Alastor snorted. “So he can tell all his friends back home that Phthia is an easy target?”

The man let out a muffled shout of protest, but was quickly silenced by Alastor’s glare. Achilles huffed. 

“They wouldn’t dare. These are my halls. They know who I am.” 

“If your reputation is so frightening, why was he able to break in?”

Achilles spluttered, that godly grace broken by human indignation. Alastor smirked.

“What would be your solution then, o’ wise one?” Achilles snorted.

The blur of the knife was too fast for any eye to follow. Anyone other than that of Achilles’, of course. He stepped backwards, smooth and easy, milliseconds before the sharp blade impaled itself in the man’s head. 

He glared at Alastor, and a thrill of pleasure went down Alastor’s spine. Pissing off the Prince was fun. “You could have hit me.” 

“But I didn’t.” His smile was sharp. “I had to test your famous reputation, didn’t I?”

Achilles scoffed, bent down, and picked up the dead thief. Even though the body was twice his size, he lifted him as if he weighed nothing at all. 

Alastor stepped into place next to him. “Where are you going now?”

He sniffed. “To place this man’s body in a shroud until his family can come for him.”

Alastor raised his brow, paused, then started cackling. 

“What?” Achilles lurched to a stop, exasperation painting his face. “What is it now?” 

“You really are as righteous as the stories say,” Alastor grinned amid peals of laughter. “Achilles.”

The Prince wrinkled his nose. “Don’t call me that.”

“Then what should I call you?” He started counting on his fingers. “Prince of Phthia? Son of Thetis? Aristos Achaion?” 

“Lucifer,” was his unexpected answer. 

“Lucifer,” Alastor purred. Even then, the first time he said his name, the word came out like a caress. It sounded right on his tongue.

“And yourself?” 

Alastor couldn’t tell if he was being polite, or if he actually did want to know. But when he answered him, he gave him his true name, and not the false one. “Alastor.” 

That was how he became Lucifer’s shadow; the darkness to his golden light. That was how the threads of the Fates started to spin. 

[kings-highway]

consider this: Soldier, Poet, King by The Oh Hellos, but as the main trouble-makers of Paranormality.

"There will come a soldier who carries a mighty sword. / He will tear your city down." -> "Daichi is not one of us - the bigeneric children born of alien experimentation are like parasites on this planet, they can cast their eyes onto the yokai without belief in them, forcing them to exist without purpose, to live in uncertain circumstances."

Perhaps not a sword, but certainly his nature - his inability to let sleeping dogs lie. Every time Oikawa called on him, Daichi unwittingly answered each time as though he were a soldier following the orders of his commander. When let loose, he did not stop his hunt. He stuck his nose in the dirt and kept sniffing out the drugs buried in a dealer's backyard (metaphorically speaking). Mixing that quality with his poisonous DNA seeping into the very fabric of the supernatural universe, the product is a man who can crumble towers with each footfall, who can make the citizens tremble at the end of his bayonet.

"There will come a poet whose weapon is his word. / He will slay with his tongue." -> "That is the unfortunate burden that we both must carry as believers - there would be no power in your belief if you were able to see it so easily, would there?"

His belief in Daichi's alien heritage, or at the very least, his belief that Daichi's father was up to something shady, is what, essentially, made Daichi an alien. If he had never been told, never been given the inkling of an idea that he is anything but human, then he wouldn't have had to deal with the adverse effects of seeing yokai. Oikawa believed in his ability to perceive, so Daichi did. Oikawa believed that being a monster does not make you monstrous, that the name of the woman who died by her husband's hand is her maiden name, not the one of her murderer. He can destroy and create worlds with words in his mind, with words spoken aloud.

"There will come a ruler whose brow is laid in thorn. / Smeared with oil like David's boy." -> "Sinistrals are not inherently magic but ones born and bred from bloodlines of power and superstition have innate…"

He cannot perceive the yokai. In fact, he barely even believes in them. Yet, he is the only one who can innately physically affect them before they touch him. With Daichi, he can see them. He doesn't know how to lay his hands on them before they've already gotten ahold of him. Using your sinistral hand can be learned, but Ushijima's ability is innate. He is strong in his ancestral power. He is marked with centuries of superstition, a bloodline capable of bringing the yokai to heel. His arm can move as a separate part of him. The very oil of the yokai is smeared into his skin, his veins, his bones, to the neurons connecting to his brain.

these are not set in stone, i think, considering i could also make a sound argument for all three of them in every position, such as both oikawa and daichi in the ruler spot, and ushijima as the solider. and so on and so forth. but, this is what i'm going to go with and submit. i fear i cannot consume media normally. will i be back in the future? maybe. just wanted to leave you with this, and should you have any thoughts, of course i'd love to hear them.

(obviously i know this song is about jesus christ. but it is something to be said that when these three came together, the bigener, the believer, and the sinistral, they tore the city down, as the last line of the song would go.)

I am CRYING.

dear readers, in case you haven't been following along @mania-sama has been waging psychological warfare against me for a few weeks and I'm pretty sure it's punishment for making them enjoy an DaiOi fic

this has killed me. is it possible you understand the themes and motifs of these characters more than i do? absolutely. fuck you. Also, deeply impressed that you put Ushijima up there, because he initially was slated to be the third metaphorical heavy hitter of the story but I decided to bench him for a bit and instead he will be back in a sequal to develope what the sinistrality hand meant. BUT FU K YOU BECAUSE YOU'VE SPOILED IT. HOW DID YOU NAIL IT 100% ON A SUBJECT I BARELY FUCKING TOUCHED. YOU GOT IT. ABLE TO TOUCH THE YOKAI BEFORE THEY TOUCH HIM. SATURATED IN THEIR OILS. IM CHEWING ON YOU MANIA. IM CHEWING ON YOU SO HARD. DO YOU FEEL THESE TEETH GNAWING? MMMHMMMM TASTY MANIA MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH.

Anyways I love you thanks for this I have to go back to work and be normal for another 5 hours now.

EVERYONE should read this. If you read Paranormality: its accurate. You know that. Enjoy the extra. IF YOU HAVENT this is the best goddamn endorsement of the story I could have written.

[orangepeelshortbreadcookies]

Thieves Of Dusk

by @orangepeelshortbreadcookies

Relationships: Sophie Beckett/Benedict Bridgerton

Characters: Benedict Bridgerton, Sophie Beckett

Summary: Freshly christened, yet-already-bored-out-of-his-mind nobleman Benedict Bridgerton is roused back to life by his encounter with a curious, enchanting figure at twilight.

OR

The Evil Bridgerton AU nobody asked for

Tags: The Villainous Viscount AU, Benophie meetcute but they're both kind of evil, the Bridgertons are nouveau riche, East Asian!Sophie, BiWoc Sophie, villains doing bad things and having fun with it!, Smoking, Chaos, Love At First Sight

Gliding out of the lively event inside the Mayfair Auction House, Benedict Bridgerton made his way outside, disappearing into the shadow cast by the building and twilight. He snuck to a vacant corner between two giant stuccos, leaned back against the wall, trying to mend his fraying nerves.

It’s alright. He told himself. You’re alright. It was getting rather stuffed in there. The socialising, the drinking, the parading. The presence of art and relics played only second fiddle to the oppressive atmosphere of quiet, vicious competition, mixing with the joyful flow of coins and banknotes. Nowhere, Benedict discovered, was the contempt between the titled and the moneyed for one another magnified quite like the way it was in an auction house.

And he was one of them now. Moneyed and then titled. Well, at least his eldest brother was. Anthony, or as he had been known for the past three years, Viscount Bridgerton, bought his title with an exorbitant amount, the likes of which usually bankrupted a well-off man, but made only a small dent in their family’s fortune. Not only was this move considered, privately, a social spit on the face to the sensitive high society of Britain, Anthony also had the audacity to take a piss on his initial offence by holding half of the Lords in debt, and the other half in his employment.

Benedict was the backup Viscount, at least temporarily. His brother had been hard at work procreating.

Meanwhile, Benedict was sent out into the world, presenting himself as a respectable gentleman of Mayfair society. On the other hand, his job also consisted of being Anthony’s errand boy, running things his brother had neither the appetite or taste for. Things like acquiring a new painting for their drawing room. What kind of painting, Anthony did not say. An expensive one was not a particularly helpful description.

So now, here he was at an auction house, pockets heavy with funds, attempting to bid on an expensive artwork that would fit their drawing room, out of all the other expensive paintings, excluding the ones that could only reach the pricey range.

The experience was so horrendous, so overwhelming that Benedict had to excuse himself in the middle of it to catch his breath. It was not that he was incompetent. He liked society, for the most part. He liked playing the role of a charmer. He had learned to like subtly manipulating the conversation and quietly instigating shit. It was only--

All this art was sitting right there and he had to pay for them?

The Bridgerton siblings did not come from money. They were born within the halls of a fledgling gambling hell, eight labours of love between an ostracised noble lady and the owner of said gambling hell, a former bruiser who she had eloped with, and who was now dead. Anthony certainly could not have risen to the position he did today purely by running that establishment in a respectable, honest manner. Edmund had been, and Violet was as close to saints as mortals could get, yet they had given birth to a collection of unnaturally talented liars, cheats, brutes, swindlers and murderers.

And Benedict loved his siblings even more for it. Every single one of those seven fuckers.

He eyed the side of the building. The ledge above him, where a nimble chimney sweeper was scaling, looked promising. He could imagine it now. In five minutes, he would return inside. Perhaps he should chat up Lord Bhandari and then attract the House’s director into their conversation. Maybe he would pretend to be drunk off his ass and stir up some chaos. But that might be found out by Anthony, and Benedict was too old and too bored to receive another scolding from their eldest brother. He could try to get the director himself drunk? Which approach then? The man was conservative enough at whist, preferring to serve as accessory to the egos of bigger, more powerful players. With the right kind of bait… A man like that would not miss a chance to amass, especially on art, even more so if he only needed to spend but little for vast returns. What if he heard of an obscure blackmarket offer from a raw, undiscovered talent, who also had the misfortune of being gravely ill and desperately poor? Which tales of greatness and/or of woes could he bullshit up so the honourable Auction House’s director would forget about his keys, long enough…

His fingers twitched at his sides in excitement. Nighttime. Craft knife. Tubular case. Fuck! He tightened his hands into fists. Steel yourself! He took three deep breaths. One. Two. Three. Calm down, Benedict. We’re going legit now. Think legal thoughts.

Tucking a hand into his breast pocket, Benedict pulled out his cigarette box, entrusting the vice to fog up his racing mind.

Just after his first inhale, as the warm chemicals were only starting their invasion of Benedict’s veins, soundlessly, a figure landed in front of him, not so far away. It took him a few seconds to recognise the chimney sweeper he had observed not long earlier. The smoke of his cigarette was making his vision extra ghostly.

It was when they looked up and met Benedict’s mildly intrigued gaze, that his breath was knocked out of his chest, for they were the most enchanting creature he had ever laid eyes on.

It sounded rather absurd, as he could hardly make out any particular features under their ragged, dirty, ill-fitting clothes, including the dark stripe of cloth covering the top half of their face. All he could tell was that they were small in stature, they moved so gracefully and lightly as if gravity was of no concern at all. Around their waist and half-hidden, was a curiously intricate-looking chain, whose metallic shine Benedict was fairly certain came from silver. A strangely fine item, utterly out-of-place on a drab chimney-sweeper’s costume. 

The stranger was smiling while looking at him, their eyes imprinted an exhilarating thrill and unadulterated joy into his soul. 

And they were coming his way.

‘Good evening,’ he uttered, trying to sound smooth, briefly forgetting that he was still holding a cigarette in his mouth. With swift motion, the stranger caught the tube between their fingers before it could reach the ground.

Well, that was embarrassing. Benedict thought, blushing. I must look like a bloody idiot.

Fortunately for him, the expression his new company showed him leaned more toward amusement than mockery. More… flirtatious than mockery. Their eyes on him, still smiling, they brought the cigarette to their lips, giving it a greedy whiff, then releasing the vapours in a blissful exhale.

They had very kissable lips, Benedict remarked mentally, plump and soft, framed by elegant lines of the cheeks and chin.He suspected there was a woman under that disguise. Or a very young, very pretty man. Suddenly feeling shy, he averted his eyes from their mouth, drawing his attention back to the little torch they had stolen from him. They were quick, he must admit. Too bad Benedict was no slowpoke himself. 

The cigarette had returned to him before they noticed it. 

Taking his time, Benedict took another whiff, carefully closing his mouth around where theirs were, seeking their taste. Meanwhile, his gaze fixated on the object of his fascination, watching as the eyes of the dust-covered little pixie grew wide and their lips trembled in surprise. As if they were taken aback by his boldness, by his indirect kiss, or had just come to the realisation that flirting with him was a reckless impulse on their part.

Very interesting.

Benedict could rationale, from personal experience, that their presence here, at this auction house, meant no good deed. 

‘Who are you?’ He asked.

The stranger grinned, delighted in their own mystery. The tip of their tongue caught between their teeth in a mischievous manner, and Benedict resisted the urge to press his own tongue against the spot.

‘Guess.’ Their voice was raspy and strained, perhaps a disguise attempt. The excitement and curiosity were not hidden, however. He could hear it.

There, as they stood between day and night and between social bubbles, as cigarette smoke billowed gently between the two of them. It was as if they existed out of time, Benedict and this vibrant phantom. Their identities were protected by half-lights, by the mute, blinded nature of elevated, civilised Mayfair streets and by criminality, against the eyes of the world and each other.

Using his left hand, slowly, openly, giving the stranger the time to react, to change their mind, Benedict took a hold of their right hand, pulling their bodies closer together. Little bursts of lightning shot up his fingertips where their skins touched, expanding all over his body. Carefully, with his thumb drawing little invisible circles, he memorised and processed the stories written on the skin of the adorable enigma with his touch. Their hand was small. He did not know any adult males with such small hands. A bump on the first joint of the middle finger. A writer’s callus. So they were educated and right-handed. Many noble ladies slathered their hands with lotions and filed their skin down to within an inch of their lives to soothe these bumps away, ashamed that the hardened skin would mar the perfectly pampered appearance. Their skin was cracked, dry and callused. These were most probably resulted from manual labour. Not a prominent weapon user. The little surface of their palm and along their fingers were riddled with little nicks, cuts and burn marks. 

Benedict noticed the contrast between his smooth palm and the mysterious marvel’s roughened one, and felt the whisper of a murderous rage getting louder inside him. What happened? Whatever, whoever occupied this beautiful creature’s life so much that they had no time to take care of themself? A good criminal ought to maintain a tailored, professional appearance. He flipped their hand over to inspect the back. More burn scars. Were they a black smith? They certainly did not carry themself like one. And why would an intellectual put one’s self through the dangers of blacksmithing? No clear impressions or calluses on the knuckles, the exact opposite of how his younger brother, Colin’s hands looked. His siren certainly did not possess the punch of an experienced bruiser.

He leaned down, surreptitiously studying what he could perceive of their profile. At this distance, he could see how their left shoulder was tense, weighed down by something they were carrying up their sleeve. No trace of cosmetics on their cheek. No shaving scars. Most definitely not a man. It would not lessen his attraction to this person in any way were they of one sex or another. More information about one's opponent, however, was always better than less.

She, he half-decided that they could be a she, smelled of the city. Not of perfumed leather and pruned gardens, not of the Mayfair part, no. Her natural scent was buried underneath layers of smoke, his cigarette among them. She smelled of darkened alleyways, of sweat and metal, and the garden. The scent was not conventionally pleasant, and it would have taken an ass kicking his skull off for him to expect something more arranged, considering what she might be doing and what he knew himself of the profession. But her smell did give him a calming effect. It reminded him of Covent Gardens, of their gambling hall, of his wild, chaotic and utterly free childhood. Few where he was now would look at the area and consider it an optimal place to raise children. Anthony would not. Neither would Daphne. But Benedict had always recalled their harsher times with fondness.  

‘I got nothing.’ He grinned against her face, delighted in feeling her shiver and the heat emanating from her cheek. He decided to keep all that he learned in those short seconds to himself instead. Retreating back to where he was against the wall, he put out the cigarette, put the stub into his pocket, then lit a new one. Milking the tension for all its worth. ‘Except for that you smell like a ghost. Well done.’ He was, had been, a cardsharp after all.

She looked frozen for a few seconds, registering his remark, unsure if it was a compliment or a snide. And based on the way her mouth dropped into a pout, on how she yanked the cigarette away from his shit-eating grin, and on how she smoked it in the most petulant manner afterward, he could see that she came to no satisfactory conclusion.

‘My turn.’ He offered his own hand to her. ‘Who am I?’  

The stranger took his hand and stared down at it. The brim of her cap, the mask over her eyes and the dim light made it impossible to glimpse her expression. What would she learn of him? Would she see the faded, chequered cuts of his fingers and deduce his upbringing in a gambling hell? Would she notice the old indentations of ropes and strings and discover his once-familiarity with them? Or would his recent lack of action already put a pristine mask on all of his past, and that would lead her to conclude that he was no more than a pampered aristocrat, who had never lifted anything heavier than a champagne flute in his life, pretending to play it tough? Would that perception be more charming? Was it a personality type she would prefer?

His heart pounded like a top thoroughbred in a race at the featherlight grazings of her finger all over his palm. Their close proximity did not help slow the rhythm. He almost wanted to pull back, to retreat, to put the hand she was holding into a glove, into his pocket, behind his back, to hide himself away from her gaze.

Benedict had no idea how he wanted to come off to this person, and it terrified him. 

‘Hmmm’, she started with a hum, releasing a puff of smoke. ‘Very healthy, vigorous male. Yet a turbulent life, your life, full of ups and downs.’ He pondered that statement and shrugged to himself.He supposed there were some degrees of truth to that.  ‘A chaotic professional life, indeed. Greedy man, you have not been able to commit to anything, have you?’

‘I prefer the term jack-of-all-trades.’

‘You have close, meaningful relationships with people around you.’ He smirked. ‘A mind of many ideas, can rarely keep his feet on the ground.’ He winced.

‘I don’t believe you saw all of that on my hand.’ He complained, on the defence. ‘Are you a witch?’

She looked back up at him, smiling. ‘It’s just palm-reading. Nursemaids’ hobby.’ Quietly, he tucked that information away, wondering if she realised she had given another clue about her identity. ‘Why, are you going to report me? If you do, considering I am telling you your fortune, I would include a forewarning as part of my fees.’ She tried to keep her voice playful, but he sensed true anxiety in her voice, in the way she subtly gripped his hand.

‘No,’ he swore. ‘I will not report you.’ And meant it. ‘Never.’

He heard her breath a sigh of relief, drawing his hand slightly closer to her chest. She trusted him. They’ve only just met, but she trusted him. And to Benedict’s surprise, he trusted her too. This stranger whose name he did not know and whose face he could not even see fully.

He gestured to the hand that she was holding again. ‘What else do you see?’

‘You are,’ she continued, slower this time. ‘A romantic soul. Artistic. A poet. There is so much love inside you.’ He quickly took the cigarette back from her, using it to mask his bashfulness. Benedict Bridgerton did not feel bashful. Unless when he was high. He leaned closer, attempting to decipher the comprehensive archive of his life and character, written in a foreign language between the lines of his palm. A language that she was apparently reading with ease.

‘You also possess great charm.’ She sketched a line from between his index and middle finger to the base of his pinkie. ‘Others can’t help being drawn to you.’

He smiled. ‘I think you are just describing my face now. It’s up here.’

She looked up, mouth open, fully prepared to give him another sarcastic remark. No words managed to escape her. Lost in her diligent inspection of his hand, she did not realise the gap between them had grown smaller. Their eyes met, closer this time.

And then they were kissing. With her hands still closed around his, he pulled her closer to him, before sliding that hand away from her grasp, making a lingering trip up her neck, then resting upon her cheek. Her newly freed hands clutched at his lapels, while her body enthusiastically pressed him even further against the wall. Benedict’s other arm, the one holding the cigarette, snaked around her waist. His pinkie looped a few twice around her silver chain.

With her breath and lips, she put the moon on his tongue. He swallowed it, and it lit up his insides. Feeling her response, he trusted  a celestial body resided in her too. It ignited her bones, and he knew he put it there.

When Benedict nipped at the edge of her mask, intending on removing it with his teeth, his silver mystery was startled out of their trance. She pushed against him, took a few steps back, and readjusted her mask till it sat firmly again across her face. Where he toyed with the chain on her waist left a mark on his hand. Neither of them noticed it.

‘I must go.’ She said quietly. They were pulled back to their existence inside time.

‘What are you doing here?’ He asked, feeling fundamentally altered.

‘Guess.’ Her smile reflected his own melancholy. Then that feeling made room for a blossoming of brewing mischief.

He did not answer. Not with words, anyway.

He gave her back his cigarette. A challenge. An inquiry. 

Show me.

He was damn excited to see what she would do.

‘Thank you’, she whispered, so softly Benedict could not make out her voice. Then the twilight nymph, one of the many names he would later refer to the stranger, retreated back a few steps and revealed briefly to Benedict the strange, elegant mechanism attached to her left wrist. She took one last drag of the cigarette, reigniting the dim glow, then inserted it into the mechanism.

Then, she almost levitated up the walls of Mayfair Auction House, tiptoeing from balcony to balcony like a sparrow. Aiming her arm with what Benedict just then realised was a kind of small, personalised crossbow, at an open window on the third floor, she shot the cigarette into the room. Then elegantly, she landed back on their feet, gave Benedict a little bow, and ran away.

Just as he started to take off after her, the explosion that came almost immediately halted him.

Reeling from the shock, Benedict lost track of his target in the smoke and the commotion. Furthermore, he was waylaid by the spectacle of the stranger’s handiwork. Sparks of gold and silver lit up the fancy building like a goddamn birthday cake. The air reeked of sulphur. Pediments and balconies fell over each other like flaming dominos. A symphony of confused worries growing steadily into horrified screamings, swelling in and out of the building. He could make out the desperate, ineffective authority of the director, ordering his employees to protect the auctioned lots.

It was fucking magnificent.

Yet just as swiftly, the Metropolitan Police rolled to the scene. From his vantage point, Benedict watched them making quick work of disbanding the gathering crowd of peasants. The vision of the Auction House’s door getting knocked down was not unlike the collapse of the Gates of Hell. Dust and smoke flared. An ash-covered entanglement of limbs, screams and chaos clawed its way out. Glamorous nobles, horror-stricken, losing all their dignity, climbing over each other to escape.

The police’s efforts to escort the guests to safety were met with earnest cooporation. All one could feel was relief. No one bothered questioning why only half of the servants assigned to work there that day made it out of the building.  

The auctioned pieces were carried into the police wagon in an orderly manner, before substantial fire damages could get to them. The process was further assisted by the director’s and his esteemed visitors’ hefty vocal demands and to some degree, warnings of the value of the item, how the lifelong servitude of the person carrying it would be inadequate compensation.

For once, to his dismay, their city’s police proved to be annoyingly competent. Even their unreliability is unreliable. Benedict thought irritably. Left on his own and out of sight, he made a surreptitious scan of the area, searching and then erasing any sort of trails that might lead to his darling firestarter, his fun was thought spoiled.

Until thirty minutes later, a second group of police arrived to assess the situation and attempt rescue, having been waylaid by an angry, drunken scuffle and then a swarm of curious civilians. They were struck dumb to discover the group of perfectly alive, albeit shaken and soot-covered Lords, Ladies and wealthy Misters outside the building. Their assistance was apparently not needed. The auctioned properties were reported by the house director, to be on their way to the station with the first responders.

‘We are the first responders.’ The constable said, growing more alarmed by the syllables. The Auction House’s director processed this knowledge, he turned white, then red, then white again, slowly understanding that the valiant officers, who had bravely and generously rescued his valuable collections, were none other than the thieves themselves. Benedict watched the man growing ill many times over in seconds with immense, yet hidden, amusement.

For his part, Benedict remained charming, confused and absolutely useless during his interview with the real  police. Only after he returned to the safety of his apartments, that he allowed himself to break into a smirk, which grew into a wide grin, then hysterical, uncontrollable laughter.

‘Oh, you brilliant creature.’ He was wheezing. ‘That was good.’

Benedict Bridgerton was completely, utterly, smitten.

I will find you. He swore to himself, determined to unmask his silver siren.

[shadowknightapologist]

do yuo have any mcd gene headcanons perchance……

BOY DO I!!! hello my new favorite person enjoy your stay /silly

WARNINGS FOR: referenced child abandonment, sick parent, mild body horror (bad piercing habits), cannibalism, execution, and murder.

prior to being a shadow knight...

gene is afro-dominican (maria is dominican, his father is black).

bisexual demiromantic, he/they, BPD + insomnia (i fear him and laurance are going to become personal conduits /hj silly).

if he'd have had the chance, he probably would have become an artist.

he always loved cats. his childhood pet was a golden tabby molly named apple (after dante bc it was one of his favorite words and gene wanted to make sure he could pronounce it). she was very affectionate and usually rode around on his shoulders while he was patrolling the village and she'd cry at him whenever dante got out of school. very accomplished mouser and gift-giver, much to chagrin of her household. she got sick just before maria did and died the day after gene's execution.

gene was executed at 19 (dante was 13) and is 25 as of season 1. he looks about 21-22.

he looks like his father and he hates it (the design i made is already a little outdated but that's okay i'll figure it out one day).

his full name is eugene alejandro de la cruz.

"eugene" is after his father, but calling him that whether you're aware or not will get your teeth knocked in. the only person who got away with this is his mother, maria, because she was sick (dante, before and after gene's execution, would probably be fine too, but dante never had a reason to call him eugene anyway so).

gene took care of both dante and maria.

gene DID actually work to be headguard, and he was going to be picked fairly. however, he was in competition with an older, well-respected gentleman and panicked—i'm thinking the lord was corrupt and made it so low-ranking guards and villagers were kinda miserable, so with maria getting sick and their father leaving, gene was terrified he'd be unable to properly support them without the rank.

so his first run-in with his magiks was an attempt to manipulate the man into no longer wanting to be headguard so it'd leave gene as the only option. instead, he corrupted his memories so bad that he got severe PTSD and had to step down as a guard completely.

i think that, in addition to memory warping, gene can cast small illusions. this is how dante is introduced to gene's magik—he used to do little shows based on fairytales to help dante sleep.

gene was too busy growing up to bother with crushes or attractions beyond physical/aesthetic attraction and occasional flirting bc he's charming and knows how to read/talk to people. yes this means i'm making the lord's daughter thing largely noncanon!! instead she liked him and he used it to his advantage (not in a gross way) (more like "my family is safest when i'm on your side so that's where i'm gonna be") (unkind, yes; assault-y? no).

after becoming a shadow knight...

gene developed feline qualities after becoming a shadow knight. when passing for a human, this is visible in his eyes. in his usual knight form, he has a tail, the claws, and the teeth. in his more beastly form he basically looks like a fucked-up, zombified big cat.

additionally. shad gave him a nether-born feline mount.

in my headcanon, shadow knights are kept in the nether for 1-3 nether years (26-78 overworld days) so they can start training, acclimating to the realm, and be brainwashed. gene stabilized pretty quickly for newborn shadow knights, especially as magiks user. shad allowed him to leave with supervision after eight months (17 overworld days).

i believe that, in general, spirits suffer memory damage after dying. it's typical and usually fixes itself in the afterlife. however, since gene never got to any afterlife, nothing fixed itself. so when he's reborn, he believes, whole-heartedly, that dante betrayed him. his little brother, his shadow, the one person dante would have done anything for—now the one who tossed gene away, who let them make a public spectacle of his murder.

gene eats his lord, the two senior knights, and the boy who executed him. while he's fighting he takes a few chunks out of people. all in all it's a complete bloodbath. i think he would have done something to keep maria and dante away from a majority of the violence tho, whether that was trapping them in the house or using magic to create some sort of "bubble" so they couldn't hear anything.

gene still hits dante with the "someone has to remember" line, but no one's memory is actively changed (1, because everyone is dead; 2, because gene is still scared of his powers at this time, having not used them a lot; and 3, a part of him is hesitant to inflict that on dante). he leaves the communication amulet with dante and tells him to run.

after that, gene stays with maria for a while. either she dies of natural causes or he kills her himself (considering it a mercy kill).

dante (and maybe shad, but in a different way) is gene's only flaw as a shadow knight. he's the one thing remaining of his old life that gene can't kill, the one thing that makes him act out. gene will simultaneously hurt dante and beat the shit out of any knights that breathe a word about him.

aphmau reminds gene of dante. laurance and aphmau remind him of him and his brother (i'm not doing laurmau i think).

gene handles most of the rebirth process for baby knights. laurance was his favorite due to the unusual circumstances surrounding his turning.

gene is an exalted knight.

gene has tattoos + piercings. the piercings are mostly from him getting bored and just... stabbing things through his body.

in a perfect world, gene forgives dante and makes him a shadow knight with him and they serve shad together. he doesn't know why he hasn't done it yet (he'll say dante needs to suffer the consequences of his actions a little longer, but the truth is some deeply buried part knows and acknowledges that being a shadow knight is torture. he doesn't want that for his dante).

gene considered sasha a friend against his better judgement, up until she fled (he knows considers her a traitor and a coward). vylad is disconcerting and frustrating to him because he's hard to read. vincent is a coward. laurance is both infuriating and, truth be told, a little scary to him. gene isn't a stranger to eating other knights so zenix is straight up just annoying to him.

um this quote makes me think of dante and gene

these are probably so boring and all over the place, i just got excited </3 some may be subject to change bc i fear they're not very interesting!! but we'll see

[tyranasauruslex]

Ok, so my modern Amos Bracken lore is that the murder of Jerrel completely devastated the Bracken family and caused a rift that never fully healed. Jerrel was poised to take over the family horse ranch when he was fatally stabbed by a then twelve year old Willem Blackwood, who at the time had been Amos' childhood friend. Amos, the slightly more surly second son, adored his brother but his death only brought out the inadequacies he already felt, as well as the guilt that it was his friend who killed Jerrel. Ma and Pa Bracken never got over the death of their son or the lack of justice (Due to his age, Willem avoided prison and got sent to a juvenile correction centre and was released on his 18th birthday) and both died shortly after Amos' 19th birthday. This left Amos having to step up and take over the family horse ranch far earlier than had been intended and take custody of his little sister, Twyla.

He marries a local girl and they have a son but Jerrels death still casts a large shadow and they barely make it five years before they’re headed for divorce. After Willem's betrayal, Amos struggles to let anyone in, although he adores his son and happily takes full custody of him when the Raylon's mother decides to move to the Vale. He pushes Twyla to work hard at school so that she won't be stuck on the family ranch despite his sisters insistence that she wants to carry on working with the horses.

At age 18 Twyla informs him that she’s pregnant and marrying the vets son, Gidden, which Amos is not happy about. She should be out exploring the world, not tied down with a baby. Gidden is a nice, kind lad, good with the horses and dotes on his sister so it's not like Amos can object. The wedding is held on the family field and Amos finds himself having a fun for once instead of wishing that their long dead family members could be present.

Not long after his nephew Aeron is born, and family move out of the main house and into one of the converted barns and life goes on for a while. Raylon is old enough to take on more responsibility on the ranch and they're able to expand into thoroughbred breeding and Amos finds himself mixing with all the ridiculously wealthy people of Westeros.

He’s out in the fields with the horses when Elmo Tully comes running to tell him that there’s been an accident. His sister, brother in law and newborn niece are all dead. Killed in a car accident when Daemon Targaryen, who was speeding down the country roads in his over expensive sports car, lost control and ploughed into them. Five year old Aeron was pulled from the wreckage and barely survived the crash. Once the funerals are done and the paperwork is signed, Amos formally adopts his nephew and retreats to the family ranch. The police investigation into the crash goes nowhere which was unsurprising considering how much money and power the Targaryens had.

Despite everything Aeron is a sweet and kind little boy, although he's inherited the family stubbornness, and Amos loves that boy like he’s his own. It’s not exactly a shock when Aeron tearfully comes out to him one night when they're putting the horses to bed. They talk about boys and being safe and Amos is secretly relieved that he doesn't have to go through another teenage pregnancy scare like he did with Raylon.

When Aeron is sixteen it obvious that there must be a boy on the scene so Amos tactfully leaves him a box of condoms and braces himself for some hormonal teenage angst. The boy in question turns out to be Davos Blackwood, Amos catches them kissing in the barn, and all hell brakes loose. A Blackwood was bad enough, but one so closely related to the person that started the downfall of his family? Years of built up pain and resentment boil over and he ends up shouting at Aeron, something that he's never done before, that he's disgrace to the family and that his mother would be ashamed of him.

They breakup which Amos thinks would make him happy but seeing his nephew so depressed and miserable only makes him feel worse. As does the fact that Aeron is obviously afraid of him which makes Amos feels so ashamed that he retreats to the sept for three days straight. He needs to put things right with Aeron and the two have a heart to heart and Amos apologises for the cruel things he said.

Davos is a headache; all snarling teeth and insecurities but there's a softness to him, one that probably would have been more evident if his surname hadn't been tainted with the actions of his older brother. When his family kick him out Amos allows him to stay in one of the spare rooms. He wouldn't see a kid out on the streets, not even a Blackwood one. Davos earns his keep though and has a talent for leather work so Amos puts him to work making horse tack whilst Aeron studies to become a vet.

[thelampisaflashlight]

Siúil, a Rún

[Tonight you get rewritten Mountain lore because it's humid as hell and I needed something to do. Hinted Drywall. Mentions of past infidelity (like centuries past) and possible murder.] Below the cut.

For all his strange otherworldliness, Mountain was, at his root, a man.

A man born of mortal parents who tangled and fled from each other.

A child born of an affair.

And from birth his life was set upon a tragic course, for fate is unjustly cruel to those whose only sin was to breathe.

He'd been young when the abbey was built.

A lad of twelve, who watched as the monks set about their work, hauling stones and taking axes to ancient trees.

He'd been cast out by then, four years since his mother vanished and his grandmother was rid of him, and found himself begging for his meals, so when the monks approached him offering food, it was only natural he'd accept.

From then on, the monks were good to him, and he was good to them.

They taught him to read, showed him how to work the land, and told him all of God's wisdoms.

Indeed, for some time Mountain was a devout follower of the church, though, as he grew older and wiser himself, he found reason to doubt the monks followed much of what they preached.

Whilst tending the gardens one afternoon, Mountain had caught sight of a lovely maiden with hair like fire, adorned with green ribbons that stood out amongst the flames, and eyes so blue he felt no clear sky could compare.

She had been weeping, and Mountain, kind soul that he was -but awkward to a fault- had approached her with the purest red rose he could find and offered it to her, a stutter to his voice as he tried to console her.

"I've plucked away the thorns, it will not hurt you."

I will not hurt you.

And from then on, ah, from then on Mountain found himself often in the company of that fair lady until her shift grew tight in the middle, and he knew, lord below, he knew, it could not of been his.

Still, he could pretend, for the sake of his own heart, that he was -the babe was a boy, and Mountain had considered him his son- and because it was the way of the times, he married that fair lady and tried his damnedest to make them a proper family.

But even though he had it in himself to love his wife, to care for his son, there was something nagging at him whenever he looked at the boy's face.

Too familiar to a man in his memories, from his days living in the abbey.

And too familiar still was the winding road upon which he followed his wife, who'd sworn to be loyal, down into the valley to the gates of that accursed building.

Though even then he did not confront her.

Did not ask to where she went when the days were long and the sunset well into the evening.

When winter came, he had to wonder which would claim him first; The cold of winter, or the chill of an empty bed.

One night his wife did not return, and no body along the road nor in the woods could be found, so with a brow heavy with burden, Mountain made for the abbey, bidding his son care -now not much older than he had been when left for the last time- but not before telling him plainly...

"If I do not return, do not linger here nor seek to find me. Go to the town, to the baker or the blacksmith, but for all that is good in this world, do not seek shelter in a house of God."

The descent into the valley was tiring in the snow, and Mountain could see his breath thicken in the air.

When he arrived at the abbey, he made not for the main entrance, but instead crept in through a side door, and the sight that met him there...

...Shockingly easy to forget with the passage of time.

Indeed, the exact scene he had witnessed was long faded from mind, replaced by better memories of more loyal friends and lovers, but there are times when he does recall bits and pieces.

And as Mountain licks the trickle of red from his fingers, having thoughtlessly dragged his hands through the thorns of newer blooms, he recalls his first taste of blood.

Flexing his fingers, Mountain uncurls his fist to gaze upon the treasure he'd pulled from the roses; A singular green hair tie that he deposits into Dew's waiting hand.

"You should really wear gloves." the ghoul gently scolds, casting the hair tie into a small bag filled up with lost and forgotten things, "Even I'm not dumb enough to stick my hand in there."

Mountain huffs a little laugh and plucks a rose from the bush -blush pink with a white center, less grand than the passionate red of yore- and does away with the thorns before tucking it into Dew's hair.

Half teasing, half to admire the way the faint burst of color stands out amongst the white strands, "I've plucked away the thorns."

I won't hurt you.

"You're such a..." Dew puffs his cheeks and a bit of steam flutters his curls, "...Just be careful, yeah?"

Please... don't hurt me.

"I will be from now on."

[lurking-latinist]

I am sure everyone has been biting their nails waiting to find out what the next Hornblower fic premise that I’ll never write is. It is below the cut.

Retribution fix-it, obviously. Nobody is dying and if anybody tries to confess to anything and sacrifice himself (I don’t trust Hornblower not to pull this stunt either) the other two will sit on his head until he stops being silly.

So the lieutenants all stick to their story and as far as the court-martial can tell there’s not a pin to choose among them. Hammond argues that in that case they should hang the lot but Pellew is pulling every string in the British Empire to save their necks, and he has a lot of strings. The compromise they come to eventually is that they will all of them be stripped of rank and dismissed the service. (I don’t know if this is historical. I haven’t done any research at all. That’s why I’m not actually writing it.)

So our boys (and Buckland I guess; I wonder just how many times Buckland’s name has been followed up with “I guess”? Anyway he goes off and does his own thing) are cast adrift, metaphorically, they are on land, that’s the problem, in Kingston. There will be opportunities for fun (for the reader) and chaos (for the characters) if they are drifting around penniless for a bit; I imagine Hornblower’s one remunerative land-based skill, which is card-playing, takes him to rather less posh surroundings than in Portsmouth.

But anyways obviously they are still sailors and they eventually find a short-handed privateer that will take them no questions asked under the names of Smith, Jones, and Robinson. Only to find a few days out of port that she is less of what you might call a privateer and more of what you might call a pirate, and her captain is a drunken murderous tyrant… During a particularly horrible moment Bush sees Hornblower and Kennedy exchange one of their telepathic glances, realizes he too knows what they’re thinking, and thinks, when did this become my life?

With practice and without Buckland, and with a captain none of them had any respect for in the first place, they’re a lot quicker. If they have a reputation as desperate men now they might as well use it. So they explain to the pirate captain very softly, very politely—well, Kennedy’s very polite; Hornblower’s blunter, and the headlock Bush has the pirate in would definitely not be accepted in any drawing-room—that they are the Renown mutineers, they find they don’t like how he runs his ship, and if he doesn’t care to accept their advice he is welcome to find out what happened to their last captain.

(They don’t really mean to kill him in cold blood. Probably. But he thinks they do. Hornblower will be miserable about this ambiguity later—more so, weirdly, than the big ones like “we are technically also pirates now.” The loss of identity he has suffered through loss of his rank and position in the Royal Navy has not even begun to reach the surface of his labyrinthine subconscious. If you were wondering, Bush is just straightforwardly sad and angry about it and Kennedy is mostly worried about the practical aspects, i.e. what are they actually gonna do.)

They don’t kill him and he does agree to their terms. But very soon they take a small French prize and he tells the three of them, you take her, take a small crew and she’s yours, just get off MY ship, and they take some of the more decent-minded and/or ex-Navy sailors who were amenable to their attempted reforms, and they do, and now they have their own ship. They probably pick one of themselves to be officially in command but they are really a triumvirate and everyone knows it. And they work really, really well together.

I wish I could make them go properly ideologically rogue but I am afraid they will still mainly want to harass the French. (Hornblower is despite his own repeated assertions chock full of revolutionary sympathies but they’re not democratic, they’re aristocratic-republican, and he was born 150 years too late to be an English aristocratic republican.) But it’s a start.

As I said this is probably deeply unhistorical in some way and anyhow I am not actually writing it. But it brings me pleasure.

[fuesch]

Agatha All Along 1x09

- Into the flashbacks right away? They'll hold the answer then to how Agatha is still around. But also: Finally the flashbacks! Can you imagine how silly that would have been with Agatha already dead?

- Wow, that lemon thing is hardcore.

- Oh, Nicky was supposed to be stillborn! And Agatha knew Rio already.

- Ah, so the name Scratch comes from Nicky being made without magic, okay. Yeah, I mean, if you get yourself some random guy for babymaking, you wouldn't name you kid after him. And I guess Harkness was out of the question because of Evanora.

- Nicky got to be at least 6! That really was generous of Rio, special treatment indeed. So was Agatha just bitter that she got to love Nicky so much and in hindsight it would have been easier to let go of a stillborn?

- OMFG, The Ballad of the Witches' Road is their song, they made it up together!

- "I can cast illusions" Is that what happened, did Agatha fool future!Rio like that? But then Rio would have known, would have felt it, no?

- Oh, poor Nicky knows he's doomed.

- Agatha is so sweet with Nicky. ;__;

- So the Road really was Agatha's scam.

- I assume for the first time in Agatha's life there was more purpose behind killing witches and Rio took them as bribes.

- This episode is such a sob fest. How dare they do that to me again.

- "I bury my own heart here with you my child." So after that Agatha really let loose with the murdering?

- "If one be gone, we carry on" This is where that line came from. Ouch!

- Oh that montage through the times. Dramatic, showing her descend, but also what a fashion show! 90s!Agatha, oh myyyy!

- No wonder Agatha suspected Teen to be a Minimoff, the only other witch with that kind of power was Wanda.

- Oh, Agatha's a ghost! Looks good on her, though I'm a bit sad that her original costume is already gone. And I bet she stole the idea for silver hair from "Ralph".

- Soooo, it was more important for Agatha to get Death off her back (she really achieved the ultimate "fuck you") than to keep her magic. Although I guess the point of amassing so much power was to escape death. And now she can exist anxiety-free.

- "If you actually do the math on it, you saved a life." Agatha, I appreciate that you're trying to help, but this is not how math works. "I was gonna kill them all in my basement on day one." Oh yeah, you and what power? They knew not to blast you.

- Jen had to dig herself up and fucks off. That's it? That's all we get?

- And that shot of Jen flying off hurts in another way too: On the left we have the sun going down, on the right we have the moon with its illuminated side pointing right.

- "If you wanna be a witch, get used to this feeling." Heyyyy, stop trying to corrupt my boy!

- Whoa, the door to the Road is still there.

- Man, and I thought Agatha would be happy if she got to see Nicky again. I would understand why bringing him back to life wouldn't have been what she wanted (because then she'd live with the constant anxiety of losing him again), but why not hang out with him in the afterlife?! Does she feel guilty about that last day, that she didn't kill those witches thus cost Nicky his life?

- Gonna be weird for the WitSec guys who discover the memorial in the basement floor.

- Ugh, they did the frustrating thing with all the unanswered questions again! Does Billy have his memories back? Is he both boys? After having her hyped up by Lilia, we don't get to see Jen or her power after the Road. What's the nature of Agatha's power stealing? Considering how important and intriguing Agatha & Rio's relationship is (in a way they're equals, she couldn't be a danger to Death), I had expected more of their backstory. Why did Evanora say Agatha was born evil? My god, we're basically missing the whole maiden part of this ep called Maiden, Mother, Crone! When & how did Agatha get the Darkhold? We still know nothing about Señor Scratchy. Can that little demon at least feed himself? You know, I wouldn't have expected all of those answered (at least the Billy ones they'll have left for the next time he appears), but definitely more than they did.

[blueikeproductions]

The main OCs of my Heathers AU!

From the bottom left to right onwards:

Kara Sweeney: Ram’s kid sister. A bit bratty but a good kid. Knows her brother is gay and keeps his secret, so long as Ram pays her in Crunch bars. On good terms with Veronica, Martha, Braverman and Sputnik, but likes to tease Kurt.

Charlie Chandler: Red Heather’s baby sister. Shares Red’s smug attitude and superiority complex, though she mostly is just copying her sister as a phase. Likes stealing Red’s scrunchies and is typically wearing them on her wrists, hair and ankles. When at the funeral, Veronica overheard Charlie say to Heather’s corpse it was HER time now, which made Veronica concerned, doubly so when Charlie looked at Veronica and gave her a thumbs up. Adores Veronica and views her as her big sister. Likes to mess with JD and has kicked him in the shin more than once.

Sacha “Specs” Silverman: Part of Veronica’s geeky friend group. His nickname comes from the 3D glasses he’s constantly worn since kindergarten. A huge Star Wars and anime fan, extremely loyal to his friends, and a whiz at computers and electronics. He was the leader of the AV club and delegated Braverman and Jamie tasks suited to their skills. He and MacNamara shared a mutual romantic interest but never dated. Specs became the first tragic murder at Sherwood, being tricked into coming on the roof of the school thinking he was meeting MacNamara, but instead was pushed off the roof by a petty Chandler.

Dan Braverman: The main protagonist among the OC cast. Originally born and raised in Hawkins, Indiana, he came to Sherwood when his stepfather got a better job in Ohio. A cheerful, easy going type who doesn’t let high school cliques and stigmas bother him and happily goes to the beat of his own drum. He (along with Tracey, Cheryl, Specs and JD) is naturally viewed as a threat to the Heathers because he can easily make friends with those from other cliques (Tracey from the stoner faction was the first “non geek” friend he made when he moved into town), and the cliques being divided gives the Heathers their authority. Has an interest in comic art and is usually found reading ALF, Transformers or Disney Ducks comics or drawing comics. Braverman is JD’s best friend, and if we’re being honest, his only friend at the start. The two became close friends during Sophomore year at Hawkins High, and after dealing with a problem involving the Upside Down, Dan unexpectedly moved away leaving JD feeling betrayed. Two years later out of sheer luck, the two boys reunited at Sherwood, Ohio, with new challenges putting their friendship to the test.

Bud Dean Sr.: Jason’s grandfather. His only remaining immediate family after Jocelyn and later Bud died. He came to Sherwood to repossess his late son’s assets taken by police when it was learned Bud Jr’s company was committing fraud. Among the assets Sr. wanted to collect was Jason, and like Bud Jr., only really viewed the boy as property and a tax benefit. Bud Sr. also plans to restart the family company, and groom JD to take over, something JD doesn’t want anything to do with, having finally escaped that nightmare. He comes to the Braverman house unexpectedly one day to pick up his “free loading” grandson, and earns the immediate ire of Cassandra Braverman, Dan’s mother

Elliot “Sputnik” Silverman: Spec’s twin brother. Gained his nickname for his admiration of space exploration. While Specs was older and immature at times, Sputnik was the youngest and the more mature one of the two; however, Sputnik lacked confidence, making him an easy target of bullies. His primary tormentors in high school were Kurt’s group, which all the more stung because Sputnik and Kurt used to be great friends when they were younger. Usually relying on Specs, Veronica, Tracey, Dan or JD to protect him, Sputnik’s world was destroyed when his beloved twin died. Sunk into a near endless depression, and wanting to die, he practically tried to make Kurt punch him so hard he’d succumb to it. Kurt, who had since been changing his ways because of Dan, JD and Specs, instead comically cried uncontrollably which then caused a confused Sputnik to start crying. The two reconcile over grief of their past and losing a loved sibling, and mend their friendship then and there.

Jocelyn Heron-Dean: JD’s late mother. A shy, meek person who is kind and caring to her loved ones but struggles with social situations. She had trouble making friends, but in middle school she met Cassandra, Dan and Liam’s future mother, and the two became fast friends. Jocelyn seemed attracted to those with wild/aggressive personalities, a boon when it came to Casey, but a curse when she became smitten with the rich and good looking Bud Dean, who was in the same class as the girls. Come senior year of high school, Jocelyn was talked into eloping with Bud, leaving town to take over his dad’s construction business. Reluctantly, Jocelyn does so, and never saw Casey again. Nine months later and against Bud’s desire for an abortion, she had Jason. Their relationship soured over time, with the stress of constant moving, Bud’s true, cruel nature becoming more apparent, with Jason being the only bright spot in her life at that point, but even that couldn’t last as her mental health deteriorated. Once again, forced between two rough paths, Jocelyn accepts suicide as her only means of escape, reluctantly leaving Jason with Bud. Prior to this, when Jason was still a baby, she considered divorce and getting in touch with Cassandra somehow so she and Jason could stay with her. She would learn through an old acquaintance that Casey was having her own struggles as a recently single mom with a baby boy of her own, and didn’t want to pile on with her own problems, feeling ashamed she left Casey behind in the first place.

Cassandra “Casey” Braverman: Spunky, loud, and a bit chaotic, but stern and commanding when it matters. A big kid at heart, which makes her one of the very few adults in Sherwood to be sympathetic to Veronica and the others’ problems when they’re brought to her attention. In her teen years, she had a wild streak and was part of rough n’ tumble local biker gang, always looking for a thrill. Her first husband was a man called Clay, who resembled a more fit version of Dan with a handlebar mustache. Dan was not a planned baby (and really neither was Liam later), as Dan was the result of a drunk fling out of wedlock. Casey rolled with it, and figured a kid would be an interesting adventure. She and Jocelyn would become good friends in middle school, Casey made the first move to Jocelyn’s surprise, and were inseparable. She would often drag the shy Jocelyn into crazy adventures, the two having a blast together once Jocelyn loosened up during one. The one thing they disagreed on was Bud Dean: Casey hated him and Jocelyn loved him. They had a fight about it senior year that saw Jocelyn choose Bud, and saw Casey hurt, but for her friend’s sake accept her decision. After Jocelyn ran away, Casey suffered her second major loss in Clay, who died in a horrific motorcycle accident just after Dan was born. After parting ways with her biker friends in Hawkins, Indiana, she worked odd jobs there until she met and fell in love with Roland Braverman, a mostly mild mannered young man who fell for her spunky nature. 16 years later, she gave birth to her second child Liam, and a year after, she met Jocelyn’s son Jason who she happily took in when he needed a place to stay.

Liam Braverman: Dan’s baby half brother. The two share a room and Dan tends to watch over him the most. Martha, Veronica, JD and Kurt have assisted in one form or another in taking care of him, but while Liam loves his big brother the most, he took an interest in JD to the point his first words wound up being “Jay-Jay.”

Cheryl Rodgers: One of the popular kids, though she doesn’t view herself as such, and like Braverman, chats with whoever she pleases with which annoys the Heathers. She’s sweet but tragically dim, not realizing when those like Thrash or Green Heather take advantage of her for their own means. Cheryl hates Heather Chandler, and often Red has to make Green or Gold talk to Cheryl to get her to do something Red wants. She’s part of the cheerleaders and very athletic and very limber which makes her popular with boys. She has something of a male harem kink and has a romantic interest in most of her male classmates, but deep down just wants a sweet, smart guy who respects and cherishes her. Despite this, she has an unhealthy obsession with Thrash and Throttle, the biggest and hunkiest guys on the football team… as well as the most aggressive and cruel. She’s on friendly terms with Veronica and Braverman’s group, and joins them on adventures occasionally.

Roland Braverman: Dan’s stepfather. Mild mannered and kind, but is quick to anger when he gets really stressed out, and has a habit of shouting about what’s bothering him. Is the complete opposite of his wife, and the two will butt heads over matters, but they deeply love each other and find a compromise to a given problem. They’re pry the most stable couple in Sherwood, and are fairly open minded about things the other parents like Ram’s tend not to be. He loves his stepson and son to bits, and works hard to make a good future for them, but his work unfortunately consumes a lot of his time so he’s not around as much since they moved to Sherwood.

Toby Throttle: A cold, quiet, highly perceptive and intelligent type. A member of the football team. Comes from one of the rich families of Sherwood like the Heathers and Ram. While he has everything, he’s cruel and blunt and always seems unhappy, indulging in bullying out of a sick desire to feel something. Throttle appears to hate everyone, even his own parents and little brother, with the only one he seems to care about is his best friend and other half Thrash, and even then that’s peculiar because Throttle particularly hates low income people. He’s the counterpart to the loud, boisterous, simpleminded Kurt, and the one who took him in under his wing come high school.

Terrance Thrash: Arrogant, moody, dim, and violently aggressive. Part of the football team. The stock 70’s-80’s teen movie bully. He’s the middle child of a large low income family and tends to be ignored, freeing him to do as he pleases. Like Throttle, he loves to bully his classmates, and throw his weight around. He truly has peaked in high school, with what could be charitably called his best years behind him already. He’s Heather Chandler’s on again off again boyfriend, and while they mostly use each other for sex, there DOES seem to be genuine love between them ala Pete and Peg from Goof Troop. Between the two boys, Thrash does all of the talking, and is often pointed in the right direction by Red/Green Heather or Throttle to stir up trouble. He’s the counterpart to the marginally more intelligent (by comparison) and thoughtful Ram, taking under his wing come high school. He has a disdain for gays, fat chicks and nerds, though he’s thankfully stupid enough to not realize Kurt and Ram are (secretly) gay.

Kelly Kelly: Kurt Kelly’s older sister. A kind, chatty girl who was very popular and loved, who Kurt admired when he was little. Kelly was the one who helped nurture Kurt’s nerdy and sporty interests, along being the only one at the time who was aware Kurt was more into boys and tried helping him understand those feelings. Tragically, she died in a plane crash along with their mother, with it being suggested Kurt’s fall to bullying and his comical behavior was partly him still grieving over his sister. It took JD beating Kurt up to protect Braverman, Spec’s death and Sputnik’s own despair for Kurt to properly move on and return to his true self.

[greenerteacups]

following the last ask, i have a series of draco questions?

- what are your favourite draco tropes?

- what dramione fics have the best written draco OR best draco characterization?

- what’s your pictured plot line for draco post war : career wise, character development wise, and romance wise?

What a treat of a question. Always love an excuse to talk about Draco.

Favorites: mean, clever, and competent. Morally, I like him a touch darker than charcoal, a shade lighter than oil. He's supposed to be pretentious and snobby, and a little too quick to resolve problems with force, mainly because he's lazy at heart and doesn't want to put in the work to do things by the book. (Later in life, I see this informing his instincts as a duelist — forget niceties, what's the quickest way to end this fight in my favor?) Impatient as anything; Ice Prince when you don't know him, Unrepentant Brat once you do; the platonic ideal of an Only Child, jealous, fairly possessive, but charming enough that he gets away with it. But those are all double-edged traits: he's loyal, ferociously defensive of what's his, and once he's extended his own sense of This Is Mine to include something, he'll raise hell to keep it.

Best Draco: I think Disappearances has one of my favorite Dracos, because he feels textured and real. There's this one scene where he's talking to Hermione about how purebloods flirt, and it was life-changing. I also recently ate up The Light Is No Mystery, which is a slow burn like trying to cooking an egg with a pocket lighter and a cast-iron. I like the Draco of Bending Light, which is my latest feel-good No Tears Just Vibes cheer-up fic, largely because "fuck it, give him a motorcycle" is the kind of baller authorial move we as readers need more of. (And for the record, in the real world, he would be one of those rich boys who collects really nice Ducatis and smashes them up doing things he really shouldn't.)

Post-War Plans: It depends entirely on how loyal we're being to canon, because if we're shackled to the Epilogue, then it's uninspiring — he becomes a sort of idle philanthropist type, marries Astoria (weird and also why, Daphne is literally in his year, she was right there) and has Scorpius soon enough for him to be in the same year as Rose Weasley. That means he probably didn't go to Azkaban, because if he did, he'd have to be in and out in time to meet, marry, and have babies with Astoria in the same timeframe that Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione do, which ranges between "kind of hasty" and "physically impossible," depending on his prison sentence. And that's all we know.

Here's what I think it gets right: Draco probably marries young, because purebloods/rich people generally do; I very much doubt he marries a named character from Hogwarts, because he'd probably try to get as far away from his reputation as possible; and I think he tries to clean up his act. That means philanthropy, general PR work, and possibly getting a high-profile role in reconstruction. I think he'd marry someone "suitable," and have a kid. And I think he'd be a good father. In fact, I think he'd err on the side of spoiling his kids. (As he was spoiled; I tend to think Lucius was a decent father, if maybe not a great one. I don't think Draco acts like an abused kid, just one with the misfortune of being born into the most incredibly fucked-up murderous dynasty of weirdos in history.)

But if I could choose an ending for him, I'd probably make him an auror, or maybe an Unspeakable/something cool in the Department of Mysteries, like curse breaking. I'd like him to end up with Hermione, somehow, although it'd probably take them a lot of time (think years) to get there.

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Pictured: Maria Campbell and the main cast of Fortune Lover.

As promised, fandom response, early theorizing, and a couple of memes under the cut.

PirateKing-Fan Martin?! whitebishop1252 I knew I wasn't the only one who saw it! That's our King! the-fortuna-amata Guys, I know we love him, but what if they wanted to make a new game? whitebishop1252 These are the finalized designs, but did you forget that the original design for "Maria" that they released was dressed like Captain Natalia. And that is obviously Martin's floofy hair! That is totally Martin! This must be some sort of midquel. the-gentleman-pirate What if this is how he came to be able to lead people the way he does? fortunesfavoriteson ...Wait. The floof. The eyes seem lighter based on the setup on the black and white we've got here.... What if they're blue? whitebishop1252 ...No way. No way. MY OTP HAD A BABY!

CaptainNatalia9430 Top left! Look at her! I know which route I'm going for! kingbishop2014 Same! Maybe she's the Princess? martincampbell2012 What if she's a Terni? Maybe they're childhood friends? Golden Sands is Martin's main port of harbor. martingiulia-otp But Martin had to end up with Giulia! How else would he be able to keep staying in Golden Sands? kingbishop2014 Because as Natalia's heir, he's official considered the Trusted Friend to the Barony? It's not like there was an arranged marriage or anything. Besides, she had that prince she was writing letters to all the time.

jeomaria-stan1123 So, top right boy is apparently named Prince Jeord, bottom left is Noel Flores, bottom right is Prince Alan, and furthest right is Nicol Ascart. I couldn't find a name on the girl Capture Target, though...

Pictured, Left To Right: Sophia Ascart, Tatiana Terni, Mary Hunt

martincampbell2012 TERNI CONFIRMED! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE HAVE CONFIRMED TATIANA TERNI! BEST GIRL NOW HAS A NAME! CaptainNatalia9430 ...Can we talk about the fact that ghosts are canon in the setting as of Pirate King? Now can we talk about how Sophia Ascart looks just like one? commonpirate1123 Are we getting a murder mystery? Or is it a revenge story? fortunesfavoriteson I swear, they just keep building up the anticipation! When are we getting the game?!

queenmaryhunt I keep seeing all these theories about Tatiana being half-pirate, Sophia being a ghost, why G-boy's name keeps changing between reveals, and that Noel's disappearing glasses are proof that he's going to be a sweet shy good boy, but everyone is sleeping on the real best girl. Look at all those flower themes my girl Mary is packing in her look. Look at that cool expression! I'm telling you, Tatiana isn't going to be our female love interest, that's going to be Mary. fortunesfavoriteson People. People...

mariaxtatiana9430 So, has anyone noticed that Noel had his name changed? martingiulia-otp Yeah, what kind of name change is that? Noel to Keith? What kind of slander...? queenmaryhunt My guess is that they don't want to confuse him with Nicol, but why change his name to Claes? geomaria-stan1123 I wonder how that would feel. that must be so annoying. fortunesfavoriteson Pour one out for those brave souls that love Prince G-Boy.

Pictured: Katarina Claes

mariaxtatiana9430 Guys, I'm not gonna lie, I've got a bad feeling about this... martincampbell2012 What do you mean? mariaxtatiana9430 Keith's setup seems to be that he has a dark and troubled backstory. Given that he's Keith CLAES and Tatiana has been turned into Katarina CLAES... fortunesfavoriteson

nicol-ascart-lover

queenmaryhunt

I would love to romance Mary, but it doesn't seem like we're getting it... martincampbell2012 But... Tatiana... marikata9430