#but no ig this makes so much more sense lol

[thelov3lybookworm]

Daylight

Day 3: Daylight.

Summary: She's their salvation.

•○●⛦●○•

Word Count: 967

Warnings: uhh koschei, trapped reader, no mention of yn tho, blood, war, ig thats it.

A/n: idk what the heck this is but i came up with it last minute lmao. i actually changed stories for today like 3 times before finally settling on writing this. i wrote this in like 1 hour, but i like it lols and i hope you do too!!

@lucienweekofficial

ANYWAY ENJOYYYY 🥳

°•°•°•○🌑○•°•°•°

Frantic knocks and screams were all he knew.

They came from the locked door in front of him.

He stepped forward despite the resistance tugging at his skin, pulling him back.

She needed help.

The door creaked open, the sound loud despite the screams the lock held captive.

The restraints snapped, jolting him forward, and he stumbled in through the door, right into the awaiting arms of the darkness.

The screams intensified, then stopped altogether once the doors snapped closed behind him.

The creature seemed to draw closer, curious of the newcomer.

"Were you cursed too?"

And then she screamed again.

°•°•°•○🌑○•°•°•°

Lucien jolted, his wide eyes swinging to unliving ones that stared him down, the dream that had plagued him for months suddenly making so much sense.

It had been a trap from the beginning.

And Lucien had been restless until he had figured out that it hadn’t been a mere dream but a vision from some higher power.

All his suspicions had turned out to be true except the fact that this higher power was not the mother. It was Koschei.

"There is someone trapped." Lucien whispered to Azriel, who stood with his shoulders tensed next to him. If somehow possible, he stiffened further.

"What do you mean?"

Lucien swallowed, glancing at Azriel and then Gwyneth who stood close to Azriel.

"The dream I’ve been talking about. I think it was a trap by Koschei."

Azriel took his eyes off from the death lord hovering over the dead bodies of martyred darkbringer and Illyrian soldiers alike, shooting Lucien a disbelieving look as blood ran down the side of his face.

"What is it?" Gwyneth questioned, noticing Azriel’s attention had strayed.

Azriel simply cursed, then turned to signal to Cassian, who ran over, the gash he had received from one of the undead soldiers on his shoulder bleeding.

"Lucien seems to think there’s someone trapped inside the fortress."

Cassian’s brows furrowed. "That’s impossible. The place looks like it’d disintegrate with one blow of air."

And he was right. The place was covered in moss, most of the pillars holding up the ceiling crumbling, the walls having collapsed into itself. The place looked as dilapidated as they came.

And yet, Lucien knew in his heart that this confinement was no ordinary one.

"Except it is possible. Vassa was confined in a similar setting."

Cassian paused, then nodded grimly. "We don’t have soldiers to lose, but one person can go and search. You’ll have to be discreet, or Koschei will kill you before you blink." He heaved an exhausted sigh. "Go."

Lucien hurriedaway, cutting down people he had just been sitting around bonfires with a few hours ago, now dead and under the thrall of the death lord.

It pained him to no extent, but Lucien was aware wars were no place for emotional breakdowns.

He had people to save.

With every strike of his sword, with every burst of power he used to blast away soldiers, more took their place. But finally, after what felt like hours of wading through carnage, he arrived at the entrance of the fortress and heaved a sigh of relief when no soldiers intercepted him again.

He made his way through the rubble, thanking the mother for making him graceful enough to shoot through the rubbish without losing his balance.

Lucien had given up all hopes of finding the door that appeared in his dreams after running through the same few hallways when he stumbled upon the carved, vine-covered door.

It was the exact same as his dreams, except the lock lay on the ground, broken.

Lucien wasted no time and pushed open the door.

"Looking for me?"

Lucien jumped, whipping around and coming face to face with the prettiest female he had ever seen.

"I- were you the one in my dreams?"

She blinked her wide, innocent eyes. "Your dreams?"

He swallowed. "Were you locked up inside?"

She nodded, smiling. "Yes. He lets me out at night."

He paused. "Why?"

Her smile faded. "I am not allowed daylight."

"Why?"

"Because then I’d have the power to kill him."

Lucien’s whole body froze over. But she continued as if nothing was wrong.

"Light fuels my magic. It makes me powerful enough to counter his death."

Lucien contemplated returning to the battleground with her in tow, knowing it would prove to be an upper hand.

"Will you help us?"

She nodded, uncertainty visible in her eyes. "Help you in what though?"

"Killing Koschei."

She stilled, then- "But where will I go if he dies?"

"I- I can take you to Day court."

Her eyes began sparkling. "Will I get to go out in the day?"

He nodded. "Of course. If you want, I can even get my father to make you your own lamp that gives off daylight."

She smiled. "Okay. Let’s go then."

Suspicion took root in Lucien then. Why was she being so accommodating?

"Why are you helping us though?"

Her brows furrowed. "Because you said you needed help?"

"That’s it?"

She nodded. "I like to help people. My mother used to say helping others is nice."

That was when Lucien realised. She had probably been locked up since she was a kid. She probably had no sense of self outside of what he was told to do.

"When was the last time you saw light?"

Longing seeped into her form as she glanced outside a nearby window. "I… don’t remember. I just know I would do anything to feel the sun on my skin again."

Lucien delved into the well in his chest the moment the words left her lips, and knew by the look on her brightening face that he was glowing.

Guess one good thing came out of being Helion’s son.

"Now come. Let’s go kill that bastard."

°•°•°•○🌑○•°•°•°

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[iheartbookbran]

this is the face of the you make when you realize the bloodiest civil war in westerosi history was started over a misunderstanding the writers made up in order to give one single character something to do over the seasons

[tooquirkytolose]

Love when a director inserts their significant other into their movie for no other reason than they can, like yeah bud that sure is your model/actress wife in the movie, she sure as hell is in it!

[oceandiagonale]

Actually, Guzman is his spanish name.

OH YEAH some other folks pointed that out too, makes sense since it's an irl Spanish name (probably why I see it around a lot!) 😳

(normally it's a surname, I've only seen it used as a first name once in a blue moon -- but also in the pokemon world it's pretty clear that naming conventions aren't the same lol)

[straylaughs]

dont know how to go about formulating my thoughts about the entire show but i do have to give bucchigiri its flowers for that absolutely stunning fight sequence between matakara and arajin

[aerticent]

sometimes i get really sad that the thing ive been fixated on for years now is RQ… i feel like im working with scraps all the time. I wish my favorite thing was something with an overwhelming amount of canon content:((

[rafesbbyy]

I see no one talk about this but what makes obx so great is the soundtrack and music. I love how during the scenes with the pogues, the music is always positive and somehow, it always perfectly captures the essence and feeling of friendship. In comparison, during the more mysterious scenes, the music is more thriller based and I honestly just love that. Like, the background music just screams that this is a teenage TV show (if yall get what I mean).

[reinedeslys-central]

when it's been so long since you've read a fic that you forget about it and you find it in the search tags and start reading it again

and it's great, if a little familiar, but you've read a lot of these sorts of fics bc you like this tag a lot, so you assume it's nothing

but then the deja vu starts adding up and you start to wonder

and then moments before the great big Plot Twist Reveal happens you're suddenly like ah hell this is the bloody sundial fic again isn't it

smh this has to be the fourth time yet

[phantajam]

my hot take about descendants is that NONE of the core four were ready for a relationship until maybe like, the third movie (rant in tags)

[vonkarma2]

realized recently all the wizard ocs i have made fall into 4 categories of motivation

autism

ocd

wanting to use magic to kill people, just to be mean

inanna

[arolesbianism]

I wanna take a crack at making some fake screenshot graphics for my Sif Odile duo loopers au but I do not feel confident enough in my ability to mimic isat's art style and I also have a crippling fear of drawing backgrounds

[skitskatdacat63]

hi hello!! I will be predictable :D vettonso? and also maybe sebson?🤭

Hallo Grace!! Aaaahh two of my ultimate favs 🥹

Vettonso:

Okay I think we all know at this point my feelings on vettonso.....My beloved, my favs, my little dolls to play around with, my forever ship, my muse, etc etc. Lmao tho I do agree w you said in your answer to me, that I feel obviously more invested in my AUs of them atp, but that's not to say I don't like the canon! The canon for me is just desperately searching for any footage/pics of them and being peak derangement abt it and making a whole narrative. Yeah I'm very normal about them. Also yeah, i like the ship itself, but I'm not a very romantic person so I think I often care more about the implications and how they relate to each other, and that kinda thing, if that makes sense? I care deeply abt them, but yknow make a lot of AUs, and the most fun I have is often trying to fit their narrative into different environments! One day I'll draw more shippy stuff I swear 🤧🤧 They are just perfect to me :)

Sebson:

One of my first loves 🥹🥹 I still really love them aaaahhh!!!! They're just so soft and fluffy and comforting to me!!! Obligatory Solar Flare mention. But yeah it's hard, just like the other ship above, to articulate my thoughts about them that isn't just screaming. It's just so fun to look at all the content along the years and see how they gravitate towards each other. To me, they're the 21st century blueprint for emotional support rivals 🥹🥹 Also, sending them to superhell for the amount of insane things they've done in public.

[widevibratobitch]

.

[palms-upturned]

.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

Poked my head into some of @mysticdragon3md3′s thoughts regarding popularity with DimiClaude fanon and am happy to say I’m here to Talk (tee em).

I also saw the post from the user saying why they were falling out of love for the ship, and... yeah. The people they’re talking about, the generalized group of people who do certain things, definitely bother me as well.

I love that you pointed out Claude is not flirty and is just playful. It’s not the DimiClaude fandom alone unfortunately with that though - it’s the entire fanbase that views him as a flirt. And, according to Twitter, a slut. Yeah. Yeah. I know what they... “mean”... but it is still not him.

Them being annoyed with each other is also fanon and a very strange one. Never in Houses did Dimitri come across as being annoyed or bothered by him. In fact, they have friendly banter! Dimitri doesn’t get specifically exasperated at Claude, but that’s just more so how he is as a person and he sometimes doesn’t understand playfulness. That said, he does not berate Claude the way he berates others. There’s one instance I can think of where he berated Claude and that was in the DLC when they were talking to Aelfric for the first time.

In Hopes, same deal in AG. In fact, he’s quite fond of Claude in AG. GW itself was a well discussed mess in a lot of ways, and even then as a ship they didn’t have a lot of negativity. If nothing else it was an odd opposite, because even as enemies when Claude admitted he couldn’t defeat Dimitri alone, Dimitri just basically laughed, smirked and walked away. That’s like... the worst of their relationship in GW and it’s extremely mellow.

I think part of the problem some dmcl fans are facing are the fanon version of the ship rather than what they’re like in canon. It is definitely true that part of the dmcl fandom has absolutely warped the ship into being something it really isn’t and never was in canon. There’s also this whole thing about Dimitri being the dominant, feisty one with Claude being the uwu blushy one and it’s just... not them. Not as a pair canonically, and not individually. When Dimitri gets “dominant”, he’s, uh, not in a good mental state. It’s a mental illness that makes him like that and personally I’ve never appreciated seeing people use it for a kink for a ship. Normally I’d say people can like what they want, but I get the feeling a lot of dmcl fans have absolutely pushed their views onto others and driven fans away.

I will also say have absolutely, 150% come across those kinds of fans. The ones who refuse to listen to anyone else, but if your headcanons don't vibe with them then you’re just completely “wrong”. Not only do they portray the canon characterization poorly if portraying it at all, but they tend to also bring it down a racist route, which is... beyond ironic considering they should be the last ship that deals with that based on their characters and stories.

Engage kinda went wonky with a good few things regarding the previous lords, so I don’t see Dimitri being like that as some kind of definite canon. Actually, even in Heroes their interactions are friendly and calm. The “worst” banter they had was their swim alts, while on the opposite end we have the brave alts who apparently hang out together outside of the castlegrounds, and for so long that they can’t be of any help in a search for someone (which like lol how long you gotta be gone to have no idea and can’t help at all lmao).

I think people see outside-Houses canon scenes like those and just... decide it’s their actual canon. Dimitri is not, in any way, actually mean to Claude in canon. That is unfortunately a very popular fanon. In Houses especially, when Dimitri doesn’t know Claude well in the mock battle he’s more like ummm hey Claude your defenses are open what are you even doing, more than being like ugh Claude you’re so annoying. In the real version of that mock battle though, a good few months had passed and their battle quotes are significantly more approachable and they clearly have respect for each other. Dimitri knows Claude likes to fuck around and be goofy sometimes, and he picked up on that and played along with it in the JP version (in the English version he simply picks up on it, but there’s no anger whatsoever and it’s just more oh okay I get it).

As far as Engage goes, ultimately I just see it more as an extremely condensed version of their mannerisms, and yes, they for some reason, especially in the localized versions, try to keep up the whole rival shtick when Dimitri never even felt that way about Claude, and he never gets truly annoyed at Claude. Ffs, in canon Dimitri literally drops everything after retaking his home from the Empire/TWS, and runs to go save Claude. Literally. The next day. While Claude is a little tsun about it (!), Dimitri is just “come on let’s go hurry hurry no slowing down pick up the pace we are saving Claude”, and that’s basically him the entire chapter except with the Arundel specific stuff. When he talks to Claude one on one, there is literally not a single shred whatsoever in any plausible way or in any damn universe any tension from Dimitri to Claude. He just wants to know he’s okay and relaxes once he knows Claude isn’t hurt. I mean literally, no, like... that’s them, in canon, in their Natural Habitat together and I have no fucking clue how the portrayal of them in fanon got so insanely warped beyond recognition.

Also, Engage kinda dropped the ball with a lot of stuff with the other lords. Hell, they’ve been unable to keep Ike’s character consistent throughout all of his non-canon appearances (Awakening didn’t seem too bad, but Fates was pretty awful for example. They can’t seem to really understand the character they’re writing anymore, and idk if it’s just because the writers have changed and such/aren’t the same as Tellius’ games had, or they just don’t care to keep him consistent).

They also try to make Sigurd sound wise and super helpful in every single solitary iteration of him outside of FE4 which is honestly just obnoxious as fuck lmao. Sigurd was naive, foolish, overly trusting, and far too kind and gentle for his own good. It ultimately was what led to him following orders blindly, having blind faith that his king was righteous and would give him the right orders (without realizing the court was very much in disarray during his absence and with several other prominent court figures away because of the war). Sigurd was too quick to believe in the good in humanity and that things would work out, and it led to him not realizing how wrong he was until it was way too late and he had to take shelter in a foreign country to avoid having to fight the same people’s armies who had the court’s ear.

Basically Sigurd is nothing like they write him to be in every. single. solitary. iteration. outside of FE4. 

(SPOILER here just in case you care lol. Or anyone who is reading this. Or if you’re someone who somehow does not know about the biggest known spoiler in the whole game) He has one little section of potential dialogue (i.e. it’s triggered by a very specific condition) that shows somehow ghosty Sigurd has grown more wise and understanding ??? while being dead ??? and somehow learned while being dead that the world do be full of grief and Stuff. (END SPOILER)

So they pretty much took like, two lines of dialogue from FE4 and made it Sigurd’s entire fucking character forever in every single game he’s been in since. If nothing else, let that be your insight on never to trust content you see outside of a character’s original game. At that point it’s simply fanservice because they don’t even know their own characters. If they wanted to write even a semblance of Actual In Game Sigurd’s Personality And Not Two Lines Of Dialogue That Are Completely Optional And Quite Honestly HIDDEN, it would be very easy and reasonable to do so. They choose not to, and then we get what they did with Houses’ lords.

Another portrayal I see too often is that Dimitri and Claude... argue??? I won’t lie, their Heroes summer alts was the very first time they even seemed to “argue”, and it was mostly just goofy nonsense that means nothing because they’re literally alts in swimsuits, and it wasn’t really them being vicious at each other. Meanwhile in canon, they’re always very calm and able to talk through their problems - even in fucking Hopes in the GW route. Even in the worst possible circumstances for them to be in, that is, as enemies, they were still able to talk it through. Barring Claude’s written in idiocy so he could be a mouthpiece for Edelgard and do her bidding by invading the Kingdom (which was literally nothing but plot convenience because Actual Claude would’ve reasoned his way out of doing that), even in the worst possible situation, they still called a truce and still worked things out verbally, calmly and peacefully.

Point being, this whole cat fight dmcl portrayal isn’t even remotely close to their canon selves, and normally I’d say, you know, like what you want and enjoy your ships how you want... but it’s pretty much almost entirely the people who view the ship that way that uh, attack people who don’t agree with them or insult them/laugh at them for seeing the ship differently. These are the people who make you feel bad, for enjoying a fictional ship of two pixelated characters kissing, because you don’t like the concepts in their head more than the way you’ve interpreted the canonical characters.

To be totally frank, I have a visceral hatred for the fanon portrayal of dmcl because it makes Dimitri out to be terrible and makes Claude some kind of punching bag for Dimitri in various forms. There comes a point where it’s like, you ship something and then there’s the point where you ship two characters you made up in your head, who aren’t the same characters you first started to ship, because you’ve warped them so extensively that they became nothing but a person’s OCs with their faces and some similar backstory elements at best.

[zemnarihah]

just paid 50 bucks for a slowdive ticket at this juncture in my life they are probably the only band that can get me to do that