#and maybe she sees him as an angry monstrous being (like in the song) and she’s afraid of being like him - or that she already is like him

[spicyicymeloncat]

Nightcord Kaito is actually my favourite virtual singer from project sekai. He’s so angry I love him. (I changed his hair to kinda resemble the character from the original Samsa mv)

[big-tiddie-squad]

I did it again.... 😶🤫

The Tease in the Recording Studio

"Try it again, but more seductive. We're going for a sexy vibe for this song, you have to make them feel like YOU want THEM." The producer in charge of the recordings offers. "You've got this, the fans already want you. You just need to give a little extra back to them."

Bangchan runs his hands through his hair. He's been singing the same part over and over, bringing forth his most charismatic personality, but Ms. Park says it's not enough after every recording. "Alright," he sighs, "let's try it again." He puts the headphone back up to his ear but you can see he's tired and confused on what she wants from him now.

"No problem, have a quick drink and we'll roll it back and start at the beginning again." The woman watches Chan through the glass studiously, then turns to you to apologize, "I'm sorry we're taking so long Ms. Y/L/N, but the job isn't done until it's perfect. I know you've been waiting here awhile but I appreciate you being patient with us. It shouldn't take much longer."

You always liked this recording producer. She was brilliant at her job and she's also very sweet and always allowed you to sit in while recording when you got bored of waiting at home. "It's fine! I understand completely. Can I say something to him before you start again though?" You ask.

"Words of encouragement are always welcome. Go ahead!" She shows you what to press to speak to him. You wet your lips and speak clearly through the small mic. "Channie?" He straightens and smiles at your pet name before replying right away, "Its okay if you wanna wait at home sweetheart, I know it's taking me a bit to get this right but I'll be home at some point tonight, you don't have to wait for me."

"What-? I'm not going anywhere," you laugh, "I just wanted to let you know that you can do absolutely do this, I know you're tired but I also know that you've got this!! Just know I'm here to support you!" You offer up a cheesy grin and wink at him causing him to laugh as well.

"Of course I do. I'm sexy after all right? Singing seductively should come easy to me if I don't think too hard." His eyes brighten and he puts his headphones on before giving his producer a thumbs up to signal he's ready.

"Here we go again!" She says cheerfully, as you sit down on the couch to watch your boyfriend make magic happen.

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

A frustrated growl leaves Chan as Ms. Park tells him to take a break. It's been over an hour and he's made no progress. He chugs his water bottle and slams it down. You don't typically see him this angry and maybe it's caused by sitting here for so long but... it's kind of hot. He only gets aggressive when you guys are intimate, becoming a whole other person it seems. You get up to go eat something with him while you all take a break.

You both sit in the small break room together as you watch him eat the small sandwich you brought him from home hours ago.

"I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong?" He complains, furiously taking a bite. "How can I not have given off the right vibe by now?" He licks his lips and you're thighs close on their own, stirring up memories of what the two of you did last night. His tongue seemed to have a map of your pussy memorized. Oh how he took you on a mind altering trip. Bending you to his will, literally.

He notices you're staring into the distance and waves a hand in front of your face, "Y/N? You okay? Maybe you should go home and go to sleep now, it's already 11:18 at night." He reaches down and puts his hand on your knee, you'd worn a cute black skirt that comes about halfway up your thighs. Thanks to his touch alone, an immediate urge woke in you and caused you to almost jolt from the contact. Apparently, your poker face needs some practice because Chan picked up on it almost instantly. His eyes dilate a bit as he watches you take your lower lip into your mouth and your breath hitches.

"Oh princess..." he coos at you teasingly, "does my little love need some special attention?" He slides his hand up from your knee to your thigh and begins to stand up and lean in slowly, almost like a predator stalking his prey. "Well, do you?" Every nerve in your body is firing off and your brain is giving you a fight or flight command, but that's what he wants right? He wants you to feel like prey, like you need to run. You wonder if you don't back off... if you were a bit disobedient, maybe this time you could take charge...how would he react?

Wouldn't hurt to find out right?

"Why does it matter? It's not like we have any time for you to do anything about it." You smirk at him, folding your arms and leaning back. His face goes slack for about .5 seconds before his eyes turns a whole new shade of brown. So dark you could be lost in them forever. "Excuse me-" he begins, teeth gritted, just as the door opens to reveal a newly energized producer.

"LETS GO PARTY PEOPLE! We need to get this done and I feel like this next take is gonna be perfect!" She's comes and goes like a hurricane leading the way to the recording room, with you and Bangchan following behind.

Once you all get to there, Chan immediately goes into the small sound proof portion to begin. However, his eyes continue to flit to you, and you can tell he's a little annoyed with being interrupted in the break room. Especially after your last comment.

Ms. Park tells him he's definitely giving off the right kind of energy atm and to keep his head space where it's currently at for the song.

And then you have a wonderful idea. Seriously, you should be an evil temptress. He nods at her but doesn't take his eyes off you for long as he starts singing. Perfect. You look at the back of his Ms. Park's head making sure she's focused on what she's doing. Before swiping your tongue slowly and suggestively over your lips, making full eye contact with Chan. He stumbles over his words, and Ms. Park sighs and asks him to start over, jokingly saying that that was just a warm up.

You smirk it feels nice to have control especially when he isn't able to do anything about it. You're almost positive that this will come back to bite you in the ass but.... it's kind of fun. So you continue. You lean forward and dig through your purse, fishing out a sucker, but as you do you begin letting your breasts tumble out as much as possible. His voice has a slight subtle change to it. And the producer claps her hands excitedly. So far so good.

You sit up and unwrap the sucker placing it in your mouth as you open your legs widely before crossing them, knowingly giving Chan a peep show. His voice is radiating through your body now causing a deep aching in your cunt. Damn was this what Ms. Park was wanting from him. You didn't know how you felt about other girls receiving this special type of feeling from him. A small sting of jealousy courses through you and though you know how deeply you've both fallen for each other. It's just a song, you tell yourself.

You decide to keep taunting him, and you finally run your tongue of over the sucker. You twist it against your lips before sucking it into your mouth, cheeks hollowing as you slowly pull it back out of your mouth smiling at him. His eyes haven't left you this whole time, and the dangerous and almost feral look he gave you was making you clench at nothing. Your pussy was already slick causing your panties to grow wet with your need. You didn't realize how much you were testing him.

He was already harder than hell but thankfully Ms. Park couldn't tell with his sweats and baggy hoodie on. He didn't know where you got this cocky and teasing attitude from but he couldn't wait to take you home and fuck it out of you. You'd never purposfully been this much of a tease before and he'd be lying if he said he didn't like it. He takes a breath before going into his solo part in the song and in that exact moment, he knew you were going to be punished tonight.

You'd waited for his part to come up and just before it did you spread your legs to show off your soaking panties slowly slipping a hand down over yourself and rubbing gently. You were so caught up on teasing him you hadn't realized how sensitive you'd gotten. The moment you pressed onto your clit you're mouth opened a bit and you wiggle slightly at the stimulation.

And BOY does Chan notice, his hips jerk forward slightly. Chan watches as your legs close tightly around your wandering fingers, wanting so badly to to replace your fingers with his own. He's in the clear now. Finishing the song with a lusty, almost dangerous note as he sees you bring your fingers up to your lips and suck your own juices off of them with a minx-like grin. You pull your skirt back into place and pop the sucker back into your mouth.

"THAT WAS IT! THAT WAS AMAZING! It's exactly what we needed! We are DONE!" Ms. Park yells whilst jumping up and down. She turns to you and thanks you for your support. "I don't know WHAT you did on lunch to help him get the right mood but whatever it was we might have to have you in here more often!" She laughs. You all gather your stuff and part ways once you get out of the building.

Chan wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you in tightly before leaning down, voice rumbling in your ear, "you have awakened a whole new side of me I hope you know that."

You look up at him with the biggest most innocent grin you can muster, the friction of your thighs rubbing together and the meaning behind his words and tone setting your stomach alight with a monstrous sexual hunger. The walk home was difficult for many reasons and at least one of them was because Chan had slipped his hand under your top, fingers brushing your bare skin and adding to the discord of tingles you already had.

"Who would've known you could be such a brat," he says as you both make it to your apartment. He opens the door and let's you walk in first slapping you on the ass and causing you to squeak out in surprise. He enters behind you and locks the door before quickly grabbing your hand and pinning you against the wall. Your lips meet and you can taste his need, the pure desire to ruin you tonight. His hand sneaks into your skirt and panties feeling how wet you were for him. You moan at the contact, your body almost crumbling in on yourself. "Chan" you manage say. "Babygirl- you have a three second head start." He tells you voice coated with a dominant and feral tone as he removes his hand from your warm sheath and licks his fingers clean. "1.......2...." and before he could get to three you bolt for the bedroom, the immense need to run taking over. You haven't even made it 5 feet away before you hear him say three. Before his foot steps are sounding behind you. And all you can think is.

It's going to be a long night.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Fish

For @whump-advent-calendar‘s day 4-6, Burn/Candles

CW: Referenced medical whump and dehumanization, light burn (accidental), captivity, muzzling, drugging reference, reluctant whumper turned caretaker

Introduction | Siren Song | Cries | Here | Not Sure | Draw Blood | Fish | Signs

---

BAHRAM’S NOTES NOTE TO SELF - SAVE IN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE. DO NOT LET DR. L SEE.

October 22nd, 20XX 3:45 am Mer in Residence: 19 Days

It’s time to admit I’m more or less keeping a diary at this point as I get to understanding him. So far I’ve written separate notes to myself… for ten or so straight days of the nineteen we’ve had him here, and it’s getting harder to write the official transcriptions the way Dr. L wants me to.

Dr. Lachlan insists I call the mer ‘it’, that it’s to help me distance myself emotionally since it’s such a good mimic of humanity, but I don’t think it’s a damn mimic, I think it’s just… human.

I mean, obviously it’s not HUMAN, but… Miah spelled it out for me, we had an argument about this when he first got here. She gets so angry that he’s getting hurt and you know, I guess I believed Dr. L - mer aren’t my specialty field, I’m a snake man really, I don’t know the first bloody thing about fucking cetaceans. 

Anyway, I said to her at the time, “It’s not human.”

She told me, “Maybe not H-U-M-A-N, but P-E-R-S-O-N,” just like jabbing me in the chest afterward. Also, Miah can fingerspell in a way that really makes you feel like a six year old getting yelled at by your mother, for the record. I can’t describe it any other way. I was ready to just melt away from personal embarrassment before she even finished signing “person.”

That’s not the point of this. 

I didn’t start a diary just to tell myself how right Miah is about all of this, but hey, here we are.

I need some days off so badly.

Miah wasn’t around today, it’s really just been me and the mer - I’m off for four days coming up here, after 20 days of work, and she’s going to come in and do 24-hour watch until I’m back. It’s not so bad - I don’t really know anyone here, and the bed’s comfortable enough. Dr. L’s paying rent on my apartment so I won’t lose it while I’m working, anyway.

I still feel like some low-level henchman, though. Like any moment some asshole in a tank top is going to show up with guns and I’ll just be a faceless evil stepping stone before the boss fight with Dr. L. 

I mean, we all know that Dr. L’s going to be the boss fight, right? Anders would just like lay down or throw Miah in front of himself or something.

No, that’s not fair, he really does love her.

Bahram this is all hypotheticals about a video game. Get back on track, man.

So Miah must have gone shopping or something. She came back with a bag full of these candles from this bookstore she really likes. I mean she came back with an insane amount of books, too, but she had this candle she pulled out and put down on my desk.

She set down the candle - it’s this really nice deep blue and has some kind of like ocean scene painted on the label, like, isn’t that thematic - and smiled at me. “This one reminded me of what we’re doing,” She told me, and her signs were… softer. Her expressions were softer alongside them.

Does that mean… anything? I don’t know. She just put it on my desk and then wandered off. I thanked her but I had to take her shoulder and get her to look at me, first. Maybe her face was a little red.

Maybe not. 

We keep the tank room pretty warm, I’m sort of cold-natured and the mer seems more active when we keep the lights really warm, so… 

I don’t get why she bought me a candle and why she looked away before I could thank her for it. I don’t get it, and I feel like I should, but I don’t. Is she not looking because it wasn’t a big deal, or because it was a big deal, or… what?

I really WOULD sink into the floor if Dr. L or Miah ever saw that I wrote this. Get it together, Bahram. You are not writing a diary about Miah fucking Kirsse. 

It’s been just me and the mer, all day. Dr. L was gone, too, meeting with whoever’s funding this whole thing. She’ll be gone until next week, so there’s no real work getting done, for now. Just blood draws.

She’s showing them its claws she took off. I don’t know why. Honestly, I have such a bad feeling about this, but I needed the cash and nowhere else was hiring for a job that would give me room and board and still time to work on my own research. Not that I’ve done a bit of THAT in a week.

I get too distracted by the mer.

He swims in circles. He stares at nothing, or pokes the plastic coral and ferns we got him, or hides in his cave. I can switch the screens over to watch the camera feed from inside the cave, but he doesn’t do much in there, either. I caught him picking at his scales, and I need to ask Dr. L about that. She took three scales off his tail, which for the record I had nothing to do with (whose record? I’m writing this to myself, and what the fuck does it matter about scales when I’m the one sticking the damn needle in his elbow twice a week), and I caught him sort of whistling sadly and picking at the empty spaces. 

They’ll grow back, Dr. L says. She’s not worried.

I am.

A little.

I’m starting to think Dr. L is lying about a lot of things, and I’m not sure what to do about that. If anything. This is a job, and I get paid better than I’ve ever been paid in my life. So… what do I do?

I could call the hotline and report him. It’s anonymous. 

She’d know I did it.

I don’t know why, but… I don’t want her to know it was me. Cowardice, I guess. Pure bloody cowardice.

But Miah hasn’t emailed the hotline, either. We can’t both be cowards, right?

Anyway.

Tonight was tank cleaning, which is a bloody fucking chore. Anders was around long enough to help me get the mer tranq’d and into the lift and then the rolling tank where he can just sit until I get my work done. Poor thing just lolls around when he’s tranq’d up. Barely blinks. 

Doesn’t stop its fucking crying, though.

We took a lot of blood from him today, too, so he was very weak. Barely moved, just curled himself up small so he was totally in the water and watched me work after Anders left. We’ve got a scrubber machine that does the hard work, I just have to hose some things down and then make sure its filter is still operating correctly. Watch the scrubber. Whole process takes about three hours from start to tank totally refilled, as long as I do it weekly. It’ll take much longer if I let it slide.

Double-checked the camera in the cave, and when I walked out of it I saw the mer’s head was up, watching everything I was doing. He dropped right back down under the water when he saw me looking at him. The muzzle looks so monstrous on him, but more than that, it makes him look like a monster.

Maybe Dr. L doesn’t muzzle him to keep us safe, but to keep me from seeing his expressions while I’m here with him all day.

No, that’s stupid. She doesn’t even think he’s sentient, right?

I finished up, and when I came to roll him back to the lift, I saw he’d popped his head up out of the rolling tank and was looking around the room itself. He hasn’t really looked around at all before this, and he was still tranq’d but maybe I fucked up the dosage? Because he was pretty alert, kind of whistling to himself and giving little chirps and clicks. He sounds like some weird mix of killer whale and fucking otters or something. When he saw me, he flinched back down under the water, but I had this idea.

Dr. L took his claws, and he’s still muzzled except when he’s on the table or when he eats, so like, it’s not like he can hurt me, right?

His eyes had gone to my desk, looking at… I guess all my books and papers and my laptop and everything. Maybe the candle. I waved my hand around until I saw that he was watching me again. With those big eyes it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s looking at, but when I clapped my hands he blinked at me, so I know he can hear it, can see me.

Then - and I swear I’m not lying - he moved himself up out of the water, and put his palms together. His earfins twitched out and back against his scalp, and his white hair dripped water all down his shoulders. 

He cocked his head at me. Then he put his hands together, harder this time. He clapped, and then… he clicked.

I KNEW it. I KNEW clicks were questions. Dr. L said their brains don’t work that way, but I bet they do. Who’s even considered how their brains work? Maybe they’re just like us. All the studying I’ve been doing shows that the scans we’ve done of dead ones are pretty similar in overall size and placement of their center of language. They’ve shown that mer populations have their own dialects if they don’t interact with each other, like the Atlantic transients sound totally different than the Pacific transients, which sound different than the residents that stick close to the coastlines up by Alaska...

Making my own head hurt. I don’t even care about fucking mammals, but I guess I do now. 

“That’s right,” I said when he clapped, not like he can understand but still. I said it, and I clapped again, and he clapped back. “Can you give me your head? I’ll take your muzzle off, yeah? If you don’t bite.”

Dumbest fucking idea ever, but hey. 

I think maybe he knows the word muzzle, because he whistled and shrunk down again, lowering his hands. His ear flaps flattened again. I saw the deep red marks around his neck, from how we have to use the catch-pole to get him out, and I just. I just felt like shit, you know?

I’m shit, that’s what I am, we’re torturing a child, more or less, who hasn’t done a thing to anyone but be by himself because he lost his bloody fucking family. I can’t keep telling myself I’m not the bad guy, you know? 

I’m going to jail if I report him, aren’t I? I helped bring him in, after all. There’s my whole career down the drain.

Is this how it felt when everyone was being shit to monkeys in the 70′s and calling it psychology? Did some of them just go along with it because they thought they had to?

This is not helpful, Bahram.

I sat down at my desk and tried to figure it out. His eyes were on me the whole time. I looked over at Miah’s candle, and looked at the label. Like I said, ocean scene. Fronds and ferns and…

I turned the label to face the mer, and tapped on the image with my finger. “Fish,” I said, feeling dumb as hell. I told myself, it’s a bloody animal, Dr. L would roll around laughing at you for this.

But he came back up out of the water. There was a long moment, and I heard him click, and then a soft, “Sssshhhhhh,” sound came from behind his muzzle. They have lips like ours, although their way of communicating is basically whalesong and relies heavily on underwater acoustics. He’s louder in the tank than out of it, although I guess fear might make him quiet, too.

The recordings I found on youtube they get in the ocean are deafening loud. Their voices travel so well underwater, it’s amazing. People sell fucking CDs with mersong over piano to fall asleep to. 

I poked at the ocean scene on the label again. “Fish,” I said firmly. “Do you want fish?”

He knows fish. 

I KNOW he knows fish because he sat up, held out his right arm, and tapped his elbow with a blunt-edged, broken-off claw before he looked back at me, trembling with fear. He clicked again, twice.

I can’t even tell you how shit I feel, realizing he was asking if I was going to take his blood first. That’s what he meant, it has to be. He poked at the exact spot where he’s bruised up from the needle. 

But it makes sense, right? 

He’s been here twenty days, more or less. Every couple of days, when he’s hungry enough, we bribe him with fish to get the pole on him, take blood or whatever else, and then he eats. 

No, WE don’t take his blood. I take his blood.

He thinks - and he’s fucking thinking, I know he is - that he only eats if we stick a needle in him.

I’m hurting a child.

I’m teaching a child to be hurt.

I’m not religious but this feels like the sort of thing you ask for forgiveness for, doesn’t it? I should call Maman and ask her who I could talk to. I’m going to call Maman or Baba tomorrow.

No I’m not.

What would I tell them I need to speak to someone about?

What if whoever I speak to calls and reports him, and Dr. L knows it was because of me?

I need to stop thinking about this. 

“No, NOT draw blood,” I said, and he whimpered again, held out his arm further, closer to me, tapped his elbow again. I knew he could still hurt me - their strength is prodigious, the first time we got him out of the tank he nearly pulled Dr. L down into the water with him - but I decided it was worth the risk. 

I kept thinking, he’s more scared of me than I am of him, but you know, of course he is. He’s the one with bruises.

I stretched my own arm out and showed it to him. He flinched back a little, and then leaned forward again, sitting in the little rolling tank that’s barely big enough to hold him. His blunt claws touched my arm, delicate as a feather, clicking as he poked at the sleeve of my sweater. 

“No draw blood,” I said. “Just fish. Eat.” I mimed chewing.

He looked at me and clicked twice, cocking his head, then looked at my candle from Miah, pointing at the ocean scene. “Ffff-sshhhh,” he said, muffled. 

“No, that’s a candle, it just has fish painted on it. Candle. Fire. Yes?”

Blank stare. 

Then, repeated, “Ffff-sssshhh.”

I sighed and pulled out my little lighter. I don’t smoke or anything, but I hate the way matches smell, so I have a lighter on me basically all the time. Plus, having lighters was a pretty good way to make friends back in undergrad when I gave a fuck about that. 

I flicked on the lighter, and the mer chirped, curiously. 

Has it never seen fire before?

Why would it, it lives in the ocean. Don’t be a dumbshit, Bahram.

“Fire,” I said, and held it out a little for a closer look. “Fire.” I tilted it and lit the candle, and the mer leaned forward, rapt, as the wick sparked up to flame and I blew the smaller flame on the lighter out. 

“FFfffff,” The mer said, barely audible. It clicked and held out its hand, and I wasn’t fast enough.

“No, wait stop-”

The mer’s fingertips touched the flame and it let out a deafening loud cry of pain and jerked its hand back down into the water, whimpering at the new kind of hurt, looking at me like it was MY fault, and maybe it was. Eyebrows furrowed, little crease in its forehead, big sad eyes. 

The big sad eyes are wrecking me.

“Well, don’t touch fire and you won’t burn,” I said, shaking my head. “No touch fire. Fire bad. Fire burn.”

He held out his hand to show me. “Ffff-rrrrr.” It was a plaintive little breath of air, not quite a real sound. 

The ends of two fingers were a little dark, that’s all. I could explain that by saying he’d hurt himself in the tank, maybe. I shook my head and pointed at the water, and it put its hand back in there, huffing a little breath of relief, I think. The water probably helped with the sting. 

“Right. Fire bad. No fire.”

“Ffff-rrr... buh-ddd.” 

“Right. Fire bad.” I stood up and walked over behind him, and he tried to turn and watch me but I shook my head and pointed back at the candle and he sort of huffed again and looked away. I felt him tense when my fingers touched the back of his head, but he sat still.

Probably because if he struggles when she goes to take the muzzle off or gets her fingers near his mouth, Dr. L has this electricity stick thing… 

I’m not supposed to mention that in the transcripts.

I’m not supposed to mention how he screams, and he doesn’t sound like a whale or an otter, then. He doesn’t sound like an animal.

He sounds like a child.

He IS a child

He’s just

I’m a fucking

No. I need to focus. This is stuff I can’t tell Dr. L, I need to write it down here where it’s safe.

The muzzle is easy to get off, you just need to be looking right at it, and I unbuckled and pulled it free, feeling a little resistance from how well it stuck to his face. Without it on, there are deep red lines along his cheeks and jaw, not open or bleeding, just irritated. 

He didn't grab at me, or bite. Just watched me with his big eyes as I laid it down on my desk. For a second we were both just quiet, looking at each other. 

Then he pointed at the candle again. “Ffff-sssshh.���

“No,” I said. “Candle. Fire.”

The mer’s eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head, echoing what I did earlier. His hair slapped around. His teeth look like shark’s teeth up close, only there’s a lot less of them. “Nnnn-nnnuh,” He tried, shaking his head again.” Nnn-uh. Ffff-sssshhh.” Then he pointed at his mouth, opening wide, showing me the tongue behind his teeth. “Fffff-sssshhh. Ffff-ssshhh.”

I laughed, covering my mouth - he seems to be scared when we show too much teeth, probably in the ocean it’s a threat and they don’t smile like we do. Which, why would they? 

But, see, I realized that he wasn’t pointing at the candle at all, but at the fish painted on it. Then he moved to look at the bucket of fish he gets as a reward for obedience, and pointed at that, then looked back at me to see if I was paying attention.

Of course I was. I was barely fucking breathing. This is signs of abstract thought process, recognizing that the image of a thing isn’t the thing itself. That he can point at it to represent what he wants. “You want fish? Is that it? You’re hungry? Want to eat some fish?”

The mer blinked and made a sound like a chirp, clapped his hands together. “Rrrrr. Fff-sssshhh.” He pointed at his mouth again. “Ffff-ssshhh. Buh-rrrrmm. Ffffsshh.”

“What did you say?” I whispered. My heart went cold. I can’t describe it any other way.

“Buh-rrrrmmmm. Ffff-sssshh, Buh-rrrmm.”

The bloody thing knows my fucking name. 

He knows we have names and he knows mine and that means-... that means he has one, doesn’t it? If he has a name, if he has

I’m his fucking nightmare aren’t I 

I’m the worst fucking thing that could happen to him, me and Miah and Dr. L and Anders and this is a job but it’s the worst thing that’s happened to him and it’s only

It’s going to get worse for him.

He’s going to die here and he’ll know all our names when he does.

Anyway, so... you know... I brought him a bucket of fish.

What else was I supposed to do? 

He knows my name!

He let me put the muzzle on him again without fighting after he finished, and I got him back in the tank once the water was refreshed, and he’s sleeping off his meal now. I can see him on the feed, curled up inside the cave.

But I’m wide awake, so I thought I’d write this, because…

Because what the hell do I do now?

I can’t tell Miah.

Can I?

 ---

@astrobly @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @slaintetowhump @moose-teeth @misspelledwitch @whumpfigure @whumptywhumpdump @boxboysandotherwhump @whumpywhumper

[waiting4inspiration]

Stories (Bjorn x Mermaid!reader)

Summary: You’re captured while your colony attack Bjorn’s ship and he decides to keep you as a trophy. And idea you don’t like at all. 

Warning: strong language, angst, little rivalry, mermaid!reader, if I missed something, please let me know

Word Count: 2,702

7k Mythical Creatures Masterlist II Vikings Masterlist

Bjorn has heard so many stories about creatures of the seas from his many travels. Seas creatures that remind him of Jormungandr. Stories that remind him of Ran, the Goddess of the sea, and her nine daughters who personify the waves. One story that came as a warning before setting sail back home. Women of the sea that seduce men before luring them to their deaths. Creatures are said to have the upper half of a woman, but the lower half of a fish. Creatures that go by many names; sirens, water nymphs, water devils, mermaids. 

But that didn’t frighten Bjorn or his men. And they sailed through the apparently cursed sea infested with these creatures. 

It was like sailing into a hurricane. At first, the thought that the Gods were angry with him crossed Bjorn’s mind. He could see that fear on the faces of his men. But when he recalled the stories he heard of the land they had just come from, he thought that they might have been true. And in the distance, when he sees something somewhat relating to what he had heard jumping out of the water like he had seen dolphins do, the fear that his men’s lives are in danger replaces the fear that the Gods are angry with him. 

For you, it has always been like this. It has been a way of life since the beginning of your kind. The two-legged people thought your kind to be monsters, so why not be what they fear. Besides, after generations of feasting on the flesh of man, you and your kind had grown accustomed to the taste. 

So, when a ship sails into the territory, no one has to order and attack. The passing ship overhead is like a ringing dinner bell to every fishtailed-folk in the colony. Now, it’s only a fight to get your own human before they’re all taken. 

You remember listening to stories about how your ancestors were. How they used to catch their prey with such pose, such grace. They didn’t just attack like animals. They sat on rocky beach shores and sang songs that echoed in the distances to lure men close before they charmed their meal into joining them for a swim. That’s when they’d attack. 

But things changed when people found out about your kind. The stories are what drew the merfolk away from the shore. The stories are what turned your kind into being so malice. 

You’re not the first one to throw yourself out of the water. You missed your chance at that with being lost in your own thoughts. And because of that, you mistime your jump to capture your prey and fly into one of your sisters. Colliding with her pushes her away from taking hold of one man and back into the ocean. 

As for you, you’re not so lucky. 

You fall onto the deck of the ship, surrounded by men that slash their weapons at your sister to try and defend themselves. Thinking that you haven’t been spotted, that you have a chance to get back to the water, you start to drag yourself across the wooden floor and towards the side of the ship. 

Until someone grabs a fistful of your hair and pulls you up to press a knife against your throat. Your hiss at him is what stops the attack of your kind and you watch as they bob in the water, watching you with cold eyes but not doing anything to aid you in your rescue. 

Your tail thrashes, trying to get away from the man’s hold to prove yourself to your colony. They’re only watching you because this is a test. But you fail when you give a small cry of help as the knife presses deeper against your throat.

It’s like they take the storm with them when they leave. They won’t attack anymore. They won’t waste lives trying to save one mermaid. A colony strives with the strongest members. Not with the weakest. 

Pushing yourself out of the man’s arms, you fall to the ground and keep your head down as you curl your tail closer to you as men start to gather around you. Your animalistic features change as you revert back to the appearance your kind is supposed to use for luring men, for seduction. 

Clawless hands, unwebbed fingers, fangless teeth. The scales on your cheekbones turn back into fair skin to give way to an angelic, innocent type of face. 

You gasp when a blade pierces your tailfin, your head snapping over your shoulder to see a sword embedded in the floor as if to prevent you from going anywhere. “We should kill her,” the man that pierces your tail shouts, ignoring how you begin to bleed when you fight against the blade. 

“Or we can make money out of her.”

“Enough!” You tremble at that voice, your head slowly turning up to the section of the crowd that begins to part to let through a man. From that fact alone - the parting - you know he’s in charge. Not to mention the way he carries himself forward. Like he owns the entire ship. 

He has these blue eyes that remind you of how the waters look on a clear day; bright. His hair is a long braid down his back that reminds you of the oldest members of the colony. Mermaids never cut their hair. Doing so would be like trying to stop a wave from forming. Which is why yours is able to significantly cover your breasts. 

The man holds you stare as he frees your tail of the sword and pushes it in the chest of its owner before he steps forward to kneel in front of you. A creature he had heard about, a story, now in front of him. 

His eyes flicker down to your tail, follows the curve of it curled up close to you, and notices how it looks as he thought it would look. Scaly, like a fish. He smiles to himself as he looks back up at your face. It’s not the kind of face he had seen when his men were attacked. “She’s mine,” he states, pushing himself back up to his feet, leaving you to stare at the appendages you lack. 

Two legs. 

Your eyes then land on those with a rope around their wrists, all of them staring at you. You’ve attacked enough ships to know that these are not free people. These are slaves. And when a man steps forward to you with rope in his hands and his intentions to bind you, the blue-eyed leader’s words have a different meaning to you know. 

Slashing at the man who tries to tie your hands up, you hiss at him as he retaliates with cuts on his forearm. “I belong to no one but the sea,” you snap at the man that dares make you his property. 

He smirks at you and tilts his head to the side. “Well then, feel free to go back to your family,” he whispers, holding his hand out to the sea over the side of the ship. 

“Maybe I will. And maybe I’ll take you with me as a snack,” you snarl, pushing yourself a little bit off the ground to display that you have some pride left. 

He chuckles at you and kneels in front of you again. “You won’t make it to the edge of the ship,” he mutters, leaning closer to your face as an attempt to intimidate you. “My men won’t let that happen.”

“What are you? A king?” you chuckle, but your laugh dies when you see the serious look on his face. Then you look around you. You take note of the colors of the sails that have now been lowered, the shields that decorate the sides of the ship. The monstrous head on the front of the ship. You’ve heard the stories. “You’re a Northerner.”

He’s a Viking. All the men around you are. And you know that they’re known not to show mercy. 

“And I saved your life. I could have allowed that they kill you,” he whispers, your eyes shifting to look over at the men that still stare at you. “But I won’t.”

“Why?”

Your question makes a smile grow on his face. When he reaches out to touch your face, you pull back and glare coldly at him. “Because no one has ever found something like you. You are far more special than any gem,” he mentions, making your heart skip a beat. 

“Because I’m different. Proof of a myth being true,” you say, knowing exactly what he means by saying that you’re ‘special’. “I am not an ornament for you to showcase how great and magnificent you are, King,” you snap. 

He smiles at you and shakes his head. “Not yet.” With that, he breaks your heart and stands to his feet. “Make sure she doesn’t dry out,” he orders a nearby man as he walks away. 

And you know that this is the start of the story of a mermaid captured by a Viking man. 

By the time you had reached the home of these men, a place you hear them call Kattegat, you’re used to being stared at, being ogled at, and being talked about in whispers. And though the man charged with making sure you don’t dry out has done his job, he didn’t think to keep your upper body wet, only thinking that your tail needs water. 

To get you to the Great Hall, the blue-eyed, nameless-to-you leader had a tub brought to the ship. You watch people fill it with water from the sea before placing it beside the ship. Men stand around you to make sure you don’t bolt to the sea. Not that you would do that anyway. You don’t know these waters and fear that there may be a creature in the depths that your strength won’t match up to. 

You have to choose between an uncertain world of the sea you’d flee to, or being safe as an ornament to a man you barely know. 

The latter seems better to you. 

As you hoist yourself up using the edge of the tub, refusing help from a stranger, you quickly block out the gasps of awe by submerging your head into the water. There’s no space for all of you to be in the water, so you have to choose to either be top half exposed, or bottom half exposed to the city you’ll be taken through to get to this Great Hall.

Again, the latter seems better. You’d rather not see the staring faces or hear anymore whispers as people point to you. Before the tub is lifted, you see the man you now ‘belong to’ glance down into the water at you. 

You see his hand reaching over to touch your tail and it makes you shoot out of the water, pull your tail in and hiss at him. “Let’s get one thing straight right now, King. You don’t touch me, and I won’t bite your hand off,” you snap, leaning against the edge of the tab as it’s lifted and narrowing your eyes at him. “No doubt you’ll still need it to fuck yourself,” you mutter as you’re taken away from the dock. 

Bjorn chuckles at your words and turns to look at Hvitserk who stands beside him. “She’s feisty,” Hvitserk laughs, making Bjorn nod in agreement. 

“She’s a free spirit. Why would she want to hold her tongue?” he mentions, patting his brother’s shoulder before moving forward to follow you being taken to the Great Hall. He has to stop them from placing you where everyone can see you. You’re not part of the treasure that will be dealt out among the men that survived your colony’s attack as well as the raid. 

You are his. 

Glancing around the room you’ve been taken to, your eyes end up staring at something that you’re not sure about. It looks like a flat rock surface you used to lie on. But it seems so much softer. And there are textures on the surface that you know you’ve never touched before. You’re not sure you want to touch it anyway. 

The door opens and in walks the man that brought you here. You sink into the water, wetting your face before letting your tail hang out over the edge as you rest your arms over the sides. You stare at him, watch as he walks across the room and sits on the surface you’ve been staring at. 

You watch it give in beneath him. It’s not as firm as rocks. 

“Do you have a name?”

“Does it matter?” you fight back without a second thought, lifting your eyes up to him to find a tired expression on his face. You sigh and roll your eyes at him. “(Y/n),” you mutter, looking down at the water you sit in and lightly run your fingers over the surface. 

You hear him move closer but you don’t lift your gaze up to him. “Are you going to ask me for my name?” he questions, folding his arms to rest on the rim of the tub as you slowly look at him. You raise an eyebrow, challenging him and making him chuckle. “Bjorn.”

Humming and nodding your head, you glance at your tail as you flex it to inspect the wound on your fin. It seems to be fine. “So, what do you expect me to do while you have me here?” you ask, looking back at him and tilting your head to the side. 

“Well, what do mermaids normally do?” Your expression drops as you roll your eyes. “There must be something besides attacking ships and killing men.”

You sigh and sink into the water a little more. “Nothing more than what a family does. We interact with each other, care for each other, teach younger mermaids our ways,” you softly explain, biting your lip as you recall the sounds of swimming among the waves. “We swim until the sunsets. Then we soar with the stars.” You smile, letting you tail relax as you look up at Bjorn again. 

He stares at you, his own smile growing as he shifts in his spot. “And is it true that you have a voice that can lure a man to his death?” he asks. 

Laughing, you lean slightly forward and lick your lips. “It’s not the voice that kills them, it’s the song. A promise of a better life, a better love. Something so pure, the Mother entrusted us to keep it hidden at the bottom of the sea.”

“The Mother?” he asks, confused as to who you’re speaking about. 

“The first woman to walk the earth. It’s said that she could alter her body into any form she needed,” you explain, your fingers floating on the surface as you lock your eyes with him. “She favored a mermaid form; half woman, half fish. She explored the oceans a thousand times over. She wanted to share the ocean. The kiss she shared with humans as she dragged them underwater is what changed their legs into tails. Men and women changed into merfolk, never to walk the earth again.” Your words have trailed into a whisper and you find yourself close to his face, your lips so close to his. “Our oldest members told us when we were young, that the Mother’s kiss passed down to us. That we can change a human into one of us. With a kiss.”

“Is that true?” he questions, listening intently to your every word that draws him in closer. 

Placing a hand on his chest, you push him away from you and return to leaning against the rim of the tub. “It is just a story. Nothing more,” you mutter, staring back at the water as you sigh. 

He hums and stands to his feet. “Your kind were thought to just be a story too. And yet, here we are,” he states, making you bite your lower lip and pull your head away from his hand that tries to touch your cheek. 

“Unfortunately.”

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Bjorn Tags- @thorins-queen-of-erebor​

[bluebeewings]

Thanks for the recommendations! Putting them on my watchlist. I don’t have that many movies that I have read as aroace mostly because most of the movies I watch are explicitly queer movies (ironic) and they’re never about the aro/ace experience. Most of them are romances. Tho I feel like there is a lot of aromantic values (can I say that? Maybe sensibilities is a better word idk) in the most subversive ones (pretty much all of John Waters and queer films that focus more on sexual desire than any type of romantic connection like Shortbus and Kaboom (one of my all time favorite tho it has a tiny romantic subplot).

Out of those queer movies, the one I think has the biggest aro vibe is 1) Hedwig and the Angry Inch: The protagonist is clearly not meant to be aro or ace, but their journey involves feeling comfortable in their own skin and finding value in themselves instead of looking for it in romantic love. It’s an incredible musical and it stars with a song (called “origin of love”) romanticizing romantic and sexual love as this transcendental thing where humans used to have another half attached to themselves. When Zeus cut us, separating us from our other half, we were doomed to spend our lives looking for the missing part.

The way I interpret the movie is a subversion of this main song: Hedwig spends the whole movie trying to fill the whole that this non existing person would be able to. In the end, with my favorite song of the musical, Hedwig realises that they are complete: “And there's no mystical design/No cosmic lover preassigned/There's nothing you can find/That cannot be found”

It always brings me to tears. This character growth is represented through a tattoo the character has. In the beginning, is the image of two halves of a face. In the ending, it turns into a complete one. Hedwig isn’t attaching themself to the concepts in “origin of love”: “You think that luck has left you there/But maybe there's nothing/Up in the sky but air”

It’s amazing, every song is a banger and also very gender!

And then we have 2) Invisible Life (Vida Invisível): A brazillian movie about two estranged sisters who long to reunite. They were torn away by their father and both start to believe they’ll never see each other again as they unknowingly live in the same city. The bond between the two is strong enough to sideline any other type of love, but one of the sisters is extremely relatable to me. She was obligated to marry this man she barely knew and never once showed interest, romantic, sexual or otherwise, in fact, she’s disgusted by him and their sex scenes are honestly very hard to watch.

3) Bride of Frankenstein: Controversial, maybe. This is the movie where Frankenstein’s monster “gets a wife” but in reality? It’s about a deeply lonely being who longed for not being seen as monstrous. He wants a wife like him to have a connection he can’t with the people who despise him. It doesn’t feel that much romantic and definitely not sexual. Just an outsider wanting companionship. Very queerplatonic and obviously queer of him (honestly Frankenstein’s monster is just queer in every direction)

And for an even more controversial one I’ll say 4) Encanto: I remember the discourse about how “interpreting the movie with queer themes is downplaying the generational trauma which is the point of the story” yeah I know. Queer reading exists regardless, and that’s for every single movie in existence. And queer latine people exist (me for example). Anyways, to me the “powerless” in a family/society with people with powers is the closest we get to a metaphor about living as an aro/ace person. A feeling of abnormality with the lack of something most people have. Come on… Incredibly aroace

There are more but those were the ones that got me more. I’d also say maybe “Ready or Not” (hell yeah let’s kill your husband and all his family members), “Cruella” (just fashion, vibes and complex families albeit silly movie) and “wreck it ralph” (eh. It’s about platonic love, about outsiders, about feeling like who you are is fundamentally wrong… Super queer, aroace to me)

Excited to see this list get bigger!

I really wish there was a canon of aroace cinema. Obviously there is close to none representation, but I’m thinking movies that resonate to the aro/ace experience regardless of intent. To create a canon must be hard, but I’m gonna give my two cents with Little Women (2019 dir. Greta Gerwig) and The Banshees of Inisherin (2023 dir. Martin McDonagh)

[felswritingfire]

Can we get some Tezcatlipoca's scenarios with female reader?? Please 🙏🏻💕

OMG THIS IS LATE AF BUT, I HAVE IT I HAVE THE GOODS NOW

I decided to go with a jealous Tez scenario because I was in the mood to write someone being jealous lmao 

ah, a warning (I guess??) it gets a bit suggestive at the end but like, of course it is ksjlkfjd

Just send in an ask if you want me to continue~

Also the song I based this off of!

Tezcatlipoca x Female! Reader 

Baby, I’m Jealous 

How annoying.

Tezcatlipoca had seated himself in the corner of the club, swirling the drink in his hand (he had honestly forgotten what he got- something simple- perhaps a whiskey on the rocks (it was hard to tell with the multicolored lights). He could feel the thrum of music beneath his feet, traveling up his new body and he vaguely marveled at how intricate the Crafters had made this new body of his. He even picked out some of the lyrics to the music that was blaring from the speakers:

...Baby, I’m jealous/ Of the pictures that you like/ Baby, I’m jealous/ Of the girls with lighter eyes/ Baby, I’m jealous…

He’s tempted to snort at the words. How fitting for it to play at this particular moment: when he’s watching you mingle with friends, that you happened to know at the club you dragged him to. He didn’t mind the club atmosphere- no, if anything, he revelled in it. It reminded him of the battlefield, chaotic in its energy and the heat of warm bodies pressing together. It was an environment that Tez could revel in. He wasn’t even bothered about you chatting away with this little group. 

What he wasn’t thrilled about, was how one of your… friends was clinging and looking at you. It was the way he would look at you- the way he would touch and tease you- something more than platonic feelings lingering in her actions. 

A touchy girlfriend? Maybe. But Tez had learned to trust his instincts from years of wars and this was no different. 

He could feel his teeth ache in anticipation for a fight, his claws clinking at the glass of the square cup. He wanted to rip her to shreds already. He took a sip of his drink, letting it smooth over his tongue before gulping it down, basking in the burn. 

Not yet… Not yet.

My apologies/ For looking at your history/ I’m trying/ To let it go/ Baby, I’m jealous…

Tez felt a spark of something smug and haughty flare behind his ribs at the way you turned and waved to him, even despite the flashing purple and blue lights he could still see the happy gleam in your eyes as you gestured to him. The feeling only grew as the girl leaned back, from her position where she was hanging off of your arm, to look at him with round eyes and a firm frown. He raised his cup, his narrowed eyes never leaving the girls. 

She scowled, her raised brows drawing into an angry v.

His brow twitched. Not expecting her to react- assuming that she’d stand down when she saw his hulking form- most people did. And that was his first mistake. 

That chick/ Can’t be that chick/ Baby, I’m a bad bitch/ If he fiendin’ he’ll probably get catfished…

The glass almost broke in his grip from how hard he was holding the drink, his fur on end and the feathers of his wings fluffing up as he watched her lean against you, whispering in something in your ear that had you flushing a red and laughing as you turned away from her. He could taste copper as she turned back to him with a smirk- something ugly and mean, bordering on a sneer- on her face.

Before he realized it, he felt his lips curl into a viscous smile, all fangs and gum. Downing the last of his drink and slamming it down onto the counter, climbing to his feet and stretching out his body. He could feel the eyes on him- feel the way the others around him stared in awe of his hulking form- he especially payed attention to the way that her face seemed to pale in realization that she might have bitten off more than she could chew. 

And she did. She truly did. 

I’m not being spiteful, but he’s trash/ Won’t be the last/ To let you know, But he’s gon show you/ Baby I’m jealous…

He strode towards you, easily making his way through the crowd. He could feel the airy excitement bubble in his gut when you saw him making his way over, the gleam back in your eyes. His wings twitched at the attention, his tail lazily swishing behind him by the time he got to the group you were with. 

“Tez!” You beamed, even with you yelling he could barely hear your voice. “These are my friends that I met at one of Claude’s parties! I was just talking about you.”

He smiles at them and nods. They all wave to him, all good natured-like and sweet; except for one. The girl, who was looking sicker and sicker the longer she stared at him. He feigned a look of worry, tilting his head to the side, his hands coming to rest on your shoulders. “Are you feeling alright, girl? You look a little… sick.” He remarked, the rumble of his voice easily cutting through the music. 

Baby, I’m jealous/ (hoo, I’m jealous)/ And I know it ain’t right/ (you lied to me)/ But I’m jealous/ (aha)/ Jealous/ (ya,ya,ya)/ The jealous kind...

The group she came with looking at her and, with varying degrees of worry, asked her if she was alright. She nodded trying to wave off the look on her face a few moments ago, her eyes glaring at Tez’s. He had to swallow the urge to smile at her again. Instead, he nodded with a “that’s good” before leaning down and brushing his fangs against the shell of your ear, his gaze remaining steady with hers, as he whispered: “let’s go somewhere a tad more private, my World.” A claw tracing down your spines until he stopped and rested his hands on your waist. 

You feel a shiver shoot down your spine, your thighs quivering and the space between your legs growing slick. You lick your lips before turning to the group. “I think we’re gonna head off- see you guys later!”

Tez let out a laugh at how eager you were, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the back of the club, listening to the chorus of (yelled) goodbye. He threw a look over his shoulder: the girl was standing there, her eyes a raging inferno of swirling rage and longing, her teeth digging into her bottom lip- she looks like she’s about to cry as she was swallowed by the crowd. 

The smile that crosses his face is one that belongs to a victor: self satisfying and monstrous. 

Even as you pull him into the bathroom and slip into a stall together, he can’t seem to wipe it off his face as he runs his hands over your curves and breasts.

I’m jealous of her/ Need ya number/ (b-baby, I’m)/ She doesn’t love ya/ Boy, lemme show ya/ (b-baby, I’m jealous).

[henryobsessed]

The Borrower and Her Bean Part 11

Summary: Henry rescues Melina, and is now desperately hoping she will wake up. 

Word Count: 1670

Warning: mention of nudity and stalking

A/N sorry for the delay had a block on this story, but i think its running again :)

Part 10 - Part 12

Melina's little body was limp and cold. Henry raced to his bedroom removed his shirt and then carefully removed her outer garments. Once she was only in her underwear he placed her on his stomach. Pulling a thick blanket over her. Slowly he rubbed her body with his thumb through the blanket pleading for her to wake up.

Kal noticing his masters panic. He jumped on the bed and smelling his friend placed his nose right near Melina. "Good job Kal, keep breathing your warm air on lina." Henry's heart thumbed as he continued to rub her little body. Wondering what else he could do he looked out at the night sky it's inky blackness only enhanced the brightness of the stars. Remembering her lullaby wondered if it would help her as it had helped him. His deep cadence hesitantly filled the room as he began to sing.

The silvery eyes silently watched as the bean tried to revive the borrower. They heard his song, a call to their kind, echo around the room. They watch as the little body began to breathe and then moan a sign of life. The Beans shoulders shook as relief was replaced with sorrow. His deep voice softly reached their ears. "My Lina, calls out to you her dreams to become like me, I don't know if you are really there or if you have the power. So let me add my request to hers, if I can become a borrower please let it be."  Both eyes set on each other, they twinkled in delight and mischief.

Melina was trapped in the cold darkness, unable to move, unable to wake. A tiny glow lit ahead of her, growing larger as she felt pulled towards it. Suddenly she heard a deep melodic voice calling her name, then the sweet melody of her lullaby. Warmth engulfed her as she felt drawn to the voice. Her body tingled all over as her nerve ending burned to life causing a moan to escape her lips. Above her, she heard her beans sigh then the whisper of prayer before she fell into a deep sleep.

Henry smelt a warm current of hot putrid air pushing at his body. Groaning he opened his eyes and then shut them tightly against the image before him. Willing himself to wake up he tried again but the image didn't change. Beside him lay the sleeping Melina her arms hugging his duvet, that in itself was enough to cause him to believe he was still dreaming. However, what turned this into a nightmare was the large black mussel and an open-mouthed cavern filled with large teeth in front of Melina accentuating the fact that Melina had not grown but he had shrunk.

Hoping he was just stuck in a terrible dream he decided to make the most of it. Moving closer he wrapped Melina up in his arms. The feel of her soft skin, and the gentle movement of her chest bringing calm to his freaked out mind. Hoping to wake up in their familiar size differences he pulled the duvet over himself shut his eyes and willed himself to sleep.

Melina awoke to a groaning in her ear and an odd sensation, something heavy laid across her chest. She tried to move her arm to free herself of the constraint. It was at this moment that it became clear that another borrower was holding her close.  The arm was not familiar, it was not Carson or Greg or even her father but it was definitely a male.  Panic welled up in her as the arm pulled her close into his hard body. Soft lips nuzzled into her neck and moaned "Lina". Twisting her body around to face the stranger she gasped, shock numbing her speech as she stared at a sleeping Henry. Not her gigantic bean but now a borrower size bean.

She reached out a hand to touch his face as it scrunched up in his familiar nightmare grimace. Her hand now ran over his entire cheek rather than just grazing his cheekbone. Concern trumped her shock and she fell into the familiar routine of a song. Her sweet voice filling the air and his face relaxed, his eyes opened. Sleep hazed they held the same look of shock as they filled with tears "It wasn't a dream"

He burrowed into her arms seeking assurance that he would be ok, her arms hesitantly wrapped around him. It was not exactly how he had envisioned their coming together, in fact, it was completely the opposite. Instead of him comforting a scared and confused Lina, showing her his world and hoping she would stay. It was Henry scared and confused seeking Lina's comfort. Hoping that she would not be still angry at him, and she would show him her world. Eyes tight he was unable to think of anything else but clinging to the one who he desperately needed.

Melina was so confused and in reality, she was still angry with Henry, but this was an extraordinary situation. As he clung to her she hesitantly wrapped him up in her arms. It was confusing her senses now having her bean clinging tightly to her body. She rubbed his back in small circles as his shuddering breaths started to even out. Running her hand through his hair, something she had never been able to do before, she spoke softly to her bean "It's going to be ok Henry, your not alone." He looked up at her his eyes red and puffy, causing Melina's heart to clench. Determining to put aside her anger she was going to help him adjust as a borrower, it didn't mean she had to trust him, but she didn't have to be angry with him anymore.

It took a while for Melina to shift from full concern for Henry to questioning her own predicament. Her last memory was going to get Ice cream so how did she end up in his bed? it was at that moment that she also realised something else. A deep blush coloured her face as she felt that she was skin to skin with her bean. Hesitant to cause him more turmoil she softly said: "Henry, I need you to move away from me and tuck the blanket around you" having returned his face to her shoulder he mumbled, "Why lina?" biting her lip and fighting the embarrassment she started to lift his arm from her waist "because for some reason I am only in my undergarments ...... and I don't think your boxers shrunk with you" It took all of 2 seconds for her Bean to spring back from her his face also now coloured a Rosie hue of red.

He couldn't look at her, how had he not realised that he was completely naked. He heard her sigh before speaking "Sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you. It makes sense that they didn't shrink with you. But what doesn't make sense is how I am here in your bed and also almost naked." Pushing past the embarrassment he looked up at her frowning face, "well, umm you got locked in the freezer and when I got to you your body was turning blue. So I did what they suggest for hypothermia, Skin on Skin to warm you up slowly. " He knew that was only the half-truth and hope she would not ask. Her forehead deepened and she took a breath "Ok, Thank you. but how did you know I was trapped in the freeze?"

His red cheeks deepened further in colour as he rubbed the back of his neck a tell tail sign what she was about to hear she would not like. His eyes did not quite reach hers as he explained "Well when you and your family disappeared, I missed you all. I kind of got desperate to see you so I set up cameras. I slept during the day and watched the cameras at night just in hope of getting to see you again. That how I knew you were in trouble because I watched it happen" Melina's mouth opened in surprise at his actions. It confirmed her need to not trust him, but still, she realised that if he had not been watching she would be dead now. She thought for a few minutes trying to get the nervousness down before addressing the problem.

Gathering a breath and pulling the blanket tighter around her she said" In one way I am grateful that you saved me, and that you were watching when it happened. However, can you see how that behaviour is another invasion of privacy?" echoing her action of pulling himself deeper into his section of blanket her bit his lip and replied "I'm Sorry lina, I'm sorry I read your diary, once I realised it was a diary I should have put it down, I'm also sorry for putting up the cameras. The reason I came to see you that day was to apologise for my words that night. I don't just want you to be here as my dream catcher. I actually care about you and maybe that why last night when I thought about losing you I asked the stars to make me a borrower........I guess they heard me. Do you forgive me, Lina"

The atmosphere between the two of them was very heavy, both afraid of what the other felt. Henry watched as his Lina tried to come to terms with what he had said. Hoping he would not be rejected as he had been before he waited. She looked up at him and was about to speak when the sound of  Kal's loud whine was heard. They both looked into the monstrous puppy's face, his large pink tongue lols out in a panting motion. Groaning Henry glanced at Melina in concern "How are we supposed to feed him?" chuckling she said, "We will work it out, that is part of being a borrower, problem-solving."

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[elriell]

Book Rec’s

Going to try and add a lot of less known books that are amazing and not enough people talk about, this would be too long if I talked about each one in depth, so I am going to leave my fav quotes as that tends to give me a feel for books and whether I will like them and I will link the GR page for more info! Happy reading:)

Fantasy Vibes

From Blood And Ash by Jennifer L Armentrout    (CLICK THIS TOO)

“Death is like an old friend who pays a visit, sometimes when it’s least expected and other times when you’re waiting for her. It’s neither the first nor the last time she’ll pay a visit, but that doesn’t make any death less harsh or unforgiving.”

“Fear and bravery are often one and the same. It either makes you a warrior or a coward. The only difference is the person it resides inside.”

 “You're an absolutely stunning, murderous little creature.”

Storm And Fury by Jennifer L Armentrout

“What are you going to do if it does get worse?” he asked. “Maybe I’ll get myself a seeing-eye gargoyle.”

(HONESTLY BADASS GARGOYLES. SO UNIQUE AND AWESOME)

Demons At Deadnight by A&E Kirk   

“I launched into a graceful ninja-like front roll, then stood my ground to face the monstrous heathen, fearless in my determination to vanquish the deadly foe.

Nah, just kidding. I bolted, discretion being the better part of not getting dead.”

“We are killers,” Matthias said. Bad news. 

“Not girls. We don’t kill girls.” Good news. 

“She’s no girl.” Insulting news? 

“What? Of course she’s a girl.”

 “Want me to check?” 

“Shut up, Blake,” the rest of them chorused.”

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black   

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”

“If you hurt me, I wouldn't cry. I would hurt you back.”

“I am going to keep on defying you. I am going to shame you with my defiance. You remind me that I am a mere mortal and you are a prince of Faerie. Well, let me remind you that means you have much to lose and I have nothing. You may win in the end, you may ensorcell me and hurt me and humiliate me, but I will make sure you lose everything I can take from you on the way down. I promise you this is the least of what I can do.”

MM Romance

Him by Sabrina Bowen & Elle Kennedy

“Our mouths fit together so perfectly. Every time we kiss, I fall even more in love with him, and it has nothing to do with sex or lust. It's him. His closeness and his scent and the way he soothes me.”

“I…” He clears his throat. “I’d let you do it, though.” My hand freezes in his hair. “You would?” Wes nods. “I’d let you do anything to me, Canning.”

Misfits by Garrett Leigh (Poly romance, its just so perfect ala herongraystairs!)

“Learn something. Read a book. Explore someone. Anger is just a hole where your life could be.”

In The Absence Of Light by Adrienne Wilder

“The light is a funny thing, Grant. We think it shows us what we need to see, but in reality, it blinds us. That’s why I brought you here. I wanted you to see me.”

“Morgan may be autistic, but he is a normal man with a mental condition, not a mental condition who is a man.”

HOneStly JUST READ IT

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic

“It’s not the world that’s cruel. It’s the people in it.”

“I'm not a math problem." "But I'll still solve you."

“Is your learning curve a horizontal line?”

“Who said 'please' that made you hate the word so much?"  Andrew gazed at him in silence for a minute. "I did.”

“I didn't think I was a personal problem. You hate me, remember?" "Every inch of you," Andrew said. "That doesn't mean I wouldn't blow you." 

EVERY QOUTE IS ICONIC TBH 

Vampires, Angels & Greek Mythology

Bloodlines by Michelle Read

“The greatest changes in history have come when people were able to shake off what others told them to do.”

“Takes a lot of tries before you hit perfection." He paused to reconsider that. "Well, except for my parents. They got it on the first try."

“No, thank you," said Adrian. "These hands don't sully themselves with fighting.”

“Everything's about my personal entertainment. The world is my stage. Keep it up- you're becoming a star performer in the show.”

Angels Blood by Nalini Singh

“Some things were worth the dance with danger.”

“You do realize this makes your wings even more unique." "Are you saying you shot me as a cosmetic procedure?”

“You ask a lot of questions for a dead woman.” “What can I say? I prefer to die well-informed.”

“You don't fear me," he said now. She wasn't stupid enough to lie. "I'm petrified. But I figure you didn't make me come all this way just so you could push me off the roof.”

Dark Lover by J.R Ward (warning OTT vamps if thats not your jazz either skip)

“Some bridges you crossed on your own, no matter who drove you to the edge”

“Vengeance was one hell of a roommate.”

Half-Blood by Jennifer L Armentrout

“Two people see each other across a room or their skin brushes. Their souls recognize the person as their own. It doesn’t need time to figure it. The soul always knows… whether it’s right or wrong.”

“It’s just words and words mean nothing. Only action does.”

“People do the damndest things when they’re in love.”

“There is a difference between love and need. Sometimes, what you feel is immediate and without rhyme or reason.”

Assasin-y Goodness

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

“When one consorts with assassins, one must expect to dance along the edge of a knife once or twice.”

“I comfort myself with the knowledge that if Duval ever feels smothered by me, it will be because I am holding a pillow over his face.”

“Surely He does not give us hearts so we may spend our lives ignoring them.”

“There is no shame in scars, Ismae.”

Daughter Of The Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller

“I am me because I choose to be me. I am what I want. Some people say you have to find yourself. Not I. I believe we create ourselves to be what we want.”

“Lass, you've the face of an angel but the tongue of a snake.”

“Everyone has something dark in their past. I suppose it's our job to overcome it. And if we can’t overcome it, then all we can do is make the most of it.”

“Waiting. Not waiting. One lover. A hundred lovers. There should be no judgement either way. A woman is not defined by what she does or doesn‘t do in the bedroom.”

“Even a man who’s spent his whole life at sea has reason to fear her when she’s angry. But not I. I sleep soundly. Listening to her music. The sea watches over me. She protects her own.”

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

“No mourners. No funerals. Among them, it passed for 'good luck.”

“It's not natural for women to fight." "It's not natural for someone to be as stupid as he is tall, and yet there you stand.”

“I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all.

“The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true.”

“Kaz leaned back. "What's the easiest way to steal a man's wallet?" "Knife to the throat?" asked Inej. "Gun to the back?" said Jesper. "Poison in his cup?" suggested Nina. "You're all horrible," said Matthias.”

The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson

“It can take years to mold a dream. It takes only a fraction of a second for it to be shattered.”

“Taking another life, she had whispered, even a guilty one, should never be easy. If it were, we'd be little more than animals.”

“Maybe there was no one way to define it. Maybe there were as many shades of love as the blues of the sky,”

“We all have our different skills. You’re patient to a fault, which sometimes doesn’t work to your advantage. I, on the other hand, have the patience of a wet cat. Only on rare occasions does that come in handy.”

“Maybe there were a hundred different ways to fall in love.”

Circus Vibes

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

“Every person has the power to change their fate if they are brave enough to fight for what they desire more than anything.”

“She imagined loving him would feel like falling in love with darkness, frightening and consuming yet utterly beautiful when the stars came out.”

“Some things are worth pursuit regardless of the cost.”

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

“You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows that they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift.”

“Secrets have power. And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.”

Six of Hearts by L.H Cosway

“Note to self: Never try to out-trick a trickster.”

“So why not live with the magic? Be a kid again and believe in the fantastical. Life is more fun with a little smoke and mirrors.”

“We all have thoughts that we would never, ever vocalise. And people who say they don’t are liars.”

“I once read that people who have imaginary friends never reach out to touch them. There’s some part of their brain that subconsciously knows it will break the spell. That’s what it feels like with Jay.”

Amour Amour by Krista & Becca Richie

“We all traverse in and out of people’s worlds, leaving footprints. Some larger, some smaller, but there is always a mark. We can’t sweep it away.”

“Life is a rollercoaster with no volunteers. We’re all forced to take a seat and ride it out.

“I’m average. I’ve been average most of my life, but there are moments where I feel extraordinary. Invincible. Able to conquer any fear and step outside any box. There is no illusion, no fantasy. I can climb a forty-foot pole. I can fly eighty-feet in the air. I can be taller than tall. It’s a dream that I’m living. Every day. With him.”

More M/M Romance

The Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”

“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”

“He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”

“He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”

Axel’s Pup by Kim Dare  (Shifter Romance & BDSM FYI if thats not your jazz)

"I want to screw you, and tie you up, and make you writhe from-you know all that. But I want so much more. I want the whole thing, not just a quick scene. I want twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I want you to be mine. I won't take anything less."

Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

“In your dream. You were looking for me.""I'm always looking for you," 

“He was funny and focused and fierce. I mean the guy could be fierce. And there wasn’t anything mean about him. I didn’t understand how you could live in a mean world and not have any of that meanness rub off on you.”

“He looked like an angel. And all I wanted to do was put my fist through his jaw. I couldn't stand my own cruelty.”

“One of the secrets of the universe was that our instincts were sometimes stronger than our minds. Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere.”

Shattered Glass by Dani Alexander

"Tell me something good about your life," I whispered, needing to hear that he wasn't as broken as I thought him to be.[...]"You." It was so quiet I almost didn't hear it.”

“Is he my competition?” I asked. “Everyone is your competition.” Peter lifted his hand to his eyes and began lowering it incrementally. “It goes normal human beings, crazies, republicans, my hand, imaginary characters, corpses and then, in a moment of lustful psychosis, you.” By the time he was done, his hand was below the table.

Romance 

Kiss The Sky by Krista & Becca Richie

“You’re not a pit stop. You’re my finish line. There’s no one after you.”

“People hope to touch the sky. I dream of kissing it.”

“I love the way he’s staring at me. It makes me feel more than just beautiful. I feel like I’m his. Like no one else could possibly compare to me. He doesn’t even have to say the words. I see it in his eyes. I can practically read it in his mind.”

“I’ve wanted so many things in life,” he says softly, “but you’re the one that has meant the most to me.”

Translation: I love you.”

Wallbanger by Alice Clayton

“You know those moments when everything is exactly the way it was meant to be? When you find yourself and your entire universe aligning in perfect synchronization, and you know you couldn’t possibly be more content? I was inside that very moment, and fully conscious of it.”

“The right woman for you wouldn't want you to change anything about your life. She wouldn't rock your boat, she'd jump right in and sail it with you.”

“It breaks my heart the way young girls pick themselves over, never thinking they're good enough. You make sure you always remember, you're exactly the way you're supposed to be. Exactly. And anyone who says otherwise, well, poppycock.”

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

“Ugly love becomes you. Consumes you. Makes you hate it all. Makes you realize that all the beautiful parts aren't even worth it. Without the beautiful, you'll never risk feeling the ugly. So you give it all up. You give it all up. You never want love again, no matter what kind it is, because no type of love will ever be worth living through the ugly love again.”

“Some people they grow wiser as they grow older. Unfortunately, most people just grow older.”

“Sometimes the spirit of a man isn't strong enough to survive the ghosts of his past”

“My grandfather used to say the placement of a birthmark was the story of how a person lost the battle in their past life. I guess you got stabbed in the neck. Bet it was a quick death, though.”

On Dublin Street by Samantha Young

“Gentlemen are gentlemen in bed. They make sure you're having a good time." "I'll make sure you're having a good time, and that you're okay with everything. I just won't be well mannered about it.”

“In truth it’s difficult to describe a broken heart.”

“Sometimes words aren’t needed for you to know a change has come upon you.”

Romance Series

Paper Princess by Erin Watt

“My skill, if I have one, isn’t dancing. It’s my ability to believe that tomorrow can be a better day.”

“My life is mine. I live it. I control it.”

“but a clean knife still makes a painful wound.”

“Fate is for the weak--those people who don't have enough power or will to shape life into what they need it to be.”

Foreplay by Sophie Jordan

“I’m not going to lie to you and convince you that I’m someone good and shiny like your guy that’s going to be a doctor.”

“You can’t even see it. I’m the safest thing you’ll ever find”

“That's what I wanted. Something to enrich me, to make me feel better about the things in my life that I could never change."

Wait for You by J.Lynn.  (AKA Jennifer L Armentrout) 

“You are really…” “Amazing? Awesome?” He paused, brows raised. “Astonishing?” “I was going to go with bizarre.” “Well, hell, if I had feelings that might actually hurt.”

“As long as the sun’s shining, shit can’t be that bad.”

The Deal by Elle Kennedy

“Sometimes people sneak up on you and suddenly you don’t know how you ever lived without them.”

“I want to murder him in his sleep, A. No, I want to murder him when he’s awake so he can see the joy on my face when I do it.”

“And the most important lesson I learned is that I’m not a victim—I’m a survivor.”

Romance w/ Epic Plots

The Unbecoming Of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

“This was the boy I loved. A little bit messy. A little bit ruined. A beautiful disaster. Just like me.”

“You could start a fire with the heat between you two.""You're mistaking bitter animosity for heartfelt affection.”

“You're supposed to say, 'All I want is your happiness. I'll do whatever it takes, even if it means being without you.'""Sorry," Noah said. "I'm just not that big of a person.”

“I’ll walk forever with stories inside me that the people I love the most can never hear.”

“We are far too screwed up for a goddamned love triangle.”

“You will love him to ruins.”

The Winners Curse by Marie Rutkoski

“He knew the law of such things: people in brightly lit places cannot see into the dark.”

“Isn’t that what stories do, make real things fake, and fake things real?”

“The Winner’s Curse is when you come out on top of the bid, but only by paying a steep price.”

“The god of lies must love you, you see things so clearly.”

Obsidian by Jennifer L Armentrout (are you getting the idea I love everything she writes? because I do!)

“I've always found that the most beautiful people, truly beautiful inside and out, are the ones who are quietly unaware of their effect."

“More books." His eyes went wide. "You have, like, them books you just said you haven't read." "Doesn't mean I won't get more books."

Angelfall by Susan Ee

“I never thought about it before, but I'm proud to be human. We're ever so flawed. We're frail, confused, violent, and we struggle with so many issues. But all in all, I'm proud to be a Daughter of Man.”

“Sometimes, as we're stumbling along in the dark, we hit something good.”

“I knew from the start that your loyalty would get you killed. I just never thought it would be your loyalty to me that would do it.”

Unique Reads

Dont Look Back by Jennifer L Armentrout

“I was stuck in a life I didn't remember, squeezed into the shell of this girl - this Samantha Joe Franco - and the more I learned about her, the more I was starting to hate her.”

“Things aren’t perfect. They are far, far from it,but they are getting there, and I wasn’t looking back. Not when there were so many good things in the future.”

Verity by Colleen Hoover

“I wasn’t heroic. I wasn’t simple. I was difficult. An emotionally challenging puzzle he wasn’t up for solving.”

“A writer should never have the audacity to write about themselves unless they’re willing to separate every layer of protection between the author’s soul and their book. The words should come directly from the center of the gut, tearing through flesh and bone as they break free. Ugly and honest and bloody and a little bit terrifying, but completely exposed.”

“No one is likable from the inside out.”

“Find what you love and let it kill you.”

Painted Faces by L.H Cosway

“We all paint on a face to show the world," Nicholas replies philosophically. "For some of us, that's quite literal.”

“I love him because he makes me laugh when I don't feel like laughing. I love him because he challenges my view of what a man is. I love him because I know I shouldn't love him and that he'll break my heart. I love him because he's a complete and total anomaly. I love him because I want to kill the sadness inside him more than I want anything else in the world.”

“You saw me, changed my life, made it better, and I’m completely fucking in love with you.”

Sorcery of Thorns by Margret Rogerson

“It was always wise to be polite to books, whether or not they could hear you.”

“Knowledge always has the potential to be dangerous. It is a more powerful weapon than any sword or spell.”

“When terrible things have happened to you, sometimes the promise of something good can be just as frightening.”

“You belonged in the library, as much as any book.”

“You unmanageable, contrary creature. You have made me believe in something at last. It feels as wretched as I imagined.”

Obviously not every book is going to suit everyone, everyone has pet peeves, and things that they won’t enjoy but hopefully this gives you some variety and I personally loved them all at some point! Pls feel free to come to my ask/chats to discuss any of them  that would make me so happy <3 this took 4 hours damn

[mst3kproject]

The Ship of Monsters

Check me out, I’m being topical!  I had another review almost finished for today, but when I saw the news I knew I had to set that aside and find a movie about life on Venus.  This one is a ridiculous Mexican film starring Lorena Velazquez from Samson vs the Vampire Women (looking only slightly less like Cher) and one of those amazing cardboard robots you only get in the very worst of late 50’s and early 60’s sci-fi.

An atomic war on the planet Venus has killed off all the males, so an expedition is sent out in search of replacements, consisting of a native Venusian named Gamma, her Uranian navigator Beta, and their robot Tor.  After promising the Empress that they will bring back only the most manly of men, they wander the solar system a while collecting creatures with penises before an engine problem forces them to land on Earth.  The first human they meet there is Laureano Gomez, a singing cowboy with a well-earned reputation for telling tall tales.  One might assume one could predict the rest of the movie from there… but then Beta turns on Gamma and reveals that her true mission all along was to conquer a planet to feed the vampires of Uranus!

I gotta say… I did not see that coming.

The Ship of Monsters is supposed to be a comedy.  It’s seldom funny when it’s trying to be, although it mercifully avoids being the kind of desperately unfunny a lot of bad comedies are… possibly this is because it’s in Spanish, and by the time I’ve realized something is stupid there’s another subtitle to distract me. The jokes, such as they are, are pretty standard.  Tor the robot was created by an alien race, who were aware of Earth but never bothered exploring it because they thought the inhabitants weren’t very intelligent.  Laureano is in the habit of telling ridiculous stories to his drinking buddies, so of course when he claims the Earth is being invaded by space monsters they don’t believe him.  That sort of thing.  The movie is much funnier when it’s just showing us absurd situations, but to nobody’s surprise, The Ship of Monsters is at its funniest when it’s trying to be serious.

This hilarity comes in many forms, covering just about all the possible bases for a dirt-cheap 1960 sci-fi film.  We have spaceship sets made of cardboard, covered with buttons that don’t actually press and levers conveniently placed so people can bump into them during fight scenes.  We have Tor, with his tin can body that’s always a little dinged up but never in the same places, giving us clues as to what order the scenes might have been shot in.  He also has wiggly spring antennae and makes a little whirring noise every time he moves. We have space babes in silver bathing suits and glittery high heels.  Vampire-Beta, sporting plastic fangs that look like they came from the bottom of a cereal box, could be the female counterpart to the guy from Dracula vs Frankenstein, and the puppet used to represent her in flight is nearly as bad as the one from The Devil Bat.

The ‘monsters’ of the title are a bulging-brained Martian prince, a scaly cyclops, a spidery creature with venomous fangs, and the mobile skeleton of what appears to be a *damn worwelf (he tells us that his race has Evolved Beyond Flesh... apparently not Beyond Bones, though).  The costumes are all terrible, particularly the warwulf puppet, whose backbone extends into his mouth and who has to be carried around with his feet dangling in any shot that’s not a close-up.  It’s nice, though, that a little imagination went into them, and somebody gave a bit of thought to the idea that a monstrous appearance is relative.  The Martian tells Beta that he admires her ambition and might even marry her if she weren’t so ugly by his planet’s standards.

At the end, naturally, this alien invasion is defeated by Laureano, his twelve-year-old brother, and a cardboard robot, while Gamma just stands around and screams.  With a movie like this I expect nothing less.  The denouement contains my favourite intentional joke in the whole thing, in which Gamma stays on Earth with her True Love, and Tor the robot takes his, the Jukebox, back to Venus with him!  Tom Servo would have given a speech to congratulate the happy couple, and I can just see him breaking down into happy tears before he got five lines in.

(The wirwalf skeleton is not present at the climactic fight, by the way… no explanation is offered, and I strongly suspect that they broke the puppet trying.  I rather enjoy this omission, because it lets me imagine him getting lost or maybe buried by an enterprising dog, and finally finding his way back to the landing site only to learn that they’ve left without him.)

I called Laureano a cowboy but he only has one cow.  Her name is Lolobrijida and she is the very first time I have ever seen a movie spur a hero into action by killing his cow.  She gets a proper Teenagers from Outer Space death, with her skeleton left behind propped up by metal struts like a dinosaur in a museum!

I also called him a singing cowboy, which he is – there are several songs, including one in which he tries to explain to Gamma and Beta what ‘love’ means.  The songs have pleasant but forgettable Mexican pop melodies, and none of the lyrics make a whole lot of sense.  Being translated over-literally from Spanish probably didn’t do them any favours (my own Spanish tops out at yo no tengo dinero), but I still can’t imagine that the What Is Love song clarified anything.

Laureano himself comes across as kind of a fool, but he’s not actually a full-on idiot, which is quite important.  If he were the kind of one-dimensional ‘comedic nitwit’ embodied in characters like Dropo, or the janitor from Reptilicus, he’d be insufferable.  Laureano is no genius, but he’s got personality traits besides being stupid – he cares deeply for his little brother Chuy and for his animals, and he doesn’t treat Gamma and Beta’s appearance as two women for the price of one.  Very quickly he decides that Gamma is the one he loves, and he sticks to that, doing his best to let Beta down gently even when she offers to make him a king.  He’s also smart enough to trick Beta into dancing with him so he can steal the device she uses to control the rocket and Tor, and to listen to Gamma when she tells him about the various monsters’ weaknesses.

Gamma and Beta, on the other hand, don’t have a lot to them besides the basic fact that Gamma is the Nice One and Beta is Evil. Gamma starts out in the story with a strong sense of duty, and it’s a bit disappointing to see her abandon that because of Tru Luv.  I would have liked the ending better if she’d taken Laureano home with her so that the two of them could be the Adam and Eve of the new Venusian race.  Meanwhile, Beta shows no sign of any loyalty except to herself and her own ambition.  Her original mission, to secure Earth as a blood supply for the Uranians, falls by the wayside as she decides she’s going to conquer and rule the planet herself.

So The Ship of Monsters isn’t exactly a feminist manifesto, but neither is it complete misogynistic garbage like Project Moon Base.  The whole premise, after all, rests on a planet of women being able to develop space travel all on their own!  This is a fairly surprising plot point, because in many ‘planet of women’ movies like Fire Maidens of Outer Space or Cat Women of the Moon, the ladies need the virile Earth Men to come to them.

There’s also a little bit of actual science peeking out of the cracks.  The moment for launch of the rocket from Venus is determined by when ‘the elliptical orbits coincide’.  Launch timing is, indeed, a delicate art depending very much on what’s orbiting where. There’s also the moment when, trying to land on Earth, Gamma and Beta worry that the friction, combined with our oxygen-rich atmosphere, will set their ship on fire.  This stuff is pretty impressive coming from a time when the moon landing was still nearly a decade away.  There are even a couple of scenes in zero gravity that honestly aren’t totally terrible.  I mean, I’ve seen better, but I’ve also seen much, much worse.

There’s also one weirdly prescient moment when Laureano, telling one of his silly stories in the pub, describes being surrounded by dinosaurs – only to get a laugh a moment later when he mentions that they had beautiful plumage.  I’m not sure whether this is meant to be a joke in that Laureano is exaggerating an actual encounter with an angry bird into something more fearsome (I think we’re to assume that the whole story is totally made up), or whether it’s just supposed to be funny that Laureano thinks dinosaurs had feathers instead of scales.  Either way, it’s the equivalent of the moon Fornax in Menace from Outer Space being so reminiscent of Io.  There’s no way the writers could have known that, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

The Ship of Monsters is very cheap and very dumb, but it’s good fun for those of us who like crummy old alien invasion movies, and I recommend it to anybody in that demographic.  As for actual life on Venus… I feel like a lot of the people getting excited are too young to remember when Bill Clinton told the world that we had totally found life on Mars.  Humans have been discovering life on other planets for about two hundred years and every single one of those ‘discoveries’ has turned out to be either a mistake or an outright lie.  We have plenty enough to panic about this year without a Venusian invasion.

[shedreamsofstars]

i’ll still be here when you open your eyes

"You will stay here, won't you?"

Kyo met her panic with a soft smile, gently taking the hand she offered him and stroking his thumb against her knuckles. "I'm right here," he reassured her. "I'll still be here when you open your eyes in the morning."

Kyo and Tohru spend the night together during a thunder storm.

... xxx ...

Kyo didn't know why he was suddenly wide awake.

Sure, he'd forgotten to draw the curtains, but it was still pitch black out there so that couldn't be why he'd woken up. There had to be several hours before dawn at least. Maybe he was hungry or something he thought as he rolled over onto his side, reaching blindly for his phone.

He couldn't help feeling like there was something off about the night, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what. Or least, he couldn't until the first crack of thunder echoed through the house.

The heavy thud of raindrops hitting the rooftop that followed was nothing compared to the heavy ache that settled into his bones.

This was why he was awake he thought with a groan. The first flash of lightning must have been what had initially woken him, and now he lay there cursing the fact that the damn storm had arrived in the middle of a school night.

Glancing blearily at the phone screen in his hand to check the time, Kyo sat up. Angry at being disrupted in the middle of an otherwise restful sleep, he headed out into the hallway and stomped down the stairs without a care for how much noise he was making.

If the thunderstorm hadn't already woken up the other residents of the house, he sure as hell wouldn't be able to.

Filling a glass of water and downing it one go, Kyo headed back to his room with the same disregard as he had on the way down. The corridor lit up with an eerie glow and thunder crackled wildly as he reached his room. He paused with one foot in the door as that same feeling of wrongness overcame him as it had earlier.

He frowned and glanced back into the corridor. All the doors were shut, so he could only assume that the occupants were asleep – though how anyone could sleep through this noise was beyond him – and his frown only deepened.

As he shut the door behind him, Kyo couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something really important. And it wasn't until after he'd drawn the curtains and laid down on his futon that he realised what it was.

The light.

He jumped back up and was out in the hallway in a shot, standing outside the only door with a light peeking through the bottom. Tohru's room. She wasn't the best at dealing with thunderstorms from what he could remember – which was honestly pretty little. He struggled with them so much himself that he never really noticed if anyone else was affected by them.

Even so, it couldn't hurt to check up on her. He lifted his hand to knock, but he paused before his knuckles could touch the wood as doubt crept back into his mind.

What is she really was sleeping and he woke her? Leaving a light on in the middle of a storm didn't mean much when he thought about it. Unless she left it on because she was afraid. As he struggled to decide what to do, another crash of thunder boomed around him.

Through the monstrous rumble, his ears still managed to make out probably the only sound that would convince him to knock without thought. A fearful yelp from beyond the very door he stood in front of.

He rapped on the door twice, sharp and loud to make sure she heard him over the noise of the storm.

"Uh … hello?" she squeaked from within, assuaging any remaining doubt he had of her being asleep.

"Hey, its uh … me," he said softly, leaning his forehead against the door. "You doin' okay in there?"

Kyo wasn't expecting Tohru to come to the door, so when it opened inwards unexpectedly he stumbled forwards in surprise, barely catching himself on the doorframe with Tohru's familiar face just inches from his own.

"Kyo-kun?" she called gently, his name falling from her lips like a song. "What are you doing here?"

Kyo straightened up instantly, looking away to hide his face from her as the heat rushed to his cheeks. "Your light was on."

"Oh … yeah, it is."

"You okay?" he asked again, glancing sidelong at her.

Tohru nodded emphatically, even as she jumped at the next roll of thunder that echoed around them. "I'm fine. Really. You don't need to trouble yourself over me Kyo-kun. You should try to sleep, or you'll be tired for school tomorrow."

She held a steady smile on her face as she spoke, but it didn't take much for Kyo to see through her deception. From the way she had involuntarily jumped earlier to the way her voice trembled ever so slightly, Tohru was terrified and it tore him apart.

All he wanted was to be with her and make sure she was okay, but it was pretty clear from her words that she didn't want him there. The last thing he wanted to do was to force her spend time with him in the middle of the night.

He was not that kind of man and never would be, so he relented. If she claimed she was fine, then he was just going to have to trust her no matter how much his heart screamed that she was only saying it for his benefit.

"Okay, sleep tight," he said, the words burning his throat. "If you need me, I'll be up," he said, knocking once on the door before turning and walking away. He didn't look back, but he did hear the soft click of her door shutting behind him.

He sighed heavily as he entered his room, laying on the futon and throwing a helpless arm over his face despite the darkness. A particularly dreadful roll of thunder crashed outside and all he could do was wonder how Tohru was holding up.

God.

Tohru.

If this had happened in the day, he wouldn't have hesitated in going to her. But the night made things complicated. It was one thing for him to be with her in the sunlight, but the moonlight was reserved for lovers – a thing he knew too well they could never be.

Why didn't he ask her to go downstairs with him? It would have been so easy to pretend he was hungry and ask if she wanted a snack too. He didn't have any qualms about spending time with her anywhere else in the house, but what if she had turned him down? What then?

As his mind raced with ways he could have done things differently to help the girl he loved, Kyo almost missed the soft knock on the door right before it clicked open. He shifted his arm just enough to catch sight of the person who entered.

"Tohru?" he asked in disbelief, not quite believing his own eyes as he sat up.

"Um, Kyo-kun," she started, taking a tentative step into his room. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you but …"

"Hey. It's okay, come inside," he said, noticing the way her fingers were shaking. He glanced around the room, suddenly wishing he'd been more proactive in furnishing his room. "I don't really have anywhere to sit but, here," he said as he shifted off the futon. "You can take this. It's probably not as comfortable as your bed but …"

Kyo was suddenly very grateful that the darkness hid the blush that had blossomed on his cheeks as his mind drifted to places less than innocent.

"Oh, I can't," Tohru said, flapping her arms around in that cute way of hers as she shut the door and took a seat beside him. "I'm the one imposing on you, so you should take it."

"Tohru, I'm not going to-" Kyo started before three things cut off the rest of his sentence.

One: A clap of thunder drowned out his voice.

Two: Tohru launched herself at him with a shriek, her arms reaching out for him.

Three: Kyo dived out of the way to avoid transforming, knocking her gently towards the direction of the futon.

"Tohru!" he called out in alarm as the girl hit the mattress headfirst, realising a beat too late that he should have just let her hug him instead.

"I'm fine! I'm fine!" she said, jumping up hurriedly. "That was some quick thinking there Kyo-kun, it barely hurt at all."

"Sorry, it was an automatic response," he said as he reached to inspect her head for any injuries. Her forehead was too cold for his liking, but she seemed otherwise okay. "I didn't mean to…" he trailed off, unsure of how to finish his sentence as her dark eyes settled on him.

"You should probably lay down. That was quite a tumble," he said, clearing his throat nervously.

"But-"

"No buts you dummy. I won't be annoyed by you taking my bed for the night. Especially not when you do so much for me every day."

"But are you sure-" Tohru let out a startled shriek as Kyo grabbed her by the shoulders and lowered her gently onto the futon. He hovered over her, caging her in with his arms on either side of her head as their noses accidentally brushed in the dark.

"I'm pretty sure I said no buts," he whispered, reaching to brush her hair out of her face as she stared up at him with wide eyes. Their breath mingled in the small space between them and Kyo wondered just how easy it would be to give in. To lean forward and finally know her lips.

Before he did something he'd regret, he sat up and reached for the covers that had pooled at the bottom of the futon. As he pulled them up over Tohru and tucked her in, her hand snaked out from underneath and reached for him. "You will stay here, won't you?"

Kyo met her panic with a soft smile, gently taking the hand she offered him and stroking his thumb against her knuckles. "I'm right here," he reassured her. "I'll still be here when you open your eyes in the morning."

"Can you lay down next to me? I know that you don't and … and that's …" Tohru bit her lip as she glanced away from him, giving up on wherever that sentence was leading. "Please," she finished, the word coming out as a helpless plea.

She didn't have to ask twice.

Kyo shuffled down to lay on his back beside her, her hand still clasped in his like a lifeline. Tohru rolled onto her side to face him. "Thank you," she whispered, squeezing his hand as she let her eyes drift shut. "Goodnight, Kyo-kun."

"Goodnight, Tohru," Kyo whispered back. He didn't have the courage to mirror her, but he did turn his head towards her, unable to take his eyes off her. He watched transfixed as her breathing evened out and she slowly slipped into a slumber.

At every roll of thunder, she would let out a gasp and cling tighter to him. But it only ever took a gentle word or two, a reminder that he was there, for her to fall back into a gentle sleep. In another life, they could have more than this. He could hold her and comfort her in the ways he truly wanted. They could be together, in every sense of the word.

Maybe in another life they could even have a future, but in this one, he was grateful for even this short time spent with her. That he could provide her even the smallest comfort meant more than he could ever express and was enough to make him forget how terrible the dreary weather made him feel.

"Tohru," he whispered softly after she'd gone some time without stirring. When he got no reply and she didn't react, he felt his confidence bolster and he reached to brush his fingertips against her cheek.

Without warning, the words he kept under lock and key, day after day were on his lips and he was powerless to keep them from escaping.

They were a lullaby sung in the light of the moon, sheltering her from the storm beyond. Words as sweet as spun sugar and just as delicate, whispered with the clarity of a boy who knew he had already lost that which he held most dear.

He knew she had no hope of remembering any of this once the storm passed, in fact, he was counting on it. It wasn't like he'd meant to fall for her after all. It was better that way. For her to go on living as she did without knowing his truth. Without knowing the true extent of his love for her.

That night, Kyo stayed up to keep watch over the girl who had entrusted herself to him. It wasn't until the lightning had ceased and the thunder rolled over to a distant hill that he finally let himself to succumb to sleep.

His heavy lids fell closed to the picturesque image of a peaceful Tohru, and he felt safe in the knowledge that, for whatever was left of the night, the girl beside him no longer had anything to fear.

... xxx ...

thank you so much for reading, i really appreciate it! click here for a short bonus piece with yuki and shigure (my hands slipped, oops)

if you fancy talking kyoru and fruits basket with me and other fans, join us in the kyoru discord server, we'd love to see you there! (link below) 

[conaionaru]

Honor and Blood (Ivar the Boneless)

Not all monsters do monstrous things

Synopsis: Vanya sees Ivar in a new light, makes up with Sigurd and gets an ominous revelation

Warning: Angst, forced marriage, mentions of rape, 

Tagged: 

@youbloodymadgenius @xbellaxcarolinax @heavenly1927

I don't own the gifs. Also, thank you for your support. I really appreciate it. 

In the morning, when Margrethe came to help her get dressed, Vanya knew what she wanted to wear. The blue dress she made two years ago for her father's name day. Blue had always been his favorite color, and now she understood the appeal.

The dark blue fabric complimented her figure. Silas, always said it was too provocative. But mother said that if she looks pretty, that he won't hurt her. Even if Ivar promised to protect her, it wouldn't hurt to secure her safety.

The thralls kept complimenting her as they did her hair. Margrethe especially looked pleased with how she looked. Vanya did not care for the reason behind as much as she should. She wanted to charm the youngest son of Ragnar.

So she left her room, working up as much confidence as she could. Yet the moment she entered the Great hall, all eyes turned on her, and she stopped. All confidence is gone and replaced with a blush on her cheeks. "Good morning." She greeted clearing her throat and walking to her designed spot next to Ivar.

All the boys looked at her, shocked. Her favorite reaction is Ivar, who stared at her as she was an angel. The other eyes made her a little bit squeamish especially when Hvitserk stopped eating with the spoon resting in his open mouth.

Aslaug looked at her proudly, which made her happy. Her goal may have been to charm her son, but she liked the Queen's attention too. She admired the woman's beauty and strength for raising so many sons alone.

"You look great this morning, Vanya." Ubbe complimented her, making her smile proudly.

"I agree, the dress is beautiful. Whoever did it knows the craft well." Aslaug smirked from behind her cup of mead.

Vanya returned the kind gesture with a smile of her own and twiddled with her fingers underneath the table. "Thank you very much, My Queen. I did it myself."

This surprised the older woman. She commented on how Vanya could make her a dress too. The young Princess, of course, agreed. Ivar still kept looking at her with wonder in his eyes. He wanted to take back his comment about sewing being tedious. The dress is anything but boring.

The brothers conversed between themselves during the meal in their language. They also kept giving Ivar meaningful glances, that Vanya had no idea what they meant.

After breakfast, the boys went hunting while Aslaug spent time with Vanya. The two talked about the upcoming wedding and what dress she should wear. The Queen of Kattegat had a lot of ideas. It was nice talking to her. It reminded her of the peasant girls talking to their mothers back home. She always wanted to have that with her mother.

But queen Sifflæd never spends much time with either of her children. She married her husband when she was 16 to save her kingdom from poverty. Back when they were kids, Silas mocked Vanya that their mother cared for him when he was a child. But she didn't bother to care for Vanya. Wet nurses and teachers raised them more than Sifflæd did.

No matter how much the Queen claimed to love her children, they both knew better. She was too angry at her husband to function. Too jealous of his mistresses to even play or speak to the fruits of her loins. It was easier to ignore them than him. And when king Osmond died, and Silas took over the throne, she was free to do as she pleased. She was still young and pretty, so finding a new husband was always an option. So she spent her time with her many suitors while Silas terrorized Vanya.

But Aslaug talks to her kindly, smiling and giving her advice on how to behave during the wedding. How to deal with Ivar and to tell her if he does something she doesn't like.

"Us women must help each other. We cannot survive in this world all alone." The Queen said with a stunning smile holding Vanya's hand in hers. The young ginger nodded, utterly agreeing with her.

They departed ways soon enough as Aslaug had things to do. So Vanya was left alone. She decided to spend some time outside on the bench outside the Great hall. A thrall bought out her sewing utensils as she continued working on embroidery on her last dress. It was a bunch of white flowers on the bottom part of a black dress.

Time flew by quickly as the princes returned from their hunt. They went to take a bath and didn't disturb her. All expect one. Sigurd stopped next to her when Ivar was out of sight and leaned against a support beam.

He watched her small fingers stab the needle into the dark fabric humming a tune to herself. "That is a pretty melody, Princess." Vanya jumped in her seat, her head snapping towards him. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I wanted to talk to you."

Vanya looked at him confused but made space for him to sit on the bench. The prince sat down next to her and smiled at her, which was weird considering their last conversation. "I wanted to apologize for what I said. I tried to make Ivar angry and attacked you in the process. For that, I am sorry."

Vanya slowly nodded, mulling his words over. She wanted to ask why he wanted to insult Ivar in the first place, but decided against it. It was none of her business. "All is forgiven."

"That is good. I meant what I said. The melody was lovely." He seemed kind man now. So different from the man she met yesterday.

"Thank you. My wet nurse taught me that song. Do you know a lot about music?" The older man shrugged at that and looked back down on her embroidery.

"I play. But I would not say I know a lot about music. I guess we are both people of art." He kept complimenting her, and she had a sneaking suspicion that it was another way to anger Ivar. Or maybe he is genuinely interested in her work."I wanted to tell you that if Ivar hurts you, you can tell me."

"Your mother gave me the same offer. And I am very thankful for it. But if that happened... What would you do?" It should worry her that two people offered her protection from Ivar. But for some questionable reason, she didn't dwell on it.

There's no way the man who promised to protect her last night, would be the one to hurt her. He may have a temper. But maybe it's just a front. Everybody fears a dangerous man. It commands respect.

"I would make him stop. Mother would just scold him, and it would not stick. He is her favorite, after all. Men like Ivar aren't happy marriage material." Sigurd looked so sure of his statement it scared her.

"You make him sound like a monster." She said softly, hoping he would tell her that he is joking. Or he was trying to scare her. Anything but that Silas chose the devil himself for her husband.

"He is in my eyes." Again that certainty. It made her uneasy. She hated this man. No matter if he spoke the truth. Why didn't he just leave her to her dream of Ivar being a good future husband?

"Not all monsters do monstrous things. Some just pretend to be evil to be less vulnerable. He is supposed to be a fearless warrior; maybe he pretends to be this way."

"He is a Viking. But he isn't like the other warriors. He killed a child when he was four. He torments the slaves. He is not a good man. He seems to like you. So maybe he will try to act kindly around you. But only the gods know how long that would last."

Vanya nodded at the warnings that the fellow ginger gave her. She was so overwhelmed with how he looked that she judged him for his beauty. How could somebody so handsome be so rotten on the inside?

Sigurd left her side to clean himself. And so she was left alone with her dark thoughts. How naive was she? She dressed up for him in her father's favorite color because it reminded her of Ivar's eyes. She said she would judge him for herself and she decided too quickly.

What frightened her the most was the fact that she would be alone with him again tonight. He asked her to come. If she didn't, what would he do? She was terrified of all the possibilities of how it may go. He could hurt her, talk to her, the treatment her, make her like him, rape her...

Why did she not think of that? He didn't want to talk. He tried to win her trust yesterday. And today he would have her in his room, alone, with her guard down. He could bed her against her will.

She could call out to Sigurd and tell him what Ivar wanted. It could be a plan B. Her father always said to have one. It is safer that way. Trust no one, always be three steps ahead of your enemy, and don't let your guard down. Granted, he said it to Silas when he was teaching him strategies. But it could help her as well.

To her horror, it was already late. It was time for supper and a bath. And afterward, she would meet with Ivar. She looked down at the embroidery and frowned.

Vanya lifted her sewing needle to her eye level and watched the pointy object in concentration. Women must protect themselves from men. And a weapon means protection.

She slowly pressed her finger against the sharp tip and applied pressure. A bead of blood rolled down the metal and hit the dress on her lap. She flinched and pulled her finger away and stuck it in her mouth. It gave her an idea. She did not have access to a weapon. But she had needles. She could hide a big one in her dress. And if he tried anything, she would stab him with it. Then she would r run to Sigurd or Aslaug.

With her reduction made, she left the bench and returned to her chambers. She put away her work and went to the hall to eat.

[fandomn00blr]

Day 43

of @the-wip-project’s 100 Days of Writing!

Today’s question is timely AF! (EDITED TO SAY OMG! I OBVIOUSLY MISREAD THE QUESTION AS POV NOT WIP BUT YOU ALL ARE FREE TO SEE HOW EMBARRASSINGLY EFFED MY BRAIN IS)

How often do you switch WIPs and do you think that’s a good thing to do?

Probably more often than I should (TRUE OF SWITCHING WIPS IN MY CASE TOO), but I think it can be done well (maybe more by other people) when it’s done on purpose...for reasons.

I tend to lean a lot on omniscience, I know, jumping back and forth between character’s heads. I think this is a side effect of leaning a lot on dialogue, then trying to go back and fill in thoughts/actions/descriptions between people’s words and basic actions because I feel self-conscious about just sharing my writing as a script (or transcript), the way it usually comes out. 

Maybe this needs to change if I want to get *better* at writing for other people, but there are places where I think this has actually worked well for me (I love writing multi-POV smut, for instance, or to show two or more characters inching closer and closer together on something through shorter and shorter bursts of their POVs...and then...bam...intersection or conjunction or whatever). There are plenty more places where I’ve had to go in and delete half my writing because it just didn’t make sense to anyone but me why we’d suddenly get the POV of someone who’d been otherwise unheard from. When I do switch back and forth, I usually try to signal it in some way (whether it’s a paragraph break or a dialogue tag or change in formatting).

But I like playing with this quite deliberately when I write Warden things (and in Warden Hawke, in particular, Carver, going through his Joining, and having to adjust to the hive mind of the Taint is a great opportunity, imho, to play fast and loose with POV), even if I’m not quite sure I’m doing it well. @paraparadigm​ just talked me through it last night when I was complaining about having to write a multi-POV fight scene, and reminded me of the first chapter of N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became (which is fantastic, btw...one of the few books I’ve actually managed to read/listen to in the past year or so! which is why it’s odd that I didn’t realize it was totally the POV inspiration for this fic!). It starts off in first person, but the character whose POV we’re getting is going through a sort of...um...transformation/metamorphosis/realization/becoming? that results in him taking on a new, much larger-scale POV at times...it’s like zooming out, but also under and through and beside (there’s embossed tentacles on the cover, and when you view it through an app on your phone, it comes to life, is all I’m saying). The multimodal discourse analyst within me jumps for joy at this kind of play with things slipping and changing through shifting POVs signalled in various ways and what that means for the characters and their relationships, to each other, and to the larger world (or worlds) around them. 

So I’m tickled by the idea, of course, and I am excited to play around even more with it now that I know where the inspiration is coming from (and not just an excuse to write how I write with no regard for rules), but, like most things, it remains to be seen if I can actually pull it off in a way that makes sense! *nervous laughter*

Anyway, here’s Carver suddenly getting a peek at some Darkspawn consciousness (CW: genlock/broodmama POV?)...

Suddenly, Carver is reminded of the ogre he and his sisters slew as they fled Lothering. How it seemed bent on destruction with no higher purpose, no real thoughts in its monstrous horned head except charge and kill and destroy the next thing in its way.

But not this genlock. It turns and looks upon him with a sickening curiosity, singling him out from the others, choosing him...

Carver tries to think of Marian, shouting at him to keep it together and “Just slice the bloody thing in half already!” Of Bethany’s magic, fierce and warm and marvelously powerful as she slung spells at the beast. Of their mother’s screams and how she was willing to throw herself as a sacrifice to the ogre when it narrowed its mostly empty gaze on him and his big shiny sword.

Ah, yes…all is born through the suffering of our mothers…

A mountain of writhing pink flesh flashes into his consciousness. Reaching, calling out, its huge pulsing limbs gathering its brood and anything else which dares to come close into a suffocating embrace against its grotesque bosom.

Carver closes his eyes, squeezing them tight to banish the thought, the vision, the feeling of having the air smothered from his lungs...of his will being wrung from him.

Child...childling...why does it fight the warm embrace of its mother? The darkness...its home. It has been listening to the discordant song of another. Others. The ones who take her children and slay her sisters. Drawing them to the cruelness of the light that must be defeated, swallowed...put...out. It will all come to pass...the darkness is inevitable. And then…

An arrow whizzes past Carver’s head, and he hears something shriek loud and angry right behind him.

[ae0nx]

FRUITS BASKET S2 EPISODE 10 RECAP!

This was an interesting one! Definitely gave me more space and stuff to be able to question Akito’s motives a bit more. And it had a glorious ending!

Let’s gooo!

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

Cute! <3

Another cute moment! Such a great group shot :)

- Lol that background convo that Yuki, Kisa, Hiro and Haru were having about Mogeta and them debating whether it was a mystery, adventure or romance pretty much reminds me of every time I try to explain furuba to newbies. I’d probably automatically go for romance cos kyoru is always my first thought when it comes to this anime, I can’t help myself.

- The convo between Kyo and Momiji about whether leaving Tohru behind was beneficial to Tohru or not was interesting, especially when you attach it to Momiji’s later actions in the episode. But, I also wish they sat Tohru down and explained to her how dangerous Akito was instead of just keeping a happy pretence (this anime is full of people putting on brave faces for people and it’s kinda grating on me a bit, if I’m being fully honest). BUT, then again, I guess that’s a side effect of the curse and their cursed loyalty to Akito.

FALLING IN LOVE

FALLING IN LOVE

FALLING IN LOOOOOVVVVEEEE 💖🎶

Anyways... Momiji and Kyo moments? Yussss

- I know that Tohru wouldn’t be Tohru if she wasn’t always so self-sacrificially giving but... I just want her to care for herself! PLEASE.

I love the colour grading/tone of this scene.

*sigh* but I guess... I do like the fact that Shigure seems to be pissing Akito off... for some reason 👀.... 

Also, that hint at Ren? ooo la...

*insert X-Files theme song*

After the beach arc ends, I really hope this is the last we get of Akito being presented by the animators as the evilest of evils because I’m personally getting to the point where I just wanna understand what’s Akito’s fuckin deal instead of just saying I hate them every week haha

- Momiji really is the Best Boi of this whole beach arc cos of this episode. He REALLY tried to rationally calm down Akito as well as try and protect Tohru at the same time. And even though it didn’t work out for the best, I definitely think he had the best approach in protecting Tohru. Best bunny. 🥺

Oh wow. That... was a... punch... 😣 (I always thought Akito slapped Momiji in the manga but either way: booooo 👎🏾)

- I find it fascinating that Akito uses words like ‘save’ and ‘help’ for Tohru’s actions even though they find her ‘monstrous’... Maybe it’s a translation thing. 

But all this time, I’ve been trying to work out whether:

Akito is being petty when it comes to Tohru 

Akito truly believes that they are the villain of the story or

Akito believes the zodiac curse is as it should be and nothing should disturb that. 

Maybe it’s a collection of all three. But for the most part, I’m gonna go with the third option. However, I do wonder why they are so insistent on everything being as it should be even though it’s limiting and inconvenient for everyone, including Akito themselves... 

I’m just gonna leave it at that otherwise I’ll start going into spoilers lol

Even though I have a grand dislike for Akito, I gotta admit...

Akito finally being revealed as the personification of ‘God’ was pretty badass.

Still terrible.

Also, how sharp must your nails be to scratch someone that deep? Lol

- I love the fact that Haru had to hold Kyo back from fucking Akito up but then it becomes sad when you realise that even if he was let loose he probably wouldn’t be able to really hurt Akito because of the curse...

As always Tohru’s ethereal goddess energy is protected by the dawning of another day :)

Head bumps! <3 I’m curious to see what Momiji/Tohru shipping content comes out after this episode! While I don’t personally ship it, I’m interested in what people like about this ship! I can’t help but always see their relationship as a ‘big sis, little bro’ dynamic but this is an interesting ship.

- Lol wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a snake firework in real life and this wasn’t a great introduction haha

Baby Kyo!!!! <3 (still lowkey asking for that Kyo and Kazuma mini-series)

- I like that Kyo asked Tohru about her and her mum using fireworks cos she probably still feltawkwardabouttalkingabouthermadreandI’m-

...I’m love.

I’m not making any promises to not screencap every smile that Kyo directs at Tohru from now on. Once again, I can’t help myself.

HARU! 🤣

I love it when my favourite angry bois who should stereotypically be delinquents are actually sticklers for the rules and ‘safety first’! Hi, Bakugou!

- Rin playing Black Widow and sneaking around in the shadows, trying to bring the establishment down from the inside. We stan.

YaaaaaaaAAASSS, BITCH! TEAR IT DOWN WITH KINDNESS.

- Momiji meowing to get attention is so embarrassingly me, I can’t haha

The pettiness. I live for petty Yuki! I’m so glad we’re getting more of this side of him. But also, I love that he kinda acknowledged that Kyo obviously is in adoration of Tohru but that isn’t gonna stop him from setting some jabs directed towards Kyo 🤣

What a pretty ending to an emotional rollercoaster of a chapter :)

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

This was a good one! I don’t feel like my emotions and thoughts towards Akito are defined yet and I feel like I might have more questions than I ever did 10 years ago but I’m excited! 

Also, a bit of food for thought... how would you guys feel about a live action Fruits Basket? Out of all of the anime I watch, I feel like this would be the most easy to adapt and the most exciting to see whom would be cast as who so I’m for it!

See you next week!!

[lizzy-bennet]

Tale as Old as Time, Song as Old as Rhyme (Beauty and the Beast)

Fandom: Doctor Who Pairing: Whouffaldi Length: 5,000 words Rating: G Also on Ao3 Summary:

Beauty and the Beast AU, or: a fairy tale retelling of the episode ‘Deep Breath.’

There is a prince, the villagers say, who is all things great and terrible. He has a voice that sounds like winter frost and a temper like a burning star. He is older than half the universe, has seen stars be born and civilizations fall, and thinks of a century passing as nothing more than a span of breath.

According to legend, the best part - or maybe, maybe it’s the worst part - is that when he reaches the end of one life, he can go on to the next. He can burn himself up with golden fire, the stories say, and be reborn with a different face, like a phoenix cheating death and rising from the flames, shaking off the ashes of its old self.

He’s a monster, some villagers say. A beast. A madman.

A fairy tale.

#

Clara Oswald (twenty-six and a governess, with far too many books and far too little patience for provincial life) likes to think she’s practical, and practical people don’t believe in silly things like celestial princes who can transform their face. They simply do not waste their time with bedtime stories meant for children.

Which is why Clara won’t admit to anyone that she believes in them, believes they’re as real as the lake that winds through her small, sleepy town or as real as the four walls of her tiny room at the Maitland’s.

If she tells anyone, they’ll tell her that all her reading has ruined her mind, that fantasy and reality don’t bleed together like watercolor paint on a canvas, but Clara knows better.

She knows better, you see, because she’s actually met the prince.

He is the stuff of legend, with stardust in his eyes and eternity in his soul, a high born Gallifreyan, the eleventh prince of the realm, and she is a girl from a small village, who works both as a barmaid and governess and waits and hopes and dreams for the day she can leave and see a world beyond her village. Their paths should never have crossed, and yet they keep meeting, again and again and again, like the universe has decided that their fate’s intertwined. And Clara doesn’t mind, doesn’t mind a bit, because he has a soft voice and a kind smile and gentle hands that somehow always find their way to hers.

She doesn’t truly know him she supposes, their chance meetings are always touch and go, like a brief ripple in a lake, and yet she’s already (hopelessly, desperately, breathlessly) half in love with him, and whenever she looks into his eyes, she swears he’s half in love with her too.

So, no, Clara doesn’t know everything about him, but she knows what sort of a man he is (a good sort, the kind you’d die for, but the kind who’d rather die than ever let you). Which is why she can’t quite believe it when the news reaches her that the ’beast’ in the blue castle up on the hill (how dare they, she thinks when she hears it, how dare they call her prince a beast) has captured her employer, Master Maitland, and is holding him prisoner just to be cruel.

Clara knows that there must be a mistake, that the prince - her prince - would never do a thing like that. So she lays down her book, pulls on her boots, and tells the two frightened Maitland children in her charge that she’s going up to the castle to bring their father back.

#

(She’s never been to the prince’s castle before, but despite this fact, finding her way up to it is not hard. Neither is finding its dungeon.

What’s hard is what happens next.)

Clara‘s fingers are wrapped around the bars of the castle’s prison cell, and she‘s staring at Master Maitland sitting inside. He looks dazed and half-mad, and he’s ranting and raving about incredible things, about a golden glow and a red rose, about how the castle’s bigger on the inside and how there’s a beast there who haunts it and Clara can’t follow it all.

“You stole a rose?” she asks, eyebrows furrowing, mind ticking away like a clock, trying to make sense of this tangled mess of a story he’s telling.

“Not just any rose,” a new, monstrous voice says from somewhere behind Clara, and she recoils against the grey stone wall, cold seeping in through her shawl. The voice that‘s speaking comes from the shadows, curling out from the darkness like mist, and she can’t see the speaker. “It was the last rose of Gallifrey.”

The words register, and the situation hits Clara like a wave upon the shore.

“No,” she whispers, “no, Master Maitland, tell me you didn’t.” “I didn’t know,” her boss sobs, bending his head and dragging it down the bars, “I didn’t know.”

Most people didn’t, Clara supposes. The story sounds like a fairy tale, all fantastic and fanciful: that the last rose of Gallifrey and the prince are connected, that each red velvet petal on it was a life to be lived, and to cause a petal to fall would be to cause the prince to die, to burn himself up and emerge anew.

Regeneration, it’s called. A fancy name, a pretty thing.

It still means death.

“Tell me a petal didn’t fall,” Clara begs the darkness, but even as she says it, she knows that it’s hopeless, that it’s already happened. And yet she can’t help but plead anyway, “Please, please tell me he didn’t change.”

There’s silence from the shadows, and then that voice again, all stoic and sharp like pointed arrows and jagged glass and it cuts her to the core as the voice says, “I did change.” Stars. He’s...the voice is...

The voice belongs to him. She’s been talking to him without even knowing it. And why didn’t he correct her until this moment? Why did her prince not greet her?

Clara says nothing for a minute. It feels as if the air’s getting thin and the walls are closing in, like the ground is crumbling beneath her feet and she cannot find a safe place to land. Clara tries to trace the silhouette in the shadows, tries to piece together a picture of this new man, but she cannot.

“Step into the light,” she says.

Her words hang in the air, half a command, half a dare, and then a man she doesn’t recognize emerges from the darkness.

He has grey hair and anger-filled eyes, and his face is all sharp angles and hard lines. It’s not his change in appearance that makes her heart twist all raw and painful, it’s his demeanor. He stands there, squinting at her, arms stiff at his sides, and the prince, the prince Clara knows, (her prince, she thinks rather possessively), would run to her, kiss her forehead, take her hand. Her prince had sparkled with energy, like a shooting star, all bright and glittering and always in motion.

But even shooting stars fade to nothing eventually.

“Strax?” the man asks, glaring down at her, like she’s some sort of puzzle he can’t figure out. “Clara,” she chokes out. She can’t believe he’s getting her mixed up with one of his odd servants, let alone the one that resembles a rather angry, enchanted potato. “It’s Clara.”

He shrugs. “It might be, you two are very similar heights, so I’m not sure.”

“It is Clara,” she snaps, and her voice comes out angrier than she intends it too, all loud and hard, but she can’t help it, can’t help it that she’s trying to grasp the fact that the man she loves is dead, and yet he still stands in front of her. Insulting her, of all things.

“Well, Clara,” he says, saying her name in a beastly growl, as if it might not really be her name at all, ”the pudding brain in the cell over there stole the last rose of Gallifrey, killing one of my lives. According to the ancient law of my kingdom, the murderer must die too; a life for a life.”

Clara shakes her head in disbelief, in outrage, “That’s stupid.”

“I agree,” he replies, and Clara feels a glimmer of hope that maybe, maybe, maybe her prince is still in there somewhere, buried beneath the grey hair and gravely voice and rude insults. “However, I cannot completely circumvent ancient law without consequences. I can save him from death, but a life still has to be exchanged for a life. He has to remain here as a prisoner.”

Clara glances at Master Maitland, alone in his cell, sentenced to be there forever, and she thinks.

She thinks of her book, 101 Places to See, stuck snug in her shelf, pages unopened and list uncrossed. She thinks of her grand plans and the maps she’s poured over, of adventure in the great wide somewhere and how she wants more, more, more. More of the world and more of the wonders that exist beyond the pages of her books and so much more than this provincial life.

But then she thinks of the two children back home, who only have one living parent left, who have already known far too great a loss at far too young an age. It’s a feeling Clara knows all too well, and there’s still grief from her own loss etched into her memories and onto her skin. She won’t let anyone on this Earth go through what she went through, she decides, not if she can help it.

Which is why she says, “Take me instead.”   #

Clara expects to stay in the prison cell, but Strax (Odd and brown and round and surely enchanted and how, how, how did that beast ever mix her up with him?) leads her down the halls of the blue castle that somehow really does seem bigger on the inside. Whenever Clara thinks that surely, surely they are on the lowest floor, or that they have reached a wall, there is still another spiral staircase downward, or yet another corridor, and the passageways shift and change and shimmer with starlight.

She should be scared, she thinks, she should be absolutely terrified. Clara has always fancied herself as a practical person, and practical people should be frightened of things like glowing walls that rearrange themselves.

But she is not. For once, she thinks, this is something new. This is something brilliant and spectacular and something so, so much more than her sleepy little village with its sleepy little people.

Clara almost forgets that she is being led somewhere and not just exploring (and really, that’s what she’d like to do, push the boundaries of this strange castle just for the fun of seeing how far she can push), when Strax stops abruptly at a door.

“I suggested we disintegrate you in acid,” Strax tells her, plainly and rather pleasantly. “But the Master insists that you are his guest, and that I put you here, in the Belle Room.”

Strax opens the door and a gasp of oh my stars leaves Clara’s lips, because she can see why it’s called the Belle Room. It has marble columns and etched carvings and gold leaf, and stained glass that sends mosaics the colors of rubies and sapphires across the floor.

“He also demands I tell you that you are free to go wherever you like in the castle,” Strax says, and he looks utterly disgusted, like the very idea of letting her wander about instead of locking her up is repulsive. “Even the West Wing, if you can find it. But the castle itself is very peculiar about that wing, probably won’t let you near it anyhow.”

And, yes, Clara could be scared, but all she can think of is how this is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to her in all her life, that here, there are enchanted corridors that lead to who knows where and the promise of something exciting, something dazzling, and back home...back home there are only orders and lessons and laundry and the same few books she’s read over and over again.

101 Places to See, she thinks. She’ll come for them all, one day, she can swear to that, but for now...this is a promising substitute.

#

His eyes are as blue as a clear winter sky, but his voice is as cold as one. If he’s snapping or snarking at her it’s fine, because Clara has always been able to give as good as she gets. Their fast chatter, their back and forth banter, is a dance she’s familiar with, one that reminds her of her old prince. But him ignoring her, or treating her as if he’s indifferent to her, hurts in a way she can’t quite explain. They used to talk endlessly when they met, packing in a month’s worth of conversation in minutes as she talked about all the places she wanted to go and he told her about all the places he’d been.

But now the only time he bothers to talk to her is when he asks her to dinner.

(“No,” she snaps at his invitation - if you can call a single word said in a flippant manner an invitation. And No is what she always says, because really, how dare he disappear on her all day, every day, and then arrive at her door without so much as a ’Hello’ or ‘Sorry I got you mixed up with an enchanted potato man,’ and pretend he’s a civil person who can eat a civil dinner?

“Impossible girl,” he snaps back at her, which is what he always does.

At any rate, she thinks it’s better that he calls her that instead of calling her Strax.)

#

Clara seeks him out one day. She doesn’t even realize she is, but when she lays eyes on his form - with his coat as black as night with its flashes of red as bright as rose petals - Clara cannot deny that it was him she was looking for.

He’s in the West Wing, which she swears the castle rearranged on her because it’s most definitely not in the West, and she’s not even sure if the small circular room could even be considered a wing.

And it took her nearly three weeks of wandering to find it. (The castle, she thinks, much to her annoyance, doesn’t like her. She wonders if it’s owner feels the same.)

And speaking of it’s owner: his back is to her, and he’s writing on a chalkboard, his long, clever fingers drawing intricate spheres across the black, and the words look like bright white stars bursting forth out of the darkness.

(He writes in a long-dead language, one Clara can’t read, but she thinks...she thinks he’s writing something that’s half poetry, half arithmetic.)

“We used to meet,” she starts off saying, and then she laughs, backtracks, realizes what an understatement that is for whatever really happened between them. “I mean, we’d meet again and again and again, by a pond, behind a pub, in the snow, anywhere. Everywhere. And always on a Wednesday. Why?”

He shrugs. “Wednesdays are nice.”

“Yeah, but he sought me out. Why?” “I,” he corrects her, and beneath his calm demeanor, there’s something like a beastly growl to his words. “I sought you out, Clara. I’m still the same man underneath.”

”Sorry,” she says, and she is sorry, she doesn’t want to hurt him. “I know you’re the same.”

It’s a lie. They both know it. But for now, he lets it slide.

“I was going to ask you to travel with me,” he admits quietly, back still to her.

The idea of him ever offering that to her makes Clara’s heart beat fast, fluttering out a melody against her ribcage. ”Why?”

“I travel frequently, and always with a companion.”

“No,” Clara shuts her eyes, lets out a breath. “No, that’s not what I meant, why would -“ the word he is on the tip of her tongue, but she catches it, changes it, “why would you ask me?” He laughs, “Clara Oswald: Too big of a mind for so small of a town. A governess and a barmaid, with so much practicalness in her actions and yet all those dreams in her mind, so many contradictions all wrapped up in one person. How could I resist?”

Show me the stars, her mind begs him silently, offer to take me away and give me adventure in the great wide somewhere. I’d say yes. “It's a pity you never offered,” she says. She’s testing him, baiting him, and somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks she should feel self-conscious and ashamed, but she doesn’t, because never has she ever wanted anything so badly.

“Yes,” he says, a bit stiffly, “it’s a pity.”

He says nothing more, silence stretching out between them, and though they stand a few feet apart, though Clara is close enough to reach out and take his hand, the divide between them seems to be as wide and fierce as a black hole that can suck down burning stars and swallow entire planets.

Clara steps away, face falling, silently nodding. He says he’s the same man, says he was going to offer to travel with her, but he doesn't offer now. He must not feel the same way about her, she realizes, not anymore.

(She never stops to think that maybe he doesn’t offer because he’s afraid she’ll say no.) # And this is how they are: three steps forward and two steps back. But they keep being drawn to each other, like there is something tying the two of them together.

It’s as if the universe is saying, these two, it will always be these two. Stars may fall and planets may burn, times will change and people will too, but it will always, always, always be them together: Clara Oswald and the last prince of Gallifrey.

Even if they don’t know it yet.

#

“You’re free to go, you know,” he says out of the blue one day, all sudden and Scottish and abrupt, and Clara can’t help but think he’s trying to kick her out. He still hasn’t extended that offer to travel with him, much to her disappointment, and now he’s saying that she can leave. She wonders if he’s gotten tired of having a short, stubborn girl meander about his castle walls (insulting them more often than not) in search of something dazzling.

“You’re no longer my prisoner. You never really ever were,” he admits.

“Never really thought I was,” Clara replies. “Most prison cells don’t look like my room here.”

There’s more to say. That she knew that he may be cold, but never cruel, that she had guessed his blustering and flippancy hid someone who cared. That she’s not scared of him, she’s just...well, she doesn’t think she really knows who he is anymore. Or what he thinks of her. But she says none of that. Instead, she settles for lifting her chin and saying, “Besides, I could have escaped any time I wanted.”

He arches an eyebrow at her.

“I’m very clever you know,” Clara continues, unfazed.

Seconds pass as he stares at her, and then there’s a smirk on the corner of his lips. “Oh, Clara Oswald, I know you are.”

And for the first time since she’s arrived, for the first time since he’s changed, they share a smile.

And Clara swears there might be something there that wasn’t there before.

#

It is a warm summer night with a sky full of stars right outside the windows. There is music playing in the background and this magic, mad, impossible man is rambling on about Beethoven and something called a bootstrap paradox, and so he doesn’t even notice that Clara’s dragging him to the center of the ballroom until they're in the middle of the dance floor.

He pauses in the middle of his spiel, his hypothesis about time streams and melodies stopping mid-sentence as he blinks owlishly at his surroundings and then down at Clara.

“I don’t think I’m a dancing man,” he says, very decidedly.

“I don’t think you get a vote,” she says, pulling him closer.

It is not a waltz, and maybe it’s not even a dance. Because, no, he is not a dancing man, but he does temper his ramblings so they keep in the four-fourths time of the waltz, and he does sway a little from side to side, because Clara insists he try, and he can’t say no. He can’t ever say no to her.

(He almost asks her to travel with him then, she thinks, but he doesn’t. She won’t know why until later.)

#

Because he finally asks her civilly, Clara finally says yes to dinner.

It’s a mistake.

There are automatons, automatons made of clockwork and bone, of cogs and flesh, who hiss out “be our guest,” and trap her and him in their restaurant of death.

But that’s not the worst part. No, the worst part is when he manages to wrench himself free from his chains while she’s still bound, and with one foot out the door, he turns and tells her, “Sorry, they’re coming. No point in us both getting caught.”

And then he disappears, and she is alone, and all she can think of is:

Her prince wouldn’t have left her.

#

The automaton is made of copper and stolen skin and is staring down at Clara through eyes that don’t belong to it.

There are other automatons all around her, with their stolen, sawed-off parts, encircling her like a pack of wolves closing in on their prey and part of her mind is screaming, wondering if they’ll rip out her throat like wolves would too.

She tries to ignore that screaming, terrified part of her mind.

“Where is he,” the automaton ticks out, in a voice that’s both dead and alive. “Where is the prince?”

“I don’t know,” Clara gasps out, “I don’t know.”

“But you know him.”

Does she? she wonders, and the question echoes around in the cavern of her mind over and over again. Clara knows he is wonderful and terrible, both warrior and peacemaker, monster and sanctuary. She knows that, once upon a time, he cared about her very much. She thinks that maybe, just maybe, he still might even if he doesn’t show it.

(Clara can’t be sure though, every day she waits for him to extend the invitation to travel with him, and every day he doesn’t, and so every day she dies inside. He can’t truly be her prince, not if he never asks like he once said he wanted to, not if he doesn’t care to travel with her any longer.) “I don’t know if I still know the prince,” she says, “but if I do, then I know where he will be, where he will always be.”

Clara holds out her hand in the air, palm up, as if she can summon him to her side, as if, out of anywhere in the world he could be, out of every choice he has, he will always choose to be next to her. And maybe he will, she thinks, (oh, he always will, oh, if only she knew,) because the next thing she knows, she’s no longer alone. He’s there, by her side, taking her hand, and pulling her with him to safety.

#

The automatons of death are defeated, and now Clara is back in the castle with its shifting, magic walls, and this impossible man is leading her down one, to a set of doors she’s never seen before.

“Got a present for you,” he tells her, in that gruff growl of his, only this time, it sounds warmer, happier, less beastly. “To make up for the ruined dinner.”

Clara breathes out a laugh, raises an eyebrow, “And for the almost dying?”

He sniffs imperiously, bats his hand dismissively, as if death couldn’t compete with the undignified atrocity of ruined dinner plans. “That too, I suppose.”

He opens the double doors in front of him, and the sight inside nearly leaves Clara breathless. She is staring at a library that looks as if it goes on forever, with books as far as the eye can see. The shelves full of leather bound volumes start at the floor and go on til the ceiling, and Clara steps inside, mind spinning, breath catching, nearly crying because she’s seeing more books in one room in this one moment than she ever has in her entire lifetime.

”How did you know?” She asks, ripping her eyes away from the beauty of the books and back to him. She can’t recall ever talking to him about books since she’s come here, doesn’t think he’s ever caught her reading. “You chose this for me, but how on Earth did you know? That out of every room you could have shown me, that this is the one I’d like?”

He stares at her, and the expression on his face is lonely and lovely and longing and sad, like he’s looking at something he can’t have. “You told me already, explained how you loved books because they were like being able to hold a slice of the universe in your hands. You told me that, the day in the snow, remember?”

Clara blinks, and ever so slowly, the memory comes back to her: Him, with the brown hair and long limbs and different face, listening to her talk about both the books she’d already read and the ones she still wanted to read as the gently falling snow glittered in the streetlights and dusted the pavement.

“That was me you told all those things to,” he says now, and he laughs, and it sounds wistful and bitter and broken. “You can’t see me, can you? You look at me, but you can’t see me. I’m not in the past, Clara, I’m not dead, I’m here, standing in front of you. See me. Please just see me.”

She steps forward, studying at his face, searching for her answer, and it’s like whatever spell between them that has kept her from seeing him finally breaks, because suddenly she sees him, really sees him.

His hair is grey, his skin is lined, and he scowls more often than not. But his eyes are still the same. Not in color and not in shape, but, oh, how had she not seen it there before? He still looks at her like how he always looked at her: like she is the stars and the moon, the sky and the sea. Like she is everything in his world. He reaches for her less, sounds rougher and sometimes ruder than he ever has, but he still loves her, she realizes.

I loved you in my last life, his eyes tell her, I love you in this one, and whoever I am in my next life, I’ll love you in that one too.

Clara reaches out for him, all but collapses against him as she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him into a hug, and it feels like coming home. This is her prince. He’s always been her prince.

His arms stiffen - he’s not a hugger, this new man - but she hears an almost inaudible exhale, like he had been holding his breath waiting for her verdict, and it sounds like a soft sigh of tired relief, as if he’s relieved to find sanctuary in a place he thought there might be none.

It’s him, her mind chants in time to the rhythm of his two heartbeats, it’s him, it’s him, it’s him. He hadn't changed completely, not in any way that truly counted.

And since it’s him...

“You once told me that there was an invitation you were going to offer me,” Clara whispers, face still pressed against the soft velvet of his coat. “Why didn’t you ever actually ask me?”

“I thought you’d say no.”

“I would never say no to you.”

(And she won’t, not to him.) “Well then, Clara Oswald,” he says, and she pulls back to peer up at him and ah ha, there it is: the smile she’d recognize anywhere, the magic one that’s made of madness and mayhem and glows like every star in the galaxy all at once. “How about adventure in the great wide somewhere?”

She grins back at him.

“Show me the stars,” she says.

(And he does.)

#

There is a prince, the villagers say, who is all things great and terrible. There is girl who is the same, and they rule together. The first time you see them, people say, you think the two of them couldn’t be more different, like they are light and darkness, fire and rain. But the second time you see them, you realize that they couldn’t be more alike, that they are both brilliant and mad and filled with stardust and wanderlust, and that they shine together like they’re two halves of the same star.

Beauty and the beast, some call them. Mad travelers. A fairy tale.

The tales always change, the gossip shifting as it passes from villager to villager,  but when it comes down to it, the facts are these:

In whatever form, in whatever way, in whatever end of history they’re on, and whatever alternate universe they’re in, they will find each other, her and him. It will always, always, always be them: Clara Oswald and the last prince of Gallifrey.

Some people are just meant to be in each other’s lives.

[dancedelion]

Be Good to Me (part 3 / 3)

Genre: angst with a happy ending, Beauty and the Beast AU Summary: Jaskier has just been broken up with (again), he has nowhere to stay (again) and people are booing his songs (again). He overhears the villagers talk about a beast in a castle in the woods. Then they mention it's supposed to be dangerous. Well, now he's got no other choice. That beast won't even know what's coming for it. (Geralt doesn't.) Ao3: Be Good to Me part 1, part 2

So Jaskier's plan didn't quite work out. It's not unheard of. But if Jaskier knows anything, it's how to improvise. So, when Geralt doesn't look like a monster, and then doesn't act like a monster, Jaskier learns to cope. New plan: stay and get to know Geralt, bring a fantastic song back to the village, get rich. Or something like that.

Geralt has built walls around the walls around his walls, but Jaskier is nothing if not stubborn.

And then Geralt puts a blanket on him, and listens to his songs, under only small protests, and picks books out for him he thinks he'll like – and then he saves two girls from monsters – and Jaskier needs to revise his plan again. Stay and get to know Geralt, bring a fantastic song back to the village, get rich.

The audacity, really, of that man – to be sweet where he should be callous, to be beautiful where he should be monstrous. Jaskier was promised a frightening monster, and instead what he got is this – this disgustingly kindhearted, annoyingly pretty man. This stupid-jokes, incredible-with-a-sword, doesn't-even-look-old-with-white-hair man. Get away from me with your dumb puppy eyes.  He seems to think the villagers are right – like he's a monster, has he looked in the mirror even once? You'd think a witcher knows his monsters.

All “don't love me”, all “fear me”, all talk, no substance. How dare you. How dare you be soft with your horse. How dare you look at me like you're fond of me.

It's obnoxious, loathsome, against the law, and just horribly unfair, really. Had the villagers just said extremely nice man lives in a castle, Jaskier never would have come.

How dare Geralt be loveable where he should be – how dare he be loveable.

Oh no. Oh fuck.

Jaskier keeps his eyes on Geralt and Fiona in the middle of the entrance hall, with their sword practice, and thinks to himself – if Geralt does something even mildly unlikable right now, it was all just a fluke. If he picks his nose or something, then that's it, none of that lovey-dovey stuff. But in that moment, Geralt ruffles through Fiona's hair – the vicious bastard. The vile, cruel, completely diabolical, sweet, adorable – fuck, fuck, fuck.

Jaskier is known to do something stupid every now and again, but this takes it to a whole new level.

Geralt has had his share of days. Bright, bright days. A life he almost got to have. But here is the yellow buttercup. The last one.

It's quiet for once, everyone else asleep. Only Geralt is sitting in front of the fire, contemplating a week long life. It'll be a good week, he thinks. Better than any that came before.

“Geralt.” Geralt turns his head. Jaskier is hesitantly stepping closer and eventually sinks down next to him. Geralt stares into the fire and waits for him to speak.

“What's wrong?”

“Why would something be wrong?” “It's that buttercup, isn't it? Is it the last one?” Jaskier picks it up from out of his hand and swirls it in his fingers. Geralt just watches him do it.

“You can stay here as long as you want,” Geralt says, “it was never my place to begin with. Not really.”

“You sound as if you're leaving.”

Jaskier turns the buttercup again, its stem thin and breakable between his fingers.

“Would you take care of Roach?”

Jaskier looks up. “You would leave without her?”

“I mean in case. Just in case something happened.”

“Just tell me what's going on.”

“Tell me you're going to take care of Roach.”

Jaskier is tense beside Geralt. Firelight dances in his eyes.

“Of course I'd take care of Roach,” he says, “but you need to tell me. Tell me why you're here.” He looks at Geralt intently and Geralt has the sudden urge to shuffle away, out of the light and back into the shadow. But he stays. He knows the light paints him red, like blood, like rage, like a setting sun.

He has his hand in a tight fist, but something makes him want to open his palm.

“It's a curse,” he says tersely.

“A curse?”

Geralt's teeth gnash together.

“I'm sorry, but I'll need you to elaborate. Curse? What's that mean? There's all kinds of curses, all kinds of -” “What do you know about what happened in Blaviken?” “Uhm,” Jaskier says uncertainly, “I don't know. I heard... people died. Villagers. Lots of them.”

Here is the wordsmith, speechless in the face of the Butcher of Blaviken. Geralt nearly snorts.

“Yes. It was a complicated affair. I had to – I -”

Geralt swallows. He sees her in the fire before him, her rage.

“I killed her men. They were threatening innocents. She, she was. She was so – angry. The world had wronged her over and over. I'm not sure I made the right choice. I – I'm not sure there was a right choice.”

He doesn't want to say this out loud, he wants to keep it in his chest forever and ever. He slowly lets his palm fall open.

“There's no excuse for what I did. It felt like the only thing to do. So I did. I – she -” He shakes his head. (He digs in his heart, digs deeply, until he finds where he buried her name.) “Renfri.”

Each sound of it is hard to lay bare, but he manages it. There is not a lot more pain to be had. (Seven days of it.) Jaskier doesn't react, he just listens. (Would it be easier if he wouldn't?) “And one of her men had a wife. A witch. She was angry, too. She got the jump on me. I was... not at my best. She brought me to this castle. Cursed me. That's why I can't leave here. And she cursed that bouquet of yellow buttercups. I would have time until all of them wilted to break the spell, and if I didn't, then...”

“Then what?”

“I don't know. I didn't ask for specifics.” Geralt draws his shoulders together.

“She didn't say anything about what will happen if you don't break the curse?” “I just assumed it was your average death spell. I was a little too preoccupied trying to fight her to have a lovely chat.”

She had been powerful, she had to be to enchant this entire castle. And he'd tried to fight her, but his spells has been weak and Renfri's face had been at the forefront of his mind.

“Okay, okay. It doesn't matter. What's important is, how can you break the spell?”

“I think she was going to tell me. Right before I nearly got her at the throat and she teleported away. So I'm just assuming it's the standard 'True love's kiss' horseshit.” “So what we have to go on is... nothing, basically. Great. I mean, at least we know she left you that magic dinner table, so she's clearly not a completely evil witch, maybe moderately evil, where would you estimate her on the evil scale? Geralt? One to ten?” “Jaskier,” Geralt growls and grits his teeth. Jaskier stares at him. Geralt stares back. Jaskier stares some more. “Six,” Geralt says, “maybe seven. Her laugh did kind of sound like a cackle.”

“Okay, that means maybe we still have a chance to crack this, right? Maybe it does have to do with love. I mean, I mean, we still got one buttercup left?”

“It's a week.” “A week, right, we can work with that. Cause I'm not going to let you die, you know that right? I won't let you leave, you don't get off that easily. Fiona won't either, you still haven't taught her how to fight with a sword properly, and after that comes daggers and maybe the crossbow or bow and arrow – and she doesn't know how to hold a silver sword yet? And I've written like two songs about you that you haven't heard, and don't think I'm stopping there either, I'm writing another twenty and if you're not there to hear every single one of them, I'm going to be so mad. Mad. And you've never been there to witness it, but believe me, you don't want me mad at you. I'm going to -” “Jaskier.” “Yes?” “I'm sorry.”

Jaskier is crying and he won't stop talking and Geralt feels like something is wrapped tightly around his chest.

“No, listen,” Jaskier says, his voice cracking, “I'm going to find you somebody to love. I'll go back into the village, wolves and monsters be damned.” And if you get lost, you will follow the trail of blood I have left behind? With corpses for milestones? I don't think so.

Jaskier has stopped twirling the buttercup in his hand. He is holding it almost reverently now. He looks down at it pensively. “Maybe someone out there will want you,” he says.

Only out there?

There is nothing for you to find. Climb into the mirror if you want to find me someone to love. But if you're looking for someone who can love me? Yeah, good luck with that.

“Don't leave,” Geralt says and has to keep himself from adding please. ***

Jaskier wants to scream. You need true love's kiss? Fine. I'll go into the village and find a woman who's favorite color is yellow. I'll go into the village and find a woman who knows how to tame a scared horse. I'll do anything.

But Geralt is shaking his head.

“It's too late,” he says, “no one falls in love in one week.”

Do people fall in love in degrees? Each infuriating thing you say, I fall further in your direction? Do I stumble at your lovely grunts, your intensely amber eyes? And the worst part is there, right there, is Geralt's open palm.

“I do,” Jaskier says absently, “I can fall in love in one evening, if the object of my affection so demands.” He lifts his gaze when he says it, tries to catch Geralt's gaze – but how do gazes ever meet? What is the likelihood of two people being in the same place? Is love a trade or thievery? Is it my love for your love or do we steal smiles and honeyed words from strangers? Do we hook our fingers in unwatched places and tear each other apart? Is it tear for tear for tear? For a moment, Jaskier thinks Geralt is going to look at him, but then he looks back into the fire. “Well, most people aren't fools like you,” he says. Do only fools fall for you or does falling turn you into a fool?

Jaskier's fingers itch to reach out – he itches to entangle their fingers in a way that is irresolvable.

“Then I guess,” Jaskier says and wets his lips, “we have a few days left then. Make the most of it?”

He lets his fingers ghost over Geralt's palm, holding his breath. Jaskier gathers all the courage he can muster and reaches down, flattens out Geralt's fingers.

Geralt stares down at their hands, not pressed together, fingers not entangled, just palm against palm. Jaskier doesn't know what to say other than I'm right here, so he presses his lips together.

But then Geralt pulls his hand away and it's as clear a rejection as Jaskier's ever going to get.

Why are you so scared of what I'll find once you've let me past the guards of your castle? Are you scared I'll walk into a room with broken tiles that you haven't cleaned for years? Are you scared the sight of the rodents that you let die in there is going to send me in a panic and make me wreck your cabinets? Or are you scared I'll stay?

*** Geralt can't bear it. He doesn't know what he'll do – smile, cry, take a grip – but it's all terrifying.

You think I am a cruse you can break. I'm nothing for you to fix. There is no curse, there's just me. It's all me. I have no man hidden away beneath these monstrous eyes.

Jaskier draws his hand away again, starts fumbling with his fingers.

I'm not your adventure path, I'm not your escape from an ordinary life, I'm not your prince. All that I am is right here. A pair of yellow eyes in the dark.

Geralt looks away into the far corner of the room.

Do you think I want to be your tragic love story? A sad song you won't share with anyone else? Do you think I want you to think of me when you smell blood?

Geralt can feel Jaskier's eyes on him, but Jaskier never really sees. So Geralt gets up and walks away, out of the room, before he asks for more than he is allowed to have.

*** Days are shorter the less you have left of them.

*** The flower will die in hours. At sunrise. (At the beginning or the end of it? Will Geralt have another sunrise?)

“Go to sleep,” he says to Jaskier, who has been talking to him for hours.

“I'm not going to sleep,” Jaskier says. “I'm not missing a second of this.”

“There's nothing to miss,” Geralt says, “go to sleep.”

“No way.” “Will you go if I come with you?” “What – you mean, like -”

“Hm.”

“Okay. Okay. Just a reminder, though, you're the one who suggested this. No take-backs!” Geralt harrumphs.

“Unless you wanted to take it back! You can change your mind, of course. But I'd really rather -” “Jaskier.”

They lay down next to each other on the bed Jaskier has been sleeping in. Jaskier turns on his side and stares at him. Geralt waits a few minutes. But if he only has one night left, he'd rather look at Jaskier, so he turns too. The moonlight comes in dim, makes Jaskier's face blue. Geralt studies the line of his delicate nose, the soft looking lips, the eyebrows.

Eventually, he can't stop himself. Jaskier's eyes are blue, blue, blue.

There is not a lot of time left to say things, so Geralt makes an exception.

“I thought I was going to be alone.”

He says it quietly, like a secret not to be heard.

“I told you you can't get rid of me,” Jaskier answers, just as quietly.

It's hard to keep himself from touching the small smile on Jaskier's face. “I'm glad,” Geralt admits.

He doesn't quite understand why Jaskier lets him have this, but he doesn't want to think about it just now.

*** Jaskier knows better than to touch, this time. But he can look, so he will. Does Geralt seriously think he would walk away if Geralt had horns? Does he think Jaskier wouldn't adore him if he had claws instead of hands? Geralt thinks his eyes are so horrible, but Jaskier would love him if he didn't have any eyes or twelve of them. I know the shape of your heart, whether you want me to or not.

Tomorrow, Jaskier will take Roach and get out of this place. He will probably never find something, someone like this again. So he'll go without aim.

Jaskier stays quiet, for once. The small distance between them feels fragile. The air is loaded with all the words not spoken.

They lay for a long time, like they are memorizing each other's faces – Jaskier knows he is. And then he dares again -

“You like to think these walls are here to protect the world from the monster safely locked inside,” Jaskier whispers. “But that's not really true, is it, Geralt?” He shifts just a little closer.

“Who hurt you?”

It's silent for a long while and Jaskier thinks Geralt is not going to answer. But then it come, really quietly -

“No one hurt me. I did. Hurt someone.”

*** The ache is quiet now, almost gentle. The twilight makes the world seem dulled, obscures its harshest parts.

“I didn't love her,” Geralt whispers, “I barely knew her. But I liked her. I thought – I thought she understood me. I let her – I -” Even now, it's hard to say, but if he's going to say this anytime, to anyone, it'll be here. To Jaskier.

“She was going to kill that girl, the little girl -” Get out of Blaviken, Geralt.

“I fought her and won. And I thought, if I'm going to have to lose the fight some day, why couldn't it be this one?”

She'd had such big brown eyes.

“I killed Ren – I kil-” That's as far as he'll ever get to saying it.

Geralt closes his eyes, so he won't have to see the disgust on Jaskier's face. Here I hide my yellow eyes, Jaskier, do you understand me now?

But then there is a touch to his cheek. He can feel Jaskier's fingernails on his cheekbone. To scratch? Geralt would let him.

He thinks of Fiona and Zofia, who he couldn't bear to tell the truth. They would hate him – or worse, be disappointed – no more sword lessons – no more dinners – he would lose the only thing he won't be losing now – their fond memories of him.

You have been sharing your bed with the Butcher of Blaviken. Do you understand what it means now? He opens his eyes a little, because he won't die with his eyes closed.

There is no anger on Jaskier's face. Just a soft smile.

Can I keep it? At least until the sun rises?

“It's okay,” Jaskier says. “It's okay.” Geralt has to hold in a gasp.

“You were between a rock and a hard place,” Jaskier whispers, “you had to make a tough decision. That doesn't make you a monster.”

Jaskier's hand is cold against his face, but Geralt's chest feels warm.

“Do you think humans don't get lost in the woods sometimes?” Jaskier keeps going. “It's not neat and not clean and so, so messy, but I found you.”

Is this why you write songs? To find words that can reach into people's chests? It would only take so much to tilt his head down. Will you meet me on the pillow, three inches from here?

“It's almost morning,” Geralt says.

“Right.”

“I want to see the sunrise.” “Of course.” Geralt lets his gaze linger, only for a moment, on the moonlight in Jaskier's eyes. Then he swallows the unbidden words down. There is nothing in this small space between them for him to have, and more importantly, nothing to keep.

They go outside, the sky already turning lighter. Geralt takes a breath in the brisk morning air. He turns to look at a place shaped like a home.  A home to kings and queens, princes and princesses, chamber maids and butlers, maybe even a witcher sometimes.

I want to see the sunrise, Geralt thinks, and looks at Jaskier. His face looks beautiful in the faint red light coming from the horizon. The light catches on his hair and there, the sun reflects in his eyes.

“Geralt -” That's when the pain starts.

A face etched into wood -

A hand he didn't take -

A truth never spoken -

Not a monster, but a coward -

Laughter a stomachache in his abdomen -

There is always pain, pain, pain when something is born.

*** Geralt doubles over in front of Jaskier, starts coughing. And Jaskier can't watch it. He falls to his knees and grips Geralt's shoulders, but Geralt is not looking at him anymore.

“No, listen,” Jaskier says quickly, “if this is about love – if you need someone to love you – then – you know, I know you're a witcher and you're not used to emotions, but some of us are human, and I can't really help, but, and you probably haven't considered this, but maybe possibly, perhaps maybe it is so that I – and this might come as a surprise -

“Jaskier,” Geralt chokes out, “get to the point.” “The point is,” Jaskier takes a breath, “here I am. And I know you don't, but... and I know it might not matter, but... I love you.”

Geralt's eyes widen, and yep, bet you didn't see that one coming, witcher.

“Jaskier...” he gets out, but then he starts coughing again. And Jaskier's arms come up to steady him, but it doesn't stop.

And Jaskier's heart burns.

And it doesn't matter.

***

Geralt is gone.

*** The White Wolf is not.

*** “Sweet Melitele,” Jaskier reels back when he sees the wolf. He has white fur and piercing yellow eyes. He seems irritated, turning his head from side to side, walking backwards like he's cornered. Eventually, the wolf's gaze settles on Jaskier and Jaskier stares back at him.

“Geralt?” Jaskier tries. The wolf whines softly, then inclines his head, which Jaskier is going to take as a yes. “Death spell?” Jaskier says exasperatedly. “Fucking hell, Geralt. It was a transformation spell. You've had me all riled up over nothing. Well. Not nothing.”

Jaskier scrutinizes Wolf-Geralt.

“This is why we don't fight the evil witch until after she's given us all the relevant information,” he says sternly.

Geralt makes another noise, maybe a whimper? “You are adorable,” Jaskier says startled and maybe a little delighted. In response, Wolf-Geralt growls at him and bears his teeth. Jaskier rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you're a dangerous scary beast. Any maiden will faint when she sees you. Hey, now you've finally got fangs!”

Jaskier sits cross-legged in the snow. Geralt steps closer hesitantly. Jaskier sobers up a little.

“So, I guess the spell only resolves at requited love. Sorry. I tried.”

Geralt draws back his ears.

“Yes, it's true. I did fall in love with you. I mean, I tried not to. I did my best.”

Geralt steps a little closer, but it seems like even as an animal he doesn't know how to respond.

“Yeah you're right,” Jaskier says, “I didn't try all that hard. I do love love.”

Geralt looks at him, in that infuriatingly Geralt way of his, which just -

“That is -” Jaskier starts indignantly, “not fair! No puppy-dog-eyes for you as long as you actually look like a puppy!”

The wolf growls a little again.

“Yeah, yeah, you look like a gruesome, threatening big bad wolf,” Jaskier waves him off. “Don't you think it's a little concerning that our conversations are kind of... the same now? I know, I know, for you the perfect conversation is the one that doesn't happen.”

The wolf gets up again and starts pacing in front of Jaskier. If Jaskier were to take a hard guess, he'd say that Geralt would be yelling at him right now in his human form.

“So what do we do now?” Jaskier asks. “I mean, we should go to a mage, probably. Someone who could turn you back. You know anyone?” Geralt stops the pacing, sniffs the air and turns his head.

“Yes? You know someone?” Jaskier says. “I mean, as much as you look lovely – uhhh, terrifying! Frightening! - right now, I do want the old Geralt back. I liked him. My best friend.”

Geralt looks a little displeased, as much as wolves can look displeased.

“Ah! Can't argue!” Jaskier exclaims. “You don't got the vocal cords for it. I'm your very best friend in the whole wide world. Any objections?”

The wolf growls a bit, but doesn't speak a single word of protest.

“Yeah, didn't think so,” Jaskier says flippantly. “We should go straight away. I'm going to tell Fiona and Zofia we're leaving and pack some things. You just – just wait here.” Geralt sits down and stares at him, which Jaskier takes as his cue to leave.

*** The front doors fly open and the girl – Fiona – comes running through. Geralt steps back, still unused to this body, though it comes more naturally to him than he expected. There is something familiar yet foreign in the way a wolf thinks.

Fiona comes to a still in front of him, staring in shock. Jaskier has been running after her and pauses a few feet behind her. Now they're staring at each other – the white-haired girl and the white wolf. But how do wolves say, don't be afraid?

She doesn't have a weapon with her, even though Geralt told her to always keep a weapon close by. Though Geralt wouldn't know what to do if she attacked him. Run, maybe. (There is no way he would ever hurt her.)

Wolves can't smile, can't lift their hands to show they don't carry weapons – wolves are weapons. All teeth, all claws. There must be different tricks, but Geralt doesn't know them yet.

Geralt tries to put it all in his eyes – I won't hurt you, as wolf or as witcher. For a few seconds, they just exchange glances. Then she falls forward and Geralt stumbles back a little, can't find an escape route. He flinches when she throws her arms around him to -

hold him? Geralt is stunned. Is she - hugging him?

He holds still, careful not to move.

“Geralt,” she says close to his ear. He presses his nose against her back.

“How do you know it's him?” Jaskier asks surprised.

“Isn't this how he always looks? White hair, yellow eyes. I see no difference.” Snarky.

She shuffles a little closer.

“Look, I don't know what happened,” she says so quietly that Jaskier won't hear it, “but Jaskier told me you're leaving. I just had to say good-bye.”

He breathes in her scent. He can smell her the same way as always.

“I'm going to tell you everything, on one condition, maybe two. You have to come back. In one piece and ideally as a witcher.”

He nudges her, which is as close to a promise as he can make her.

“So I'll tell you a secret now,” she goes on, “and I trust you'll keep it. My real name is Cirilla. Ciri for short.”

Finally, she lets go of him and steps back.

“So long, witcher,” she says and smiles a little, “try not to get shot by a hunter.”

Then she turns and walks back into the castle.

“We're all set, then,” Jaskier says, “let's go.”

And Geralt starts walking toward the gate – the gate that hasn't let him through so many times. He pauses in front of it. Maybe it still won't let him through – maybe he's cursed to stay here forever. Even now. And he has been here so long, years even. How do you open a gate?

Jaskier steps around him and opens the gate for him, gives him a look.

But how do you cross a threshold? Jaskier was right – this castle is his fort. He's safe there. But that means he needs to leave all the more.

“I'm here,” Jaskier says from the other side of that line. So Geralt follows suit, preparing for the witch's magic to reign him in, but it doesn't.

He is finally outside the castle.

*** Geralt leads him through the woods for hours, growling all the way, which deters any monsters in close proximity. Once they are in a safer part of the woods, Jaskier decides they need need to set up camp. He fiddles with the clasp on his bag for a long while – Geralt huffs at him.

“Excuse me, tone down the judgment, please,” Jaskier says, frustrated. “Come back to me when you have opposable thumbs again, maybe then I'll listen to your criticism.”

Eventually, he manages to spread out his bedroll. Geralt just sits there and stares at him.

“We're going to fix this,” Jaskier assures him. “Don't worry about it.”

Geralt tilts his head in a way that suggests he is clearly worried. Jaskier sighs and sinks down on the bedroll. He's not too worried. Geralt's alive and that's already much better than what he expected yesterday. The rest will work itself out fine.

He tries to sleep, but hears Geralt's footsteps around the clearing. Suddenly, it becomes quiet. Jaskier sits up.

Geralt is between the trees, walking away. Leaving.

“Wait,” Jaskier calls, feeling horribly fragile all out of a sudden. Geralt stops, but Jaskier's heart doesn't stop racing. He gets up and walks a few steps towards the wolf.

“Don't leave,” Jaskier says, “please.”

Geralt seems uncertain.

“I don't know what's going on in that head of yours. I never do. But you're not better off on your own, whatever you believe. I'm sticking with you.”

The wolf just looks at him, like he's considering. Jaskier holds his breath the whole time.

Finally, Geralt steps toward him again.

“Just, just come here,” Jaskier says quietly and lies back down on his bedroll. “Please.”

Jaskier doesn't think he will, but he lays tense all the same. But Geralt does come closer. And he does lay down closely next to Jaskier. His fur tickles Jaskier's nose.

He doesn't know if he's allowed, but he decides he'll take his chances. He puts one arm over Geralt's body.

“Did you know,” Jaskier whispers, “that your fur is really soft?”

Geralt growls, which Jaskier assumes to mean shut up. So he does. This time, he falls asleep easily.

*** The next day, it takes them only a few more hours to reach a village. The villagers, for some strange reason, don't seem to agree that Wolf-Geralt is harmless and cute and needs to be petted – they look at them suspiciously, but they won't come close.

Geralt eventually stops in front of one door and looks at Jaskier expectantly.

“This is it?” Jaskier says. “This is where we find help? Okay, I'm just going to trust you on this.”

He starts knocking. When nothing happens, he knocks a little more vehemently. The door flies open.

“Who wants to lose a hand?”

The woman has black hair and she's wearing a black dress, and what's that in her eyes? Death?

“Geralt, she's terrifying. Are you terrified? I'm terrified. Do you know her? Please tell me we go the wrong door.” But Geralt already trots through the door. The woman has turned to Geralt and she raises her eyebrows at him.

“Geralt?” she says, chiding him, “what did you do this time?”

Geralt gives her a long look.

“Yeah, you're right. We better discuss this inside.”

“Geralt, do you really think this is a good idea? Don't you remember how this all started? With you angering the wrong creepy witch? I feel like falling into the clutches of another evil witch is not the solution to this problem.”

“Where did you pick up the stray dog?” the woman asks, and Jaskier opens his mouth to answer, but then he realizes that she was talking to Geralt. Completely indignant, Jaskier strides into her house and shuts the door behind him.

“Wow, I can not believe -” Jaskier starts, frantically waving his hands around, “I'll have you know if I were a dog, I'd be an incredibly pretty, high-bred -”

“Does he ever shut up?” the woman asks Geralt.

“Uhm, how about you talk to the person who is not a wolf and can actually answer you – and to answer your question, no, I do not-” “Tell me what happened,” the woman says and crouches down to look at Geralt. “So it all started when Cecilia – or was it Catherine? Chloe?”

“Quiet!”

Despite his utter indignity, Jaskier stays quiet. The woman looks Geralt in the eye. Geralt says nothing. He does growl a bit, though.

“Well, if that wasn't a riveting tale -” Jaskier begins sarcastically, but the woman interrupts him again.

“I see,” she says to Geralt.

“What, can you speak wolf? Is that your magic power, you can talk to animals and -” “I can read minds.”

“Can you just once wait for me to finish a sente-”

“No,” the woman says curtly. “Okay, okay, I see how this is gonna be. Wait, you can read minds? Can you also read my mind?” Naturally, Jaskier thinks very intently fuck you.

“If you heard that, I meant it, but also, don't, don't do that – I would like to keep my thoughts to myself -” “Then why don't you?” “I'm sorry, I talk when I'm nervous, my best friend has been turned into a wolf, I'm allowed to be a little nervous.”

“Best friend? Interesting,” she says, still staring at Geralt. “Now shush.”

Jaskier is a bit offended at being shushed, but he also wants to get this over with, so instead of trying further, he starts looking around the place. Little trinkets clutter the shelves, probably potions and other witchery items. Finally, his gaze settles on the witch again, the flowing black hair, the ethereal beauty. How does Geralt know someone like that? Distant cousin? But despite both of them being hauntingly beautiful, they look like polar opposites. One graceful and elegant, one grounded and big. One dark, one light. Maybe they were lovers. And that... yeah, that... Jaskier turns his back on them.

“And you seriously didn't say anything? Men,” the woman says.

Then, “oh don't look at me like that.” Then, “yes, you could have.” Then a deep sigh and, “and now I have to sort out your mess again.”

Jaskier tentatively turns around again. The witch gets up and finally looks at Jaskier.

“So what's the verdict? You seem pretty powerful, you can turn him back, surely?” “I can.”

“Great!” “But only for an hour.” “Oh.” “But it can be permanent,” she continues.

“So hot, so cold,” Jaskier exclaims dramatically, “I do have feelings, you know?”

“I can give you this hour, but you have to break the spell yourself, Geralt. You know how. You know! I won't hear any protests.”

Geralt seems resigned, his ears hanging low.

“Hey, this is good news, right?” Jaskier says to him. “You'll be back on two feet in no time.”

All out of a sudden, fear grips at Jaskier. Maybe Geralt will send him away once he's all witcher again. Jaskier is tolerable as a begrudgingly accepted housemate, maybe even as a friend, but Geralt won't want somebody around who's hopelessly, so hopelessly in love with him. Maybe he'll even think he's doing him a favor by driving him away. And if that's the case, Jaskier will fight him on it, but if not...

Well. He's imposed himself on Geralt enough already.

“Yeah great,” Jaskier says weakly, “wohoo.”

The woman fixes him with her gaze, probably seeing right through him immediately with her magic witch senses, so he lets out a nervous laugh. “I have a room upstairs,” she says, “I'll get you once I'm done.” “Can't I come -” “No distractions.”

And they're off. Which is fine, totally great, Jaskier will just worry a little more. He's good at that.

*** Jaskier stands in front of the closed door to the witch's room. He doesn't know what he's nervous about, really. Going inside, and he'll be face to face with Geralt again – the witch told him Geralt did indeed have a witcher face again and arms and fingers and gorgeous white hair. She told him no parts have gone missing. And Jaskier has seen that a hundred times before – what's there to be afraid of?

He lifts his hand to the door handle, but then lets it sink again. Geralt was with him just an hour ago, why fear his words now that he has words again?

He takes a deep breath, lifts his arm again and then -

Geralt opens the door.

“Geralt!” “Jaskier.”

And that tone of voice is hard to read, always so hard to read. No body language, but your actions betray you.

“You're all witcher again! That's nice. Must have been disorienting, seeing everything from the eye-level of an eight-year-old? How tall are eight-year-olds?”

Geralt's hand shot out and grabbed Jaskier's wrist.

“Yeah, it sure must be nice to have fingers again- woah,” Jaskier says, nearly losing his balance when Geralt drags him into the room.

“So, so – cure! The witch says – by the way, how do you know this witch? I don't know whether to be frightened or impressed that she's the kind of person you go to for help.”

If Jaskier just keeps talking – words, words, words, please don't interrupt me with heartbreak and rejection - “Yennefer. Old friend.” “Lover?” “Yes. Then no.” “Still not a man of many words, I see. That's good actually, because there's something I'd really rather not talk about, let's just pretend I didn't say it, really, please -” “Jaskier -” “Anyways! She said you knew how to stop the curse. And I distinctly remember you telling me you were too busy fighting to hear how, which means – you lied to me. You lied to me.” Geralt listens to him silently, his face all angles again, all hard expressions. It has gotten dark outside and only a candle on the nightstand by the single bed in the room gives off light.

“You're right,” Geralt says quietly, working his jaw, “she did tell me how to stop the curse.” “How?” Jaskier asks. “Tell me.”

“I thought it wouldn't work. I thought there was no way it would. But... I might have been wrong.” “Well, that's good. What do we need to do?”

Geralt is so stiff across from him, the candle illuminating the side of his face. “She said -” He pauses and just breathes for a moment. “She said. If you won't tell your loved ones that you care for them, then you don't need a voice. If you do so well being alone, be alone. Told me to go live in the woods for all she cared. I didn't know what that meant. She wanted me to prove – to prove I'm not a monster.”

And you thought that was impossible, oh darling. Jaskier wants to reach across the space between them, the way he could that night when they were lying in that bed together.

“She wanted me to prove I could still feel things. So you weren't too far off. It was about love. But... it was about. About me, falling in love and... admitting it.”

“So go on then,” Jaskier says, takes a small step forward, daring him. “Admit it.”

But Geralt still looks like he's in pain.

“Do you love Fiona like a daughter, or Zofia, or...”

But Geralt is still not looking at him.

“You know Yennefer will be extremely mad if she did all that magic only for you to turn into a wolf again because you're so emotionally constipated,” Jaskier says light-heartedly.

He thinks for a moment, Geralt won't say it, only knows how to cross his arms and not how to open them.

***

Jaskier's wide eyes are on him. He can see his yellow eyes, his white hair, his looming, frightening – everything. Don't look at me. You can look at me, but not in this light. Not from this angle. Look into my eyes when night has turned them grey. Look at my human-shaped silhouette. Indulge me in darkness' gentle lie. Geralt can't stand the feeling of the candlelight on his face, so he steps back a bit, into the shadows again.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says again, as if Jaskier's name could draw him in, could draw him closer. “I thought you'd be gone. I thought you'd get fed up soon enough. I didn't expect...” Jaskier smiles at him, but it looks a little distorted.

“Do you even know why I stayed,” he says.

Geralt really doesn't.

“Because of the magic dinner table?” “No, you idiot.”

Jaskier steps closer again, and this time Geralt doesn't flee.

“I've already laid my heart bare.” Jaskier exhales slowly. “Don't you want to return the favor?”

My heart for your heart.

“I didn't care about these yellow buttercups for so long. I didn't care what would happen when they died. It didn't matter. But then... you. You came along and... made it matter.��� Each word is hard to say, but Geralt has to. You made me believe flowers can bloom in winter. In snow, in ice.

“It was dark in her castle before you came along. Quiet. Lonely. And I've always craved -”

Jaskier steps even closer. Geralt pushes the words out one by one.

“And I really think I might – I must – I love -”

your voice your light your eyes

“you.” you you you

“Oh,” Jaskier breathes. “Didn't – didn't expect that.” He comes closer still and finds Geralt's hand.

“But I'm not complaining,” Jaskier adds quickly, “the opposite, in fact.”

His hand is warm and Geralt searches for his other one, too.

“You know,” Jaskier says, talking faster, “I've never been in love. I mean, I almost was a million times or I could have been if – I would have, if I – it was just an if-love. But now I know what a when-love feels like – when – when you look at me, like that – or it's a yes-love, a yes-please-love, a please-shut-me-up-right-now-love -”

Geralt surges forward and kisses him, suddenly less tense and more desperate. He knows, now, the curse must be broken.

You can look at me, but only with your hands, not with your eyes.

Jaskier's hands roam over him.

Look at me with the arches of your fingertips.

He's not trapped anymore. He's free, so free, like a bird – like two birds, singing the same song.

I will let you look at me with your lips.

And Jaskier does, presses soft kisses to Geralt's cheekbones, his forehead, his eyelashes. Geralt can't get enough of it, of his scent so close, of the warmth he radiates. Geralt's skin is so hard, like stone, but it gives way where Jaskier touches it. He can make an indent in the crook of Geralt's neck. Leave fingerprints all over him. (Geralt doesn't know how long it will take until he turns to stone again.) Geralt takes Jaskier's face into his hand and wants to keep it, keep this. Maybe he can.

From the depths of his mind somewhere, he can hear the rumors, the insults, the whispers – the monster in the woods, in the enchanted castle, with horns and fangs and violence in his beastly eyes. But here is Jaskier, with his brave stupidity and his gentle hands and his light voice and his hand finds Geralt's chest and the ache fades from where his palm touches him.

Jaskier grabs his arms, turns the both of them into the candlelight and

– sees him.

[taiblogcomics]

Mon-test of Champions

Hey there, fabric faces. Well, it's quite nearly Halloween. As such, I see no reason to spoil the nice holiday with a Red Hood comic. Instead, let's follow what's become something of a tradition for this blog the last couple years. Alas, due to pandemic, I did not return to that used bookstore and pick up more Bailey School Kids like I promised last year. But I do have another excellent treat for you. While this particular book wasn't a major part of my childhood, its author was: Bruce Coville.

I don't think this guy ever wrote a stinker of a book. Maybe some of the Space Brat series, but I think they were directed at a younger audience. But others were really good. The My Teacher is an Alien books were about humanity's place in the universe and their worth as a species. The Aliens Ate My Homework series was ultimately about the importance of being kind. The Magic Shop books were always about self-improvement. The point is, they were great books. I highly encourage you to pick up a few if you've never read any of his work. Now, as for the one we're covering today, it's not really as deep as his other works. But it does suit the season, and that's what's important~

Here's the cover, as photographed by me, because it's really hard to find a decent one on Google:

Oh boy, you can really tell by their jeans and high-tops that this is the '80s. Not to mention the audience's haircuts. And indeed, this book was published in 1989. It's actually one of his earlier books. Anyway, the Count here has something to declare, Frankenstein is supportive, and the Mummy's just happy to be here. The Wolfman, however, is looking directly into the camera like a jerk. He's also brought his dinner onstage with him, which is pretty rude. Don't get me started on this tentacle monster, who does not actually appear in the book proper. And thank god for that~

So our protagonist today is Mike McGraw. His mom runs an advertising firm, and his stepdad is a science-fiction author. Mike, however, is your typical teen, bored during the summer. His stepdad suggests he get a job, and furthermore encourages the job to be at his mom's workplace. Mike's actually into it, but his mom needs to be talked into it, so Mike excuses himself to the basement to bring up more drinks. In the basement, Mike is suddenly attacked. But it's okay, it's just his best friend, the unlikely-named Kevver Smith. Mike and Kevver have been friends since early childhood, and even share the same birthday. Kevver's also one up on Mike on their prank war now. Oh boy, just wait until Youtube happens, guys.

The boys return from the basement, and Mom has decided to give the boys a shot at being the office gofers. Kevver is included mostly so Mike doesn't get bored. The book skips a bit to get to their first day, where they meet Wendy Moon, the firm's major artist. She's also extremely dramatic, posing on the floor with an "Art is Dead" sign affixed to her chest. See, their current client wants a very boring design, and Wendy objects because, like, why do you even hire a graphic designer if you're not going to take their suggestions? Also working at the firm is Pete, who is the muscle, I guess. The book is unclear on his actual duties. It's not important.

Anyway, time passes and the pair get used to their new job. Everything seems fine until it isn't. Ed the Plumber, the client Wendy was complaining about, has decided to cancel the contract. He's been talked into it by Myrna Smud, a local activist who runs BAM: Billboards Are Monstrous. Get this: she's not against them for, like, aesthetic reasons. If she thought billboards were an eyesore, I could at least understand that. No, it's because she thinks billboards are too creative. They overstimulate children's imaginations and lead to criminal behaviour. And yes, she's serious. So the firm's in a bad mood because a blank billboard is a drain on the company.

The boys' birthday is coming up, and when asked for present ideas, Mike only has one thought in his head: he wants that billboard. It's going unused now, so why not let him do a goof with it? As usual, Stepdad Jeff talks Mom into it. Taking inspiration from Ms. Smud's ranting, Mike and Kevver collaborate with Wendy to design them a monster billboard. After a long brainstorming session, they come up with something not unlike the cover, inviting people to "Enter the Monster of the Year Contest Today!" With the design created, they reproduce it onto panels, and Pete helps them put it up on display. This has been a good third of the book already, which might be even slower pace than some Goosebumps books~

Fortunately, things do start to kick off now. With the billboard up, people begin to wonder who set it up. They contact the firm, and since the boys aren't trying to keep it a secret, they cop to it immediately. This gets them an invite to be on the radio with their favourite early morning DJ, Skip Toomaloo. And as unlikely a name as that is, you could get away with thinking it's just a radio persona. But no, when they actually go on the show, turns out Skip has a daughter named Lulu. Let me repeat that for you: Lulu Toomaloo. Saddled with a name like this, is it any wonder little Lulu turned into kind of a complete brat, planning revenge on her father at every waking moment? Worse yet, she's also a walking fat joke, since her wrath can be bought off with food. It was still the '80s, and that's what we did with fat characters. Seriously, though, nearly all her lines are her announcing she's hungry. There's probably a reason why this isn't one of Bruce Coville's more beloved books~

Anyway, the real meat of the story starts shortly after they find a cloud of bats conspicuously hanging around the billboard. A day or two later, they start to receive telegrams from Transylvania. Someone's now actively sponsoring the contest, and another someone is coming to enter. After confirming that Transylvania is, in fact, a real place, they decide to humour whoever sent the telegram, just in case it turns out to be true. They head to the airport at the stated time, though the flight ends up delayed, coming in at midnight. How appropriate~

The man who comes to meet them is a little hunchbacked fellow in a labcoat, who introduces himself as Igor. He's a bit harried, and rushes them all off to the baggage claim as quickly as possible. It's a good thing, too, since the plane crew has just unloaded an enormous crate for him. Before they can move it, though, the crate begins to shake. Suddenly a huge green fist smashes through one surface, threatening to burst out of the crate entirely. Either Igor's got a monster in the box, or his illegal Hulk Hands smuggling job is going poorly. Igor springs ahead and uses a syringe of some kind on the open hole in the crate. You can tell this is the '80s, since he managed to get that on the plane with him. The crate calms down and allows itself to be transported out to their car.

They try taking Igor to a hotel (conspicuously named the Karloff Inn), but Igor throws a fit when they won't take his Transylvanian money. Dude, I know your flight got in late, but you should've visited the currency exchange. That's on you, man. Since the hotel won't take him, they agree to put him and his crate up at their house. Igor insists on taking the crate up to the guest room with him. Fortunately, he's strong enough to make it an easy task. They all go to bed, and when they get up, there's a seven-foot green-skinned fellow at the breakfast table. Sounds like a typical Wednesday to me~

So this green fellow. He's exactly who you think he is, but what to call him? Well, this one is named Sigmund, but the brain is from a fellow named Fred. So he's called Sigmund Fred. Mostly the book just calls him Siggie, so that's what this review will do as well. But I will never, ever, ever, ever make a song about the Siggie. DJ Skip drops by, and he lets Igor and Siggie on his radio show so they can rant about how they were treated at the hotel. So at this point they're still debating how much of this is real or a publicity stunt. Even Mike's not sure--at least, until the enormous bat turns up in his room that night.

The bat, of course, quickly turns into a tall, pale man in a neat tuxedo. He introduces himself as "The Count" (and it's always just "the Count"), and assures Mike that he's not here to drink his blood. No, he's looking for hospitality. While Mike goes to clear it with his parents, the Count's coffin is delivered to the house. This is one of the funniest jokes in the whole book, because Stepdad Jeff thinks that vampires are more believable than a delivery service that operates at 3 AM. They set the Count up with a partitioned space in the basement.

At breakfast, it turns out that Siggie/Igor and the Count have a bit of a rivalry. They begin to fight at the breakfast table, both leading up to arguments of whose movies were worse. It only gets interrupted when the doorbell rings and the Creture from the Yucky Lagoon is standing there. We'll just be calling him Goony. Goony's appearance is a bit too convincing for anyone to think it's a costume anymore. (He even confesses they used to put a fake zipper on him for his movies.) And shortly after Goony moves in, someone else comes to the door. He's a perfectly ordinary-looking man, except for his large unibrow. After a comment from Igor, Mike realises he must be a werewolf. Where wolf? Here wolf.

The Mummy shows up overnight and off-screen, and Quasimodo (or "the Quaz" as the book decides to nickname him) also joins them further in the day. Skip invites the group out to dinner at a semi-formal restaurant called Chez Stadium. I see what you did there, Bruce. Anyway, as the group makes a toast to Mike and Kevver for hosting and judging the contest, and that's when Mike suddenly realises he's in deep shit. He's got to pick one of these monsters to make happy--and make the rest of them very angry. Mike tries to steer the conversation to their movies instead. This turns out to be a very bad idea.

Goony is a very sensitive sort and begins crying when teased at how bad his movies are (it's sadly true, one of them was even on Mystery Science Theater). This starts a long discussion and argument. The argument quickly turns physical, with all of the monsters rough-housing and throwing food. And of course, Myrna Smud is also at the restaurant, and she gets a faceful of it. Eventually, the police come and break it up. By the next day, Myrna has changed her BAM! campaign from "Billboards Are Monstrous" to "Ban All Monsters". Wasn't that a Godzilla film?

Hey, speaking of Godzilla, the doorbell rings again and delivers another package to Mike. Inside this one is a miniature, fire-breathing Tyrannosaurus. This is Gadzinga, star of those Japanese monster movies. Everyone knows they use miniatures in those films, right? Gadzinga talks very roughly, but fortunately not anything I would mark as stereotypical or racist. More of a Joey Wheeler Brooklyn accent, really. Which is... weird, but not questionable. They also make mention of a masked phantom in this scene, which is I think the only time it's mentioned. Anyway, to bolster their reputation, they decide to put in some appearances at the local schools.

This goes about as well as you're expecting. Actually, most of it goes pretty good. The Mummy talks to the history classes, Goony sits in on biology, and so forth. But then suddenly, all hell breaks loose. One classroom has cornered Igor, and he's not even a participant in the contest. He's more like Siggie's manager. Nevertheless, the kids are gonzo for Igor, mobbing him like a rockstar and demanding he sign stuff. I dunno, as a kid, I'd've gone for the Count myself. They manage to extricate him from the action, but the news crew catches it on film, leading Myrna Smud to talk more about "corrupting the youth" and "overstimulating the imagination".

And yet, it's finally time for the day of the contest. And of course, on the way there, there's a minor riot by Myrna Smud and her BAM squad. Lulu Toomaloo (who has been a major secondary character throughout, just not interesting enough to mention) actually grabs a megaphone and begins her own counter-protest. Essentially you have two sides shouting "we love monsters" or "ban all monsters" at each other. Eventually it boils over, and only ends up resolved when Kevver whips out their finale show-stopper: a mechanical flag that pops up and plays "The Star-Spangled Banner". Everyone's patriotism is stirred and resolves the issue. Nowadays, you'd think that'd only make things worse~

And now Mike has to make a decision. Struck with sudden inspiration, Mike begins a long speech about what it means to be a monster and how he's gotten to know each of these monsters and understand them over the course of the contest. But there's only one person present tonight to really exemplify what it means to be a monster, to have that ugliness inside and out. And that person is... Myrna Smud! Yes, who else is deserving enough of the title of Monster of the Year than someone who calls to ban a group of people from public appearances and declare they're ruining the children's minds. The other monsters look taken aback, but amusingly give their approval after a moment.

The book wraps up pretty quickly from there. Everyone decides not to sue each other. The monsters depart, keeping in touch with Mike and Kevver by mail. Turns out the whole contest did get them some publicity, and they're pulling in some new endorsement deals. Okay, boys, but if anyone tries to talk you into a "Dark Universe" series of movies, turn them down. It won't end well, I assure you. And the monsters themselves had so much fun tha they're willing to get together for a convention again each year. So watch out, because you never know if they'll host it in your town next~

This book is, honestly, pretty good. It’s one of Bruce Coville’s sillier works, which might also come from being one of his earlier works as well. And if you get down to it, it’s ultimately a story about treating folks with respect. It’s pretty much what all the monsters wanted, and why Myrna ended up worse than the lot of them. You could even argue Lulu fits a bit into that, in that no one likes her because she’s a terrible brat. I gave a very short summary of each scene because honestly it’s mostly a lot of back-and-forth dialogue, and that might be worth reading on your own~

And this Halloween, may you also open your home to the monsters that mean the most to you~