#and he was murdered and burnt 3 YEARS AGO ?!?!?!?!

[oceanwithinsblog]

i have no idea whatsoever about who the killer(s) might be this season, but i AM worried to death that LORETTA is in huuuuuge danger !!!! SAVE MY LORETTA !!!! YOU WILL NOT HAVE HER DIE TOO

[ilovetoxicfictionalmen]

ME AND THE DEVIL

Pairing.| Tommy Shelby x fem!reader

Summary.| Years ago, you sold your soul to the Peaky Blinder Devil. However, your loyalties never truly lied with Thomas Shelby. Though, the Devil had his ears in every wall, and seemed he had to readdress your contract.

Warnings.| Dubcon, fighting, dark themes, manipulation, attempted murder.

Word count.| 2.3k

Notes.| A small series I’ve been wanting to write for Tommy. But idk how I feel about it so I'll only continue it if people (you) want it. Between season 2 and 3 Tommy. Also inspired by the song clearly.

The Devil had been haunting you, his claws were buried into your back. His presence had been bedeviling you for years by this point. But he was crawling on his vicious paws in your direction now, he was ready to bring you home. You knew he was inevitable, for he always got what he wanted and there was nothing that he craved more than you. He demanded your soul to return to his depths of Hell which was known as the dirt streets of Small Heath. 

It had been months since you had escaped him. No matter how badly you wanted to sail away, disappear into the mountains of America, he had all ports guarded with his men in peaked caps. It was only a matter of time until he found you again, there was no corner of this world that he wouldn’t walk for you. 

Firstly, he appeared in your dreams, or as you deemed as nightmares. The first time he stood still in the distance, half hidden behind a tree as he watched you as if you were meat on a golden platter. The next, he was striding towards you, you were running as quickly as you could but he was somehow catching up on you faster than humanly possible. His figure enlarged every step he took, you were screaming, crying for help but all bystanders had their backs turned towards you. 

In what would be considered the night terrors of his tormenting dreams, he was dragging you back across the gravel floor, his nails dug into the cold shivering skin of your calves. There was nothing for you to grip onto, everytime you looked back, his glowing blue eyes burnt into your soul. The nightmares would always end with you disappearing into the dark depths of a frightening forest. 

The next sign that he so graciously sent your way was a blank letter, with only his initials signed on the thin paper. You threw it into the fire pit immediately, out of sight, out of mind. As if you had enough ignorance for that. But another letter came the next day, then the day after, and again. After a week of taunting, the letter had a message for you. 

You can run, but you can’t hide.

Be ready for my arrival my love, 

I wish to bring you home. 

T.S.

You’d heavily considered running again, but you knew he would be on your tail. It was clear that you only got as far as you did because he allowed it. He was your shadow, he’d be able to move you like a puppet on strings if he really desired it. Logically, you should be grateful for the freedom he had gracefully given you. But then you remember everything he’d done to you, the suffering you’d gone through because of him, what you’ve lost from his obsession over you. You’d never be free as long as he still breathed. 

Your only slim chance of relief was to kill him. Like you’d make it far after that anyways, his demons would come charging after you. But you’d still be free, at least in this life no matter how short it would be. There was no escaping your doom, it’d end in tragedy one way or another. But the idea of watching the life drain from his hypnotic blue eyes made you smile. 

The next day, you saw him in the town, his eyes unviewable by the way his cap was positioned. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, no more is needed to be said. 

He followed you throughout the day, to torment you. Sometimes he was only a few steps behind you, teasing you on whether or not he’d take you in front of innocent bystanders. You wondered if people would intervene, or if they knew the Peaky Devil was unstoppable. 

That night, you’d awoken at 3am, there was a slow, heavy knock on your door. Time slowed down, you felt your heartbeat pound in your chest, ears turned thick and mind went dizzy. Momentarily, you laid silently in the darkness, then the knock vibrated on the wood again. Courageously, you got out of bed and stepped towards the door, not forgetting to grab the pistol on the way out. 

His presence was loud, you could feel his aura linger in through the cracks. You bent your arm back behind your back, the heavy metal pressed against the thin fabric of your dress. The light flicked on as the door creaked open, you swiftly leant against the frame to hide your weapon.  

There he stood, in all of his glory. Yet again, his eyes shadowed over from his peaked cap, a cigarette in between his lips as he stood perfectly still. His hands clasped behind his back underneath his leather gloves, the gentle rain seemed to pick up, small gusts of wind traveled into your cottage. 

“Hello Thomas” you greeted, voice completely monotone.

You avoided eye contact, he always seemed to know what was on your mind if you allowed him to look you in the eye. He looked down upon your appearance, you’d managed to have lost a fair bit of weight in these couple of months apart. With a heavy huff, Tommy pushed his sleeve up enough to show his watch, he read the time.  

“My love, I believe it’s time to go” his cold, dark voice rasped out. 

When he looked back up to you, his eyes finally came into clear sight. Oh, how they could still do wonders on you, it was the softest part of him. He would always be disgustingly beautiful, it’d give you butterflies in your stomach, put your beliefs into a thunderstorm. You blinked hard and snorted at his demand.

“I’m not going anywhere” you stubbornly shot back. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. But Tommy expected nothing less than that. His stern expression finally cracked, Tommy’s lips curled into a wicked grin as he brought his hands to his front, his fingers folded over one another precisely. 

“Is that so darling?” Tommy challenged as he took a step closer to you, his head tilted forward. 

The grin on your lips was far too cocky as you pointed the pistol at him. Tommy felt a fire of excitement pump through his blood as you closed the distance and roughly pressed the cold barrel to his forehead. 

“You’ll leave me alone Tommy” you stated sternly. 

“You do not make the rules” Tommy smirked at your claim. 

“I’ll fucking kill you before you take me back there” you threatened, no, promised. 

“Do it then my love, free me of your torment” Tommy begged sarcastically, his tone dripping of mock. He held the barrel to his skull as he closed his eyes. You shuddered, fear washed over your skin as you seemed to second guess your actions. “Do it!” he roared, his command forced you to pull the trigger. 

Click. 

You blinked, your mind froze with your body as Tommy continued standing upright. He smirked sinisterly at you as he ripped the pistol from your weak hold and slammed it to the floor. You stumbled back, Tommy was quickly to stride after you as you fumbled into the kitchen.

“You were never one to fire a gun” Tommy snarled as he chased after you in the darkness, the moonlight wasn’t enough for you to swiftly move.

You panted out as he pounced at you, his arms wrapped around your waist, you thrashed around back he was quick to bend your arms behind your back. 

“Fuck you Tommy!” you barked. 

“Did you think I hadn’t paid your humble cottage a visit?” Tommy pouted to you as he pushed your front over the bench.

You gasped out as his crotch molded itself into your rear. He tutted at you as your body stilled, subconsciously your body demanded to create no friction against him, but physically your thighs squeezed together as Tommy kept your hips connected. Gradually, his erection grew against you as you both breathed heavily, Tommy rubbed the sides of your faces together as he looked out the window. 

“I missed you, my love” he whispered, his nose nuzzled against you like a cat. 

There was no response from you, you bit down your anger as you stared out, trying to shift your mind to another other thought. His arm snaked over your collarbones to pull your body up straight, you hissed in pain and struggled a little against him. 

“You’ll beg me for forgiveness” Tommy demanded, his tone awfully cool considering his conflicting emotions for you. 

“You’ll have to kill me before that” you snarled, latching onto every last drop of your dignity. Tommy gripped onto your jaw and forced you to snap your neck back to him.

“Do not be stubborn, my love. You betrayed me, you hurt me” Tommy spoke softly, a hint of despair in his tone. 

“Hurt you?” you scoffed as you shoved his hold off of you. “You broke me!” you screamed as you jabbed your fingers against his chest. 

Tommy’s demeanor was frustratingly calm. He sighed at you as if you were a child having a tantrum. It only fueled your anger, you tried to shove him again but he caught onto your wrists. 

“I’ve only ever done anything for your best intentions” he assured quietly. 

That was the last straw. Your wrist slipped out of his softening hold as your arm swung in a swift movement. Right when you should have landed onto him, he caught your fist and pushed you lower back into the counter, you grunted at the contact as his hand bent your wrist back. 

“Say that to Fraser!” you spat on his lower lip. 

Tommy’s hand slipped to your throat. The airway closed off to your lungs as his hold tightened, you wheezed out, legs dangled as his strength lifted you up against the counter. 

“Bring up that traitor's name again and see what happens!” Tommy threatened, his anger unleashed, blue eyes beamed straight through your body.

Your nails clawed at his hand, but Tommy seemed to be unphased by the pain. When your hands fell back to your sides, blood drained from your face, Tommy abruptly let go of your throat. You fell straight to your knees, landing harshly onto your kneecaps. With your head pressed against his thigh from support, Tommy sighed. 

“Now… Beg me for forgiveness” Tommy ordered as he tilted your head up to look for him. 

“I’d rather die” you panted, as you still struggled to catch your breath. 

Tommy chuckled at your determination. His cold hands slipped into your hair as he pulled your face an inch away from his throbbing crotch. 

“Beg me for it, unless you want to beg me for something else” he implied, a wicked grin on his lips. Your eyes darted at his bulge. 

“Don’t” you warned through heavy breaths. 

“Maybe I’ll just fill you with my child now… So I’ll never have to worry about you being able to run from me again, would be awfully hard with a massive belly, eh?” Tommy taunted as he pulled your face onto his hard on.

You squirmed against him, palms pressed against his thighs. Tommy breathed out in relief as he rocked his hips against you. With a quick pull, he forcefully craned your neck back and forced you to look up at him. A rough cry flew into the air as he tugged harshly at your roots. 

“Beg me, my love” he whispered kindly. 

You blinked away the pools of tears in your eyes. As your jaw wobbled, you forced yourself to let go of your dignity. For you knew his methods of torture wouldn’t be worth your ego at the end of the day. Because he’d never set you free. Tommy smiled down to you, mocking your pride in its surrender. 

“I’m sorry Tommy” you whimpered. Tommy hummed back with a nod, gesturing for you to go on. “Please forgive me, I never meant for any of this to happen” you pleaded, your voice trembling. 

It was true, it was never your plan for anyone to get hurt, some worse than others. But the forced apology tasted like tar on your tongue. Tommy’s dark eyes were wide as he slowly blinked to you, his toothy grin stayed as he rolled his thumb over your lower lip. 

It was always in moments like these that you felt lost without him. A throbbing idea that you really need to owe your life to him, he saved you after all. In the situations where it mattered most, your body betrayed you. Subconsciously you’d submit to him, and you hated him for it. 

His thumb slipped into your mouth, your tongue suckled his digit like a piece of candy. Then, his thumb rolled over your plump lips. It was clear that you needed icing on this cake to end this humiliating agony. For he was toying with you like you were a dirty whore. 

“I’ll never betray you again” you assured, sobbing as your cheeks turned beet red. 

“You'll listen to me from now on, eh?” Tommy teased as he patted your cheek. 

“Mhm” you hummed, frantically nodding your head. 

Tommy pulled you up to your feet, his hand held your jaw as he brushed his lips over yours. They only grazed over each other as his free hand dug into his pocket. He forced your left hand up, you winced as he roughly pushed the cold metal down your wedding finger. 

You impulsively turned your figure away from him as you tried to look at the ring in the moonlight. When Tommy flicked on the light, he stalked over to you. A massive white diamond was embedded on a silver band. Tommy’s arms snaked around your back, over your waist as he rested her head in the crook of your neck. Even though you really shouldn’t be, you stood completely shocked. A wife to be. 

“Let’s go home” he whispered as he guided you to the door. 

Even though he always told you that you were his, you finally realized that you were now.

[reno-korino]

A complete analysis of Cazador Szarr, his palace, and spawn

A week ago, I posted a Reddit thread analyzing everything to do with Cazador Szarr. I wanted to bring it here! THIS IS A VERY LONG POST, THIS IS YOUR WARNING BEFORE CLICKING. Here is the Reddit link.

--

Who is Cazador Szarr?

According to the Forgotten Realms wiki for Cazador Szarr, The Szarr family was a family of Baldur's Gate who were once wealthy merchants and farmers.

I couldn’t find any information on what year the actual Szarr family was attacked, but the information I do have is, “Long before the 15th century DR, the land that would encompass Tumbledown held a grand estate that belonged to the mercantile Szarr family. Unfortunately, every member of the Szarrs was murdered by a rival house, and their holdings were burnt to the ground.” It was unknown how Cazador survived. Maybe he organized this? After the tragic incident, Tumbledown was filled with fog. In addition, the Outer City expanded over the area, and it would become a large cemetery.

Decades prior to 1482 DR, a portion of the cliffs that surrounded the area fell away. Because of this, part of the family crypts were revealed; graverobbers seized the opportunity to plunder the tombs.

Cazador is known as Cazador Szarr 'The Avid', according to a scroll titled “Vampires before Vellioth” From this information, we can see that Cazador turned from Vampire spawn, to Vampire Lord the year 1276, and about 20 years later give or take, is when he turns Astarion into a vampire spawn. Considering the game is set in 1492, this means Cazador has been a vampire lord in Baldur Gate for about 216 years. One of Cazador's slaves, Astarion reported that he was turned into a vampire spawn almost two centuries prior to 1492 DR(1292).

Cazador is the patriarch of the Szarr family, (The head of the family) he apparently didn’t want military or political power, He likes power over people. So when he speaks, Astarion (or vampire spawn) body has to react. He apparently made vampire spawn torture themselves and each other for fun. You can interact with a bust in his palace which reads to be 'Mordic SeLanmere', the most powerful vampire king. It suggests that this might be Cazador's ancestor?

After talking/killing the Gur Gandrel, Tav can talk about the night Astarion met Cazador, and you’re able to call out that it was convenient Cazador just happened to find him. Astarion will deflect and claim he probably was found because of the smell of blood. When you do ask Astarion if you should be worried about Cazador hunting you down, he says you should always be aware, but Cazador was never one to actually leave the city ever. (get a life, Cazador.)

Astarion only assumes Gandral works for Cazador, which is false. If you give Astarion up, he'll be held at the Gur camp, where everyone will be slaughtered in Act 3 by Cazador, and Astarion will go back to the Palace as a zombie.

If you don't kill the Gur Gandrel, you actually find out that his two children were part of the 7,000 spawn trapped by Cazador. Sparing Gandrel, and the rest of the 7,000 spawn will let you briefly talk to him, and his two now vampire spawn children,

Cazador has some beef with the Gur (Obviously since he steals their children) because the werewolves that fight you are ‘Fallen Gur Hunters’. At the party, we can also see the werewolves that fight you are from the Hhune family. There’s a ‘Chatterteeth’ that fights alongside Cazador, who is, like Godey, a pair of bones. I’m not sure what Cazadors affinity is for werewolves, maybe its his twilight fantasy of Edward x Jacob?

On Astarion Ancunín

Astarion's age of death is 39, rather young for elves. His grave reads: 229 - 268 DR 498 DR. This Reddit thread gives good information.

Astarion was turned into a vampire by Cazador Szarr in the year 1292DR. Before he was a vampire, Astarion was a magistrate. A magistrate judge is a judicial officer of the district court and is appointed by majority vote of the active district judges of the court. A group of vagrants, a group called the Gur beat Astarion to deaths door when they took issue of a ruling Astarion made. It is there Cazador 'saved' him with the choice of 'life' or 'bleeding to death in the street'.

It isn’t said if Cazador made/let/stopped Astarion from continuing to be a magistrate. Since Cazador saved Astarion from the Gur, he ‘chased them off’ and turned Astarion into a vampire. I think it would be interesting if there was some sort of political move since a large opinion is that Cazador organized the attack. Perhaps there was an issue with Cazador's status?

-- My theory about Astarions family

In another comment, someone suggested Astarion might be from elsewhere instead of being born in the city. The idea he came to Baldur Gate because he wanted to pursue bigger things and become a Magistrate seems in character without having to add in his family, but you'd think he'd be concerned about his family and vise versa? Unless Astarion had bad blood with them.

At the end of the day, for his main 7 spawn, it doesn't make complete sense to have them be born and raised in Baldur Gate with a full family, since that's way too many connections. Too many distractions when they're out getting marks, and too many opportunities for Cazador to be exposed. Since there are 7,000 spawn created by Cazador, but only 7 that he 'keeps', so there has to be some sort of reason.

Were they the most beautiful? Alluring in his eyes? Or perhaps, the most charismatic, or did they have the least amount of connections that could come back to bite him? Surely, there has to have been one incident. Wouldn't that be interesting if there was at least one spawn we don't know, that used to be of the original 7, but was 'taken out' because a family kept asking too many questions?

*-- *

Cazador, on making Astarion vampire, also made him crawl out of his own grave.

“Nearly two hundred years and I never came back. Not since the night I woke up down there. I had to punch a hole in the coffin and clew my way through six feet of dirt. Then when I finally broke the surface, retching up first and congealed blood, Cazador was waiting.”

It's unclear if Cazador gave all the spawns the same treatment, but my opinion is he did this to send a direct message to Astarion. Astarions grave is in the Thorass alphabet, Showing that his last name is Ancunín. The only way to get to this grave is during a dialogue scene at the end of "The Pale Elf" quest, widely considered the 'good ending' in which the player does not let Astarion ascend. Asended Astarion will not bring you to the grave, and can not be found when in the cemetery in the city.

Astarion also mentions when talking about being turned into a vampire about how painful it was, saying, "I remember how it hurt when I turned into a vampire. My body writhed and warped while I was utterly helpless, the grip of death owned my heart as it beat its last."

In earlier patches, Astarion mentions how he begged Cazador to be turned instead. This is old though, so I wouldn’t say this is reliable.

Astarion does also say in a voiceline that:

"The mindflayers weren't my first kidnapping. A long time ago, I crossed Cazador, a powerful man in Baldur's Gate."

Astarion would bring the people for Cazador, he’d tease Astarion by asking him if he’d like to dine with him, and if Astarion said yes, he’d get a rat(girl dinner). If he said no, he’d have Astarin flayed.

There is also Astarions worst memory, when he was sealed, buried alive for a year. If you ask him about it in Act 3, he talks about how in his first decade, he found a darling boy that he couldn’t bring back to Cazador. So Astarion ran and disobeyed. Cazador caught him and sealed him up, starved him inside a dusty tomb for a year. He claims,

“A year of silence. Months of scratching my hands raw, trying to carve my way out. More months of not moving at all. Months wishing only for death.”

Astarions Brothers and Sisters, the Seven Spawn

It seems Cazador has his main seven spawn, Astarions ‘brothers and sisters’. Seems like Cazador had a real, manager-in retail type mentality and claimed they were ‘all a family’ even while he was carving scars into their flesh. To note, I’m not sure why the only scars Astarion DOES have are the ones on his back. Apparently, Astarion was ‘one of his firsts’ which signals that Astarion might be the second spawn? The rest came years later, but took a special interest in Astarion for his ‘sweet sounds’. Astartion does seem to have some sort of survivor's guilt for them. It isn't ever specified who came first, or who was the most recent.

The respective spawn names are: Leon, Aureila, Yousen, Violet, Dalyria and Pale Petras

They all have the same stats. The demographic is:

Female (3/7) - 43 %

Male (4/7) - 57 %

With 1 Tiefling(Aurelia), 1 Halfling(Yousen), 3 elves(Violet, Astarion,Dalyria), and 2 humans(Pale Petras, Leon) - This is based on observation, I could be wrong!

Their eyes will be glowing red, which means they are under the influence of Cazador. This applies to all the spawn. Once Cazador is dead, their eyes stop glowing.

When Leon and Aurelia confront you at the inn (and attack you), Aurelia claims Cazador knew where Astarion was the entire time, likely watching us from the shadows.

Cazador apparently promised the 6 vampire spawn that he’d set them free. You can learn more about Pale Petras, where he wants to bring back one more person so when he is ‘free’, he will have someone to drink dry right off the bat. Dalyria doesn’t seem to humor the idea and instead wants to leave in fear of angering Cazador by being late, BUT interestingly enough, the vampire spawn are out in the day in a tavern, which means they are hunting day AND night? Considering how Astarion talks to Pale Petras, it's clear that they don’t really get along too well.

When you meet the spawn slave, after succeeding on a perception check, you notice on all 7,000 spawns, "Beneath the first and blood, you notice that every prisoner has a rune carved into their flesh." What is interesting, is it only looks like Sebastian is the only one with these marks. I looked at all the other spawn NPCS and couldn't find anything visible. The runes marked into Sebastian also look kind of fresh, so this perhaps was a recent thing? Unless I'm reading the scars wrong, but from how Astarion talked about his scars, it doesn't sound like he was given them as soon as he was turned into a vampire spawn.

As for the appearance of the other spawn, I can chalk it up to the models not being completely finished with the runes, I suppose… Either that or Tav can see under people's clothes…. kinda weird!

More on Cazador and Baldur Gate

According to Astarion, Cazador is just another ordinary noble in Baldur City. He says that Cazador is a little reclusive perhaps, but just another ‘the great and good’ of Baldur’s Gate. He apparently has a grand palace on the hills of the Gate, where he hosts the city’s high society. This makes me wonder, since there is a ballroom in Cazador’s palace if he hosts all these large high society balls. Astarion wonders if Cazador would risk exposure by doing it at the palace, signaling that Cazador at least, does care for his image.

When your character is a Baldurian, you can ask, “That giant gothic monstrosity has been inhabited by vampires this entire time?” So at least the citizens of Baldur Gate can see how out of place it is.

The Szarr Palace has a palace south tower and ramparts. He has city guards charmed guarding the entrance. It also has a garden and beautiful architecture. The Szarr palace colors are teal and red. My analysis of the building is linked.

The dialogue from Astarions origin character playthrough when he has a nightmare about Cazador:

Spoken like a true old bitch:

“First, thou shelf not drink of the blood of thinking creatures.”

“Second, thou shalt obey me in all things.”

“Third, thou shalt not leave my side unless directed.”

“Fourth, thou shalt know that thou art mine.”

Cazador keeps all the spawn underground in cages. When meeting Sebastion in the cages, you tell Sebastion he’d been down there for “One hundred and seventy years. You were one of my first, too.” This means either the “200” years is more 175 years, or he might not have gone out to get spawn for around ~15 years. It could also mean Astarion sees the 15 years as a short period of time, which would make sense.

Astarion thinks that Cazador hired the Gur to find Astarion in Act 1, and the Gur does not know what Cazador really is. If you give Astarion up and go to Cazador in the future, he will ask you if you’re the one who “took my poor Astarion under your wing, only to abandon him so cruelly?”

What’s really interesting, if you interact with Astarion in the ritual, he’s a zombie, unlike his other spawn. Could this be because he was tortured by Cazador, flayed?

When you read Cazadors mind after killing him without Astarion, it seems Cazador has nightmares of “The boy I was, the man I became, the monster that will not end. I sleep, but cannot rest, I live, but cannot die. I am eternal, and I grieve.” I say shut the fuck up, Cazador.

Obviously, Astarion meeting Cazador in the current up to date patch(9/7/2023) , he’s very demeaning. Man rolls his r’s like he’s still in the fucking renaissance. He claims Astarion is still his even if he can resist his words. He waves around his stupid little staff, but his magic is still strong enough to grab Astarion into the ascension ritual even if you roll a nat 20 to resist.

On talking to Astarion about coming home :

Cazador seems to have mortal servants walking around the palace. The Servants aren’t charmed, but they are ‘fanatics’ as Astarion claims, “Here of their own free will, and utterly devoted to Cazador.” He says, “Each one came to our door and begged to be given his ‘eternal gift’. They’re sure he’ll turn them if they serve him well enough” whatever the fuck that means.

What I can gather from this information is, that people do know that Cazador is a vampire lord, but obviously not everyone. It's like the well-kept secret that isn’t a secret because Astarion claims earlier that Cazador wouldn’t want to do the ritual at the Palace for fear of exposing himself. If anyone else has any clarification that Cazador is a known vampire, please, I'm all ears.

The servants seem to be obsessed with keeping the place clean, making sure it's ‘pure’. But that’s kind of hard considering there are BATS flying around everywhere in this palace. I can't tell if they are paid at all, either, they are just there freaked out trying to be the best they can so they can be the next vampire spawn. It also makes me wonder, why doesn't Cazador just turn these people into spawn? Is he afraid to scare staff away when they vanish because they begged at Cazadors door for vampirism? How on earth did they find this out? What on earth is Cazadors title to these people, is he a lord even if the public doesn't know he's a vampire lord?

All the text in Cazadors Palace Explained, and rooms explained

[ALL THE TEXT FOUND IN CAZADORS PALACE]

Chamberlain Dufey

In the Chaimberlain's private quarters, we find Chamberlain Dufey’s dead body in a casket. The Chamberlain is responsible for managing the household of nobles, so Dufey would have managed the household for Cazador. It's suggested by a private note left by Dufey’s Werewolf GF that he killed himself via poison, and so she Romeo and Juliet herself and killed herself as well.

You can find his diary on the bed on the floor, and we find out that Dufey killed himself because he found out about Cazador's ritual, because Cazador wanted Dufey to be the stand-in for the missing Asterion. He even calls Astarion a brat! Ironically enough, his poison is just enough to slow his heart and he isn’t actually dead, so his lover found him and killed herself in return. True poetry. Dufey hopes that once Cazador ascends, he can leave since Cazador won’t need his management anymore. This suggests that Dufey is a prisoner in one way or another. He is, a vampire spawn interestingly enough.

Godey

Cazador would throw the spawn into a ‘kennel’ when he was displeased with the vampire spawn. This is hidden by an illusion, that Astarion claims is one of his regular, cheap tricks.

Godey is a pair of bones that is under Cazador's control. He claims to be doing his job and to ‘keep him(astarion) in line.” He apparently tortured the spawn for days at a time, and Godey seemed to enjoy the screaming.

Spawn sleeping quarters

The vampire spawn seemed to live in a ‘dormitory style’ living, inside the dormitory wing. He has two rooms, “spawn dormitory” and “favorite spawn”

You can find Violet's diary, where she says the ‘garlic in Yousen's bed gave him a nasty rash’ which signals that vampires can’t handle garlic. It also shows that Violet is a little shit and makes life hell for the other spawn… a true sibling. Leon has a daughter named Victoria, but Cazador seems to ‘have a little plan for her.’

There is also a blood ledger from Dufey, who states the rules of what type of people Cazador wants to be picked up. Most notably, to focus on the lower class. He chastises them for picking up three people from wealthy families because their families of course are wondering where the as fuck they went. The goal is not to attract unwanted attention and to avoid aristocrats, even if they are out slumming in the lower city.

Favorite Spawn

The ‘favored spawn’ room is a lot more grand, with nice beds that don’t stack on a bunk bed. I wonder if Astarion was a bottom or top bunk?

It turns out when looking at the favorited spawn list, it mostly is Leon, with Violet taking only one year. When you read Leon's diary though, we find out he’s working so hard because he has a daughter named Victoria. Leon writes, “I've had to be his best hunter just so I could stay here with my daughter and keep her away from the other spawn. I don’t like the way Violet looks at her, not at all!”

So it seems that Cazador let the other spawn family stay with them unless Victoria is an outlier… But while they are ‘siblings’, they still do not get along. Either that or Violet is just a bitch. That being said, Leon also writes, “When I ask the master what he plans to do with Victoria, Cazador just gives me that wicked smile.” He writes that he is working together on a plan to disguise Victoria so she can escape. She’s a human girl running around, and her father even writes her a note to learn the ancient language book that is in the guest room so she can move around freely in the mansion. This means there was a KID running around the palace. A HUMAN KID.

You can also find a list that Victoria made, which seems focused on the number '17' for some reason.

What I’m gathering is, that Cazador is wicked and sick- of course, we knew that. But poor Leon, protecting his daughter? All of this is to say- Victoria is dead in the guest room. She’s covered by necrotic magic.

Astarion claims he has brought people to this guest room before.

Dalyria

In the guest room, we get to find Dalyria’s diary. It claims she was a Doctor, and Physician General to the Parliment of Baldur Gate. She claims she will always be a Doctor, despite what Cazador did to her.

She says that a “massive infusion of fresh, youthful blood may overwhelm the vampirism infection and enable my body to heal” and points out that Victoria is the pureblooded daughter of Leon. This seems to indicate that she thinks that vampirism is a blood-affected thing, and can be cured one way or another.

Leon was apparently a sorcerer before he became spawn, and warned everyone to not bite her since he booby-trapper her blood in case of an attack. So… considering she is letting out necrotic energy, I assume that Dalyria tried to bite her because she assumed Leon was lying.

When you try to Speak with Dead on her, it seems her answers don’t line up too well with the actual journal entries. She says that Dalyria lured her with the promise of food and shelter and she was bit by her, and then Dal was dragged away by Cazador, and Victoria was eventually killed by him.

A question I have is, with a daughter so young, and Leon has been on the favorite spawn list for so many years, did he have this kid when he was a vampire? She looks like she’s only 10 or younger, so he either had to have her at the Palace when she was a baby or he somehow got someone pregnant.

The Ballroom

When you enter the ballroom, the people on the floor are called guests. So I can assume there was some party, and then the werewolves were called to rip everyone up. On the body of a woman named Sanseverina, she’s carrying a note that says. *“Sansy, I've been invited to a party at the Szarr Palace tonight in their ballroom. Show the chamberlain at the door this note and he’ll let you in to join me. Wear your best dress!” - Callira (*Sansy was not indeed, wearing a dress at all.)

Callira can be found in what I assume is the cigar room dead on the floor. She holds a note from Dufay that she is requested by Cazador to play music at the party.

Using "Speak to Dead" on one of the dead party members on the floor, we find out that one of them is named "Sterlac", a Senior Clerk in the Counting House. He was invited to the party, and claims he was enjoying the party, drinking and talking. When you ask him what he was talking about, he says,

"Work… Counting House… Who controls what. Wanted names of senior staff… families… any scandals, secrets…"

He also says that at the party, the guests were politicians, minor nobles, fist officers, 'all sorts'. Cazador wanted information, he apparently asked them all a lot of questions about the power structures in the city, the weaknesses, and the type of people Cazador should look at controlling.

Cazador apparently took the most beautiful people away from the party, and they were never seen again. According to Sterlac, after Cazador left, werewolves came to the party and made the guests their little afternoon snack. From what I can gather, it does seem that Cazador has his foot in the door pretty heavily in politics, if he's using clerks for their information about staff and…. scandals.

I'm assuming this random attack of wolves is in reference to the 'grand feast' Dufay writes about in his party planner diary you'll find in Cazador's office.

What my takeaway is, that people in political power, at least of use to Cazador, know he is a vampire. But it isn't generally common knowledge, even when Tav comments on the vampire-filled manor, and Astarion jokes back that its "subtle, isn't it?"

Dufay also orders the guards on the wall to make sure they're vigilant and that the staff are silent and never speak. This shows that Cazador’s reach goes all the way to the guards. Dufay does note that “If you encounter the mater, stand still and cast down your eyes with dereference. The master likes to be respected.”

Oh. and no whistling, of course.

What is the puzzle under Cazadors Palace?

The puzzle under Cazador Palace can be entered via the cigar room. Me, and so many people have concluded this is simply an unfinished room since I tried to do just about everything to get this to work.

I back my theory up because this is the only location in Cazadors Palace that isn't marked as dangerous and allows the player to long rest and travel by waypoint etc.

Venturing further, we can find a confession from one of Cazador's captives, where they confess their transgressions. This is from someone named Dawson Kiltmaker, who claims they cheated on the city accountants' certification test. Since Dawson suspects he is going to die, he is using the journal to rid himself of sins so he can die with his soul a little lighter. He also claims that Cazador gloats, so it's confirmed that Cazador at least, fucks with the prisoners mentally. There are a lot of dead bodies so it can be assumed sometimes, Cazador just keeps people / kills them instead of turning them.

Cazadors Office Area / Family / Attic

Cazador's office is directly linked to the ballroom named the “Office Hall”

There’s a party planner on the desk that Dufay used to plan Cazador's gatherings. The ballroom functions are divided into two categories - Invited guests and involuntary guests, which are the entertainment for the latter category being considerably more sinister than the former.

So what I can assume is … There are other vampires invited or others invited of different types of morality that use or torture the second category? Thats wild. Cazedor also planned a ‘final feast’ that Dufey had to organize, which involved invited and involuntary guests…

Cazadors desk has Starbrt Shandy, a Carafe of wine, and Cagulated blood. He also seems to keep up with the news since articles are on his desk and a book about Baldur City's history. Cazador's entire office is just… blood and wine. Dude parties non fucking stop. There is also a book on the upper city and the lower city.

The Dais is the elevator down into the dungeon, Astarion had no idea it was there. He said Cazador brought his victims there, so it can be assumed that Astartion at least dragged the person to Cazador's office before they were brought to the second room down the elevator… Imagine how scary that would be.

There's a bust of Shyressa Runemaster as well, a vampire in 1360 DR. It should be noted, there's so many bottles of wine in this fucking estate. Does NOBODY drink water???

Cazador's Niece

In the attic, we actually get entries from Cazador's family from the year 1477. Amanita Szarr, Cazadors ‘niece’ claims she didn’t know that Cazador was a vampire. She claims she had no idea that her family were vampires, so it confirms that the Szarr family at least has some nonvampires and a long line of vampires.

She grew up on the country estate near Anga Vled was raised by servants, and hardly ever visited the city palace in Baldurs Gate. It noted she hated visiting, and that the Palace straddles the wall between the Upper and Lower City. In the year 1477 when she was 13, Cazador personally summoned her, and she was brought by carriage. Dufey greets her and brings her to the ballroom, and It is here that Cazador forcibly turns her into a vampire in the torture room above the ballroom. She was imprisoned in the attic by someone named Bolvart for trying to resist being a vampire, and she eventually succumbed and drank human blood. They kept her in the attic starving for an entire year and eventually sent up a bound captive, which she killed. So Amanita decided to stay up in the attic for the rest of her life calling herself Lady Incognita.

Amanita later wrote a book describing blood diseases claiming that there is something that can infect vampires with a brief illness. It's called “Red Thrombosis and Thandals Paroxsym”. Vampires should be able to recognize this before they even bite people if they are trained. Do you hear that, Astarion lovers? It's time to write Astarion is sick fanfiction. Or.. maybe, Cazador is fucking ill and everyone points and laughs.

So even those who survived the Szarr massacre still get hunted down by Cazador to become vampires it seems. Cazador leaves no stone unturned, but it makes me wonder how many other surviving members there had to have been. Obviously, Cazador has siblings if he has a niece.

Cazadors Corner

Going down into Cazador’s dungeon, there is a list with thousands of names from Baldur City, which can be assumed the sibling's victims.

There is Cazador's journal, which records the movements and actions of his spawn. He seems REALLY interested in Astarions, noting his every order, failure, and punishment.

He says, “Astarion failed to return from his hunt this night. Godey Informed. He will have the pliers ready when the boy shows himself again.”

Cazador starts to say how upset he is that Astarion is missing and that he wants to make Astarion scream. So then, Cazador starts to torture his siblings to find Astarion since he’s been missing for days. He then notes that when Astarion interacts with his siblings in Wyrms Crossing, Astarion is able to stand in the sunlight and bolds that he’s able to disobey Cazador. Dude is fucking upset writing in his diary. This obviously won't appear if you don't ever interact with Pale Petras and Dal.

In another book, Cazador writes about how he’s concerned about Lord Gortash because of his new steel watch, wondering if they’d mess with his vampire spawn and how he operates….

Cazador has a letter he writes to Mrel Alkam, who I suppose leads their own vampire circle in another region called “Athkatla” which is apparently more homogeneous than Baldurs Gate. He tells Alkam to enjoy his success while he has it because he plans to surpass him. He also says that he’s been long content with being a major city’s vampire lord. This signals that Cazador is not the only vampire lord out there, of course, but he’s feeling inferior.

Cazador essentially is writing this hatemail like, You might think you’re so cool and special with your vampires, but just you wait, I'm about to become cooler AND more popular. (For the record, Cazador slept in a twin-sized bed, so he was getting NO bitches.)

Looking into Athkatla further, we can find that this is the "City of Coin" , a location in BG2. There is a whole vampire coven in Athkatla, which players are able to interact with in BG2.

Under Cazadors corner, you can also find a scroll written by Lady Incognita that it was Donnela Szarr, Vellioth's original Vampire master, explaining how she was the one that opened the halls that Cazador uses as his dungeon. Apparently, they were built by mining dwarves who were exiles from Bhaerynden and seemed to be more of an outpost abandoned with time. Donnela questions, what was being mined here? It's questioned by Lady Incognita that it's unusual the halls were never discovered under Baldur's Gate, and they could have been deliberately hidden.

Cazadors previous vampire master, Vellioth

Vellioth - A skull with a scroll clamped in its teeth. This is Cazador's previous master, a cruel man.

His first lesson: “Is to always dominate. Allow none to be your equal.”

“Vellioth recalls when Cazador reached out to a former friend. His punishment was to watch as Vellioth drained his friend dry.”

His second lesson: “Power comes from solitude. To share with others is to be weak, and to be weak is to fail… and die.”

"Vellioth recalls when Cazador rebelled against him. Cazador suffered eleven years of impalement… because he failed."

(For the record, this is fucking horrific. It's such a hard juxtaposition AND parallel between him and Astarion.)

His third lesson: “Act not in haste. A near immortal has time to plan, time to act when others will pay the price of action.”

“Vellioth recalls Cazador, his lesson learned, killing him in the Rite of Perfect Slaughter. How they both laughed! Vellioth recalls Cazador boiling the flesh from his skull and then, to mock him, clamping his Schooling Scroll in Vellioth's jaws.”

(I couldn't find any information about the Rite of Perfect Slaughter)

Vellioth

As for Vellioth, he is known as Vellioth the Martinet. A Martinet is a strict disciplinarian, especially in the armed forces. He ruled from 1204 - 1276(72 years). A lot shorter run than most, but overall rather average considering. Vellioth’s master was Donnela Szarr the Architect, which makes me wonder if Vellioth was actually his family. There are only two Szarr names on the list of vampire lords, including Cazador and Donnela.

Here are the recent 5 stats:

Cazador Szarr - 216 years

Vellioth - 72 years

Donnela Szarr - 66 years

Hideous Gathwycke - 119 years

Failbleur the Fleeting - 0 years

The average amount of years in Cazador's recent 5 history of Vampire Lords is about 94.6 hours, with Cazador holding the highest number. When calculating the numbers for all listed, the average is 80 years, with Cazador taking the gold medal for longest in ruling.

My general opinion on why Cazador is most obsessed with Astarion is not only looks, but because I wonder if he also sees himself in Astarion- Cazador rebelled and pulled against Vellioth, so maybe he punished Astarion as Vellioth punished him for being bad.

Astarion will note that Cazador can’t be original for once and stole his own rules from Vellioth.

I think it's really interesting to see this side of the story, because when you ascend Astarion it feels like he kind of becomes the next Cazador, and this shows that Cazador was also in the same vicious cycle of abuse. Not that anything Cazador did was ever acceptable, but it's an interesting angle.

You do have choices to break this cycle or continue it. If you convince Astarion to not go through with it, he will thank you for believing in him.

On letting Astarion Ascend, he will sadly continue the cycle of abuse it kind of feels, not letting you break up with him at the end of the game. He laughs and calls you stupid, and says,

“You’re mine, remember?”

It's a sad reminder- Cazador is a cruel, vicious, and unredeemable person, but was also once a person, likely with some sort of light in his eyes… only to be shut down by abuse from his master, which makes his character so interesting.

Astarions Victims

From the four older captives that Astarion has brought, there is Sebastian, Wensleydale, Hapdim, and Gondlemead. Only Sebastion can speak. For…. research purposes, they do not react to being attacked.

For the children, it seems Cazador specifically ordered Astarion to capture them. This can only be assumed because they are the children of the Gur. When you kill Cazador, before leaving, you'll be confronted by Ulma, a leader of the Gur tribe. They are upset that Astarion stole their children, but seeked Astarion out when they find out he fled and somehow betrayed Cazador in hopes they could recruit Astartion.

There also does seem to be a back entrance to the dungeon from the sewer. Who knows how often that was used since there is a scene with a girl who was meeting up with a ‘silver-haired’ man who told her there was going to be a party when you reach Act 3.

Why didn't Astarion bite Cazador?

I wish I had a good theory for this, but I really don't. So, the only thing I have that could be something is Astarion mentions:

"In theory, the next step is to drink their blood. Once you've done that, you're free and a true vampire."

But he follows up by saying that it doesn't happen because vampires are the true natural enemies of another vampire. I read something someone said that maybe the vampire has to be willing to let the spawn bite him, but that doesn't make sense since Cazador didn't seem all that willing to be stabbed to death. If the tadpole can protect him from Cazador's grip, it should be able to allow him to bypass that stipulation.

So, at the end of the day, I think we can assume this is some plot hole. Either that or Astarion is thinking about it the next day after he rejected ascension and realizes, 'Wait fuck!' ​

My questions about Cazador…

I would love to know more about his Palace and why it was built/bought in such a weird spot?

How long Cazador has been a vampire?

Do the citizens of Baldur City know Cazador is a vampire lord? Or is it, if you know you know?

How long ago was the Szarr family massacred, and how many really survived? What was his family like?

How did Cazador meet Vellioth?

What is his fucking problem with Astarion?

What is his title? Is he referred to as 'my lord'?

Is he seen as a Patron to his spawn by the public?

What was the most surprising fact you learned?

[scary-grace]

Love Like Ghosts (Chapter 3) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

You knew the empty house in a quiet neighborhood was too good to be true, but you were so desperate to get out of your tiny apartment that you didn't care, and now you find yourself sharing space with something inhuman and immensely powerful. As you struggle to coexist with a ghost whose intentions you're unsure of, you find yourself drawn unwillingly into the upside world of spirits and conjurers, and becoming part of a neighborhood whose existence depends on your house staying exactly as it is, forever. But ghosts can change, just like people can. And as your feelings and your ghost's become more complex and intertwined, everything else begins to crumble. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Chapter 3

There’s something wrong with your house, but you knew that when you bought it. Except now you know damn well that the thing that’s wrong with it isn’t the house itself – it’s what’s in it. What was put in it. What’s stuck in it. “In most hauntings, ghosts are summoned from the world between by conjurers, whether they like it or not,” Aizawa says. “These ghosts are bound unwillingly to specific locations and left to haunt them as they see fit. Eri was this type of ghost.”

“So’s Himiko,” Jin says. He pauses. “I think.”

“So was Magne,” Spinner adds. “She didn’t like it here.”

“Can’t she go back?” you ask.

Aizawa shakes his head. “Once a ghost has been summoned and bound, there’s only one way out,” he says – but he doesn’t tell you what that way is. Of course. “As I said, in most cases, the ghosts are bound to their haunts unwillingly. The ghosts who came willingly are the ones to be scared of.”

You’re smart enough to catch the implication. Most of the ghosts in the neighborhood didn’t want to be here. “You think Tomura did.”

“A ghost of his strength could have resisted the summons, and killed the conjurer who made it,” Aizawa says. “Your ghost is here because he chose to be.”

“Which is way we brought you to old man Aizawa,” Jin says. Aizawa, who’s not actually that old, rolls his eyes. “He’s got one of those, too.”

Not Eri. It’s not Eri, and Shinsou’s not a ghost, so – “Your husband’s a ghost?”

“He was a ghost,” Aizawa corrects. He looks even more tired than before. “I suppose it’ll be easiest to tell you what happened. It’ll cut down on the useless questions you’ll undoubtedly ask. My husband Hizashi was summoned form the world between two hundred and nineteen years ago, to haunt an opera house that was being built –”

Aizawa’s husband was a very powerful ghost, he says. He could have resisted the summons, but he didn’t, and he spent a hundred and fifty years terrorizing the opera house and everyone who set foot in it before the last person who owned it burnt it to the ground on purpose. “That was a mistake,” Aizawa says. “Destroying a haunt releases the ghost to wander. Releasing a ghost like Hizashi is – unwise.”

“Look up the opera ghost murders,” Spinner stage-whispers. You glance back at him. “Let’s just say Hizashi spent a lot of time embodied.”

Tomura’s words flash through your head: I can’t get it from you or the dog. You’d die. You stare at Aizawa. “Your husband killed people?”

“People who deserved it. Or people he felt deserved it,” Aizawa says. His voice is flat. “Ghosts aren’t human. They don’t think like humans do. Their sense of right and wrong is accordingly – skewed.”

“Sometimes Papa killed people who hurt other people,” Eri says. “Sometimes he killed people who were mean to their waiters. But that was before he met Dad.”

You’re still stuck a few sentences back, slowly piecing something together. “The energy doesn’t last long when they’re – embodied,” you say, stumbling on the word. “Your ghosts are just killing people all the time?”

“No,” Aizawa says shortly. “The ghosts in this neighborhood, excepting yours, are former ghosts. They no longer have that power.”

“We’re people now. We don’t need it,” Eri explains to you. She looks back to Aizawa. “Tell how you met Papa!”

Aizawa sighs. “My current job is as an author. Prior to this, I was an investigative journalist. My specialty was exposés, and I often took risks to ensure the truth came to light. During this time, unbeknownst to me, I caught Hizashi’s attention. He began watching me, following me – helping me, although our definitions of helpfulness diverged more often than not. His word for it was ‘haunting’.”

That’s Tomura’s word for it, too. A shiver runs down your spine. “On my last assignment, I was investigating corruption in the police force,” Aizawa says. “While I discovered plenty of it, I also discovered something worse – a serial murderer, using his role in law enforcement to conceal his crimes. I knew that no one would believe me unless I brought them incontrovertible proof. I took appropriate precautions, or so I thought, then confronted him to force a confession.”

“And it didn’t work,” you guess.

Aizawa’s fingers trace a scar under his right eye in a movement that almost looks unconscious. “It didn’t go as planned,” he says. “I was badly injured. If Hizashi hadn’t intervened, I would have been killed. As it was, I fell unconscious. When I woke up in the hospital three days later, Hizashi was there. Alive.”

“Not a ghost anymore,” you clarify. Aizawa nods. “How?”

“Ghosts can embody themselves permanently if they kill someone and take the complete measure of their life-force,” Aizawa says. “That’s what Hizashi did, and Eri. That’s what they all did.”

Eri killed someone. You glance at her, more than a little creeped out, and find her smiling a gap-toothed smile. “I had to,” she says. Her pupils open and shut again. “She was hurting Hitoshi. She made him cry.”

“Did you mean it?” you ask lamely.

“To be people?” Eri frowns for a moment. “I must have. Or it wouldn’t have worked.”

“The embodiment thing doesn’t just happen,” Jin says. “They don’t just trip and fall – like, whoops, I’m embodied now! They have to want it.”

“They have to want it more than they want anything else,” Aizawa says. “More than they’ve ever wanted anything else in all their existence. It’s not something that happens often.”

“Which is a good thing,” Spinner puts in. “Because once you’ve got one, you’ve got it for life.”

So every ghost – former ghost – in the neighborhood had at least a split second where they wanted to be human. “If a ghost who was summoned unwillingly becomes human, their contract with the conjurer who summoned them is broken,” Aizawa says. “The conjurers often come back to exact punishment, and while a ghost in this world has significant power, most permanently embodied ghosts have roughly the same power as a human.”

“Papa’s strong,” Eri argues.

“I said ‘most’,” Aizawa reminds her. “When Eri’s conjurer came for her, Hizashi’s residual abilities allowed us to defeat him. But Hizashi’s conjurer, should he reappear, would pose a significant threat. Every family in this neighborhood is under a similar threat.”

“Which is why we’re all here,” Spinner says. “The ghost in your house is so strong that his presence hides the rest of us completely. If Atsuhiro’s conjurer or Himiko’s or Hizashi’s looked here for them, they wouldn’t be able to find them. All they’d see is your ghost.”

“That’s why we all want to meet him so bad,” Jin says. “He’s the boss! The baddest guy around! And we owe him, see? If not for him, they’d find us, easy.”

You look at their faces, Eri and Jin and Spinner. They all look pretty enthusiastic at the prospect of your ghost. Nothing like the way you feel when you think about him, some weird mix of gratefulness and comfort and confusion and fear. You look away from them, to Aizawa. He doesn’t look sad, exactly. Not resigned, either. But when he looks at you, you get the sense that he understands it. He’s been where you are, or somewhere like it, and suddenly you’re intensely grateful to Jin for bringing you here. You aren’t crazy for having mixed feelings about your ghost. Aizawa had them, maybe still has them, too.

“This information, while interesting, is ultimately irrelevant to you,” Aizawa says. You didn’t want to say it, but he’s right. “I imagine you’re more interested in how to handle your interactions with – Tomura, was it?”

You nod. “He hasn’t hurt me. I don’t think he wants to hurt me. But I don’t think he knows what he wants.”

“That’s likely. For all his power, he doesn’t seem to have much experience actually haunting anyone,” Aizawa says. “The fact that the house stood empty for so long suggests that he’s selective, and the actions he’s taken suggest that he has an interest in keeping you appeased. That gives you leverage.”

“You kind of need that,” Spinner says. “Like Aizawa said, they don’t get right and wrong like we do. Magne thought all kinds of shit was okay at first. It gets better if they’re embodied, but since yours isn’t gonna do that, you’ll have to explain a lot.”

“Frame the situation in terms of how the action you want the ghost to take will benefit the ghost,” Aizawa says. “For instance, if you want privacy, explain how respecting your privacy will increase your comfort in the house and make you more likely to stay there. Avoid asking him to do things.”

“Like asking him not to stare at me while I sleep?”

“No,” Aizawa says. “Avoid asking him to undertake tasks for you. The means he’ll use to achieve them will likely be unpleasant.”

You think of the coyote. All you needed was for it to leave, but Tomura basically tore its head off. “I don’t need him to do anything,” you say. “Just to leave me alone.”

“Sorry, sister. That’s not happening,” Jin says, and your heart sinks. “That house has been empty ever since we moved in. He’s been waiting for somebody to haunt this whole time, and he picked you. You’re his now. He told Himiko so.”

“Magne said she got the same vibe,” Spinner adds. “It’s not so bad, having a ghost. Think of it like having a really good roommate, or a best friend –”

“Or the coolest little sister ever,” Jin adds, grinning. “All the best people I know used to be dead!”

“I’m not dead! Take that back,” Eri protests. “I’m just your kind of alive now. And it’s the best kind of alive. There are flavors. And tastes –”

Spinner asks Eri what kind of tastes she likes best, and that sets all three of them off. You look back at Aizawa, who’s studying you with that same flat look in his eyes. “I don’t think mine wants a best friend,” you say.

“Mine didn’t,” Aizawa says. You wonder how he ended up married to his ghost, raising kids with his ghost. If that was really what he wanted. If he ever had a choice. “I don’t think so, either.”

When you head back to your house, it’s with an armful of books and a low, heavy feeling in the pit of your stomach. Phantom greets you cheerfully the instant you latch the gate behind you. You wonder how she got out when you know you left her inside, but the answer comes to you almost ahead of the question. Tomura must have let her out. He’s watched the whole process play out hundreds of times by now – Phantom going to the door, aiming sad looks your way, crying until you open it – and he did exactly what you do. You remember Aizawa’s admonition against asking Tomura to do things. You didn’t ask for this, and he did it anyway.

He materializes the instant you close the front door. “Where did you go? You were gone for hours.”

“I went to see the neighbors,” you say. His eyes flash. “To ask them about you.”

Now he looks confused. “Why didn’t you ask me about me?”

“Because you might lie, and I needed the truth.” You wait to see if Tomura will argue, but he doesn’t. “They had a lot to say.”

“What did they say about me?”

“They said you’re strong,” you say. Tomura goes from suspicious to proud of himself in about two seconds flat. “That’s why they moved here. You’re so strong that you can hide them from the people who summoned them.”

“It’s their fault they need to hide. They embodied themselves, like idiots.” Tomura at least sounds like he’s against permanent embodiment, which is a relief for you. “They can stay. I don’t care. As long as you stay.”

“I can stay,” you allow. You think of what Aizawa said and give one of his negotiating tactics a try. “I’ll be a lot more comfortable staying here if you give me some space.”

“Space,” Tomura repeats. “What kind of space?”

“When I’m in the bathroom. Humans like being alone in there,” you say. He nods. “And at night when I’m sleeping. We like to be alone then, too.”

“Not everybody,” Tomura argues. “In those movies –”

“I’m not going to watch any more movies if you keep getting dumb ideas from them.” You ignore the affronted sound Tomura makes. “Life isn’t like movies. I like to be alone when I’m sleeping.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Do you sleep?” You should have asked Aizawa about things like that.

“I don’t sleep. Sleeping is for humans,” Tomura says. You raise your eyebrows and he scowls. “It sounds nice when you sleep. I can’t hear it if I’m not in your room.”

“What sounds nice?” You’re not a sleep-talker, and nobody’s ever told you that you snore. “What kind of noises am I making? Are they weird?”

“I don’t know,” Tomura snaps. “I don’t know what noises humans are supposed to make when they’re sleeping. They don’t sound weird to me. They’re just – nice.”

You decide to set up your phone to record tonight, just to figure out what kind of sounds you’re making. And then you’ll buy a white-noise machine so this doesn’t happen again. This isn’t working. Maybe you need to try something else. “I’m not fun to hang out with when I’m sleeping,” you say. “Why don’t we hang out more when I’m awake and I can talk to you?”

His red eyes light up. Part of you wants to call his excitement childish, but you’ve felt that way as an adult. Aizawa says that ghosts materialize or embody or whatever you’re supposed to call it at the equivalent human age. Tomura’s an adult by ghost standards. You have to interact with him like one. “Well?”

“I need more life,” Tomura says. “I killed all your mushrooms in the front yard. Find me something else and I’ll – hang out with you. You are boring when you sleep.”

“I’ll find something,” you say. You can see that Tomura’s starting to fade, and you move to end the conversation before he can freak out again. “Thanks for letting Phantom out. I’ll see you soon.”

“Soon,” Tomura says. He doesn’t look happy, but he’s not angry. As long as he’s not throwing a fit, you’ll take it.

Once he’s faded completely, you take out your phone and text the newly formed group chat that has the numbers of every human in the neighborhood old enough to have a phone. Jin’s renamed it eight times already. Right now it’s “ghost friends anonymous”. You text it with a request: If you all catch bugs in your houses, bring them to my house. I need them.

So you can talk to him? Keigo texts back first. Wish I’d thought of that when it was me. No problem. Bug buffet coming right up.

Shinsou responds next. Can we leave them on your porch? Dad says not to go up there.

You’ve got my permission, you say, even though you and everybody else knows it’s not your permission that counts. And his, once I tell him what they’re for.

The cold spot settles around your shoulders and you startled badly. You’ve walked through Tomura by accident before, and he must not have liked it, either, because he stays out of your way when you’re on the move. But he’s here now, not sinking through you but wrapped around you. “Don’t,” you say aloud. “I’ll get a chill.”

Tomura stays there a moment longer, probably just to prove he can. Then he slips away, leaving you with the worst case of goosebumps you’ve ever had and a feeling you don’t like in the pit of your stomach. You’ve got a ghost in your house – fine. It’s not being a ghost that makes him an asshole.

Tomura’s an asshole, but he must want to hang out with you more than he wants to spy on you, because the bathroom’s empty except for you when you shower before bed. And for the first time in weeks, you fall asleep in an empty room.

Your bug idea works out pretty well. Every day you find at least five or six jars on your porch with holes drilled into the lids and spiders or ants or wasps rattling around inside, trying to escape. Two jars of bugs buys Tomura five minutes of complete materialization, but he’s starting to get smart about things, only materializing what he needs for a given interaction. A pair of hands to throw the ball for Phantom. His head and shoulders when he’s talking to you. His whole body, barely visible, when the neighbors come over to the house to drop off the day’s catch.

The first ones to come by are Jin and Himiko, and Himiko shrieks in excitement when she sees Tomura’s shadow on the front porch. “It’s you!” she squeals. “You’re so cute!”

“I’m not cute,” Tomura says, disgusted. Then he looks at you. “What’s cute?”

“Not you,” you say, and he breathes a sigh of relief. Even though he can’t breathe. It’s weird-looking for sure. “Jin, Himiko, this is Tomura. He’s, uh –”

“The boss!” Jin flashes a double thumbs-up. “The king of the neighborhood! Frankly, my dude, you terrify me.”

Jin’s mood switches stopped being weird to you a long time ago, but Tomura’s not used to him yet. “What’s wrong with it?” he mutters.

“Nothing’s wrong with him! Don’t make fun of my humans,” Himiko says. She smiles with her sharp teeth and ghost-blinks a few times. “I don’t make fun of your human. Even though she wears the same shirt three times a week.”

“It’s my favorite shirt,” you protest. “It’s comfy. And I wash it in between.”

“My human wears what it wants to wear,” Tomura says. You don’t have the heart to correct him on the pronouns.

And you don’t have to – somebody else does it for you, when Shinsou stops by with a bug delivery two afternoons later. He’s not alone, but it’s not Aizawa with him. It’s a blond man with a tiny mustache and bright green eyes, and he’s standing as far away from Shinsou as humanly possible without letting go of Shinsou’s hand. “I admire the ingenuity, but this is gross,” he says, projecting his voice ridiculously loud with seemingly no effort. Then he looks up at you and smiles. “Hey there. Shou’s told me all about you. The name’s Hizashi.”

“Aizawa told me about you, too.” You’ve met almost all the ghosts in the neighborhood already, but this is your first time seeing Hizashi, and something about him makes you nervous. Maybe it’s just what you know about his backstory, or maybe you’re worried he’s going to come up here and give Tomura ideas about things he can do with his human. “Tomura, this is Hizashi. He lives up the street.”

“I know who he is,” Tomura says. He’s more visible now than he was a second ago. “Back off. You’re scaring it.”

“It?” Hizashi repeats. “Most humans don’t go by ‘it’, friend. That’s a she. Your human’s a woman.”

“Huh?” Tomura looks at you, looks you up and down in a way that makes you really uncomfortable. “How can you tell?”

“You could ask,” Hizashi says, unruffled. He turns his attention to Shinsou. “You’re sure you have to go up there? Spooky McScarface doesn’t look too friendly.”

“I don’t touch other people’s humans,” Tomura says. He studies Shinsou as Shinsou comes up to the porch and sets his jar down on the first step. “Which kind are you?”

“I’m a guy,” Shinsou says. Tomura keeps staring at him. “The opposite of a girl. Not a girl. Most humans are guys or girls. Men or women. I’m a guy. Your human’s a girl.”

“Whatever,” Tomura says. Shinsou sets down the bugs and backs away toward the front gate. You’d elbow Tomura if he was embodied. When you elbow him anyway, your elbow goes numb from the cold. “I’m supposed to say thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Hizashi says. He yanks Shinsou back through the gate and hurries him up the street. “We’ll be back! Enjoy your worms.”

They’ve given you a lot of worms. “This is great,” you say. “Maybe we can get through a whole movie on these. What do you think?”

You glance at Tomura and find him mostly dematerialized, lost in thought. “You’re a girl,” he says. You nod. “What am I?”

“Whatever you want to be, I guess,” you say. “You look like a guy, though. Your voice sounds like a guy’s voice, and you don’t have – um –”

You gesture at your breasts, which is a mistake. Now he’s looking at them. “Would you rather be a girl?”

“No,” Tomura says decisively. “I don’t like girls that much.”

Tomura’s understanding of gender probably still has a couple of big holes in it, but you decide to steer off the topic for now and count yourself lucky that it wasn’t worse. It’s not until you’re trying to fall asleep in your still-empty room that you realize what Tomura actually said – that he doesn’t like girls enough to want to be one, not that he doesn’t like girls at all. You thought you were off the hook. It turns out your ghost is straight.

You text Aizawa in a fit of pique. Your husband taught my ghost how to like girls.

Your ghost already liked girls. Now he has words to explain it. Aizawa’s typing bubble appears, then vanishes. Trust me, it helps.

You’re not all that sure that it does, but after a week or so of normal behavior from Tomura, you decide that it’s probably not a disaster. Whatever Hizashi told him, it’s not anywhere as bad as what Tomura’s getting out of the movies he watches with you.

You’ve been trying to be careful about what you show him, but you learn pretty quickly that he can get something weird out of whatever he watches. Tomura is shockingly observant, picking up on stuff that even you don’t notice, but he almost invariably draws the wrong conclusions about whatever he’s caught on to. That’s fine when you’re watching sci-fi. Not fine when you’re watching a romcom.

“No,” you say to Tomura for the fifth time. You feel like you’re talking to Phantom. “That’s not good. He shouldn’t be doing that.”

“Why not? He wants to protect her and she’s being stupid.”

You agree she’s being stupid, but – “He’s scaring her,” you say. Tomura blinks. He doesn’t blink like the embodied ghosts do. He blinks like a human does. “It’s scary for someone to grab you, or to block you in a corner and not let you leave. People who care about you don’t scare you.”

Tomura’s quiet for a little bit. You’re just picking up the remote to unpause the movie when he speaks again. “Do I scare you?”

“Right now? No.”

“So you’ve been scared of me before,” Tomura says. Sometimes you can get away with lying to him, but not right now. You keep quiet, and he takes it how you meant it. And he’s pissed. “Why would you be scared of me? I didn’t do anything to you. I helped you –”

“Humans are scared of things we don’t understand,” you say. Tomura studies you, scratching the side of his neck. He’s not materialized enough for it to show, which is good. You hate seeing the scrapes appear. “It’s normal.”

“The others say their humans weren’t ever scared of them.”

“Their humans were kids,” you say. “I’m not.”

You haven’t run your theory by Aizawa yet, but you’re still pretty sure you’re right. Jin, Shinsou, and Spinner were all kids when they met their ghosts, and their ghosts were there for them when nobody else was. You’ve heard the stories of how they met in bits and pieces, but you know Himiko protected Jin and Jin’s siblings from their abusive dad – and killed him to embody herself when he took it too far. Eri told you what she did to the foster sibling who hurt Shinsou. Spinner hasn’t told you how he met his ghost yet, but you feel like it’s probably something similar. They were all kids, and their ghosts were their best friends before they became human. They didn’t think about it any more than that.

You and Aizawa were older. You can’t speak to whatever brought Aizawa to Hizashi’s attention, but you went out of your way to make sure your house wasn’t haunted and wound up with a seriously haunted house anyway. When Tomura killed the coyote to protect you and Phantom, you were grateful, and you said so – but your next thought was about how easily that same violence could be turned against you. You’re an adult. You don’t trust easily. Of course you’re wary of the insanely powerful ghost in your house. Who wouldn’t be?

Tomura’s still studying you. “How do I make you – not?”

“You can’t make me do anything,” you say. Tomura rolls his eyes. “Don’t do that. You asked.”

“And you didn’t answer. How do I make you stop being scared of me?”

“You can’t,” you say, which is probably the stupidest answer you’ve given to any question ever, even if it’s true. “Why do you want me not to be scared of you? You’re supposed to be haunting me. Don’t you want to act like a ghost?”

Tomura vanishes, which is about as close to a fuck-you as it gets. You resign yourself to a rough night and settle in for the rest of the movie. In retrospect, daring your ghost to actually haunt you was a really bad idea.

You haven’t shown Tomura any horror movies, but you watched a few before you knew he was watching them with you, and over the next few hours, he pulls every trick he must have seen in them. The lights flicker. The house fills itself with weird sounds, creaks and screeches and moans, and the hallways warp before your eyes as you try to walk through them. If you had to guess, you’d say Tomura wants you to beg him to stop, but you’re not going to do that. You brush your teeth, ignoring the way the water from the faucet runs read and the creepy shadow behind the shower door. You check your closet, ignoring the pair of feet very obviously sticking out below the racks of clothes, and pick up your feet to avoid the hands that grasp at your ankles as you try to get into bed. Then your bed starts to rattle, like he’s grabbed it by the post and started shaking it around.

And that, of all things, is what makes you lose patience. “You suck at haunting things.”

Tomura’s voice issues from beneath the bed. “Maybe you just suck at being haunted.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” You suck at all of this, and all the time you spend trying to solve your ghost problem has been sapping your focus at work. Mr. Yagi’s nice about it, but he can’t be nice forever. “I didn’t ask for this. You did.”

Your bed rattles again, harder than before, then goes still. “No, I didn’t.”

“Don’t lie. I know how this works. A ghost as strong as you –”

“I wasn’t always strong.” A scratching sound emanates from beneath the bed. Not only is Tomura still down there, he’s materialized fully enough that you can hear him scratching his neck. Why would he waste that kind of energy? “I didn’t want to come here. Master made me. I couldn’t get back.”

Master – his conjurer. It must be. But Aizawa says that ghosts are strong or weak, that their powers don’t grow or increase, and all the former ghosts agree. If Tomura started out weak enough to be summoned unwillingly, how did he get strong enough to hide an entire neighborhood of former ghosts? “I don’t understand.”

“So I bet you’re extra scared now.”

Tomura’s voice is bitter, mocking. But you can still hear the scratching, and before you can think better of it, you sit up and slide off your bed. When you’re lying flat on the floor, you can see into the darkness beneath the bed and make out Tomura’s red eyes, his pale skin, the scraped-raw spots on the side of his neck. “Hey, don’t do that,” you say quietly, and he scoffs. “It looks like it hurts.”

“Things don’t hurt. There’s feelings or not-feelings. I don’t care either way.”

“If you don’t care either way, then stop,” you say. Tomura scoffs again. “I’ll prove it’s different. Hold your hand out.”

He holds out the hand he’s not scratching with, like an asshole, but maybe you can use that. If he’s still scratching, the contrast will be obvious. You reach for Tomura’s hand with both of yours and hold it still. Part of you is expecting your hands to sink through and meet in the middle, but Tomura’s hand is real enough to touch. His skin is rough and ice-cold.

Tomura stops scratching the instant your hands enclose his. You’re tempted to call attention to it and gloat over being right, but it feels like it would be the wrong thing to do. It’s banter, and this doesn’t feel like banter. It feels like something else. You don’t think too hard about what that something is.

Tomura’s not thinking about it, either, but that’s because Tomura’s an asshole. “It only feels different because your hands aren’t moving.”

“You want me to move my hands? Fine.” You turn Tomura’s hand over and run the pads of your fingers lightly over his palm, noting as you do that his palm is completely unlined. He doesn’t have fingerprints, either. You notice that when you trace the length of one of his fingers, and then the next, and the next after that. But if you ignore that, and you ignore the cold, Tomura’s hand is just a hand. You match your palm to his, then run your fingers down the length of his all at once. It’s just a hand. It could be anyone’s.

Tomura yanks his hand free of yours and vanishes for the second time tonight, leaving you sprawled out on the floor of your room, staring into the now-empty space under your bed. It occurs to you to be embarrassed, but this isn’t even close to the dumbest thing you’ve done because of the ghost in your house. You lay there for a second, wondering how long it’ll take for Tomura to get whatever stupid thing he’s doing out of his system, and then climb back up into bed.

Tomura’s sitting there, cross-legged, both hands up over his face. “What was that?” he asks. Usually when he asks you questions like that, it’s a demand, but it sounds different this time. “Why did you do that to me?”

“I was proving a point.” Were you, though? Suddenly you aren’t sure. “Get off my bed.”

“Never do that again,” Tomura says. His shoulders are rising and falling fast, like he’s breathing hard. “Never! I don’t want to feel like this!”

“Like what?” you ask, but now he’s fading – not dematerializing, fading. He’s run out of energy, and he won’t be back tonight, unless he changes his mind and decides you and Phantom are fair game as far as living batteries go. “Fine. You started this. Don’t play your stupid games with me anymore.

The lights flicker on, then off, then on again. You roll over, press your face into your pillow, and fall asleep.

[stevetonyweekly]

Stevetony Weekly - March 3 - Week 9

Here’s what I read this week. If you haven’t checked out the February podfic list, be sure to check that out as well! As always, be sure to leave comment/kudos for your authors. 

~*~

Unintended Side Effects by AvengersNewB for sabrecmc

Steve has to go to the ER with a rather embarrassing problem - thankfully Dr. Stark takes excellent care of him.

If Through a Door by jibrailis

Tony is accused of murder on an alien planet; Steve marries him to bring him home.

there are still beautiful things by meidui

The day Tony takes Steve home from the New York Army National Guard is the best day of his life.

years we held on to by Areiton 

It happened like this--

He put the Valkyrie down, and he didn’t even mind, knew damn well it meant he’d die and he was almost grateful. They’d burnt Hydra out of Europe and the Nazis were being beaten back--the war was almost over.

What use was there, for the world’s only super soldier, when the world knew peace?

He put the Valkyrie down and he didn’t die.

(my heart is burning) holes in the ground by felisnocturna

In the end, it's a scent that leads them back home, like Ariadne's thread in a labyrinth of illusions.

Riders On The Storm by CaughtAGhost (ghosthan), ghosthan

"I don't think help is coming."

 Tony falls into a hole he can't claw himself out of.

and that's how it works by complicationstoo 

Steve is on the other side of the door, a small smile on his face and a plastic bag in his hand that he lifts up into the air to show. “I brought reinforcements.”

Tony steps back to let him in and asks, “Who told you?”

“Your boyfriend told me,” Steve confesses, then amends, “Ex-boyfriend.”

Something Beautiful by Annie D (scaramouche)

In one universe sideways, it’s 2012 and the Avengers have just defeated Loki and the Chitauri. Steve Rogers, who has been out of the ice for almost ten years, wonders if his retaking the shield for this event was a one-off, or if he’s ready to keep it again. It depends on Tony.

Pasta Pains by KandiSheek

Steve's pasta is an insult to Tony's heritage, and he's not going to take it lying down. Luckily the rest of the team is used to their squabbling.

talk just right by meidui

The most Tony hears Steve talk is when they argue, but hand to god, that's not the reason Tony keeps picking fights with him.

Well, maybe a little.

Beautiful Mistakes by tinystark616 

Steve helped Tony with his most recent heat, which was clearly a mistake, because now Tony is avoiding him.

The problem? He's in love with Tony.

The other problem? Iron Man, his best friend in the whole world, is also avoiding him.

dream come true by tinystark616

Steve likes to think that their last mission made them grow closer somehow, that Tony was truthful when he said he doesn't resent Steve anymore, and that now that the mission is done and Tony is recovering well, they can have another shot at being friends.

Or,

Steve and Tony become very close after the events of Avengers: Endgame, and Steve realizes that "the simple life" Tony told him about long ago is something that he wants, and he wants to live it with Tony.

give you everything by tinystark616 for oluka (lomku)

Steve really likes how Tony looks in the Iron Man armor.

[voidsentprinces]

Need an anime where our perspective is another student who watches as the guy who is clearly been selected by the universe to be the anime protagonist avoids it so hard. But the universe keeps throwing classic anime tropes at him. Dude specifically switches seats with another person so he isn't sitting at the front, the back, the side near the door or anywhere near the windows.

Dude is on his 7th apartment (and counting) because the universe has dropped

Entire Mecha on him (with a space princess was inside/he bought the princess an apartment and promptly left)

A quirky magical girl character (he left the apartment to them)

A ghost of a vengeful spirit (wasn't able to get his deposit)

A kaiju attacked, almost got recruited to a Super Sentai team in the process. He left the apartment to the team.

Spirit of his ancestor showed up claiming he was mythically prophesized to a special power. Couldn't get any sleep and left.

Played a video game, screen started glowing and a mysterious voice began speaking to him. Burnt down that apartment.

Fully eats his breakfast before leaving and walks on the walls of the various residences to avoid any "On-the-Way-to-School" encounters.

A time vortex opened up to him while he was cleaning the classroom. With apologizes, he threw the PoV character into it. And they got stuck in a fantasy world for half a year.

He has become extremely adapt at dodging trucks. Maintains a perfect diet and eats slowly so he doesn't choke to death or get a heart attack that might also send him to another world.

He woke up with technocolor hair the first day of school. He smacked his hair so hard the color came out and then filled it in with black marker.

A magic sword found its way to him. He turned it over to the police. They tried to make him a rookie detective, he declined.

Until recently he took his lunch to the middle of school swimming pool. Then Swim team tried to recruit him and now he's eating in the bushes right outside of campus.

Purposefully gets average score on tests. Does not engage in study sessions.

Attends no festivals. Whatsoever.

Mom almost died. He revived her through sheer spite, he was 3. Ensures his dad is always around for family visits. Lives with his family despite them thinking he's self-sufficient enough to live alone.

A gang showed up to try and fight him. He convinced them they have the wrong school and sent them to America.

Whenever something weird happens, he packs up and leaves school early. Including the time there was a bomb threat.

Sometimes gets a chill down his spine and sure enough finds a classmate looking at his fondly and immediately turns them down on the spot. 13 guys and 2 girls so far. 5 nonbinary aliens who have been posing as classmates to learn more about human society.

Got lost in the woods once and fell into a pit discovering an ancient civilization of mole people. Climbed out and promptly walked in a straight line until he got home somehow.

Has an extra set of clothing for all members of the student body in case quote, "Ecchi bullshit ensues." Incidentally, he is also really good at dodging the female student body.

Is not studying to go to Tokyo University or become an idol or work an office job. He's aiming to immigrate to the middle of the Netherlands and hopes nothing interesting ever happens to him. But he cannot risk going to towns specifically labeled "Nothing ever happens here" cause he tried to move out to Rural School three weeks ago and there was a zombie out break, a vampire serial murder, and a string of UFO sightings all within a week.

[missmonsters2]

Between the Lines || XVII

PAIRING: Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader / Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Reader / WandaNat x Fem!Reader Summary: Vampire AU. Life has changed drastically since the 1600s. Things are always on the move, and you’ve been very careful to not get on SHIELDs radar. Living on the down-low owning a café, you’re content to live out a quiet existence. That is until the Avengers enter your life. [Set after the New York Invasion, in CAWS, and goes up to AoU. Canon divergent after.]

Warning: canon-level violence.

TATYANA'S NEW CHARACTER FACE

Note: What a long hiatus! Glad to be back <3 hope you all enjoy this wild chapter! Please remember taglists are gone but you can follow my library blog for notifs! <3

Series Masterlist || Main Masterlist || Library Blog || A03

PART XVII of XX

Count: ~8.5k

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

The air smells different. 

You expected it to. The landscape has changed after so many years, but it has still thrown you off kilter. You haven't returned to Tatyana's grave site in many years. It was cowardly, but you just couldn't. 

You didn't feel like you had the right to. It felt wrong to have killed Tatyana and then sit at her grave and mourn. She would've loved it, though, and she'd probably want you to sit there uncomfortable and discontent. As much as it would've been a part of your punishment, you only visited a handful of times throughout the first couple of decades. You had less time once you encountered David, dealing with his newborn tendencies. 

"So, what exactly are we looking for? A gravesite?" Tony asks, his helmet coming off momentarily as he surveys the area. It looked like a quaint little town. Modernized with time, but it was still out in the countryside. The air was still brisk, but it was warming with springtime emerging. You hear children and their parents preparing for the day in the distance, and it’s rather nostalgic. 

"No," you shook your head. "I didn't bury her near anyone. I don't believe the villagers would've accepted having their murderer buried amongst their dead. There had been a flower field miles away that I laid her to rest at." You look around. "Although it's hard to tell if it will still even be there or if something was built over it."

"Can't you, like, I don't know—smell it?" Tony gestures at nothing in particular. 

You roll your eyes. "I'm not a bloodhound. This was centuries ago, there'd be nothing left to smell even if I could pick something up this far."

You keep walking, leading the group, because you smell something even if you can't smell Tatyana's grave. You have yet to mention it to the group since you're unsure what it could be and don't want to get everyone more riled up when they're already so tense. 

The moment you walk far enough between towns, an area excluded away from civilization just past the trees, something inside you clicks. 

"It's here," you furrow your brows. 

"What's wrong?" Natasha asks. 

"I—" but you can't finish the sentence as there are a thousand footsteps at once. On the other side of the clearing, vampires are marching.

"Shit," Steve says.

"Language," Tony says, but it lacks its teasing tone.

Everyone buckles up, raising their weapons as the vampires begin to pick up their pace into a run toward you. You and the team begin to run to meet them, but before either side can reach the middle, there's a strong blast of magic, hitting the ground and nearly splitting it. 

"I don't remember giving orders to move."

You smell her before you see her. 

Spice and hydrangea override your sensories. 

All you can smell is her—the memories. It's the smell of eggs, slightly burnt cinnamon, herbs, the laundry, the river, and grass, and no one could ever understand it, but you could smell the warmth. You smelled somewhere—someone you used to call home. 

Smelling her just felt like you were losing everything all over, and to see her? Your breath hitches in a way that feels like it's slicing against your lungs. 

"Fuck," you murmur. "It's really you." 

Tatyana descends upon the field, her soldiers parting to make way for her. She looks just the way she did those few blissful weeks before everything went downhill—before you lost her. Her defined cheekbones, mauve lips, and sage green eyes that felt like she could always see right through you. 

The field was noisy, settling down into a quiet murmur, but none of it mattered. None of it matters because Tatyana's eyes held yours as she looked at you as if it was just the two of you on the field. 

"My love," her husk voice whispers, but you can hear it clear as bells. 

You feel like you're being constricted, her voice and eyes strangling the life out of every thought you could have possibly been having that wasn't about her. 

Natasha watches the scene unfold before her, unsure what to make of it. She hasn't ever seen you like this, even as you talked about her. But perhaps this was the issue. You always talked about her in a past-tense fashion. Tatyana had been nothing but a wounded memory that left scars all over you. Even when you encountered her previously, she was always in someone else's body.

But now, she was in front of you, clearly alive and unchanged. Seeing Tatyana must've brought you back to the 1600s just before everything went awry. 

Natasha looks over at Wanda, who's struggling to decide what she feels. There's a definite burning hatred there. Wanda wasn't sure she could ever forgive the manipulations and the last encounter. And for a moment, she hated that she had done the same to others with her powers. Yet, there was a displaced longing. This woman was related to her by blood—another family member when she thought there was just Pietro.

"Sveti kurac," Pietro curses. "She really does look like you."

Tatyana turns her head then towards the twins, assessing them. "How misguided," she sniffs with a crinkle in her nose. Her accent is thick as she says, "she looks like me."

Wanda bristles at the tone and words. She could practically feel Tatyana's insinuation that Wanda was a poor imitation to replace her. She narrows her eyes, conjuring up her magic. 

"Feisty," Tatyana chuckles like it's some kind of joke. "It's precious you think you can beat me, child."

Heat floods Wanda at the condescending tone.

"I had the upper hand on this battlefield," Tatyana cocks her brow. "Don't tell me you fools came here thinking I wouldn't have cast runes all over this place."

"My magic's still working, is it not?" Wanda smirks as she raises her hand, sending a blast of magic forward, only for it to make it out a few feet before fizzling away.

Tatyana bursts out laughing, hand over her mouth before she slides it up her face and through her hair, smirking. She turns to look at you, "I know the alternative to you not showing up here would've been devastating, but you were a bad girl, not preparing them more to come here."

You were stricken but trying to gather yourself and not show it. You take a deep breath. "What exactly is it that you want?" You stare on with no emotion. 

It's then that Tatyana's expression changes. Gone with the amusement, and in came the narrowed anger. Her eyes narrowed, jaw clenched with a pinched brow. 

"Don't ask ridiculous questions," she hisses at you. 

"What?" You taunt her. "Don't tell me you're still chasing your delusional ambitions of ruling the humans." You look around, gazing at the improved artificial vampire army that seems to hover, just waiting for Tatyana's command. "They're better than the last batch, but they'll never be the real thing."

"I don't need them to be the real thing," Tatyana cocks her brow. "I just need them to get the job done." But Tatyana doesn't reveal exactly what job that is. 

You pinch your brows, trying to appear annoyed rather than shaken. "Tatyana, just—stop," you sigh almost pleadingly. "Let it go. Let go of your anger at the humans."

But Tatyana just laughs, and it's hollow sounding. "You must not think about me at all anymore if you think I'm angry at the humans." 

"Angry at me then?" You push. "There's nothing I could ever say to justify what I've done but I think the punishment you've left me and the fact that I'll live with what I did for the rest of my life is enough."

Tatyana just shakes her head. "I'm not going to talk about this here with you," she says and holds out her hand. "You've had your fun, and I've indulged your dalliances long enough. It's time to return to me."

There's a moment when you hesitate. There was a time in your life when this would've been all you wanted. You felt like you were walking around with half your spirit carved out for a long time. You missed Tatyana so bad some days that you wanted to join her, if not for Leo and then David. You would sleep if only to dream about a life where you and she had everything. Sometimes you would stay awake to avoid dreaming. Tatyana had been the rising and falling of everything to you.

But—you take a deep breath—that was just a moment in time. 

"No," you tell her softly, but you know everyone can hear it. "That time of our life is gone, Tatyana."

"Don't make me ask twice," Tatyana calmly states, keeping her hand out, but there's a wisp of blue around her finger as she curls it, beckoning you.

You feel the magic jerk you forward, and the titillating of your center of gravity throws you off from fighting it. But before you can move further, Natasha and Wanda grip both sides of your wrist, grounding you. 

You look gratefully at the two, your eyes soft as they smile back at you. 

The intimacy of it brings a wave of white, hot anger into Tatyana. "How dare you interrupt us," she hisses. 

"You made it everyone's business by bringing us all out here," Natasha gives her signature raised brow. "And it's certainly mine and Wanda's business. Hasn't anyone ever told you no means no? You're almost no better than a man at this point."

Tatyana narrows her eyes at Natasha, disgust written all over her features as she glares at the redhead agent. But she doesn't say anything, as if deigning that Natasha wasn't worth speaking to, let alone her time. 

Suddenly, she snaps her fingers. Without words, the army of vampires begins charging again, and everyone has their hands full. Natasha and Wanda have to let go of you to beat off the crowding vampires, but the short moment of their hold has you able to stand on your feet again. Tatyana can't use her magic to try to pull you again, not when you're used to her magic and can throw it off. 

Everyone's holding their own, and Tatyana seems to be refraining from joining the fight, and you're still trying to figure out why. You look around, and Wanda can only cast magic within a few feet of herself, meaning she has to be close to her enemies. Natasha's style of fighting naturally is close range. For the most part, everyone's is. With the exception of Pietro, who can run circles around everyone, and Tony, who can use his suit to fly, everyone is bound to the ground.

Tatyana seems to realize this within minutes of watching everyone fight. She uses magic to conjure something in her palms before sending multiple blasts toward Tony's. They hit him in quick succession at his feet and back. He can't move out of the way in time, busy above trying to shoot off two vampires on Steve's back. Nothing happens immediately. But then, roots begin to grow out from the bottom, breaking the repulsors in his feet, and he starts to drop from the sky. He tries to engage the jetpack in his back but nothing comes out. 

Tony instantly begins trying to use the repulsors in his hands to slow the fall, but he isn't flying high enough from the ground. He's going to land right into a horde of vampires waiting to rip him apart. Tony could send missiles to kill them, but he might get caught in the blast.

"Tony!" Steve yells, using his shield to brutally jab into a vampire's shoulder over and over to release his leg. He starts running, but Steve knows he's not going to make it in time, and it's chilling. 

"Steve!" Pietro yells as he begins to run. "Hold your shield up and brace yourself!" 

Steve doesn't even hesitate. The time spent hunting for Bucky with the young man has earned his trust. Pietro barrels into Steve’s back, keeping his feet planted on the ground as he uses his powers to run the both of them. Steve's shield barrels into the group of vampires, knocking them over with a brutal force from the speed.

When it looks like just the perfect spot, Pietro stops pushing Steve before grabbing his shield and using it to slam into the rest of the vampires surrounding the area. 

Steve catches Tony, but it knocks them both to the ground. You can hear the wind being knocked out of Steve's lungs, but it doesn't sound like anything is broken. 

"Just for that," Tony sounds breathless. "I won't make fun of you for a week."

"At least two weeks, Stark," Steve huffs as the two get up. 

Natasha only catches moments of it from the corner of her eye. She must be careful not to let the enemies in front of her land a blow. Wanda's got her back, but she can tell it's frustrating the young witch her powers are being limited. 

"I have to find where she cast the runes," Wanda says. "If I can, there's a chance I can destroy them and get my full magic back."

The advantage of that would be overwhelming and could lead them to a possible victory. So far, Tatyana has refrained from joining the fight, but they might all be fucked if that ever changed. 

As Natasha wraps her legs around a vampire's body, swinging her way up as she locks his neck in, she uses her widow bites to stun him as she works her way into breaking his neck. She uses that moment to look at how David and Liam are faring. 

David is easily holding his own, watching out for Liam, who stays at the back as support with his alchemy. He seems to be attempting to cast a big spell. 

Tatyana sneers as she realizes there's an alchemist amongst the group. "William! Are you going to stand back and have me do all the work?" 

You tense, expecting something to shift. When nothing happens after a moment, the tension in your shoulders relax just slightly. 

Suddenly, the air changes. 

When a man—no, a predator—steps out from behind a tree, you feel something horrible. 

If seeing the predator in you could make people feel the hair on the body stand, seeing him was like having the first layer of your skin peel off. 

"No need to get yourself in a huff," he rolls his eyes. "You're losing your touch, dear. You can't even take care of a few measly enhanced humans and two vampires?"

He was tall and muscular but not overly so. He had long black hair that would've been popular during the olden days, just sitting at his shoulders. He looked unassuming, but you knew better.

"Don't call me dear," Tatyana snaps at him, but he ignores her. 

Williams looks at you. "Hm," he hums. "You look familiar. Did I change you? But your venom doesn't quite smell like mine."

But you're wordless. 

All these years...these centuries, and this has never happened to you.

You've never bumped into a vampire older than you. 

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

William changes the battlefield. What once might've been a possibility of winning quickly becomes closer to being annihilated. Both you and David team up to take on William, trying to be more strategic than using brute power that you both know won't win. 

Everyone's busy handling their own fights, but they can't help but watch for the first time to see you outclassed. You brought your elbow into William's rib while David had him in a headlock. Natasha knows that the force alone should've obliterated the bones into dust, and it would've if it were anyone else. 

But William merely grunts as he whips the back of his hand into your face, the force of it knocking you miles and miles away into the distance, breaking trunks of trees as you hit them.

Natasha and Wanda scream your name, horrified. They try to take off after you, but suddenly a horde of vampires conjugate into a wall in front of them by force. They look up and see Tatyana floating just above them, smirking. 

They all knew this was a possibility, that this was what Tatyana wanted from the beginning. Yet, seeing it happen and being so utterly unable to prevent it is devastating. 

"No!" Wanda yells in desperation. She turns around in circles frantically, looking for where Tatyana would've placed the runes. 

Natasha's trying to formulate a plan. If she uses her grappling hook, she can try to aim at the trees over the vampires. She might break a leg, but it was better than nothing, wasn't it? It was better than not doing anything at all and watching you be taken.

"I told you, you stupid, little human," Tatyana sneers. "You're only meant for one lifetime and that lifetime is over." She uses her magic to begin toppling the vampires down towards them, meaning to crush them. 

Natasha instantly turns to Wanda, running towards her and grabbing her before using the grappling hook. Pietro seems to notice them immediately as she shoots toward him. He moves out of the way of the hook that doesn’t catch anything but grabs onto the rope. With all his might, he runs with the rope, yanking it harshly to get them out of the way of the falling bodies. 

Wanda holds onto Natasha tightly, using her magic to create a barrier around their bodies to protect their necks and any damage done to their bodies as it hits the ground. 

Wanda wants to sob at the realization that you're gone. Natasha doesn't even feel like she has the time to process it as she watches William grab onto David's arm, crushing it under his grip.

David lets out a painful hiss as his grip loosens, and he's flung from Williams' back into the ground. It cracks as a tiny crater is formed where he lands. David can instantly feel all his ribs break, his legs are mangled, and the back of his head in danger of cracking. 

William turns back to where Tatyana took off, stunned that she had simply left and wasn't coming back for him. Rage overtakes his face as he realizes he's been abandoned.

"David!" Natasha yells, running towards him, but he screams at her.

"Don't you fucking dare come closer!" David yells, and it's the first time she's heard him curse like that. "Get out! Get out of here now!"

Natasha wants to scream that she can't—she can't just leave him there. You'd absolutely hate her for it. David seems to think something similar: you'll hate him if you let Natasha and Wanda die here. 

This line of work has always taught Natasha there were sacrifices, and you had to live with them. You don't get to question someone else's sacrifice. This was a losing battle, and the only way to survive was if they got to the Quinjet now.

But by the time that happened, what would be left of David? Could she get his brutalized body back from William so he could recover? There has to be some blood bags on the Quinjet, and she could give him her blood if not. He'd heal. He had to.

The idea of recovery gets shot to shit when William pulls out a wooden dagger. And they all know what it's made of. 

William means to end it and end it permanently. 

"Go!" David yells as William steps closer, hovering over David with his two arms raised, holding the dagger. 

Natasha doesn't want to watch, but she can’t tear her eyes away. Wanda's summoning her magic even though she knows she's too far away, and angry tears are spilling out of her eyes. Pietro starts to dig his heel into the ground towards David. Steve throws his shield to the speedster, who catches it with ease. Tony uses one hand to attack the vampires between him and Steve while his other repulsor is pointed towards William, charging up. 

Willam's speed nearly matches Pietro, his hands coming down so quickly.

It's over.

God, it was fucking over. 

.

.

.

Hiss. 

.

.

.

It was small at first. But then suddenly—

CRACK.

The entire field is lit up, lightning and vines zipping through them at an unstoppable force. They take hold of every artificial vampire in the area, grasping them in a vice-like grip. The lightning surrounds it in a second hold, squeezing tighter and tighter until they disintegrate. 

William only pauses momentarily at the change on the field before a blur barrels into him ferally. The air leaves his lungs with a grunt. He drops the dagger on the ground, and Pietro scrambles to grab it and take off. 

With no artificial vampires left on the field to battle, they all scramble toward David to help him. 

They all watch, stunned. 

The two bodies rolled on the ground over and over until William landed with force on his back. 

And Liam on top.

Liam's eyes were pitch black, and his fangs bared as he snarled at William, snapping his jaws at him. William was surprisingly having a difficult time pushing Liam away, and it seemed Liam was using all his strength and alchemy to force William down. 

It wasn't until Liam managed to bite into William's forearm that the man let out a piercing scream as poisonous venom was injected into him. Liam held tight, nearly taking a chunk out of William's arm before he released, biting again just a few inches over. 

William began punching Liam in the head with his other arm until he was released. He crouches his legs in, pressing them against Liam’s pelvis as he uses them to knock Liam off of him.

Liam gracefully flips over and lands on his feet. Blood spilled out of his mouth and down his chin as he stood, and he wiped it away on the back of his hand.

"Leave," Liam growled, his eyes still black. "You won't win today."

William considers staying to fight, but he looks at the vines, still moving around. Also, the venom in his arm still pulsates with burning pain. He sniffs. He needs Liam's venom to reverse it; it's not his—

But then William narrows his eyes.

"You."

Liam doesn't respond to it, merely repeating, "Leave."

William snarls at the loss.

“Your venom,” William spits. “You know I can only delay the inevitable.”

Liam nods and they both tense as he blurs over to William, biting his hand before he runs back to create distance between the two. 

William only gives him a withering glare before he turns and disappears.

Liam turns, and they all watch, slack-jawed. His eyes are still black, and it makes everyone's hackle rise. But it's like he doesn't register them; he just keeps walking until he's kneeling in front of David.

Liam assesses the damage to see if his venom can fix it temporarily. When he determines it can't, he bites deeply into his own wrist. When he releases, blood starts overflowing, and he immediately places it over David's mouth, who begins to drink greedily. 

"What are you doing?" Natasha finds her voice first. 

"Blood-sharing," Liam answers. "The blood in his own body is already working overtime and its priorities will always be major organs and the head. I fed before we came, so it should be potent enough to at least heal his arms, legs, and some of his ribs."

"You shouldn't," David mutters weakly, trying to speak and not let any blood escape his mouth. "You'll end up feral if you give me too much."

Natasha quickly connects the dots to why David didn't blood-share during the aftermath of Ultron. 

Liam smiles weakly, his eyes slowly returning to normal when it seems like David will be okay. "We'll make do."

"If it's not enough, I'll give you mine," Natasha offers without hesitation. 

David smiles thankfully at her. It's then that the Quinjet comes into view with Pietro flying it. 

"We...we can't leave," Wanda suddenly says, her eyes welling with tears again. "We can't leave without her."

The heavy loss of you settles over everyone. 

"It's okay," Liam says before he lifts his wrist away from David, licking the wound and sealing it up. "Tatyana won't hurt her. She probably can't even take her outside the city."

"How do you know?" Wanda hisses.

"Who the hell are you?" Tony finally asks. "Aren't you supposed to be human? What the hell was all of that?”

"You're clearly older than our two vampires. You're as strong as that William guy," Steve says carefully, assessing the vampire before him.

Liam sighs, running his hand through his hair. "I was William's apprentice. I only got the advantage with all your help to distract him and the fact he was blindsided from seeing me again. If it had just been me, it's possible even my alchemy couldn't kill him."

Liam looked directly at Natasha and Wanda.

"William is my maker, but I'm Elaine's."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Everyone is sitting back in the Compound, nursing their wounds. They sit around Tony's lab as he silently works on repairing his suit, and Tony is uncharacteristically quiet. 

Steve was wiping blood from his brow, inspecting if the cut on it needed to be stitched back together. He, Tony, and Pietro were planning on heading back out to see if they could find any traces of you. 

Steve's phone blinked with a message that he quickly checked from Sam.

Found him. Slippery little bastard, but I'll see if I can set a trap.

Steve lets out a tiny smile before sighing and putting away his phone. He feels disconcerted that you've been taken. He wonders at this point if you and Bucky will ever get to meet. 

"Speak now," Wanda hisses, "and speak quickly."

"What are you?" Natasha asks without hesitation. "How can you be a vampire and also use alchemy? Those seem to oppose each other if one is meant to be a power to be able to protect themselves from the other."

"How the hell could I not sense you were a vampire?" David mutters, mostly to himself in disbelief. "Vampires are always able to sense each other. It's like a primal instinct that we recognize in each other. And I never saw you feed and we were together almost all the time!"

Liam sighs, almost overwhelmed by all the questions directed at him. "Alchemy is a neutral power but only humans are able to receive it. It has to do with their natural blood. Humans, specifically priests, just used it as so to protect themselves from being prey. I had the gift for it as a human, but it was too weak to fully manifest. Once I was turned, the venom in me unlocked something."

Turning to David, he looked apologetic before pointing to the alchemy spells down his left arm. "This keeps an illusion spell up. It makes it so you can't recognize the predator in me, but I have to be careful because if I force any kind of vampire instincts like bloodlust up, it breaks through the spell. I don't have to feed as often as you being as old as I am, but when I did, I took advantage of the times we were apart."

The room is silent, trying to process the information. Steve and Tony left to see if they could find any trace of you and if they could find any information about where William would be hiding. 

"Let me start from the beginning," Liam sighs. "About who I am and everything that has happened to come to this moment."

Wanda has her lip curled in disdain but doesn't say anything. Natasha places her arm on Wanda's elbow, and the girl softens just a moment, leaning into the spy as they all quiet to listen.

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Flashback

~1400s to 1600s~

The world was an unnaturally quiet place. At least to Liam. The markets were bustling, and people constantly moved during the day, but that noise never registered with him. Liam took in the days slowly with little to no rush, despite how much it would annoy his father and siblings. 

But being the youngest did come with perks. They were generally much more lenient with him, and his mother seemed to hide the fact she'd allow him a taste of whatever was being made for the day first. It was a quiet life, and Liam hadn't minded one bit.  

Despite the feeling that something was rumbling just underneath his skin and the crops he grew were always somehow much better than everyone else's, Liam liked his quiet life. 

Moments of curiosity beckoned him to venture outside their quaint little farm and markets. Sometimes he stood out at the edge and looked out as if he could see anything beyond the horizon. 

He couldn't leave, though. 

Even if Liam wanted to see what he could do outside of growing crops, his family didn't need the uncertainty of waiting for him.

But just like how their little life was quiet, death comes just as quietly. Famine spreads through their lands, and Liam only manages to keep the crops alive a little longer than everyone else. One by one, they starve to death. 

Being the youngest was a curse, always being given everything there was until he was the last one standing. Hunger gnawed at his stomach as he finally ventured past their quaint little farm and markets. 

Hungry. 

He was so hungry.

Liam thought about what he could do. Should he try to grow more crops? But the land had suddenly become unsuitable. He was quick with picking up things. Maybe he could try to find a merchant and learn the trade. Only can't remember the last time he saw a merchant pass by. Perhaps he should find a temple and look for work there. He'd have to shave his head, though.

And even as he stumbled upon a gruesome feeding man feeding on another man, Liam stood there motionlessly. 

"Oh," the amused voice turned to look at him. "What have you stumbled upon, lost little boy?"

The words were difficult to understand. The man was white-skinned, clearly not from around here, but he had stayed long enough to learn the language from the locals. 

"I'm not a boy," Liam shook his head and replied slowly so the man could process his words. His voice felt raspy from the lack of use. 

"Could've fooled me," the man laughed lowly. "I can practically see your bones. You wouldn't even be a good feed."

"How can you eat him?" Liam asked as he looked upon the dead body, neck ripped open with blood running down. "Won't you get sick?"

The man raised his brow in amusement. It was strange that Liam didn't seem perturbed, but he supposed they had been experiencing famine for quite some time now. At this point, it was probably eat or be eaten.

"I won't get sick," the man told Liam, smiling sinisterly. "I'm a demon. I will never starve because there will always be blood."

It was quiet for a long moment, and the man wondered if Liam would turn to run. Liam was sweating at his brow and lip half-turned in a frown. Maybe he was too weak to even run away. 

The man thinks that the thought of eating him doesn't even seem appealing. Maybe he'll just kill him and be on his way. 

"Can I become a demon too?" Liam finally asks, locking eyes with the man, not flinching from their glowing redness. "If I become a demon, then I can live, right?"

The man stared, mouth agape. He starts laughing before he drops the body he's holding. "Fascinating, fascinating," he crooned. "It certainly won't be for free."

"I don't have money," Liam told him immediately. "If I had money, I would be searching for food to buy."

The man snorts. "I don't need money. Anything in this world is mine to take." He walks a slow circle around Liam. "What I want is an apprentice. I have plans, and my last one...didn't last very long."

Liam nodded. 

The man smiled, but there was no comfort from it. "I must warn you, I don't have the patience to change you slowly. This will burn." He stepped closer, grabbing a fistful of Liam's hair and yanking his head back. "Welcome to the coven. My name is William, but you will refer to me as master."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

William was a radical. There was no telling how long William was around since he rarely spoke about himself. All Liam knew was that William wanted more demons like him. Secretly, Liam could only surmise that being alone for so long must've been lonely. Being lonely for too long does something to your head.

A century passed by. It didn't feel as quiet as it did when Liam was human. It felt like something was pulsating under his skin, making his bones ache. Liam encountered many priests before, seeing what they called ‘God's power.’ The more they used it around him, the more something inside him resonated—the more it felt like something was about to come out. 

But Willi—his master would kill him. If Liam did what he believed he could, he would die for it. 

So, Liam started to study the priests from a distance. When he encountered them, he watched with rapt what they were doing, what they drew, and how they moved. When he finally got his hands on one of their 'incantation and hymn' books, he felt something different about his life for the first time. 

Liam felt awake. There was a constant stream of excitement in his mind. He could copy the drawings in the book, but he needed someone to teach him how to read the incantations. The world had always moved so slowly, and now Liam couldn't help but want it to move faster.

The only time he could practice was when his master was away. Despite the initial resistance, Liam convinced William that building networks with humans was better. If he wanted to create more demons, then they needed more space. 

They needed land and money and their influence to keep the pitchforks and fire away. It was much slower to accomplish, but it was working well. 

Humans were naturally suspicious beings. Too much compulsion and out-of-the-ordinary behavior would have the priests marching right to them. 

"How dare he!" 

Liam folded the paper he was drawing on and slipped it into his pocket as he turned around to see William barge through the door and slam it shut. 

"What's wrong, master?" Liam asked, no inflections in his tone. 

"That Baron Hastings—" William huffed, and his face was flushed with anger. "Not only did he laugh at my proposal to invest, he actually dared to convince others not to invest, saying it was a dupe!" 

Liam said nothing. Even though he knew whoever this Baron was, he was correct. 

"Your idea of this route was foolish!" William gritted out before he ripped off his hat. "I've had enough of this sham. Tonight, we will raid Baron Hasting's estate and take him for all he has."

"Yes, master," Liam tilted his head in acknowledgment. There was no use trying to refute anything William said when he was in this state. He was rather impressed since it was at least a decade since the last time he's lost his temper like this. 

The raid had been like it was every other time. The smell of massacre stopped making him nauseous long ago. Liam prefers to kill the servants by snapping their necks and only taking a bite or two out of them, if only to appease William. The overindulgence was intoxicating for a few short years before Liam decided that the smell of their fear during the massacre didn't make them taste as good. William thought otherwise.

As he finished up, he could hear something outside at the stables, but it was mostly covered by the sound of the Baron's wife screaming bloody murder. She wouldn't stop even as William threatened to kill her slowly if she didn't silence herself. 

Liam took off out the back. The Baron did well for himself, seeing a small stable holding three horses. He wondered who the third horse was for since the Baron and his wife had no children, and it couldn't have been for any of the servants. 

Then he gazed upon something he wasn't sure he'd ever seen. 

You were shaking and crying in your fine, silk-green gown. You were well-groomed and obviously spoiled with luxury. 

A mistress of the Barons, perhaps? How bold of you to be here while his wife was. But Liam inhaled deeply and tilted his head in confusion. While he did smell the Baron on you intimately, he could also smell the wife in the same way. The wife's scent was all around you, over you, inside you.

Strange, Liam thought. He didn't know that was possible. 

"Please..." you whispered, eyes closing as you could hear a woman's scream again, tears running down your eyes. But you don't continue your sentence.

His bones felt achy again. 

"Can you read?" Liam asked, causing you to look up unsurely. You looked like you wanted to bolt to see if you'd make it, but you stayed rooted.

You nod shakily nonetheless. "Yes, a little. The Baron and his wife were teaching me."

Liam nodded. "Master won't teach me to read."

You swallowed, trembling. You obviously were confused as to why this...this demon was talking to you instead of killing you. "Have you asked?"

Liam shook his head. "He doesn't like it if I do other things. If I ask, he'll just be angry. He only taught me this language because it makes it easier for him."

You were gripping the horse's reins tightly. "If you don't want to follow him, why do you?"

There was a blank look as Liam stared at you. "Master made me as I am. I'm not strong enough to beat him."

"Have you tried?"

"If I try and fail, then I'll die."

"If he's too strong, then you need to be smarter. The Baron says being smarter and playing the long game is far better than being stronger."

The words settle upon Liam like a blanket. His eyes sparkle as if he knows that he's smarter, and despite being a mere human, it was like your permission to be so was all he needed.

There was a heavy, pregnant pause. 

"You can leave," Liam told you, gesturing back to the screaming with his head. "If you leave now, the master will probably not notice you. But you can't leave with the horse as it will make too much noise. You must walk, not run. Your heart is already beating so loud and running will make it worse."

"I—" you started to say but choked. The tears that welled up in your eyes earlier fall over your already tear-stained face. "I can't leave without them."

Liam tilted his head. "Why not?"

"The baroness is screaming so I can leave," you told him, choking on your sob. "The moment we heard the break-in, The Baron pushed us both out the back, but the Baroness knew we both couldn't escape. She left me here and went back in."

"Then you should leave," Liam reasoned. "If she did it for you, you should live."

"Just to die another day," you muttered, wiping your tears. "How do you leave the first person to show you that kind of love? I—I can't. I should be in there too."

Liam ponders the words. He kind of understands. He loved his family as much as he could. It was hard to leave their bodies behind, but he kept moving because they had given him every last morsel so he could keep going. 

And while you did not show him anything remotely close to love, you did show him something. And the ache in his bones made him feel like he shouldn't leave you behind. Playing the long game, as you said, will require time. And in the end, Liam knows he can't do it alone. 

"Then die as a human and join them," Liam resounded before he blurred over to you and bit your neck, releasing his venom. There was no scream from your mouth, just your jaw dropping in shock. The taste of fear in your blood repulses him a little, but he hangs on, draining you. He was sorry—genuinely sorry—unlike his master, who warned him with false regret in his voice. Liam was sorry that your change would be painful. 

When Liam felt your pulse nearly stop, he released you. He looked back at the house that was slowly becoming quieter. The screams quelled. He hopes you don't remember much of this. 

Tonight, you'll die as a human and join the Baron and Baroness. 

Then...then you'll wake up a demon, and the long game begins.

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Natasha and Wanda feel breathless as they listen to Liam. You told them your side of the story when you were changed, which was very little as you didn’t recall much outside of waking up with a burning pain and smelled the massacre.

To hear it from Liam’s side was…they didn’t know how to describe it. It made them want to hunch over and scream. 

"I watched her in secret for many, many years. I managed to drag William from town to town. Not too close, obviously. That's how Tatyana and William met, I believe. I thought that Tatyana would've joined to get rid of William, but..." Liam rubbed the back of his head and didn't finish the sentence. "When Tatyana died, and Elaine became close to that priest, I saw it as an opportunity. I needed to learn alchemy and that priest and his family were going to be the only way. So, I escaped and went into hiding. William eventually stopped looking and continued to travel further away from me."

"How were you even able to get close without alerting them?" David asks with a frown. "She would've sensed you for sure if you didn't have your alchemy tattoos yet."

Liam shakes his head. "Your senses don't react the same way when you're near your maker. When you said you can always sense the predator in a vampire, what's actually happening is your venom senses other venoms. Your venom is unique to you, but it did come from your marker. Therefore, you can't sense it very well because your venom sees it as an extension of itself. While venom is unique to yourself, it does recognize shared venom. When you bite someone, only your venom can fully counteract it. But anyone in the same venomline as you can delay the poisoning, like a partial healing."

"Huh," David hums, holding his chin. "You learn something new every day. That explains why I never felt any alarms or hackles rise when I saw her. I thought it was because I recognized her as a coven mate, but that makes more sense when vampires form their own coven by changing others versus outsiders banding together."

Liam nods, smiling at David before continuing his story. "I learned a lot from Leonard by just watching and listening to him teach his children. They continued their traditions and upheld alchemy for a very, very long time. Until a child came that didn't have a gift, and they couldn't bear any more children."

"Robert," Natasha realizes, recalling the priest they met in Nashville. Liam nods. "He said you were adopted. They must've adopted you and thought you were, what, 17 at the most? How did you manage that? You look..." Natasha trails. "Older."

"The documents I forged officially said so, but I did learn enough fundamentals of alchemy to experiment on my own to change some of my features," Liam reveals. "I think his grandfather suspected but never attempted to find out. I was a prodigy once I had proper teachings and although awkward, sincere."

"Did you know?" Wanda demanded immediately. "Did you know Tatyana was alive?"

Liam is silent initially. "I suspected," he admits. "I couldn't quite keep tabs on William after I escaped, but his behavior was strange weeks leading up to Tatyana's death."

"We couldn't find even a trace of them." Steve and Tony burst through the doors together, looking tired, angry, and defeated. The news of your disappearance sets off everyone in the room. Angry tears well up in Wanda's eyes, that feeling of loss at her door again. 

And she is so, so fucking tired of losing.

"You knew," Wanda hisses at Liam, malice laced in her tone. Her lips were pursed, and her eyes narrowed in an accusatory manner. "You knew all along that Tatyana was alive and would eventually come after us."

Wanda's eyes began to glow, her magic manifesting around her in angry, red wisps. "You knew and you let Tatyana take her!" Her magic bursts towards Liam, grabbing him like a vice. His body stiffens and jerks in her hold as he releases a gasp of pain.

"Wanda, wait!" David calls out to her, but it doesn't register. He tries to grab Liam to pull him out of Wanda's grasp, but he can't get Liam to even budge. David turns to everyone else in the room, but everyone is conflicted about whether or not to step in after finding out the truth about Liam. Steve looks like he wants to step in, but the anger about losing you keeps you rooted. He wants answers, and if Wanda can get them from Liam, he'll stay in place with his arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed.

"Nat," David turns to the redhead instead, his eyes pleading. "Please. Liam must've had his own reasons for not saying anything. We need all the help we can get." 

Natasha purses her lips. She'd be more than content to let Wanda rip Liam to shreds. She's so unbelievably angry to the point where it feels like hot needles are pricking her and boiling her blood. You were right there. You had been right there in front of her, and Natasha lost you. There was nothing she could've done to save you, and that's what makes Natasha the angriest.

But it's the years of experience—the training she's endured all her life— that she can put aside her emotions and be rational. Natasha gently places her hand over Wanda's clenched hand. The warmth of her skin makes Wanda look at her, the anger in her eyes slowly dimming as she stares into Natasha's gentle look. 

The red glow disappears from Wanda's eyes, the wisp drawing back into her. She releases Liam from her grip, still glaring at him as he falls into David's arms. Liam's slightly hunched over, trying to regain his breath. 

Natasha feels Wanda slip her hand into hers, and the warmth that seeps out is comforting. She coolly turns her head towards Liam, chin jutted upwards. "As much as I would like Wanda to give your comeuppance, you hold valuable information. You better have a plan or have some knowledge of how to save her and get rid of Tatyana for good."

Liam recovers from Wanda's attack as he gives a slight nod to David that he's okay and stands straight. "I had never intentionally planned for anyone to be kidnapped," he emphasizes, having the consciousness to at least look guilty. "I didn’t reveal myself because I wasn’t sure how Tatyana had been listening in. I truly believed that Tatyana was working with William to overthrow the humans. I'm not sure what changed, but it's clear that Tatyana abandoned William and had no intentions of creating sustainable creatures for his army again."

Natasha and Wanda look at each other for a brief moment. They recall the moment William had looked betrayed. The anger that rushed into William's eyes and the heat that pulsated through him—there was no way that was a part of their plans. 

"Tatyana was able to recreate her body, but there definitely had to be a price paid," Liam continues. "I could feel something different about her, something not human. We need to find out exactly what she did to recreate her body because it was unlikely she was actually able to preserve it after she was killed. If we can find out, we can find a counter spell to undo it."

"That's if we can even stop her from using her magic," Natasha shakes her head. "Every time that woman casts a spell, we're always fucked."

"There has to be a spell to nullify her powers or stop her from using them," Liam thoughtfully says before sighing. "It's a shame we don't know any more witches. Usually, each coven has its own spell book."

"I'm sure I can figure something out," Wanda rubs her brow, a tiny headache forming. "Let's just form a plan first to find William and lure Tatyana out." 

"In the case that there is another army waiting, we need to figure something out. If Tatyana won't create more vampires for William, he might just turn to the old fashion way of changing people. Even just a dozen of them will be troublesome for us, especially if they turn out to have gifts. The more time we lose, the more time he has to change people," Steve points out.

"What was that wood you said could kill you?" Tony asks David. "The...meth...metha...methu...the meth tree."

David gives Tony a look before he rolls his eyes. "Methuselah."

"That's what I said," Tony smirks. "If I can get my hands on a sample of it, I could probably turn it into something more effective to kill vampires...uh..." Tony paused. "Obviously not you guys, though. I'll work something out."

David wishes you were here to laugh at Tony. He lets out a deep sigh before he locks his eyes with Natasha and Wanda. "I'm going to find her," he promises them. "There isn't any place in the world Tatyana can hide her from me."

"How are you so sure?" Wanda frowns. She knows of his abilities, but Tatyana is a witch. They could be in a hut with no technology around.

David smiles, although sheepishly. "I have trackers in both her molars."

"What?!" Natasha narrows her eyes at David. 

"It's fine!" David insists. "She knows, and I have trackers in both my molars too. Sometimes we do really stupid shit, and on two separate occasions, we couldn't find each other, and well—" David shrugs.

They all stare at him.

"Anyway, it's not always on," David says as if that should be obvious. "We just activate it when we can't find each other. I've reactivated it since we returned back here. It just takes some time to ping down a location even if I'm a technopath. The further she is, the longer it takes but we'll know soon."

They all continued to stare at him.

Tony finally opens his mouth to speak.

"You two are fucking weirdos."

[habeascorpseus]

👉👈 can you tell us more about the fnc angel/demon au? 🥺 pretty please?

oh CAN i? okay first things first. this is entirely because of good omens s2 and particularly uses concepts from episode 3 about "angels/demons who go along as best they can". also canon gillion and chip are very azi/crowley coded to me (cmon, gill's a literal paladin sent to the oversea to portend the rapture that he's now doubting the need for and chip is a mischievous little bastard with too much charisma and until recently no concrete stake in anything except for protecting his crew) so yeah. anyways the information will be delivered in bullet points for each person

CHIP

was an angel. a pretty young one, at that. possibly came to existence around the 3rd millennium of mana's society

pretty mischievous and self interested for an angel. lets just say he fucked around and found out, and for it he was kicked out of heaven and fell into hell, but managed to crawl out like the stubborn bastard he is

the form he fell and crawled back to earth in was a young human looking boy. involuntarily, of course. but he often struggled to change his form in the past, instead letting it be dictated by his emotional state (another fairly chaotic and unangelic thing to do), and right now he feels small, weak, and vulnerable

he's picked up by the black rose, and, desperate to belong, he goes along with their assumption that he's just a normal kid, too weak to use much power or even change his form. for the couple years he lives with the crew, he doesnt grow. (this is chalked up to malnourishment.)

unfortunately, now that he's a demon, he has an Energy. and that energy attracts things. in particular: bad shit, and other demons. niklaus takes notice of this crew claimed by a seemingly inexperienced demon and decides to sink it for fun and to see what chip will do.

chip washes ashore on another island with two thoughts: one, he doesnt think he's allowed to be attached to anything good anymore without poisoning it, and two, he needs to be scarier in order to not be fucked with.

so he spends ten years hanging around ruben price, a man who acts so comically, stereotypically evil that chip occasionally doubts how mortal he is, but it seems like price just Like That. a handy trick of being a demon now is that chip can Sense types of energy- positive, negative, etc. what's scariest about price is chip gets nothing off of him, which is why he's the perfect person to watch

things come to a head when price forces chip to kill a man. and, well, its kind of what he's supposed to do, as a demon- but he hates it. in particular, he hates not feeling in control, and it angers him enough that hes finally able to use some demonic power to set price's warehouse ablaze and disappear into the night. (his hands are now blackened from where they caught fire and he now has a tail, being so unused to using magic that using it burnt away his human form to reveal the true form beneath it. he cant really disguise them back to normal because, again, bad at form shifting)

he sets sail on the sea and lands on an island where he follows a particularly strong negative energy to a tavern where he meets...

JAY

girl who's family basically run the navy.

her older sister was just mysteriously murdered around a year and a half ago, and she's going through it

by which i mean, She's Pissed. she wants whoever killed her to be found and brought to justice, preferably with the business end of her own pistol, but her father (an admiral) has fucked off to gods-knows-where and there's not really any leads at home beyond being surrounded by what her sister left behind... she's getting desperate.

she's bartending at her mom's tavern one evening when a guy her age walks in but he's.. wrong. somehow. there's dozens of lanterns and candles in the room, and yet he seems to cast a long shadow behind him no matter where he turns. also his hands are dark claws. she's pretty sure he's a demon honestly.

she's getting desperate and she wants leads. his appearance makes her feel almost irrational in how suddenly she remembers she needs to find her sister's killer.

so, with some part of her screaming that she is being very, very stupid, she offers a deal. vengeance for her sister in exchange for her soul. the demon looks weirdly surprised at this and tells her that her soul won't be necessary, that he needs a crew on his ship and all she needs to do is travel with him. so she accepts, they shake hands, and jay tries to ignore how much her instincts are screaming this is a bad idea.

they set sail two days later on the demon's dingy little ship and begin sailing towards where jay thinks the next largest navy outpost is, and on the way they meet...

GILLION

gillion is an archangel. he's pretty young, all things considered. he's not sure when he came into being, but he's pretty sure he's a replacement for.... someone.

gillion has a destiny, that's for certain. the heavenly council has been training him since his creation for some kind of destiny, though he hasn't really thought to ask what it is. he's sure it's good, though. the heavenly order would never mislead him into committing morally reprehensible acts in the service of a greater cosmic good, right?

his "life" is pretty rigid though. all training, no play, and certainly no contact with the mortal realm, that is, until he follows some of his superiors on their way to bless some admiral of some mortal navy. except... this guy is evil. its written in his the fake smiles, his body language, the way he listens to them with greed in his eyes.

and gillion was destined to smite evil, so he attacks him.

heaven, of course, doesn't take kindly to this, but instead of kicking him from heaven outright, they propose a test of faith: be stripped of most of his divinity and fulfill his destiny within a year in the mortal realm. it's not like he has a choice, so they kick him down to mana with only his sword and a little bit of armor.

he falls into the sea, deep, deep into an undersea trench, where the first thing he sees are a couple tritons. and, yeah, tritons seem pretty cool. so with the last vestiges of whatever divine energy he carries, he becomes a triton and uses his wings (oh thank gods he still has his wings) to propel himself to the surface of the sea.

for a while, he floats adrift, taking in the feeling of being wet and having the sun burn his body where it rests above the waves and the taste of salt on his tongue and the dark spots in his eyes that appear every time he stares too long at the sun. but that's fine. it's.... nice. he can almost forget it's a punishment.

after a day of listless floating, Something appears on the horizon, and then grows closer. its large, and brown, and honestly kind of shabby looking. but it looks cozy, a bit more hospitable than the ocean, and he sends out a dozen silent prayers and thank-yous when the ship suddenly changes course and begins heading Directly for him.

a man pokes his head over the railing of the vehicle and asks if he's okay. his hair is a really pretty color. his eyes kind of remind him of the fires lit to burn sacrifices that he's seen humans make a couple times. a blackened, clawed hand reaches out to grab his, and when they touch, it the crackle in the air feels like the moments just before a smiting lightning strike. he feels forbidden. but gillion's beginning to appreciate the idea of a rebellious phase, so he grips him tightly and lets himself be pulled onboard.

ITEMS OF IMPORTANCE

chip knows what gillion is, gillion does not know what chip is. chip is completely fine with this and is deciding to use it to his advantage in order to do minor devilish activities

what follows is basically the same plot until episode 14, though chip leans a lot more heavily into trickery and temptation

when it's revealed What chip is, gillion is not only Pissed but afraid for jay's soul, convinced that chip has been traveling with her in order to prey and feed upon it. he and chip duel, and gillion wins, as good so often does against evil— but before gillion can smite him and send him back to whence he came, jay steps in and stops him long enough for chip to slip away below deck. she tells gillion she made a deal with him and he blatantly refused her soul, which is why she's travelling with him instead. gillion, now hopeful that he can redeem chip, lets it slide, but. has chip promise to cool it on the demon shit.

the reason why gillion couldn't sense chip being a demon for so long is because he, for some reason, doesn't feel fiendish to him. unfortunately, gillion is too stupid to further entertain this train of thought.

both gillion and chip regain power at the same rate, though their progress is accelerated whenever gillion feels they did something good, and when chip is feeling angry. (this will eventually change)

chip is very bad at being a demon, to the point where he's begun talking jay out of vengeance entirely because it makes him feel bad about making her worse. gillion, ironically, says she should hold herself to her principles and seek justice, in a comical subversion of the angel and devil on her shoulders. they have many an argument about this.

nobody knows chip is Fallen. its one of the main sources of his insecurities and hed rather not have gillion judge him harder, thank you very much.

when chip is offered to have a memory removed by blangus, he attempts to remove his memory of being an angel. this doesn't work, because the memory is a core part of What he is and forgetting that would unmake him. he decides to give up killing a man instead.

gillion's destiny is to bring the rapture. kind of a bummer! gillion's a little in denial about it and the longer he spends with humanity and witnesses their good and their bad and the hope they all carry within them, the more reluctant he is to fulfill his purpose. (it's fine. he has 6 more months to decide. its fine. it's fine. time goes painfully slow for mortals)

eventually the truth of chip's past is revealed, and gillion is Pissed, though not at chip. in hindsight, it's obvious that he was created to replace chip when he Fell, meaning if not him, chip would have been the one to end the world, and that thought sits worse for him than imagining himself doing the deed. perhaps when he gets back to heaven he will demand chip's status be reinstated.

chip is caught between encouraging him to forsake his destiny (he likes humanity, and he likes fucking with heaven's plans) and going along with his destiny to not get kicked out of heaven. falling is painful and awful and he cant imagine gillion playing any role other than good, and he doesn't want him to, because if you're not With heaven, you're a victim of the rapture, and he doesn't want that.

gillion is already halfway on his way to letting himself fall on purpose the more he spends time with jay and chip. he wants to be with chip as long as he can be but every time they touch gillion gets the feeling hes skating on thin ice.

jay is the safest pirate on the sea in terms of other demons and angelic presences trying to fuck with her, both gillion and chip have a deal to smite her father next time they see him.

in chips solo mission with price, he ended up sending him to hell instead of giving him the eye. it is not at all disconcerting that chip can do this

edyn is an angel who helped raise gillion and gave him an immortal soul as a pet. when he was sent to earth it manifested as a frogtopus, and after gillion was sent away edyn followed him to earth and settled down in allport to keep tabs on him through the navy

caspian is Lizzie's guardian angel

anyways theres more but thats the long and not-at-all short of it. hope you like!

[rim-draws]

Meet Tav

Tav is a Wildheart - Bear Barbarian half elf and also my first run of Baldur's Gate 3. And because I'm a loser I have a whole backstory and personality traits and stuff and I can't hold it in anymore-

Tav was born to a lone human mother. Many years they heard stories and tales of their father whom they had never met. Both them and their mother lived in a life of poverty in the outskirts of Rivington. Hearing news of Tav's bio father was somewhere in Baldur's Gate, she led her child there. Though once inside the walls of Baldur's Gates, she found the truth to be too much for her to bare. The person she has been idolizing and telling her son about ended up just being a scammer who used her for money and her womb. The shock was too great, she went into complete shock and eventually passing away. Her death affected Tav greatly, creating a rageful side of him that he barely tried to contain. They vowed from that day on to kill the man who had caused his mother so much grief.

Tav started travelling on their own, mainly getting themself into fights with people they found annoying, gaining a bit of a reputation as a folk hero by the groups of people they surrounded themself with at the time. Eventually, a man adopted them, which was when they met the rest of their siblings.

Taf and Taph (yes, I think I'm funny)

Tav was encouraged by their father to go out to fight, even kill, a few people, convincing them their victims are inheritely evil and vile. Not that thry cared, they'd fight anything and anyone for a roof over their head.

Things were fine, for a while. Though as Tav grows up, they started to realize they were killing the people who were after their adoptive dad, people who their dad had wronged, tricked, scammed, etc. They were just a cheap mercenary of sort. What's worse, the man was the person they vowed to kill all those years ago. Truly, they were a fool.

So on that fateful night, Tav uses the man's own hammer to cave his head in. Taf - who has always been adored by the man, fought against Tav, refusing to understand their rage. Tav tried to say Taf's mother was most likely fooled and killed by this one one way or the other, the only Taf is alive is probably because the man could still use him. The fight between the siblings was what gave Tav the scar on their face and Taf the burnt scar on his face (although barely visible, still serve as a constant reminder). To break her siblings apart, Taph blasted a her ray of powers, burning their skin, creating the white marks on their faces.

Her outbrust snapped Tav out of their rage but triggered something deep and dark in Taf, shifting him to a monster. It threw Tav out, declaring their brotherhood a sham and told Tav to never show their face again.

Tav left, now on their own again, they continues their bullshit. Fighting people, accidentally helping others and lying to just about anyone, no longer finding trust so easy. This continues until their adulthood where they were sucked into the Nautiloid.

Although they're a barbarian, they don't go around starting fights at random. They often only fight fights they can't avoid, mostly opting to go the long way around to avoid it in general. Therefore, kindness which comes from the heart are rare for Tav to come by. And as mentioned, they lie, constantly, to just about everyone. To them, they don't trust anyone nor their intentions. After almost being murdered by Nettie plus growing up with their father, they stopped talking to people about his tadpole as well, opting to lie when someone mention it in general.

(Yes they stole Astarion's camp clothes just like how they stole from ever faction's stash and the bank).

Tav's Camp relationship

Mild spoilers ahead !!

Shadowheart - they saved her from the nautiloid when they saw her pod and brought her along. During her fight with Lae'zel, he's on her side. In many ways, he also doesn't pry at her secrets which took him all the way until they're in the Gauntlet of Shar for him to know she's a Shar worshipper. He refuses to have a drink with her at the camp. He trusts her judgement when facing the Nightsong. Although she's very wary of him throughout 2 acts, by act 3 she holds him in high regard.

Lae'zel - He doesn't bring her often but does when it matters. Though he also lied to her to get her to believe him that her tribe are out to kill her. She finds him attrive but he doesn't sleep with her.

Gale - He brought Gale along very briefly in his adventures because the way Tav functioned, Gale ended up dying early on, although revived eventually. Gale considers him to be a good person he could trust about his secrets and not explode himself but Tav is also a dick who, after telling him maybe he shouldn't explode himself and maybe being god isnt too bad, told Gale to go feck himself mope by himself went to bed.

Astarion - Astarion wasnt able to pin him down in their first meeting and straight up hated his guts at first. So much so that he didn't even attempt to bite him in camp and just confess he was a vampier offhand while they were on the road. Tav pushes forward. Slowly, hatred turned into friendship and bestie-ship as Tav treats him like a person, supports him through his troubles, struggles and nudges him to the right direction.

Wyll - He brought Wyll along at first until Wyll died and he elt his body stink up the camp for days until act 2 glitched out so Tav had to revive him. By act 3, Wyll, for some reason, like him enough to ask him to dance, which, like a dick that he is, he rejected. Though when they had the chance to meet Wyll's dad, Tav brought him to do so and vow to both save Wyll's dad and release him of his pact.

Karlach - Tav found Karlach very late in act 1, after the tiefling was rescued so Dammon had already left. She became a prominent part of Tav's travel companion, which is not a great set up and resulted in many reloads. Tav and Karlach considers each other close friends and he alsobhugged her after she got her first upgrade in Shadowcurse land. Though he stopped travelling with her as much when another character comes into camp.

Halsin - Tav threw a rock at him the first time he met him but upon realizing it doesn't feel good to throw rocks at bears, he threw hands at everyone else instead, young and old. Being someone who had spent decent times in the wilds, he like mischief but doesn't want to create genuein distress in the bear. He brought Halsin along as they massecre the goblin and convince the spiders to help them. He helped Halsin lift the shadowcurse from Moonrise with the terrible contraption below and Halsin became a permanent part of Tav's travelling companion.

(The bear heart at one point increase his carrying capacity to 400+ and I obviously abused it)

Jaheira - Let Shadowheart deal with Jaheira at the beginning then refused to drink the spiked truth potion because thats just rood. But asissted her and her people, saving both the deep gnome and the tiefling that were trapped and had her follow with him as they went straight for Ketheric. Invite her to join and she also became a somewhat permanent travelling companion.

Minsc - Tav saved Minsc but doesn't really know what to make of him. He doesn't travel with Minsc often but often talk or entertain him if he has any thoughts.

THATS much thoughts.

Next post will be of Tav's romance which is the main source of my brain rotting these days.

Spoilers alert:

[necromancers-incorporated]

Magnus Protocol Thoughts So Far (by episode)

EPISODE ONE: FIRST SHIFT

1. Alice and Teddy obviously quite close

2. Reference to app — Colin outright angry at someone

3. Alice created them???

4. Alice spoken about Sam a lot

5. WHATS WITH THE FOOD LENA

6. Lena on about importance of organisation

7. Never getting out of here Colin?

8. Gwen vs Lena go go go

9. Alice accusing Gwen of nepotism

10. Pub name is Steward

11. DID THE WORK STATION TURN ON BY ITSELF LIKE THE TAPE RECORDERS

12. Response one to one? Hm? Old response department??

13. Colin what do you know about Freddy!?

14. Norris = Martin's voice – strangely human

15. Figure in cemetery = stranger and/or flesh?

16. Email from H? Who is H? Suspicious.

17. Gwen likes her job? Hates it?

18. Enemies to lovers Gwen and Alice go go go

19. Gwen vs Lena again go go go

20. Get her ass Gwen go get that job girlboss

21. What does climbing the ladder entail Lena? Hm?

22. Camera zooming noises!!!

23. Colin does not sound pleased about the app

24. Colin and Alice clearly close

25. Colin speaks German and is vegetarian funsies

26. AWFUL TERRIBLE THINGS LAND PEOPLE THERE WHAT WAS GWEN'S HELP

27. RED CANARY RED CANARY GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT

28. Mag Institute in Manchester?

29. PICTURES DONT WORK AND PARANOIA

30. Burnt down 20 years ago hmmmm

31. ASYLUM OR PRISON HM?

32. Brutal pipe murder stains?

33. Camera not working? Distorted?

34. Got doxed hm interesting interesting

35. Yes. Yes they should. Keep canaries above ground please.

36. EYES

37. Aw Gwen checking on Sam

38. Chester = Jon's voice saying GET THE FUCK OUT

39. What do you know about the institute Sam?

40. Hah! Gwendolyn

41. Hmmm Alice talking about having victims...

42. Colin talking to the fucking computers who are you trying to find

43. GWEN BOUCHARD FUCKING *BOUCHARD

**EPISODE TWO: MAKING ADJUSTMENTS

1. Gwen why do you know all this shit

2. Hm how long have you been there Gwen?

3. Obsession with perfectionism

4. What the fuck do you mean Lena is firing people!?

5. Why isn't Gwen respected? Hm? Nepotism reference again?

6. Alice's brother in a band?? Dredgerman?

7. Sam why are you so curious hm!?

8. DO NOT FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT DO NOT

9. Ink5soul definitely going to come back, love them for that

**EPISODE THREE: PUTTING DOWN ROOTS

1. A dot jmj error? Hm? Colin thinks it's sentient?

2. Alice and Colin buddies love that

3. Colin doesn't like central IT hm I wonder why

4. Why is he so against giving the computer a personality?

5. Colin is so fucking Scottish istg

6. Dr. Samuel Webber has a grief counsellor

7. 13 Marigold Drive (Webber's address), 12 Castle Hill Avenue (Gerald Andrews), Madie Webber is deceased

8. More paranoia nice

9. Community watch you say?

10. Hmmm corruption vibes...

11. I feel like the garden might come back later like Ink5oul

12. ALICE STOP PREDICTING YOUR OWN DEATH PLEASE

**EPISODE FOUR: TAKING NOTES

1. Sam what are you looking into hm!?

2. MAGNUS AND PROTOCOL WHAT DOES THAT MEAN

3. Why were other people looking into it?

4. Alice what do you know about the Magnus Institute!? WHAT IS STARKWALL!? MASSACRE? PRIVATE MILITARY SHIT!? WHAT

5. Why is Gwen so against naming the voices too? She knows something I'm sure of it

6. Augustus hmmm who are you

7. Go old man go, go murder your teacher slay

8. STRANGE MUSIC YOU SAY HMM LIKE THE CALLIOPE

9. BEING PUPPETED ABOUT HM? WEB MUCH!

10. Evil violin man in the woods he will return again

11. The face of fortune? Is Fortune a new entity or something?

12. Player and instrument roles are blurred hmmmm

13. Hmmm murdering students HOW

14. Violin = ye old Grifter's Bone

15. Violin more like violence (aka mass murder)

16. Ooh yay more eye gore FUN

17. I wonder what the nephew did with the violin

18. WHAT OTHER STORIES HAS AUGUSTUS READ

19. Gwen and Alice's vibes I eat that shit up

20. LENA WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU KILL KLAUS!?

**EPISODE FIVE: PERSONAL SCREENING

1. What the fuck is wrong with you Colin (affectionate)

2. CAMERAS CAMERAS CAMERAS PARANOIA EYES EYES BEING WATCHED LENA IM WATCHING YOU

3. WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT KEEPING SECRETS LENA HM?

4. Sam what have we said about fucking around and finding out. Just gonna fill it out anyway ffs goddammit

5. Lonely you say? Interesting.

6. ONE MAN'S TRASH IS ANOTHER MAN'S TRERROR TMA EP 5 REFERENCE

7. Why are all the posts deleted?

8. Voyeur? Hm. Ha. Eyes.

9. 2009? The same year you started your horror blog?

10. Oh they just found your address did they? Not raising any suspicions?

11. HA ITS THE SAME CINEMA THAT YOU THOUGHT WAS CLOSED HOW NORMAL

12. Adding "getting babadooked" to my vocabulary now

13. My guy is just insulting the cinema alright pal

14. Oh haha unintelligible hmmm. No.

15. ITS WHATS ON THE INSIDE THAT MATTERS IS IT

16. SAME OLD GUY DOING EVERYTHING

17. Stop it with the fucking "unintelligible"

18. SOUNDS FAMILIAR DOES IT HM I WONDER WHY

19. YES YOU FUCKING KNOW THAT ROOM OF COURSE YOU DO

20. Fuck off who is there watching you. I'll put money on the fact that it's Lena or smth

21. Oh, definitely not him posting that last message

22. More Alice and Luke, giving some real Tim vibes now. Living jn FEAR

23. Gwen stop lurking and being secretive

24. You're right Alice, something is very wrong.

**EPISODE SIX: INTRODUCTIONS

1. Aww sleepy Sam

2. Why are you warning him against the coffee Alice?

3. WORKED THERE FOR ALMOST A DECADE ALICE? SERIOUSLY?

4. Ah yes. The true enemy is the sun. Of course.

5. Sam is a cat confirmed (mlem)

6. NEW HIRE NEW HIRE NEW HIRE

7. Haha eating people. Fun. Christmas party episode?

8. Gwen is not pleased by the new hire, who is shocked

9. I've decided that Gwen = Jon, Alice = Tim, Sam = Martin

10. Fuck me I hate needles so much they freak me out god (haha phobias being played on now)

11. Needles is such a funky little guy he is trying his best and is so calm and chilled

12. Creepy creepy creepy

13. HOLES AND NEEDLES STOP PLEASE

14. Oh you grew up there? Are we gonna get some lore?

15. Ah. You are the reason it is unsafe.

16. WHAT DO YOU MEAN MARKED? MARKED BY WHAT?

17. Definitely feeding on something. Hahahaha. Stop.

18. STOP WITH THE NEEDLES IN EYES I FEEL SICK

19. Poor Needles no fear for you to eat :(

20. Needles is going to fuck me up

21. "You're clearly not well" STOP

22. This man has fear maths

23. Ha. Cuddles. No.

24. I feel very unwell

25. "Maybe they'll kill again" ALICE PLEASE STOP

26. IS THAT SCARY ALICE? HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN THERE?

27. Ha. Lena the big bird.

28. CELIA FROM THE CULT WITH MELANIE AND GEORGIE

29. WHAT'S WITH THE FUCKING FOOD LENA WHY MUST THEY BEEN EATEN ON SITE

30. Why do you know what's in the interviews Alice? Why do you know it changed?

31. Nightmares?

32. Gwen is so fucking mean I love her

33. "Four weirdos in a basement reading scary stories" my my isn't that familiar

34. Celia = Sasha

35. Hm yeah sure you won't get attached Alice

36. Food as a love language Sam

37. ALICE WHY DO YOU HAVE YOUR OWN HIDDEN FOOD

38. Sam with a crush on Celia funsies

39. Tall Alice confirmed

**EPISODE SEVEN: GIVE AND TAKE

1. Celia why are you asking so many questions about the voices?

2. REFERENCING THE FUCKING FEARS ALREADY OKAY (defo tma Celia)

3. Big sister Alice

4. HILLTOP HILLTOP HILLTOP

5. WHAT HAPPENED AT HILLTOP

6. This one is reading a lot like the old statements

7. No name? Hm? A...stranger?

8. Another stranger? Interesting.

9. Weird fucking donations. OK.

10. Ha! Teeth.

11. Are these the kids from Dr. Elliott's class?

12. Haha. No keys. That's not disturbing at all.

13. All for a good cause? I think the fuck not.

14. MOULDY FOOD PLEASE NO

15. Okay. Stop. Freaking out with this claustrophobia.

16. Gunshots? Excuse me?

17. Very very much like the old statements. Celia, want to tell us something?

18. HILLTOP ON FIRE IS IT? OH. I WONDER WHY.

19. OH MY GOD WAS IT STARKWELL IS THIS THE STARKWELL GROUP

20. YOU RECOGNISE CHESTER'S VOICE!? FUCK OFF

21. NOBODY IMORTANT NOBODY FUCKING IMPORTANT

22. JON! WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT JON, SAM!?

23. GWEN WHAT DO YOU HAVE!?

24. OH YOU ARE SHOWING ALL YOUR CARDS RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW BITCH

25. LENA WHAT THE FUCK

26. Okay so she killed him in self defence.

27. WHAT SOURCE GWEN!?

28. Ah. Of course. It's all for the job.

29. Oh, Gwen. Don't get involved. Please don't.

30. EXTERNAL LIASON? REAL WORK?

[nysocboy]

Agatha All Along: Gay teen and witch trapped in a bad tv-show world

Agatha All Along appeared without warning on my Disney Plus page, showing two elderly women and a teenager on a dark wilderness road.  The teenager is Joe Locke, who played a gay character in Heartstopper, and came out in real life twice, at age 12 and 15, so no doubt he plays a gay character here.  I'm not even going to bother with preliminary research.

Scene 1: An elderly woman, maybe Agatha, driving to a crime scene: she's a small town cop suspended for punching a suspect,  but called back for a case only she can work on -- a woman has been found dead in the woods.  Why is it always a woman, never a man?  

Crushed by a heavy object, no id except for one of those old library check-out cards. 

Scene 2:Wait -- her name is Agnes, not Agatha, so who is "all along"?  

She goes to the library, where there's a long line to check out books. Have you been to a library lately?   She cuts -- "Only suckers wait their turn" -- to ask the sarcastic librarian Miss Jones about the check-out card found on the victim.

Miss Jones: "Ooh, is she dead?"

Agnes: "Why do you assume it was a woman?"  Because it's always a woman, nitwit.

Miss Jones: "It's more tit-ilating." Boob joke, har har.

They don't use old-fashioned check-out cards anymore.  The book -- Dialogue and Rhetoric: Known History of Learning & Debate, was marked stolen three years ago.  But there are lots of other copies in Natural Sciences.  Not in English?.

Agnes hits the stacks, and there were indeed a dozen copies -- all burnt up. "There was a fire," a mysterious man whispers.  Odd that Miss Jones didn't know that.

Scene 3: At the station, the Chief is played by David Lengel, who looks like Ross from Friends with a porn stash.  

The body shows traces of "a particular microbial sediment found only in Eastern Europe."  That makes no sense.  The woman was killed across the ocean and transported to their quiet New England town. 

Scene 4: In other news, Agnes has to work with the snarky Federal Agent Vidal, whom she hates.  To be fair, Agnes hates everyone.  They may be ex-lovers: Agnes thinks that she requested the assignment just so they could get back together.

Ex-Lover notes that there are no drag marks on the soil, nothing disturbed: the body just got zapped there, as if by magic! 

Agnes scoffs."In stories about small-town murders, it's always about the hidden secrets of the townsfolk, so let's investigate those."

Scene 5: Norm the pawn shop guy,  played by Asif Ali,  is examining a cameo locket that Agnes brought in: New England, late 17th century, with a lock of hair inside.  He offers $200. 

She just wanted an expert opinion so she could sell it on ebay, har har.  Agnes is rather a jerk, isn't she?

Scene 6: Late at night, Agnes is fiddling around at the station.  She discovers that the first letters of the book's title spell DARKH.   So?

Later, in her huge "TV middle class" house, Agnes goes into a child's bedroom with a teddy bear on the bed and drawings on the table, and music awards: "Nicholas Scratch, First Place." Dead kid?  But Nick and Scratch are both names for the Devil.

Scene 7: Knock on the door: It's the Ex-Girlfriend, with pizza!  Isn't it, like, the middle of the night?

Agnes has a lead: car crash in the town of Eastview an hour before the body was found. Ex-Girlfriend wants to know if she's ever been to Eastview.  "Sure, I'm a world traveler."  Wait...it dawns on Agnes that she's never actually left town.  How is that possible?  

Next Ex-Girlfriend asks "Do you remember why you hate me?"  "No."  It's like it was written into the script, with no back story.  Something is wrong here.

They're interrupted by a clattering -- an intruder in her bedroom, going through her stuff!  She chases him out onto the roof, down a gutter, and through the deserted streets, until Debra Jo Rupp, Grandma Kitty on That 90s Show, accidentally hits him.

Scene 8: The perp is a teenager, played by Joe Locke.  He's sarcastic and insulting, leading Agnes to kick him -- that's what got you suspended, Girl.  Finally he admits that he broke in to look for the Road. 

Agnes thinks he means the road to the murder site, so he's a suspect!  "What you were doing last night between 1 and 3 am?"  "Asleep in bed." "Loser!"  Wait -- being asleep in the middle of the night makes you a loser? 

She pulls out pictures of the murdered woman to confront him with, but suddenly they turn into pictures of flowers on someone's front lawn!   He starts chanting in Latin....and now her Ex-Girlfriend has vanished!  There never was a murder, so of course she would not have been called in.

Scene 9: Agnes visits the coroner's office  -- no body.  Until one appears, with a check-out card instead of a toe-tag, and the last person who checked the book out was Wanda Maximoff!  Agnes is shocked!

Who the heck is Wanda Maximoff?  Answers and nekkid men after the break

Agnes figures out the truth, but the viewer won't without research. It's a slog, so here's a random photo of Mike Guzman to keep your spirits up.

Wanda Maximoff is the Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  In the earlier series Wandavision, powerful witch Agatha Harkness zapped her memory and trapped her in a small town sitcom world. Townsfolk played various characters, and she herself dropped in as the Wacky Next Door Neighbor. 

At the end of the series, Wanda regained her memory, and for punishment, trapped Agatha in the small-town world, with her powers gone, forced to live through various badly-written tv show plotlines.

Ex-Girlfriend notes that Wanda is dead, and all of the copies of the magic book Darkhold went with her, so now there's no way out.

Scene 10: Uh-oh, the story is shifting.  Agnes turns into a 1980s jiggle-show aerobics instructor, then a 1950s sitcom housewife, then a 1990s liberated woman -- ugh, she's naked. The former police chief, sarcastic librarian, and coworker Herb are now her neighbors.  They say that she hasn't been herself for a few days, acting like a small town cop instead of a liberated woman.

She remembers that she is Agatha, but her magic powers are gone.... 

Muffled screams from upstairs -- it's the Teen, tied up in the closet.  So in this plotline she kidnapped him.  

Ex-Girlfriend appears to kill Agatha.  They sexy-fight, the homoerotic tension dripping from every lick.

More research: Ex-Girlfriend is Rio Vidal, a former member of Agatha's coven, but Agatha found the Darkhold book and betrayed her, keeping all of the magic for herself.  Now she's out for revenge.

Agatha suggests that it wouldn't be fun to kill her now, when she's lost her powers.  Wait until she gets them back, to make the fight more interesting.

Ex-Girlfriend agrees, but warns Agatha that the Salem Seven also want her dead, and so...

She leaves.  The Teen is still in the closet.  The end.

Beefcake: None.  This is a very-women centered show. The IMDB doesn't list the whole cast, so I had to sit through five minutes of executive producers to get a cast list. And that only lists five men: Joe Locke, David Payton, David Lengel, Asif Ali, and Amos Glick. 

Gay Characters:  Agatha and Vidal act very much like ex-lovers.  The Teen turns out to be gay, and in a later episode he gets a boyfriend, played by Miles Gutierrez-Riley, left and below. Miles also played a gay character on The Wilds.

Heterosexism: None.

The full review, with nude photos, is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

[allisoncooper13]

NCIS x toddler reader

Description : Special Agent Lara Macy has a secret she never told anyone. When her body is found burnt and unrecognizable on a beach, how long will her secret stay a secret?

Warnings : slight swearing, bodies, homicide

“Boss, this is Special Agent Lara Macy” McGee said, his face solemn as he looked at his boss.

Gibbs turned away from the body slightly, taking in a shaky breath, memories of Lara flashing through his mind.

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

“According to Special Agent Macy’s personnel file, she left the LA office last year under special circumstances” McGee explained, standing in the bullpen.

“You’re supposed to feel safer on American soil” Tony said, holding Macy’s badge in his hand.

“That could have happened anywhere. To any of us. That is the risk we take” Ziva said, fiddling with the rings on her fingers.

“The agency’s on alert, the director has ordered a threat assessment” Gibbs said, storming into the bullpen to stand in front of the plasma.

“So now what?” Ziva asked from behind her desk.

“We assess” McGee said.

“Figure out who killed another female federal agent” Tony said.

“And uphold justice to the full extent of the law” McGee said.

“Or whatever it takes” Tony said, still looking at the picture of Macy on the plasma.

“Okay, she’s a marine, an agent, a daughter” Gibbs sighed. “All right, daughter first. Macy’s mom lives in Cumberland, Maryland. Call her, tell her we’re coming”

“On it” McGee said.

“David” Ziva said, picking up her phone as soon as it rang. “Right away. Gibbs, a member of Special Agent Macy’s team from Marseille is calling into MTAC”

“Threat assessments been put out, think they know?” Tony asked, looking to Gibbs.

He didn’t get an answer from Gibbs, instead Gibbs just walked away and up to MTAC.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Special Agent Macy left four days ago, sir. A flight from De Gaulle to Dulles aboard a C-130 transport”

“Do you know why she left?” Vance asked.

“Said she needed some personal time”

“Special Agent Macy is dead” Vance said after a long pause. “We found her here in Annapolis early this morning”

“Lara? How—what happened?” A member of her team asked.

“She was murdered” Gibbs answered.

“On my watch, Agent Mineoux” Vance said. “So if you think this is case related I’m gonna need every document, every file that you can get your hands on”

“Of course, we’ll send everything” Mineoux responded. “But where’s Cass?”

Vance and Gibbs looked at each other in confusing.

“Who?” Gibbs asked.

“Cass, she’s Lara’s daughter” Mineoux said. “She didn’t want people to know but I found out on accident a couple months ago”

“How old is she?” Vance asked.

“3, I assumed she left with Lara” Mineoux said.

“We’ll get back to you” Vance said, quickly shutting down the video call.

Gibbs and Vance stood in shocked silence for a while before either one said anything.

“Did you know about this?” Vance asked Gibbs.

“No, she never mentioned anything about a kid last time I saw her.” Gibbs answered.

“So if Lara’s dead, then where the hell is her daughter?” Vance asked.

[bracketsoffear]

Penpal (Dathan Auerbach) "The book follows the first-person narrator as he realizes he was the focus of an obsessed stalker who tracks him throughout his childhood."

Moon (James Herbert) "Three years after horrific visions helped him lead the police to catch a serial killer, divorced computer technician Jonathan Childes, shelters from the public’s morbid curiosity on one of the Channel Islands.

On an ocean swim with French teacher Amy Sebire, Childes is suddenly overwhelmed by a distant vision of a corpse’s evisceration. During a dinner party with Amy’s family, a vision of the exhumation of a small boy’s corpse causes Childes to collapse. While Amy’s father Paul Sebire is suspicious of Childes’s past police involvement, Amy protests that Childes helped solve the murders. While she urges Childes to seek some kind of help, he’s petrified that this may somehow advantage whatever depraved mind has reached his own.

A vision of an elderly psychiatric patient's cranial mutilation persuades Childes to call Detective Inspector Overoy, aided three years ago by Childes's visions. Investigation of the subsequently burnt psychiatric hospital reveals a small boy’s exhumed corpse, and an eviscerated prostitute indicates a killer who removes organs, partially eats them, and leaves a moonstone in each corpse.

What’s more, the killer has sensed Childes’s distant observation. A sudden overwhelming fear for his seven-year-old daughter Gabby’s safety heralds the killer’s aim to have some sadistic fun…"

[violetjedisylveon]

Heartache

Spicynoodles Tangled AU chapter 3

Summary: more angst, Iron Fan and DBK learn their son wasn't found.

Word count: 2.4k

Warnings: I humbly deliver to you dear readers, some salt for that wound I gave you last time. Mentions of murder, injuries and kidnapping.

A/N: Sorry this took so long, I got stuck on the beginning and how to have Iron Fan and DBK react(extra big thanks to @py-dreamer for their help with that!), and then I got busy with school so I just put it off for a while.

Kiddo Doodles

Red Son Redesign

Spicynoodles Tangled AU Masterpost

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Iron Fan was slumped in her chair, gazing blankly out the window.

His love hardly acknowledged the doctors leaving the room, having done all they could to mend the wounds Mihou had suffered.

His brother lay unconscious in the bed, most of his face was wrapped in bandages. He was going to live, the doctors were certain of that, but he would likely lose vision in his right eye and have a nasty scar. He should be waking up sometime tomorrow.

DBK maneuvered around his brother's bed quietly, settling by his Queen's side. He silently offered her his hand, looking out the window at their Kingdom alight below.

Word travels fast, and events like these would always get out with a startling speed. Their people were out searching or helping the searching soldiers in whatever way they could.

It would all be fine in a few days, Wukong would return from the rescue mission soon.

He would have their son. He had to.

His love took his burnt hand.

“I have contacted my mother…” she said after a long moment of silence.

Iron Fan rarely referred to the Queen of Heaven as her mother, up until recently they were hardly acknowledging each other. If someone had told him two years ago that his love would seek out her mother for help, he would have been convinced that person was insane.

Two years ago that situation was insane.

Things had slowly snowballed since he had been allowed to take the Samadhi Flower.

He was certain calling on her mother was extremely hard for his love to do, but the fact that she was able to entertain the idea without going into a whirlwind rage was telling.

This odd little truce didn't fix the major problems that broke their relationship, not at all, they were just seeing each other in a different light now, at least that's what he gathered.

“ … she said she will send a sign when she finds something…” Iron Fan finally said.

He nodded silently to her.

They sat together and watched the night slowly inch past, waiting for a sign.

Shortly after dawn, the skies opened up.

Heavy rains poured down from the heavens.

Lightning crackled in the chaotic, tumultuous sky.

The grief and wrath of a goddess.

Iron Fan said nothing, she calmly stood up and left the room in a swirl of wind.

DBK looked down at his scarred, burnt hands. Hands that brought down great armies and cities alike, hands that tamed mountains, hands that harvested the power of a goddess, hands that were trembling.

He shook with rage.

This should not happen, it should not have been possible!

His son, his joy, the precious, perfect child that he risked and sacrificed so much for to bring into his world couldn't be gone…

What a shameful king he was.

He couldn't even protect his own son.

XXX

Iron Fan slammed the door behind her, locking it shut.

She stumbled to the bedside, grabbing the bed covers to ground herself.

She forced herself to breathe slowly. She could stop the tears, she could keep control of herself in the midst of this horrible moment.

No…

She couldn't.

Her fan clattered to the floor, an anguished scream ripped itself from her throat.

As the wind whipped into a frenzy around her, all she saw was the empty crib she had laid her son to sleep the previous night.

XXX 

Hours later, there was a soft knock on the door. Iron Fan slowly rose from the chair she had collapsed in.

The room was damaged, from the previous night's conflict -someone needed to clean Mihou's blood off the walls- and her own actions, she would feel something about that later, all she felt now was pain. She picked her fan up from the floor and opened the door.

Her love stood in the doorway with a saddened expression and deep pain hidden in his eyes.

She wanted nothing more than to pull him into the room and ignore the world and their responsibilities for a few hours. She wanted to grieve in private.

“Sun Wukong has returned.” he said somberly.

If the Queen of Heaven couldn't find our son, what luck did a monkey have? She thought.

He could possibly have a lead, she couldn't get her hopes up. DBK silently offered his hand, she took her husband’s hand.

XXX

Iron Fan watched Sun Wukong as he approached them, Ao Lie at his side. He was cradling something in his arms, it was covered by a blanket.

He stopped just short of the entrance, still standing in the storm, hanging his head in shame.

“I… I didn't get there fast enough… I'm sorry dà gē… I've failed you…” he choked out.

The golden furred monkey stank of blood and death.

“Did you find anything?” DBK asked almost desperately.

Wukong flicked part of the blanket down with his tail, revealing a pale skinned, dark furred demon monkey curled in his arms.

The monkey was so peaceful, they could easily be mistaken for being asleep, yet their ears lacked any glow.

DBK leaned closer to inspect the body closer, Wukong pulled away, cradling the body closer to him with a soft, protective sound that was between a growl and a whimper. He stepped back, he knew how protective demon monkeys got about their vulnerable and dead.

“Who are they?” The King asked.

“Laohu, they were that witch's prisoner!” the golden monkey spat.

“They tried to stop her…” the rest didn't need to be said.

Ao Lie quietly ordered for some of his sworn brother’s subjects to collect and tend to the body. The demon would certainly be remembered by the people for trying to save their young prince and paying with their life.

A tiny squeak disrupted the somber atmosphere when Wukong tried to pass the body to his people.

A small cub, her dark fur streaked with pale blue like her parent, wriggled out of the dragon prince’s grip, leaping over to the body with a sad chirp.

The cub was moving too quickly for either King or Queen to get a good look at her.

Wukong managed to get the cub under control, the little thing cried as her parent was being taken from her, waving her little limbs around wildly.

Her single set of ears wiggled unhappily with her fussing, ears that held an icy cold blue glow, nearly identical to the Lady Bone Demon's magic.

Wukong held the cub against his chest, chirping softly for her to settle down while staring them down, daring them to question him about the cub he was trying to soothe.

“Bai He is Laohu's daughter.” He told them with an insistence that meant he wouldn't address the obvious signs of the cub's parentage.

Iron Fan glared at the witch’s spawn.

“If that is all, I'll leave you to attend to that, cub.” she spat, whisking herself and her husband away before the monkey king could say anything.

She wanted to scream. Her son, her only child, was gone, stolen by the witch she'd allowed into her own court. She practically handed Red Son over to that witch herself.

She saw the empty crib and her brother's blood splattered on the wall.

Her love’s burnt hand cupped her cheek, gently coaxing her head to turn, pulling her gaze from the crime scene in their bedroom.

Light orange meet burnt magenta, both King and Queen cracked, sinking to the floor in each other's arms, mourning the loss of their son.

XXX 

Mihou woke up slowly.

He stayed in a dazy half awake fog for a while, falling back in and out of conciseness.

He had a massive headache.

He still felt the impact’s vibration in his skull, his ears still rung from it.

Gods, that ringing is getting annoying. He groaned.

Light was coming from somewhere, he blinked open his eyes, half his vision stayed swathed in darkness.

He saw his sun before anything else.

Tears stung his eyes, when the staff came down on his head, he really thought he was going to die.

“Hey Peaches.” He croaked weakly.

His sunshine startled, turning away from the window. His crimson red eyes melted with relief. His mate quickly took his cold hand into his warm ones, scouting closer.

“Hey Mango.” He whispered, kissing his hand gently.

Mihou closed his eyes, leaning back to bask in the comforting warmth of his mate.

“Mihou.” Wukong said, still speaking softly.

“Yeah Peaches?” He mumbled.

“I have some bad news… you need to hear it before anyone visits. Do you think you can handle it?” He asked quietly.

Mihou looked at his mate, Wukong was a mess, his fur hadn't been groomed in days, he was pulling on it again, he had deep bags under his red eyes, even the gold in his eyes had a red tint to it, like he'd been crying uncontrollably or used his beam eyes again. Maybe both. He wasn't in his battle armor, or any armor, he had a green cape wrapped around him like a sling,  Mihou knew that didn't belong to him.

“What happened?” He asked shakily.

Wukong looked away, unable to meet his gaze as he prepared to deliver whatever news he'd been dealing with.

“You won't be able to see out of your right eye ever again… the eye is dead, it was too damaged, the healers say it won't ever work again… and you will have a scar.” He said heavily.

“That's it though, right…? that's all that went wrong… right?” Mihou asked, praying that the worst was what happened to him.

“We searched her lair and-” his mate broke off as something in the green cape he had stirred.

A small, fluffy head popped out of the cape-sling, the little monkey cup whined, bumping Wukong's shoulder with her head. A single pair of delicate lotus shaped ears fluttered unhappily, ears that were colored a freezing cold blue.

He stared at the striped cub, tears burned his eyes.

If that cub is… then that means the witch imprisoned one of my people… she…

“She didn't.” was all he could say.

His mate’s look of anger and devastation spoke more than any words he could have said.

“Wukong… tell me she didn't… please…” he begged, pleading that none of this was true and he was just having some sort of horrible nightmare.

His mate looped their tails together, intertwining them tightly. He looked his mate in the eyes, there couldn't be more? What more could be worse than what was sitting in front of him right now?

“We… I lost Red Son… I didn't get there in time, she was long gone… I failed them…” 

He stared at his defeated mate in disbelief.

No. Not that! She can't have gotten away with it! His mind screamed.

He pulled his hands to his face, covering his eyes, he could feel the bandage covering half his face. Wukong moved closer to him, silently offering to hold him. He leaned away from his mate, he didn't want to be touched right now.

“I'm so sorry Mihou… for everything…” Wukong said weakly.

Mihou didn't feel any sting from his wounds as he sobbed.

XXX

Iron Fan glanced over when she heard a sound coming from her brother's bed.

Mihou had reacted poorly to the news, as she'd expected. He'd shut down and cried himself into unconsciousness, the news was too much for him to handle in his state.

She sent for Shoi-Ming, the dragon had been worried sick since learning what happened to him.

Sun Wukong had wisely decided to remove that thing he was calling a cub from Mihou's recovery room until he was more stable.

She leaned over to her brother's bedside, resting her hand on his arm. He jolted, fur bristling as his head snapped to her, shadows coiled around his arms, flickering like fire.

Iron Fan realized her mistake, she approached from his right side, his blind side, the side he'd never see from again because of that witch.

“Jiě jie…?” he asked, confusion flooding his gaze.

“Mihou… I didn't mean to frighten you.” She told him.

The shadows calmed down, settling into a pool of darkness around her little brother. His fur settled down, still more puffed up than it had been before she startled him. He looked at her, tears brimming in his eye.

“…i'm sorry…”

“Oh Mihou…” She pulled her little brother into a tight hug.

He grabbed onto her, claws digging into her clothes, like when they were young and he clung to her in an attempt to keep himself grounded in the present.

“I'm sorry I couldn't- I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” Mihou sobbed, repeating himself like a broken record.

Iron Fan held onto her brother, gently running her fingers through his thick black mane, pulling out the knots that had accumulated.

Red Son's hair got so tangled, there was so much of it and it was so long. She would sit her son down at the beginning and end of each day to comb through it with her own hands, she found it was the best way to tackle the problems-

Mihou’s hand brushed away the tears on her face.

She blinked, more fell.

“Jiě jie…” Mihou said sadly.

Iron Fan gripped her brother tightly, feeling his tail wrap around her arm as they cried together.

XXX

Red Son looked over at his mother.

She was across the room.

He wanted her attention.

He mooed to let her know what he wanted.

She didn't come to him.

He mooed again.

Still, she didn't come.

He frowned, pushing himself up. He wanted to get to her faster.

He grabbed the table next to him and pulled himself up.

With wobbly legs, he started moving towards her.

The table didn't go the full way. He really wanted Mother.

He let go of the table and walked across the floor to Mother. He tugged on her clothes and mooed again.

This time, she did give him her attention. She smiled at him, reaching down and patting his head.

“Look at you, walking already.” She said sweetly.

He beamed up at his mother, politely motioning for uppies. She laughed brightly as she picked him up.

He clapped happily, snuggling closer to her.

“You did very well, my son.” Mother said proudly, stroking his head softly.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

I told you, salt in the wound.

Okay so I'm almost at the main movie part, I just got a few more characters to kill and kiddo shenanigans next chapter, then chapter 5 is gonna be when the main plot starts!

I hope you all have a good day, whatever that is for you!

VJS Out!

[eliasappreciator]

attempting to compile comprehensive Elias appearances & information sources for Me, a guy with Problems

Mentions:

Angler Fish (1), Page Turner (4), Dreamer (11), SCheating Death (29), Taken Ill (36), Burnt Offering (37), Butcher's Window (49), Binary (65), Thought For The Day (68), The Coming Storm (91), Lights Out (98), Another Twist (101), Creature Feature (110), The Eye Opens (160) [also kind of an appearance? yknow. his statement!]

Appearances:

The Bone Turner's Tale (17) [briefly], Infestation (39), Human Remains (40), Lost In The Crowd (48), Observer Effect (60), Burning Desire (67), The Librarian (80), The Eyewitnesses (82), Possessive (84), Body Builder (90), Nothing Beside Remains (92), Lights Out (98), Nesting Instinct (102), Sneak Preview (104), A Matter Of Perspective (106), The Show Must Go On (116), Eye Contact (120), Remains To Be Seen (127), The Architecture Of Fear (138), The Panopticon (158), Parting (194) [plus either 193 or 195]

details under readmore

appearances details

MAG 17: starting at 7:50, "miss hearn has lodged a complaint." we get a "jonathon!" and the famous "I'll be more lovely." [also a mention in the final comments]

MAG 39: starting 13:52, Elias and Sasha discuss the Jane Prentiss attack as it happens.

MAG 48: starting 20:50, private disciplinary meeting between Jon and Elias regarding his paranoia.

MAG 60: 15:50 disciplinary hearing again

MAG 67: starting 19: 34, argument about the tunnels.

MAG 80: brutal pipe murder

MAG 84: starting 20:26, Elias offers Melanie a job

MAG 90: starting 3:15, talking with Tim about his unauthorized leave

MAG 92: reads a statement, pleasured exhalation. he is there from the episode beginning onwards.

MAG 98: starting 21:55 Melanie tries coffee poisoning him (Elias and Jon drink their coffee the same and this is "a fair assumption" for some reason)

MAG 102: from beginning 3:10. "I admit I may have overreacted [by beating leitner to death with a lead pipe]"

MAG 104: starting 25:10ish, Elias announces himself with "knock knock" aloud

MAG 106: starting 24:48 onwards, Melanie performance review.

MAG 116: from beginning, showing Gertrude's tape about the Mechanical Turk & the previous attempted stranger ritual.

MAG 120: dream narration

MAG 138: Martin goes to see him in prison

MAG 127: starting 24:20, meeting with Basira.

MAG 135: starting 20:34, meeting with Basira again regarding Jon's trip into the buried.

MAG 138: Martin goes to see him in prison

MAG 148: from beginning, Basira beats Elias up for keeping Jon's pulling statements out of unwilling strangers a secret.

MAG 194 [or maybe 193 or 195]: yknow the one we find him in the panopticon. all spooky-like. Jon says this place wasn't made for him, it was made for Jon.

mentions

MAG 1: in opening

MAG 4: 29:51 about making the leitner search a top priority institute project

MAG 11: 22:17, regarding Gertrude's death

MAG 17: in final comments Jon notes that Elias would tell him to watch and record, and not interfere with events.

MAG 24: in final comments 22:44 about the calliope organ

MAG 29: starting at 23:19, about his time working as a filing clerk in 1972 (two decades before Elias began working there, a year before James Wright even became Head of the institute, meaning he actually witnessed these events from the skull of Richard Mendelson).

MAG 36: a little bit after 21:37, Tim asks Jon about a delivery Elias was also enquiring about. he asked "a couple of questions".

MAG 37: at around 3:01 Jon mentions Elias giving him "advice" to destroy the table that binds the Not-Them.

MAG 49: starting supplemental 24:58. "used to be something of a pothead" comment as well as comments about his employment history.

MAG 65: about trouble installing security cameras in the archive. starting 24:05. follow through for Tim saying "Elias doesn't care," and "he should've fired you weeks ago" and also a heart wrenching Sasha mention

MAG 69: starting supplemental 22:41, literally just Jon saying "short of confronting Elias" with regards to his tunnel explorations

MAG 91: starting 17:40 for Jon character moment leading into mentioning Jon suspecting Elias for murder. Actual Elias mention starting 18:49ish ("first [Jon] then his creepy boss"), 19:18 for "I think it was Elias" about the murders.

MAG 96: in supplemental Jon talks about being annoyed with Elias & believing him to have led Jon to breekon & hope's Newcastle depot, & Elias "isn't big on micromanagement"

MAG 98: 3:40 onwards. just very briefly, about him requesting Martin continue recording statements because Jon is too inconsistent about it at the moment.

MAG 101: elias is addressed from the beginning until Michael appears. there's also Jon making gagged noises to entertain throughout.

MAG 110: we find out he can't see things when occupied (didn't know about Martin knocking over papers during performance review)

MAG 139: starting 22:57 about Elias killing Gertrude

[kitkatt0430]

For the ao3 asks: 3, 12, 29?

3.) What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

This is a hard pick because there are several in there that I'm particularly proud of.

I think collectively I'm most proud of The Man in the Lightning series. It's definitely a crack fic idea to me still - but it was a fun challenge to make a version of Eobard who is distinctly likable despite having murdered Nora as well as crafting a version of Barry who is understandably grateful Nora is dead. I wanted them to still be recognizable as variations of their canon selves, but very different takes on the characters too. And, of course, for the romantic ship to make sense without being manipulative on either end. Barry's up front about wanting to convince Eobard what they're building is worth staying in the past for and Eobard is too bewildered by Barry's clear interest in him to do any real manipulating on that front before Barry's Sherlock Scan Skills tell him that Eobard and the Reverse Flash kiss the same, ergo they are the same.

It's a series that I look forward to returning to, but I'm really satisfied with what's already there.

12.) How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

Oh gosh. A lot. Um... let me check. And this is not gonna be an exact number because I know I have them scattered all over the place.

We'll say about 55 WiP files I have an active interest in and I'm gonna stop counting now because I have a lot that are from many years ago for fandoms I'm not currently interested in writing for but who knows what'd happen if I rewatched/reread/replayed the source material.

There's definitely a lot of things I wanted to write this year that I didn't get around to because between the reno in the spring and the summer of the wasps, I was pretty burnt out a lot of the time. So there's a lot I started but never finished and hopefully I'll be able to finish those in 2024 despite having more reno plans. (Much smaller scale reno plans, thankfully, I can't take another round of the closet debacle.)

29.) Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

It was a very complicated question. Possibly more than either of them could really articulate. Barry had to take a moment to really put thought into how he phrased things. “The future is yet unwritten. Just because we see a possible future doesn’t mean it’s written in stone; our choices determine what really happens. But the past makes us who we are. To unwrite that would be to destroy our selves,” Barry said. “Jay was always insistent that I live my life for myself. He’d have been disappointed if I let myself get so caught up in living in the past that I stopped having a future altogether. Especially if I did it over him.”

Barry Allen (E-90) talking to Barry Allen (E-1) from Homeward

It was a difficult conversation to write, but I really like how it all fell out. And though neither Barry knows it, this conversation is what stops E-1 Barry from causing Flashpoint. I really enjoyed writing the whole fic (thanks @avatarskywalker78 for requesting it) and coming up with headcanons for the Allen twins of E-90.