#afflicted with the curse of has to write the thing before it exists

[sergeantsporks]

Your "Hunter and Lilith interacting/Lilith being nice to Hunter eventually/Lilith realizing that maybe Hunter's life was Fucked Up" fics give me Life. I didn't know I needed that until I read your Hunter gets poisoned fic and justvsjjssh

Rewired my brain fr

(Also your Gilded au, at this point I'm halfway more excited for more gilded than more Original Toh)

I think the Lilith and Hunter dynamic could be SO interesting, especially now that she's come to terms with "wow, stuff was messed up there" and has Steve to steer her right, like UUUUUUGHHHHH you guys were in a horrible workplace designed to make you hate each other, please, please, PLEASE become aware of that, you're both huge nerds who would probably LOVE to infodump back and forth to each other about history and wild magic, PLEASE.

I am Afflicted with So Much Gilded Knowledge that I Cannot Share With You

[gallusrostromegalus]

Do mermaids exist in tpof?

There's exactly one "Classic" Mermaid. A pregnant woman on the west coast of Ireland was afflicted by a curse where she'd give birth to a Lingcod instead of a human baby, but since she was carrying twins, the curse was split between them. One sister has a human head, chest and abdomen, and from her pelvic girdle on she has the powerful and beautiful tail of a Blue Lingcod. She's the current record holder for long-distance swimming, starred in several movies and holds multiple modelling contracts- but she's always been notably jealous of her sister, who has the head and chest of a Lingcod but the pelvis and legs of a human and (the source of her sister's ire) a devoted husband.

There's a few things that European sailors could have mistaken for human women while they were on long voyages, dying of syphilis and scurvy too- Dugong and Dolphins both exist in great numbers in TPOFATGIF, along with some very large Mimic Octopodes. But the most likely, or at least, most startling candidate is a creature only described in 1996- Ziphiius andersoni, or "Anderson's Beaked Whale", after the first ...semi-credible witness.

Ziphidae is a family of deep-diving whales whales known almost entirely by beached corpses, and Z. andersoni holds the peculiar title of the most and least seen member of the family. No body has ever been found to examine, but the animal is (apparently) the subject of many amateur sightings.

Like most Beaked Whales, Z. andersoni is about 13 feet long, and shaped like an extremely hydrodynamic sweet potato- a sharply tapered head, tubular body with small pectoral fins and a minimal dorsal fin, and an similarly sharply tapered tail with small fins, and a mouth with only two teeth- a pair of overdeveloped lower canine teeth that form a pair of tusks. Unlike most marine life, Z. andersoni has reverse Cryptic camouflage- where most marine animals are darkly colored on the dorsal side and pale beneath to hide from predators in the open water, Z. andersoni has a large, bright white pattern on it's back that starts at the head and runs the length of it's spine and across the tail fin, and includes both pectoral and pelvic saddle patches. between the whale's darkened and unusually anterior blowholes and the gloom of the twilight waters they inhabit, Z. andersoni's peculiar markings bear a STARTLING resemblance to a human woman with a piscene tail.

The species is named after the famed Fairy Tale Author, Hans Christen Anderson, who in 1835 saw what he described as a "Mermaid" swimming near the surface of the North Sea coast near Hanstholm, Denmark, when out in a rowboat with a cousin on a summer holiday. The Mermaid was "Ghostly pale, with large, dark eyes that stared up at us as she passed. She circled the boat thrice, seemingly regarding us with sadness, before she vanished into a cloud of sea-foam and we could not find her again." This encounter inspired him to write The Little Mermaid the following year. Despite his and his cousin's insistence that the event took place exactly as described, it was largely written off by the general public, and Anderson was discouraged from sharing it by his publisher.

In 1996, a family had a similar experience while Kayaking, save that this time the encounter took place in the sunny clear waters off Baja, Nihofornia, and the family had a video camera. A juvenile Z. andersoni approached them, circled the family a few times and even hung out under them for almost 12 minutes. This video proof sparked international interest, with dozens of other pictures, videos and oral accounts coming forward about encounters with these strangely friendly yet elusive creatures.

Most Recently, an exceptional individual, thought to be an old bull from it's size (i and scarring was seen following underwater welders as they repaired an underwater naval installation, picking off the curious squid that came to investigate the lights. The Naval Engineers have nicknamed the animal "The Duke", short for "Ducolax" on account of one of the engineers realizing there was 16-foot long, multi-ton carnivore floating just over his shoulder and (understandably) shitting himself.

[proheromidoriyashouto]

Jaskier who is losing his eye sight because someone cursed him to stop eyeing their wife and ope guess he can’t see anybody now, and wants a sight hound but he kept putting it off because acknowledging it would make it real but he’s reached the point of no return and for all that he is a rising star at Oxenfurt University he is from a rich family, naive, and easy to trick so a mage sells him a straight up barghest they bred like noble ladies breed lapdogs except this is a chaos beast. a post-conjunction freak. a vaguely dog shaped crime against nature.

and it LOVES Jaskier. just LOVES all the smooches and scritches from this man who does not smell of fear or intent to harm. LOVES roasted mutton bone dinner treats for being a “good girl”. LOVES snuggling with a guy who can’t tell its not a hairless dog but actually A Problem For City Living. and all it has to do is keep the hand that feeds it happy, by doing tasks, and safe, mostly from himself.

it is smarter than any actual dog due to mage intervention in its domestication so it understands this trade off is pretty sweet. cats have got this “adopt a two-leg idiot thing” right.

and the University keeps trying to hire Witchers to deal with it, but they have to meet Jaskier, and Jaskier LOVES his big cuddly dog and LOVES the idea of Big Strong Monster Hunters coming to talk. and the Witchers are just like “That’s a monster, young man.“ and Jaskier says, “She’s my puppy and I have enough money to make you go away.”

and the Witchers initially think this is a threat, but Jaskier just writes them a bank note for REDONKULOUS amounts of coin to fuck off and let me live please and since it hasn’t hurt anyone or even growled at the Witchers themselves and with Witchers being so dirt fucking poor most of them just fuck right off and live it up a little bit, only noting in their journals to keep an ear out for this kid in the future with no idea how that’s going to come to pass

some Witchers even try the old come-back-in-a-different-get-up-trick to try and get more money off this clearly rich sucker, but Jaskier remembers the sound of their voices and, as fascinated by Witchers as he is, brings up things they’ve told him and is just generally a good host and kind person to them so they feel bad trying to scam the blind kid and leave before having an existential crisis about it

until the Wolves hear about it. and they have too much moral backbone to just let it go. this college idiot may think that throwing around his family money is enough to get his way but they are going to disabuse him of this notion before people start dying or the beast begins spreading its’ affliction to actual dogs.

they send Geralt. which is a mistake. because he agrees to allow Jaskier to come with him to find and identify the mage that sold him the barghest and just leads to twenty years of shenaniganry because they. can. not. find. this snakeoil sales man.

except Jaskier thinks he’s just been traveling with his two very best friends in the whole wide world, writing songs depicting Witchers as heroes and the best of men, being guided by a post-Conjunction monster the entire time.

it isn’t until someone points out the obvious solution of trying to cure Jaskier’s curse instead, rendering the need for a sight hound moot to begin with, that things begin to fall to pieces.

Jaskier begins to feel like he’s losing Geralt. wonders if Geralt ever saw him as the friend that Jaskier felt they had become or if he’s just been a contract the Witcher has humored the entire time. which is not helped by the events of the King Niedamir’s Mountain.

and then someone commits the cardinal sin of pointing out that Jaskier’s “Seeing Eye Dog“ has no eyes itself. it’s been “seeing” for him and his non-functioning eyes out of its non-existent eyes for their entire acquaintance.

Jaskier remains in complete denial about it even after being granted his sight again. “Her eyes are just closed. You wouldn’t get it, she’s pedigree, Geralt. Of course she doesn’t resemble any mutt off the street. She has papers.”

[dalmascan-requiem]

Shadow's Elegy: Letter

(Vierapril Day 14 - Waste)

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Writing a letter should feel like a simple task, but everything is more complicated when you're the Warrior of Light.

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Read on AO3 or keep reading after the jump

content warnings: mention of depression

Check out the main Vierapril 2023 post here

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Due to the Vierapril prompts, we're jumping around the timeline a bit! Shadow's Elegy is the fic series that takes place during Heavensward, and 'Letter' takes place a short time after Kris and the others get to Ishgard, so the sting and fear from the banquet are still fresh on his mind.

It's interesting writing about what is a very dark time for him as opposed to all the earlier fics I've written so far! Day 14's prompt is 'Waste', it's probably a bit on the nose with all the wasted paper, lol.

"Tch, this won't do…"

Kris balls up the parchment and tosses it unceremoniously on the floor, adding to the pile of discarded paper strewn about the room. The Viera glares down at the new, blank sheet that lies on the desk, as if trying to materialize the words he wants to say--needs to say--out of thin air. 

When the parchment continued to remain blank, Kris lets out a frustrated sigh as he gets up from the desk to look out the window. Cold, dark, snowy… another typical Ishgardian night. As if an instinct, the Rava shivers--living much of his life in a desert has made him ill-suited for the colder climate.

Just another complication… It had been well over a year since he came to Eorzea, since he came to Ul'dah at the bidding of a strange crystal in his dreams. A strange crystal that seemed determined to have him do her bidding, or get him killed with this "power" of the Echo she so kindly bestowed upon him. More like a curse, really.

Since then, everything has been a whirlwind of events. Battles, titles, and a plethora of dangers have been thrust upon him, pushing him to his limits and beyond. The strange affliction was, in fact, a rare enough power that made him able to take down primals and achieve other impossible-seeming feats. Feats worthy of a hero. Of a Warrior of Light.

I never asked for any of this. Kris knew all too well what 'heroism' got you--usually, a knife in your back or a drop of poison in your wine. The Viera has already made his fair share of enemies in his short tenure as the Champion of Eorzea, and it's caused him and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn no small amount of grief.

It was one such enemy that forced the few of them remaining to seek refuge in Ishgard. The cold city-state had an even colder population, but thanks to the hospitality of House Fortemps (or more specifically, the persistence of Lord Hauchehant in finding them asylum), they were able to escape those that wanted to put an end to the Scions.

Of course, such asylum came at its own, unspoken cost. One cannot be a Warrior of Light and simply just exist--there was always a battle to be fought, someone to be saved, an enemy to be vanquished… Ishgard was simply another place where the mantle of 'hero' still wore heavy.

Why did Hydaelyn even choose me? Reyna's the one that's always been stronger, knew the right thing to do. He should be the hero… At the thought of his partner, Kris turned away from the window to look at the discarded parchment strewn about the room. I can't even write a godsdamned letter, let alone save people from whatever ails them.

His frustration no better than it was before, Kris sits back down at the desk, grabbing the quill from the ink well. I never meant to be away for so long, I need to tell him what's happened and that I'm okay…

Is he okay, though? There is little and less he'd call okay about his current situation. Kris tries to shake away the stray thought, but when he returns his attention to the parchment, his hand freezes as he's about to write.

Memories accost him. Memories of returning to the Waking Sands to find all of his comrades dead. Memories of fighting primal after primal, even if his body wanted nothing more than to break down from exhaustion. Memories of desperately fleeing Ul'dah, running from a crime they did not commit.

…It would be selfish of me. To send this. Kris sighs, putting the quill back into the inkwell. I can't drag him into all this, just because I miss him. Even after this… misunderstanding is cleared up, some world-shattering event or another will require the vaunted Warrior of Light's attention. And who would be the first person an enemy would target if they didn't think they could beat him?

He'd be safer far away from me. Kris chuckles at the absurdity of fighting in a war half a world away being safer than being in the Warrior of Light's general vicinity, but considering everything that has happened recently, that appears to be the truth.

The light-haired Rava gets up from the desk once more, this time slowly walking around the room, picking up the discarded parchment as he muttered to himself. "We promised… that if something happened to one of us, we'd move on." Kris throws the parchment into the fireplace, watching the flames for a few seconds before continuing. "This certainly is something… Even if I'm not dead, it's better if Reyna thought I was."

Best for him to move on to something less complicated. Satisfied with the parchment being burnt enough that no one could glean any information from it, Kris makes his way to the bed. Anyone sane enough would want to stay far, far away, I'm sure.

[fluffyfranny]

Cookies of Salem AU Pt.4: The Coven

As you ready yourself to retire for your first night, an envelope is slid underneath your door.

This was your third of the evening; the first two detailing the threats that were the Mafia and the select few Neutral parties that wished for the existence of this Town to either become their domain or to be wiped off the map.

Nevertheless, you sigh to yourself as you pick up the envelope, break the seal and slide the paper out.

Inside, in bold, scratchy writing, reads as follows:

"Good evening, fellow citizens! This is your Tracker, Crunchy Chip Cookie, here with an urgent message to pass along!

Upon myself and the rest of our troops settling in for the night, I decided to trek out into the wilderness with my trusted Cream Wolves to scout out the area and make sure it is safe!

My friends... it is anything but safe.

My troops picked up on a rather... all too familiar scent that reeks of trouble. A stench of treachery, an odor of betrayal, if you will!

We have another party to worry about... The Coven.

Under the thickest of cover to make sure nobody was spotted, I managed to gather enough intel on everybody I could see through the brambles that guard their supposed resting grounds.

And, folks, we've dealt with similar evils as these individuals, so stay sharp! We will persevere in the name of Salem!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Cookie Coven

Coven Leader: Dark Enchantress Cookie

-Having already established her reign and a reputation for installing fear, this mistress of all evil has decided to take her duties elsewhere, and deciding to start small in this little town called Salem.

Well, in the woods around the little town called Salem.

For, when the crimson moon rises, she and her troublemaking troupe leave their houses amongst everyone else's to conspire what sorts of trickery they can stir up. And for the headmistress, she has a preference for putting unfortunate-enough Cookies under her spell and reading everything through their eyes: their role, those they side with, who they wish were dead, etc.

And if she sees herself there, she will not take their own existence too lightly...

Hex Master: Pomegranate Cookie

-A sorceress at heart, Pomegranate Cookie loves nothing more than using her talents for good, in her Master's eyes, of course, by planting curses on every non-Coven associated Cookie, even those that may seek a pitiful alliance with the likes of Dark Enchantress Cookie and her lackeys.

And once all have been afflicted, like the Arsonist, all it takes is one wave of her mirror and a snap of her fingers to wipe them all out.

Just as her Master wishes...

Medusa: Longan Dragon Cookie

-After a deep slumber, nothing would satiate the Ivory Dragon more than to return the world to rock and stone, just how it was in the time of the Dragons.

When Cookies were nothing to them...

His decorative eyes accompany him as he journeys from the bushes to the ring of homes that make up Salem, before rooting himself at a random house and beckoning everybody, even the homeowner, if they happen to be there, to approach him before the eyes glimmer and flash, encasing the Cookies into stone statues, former remnants of themselves...

Still, to this day, Cookies mean nothing to him...

Necromancer: Licorice Cookie

-Much like Blackberry Cookie, except wishing to impress his idol, Dark Enchantress, Licorice prefers to utilize dead Townies in a more grotesque way...

By calling them 'zombies!'

Sure, Blackberry does similar things with her abilities and uses only corpses of Townies to do good deeds after they've passed on, but Licorice prefers to use those of sinister, evil-roled Cookies to sow more seeds of chaos across Salem!

Plus, the name 'zombie' is plenty scary! Right? They're totally not just crumbled remnants of their former friends, back with a thirst for jam...

Right?

Poisoner: Poison Mushroom Cookie

-Their duty is in their name; sweet, unsuspecting Poison Mushroom Cookie just wants to be your friend... how could you say no?

They also want to show you their friends, the poison spores!

And a day after you meet them, you'll keel over while turning blue in the face! Doesn't that sound just peachy?

"Heeey... you look fuuun! Wanna shroomie?"

Potion Master: Matcha Cookie

-Having brewed tea her entire life, Matcha Cookie wanted to spice things up to feel more like a witch. So, she turned to potions!

Whether to heal, cause physical harm to or reveal the exact role of her target with her brews is up to her, depending on if she wishes to lure unsuspecting Cookies into siding with her so their defenses are low when the Coven goes to rid of them permanently...

Or to go through with the dirty work and save time by blowing their cover or eliminating them on the spot. In any case, she has her fun.

"Hehehe! Run, run as fast as you Cookies can! Heehee!"

[lorei-writes]

Curses & Charms

Arthur Conan Doyle x MC Fluff

There are few things more fitting of Arthur than absolute fluff. I might have written one of the scenarios I mentioned in this post a few days ago - regardless, this time I bring you an author who has to listen to a hefty dose of compliments. I hope it’s enjoyable :3 

Content Warnings: none

At times, the hands of the clock would seemingly slow down, the hours extending into days or completely ceasing to exist – and then, once they resumed moving at an ordinary pace, they’d snap to the very point they should have reached, as to confused those lost in time itself. Plenty events could trigger such moments, some being more pleasant than the others. For Arthur, it came whenever he wrote, the words turning his eyes oblivious to the changes in the light, the colder hours of the evening being no less warm than what he experienced before sitting down. It was as if the universe shrunk in its size, its boundaries being barely wide enough to contain his desk, sometimes cutting away at its corners. There was no distraction, no sounds could reach within this ream – it was only him, him and the story he wanted to tell.

At times, the hands of the clock would seemingly slow down, the hours extending into days or completely ceasing to exist – and then, once they resumed moving at an ordinary pace, they’d snap to the very point they should have reached, as to confused those lost in time itself. Plenty events could trigger such moments, some being more pleasant than the others. For Arthur, it came whenever he wrote, the words turning his eyes oblivious to the changes in the light, the colder hours of the evening being no less warm than what he experienced before sitting down. It was as if the universe shrunk in its size, its boundaries being barely wide enough to contain his desk, sometimes cutting away at its corners. There was no distraction, no sounds could reach within this ream – it was only him, him and the story he wanted to tell.

However, a different kind of charm existed as well, one he could not quite believe to be real, despite it repeating itself over and over again. It was his debut, although not the first one, a complete volume resting on top of his desk. Surprise flashed through him, a mild-disbelief clouding his head whenever he thought of print replacing his scribbles, no crossed out words littering the complete pages bound together neatly with thread. His fingers tapped against the hard cover, gliding over the title on their way to the very edge, intent on opening the book. A knock on the door – one and few more following it in a familiar rhythm, a melody he knew all too well completely consuming his attention.

Arthur turned around, pushing his creation into the drawer and closing it shut, his hands resting on top of the desk as he leaned back. “Come in!” he said just loud enough, the hinges seemingly beginning to move the moment they heard his voice. She sprinted inside, the one woman he’d usually want to see, although then… Then he was mildly concerned, a volume he couldn’t quite decipher the name of being clutched to her chest. “I just came back from the book store!” she exclaimed happily, almost bouncing off the ground with each step. Having got close enough, she stood on her very tiptoes and leaned towards him, a bright smile lighting up her face as she whispered skittishly: “And you would never believe what I have heard.” “Oh? Pray-tell?” “That a book, by a certain author I’m rather familiar with, is quite a best-seller, and that they needed to order a couple – plenty more than a couple, actually – more copies of it,” she hummed, her lips brushing against his jaw – and he found himself utterly thankful for that, as she could not see him, the very tips of his ears growing hot.

Perhaps it made for another charm, one he never got used to… Although in that moment it seemed more like a curse, his lover suddenly stepping back, all while grinning playfully. She winked at him, a wave of heat washing over his cheeks. “It’s not all!” she continued. “I’ve talked with a few customers and some went there just to ask whether there were more parts to it. I had a couple interesting conversations…” “Oh, stop, you little fiend,” Arthur forced out of his throat and averted his gaze, anchoring it deep within his bed. “I have no intention of doing so, my love, not in the near future,” she giggled, seemingly enjoying being a torturer. “They all seem to have taken quite a liking to Miss Penesburry, few even lamented over her being only a side character. You should have seen it when two men started arguing how she’d retort to a certain comment by the shop assistant, you’d –” Arthur covered his ears with his hands. She set the volume down and walked towards him, inserting her face in the line of his sight – he closed his eyes, even at the price of missing her smile. She realised: he was bright red. He, the great writer, Arthur Conan Doyle himself, was bright red, all because the one woman he loved went out of her way to listen in to the comments about his work and then complemented him in her own words! Unwilling to let go of such a treat, she tickled his sides. To no avail, he did not budge. She hugged him tightly, mischief still playing in her irises. “Arthur, Arthur, but I haven’t yet got to the best part. You laughed at my reaction to the plot twist and explained the clues to me, remember? And yet, when I was so kind as to offer the same sort of help to few of the customers, they had to hold back from clutching their hea –” “La,la,la, I can’t hear you, nananana,” he tried to drown her words out. “Oh, no, you filthy liar, I know you can!” she giggled, almost attempting to climb his shoulders as to peel his hands away.

They fumbled a little, Arthur attempting to shake her off as her hands latched onto his clothes harder, her laughter making it through his defenses. Of course, she was stubborn – and in her stubbornness, she did not fear to be daring, soon standing atop his feet and pushing onto his chest, seemingly assuming he would not let them fall. Ha! Yet there lied her error, for he had no inhibitions in this regard, the bed being close enough to cushion their crash. She shouldn’t have played the game, not against him – or so he assumed, already imagining having her at his mercy, his fingers roaming freely over her sides… Little did he know, he walked straight into her trap. Deftly, his lover untangled herself from him, her skirt hiking up as she pinned his elbows down with her knees, leaning forward to pull at his wrists. Arthur gave in. “Cruel, darling,” she noted, pouting. “Very cruel. You didn’t even give me the chance to say what I found the best about your novel – and I don’t think I could disclose it to the people in the book store either.” Arthur swallowed thickly. He did not resist, her grip loosening as she let herself get closer, her lips hoovering mere inches above his. “I’m all ears,” he rasped finally. “The author, of course.”

It was quite a curse, to be flustered like so – and yet, in that very moment, he thought he might have found an antidote, the kiss deepening as his heart began to race, blood rushing through his veins at breakneck pace. Perhaps he transferred part of it to her, his affliction manifesting in hot blush spreading down her neck. Whichever it was, he still was a doctor, he had to check… Arthur rebelled, a single movement switching them in their places, her laughter vibrating through his chest. “Yes? And do you know what I love the most about the novel – no, scratch that, the writing itself?” “Pray-tell?” “My muse,” he answered, nuzzling into her neck.

Tag List: @cheese-ception​​​ , @kisara-16​, @nad-zeta​ If you want to be tagged for my works, please, do let me know :D Please, specify fandoms as well.

[lordsisterxotome]

IkemenVampire boys with an S/o who has bouts of selective mutism? (Some days I’m the most talkative person and then the next I don’t say anything) -Blue anon (feel free to ignore this if it makes you uncomfortable!)

Hey Blue anon!! Sorry for the wait!! A bunch of stuff came up and I wanted to put in the research before I started writing this. Hope it’s accurate! The rest of the boys will be released later, but I wanted to get this out for now.💕

Napoleon:

At first, it alarms him. He’s only seen something similar to this in shell shocked soldiers, unable to shake off the nightmares of the battlefield, so it worries him when he sees a similar behavior reflected in the person he loves.

The first time it happens, MC clams up in the middle of a date out in the city, something she heard or saw while he left for a minute rendering her tongue useless.

At first, Napoleon thinks she’s upset with him, that she’s intentionally not speaking to him, but concern adds to his confusion when he catches her nervous gaze, empty of any hostility or anger.

He quickly deems that asking her what’s wrong isn’t going to get an answer, so he does the first thing that comes to mind to try to help her.

Gently taking her hand, he leads MC to a park he knows nearby, finding a bench secluded amongst the flower bushes lining the path. Removing her from whatever situation made her so uncomfortable in the first place ought to help, he hopes.

Softly, tentatively, he draws her into his lap, into the safety of his embrace. Through touch, he tries to reassure her that everything’s okay, that she can be vulnerable around him.

Napoleon knows how strong she is, how capable, so he’d be lying if he said it didn’t scare him a little to see her like this. He doesn’t know what to do to make it better, doesn’t quite understand what happened to cause it in the first place, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to try his hardest to help the person he treasures most.

His hand rubs soothing circles into her back as he presses his lips to her hair and he hopes the contact helps, waiting for her to relax in his arms.

Minutes pass as Napoleon sits there with her in silence, but he’s willing to wait hours until she feels comfortable again. The sound of birds chirping and wind rustling through the trees seems to help a little, the quiet, peaceful sounds of nature coaxing whatever had disconnected in her to right itself, and he can feel her muscles finally loosening.

“Are you okay?” he murmurs, carding his fingers through her hair.

“Yeah,” comes her reply, and he’s both relieved and heartbroken; relieved that she’s speaking again, and heartbroken at how small her voice sounds, how meek.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Snuggling closer, her arms wrap around him as she tucks her head underneath his jaw. “Later. Can we just sit like this for now?”

“Of course,” Napoleon answers, curling around her a little tighter. “Anything for you.”

Mozart

Before he and MC became a couple it confused and annoyed him to no end.

One moment she couldn’t stop talking to him, but when he told her off for bothering him, her jaw would shut, tighter than a steel trap, and he wouldn’t hear another word from her for the rest of the day.

Whenever it happened, Mozart always thought it was because she was childishly avoiding him, his snark having gone a little too far. He didn’t know that each time it was because she physically couldn’t speak, her mutism induced by his sharp tongue.

It bothered him more and more as he fell deeper in love with her. When it occurred, he always became angry with himself for having driven her away, confused that someone as strong and stubborn as her would take his empty complaints so hard.

Still, he didn’t confront her about it, choosing not to pay it too much mind, and he often forgot about it entirely when they bantered back and forth, teasing smiles on both of their faces.

She thawed his frozen heart at an alarming rate, clipping the thorns attached to his words, and it happened less and less as he became more tender with her.

It wasn’t until after they became a couple and he witnessed her turn mute right in front of him one day, that Mozart decided he couldn’t take it anymore, the painful squeezing in his chest too much to bear.

Grabbing her by the shoulders, he presses his forehead to hers, staring deep into her wide eyes as he does.

“What’s wrong with you?” he demands, and immediately bites his lip at the harshness of his words, attempting gentleness as he tries again. “Why do you…? Why does this happen? Where’s that stubbornness that drives me so crazy?” He curses himself internally for fumbling over his words, for letting his mounting anxiety break through his composure. It’s just part of the remarkable power she has over him, to strike such worry and panic into the depths of his soul without a word.

Mozart gets even more frustrated when MC only replies with a blink and a nervous shake of her head, lips remaining closed in an uncomfortable smile.

With a frustrated grunt, he takes her hand and pulls her to the music room, loosening his grip when he realizes how tight he’s clutching her. Sitting her down on the couch, Mozart walks over to his piano and takes a deep breath before looking over at her, his annoyance fading away as he takes in her apologetic expression.

“I’m sorry,” he begins, and her lips part in a surprised ‘o.’ “You deserve someone who won’t make you uncomfortable to the point you won’t even speak to them, but I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. I’m never letting you go, so I want you to know that I’m going to do my best to be the man you deserve.” His smile is tender as he gazes at her, finishing, “I love you and I’m right here whenever you need me.”

And then he plays, music flowing from the keys in gentle rises and falls, until her shoulders relax and her eyelids fall.

She’s wrapped in the sound of his love and devotion long after the last note has faded away into the night, tucked away in her lover’s protective embrace. 

 Leonardo

He knows about her mutism long before she actually tells him about it.

Leonardo’s a clever man and he’s seen, done, and experienced much more than she could ever know, so he’s able to put it together after the first few times it happens.

Even before they became a couple, Leonardo always found his eyes drawn to her, drinking in every part of her existence, so he notices when her voice mysteriously cuts off, lips closing to hide a suddenly still tongue. He notices when her eyes suddenly refuse to meet that of anyone else, desperately looking for an escape route.

It makes him curious at first and a little pissed later when he realizes it only happens in situations where she’s uncomfortable.

Despite his better knowledge of life and it’s inevitable ups and downs, Leonardo never wants her to suffer through any discomfort, especially if it has such a great effect on her.

Her first couple weeks at the mansion, he spends so much time driving her crazy, MC doesn’t have enough time to even think about being uncomfortable, and he’s pleased to see her become more and more comfortable around the mansion. Despite his best efforts though, he can’t protect her from everything, especially her own internal affliction.

He doesn’t know what caused it, and a dangerous part of him stirs in response to whatever did, but when he finds her in the library one day, silent to his calls of her name, he’s powerless but to help her in the only way he can.

She just looks so small, curled up against the arm of one of the brown leather sofas, her expression blank as she flips mindlessly through the pages of a book. MC startles at his entry, opening her mouth, but falters when not a sound comes out, shutting her jaw with a snap.

Scooping her into his arms, Leonardo feels her fingers dig into his coat as he carries her over to one of his favorite napping spots over by the bookshelf. He sinks to the ground, gently placing her between his legs with her back against his chest, and he wishes he could do more, cursing his inability even for all his strength, but all he can do is fill the warm silence with his deep baritone.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, sinking to the floor against a bookshelf with her in tow. “You don’t have to answer. I’m here.”

The look in her eyes is expectant as she peeks up at him, foreseeing questions, but he only smiles, his gaze soft as he ruffles her hair. “Maybe I just wanted to hold you. Have you thought of that?”

There’s an unspoken question in her expression as she blinks at him, but she sighs and relaxes into his grasp, letting him talk about anything and everything that comes to mind. He talks about the weather, about what he did that day, about even the most insignificant things, and all the while they just sit like that, until she’s finally relaxed enough to laugh at something he says, and he feels like he can breathe again.

[catarzna]

𝖈𝖆𝖙𝖆𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖆 𝖓𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖘 𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖉𝖚𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 . . .

( adriana lima. cis woman. she/her. 45 & shinedown. ) that’s CATARINA NEVES, isn’t it? they’re always hanging around the LOTUS pack, so it’s rare to catch them alone. i heard they’re THIRTY-FIVE years old, and they’re currently a SGT AT ARMS at EREBUS MOTORCYCLE CLUB. when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to QUEENS by MOTORCYCLE.

hello, all ! i’m lauryn, 21, my pronouns are she/her, and i currently reside within the cst timezone. i’ve been tumblr rping on and off for about 8 years now, and catarina is a muse that i revised from a similar muse i played a couple years ago. here’s is my first muse of this rp, catarina neves ! her about is listed here, her statistics are listed here, and her plotting page is listed here. if you’d like to claim any of the plots on that page or do some other plotting, shoot me a message ! i prefer discord, but i’m open to messaging on tumblr. my discord is limes#6826. i look forward to writing with everyone !

TW: KNIVES, FAMILIAL DEATH ( BROTHER ), MURDER, DEPRESSION, ALCOHOLISM, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS

aline and antonio neves originated from sao paulo, brazil. antonio was a corporate communications director with a hefty salary, while aline was a freelance artist. propositioned by his company to move to the united states, the family began preparations for their big move to albuquerque, new mexico. two and a half years later, not long after their arrival, catarina was born four minutes after her twin brother, matheus. the family was well-adjusted and happy, offering a stable environment for the twins to thrive in. the twins grew up comfortably, doted on by their parents, and developed an unmatched bond from an early age. matheus and catarina did everything together throughout their childhood, relying on one another for strength and protection. catarina especially exhibited protective behaviors toward her sibling despite the gender roles, though she struggled with some anger problems from an early age. the anger seemed to correlate with the moon cycle, and catarina had her worst nights when the moon was full in the sky. her anchor was her brother; when they were together, the anger would almost disappear into nothing.

throughout their elementary and middle schooling, matheus and catarina were inseparable and highly sociable; the twins had little to no problems getting along with everyone and performing in school. where cat lacked in her math abilities, matheus excelled and offered her assistance; the roles were reversed when it came to english classes. catarina always showed an interest in art, especially renaissance-style paintings. she spent most of her free time painting and researching art styles and occupations. matheus, on the other hand, was a talented soccer player, taking after his father. while they focused on their passions, they shared homework with one another. catarina’s support system for her aspirations was vast and diverse, filled with both family and loyal friends. high school was no different for the twins, though catarina did spend most of her time with her high school sweetheart, james.

upon graduation, the twins and james stayed in albuquerque for college. matheus landed a soccer scholarship, and catarina chose a major in art with plans to pursue a career as an art conservator. catarina got a job as a bartender with the intention of supporting herself despite her parent’s help with tuition. her experience was one of true happiness and stability, making it easy to focus on her studies. by age twenty, james and catarina were engaged to be married and living together with plans to move to brazil in four years time.

in an effort to celebrate their twenty-first birthdays, catarina and matheus made their way to chicago. walking back to their hotel from the bar, the twins were mugged at knifepoint. despite their attempts at fighting back with their pocketknives, catarina sustained multiple stabs and matheus was fatally wounded. in a fit of rage, catarina was able to take down the mugger with her weapon and gathered her strength to call for help; she miraculously survived with four scars to show for it in her abdomen. the death of her twin brother would send catarina into a lasting depression that would destroy her existing relationship with james.

this incident would also be the catalyst to triggering her werewolf gene. despite her wounds, she felt stronger than ever and found that when the full moon came around, she would shift. confiding in her family about this occurrence, they revealed their knowledge of the same thing happening to past generations of their family, though it seemed no living relative was cursed with this affliction. the shock of this discovery and the death of matheus led catarina to isolate herself from her loved ones; her happy-go-lucky spirit was dead and gone, replaced with feelings of hopelessness and sorrow. as a result, catarina called off her engagement, dropped out of college, and moved away to new york.

the next seven years of her life were somewhat of a haze. every full moon, without fail, she would shift. five days a week, she would work as a bartender and manage to steal a couple drinks throughout the night. catarina gave no one the chance to even get close to her; her only friend was a bottle of booze ( until it would inevitably become as empty as she was ). the alcohol numbed her pain, enabling her to avoid her emotions.

at the age of 28, catarina was close to committing suicide. her life had become unbearable, and she could no longer numb her pain. it had caught up to her. before she got the chance, catarina was exposed to the lotus pack, and not long after, the erebus motorcycle club. her hardened demeanor stayed, a permanent part of her now, but she felt like she had finally found a home, a place where she belonged. joining the club as a prospect, with the support of her pack, cat was finally able to process the changes that had occurred in her life all those years ago. it was at this point that catarina met her now-fiance, as well. catarina put all of her efforts into protecting her new family, and being around other werewolves did wonders for her recovery. five years after joining, catarina was appointed the sgt at arms position in the club. she was tasked with keeping the order, ensuring club rules are not violated, and ensuring the exiting of members was handled well. based in queens, catarina now has a new life, one filled with feelings of belonging and contentment.

important information about her personality can be found in her “about” section linked above.

[vinyls-and-valentines]

Anyone wants to hear about, uh...my in-universe National Anthem comic? No? Well, too bad, you're going to hear about it anyways!

Much like in canon, Mike Milligram has no real personality and whatever little backstory that does get mentioned is vague and sometimes even contradicts itself (although that's understandable because it has had at least 5 12-comic runs by the time the Fabulous Killjoys even take The Girl in);

By all means Milligram only exists to give the reader an outsider point of view on the world and the story, as well as an opportunity for the artist to draw a lot of alien guts;

Why he's being chased by aliens never gets explained, as the comic gets discontinued before the big reveal, but they do get to kick the absolute shit out of Dennis and Books on Tape during the last run ever published, so you win some, you lose some;

No trauma-based superpowers. Just really fun sci-fi tech like Max's TV jacket, and Kara's smart (3d) glasses, and this crazy fucking holographic harpoon gun thing this one bounty hunter had that totally fucked Mike up, and special gloves that interact in fun ways with bikes and blasters, and Maria and Sophia's bulletproof stunt gear with rocket boots, etc;

Briefly diverts into being a horror murder mystery for one run. Neither the source material nor the readers ever acknowledge the fact after said run is over;

It is canon that sometimes the killjoys pile up in the Trans Am's backseat and watch movies by draping Max's jacket over one of the front seats and using it as an actual TV. The idea was originally introduced in a fan zine, but then it got confirmed at the end of the 3rd run by Max proposing they have a celebratory movie night. Sadly, whether or not Mike is afflicted with the curse of always losing at rock paper scissors;

Jamie does appear in the comics, but he's older and completely unrelated to Mike and Maria, who are only involved with each other on a "i trust you with my life, but also i don't know shit about who you are as a person" level, which obviously changes in time and they all become proper friends, but there's no other relationship between them beyond that;

Kara and Jeffrey, though, are canonically engaged, but keep having to call off their wedding because of crazy shit happening to the point there is a whole fanzine about their wedding day and the strings Jeffery had to pull with BT International to make it happen. It is confirmed partially canon as the timeframe and a few details are wrong, but one of the creators did say it was their favourite fan-zine and honestly can you get higher confirmation than that?

The Trans Am 100% eats people, because it's what she deserves and everyone who was posting nat anthem theories when the comics first came out had such amazing ideas <3

Unrelated to the plot of comic or even filler issues, but the killjoys running these comics are 2 fairly large crews (5-7 people) bonded by multiple types of relationships such as adopted siblings, friendship and even romance. Needless to say, they are really close and the comic got passed around a lot both writing-wise and art-wise

[mrmercer13]

An Introduction to Marcus Wesley

Hello all. This is another one of my DMC OCs: he's my interpretation of what a werewolf would be like in DMC, and another character derived from a Monster of the Week character (though both the MOTW and DMC versions existed before David did, I've just only gotten around to writing an introduction now).

Identity

Name: Marcus Wesley Title: The Radiant Predator Age: 22

Species: Human-demon hybrid (Werewolf)

Height: 6'0 Weight: 160lbs

Appearance

Marcus is a young man with a strong build. He has black hair which is generally quite messy and brown eyes. He has a scar on his left cheek and prominent sideburns, and he usually lets his stubble grow out. A savage series of scars cross over his chest near his heart: claw marks, a remnant of the werewolf who afflicted him with his curse. He usually dresses in casual clothes that are practical for the outdoors, and he is not comfortable in formal attire. His signature article of clothing is an old brown parka, a gift that his younger sibling gave to him years ago.

In his beast form Marcus takes the form of a humanoid wolf, easily over two metres tall with pitch black fur and gleaming white eyes. Its teeth and claws are translucent and constantly glow with a dim light: this light flares up when he attacks, with it getting brighter the more power he's putting behind a strike.

Personality

Marcus is a reserved man, who is far from adept at social encounters. He desperately wants to connect with others, but his lack of experience mixed with certain aspects of his curse (see the Powers section below) means that he struggles to make them like him. As a result he is often on his own, further weakening his social skills. Nonetheless, he is greatly devoted to protecting people from supernatural threats, and treats those few people who he is able to bond with as if they were family.

He has a complicated relationship with his curse: it has caused him much misfortune since he has been afflicted with it, but its power has saved his life numerous times and has proven to be an invaluable asset in hunting demons. He takes his job as a devil hunter very seriously, knowing how grave the consequences of failure can be in that line of work. As a former human he is very used to being the underdog, so he seldom throws out taunts mid-battle and is generally quite cautious when not in beast form.

Powers

Marcus was attacked by a werewolf years ago, whose demonic energy lingered in the scar it left and manifested as a sort of spiritual parasite (which shall henceforth be known as the Inner Wolf). As a result, Marcus has become a werewolf himself. A majority of werewolves completely lose control and allow the Inner Wolf to take charge of their bodies, but Marcus's immense willpower has enabled him to mostly restrain the inner wolf and retain his own mind.

His human body is much less powerful than those of other hybrids, but he still possesses low-level superhuman strength and resilience, as well as greatly heightened senses. In addition, his connection to the light energy that werewolves channel allows him to move at blinding speeds, even in his human form.

He is also able to let the Inner Wolf out in a limited capacity, shifting him into a more bestial form and enhancing his powers immensely. Werewolves are elementally associated with light, which allows Marcus to charge his teeth and claws with extreme amounts of light energy and release it in devastating attacks.

This amount of power comes at a cost, however. Though his beast form is capable of outputting incredibly destructive power, his mostly-human nature means that his body is incapable of fully withstanding it. As a result, heavy use of his power will scorch Marcus's flesh and leave him wounded: the more power he uses, the worse his injuries will be. In addition, transforming gives over a small amount of control to the Inner Wolf: while Marcus is still mostly in control of his actions, he does become considerably more feral and likely to lash out at things that don't necessarily mean him harm. Even in his human form, the Inner Wolf is constantly alert and watching the people around Marcus, waiting for an opportunity to strike: the people who are being watched by it are subconsciously aware of this, which often makes them feel unsafe and uncomfortable in Marcus's presence.

Marcus can still channel light energy in human form, but it will hurt him more than it would if he was transformed. When in human form he usually fights with unarmed combat, augmented with a heavy revolver. In addition to his combat form he can transform into a large wolf, which he normally uses for travel.

Other Notes

Marcus is entirely unaware of the Inner Wolf: his domination of it is entirely subconscious.

As Marcus's transformations are really just him letting the Inner Wolf out of his body, he does not transform in the same way that other characters do when they use devil trigger: instead the beast form's body forms around him, first muscle and then skin and fur. This body withers and falls away when he reverts to human form.

Marcus lives in Washington state, but travels all over the US in pursuit of demons.

Due to his heightened senses, Marcus is uncomfortable in most vehicles. He usually travels to places on foot, using his wolf form to move quickly where necessary.

As someone who was a normal human for most of his life, Marcus has very little knowledge of many supernatural elements in the world: he is unfamiliar with the divinity statues that many hybrids use to upgrade their skills, as well as the magical and alchemical items bought from them.

Werewolf claws and bites are infectious due to the immense amount of demonic energy stored in them: anyone attacked by a werewolf is exposed to so much demonic energy that survivors are all but guaranteed to be transformed into something demonic.

Marcus has a younger sibling named Ardyn, who he hasn't seen since the werewolf attack that cursed him.

Marcus comes from a family of devil hunters: his relationship with them is strained due to his lycanthropy.

Marcus enjoys writing haiku as a hobby, and often writes one whenever he finishes a hunt in order to calm himself down after the stress of a tough fight.

[bestworstcase]

Okay but what is the general consensus on Zhan Tiri eating Ri Ni’n I would like to know

:D

the general consensus is. there is no general consensus ALKSDFJK

in ye olden times, by which i mean ~500 years prior to the consumption and earlier, the dominant belief in the citir region where ri ni’n grew was. ri ni’n in a protector/guardian role and the... entity that would become zhan tiri (known by various names but most commonly gat as’la) as this... slumbering devourer figure kept at bay by ri ni’n the gatekeeper. really early on gat as’la was considered... frightening but not evil. a force of primordial violence and part of the natural creation/destruction cycle that the abralians, who were the dominant culture in the area at the time, believed in. this mythology began to drift more and more towards malevolence as gat as’la began to “wake up” ie take more of an active interest in humankind. 

then! during the last decade or so before the shattered era begins, gat as’la encounters dione, who survives. no one has ever escaped before so gat as’la spends the next nine or ten years chasing her until that enmity sort of evolves into a mutual fascination. in 0 SE they make a bargain, gat as’la renames herself ẓanti’ri, and dione founds a cult in her name (the host of the rotted vulture). HRV’s characterization of ẓanti’ri has a lot in common with late-abralian characterizations of gat as’la—a cruel, violent devourer—but with the key difference of there being no notion of ẓanti’ri being held at bay by ri ni’n. she’s already here. they coexist. 

(early HRV ẓanti’ri is a goddess of war and vengeance, pretty much, with a pinch of apocalypse death cult thrown in for good measure. it is not a nice organization.)

*deep breath* 

to zoom out a little, zhan tiri’s domain is hunger and she is, to a much greater extent than the average sublime entity, sort of malleable in nature. most gods form when a significant amount of magic coagulates around an anchor point, and anchor points come from widespread shared beliefs or doubts or feelings about the cosmos at large. so, like, cathay for example began to form once sentient races started asking questions about what happens to people when they die. zhan tiri, on the other hand, actually predates the cosmos by a wide margin. she’s an abyssal parasite that crawled out of the dark country eons ago, killed jinarche, ate part of her corpse, absorbed and corrupted a big chunk of her power, and became... sort of a cosmic personification of hunger and sort of a cursed reincarnation of jinarche. and that cataclysm created the current cosmos with the separation between the profane and sublime realms etc. 

ANYWAY THE POINT IS, zhan tiri is what she eats. i mean this in the most literal way possible. when she struck that deal with dione, dione’s soul became... hm. tethered to ẓanti’ri’s sphere of power, so while ẓanti’ri didn’t eat it in the literal sense it still became, in a way, part of her. likewise for the other acolytes of the HRV. so an unintended side-effect of ẓanti’ri being worshipped is that it infects her with little bits of humanity. this had already begun to happen a little bit during her pursuit of dione (and was the impetus for her to choose her name) but it accelerates as the cult took off.

around 420 SE, ẓanti’ri has a divine existential crisis and spends a few years wandering and brooding until she ends up in the peatland of what would become saporia and meets sorchā, who is a young poet and philosopher afflicted with her own ennui. they talk a lot, and sorchā starts to crystalize her own philosophical theories and, in particular, the idea of “choimghē” as an ideal combination of the profane and sublime. (ẓanti’ri also adopts the spelling of zhan tiri around this time.) the concept of choimghē fascinates zhan tiri, who goes to ri ni’n to seek advice or help achieving it. 

(she goes to ri ni’n because, as the cosmic bridge, ri ni’n is of both the profane and sublime realms.)

now! zhan tiri and ri ni’n are not and have never been enemies. their relationship is more akin to the relationship between zhan tiri and huma or turul, i.e. they belong to the same, in a manner of speaking, family. there’s no like... biological relationship because sublime entities do not have biological relationships, but the four of them all developed around the same time and their spheres of power all overlap pretty extensively, and they’re all, like, compatible with each other. if turul is your patron it would be reasonable for you to petition zhan tiri for a one-off favor, for example, that kind of thing. 

which is to say zhan tiri does not approach ri ni’n in an antagonistic way or at all with the intention of killing her, but... ri ni’n a) couldn’t help zhan tiri with this even if she wants to and b) doesn’t want to, because zhan tiri has spent the last several centuries being horrible and ri ni’n, who understands things like pain and fear because she exists on the physical plane and has a body, disapproves of that. so she tells zhan tiri that the only way to get what she wants is through more violence, which ri ni’n will not under any circumstances help her with, and that if she does go through with it she’ll bear the consequences forever. and zhan tiri is like #YOLO and eats her. 

so like i said, zhan tiri is what she eats, so... there is a strong theological argument to be made that rather than ‘killing’ ri ni’n, zhan tiri engulfed and became her—this is the standard doctrine of the modern HRV. in any case she absorbed all of ri ni’n’s power, supplanted her as the cosmic bridge, and (this part is important) grew a body. (said body is a vast blobby mass of random things but she can smash bits of it into more... uh, coherent shapes when she wants to appear on the planet.) and part of having an actual physical body was that it came with physical sensations and real emotions rather than just vague impressions left by all the human souls she’d collected over the years so this whole process was a nightmare alksdfk and sorchā got to deal with this trillion-year-old god having a sensory overload meltdown for several months. 

the point being, in the aftermath of eating ri ni’n, zhan tiri mellowed out a lot. became... gentler. experiencing pain for herself and the realizing she had done that to people herself was horrifying for her. and this is also when her sphere began to really branch and grow into the eclectic monstrosity that it is today, because while attempting to process all these new things she was experiencing her only real frame of reference was ‘hunger.’

( zhan tiri: love is when you want to eat someone but have them not, like, die because of it right

sorchā: no )

so ANOTHER perspective on the eating ri ni’n situation is that it was kind of a last time pays for all type of thing. zhan tiri slaughtered one of her own siblings for personal gain and, just as ri ni’n warned her, she’s going to carry the consequences of that and every act of violence that came before for eternity and the nature of those consequences also mean she now has the capacity to be better. one last shattering atrocity in exchange for her becoming, not an entity driven by the compulsion to take and take but one capable of choice even though she does still feel that urge. this is the framework the thorn syconium teaches. 

then you also get myths here and there where zhan tiri and ri ni’n are understood as always having been one and the same, and their mythological enmity and the subsequent consumption of ri ni’n is interpreted as an individual entity having an internal conflict with itself, torn between its cruel and destructive urges (represented in the figure of gat as’la) and its compassionate and creative urges (represented in the figure of ri ni’n). in this conceptualization, ri ni’n is actually the triumphant half and zhan tiri’s ‘consumption’ of her is representative of zhan tiri embracing that side of her nature and bringing herself into balance. this view is especially popular with the sect of the HRV that resides in antares. 

then of course there’s another perspective that is more grounded in scholarship on the abralian faith, where ri ni’n was this gatekeeper who kept this dangerous, malevolent force of destruction at bay and guarded the wellspring of life and so on, and from that perspective this is a matter of zhan tiri having triumphed over ri ni’n and the world now being in an apocalyptic epoch that will ultimately end in the utter destruction of everything. 

and there’s the, like, demanitus framework, which is based on his writings and accounts of his battles with not just zhan tiri but also other gods, which takes things a step further to suggest that all gods are hostile to mortal life and the only way to avert the growing apocalypse is to cut off the sublime realm’s access to the profane realm altogether by removing the cosmic bridge. which is precisely what demanitus did when he banished zhan tiri to the dark country.

and then there’s the entities of the sublime realm themselves, who have myriad personal opinions on zhan tiri slaying and devouring another god because she felt like it and tend to pass those views on to their own cults. one of the reasons it is nigh impossible to kill one of zhan tiri’s scions is you would need the help of another god to do it, and zhan tiri is the largest, oldest, and most powerful god around, notorious for being extremely attached to her scions, and also a proven god-killer. nobody wants to get eaten. even cathay, however willing she might be to antagonize zhan tiri in other ways, wouldn’t do it. 

and then there’s huma and turul, who as i said belong to the same ‘family’ as both zhan tiri and ri ni’n, and who i think were kind of like “zhan tiri what the fuck” about it. but it’s not like—despite the sibling analogy i keep using—it isn’t equivalent to the human horror that this situation, of one sibling killing and eating another, would provoke. everything ri ni’n was—her power, her magic, her essence—still exists. she isn’t dead, in the way that gods can die (by becoming unmoored from their domain, which shreds them and causes their magic to disperse into the sublime realm itself). she’s just. part of zhan tiri now. so for huma and turul it’s more of a “why in the world did you do this to yourself” sort of “zhan tiri what the fuck” than it is a “you murdered our sister?!” thing. 

...so yeah. the general consensus on this depends a lot on where and whom you ask gjksdjkf. i think the thorn syconium framework is the one closest to zhan tiri’s feelings on the matter, unless she’s in a mood. 

[baoshan-sanren]

Prologue? I guess?

to that Madam Lan runs away AU I’m probably never gonna write

The fall had come early that year, and more than one harvest was ruined by frost. 

Not many know it yet, but the winter will follow too soon as well, harsh and long, as if intent on exacting punishment. Firewood will run out long before new trees can be cut. Newborn sheep will die in the pens, before their mothers have a chance to surround them with warmth. Rivers, lakes, and wells will freeze, orchards will be destroyed by the heavy snow, thatched roofs will bow and break, and hundreds of people will perish in the icy winter storms.

But all of that has yet to come. The fall might have arrived early, but the streets and markets of Gusu are as crowded as ever, despite the early frost, despite the unforgiving cold.

“Did you hear? Madam Lan has run away!”

“Madam? What Madam?”

“Madam Lan! The wife of Qingheng-Jun!”  

The word spreads quickly on the autumn winds, from one mouth to the next, from one ear to the next, each eager to hear the story, and even more eager to repeat it to a neighbor.

“She ran away? How do you know?”

“The Lan Sect has sent out search parties all across Gusu. Dozens of them! Checking all the farms and wagons and travelers, creating ruckus everywhere they go. They will come here next, I reckon, then you will see I was right.”

It must be said that there is something satisfying about the land’s most esteemed cultivators being brought low. Especially the Gusu Lan, the paragons of righteousness, the unflappable, the ever-dignified. No common man would accuse the Gusu Lan of pride that is not deserved, or arrogance so commonly seen in cultivators from the other sects. And yet, when the mighty fall and make fools of themselves, it is hard not to look down, if for no other reason than to see what their face might look like, once it is smeared with mud.

“A search party? For one woman? Ridiculous.”

“Shame, shame. To make such a disturbance. What does Qingheng-Jun mean by shouting about it from the rooftops? Who announces to the world that his wife has run away?”

“What do you know about it? She took the children too. Both of Qingheng-Jun’s sons, stolen away in the middle of the night.”

More than one woman at the market snorts at these words, but none speak their thoughts out loud. Can a woman really steal her own children? And if she does, what does this say about the father? That Qingheng-Jun must have been a cruel one, if a Madam, a wife of a Sect Leader, would run in the night like a thief. To leave a warm home and full larders, silk clothing and fur-lined cloaks, to abandon all connections and family, with two children in tow, just to wander the world like a beggar-- eh, there must have been some heinous event, some grave injury, some unforgivable sin.  

The men yell back and forth, shocked and indignant, that such a woman can exist in the world. But by the evening meal, it will just be another anecdote for them, quickly forgotten.

In contrast, more than one woman will light an incense that night, and pray that the winter cold hold off a little longer. Running alone, with a child on each hip, is no easy thing even in the height of summer. They think, she should have come to her senses earlier, when the ground was not frozen, and the crop abundant.

Although not many will voice their true thoughts, they will not forget. When the cruel winter comes, cracking their hands, freezing the breath in their chests, they will think of Madam Lan and her two children. They will remember a woman who turned her back on comfort and riches and status, to give her children a better life, and they will feel a little warmer with that thought alone.

--

The first year passes, and Madame Lan is not found.

--

The second year passes, and Madam Lan is not found.

--

The third year Qingheng-Jun falls ill. For many months the cultivation world does not know if the Gusu Lan Sect Leader will live long enough to continue his search. By the spring the following year, his condition improves, but his spirits do not, forever altered by the loss. He enters seclusion as the first magnolias bloom, and his brother, Lan QiRen, takes the duty of the Sect Leader. Neither Madam Lan, nor her two children, are ever spoken of in Cloud Recesses again, as if by silence, the stain can be washed away.

The leaders of all sects, large and small, shake their heads when the incident is mentioned. What a terrible precedent. What a horrifying event. Who could have guessed, that a wife of a Sect Leader could do such a thing? How could Qingheng-Jun have married such a woman?

There must have been something wrong with her, some affliction of mind, or a disturbance of temper. After all, had she not lived in seclusion herself? The Gusu Lan must be better off with such an influence removed. One should not mourn a diseased branch cut off from the inheritance line, but be grateful that it was removed in time. Heavens can only guess what her children would have grown to be, under such guidance.

They mutter, and shake their heads, and avoid the subject when it strikes too close to home. Their wives, and mothers, and daughters, listen in silence.

--

In the fifth year, Madam Lan is not found, but something else of importance occurs. The Sect Leader of LanLing Jin, Jin GuangShan, dies in his sleep.

He dies in his sleep, with three prostitutes in the room, and a pillow over his face. He dies in his sleep beating his heels against the bed, lungs struggling for breath, nails clawing at the sheets. It takes him two incense sticks to stop thrashing around, like a dumb chicken with its neck severed, not knowing when it is time to lie down and die.

Madam Jin is understandably distraught. Her only son is eleven years old, not quite ready for the mantle of the Sect Leader. However, there is nothing to be done, but bear the loss the best that they can. After all, she had been a Sect Leader’s wife for many years; who better to guide the child, to lead him by the hand, to offer advice? It is a heavy burden for a woman still in mourning clothes, but Madam Jin shoulders the responsibility, and bravely carries on as she always had.

And if the three prostitutes find their home in the Koi Tower, who is there to raise opposition? One is a decent seamstress, as it happens, and the other two have a good head for numbers. Poor girls, to have lived through such trauma and misfortune. How can they not be forgiven, and offered another chance at a better life?

Madam Jin’s kindness and benevolence truly knows no bounds.

--

In the sixth year, Madam Lan is not found.

--

In the seventh year, Madam Lan is not found.

--

In the eight year, Madam Lan is not found, but a tragedy in two parts occurs in QiShan Wen.

First, Wen RuoHan and both his sons are assassinated in the night. All three are found in their beds, their tongues severed, their chests split open, their ribs pulled out like wings.

Many mutter under their breath when the details become known, naming old curses, debts unpaid, and offenses against the gods. No ordinary assassin would put on such a display. An entire inheritance line snuffed out in one swift blow, in one night, the slaughter so vicious that the hardest men can only speak of it in whispers? And for the assassin to never be discovered? 

No, no, it is no assassination, this. It is more likely to be punishment. What could have the three done to deserve such a thing? Something odious to be sure; nothing a common man should know, or ask about.  

On the heels of the slaughter comes a plague, mysterious and deadly. Wen RuoHan’s bloodline is the first to feel its effects. His brother, and his brother’s sons, all of his cousins, and all of their sons. Not a single mother, daughter, sister or a wife catches the plague, but the men perish in droves. Each feels perfectly well one day, and is found dead the next morning, their necks swollen and black, their tongues rotten in their heads. Fear sweeps across QiShan, permeating every household. 

First the gristly murders, and now this? What had Wen RuoHan done, for the heavens to punish his people in such a way? Are they all to perish for their Sect Leader’s sins?

The best healers from every sect are summoned, but long before any arrive, the plague disappears as swiftly as it had arrived. No one knows what had caused it, or what had stopped it, but soon, the word spreads of the little girl healer from the north of QiShan, whose brother had fallen ill, and been cured by her hands.

Who is this girl? Surely someone blessed by the gods. Otherwise, how can a child stop a plague on her own? 

It is not long before her name is on everyone’s lips. Thousands of people descend on the Nightless City, hoping for a glimpse of this blessed creature who had brought the land back from the brink of disaster. Songs are composed in her honor, and stories written of her deeds, each one more fanciful than the last. She is a girl child who had tricked death, who had gambled with demons of misfortune and won, who had crossed into underworld to find her brother’s soul, then carried it back into the land of the living. 

Not a year goes by before she is elevated to a goddess among the common folk; the patroness of healers, the mother of the sick and downtrodden, the subject of thousands of prayers.

Who else can sit the Sect Leader’s seat now? How else would dare?

The Wen Sect begs Wen Qing to lead them, and she accepts graciously.

She must be, beyond any doubt, a saint clothed in human flesh.

--

In the ninth year, Madam Lan is not found.

--

In the tenth year, her two sons descend from the Immortal Mountain.

[bigskydreaming]

So I’m writing a short story in my Changelings ‘verse for a galaxy brain commission that was simply “Boyd gets a boyfriend.” Nothing wrong there. But it does mean I feel like I finally gotta nail down the full intricacies of Boyd’s magic, which is unnecessarily....extra, due to the existence of the Curse of the Specialist Snowflake that afflicts me. 

Like, I couldn’t just give him one physical change and one magic like most other Changelings, nooooooo, he’s gotta be the Zodiac Kid and have twelve completely different changes and magics, one for each sign and he changes throughout the year in accordance to the changing of the signs. Why’d I do it that way? Cuz I gotta, obviously. Hahahaha, shut up, me.

I mean, there was a point to it originally, like, his sister Alicia’s Change and magic is that she’s surrounded by ghostly versions of a bunch of her alternate universe selves at any given moment, and she can communicate with them and call upon their skills and is sometimes called Sibyl around town, so like, the common thread/theme of her and Boyd’s magic is like, an infinity of self, but also, by “there was a point to it originally” I also just mean I couldn’t settle on and pick what I wanted Boyd’s magic to be so I was like here’s a fun thing I could do, make up a reason for him to have even MORE options.

.....I feel like, potentially, this self-created problem I’m having could have been avoided somehow, but gosh, fuck if I can see how.

So most of Boyd’s magic is hammered down....

In his Sagittarius phase, he’s physically a centaur whose lower half looks like a night sky studded through with starfields and moving constellations, and his magic from November 23rd to December 21st is uncanny intuition, a kind of off-the-top-of-his-head divination. He just instinctively knows the answers to questions when he’s in his Sagittarius phase, the more specific the question the more accurate his answer. He doesn’t have context, he doesn’t KNOW how he knows the things that he knows, he just knows them. 

You ask him if you’ll meet someone who could very plausibly be the love of your life within the next week, and if he says yes, its absolutely, one hundred percent true and accurate.....but if you ask him then how can I find them, he might say well first thing you gotta do is get out of my face and stop bugging me, and then walk down the street and turn left.....and that too, would be absolutely true and accurately point you in the direction that answers your question but like, that’s all he’s got and you’re missing a few steps at that point. So. Its not an exact science or anything. 

There’s definitely tricks to maximizing the intel you get out of him when he feels like being hit up for intel and doesn’t just string you along to be a total troll. Which he is. Hence why he also spends most of December filling in all of Alicia’s large stockpile of crosswords and sudokus, as he just instinctively and whimsically knows what to fill in even if he doesn’t actually have a clue WHY the Mesozoic Era is the answer to 49 Down. Alicia maintains this is cheating. He maintains he doesn’t care, and answers 64 across with “Johannesburg.” Fuck if he knows why.

In his Capricorn phase, he sublets his apartment in Bordertown and takes a month lease on a place underwater in Sub Francisco.....as for this period he’s more of a classical merman, but also if a classical merman has goat horns. But like, whose to say they don’t? Have you ever met one? Thought so. His magic during this period is horns of plenty.....he touches something to one of his horns, and comes away holding two of that item. So it basically only works on things that can be hand-held, but other than that it could be food, physical items, medicine, etc.

In his Aquarius phase, he’s physically the same as he was when a normal mainstream human....except that his skin has a faintly translucent quality as if that of water, with faint stars spiraling in distant patterns in the depths of his slightly watery form. He’s not invisible or actually translucent, like you can’t see through him or even see his organs or anything....rather, its more like most of the time he just looks like normal, human Boyd, albeit wearing a lot of glitter for some reason....but then he turns and catches the light just so, and for a moment you can see how the light is shining THROUGH him similar to the way it shines through the surface of a body of water. His magic in this phase is based on Ganymede, the cup-bearer of the gods.....water he touches becomes imbued with healing properties. 

Like, he unscrews an ordinary bottle of Evian and reaches in with the tip of his finger, and whammo, you’ve got a healing potion whose magic will last until the last of the water is gone, even if its not used until after his Aquarius phase. Once he’s imbued a source of water with his magic, its a healing potion from then on out, which makes his shop a useful place to find healing magic year-round.....or at least until he runs out. You come into his shop even in late July, if he’s still got some healing potions lying around they’re as good as ever....but if he’s already out of stock, you’re out of luck until next year’s Aquarius phase rolls around, and you gotta go look elsewhere on Mercy Row for a healer in the meanwhile.

In his Pisces phase, he goes back to his Sub Francisco apartment as his physical Change here is that of a centaur-triton....kinda the classic ithyocentaur, but also he’s got kinda webbed-like wings spanning from his back.....its a whole thing. But a good look. His magic in this phase is ‘the perfect pair’....he cups his hands and forms a magical, elemental construct in the shape of a koi fish that’ll swim off in the direction of the perfect complement to something or someone. Like a personal, magical compass guiding him or whomever he makes one for to like, the magnetic north that exists somewhere as the perfect counterpart to an already present south pole. Whatever, this makes no sense and is super confusing, I get that. But it makes perfect sense and is not confusing in my head. Still just working on translating from point Head to point Paper without the concept getting lost in the translation.

In his Aries phase, he’s his ‘normal’ mainstream-appearing base form....but also he’s got golden wings and ram horns. And his magic is that he breathes fire. But its magic fire, and it doesn’t burn things it touches, it turns them to gold. Its a whole Golden Fleece thing mixed with a King Midas thing.

In his Taurus phase.....idk yet. I mean, bull horns seems a pretty obvious go-to motif, but haven’t decided for his magic yet. Mostly because @sunwukxng is a Taurus and he takes things like this juuuuuuuust personal enough that I know if I don’t come up with something good here he’ll decide its a mortal insult towards all Tauri and thus him as well, and he’ll declare a blood feud against me that shall last five hundred years. And he’s already got like, six of those in progress, so....trying to avoid racking up anymore.

In his Gemini phase, he splits into two selves, his physical self and astral self, so he’s basically followed everywhere by both his shadow and a spirit version of himself he can astral project elsewhere. And when his astral self goes through something, kinda like how there’s that idea that when a ghost passes through someone they feel a chill or as if they almost left their body for a second.....his astral self can kinda like....yoink other peoples’ astral selves out of their physical forms temporarily. Yoink is of course the highly technical, scientific term for the phenomenon. Obviously.

In his Cancer phase.....idk yet. Look, its hard to be classy and deep concept-y about crabs, okay? I’m sorry Cancers, but even in the original myths about the constellation the gods were like yeah, this crab constellation was a mistake, we just felt bad about Artemis kicking that one all the way up into the heavens after it pinched Orion, the only himbo she ever almost made a boytoy out of. A lot of other Zodiacs featured animals that had the common perception of being viewed as pushing the sun across the sky, so there’s maybe something there in that direction....idk yet.

In his Leo phase, Boyd mostly appears as his ‘normal’ base mainstream-human looking self....except he’s big in a way that is not exactly Giant Big (and there are a good couple dozen giant-sized Changelings living in Bordertown, so like, he isn’t officially anywhere near that) but he is possessed of a height and size that are nevertheless best described as Ridiculous. Like he’s bigger than the Strange Angel, but not as big as Teddy the Sun-snake. That means nothing to anyone but me. Whatever. Moving on. Anyway, in his Leo phase he also has a fiery red mane kinda....that’s threaded through with silver stars in the Leo constellation shape. His magic in this phase is his ‘roar of command’....basically, he can imbue anything he says with the force of his will, and thus like.....make inanimate objects do what he tells them. He’s like “Open sesame” and a locked door is like you got it, boss.

In his Virgo phase.....I am not entirely sure what he looks like yet. I’m pretty sure its mostly his mainstream-looking ‘base self’ but like.....with an unnatural charisma, but also something a little less generic than that. Needs a specific hook still, beyond just “I’m ridick pretty.” Like, he’s Sinqua Walls. He’s always ridick pretty. Its a thing. But his magic in this phase is like.....an aura of inspiration. He just sorta puts out a vibe that inspires people around him in various ways that are unique to the individual. 

He’s also way shorter than he used to be even before his Change hit, or like, shorter than he is in any of his other phases. Like, we’re talking five and a half feet max. Is there any reason for this whatsoever beyond me being amused at the juxtaposition of him going from his Biggest and Most Ridiculous Phase immediately to his Smallest and Most Ridiculous Phase? No. No there is not. Fear the deep profundity of my creative process, for it is deep and it tis profound.

In his Libra phase....I’m not sure yet what his physical change is, but I do know his skin has a scaled texture, and I know those aren’t the scales normally associated with Libra but there’s a point to it, its just......missing some ingredients still to totally make sense. But he also tends to wear a blindfold a lot of the time during his Libra phase because I know his magic here has to do with viewing things in terms of overlapping possibilities and potentialities, like, he looks at things and sees not just the way they ARE but also a whole bunch of different ways they COULD be, and his magic enables him to kinda tweak things from the way they are more towards one of those other possibilities, in a sense that’s all about ‘balancing’ things.

However, the sensory stimuli of all those potentialities 24/7 is honestly overwhelming and gives him serious migraines, so he mostly tries to rest his eyes behind some kind of blindfold most of the time and just take it off to focus on specific things in order to utilize his magic, and only a little at a time. This is probably the most technically ‘powerful’ of his magics in terms of both versatility and scope, but it takes a toll and he really tries to pace himself during his Libra phase or it just gets to be too much, really fast.

And then lastly, in his Scorpio phase, he’s got a whole scorpion tail and barbed stingers along the outsides of his arms.....but rather than lean into the whole ‘eww Scorpios are duplicitous and manipulative’ and also ‘eww scorpions,’ his magic here calls back to how scorpions are actually protective guardians in a lot of mythologies and folklore, and there’s also plenty of Zodiac lore about the idea of the Scorpio sign being all about uncovering truths at any cost, etc. So his magic here is another ‘liquid/mutable’ type and takes the form of venom from his stingers that’s almost like drops of amber.....and that have various properties aimed at uncovering truths and exposing lies and falsehoods. Like, elixirs made during his Scorpio phase are another highly sought ware at his shop, because depending on the venom concentration he places in each, they have different properties. Like, he’s got vials where just a drop placed in your drink or on your food will reveal if its been drugged or poisoned, or vials of elixirs that basically act as magical truth serum.....and then other vials where like, you splash a little of it on something you suspect to be an illusion or a magical disguise of some kind, and it’ll dispel the false magic and reveal what’s truly there. 

“What happens if like, I splash it in the face of someone I think is wearing an illusion disguise and it turns out they’re not and that’s really just what they look like?” A customer asks.

Boyd shrugs. “Then they’ll just be wet. And probably a little pissed, I imagine. That’ll be $49.95 please.”

“I thought you said it was $29.95!”

“That was before the Asked Stupid Questions tax was applied,” Boyd smiles placidly. “Will that be cash or credit?”

 Okay. So. Typing that all out cleared up some of that for me but not quite as much as I was hoping as Cancer and Taurus apparently still persist in Vexing me.

Hmmmm.

[spam-monster]

Helsaweek 2020 Day 1: Swap

(or tumblr’s apparently being a butt but idgaf i’mma post this and head out)

I’ve done things like power swaps or gender swaps or kingdom swaps before (at least in my head), and I wanted to do something different this time, sooooo...introducing amount-of-siblings swap!

-----

In the beautiful kingdom of Arendelle, there were once thirteen fair princesses; although the kingdom had only ever seen two of them, for around the time the third was being carried the king and queen had suddenly closed the gates to the castle without warning. Stories were told, by the servants and traders who went in and out, of a group of perfectly normal, lovely girls. Yes, they all had their quirks, but none seemed to have any affliction that would justify hiding them away. Rumors were spread as well: questions of parentage, a hidden 14th child born with some terrible curse and locked away, a secret illness that affected only royalty…or perhaps something to do with the eldest child, Elsa, since she was almost never seen outside of her rooms.

But surely she was just engrossed in her studies, preparing herself to become the new queen after her parents had been lost. After all, the older townsfolk had met Elsa when she was younger, and she had been a perfectly normal, sweet young girl. Whatever had caused her parents cut themselves off from the kingdom, it surely had nothing to do with her…

---

“Alright, that’s enough! Dina, don’t play huntress with Frida’s Mr. Deer! Ingrid, stop trying to give Cathrine a makeover! Gunda, Hilda, stop fighting! Jorunn, we can go see the horses later! Klara, Linda…”

“You’re fine.” Brigitta says from behind her. “Now let’s all get ready for bed, we have a big day tomorrow.”

Anna sighs in relief, and mentally thanks Brigitta. At least one of her little sisters is acting responsible tonight.

“We want to make a good first impression on the peasants, after all.”

…Or maybe not.

“Yeah, c’mon. You don’t want them to get mad at us and rebel and drag us all to the guillotine.”

“Cathrine, no one is being guillotined tomorrow.”

“I’d like to see ‘em try!”

“Hilda, please don’t try to fight anyone.”

“…Will they even like us?”

“Linda, of course they will.”

“Why should we even care about Elsa’s coronation?”

Anna turned to Mathilde, the youngest of the thirteen sisters of Arendelle, slumped over on a couch looking bored. “Because she’s your big sister, and she’s going to be queen! We’ve all been waiting for this day for years, we need to support her-”

“Why should I care about someone I barely know?”

Anna flinched. “It’s true, that…Elsa hasn’t been around much lately…or spent much time with us…but I’m sure she’s just been…very busy! With…studying to be queen! And all!”

Mathilde glared. “That’s a lame excuse. She always ignores us.”

“She’s not…a bad person, really…”

“Yeah, I know, you always say you used to be “best friends” or whatever. But you’re the only one of us who’s ever seen her act like a real sister!”

Anna looked around, panicked, as most of the other girls began to nod and whisper in agreement.  

“She never talks to us.”

“She’s never played with us.”

“She rarely even comes down for dinner.”

“She left you alone.”

Anna turned to Klara, confused. “Left me alone?”

Klara looked at her sadly. “After mom and dad died. She left you to raise us all on your own.”

And Anna had no answer for that.

 -------

In the small kingdom known as the Southern Isles, there were once two princes. Although you might not have remembered at first, because the elder brother was so boisterous and dazzling that it was easy to forget the younger one even existed. Prince Torvald was remarkable; an accomplished hunter, a spectacular storyteller, able to charm even the most aloof noble, and sure he could be a bit boorish and egotistical at times, but he was a prince! It was to be expected, right?

“We should be grateful we even have a prince at all, let alone two.” People would whisper. “The poor queen had been trying for decades to bear the king a worthy heir, rest her soul.”

“Not sure the other one was worth her effort, though.” Others would grumble. “What’s his name…Hans? What has that one ever done that Prince Torvald didn’t do better? Well, at least we have a spare…”

---

“Is it not a fine day at sea, little brother? Clear skies, calm waters…and across the ocean, the quaint, little, unimportant country of Arendelle awaits the blessed presence of future King Torvald the Mighty!”

Hans tried very hard to suppress a sigh. *Arendelle is bigger than the Southern Isles* he grumbled under his breath.

“What was that?”

“If…Arendelle is so “unimportant”, as you say…why did you bother to come with me?”

“A King never passes up an opportunity to impress other rulers with his might! That’s a lesson you should remember…or not, I suppose.”

*Since I’ll never be a king, you mean*

“Also, I have heard tell that the future queen is quite beauteous. Perhaps she shall prove worthy of the honor of becoming my bride.”

*That was my plan, damn it!*

Torvald laughs obnoxiously and slaps Hans on the back, almost knocking him off his feet. “Fear not, little brother! I have also heard that she has many younger sisters! Perhaps one of them shall take pity on you!”

Sitron knickers at him in concern. Hans shakes it off. “Yes…perhaps. I – um, should go…check on the horses.”

Torvald laughs again and sends him off with another hearty slap. Hans sighs heavily as he tends to Sitron.

“I’m alright, boy.” He murmurs to the horse. “And who knows? Maybe the queen will be smart enough to see my brother for what he really is, and…who am I kidding? She’ll never look at me.”

-----

 (I imagine how this goes is that:

- Hans still meets and bonds with Anna but Torvald swoops in and grabs her attention away since Elsa is ignoring him (and he’s jealous Hans is getting attention for once)

- Elsa still freaks out and runs, Anna still goes after her by herself and leaves Torvald and Hans in charge, Torvald spends most of the time posturing and giving grandiose speeches while Hans actually works to take care of the people and ends up bonding with the other princesses as well

- at the castle Torvald makes Hans go in first and he actually has a conversation with Elsa and bonds with her

- in the end Torvald talks Hans into killing Elsa (because he doesn’t want to dirty his hands, plus then he can make Hans take the blame if things go bad), but Hans hesitates so Torvald tries to do it himself but Anna stops him

- Torvald gets sent back but Hans decides to stay (and clean up his brother’s mess), the sisters all basically adopt him as their new unofficial big brother alongside Kristoff, the end)

 Might expand on this later (like designing the new siblings, or maybe WRITING SOME ACTUAL HELSA IN INSTEAD OF JUST HINTING AT IT.)

Bios for the au siblings under the cut:

I basically just ran down the list of Norwegian girl names for this one (one from each of the first 13 letters that aren’t “a” or “e”), so let me throw out some basic entomology/character stuff for the swap siblings:

Brigitta: 3rd child, in this ‘verse Idunn was probably pregnant with her when the accident happened. Goes between helping Anna keep the younger ones in line and causing problems herself. Has a bit of a superiority complex regarding her status as a princess - acts like she must be better than everyone outside the gates, but really it’s a coping mechanism to help her deal with the isolation she feels. Name means “resolute, strength”.

Cathrine: Name possibly derives from the goddess of witchcraft Hectate, so she’s the spooky, playfully morbid one. Level-headed when she’s not creeping the younger ones out by joking about death. Dina is her younger twin.

Dina: Name comes from the goddess Diana; Roman equivalent to Artemis, goddess of the moon and hunts. She picked up her love of hunting from the hunters who would come and sell fresh meat to the castle cooks, and spend her time stalking the other girls (and their stuffed animals) and sneak-attacking them with her toy bow and arrows.

Frida: Name means “peace”.  A quiet nature-lover who hates conflict, which is ironic because she’s one of a set of triplets and the other two are the most aggressive of the bunch. Ends up being the target of the more aggressive girls a lot because she doesn’t want to fight back, and she’d rather they pick on her than one of the younger girls.

Gunda and Hilda: Names mean “war” and “battle” respectively, and they live up to them. The typical red-headed identical twin duo that’s always causing trouble (except they’re triplets and the other one doesn’t want to play along). Dina can either be their ally or their rival depending on the situation.

Ingrid: Name means “beautiful”- basically she’s the one obsessed with fancy clothes and trying to do everyone’s makeup.

Jorunn: Name means “horse lover” …yeah. Obsessed with horses, spends way too much time in the stables and comes back kinda smelly, biggest dream is to ride freely through the fields of Arendelle, possibly has headcanons of what breed of horse each of her family members would be (with accompanying fanart).

Klara: Name means “clear, bright”. Intelligent and honest, sometimes to a fault. Although she doesn’t like upsetting people, she won’t shy away from telling hard truths. Linda is her twin.

Linda: The most gentle and sensitive of the girls, easily stressed and has a hard time objecting to others because she doesn’t want to hurt their feelings. Gets along best with Frida, who tries to protect her from the more rambunctious girls. Name means “soft, mild”.

Mathilde: The youngest of the bunch. Acts out a lot because she knows she can get away with it. Her name means “battle strength”, and she lives up to it by being the most strong-willed and stubborn of the bunch.

 As for Hans’ older brother, he had to be really obnoxious to make up for the fact that there’s only one of him instead of twelve. Torvald means “Thor’s ruler”, and I basically based him off Thor at the beginning of his first movie (minus any of the good traits) – he’s brash, egotistical, and takes his little brother for granted. Unlike Thor, he’s also an emotionally abusive dirty coward with no respect for women or anyone he deems “weaker” than himself (which is pretty much everyone except his father).

(Even though Hans stays in Arendelle in this ‘verse, I think he might end up going back and becoming king of the Southern Isles someday just because I can easily see the kingdom deciding its sick of Torvald’s shit and kicking him out. Maybe he and Elsa end up in a long-distance thing, or they unite their kingdoms or something idk how this works.)

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Fallen Angel AU: Ipliers

Here’s the place for all info on the Angel!Ipliers. Credit to @javelon, @narutofoxlover, @alexisthedevilsfox, and a few lovely anons for contributing to this AU!

Dark

A broken fusion of two angels: Damien (Angel of Kindness) and Celine (Angel of Empathy). After falling they merged into Dark, with him taking on the former’s scruffy appearance (like in DAMIEN) and possessing the latter’s arcane powers.

But Celine’s personality has disappeared somewhat, so Dark takes on Damien’s softer and charitable traits.

He’s classified as a Reaper Angel, though since his ties with Heaven are severed, he can only guide souls to either purgatory or Hell.

All he has left of his previous life is Damien’s cane. So he protects it like his life depends on it.

Damien’s wings used to be a soft blue, and Celine’s were a ruby red, but after falling Dark ended up having four black ravens wings, which have faded blue and red colors.

The siblings’ halos were shattered in the fall and ended up reforming as demon horns, shards of it floating above his head.

Wilford

Formerly known as William, he was an Angel of Dreams. He always answered prayers for sweet dreams whenever he could.

Children’s dreams were always his favorite to visit, and he ensures that the young dreamers get a good night’s sleep.

After falling, he went mad with grief and denial, thinking Heaven was just playing a cruel joke on him and the other Ipliers. So he keeps performing good acts on Earth in hopes he’ll be able to come home.

Any talk of dreams or sleep sends him into a deep depression.

His physical transformation is opposite of canon!Wilford’s: his hair and mustache were once bright pink, but they’ve become black overtime. Now there’s only pink tips on his mustache (like in WMLW).

His wings were once brilliant gold and shimmering pink, but now they are simply plain colors, having lost their shine.

Host

Used to be a scribe who recorded humanity’s history for as long as it existed. He adored witnessing events transpire, which gave him inspiration for his own writings, which he stored in his library and shared with other angels.

But after his fall, the impact to his cranium rendered him permanently blind, taking away the one thing that he loved doing: watching the world.

He cried for hours, scaring a few passerbys with his ink-like tears before the other fallen Ipliers found him.

Sometime shortly before the fall, he invented braille for the sightless..and now he finds himself helping blind people on Earth experience the world by the other senses.

His wings were once soft brown, but they’ve become stained with ink and are now yellowish-brown..much like the books that are now wasting away in his library.

Dr. Iplier

Was a doctor for angels whenever they pulled a tendon in their wing or got into a scuffle with demons.

He also visited Earth to heal humans’ mind, body, and spirit.

And when his powers can’t save someone (eg terminal illness), he guides them to Heaven and reassures them their pain is no more.

After his fall he was afflicted with amnesia and can’t remember what he had done for people. But he was horrified to discover that his powers were making humans gravely ill.

His hair used to be white, and his wings were once light blue, though after falling they both became black and greasy. Some of the feathers have boils in them.

Actor

Used to be a cherub, a high-ranking angel with multiple faces. He had two, which were covered by masks depicting comedy and tragedy.

He was a muse to aspiring creators, especially in the drama/arts department. Actors and directors in particular were his favorite humans to visit.

After his fall, he blamed humanity and took revenge by making famous actors narcissistic and giving new actors bad luck so they never achieve their dreams.

Those who believed in him invented the phrase “break a leg” to deter the curses. It works, and Actor is furious since the bad luck becomes deflected to him when he tries stealing the spotlight.

Since only pain can give him inspiration, he ends up attacking himself again and again to keep it going.

His wings were once a brilliant gold (like the awards given to actors), but they became mixed with his own blood. And his two faces became contorted..though when disguised as a human he can maintain a deceivingly handsome appearance.

Bim

Used to be an Angel of Nature, though more specifically one of flora. He’d bless people’s gardens, especially if they grow edible plants/foods, ensuring they receiving a bountiful harvest.

After falling, he ironically turned into a vicious cannibal (of humans rather than angels) with thin needle-like fangs, akin to a venus fly trap. He preyed on vulnerable humans, and even became a boogeyman in some folklore around the world.

But the stories of how he’d eat naughty children who didn’t eat their fruits and vegetables was completely false. He’d never harm a single child in his life.

His hunger was insatiable, but even he knew where to the draw the line.

His wings were once bright and leaf-like, though they are now withered away and give off the horrendous stench of Corpse Lillies.

Eric

Was a normal angel who appeared after he perished in the bus accident. He was reunited with only a few of his brothers and his mother, though he was happy to be with them.

Since his legs were crushed, he was blessed with prosthetic legs made of white ceramic and gold, which flowed in the cracks. He could run and walk as he pleased.

But after falling, the gold liquid bled out and left only empty gray fissures in his prosthetics. And the more he overused them (which was really just using them like he had normal human legs), the more brittle they became.

Derek, the only surviving Derekson, didn’t believe his son was really back, so he refuses to acknowledge him.

His wings were once the typical white and fluffy kind, but they turned dull gray, the tips of them permanently dampened by his endless tears.

Googles & Bing

Google (aka Blake), Oliver, Lance, Evan, and Bing were a group of angels who were around for a long time, tasked with keeping mankind deprived of intelligence and free will.

Oliver, Lance, and Evan had their own separate duties, while Blake was in charge of Bing, a young apprentice. The two had to guard the Forbidden Fruit, though unfortunately Bing was left unattended and allowed it to be eaten.

Both he and Blake fell as punishment. The other brothers did, too, after trying to defend Bing’s actions.

After seeing humanity become the very thing they were suppose to prevent--an advanced society of intelligence and technology--Blake vehemently despised Bing.

Since then they’ve had a rivalry, leading to the creation of the search engines.

All of their previously soft blue, yellow, green, red, and orange wings turned to metal blades. Their blood became oil (with Blake’s being mixed with liquid silver and Bing’s liquid gold), and their bones and organs became wires and metal parts.

[illbefinealonereads]

Blog tour day! Today I’m sharing some information about Lobizona by Romina Garber, as well as an excerpt. Scroll down to learn more.

Some people ARE illegal.

Lobizonas do NOT exist.

Both of these statements are false.

Manuela Azul has been crammed into an existence that feels too small for her. As an undocumented immigrant who's on the run from her father's Argentine crime-family, Manu is confined to a small apartment and a small life in Miami, Florida.

Until Manu's protective bubble is shattered.

Her surrogate grandmother is attacked, lifelong lies are exposed, and her mother is arrested by ICE. Without a home, without answers, and finally without shackles, Manu investigates the only clue she has about her past—a mysterious "Z" emblem—which leads her to a secret world buried within our own. A world connected to her dead father and his criminal past. A world straight out of Argentine folklore, where the seventh consecutive daughter is born a bruja and the seventh consecutive son is a lobizón, a werewolf. A world where her unusual eyes allow her to belong.

As Manu uncovers her own story and traces her real heritage all the way back to a cursed city in Argentina, she learns it's not just her U.S. residency that's illegal. . . .it’s her entire existence.

Early Praise: “With vivid characters that take on a life of their own, beautiful details that peel back the curtain on Romina's Argentinian heritage, and cutting prose that shines a light on the difficulties of being the ‘other’ in America today, Romina Garber crafts a timely tale of identity and adventure that every teenager should read.”–Tomi Adeyemi New York Times bestselling author of Children of Blood and Bone

“Romina Garber has created an enthralling young adult fantasy led by an unforgettable Latinx character Manu. In Manu we find a young girl who not only must contend with the injustice of being undocumented she also discovers a hidden world that may explain her very existence. I fell in love with this world where wolves, witches and magic thrives, all in a rich Latinx setting!” –Lilliam Rivera, author of Dealing in Dreams and The Education of Margot Sanchez

Buy Link:https://read.macmillan.com/lp/lobizona/

Author bio:

ROMINA GARBER (pen name Romina Russell) is a New York Times and international bestselling author. Originally from Argentina, she landed her first writing gig as a teen—a weekly column for the Miami Herald that was later nationally syndicated—and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Her books include Lobizona. When she’s not working on a novel, Romina can be found producing movie trailers, taking photographs, or daydreaming about buying a new drum set. She is a graduate of Harvard College and a Virgo to the core.

Social Links:  Twitter: @RominaRussell // Instagram: @rominagarber

Excerpt:

2

I awaken with a jolt.

It takes me a moment to register that I’ve been out for three days. I can tell by the well-rested feeling in my bones—I don’t sleep this well any other time of the month.

The first thing I’m aware of as I sit up  is an urgent need  to use the bathroom. My muscles are heavy from lack of use, and it takes some concentration to keep my steps light so I won’t wake Ma or Perla. I leave the lights off to avoid meeting my gaze in the mirror, and after tossing out my heavy-duty period pad and replacing it with a tampon, I tiptoe back to Ma’s and my room.

I’m always disoriented after lunaritis, so I feel separate from my waking life as I survey my teetering stacks of journals and used books, Ma’s yoga mat and collection of weights, and the posters on the wall of the planets and constellations I hope to visit one day.

After a moment, my shoulders slump in disappointment.

This month has officially peaked.

I yank the bleach-stained blue sheets off the mattress and slide out the pillows from their cases, balling up the bedding to wash later. My body feels like a crumpled piece of paper that needs to be stretched, so I plant my feet together in the tiny area between the bed and the door, and I raise my hands and arch my back, lengthening my spine disc by disc. The pull on my tendons releases stored tension, and I exhale in relief.

Something tugs at my consciousness, an unresolved riddle that must have timed out when I surfaced . . . but the harder I focus, the quicker I forget. Swinging my head forward, I reach down to touch my toes and stretch my spine the other way—

My ears pop so hard, I gasp.

I stumble back to the mattress, and I cradle my head in my hands as a rush of noise invades my mind. The buzzing of a fly in the window blinds, the gunning of a car engine on the street below, the groaning of our building’s prehistoric eleva- tor. Each sound is so crisp, it’s like a filter was just peeled back from my hearing.

My pulse picks up as I slide my hands away from my temples to trace the outlines of my ears. I think the top parts feel a little . . . pointier.

I ignore the tingling in my eardrums as I cut through the living room to the kitchen, and I fill a stained green bowl with cold water. Ma’s asleep on the turquoise couch because we don’t share our bed this time of the month. She says I thrash around too much in my drugged dreams.

I carefully shut the apartment door behind me as I step out into the building’s hallway, and I crack open our neighbor’s window to slide the bowl through. A black cat leaps over to lap up the drink.

“Hola, Mimitos,” I say, stroking his velvety head. Since we’re both confined to this building, I hear him meowing any time his owner, Fanny, forgets to feed him. I think she’s going senile.

“I’ll take you up with me later, after lunch. And I’ll bring you some turkey,” I add, shutting the window again quickly. I usually let him come with me, but I prefer to spend the morn- ings after lunaritis alone. Even if I’m no longer dreaming, I’m not awake either.

My heart is still beating unusually fast as I clamber up six flights of stairs. But I savor the burn of my sedentary muscles, and when at last I reach the highest point, I swing open the door to the rooftop.

It’s not quite morning yet, and the sky looks like blue- tinged steel. Surrounding me are balconies festooned with colorful clotheslines, broken-down properties with boarded- up windows, fuzzy-leaved palm trees reaching up from the pitted streets . . . and in the distance, the ground and sky blur where the Atlantic swallows the horizon.

El Retiro is a rundown apartment complex with all elderly residents—mostly Cuban, Colombian, Venezuelan, Nicara- guan, and Argentine immigrants. There’s just one slow, loud elevator in the building, and since I’m the youngest person here, I never use it in case someone else needs it.

I came up here hoping for a breath of fresh air, but since it’s summertime, there’s no caress of a breeze to greet me. Just the suffocating embrace of Miami’s humidity.

Smothering me.

I close my eyes and take in deep gulps of musty oxygen, trying to push the dread down to where it can’t touch me. The way Perla taught me to do whenever I get anxious.

My metamorphosis started this year. I first felt something

was different four full moons ago, when I no longer needed to squint to study the ground from up here. I simply opened my eyes to perfect vision.

The following month, my hair thickened so much that I had to buy bigger clips to pin it back. Next menstrual cycle came the growth spurt that left my jeans three inches too short, and last lunaritis I awoke with such a heightened sense of smell that I could sniff out what Ma and Perla had for dinner all three nights I was out.

It’s bad enough to feel the outside world pressing in on me, but now even my insides are spinning out of my control.

As Perla’s breathing exercises relax my thoughts, I begin  to feel the stirrings of my dreamworld calling me back. I slide onto the rooftop’s ledge and lie back along the warm cement, my body as stagnant as the stale air. A dragon-shaped cloud comes apart like cotton, and I let my gaze drift with Miami’s hypnotic sky, trying to call up the dream’s details before they fade . . .

What Ma and Perla don’t know about the Septis is they don’t simply sedate me for sixty hours—they transport me.

Every lunaritis, I visit the same nameless land of magic and mist and monsters. There’s the golden grass that ticks off time by turning silver as the day ages; the black-leafed trees that can cry up storms, their dewdrop tears rolling down their bark to form rivers; the colorful waterfalls that warn onlookers of oncoming danger; the hope-sucking Sombras that dwell in darkness and attach like parasitic shadows . . .

And the Citadel.

It’s a place I instinctively know I’m not allowed to go, yet I’m always trying to get to. Whenever I think I’m going to make it inside, I wake up with a start.

Picturing the black stone wall, I see the thorny ivy that

twines across its surface like a nest of guardian snakes, slith- ering and bunching up wherever it senses a threat.

The sharper the image, the sleepier I feel, like I’m slowly sliding back into my dream, until I reach my hand out tenta- tively. If I could just move faster than the ivy, I could finally grip the opal doorknob before the thorns—

Howling breaks my reverie.

I blink, and the dream disappears as I spring to sitting and scour the battered buildings. For a moment, I’m sure I heard a wolf.

My spine locks at the sight of a far more dangerous threat: A cop car is careening in the distance, its lights flashing and siren wailing. Even though the black-and-white is still too far away to see me, I leap down from the ledge and take cover behind it, the old mantra running through my mind.

Don’t come here, don’t come here, don’t come here.

A familiar claustrophobia claws at my skin, an affliction forged of rage and shame and powerlessness that’s been my companion as long as I’ve been in this country. Ma tells me I should let her worry about this stuff and only concern myself with studying, so when our papers come through, I can take my GED and one day make it to NASA—but it’s impossible not to worry when I’m constantly having to hide.

My muscles don’t uncoil until the siren’s howling fades and the police are gone, but the morning’s spell of stillness has broken. A door slams, and I instinctively turn toward the pink building across the street that’s tattooed with territorial graf- fiti. Where the alternate version of me lives.

I call her Other Manu.

The first thing I ever noticed about her was her Argentine fútbol jersey: #10 Lionel Messi. Then I saw her face and real- ized we look a lot alike. I was reading Borges at the time, and

it ocurred to me that she and I could be the same person in overlapping parallel universes.

But it’s an older man and not Other Manu who lopes down the street. She wouldn’t be up this early on a Sunday anyway. I arch my back again, and thankfully this time, the only pop I hear is in my joints.

The sun’s golden glare is strong enough that I almost wish I had my sunglasses. But this rooftop is sacred to me because it’s the only place where Ma doesn’t make me wear them, since no one else comes up here.

I’m reaching for the stairwell door when I hear it.

Faint footsteps are growing louder, like someone’s racing up. My heart shoots into my throat, and I leap around the corner right as the door swings open.

The person who steps out is too light on their feet to be someone who lives here. No El Retiro resident could make it up the stairs that fast. I flatten myself against the wall.

“Creo que encontré algo, pero por ahora no quiero decir nada.”

Whenever Ma is upset with me, I have a habit of translat- ing her words into English without processing them. I asked Perla about it to see if it’s a common bilingual thing, and she said it’s probably my way of keeping Ma’s anger at a distance; if I can deconstruct her words into language—something de- tached that can be studied and dissected—I can strip them of their charge.

As my anxiety kicks in, my mind goes into automatic trans- lation mode: I think I found something, but I don’t want to say anything yet.

The woman or girl (it’s hard to tell her age) has a deep, throaty voice that’s sultry and soulful, yet her singsongy accent is unquestionably Argentine. Or Uruguayan. They sound similar.

My cheek is pressed to the wall as I make myself as flat as possible, in case she crosses my line of vision.

“Si tengo razón, me harán la capitana más joven en la his- toria de los Cazadores.”

If I’m right, they’ll make me the youngest captain in the history of the . . . Cazadores? That means hunters.

In my eight years living here, I’ve never seen another per- son on this rooftop. Curious, I edge closer, but I don’t dare peek around the corner. I want to see this stranger’s face, but not badly enough to let her see mine.

“¿El encuentro es ahora? Che, Nacho, ¿vos no me podrías cubrir?”

Is the meeting right now? Couldn’t you cover for me, Nacho?

The che and vos sound like Argentinespeak. What if it’s Other Manu?

The exciting possibility brings me a half step closer, and now my nose is inches from rounding the corner. Maybe I can sneak a peek without her noticing.

“Okay,” I hear her say, and her voice sounds like she’s just a few paces away.

I suck in a quick inhale, and before I can overthink it, I pop my head out—

And see the door swinging shut.

I scramble over and tug it open, desperate to spot even a hint of her hair, any clue at all to confirm it was Other Manu— but she’s already gone.

All that remains is a wisp of red smoke that vanishes with the swiftness of a morning cloud.

Excerpted from Lobizona by Romina Garber. Published by Wednesday Books.