#hamlet explained badly

[cialovesklopp]

scene 1 ➺ exile

summary — the feeling of heartbreak was never swift. there were no clean breaks. and it was never heartbreak alone that hurt but rather the hope that refused to die and slowly killed you.

pairing — kylian mbappé x black! oc

warnings — divorce, heavy angst, unrequited love, mentions of infidelity, heartbreak, broken marriage

author’s note — here’s part one of fairytale. this one was inspired by a kylian Mbappe angst fic i read a year ago and somehow the idea fit for my beginning. if i find it again, i’ll link it because it was soooo good and it’s def one of my fave kylian mbappé fics. enjoy this one 🫶🏾

( series masterlist | masterlist )

there was something oddly soothing about a broken heart. a cruel solace coming from the ache that usually split the soul in two. maybe, in some kind of twisted way, some may even call it kindness. when you expect the breaking, when your soul can not rest and flinches every time in anticipation even though itself is only held together by thin strings — the shattering feels almost merciful. a relief that all that foreshadowing and anticipating of the worst was finally over because the heartbreak had finally happened. it was not the unexpected blow that destroyed — but rather the hope that lingered and refused to die — that made the fall so unbearable and painful. 

as shakespeare had concluded in his tragical and controversial drama hamlet, “when sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions”. heartbreak itself was easy but it never came along, it was everything else that came with it that hurt so badly and tore people apart as heartbreak was not just a singular wound. just like people died from organ failure that had started in a small ache as simple as coughs. heartbreak was a siege, relentless and unyielding. it did not just pass and go after some time but rather it lingered and consumed like a wound. the pain of it would disappear and new skin would grow over it but the scar would always stay. 

there is no clean break, no swift undoing when it came to heartbreak. as shakespeare had found out very earlier and portrayed beautifully in his plays — heartbreak was not meant to be easy. even the easiest type of it, a mutual break up was not supposed to be easygoing. however the worst kind of a broken heart was the one that did not kill, but rather let you live in the past with recurring memories of what once was. that captured the beautiful moments but always reminded you that those did not exist anymore. the kind that turned love into a haunting, like a ghost wandering the hollow chambers of what had once been and could never be again. 

perhaps that was just emery’s tragedy of heartbreak. the type that she was met with forced her to let go, the most cruel type of heartbreak for it combined grief and loss with love. because how could you let go of something that has intertwined itself so deeply into yourself, so thoroughly into your own identity that you did not know when you started and your love began? how do you sever the one hope that has been the very same thing keeping you alive and going forward?

the complexity of love was similar to that of humans itself. even with all the knowledge there was about it, no science could ever explain as to why love had this big capacity of being so cruel while it was also such a powerful feeling that made people lose all kinds of rational sense. love that had made juliet kill herself because she thought romeo had died and all of the sudden she did not find any sense in living anymore if it was without him. love was not always ending with big love declarations and it was not only beautiful and sweet. just like angels had their evil side with demons, love also had that part that was agonizing and made people wishing for death if that was the only way to stop feeling this way. 

sometimes it died in a whisper, in the slow unraveling of a dream that had always been meant to cease to exist. and yet the cruelest of all? love’s death was never quick. instead in lingered long past its burial and dragged everything else with if six feet down the earth. 

and maybe that was the reason why heartbreak sometimes felt like salvation. because it meant breaking free of the same love chains that were keeping one in a constant battle of pain. because at least when something shattered, there was no more pretending anymore that it was whole. like a plate having fallen down many times with the pieces becoming smaller and smaller — to the point that no matter how many times you fixed it, it would never be the same again. 

emery’s heart had been the plate and it had simply fallen down too often, the pieces too small to ever rebuild it to its original. 

the candles in the room had long gone out, burning down to small stubs with the wax pooling on the table. the scent of food still lingered in the room although the meals were cold, sitting untouched in their plates. all the hour she has spent cooking and preparing for this day lost their meaning, swallowed by the emptiness of the chair in front of her and of the apartment. 

emery looked around as she sat at the head of the table, her eyes traveling the room before they set on the glass vitrine. she looked at the reflection and did not recognize the woman staring back at her. 

the woman in the vitrine was someone entirely different. she looked beautiful, mesmerizing and yet unreachable in her own way. her dress was the shade of red that reminded people of small papercuts that resulted in little wounds. it hugged her entire figure, clinging to her body and her hair fell in soft curls even though it had already been pulled into a careless bun. 

but her eyes were empty, soulless. the kind that haunted people into their deepest nightmares when they stared at their fears straight into the eyes. she could feel the weight in her chest, suffocating her because the reflection wasn’t her. it was the collateral damage of what was left of her after piece by piece had been torn apart. it was an empty shell of her to keep her breathing and alive while slowly withering away. 

there was a funny irony in the way the eyes represented her entire being — because here she was waiting for a man she knew wouldn’t come. the eyes perfectly reflected the kind of girl she used to be, who had truly hoped that staying in this marriage was not the wrong decision. who believed she could love enough for the both of them till he learned to love her. but that girl was gone know. buried beneath a shattered heart and the agony of having to pretend for so long that she was fine. 

perhaps this was the straw she needed to finally pick herself and let kylian go. to finally break free of that cruel agonizing hope that tormented her heart in ways past cruelty. it wasn’t truly the realization that he wasn’t coming that shattered her hold but rather the feeling of becoming aware just how little she actually meant to him. 

she was his wife for god sake. and today was supposed to be their two year anniversary or at least the papers said it was. 

and she had told him.

she had come across him that morning while he had been preparing to go to training. they did not speak much anymore but occasionally she would find him in the kitchen and prepare breakfast for him too. and in rare moments, he would smile at her again like he used to do before their entire relationship went down the drain and thank her. 

he would leave small kisses on her cheek, little acts that emery clung to because they were so rare and it was all he would give her anymore. when it equaled out all the times she woke up alone in the bed that a husband and wife were supposed to share. when those small touches would make falling asleep to the moans coming from the other room more bearable and yet so heartwrecking, she felt like suffocating while she cried. 

but she had hoped for this day at least they could put their indifference aside and at least celebrate this small achievement. because while it perhaps may not mean anything to him, it meant the world to her.

“would it be possible for you to come home from training earlier?” she had asked him this morning, her voice so gentle and soft as her heart prepared for rejection. “i wanted to do something special for tonight… a special dinner.” 

that morning, under all the gentleness and warmth her voice carried, her voice had carried the kind of quiet plea and begging and portrayed some of the vulnerability she was hiding. 

she had opened her heart for him for that small moment, put aside all those walls and glamours that hid her damaged soul. and he hadn’t even cared enough to notice. 

all she had received that morning was a small “i’ll try,” that had sounded more like a child forcefully complying to a request their mother had given them. something not taken serious. 

she had watched him leave that morning, her stomach twisting because one side of her was telling her that this time would be different. that he would show up while the other side of her knew that if he didn’t, that would be the final straw. there were only so many times she could pick up the pieces. 

and the empty chair in front of her told her everything she needed. 

her hands were resting on her lap, fingers twisting together so tightly that her knuckles ached. the clock on the wall ticked mercilessly, a constant reminder of how long since he had broken the last straw that kept her heart together. each second was itself into her heart. four hours had passed, she had called and sent messages and all of them had not been answered. 

a part of her wanted to call again, to let herself hear the ringing and cling to the hope that maybe he was just busy with something small and would now take the call. it was a cruel type of thinking because deep down she already knew. 

it wasn’t new knowledge but rather something she had hoped could still be demented. it was a truth she had carried in her chest for what felt like lifetimes, an ache so constant and yet so quiet. like dying of smoke, it suffocated quietly and gently and firstly took away your consciousness, lulling you to sleep before your body began to shut down. it was slow until you no longer remembered what it felt like to actually breathe. it was knowing that she had loved kylian for so long, with everything she had for the both of them — blindly, unconditionally with every piece of her being that she owned. when she stopped taking care of things she loved because she needed all that love to keep loving for the both of them. 

she had poured her entire soul into a man who would never come to love her for more than she was. who would never meet her halfway. 

she had constructed and build a life out of fragments, stitched a future from the silence between them and convinced herself it was enough when her heart yearned for more. but as the silence grew louder, he grew quieter till his voice was completely lost. she could see it in the way he hesitated or how he only held her in the public. 

because that was all their marriage was in the end. a charade to fool the public.  

perhaps the most heartbreaking part of that entire affair was that she would have kept loving him just as she did when she entered this lie. even when he was knowingly slipping away as the ground crumbled beneath her feet. for when you love someone that much, there is no button to just press stop — instead you unravel and hold on to things that have already deceased because you can’t stop. and all you can do is hope that they don’t notice how damaged your heart is. 

emery had looked at kylian like he had hung the stars while he had never bothered to even see her.  

she glanced at her wedding ring, the golden band that seemed to mean something everywhere except in her own home. even if it weighed nothing it still struck her down everytime she put it on her finger. like an additional weight to carry on her shoulders that are already so weak from having to carry all the love and effort for this marriage. 

she didn’t notice when the first tears started to flow till suddenly she couldn’t keep them in anymore. her hands were trembling as she carried the untouched plates into the kitchen. where she was reminded again of how much time she had wasted into something so unappreciated.

the cake was staring at her in a mocking way, as if it was laughing at her for seriously thinking that he would actually remember. yet she still pulled out a fork and started to take bites of it while her vision became blurrier from all the tears. 

a trembling sob left her lips as she took another bite but before she could actually eat it, she heard her phone vibrating.

was it cruel for her heart to hope that kylian had finally read her messages and a very reasonable explanation for his absence? very, but she was willing to take it, willing to be proven wrong if it meant her heart not falling apart completely. 

however she wasn’t given that kind of relief. instead it was a notification from one of the many gossip pages that she actually liked. and the topic of the newest video? 

kylian letting loose in a night club. 

silence set around her as everything drowned out while she watched the video. it was the kind of stillness that came before something irreversible. something inevitable. the renowned calm before the storm.

the realization that he had truly forgotten hadn’t set in instantly. the pounding music, the laughter, the flashing lights, him dancing closely with another girl —it was all drowned out by silence as she took it in. there he was, his arm slung casually around a friend's shoulders, his grin wide and carefree. as if he hadn’t just committed the downfall of emery adije-mbappé. 

he had truly never cared. not even when she had laid her entire heart on the table for him and begged him to care. to consider her. and he hadn’t. 

t’avais promis, t’avais promis 

A sob tore through her as she pushed back from the table, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. She clutched at the dishes, trying to clean, to erase the evidence of her hope, but her hands trembled too much. The sound of ceramic clattering against the counter was drowned out by her cries, sharp and broken.  

the video was all that was needed for the final crack in what was emery’s being. she clutched at the dishes, trying to stay focused on her task but her hands and body were trembling. all of the sudden her body was overcome by violent sobs, intense cries with no one to offer solace to her. she did not realize how she broke down and collapsed on the ground as she poured her entire heart out. 

how many times had she turned her wedding ring over between trembling fingers as if it replaced the warmth of his touch? as if telling herself time after time that he would come to love her would actually be true. how many nights had she stared into the void or cried herself to sleep because she was tired of her own failing marriage that she had never even wanted to be in? how often had she hoped that one day he would see her and for she was and what she felt. 

how many times had emery dreamed that one day he would thank her that letting her heart break itself over and over quietly for the time that it had taken him to love her?

emery had loved kylian with a kind of ache that made breathing feel like a betrayal—because every breath carried the weight of a love unreturned, and every moment she stayed was a silent cry she didn’t know how to stop screaming. she had imagined whole futures and parallel universes in her mind where his eyes finally softened when they met hers, where his hand reached back, where love wasn’t something she had to earn or chase or shrink herself to deserve.

maybe that was the real tragedy. not that he didn’t love her, but that she had kept hoping he might. that she had let herself believe the lies she told herself for so long, it had started to feel like truth. and perhaps the cruellest thing of love truly was hope, for that hope had always been the sharpest blade — and it had cut her deeper than heartbreak ever could.

she thought back to the first time he had offered her to leave. the only reason the marriage had even been in place was for the reconstruction of a public image. to smoothen out all his flaws and make him the ideal boy so his upcoming transfer would be perfect. no one liked the idea of a womanizer on their team because that meant a lot of work for their pr-team — work no one wanted to deal with. and it was exactly that image that kylian had had to that time when the idea of an arranged marriage had been put on the table. 

the marriage had worked miraculously in regards to his image. the public and his fans had immediately eaten up the idea of kylian getting together with his childhood best friend and in the end even marrying her, a true love story written for the books. 

and once he had published his decision of not renewing his contract at paris, he had told her that there was no need anymore to keep the entire charade up. but she had refused and chosen to stay even when he had done everything that should have driven her away. 

emery had stood at the edge of a cliff that day as they talked, when she had chosen him because she naively believed that he could grow to love her. that all those times they spent in private could not have been indifferent to him. 

she had been in love with him since childhood — how could she just throw this away when it was the closest she had ever come to feel his love? she had gone back to the mind of her foolish sixteen year old past-self and had hoped that if she just held on for a little longer, he would finally love her. 

i think i‘ve seen this film before, and i didn‘t like the ending

and just like back in bondy, it was the hope that killed her. 

she took a deep breath and wiped her tears away. she glanced at the kitchen one last time before she headed for her bedroom. the air around her was thick as she recognized just how much of him lacked in their apartment. it should have hurt as she grabbed the manila folder but she had broken off every string that hope had held over her. 

hope had been holding her back when her heart was still there, in pieces but still held together by tiny strings. but it had thoroughly fallen apart today and there was nothing whole for hope to pull strings between. 

determined, she reached for two big suitcases. she concentrated on taking the most important things she could not live without knowing she would never step foot back into this apartment again. not when the events that had happened here would damage her for the rest of her life and every future relationship. kylian had ruined her and left her to pick up her own pieces. 

as soon as she finished packing her things, she looked at the manila folder again and scoffed. there was no ounce of regret in her as she slipped the golden ring from her finger and put it on top of the envelope. she placed everything on the nightstand with a certain kind of tranquility and quiet finality. in some twisted way, she was watching the mess the affair had made even though she had been the one burning without ever deflagrating. 

her removing the rings felt like finally stepping out of the burning house. she wasn’t the one burning anymore and could now watch the beautiful tragedy as bystander, not caught in it anymore. 

she pushed her suitcases out the door and watched as the wedding ring caught the light one last time. there were no tears anymore. only a broken heart shattered into a billion little pieces. 

i think i‘ve seen this film before so, i‘m leavin‘ out the side door

she turned off the light and walked out the door, simultaneously also walking away from him. and this time she wasn’t looking back. 

— ✯

it was way past eleven when kylian finally took another glance at his phone, a lazy and yet content smile tugging at lips as scrolled on instagram. they did not make it an usual occurrence for those team gatherings but his team had won in training today and that just had to be celebrated. the club was loud, music vibrating through his ears and people crowding the dance floor. before him stood his third cocktail that he had yet to finish— he wasn’t particularly drunk but not sober either. enough to feel a buzz and yet aware enough of his surroundings. 

the thought of emery hadn’t even crossed his mind once in that entire time and then it hit him when he closed instagram and saw all the missed calls and messages from emery. 

realization struck him down with like a lightning bolt. he could feel every vein turning to ice and his body shutting down. 

today was their anniversary. 

she had asked him this morning whether he could find it in himself to come home directly after training. it had been just that — come home. and he had noticed that beneath the usual softness of her voice, next to its hopefulness, there had also been something else, an edge to her voice. something frayed and raw. her voice had carried a certain kind of brokenness and hesitation that showed just how vulnerable she had been this morning in front of him. as if she’d already resigned herself to being forgotten and her soul had already braced itself for disappointment. 

it hadn’t even been a demand but rather a plea that someone made even if they knew that it couldn’t happen. like a wish made to the stars. a request wrapped in caution she feared even speaking it aloud would already diminish it. 

but the worst part of it — what made his heart clench and made him want to throw up — was the fact that she had been right. 

she hadn’t asked for much and he had still managed to give her less. 

he had forgotten. not out of cruelty or carelessness but rather because it truly hadn’t meant enough to him. as if her trembling hope hadn’t mattered. perhaps that was the cruelest tragedy of the whole situation at all; not the forgetting itself but the fact of how she had been right that she did not mean anything to him anymore. that her heart, that already carried so many scars thanks to him, had completely shattered. as if he had cut the strings himself that held the fragile pieces of her heart together. 

and in the silence that followed his absence, he knew that she wasn’t angry at him but rather at herself. she lived with the kind of sadness that kindly broke you, in a way so gently it was barely noticeable until nothing of your soul was left anymore. 

he felt his heart drop into his stomach. 

without missing another second, he called his driver and asked him to pick him up as quick as possible. he excused himself from his friends and made his way through the crowd, bumping against people left and right but he couldn’t get himself to care for that right now. he had to go home and save his marriage, no matter how fake it was. 

he didn’t even know what he would say to explain himself. how he could even explain himself after dismissing emery just like that. no amount of groveling could excuse his behavior, nothing could make up for his treatment of her. 

“we always walked a very thin line”

he arrived at their apartment within twenty minutes. once his driver had seen the state he was in, he hadn’t bothered to ask questions and had just pressed down on the gaspedal. during the drive all he could think about was emery. 

he couldn’t pinpoint where exactly it had all gone wrong for them in a way there had been no route to return anymore. which excuse was more cruel? had he just simply ignored her for too long to not notice her brokenness and how she clung to the marriage like her last breath or had he simply not cared enough? 

everything in him was a storm with conflicted emotions and thoughts raging through his entire body. guilt grew so deep and heavy it nearly choked him as it collided against his chest. he went through his memories, desperate to find out what he had overseen and where it all had gone wrong — searching for the moment where he had missed her breaking down and her soul dying. when her smile became simply too forced while her eyes begged him to finally see what could not hide anymore because it was too agonizing. 

she had been unraveling right in front of him. slowly and gently, painfully. her soul silently collapsing inwards, flickering like a candle fighting to stay lit in the wind. and he— god, he hadn’t seen it. or maybe he had. except he then hadn’t cared enough. maybe a part of him had known it and recognized her slowly losing herself but it simply hadn’t bothered him. 

he hadn't been able to reach her when she needed it most. and now he wasn’t sure what there was to save anymore or how he could. 

on the pitch it was easy to fix things. coaches saw mistakes and made substitutions to gain control over the situation again and fix the mistake. that conceit wasn’t so easy to apply in real life because the mistakes were everywhere and there were not enough substitutes to rectify all the mistakes. mistakes he was the cause of. 

when he stepped into the apartment, he picked up the faint smell of vanilla and cinnamon just as they were about to fade away. the lights were out and once he put them on, he saw the dining table set for two. there was food on the table, the plate carefully wrapped in foil and once he stepped into the kitchen he saw all the other dishes, emery had most probably spent the entire afternoon cooking, sitting on the counter also wrapped in foil. a cake with a big two on it that was missing a few bites but still looked delicious. everything was staring at him like it had waited for him. like she must have waited for him. 

“emmy?” he called into the apartment but was only met with silence. 

his voice cracked slightly as he called for her again. “emery?”

silence again. 

he walked through the living room, his eyes landing on the delicate string lights she must have hung up earlier and the candles that had burned down to puddles of wax. there were golden napkins on the table — neatly folded into small roses and it was clear she spent a lot of time decorating them. 

his throat became dry.

“emery?” again, no answer. 

he pushed the door open to her bedroom, a place he had avoided while they had lived here because he couldn’t stand to listen to her crying herself to sleep knowing he was the cause of her sadness. of her agony that she could only show in the night when it was too dark for anyone to actually see the invisible scars she carried. 

her bedroom was empty, her closet nearly void except for a few clothes that he recognized as gifts he had given her. apology gifts because more often than not, he had screwed up. 

the bathroom was empty, no hair ties and perfumes lingering around or any of her thousand makeup products. any reminder that a woman had lived in here was thoroughly wiped clean.

and it was his fault that she had finally left. 

“you didn’t even see the signs”

she had opened herself up to him when she couldn’t hide all the emptiness and pain anymore. she had revealed herself to him like a wound begging to be healed, time and time again, raw and fragile — and he had preferred to let her bleed instead of salvaging her. 

not because he hadn’t loved her but rather because somewhere deep down, he hadn’t cared enough to fight for her pain and had simply been too afraid of his feelings for her. 

but his fear had let to her ceasing to exist. all that was left of her were pieces she had dropped in front of him, praying that he would notice and gather them. but he hadn’t. instead he had stepped on them with his ignorance and watched as they became smaller and smaller, as her soul slipped through his fingers like sand and ended in a dark black pool in front of him.  

because he believed that she would always stay. 

his eyes continued to travel the room and found the nightstand where something glittered in the dim light. her engagement ring sag there, her wedding band beside it. and underneath a thick envelope and a letter. 

he instantly knew what those papers contained for it was he who had had them drawed and had served them to her. how many times had he hoped that she would finally sign those papers? how often had he treated her so beneath her because he hoped that it would drive her away and make her sign the papers? but now that she had finally done, there was no relief. his heart did not feel like a stone finally fell off it. instead the pit in his stomach became bigger as the realization hit him. 

she had left. 

“you never gave a warning sign (i gave so many signs)”

“non…” he whispered, his voice trembling. “… non, non.”

he swallowed the lumps forming in his throat and  grabbed his phone to call her. 

the first call went to voicemail. 

he tried again. 

again, voicemail. 

he dialed for the third time, his lips shivering while his eyes were already filled with tears threatening to spill. 

“emery, please come back… i’m home now, i’m home. je suis desole, please,” he cried into the phone as his sobs became more intense. “please don’t give up on us. please come home emmy, talk to me. i’m sorry for not seeing the way you hurt, for ignoring it. i know it now.” 

“i love you,” he whispered into the phone as if finally speaking the words she had yearned to hear for so long would make her reappear instantly. those three words she had killed herself over and over for because she hoped that if she stayed long enough, he would finally reciprocate her love. 

and he had given her so many reasons to hope when she had been on the brink of giving up. he had been the one to supply the hope that had destroyed and killed her slowly. he may just as well be the person who constantly stabbed her with a knife and watched her bleed to death. he had driven her to a point where she could not hide her pain anymore, when tears were nothing but water anymore. he had given her a bit of his heart, watched as she valued it like it was everything she had to have her staying and then tore it away from her harshly, watching as another part of soul went with it. 

it was all his fault. and that was perhaps the most tragic kind of heartbreak— the one born from absence, from negligence and indifference. the kind of heartbreak that happened due to your own failure of not showing enough that you loved the other. in a twisted way, both had thought they were not enough for the other.

kylian didn’t finish the message. he just ended the call, breath catching in his throat. he didn’t stop himself from crying, he did not wipe his tears away. 

his knees gave out and he dropped beside the bed, fingers clutching at the edge of the nightstand like it could anchor him.

she was not there anymore. 

and he was at sole fault for it. 

his hand brushed against something under the table. a box, wrapped in gold. He pulled it into his lap with shaking fingers and peeled back the wrapping paper.

sneakers, custom-made. the kind he had desired for months. he’d only mentioned them in passing but she had remembered. his initials stitched on the side, they were painted in the colors of his old childhood team with a small drawing that represented him. 

he stared at the letter but couldn’t bring himself to open it. his fingers hovered over the seal, and his chest ached like it might split open. had that been the constant agony emery had breathed everyday? here he was with not only a third of what he had caused emery and it was enough to pray to any higher power to make it stop. 

kylian knew whatever words were written inside that letter—he had no right to read them now. not after all the silence. not after all the neglect.

she had loved him in ways he never asked for —but never stopped accepting. she held him when he was too tired to hold himself together. cheered for him when the world turned away. smiled at him even when her heart trembled at the seams, even when every beat of it was another plea he never answered. loved him even if he was the reason she couldn’t breathe and was also breathing. 

emery had given and given until there was nothing to give anymore but void eyes and shattered souls. and he had taken it all with apathy and tried to push her away because he was afraid of his own feelings. 

it had never been the absence of affection that broke her. it was the slow, cold starvation of hope. she had waited too long. loved too intensely and hoped too blindly that one day he would love her back. 

but while his feelings were now clear, the day he admitted them to her never came. and it would have never come if it took her leaving for him to acknowledge how much he actually loved her. 

what had shattered her wasn’t the rejection. it was the realization that he had never truly tried to love her at all.  

because if he had… even a little… he never would have let her keep giving until she was empty.

the realization that she was truly gone and what he had lost hit him fully after two weeks.

two weeks of waking up alone in the apartment, no scent of vanilla lingering around. no breakfast and soft smile waiting for him as he prepared himself to go to training. there was no quiet humming anymore but rather coldness and silence when he came home. no warm hands to welcome him  home anymore. 

the first night after her departure, he had come home from training and had waited for her the entire night. waited for the sound of the front door finally opening and for her to walk into the apartment with a tired smile and an empty bottle of orange juice. 

but she didn’t come. 

so he waited the next night and she did not come again. 

the emptiness of his apartment was haunting him. it was too quiet, too cold as if once she had left, she had taken the homey atmosphere of the house with her

he had started to sleep in her bed, grasping at the last few things he had of her. emery’s scent still lingered around her room but with each day that passed, it faded more and more till it remained a distant memory. 

he had read the letter she had left him, crying the entire time that he went word over word in the letter that she had poured her heart out for him. he had pulled it into his drawer, next to copies of their marriage pictures that she had left back. 

reading it had been hard. had made things final. he had seen the moment she had given up and felt what she had carried for so long. 

it was emery leaving that had kylian realize for the first time that he’d fallen in love with her. that it had always been her, since forever. 

but she was already gone.

with a heavy heart and tears down his face, he dialed his mother’s number and was relieved when she picked up. “maman, i— i… i screwed up. emmy’s gone. she left.” 

[foundtherightwords]

Fallen Empires - Chapter 4

Pairing: Geta x OFC

Summary: Having done the unthinkable to secure his throne, Emperor Geta rules with ruthlessness and paranoia. Now, after escaping an assassination attempt, a badly injured Geta is saved by Daphne, a young widow, who takes him back to her remote village without knowing his true identity. As Daphne nurses the former emperor back to health, attraction blooms between them, and Geta discovers a soft side he didn't know he possessed. But can their love survive his thirst for revenge and his desire to reclaim power?

Chapter warnings: none

Chapter word count: 2.5k

Prologue + Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

Chapter 4

At last, Geta was deemed sufficiently recovered to leave the bedroom. His stitches came off, and though Daphne still plied him with bitter drinks and fortifying broths, she no longer put the smelly poultices on his wounds. She hadn't allowed him a full bath yet, but she had given him his privacy to wash and dress and had allowed him solid food. It was only simple fare like lentil stew and barley soup, but it tasted heavenly after a month of watery gruel. His illness must have changed his palate as well, for now he thought of the roast flamingos and lark's tongues and dormice of a Roman feast with disgust. Had he really eaten such things? This food was so much more nourishing and wholesome.

When he asked Daphne if the villagers would be suspicious that she was taking more food than usual, she only shrugged. "They always give me more than I need," she explained. "Usually I would store it and share it in the winter, but nobody will miss it."

Geta thought he would be glad to finally get back on his feet. But his month-long convalescence had left him weak and shaky, and when he looked at his reflection in the basin of water during his morning ablutions, he no longer recognized his own face. It was pale, as pale as it had been back in Rome, when he had been younger and had resorted to powder and rouge to make himself stand out. His cheeks and eyes had sunken, while his hair and beard had grown long, giving him a haggard look. Even his body had changed. When Daphne cut his stitches, he didn't dare look at himself. All the muscles, honed from hours at the gymnasium in Rome and days of marching on the road alongside his men, had vanished, leaving only protruding ribs and collarbones. It frightened him more than he cared to admit. How strange it was that when he was bedridden, all he could think of was to get better, to ride out and confront those who wanted him dead, yet now, when he was better, fear and doubt started to creep in. He could not face his enemies, whoever they were, in this frail and weakened condition.

The first thing he did, once he could walk around unassisted, was go outside to get a feel of the land. Daphne told him that the village—more like a hamlet, really—had been built by Greek shepherds hundreds of years ago, who had discovered some, if not fertile then at least peaceful, grazing land hidden amongst these formidable rocky peaks. Remembering the history lessons from his childhood, Geta guessed that it was the leftover of an old Greek settlement after Pompey remade the East, or perhaps its inhabitants were fleeing the collapse of the Seleucid Empire. Either way, it explained the strange accent and why the people here still considered themselves Greek, though they mixed and traded with the Syrians down in the Balikh Valley as well as the Kurd nomads of the plateau and the Parthians across the border. But Geta was less interested in the history of the place than in its capacity for secrecy and defense.

"Don't go too far, mind," Daphne said, as he stepped through the door.

Ignoring her, Geta stood at the door for a moment, looking around. The hut was situated on the summit of a tall, rocky hill, sheltered from the blistering sun by a sheer cliff in the back and by Daphne's namesake, a grove of laurel trees, around the sides. The front door opened into a little yard and overlooked yet more rocky hills surrounding the hut. No wonder he couldn't be found. The hills all looked the same, sandy brown crags that stood like sentinels, dotted here and there by clumps of scraggly pines. There were no signs of other inhabitants, save for the bleats of distant sheep, and no visible roads, save for a tiny footpath winding between two large boulders that led from the front door of the hut down the hill and into the valley.

Geta followed this path, stopping every minute to catch his breath. On his left, the path opened into a crevice amongst the rocks, where terraced garden rows lined the hill. Fruit trees, vegetables, and medicinal herbs grew valiantly despite the arid soil. Beehives stood between the trees, and occasionally a bee would buzz past him, bustling just like its mistress. Below the garden, a small cistern had been dug into the rocks to gather the meager rainfall.

The path continued its downward spiral around the hill. Here and there amongst the boulders, the scouring wind had driven in enough soil for shrubs and even trees to grow, and they clung to the rocks as tenaciously as the people of this place clung to their land. Through the boulders, Geta could catch glimpses of the valley below, a deep gorge with a stream of brown sludge meandering through it. Sounds of habitation drifted toward him—more sheep bleating, the rhythmic hammering of a blacksmith, a child's wail—but he saw no other soul on his descent.

Eventually, the path dwindled into little more than a crack between two rock faces, just wide enough for a man leading a donkey—not a horse—to pass through. A cleft in the rock served as a gate between the path and the valley beyond. Dangling from a hook over this cleft was the bell he'd heard, which was just a weathered piece of bronze with an iron rod next to it for sounding the alarm. Geta looked behind him. The hut was still visible, though only just, its mud-brick walls blending in with the hillside so perfectly that one couldn't even tell there was a dwelling there, unless one already knew where to look. It was the ideal hiding place.

Thus reassured, he made his way back up the slope. But he had been overconfident in his recovery, and the climb was much more difficult than the descent. He lost sight of the hut and was no longer sure if he was going the right way. Well, how hard could it be? He just had to go up, didn't he? But new boulders seemed to be shooting up in random places, blocking his way, forcing him to go left or right instead of in a straight line, and he didn't seem to be gaining ground at all. Soon he was crawling on his hands and knees, wheezing as though his lungs were about to burst. Sweat poured down his forehead and his back.

Just when he thought he would never make it back to the hut, hurried footsteps came toward him, and Daphne's capable hands helped him up. "Don't disappear like that," she chided. "You gave me such a fright. I thought you'd run away!"

"Only—wanted to—take—a walk," he tried to explain.

"You must take it easy," she said, helping him down a chair by the door of the hut. "Here. Rest. I'll bring you some wine."

She went inside. A moment later, Geta heard a small gasp and a clatter. He turned around to find Daphne scrambling to pick up a cup, which had fallen on the floor.

"Sorry, so clumsy of me," she stammered.

"Something the matter?" he asked.

"Nothing's the matter, everything is fine," she said, a little too quickly. She busied herself with the wine, mixing it with water before pouring a cup and handing it to him. It could be his imagination, but he thought her face was rather flushed, and she was avoiding his eyes. Geta's suspicion, which had been lying dormant since the night he'd witnessed Daphne save the pregnant woman, reared its head again.

"What's in this wine?" he asked, eyeing the cup.

Daphne saw his suspicious look. "Are you still on about that?" she said, rolling her eyes. "I've told you, I would not go to all this trouble only to poison you. Here"—she snatched the cup from him and took a large sip—"does that make you feel safer?"

Sheepishly, Geta took the wine back. Daphne was still glancing at him strangely from time to time, but he shrugged it off and focused on the more pressing matter, which was his recovery. "How long do you think before I'm strong enough to return to Edessa?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said. "You're strong, but you've lost a lot of blood, and your lungs are still in danger of getting inflamed. There's a town two days from here, Adala. There you may be able to get passage to Edessa, but if your fever returns while you're on the road, there's nothing I can do."

His stomach sank. He took a sip of wine and told himself to be patient. The gods had given him this second chance at life to strike down his foes, and he would not squander it.

Trying to discover his enemies got him nowhere, and so Geta turned to the one thing he knew—brute strength. Lacking a gymnasium, he exercised by walking and sparring with a stick against a tree trunk, and sometimes with the dagger as well. It was true that his resting time in between these exercises was often longer than the exercises themselves, but at least exercising had the virtue of tiring him out, so his sleep was longer and more restful, untroubled by ghosts and visions of Tartarus.

When Daphne went into the village, she still instructed him to stay in the bedroom as usual. The occasional villager would stop by to pick up a cure or leave their token of gratitude, and soon Geta learned their names and professions. There was Tatia the baker, who always wanted a cure for indigestion for her husband; Cyrus the weaver, an old man whose back was hunched from bending over the loom, who usually picked up a balm or ointment for his aching joints; Habib, who came by often for some fortifying tonics for his wife. There were also Khaleed the shepherd, Musa the shepherd, Apollonius the shepherd, Samira the shepherd's wife, and many others, as well as various children. They all had the same lean, sinewy look as Daphne's, the look of a people who had to scratch out a living on a near-barren land and conserve every drop of water they could find. Still, they looked harmless enough. It made Geta feel a little safer, though he still wore the dagger during the day and slept with it under his pillow.

If Daphne was home, he could walk around freely. She even put a bench in a corner of the hut, near the door, so he could sit down and rest whenever he wanted. Sitting there, he would amuse himself by watching the goats—a nanny goat, and her two kids—frolicking around, foraging for grass and edible leaves amongst the rocks, while the donkey stood placidly under the olive trees. He would watch Daphne as well, and now that he was getting better, her bustle and chatter no longer irritated him as they once had. If anything, he found them rather endearing, a welcoming distraction from his circuitous, muddled thoughts.

One afternoon, Geta was napping on this bench when he was awakened by annoyed bleating. Getting up, he saw Daphne just outside the door, holding one of the baby goats, the black one with a rather cheeky look, between her knees. She was struggling to wrap strips of old linen around the goat's budding horns, and the goat was having none of it. His brother, the snow-white one, was lying primly nearby, his horns already wrapped.

"What on Earth are you doing?" Geta asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she said between two breaths. "I'm wrapping his horns." Taking advantage of her distraction, the goat bolted out of her lap. "Catch him!" Daphne shouted, running after the goat. It dodged between her arms and ran straight for the open door of the hut, toward the bench. Geta stuck out a leg. The goat tried to jump over him, but its own legs were still young and clumsy, and it went sprawling on the ground.

Chuckling, Geta scooped the goat up. Its fur was surprisingly soft, and it smelled, not unpleasantly, of dung, fresh grass, and warm milk. Once it realized escape was out of the question, it settled into his arms readily enough and immediately started chewing on the sleeve of his tunic, as was the wont of goats.

"Hold him like that," Daphne said.

Picking up the linen, she knelt in front of Geta and wrapped the goat's horns in quick, practiced movements. A new scent, faint but sweet, almost like orange blossoms, joined the animal smell of the goat. It took a moment for Geta to realize it was coming from Daphne. He had never noticed it before, even when she sat close to him to change his dressing, either because he had been too ill to notice anything, or because the strong vinegary smell of the dressing had overpowered it. He breathed in deeply, letting that fresh and flowery fragrance fill his tired lungs. His inhale causes Daphne to look up. Their eyes met, and Daphne's lashes—which were quite long, he'd only just noticed as well—fluttered for the briefest of moments, before she looked away.  

"Why do you wrap their horns?" Geta asked, to fill the silence.

"So they don't hurt themselves or each other."

"They don't seem to like it," he pointed out.

"Too bad." She finished tying the ends of the linen strip. Geta let the goat go, and it ran back to its mother and brother. "Be good to each other now, you hear?" Daphne called after them.

A ghost whispered at the back of Geta's mind. Be good to each other. Those were his father's last words to him and his brother. It hadn't worked. It never would've worked. His father must have known that, and yet he had clung to that hope of the Empire under two rulers, until the day he died.

"It's no use," he said to Daphne, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Look, they're at each other's throat again already." Indeed, the two kids were running toward each other at full tilt, though their linen-wrapped horns glanced off harmlessly.

Daphne shrugged. "At least this way they won't get hurt," she said.

"Would you have soldiers fight with blunt swords then?" he scoffed. "Would you wrap them up in soft linen instead of armor, so they wouldn't get hurt? It's in their nature. You can't stop it."

Daphne looked at him curiously, and he realized he'd said too much. She studied him for a long time. Eventually, she replied, quietly, "I would, if I could." There was an infinite sadness in her eyes and her voice that he couldn't understand, and as he watched her go into the garden to gather vegetables for their evening meal, guilt pricked at his insides like tiny needles. He didn't know if he was feeling guilty about making her sad, or if it was simply his old guilt coming back to haunt him.

Chapter 5

I got the idea for Daphne to wrap the goats' horns from this delightful image of aggressive goats having to wear pool noodles to prevent them from injuring themselves and others. Knowing Daphne, she would no doubt come up with the Ancient Roman equivalent of that.

Septimius Severus's last words to his sons are (paraphrased) "Be good to each other, enrich the army, and scorn all the rest." Unfortunately, it seems Caracalla and Geta only paid attention to the last bit :((

This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, so the next update may come sooner. Stay tuned!

Taglist: @sheneedsrocknroll92, @justnobodynothingmore, @barcelonaloverf1life, @myotakureprieve, @flawssy-227 (if you want to be tagged, let me know!)

[rascalentertainments]

Wish Granted 🌟👩🏾🎶 (Wish Reimagined)

Chapter 6: Welcome to Rosas (Part 2)

Chapter 5

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

"Don't be shy now." Magnifico insisted.

Flazino faked a laugh badly. "Whaaaat? No, no, no. They're nobody! I mean, they're obviously somebody, but they've been here before!" he stood in front of them to block the king's view.

Magnifico raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? I don't believe I've seen them around town before." He looked over Flazino's shoulder and noticed the girl in purple looked rather familiar to him.

"Oh yeah, yeah! They're from the far side of Rosas, you don't make a lot of trips there…" Flazino blurted on, making up this story as he went along.

As the apprentice continued, Star had sensed something was off about the king. He didn't seem to have a joyful vibe despite the smile on his face. And what was up with his staff?

The starboy's thoughts halted when he felt something tighten around his arm. He looked to his right and saw Asha's expression had changed. She wasn't happy to see the King at all. She looked as if she was hiding her fear, but Star could see it in her eyes. Asha was terrified of Magnifico.

She saw Flazino use a hand signal behind his back to tell them go, quickly.

"Star, we need to go. Right now." she whispered to him.

Star wanted to keep looking around town, but the fear in her eyes made him change his mind. "All right." He responded. For the first time, he was taking this seriously. He picked up Valentino, who was slightly shaking.

They quietly backed away, careful not to make a noise to alert the king.

"…So they were just passing by. They're probably gone by now!" Flazino raised his voice slightly in hopes the two of them had finally left.

The king's eyes looked up and the two leaving, his suspicions were confirmed.

"Ah, I see. What a shame. I'll have to meet them later on." Magnifico shook his head in pretend disappointment. "I came down see how some of my loyal subjects are doing. You know, really get to know everyone. Speaking of which, I have something in mind for you."

"Um…me, sir?" Flazino asked raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, I've realized that I've neglected my duties as your teacher. Its time that you had more…advanced training." he said with a smile as green fire emitted from his hand.

"Y-you're actually going to train me? I mean, advance my training?" The boy had been waiting for this moment for years, but…the Hamlet mattered more. "Sir, I don't know how to say this, but-" he started as he rubbed his arm.

"No need to thank me, Figaro!" Magnifico exclaimed as he put an arm around the teen and laughed.

"It's Flazino…" He muttered, but the king continued on like his apprentice hadn't even spoken.

"You can thank my darling wife Amaya for that once she returns! She caught on to that and insisted I take extra care of you for our next lesson!" the king explained as they headed back to the castle.

"Uh, sure. But can we make it a short lesson? I really have other duties to take care of." Flazino said as he threw blue powder behind his shoulder while the king wasn't looking. The smoke traveled from his hand and slithered on the ground like a snake and traveled through the crowd.

•◌•◌•★•◌•◌••◌•◌•★•◌•◌••◌•◌•★•◌•◌••◌•◌•★•◌•◌••◌•◌•★•◌

We end up going all the way back to the Hamlet, with the people already out doing their morning routines.

Sabino slept a little later than normal since the incident last night and needed the extra rest. Now that he felt refreshed, he took a deep breath, and was ready for a new day.

The old man hadn't seen Asha yet, but assumed she was already out finding inspiration for sketches. So he went out by himself. Sabino greets a few of the neighbors, one of which was leading some of the livestock to the nearby river.

Sabino waves to the man with a smile and continues towards the water well, but he over hears a conversation.

"I'm telling you, one of the squirrels said 'Good morning' to me!" A man told his wife who putting out the laundry. She rolled her eyes. "Next you'll be telling me a bear when asked for a pot of honey."

"THAT HAPPENED TOO!" the husband exclaimed.

Sabino hoped the guy wasn't going senile at such a young age, not even he heard something like that. He walked over to his usual spot at the well and noticed it felt different when he got there. He felt a hint of such joy from that spot, just like he did last night.

The camera shows beneath his feet there's a very faint glow from the leftover stardust. "What in the…?" He started, but was interrupted by Sakina's call.

"Sabino! Have you seen Asha? I've been looking for her all morning, but I haven't seen her. Valentino is missing too." Her voice had a slight panic in it.

The man grabbed her hand gently. "Now, now. Don't worry, I'm sure she's around here. Perhaps she went a little further in the forest than usual. You know how she tries to find new things here."

"Actually, she left here last night." A kid's voice chimed in.

The two of them looked around for the speaker, but no-one was near. "Down here!" The voice spoke again.

Sabino and Sakina looked down and saw a small grey rabbit looking back at them. It waved its little paw at them and said "Hi there!"

"…."

"Sakina, I fear that I'm finally losing my mind." Sabino said, still in shock of the talking rabbit.

"….We might both be losing it, saba." Sakina responded, the same as Sabino.

The rabbit laughed. He hopped onto the well so they could see him better. "Last night Asha was singing to the star in the sky, and it then came down, turned into a guy, and made us all talk! Then he sang a song too and then he said he wanted to help her save the kingdom, and then he turned into a horse and they ran off to a place called Rosas. It sounds fun!"

The two of them stared at the rabbit for a few moments. Then Sakina fainted.

"Is she okay?" The rabbit asked, concerned.

"Well….I guess she took my request rather quickly." Sabino laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh dear…."

Cutting back to Asha and Star, they continued in the opposite direction. Asha finally breathed after they were far away enough. "That was too close. If he knew who we were…" her voice trailed off, not wanting think about what could've happened next.

She took out her sketchbook and started flipping through pages. "Looks like talking to Flazino won't work. They might be onto us already."

"So then, what do we do now?" Star asked, slightly distracted by the passerbys.

"Luckily I wrote down a little map here based on how Flaz described this place to me. I just hope its accurate enough..." She hoped.

The three of them slowly continued, with Star and Valentino following Asha closely. The little goat kept watch in case a guard or Sabor was near. A quick shot from the rooftops showed something moving quickly across the screen.

We quickly cut to a shot at feet level where the smoke is quickly catching up to the trio, sliding between several people.

Goingg back to the trio, Asha studied her map. "First, we'll need to get to the back of the castle somehow."

Behind her, Star quickly moved out of the way of a woman pushing a wheelbarrow full of stacks of flour. "Whoops! Sorry about that, buddy! Coming through with a delivery!" she had quite a chipper voice and whistled while she worked.

"Wow, she seems happy!" Star noted.

Asha continued looking through her book. "There should be a secret entrance somewhere around here, but we'll have to go further and try to circle around so we don't alert any guards."

Someone tapped Star on the shoulder. He turned and saw a girl holding a few daffodils in her hands. She looked a bit shy as she avoided making eye contact with him. "Um, I'd like to ask for you for a favor." she spoke in a soft, whisper-like tone. "Since you were kind enough to take the last of the flowers I couldn't sell, would you mind giving these to a boy named Safi?"

Star took the flowers and gave them a sniff. "Aw, sure! By the way who-" he looked up and the girl seemed to vanish into thin air.

"No need to be bashful! I don't mind doing it!" Star yelled, hoping that wherever she was, she heard him.

Asha quickly ran back to Star. "What are you doing?! Do you want to get us caught?" she grabbed his hand and pulled him along.

Before they proceeded further, a tall lanky blonde stepped in front of them. "Hey, you guys must be new around here! How about I give you a free show? The name's Dairo, by the way." He offered as he pulled a few colored balls from his pockets. He began to juggle them effortlessly in the air.

Asha had completely ignored him. Star on other hand... "Yeah, sure!" Valentino groaned and tried to push him away from the stranger.

"All right, prepare to be amazed!" The tall teen started to increase the amount of balls from 4 to 7 and was slowly walking backwards. "How you like this?"

Star had sparkles in his eyes. "IS THIS EARTH MAGIC?! I LOVE IT!"

"Hehe! Well, I'd like to think so- Whoawhoawhoa! Yaaah-hoo-hoo-hooey!!!"

Dario had stepped on a empty glass battle on the ground and was rapidly going backwards, still juggling the balls. He eventually went so far backwards he ended up falling into a barrel of water. "I'm okay!" he assured the concerned bystanders and gave a thumbs up.

Asha sighed as she let go of Star's hand. "What a dope. I can't wait to get out of this place. No one minds their own business." she grumbled.

"You know, I get what you've told me about that guy stealing wishes. But….is it really that bad?" Star asked in sincerity.

Asha looked at Star in surprise. "What?"

"I mean aside from a few of them looking sleepy a lot, this place looks great! And you're surrounded by tons of people and try something new all the time!"

Asha scoffed. "You can't be serious! My family had to run away from this place because of him!" She slightly raised her voice. "Don't be fooled by all this. That man and his wife are pure evil, and the sooner we take them down, the better."

Star didn't quite understand, but he went along anyway. "Sorry. I guess I was just thinking that this was better than where I was before now."

"How could this be better than being in space where you had the freedom to go where you wanted?" Asha argued.

"Because....at least I'm not alone like I was up there..." Star hesitated. His smile faltered as his eyes casted downwards. We see the glow in his hair completely faded.

Valentino looked up in concern. "Baaaah?"

Asha''s expression softened. She never thought about how Star felt up there. She just assumed he was just as happy in space as he is on Earth. But bringing it up seemed to bother him. Now she understood why he was so excited in the city. Seeing him down like this...it really bothered her.

She stepped a bit closer and reached a hand out to his face. He looked up to her, with widened eyes.

(Thanks to @ishadow246 for this little doodle, it was perfect for this! Just pretend he has a hood here, K? 😅)

"I'm sorry, I-" she started, but then a small cloud of blue smoke appeared in front of her face.

Both of them jumped and exclaimed in fear, Valentino hid behind Star's legs.

(imagine this, but blue)

"Sorry about that, Asha. Magnifico is practically breathing down my neck right now." The smoke had two cartoonish eyes and a mouth, while the voice coming out was Flazino's. "Glad I learned this communication spell last month. I guess he did teach me one useful thing." The voice sounded a bit like he was in a large room with an echo.

"Could've waited a few more minutes, but all right..." Star mumbled.

"Does this mean you can actually help us? I did draw out a map, but I'm not sure if its totally accurate." Asha said as she showed the blue cloud the pages of her book.

It took a brief look and smiled. "Actually, its pretty spot on, nice going! But it'll be a different story once you're inside. The king keeps the wishes in a room at the top of the castle."

The smoke then floated up as it took a look of the path leading to the castle. The coast looked mostly clear, with only a few guards around.

"I'll take you there, but you'll have to be quick. Mags has been acting strange since that big light last night, and he might be getting suspicious." he warned them.

Star and Asha shared a knowing glance. "You think he's talking about me?" He whispered to her.

The two of them quickly followed the blue ball down a path that led away from the town square. They could see the castle getting closer into view. The camera then cuts to a faraway shot where we see something large moving quickly across the rooftops.

"When we get inside, you'll have to be quiet, the guards doubled since last night." Flazino continued. "Once you're in his study, there's a big door that leads to the Wish Chamber, but you can't open it unless-"

The voice was cut off by a large animal that pounced onto the blue cloud. It came down so quickly, the three of them barely had time to react.

The lynx held the ball in his paw and began to squeeze it. "Sabor! No, no, no, bad kitty! Bad-" POOF!

The smoke ball disappeared and nothing but blue ash was left in his paws. The lynx slowly turned his head towards Star and Asha with devilish grin.

It flashes back to Flazino who's eyes were glowing blue until the connection was gone. "Nonono, that's not good. Not good." he started to panic as he began to look for the ingredients in the lab to make another spell.

"Is something troubling you?" Magnifico asked from behind him. His staff was beginning the glow, just like his eyes. "Perhaps you lost touch with someone?" He teased as he pointed his staff at Flazino's back.

The boy was too afraid to look back, but he knew the man had an evil grin.

Jumping right back outside, from around the corner, Amaya elegantly stepped into view. "Well, well, if it isn't the brave little girl and boy, or should I say starboy?" she let out a small chuckle.

The two of them took a step back in horror, with Valentino still hiding behind them.

"How-how did you...?" Asha couldn't even finish. They were so far ahead of her. How did she find them?!

She spread her arms as if she was inviting them in for a hug. "I see you made it quite far. But I'm afraid your journey stops here. Welcome to Rosas, my dears!" The queen's eyes glow green as she finishes.

Star could only said one thing. "Oh shtars-"

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

FINAL THOUGHTS

Wow, its been a loooong time, hasn't it? Looks like most of the fandom was on break and working on their rewrites at the same time, lol. There were times I felt like the dog that was left alone for a few hours and I just went crazy by going into all my friends AUs and then my own stuff. I think was actually shorter than planned.

But yeah, at long last we got Chapter 6! I'll admit this was a little harder to write this one. One because I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and write, and two I've had a ton of art to make on the side when I can. So now more of my characters can get some art! Now for this one, I had A LOT going on, mostly because there's so much I want to tell, and this story will probably be about 20 chapters or less. That's usually the length of my stories, even in non-fan work, so strap in.

So not only did we get the rest of teens (which will fully assemble later on) more of a focus later after Star has his first confrontation with Mags here. We also get more of Flazino, who's got his own storyline at this rate, lol. As you can see he can perform a bit if magic himself, but only small doses. (really playing into the double agent thing now, I'm really surprised how quickly he got fans)

His entire mood between chapters 5 & 6 (I'm sure he's fine…):

(George here is pretty much the base of WG!Flazino so it fits)

And I had to gave you a sprinkling of ship teasing with Asha and Star. I say sprinkle because the ship's gonna get stronger in the next chapters. Chapter 7 will be LONG, and we need a point where Asha can sleep, she's just been going nonstop and might end up like Flazino if she's not careful.

I'll give you some details on what's coming next: Dahlia and the teens will all come back in Chapter 7, and we'll see how she knows Asha. Our first magic battle between Star and Mags who finally meet, that traitor amongst us scene from the original film, Flaz needing therapy and of course SHIPPING!!

As for things outside this chapter, I'm posting a DTIYS challenge finally, so I hope you'll like to join it!

Thanks for reading!

@signed-sapphire @oh-shtars @annymation @chillwildwave

@uva124 @ishadow246 @tumblingdownthefoxden @your-ne1ghbor

@mythartist21 @gracebethartacc @emptyblog7 @spectator-zee

@lazytitans-world @emillyverse @flicklikesstuff @kenihewa

@snackara @wings-of-sapphire @natsuki208

[swallowtail-ageha]

can you explain lady maria to me? idk shit about bloodborne (?) but from what you post abt her she sounds so interesting,,

Putting this under the cut cause its longggg esp since bloodborne lore is convoluted even in an abridged way

Ok sooo basically in the bb world there was this old civilization of superhumans that communed w eldritch deities and lived in underground labyrinths but they slayed too close to the sun and collapsed, and while part of them stayed underground part came to the overworld and their descendants (cainhurst people) became vampire lite with the power to manipulate blood and set it on fire and maria is part of that family. Maria also hated the whole blood manipulation arts

At the same time when she was alive this college, byrgenwerth, was operating. Byrgenwerth wanted to ascend humanity to gods and therefore made expeditions to the underground labyrinths and to defend the scholars they had hunters/tomb prospectors (which were a single thing but split on later down the line). Through unspecified means maria abandons cainhurst and joins byrgenwerth as a hunter under the head hunter, gehrman. She deeply admired him while he was highkey obsessed with her but hid it.

During that time a scholar from byrgenwerth found old blood (blood from the great ones) in the labyrinth and gave it to cainhurst in secret.

After another unspecified amount of time byrgenwerth students and hunters find a small fishing hamlet where an eldritch god washed ashore, and thus they went there to inspect it. It quickly turns into a brutal massacre of its inhabutants that were also mutated due to the god's influence and ends up with the hunters eviscerating the dead pregnant god and killing her child and looting their corpses to commit experiments. This fucks up maria so badly she decides to completely abandon the hunter lifestyle.

After the fact, one of the byrgenwerth students, laurence, decides to disert from the college with other students and hunters to create his own little church-cult where he distributes the old blood to the population which heals people but also has the side effect to turn people into beasts. Ouch. He also leads human experiments in a place called the research hall, and maria, who abandoned being an hunter to escape brutality, ends up being the head of mass experimentation site.

In the research hall she bonds with this patient, adeline, who is getting prepared to become a blood saint (women who can produce and distribute old blood). Maria wants adeline to get away from the enviroment but doesnt do anything concrete about it and also adeline was 100% into it so it all amounts to nothing

This ends up like you'd expect, and ends up finally tanking her mental health and she decides to kill herself. Her suicide makes gehrman go cray cray and he created a life size doll identical to her and may or may not have tried to summon a great one to try and bring her back which obviously fails.

One would expect her suffering to be over, but no, turns out violating a god has disastrous consequences so she finds her soul trapped into turbohell (along with all the people who partecipated in the hamlet massacre, and all the hunters and churchmen who came after) where she is forced to face forever all she is done. She decides to guard the entrance to the dream-hamlet from the mc both out of not wanting to let other people know what she has done and genuinely wanting to protect the goddess her child and the villagers from people who like her are willing to commit unspeakable acts to satisfy her curiosity. We end up killing her for the second time :)

I love her so much she is genuinely my favourite soulsborne character ever i am obsessed with how she sunk cost fallacies herself into ruin.

Also she is. Hot albino masc pirate two meters tall vampire lady. I need her carnally.

[perdvivly]

There’s a common critique of The Kingkiller Chronicles that says the main character (Kvothe) is over powered and this makes the conflicts uninteresting to read because Kvothe will always do something exceptionally clever and resolve whatever problem he comes across by being a super genius with few to no character flaws.

Examples usually cited include his admission to the university at an exceptionally young age and receiving the first ever scholarship. Or his admission into the arcanum and the showing up of his overly arrogant teacher. The list goes on.

And this seems to me to be such a tremendously poor critique it’s absolutely mystifying that it’s been made so many times. And made by people who I think in other contexts show themselves to be astute and good faith readers. It fundamentally misunderstands the very obvious point of any of the scenes they like to cherrypick. In my mind it misunderstands the point of the entire book itself.

Rothfuss’ world-building involves two primary magic systems, one very hard magic system (sympathy) and one very soft magic system (naming). And if you’ll forgive a vibic associative sort of description here, these are supposed to roughly correspond to a type of analytic intelligence and a type of thoughtful wisdom respectively.

It is important to note that Kvothe is portrayed as exceptionally talented at the analytic type of hard-magic and not particularly talented at the more reflective soft-magic.

This is an important feature to keep in mind when you look at the sort of story Rothfuss’ is trying to tell. His writing has a sort of recursive quality. The story is a frame narrative, it’s a story within a story, and often there are stories within the stories within the stories. It seems rather obvious that Rothfuss has in mind the power of thoughtful deliberateness, the power of thoughtfully chosen words, and it seems rather obvious too that he’s showing us a failure case of this. Kvothe’s story isn’t wish-fulfilment Mary Sue fantasy. It’s a tragedy. It’s how you end up old and alone and regretting your life story. The protagonist is reckless, arrogant, and mentally agile in a way that gets him off the hook in situations that might seem short-term unpleasant to be in, but would otherwise serve as valuable learning experiences.

Kvothe is unable to see the value of things that his teachers say are difficult or impossible to fully explicate. He is insistent that his own mental prowess is sufficient to overcome any surmountable obstacle. He’s brought up short several times, he’s asked to describe love, or music, and he blusters on seemingly unaware of his own incompetence.

There’s an analogy to Hamlet to be made. Kvothe’s hamartia is the obverse face of the Danish Prince’s, he never stops to think, he just acts—and disaster follows.

The scene where Kvothe is admitted into the university at a young age and given the first ever scholarship is a good example of this actually. How did he manage to accomplish this? He cheated. He broke into the admissions hall and spied on other candidates taking the entrance exam and memorised the questions the examiners asked and their model answers. This is explained in the very next passage to him taking the exam, but I guess people making the critique found it egregious enough that they put the book down before reading on to that part.

Kvothe sacrifices long-term deep understanding of the world for short-term gain. He uses his analytic faculties to try to game the system. And we know, as he says at the very beginning of the story, that he will eventually suffer for it.

None of this is to say that Kkc is beyond reproach. There are very legitimate criticisms to be made about its representation and treatment of women. It’s just that people so often want to make a critique of it that misunderstands it so badly it makes me think they should read it. The force of the book is directed to people who would misunderstand it in this way… But it’s difficult to explain that to someone who is trapped in that sort of misapprehension.

[bugwolfsstuff]

VineOwls Christmas

Pollux's Pov

Pollux felt like he was in a fairyland. Bright blue, red, yellow, and white lights flashed around him and his twin like a kaleidoscope. Snow covered everything, like a crystal wonderland. It was just a (Probably) mortal village decorated for Christmas. But it looked so pretty.

Luke Castellan, a son of Hermes, chuckled behind them. "Haven't you ever seen Christmas lights before?".

"We have, Larry. They're just pretty." Pollux replied, though he didn't think Luke heard him over the scarf.

"Not that you'd know anything about prettiness," Pollux's twin brother, Castor, said. 

Castor always made it clear if he disliked someone by making sarcastic remarks or insults. 

And Pollux liked to be sneaky, like being passive-aggressive or tripping someone while they're carrying something with a vine.

To put it mildly, neither he nor Castor liked Luke Castellan. Sure, there was nothing wrong with the guy. He was nice enough to them. He doesn't talk badly about their dad like the other campers (at least Pollux has never heard him do). But since he came back from his quest, there was a feeling at the back of Pollux's mind, like a gut feeling, that gets stronger by the day. 

"Hey, wait up!" Annabeth called from down the street. Her blonde curls bouncing under her grey woolly hat like a halo as she ran to catch up.

Annabeth had been him and Castor's friend since —well, not since they met her. In fact, they were kinda very mean to her when they first met when they were eight. But they're ten now! They've matured now and become best friends.

He even made space on the sidewalk for her.

"The Christmas lights are so pretty," she said, walking between them, Castor on her right, Pollux on the left.

"Yeah," Pollux said.

"Can you believe what Leonard quoth to us?" Castor said, putting an annoying amount of emphasis on quoth.

Annabeth giggled. "It's Luke, Cast. And what did he quoth to you?"

Pollux sighed, "Don't encourage him, Owlbrain." 

Castor discovered Shakespeare a week ago, and he's been hyper-fixated on it ever since. And Pollux isn't sure how much longer he can take hearing about symbolism in Romeo and Juliet in the middle of the night before he starts thinking he's in a Shakespearean tragedy himself.

"O, speak to me no more. These words like daggers enter my ears." Castor annoyingly grinned as he quoted Hamlet. He turned to Annabeth, "Lenny here," He gestured to Luke, "thinks we've never seen Christmas lights before".

Luke put his hands up in defence, "Hey, I was just saying, you guys seemed so amazed by the lights; it's like you haven't seen Christmas before".

"Probably 'cause me and Cass don't celebrate Christmas," Pollux said.

"Dad has beef with Jesus," Castor explained, scooping up snow in his gloved hand.

"And Mom's relatives come over around Christmas, and Dad says they're a bunch of—" 

"Pollux," Chiron chided, rolling up behind them in his wheelchair, "Language. And Castor put that snowball down."

Castor stared at Chiron. The snowball he was about to throw at Luke dropped to the pavement. "I wasn't going to do anything!" 

"I don't celebrate Christmas either, though not because of that," Annabeth said.

"Then why?" Pollux asked, kicking a ball of snow as he walked.

Annabeth hesitated, "...Because of how it's about family and how great it is. And since I ran away from my 'family'. It's kinda a sore subject."

"Oh," is all he said.

It was all he could say; one of the only downsides to having your godly parent at camp was that you'll never understand your fellow campers.

Annabeth laughed, "Guess neither of us are getting Christmas presents this year."

Pollux giggled. "Yeah," he said.

But he was lying. He had already made up his mind.

Annabeth was getting a Christmas present.

A laugh rang out, and Pollux heard Chiron say, "Don't."

He and Annabeth whipped their heads around to see what was going on.

Luke was standing behind Castor, who had lagged behind and was too distracted by a red robin nearby to see the giant ball of snow Luke had looming over his head.

Pollux scooped up some snow, and Annabeth did the same.

"Cassie, look out!" he yelled, throwing a snowball as hard as he could at Luke's chest. Unfortunately, Pollux was never much good at being a marksman, and instead of hitting the much bigger son of Hermes, he hit the much smaller Castor's left arm.

Annabeth on the other hand, was a better shot than him...unfortunately, not better by much.

Her snowball sailed over Castor's head and past Luke's chest.

Hitting him in the armpit.

Luke dropped the snowball in mild shock...directly onto Castor's head.

'Whoopsie' was all that went through Pollux's head.

Part 1 of 7

[armory11]

Confusing Shakespeare

I was talking to my friend today abt Shakespeare and she was explaining the plot to me very badly. so I said wait which play are you talking abt? she said macbeth.

so ok we're taking abt macbeth. then she frickin says

"ya know, 'to be or not to be'"

...

just no

thats hamlet!

we laughed abt it but gosh i need to teach her some things

[mask131]

Fragments of fright (9)

From Richard Cavendish’s The Great Book of the Supernatural

THE MESSENGERS OF THE AFTERLIFE

Most people do not know when they will die - but a few of them are apparently warned of their imminent demise, thanks to the appearance of a ghost. This messenger of the afterlife can be a wraith, or a mysterious animal, and many families are proud of "owning" one.

The Hohenzollern dynasty, which reigned successively over the Brandeburg, Prussia and Germany (until the abdication of the kaiser Wilhelm II at the end of WWI) was boasting the existence of a "family ghost". This specter tied to their bloodline was a White Lady - a female ghost dressed in white, with a mourning armband, usually seen before the death of a member of the family, and appearing in the royal residences of Berlin or other Germany regions. It was believed that she might be the ghost of a princess of the 15th century, who was cruelly abused by her husband, who was a Hohenzollern. The dynasty of the Hesse of Darmstadt (Germany) also had its death herald - a Black Lady this time, in a mourning outfit, her face hidden by a dark veil. This ghost was supposed to be the archduchess Maria-Anna, wife of the archduke Ferdinand.

In the Danish royal family meanwhile, disasters were believed to be announced by the apparition at Gurre, south of Helsingor (a location that inspired the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet), of the ghost of king Valdemar IV, who ruled on the Denmark in th 14th century and died at Gure in 1375. Another strange fact of the history of the Danish crown concerns the queen Astrid, killed in 1935 by a car accident. Some times after her death, she supposedly appeared before numerous people during a spiritism séance organized at Copenhague by the medium Einar Nielsen. A picture of her "manifestation" was apparently taken - but unfortunately, these kind of pictures are very easy to falsify and thus do not make an actual, solid proof of the ghost's apparition.

The Hasburgs, who ruled over the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were traditionally warned of any upcoming tragedy by the appearance of a group of great white birds circling in the sky. They were seen in 1889, soon before the double suicide of the heir-prince Rudolf and his mistress in Mayerling. Later, the emperor Franz-Josef the First also saw them in 1898, on the eve of the murder of his beloved Elisabeth. Finally, these sinister birds were spotted in 1914, before the Sarajevo attack which killed the archduke Franz-Ferdinand and caused World War I.

The most famous of these "messengers of death" is without a doubt the Irish banshee, which makes the pride and glory of the greatest and oldest families of the island. The banshees howls and wails with a melancholic voice through the night, crying the death of a family's member soon before it actually happens. She can appear as a beautiful maiden with a red shirt, or a green dress under a gray cloak ; or she can appear as an old hag. This "dual face", the beautiful maiden and the ugly hag, were the usual manifestations and appearances of the great goddesses of the pre-Christian Celtic religion, of which the banshee seems to be a remnant. It seems that getting rid of a banshee is hard, since there are records of them still wailing near the old domains of families that left Ireland a long time ago. A few years before the publication of this book, an American that was visiting the Aran island in the Galway bay, organized a party, with lot of music and dancing. As the night was ending, the young man returned home, playing accordion. The noise he made distressed the neighborhood, and someone had to go explain to a poor frightened old man that what he heard wasn't the screams of a banshee, but the sounds of a drunk playing very badly the accordion. Reassured, the old man knew three more weeks of peace... Until he heard the ACTUAL wails of the banshee, and soon after died.

According to a very old tradition, the death of the bishops of Salisbury is announced by the arrival of mysterious white birds flyig over the plain. Other bad omens - not necessarily meaning "death" - are the black dogs, or rather the black hounds, usually of an enormous size, that supposedly haunt the British countryside. Peel's castle, on the isle of Man, is the lair of one of those monsters, the Moddy Dhu, whose mere sight causes a person's death. You will also be doomed to die if you meet the Shriker dog, which hides in the Burnley cemetery (Lancashire). Many more sinisters black hounds are believe to wander on the paths leading to cemeteries. In a lot of popular beliefs and local folklore, dogs are associated with death, probably because in the distant past hungry dogs used to dig up corpses to eat them. There could also be something related to the strong belief that dogs are able to sense entities invisible to humans. Ghosts of dogs are particularly dreaded in the East-Anglia, where strikes the formidable Black Shuck, whose only eye shines in the darkness.

During World War II, an American air-pilot and his wife lived in Walberswick, in the Suffolk, and they had there a terrifying experience. During one whole night, an enormous black dog tried to enter in their house, and they only prevented it from doing so by piling up furniture in front of the door, that the animal nearly split open. At dawn, the beast left, but without leaving any prints in the mud surrounding the house. This event happened during a storm night - which reminds one of the old beliefs claiming that storms are caused by the mad run in the countryside of a pack of infernal hounds, whose howls causes death, madness and misfortune. In some regions, these hounds are led by the "Wild Hunter". In Denmark, it is king Valdemar that leads the pack, in Normandy the Devil himself ; in northern England it is "Gabriel's hounds" led by the Angel of Death, while in the Dartmoor the dogs follow sir Francis Drake riding a hearse. All these legends inspired without a doubt Conan Doyle when he wrote one of Sherlock Holmes' most famous adventures - The Hound of the Baskervilles.

[iluvdutchherring]

Extracts from Carl Jung's "Paracelsus"

I made this post cuz when I write a character who's inspired by an irl figure I like to insert historically accurate references as Easter eggs. Btw I don't think Para in DD relys on supernatural stuff that much.

The highlighted words are my comments or translations, not from the original texts.

一一一一一一一一一一一一一一一一一一一一一一

1. As is not uncommon, nature equipped him very badly for the role of avenger.

Instead of an heroic figure fit for a rebel, she gave him a stature of a mere five feet(152cm), an unhealthy appearance, an upper lip that was too short and did not quite cover his teeth (often the distinguishing mark of nervous people), and, so it seems, a pelvis that struck everybody by its femininity when, in the nineteenth century, his bones were exhumed in Salzburg. Personally I think RH nailed it when it comes to her appearance(the arched back, femininity etc.)

There is even a legend that he was a eunuch, though to my knowledge there is no further evidence of this.

2. At all events, love seems never to have woven her roses into his earthly life, and he had no need of their thorns, since his character was prickly enough as it was. Yet Junia is taming the mercurial birb.

3. Hardly had he reached an age to bear arms than the little man buckled on a sword much too big for him, from which he seldom let himself be parted, the less so because, in its ballshaped pommel, he kept his laudanum pills, which were his true arcanum. I now called her kris dagger "Azoth" bc those were the words engraved on the pommel of his sword.

4. Thus accoutred, a figure not entirely lacking in comedy, he set forth into the wide world on his amazing and hazardous journeys which took him to Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. She went to the Hamlet town in England.

5. He never undertook any regular studies, as submission to authority was taboo to him.

6. He was a self-made man, who devised for himself the apt motto Alterius non sit, qui suus esse potest(”Let no man who shall belong to oneself, may belong to another.”) right and proper Swiss sentiment.

7. The Great epidemic of plague, raging at that time, he explained in a letter to the Emperor, was caused by succubi begotten in whore-houses.

8. Among his colleagues he was the best hated man in Basel, and not a hair was left unscathed in his medical treatises. He was known as the “mad bull,” the “wild ass of Einsiedeln.”

9. Therefore he held in high esteem the doctrine of signatures, which seems to have been one of the main principles of folk-medicine in those days, as practiced by midwives, army surgeons, witches, quacks, and hangmen.

10. Disease for Paracelsus was “a natural growth, a spiritual, living thing, a seed.”

We may safely say that for him a disease was a proper and necessary constituent of life that lived together with man, and not a hated “alien body” as it is for us.

It was kith and kin to the arcana which were present in nature and which, as nature’s constituents, were as necessary to her as diseases were to man. Here the most modern doctor would shake Paracelsus by the hand and say: “I don’t think it’s quite like that, but it’s not so far off.”

11. On his long journeys Paracelsus gathered a rich harvest of experience, not scorning even the grimiest sources, for he was a pragmatist and empiricist without parallel.

12. Paracelsus had a mind typical of a crucial time of transition.

His searching and wrestling intellect had broken free from a spiritual view of the world to which his feelings still clung.

Extra ecclesiam nulla salus("outside the Church [there is] no salvation")—this saying applies in the highest degree to every man whose spiritual transformation carries him beyond the magic circle of traditional holy images which, as ultimate truths, shut off the horizon: he loses all his comforting prejudices, his whole world falls apart, and he knows as yet nothing about a different order of things.

He has become impoverished, as unknowing as a small child, still entirely ignorant of the new world, and able to recall only with difficulty the age-old experiences of mankind that speak to him from his blood.

All authority has dropped away, and he must build a new world out of his own experience.

[ckgalloway]

An Unremarkable Feat

I came to work yesterday morning, absolutely buzzing. I’d just done something momentous (in my mind, at least). It would be a strange boast to many, but when I told my coworker, she congratulated me, her eyes lighting up with genuine pride. I told everyone, some people twice, whether they understood the occasion or not, riding an unbelievable high and wringing it for everything it was worth.

I’d driven my son to school.

No, it was not a particularly long or arduous drive, but it was a drive I wasn’t sure I would ever take.

To explain, I’ll need to take you back six years, shortly after we moved to Scotland. We had a tight budget, so we bought an older car, a manual Fiat 500. I hadn’t driven in a few years since we’d been living in Egypt, but I was excited to take the new car out for a spin. I loved driving. I’d worked two jobs during my first year of college to buy my first car, a beautiful blue Dodge Colt. I’d relished the freedom it gave me, often going on a drive alone, just for fun. A couple of decades later, I had a 45-minute commute to work in a manual Toyota Matrix and I once traversed the mountainous west coast of Canada in a Toyota 4Runner, pulling a trailer in the snow. By the time we moved to Scotland, I’d been driving for almost thirty years.

I got behind the wheel of the Fiat, full of confidence.

It did not go well.

Shifting gears with my left hand was surprisingly awkward and I turned on the wipers instead of the turn signal. Meanwhile, driving on the left side of the road somehow meant I constantly drifted towards the curb. Multi-laned roundabouts were foreign to me, and the winding roads did not seem nearly wide enough for two cars to pass each other. These were all obstacles I should have been able to overcome. But this time was different. I was unaware that perimenopause symptoms had begun digging their sharp claws into my brain.

I started having a recurring dream that I was driving a blue van down a hill, but it would not slow down, no matter how hard I slammed my foot on the brake pedal, forcing my to swerve around pedestrians, cars and buildings. I would wake up soaked in sweat, heart pounding.

When I had to drive, I was tense well before I even got in the car. Behind the wheel, my heart would start pounding, my breathing became shallow, and my hands sweaty. While I drove, my brain pelted me with images of everything that could go wrong until my hands shook. Drivers honked at me while I struggled to get the old car into first gear, sending me spiralling into a panic that made me fumble the gears even more or stall the car. Driving became a nightmare.

I did everything I could to avoid driving. I bought an electric bike and cycled eighteen miles to get to my job and back.

We switched to an automatic car, which was an improvement, but on the odd occasion I did drive, it often ended badly: a white-out snowstorm at night or a blown tyre on a main road. During this time, the morning news flashed images of Harry Dunn, a nineteen-year-old boy killed by an American driving on the wrong side of the road, further embedding my worst fear.

What if I killed someone?

One day, my husband injured his ankle, and I had to drive him to the hospital in Aberdeen, a 45-minute drive with three roundabouts. I was tense for the entire drive and had to pry my fingers off the steering wheel when we finally came to a stop. I should have gleaned some confidence back, but somehow, I was convinced the uneventful drive was a fluke, and I made my husband drive back with a twisted ankle.

Over time, I became comfortable enough to drive to work on back roads and made enough trips to quiet the voice in my head that was convinced something horrible would happen. But I didn’t drive beyond that unless I absolutely had to, and if I did, it was a tense experience.

We moved to a little hamlet in a valley, surrounded by countryside, with no shops and no public transportation. It seemed idyllic at the time, but without driving, I began to feel trapped. When the school called because my son was sick, I had to hire a taxi to fetch him. I remember watching a movie about a woman who was meant to be an absolute mess, her life in shambles, but when she drove herself to the airport for a flight, I envied her.

My bubble shrank and became a dark place. Brain fog had set in, and not only was I making constant mistakes at work, but the setbacks caused me to break down. I cried almost every day. I biked my daily route surrounded by beauty and filled with self-loathing. I was convinced everyone would be better off if I didn’t exist.

My husband became worried. He’d always been my rock, but I’d gone to a place he couldn’t reach. He urged me to get help, but the thought of admitting what was happening would make it real, and doctors were another source of anxiety. The self-loathing intensified. I was blessed with a loving, supportive family, yet I remained mired in gloom. I agreed to seek help if it got worse.

Finally, it was a coworker who helped me change my course. She told me about her journey, consulting a doctor about perimenopause and starting HRT, a process that seemed to give her hope. Hope was a drug I craved, and talking to someone who was experiencing some similar symptoms made me feel less alone.

Finally, I got some help.

I spoke to a doctor, my heart pounding and palms sweaty, spewing my story between shaky breaths. She ordered blood tests and ultimately prescribed me hormone replacement therapy (HRT). I discussed my situation with my female boss. She was very supportive and agreed to give me some time off and shift my duties to more office work.

Over the next few months, I slathered myself with oestrogen gel and took tablets, and I began to feel more clear-headed, less emotionally volatile and more like my old self.

I’ve spoken to several friends with perimenopause now, and while HRT is not for everyone, I think it’s safe to say it changed my life. I still have a good dose of brain fog at work, but most customers are understanding, and when they aren’t, I can handle it. The darkness has mostly lifted. There are still dark moments, but even if I can’t always see the light, I remember the glow of bright days, and I know the dark is temporary. My bubble feels bigger now, if only because the thought of driving doesn’t send me into a panic. In fact, when I get behind the wheel, I feel almost… normal. I’ve made goals for myself, small goals, like driving to the charity shop in the village, or the supermarket outside Aberdeen.

I’m thankful to live in a time where women talk to each other and be honest about our issues. This is one of the reasons I wanted to write this post. If you are going through something like this, please know that you are not alone, and there is help available. I hope you can find someone you trust to talk to.

Which leads me to my unremarkable feat.

Yesterday morning, my son missed his school bus.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll drive you.”

And I did.

[cleverclove]

thanks for posting about hamlet ur the only way i actually understand that blasted book for my english class 🫵🗿🫶

OH HOLY SHIT YOU’RE WELCOME…it’s super fun once you get into it :> but uh here’s an actual rundown if you need it :] (except it’s told in incomprehensible modern day language)

King of Denmark? Dead. He’s king of DEADMARK now hehe

His ghost comes back and haunts the fuck out of Hamlet’s homies

Hamlet’s homies, seeing as said ghost looks exactly like the dead king, decide to tell their emo homie, Hamlet

Hamlet has recently returned from a weeks-long voyage from college back home to Denmark to mourn his dad (F to pay respects)

This bitch is EMO AS HELL (i mean his dad DID just pass so….)

(Btw Denmark is at risk of war with Norway but oddly enough it’s not as big a plot point as you might think???)

Except OOPS! Apparently his mom married his uncle. Wtf mom???

Said uncle is kind of a dick and Hamlet basically sticks his middle finger up at him the whole entire play

Hamlet’s homies, led by his college fuckbuddy, Horatio, come over to tell him about this ghost

King of Deadmark tells him that that motherfucking (literally) uncle of his is behind it

Hamlet swears revenge but debates whether to believe this ghost or not (bc duh, it’s a ghost. Not exactly the most trustworthy source.)

Oh he also has this ex, Ophelia

She’s a cinnamon roll (and the only one in the play)

He’s mad bc she broke off their relationship (bc her father tells her she’s not his type…..royalty back then was only allowed to marry other royalty -_-)

So there’s this whole subplot about their breakup going about as well as you’d expect a Shakespearean tragedy to go

(Or: Hamlet commits borderline domestic abuse)

Yeah he’s kind of a shitty boyfriend (ex now)

Blah blah blah blah shenanigans happen

Hamlet intends to kill Claudius the Dickhead Uncle, who he believes is behind a tapestry in mom’s room

So after a fight with his mom he stabs the tapestry with a man behind it

Except OOPS it’s his ex’s dad

Anyway at this point Dickhead Uncle is like “okay you’re done” because damn this is a PR NIGHTMARE

So he sends Hamlet off to hang out in England for a bit

(And by hang I mean get hung. As in executed <3)

Along the way he gets kidnapped by pirates (?????)

Idk either

He sees the letter condemning him to death

He crosses his name out and puts his FRIENDS who he’s traveling with to death instead

Yeah he’s kind of a shitty friend too

Back to Denmark! Ophelia, obviously unable to live without a man (this IS Shakespeare after all), goes insane at the loss of her dad and bf

She ends up swimming with the fishes (bc she drowns herself. Pure innocent cinnamon roll too good for this world fr.)

Hamlet returns and FUCK.

His ex (who he’s still in love with) killed herself because of him D:

Her brother, obviously pretty distraught at losing his sister AND dad within the span of a few days because of Hamlet, is pretty pissed off at him understandably

He challenges Hamlet to a “friendly *wink* duel”

Clown on clown violence because the poisoned sword Laertes the brother uses hits both of them

Hamlet poisons the king after his mom accidentally drinks the poisoned wine that Claudius planned to give HAMLET to kill him

So yeah. Three people are dead now, and Hamlet isn’t gonna live much longer.

His fuckbuddy from earlier, Horatio, is absolutely DEVASTATED dude

Being the loyal bff he is, he tries to kill himself too to join Hamlet in death

(Kinda gay if you ask me but whatever)

Hamlet dies in Horatio’s arms

(Again, pretty gay but what do I know :P)

Horatio lives and vows to tells Hamlet’s story as the Norwegians storm the castle and take over Denmark.

[rascalentertainments]

Is Sabino gonna be alive at the end?

What are the Sakina and Sabino's headcanon voice actors?

Would Magnifico break the fourth wall once he transforms into a monster or during the credits?

Do you have your own set of Villains who are ten times better than Magnifico that you take inspiration for my rewrite from him? like some of them are your most loved and hated villains?

What would be sabor’s defeat?

If Star is a prince, Does Star and and his mother shares a same familial relationship as Ariel and King Triton, Moana and Chief Tui?

Is King Magnifico planning on using WG!Star as bait to trap his mother and drain her magic or drain both of them?

Is Asha and Flazino are like cousin figures?

How did Flazino became apprentice to King Magnifico?

Hello there, @albertthewolfdog! Sorry I'm late to your ask, but here I am!

Yes! And he will perform his deleted song "A Wish Worth Making" at the end of the story to help close it out! Its actually one of the few things I'm glad the movie changed. I really like Sabino and glad they didn't kill him off.

Sabino's is still Victor Garber, I feel that was a great choice, but they didn't give him any good lines to say or have an impact on the viewer. Very underutilized. As for Sakina, I know it sounds strange, but I picked Whoopi Goldberg. WG!Sakina has a bit of sass to her (that's where Asha gets it from) but she can still be motherly and caring. She'll even have some good lines later on and in the bonus stories. I think Whoopi can make all that come through in her voice.

He will do it twice as a monster, actually! He looks at the camera and says "How's that for a climax?" when the time comes for him and Star to fight. And another when Gabo asks Amaya how did she get to the top of tower before Magnifico did. She can't explain, and neither can the King, so its a Emperor's New Groove reference!

OH YEAH!! The inspirations are Team Rocket when they're in front of a crowd, then Hades and Maleficent when they're alone together. LOVE both of those pairings, so they fit in well!

5. I haven't quite decided yet. I've been considering turning him into a regular housecat to reference Yzma's cat form, or getting injured fighting Valentino. He would begrudgingly receive care from Bazeema during his recovery.

6. Actually Star is technically a regular guy. "Wish Granted" Stars ate dubbed "star nomads", where they travel across the galaxy in the Startosphere without a permanent home. There's only one royal star, and that's the legendary wishing star that no one has actually seen in the present. Though, Star feels like a prince when he's with Asha and Asha feels like a princess when she's with Star.

As for the mother relationship question, I would say Moana and Chief Tui. Star's parents don't really understand why he wants to visit Earth so badly when he has all of space to travel in. They still love and care for him, he's just the odd kid in his family.

7. Nope, but you're close! He's using Asha's family and the Hamlet as bait so he gives her an ultimatum. Either she hands over Star and he dies, or her family dies. You are right about both he and Amaya wanting to drain Star's magic. He's going to use the staff to stab him in the chest and drain every drop out of him until he's empty. Then the two will share the celestial magic and will be able to conquer the rest of the world.

8. Yes, good eye! Its not a Disney reference, but they're similar to the Alien Force version of Ben and Gwen Tennyson. They're practically family and get along, no romance in the slightest.

9. Like the deleted scene, Flazino's wish is to study magic. For this story, its so he can help others lives be better, which is what he thought Magnifico wanted as well. He thought the job would be more glamorous or fun as he learned, but it turns out Mags doesn't actually want a successor. He plans on being in power permanently with his wife. He pretends he granted Flazi's wish and instead of studying magic, he's the errand boy, cleans the lab equipment, feeds Sabor, and is in charge of the tour guides for newcomers. Flazino just practices what he can at home and secretly takes ingredients from Amaya's potion cabinet.

He gave his wish at 18, and was surprised to hear it was getting granted so soon. Though Mags doesn't really need an apprentice, he takes Flaz on just in case something happened to him, all of his magic, power and evil will go into the apprentice. Sort of passing on his plans to him to become the next Magnifico and continue his work. That's pretty terrifying.

During the first few months of becoming the apprentice, he learned about the Hamlet through rumors in Rosas. He didn't understand why people would run away until he stumbles on seeing the king and queen crush the wishes of a couple who talked about leaving Rosas and not trusting the royals. He never saw that couple again.

He later took off one night into the forest to finds this supposed Hamlet using a tracking spell. Once he finds it, Sabino and other people tell him why they ran and what a monster the royal could be. Flazino felt so disgusted that he promised to help anyway he could. So he makes an excuse to get specialty mushroom from the Uncharted Forest once a month and brings supplies to the Hamlet ever since. (stuff like seeds to grow food, flour, medicine, toys for the kids)

And there you go! Thanks for submitting! Feel free to ask more questions whenever you like!

I'll tag you guys in case you want some extra info before my next lore drop! @oh-shtars @tumblingdownthefoxden @chillwildwave @annymation

@your-ne1ghbor @thesafireartist @ishadow246 @uva124

[theaceofarrows]

Bruce: Boys, care to explain these headlines that came up on my news feed?

Bruce: Like this for example? [Pulls up a pic of a headline reading "Dick Grayson, is he in fact Gotham's gift to bisexuals everywhere? According to residents of neighbor cities the answer is a resounding yes. Here is their thought process"]

Dick: What do you do want me to say Bruce? That's the God honest truth!

Bruce: Just... Fine. I'll ignore that

Bruce: And Jason? [Pulls up an article reading "Jason Todd son of billionaire Bruce Wayne, recently nominated for Pulitzer price for his bestselling novel that was inspired by a fanfiction of Shakespeare's Hamlet he wrote in his teenage years"

Jason: Are you fucking kidding me?! After all my hard work. After I pour my heart and soul into that MASTERPIECE, they have the nerve to mention YOU?!

Bruce: Wha- no. That's not what I meant at all- I mean, just when did you have time to publish a novel? And when did it become a bestseller?

Jason: What? You think I don't have a life outside this family? You surprised I'm such a gifted writer?! Gosh Bruce! [Leaves]

Bruce: [tired sigh] Never mind... Tim, I'm afraid to ask. But what's this? [Pulls up a headline reading "Is young Wayne Enterprises CEO Tim Drake, a know black coffee addict actually a pumpkin spice connoisseur? Local Starbucks employee claims to have witnessed it first hand]

Tim: That wasn't me

Bruce: This wasn't you...? [Shows a picture of a badly disguised Tim running out of a Starbucks with a Coffee cup]

Tim: [looking Bruce straight in the eyes] Nope

[alcinadimitrescuwu]

Snow Day (An Alcina x Reader Fanfic)

“Found you!” You jump with a start as Cassandra grabs you by the shoulder. You glare at her. “Congrats on finding me, but was the scythe at my throat really necessary?” you ask as she took the aforementioned weapon away from your throat.

Cassandra pouts. “You’re no fun, Maman!” She links your arm playfully and led you down the hall. “Now we just need to find Daniela! Nerd’s probably in the library, reading Wuthering Heights for the 50th time.”

It was a beautiful winter’s day at Castle Dimitrescu. Your wife Alcina Dimitrescu had braved the snowy weather to check on some deliveries. While she was gone, it was up to you to entertain your adopted daughters.

So naturally, you had to play Hide and Seek.

You had already found Bela hiding behind the portrait of her mother in the atelier. Now all that was left was to find Daniela.

“We should split up,” you say. “We can cover more ground that way.”

Cassandra grins manically. “Good idea! We’ll make a hunter out of you yet! I’ll go check the east wing, you go for the west!” With that, she vanished in a swirl of flies.

You head down the hall, glancing behind suits of armor and objets d’art to search for your youngest. Suddenly, you see a glimpse of red hair peeking out from behind the velour curtains. Not a very good hiding place. Surely she’d read Hamlet enough times to know that.

You sneak up behind her, intending to get back at her for the amount of times she’s scared you by jumping out at you in the hallways. As you get closer, you see her looking out over the village. A group of children are in the midst of a snowball fight, squealing as they run over the breast of the new-fallen snow to avoid the frosty missiles being pelted at them. You see from Daniela’s profile a wistful expression has clouded her features.

“Daniela?” you ask gently. She whirls from the window and begins wiping furiously at her eyes.

She turns to face you and beams, her wistful expression vanishing as if it had never been there in the first place. “Oh, there you are Maman! Sorry, I guess I just got a little distracted!” She looked back at the window, where the children’s mother was ushering the little combatants inside, probably for a cup of hot chocolate. “I guess that’s everyone! Can we go for another round, Maman? You found me last, so that means I get to count this time!”

You smile indulgently at your youngest. “Of course, love.”

*****

Later that evening, you and your wife Alcina are lying in bed together, basking in the afterglow after having made love. Your head is on her chest, your body nestled comfortably in the curve of her hip. She runs a hand through your hair. “You’re getting that faraway look in your eyes again, draga mea,” Alcina says, kissing your bare shoulder. “A lei for your thoughts?”

You turn to face her and she rests a hand on your waist. “While you were gone, the girls and I were entertaining ourselves by playing a round of hide-and-seek,” you explain. “When I found Daniela she was staring out the window...at a group of children playing in the snow.”

Alcina’s aureate eyes cloud over and a pained expression crosses her face. “Oh,” Alcina says quietly. “I see.”

She looks away quickly and when you turn her face towards yours, you find her eyes are brimming with tears.

“What is it darling?” you ask gently. “Talk to me.”

“It was the winter after I first took the girls into Castle Dimitrescu,” Alcina begins to explain. “There was a blizzard the night before and Bela and Cassandra came to me suddenly in my office and told me they couldn’t find Daniela anywhere. Daniela and I had had an argument the night before when I told her it was too dangerous to play in the snow. When the girls came to me, I immediately knew what she had done.”

Alcina takes a shuddering breath before continuing. “I bade the girls to stay inside while I searched for Daniela. It was still snowing pretty hard by the time I went outside. I could hardly see ten feet in front of me, the snow was so thick. I tripped over something and when I looked down, I saw her.” Alcina’s voice began to grow thick. “My Daniela. My baby. Lying facedown on the ground. Right next to the snowman she had built.”

You run a hand along her back, tracing your fingers over her spinal column to help calm her down. “It’s all right, my love. You don’t need to tell me any more if it’s too painful.”

“No, dearest, it’s all right,” Alcina says, smiling weakly before going on. “I picked up Daniela and rushed her inside as quickly as I could. I piled blanket after blanket on top of her and ordered the maids to make a fire. But she was so still and her body was like ice, her lips a pale blue.” Alcina sobs. “I thought I had lost her until she suddenly leapt up in my arms. And when she came back, she was so happy. She couldn’t wait to tell me all about the snowman she had made.

“I don’t think I remember being so angry. I shook her hard, telling her to never do that to me again. I wanted to make her realize how dangerous it was for her to go outside, but when she looked at me again, I saw fear in her eyes of me. For a moment, my own daughter was afraid of me.”

Alcina’s body is heaving with sobs and you take her in your arms, kissing her brow before resting your chin on top of her head. “Darling, that was so long ago. You and Daniela have long made amends since then.”

“I know,” Alcina says, as you lift her face up and gently wipe the tears from her eyes. “But every winter since then I get this pain in my chest when it starts to snow because I know how badly Daniela wants to go outside. I know Cassandra and Bela feel it too.”

You think for a minute and then suddenly an idea comes to you. You put on a dressing gown and head over to the telephone. Alcina sits up as you turn the rotary dial. “Darling, what are you doing?” she asks.

You hold up a finger to tell her to wait. The line connects and you hear a soft voice say, “Pronto?”

“Donna! Bona sera. Listen, I was wondering if you could help me with something…"

*****

“Can I open my eyes yet, Maman?’

“Not yet, dearest,” you say as you guide Daniela along down the hall, her eyes covered by a blindfold. ”Just a couple more steps and we’ll be there.”

You look behind you and your other daughters have similar blindfolds on, hanging on Alcina’s arms for support. Alcina looks up at you and gives you an encouraging smile.

“Maman, you know I hate surprises,” Cassandra complained.

“Just be patient,” you chide. You come to a stop in front of the library doors. Gently taking Daniela’s hands in yours, you have her push open the double doors. Alcina herds the rest of your children inside and the doors close behind you.

You and Alcina take the blindfolds off your daughters and you hear Daniela gasp and clap her hands together in delight.

Donna has truly outdone herself. The library has been transformed into a wintery landscape. Big fluffy snowflakes pour down from the skylight although it is closed for obvious reasons. In the middle of the dais, there is a skating rink.

You are surprised to see Moreau and Heisenberg there too along with Donna and Angie. “Well, we knew how much this would mean to the girls, so we wanted to be here to see their reaction,” Heisenberg said with a grin.

You stand to the side and lean your head against Alcina’s side as you take in the scene around you. Daniela is happily making a snowman with Moreau and the fish-man proudly sticks a fisherman’s cap on top of its head. Cassandra and Heisenberg are in the process of making some heavily ramparted snow forts. Bela takes Donna’s hand and leads her to the ice rink. Donna is nervous at first but Bela gently guides her along the ring hand in hand until she feels comfortable enough to skate on her own. Angie, in the meantime, is skillfully doing triple axles seemingly without any effort. Honestly, nothing about that doll surprises you anymore.

Alcina takes your hand in hers and kisses the back of your hand. “Thank you, my darling,” she murmurs against your knuckles.

You smile up at her. “You’re welcome, my-”

The moment is interrupted when a snowball hits Alcina on the shoulder. Alcina whirls around and you are not the least bit surprised to see Hesenberg doubled over with laughter.

Alcina’s thunderous expression softens and she simply gives Heisenberg a smirk. She then reaches down and forms a snowball of her own. Heisenberg realizes the grave error he has made when Alcina straightens and lobs the missile at him. It hits him straight in the stomach and he drops like a stone to the ground.

You glare at Alcina. “Well, he started it!” Alcina says defensively, crossing her arms over her chest.

Donna soon starts getting a headache from the effort of holding the image of the illusory snowscape and the other Lords have to leave as well. Daniela surprises the dollmaker by giving her a big hug before she leaves. By the time the door closes behind her, the library is reverted to the way it was before. You turn to your daughters and see they are happy, but tired from the snow day.

Alcina smiles at you and takes a book from one of the shelves. She settles down in her favorite wing-back armchair in front of the fire and the girls gather on the floor around her. You settle yourself in her lap and kiss her cheek as she opens the book and starts to read. “One morning Peter woke up and looked at his window. Snow had fallen during the night. It covered everything as far as he could see…”

[puns-and-musicals]

Shane Madej talking about how he likes to take showers in the dark: I like to have the water really hot pouring down on me, and then it’s even better with the lesser visual input

Me: oh, haha that’s… really weird, that’s exactly what I do and why. Huh!

Shane, shortly after: *quoting Hamlet off the top of his head, with barely any pause, far longer than most allistic ghost hunters could*

Me: oh… oh he just like me fr

Shane: *enthusiastically explaining how badly he’s always wanted to sleep in a “Harry Potter” cupboard under the stairs*

Me: okay yeah, okay. I know what you are.

[writtenjewels]

Guard part 6

[You all have @myscprin to thank for this]

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five

Jason waited until he was sure Salim was asleep before going into the bathroom for his shower. He already mastered unbuttoning his pants one-handed but the rest of it was still slow going. Especially when it came to taking his shirt off. It took a lot of maneuvering to get it done in a way that didn't hurt his healing shoulder too badly.

He set to washing up, another painstaking process. But unfortunately he got into a rhythm and forgot about his arm. Jason moved it automatically and pain shot up the limb.

“Oh, fuck!” he gasped. He clamped his mouth shut too late. He shut off the water and waited, barely daring to breathe. Jason heard a door opening and inwardly cursed.

“Jason?” Salim's voice called to him. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” Jason assured him. “I'm fuckin' fine.”

“What are you doing?”

“Just, um... takin' a shower.”

“It's past midnight,” Salim noticed. There was a moment of silence and Jason would swear he could hear Salim thinking through the walls. There was a knock at the bathroom door. “Let me come in, Jason. There's no reason to make your injuries worse.”

Jason would've liked to argue that but Salim knocked again, more insistent this time. The guy was fucking stubborn. Jason let out a huff.

“The door ain't locked.” The door opened and Jason glanced over his shoulder. Salim wore only a pair of sweatpants to sleep in. The view of his broad, hairy chest momentarily distracted Jason.

“What needs to be washed?” Jason blinked out of his daze. “You've done so much already to protect me,” Salim explained. “Let me do this to help you.”

“Sure,” Jason grunted. “I guess I haven't gotten the back of my legs yet.”

He stared resolutely forward as Salim started scrubbing. The feel of those strong hands on his body made Jason's heartbeat go faster. He forced himself to breathe normally and he quickly fixed his mind on something else.

Okay, so what's the plot of “Hamlet” again? Hamlet's father was murdered and Hamlet’s mother is fucking his uncle. His father's ghost tells Hamlet to avenge him but Hamlet isn't sure and-- oh, fuck, Salim's hands are just under my ass. Fuck, fuck, just a little higher and he'll--

Jason swallowed down the desire and took in a long, shaky breath. This was just getting help washing up from a friend. Salim's fingers skimmed over his ass and he fought off a whimper. Fuck, it felt so damn good.  Now the sponge was in safer territory on his back.

“I... I think that's enough,” Salim spoke up. His voice sounded strained and Jason had the wild thought that maybe Salim was affected by this as much as Jason. He felt colder the moment Salim's hands left his body and he reached forward to turn on the water. He didn't realize Salim was so close until there was a startled cry and some Arabic swearing. Hands grabbed onto Jason's hips, anchoring into the flesh.

“You okay?” Jason turned to see what happened. Salim had gotten into the shower with him and was caught in the spray when Jason turned the water back on.

“Yes.” Salim was getting increasingly wet but didn't seem to notice. Slowly his eyes traveled from Jason's face and went downward. They quickly shot back up to Jason's face again. “I'll let you finish.” He released his grip on Jason's hips and awkwardly stepped out. He was out of the bathroom before Jason could think of a response.

Then his own eyes dropped down and he saw what Salim had seen. “Fuck,” he cursed out loud.