#except as another device to torture his son with?

[not-poignant]

Do you know how Raphael discovered his love of theater and singing and art and all that? Cania doesn’t seem like the most hospitable place for it, and I don’t see Mephistopheles being thrilled about a theater kid cambion son.

Why does Raphael love art and music and theater so much? Has Meph ever caused any problems for him because of it?

Sorry my brain just wants to put those two under a microscope and poke them because their dynamic is so interesting

Hi anon,

Cania is definitely not the place for it, but Mephistophele's is a pretty melodramatic guy, for all that he doesn't like to seem to be, he has a few pretty different natures, and he's got a huge flare for drama himself.

As for Raphael, he just had no real interest in pursuing magic or science in the same way his father did. He has skills in both, and his interest in the arts is a nice front for that.

I actually think he developed an interest in the arts inadvertently while employing them for black market endeavours. For example, human trafficking is often tied up in the arts, as is money laundering, moving black market items (i.e. trading with paintings and diamonds), to say nothing of the fact that a lot of desperate souls both end up in the arts and drawn to the arts. Just like Astarion knows if you hang around outside a bar you'll find an easy meal, Raphael feels the same way about a theatre and a brothel, and in Faerun, both of those things are frequently combined.

I have an idea that he was basically sent out to procure funds and make himself useful, and figure out how to harvest souls for himself, and learned the actually debauchery, fine meals, fine wines, live entertainment, music, poetry and more were all very diverting and made more of his life at a time when most of his brothers got slaughtered, and he had only distant ambitions.

We know he loves writing, too, and journalling. If he has inherited any of his father's strong emotions (which he has), getting them out onto a page is probably good for him.

As for Mephistopheles, I honestly think for the most part he doesn't think about it and he actually forgets he even has sons most of the time. He notoriously bounces from project to project leaving most of them unfinished, and hyperfixates on different things at any time. He's left behind some of the most world-changing magics and cities among Cania and just never given them another thought. So while it amuses him to torment Raphael about it, I actually don't think it's something that truly upsets him whenever Raphael's not in sight, lol.

Like, I imagine Mephistopheles is so 'nothingy' about Raphael that it's like, 'oh the most interesting thing about you is the money you've given me I guess and the noises you make sometimes' - but otherwise it's not even apathy, because you can't be apathetic about something you don't even notice is there. And Raphael prefers it that way.

(A problem honestly is when Mephistopheles does notice what his son is up to, and at some point he realised Raphael had amassed actually a rather significant amount of power and sent Harleep to keep an eye on him (this is canon) and distract him with like... sexual diversion. Raphael's preference is that his father forgets he exists and frankly once the Crown of Karsus was destroyed, all he remembers now is that Raphael had a goal to steal it, and Mephistopheles had a goal to steal it from him, so now that's ruined and he's mad about it sometimes).

(But in a distractible kind of way).

[johnnysnostril]

nct 127 as royals [18+]

♔ kingdoms + empires ♖

this has got to be one of my favorite scenarios so far. ive put together a little something for the people who are obsessed with the royal + medieval times. let me know which kingdom or empire you’re in! enjoy, xoxo 

empire of

❅ ELPIDA ❅

colors: yellow + gold

moto: “be delicate like a flower, hopeful like an angel.”

your position: the page ☾❀|❀☽

cares for the royal clothing

assist with dressing the royals

pick out ball gowns and attire for royal dances/weddings

emperor taeyong’s trustee: <<doyoung>>

shields you from witnessing illegal matters

protects you from unexpected dangers

accompanies you to royal fittings

his secret: you are his mistress. he comes to you whenever he’s feeling vulnerable and weak. you’ve been sleeping with the emperor for a few months now and you’re starting to fall in love with him. you want to admit your feelings to him but you know that he’ll never leave the empress just for a page.

sexual desire: <<blindfolding/handcuffing>>

look at you- tied up and blinded. now, i can explore your body without interruptions.

empire of

✤ IRIS ✤

colors: emerald green + white

moto: “listen to the gods- they will never lead you wrong.”

your position: the physician ☤

in charge of the royals health

partake in surgical procedures

assist in healing the wounded knights

emperor taeil’s trustee: <<taeyong>>

supplies you with out of country medicine

shows you how to make potions

provides you with illegal knives to perform difficult surgeries

his secret: emperor taeil is planning on poisoning the empress. with your help, along with his trustee- he is ending his arranged marriage, that he never wanted to be apart of. with her gullible attitude, the empress believes you are no harm. little does she know, that you are the one who will witness her last breath.

sexual desire: <<submission>>

tell daddy how much you love it when he makes you feel helpless.

empire of

ᕯ IPHIOS ᕯ

colors: cream + brown

moto: “show no mercy, show no fear.”

your position: the squire ⚘

apprentice to the knights

witnesses training for battles

eyes and ears of the empire

emperor johnny’s trustee: <<jaehyun>>

teaches you secret death pressure points

reveals all hidden secrets of the knights

shows you secret passage ways through the castle

his secret: he’s cheating on the empress with a queen from another kingdom. somehow, you ended up being his second mistress- landing the position of the squire, by promising to protect his secret from the knights- who are ordered to kill the queen mistress per the empress. although the empress has knowledge of emperor johnny cheating on her, she had no idea about you. and you and emperor johnny will keep it that way.

sexual desire: <<master/slave>>

you follow directions so well, don’t you? master will have his way with you and you’ll behave- like a good little slave, won’t you?

kingdom of

❈ THPHIC ❈

colors: peach + silver

moto: “all that is gold, shall be silver.”

your position: the watchman ✇

watches over the castle

report suspicious behavior

create safety tactics

king yuta’s trustee: <<jungwoo>>

supplies you with foreign bombs

helps you plan stakeouts

provides you with secret information about other kingdoms

his secret: his mother was a servant to his royal father. his blood is not complete royalty. you and jungwoo are the only ones who know his secret- the two of you protect it with your lives. every now and then, you and king yuta will sleep together- as a thank you for keeping his secret.

sexual desire: <<public sex>>

and while everyone is watching, you’d be screaming my name- begging me for more.

kingdom of

✵CHARMOLIPIL ✵

colors: black + burgundy

moto: “never let them see your weak side- show them what they will fear.”

your position: the messenger ∺

relays messages from the king to other kingdoms

witness court trials

bring threatening news to the knights attention

king doyoung’s trustee: <<taeil>>

provides you with weapons that you aren’t licensed to have

helps you falsify information to threaten other kingdoms

supplies you with poison potions

his secret: you witnessed him kill his father so he could take over the kingdom. king doyoung has demanded you be the messenger, running to other kingdoms to let them know that the king is finally dead. he uses you as his secret weapon- having secret late night meeting with you, informing you of your weekly work. as these meeting progress through the months, you start to slowly fall in love with him- letting him know that you’ll do anything to keep his secret and to cover him. the king is slowly catching feelings for you but won’t show his true feelings just yet.

sexual desire: <<threesomes>>

the both of you look so wonderful on your knees. now, please me.

empire of

✾ HALARA ✾

colors: royal blue + plum

moto: “wait for the perfect time, then attack.”

your position: the treasurer ∞

in charge of tax collecting

tracking debit with other empires

monitors the state of the empire

emperor jaehyun’s trustee: <<mark>>

helps you hide stolen money

forges numbers for the books

providing transportation and housing for your escape

his secret: you and emperor jaehyun have been stealing money from the empire. the two of you have convinced the empress that there is a traitor among the castle. emperor jaehyun has planned the escape for the both of you- leaving the empire behind for the empress, as he has fallen deeply in love with you. 

sexual desire: <<erotic spanking/servant play>>

ah- you’ve disobeyed me again, servant. bend over, you know what time it is.

kingdom of

❂ CHRYSEOS ❂

colors: red + violet

moto: “stay gold, always.”

your position: the marshal 〶

ensures that the kingdoms laws are enforced

responsible for securing the kingdoms boarders

organizes patrol and responds to threats

king jungwoo’s trustee: <<haechan>>

protects your illegal work regarding protection of the king

assists you with hiring hitmen for the ones who threaten the king

provides you with handguns/weapons for the knights

his secret: you and king jungwoo have been legally married in another country, for five years. the queen has no idea that she is technically a mistress. you plan to hire a hitman to take out the queen, robbing her of her jewls and kidnap the king- to live your life in your home country; where no one knows of your work with the king. 

sexual desire: <<roleplay>>

you look exquisite in royal clothing, my dear. what would be even more delicious, is you bent over the queens royal chair.

empire of

✥ MERAKI ✥

colors: gold + black

moto: “take everything, forgive no one and leave no trace.”

your position: the spymaster ⌖

observes the empires criminal elements

spies on other kingdoms+empires

uses collected information to protect the king

emperor mark’s trustee: <<yuta>>

supplies you with illegal torture devices

provides you with secret maps to other kingdoms+empires to break into their castles

helps you protect the king

his secret: you are his long lost love. as he was promised to another female at birth, he fell in love with you as a young man. you were brought into the castle by his father who was the emperor, as an orphan child of a passing village. before the emperor’s passing, you promised to watch after the castle and his reigning son. every now and then, you and emperor mark find yourselves in deep love with each other, but you can’t bring yourself to destroy the lee empire with your own desire.

sexual desire: <<face sitting>>

you’d look even more beautiful, straddling my face. i bet that you wouldn’t be able to ride my tongue without making a sound. 

kingdom of

۞ AGAPI ۞

colors: baby blue + gray

moto: “everything in the world is about sex, except sex. sex is about power.”

your role in the castle: the steward ❦

in charge of daily management and supplies needs for the castle and the king

responsible for financial and legal matters concerning the castles estates

represents the king in court, while he is away

king haechan’s trustee: <<johnny>>

covers up your mistakes

protects you from unwanted information being released

prints money illegally and uses it to help you pay for supplies

his secret: king haechan is planning to have the queen assassinated so you can fill her role once she is gone. johnny is the only person who knows that you and the king are sleeping together. although king haechan doesn’t know just yet, you are pregnant with his son-

sexual desire: <<domination and rough sex>>

no one will be able to hear you cry out in this dungeon, my love. but, i do think you need something to occupy that throat of yours.

[hetalia-has-a-secretary]

allies + eje human au headcanons

I had to look up what eje meant, which was Axis in Spanish 🌮 (there's no sombrero emoji, and I'm mad about it). This is mostly a college Human AU, but there's still some future stuff in there. Enjoy the longest list of Headcannons in one post lol

Human AU Hetalia!

Allies:

America:

Has rich parents, but doesn't tell anyone, and somehow his big house that everyone parties at doesn't give it away.

The only person who knows is Japan, and that's specifically because Japan's dad works for America's dad.

Is a college student, hoping to go for some kind of music degree.

A first year.

Black T-shirt and jeans. Has a plaid button up for everyday of the month, usually has it tied around his hips.

Has like, one basic tux and refuses to wear anything but converse or airwalkers.

Space nerd #1, except he's more into what's beyond our boundaries, and loves the constellations.

One of the most popular kids, and no matter how hard you try he's not easy to hate.

Gives off dumb college kid energy even though he's one of the A+ students.

His glasses are for show. It was meant to be a rebellious thing since Canada use to get bullied about his own glasses, now it's just an esthetic.

Skate boards and plays the acoustic guitar in his free time.

Jeans are usually missing the knee section.

Once set off firecrackers in a metal trash can as a school prank.

England:

Last year of college, majoring in history after failing his cooking classes.

Graphic tee central. We are unsure how many he has but he's up to 43 different shirts worn on campus.

Usually has his earbuds in, listening to punk rock.

Has an ungodly amount of bracelets. His favorite one is a black snap bracelet with little pirate skulls.

Was practically raised by his older brothers.

Lives alone, but is secretly an amazing writer.

Has a Tumblr blog he writes spooky stuff on.

Top of his class, but can be a dummy if he's put on the spot.

France:

No one is sure how he's been allowed to take nothing but art classes. No English, or science, just art.

Is also a transfer student, he's probably the second richest thanks to daddy.

Is the school stud, despite not sleeping with a single soul, and is actually extremely nervous about dating, and is just more comfortable with playful flirting.

He wants to be a fashion designer, or Model. Mostly a Designer.

Loose shirts and tight pants.

Has a weird obsession with belt sashes.

Plays violin like a god, and is a senior.

China:

Another senior in college.

Had the unfortunate event of being in the same cooking class as England before Arthur decided to switch degrees.

Still hangs out with him and Japan.

One of the few who is taking advanced classes, and is literally everyone's tutor.

Going for a Degree in Cooking. Wants to be a head chef.

His parents are over seas, but he promised to get them to America as soon as he can.

He wears a lot of colorful shirts that is always tucked into his pants.

Most of which look like bowling shirts, but he likes to add little Chinese patches to them. Has a signature jean jacket that is overwhelmed with patches.

Has a panda beenie baby keychain, so everyone knows exactly who it belongs to when he losses his keys.

Very quick to panic, and hates to admit he's wrong.

Russia:

Third and final transfer student, along with Japan, and France.

Poor confused child is trying so hard.

He's kind of shy, and is fully aware his social akwardness creeps everyone out.

Almost cried the day America and Prussia adopted him into the cool kid circle.

His broken english is probably the biggest turn off for the people at school. It's why no one really talks to him, mostly because they can't figure out what he's saying most of the time.

Biggest sweetheart though, and is painfully smart, but do to the english thing he's stuck in the average classes, but China comes swooping in and his english gets almost fluent by his third year.

He doesn't own a single thing tech, minus a flip phone, but somehow knows all the hot keys on the computer to every program, and it's only because he's lazy about it and it's the funniest thing.

Space nerd #2 but knows more about the planets and can name every single moon, and knows the history of space discoveries by heart.

Secretly a hopeless romantic, and doesn't realize he reads England's blog.

Is pretty much a closet goth, but likes bright colors too much to be seen in all black.

Knows way to much about torture devices and learned very quickly that gets you out casted in a school setting.

Isn't upset that he doesn't have many friends, but somehow attracts all the little kids from the grade school.

He likes his northface sweater, and loose pants. But his shirts are pretty colorful, and he likes collecting shoelaces.

He spends a lot of time in the woodwork shop, creating amazing figures and such.

Canada:

I can feel the dissapointed stares of Matt not being a photographer. Welp, guess he also gets a degree in art then.

Second year, Because he skipped one year in college.

Clothing style is long sleeves and vests.

He likes feeling fancy, and owns an endless amount of beanies.

One of the few people who talks to Russia.

His locker has a snot ton of polar bear stickers that everyone stuck to it, and he loves it.

Is baby but can kick butt in the wrestling club after school.

Has a tiny white Pomeranian that he rescued from it's mother who wouldn't take care of it, probably because the puppy was the runt of the litter.

Has a Harley Davidson and it's been painted black with the aurora on it, making everyone think it was his non-existent girlfriend's or something. Now it's a running joke.

Axis:

Germany:

He's not a jock, but he's friends with them.

Military Dad.

Is usually found hanging out in the gymnasium on breaks. It's quiet and no one is going to bother him. Usually.

Senior, and so ready to get the heck out of college.

Ladies love him, but he really hates the attention, like please help him.

Style wise he's pretty basic, but really loves his camo print.

Has owned countless doggos, and only attracted so many girls the day he walked to school with a fluffy poodle that France Hijacked for the day.

Doesn't ever go to dances after the first one and everyone tried to get him drunk, to no avail.

Had out drank some of the dumber students to shut them up.

Can be mean if you persistently pester him for dumb stuff, especially if he's already said no.

He's into construction and is working on a degree in Construction Management.

Japan:

Exchange student number 3

Degree in technology is what he desires.

Style = Geek, but like a stylish geek.

Him and Canada are in photography class together.

Japan is also part of the cool kids, but only when they're about to do some dumb stunt, and need a camera man.

Doesn't mind, loves watching them make fools of themselves.

Has a rebellious streak, and tends to be a complete sass.

As soon as something seems to go bad, he gone. He's heading towards the door. Been in detention once, and that was it.

Why does everyone go to him for advice when china is literally down the hall?

Rich kid #3 and his parents are traditional and are having a crisis over their son's rebellious attitude.

Italy:

Is a first year, and is oddly enough, going for a degree in history.

Really likes antiques and old artsy stuff.

Has a few shared classes with France, and they pretty much own those classes.

Rivals America's charisma, but isn't as popular due to:

Being seen around France, and not doing dumb and entertaining crap like america.

Gets picked on a lot Because he doesn't understand you can't be nice to the Jock's girlfriend without everyone thinking your flirting, even though you just needed directions on your first day of school.

Germany is now his bodyguard and he was kind of like "???" But they get closer the longer they hangout.

Fancy shirt man, like hand me downs from his Italian father. So they're really nice, and a lot of eye melting patterns.

Gets attached to people easily, and is sensitive when he gets taken advantage of during assignments, but toughs through it because he has too.

Has two cats literally named Mona, and Lisa.

Has cried at least once at school because he's a soft guy, but he gets a thicker shell the older he gets and learns to just laugh off other people's stupidity.

Romano:

Protective older brother gooooo

Second year in school, and his first year made him want to eat brinks.

Doesn't know what degree he wants, but settled for a degree in cooking.

Shares his brother's shirts practically and it confuses everyone Because, didn't Feliciano wear that shirt last week?

Immediately thinks people don't know washing machines exist Because of this, so his sass factor is high up there.

Doesn't really have friends, and also does not care. He's a bit of a lone wolf and needed something to do.

The amount of not caring attitude contrasts his high grades and his teachers are painfully confused by it.

Will jokingly tell people to fight him at McDonald's, and almost fought someone but literally laughed, and suggested they got something to eat instead.

He's somehow, in a bizarre and unwanted sense, everyone's brother which is just...

No one understands him, but they like him, and he doesn't know why and it kind of bugs him.

He's usually in the front of the school daydreaming about, god only knows what...

Is the epitomy of the "she doesn't even go here" joke from mean girls, except he does go to that school.

Why did he need a degree? Oh yeah, Because work places don't care what kind of paper, you just need a paper.

Prussia:

Rival friendship with america, and Russia has had to step in to break up petty fights.

He's not sure why he's part of the popular kids since he's so fricken chaotic and obnoxious. Or so he thinks.

Genuinely a sweet guy in his last year, desperately wanting a degree in mathematics. Like, no one understands why mathematics until he starts pulling card tricks from his pocket that deals with it, and blows everyone's mind.

He is also head of the newspaper club.

Has the style of a teenage band member and will not apologize for it.

Has hijacked the schools speaker system to blast evanescence, which gave a huge boost to his friendship with Russia, since the big fellow shares Prussia's taste in music.

Can eat a whole ghost pepper without batting an eyelash, and this is only Headcannon and a worthy note because he became sick the day after and the whole school had "in loving memory of Gilbert's stomach" posters all over the place.

Teacher's are very much done with his harmless antics. They're noticably stupid pranks, but only to the point it's annoying.

Like he managed to make all the teacher's computer backgrounds as Brad Pitt wearing a sombrero. There's no joke, and no punchline. It's just a poorly Photoshopped sombrero?

Races his brother to school every morning, and afternoon. Cops have stopped them at least twice due to other bystanders getting freaked out.

Him and Romano don't mix well, but try to leave each other alone.

[nomolosk]

“I hope all the documents are in order,” Adrien Agreste said, looking and sounding smug over the transmission. His ship was currently en route to the Francoise Space Station orbiting the planet Dupont, where the Dupain-Cheng’s had based their surface-to-orbit shipping business. Marinette Dupain-Cheng didn’t bother trying to suppress her glare. He should be well aware of the reasons for her frustration, but she reminded him anyway.

“Yes, Mr. Agreste Junior, the documents are in order,” she replied. “They have been waiting for your signature for the past month. A month in which, I might add, we haven’t been able to do any business at all.”

“My apologies for the delay,” Adrien said - but neither tone nor expression changed an iota.

By all the gods in the heavens, Marinette loathed this man. She couldn’t imagine any future in which she didn’t, especially given the reason for his visit today. He was going to buy out her parents’ business, and Marinette only had to deal with him because she’d refused to make her parents deal with him after everything else they had gone through. Unfortunately, this had only confirmed his awful reputation.

When it came to systematically ruining and then buying out competitors, Adrien Agreste - the scion of Agreste Shipping - was a one-man juggernaut, apparently all too eager to do a few dirty deeds in order to keep his otherwise indulgent lifestyle. By all reports he was a true Daddy’s boy, playing with money, power, and hearts as if he had no concept of personal responsibility. After all, Daddy Agreste would take care of any... unpleasantness. And all he had to do was be dear Daddy’s hatchet-man. It looked like he enjoyed it, too.

Fortunately, she had the means to wipe that self-satisfied look off his face permanently, thanks to a mole who called himself Chat Noir. He’d been feeding her inside information for over a year - information that had let her and the crew of the Miraculous put quite a dent in the Agreste Shipping bottom line. But for now, she had to play along.

“Just make sure you’re on time,” Marinette said through gritted teeth. “You’ve tortured my family enough. No need to drag it out any longer.”

“I’ll be only too happy to accommodate your schedule, Ms. Dupain-Cheng,” Adrien said. “And perhaps, afterward, you will let me buy you a drink to... commemorate the occasion.”

A smirk - an actual, god-forsaken smirk - appeared on his face. Marinette’s fingernails dug painfully into her palms. If he’d been within reach at that moment, he would have found himself flat on the floor with several broken bones, and Marinette would have found herself in a holding cell on charges of assault. Breathing deeply, Marinette reminded herself of the plan, and terminated the transmission before she could incriminate herself.

As soon as Adrien Agreste’s smug, smarmy, and infuriatingly handsome face disappeared from her screen, she closed her eyes and breathed, letting out all the tension and anger that had built up during their brief conversation. After all, under the right circumstances, Adrien Agreste might be exactly what her parents, and countless other victims, needed: a valuable hostage.

----

Adrien let that god-awful smirk linger for a moment before wiping it away with a weary hand. He slumped back in his seat and started massaging one temple while he swiped back to his desktop screen on the terminal.

He’d always hated this part, even back when he'd been naive enough to believe that the firm he was about to buy out had just had a run of bad luck. Back then he would have been secure in the knowledge that the ‘merger’ he’d ‘negotiated’ was a good deal for both parties, but he’d still been aware that it was a defeat for the original owners.

Now he knew all too well the depths Gabriel would sink to - the depths he would drag Adrien down to - all for the sake of his precious shipping empire. The clear disgust and loathing on that woman’s face only added to his own sense of personal guilt and disgust.

At least this time, if everything went according to plan, this family’s business would be just fine. This time, Adrien could look forward to handing control of that company back to the people who’d built it. He glanced at the time on the terminal and took a deep, calming breath.

Please, Ladybug… don’t let me down.

Adrien, in his persona as the mole Chat Noir, had given Ladybug and her team of raiders especially good intel this time, all but painting the word TARGET in bold letters on his own face. That, plus the file he’d sent containing a preview of every last blot on his father’s stainless reputation… yes. He knew how much Ladybug loathed Adrien Agreste personally. She’d often claimed a burning need to punch his face in their double-encoded communiques - not that she knew it was his face - so he was sure she would jump at the chance. He only hoped she could pull it off.

The raiding crew of the Miraculous had caused enough disruption to the Agreste Shipping lines that Gabriel had actually hired the Akumas - a mercenary group known for their brutal efficiency - to track her down. Chat Noir had warned her, and so far she’d managed to elude their crack agents, making them look remarkably foolish in the process.

He only hoped that, when the time came and he found himself on board the Miraculous at last, that she would leave him enough wits - and teeth - to stutter out the recognition phrase Chat Noir had given her.

----

Ladybug’s assault and infiltration were quieter than Adrien had expected. He wasn’t part of the Hawkmoth’s crew, so when the alarms went off, his only role was to get to a secure area and stay out of everyone else’s way. The most he heard of it was the alarm and muffled shouting in the distance while Nathalie hurried him away.

It wasn’t what he wanted - he would much rather have had an active role in the ship’s defense. But of course Gabriel would never allow that, and Nathalie enforced his rules with an iron fist. So he ended up crouched behind Nathalie and his Personal Gorilla Bodyguard™, waiting breathlessly for Ladybug to find them in the reinforced bunker that posed as a small cargo hold in the ship designs. Every small sound echoed in the space, but he wasn’t bothered by it. In fact, he hoped Ladybug’s team had audio sensors sensitive enough to pick them up.

A touch on his shoulder made his heart rate skyrocket even more - but it was only Nathalie, turning to check on him. Adrien covered her hand with his own and squeezed, letting some of his excitement show with a shaky breath. She must have assumed he was scared and squeezed back before turning to the hatch and adjusting her grip on her firearm.

He’d tried to talk her into giving him one of the shipboard assault rifles, too. He wanted to make sure his ‘protectors’ went down quickly if need be, but he told her that he needed some way to defend himself. She’d only given him a look. Apparently Gabriel was willing to sacrifice his only son before allowing him a weapon.

God he couldn’t wait to be free of his life.

A commotion in the corridor outside focused his attention. A sizzling sound came from the door and it whooshed open, briefly blinding him before the bulky forms of the intruders blocked the light. The dark shapes were outlined in silhouettes the color of their hardened spacesuits: pink, orange, green, and gold. His heart leaped again and he fought to suppress a smile.

Nathalie and the bodyguard were quickly dispatched with stun blasts, though it took several simultaneous shots to bring the bodyguard down. Then it was Adrien’s turn. He scooted back as the leader advanced, heart pounding with excitement and fear. Chat Noir had advocated for a hostage situation, but it was possible that Ladybug had decided on outright assassination. One way or another, this would all be over shortly.

The pink-haloed leader raised her weapon, pointing it at him. Adrien gulped and closed his eyes. He didn’t even have time to register the blast before his mind went numb.

----

Marinette leaned against a cabinet in the medbay, waiting for their hostage to wake up. It shouldn’t take long - the effects of the stunners they’d used could be counteracted by the contents of any decently stocked medbay, and Marinette made sure the Miraculous was always overstocked with medical supplies.

Her crew was there, too, all except for Max, who couldn’t leave the bridge. Nino and Alya were busy flirting with each other, Kim was trying to balance a (needle-less) syringe on the end of his nose, and Markov hovered overhead, ready to record everything. Marinette was taking no chances on being accused of human rights violations, though her hands ached with the need to punch their guest.

The unfairly attractive blonde strapped to the medical chair in front of her stirred, and the tension in the room skyrocketed. Kim put the syringe down, Nino and Alya looked up, and Markov beeped to indicate recording was in progress. Marinette also stood up and crossed her arms to avoid temptation.

Adrien Agreste opened unfocused eyes, staring into space with his head lolling a bit. He was clearly still out of it, but it didn’t take long for him to come to full alertness. Curiously, he remained silent, merely looking around the room in a manner so unconcerned that it immediately made Marinette suspicious.

“Are you carrying a tracker?” she asked harshly. They’d scanned him for any such device, of course, but it was possible Agreste Senior managed to obtain something small enough that it wouldn’t show up on a scan.

Agreste Junior met her eyes and his own widened slightly in obvious recognition. “Uh… no. Not that I’m aware of, I mean.”

He smiled, and it was... joyful?

“I’m afraid I’m going to miss that meeting after all, Ms. Dupain-Cheng, though I still hope for that drink sometime. Looks like you’ll just have to keep control of your own business. Thanks for not killing me, by the way - to all of you. I know you must have been tempted,” he added, looking around at them all before leaning his head back with a satisfied smile. “I wish I could see the look on my father’s face when he realizes he’s not getting me back.”

His tone was so full of glee that Marinette barely managed to keep her mouth from dropping open, but she must have looked as astonished as she felt, because his smile turned into a full-fledged grin.

“Oh, haven’t you figured it out yet, Ladybug?” he said, grinning and winking at her. Then he said the three words she’d been waiting to hear for over a year now, ever since her informant had told her he wanted out. Words she’d imagined coming out of the mouth of anyone - literally anyone - but his.

“Plagg, claws out.”

All four of them gasped. Marinette gaped at the man she'd thought she would loathe for all eternity.

“Chat Noir?”

----

“I trust the papers are in order,” Marinette Dupain-Cheng said, smiling at everyone on the other side of the conference table. Her parents sat beside her, but they continued to let her take the lead.

“Drawn up and ready to sign,” the lawyer said, tapping on a tablet before handing it to her. Beside him, Adrien Agreste smiled softly at her. Marinette ignored him and read the documents carefully, making sure that what remained of Agreste Shipping relinquished all claim to her parents’ business, and that the court-mandated payout would cover all the expenses of getting back up and running, with a nice cushion. Satisfied, she handed the tablet to her mother and father, who read and signed it. There was a round of handshakes and congratulations - sincere, as far as she could tell, with no trace of Adrien’s former smug persona.

“Well,” Marinette said, once everyone else had left. “I believe you owe me a drink.”

Adrien’s face lit up. “I do, indeed! Well, who am I to go back on my word? Shall we?”

He held out his arm and Marinette took it. After all, Ladybug had trusted Chat Noir and that had turned out well. Perhaps the future for Marinette and Adrien was equally bright.

@luckycharmzine

[ofmermaidstories]

I ttly get you on the the cannibalism thing, it's not really my thing but i also think it's such a cool narrative device for the act of consuming and being consumed, be it by feelings positive or negative or any other thing that significantly takes over our lives! Or just for horror sometimes, it depends on the story really sfdsfs It really would depend on what you'd want to do with it really ill read whatyou dish out, i get not wanting to do something that is completely depressing i don't mind a bad ending if that's what the story needs for whatever reason. I dunno what your threshold would be for that though but if mc gets to do a good "if i go i take you with me you assface" it's depressing but enough for me, or maybe "my sacrifice will help whoever tries to solve this situation after me", like a Rogue One situation. The torture porn that ppl are into most of the time and i don't personally like is stories where the mc has no agency whatsoever during the whole thing and doesn't even get revenge in the end, which i think is kinda the point for people who like it (the extreme power imbalance, submissive helpless mc, etc) i'm just too petty for it like sure i wanna suffer but i want to Win in some way in the end. In any case, when it comes to cannibalism i don't often read it unless it's just part of a story im interested in, atm i only remember one recent example of a short little story i liked about a mermaid, so maybe you'll like it? (https://rotworld.tumblr.com/post/188689800352/day-24-feast) (in case u dont wanna read it because of the thang: a village has a yearly tradition of eating mermaid flesh to increasy longevity, so they keep one around too weak to escape n carve her up evey year in the festival to eat it's flesh until they have to catch another. Mc decides to offer themself to the mermaid to eat so that she has enough strenght to escape. At the end the mermaid tells them that flesh from a mermaid freely given gives some type of immortality too, and gives a pieace of herself to mc and boh escape towards the ocean with a little bit of revenge on the side)

PART II:

(also fair warning: while the mermaid story has a happy ending, almost all of rotworld's stories and drabbles have bad ends besides other disturbing themes, so this one is more of an exception than a rule, just in case anyone's thinking of cheking their stuff out, they put warnings!)

Do you have that one thing that, whether it’s rational or irrational, fills you with both revulsion and anger every time you see it? Because I do. And for me it’s this oil painting: Saturn Devouring His Son.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes you are my arch nemesis, and I will meet you in Hell old man.

(‼️📍 cw/tw: cannibalism. it’s cannibalism. if you’ve made it this far it’s quite clearly cannibalism. 📍‼️)

How I feel about that hateful painting is how I feel about cannibalism in general LMAO. In poetry? Amazing, 10/10. As a metaphor? Perfect, incredible, 10/10 of ten? An actual act where one human being devours another? NO. And yet—it literally never stops me from interacting with media that features it??? I read the google preview for Tender is the Flesh which was like, a good 30 pages and was… yeah. Yeah. The only reason I didn’t finish it was because my local library doesn’t have a copy and I didn’t want to spend money buying a book and keeping it my home when the very idea of it threw me into such a turmoil that I couldn’t eat meat for a week LMAO. The only other story that’s had that same power over me was Neil Gaiman’s short story for PETA (“Babycakes”. I read it on the train home years ago and was so upset I had to call someone and be talked off the metaphorical ledge). And yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like??????????? Hannibal is one of my favourite TV shows—I bought the damn series on youtube!!!—and Silence of the Lambs is one of my favourite movies!!!!!! Attack on Titan??? One of my favourite animes precisely because of the horror.

I couldn’t tell you what the difference is. Maybe it’s that Tender was written by a woman who eventually stopped eating meat herself. I used to follow the chef that worked on Hannibal, here on tumblr, and reading her thoughts about like, how to replicate certain cuts of long-pork with real pork (or beef or whatever) was always fascinating. It has never had the same kind of horrified chokehold on me and oh my god i can feel myself spiralling LMAO i hate it here (it’s fine, im fine).

ANYWAYS, the Moonfish idea I threw out in the open was a random one, because to me Dark Content should cover topics that are unsettling, and unsettling for me is the horrific idea that you might come face-to-face with your end and can see it clearly and know—it’s gonna be slow, and it’s gonna be awful. The inescapable horror of both your mortality and pain.

(And also it’s mainly because my other favourite genre to read is Whump, and I really like the idea of taking whatever fave character we have atm and fridging the love of their life LOL i’m sorry, im no better than a man……. murdering the love interest for male motivation 😔🔫 it’s probably never going to happen, it’s just gonna be a horrible little AU that sits in my brain and rots me from the inside out, it’s fine, this is fine)

Idk, Spookies, I agree with you that if you’re gonna read something as heavy as devouring then like, there needs to be some kind of emotional pay off, even if it’s vindication or melancholy. I’d argue that’s especially important in a POV as intimate as second-person!!! You’re right in there in the trenches—if you’re being dragged through the mud boots first then like, you need some kind of satisfaction. I read the rotworld fic you linked—rotworld is a lovely writer, and I felt nothing but dread the entire way through that piece 🥺 Hopefully both of them are happy, out there in the ocean somewhere.

(i think im gonna make a salad tomorrow night… with lots of croutons and absolutely no seafood or meat. i hope your weekend treats you gently, Spookies 🌷✨🍐)

[gates-keeper]

This was an opening for a fic I started before S15 and never published. It’s kind of the equivalent of scratching at my barely-scabbed over wounds, so I’m sorry, but I thought I’d share it anyway.

“You must have wondered, Castiel,” Chuck says, pacing in front of the restrained angel. “Why I kept bringing you back. No matter how badly you failed or how much of a deus ex machina it came across as in the story, I resurrected you—reunited you with your precious Winchesters—over and over again. I even made sure to remake the trench coat.”

Cas’s blood-shot eyes glare fiercely at the monster he once called Father, pulling, however uselessly, at his Enochian chains. The dim part of him that had asked that question several times was buried under worry. That Dean and Sam were also imprisoned. That they would do something stupid to get him back—like expose Jack too early. Besides, it hardly mattered whether he expressed curiosity or not; he’d long since learned that Chuck loved nothing more than to talk about himself and his character development.

“See, I realized after a while that setting Sam and Dean up to kill each other all the time got kind of dull in the alternate realities. Sure, there was always some screaming and some crying. Dean’s single man tear—” Chuck puts a hand over his chest and taps it a few times, rhythmically. “Goes straight to the heart every time.”

He shrugs, “But then, of course, one of them was dead and the other was left such a husk, they weren’t much fun to write anymore. And if I brought the dead one back, well, the next time I killed them, it didn’t have quite the emotional impact. I mean, Sam especially, will just jump in with a new girlfriend like that.” Chuck snaps his fingers and Cas instantly flinches, but nothing happens—except for giving Chuck another reason to smirk.

“You—you were the answer to all my prayers, Castiel—and I don’t even think you realize what a perfect plot device you are. See, Dean cares about you—so much more than he’s willing to admit even to himself—and I can spin chapter after chapter of angst out of that. You lying to him about Purgatory? That tortured him worse than Hell. Having to kick you out of the bunker after the trials to keep Sam safe? Devastating. And the strangest thing is, instead of growing used to you dying over and over—he grieves more every time.”

Out of nowhere, a projection starts playing on the cave wall in front of Castiel—the scenes familiar enough to make sense to him even if he doesn’t remember these specific moments. 

A flinch of pain on Dean’s face when Chuck ‘the prophet’ informs the Winchesters that he exploded, followed by Dean’s banishment of the angels from the house with a cry of “Learned that from my friend Cas, you son of a bitch.”

Next, Cas sees a cemetery—and the sheer horror on Dean’s face as his vessel explodes into black goo.

Then, it’s him, walking to a lake, arms stretched wide to accept his doom. When he dissolves into the water like an oil spill, Dean reaches for the trench coat washed up on shore, tears in his voice.

He is dead in a chair, his own angel blade thrust through his chest, which is why he never heard Dean’s broken-sounding “Ca-as!”

And lastly, he sees his burned-out wings painted across the rocky ground, Dean kneeling in the dirt beside his corpse, looking utterly defeated. There is still no life in Dean’s eyes by the time he wraps his body in curtains, carries it out to the yard, and sets it on fire.

Images flash faster and faster—Dean punching a sign off a door until his knuckles bleed, yelling at Sam that he can’t look at Jack knowing that Cas is dead, killing himself for the sake of a case when they were so many better ways….

Cas trembles in his chains, feeling his own eyes burning hot. He hadn’t known… Dean always seemed fine by the time he returned.

[jadewritings]

Fractured Mind

Pairing: Sam and Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 2.8k+

Warning(s): Angst, Fluff, Sadness, Mental Torture

Author’s Note: This may seemed rushed and i wont lie, it is lol. It’s been sitting in my drafts for a while but I don't wanna waste the idea so... it is what it is. This was forced too. Words forced to be written cause i so badly wanna get back into writing.

Summary: Everything was perfect, you got the guys, the kids, the white picket fence life. You were happy, until you weren’t.

“Mommy! Mommy! Look how high I’m going!” Your six year old son shouted at you from the swing. You smiled and sent a thumbs up his way.

“Make sure you be careful not to go too high, daddy.” You shouted at Dean who only laughed evilly.

You sighed and looked over to your left at Sam, who bounced your 2 year old daughter on his lap, making her giggle. It was contagious, making you both laugh.

“You two really make great fathers.” You told him, kissing his cheek lovingly.

“And you make a wonderful mother.” He smiled at you and pressed his lips to yours while one hand rested on your bump.

“Nah, I’m just a surrogate at this point. Mira and junior don’t even look my way anymore.” Sighing, you picked up your water and drank it.

“Y/N, tell me you don’t really believe that?” He asked.

“Sam, we’ve had two kids, working on our third and god knows how many more. They haven’t clung to me like they do you guys.” Mira blew a raspberry, and slapped her hands on Sam’s cheeks, effectively squishing them. “See?”

“Honey, they love you just as much as they do us. You carried them for nine months, you feed them, love them, hold them. They know you’re their mother.”

Mira turned her big y/e/c eyes toward you and squee’d in baby talk, stretching her arms out for you to hold her. You laughed, and being as hormonal as you can be for being five months pregnant, began to tear up.

You couldn’t help kissing all over her face and listening to her squeal and laugh. “You guys have no idea how much I love you.”

Sam turned your face to his and kissed you. Not just a peck, but a deep, full of love, passionate kiss.

“Whoa now, kids around.” Dean joked as he walked over to the table with junior. “Mommy! Did you see how high daddy pushed me!”

You sniffled and laughed, “You bet your butt I did! You were practically soaring through the sky bud!” Junior sat on your lap and drank his soda from McDonald’s.

Dean sat across from y’all, picking Mira from your lap and playing with her. Your heart swelled with love and pride, having two wonderful partners and two wonderful children. It was like nothing bad in the world could touch you, it was just you guys, happy and healthy.

Dean started to say something but when you looked at his mouth, no sound came out.

“What?” Dean repeated what he said but it sounded almost glitched.

“It’s... almost.. time.”

“Time? Time for what?” You looked over at Sam but it was as if Dean hadn’t said anything, he continued to eat his food.

“Guys, what’s going on?” The world started to lose its color, fading to black.

“No, no, no! Sam! Dean!”

It felt as if you were falling and your family was fading out of existence. When you opened your eyes, the room was dark and it reeked of death. Your shoulder ached and your body felt heavy. You looked around. There was no Dean, no Sam, no kids. They were gone.

You tried to struggle but the chains holding you up and the heaviness outweighed your will. You groaned, only just hearing the footsteps getting closer.

“Aw, somebody’s awake. Have a good dream?”

The man you saw when you looked up didn’t look human. His skin was pale, tribal tattoos covered every inch of his body. His eyes started to glow blue.

“Dream?” Your voice cracked from dehydration. You looked around, a needle stuck in your arm as you hung from chains connected to the ceiling. Then the flashes came. The happiness, the love, the pride, the feeling that nothing could go wrong. One big happy family. Tears threatened to overflow.

“It wasn’t real...”

“Oh honey, nothing that perfect could ever be real. Did you really think it was?”

Your face hardened, “You son of a bitch! I’m gonna kill you!” You struggled against the chains to charge forward but it was useless. Along with the dream, your strength was gone. The sight made the djinn laugh.

“Aaahh, I do love when they struggle. But, it’s time for you to sleep again and give me that sweet, sweet blood of yours.” He smiled and his eyes began to glow again, his tattoos seemingly moving down. You felt tired and went to sleep again.

“Mommy! Mommy! Look how high I’m going!”

3 DAYS EARLIER

“Dean, Y/N.” Sam called his brother, “Got a case.”

The case was in Houston Texas, almost a days worth drive. Sam had a theory as to what it was because they had seen their type before. This guy was leaving bodies in the wide open, blue handprints left on their stomachs. An easy giveaway, as Sam called it.

After setting up in the motel, Sam and Dean left you to your own devices while they went and talked to the relatives of one of the deceased. the case seemed like it was gonna be an easy kill and go home but when the brothers returned, they didn’t have any luck. 

Dean sighed and fell to the bed. He smoothed a hand down his face, he seemed quite tired.

“Dean why don't you just get some sleep? You too, Sam. I can do some research for now.” you smiled at both of them.

Sam, who reached into the small fridge on the dresser behind you to grab a water, put his hand to your shoulder. “Thanks, Y/N. That would be appreciated.”

He gulped some water and flopped onto the other bed in the room. Both of the boys were out in minutes. 

After a few hours you found that Djinns tend to live in ruins, usually – the bigger, the better. With that in mind, you looked up places like that and bingo bango, you had your target.

You started to open your mouth to wake up Sam and Dean but with the way Dean was snoring and Sam looking so comfortable under his covers, you couldn't bring yourself to do it. sleep was something they were long over due for. So, you grabbed your gun and knife and headed out, hot wiring a rusty old pickup truck in fear of Dean’s wrath if he saw you took Baby.

The only way to kill one was a silver blade dipped in lambs blood so you had to make a pit stop for that before reaching your destination.

It was pitch black outside, no doubt most people would be asleep. But nope, not you. Had to slice and dice before hitting that pillow oh so nice. You took a deep breath as you stood in front of a half burnt asylum. Best known because a patient who was getting abused here set it aflame. What better ruin to hide in?

“Better now than later, Y/N.” you surmised to yourself. If you could handle this on your own maybe Sam and Dean, the two big doofs would finally look your way. You feel in love with Dean first, the flirty of the two. You met him first on a ghost hunt. He almost stole it but you ended up working together on it. 

The next time you saw him was with his brother, when they needed backup for a case. One you were willing to provide, anything to see Dean again. Then Sam came swooping in making you fall for him too. His intelligence blew you away. The way he cared for those around him and would do anything for anyone who needed it. You’d been stuck to them every since that case.

The Winchester brother got you, hook line and sinker. There was no way around it, your thoughts filled with them. But you couldn’t confess that to them. Why would they even like you like that. At least you thought so.

You quietly stepped into the asylum, checking each room as you went by.

Sam groaned as he turned onto his left side, slowly blinking his eyes awake. He noticed the light of his laptop still on. He sat up, wiping away any sleep left behind.

“Y/N?” he looked over to his right, the bed empty. Then he looked at Dean’s, so was his except his brother. He got up and walked to the bathroom to see if she was in there but the light was off. He started to panic internally. 

Sam raced to the laptop to check what she had looked at. All of Y/N’s research was right there and even where she thought the Djinn was.

“Dean!” Sam grabbed his coat since he had fallen asleep in his shirt and jeans.

His brother jumped, “Huh- wha?”

“Y/N went after the Djinn by herself.” that snapped Dean awake.

“What?!” Sam tossed him his jacket and the keys, Dean slipping his gun in the back of his jeans and both of them rushing out to the impala.

The ride to the asylum was silent with tension in the air. Both brothers were worried of course, Dean angry at himself for not keeping an eye on her. She’d been with them for a while now. She was useful to them, not only that but they both came to care for her.

“She’ll be okay, Dean. She’s tough.” Sam cut through the tension. 

Dean didn’t want to say much, his thoughts going a million miles in his head thinking if she was safe or even alive, so he opted for, “Yeah.” His grip on the steering wheel tightened, something that hadn’t gone unnoticed by his brother.

Sam pulled out his phone, bringing up Y/N’s contact. If she was in trouble, they had to get to her fast.

You’d been walking around for a little bit now, but still no sign of the Djinn. Maybe you’d gotten the place wrong? Maybe there was another ruin the monster preferred. But this one was just too perfect to pass up, it had to be this one.

You walked further down a corridor, the walls had soot all over them, parts of it burned down to the dry wall. You turned when you heard something move in the distance. Your eyes narrowed when you saw nothing there. You faced the way you were walking again only to see the Djinn right in front of you, smirking. 

“Well, well, what do we have here.” You reacted immediately and jabbed the knife towards him, but he was quicker. He’d grabbed your wrist and twisted it so you’d drop your weapon. You groaned but that was the only thing you’d give him. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing you in pain.

He sniffed up you neck and into your hair, making you flinch away. “You smell... delectable.” With his last word, you saw a faint glow behind you and his hand come up to cover your eyes. After that, you were out.

*

Dean and Sam had just arrived at the location you had saved on Sam’s computer. They both agreed it was definitely the place the Djinn would be. They got their guns and knives ready, putting the knife in their waistbands and keeping their guns glued to in front of them.

They entered the same way you had but one brother went left and the other went right, splitting up to hopefully find you quicker. The hallways smelled old and a scent of burnt wood still lingered in the air. However long it had been since the fire, the reminders of it were still there. 

Dean couldn’t lie, the place had an eerie feel to it. He checked around every corner, in every room, and so far, no sign of you.

Sam did the same, checking carefully, making sure to stay quiet so he could have an advantage. He entered a larger room than the others he had passed. It almost looked like the nave of a church, benches lined up in rows with space in the middle to walk until you hit a few steps to climb. At the center of the steps, you hung from chains.

“Y/N!” Sam whispered trying to get your attention as he quickly made his way to you. You gave no response. You didn’t move at all and that worried Sam. He tapped your face a few times and held it up, whispering your name again. Nothing.

The doors flew open and Sam looked over from you. Dean’s body flew a few feet before he landed with a grunt.

“Dean!” Sam shouted to his brother. Dean grunted, “Heya, Sammy.” sarcastically. The Djinn walked in behind him.

“Is it Thanksgiving because it seems like I’m gonna have a big meal I’m thankful for.” Sam’s jaw clenched and Dean stood up from the ground.

“Get her out of here Sam, I got this.”

*

“Mommy! Mommy! Did you see how high I was going?” Junior shouted as he raced towards you. You smiled brightly, “Yes I did, Bug. Did you have fun?” he jumped up on your lap, nodding and breathing heavily. Dean walked up behind him and leaned down to give you a kiss. It was something you savored. You looked across the table at Sam who had your daughter in his hands, squealing at him as he attacked her face with kisses. But something in your gut told you this was too good to be true. You were kind of having Deja vu.

Then you heard it. Your name was being called. 

“Sam?” you asked. The Sam across from you looked up and frowned.

“What’s the matter?” he questioned.

Again. You’re name. But this time, you definitely knew it didn’t come from him. Something wasn’t right, you felt it. This world, it wasn’t real. Flashes of memory made you realize, you were a hunter. Hunters didn’t get to live like this. They either died from a monster or by the end of a barrel. They didn’t get the white picket fence happiness.

You set Junior down on the ground, slowly getting up.

“Y/N? Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Dean grabbed your arm, his face twisted with concern.

“This isn’t real. None of this is real.” you whispered.

“Not real? Baby, this is as real as it gets.” Dean answered back.

“No. No no no. I have to get out of here.” The despair and sadness you suddenly felt tore your heart to pieces. You wanted so bad for it to be real. To be with the two men you so dearly loved, to have a family with them. But you knew it wasn’t your reality.

You reached into your purse, grabbing the keys and taking off in the impala. Your heart raced, you didn’t really know where you were going. At this point you just wanted it all to end. So, you pushed harder on the gas pedal and crashed into a metal pole.

You gasped awake, heart struggling to clam. The feeling of the crash still lingering. You currently sat in the back of the impala, the familiar rumble helped to sooth you.

“Hey, sweetheart. How are you feeling?” You looked up and saw Dean smiling at you behind the wheel.

“What happened? Where’s the Djinn?” you asked. Sam turned so he could face you, a gentle smile crossing his features.

“He’s gone. You don’t have to worry about him.” You nodded and the car fell into a silence. Dean glanced back at you through the rearview mirror and you had a feeling you knew the question he was itching to ask.

“We were married.” you spoke, the boys turning their attention to you.

Sam looked at his brother before clearing his throat, “W-What?”

Tears pricked at your eyes, “We had kids and I was pregnant.” You laughed and sniffled, “We had a white picket fence life. Junior, was Dean and I’s son, Mira was Sam and I’s daughter. We loved each other- I... loved both of you. I still do.”

“Y/N-” Sam was speechless.

“No- I, please, Sam. Just... don’t. I know we can never have that. You and Dean probably wouldn’t even go for that, let alone have feelings for me.” The tears spilled onto your cheeks and once again, the car was silent.

After a minute, the impala slowed and pulled off to the side of the road. You sniffed and looked up, Dean turning around in his seat.

“You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to say what I do and don’t feel because I know what I want. When Sam told me you’d gone off on your own, it scared the hell outta me. I didn’t know if we’d reach you in time or if I’d have to see you dead in some ruin. I know how I feel, Y/N, how we feel.” You followed his gaze to his brother. Sam smiled and nodded.

“We love you too, Y/N.”

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[crimson-ace]

The Shark and the Surfer Chapter 2: The Aft-ermath

Archive of Our Own link

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the Chlolix tags on AO3...

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

Alix noticed it was getting dark, so she swam home as fast as she could and made it to her family’s undersea cave, where her father, Alim, was waiting for her.

“Alix, are you alright? Do you have any parasites on you?” Alim said as he swam around his daughter. He was part pilot fish, so he had a habit of worrying about his shark daughter (who took more after her great white birth mother) and making sure there weren’t any remoras mooching off her.

Alix groaned and pushed her father aside. “Daaaaaaad! I’m not a pup anymore!” She said a little more whiny than she intended. “I just ran into some traffic on my way home, that’s all. Can we eat now?”

Alim nodded and swam over to the dining room with Alix, where his other son, Jalil, was waiting at the table with the prepared food. Well, except for Alix’s plate. Alix took her squid raw.

So while Alix started digging into her squid, she talked about her day with her family, leaving out who she helped today. It was pretty standard stuff, like how Alim mentioned his archeology team at the museum had found evidence of a possible missing link between mermaids and their selkie ancestors or how Jalil had found some more human treasures like a stretchy torture device made of six rings one of his turtle friends gave him.

As Alix washed her squid down with the ink of another, she realized that her brother had some knowledge about humans. “Hey, Jalil? Dad? What exactly do you guys know about humans?” She asked, causing both of them to freeze in place.

“Wh-Why are you asking that? What happened?” Alim asked, worried his daughter’s curiosity (or appetite) would get the better of her.

“Nothing happened! I-I-I-I just wanted to… learn more about them, that’s all. What’s wrong with that?” Alix worried she had said too much.

Alim put a hand on Alix’s shoulder. “Alix, humans are too dangerous. We know nothing about them except that they come from beyond the sea.”

“Well, that, and they can’t live underwater, so they create huge masses of land just to invade our territory and steal our belongings. Thankfully, we got some of their own treasures they just threw away, like this magic box with some humans trapped inside” Jalil chimed in as he took out a blue rectangular object with the label “Canon” on the side.

“Maybe we just need to learn more about humans.” Alix suggested, earning a glare from her father.

“The surface world is inhospitable to our kind, and you could die if you went up there.” Alix flinched in response to Alim’s statement, as she remembered how hard it was for her to simply go a few feet on the surface away from the water. It made Alix wonder how she could ever learn more about the human she saved if she couldn’t get farther than the beach.

“Can I just… Can I go to my room? I want to be alone right now.” Alix mumbled.

“You may, just no thinking about humans.” Alim said as he watched Alix swim away to her room in the cave.

Alix laid down on her bed and thought about the day’s events. She didn’t really get to know the human, but she was still curious about her. Maybe she could try and see if the human was exploring the ocean tomorrow and possibly see her again. But what if that was too much? What if it was a trap? Alix really needed to talk to someone about this the next day.

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

Chloe walked back to her place, still thinking about her broken surfboard and what could have saved her. She was really worried about how she would explain what happened to her family. They were already nervous about her hobby as a surfing influencer on social media, so finding out their daughter hit a rock and almost bled out at sea and then came back with a bite taken out of her surfboard would cause them to freak out and make sure she couldn’t even go for a dip in the kiddie pool at the resort they owned. Granted, Chloe’s parents always seemed to be busy with something these days, with her mother designing clothes in Paris like a bikini with glitter and her father running one of the most expensive beach resorts in Saint-Tropez, but Chloe was sure at least one of them would show concern for her safety.

Chloe snuck back into her room where her sister Zoe was hanging out. “Hey, you’re back late. What happened?” She asked, making Chloe sigh.

“Please don’t tell Mom and Dad, but I kind of had a little wipeout.” Chloe showed Zoe the seaweed wrapping around her wetsuit.

Zoe gasped in horror. “Oh my God, are you okay?” She pressed her hand against the seaweed-covered area, causing Chloe to wince a little.

“Y-Yeah, I’m fine. It was only a little bleeding, and it’s mostly stopped.” Chloe replied while unwrapping the seaweed, exposing a minor laceration against her side that thankfully wasn’t too deep and could easily be treated at home. She grumbled a little at seeing a tear in one of her favorite wetsuits.

“You need to let me treat that.” Zoe helped Chloe out of her wetsuit, ignoring her sister’s protests. There were times where it seemed like Zoe was more of a parent to Chloe despite them both being around the same age. She took Chloe to the private bathroom in their room and sat her down on the toilet before taking out a first aid kit.

Zoe got out a washcloth and ran it under some cold water. “So how did it happen this time?” She asked while Chloe let her sister clean the area around the wound.

“It’s hard to say. I remember scratching myself on a rock and bleeding a little bit, but then...”

“Then what?” Zoe asked, taking out some antiseptic cream to apply to the cut.

Chloe was at a loss for words for describing what happened next. “You’d think it’s weird.”

“Says the girl whose wound I’m currently cleaning while she sits on the toilet wearing nothing but a bikini.” Zoe retorted with an argument that Chloe didn’t really have a rebuttal towards.

Chloe figured she should just come out and say it, no matter how weird it sounded. “I think I was saved by a mermaid.” She blurted out.

Zoe stared at Chloe like she had a colony of bees in her hair. “A mermaid? Seriously?"

“That's what I saw!” Chloe protested. “I think she helped me get back to the shore and then I saw her jumping back into the water.”

Zoe scoffed in response as she took out the gauze and some bandages. “Oh, okay then. What kind of mermaid was it? Are we talking Ariel mermaid, Ponyo mermaid, or H2O: Just Add Water mermaid?” She asked sarcastically.

“Actually, I think she was a shark mermaid or something like that.” Chloe said, recalling the features of her mysterious savior.

“You were saved… by a shark mermaid?” Zoe asked incredulously.

“I don’t know! I want to learn more about her!” Chloe raised her arms for Zoe to apply the gauze to her wound and bandage it up. “Come on, don’t you want to at least see if this is real and not something I hallucinated?”

Zoe sighed. “Chloe, maybe take a day or two to rest before going back into the ocean again.” She started to put away the first aid kid. “Either that, or ask someone about mermaids or something like that.”

Chloe got up and changed into something comfortable for the night, thinking about maybe talking to a friend of hers tomorrow

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“YOU SAW A HUMAN?!”

“Shh! I don’t want the entire ocean to know!” Alix hissed to shut up Alya.

“Then why are you telling us in the first place? This is huge!” Alya couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“And you saved her just like a prince saving a princess. It’s so romantic!” Rose chimed in with the same cheery view of everything she heard about.

“I didn’t mean it like that! She needed help, so I helped her.” Alix retorted. “I mean yeah, I guess she was kinda pretty, but that’s not the point here! I want some advice on how to approach this.”

“I mean, if you want to see her again, why not just drag her underwater?” Juleka asked bluntly.

“Juleka, she can’t breathe underwater!” Alix snapped.

“Why don’t you ask Master Fu? Maybe he knows.” Mylene suggested. “What does he know about humans, Marinette?” She asked her friend who was currently working as a healing apprentice for Master Fu.

“Uh, he hasn’t really told me much.” Marinette replied, making Alix sigh.

“And my family isn’t much help either.” She said as she ran her hands through her head in frustration. “I really don’t know what to do here! I really want to learn more about this human. I want to know more about the human world in general and their awful-tasting fish.” The others looked at Alix in confusion after they heard that last bit.

“Okay, here’s an idea: Swim up to the shore and then see if the human comes back or not. If she actually saw you, she’ll obviously want to investigate like you do.” Marinette suggested.

Alix thought about what Marinette said for a moment. “You know what? You’re right. Maybe she’s looking for me right now!” And with that, Alix dashed off, leaving a trail of bubbles in her wake as her friends tried to get her to stop.

Alix remembered where she went to the surface yesterday and swam to a small rock formation where she surfaced and looked up to see if the same human saw her, making sure to conceal her shark half just in case.

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

“You saw a mermaid?”

“Yeah, I get it’s ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. Can you just hear me out?” Chloe asked Sabrina, fully aware of how weird her question was.

“You know when I signed up to be a lifeguard, I wasn’t trained to look for mermaids.” Sabrina said as she got out of her lifeguard’s chair and switched out with another lifeguard so she could talk to Chloe more while the two walked down the beach.

“Well what about sharks? I think the mermaid was part shark.”

Sabrina sighed. “You of all people should know shark sightings are rare here, and even then, they rarely attack humans unless they’re confused.”

“Well I think this shark is different.” Chloe said, fully aware of how weird her statement was.

“I guess I’ll tell the other lifeguards to watch out for any shark people.” Sabrina said before leaving.

Chloe sighed. She knew this was a ridiculous story nobody would believe. She was going to walk back, but then she saw a flash of pink hair by the rocks. Chloe carefully walked across some of the rocks that weren’t submerged in the water until she was face to face with the pink haired girl, who was looking nervously at her.

“Uh… hi. Do you remember me?” The girl asked nervously, giving a toothy grin with her sharp teeth.

“I… I think I do. This is kind of a strange question, but are you a...” Chloe was going to ask, but her curiosity got the better of her and looked over the rocks and saw a shark fin on the girl’s back. “Nevermind.”

Chloe was now 100% sure she was saved by a mermaid yesterday, and was now face to face with the same mermaid again.

[skarsgard-daydreams]

Son of Perdition

Description: Henry insists that he is an ordinary man, at least until his mind starts to unravel.

Warnings: angst, false imprisonment, religious abuse, physical and psychological torture, mild blood, threats of gun violence, mild physical violence, kidnapping, brainwashing, smoking

Notes: This story assumes that The Kid is telling the truth about his past in a parallel universe and deals with his imprisonment. It’s dark, and it has a lot of religious themes. Please mind the warnings.

Everything had unraveled so fast. He had tried to seize the threads of his life as it came apart, but they had cracked out of his grasp like a whip and stung him in the process. When the man asked him who he was, a name floated to the surface of his mind. It was limp and lifeless—a corpse bobbing face down in the water after a shipwreck. He slouched against the corner of the cage and watched the man ash a cigarette into an empty coffee tin. The smoke danced in the light of the halogen lamp illuminating the curved walls of the cistern that had been converted into a prison. The man repeated the question.

“Who are you?”

“H-Henry,” the prisoner answered. His throat felt like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together when he swallowed. He lowered his gaze to the metal tray at the man’s feet. The light glinted off the surface of a tin cup, and Henry swore he could smell the water in the air, something crisp and sweet mixed in with the acrid scent wafting off the cigarette. It was close enough he thought he could reach it if he flattened himself to the floor and stretched out his arm, but his vision blurred every time he moved and his limbs felt like they had turned to stone.

The man heaved a sigh and dropped his cigarette butt into the glass of water. “A false witness will not go unpunished,” he said, rising to his feet. He shifted the tray further from the cage with the toe of his boot. “And he who breathes out lies will not escape.”

Henry rested his forehead against the bars and winced as the metal tray scraped across the floor. “Proverbs,” he mumbled. “Chapter nineteen.” The dull recitation spilled from his lips without conscious thought. He let his eyelids slide shut as his jailor switched off the light and climbed up the ladder. The hatch overhead closed and the locking mechanism groaned and creaked, plunging the room back into pitch darkness.

In the long stretches of time when he was alone, Henry tried to put his memories in order. It seemed essential for him to maintain a timeline, though he could no longer explain why. He started with his name, which would remind him of his father, and from there a universe of memories would expand in his mind while a shrill silence filled his ears, occasionally punctuated by water dripping somewhere out of reach.

He remembered his father’s house—the lingering scent of decay as he treaded the floorboards and flicked on a light. He remembered a thrill fluttering in his stomach when his wife said she was late. He remembered how soft her hair always felt, how her skin smelled like apricots and cream. He remembered wondering if their child would be a girl or a boy. He hoped it was a boy. And then he remembered a boy in a cage, and his stomach turning sour when he heard his father’s voice crackle to life again on the cassette player, reciting the revelations of a madman.

The steady drip of water eroded his stream of thought and Henry found himself laying flat on the floor as the room seemed to spin in the darkness. Something told him this was a symptom, that he needed to find a diagnosis and a treatment. He was supposed to be good at that. He reached for his left hand and searched for his radial pulse with his right, but he could barely feel it under his skin. Every time he tried to count the beats, the sound of dripping water crashed again and made him flinch. He realized after several attempts that he would need a watch to take an accurate measurement, anyway. He couldn’t remember what had happened to it.

Time was a problem. He had tried to measure its passage from the cage, scraping tally marks into the floor with his fingernails each time the man brought him food. If he could keep track of things, maybe he could stay rational. If he could stay rational, maybe he could find a way back. Henry reasoned that two tally marks were equal to one day, except for Sundays, when the man didn’t come at all. On those days, he fasted from food, water, and any belief that he might live to see sunlight again, until he heard the scrape of metal above him and thanked fucking Christ that his jailor had returned. He guessed he had made it two and a half weeks before the man started turning off the lights when he left, leaving Henry in the dark for hours on end.

It was the kind of darkness that existed at the center of a black hole, something that consumed the whole spectrum of color and left him in a vacuum. Soon his mind became unmoored. He groped for the edges of the cage, feeling the cold metal under his hands to remind himself that there was matter around him—that he existed somewhere in this iteration of time and space. He touched his face and his body to make sure that he was still solid. He couldn’t hold onto both thoughts at the same time. When he grasped the metal walls that surrounded him, he felt himself blinking out of existence. By the time the man returned the next day, he had forgotten there ever was a tally.

Henry took a few shallow breaths and tried to ignore the dripping sound nearby. It felt like the water was hammering into his brain each time it fell. The damp, musty aroma in the air was green in color, he thought, but even as the idea formed in his head, he knew it made no sense. He had to find some way to stop his mind from slipping—to keep track of things. He had always been notoriously bad at that. His wife set up apps and reminders on his phone all the time. Didn’t she install an app that counted cycles and days? He slipped his hand into his pocket and dug around for his cell phone, but it wasn’t there, and soon he wasn’t there, falling through a rush of sound and color, into another place and time.

The phone had stopped working, anyway. He was wandering in the woods with blood still on his hands, his dark trousers dragging in the deep snow. He accidentally smeared blood on the touchscreen when he tried to get the device to turn back on, but it didn’t respond. It had been rendered useless as a brick when he’d slipped through to this other place—this other Castle Rock, where it was still 1991 and everything seemed tilted and off balance, like he might lose his footing and start floating in the air. He trudged through the snow, doubling back over his own tracks again and again as he tried to find a way to trigger the strange portal he had come through before.

It was in those woods that he first met the man. Henry was straining to hear the sound his father always spoke of, but he heard the click of a gun at his back instead. Cold fear dropped all the way down to his balls as he went into cardiac arrhythmia. The only reason he imagined someone would hold him at gunpoint was that they had noticed the well-dressed stranger wandering in and out of town and decided to rob him.

“Don’t shoot,” he said, holding his hands up. “Y-you can have my wallet, okay? And my watch.”

“Get on your knees,” the man said.

Adrenaline raced through his veins as his sympathetic nervous system kicked in to a heightened state, but Henry felt frozen. He would be dead before he could run, and he didn’t know how to fight a man with a gun. Hell, he barely knew how to throw a punch. As he lowered himself to his knees, he felt the gun travel up his spine and press against his scalp over the parietal bone. He thought of how his father had claimed to have heard the voice of God in the barrel of a gun, but he heard nothing now except his own ragged breathing and the cawing of crows overhead.

“Please, just take my money,” Henry begged. “My wife might be pregnant,” he added quickly. “She needs me.”

“I don’t want your money,” the man said.

He heard rustling and then the man gripped one of his wrists and twisted his arm behind him. Cold metal circled his wrist. Henry jerked his other arm away from the man and felt the butt of the gun crack against his skull. He fell face down in the white powder and heard a ringing in his ears as the man caught his other wrist and cuffed it behind his back. His heart began to beat even faster, thrumming wildly.

“What the fuck do you want?” he sputtered. A dark shadow bloomed at the edges of his vision as the man grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled his head back to force a piece of cloth between his teeth. The man said nothing, tying the cloth behind his head and gagging him tightly. He grabbed the collar of Henry’s coat and hauled him to his feet. Henry stood four inches taller, but the man was stocky, with a gruff demeanor that suggested he was accustomed to pushing people around. He kept a firm grip on Henry’s arm, propelling him through the snow.

Everything that followed seemed to blur together into one white hot streak of panic. Stumbling through the woods became nosing carpet fibers as he was shoved into a trunk, and then he was kicking and screaming until he heard a siren and then felt the car begin to slow. Relief flooded Henry’s system. Thank God, he thought. He was saved. He shouted as loud as he could and thumped against the roof of the trunk until someone popped it open. Both men peered down at him, and he grew quiet.

As the man talked to the cop, a cold feeling settled in Henry’s stomach. The man spoke of bloodthirsty and evil men, of the son of destruction, of Satan disguising himself as an angel of light. He said he acted in the service of God, that he intended to cast the Devil into a bottomless pit as it is written in Revelation. The cop shined a flashlight in Henry’s eyes and leaned in close to his face, staring at him. He stared back, his words muffled by the gag as he tried to plead for help.

“I’ve never seen a pair of eyes like that,” the cop said. He clicked the flashlight off and slammed the trunk shut. The rest of their conversation was casual, as if there hadn’t been anyone stuffed in the trunk of the car after all, and soon the car was moving again.

The segment of time between the car and the cistern blistered like film melting in a projector. Henry had a vague sense of being in a prison when the man freed him from the handcuffs and told him to climb down the ladder. When he didn’t move except to rub the red marks on his wrists, the pistol came out again. He didn’t know why he obeyed; the gunshot would have been the better alternative. But fear streaked like lightning in his system, and Henry climbed down into the dimly lit reservoir. He followed the man’s instructions, shrugging off his coat and unwinding the scarf from his neck. He kicked off his shoes and handed over his belt, then emptied his pockets of his phone, wallet, and keys. The man gestured for him to step into the sturdy cage against the wall. Henry swallowed.

“I’m not the Devil,” he said.

“You will not deceive me.” The man cocked the gun and leveled it at Henry, staring him down until he backed slowly into the cage. His bare foot collided with the back wall. He wanted to argue that the man was being deceived—that whatever he thought he heard wasn’t the voice of God. It was the voice of his own delusions driving him to do things that were morally reprehensible to any sane person regardless of their creed. But he wasn’t dealing with a sane person. He was dealing with his father.

The cage door creaked as the man closed it and fitted a heavy padlock into the latch. When he was done, he got down on his knees in front of a wooden stool and prayed that God would make him righteous and steadfast as he executed His instructions. Henry wrapped his hands around the bars and tested the strength of the cage, hoping that a man as crazy at this one might have made a mistake. It had no give whatsoever. The man was too caught up in his prayer to hear the metal rattling.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,” the man said, quoting the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Henry knew the verse well. He had often been expected to recite long passages of scripture from memory when he was a child, and even though he hadn’t set foot in a church in years, the words were still carved indelibly into his memory.

After he finished his prayer, the man sat down on the stool and considered his handiwork as he lit a cigarette and took a pensive drag. He examined Henry’s cell phone with a furrowed brow, then flipped open the wallet and took out his ID, and his business card, which listed him as Associate Professor of Neurology at Johns Hopkins University. The man turned each one over in his hands as he studied them. When he took out the photo of his wife, Henry’s grip on the bars tightened and his heart leapt to his throat.

“Please,” he said, rattling the door to the cage to get the man’s attention. “Let me keep that.”

The man’s gaze flickered back toward Henry. He sniffed the air and took a zippo lighter out of his pocket, lighting the corner of the photo on fire and dropping it into a coffee can on the floor once the flame approached his hand. Henry sank to his knees and watched the only memento he had of his wife in this fucked-up version of reality smolder and disintegrate. His hands were shaking as he pressed his palms against the floor.

“He told me you would use pity as a weapon,” the man said, lighting another cigarette and watching him coolly.

A rush of noise filled Henry’s ears and suddenly he was on his back again in the dark, trying to fill his lungs with short, shallow breaths that never seemed to satisfy him. Another symptom, possibly a dangerous one. He wondered how long it had been since he had a drink of water. Time had become nonlinear. He couldn’t keep track of it anymore. The man would visit, tempting him with food and drink like Satan in the garden of Gethsemane, and ask him who he was. Henry never gave the right answer. If he mumbled “Lucifer” or “The Antichrist,” the man would hear the lack of conviction in Henry’s voice and call him a liar. If he said his own name, he was also a liar. The man seemed determined to turn Henry into a man of honest faith in his twisted beliefs through sheer deprivation or kill him in the process. The latter felt like a very real possibility.

The hatch groaned and a moment later, it was outlined in a dim halo of light cast by the lantern the man carried. Shapes appeared in Henry’s vision, blurring so much they were almost formless as his eyes adjusted. He rolled onto his side and heard his joints cracking as he pushed himself into a sitting position and slumped against the wall of the cage, panting from the effort. The man climbed down into the cistern and turned on the halogen light, blinding Henry with its brightness. He squeezed his eyes shut and saw a riot of color behind his eyelids while he listened to the stool scrape across the floor and the Bible flop open in the man’s hand.

“And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain,” the man read aloud. Without his sight, the voice sounded like his father to Henry. He imagined he was a boy sitting in one of the hard wooden pews, listening to him preach, restless and uncomfortable in his Sunday best. “He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,” the man continued. “He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended.”

“Revelation,” Henry mumbled. “Chapter twenty.”

“Who are you?” the man asked.

Henry licked his chapped lips and searched his mind for the right answer. “The Son of Perdition,” he said, and it felt true for once. If his own father had thought an innocent child was the Devil and locked him in a cage for twenty-seven years, maybe he was the son of hell.

His vision came into focus. He rested his forehead against the bars and stared at the man with resignation, willing to do or say anything his righteous zeal demanded if it meant he could have something to drink. The man stared back for what felt like years. He leaned down and picked up the metal cup, dumping water and ashes onto the floor. Then he reached into his bag and took out a thermos, unscrewing the lid.

The scent of the water was cold and sweet and ice blue as the man poured it into the cup. Henry grasped the bars of the cage and stared at the cup of water like he was watching a man perform a magic trick and trying to figure out how it worked. The man set the cup down and slid the tray across the floor. As it inched toward him, Henry fought the urge to reach out and grab it. He knew this man was another version of his father, just as there was another version of himself in this reality. If Henry wanted to survive, he would have to demonstrate piety and respect. He looked at the man when the tray reached the edge of the cage, and waited for him to say grace.

The man let him have water again, but he still shuttered Henry in the dark in between every other visit, perhaps to simulate the cycle of day and night in this place where the sun couldn’t reach. On Sundays, the lights never came on. Those were the worst days. By the time the man returned, Henry would be flat on the ground, his fingers laced through to bars to keep himself from spinning free of the earth's gravity well and hurtling through outer space.

He thought he could feel the dark energy of the universe calling to him from out there, a low frequency that sometimes transformed into a growl. The metal bars that surrounded him hummed with its vibrations from time to time. Everything did. He felt the man's energy radiating from him like a tremor. It was a sickly green color, with flashes of red that flared around him when he was feeling particularly cruel, or flecks of blue that mixed with the green when he was inclined to think of Henry as his son.

Henry learned to say nothing, or risk his words being interpreted as the whispered lies of the Deceiver. He leaned against the bars and became the man's confessor, listening to him read scripture, or talk about the challenges of running a prison, or the problems in his marriage. Henry parted his lips, trying to arrange the words into the right configuration one day when the man mentioned being married.

"I have a wife," he whispered slowly, as if surprised by his own revelation.

After that, he didn't taste food again for days. When Sunday came, it seemed to stretch on and on, until he felt the measure of eternity in his stomach. He tried to place events on a timeline in his mind, but he never could get further than his name before the dripping of water drilled into his ear and erased the markers he tried to use to find his way home. Still, he was certain he had a wife. He could feel her in his matter, as though particles of her clung to him and reverberated on a quantum level. But he couldn't remember the color of her eyes or the shape of her face anymore.

He was never more pliable than after the fasts imposed on him by his jailor. He would listen to the man's teachings as though he was his sole disciple and the man offered the Bread of Life. When the man asked him who he was, Henry looked at him with bloodshot eyes.

"Tell me," he whispered.

The man told him the story of his life in this world. He told him of every calamity that had ever happened in Castle Rock—how each of them could be traced through invisible spiritual markers back to Henry, how he left an imprint wherever he went in time and space, some kind of radiation or heat signature that made fruit rot on the vine. He told him he still caught Henry leaving his mark on the world, and that he knew he sometimes slipped through the bars of his prison and wandered through time, leaving chaos and pain wherever he went. Henry wanted to know more about how he could slip out of his prison and wander freely, but he remained silent.

"That is why you must be punished," the man said. Henry heard his father speaking. He remembered the verse about sparing the rod, and nodded in agreement. His father’s reasoning was sound.

"I must be punished," he repeated.

Henry sometimes imagined he was one of the anchorites who had allowed themselves to be bricked into the walls of churches during the Middle Ages, leaving only a small hole where they could pass food and excrement back and forth and tell pilgrims the messages they received from God. But he never received any divine revelations, or if he did, they weren't in a language he understood. In the darkness he could hear a sound like a raging fire at the center of the universe, something primal that crackled with life. It was always expanding, and he knew that someday it would consume them all.

There was no way of knowing how much time had passed between his incarceration and the day that the jailor reached inside the cage, tipping Henry’s chin up to better see his face. Henry remained still, staring the man as he studied him and wondering what he saw. His touch was hard and comforting at the same time. It reminded Henry that he was real.

"You haven't aged a day," the man remarked with wonder. He released Henry's face and sat down on the stool, lighting a cigarette. The skin on the man’s face seemed to sag and his hair had a few streaks of grey. Henry wanted to ask how long it had been, but the words stuck in his throat. He couldn’t remember if the man had always looked like this or not. As the man took a drag, something new emanated from him. There had often been moments when Henry tasted the man’s doubt while they sat together in his cell. He tasted it in the air now—something bitter and stale and sour, like a conviction that had gone bad.

“Someday,” the man said to him. “I will have to end this.”

Henry curled his fingers around the bars and peered out at the man. He remembered the verse that came after the one the man liked to cite so often. “When the thousand years are ended,” he said, his voice weak from lack of use. “Satan will be released from his prison.”

The man stared at him in surprise, letting the ash of his cigarette grow long. “Revelation,” he said. “Chapter twenty.”

Henry inclined his head in a slight nod as he listened to the sound of the universe howling in the distance. He spoke in a halting voice, but one which had conviction.

“I know how it will end.”

@scxrsgxrd​ @skrsgardspam​ @loomiz​ @sunshineandskarsgards​

(Also thank you @girlinthecorner​ for taking an early peek at this for me. I appreciate it.)

[i-see-you-have-good-taste]

V.I.P (2017)

Am I the only person who first watched Lee Jong-suk as Kim Kwang-il before any other roles?

Was this is a smart move? For me yes, yes it was. I don’t think I would have been as impressed if i had watched one of his K-dramas first. You know what they say, judge an actor by how well he portrays a psychopath.

Synopsis: The son of a high ranking North Korean official is suspected of committing serial murders around the world and is chased by South Korea, North Korea and Interpol.

Ok let’s dive in.

Why I decided to watch it ->

I stumbled across this movie while going through stuff related to the 2019 kdrama ‘Strangers from hell’. I was intrigued by the political aspect of the movie since North Korea rarely comes up in dramas. I wanted to see if they would glorify South Korea and squeeze in their own agenda in the movie or whether they would keep it unbiased and give us a compelling story. Also I was up for some action and gore in my target language ;)

What I liked and noticed during the movie ->

Nope, they did not try to show South Korea in a better light. They stuck to their plot and kept the corruption evenly spread.

The movie was broken up into parts much like a story, with a prologue and epilogue. That gave it a more fictional feel and I liked the touch.

The challenge of a movie like this is driving the plot forward and to avoid veering off into predictable scenarios. The reason being, it is plainly revealed that Kim kwang-il is in fact responsible for the killings. No longer can the audience be kept guessng as to whether he truly is the suspect. One plot device has now been thrown far out the window. 

What was compelling was to see the struggle of the police officers in trying to catch this seemingly untouchable lunatic. They have evidence, they debunked his alibis, everything points to his being guilty, all that’s left is to put him behind bars. 

Now here is where the unique storyline comes into play. Korean Intelligence is working to protect him. They will stop at nothing to make sure he is not taken into custody by the police. This is where the politics of it all becomes a bit fuzzy to me. I feel I couldn’t keep up at the start with whatever poltical and financial pull his father had in North Korea. 

Nevertheless, the case is closed, they pin it all on one of Kwang-il’s lackeys and tell a most disgruntled Chae Edo to give it a rest.

Fortunately for Chae Edo (and the audience), a North Korean officer shows up, who was a victim of Kwang-il, ready to take him back to Korea where his father no longer holds power and they  are free to behead him. How nice.

Getting Kwang-il itself is a task, they have to find new, more incriminating evidence, which they do but now Interpol butts in and decides to take psycho boy to America. Again, I wasn’t sure how that added up, something about him knowing his father’s account information and they want in on the sweet dough.

Now with a heavy heart and a completely pissed demeanor Chae Edo hands him over, only to be shot by him. This scene was actually quite unexpected and in hindsight probably worked well as part of Kwang-il’s character.

Interpol rushes off with him, shit goes down when angry North Korean officer rams into their car and leaves with ‘the boy of murderous tendancies’.

We are now happy. We know psycho boy is gonna get what he deserves and Chae Edo is gonna recover. Imagine my surprise when they say that his father is back and even more powerful than before. Turns out North korean officer man had too big a vendetta to keep himself updated. But the reveal was done super well. Came out of nowhere because they got the timing right. You are fooled into thinking they are wrapping it up and then bam psycho boy kills off North Korean officer with the same innocent smile that irked Chae Edo.

Come back to the present, which was shown to us at the start of the movie. Roll through a very nice, trigger-happy scene starring a fully recovered Edo. He now has Kwang-il cornered. And another big surprise, he kills him! Quite brutally and basically tells Interpol to go fuck themselves because Kwang-il never really had any account info anyway.

A further analysis:

Ok so obviously Lee Jong-suk was very good. He had the poise of an entitled boy full of intent to kill. To him murder with a bit of torture is a lovely way to pass the time. What I did not expect was how graphic the scenes would be. Most of the Korean dramas are too worried about aesthetic to portray any gore. However the exception was ‘Strangers from hell’ and now among movies it’s ‘V.I.P’

I think what would have driven home the unfairness of it all was if Kwang-il got away with it. To emphasize the fact that so many people with power get away with all kinds of shit. However I’m glad they didn’t end with a classic, catching him red handed or putting him behind bars. This was a more scarier ending. He himself was one of his own victims, dying in the similar kind of pain he would inflict on his victims.

It was a goodwatch, especially for those who like action and gore. An excellent korean movie in terms of production and acting.

[killiansprincss]

Never Forget You ch. 15

Season 6A Canon Divergence.

Emma is happy. Finally happy with her parents, son and boyfriend. But this happiness is taken away from her when the Evil Queen curses her and turns her into a toddler.

Heartbroken and angry, Killian and Henry run away to Neverland to wait for Emma to break her curse. But when she does break it and comes looking for them 25 years later, she soon realises this Neverland is very different now it is no longer under Pans rule.

Will she be able to save Henry and Killian in time, or will this new ruler of Neverland keep them hostage forever?

Chapter 15 of my Neverland fic is here, I hope you enjoy it! Leave a comment if you liked it, they mean the world every comment I get :) AO3 Link

Previous chapters 

Verena was worried about Cecelia. This was a dangerous plan to begin with, even before Hook and Henry’s family came for them. She’s proven that she will do anything to make sure the two of them stay on the Island. The Echo Caves were a dangerous torture device, once used to drive the darkest secrets out of fairies, so they could be exiled or executed. And she feared this was exactly what she planned to do.

Verena was worried, no, scared for what her sister was doing. She was afraid for her life, if she stayed by her side she could end up dead, if she betrayed her she would equally end up dead. She needed a way to help Henry’s family while making Cecelia think she was helping her.

_____

She watches the family as Cecelia does. Cecelia thinks Verena is watching them in the same way she is, searching for a weakness in them. She’s a smart fairy, but also very passionate about what she wants so could be willing to let a few pieces of information slip from her mind.

“Anything new?” Cecelia asks one morning.

Verena shakes her head, “Not at the moment. They’re mainly talking about their lives, what’s been happening in their land over the past 25 years. But I’ll keep watching, there may be something in here we can use.”

And then it hits her. She’s watching the boys grandparents talk about their journey, they had been through a lot during the Enchanted Forest with corrupt Kings and Queens. But there was one part of their story that stuck out.

A sleeping curse.

Verena knew of her sister's plans for the pirate and the boy. And if she could give their family time, time to defeat Cecelia, she would keep the pirate safe under a sleeping curse, that way Cecelia would not be able to touch him. Her sister would be defeated, and then Emma, if she loves him as she says she does, she will wake him up.

Verena doesn’t tell her sister of her plan, afraid she will do it herself with some sort of twist. No,she does this independently, and will show her sister the outcome.

____

Despite never being the biggest fan of Hook to begin with, he was his daughter's true love. And he had shown countless times how far he was willing to save her, and Emma for him. They all went to hell, the Underworld to save him. So it shocked him when Emma told them he was sleeping with the fairy. There was no way he would do that, he knew how much he loved his daughter.

“I think I need to have a little chat with our Pirate. Find out his intentions.” He tells his family. He wanted to speak to him alone, find out the truth about him.

Emma doesn't even bother to stop him. She’s still angry, hurt and upset with Hook. Nobody stops him.

/\/\/\/\

If there was one thing Killian Jones associated with Neverland, aside from Pan and the fairies, it was Rum.

Rum in some senses had been his only companion during his years in Neverland. When he had handed Bae over to Pan many years ago, he greatly regretted this decision every day and it haunted him. So he turned to Rum, and he drank it every day to make him forget what the horrible consequences of that decision was. He couldn’t run away from his problems, he was in Neverland and needed the eternal youth it provided him with, so Rum could help ease his mind and put those worries to the back of his mind.

He doesn’t sleep. He made that mistake enough times to know it’s a bad idea. In his first days of Neverland before he met Emma he would see Liam. And if he didn’t see Liam, he would see Milah.

“Killian. Killian.”

He kept hearing a voice, it sounded an awful lot like his brother. But he knew better than to think his brother came back to life.

Except he kept hearing it. He opened his eyes to see Liam Jones standing in front of him.

“Liam?”

“Little brother what are you doing?” His voice was hoarse and bitter.

“Liam? Is it really you?” He was shocked to see him just walking around like it was nothing.

“Of course it’s me you bloody bastard! What are you doing with your life, little brother? This isn’t what we planned.” He was angry with him, that was sure.

“I’m sorry. Liam. You died. I messed up. I can’t trust the Navy, they killed you. I had to avenge your death.” It was true what Liam was saying, this wasn’t Killians plan-they planned for Liam to captain the Jewel of the Realm for a few years with Killian as Lieutenant until Killian would Captain his own ship one day. They would sail under the Kings Realm as the Jones Brothers, 2 of the finest Captains their kingdom had seen.

“Pirate, Killian? Really? Pirates were our worst enemy, and is that Rum? After all your talk of Good Form? The moment I’m gone, you become a drunk pirate?” This wasn’t Liam, or at least the Liam he knew once.

“You’re not Liam are you? What are you? Demon reveal yourself?” He could tell it wasn’t him by the way he spoke about his choices. Yes it wasn’t their original plan, but he wouldn’t judge his decisions so harshly considering what happened. And he would never call him a drunk. Never.

The demon was revealed to be a shadow. The shadow demons would take the form of another to try and trick you, or reveal dark desires. He learnt that the hard way when Pan when he revealed a dark secret about Milah.

“We wouldn’t want poor Bae finding out his mother’s darkest secret now do we?” Pan taunted him, he was unsure whether it was 50 years into his time in Neverland or 200.

At the time he had no idea how he found out. “Captain you can’t be so foolish as to speak to every shadow demon you see. O matter how many times it appears as Bae’s mother.”

When he realises it was just a bloody demon and not actually Milah's ghost or spirit, he goes back to his ship and drinks as much rum as it takes until he passes out.

Passing out from too much rum had become a regular occurrence for Killian, and slowly turned into a habit. The only way he could get through the days and nights which along with the time moving differently that had turned into a blur.

When Killian arrived back in Neverland with Henry, he told himself he wouldn’t use rum like that again. But that changed when he realised the shadow demons were Neverland speciality, not just Pan’s.

He sees Emma. He’d recognise her face anywhere, her blonde hair loose, green eyes shining as they always did, and her red jacket.

“You left me.” Emma grumbles.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry love. I didn’t know what to do.” He apologises and apologises to her, but she won’t hear his cries or his pleas, she just keeps repeating

“You. Left. Me”

It takes a while for him to understand that this was a demon. The demon looked so like Emma, and he so wanted to see her, to bring him home.

But that was a long time ago. 1,000 years could’ve passed, that’s how Neverland works. And the only thing that could help him see past the demons was Rum. And lots of it. Neverland had an unlimited magic supply of the stuff so it was an easy fix to his daily problems. Especially after what happened with Eli, he couldn’t bare to look at his brothers face without feeling an enormous sense of guilt, so he would drink and drink and wake up the next morning with no clue what happened. It was best this way, just drink the pain away.

He pushes Henry away too. And he hates himself for it. But the poor lad looks so like his mother, he’s only reminded of the blasted reason they’re here every time he looks at him. He came aboard the Jolly one day with his ever present smile and boyish grin, ever the positive lad. He tells him to get off his ship, raising his voice at him.

“I-I don’t understand.” The poor lad trembles.

“I want you off my ship. Don’t ever come back onto my ship without a direct invitation from me first.” Killian snaps at him. He cringes at the memory, but he was angry once again at the universe and he took it out on Henry who was a painful reminder of the woman he lost.

Emma would be ashamed if she knew how he had been treating him, he made a vow to protect him and he had broken it. He’d done worse than broke the vow to protect him, he banished him from the only familiar place on the damn Island.

He only sees Henry in the Lost Ones clearing each night. They don’t ever say more than a few words to another at first. But then as time goes on in Neverland, and Henry forgives him, well he doesn’t outright say he forgives him, but he asks how he is. Henry knew better than to ask about his mother, Henry was having his own awful dreams of her, he knew it would only be worse for Killian. They keep their distance but Henry knows Killian isn’t okay, he notices how he drinks and drinks, each night, sometimes he will sit down and say nothing the entire night except mumbles which Henry can’t make out. He drinks his flask of rum, some nights he even has 2 flasks.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

“Emma that you?” Killain asks as he hears a knock on the door to his hut.

“Sorry to disappoint.” Oh it was Dave, “She’s not coming.”  

“I didn’t sleep with Cecelia. I don’t know what she showed Emma, but I swear on my life that nothing has happened since I returned to this blasted Island.”

“I know.” David knew, he knew fairies, especially darker fairies were unpleasant creatures who created a web of lies and deceit to fulfil their desires.

“You do?”

The Prince nods at his once almost son in law. “You love Emma, I see it. I saw how it broke you when she was cursed. You ran away to Neverland, with Henry to protect him against seeing the person you both love not recognise you. The place that is filled with your own personal demons and nightmares. You came because you love Emma. I’d do the same for Snow.”

Killian breathes a sigh of relief, “you have no idea how much it means that you believe me. I just wished there was a way to show Emma.”

“You know what she’s like, stubborn as hell.” David laughs. “Give her some space. She’ll realise soon enough that the fairy is messing with her. Just stay on our side and we can figure out how to defeat -“

He is cut short as he senses movement outside Killians window.

“Verena!” Killain says as he and David grab their nearest weapon as the fairy poofs in front of them.

“I’m so sorry. I swear I’m on your side, my sister has much darker plans for you so this is something I have to do. If the woman you love truly feels the way you do, then she’ll wake you.”

One moment Killain is pointing his sword at the fairy dressed in red, and the next moment he suddenly feels sleepy and hits the ground as slumber.

“What the hell did you do to him?” David asks, sword pointing at the fairy.

The fairy clicks her fingers causing the Prince to fall to the ground,

“I’m afraid it’s for the best.” She whispers as she takes the Pirates body and disappears in a puff of red smoke.

[jate-kara]

Hi jate, From the prompt list- “ please stay” with Rex and ahsoka, the best sibling duo of Star Wars 🥺

suum ca'nara | on AO3

from this prompt list

suum ca'nara: the state of blissful rest and peace

In the wake of the war's end, Rex and Ahsoka find refuge on Mandalore.

--

“Hey, this is a pretty nice shop you’ve got, kid.”

He can’t hear the sigh, but he knows she gives one. Ahsoka’s underneath a speeder. Just the tips of her montrals are visible. “Do you have to say that every day?” she asks, muffled. There’s a loud thud. She swears viciously. “Just a second!”

Rex props his hip against the closest workbench, then folds his arms across his chest. Ahsoka struggles, inch by scrabbling inch, out from beneath her latest project.

“Why?” she asks, once she’s free. Her coveralls are coated in grease. She swipes her hands across them anyway. “Why do you say that every day?”

“Why don’t you get a rolling cart?” Rex asks. “It’d make getting under the speeder a lot easier.”

“I’ll get a cart when you get a girlfriend,” she grumbles, and rubs at her temple. It must be where she hit her head. Instinctively, Rex reaches out. She swats his hand away.

“It’s just a bruise,” she grouses, but there’s a teasing softness to it. Rex passes her a rag from the workbench to clean her hands. She takes it and scrubs absently at the grease spot on her arm.

“Speaking of girlfriends,” Rex says. “Where’s yours?”

“Kaeden isn’t my girlfriend,” she says, and slings the rag back at him. Rex ducks. Ahsoka scowls. He chuckles.

“Sure,” he says. “That’s why she’s in here every day, sometimes twice.”

“That’s not because of me,” Ahsoka says. “It’s because Miara likes to go through my scraps. She uses them for her…projects.”

“Call them what they are,” Rex says dryly. “Bombs.”

“They’re locks,” she corrects, but she doesn’t sound completely convinced. “The…explosive device…she puts on the lock is just a deterrent. For if anyone tries to break in, that is.”

Rex shakes his head. The refugees from the late-war Separatist attack on Raada have settled in just fine on Mandalore. Most of them have taken up residence on the outskirts, closer to the fields they till and sow. Satine has established a system to incorporate them into Mandalore’s agricultural community. The plot of land she gave to Rex and his brothers, and by extension Ahsoka, sits a few miles from the farmers’ homesteads. More often than not, these days, their sunset strolls take them closer and closer to the fields’ soft waves. Ahsoka claims it’s because she finds nature’s motion soothing. Rex knows better.

“What did you do at the Academy today?” Ahsoka asks, already moving around her shop: replacing tools, sealing windows, checking doors. Rex shrugs.

“Trained some kids,” he says, like he does every day. This is their routine. “Korkie’s got a lot of potential. He might be the best in the group if he’d shut up long enough to finish a sparring match.”

Ahsoka’s laugh is like sunlight. “He is, in every way, Master Obi-Wan’s son,” she says.

Interesting that she still calls Kenobi that, given that he’s been expelled from the Order. Rex doesn’t raise it. Skywalker keeps insisting Rex call him ‘Anakin’ and not ‘Skywalker’ or ‘General,’ and every time they talk he has to bite back the formal address. Old habits die hard.

“The kid needs to learn to shut up,” Rex repeats. “He almost lost a tooth today because he wanted to taunt more than he wanted to fight.”

“Maybe he was negotiating.”

“He’s going to negotiate himself into an early grave.”

“We’re not at war, Rex.”

“I’m going to put him there myself,” Rex says. Not for the first time, he’s glad Cody and the 212th were assigned Obi-Wan Kenobi, and that the 501st got Skywalker instead. “He’s a good kid, but he can be completely insufferable.”

Ahsoka’s eyes twinkle. She latches the final window. Rex follows her outside and stands, shifting from foot to foot, while she locks the door. The street behind him is quiet except for the pedestrian traffic. At this hour and in this sector, it’s sparse, but he still finds himself scanning. Watching. Waiting. Clearing zones.

A hand lands on his shoulder. He jumps. “Relax,” Ahsoka says, and flashes a smile at him. “It’s just me.”

“I know,” Rex says, and clears his throat. He jerks his head toward the street. “You ready to go?”

The speeder is a short walk from Ahsoka’s shop. Rex climbs into the pilot’s seat. Once they’re outside the central city limits, he guns it. Ahsoka gives a cry of delight and stands to lift her face to the wind. He’d tell her to sit back, to stay down, but he’s seen her launch herself out of gunships in the upper atmosphere, darting from one to the other as if she was dancing a song into the sky.

It’s good to see her safe and so alive.

Rex doesn’t slow down until they reach their home. It’s so small against the sunset burning on the horizon. Rex climbs across the speeder and lands on Ahsoka’s side. Before she can protest, he wraps his arms around her and swings her up and out, twirling her about until they’re both unsteady on their feet and he has to stop.

“Thanks,” she says, through a wide grin. “Now I’m dizzy.”

Rex presses an obnoxious kiss to her forehead. “Sorry, vod’ika,” he says, and doesn’t mean it.

“Hey, Rex!” Fives yells from the doorway. “Are you gonna torture Ahsoka for another hour, or are you gonna come inside and eat?”

Rex snorts and crosses the space between them. “An hour,” he says, and locks his arm across Fives’ chest to drag him into a playful headlock. Fives squawks. Rex ruffles his hair. “Really, Fi’ika.”

“One day,” Echo says from the kitchen down the hall, “you’re gonna have to stop calling him that.”

“Why?” Rex asks.

“Because I’m not a kid,” Fives grumbles. There’s no vitriol to it, just begrudging affection. Rex lets go and follows him to the kitchen. “Fi’ika’s what you started calling me after Rishi.”

“Exactly,” Rex says. “I can’t just let it go now.”

“But he was a shiny then. He’s kind of outgrown the name,” Hardcase says. He’s perched on a stool at the counter. Dogma’s beside him, intensely focused on weaving Tup’s curly hair into a braid. Fives taps Tup’s shoulder on his way by, then elbows Dogma.

“Hey,” Dogma hisses. “I had it that time.”

“The thing was falling apart,” Jesse refutes, unconcerned. “You definitely didn’t have it.”

“I was closer, though!”

Tup holds up a datapad and uses the dark screen like a mirror. “Better,” he agrees, and Dogma shakes his head and moves back in to try again.

“Not letting it go,” Rex repeats, after they’ve settled. Fives groans.

“It’s not the worst thing he could call you,” Ahsoka says. “He used to call me ‘littl‘un’.”

“You were really tiny when we first met you, to be fair,” Kix says.

Ahsoka rolls her eyes. “No,” she says, as if by denying the truth she can somehow dissuade them. “What’s for dinner, Fives?”

Fives launches into an unnecessarily long explanation of an otherwise easily describable meal. Ahsoka looks transfixed. Rex rolls his eyes and takes a seat at the counter beside her. Once he’s sure she’s well and truly distracted by Fives’ tirade, he wraps his arms around her and drags her into a crushing hug.

“I’ll let go when he finally shuts up,” Rex says. “Could be a while.”

Ahsoka laughs quietly. She does that so much more, lately. “By all means,” she says, “please stay.”

And he does.

--

[virryth]

Magician of the Empire | Jeonghan AU

The infamous grand magician has a soft spot for the queen’s knight.

1k+ | fluff, Magician Jeonghan x Knight female reader

tw// mentions of death

Author’s note: happy 25th birthday yoon jjongjjong ❤️

Read more SVT AUs | Masterlist

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

You’re never one for parties. 

The empire has won the war, at long last, and if the celebration had not been required, you would have forgo tonight for another training session with your knights.

But instead, your hair is pulled back into a half bun, soft waves falling on your shoulders as simple jewelry adorn your collarbones. Your dress feels stuffy and the corset hugs your waist a little too snug. But it’s the trend! Your fellow knight had said as she tightened the lace on the torture device, the grand magician will be pleased!

Except you are not here to please any man. The queen, a dear benefactor you adored and admired, had extended her invitation, and only for her will you be on your best behavior at the gala tonight. 

Truly, you would rather go back to the armored uniform of your ranks. This is really… not you. You make a mental note to utilize this painful corset method the next time any of your troops fall out of line.

“There you are, my lady.” 

You turn to the beaming face of the man you were hoping to avoid. Yoon Jeonghan. 

The grand magician gleams at you, piercing fiery eyes flutter beneath his silver locks of hair. He was adorn in a white robe with gold trims to match his eyes, and he looks as stunning as usual, though you’d never dare say it out-loud--the vocabulary he’s used to hearing from you is frivolous at best. He approaches you with a smile beautiful enough to capture the entirety of the empire and all of its inhabitants.

“I’ve been looking for you, my dear.”

“Do not jest me, magician.” You turn your back on the man and step towards the garden, “I have neither the time nor patient to entertain you today.”

You half expected him to follow, but you didn't hear footsteps until you were far away from the main ballroom. And suddenly, you’re floating, feet dangling in the air as your body glides across the daisy field, straight on to the bench in the middle of the extensive terrain. 

The magician loves playing trick on you despite how regal he may seem. He loves pulling pranks, cheating his way out of his duty, and popping in and out of the palace as he pleases that not even the king can put a stop to his mischievous behaviors. At first, it irritated you to no end how irresponsible and carefree he seems, running around in the queen’s garden with his little subordinates as if he owns the place. What kind of frivolous man dares to visit the queen quarter without permission?

Eventually, you’ve learned to just let it go per the queen’s request. 

“He doesn’t mean any harm, my dear.” She had said on one of those days where you could no longer hide your annoyance. “The grand magician is like a son to me. As someone who often has to deal with the darker side of humanity, sometimes he just wants to be a child.”

And a child he portrays. He had accompanied you to the war and had lived through many months of hardship with you. The blood of the enemy splattered on his face is far more than the amount on your hand as a knight. The cruelty of war has given you a new perspective on the grand magician, and you now know his true self is much deeper than the surface he paints.

“Please stay,” he whispers before you manage to stand, “just five minutes.”

“Two.” 

“Four.”

“Two minutes.”

“Fine,” the magician concedes, “three minutes is all I’ll ask.”

“Fine.”

He leans against your shoulder in earnest and takes your hand in his, imbuing magic into your soul, and you watch as the blue and gold sparks glow like fireflies dancing up your arms. You’ve gotten used to this feeling, the aching warm that soothes your injuries as magic flows into your heart, but it doesn’t make it any easier. 

“You should let me heal you more often, what will you do the moment I am away for more than a week?”

“I won’t die.”

His gentle laughter sends vibrations all over your arm as he joyously intertwined his fingers with yours. 

“My dear,” his voice is soft like the lullaby you dream of when you were younger, but the urgency and sincerity in his tone makes you tremble slightly. “Please never say that you will leave this world, even as a joke.” 

You owe your life to the magician who put the fragmented pieces of your soul together on the battlefield, and you’re grateful to him. But sometimes you don’t know if the feelings you have are just out of gratitude or genuine affections for him. You won’t die if he’s not with you, truth be told, there are plenty of capable magicians in the continent, yet he’s the only person you have ever allowed help. The magic sustains your life, but also depletes his, and one day this burden will be too much for you to shoulder. 

“If I die one day,” he starts.

“You will not.”

“Well, all humans die, don’t they? Someday you and I, too, will perish from this world.”

You don’t want to imagine a world without Yoon Jeonghan. Your routines would simply be overturned. No one to annoy you at breakfast, nor before the sun sets over the mountain as you gaze out your window. No one to pick you up despite your protest whenever you’re needed in the magic tower. A life without Yoon Jeonghan would simply be… boring, not that you hold any sort of romantic affections for him. And not that he easily lowers your guard just by staying next to you.

“When I die,” he starts again, squeezing your hands to stop you from cutting him off once more, “will you be by my side until I take my last breath?”

“I won’t let you die.”

“That is not what I asked--”

“I won’t let you die,” you repeat plainly. “I’ll kill you myself before you can leave me. And didn’t you just tell me not to joke about that?”

He laughs, the vibration from his body makes you blush and you hope it’s too dark in the garden for him to see. 

“How reassuring that I’ll be able to see your face when that moment comes.”

The autumn breeze gets a bit chilly in a dress, and you snuggle closer to him, pretending to have forgotten the three minutes that have long expired.

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

Read more SVT AUs | Masterlist 

[kayrogers]

accidental cinderella ][ t. holland

royalty au

Paring(s): prince!tom holland x reader ; platonic!harrison osterfield x reader

Inspo: cinderella cause a bitch LOVES fairy tale aus

Word Count: 2900+

Warning(s): cursing, lil bit of a cheese-fest, and haz being an absolute bean

Part: prologue | part 1 | part ??

A/N: first of all.. wow. thank you so much to everyone that read first part and actually wanted more, y’all are some saints. Second, I hope y’all are coping well in quarantine, stay healthy loves! also gifs above DO NOT belong to me, I found them on google.

Harrison indeed did manage to get your number and sent you the details for the Gala the next day. To say that it was scary how fast he got a hold of you was an understatement. What had you gotten yourself into?!

‘You weren’t being serious about the Forever 21 dress... were you?’ He texted back and you felt your face grow red.

You were poor. There was no question about it, even if your so-called family upstairs lived lavishly. But maybe this could get you out of it! No fancy dress? No gala. Maybe he had finally come to his senses and realized how insane it was that he even spoke to you. Let alone invited you to such an event.

‘Uh yeah. Is that going to be a problem?’ You sent back, biting your lip in anticipation.

‘Not at all. Meet me at this address tonight at 9 PM. Wear something comfy. ;)’ What?!

Okay, you weren’t sure what that meant and it made your stomach flip at the prospect.

‘Is this another thing that’d be offensive to say no to?’ There was the sound of a crash coming from the floor above you and you could hear your step-mother’s familiar screech.

‘Yes. See you there!’ You rolled your eyes, turning your phone off and slipping out of bed.

“[Y/n]! Get upstairs!” She yelled down the stairs to your flat and you groaned, slipping on a pair of slippers and heading up.

The sight upstairs was nothing short of a disaster. Pink powder covered the tiled kitchen floor and the small white Pomeranian your step-mother named ‘Angel’. It didn’t take long to hang around that dog to realize the name was an oxymoron.

“Clean this up immediately! I can’t believe I’ve spilled my Marc Jacobs blush... and I have the gala this weekend. You must get more today.” Your step-mother, Sheryl, harped the second you entered the room.

“And give the dog a wash, I need my baby clean.” You nodded, more tripping up on this gala she mentioned.

Grabbing a vacuum from the closet, you were quick to get to work picking up what you could of the loose powder.

“Gala this weekend?” You carefully questioned as you hung up the vacuum and grabbed a swiffer mop.

“The Holland’s. With your father’s connections I was able to get invitation for myself and the girls. The king is looking for all of the eligible ladies in the kingdom for his son... obviously within a more respectable tax bracket as only certain families are being invited.” She snipped and you felt a familiar grieving anger fill your chest.

Your father’s connections. You always knew Sheryl had it out for his money from the second he met her, but he loved her and you wanted him to be happy after your mother’s passing. But now? The blatant materialism and audacity. To not even consider bringing you, but quick to use your father’s memory when it was of use. It disgusted you to no end.

After mopping what you could, you grabbed the dog who immediately started yipping at you. Making the decision to bite your tongue, you left the room before you could say something you’d regret.

“Make sure you scrub this grout when you’re done!” You inwardly groaned at her screech.

The rest of your day went frustratingly similar to that interaction. You went through an exceedingly long to do list that you were forced to do daily, somehow these women managed to mess up every little micromanaged task you were given. You wouldn’t doubt your step sisters doing it on purpose, torturing you being one of their favorite pastimes.

After chores was work, this environment not much of a change. As cute as the café was, that Pinterest-wholesome exterior was a facade when considering the attitudes of other customers and co-workers alike. You’d swear off any coffee besides black if you didn’t have such a sweet tooth.

You were cleaning after your shift around 8, when you got another text from Harrison.

Harrison: ‘We still on for tonight?’

[Y/n]: ‘Yeah. Just locking up the café. 9 right?’

Harrison: ‘Most certainly! Make me a coffee on your way out?’ [$50 attached to message]

[Y/n]: ‘50?! I would have done it for free!’

Harrison: ‘I know ;)’

That was the first good thing to happen to you all day. And you didn’t even want to accept it. Maybe having a royal butt-buddy wouldn’t be so bad if he kept this up.

Cleaning was much less of a chore after that and you felt yourself actually grin when you stepped out into the cold night air. You put the address Harrison sent you into Uber and found yourself equal parts anxious and excited. The drive was short, but as you turned onto the block dread filled your heart. Fairy Ave. It was a place that not even your step-mother could visit more than once a year. Every store glistened brightly and held price tags you could never imagine. You could guess a singular dress would cost your tuition. In front of one boutique stood a familiar face in a suit even more dashing. And you sat in the backseat of an Uber with your work clothes still on. 

“A suit?” You questioned when you got out.

“I’ve just left work as well. Not easy babysitting a prince.” He jokes and you hand him his coffee.

“You sure he’d like you saying that?” Harrison scoffed at your remark and held open the door to a place called ‘Bibbity Boutique’.

“I’m sure I don’t give a damn.” He was cheeky, but you were too busy gawking at the insane dresses to notice.  From floor to ceiling there were pristine cocktail dresses to sparkling ball gowns. You did not even want to guess how much any piece called for.

“You’re not seriou-“

“I am. Can I get some assistance for this lovely lady here? She’s a friend of the crown.” Harrison boldly held out a silver and red brandished credit card to the first store attendant he saw.

She eyed you suspiciously, but still pulled out a tape measure. However you were too busy stumbling over his phrasing, ‘friend of the crown’ was never something you’d imagine hearing in your life. You were led through the store while Harrison and the worker were actually picking out dresses. Part of you was scared to touch one for fear of somehow breaking it and putting yourself into indefinite debt. But then you saw it.

The deep pine green caught your eye as if drawn there by a magnet. The dress in all honesty was simple, smooth satin flowing down the mannequin like water. The back was mostly open except for spaghetti straps tying the bottom together. It was perfect.

“Stop.” Your voice was abrupt, Harrison and the attendant give you a strange look with equal amounts of insane dresses filling their arms.

“The green one. That’s it.”

“Are you sure? These are the gowns being purchased for the gala.” The attendant insisted on the dresses in her arms, each one extravagant and sparkling.

“Let’s see it on then.” Harrison concluded with a smirk, and the attendant rolled her eyes but moved to help you get that dress down.

You audibly gasped when seeing yourself in the dress. The deep forest color reflected amazingly off of the lights of the dressing room as you stood on a raised platform in front of its many mirrors. It was almost iridescent as the satin slightly changed with every swish and twirl of the fabric. It hung off your figure perfectly, tightening at every point it was meant to.

“Harrison!” You called excitedly, nearly falling in the tester heels you were given when putting the garment on.

He walked in and a smile took up his face when taking in your form.

“Don’t you clean up nice. We’ll take it.” He stated and you watched as the attendant quickly began writing down an order.

“I feel like I’m in Pretty Woman. Except I’m not having sex with anyone. Oh god, I don’t have to have sex with you for this right?” You whispered to him jokingly and his cheeks burned bright.

“Ouch. But no, like I said, you are a friend of the crown now. Or a friend of mine at the very least, you make me laugh [Y/n]. And since this whole gala was strapped together, Tom hasn’t been doing much of that.” Harrison looked down and began typing on his phone while saying that.

“So you and Tom are mates then?” He looked up from the device with a chuckle.

“I wouldn’t be Royal Advisor if I wasn’t.” He winked and went back to typing.

“Pretty sure you’re not looking for a laugh when taking advice on the kingdom, but if the shoe fits-“

“-Oh shoe! Wait one moment!” Harrison interrupted and dashed out of the dressing room.

He came back with his hands behind his back, a large grin occupying the bottom half of his face. “You shall be wearing these to the gala,” He pulled a box out from behind his eyes and you narrowed your eyes.

It was opened to reveal the most gorgeous pair of heels you had ever seen in your life. The seemed to be made of glass, crystalline and sparkling under the dressing rooms lights. You were nearly scared to blink, for fear that they’d disappear when you opened your eyes again.

“Come on then, let’s try em’ on.” He encouraged and you quickly stepped out of the tester heels.

Harrison kneeled in front of you, slipping the shoes on carefully while you watched in one of the many mirrors. They fit like a glove. And that’s when the world seemed to hit you like a tidal wave, eyes filling with tears too quickly for you to process.

“Harrison I can’t- the dress- the shoes- it’s all to much.” You choked out with a gasp, tears spilling down your face.

His head whipped up, the man rising to meet your blurred gaze.

Seeing yourself in that dress like that killed you in a way you never knew something could. It was just too nice. No one had done anything like this for you since your father was alive, a simple act of kindness. You were just overwhelmed by your emotions, feeling undeserving of any of this.

“Have I done something wrong?” His eyebrows were pulled together in concern.

“No. The opposite. I- I don't deserve this, Harrison.” You managed to get out through your sobs and he laughed, pulling you into his arms.

“Don’t think I’ve ever made a girl cry over a shopping trip. [Y/n] just accept this as a gift, please. Besides I was not letting you come near that gala in anything but the finest I could offer you. The royal family would have my head.” He comforted you, rubbing your back til your tears dried.

When he pulled away, your face was still red, cheeks and nose tinted cherry from your outburst. You felt embarrassed, sheepishly avoiding his gaze and looking at yourself in the mirror. And even though you looked like a wreck, you could never be more beautiful when wearing that get-up. You even ran your fingers through your hair, shaking it out and actually imagining yourself at this gala.

“Excuse me- we’ll be taking the dress and the slippers!” Harrison yells out from the dressing room. “Now get out of that thing so I can buy it and get you home.”

He exits the dressing room with a wink and you release a breath you didn’t realize was being held in. You managed to slip out of the garment easily, the material sliding down your skin like water. The fact that it now belonged to you was jarring, and you held onto it tightly. 

Putting your work clothes back on was sobering, and you managed to finally accept your reality by the time you stepped outside the shop with Harrison, two bags occupying your hands.

“Shall I arrange for a hair and makeup appointment before the gala?” He asks and you fervently shake your head.

“No! No more spending your money on me, please, I don't know if I can take it.” You plead and his eyes roll with a grin occupying his face.

“Alright… no more money.” Harrison chuckles and the rest of the drive goes smoothly, the two of you getting on as if you’d known each other for years.

The boy was truly a breath of fresh air to you, yourself used to men like him being arrogant pricks who would barely pass you anything more than a predatory glance. But he was kind and treated you with respect, which was really all you could ask for in a friend. Not like you had many of those anyways. Work and school taking up all of your time to a point where any free time you had was spent between you and Netflix.

When you were dropped off at the apartment, you quietly snuck inside and into your flat. There was a small anxiety which creeped through you when thinking of your step-mother or step-sisters finding the dress. If Sheryl saw it, she would ask questions and somehow use you to weasel her way into whatever plot a sociopathic widow could make out of your new connection to the Royal Advisor. 

You made sure your door was locked before moving to your bed and lifting up a panel in the floor to reveal a space filled with your most important items. Most of them were trinkets and random pieces of jewelry, besides that your father’s old journal and a shoebox of cash you had managed to hide from your step-mother and keep for yourself from work. You slipped the shoebox and dress box carefully into the spot before placing the panel back on top of the hole. 

-

Harrison had a giddy smile on his face as he approached Tom’s room, strolling in with a champagne bottle and two glasses. Though this jovial attitude is soon disrupted when seeing the Prince’s face. 

Tom was already nursing a glass of wine, solemnly staring out his window with his phone left open on his coffee table.

“She’s got a new phone.” He grimly states and that’s all Harrison has to hear.

“Annabelle?! Why won’t you report this? It’s harassment. Prince harassment. And that’s just treason, let’s arrest her.” He rapidly gets out, rolling his eyes at the dramatics of the situation.

Of course Annabelle Valentina Roselyn Kensington had to swing back into Tom’s life right when Harrison was helping him move on and get his shit together. And who was this girl? Prince Holland’s insanely jealous and conniving ex-girlfriend who Harrison knew would never let her claws unlatch from the Royal Family. 

“You know I can’t do that.” Tom said and finally looked away from the window.

The Prince could never report the girl, he knew of his status and how quickly most of the kingdom would attack her the second word got out. No matter how she tortured him during their two year long relationship, he still cared enough to not want her hurt. 

“What’s the bubbly for?” He asks and Harrison perks up.

“This is a celebration, my friend! Your genius advisor has concocted the perfect plot to get your father off your back and keep you from any unwanted advances at the gala… including Annabelle I presume.” Tom’s face twists in confusion.

“What are you on abo-”

“I’ve got you a girl-”

“Harrison.”

“Not another setup. Not even romantic. Her name is [Y/n]. She’s not phased by status or money, in fact she almost didn’t let me buy her a dress for the event. So here’s my plan, you find her at the gala - trust me, you’ll be able to pick her out - and you give her a proposition. Ask her to spend the night with you. You have a girl on your arm who you’re not required to further pursue, because once your father realizes she’s lowborn he’ll make sure that relationship never happens, and she’s quite funny actually so she won’t be a waste of your night.” Harrison gets out in one breath, face red and chest puffed as he unleashes his masterplan.

At least the part of it which Tom would have to know.

“So you’ve gotten me a fake date, that doesn’t even know she’s my fake date? And she’ll go along with it? Can I at least see a picture before you pawn me and this girl together? And that’s IF I let you. Big IF.” Harrison’s smile could be considered borderline psychotic, the man knowing that his best friend had already agreed and just didn’t want to let it on yet.

“Right, yeah. She’s actually quite pretty.” He pulled out his phone and brought up his camera roll to a picture he snuck of you in the dress.

You had a near invisible smile on your face, not noticing his phone in the reflection and just running a hand through your hair to get a different look in the mirror. Tom had to blink a few times, momentarily speechless. He tried not to let it show to Harrison, but there was clearly something about your image that struck him in a way he hadn’t expected.

“How’d you find this girl?” He scoffs, a twinge if heat touching his cheeks when Tom realizes that there’s a slight feeling of butterflies in his stomach.

The prince did not have that feeling for a long time, and he wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about that.

“Well- funny story actually. It all started when I knocked her over and spilled latte everywhere…”

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

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[pluckyredhead]

Hey kids, who wants some steaming hot meta about comics published 11-12 years ago? No one? Too bad, because I recently read Cry for Justice and Rise of Arsenal because I love Roy Harper that much, and I have OPINIONS.

Opinion #1: Those comics are bad and everyone who had anything to do with either one of them should feel bad.

(Opinion #1a: I don’t care if you liked Starman, Robinson’s as much to blame for this mess as anyone else. Editorial may have made him kill off Lian Harper but they didn’t make him write that shitty dialogue.)

Opinion #2: So at the end of Cry for Justice, Ollie kills Prometheus for maiming Roy and masterminding the destruction of Star City and thus causing Lian’s death. And everyone’s like Oh No You Have Killed and he goes to jail (but for some reason is allowed to just hang out in his costume in jail???). Which is already kind of a questionable consequence because a) Ollie has already killed, like, a LOT of people in the past and no one cared and b) pretty much every single person on the Justice League who is clutching their pearls over this has also killed (Clark, Diana, Dinah...) and none of this is a secret. Like, don’t kill people, but also don’t be huge hypocrites? Also, maybe address the fact that Ray Palmer spent the entire miniseries torturing people? No? Okay.

So when Roy finds out that Ollie has killed Prometheus and “stolen his revenge,” he decides that instead he’s going to kill the Electrocutioner, who actually set off the device that destroyed Star City, and who is currently in the same jail as Ollie. So the guards just sort of...let Ollie out of his cell to fight Roy instead of doing anything to stop Roy themselves??? Sounds about right.

But anyway, there’s a whole fight scene in which Ollie begs Roy not to kill, which in context is nonsense because why not? Ollie clearly thought it was fine to kill one of the two people responsible for Lian’s death, why not let Roy kill the other one? He provides zero argument for why Roy should stop, he just tells him not to do it.

But consider what killing means to Ollie. The first time he did it, by accident, he had a nervous breakdown. The second time, he got accustomed to it and killed pretty indiscriminately for years, until the accumulated weight of it caused another nervous breakdown. Killing has always been something that causes Ollie intense psychological trauma, but he also believes that sometimes it’s necessary.

At this particular point in canon, as far as I know, Roy has killed exactly once, in the Arsenal miniseries, in a flashback to his time with Checkmate. He was ordered to shoot a sniper, and he pretty much begged for a bow and arrow so he could take the sniper out without lethal force, and only took the kill shot when it was the only way to save a fellow agent. It’s definitely something that weighs on him but hasn’t been brought up again.

But I’d be willing to bet that Ollie doesn’t know about it, because it happened while they were estranged. Which means that scene in Rise of Arsenal could have been Ollie, who knows hows how much killing has traumatized him, trying desperately to stop his son from experiencing that same trauma. Like, how much more painful would that scene have been if Ollie was like “If you need him to die, let me do it for you?” How much more painful if that’s how Ollie finds out Roy has already killed? And it would have given Ollie a coherent motivation for trying to prevent the Electrocutioner’s death besides “Killing is wrong, except for the killing I did last month for exactly the same reasons you want to kill right now.”

Obviously literally none of the things that let to the setup of Rise of Arsenal were necessary and comics would be, lowball estimate here, ten trillion times better if Lian Harper was still around, but man. They could have at least given us some good character-based suffering instead of Roy being sweaty and impotent for four issues.

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

I mean these are probably the same person that complain about minor things on the internet and thinks that no moral grey characters should have redemption arcs, so I guess they want male characters to be as bitter as they are. 🤷‍♀️

I agree with you 100%. They say “emotional, vulnerable are so rare in fiction media” but then will use negative, sexist terms to describe a man whenever he’s in pain. I’m guessing the reason they emphasize the prefix “man” in the word “manpain” is because it involves a male character being hurt over a female character and they think she’s only being used as a plot device for his pain, but like, that’s still a crappy word to use??? and you’re still in a way attacking him for being vulnerable? Also, what’s wrong with a man being hurt for a woman he loves (romantically, platonically or family-wise)? Isn’t that what they want? To have the male characters care deeply about the female characters? These people confuse me on a daily basis because I don’t know what they actually want. They constantly contradict themselves with many of their arguments and don’t realize the hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance and contradiction that comes out of their own mouths, or in this case, their typing fingers. The argument about morally grey characters not deserving redemption and even villains themselves is such bullshit. Do they know the background of that character? do they know if the character has actually been manipulated? plenty of reasons for a redemption arc could be listed but that redemption arc has to be earned through the actions of the character themselves, whether it is through atonement or an act of good.

It gets long because I got carried away yet again. Read it if you desire. 

Take Darth Vader for example, for 6 years he was presented as this figure of pure, magnified evil. You didn’t know who was behind that mask, he was tall, scary, brutal and menacing. He spoke in a deep, commanding and quite robotic, monotone voice (@ you haters who shat on Hayden for mimicking James Earl Jones’s Vader enunciation and diction in many scenes) devoid of any emotion other than coldness and anger. He was hid behind an all black suit and was considered to be more machine than man. The audience gets to The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, Luke is now older and a solidified member of the Rebel Alliance but he still has a long way to go in regards to his handling of emotions, impulsive nature, recklessnes, wisdom and Jedi teaching. He disobeys Yoda and abandons his training because he saw a vision of his friends dying, although he is told the future in the visions is always uncertain and can’t come to fruition, he still refuses to listen to both Obi-Wan and Yoda and risks his own safety to save his friends. He fights Vader in a long, testing lightsaber duel, loses his hand and it’s revealed to him by Vader himself (who out of all of the figures in Luke’s life is the only who didn’t lie to him but whatever I’m not going there rn 😶) that he is his son, his flesh and blood. Now, how could Luke Skywalker, the main symbol of hope, the representation of light and goodness in the galaxy, the posterboy of Star Wars, the everyman of the saga, the most important character in all of Star Wars be related to a man as heartless, as cold and as evil as Vader? On top of Leia, another symbol of hope and strength in the saga, being revealed to be his daughter, we would have never thought of neither of these to be Vader’s children, but then we get to Return of the Jedi, a year has passed since the tumultous events of TESB and the uncertain, quite worrying future it left for our two protagonists Luke and Leia after having dealt with and lost a lot in that movie. Now Luke is wiser, more serene and collected that he was in the previous two movies and it really highlighted how much Luke had grown since. He’s put in a difficult position because he is told by his two mentors that he has to kill Vader because they both deemed Anakin to be gone forever and that there was nothing in the galaxy to bring him up, but what they didn’t understand is that Luke was his own son and even with all the evil Vader did, he just couldn’t bring himself to murder his own father in cold blood to save the galaxy. It really deconstructed the theme of revenge shown throughout cinema and how heroes are really just like us, yes they are exceptional, yes they have super powers but when it comes to emotions, when it comes to their desires, to their feelings, to even some of their problems, they are like us, that’s why we relate to so many of them. Luke refused to kill his father because he believed to be goodness somewhere deep inside of his already torn, blackened soul. Nobody could have thought that Vader would have ever done something good in his life, but he did, not even because he regretted what he put the galaxy through for 23 years, but because the love he had for his son was so deep it was enough to bring him back to the light. It took Palpatine electrocuting Luke to make Anakin really embrace the genuine love he had for his son, to make Anakin realize he still had goodness in him, to make him finally betray Palpatine after the years of abuse, gaslighting and manipulation he put him through. It sparked the light inside of him that was already flickering and take over him again. To some, it might have seem like a small, insignificant gesture because it didn’t make up for all the years of torture and destruction he brought to the galaxy, but his love for his son was strong enough to bring him back. I wouldn’t call it a redemption “arc” but it didn’t need to be that way because I think Vader saving his son, thus saving the galaxy from the reign of the Emperor that had finally come to its end was perfect the way it was written and I wouldn’t do anything to change it. I got carried away by my Star Wars so this got so unnecessarily long, but I think I made my point LOL But yeah, if a character earns a redemption arc then why should there be a problem even if they did some bad stuff? Humans are much more complex and layered than people think and characters in most cases reflect that about our nature.