#festering desire also speaks of a Mother

[aromanticasterisms]

ah. so elynas and durin really are siblings huh

[crazyyluvr]

hi!! can u do a leo valdez x fem!reader oneshot where Leo doesn't feel deserving of reader because reader is quite rich and known as a strong demigod? (similar to percy) hope you're having a good day, and thank u! (⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡

LEO APPRECIATION >:(

pairing: leo valdez x hades!reader

summary: Leo sometimes (always) wonders what he did to deserve you and whether he still deserved you.

genre: slight angst, comfort, fluff

wc: 1.7k

content: fem!reader, she/her, insecure leo, jealousy, no war au

note: i’m so sorry this took so long :(( nonetheless, i hope you enjoy

short oneshot under the cut :: not proofread

You, in every single aspect and form, were absolutely breathtaking.

You were beautiful, kind, and powerful. Being born a daughter of Hades, one of the Big Three Olympians, granted you an interesting allure that many girls and boys alike in Camp Half-Blood noticed.

Not only that, but you were from a wealthy mortal family, and after your mother passed away, all that money went to her only child, aka you.

If anyone thought of perfection, they thought of you.

Or, at least, that was how it was for Leo.

He almost couldn’t believe it when you said you felt the same for him when he finally worked up the courage to confess his feelings for you. How could you, enigmatic, formidable, and undoubtedly stunning you end up with someone like him?

He saw the gazes others threw at you, gazes that were all but innocent. He was well aware that many liked you as well, some guys much more attractive and powerful than him, and yet you never gave them another glance. Your eyes were only on him, even if he found that almost unbelievable.

With this insecurity also brew some sort of envy as your relationship progressed and your friendship strengthened even more.

He took more notice to you when you would train on camp grounds, alternating between your weapon and your shadow abilities. Combat for you seemed to be a breeze, and when you sparred with some challenger, you would barely break a sweat as you showed them their place.

You weren’t only desired by many. You were also feared. Feared because Hades’ powers were not exactly pleasing on the eye and because in your hands, it was unpredictable.

He knows that he shouldn’t be feeling that way, that it was selfish and stupid, but that didn’t stop the envy from festering.

He thought you wouldn’t notice. He thought he was doing a pretty good job of hiding it behind his boyish grins and his snarky comebacks.

But you noticed.

You always did.

You decided to speak up about it after he excused himself from one of your usual spars together. You liked fighting against him since his fire countered your shadows and made everything more challenging for you. Plus, you thought he looked very attractive when he was all focused.

He left without so much as a measly reason muttered under his breath before he dashed away, leaving you confused and worried over him.

"Leo!" You called, but he didn't look over his shoulder even once before he disappeared from the training grounds and out of your sight.

You sighed, putting your practice weapon back in its stand before closing your eyes, reaching out to the shadows and envisioning the one place Leo always retreated to whenever something bugged him.

Cabin Nine.

You stepped through the shadows and cursed when you found yourself emerging from under a table. You rubbed you head and crawled out of the shadows.

"What's on your mind now, Leo?" You muttered to yourself, spotting a chair against the wall of the workshop and propping yourself up on it, interlacing your fingers as you patiently waited for your lover to make an appearance.

The metal door to the cabin clicked and hummed as the person outside opened it. You knew it was Leo. Only children of Hephaestus could open the door, and the Hephaestus kids aside from your lover rarely visited the cabin nowadays.

When the door swung open, you didn't move from your spot, hidden by a big, unfinished engine. You kept your eyes on your lover, watching him grab a clean rag from the table and sling it over his left shoulder and swipe a couple tools and put them in the holders on his utility belt that he's rarely seen without nowadays.

He approached the big piece of machinery in the middle of the workshop, muttering under his breath. His face, normally grinning and carefree, was now troubled as he brought out a driver and fiddled with the machine.

He still wasn't aware of your presence, so you decided to make yourself known.

"Wanna tell me what's been up with you these past few days?"

Leo let out a curse in Spanish as he jumped and whirled around, his eyes wide with shock as he held his driver up like a weapon.

He sighed when he saw who it was. "Oh. Hi."

You raised an eyebrow. Not even a smile.

"Answer my question, please."

Leo looked at you for a moment before sighing again and turning back to his machine, but he didn't work on it anymore.

"I'm just... not feeling well."

"You're not sick, I would've noticed. What I did notice, though, was how you've been acting weird around me, and how you look at me when I train — like I'm a stale piece of bread or something. What's up with that?"

Your words seemed harsh, but your tone was soft and full of concern. You knew that he had some kind of unknown issue with you, and you can't bear him ignoring you. It stung a bit, especially since he obviously wasn't planning on telling you what his problem was.

Leo sighed. His hands that were now slick with grease grasped the cloth on his shoulder, wiping themselves clean before he ran them through his unruly curly hair. "I'm sorry, amor. It's just — I've been —"

He threw his head back in frustration when the words couldn't leave his mouth. You approached him and gently pulled his hands out of his hair to prevent them from harshly tugging at the strands. "Take your time Leo. It's okay."

Leo averted his eyes from you, but you took no offense to it. You knew how he struggled with eye contact most of the time. He took deep breaths before continuing. "You know how I had a problem with Jason before?"

"Yeah?" You said, frowning at the implication. You knew that Leo and Jason had a disagreement in one of their quests where Leo told the son of Jupiter that he was envious of him and his power and good looks and... goody two-shoe-ness. "Do you have a similar issue with me?"

"What?" Leo took his hands away from yours to fiddle with the buttons of his shirt. "No! No, it's not like that — okay, well maybe it is, but it isn't as bad as with Jason. And a lot of people like you, people who are better than me and who you probably deserve more, and I just... I don't know."

The corners of your lips were pulled downwards slightly. You weren't oblivious to your own power, or the high regard that most demigods — even some gods — held you in. As a child of Hades, having a good reputation among people was pretty rare, since most demigods steered clear from Hades-spawn, but you changed that.

You didn't know that Leo was insecure about that.

Leo noticed your distraught expression. "Hey, it's not your fault. It's just... I know it's stupid for me to feel that way, and I'm sorr —"

"Don't you dare take the blame for this," you interrupted him, your tone sharpening dangerously as you looked at him. "You don't have to apologize for that. The only thing that either of us should feel sorry about was the fact that we never sorted this out before."

"Yeah," Leo said, gaze trained to his dirtied boots.

You let out a breath from your nose, and grabbed Leo's shoulders to pull him toward you. You wrapped your arms around his neck, ignoring his dirty short and the light sheen of sweat on his brown skin.

"You downgrade yourself too much, Leo," you whispered in his ear, closing your eyes and smiling when you felt his arms slowly encircle your waist. "I may be strong, but that doesn't mean that you aren't. You made the ability to control fire less scary to the other campers, even when the last fire-wielder of Hephaestus caused a lot of chaos. You literally fixed a dragon, for gods' sake. The one that's been terrorizing the camp since the Beckendorf kid passed, the one that other Hephaestus kids tried and failed to tame, you did that."

You pulled away and put your palms on his cheeks so you could look at him, and this time, Leo met your eyes. "You are strong, and charismatic, and so, so beautiful. Don't forget that."

Leo smiled, but you could tell he didn't really believe your words.

"Look, not everyone's gonna like you, like how not everyone likes me — it's true!" You said when Leo scoffed a laugh. "Outside of camp, when I come across new monsters, gods, or demigods, the first thing they see is a child of the Underworld and immediately hate me."

"But a lot of people in camp like you," Leo said, a bit of bitterness in his tone. He hated how he sounded, but he saw that his words didn't deter you; they motivated you to continue.

"Yeah, sure, but that's because they know who I am," you replied. "The people who don't like you, the ones that think you're weak, those people don't know Leo Valdez like I do, because I know Leo Valdez is just as formidable as any demigod. And I only have eyes on him, no one else, because I can never love anyone else as much as I love him."

"I love you too," he grinned, and you were relieved to see that his smile held its usual warmth and brilliance. He leaned in and kissed your nose, making you laugh slightly.

"Thanks for cheering me up, amor. I really appreciate it," he said sincerely. "I know you said not to apologize, but I owe you one. I'm sorry for not telling you about this sooner and for ignoring and avoiding you."

You returned his smile. "You don't have to apologize, but you can give me a proper kiss to rectify your mistakes."

Leo laughed, for real this time, before giving you what you wanted, meeting your lips in a sweet kiss in the workshop in the middle of the woods, with only pieces of equipment and machinery bearing witness to the love you had for each other.

[james-vi-stan-blog]

Who is Charles l?

Charles I is the next Stuart king after James. He was the second son of James and most of his childhood was the unfavorite "spare" to his charismatic, popular older brother, Henry Frederick. Charles had delayed speaking and walking (same as James, funnily enough; much is made of James's favoring harsh surgeries to "correct" Charles's issues, but I've never seen this analyzed in light of James having disabilities as well), grew no taller than 5'4" in adulthood, was shy and had a stammer, and was generally never expected to amount to much. Then Henry Frederick went swimming in the Thames and caught typhoid and died. Henry was 18 at the time and Charles was 12.

In 1615 when George Villiers was beginning his rise, Charles was 15 and trying to grow into his role but struggling. Initially, Charles disliked George, but George carefully cultivated a friendship with Charles and they ended up fast friends. After the death of Queen Anna in 1619, James, Charles, and George (and his family) formed a weird queer family unit, with George as both a sort of stepfather and an adoptive brother to Charles (George was born just 2 years off from Henry Frederick). They became extremely close after going together in disguise to Spain to woo the Infanta (a phenomenally stupid plan). After James died, George remained the royal favorite of Charles I until George's assassination.

Charles was closer to his mother than his father and resented a lot of things about James. He was embarrassed by the casual, louche atmosphere around James's court, and especially after that trip to Spain, desired to cultivate a very different, majestic, virtuous, heteronormatively masculine image. His marriage started off rocky but he ended up a devoted family man and loving father. He was a huge art patron and commissioned a lot of amazing portraits by van Dyck. However, he was, like James, a divine right believer, and unlike James, pretty terrible at scheming.

Due to a variety of factors (financial problems, religious issues) Charles blundered into the British Civil Wars, which as you imagine historians have a lot of evaluations of; but the general consensus is that Charles's stubbornness led to him being put on trial by Parliament and then beheaded. Afterwards came the Commonwealth period, the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell, and then the Stuart Restoration in 1660 when Charles I's son Charles II was invited back to the throne.

George Villiers was a formative influence on Charles, and generally is evaluated to be a bad one. So Mary & George will doubtless heavily feature Charles, George's attempts to get in his favor so that his influence will continue past James's lifetime, and (we hope) foreshadow the issues with Charles that would fester into the crisis of the 1640s.

Obligatory Horrible Histories links, oh and also this short documentary if you prefer your history seriously slightly more serious

[glaciiermonarch]

❀ *◦ sen mitsuji. genderfluid. he/she/they. demiromantic homosexual. ⇝ hey, isn’t that takaharu mochizuki? i think that the thirty-five-year-old from adelaide, south australia, works as dj at the boom boom room, music producer & engineer, and drummer of vain rogues & the ghost orchestra; but outside of that people describe them as perpetual busyness to prevent the chance of an emotion occurring; a pristine but empty-feeling mansion with too many rooms; perfectly pouty lips pulling up in a smirk over a private joke; and a robin's egg blue drum kit with every possible bell and whistle on the market. i hear they are moody & distant, but they are also known to be cerebral & generous. consider giving them a visit at their home in winterwood estates and get to know why they’re called the ice queen.

➙ this character uses he/him, they/them, AND she/her pronouns freely! the writer will be using ALL of them, sometimes within the same paragraph, so please extend the same courtesy! ➙ taka is attracted to men and masc-presenting enbies and just calls themself gay!

full name: takaharu mochizuki ➙ this is in "western" order since taka grew up in english-speaking countries ➙ kanji: 望月 貴陽 (Mochizuki Takaharu)  望 (mochi) meaning "wish, desire" and 月 (tsuki) meaning "moon;” together meaning “full moon” 貴 (taka) meaning “precious” and 陽 (haru) meaning “sun”

nicknames: taka, taki, tako, haru, mochi-san, tsuki-san

dob: 17 august 1989

place of birth: adelaide, south australia, australia

languages: japanese (native); australian english (native); korean (advanced); german (advanced); arabic (advanced); hindi (strong); mandarin (strong); okinawan (some)

education: bachelor’s degree in philosophy and asian & middle eastern studies, duke university

strengths: educated; cerebral; generous; loyal; resolute; shrewd; creative; captivating; wise; patient

weaknesses: cold; moody; gloomy; judgmental; harsh; disconnected; distant; crass

hobbies: playing drums, guitar, piano, and clarinet; surfing; skateboarding; playing video games; smoking weed; napping; reading

likes: warm weather & beaches; fashion;

dislikes: messy people; uncreative people; children (friends' kids are an exception)

disabilities & health: major depression; chronic back and knee pain

even the silverest of spoons being in your mouth when you're born doesn't shield you from the unhappiness of life, but it does slap a bandage over a festering wound so you can ignore it a while longer. kenta mochizuki, a dermatologist originally from japan. beth mcnulty, general legal counsel for one of the biggest energy companies in all of australia. married a little later than either of their families would have liked, but in their defense, they were both busy being successful. and they barely slowed down long enough to have their only child, takaharu.

though of an ornery countenance since birth, taka was always still popular and favored because he was pretty and rich. clarinet lessons, piano lessons, drum lessons, surfing lessons, she was set up for success from the very beginning. her childhood memories are mostly accompanied by nannies and tutors, though her father, an earnest and excitable man, always made an effort to be present in his child's life, eager to see her succeed.

there was always a distance between taka and their mother, though; taka knows now that beth never wanted to be a parent. this attitude became clearly evident when she didn't show up to taka's tenth birthday dinner. it was soon revealed that she'd forgotten, and more of the truth came tumbling out: she shirked her parental duties for an affair. and this apparently had been going on for quite some time, seeing other men that weren't her heartbreakingly devoted husband.

a divorce ensued, and taka sided with his kind, loving father, who had also always made an effort to keep japanese culture alive in the home. when taka was barely into her teens, her father sat her down to tell her about a woman he'd met online, one he'd fallen in love with. the catch was that she lived in malibu. taka was given the choice to live with her mother or move to the united states with her father. she easily chose the latter.

lashonda rhimes, successful anesthesiologist to the stars, and kenta's second wife. she was a few years younger, though not egregiously so, but still childless. and she treated taka like her own child, which might have been externally brushed off by the surly teenager, but taka came to appreciate it. he was popular in his new home, with his accent and his money and his looks. being so intelligent, the transition to a new continent wasn't difficult at all, and he finished high school near the top of his class.

he didn't really have a plan for his life, and all his parents really wanted out of him was just for him to go to college. an acceptance to duke university was sweetened by some scholarships, and whatever those didn't cover was easily made up for by the wads of cash his family had. taka had started smoking weed not long after landing in the US, but she branched out into new drugs while in durham, north carolina, for college.

acid trips were unpleasant every time she tried dropping; and she didn't like injecting anything to leave marks behind on her pretty body. but she soon found a bad habit in cocaine. she would sniff a few lines, party for several hours, go home and do homework, go to class, and go to modeling shoots, and do it all over again. somehow, using sheer ambition probably, she finished college within 4 years, even with a double major and a couple semesters spent studying abroad.

bouncing around the US for a year or so; living with his aunt in japan for a couple years; and then landing in anchorage for the next adventure around 2016

these days, taka keep busy in any way she knows how: too long with her own thoughts can be dangerous and make her itch to return to her cocaine habit. but they've done a good job of staying clean. taka doesn't need to work for money—his mother sends him gobs of money to curry his favor, and his father and stepmother have nobody else to spoil—but he does work to stay busy, spinning tunes at the boom boom room; modeling for small indie publications and brands; and gaining some traction as a music producer.

with more money than one person should ever need, taka gives a lot of it away. there are a few charities she routinely makes generous donations to; but she also likes to take care of her friends. she'll buy her closest friends whatever they want, buy their groceries, offer to pay rent or even let them stay in her house, offer to pay their medical bills... seriously, what is one lonely person gonna do with all those digits in their bank account? besides, spending money is the only way she knows how to show love.

[stylishanachronism]

The Mural of St Atigenos

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, when Galawain had not yet discovered the only game he could not catch, Wael found themself quite at loose ends.

They had gone to help Magran with her workings, but she had dismissed them as too troublesome, and they had gone to help Abydon with his, but he had dismissed them as too flighty, and Berath had barred their doors to them in the most boring way possible, because it was Préïvèrno and the Pallid Knight was sharpening her sword, and Woedica had promised them a punishment but that was no fun either, and so they went to see what Hylea was up to.

Hylea was away, not a single feather left to mind her favorite temple, but her high priestess was working at a mural, hundreds of thousands of shining tiles scattered across the floor so she could fit them together into whatever design the goddess had inspired in her, and Wael saw the opportunity for a grand prank.

They watched as the priestess worked until they had an idea of what she was trying to depict, and then, when she had gone to rest for the day, took all the tiles she had already arranged and mixed them up into quite a different picture, and left them to dry in place.

The next morning, when the priestess arrived, she fell to her knees in horror and despair, for what Wael had painted was the very picture of a heresy even she could not have stomached, and it was to that that Hylea returned.

Now Hylea is know for many things, the beauty of her works, the brightness of her eyes, the many colors of her feathers, but also, to the priestess’s detriment, the swiftness of her vengeance, and upon seeing Wael’s work, she dashed the mural entire into shards, scattering them to the four corners of the world and breaking every piece yet unplaced for good measure, and smote her former favorite into ash in an instant, and for the slight hid her soul away where even Berath would not think to look, so that she would never find the wheel again. 

This was not at all what Wael had intended, but, they reasoned, it was not their fault that they did not know what secret doubts had festered in the priestess’s heart, and that Hylea did, and anyway it had been very funny, so they did not feel guilty for it either.

But neither they nor Hylea had counted on the priestess’s assistant.

The boy, called Atigenos, had loved his mentor as the mother he did not have and the guiding light to all he wished to be, and he had spent the night hidden amidst the tiles still waiting in their crates, and unbeknownst to Wael, had seen the whole thing, and he ran to his goddess crying even as his beloved mentor crumbled into nothing, flinging himself at her feet as the priestess’s remains blew away on the wind.

“Hylea! Most beautiful! Sky-Mother and Queen of Birds! Why would you punish your most faithful for the workings of the Obscured?”

And Hylea stopped, and turned back, her anger barely tempered.

“What do you speak of, boy-child? She was no faithful of mine if she could craft such a thing, and you neither, if she trained such malice into you.”

But Atigenos was as bold as he was afraid, and in any case he had nothing left to lose, he felt, so he told her everything whole cloth, from warp to weft, how the image had come to his mentor in a dream, and how she had been consumed by it, going without food or sleep until the materials she needed could be fetched, how she had worked endless endless hours to bring it into being and how, after he had begged her to rest, pleading that the work would suffer, she had finally agreed to set it aside for but a single night, and how he had stood guard and seen what Wael had done, but been helpless to stop it.

“And now she is gone, and you will never know what it was really meant to be.” he finished sadly, looking about at the shattered tiles and the bare wall, for he knew himself to be barely half trained and in any case it had not been his vision. 

Now Hylea may not be known for her mercy, but she is known for her desire to see a work finished, and while her heart was not moved, for it had been a very inflammatory thing Wael had made, her interest was piqued. 

“Since you are so sure that it would have pleased me, I will give you leave to recreate it before I return, if you can, and if you are correct I will release your mentor to the wheel, as no one and nothing can restore her to life. But if you are wrong I will do the same to you as I did to her, and you will never see Berath’s halls again.” And then she left, leaving Atigenos in the ruins of his own future.

Now Atigenos had had only a half glimpse of what his mentor had been intending, for she had burnt all her sketches once she had settled on the final design, but that was more than anyone else had seen, and he had helped her with the tiles as she built it, so he understood her aim, if not her target, and he had been her apprentice for many long years besides, and there was no one and nothing, not even the goddess herself, who knew her heart as well as he did, so he was not without hope, though the task he had been set was staggering, and so it was with a willing heart he set out to find the shards of Wael’s work.

First he went north, as far as the mountains and further still, where Abydon keeps the forge he will not use, and then west to the strange pastures of Berath’s halls, east past the place where Ondra’s fine eyed bride was buried and south to the very roots of the world, where none but Rymergand’s faithful have need to tread, and everywhere he went he found traces of his mentor, the people she had loved and the women she had been, before she had gone to Hylea’s service, and with every step he grieved her more, for as he learned the shapes that had made her into the woman who had made him, they shaped him too, until he knew not only what she had seen, to be so consumed by her mural, but what she had been, that Hylea had believed Wael’s trick to be the work of her own hands, and he found that his heart had become the mirror of hers, all unknowing, and that he would not have chosen otherwise, had he known what it was he was doing. And it was with that knowledge that he returned to Hylea’s favorite temple, weighed down by tiles and a grief as deep as Ondra’s at her widowing.

Now the gods do not count time as kith do, and so though he had been everywhere and anywhere in search of his mentor’s work, up and down and across and sideways and every other direction the living can conceive of, and been seven long years in the doing and more besides in the coming back, no longer a boy but a man grown, and the very equal of his mentor, though he would not have permitted the comparison, Hylea had not yet returned to judge his efforts, and he counted himself fortunate for the chance at earning her favor once again, that his mentor might not be trapped beyond the reach of Berath’s hospitality.

His heart was still willing, when he set about his work, though it had been tempered sorely by the truths he had learned, and when he had drawn out the final picture, the truth of it scared him so that he, like his mentor, burned all his sketches before he set out to bring it into being.

Now, Wael had not been idly following Atigenos about, all the time he had been traveling, for they had found that the boy’s trek was not very interesting after all, and so they had gone and found themselves other amusements in the meantime. But when they remembered the mischief they had wrought, they were delighted to find it was not quite yet over, and there was, at least, one final act to play, and so though they did not do to him what they had done to the high priestess, they did not leave him alone to his work either, and so the mural took much longer than it might have if he had been left to his own devices.

Despite Wael’s annoyances, and the time that had long since worn righteous anger into exhaustion with the gods, Atigenos would not be deterred, and closed his ears to Wael’s taunts and bargains, his heart to the doubts they might have whispered into it, and his eyes to anything that was not his work, and pressed on.

But grief left to fester is as dangerous as any wound, and as he reached the end of his trial, despite all his efforts to pretend the work was all that mattered, his heart cracked clean in two with the knowledge that even if he impressed the goddess, it would not bring his mentor back, and if he did not it would not free her soul from wherever Hylea had hidden it, and so it was Wael who took the final tile from his dead hands and placed it into the mural. 

And it was to this scene that Hylea returned.

She considered the situation, having caught Wael redhanded, for once, and the mural, which indeed was more striking than she might have permitted, from Atigenos or his mentor, but yet was not nearly such an insult as what Wael had wrought of it, and the boy who had died in its making, though his corpse was not interesting to her, and his soul hardly lingered, and made her decision.

“You were correct,” she told Atigenos, even as he fled to Berath’s mercies, “in that your predecessor’s work was a marvel, and to my liking, and so I will not punish you, but it was your work, and not hers, that pleased me, and so I will not stay her punishment, either.” and with that she dismissed him from her patronage and her thoughts, and turned to Wael, who had remained to see what she would say.

“It is not like you, to finish a thing that you disrupted. Tell me, what pleased you so, that you should do him this favor?”

And Wael only laughed, and went on their merry way, having satisfied themself with her answer, and had their fill of this amusement besides, leaving her with only:

“Even I can be moved to pity, on occasion, and he was so dead set on it.”

[ontheroadrp]

GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN, SISSY LYNN (nicole kidman fc)

life on the road can be tough, but we’re glad you and yours made it to taos!

i mean… so many lines in here i simply want tattooed in my brain! we’re actually convinced sissy could fix our lives. she’s so real already and we can’t wait to see her in action! suchhhh a treat to read! welcome welcome!

basics

[NICOLE KIDMAN, CISFEMALE, SHE/HER] ever heard about [SISSY LYNN]? Out here on the road, they have a reputation of being [ENIGMATIC & SPIRITUAL] but also [IRRATIONAL & STUBBORN], no wonder they’re called [THE HIGH PRIESTESS]. According to local legend, they’re [55] and when they pull up to camp not a soul can mistake the sound of [Kate Bush’s ‘STRANGE PHENOMENA’] following them. Some say they carry [A TAROT DECK, A LIGHTER WITH A BLEEDING HEART, A POTION BOTTLE AND A THIMBLE] and have been traveling with [THE COVEN]. [juno, 24, she/her, gmt+8]

biography

Elizabeth was born to clandestine parents whose goal in life was to raise a harmonious, docile, All-American nuclear family - Elizabeth was also born to eschew all her parents wishes, to spit in the wind and see spectres of what was meant to be. It was by no means a broken home, as some would like to believe; this would make Sissy’s perceived insanity make sense. But no, Sissy was not raised in a house devoid of comforts or love. It was however, not a home for her; she was regularly expelled from the dinner table for outlandish pronouncements, that the tea leaves told her not to go to school the next day - that Jesus was merely a shaman, and that the real and truly divine, was derived from the gods of old. She cut up her clothes to fashion outlandish and billowy, dreamy clothing; her mother wanted to stuff her into sweet dresses and make her sit with her legs shut in church. At said school, Sissy was an outcast; not that she deigned those around her, worthy of her superior company. Instances of bullying were met with freak accidents for her tormentors - after a girl lost every shred of hair in her body, her classmates learned to merely leave her alone. All scoffing was done in private - and Sissy couldn’t care less. They were merely sheep, cogs in machines - they wanted to get married, buy a house, go to tailgate games. They had no concept of the vastness of the world behind them, and the promise it held. And so at eighteen, with a note left beneath a jar of her very first witches brew, Sissy bid goodbye to her family - leaving any traces of Elizabeth behind. When prompted by the right person, Sissy will speak of her family with a bereaved air; they were not meant to be a unit, but they are her flesh and blood, and so the wound lingers, festering beneath layers of velvet and lace.

The wound festers, but it’s covered in something sweet now, like Sissy’s beloved plant ivy; the Coven has slowly become the planet of which she orbits, fostering a love within her chest she had long believed impossible for a woman as far out, as she. The Prom Queen was her first true companion; when she found them, a child strapped to her hip, an instant tenderness was born. Sissy has had no desire for children of her own, but they instantly stirred maternal desires - she knew without a doubt, as she offered them both herbal tea and whatever food was leftover, that they wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. Sissy sees a similar rejection in the young girl; even if her ejection from norm core was not by choice, the way that Sissy’s was. She sees how the girl pines for normalcy, and constantly seeks to placate her with examples of why their life is better, and will always be better, for the young child; that they are bound to nothing beyond their own desires, the vivacity of their dreams, the freedom of the roads, and whatever the heavens above unleash upon them. It wounds her when they are unhappy, when they occasionally observe her practices with disdain and annoyance; but then they dance under the moon, and Sissy sees all they may become. And here enters Lee - who cuts through her aversion to men, and presents a diamond in the ruff, one she is begging to polish. His conventional, All-American good lucks deterred her at first; but his spirit undercut everything, warm and caring, a tenderness she has so rarely seen. Lee, she muses so often, suffers from a melancholy that only afflicts those possible of caring to a degree, that will ruin them. She affords Lee distance when he requires it, but is also trying to invade his emotional space in her own ways - spells, clothes with her own prayers sewn into them, dried flowers to inspire joy, all thrust upon him with her trademark smile, and gentle hands. Sissy sees what grows between the pair; she’d like to think her vigil to Aphrodite, will be the one to thank when the time comes. But for now, all she fosters is devotion and light, for her beloved coven. 

Sissy’s magic, her creed, her religion, is a mixture of old and new - she believes in witches, greek oracles, snippets of any major religion, all tied together with her own brand of spirituality. Ask her what she believes and you’ll be treated to an hour long meditation on anything and everything; Sissy believes she can commune with cats, that the moon relegates her strength, that it is bad luck to drink black coffee on Thursday’s, and watching tv (unless its giallos) with infuse your brain with worms. Sissy knows you think of her as insane, and she pities you for this belief - you’re married to a reality she’s long abandoned, for something better. One may question whether she truly believes all she espouses - the answer would be, if there was ever a time she was full of shit, Sissy is so far removed that it really doesn’t matter anymore. Her magic affords her a confidence rivalled by few, which she uses to spout her opinions (even if entirely wrong or unfounded) on any and all topics - which is infuriating, maddening, and earns her both devotees and raging nemesis’s. She prays for the latter, and sticks a pin in a dandelion whenever she thinks of them; a move Sissy sweetly explains, will shorten their lifetime, just a little bit. It’s not murder you see; they’ll be reincarnated and hopefully come back as something that isn’t so fucking full of shit.

She decided to hone her apothecary skills when she was eight and came down with a terrible case of the flu, paired with a sore throat that no medicine could heal. On a moonlit night, hazy and feverish in her nightgown, Sissy wandered into her backyard - she claims the plants called to her, longing to be picked and brewed on her stove in the dead of night. This first concoction revived the ailing Sissy, and set her upon a healing path; everything she makes, even if christened with a ridiculous name that earns an eye roll, works. If Sissy had any sense for business and money, and didn’t harbour a burning hatred for ‘the man’, she’d have been a millionaire years ago. 

The annual rubber tramp meet up means more to Sissy than she’d like to admit - and no, it absolutely, she’ll swear on her favourite pack of tarot cards, has anything to do with ‘them’. She won’t even allot them anything beyond that - a hmph, them. She longs to be surrounded by those like her; those who exist on the fringe of society, for whatever reason that may be. Sissy sees the young, the old, the newly aimless, and feels fondness for the misfits gathered - plus, they flock to her like bees, buzzing for remedies. Sissy’s loved and lost many in her lifetime - the greatest heartbreak, being the loss of her family, whom she sees as a tragically failed relationship. Part of her longs for the drama, the clashes that follow; those who refuse to abide by society’s rules, are bound to mix with fireworks. Each person, imbued with their own brand of chaos. And yes, this includes them - the supertramp, not that Sissy cares, really. They’re grating, they complain about all the flowers she keeps around, and they don’t understand the magic of dancing naked in the rain; but they understand some things, like the best way to earn a smile in the midst of volatile fight, or how to make her come back, year after year, her stomach knotted at the thought she won’t drive them to madness, and affection, once again. But she always does - and she always knows, they’ll inspire the same maddening affections in her own heart. Not that she you know, cares - because she doesn’t? She doesn’t. 

stats

Athletics -3

Burglary -2

Contacts 3

Crafts (Sewing, mending, basket making, weaving, etc. etc.) 5

Deceive 2

Drive (like, actual driving ability) -5

Empathy 5

Fight 3

Investigate 2

Lore (Kinda like knowledge) 5

Navigation 3

Notice 2

Physique 3

Provoke 4

Rapport 5

Resourcefulness 4

Stealth -2

Will 5

i am a math flop so ignore the probably eschewed add up lMAO

extras

lil in progress pinterest :

https://www.pinterest.com/lizphairs/strange-phenomena/

[iilahalzili]

His eyes do well not to give away the fact he is partially blind, unable to see details lest it was within the deeper waters--how odd his sight decayed so much since he had been on the surface. . . or perhaps it is the fact he was in the Abyss for so long. The darkness had become his home, his comfort after being banished. What mostly catches the deep sea being's attention is the feeling of the scales--soft compared to his own--not much defense when it came to the razor-sharp teeth lining his own mouth. He always wonders if other merfolk can regrow their limbs. . . The two tentacles start increasing their grip, coiling and squeezing--not enough to cut off circulation, but enough to keep the other in place. This one will not be going anywhere unless he decides so. "Hmmn~ if you had a shred of desire to keep yourself in one piece, you should cease~" Marik purrs, leaning in close enough that his face is mere centimeters away from pressing against the other's, "They will find out, the entire species is paranoid since the last time~ And I doubt they will be so kind to just banish you like they did the last one--considering he was royalty. I'd say they'd just straight up kill you and feed you to the sharks." Spoken as if he himself is not the very one who was banished--who they feared to kill due to his legacy. To do so, even if he had done such atrocious things, would cause more problems. It would have been better if they did kill him, instead of letting him fester in his anger and darkness. He smirks further at the mention of the part about the marrow. Not an incorrect statement, considering how many different pitiful creatures from humans to other merfolk he has torn apart and devoured. It would be a lie to say there is not a shred of curiosity why this surface dweller speaks of violence towards humans, and that his own father spoke of such things. No surface dwelling merfolk would dare dabble in such things as eating a human. "But~ why should I go around warning you?~" The words are purred, "Here I am not only playing with my food but also giving it life advice~ Tsk tsk my mother would be so disappointed."

He'd always been a bit of a thrillseeker. It was obvious that the other before him was dangerous; all deep sea dwellers had that sort of reputation. He'd know; he'd heard the stories from both sides. Ryo didn't need this guy's help in dabbling with dark arts; he did that with his own free time. Away from prying eyes, yet never deep enough down to avoid the fear of someone swimming in on it. A slight, devious smile started working its way across his lips as he felt a tentacle wrap around his fins. Was that a threat, or could the other not tell from his silhouette alone? He hadn't expected to swim so close to danger before, but he was living for every moment of it. 

"Perhaps not, but surely you'd prefer something more succulent than I?" A strange term to use; one he'd never say around his peers. That alone would've landed him in hot water. At first he wasn't sure if this would turn out to be fun; but this is the most entertainment he's had in weeks. Maybe he should've been more open to company down here if this is the game he gets to play.

The younger merman didn't flinch or move an inch when the other yanked an arm free from the body he was holding. He was done with it anyway; the other could do whatever he wanted with it as far as he was concerned. That, however, didn't quite last long when the tentacle started moving. Must be trying to take in his features, no doubt. There was a strong temptation to reach down and guide it, but that alone might get a hand bitten off. Ryo wasn't complaining; it wasn't an unusual sensation to him. 

He had vivid memories of his father doing the same thing. 

"You mean poor little me?" He asked, almost mockingly, when the question Ryo had anticipated finally came up. It was strange. Unusual. Completely out of character for a sunlight dweller to pick a human apart like that. He finally turned his head to face his newfound companion once more, razor sharp teeth visible with a smile. "I know it's dangerous. I kept having thoughts about it every time I saw one. I don't know; there's something about them that drives me wild." He hadn't quite grasped that the term he was looking for was that it 'stirred bloodlust in him'. "My father used to tell me all the time that marrow was the sweetest parts of them. Color me curious, I suppose." It was one of the better memories he had of back then. It sparked a morbid curiosity that just never seemed to go away. "Besides, what the surface doesn't know can't hurt them."

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hello, so i want to ask you something. I have been in a 'friendship' with one of my friend. She have lots of problem like trust issue, abandon issue, father and mother issue, also feel related to yanderes and etc. There times I try to ask her to go to a pyschiatrist and a therapist but she reject it cause of her not wanting to talk to a stranger and tell them about her problem but ya.

Everytime she vent it always drains me inside like at the first time she vent I try helping her but she always denies ir but now its been months she been venting to me and everytime i see her chat I always get drained. Idk what to do tbh, like im glad she feel comfortable to me to open up her problem but it also makes me guilty that i feel drained cause of her venting to me. I give her advice, she reject it. She has said that she knows her way of thinking is bad but she also says she doesnt want to change her mindset. Tbh ya i try my best to listen to her but its damn hard to do. Both of us is still young and I tbh dont know what to do anymore.

Soo I want to ask what should I do, I'm glad she's comfortable to open up but i felt guilty that I'm mentally tired hearing her. Im also curious on have you experienced like this ? And also I like to apologize if this doesnt make sense. Thank you in advance ^^

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

Question for reflection: Do you genuinely believe that you are an equal member of a relationship? Are your needs, preferences, and wants just as important as the other person's? If you answer 'yes' to these questions, then your beliefs should inform your decisions, so where is the proof of your principles? What actions have you taken to assert your needs, preferences, and wants?

If you say "nothing" (so far) because you feared creating a conflict and/or hurting your friend, then it is a lie that you see and treat yourself as an equal member of the relationship. Her behavior is having a harmful effect on you and has been for awhile, but you kept putting yourself aside to satisfy her needs?

If you wait until you are close to "fed up" before doing anything, how do you think the communication will go, considering the pent up resentment/anger you then harbor? You are more likely to play a "blame game", which will make it very difficult for the both of you to discuss and negotiate calmly and maturely. This is why it is of the utmost importance that you learn to confront relationship problems as soon as possible. The longer you leave them, the more they fester. A lot of relationships break up for seemingly trivial reasons because those "trivial" things went unaddressed and became unnecessarily severe problems.

Healthy relationships need to have a sense of equal give-and-take. When your needs go unsatisfied, your preferences dishonored, and/or your desires dismissed, it is incumbent upon you to speak up and advocate for yourself, in order to right the imbalance. Ideally, this should be done through skillful communication, please consult the article about Communicating Through Conflict.

Two people are bound to run into some differences and disagreements at some point. A vital aspect of friendship is a willingness to readjust behavior as necessary to prevent harm and keep the relationship in a healthy space. If you meet someone who's stubbornly unwilling to examine the ways in which they hurt/harm you and refuse to change for the better, they are not your friend and not worth your continued investment of time, feeling, and energy.

It's neither your duty nor your job to be a therapist or a nanny for people. These caregiving tasks do NOT fall under the role of "friend". That said, an important part of friendship is lending each other help and support, but it has to be within reasonable and mutually agreed upon bounds. Psychological problems of the kind you list are serious matters that require specialized expertise to address. You do not have that professional expertise, and even if you did, you do not owe it to a friend to provide it, because there should be a healthy boundary between personal and professional life. Also, without the right expertise in psychology, your "help" has the potential to be harmful rather than helpful, because you don't know what you're doing.

Respect your needs and boundaries, which means you have to be aware of what is/isn't acceptable to you and where you will draw the line to protect your own well-being.

Communicate your needs and boundaries in a respectful, responsible, and matter-of-fact manner, as soon as the problem arises, before negative emotions get the better of you.

Make a reasonable request of people to fulfill your needs and honor your boundaries (out of care/love for you).

The rest is in their hands. You can't control how other people behave or react. All you can do is communicate to the best of your ability and hope that people meet you halfway for reaching a suitable compromise.

Listening to people's problems, empathizing with them, comforting them, helping them, etc, costs you mental energy and brings you emotional hardship. When you are required to control and manage your emotions for the sake of other people's well-being, it is called emotional labor. A friend isn't entitled to your emotional labor nor should they demand it from you; you should choose to give it willingly, out of love and care.

However, you are just one person, with limited energy and capacity to perform emotional labor. Thus, when you have reached your limit, it's up to you to inform people and stop them from violating your personal boundary. Simply convey that, while you value the friendship and are willing to offer what help you can, there is a limit as to how much emotional labor you can perform, and you hope they can care for your well-being in return by not pushing you past your limits.

[thetargaryenbride]

A break [Levi x Fem!Reader]

Requested by: @emmaandemmal  Hi, I love your works! Can I request one where Levi and his fem s/o have been a couple since before they were captured by the scouts in the underground? After the deaths of Isabel and Farlan, the reader tries to convince Levi to leave the scouts with her to go and live together in a safer place, but he refuses saying that he believes in Erwin's vision of the scouts and the two begin to fight badly. The reader eventually stays in the scouts because she doesn't want to leave without him, but the relationship between Levi and the reader is getting colder and more detached. The reader begins to think that Levi is no longer interested in her after noticing his growing friendship with Petra and she decides to leave the scouts thinking it's the best decision for her and for Levi. When Levi finds out, he tries to find her, but without success. Only a few years later, he catches a glimpse of her in the crowd after the scouts have returned from an expedition and he follows her. Once they arrive at the reader's house, she and Levi make up and the reader claims that she has been selfish in the past and that she would like to return to the scouts to fight against the titans and to claim the deaths of Isabel and Farlan. Eventually the reader and Levi resume their relationship and Levi promises her that nothing would separate them again. I'm really sorry that it's so long, if you consider this idea feel free to modify it as you wish. Sorry for my English too... it’s not very good. Thank you so much, you're one of the best Levi writers I know! ❤️

I’m sorry for the delay, dear. I was struggling with a mini writer’s block and was focusing more on art but I’m slowly getting back on track! Thank you so much for the request and thank you for your kind words. This really means a lot to me! As far as modifying goes, the only thing I modified is the timeskip. Instead of a few years, I made it one year. I hope you don’t mind ^^

Words: 4.5K

Warnings: Very Brief mention of suicide, prostitution and self-harm

Hope you like it  ❤️ Feedback is deeply appreciated! ^^

Also, if Levi seems OOC, please feel free to correct me~ I accept constructive criticism ^^  

* . °•★|•°∵ ∵°•|☆•° . *

You were arguing.

You never argued.

But the situation that had befallen you made you feel all sort of ways and neither of you knew how to express those emotions, that stress, which is why it had slowly turned into a fight.

“You shouldn’t have agreed! We have no idea how the world above works! We’re going to fuck up, Levi,” you raised your voice, hands clenching into fists by your sides, levels of anger rising at Levi’s indifference at the situation. You knew that it was only a façade and that deep down Levi wasn’t indifferent. You knew he was probably worried just as much as you were. But right now you were so scared and you wanted him to just show some more emotion, fight back, shower you with words of reassurance, hug you…anything…not just stand with crossed arms, staring at you.

“So what, I should’ve let the bushy eyebrowed bastard send us in prison?” he raised an eyebrow as if challenging you to give him a good reason for your big distaste of joining the Survey Corpse. He couldn’t understand why you had exploded like that when he had agreed. It was the perfect opportunity for the fulfillment of your mission…Not that you had been very accepting of the mission either. Your paranoia and distrust always clawed at you, many a time ripping any semblance of reason and logic. But he couldn’t’ exactly blame you. He was similar in a way. He supposed that this is what living in the Underground did to you.

Living?

No. More like struggling, digging in the mud, to survive.

And the two of you had been doing this since you were kids.  

“I’d rather rot in a prison cell than a titan’s stomach. And since when do you trust nobles anyways? It’s mostly because of them that we all fester here in this dump,” you spat out and he pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a sigh.

“If you are so against this mission, why are you even joining?” he shot back and you choked on whatever words you had the intention of spilling.

You took a deep breath as you slumped next to him on the couch, body completely slacking in defeat as your anger simmered down a bit.

“Do you even have to ask me that?” you muttered as you stared at the ceiling, the hands in your lap fiddling with your fingers. “It’s because I would never turn my back on my family…on you,” you murmured as you straightened up and turned to face him. “Even if it’s the stupidest decision which would probably result in something shitty, I’ll still stick with you. You are all I have…I love you,” you timidly uttered the last words, casting your eyes downwards as a slight blush spread over your cheeks. The man sighed before his hands went to grab yours, successfully stopping your fiddling and wringing, squeezing them reassuringly.

“Look at me,” he ushered you gently yet firmly and you lifted your head, locking eyes with his. “We’ll be fine.”

You let out another sigh before you leaned, letting his arms encircle your form as he rested his chin on the top of your head.

“I pray that you’re right,” you whispered and just when you thought you could have a moment of peace, Farlan entered the room with a constipated expression. You couldn’t blame him. You were all beaten and battered by the soldiers and your ego was bruised, even though you let them capture you. And now they were all standing in your home or surrounding it while you packed the little of your belongings, breathing down your neck.

It was suffocating.  

“We’ve packed everything. It’s time to go.”

* . °•★|•°∵ ∵°•|☆•° . *

You wanted to blame him.

You wanted to tell him – “I told you so.”

But that wouldn’t bring back Farlan and Isabel.

It wouldn’t stitch back their ripped bodies.

They were gone and the only thing you could blame was this world.

Because it was so cruel.

And the only beauty you found in it was your love for Levi and his love for you.

He had no fault. Nobody knew that things would turn out like this. That fate would decide to cackle in your faces.

The two of you stuck together like glue more than ever after that day. You even went as far as to disregard rules as you would sneak into the men’s barracks just to sleep with him because he was the only one who managed to chase away the nightmares and wipe your tears. And you knew, even without him saying it directly, that you were the only one who could comfort him when he was feeling the burden of the world crushing his shoulders. And Farlan and Isabel’s deaths really did feel like the whole world just crumbled on top of you two. The only difference was that you were more prone to emotions and didn’t find such a difficulty at expressing them unlike Levi who preferred to bottle everything inside, feign indifference and coldness and find toxic coping mechanisms like not sleeping which as time passed shaped into the ugly form of his insomnia, despite all the scolding you’ve done.

Time passed. The first weeks after Isabel and Farlan’s deaths, you had been inseparable. But that slowly began to change after the date of the next expedition was announced. Your paranoia spiked up one night after you had tried suppressing it for days and that resulted in a breakdown.

You wanted out.

You wanted to leave the Scouts.

You had even gone as far as to talk to Erwin and the Commander, literally begging them to help you with the citizenship matters and let you and Levi leave. But of course, they refused and Erwin even went to speak to Levi about this, not knowing that the man had no idea about your plans and wishes.

Levi was angry that you did something like that behind his back. He understood your fear. He understood very well because he was afraid too. He was afraid that he was going to lose you too – the only person he had left. But he didn’t appreciate that you hadn’t been straightforward with him regarding such a serious matter, only revealing everything you have done and felt at the heat of the moment.

“I’ve been dreaming about this since I was a little girl, hiding in the wardrobe, listening how man after man would use my mother every night. Dreaming about a life, safely tucked in the corner of the world, surrounded by beautiful nature, peace and quiet, alongside my beloved person... Is it so bad that I want this for us?” you had asked with trembling voice and Levi’s expression had softened, a sign that he had forgiven you for everything and that he didn’t want to argue anymore.

“As much as I want that too, we can’t have it when the titans are roaming everywhere, threatening to wipe out Humanity. If we don’t destroy them now, we are only delaying our doom,” he muttered as his hand went to softly caress your cheek, making you sigh as you leaned into his touch. “But that man, Erwin Smith, sees something that I don’t. He has a plan to save humanity and… he sees victory… That’s why I want to stay in the Survey Corps and fight,” he admitted and at that moment, you found yourself captured by that determination burning in his eyes.

His desire to fight for a better future.

Not only for the sake of you two, but for the sake of thousands of people.

And while you weren’t completely sure yet that you were ready to sacrifice your happiness and life for a bunch of people you didn’t know or care about, you knew that you were ready to sacrifice anything and everything for him.

And that’s why you stayed.

And he knew that. He knew you better than you knew yourself. But he chose not to call you out for this. Because he understood how you felt. He didn’t belittle you. He didn’t call you selfish or insensitive or a bad person just because you didn’t want to care about anyone else but him. What does selfish, insensitive or bad even mean? They are just vague concepts that are different from every person’s point of view.

And as more time passed, after every expedition, he could see why you wanted to leave. He could see why you didn’t want to fight. Every expedition, every death, left an impact on you, stealing bit by bit from your sunny personality and shaping you into a depressed, miserable person.

Even if you claimed that you didn’t care about strangers dying, deep, deep down, he knew you did. It was just the person you were, trying to convince yourself that you didn’t care about anyone but him in order to protect yourself. But on a deeper level you still cared and you were still affected and he knew that you hated feeling like this – it brought only chaos, confusion and misery to your mind and soul as you desperately tried to live up to your own expectations and build walls around yourself only for every brick to be broken as a comrade would send you a smile or compliment you or help you out with something. And after every expedition, he would gain a better understanding as to why you wanted to be selfish and leave. Why you wanted – why you tried forcing yourself – to stop caring about anything and everyone and run away with him – the one and only person who – you tried to convince yourself – mattered.

And he didn’t know why he couldn’t follow you. On many occasions, he felt the same. But somehow, for some reason, he would always find a way back to Erwin – back to the goal they shared for humanity. He didn’t know where that sudden loyalty for the blonde had come from – the same blonde who more or less had been the reason as to why Farlan and Isabel had died. But it was exactly this loyal bond that had formed between them that prevented Levi from following you and he hated himself for it because he could see how this life of soldiers was destroying you from the inside out and there were moments when he would lay at night and dark thoughts would cross his mind – of your body hanging from somewhere or him finding you drowned or with sliced wrists or a bullet stuck in the head.

It wasn’t uncommon for soldiers to turn to self-harm as a coping mechanism and some even committed suicide.

The fight against the titans wasn’t something to be underestimated and it left an irreparable damage on everyone.

And he could see you were heading that way and he hated himself for not being able to put a stop to this and just grab your hand and run away from everything – as you wanted.

That’s why he decided to distance himself from you. He thought that maybe if he started ignoring you, if he was being cold and distant, it would put a rift in your relationship. It would make you think that he didn’t love you anymore. That you were a painful reminder of the past. And once your bond was severed, nothing would be holding you back. Nothing would stop you from leaving. Because he was the only thing, the only reason, as to why you were still sticking around. And then maybe you would finally be able to find the peace and quiet you had been seeking for ages.

His conversations with you became shorter. His answers – curt. His affection and acts of service decreased. It had brought you to tears, thinking that you had done something wrong and it tore him apart when he caught you crying one night. But it was for your own good so he had to grit his teeth and bear with it never mind how much it hurt that he was causing you this suffering.

Him being promoted to a Captain helped a lot. Now he didn’t need to find reasons or excuses to not spend time with you because he was genuinely so busy all the time. The stress was making him snappy too so he tried avoiding conversations altogether, not wanting to actually say something hurtful because then he would feel even more pain and regret and that would have his resolve crumble and he would go back to being loving and affectionate which was far, far from the goal he had.

Then Oluo and Petra had entered the picture – two members fresh into the Survey Corps, graduated from the same trainee squad with incredible talent and promising skills. He had taken them into his squad but he didn’t know that this would be the final straw to put such a rift in your relationship.  

It was true that Petra was a bit clingy. Her infatuation, devotion and loyalty to him were obvious. But he thought it was a childish, fleeting crush which is why he didn’t find it necessary to confront her about it. He thought it would disappear over time, especially with how both she and Oluo seemed like an old married couple more and more with each passing day. He didn’t want to push away the members of his own squad. He wanted to embrace them. To embrace their friendship. On a subconscious level, he was trying to fill the gaps left behind from the people he lost. The gaps oozing loneliness and pain. The gaps you couldn’t fill because he wasn’t allowing you to in his haste to push you away.

And when one day he went to have lunch with Erwin, as the two needed to discuss important matters in his office, he wasn’t expecting the blonde to deliver such mortifying news to him.

“Look, Levi…I’m sorry to say this but… Y/N left the Survey Corps,” told him the Commander with a sombre tone and Levi felt his entire world shift.

Suddenly, regret flooded him, chilling him to the very last atom.

Erwin saw each and every emotion flashing in his eyes. And even if he wanted to remind his friend of the words he had told him years ago, he couldn’t.

Because there were things in this life that were impossible not to regret.

Like losing a loved one because of your or their own demons.

It was one thing to lose a loved one to death. And completely another to lose them because of your decision.

Levi didn’t utter a word, pressing his lips in a thin line as he swiftly stood up and turned on his heel, leaving the office with ebony bangs covering his eyes, shielding him from his friend’s look of pity and compassion.

He needed to think.

He needed time.

* . °•★|•°∵ ∵°•|☆•° . *

You don’t realize how much someone or something means to you until you lose them.

No, that’s not exactly it.

Levi cherished you a lot. Levi loved you a lot. You meant the world to him. That’s why he wanted you to leave. He wanted you to find peace. He wanted you to live a good life away from that misery and bloodshed.

Even if it killed him on the inside.

Because if you truly love someone, you would let them go if it was for the sake of their happiness.

But now that he’s finally gone and done it. Now that he not only pushed you away as a lover but pushed you away from his life altogether, he felt lost.

He felt lost and miserable.

As if life was drained from any sound and colour, leaving him to float in some abyss, soaking in his own negative feelings.

The sorrow, the pain, the dread, the loneliness.

If he had to list them all, he would waste all of Erwin’s expensive parchment.

And as he laid there in his bed, after thinking and reflecting on everything for hours on end, staring at the ceiling with an empty bottle of alcohol shattered into pieces against the opposite wall – alcohol that barely got him tipsy – he realized that maybe he wanted to be selfish too. That, combined with the regrets of pushing you away, burned at his soul, melting any doubts he had, like a blacksmith melting steel, and solidified his resolve to find you and bring you back, like a new sword being forged.

So next day after he had gotten all his emotions, thoughts and feelings in check and after he had taken a decision, he approached Erwin and asked for your location.

He was unpleased when his friend told him that he had no idea where you went off to. Part of Levi wanted to be angry and yell at him. Accuse him of lying. But he was so tired after the emotional and mental battle he had wielded that he just gave up on his anger and frustration and decided that instead of letting such negative emotions rule over him, he would brush them aside instead and pave way for that same scorching determination he had for the Survey Corpse’s cause, now combining it with the determination of finding you.

And he didn’t stop.

Once he started, he didn’t stop.

He would visit every town, every village, whenever he was free from his duty.

He never stopped looking for you.

It took him roughly a year to scout most of Wall Rose’s lands.

But it was during one fateful evening, after the Scouts were returning from an expedition, when he spotted you.

The sun had just set, allowing the sky to be painted in purples and blues with shimmering stars being sprinkled onto the canvas. The street lanterns shone brightly and the comforting light spewing from them had illuminated a very familiar form.

A form that Levi knew like the lines of his own palm.

He hadn’t wasted time to jump from his black mare and chase after you. He didn’t want to approach and confront you right away so he just settled for walking at a slow pace behind you, trying his best to not be noticed or come off as some creep.

He seriously couldn’t believe his luck.

Knowing your thought pattern, he believed that you had run away somewhere far. Back in the days when you lived in the Underground, whenever you had arguments – which was very rare – you would always run away from home and hide somewhere far, knowing that it would be hard for him to find you and nearly giving him heart attacks because of it. But this time you had decided to hide right under his nose – near Trost district which was not far away from the SC HQ.

He counted himself outsmarted and he didn’t know whether to be annoyed by this or proud of you.    

You looked radiant even in the dusk. The cream dress you were wearing made you look like a vision, glowing in the dark. It reached a bit past your knees, revealing some of your calves while the upper part left your collarbones in the open. He longed to run his fingers over your skin. Through your hair. To touch you. To feel you. To hold you. To tell you what an idiot he was. How he wanted you back in his life because he couldn’t exist without you by his side.

To apologize.

“Are you going to keep following me or are you going to help me carry the basket?” your voice interrupted his train of thought and he cursed lightly under his breath. You chuckled and stopped in your tracks, turning around ever so slightly, eyes finally landing on the person you were so anxious to see again but didn’t have the courage to approach.

He wordlessly took the basket from your hands and began walking next to you.

All the way to your house you stayed silent.

He didn’t even comment when you exited the District and neared the woods, only lifting an eyebrow.

Your shoes and his boots clinked against the cobblestone pathway, the little door of the wooded fence creaking under your touch as you pushed it. His eyes scanned the yard, taking notice of the freely roaming chicken, a few lambs, one cow and one horse – your horse from the Survey Corps. He could vaguely make out a garden peeking from behind the house so he supposed you also had a backyard where you were growing your food. He almost flinched when a huge dog – almost as big as you and him – came running in your direction, demanding head pats which you gladly gave.

Levi was impatient. He wanted to enter the damn house already and talk. But at the same time, a part of him was happy about the delay. He almost gulped nervously at the thought of the following confrontation.

Almost.

At last, you unlocked the front door and the two took off your shoes, putting on slippers, and moved into the house. You took the basket from his hands and placed it on the kitchen counter before you grabbed a rag to wipe the table and beckoned the man to sit down. He stood there awkwardly for a moment, taking a step towards the chair before halting, looking at you rigidly, and resuming his journey until he was finally sat. You clenched and unclenched the rag before you threw it away and sat across him, fingers now playing with the soft fabric of your dress. You looked at the ground and he looked at your feet, noticing your toes curling and uncurling from nerves even through the slippers.  

“I-“

“Levi-“

You both said at the same time and you chuckled lightly at the cliché situation.

“You first,” uttered the man and you gulped, sending him a wobbly smile.

“I want to apologize-“ you took a short pause and an intake of air when you saw his eyes widening as his features twisted in a dumbstruck expression as if he was unable to process why you were apologizing. “-for leaving so suddenly without uttering a word. It was…childish,” you quieted down and he closed his eyes, sighing deeply. “You were walking further and further away from me, getting extra busy with being a Captain and…and then Petra came into the picture,” you muttered but were fast to wave your hands in defence, “Not that I ever doubted your loyalty! My trust in you would never waver but…I just thought that maybe we both needed a break. We needed to breathe and clear our heads and start thinking properly. That’s why I decided to leave and give us some space. I never truly intended on leaving the Survey Corps or abandoning you…You mean so much to me…but I’m still sorry that I-“

“Stop,” he rose to his feet and you quickly followed, anticipation and fear at his next possible words, building up inside of you, making you feel like burning. “You don’t have to apologize. You did nothing wrong.”

That calmed you down a bit, the fear leaving your mind, but instead, worry settled as you looked at the way he lowered his head and bit his lip.

“I acted wrongly…I was foolish by thinking that pushing you away would bring you the freedom and happiness you sought,” he muttered and your face softened. “I just,” he sighed as his trembling hand went through his hair in an attempt to ground himself. “I just saw how impacted you would get after every expedition…how you started losing that glow of yours, your bubbly and sunny persona…I saw how hard you were trying to force yourself to stop caring, to be selfish and leave, but you still couldn’t because…because you’re not like that… damnit,” he grit out as he tugged on a few strands before letting his hand fall and rest against his hip limply.

He kicked himself inwardly. He was never good at expressing himself. The moment he had seen you in the crowd, the moment he had set a goal to talk to you and sort everything out, he had been reciting in his head and thinking what exactly he was going to tell you and how he was going to explain himself and the reasoning behind his actions.

“I just-“

“-wanted me to be happy…So you thought that by being a dick and pushing me away, you would make me leave so I can find my peace and quiet somewhere far, far away,” you finished for him, deciding to help him out which caused him to halt in his speech and just stare at you, waiting for your next words, the terror of you rejecting him or telling him that you didn’t feel the same anymore felt like a nettle rope around his neck, getting tighter and tighter with each second, suffocating and scathing him. “Listen, while you might have been partially right, you were also wrong. Because even if I do find happiness away from all the bloodshed, it just wouldn’t be the same without you, silly,” you shook your head as you sent him a sad smile. “I’d rather endure all the pain and suffering in the world than be separated from you,” you finally took the courage to close the space between you as you laid your head on his chest, arms slowly sliding around his torso. He didn’t hesitate to return the hug, sharply bringing you closer, if that was possible, and squeezing you so hard you didn’t know whether to groan from pain or chuckle at seeing him express himself so openly and in such a sweet, boyish manner. It kind of brought back memories from the days you lived in the Underground and how he would hug you exactly like that when you would do something stupid that would put you at risk, albeit a bit more awkwardly since back when you were teenagers you both had no idea how to express your love for each other.

“Deep down I knew you were onto something. Because why would you start acting like that so suddenly? It just wasn’t in your style. But at the same time I felt…” he tightened his embrace even more and buried his face in your hair, inhaling your scent and letting it comfort his tortured mind. He had missed you so unbearably much.

“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry,” he whispered and you sighed as you ran your hands over his back in a soothing manner.

“I forgive you, Levi…I understand that you did it for my own good. But believe me when I say that I can’t find true freedom or happiness without you by my side,” you placed a kiss on his shoulder before pulling away to look him in the eyes. “Don’t ever leave. Don’t ever try to make me leave. Let’s just stick together through thick and thin as we’ve done since we were kids, ok?” you asked and he nodded, leaning hesitantly. You met his lips halfway and you kissed gently which slowly turned into a passionate, hungry, heated and desperate make out as you tried to feel one another after a whole year of being apart. When you finally broke it off, needing air, you rested your forehead against his and let yourself soak in his presence. He did the same. You just stayed like that, foreheads touching, arms around one another as you swayed ever so slightly.

“Want to help me pack?”

[naivesilver]

And, finally, a free pass for any character + any ask game that you so desire! 💕💗💕 Have fun~

Last, but not least- something to make our dear Jojo happy too 💝(or mad. Honestly, both options are available dahajlfhsljahdf)

Comforting Sentence Starters

"I understand that what you’re going through must be painful."

To say that Archie is surprised to open the door to his office and find Eliana standing there would be an euphemism.

The girl hasn't willingly sought him out in- well, in a long while, all things considered. Since the wardrobe, like as not. She hasn't taken the events leading up to the curse very well, and understandably so, if Archie were to be honest with himself. It's an unexpected turn of events, that she would change her mind so abruptly.

Eliana must catch on his line of thought almost immediately, though, for her neutral expression turns into a scowl before his very eyes, and she starts rummaging through her bag, finally fishing out a thin hard-cover book. "August left this at my house," she says, flatly, all but slamming it in the doctor's hands. "He says he borrowed it from you. Don't worry, I know he's done it on purpose. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again."

Well, Archie thinks, repressing a sigh. There are two people who are getting along just as fine as they've ever done, at least. "It's...It's alright, Eliana. Thank you. Did you want to come in?"

"Depends. Is Pongo there?"

"Unless he has left on his own in the last two minutes, I dare say yes."

She nods brusquely and steps inside, brushing past him in her beeline for Archie's dog. Archie himself, for his part, watches her go as a something clenches at his chest and squeezes, threatening to cut his breath off entirely.

Pongo, bless him, doesn't seem to be aware of the tension that has flooded the room all of a sudden, and wags his tail fiercely as he raises from his cushion, padding closer to nose at Eliana's face and neck. She breaks into a soft smile, a rare enough occurrence for her, and that's perhaps why Archie ends up closing the door behind himself, instead of leaving it open and waiting for her to leave, and attempts to speak up again, after a long stretch of silence. "How's your father?"

Eliana stops mid-fur stroke, but she doesn't look up just yet. "I wouldn't know. How's yours?"

It's a venomous jab, tailored to hurt and fester in his skin, but the doctor refuses to let it linger more than half a second before waving it away, and makes an effort to keep his voice mild. "I understand that what you went through must have been painful, Eliana, but I really think that you should talk to him. This situation isn't doing any good to either of you."

"I very much doubt it."

"He hasn't changed as much as you think, even with the curse-"

"That's not what I meant." This time she does look up, and her eyes flash dangerously as she does so, her words coming out through gritted teeth. "What I meant is, I very much doubt you understand. At all."

The problem, Archie has occasionally caught himself thinking despite his best intentions, is that while each line on August's face is a reminder of how much they've all failed him, it also makes it easier to forget who he is, from time to time. He looks so different from the boy he was that if Archie focuses hard enough, he can almost pretend it's just a common patient he's talking to, just a man from town like any other.

Eliana, though, is all Marco from top to foot, even where her features betray who her mother is. The way she speaks, the way she juts her chin out defiantly - Archie can see her father in every detail, and what's worse, he can see her during easier times, too, sixteen and dancing a mad jig with Ruby during a country fair, six and coming home in a daze after being led away by the Dark One. It's like he's still arguing with that little girl who used to trust him implicitly, or with another child, decades and decades earlier, sad and mourning and raging.

It makes it all the harder for him to begrudge her even a smidge of her anger, even when she's acting like this, radiating fury from every pore.

"You're right," he says, picking his words carefully. "I don't understand everything. And you're allowed to resent us for what happened- I will never deny it, you know that. "

"I don't need your fucking permission to be mad," Eliana spits out, raising to her feet with the deliberate slowness of predator ready to strike. "I don't need your fucking permission to do anything, Jiminy. You're not my conscience anymore- if you ever were, that is. Have never been your top priority, now, have I?"

"That's not fair and you know it, but- I'll take it. I'd rather take all that anger instead of watching you pour it on your father. He was only trying to do what he thought was best."

"Best for who?" She snorts, shaking her head. "And I've got plenty of anger for all of you, don't trouble yourself with that. For you, for him, for my mother- Any of you could have stopped this. Emma could have had at least one parent. My baby brother could have been here! Safe! With me!"

"I know." Archie can't negate her words, much as it pains him. How could he? She's right. She's always had the right of it. "I regret it as much as you do. More, even. I couldn't stop your father, but I hoped you would, until the last minute."

"Believe me, if I'd been there, I would have."

"Why? Where were you?"

"Where do you think?" Eliana lets out a sharp laugh, bitter and resentful even from afar. "I was the closest thing they had to a damn midwife. Without me, our dear Savior would have been pulled out by dwarves alone. Can you imagine? They've never seen a gap that's not bearded."

"I...I didn't know." He's not lying. Not that he was before, but - this is genuine news to him, in a way her recriminations or her exaggerated crassness, made to offend and infuriate, could never be.

"It's not like they're going around advertising that. I made sure that Snow White wouldn't be having a breech birth, and now that cunt looks down at me like I'm a bad influence on her daughter, and goes asking for Rumpelstiltskin's help. Rumpelstiltskin! There's a laugh."

"I don't think that-"

"Meanwhile, I haven't heard a single apology from my father in thirty years, my mother is now a religious leader, my brother's in shambles, and you're saying you were expecting me to fix everything? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Eliana-"

"But of course, that's what's expected of me, right? Stay out of the story, Lia, help with the birth, Lia, hold back and sweep the floors while your Papa's out on a suicide mission, and don't even think about complaining, gods be good, because you're not the one that matters here-"

"Eliana, enough." Finally, Archie manages to wedge himself in her monologue, and grabs her tentatively by the shoulders, steadying her. "You're right. You and August have been wronged so many times I don't know where to begin fixing it. But you're only hurting yourself now. Breathe."

He half expects her to pull away, but to her great surprise, she doesn't. She merely looks up at him, hair wild and dishevelled, her chest heaving raggedly - he always forgets how small she seems, now that she can't swat him away with a single hand any longer, and rage has brought colour to her cheeks, making her appear oh-so-young, younger even than the age printed on her paperwork here in Storybrooke, which has never been accurate and likely never will be.

It strikes Archie that while August might have tricked her into coming to the office today, she could have left at any time, with his approval or not. She was never one to let herself be stopped by a mere locked door, Eliana. The doctor remembers more than one night spent pacing and fuming after she'd climbed out her bedroom window, torn between warning Geppetto and ensuring she didn't run into any trouble - coercing her into staying wouldn't have gone anywhere, then as well as now. There must be a part of her that needed these words to tumble out of her mouth, that wanted him to listen to them, no matter how small or how deeply hidden inside Eliana.

It's not nearly as comforting as one would be led to think, that realization. He thinks that if he could, he'd willingly trade this moment for any of those terrible days from her teenage years, when her rage would make the milk curdle all around the village and Archie would despair of her ever getting better.

"I needed you," she says simply, hollowly. Her voice has evened out now, calm and controlled, but he can tell it's a thin veneer, a lid being pressed onto a boiling pot. "August needed you both, but I did, too. I thought you could make Father see sense, and then the curse broke and we were right where we started. We thought you were dead, Jiminy. I had to stand at the back of the crowd and watch him give you an eulogy and my brother was still missing and it wasn't fair. You hear me? It wasn't. For any of us."

"I know. I'm sorry. I know apologizing will never be enough, but I am sorry, Eliana. Even for the things I couldn't control."

"I don't want apologies." To his great surprise, the shadow of a grin flashes on her face, fleeting but there all the same. "I want the Dark One's head on a spike, and my mother to piss off the face of Earth, and to smack August on the head for this stupid little game he played. Can you speed up any of those, Dr. Hopper?"

An entirely different brand of tiredness falls onto Archie's shoulders, a familiar one, sure, but heavy nonetheless. If there's one thing Eliana has in common with her brother, it's the fact that they have always had a knack for giving him white hair, even before he had any hair to speak of. "You know I can't approve of your plans. As a therapist, and as your friend."

"Yes, well, it would be better if you were actually my friend." Eliana releases a long, tremulous exhale, closing her eyes for a moment before glancing up at him again, as though steadying herself. "Tragically, you're family. It'd be easier to be angry at you and Father, if you weren't."

"What about your mother and brother?"

This time the smile lingers a bit longer on her lips, something approaching her customary fire in it. "That woman's no family of mine. She should have bitten the bullet and kept me around, if she'd wanted to be. They say wet nurses love fairy babies, but I think Nova would have done well, and she'd have been happy. And August..." She hesitates, pressing her lips together, then clears her throat, shaking her head stiffly. "I don't care what he's done in this world. That's for Emma to forgive, and she did. He's not to blame for any of the bad things that happened to us since he was born."

She fixes that burning purple gaze of hers on him, her fingers fidgeting with the strap of her bag. "Can you say the same for yourself, Jiminy? Or for my father?"

For all his experience, Archie has no answer for that question. Eliana must know it as well as him, because after a long moment she nods to herself, then ducks her head and leaves, leaving the door ajar and Pongo whining with his tail tucked between his legs, calling after his playmate.

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

you+me+the Devil, m | myg, jjk | summon

pairing(s): yoongi x reader x jungkook

summary: The Devil and his right-hand demon are forcibly yanked from Hell to encounter a power they've never seen before, a power that everyone thought was only a rumor. In chains and unable to break free, they are asked to give up part of their souls. And they do. For science. But, mostly, to fuck.

warnings: rated M (18+) for language - if you're religious, maybe skip this one; world building; short graphic descriptions of sexual acts; supernatural and horror (and it gets way creepier during the smut, you have been warned); non-idol!AU - Hell!AU; Devil!Yoongi x chaos!reader x Devil's right-hand demon!Jungkook and switches between their POVs; they don't have your best interests at heart and neither do you.

--

you and me and the Devil makes 3 prologue | the summoning | the collection | 666

-

there’s not a word for what i wanna do to you

One second, the Devil, also known as Min Yoongi, was frowning as he gazed up at his right-hand demon Jeon Jungkook, pondering the whereabouts of the missing soul-shards. The next second, the volcanic ground below him exploded, multiple giant red-black rings adorned with symbols and images creating a circle, expanding a larger and larger surface area, crackles of red lighting and tendrils of black smoke shooting everywhere. It consumed everything, bleeding into every nook and cranny of the throne room, saturating the air with summoning intent. It was happening far too quickly for the Devil to stop, the ground splitting and black chains shooting out, surrounded by a deadly ice-silver signature of the kind of magic you don’t bring home to your mother.

“Fuck–!”

That was Jungkook.

“Ah.”

That was the Devil.

The black chains snapped around their bodies and bound them in an instant. Jungkook snarled and fought with all of his power, black wings flaring out that were instantly crushed and shredded by the enchantment, his curved black horns protruding from his head and being forced back by the power. In contrast, the Devil merely sat there. Yoongi knew he couldn’t stop it, not this kind of magic, if it could even be called that, so he didn’t try. He let the chains wrap around him and shackle him. Instead, he furrowed his brow and tried to trace the source, tried to find the purpose. In order to defeat an enemy, you must be informed. Yoongi lived by this philosophy, which was why he was the Devil.

He could not trace it.

That was very disheartening.

But he didn’t need to worry earlier, because the red-black summoning circle was closing in, and he would find out very, very soon who it was. He had nothing to worry about.

Yoongi was the Devil, after all.

-

You inspected your nails.

Matte black, pointed. You had just done them. You liked to look nice for your guests.

“Hm, the Devil works hard, but I work harder,” you chuckled.

-

This was not what the Devil expected.

Yoongi expected a dark cave, a crowd of hooded figures, lots of candles. Maybe a Bible or a Koran. Devil worshippers, Satanists, cultists, or whatever they liked to call themselves. He fully expected to fight, to kill, to maim, and to fucking enjoy it, because he was the Devil and he served no one.

That was the whole fucking point of leaving Heaven in the first place.

He did not expect this.

You.

“Oh? A new development.”

Yoongi had seen many things in his time. He thought he could no longer be surprised.

He was wrong.

You stood over the two figures chained to the ground, peering curiously at them. A plain black dress with a flared skirt and a lace high collar. Long-sleeved with small ruffled cuffs at the end. No socks or shoes, just long, beautifully sinful legs and pretty feet. Pointed, matte black fingernails at the ends of lovely hands. A single nail was on one of your full dark lips, small amused smile dancing on that pouty mouth.

Your nail pressed into your flesh.

Yoongi wanted to shove his dick into that mocking smirk.

Sharp, distinctive eyes. Unforgettable. Yoongi would not forget the eyes of the fool who summoned him anyway, but your eyes… They were different. They held no malice. No innocence either. No, your eyes were the greatest mystery of all.

They were an enigma, revealing nothing to the one who could tell everything.

Yoongi did not like this. He did not like how him, an all-powerful being, one who could poison the minds of all other beings, was being confronted with a human who seemed very not human.

You were holding something on the crook of your arm. He narrowed his eyes. A black plush goat-man with horns and an upside-down red pentagram stitched on his head. It had little leather hooves for feet and hands. Black leathery wings as well. Another common misconception of the Devil. As if he wanted to be an ugly goat for all eternity. Hmph. But there was something about the way you held it that made Yoongi think it wasn’t an homage to him.

No, you held it close to your breast, next to your heart, squeezing the plush goat-man’s little arm lovingly.

It made him ache with longing.

They were in a bedroom, on the floor next to the bed. Black sheets, fluffy blankets with white stars all over them. Black walls with posters all over them, cute animated characters, haunting imagery, various musical artists, sinful and innocent, a vast plethora that told him nothing of true intent. Modern, sleek furniture. A high-end desktop with multiple monitors. A nice flat-screen television. Many soft plushies of adorable and strange characters, stacked on shelves and in corners, both popular and niche.

Who was this person?

With every passing second, Yoongi was liking this situation less and less.

Jungkook was beside him, disheveled and disoriented, chained down with black. The demon sat up, growling in his chest, trying to exert his power.

“Who do you think–”

“Ah, little Satan, they shouldn’t talk until I allow them, isn’t that right?”

The Devil was not a fool. You were not talking to him. You were talking to the little goat-man in your arms. Yoongi heard a choking sound and he turned his head to see a very large black ball gag ramming itself in between Jungkook’s teeth, snapping closed with a black chain strap behind his pretty head. Jungkook looked livid, trying to bite through it, but Yoongi doubted he could break it.

You smiled at him.

Yes, indeed, Yoongi was liking this situation less and less.

In some ways.

Seeing Jungkook in a ball gag was a pleasant image.

“I didn’t expect it to turn out this way. I was aiming for him first,” you said to Yoongi, lowering the little goat-man and holding him by a hoof. Yoongi wasn’t sure if he wanted to rip apart the plush or be it. He decided that wasn’t important right now.

“Ah, well, this might be better,” you mused nonchalantly. Jungkook was still fighting his restraints, but neither you nor Yoongi acknowledged it. You crouched down, a delicate flash of inner thigh and black velvet panty in his view. Yoongi narrowed his eyes. You cocked a brow, smirk widening. “Two birds with one stone, no?”

You set the little goat-man in front of him.

Sat down, spreading your legs to squeeze the little goat-man with your inner thighs.

There was no question now.

Yoongi wanted to both be the plush goat-man and rip him to shreds.

“I’ll let you speak to me, Devil. You seem polite.” Conversational, calm. Not condescending, which somehow made it worse. At least if you spoke to him with hostility, he would know how to turn it against you.

“You have magic that doesn’t belong to you, human,” he said softly, a raspy renounce in his voice. He festered it with sweetness and warning at the same time, accenting it with a discerning stare.

You grinned.

Even he, the Devil, was unsettled.

“Nothing belongs to anybody. You only borrow it for a short while and then the powers far beyond even you take it back.”

Yoongi felt his heart drop and race at the same time. As he suspected. This was not the work of his father or some a wayward demon. Magic, power, illusionism, these were all words to describe things that could not be described. Entropy holds no bounds and there is no meaning behind it. It exists only to cause anarchy. For some reason, perhaps simply chaos alone, you, a human, was in possession of something even he could not control or understand.

Shit.

He stared into your eyes and they reflected his expression back to him. He tried to search for it, the desires within the heart, the small tendrils of pain that asked to be soothed, the soul begging to be freed. An ordinary demon could be fended off by a strong-willed human for a while, but Min Yoongi was no ordinary demon.

He was the Devil, even if he was bound by your chains.

You tilted your head at him, hair curling around your cheeks and lashes.

Yoongi could take even the weakest flame of desire and stroke it into a blazing fire. Even the holiest of saints could not fight him. Everyone wanted something, even if it was, disgustingly, in the name of his father. And humans, well, they were the masters of wanting things they couldn't have. Easily manipulated, even by each other. The Devil hardly needed to do anything at all. It was only a matter of whether or not Yoongi cared to do it and, most of the time, he didn't give a single shit.

You tilted your head the other way, smiling.

Yoongi did not find a maze or a barrier preventing him from the soul. He found the soul within seconds. It was there, all right.

The Devil just didn't know what the fuck he was looking at.

Why was your soul just you sitting there in the abyss, looking up at him with the same smile you were giving him right now?

And why did he feel nothing emitting from it?

He pulled back, looking into your eyes again. He did not like this.

You leaned forward and touched his horns.

His eyes widened as your fingertips brushed against the large curved black-red horns against the sides of his head. He hasn't even realized they had protruded. How? His horns were a sign of his power, a symbol he used for fear, for appearance, and for the moments of when he was exercising a great deal of his influence. Your fingertips brushed against the second set, the ones that bloomed upwards into wicked black-red spikes. Both sets? His soul-search had him reflexively procure both?

Shit.

He started into your eyes, seeing himself reflected back. Min Yoongi was the Devil. Emotion was no stranger to him. He harnessed it all, consumed himself in the passions and wonders of emotion. There were ones he felt less, simply because of who he was. For instance, there was not much that made him afraid.

You smiled.

Fear. He could feel it rise within him.

Yoongi grinned back.

Was this what he thought it was? He had heard of such things, rumors and whispers, even amongst the angels themselves. The hidden truth that Heaven and Hell belonged in a specific dimension or realm, Order. That there was another realm, the mirror, the reflection trapped, the unknown.

Disorder.

His kind, the high-above, and those between angels and insects, the humans, none of these belonged in the realm of Disorder. There were rumors that Order was merely a concoction of Disorder and that their realm could collapse any moment, erasing all of existence without a trace. Entropy was waiting for them all.

Yoongi understood now.

This was chaos.

The Devil was a master of desire. And a master of deliberately doing exactly what he shouldn't. He should not be tempted by a glimpse of chaos. His father would warn him to stay away from it.

His father could fuck right off.

Yoongi leaned forward, still bound, his horns disappearing. The chains clanged around him, his power rattling underneath. He wasn't doing it to fight them. He wanted to feel it. To understand what could not be understood, to touch the untouchable, because it was there, there right in front of him and he wanted it, he wanted it, and the Devil feeds off desire, even his own.

He wanted those lips.

You backed up.

The denial only made his desire stronger.

You left the plush goat-man sitting there right in front of him.

-

Jungkook was pissed.

Absolutely furious, jaw and head aching from this ridiculously large ball gag, fuming that he had no idea what was going on and that a single human was doing this bullshit. There was no way you were working alone. There had to be other beings behind this. He couldn't figure it out right now, but he would and he would tear them apart, right after he fucked your pathetic human body and tore you apart.

You must be a fool, thinking you could shackle him, Jeon Jungkook, the right hand of the Devil himself, the epitome of pure sin and free will.

He continued fighting the magic, trying to exert his strength, rattling the black chains, ice-silver lashes beating him back down. He tried to release his wings, but they were ensnared, pain shooting up his back. Jungkook cared not for pain. He had felt pain for millions of years. A few seconds was nothing. He tried to release his horns, but he could not, as if the very air neutralized him.

He was enraged.

Maybe would simply kill you so he could spend an eternity torturing you for your insolence.

Then the Devil's horns appeared.

How did he–?

Then you touched the Devil.

Jungkook wanted to scream.

He did, deep in his chest, muffled rage, jealousy, hate, all at once, and both of you ignored him, your fingers grazing Yoongi's horns, fucking smiling, looking unflinchingly into the Devil's eyes, and Jungkook wanted to erase you from existence, destroy every single shred of your soul for not groveling at the feet of Min Yoongi.

The horns disappeared and your hands hovered around Yoongi's head, fingers splayed out around the black hair like a shining halo.

Ironic.

The Devil leaned forward.

Don't you fucking kiss her, hyung!

But you moved away, backing up, gaze lingering on Yoongi before closing your eyes and reopening them slowly, a gradual shift to Jungkook's face.

He snarled at you through the gag.

He had you now. Eye contact and Jungkook could exert at least part of his power, the soul-search to find your deepest desires, your hidden gems, the calamity within that would call to him. He would find it and manipulate it, bend you to his will, turn you into his puppet. Play with you until you begged to die, only to find yourself in his arms once more, his plaything for all eternity.

All he had to do was find it.

You slid to your hands and knees, crawling to him. He felt it inside his chest, his own desire, watching the curve of your back to ass, his cock twitching at the sight, his mind conjuring images of your pretty body on a leash. Jungkook didn't have preferences when it came to bodies. A body was a body. In his hands, all bodies became prettier. You already had the base and he already had the wrath to want it. You stopped in front of him, the black skirt of your dress flaring out. He could see parts of your bare body.

Legs, knuckles, knees.

A small, amused smile on your lips.

Eyes that Jungkook searched valiantly, looking for malice, for innocence, for desire, for the darkest shadows and the lightest light.

Why couldn't he see anything?

This must be part of your magic. No matter. Jungkook had other ways. He was creative and cunning. You would break under his hand. He wouldn't stop until it was done. He was a demon that saw things through, even to his detriment.

His jaw was suddenly released from its prison, ball gag disappearing, fading into ice-silver smoke. He coughed, snapping his teeth, glaring at you.

"You dumb bitch," he hissed, violent resonance in his voice, oppressive and intense. "Do you think you humans are above us with your tricks and schemes? Kneel before those who invented such things."

You tilted your head.

Yoongi chuckled beside him.

Jungkook's brows furrowed. What–?

Your body trickled down like liquid, laying against the dark wood floor, looking up at him. Jungkook froze, maddening desire rising, infuriated at your face looking up at him, plush dark lips parted, hands on your chest, fingers spread out and molded to your flesh under the plain black dress. Sinking in, making him clench his jaw.

Your smile like a Cheshire Cat, eyes reflecting his rage.

Jungkook wanted to straddle your face and shove his cock into that smirking mouth, bulge your throat and cheeks with his girth.

"Is he always like this?" you asked, still not looking away.

"He pretends to be nice when he wants something out of you," the Devil answered calmly.

"Isn't that you?"

You still didn't look away from Jungkook. Why couldn't he find what he needed from your eyes?

"I'm always nice."

"That means you always want something out of someone."

Yoongi laughed, raspy and deep, the sound echoing in the bedroom, filling it up with his sound. Why couldn't Jungkook find it? His rage began to become infested with something else. Your eyes reflected only him.

Like a mirror.

No matter. The demons had other ways.

"Come here," Jungkook purred.

"I wouldn't do that."

That wasn't you. That was the Devil.

Your body lifted as if it was on a string from the center of your chest, fingers and black fingernails trailing against the dark hardwood, head tipped back, the line of your neck hidden by the high collar of lace, shielded from his hungry gaze. Legs curling up, skirt pooling around your thighs, his rage molding with carnal need, festering with something else.

Fear.

You rose to your knees, in prayer position in front of him, almost as if you were about to reach out and touch faith. Jungkook furrowed his brow, watching your presence near, wanting it, ready to coax or rip your desires from your lips themselves. It didn't matter if he was bound, it didn't matter if his black suit was torn up and ugly, it didn't matter if he was bleeding from his efforts to escape this magic.

You were still a human.

He was a demon and he would taint you.

Closer, your lids lowering, entranced by his spell. Jungkook smirked. Too easy. Humans were so, so easy. He craned his neck, lips parting, the palpable lust of his breath exhaling. So close to those pretty, dark, fuckable lips.

"You're really falling for it, hm?"

Jungkook paused. His eyes shifted to Yoongi. The Devil had turned his body to watch, clad in a tailored black suit. In contrast, Yoongi's was unmaimed, as he hadn't fought his restraints. The Devil had black hair like him, parted slightly, with shadowy dark brown, cat-like eyes that glinted with something sinister. Pale skin, almost luminescent. Exposed neck, elegantly laid black silk tie, unlike Jungkook, who preferred not to wear one. Lips that demanded you to plead for your life.

A body that made Jungkook want to sin for him.

That was the power of the Devil.

His eyes shifted from Yoongi to you, who had stilled in front of him. Hands beneath you and knuckles pressed to the floor like an obedient pet. What was Yoongi talking about? He had you right where he wanted you. And yet, he hesitated.

Then you spoke.

Delicate and calm, with no resonance. Human.

"I thought demons had free will?" you whispered. "That not even the Devil could control a demon."

Or was it?

Jungkook watched your lips form the words.

"If he is powerful enough, that is."

-

Yoongi didn't bother warning Jungkook anymore.

The Chaos knew what it was doing.

Clever girl.

-

Jungkook growled, leaning back a little, letting the passion of emotion course through him, wrath, lust, pride. Fear. All of it. Drawing from it, his power pulsing, singing through his muscles.

"Come here, human."

You had to crawl into his lap, his thighs against your thighs, hardness against softness, bringing your lips to his, sudden and sweet with your legs, knuckles, knees. Jungkook smirked, white teeth and canines flashing, urging you to him.

"What a good little girl,” he breathed softly. “I can be anything you desire. All you need to do is tell me."

Your eyes locked with his.

"A kiss, please."

He groaned at the small plea, finally getting it out of you, finally, and he would make you regret doing this, sow every seed of desire within you and reap it all, turn you into his pet on a leash. All he had to do was kiss you.

Jungkook kissed you.

He pressed his lips to yours, ravenous to consume what you had, eager to claim his offering.

You smiled against his lips, a small, amused smile.

It was instant, his hunger to your plushness, the rush euphoric and wild, immediate lust and power dominating him and now he could taste your tongue and fling open the doors, clawing for the soul within, the moment so close he could taste it, taste your moan sliding into his throat, his favorite treat, intoxicating in the way you sucked in his breath to fill your longs.

Jungkook arrived at the last gate, tearing through the door. Looked down into the abyss, triumphant.

You looked back up at him from below.

A small, amused smile.

A nothingness like he had never felt before.

Jungkook's eyes snapped open and widened, staring into the reflective glass of yours, his chest constricted. He had never felt this. Your lips still on his, tongue flicking, taking his breath, and then he felt a strange kind of compression, like everything was being pressurized, tighter, tighter, suffocating, and he gasped in your mouth, recoiling.

The kiss broke, your eyes still on his, lips shiny with his saliva. Your hand was outstretched, hovering in the air, fingers coated with black tendrils mixed with ice-silver, right above his chest.

Your eyes, void of anything but himself.

“What…” Jungkook breathed, hard cock straining against his slacks. “Are you?”

He didn’t understand. You were only a human. Only a human who had done a very stupid thing, summoning the Devil and his right-hand demon to your bedroom. Just a stupid, foolish human. You tilted your head. Lowered your hand and placed both hands on Jungkook’s thighs. He tensed. You pressed your fingers into his slacks, kneading the firm flesh underneath.

Where was your fear? Your malice? Your innocence?

Where was your desire?

He could only feel his own, rising, rearing its beautiful head, teeth bared and ready to strike as your fingers drummed against the fabric of his pants. You had tried to take something from him in midst of the kiss.

Part of his soul.

Jungkook narrowed his eyes. “What do you want?” he hissed, forceful and direct.

You stopped moving your fingers. He wanted to scream in dismay.

“Only a small thing.” Your lips curved into a gentle smile. “A token to remember our fateful meeting.”

Now, only now, did Jungkook not like this.

You removed one hand from his leg and Jungkook clenched his jaw, watching it rise, nearing his heaving chest, the black chains spreading apart, links snapping with ice-silver sparks, but he was still bound, still chained, and he did now know why and not knowing infuriated him. You stopped, right above his heart, the heart he forgot was there sometimes.

The true irony of this world was that angels gave up their hearts to serve the one above and demons kept them to serve themselves.

Jungkook felt it again, the compression of his insides, making his breath hitch and his teeth grind, the sensation unbearable. Your expression remained the same, the small, airless smile. Eyes reflecting his terror.

“I could take it just like this.”

Not a threat, only a statement. Only a testament to the power within you, a power that Jungkook was beginning to think wasn’t something he knew or understood. The Devil could take souls. He could reap them, he could tear them, he could wring them dry. But not like this.

“I will give you a choice,” you murmured, hand retreating, releasing him from the uncomfortable pressure. “Because everyone deserves a choice, don’t they?”

The chains were lessening, slowly slipping off Jungkook’s body.

“I’ll let you give it to me willingly.”

Your hand on his pants caressed the fabric.

“If you have the power to take it,” Jungkook snarled. “Why not take it?”

Your other hand found his other thigh, squeezing lightly, sparks of heat flying through his veins. The chains slid off him, clashing into the hardwood floor and turning to ice-silver liquid that faded to nothing.

“I do not want to take.”

You stopped your touches and Jungkook wanted to scream.

“It will feel better for you if you give.”

He raised on eyebrow. “Considerate of you.”

You smiled wider. He stared into your eyes and only saw himself.

“What do you think, Jeon Jungkook, the Devil’s right-hand man?”

He felt the tendons on his neck tense, expression twisting into anger. You shouldn’t know his name. You were a human. You would only know if he told you directly. Someone else was behind this. Someone who wanted to kill him and the Devil, thereby putting Hell itself in imbalance.

“How do you know my name?” he seethed.

“You told me.”

What?

“When you looked into her eyes, you told her your name,” confirmed a deep, cavernous voice.

Jungkook started, whipping his head to the Devil beside him. No longer chained, simply sitting lazily on the ground, one knee raised to rest an elbow on it. Yoongi raised an eyebrow.

“Getting soft, Jungkookie?” the Devil taunted.

How…? Was he so absorbed in his own lust and deceiving you that he did not realize? He looked back at you. Your eyes lowered to his slacks and then back up to his eyes.

“Pants can always come off.”

Jungkook raised a hand, running it through his black hair, jaw set. “You are too greedy, human. Do you even know what you’re doing?” he sneered.

Your hands jerked down a few centimeters closer to his crotch, making Jungkook hiss. Your tongue slid out, feathering against the plush dark mauve of your lips. His cock throbbed with need, demanding to abuse the mouth presented. You leaned forward, putting more of your weight on him, welcome weight that Jungkook wanted all over him. He was a demon, after all. He was no stranger to carnal desire.

“I do,” you murmured softly. “You and me and the Devil makes three.”

Jungkook sharpened his gaze. “You couldn’t handle that, human.”

You said nothing.

You simply removed your heat and turned to the Devil, where Yoongi held the little goat-man plush by a single hoof, dangling it next to his lap, making your crawl into it to reach the doll. It was almost an innocent gesture, the way you took it and tucked it into your lap before looking up at Yoongi’s face, lips parted slightly, nearly curious, childlike awe decorating your features.

Jungkook growled like a hurt animal.

Your eyes shifted to him, looking at him under lowered lashes. Dismissive, vacant gaze.

“Yes or no, Jeon Jungkook?”

“Yes.”

The thin black string between you and him darkened, searing with ice-silver, a contract made. He didn’t even know the terms. He didn’t care. No human could outsmart him. And you, you must have been human once.

The problem was, Jungkook didn’t know if you were human anymore.

-

Yoongi watched your eyes return to him. The little black goat-man plush was tucked between your legs, pressed against your core. Slowly but surely, he was understanding. The original vessel was human, now tainted by someone, something, or simply bad luck. It made you something else entirely. You were a creature from the realm of Order polluted by the realm of Disorder. How long could this last? Would you die eventually from it? When you died, what would be left? Was the soul still there? Would he be able to collect it? Contain it? Study it?

Yoongi didn’t know the answers to these questions.

He wanted to know.

“Your turn,” you whispered to his chin, warm breath against his skin. “What is your answer, my Devil?”

Yoongi chuckled. “A shard of soul is all you ask for?” he purred. “What for?”

You tilted your head. “I want to complete my collection.”

The Devil doubted that. He doubted you wanted anything. Something was driving the entropy in a direction, a purpose given to the original human you long ago, and now you did it because it was the only thing left in the shell, a memory of a purpose, the human determination so strong that it could not be killed or erased, even though this body was now only a container for the power within.

The Devil had spent a lot of his time lately doing nothing. Nothing fun, nothing exciting, nothing worthy of his attention. Yoongi already knew everything there was to know about humans. He cared not for those above. But this.

This was new.

This was different.

This was something he wasn’t supposed to know.

He raised his hand, fingers tracing your jaw, staring into the eyes of Chaos. The Entropy. The Vessel.

You.

“I’ll be part of your collection, little one,” Yoongi purred.

And you will be mine, he vowed as the black string between you and the Devil glowed, ice-silver magic contaminating it with the power of Disorder.

-

part ii the collection. if you get in bed, someone will fall in love

--

masterpost

[scarletrotted]

What does Malenia think about her parents? Does she feel affection for them? How has her perception of them changed/evolved over time?

@vilestblood

// There is a great sense of being looked down upon by Marika and Radagon; both sharing the same vein of the fact Malenia is cursed with a horrid affliction that nothing is immune to. She may, initially, hold a reverence to them as her parents, ones who gave her and Miquella life but as the twins grew, their machinations unfold and she eventually learned their views of her part to play in the world. Malenia grew up with certain expectations that she knows she may never live up to all while striving to meet them by focusing on Miquella, who she sees to be not as heavily cursed as she is; though there is never a note of jealousy towards him.

With Radagon, as the head of the Golden Order, of  Malenia has known that her condition violates the laws of Regression and Causality; the two primary principles of the Order which Radagon fiercely upholds. Malenia can barely contain the Rot within herself and has been suffering the effects of her form being eaten away and loss of her limb. The fact that Miquella turned his back on the Golden Order speaks well that they truly cannot do anything to alleviate her curse, especially since Radagon’s gifts to Miquella were offensive Incantations which may suggest they were meant to be used on Malenia. Despite being restored by Miquella’s hand, Malenia strongly perceives a sense of contempt from their father throughout her life with no hope to ever earn his favor. In return, Malenia holds a bitter acceptance towards Radagon. 

Malenia’s relationship with Marika is also quite strained to say the least. She recognizes a profound sense of hostility and pressure from her mother. Marika, like Radagon, takes a radical stance on purpose and struggle that can be taken from her words that Melina relays:

“Hear me, Demigods. My children beloved. Make of thyselves that which ye desire. Be it a Lord. Be it a God. But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. Amounting only to sacrifices…”

Malenia’s body continues to corrode even with Miquella’s devices abating the Rot’s progression. Being a skilled swordsman, the fact that she is fully aware that she will proceed to deteriorate yields a deep fear that she will be merely a pile of festering flesh that is unable to safeguard her brother. It seems that Malenia’s way of giving herself purpose as Miquella’s protector, keeping a mighty and powerful quality would also fall under a certain level of Marika’s approval. However, Malenia is most likely to feel inadequate no matter how much she struggles and strives in Marika’s eyes.

[rainydaymiddleearthimagines]

Destiny Calling: Chapter Seven

You all seemed lost, feeling this sense of overwhelming hopelessness. You were now leading the group, walking through the woods of Lothlorien. You after all, were the only one that actually knew the way. "Stay close young hobbits! They say there’s a great sorceress lives in these woods, an elf-witch of terrible power. All who look upon her, fall under her spell..." Gimli said, unaware that you actually shared blood to said "Elf-witch". "... and are never seen again." Gimli finished. Aragorn looked over, noticing blood seep through your clothes. "Y/n, did you suffer another wound outside of the scratch on your head?" He asked. "If you're referring to my shoulder Aragorn, I am fine." You said softly.

You stopped, the trees speaking of another presence outside of your group. "Well, here is one dwarf she won't ensnare so easily. I have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox!" Gimli announced before meeting a guard face to face. Lorien guards aimed before a familiar face stopped them. "Princess Y/n." He noticed, all guards reattracting their weapons at the sight of you. "You found us." you said, seeming very calm. "The dwarf breathes so loud we could've shot him in the dark." Haldir said making you chuckle. "Haldir o Lórien. Henion aníron, boe ammen i dulu lîn. Boe ammen veriad lîn. (Haldir of Lorien, we come here for help. We need your protection.)" Aragorn said. "Aragorn, these woods are perilous! We should go back." Gimli huffed. "You have entered the realm of the Lady of the Wood. You cannot go back. Come, she is waiting." Haldir said. You all followed Haldir. "you seem very confident about your choice in leading us to this woman." Gimli muttered. You said nothing, walking ahead of him.

You climbed the stairs before standing before Galadriel and Celeborn. You bowed, Galadriel lifting your face. "You have matured since we last spoke." She said, smiling softly. "It is nice to see you again." You admitted. She nodded before looking at the group. Aragorn gave his proper greeting, making it clear to everyone that he too, had met her before. "Nine that are here yet ten there were set out from Rivendell. Tell me where is Gandalf? For I much desire to speak with him." She said. She looked in his eyes and paused. "He has fallen into shadow." She realized. "The quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail to the ruin of all." She said. She looked over at Boromir who couldn't meet her gaze. "Yet hope remains while the company is true." She said. She looked at Sam and smiled. "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Go now and rest for you are weary with sorrow and much toil. Tonight you will sleep in peace." She said. You nearly walked off but Aragorn halted you. "Might we receive medical assistance? Y/n was struck in battle." Aragorn asked. "I have herbs in my-" "Come." Galadriel said. You sighed and walked off with her.

You looked over at Galadriel. "How are you taking it? Gandalf's demise?" She asked. "I think I'm in denial. It is almost as if my body just isn't reacting." You muttered. She nodded as you entered a small hut. "How did it happen?" She asked, wringing water out of a small cloth. "There was a monster, one of flames. We had to pass through Moria-" "We both know how dangerous that was Y/n." She scolded. "We didn't have a choice. Saruman betrayed us, if we had made for the Gap of Rohan, we'd be killed or worse." You muttered. She nodded. "Gandalf fought off the monster so we could escape. He... He fell so we would succeed." you muttered. Galadriel nodded solemnly. She touched the wound on your shoulder, you wincing. "You made it here. That is what counts." she said softly. You nodded, looking down. "Your mother would be very proud of you, you know." She added. You looked over. She began crushing herbs. "She would be terrified but still very proud." she said. You smiled slightly. "are you proud?" you asked. She turned, that soft smile reminding you of home. "we all are darling." She said. "I.." you cleared your throat. "I want you to know... I am proud to be your grandchild..." you told her. She put the herbs on the wound, wrapping it before she kissed your head. "I am proud to call you my grandchild." she said.

As everyone else sat around, elves could be heard around them, singing. "A lament for Gandalf." Legolas noticed, him pouring water into a small reflection pool. "What do they say about him?" Merry asked. "I have not the heart to tell you. For me the grief is still too near." Legolas answered. Aragorn noticed Boromir sitting alone on a tree root. He walked over. "Take some rest. These borders are well protected." Aragorn encouraged. "I will find no rest here. I heard her voice inside my head. She spoke of my father and the fall of Gondor. She said to me even now there is hope left. But I cannot see it. It is long since we had any hope." He admitted. He knew for a fact that if his father remained on the throne, there was less of a bright future to one day see. This fact had been haunting him since he picked up the hilt to Isildur's broken sword. "My father is a noble man, but his rule is failing. And now our…our people lose faith. He looks to me to make things right and I would do it. I would see the glory of Gondor restored. Have you ever seen it Aragorn? White tower of Ecthelion, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver. It's banners caught high in the morning breeze. Have you ever been called home by the clear ringing of silver trumpets?" He asked. "I have seen the White City, long ago." Aragorn admitted. "One day, our paths will lead us there. And the tower guards shall take up the call: The Lords of Gondor have returned!" He said, clearly missing home. Aragorn opened his mouth to speak but saw you walking over. He walked over, hugging you. You didn't care about the slight discomfort from your shoulder. You hadn't had a real moment to breathe since you left. You hugged him back, him pulling away slightly to kiss your forehead. "Your wounds? How are they?" He asked. "They are minor, she believes them to be healed in days." you said.

He sighed. "You need to be more-" "What's the rule?" you halted. He sighed. "No telling Y/n what to do." He said. "Let us try and rest. We still have a long journey." you said. The group looked over as you sat down. "Are you alright?" Pippin asked. "Fear not Pippin, I am well." You assured. "Where are you sleeping?" Frodo asked. Aragorn cleared his throat to answer the question and you nodded your head in his direction. "Thank you Y/n.. For protecting me back in Moria." Frodo said. "I am only doing what I promised. I don't deserve the praise." You stated. "How did you meet the witch- woman?" Sam corrected. You chuckled. "Galadriel is my grandmother." you answered. "You're related to the witch?" Gimli asked, shocked. "She is my mother's mother. Very kind woman despite what many believe." You answered.

Pippin seemed confused. "Y/n... If your grandmother is here then why weren't you sent here instead of Mirkwood?" Pippin asked. "Father was most likely afraid of the path here... It was the same path my mother took when she was attacked." You said. Merry looked at you as you sighed, looking over at Aragorn who was still awake.

"Sleep." you told him. "I cannot." He admitted. "...You're joking. You seriously cannot sleep without me being there?" You asked. "Not fully, no." He admitted, making Sam crack a smile. "With the way you two speak to each other, you'd think you'd be lovers." Gimli sighed. You all froze, looking at him. "What?" He asked. "Nothing." Pippin said, resisting a strong urge to laugh. "We should rest." Sam said, also trying not to break. You moved to Aragorn, lying down next to him. He wrapped his arms around you, his breaths getting deeper as time passed.

The morning soon came, you and Aragorn being the first ones awake. You leaned up and stretched, tapping Boromir as you slid on your boots. He woke up the hobbits who (eventually) woke up Gimli. You all set off once more, Galadriel parting you with Earendil, their most beloved star. You all went off in canoes, riding down the river. You all were silent, Legolas and you both listening to the nature around you before reaching a pass. "Frodo, the Argonath! Long have I desired to look upon the kings of old. My kin." Aragorn said to Frodo, nodding to the large statues of the kings. You all finally reached the foot of Amon Hen, making camp while you rested.

"We cross the lake at nightfall. Hide the boats and continue on foot. We approach Mordor from the north." Aragorn said. "Oh, yes?! It's just a simple matter of finding our way through Emyn Muil? An impassable labyrinth of razor sharp rocks! And after that, it gets even better! Festering, stinking marshlands far as the eye can see!" Gimli huffed. "That is our road. I suggest you take some rest and recover your strength master dwarf." Aragorn said, making you smiled. Gimli seemed almost offended by the mere idea of him needing to rest. You looked up, alarmed by something. "What's wrong?" Boromir asked. "Something's coming." you answered. You looked around. "Where's Frodo?" you asked.

Frodo walked through the woods, Boromir noticing the hobbit as he was collecting firewood. "None of us should wander alone, you least of all. So much depends on you. Frodo?" Boromir commented. Frodo looked over, slightly alarmed by his presence. "I know why you seek solitude. You suffer; I see it day by day. You sure you do not suffer needlessly? There are other ways, Frodo, other paths that we might take." Boromir said. "I know what you would say. And it would seem like wisdom but for the warning in my heart." Frodo said. "Warning? Against what? We're all afraid, Frodo. But to let that fear drive us to destroy what hope we have. Don't you see that is madness?" Boromir questioned. "There is no other way!" Frodo said. "I ask only for the strength to defend my people! If you would but lend me the Ring..." Boromir tossed the wood aside, staring at the ring. "No." Frodo said, stepping back. "Why do you recoil? I am no thief." Boromir asked. "You are not yourself." Frodo answered. "What chance do you think you have? They will find you! They will take the Ring and you will beg for death before the end!" Boromir yelled. Frodo ran from Boromir, alarmed of the greed and darkness taking over the young man. "It is not yours save by unhappy chance. It could have been mine!" Boromir yelled before tackling Frodo. "It should be mine! Give it to me!" Boromir yelled. They struggled against one another for the ring.

"Give it to me!" Boromir yelled. "No!" Frodo struggled. "Give me… Give me the Ring!" Boromir yelled. Frodo slipped on the ring, kicking Boromir before running away. "I see your mind. You will take the Ring to Sauron! You will betray us! You go to your death and the death of us all! Curse you! Curse you! And all the halflings!" He said before falling. It was like a simple fall was all he needed to see reason. Regret instantly hit him. "Frodo?...Frodo?...what have I done?...please...Frodo!" He called.

Frodo ran off, reaching an area away from him. "Frodo?" You asked, standing there with Aragorn. "Huh?!" He gasped, meeting your eyes. "It has taken Boromir." Frodo said, clearly panicked. "Where is the Ring?" Aragorn asked. "Stay away!" Frodo yelled before backing away. "Frodo!" Aragorn halted. Frodo stopped. "We swore to protect you!" Aragorn said. "Can you protect me from yourself?!" Frodo asked, clearly frightened. He showed the ring in his palm. "Would you destroy it?" Frodo asked. You looked away, feeling this intense dread. Aragorn slowly approached Frodo though, ignoring the whispers of the ring, closing Frodo's palm and pushing it to his chest. "I would have gone with you to the end, into the very fires of Mordor." He said. "You will not yield me from your journey Frodo." You said. He frowned. "Y/n, I cannot ask this of you." He said. "Frodo, my father was the one that went with Isildur. He did nothing to stop him... I know I can do something so please. Let me." you said. He nodded slowly before you slid off your necklace, giving it to Aragorn. Aragorn shook his head. "Y/n-" "keep this as a reminder that someone is fighting for you. Always." you said softly. He clutched the necklace, before pulling a chain out from his pack. He took off his ring, sliding it onto the chain. "I will not take the throne without you. If I lose you, the throne will remain as it is." He said. "This is your only proof of your identity Aragorn-" "I know. Because without you, I cannot make my claim." He said, putting the chain around your neck. He gave you one last kiss, your heart filling with sorrow before you pulled away. "Look after the others, especially Sam. He will not understand." Frodo said before his sword started to glow. "Go on you two!" He said. You hesitated, seeing the finality in this choice. Would you leave your lover or stay and leave Frodo?

You shook your head, taking Frodo's hand and running. Sam searched the woods frantically. "Mr. Frodo!" He called before hearing swords clashing. Legolas and Gimli ran forward, Legolas shooting three of the orcs quickly. Gimli slammed his axe into one of them. "Aragorn! Go!" Legolas yelled. You sprinted with Frodo, trying to reach the boats as the orcs were ready to kill. You ran hiding behind a set of trees, Merry and Pippin looking at you with urgency. They noticed the orcs ready to follow you. "Run you two! Go!" Merry whispered before cupping his hands. You two ran off as Merry yelled. "Hey! Hey you! Over here!" He shouted, diverting attention away from the two of you. "Hey!" Pippin chimed in. "Over here!" Merry called. Pippin waved his arms. "This way!" Pippin yelled, running away from Frodo.

As you ran you heard three loud blasts from a horn, your heart dropping. This was it... Boromir's final stand. "The Horn of Gondor... Boromir.." you whispered as you ran. Merry and Pippin locked eyes with Boromir as he fought. "RUN!" He told them, fighting for his life. "Boromir!" Aragorn called, rushing toward the sound. Fear coursed through Boromir as he fought before an arrow hit his shoulder. Merry and Pippin stopped, looking at him in shock. Boromir fell to his knees, breathing hard as the pain seemed to overwhelm him. No. Not like this.

The orcs came closer, Boromir letting out a battle cry as a final stand. He stood up, stabbing an orc as he did. Another arrow fired, this time to Boromir's stomach. He fell again, still his will to live too strong for this as he got back up. He killed another orc, another arrow hitting you, this one being the final blow. Boromir fell to his knees, staying down this time. Merry and Pippin both looked at him. They knew this was it. That he would not rise again to fight. This was their friend that kept them safe. If he was dying, they were going to defend him till his last breath. Merry and Pippin fought, screaming "SHIRE!" before stabbing an orc or two.

You reached the boats, heart pounding as you were unaware of the dangers ahead of you. Then you felt it. A loss. A hit. You put a hand over your mouth. "Y/n, what's wrong?" Frodo asked. "Boromir has fallen." You whispered, hearing the trees tell you of the brave sacrifice he made.

Aragorn kneeled to Boromir. "They took the little ones." Boromir said weakly. "Be still." Aragorn instructed. "Frodo, where is Frodo? And Y/n?" Boromir asked. "I let them go." Aragorn said. "Then you did what I could not. I tried to take the Ring from him." Boromir admitted, his breathing getting weaker. "The Ring is beyond our reach now." Aragorn assured. "Forgive me, I did not see it. I have failed you all." Boromir whispered. "No, Boromir, you fought bravely! You have kept your honor." Aragorn assured. He reached for the arrows that were ailing his friend but Boromir stopped him. "Leave it! It is over. The world of men will fall, and all will come to darkness… and my city to ruin." Boromir whispered. "I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you I will not let the white city fall, nor our people fail!" Aragorn said, his heart in pain. "Our people?" Boromir asked. Not once had Aragorn even referenced his homeland or people... Boromir smiled at his friend. "Our people." He breathed, barely holding onto life. Aragorn put Boromir's sword in his hand, Boromir bringing it to his chest. "I would have followed you my brother, my captain, my king!" Boromir said before his face grew still. Your vision was indeed true. Boromir was dead. "Be at peace, son of Gondor." Aragorn whispered before pressing a kiss to his forehead.

You heard rapid footsteps, turning to land which you hadn't left yet. "Frodo!" Sam called. Frodo seemed spaced out, recalling a conversation that he had with Gandalf before Sam sprinted out from the woods. "Frodo no! Frodo! Mr. Frodo!" Sam frantically called. "No Sam." Frodo said, continuing to paddle. You opened your mouth but closed it as Sam sprinted into the river. "Go back Sam! I’m going to Mordor." Frodo yelled. "Of course you are, and I’m coming with you!" Sam replied. He trudged deeper into the water. "You can’t swim! Sam!" Frodo gasped. You watched Sam go under, forsaking your cloak as you dove into the waters and pulled up Sam.

You put him in the boat, you climbing in afterwards. "You are insane!" You breathed. "I made a promise, Mr. Frodo. A promise! 'Don’t you leave him Samwise Gamgee.' And I don’t mean to! I don’t mean to." Sam said. Frodo's expression softened. "Oh Sam!" Frodo wailed before hugging Sam. You smiled at the two friends before Frodo yanked you into the hug. You slowly hugged the two hobbits back, them clinging to you.

Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas gave Boromir a proper send off, laying him one of the boats with his sword and shield, his cloven horn by his side. The boat went off the side of the Falls of Rauros, falling to the mists below.

"Hurry! Frodo, Y/n and Sam have reached the eastern shore." Legolas called. Aragorn did not move. "You mean not to follow them?" Legolas asked. "Y/n and Frodo’s fate is no longer in our hands." Aragorn said, clutching your necklace that he was now wearing. "Then it has all been in vain! The Fellowship has failed." Gimli said. "Not if we hold true to each other. We will not abandon Merry and Pippin to torment and death. Not while we have strength left. Leave all that can be spared behind. We travel light. Let’s hunt some orc!" Aragorn said. Legolas and Gimli smiled. "Yes! Haha!" Gimli exclaimed. Aragorn ran into the woods, Legolas and Gimli following.

You stood on the hills of Emyn Muil, looking at the Dead Marshes and Mordor." Mordor. I hope the others find a safer route." Frodo muttered. "Strider will look after them." Sam said. "I do not think they will accompany us from here." You said, clutching Aragorn's ring. "I don’t suppose we’ll ever see them again." Frodo said. Sadness filled your gaze. "We may yet, Mr. Frodo. We may." Sam reminded. You smiled at Sam. Frodo turned to the both of you "I’m glad you’re with me." Frodo said to the both of you. You smiled softly, roughing up his hair before walking. "We have a long journey ahead of us." you said. "Think we'll see something new?" Sam asked. "Let us hope not." You said earning smiles from both of the hobbits.

You had no idea of the dangers ahead. Or how many events were to play out in front of your eyes.

[bestworstcase]

tired of ‘it doesn’t make sense for cass to trust zhan tiri’ takes 

cass is a cautious person with a good instinct for danger which yes means that for most of the show she is indeed the ignored voice of reason saying ‘hey this OBVIOUSLY SKETCHY situation is sketch’ YES

but

in the latter half of 2 she is mutilated by her friend, blamed for it, made to apologize for her own injury, denied any space to feel hurt or upset or angry about this, and literally told ‘you should know we never listen to you!’ when she gets mad about yet another instance of her saying ‘this seems sus’ only for them to literally walk out on her mid-sentence without even acknowledging that she’s speaking. 

cass tries again and again to communicate her feelings and every single time she’s brushed off or scolded or belittled by her friends. her friends have so little respect for her that by the time they hit the hoyt the aren’t even pretending anymore. this hurts her, terribly

then - ok listen. take off the ‘zhan tiri is a horrible evil monster’ goggles put aside your entrenched preconceived biases against this character for a minute. 

what is the first thing zhan tiri does when cassandra meets her?

cassandra hears a voice calling her name. following it leads her here, to a disembodied (disemwalled?) door in some sort of enchanted forest. this is one of those obviously sketchy situations that instantly puts cassandra on her guard: she draws her sword while getting her bearings. 

[sidebar: those light-and-dark green swirls on the forest floor look an awful lot like the clouds in the lost realm, don’t they?]

then: 

ZHAN TIRI: There you are, Cassandra!

[Cassandra looks around, sees Blue, and lowers her sword slightly in confusion. Blue approaches her.]

ZHAN TIRI: I’d nearly given up on you.

CASSANDRA: [shaken] Who- who are you?

ZHAN TIRI: A friend. Or, at least—I’d like to be.

cass at this point is baffled but still on her guard - she holds her sword in a low guard and she’s physically leaning away from the unsettling ghost child. 

more important here is zhan tiri’s opening gambit. ‘a friend, or at least i’d like to be.’ she’s dodging the question of what her name is, yes. but also the second part of that statement implies a correction of the first, an acknowledgement that they are not friends and becoming friends is contingent on whether cassandra accepts her overtures of friendship; there is, in saying ‘at least i’d like to be,’ an implication of acknowledgement of and respect for cassandra’s personal boundaries. this is not something cassandra has ever experienced before. contrast it with rapunzel’s aggressive, domineering pursuit of cassandra’s friendship in beginnings.

continuing: 

ZHAN TIRI: Come.

[She leads Cassandra away from the door, deeper into the enchanted forest. Though hesitant, Cassandra sheathes her sword and follows.]

CASSANDRA: Wherever you’re taking me had better have a blonde princess.

note how the blank confusion on cassandra’s face hardens into a glare the instant zhan tiri says something that could be construed as a command. cassandra has two years worth of experience in the minefield that is friendship with someone in a position of authority and power over her so of course she bristles at this. i think it is also not coincidental that she refers to rapunzel in response.

but there is also a second dynamic at work here. for two years cassandra’s whole life has been locked into orbit around the blinding sun of rapunzel, and even before then by nature of her existence in the palace as a young girl only a little older than the lost princess she would have spent her childhood in the shadow of a child who wasn’t even present. zhan tiri is the first person cassandra has ever met who is flat out indifferent to rapunzel’s existence. even in vardaros, where cass was better liked by the populace than rapunzel, the people still focused on rapunzel - they disliked her, and they cared enough to make sure she knew it. 

but zhan tiri does not give a single fuck about rapunzel. she ignores cassandra’s attempt to make rapunzel relevant to this conversation. she called out for cassandra. she has been waiting for cassandra. she has something she wants to show cassandra. she wants to be cassandra’s friend. rapunzel just...doesn’t matter to her, but cassandra does. and that is disarming, both in the figurative and literal sense. so cass puts her sword away and goes to see whatever it is that this strange child wants to share with her. 

[They reach the forest’s edge and enter the memory. Cassandra is startled, struck by the familiarity of this new setting.]

CASSANDRA: This place... feels familiar?

[Blue takes her by the hand and leads her into the cottage. She remains silent, allowing Cassandra to take it all in, until Baby Cass enters with her music box.]

ZHAN TIRI: Do you recognize that child?

[Her prompting makes it click for Cass that she’s watching herself as a child.]

again, set aside your knowledge that zhan tiri is an evil villain and your instinctive distrust of everything she says and just... take a look at this screenshot. what does it look like if you take what zhan tiri says in this sequence at face value? 

this is a horrible memory. zhan tiri knows precisely what it entails, because she is the one who dredged it out of cassandra’s mind and set it up for her to experience again. cassandra, however, has only just recognized her younger self and has no idea what’s coming. it’s going to hurt her so badly when she remembers everything—but this is an experience she needs to confront in order to heal from the damage it did to her. so much of her suffering can be traced back to this defining, forgotten moment of her childhood.

we the audience know that zhan tiri doesn’t care, doesn’t have any real interest in genuinely helping cassandra, isn’t revealing this memory to her out of the goodness of her heart - but all cassandra knows is that this is a strange ghost who expressed a desire to be friends and has brought her here to, apparently, show her a childhood memory she forgot. so erase your audience knowledge from your brain for a second and look at zhan tiri’s expression here.

she looks weary. sad, even. she looks like someone who truly values cassandra’s wellbeing, who knows that reliving this memory is going to hurt, who’s showing it to cassandra anyway because she thinks cassandra deserves to know and she understands that this is the root cause of cassandra’s pain and that in order to grow and heal it must be seen, it must be acknowledged, it must be examined.

and that is the impression of zhan tiri’s character that cassandra walks away from this experience with. someone who saw her, and saw her pain, and saw the deep festering forgotten wound of this memory buried under layers of repression and denial, and gently unpeeled those layers and brought that wound to light, because she knew cass couldn’t heal from it if she didn’t know it was there.

moving on: 

[Baby Cass approaches Gothel with the music box, only to be coldly brushed off.]

CASSANDRA: ...That’s my...

ZHAN TIRI: Mother, yes. It is.

[Skipping transcription of the remainder of the flashback; what matters is that Blue exists the scene at this point. She isn’t just standing quietly in the corner; she is fully gone, leaving Cassandra by herself to experience the rest of the memory.]

again - obviously zhan tiri knows what happens in this memory, but that isn’t the point. by staying just long enough to help cassandra put this memory into context and then leaving, she gives cassandra complete privacy to process what she is seeing and feel whatever emotional reactions she has to it and express those feelings openly, without any of the reservations she might have about having a breakdown in front of a ghost she met a few minutes ago.

again, contrast this to the way rapunzel treats cass. in under raps, when cassandra tells rapunzel that she’s dealing with ‘some stuff’ and asks rapunzel to wait until she’s ready to share, rapunzel’s response is to stalk her. in RATGT, cass tells rapunzel that she feels disrespected and unwanted and rapunzel brushes her off. in RDO, when cass is mad because rapunzel’s reckless choices resulted in cassandra’s hand being mutilated, rapunzel is furious and backs cassandra into a corner in an attempt to force her to share her feelings and then get over it so things can go back to normal.

how soothing, then, must zhan tiri’s quiet departure must be for cass? how comforting, how much of a relief must it be to have this new person recognize by herself that cassandra needs a moment alone and give that to her without cass even needing to ask?  

there is, i think, a direct line of causation between zhan tiri exiting this scene and cassandra crying for the first time in the entire series afterwards while zhan tiri comforts her. cass doesn’t cry, right? even when she thinks rapunzel is going to be trapped as a bird forever, she stops herself from crying. she doesn’t cry when her hand is burnt in the great tree, not even from physical pain. she doesn’t cry in RDO. 

but zhan tiri is the only person in the whole series who shows consideration for cassandra’s emotional boundaries, so when cassandra is upset after reliving this memory, she freely allows herself to cry, and she lets zhan tiri comfort her. 

because it’s safe. so much blame is heaped upon cass for not being more open with rapunzel, but the thing is - a) cassandra is a lot more open with rapunzel than most of the fandom gives her credit for, and b) rapunzel is not a safe person for cassandra to be emotionally open with because she tramples boundaries, doesn’t listen, routinely chooses to hear only what she wants to hear, and never acknowledges or apologizes for any of the hurt this causes cass. 

which segues us into this:

ZHAN TIRI: I’m sorry that happened to you, Cassandra. Sometimes the most painful truths are the most difficult to remember. You’ve always felt outshined by Rapunzel, haven’t you? And you always will, unless...

in this statement, zhan tiri: 

1 - expresses sympathy for the trauma cass suffered

2 - empathizes with the pain she feels right now

3 - connects the dots between her past trauma and present angst

4 - verbalizes her fear that this pattern will never change

and

5 - offers to help.

zhan tiri is, once again, the only character in the whole series who does these things. in s1, rapunzel does occasionally try to be emotionally supportive of cassandra - under raps and big brothers of corona are the big examples here - but the way she goes about it tends to do more harm than good. in UR she runs roughshod over cassandra’s clearly stated boundaries and continually escalates to the point of actual literal stalking; in BBoC she utterly disregards cassandra’s statements vis a vis how rapunzel can help in favor of doing a bunch of other things that rapunzel thinks cass should want, and in the process she actively interferes with cassandra’s rest and makes her recovery experience worse.

in contrast, zhan tiri gets it. she is absolutely correct in her perception of the situation: cassandra has been trapped in this pattern of inferiority to rapunzel her whole life. her mother abandoned her for rapunzel, and everyone in her life now is willing to sacrifice cassandra’s needs, her feelings, her physical health on the altar of Rapunzel’s Destiny, and that will never change if she continues on as she has been. and... if cass tried to simply leave, by herself, do you really, truly, honestly think rapunzel would let her go?

she feels trapped because she is trapped, and she’s desperate for a way out, and zhan tiri sees that, understands that, and most important of all, shows her a way out.

so like

when she walked through that door in the house of yesterday’s tomorrow cassandra was a heap of emotional pain and unfulfilled emotional needs—for respect, for compassion, for basic consideration of her boundaries, for someone to see how much she’s hurting, for space to feel things without being asked to sacrifice more of herself for somebody else, for someone to care about her and what she needs and thinks and feels and wants, for an escape from the toxic inescapable dumpster fire of her life—and in the space of maybe a couple hours zhan tiri answered every. single. one. 

cassandra entered this situation expecting trouble, and instead she got someone treating her with dignity and compassion for the first time ever sO OF COURSE CASSANDRA TRUSTS HER!!

it beggars belief that the show expects me to believe she never bothered to ask what her new friend’s name was between this point and OAH, and yes, if cass were in a healthier place or surrounded by less toxic people then i’m sure she’d be more inclined to be suspicious of the weird little ghost child who reached into her head and pulled out a suppressed memory. but nevertheless it does, in fact, make sense for cass to conclude after this experience that blue is trustworthy and really does care about her and is a better friend to her than rapunzel. 

tts was allergic to acknowledging the legitimacy of cassandra’s grievances in any way after s2 and refused to allow zhan tiri even a modicum of depth as a character so the vast majority of their relationship exists off-screen, which is, yes, deeply frustrating and does a huge disservice to both characters and to the overarching plot of the season. but “why would cass trust her?” is a question the series answers, on screen, in spades. 

[mnemo-li]

Calebros: A Rant About My Favorite VTM NPC

I do love the newer Vampire: the Masquerade content, but sometimes the writing leaves a lot to be desired. A prominent example is - what in my opinion is - the butchery of Calebros’ character in Beckett's Jyhad Diary.

While I do love seeing the more brusque side of Calebros’ personality, I don’t think I’ve ever recalled him being this vulgar in the original Clan Novels. He was definitely not dropping the f-bombs left and right, and even his gruff manner had more to do with dry humor, sarcasm, and keeping up the dignified image fit for a clan leader. I do realize that this series of chat is set much after his whole ordeal as Prince of New York is over, so maybe the experience really changed him. However, the in-universe explanation of his drastic shift in personality is lacking– it is most likely the result of a change in writers which led to inconsistent writing and characterization.

Here are some examples of scenes that presents his characterization in a more nuanced light.

Scene 1: The Nictuku Accusation

“They would have eaten me, I tell you!” “I believe you, Jeremiah,” Calebros said in a forced, calm tone. He was tired of nodding politely, of reassuring his clanmate. Jeremiah could be a difficult person to like at times. This was rapidly becoming one of those times. “Don’t you humor me!” Jeremiah snapped. “I’ve been coming to you about this for weeks now.” Seems more like years, Calebros thought. “And still you’ve done nothing. Nothing!” Jeremiah paced around, gesticulating wildly. There was no second chair by Calebros’s desk, and for this very reason. He mostly didn’t like guests, didn’t want guests, didn’t want to encourage them to sit down, to take a load off and stay for a while. Most anyone who had reason or inclination to visit Calebros was irate, complaining, or tiresome. Jeremiah happened to be all three presently. “That is not true,” Calebros assured him. Jeremiah snorted in disgusted. “What, then? Tell me. What have you done?” “I have considered quite carefully your report.” “Ha! Like I said, nothing. ‘Considered my report…’” Jeremiah repeated contemptuously. “This is what I think of you and your reports—” he said, grabbing a handful of papers from the nearest stack on Calebros’s desk. Jeremiah made to fling them into the air— Instantly, Calebros’s hand shot out and latched around his visitor’s wrist. Talons pricked undead flesh ever so slightly. “Believe me,” said Calebros evenly. “You do not want to do that.” They faced each other for a moment, one monstrous creature restraining the hand of another. Jeremiah’s fingers, biting into the papers, were long and grotesquely thin, little more than needles of bone. His entire body was thin and hard and covered with knots, bulging masses of hardened tissue, like an old, gnarled swamp tree. Finally he stopped resisting Calebros and returned the reports to the desk. “I’m sorry,” Jeremiah said and resumed his pacing, just as intently if less frenetically.

This is from the Nosferatu clan novel. Here, Jeremiah is trying to get Calebros to believe that there truly are Nictukus dwelling in the sewers. Calebros is, frankly, tired of hearing the folk tale especially when he has other pressing matters to deal with. Yet, even with his patience paper thin, he does not lash out at his broodmate. He is shown to be deeply introverted, anti-social perhaps, but he does not let his own nature affect his duties. As the Nosferatu primogen - as the leader of the clan - he has to listen to the concerns of his family, no matter how absurd. He knows when to express his authority, and he never abuses it. Again, no f-bombs dropped.

Scene 2: The Salt Lake

“Geez, what am I, your mother?” Emmett asked. “No,” Calebros said. “You are my brother, my broodmate.” “Brood, litter, whatever. We were both chosen to suck the old blood tit, so who am I to ask questions?” Calebros sighed. Blood tit, indeed. “That’s not how you remember it.” Now it was Emmett’s turn to sigh. “Don’t do this. Don’t get all… You always do this, get all touchy-feely we’re-all-brothers-in-the-blood, when you soak your head, blah, blah, blah…” “Make light of it if you will—” “I will. Thank you very much. Got enough salt here?” Emmett flicked some at Calebros.

This is from the Nosferatu clan novel. Here, Calebros has just came up from his meditation within the mud hole / salt lake. He is shown to be introspective and even sentimental. In terms of character voice, his more poised speaking style and inner monologue is contrasted against Emmett’s rough, colloquial style.

Other Sources

In the Calebros graphic novel, a similar scene is shown where Calebros is depicted to be trying and failing to remember his past before he became a vampire, losing his mind as he mixes up imagination with false memories. His inner dialogue in the graphic novel shows him saying:

“Do I tell him that his prince, his... compatriot?, is losing his mind? Never.”

This very much reflects his true nature. In Vampire: the Masquerade, there is a system of nature vs demeanor. According to his character sheet, his demeanor is that of a “director” while his nature is a “martyr (penitent)”.

Director: To the Director, nothing is worse than chaos and disorder. The Director seeks to be in charge, adopting a "my way or the highway" attitude on matters of decision-making. The Director is more concerned with bringing order out of strife, however, and need not be truly "in control" of a group to guide it. Coaches, teachers, and many political figures exemplify the Director Archetype.

Martyr: The Martyr suffers for his cause, enduring his trials out of the belief that his discomfort will ultimately improve others' lot. Some Martyr simply want the attention or sympathy their ordeals engender, while others are sincere in their cause, greeting their opposition with unfaltering faith in their own beliefs. Many Inquisitors, staunch idealists, and outcasts are Martyr Archetypes.

Penitent: The Penitent exists to atone for the grave sin she commits simply by being who she is. Penitents have either low self-esteem or legitimate, traumatic past experiences, and feel compelled to "make up" for inflicting themselves upon the world. Penitent Archetypes aren't always religious in outlook; some truly want to scourge the world of the grief they bring to it. Repentant sinners, persons with low self-esteem, and remorseful criminals are examples of the Penitent Archetype.

All of these quotes, if feel, matches very much with the Calebros I knew from the clan novel saga. Below are also a set quotes detailing Calebros’ inner dialogue in his graphic novel.

“As prince, only I can save them, only I can keep them from looking where they shouldn’t. A force exists underneath this city, sleeping, and it must remain so, lest we all perish.

“Augustin, my sire, left us to investigate the Nictuku, and came back to me with this information. Could this be Gehenna? The Final Nights? When the Ancients awake to devour their errant children? Can it be stopped? Should it be stopped? Everything that is done is a hope of staving off the inevitable. Why?”

“My embrace into this world was a foregone conclusion, made for me by Augustin. It is no different for anyone else. Why then do we not welcome the coming Armageddon? Exchange one world for another. It sounds almost painless, except I would never accept such a course, neither would my fellow Nosferatu. Neither would my fellow Kindred, for that matter.”

He is incredibly contemplative, and determined too, willing to fight against the inevitable apocalypse of the vampires. As long as his clan and the Kindred as a whole does not give up, does not give in the the despair of Gehenna, he too will be willing to fight for the survival of others.

Scene 3: Against a Master Manipulator

The character of Hesha is... complex. I see him as sort of a sweet-talking, cunning, charismatic cult leader. Here is a dialogue between him and Calebros.

“No harm was done,” Hesha said softly, his voice still the slightest bit scratchy from the ordeal he’d undergone. “As you say,” said Calebros, not looking up and continuing to write furiously. “You concede without agreeing.” Hesha laughed quietly. Calebros’s head whipped up. Angry words were ready on his lips, but the Egyptian’s smile was not mocking. The Setite obviously realized the weakness of his position, physically and strategically, as well as the fragility of their alliance. “Candor is important between friends,” Hesha said. “Otherwise, perceived insults take hold and fester.” “I am quite accustomed to festering,” Calebros said curtly. “I fear that I’m growing so as well,” Hesha said, squeezing one of the boils that stood raised about one of his many open wounds until the canker popped, and frothy pus ran down his arm. He laughed quietly again. Calebros punctuated a written sentence with a particularly violent period. “Your woman willfully disobeyed her instructions.” “She exercised discretion,” Hesha countered. “She blatantly disregarded the safety of my people.” “If anything had gone wrong,” Hesha said, “it would be Pauline lying torn on the ground. Your people would have faded into the night, none the worse for wear.” Calebros fumed. Probably Hesha was correct—but the Nosferatu was not about to admit as much. “I will speak with her,” Hesha said reasonably. “She has not encountered those of your clan before. She’s not aware of how strongly your predilection for…” “Cowardice?” Calebros suggested accusingly. “Prudence, I was going to say. She’s not aware of how strongly your predilection for prudence runs.” Good choice of words, Calebros thought. But, then, Hesha always chose his words carefully, always seemed to know just the right thing to say. It was discomforting in a way, how easily the Setite could alleviate tension with just a few words. Go ahead, Eve. Take a bite of the apple. Adam might like some too. But it seemed that they needed one another—and that outweighed their natural and mutual tendencies to distrust one another. Just barely.

Hesha’s actions managed to get under Calebros’ nerves, as seen in his curt speech, his furious writing, his accusatory reply to Hesha. He is angry for the safety of his clan (which, as seen from all the other sources, is something very dear to him). He is even shown to be stubborn, refusing to admit that Hesha was correct. Even still, he keeps his head rather than loose his cool completely. He also realises Hesha’s smooth words for what they are- manipulation. He is willing to compromise and form a sort of alliance with Hesha too, despite of his distrust and personal feelings.

Calebros and Ramona

I found the strange friendship Calebros had with the Gangrel Ramona to be incredibly touching, and tragic due to the turns it took towards the end (which I won’t spoil). Below are some excerpts from the Nosferatu clan novel showing Ramona’s initial meeting with Calebros and his later assessments of her character.

Neither Pauline nor the other girl, Ramona, had been subjected to the full brunt of facing a Nosferatu. Not until now, that is, when they were brought into Calebros’s presence. He did not hide his true appearance from them. And he could read the dismay, the fear and disgust, on their faces. Of the two, Pauline made the worthier attempt, attempt, to maintain her demeanor of professional detachment—perhaps Ruhadze had taught her well. The Gangrel, unsurprisingly, was not so couth. She gawked, both at Calebros and at Hesha in his current condition, and she hid her revulsion quite poorly, if she tried at all. […] Ramona looked at Calebros again, a more measured look this time, trying to see through the deformities. Good girl, Calebros thought. Young and brash, but not stupid.

Ramona reached for a calendar on Calebros’s desk, but tossed it back when she realized it was from 1972. “That’s still a whole month, and nobody knows where Leopold was that whole time. He could have gone back to the cave.” Smart girl, Calebros thought. He was leading her along the same path of reconstructing events that he had followed.

He compliments her intelligence again and again, and seems genuinely fond of her. Which I believe is why, after he became Prince of New York, he allows her a private audience with him to which he offered her a safe passage out of town which she rejects, viewing his actions as a betrayal. Below is an excerpt from what I think is the Clan Brujah novel.

The hunched form stepped forward, leaning heavily against the seatbacks as he came. Ramona kept straining to pick out the sound of broken gasps that must accompany such labored progress, but the air did not stir. "You had requested an audience, my dear. A private audience. I have gone to some pains to secure a place where we might be alone. Privacy is such an indulgence here. All too often, I find myself unable to justify the expense of importing it. And there is always someone else jealous of such decadence. But you have not come to hear of my distractions. Sit here, next to me, and tell me why you have come.”

[…]

“Calebros chuckled low, a sound like an engine turning. "No, I don't imagine you would. I will miss your straightforward style, Ramona. I find it refreshing. But already you know that there is no longer any place for you here. In the midst of battle—against the Sabbat and later, against Leopold and the Eye—we could afford certain marriages of convenience. But these partnerships will not survive the challenges of peacetime. Your associates, Mr. Ruhadze and Mr. Ravana, they found themselves in much the same position. Each has already left New York.”

[…]

“Calebros was silent for a time, letting her wind down. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you with the Eye, Ramona. And I'm sorry you will have to leave us. Believe me, I would like nothing better than to find a place for you here. I will have sore need of people who can be relied upon in the nights ahead. But you know what you would be up against if you remained here— the posturing, the none-too-subtle snubbing, the outright backstabbing. You are a rarity among our kind, Ramona. But because you are different, you will be hated and eventually destroyed if you stay among the society of the damned. Know that I will remember our time together fondly. If I can be of any assistance to you in relocating..." "No, I understand. It's 'thanks for your help; here's your bus ticket.' Well, I don't need any of your favors. I don't like the strings attached to them. And I resent the fact that you think I'm so stupid that I'll let you screw me over and then thank you for it." "Ramona...”

Again, even during his tenure as Prince of New York he is so damn eloquent, I definitely can’t fathom the word fuck ever slipping out of his mouth. He is compassionate, helping Ramona perhaps for future gains too, but mainly I believe he genuinely wants to do something right, give her the happy ending she deserves for once.

Moreover, I have a soft spot for this quote of Calebros pondering about Ramona’s nature, why she’s always so angry at the world, why every word out of her mouth sounds like an accusation. It showcases well his world-weariness, a cynical attitude that hides his concerns for others.

What have you seen that makes you so angry, so bitter, little one? Calebros wondered. Family killed? Have you been betrayed? How many times, I wonder. You’d best get over it, if you hope to survive.

So... yeah. I’d pay money to see an accurate portrayal of Calebros in a newer media otherwise I might have to write my own fanfic pairing my OC with him

[gisellelx]

I think I speak for everyone when I say - can you please write about Esme & Rosalie

By “write about” do you mean fic, or meta? I usually tend toward actual fic when I have something I need to know about. I feel something like, “Oh I need to see what happened here,” and from that comes a fic. That was how this whole thing started: I read Edward's comment in BD about talking to Carlisle about having sex with Bella and went, "Oh that had to have been an awkward conversation, wonder what that was like...." and so "The Talk" was born, and well, that was 12 years ago.

I haven’t written fic about Esme and Rosalie or even written in their POVs much because even though I am fascinated by them, their stories are hard. They are dark. Inhabiting their headspaces is not easy to do. No one is more surprised than I am that so far in Cien Años 75% of the POV is Esme. I guess she has had stuff to say to me all along! Nevertheless, I think this will be forthcoming at some point, and in fact, I'm pretty sure I'm going to capture Esme’s reaction to Carlisle turning Rosalie, because I truly believe she was horrified. Rosalie permanently altered Esme's relationship with Carlisle in ways that they're still suffering blowback from. So here's some meta in the meantime.

That moment would’ve ripped open wounds that she and Carlisle hadn’t talked about as much as they needed to. Of course, some of these things came to the fore when Edward killed Charles and Carlisle was somewhat meh about it, and they spent a long time working through that. But there’s a big difference between your husband being kind of okay with your husband getting murdered (even if your son murdered him) and him bringing home another woman because she’d been brutally gangraped. That would’ve caused all sorts of things to surface for Esme, and would’ve been bewildering for Carlisle, who would’ve thought that they had figured the whole thing out. I don’t believe for a minute the “Of course you couldn’t [leave Rosalie in the street]” from Esme in Eclipse was the end of it. Or perhaps I do believe that it was, but that her own acquiescence means she ends up unhealthily shoving things down. And I think there’re some serious feelings about the negative consequences of Carlisle’s choices not only for Rosalie, but for Esme which sit there, festering, for the bulk of their marriage.

Esme would feel incredibly maternally protective toward Rosalie. She is undoubtedly hurt that Rosalie doesn’t accept her as a mother. And yet, she knows what it is to live eternally with the memory of rape. So there is a part of her that is protecting Rosalie from Carlisle, and from Edward, and from the ways that they remain naïve about the complexity of rape at the hands of your marital partner. Carlisle’s and Edward’s solution to this, remember, is “Well, just kill them and it's all fine.” (e.g. Carlisle's "I looked the other way" in the dinner table summit in MS.) But it can never be that straightforward for Esme and Rosalie, who had, at least on some level, convinced themselves that Charles and Royce would be acceptable, even good, partners. There’s little about Rosalie’s character otherwise which suggests she’s a soulless killer--beginning with the fact that she killed only her rapists and didn’t spill any of their blood, and then continuing on to Bella, which is not at all about killing and but is about protecting her family. So I don’t think she did that and then went, “Welp, great, that’s over!” in the same way I doubt that Esme went, “Edward has taken care of Charles, what a relief!” The pain of those deaths and the conflict of feeling both happy and sad about them just sits there for both of them. And they both pretend for the sake of Carlisle and Edward that they’re perfectly happy, and that’s a hard, hard dynamic. (I think Rosalie is much more honest with Emmett about this and and that in turn complicates the dynamic between Emmett and Carlisle and Emmett and Edward.)

And Esme has to choke it down a lot harder than Rosalie does. Edward and Rosalie, in their petulance, both get to scream at Carlisle on occasion about their anger for his taking their deaths away from them. Esme does not. Rosalie’s presence in their family makes it much harder for Esme to convince herself that what Carlisle did was unilaterally a good thing, but she can't freely yell that at Carlisle. So Rosalie permanently complicates their marriage.

I should point out here that this is a difference between what I think SM intended and what’s realistic based on what SM put on the page and you know, how people actually work. I absolutely believe SM intended for both of them to just have their amazing husbands and their beautiful bodies and to love their existence, as evidenced by the fact that she allows Rose, before and after her explanation in Eclipse to just be a cardboard cutout who only exists to antagonize Edward and hold Renesmee. I don’t think she thought at all about what it would be like for Esme, a domestic violence victim, to have her husband, whom she'd just spent a decade learning to trust, bring a rape victim home and with the idea that she would become Edward’s mate, wtf. SM clearly intended Esme to be the perfect, Mormon stepford wife, and for Rosalie to be the cautionary tale for Bella that not having a child makes a woman go crazy. However, that’s an artifact of the fact that every character in the story who is not Edward and Bella was created to serve Edward and Bella’s story, and it doesn't actually match other things she wrote about these women (Rosalie being willing to kill Royce and his friends; Esme running from Charles at whatever cost). When you truly round out a character, and spend some time thinking about how the backstory you’ve envisioned for them actually affects the way they might behave in a given situation, you end up with characters who don’t always cooperate fully with the plot you've otherwise envisioned. That’s a lot more interesting to me as a writer, and one reason I remain fascinated by this series.

Esme and Rosalie are bonded by their desire to be mothers and by the horrors they were subjected to at the hands of their men. In canon, they get opposite catharses for these problems. Rosalie is able to openly resent Carlisle for trapping her in her worst moment; Esme struggles with acknowledging that she also feels pain there. Esme meanwhile, gets to be a mother, especially to Edward, while Rosalie never gets to have that desire fulfilled. I imagine that their relationship is rich, fraught, and very, very complex as a result.