#Vladimir/mate

[twibunny]

Vladimir creates a shit ton of immortal children. He snatches as many as possible and manages to sick them on the Volturi.

His mate doesn't know. (His canonical mate or an Oc)

I was thinking Oc cause his mate was in the coven. SO, she probably was ok with the way things were.

Vladimir | Twilight Saga Wiki | Fandom

And finds out and a beatdown ensues. So, the volturi just run up to her beating the shit out of him and yelling at him in Romanian. (He used to rule the Romanian coven hence Romanian.)

I can imagine her ripping his arms off and his feet and maybe rip his knee out of the other leg she isn't standing on and bludgeoning him with his own arm in the torso and head and neck and face.

And Stefan just skedaddled while she was beating the shit out of him.

Stefan | Twilight Saga Wiki | Fandom

Idk I suppose this could be after canon since he could try to blame the Cullens. Since they didn't go after the Volturi as they were on their way back to Volterra.

.

[volturiprincess]

Vladimir w/ his Mate Moodboard

I thought since I been getting so many request for him and Stefan I should make a moodboard for them also (its been a while since I done one also). Always on the run but never fails to make sure his mate feels loved and cared for.

[frogchiro]

Silver fox! Makarov lurking outside the farm for kitty! Reader and tries to mount her at any chance he gets after courting (leaving small dead animals, some pelts he ‘found’, pretty flowers, yummy berries, anything for her) her, although she thinks he was simply being nice until he tries to knot her whenever those brutish guard dogs aren’t in sight. :’)

He definitely thinks his knot will fit in her far more better compared to others.

He was feeling romantical😭

And Vladimir's trying so so hard, really! He brings you dead animals, pelts, blankets and pillows he 'found' on someone's laundry line, he even brings you pretty forest flowers because it makes his tail wag and his sharp teeth show in a delighted smirk when he sees the pretty kitty girl swooning and fawning over his gifts!

And when you're distracted by touching and feeling the soft pelts or fawning over the pretty flowers he's cosying up to you, rubbing up against you to try and mark you with his scent so those pesky brutes back at the farm know who exactly got you. He'd nudge his head against you and try to nip on your bare shoulders before moving to your back to lick affectionally at your scruff and down the lucious, soft fur on your back before he'll finally try to get all nice and close to your back to mount you but you're...still distracted?

Makarov would let out a annoyed chuff as he noticed you're still eating those sweet berries he brought you as you purr in delight that the large male fox brought you all those gifts!

But he wants to mate with you so badly :(( Vladimir thinks that he's a much better option than those nasty dogs who just shove their cocks and knots inside you without abandon, treat you so roughly like some bitch but you're much smaller than them! More delicate! You're soft all over, your full curves and hips just begging to be worshipped and Makarov is convinced that hes the one to provide for you <3 Not to mention that he'd be a far better mate because you'd never have to 'work' again, you just lay back in his luxurious den, laid out on soft blankets and pelts and let him provide for you and fill you up with his kits <33

[simpfordemetri]

Miserable - Alec Volturi X Reader

Warnings:Angst?

Seven months.Seven months have passed since i was literally kidnapped here.Big castle,big windows,big rooms,everything seemed so big,and you were a small fragile human locked there with no scape.

You were told you and Alec are mates,but since Jane used her gift on you the first time you tried to talk to Alec,you stayed in your room.

Alec didnt even bother in stopping her,he were there watching you being tortured with his usual numb expression.

Since then,you just leave your room to take something from the kitchen or if you were called on the throne room.You werent interested in talking to anyone there and honestly they were literal sadistic monster to you.

As far as you understand,vampires couldnt stand having their mate hurt,but Alec did.For a long time you thought about Marcus,how he look because the lost of his mate,he did not want to keep living his long eternity.You also remember Vladimir,one vampire of the Romanian coven who took a big interest in being your friend when you stayed with the Cullens last year.His thirst of revenge just because he lost his mate.

But Alec saw you screaming in agony,for a long minute,and you didnt know if you were being paranoic but sometimes you wonder if he had a smile on his face.

He was wrong,if he thinks for a moment that you want this,that you want to be mated to him,to the cruelest person to exist,he was very very wrong,sometimes you prefer being attack by a lower guard and finally stop being so miserable around here.

At first you had,but now the simpathy for him dont exist anymore,he was burn in the bon fire?Good,with what you see from him,you totally understand,you even thought for a moment he deserved it,he and his sister.

The name “witch twins” swit them so well,they are,anybody here likes them and neither you do.They dont feel love for someone except for each other and they pay back everyone torturing them.

You were sure,you do not want him,as he does not want you,but if you tried to scape Demetri would go after you.

Then you looked at the lower guard in front of you who was standing by the kitcher door.

His control over blood is nonexistent,you just needed to make yourself bleed just a bit and everything will end in seconds.

Why continue being miserable?

[austinbutlerslovers]

Feyd Fantasy Series Recap

🔗 Full Feyd Fantasy Series Links Here

Part 7 Honor & Heir Finale This Weekend 🙏��

⬇️All Six Chapters Recapped Below⬇️

‼️Extreme Plot Spoilers Beware ‼️

🔗 Part 1 Pleasure& Pain

You are a young Bene Gessirit in training sent to marry Feyd Rautha and harvest his sperm to create a Kwisatz Haderach (super human with the ability to see through time) via your impregnation.

After a fellow Bene Gesserit defied the order and birthed a male instead of a female in the house of Atreides it leaves Feyd Rautha without the genetically comparable mate to create the Kwisatz Haderach. They will try again with the child you create with Feyd.

Feyd is unaware of the Bene Gesserit under plot. He is power hungry and obsessive only seeking to be Baron with a Baroness and an heir. When you are betrothed to him he has no interest until he sees how high born and beautiful you are in person.

The courtship was hastened due to his risk of death in his upcoming fight in the gladiatorial arena. If he were slain centuries of breeding to create him would be lost.

Meeting for the first time on your rushed wedding day Feyd plans to make you another subservient (but most beautiful) pet-pleasure slave that belongs to him.

Feyd Rautha though handsome and charismatic is sadistic and cruel. He tortures you mercilessly on your wedding night due to the lecherous upbringing of his uncle. He does as he has been ingrained to do from adolescence be a ruthless fighter and sexual deviant.

You however in the midst of his cruelty show kindness and affection as he tortures you softening his resolve. You offer yourself to him willingly and he impregnates you as gently as he knows how (brutally). You show him affection and kindness which he has never experienced from a female. That with your inherent sexual abilities make him become obsessed with you.

🔗 Part 2 Baroness & Breeder

Your affections and loving council change Feyd’s demeanor enraging his uncle who has raised him to be merciless and cruel from birth. His uncle separates you from him for weeks planning to breifly reunite you both at Feyd’s birthday celebration for appearances before getting rid of you entirely .

Feyd’s obsessive attachment to you makes him set forth plans to end his uncles life in order to be with you forever. You give Feyd what he needs the most good council and endless love. He craves your sexual intimacy even when you are sleeping and finds a way to pleasure you even when separated from physically being with you.

🔗 Part 3 Kill or Be Killed

Feyd fights in the gladiator arena and empresses the Emperor who deems him the worthy future Baron of Giedi Prime. At his birthday celebration Feyd lays eyes on you for the first time in weeks and realizes he must have you as his Baroness and murder his uncle who keeps you from him.

He discreetly poisons two of his uncles pleasure slaves with a slow acting transferable toxin and then celebrates his birthday with you in seclusion. First you playfully torture him in his bedchambers with sex then he whisks you to the pools of purity to claim you again. He realizes his connection is becoming more than physical. Your heart unsuspectingly opens and you begin falling in love with him. His uncle dies in the early hours of the morning due to the poison and all gather in the former leader Vladimir Harkonnens chambers to hail Feyd Rautha as the new Baron of Giedi Prime

🔗 Part 4 Madness & Mayhem

Feyd Rautha has deep rooted secrets about his family that he doesn’t want anyone to know, especially you. One of them being that his mother a Bene Gessirit, who emotionally neglected him from birth was killed by one of her own sons.

Feyd forms a strange attachment to your kindness and care mixing a taboo desire with the ways a female should care for her mate. He deeply requires the nurturing energy he was denied from birth to heal his maternal wounds.

When he finds out you only want one child with him it brings out the barbarian in his blood. He plans to pin you down and impregnate you several times by force to gain the family he desires.

🔗 Part 5 Endless Empire

Feyd’s uncle from beyond the grave tries to separate you two , sending a predated message to Emperor Shaddam that Feyd would like to marry his daughter Princess Irulan and rule the empire with her instead. Feyd however convinces the council to favor you as his chosen Baroness. He realizes you are the first person he has ever loved and the first person who has shown him love in return. He pleases you gently instead of the brutal ways that he likes and sexually submits to you. It changes him to be both gentle and hard. Finally understanding what love is he will sacrifice everything to be with you.

🔗 Part 6 Brazen Baron

Feyd Rautha celebrates his coronation infront of the populous of Geidi prime in the fortress courtyard. Millions flood the capital to see him officiated as their new Baron. Feyd has a deep rooted fixation with desecrating his Harkonnen heritage due to childhood trauma. His brother Rabban killed their biological father for betraying the Baron (his uncle). Feyd never got over it and defiles holy places of the Harkonnens in spite. He has sex with you in the Holy Shrine room before his coronation committing sacrilege.

On the same night of his coronation you reveal to Feyd you are Bene Gesserit. You use your powers to inflict him with what he craves the most: pain. You make him cum transferring the energy of physical agony during sex with your finger tips pressed to his temple. It enters his mind so powerfully he felt as though he would die. He immediately loses his need for kink and is desperate to keep you as his forever.

Part 7 Honor & Heir

Series Finale 🙏🏻 Scheduled This weekend

Summary

Feyd starts a war on Arrakis to gain final control over the Spice fields. He wants to finally free its massive profits to House Harkonnen and become the wealthiest family in the galaxy for you and his heir.

During your final month of pregnancy you and Feyd are summoned to the Emperors palace on the planet Kaitain by decree. Feyd is upset at any inconveniences to you with his unborn during this fragile time.

You reunite with your Reverend mother in the palatial gardens and a fated decision must be made. The stress of the decision is so great you go into labor. For Feyd his world stops. He drops all of his responsibilities with the Emperor to be by your side.

Special thanks for enjoying the series!I wrote this specifically to entertain you & feed the Feyd Rautha lust ⚔️.

📖 Writer @austinbutlerslovers (Andrea💕) ✍🏼 Proof Reader/ Editor @faegoddessog 🫦Smut Consultant @burnthheparaphilia. 💗Affection Consultant @magicovento

⚔️ Feyd Fantasy Tag list ⚔️ FULL 🙏🏻

@faegoddessog @burnthheparaphilia @elvismylove04 @lindszeppelin @obsessedvibee @abswifey @jessica987 @austiebuttbutt @oh-my-front-door @slowsweetlove @purejasmine @i5uckersblog @phil2135561 @lovereadingfanfic @steph-speaks @rougegenshin @maloribarnes1999 @meetmeatyourworst @moony-artemis @xxxstormyninixxx @prettypinkblogger @thegabbyh @magicovento @aoi-targaryen @austinswhitewolf @mimsie95 @the-wanderer-2022 @jakesullyissopookie @francis-writes @shiranai-atsune @berlinalv @everyonelovesavalet @dacreshoney @caroline334 @szapizzapanda @landlockedmermaid77 @moonsoulk @feralforfeydrautha @sophroniaclark @emeraldsgirl @cooliosthings @zzz000eee @or-was-it-just-a-dream @mamawiggers1980 @neverswimalone @alexa4040 @joyfulpersonbeliever @zero-the-hero1 @skinny-baby-eva @mcmisbehaving @feydsociety @superflashvengers

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 6, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 06, 2024

Yesterday, November 5, 2024, Americans reelected former president Donald Trump, a Republican, to the presidency over Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. As of Wednesday night, Trump is projected to get at least 295 electoral votes to Harris’s 226, with two Republican-leaning states still not called. The popular vote count is still underway.

Republicans also retook control of the Senate, where Democrats were defending far more seats than Republicans. Control of the House is not yet clear. 

These results were a surprise to everyone. Trump is a 78-year-old convicted felon who has been found liable for sexual assault and is currently under indictment in a number of jurisdictions. He refused to leave office peacefully when voters elected President Joe Biden in 2020, instead launching an unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes, and said during his campaign that he would be a “dictator” on his first day in office.  

Pollsters thought the race would be very close but showed increasing momentum for Harris, and Harris’s team expressed confidence during the day. By posting on social media—with no evidence—that the voting in Pennsylvania was rigged, Trump himself suggested he expected he would lose the popular vote, at least, as he did in 2016 and 2020. 

But in 2024, it appears a majority of American voters chose to put Trump back into office. 

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, offered a message of unity, the expansion of the economic policies that have made the U.S. economy the strongest in the world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and the creation of an “opportunity economy” that echoed many of the policies Republicans used to embrace. Trump vowed to take revenge on his enemies and to return the country to the neoliberal policies President Joe Biden had rejected in favor of investing in the middle class.

When he took office, Biden acknowledged that democracy was in danger around the globe, as authoritarians like Russian president Vladimir Putin and China’s president Xi Jinping  maintained that democracy was obsolete and must be replaced by autocracies. Russia set out to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that enforced the rules-based international order that stood against Russian expansion. 

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who overturned democracy in his own country, explained that the historical liberal democracy of the United States weakens a nation because the equality it champions means treating immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women as equal to men, thus ending traditionally patriarchal society.

In place of democracy, Orbán champions “illiberal democracy,” or “Christian democracy.” This form of government holds nominal elections, although their outcome is preordained because the government controls all the media and has silenced opposition. Orbán’s model of minority rule promises a return to a white-dominated, religiously based society, and he has pushed his vision by eliminating the independent press, cracking down on political opposition, getting rid of the rule of law, and dominating the economy with a group of crony oligarchs. 

In order to strengthen democracy at home and abroad, Biden worked to show that it delivered for ordinary Americans. He and the Democrats passed groundbreaking legislation to invest in rebuilding roads and bridges and build new factories to usher in green energy. They defended unions and used the Federal Trade Commission to break up monopolies and return more economic power to consumers. 

Their system worked. It created record low unemployment rates, lifted wages for the bottom 80% of Americans, and built the strongest economy in the world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, setting multiple stock market records.  But that success turned out not to be enough to protect democracy. 

In contrast, Trump promised he would return to the ideology of the era before 2021, when leaders believed in relying on markets to order the economy with the idea that wealthy individuals would invest more efficiently than if the government regulated business or skewed markets with targeted investment (in green energy, for example). Trump vowed to cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations and to make up lost revenue through tariffs, which he incorrectly insists are paid by foreign countries; tariffs are paid by U.S. consumers. 

For policies, Trump’s campaign embraced the Project 2025 agenda led by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which has close ties to Orbán. That plan calls for getting rid of the nonpartisan civil service the U.S. has had since 1883 and for making both the Department of Justice and the military partisan instruments of a strong president, much as Orbán did in Hungary. It also calls for instituting religious rule, including an end to abortion rights, across the U.S. Part of the idea of “purifying” the country is the deportation of undocumented immigrants: Trump promised to deport 20 million people at an estimated cost of $88 billion to $315 billion a year. 

That is what voters chose.

Pundits today have spent time dissecting the election results, many trying to find the one tweak that would have changed the outcome, and suggesting sweeping solutions to the Democrats’ obvious inability to attract voters. There is no doubt that a key factor in voters’ swing to Trump is that they associated the inflation of the post-pandemic months with Biden and turned the incumbents out, a phenomenon seen all over the world.

There is also no doubt that both racism and sexism played an important role in Harris’s defeat. 

But my own conclusion is that both of those things were amplified by the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now. Russian political theorists called the construction of a virtual political reality through modern media “political technology.” They developed several techniques in this approach to politics, but the key was creating a false narrative in order to control public debate. These techniques perverted democracy, turning it from the concept of voters choosing their leaders into the concept of voters rubber-stamping the leaders they had been manipulated into backing. 

In the U.S., pervasive right-wing media, from the Fox News Channel through right-wing podcasts and YouTube channels run by influencers, have permitted Trump and right-wing influencers to portray the booming economy as “failing” and to run away from the hugely unpopular Project 2025. They allowed MAGA Republicans to portray a dramatically falling crime rate as a crime wave and immigration as an invasion. They also shielded its audience from the many statements of Trump’s former staff that he is unfit for office, and even that his chief of staff General John Kelly considers him a fascist and noted that he admires German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

As actor Walter Masterson posted: “I tried to educate people about tariffs, I tried to explain that undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes and are the foundation of this country. I explained Project 2025, I interviewed to show that they supported it. I can not compete against the propaganda machines of Twitter, Fox News, [Joe Rogan Experience], and NY Post. These spaces will continue to create reality unless we create a more effective way of reaching people.” 

X users noted a dramatic drop in their followers today, likely as bots, no longer necessary, disengaged. 

Many voters who were using their vote to make an economic statement are likely going to be surprised to discover what they have actually voted for. In his victory speech, Trump said the American people had given him an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” 

White nationalist Nick Fuentes posted, “Your body, my choice. Forever,” and gloated that men will now legally control women’s bodies. His post got at least 22,000 “likes.” Right-wing influencer Benny Johnson, previously funded by Russia, posted: “It is my honor to inform you that Project 2025 was real the whole time.” 

Today, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would launch the “largest mass deportation operation” of undocumented immigrants, and the stock in private prison companies GEO Group and CoreCivic  jumped 41% and 29%, respectively. Those jumps were part of a bigger overall jump: the Dow Jones Industrial Average moved up 1,508 points in what Washington Post economic columnist Heather Long said was the largest post-election jump in more than 100 years. 

As for the lower prices Trump voters wanted, Kate Gibson of CBS today noted that on Monday, the National Retail Federation said that Trump’s proposed tariffs will cost American consumers between $46 billion and $78 billion a year as clothing, toys, furniture, appliances, and footwear all become more expensive. A $50 pair of running shoes, Gibson said, would retail for $59 to $64 under the new tariffs.

U.S. retailers are already preparing to raise prices of items from foreign suppliers, passing to consumers the cost of any future tariffs. 

Trump’s election will also mean he will no longer have to answer to the law for his federal indictments: special counsel Jack Smith is winding them down ahead of Trump’s inauguration. So he will not be tried for retaining classified documents or attempting to overthrow the U.S. government when he lost in 2020. 

This evening, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán posted on social media that he had just spoken with Trump, and said: “We have big plans for the future!” 

This afternoon, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at her alma mater, Howard University, to concede the election to Trump. 

She thanked her supporters, her family, the Bidens, the Walz family, and her campaign staff and volunteers. She reiterated that she believes Americans have far more in common than separating us.

In what appeared to be a message to Trump, she noted: “A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. That principle as much as any other distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it. At the same time in our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States, and loyalty to our conscience and to our God. 

“My allegiance to all three is why I am here to say, while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuels this campaign, the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and the dignity of all people, a fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.”

Harris urged people “to organize, to mobilize and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.” She told those feeling as if the world is dark indeed these days, to “fill the sky with the light of a billion brilliant stars, the light of optimism, of faith, of truth and service,” and to let “that work guide us, even in the face of setbacks, toward the extraordinary promise of the United States of America.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[miguel-owhora]

Howdy my fellow sigmas. Proud to announce, again, that I am going to be attempting Kinktober !!! and hopefully it doesn’t end the same way as it did before :3

Now then, I’ve decided to go the ‘easy’ way and select the kinks/fetishes for each day, but have you guys pick the characters. Or whatever. Some kinks/fetishes do repeat but ! who cares lmao. Feel free to use this list as inspo or something idk man

Anyways, here’s a list of character’s that I’ll write for, and the available days! I’ll update the slots with each req :)  

Characters:

Miguel O’Hara , Peter B , Webslinger , Ben Reilly

John Price , Simon Riley , Kyle Garrick , John MacTavish , Phillip Graves, Vladimir Makarov

Steven Grant , Marc Spector , Jake Lockley

Arthur Morgan , Dutch Van der Linde , Hosea Matthews , Micah Bell , John Martson , Bill Williamson , Charles Smith , Javier Escuella , Kieran Duffy , Lenny Summers , Sean MacGuire

Slots :3

Watersports | Fear play | Semi-Public Sex - Miguel O'Hara

Face Fucking | Sex against Furniture | Fingering - Micah Bell

Sleepy Sex | Scent Kink | Knotting - John Martson

Begging | Blowjob | Mirror/Window - Dutch Van der Linde

Anal Fisting | Power Dynamics | Corset - Micah Bell

Masturbating Each Other | New Relationship | Omega/Omega - Simon 'Ghost' Riley

Dollification | Nipple Play | Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics - Micah Bell

Orgasm Control/Cum on Command | Feet Fetish | Piercings/Body Modifications - Miguel O'Hara

Titfucking | Corruption/Blasphemy Kink | Shower/Bath - Micah Bell

Animal Characteristics/Partial Transformation | Pillow Biting | Hog Tied - Arthur Morgan

Dildos | Mating Cycles/In Heat | Smelling Clothes - John Price

Praise Kink | Stuffing | Creampie - Ben Reilly

Choking/Asphyxiation | Fuck or Die | Sexual Punishment - Kieran Duffy

Boot Worship | Creampie in Throat | Hair Pulling - Micah Bell

Breeding Mount | Doggy Style | Genital Spanking - Arthur Morgan

Face Fucking | Strength/Power Kink | Deep Throat - Lenny Summers

Unprotected Sex | Armbinding | Spanking - Kieran Duffy/Mary-Beth Gaskill

Anal Cock Warming | Premature Orgasm | Dacryphilia/Crying Kink - Arthur Morgan

Squirting | Fuck or Die | Face Fucking - Kyle Garrick

Size Difference | Fingering | Pregnant Kink - Hosea Matthews

Oviposition | Predator/Prey | Mind Breaking - John Martson

Over-the-Knee Spanking | Puppy Play | Toys - John MacTavish

Cock Worship | Lactation | Vibrators - Miguel O'Hara

Weight Gain | Lingerie | Breeding - Dutch Van der Linde

Daddy Kink | Cock Worship | Cigarette Burns - Dutch Van der Linde

Gunplay | Hate/Angry Sex | Violence Kink - Miguel O'Hara

Sneaky Sex | Fingersucking | Anal sex - Hosea Matthews

Dry Humping/Grinding | Quickies | Cumming in Pants - Micah Bell

Knife Play | Blood Kink | Handjobs - Javier Escuella

Squirting | Cam Sex | Service Top - Bill Williamson

Author’s Choice? Perchance…

[tremendum]

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Me and the Devil; v

(not my gif)

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·..·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·..·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·..·:

previous next series masterlist

word count: 8.7k

summary:  "Paul's breaths are as sharp as yours; both of you like wild, scared beasts being hunted by something you cannot see. Something in the back of your mind tells you that you should not be wasting your anger on each other."

warnings: canon-typical violence, blood, v light smut, brief oral (m!receiving), choking, height difference mentioned (paul is taller), more mommy & daddy issues, nothing else i can think of but always lmk if you see anything.

notes: back with another chapter! Paul and r are once again Confused by everything that is happening, and keep going back and forth with each other,, But they're learning to use their words <3 Referendum is nearing closer and things are beginning to happen!:)

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Houses Prepare to Assemble for Landsraad Council

In preparation for next week's Space Trade Referendum, representatives from across the galaxy have begun to prepare their travels. This pivotal meeting, set to take place on the planet of Kaitain, will see the great houses Major and Minor deciding on crucial matters, foremost among them the future of space trading routes.

Along these decisions next week will be the final arraignment in the case of House Bourbon, as well as proposals to establish standardized protocols for resource extraction and deposit of space debris. Expected to be on the agenda is the recent and surprising disruptions in Spice supply, which has forced the Spacing Guild to explore alternative fuel sources in preparation for the increased traffic of intergalactic travel for the Referendum. Nexarite and Petroleum have been suggested by Guild engineers: Though Nexarite proves to have dimensional warping implications if used at lightspeed, petroleum is secondary and similarly less effective. 

Pressure has befallen Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, whose governance over the planet Arrakis holds him with the most power in the Spice trade; While petroleum may serve as a stopgap measure in the absence of spice, its inherent limitations underscore the urgent need for a sustainable long-term solution to the galaxy's energy consumption.

Will there be a decision drawn up at this Referendum, or will the scarcity of spice thrust the market power of these new fuel sources? 

- Collected Galactic News report sent to Duke Leto Atreides, 10191. Caladan. 

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You wake up with a gasp and fly upwards.

The sun is still slumbering - the sky a deep royal blue, castle so silent you can hear the waves crash against the cliffs below. You swallow breaths as they lurch down your throat, fighting off a cold sweat, a haunting; Paul's eyes - the fear, the recognition. Familiar.

You find the pitcher of water that was left for you and down almost half of it straight from the glass, letting it dribble from the sides of your lips as you gulp, the drops sliding over your damp skin and onto your trembling breasts. 

The wall is stagnant under your gaze - there are dried lingonberries that remain on your resting table, harvested fresh for you days ago. You don't know why you asked Hestia to keep them there when she was cleaning. Their sickly scent infiltrates your mind, stomach turning queasy. 

Mindlessly, you blink back the images of Paul's gasp, the blood flowing from his porcelain skin, the gritting of his teeth as he'd slumped against you. 

You're very troubled.

In a moment of weakness, you almost pull your robe on to seek Paul and tell him, but a nervous part of you suspects he may already know what you dreamt. The look in his eyes was so.. familiar; as if... 

You swallow hard. Perhaps you should have just told him. Told him all of it, even if he already knows it - about the breeding programs, about the selective mating, the Kwisatz Haderach; The reason it was so quickly approved for you to become Paul's child-bearer when Feyd-Rautha was no longer an option for you.

Fuzzily, you try to recall the nagging familiarity that his words yesterday had left you with. One of two, he'd said. You chew on your lip until it is raw. 

Guilt swirls in your stomach, but you stay put, sitting still below your bedsheets, staring silently ahead. I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. You repeat the mantra over and over until the sun rises over the cliffs, burning a bright orange and pink haze into the center of your vision. 

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Late in the morning is the Strategy Council - once again struck with a bout of fuzz-brain, you're half-asleep as you walk into the chamber, eyes seeking only one person. There has been nothing on your mind all morning - even when Hestia had entered to find you wide-eyed and spooked, when she had whispered of some castle gossip that you didn't listen to. 

Paul's chair is absent.

Your stomach drops as you slide into your own seat, blinking in surprise at the emptiness across from you. As Duke Leto enters and begins the meeting you try your hardest not to think too much about Paul's absence; Lady Jessica's eyes are on you intermittently, not serving to ease your worries. 

When Duke Leto speaks, the sound cuts through the hushed murmurs of the assembled council members. Your eyes meet his.

"Before we begin our discussion on the Space Trade Referendum, there is a matter of great importance that we must address." He's kind, stern; kind, in a way that makes you look back on your own incompetent, nearly absent father with regret. 

The Duke's gaze softens, "The arraignment of House Bourbon is set for the day after the Space Trade Referendum, and I believe it is imperative that we address it with you accordingly."

You blink in shock; you've all but accepted the fact that you might become a criminal within the next week and would have to beg the Atreides to buy your bail in front of the noble Landsraad Houses- you didn't expect to discuss it, though, and certainly not at a Strategy Council.

You've been ignoring this moment ever since news of the charges against your house and the consecutive assassination of your family had reached your ears; but there's no avoiding it now.

"Of course, sir," you reply, steeling yourself for the difficult conversations that lay ahead. "I'm ready for whatever measures need to be taken."

He nods. "The council and I have discussed it, and I am fully committed to advocating for your house's interests during the arraignment on behalf of House Atreides." He leans forward, "I plan to do everything in my power to convince the other houses to see reason and vote in your favor as well."

Given the political complexities surrounding the case, you raise your brows. "This might put you in a precarious situation, my lord," You start, throat dry. "I appreciate it more than you'd know, but..." You look around at all the faces; all of them but enemies to you weeks ago. All of them, loyal to the end of the House; the House that is claiming you as one of their own, even in the looming presence of what might come. "The Harkonnens are- well, they're powerful - not that House Atreides is not, but-" You flounder under the scrutiny of attention and for the first time, you feel small, embarrassed in front of them all. You're not sure what's gotten into you; gritting your teeth, you realize that Reverend Mother Helen has gotten into your head without even seeing you on her visit. 

"-We understand your concerns," Lady Jessica speaks up. "but you are now a part of our house, and we will protect you." 

You can't help the surge of gratitude washing over you; nodding, you concede. "House Bourbon has long been allies of House Atreides," Gurney Halleck says, his stern eyes meeting yours, "this is a return of the favor." 

"Thank you." You say, voice sounding almost warm for what might be the first time in front of the council, "Your support means more to me than I can express." You wish your mind was less consumed with your visions; perhaps then you'd feel truly appreciative of their gesture. You force a smile onto your face, hoping it comes across less as a grimace. The Duke nods, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"I cannot speak for the other houses," he admits, his tone somber suddenly. "But I fear there may be those who seek to exploit this situation for their own gain."

You expect nothing less, nodding in agreement. The great houses are not in your good graces, and you not in theirs. 

"Whatever the outcome, you have the support of House Atreides behind you." Duke Leto says firmly, eyes meeting yours with unwavering resolve.

As the subject is laid to rest in preparation of the upcoming off-world travel, you try your hardest to listen and absorb the information about the Referendum next week.

You'll be leaving at the end of this week, in only a few days - half of the Duke's council will attend for the Referendum and the conferences, and you must go for your own arraignment. 

Trying as hard as you can, you cast away the turmoil that spins around restlessly in your stomach - staring hard at Paul's absent seat, you can't stop thinking. Even as the meeting continues, you go through the motions and relay your own input with a hollow voice, eyes downcast. 

Pain in his voice, gasps of sharp, labored breathing. 

The glint of Feyd-Rautha's skin behind him as blood spills. 

You need to find Paul. 

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Your luck is struck within minutes of the council's conclusion.

Immediately after the Strategy Council is the first of likely many wedding planning meetings - significantly smaller in party than the Strategy Council, but infinitely more intimidating for you. 

You never got any say in your wedding with Feyd-Rautha; likely why you remained living on Giedi Prime for four cycles and never actually married. He chose rather to train and attend strategy councils about spice and Arrakis or more often concerns on-planet; when he did consider the wedding, he would often disregard your opinions and insist it was only important after you gave him an heir. 

Not that you've ever been keen to marry anyone, but what say does a girl have in such a matter? 

Nevertheless, you are more than relieved to attend, solely because you're sure Paul cannot miss this meeting; if anything, because his parents would chastise him like a petulant child. 

The Duke walks with you back to his own quarters, making conversation politely. You find a surprising comfort within his voice, even if you're still on edge - perhaps because of this, you actually succeed in making him laugh once as you mention your interest in learning to pilot a ship; He himself wanted to be a pilot when he was young, you learn. 

You settle into your seat with a grace you don't quite feel; the room is more intimate: in the Duke's new study, at a round table with five chairs, four of which are occupied within seconds. 

Paul's eyes have been on you since you crossed the threshold - an intent gaze that has you shifting, meeting his stare head on when you settle. He looks similarly spooked but there is an anger that simmers, bubbling low. 

You want to ask where he was this morning; why'd he miss the council, when he'd clearly planned to attend not twelve hours before? 

His own eyes scream at you; clearly, he also wishes to speak with you. You open your lips to say something, anything to him. Your dream - he has to know, he must.

But Duke Leto breaks the silence before you can. "Thank you both for joining us. This is our House Administrative Assistant, she helps us plan events." 

You introduce yourself to the woman; She is kind, very serious but jolly at the same time - you wish you could be more present, but your brain is not willing to cooperate. Perhaps as a defense mechanism - the prospect of planning a wedding is thoroughly uninteresting to you, to be tied inexplicably to Paul; More present than this, your thoughts and opinions are overclouded by the more pertinent threat of war, economic or otherwise, being planned by the very sisterhood you were raised to be a part of. 

They have their hands everywhere, especially in the great houses, and you do not wish to see the roles designed for you and Paul within their plans. 

It is then that you realize the last chair is likely for Lady Jessica, who has foregone this small meeting.

Vaguely, you wonder if the Duke and Paul can tell how unsettling she is to you; it's nothing against her, actually - her loyalty to her house as well as the sisterhood is admirable - but perhaps she reminds you too much of your past. Of your own mother. 

Easily, the coordinator launches into discussion, outlining the initial plans for the wedding; it will be an evening event, with most of the court and family invited - you barely hold in a sardonic laugh at this, looking solemnly at the ground. Shall we invite my father to walk me down the aisle? you think bitterly, recalling how hard his body had hit the sand in that arena, the sickening way his head snapped back. 

You listen as intently as you can, nodding along as she discusses potential venues, guest lists, and ceremonial traditions.

"And now, onto the matter of your family's traditions," the Coordinator says, turning her attention to you; it jolts you from your own thoughts, images of a blood-stained blade, a gasp for breath, brown curls. "We'll be sure to incorporate them into the ceremony as you see fit."

You hesitate, brow furrowing slightly - she does not seem like she's planning on listing them now, so you're unable to pretend you know what to expect; sheepishly, you clasp your hands against the table. "I must admit, I am not as familiar with my house's traditions as Paul is," you confess, casting a glance in Paul's direction. 

His eyes meet yours; tilting his head, his eyes almost chirp, I offered you the book. You glance back, I know. His lips press into a fleeting grin and for a moment, your stomach runs cold as if he'd actually heard you. But he hadn't. 

You can't ignore when the Duke's lips twitch into a subtle smirk of his own; you fight the flush of embarrassment that creeps into your cheeks as he takes in the information, nodding slowly. He mustn't misinterpret your bond with Paul as romantic interest - instead of a keen instinct for survival at all costs.

"Is that right?" He asks his son, who nods curtly, almost indifferent.

Your eyes cast away, wondering when exactly it was that you started to see yourself on Paul's side; was it when he'd offered to share lunch, or when you'd seen those books about your house and homeplanet on his bedside? No, certainly not. Those are much too trivial; while charming, you know better than to trust a man on such frivolities.

Perhaps, more likely, yesterday - when he'd told you of the Bene Gesserit plans, of the visit - when you'd told him about his own mother. Or, the dreams.

While no amount of sexual fantasies could genuinely sway your opinion on an enemy (the Bene Gesserit in you has seen to it that sexual manipulation can only go one way), the other parts - the more unpleasant ones...  

You're rather restless.  - after the dream last night, you're not sure who to trust, or if you should tell the Duke; Paul may be the only one you can trust with this information, regretfully.  

"Whatever rituals you deem fit will be incorporated into the ceremony. We're planning for it to take place in a month, just before the end of the galactic year." Leto says, watching you for your response. "Perhaps you two can review them and work with our coordinators after you've decided what seems right." 

Paul nods dutifully, eyes flickering to you.

Your stare is intent, wishing to convey the urgency you feel to end this foolish meeting and get somewhere private, not caring one single bit about any rituals or ceremonies. It's all means to one end, isn't it? 

"Do you still have the book on Bourbon Customs, Paul?" You ask, voice just as emotionless as usual; it feels as odd as it sounds to discuss something that might normally excite a wife with the tone of such boredom, but you truly have way more important things to be talking about. You hope he can read between the lines you so delicately convey. 

"Yes." He affirms, perceptive and intelligent as always; sitting up, he starts to address his father and the coordinator, "Perhaps we can meet after the Referendum to further discuss the wedding - in the meantime, Lady Bourbon and I will discuss which of our house traditions we'd like to perform at the wedding." 

You let out a microscopic breath of relief at the pleased look on the Duke's face; he dismisses the small meeting, but Paul is rushing out of the room quicker than you can even stand. 

With as much effort as you can harbor, you exchange short pleasantries with the woman beside you and the Duke before rising to follow after Paul briskly, trying not to be too obvious. 

Within the dim hallway that leads to Paul's quarters, his cloth tunic looks nearly gray.

"Paul." You call, your shoes clacking on the stone as you try to catch up with his stride; pausing slightly, he allows you to catch up to him. Your name is breathed gently, his voice sharp with importance as he pulls you with him towards his room. 

You stumble to catch up with him, caught off-guard by the fearful, angry energy that radiates from him. He is calculating, quiet; this has not changed, but there is a heat in his sharp glare that alarms you. 

"It was you." His voice is quick, whirling around on you - for a moment, there is a darkness in his eyes you haven't seen. He doesn't have to elaborate for you to swallow, staring up at him.

"Yes." You affirm, "And you..." 

He nods so microscopically; your heart flips. It's silent, heavy with the realization in his silent bedchamber.

"It was normal, at first." He starts, shaking his head smally, "but then... suddenly we were standing there and- I felt it." He mutters, watching you intently. His jaw clenches. 

"I know it was you. You used this." He rips away your robes from your left hip and it slides from your shoulders; affronted, your hand comes to halt his wrist, snapping him away. He expects to see the same engraved hilt - you see it in his eyes - but, where there is usually the black leather of your nameday knife, today there is just your waistline.

He stares down, eyes cold. 

You couldn't bare to take it with you this morning when you left; you could barely stand to look at it as Hestia had dressed you.

His eyes rove over your figure slowly, as if expecting to find your blade snugly hidden in some curve of your skin; no avail, as he reaches your own strict gaze. There is heat in your abdomen, but you ignore it for the fear in your veins. 

He dreamt that you stabbed him. He didn't see Feyd at all. 

"I didn't..." You shake your head, "I didn't stab you." You insist. He looks off towards the wall above your head, sighing sharply, "You did in my dream." 

"-No." You argue, "He was behind you," Your voice is a hushed whisper, so close to him you can almost feel the warmth that radiates; there is a fuzzy electricity in the room that makes your fingers itch as you release the grip on his cotton-bound wrist, pushing his grip away from you. His hand flies back like it'd been burned by your touch, anger seeping through his lashes. 

"Feyd-Rautha." You clarify, your own jaw setting, "He was there, holding my knife." 

Paul's brows furrow. "You stabbed me. I felt you, with me. You were there." He insists, shaking his head. You swallow thickly, "I know I was there. You aren't listening to me."

"Why should I?" He snaps, staring at you with distrust, "If Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen was there, why didn't I see him?"  

"I-" You tug at your hair in exasperation, "Fuck, Paul, I don't know." you hiss. 

Such implications strike your heart with dread; and if your dreams with Paul are inexplicably intertwined, a beat of fright hits you - for once in your life, you wish beyond your world that Feyd-Rautha has been finding seamless, dreamless sleep recently. 

You are dimly aware of the slight chill upon your bare shoulders; the tank-top you've donned, cotton like Paul's, is breezy without your robes to cover your exposed skin, and the material pools lazily around your bent elbows from where Paul had disrobed you, searching for your dagger. 

"We can't risk telling my mother," he murmurs, his tone laced with urgency, "If she learns of our dreams, she'll never let us pursue Sabberon if the Harkonnens take it."

Begrudgingly, your fears are mirrored in his words and you run your hand over your face, "So we just hope she can see through our lies? Paul, you know just as well as I that it is a near impossible feat." 

Paul hesitates- there is a shadow in his eyes, a dark looming thought you wish to unearth. "She'll stop at nothing if it means going against the Bene Gesserit's plans for us. We just- we don't know which path that is."

Your voice is steely with resolve, "I won't let them dictate my future." Not when the rest of the galaxy is going to do so next week. 

Before Paul can respond, the distant sound of footsteps echo down the hallways outside and he guides you slowly backwards, away from the hall. Near the bedpost in his room, he stops and leans to whisper closer to you; his curls hang unruly in front of his eyes, not styled like it typically is. He looks slightly rumpled, as if poor sleep has rendered him consumed by thoughts. 

His eyes flicker to the bedstand and back down to your eyes, "I think you need to let my mother train you." 

You blink, inhaling sharply, "You don't know what you're saying." 

Somewhere in you, you know he's right. He sends you a look, "I do, and you know it. Even if we can't lie to her, we need to stay sharp. Maybe we can find out what the Sisterhood wants from these dreams, because they're clearly important to them. We have to be prepared for whatever happens." 

You lift a brow, "And if nothing happens?" 

"You believe this all to be in our heads?" He asks, eyes genuine; a plead, a small hope that perhaps all this danger and concern is for nothing.

Your sharp sigh is answer enough.

He continues. "You wouldn't have brought up the Harkonnen petroleum reserves for nothing. Or the materials on Sabberon. This threat is real, and even if it isn't, our dreams are." He insists this, and you cross your arms. 

"You sound like your mother." You snap. "She believes everything Reverend Mother Helen Gaius Mohaim says." 

He stares at you incredulously, "You were in my dream, were you not?" His voice is stern and it sets your teeth on edge. "Unless we unknowingly consumed Spice last night, I think that was pretty real." 

You are not a fan of the sardonic tone he takes - he's right, but it does not soothe your concern. Paul has been raised to become a Bene Gesserit by his mother - a male Bene Gesserit? The only reason for that lingers in the back of your mind; perhaps if you continue your learnings, you could remember. A phrase whispers to you, but you do not know what it means. The Shortening of the Way. 

You briefly entertain the thought that Lady Jessica has slipped something into your morning teas - some Spice-laden elixir that makes you and Paul dream together - but this is a childish thought, an escape from the harsh reality of destiny and fate. You know these things to be true, because you know it was woven into your DNA centuries ago. 

"I think this is a bad idea." You say honestly, relieved to have the freedom to argue with your husband-to-be without the real threat of having a throat slit or tongue removed. "Why should I trust your judgement?" 

He huffs smally, "Why should I trust yours? You try to kill me in half of my dreams." 

You glare sharply, "Well I haven't killed you yet, have I?" You snap, growling at him.  

His glare is sharp, hostile. "I know my house better than anybody, and I know my mother just as well." He says, "You and I will train with her together. We need to find their plans out ourselves, and this is the only way. We will just ensure Reverend Mother Helen Gaius Mohaim is none the wiser." 

"You are a fool if you think she will not catch on." You insist.

His jaw sets. "I have trained my whole life to make decisions like this."

"And yet, you make the wrong one."

"Watch your mouth." His voice is ominously quiet, taking a step into your personal space. "I will be your Duke one day." His chin tilts, ever prideful; you scoff. Defensively, you bristle. 

"-and I will be your duchess. That means but little to me, my lord." You retort, leaning towards him; You're close enough to smell the soap on his skin again, the anger, the fear that radiates in beats of his heart. "I did not ask to be here, if you recall." 

Even a sneer looks somewhat graceful on his face. "That means but little to me." He parrots back, eyes sharp, "You're here, so you will do what I say." 

Fury rages in you; his voice is deep, more commanding than you've heard yet - your jaw clenches, not backing away even with him towering over you. 

You're mine to keep. There's plenty of life left for you to serve - the voice in your mind warps, though, the ever-haunting rumble of Feyd's voice morphing into Paul's smooth, low one - fear and resistance sprout within you. 

It's an impulse, a trauma response. You barely think. Your hand moves, palm open flat - aiming to strike him on the cheek, to slap him hard. 

But to your shock, he catches it with reflexes quicker than you can imagine, fingers wrapping around your wrist just before it makes contact with his skin.

Eyes angry, his nostrils flare and the chimes that hang near his bedroom window tinkle gently as energy slips around you. His lips move before you feel the Voice. 

"Don't." 

The Voice sets your spine straight and your teeth on edge - still considerably weak in the skill, his command is combatted by your urge to drop your wrist as you stare at him, beyond bewildered. 

He told you yesterday that he's been trained by his mother - until now, you haven't really considered what this means - he possesses the skills to use the Voice. He is keenly intelligent and, by your suspicion, being trained by Thufir Hawat in more than just tutelage, but also as a Mentat; an unlocked secret tries to worm its way from the back of your mind. 

Your spine shivers. A phrase whispers in the back of your brain, a fear long-nestled and roused awake after years of hibernation: Kwisatz Haderach. The Shortening of the Way. 

You shake yourself of the sudden trance, trying to wrench your hand away but failing by his surprising strength and grip on your wrist. You know you should tell him but you're too presently angry, too absorbed in your own fear and pride. 

Using your free hand not caged by his hold, you shove hard against his chest, until he hits the wall with his spine and skull; wincing, his grip on you only tightens as you fight to free your hand. You glare at him, on your tip toes as you hold your palm flat against his heaving chest, feeling his heart thud against his sternum. 

"No man holds power over me." You say, pressing harder, wrestling your wrist away from him to no avail; he maintains a firm, furious grip on you, his eyes sharp, watching you. "You are no different." 

His breaths are as sharp as yours; both of you like wild, scared beasts being hunted by something you cannot see. Neither of you are truly trying to fight: Tired of running but knowing you've just started. Something in the back of your mind tells you that you should not be wasting your anger on each other. 

His eyes still have that sinister stare; serious, calculating. 

"It should not be a man you worry about." He whispers, head tilting down to you. His features are dark even in the light of day; "Despite what we feel about them, the Bene Gesserit give us power." His grip is tight; guiding with his heart, defiance in his eyes. Your lips part, arm relieving the pressure against his chest, still making sure he doesn't move otherwise. 

His brows furrow, jaw set. "You should be accustomed to living with the enemy, anyways." 

It's a slight against you; you grit your teeth - he's right, though. The Bene Gesserit is not an enemy, per se -both of you know this, but the sisterhood is dangerous, and if you aren't careful, this whole thing might completely backfire. 

There's a moment of silence as you consider his words, the weight of your situation pressing down on you like a suffocating blanket; Paul is right - you can't just go blindly and without training that can help you in the future, no matter how fiercely independent you both may be.

You almost relent, but in the silence your arm drops and Paul's - still holding your wrist tight - follows until he holds your arm stiffly between you. In the tense silence, your other arm slides off of his chest slowly, your eyes flickering to where his hand still holds your wrist; as if genuinely concerned you might unsheathe a hidden blade and plunge it into his stomach in the blink of an eye. 

"Paul?" 

The voice belonging to neither of you makes you jump in shock; Paul similarly jolts, both of your heads snapping to the entryway where Lady Jessica enters, a servant hovering nervously behind her with a laundry basket in her hands. 

"-I'd like to speak with you about-" 

Her words trail off as her eyes flicker towards the two of you; your face burns, jumping away from Paul as he drops your wrist like a dead stone, jumping from the wall. 

Your stomach flips in fear. How much did she hear? 

Paul glances at you sharply, your heart pounding; it was as if she knew that you were speaking of her and the Bene Gesserit. Had she heard anything? How silent was she when she arrived in his quarters? 

She averts her eyes at the sight of the two of you so close - at short glance, possibly appearing as if in some kind of embrace - but unfortunately her gaze lands on the bed right beside you; there is a faint blush coloring her cheeks. 

You share the fleeting glance with Paul, a silent understanding passing between you; Despite the true nature of your conversation, the proximity of the bed and the... intensity of how close the two of you could be easily misconstrued as something far more intimate.

Which might actually play in your favor. 

She presses her lips into a thin line, "-Apologies. I didn't realize-" 

Paul clears his throat, shaking his head. "No, Mother, you're not interrupting anything," Paul assures her quickly as he moves away from the bed; another quick glance at you once again shows his fear of being caught talking about her.

You wipe sweaty palms on your trousers, hoping she can't see your hands shake; The embarrassment of her and the servant thinking you were becoming intimate is better than her becoming suspicious of your whispers and secrecy. You're nearly shaking with fear at the prospect of her overhearing your plot. 

Thankfully Paul holds the same thought. 

"We were just... discussing some matters of importance." He utters, clearing his throat as he reaches to adjust the robe of yours he'd knocked askew minutes before. You play the part just as well as he does. Smiling sheepishly, you pull your robe tight around your frame and duck your head. 

Lady Jessica nods, eyes narrowing slightly. "Well, I was just hoping to chat with you while you walk to your weapons lesson, Paul," she said, her tone even, "I didn't realize you had company, my apologies. I'll leave you to it."

"-no, please," You interrupt as she turns; she stops, turning back to the two of you. You flash what you hope is a convincingly kind smile, pulling further away from where you stand next to Paul. "I was just leaving." You insist. Your heart beats hard in your throat still, but you turn to place your hands on Paul's shoulders. He stares at you, shocked as you lean towards him. If it were a different situation, you might've chuckled at the alarm in his eyes as you near him with your lips. 

Your breath hits his cheek as his head cranes down slightly to meet you, sensing what you're trying to do under the awkward attention of the others in the room. "Find me later." You whisper, barely more than a breath, against his cheek. His curls tickle your lips gently.

Playing the part you peck his skin slightly over the sharp cheekbone, eyes flicking over his shoulder to see his mother avert her gaze politely. You hope, to the servant and Lady Jessica, that it looks like you're bidding him a good day - a flushed, embarrassed lover caught in an act of passion and taking her leave. 

How simple life would be if that were the case. 

When you pull back from him fully, his cheeks are a dusted rose color - a good actor, then. He nods tersely, watching as you spin on your heels and bow to Lady Jessica, smiling at the servant slightly as you slide past them, hurrying down the hall towards your freedom. 

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Paul does find you later, in the afternoon when the sun is hidden by misty clouds.

Out in the gardens of Castle Caladan, the season is ending with the year and the plants that bloom are resilient to the less rainy months that come. Your feet are bare, your dress long as you stroll, unaware of his presence. 

Odd to see you so relaxed - your hands smooth over stone figures within the garden; he walks up behind you silently, murmuring your name when he's close. 

You jump slightly, acting fast; pressing with your full force, he's caught off-guard and shoved against the hedges which line the area. Catching his footing, his hands stop you - one on your hip, the other around your shoulder. His thumb dips against the hollow of your throat. 

There is a misty rain that falls lazily from the clouds in the sky; serene, quiet. Your breaths intermingle, your hands against Paul's chest. "I dreamt of you this afternoon." You say, voice faint. He hums, tilting his head at the fuzzy feeling. "Did you?" He asks; his voice is far away. You nod, leaning towards him like you'd done earlier - you brush his own lips instead of his cheek, and he feels far away. 

"I dreamt of you in a large throne room..." You whisper, lips just barely brushing over his, your hands roving over his chest. His own squeeze you; the one around your shoulder slides to hold your neck, the one around your hip holding you close. "One I've never seen before." 

Your lips ghost over his neck then, head tilting back to the misty skies. "There was spice in the sand that tracked in through the entrance..." You whisper, biting at his skin; he feels like he's floating. His hand squeezes the softness of your throat. 

"You sat on the throne atop the stairs," You whisper, suddenly sinking lower - your hands tug his belt, now on your knees before him. He does not fight the arousal that swirls within him, instead letting one hand gather your hair from your face. Your eyes are bright - for a moment, they're glowing a blue he's never seen, but you blink and it's gone in a hazy fog. He cannot seem to make out many features of your face, even as he blinks. It feels as if he'd swallowed cotton. 

"-and I, between your thighs." You whisper, lips moving to mouth over his trousers; he lets out a groan, growing more hard by your touch - his hand squeezes and he's not sure if it's against your throat or your hair; you let out a mewl either way and it floods him with desire. You've never made a noise like that before, and he would quite like to hear you make it again. 

Throne room? He starts to say - he is not so vain as to ever desire a throne to sit on - but the feeling of your warm mouth around his cock has him groaning, forgetting his words as he gasps-

Paul wakes up, sitting straight up -drenched in a cold sweat from the breeze that flows coolly through the open window. His chest heaves as he blinks at the wall ahead, disoriented and thoroughly discomfited. 

"Shit," He whispers to himself, head falling back against his pillow.

He can hear the misting beginnings of rain - he must have slept for a few hours, because the sky was clear when he returned from his lesson with Thufir Hawat, intending to lie for just a minute. 

The sun is hiding near the ocean; he must have missed supper. 

Groaning, he forces himself up and into the shower, where he stares ahead at the wall silently and lets the ice-cold water soak through his skin. 

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When he finally drags himself out into the castle, he has no luck tracking you down - done with lessons, you're likely in the dining hall or in your own room eating supper. 

He checks your quarters first.

Walking in hesitantly, he calls your name and casts his gaze to the ground, wary of what he might catch glimpse of should he burst in unexpected. 

"Paul?" A voice calls, but as he crosses the threshold into the room, he sees it is not you, but another familiar face. 

"Oh, hello." He says, nodding as Hestia stands near your dining table - packing up the remnants of dinner. He eyes the two sets of silverware and dishes, noticing a crumb on the corner of Hestia's cheek; You've been taking your meals with her nearly every day since you arrived here. "Have you seen her?" He asks, trying to remain formal. 

"Who?" 

He gives her an unimpressed look; she rolls her eyes with a sigh. She's surprised to see him, he can tell. It shows on her face. "She just left for the gardens," Hestia says, crossing her arms suspiciously. "Why do you ask?" 

His head tilts at her, "Is it odd for me to wonder where my betrothed is?" 

She gives him that look - the all-knowing one, the one that makes him wonder if they really are siblings. She knows him much too well. "Yes, it is odd, Paul." She's blunt; she'd never dare speak like this to him in front of members of the House court, but in their own time or with his parents, Paul insists they're equals. 

"I didn't even know you talked to each other." she snarks, lifting one brow.

Normally he might entertain her teasing, but his mood is quite sour on the subject of you and he'd rather not hear more chastising about your strained relationship with each other.

He shakes his head, turning to head towards the gardens.

"You should watch your tongue, Hestia." He says half-heartedly. He ignores her laugh as he leaves, walking quickly to find you. 

It doesn't hit him until he's in the garden, walking down a path that feels oddly familiar: It's just like his dream. 

Cheeks heating, he rolls his eyes; Coincidences won't kill me, he thinks, but you might. 

When he sees your figure, he's extremely relieved to see you completely bundled from head to toe and sitting on a bench, looking up at the darkening sky, squinting in the mist. When he's still a safe distance away, he calls your name. 

"Paul." You say curtly when your gaze finds him. You pat next to you - a surprisingly child-like action as you scoot yourself slightly. "Sit." 

He does. It's silent for a moment, in which the wind blows his curls around just as it does yours; it's evening, and this late in the year it is already growing dark. 

"I told your mother I'd like to train with her." You say, staring up at the sky again. "I don't think she heard what we were saying earlier." 

His shoulders relax at this; fear had shot through him at the prospect of his mother discovering the reason behind your sudden willingness to cooperate.

"She seemed pleased with me. She suggested we start after the Referendum." 

Paul expected his mother would suggest this; With only a few days until several members of their House leave for the Referendum and your arraignment, there'd be no real time to start again until after. He knows better than to say I told you so, but he wishes to. 

The thought of your arraignment has him turning to look at you, noting how your eyes look against the green of the grass, the dark of the sky, the soft light from the castle. 

"How do you feel about it?" 

You do that odd exhale from your nose again, shaking your head, "You must know how I feel about the Bene Gesserit by now, Paul." 

"No," He starts, tilting his head to look sidelong at you, "the arraignment." 

Your face changes, but you say nothing. He takes a breath. "The Baron is a cruel man." Paul starts, "You know we will do everything we can to make sure he does not sway the opinions of the other Houses." 

To his surprise, your lips morph into a soft smile; a rare one, very uncharacteristic of such a cold, strong woman; it doesn't make you seem any less fierce, though. "You're so much like your father." You say, voice shockingly reflective. He doesn't know why you choose to say it. A moment of hesitation before you speak again, surprising him with your words. "You're going to be a good Duke." 

Praise does not seem to come easy from you, nor does it from him; He lets himself be vulnerable for a moment and admits to himself that it is a good thing you are so headstrong and sharp-tongued. To keep him in check. He knows your argument earlier this morning was too far; both of you were anxious, stressed - truthfully, he's glad you are willing to push back. 

"And you'll be a good Duchess." 

In the quiet of the garden, not daring to meet each other's eyes, you huff a short laugh of doubt. He doesn't bother arguing with you about it. 

"I know House Bourbon doesn't have any real power over Sabberon anymore, but it is still by decree under my family's sovereignty." You say; he nods as he stares off into the hedges across the way. "-when I lose it officially next week, it cannot go to the Harkonnens." Your voice is hollow. "They are unfathomably evil." 

He knows - but, he realizes as your finger traces over a scar fading on your hand, he doesn't know like you do. He's seen that knife now in person and in dreams; he's studied enough to know the kind of ritual one must go through to get one. A nameday knife for a future bride of House Harkonnen - because that's what you were going to be, once upon a time. He's read about it, and it is not pleasant.

For a moment, he remembers you when you'd arrived on Caladan; teeth sharp and voice distrusting, a woman ready to lash out at any moment. A beast, you'd wanted everyone to think. 

You're not a beast. 

Confusing, dangerous, foreboding- sure. But you're just a girl, as he is just a boy; thrust into the hands of the powers way above your heads. There is real fear in your eyes when you speak of the potential for Harkonnens to gain power over the trading markets; real fear when you confess your dreams to him - real anger when he'd accused you of stabbing him; Real breath from your lips, upon his ear when you'd kissed his cheek earlier. Yesterday, real tease when you'd poked fun at his bedside reading choices. You are real, and you are stubbornly human. 

Giedi Prime had forced you to build layers and layers of walls around yourself; it's still quite disarming to see glimpses of the woman inside. 

"My mother's half-sister is Lady Ginaz." You say; both of you know that he knows this, but you say it anyways, fingers picking at the concrete under you. "She's sent me letters again. They were destroyed before I could read them on Giedi Prime." 

He lets you speak, listening intently. House Ginaz; another old ally of House Atreides. 

"I think... if we end up needing anything, like more fighters," You lick your lips. More fighters- the prospect is indeed chilling; House Atreides has great legions of soldiers, but you're right. If they war against House Harkonnen, it'll take everything they can find to maintain power. 

"-I could try to convince her to send all of the Swordmasters." You whisper, sighing. A beat, then you quirk your lip up so fast Paul wonders if he imagined it. "We'll have to invite her to the wedding, of course." 

Your humor is dry and hollow, but it still makes Paul crack a wry huff. "Looking forward to giving input into every aspect of the event?" He asks, feeling a freedom to poke at your shared misery - it's the least of your worries, and it's not so bad if you're in it together. 

Your smile shows nice teeth, full lips. "It's a good thing our house colors are both green." You hum, turning to him, "No decisions to make there, at least." 

He nods, "More time to decide what kind of ribbon to use for the handfasting." 

You look off towards the same hedge across the way that he finds so interesting. "Whose tradition is that, mine or yours?" You ask. He blinks away a raindrop as it slides onto his eyelashes. 

"Yours." He affirms. You nod thoughtfully, and Paul is plagued with the visions of you below him, looking up with those wide, big eyes - just across the garden to the right. He blinks away the thought. 

"I thought you were Bene Gesserit when you came to Caladan," He says, "And I knew what kind of power you could hold over me if you were." 

You look at him, a fire in your gaze. "And you're not afraid of that same power your mother holds over you?" You retort. He sighs; both of you, quick to irritate. 

"She loves me. She'll try hard to protect me, and if she knows that we dream of death, she will not let us go to Sabberon." He says. "You don't love me. If you were Bene Gesserit, and knew what path the sisterhood intended for me - for us - you wouldn't hesitate to encourage it." He admits, and feels no particular heartbreak at the concept; you barely know each other. You look similarly unaffected. 

"I don't know the path." You sigh, "But I suppose I'll be Bene Gesserit again soon." You mutter, voice imbued with regret. 

The air is chilly, and a short breeze moves a curl into his eye. He brushes it away. "I know you don't think we're doing the right thing by training with her." Paul says, unable to ignore his thoughts on the subject. "But what would you have us do instead?" 

You sigh, shaking your head. "I don't know." He watches you, how your hair - unstyled, natural- glints under the night, moving with the breeze. "But it feels like we're walking straight into a trap."

Paul's brows knit together in frustration, his jaw clenched tightly. "We don't have a choice."

"I understand that," you reply, your own frustration bubbling to the surface. "You don't have to keep saying it. But how do we know what to do if we don't even know the Reverend Mother's plans? At what point do we start causing harm just because it's what we think we're supposed to do?"

 He shakes his head, head aching. He wishes to sleep; To wake up to find it was all a hallucination - to roll over in bed, and find none of this happened at all. "All we can do is play our hand and hope to come out on top." He says stiffly. 

You are bitter, crossing your arms. "That's easy for you to say," your voice is eerily calm. "It's all means to your end. You shouldn't know anything of the Sisterhood, but you've been taught. You've had everything handed to you on a silver platter."

The accusation hangs heavy in the air between you, a silent condemnation of Paul's privileged upbringing and the stark contrast it poses to your own struggles; he knows how hard you've had it - but at the end of the day, you are still a Lady, a highborn member of society, marrying into one of the most powerful houses.

He does not know why his mother has tried to train him in ways that only sacred Sisters should know; For a moment, he wonders if you know more about his own destiny and that overhanging prophecy than you let on. One of two candidates, a voice whispers in his mind; You have more than one birthright, boy. 

The air is significantly more tense, irritated - angry. He doesn't care to continue this discussion anymore.

"I don't know why you pretend to know anything about me," his own voice is sullen, sharp. It's foolish for him to waste his time trying to convince you that what he says is right - if, in the end, you might betray him anyways, going in circles is getting him nowhere. 

"Me neither." Your voice is cold. 

There is nothing left to say; in three days, his House will leave for the Space Trade Referendum, and you will be representing your House for the final arraignment.

Paul wants to sleep - to sleep, and not dream. 

He leaves you in the gardens, surrounded in the dark. 

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·..·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·..·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·..·:

That night, when Paul dreams of you once again, below the great Pine that burns and cracks above his head, there is a hiss that blows in the wind. When you keen against his hands, your chest trembling and hands on his shoulders, there is a whisper, something that you cannot hear. 

A sense of duty surrounds him as images of the planet he's never visited flash before him. A knife, glinting - a hand, pale, curling around the hilt - your own sharp gasp of pain.

Some whisper in the dredges of his vision, you are too deep in the throes of passion to stir at the sound; Paul hears it clearly, though it is not meant for him. 

It is a deeply eerie voice - playful, sinister.

"I will never let them keep what is mine, my pet." 

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·..·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·..·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·..·:

follow @tremendumnotifs for updates.

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[simply-ivanka]

Kamala Harris: Mystery Commander in Chief

How would the Vice President keep America safe in a dangerous world? The voters deserve some answers.

The Editorial Board --- Wall Street Journal

Kamala Harris is all but telling Americans they’ll have to elect her to find out what she really believes, as the Vice President ducks interviews and the media give her a free ride. This is bad enough on domestic issues, but on foreign policy it could be perilous. The world is more dangerous than it’s been in decades, and Americans deserve to know how the woman aiming to be Commander in Chief Harris would confront these threats.

Ms. Harris this week tweeted a photo of her sitting next to President Biden in the White House situation room discussing the Middle East. The point is to suggest she’s a co-pilot on Biden foreign policy.

This isn’t the credential the Harris campaign thinks it is, and the voters should hear directly from her what she thinks about the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, the failure to deter Russia in Ukraine, the Iranian nuclear program, China’s island grabs in the South China Sea, and more. The matter is all the more important because Ms. Harris conspicuously declined to choose a running mate who might lend foreign policy experience to the ticket.

Ms. Harris has given a few hints about her own views on the Middle East, and those aren’t encouraging. Her team spent much of Thursday walking back whether she told an anti-Israel group she’d be willing to ponder an arms embargo against Israel. She skipped Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress when our main Middle East ally is under siege. Did she pass over Josh Shapiro as her running mate because he would have enraged the anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party?

To the extent she has revealed a larger instinct on national security, it’s been wrong. She told the Council on Foreign Relations in 2019 that she’d rejoin the Iran nuclear deal as long as “Iran also returned to verifiable compliance.” But Iran didn’t comply and is now on the brink of a nuclear breakout.

Her 2018 Senate vote to “end U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen,” as Ms. Harris put it in a tweet, also hasn’t aged well. The Houthis the Saudis were fighting are now targeting commercial ships in the Red Sea almost daily and putting U.S. naval assets at risk. Does she think this status quo can persist—and what would she do differently?

Ms. Harris will surely argue that she and Mr. Biden reinvigorated the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after Vladimir Putin’s invasion in Ukraine. But absent a change in U.S. political will, the war in Ukraine isn’t on track to end on terms favorable to American interests. Her past enthusiasm for banning fracking—which her campaign is trying to walk back—also suggests she isn’t serious about checking Mr. Putin’s main source of war financing.

Ms. Harris would no doubt also tout the diplomatic progress the Biden Administration has made in Asia with Japan, the Philippines and others. Yet she whiffed on one of the single most important diplomatic questions in Asia: She opposed Barack Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that would have excluded China and boosted America as the region’s premiere trading partner.

Most important, will Ms. Harris build up the hard military assets required to deter China’s Xi Jinping and a consolidating axis of U.S. adversaries? “I unequivocally agree with the goal of reducing the defense budget,” Ms. Harris said as a Senator in 2020 after voting against a Bernie Sanders proposal to slash the Pentagon by 10%. That vote needed no explanation, but Ms. Harris wanted to make sure the left knew she was sympathetic. Does she still want to slash the defense budget?

Donald Trump often shoots from the hip on these subjects, and his favorable comments about dictators are witless. But his first-term record, especially on Iran and the Middle East, is far stronger than the Biden-Harris performance.

Americans shouldn’t have to read tea leaves to figure out if Ms. Harris would keep the country safe in a treacherous world.

[cosplayproblemsposts]

How they react to you rejecting them

Amun

He has been worshipped and seen as a god for many years, I believe he'll take your rejection a stab to his undead heart.

Kebi will reassure him you'll come around but your words stung him and his once confident extorter crumbles. "No, I don't want to spend the rest of my life as a vampire. I had accepted I won't live long and I don't need you screwing it all up because of some freakish Vampire claim".

Amun couldn't fathom the harsh truth, Benjamin tries to make you reconsider but of course he is met with rejection. "No, Benjamin I don't want to be with him" Benjamin attempts were futile.

Amun doesn't take the rejection instead he does everything he can to woo you. Gifts, letters containing words of affirmation and he goes as far as to pay for your college tuition.

He'll visit the Cullens frequently if it means he gets to see you, he won't stop trying to convince you. Addressing the mate bond and how you are meant for him and him only.

Stefan

He too will not be able to fathom your words "I... I understand" he'll give you space. Believing you'll come around after all you are destined to be together.

He doesn't take your rejection well; no, he doesn't lash out. He'll consult Vladimir "What am I doing wrong brother? Why doesn't He/She/They like me? am I unappealing?".

Vladimir will grow annoyed and angry at you; can't you see what you are doing to Stefan? Vladimir will only grow angrier when you ignore Stefan attempts.

Stefan now believes he is approaching this the wrong way, maybe you like taking things slow. He'll court you like a true gentleman, flowers, chocolates and even going as far as to write to you.

If that doesn't work, he'll show you he is a provider, you'll scream as you find a dead animal carcass waiting for you in your room. No, you are not even a vampire yet and this will only scare you. long story short hang in there.

Vladimir

He is not equally as composed compared to his coven mate Stefan, he'll be flabbergasted and will be asking you all sorts of questions. "What!...you can't do that!?" Stefan will have no choice but to intervene before one of Cullens takes the matter into their hands.

Stefan will have to suffer through Vladimir complaining and whining. "How dare He/She/They reject me!? Doesn't He/She/They know anything about the mate bond!? Who doesn't know anything about the mate bond!?".

This could go on for days, Vladimir nagging and constantly talking about how your rejection hurt him. He has been without a mate for centuries, believing he will never be able to get a second chance at love.

Vladimir will overwhelm you with gifts, small notes of pleas and to reconsider. Stefan will be the one pushing his coven mate to make an effort instead of angrily stomping about and glaring holes into the back of the Cullens' heads.

In the end Vladimir will come back empty handed, cue the venom tears and the sad questions. "Why doesn't He/She/They like me Stef? Am I that bad? What should I do?".

There is one thing the Romanians have in common and it is the animal carcass approach. Proving they, both support your vegetarian diet once you undergo the transformation.

[twibunny]

Vladimir and the other one (can't remember his name)

Anyways neither of their mates died instead they rose to power in their own respective sister-covens

.

[volturiprincess]

Next Twilight Character w/ Mate Mood Board

Eventually I will have one done for everyone in my list that I posted. I was just curious to see which one people would pick or are more excited to see next.

[frogchiro]

Hello! I really love your writing and I had an idea from your last post with both guard dog Ghost and Soap.

I imagine after they chase off both Graves and Makarov they comfort and make sure kitty reader is alright. Taking her back to where they were sleeping so they can cuddle up with her and hold her close, making sure she doesn't wander off and get into another chase with mean Graves and Makarov. Keeping her squeezed between both Ghost and Soap.

(I've never done this before so I don't know if I did this right but I hope your having a good day/night <3)

Oh yeah they *make sure* their Kitty stays put and doesn't go anywhere anytime soon♡

They herd her back up to the hayloft where their nest is and first things first they need to lick and clean you bc you stink of a coyote and fox! Unacceptable! They managed to rub on you and scent you which only makes Johnny and Simon growl, they hate foreign scents on you, they barely tolerate John's and some feral hybrids?? Big no no

They lick and scent all over you; your face, neck, collarbone down to your breasts where Johnny sneaks a little suckle or two to your nipple which makes you mewl before moving down to your belly and finally to your most precious place where Simon, the dominant male, decides they need to conduct a pussy inspection to make sure those two didn't defile or breed you with their nasty cocks :((

You can yowl and squirm all you want but the two dogs hold you tight in their clutches, poking and prodding at your poor, swollen and wet pussy. While Makarov and Philip didn't have enough time to actually stuff you, they still managed to get a little hump in, Philip gwtting there first and getting you all nice on all fours as he tried to slip his cock in but was interrupted by Vladimir which resulted in their fight :((

Johnny and Si are simultaneously happy and angry; while you didn't get bred that fucking coyote still managed to almost slip his dick in and knot you and they just cannot risk that! So for the rest of the night and many next ones you slept soundly squished between the big, bulky bodies of your two mates and if you were ever lazily napping in the sun during the day, they hope you didn't hear them chasing and snarling at the two pesky feral hybrids who tried to sneak in once again♡

[simpfordemetri]

SEPARATION ANXIETY ON VAMPIRES

I think some vampires like Felix,Alec,Jane,Vladimir,Amun,Tanya and Caius tends to have very bad separation anxiety

Alec and Jane are traumatised for life,they will always remember how their own parents let them burn alive,they had each other but now they each one found a mate,they need to see them all times and they would even refuse going on mission.

I know people always write about how they would choose their masters rather than their mates and let me tell you i do not think like that

Felix might seem like the Volturi fighter and a bad boy but he is so attached to his mate physycally and emotionally

Amun might seem like a dumb old grumpy grandpa but he has such big emotional dependence to his mate

Vladimir lost his first mate and he is not willing to loose another ,his vulnerable side showing 24/7

Tanya is the leader of the coven but she saw how all her coven found their mates and she stayed alone,she also lost her mom and her sister

Caius just wants to be loved,someone who can show his true face full of love just for that person

[verystrxxwberry]

hi there! ok, my request might be a bit strange, but: what would the guys in moonlight lovers be like as modern young people? i mean., knowing the seven adults who are in the age range from 30 to 2380 y/o, their personalities, styles and how they relate to each other, let's change the canon. 8 university students (including MC), living together in a dorm, studying different majors.

what do they study? how do they dress? what kind of young people are they? what are their tastes? i'm intrigued by the youth version of Vladimir, Neil or Aaron in the 21st century. i ask it as headcanons, but if you are more comfortable with an OS, whatever💗!

thanks in advance

MOONLIGHT LOVERS university AU

♪¸¸.•*¨*•. ♪¸¸.•*¨*•. ♪¸¸.•*¨*•. ♪¸¸.•*¨*•.

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭: sfw, only routes (except Neil, I have a curse against him it seems…), routes living the 21st century, they’re humans, pics of the outfits, long!! ↝ 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: It’s not a strange request! I genuinely found it pretty cool and I have lots of ideas for this. I hope it is entertaining and you like it! I did it in a general way, both in University and also their normal lives in the 21st century, in headcanons.

♪¸¸.•*¨*•. ♪¸¸.•*¨*•. ♪¸¸.•*¨*•. ♪¸¸.•*¨*•.

AARON

Before going to university, he was just a regular student who passed stuff but without being brilliant at it. That’s fine for him, he didn’t want to get straight A’s but he didn’t want to fail either. He just wanted to do what he enjoyed.

His grades on math, history and sport are effortlessly good, getting all A’s. But that’s why he likes practical stuff instead of those subjects that have a lot of theory to memorize. History is an exception for him though. He likes to learn about past times.

It's canon already that his handwriting is a mess, but not only that, his notes ARE a mess.

When he reached university, he decided to study something that allowed him to be practical and to memorize less theory. This man loves both human and animal biology. He loves animals. That’s why he was raised with a few dogs who he took care of with all the love of his life. So he decided to study in a Veterinary school to specialize to be a veterinary surgeon.

He doesn’t like seeing animals in pain, and more than once during the practices he had to leave the room because it was too much for him to see an animal in pain. 

Aaron is good with animals and has all the patience when it comes to stand the smelly and noisy environments of farm animals (because veterinary surgeons are usually the ones in charge of diagnosing and treating domestic pets, farm animals, zoo animals and horses). He also knows how to keep animals calm and expects to be attacked more than once as they are also nervous living beings.

He had to move from the camp to a dorm in the city to be near that vet school and do his 5 or 6 years of major, which he achieved to do for his passion in healing and taking care of animals.

In that dorm he got really close to Raphael and Vladimir since they two were calm and had a lot of interesting stuff to talk about with Aaron. He also got along with Ivan since he sometimes needed help with math or other subjects (also some life advice). With Beliath things got slightly different and he got a mate to go drink with after work since they worked in the same restaurant for a few months.

To pay the rent and also his own needs he got to work in several places. 

His job career started by working in a restaurant, in which he worked for a few years. The first years living in the dorm he worked with Beliath in another restaurant, as mentioned before, but he decided to change and work in an Ikea after it.

He’s a big fan of music and some mythological literature. And when he gets to see some shows on Netflix thanks to Ethan, he becomes obsessed with Blood of Zeus (same). They all pay for Netflix together, the ones who use it at least.

About music… I hc he likes imagine dragons, hozier, adele, abba and glass animals. He got some influence from Ivan and Ethan and started liking Avenged Sevenfold, even if it’s not the kind of music he’d actually listen to.

He is the taxi driver for Ivan, Raphael and Vladimir. 

He doesn’t use his phone too much, and ALWAYS has the volume on. He doesn’t know how to use social media, only twitter and only because Ivan showed him. He is a dry texter and probably uses the thumbs up emoji 98% of the time.

He has a simple style and doesn't put much effort on it, as long as it is comfortable for him. He doesn't really like colorful stuff to wear.

BELIATH

This guy had to repeat a whole year of high school because he didn't put his effort at all. He wanted to have fun instead, making friends and going to parties, so he skipped classes to go somewhere with Ethan and other people, or maybe he was simply going through a terrible hangover. 

He is the kind of guy who is effortlessly smart but has no interest since he finds studying boring. He is too good at biology and physics though. When he repeated the year, he started getting very good grades at those two subjects because he decided to put in a little bit of effort just because Ethan motivated him. He basically got told “if you don't get a job of something you do enjoy, you will be enslaved in a restaurant and will suffer.”

Every challenge for him is accepted. So he will search for a restaurant or bar to work in to challenge himself. He would meet Aaron there and after it go to get some beers after their night switch.

He worked in a nightclub but got kicked after flirting with his customers. Sigh…

His grades were mainly Bs but he got As on biology thanks to his big knowledge<3.

He got stressed when he had to pick a career and didn’t really have it sure, he just decided to study something related to biology and did deep research to see what was more amusing for him. So he decided to pick simply biology, and then end up working as a pharmacologist, which seemed interesting and not so hard for him.

Still, he did not finish the major because he got tired of the same routine. Then he dropped but begged Vladimir to stay in the dorm now that he found a little family to live with.

He knew Ethan from the same work and thanks to Aaron they both could get into the dorm due to the need of being somewhere close to the universities where they did study.

Beliath loves to travel a lot and whenever he has a holiday, he goes on spontaneous trips to other cities or countries. He definitely has been to Spain, Poland, Finland, Italy, Norway and Germany. He aims to travel further and visit other continents as well. He would love to go to Canada and Australia.

He is a big Lady Gaga fan and has gone to concerts of her. His insta stories were a big evidence of how he yelled and vibed to it. Next day he had no voice.

He also likes Britney Spears, Bad Omens, Melanie Martinez, Michael Bublé, Childish Gambino, Ricky Martin…

He is always calling for taxis, and definitely late to everywhere he has to go.

He is pretty obsessed with his phone to send tiktoks and shit to Ethan. His messages are good to understand, he uses the typical :) and :P, uses lol and lmao a lot and definitely answers to stuff with memes… cringe memes… Ivan teases him for that…

Has a very well organized spotify for each mood of his day. And he has NO shame in putting up nasty ahh songs every time he showers and sing them out loud.

He posts suggestive pics on twitter… yet his instagram is very friendly. He still receives flirty messages from people because he is always handsome in his pics. He posts the worst pics he has of Ethan too though.

He probably has an onlyfans.

Big eurovision fan.

Casual yet formal and attractive.

VLADIMIR

He had to put effort on classes no matter what since his family was pretty strict with that topic. Still, he developed the habit of using his free time to study something so he didn’t forget the topics and he was able to understand the lesson better. He even went to a language academy thanks to his parents, where he discovered a big passion for learning languages. He started with French and then learnt Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, German, Italian… and he definitely knows a little bit of Russian and Arabic.

The subjects he enjoyed the most were English literature, history and language. He got all As except in sport, since he has had a weak physical condition since young.

Deep inside he never wanted to focus all his time on studying, yet he obeyed his parents. He didn’t plan on going to college and he was forced to get into a computer science major since it is the most advantageous university major. But he did NOT like it at all.

Even if in this AU he has grown in the technology century, he still does not like it at all, even if he owns a phone. He owns it, but never uses it. 

Even though he comes from a rich family, he decided to produce his money from a very young age with the idea of being independent sooner. He worked as a dog walker, as a teacher for younger kids that needed help with school, as someone to take care of the gardens of his neighbours… And thanks to this last job, he found out how much peace he got from being surrounded by flowers.

As soon as he turned 18, he moved into a dorm and searched for more roommates so the rent was cheaper and he didn’t have to explode himself that much. That’s how he met the other guys.

He didn’t finish the computer science major, he didn’t want it at all. He changed then into a horticultural science degree which he enjoyed the most and really had him in a good mood instead of studying something he didn’t like at all. During the years of the degree he achieved to open a flower shop in the city! 

It was notorious the amount of effort and excitement he put into his small business, which helped him for the economy. His flower shop is really well organized by types of flowers and their colors, then he has a section for medicinal and legal herbs, and a section of tools for gardening. He also made a catalogue for those spiritual people who believe in the meanings of each flower (and he explained it truly well in there). 

After the major, he went to a small course of herbs and then, once he was bored of not doing anything, he decided to do a major in a literature major, which he also truly enjoyed.

He has gone on small trips with Beliath… and not because he was going to enjoy the company of Beliath, but because he wanted to see the world.

Aaron, Raphael and him traveled to Egypt and enjoyed it a lot. Vladimir received a lot of calls from Ivan because Ethan and Beliath were making chaos in the dorm… He made video calls with Ivan to explain what they did on the day, just like a father-son relationship.

He has a blog where he writes his own self, expressing himself through writing. With this I mean that he posts poems and short narrative stories. He is planning to write a book :). But he also does book and movie reviews! Because he only likes seeing movies whenever Ethan, Aaron or Ivan are going to (as long as it isn’t terror). 

He has his own garden in the dorm and had to argue Ethan a lot to avoid getting weed plants in his PRECIOUS garden.

He likes classical music and jazz, not rock or noisy stuff. He likes Mitski, Amy Winehouse, some songs of beabadoobee and not much from the actual era. He prefers classical playlists that can be easily found on youtube…

Whenever he texts someone, it seems more like a letter from the 15th century than a casual message.

He keeps his style as formal as he can, no matter the context. He doesn't even care if his dressing code seems old for the century, he likes it and that's what matters.

RAPHAEL

As he grew up, he wasn’t a blind kid, so he had the chance to see the world around him and find out his passion for art. He is a person that truly does admire the effort of artists, writers and musicians. So even if everything in school went well for him, literature and art subjects always went good for him due to the extra passion he placed on it.

He begged his parents to get classic books to read and some of them mainly focused on art, finding a true devotion for art history.

He was a big fan of Raffaello Sanzio, getting some of his paintings in his bedroom such as The School of Athens. He also got some paintings to decorate the walls of his bedroom such as The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, Mystic Nativity by Botticelli…

He really wanted to study art history and be able to teach people about historical paintings. Not only that but he went to an academy to learn deeply about the methods to paint on canvas, since he also liked that kind of stuff. He sold his own paintings for not much money, but simply to get something. He even did some commissions to people around him that needed it.

Raphael has an old twitter account where he posted his art and offered commissions to others.

since in this AU vampires aren’t seen, I’m gonna change a little bit of his canon history. In this AU, the way Raphael got blind was due to a car accident on a trip with his friends, where Margarita was human and she unluckily died. 

He went to university late since he decided to first recover from the emotional shock and the depression he got sinked in. After it he decided to learn braille, and luckily he didn’t find it so hard, so he needed only weeks to be able to read, even if it was at a slow pace. He devoured braille books thanks to this, so it was a plus that he got to finish some books he had on his list since long ago.

He wanted to do something with his life that wasn’t simply reading in braille and being careful whenever he went outside to not get hurt. 

If he couldn’t see and analyze more paintings, thing that saddened him, he could rely on the musician side of him. He decided to focus on his musician side and improve his skills, now that his hearing would be the most developed sense in his body after touch.

He decided to get into a major in music theory and composition, where he was able to express himself thanks to music.

Thanks to Ivan he was able to find out about audiobooks, so whenever he decided to lie down and rest, he heard an audiobook of any book Vladimir told him about. He also listens to podcasts and some of them about philosophy, which he finds truly interesting.

He likes soft music such as jazz, something that is calm and it isn’t too loud for him.

Every time he goes out with Aaron and Vladimir, he takes a grip in any of their arms to not get lost. Then they three go to drink a coffee and talk about some stuff related to their lives.

He is the therapist friend… If you want a school motivation speech, he knows how to give it properly. He is good at teaching other people, listening to them and advice them.

To pay the rent he luckily got to work in a library, which he loved as it was almost always quiet. But years later he got to do his own compositions and thanks to Ivan, post them on some platforms to get money from his effort!

Vladimir would hire him in his shop :3

We know he is a sweetheart, so he gets along with everyone in the dorm, adapting to their likes. Whenever Ethan watches crime documentaries, he listens to it with all the attention.

He owns a phone but doesn’t use it, only to answer the calls of others.

When Vladimir or Beliath go to buy some clothes, he always asks them to pick something nice yet comfortable for him to wear in home. He definitely has the cutest style of all of them.

ETHAN

He is a regular student with regular grades who barely puts effort on it but never fails. He is the clown classmate, and many people can’t stand him, but he is smart. During class he puts attention only on those stuff he finds interesting, which is biology and maths. He dislikes history but is really good at it.

He skipped some classes to go smoke something with his group of friends or to go gossip somewhere with Beliath.

He put effort the last year before university just because he started finding interest in being a doctor thanks to some shows he watched on Netflix. So he was pretty clear on choosing a major in medicine.

And he achieved it! He surprisingly put a lot of effort on it because he wanted to take good advantage of those years. But that doesn’t stop him from going to a party and having an exam the next day…

Still, he was passionate about the idea of being a doctor, so he tried pulling for jobs in hospitals mainly. The first years there was no response, but later he managed to get into a hospital as a clinical radiologist. He often took pics of some broken bones of his patients and sent them to Ivan or Beliath… (ivan is traumatized)

He goes to parties with a black eyeliner which makes him fucking gothic n handsome because he loves it. He isn’t an edgy like Ivan, he is just a low level of punk. He loves to wear rings and a unique dressing code.

He has a spotify playlist with anime openings which he vibes to. And it is thanks to Ivan actually.

Ethan worked as a delivery man for certain companies before being a clinical radiologist, as he knows how to drive a motorcycle. 

Definitely dyed his hair several times.

Loves to take the guys to Finland so they can go skiing whenever they are bored. He loves adrenaline and those adventures which makes him feel it constantly.

He absolutely adores crime documentaries and terror movies. 

He has a few tattoos around his body, and some of them were even made when he went to some parties. He won’t have many tattoos that actually mean something to him.

During his free time he plays some of the games he has on steam, and you can also tell that the soundtrack of any game or movie he likes, will be on his playlist. He has a small library on steam and the games which have more hours are definitely risk of rain 2, terraria and devil may cry. Even though he plays lethal company with Ivan and other friends. He simply pays for those games he knows he will like.

Loves slipknot, glass animals, the neighbourhood, onerepublic… and basically anything that has him humming the melody afterwards.

His twitter is filled with memes and definitely things that will get him into a cancellation thread… he has to learn to shut the fuck up more often.

His instagram is made in revenge to Beliath, where he posts the worst pics of him. He has no fear in posting funny videos with Ivan, Aaron, Beliath and other friends. Even though he got scolded by Vladimir when he heard that Ethan posted a video of Vladimir talking to his roses in the garden and writing on a corner “he’s becoming psychotic”.

Probably opens a youtube channel to post vlogs, paranormal videos in which he goes to explore random places, tasting weird food…

IVAN

He is the kind of student who sometimes puts his effort but unluckily doesn’t get the grade he expected. He isn’t the best student, but he isn’t the worst. He hates the idea of needing the help of others to understand some subjects, but at the end he feels like he doesn’t know anything after studying almost all the noon. 

He was mostly late to class and that was because of Loic and him going to parties as teens (Constance joined most of times, yeah…), so he had hangover most of the times. Luckily that only was his teen years until he met Ethan near his campus and got a new friend group. Even if Ethan dragged him to parties, it was a way more healthy than with Loic and Constance.

His best grades were mainly on language and technology, maths and other shit were much lower than he ever expected. Still, he decided to do something he was more excited about: studying a major in computer science.

Even though the first months he found it difficult to be organized and did see it as a must, he learnt to like what he was doing and he became really passionate about the practical part.

It was currently something interesting for him as he was in constant touch with computers, a thing that he truly enjoyed.

He worked in a McDonald’s to pay the rent, and thanks to his knowledge through the years on the major, he was able to work in one of those stores where you can fix your computer and stuff. He enjoys it and he knows how to set up a computer piece by piece.

Edgy and freaky tastes in music huh. He goes from my chemical romance, slipknot, deftones, mindless self indulgence to The living tombstone, some k-pop groups (I need to make someone like aespa in here, but he also is an og EXO fan), and game soundtracks…

His steam acc is definitely filled with games, and some of them haven’t been touched yet. He spent all of his credit card in most parts of the games… (He is proud even if Vladimir and Aaron aren’t)

He is also an emo with his dressing code. 2010 emo vibes but modern at the same time… Vladimir has to scold him every now and then so he can wear something decent and regular to go to public spaces, but he doesn't actually have formal clothes actually… only the job ones..

He is a big jojo fan. He made Ethan and forced Aaron to watch jjba. He is always talking about jojo references and everyone around him see him as a weirdo -he is-

Bro is obsessed with brawl stars.

His twitter is filled with literally shitpost, just as his instagram. 

He and Ethan decided to share the youtube channel so both of them had the chance to do their craziness ft. Beliath around there. 

✰; remember to reblog and like to support my content, I hope you enjoyed it!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Rick McKee, Augusta Chronicle

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 11, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 12, 2024

The day after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Afghanistan’s Taliban offered its congratulations to the American people for “not handing leadership of their great country to a woman.” 

Taliban leaders expressed optimism that Trump’s election would enable a new chapter in the history of U.S-Taliban relations. They noted that it was Trump who suggested a new international order when he inked the February 29, 2020, Doha Agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban. That deal cut out the Afghan government and committed the U.S. to leave Afghanistan by May 2021, closing five military bases and ending economic sanctions on the Taliban. This paved the way for the U.S. evacuation of the country in August 2021 and the return of the Taliban to power. 

The Taliban prohibits girls’ education past the sixth grade and recently banned the sound of women’s voices outside their homes.

In Russia, Russian thinker Alexander Dugin explained the dramatic global impact of Trump’s win. “We have won,” Dugin said. “The world will be never ever like before. Globalists have lost their final combat.” Dugin has made his reputation on his calls for an “anti-American revolution” and a new Russian empire built on “the rejection of [alliances of democratic nations surrounding the Atlantic], strategic control of the United States, and the rejection of the supremacy of economic, liberal market values,” as well as reestablishing traditional family structures with strict gender roles. 

Maxim Trudolyubov of the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan foreign affairs think tank, suggested Friday that Putin’s long-term goal of weakening the U.S. has made him more interested in dividing Americans than in any one candidate. 

Indeed, rather than backing Trump wholeheartedly, Russian president Vladimir Putin has been undercutting him. He did not comment on Trump’s election until Thursday, when he said that the power of liberal democracies over world affairs is “irrevocably disappearing.” Although Ellen Nakashima, John Hudson, and Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post reported that Trump and Putin had spoken on Thursday, Putin denied such a call as “pure fiction.”

Exacerbating America’s internal divisions and demonstrating dominance over both the U.S. and Trump might explain why after Trump became president-elect, laughing Russian media figures showed viewers nude pictures of Trump’s third wife, Melania, taken during her modeling career.

In an interview, Putin’s presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev said today: "To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them." Meanwhile, U.S. and Ukrainian officials report that Russia has massed 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean soldiers, to reclaim territory in the Kursk region of Russia taken this year by Ukrainian forces. 

Trump claims to have talked to about seventy world leaders since his reelection but has declined to go through the usual channels of the State Department. This illustrates his determination to reorganize the federal government around himself rather than its normal operations but leaves him—and the United States—vulnerable to misstatements and misunderstandings.

The domestic effects of Trump’s victory also reveal confusion, both within the Republican Party and within national politics. Voters elected Trump and his running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, but it’s hard to miss that billionaire Elon Musk, who backed Trump’s 2024 campaign financially, seems to be “Trump’s shadow vice-president,” as Nick Robins-Early of The Guardian put it. Sources told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Musk has been a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago since the election, sitting in on phone calls with foreign leaders and weighing in on staffing decisions. Yesterday at Mar-a-Lago, Musk met with the chief executive officer of the right-wing media channel Newsmax.

Exactly who is in control of the party is unclear, and in the short term that question is playing out over the Senate’s choice of a successor to minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). In the new Congress, this Republican leader will become Senate majority leader, thereby gaining the power to control the Senate calendar and decide which bills get taken up and which do not. 

Trump controls the majority of Republicans in the House, but he did not control Senate Republicans when McConnell led them. Now he wants to put Florida senator Rick Scott into the leadership role, but Republicans aligned with McConnell and the pre-2016 party want John Thune (R-SD) or John Cornyn (R-TX). There are major struggles taking place over the choice. Today Musk posted on social media his support for Scott. Other MAGA leaders fell in line, with media figure Benny Johnson—recently revealed to be on Russia’s payroll—urging his followers to target senators backing Thune or Cornyn.

Rachael Bade and Eugene Daniels of Politico Playbook suggested that this pressure would backfire, especially since many senators dislike Scott for his unsuccessful leadership of the National Republican Senatorial Committee that works to elect Republicans to the Senate. 

Trump has also tried to sideline senators by demanding they abandon one of their key constitutional roles: that of advice and consent to a president’s appointment of top administration figures. Although Republicans will command a majority in the Senate, Trump is evidently concerned he cannot get some of his appointees through, so has demanded that Republicans agree to let him make recess appointments without going through the usual process of constitutionally mandated advice and consent.

Trump has also demanded that Republicans stop Democrats from making any judicial appointments in the next months, although Republicans continued to approve his nominees after voters elected President Joe Biden in 2020. Indeed, Judge Aileen Cannon, who let Trump off the hook for his retention of classified documents, was approved after Trump had lost the election.

All this jockeying comes amid the fact that while Trump is claiming a mandate from his election, in fact the vote was anything but a landslide. While votes are still being counted, Trump seems to have won by fewer than two percentage points in a cycle where incumbents across the globe lost. This appears to be the smallest popular vote margin for a winning candidate since Richard Nixon won in 1968.

While voters elected Trump, they also backed Democratic policies. In seven states, voters enshrined abortion rights in their constitutions. Two Republican-dominated states raised their minimum wage to $15 an hour; three enshrined mandated paid leave. In exit polls last week, sixty-five percent of voters said they want abortion to remain legal, and fifty-six percent said they want undocumented immigrants to have a chance to apply for legal status.

The gap between what Trump has promised MAGA supporters and what voters want is creating confusion in national politics. How can Trump deliver the national abortion ban MAGAs want when sixty-five percent of voters want abortion rights? How can he deport all undocumented immigrants, including those who have been here for decades and integrated into their communities, while his own voters say they want undocumented immigrants to have a path to citizenship? 

Trump’s people have repeatedly expressed their opinion that Trump was stopped from putting the full MAGA agenda into place because he did not move quickly enough in his first term. They have vowed they will not make that mistake again. But the fast imposition of their extremist policies runs the risk of alienating the more moderate voters who just put them in power.

In September, as the Taliban enforced new rules on women in Afghanistan, they also began to target Afghan men. New laws mandated that men stop wearing western jeans, stop cutting their hair and beards in western ways, and stop looking at women other than their wives or female relatives. Religious morality officers are knocking on the doors of those who haven’t recently attended mosque to remind them they can be tried and sentenced for repeated nonattendance, and government employees are afraid they’ll be fired if they don’t grow their beards. According to Rick Noack of the Washington Post, such restrictions surprised men, who were accustomed to enjoying power in their society. Some have been wondering if they should have spoken up to defend the freedoms of their wives and daughters.

One man who had supported the Taliban said he now feels bullied. “We all are practicing Muslims and know what is mandatory or not. But it’s unacceptable to use force on us,” he said. Speaking on the condition of anonymity because he feared drawing the attention of the regime, another man from Kabul said: “If men had raised their voices, we might also be in a different situation now.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON