#he had more time/ability to be bloodthirsty for the sake of it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

leonsrightlations · 10 months ago

Text

The Earth is Online Chapter 19.1

The students hiding in the gym left from each of the four entrances.

Li Wen and Teacher Li took the two less physically fit reserve students for the sake of protecting their lives, looking for a safe place to take shelter. Tang Mo knew that Chen Shanshan had an ability. With the addition of the chubby little boy’s protection, there shouldn’t be any issues.

Tang Mo was responsible for attacking. [1]

“How is it that those stowaways didn’t make any noise by stepping on glass this time? And also didn’t trigger those traps at the entrance?”

Tang Mo lowered his voice. “Last night, they attacked twice. The second time, you noticed their whereabouts because they stepped on glass and were on guard beforehand. They definitely wouldn’t make the same mistake again this time. They must have used some other way to enter the school.”

The two of them left the gym, sticking to the wall for cover.

Tang Mo focused, carefully observing the surrounding area. The pitch black night was like a huge, silent beast, using a pair of bloodthirsty eyes to stare at every single person. There were a lot of trees in the school. As the cool wind blew past, the tree’s leaves gently swayed and their huge, dark shadows shook with a rustle. This was the only sound in the murderous night.

Tang Mo turned to the side. “Give me a nail…”

“Bang!”

Tang Mo rapidly moved to the left to get out of the way, but the swift-moving bullet still unavoidably scratched past his right arm, striking at the wall between him and the chubby little boy. The two of them looked at each other, then split up and ran.

Obviously the stowaways were hiding someplace where they could watch their positions. Before the fight, Tang Mo and the chubby little boy had devised a strategy. If they encountered the worst situation, the two of them would split up in order to deny the other side the chance to concentrate their fire power. It was now the worst situation - the enemy was in the dark and they were in the light.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Tang Mo held the solid, wooden stick in his hand as he rushed as quickly as possible to the school building closest to the gym.

Bullets fired unceasingly behind him, nipping at his heels over and over again. Just as Tang Mo twisted around to enter the school building, he drew up short. He watched as a bullet flew in front of his eyes and struck the wall.

Tang Mo lifted his foot and strode into the school building.

But right as he entered the building, all the hairs on his body suddenly stood on end. He reflexively raised the big stick, blocking behind his head. With a loud bang, a large knife crashed together with the wooden stick in a violent collision behind Tang Mo’s head. The wooden stick was cracked by the big knife and Tang Mo stumbled forward a few steps. The other side also fell back a step.

“Your strength’s not bad…” a coarse laugh sounded along with the mocking voice, “but you’ll still die!”

The attacker didn’t say anything more, directly moving to strike. Tang Mo held up his stick to meet the blow.

The long knife and the wooden stick continuously struck against each other and came apart, the two people both moving very fast. The sound of metal clanging frequently sounded. The knife was longer than Tang Mo’s stick, and the man using the knife left bloody gashes on Tang Mo’s shoulders, waist, and elbows. Tang Mo was forced to constantly retreat as if he were at a disadvantage.

The man saw his condition and attacked even more fiercely. With a good knife like this, even if he cut indiscriminately, it was enough to threaten the other party. Even more so, he was a stowaway with great strength. Every time the big knife swung, it made a forceful sound in the air.

The big knife recklessly cut swung forward without rhythm. Tang Mo’s evasion speed got slower and slower.

At precisely this time, the man vigorously brandished the big knife, cutting striking from the side at Tang Mo’s skull. Abruptly, he saw Tang Mo, who had just been struggling to evade, bend back into a bridge. [2] The big steel knife waved past Tang Mo’s eyes. With his left hand he held himself steady and struck at the man’s knee.

The man gave a muffled hum of pain. The sound of bone breaking was very clear in the dark night.

The man staggered slightly and nearly fell to the ground, using the big knife to support his body.

Tang Mo straightened up and wiped the blood seeping from his chin. It was his first time clearly seeing his enemy.

It was a towering, powerful man with a height of at least 188 centimeters and a bare, shaved head. His whole body was covered in robust muscles and there was a navy blue tiger’s head tattooed on his left arm.

The building closest to the gym was this one. This stowaway had unexpectedly hidden here in advance for an ambush in order to kill Tang Mo while he was caught unprepared. Tang Mo didn’t dare lower his guard. Official players and stowaways both have an extremely fast recovery ability. The wounds on Tang Mo had already begun to itch, which meant that they were in the middle of scabbing over.

Taking advantage of the fact that the man’s knee was broken, Tang Mo lifted the stick without the slightest hesitation. However, he was still late by a step. The man was already capable of standing, brandishing his big knife and facing Tang Mo’s attack.

The situation once again changed. Tang Mo unceasingly took the initiative to attack while that man could only use the knife to resist. Time elapsed, and the man’s footwork grew faster and faster. It seemed the injury to his knee had already quickly returned to normal.

Tang Mo gave a furious shout and directly struck at the man’s head.

“Why keep hiding!” The man abruptly threw down the big knife and put both hands on his hips, facing Tang Mo’s wooden stick without fear. He gathered his qi in his dantian and opened both his eyes into wide circles. With all of his qi, he bellowed, “Kid, return my grandfather!”

Tang Mo only heard the word “grandfather,” not hearing it clearly, when a trace of unease bubbled up in his heart.

Tang Mo waved the wooden stick through the air, forcibly changing direction and hitting the school building’s wall. The recoil was enough to send him to the other end of the hallway to dodge. Right as he halted his attack, the burly, muscular man opened his mouth into a circle and sprayed blazing gas. In the next second, there was an immense flame.

The burly man’s hands were on his hips, his mouth spitting out flames. Both his eyes were opened wide and he looked like a glowering luohan [4] as he stared straight at Tang Mo and sprayed fire.

Tang Mo turned and ran.

The burly man’s flame was faster than he was, blocking directly in front of him and nearly scorching the hair on the front of his forehead. Tang Mo stooped to dodge a flame and it scorched the white wall, burning the dust off of it. There was a crackling sound as dust unceasingly peeled away from the wall.

Tang Mo moved his limbs to follow along the floor and evade the flame. The burly man was like a fire-breathing dragon. With the flame ignited, the temperature of the air abruptly rose. Charred black marks were burned one after another into the cement by that flame. Tang Mo’s wooden stick was no match for it and had long since been turned into a pile of ash.

As the flame disappeared, Tang Mo crouched on the ground and gasped roughly for air.

That burly man’s vitality was extremely good and he could already freely move. He picked up the knife he had thrown to the ground and howled with laughter, once again striking at Tang Mo. Tang Mo was unarmed and could only continuously dodge and withdraw.

The movement of the knife as the burly man swung it was truly rough. It was only non-stop cutting at people. However, Tang Mo hadn’t studied any wrestling [5] techniques. The two of them were purely relying on the super strong physiques of official players and stowaways to conduct the most rudimentary of struggles.

“Those who’ve seen my ability all must die!”

The big knife chopped in front of Tang Mo. He turned to avoid and then ran. The man pursued his retreating enemy.

“Bang!” Just as Tang Mo ran from the school building, a bullet struck beneath his feet.

His brow was beaded with sweat, yet his gaze remained calm and sharp, fixedly staring at the place the gunshot had come from.

The muscle-bound man pursued Tang Mo from behind as bullets burst one after another at Tang Mo’s feet. Twice, he moved his head sideways, only with difficulty dodging the fired bullets. Right as the ninth bullet was fired, Tang Mo and the muscle-bound man ran into the gym.

The burly man laughed coldly as swung his knife at Tang Mo. However, he didn’t expect that right at the moment he moved to slice, the black-haired youth who had been struggling to evade just now suddenly turned and faced him straight on.

“Shit!” A sense of crisis bubbled up in the burly man’s heart and he turned, wanting to flee. But his body speed was less than the speed of his realization and that knife had already chopped straight at Tang Mo. Then he saw the young kid simultaneously lift his right hand and swing at him.

But there wasn’t any weapon in the youth’s hand!

The burly man opened his eyes wide, not blinking once. Yet in that split second he saw a huge match appear in this person’s hand.

The big steel knife beat back the enormous match.

“Clang!”

The big knife snapped and the match head ruthlessly struck the burly man’s head. The burly man rolled to the ground, his body continuously twitching. He wasn’t completely dead, his eyes fixed on Tang Mo and the enormous match in his hand.

The burly man’s lips parted and it seemed he wanted to speak, but he couldn’t say a word.

No matter how strong his physique, when his skull was split open by Mosaic’s match, he was also unable to survive.

Tang Mo panted heavily, looking at the man who had fallen to the ground.

This person didn’t speak, but Tang Mo knew what he wanted to say.

“Why did I only use my ‘trump card’ now and why was I just now purposely pretending to be completely struggling? On the one hand, I wanted to cheat out your ability. Chen Shanshan said that your ability has a three minute cooldown. It just happens that three minutes and two seconds have now passed. On the other hand, it was to prevent you from raising your guard.” Tang Mo’s expression was ice-cold and incomparably calm words spilled from his mouth. “However, the most important thing wasn’t to kill you, but to find that person.”

The burly man’s eyes were moist with blood. His eyelids trembled and were unable to open. But after Tang Mo said these words, his body violently twitched, intensely reacting.

Right at that moment, an alarmed voice sounded from the clock tower not far from the gym: “Ah, how can you…”

“Bang!” After the sound of the gun, there was no second sound.

“Last night, that gunner only showed himself once. At other times he was always hiding in secret and coldly shooting. His melee abilities should be weak, right? During a normal attack, he will shoot once and then change his position to be safe. But when you were chasing me just now he had to provide support without delay and didn’t have time to change positions.”

Tang Mo knew that the gunner had already been taken care of. He looked again at the muscle-bound man who had fallen to the ground.

The burly man gave a full-body twitch, his body growing stiffer and stiffer. But in the end he unexpectedly hooked the corners of his lips, showing a strange and excited smile. Until his body was completely ice-cold and his heart beat had stopped, his face still wore that bizarre smile.

Tang Mo suddenly realized that something was wrong. At that moment, two voices gave a mournful cry.

“Teacher Li!”

Tang Mo immediately ran out of the gym.

On the sports field, there was a one-armed man wearing a sly smile. In front of him, Teacher Li had rolled onto the ground, a pitch-black and bloody cavity in his chest.

Li Wen held Teacher Li, seven or eight wounds on his body as well. He worked hard to use his hands to press down on the hole in Teacher Li’s abdomen, but there was nothing he could do to stop the bleeding. His hands quickly became wet with blood.

On the expansive sports field, dozens of towering flowers sprouted. There was no grass at all on the school’s sports field, only artificial turf, but these flowers grew in that turf. They had no blooms, only buds. They looked like ordinary roses.

The one-armed man standing in front of the roses was short and slender. His face had an ugly and terrifying scar that cut from his left eye straight to the corner of his mouth. He had no right arm and used his left hand to hold a knife. Scarlet blood flowed down the knife’s edge and dripped onto the ground. The man smiled darkly, his gaze cold as he looked at Tang Mo.

“What happened to those useless things?”

Tang Mo gripped the big match tightly, vigilantly watching the other party as he cooly said, “You’re the only one left.”

“Only I will survive.” The small man laughed strangely and used the knife to point at Teacher Li, who had fallen into a pool of blood. “He’s dead.”

Li Wen reached out to look for Teacher Li’s breath. His voice was stiff and sluggish. “Teacher Li…”

[6]

“Clang!”

A big knife once again shattered into pieces.

A gleam flashed through the one-armed man’s eyes, his expression blazing hot as he looked at the big match in Tang Mo’s hands. “It’s actually so powerful!”

Tang Mo suddenly revolted, brandishing the match and attacking the one-armed man.

The one-armed man raised the knife to defend.

Tang Mo had already guessed that these people would attack, but they had set traps at every corner outside the school. Previously, Tang Mo had spoken with the chubby little boy - if the stowaways didn’t make noise by stepping on the glass, it was because they had guarded against it. But actually, Tang Mo had kept something in reserve.

During the daytime, he and Li Wen had rearranged the streetlight glass on the road, intentionally leaving a small, winding path that could be walked.

If the stowaways were a little bit clever and thought to avoid stepping on the glass and making noise, they would certainly walk this route. This was tantamount to exposing their location. If they were even more clever than that and saw through Tang Mo, they would avoid walking on this path on purpose. Then their whereabouts would be exposed because they stepped on the glass.

However, the worst situation had appeared. They hadn’t stepped on the glass or taken that path. As a result, as soon as they appeared, everyone was caught unprepared. Fortunately Tang Mo had prepared in advance and discussed a strategy with the chubby little boy, otherwise it was possible that their current situation would be reversed.

Tang Mo gripped the enormous match as he asked, “How did you get inside?”

They neither stepped on the glass nor took that path. How could they have entered the school without triggering any traps?

The man gave an unpleasant laugh. “Enter? Since the very beginning, we didn’t leave!”

The chubby little boy said in alarm, “No…no way! How can you have never left? Don’t tell me you were in the school the whole time?”

“This school is so large. If we hid here, how would you know?” The man’s small eyes swept over each person’s body, especially giving Chen Shanshan and Qiao Feifei, those two little girls, a few more looks. “These two days, I’ve been watching you set those useless traps. Originally I intended to attack you last night but didn’t imagine that this kid would suddenly appear. So laozi let you live for one more day.”

The villains had actually always stayed together with them. This kind of feeling made everyone’s hair stand on end.

Chen Shanshan clenched her teeth in self-blame. “It’s me who didn’t imagine, didn’t consider it thoroughly.”

Qiao Feifei grabbed her hand. “It’s not your fault. None of us imagined that this group of bastards would leave and then turn back around and come hide in our school!”

The one-armed man heard Chen Shanshan and Qiao Feifei talking, an odd light in his eyes. As he watched them, the corners of his lips hooked up.

Tang Mo’s face was steady. He moved a few steps to the side, blocking in front of the two girls.

He said. “Your comrades are all dead. You’re still not running away?”

“Why should I run? You will all now die.” The man grasped the broken knife, pointing at Tang Mo. He only had half a knife left, but he was unexpectedly not in the least bit afraid, even looking at Tang Mo as if he were looking at a dead person.

Tang Mo tightly gripped the match in his hands, the feeling of unease in his heart growing more and more intense.

He turned his head to look at those dozen flower buds at this side and loudly said, “Go destroy the flowers!”

The one-armed man coldly shouted, “Dream on!”

Tang Mo struck with the match. The man reacted extremely fast, using the broken knife to block. There was the sound of clanging metal as the broken knife was hit by the enormous match. From the point of the collision, spider web-like cracks appeared one after another on the knife’s body. With a snap, the broken knife completely shattered into fragments, unable to be used again.

“Quickly destroy the flowers!” Tang Mo roared.

Everyone rushed into the cluster of flowers. The chubby little boy used both hands to grip a rose’s stem, pulling hard. Alarmed, he said, “I can’t pull it out! This thing is even harder than steel!”

Tang Mo finally understood where that tense feeling he’d had the whole time was coming from.

The one-armed man’s physique was actually stronger than Tang Mo. He seemed small, slender, and weak, but his body was all firm muscle. Those muscles weren’t what someone who had become a stowaway could possess. Before the earth went online, this man’s physique had far surpassed a normal person’s. His reaction speed was about the same as Tang Mo’s, but his fighting techniques and his strength all surpassed Tang Mo by far. Even though he now had no weapon, under the circumstance of being unarmed, he could still evade the big match’s attacks over and over again. He was only struck by the big match once.

“Use your ability! We absolutely must destroy those flowers!”

[PREV] [TOC]

Okay, now begins my hiatus! See you in about four weeks! ^_^ This is a terrible place to do it, but I am fairly desperate. :v ...I just spent about thirty seconds looking for the inverse symbol of '^' on my keyboard it's time for a vacation.

Translation Notes:

[1] Immediate clarification is needed. Tang Mo and Zhao Ziang (the chubby little boy) are working together. Chen Shanshan is working with Qiao Feifei (the other student who is an official player). The print edition removed direct reference to this configuration without bothering to actually change it. I’m not sure why this particular change was made as it seems like it should be enough to just alter the line “Tang Mo and the chubby little boy were responsible for attacking” to something like “Tang Mo was responsible for attacking. The chubby little boy followed after him.” (Assuming that the concern is the depiction of children engaging in violence, which seems to be the case based on other alterations made.) The other changes here are just unnecessary and confusing.

[2] Like this:

[3] The lower dantian.

Ignore the Orphic Egg, this ain’t about him.

(I'm pretty sure the lower dantian is higher than that, in your navel/lower abdomen, not your butt. Also there's a middle dantian. Look, I just thought this inexplicable dantian/orphic egg mash-up was really funny. Also, it's from a blog post about Easter? Anyway.)

[4] Luohan/Arhat - Buddhists who have attained Nirvana but the reference here is probably meant to evoke images of Shaolin kung fu specifically.

[5] It translates as wrestling, but it seems to be more like MMA/boxing than the heavyweight wrestling most English speakers probably associate the word with. It’s more of a Tekken situation than a John Cena one, so to speak.

[6] Cut from here is a section where Qiao Feifei rushes at the stowaway with her knife. She is rebuffed and Tang Mo attacks to defend her.

#the earth is online #translation #danmei #mo chen huan #teio #地球上线 #19.1

3 notes · View notes

grisailledreams · 1 year ago

Text

Act 1 complete!!!

Biggest Astarynne moment was the first time they saw the Rosymorn Monastary.

OOPS I wrote it down and did not think it was going to be more than a paragraph of me gushing about my OC and Astarion, but here we are with a ficlet. All absolute fluff, no CWs.

Because they came across this sweeping landscape of a huge river valley where everything bathed in sunlight as if it was that first moment the clouds part after a rain shower; everything glistened. The grand architecture of Lathander emerged from the rock, part of the landscape in a way the Emerald Grove wasn't. Perhaps because Nature had been given time to take over instead of being carefully cultivated for the sake of Silvanus' balance.

And, of course, Brynne had been dawdling her way through the mountain pass, but now she'd burst into a full sprint and stopped short of a cliffside just to take it all in. Astarion was back there, complaining with Karlach and Lae'zel. They had things to do, places to be.

Her excuse was a delighted bellow that echoed down the mountain. "But look at this view!"

Astarion only meant to humor her when he stood at her side, foot ready to start tapping until she had her fill, but then he really looked. Not at the valley. At her face.

This creature of the Feywild, who spent her youth in the ancient, twilit forests of New Sharandar, took to the light as if she'd always been meant to set down her roots in Rosymorn. If the sun even cared for the party, Lathander's ghostly rays coppered her blossom-pink skin until it shone precious as rose gold. The green strands that came to a head at the ends of her sandy-brown hair always reminded Astarion of early spring leaves unfurling from their sleeping branches, but now made her look mossy. As much a part of the landscape as the very stone hewn from the mountain to build the cathedral.

Her blue-green gaze turned to Astarion and if it weren't for the damned tadpole, she might have reduced him to ash as easily as the sun. Too bright, too sunny, too excited for an overgrown chasm built up by religious zealots and invaded by Lae'zel's charming, bloodthirsty kin.

"Gods, I wish I could stay here forever," said Brynne. "Isn't it gorgeous?"

She turned her attention back to the valley and gave Astarion an excuse to linger on her. He recognized that appreciation of light and open spaces, though he'd assumed Brynne would have gotten used to it by now. Unlike Karlach or himself, a tadpole-less existence didn't limit either Brynne's life or ability to choose for herself. She wasn't under the pressing need to appreciate what she had before they found a way to remove it.

(Knowing, of course, that it was far more likely the parasite would rip them from the inside out and make them illithid was an unhelpful reality upon which to dwell.)

Gods, I wish I could stay here forever.

It was, in fact, the same look in her eye that she had whenever her gaze landed on Astarion.

In spite of himself, he felt his scowl soften in a way that would disgust him later, in the hours between Brynne's "sleep" and his time to feed.

"You know," he replied, "I do believe it is."

#this was NOT supposed to turn into a ficlet!#oops oh well #astarion x oc #baldur's gate 3 fanfic #bg3 oc #absolute fluff #astarynne

5 notes · View notes

slashcrz · 1 year ago

Text

☼☾ ( ni han jin , 31 , he / him , cis man , qing 3 ) - have you seen QING TIAN FENG? we’ve heard through the grapevine that they’re DETIRIMINED but also WORN OUT. when you think of them , you think of FEET THAT NEVER KNOW WHEN TO STOP RUNNING, THE SOUND OF SETTLING IN THE DISTANCE, COLD WATER SPLASHED ON TIRED EYES.

name; Upper Three Banner General Prince Qing Tian Feng of the Ming Dynatsy

nicknames; none

birth date; january 11th, 1768, a capricorn

orientation; bisexual & biromantic

relationship; single but off && on with midori, princess of japan, on the lookout for rebound flings

politics; served as a general for the qing army under his late father, the former emperor's, bloodthirsty missions. currently has changed his views to prioritize peace - is neutral personally to the bourbon restoration, but would be in support of it forced to directly choose a side. he is more concerned with the state of his own country && continent than versailles problems, and is using this as an opportunity to try && quell wars.

religion; taoism { recently }

languages; bejing & nanjing mandarin, english, conversational japanese & korean, some french

headcanons && backstory.

TW: violence, war, ptsd mention, implications of abuse && torture

as a child, you wanted nothing more than to be the sparkle in your father's eye - your mother's first child, not one of a concubine, and a supposed jewel to the emperor... but you did not feel that closeness that was spoken of so highly, you did not feel the impressive achieve that you were spoken to be. dressed up && paraded about, you would parrot the words of your father, a bloodthirsty emperor, and the court would coo. you knew how to soothe a room, and you knew what people wanted to hear. eventually, you repeated your father, the emperor, so often... you began to believe it yourself. living a lie sold to you in the guise of china's greatness. what you would later conquer, you were told was already a blessing to your home - you would only take what rightfully belonged to them. but it was wrong, and though tian feng had joined the military at only age 19, he was quickly a decorated general leading a legion of the best men. finally you had earned the approval you dreamed of from your father - you were finally what he aspired for you to be, swinging your sword && storming onwards. an extension of his reign, a tool within his grasp, another of his greedy arms. but he died, and so did your career as a general. you turned back && returned home, a place you'd hardly visited since first leaving. the occasional banquet in your honor, a display of song && poem about your bravery in battle, but it all left a bad taste in your mouth. you retired young, just shy of 30. the dreams haunt you still. you cannot concentrate as you once could && you rarely sleep, which doesn't help things. returning home was strange && still is. you were a soldier, just a man, for so long... with your men, you were no prince. you struggle now with that balance; and within it all, you wonder if you lost yourself on the front lines. there was many times you nearly died to your injuries; once, you were captured by the enemy, held for nearly two weeks. it is not something you speak of to anyone. none of it is. a lifetime spent hoping to impress your father && gain his praise has done nothing for you except breed loneliness && hate, and no ability to handle them. you source your passion into something worthwhile; a woman, a newfound princess, an enemy you wish to make something so much more. you see in her a future for china, but also... for yourself, if she would allow it. you hope she is the change you need; that she will help you usher in a new era. it is the only way you know how to cope now. but home is harder to come by, and as you begin to realize that the world of politics is no longer large enough to accommodate you, more sacrifices for the sake of duty must be made. you say your goodbye to yet another hope, yet another future, and return to the abyss, unsure && frightfully alone.

#francehq.intro #{{ muse ;; tian feng q. }}

2 notes · View notes

kimandreaaaa · 3 years ago

Note

Can I request Obanai, Giyuu and Shinobu -you can add more if you'd like- with a Raiden Shogun!s/o??? (Raiden Shogun from Genshin Impact) Thank youu <3 I hope you have a great day

Hello! Thank you for Requesting !

Prompt: Shinobu Kocho, Tomioka Giyuu and Obanai Iguro with a Raiden Shogun S/o! (Scenario)✨

Warnings: None! Merely fluff <3

Shinobu Kocho

As you were traveling among the paths that would lead you somewhere different, you could smell the danger approaching. It didn’t matter if you really got hurt since you were a mere puppet, But something in you told you to run away. Living in a world with creatures such as demons were complicated. They are bloodthirsty beasts who only care for their own, they roam around trying to seek out the weak while focusing on getting stronger for their own sakes. You had a strong hate for them, you hated them for looking down on the weak people who could only do so much.

All you’re life, the only thing you wanted to focus on was protecting humans. You knew you had strong abilities to withdraw the demons. Let’s say you were not an ordinary person, not in the slightest! As being strong made you want to prove too the people that they can rely on you, you wanted too keep you’re identity a secret of course and the only one you had told in you’re life was Shinobu. You had met shinobu months back. As you two got to know one and another you started to develop feelings for each other.

You were rather fond of Kocho. She was loving and selfless among humans. You had the same goals and fitted perfectly together. She was rather understanding so when you told her about you’re little secret she was astonished, but at last she promised to keep it a secret. And after that day you guys were inseparable. You went to little dates in the forest or trained together.

You knew that Shinobu was located in the Demon Slayer Headquarters, so that’s where you went. Currently running to avoid any conflicts or interactions with demons. As you reached you’re destination you saw you’re lover chatting with Rengoku, the flame pillar. And when she saw you she waved and went over too you while saying her goodbyes to kyojuro. The rest of the evening was spent together, training and chatting while wondering what else they could do.

Giyuu Tomioka

Letting you’re boyfriend know that he was dating a mere puppet was hard at first. You thought at first that he maybe didn’t believe you since he was so quiet. But at last he was supportive, of course it was hard to know that you’re lover was an expression of the real thing. But he still wanted to be with you. He was interested in what thing you could do and engage in. You also thought him you’re ways of fighting since you wanted to share you’re knowledge and experience that you had tucked away for years.

As you were currently cleaning the house that you guys had, you hadn’t realized that a certain someone was standing behind you burring holes into the back of you’re head. You felt somehow off, but as you’re turned you’re head you were relived that it was Giyuu. “Welcome back Giyuu. And why are you staring at me like that?” You said, he replied with “ I don’t know, just observing”. You were confused but the feeling quickly went away when he hugged you and went too you’re shared bedroom.

This was the normal behaviors of Giyuu, he was alway so curious about you and wanted to know more about were you had came from, but you were also curious about him. So you guys made a promise to tell each other about you’re worlds. He teached you how to use a nichirin sword and you thought him you’re ways of fighting and the use of you’re own magic.

Dating Tomioka was completely confusing, but also really loving! You were always happy to spend time with him. And the best thing he did for you was respecting you’re wishes. He was a respectful man who only wanted the best for the people he knew. He wouldn’t really show any emotions, but he tried. And you were always there for him. You two had always been connected somehow, and with that you lived together peacefully.

Obanai Iguro

You were currently doing you’re daily dose of study. You had been curious when you had came to this world, so wanting to know everything about it swallowed you whole. This world was filled with horrific beats and conflicts, but also with love. And you knew who you loved. Obanai, you’re lover, was currently on a mission dealing with an upper moon. The first encounter you had with him was rather harsh. He had first thought that you were a demon working for Kibutsuji. But it turned out that you were something else.

And as you told him you’re story, he was very interested and wanted to know more about you’re way of living. You told him as much as you could and in return he showed you some of his ways. You explained that you weren’t really there in the first place, but you were there as a puppet. He was hella confused but got rather used to it. He wanted to show you his breathing techniques, and he offered to teach you some. As you became better each day, you had developed you’re own Breathing style, you called it electrical, simply because it defined its nature.

After a while of knowing each other you grew feelings for him, and you were shocked to discover that he felt the same about you. And from that day you two had been together, loving and caring for each other. Dating Iguro was filled with adventure and fun. You also got to pet his Serpent occasionally! You had simply bonded with them both, and Iguro respected that gracefully. Not only was Obanai attracted to you’re personality, but you’re style also drew him in from afar. You were different, and that was what he loved about you.

As you continued to study, someone wrapped their arms around you’re neck, you knew it was Iguro, so you simply drew you’re arms over his to return the gesture. Such a simple gesture could make anyone’s heart beat. He turned you around and hugged you tightly, he had missed you’re warmth and wanted to spend his time with you. “ welcome home Obanai!” You said, welcoming him back home from a long mission.

——————————————————————————————————————————————-

Hope you enjoyed reading this! And as always, have a nice day/night!✨

#kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer #kny giyuu #kny obanai #kny shinobu #giyuu tomioka imagine #giyuu tomioka #tomioka x reader #giyuu x reader #iguro obanai #obanai x reader #kimetsu no yaiba shinobu #shinobu x reader #kyojuro rengoku #genshin imagines #genshin raiden #raiden shogun #kny fanfic #genshin impact

133 notes · View notes

kpop-kitkat · 2 years ago

Text

Demon Prince | Choi Beomgyu Pt. 1

pairing | demon!choi beomgyu x fem!reader

genre/cw | angst, demon au, vampire au, spooky, violence, mild language

wc | 1.5k

notes | me trying to be an eloquent storyteller xd

part 1. >>> part 2.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Myths. Everyone knows about them. Stories and legends many have claimed to be true, but they lacked evidence. One myth in particular was the idea that since the beginning of time, there has been a war going on; between vampires and demons. Now, if some old man walked into a cafe telling of such things, everyone would call him crazy and suggest he get his "illness" taken care of. They didn't believe in either of the two supernatural creatures, let alone the theory that they'd been enemies since the world's beginning.

Some people, such as L/n Y/n, know that they exist. But they refuse to say anything for the sake of reputation, safety, and trust.

The two creatures are indeed real. Vampires are cold-blooded, sharp fanged, blood sucking individuals who love nothing more than to feed on a warm-blooded human. Demons however, are the sworn protectors of humanity. Although they seem frightening and malicious, they use their abilities, which are teleportation, flight, and exceptional strength, to defend the humans from the bloodthirsty mansion dwellers.

~~~~~

Y/n tossed and turned in her soft blankets as another sleepless night became evident to her. Let's just say, she was going through a difficult season. She had family drama, a totalled car, and a she recently came out of a toxic relationship with her ex-boyfriend. All of these things caused her to become depressed and have anxiety attacks frequently. The loud thunderstorm didn't help much either. She also had been reluctant to care for herself properly; not getting enough sleep, eating wrong, and refusing to have fellowship with friends.

Her heart was beating out of her chest, making it impossible for her to even relax. She decided to walk around her apartment, aimlessly.

She poured herself a glass of iced water before sitting at her kitchen counter and looking at a dark window. She watched two raindrops race to the bottom of the window pane.

Suddenly, her heart began beating at an alarmingly fast pace. She knew something wasn't right. It wasn't just normal anxiety. She could feel the danger in the air. Not knowing what else to do, she froze in her seat, waiting for whatever inevitable harm was coming to befall her.

A few crackling sounds were heard before the lights went out. The only light now came from the lightning that shown through the window. It was just enough to make it clear to Y/n that a tall, dark figure stood about fifteen feet in front of her. She was horrified when the figure began to laugh evilly, red eyes becoming apparent.

"Just stand still darling, and this will be a lot less painful," the figure suggested, as it began stepping closer to her.

Her instinct of fear finally kicked in as she ran to a closet and locked herself inside.

"Oh darling, please unlock the door, it'll only hurt for a second," the voice begged.

She knew it was a lie. If every rumor she had heard about vampires was true, then she knew that the likelihood of surviving after a vampire encounter was not very good.

The door shook a couple of times and she prepared for him to finally break down the door when a loud grunt of pain was heard.

"Get the hell away from her," growled a new voice.

"Oh Beomgyu, standing between me and my prey are we?" the vampire laughed, wiping the blood from his lip.

"You've taken enough blood in your life time. And I won't let you take hers," the other voice, known as Beomgyu, protested.

"Are you implying something?" the vampire raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. I will end you."

Y/n couldn't believe what she was hearing. She peered through the blinds of the closet door to watch the scene.

Suddenly, Beomgyu pressed the vampire harshly against the wall.

"Run! Get out of here!" Beomgyu yelled.

She knew he could've only been talking to her, so she opened the door and ran towards the door of the apartment.

Beomgyu was so focused on Y/n getting to safety, that he didn't notice the vampire sweep his legs out from under him, tripping him. The vampire then chased after the girl and caught her before she could open the apartment door. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pressed a blade to her throat, causing a moan of distress from her.

"I'll let the pretty little thing live if you leave this place and never show your face again," the vampire negotiated.

Beomgyu considered all of his options, but decided when he saw the beautiful girl struggling for breath. In little time, he disappeared and reappeared behind the vampire, stabbing him through the heart with a blade. The cold-blooded creature gasped at the new sensation, and used his last moments of strength to slit the girl's throat, before falling dead and disinigreting.

Y/n whimpered as she felt the hot liquid running down her neck and fell, only to be caught by her guardian demon Beomgyu. He held her in his arms as he inspected the wound. Luckily, he didn't cut her in a fatal spot, but it could kill her if the wound wasn't treated in time.

"I'm so sorry Y/n," he whispered to her, as he searched for something in his jacket.

She would ask how he knew her name, but she was too worried to care.

Eventually, Beomgyu pulled something out of his jacket. It was a small bottle of red liquid. He carefully tilted her head up and tapped the bottle, causing a drop to fall into her mouth. Immediately, her cut began to close up. After a few seconds, she felt for her wound, only to find it was gone. She gasped and looked up at her hero.

"Thank you," was all she managed to say.

"Of course," the demon smiled, putting his healing potion away.

He then helped the mortal to her feet. "This is going to sound crazy, but you're not safe here. The the leader of the order of vampires knows you're here. There's a lot more to explain, but we don't have much time. You need to come with me," he told her, as he held her hands.

Although she hardly knew the handsome demon, she felt safe around him, and trusted him. She also decided that even if she was going to be kidnapped by him, it was better than being held captive by a vampire, or even killed.

"Alright, I trust you. Beomgyu, isn't it?" she asked boldly.

"Yes," he confirmed. "I am Choi Beomgyu, son of Choi Baekhyun, the king of demons. I'm your appointed protector, that's how I know your name," he explained, clearing up a lot of confusion.

~~Y/n~~

Imagine a demon saving you from being killed by a vampire. And turns out, that demon is a prince! And not only that, he's YOUR sworn protector. Not to mention he's breathtakingly hot with an amazing personality. Sounds like a nice dream, huh? Well for me, it's reality. And if you told me I would be running away with my protector who knows where a couple days ago, I would've never believed you.

"I'm taking you to Castle Kyoto, my home. There, you will stay in your own room until it is safe for you to return. Now, hold my hand and don't let go," he said, gripping my hands a bit more tightly.

Suddenly, everything went dark. And when light returned, I sure wasn't in Seoul anymore. I stood in awe as I gazed upon the dark caste that glowed in the moonlight. Beomgyu quickly grabbed my wrist, pulling me behind some bushes.

"What?" I questioned, a bit confused.

He shushed me, pressing a finger to my lips. He then pointed to three heavily armored guards standing in front of the entrance gate.

"Can't we teleport?" I suggested, much quieter than before.

"Unfortunately no. My father built the walls so that we demons could not teleport through them," he sighed. "Whatever you do, don't let go of my hand."

~~~~~

We breathed a sigh of relief as we entered Beomgyu's bedroom without being seen.

"I know I promised you a room, but I'm afraid you'll have to stay with me for awhile," Beomgyu panted, his sweaty figure leaning against the door.

I couldn't help the blood rushing to my cheeks, so I hid myself. Never thought I'd be sharing a room with a sexy demon. Literally.

I collapsed onto his bed as he sat on the elegant vanity stool.

"I know it's a lot for you to take in, Y/n. I admire for being so brave," he admitted, giving me a slight smile, which I swear doubled my heart rate.

"Oh, yeah," I shrugged.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, clearly exhausted.

"Umm, Beomgyu?"

"Mmm," he hummed in response.

"I know it's been a long day, but why was that vampire trying to kill me? And how did he know you?"

He opened one of his eyes, and closed it again, sighing. "It's a long story..."

"Please Beomgyu," I pleaded, desperate for an answer.

"You might not like this but, you're not who you think you are. You're...

#choi beomgyu #beomgyu #tomorrow x together #txt #txt beomgyu #txt imagines #txt angst #txt au #kpopidol #dailybg #demon #prince #demon prince #beomgyu x reader

36 notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 3 years ago

Text

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 18 - ao3 -

“I thought he liked you,” Cangse Sanren said, her hands warm on Lan Qiren’s back as he buried his face into his hands. He didn’t even scold her for it, ignoring all the strictures against too-close interactions between men and women in his misery. “I really did, or else I wouldn’t have encouraged him. I’m sorry.”

Words of apology like that came easily to her lips, unbound as she was by the usual complicated human emotions behind them. It was one of the many traits of hers that Lan Qiren envied.

Having finished her tenure at the Cloud Recesses, Cangse Sanren had been living at the Lotus Pier as a guest of the Jiang sect the past few months, and seemed to be quite happy there. Rumors had already gone around about how she’d been night-hunting with Jiang Fengmian and his retinue, much to the frustration of the third daughter of Meishan Yu, who’d had her heart set on him for ages.

Despite this, Cangse Sanren had still written cheerful letters to Lan Qiren, and he’d written back faithfully, although he’d tried not to bother her too much. He hadn’t actually asked her to return to the Cloud Recesses for his sake – after what had happened in the Nightless City, he’d written up some letters trying to explain that he would be very happy to have her company should it not be an imposition, his hand shaky and his calligraphy ugly in a way it hadn’t been since he was a small child, but he’d thrown them all away. He suspected someone had recovered a discarded draft and sent the message for him, probably Lan Yueheng or something like that, but he wasn’t sure; he hadn’t accepted any visitors since his frenzied flight from the Nightless City, locking himself away in his rooms and refusing to see anyone, even his brother.

Especially his brother.

“He does,” Lan Qiren said, his voice hoarse even though he hadn’t really been using it for much in the past few weeks, brooding over what had happened. “I think – he does.”

That was the worst of it, too. Lan Qiren could no longer deceive himself into thinking that Wen Ruohan saw him as a pawn to manipulate, a piece to play as part of a larger game. Their brotherhood might have started out that way, but at some point Wen Ruohan had actually taken an interest in him – a half-immortal like him, powerful beyond reckoning, thinking that Lan Qiren of all people was as precious as the pearls he’d draped him in.

He’d probably had those supposedly spare Wen sect robes made especially for him, too, just as an excuse to see him wearing them; Lan Qiren hadn’t put it together at the time, blinded as he was by the new and exciting feeling of closeness and affection, but in retrospect it had been obvious. Wen Ruohan himself admitted that he longed to possess things that he liked, that his instincts tended towards domination, and even based on their limited acquaintance, Lan Qiren knew that it would be just like Wen Ruohan to manufacture a situation just to see what Lan Qiren looked like wearing his colors.

No: Wen Ruohan sincerely liked Lan Qiren. He liked him a lot.

And he was, without a doubt, a terrible person.

Lan Qiren lived his life by the Lan sect rules. He might only be nineteen years old, two generations junior to Wen Ruohan, but he had at his disposal the wisdom of generations.

There were dozens of rules about what you were supposed to do, how you were supposed to conduct yourself – you were supposed to love the world and strive to fill it with good deeds, to uphold justice and shoulder morality, to be chivalrous and filial and virtuous, to live a life with integrity.

Do not associate with evil.

Wen Ruohan had told him, all that time ago, hadn’t he? It had been one of the first things he’d said to Lan Qiren, stay away from bad men. He’d meant himself then, and he’d been right, too.

It had been Lan Qiren who hadn’t listened.

“I liked him, too,” he said nonsensically, and put his head back down.

“I know,” she said. Cangse Sanren’s voice was not given to gentleness – he’d once scathingly compared it to a horn’s blast, loud and blaring, and she had laughed in delight – but for all her loudness she was also capable of great kindness. “I know, Qiren-gege, I know. You wouldn’t care so much if you didn’t.”

“…I don’t have many friends.”

“I know.”

“I don’t – I don’t need– he’s supposed to be my brother –”

“You have bad luck with brothers, I think,” she said, trying to be a little tactful and largely failing, and Lan Qiren felt himself awash with misery once more. She wasn’t wrong. Lan Qiren clearly had the ability to make friends – Cangse Sanren, for one, or Lan Yueheng and some others like him, even Lao Nie – but clearly he’d no luck when it came to anything more than that.

His blood brother despised him, and his sworn brother, who cared for him, was an evil man who by all rights he ought to avoid. What else could that be but the worst of luck?

“At least you found out early on,” Cangse Sanren said, moving straight back into the practical. She’d long ago admitted that she wasn’t very good with feelings of sadness, preferring to spend her life in joy no matter how difficult. “It would have been worse if it was later.”

“Would it?” Lan Qiren asked. He wasn’t so sure. “I’d have had more grounds to argue with him if I’d known him better.”

“Of course you’d think first of reforming him,” she sighed.

Lan Qiren shrugged. “Liberate, then suppress, and only as a last resort eliminate.”

“That’s for ghosts, Qiren-gege.”

“Most types of resentful energy, actually.” He tried to scrub at his eyes, which were tearing up again. “Most types of evil. And he – he is, isn’t he?”

“I mean, I’d have to do some digging before reaching a firm conclusion, I try not to judge these things second-hand, but based on what you described as seeing in the Fire Palace…probably.” She shook her head. “Even if they were wrongdoers, they ought to be punished according to their crime, or even executed. There’s no call for something on the order of what you described.”

“Maybe it’s different in the Wen sect,” Lan Qiren said, not really meaning it. “They might have different standards – there are punishments we enact that other sects might consider torturous, I suppose. The Jiang sect, for instance, punishes minor offenses only with kneeling, and disapproves of using the discipline rod… Anyway, it’s not - it’s not like it was hidden or anything, like it would be if they thought it shameful. The rumors all said that he was bloodthirsty and fond of torture; everyone knows, and for some reason I’m the only one who seems to mind.”

“Most people didn’t have to see Sect Leader Wen watching it like a particularly good dance routine at a brothel,” Cangse Sanren retorted, and Lan Qiren gagged at the thought. “Anyway, I still think it’s good that you figured out that he was trash before you got in too deep.”

“He’s not trash,” Lan Qiren objected, and she gave him an incredulous look. “He’s not! He’s not – he doesn’t have to stop. He’s a sect leader; he has complete dominion within his territory. His territory is the most expansive of all the Great Sects, he’s the most personally powerful of all the sect leaders…he can do as he likes, and I can’t do anything about it. If anything, I was in the wrong for profaning his hospitality by – by –”

“By putting those people out of their misery?”

“…that,” Lan Qiren said, and felt sick again.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You were entirely in the right! You should always stand up for morality, no matter the circumstance…” Cangse Sanren scowled. “Hold up, are you saying you’d considering making up with him?”

Lan Qiren sighed and scrubbed at his face.

“Qiren-gege!”

“He’s my sworn brother,” Lan Qiren said. “I swore an oath.”

Loyalty and fidelity - all those clauses about not being betrayed. He’d promised.

“That’s ridiculous,” Cangse Sanren argued. “So what if you swore an oath? So did he!”

“He swore to guide me, I swore to follow; it’s not the same.”

“He still has to be a good role model –”

“Maybe in his view he is.”

“Absurd. What utter trash!”

“It’s still an oath, Cangse Sanren!”

“Marriage is an oath, too, and they still invented divorce,” she said, scowling. Cangse Sanren had never met the word ‘no’ and liked it; it wasn’t in her character. “You can’t just let him go on like that, breaking your heart!”

“I wouldn’t call it –”

Cangse Sanren gave him a look, and Lan Qiren closed his mouth.

He supposed it was a bit like that.

“I thought it would work out, that’s all,” he said finally, somehow managing to talk around the lump of misery in his chest. “As something more than – what I have already.”

He’d spent years in denial and privately blaming himself, his awkwardness and his failures and his poor potential, for the poor state of his relationship with his brother, but then it turned out that who he was was enough to make someone like Sect Leader Wen, who had no pity and no sympathy and no natural fondness of other people, like him, so maybe in the end it wasn’t him.

Maybe it was only as Cangse Sanren had said: that he had poor luck in brothers.

“Just that?” she asked, and sounded curious. He looked at her in question, not understanding what she meant. “I mean, I don’t know. You were in the Nightless City for a whole week, unsupervised and clearly getting your feet swept out from under you by the charming and dashing Sect Leader Wen – did he really not try anything?”

“Try anything – Cangse Sanren! I already told you, it’s Lao Nie he likes like that.” He frowned. “At least, I think he does? No, I’m sure of it. Lao Nie calls him Hanhan, and Sect Leader Wen lets him; they must be – close. And Lao Nie’s proud of how undiscriminating he is.”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure Lao Nie lost half his interest in me when he realized I didn’t have a spare set of teeth somewhere awkward,” Cangse Sanren agreed, rolling her eyes. She’d spent a short time at the Unclean Realm, too. “Are you sure? I would’ve sworn…well, anyway, who cares about him? What about you? Did youlike Wen Ruohan like that?”

Lan Qiren grimaced. “I’ve never been good at that,” he demurred, and it was true.

At nineteen, by the standards of the Great Sects, he was generally considered a little too young to marry, and wouldn’t have been expected to – but plenty of young men his age and much younger were mooning over women left and right, and he’d never done that. He wanted a wife, of course, the way that he wanted to be an adult and to go traveling and to be a teacher, a sort of distant far-off future plan; he’d always been attracted by the idea of having a companion to share joys and sorrows with, but he’d never seen the appeal of soft curves or a pretty face the way all his peers seemed to instinctively understand. He hadn’t worried, thinking that desire was something that would come with time, although as he got older he started to worry that he’d perhaps missed the optimal period for it to happen. Even Cangse Sanren, who he liked a great deal – he didn’t think of her that way, not even when she’d admitted that she liked him.

“I know that,” she said, nudging him playfully. “I just thought you might be a cutsleeve, that’s all.”

“I don’t think so? I mean, I don’t know,” he said, and sighed. “I thought about it for a while, you know, after our last discussion on the subject. It’s not that it’s not accepted – I mean, it’s not popular, but it’s not forbidden, either, and there’s plenty of precedent for people in the Lan sect with those sorts of interests. But when I went to look at the spring books in the library –”

“You snuck a peek? Qiren-gege! How daring!”

“Be quiet. It’s a time-honored Lan sect tradition; if peeking weren’t encouraged, the books would be locked away in the forbidden section rather than just placed on an awkwardly high shelf.”

She giggled, and her endless good humor cheered him up a little.

“Anyway,” he said. “I looked it over, but it still just seemed like – I don’t know. Too much trouble.”

Cangse Sanren found that hilarious for some reason.

“Maybe it’s just the bedding you think is stupid?” she finally asked after getting the laughter out of her system and making a completely unnecessary hand gesture in case he didn’t understand that she meant sex instead of actual bedding. “It’s pretty stupid, I’m not going to lie.”

Lan Qiren gave her a sharp look. “You’re not married.”

“Don’t change the subject! Would you like a wife – or a husband, I suppose – if you didn’t have to sleep with them?”

“I wouldn’t ask that of someone,” Lan Qiren objected. “It’s a fundamental aspect of it, isn’t it? Anyway, I don’t – it’s not that – there’s nothing wrong with it in principle, I don’t mean to judge others – only – listen, it’s just troublesome, that’s all, and I don’t especially want to – Why are we even talking about this, anyway?”

Cangse Sanren laughed at him again.

“Regarding Sect Leader Wen, I have no grounds to object to his actions, so I won’t,” Lan Qiren decided, returning to their original subject, which although miserable was far less humiliating. “But I don’t have to pretend like I like it, either. Don’t associate with evil.”

“He’s your sworn brother,” Cangse Sanren reminded him, as if he’d somehow managed to forget. “If you’re not willing to be forsworn, how can you avoid him?”

“I’ll figure it out,” he said with a sigh. “It’s just a disappointment, that’s all. I’ll accept it, the way I’ve accepted all the others.”

She pressed her lips together, clearly unhappy. “One day that’s not going to be enough,” she finally said. “One day, you’ll run into a disappointment that’s so great that it’ll swallow you up.”

Lan Qiren opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. It was said that those who left Baoshan Sanren’s mountain were doomed, their longing to join humanity bringing down a sad fate onto their heads, though it was unclear if they would all go mad and evil the way her first disciple had all those years ago or if they would just die unhappily. What could he say against that?

“I’ll deal with that when it comes, I suppose,” he said, and felt uncomfortably like he had seen some trace of the heavens’ design that he shouldn’t have. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. Tell me about you.”

“About me?”

“How are you enjoying the Lotus Pier? And how do you – uh – that is –”

“Know enough to have an opinion about what people do in bed?” she said, her eyes curving into crescents as she grinned. “Well. Let me tell you all about that, since the two answers are the same. There’s this absolutely darling man in the Lotus Pier, very funny, by the name of Wei Changze –”

“Wei Changze? Not Jiang Fengmian?”

Cangse Sanren winked at him. “Rules against gossip, Qiren-gege!”

“It’s not gossip if it’s news!” he defended himself, though in all honesty it was probably mostly just gossip. “I wanted to know how you were doing!”

“And I’m glad of it! Let me tell you all about the ridiculous love triangle I’ve found myself in –”

It’s not gossip if it’s news, Lan Qiren reminded himself even as he settled in to listen. He put away all thoughts of Wen Ruohan for the moment, and thought that it was all for the best. There was nothing he could do about it, after all.

The facts were what they were: Wen Ruohan was his sworn brother; Wen Ruohan liked Lan Qiren, and Lan Qiren liked him in return; Wen Ruohan was an evil man who enjoyed causing pain.

Lan Qiren would just have to find a way to live with that.

#mdzs #lan qiren #cangse sanren #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #spilled pearls

103 notes · View notes

never-enough-fanfiction · 4 years ago

Note

Hey ive been swamped with ACT studying latley, i was wondering if you can do head canons on what Benimaru would be like as a dad (x mother wife) where the two of you have kids? Since he is a proto nationalist I totally see him wanting a big traditional family. How would he react to pregnancy news? What would he be like when his s/o is in labor, or his reaction to babys first steps or first word. So much fluff!!

If, while reading this, you get the feeling that it was wirtten by some caveman who doesn't know shiet about children or words, know that this caveman tried her best to make it as cute and fun as possible, and that really is the pinnacle of her abilities. Okay?

+ As always, sorry for delay, I know how nerve wracking can exams be (just finished my midterms) and I hope you will achieve the highest possible results. Unfortunately you asked an author who is what she is ... Please take these 1 500 words as compensation.

Enjoy!

News

Benimaru took the news of your first pregnancy in silence. In a silence so deaf and long that every passing second tightened the hoop around your heart tighter and tighter.

It took you three days to get ready to say it to his face, and yet the stress was still eating you from the inside. His lack of response as you fumbled the ends of your T-shirt in your hands did not make it easier nor better.

You looked up sharply, preferring to face his anger rather than spending another second in uncertainty, and you found that Benimaru was looking over your shoulder, present body, but definitely not mind.

After a few calls and waving in front of his face, Benimaru seemed to wake up and shifted his lost gaze to you.

"We will have a kid?"

"Yes, we will." You repeated, stressing each word, trying to get through to him this time. You expected many things, but not so much confusion.

"A kid." He repeated, and his crimson eyes lit up the glow. "A kid!"

Benimaru cuped your checks and kissed every inch of your face. Lips, checks, temples, forehead, nose, eyelids.

"A kid."

The next person to hear the happy news was Konro, and then the whole city somehow. The residents' mouths did not close for the next 9 months.

Each time he took it better and better. Each time he almost went out of his skin showering you with kisses or dancing around the room with you in his arms. Only this first stage of the shock was shortened.

Pregnancy

Benimaru didn't know at first what a pregnant woman could and couldn't do, so it was best if you didn't do anything. After long interpretations from the midwife, the range of your allowable activities extended beyond sitting and breathing, but there was no question of any use of force.

After a while, you even stopped trying to lift anything above the bowl of rice. Every time Benimaru saw that you were carrying a package, you happened to get the slightest rebuke. It was worse for all Hikeshi within 100 meters for not-helping. After that, you didn't want to trouble the innocent firefighters anymore.

As you can't even look at sake, your evening drinking has turned into making up names over tea. (Not that Shinmon suddenly stopped drinking. He doesn't want to drink in front of you when you couldn't, and after every news of the next baby, the alcohol flows in streams, so he can't complain about abstinence.) He loves holding you in his arms, with one hand for growing belly. Once he felt a kick, he literally melted.

With time, as the family began to grow, it was his duty to make sure that the older children did not tire you and find them to do something.

Childbirth

The first time he had no idea what to do. He literally turned to Konro saying:

"Konro, [Y / N], labor, what do I do ?!" Sould he wreck some buildings?

Konro, as a loving friend aware that there was no time to explain it to him with words, kicked his composite ass to the hospital.

While the whole city was celebrating the birth of another Shinmon, Benimaru was sitting next to you, holding a small bundle in his stiff hands.

"You can hug them, you know?"

"They are too tiny!" he muttered, afraid to raise his voice so as not to wake the sleeping figure.

“They are stronger than you think, Love. They're Shinmon after all, ”you recalled with a chuckle.

Since then, every time the inhabitants of the viewer of Benimaru running to the hospital (have you ever seen Benimaru running? Me neither.), they immediately reach for alcohol.

Begginings

Benimaru has experience and no major problems in taking care of children, especially since they are his. In his time off work, you can see him sitting in front of the Guardhouse, giving his toothless child to chew on his forearms, and sometimes making a tour around the city together, to the joy of all the residents. Other times, he will sit in front of the little one trying to teach him the first words.

"C’mon kid, da-d." Benimaru tried to keep the child's attention who was much more interested in chewing a wooden puppet.

"Daaa ~"

"Close enough, da-d." Some time ago he made a bet with [Y/N] that their first word would be dad, and the rules did not exclude support. "Da-d."

"Maaa ~"

"No, DA-D." He sighed softly and looked up sharply for the approaching steps.

Konro stepped into the yard, gloomy, looking around until he found the Captain.

“Oi Waka, have you seen Hika and Hina? I can’t find them anywhere. "

The red-eyed man shrugged, pointing to the street.

"Maybe they are terrorizing the candy seller again."

Konro sighed heavily and disappeared behind the building, leaving them alone again, and Benimaru returned his attention to the child, already scrambling onto his lap.

"Wanna sleep?" He helped them climb a little higher and leaned in as they held out a small hand at him. He was expecting an awkward slap on the nose, but instead got a tug on his hair almost to the floor. "Ack! What the… "

"Waka ~"

"What?" He froze as he tried to untangle the strands from his impossibly grasping fingers.

“Waka ~” The child repeated, tugging again, and giggled smugly.

Waka? Does it count as a dad? Did he win?

The next achievement was to make sure they didn't repeat all those curses after him, or at least so [Y/N] wouldn't hear.

Beni with big family

You probably expected that just as with twins, the whole Guardhouse will look after them ? Hah, ya wrong.

ENTIRE CITIES WATCH OVER THE MINI MIXES OF BENI-CHAN WITH [Y/N] -CHAN. They are so spoiled that sometimes it feels like only you and Benimaru have any rules. On the other hand, there are no problems with finding your children, just call them by name and half the street will indicate their whereabouts.

• Maybe you can't see it, but Benimaru doesn't know what to do with himself out of happiness. Even when he comes home in the evenings after a really long day, the sight of all those faces looking at him as the center of the world makes him smile. At such moments, he will always find some strength to play.

• The fun begins when they are old enough to help him with his work, not putting the Infernals to rest or blowing up houses, but just making a errands around the city where he can show them what Hikeshi's job is and teach them about his core beliefs.

He doesn't always succeed, but he knows he can rely on you and your ability to use words if he does.

• Benimaru has no problem with cases when one of his children doesn't want to follow in his footsteps, he knows that he has raised them well and that when he is gone, they will take care of his city regardless of his position or profession.

• BUT NOTHING RELATED TO THE EMPIRE!

You had to use force to stop him from throwing your daughter's boyfriend out the door when he heard he was with the empire.

Play time

Benimaru's favorite form of spending time together is, of course, teaching his children everything he can. Regardless of their gender, they all have inherited above-average amounts of fire power and a love to destruction.

After several dozen problems with stopping his own children from killing their siblings, Benimaru created a game called: "dad agains everyone"

It’s fun to watch Benimaru surroded by figures half his height, who try to collapse him to the ground.

Rest of the family

Grandpa Konro

This man survived small Benimaru and the Twins. There is nothing this man haven’t seen. Which makes him the best grandfather in the empire. At this stage, Koro already has a separate locker for everything from his numerous grandchildren.

He is also your kids safe place when the parent's fury rages outside.

Aunt Hika and Hina

There were times when you had to entrust your older children to the care of twins (if your children were several years old, Hika and Hina were also older, don’t get me wrong). The girls made sure that the younger members of the family learned everything they needed to know about Asakusa, the inhabitants and their usual behavior.

In fact, at some point they were considered to be part of their siblings, and so were treated like ones (read: regular bloodshed).

Nevertheless, every time one of the stepsiblings messed up with someone they shouldn't (manga readers know perfectly well that kids have it after their dad), the two fire foxes turned into two bloodthirsty beasts, ready to chase away any problematic individual.

#Sorry for delay....#I'm kinda mad at myslef for posting it so late #not much proofreading #let me know if I didn't translate any part #maybe I didn't mentioned a lot of having a lot of kids HC #but as I said #the peak of my abilities #not good with kids #shinmon benimaru #shinmon benimaru x reader #benimaru shinmon x reader #benimaru shinmon #fire force #fire force HC

251 notes · View notes

delimeful · 4 years ago

Text

WIBAR Intermission: New Friends

winner of the first july patreon poll! thanks to @legendsgates for allowing me to sneak in a brief cameo of their alien species, cetarfreka!

previous intermission episode | start of WIBAR

warnings: violence, fear, tension, ptsd episodes, injury mention, being held hostage, misunderstandings, deception

It was about halfway through their trading circuit that the vidcomm from the Mindscape popped up.

Remyy perked up instantly, Patton’s distinctive singsong voice clear even from half across the main bay. They dropped to their feet and tucked all their wings tight against them to signal that anyone in the way should swiftly get out of the way. Those in the bay who knew them cast strange glances in their direction as they hop-skittered across the floor.

Remyy couldn’t blame them; this was probably the fastest they’d moved all week. They usually maintained a much more casual demeanor for the sake of their reputation, but in this case...

“Patton! Babes, you’re really okay!”

“Remyy!” The Ampen fluffed up, a pleasant glow filling the room around him, face pinching up happily.

In this case, exceptions would be made.

The Obrxyx currently managing the comms sighed at them, unimpressed. “You have this one, then?”

“Sure do,” Remyy drawled, still leaning between xem and the monitor so that half their face took up the comm screen. “We go way back, I’ll get them docked.”

They waited impatiently for xem to move to a different comm terminal, adjusted the seatpad so they could be seen properly through the comm, and promptly started complaining. “I can’t believe you guys, holing up in that rinky dink ship for so long with only voice calls to tell everyone that you were okay! Where’s the gossip? Why in the universe would you keep it from me?”

Patton’s hands jerked, and the comm screen wobbled, blurring his expression strangely for a moment. Remyy tilted their goggles slightly for a better angle, but by the time the mobile communicator stabilized, any change in demeanor had vanished.

“Be careful, Rem,” Patton said teasingly, “it almost sounds like you care about us or something.”

“Funny,” Remyy replied dryly, “I’ll have you know that I’ve just been missing Logan’s high quality deathbrew, none of that sentimental garbage.”

Patton laughed at them silently with his gaze alone. Innocent, naive Ampen, their ass.

“Are we cleared to dock y-- Is that Remyy?” Another voice from offscreen dropped abruptly into horror, and Remy’s eyes narrowed in gleeful amusement.

“It sure is, gurl,” they called, “and the Remyy in question seems to recall a certain bet that was never paid up on. 30 cenals, cough ‘em up.”

There was a loud groan, and then a thump that shook the comm slightly. Patton spent a moment staring at something with a confused frown, and then seemed to get it, nodding. He turned back to them very seriously.

“Sorry, Roman can’t come to the comm right now,” he informed them. “He, uh, died. Very recently. And tragically."

Belatedly, he put on a sad expression, antennae drooping. Remyy raised their eyebrows, unimpressed.

“Uh huh. Well, I suppose I’ll just have to join in on the funeral rites once I get down to help carry the goods over, huh--?”

“No!” The voices of both his friends overlapped, making the comm audio fuzz harshly for a moment. Remyy’s secondaries flared slightly, taken aback at the vehemence.

“Uh, I mean, we don’t have that much,” Patton hurried to patch up the awkward pause. “How about we meet you in the docking lobby instead? You can get Roman’s credits there.”

“Hey!”

Remyy’s ears angled back with displeased confusion, but they acquiesced anyhow. “Hurry up, then. And make sure Logan brings my brew!”

Whatever it was they were hiding, Remyy was sure they’d be able to weasel it out of them in no time.

---

After grabbing a short meal and a boring haggling session between the Mindscape’s crew and the cargo manager of the Starwinder, Remyy finally got to learn about what had happened to Patton during his disappearance.

It wasn’t pretty.

Their senspatches felt dry at the mere thought of Patton stripped of his coat and forced to starve because of it. It was beyond lucky that the remaining two of the trio managed to find and free the Ampen from the harvesters before it was too late. If anyone could do it, though, they believed this crew could.

Patton had grown quieter and less fluffy throughout the course of the tale, with Roman and Logan taking turns delivering a well-practiced explanation of the events. Seeing as these were extenuating circumstances, Remyy submitted to cuddles just this once, allowing the small alien to bury his face in the folds of their leathery armwings.

They took a moment once the story was over, casually and completely unintentionally folding more of their wing over Patton. “That bites, babes.”

“Yeah.” The Ampen hummed in response, mouth pinched strangely. “I… I’m really grateful that I got help when I did.”

Logan set a careful hand on Patton’s back, though the motion almost came across as less comforting and more… cautioning? Remyy’s senspatches flared up slightly as they tried to read more into the situation.

Before they could really investigate, though, Roman was leaning forwards and grabbing the edge of their arm to get their attention.

“Remyy. We’ve been having something of an adjustment period. Drop it, please?”

They flickered their ears at him dismissively, but really… looking at the small crew, they could see a sort of wariness reflected in their stiff posture, the way the three of them constantly cast glances back to the dock hall that would lead to their ship. Trying to make sure they had a quick exit. Whatever the details of their experience, it was stressing them out to lay it all out in the open like this. Remyy could understand that.

“Fine, whatever,” they sighed, sipping at the bitter brew Logan had thoughtfully provided. “I suppose I’ll keep my awe-inspiring ability to root out interesting tidbits to myself for now. I can just grill Lo later.”

The three friends slumped in relief, and Remyy turned their face away slightly to allow them some privacy to recover. They probably wouldn’t appreciate it, that was mostly an Elimtran thing, but it was the effort that counted. They cast about for some other topic to distract. What else had they heard about lately… oh!

“Have you all heard the stories about the rogue Human going around lately?”

There was spluttering, and they turned back to see Roman seemed to have inhaled mid-drink, and was now muffling coughs into his shoulder. Patton studiously avoided eye contact as he patted the Cravon sympathetically. Logan shifted one arm out from where they were politely tucked away, looking intensely intrigued. Strange, he wasn’t usually one for gossip.

“We have not,” he stated, hands twitching in preparation for his thought weaving thing. “Would you care to elaborate?”

“Uh, duh,” they replied, trying not to think too much on the rather extreme reaction. If the crew was really so stressed, it made sense that news of a Human would freak them out. Shit, they sucked at this. Gathering information would make them feel more secure, yeah? “It’s been circulating at some of the more shady ports we’ve been to, rumors that a small-tier smuggling ring recently managed to rise through the ranks just because they got their hands on a Human and knew how to use it to their advantage. That much is like, okay, horrifying to know that there’s still Humans out there in the outer ranges, but whatever, it’s under lock and key.”

Patton clung to their wing tighter. They paused, deliberating on whether or not to continue.

“I assume, going by the fact that you called h-- it a ‘rogue’ Human, that's not the case anymore?” Logan supplied, waving for them to proceed.

“Well, yeah. Apparently, it tore through practically half the group members before escaping, and now people are reporting cases of a bloodthirsty Human all over this quadrant. Not that the calls are accurate. It’s just hearsay,” they made sure to add. “It might just be someone trying to work the local governs into a panic, put pressure on the Council for this or that political maneuver.”

Logan didn’t respond for a concerning amount of time. “Right. Of course, that is plausible. Still, thank you for the information, Remyy. We will… keep it in mind.”

Remyy sunk lower in their seat, regretting bringing the topic up at all. “Mm. You do that, babes. Remember the stats, too. There’s a warrant out. Sooner or later, the Council will probably find whoever’s at the source of the rumors and put them to rights, Human or not.”

“That’s… great,” Roman got to his feet abruptly. “I think maybe we should head out soon. We’ve got that next landing to prep for, after all. Holmao isn’t known for its gentle terrain.”

“What?” Remyy’s secondaries flared slightly as they stood up too, abandoning their drink and dislodging Patton. “You just got here! Aren’t you at least going to catch a night’s rest? No offense to your ship, but the arti-grav ain’t exactly stellar.”

“That’s why we need to do more jobs! Save up for better arti-grav installation, right guys?” Roman’s voice seemed slightly frantic. Remyy suddenly remembered what little history the Cravon had shared with them, and swore mentally. They really, really shouldn’t have brought up the Human.

“Ro, look, I’m so--”

Their voice abruptly cut off as a cool line of metal pressed between their wings, right against their life vein. They saw as Roman’s eyes locked on something behind them, scales rising to a prickling stand quicker than they’d ever witnessed before.

“Nobody move,” a voice behind them called in clear, precise Common. “Or you get to bleed out right after this one.” The flat of the blade pressed harder against their back, and they couldn’t stop their ears from flattening completely in terror.

“Let them go,” Roman demanded, halfway to a snarl. Before he could even take a step, though, more armed strangers were swarming into the lobby, barking orders for the few other people currently in the room to get down. Expression dark, Roman held his arms out in a gesture of compliance, though his scales continued to stick out in a defensive bristle.

Raiders, it had to be. Remyy knew they knew the reptilian symbol that was engraved in each of the strangers black masks, but they couldn’t remember the group’s name for the fear flooding their mind, keeping them frozen in place.

One of them kicked Patton clear away from Remyy’s legs, and the Ampen let out a short shriek of pain before clapping his hands over his mouth. The raider behind Remyy laughed, apparently unconcerned about any alarms being raised, but Remyy was more focused on the way the Mindscape crew exchanged panicked glances, Logan kneeling next to Patton and subtly signing something in Crav’n.

“Now, here’s how this is going to work.” The one behind Remyy gestured with their other hand, which Remyy could now see was holding a paralyzer. Raiders were known for using them to get information, since most aliens could take a few shots from one before succumbing to the pain. “You’re all going to line up against the wall while we search your vessels, and in exchange, nobody has to die, got it?”

Remyy could only look straight ahead, so they got a clear view of Patton’s furious glow dimming down to horrified in an instant at the leader’s words. Whatever the three of them were hiding, it was hidden on their ship, and apparently not well enough.

They ran their tongue along their teeth for a moment, debating, and then wiggled their ears slightly, loosening the grip their goggles had until they were slipping down their face slightly. Only their upper eyes were exposed, but with any luck, it would be enough.

It wasn’t long till they managed to make eye contact with a nearby raider; the leader was the one giving orders, after all, and they were being held hostage by said leader, so it made sense that eyes would stray in their direction.

The moment they locked gazes, Remyy flickered their pupils and let their senspatches slowly pulse. The raider took a moment to bob their head in confusion before becoming visibly more relaxed, and Remyy didn’t waste any time. 'Circle around and attack the one holding me.'

The raider swayed slightly for a moment before moving to obey, a side effect of not being exposed to the full hypnotic effect of their eyes, and Remyy had a moment to feel hopeful that maybe they could actually pull this off.

“Grahh’m, what are you-- Oh, you little shit,” the leader spat, moments before a strike to the side of Remyy’s head had them seeing stars. They heard Roman growling furiously, still forced to the ground under threat of gunfire, and hoped that he wouldn’t do anything stupid. He wouldn’t be any use if he was convulsing from pain.

“I should have known better than to leave an Elimtra awake and armed, hmm?” The leader flipped them to their back, pressing a knee to their chest and crushing their secondaries uncomfortably against the floor. A moment later, their other hand was shoving their goggles harshly back over their face.

Remyy gagged slightly as all the air was forced from their lungs. “Probably should’ve, ye-- eah,” they replied, struggling to inhale again.

“Funny.” There was a glint of silver uncomfortably close to their eyes. The knife. Remyy regretted the snark. They regretted the snark so much.

The leader paused. “Oren, is it the eyes or the little spots under them that do the hypnotizing, do you recall?”

There was a pause, in which ‘Oren’ seemed to have no answer, and Remyy realized with a chill just what was being threatened. The leader considered them for a moment, and then pulled their dark mask further up to cover more of their face.

“I suppose I’ll just get rid of both, hmm?” The knife wavered closer.

Across the room, there was a loud crash, and a strangled yell that cut off as quick as it started. Remyy watched as the leader’s head jerked up, and saw the moment that the severe frown on their face abruptly transformed into utter terror. Hurriedly, the raider stood back up, and they were pulled up along, shoved in front of them like a shield.

It didn’t take long to see why. Across the lobby, near the entrance to the dock halls, a tall, slender figure was holding the remains of what must have been a seatpad. The rest of it appeared to be lying crumpled along with the limp raider that had been closest to that entryway.

The whisper spread through the room as quick as any small-town rumor: Human.

The being was scanning the eerily-silent space, and when it reached the spot where the leader stood, accompanied by Remyy and friends, it’s lips curled up into a vicious snarl, teeth on full display. It moved forwards in a way Remyy could only describe as predatory, and the leader went tense behind them. “Stop that thing, now!”

One raider, either damn brave or damn stupid, charged right in, and received the rest of the seatpad to the skull for their efforts. Remy winced at the sound. This seemed to be the signal for the rest of the raiders to converge, and the room descended into pandemonium.

In the thick of it all, the Human-- for what else could it really be?-- continued to advance, unrelenting. It wasn’t as fast as some aliens Remyy had met, but it didn’t need to be. The way that it stalked through the room radiated threat like an oath, and when opponents did dare to stand in it’s way, the blows were vicious and crunching, often leaving splatters of residue on its skin.

Most frightening of all was the way it handled the paralyzers, which should have driven any creature with pain receptors to the floor. Each time a shot landed on the human, it would tear the spiked prongs out with a twitch and a grimace and just keep moving.

By the time the leader realized that a strategic retreat was long overdue, it was already far too close for comfort. Remyy heard a swear behind them, and then they were being shoved, hard.

They caught a glimpse of Roman moving, and then they found themself busy tripping directly into a Human’s warpath. So much for surviving this.

They folded their wingarms over their head in some paltry attempt at defense as they fell. There was a grunt, and then a hot grip on their shoulders, all-too-close to the base of their secondaries and stars above were they going to have their glider wings torn clear off--?

“‘Scuse me,” the Human muttered in Common, and then lifted Remyy clear off the ground, easy-as-you-please, and set them down to the side. It brushed past them, heading straight towards Roman and the others, and Remyy stared after it.

Rather than continue after the leader, who had been thoroughly pinned by Roman and was currently swearing viciously, the Human stopped in front of Logan and Patton and dropped to a crouch. Remyy jerked forward, but neither of their friends seemed keen to jump away or defend themselves. In fact, Patton looked to be carefully headbutting the Human’s chest, and Logan was speaking in low, comforting tones. Even stranger, the Human seemed to be listening.

The circuits connected in their mind, illuminating a truly outlandish conclusion.

They whistled lowly, drawing all the attention in the room to them. “Listen up, babes. As a subsect representative of the Council, I’m authorized to do my thing here, so I’m gonna need everyone to follow my directions.”

“Remyy, what?” Roman asked, and was thoroughly ignored. A nearby Cetarfris protested from where they were practically pressed halfway up the wall, red eyes wide and patterned tail thrashing in terror.

“Are you genuine? Do you not see the Human right there?”

Remyy clicked their tongue in reproach. “Gurl, do I not have enough eyes for you or somethin’? I will handle the Human. What else is the Council good for?”

“Uh, governing?” someone else muttered. Remyy ignored them, too.

“I need all the raiders that haven’t already jetted in holding cells immediately. I’m sure there’ll be a hefty reward for members of this particular gang, even if they’re small fries, so anyone who pitches in can get some of that bounty. And remember, keep your mouths shut about this unless you want to be up to your orifices in paperwork at best. If you have to gossip, keep names out of it or I'll know who snitched.” Remyy shifted their goggles up on their forehead, turning to the Human and ignoring the thick tension in the room. “I’ll escort the Human to proper captivity. Roman, Logan, Patton, with me.”

As expected, the mere fact that the Mindscape crew were accompanying seemed to put the Human at ease, even if just slightly. Now, came the bit that would make or break the lie. They moved forwards slowly and reached out for the Human’s shoulder, tugging slightly at it as though this wasn't the creature that had just plowed through a band of raiders like they were dust in the wind. “C’mon, babes.”

After a pause, the Human followed. The relief in the room was palpable, and Remyy was no exception. They liked a good bet as much as the next guy, but generally preferred when there weren’t so many lives at stake.

See, the thing about being a species that was somewhat infamous for their hypnotic abilities was that everyone assumed you were using them, even if you weren’t. This tended to lean more in the direction of being a bad thing, but in this case, it helped Remyy tremendously, as nobody cast a second glance at them as they guided the docile Human through the lobby.

That might also have been because nobody wanted to be in the same room as a rogue Human for very long, but such was the way of things. Small details.

Soon enough, they reached the dock halls, and Remyy swiftly led the four of them onboard the Mindscape. They closed and locked the connecting port after them, and resisted the urge to collapse in relief.

Instead, they turned around to assess the rest of this mess.

It was quite a scene, and at first, they seemed too busy amongst themselves to even notice Remyy.

The Human was curled in on themself in one corner, looking pallid and ill, but also coiled so tightly it looked like they were one wrong word from fleeing the quadrant. Positioned firmly in front of them, Roman was audibly rattling from head to tail, moving on automatic as he bodily prevented the other two from approaching. Remyy would have thought the gesture was for the Human’s sake if not for the way Roman angled his own body, like he expected to be attacked from behind at any moment.

“It’s not safe,” he uttered over and over, gaze haunted. “It’s not safe. You have to hide.”

Patton warbled in wordless distress, and Logan gave up on trying to pull Roman away, instead simply holding his ground and speaking to the Cravon, calm and firm.

“This isn’t then, Roman. We’re here, and that is Virgil, and he is not going to hurt us. We’re safe. We are on the Mindscape. We are safe. Observe the space around you. Can you tell me five things you see?”

Remyy waited unobtrusively as the two of them slowly coaxed Roman back into the present, bit by bit. When he hunched over to be closer to his shorter friends, Patton carefully grabbed his hand, rubbing small circles into it in a soothing gesture Remyy wasn’t familiar with. “You with us, Ro?”

Roman signed something with his other hand, too quick for Remyy to grasp, and Patton smiled, a bit sad. “We’re okay, but there’s a little bit of a situation going on with Remyy, remember?”

Roman glanced at them, and then to the Human, who was still vibrating violently. Remyy had thought it was barely restrained anger, at first, but the longer they watched, the more it seemed compulsive, more fearful than furious. It only increased as Roman’s attention fell heavy on him.

“I didn’t mean to,” the Human said, voice as shaky as the rest of him. “I swear, I-- I just heard Patton yell, and they had weapons, like-- I… I didn't want to hurt anyone. I’m sorry that I-- that I did. But you guys were in danger. I couldn’t just... leave you to that.”

He sounded almost resigned, like he was trying to plead his case but had already accepted deep down that it was pointless to fight his sentence. When Roman turned away from him, his thoughts only seemed to be confirmed, and his face dropped another shade as his gaze darted over to Remyy. He seemed apprehensive, not that Remyy could really blame him. Poor guy probably thought he was about to be surrendered to law enforcement.

“Remyy.” Roman’s voice sounded wrung out, and from Patton’s concerned expression, the Cravon probably didn’t normally force himself to speak after episodes like this. “Virgil isn’t-- He’s better here with us. He doesn’t... deserve to be subjected to the Council just because he decided to... to save us.”

The Cravon opened his mouth as though to say more, but the words didn’t come. Instead, he signed something short and planted himself in a sitting position in front and slightly to the side of the Human, even as his scales still shivered. ‘Virgil’ was staring at him like he’d grown a second head.

“Roman’s right!” Patton took the opportunity to jump in front of them like the universe’s smallest, cutest guardian angel, cloak and ruff fluffed up stalwartly. Most effective of all was the Ampen’s ‘I’m-not-mad-I’m-just-disappointed-at-your-life-choices’ look. “Virgil is part of our family, and I’ll fight you about it!”

The Ampen’s tiny glare wasn't nearly as alarming as the assessing look Virgil cast over them, like he thought Remyy was really going to try and fight Patton and was prepared to intervene. They resisted the urge to cast their lower eyes up in exasperation. Who would fight Patton? There was no reward, you’d just end up feeling bad. And also end up getting totally trashed by a Human, apparently.

As always, Logan was the one to get it first. He stepped forwards, extending a hand. “Before you take any legal action against our crew member, I’d like to see your Council identification.”

Remyy’s cheeks bunched up smugly as they stretched their armwings out in front of them casually. “That’s too bad, Brainiac, ‘cause I totally don’t have any.”

There was a brief pause. “What, you guys really thought I was some kind of narc?”

“You lied right to all those people’s faces?” Patton asked, somewhat aghast. Roman shot them a dirty look at the deception, but he also let all the tension leak out of him, so Remyy counted it as a win. Logan simply looked exasperated.

“Not completely. I’ve got connections to get their bounties called in quick, and I ‘handled’ the Human, didn’t I? It’s not my fault if they misinterpreted things.”

“This is all you’re going to do to… ‘handle’ me?” the Human asked, looking uncertain, a little suspicious, and even kind of bewildered. “Just… let me go? What’s the catch?”

They really did roll their eyes up this time. “Babes, I’m covering for you. Seeing as you literally just saved my beautiful face, and these losers vouch for you, I figure you can get some benefit of the doubt. Besides, I’m not done with you all just yet.”

The four of them studied Remyy with varying levels of wariness, and then confusion as the Elimtra strolled past them all to head further into the ship.

“If you think you’re going anywhere before you tell me all about how this whole situation came about, honey, you’ve got a big storm coming.”

#sanders sides #space au #wibar #ts remy #ts roman #ts patton #ts logan #ts virgil #watch it burn and rust #wibar intermission #wibar int: nf #writing #my writing #im so tired... zzz #this is the first time ive ever written remy so please be nice #i had fun though ;w;#i cant think of any more tags i hope you guys enjoy!#zzz

580 notes · View notes

moonbeamsung · 4 years ago

Text

Bad Dracula

I have no intention of scaring you, baby~

member: jaemin

au: vampire!jaemin x gn!reader, supernatural au

word count: 2.1k

genre: fluff, a little angst, slightly suggestive

warnings: mentions of blood, kissing, implied strict parenting

recommended song: bad dracula by red velvet

author’s note: Based on the song above. This was so much fun to write and I thought it fit well with the time of year, so enjoy!

The dance floor in the large ballroom pulses with energy and vibrations from the DJ booth at the far end of it. It’s packed, so much so that all the people, all the shuffling pairs of shoes, threaten to overflow from the carefully manicured tiles on the ground and into the remainder of the space. This poses a problem considering there isn’t much, due to the dozens upon dozens of fancily decorated round tables scattered throughout the brightly lit chamber, some empty as their occupants sway to the beat of the music and others full with those still finishing their exquisitely prepared meals.

Dancing close to the edge of the massive crowd, you catch sight of the moon’s reflection on the polished floor, oddly clear. A strange feeling starts to overtake you as you continue to gaze at it, physically compelling you to raise your eyes. When you do, there’s a devilishly handsome stranger you’ve never seen before leaning against the wall, directly across from you. The moonlight spilling in through the glass casts a haunting shadow on his chiseled features, but your heart stops when the sliver of a fang peeks out from between his lips, gleaming a blinding white.

How no one else notices him, you’re not sure. What you do know, however, is that he’s definitely bad news.

...Right?

Your gut pinches at the thought, the silent signal begging you to correct your instant judgement based solely on his appearance. How could you possibly be wrong, though? He’s a vampire, for goodness’ sake! You’ve been lectured and warned enough times to remember that they’re always up to no good.

The inner dilemma going on in your mind causes you to stare blankly, zoned out and unaware that your focus is drilling into the boy. Amused, he waits for you to realize this.

Eyes blown wide with surprise, you whirl around to weave in and out of the throng of people, making your way to the center of the crowd in a pathetic attempt to undo what just happened. Attention trained on the ground, a pair of shiny black dress shoes come into your line of sight.

There’s that feeling again. You don’t want to, you fight the urge this time, but trying to resist the supernatural pull makes your head ache. Bracing yourself, you unwillingly lift your eyes again, tracing the length of his figure from the hem of his dress pants all the way up to the lapel of his suit. The wine-colored ensemble seems fitting, considering the craving vampires instinctively harbor for a similarly colored substance.

His looks are even more striking up close. The allure he possesses is something otherworldly, and he has to repeat himself for you to realize he’s speaking to you. “My name is Jaemin, and you are...?” He questions, the lilt of his voice silky and seductive. Stammering a somewhat coherent response, you freeze when his cold fingers grasp your wrist, lifting it to his lips and pressing a kiss to your trembling knuckles.

“Shall we dance?” It’s a statement, not a request, and not wanting to cause a scene, you make no attempts to protest. You get lost in the way his arms feel wrapped around you, every so often being twirled by the graceful movements of his hand.

Your eyes lock with his and they put you in an inescapable trance, casting a spell on your mind until the moment that he breaks the contact, glancing almost worriedly at something over your shoulder. He returns his gaze to yours as quickly as he removed it, and the enrapturing haze settles in around you once more.

For the final minute of your dance, he brings you closer than you’ve ever been to him before, head resting firmly against his chest. A triumphant feeling of rebellion bubbles up inside of you knowing that you’d be in big trouble if your parents could see you right now, in the arms of an enchanting vampire. The mere act of associating with one would be enough for them to explode with fury, so going even further than that would surely elicit a wrath of pure, unadulterated rage.

The song ends, its slow tempo coming to a stop before being replaced by a much peppier tune.

Most of your fright forgotten for the time being, you’re more curious than anything else when he begins to drag you away from the center of the ballroom, pulling you with urgency and a force that completely contrasts with the gentleness of his touches as you danced together. Stepping out from the crowd, he leads you around to the other side of the wide marble staircase, ducking to stand behind a pristine white column that extends all the way up to the heightened ceiling. It dawns on you now that he could actually be dangerous, and all the fear comes flooding back to you.

Jaemin sees it too, the way your pupils dilate to indicate your terror of the situation you’ve gotten yourself into, your terror of him. You’re about to cry out when he stops you by covering your mouth with his hand, the low temperature of his skin startling you even more, and you wince.

“Sorry, sorry!” He whispers hastily, panicked. You take notice of the instant change in his demeanor but it does nothing to calm you down. “It’s alright, don’t freak out, okay?”

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he breathes, finally providing you with some sort of relief. You relax a little under his hold, still cautious but deciding to give him a chance. Slowly, he removes his palm from your lips, allowing you to speak.

“What do you want with me, then?”

Glancing around with that same look of anxiousness on his face, he leans in, murmuring into your ear with every word.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, but I’m a vampire. I come from a whole family of them. My parents brought me here tonight to... uh, well, you’ve heard the stories. They want me to find someone with the best blood to drink.”

Come to think of it, you do recall seeing a carriage parked outside, black as night and delicately carved like it came from the darkest depths of the underworld. Must’ve been his, you realize.

“And that’s me because...?” You interrupt his explanation, causing him to wave a hand in the air, exasperated.

“Let me finish, okay? The thing is, vampires drink blood but it’s not the only thing we need to survive. In fact, we don’t even need it. Over time we’ve found ways to get the same nutrients in other ways and from other things. Some of us still do it for tradition’s sake. And my family is all about preserving history.”

Inhaling sharply, he continues. “But I... I can’t do it. Not only does it feel morally wrong, but I get sick just thinking about it. On nights like this, I just have to find a way to lie about finding some.”

“That’s,” he leans back to point a finger at you, “where you come in, angel. We just have to make it look like I took some of your blood, and that will be enough to satisfy my parents for a while.”

Too stunned to speak, you gape at Jaemin, leaving him waiting for your answer, wondering whether you’ll commit or not.

“Wow.”

“I understand if you don’t want to help, I can always find someone—”

“You are nothing like who I thought you were.”

Jaemin’s pale skin flushes with a color you’re not sure even exists before he beams at you. A few minutes ago, you would never have guessed the mysterious man leaning against the wall could smile this brightly. “Not all of us are bloodthirsty monsters.”

“I’m sorry I was afraid of you,” you tell him, looking down at the floor with a guilty expression.

“It’s not your fault, you had every right to be.”

“...Hold on, what was all that out there?” You accuse, brows raised in slight suspicion and a hip tilted to the side as you await an explanation.

“What do you mean, ‘all that?’”

“I mean the dance! I mean the way you introduced yourself, the way you spoke, everything... You were so cold, so intimidating. But you’re acting so different now.”

“All to put on a show for my parents, sweetheart.”

Blushing like mad, you shake your head as you remember the reason why you’re back here with him in the first place. “I’ll do it,” you say, heart fluttering at the way his eyes light up with gratitude.

“Really? You will? Thank you! Thank you so much...” he trails off, and you find the excitement in his voice adorable.

“So, how do we do this?” You ponder for a moment, tapping your shoe against the floor before an idea comes to you. “You don’t mind ketchup, do you?”

Jaemin knows what you’re getting at, nodding. “I don’t have a problem with it, so that should work fine.”

“But... how close are they going to look? Would a bite mark make it more realistic?”

Considering your words, Jaemin’s tongue darts out to lick at one of his sharp fangs, the action drawing your gaze down to them.

“You’re probably right...”

Closing your eyes and straightening your posture, you tilt your head to one side, exposing your neck. “Go ahead, I don’t mind.”

Here goes nothing, Jaemin thinks to himself. Only he doesn’t aim for your neck.

When you feel his lips on yours you’re startled to say the least, but just like when he danced with you, you don’t pull away. The kiss is a delicious secret, only for the two of you to know about and no one else. Instead of ice his hands are like fire on your skin, and the sleeves of his satin suit jacket feel heavenly against your arms as they cling to his shoulders for dear life. It’s so intense, so heated and passionate a kiss that you feel yourself back up against the pillar you’ve been hiding behind all this time.

Not wanting anyone to get suspicious about what’s taking so long, Jaemin reluctantly separates his lips from yours and drags them across your skin, down past your jaw to halt at your neck. The magic bestowed upon all vampires gives him the power to temporarily restrict the ability of his fangs to take blood, rendering them harmless. Once he’s done this, he sinks them into the spot above your collarbone just far enough to leave an impression, eliciting a small whine from your lips but nothing more.

“That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” you pant, taking heavy breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth while you wait to regain the strength you lost in the moment. It’s funny, you think. He didn’t take any of your blood, so why do you feel so dizzy?

Jaemin chuckles, brushing your hair out of your face since it had become slightly tousled during the kiss. His eyes widen in sudden realization and he snaps his fingers, “The ketchup!”

“Right!” You exclaim, hurriedly running over to the nearest deserted table and grabbing a single packet.

Tearing the corner, you squeeze a small dot of the condiment onto your finger before smearing it onto the skin below his lips, making it look as if it’s dripping from the edge of his mouth. Jaemin takes it from you and does the same, the red smudge complimenting the bite mark he left on your neck quite nicely, if he says so himself.

Leading you back around the staircase, Jaemin shares a second dance with you in the middle of the ballroom, and this time you’re both more comfortable with each other. From across the room, his parents’ enhanced senses of sight allow them to see your stained skin, humming in approval at their son’s apparent obedience.

“Will I see you again?” You ask in a soft voice, wavering at the possibility of losing the new friend, and maybe something more, you’ve made tonight.

“I don’t know, my dear,” Jaemin admits. “But I’ll try.”

Smiling lovingly up at him, you sigh, the three words you so desperately want to utter on the very tip of your tongue, but you feel it’s a little too soon. One day, you tell yourself.

Hidden amongst the crowd, he ducks down a little to steal a final kiss before a tall figure that’s probably his mother whisks him away and into the distance. You exchange longing glances before he’s forced to turn around, walking completely out of sight.

Taking long strides at an inhuman pace between both of his parents, Jaemin grins to himself, thinking of you and how amazing you looked tonight in that elegant outfit of yours.

From beside him, his father sniffs the air, pale nose wrinkling in distaste.

“Is that ketchup?!”

246 notes · View notes

tothemeadow · 4 years ago

Text

Commissioned by @azurenocturne

Douma x Reader

- After your friend disappears while investigating the Eternal Paradise, you decide to follow after her. Little do you know, but the leader of the cult, Upper Moon Two, is as beautiful as he is conniving... -

warnings: mentions of death, blood, and gore

words: 2.1k

Birds of a feather flock together, but not this time. She’s walking on an unfolded road in a distant dream, long gone, almost forgotten. Sometimes, her laughter rings in your ears. Sometimes, when you close your eyes, you can see that very day, cloaked with white and the chill of winter.

It’s because of her that you’re the person you are today.

Seasons have passed, as have many moons; day by day, you wait for your crow to bring you an ounce of good news, but to no avail. Months have gone by, and yet your friend has still not uttered a single word.

You’re confident in her skills, of course. She’s a tough fighter, practically too stubborn to die, but paranoia follows you around, wraps around you tightly during the night’s long hours. You figure it must be because of the façade she must put up – to be captured means death.

The lead she told you about was strong, and she was more than determined to follow it to its ends and meet the leader for herself. The Eternal Paradise, as she explained, where Upper Moon Two leads blind followers to their deaths. It’s disgusting, isn’t it?

From your understanding, some demon sat on a pile of corpses and bones with an entourage of mindless sheep waiting for slaughter. It is disgusting, down to the tiniest detail. You encouraged your friend to take down such a damned blood-thirsty creature, but you sent her off with plenty of warnings in your stead. If anything looked to shady or dangerous to deal with, you begged her to make her return home. She didn’t deserve to die in a place like that, not to people like those.

You wish you were naïve. You wish you could tell yourself that it would be okay, that your friend will come back to you safe and sound someday, but that’s not the case. Your gut told you otherwise, warned you of the truth. She was in danger and needed help, whether she liked it or not. You had to follow down that same road, seemingly disappear and become one with this so-called “organization.”

She was going to come home.

“You’ll like it here, sister,” Hanako says, voice devoid of all emotion. Hanako was appointed as your ”guide,” told to show you around the mansion, provide the ins and outs of how the cult worked. Unlike the others straggling in the halls, her expression is plain and lifeless. With hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes, you wondered what hell she must’ve been through to find herself living in the halls of the Eternal Paradise.

As you pass the others, they turn to you with way too pleasant smiles, their eyes squinting to the point where it looks painful. There’s no way that they’re that happy to be here, right…? Surely, they’d have to notice how some of their fellow followers randomly disappear from time to time. It’s possible that their demon leader manipulates them to forget, or straight out threatens them to keep silent…

“You’ll be staying in here,” Hanako says, coming to an abrupt stop in front of a room. The room itself is on the smaller side, nearly devoid of any furniture besides a rolled-up futon sitting to the side. “This is where I reside,” Hanako continues. “There used to be another, but then they decided to leave.” Stepping inside, Hanako unceremoniously drops the spare futon and pillow she was holding onto the floor.

The hairs on the back of your neck stand straight at her ominous words. “Uh, what do you mean, they left? I thought anybody who became part of the… Eternal Paradise would never want to leave?” Saying the words leaves a nasty taste in your mouth; you’re a slayer, for gods’ sakes. You shouldn’t even be here, but you’re determined to find your friend. It’s partially your fault that she came here all by herself; you should’ve tagged along, made sure she wasn’t alone when going up against a cult.

Hanako blinks at you, her eyes a cold, empty shell. “They died.”

What?

“Everyone lives, everyone dies. That’s life, after all,” Hanako says. “They left before they passed. To die in this sacred place… It’s repulsive. Our lord doesn’t deserve such disrespect. Imagine if I woke up to a corpse and had to tell our lord? He’d punish me for not dealing with it.”

Swallowing thickly, you turn away. If Hanako was afraid of telling the demon that somebody died – that in itself raises an alarm, jeez – then what were they even like? Cruel and ruthless, obviously; why so followers, then? Don’t they know who they’re even dealing with?

“Hmmm, I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” a new voice says.

Hanako squeaks, then, whirling around to the door and snapping over in a deep bow. “Fool,” she hisses at you, “what do you think you’re doing? Show some respect!”

Glancing towards the door, your entire mouth goes dry in an instant. A large, muscular man almost completely fills the doorway, his wide shoulders nearly spanning the entire length of the opening. He’s beautiful, simply put; birch hair, multicolored eyes, a face carved by the gods. The man’s entire being oozes with power and intensity, yet his enticing scent is tinged with blood. So, this is the leader, Upper Moon Two, it seems. After another moment’s hesitation, you follow after Hanako and bend at the waist.

“Forgive me, my lord,” Hanako stammers. Rather than her monotonous tone before, she addresses her leader with the outmost respect. “The newcomer obviously needs to learn the proper mannerisms.”

The demon giggles. Shivers run down your spine; he isn’t like any other demon you’ve encountered, not by a longshot. The room becomes even more cramped as he steps in, his large body mere steps away from you. “Stand, my darlings,” he purrs.

Hanako shoots upright, her usual blank expression twisted into a pleased grin. Wringing her hands before her, she rocks back and forth on her heels, seemingly having a bit of trouble holding back her excitement. Like her, you stand straight, but you take the chance to truly analyze the man before you.

True, while he is one of the most handsome men you’ve ever seen, you’re all too aware of what he really is, what he really does. Cocking his head, his long hair sweeps over his shoulder, frames his attractive face. He flashes you a knowing smile. Heart dropping to your stomach, you wonder if he knows who you are, just like you know who he is.

“I don’t think that will be much of an issue,” he continues. Offering his hand to you, he silently urges you to take it. “Welcome to the Eternal Paradise,” he purrs, “My name is Douma.”

You’re a fool. A total, complete fool.

How… how could you be so stupid? After all this time, after all the effort into finding your friend… You should have never come. That bastard stole your heart even though you knew it was wrong, terribly so, and yet you did it anyway. Despite knowing Douma is a demon and that he kills people for the fun of it, you fell for him. Hell, you should slit your own stomach for pulling such a move.

He played you this entire time, pulling at your heartstrings and treating you with utmost kindness. You let love get in the way of your mission, cloud your thoughts; for a short while, you believed that maybe things would turn out okay, that you would somehow have a happy ending to the story you call life.

But no, that isn’t how things work. Karma, that bloodthirsty queen, always gets what she wants.

You’re not sure what’s worse – the slurping of blood or the smell of it. No, scratch that; it’s the look in Douma’s eyes, the surge of power and unadulterated hunger. Violent rivers stream from your eyes, ungracefully drip from your chin and onto the wooden planks below. That’s your friend he’s eating, her blood that he drinks.

“I’ve always preferred female flesh, female blood…” Douma begins, tongue flicking out over his lips. His fangs gleam ruby as he flashes you a smile. “They’re so sweet, so wonderfully soft… How do you do it, love? How is your kind so delicious?”

“Don’t you dare call me that!” you growl. “You don’t have the bloody right to.”

Placing a bloody hand to his chest, Douma has the audacity to look offended. “That’s not what you said last night.” The corners of his mouth curl salaciously, a dark giggle spilling from his lips. “If I recall correctly, you were begging for more, my little slayer.”

That makes it even worse. Cursing yourself internally, your grip on your blade tightens. There’s no point in trying to hide it anymore; Douma knew exactly who you were from the get-go. Both yours and your friend’s missions were complete and utter failures. You’ve entered a damned slaughterhouse, for gods’ sakes. You should’ve seen this coming, but your feelings got in the way.

“You never loved me, you twat,” you spit.

Douma cocks his head, drops your friend’s severed hand. “No, no, no,” he begins, drawing himself to his monstrous height, “that’s where you’re wrong. The truth is, well, I’ve never loved anyone!” He breaks into a malicious cackle, then, his whole face twisting with mirth. “And to think you fell in love with me! I’ll admit, I liked you better than the others, but loved? Don’t flatter yourself, dear. Nobody could ever love you, especially not me.”

“I’ll pin your fucking head to a spike and watch you burn.”

Through your torrent of tears, you spring at him, an animalistic growl ripping itself from your throat. Despite the grotesque, bloodcurdling rage surging through your veins, you have to remind yourself to breathe. People used to tell you all the time that you’re worthless, weak, and that you should give up on becoming a proper slayer. At the time, you’ve become so angry that they were right; being a Breath of Water user, you could never get the technique correct. You envied others (mostly Tomioka Giyuu, the Water Pillar) for their abilities.

If it weren’t for your friend taking you to that viewing on that magical winter’s day, you would have never grown. No, you weren’t a Breath of Water user anymore; you honed your skills into something new, something wonderful. Breath of Ice is something to behold in itself, albeit relatively new. You’re proud of your graceful, fluid movements, but that nagging voice in the back of your head tells you that it’s pointless, just like what everyone else said before.

You didn’t want to do this, swirling around in a furious blizzard of snow and ice, floating and skirting around your friend’s remains. Douma follows through with each attack, nimbly dodging your blade, your range of attacks. In time, your body is covering with miniscule cuts, barely thicker than a hair, but the sheer amount of blood pouring from them is obscure. How much you’ve lost, you don’t know, but seeing crimson decorate the floor and Douma’s metallic fans tells more than you want to know.

It’s no good; he’s too strong, too fast, and he seems to know every single move you plan to make. Your face is wet with blood and tears, your vision blurring, snot running from your nose. A punched-out groan bursts from your chest as you’re knocked to the side, back colliding with the wall. You collapse to the ground with an unceremonious thump.

Gasping for breath, you scramble for your blade, fingernails digging into the wood in your desperation. A foot comes down on your hand, then, making you cry out in pain.

“I really thought you’d put up more of a fight,” Douma sneers. Dropping to his knee, he leans down over you, his hair curtaining his face. “Trying to take on an Upper Moon with an underdeveloped breathing technique… You’re so stupid!” With another cackle, he presses the tip of a fan to your throat. “You came all this way to save your little friend, and now look where you are! She’s dead! Funny how that works…”

“I’ll kill you, you lying bastard,” you wheeze.

“Love, you aren’t really in the position to say such things,” Douma says, his voice suddenly turning softer. It’s the same tone he used during the lovelier moments, the moments where he held you close and stroked your naked body. “I’ll let you stay with me forever, though. You’d make such a great decoration!”

“Douma, no-“

Splat.

#kny #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer #kny x reader #kimetsu no yaiba x reader #demon slayer x reader #douma x reader #douma #kny douma #commission #azurenocturne

89 notes · View notes

deadlyshe · 3 years ago

Text

皆尽 001: ( THE PAST & GUILT // THE FUTURE & DUTY )

TW: SPOILERS

Long before the kind and gentle woman became the captain of the Fourth Division, she went by another name — Yachiru Unohana and was the most diabolical criminal to ever live within the Seireitei. She constantly sought someone worthy enough to dance with her blade in a battle of true strength. She found that in someone who she would deem to be far more worthy of the title of Kenpachi. Zaraki was the first person ever to scar her, the first person that she realized was superior to her in strength. However, she would also come to understand that her own faults and weaknesses sealed away his own strength, which she blamed herself for. When she adopted the identity and life of Retsu Unohana, there was part of her that changed. She began to empathize with others and understand the importance of healing. While she initially learned healing to become near-immortal and prolong her own battles, she soon discovered the importance of a healer to those she would come to care about.

This, however, did not take the bloodthirsty and violent woman out of her, but rather it merely put it into a dormant state — occasionally revealing itself. She had a long time for introspection and realized that she was holding back Zaraki because of her own fallibility; he suppressed himself for her sake. That was something that did not sit well with her, but she was unsure of how to rectify it as her focus soon shifted from battle to healing. When she met Zaraki, she felt happy for the first time, yet her own happiness seemed to have an adverse effect on her successor as Kenpachi. Her old self was always present, but due to her own weaknesses, she felt as though she needed it kept below the surface so as not to stain her Division via her more violent tendencies.

During the war, she realized that in both physical powers and her abilities to heal everyone, she was not powerful enough to fulfill her duties — her duties as a healer and her duties as someone meant to protect Seireitei and those she holds close to her. This came after much introspection and listening to the words of those around her, and witnessing the chaos that was unfolding. Something that also came through introspection was that the power to heal was also power, and that was something she wished the 4th Division to know. She wanted them to understand that they were powerful in their own ways, and it took her a very long time to come to terms with this notion.

Once Kenpachi Zaraki joined the ranks of the Gotei 13, she, in her own ways, nurtured him to become the next Kenpachi — she wanted to pass down not only a legacy to the next generation but everything that she had learned over the years. She wanted to give Zaraki everything she had gained to help him become someone who does not feel as though he needs to restrain himself. She knew that in order for him to inherit her legacy and title, she would eventually need to die. For one of them to live, the other must die, and she had come to accept that the moment he had placed a scar on her collarbone. She had let her old self be pushed to the side in order to nurture the next Kenpachi, in order to give him everything that he needed to be prepared to hold the title of Kenpachi.

For Zaraki, she left behind a legacy of strength, violence, and carrying on the fight — she gave him the only thing she could, the title of Kenpachi and unlocking his true strength. For everyone else, she left behind the legacy of the 4th Division, guiding Isane to take her place by teaching her everything she would need to become the next captain. That was her legacy because up until her final fight with Kenpachi, that was who she was. She a kind and gentle woman, a healer. She had two duties, one in violence and chaos and one in healing and compassion. Both were fulfilled, but in order for the former to be fulfilled, she had to die, and that was something she had accepted a long time again.

#//gosh i hope this makes sense #//please feel free to share your thoughts on this with me if you would like!#//this ended up being more of a character analysis than a headcanon but oh well #✧ ･ ° ･↣ ❛ will you still kiss me the same when you taste my victims blood? ❜(headcanon)#✧ ･ ° ･↣ ❛ i don’t live in darkness for darkness lives in me ❜(character study)

8 notes · View notes

warrioreowynofrohan · 4 years ago

Text

Rhythm of War Review

PART 1

It feels a little separate from the rest of the book to me at the moment because I read it pre-release, but I think it did a good job setting up the rest of the plot. I greatly enjoyed Navani’s perspective and ideas throughout the book, and the first section established her much more firmly as a character than any of the previous books; her couple of chapters in Oathbringer were more focused on politics and her relationship with Dalinar, so it was great yo see much more of her scientific side.

When I first read Part 1 it felt very Kaladin-heavy, but after completing the book I see how it was necessary to establish his burnout in order to set up the rest of the plot. And Chapter 12 (A Way to Help), in addition to being our only chance in the book to see our trio together, did a great job setting up Kaladin’s later work with mentally ill people, both by establishing the need and showing what kind of help was needed. I was nonetheless quite frustrated by Kaladin reacting to Shallan’s DID with “that would be nice...”. She’s having serious problems, Kal! She’s your friend and could use support, not you regarding her issues as a neat way to take a holiday from one’s own brain! Kaladin’s very kind and caring with those he chooses to protect, as we see with Bridge 4 in TWOK and the mentally ill people in Chapter 25, but sometimes I think he’s not a very good friend. I know he was not in a good place, but in Oathbringer when they were in Shadesmar Shallan had just had a complete breakdown and she still went out of her way to emotionally support Kal, so it would be nice to see his friendships become a bit more two-way. (For similar reasons, I liked seeing the moments of Shallan-to-Adolin emotional support in Shadesmar in ROW, because a lot of their relationship in OB was her relying on him; it felt balanced in ROW as both supported each other.)

PART 2

I loved the Shadesmar arc! The emotional arcs for both main characters were very strong - I had been looking forward to seeing Adolin’s reaction to (in-universe) Oathbringer, and it did not disappoint; the conflict between genuinely loving Dalinar and being unable to forgive what he’d done was well-drawn. I was so pissed off at Dalinar in that last conversation! You burned his mom to death, you do not get to take the moral high ground and lecture him. And I do see a difference between killing innocents, as Taravangian does, and killing someone who’s effectively declared war on you and has a history of treason.

I also liked Adolin’s sense of being generally at sea with his purpose in the world. He’s been trained primarily as a warrior and general, and his combat skills have been made virtually obsolete by the Radiants. And at the same time, the reader can see what makes Adolin special, and it’s not combat skills - though those do give him a big heroic moment in a pinch - it’s his care and compassion for others. The way he interacts with Maya and slowly brings her life is absolutely beautiful. Chapter 35 was such a wonderful Shadolin moment (and starspren are amazing!); he really gets her and understands what she needs. Chapter 24 was sweet too, though super cheesy.

I spent the entire Shadesmar arc side-eying Veil and Radiant, especially with Veil’s takeover stunt at the start, but in the end they genuinely were supporting and helping Shallan. So in retrospect I do like scenes like the one with Veil trying to draw Shallan out by drawing Adolin badly.

Spoeking of drawing, I love the spren art, it’s some of the best art so far, and fascianting to see how they all look!

Kaladin finding non-violent ways to protect, culminating in pioneering Rosharan therapy - and Teft insisting on staying to support him - was everything I wanted for him. His arc could have just been that, and I’d have been perfectly happy. Chapter 25 (Devotary of Mercy) is still my favourite in the entire book.

Unfortunately, then Odium’s forces had to show up and SPOIL EVERYTHING. I’m rather appalled by how quickly Urithiru fell - the enemy forces were literally in the pillar room by the time anyone noticed them.

PART 3

Part 3 was a real slog for me, partly because it is a slog and partly because I hit it at the height of my sleep deptivation. (It’s really...not a good thing to be reading on zero sleep at the literal darkest-hour-before-dawn.) Kaladin’s arc in Urithiru is just so exhausting; he’s so clearly worn to the boneand everything feels so hopeless. Kaladin’s had bad times before - Bridge 4 in TWOK, for example - but then the reader could see progress even if Kaladin couldn’t. (Kaladin: I’m getting nowhere and failing at everything! Everyone else: Kaladin, you were literally just miraculously resurrected.) Here, though - well, I genuinely spent the whole book from Part 3 through to the climax thinking that they would lose Urithiru.

Navani’s arc, and Venli’s, I did enjoy.

The other section of Part 3, in Emul, just felt rather disjointed. It had some interesting moments, but it didn’t have a sense of cohesion or of where it was going. I was entertained by Dalinar’s musings on the merits of despositism and the need to free Queen Fen from having - horrors! - a parliament. (I wonder if the Fourth Ideal will be something like “I will recognize that it can sometimes be beneficial to have people oppose my decisions.”)

PART 4

Again, adored the Shadesmar arc. Really strong character arcs for both Adolin and Shallan, combined with excellent plots and a strong sense of momentum. I was pretty sure Maya would be crucial in the trial, but that didn’t make the moment any less powerful (though Sanders probably shouldn’t have tried quite as hard to replicate his “You. Cannot. Have. My. Pain.” moment from Oathbringer). I need to put together a proper post on the theme of choice in Oathbringer, because that moment - combined with Kaladin’s fourth ideal and the conflict with Lirin over the way he’s inspiring the resistance - really crystallized it for me. To treat a person’s choice and sacrifices as something done to them is to devalue their volition, their agency. Maya is put in the horrifying situation of being used as a prop and treated as evidence of a point that she is diametrically opposed to and turned into a weapon against someone she loves, and it’s enough to drive her to regain her voice and speak for herself. I am very curious to know what specifically led the spren to agree to the Recreance!

I did not remotely guess what Shallan’s secret was, even though in retrospect the Cryptic deadeye should have made it incredibly obvious. I think her fear that she’d lose Adolin if it came out was overblown - he already knows she killed both her parents, he’s not going to be fazed by “I was so distraught over having to kill my own mother in self-defence at age ten that I broke my Radiant oaths”. But obviously it’s not something Shalkan would be able to consider duspassionately. Her arc was rather terrifying once I realized that Formless was, well, basically her, but more specifically, Shallan’s idea of the monster that she was, and her breakdown was driving her to “accept who she was” as being that monster. I like Shallan and was never that into Veil - though she was fairly good in this book and went out well - so I’m not sad to see the back of her.

I haven’t managed to work through all the espionage/mole elements. Yes, Pattern used the box to talk to Wit, and Radiant killed Ialai so Shallan wouldn’t, but who’s Mraize’s spy close to Dalinar?

This arc ended too abruptly. I think Sanderson could easily have traded a Kaladin chapter in Part 3 for an extra chapter wrapping up events in Shadesmar; maybe one where Shallan first goes to see Testament.

I enjoyed the Urithiru arc in Part 4 as well. Switching to Bridge 4 points of view other than Kaladin was a good move - we already know he’s worn to ribbons, so we don’t need to be inside his head to see it. “The Dog and the Dragon” was amazing, and the most appropriate story ever for Kaladin. (I get how Wit’s schtick of telling incredibly topical stories and then saying “no, I don’t have a point, what point?” would be really aggravating in person.) It was nice to see him be gentle with Kaladin for a change, the way he is with Shallan - his two previous encounters with Kaladin read as rather baiting, which annoyed me.

Dabbid was - I don’t know quite how to say this, but his inclusion struck an amazing balance in this book. Navani’s arc is all about two amazingly smart people doing science and making incredible breakthroughs, and that is sincerely valued and given importance by the narrative, and then you get chapters like Dabbid’s and one of Taravangian’s emphasizing that a person’s value and ability to contribute is not determined by their intelligence.

Navani’s arc continued to be excellent. All of her research, and the way the story took you through the process, and her complex relationship with Raboniel, was great.

I loved Venli’s character development, and growing willingness to take risks for the sake of others. To me, her arc parallels Dalinar’s in the last book in some ways. If we can love the story of a bloodthirsty conqueror growing to become a good person, why can’t we equally love the story of a coward coming to become a good person? There seems to be a tendency to be more drawn to strength, even in its most terrible forms, than to weakness. To me, Venli’s confession to Rlain and acceptance of his disgust at her was one of the book’s great moments. (And I can’t understand people saying her arc took up two much space. She had 5 chapters in Part 3, and 4 in Part 4. That’s not very many! I’ll grant that the flasbacks packed less punch than some earlier flashback sequences because we already knew the main events - Brandon acknowledged that even before the book came out - but I still liked them well enough, and Venli’s present-day arc was excellent.)

Anyway, the amount of space I’ve spent on this section relative to Part 3 is another strong inducation of the differences in how I feel about them!

PART 5

I should probably start this section with a discussion of Moash. I’ll try to keep it summarized. here - I could, and may, write a short essay on his development through The Stormlight Archive. The first thing that jumps out about Moash’s arc in this book is his reaction to Renarin’s vision in Part 1. I think that vision is showing Moash who he could still be, in a similar way to Shallan’s inspirational drawings of people - both use the Surge of Illumination. So it’s not that Moash is irredeemable; Renarin is specifucally holding out to him the possibility of redemption.

And Moash’s reaction is to run away in terror. Because he desperately wants his decision to be irrevocable. He desperately wants there to only be one possible path forward for him. Because if there are alternative paths, it means he can choose them, and that would mean facing guilt, facing the fact that his past choices were wrong, and his current choices are wrong. And that is exactly what Moash sought to avoid by giving up his pain and sense of guilt to Odium.

Moash is, nonetheless, very much Moash and not Vyre, as evidenced by his continuing obsession with Kaladin. As with his above need to not be wrong, here he needs to feel that he’s right, and the only way he can feel that he’s right is if Kaladin - whom he still deeply admires - makes the same decision as him, and if Moash can convince himself that he’s doing Kaladin a favour in driving him to that point. It’s ironic that he’s given up almost all feeling abd become almost enturely detached, but his worst actions are driven by his attitude towards the one person in the world who he still does have very strong feelings about. By the end of the book, he’s comprehensively broken, to the point that even when his ability to feel is restored he’s unable to even feel genuine remose over the cold-blooded murder of a friend. I don’t know where he’ll go from here - it would be ironic if he was only ever really appealing to Rayse-Odium, and Taravangian-Odium found Moash too much of a flat villain for his purposes and cast him off.

As the plot climaxes go, I thought the ones for Navani and Venli were excellent and very satisfying. I enjoyed Kaladin’s as well and found it cathartic, but it a was moment we all knew had to come, so it didn’t have quite the kick of some of Kaladin’s other big moments. I did love his reconciliation with Lirin. One of the themes of the book was finding common ground despite deeply felt disagreements - with Navani and Raboniel, with Navani and the Sibling, and with humans and singers/Fused more generally - and Kaladin and Lirin’s reconciliation fit well with that. I am far more favourable to Lirin than most people - if you’ve lived as a pacifist in storming Alethkar, which values the lives of its people slightly more than it does crem, you’re going to have been right a solid 95% of the time, where everyone else was wrong. I can make allowances for the other five percent, especially when Lirin’s life lesson from the last five or so years has been “resisting oppression and standing up for what you believe in will destroy everyone you love”.

And on the topic of finding common ground, Leshwi’s reaction to the revelation that Venli was a Radiant was one of the single most beautiful moments of the book, and one of my absolute favourites. It’s gorgeous and moving, and at the same time rather tragic, because - what might have bern different if Venli had revealed herself to Leshwi at the start of the book? How much of the conflict could have been avoided. Singers don’t appear to attract spren as strongly as humans do, which makes Leshwi drawing joyspren particularly powerful. And then the bittersweet note from “My soul is too long owned by someone else”. (Come to think of it, this is another inverted paralell to Moash. This is someone realizing “I was wrong about everything and I’m so glad about that because it means I have a chance to be someone better than I was.”) Oh my goodness, I would love a Leshwi chapter in a later book, just to check in on her and see how she’s doing in her new life with the Singers.

I also loved the climax of Navani’s arc, and was so relieved, because up until that very moment I wasn’t sure if the Sibling would survuve uncorrupted. I know that some people weren’t pleased because the Sibling didn’t even like her, but to me that became a core part of the story, like I said above - people who deeply disagree finding common ground and common cause. That is a key element of being a Bondsmith - the process of bringing people together in spite of their differences - and something that fits Navani so well given the rapport she found with Raboniel. (Though I was conflicted about the latter. On the one hand, she made amazing discoveries that enabled her to save Urithiru. One the other hand, she...kind of collaborated with the enemy and gave them terrible weapons out of intellectual curiosity and a desire to prove herself?) I will grant that it makes the series, and the characters with the most crucial importance to Roshar, rather Kholin-heavy.

For Taravodium, all I can say is - YIPES. I have no idea how to process the implications of that, but I feel like it will be bad. Really really bad. (Taravangian is probably my least favourite character in the entire Stormlight Archive. The attitude of “I am so brave and selfless for doing evil things and look at how wonderful I am for sacrificing my own morality for the benefit of all, you petty selfish people wanting to be good could never make such a grand sacrifice” drives me absolutely nuts. It’s a complete inversion and twisting of morality, and intensely arrogant.)

Dalinar’s encounter with Ishar was fascinating, and I’m very curious to see where this goes. The spren experiments were deeply creepy! And the way Radiant Oaths can temporarily restore a Herald’s sanity was fascinating - I’m very eager to see where this goes in the next book. I suspect that Dalinar may have made a very serious mistake with regards to this trial my combat, and I have no idea how/if they’re going to fit Szeth’s whole arc into the ten days before the duel. I’ve been eagerly anticipating Szeth’s arc ever since The Way of Kings!

#brandon sanderson #the stormlight archive #rhythm of war #row spoilers #kaladin #shallan #adolin #dalinar kholin #navani kholin #leshwi #moash

22 notes · View notes

alice1290 · 4 years ago

Note

Hello! I love your blog and I was wondering if I could request Luffy’s little sister who reluctantly joined the marines to not disappoint Garp, only to abandon her duty and choose Ace over the marines at the battle of Marineford? Like she only realized how strong her feelings were when she saw him in real danger. Hope that’s not too specific haha. Love your writing! Keep up the good work!

Hello! Thank you, darlin’. I’m glad you love my stuff! I went with headcanons as you didn’t specify if you wanted a scenario or headcanons. They’re a bit like a scenario style headcanon, so I hope you enjoy!

Love Over Duty – Luffy’s Little Sister in Love w/ Ace

She joined the marines at 16, the year Luffy set out to sea to become a pirate, after watching Garp rampage and complain and moan about Ace and Luffy both running off to become pirates. Her agreement to join was a knee jerk reaction, but if it meant she could get off Dawn Island and see the world, being a marine didn’t seem so bad.

She wasn’t the best of the best, but she quickly showed her fighting strengths – the years spent training with Luffy and Ace in the forested mountains of Dawn Island gave her an advantage over the other low ranking marines. She trained hard and found she enjoyed her daily tasks and the overall life of a marine. She wasn’t blind to the transgressions and occasional abuse of power displayed by the marines, but she turned a blind eye.

It was when Ace’s capture and upcoming execution was announced that her loyalty began to waver, her ability to turn a blind eye failing. Ace was more than just a brother to her. As a girl, and even younger than Luffy, she’d been excluded from the exchange of sake cups many years ago, but Ace was still her friend. Over the years, her feelings had morphed from ones of friendship to attraction and love.

The day of the execution was the day her loyalty and ties to the marines unraveled. She saw him on the execution stand and she wondered if he could see her, if he recognized her amongst the crowd of hundreds dressed in blue and white.

As the battle began she tried to do minimal damage to her opponents, only fighting to protect herself and to give the illusion that she was just and bloodthirsty for pirate blood as her comrades were.

The first time they tried to execute Ace was when she snapped. She turned on the marines then, unable to hold back her rage at the audacity of them to try and execute him hours ahead of schedule because Whitebeard appeared to have a momentary advantage.

She breaks her ties to the marines fully as soon as Luffy appears. She joins her brother’s side, screaming for Ace to wait. They’re coming. The two of them together will rescue him and they’ll flee here. She helps Luffy knock Garp off the makeshift bridge, apologizing to her Gramps for the betrayal, but telling him that she has to do it for Ace.

She swears she hears Garp complain about knowing she was going to turn out to be a pirate all along.

Once Ace is free, she confesses her true feelings for him as the square off with the marines. Ace promises that as soon as they are away from the battlefield, they are going to have a serious conversation. He gives her a wink and a peck on the cheek and then the fight is on.

#one piece #one piece headcanon #monkey d. luffy #luffy’s sister #portagas d. ace

48 notes · View notes

not-poignant · 4 years ago

Note

Hello, I love your writing and I love how you manage to write complex characters and antagonists I can totally sympathize with (Augus, my precious), so I was wondering if you have any advice on that? Also, how do you decide on a love interest for your MC? Sorry if this is too broad of a question, but your writing advice is always super helpful.

Hiya

I‘m glad you’re enjoying the writing! Honestly I don’t know if I’m going to do a good job of explaining these things, but I hope whatever I say helps!

Writing a sympathetic antagonist

Firstly, most importantly, they have to be sympathetic! I know I know, that sounds stupid, and obvious, but it’s true. Don’t expect every reader to still like your antagonist, they won’t. Not everyone likes villain, antagonist or even antihero fiction.

Re: garnering sympathy:

Show the character as genuinely vulnerable. (Consider Augus being hurt by Gwyn in the dungeon, even if most of it slid off of him, that gag certainly didn’t). (Consider that even though Eran is Mosk’s captor and actually not a very nice person, we understand his motivations for being mean - he has lost his entire family, and he believes Mosk is the reason. He’s shown experiencing constant culture shock, totally alone, and he doesn’t understand the new world he finds himself in). (Consider that Efnisien is living an extremely bleak life, post violent injury, and that he is shown to be vulnerable to his own patterns of thinking).

Show the shift in their attitude that makes them more relatable, or that gives the readers hope that they’re not about to revert back to who they used to be. (Augus clearly being far more even-minded and less destructive for the sake of it). (Eran constantly questioning how Mosk could be capable of his evil, and double-checking on himself, and it obviously being insecurity when he decides that Mosk is evil after all). (Efnisien is forcing himself to attend very personally challenging therapy sessions, and we can see that not only has he not hurt anyone in 3 years, we can see evidence of a life lived that tries to avoid opportunities to hurt people ever again).

Make them human, create common ground. Show them eating food, getting dressed, responding to a major (or minor) injury. Show them loving another character even if they only ever love one other character (Augus saying ‘careful’ to Ash in Shadows and Light was actually the moment that some readers fell in love with him or became intensely curious about him - and so while most readers came around to him in Game Theory, just having Augus genuinely love and feel protective towards his brother was enough to create sympathy and empathy). (Consider Efnisien and his love for Gwyn). (Consider Eran’s love for his family). Make it so that people literally can go ‘oh, I eat food that way’ or ‘oh, I’ve tried to hide an injury before’ or ‘that’s how I get dressed’ or ‘I hate summer too.’ Give them details that can stack up over time and create common ground.

In the case of characters who have done absolutely egregious things, whump the everloving fuck out of them. Like, this was legit a thing I did in Game Theory *deliberately* in order to create increased sympathy for Augus. Even people who have the most intense revenge fantasies re: a character burn out on them after a while. A person who is like ‘yeah I can’t wait to see them tortured and suffering and going through awful pain’ will, very often, get that and realise they didn’t want that much of it. And they will turn to sympathy instead. It’s worked an absolute fucking treat with Augus and Efnisien in particular.

Have someone who is worse opposite your antagonist. (Augus had the Nightingale. Eran has Olphix and Davix and, well, Mosk’s entire family. Efnisien has Crielle and Lludd). Give your villain a villain.

That’s it. You don’t have to make them ‘good.’ You don’t have to rationalise what they did. You don’t have to make excuses for what they’ve done or what they’ll do in the future. Your readers can make up their own minds on that, and they will, with or without your guidance. Augus can still be a waterhorse that eats people and sometimes uses compulsions because he’s impatient. Gwyn can still just straight up murder people without giving them much (or any) warning first.

When you don’t encourage sympathy based on a ‘good/bad’ binary, you can still have your antagonists and villains kind of stay where they are. They might do heroic things, they might do villainous things, the point of empathy is that they’re often doing and thinking relatable things, even if the subsequent actions aren’t themselves relatable.

I don’t do these things for villains that I don’t want to be sympathetic. But I must admit, I am enjoying showing different facets of Davix in The Ice Plague, even though I don’t really intend for him to be a transformed villain or anything.

Deciding on a love interest

This one is harder. Mostly because in some ways, it’s ‘simpler’ on the surface. All you’re doing is looking for a character who has qualities that strengthen your other character, and balance out the imbalances in your primary character and vice versa. They will need to have some things in common too. They also need to get along, and have a reason to get along (especially if it’s rivals to lovers).

Like, it’s hard to describe how I do this because I don’t spend a lot of time on this part. I tend to just...idk, ‘know’ what another character needs and build off that. And that’s fucking useless to break down for other people. BUT, it does mean I can at least use my doofuses as examples:

Augus and Gwyn: They are both people who favour diplomacy over war, but can be extraordinarily bloodthirsty when a situation calls for it, and they’re both actually pretty snarky and bitchy people (things in common). Augus is proud of his sexuality and does not see the point in not fully embracing who you are as a monster, Gwyn rejects his monstrous self and is not proud of his sexuality or his role as a sub (Augus strengthens Gwyn in this, and complements what Gwyn lacks). Gwyn is extremely bold and secure in his ability to manage a Kingdom and also protect his loved ones, he is very able to step forwards into his future decisively, fully confident in his ability to do what is best for the people around him and the nation (Gwyn strengthens Augus in this, and complements Augus’ insecurities in this area).

You can find lots of other examples of complementary traits in Augus and Gwyn in particular (Augus had a happier family, Gwyn didn’t. Gwyn has military and physical training, Augus mostly hasn’t. Augus understands fashion and courtiers, Gwyn doesn’t. Gwyn understands tracking and large-scale military operations, Augus doesn’t. Augus understands finer interpersonal relationships, Gwyn doesn’t. Gwyn understands politicking that’s specifically malicious or manipulative (like the Raven Prince, Augus doesn’t).

Mosk and Eran: They are both people who are extremely determined and share a common goal (Mosk took a little while to get online with that goal, but okay). They are both actually very earnest at their hearts and want people to be happy with them, and they both need guidance from people in positions of authority. They’re both hot-headed (in different ways, but they both absolutely fly off the handle all the fucking time). Ultimately, they want to feel warm and supported (things in common).

Mosk is extremely aesthetic and cares for beautiful things and scenery, at all times, he tends to tune into an environment based on its beauty, Eran on the other hand tends to be a bit stuck in the past, and isn’t always quick to see the beauty in the present. (Mosk enriches Eran’s life in the present, but helping him to focus on what might be beautiful in the present). Eran likes to feel as though he’s helping people and he needs to feel needed, Mosk needs someone to take care of him (Eran enriching Mosk).

Tbh you could come up with a lot of examples. Places where they ‘complement’ each other are also places of potential conflict. Eran being hopeful and optimistic is definitely a point of contention between Mosk and Eran when it clashes against Mosk’s pessimism, even though it’s good for Mosk to be around more hopeful attitudes, and it’s good for Eran to be more realistic sometimes.

ANYWAY. Basically, yeah, I... this second part I’m a lot worse at, sorry. The process of coming up with love interests is very organic, and I don’t actually like, sit down and plan these things. Which means I don’t have a formula to share. (I am very much just making shit up as I go).

Idk if any of that is helpful, but I hope it is. <333

Please don’t listen to my writing advice lol.

#asks and answers #dodgy advice #pia on writing #pia on characterisation #fae tales #i feel like i've answered a lot of comments and asks in the past #about how characters have opposing views #or skills #that actually marry up really well together #in fanfiction #Jack and Pitch were probably the most obvious ones for this #i can't believe how long this post is #you know other authors could say this in like 10 lines?#amazing #wanderinggods

28 notes · View notes