#before i even post it and it gets a chance to affect anybody

[red-velvet-0w0]

I hate how i always feel bad about shit i didnt even do

like its one thing to feel bad about actualy doing something wrong but like every single day ill be going about my life and ill think of something I could do that would be wrong and I dont even do it and then i feel bad about it all day.

[kdvnco]

high school enha boys in love

genre! : fluff

pairings! : heeseung x reader, jay x reader, jake x reader, sunghoon x reader, sunoo x reader, jungwon x reader, niki x reader

warnings! : none

do not ask any questions. do not ask where ive been what ive been doing. or when am i posting again💝

LEE HEESEUNG - nerdy guy

Heeseung and his friend group are the biggest losers in the school. They're the type to play Dungeons and Dragons at school and then get bullied. Heeseung is not affected by it at all, he enjoys going to school even if he's not that good at it. Especially now that he developed a small crush on you. He didn't even try to get you, knowing well he had no chance with you. He just hoped. Until he got a chance.

The teacher set you up to a group project, and fortunately or not for you, but you guys needed to work together. You were a quiet girl at school, mid class, not popular or a loser with a decent friend group. You also had no problem working with Heeseung, you just really didn't care. You never hated or bullied him, he was just kinda there. But after working with it, it turned out beside that he is a nerd, he's quiet fun. Hee tried to keep low with his obsession for nerdy stuff, but it didn't bother you at all once you both grew closer. You got along with his friends too who were too obsessed with the tought of speaking to an actual living woman that they constantly stole you away from Heeseung. He thought he finally had the chance, turned out you just wanted to be friends.

[rest utc!]

PARK JONGSEONG - class clown

You were friends with the class clown, Jay. You were his only friend. Though everybody loved him for being funny, he didn't have any close friends besides you. He was easy to talk to, Jay got along with anybody that was forced to interact with him, until it was a woman. For the life of god he couldn't speak to women. You laughed at him for that. You were a girl and his only friend, but it was never a problem to talk with him. He liked you that's why.

All his attempts to make you laugh were weird attempts to flirt with you. It worked out every and each time, only making him to like you more. He wished you also liked him.

He bought you flowers and gifts for you birthday or for different holidays. Taking care of you when you needed him the most. It turns out he can be serious too.

SIM JAEYUN - fuckboy

He's the biggest fuck boy at the school. Everybody knows him, he's super popular with a huge (but full of fuckboys) friend group. Once he notices somebody, he tries his best to make them fall for him, and like that, he collects every girl he sets his eyes. on. You agree he is handsome, but you can't help but despise him. Even more once you see him starring at you in the hallway. You immediately slap your head, knowing well you are his next opponent. He won't give up easily.

You arrive at school to flowers neatly put on your desk and people whispering at the back of the room. And not only does he buy you multiple gifts each week, he approaches you almost every day, trying to strike up a conversation while you try your best to ignore him. You told him off many times before, he's so determined to get you. Jake is annoyed with you. He doesn't want much other than a sweet night spent together.

Jake gets more and more chances to interact with you, actually getting to know you, getting closer to you... slowly falling for you. It takes him a long time to clear his name before ending up with you.

PARK SUNGHOON - pretty boy

He skates, he's pretty and he's quiet. That is all it takes to become the girls' favorite. Sunghoon's not only popular in your class, but many older and younger girls visit him in the breaks, trying to strike up a conversation with him, but mostly he shyly shakes his head as response to the girls' questions. During physical education, many girls watch him play games, visiting him any time they have a free period. Sunghoon loves and hates the attention. It depends on who's giving it to him.

All he begs for is your attention. He secretly wishes you would also bother him in the break, talk to him and let him make you laugh. Whenever he's talking with a girl, from the corner of his eyes he checks if you're looking at him, but it's never the case.

KIM SUNOO - the favorite

Everybody loves Sunoo. He is the sunshine of the school, having multiple friends from each class, being able to talk to anyone about anything easily making him the most liked person at the school.

He's popular in every category, just not when it comes to love. He never thought he would fall for someone, especially not one of his close friends, so when it did turn out that way he didn't know how to act. It was never hard to be around you or talk to you until now. He started avoiding you, luckily he had many friends, but soon he realised none could replace you, and his feelings weren't fading.

He doesn't know how to flirt, his best attempts at trying to make you fall for him was being especially nice to you, hanging out more often, but when all of those attempts were unsuccessful he opened up about his feelings.

YANG JUNGWON - top student

Jungwon was the quiet, straight A's student. So many people had crushes on him, that he was aware about, he just couldn't care less. One thing he cared about is his rival, you. As soon as you joined the class, you also became top student of the school. He became super wary about you, he just couldn't imagine any other person being on his level. He knew he had to worry about his title as the 'Student of The Year', he began to participate in meanigless competitions, but you were there for every and each one of it.

He tried sitting close to you to make sure you are not cheating in any way, or making any suspicious moves, because for sure he'd snitch on you. But this never happened. Instead you started noticing him and teasing him about it. He was so annoyed with you, trying to be better, but even if he was you aced the next test with ease.

He became so obsessed with your life, almost knowing your whole daily routine, starting to fall for you. He noticed so many things about your behaviour that he adored so much. It made him mad, but it was hard to hide it when you teased him and he blushed. You would catch him starring and just quietly laugh at him. It was too obvious, you knew it.

NISHIMURA RIKI - annoying friend

The loud annoying kid in class somehow ended up as your friend. He forced himself at you long enough, so you let him in accepting his friendship, which turned out to be fun. He was funny, outgoing and weird. Exeptionally weird, making it even more fun to be his friend.

The more he hung out with you the more you liked him, quality time tying you together with him emotionally. He introduced you to his other friends, inviting you to hang outs whenever you were free, and because you started liking him... more than a friend you freed up your time just him. You wanted to know if he felt the same, but nothing changed even when you asked to hang out just the two of you. He acted the same.

The only reason you ended up with him was, because his friend snitched on him. Niki, no way in hell would confess to you, so they helped him. You would have nevet guessed he liked you back.

[saatorubby]

Cultural differences

Summary: Malleus's way of courting (dragon fae style) creates a misunderstanding between the two of you.

Or in which lilia is an old man™ and is having the time of his life.

A/n: In honor of the announcement of chapter 7, I decided to post this early. May all of you dragon simps get your dragon man. (it's me, I'm the dragon simps)

Genre: fluff

Pairings: Malleus Draconia x reader

Warnings: second person pov, you/your pronouns, gn!reader

"Lilia, child of man doesn't make sense." Malleus was munching on fries, with a pout on his face. He was apparently, what lilia called 'sulking'. Let me assure you he was not! Absolutely not!

Lilia brought up his hand to his face to stifle a chuckle that escaped him at the sulking fae prince, who put another one of the fries in his mouth.

Lilia finds situations like these quite entertaining, he loves observing the youth of today. They are peculiar, to say the least.

Though lilia understands malleus's crisis, he couldn't help but be amused.

After all, how many times do you see a powerful fae at his knees for a magic-less human he befriended in an abandoned building.

"Well, tell me what happened," Lilia said with as much seriousness he could muster and put his teacup down.

Malleus' eyes lit up and he visibly perked up about getting the chance to talk about how he have been trying to court you.

"I took prefect for a walk with me in the woods behind ramshackle where we danced to once upon a dream." He lets out a dreamy sigh, his chin resting on the back of his hand.

What a wonderful night that was.

The sky seemed jewel studded with how many stars there were. Your warm hand in his considerably colder ones. An impulse to hold you closer. So he asked you for a dance to which you delightfully agreed, blush adorning your face. He will never forget the night when you two sang the greatest love song in all of the twisted wonderland together while dancing.

Eyes his went to your lips many times, but he was afraid he would scare you if became too bold so he restrained himself.

"It was good until that but then I tried to give them jewels from my treasury as a token of my affection, but they keep refusing! I don't know what I've done to anger them. I just wish to mend our relationship, lilia." Malleus let out a defeated sigh his lips formed into an adorable pout.

Lilia knew the meaning of the word treasury, what malleus really meant was his hoard. Like every good dragon, malleus has a hoard as well. It has all of the knick-knacks malleus collected over the long period he has been in twisted wonderland.

Let it be jewels worth millions of madols or a weird thing he found on the street, all of them has a special place in his hoard. He was allowed to take a part of it with him to Night Raven College when he came, the rest is in his treasury room in the palace of Briar Valley.

Lilia, who was far older than Malleus and well aware of human courting traditions, couldn't help but laugh endearingly at the young prince. He then adjusted his expression, looking fondly at the child he had raised, who had now become so old that he has his first love!

Oh...Lilia distantly remembers the feeling of falling in love for the first time, he doesn't remember his first love anymore, for their existence had been erased by the cruel, cruel time that doesn't spare anybody, but he does remember how he felt with them and how gentle they were with him.

At the time he was a battle-hardened General, a war hero, not exactly used to kindness, but he remembers that they were far kinder than anybody he had met before, even now after a few centuries later, he has yet to meet someone like them.

Lilia pulled himself back from memories of long forgotten past and turned to his prince.

"Malleus, they are human." Lilia said simply.

"I am aware lilia, I still dont see what I could have done to have them cross with me." Malleus gave lilia a half-hearted glare.

"Malleus, they are human. You are trying to court them like how dragons court their mate. They don't know how dragons court their mate. They aren't familiar with your courting methods." Lilia nodded towards malleus sipping on his tea, and malleus' eyes widened in realization. Of course! How could he have been so foolish!

Malleus shot lilia a grateful look and said a simple "thank you." And headed out to find you. He must fix this. He has to.

So, you weren't even aware that he was trying to court you? He let out a chuckle.

Of course, why didn't he think of it before? Oh yes, he was too engrossed in drowning in his misery that he didn't notice.

Well, he supposes it's not all lost, after all. He could just explain things, but ah! Humans don't receive precious jewels as a confession of their feelings.

He does have other ideas as to what to give you.

You were coming back from your class, after a long and exhausting day. Professor Trein had given you to write a ten-thousand-word essay on The Human-Fae War that happened in early 1300's.

Your face bloomed into an amused smile as grim grumbled about ace taking his sandwich. You let out an exasperated sigh. They may be idiots, but they are your idiots.

You got grim settled in the bed quickly. He was complaining about not getting enough sleep the whole way back and got yourself settled on the couch in the living room.

You took out your homework, your assignment sheets as well as books you've borrowed from the library and got to work.

It was fascinating really, how two species that hated each other so much could come together like this. Humans and Fae...they have a long-standing history of hate and slaughter. It's gruesome.

The war went on for almost a century.

You were halfway through the essay when, from the corner of your eyes, you saw green fireflies shimmering in your garden. You abandoned your work to greet your friend who, you're pretty sure, has been avoiding you for the past few days.

"Tsunotaro."

"Child of man."

The two of you stared at each other for a minute. Trying to read each other, either by expressions or literally trying to read thoughts in Malleus's case. (He would never do this without your permission, but he was contemplating it)

"Look I-"

"Child of man I-"

"...."

"You go first."

"You can go first."

You scratched the back of your neck with an air of awkwardness surrounding you.

"Okay...tsunotaro, I don't know what I did so that you got mad at me but I am sorry."

Malleus' eyes widened in bewilderment.

"Child of man...I thought you were cross with me." You thought he was angry with you...? A small tender smile formed on his black-painted lips. A smile that was much different from his usual teasing smile followed by a taunting remark. How the corners gently tilted upwards, a sparkle in his eyes that reflected an emotion you couldn't yet place, but you were sure that your eyes reflected the same.

Small laughter bubbled out of his mouth, and not being able to help it you let yourself chuckle with him.

The sound of his laughter was so alluring that you were left wondering whether he had put a spell on you.

Little did you know he wondered the same about you. You had either bewitched him or he was a fool, a fool in love.

"Well, then, I shall make it up to you, beastie. Would you do me the honor of granting me your company for a stroll in the woods once again?" Malleus asked, gallantly. He was quite over the top with his dramatics -posing in a bow, holding out a hand for you to take- while smiling teasingly.

"I would love to, tsunotaro." You couldn't help but chuckle at the dragon fae's antics. Taking his arm you strode along with him to the woods behind Ramshackle.

A gentleman as ever, Malleus produced something in his arm but hid it behind his back before you could take a peek.

"Hey! No fair!" You pouted, seeing your adorable face the future king couldn't help but smile endearingly.

"You shall wait patiently beastie. Patience is a virtue," he said as you strode towards your and Malleus's special place.

He had taken you there for a walk before once. It was a beautiful, beautiful night. Perhaps you should say magical.

Malleus had taken your hand and invited you for a dance. Holding you close like you were the most precious treasure he has ever held. Spinning you around like a fairytale prince (which he was). Your eyes went to his dark-painted lips many times that night, wishing to have a taste of what you thought to be the most forbidden fruit this world had to offer.

You danced and sang one of the songs from your home. Your eyes went to your eyebrows in surprise that the very same song existed here. Malleus seemed fond of the song as well. You could see his bright green eyes soften every time a word of the lyrics left his lips.

"We are here," he announced. You looked around, finding it hard to imagine such a place could be near the desolate place you had come to call your home.

It was a mountain stream. Beautiful, clear water flowed down the steep grades. Shining moonlight above it, making the water in it shine like stars had been brought down to earth.

"Child of man," Malleus quietly pulled you out of your daze. "I brought this for you." He said, but before he could bring out whatever he had been hiding behind his back, you fixed him a stern look.

"Mal, I told you that I can-" before you could say another word, his hand-that he had placed upon your mouth- cut you off.

"I know," Malleus began with an uncharacteristically tender look on his face. "Lilia explained that humans do not court as we do. So I have brought you this." He removed the hand from your mouth and brought out a bouquet from his back.

They were gorgeous, the flowers. The bouquet consisted of red and pink asters. You chuckled, you couldn't have picked more perfect flowers yourself, they were gorgeous but not enough to distract you from the meaning of them and his words from before.

Seeing your joyous reaction, Malleus's eyes filled with hope. "Child of man, I-" he started but before he could get out another syllable, you put your hand on his mouth and cut him off. Amusedly watching as his eyes widened in surprise, clearly not used to people cutting him off, especially in such a familiar manner.

"I would love to, Tsunotaro."

--

I wish I had a malleus.

Edit: for clarification pink asters mean sensitivity and love and red aster means undying devotion

[soapymansuds]

Eternity and Counting

(Pt1) This is a running piece I've nearly finished, but the whole thing is way too long to post as one chapter sooooo... This part's pretty short just for the sake of timeline splitting.

Obey me! X Angel!MC (They/Them Pronouns)

TW: Suicide, depression, self-deprecation, death, big feelings, lots of sad, everybody is crying like all the time

MC just can't handle anything anymore and takes their own life. Imagine their dismay to find even death isn't the end for them.

(Takes place in the Frost Flowers event (sorta?), with mild "that chapter where MC finds out they're the Bridge" spoilers. Can't remember which chapter that was.)

~/\~

It's so heavy. This grand weight I've been lugging around since that day. I should have died. I was supposed to die. I would have deserved it too. All I've ever managed to do was cause problems for this family. And maybe I still am. The idea almost stopped me. Visions of their faces. Their tears. Their grief. It did, actually. A few times at least. But not today. It's happened again. Everything was going just fine until that God-forsaken dog decided I would be the object of his affection. Somehow, in spite of the threat it faced to the nation, the brothers refused to just hand me over. Almost losing not just their home, but their kingdom, for my sake. Yet again wasting their time trying to save me. Just like they did when my stupid power nearly killed Lucifer. When Lucifer nearly killed HIMSELF to save me. A bitter, evil part of me is still mad at Michael for stopping me. For saving me.

My arms feel heavy as lead as I lay here, counting away the seconds. I've got nearly an hour before anybody gets home from RAD. Plenty of time to make sure I stay dead. I feel a little bad for lying about being sick to get out of classes today. But maybe I am. Doesn't matter much now anyway. Really, my biggest concern in the current moment is how long it will take Barbatos to notice the ingredients I took. Sure, he's in classes right now too, but he pops in and out of the castle all day long. The likelihood of him stopping into the kitchen and noticing the cracked cabinet door, the scavaged shelves, and finally the open jars is uncomfortably high. In my defense, the chances of that happening while I was there were equally high, so I can't be blamed for the messy crime. But he's only got a few moments more before his discovery will be for naught, so I suppose it's not terribly worrying.

I can feel it, creeping up my spine like a cold massage. The ever-growing numbness. The slow death of my limbs. My lungs. Me. It's growing darker now, unnaturally so, even for The Devildom. I can finally free them of my burden. Free myself of it too. But I would like to offer a final scorn to whatever God allowed me to hear the gentle creaking of the front door.

~/\~

(Mammon's POV)

A chill runs through my spine,like something ominous is lurking behind me, but as I turn around, nobody's there. In spite of that comfort, I can't shake this overwhelming dread coating my nerves and sinking into my bones, urging me to move. Driving me to jog home. The gentle sway of the bag on my arm becoming notably more violent as it begins swinging by my side.

My hands can't work fast enough as I try to unlock the front door. I break into a near sprint as I approach their door, slamming it open.

"MC?" I call, it's dark in their room, but I can just make out the shape of their body resting in their bed. "Oh, you're just sleeping." I mumble, walking up to their bed and setting the bag on the ground next to it.

"Hey, I gotcha some human world medicines." I whisper, pulling a few bottles from the bag. "C'mon, you gotta wake up and take some."

I can't help but roll my eyes at their lack of reaction. "Been spending too much time with Belphie." I reach up to shake their shoulder gently.

Nothing happens. So I try again, fingers gripping just barely tighter. Tight enough to feel the unsettling chill of their skin. It seeps through my fingertips and into my soul. Gripping my heart in white hot fear.

"MC, wake up." I shake them again. "MC." Their name falls from my lips like a plea. "MC please-" I grab their other shoulder. "MC!" Tears spill from my eyes, breath shaky and ragged. "Wake up!"

(Raghhhh, sorry about this)

-Your dear friend, the author

[dottores]

HELIOTROPES | THE SEGMENTS

summary: a background for all of the segments in heliotropes, if there is a ??? it’s something that will be revealed in the fic

warnings: mentions of anxiety, unpleasant home life, violence, my own hcs ab dottore’s background & how it fits in with the fic

do not steal my segments! i put a lot of thought and heart behind them.

KAPPA | 5 YO | THE BABY

dottore’s youngest segment, in the mindset of his 5 yr old self—before he was outcasted from his hometown while he was still living in a harsh environment with his parents who tried to keep him locked inside, stifling all of his curiosities. he is rather quiet most of the time, only enjoys physical touch if he initiates it and just wants to spend all of his time outside exploring but the thought of it makes him anxious because he’s stuck in the mindset that his parents put him in. he was created because iota was unable to see the aranara anymore. he thoroughly believes his soulmate will show up one day and is very eager to meet them. he still doesn’t fully understand why the other kids in the village & the adults were so awful to him.

IOTA | 10 YO | POST-VILLAGE

the second youngest. he was created right after he was chased out from his hometown, scar fresh across his face and emotional wounds still very very fresh in his heart and mind. he is extremely closed off and cold to anybody new, at least at first. he craves love and affection but at the same time he’s incredibly hostile when offered it because of what happened with his parents. his favorite thing to do is explore, which he can now do freely without his parents monitoring and restricting his every move. he’s particularly interested in old khaenriahn technology regardless of how dangerous it might be (hint hint). he’s very sensitive regarding the topic of soulmates—kappa was too young to really understand why he was being treated so poorly by the other kids and adults but iota is very well aware.

GAMMA | 15 YO | PRE-AKADEMIYA

the oldest of the young segments. he was created after he was accepted into sumeru’s akademiya but before he officially enrolled. at this point, he had been on his own for nearly five whole years and while he had learned how to take care of himself, he is awful with social interaction and doesn’t know what to expect going into the akademiya—all he knows is he is adamant on finally getting the chance to research khaenriahn society and technology. automatons are still his main interest, but he’s also beginning to dabble in elemental research. he doesn’t talk much about his research/interests, he’s not really comfortable with it. he’s less sensitive than iota when it comes to the topic of having a soulmate but he hasn’t given up hope yet, he’s still certain that they’ll eventually show up.

ZETA | 20 YO | AKADEMIYA

the first of the adult segments! zeta has around three and a half years under his belt at the akademiya and plenty of experience dealing with other students and the professors/sages. he hates everyone around him but he’s come to realize that social connections are really all that matter in sumeru city and if he wants the proper resources for his research, he has to get in with the right people and make them like him. butttt he’s at the point where there’s only so much longer he’ll be able to fake it all before he snaps, he’s already becoming a bit colder and more standoffish. he was created approximately one year before the sohreh incident. soulmates are a taboo subject, he has realized now that even if his soulmate is born, there’s more than a twenty year age gap and he doesn’t want to think about that.

THETA | 25 YO | POST-AKADEMIYA

yes, this is webttore. he was created a few years after being cast out from the akademiya but before pierro brought him into the fatui. he is on his own again but he’s far more unstable this time. he’s given up on trying to blend in with everyone else & controlling his emotions. his only focus is his research and he lets no morals stand in the way of progress. he’s rash and unpredictable and has very intense mood swings—he can go from pleased to highly irritable in a second. the other segments describe theta as having been created at the lowest point in their lives. the delta segment particularly cannot stand him. if soulmates were taboo with zeta, they’re even more taboo with theta.

DELTA | 30 YO | FATUI RECRUIT

hateful, aggressive, antagonistic, just not as flamboyant as theta. this segment was created in the mindset from right after pierro brought him into the fatui. he’s come to learn, again, that if he wants to advance the ranks and obtain the freedom & resources to do whatever he wants, he’s going to have to have at least some semblance of self-control. despite this, he is by far the most violent of all the segments—having to force himself to restrain all of his urges makes him eager to lash out when someone displeases him. if there is a trail of mangled bodies, you can safely assume that delta will be found at the end of it. he is the most antagonistic toward the theta segment, solely because he is the closest in mentality to him and does not want to be associated with him. he usually looks after the iota segment. at this point, he has convinced himself that soulmates are a weakness anyway but they’re still a rather sore topic.

RHO | 35 YO | HARBINGER PROMOTION

driven. that’s really the only word to describe rho. he was created in the mindset of dottore post-harbinger promotion. he is tunnel-visioned on success in whatever project he is focusing on. failure is simply not an option to rho. because of his propensity to obsess and hyperfixate until a goal is completed, rho is typically the one that dottore sends after rouge underlings or bold enemies—nothing escapes him. rho took in the gamma segment to assist with his research. soulmates are no longer a sore topic for rho but he would still rather not think about it.

EPSILON | 40 YO | ???

???

LAMBDA | 40 YO | THE OMEGA BUILD

???

BETA | ??? | ???

????

[spicyvampire]

Okay so after the whole Sakuna/Wansarut and Phaya/Tharn "characters description" fighter (protector)/healer+protector(mediator) post, now imma talk about about our resident Snake (PhD), Doctor Chalothorn being a fighter and well how do you convince a fighter to not fight?

I've already made a whole gifset about this but I needed to put the stuff into words cuz u just can't say everything in a gifset so this post is gonna be about a few things, first of all, the way Charlothorn's goals shifted in the last 2 episodes, from wanting to kill Phaya so he can have Tharn, to wanting to save Tharn and Phaya's end not really mattering anymore, and second of all Tharn's role in this shift and where have we saw something similar to this shift before aka Wansarut and Sakuna and how Wansarut even did that

Same disclaimer as the last one applies : pulling this out of my ass from watching the show, these are raw out-of-order thoughts, ill try my best to separate but like the last post because I'm going to have to go back and forth between Wansarut (love of my life, talking about Wansarut has to be my favorite activity rn), Sakuna, Tharn (smooching him smooching him), Phaya and Chalothorn this might get hard to follow but hey that's what it's like inside my brain so welcome to the mess

Putting it under keep reading

So like I said in the last post, Chalothorn is a fighter, like you can't get more fighter than this, the man is literally the prince/ruler of Nagas and he is right in the middle of the battle field anytime there is a fight to be had, and like I said in Sakuna's part of the post he is a level that can probably can only be rivaled by Sakuna's brother, you can't be a higher level of Naga fighter from what I understand, so like how do you fight this man if you are Wansarut and Sakuna? (ep. 8)

Keep in mind that : the answer is that they never were supposed to fight Chalothorn

SCENARIO 1 : Chalothorn wins

This is what we've seen in the show, Sakuna/Wansarut/Phaya/Tharn would never win against him in a fight because they just aren't strong enough to began with, Sakuna and his Garuda were not Chalothorn's level when he was alive, Wansarut is a healer/protector not a fighter, Phaya can only do ✨Sparkles✨ of Garuda powers as of rn and while Tharn can do some powerful protecting he is of the gang the person who is the less in contact with his past and magical self (other than for protecting Phaya magic, we have not even seen his Naga in this lifetime) and also his past self wasn't even a fighter, so it makes sense that Chalothorn just keep killing them and every single one of their reincarnations, he kills them so much that it was destroying his own soul (ep. 8) because surprise he is getting affected by the little cyclic karma thingy they got going on too, this isn't just about Wansarut/Sakuna and PhayaTharn, Chalothorn is trapped in this shit too

Clearly fighting is not the answer, because even if you win, which Chalothorn has been doing a lot of, you still lose, Chalothorn is losing control of his Naga form, not only does it destroy his soul (ep. 8) but he might just not be able to turn into his human form anymore aka would be forced to be a Naga forever (ep. 9)

Another lost of this is that he keeps losing Wansarut and having to wait for the cycle to start again so he would get another chance, like the level of psychological damage getting done to him because he kills the one he loves and he is always left behind alone to wait is enough to drive anybody insane (ep. 11)

And I think that's one of the reasons why it took him so long to understand that he should let Wansarut/Tharn go, because when you do something so despicable and keep doing it over and over again you have to justifies your bad actions to yourself so you don't break and the more you justifies them the harder it becomes to see clearly through them, so you just keep doing it, like Chalothorn probably hates himself more than he even hates Phaya or love Tharn at this point because he keeps killing reincarnations of Wansarut, like this is his reaction to killing Wansarut the first time, falling to his knees screaming and everything (ep. 8), the cognitive dissonance in that man's brain must be insane

SCENARIO 2 : Phaya wins

Now let's imagine for a second there that they did win, Phaya succeeded in killing Charlothorn, and then what? Isn't Charlothorn just gonna reincarnate and come back for them again? Like yes it might take some times but it will happen, and then Phaya and Tharn would be the one destroying their souls and making their karma worst, that's just not a solution

Also we saw with Narong's case part of the show that "victim turned attacker" is not the answer (anyways that's what the show says), when Tharn and Phaya are talking to the abbot at the end of episode 5 the abbot keep repeating that over and over again killing is not the answer

When Phaya Says "Those victims are left with no choice but to fight back in order to survive. They have to kill." The abbot answers "The basic code of moral conducts for human beings like us is the 5 precepts. One should be abstained from killing other living beings. These precepts can bring peace and happiness to your family and the society. Undertaking the 5 precepts will benefit not only yourself but also the people around you." Basically straight up telling them that [not killing] is the only answer that will bring peace to everyone

Also so many parallels can be made between Narong and Chalothorn (which is probably why it was easy for Chalothorn to possess Narong to attack Phaya but let's not get into that), because like isn't this Chalothorn? (ep. 5)

His mind is so clouded by anger and wanting to kill Phaya and getting Tharn that he is obsessed with it, he literally do not see anything else, specially if Phaya is in the room and/or mentioned, like I said a bit higher in this post, he hates Phaya, but he probably hates himself too, and so much hate and anger just blinds people

Also sidenote that I'm not really gonna dive into : How do you think Tharn would feel about Phaya killing Chalothorn, knowing what u know about him? like Tharn loves Chalothorn as a friend, and that's even if Chalothorn is responsible for all the bad things in his life (ep. 12)

Tharn may be looking at Chalothorn saying this but he said "Please stop killing each other." he could not be more clearly talking to both of them, he doesn't want Chalothorn to kill Phaya but he also doesn't want Phaya to kill Chalothorn

SCENARIO 3 : Tharn Wins

Now lemme say this, you can literally never convince a fighter by fighting him, like if you've ever had a fight/argument with someone you know that you cannot reach a compromise in the heat of the fight when everyone is angry and losing the control of their emotions, it just doesn't work, but what does work in the context of the show?

Wansarut and Sakuna

And now I'm back to Wansarut (<3<3<3<3<3<3) and Sakuna because well Wansarut did change a fighter's mind before already, this is part of Wansarut's power that's why I also describe Wansarut as a mediator, and what did Wansarut do exactly?

Well Wansarut healed Sakuna, even if he is from the enemy side, and took care of him and acted in a way that was protective of him, even if again Sakuna is an enemy of Wansarut's people (literally brother of the Garuda king) because that Wansarut's character, Wansarut is a healer/a protect/a mediator that's how Wansarut fights (ep. 8)

Then Wansarut tough Sakuna about Naga culture (Naga offering and breathing fire to pay respect to Buddha, on the 15th nigh of the 11th waxing moon)

And while being in love with each other did facilitate this change of view in Sakuna (which would later turn him a bit into a protector of Wansarut), you really do not need to be for this to work, like the best way to change people views on some things truly is just to expose them to the thing from the POV of the people living it, when nobody is in any immediate danger

And that is exactly how Tharn succeeded in convincing Chalothorn that the love between Phaya and him is good, by being there for Chalothorn and taking care of him, and being patient, until Chalothorn was ready to let him go on his own, not in the heat of of fight when everyone is angry and putting the blame on each other, which was again so healer/ protector/mediator of him like I talked about in my other post

Tharn and Chalothorn : the final

So with Wansarut and Sakuna we saw how Tharn could change Chalothorn's mind and what really does work, now imma dive into the last 2 episodes of this show aka the shift in Chalothorn

So in episode 6, Chalothorn says this

And at that time I think those words were true cuz that's literally what he has been doing isn't it? Like everytime he lost, both Wansarut and Sakuna's reincarnations died, so he was "okay" with killing Wansarut, as long as it meant that Sakuna was also dead and they weren't together (crazy way to fight cognitive dissonance if you ask me) but then something changed around episode 11 because Chalothorn started saving Tharn even if Phaya was still alive? (Ep. 11) (ep.12)

The importance of Chalothorn saving Tharn those 2 times, is that 1) now Tharn knows what the fuck is going on and 2) (like I said in the other post) Tharn end up understanding that Chalothorn can be talked too and reasoned with (the abbot would call it enlightenment), because in that 2nd saving he told Chalothorn to not kill Montee, and Chalothorn listened

Sidenote : Wansarut also did tell Chalothorn to not kill Sakuna and Chalothorn did listen that time too, like Wansarut has a BIG influence on this man (wish we saw their relationship before the mess), the only reason why the fight did continue was because Sakuna did not let Wansarut go

Why did he listen then? because he loves Wansarut, it really is as simple as that, and that's why he also listened to Tharn with Montee, because our chronically involuntary celibate man is head over dick for Tharn (valid and relatable)

So remember when I was talking about cognitive dissonance and stuff, well by ep 12, Chalothorn cannot justifies killing Tharn anymore, he is tired, he is turning into a Naga, and he cannot stand seeing another reincarnation of Wansarut die again, but most importantly he cannot stand to see Tharn die by his own hands

It's easy to concentrate on Phaya's distress in this scene but Chalothorn is in as much distress as Phaya, you can hear Chalothorn's voice break when Tharn is dying in both Phaya and his arms after asking them to stop killing each other, they are both screaming Tharn's name, and this time Chalothorn just listen because this is too much, his hatred for Phaya is just not important anymore, killing Phaya is just not as important anymore because anyways Tharn did choose him didn't he? isn't that what he wanted? even if Tharn clearly is in love with Phaya, Tharn did choose to come with him, so in a way none of this shit even fucking matters anymore

So for the 3rd time, he saves Tharn, this time by literally giving Tharn his soul so he would live (wish we saw him breaking down over Tharn dying in his arms in the Naga caves until he ended up giving Tharn his soul tbh), Chalothorn chooses to save a life instead of ending one and thus ending the curse on his part

[we-were-so-beautiful]

2. day six

holy shit hi! it's me! I'm back! I will be very surprised if anybody remembers me or this story given that it's been literally six months since I posted the first chapter. my motivation, interest, energy and amount of free time for this project all fluctuate, but... this story feels like it wants to be told, and I want to tell it. so hopefully I'll manage to pop up around here with an update for it every once in a while.

Content warnings for this chapter: box boy universe, pet whump, dehumanization, cages, blood mention. I'm still getting the hang of how to tag these so please let me know if there's anything I missed.

[masterlist] [chapter one] [chapter three]

Vanessa means to wait until an hour before closing time to go to the shelter. Really, she does. She wants to give this guy as much of a chance as he can get to go home with someone, literally anyone, who’s better for him than she is. But it’s lunchtime and she’s already practically vibrating. She’s not even used to being awake by noon anymore, much less having already been up for hours refreshing the site so often it’s making her nauseous. Or maybe that’s just the all-consuming anxiety of suspense.

What if the assholes at the shelter decide that six days is close enough, and take him away before she even gets there? What if she’s fucked up and counted the days wrong, and he’s actually scheduled to die today? What if the subway’s delayed, or the shelter closes early, and she’s too late, and another person dies because she made a stupid fucking mistake?

What if, says the voice in the back of her head that she refuses to listen to, somebody takes him who’s even worse for him than me?

“Oh, fuck literally all of this,” she says to the empty room, and grabs her coat.

—

“Uh, hey, I’m here to…”

“Sign in on the sheet.” The bored-looking shelter employee doesn’t so much as glance up from her phone. Vanessa looks around; the lobby is totally devoid of anyone save for the two of them.

“I just want to know if—”

“Sign in on the sheet.”

Vanessa breathes out through her nose until her hand stops ticking long enough to write. She scribbles her name and the time, and sets the pen down with a deliberate clack on the desk directly in front of the employee.

The woman barely raises her head. “How can I help you.”

Vanessa steels herself. “Is, uh… Do you still have…” God she hates talking about people like this she hates it she hates it she hates it. “Is pet number 414374 still here? I want to…” She wants to choke on the word. “...I want to adopt him.”

The employee’s affect goes duller than ever. “Oh, he’s still here, alright,” she mutters grimly.

Vanessa only realizes how much tension she’s been holding when it floods out of her so fast she almost loses her balance. “Can I see him?”

“If you really want to,” the employee sighs. “But I’m tellin’ you, lady, you’re not gonna like what you find.”

—

“That’s him?!”

“Told you you were gonna be disappointed, lady.”

Vanessa gapes. It’s not like she’s been expecting to be okay with seeing people in cages, but she sure as shit didn’t expect… whatever the fuck she’s looking at now.

The dude is filthy, caked head to toe in blood, dirt and worse. The hair that flowed around him in his picture is matted down his back now, littered with scores of dead and decaying leaves. His ice-blue eyes are dull and unfocused. His breaths are quick and shallow, and the way they rasp in his throat makes Vanessa twitch. 

He’s lying in a heap on the single layer of newspaper between him and the inch-wide mesh of the shelter-standard cage. Vanessa sucks at math, but she thinks it can’t be more than three by three by five. The shelter profile listed him at six foot two.

The employee bangs on the metal with the back of her hand, making a horrible clanging sound that makes Vanessa want to claw her own ears off. “Hey, look alive, refurb. You got one more interested owner. Maybe try to impress this one for a change?”

“Can he even—” Vanessa starts, but the guy surprises her by slowly, painfully lifting his head. The dirt that coats his skin cracks and flakes as he struggles to push himself up on his elbows. He reaches jerkily for the front of the cage, arms trembling violently with the effort, his breathing growing more and more labored as he tries to meet her gaze.

In the split second before he collapses again, she swears he manages it.

—

“I want him.”

The employee has already turned to go, talking over her shoulder as she ambles back toward the desk. “Yeah, so if you're lookin’ for a fancy one you could try the Manhattan shelter, they sometimes—hang on, you what?” She twists back abruptly as the words actually register.

“I want him,” Vanessa says again.

The employee stares at her for a long, long minute. Vanessa can almost see her fighting the urge to blurt out, “why?” Finally, though, she collects herself, with a wildly overexaggerated shrug of her shoulders.

“It’s your money, lady,” she says, and unlocks the cage.

[nakanotamu]

GOD okay, so. The Stardom Situation. I'm bored at work so I guess this is The Post. I was going to write my thoughts about the new stuff but then just summing everything up got so long and I never wrote that summary post I meant to so I think I'll make two posts instead. jk it's going to be three posts so here is the current situation post and my own personal thoughts about all this are here. Okay, so

Last year around April, then-Stardom president Harada takes Rossy off of booking and apparently stops listening to his advice. Harada sucked, he didn't get the appeal of pro wrestling, seemingly mostly trying to push it as advertising and going for things like their stupid NFT collab. He also pushes a schedule on the roster that isn't workable or healthy, leading to rampant injuries up and down the card. He stops listening to the roster - Giulia came out and said that Rossy's style of booking is to let the wrestlers start what stories they want to themselves, and then book what he thinks would be good from among that. But under Harada, matches just got booked out of the blue without even talking to the wrestlers about it. A particularly egregious example Giulia pointed out was when Ami challenged her for her title and she told her to earn a title shot. Then days later it's announced on twitter that Ami's title shot is coming up in two weeks. Giulia was vocal on twitter about it at the time, saying "What show are you watching?!" and I remember commenting a lot that it felt like Stardom was suddenly being booked by someone who wasn't even watching the shows. Beyond that even the matches themselves aren't being run by the wrestlers, with Giulia mentioning no one telling them what was in the boxes in the money ball match last year and the hazard that presented.

Now, some of this stuff may have been worked - like, I think probably Ami and Giulia knew they had a title match they were supposed to work up to, and the frustration isn't actually that Ami was given it before she "earned" it, but that they weren't given a chance to actually build the feud they were trying to. I think it's worth remembering during stuff like all this that in Japanese wrestling we get pretty much no pure "shoot" interviews or news like you'd get in America. None, like, for real please learn to understand that you shouldn't trust dirt sheets and that almost no one ever 100% shoots in puro. But that said, the interview Giulia gave about this stuff was pretty much the closest to shoot I had ever seen from a Japanese wrestler, short of, like, maybe when Ibushi came forward about what happened to him in New Japan.

On top of that, apparently from Harada on down, Bushiroad staff were incredibly dismissive of the wrestlers and largely ignored them, seemingly seeing themselves as the company and the actual roster as just, I don't even know, some disposable resource and not the entire reason any of them even had a job. Just very backwards thinking, that the real work is running the shows, but as long as you put a show on people will just come to see anybody. Which, lmao, well that didn't work.

This came out when Stardom had a holiday show that needed to be slightly rescheduled, its start time ended up being, iirc delayed by about two hours or something like that. Maybe not the biggest deal to us, but especially for a company trying to seem like a major player like Stardom, this was an extremely bad look. Roster members are extremely mad and start to come forward about not being told about anything like this even though it affects them and they have to be the public faces of it; Giulia even openly talks about trying to find out what had happened and getting completely brushed off by the staff member who had been in charge of arranging the venues. This incident was one of those things that seemingly got a huge reaction not just because it looked bad for the company but because it was the dam breaking. I'd suspected Stardom was having management issues and ended up being more right than I could have imagined.

Ultimately in November Harada is fired and they bring in a new president, Okada. (Not, not that one. Different Okada.) He's been booking since he came in at the start of December. Ultimately they didn't change the cards for the remaining Harada-booked shows or reschedule any of the shows that had already been announced at that point. This leads to Stardom's lowest show attendance ever, at an Osaka show that draws 114 people, thanks to running at 6pm on a Tuesday at a venue that while technically in Osaka could not realistically be reached in time by anyone trying to get there from Osaka proper after work. Rossy at this point is publicly disparaging Harada's choices and policies, and says the method of "just booking any available venue whenever you want and saying when the show is happening on social media can't continue".

It's still early into seeing how things are under Okada, but they seem better, not that better would take all that much. The overall sentiment seems to be, and I would agree, that the booking has already improved somewhat, with stories that are at least for now maybe a little too title-focused but do seem to have the wrestlers themselves more engaged. The schedule has also been a little bit lighter, not that Stardom was ever a particularly low-number-of-shows promotion, but less than last year. Bushiroad also said they would conduct a review of all Stardom staff members, including taking feedback from roster members and regular freelancers, though they wouldn't be able to publish any of the results of that publicly as it has to be dealt with by Bushiroad HR. So it seems like they're trying at least to turn things around, though too early to really say how it'll work out. That was the state of things up to last Sunday.

[thegingerwrites]

✨Ficlet: Old Fandoms Not Forgotten

This ficlet was directly inspired by this post about the rest of the galaxy finding out about the events of the OT via meme.

Frannell sets her mug of caf down on the counter too loudly. The clink of ceramic on stone rings in her ears and she knows her kids on the couch and her wife at the sink are looking at her now, to see what caused the commotion, but if Frannell could spare a single thought for any of them, she might be impressed that she is keeping herself together as well as she is.

Because the news—well, the meme staring up at her from her datapad is unbelievable. Her mind might as well be on fire, a hundred thousand thoughts screaming at her all at once that mostly amount to…well, screams.

It’s a picture of a man with a stupid, confused looking face staring somewhere past the camera. The caption reads: “Okay, was anybody going to tell me that Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were the same person or was I supposed to read that in the New Republic Senate briefing myself?”

When Frannell closes her eyes, she sees the names Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader on the insides of her lids. Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader…are the same person? The Anakin Skywalker and The Darth Vader? Former Jedi Knight and General of the GAR, Anakin Skywalker, posterboy of her youth and Darth Vader, the Sith Lord scourge of all that is light and good? Her brain doesn’t want to hold the two beings in her mind at the same time let alone believe that they are the same person. And yet, even as she has the thought that this is far too insane to believe, the cogs in her brain are already at work piecing together how this could have happened.

He just disappeared when the Republic fell along with the rest of the Jedi. There is a chance he survived. I mean, sure, there were crazier people who thought they spotted him now and again. There’s always been a chance.

“Mom?”

Frannell blinks, realizes she has been staring into the still, brown surface of her caf on the counter with the intensity of a war veteran going through flashbacks. She blinks again and looks down at her daughter, Jeni, who has her backpack perched on her shoulders.

“Isn’t it time to walk to the bus stop?” Jeni asks.

Is it? Frannell looks at the time on her datapad and catches a brief glimpse of the meme again before scrolling, just slightly, away. Jeni is right. She has been staring off into the middle distance for the last twenty minutes and now it is time to take the kids to school. She has wasted the few minutes of free time she gets each day between waking up, taking the kids to school, and going to work. Lovely.

Frannell catches sight of her wife, Lara, and tries to communicate with her eyes that she is currently in the midst of a panic. Lara’s brow furrows in silent question, but she takes the hint.

“I’ll walk you two today,” Lara says, helping Jaxon put his shoes on. She takes Jeni’s hand as they reach the door. Before they leave, she gives Frannell one last troubled look and Frannell shakes her head. There is nothing she can say. She can’t put her thoughts into words just yet. The weight of this revelation is too much.

Absently, Frannell thinks that maybe she should have said something to Lara. After all, this news is of galactic importance and there is no way that Lara has heard about it yet. The timestamp on the meme is dated only a half hour ago. The Senate briefing came out in the small hours of morning on Chandrila and no one but the most diehard reporters has been able to comb through it just yet for important information. Ordinary citizens of the New Republic will have to wait to see how the proceedings will actually affect them.

But Frannell needs to sit with this news for a moment. Because she is not some ordinary galactic citizen—well, in most respects, she very much is. But when it comes to Anakin Skywalker, she is practically an expert, and this news just dropped a bomb onto her whole world.

She doesn’t have to search for her old username and password. A few years ago, she revived her account out of casual interest and a bit of curiosity, to see if anyone she knew still populated the message boards and blogs. It was kind of nice, a warm wave of nostalgia, to see that some were still active and others had taken their place, that despite the slower pace of things there were still people making gifs and edits, even writing fics. There isn’t much new content out there about the old Jedi—in fact the creation of it was somewhat illicit for the longest time, not strictly prohibited by Imperial ordinances but heavily monitored by loyalty officers and outright forbidden on several worlds—but there are still people out there, like her that are obsessed with the Jedi, with The Team in particular.

Today, the site is on fire. Frannell feels like she has just walked into a room, expecting a party only to find everything in flames. Everyone is logged on. Frannell thinks she even recognizes a few usernames from way back in the day, people she hasn’t seen in years.

Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader AND Luke Skywalker’s father? How does that even work? What happened to Padme? Did he kill her? Anakin survived TCW only to become the Empire’s top enforcer? I don’t believe it! I can’t!

What about Obi-Wan? Luke claims he was there on Tatooine and gave him Jedi training! Yo, can you imagine the kind of grief raising your best friend’s kid involves? Did he know Anakin=Vader?

Mixed in with the screaming are old photos and videos of Anakin Skywalker, Padme Amidala, and The Team. Frannell has seen most of them before but they are such a throwback she spends nearly an hour scrolling through them before realizing she is desperately late for work.

Frannell throws on a coat and runs out the door with her own speeder bus to catch. On the way to the office, she keeps her eyes glued to her commlink. The situation keeps getting worse somehow. There is too much speculation, too many wild rumors flying around, and Frannell cannot keep up. She nearly misses her stop because she is about to argue with some idiot who thinks Padme Amidala must still be alive with the rest of the Jedi Order somewhere on Tatooine.

How can anyone expect her to cope on a day like today? Frannell glances around at the other heads just visible above the walls of their cubicles. Everyone has their eyes down, dutifully focused or at least committed to the act of looking busy. This is galaxy changing stuff! Surely, she can’t be the only one absolutely losing her mind.

She keeps one hand on her datapad at all times throughout the morning. Whenever she can steal a quick look at the message boards she does. Frannell wishes she could pull it up on the dual screens in front of her, surround herself with the sheer chaos and excitement of fandom grabbing hold of new information like a lothwolf shaking prey caught in its teeth.

Her boss nearly catches her speculating that Obi-Wan Kenobi must have known about Anakin’s fall to the dark side and stole Luke away to Tatooine in order to keep him safe. She has her head down with both hands tapping furiously away at her personal datapad when they clear their throat behind her desk chair causing her to bolt upright in alarm.

After that, Frannell puts in about twenty minutes of work organizing supply orders before she decides she can’t take it anymore. She clocks out for an early lunch and spends the entire time fixated on her pad. With droid-like focus and precision, she is trying to figure out if there is any resemblance between the Republic-era holos of Anakin Skywalker, Padme Amidala, and Obi-Wan Kenobi and the few images available of Luke Skywalker. Some absolutely insane person is insisting that Luke must be the product of an affair between Kenobi and Amidala and Frannell has to be the one to prove them wrong.

There’s just no way. Not possible. Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Negotiator, Jedi Master and High General of the Galactic Army of the Republic, would never. He is—was, too noble. Too much the perfect Jedi to carry out an affair. Even Frannell has to admit that a forbidden romance between Anakin and Padme is far more likely. A flame burns in Frannell’s heart for the complicated relationship between Master and Padawan, brothers in arms, but the lengths to which Kenobi would stick to the teachings of his Order above and beyond the call of his own heart is part of what draws her most to the relationship. If Obi-Wan wasn’t going to break his vows for Anakin, there’s no way he would do it for Senator Amidala. There’s just no way. There’s also some fringe theory about Luke being the child of Kenobi and a former ruler of Mandalore, Duchess Satine Kryze, but anyone with sense can see that the timing on that is completely off.

When Frannell returns to her desk—late, of course, it’s just that kind of day—she notices her boss hovering over a coworker’s shoulder a few cubicles down. Promising herself that she will at least focus until they find somewhere to lurk that’s farther away from her desk, Frannell stows her datapad in a drawer and fires up a few neglected spreadsheets, determined to get to work.

But with her mind half on her boss’ head poking above the cubicle walls a few desks down and half on the datapad she can’t see in her drawer, Frannell has very little attention left to pay to the rows and columns of boxes on her screen. None, in fact. She stares at the little white grid until her eyes blur but she can’t seem to make any headway.

Frannell taps her fingers on the arm of her chair. She can’t do this anymore but she can’t just leave. She doesn’t have the sick time or vacation days to simply walk away from her desk. Maybe she could make up some excuse about one of the kids?

Her hand lingers on the drawer handle before she makes up her mind and pulls it open. Just a peek. It’ll take two seconds just to see if anything new and explosive came out and then she’ll put it back and move on with her life. A minute, five minutes tops. And if her boss heads this way, Frannell is more than capable of hiding her datapad away again before they notice what she’s up to.

She opens her account to posts that are mostly keysmashes. For a moment, she thinks the server must be malfunctioning or something. Frannell is ready to reboot the whole thing when at last, she scrolls down far enough to see the post that started this fresh wave of madness.

It’s a different meme format from before but one that Frannell is familiar with: two stills from a semi-popular holodrama with a cult following, two actors emoting heavily for the camera. The first is captioned with the actor saying, “I love you.”

The second says, “Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa are twins separated at birth.”

Not a single thought crosses Frannell’s mind before the decision is made. She powers down her desktop screens, grabs her coat, and waves to her boss as she passes them on her way out of the office for the day. With her datapad firmly in hand, she knows she has work to do.

[masterofrecords]

Angstober day 5: Do better

Blood Ties

“I told you not to come here.”

It was alright for them to visit each other’s homes, but her mixing up the personas, visiting him when he was Thobias and not Adrian? That was risky, and thoughtless.

“The boy knows,” she blurts out, thankfully quietly.

That gives him pause.

He locks the door, draws the curtains. The barrier, protecting from eavesdroppers, pushes out towards the walls, and only then he allows himself to let Adrian’s face bleed onto his.

“Come again?”

“That… clerk at old hag’s law firm. He found the lab.”

“I thought you said you’ve dealt with it,” he remarks, and her mouth twitches.

“He kept digging even after being told to drop it. I don’t know – he’s young and… upright, I guess.”

“How remarkable.”

He can tell she’s getting frustrated that he doesn’t seem to be sharing her urgency, but in truth, he has no reason to be worried. The only thing connecting him to the lab is Margaret herself. The boy is her problem.

After all, Adrian knows nothing about alchemy, or the occult. He’s made sure those were other faces. Adrian is barely anybody, too busy mourning his parents untimely deaths.

“Look, lend me someone for a few nights, I’ll get rid of him. I’m sure he hasn’t told anyone, it’ll be fine, I just need some extra support – he’s on his guard now, and I heard he’s s decent fencer.”

She’s running her fingers along the seam of her skirt, too nervous for the kinds of things she’s saying.

“What are you not telling me?” he asks, and she shudders under his gaze before straightening out.

“Doesn’t matter, I’ll fix it,” she insists, but she’s not a good enough liar, and he knows her too well.

“What are you not telling me?” he asks once more. With someone else, he might have made effort to put in some emphasis.

With her, just the repetition is enough.

Still, she hesitates.

“He has the book,” she says quietly, as if hoping he wouldn’t hear.

It’s not fatal, of course. He has contingencies – he’s seen the full description; worst case scenario, he will force himself into remembering. But the enormity of her blunder is…

He looks at Margaret again. He’s long since thought of her as just Margaret at this point, but perhaps there was some lingering affection in the way he’s let her stay even as she grew sloppier in her work, as his own strength soared far beyond needing her.

That boy though…

Strong, righteous, persistent. Adrian’s thoughts go back to the dark throne hidden underground, to the kind of blood it thirsts after.

“Don’t kill him, bring him to me,” he orders her, and her too-expressive face turns angry.

“He’s not some nobody that won’t be missed!” she hisses. “Why?”

He ignores her question and repeats, “Don’t kill him. Figure something out, fake his death – I don’t care, just get it done. And move the lab. The warehouse is empty for now, use that.”

She wants to argue, and he again conjures Thobias’s red hair and five-o-clock shadow to let her know the conversation is over.

Last chance for her to do better.

After all, he’s running out of other blood relatives to offer to the hellfire.

---

It might look like I'm behind, but technically I have 6 pieces written as of today, I just ended up writing tomorrow's one instead of today's. It... makes sense with the in-universe timeline. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to post both...

And for now, more Adrian and Margaret (or: how this nephew-aunt relationship ends): Awakening, Tools Discarded and Broken

[pinkorchidsinspring]

as someone else who grew up mormon, the prairie diamond ring bracelet is the biggest reach.

as some else who grew up mormon and is bisexual and had her sexuality speculated before she ever had the chance to came out, it is INCREDIBLY harmful of yall to be dedicating entire blogs to proving someone’s sexuality. how you all don’t see that is insane to me, if she IS bisexual it is incredibly gross to be trying to force her out of the closet.

taking a queer meaning from someone’s art (aka, YOUR interpretation) does not mean they are gay. trying to force that on someone you don’t know is not cool.

Hey anon, I am fully aware that that is a big reach, the person who added it knew that it could be a huge reach and openly said that if you read the post. So while I respect your opinion about my blog, and this communities blogs, I cannot respect you calling us gross for talking about our queer interpretation of her art.

We are NOT trying to force her out of the closet. You do not see us commenting on Taylor’s best friends, and “boyfriends” accounts that they need to “get married already” or commenting on Taylor’s posts “Break up with him already 😩”. That is SWIFTIES. They get all in her business and harass Taylor and her friends, all because they want more information about her personal relationship that they don’t deserve.

We as a community just want Taylor to be happy, and that means we would be perfectly fine with her being straight.

You’re right, by the way, our opinions don’t make her gay.

For an artists who loves Easter eggs, we would believe her if she didn’t constantly queer code everything. If her top artist on Spotify wasn’t girl in red. If her music didn’t constantly reference a “best friend” that she allegedly ended her friendship with in 2017 In a romantic light. If she didn’t tag her account in the middle of a rainbow on her posts. If she didn’t have a song about the street she lived on with that said best friend. IF SHE DIDN’T WRITE THE LYRIC “I DON’T WANT YOU LIKE A BESTFRIEND” OR “SHADE NEVER MADE ANYBODY LESS GAY”.

So no anon, it’s not cool to force someone out of the closet. We would never pressure Taylor to come out. Is there some accounts that probably do? Of course, but we are not those accounts. We care about her happiness, and her happiness both in love, and in general, cannot be found in Evermore, or Folklore. Nor can it be found on Midnights with songs like Anti-Hero, Lavender Haze (that 1950’s shit they want from me), You’re on your own kid, and even sweet nothing.

You’re telling me anon, that Sweet Nothing doesn’t sound like one person wanted only sweet nothing. They didn’t want ANYTHING from her at all, in exchange for their love? That instead of a contractual arrangement, she fell in love?

You’re telling me that any of her boyfriends’ names are something she can slur til’ someone puts her in a car? I don’t know about you but kar-lie sounds more like car when slurred then Joe…

So I’m sorry anon, but in this case you weren’t in the right of accusing me of forcing her into anything. She does everything on her own terms, and we can’t, and won’t change that. We want her happiness, and it clearly isn’t being evidenced in her art thus far.

Maybe you should look at your own heteronormativity and how that affects Taylor’s sexuality. Maybe you’re a part of the reason she’s in the closet in the first place… I beg of you anon, go check out some of the amazing Kaylor Blogs I follow and look for yourself how much our interpretation of her songs is the one she means. As a bisexual yourself I know you can see beyond the heteronormative window, so please, do try.

[midorisudachi]

Several months ago I was feeling nostalgic & played Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age II again, about a decade after I had first played them. A few weeks I posted my fan art of my OC & Alistair. Now it's time for my Hawke OC & her love interest!

When I had first played DAII, I made Anders my love interest. This time around, I decided to change things up & make my character go for the broody Fenris. It took a lot to get him to slightly warm up to my character (whom I named "Chevaune Hawke), but then there was that sexy scene where Fenris couldn't help himself and he kissed Hawke, and then she returned the kiss by pushing him against the wall. (I never knew she had it in her! Lol!) But after they got intimate, darned Fenris was already getting dressed, so Hawke asked, "Was it that bad?" To which Fenris replied, "I'm sorry. It's not...it was fine. No...that is insufficient. It was better than anything I could have dreamed." I got why he was afraid to get close to somebody, so Chevaune & Fenris remained "just friends" (no intimacy" for a few years, but I made my character loyal to him.

Eventually, this conversation happened:

Fenris – “We have never discussed what happened between us three years ago.”

Hawke – “You didn’t want to talk about it.”

Fenris – “I felt like a fool. I thought it better if you hated me. I deserve no less. But it isn’t better. That night… I remember your touch as if it were yesterday. I should have asked your forgiveness long ago. I hope you can forgive me know.”

Hawke – “I need to understand why you left, Fenris.”

Fenris – “I’ve thought about the answer a thousand times. The pain, the memories it brought up, it was too much. I was a coward. If I could go back, I’d stay. Tell you how I felt.”

Hawke – “What would you have said?”

Fenris – “Nothing could be worse than the thought of living without you. ”

Hawke – “I understand. I always understood.”

Fenris – “If there is a future to be had, I will walk gladly into it at your side.”

Then they kissed. Awwwww. Ha ha. They had such a complicated relationship but I'm glad my Chevaune Hawke got his heart & affections. Especially at the end, before the final battle...Fenris said, "“I…may not get the chance to say this again. Meeting you was the most important thing that ever happened to me, Hawke. Promise me you won’t die. I can’t bear the thought of living without you.” Notice how I drew him wearing the Hawke logo at his hip? He eventually wears that in the game after a while.

At one point during the game (before all the final battle/ending stuff), Anders questioned Chevaune, stating that he did get what she saw in Fenris & hinted that she be better with him instead! In fact, all my companions questioned my relationship with Fenris! LOL! Varric once stated, "I haven't told anybody about you and that angsty Trevinter elf." Ha ha! Even Chevaune's grumpy arse uncle (Gamlen) said (in a snarky tone), "So you're into elves now? It takes all kinds of people." Oh, shut up. Ha ha. There was a lot more bantering & conversations, but I'm not going to type them here, because it would take up a lot of space! As it is, I already wrote too much! *Grins*

Drawn with Sakura Pigma Micron pens, then coloured in with a mix of Copic Markers & Ohuhu Markers.

Fan artwork © Jacqueline E. McNeese

Dragon Age II/Fenris/Hawke © Electronic Arts/Bioware

[iwonderwh0]

I can't reply on the post and don't want to reblog it again, but I'm not forgetting Daniel. Unfortunately the only thing we see of Daniel pre-deviancy is him saying hello into a video. It doesn't give us any sense of who he is as a person. That clip is about Emma's attachment to him because he's "the coolest android in the world", but all he does is say hello when prompted, with reasonably good cheerful affect. It contrasts sharply with what we see, which is him dangling Emma off the roof, and the game doesn't really go into whether that brief clip was the real Daniel or just an act provided by his programming.

We get a sense of what he wants, and what he values from his actions as a deviant, because apparently just the threat of being torn away from his family and discarded was enough to send him deviant. But the game arguably portrays his deviancy as a bad thing and him as a villain instead of it being a tragedy that he was driven to this desperation. (Mileage may vary on that one based on personal experiences; "you lied to me, Connor" is gut-wrenching, but it's also one possible ending out of all of them, requiring absolute success in manipulation from Connor, and the only ending that hits that way. In the rest of them, he HAS to die for Connor to save Emma so his death feels justified.)

Okay, that's fair, the clip doesn't give us a lot. I was just thinking about how what we learn from his words and actions paints us a picture of how he reached this point. And how he had some really strong personal opinions about his life and place in the world long before deviancy. Otherwise, his reaction wouldn't be this. 100% he's not the first android who got replaced, but he's the first one to get revengeful about.

And, him being a villain? Oh boy, you know me, I fucking love him being a villain. I disagree with him being only a victim in this, which is not to say his story isn't tragic (it is).

But it's his decision to go for a revenge instead of escape. It's his decision to drag Emma (who may not even know about the new android) to the rooftop and use her as a hostage with him being perfectly capable of going through with his threat and fall back dragging Emma down with him. Even though he supposedly loved her, his hatred and resentment is stronger. He thinks she deserves it. Because she (her family) hurt him, and he ain't gonna let that slide. It's not the fear of death that motivates him, not self-defence but pure rage. He took the gun and instead of escaping with it he goes straight to the person who wronged him and kills him when he isn't expecting.

And his rage and hatred extrapolates far beyond Philips family.

He objects to Connor helping a human that has nothing to do with Philips family and pose no threat to him anymore, so it's just a question of whether his life (one more to the list) will end as result of Daniel's actions. Daniel later says that he didn't want to hurt anybody, and yet here, when he has a chance for making his actions less murderous for the outsiders, he objects.

"All humans die eventually. What difference does it make if this one dies now?"

Ah, what a line! Compare it with Traci's words about how she only killed out of fear of being next.

When Connor pushes Emma away, what does he do? Once again, he chooses revenge, but this time aimed at Connor. Not even a human, but just another android doing his job.

Daniel story is tragic, but his actions, even though done in panic and shock are still his actions that he chose himself. And I think we should let him own them. He attacked first. When he was cornered he made sure to drag others with him.

Sorry, I dwelled away from original topic. Revengeful Danial is just my fave, and I prefer his actions to be viewed as his own choices and not something universal any deviant in his place would do.

[beholdthemem]

Y'know, I feel like even if the 1986 school year had been completely uneventful and gone off without a hitch, Chrissy still would've dumped Jason.

Not because of Eddie. Not because she discovered 'Oh, maybe I'm into girls'. Honestly, not even because of Jason himself.

I think Jason was never aware of it, but he and Chrissy's relationship had had a time limit placed on it for a while- because Chrissy's number one goal was to get the fuck out of Hawkins, and a romantic relationship was not conducive to that at all.

Part of playing a character that won't be around long while still giving them depth is to build who they are as a person off screen- who they are, what they're like, what they want. Even if half that shit never makes it to air, YOU knowing that about your character helps you portray a human being rather than a cardboard cutout. There's a personality to draw from. There's unspoken experiences that created that personality. During a brief period of time last summer when people weren't being anal worms for no goddamn reason, Chrissy's actress did a Q&A, giving us a chance to learn some of those things. Including:

(Weirdly cropped, I know, but I didn't know if the question asker would want their url included or not, and didn't wanna be rude. At any rate-)

Maybe season 5 will roll around and it'll turn out I'm wrong, but based on what we know of Laura, I really have trouble believing she would've just let Chrissy go. Chrissy's Vecna visions showed her being trapped inside that house. A recurring theme was her inability to get away.

Jason didn't know there was anything wrong in Chrissy's home life. If she was planning to leave as soon as she graduated, anyone she wanted to stay in contact with afterwards would have to be well aware why she was going, and why it needed to be a secret- loose lips sink ships. Anybody who didn't realize there was a reason not to talk about Chrissy's post-grad plans in front of Laura ran the risk of destroying of destroying her exit before she even had a chance to use it. If Jason didn't know about Laura, I don't think he knew about anything.

I do believe Chrissy cared about him. Not in a marriage/children/white-picket-fence-future kind of way, the way he seemed to think about her- but it sounded like there was some affection there. She wasn't willing to risk her safety, sanity and future to stay with him (because he seemed to have pretty positive associations with both Hawkins and the people living there, and I don't think he would've been willing to cut them off. Staying with Jason meant that no matter how many miles she ran, there would ALWAYS be an avenue for Chrissy's parents to get to her again) but she didn't want to put him through his girlfriend disappearing on him with no explanation. So... break up. If it was done early enough in the school year, it would theoretically give him enough time to heal and move on. He'd be able to pursue his life, and she'd be able to pursue hers.

Now, whether or not that ended up being how he reacted to the break up in PRACTICE is a different story. Jason is obsessive. If Chrissy dumped him, there would have to be a reason, and no matter what she told him to the contrary, I cannot see him accepting the idea that there wasn't someone else. He needs a bad guy. When something goes wrong, he needs someone to oppose. Prior to Spring Break, Chrissy might not have been in a position to see that side of him (The fact that Vecna tormented her exclusively through her parents make me think that whatever issues she and Jason may or may not have had, he never actively contributed to her trauma) but if she'd lived long enough to end their relationship, I suspect he would have made himself into a big fucking problem.

[aitprotag]

u/FineEyes posted in r/relationship_advice: Is my sister too shy with her crush?

I (20F) had a discussion with my best friend "Charlene" (27F) about my older sister "Jean" (22F). Jean has a crush on a new neighbor of ours, "Ben" (22M), and it's pretty clear that he likes her, too. I was talking to Charlene the other day about how Jean doesn't show her emotions much, so nobody outside our family was likely to figure out how much of a crush she really had. We live in a REALLY gossipy little town, where everybody is up in everybody else's business all the time, and if anybody got the idea that Jean liked Ben, EVERYONE would be talking about it.

But Charlene disagreed with me. She said people can't fall in love with someone unless that person encourages them and shows that THEY'RE interested, too. She said that if Jean likes Ben, she should show MORE affection than she feels, not less. Otherwise Ben will never get past the phase of having a crush on her.

I argued that if a woman has a crush on a man and doesn't try to hide it, he's going to eventually figure it out, but Charlene said that Ben and Jean always meet in public and in larger groups, and don't have a lot of time to talk. So Jean should "make the most of every minute she has" and even exaggerate her feelings until he asks her out. (Our country is old-fashioned, and it's considered a big social no-no for a woman to ask a man out.) Charlene said that after Ben asks her out, THEN Jean can have all the time she wants to actually fall in love with him for real.

I was kind of indignant, and I said that if Jean were a gold-digger or something, and just wanted to have a boyfriend in order to have a boyfriend, maybe she'd do that, but she wasn't plotting anything and her feelings were real. She doesn't want to TRAP him into asking her out, because she doesn't know him well enough yet to know if he's really a good guy, or even how much she really likes him.

And THEN Charlene said that even when people get married, it's better not to know too much about your partner's faults (??!!). Because nobody's perfect, and every marriage is going to have its rough points, and even when two people think they're great for each other, it doesn't always work out. So having a happy marriage is completely a matter of chance, and it's better not to know how annoying your spouse is before you marry them!

I mean, Charlene was obviously joking. We like to call our favorite couch in the living room "the snark corner" for a reason! And I don't think it's a big deal in this case, since it's clear that Jean and Ben are MADE for each other, and as long as no busybodies start getting involved, I think they're going to end up together pretty soon. But as a philosophical question: What do you think of Charlene's argument? I want to know r/relationship_advice's opinion. If you have a crush on somebody (especially if you're a woman), should you exaggerate it when you're around them so they'll ask you out instead of picking somebody else? Or play it cool and take your time to get to know them?

[hbprophetie]

Hello. Nothing to do with Snape or HP this time, and I'm sorry to annoy anybody with my feelings right now so please if you don't care about hearing anything a bit personal (and I do not blame anyone for that!), then do not feel any shame in skipping this post! (It's nothing of real importance anyway and I'll continue to make HP related posts!)

(I might delate it latter. I'm not especially super fond of exposing my feelings but if anyone want to talk about it I'll be very happy to do so)

I have very bittersweets and a rather hurting feelings about something, and I thought that maybe it is an experience that has ever happened to someone, and that maybe that someone would know how to cope with it and give me advices. At least, I think it may make me some good to get it out of my chest, even if it's a bit shamefull to expose.

I have been leaving in Japan for about 10 months now because I studied the language in France and had the chance to be able to participate in a cultural exchange. I've been frequenting a University in a little city in countryside called Tenri, made a lot of encounters of peoples from all over the world, with different cultures and languages.

Now the date of my departure is nearing, and while I'm not sure if I'll move back to France or move in Tokyô to find employement, most of my new friends will go back to their own home countries and I will for sure not be going back to Tenri before a very long time.

I'm already very sad about the goodbyes I'll have to do in the next 2 months, knowing that some peoples I'll probably never see again and I shared such incredible experiences with them that I already know how leaving them will be difficult. At least, I know that those feelings will in some great extend be mutual, and that I'll not be alone to be sad to part ways.

But, my biggest apprehension is to say goodbye to the Japanese coworkers, with whom I have been working for a few month as a part time job outside of my studies. I have been working in a Japanese convenient store and while it has arguably been one of the most difficult and challenging experience of my stay in Japan (because of the intensity of the job itself but moreso because of the difficulties of language barrier, both when dealing with clients and my colleagues), it ended up being one of the (if not the) things that brought the more happiness and rewarding feelings in my daily life. This work provided me with a feeling of belonging and some sense of confidence in myself in a moment I felt very isolated and helpless. Now, I realise that in one or two month, it will be over for good. Because this experience was very intense, I developped very strong feelings of loyalty and attachement towards my colleagues, that I know I should rather not have developped. I understand very well that they are unilateral, and that this is very normal because while for me it's an extremely out-of-comfort-zone experience that makes everything unique, for them I'm most probably just another temporary part-time employee - who looks a bit limited and awkward because not being able to apprehend the language perfectly, at that.

Therefore, I feel a big sadness at the idea that the farewell will be very hurting for me but most naturally not for my collegues. Japanese peoples are very kind, but they have a very different way of thinking than wersterners especially when it comes to social relationship and they are very reserved about expressing feelings. Therefore, I don't know if I can tell them what I feel to any extend without causing them uneasiness and maybe incomprehension (because, maybe for them we are not that close - my strong affective response is caused by my own circumstances) - and this is only if I'm able to express my feelings in Japanese, which is one of the most difficult things to do in any other language than your own. I'm very sad about parting ways, that I'll not be bold enough to communicate my gratitude, that this experience may not have real closure and that they might forget about me a few weeks after my departure.

It's not the first time I have to say goodbye, I graduated from schools and said goodbye to close friends and coworkers before. But never to people who live in the other side of the world from where my hometown actually is. This is the first time I have such intense feelings towards it. And some of these feelings I never had before.

It will be alright in the end, but for now I'm affraid about missing opportunities and not having a chance to be honest and sincere.

Is there anyone who ever felt those things, or would have advices of how to deal with it, I wonder.