#being resolute about being ready to die | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

redeemingvillains · 5 months ago

Text

the playlist - mattheo riddle

summary: enzo overhears something about you he shouldn't have and when he tells his friends, all hell breaks loose.

word count: 1.5k

soundtrack: dress - taylor swift

a/n: just some fun, sweet and silly banter with our favorite boys! i made enzo italian? not sure if that's a thing. and i definitely took some liberties with italian, so please forgive me!

warning: the group is lowkey mean to enzo about his english not being very good; this in no way reflects my personal views about that. anyone that even attempts to speak or learn more than one language (esp english!) is amazing ♡

"Alright, I've got another one"

Pansy's voice carried from your bedroom into the bathroom where you were curling your hair, getting ready for your girls' night. She was fiddling with your phone, playing music through your bluetooth speaker.

"Fuck, marry, kill: Blaise, Mattheo, Theo."

"What is the actual matter with you?" you responded, laughing. "I'm not answering that, none of them" you said resolutely about your best friends, even as your heart trilled in your chest at the very obvious answer you had in your head.

She laughed deeply, "Gods they would simply die. Any of them would be on their knees to marry you, I swear to Salazar... or fuck you for that matter."

"Pansy!!"

"Ok, ok, I give up."

"Anyway, how are things with you and Draco?" you asked, looking to quickly change the subject.

A heartbeat. No response.

"Pans?" you asked, your ears listening intently for her answer before you became worried. "You okay?" you asked, concerned as you carefully set down your curler and peered around the doorframe to find her with a shit-eating grin on her face, staring at your phone.

"Pansy..." you said cautiously as you slowly approached her.

"I just found a very interesting playlist on your phone. 'M.R.'? Gee, wonder what that could be?" she said slyly.

Your feet started moving quickly towards her. "Nonono, nope that's not what you think –"

Now she was on her feet, running away from you. "Oh, GIRL, ohhhhh my goddddssss!"

"Give it back!" you shouted, lunging for your phone as she dodged out of your grasp.

"This is all Taylor Swift! Down Bad, But Daddy I Love Him, DRESS!?! I KNEW IT, I FUCKING KNEW IT!!!!" she shouted as she scrambled on top of your bed and jumped up and down. "This is the best thing that's ever happened to me, please, Mattheo is going to lose his mind!!!"

"Oh gods, Pans, please, please you cannot say anything, not to Draco, not to anyone."

Her eyes flicked from you to over your shoulder and your heart dropped into your stomach as you turned to see Lorenzo standing in your doorway.

"...Ciao bellas..." he said hesitantly, eyebrows raised as he took in the scene in front of him, Pansy, out of breath, standing on your bed, you clambering up beside her as you were both shouting at each other.

"Uhh, hey Enz, what's up?" you said as casually as possible as you climbed off your bed.

"I'm here to borrow your potions textbook, you said I could?–"

"–Yes, gods, yes I did" you said, scrambling to search for it from the pile on your desk before brandishing it at him.

"Thank you bella" he said as he left, a cheeky grin on his face.

"Fuck how much of that do you think he heard?" you said, looking up at Pansy.

"Babe, he barely speaks English, you're fine" she said nonchalantly. "But as for me, you have a lot of explaining to do."

Enzo made his way into the common room where the rest of his friends were gathered around the TV playing a video game as he plopped down onto the couch beside them.

"Where the hell have you been?" Draco asked without breaking his concentration on the screen.

"I was with la dolce e la piccante, eh, I needed her book" he said, using his affectionate nicknames for you (sweet) and Pansy (spicy). "Amico, she was talking about you" he said suggestively, his eyebrows wiggling.

"Yeah, what did she say?" Draco asked, his curiosity piqued.

"No, not you, la dolce, she was talking about Mattheo."

Mattheo had been sprawled in a large armchair with his hood over his head and eyes closed, but they fluttered open at that. Be cool he thought to himself, even as his heart raced in his chest. Enzo immediately registered his reaction and smirked.

"Care to share?" Theo grunted, jamming the buttons on his controller.

"She has music for you" Enzo said, his eyes never leaving Mattheo.

Mattheo's heartrate slowed.

"She sends me songs all the time, we have a shared playlist, Enz" he said, waving him off as he pulled his hood back up.

"No, no, it was not for sharing, it was a secret."

"You mean a surprise?" Blaise tried.

"No, no, la picante, she found it and la dolce was upset, it was a secret playlist."

Mattheo sat back up.

"A secret playlist... for me?" he asked.

"Yes!" Enzo said, happy to finally have gotten his attention and the message across.

Enzo's confirmation was met with some chuckles and ooohs and aahhs.

"Did you hear it?"

"What was on it?"

"I bet it was the same depressing alternative shit you two always listen to" Theo said.

"Shut the fuck up" Mattheo snapped back, narrowing his gaze at him.

"–It was Taylor Swift!" Enzo announced proudly, and four sets of eyes shifted to him, with three blank stares.

A pause.

"Ok, but like what era are we talking about here? Lover? Folklore? TPD?" Theo said and four sets of eyes shifted to him.

"What the fuck?"

"Bro, what are you talking about?"

"Am I supposed to know what any of this means?"

"Che cosa??"

"Taylor Swift is a fucking icon and anyone who says otherwise is either deaf or ignorant" Theo retorted before snapping his gaze back to Enzo, the video game in the background long forgotten now.

"Tell me exactly what you heard."

"Ehh, Down Bad, Daddy something something, and Dress" he said, nodding as he remembered each.

Theo's controller fell off his lap as he leaned forward intensely, eyes narrowed on Enzo, "You are fucking certain that's what you heard?"

"...Yes..?"

Theo let out a noise somewhere between a howl and a laugh.

"Oh my fucking gods Matty you lucky son of a bitch!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Mattheo asked. He was sitting upright now on the edge of his seat and he could feel his pulse in his neck as he'd watched the conversation going back and forth between Theo and Enzo like a fucking tennis match.

"Dress by Taylor Swift? But Daddy I Love Him? Hellloooo???!!" Theo was cackling now, falling back on the couch, his hands on his stomach.

And then panic ensued.

"Put it on! Someone pull it up!" Blaise shouted, scrambling to his feet in search of his phone.

"Gods" Draco muttered, his hands on his head as he tried to process the information as tears streamed down Theo's face with laughter, and maybe a small bit of bitter jealousy.

Enzo looked around with wide eyes at their reaction, somehow more dramatic than the girls'.

"No!" Mattheo said finally, standing up and grabbing Blaise by the arm as he was frantically trying to find the songs. "All of you, just shut. the. fuck. up" he said firmly, his voice low and serious as he enunciated every word, causing each of them to stop what they were doing and look at him.

"This is bullshit, he doesn't even speak English" he continued harshly, gesturing halfheartedly to Enzo. "I'm not wasting my time with this shit, can we please just get back to the game?"

He sat down resolutely, picked a controller up off the floor and moved to restart their game.

The group exchanged quiet glances with one another before settling back into their places.

Mattheo had been able to project a semblance of controlled anger the rest of the night, despite the sideways glances he received, but on the inside, he felt like a kettle full of boiling water, ready to scream.

He was fuming that Enzo repeated what he'd heard in front of everyone, furious at the way Theo laughed and annoyed at everyone else's reactions. His life, his feelings, and especially his friendship with you were private; it was none of their godsdamn business.

He also didn't like the idea that Theo knew your music better than he did, music was something the two of you had always shared with each other... since when did you listen to Taylor Swift anyway? And why was her music such a big deal?

He was tossing and turning in bed now, playing and replaying the evening's events in his head until finally he reached for his headphones, shoving them in his ears as he grabbed his phone. He needed to know, needed to understand why Theo was making such a big deal out of it. Theo's voice echoed in his head: "Matty you lucky son of a bitch!" and excitement and jealousy stirred in his stomach in equal measures.

It doesn't mean anything he told himself, tampering his expectations. The last thing he wanted to do was get excited, like one song was going to change anything anyway.

Dress he typed - tapping play.

Decent beat he thought, she's got a nice voice...

And then he hit the bridge.

Say my name and everything just stops I don't want you like a best friend Only bought this dress so you could take it off

He had stopped breathing.

Everyone thinks that they know us But they don't know nothing about All of this silence and patience, pining and anticipation My hands are shaking from holding back from you –

He ripped his headphones out of his ears and sat straight up in bed, his hand falling subconsciously to his beating chest as he tried to catch his breath. He swallowed. He blinked several times, trying to register what he'd just heard.

I don't want you like a best friend?

Well fuck he thought, me either.

T H E P L A Y L I S T

🏷️ tagging a few of my beautiful mutuals: @girllblogging777 @draco-dormiens @dracosbabygirl8 @leona-hawthorne @noble-serpent @sectumsempraaa @reys-letters

#mattheo riddle #mattheo riddle x you #slytherin boys #slytherin boys x reader #mattheo riddle x reader #mattheo riddle fluff

775 notes · View notes

kairos-polaris · 12 days ago

Note

Does Harrow even love Gideon? I mean Harrow and Alecto have this weird vibe going on with them that basically shaped Harrow's being, and it definitely led to Gideon being resolute that Harrow holds deep affection for The Body.

I wanted to joke if we've read the same books because Harrow the Ninth made Harrow's priorities exceedingly clear but I do need to ask if you have read the books so I wouldn't spoiler things. But I also wanted to yap about griddlehark and Alecto anyway

I strongly believe that Harrow loves Gideon in every way she knows how to, traumatized and repressed as she is. I am not a fan of the implications that just because Harrow has affections for Alecto doesn't mean she doesn't love Gideon. They are both important to her and both are the centers of her universe in different ways.

Harrow and Gideon are extremely traumatised, the only example of healthy romantic love they had were Magnus and Abigail. But just because Gideon interpreted Harrow's love for the Body as romantic doesn't mean it actually is romantic. Gideon has very limited experience with love in general and the only person she is devoted to is Harrow herself. And she loves Harrow romantically so it makes sense she would assume that since Harrow is devoted to the Body, she is in love with her. Does it make sense?

Alecto is Harrow's idol, an unreachable ideal, something to strive for, the reason to keep going. The Body is her idol, her god, she is devoted to Alecto. She makes the Body her life's purpose. She is deeply devoted to her and she loves her but it's different from the way she loves Gideon.

No matter how much Harrow loves the Body, Gideon will forever be her priority. We see it in the way she dies with her name on her lips (“But your idiot dying mouth rounded out three totally different syllables, and they were three syllables you did not even understand.”) We see it during the fight with Cytherea when Harrow absolutely refuses to ascend despite how she worked for it just for the chance of seeing the Body awaken. Harrow carries so much guilt over the sin of her parents, committed just to continue Anastasia's line, but she is ready to discard it if it means Gideon survives. Gideon's life matters more to her than the chance of seeing the Body, than the burden of being the Tombkeeper.

And we see how dedicated Harrow is to keeping Gideon alive. She begs God for Gideon's soul, she says “How dare you ask me to live with it?”. She creates an elaborate plan to prevent herself from absorbing Gideon's soul with a method that could have left her brain dead. And she was catatonic for a while after that! She performed the lobotomy on herself knowing all the risks, because Gideon's life is that important to her. There are probably details of her plan that we don't know yet, something to actually resurrect Gideon.

There are countless moments in the books that show how obsessed Harrow is with Gideon and how much she means to her. She stays up all night burying bones just to show off in front of Gideon; she doesn't believe that Harrow would be willing to let go of her. Harrow is plainly jealous of Dulcinea/Cytherea in Canaan house and that's why she was even suspicious of her.

The entirety of the pool scene! Especially when Harrow says “Strike me down. You’ve won. I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.” and then they spend the whole night talking with Gideon sleeping in the cav bed as it was intended, perpendicular to Harrow. When they fight Cytherea not only does she refuse to ascend but she calls Gideon “the first flower of my house”. Harrow is half catatonic as she talks to Gideon after eating her, she says “I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it.”, she says “Don't leave me” as Gideon recites biblical wedding vows (“The Lord do so and so to me, and add more also, if aught but death part me and thee.”)

In the dream bubble, everything is influenced by Gideon despite Harrow not remembering her. She misses something, someone and doesn't understand what. When she finally has her memories back she says: “If I forget you, let my right hand be forgotten,” her mouth was saying. “Add more also, if aught but death part me and thee.” She repeats Gideon's last words, she says the wedding vows back. Magnus later says Harrow is “keeping her [Gideon's] things like a lover keeping old notes” and “You’re not waiting for her resurrection; you’ve made yourself her mausoleum.” in direct parallel to Ianthe's earlier “I have loved plenty—true love is acquisitive. You keep anything … strands of hair … an envelope they might’ve licked … a note saying, Good morning, simply because they wrote it to you. Love is a revenant, Gideon Nav.” In my eyes it pretty obviously means Harrow loves Gideon.

Whether Harrow loves Gideon or not depends on how you define love, to me that her devotion is love and I do think she loves Gideon with everything she has. Doesn't matter if it's romantic or platonic. However! I will not be convinced that her love for Alecto is romantic. Harrow loves the Body, the image of Alecto she invented in her head. Pyrrha loves Alecto, Anastasia loves Alecto. But Harrow loves the Body, she loves the idea of her. But she knows Gideon, they are each other's first friend and enemy. Gideon says the point of me is you and I believe Harrow sees it the same, the point of her is Gideon.

AND THIS IS WHY GRIDDLEHARK IS THE SHIP EVER. The only reason I don't write fics for them is because my brain is so in awe of their canonical relationship it doesn't feel the need to add anything else. Everything I love is already in there

#asks #i love yapping #the locked tomb #tlt #gideon the ninth #the locked tomb spoilers #harrow the ninth #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #harrow nonagesimus #griddlehark #main tagging this because i am proud of this post and am willing to inflict it on people

187 notes · View notes

goodqueenaly · 1 month ago

Text

One aspect of Baelor’s reign that I am very fascinated to learn more about is the lead-up to his death. Not only has GRRM quite deliberately presented the actual cause of Baelor’s death as something of a mystery, but I think the information we have been given about the last portion of Baelor’s reign suggests a time of great unease, anxiety, and uncertainty about the future. This was, I think, a period of real politico-dynastic crisis, in which the king’s death was both the climactic resolution and, perhaps, what one or more of his contemporaries saw as the only viable solution to prevent catastrophe.

Of course, a major issue of Baelor’s reign had been present almost from the first moment - the lack of a clear successor. Having dissolved his own marriage and taken the vows of a septon, Baelor was very obviously not going to father his own heir. Too, because he had imprisoned his sisters and had no living brothers, Baelor had no legitimate (male) heirs of his immediate family positioned to assume the throne automatically at his death, as he had from Daeron I. His closest relatives, and the only remaining descendants of Aegon III, were the king’s three sisters. Their imprisonment since the early part of Baelor’s reign had left them politically atrophied, without powerful allies or marital factions ready to support their right to the throne; what’s more, Daena’s extramarital son provided an opportunity for Westerosi misogynistic pillorying against her, and by extension her royal claim. However, Baelor's sisters were also Rhaenyra’s granddaughters, princesses who had a model of female royal power, even if ultimately unsuccessful, not even half a century in the past. Could any onlooker be sure that, at the moment Baelor died, any one of his sisters would not appear to be the most rightful heir to the late king?

Moreover, given Baelor’s agreement with the Unnamed Prince of Dorne to have Prince Daeron marry Princess Myriah, I think it’s very possible if not probable that Baelor acknowledged, if perhaps semi-officially or unofficially, young Daeron as his eventual successor. Yet even if Baelor had formally declared Prince Daeron to be his successor, recent Westerosi history would have suggested the riskiness of such a decision: after all, the formal declaration by King Viserys I in 105 AC that Rhaenyra was his heiress did not at all guarantee her position once a trueborn son was born to the king. In a world where Laenor had failed to be acclaimed at the Great Council of 101 AC, would Prince Daeron have sufficient backing to become king ahead of two princes with arguably far better claims - that is, his own father and grandfather?

In fact, situation may well have reminded the king's contemporaries of the reign of Baelor’s own great-grandfather Viserys I. The king’s court had been dominated by increasingly violent factionalism, in which the black and green parties both vehemently insisted on the superior claims of their respective claimants. Only the naive king himself would have ignored the virtual certainty of a succession crisis breaking out at that same king’s death: with both Aegon the Elder and Rhaenyra having colorable legal arguments behind their claims, and neither the blacks nor the greens being prepared to recognize the other’s claimant as king or queen, respectively, the question of succession was far from settled. That factional dispute had of course erupted into civil war soon after the king had breathed his last - and if defined factions behind certain claimants were not quite as apparent or public as they had been in King Viserys’ day, the unanswered question of the succession left civil war a grim possibility.

Yet there was a key difference between the end of Viserys I’s reign and the end of Baelor’s - the understanding of when the king would die. For Viserys I, his physical decline had been in evidence for nearly a decade prior to his death: Gyldayn reports that by 120 AC King Viserys was “afflicted by gout, aching joints, back pain, and a tightness in the chest that came and went and oft left him red-faced and short of breath”. These health issues only worsened in the handful of years before his passing, and especially in the king’s last few months and weeks. Gyldayn describes Viserys I as during the Vaemond Velaryon affair as “scarce [having] the strength to mount the steps to the Iron Throne”, and by the coming of 129 AC Viserys’ “chest pains had grown so severe that he could no longer climb a flight of steps, and had to be carried about the Red Keep in a chair”, until shortly thereafter the king “lost all appetite and was ruling the realm from his bed … [sic] when he felt strong enough to rule at all”. While neither the black nor the green faction could have known in advance the exact hour the king would die, all signs were present, especially in the last weeks of his life, that Viserys was not long for his world. That clear awareness of the king’s decline positioned the green faction, living with Viserys in the capital, to act within moments of the king’s death to (attempt to) secure Aegon II’s accession.

By contrast, even by 171 AC Baelor presented no such clear sign that he would be dying soon. To be sure, Baelor had done himself no favors with his health by his increasingly frequent fasting: Yandel reports that “[t]oward the end of his reign Baelor began to spend more and more time fasting and praying”, and that the king “had already nearly killed himself some years before [i.e. before the birth of Daemon Waters], when he fasted for a moon's turn following the deaths of his cousin Princess Naerys's twins shortly after their delivery”. However, Baelor was still a young man even by Westerosi standards - only about 26 or 27 when he died; by contrast, his great-grandfather Viserys had been 52, middle-aged by Westerosi standards (and even Baelor’s own father, Aegon III, had survived to the age of 36 before being killed by consumption). Nor indeed did his subjects lack evidence for Baelor’s seemingly miraculous ability to survive the impossible: Baelor had, after all, emerged from the Wyl viper pit to live and reign for 10 more years. Would any of Baelor's contemporaries have assumed, given this history, that Baelor would obviously die sooner rather than later?

Taken on their own, the question of the succession and the uncertainty of the hour of the king’s death may have caused only vague unease among his subjects; anyone or everyone (again, save perhaps the king himself) might have recognized the troubles potentially ahead if Baelor died suddenly and the realm was not prepared to acclaim a widely accepted heir, but because no one could say when the king’s death would occur, the issue may have only seemed a distantly looming threat rather than a present crisis. However, the king’s own choices, I think, had heightened that sense of immediate danger to and in the realm. Baelor had never been shy about imposing his will on his kingdom, or ruling as he personally saw fit, no matter how his courtiers and family felt: putting an abrupt end on his brother’s war of conquest in Dorne, imprisoning his own sisters, dispensing with both the trappings of regal power and the wealth of the crown, humbling the Most Devout as well as his arrogant aristocratic subjects. By 171 AC, however, Baelor had taken a step which I think may have made his other decrees seem modest by comparison: according to Yandel, toward the end of his reign Baelor “had come to believe that the Seven called on him to convert all the unbelievers in his realm” - in other words, “a war with the North and the Iron Islands”.

By planning a crusade to formally convert those throughout Westeros who did not follow the Faith of the Seven, Baelor was committing himself to tyranny. Not since the days of Maegor the Cruel had the king on the Iron Throne so openly and personally declared war on his own people: those “unbelievers” Baelor prepared to convert by force were not rebels rejecting the authority of the crown or enemy combatants (as leaders in prior Targaryen wars and conflicts might have rationalized for their acts of destruction), but subjects granted the right to practice their respective faiths by the tolerant conquest of Aegon I. Baelor may not have had the draconic power of Maegor to incinerate huge numbers of his subjects, but Baelor’s contemporaries did not need only the example of Maegor to demonstrate how terrible such a zealous tyranny could be for king and kingdom. When the pious King Humfrey Teague, last of the native Kings of the Trident, “attempted to repress the worship of the old gods within his realm”, and allied with the Faith Militant to crush his perceived enemies, the king faced rebellion by his vassals - not just the old gods-worshiping Blackwoods, but also the Vances of Atranta and the Tullys of Riverrun, who I think correctly saw in King Humfrey a liege lord who had no qualms about running roughshod over the rights of even the most blue-blooded of his bannermen. It would not have been too far a leap in logic to suppose that if King Baelor declared war against “unbelievers”, he would face the same sort of rebellions which rose up against the tyranny of Humfrey Teague and King Maegor - and just as Humfrey’s war had ended with the collapse of the Teague dynasty and the (temporary) end of Riverlands political independence and existence, and Maegor’s war had ended with the effective deposition of the king (prevented completely only by his suicide), so Baelor's war, his contemporaries may have feared, would mean the end of Baelor, House Targaryen, and/or the kingdom forged by Aegon and his sisters.

Indeed, this determination by Baelor to make war on the North and Iron Islands may have appeared particularly disastrous for his contemporaries given the legacy of the Dance. It is no exaggeration, I think, to say that the Dance had brought the Targaryen dynasty as close as it had ever come to implosion: the war costs the dynasty all but four of its members and all but one of its bred and “tame” dragons. Nor would anyone have needed to be reminded of the awesome level of destruction the realm suffered during the Dance - the tens of thousands of people who died, the towns and settlements burned and leveled. If the Targaryens did not have dragons any longer, this fact might have seemed cold comfort to a realm which, having begun the healing process under Aegon III, now faced a new civil war prosecuted by his son.

This was Baelor’s event horizon - and though he could not have known it, I think this was the moment various among his courtiers, most specifically his uncle Viserys, decided that Baelor’s reign had to come to an end, forcibly and deliberately. Baelor had not just left the succession worryingly vague, in a reign whose “natural” conclusion was almost totally unpredictable - he was now prepared to throw the welfare of the realm out the window for the sake of his fervent piety. Though the choice may not have seemed easy, Viserys I think decided that only he could save the realm from both the dynastic and politico-military threats Baelor represented - and that he himself, as a well-positioned dynastic heir, had to be the one to do so.

#asoiaf meta #baelor i targaryen

63 notes · View notes

pshbites · 4 months ago

Text

LOVE ON AiR: 16. YAP CENTRAL EP.136: did social media ruin relationships?

WARNiNGS » profanity, mentions of d wording, sexual jokes, crying, ynhoon teasing, yn never being safe

wc: 3.1k

episode desc - enjoy your stay today in yap central! as we’ve done the whole cycle, todays episode is a deeper one! we open up with a positive impact we’ve seen on each other. then we go right in with how our presence on social media has affected our relationships. following that up we keep the theme of the deeper episode and go over the influence social media has on us and how we view ourselves. we end the episode off by saying one thing we’ve noticed about one another as we’ve grown and how we think it affects the friendship. the episode ends off on a bittersweet note but we hope you enjoyed your stay today in yap central!

*the 6 of you are seated in your assigned seats. jungwon adjusts the soundboard and riki tests the mic out, then giving him a thumbs up. sunoo sets his mic up a little closer to pick up his audio and looks to the camera, setting his phone down*

sunoo: it’s been so long since we sat in here

giselle: i know like two weeks right?

yn: i think almost three *you say, adjusting your outfit as well as your seating position. riki scoots over so you have more room.*

jungwon: i mean it counts as like a summer break since we didn’t really take one.

kat: good point. you know guys do you guys remember those um fuck what were they called

riki: it would help if you gave a description

kat: shut up im thinking

*the rest of you stare at kat in silence until jungwon breaks the silence to laugh, the rest of you following suit*

jungwon: im sorry it’s just what could it be that has you thinking that long

giselle: she’s using everything in that little brain come on now!

*giselles comment makes the rest of you laugh even harder, kat laughing as well*

kat: i can’t even think of it nevermind

yn: it’s okay babe you’ll find it later.

riki: i have to say these costumes are amazing actually. might be my favorite theme

giselle: you know riki you’ve been hating a lot less recently.

jungwon: i was gonna say that too, he’s a bit nicer

riki: what can i say, finally holding my deal for the new year’s resolution

yn: watch now that we said this he’s gonna be doing some fucked up shit by the time the episode comes out

*a text box pops up on the screen saying “he in fact did do some fucked up shit during the editing process of the episode - jungwon” then disappears after a couple seconds.*

riki: you have no faith in me

yn: simply stating the facts

jungwon: you guys ready for me to sign in?

kat: go for it man *she nods at jungwon who smiles back. jungwon adjusts himself and looks to the camera*

jungwon: beep beep! you’ve arrived in yap central i am your host today, jungwon or aang. starting from my far left we have.

kat: toph

riki: zuko

yn: katara!

giselle: azula

sunoo: appa!! *he shows off his fuzzy appa bucket hat, earning a smile from all of you*

yn: sunoo i love you please don’t die

*sunoo looks at you in horror as the others burst out laughing*

jungwon: anyways.. *nervous laugh* the cycle is complete so today is a deep episode!

giselle: oh my god last time i literally bawled on my way home

kat: won you always pick the most brutal questions

sunoo: i cannot believe you asked us if the younger versions of ourselves would like the us now. like that is so ugh

riki: look at the way he’s smiling i think it’s something torturing again

*jungwon grins evilly at everyone making the rest of you groan in both discomfort and agony.*

jungwon: starting with my first question! what is a positive impact you have noticed on each of us. let’s start with sunoo. you guys don’t have to go one at a time just build it up.

sunoo: okay well.. lay it on me. *he looks to the rest of you, nervously, then shocked at who speaks up first*

riki: you laugh a lot more

*giselles eyes widened as riki spoke, the rest of you sharing the same reaction. everyone stayed quiet so riki could talk.*

riki: like when we were in highschool you always seemed to be bothered, or like you just never really were happy. and i think when we started doing this and you started tiktok you’ve been a lot happier

yn: i was honestly gonna say the same thing. you seem happier when we go out sunoo, like you want to be there.

sunoo: i feel a lot happier, honestly it sounds stupid but doing this with you guys does make me really happy.

kat: i agree. i mean i really wouldn’t trade it for anything.

giselle: awww look at us having our moment!

*both you and sunoo giggle at giselles comment, jungwon nodding to giselle, signaling she’s next*

kat: giselle, you don’t really care what people have to say about you anymore.

jungwon: ahhhh i was gonna say that

kat: like you seem so much more confident now than you did before.

giselle: when though? because i feel like i just started feeling like this overnight.

yn: if i were to pinpoint a time frame id say when you broke up with [BLEEP]

sunoo: no i COMPLETELY agree, like there’s a brightness to you now.

giselle: aw thank you guys *she pouted then smiled*

jungwon: guys please be nice to me.

riki: you’ve always been a natural born leader. i just think you’ve always been positive.

yn: i agree but there’s like a glow to him now

kat: oh my god are you pregnant?

*everyone looks at kat then bursts out laughing. some of you stop but jungwon and giselle can’t stop laughing.*

sunoo: oh my god it has something to do with who gave you that bracelet

jungwon: sunoo seriously *his cheeks turn pink, hand now covering the friendship bracelet*

giselle: oooo who made it for you?

jungwon: it was a mutual swap

yn: mutual swap.. or she gave you that wap?

*the others start laughing again, jungwon as well. riki daps you up*

riki: that was a bar

jungwon: i’m not admitting anything.. on camera.

everyone: OOOOOOOO

jungwon: next! go flame yn!!

yn: not fair, we weren’t even done with you

jungwon: don’t care, you’re not as closed off as you used to be

riki: oh my god yeah, when we were kids you were so shy

yn: really? i feel like im still in my little shell

kat: no i get what they mean. i mean even when i met you, you were really shy.

yn: thank you?

riki: i think jungwon means it in the way that you’re more open to meeting others now. like you enjoy being a people person

yn: ahhh, i see now. i guess the podcast really helped with that. like seeing people say how they enjoy my little bits and just things like that. it sounds conceited but it almost made me feel like people actually valued me? you know.

giselle: i get it, it doesn’t sound conceited babe

yn: okay i don’t like this much attention

giselle: this sounds weird to say but riki has gotten nicer atleast to us

kat: yeah i see

riki: die

sunoo: glad to know you haven’t changed..

jungwon: guess someone doesn’t wanna open up today

riki: oh would you look at that! it’s kats turn!!

yn: i think kats tells us a lot more now. like before you never really told us anything about yourself.

kat: i just have trust issues, it was nothing personal.

giselle: it’s true it took her so long to open up to me

riki: i honestly think the podcast brought out the best in us. surprisingly enough

jungwon: i see what you mean. maybe another way to put it is that we realized how much closer the camera brought us

giselle: or this friendship is just a ploy for jungwon to make more money off of us

*everyone laughs*

sunoo: we’re such coworkers

yn: heard it here first!! giselle hates her friends

giselle: can you stop with that *laughs*

yn: oh i’ll drag it through the mud

giselle: then i’ll drag yn[BLEEP] through the mud

*everyone laughs even harder now, you side eyeing giselle.*

sunoo: she kinda got you there

yn: let’s move on?

jungwon: speaking of relationships. *you glare jungwon down as he chuckles a little, looking at his phone once more.* how do you guys think social media affected your relationships and how do you think social media just influences how you view yourself. you can answer it in any order.

sunoo: i feel like having a presence on social media just makes having a relationship so much harder.

giselle: it kinda does, like people just expect for you to lay out your entire lives on social media.

jungwon: i think it depends on what kind of person you’re with, it’s almost like that person has to be up to your fans standards you know.

yn: i think there’s some people who can be normal about it but at the same time you have to be okay with everyone knowing everything about you.

kat: yeah but then it just shows that people online think that we don’t deserve privacy. it’s fucked up like they’re borderline stalking us you know?

*riki glanced at you as kat spoke, noticing how you stiffened at the word stalking*

riki: a lot of people aren’t okay online, it’s weird. like being so obsessed with someone to the point of finding out their personal information

giselle: if that ever happened to any of us i really don’t know what i would do.

jungwon: i think i honestly would try to sue you know. you have to be a certain level of fucked to do something like that.

yn: yeah, i agree it’s so weird.

kat: i kinda don’t wanna sound like a pick me

riki: just say it, you won’t sound like one.

kat: it’s so much harder being a girl with a social media presence.

sunoo: the fact that you had to hesitate to even say that says everything

jungwon: i really don’t get it either, like i’ve seen both women and men do the same things online and sometimes the guy is worse than the girl and yet it’s always the girl getting attacked and harassed.

giselle: i think it’s because people just view girls as easy targets almost. like a girl could do something completely normal and the internet would spin it to make her a villain

yn: it’s disgusting really, no one really ever really wants to side with a girl.

jungwon: do the comments still get you guys? i mean i know it was really bad in the beginning

kat: actually no i remember when it got bad. it got bad that episode where [BLEEP]

*jungwon and giselle glance at each other then start laughing*

giselle: remind me to edit that out.

yn: honestly no, the comments don’t bother as much anymore. after a while i realized that they’re just saying this because they have nothing else to talk about so i just stopped looking.

kat: i agree, it gets better when you just stop reading the comments all together.

riki: god please take periods away from women and give it all to me.

*you and kat give riki a look then burst out laughing, sunoo jungwon and giselle following that.*

sunoo: can’t stay serious for a second

riki: i would never joke about women in pain

*jungwon and kat keep laughing as riki goes on, unable to take him seriously*

yn: going back to the original question i just think it’s hard, like seeing people overstep a boundary or intrude on your life and just be okay with it

sunoo: and people just say oh well you asked for this um? no i didn’t actually i just wanted post skincare videos

*jungwon snorts, causing a chain reaction for everyone else to laugh*

kat: im glad we haven’t cried in this episode yet.

giselle: oh my god don’t jinx it he still has two more questions

jungwon: you might cry at this next one *kat sends a look to jungwon and he gives her an evil smile* my next question is what changes have we seen in one another as we’ve grown up together. it can be good or bad.

riki: jungwons lost it this is so similar to the first question

yn: i feel like he means overall

jungwon: thank you! atleast someon listens to me

yn: *you look around shocked and confused* oh my god.. did you guys hear that? was that a ghost?

*jungwon stares at you as everyone else laughs at your joke*

sunoo: so are we gonna go around in a circle?

jungwon: no how about.. the person sitting across from you. like riki sits across from giselle so they can say it about each other

kat: wait i wanna start

sunoo: this is too much pressure

kat: *she stares at sunoo and smiles warmly* sunoo i admire your love for us. like i don’t know you always support all of us no matter what and i feel like as we’ve grown closer you just have so much love to give

giselle: that’s so adorable

riki: sunoo i love your videos please don’t die

sunoo: STOP WITH THAT JOKE *he turns to look at kat* thank you kat i love you. i have to say sometimes i feel like you don’t tell us everything but it’s okay, just because we’re your friends doesn’t mean we have to know everything about you. i just want you to know that we’ll always listen no matter what.

*kat stares at sunoo as he smiles at her, then looks down when she feels tears welling up in her eyes. riki looks at giselle and jungwon panicked as they pass him the box of tissues.*

yn: aw babe *you frown looking at her as she lifts her head up to see tears streaming down her cheeks*

sunoo: wait i didn’t mean to make you cry

kat: it’s okay i jinxed myself

*everyone laughs slightly, still worried about her. sunoo moves his mic and gets up to hug kat. they stay like that for a few seconds until he lets go, patting her head. he says something but the mic can’t pick it up then walks back to his seat.*

kat: it’s not that i don’t want there was just a time where i felt like no one really care you know?

jungwon: you’re not obligated to tell us everything, but we care more than you think even if we have weird ways of showing it. *he glares at riki who only throws his hands up*

*the rest of you laugh at riki’s reaction and even kat lets out a chuckle after wiping her tears*

kat: to the viewers watching.. this never happened i am mysterious and batman doesn’t cry

giselle: nurse.. she’s out again

riki: okay giselle! lay it on me! *claps his hands together*

giselle: you use being mean as a cover up you actually care a lot about what people think but you use being rude or mean as a shield.

*sunoo gasps, the rest of you stare in silence because giselle is 100% right*

riki: okay cut the cameras

jungwon: i mean she’s not wrong

riki: if you wanted me to cry it’s not gonna happen

giselle: i know

riki: i hate you guys

sunoo: yeah sure you do

riki: well, since you want a taste of your own medicine *riki clears his throat* you shouldn’t get into another relationship, atleast until you evaluate how you act during them.

giselle: excuse me?

jungwon: weird ass time to admit your feelings

riki: you’re a weirdo that’s not how i meant it

yn: well then how did you mean it

kat: i’m curious

riki: every time i've seen you get into a relationship you just stop acting like yourself. you’re less confident and it’s almost as if you change yourself to please the guy you’re with. I just don’t like seeing any of my friends like that.

*all of you stare in silence at giselle, the air feeling heavy as she pushes her mic away and mumbles something to jungwon then ups and leaves.*

yn: um. is she okay?

jungwon: she needs a second

riki: was it something i said?

jungwon: it’ll be okay, she just said she needs a second.

sunoo: she’ll be okay guys, let’s move on yeah?

yn: okay well.. jungwon i think you bottle a lot of things up, intentional or not.

jungwon: *he sighs, crossing his arms* it’s not intentional i just think you guys have too many worries on your own plates to worry about mine.

kat: even if we have a lot going on that’ll never stop us from wanting to know what’s going on won

jungwon: i know i guess it’s just hard? to admit i need help?

sunoo: there’s never anything wrong with that

jungwon: thanks guys

riki: yeah yeah

jungwon: okay yn, im glad you like yourself more

kat: um

riki: wow!

sunoo: that is certainly a statement

yn: excuse me??

jungwon: no i worded that terribly

*the 5 of you burst out laughing at jungwons poor word choice. within this time giselle walks back in, closing the door slightly. the mics can’t pick it up but riki mouths “im sorry” to her. causing her to shake her head and smile. “it’s good” she mouths back making him smile back.*

jungwon: what i mean to say is that you’re more confident now. not just about yourself but your videos too. i’m glad to see this change in you

yn: thank you won, it means a lot

jungwon: of course

giselle: well this was certainly an episode

yn: one of us always ends up crying

sunoo: that sadist probably likes it too

jungwon: woah? the term isn’t sadist

*the rest of you laugh*

sunoo: let’s have a group hug! everyone up on your feet

*sunoo stands up, kat and giselle following suit. you and jungwon stand up and riki groans, then reluctantly stands up. the 6 of you huddle around one another and go for a group hug. the mics can’t pick up your voices but the recording has slight shuffling and giggles from you 6. after a couple seconds you pull apart and sit back down in your respective seats.*

giselle: i love you guys

kat: me too

sunoo: me three

jungwon: me four

yn: me five

*everyone looks at riki who only rolls his eyes*

riki: me six..

jungwon: well guys hope you enjoyed your stay in yap central we hope you didn’t cry too much. i have been your host jungwon and please make sure to check out our links in this description and like, share, subscribe, and comment! till next time!!

previous masterlist next

AUTHORS NOTE » lol UMMMMMMM sorry guys i didnt realize how long it had been without an update WE ARE SO BACK THO

TAGLiST » @lqfiles @strawberrysavi @blockbusterhee @onlyhyunjin @purennn @jungkit @flwoie @imheretoread @firstclassjaylee @pinkishyng @luvgiselle @kang-ulzzang @cherryxbxmb @jkslvsnella @urslytherin @somerandomf1fan @i03jae @s0urcherry @istglevi-gotmesimping @kittykangz @hyuckies18 @seungwaitamin @taehyunnzly @luvvhaerin @brii-sunwoos-version @won4kiss @cheridiaries @dissoc1ating @mimismenu @heelovesmeknot @cherryrikis @onlyjungchan @getoxo @enhaz1 @hoshipills @tocupid @xxxnrigi @rairaiblog @dimplewonie @hoonics @vmpivory @lisaswifey @gweoriz @jjhyn @heegyuwrld @dollydigital

bold cannot be tagged

125 notes · View notes

nonbinarylocalcryptid · 6 months ago

Text

Another angst scene from Mutiny feat. Astyanax

The kid watched him work the rope around Odysseus' wrist with deceitful boring eyes. He was silent, but watching, ready to strike. When he got like that, Eurylochus always forgot he was just a kid.

A kid who tilted his head when he didn't understand things.

"Do you really think tying his hands will stop him?"

What was Eurylochus supposed to answer? He went with the truth.

"No, but it'll buy us time."

Astyanax hummed, looking bored again.

"Hm, coward."

Once he had tied his brother's hands, he should have get Up and walked away. Instead he kept pushing.

"We have treated his wound, you can let your guard down now."

"Not happening, no matter how painful it is, I can no longer trust any of you, Perimedes is lucky to be alive, but I thought, 'hey, we actually need him to row', and I decided to wait, he's going to die anyway." There was a something sinister on his face that resembled a smile. "We must do whatever it takes to survive."

Despite the kid's fearless front, a shaking hand search for Odysseus, grabbing the unconcious man's shirt. Eurylochus chose not to comment on that.

"So this is your resolution."

"I have always been frank to you, pity you can't say the same."

"I have one last question for you."

Why condemn a kid to Odysseus's madness? How long until the self-proclaimed father turned against the boy? Could Eurylochus even convince him to join him?

"I'll listen," it sounded like a warning, "but I don't owe you an answer."

"Why are you so set in getting him home? What do you get from him that you can't get from us?"

Astyanax looked puzzled for a second, surely because he expected a whole different question, but he answered.

"Well, I don't care about Ithaca, there's nothing for me there, but he gives me both love and purpose."

"Just that? You are so quickly in turning away the crew for the love of your father?"

A humourless laugh came from the boy, surprising him.

"You see, that's the difference between you and me. You don't care for him as a person anymore, but I do. You'll kill him without hesitation if that would get you home but I rather chew off my own foot than make him suffer." Eurylochus sighed, and it didn't go unnoticed, as the boy tilted his head again. "Hm, interesting, you pity me, why?" Something as dark as playful settled on his face. "Do I sound too much like Polites to you? Or is it the shame what clouds your judgement? What would your wife say if she knew how many times have you wronged her big brother?"

"Don't bring my wife into this."

"Can you even call her that? You don't even fight for her anymore!"

Whatever Eurylochus' answer was, it died in his throat, interrupted and gone before being said.

"Sir, an island!"

"We are not done here." He said, finally getting up.

"Yes we are, you fool." A shadow had took place in Astyanax's face and didn't leave. "We don't need treators."

#daddy odysseus au #astyanax lives #mutiny #thunder saga #odysseus #the odyssey #astyanax #eurylochus

85 notes · View notes

canonsensical · 5 months ago

Text

A comment I'm repeatedly seeing (and agreeing with) about Season 4 of the umbrella academy is that the characters actions did very little to impact the plot or overall outcome of the story.

1. Diego and Luther's Eggs and Legs Adventure. What came from this apart from Diego discovering family is important and that Five's boss is evil? I would have loved to see Diego come into his own a bit here. Over the seasons he's wanted to join the police, the commission and the CIA, but it hasn't worked out for him largely because he isn't great at taking instruction or working in that sort of team. It would have been great to see him become a Leader in that CIA office and to showcase his tactical skills. Even if Luther became the rallying heart of this dynamic encouraging people to do what they joined the CIA to do, to help him and his brother to hack systems to find where Gene and Jean, or Beniffer or other crucial players are.

2. Klaus and Alison's Great Escape. Being possessed by a ghost and learning their secrets? Great, use it again. Have dead Jean possess him, use that to gain intel either to sabotage their plan, or to realise that they aren't that different from the keepers. They wanted to get back to their rightful timeline too! Alison's issues some more from her unresolved conflict with her family. She betrayed them, she thinks they resent her. She would try to sacrifice herself for them and Claire so hard at the first opportunity.

3. Lila and Five's Subway Surfing. I am keeping away from large parts of their story, but you can't introduce an Alternate Timeline Subway System and not have it as part of your plot resolution. Sorry, thems the rules.

3a. At the moment of absorption by Bennifer, Five blinks them all to the subway, they live in peace and harmony in one of the safe timelines until they are ready to die, and then they go back to finish sacrificing themselves.

3b. Take all those keepers who want to get back to their rightful timeline, and take them on the subway to find somewhere they'd be happy.

3c. You have established multiple interacting Five's in Max's diner, confirming the scale of alternative timelines with Marigold. (Only some marigold timelines will have Five's as seen with sparrows and Phoenixes) Assuming 50 plus kids in each of those timelines, that's a lot of power that they actually have physical access to.

Hopeless endings are all well and good, but you can't make the characters irrelevant to the entire story as well.

#the umbrella academy spoilers #the umbrella academy #tua #tua s4 #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #alison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #ben hargreeves #victor hargreeves #lila hargreeves #the jennifer incident

45 notes · View notes

zaebeecee · 28 days ago

Text

To Sever A Loveless Bond

••RadioDust Soulmate AU••

Part 23/?

First chapter | Previous chapter | Next chapter

Read on AO3

•••

Y’all ready for a resolution? Well, that’s too bad.

We’re at the “character talks about emotional shit with everyone except the person they should be talking about emotional shit with” arc of any romance story. Don’t worry, Alastor’s gonna get this treatment too. (Also, all backstory in this story is a product of headcanon, so it might contradict canon but I don’t really care)

•••

The month after VoxTek: Angel’s POV ••

• Week One

Angel felt the gentle thunk of the door closing through the metal handle, and with it, he felt as though something inside him had been irrevocably severed. A sort of numbness unlike anything he had ever felt before settled over him like a weighted blanket, stifling and painful without reaching the satisfying threshold of truly masochistic suffocation.

Immediately, Angel wanted to turn around, storm back into Alastor’s room, and tear him a new asshole for thinking he could be so dismissive of Angel after… after everything that had happened. Alastor would deserve it, Angel would feel good about it, and if Alastor got mad and then got violent, all the better, because it would be so much easier to be pissed at Alastor for breaking his bones than it was to be pissed at him for…

doing what we agreed on?

And that was precisely why Angel released the door handle and began walking back down the hallway. This had been the plan from the start after all, hadn’t it? It wasn’t Alastor’s fault that Angel, in his infinite capacity to fuck everything up, had decided to catch real feelings for what might have been the first time ever and felt like he could die at the prospect of never even being able to touch him again. But that was completely selfish, Angel knew that, and he had agreed to the temporary arrangement. After all, if Alastor hadn’t left Rosie’s in the first place, it would have been broken days ago, right?

Halfway down the hall, Angel heard the distant click of Alastor’s door locking again, and the spider had to resist the nearly overwhelming urge to physically hunch in on himself. Instead, he just kept walking, suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to just spend another full week in bed.

“Angel? Are you okay?”

The spider came to a stop and raised his head, blinking a few times as he realized he was only three feet away from the check in desk where Charlie and Vaggie were in the middle of designing another new flyer for the hotel (in colored pencil and marker instead of crayon this time, which was at the very least an improvement). Charlie was looking right at him, her eyes wide and concerned, while Vaggie was still bent over the paper as though working but completely unmoving, giving away how closely she was paying attention. Husk, on the other side of the lobby, wasn’t even trying to disguise his own pointed stare.

Fuck.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Angel said, automatically slipping into his masking voice and waving Charlie’s concern off. “Just checkin’ in on the boogieman back there, s’all. I’m goin’ back to my room now.”

“Angel, wait…!”

But Angel didn’t wait, ignoring Charlie’s words as he took the stairs three at a time and vanished as quickly as he could down the hallway. He didn’t slow down until he was back in his room with the door securely closed and locked, and then he stood there, looking the place over and trying to think only of how to best set up a little cam studio in his space.

I already knew I was starting over. I guess this is just another thing to restart. Not a big deal. It’ll be fine.

I’m fine.

•••

• Week Two

The next week passed with little fanfare or activity. Though Angel was up and out of bed, he found he got winded easily, limiting the amount of time he was able to walk around before he needed to find somewhere to sit. Most days, he would hang out in the lobby for a while before Alastor invariably showed up to ask Charlie something or dictate a request to Husk and Niffty. Whenever that happened, Angel either retreated to his room, went into the back garden, or both if the weather was nice enough to let Fat Nuggets run around outside for a bit.

It was as though everything had changed, somehow, even if Angel knew logically that not much had. He and Alastor had only been fucking around for a month, so that stopping wasn’t really a change so much as just a return to normal. But they still had the same residents, the same team building exercises, the same bouts of utter boredom… the only thing that had really changed was that Angel had quit his job and gotten a new one.

Well, Niffty had started leaving the hotel more often. That one was new, and Angel still didn’t know what to think of it, because the one time he asked her what she’d been up to, she’d simply giggled and run away.

The point was that even though everything was essentially the same, it all felt different. He couldn’t decide if it was the air in the hotel, or something about everyone else, or maybe something about him… whatever it was, it was the kind of nebulous sensation that made his skin itch from an inability to fix it. He wondered if part of it was the fact that he could tell Charlie wanted to ask if he was okay every time she laid eyes on him, and the fact that she had restrained herself so far wasn’t much comfort when she stared at him whenever they were in the same room. But why wouldn’t he be fine? He hadn’t even cried.

Not since that night, anyway. And he wasn’t going to cry over Alastor anymore. It was a waste of time.

The cam work was already going promisingly well. Angel had a decently large following on his socials—it had been an enormous boost to his ego when he started seeing that he was getting followers from other Rings, too—and since he had already announced that he’d quit at VoxTek after beating Valentino up with a monitor and breaking Vox’s face (and wasn’t posting that nugget of gossip just… so freeing), it had only taken a suggestive post and a link drop to get new subscribers to start rolling in.

At this rate, he thought, he’d soon be making more for himself than he’d ever made through Val. When he’d been employed at VoxTek, he’d never been allowed to keep his own money; rather, as his contract dictated, all of his money was ‘kept safe for him’ by Valentino, who paid him an allowance each week. The amount was subject to Valentino’s whims, and it hadn’t been unusual for Angel to go months without seeing a cent of it. That was different now too, though, wasn’t it? He would actually be able to start saving money. He could even get his own fucking place, if he really wanted to.

…did he want to do that?

When the weekend rolled around, Angel felt good enough to get out for a while, so he dolled himself up and promised Charlie he’d be back later before heading out of the hotel. At first, he didn’t have a destination in mind—he could go shopping, he could go to a club, he could go get laid—but after a bit of thought…

Gonna need to highjack a car.

Ten minutes later, Angel was driving out of Pentagram City and taking the road the short distance to Zahhak, the largest satellite they had out towards the west. Colloquially known as Imp City to most Sinners, Zahhak was an entirely (as far as Angel knew) Hellborn city that was mostly populated by those who worked either for or with Sinners. While Sinners were only confined to the Pride Ring, not to Pentagram City itself, they still never tended to branch out past the city’s outer limits if they could help it, meaning that their population in other parts of the Ring was almost zero. It was partially due to the fact that humans tended to stick together even when they hated each other, but Angel suspected it was because Sinners really didn’t get along with the rest of Hell. Hellborn had apparently never had a high opinion of Sinners, nor Sinners of Hellborn; to the Hellborn, Sinners were a bunch of infiltrators invading their home, and to Sinners, the Hellborn were a bunch of gross and unpredictable monsters that would slice you up as soon as look at you. Angel, though, had never really had much of an issue with Hellborn. He’d worked with them before, primarily Verosika Mayday, and he never had any more problems with them than he did with any given Sinner.

It took a bit for Angel to find his destination, unfamiliar with Zahhak as he was, but he soon pulled into a lot with a familiar van parked terribly, somehow taking up four spaces at a diagonal. Angel snorted under his breath and headed into the building, putting his sunglasses on top of his head as he made his way up the stairs. It looked like a bunch of the other spaces for rent were unoccupied, and Angel passed by several open doors that led to dark and empty rooms before he found his destination.

The only door with light visibly on led to a cute, if somewhat eclectic, waiting room with some mismatched furniture, a tank with two electric eels, and a receptionist’s desk positioned in a way that suggested it was put there so the receptionist couldn’t pretend she didn’t see clients come in. Even so, the girl didn’t look up, her feet kicked up on the desk and her eyes on her phone.

Angel tilted his head before walking over and putting two of his hands on his hips, staring down at the hellhound girl and just waiting for her to acknowledge him. Eventually, she sighed, letting her hand fall into her lap. “Yeah, yeah, welcome to IMP, the fuck do you want—”.

Her words trailed off into a whine as she looked up at Angel, her eyes going wide and her ears flattening back against her head. Angel smiled at her. “Hi,” he said. She didn’t speak. “You’re… Loona, right?” She nodded. “Your dad back there?” She nodded. “You gonna say somethin’?” She shook her head.

The door to the back office opened. “Hey, Loona, have you seen— oh.” Angel looked over and saw a young male imp, who was now staring up at him as well. “…crumbs.”

Angel snorted. “Will both of you chill the fuck out? I ain’t here to shoot you or nothin’.”

“You wouldn’t be the first one who did,” the imp, who Angel was pretty sure was called Moxxie, said. “Can… um, can I help you with something?”

“I dunno,” Angel said honestly, resisting the urge to fold his arms. “Guess I just wanted to come thank you and your boss.”

Moxxie opened his mouth before a voice shouted at him. “Moxxie, for fuck’s sake, has Loonie seen it or not??”

“Uh, sorry, Blitzø, but Angel Dust is out here.”

“OH FUCK YES.”

“Ow!! Dammit, Blitzø, you fuckin’ train wreck!!”

Angel listened to sounds of clambering and crashing, like someone was vaulting inelegantly over a cluttered desk, before the same imp he had seen after leaving Rosie’s barreled through the doorway and shoved Moxxie out of the way.

Angel covered his mouth with his hand, laughing at the way Moxxie protested his treatment. “I’m guessin’ you’re Blitzø, huh?”

“I’m honored a famous porn star knows my name,” Blitzø said with a sly grin. Angel’s smirk widened as another imp, who must have been Millie, came out of the office as well. “Since you haven’t pulled a gun on us, I’m guessing you aren’t here to kill us?” Blitzø guessed.

“Nope. If I was, you’d know.”

“Well, that’s good to know, at least. So… what can we do for you?”

Angel finally did cross his arms, drumming his fingers against the skin above his elbow as he thought. “…I dunno, really. Guess I just thought I’d drop by to thank you. You guys had some kinda hand in gettin’ my contract broken, right?”

Blitzø raised his hands. “I just took it to a guy who found a loophole.”

Millie smacked him on the arm. “Don’t be all modest,” she chided with a smile before looking up at Angel. “Don’t you worry ‘bout it none. Helpin’ out really was the least we could do after everythin’ we put you through.”

“Oh, hey, don’t worry about that. Vox woulda pulled the same kinda bullshit if he hadn’t hired the three of you,” Angel said. “And you got money, yeah? So no hard feelings.”

Moxxie was looking at him a bit critically. “…I know this isn’t my business, Mister… um…”

“Just call me Angel Dust, baby.”

“A-Angel Dust,” Moxxie said, his facial expression unchanging even as his cheeks began turning a noticeable shade of purple beneath the red. “I just wanted— are you okay? Both you and Alastor were in a pretty bad state when Charlie brought you in.”

Angel could feel the way his smile changed. “…I’m okay. Healin’ up just fine. Sinner and all.”

Moxxie nodded. “And Alastor? Charlie said… his arm…?”

Angel shrugged. “I… dunno, honestly. We ain’t spoken in about a week. You’d have to ask him if you wanna know details.”

“Wait, what?” Millie asked. “You ain’t— a week?! The fuck’s that about??”

“Millie, it’s not our business,” Moxxie said.

“Considering Alastor nearly killed me over all this, I feel it’s totally our business if he’s on his bullshit,” Blitzø countered. “And I know a man on his bullshit when I hear about it.”

“Fuck’s sake, everybody’s so worked up over this shit,” Angel groaned, looking up towards the ceiling. But… it couldn’t possibly hurt to tell them about it, right? They didn’t even live in the same city, and they were Hellborn. Besides, they already knew so many icky little details… what was one more?

And if I don’t tell someone soon, I’m gonna go nuts.

“He… got his arm torn off,” Angel said; it wasn’t any easier to say that out loud now than it was the first time he tried. “Had his mark on it. Guess he figures the whole thing’s over now, since it’s gone.”

Angel wasn’t sure what kind of response he expected to that, but it wasn’t what he got; Blitzø raised his hand to cover the side of his neck, almost like a reflex, while Moxxie looked almost incomparably sad suddenly. Millie, however, was slowly starting to look absolutely furious. “Oh, the fuck he did,” she said.

Angel raised an eyebrow at her. “What?”

Millie didn’t answer him, simply held her arm out across Blitzø to hold her open palm in front of Moxxie. “Moxxie. Keys.”

“Millie, honey—”

“Keys, Moxxie, don’t make me hotwire our car again.” Moxxie cursed under his breath and fished out a ring of keys, putting them in her palm. “Back in a bit,” Millie said, storming out of the office and slamming the door behind her.

Angel stared after her, blinking a few times. “…was it somethin’ I said?”

Moxxie sighed. “No, it… it’s just…” He hesitated, then said, “…could I talk to you outside for a minute?”

This was rapidly getting weirder. “Uh… sure.” As Moxxie turned to leave, Angel bent down, kissing Blitzø’s cheek. “Hit me up if you need a dancer for a party. I’ll do one for you for free, handsome.”

Blitzø’s eyes got huge and he put his fists under his chin. “This is the best day of my life.” As Angel followed Moxxie out, laughing a little, Blitzø continued, “Loonie, did you hear that?! Free stripper!”

“Good for you, don’t wanna hear about your erection.”

Moxxie led him out into the hallway, then up a flight of stairs and through a roof access door. Angel looked around, raising an eyebrow. “Afraid of bein’ overheard or somethin’?”

“Yeah,” Moxxie said. “It’s something I haven’t told Blitzø about and I don’t really want… he would make it a… a thing. But whatever Millie’s doing might end up affecting you and I feel you deserve a bit of forewarning.”

Angel folded his arms. “Makin’ me nervous here.”

Moxxie waved his hands. “No, sorry, I don’t mean to…” He took a deep breath, then started over. “You know how everyone in Hell has a soulmate mark? Even Hellborn?” Angel nodded once. “I don’t know how Sinners see it, but for the Hellborn, most of us see it as either one of the only good things Hell has to offer us, or something that’s… well. Bullshit. And there are some people who don’t care, of course, but…”

Angel could tell, by the look on Moxxie’s face, which one he was. He supposed he wasn’t surprised to learn that even the Hellborn had its romantics.

Moxxie didn’t finish his last sentence, just continuing, “Millie and I are married. Have been for a bit now. But we aren’t… we’re not soulmates. She’s never had her mark activated, and mine…” He cleared his throat. “…well. Mine isn’t going to… be a problem, I guess you could say.”

“…I’m sorry,” Angel said, unsure of what else to say.

“Oh, no, I don’t mean… I love Millie,” Moxxie said firmly. “I’ve loved her more than anything or anyone I’ve ever known. And Millie has always said she doesn’t care about marks, whether hers matches her partner or not, or even if she ever meets her soulmate. But… a lot of people do care, and there’s this atmosphere around some people that if you aren’t with your soulmate, any other relationship will fail.”

Angel raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t really tell me why she got all worked up.”

Moxxie ran his hand through his hair. “…her parents… don’t like me. I’m not their type of person—they’re ranchers out in Wrath and I’m from a Greed city—but they’re some of the people who think a relationship will fail if you’re not soulmates. Millie says they hound her about it every time she visits home, and she’s gotten to the point that if she hears someone make a claim that a mark is a make or break sort of thing, she gets… really mad.”

Angel stared at him, trying to put the words together with Millie’s actions. “…what, is she gonna go yell at Alastor? Is she nuts?”

“She’s definitely nuts, yes. But I don’t think she’ll do anything drastic. …I really hope she doesn’t,” Moxxie added in a mutter, putting his face in his hands and grumbling something about already having to deal with Blitzø.

“…Y’know this don’t make sense, right?” Angel asked. “So me and Alastor ain’t doin’… whatever we were doin’. Why the fuck would she care?”

Moxxie allowed his hands to fall. “…she was the first one who wanted to pull out of the job the Vees gave us,” he said, hesitating just a little.

Angel frowned. “…why…?”

“Because she…” Moxxie looked up for a moment, then looked at Angel again. “…because she saw the way he was looking at you.”

•

Ten minutes later, Angel was on his way back to Pentagram City, eyes fixed unseeingly on the road.

He had assured Moxxie he would be okay, but he still wasn’t sure if that was a lie or not.

All he knew for certain was that he had no intention of going anywhere near the hotel again until he had gotten laid by at least three different guys.

•••

• Week Three

“Hey baby.”

“Hey bitch!” Cherri was more subdued than she usually was when Angel called her, but of course, he had been somewhat out of pocket for the last three weeks; she would never admit it, but Angel knew she was worrying. “Glad to hear you’re alive. I was about to put out an advert for a new bestie.”

“Do it and I’ll set ‘em on fire,” Angel said with a grin. “Busy tonight? Wanna go out?”

“Sure, I’m down. Got a dive in mind?”

An hour later, they arrived outside a little club called the White Sugar Cookie (slogan: “We’re a speakeasy, but with drugs, so we’re better!”) and both took a bump before heading inside. It was pleasantly tasteful, dark and moody with wood interiors and maroon leather, and Angel took a second to appreciate the house band as he and Cherri headed for the bar and settled themselves.

“What’ll ya have?” the bartender asked, squinting at Angel like he recognized him but couldn’t place him.

Before Angel could deflect, however, a familiar voice interrupted. “Get your fine, tight ass back to work, Arlo, I got this one.” The bartender held his hands up and walked away, and Angel swiveled as Mimzy came out from around the bar and held her arms open. “Angel, baby, it’s been too long!”

“Hiya, Mimzy,” Angel said, leaning down to give her a hug and exchanging kisses to the air with her.

Mimzy was a complicated figure in the Hazbin Hotel. She hadn’t been around since the debacle with the sharks—from what Angel had been able to extrapolate, she and Alastor had been acquainted in life, and Angel had never gotten more than that out of her—but Angel had found her club several months earlier. Since it was a place where you could buy drugs and where anyone harassing other customers got thrown out on their ear, Angel had made it a frequent haunt when he needed to get out of the hotel and couldn’t handle the attention that came from being basically anywhere else. Since Mimzy was exactly his kind of train wreck so long as he kept her at arm’s length and not anything closer, and since Angel liked to drag Cherri along when she wasn’t in one of her wilder party moods, it wasn’t surprising that they formed something of a weird friendship.

“The usual, girls?” Mimzy asked as she went back around the bar. “Or are you feelin’ a bit more spicy?”

“Oh, I could use somethin’ a little more adventurous,” Angel said. He glanced at Cherri, who nodded, then he added, “You got a few minutes, Mimz? Why doncha join us?”

Mimzy put one hand on her hip and one on the bar. “…yeah, just for you.”

Mimzy took them to a private booth in the back corner, along with a pitcher of something alarmingly orange and three martini glasses. Cherri poured for them as Angel asked, “How ya been, Mimzy? Run any more loans out?”

“Oh, honey, I’m in debt up to my ears as usual, which we both know is a pretty low bar with how close I am to the floor,” Mimzy said, taking a glass from Cherri. “Heard about that bullshit the Vees pulled a few weeks ago, though. Glad to see you’re okay.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine.”

Cherri scoffed. “He’s been holed up in that hotel for three weeks. Don’t believe his shit.”

Angel glared at her. “Fuck off,” he said. “I am fine. You’re just jealous my business is takin’ off.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard you started a cam business,” Mimzy said, her eyes lighting up. “Come on, details.”

They talked business, along with a healthy amount of gossip about Mimzy’s regulars, until Cherri spotted a girl that was apparently super hot and excused herself to try and get a dance out of the becoming stranger. Once they were alone, Mimzy picked up the pitcher and refilled Angel’s drink. “So, is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“Don’t play dumb, sweetie, I saw the pictures of you and Alastor out together,” Mimzy said with a dry stare, taking out rolling papers and tobacco and beginning to roll a cigarette on the table. “He’s always been a social sonuvabitch, but I ain’t actually heard’a him gettin’ out and socializin’ in a while. And definitely not in a date setting.”

Angel sighed, putting his head in one hand. “Does it matter?”

“Nah. But I’m nosy, so tell me anyway.”

Mimzy offered Angel a cigarette, and he took it with a begrudging thanks, pulling his lighter out of his chest fluff. “I mean, yeah, we went out on a couple’a dates. It was… y’know… some kinda favor.”

Mimzy pulled a disbelieving face as she tucked a second cigarette into her cigarette holder. “A favor?” she asked skeptically. “Honey, I watched Alastor make women cry for having the audacity to flirt with him back in the day. I mean, when he noticed, of course. I got a hard time buyin’ he’d go on a date as a favor.”

Angel held his lighter out for her. “Don’t matter anyway, it’s done now. We ain’t even talkin’ anymore.”

Mimzy took a drag through the holder to cherry the cigarette before she responded. “Good.” She settled back, holder in one hand, other arm crossed beneath her breasts. “Look, kid, I like you. And since I like you, I don’t really wanna watch you get hurt, which is just about all Alastor does when you start gettin’ through those walls of his.”

Angel wanted to argue, but it felt pointless. He wasn’t even sure if he was going to be arguing with her or himself. “…you knew him pretty well, didn’tcha?”

“As well as anybody did back then, sure.”

“What…” Angel hesitated. Do I wanna know? “…what was he like? Back then?”

“Hm? Well…” Mimzy looked thoughtful for a long moment. “He was always odd. Handsome, but in a way that was real�� He had a tendency to stare. Not blink enough. Smile too wide. Y’know, same kinda off-putting shit he does now. I worked at a jazz club down in New Orleans, and he used to come in a lot. He was a kinda local celebrity, y’know, since it was the late 20s, early 30s, and there weren’t a whole lotta radio stations around back then. Or, well, his voice was a celebrity, anyway.”

Mimzy paused to ash into her ashtray, her expression thoughtful. Angel just waited, wondering if Alastor would be mad she was telling him all this.

“He was always real closed-off,” Mimzy continued, raising her cigarette again. “Didn’t talk about himself much. He was from a little village outside of town where all the… well, y’know, where the black folks lived so they didn’t make the white folks uncomfortable. And he had a reputation there for bein’ cursed, was what I heard. Lotta rumors about him and his mother, shit nobody was brave enough to say to his face. They said his mother was some kinda caplata, like a hoodoo priestess, and she specialized in medicine, so the village both needed her and hated her. Word was she was killed by a lynch mob when Alastor was fifteen and he was never the same after that.”

Angel frowned. “That’s… awful,” he murmured, not sure what else to say.

“Dunno how much of it’s true,” Mimzy said with a shrug. “But Alastor was always dangerous. After he died, it came out that he was a killer, but I know for a fact they never figured out just how many people he bumped off. Hell, I don’t think I had any idea, and I helped hide him a couple’a times.” She hesitated, then said, “Never did find out what happened to that kid, either.”

Angel sat up a little at the sudden non-sequitur, his eyes widening as he tried not to choke on his cigarette. “Kid? Are you— Alastor had a kid?!”

“What? Oh!” Mimzy cackled, waving her hand. “Oh, fuck no, Alastor hates children. I say kid, but he was… I dunno, twenty or so? Hard to tell with the white hair. Real cutie, big eyes, always wearin’ these real sharp white suits, drove the girls at the club absolutely nuts when he didn’t give ‘em the time of day either. Alastor met him at Mardi Gras, and I guess they were friends. Came in together a lot over that last year Alastor was alive. He was some kinda runaway from up north, from what I gathered, and I hear he went back home after Al died. Shame, too; seemed like Alastor was finally startin’ to open up.”

Angel took all of this in, thinking to himself. He’d known Alastor had gone through a lot, but he hadn’t realized… It sounded like whoever that guy was, he was real important to Alastor. And really, it wasn’t any of Angel’s business, was it?

Maybe I never should have asked.

“So you’re sayin’ he’s always been a pain in the ass,” Angel said, deflecting with a smirk.

Mimzy didn’t notice, just grinning at him. “The biggest. Get him a trophy and beat him over the head with it.”

“I’ll pass. Waste of a good trophy.” Angel finished his cigarette, then put it out. “Hey, Mimz, got one more question for you.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m thinkin’ about movin’ out. Got any ideas for a good place to set up shop? My new business needs room.”

•••

• Week Four

Angel understood, now, why Cherri had left after things had fallen apart with Husk. Even if she didn’t want anything to do with the soul connection—honestly, Angel still couldn’t get a read on her when it came to all that shit—it couldn’t have been easy to still see him every day and feel that pull and know that he wanted nothing more than to pretend she didn’t exist.

He couldn’t stand looking at Alastor anymore. Every time he did, he felt an almost overwhelming urge to go to him and do something, anything to just get Alastor to talk to him. And whenever he did see Alastor, the Radio Demon acted like he didn’t even exist. Angel could tolerate a lot, but an eternity of Alastor ignoring him wasn’t one of those things.

If all it took was a month to get him into this state, how would he feel after a year?

Angel was in the middle of packing up his stuff—Charlie had assured him (with tears in her eyes) they would get his things delivered to his new place so he wouldn’t have to worry about it—when he heard a knock on the door. He hesitated, because it wasn’t a knock he heard often, before he heard a small and sad voice. “Angel? Are you there? Can I come in?”

Angel felt his shoulders sink a little. “…sure, Niffty.”

The door opened and Niffty stepped in, closing it behind her. She looked around slowly. “…it’s true. You’re leaving.”

“…yeah. It’s true.”

Immediately, Niffty’s large eye filled with tears. “Noooo…!” she whined, running over to Angel. He knelt down, and she threw her arms around his neck, clinging to him. “You can’t leave! I don’t want you to!”

“Oh, Niff…” Angel smiled a little, even though he didn’t feel it, returning the hug and gently rubbing her little back. “It ain’t like I’m gonna be gone forever. You can always come see me, and we can hang out whenever you want.”

“But I want to see you here!”

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Niffty, I am. I don’t want to leave, I just… I can’t stay here anymore.”

“Yes you can! Alastor’s stupid and you don’t have to leave just because he’s stupid!”

Angel actually laughed at that, gently taking her by the shoulders to pull away enough to look at her. “Yeah, he is stupid,” he said fondly, reaching up to wipe a tear from her face. “But he doesn’t wanna see me no more, and he’s gotta stay for the hotel.”

Niffty shook her head firmly, grabbing Angel’s hand in both of hers. “He does! He’s just— he’s bad at everything.” She sniffled a little. “Do you hate him?”

“No, honey, I don’t hate him,” Angel said firmly.

“Do you love him?”

He hesitated. “I…” A while ago, he would have waved that off with a laugh and dismissed it immediately, but now… “…I think I do.”

I think I have for a while now. Even before this mark shit. Does that make me pathetic?

“Then why won’t you stay?”

“It’s because I care about him,” Angel said. “It’s too hard to see him right now, Niff. Maybe I’ll come back one day, but I just… I can’t right now.”

Niffty stared up at him as he gently petted her hair a few times. “…do you promise you won’t leave forever?”

“Yeah, Niffty. I promise.”

Angel let Niffty help him pack up a bit, and as they worked, he couldn’t help noticing the other Sinner growing pensive. She ended up leaving after only a few minutes, giving Angel a big hug before hurrying off. Angel finished up alone, then grabbed his purse and the handle of his little hellpig’s harness.

“Come on, Fat Nuggets. Let’s go.”

•••

#my writing #hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin angel dust #radiodust #to sever a loveless bond #loveless bond #hazbin charlie #hazbin vaggie #hazbin husk #helluva blitzø #helluva moxxie #helluva millie #helluva loona #hazbin cherri bomb #hazbin mimzy #hazbin niffty

22 notes · View notes

ultimavela · 2 months ago

Text

I made an outline to show you all what you will find inside “No Peace for the Heathen” :)

The things you will find inside NPFTH (when ready)

Introduction to the game, sharp and short.

A map and an outline of locations on Isla Grande.

Rules for earthquakes and geological disaster (something very common in this region of the world).

Rules to evolve, from session to session, the dominion that colonist have over the island and a set of consequences to represent their influence over the inhabitants of the island.

Six “Dramatis Personae” for players to choose from (i.e. the classes of the game). They include background, mechanical particularities, compulsions, and objectives.

Ten backgrounds for the relationships between players characters (PCs), with questions so they can specify their relationship inside these ten options.

Eight prompts with questions about what had happened in the last month to the PCs. To use as a device to start an adventure.

Guide to “Sign of the skin” and “Marks of the fungi nests”, two additional aspects of the past of the PCs that could have some tangible effects on their bodies.

How do you do things? (the main resolution mechanics)

-> d20 + “Tactic” (stats) vs DC. -> The tactics are: Strong, Resilient, Agile, Sneaky, Imposing and Observant, with values between 0 and 10. When creating a character, you have 6 points to distribute among your tactics. -> You can roll with advantage/disadvantage (roll 2d20 and use the best/worst result) when doing things following/against your compulsion. -> Plus a simple method to use the difference between the rolls and the DC to determine the loss of Blood (HP) when failing in dangerous situations.

Blood (HP) → The size of your pool of Blood initially is 3d6 + Resilient.

Blood has five tints, Blue, Black, Red, Green, and White.Blood of each one of these tints can be expended to modify roles made with a particular tactic → Strong can be feed from red, Resilient from green, Agile from blue, Sneaky from black, Imposing from red, Observant from green. White feeds no thing.

Rules for item slots → you have 10 + Strong item slots.

Weapon, shield, and armour:

-> I recently updated the method of random selection of weapons and shields. Before, it was just a simple role, where each item had the same probability of being chosen. Now, they are arranged such that the less powerful items are the more probable of being selected by rolling two dice, but players can make a trade to modify this role by loosing a permanent point in any tactic. -> Armour follows the Mork Borg style of armour, also used by other games, where armour is represented by a die that when rolled absorbs damage. In NPFTH if you roll a 1 in armour die, the armour deteriorates, and the die steps down one tier (d8 → d6 → d4 → broken).

Grief and Dominance, this two were later additions and were born out of necessity to give more interesting options to the narrative mode of combat.

Rules for languages and the Chasm (gap that lies between the world views of the invaders of the north and the people of Isla Grande, from here magical energies emerge to twist reality). These rules give an overview of the language that the people of the island speak, and each one of them allows them to speak with another kind of being.

Weird Paraphernalia → 60 random magical items.

Rest and recovery of blood

By eating → restore your blood: 1 point eating raw, 2d4 points if you cook. By catching your breath → restore d4 of blood (White tint). By sleeping → restore 2d6 of blood (Red tint).

Conditions.

This is a simple method of getting “mechanically impacted” without loosing Blood. Conditions use Item Slots, They give negative modifiers to rolls (example, shaken -1, charmed -2, etc…)

Deathly experience → i.e. the conditions of dead in the game.

This is based on Mork Borg, but I have made it so that deathly experiences are more probable than absolute death, to have more fun with the scars and consequences that deathly experience leave on characters.

12 Spirits of the land and rules to call for their aid → this is a revised version of my take on divine magic. It is accessible to all PCs(you just have to make a rite of calling to ask for the favour of the spirits of the land) but it is less reliable than the classic divine magic of other games.

Blood and Food → how to change the tint of your blood by eating different food, this is my homebrew to make cooking and hunting more of a central part of the game loop.

Food and their colours.

Sneak to kill → this is just an addition that I realized it was missing in some of the games I have played. It is a simple rule that allows you to sneak in someone and just kill them, regardless of how “powerful” they are. If you're good enough at sneaking, then it is your decision if they die, plain and simple. Even when your victim is someone with a huge pool of Blood (HP), if they are caught sleeping, and you cut their neck, they are done.

Killing in combat → this is the section of, yes, combat.

-> Uses rolls in opposition. -> The difference between the rolls is the damage you do, or you receive (you can get damaged while attacking). ->It is designed to be lethal and fast, you can attack as much as you like until you get damaged in one of your attacks by your victim. -> Here you will also find Modes of combat → narrative (that uses dominance as a narrative token of combat superiority) and tactical (based on skirmish games, used when at least one PCs is commanding a war-band).

How to get better at killing, tactics and get more blood → this is the “how to level up” part of the game. But it has different options depending on what is the thing you want to improve. You have:

-> War tactics:to increase your war-band abilities in tactical combat. -> Advancing on tactics and blood pool size: by answering questions at the end of an adventure or when killing a mighty foe, or whenever the GM feels is appropriate.

Witchcraft, the five secrets of “La Mayoria”. → this is the magic system of the game, it is an extension of my homebrew for blood magic, and is inspired by the historical witch society of Chiloé, “La Mayoría”. Magic can be learnt by anyone. However, “secrets” (spells) are kept by this society of witches, so you have to pass some trials and make some favours to the society if you want their secrets. Except if you play as an Exile Witch, then you already know all their secrets.

People, Places, Invaders, and Terrors; this is the part with tables and more tables for the people of the island and colonists, the main locations, and some dangers that lure the land. The idea of this collection of tables is that they have enough space for creativity, but the setting can be seen through the specificity of the entries on them. Here I also compiled a set of guidelines and recipes to create the “dungeon-like” locations where Vice Incarnated and Sentient Relic hide; Dead Holy Wheeled Towns.

Exploring the land → rules for encounters with armies of colonists fighting for territory (they are fighting each other all the time, and these skirmishes and larger scale confrontations are part of the landscape).

Three tangled tales to get lost in, and probably die for → the three starter scenarios.

Twisted horrors of the possessed → collection of Vice Incarnated, Sentient Relics, and Colonist Spirits. Also, here it is included a section for “Feeding Grief to a weapon” → rules to increase the power of specific weapons when killing Vice Incarnated and decrease your Grief.

Legends of the land → collection of creatures inspired by the folklore of Chiloé.

Who will find Isla Chica? → a section for the GM, to guide them on how to navigate the tales of a group of people that are trying to survive and find a way out from the brutality brought by colonists.

#ttrpg #roleplaying game #tabletop role playing game #indie ttrpg #fantasy #ttrpg community #osr #dnd #drawing #original art

26 notes · View notes

unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240 · 1 year ago

Text

I feel myself having so much less patience these days, and I don't like it.

Patience and compassion and kindness are things that must be cultivated like tender plants - they grow by the inch and die by the foot.

Seeing into someone's heart is something that takes a little effort, but the way to do it is by reframing your outlook, like you might adjust your vision to see through water. There are layers to a person, and you have to look past what they say or do on the surface in order to get to their true motivations.

And it takes patience and holding space for people, because they are used to operating in an unsafe environment. It's like when you go to the pond, you're not likely to see frogs right away. You might need to sit quietly for a half hour before the frogs re-emerge and float to the surface. But once you see them, suddenly there are frogs everywhere! You just had to wait until your mind allowed you to take them in. People's vulnerabilities and intentions are the same way. You might need to wait a while until the person is sure you are safe to be around, or they might have been exhibiting all of those vulnerabilities and motivations pretty openly; you just couldn't tell until you knew what you were looking for.

This gets much, much harder to do when you yourself don't feel safe, especially when you aren't (or feel like you aren't) being seen as human. You also (obviously) must see the other person as equally human to yourself, or this doesn't work. Perhaps a broken, deeply flawed person; but a person nonetheless.

I work in the domestic violence field, and so I end up talking to a lot of abusers in my professional life on behalf of my clients. I've found that it helps a lot to be kind. Why? Not because it's deserved, but because it's unexpected. They come into the situation ready to fight and argue, and instead, I speak to them kindly and explain why what my clients are asking for is in everyone's best interests. This seems to deflate them pretty immediately. They come into the situation thinking I'm the boss level for "fights with my ex (or whatever)" and then I listen. I take them out of earshot of my client, I let them vent (which helps me figure out what they actually want) and then I patiently explain our position and how we're offering to resolve the situation. And you know what? It works. A lot of the time, they were expecting me to treat them like a monster. But they're not a monster; they're a person who has done some inexcusable and horrific things, but they remain a person. I think about both my abusive exes, and the truth is that they're both people I loved, and loved for a reason. I wouldn't want someone else to hurt them (even if it was in cruel words only) just because they hurt me. Sometimes, the abuser is the father (or mother) of the client's children. There is typically always anger, but what good does it do for me to vent that anger for my client? Who does it help? Nobody. If we can't agree, then fine. I will do my job of asking the tough questions without mercy. But before that? Far better to de-escalate if possible.

Another conflict resolution thing: you have to remove the aggressive third parties that are angry on one side or the other's behalf. They tend to aggravate the party and escalate the situation by talking in the person's ear and saying how unfair this is and generally making it about their own feelings rather than problem solving.

But here too, finding out where the third parties who have involved themselves in the situation actually want is critical to diffusing this as well. They are people who are righteously (at least in their mind) angry on behalf of one of the parties because they love them and this has activated their protective side. And sometimes people really do need an advocate, yes. But sometimes (a lot of times) these third parties actually get in the way of de-escalation and problem solving.

All of this requires patience, effort, cultivation. And I work hard to do that. But lately my patience has been worn thin by too many people seeing me as subhuman, and it's really starting to wear on me.

101 notes · View notes

madhatterbri · 1 year ago

Text

Care | HOOK

Summary: Hook and you broke up. Anna with the help of Jack uses this to come for your championship belt. An unexpected hero saves you.

Author's Note: GIF has nothing to do with this it just makes me feral. 😭🤌

As always, requests. 🥺🥺

Life is hard working for a wrestling company. Friendships and relationships constantly came and went. You travel a lot and spent time with fellow wrestlers more than your own family. You swore you would never be with anyone in AEW until you laid eyes on Hook.

The relationship was physical at first. You both wanted to have sex without feeling bad for someone waiting for you to come home. It was nice at the beginning. You two would meet up together after the show. Times changed when you started developing feelings.

You were honest with him, but he wasn't interested in a relationship. The two of you were young. He wanted to experience the world. More like experience girls around the world. In order to avoid anymore hurt, you two decided to go your separate ways. That was three months ago.

Now you were getting ready to cut a promo in the ring. Your make-up was done and the championship belt was secure on your shoulder. Tonight was simple enough, anger Anna Jay. The two of you hated each other. It wouldn't be hard.

The unsettling feeling of someone watching you made the hairs on your neck stand. You turned to see the handsome devil himself. He was in a hoodie and sweatpants eating chips. His mind seemed to be in a different galaxy, but he was definitely staring at you. You missed being able to talk to him. Maybe that was a resolution for another year.

The familiar sound of your entrance music played in the arena. You walked out to the top of the ramp. The crowd went wild. Fans of different ages reached out for you to high five them.

The microphone was handed to you. An once rowdy crowd was quiet to hear you. You spoke your piece about Anna. Some of the insults were low. Tony gave you the green light to rile up Anna. You were going to take it. Your speech was cut off by Anna's music.

Anna came out with Jack in tow. She stormed to the ring. You dropped your championship belt in the middle of the ring to meet her outside the ropes. Anna was the first to swing. The two of you landing blows on each other. You never noticed Jack grabbing your championship belt from the ring.

"You think your fuck buddy is going to save you, Y/N?" She asked menacingly. You hadn't thought you would really need help. Normally, you weren't really put in jeopardy of actually losing the belt you worked so hard for.

"I don't need anyone," you scoffed. "I got in this business alone and I'll fight and die alone,"

"You think your are so funny?"

"Actually? Yeah," you answered truthfully. The crowd laughed at your corny jokes. You had to be funny. Anna pushed you to the ground. You landed on your hands and knees facing away from her.

'Rude,' you thought before getting up. You stood up and faced her. Before you could attack, Anna kicked you into the stairs. A scream of anguish sounded through the arena.

"What the fuck?" You asked yourself. Immediately the crowd gasped as their women's champ went down. Your head and back slammed to the stairs. Anna stood above you as you slid to the floor. The championship belt displayed on her shoulder. The camera zoomed in on the two of you. Your eyes pleaded for someone to help you.

"This is going to be mine, Y/N. I'm going to beat your ass until I say I'm tired. Do you understand me?" She yelled at you. You moved your legs as if to get up. She stood on your leg to stop you. Painful throbbing occurred under her foot.

The arena went dark. You were starting to wonder if you passed out. Your head throbbed and you were pretty sure your upper back fell out. The familiar rift of Chairman's Intent felt like an angel's song. Cheers filled the arena.

"We gotta go!" Jack yelled to her. Anna dropped the belt and ran with him into the audience.

Hook was at your side.

"Are you okay?"

"Do I look okay?"

"I was hoping she'd kick that shitty attitude out of you," he countered and helped you to your feet. Hook grabbed your belt knowing how possessive you were with it. Your legs wobbled as he helped you up the ramp. Several members of the crowd wished you a speedy recovery.

You limped to medical with him helping you inside. Hook helped you on the bed while you waited for the doctors to run their tests on you.

"Thanks. I didn't think anyone was going to save me,"

"You didn't think I would save you?" He questioned.

"I didn't think you would care."

"I've always cared,"

#fanfiction #imagine #hook aew #hook #hook x reader #hook x y/n #hint of angst

198 notes · View notes

alwritey-aphrodite · 1 year ago

Text

From Friends To This

Chapter 7 of There’s Nothing Like This

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Jamie Tartt x fem!footballer!reader

Warnings: none :)

Word Count: 2.3k

Author’s Note: just one more chapter…

After your realization, you spend the rest of your night spiraling, despite your many attempts to relax. As you watched TV, as you got ready for bed, as you tried to fall asleep, all you could think about was Jamie; what he was doing, what he was thinking, what his reaction would be if you ever told him.

Would you even be able to tell him?

You can’t remember the last time you’ve felt like this, can’t even imagine ever feeling this way towards anyone, but Jamie is so important to you as a friend, you can’t imagine not having him in your life because obviously he would never speak to you again if you said you loved him. Staring at your ceiling, you resolve to bottle up your feelings until they disappear or you die, and you finally fall into a restless sleep.

Most of your Sunday is spent trying to forget about the day before, about your realization and the terror that ensued, but it seems like no matter what you do, the universe keeps reminding you of the thoughts you’d rather bury. Every movie playing on TV is a romantic comedy, and when you go on your phone to escape, you’re met with texts and Instagram posts from the very person you were hoping to avoid. It isn’t fair to ignore Jamie, though, because as far as he knows, you’re still two friends who have no romantic feelings for each other.

It hurts you, though, when you’re typing out your responses and acting like everything’s alright, because you know you could never live like this, couldn’t survive the stabbing pain in your heart whenever you see or hear or think about Jamie. Despite your resolution from last night to bottle up your feelings until you die, you know you need to tell Jamie sooner rather than later, to bring you both some peace.

Jamie’s a good guy, and he’s nothing like what you’d thought he’d be like, so all you can do is hope that he’ll take your confession with a smile and a laugh and then you can go back to being friends and pretend like nothing ever happened and hopefully your feelings for him will just evaporate with time, even though you’re pretty sure you fall more in love with him whenever you think of him.

After a restless Sunday and another night of anxious sleep, you’re irritated Monday morning by every single thing that happens to you. Your bed doesn’t look quite right even after you make and remake it, you can’t find one of your socks, you forgot to wash your favorite water bottle, and you’re all out of basically everything you could want to eat, so when you hear a knock on the door, you’re just about ready to scream.

“You should start locking this,” Mackie says as she enters your house without waiting for you to open the door and suddenly everything seems a little bit better, “you look like shit.” Coming from anyone else, that comment would probably make you burst into tears and lock yourself away in your bedroom for the foreseeable future, but knowing Mackie, it’s just her way of asking if you’re alright.

And, honestly, she’s probably right, you haven’t been sleeping so you’re sure there are prominent bags under your eyes and you’re all anxious and annoyed, so it’s not like you’re giving off an aura of relaxation. You don’t respond to her, instead filling up your sub-par water bottle and grabbing your bag from the counter, sure that someone has a protein bar or fruit that you could steal for breakfast when you make it to the Dog Track.

“What’s up with you?” Mackie asks before you can leave, situating herself in front of your door even though she’s the one with the car keys.

“Nothings up with me,” you reply and you know you sound defensive but you can’t help it, you’re not in the mood to talk about your feelings. You’ve forgotten that Mackie knows you so well, you don’t even need to tell her anything.

“So you’ve figured it out,” she says with a knowing little smirk that would irritate you if it was coming from anyone else.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” and you busy yourself with taking a long sip from your water bottle, signaling that the conversation is over and you don’t want to talk about it anymore.

“Jamie’s in love with you,” a little water dribbles out of your mouth in shock, and you’re surprised you didn’t fully spray Mackie with your mouth full of water at her casual tone of such a heavy statement.

“He’s not in love with me,” you scoff, trying to fight your way around Mackie to get outside because suddenly the air in your house is suffocating.

“Are you blind? He’s totally in love with you, he’s always looking at you with those big puppy dog eyes and I always catch him searching for you whenever the team walks past him,”

“How do you know he’s even searching for me?” You’re not sure why, but you’re desperate for Mackie to be wrong.

“Because his whole face lights up whenever he sees you,” catching a glance at the time on her phone, Mackie turns to leave, but not before saying, “you should talk to him about it,” clearly intending to leave this conversation at your house and not carrying it over to the car.

Despite your earlier resolve, now your hands are all sweaty and your mouth is dry at the prospect of even seeing Jamie, let alone talking to him and confessing your love. Mackie had given you false hope, hope that maybe instead of laughing and things going back to normal, you and Jamie could be something more, and now that that idea is swirling around in your brain, you think it’ll crush you when it never happens.

The drive is spent chatting idly, asking about each other’s weekends as if Mackie didn’t just turn your whole world upside down. You hate the way she smirks when you say you and Jamie had dinner together, as if you and her have never gone out to a restaurant together or ordered takeout to eat on the couch. It makes your heart beat a little faster, makes your brain spiral and spiral because if everyone else can see it, maybe there really can be something more.

Walking into Nelson Road, you bump into Sam and Jamie, who’re leaving from an early morning training session.

“Are you ready for your last game on Saturday?” Sam asks and then pays no attention to Mackie’s answer as he’s too busy glancing at you and then Jamie and then back again. Eventually, though, he tunes back in, and gives you one of his hundred-watt smiles.

Continuing on, you pretend like you can’t feel Sam’s eyes on the back of your head and you ignore the looks Mackie sends you as soon as Jamie’s behind you.

“Can we act like adults, maybe?” You turn to her before entering the dressing room, stopping the witty remark you knew was coming. In fact, her mouth was already open, but she makes a show of snapping it shut and locking it with an imaginary key.

All throughout training, it’s like everyone’s staring at you and whispering behind your back, bringing up feelings of being friendless and alone on the playground, kicking a soccer ball against a wall because no one wanted to play with you. It makes you feel jittery and nervous, and you can barely focus on running drills. You wonder how everyone else seems to be doing perfectly fine with multitasking, training and making you feel like a bug under a microscope.

Back in the dressing room, you turn to your locker to change out of your sweaty clothes when you can feel 40 eyes boring into the back of your skull, and you just can’t take it anymore.

“What is everyone’s problem?” You ask, turning around at lightning speed and watching as your teammates jump. At least they have the sense to look embarrassed, but you aren’t sure if it’s because of their actions or because they were caught. “We have the biggest match of our lives on Saturday and you all seem to be more concerned with whispering about me than training.”

They squirm, and you feel a little bad for them, but as their captain, you need to get to the bottom of whatever’s happening before Saturday because if you’re not playing like a unit then, everything you’ve worked for is worthless.

“We just want you to be happy,” Elena says, talking to you like you’re a small child throwing a tantrum or a frightened animal.

“Then leave me alone and focus on training,” you spit, feeling like a caged animal and you’re sick of it.

Elena, though, knows you too well to let you off the hook so easily, and continues to act as spokeswoman of the group.

“C’mon, we all see it, and you clearly seem a little preoccupied today,” she says with a knowing head tilt, complete with a little smile you find infuriatingly adorable, “just talk to him.”

Now it’s your turn to squirm, uncomfortable with how clearly everyone can see something that you can’t. You wonder if they’ve thought you were lying every time you’d adamantly declared that you were just friends, even though your revelation only came a few days ago. It’s also a little embarrassing how no one needs to say his name, that’s how obvious it’s been to everyone but you that there was something else going on.

“Fine,” you declare, finally cracking a small smile, “I’ll talk to him, just so you guys get off my back.” Your teammates cheer, and you can’t help but laugh at how absurd the whole situation was. Hopefully now they can focus on preparing for Saturday’s match, and after you decide how you’ll talk to Jamie, you’ll be able to spend all your energy getting ready as well.

Changing as quick as you can and turning down both a shower in the locker room and a ride from Mackie, you start your walk home, needing time to clear your head and think of a plan, knowing that if you at least have some idea of what you want to say you won’t make a total fool of yourself in front of Jamie. During your walk, you think over and over how best to confess your feelings to Jamie, and coming up with nothing, you decide to take an extra long shower because that’s where you do your best thinking.

All of that goes down the drain, though, when you see a familiar car parked in your driveway.

“Jamie?” You ask, seeing the man in question sitting on your front step, fiddling with his hands and looking shocked at your arrival.

“Uh, yeah, hey, hi,” he stands, tucking his hands in his pockets and looking more nervous than you’ve ever seen him, “I was wondering if we could talk for a minute.”

Unsure of what he could mean, you nod anyway, moving around him to unlock your front door and gesturing for him to follow you inside.

“Want tea or coffee or something?” You ask, heading into the kitchen mostly so you have something to do, so you don’t think too hard about what’s going on and freak yourself out.

“No, thank you,” Jamie sits himself at your kitchen table as you turn on the kettle, even though you aren’t really in the mood for tea, you have so much energy flowing through you that it needs an outlet.

“What did you wanna talk about?” You ask, head buried in your cupboard as you look for a box of tea, even though you know there’s one on the counter.

“Are you gonna sit?” Jamie asks instead of answering, “I kinda wanted to talk face to face, yeah?”

Sighing, knowing he’s right and knowing you can’t keep stalling anymore, you turn off the kettle and take a seat across from Jamie, the weight of his gaze on you making something painful and wonderful bloom in your chest. A few more seconds of silence pass by before Jamie clears his throat and shifts in his seat.

“Alright, I’m just gonna say it, yeah?” He takes a breath, as if whatever he’s about to say is physically strenuous, and then it all tumbles out. “I think I’m in love with you, which I know is weird ‘cause we’re mates and all and I can’t really remember when I realized it so maybe I’ve always been in love with ya, but I hope this doesn’t make you uncomfortable or mean we can’t be friends or anything like that.”

It’s silent again, and you’re soaking in everything Jamie just said but he clearly takes your silence to mean something else.

“Just thought you should know,” he says quietly and he stands, looking a little like a kicked puppy.

“Jamie, hang on,” you stand and follow him to the door, desperate to not let this opportunity slip through your fingers, “you can’t just say all that and expect me to respond right away.” You chastise him, but you’re smiling, unable to keep your joy and relief off your face.

It’s almost impossible to come up with anything else to say, you’re so overwhelmed with feelings and thoughts swirling through your head, but you know Jamie deserves a response after he’d poured his heart out to you. Instead of speaking, though, you do the next best thing and place your hands on the side of his jaw, pulling him towards you while giving him time to pull away.

He doesn’t, instead wrapping his arms around your waist to pull you even closer, and then you’re kissing and it’s everything you’ve ever dreamed of. He’s so perfect and he’s all you can think about, your senses and your mind becoming overwhelmed with him. It doesn’t matter, though, because for once in your life you can ignore your brain and focus on the moment, focus on Jamie and his hands and the gentle way he kisses you, like you might disappear.

You grip him harder, sure your nails are leaving little indents in his skin but needing him to know that you aren’t going anyway.

Tags: @andr0medafallen @whimsical-roasting @sokkigarden @hopefulromances @buckychristwrites @guccilongboard @onceuponaoneshot @presidential-facts @yepyeahuhhuh @allthefandomtherapy @gibby31 @buddyjuststop @ellietartt @cancvr @brianandthemays @sonyume @aiyaiy @captainfrisbee @dalebo @theloud-yet-quietone @imsoluckyeverythingworksoutforme @rockchickrebel @legobatmans9thab @curlypeter @lostinwonderland314 @yokolesbianism @jamietarttdodo @fan-goddess @innocentbi-stander @skewedcherries @neenieweenie

#jamie tartt #jamie tartt x reader #jamie tartt x you #jamie tartt fanfiction #jamie tartt fic #jamie tartt fluff #jamie tartt imagine

169 notes · View notes

acourtofthought · 3 months ago

Note

Sarah seems to like to keep her couples apart before their books. Cassian stayed away from Nesta after ACOWAR until solstice in ACOFAS and then until ACOSF. Rhys stayed away from Feyre at the beginning of their book. Do you think this is what she's doing with elucien since they only had one interaction in ACOSF on solstice? It makes me feel like elucien is definitely next. I can't see her keeping them apart for another book.

Definitely! I think Elucien seem to be following a very similar pattern to both her sisters and their mates before they ended up together.

Feyre kind of had feelings for Tamlin then met Rhys who she, despite being afraid of, was also somewhat drawn to what with her thinking he was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen and the way she called to him after he already started walking away. Then she fell in love with Tamlin and accepted Tamlin's proposal despite later admitting she had wanted Rhys even UTM, that her heart knew before she did that it belonged to him. At the start of ACOMAF she hadn't seen Rhys in months but ended up with him by the end of the same book.

Nesta later revealed she was terrified from the moment she met Cassian because of the draw she had to him but she acted on page as if she hated him. In ACOWAR, it appeared she'd finally let her guard down and was ready to die by his side in the war but once the novella rolled around we got the line that Nesta had no interest in even being in the same room as Cassian. We also find out that she'd been sleeping around with others. At the start of SF, we find out she also hadn't seen Cassian in months save for a party on the barge where they only spoke about 5 words total (that consisted of "Move. Hello Nes. Move. Gladly) and the book started with Cassian arriving to find another male in her apartment.

Elain and Lucien were clearly drawn to one another from their very first meeting. Lucien tried to step towards her before she was put into the Cauldron then broke free of his shackles to go to her side after. She had a hysterical Nesta standing in front of her but instead of looking at her sister, Elain was staring at Lucien. Their connection continued in ACOWAR with all the wordless looks at one another, where they felt one another through the bond, where she took a step towards Lucien as if to stop him but Elain then tried to go back to Graysen at which point he rejected her. We had hope for Elucien at the end of ACOWAR but once the novella started up Sarah pulled a Nesta with Elain where she was also ignoring Lucien (as Nesta began ignoring Cassian), where she started showing maybe a bit of interest in Az (a slightly lesser version of Nesta showing interest in many other guys). Nessian's standstill came to an end in SF because it was Nesta's book, therefore we saw the main resolution to their relationship but in order for her to begin Elucien's book in the same way that Nessian's did, Elucien's setup needed to carry on into SF. Again, the novella featured both sisters pulling back from their mates but since we're only getting one book at a time, Elain's arc needed to continue on with keeping her distance from Lucien. And just like Cassian lost his temper a bit with Nesta in the novella, we see Lucien starting to lose his temper a bit in SF ("I'm not always in this city to see my mate" - The last two words dripped with discomfort). That doesn't mean either male was done with their mates, clearly Cassian was hurting and Lucien still went on to look at Elain with disappointment and longing on Solstice but we started to see them experiencing the straw that broke the camels back that would eventually lead them into a showdown with their person.

Now we're ready for the next book and I agree, keeping Elain and Lucien apart yet again doesn't make much sense from a narrative standpoint. There's no place for them to go without the storyline feeling repetitive "oh look, Elain ignoring Lucien for yet another year!" Just like Cassian and Nesta finally needed to have it all out in SF, I think we're at that point with Elucien. We need an answer to their bond, we need to finally know what Elain has been thinking, we need to finally see them find where they each belong especially because Lucien has been a drifter for far too long. Him needing to find out about Helion has gone on for far too long. Beron's torture of the LoA, Eris, and his attempts at killing Lucien have gone on for far too long.

It's not that Sarah isn't capable of writing a great romance with Gwynriel next but in my personal opinion, they aren't really "the" big story right now. They'd be kind of friends to lovers or friends to, not quite enemies but irritation(?) to lovers but she'd have to create their drama out of thin air right now versus the drama that has been the Elucien bond since book 2. Again, she can do that, she did it with Chaol / Yrene & Nesryn / Sartaq, but there weren't two other main characters who had been waiting for their arc for multiple books by the time TOD rolled around. I just think it would make more sense for her to resolve Elucien's bond next, have Mor and Eris delve into their past in an Elucien book (since Mor / Elain seemed to share a closeness in ACOWAR and we know she's over in the continent and Eris would probably play a big role in Lucien's book) and that sets us up for Mor to finally talk to Az, maybe in a novella. At that point, once Mor reveals her "truth", Az can finally move forward and I think that would be a natural point for him to have a romantic arc with Gwyn and if we had another 1.5 books until then, it will have given Sarah time to build up their own endgame ship drama to be resolved the same way she did with the Archeron sisters.

#elucien #pro elucien #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #pro lucien vanserra #pro elain archeron #elucien bond #elucien book #acotar 5

32 notes · View notes

imabeautifulbutterfly · 4 months ago

Note

I love you and your celebrations! You know how much I loved Crosshair x Sith!Reader. I would love to see more of their story with the quote, "Look at her -- I would die for her. I would kill for her. Either way -- what bliss." Thank you, sweetie 😘😘😘

@firstofficerwiggles thank you for your amazing request. You always ask for something extra and I love it.

Here's a continuation to the Crosshair x Sith!Reader you wanted. I did write it with a f!reader in mind.

What You Deserve - Part 2

Warnings: Possession, anger, shock, pleading, twisted love, Sith!reader, extreme reactions, force choking, unintentional choking, fear, worried for someone else's welfare, convincing someone to leave, civil war, I think that's it. If I miss anything please let me know.

Main Master List | AO3 Link | Quote Roulette

Hunter stood looking at Crosshair, shocked by his declaration. Wrecker, Echo and Omega all shared a similar shocked expression, granted in varying degrees. Tech however, remained stoic and kept his eyes on you, his hand ready by his side; almost as though he knew his brother wouldn’t have joined them and for one specific reason, you.

“You’re not coming?” Wrecker asked once more hoping he’d heard incorrectly.

“I’ve made my decision.” Crosshair gently repeated as he shifted closer to you.

When the two of you headed towards the planet, Lannik, the last thing you expected was … well a few things. One, actually finding Jedi sympathizers, and a hub to smuggle them and the Jedi from. The second being, Crosshair’s family. You hadn’t expected to find them helping Jedi sympathizers; and when you both ran into them, it caught you completely unaware. That brief second you hesitated, allowed for the transport ship to make its escape, and for the two of you to be captured by Crosshair’s family. Finally, the last thing you expected was for there to be some sort of civil war, between those in favour of the Empire and the rebels. Somehow, you ended up being caught in the middle of a firefight, and before you knew it, his family had brought you to a safe place. Everything happened so fast, you couldn’t even get it clear in your own head. Of course, that could also have something to do with the concussion you were currently suffering from.

Truthfully, you could’ve avoided all of it, but then that would mean doing the very thing you’d sworn you wouldn’t do; make decisions on Crosshair’s behalf. Even though everything inside of you was screaming to keep him all to yourself, to hide him from anyone else.

When Hunter offered him a chance to leave your side and go back to them, you felt your blood beginning to boil, wanting to just erase them from before you; however, for Crosshair’s sake you held back.

It took all your strength and effort not to kill his family right there and then. The fear of being on your own again, of not being able to find someone that makes you feel the way Crosshair does; someone who makes you feel safe and secure. Having to face your Master without support. The fear began to grip your heart, as you felt it fuel your anger.

“We all have different choices to make.” Hunter continued, completely oblivious to the turmoil you were under the more he spoke, “Are you sure about this? About staying with …” he motioned towards you. He couldn’t bring himself to say your name.

Crosshair turned to look at you, a small smile on his lips, it quickly disappeared as he faced Hunter again.

“I’m sure.”

“You could die because of her or she might make you kill for her.”

He turned once more to look at you, "Look at her --“ he turned back to face Hunter, resolution in his eyes and determination set in his face, as a slight smirk appeared on his lips, “I would die for her. I would kill for her. Either way -- what bliss."

Tech shook his head, “She may have you under mind control.”

“I. Would. Never. Do. That.” You hissed through gritted teeth, your voice low and dangerous as you spoke towards goggles, your anger was becoming harder to control as it simmered just below the surface, taking a step closer, your hand moved toward your lightsaber without thinking, a clear warning to his brothers.

Crosshair could see in your eyes, the slight hue of red beginning to appear, he knew they were pushing your buttons and he needed to bring you back down, he held his hand out towards you keeping you back as he shook his head.

“I know, sweetness.” The term of endearment slipping out, hoping it would break through your anger, “Just ignore him. I know you’d never hurt me.”

You narrowed your eyes at his brothers as you nodded, you had enough of this nonsense. All you two had been listening to for the past hour was them trying to convince him to leave you, and come back to them. All it did was keep pushing you closer to the edge, the anger within you at its breaking point. You didn’t want Crosshair’s attention deviated, you wanted him to be focused solely on you, and not having to listen to his brother’s conversations, not wanting their opinion to influence him.

The last thing you wanted to keep hearing was them trying to convince the one you wanted to leave your side.

Regardless of what they had to say, he was yours.

How it actually happened, was still a bit of a mystery to you, but at some point during the hyperspace journey, to this horrendous planet, you both finally admitted your feelings.

And now he was yours to love.

Yours to care for.

Yours to have by your side.

He was yours, he couldn’t leave.

He couldn’t leave.

You’d never let him leave, not now that you just found each other. The only way he’d ever be allowed to leave, would be either by his death or yours.

However, if his brothers weren’t around, all of this would be moot. If only his brothers could die… had died on Kamino. With each passing thought, your anger grew stronger, fiercer, more possessive.

Crosshair stepped into your field of vision as he saw your fists clench, your eyes shifting to their reddish hue. He cupped your cheeks, holding your face in his hand, forcing you to look at him. To see him, not his brothers. “Cyar’ika, calm down. I’m not leaving you. Not now. Not ever. I’m here. I’m by your side. Look at me, cyar’ika. Look at me.”

Your eyes focused on him, the anger within you slowly subsided. You closed your eyes and let out a breath you didn’t even realize you were holding, as the pounding in your chest, and the whispers of voices in your head diminished. You let go of your clenched fists, and held his wrists.

As soon as you released your fists there was a collective gasp of coughing, as all his brothers kneeled on the floor gasping for air. Omega, had been the only one not affected as she ran between her brothers providing any sort of comfort or relief she could.

Shock and surprise filled your face, when you opened your eyes and saw the damage you caused. Seeing his brothers on the ground, gasping for air wasn’t what you wanted, even if you thought about it, you never wanted to actually hurt Crosshair or his family.

��I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” You repeated over and over again, as tears streamed down your cheek, “I didn’t mean to … it was an accident… I’m sorry…”

“Shhh” Crosshair placed a kiss on your forehead as he held you close, he glanced over his shoulder to Hunter who was kneeling on the ground, as he began to breathe normally, Omega’s hand on his shoulder. He knew it wasn’t your fault, sometimes you couldn’t control the beast within, as you called it, “You should leave. We’re fine.”

“Crosshair, she’s dangerous. She’ll turn on you too.” Hunter pleaded one last time.

“No. She won’t.” Crosshair looked into your eyes, his trust and faith evident in every look, smile and word utter from his mouth, “Just like I’ll never turn my back on her.” He held you close, wrapping his arm around your shoulder, as he guided you away. “Let’s go, cyare.”

You nodded, enjoying the closeness.

Main Master List | AO3 Link | Quote Roulette

Tag List:

@liadamerondjarin

@badbatch-simp24

@spicymcnuggies

@lady-ren

@firstofficerwiggles

@darkangel4121

@discofern

@kavecika

@monako-jinn-stories

@ladykatakuri

@avathebestx

@theroguesully

@furyhellfire66

@carodealmeida

@ciramaris

@sprout-fics

@twinkofthedink

@dindjarin-mandalorian

@ulchabhangorm

@littlemisspascal

@sprout-fics

@twinkofthedink

@clonethirstingisreal

@dragonrider9905reads

@dragonrider9905

@crosshair-is-the-superior-clone

@totallyunidentified

@griffedeloup

@leotawrites

@helenaslost

21 notes · View notes