#and readings where he projects onto claudia SO SO SO much

[unfinishedslurs]

LOUMAND EPIC DIVORCE FIGHT PT.3

if loumand has 1 million fans I am one of them if loumand has 5 fans I am one of them if loumand has 1 fan it is me if loumand has 0 fans I have been removed from this mortal plane if the world is against loumand I am against the world. failmarriage enjoyers come get y’all’s juice

“What happened to those ‘Great Laws,’ Armand?” He asked, fury rising in him again. “You know, the ones you killed my daughter for?”

“What do you want me to say? Would you have me apologize again so you can refuse it? To tell you that if I could go back and change it, I would? To turn back the wheel of time itself and undo it all? I cannot.”

Louis wanted to strangle him. Would, if he didn’t know that Armand would just sit there and let him, not feeling a damn thing. “I want you to feel fucking sorry!”

Armand rolled his eyes, but Louis had spent over seventy years sleeping next to the monster under the bed. Had decades to learn his tricks and tells. Not all of them, like he might have thought once, but enough to spot the minuscule shift in his expression. The brief twitch of his mouth and the shuttered blink before his face flattened.

There he is, he thought triumphantly. A reaction, a real one. Something that alluded to the man beneath the mask he always wore, not nearly as impenetrable as he thought it was.

“‘Sorry,’” he scoffed, lifting his chin haughtily. “Sorrow is for mortals. We are vampires, Louis. We do not have the time to waste on regrets and what-if’s.”

As if he hadn’t seen into Armand’s mind countless times. As if he had not held him through a thousand nights of wishing he could go back and save his Maker, save Riccardo, save his brothers. As if he had not once confessed to Louis that he sometimes wished he could go back and die a human death in Marius’ arms. The audacity of the lie was almost like a slap in the face of their entire companionship. Or was Armand telling the truth, and those memories the lie? How much did Louis know him, really?

He couldn’t be sure anymore, but he was confident that it was better than any living being on this earth. Enough to get through the lies and rip into the man underneath, the fragile heart in the photograph. If Armand owed him anything, it was this.

“No time? We got nothing but time! You really expect me to believe that when your fledgling is flaunting himself in front of millions with no Maker in sight? You telling me you’re a deadbeat ‘cuz you don’t feel regret?”

Armand’s mouth pursed before he stepped back. “Don’t speak of things you don’t understand,” he warned, eyes darting back and forth. Settling on the closest window like he was thinking about an escape.

Louis didn’t give him one. “Oh, I understand plenty,” he scoffed. “I probably understand better than you. What, you thought you’d make our ‘symbol of love’ immortal for shits and giggles?”

That finally got a visible reaction out of him, swiveling his head back to look at Louis with wide eyes. “I didn’t—“

“You let your coven fucking lynch me because of my fledgling, but eight decades later you’re doing the same damn thing! To the ill and infirmed, no less.”

“What do you want from me?” Armand finally burst out, whirling around on him in an incandescent rage. Louis felt himself smile, could feel his lip splitting as his fangs dropped. “I have apologized time and time again—“

“Only ‘cuz you thought it would fix things!”

“—spent years throwing myself at your feet for your mercy—“

“Mercy? Did you show my daughter—“

“Will it ever be enough? Over seventy years devoted to you—“

“A drop in a bucket compared to the fact that it was over half my life—“

“I don’t know what else I can do!”

“Say sorry and fucking mean it this time!” He roared. “Feel fucking sorry for lying to me throughout our entire companionship! Say something real for once!”

They both fell silent at that, chests heaving through some faded muscle memory. Puppets just going through the motions yet again. What was it that Armand said? Mark it on the calendar, align it with Ursa Major. Louis and Armand’s tri-annual blow-up fight to kingdom come.

Louis’ voice trembled as he said, “I want to know why. None of that ‘I could not prevent it’ shit. I want you to tell me why you let them kill my daughter.”

Armand sank down on the couch, shoulders slumping. Submission and acceptance coloring every inch of him. “Why?” He murmured, staring at his knees. “It will not change anything.”

Louis sat on the other end, keeping as much distance between them as he could. “Humor me.”

“…it is true, that it was because of Madeleine,” he finally admitted. “She was somewhat of a last straw. I had told you before, the creation of more creatures like us was something I could not condone. If you did not love me enough to understand and accept that, how could I trust you over the people in my coven? How could I believe you would not leave me to whatever caught your fancy next?”

“And saving me?”

“Lestat—“

“I don’t mean on stage. Why didn’t you let me die in the coffin? I was almost gone. It would have been over, and then you would have had your coven and spent the rest of eternity directing plays, fooling an audience, listening to Santiago blabbering on…”

“So you’d submit me to a punishment worse than death,” Armand said dryly.

He almost cracked a smile before he remembered himself. “I’m not in the mood to be funny right now.”

Armand sighed, as if Louis was some insufferable child he was humoring. It pissed him off, but yelling wouldn’t get him what he wanted right now. Even if it would be cathartic and incredibly deserved. “The coven wasn’t the same, after,” he said. “They had lost respect for me. In part, I suspect, because they could sense the regret you seem so insistent on. Santiago had never liked me much—“

“He wanted to fuck you.”

“He got off on forcing me to submit. He knew the name I had told you. I don’t know how, whether he heard you say it or if he plucked it out of your head through the appalling shields Lestat had not trained you on—“

“Don’t talk about him. This is about us.”

He looked briefly incensed at that, and he could almost hear the retort, “But you can speak about Daniel?” He didn’t say it, though, because Daniel was different. Daniel had been theirs, in a way that Louis couldn’t put to words.

Armand must have known that too, because he moved on without comment. “The coven could sense my guilt, my regret, and they closed in on me. Is that what you wished to hear? That I saved you to save my own skin?”

“Okay.”

Armand looked at him in surprise, frowning. “Okay?” He echoed.

“That was about what I expected to hear.” He learned back against the couch, letting the cushion swallow him and his regrets. It stung, but he was still too angry to really feel it. What was one more betrayal? What was one more petty grievance eighty years in the past?

Armand considered him for a moment. “It was also because I love you,” he said softly. “I do not want you to doubt that. The coven was only part of it. I found I could not bear the thought of your death.”

Found out too late, but hindsight is 20/20. What did it matter that Louis still had stones rattling around in his ankles? The constant reminder weighing him down, never as badly as the memories that came with them. If Armand had decided to wipe the trial from his mind, would he have removed them as well, or left them? Would Louis know why his footsteps felt so strange, what the aching in his heels heart meant when it echoed in his heart? He wished they were back in Dubai, so he could feel the comfort of his rock garden beneath his feet.

“Okay,” he said again. “Now pause the bullshit for a minute.”

Pause. Blink. Head tilt. He could see the cogs turning in Armand’s head like clockwork. For a master manipulator, he was always incredibly predictable. Or maybe Louis had spent too much time with him. “I’m not lying to you.”

“No,” he agreed, “but we’re going around the real problem. You said Madeleine was the last straw, but that was me. Let’s go back to that. Why did you kill my daughter?”

“The Great Laws—“

“I didn’t ask about them.”

Armand fell silent, studiously not looking at him. Louis settled back and waited him out.

Finally he spoke, very quietly. If they weren’t vampires he wouldn’t even have heard him. “I fear that if I tell you the truth, I will forsake the last bit of affection you may still hold for me.”

“If you don’t tell me, you’re gonna get the exact same result,” he said. “So I don’t think it matters.”

The blow struck. Armand swayed as if taking a physical hit, taking a deep breath he didn’t need. When he looked at Louis, his eyes were lined red with tears he didn’t let fall. Truth, or another tactic for sympathy? It didn’t matter. He had plenty of experience ignoring Armand’s tears in the bedroom, he couldn’t let himself falter when it mattered most.

“She reminded me of myself. Of the youth I once had.” It came out of him in a rush, as if he’d been holding the words back for centuries. “Amadeo begged his master to turn him for over a decade, and each refusal battered his very soul. As he grew older, taller, as hair began to grow on his face and chest and between his legs, as his master took him to his bed less and less. Amadeo was loved, yes, yet it was not until I was nearly thirty and dying that my master saw fit to give me the gift. I was jealous, Louis, is that what you wanted to hear? She had everything Amadeo had ever wanted, yet she cursed her own fortune with every breath she took. I forced her to reckon with it, quietly delighted in watching her perform a song that made her more miserable with every note. I thought she was a spoiled, inconsequential flea who would not make it another fifty years. I believed her to be the reason you refused my companionship. A hundred reasons, each of them more petty than the last. What does it matter? You will hate me no matter what.”

Louis thought he might be sick.

Armand closed his eyes, drawing back into himself. “If that was the only reason,” he said almost gently, “I would not have done it. But I had seen dozens like her over the centuries. Children are not meant for the gift. Either madness takes them, or they cannot bear the constant infantilization, or something else, it doesn’t matter. One by one they walk into the sun. The absence of choice can be a mercy.”

He clearly believed what he was saying, which just made it even worse. How much “mercy” had Armand offered over the years?

Even deeper down, Louis wondered if he was right. The first vampire they ever met in Europe had cast herself into the flames before their eyes. Louis himself had run headfirst into the sun and nearly succeeded. How many others had destroyed themselves because they could not bear the Gift they were given?

“Not Claudia. She was strong.” Stronger than Louis had ever been, certainly.

“They all say that, and yet they all succumb eventually.”

“She wouldn’t have”

Armand sighed. “I supposed we’ll never know,” he acquiesced. Louis could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

He let it slide this time. At least the words were true. “No, we won’t.”

They sat in silence for a time, not looking at each other. The only sound from the cars driving outside. They did not need to breathe, to blink, to move at all. As still as the pictures Louis used to take, back when things seemed like they might turn out okay.

Finally, Louis exhaled slowly. Armand turned toward him, but said nothing.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I don’t forgive you.”

Armand didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just stared at him motionless, as if he was waiting for something.

“I don’t forgive you,” he repeated pointedly. “But I’m not going to kill you.”

“I don’t understand.”

Of course he didn’t. Hadn’t that been what he was aiming for when he turned Daniel? If you touch him, Louis had said, and Armand had given his fascinating boy the worst curse he could imagine as soon as his back was turned. 500 years passively yearning for an end no one would provide. Louis wouldn’t be the one to grant him mercy.

His final gift to Armand, or maybe his final “fuck you.” A long life. An eternity at his fingertips, exactly as Amadeo had once begged for. The chance to grow even more powerful until little Arun could never be hurt again. A chance to torture himself for the rest of time in a hell of his own making. A chance to better himself, if Louis was feeling generous.

He wasn’t sure, but after seventy-seven years of standing hand in hand with this man, this monster, this little boy trembling in the midst of all the power he held, he thought it was a kind of salvation. For both of them.

Besides, Daniel was thriving better than either of them in the throes of the Gift. Armand had to have known he would.

“I don’t either,” he said. “You’d deserve it. But I’m tired, Armand, and I loved you once. I think that counts for something.”

Armand’s eyes widened. He stood quickly, putting distance between them, but not before Louis saw a bloody tear slip down his cheek. “Don’t say that to me when you don’t mean it. I cannot bear it.”

He looked as pained as Louis had ever seen him, despair twisting his features at the words Louis had never afforded him when they were together. He was beautiful in his misery, as beautiful as he was in anything. He hated him for it as much as he’d loved him once. The Temptation of Amadeo, rendered in flesh and blood and the viscera of honesty.

“I do. I did,” he said, twisting the knife just to be cruel. “Guess it doesn’t matter now.”

Armand shook his head. Opened his mouth, then froze, caught between words. Still as a painting in the low lamplight. Louis could see the brush strokes on his face, see every piece of art he had shown him overlaid with the real man in front of him.

“Right,” Louis said, when enough time had passed that he was certain Armand wouldn’t say anything. “Glad we had this talk.”

“Are you?”

Louis surprised himself when he answered, “Yeah, actually. I am. You?”

“I don’t know.” He looked frail, sad, tired, but no closer to walking into the fire than he had been when Louis had cornered him.

He thought that deep down, he was probably relieved by it. The confirmation that Louis wouldn’t kill him, that the love between them hadn’t been a complete lie. Still, how would he know? His lack of understanding of Armand’s innermost thoughts had been made abruptly clear to him with a script marked in red ink.

“Anything else we should talk about?” He asked. “Any other lies? Any other Danny’s knocking around in my brain, waiting for me to remember them?”

“No. No, there was only one. Daniel Malloy is not an experience you can replicate, I suspect.”

“Thank God for that.”

He almost smiled at that. “Indeed.”

“Speaking of Daniel Malloy,” Louis said, standing up. “For fucks sake, pick up the damn phone. Give our boy a call.”

Our boy. A slip he hated himself for instantly. It was too easy to fall into their old patterns, something that was probably by design. Shock flashed over Armand’s face before it was replaced by humor. “He hates it when you call him that,” he pointed out.

“I’ve had to deal with that shit for a century, he can handle it.”

“He finds it arousing.”

“You’re not the only one who can read minds around here, you know.”

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

As if Armand still had any right to know who was in his bed. “Are you? Don’t think I didn’t pick up on his thoughts about ‘Rashid.’ You feeding him your blood was probably a dream come true for him. Did you get to pick his brain about it before it was closed to you forever? What did he think of the taste?”

Armand’s lips thinned, and he turned away.

Louis didn’t let him leave without a final blow. “You gonna tell him about the other memories you erased?”

He stiffened. “You have no right—“

“I have every right, and you know it.”

“If you must know, the answer is no. What difference would it make?”

A pretty damn big one, if you asked Louis. He felt it every time he talked to Daniel, the yawning cavern of curiosity surrounding the blank afterimages in his memory, the way he could clearly sense something wasn’t right. Searching the globe for Armand, chasing him in some kind of fucked up role reversal only one of them was aware of. And then Armand, clearly punishing himself with every echoed heartbeat, every kill Daniel took to like a shark in a reef. Only making them both miserable as he hid in solitude.

“Honesty, Arun,” Louis snapped.

They both froze. Fuck. Fuck. Falling into old habits indeed, the world's most ill-timed Freudian Slip. He’d tried so hard to stay away from it, to wrangle Armand’s honesty from him in a way that didn’t depend on the command of his submission. He’d finally gotten what he wanted, and then he had to go and screw it up.

“I am not Arun to you, anymore.” Armand’s voice trembled. “I would prefer you did not use it.”

Louis nodded, even though Armand couldn’t see him. Bit back the instinctive apology on his tongue.

“I do not see the use in continuing this pointless conversation. Is there anything else you want of me, anything else you require?”

Yes. He wanted to shake him, tell him that they weren’t done here. He still had questions. He wanted to strip Armand down to the bone, rip his flesh off piece by piece and expose the skeleton underneath. Would that finally reveal the truth, or would he have to go deeper? Into bone marrow, the stem cells, his DNA. Would that allow Louis to know him?

It didn’t matter. The mask had gone up, and Louis didn’t have the energy to pull it back down again.

“No.”

Armand nodded once, his back still to Louis, before walking to the door. He paused with his hand on the knob. “I have always been a coward, Louis,” he confessed, still staring straight ahead. Louis could see the set of his shoulders, the clench of his fist, but not his face. “There is your truth.” He twisted the knob, opened the door. “You will not see me again, if you do not wish.”

Before Louis could reply, he was gone.

[cuntylouis]

I'm getting tired of hearing the sentiment that Louis doesn't care about Armand's trauma or have any sympathy for him. In the museum scene his expressions and body language were almost exactly similar to the scenes where Claudia and Lestat talk about their respective assaults. And in all these scenes he's mostly quiet. So does it mean Louis doesn't care about Claudia's or Lestat's traumas either? Of course not. It's just how he outwardly reacts in situations like this. He tends to shut down and doesn't know how to express his empathy and distress. Dreamstat represents Louis' hidden thoughts, but at the museum he's actually next to Louis listening quietly for the most of the scene. It's only at the end when Armand compares Marius, Magnus and Lestat to each other that dreamstat reacts angrily. And it's not mocking what happened to Armand, it's a manifestation of Louis' discomfort, him fearing that he's being manipulated and being uncomfortable that Lestat is brought up and that his relationship with Lestat is compared to Armand and Lestat's disturbing relationships with their own makers.

What Louis says to Armand in San Francisco is incredibly cruel. He's on drugs and extremely upset and intentionally trying come up with the most hurtful words he can think of, they both are. He very obviously deeply regrets it later. When he wakes up after the sun scene and remembers what he did and what kind of things he said before it he's ashamed and distressed. He's crying (though partially because of pain) and immediately tries to apologize to Armand and reach out for him. He's not angry when Armand leaves him in pain, probably thinking that he deserves it. When Armand later says "after what you put me through here i deserve this" Louis agrees. That's not someone who doesn't care or have empathy.

As often with Louis, i think the things he says to Armand are as much about Louis himself as they're about Armand. He sees himself in Daniel, and his entire speech to Claudia in 2.01 is directed also at himself, and he's projecting his own self-hatred and insecurities onto Armand. Louis fears that he is boring and dull. His husband repeatedly cheated on him and laughed in his face when Louis asked isn't he enough. During his depression years Lestat complained about Louis just reading and not leaving the house and how he was drawing Lestat into his gloom. He felt his sister-daughter was more interested in the theater and the coven than spending time with him. The coven mocked him and his passions and didn't find him that interesting after he stopped being a novelty. He was told that he didn't have much artistic talent. In the 70s his life seems to be repetitive and meaningless.

Louis subconsciously detests the qualities he recognizes in Armand that he recognizes and detests in himself - including being a victim. The interview was interrupted when Daniel criticized Louis for going back to Lestat and for his passivity and suicidal ideation. When he's fighting with Armand that all is on his mind. What he says about Armand's "daddy vampire grooming him into a little bitch" actually brings to my mind such scenes as how he derisively said in the second interview that he had become an unhappy housewife living with Lestat, and how dreamstat called him a "little whore". The shame of having experienced abuse and all the feelings of emasculation and degradation that came with it have never left him. Even in the second interview Louis firmly says to Daniel that he doesn't consider himself abused and that he isn't a victim. I don't think Louis consciously thinks that being abused makes someone a bad or weak person, but on some subconsious level he probably feels like that - at least if it's about himself. Again, in this same episode we see Louis acting like he deserves how Armand treats him after their fight and his suicide attempt

[raayllum]

More Than Anyone or Anything

or why I think Callum is Like That: The Meta.

AKA because I realized that while I've talked about Snake Boi Callum and why I view him that way before, it was mostly in regards to explaining his canon traits that aren't usually very disputed. These being:

His sometimes obsessively dangerous qualities, specifically surrounding magic (1x04, 1x05, 2x04, 4x01, 4x02, 4x04)

His ambitious side (man heard from the one magical 'expert' he knows that humans just flat out cannot do primal magic naturally, said fuck that, and got it in a week after one week of practice)

His temper (1x01, 1x06, 1x09, 2x07, 3x08, 4x01-4x04, 5x01, 5x05, 5x08)

His ruthlessness (turning on Viren the second Ezran is in danger despite trusting him for years beforehand; his attitude towards Claudia in 2x07 after she's likewise betrayed him; smiling when killing corrupted soldiers in 3x09 even when Ezran expresses grief and Janai expresses horror when she was facing a similar scenario during the timeskip; arguing to take the violent route in 5x05 whereas Ezran and Rayla pick the more preventative one).

Therefore, for this meta, I will be focusing specifically on why I interpret Callum as Selectively Loyal to the point of being willing to help free Aaravos in order to spare, specifically, Ezran and Rayla's lives (and not necessarily anyone else's, such as Zym and Soren).

Strap in boys — this is going to be a long one.

Disclaimers: As always, this is just my opinion, and an interpretation being popular in fanon does not automatically mean it's better or more valid / rooted in canon than any other kind of (less popular? maybe common) interpretation. I will also be making it clear when I'm drawing on sections/snippets from supplementary material (TDP short stories, novelizations, and Tales of Xadia) but give that it's supplementary material, feel free to take it with the ultimate grain of salt.

Related Metas (that's worth reading if you're interested in other Snake Boi aspects that are not going to be heavily touched on here):

Callum's temper (S1-S3) and how it links to him typically feeling helpless to fix/aid his loved ones, causing him to lash out even sometimes at them

How Callum operates differently from Ezran and Rayla (S1-S4), but very well embodied I believe by the scene in 5x05 where Ez and Rayla side with the "violence as a last resort" option and Callum does not

How Callum views Zym and the egg in Arc 1 differently from Ez and Rayla, or how Callum sees things as tools and why he gets fixated on / what he projects onto objects (much like Viren with the mirror)

Differing Priorities for Callum and Rayla in TTM, in which Rayla only engages in their scheming because she thinks Viren is a threat to the whole world, and Callum comes up with their scheme because he just wants to give her closure

What does the Trio's Tales of Xadia's bios actually mean? (this one will be touched on the most down below, so feel free to skip unless you want a more detailed refresher)

Specifications:

If you're someone who doesn't see Callum this way, but you're genuinely interested in reading a differing perspective, please read on. If you're someone who doesn't necessarily see Callum this way, but you're curious and/or on the fence, please read on. If you'd like to add your own thoughts to this post, feel free to add on if it's in support; if it's differentiation, please make your own post (I'll engage respectfully with if it I want to).

If you're someone who is only going to get upset with my viewpoint, please curate your internet experience and do not read this post. If you're only going to make thinly veiled meta rebuttals of this post in a rude way ("even though some people may think...", linking to this post, general assholery), please do not read this post. You would be far happier if you were less obsessed with an opinion I've held for 5+ years and months & months before you likely joined the fandom. i just want to chill in my corner, please do not chuck pillows at me for doing what I've always had a good time doing that doesn't hurt anyone.

With all of that out of the way, let's get into it

What do I mean when I say selective loyalty?

Loyalty has always been an interesting trait to me, simply because in the bulk of storytelling, it is a necessary character trait for a story to function. One of the biggest things that a character can do to be disliked is be a traitor towards someone that trusted them, and if a character is too disloyal, they can be hard to engage with due to a lack of consistency. Characters who start out loyal to no one/nothing inevitably have arcs, provided they stick around in the story long enough, of garnering loyalty for someone (usually found family loved ones > a cause) in order for them to be able to progress as a character. We want characters to bond, and we want them to be there for each other, and if they're not at all, we want to see what happened or what other bonds they might form with other people. If not loyal, we want to see why they're working with someone at the very least.

Therefore, everyone in real life or in fiction has some elements of 'selective loyalty,' since we all have people (the people we know and love) we are more loyal to, fundamentally, than others (strangers / people don't know at all). It's just a natural normal thing to adhere more to valuing and looking after the people in your immediate circles over people you don't know at all, even if that doesn't mean we're void of caring about strangers, either. Our empathy or compassion, as well as the social structure of our living units and lives, are more cohesion for caring for strangers than it is for competing with strangers or being wholly indifferent.

For a quick overview of the way selective loyalty can work, I'm actually going to talk about Claudia quickly, and her internal hierarchy. While she is loyal to the princes ("Their Dad is dead and you lied about it. Plus they're our friends. It's wrong") to the point of that possibly being an opportunity for severance, initially, with her father ("Careful, if you tell the truth you will lose her"), Claudia's loyalty to her father ultimately trumps her loyalty to the princes, and even to her family with Soren.

For the opposite approach of selective loyalty, I'm going to talk about Rayla, who regularly bails out strangers (the boys in 1x03, Phyrrah in 2x07) and enemies (Bait as a frenemy in 1x05, Nyx in 3x05) as well as the people she grows to love (the boys on regular intervals). She and Runaan, as is Soren, are all willing to put their perceived missions/duties not only above but in direct opposition to their familial loyalty / family ties.

Callum, TO ME, is not, and here's why.

When I say that Callum is selectively loyal, I mean that there is ultimately nothing he will put above Ezran and/or Rayla at any interval with very few exceptions (aka if they're still breathing, he's still going to be fighting for them). This is for a few reasons.

I'm going to talk more about why it's Ez and Rayla specifically later, but for now I want to talk briefly about how they factor into his decision making and what see of them from people who have lost his loyalty.

Despite knowing and having trusted Viren for the bulk of his life ("Claudia! Lord Viren! Anyone!"), as soon as Callum learns that Viren has put Ezran substantially at risk ("Two [targets]? What do you mean?" "I'm here for the king, and I'm also here for his son, Prince Ezran") Viren is fucking Dead To Him.

It's not just that Viren lied, it's that Viren's lies and choices put Ezran in danger, and that's just not acceptable. We see this happen again with Claudia in S2, even after Callum defending her and trying to give her chances. She lied, yes, but she scares Ezran and attacks Rayla again, and that's the breaking point.

When you threaten the people he loves, when you scare them, if he trusted you, he will never look at you the same way again. Any loyalty he felt towards you will snap and snap hard, permanently, like a wishbone.

Callum loves and cares for other people. He loved and cared for Viren and Claudia. But unlike Ezran, who is willing to give Claudia a chance in 3x09 to the point of running after her, helping hand extended, and unlike Rayla, who still adamantly loves Runaan even after their fight and with no hint of change from him, Callum does not take other people hurting his family lightly, at all.

He loves and cares for Amaya, and Soren, and Harrow. But even Harrow, his father, is someone he's willing to put on the backburner — despite having an offered chance from Rayla to save him — in order to do what Harrow asked and what Callum's first instinct is: to look after his brother, because it is fundamentally unsafe for Ezran to stay at the castle for any longer, and he knows it.

Callum knows what the egg might mean, but he does not follow Rayla out the dungeon door blindly. He runs only after Ezran does, and only after Claudia might hit Ezran with lightning. Then he acts. Then he makes a choice. Because his loyalty to his brother outweighs after other substantial relationship in his life, at this point, but it doesn't necessarily stay that way.

Inner circle

In Tales of Xadia, all the characters are given values. While the values have more generic explanations (i.e. Callum's highest one, Liberty, is labelled as, "Have you ever resisted the control of others? This value is about freedom and autonomy. You’re motivated by a world without oppression or suppression") the characters individual bios help offer more clarity on their specifics. Callum's, specifically, states, "I am beholden to my inner circle, not some silly kingdom." Ouch, from Katolis' crown prince and Ezran's heir apparent.

It is, of course, important to not take this trait entirely literally. If Callum truly valued his own personal autonomy over everything else, he would've taken Finnegrin's deal in 5x08 in a second if all he wanted as his own freedom. Instead, Callum's highest value being Liberty is far more about his place with Freedom as a Theme more than something he wholly actively desires; again, we see in 5x08 he's willing to risk more of his freedom by doing dark magic in order to save Rayla.

There are things that Callum values more than his own personal freedom and there are things that he values more than magic (2x04: "Callum, you're being an idiot! Why would you do that? You can't risk your life to learn magic") vs throwing himself off the top of the Storm Spire at the slimmest chance of, once again, saving Rayla.

That said, this value and quote is still very useful, as it does then, beg the question, of who exactly is Callum's inner circle? Well...

Ezran and Rayla are the most important people in the entire world to him. Full stop. There is nothing he will fundamentally put above them. He only stays behind in 1x06, thereby not sacrificing the egg by proxy, because Rayla points out "We'll need to be up here to pull [Ezran] out." Even when he was stressing about whether they'd gotten to the Sea of the Cast Out on time, the second Rayla showed a hint of major discomfort/potential self-deprecation, he was offering to get back into the goddamn boat to comfort her ("I'm getting out—" "No. I can't do it, but you have to"). He's hesitant to go into town to find a vet for the egg because "We will definitely find some elf hating humans," pouting further when Rayla brushes him off, and flings himself off his balcony when he thinks there's even a chance that Ezran isn't okay into what he knows would subsequently be a trap. He's the first to say that they need to leave Rex Igneous' chambers after protecting Ezran from falling rocks with his own body, and the last to actually leave, almost being crushed by rocks himself because he's so committed to standing there and watching Rayla leave.

He equates Rayla's love for him with his love for Ezran on Day Nine (2x03: "I couldn't tell him. And I understand why you couldn't tell me. When you care about someone, it's hard to hurt them. Even when what you're saying is the truth.")

Hell, he even forgets that Sol Regem is there in 3x01 because he tunnel visions on Rayla needing his help so intensely she has to point out the massive ton dragon actively trying to kill them to him.

He's a nurturer, a fixer, a solution seeking. He wants to make you feel better ("See it's working right? Don't you feel a little better?"), he is a kind reassuring word ("Don't be so hard on yourself, Ez") always, he thinks of your problems even when you don't (Rayla's binding in 1x07), he will lay his life down for you without question ("I am Prince Ezran"), he will get mad at you for treating yourself poorly (3x04, like almost all of S4), he dotes, he notices, he will compromise his beliefs for you ("Could he really bring himself to go through with his plan? What if he didn’t succeed? What if he compromised his beliefs and it was all for nothing? [...] But Rayla was in trouble"—S2 novelization).

You mean everything to him: "Rayla's strong, thin arms wrapped around him meant everything" (S2 novelization of the hug scene in 2x04) / "You're my brother, and you mean everything to me" (2x06).

You are his whole world.

If you're part of his inner circle, and not everybody is, so let's talk about it.

[ Callum, excluding Claudia and Soren from their support system, even though the siblings haven't yet betrayed them, while including Rayla, even though he and she haven't made up yet. ]

What about Soren and Zym?

As stated before, Callum's selective loyalty does not mean he doesn't care about other people in his life, such as Claudia (in the past) and people like Amaya, Soren, and Zym in the present. Merely that, slightly like Claudia, Callum does have an internal hierarchy of care — the way you might have friends vs best friends — of who takes priority, and we see S1, S4, and S5 in particular demonstrate this quite well.

As already stated, Callum prioritizes Ezran over the egg in 1x06 and is held back emotionally by Ezran fuelled logic and physically by Rayla. In 1x07, he doesn't want to risk going into town — even to potentially find help for the egg — because of his last disastrous experience with humans and Rayla. In 2x04, Callum is perfectly happy to walk around a sea to let Rayla avoid her fear of water, and approximately 5 minutes later is getting on Ez and Rayla's case for goofing off (with Rayla's thinly veiled and fallible disguise) because "Sometimes getting someplace slightly faster is important, like right now." Wasn't quite the tune he was singing earlier, now was it? For Zym, we see this again in 3x04 — Rayla is having a breakdown, so she has more of an excuse, but Callum should conceivably be much more clear headed, and he still tunnel visions into leaving Zym alone with Nyx leading to the theft. Likewise in 4x07 when the group thinks Zym might be gone, Ezran is the one who states, "I'm not leaving without him," and Ez and Rayla are both pretty broken up about it; Callum is sad, for sure, but he mostly focuses on taking care of Ezran and placing a hand on his shoulder.

Then you have Amaya, who Callum loves dearly, but isn't particularly torn up over not trusting or lying to (1x04, 5x03) in spite of being close to her, and isn't as vexed even when he thinks that maybe something bad has happened.

Even when Callum thinks it was bad, and potentially very bad ("The way Gren was talking, I thought maybe the world was ending or something!") he doesn't get angry and he doesn't get demanding. This is very different from how he responds to Ezran and Rayla being potentially in danger or just in trouble.

Which on that note also highlights another key importance between how Callum treats Rayla, in particular, versus how he treats Soren. Now, you could argue that Callum in 5x01 has emotionally matured/healed further than he has in 4x01 prior to Rayla's return, and that would be perfectly fine to do. However, it doesn't change the fact that just the hint of Soren keeping a secret — even before Callum thinks, at all, that it's about Ezran — makes him wait on the battlements to coldly and sternly interrogate Soren about it. With Soren, he demands,

C: I know this — the ties are true as the ocean is deep [...] It means I trust her. Unconditionally. Let her go. Now. R: About your key and the bow. I can explain. C: No, I meant what I said. You don't have to explain or justify anything to me.

Even when Rayla engages in actually shady behaviour — omitting the truth if not outright lying, stealing his key, and retrieving a painfully poignant weapon — Callum doesn't get mad, at all. Soren just implied he was potentially keeping a secret from Callum at the council meeting and lowkey got his ass handed to him, with Callum literally shoving him out of his way and needing Corvus' help to coral the angry step-mage.

Furthermore, even when Soren goes missing in 4x06, although concerned, Rayla is by far the most broken up about it. Ezran is optimistic because he's, well, Ezran; Rayla is torn because even though she doesn't know Soren that well, she feels like it was 100% her fault he's gone missing and has possibly gotten hurt; and Callum, well... mostly focuses about how she feels about it, and less so about his actual friend (because if Ezran or Rayla are emotionally hurting, they will take priority to him). He's focused on making sure she feels better.

Again: Callum loves Amaya, and Zym, and Soren. He loves them dearly. He wants to and does protect them. He can and will take care of them. But push come to shove, they're not in his inner circle — he doesn't trust them the same way, and he doesn't focus on them the same way, because when it comes to his inner circle, he loves them

More Than Anyone or Anything

So after seeing Callum like this from S1 onwards, you can imagine I was pretty thrilled upon opening up his bio in Tales of Xadia — which seems to be the most 'canon' of the supplementary materials thus far (scenes and ages are changed in the novelizations; timelines get a little wonky in the prequel graphic novels; some designs from "Callum's Spellbook" ended up being different; the art book is full of beautiful concepts, of course, that never understandably got off the ground) except perhaps for Though the Moon — said the quiet part out loud. Not only does TOX have plenty of lore drops and hints at future arcs that are coming to fruition (Aaravos' connections to Elarion, mentioning the Great Bookery of Lux Aurea and Leola, etc) but they did something very interesting when it came to what values which character had. There's some leeway as this is very much an Arc 1 reading (probably most clearly seen in Soren's bio) but there is still plenty of bleed over into Arc 2.

Now, as I said before, we don't want to take the Values too literally. As talked about previously, a lot of the characters highest values seem to be things their arcs are set up to thematically test rather than being a 1:1 what they value the most. But I feel like you can glean a good deal from them, so let's look at the trio:

EZRAN:

Justice — 10: I expect the best of people and try not to become an agent of cruelty.

Devotion — 8: All creatures—regardless of origin—deserve love and appreciation.

Liberty — 8: I value the liberty of everyone, sometimes even more than my own.

RAYLA:

Devotion — 10: Love and devotion compel and define me.

Justice — 8: At great personal cost I will strive for what’s right.

Liberty — 8: My only allegiance is to my heart and those who know it.

CALLUM:

Liberty — 10: I’m beholden to my inner circle, not some silly kingdom.

Devotion — 8: I value those close to me more than anyone or anything.

Mastery — 8: I aspire to know the great wonders of every primal magic.

Out of all the more 'heroic' characters listed in the handbook (Amaya, Janai, Aanya) only Callum and Lujanne do not have Justice, "Have you ever been compelled to fix what’s wrong? This value is about balance, virtue, and reward. You’re motivated by adherence to fairness and what you think is right" among their top 3. Each have it at a 6, instead, which the guide labels as, "This matters, but so do many things" and is the second lowest ranking a value can have. None of the main cast have any value at the highest ranking, 12, either, to help indicate scale perhaps.

Devotion, then, is the one we're currently the most interested in for Callum, since as said before, while the general value descriptions are useful, the specific ones help show more indication. Devotion is referred to in Tales of Xadia as, "Have you ever been obligated to others? This value is about duty, faith, and friendship. You’re motivated by the bonds of loyalty and your love for others."

Although devotion is Rayla's highest value, her devotion value makes no indication of who/what she is Devoted to. Whereas Ezran's reflects his deep love and appreciation towards animals (hence saving the baby glow toads in S5) and Callum's we'll get to in a moment, Rayla's we're not privy to. Instead, we can look at her Liberty value, as it states that her allegiance is to her heart ("My heart for Xadia") and to her loved ones (her friends, her family). Much of her arc is therefore feeling torn between what she thinks/feels her duty is versus what her heart is telling her, indicated by her letting Marcos go in 1x01 and the subsequent fallout.

We can also see her state this more clearly in Through the Moon, in which Callum is the one primarily concerned with her parents ("he’s stuck worrying about her parents. About what happened to Runaan. She can’t move on, not without knowing the truth of what happened [...] I hope you find your parents. And Runaan"), versus Rayla going along with the plan, "Callum, listen. Soren was worried about Viren too. Worried that we never found a body. We need to know what happened to Viren. He’s a threat to the whole world! This might be the only way to be sure he’s actually gone! [Upon entering the Portal...] Okay. Viren. My parents. Runaan" and then 5x01 spells it out even more directly.

R: Callum and Ezran need me. A great evil is trying to return to Xadia and we have to stop it, at any cost. I think this is what you would want me to do. I love you, and I haven't forgotten about you. I never will. [...] It hurts me to know they're trapped like this. It's agonizing. But our mission comes first. The world is in danger, and you can trust me to stay focused.

Now this makes sense, as Rayla having this push and pull has not only been a defining feature of her arc most seasons, but is ultimately what's going to be the most challenged when the Callum possession plotline rears its head. Does she kill/incapacitate the man she loves in order to protect the world, or does she fight to get him back no matter what, even if that may lead to ruin and chaos? (I'm hoping for the second one, but I will eat either up, lemme tell you.) Does she finally refuse to sacrifice, or does she barrel on hoping she'll only have to sacrifice herself?

The reason I bring Rayla up at all is because I think it provides a good contrast to how Callum operates, specifically in 5x04, in which case he reaffirms his devotion ("I would do anything for you") and then risks everyone's lives by staying late at the Great Bookery, even when Rayla says three times that well, this isn't the time: "Not yet, Callum... Believe me, I want to do something, but... Callum, we need to leave!"

Rayla cares about everyone, and is willing to risk her life for enemies and for strangers. She will abandon her mission for the world in favour of looking after individuals because they need help, regardless of what it asks of her: "Live or die, this dragon goes home." (And because she believes Ezran and Callum can accomplish the mission without her, but that's a post for another day.) As Bloodmoon Huntress makes explicit, as Ethari says:

Who I love, where I love, what I love, are all specific. But to Runaan and those like your parents... love is rooted in all families, all creatures. Souls like that feel called to protect everyone as fiercely as those they hold close. Each time Runaan leaves, it is with the weight of knowing that he may not come back. That to fulfil his duty, he may need to sacrifice everything, himself, and all that we have here.

Rayla likewise feels called to protect everyone, and that's precisely why by the end of Bloodmoon Huntress she's chosen to literally and figuratively follow in Runaan's career path, in order to be able to help protect and save people like Suroh (a stranger she immediately becomes entangled with). As Rayla says to the vision of Runaan and her parents in 5x01, "I think this is what you would want me to do," because they are ultimately all more alike (even in the occupations Rayla holds, such as assassin or dragonguard) than they are dissimilar.

The reason I highlight Rayla here is because 1) it is her highest value, being the only character to have it as said highest value (Claudia's, likewise, is only an 8 — but everything she does is indeed for her father, and unknowingly herself) and 2) I think it provides a clear contrast to Callum.

Because Callum's devotion does outline who, or what, he's loyal to. He isn't loyal just to causes and he isn't loyal just to concepts. While he cares about the world, when his back is up against the wall and it's a choice between that kind of security vs the life of a loved on (Ez, Rayla), Callum will always choose the latter. He cares about the world — to a Point.

I've talked about it before, but merely a statement of "I value those close to me more than anything" would accordingly be a lot more vague. There could be discussions and debates on what the 'anything' constitutes (morals, responsibilities, hurt feelings) with a lot more grey room as to whether it would include people (strangers).

“Maybe there is something I can do,” Callum said. “Ezran, you stay here. Protect Bait and Zym. Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon—with Rayla.” [...] Could he really bring himself to go through with his plan? What if he didn’t succeed? What if he compromised his beliefs and it all ended up being for nothing? […] But Rayla’s blade bounced off with a clang, sparks flying. She reeled back and tried again. Nothing happened. She was in trouble. Callum inched toward Claudia’s [book].

—Book 2: Sky novelization

But the inclusion of "more than anyone" changes that. It does include people. There is no wiggle room about that.

Now, I'm not going to base my whole thing on one (1) statement from a supplementary material. As previously stated, I've seen Callum with that exact same sentiment for years now, well before Tales of Xadia (March 2022) was released, and well before S4 or S5 premiered. I've gone over a lot of the reasons I thought Callum had selective loyalty even in S1, but I haven't touched too much on one of the biggest reasons why I think that selective loyalty includes a devotional component that borders on dangerous (at least, in a story). And that's, well...

“Rayla told me you used Dark Magic,” [Ethari] said, more stiff and cold. Callum shrank a bit, but his eyes hardened. “I couldn’t just let her die.” “You’d do it again." The prince scowled. “I’m not like Aaravos. He twisted the primal to be like Dark Magic. I would never do that.” “Unless you felt like you had to,” [Ethari] reiterated. “To save Rayla.” “Wouldn’t you do anything to save the person you love?”

—chapter 13 of a fic I co-wrote called in search of silver linings (we discovered gold) from july 2019, respectively

As soon as Callum opened up the door with dark magic in 2x07, I knew it was something he likely would never be able to entirely close. Not for lack of trying or wanting — but that his willingness to engage in dark magic at all spoke to a few different things. The first was the effectiveness — what spell to use, what would be most useful, and what Rayla's biggest problem would be (her swords unable to cut chains) — but most of all was what pushed him there: his devotion.

While magic has always been the thing presenting Callum with paths (to be a mage or not a mage, to be a primal or a dark mage), his bonds with other people, and his love for them — Rayla in particular — has always been what's actually pushed him down certain paths. His love for his mother, and her love for him, is what helps him unlock the sky arcanum. Callum unlocks his wings out of his love for Rayla; he goes down on the path of mage because "you called me a mage, and that felt right."

Although mastery of magic is one of Callum's highest values (an 8, just like his devotion), it was always clear to me that magic is not something Callum values above the people he loves. He can be obsessive, and his love for magic can sometimes put himself and other people unintentionally at risk, but thus far we've always seen him course correct the minute he realizes what's happening. The second things begin to go south at the Banther Lodge, Callum reflects, "We never should've come here," and completely forgoes the quest for the cube. He tries to risk his life just for magic in 2x04, but as we've gone over, he's unable to go through with it, but he will risk his life for his loved ones.

His rejection of dark magic was, to me, of being a dark mage, of not also pursuing primal magic, of relying on dark magic. Not that he would never, under any circumstance, ever do dark magic again if the show put him in the right circumstances. And then he did, in spite of knowing it would make him more vulnerable to Aaravos, in spite of not having any confirmation it wouldn't bring on a second possession, in spite of the fact he was fine being tortured if that meant not doing it or participating.

Then we have Callum giving up the spell, and the fact that the Ocean arcanum is linked more directly to love within his arc — "To love is to simply know this: the tides are true as the ocean is deep" (5x01, 5x08) — in addition to being aware that there are unknown depths in what he's willing to do for said loved ones/Rayla.

This is not to say that none of the main cast would do dark magic — although I don't think Soren or Ezran ever would, and I think Rayla would but only perhaps using herself as spell parts — but that, as the primary mage character, it's going to and is playing a much bigger part in Callum's arc than the others, who are given other thematic considerations.

He hates dark magic. He doesn't want to let Aaravos control him. He refuses to help Finnegrin. He folds on all of those things motivated by love. It's a weakness and a strength; something that, in my eyes, will likely lead to his fall to Aaravos ("Seems to me love's got a tighter grip on you than those chains around your wrists, so I'll do you a favour [by killing Rayla] and set you free") as well as what might save him. But to focus on the fall, with everything already said behind us:

Why Love Instead of Curiosity?

Now, obviously the theory of "Callum will free Aaravos because of [insert non possession reason here]" could be wrong. There's merits in having arcs about the tragedy inherent in losing your agency, it would still open up an interesting arc after the fact, and all that good stuff.

Callum has also very much always been an Icarus figure. He can be obsessive with magic, he can take it too far, and he does have a deep curiosity and thirst for knowledge that has already gotten him in trouble by not excluding dark magic from the bunch.

And deep curiosity is already hinted to be what partially causes him to fall further into Aaravos' clutches in a few different places. The mirror ("What secrets are you hiding?") and the cube ("Perhaps it will be you, Callum, who discover's the cube's secrets") seem accordingly linked and fittingly so, for the Mystery of Aaravos, as is magic: "it's the secret of the primal".

Zubeia also warns regarding curiosity, citing that, "Aaravos was able to give them something they wanted very badly. Aaravos chose as his instruments people who had strong minds and strong hearts… but who had an insatiable thirst and fascination with magic. Aaravos could offer them access to the great mysteries of the universe. Mages were his prey," which implies that this thirst for magic is what got them (primarily) into trouble. This is reflected (pun intended) in both Aaravos' reading of Viren as "You are too curious, hungry for knowledge and power," and while Callum is hungry for knowledge (and not necessarily power), his short story in which he finds the mirror highlights one of these things as well:

Callum’s eyes prickled with dust and tears. He rushed back to the spiral staircase—but as he reached for the figurine that would activate them, he noticed one last door he hadn’t checked. The small chamber beyond it lay dark and silent. A gleam caught his eye. Callum blinked at his own reflection. Curious, he stepped through the door—and there it was. A mirror.

With all that in mind, and I'm sure there's ones I've missed, too, why on Earth am I arguing that while curiosity may play a factor, I think it's going to be love that ultimately causes his initial downfall / playing into Aaravos' hands?

Well...

For starters, I personally find "doing terrible things for love" to be not only a primary theme of arc 2, but much more fundamentally sympathetic than just getting in over your head because you were a dumbass who couldn't read the signs. I know for myself that if Callum fucks around and accidentally gets himself into a place where (under possession at that point or not) he helps free, or just flat out helps, Aaravos knowing everything that he knows, if he does it for love I will defend his choice every step of the way. If it happens just because he wants more power or magical knowledge (hello Viren 2.0 beat for beat) I'm gonna be a lot more critical of him. After all, Claudia has done a lot of awful things but I still have sympathy for her because they were for her family, in their own fractured way, and operating out of a place of deep emotional pain. If she was doing that just because she wanted to be Powerful and Knowledgable, then no, I'm not going to be that sympathetic.

The other half of it, which you might have already guessed, is that curiosity is not a Motivation. It's a manifestation of a character's pyschological makeup. Even for a character like Viren, who very much chased power, ultimately, for the sake of power, we take time to dive into WHY he wanted those things ("To know that I mean something to you, it means everything to me" / "I dream of a bright future for humanity") and his internal justifications, no matter if some of those turned out to be lies.

Characters who are curious are curious because they want to solve puzzles and have a hard time letting things go; or else they are curious because they want to prove themselves by solving things first; or else they are curious because they deeply love and want to understand and protect the world; or else they are curious because they want to know and have access to tools so that they can fix problems; or else... Well, you get the idea.

Even if it is primarily Callum's curiosity and love/thirst for magic that gets him into trouble (and thus far it largely hasn't been, as we see in S2 with his motivation for doing dark magic — yes, there was a part of him that was undeniably curious about what it would be like, but I don't think he would've pushed himself into doing it without the dire straits of "I had to, to save my friends")... That doesn't answer why he's curious.

Either he will pull a full Greek tragedy and be so scared of freeing Aaravos he accidentally walks into it by trying to prevent it directly (and one of the main reasons he's scared of Aaravos is because he's scared he might hurt people he loves through possession) or he needs another motivation, but it can't just be "Callum really wants this [insert magical knowledge here] and it ends badly," because that offers a plot summary, not an emotional character beat. There's no motivation. They'll have to explain why he wants the magical knowledge, why he's chasing it, why this level of curiosity is something he cannot or will not put down even with all the risk factors at play. It has to be grounded in some kind of sympathetic emotion, and love or fear or a desire to be helpful/useful, or all three makes the most sense to me and with all the prior setup.

Conclusion

As a closing note, as well as thank you for reading this far if you have because this got wildly long and out of hand, I want to reiterate that in many ways, to me, Callum's devotion to his loved ones — that he says "I would do anything for you" and mean it — is indeed his saving grace and biggest difference from Viren, who would rather offer up himself or others or have Harrow die than relinquish the egg, because he would never put a weapon into Xadia's hands. Being devotional — valuing the individual — is not always a good or bad thing, nor is prioritizing the 'greater good' always a good or a bad thing. TDP is deeply interested in exploring all the different circumstances of motivation, sacrifice, and choices.

Nor is selective loyalty a bad thing. I'm not wired that way, but some of my closest loved ones are (and of those in the fandom have, overall, greatly aligned with this perceived aspect of Callum). Merely, this meta is meant to examine the claim in Tales of Xadia that "I value those close to me more than anyone or anything," why I was surprised but delighted to see my view of Callum be so directly spelled out, why I had that view and continue to have it, in addition to aspects/pieces of the text that I think support it.

I believe that Callum is loyal to Ezran and Rayla on a fundamental level he does not really extend to anyone else (including many other people who are also his family) and while this is in many ways something that creates the best sides of him — his nurturing, compassionate, thoughtful and protective traits — it is also something that can be exploitable and dangerous, particularly in a narrative where he is set up to be controlled/coerced by the big bad.

And this meta hopefully explained why.

You can take it or leave it.

—Dragons out

[cosmicjoke]

Wow, Marius sure has a bug up his ass about Akasha falling in love with Lestat, haha.  It’s almost shocking how bitter he is about it. 

I think what maybe makes this heartbreaking isn’t that Marius feels so spurned by Akasha (though it’s understandable why he does.  I mean, he did take care of her and Enkil for 2000 freaking years), but more so how it impacts Marius’ relationship with Lestat.  Lestat so obviously looks up to and respects Marius, so to see just how resentful and angry at Lestat Marius is over something he literally had no control over is sad.  I feel bad for Marius, truly.  The fact he’s survived for as long as he has is kind of a miracle.  But in a lot of ways, it seems, he’s every bit as responsible for his own miseries as Lestat is for his own.  The big difference between them though seems to be that, while Lestat is able to overcome his anger and resentment of others in short order, and forgive others, Marius seems to be hanging on to his, even while acknowledging his own hand in his problems.

What also seems increasingly clear as I read through “Blood and Gold” is that Marius’ own feelings of discontented loneliness and sense of not being able to be a part of the mortal world also impacted Lestat in a negative way.  One almost gets the sense that part of Marius’ resentment of Lestat is born out of the fact that, despite being told by Marius over and over again that as vampires, they can’t ever truly be part of the mortal world, Lestat still makes the attempt, and doesn’t himself ever really give in to despair, at least not for very long.   It’s interesting to think about how Marius’ resentment of that eternal optimism in Lestat mirrors the way that quality in him has been met by almost everyone in his life, because with Marius, we’re meant to think that he and Lestat are mirror images of each other, that they’re the most alike out of all the characters in the VC.  But as Marius keeps saying of himself, he lives this lie over and over.  His optimism or will to live is almost like an act, a lie he tells himself in order to keep on existing, whereas with Lestat, that optimism is very much real, very much a part of who he is.  It isn’t an act at all, or a lie he tells himself.  He really just does have that kind of self-belief and hope.  I feel like a lot of Marius’ anger at Lestat comes out of a jealousy for his ability to pick himself back up and keep going.  Again, thinking about the implications of that on their relationship is sad, because Lestat so obviously admires Marius, and specifically sought him out for guidance, and, essentially, Marius seems to have ended up projecting his own negativity onto Lestat, which as we know, lead Lestat down a very perilous path for a long time, with Louis and Claudia specifically, and with his own fears of never being able to be a part of the world, or give his existence meaning.  Marius certainly projected his own discontent on this front onto Lestat, driving home this dangerous and destructive notion that they, as vampires, lead a meaningless life. 

With all that said, I do find Marius’ story pretty amazing.  I just got to the part where the city of Rome gets sacked, and before that, how he lived through the rise of Constantine and Constantinople becoming the capital of the Empire.  To know Marius lived through all of that is in itself an incredible thought and feat, especially when you consider how many vampires simply perish after a relatively short amount of time.  As given to depression as Marius seems to be at times, that is a trait he shares with Lestat, the ability to endure.  Though, again, I feel like where they differ is in Marius’ holding on to grudges and Lestat’s ability to forgive and forget.  Marius’ disdain of Mael is a pretty good example, lol.  Of course, I can’t entirely blame Marius for hating Mael either, given the history between them, and Mael doesn’t exactly help with his own, embittered attitude and blaming Marius for his own failings. 

[massiveharmonytiger]

Yeah, I love being in the IWTV fandom, but you guys are so much unnecessary drama sometimes.

Where do I start?

Firstly, TVA is very much my bag, otherwise I would not have read it. I don't waste time reading anything I don't like. Gothic horror bdsm gay monsterfucker erotica is also very much my bag. There seems to be this misconception that anybody that has anything critical to say about Marius is anti-ship, pro-censorship and puritanical, and this is just not true. Liking a piece of media doesn't mean that I can't engage with my interpretation and feelings about the characters, and if you "don't like or approve of" that, you're welcome to block me. If my post made you "uncomfortable", "you should have closed it."

I know people like to do this neat little mental trick called cognitive dissonance where they lie about what a character is because they can't justify liking them to themselves if they really do fit the label. So they do a lot of mental gymnastics to convince themselves that this character doesn't fit the label and crap on anyone who points out that they do or has some sort of alternative viewpoint. But personally, I have liked a lot of abusive characters, and I'll probably continue liking them. I will also continue discussing what makes them abusive as well as what makes them human or what makes them victims, because I like complex characters and looking at the whole picture. Anybody who doesn't like that is also welcome to block me.

It's clear that I was trying to be fair and nuanced about Marius despite the fact that the post is, first and foremost, about Armand's childhood trauma (and what he may be projecting onto Claudia). It's also clear that I'm talking about what was covered in the IWTV show and filling in the blanks with book content, whereas you're just talking about the books. I suggest watching the show before you start trying to poke holes in my metas, at least then I know we're talking about the same thing. Unless you're from the you-know-what part of the fandom that's boycotting the show because the showrunners aren't catering to your every whim and you're not getting exactly what you want. In which case, you're really missing out because the show is visually stunning, the writing is amazing, Assad Zaman is absolutely incredible as Armand and I'll bet that show Marius is going to be just as gorgeous, talented and complex.

I'm just not sure why someone would engage with a fandom where one of the main characters used to be a sex slave that people raped as a child, is "rescued" by someone extremely powerful buying him (which just gave him SO much agency over his situation), trauma bonded with his "rescuer", which is evident by the fact that Armand worships Marius and views him through rose-coloured glasses despite the fact that the minute he acts out for his attention or leaves and tries to establish other bonds of his own free will (this excludes the times Marius sent him to the brothels to polish his skills), he gets beaten or threatened. Here's a post I made about it, featuring some of the Marius tantrums you were so curious about. If you're interested. And yes, Marius is a silent, sulky type, which just makes him all the more terrifying when he does lose it. And Armand, who has been conditioned to find terror and abuse arousing reacts in the only way he knows how to. Marius doesn't question it because he's getting what he wants, but please note that he adds a few kind and gentle words afterwards, just in case Armand one day decides no amount of love is worth this.

I'm not sure why someone would engage with a fandom where all of this happened to a character, and then be surprised when Armand kinnies see traces of their own trauma and victimhood in Armand and their own groomers and abusers in Marius, and (understandably) want to rip Marius a new one. It's just common sense. This kind of media is for them as well and while you may get off on jumping to the defense of fictional characters because you can't grasp the fact that they can be likeable and detestable at the same time, I personally care about listening to and learning from the opinions and feelings of real people with lived experiences. As long as nobody is shaming anyone or calling for censorship, they have the right to view media and characters any way they want to. And yes, that includes you, even though you couldn't grant me the same courtesy.

Anyways, I was planning to do some follow up posts elaborating on my original post anyways. Especially the Claudia/Armand parallels, Marius' early relationship with Armand and Armand's later relationship patterns. So thanks for the inspiration. And the side of victim blaming.

Anyone ever think about the fact that Armand probably hated the hell out of Claudia for having what he never could.

Claudia gets rescued from death as an innocent. Armand gets rescued from death as someone whose innocence died the day those slavers captured and raped him.

Claudia gets Louis and Lestat's love and takes it for granted. Armand craves their love but gets their scorn.

After she is made a vampire, Claudia lives with two caring fathers only to pine for a mortal life she'll never have and run away from the situation when the cruelty of being a vampire gets to be too much for her.

Obviously this isn't how I see it. Claudia had every right to run away after how she was treated and seek out her own answers. And her child/fledglinghood definitely wasn't all sunshine and roses. Her aunt abused her, Lestat was extremely cruel to her after Charlie's death, the Loustat brawl, Lestat dropping Louis from the sky, Bruce's abuse - all of these were extremely traumatizing and hard to live through.

My point is that Armand could know all of this and still see Claudia's past as the rosy childhood he never had because his was just that fucked up.

Also, I think book Armand is enslaved around a similar age to when book Claudia is turned (I read it this way, although I'm struggling to confirm this, can anyone confirm?) and I can see him wondering why he couldn't have had the dark gift to protect him then. Why does Claudia get it? Why is she any more worthy than he is?

Where Claudia doesn't have to do a thing, Armand has to prove his cruel streak to earn the dark gift and after he is made a vampire, he lives with his groomer, Marius, who is set on fire and Armand is captured by a coven that teaches him to hate himself until Lestat steps in.

So yeah, why would he stop the coven from killing her when she's had everything he's ever wanted?

Side note because I've seen some really bad takes on the Marius/Armand relationship.

Yes, Armand was in love with Marius and Marius loved him too. Yes, Marius rescued Armand from the brothel. Yes, Marius was kinder than Armand's slavers and Armand enjoyed a lot of the sex stuff he did when he was living with Marius. Yes, pederasty was normalized during that time and Marius was just acting like any man in his position would.

AND

Marius was still a groomer and an abuser. Marius was still in a position of power pulling strings to get Armand to do what he wanted and throwing tantrums when things didn't go his way. Marius still got off on Armand worshipping him. Marius was still Armand's owner and his kindness was dependent on Armand doing what he said (like letting himself be donated when a friend came from out of town - some people will say Armand was lying about that, to which I say, fuck you).

The fact that Armand enjoyed sex, started fetishizing his own abuse and using his body as a tool of manipulation doesn't make him complicit, neither does the fact that Marius had redeeming qualities (beauty, kindness, wisdom) and Armand fell in love with him.

None of this makes what Armand went through any less traumatizing. He's 500 years old and we can still see him grapple with what happened in his childhood.

I have no idea how they're going to portray Marius/Armand's childhood in the show, but I feel that even just a fraction of this would make Armand's resentment of Claudia pretty real, and I really hope we get to see Armand confront this in later seasons even though I'm pretty sure a lot of it is unconscious and he may not even be fully aware that he feels this way.

[eddie-van-munson]

hi ! :)

can you write something for eddie with a henderson!reader that feels kinda jealous of dustin? they are adopted or something like that that makes them feel kinda distant and left out from their family, and now dustin is also leaving them behind because they find steve and eddie so much interesting :(

Warnings: Hurt/Comfort (Angst and Fluff), Enemies to Friends, Reader was Adopted into the Henderson Family as a Teen, Cursing, Gender Neutral Pronouns, Brief Mention of Divorce/Foster Care, Henderson!Reader.

(A/N: I'm still looking for Vampire!Eddie requests! Thank you if you've sent one in!! I appreciate likes, comments, and reblogs if you enjoyed my writing! Thank you!!)

***********

Of course, out of everyone in his chemistry class, you were assigned Eddie Munson as a lab partner. Eddie, he had quite a reputation. No one liked him, but you hated him.

He never quite knew why. He had a pretty good track record with Hendersons'. Dustin loved him, of course, and his mom ended up being pretty fond of him too. She'd insisted that Dustin invite him to dinner when he first joined Hellfire Club. Undenounced to Eddie, he easily fit into three categories that guaranteed Claudia's immediate love of him:

-Dustin's friend ✔

-Young People Who Say "Yes Ma'am" and Ask to Help with the Dishes✔

-Hungry Teenagers That Compliment her Cooking✔✔✔

Eddie, who lived primarily on school lunches and frozen dinners, had eagerly accepted her offers of second and third helpings of pot roast, which definitely won him brownie points in the "mom book".

But then there was you.

Maybe it was because you weren't biologically a Henderson. That must be it. Maybe that's why you had such a bad habit of glaring at him from across the cafeteria. Maybe that's why you so often tried to talk Dustin out of attending Hellfire meetings. Maybe that's why you were actively trying to convince Mrs. O'Donnell to let you do the chem project alone.

Eddie tried not to let it hurt his feelings.

"It's not a big deal. Jesus..." He cut off your argument with the teacher, throwing his bag over his shoulder. "It's one project. I'm not happy about it either, trust me, but you don't see me bitching about it."

Mrs. O'Donnell opened her mouth to scold Eddie for cursing, but the bell cut her off. You refused to meet his big brown eyes, groaning as you packed your backpack up, "Just come to my place after school. Don't be late or I'll start without you."

***********

It took Eddie about twenty minutes to pry himself away from Dustin and up the stairs to your room. You shot him an annoyed look when he opened your bedroom door sheepishly, "I told you not to be late."

He rolled his eyes, "Oh, you're just so eager to see me, hm?"

"No." You spat, not bothering to look up at him as you flipped through the pages of your textbook. "I'm eager to get this stupid project done and throw you out of my house."

He tutted with faux dismay, shaking his head. "Always so sour."

You flipped him off as he snatched a page of your notes, scanning them lazily and plopping down on your bed. You groaned, swatting his leg from where you were seated on the floor, "Ew. Don't sit on my bed with your outside clothes'"

Eddie ignored you, flipping the page to read the back. "Do you smoke? You should. It'd help you relax enough to get that stick out of your ass."

"You are such a-"

"An asshole?" He met your gaze, tossing the paper to the side. "A prick? A dumbass? Trust me, babe. I get it. You don't like me."

You scoffed, trying to hide your embarrassed flush. "I'm not your babe."

His dark brows furrowed, "So you can call me every mean name in the book but I can't call you a nice one?" Eddie rolled over onto his back with an annoyed huff, staring at the ceiling. "Why do you hate me so much, huh? What did I ever do to you?"

Eddie watched your expression as you scribbled something in your notebook. You wrote for a long time before tossing the book to the side and cursing, giving up on the silent treatment. You were quiet for a long time.

Finally, you sighed, crossing your arms. "When Dustin started Freshmen year, he didn't know anybody. He...he needed me. He needed a friend. He was my little buddy."

Eddie stared at you, a crease in his forehead as he sat up on his elbow to listen.

"He and his friends all sat with me at lunch. He always wanted me to drive him home and help him with his homework...Family Video has a deal they run on Thursday, so we had movie night every week. I finally had a sibling. An actual sibling. Not just Foster Care shit."

His expression softened, stomach churning with oncoming guilt.

"When he met you, and I was really happy for him at first, you know? I was glad he had someone else watching out for him at school. But then he joined Hellfire, which is on Thursday nights..."

Eddie frowned. You continued on.

"It wasn't a big deal. I figured we could do something else. But all of a sudden he didn't want to sit with me at lunch because he sat with Hellfire. And he didn't need me to drive me home because you were going to. He started telling you when people picked on him and he'd ask you to go with him to Lucas' games and..." you sighed. "He's always talking about you. It was bad enough with just Steve, you know? But at least Steve isn't a D and D expert. I mean, come on. I don't stand a chance. Of course he worships you."

He had pity in his big brown eyes. You hated it. You'd have preferred it if he laughed at you. You pulled your knees into your chest, unsure what had sparked your sudden vulnerability.

"So yeah, that's why I-..."

"Hate my guts?" Eddie offered, scratching his neck awkwardly.

"Hate your guts." You mumbled it, looking more sad than angry now.

Eddie climbed down off the bed, sitting on the floor beside you. You stared at your chipped toenail polish, trying to ignore the fact that it was oddly comforting to have him a bit closer.

"He talks about you all the fuckin' time. You know that?"

You hesitantly met his eyes, refusing to let your face betray the ounce of hope he'd given you. "Really?"

Eddie chuckled, "Oh, he won't shut up about you."

You couldn't help but give a little smile, blushing. "Welcome to my world."

He laughed, his curls tickling your arm he glanced over at you. There was a silence. "I'm sorry I stole your little brother."

You shrugged, "You didn't steal him. He was eager and willing. 's not your fault." You paused, "It's just easier to hate you than it is to admit that he likes you better than me."

"That's not it." Eddie shook his head, his tone firm. "Not at all. If he had to save one of us from a burning building? I'm going up in flames, babe."

You giggled, your grin genuine, and Eddie couldn't help but return it. You shook your head at him, "Not a chance."

"I'm serious." He insisted. "There's one thing you're not taking into consideration here..."

Your brow quirked, "And that is?"

"It's not that he'd pick me over you. It's that he'd pick D and D over both of us. He's only using me for my wealth of knowledge."

You burst into laughter, head lulling against your bed frame. "He'd go save all of his books, that little shit! We'd both die in that fire!"

Eddie beamed, chuckling, and offered you his hand. "That's why we've gotta save each other, huh? Team up."

He looked so smiley and pretty there. It made you feel smiley and pretty. You were starting to understand why Dustin loved him so much. You shook his hand. "Alright, Munson. I'll bite."

He leaned forward to admire the little pictures you'd doodled on the toe of your sneaker, tracing them with his fingertips. "You ever thought...maybe you and Harrington and I could all co-parent?"

You smirked, watching him toy with your shoe. "What, like he's a child of divorce?"

"Yeah! Harrington gets him from Monday to Wednesday. I get him Wednesday to Saturday. You get him Saturday to Monday."

Eddie grinned when you have an amused snort, "Or we could all three spend time with him together?"

He scoffed, "Are you crazy? You put all three of us in a room with that kid and his head would explode."

***********

[victoria-daydreams]

Of Vices and Virtues

Chapter Fourteen: A Never-Ending Nightmare

AN: Nothing to say other then, thank you to everyone who’s followed this story and this is a long ass chapter.

Word Count: 6.8k

Trigger Warnings: colorism/mentions of colorism

Taglist: @azayamari​

Chapter Fifteen: A Love Supreme

Third POV

Charles' sleep had been fitful that night. His dreams were laced with images that he couldn't name, people he couldn't identify, and an overlapping terror that nearly drove him insane. Waking up with a start, he stared wildly around the room, searching for something that would anchor him to reality. Calming his breathing, he stared up at the ceiling, wondering what had caused such horrid nightmares. He almost felt his body commanding him to go back to bed until he heard it.

A scream erupted through the house, waking everyone from their sleep.

Charles sat upright, immediately projecting his mind to through the home to figure out who had screamed. He mentally checked off each of the members in the house, everyone was awake, most likely because of the ear splitting scream that reverberated throughout the mansion.

Puzzled, Charles reached out once more, only to remember that he hadn't checked on Claudia. However, the second he touched his mind to hers, he was met with such an overwhelming sense of horror and fear that he pulled out immediately, feeling slightly sick at his stomach. Rationalizing that he had probably unwittingly shared her dreams.

Charles slid his feet out from the warmth of his blankets, pulling a pair of loose gray sweatpants over his boxers, he made his way out of the room and hurried to Claudia's room, cursing slightly upon stubbing his toe at the door frame. His body convulsed as he searched Claudia's mind once more. Pain rushed through him before he stepped out of her mind. Charles slowed his jog down where he already found a small crowd of the mutants around Claudia's door.

"Go back to bed. Erik and I will handle it," Charles instructed sternly, but there was a gentle undertone to his command.

Though they looked upset, the young mutants shrunk away back to their rooms, each casting glances back. They had never seen Claudia like this, none of them had ever seen Claudia scared. And the sudden show of emotion being terror shocked the young mutants. A look passed between them all, one of both shock and concern.

Erik turned to Charles. "What is wrong with her?"

Another scream ruptured the air.

"I searched through her mind and it was filled with so much pain I had to leave," Charles explained. "Open the door!" he ordered, and Erik obliged quickly.

Claudia was twisting and turning in the bed, her body jerking and arching. Sweat was pouring from every point and her nails were scratching away at the fabric. Her eyes were moving frantically under her eye lids, vibrating almost.

She ran through the dark, she could not see where she was going but she knew that if she didn't run then she would be consumed by the evil that followed her. Running as fast as she could she continued through the pitch black. She could here the thunderous footfalls behind her as the evil drew closer.

Suddenly she ran straight into a wall of some kind. She could not see it but as she ran her hands over it to find an entrance of some kind, she could feel its rough texture. As she continued to find a way through she heard a bang behind her, turning around she could still see nothing through the dark but she felt its hot breath on her skin. Desperate now she turned round again back to the wall, however she saw two dark brown eyes, that were nearly black gleaming down at her. Screaming she tried to run left between the wall and the man behind her, but she was stopped in her tracks by another solid object. Turning around she tried to her left but again she was stopped.

She was trapped.

"You are mine Claudia!" A voice came from behind her. Turning around, she shot a bolt of energy straight at the sound but it did not collide with anything. Suddenly she felt hands come from behind her and grabbed her head. "Your powers are mine!"

Struggling with all her strength she tried to break free but the grip was to strong, and her strength was being drain from her.

"No, stop it. Leave me alone. Stop it. STOP IT!"

"Stop it. STOP IT!" Claudia screamed as she sprang awake.

Not even aware of the two men that were in front of her, she seemed to look right past them, as if they weren't there at all, Charles and Erik didn't need to wonder what kind of monsters she was facing. Pulling her knees up, she wrapped her arms around them before placing her forehead on top and began to shake. Charles slowly took a seat beside her and began rubbing his hand up and down her back.

"Everything's fine. We're all here with you. Nothing is going to happen," Charles soothed calmly, as he continued to rub her back.

Lifting her head slightly Claudia looked to her left to see Charles watching her with a concerned look on his face. Raising her head more, so that she could look around her room she saw that Erik was standing just behind him, an equally concerned look on his face. Erik could see that her tears had stopped for the moment, but her face still had the wet streaks to prove their existence.

"I-I-I-" Claudia stuttered, her lip trembling.

Turning back to Charles, Claudia launched herself into him arms, taking him by surprise, but he wrapped his arms around her nonetheless as she began crying into his shoulder. Her shaky hands clenched at his shirt and she whimpered into his chest. Charles squeezed tightly as sobs racked her body uncontrollably.

"You're safe Claudia," Charles assured, rubbing her back and planting a kiss on top of her head. "I promise," he added, looking up to share a glance with Erik.

Anger. That was all Erik could feel, anger for all the pain that Claudia has gone through. But there was also an undercurrent of ache in his heart for him not being the one to wrap his arms around her and comfort her.

Charles pressed his lips together, examining Claudia for several moments, wondering if he should tell her what he knew about her dreams, or if she would be frightened by the idea of him having read her thoughts—regardless of whether he had had control over it. It wasn't long before Claudia felt the overwhelming panic die down in her throat as the gentle beat of Charles' heart served as a soothing metronome. Claudia closed her eyes and buried herself deeper into Charles' embrace, hoping that his warmth would push away her nightmares.

After several moments, Charles decided to break the silence.

"I want to try something," he spoke up.

She looked up at him, "Okay..." Claudia responded wearily.

Charles places his finger against his temple once again and let out one word into Claudia's mind.

Sleep.

And Claudia took no time in shutting her eyes and falling into the deep world of dreams. For once, she had been able to forget the pain of her past, and fell into a peaceful sleep.

"What did you do?" Erik asked as he stared at the woman he considered a good friend.

"Though she's too stubborn to admit it. She hasn't been sleeping well, I noticed it when we first took her to the CIA facility. I just simply put her into a deep sleep. One that she would recover feeling refreshed instead of exhausted," Charles explained as he pulled Claudia's blanket up and secured it around her sleeping form.

"Goodnight, Claudia. Pleasant dreams," Charles murmured sweetly.

~~~x~~~

Claudia's POV

The blinding light managed to make it's way through the cracks of the satin blue curtains. It peeked it's way inside my eyes, and I let out a deep breath, as soon I gained back my senses. I closed my fingers into fists, then flexed them, getting use to the feeling. I could feel air flow in and out of my nose, and hear my surroundings. Finally, I felt alive and well. A light rapping came from my bedroom door, then it slowly opened, as Charles poked his head in, surveying me. He gave a small grin, and let himself into the room.

"Good, you're awake," he spoke softly.

"And well rested," I returned hoarsely, pushing myself up.

He gave a breathless chuckle and nodded. I noted his appearance. He looked tired; deep, dark bags underneath his weary, blue eyes, and his hair not as neatly parted as it usually is.

"May I come in?" Charles asked, leaning against the door.

"Of course," I answered smiling, vigorously motioning for him to come in and he stepped in the room, closing the door behind him. "What can I do for you this morning?" I asked, as Charles sat down on my bed.

"I wanted to come check on you. I saw your nightmare last night, Claudia," Charles started, and my smile slowly faded. "I'm sorry, Claudia, I truly am," he took ahold of my hands and I was struck with the sudden pity Charles felt for me.

"Don't be," I glanced back up at him. "I know you would never violate my trust purposefully,"

My voice was a whisper—if the room hadn't been so silent, he probably wouldn't have been able to hear me.

Charles nodded, not taking his eyes away from mine. I looked away, pressing my cheek against the top of my arm; he was silent for several moments, allowing me time to grieve as I clearly wished.

After a few minutes had lapsed, he spoke again, gently. "There's no training today," Charles informed, placing his hand on mine. "Take as much time as you need," he said, brushing his thumb over my hand.

I lifted my head back up, "Please don't stop training on my account Charles," I pressed.

"Nonsense," he disagreed. "We all deserve a day off. You deserve a day off," Charles stressed. "Breakfast is being served, would you like to join on us?" he asked, I nodded my head yes. Charles stood up from my bed before lifting me up from the comforts of my bed, helping me onto my feet.

The two of us left my room silently and descended the steps into the kitchen that was filled chatter of the occupants in the mansion, but once I entered with Charles silence fell over everyone. Hank was standing just behind Raven both of them sharing a concerned look on their faces. Sean sat at the kitchen table, with Alex leaning on it next to him. Moira stopped mid-motion of washing dishes, and finally Erik who stood near the window starring out of it turned his body to face me.

I wrung my hands together, "I'm sorry for disturbing your sleep last night. I..uh..promise to keep my mind at bay," I apologized sheepishly, embarrassed that they all knew how troubled I really was.

That the facade I had been putting was shattered.

~~~x~~~

I looked into the mirror and smiled contently at my reflection. My hair was down and done in a loose ponytail and my makeup was done naturally, I ran my hands over the blue plaid fabric of my jumper dress, smoothing out the wrinkles I saw. The mansion was uncharacteristically quiet, but that was only because everyone had mostly left the mansion. Charles was going on a supermarket run, Moira along with the rest of the younger mutants all volunteered to go as a way to get out of the mansion and an attempt of buying food of their preferred choice.

Charles suggested that I come with them, he said it might do me so good to get out of the house, but I declined. Erik, also declined to go, he said he wanted to keep me company after yesterday. I took one last glance at the mirror and then left my room, making my way down the stairs and to the kitchen.

I walked over to the cabinets and bent down to grab a kettle from the lower cabinet. Standing back up I grabbed a tea bag from the shelf above my head and placed the bag down on the counter while I put the kettle in the sink and turned on the water. The water poured down into the kettle and I rolled up the sleeves of my brown turtleneck to avoid them getting wet. Turning around, I moved over to the stove and turned it on. I began humming to myself as I went back to the sink, turning the faucet off and grabbing the kettle filled with water.

I placed the kettle onto the burner and lowly began to sing aloud, waiting for the water to boil.

"When skies are cloudy and gray. They're only gray for a day. So wrap your troubles in dreams. And dream your troubles away,"

I moved away from the stove and walked to the sink, grabbing a clean mug and plate from the dish tray, before I stepped away and made my way to the the food cabinet and got out a pack of biscuits, and while I was arranging them on a plate, the tea kettle began to whistle.

"Until that sunshine peeps through. There's only one thing to do. Just wrap your troubles in dreams. And dream your troubles away,"

Pausing in my biscuit arrangements I went over to the stove and took the kettle off the stove before turning it off and dropped a lemon tea bag into my mug, pouring the boiling liquid from the kettle into my mug. I went to the refrigerator giving the tea a few minutes to steep as I located the milk in the fridge and the sugar on the countertop.

"Your castles may tumble. That's fate after all. Life's really funny that way..." I paused, taking a long draw from my mug.

"You must be feeling a lot better," Erik stated, from behind me and nearly causing me to spill hot tea on my hand. "I can't recall the last time I heard you sing," he added, with a light chuckle.

I placed my mug down and spun around to face Erik, who was standing in the entrance of the kitchen. Erik's eyes widened slightly at the sight of me and I raised my eyebrow at his reaction.

"What?" I asked, tilting my head.

"Incredible," Erik murmured. "You look absolutely incredible," he continued in shock.

I smiled as I felt my cheeks heat up, "Thank you Erik," I laughed, temporarily looking down at the floor. "But does that mean I was a downright horror to look at this whole time?" I asked teasingly, staring back up at him.

"No. No, no, no. That's not what I meant I-" Erik spluttered.

"I knew what you meant Erik, I'm just pulling your leg," I interrupted, flashing a grin at him.

"Since all the time I've known you, I have never seen you look so...peaceful," he commented, shaking his head.

"Yes, well, it's amazing what a good night's rest can do for one's body," I smiled, before lifting my mug and taking another sip of my tea.

Erik moved closer to me and took my free hand in his, "Come on, I have surprise for you,"

I placed my mug down, "Erik, I just made tea and biscuits," I whined, a pout forming on my face.

"But this will be so much better than tea and biscuits," Erik countered, mimicking my tone.

"Do you promise?" I questioned.

"Promise,"

I allowed myself to be pulled away from my spot on the counter and out of the kitchen. Erik led me back up the stairs and walking us to my room.

"Why are we at my room?" I asked, arching a brow.

"I need to get something," Erik replied simply.

"In my room?"

"Be right back," he said as he ran into my room and came back with one of mine silk scarves.

He tied it around my eyes and grabbed my hand, leading me down the hall and to the stairs before we finally left the mansion.

"Where are you taking me Erik?" I laughed, hearing the crunch of gravel underneath our feet.

"It's a secret," Erik chuckled, still leading me around to wherever we were going.

The sound of birds chirping around us gave me indicator that we were in the woods near Charles' mansion. Erik pace began to slow down before we came to a complete stop. Erik let go of my hand and moved behind me, his chest pressed against my back.

"I'm going to count to three and remove your blindfold," Erik said, and I nodded feeling a smile creep on my face. "One...two...three," he counted, his mouth right next to my ear.

Erik carefully untied my blindfold and once I opened my eyes I was immersed in sunlight, blinking several times to adjust my eyes I finally noticed a picnic setting with the classic checkered blanket and wicker basket underneath a large tree in the blackberry patch that he scared me in a week ago.

"You shouldn't have!" I stated, spinning around and Erik just smiled.

"I wanted to," Erik reflecting my smile. "I figured you could use pick me up of sorts after yesterday," he explained, with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

"Oh Erik, thank you," I said, a genuine smile on my lips. "Thank you so much," I repeated, before walking to the laid out blanket with Erik following behind me.

I kicked my shoes as I lowered myself down on the soft blanket and Erik sat down beside me as the cool air was blew a light breeze,

"So Mr. Lehnsherr, what do you have prepared for us?" I asked, letting my toes rest in the soft grass.

"Well Miss Walker," Erik began with a smile as he started pulling our meal out of the basket. "We have sandwiches, pickles, rolls, chips, and cookies," he listed, individually taking out each item.

I clapped my hands together, "Very good!" I chirped, watching as Erik grabbed a pair of plates from the basket as well. "I feel quite special, that you're doing all this for me," I laughed, my hands falling back down into my lap.

Erik shook some potato chips onto the plate now in front of me before handing me a triangular cut sandwich. Our conversation flowed easily as we ate, just as it always did. We were laughing loudly, my arms waving as I shared a story from when I was in college and at a nightclub with a friend and how I used my powers to get some man to stop bothering us. Erik nearly choked on his Coke as he laughed, his hand slamming down on the blanket as he chuckled.

"Nausea?" Erik asked smiling.

"Yep," I grinned proudly. "Subtle, but effective," I answered.

I reached in the wicker basket looking for a napkin to give Erik, but instead I pulled out a brown paper bag. I drew my lips into a thin line, staring at the paper bag as it wordlessly taunted me.

"What did the poor brown paper bag do to you?" Erik asked, an amused expression on his face.

I looked back down at the bag, "During my freshman year of college I wanted to join this sorority called the AKA's or Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated," I began, lifting my gaze back to Erik. "In order to even be considered for the sorority I had to take this stupid, humiliating test. The Paper Bag Test," I remembered, with a slight scowl on my face.

"The Paper Bag Test?" Erik asked, letting out a snort.

"Yes, The Paper Bag Test," I repeated. "If your skin is darker than the paper bag then the sorority would not let you in," I explained, lifting the bag to my arm. "I failed as you can clearly see," I remarked, laying down on my back. "You know it's one thing to be discriminated against from someone of the opposite race, but it's another when you realize it's coming from your own," I stated sadly, shaking my head. "That same night after I was rejected, I thought about how much prettier I would be if I were of lighter skin," I added, placing the bag down onto the blanket.

I released a deep breath and stared down at my arms and watched as the illusion took ahold of me. I watched as my golden brown skin became lighter and into a pale brown, I looked up at Erik to see palpable fascination in his eyes.

"Now am I beautiful?" I asked, pushing myself up slightly on my arms.

"My dear Claudia you could never been so wrong," Erik began. "You've always been beautiful,"

I attempted and failed to prevent the full blown smile that appeared on my face when I heard what Erik said. Black strands of hair fell in front of my face, the wind blowing a gentle breeze around us. I looked down at my feet as my skin returned to it's original tone. Neither of us spoke for a while. After a few minutes I raised my head and saw that Erik was already looking at me with his piercing eyes.

"You're the first person I told about this," I admitted, not looking away.

"I rather like this side of you," Erik commented.

"Don't get used to it," I quipped. I pushed myself up and curled my legs to the side, propping myself up with my right hand. "Can I tell you a secret Erik?" I asked, the smile on my lips slowly diminishing.

"Of course," Erik answered, his playful demeanor changing once he saw my face.

"Do you remember Robert and David? The lab assistants," I reminded, and his eyes hardened at the mention of them.

"I do," he answered tightly.

"I-uh...I killed them," I confessed, watching Erik's reaction.

"How?"

I let out a humorless laugh, "It took some doing, but I managed to track them down," I explained, nodding my head. "I found David at a medical conference, he was one of the many people to speak that day. The conference was open to the public making it incredibly easy to execute my plan. David was on a panel that was supposed to speak at 3:00 p.m.," I recalled, going off in a daze. "So, I walked myself into that auditorium and plopped myself down in one of the front row seats and just stared at him," I remembered.

I paused momentarily to catch my breath.

"It took him awhile to notice me, but when he did see me, his whole body went rigid. His eyes, oh the look in his eyes as we stared at each other, it was nothing but pure fear. And I seized on that fear, amplified the terror he was feeling times ten. And then, boom..." I trailed off, merely shrugging. "David clutched his chest and fell out of chair onto the stage with a thud," I continued. "Plunged the whole room into chaos," I added, a snort escaping me.

"The many cries for someone to call 911, the other speakers on stage attempting to save David, but then there was me. Rising from my seat and leaving the auditorium with the calmest expression as David's life slowly and painfully slipped away from him. Guess what the nightly news reported his cause of death as?" I asked, raising both of my eyebrows.

"What?"

"Massive heart attack," I answered, pleased with myself.

"And what of Robert?" Erik questioned curiously.

"Two weeks had passed after I killed David, I found Robert in Maryland. I learned the route he took to work every morning by discreetly following him for two days. On the third day I finally confronted him, it was morning rush hour and the sidewalks were packed with people going to work. Robert was walking one way and I was walking the opposite way facing him. All it took was one glance by him to realize who I was as we moved pass each other, and just like David, Robert's eyes widened. But I only smirked at him as I conjured an overwhelming despair to take over Robert, it wasn't long before I knew my plan had worked," I recounted, playing with my ponytail.

"And how did you know your plan worked?" Erik asked again.

"The sound of tires screeching, a loud smack of a body hitting a car, and the screams of horror told me all I needed to know," I answered dryly.

Erik and I sat in silence for awhile, I wasn't sure if my sudden confession had stunned him into silence or if he was just thinking it over.

"I could have made the decision not to kill them," I stated, and Erik turned to look me. "Hell, I could've decided not kill those security guards either. I should have been satisfied with killing Professor Lewis...but it wasn't enough, not for me. I wanted all them to suffer just like how I did because each one of them played a role in it. God Erik, what kind of person does that make me?" I questioned. "A blood thirsty animal?" I wondered.

Erik placed a hand on my cheek, "No," he answered softly, shaking his head. "The kind of person who rightfully got their vengeance, Claudia, and don't you ever forget that,"

"Thank you," I briefly looked down at the blanket before bringing my gaze back up at Erik.

"Your welcome,"

Erik stroked my cheek tenderly, his fingertips grazing softly over my skin. He inched closer, tilting his head toward mine, Erik leaned in so close, our noses gently touched. I took in the crisp scent of his cologne. He smelled of cinnamon, woody, and of something else. As our faces were mere inches away from each other, he stared deeply into my eyes. Erik swallowed, looking down, eyes flicking haphazardly from my lips back to my eyes. I reached out, running my fingers up Erik's face and I tilted my head upward, slowly closing the distance between us.

My eyes fell shut and for a moment the world around us stood still, I couldn't hear the birds chirping nor the faint creaking of trees in the breeze. No, for now it was just the two of us. I pushed my head slightly forward, our lips almost meeting.

Then suddenly the blaring of a car horn quickly broke us apart, my eyes snapping open. Both of us were breathing heavily and I looked away from Erik, staring at the path back to the mansion.

Turning back to Erik I could feel my face heating up, "We uh...should help them with the groceries," I suggested, swallowing deeply. I pushed myself up from the ground and slipped my shoes back on. "Thanks for the picnic Erik...you're a true friend," I stated, my lips forming a smile.

"Anytime," Erik answered, returning my smile.

But as I walked away from Erik I felt a dull ache of pain in my chest and I placed my hand on my chest.

"Hurt?" I thought. "No, that's not mine,"

I wanted to look back, but dared not to. For the hurt that I felt came from none other than Erik.

~~~x~~~

"What was with the face?" I asked, remembering how Raven sat through dinner with a dark expression on her face.

"I don't know, maybe teenage angst," Charles joked.

Sunset had fallen upon Xavier Manor. It had been ten minutes since dinner ended leaving Charles and I the only people left in the kitchen. The two of us sat at the small, circular wooden table that was tucked in the corner of the kitchen, sharing a bowl of ice cream that he just bought from the grocery store. I grabbed the glass bottle of chocolate syrup next to me and poured way too much syrup on my side of the bowl, not caring that I made a goopy mess.

"Is everything alright between you and Raven?" Charles asked, before putting a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth.

"I would think so, I haven't noticed anything that would say otherwise," I answered, shrugging my shoulders before following Charles' action. I relished the sweet chocolate syrup mixed with the ice cream and decided I had never tasted anything so heavenly. "Why?" I asked, looking up at him.

"It just seemed tense at the table, that's all," Charles stated. "Are you and Erik-" he began.

"Jesus Charles, Erik and I getting along fine as well," I interjected, placing my spoon down. "We just had a picnic together a few hours ago," I explained, leaving out certain events. "What is with the interrogation?" I questioned, lifting a brow.

"He's been brooding ever since this afternoon,"

"It's Erik, when isn't he brooding?" I asked simply, rolling my eyes. I placed both my hands down onto the table and pushed myself up from my chair. "Look Charles, I'm sure Erik is fine," I assured, moving over to him and lowering myself down onto Charles' lap. "Okay?" I asked, looping my arm around his neck and he let out a sigh while nodding his head.

"I'm sure you're right," Charles said, wrapping an arm around my waist. "But as his friend, I'll check in on him," he stated.

"You're a good a man Charles," I remarked, playing with the loose tendrils of his hair. "Has anyone told you that?" I asked, before tapping his nose with my finger.

"Once or twice, but I'm always open to hearing it again especially from you," Charles murmured, tilting his head up slightly.

A soft laugh escaped me as I went to respond, but I got the feeling that we were being watched. I turned my head away from Charles and stared at the empty door frame of the kitchen.

"You can stop hiding behind the corner," I called out, feeling a quick flash of embarrassment. "Yes, I know you're there. Don't worry, we won't bite," I quipped.

Coming around the wall was a rather embarrassed looking Hank, pushing his glasses back up onto his nose.

"I-I just wanted to get a glass water," he stated sheepishly.

"Well don't let us stop you," I said, getting up from Charles' lap. "As a matter of fact, I was just leaving. I'm going to take a walk before it gets dark," I announced, sliding my hand off of Charles' shoulder.

"And I need to talk to Erik," Charles commented, standing up as well.

"See Hank," I began, spreading my hands out in front of me. "The kitchen is all yours," I joked, smiling at him.

I moved past the the two men and made my way down the deserted hallways towards the back door. There was a lake that sat behind Charles' mansion, it was the perfect path for me to stretch my legs and for me to get a little peace and quiet. Turning the handle, I opened the back door of the mansion, allowing a cool breeze to filter through the room, as I stepped through to go outside. I walked with my hands behind my back as I traveled to the lake, listening to the rhythmic crunching of my shoes on the gravel.

Arriving close to my destination I stood in the grass and admired the spirals that formed in the water from whatever fish were underneath. Glancing around, I realized I wasn't alone, there was a familiar brunette woman standing closer to the lake edge. Quietly, I walked closer to Moira until I was directly behind her.

"Want some company?" I asked with a smile.

Moira jumped from the sound of my voice and spun around to face me, her hand against her chest.

"Claudia, you scared me," Moira breathed, a smile appearing on her face.

"Sorry," I apologized, smiling and lifting my hands up.

"Yes, I would love some company," Moira said.

I walked over next to her and looked down at the lake. The shimmering water reflecting the sunlight off it in glittering splendor back at me. I unlinked my fingers from each other and lifted my hand up to my necklace, rubbing the smooth stone.

"So, you and Charles, huh?" Moira asked, and I snapped my head in her direction, Moira's eyebrow raised.

"Pardon?" I asked, dropping the stone charm.

"Claudia," Moira called, leaning her head forward and just sent me a knowing look.

Was it really that obvious Charles and I were attracted to each other?

I smiled and let out a sigh, "I guess there is something," I hinted, merely shrugging and biting my lip. "I'm not sure I'm good for him though," I suggested, shaking my head.

Moira looked at me narrowing her eyes as the wind gently blew through her hair, "Claudia," She called again. "I have seen the way Charles looks at you, the way his eyes light up at the mention of your name," Moira pointed out. "He makes you genuinely happy Claudia, it's all in your eyes, they seem to sparkle when you're truly happy," Moira continued, and I let out a chuckle of disbelief that she had been observing me this whole time. "Charles is the happiest when he's around you. So, the way I see it you are the best for each other," Moira finished, a grin on her face.

"Thanks," I replied with a small smile. "Although none of this will matter if we end up dying," I stated grimly, still appreciating Moira's words.

Moira looked at me shaking her head, "You won't die," Moira asserted. "Not if I have any say about it,"

~~~x~~~

"I know for certain, the one I love. I'm through with flirtin', it's just you I'm thinkin' of! Ain't misbehavin', I'm savin' my love for you!"

I swayed to the music, completely dismissing every thought of the future, just moving to the music and listening as Carmen McRae's silky voice melted into the piano notes.

"Like Jack Horner in the corner, don't go nowhere. What do I care?"

I spun around, dancing backwards to the shelf I needed to be at, when my back hit something hard. Not hard enough to be a bookcase though. Freezing, I felt someone grab my waist, beginning to turn me around. When I looked up, I found Charles looked down questioningly at me.

"What was that?"

"Uh," I suddenly became aware of exactly what was happening. The music returned to it's full volume in a matter of seconds, and every bit of the present flew into my head. The present, my own thoughts, and the feeling of Charles' grip on my waist. "Putting a book...a book back. If you don't mind?" I challenged, raising a brow.

"I don't,"

"Then let me go," I ordered. "Please," I added.

Instead of letting me go Charles leaned in, close enough for me to feel his breath on my cheek.

"Of course," He nearly whispered, before pulling away.

"Thank you very much," I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice. I went over to the shelf, placing the book in its proper spot. "There we go," I commented.

"Miss Walker?" I whipped around at the sound of my surname, which is exactly what he wanted. "Any particular reason you were dancing in the library?"

I cocked my eyebrow at him again, "You're about to laugh, Mr. Xavier, but I don't advise it. I was, you know, dancing because I wanted to. Simple as that. Besides, I love that song," I looked at my list, then sighed at the realization that my next book was out of my reach.

"You seem very at home in a library," Charles commented, sliding his hands into his pockets.

"I grew up in a book store for a while. My grandfather owned it," I explained, leaving it at that.

"Oh, so you must have read a lot then?"

"Yes, I did," I answered, a faint smile on my lip reminiscing on the memories. "I don't remember much about him since he passed away, but I do remember that he's the first person to introduce me to jazz music," I said, my lips curving into a smile as I folded my list and slid it into my dress pocket. "Speaking of jazz, you know you surprised me Charles. I would have never took you as a jazz lover," I stated, moving along the shelves that filled an entire wall. They were filled with vinyl records of Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and more.

Charles followed along behind me, "Oh really? What music did you think I liked?" Charles asked, his fingers gliding along his shelf that were filled with books, like the works of Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Love Craft and Mary Shelly's 'Frankenstein'.

"Classical music, like Mozart and Beethoven," I suggested, spinning around to face him once more.

"Well, allow me to surprise you even more," Charles smirked, moving over to his records shelf.

Charles pulled a record out of the shelf and walked over to the record player, picking the needle up from the vinyl I was playing before removing it from the turntable. He slid the Carmen McRae record I was listening to back into its holder and placed another record onto the turntable. He lowered the needle onto to the record, then the scratch as the needle looked for the opening groove.

I listened to the chords of the piano begin to play, feeling my body sway a little in time with the calming music.

"I love you..."

I instantly recognized the owner of the voice and the song he sang. It was I Love You For Sentimental Reasons by Nat King Cole. I walked towards Charles, my dress, slightly bounced as I glided forward.

"...for sentimental reasons..."

Charles gave me an appreciative smile, and stood holding his hand out to me and bowed, "Miss Walker, may I have the pleasure of this dance?" he asked, I smiled and nodded my head.

Softly, Charles pulled me towards him and wrapped his arm around my back. I placed my hand in his and we began to dance. I was a little surprised at how good Charles could dance as I allowed him to subduedly steer me around the library, he didn't seem like the type.

"Good choice, but why exactly did you chose this record?" I look up into those warm blue eyes and his brown locks that I had sudden urge to to run my hands through.

"I hope you do believe me..."

"Because it reminds me of us, of you," Charles whispered into my ear. I feel Charles' hand rest on the small of my back and I felt my cheeks up.

I briefly laid my head on his chest, "Stop, you're going to make me blush, even though I can't," I chuckled.

"I'll give you my heart..."

Despite the fact that it didn't seem particularly appropriate considering the pleasantly slow and melodious music Charles spun me away from him. I turned gracefully outward without a problem. Using the momentum produced by the turn I reeled myself back in towards my dance partner. He pulled me in tight and I savored the comforting warmth he sent through me as we continued to dance.

"I love you, and you alone were meant for me..."

My body swayed in time with the music I closed my eyes in the soft, dim lights and savoring the moment. My mind couldn't help but think about the man I was dancing with. Charles was too perfect to be real, it was like God had sculpted him into my vision of the perfect man. Everything he said, everything he did. I'd felt attraction to some men in my past, mainly teenage years and during my undergrad, as was to be expected. Some I'd dated, even kissed, and well...one man had me convinced to give myself to him.

Charles was different though.

"Please, give your loving heart to me..."

My eyes opened to see that Charles was staring down at me shamelessly, both of us lost in each other's eyes. Gradually, I realized that Charles was leaning closer to me in the blink of an eye, our lips were connected.

"And say we'll never part..."

It was a slow, but warm kiss, our lips moved in sync with each other. All of the built-up emotion and tension between us were being let out through this kiss. Charles stopped swaying and wrapped his arms around my body. I deepened the kiss and Charles let out a small pleasurable moan. Although we didn't want this kiss to end, slowly as one minded we slowed the rhythm. When we finally disconnected our lips from each other, the two of us catching our breaths. Our eyes slowly opening together and we shared a shy smile of happiness, no words spoken between us.

Charles' hands rested on my waist. Lifting my hand up and run it through his silky, soft hair before slinging my arms around his neck.

"I love you with all my heart Claudia," he hummed before our lips connected again.

Chapter Sixteen: Tensions Run High

[soawen]

Writer meme thing

I got tagged by @silvysartfulness​ to do this writer meme thing! (And shamelessly stole her phrasing here too)

How many works do you have on AO3?

One. Partly because of a 10 year hiatus/writing block, partly because I never got around to upload all the Harry Potter fiction from LJ

What’s your total AO3 word count?

2976 words

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Harry Potter was the first fandom I wrote for (and let other people read) way back before book 4 came out? A bit of drabbles from LotR, and finally FFVII

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

See, that’s my problem. All fics save one are in old, now defunct user groups or on LJ. How do I translate feedback then?

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do my very, very best and since I’m not exactly drowning in the fics I post and therefore not in comments either, I think I have a pretty good success rate there. Responding is both a way to thank commenters and occasionally, explain myself

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Ah. Ahahaha. Do you think I can remember what I wrote 20 years ago? But no, seriously. I *think* it may be the young Sirius Black loves Remus Lupin who loves Severus Snape who loves Sirius Black-one. No one comes out of that one in happy state

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

A short series of drabbles: Harry Potter/Aliens :D

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not really. 

Do you write smut? if so what kind?

I used to write a lot of very different kinds of smut with different kinks and different persons - it was a fun challenge. These days it’s more relationship-driven for me

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I was credited in a suprise!translation once?

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, I’d never inflict that on another person. I’m chronically late and often change directions in the middle of everything

What’s your all time favorite ship?

I’m more prone to focus on a character and bounce that poor thing against everyone and everything. But if I have to say something, Sephiroth/Cloud Strife and Harry Potter/Severus Snape (he used to be an interesting character with great potential, dammit!)

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I’m afraid it’ll be either:

-the gen fic A/B/O FFVII one with only minor pairings in the background. It’s dark, it’s hurt/comfort, it started out as my guilty pleasure summer idea, and then it grew a plot (Hojo makes sure Sephiroth is an alpha so he can “adopt” Hojo, who otherwise is on his own as an omega. Years later, Genesis gets a shoulder wound that behaves strangely, and somehow this leads to Sephiroth not paying attention to Jenova’s call and rescuing the two abused omegas Cloud and Claudia instead

Or:

-the time travel one in which Sephiroth returns post AC and to everyone’s surprise (including his own), manages to kill Cloud in the middle of a monologue. Or rather, Jenova wrestles her last bit of strength into waylaying Masamune about to pierce Cloud’s shoulder. Panicking that his puppet and life line is dead, Sephiroth picks memories for what to do, and the last place he remembers to have access to Phoenix Downs are way back in Shinra’s heyday. So back in time and place he and Cloud goes. Cloud is not happy when he wakes up. Not only is he in a time where Sephiroth can hold pretty much everyone’s death over him, he is also stuck with a Sephiroth whose memories are very, very patchy and sketchy and who has a very .... unique view on who and what he and Cloud are. Together, they must convince everyone else that Sephiroth is his old self and keep Cloud hidden in Sephiroth’s apartment. This is not easy when Sephiroth insists on getting a student of his own after meeting Angeal and Zack - and that student is young!Cloud

What are your writing strengths?

I’ve been told smut and insanity is what I do best. I personally feel like some horror and crack should have a place here as well

What are your writing weaknesses?

Getting the words from my mind through my brain onto the screen. I suck at sticking to a project, always have, and often I’m too tired from work to make coherent fic in English

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Depends on the context. I’m all for using it when a language is spoken that the POV character doesn’t understand, or as simple words/phrases to spice up someone’s dialogue, but whole sections are difficult for me

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Counting off-line? Dracula or Dragon Lance Chronicles. Possibly The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren

Online: Harry Potter

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I have to pick? Uh. The Harry Potter/Alien drabbles were a hoot to write and I still think they work well. Or the most recent one, the FFVII fic Slipping

tagging: @tocasia @zephfair @fleancex and anyone who wants to

[murfpersonalblog]

All of this, thank you! I'm constantly baffled by the hypocrisy of book fans who hate the show cuz of Lestat's "character assassination," but love the movie. Like.... Were we watching the same film? 🤨 Lestat is CLEARLY not painted in a good light--not by Louis, and not by the film itself.

I've talked about the Villain!Lestat parallels, where Lestat is explicitly shown to be a horrible person in IWTV, who has no RESPECT for the living or the dead. Sure, Louis loves him anyway--Louis has GARBAGE taste in men! XD Claudia telling Louis to meet vampires WORTHY of his love rings so true--Lestat hadn't EARNED Louis' love in IWTV yet. So it drives me crazy when VC fans jump the gun by preemptively projecting too much credit onto Lestat as is is PRESENTLY, in IWTV, with the man he becomes AFTERWARDS, in the rest of the VC. Like, HELLO: Louis was mad at Lestat in IWTV, just as Anne Rice was angry with her own husband when she wrote IWTV in the first place--Lestat's not meant to be seen positively YET, y'all, stop.

I've talked about Ep5's drop scene parallels with the film--they BOTH show Lestat dropping Louis almost to his death, but it hits different. Book/film!Loustat had only just met, so the violence is par for the course with campy Gothic Horror. Lestat didn't seduce Louis--it was just accept vampirism or I'll kill you, period. I call book/film!Loustat "Vegas Married"--they were strangers, who struggled to get along from the very beginning. But AMC gave Loustat an ACTUAL courtship--they're married, so it's more of a tragic Gothic Romance. I love what AMC did with Ep5, cuz the emotional impact of the Lestat's violence is ELEVATED--you feel more for Louis as a HUSBAND who is being beaten by his spouse, than a drunk being jumped by a STRANGER.

As for trauma porn vs representing black struggle, I agree that AMC was VERY intentional about Ep5. IMO people have blown Ep5 WAY out of proportion.

(Under the Read More cut:) "And to see white IWTV fans sidestep this entirely back during the final stretch of season one to complain that having Lestat (who canonically abused Louis in other ways) assault Louis somehow ruined LESTAT’S character and THEIR SHIP. While completely sidestepping what themes they were intending and got across (you know like genuine media literacy) and the onscreen brutalization that happened without warning is disgusting.... White fans being disingenuous and asking Louis to fade into the background until Lestat (the white character) becomes the focus for TVL. While constantly mocking and ignoring the concept of IPV towards black people makes the point for me as to why this was an interesting and purposeful direction to head in. IPV is so ignored that when IWTV includes it, fans went out of their way to argue whether or not their favorite white boy would DARE TO DO THIS, and not why the writers did this and what they were attempting to say. IPV and queer victims of abuse are so ignored that after this happened people started making posts talking about APOLOGIZING TO A FICTIONAL LESTAT for writers “slandering” him!" @pretty-weird-ideas

Precisely. 👏 Some fans must have selective amnesia, to act like AMC!Louis is the first black person Lestat's terrorized, or that IWTV as a franchise has shown being brutalized. It's actually pretty interesting, cuz UNLIKE the book/film, AMC actively AVOIDS showing violence against most other black people, while STILL highlighting black struggle and racism. Like, we're TOLD about a lot of awful stuff that's happening--straight out the gate Ep1 has Bricktop raped/sodomized by the racist Alderman, but we don't SEE it, and there's no TW for it either. IIRC, other than Louis & Claudia, Charlie is the only DEAD black person shown in S1--although Claudia killed him, it's Lestat's disrespectful treatment of Charlie's body (and hers--the 1st of 3 times we see Lestat put her in a chokehold as literal child abuse) that made Claudia start to hate Lestat.

Even during Ep3's race riots, blink and you'll miss black people being hurt. (Claudia's mean auntie on fire is faceless, which is SUPER interesting considering how high yellow Claudia is, and her white "Uncle" Les being so believable). Louis focuses on the buildings on fire more than any people being killed--a true testament to his own effed up perspective and vampiric/capitalist nature. LOUIS doesn't see the violence done to black people (guilty conscience much? 💯), so we the viewers don't either. Ep5/6's focus is on LOUIS, and HIS pain & suffering--HIS body. AMC handles violence VERY uniquely.

Conversely, look at the movie's GRATUITOUS violence done to black people--especially black women.

In QUICK succession, the film goes from: 1st Act: Louis' first night in a coffin > Loustat having a threesome/killing a black tavern wench > DPDL plantation > Louis ALMOST biting house slave Thandy Newton (then rats) > interlude killing the rich white Evil Doer old lady & her boytoy (RIP her puppies) > (then birds) > whole bunch of slaves killed by Lestat/Loustat found in the river > slaves try to exorcise the demons with voodoo (Lestat insultingly calls their prayers "that NOISE!" as if they're the problem 🙄) > Louis kills Thandy Newton (the scene deliberately looks like rape) & carries her corpse telling the slaves "yes, your Master is the Devil!" > Pyromaniac du Lac burns down the plantation (Lestat whines about it) > Lestat kills the two black prostitutes (which TVL later retcons that since they were killing their johns, Lestat killing them was noble 🙄 and compare this to the treatment of AMC!Bricktop vs history's IRL Bricktop fighting/killing her johns) > 2nd Act: cue Claudia, who interestingly is only shown killing white people. The first THIRD of the movie is a RELENTLESS BARRAGE of black brutalization. The film actually goes out of its way to make killing black women look SEXY & FUN.

Meanwhile, AMC is intentionally VERY explicit about the assault done to Louis (and Claudia) being TERRIBLE to look at.

Daniel (a white man) is the audience surrogate, and his callous attitude towards seeing Claudia's SV diary pages represents the AUDIENCE'S perspective, the white gaze that actually SALIVATES over seeing black men & women be raped, assaulted & killed--which is why I'm GLAD Louis made Daniel seizure, eff him! (And what happens when the black father Louis tries to defend his black daughter's privacy? He gets SLAPPED IN THE FACE by a white man, while the brown man Armand holds Louis back!) AMC knows what they're doing, and so far it's been masterful work IMO. They offscreened what Bruce did, but I'm VERY curious to see how they'll handle Claudia's death in S2, and what Armand does to brutalize HER black body.

Like come on y'all, the first time we see Lestat on the show, he's talking to Miss Lily (a black prostitute) about black CONSUMPTION: cinnamon & caramel & FOOD. (And her death is offscreened, too.)

Like, NGL on one hand the show's violence doesn't really faze me. This is a show about VAMPIRES after all. Lestat punched a HOLE through a PRIEST'S HEAD, Louis ripped some dude's whole JAW off, Claudia spat out some guy's effing eyeball, the Alderman's intestines were dangling out of his torso, Antoinette got her finger cut off, etc.... The Body Horror is THERE, front & center, not a TW in sight. It's the subtleties that get me reeling--this whole effing show needs a TW for the non-gory/violent ways they depict the brutality of racism.

Every single instance of racism on this show boils my blood--Ep5 was just one more coal on the already raging fire! I've discussed how Louis symbolizes an entire culture of violence done to black people by white folk, well before Lestat's Ep5 IPV, through NUMEROUS instances of disrespect done to his black body that viewers seem to have casually/conveniently overlooked.

Louis being a victim of IPV and racism is not the show glorifying violence done to black people, but highlighting the reality of black brutalization.

Trauma Porn vs Representing Black Struggle in IWTV

TW: Domestic Violence (Focus) Rape (mentioned 1x)

Spoilers for the IWTV AMC Series

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[catulla-claudia]

Callixta Claudia Catulla

“Callixtus Claudius Valerius, look me in the eye and tell me you’re not going to be as shit of a brother as you are a politician.”

General information

Known as

Callixta Claudia Catulla: Legal name

Catulla: Commonly known as

Cat: Nickname

Callis Maxim: Pseudonym

Lady Catulla: Title

Occupation

Painter

Noblewoman

Favorites

Favorite meal: Saltimbocca

Favorite drink: White wine

Favorite flower: Carnation

Personality traits

Birthday: November 16

Age: 29

Zodiac sign: Scorpio

MBTI: ISFP

Pronouns: She/her

Main(s): Lucio

Patron Arcana: Knight of Swords

Relatives

Callixtus Claudius Valerius: The Consul, her elder brother, known most commonly as Valerius. She dislikes his general connivery, whilst he believes her too soft and still resents her for their mother’s death, but they still share a sense of comradery over their father’s political designs for both of them.

Cato Claudius Maximus: Father, the patriarch of the Claudius family and previous Consul of Vesuvia before his death during the Red Plague, usually simply known as Consul Maximus. Her cognomen was derived from his praenomen of Cato.

Poppaea Valeria Maximii: Mother of Catulla and Valerius, her marriage with her husband was rare amongst nobles as it was for love, and she died giving birth to Catulla, one of the main sources of contention between Cat and her brother and father.

Gens Claudia: Patrician family to which Catulla belonged, descended from her father. Several generations before her birth, her ancestors had changed the laws of Vesuvia that made the title of Consul a hereditary title passed down through the Claudii clan rather than an elected role after generations previous of bribery and political plotting that kept the Claudii clan in power as Consuls.

Gens Valeria: Patrician family to which Catulla’s mother belonged and for whom her elder brother was named after.

Physical description

Gender: Female

Height: 5′2′’

Eye color: Hazel

Hair color: Black with blue-silver ombre

Appearance

Cat is a petite woman who looks to be in her early to mid twenties, with an elegant yet unrestrained air, described as being "all the wild beauty of a garden". Her hair is black, with the ends dyed into a blue-silver ombre, and she has hazel eyes, a shade or two darker than her brother’s. She’s said to resemble her mother greatly, being fine-boned, with large eyes and a straight nose. She has a beauty mark on her left cheek. She loves high-collared lace and silk shirts, as well as floral patterns and puffed and gathered sleeves.

Personality

Unlike her brother, Cat doesn't like the idea of manipulating others or being a chess piece. As a result, she'd also expressed a desire for a simple life, content to live off her family inheritance as a philanthropist and patron of the fine arts as well as expand her own crafts as an artist. While her family exults in power and influence, her motivations lean more towards living life on her own terms. Some part of her resents her family for their insistence in playing at the game of politics, though it’s often overpowered by her internalization of her father’s neglect of her during her childhood. She’s only ever really soft and open when it comes to art-- at the rest of times, her personality is seen as sarcastic or snippy, with a hatred for flattery and strictly no-nonsense, often fidgeting or becoming anxious when there’s nothing for her to do. However, Catulla can be just as manipulative and ruthless, able to read people like they’re open books even without the help of magic or a tarot deck, as she was born and raised as a Claudii after all-- she simply dislikes politics. That doesn't mean she's bad at it.

History

Family background

Catulla was born as Callixta Claudia Catulla, of the Claudius family. Catulla was named after her father, whose name was Cato Claudius Maximus, known vernacularly as Consul Maximus. She had one elder brother, Callixtus Claudius Valerius, known vernacularly as Valerius, three years her senior.

The Claudii were one of the oldest and most noble of Vesuvia’s families, with members frequently holding the highest offices of the state, and had over the course of several generations, seized control of the office of Consul to the point it became a hereditary title passed down through the family rather than an elected one as it was initially intended.

Consul Maximus and his wife, Poppaea Valeria, were arranged to be married, but unlike most nobles, they were deeply in love, and Poppaea was often said to be the power behind Consul Maximus’s hand, and was also quite well-respected by the people of Vesuvia.

Childhood

Catulla was named for her father, whilst her elder brother was named for her mother’s family. Her mother, Poppaea Valeria, died giving birth to her-- as a result, her father and brother had resented her for this, and her father treated her coldly during her childhood, heaping all his aspirations onto her elder brother, with Catulla being forgotten in the shadows.

As a result, Catulla was raised mostly by tutors and servants, keeping mostly to herself during her childhood, the shamed daughter of the Consul hidden away in the Claudius estate. It was during this time she gained an appreciation for the arts-- cooped up in such a large manor with a lush garden and vineyard, she found herself often staying out to sketch the sceneries and making different studies of the servants at work as well.

Adolescence

By the time she was around thirteen or fourteen, she was deemed talented and useful enough by her father to send her away abroad to study the arts-- once again, out of sight and out of mind. She spent the next few years travelling to places like Firent, Zadith, and Prakra, studying the painting, architecture, and sculpture of each of the different cultures, returning back to Vesuvia when they were around nineteen with a wealth of knowledge.

Adulthood

Catulla was introduced at court by her father at the wedding of Count Lucio to Nadia Satrinava, alongside her elder brother-- she was around twenty at that time. Later, she received note from town gossip that the Count was looking to commission an artist for his official portraits.

Determined to win the commission, Catulla had worked in secrecy and submitted her sample work to the palace under the pseudonym of Callis Maxim, unwilling to throw around her family reputation. It was to her pleasure and surprise that she was notified, a month later, of her winning the commission.

Catulla had informed her father of her new occupation and then without waiting for his protest or permission, promptly moved into guest apartments in the Vesuvian Palace, where she would stay for the next year as she worked on a painting of the Count as seen in the Arcana game, standing proudly over the skull of a dead beast, with mountains in the background

Court Painter

He was apparently so pleased with her work that she’d been promoted to the Court Painter, whereupon she had been tasked with painting a myriad of things, mostly for his vanity projects-- paintings of him, paintings of his menagerie of pets.

Over time, Catulla had befriended him, or, as much as anyone could befriend the count, being referred to affectionately as “Cat” by him, and something of a one-sided infatuation had sprung up, with Cat having held a soft spot for him despite his selfish tendencies due to his love and care for his pets, though she made sure he had remained unaware of this, and he was in the meanwhile having an affair with her brother.

When the Red Plague swept the city, she’d been horrified at his inaction, distancing herself from him and calculatedly cutting off any form of their previous friendliness towards each other-- her last commission was the painting of the feast in the dining hall, and the grim and ominous composition was a manifestation of her disappointment and bitter anger towards him. She’d given it to him as a parting gift, alongside a resignation letter.

The Red Plague

Catulla intended to leave court for fear of Lucio’s wrath after reading her resignation letter; however, she had been called back by the Countess, who’d asked her to help her and Doctor Devorak improve the quality of life in Vesuvia through public works projects, something she’d studied as an architectural student in Prakra at one point.

When the Count contracted the plague as well, she’d taken over this public works project as Julian was tasked to find a cure; during her meetings with the courtiers, she’d learned from her brother, acting Interim Consul, that their father had also contracted the plague.

Masquerade

At one point, Catulla had suffered a breakdown from the stress and vanished mysteriously, to the chagrin of her brother, it was this that prevented her from being present at the Masquerade where Lucio was murdered.

It was later revealed that just before the masquerade, she’d decided to run away from Vesuvia, no longer able to withstand the pressures of running the public works project, or the fear for her father and the Count despite her better judgement. She had moved around over the next three years from here to there, working as a painter for tourists and passerby, her pride preventing her from returning to Vesuvia and asking her brother for help.

Aftermath

She was later found to be living in Nevivon by Lucio, newly freed from his Devils’ bargain and banished by Nadia from Vesuvia no less, selling portrait miniatures or scenic paintings to tourists and passerby on the street. She couldn’t recall him, not even able to put a name to his face-- this had prompted him to bring her back to the palace despite Nadia’s threats of punishment to see her own artworks hanging up over the halls, hoping to prompt her memory to return.

It was there she’d run into her brother, shocked to see her alive and well for all those years, and shocked even more to see Lucio of all people with her, who he’d called the guards on, running him out of the palace once again.

Despite her suspicions, he made an effort to reconcile and show that he wasn’t the asshole she’d believed him to be in their earlier years. Over time, as she gradually returned to palace life, the gaps in her memories gradually filled in, and she was welcomed back in helping Nadia and Julian with their aqueduct projects.

However, there was always a missing piece, it felt like, in their mind, and they hadn’t realized what it was till Nadia mentioned offhandedly she didn’t really wish to have Lucio’s portraits hanging around anymore, but she also felt guilty if she were to throw away Catulla’s works, prompting the artist to ask after Lucio...

Trivia

Callixta, Catulla’s unused personal name, means chalice, and is shared with her brother. Her cognomen that’s most commonly used, Catulla, means wise or good judgement. As with Roman naming conventions, her family name is in the feminine form.

Calixta can speak at least six different languages as part of her formal education.

She suffers from selective memory loss and can’t remember any of the time she spent at Court, though she recalls her education, early years, and family quite well.

Her story plays out in a continuation of Nadia’s route rather than in Lucio’s own route.

She’s not a magician, nor are any of her known family members, but doesn’t have quite as much a dislike for magic as Valerius does, and her instinct and intuition is unusually sharp for someone without magic.

She has a smooth voice that “sounds like a Disney princess”.

[nikkzwrites]

Yesterday Once More | Dark Fix-It Fic Series | Chapter 12

A/N: This fic is one that I started with my OC because honestly, I personally didn’t like how season 3 ended. So I am rewriting all of Dark with my OC Annalise Dahlheim. I hope you all like it. Some things will be expanded more on just for more depth to Dark that season 3 kinda skipped over so…. yeah.

CW: Canon Typical Triggers: Smoking, Sex, Language, Drugs, Drinking, Death, Violence, Suicide Mentions, Cutting, Violence.

Word Count:  6.9k

[First Chapter] [Previous Chapter] [Next Chapter]

“We have managed to stabilize the God Particle and the resulting mass,” Claudia’s recorded voice echoed through the empty power plant, “In a stable state, it seems to create a kind of portal which allows for time travel. If the matter is supplied with sufficient voltage, it can be kept in a stable state in the long term. Sending objects through the stabilized matter has already proven possible.” Jonas stared at the swirling dark mass before him as the recording continued, “A generator has to supply sufficient AC current for that. Even after lengthy observation, we’re not sure what the energy source of the unstable matter is. Measurements indicate there is no form of energy loss.” Jonas looked down at his sheet as he continued to work on the machines trying to make a portal for him to go back home. “It appears to be a type of self sustaining recursive system.” Jonas stood back and threw the switch. Frustratingly, the system still didn’t work as the prerecorded Claudia droned on, “The matter’s radiation levels exceed control values. Still no sign of decay has been observed. This is consistent with the laws of conservation of energy, yet contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. Moreover the matter seems to exist independent of external temperature, in solid, liquid, and gaseous states at once. And the molecules seem to be in a constant cycle.” Jonas tried once more. Only this time the machine actually powered up. The ball formed into a perfect sphere causing Jonas to start awestruck at the dropping sphere only for the power to stop. He turned around annoyed trying to find the source of the problem. There, the generator lacked the proper oil to continue.

The sun rose on the 22nd of June 1987. It was five days until the apocalypse. Mikkel shot up in his new bed. There on his wall was a picture of the Goonies. He squeezed his eyes closed and slowly opened them again to study the ‘Captain Future’ and ‘Nuclear Navigators’ comics scattered across his floor. He slowly pulled himself out of bed and shook his head. He could almost feel like Annalise was there. Like a phantom of her fleeting across his imagination. He slowly made his way downstairs where Ines was working on making a sandwich for him. 

“Hey, sleepyhead. We’re running a bit late today,” Ines commented. She packed his lunch into his bag. When she saw Mikkel just staring at her, she sighed and said, “Come on, everything will be fine. Just one more week and it’s summer vacation.”

Part of him wondered if this was what it was like for Jonas on his first day back to school. He sighed and recounted to Ines, “It’s my mother’s birthday today.” He longed to be there. He knew in his heart that had he been in his time, Magnus and Martha would be rushing around downstairs decorating as Ulrich swooped back into the house with the last of the needed icing for the Black Forest gâteau Annalise was making. His heart yearned to be on the counter kicking his legs as he stole some of the cherries that were going to decorate the top of the cake. As punishment, Annalise would place a bit of Ganache on the tip of his nose while licking the rest off her finger with a smile that lit up his dreams. Ulrich would then place a bit of the left over batter across her cheek using one of the spatulas that she had used to stir it and wink at his son as if he knew how much Mikkel loved her.

Ines slowly put down her keys and cupped the boy’s face, “You know what we said about that.” She tried to reason with Mikkel, “The past is the past…” She brushed his hair away from his face.

Mikkel nodded, “The now is now.” 

Ines caressed him before asking, “Shall we?” At Mikkel’s shrug, she stood up and told him, “Come on.” She led him outside so that he could go to school without any more talk or thoughts of his past life.

Claudia called through her house, “Regina! You’re going to be late!” She turned to Egon and told him, “The French delegation is visiting the plant. I just can’t do it.”

Egon shook his head and explained, “No problem. I don’t have anything else to do.”

Claudia stormed to try and find her daughter, “Regina!”

“I can really do this more often,” Egon told his daughter. When Claudia walked back Gretchen followed her. Something in the back of the man’s head tingled with familiarity. “Where did you find this little one,” he asked Regina. He scooped the dog up into his arms as Claudia stared at him in panic. “Looks like Gretchen,” he commented.

Claudia shook her head quickly lying, “Nonsense.” She took the dog from the confused man and called for her daughter once more, “Regina! Where are you?”

“Listen,” Egon confessed wavering, “I actually wanted to talk to you. There’s something I have to tell you.”

Regina, who was finally ready to go from straightening her hair, walked out right at that moment, “Hi, Grandpa. Can we go?” She was in a rush to go and she walked around with her head held high and a newer self confidence that could only be led back to her meeting the boy Aleksander.

“No need to say bye.” Claudia yelled, “No problem!” After hearing the door slam, she turned back to her father and asked, “You wanted to tell me something?”

Egon bit his lip and shook his head. He, then, nodded and told her, “Never mind. Alright. I will see you later.” He walked out following his granddaughter. 

At the police station in 2020, Charlotte stared at the picture of Noah and Sic Mundus. She turned it over to confirm that on the back it indeed still read, ‘8. January 1921. Sic Mundus Creatus Est.’ She looked up and rolled to her search engine on her work computer and typed in ‘Sic Mundus Creatus Est.’ When she searched it she came across the meaning, ‘Thus the world was created.’

Clausen walked into Charlotte’s office and informed her, “The interview with Mrs. Tiedemann. Already forgotten?”

Charlotte shook her head, “No. I thought you might do it alone after all.”

“Why,” Clausen raised his brow, “Do you have something better to do?”

Charlotte’s hands raised defensively, “No. I just wondered why we’re starting with Mrs. Tiedemann. She has no link to any of the missing people.”

Clausen sighed, “Everyone disappeared near the caves and the nuclear power plant grounds.” He walked in as he explained, “Your colleague Ulrich Nielsen’s brother disappeared in that area in 1986 as well. And then… There’s also the door in the caves leading right to the nuclear power plant.” He leaned over the desk and asked her, “How long have Aleksander Tiedemann and his wife been married?”

Charlotte furrowed her brow then shook her head looking at him, “I don’t exactly know. Regina was… in her mid twenties. Why?”

“Don’t you find it unusual,” He asked. 

Charlotte asked for clarification, “What?”

“That Aleksander Tiedemann took his wife’s name,” Clausen spoke. 

Charlotte shook her head, “No.”

“Shall we go,” He asked her again.

Charlotte, taking the hint, stood up and started to walk out. When Clausen didn’t make an immediate move she called to him and asked, “Are you coming?”

“Yes,” he called to her as he walked away still curious about what his colleague was trying to hide from him.

Elizabeth stared at her book that she got from her great grandfather’s old shop. She was completely absorbed in it that she nearly didn’t notice her sister standing up to go get the door. She was a bit confused because their parents weren’t supposed to be home yet.

Hearing the doorbell, Franziska stood up and walked to the door. She opened the door to reveal Magnus. Annoyed, she asked him, “Hey, where have you been?” He paced inside with the girl hot on his trail, “Why didn’t you call me back? I was trying to reach you the whole time.”

Magnus turned to her and scowled, “Last year, I know where you got the money.” He shook his head and quoted Bernadette, “ ‘Blow job 40 euros, anal 85. Kinky stuff costs extra?’ Who did you do it with, huh? Who did you blow in this damn shithole?” Franziska’s face contorted in confusion and hurt as Magnus continued, “Nothing has changed. Everyone lies. Everyone cheats.”

Franziska shook her head. Her face reddening from trying to hold back tears, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I followed you,” confessed Magnus, “I know who you get your money from.”

Franziska took a large breath and angrily asked, “So your first thought is that I prostitute myself?”

Sneering, Magnus replied, “What else?”

Franziska yelled at him, “I don’t sell my tits or ass! I sell hormone therapy prescriptions, you idiot! My father used to use them to pay for his visits. He stopped going and now I’m the new supplier.”

Magnus stared at her and shook his head, “Why do you do it?”

“I help her, she helps me,” Franziska shouted at him, “It’s that simple!” Magnus started to shake his head causing the girl to continue, “The secrets aren’t the problem, it’s the shit we all project onto others. I said it’s none of your fucking business, and it isn’t! I can’t believe you spied on me. How messed up are you?” She stormed past him to go back into the den to sit on the sofa. 

Magnus stared at her for a second before storming out the house.

The older Jonas watched as the girl started to cry in her sleep. He reached over to her and started to wipe her tears away. He kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her pulling the girl on top of him. Her hair stuck to his beard as he kissed the top of her head once again. He held her closer as she started to thrash and scream.

Annalise was drowning in the void. It felt as if someone, or something, was dragging her down deep within the depths. Before, she was on a small makeshift raft with Bartosz, Magnus, Martha, Regina, and Aleksander, a storm hit causing her and Martha to be thrown overboard. But now she was in a deep, black void.  As she cried out, it only felt as though the dark liquid rushed into her mouth and lungs. Every turn she saw another cold, swollen, lifeless face there with her. Mikkel, Erik, Jonas, Ulrich, Yasin, Helge, her own father Lukas, and when she looked down, there smiling up at her, each holding an ankle was herself and David. Every fiber of her being was on fire, yet ice cold.

Jonas winced at her scratching at him as if she were a caged animal. He called to her, “Annalise, my love. Wake up.” He squeezed her a bit tighter in his arms, “Darling. Wake up.” 

Annalise shook awake. Her body convulsed as it coughed up air as if she was choking. Her eyes released more tears as she tried her best to breathe. She buried herself into the man’s neck and wrapped herself around him.

He slowly pulled her close to him and lifted them out of bed. He cradled her as he walked with her still crying into his shoulder. He cooed, “I know. I know. It’s okay. You’re safe now. You’re right here with me. Everything’s okay.” As he comforted her, she only responded by wrapping her arms around his neck tighter. He sauntered to his bag and wobbly bent down to place it on the chair so that he could grab a clean shirt out of it. After placing the clean shirt onto his arm, he slowly started to walk them to the shower. Jonas started it running. He whispered into her ear, “I’m going to slip if I keep holding you like this. Are you okay?” When he felt her nod, he placed her down gently and grabbed her face. He kissed right in the middle of her big puffy red eyes. Jonas told her, “It won’t take long okay?” He put his shirt in the sink.

Annalise nodded. She looked at his chest finally to see tiny red scrapes that seemed like claw marks. 

When Annalise reached to touch the scratches she gave him, Jonas turned from her and chuckled, “don’t worry about it.” He said, “As you can see, you have to do a lot more than that to hurt me. I have thick skin.”

Her lips trembled as she nodded and waited for him to be done before going in herself. She washed away the cold sweat off of her. She could feel him still there in the room with her, yet she just focused on the warm water carrying all the fear from her.

Jonas stared at her form hidden from him by the curtain. He didn’t want to leave her alone just in case. He knew what trauma did to people all too well. He turned to face himself in the mirror. He stared at his face wondering how, if things were different, would he still be the same. Would he still look like this? He tried to imagine what Annalise herself would look like. He only ever knew her at this age. Would she still love him if she were able to go past this?

Annalise slowly turned off the shower. She dried herself off and walked out. She noticed him looking distressed. She smiled gently at him, “Is there something wrong?”

He shook his head, “No. I’m sorry for worrying you.” He watched as she stole one of his old hoodies and slipped it on. A smile spread across his face. His heart was young and light once more. His eyes lit up. His troubles felt so far away seeing her in his clothes. He couldn’t believe he took all of this for granted so long ago.

Annalise gave him a hug and asked Jonas, “Should we head downstairs? Get some breakfast?” She kissed his hidden jaw.

Jonas nodded, “Yeah.” He watched as she walked into his room to place her phone to charge. He started his way downstairs after grabbing his suitcase. 

Hannah sat at the table looking at pictures of her son. She felt at a loss. He was here with them, yet her Jonas was off in the future. Annalise seemed to have moved on very quickly to this new Jonas that actually burned inside of her a bit. She placed the picture down when she heard his heavy steps go down the stairs.

Jonas silently placed his suitcase on the table and opened it up for his mother. He took out his time machine to show to her.

“What’s this,” Hannah asked.

Annalise answered from the stairs, “A time machine.” She walked down stairs and kissed Jonas’s cheek. She told him, “I’m going. I will see you later.” She pulled away from him after he gave her a small acknowledgement nod and walked towards the door.

Hannah looked back at Jonas, “Since when? You know what… Please continue.”

“This machine takes you 33 years into the past,” Jonas explained as he finished opening up the box, “and 33 years into the future.”

Hannah stood up and examined the box, “You’re both serious?”

Jonas stared at her then sighed, “I did it all wrong. I tried to keep a secret. The truth is, that is exactly what’s destroying us. The secrets. Mom, I know that sounds insane. That’s why I want you to see it for yourself. With your own eyes.”

“What do you mean,” Hannah asked her son.

Jonas whispered, “Dad’s secret.”

Mikkel walked up to the school. He zoned out for a second only to get shoulder checked by a black eyed Katharina who told him to, “Get out the way dork.”

Hannah stopped to look at him giving him a small smile before getting called back by her friend.

“Hannah, come on!” Katharina commanded. When Hannah hurried up to meet her, she asked, “What are you staring at?”

Mikkel sighed and turned away from the school to walk away.

Claudia power walked her way through the power plant with Gretchen in toe. Her heels clicked against the concrete floors.

Her assistant rushed to her and said, “Thank God you’re here. Someone’s waiting for you in your office. I didn’t know… It was about the dog. She says it’s hers.”

Claudia looked up at the woman in shock. She then walked into her office to see an older lady with long gray hair. The small poodle trotted up to the woman proving that Gretchen did indeed know who she was. 1986 Claudia looked at the woman and asked, “Is that your dog? I’m so sorry. She ran up to me. We called the shelter and no one reported her missing. And she resembles the dog I had as a kid.”

“Gretchen,” the older Claudia told her younger self.

Scared, the younger Claudia asked, “How do you know that?”

The older woman shrugged a bit with a playful look in her eye, “Because it’s my dog. Just like it’s yours.”

The younger Claudia took a step back realizing the full scope of what the older woman had said. Breathing hard, she asked, “Excuse me?”

“And the blood test results,” Egon asked the doctor, “So it’s already spread. To the hospital? This Friday? No. Yes, that should work. Don’t worry. I have someone. Yes.” He hung up the phone and slowly walked himself to his chair to sit and contemplate his life. Seeing Mads face in the newspaper reminded him of his missed appointment with Helge. He looked up knowing what he had to do.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” The older Claudia told her younger self, “But I remember.”

“What,” 1987 Claudia shook her head.

The older Claudia clarified, “this precise moment. Go to the blinds. Trust me.” She watched as her younger self followed her instruction then stated, “two people are sitting at their desks, Hermann and Kowaltschik. Our secretary will approach the desk on the right in a moment. She’ll fan her face on the way. Watch Kowaltschik. He’s about to drop his pen.”

Everything happened just as the older woman described causing Claudia to turn to her and ask, “How did you do that?”

“I experienced it all,” The older Claudia explained while holding the small poodle in her arms, “Everything you’ve ever experienced and everything you ever will. I am you. And I was told by me that you and I are the same person.”

Claudia shook her head, “That’s impossible.”

Her older self sighed and watched as she moved to sit back down again. “This is Gretchen,” The older self explained, “The day she ran into the cave. I was there waiting for her. She recognized me at once as if I hadn’t aged a second. I brought her to the other side so that you would find her. Some things have to happen as they always have.”

Claudia nodded, “The cave. The incident last summer. Something else happened after all!”

In 2053, Jonas walked through the empty foggy streets to grab some more fuel. He then set up a small music player in the school to distract everyone from what he was doing. The ghost form of Annalise danced around him with a smile on her face and an arm around her own waist as she twirled. She beckoned him to join her, Martha, and Bartosz in having fun. Bartosz was there with her dancing with her with one of his arms limp to the side as Martha sat on the desk with a hole in her heart bobbing her head to the music. He walked past their phantoms and grabbed his things to continue his work so that he could actually join them in their time rather than just seeing distant memories of them. Just on time, the patrol truck passed. The group hopped out to prepare their raid on the building. Jonas, then, jumped over the wall so that he could syphon its gas into his canister. He quickly ducked behind the wall scared out of his mind as the person guarding the tank had started to move over towards the side he was previously on. There beside him as he breathed quickly was a hazy form of Annalise. As if a memory of her sitting pressed a wall. Her breathing slow. Her eyes were closed helping him slowly close his eyes and calm his breathing so that he was less likely to be heard.

“Do you believe in ghosts,” The young Regina asked.

Aleksander replied, “What do you mean?”

Regina laughed, “The book we’re reading at school. It’s about ghosts and demons” They sat facing each other tangled up in the other’s legs. She continued, “that we inherit from our parents.” She lifted up their held hands and explained, “And...that you pass them on. Dark stuff. From generation to generation.”

Aleksander shrugged and shook his head, “Maybe.” His thumbs grazed the back of her palms. He chuckled and smirked, “I’m sure you inherited your mother’s best features.” He folded his arms so that her arms were even more intertwined with his.

“I didn’t know if she had any,” sighed Regina. 

“No,” the lovestruck boy teased.

Regina smiled as she shook her head, “You have no idea. She...She’s never around. And when she is, all she does is gripe about me.” Aleksander let out a large breath and started to trace his loved one’s scars on her wrist as she continued, “She has never once said, ‘I love you’ to me.”

Aleksander sighed. His eyes held her hostage as he told her, “I love you.” He held that moment between them before they both leaned forward to press their lips against their partner’s.

Clausen asked the older Regina, “How would you describe your relationship with Ulrich Nielsen?”

“I think it’s known that we have no relationship with the Nielsens,” the woman explained.

Clausen heckled, “Yet he showed up at your hotel the day before he disappeared. What did he want?” 

Charlotte stared at the box on the table as Regina explained, “He wanted to know what really happened in 1986. Because I was the last one… to see his brother alive.”

Clausen looked around the room and commented, “Your husband. How long has he lived in Winden?”

“Since 1986. Why do you ask,” asked Regina right back.

Clausen then asked, “Why did he take your last name?”

“What does one have to do with the other,” she asked while shaking her head.

Charlotte threw up her hands and started to act as if getting up, “If we are done here--”

Clausen shushed her and motioned for the  woman to stop. “There is still something,” He commented to his coworker. He turned towards Regina and asked, “Isn’t there?”

Regina nodded and said, “Last year, a stranger came to the hotel. Those are his things.” Charlotte nodded and opened the box as the other woman continued, “He wanted to rent a room. He looked like a homeless person. He paid cash. He left after a few days, but he wanted to keep the room. He never came back.” She watched as Charlotte started to spread out all of the older Jonas’s things across the table. Regina told Clausen, “These were all over his walls. As he was leaving he asked me to mail a package for him. ”

“To whom,” asked Clausen.

Regina took a baited breath and then told him, “Jonas Kahnwald.”

Annalise stared down at the lake beneath her. The stone ledge was the only thing keeping her from it’s depths. She swallowed down her anxiety and started to strip down. She hung her borrowed clothes on a tree branch. She walked a little away from the ledge, turned, then sprinted right off. As her feet left the hard ground, she performed a dive straight into the lake below her. Her eyes closed. Her heart beat faster than she ever knew it to beat.

Magnus happened to be passing by as he sulked in the forest. He saw Annalise run, then, jump into the water. He started to panic. The boy knew how she was about water and swimming. He threw off his shirt and pants hurrying to get into the water. “Annalise,” yelled the boy as he swam out towards where she had jumped.

Weightlessness was a melancholic memory. Annalise opened her eyes feeling herself submerged in the water. She needed to get deeper. She spread her legs much like a frog and forced them together propelling herself farther into the lake. Her hair flowed behind her as she tried to force her way into the darkness. She kept swimming down until she started to hear thrashing near the service of the water. She turned her head to see a pair of legs there. It wasn’t long until she saw Magnus dive down as well. He looked so scared. Annalise swam over to him and grabbed his shoulders.

Magnus flailed beneath the water looking for the girl. He couldn’t spot her until she grabbed onto his shoulders and turned him towards the surface once more. She pointed upwards indicating that they should go up to talk. He nodded and swam up after her. Once he was out of the water he watched her breathing deeply and screamed, “What the fucking hell?” He pushed his hair out of his face.

Annalise turned toward him, “What are you doing here Magnus?” She had finally caught her breath. Her eyes burned from trying to transition from water to air again causing her to repeatedly blink.

“What am I doing here,” He yelled at her, swimming them towards the rocky edge for them to sit, “What the hell were you thinking? That was so fucking stupid! What if I weren’t here?”

Annalise smiled at him as she pulled herself out the water and wrung out her hair. She giggled for a second and slyly commented, “I’d probably still be trying to see how far I could go.”

He growled at her, “You could have gotten seriously hurt.” He watched as she sprawled on top of the sun-warmed rock. As much as he hated to admit it, he felt a little proud seeing her so nonchalant about the water now. He ended up laying down next to her and asked, “But seriously, what made you do this?”

“Honestly,” Annalise sighed, “Everything is just so...crazy right now, that I might as well have done it, right?”

Magnus nodded, “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

The two lay there in the sun letting its heat dry them from the darkness they were once surrounded by. They were there in silence for several minutes before Annalise spoke up again, “You never told me why you were here.” With her eyes still closed absorbing the warmth of the light, she raised one of her eyebrows.

Magnus nodded with his closed as well, “Franziska and I got into it because of some dumbass thing I did.”

Annalise nodded, “Ah.”

Silence overcame the moment once again as they just tried to process their life. They both enjoyed being with each other not having to say anything at all sometimes. Their friendship allowing them to feel the passage of time and their responsibility to it without words. Magnus didn’t realize how much he was going to treasure this memory with her as his life would continue without having her physically being around him.

After a while, Annalise turned to her friend and asked, “Do you hate me?”

“Sometimes,” Magnus admitted, turning to look at her. He huffed and explained, “I sometimes think that you do actually know more about what happened to my father and brother, yet you are refusing to tell me or anyone. Then, I remember that you would never do that to us.” He lay back onto his back and stated, “You love us far too much to ever do anything like that.”

Annalise lay back down as well, “Yeah.”

The older Jonas led his mother through the Winden caves. He periodically looked back to make sure she was still there with him and not hurt. When they got to a large cavern within the space, he set up his machine.

“What is this,” Hannah asked the older version of her son. She breathed heavily and asked, “What are we doing here?”

“It’s safer to travel from here,” He explained to his mother. He knelt down and started to fiddle with the box to start up the machine. He looked up at his mother and told her, “I told you it would be easier to understand once you’ve seen it.”

Mikkel was walking his way back home on the outskirts of the woods just as the box in 2020 was powering up.

Stranger Jonas turned to his mother and told her, “Don’t be scared.” He held her shaking hand as they prepared to travel.

Mikkel continued his walk through the woods avoiding school. Then he heard it. The noise he recognized. He ran his way to the caves hoping to find his way home. He walked closer towards it only to be stopped by a man’s voice.

“Should you be in school,” asked Noah. He walked towards the boy as he continued to cut and eat his apple.

Mikkel looked at him, “I know you.” The boy said, “You were in the hospital.”

Noah strolled over to the boy and explained, “I like coming here. Special place. So...Why aren’t you in school?” When Mikkel didn’t reply, the man smiled, “I see. Sometimes we don’t really know where we’re supposed to be.” He pointed with his knife towards the caves and said, “But I wouldn’t go in there. It’s like a maze in there. Some have never returned.” Noah put away his knife and started to walk away.

“At the hospital,” Mikkel said to the man, “you said something. The thing about God and that he has a plan for everyone. But what if God has no idea what he’s doing? What if the plan is wrong? If God is mistaken?”

Noah shook his head, “God doesn’t make mistakes. Sometimes we have to have more faith that everything will be okay again.” He turned away and tossed the apple to the side as he walked away.

Egon smiled at Helge, “I’ve been wanting to come by for quite some time. Now that I’m retired, I have time.” Helge looked up at him then started to make his little nature soldiers once more. Egon continued, “I… Mads’ disappearance. I can’t stop thinking about it. On that day… you had a shift at the nuclear power plant. You said you took the country road home, but that’s a detour. Why didn’t you take the forest road?”

Helge slowly spoke, “He… He said… He can change everything. He can change the past, and the future.”

“Who said that,” asked Egon.

Helge replied, “The man with the stone.”

Egon asked, “But that was 33 years ago. What does that have to do with Mads?”

Helge took a deep breath, “But no one can change it. No one. Not even the White Devil.”

“The White Devil,” Egon asked, “You’ve said that before. Back then, as a child.” 

Helge started to work once more. He kept repeating to himself, “Tick-Tock. Tick-tock.”

The older Claudia stood in the cave with her younger self. She explained, “I would like you to trust in an idea that’s bigger than you. Bigger than any of us.” She started to unscrew a canister of the God Particle.

“What’s that,” the younger self asked.

Older Claudia explained, “This is humankind’s greatest discovery. And also its doom. It allows you to travel through time. Thirty three years back. Thirty three years forward. And it will take exactly 33 years for the cycle to be completed again. Until you are standing where I am standing now and accept your role in this never-ending dance, and every sacrifice it requires. In five days, everything will start over. You must stop Adam.”

The younger Claudia shook her head, “Who is Adam?”

“You don’t understand it yet,” She explained then took out some diagrams, “But you soon will.” She let the younger version of her take it then continued once more, “Until then, everything will happen as it always has. As it must.” She started up the machine allowing herself to back way, “In the end, life is just a collection of missed opportunities. You don’t have much more time with Regina. But if everything works out… she will live.” After that, she disappeared in a black sphere leaving Claudia alone in the cave.

Jonas trekked back to his secret place in the nuclear power plant. As soon as he crawled under. Silja and her group were there with guns pointed at him. Elizabeth walked out from the woods and the boy knew he was in trouble.

Charlotte drove and called Peter. She explained what she had learned to him in a panicked tone. She looked over to her grandfather’s book next to her then back onto the road. She started to break down with her husband asking, “Why did he never tell me who my parents really were?”

Jonas stood there with the noose around his neck and his feet and wrists bound. He glared out at Elisabeth as he shed a tear.

Silja translated for her once more, “You know the rules. Do you think they don’t apply to you?”

Elisabeth held her gun up at him then Jonas asked her, “Why are you lying to them? Why don’t you tell them what’s really in the dead zone?” She shot his leg causing the boy to cry out in pain. He yelled, “In five days, in my time, everybody is going to die! I have to stop that. There is no prophecy! The passage will never open. Your paradise does not exist! But behind the wall-”

Elisabeth had enough of his desperate pleas and kicked his stand from under him. Silja couldn’t even watch as she heard him choking. After a short while, Elisabeth shot the rope allowing the boy down from his hanging.

Egon sat at his home and answered his phone, “Hello? Egon here. Yes. Listen, in 1953 we arrested a man. What happened to him after 1953? He killed two kids back then. Then he abducted Helge Doppler. Yeah. I wanted to know what happened to him. Yes, I’ll hold.” He stared at the picture of Ulrich then when he heard a reply, “Yes? Okay, that’s the case. What? He’s still here? Where?” 

He then went to visit the mental hospital where Ulrich was staying. When the nurse led him to the man, he slowly approached. “Excuse me, please. You may not remember me anymore. My name is Egon Tiedemann. I arrested you 34 years ago.”

Ulrich turned towards him and said, “Egon Tiedemann.” He stood up and asked, “How could I ever forget you?”

“I…” Egon stumbled over his words, “I wanted… I have a few questions.”

Ulrich leaned over and sniffed the man. He then quoted in English, “‘My only aim is to take many lives. The more the better I feel.’”

Egon moved back, “I know that. You’ve said that before. What does it mean?”

Ulrich shook his head, “It means that you, you moron, still haven’t understood a thing.” He sat back down at his table, “But now you have to hurry. You don’t have much time left. I know when you die. It was in the paper.”

Egon moved closer to him, “I don’t understand.”

“No,” Ulrich told the man, “Of course you don’t. But maybe that is also your fate. To die as clueless as you were when you were born.” Ulrich laughed, “Everyone gets what they deserve.”

A storm brewed in Winden causing Mikkel to walk back home to an awaiting Ines. She sat at the table smoking. She ran to her son and asked, “Where have you been?” She held him and told the boy, “I was so worried.” She sniffled, “I called the school. They said you never showed up there. Did something happen?” When Mikkel didn’t reply, she looked down, “You know what? There are days it’s best to just forget. But… There’s no better comfort food than ‘Toast Hawaii.’ We always had it at home when I was little, with two maraschino cherries. And my dad used to dance like Elvis.” She put down the can of pineapples.

“Do you believe in God,” asked Mikkel.

Ines made a face. She remembered back to the handsome boy who made her interested in the church. His strong sense of will, right and wrong, and how his smile reminded her of a sunset. He always knew exactly what to say and could make her laugh even on her worst days. He would clown around and end up just hurting himself trying to make her smile, but he would always pop back up with a large goofy smile. He was like that with nearly everyone though. He was constantly making Helge feel better about himself. She remembered one time he really made her heart race though. They were helping the community kids learn how to dance. David was sitting out initially and was there to help demonstrate with the Pastor, but no one wanted to partner with her, so he walked over to her. He smiled oh so gently at her and held her close as they danced. He leaned down and in a low voice sang the song just for her, into her ear. After he pulled away, he, in a husky voice just loud enough for prying ears to hear and with a devious smirk, said, “Here’s looking at you, Kid.” He made her feel like the most desirable person in the room. It worked on everyone else too because boys stopped bullying her and girls started to be a bit nicer to her in school. In fact, the group of girls pulled her and Jana to cluck with the rest of them about the boys and question her about David. She started to go to church a lot more after that just to see the older boy. He would walk her and Jana home. After dropping Jana home first, he’d always leave her just like how he pulled away from her after dancing and adding a sweet chaste kiss where her forehead met her hair line. She could remember how lonely he looked walking away. As if, his happiness was simply a mask to make everyone else happy and there was some darkness lurking beneath the surface.

Ines looked at her son and nodded.

“Do you believe he has a plan for us,” Mikkel asked. 

Ines sighed. She thought back to David and her own life after trying to chase the feeling of what he left her...then the feeling of losing her birth son… She nodded once again, “I believe… he does. I believe, for example, that God saw to it that you came to me. And that his plan for me is to be there for you.” She smiled at the boy and rubbed his shoulders, “Right, let’s make ‘Toast Hawaii,’ okay?” She sniffled back tears, “Will you help me?”

Mikkel followed the woman and gave her a much needed hug to comfort the both of them.

In 2053, Jonas sat in his cage. He struggled with his leg and breathing. When he heard Silja, he backed himself more into the corner. His breath hitched as she pointed the gun at him. 

“Why didn’t she kill you,” She asked. She stared at him and asked, “Who are you really?” When he didn’t reply, she yelled, “Who are you?” Jonas stared at her debating for a second before she knocked off the lock and opened his cage. She told him, “I want you to show me. What’s really in the dead zone.”

Jonas agreed and they snuck into the dead zone as Charlotte in 2020 looked for answers of her parents. The older Hannah walked towards the 1987 version of her house. There in the window was Ines and Mikkel laughing. Ulrich looked out of his window as Egon looked over his files. The older Jonas held his mother as she realized her husband was Mikkel. Peter rushed to his wife’s side holding her knowing that she needed it. Annalise walked Magnus home and held him close as tears fell from her eyes. Jonas showed Silja the mass. Claudia trekked back to her house and dug up the time machine her older self left for her 33 years prior. 

Jonas put the gasoline into the generator and cranked the machine to life.

“What is that,” Silja asked.

Jonas said, “She said it’s a portal.”

“Who,” asked the girl.

Jonas explained, “I have tapes with a woman speaking on them. Her name is Claudia Tiedermann. I know none of this makes sense, but that may be the only way back home.” He pointed to it, “No clue if it works.” He turned the electrical on to see the blob turn into a sphere.

“You want to go in,” Silja tried to reason with the boy.

He turned to her and explained, “It doesn’t matter if I die inside of it or out here.” He walked his way to the sphere and slowly let his hand be consumed for a second. He took it out to see if it was okay. With that, he stepped in with the girl calling for him back in 2053.

[dollyllama108]

"Pinche pendejo. ¿Qué chingados cree que está haciendo? ¿Qué chingados?" Claudia projected her asshole ex onto the punching bag. She shoved it hard with both hands.

It'd been a couple days since the breakup. She'd cut things off, no trouble, even though he whined at first and then started to get pissy if she so much as breathed in the direction of another man. And of course he did that enough to qualify as a pattern within the past 48 hours. How the fuck was he even finding her? Yeah, ok, so she knew how the fuck he was even finding her; he was never not at the gym and she was never not at the gym either, being Miss Universe and all. She caught the punching bag before it smashed her with her own momentum, landing a right hook where his stupid nose would be.

"Pinche Rex."

Petty jealous bastard Rex McMahan; fucking glasses McAsshole with his damn red shirt. And no, she didn't blame him; she was more frustrated with herself for getting into this sorry state and was boosting her workout routine by riding the unmatchable teeth-clenching energetic high one gets when thinking about asshole exes.

Claudia's flailing left arm was reflected in the mirror closest to the entrance. The angle the mirrors were hung at wasn't flattering. The lighting wasn't great either, being that the storm outside cast a pall over the entrance while the fluorescent gym headlamps beamed down to lend a cheerful atmosphere to the patrons' ex-induced punching frenzies. Hitting the punching bags produced more of an echo than it should. The dim lighting and repetitive motion was what Claudia needed, blocking her senses enough to recover from the past few weeks. Her back's reflection was visible from the weight room at a certain angle. One person facing the mirror could have watched Claudia rain blows on her effigy, though he couldn't have cared less. He wasn't there as a gym voyeur. 

Read Sunshine and Laughter (Pt. II) Catastrophe Theory splash page

[shinigami-mistress]

As a few of you may know, I’ve been working on a new project which is really different from what I usually write. This story is an AU that focuses more on Ciel and Sebastian. I’m still deep in the editing process of chapter, but I thought I’d post a sneak peek for anyone who might be interested.

The tall, golden grass waved lazily in the cool, crisp breeze as birds sang happily from the distant trees; hiding among the branches of brightly colored leaves. The sky was nearly a faultless expanse of endless blue except for some dark clouds gathering on the horizon like a spreading bruise. There was a storm in the distance, but for now the weather seemed ideal - almost too perfect. A small boy hurried through the field; his dark clothes contrasting greatly with the bright colors around him. He wasn’t running, but his steps were quick and jerky as if he was a bad marionette. It seemed that he wanted to run, but something unseen was holding him back. He wiped his dry eyes as he rounded a small embankment and a cozy farmhouse came into view.

The house was tucked away in the corner of the field with its back against the woods like it was some sort of secret, but it was pleasant enough to the eyes. A wide, rough hewn porch greeted the random passersby like a broad smile as large, curtainless windows stared out without judgement or conviction. It had been painted white many years prior, and it still liked bright despite its age, but there were places where the bare wood peeked out from thinning and cracked spots in the paint.

The boy jumped up the few steps and onto the porch, but paused as his dark blue eyes stared down at the ground. Beside some late blooming roses, lay a dead squirrel. Whatever injuries it had sustained to cause its death were not visible, but its eyes were wide and unseeing, and it’s small tongue was hanging out of its mouth. Flies were buzzing around the stiffened corpse as if the insects were singing their own dirge. 

For several minutes, the boy simple stared at the gruesome sight before he inhaled quickly and turned away. His previously dry eyes began to water, and began to flow despite his desperate, frenzied blinking. He leaned against a nearby porch post; ignoring any splinters as he placed his forehead against the cool wood. Gasping again, he cried with almost no sound as the wind shifted as if trying to comfort him.

Regaining his composure, the boy walked across the porch, the wood creaking beneath his black shoes, and knocked on the heavy door.

“Mr. Sebastian?” he said, as he opened the door without waiting for an invitation.

The inside of the house was spotless and immaculate, but it looked more like the set of a play that someone’s living quarters. Directly of the wall across from the boy was an oval picture of a handsome woman whose mysterious eyes seemed to greet all visitors. Time had not been kind to the picture as it had discolored, but there was still power in the woman’s gaze and smile. Ciel had often paused to stare at the picture as he knew that this was his grandmother, Claudia, who had died long before he was born. There was supposedly a family resemblance, but he had yet to see it as he found his grandmother to be a cold beauty. Turning to the left, he entered a small living room, but it was nearly as sparsely decorated as the entryway with only two small tables and a single chair all of which set in the middle of the room. The chair was positioned so that it soaked up all the sun which streamed readily through the large windows, and it’s red surface gleamed like a forgotten jewel. It seemed out of place in the antique, rustic cabin; like a throne that had been stolen from a glorious castle.

And the man that set upon the chair could easily have been a king.

Upon hearing Ciel walk into the room, Sebastian looked up from the book he held in his long, elegant fingers and smiled. “Ciel,” he greeted, “my young friend. It is good to see you again.” He set the book aside on a small table as he stood; his form appearing to be very tall and slim as he was clad only in black attire. Despite his dark clothing, or maybe because of it, he stood apart from his surroundings, and Ciel was struck again by the feeling that Mr. Sebastian didn’t belong in such a drab and dreary place. He could have easily been some sort of celebrity with his flawless, alabaster looks instead of just a caretaker. It wasn’t that Sebastian had ever complained about his position, but it was clear that he was restless, ambitious man by the way he would sometimes stand by the window and stare out into the fields. He sometimes looked like a caged bird just dying to stretch his wings and fly away.

Ciel’s mouth twitched upwards briefly as if attempting a smile, but then his lips began to tremble as his eyes became watery once more.

Sebastian cocked his head sideways much like a curious dog, which caused his raven black hair to fall over his face and seemingly perfectly carved features. “You seem to be upset,” he said, “Is this about your brother?”

Ciel gasped. “How..how did you know?”

“News travels fast,” Sebastian replied, “I understand his funeral is today.”

Ciel managed to nod before rushing forward and falling against Sebastian. He wrapped his arms loosely around him as he cried large, ugly tears. Sebastian put his hands lightly on the boy’s shoulders as he cried. “I don’t know what to do,” Ciel said; his voice muffled against Sebastian’s clothing, “He was the special one. I’m...I’m not.”

“That isn’t true,” Sebastian said, “You are special in your own way.”

Ciel looked up at him. “Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

Wiping his eyes, Ciel took a step back. “Are you coming to the funeral?” He asked.

Sebastian shook his head. “No. I can’t. I have to stay here.”

“Because you’re the caretaker,” Ciel said softly.

“That I am,” Sebastian said, as he laid his hand on Ciel’s shoulder once more. “I hate to rush you along, but I think you should hurry home. I’m sure you parents are looking for you, and it’s almost time to go.”

Ciel took a step back. “Do you really think they are looking for me?”

Sebastian nodded. “Of course. It is nearly time, and they certainly want to leave you behind.” He gently lifted up Ciel’s chin and wiped away a lone tear that was slowly trekking down his youthful face. “Because you are special. I want you to remember that. Will you promise to do so?”

“I’ll try,” Ciel said without any real conviction, as he slowly turned and took a few steps towards the door. “Uh, Mr. Sebastian?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think we can talk later?”

Sebastian’s smile was gentle. “Of course. I’m sure you have plenty you wish to discuss.”

Ciel’s smile was weak but genuine as he ran out of the house; leaving the door open as he rushed across the field. A small flock of birds took to the air as the boy ran among them, but he didn’t pause as he hurried back towards the large manor that served as him home.

Sebastian stepped to the doorway as he watched Ciel run. His expression was nearly impossible to read as his rich, brown eyes followed the boy’s progress; pausing only once to allow his gaze to follow a single bird as it took to the sky and disappeared against the glare of the sun

[moonshxdows]

me? writing hlfx outlines instead of studying for calc? more likely then you think

spoilers for hlfx if u havent read it yet and also for the next chap (obviously) and yeah. ill put a cut since its getting kind of long. this is mostly me just organizing my thoughts bc now im finishing this fic out of spite and also i miss raydia. fuck OFF aaron theyre both gay and i do what i want

also i checked my chapter count and apparently. i mentally skipped like a whole ass chapter so we'll see what happens. im rambling. hopefully i’ll be able to actually write this once i finish finals and college essays but until then here

ps if u WANT to read hlfx scroll thru my hlfx tag 😳👀 theres links there promise

so. ezran is still kidnapped, and raydia is pretty much spending 12+ hours on the road a day trying to catch up to the earthblood elves that took him

not to mention they Still Have The Egg. AND they had a fight ab viren and also morality earlier. things r tense and quiet theyre not talking much

raylas like. dealing w her trauma yk? (thanks viren). she hasnt had the best few days/weeks/months/how long has it been since marcos died again?

anyways. bad times but shes healing!! shes gettin better!!! this is first and foremost a story ab healing and moving on and becoming better!!!!!

claudia is Also thinking but not about trauma (maybe about trauma). shes like. rethinking some of the things her dad told her u know? and is also developing an outsiders pov on dark magic with raylas sidelong comments earlier in their journey. except now shes actually Thinking about it and hmm. hmmmmmmm.

idk if i SAID they have the air primal stone but they do now. maybe the fire primal stone bc i do nothing if not project on claudia and boy am i a pyromaniac

anyways.

jesus that was just the setup

anyways they come across an elf village and rayla wants to avoid it this time but claudia sneaks in bc she wants to see it for herself

i change my mind she goes to see how magic is used in their societies and steals a primal stone

so she gets away with it (barely) and rayla wakes up to (another? cannot remember if they had the air primal stone lmao) primal stone in her bag with the egg

"claudia what the fuck im not carrying this your turn"

she doesnt explain WHY she stole the primal stone but rayla notices the filmy magic coating their clearings in the morning. and its not heavy, dark magic. its the magic of her childhood and her people, and gives her a little hope for her traveling companion

(are they friends? can she call claudia a friend when they were at each other's throats only a few weeks before?)

she doesnt mention it, though

they get more little moments on the road, peppered between sharp words on the bad days and dead silence on the worst ones. but they grow closer, bit by bit.

then they intercept the caravan with ezran and everything goes to shit

raylas impulsive and angry and so, so tired and so she runs at them, only for claudia to pull her back last minute.

theyre both scared but. claudia has a plan. she hopes.

so they linger outside the queen's palace, and wait. because if xadia politics are anything like human politics, the dragon queen will want to see her royal prisoner

she does. and when ezran steps in front of the massive dragon, sweating and exhausted in his torn cloak and tunic, rayla grabs claudias hand to stop herself from running out to him then and there.

it doesnt take long for the queen to demand retribution for her child, since clearly the crown prince- now king- ezran is alive

and this is where the plan comes in

rayla steps out onto the open air royal draconic chamber, holding the egg, and all goes silent. there are tears in her eyes when she sees ezran start to cry, but her voice remains steady when she speaks

"I have something better than retribution. But the one who brought it deserves to be the one to give it to you" or something like that

she hands the egg to ezran, he explains, claudia rushes out and theres a teary group hug while zym is born

the dragon queen doesnt trust them entirely, especially since the new one reeks of black magic, but she agrees to send an emissary to katolis

with rayla as their guard, of course

its the first step to true, lasting peace

[castorre]

Every black cloud has a peak of light pt. 1

Eclair bounced down the stairs of the personal airship, carrying several leather bags worth of clothing and toiletries. For the first time in nearly a year, she was excited about something. 

“Have a good week, Praefectus.” An attendant saluted her before beginning the process to disembark again. Eclair gave a smile and thanks before continuing down the strip to the large estate laid out in front of her. It was no secret that the Galvus family had second and third hidden homes outside of the stormy capital. Often, these were vacation homes in stable regions where the weather was more temperate. 

For once, she was able to wear the clothing she had spent so much of her money on. She hardly ever was able to leave the capital, and getting to spend time with Claudia, riding horses and swimming in the pool sounded wonderful! Claudia was truly her only salvation outside of Mory (who truly never spoke to her anymore). She could barely think of Varis without wishing to strangle him. And Zenos had withdrawn further. 

She gave a sigh, her heels clicking on the paved stones. A butler came out to meet her, offering her the standard greeting and taking her bags. She remained outside to glance about for a moment. The beautiful pink flowers that lined the outer edge of the patio were the size of dinner plates. They looked tropical, and there was trellis’ near the windows with fragrant white and yellow star-shaped blooms that were attracting honeybees. 

The sound of the airship’s engines firing up roared from the tarmac, now far away from where Eclair had ended up. She ran her fingers over the railing of the estate’s double winding stairs. They led to a covered patio, filled with a multitude of tall, leafy potted plants. The front door was enormous, dark wood with glass inserts and brass fixtures. It was like a dream. So beautiful. The perfect place to live, to escape the evils of her true life. The life that she led as a lie, the hatred that burned in her body until it made her cry herself to sleep. 

But this was her sanctuary for one week. She rounded the stairs and took one last look out over the area. The airship was just a pale dot in the distance, the roaring of the engines fading into the clouds. The grass was vibrantly green and the short blades danced in the wind. Palm trees swayed as dates fell from the top, rustling the limbs, and bouncing unto the ground; the fruit gathered birds and squirrels alike, each hoping for their own share of the feast. 

It was wonderful to know that the world still turned, despite everything. 

“Eclair? Darling?” Claudia’s voice sounded from inside the estate. It caught the duskwight’s attention and she quickly moved through the doorway into the foyer, slinging her arms around her friend. 

“Oh, Your Radiance. I’ve missed you so much!” Eclair latched onto Claudia’s blouse, planting her face in her shoulder. It had been a long time. Almost six moons! 

“I’ve missed you as well, my dear! You look stunning though! Is your work going well?” She pats at Eclair’s hair, running her fingers through the long strands. She pulled away, cupping the other woman’s face in her hands. “Goodness, I have longed to see you! I feel almost as if we were being kept apart!” 

“I felt the same, Claudia. Twelve knows I would give anything to be by your side all the time...” her voice trailed off, and she removed herself from the embrace, “work is work, you know. Nothing special. I much prefer this to what I’m currently dealing with.” 

“I understand, darling. Nothing gets easier, does it?” Claudia grabbed a cane in one hand and took Eclair’s hand in the other. “Come now, let us have tea and talk!” 

Within a quarter hour, the butler had sat Eclair and Claudia down in a private sitting room. After leaving them with a silver tray of tea, biscuits, jams and other accouterments, he gave a bow and closed the double Ishgardian style doors. 

“So, how have you felt?” Claudia sipped at the piping hot tea. A deep breath of relief and comfort passed over her face as she sipped. “Honey tea is always good for the body and soul.”

“I should be asking you that, my lady. I’m still young, for an elezen at least, and I still have my health. But you... I worry about you daily.” 

“Oh please, Eclair. There’s nothing to worry about. I just have poor genes. Not like Varis’ family. All tall well built brutes. My mother’s side was always sickly.”

“I’m working to find a cure for you, Claudia. It’s not long off, I promise. Everything in my power, in the resources of our empire... they’re going to help you and people like you.” Her eyes were glassy, but Claudia gave a simple curt nod in response.

“I know you are. Varis told me. He has high hopes for the project, he said. Said you’ve become even better in your art since you returned... returned from Gyr Abania, that is.” She seemed upset to have even gone down that line of thought. But it had come out anyways. “Please forgive me, I always lose my brain when I’m around you. I feel as if I can speak openly with so few.”

“ Ma beauté, pray do not censure yourself around me. You know you are free to say what you wish... free to entrust that I would never speak a word to another soul.”

“I know, darling. I know. It is for that reason that I wished for you to come. There are things that concern me deeply. So, let us pray to speak in much more private quarters later.” Claudia’s eyed brightened some as she sipped more of the tea before glancing at the other woman again through long eyelashes. 

The younger woman had always been an interesting beauty in Claudia’s eyes. Garlemald was known for women of classic beauty, much like Claudia herself. Even at her age, Eclair would consider the Empress the most beautiful woman in the world. Her platinum blonde hair curled in just the right ways. Like a woman out of a magazine. And her skin was unblemished, unwrinkled except for smile lines. She had never smoked or done anything that harmed her appearance. Her teeth were white as pearl and her eyes as blue as the ocean. But it was Claudia’s love for others that was the most beautiful. The Empress used her station to help the less fortunate. Hells, she had used it to help both Eclair and Mory. 

For Claudia, Eclair was exotic - despite how awful it sounded. She always thought the duskwight was like one of the heroines in the old fantasy/romance novels she read as a teenager. Perhaps her blue skin was akin to a mermaid. She would certainly not be surprised if the woman sprouted a beautiful scaled tail of gradient blues and purples. Goodness knows, Claudia would love to have a mermaid in her bathtub. 

But that was all jest. The Empress knew Eclair was but a simple child from Ishgard. She had been lost, scared, running from her family. She remembered the first time she saw her - when she had gone to Ala Mhigo to visit Gaius for a little faire le danse du loup.

“By the way, Gaius, Varis told me about someone interesting you have in Castrum Meridianum.” The small talk was spoken long after the dance performed, much like the small talk one has over dinner. That was Claudia, though. She was Garlemald’s mother, a charitable woman known for helping the less fortunate - even those from annexed lands. And she spoke about it so comfortably, so naturally.

And so, the little toilet scrubber was brought by airship to meet the wife of a Prince. But she was so much more. Even then, Eclair knew the woman was meant to be Empress. Despite the education, despite the tribulation the duskwight had faced, she was still but a child in most ways. And she still looked upon Claudia with that childlike wonder, even at present. 

“This is Garlemald, dear.” The well-dressed woman glanced down to the duskwight, who was still much smaller than her. The to-be-Empress always did think that elezen sprouted like weeds once they hit a certain age. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it, Eclair? Why are you crying?”

The child of seven-and-ten summers looked up at her, tears in her eyes, but a smile upon her face. “It is! It is... I’ve never seen something so beautiful before.”

Claudia realized later that the child had not been speaking about Garlemald itself, but of her...

[shellojello]

I’m going insane finding too many books everytime I have a thought I want to see what others say, and there are always others. Always free, always accessible because I have internet, and a computer.. so hours go by and im feeling good but then weighs in this pressure that anything I read, or add to my little archive is potentially only distancing me from real space, if you can imagine what real space is. Im not saying I can. I’m saying I’m confused. 

There is the liberating sadness, the embodiment of nothingness, Hyperbolic death, and emotional metabolism? 

It’s not good to be overly consumed by anything, by words, by art, by science, by love, by lust. You will get lost, but what is it to be consumed by nothing? and what is the obsession with being healthy that exists all around me?

Some days I get more confused, like  life exceeds consciousness, but that also isn’t imaginable, like how can a space be aware of itself if it isn’t, and if it isn’t aware how is it existing in a way that is recognizable, in a way that it exists as we know it? So like what does that even look like.  

So sometimes I think Gus is gone forever except what I have left in me (and others but from my perspective I have gus’s family, I have the memories, and I have the gus that has touched and impacted my life that will affect every decision I make) but Gus himself? his “soul” or spirit or whatever, can that exist? Is he really at peace, maybe, but does peace mean he doesn’t recognize anything at all that our consciousness let us recognize, or are we giving our consciousness, our brains too much credit, and its confusing because all the parts are tangled, and it is impossible to separate them. Maybe what I’m saying is a no brainer for some, and I don’t know enough about science but I know people are researching mediums, and the afterlife, and energy and it all leads to something, even that big nothing isn’t alone. 

So I had this dream, I can feel a difference between those real feeling dreams, and the ones I know 100% I am behind whats going on, now even the I becomes confusing to me, so moving along. Then there are dreams where I feel like it isn’t me, and there is no way.... that I don’t have those often, and I had one with gus two nights after he died, and that alone has given me enough to hold onto, to think it isn’t really over, and even though emotionally it never will be, Im not sure what that over really means or is to me. okay moving on again, so last night I got to hear gus, He started talking to me, it was his voice 100% the one I can not project in my waking life at all, I can not make anything in my head have the sound of his voice. Maybe some can, I can not. I woke up instantly, and he was there beside me on the bed smiling and I was so hapy to hear him, I don’t know what he was saying now, but I know how it felt to hear him that way. he brought the lap top over to the bed kind of like we used to, like we’d watch a movie. And we were just laughing and talking like casually, like we used to as well, and then I do remember in between some of that, I stopped and I asked him about the afterlife. I didn’t focus on his death, I didn’t ask about that, but I wanted to know what was happening now, I asked something like if he could come and visit as he wanted to, and he said he could, and then well kinda, he said he was doing laps and could come in between those, he saw my confusion and I also asked if he would get stuck like that, and if it was bad, he simled and shook his head, it was the smile of no silly you are so cute, and familiar to me, said like learning  He then said he was thinking he’d do 30 or so. I didn’t understand that, and I dont’ think there is a time line, but an amount? I never thought of that. he said that wasn’t certain either and he didn’t really know, he would knwo when it was time.  After that I do think my brain took over and we had sex but it wasn’t as real as hearing him, that part literally makes me smile and cry and I cried in my dream too but it was a happy kind of crying. I only cried in the parts that felt unbelievably real. so at some point I woke up, and then I was in gus house and I wrote down what I could remember replaying the words in my head, and then my brother who was gus’s brother (he doesn’t have a human brother in real life) came and said I needed to hurry up and that it was time to go to school. Claudia was taking me, it was like I was in hs or something, I was confused by that, so I woke up again. That time was real and then I did write it all down. it was 6 am and normally when I dream and wake up, I don’t care, and I just go back to sleep. 

oh there was a part at first before asking him about visiting that I did ask something sad, or tell him how much I missed him and I could see empathy in his eyes, but that was all I can remember.