#i have lots of old ideas saved for fics and art

[carpisuns]

me want make

me want art and fanfic cake

me should just bake

me think, mmm but that sounds fake

[sweet-s0rr0w]

Vintage Drarry Fics

Thought I'd put together a list of some of the old Drarry 'classics' of my teenage years, for anyone interested. All posted between 2001-2006, compiled using my (bad) memory, a lot of googling, fanlore.org and numerous different LJ rec accounts (including the incredible @capiturecs). I checked as best I could, but if anyone knows of any fics that their author doesn't want to be shared, please let me know and I will of course remove.

Please also note that these fics are of their era, when attitudes may have been different, and they may not all be grammatically perfect. I haven't reread all, as my own tastes have changed, but most importantly do note that they may not be tagged - don't blame me when, for example, Harry dies tragically on a rooftop at sunrise...

Hogwarts Era (mostly 5th-7th year)

A Thousand Beautiful Things by Duinn Fionn/geoviki (M, 105k)

Draco Malfoy struggles with changed fortunes, shifted alliances, an ugly war, and an unusual spell, with the help of a concerned professor, an insightful house-elf, and an unexpected Gryffindor friend.

All Bets Are Off by Allegra (R, 53k)

I am SICK of Good-little-innocent!Harry...Enter Playboy!Harry and his Overinflated Ego, a challenge, a bet, a couple of Really Cunning Plans - and there you have it, "Forty days and forty nights", Hogwarts style. Mayhem ensues! 

Angels and Devils by beren (E, 52k)

Harry defeated Voldemort and his act of heroism is famous throughout the wizarding world. He's trying to finish his final year at Hogwarts in peace, but, thanks to the method he chose to destroy The Dark Lord, something peculiar is happening to him, something he never would have expected. It's all rather embarrassing and making his life very complicated.

Artful Facade by Sky Sorceress (T, 66k)

Sometimes you fly too close to the sun and lose your wings. With sixth year approaching, the danger Harry seeks can be found only in the form of Draco Malfoy. What follows is a twist in the line between hatred, love, and need.

Beautiful World by Cinnamon/Lissadiane (M, 70k)

Harry finds out he's going to die on his 16th birthday. He embarks on a journey of self-destructive behaviour and drags Draco along for the ride. 

Beneath You by Cinnamon/Lissadiane (M, 113k)

Draco had no idea that the repercussions of stealing Potter's journal and shoving it down the back of his trousers would be so extreme.

Bond by AnnaFugazzi (M, 173k)

It seems 95% of H/D writers feel compelled to write a "Harry And Draco Are Forced To Be Together By Something Beyond Their Control And Then Unlikely Stuff Happens That Leads To Twoo Wuv" story. Count me among the 95% ;)

Checkmate by Naadi Moonfeather (T, 245k)

Draco has the perfect plan to get Harry Potter and challenges him to a game of Dare Chess. But is it love, or betrayal, he has in mind?

The Cicatrix Cycle by Ivy Blossom (NC-17, long!)

Three parts: Origins, Haven, Belong

Draco In Darkness by Plumeria (T, 41k)

Following an accident in his seventh year, Draco loses his eyesight. After Harry elbows his way into Draco's dark world, both boys find themselves in a strange new friendship, and they each learn new ways to see each other … and themselves.

Eclipse by PhoenixSong/Mijan (T, 287k)

"You're dead, Potter... I'm going to make you pay..." Draco swore his revenge on Harry for Lucius's imprisonment, and Harry all but laughed at him. But Draco is planning more than schoolyard pranks this time. The old rivalry turns deadly when Draco abducts Harry for Voldemort. It's the perfect plan, guaranteeing revenge, power, and prestige, all in one blow. But, when Draco's world turns upside down, the fight to save himself and Harry begins, and the battle will take them both through hell and back. If they come back. 

Friend Like Me by Lady Vader (M, 11k)

Draco's rendition of the love story that never was.

How Harry Potter Got His Groove Back by Durendal/Eleveninches (R, 12k)

Snape tries to hang himself, Draco enters an alternate reality, and Harry Gets a Clue. Humor, SLASH, naughty language, and other Evil Things. Harry/Draco, Snape/James/Lucius.

Irresistible Poison by Rhysenn (PG-13, 124k)

Under the influence of a love potion, Draco learns that poison doesn't always bring death -- there are other ways to suffer and live. Chemical emotion runs feverish as Harry and Draco discover the intoxication of love.

Lettered by pir8fancier (M, 7.8k)

Harry has a secret penpal, whose identity is as plain as the nose on his face. Except he's not wearing his glasses.

Love Under Will by Aja (R, 116k)

In their 5th year, Harry and Draco choose to be with one another; but the story--and the battle-- is just beginning...

playing the game, living the lie by Abaddon (R, 159k)

Set in Sixth Year, both the wizarding and Muggle worlds are threatened as Voldemort plans a final revenge. Past, present and future collide as all must consider where their loyalties lie; who they are, and who they want to be. Amidst it all, Harry and Draco begin a dangerous journey of understanding. Is it possible to leave everything you thought you were behind?

Resolution by Frances Potter (R, 322k)

When you've spent six years fighting evil, all you really want is a quiet time. But when your name is Harry Potter the chances of that are very slim. A series of vignettes chronicling Harry's final six months at Hogwarts. Exams, friends, lovers, Quidditch, the war and Draco all conspire to make the year end seem a very long way away.

Seamus is Seamus and You are Yourself by Ari Munami (PG-13, 31k)

Harry goes through some er... changes in his Sixth Year and everyone, including Draco Malfoy, sits up and takes notice.

Snakes and Lions by GatewayGirl (M, 139k)

When Ron and Hermione get together, they notice only each other. A nightmare prompts Harry to return alone to the empty Chamber of Secrets, and leads to a new look at an old enemy. Harry enjoys the company, but with Bellatrix Lestrange actively hunting him, how far can he trust a Death Eater's son?

Something Impossible by epicylical/Cassandra Claire (PG, 6.4k)

As punishment for an act of vandalism, Draco is forced to perform three tasks to win Harry's forgiveness - only they don't turn out to be exactly the kind of tasks he'd been expecting. With wet shirtless Draco, paint-covered Harry, and Proust-reading Goyle.

Transformation by amalin (E, 98k)

In Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts, he must face the consequences of the attack on the Department of Mysteries and the effects of Voldemort's return. And in doing so, he finds that even your enemies can teach you valuable lessons—about the world, and about yourself.

Walking the Line by SilentAuror (E, 179k)

Sixth year is over and Draco Malfoy is on the run. The war is on and an unwanted assignment is forced upon him by the only people he trusts - and a one-time arch-enemy just may be out to kill him.

Post-Hogwarts

Adagio in G Minor by furiosity (NC-17, 18k)

Seven years after Hogwarts and the war, life continues in the wizarding world. Draco Malfoy is rich, bored, and slightly jaded. Harry Potter is famous, busy, and somewhat disillusioned. They've not seen each other since school ended. What would happen if they were to cross paths again? What if it involved music?

Big Dick, Come Quick [PDF] by Calanthe (NC-17, 204k)

Draco’s got a theory. About sex. And after much searching for the right candidate, it appears that only Harry Potter, his life long enemy, can help him test it out.

Draco's Escort Service by Cheryl Dyson/dysonrules (15, 12k)

Draco's job is to escort travelers through the dangerous, war-torn countryside. Harry Potter is forced to hire him, but his destination isn't quite what Draco expected.

Left My Heart by Emma Grant (E, 85k)

Auror Draco Malfoy has disappeared, and Harry Potter has been sent to San Francisco to find him. 

Malfoy, P.I. by Nancy (R, 60k)

"I'm Draco Malfoy, private investigator. I've seen a lot--I mean a lot, and I'm like sweet seventeen a lot. I thought I'd seen it all, until a pair of green eyes stepped into my office." A noir AU set in L.A. where passion and magic collide. Slashy and sexy.

Queen of Hearts by scoradh (E, 65k)

A spectre is haunting Harry - the responsibility of his destiny. It looms over his future and, more importantly, over the future of his friends. Harry is determined to exorcise this spectre for the greater good, but on the way, he enters into a few unholy alliances.

Tissue of Silver by fearlessdiva (R, 76k)

A love story concerning possessed furniture, black silk pyjamas, courtroom drama, premonitions of doom, assassination attempts, Death Eater yoga, absinthe, bare feet and a sensible werewolf.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by November Snowflake (M, 58k)

When the long-missing Draco Malfoy turns up at a Ministry field hospital with amnesia, bitter Auror Harry Potter must confront the shadows of their shared past to shed light on a potentially deadly mystery.

Transfigurations by Resonant (E, 71k)

Five years after Voldemort's defeat, Harry returns to England to help re-open Hogwarts.

[sailoryooons]

Gods of the Dark | One | myg (m)

☾ Pairing: Dream god!Yoongi x f. human!reader

☾ Summary: Don’t ask for help in the dark. It’s an old tale you always heard whispered among the people of your village. But when you find yourself dragged kicking by the man you’re to marry, you have little choice but to beg for help long after the sun has set. The god who answers your pleas promises to save you, but every deal comes with a price. 

☾ Word Count: 21,606

☾ Genre: Fantasy, angst, strangers to lovers, smut

☾ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. 

☾ Warnings: Sexist and patriarchal society inspired by medieval europe, a lot of world building and discussion about theories/concept of dreams, discussions of morals and ethics, world building, angst, intense fight scenes, mentions/light depictions of an abusive family, discussions of gender roles and forced marriages, attempted murder via drowning, a physical fight between a man and a woman in the middle of a storm, sexual dream sequences featuring making out, biting (light), grinding, reader having flashbacks of trauma, a lot of thoughts about reader's terrible parents, a sort of power imbalance in the sense that reader is in Yoongi's realm as a part of a deal.

☾ Published: July 9, 2023

☾ A/N: It's finally here! This was originally supposed to be two giant chapters, but I cannot manage my time in a way to write to ~40k chapters and also fit all of this in a way that is not overwhelming or feels like it makes sense, so I have chosen to do this in 4 chapters of roughly 20k words! Thank you to everyone who has hyped me up for this idea, helped me work out some ideas, or listened to me struggle to write this because I was so unsure about the chemistry between Yoongi and reader at first. I am really excited to be writing this and have taken this in quite a different direction than the original idea when I had when I watched the Lilith MV, but that's okay. I heavily draw on inspiration from the Lilith MV, the song Possession of a Weapon by Ashnikko, The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, the movie The Witch, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab and the original myth of Hades and Persephone (where I got the deal/living in Yoongi's world idea from).

Special thank you to my amazing beta team who really helped make this fic what it is and make sure it was legible: @theharrowing and @here2bbtstrash

☾ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

Masterlist | Ask | Playlist | Series Masterlist | Tag Lists | Next Chapter

Tuck a knife with my heart up my sleeve

Change like a season

-

It begins with rain.

White sheets of it beating against the window in a gentle murmur, a soft leak in the corner of the kitchen dripping into the metal bucket your mother has set out. The storm brings a cool wind with it, blowing in on the back porch where your father rocks back and forth in his chair, watching the deluge. 

Shivering, you throw another log into the fireplace, pulling your shawl closer as orange embers spark and crackle, drifting up the shute. The smell of burning cedar grows and you smile, sitting down in front of the licking flames and holding out your hands to warm your palms. 

Behind you at the kitchen table, your mother pulls a thread and needle through a dress she’s been working on, stitching purple flowers into the sleeves. You wonder if she’s making it for the neighbor's daughter, a girl a few years younger than you to be wed soon. 

Mother makes some of the best stitching in the village, her practiced hands etching artful flowers and vines and designs on the sleeves and skirts of most of the village women. She’s tried for years to pass the craft on to you, but your fingers aren’t nearly as nimble and your eye for art is sorely lacking. 

What you lack in art you make up for in stories, though. Head in the clouds, swimming in worlds, places and things you’ve never seen. Lives and people who only exist in your mind, entire fantasies with more colors and sights and smells than your tiny little world contains. 

You’d write them down if you could. Writing and reading is not a woman’s craft, though, and you know better than to press your father on the subject any further than you have in the past. A terse word from him and your raw knuckles after being forced to do the wash alone for weeks kept you from bringing up the topic of learning to read and write ever again, especially when you remember the sting of his slap when you pushed too far.

Still, you have your mind. You have the ability to dream up worlds and twist fantasies together, to daze off and pretend that you’re somewhere else. That you’re living another life.

You have the days where you finish working at the inn early, sitting in the corner of the room with hard bread and cheese, listening to the town’s storyteller whisper tales and myths to the children of the village.

For now, it will suffice. 

When the rain finally slows in the late afternoon, it’s cloudy and cool outside, the perfect temperature for a walk. Pulling on a pair of linen pants and a tunic, you creep toward the door, hoping to avoid the attention of your parents as they begin to prepare dinner in the kitchen, their movements methodical and silent. 

Carefully, you slide boots on your feet. As you reach for the front door, hidden from the view of the kitchen, you hear your mother call your name. You pause, closing your eyes and grimacing as you call back, “Yes?”

“Where are you going? It’s wet and cold outside.”

“Just for a short walk.”

“You’re going to catch a cold,” she protests. Her steps move near you. You pull the door open and step into the wet air, eager to get away from her. “Come help us with dinner.”

“I’ll see you shortly, the weather is lovely!”

Before your mother can come around the corner and pin you with her disappointed stare, you’re down the slippery steps and sloshing into the yard, mud and grass sucking at your steps as you hurry. You hear your father yell something like dammit, girl but you can’t be sure, the sounds of birds and the bugs swallowing his curses as you rush through the front yard.

The world is covered in a layer of fine mist, tree boughs heavy with rain as they drip drip drip onto the forest floor around you. Thick, gray clouds hide the sun still. Thunder rolls in the distance, promising more rain through the night. You don’t mind, diving into the darkness of the trees on a well-worn path through the woods.

Water floods the path up to the ankle, soaking your boots. You grin and kick your feet as you walk, watching the ripples flow outward. Water mosquitoes dance on top of the surface of the flood and you note little tadpoles swim by, confirming that the river by your house is flooding up over the bank and washing into the mainland. 

This is common most summers. Your house is out of the way from the town, almost a thirty minute walk. This far north, you’re only ten minutes from the edge of the slow-moving river that floods yearly turning the land around your property into a marsh. 

It’s your favorite time of year. A heron startles as you wander through the trees, shaking its white wings and shedding water as it hurries away on long, thin legs. You spot a snake swimming through the reeds, rushing away from you once it senses you sloshing through. 

Closer to the river, you pause. It’s hard to tell where the embankment dips down with it flooded. You can see where the flood moves faster, powered by the depth of the river and the overflow from the lake up north. Leaning against a tree, you look around this world of water. 

It seems alien. Trees block out the sky and are reflected in the surface of the flood, giving the illusion that you stand between two worlds, two dimensions. 

What would that be like, you wonder. 

According to the high priest in town, there are other dimensions. There are the heavens for the gods of light and love, who bless the world with fire and harvest and rain and oceans, who protect the people and who will absolve you of all sin and greed if you pray to them hard enough and accept them as your patrons. Who will love you only if you are devout.

You don’t believe in them for a second. If those gods of love and light do exist, they are not entirely good. They have never answered your prayers, have never saved you from pain or from sorrow. You have begged the gods to give you a new life, to let you leave. To let you go somewhere far away.

They have been silent. They were silent when your father beat you after the first time you rejected a marital match. They didn’t help you when he burned all your materials when you tried to teach yourself the shapes and sounds of letters.

So you stopped praying to them. 

There are other gods, of course. Other places for the wicked, dark gods full of trickery and greed, who seek only to fill the world with sin and deceit, who desire to make humans suffer and lose themselves in hedonism and debauchery. Those gods have a place too, the dark underworld for those who should be punished and reminded what it is to be full of sin. 

You’ve never prayed to them either, too afraid of what it would cost you. But you wonder if they answer or if they too watch the world from a mountain so high that they cannot bother to help those who need it. 

Still, you wonder what it would be like to walk between two worlds. To see one reflected in the other, to fall face first into the cool water only to surface in another place, almost an exact replica of where you’re from. 

It would be nice. Perhaps there you wouldn’t be a disappointing daughter who has turned away every suitor in the village, much to your father’s rage. There, you would be allowed to pursue reading and writing. You’d have the agency to sail the world and see the ocean for the first time, to feel the freezing spray of the seas on your face while you hunt the coast for something lost. 

Always something lost. 

In all of your fantasies, you’re looking for something. Sometimes, you’re not sure what it is you’re looking for, you just know that something needs to be found. Other times, it’s a specific object or a person, something that, deep down, you know represents the thing you desire to find most: freedom. 

A small school of fish swim by your feet. They can’t be any larger than your pinky finger, scurrying along before they’re swept up in the suction of the flowing river. Sighing, you push off the tree and begin to head back home, swatting at your bare arms where gnats bite at your sweaty skin. 

Dark presses in as you walk back. You had stayed in the woods later than you intended, mind drifting far off among the sounds of the world around you. A cool tingle slides down your neck as you walk, water breaking around you. 

You pause. It’s the same feeling that you get whenever you spend far too long in the woods and the sun goes down. It feels like there’s someone there with you, just at your back. Slowly, you turn to look over your shoulder but there’s no one there, just the warm press of something you can’t see. 

When it happened the first time, you’d been so afraid you ran home. Now, though, you smile and look down at the ground as you keep walking. The presence, whether it’s real or something you have made up in your head, is always comforting. Always there, a gentle press of feeling. 

There are candles burning in the windows and an owl hoots in greeting when your house appears. Inside, you kick off your shoes and rush to meet your parents at the silent dinner table. Both of them look up at you, your mother’s mouth pinched, eyes weary. Your father’s gaze is thunderous as he picks up cutlery and begins to cut into his potato in saw-like motions, his knuckles going white.

You sit down without a word, bow your head to pretend to pray. Your mother clears her throat, drawing your attention. “It’s after dark. You missed your prayers.” 

It doesn’t matter. You weren’t going to pray anyway. But the way your parents look at you makes you drop your eyes down to the table, their expressions alarmed. Were you really about to pray after the sunset, when the benevolent gods were no longer listening? The only gods available to you now are dangerous. Violent. Tricky. 

Dinner is dry and too heavily salted. Still, you don’t complain. Somewhere in the world, you’re sure that there are wonderful feasts being held. Plates and platters of honey-glazed meats, roasted pheasant and charred filets. Whipped sweets and colorful confectionaries, dripping fruits and sugary drinks. 

None of those places exist anywhere that you’ve ever seen, but you like to imagine them as you chew your way through an oppressively silent meal. He says nothing, but you can tell your father is angry once again. Just as well, he at least keeps it to himself through the meal and says nothing when you’re done. 

“I’ll do the dishes,” you offer quickly when your parents finish. It’s an olive branch and they know it. They accept anyway, letting you gather plates as the soft hush of rain begins again. 

Rain washes out the night. You can’t see anything beyond the water that runs off the roof over the back porch as you dip your rag into warm water, scrubbing at the plates before setting them to dry in the stack next to you. 

Frogs croak, their loud voices blending together into the roar of the rain. Every now and again, lightning flashes above and thunder shakes the sky. You feel it vibrate through your ribs and you smile, inhaling the charged air. 

“... doesn’t have a choice!” You turn toward the open doorway. You can’t see your parents but the window is open to their room, voices coming in and out of the rain. “... force her! I’ve had… and he’s already agreed.”

You frown, stopping your scrubbing to lean further, straining your ears. “This won’t go well,” your mother says. 

“I don’t give a damn! It’s already done, woman. Enough.”

The rest of the conversation is drowned out by thunder. You frown and turn back to your task, trying to piece together what they’re talking about. You think back to your mother stitching the dress before dinner and think perhaps they’re gossiping about the neighbor again. She wasn’t happy that she was being married off and everyone knew it.

Still, she’s doing it. She’s stronger than you. It’s hard to imagine going through with something you don’t want, to live a life shackled to another person who doesn’t love you. Whose only purpose is to coexist with you and reproduce. To run a household and get through each and every day, the same as last.

It’s hard to say if your parents are in love. They are tender, at times, but you can’t ever point out a moment that your mother or father seem truly happy. Content isn’t the same as happiness. Not really. While they work together well and seem to have struck up a balance after the years, there’s nothing in the way they move through life that seems joyful. 

You had asked your mom if she was happy once. She gave you a funny look and said, I have a roof above my head and food on the table. How could I not be? 

Her response puzzles you still. To live is not to be happy. Being alive is just that - being alive. A bare minimum. But truly being happy is something else. At least, that’s how you understand it. How the heroes and characters in stories and tales live their lives, fighting for happiness. 

Later that night, you forget all about their whispers behind the sheets of rain. You’re tired and the storm is soothing, making you dream of a far away land where there are two armies entrenched in war, battling for their kingdoms and lighting the sky with storm magic. 

Another dream. Another fantasy. 

-

In your dream, a soft mouth meets yours. The kiss is slow, tongue dragging against yours, tasting of something sweet, mouth warm. It smells like clove and cinnamon, and though you don’t open your eyes to see the mouth that slides against yours, you know you are safe. 

-

It ends in darkness.

Dusk has settled around your home like a funeral shroud. Your father has been gone all day, your mother flippant when you ask about his whereabouts. Your mother is a painted picture of anxiety: mouth pinched, darting eyes that fail to meet yours, and hunched shoulders. It makes your palms sweat, the way she avoids you in the house. 

Rain comes down in patterns again, bands of storms floating by and turning the world gray. You don’t have to go to the inn with the road flooded, so you spend the day at the window instead, watching each storm flash by, listening to the frogs and watching the birds pick through bug-filled waters between each deluge. 

When the sun begins to set, you find your mother standing near the window, looking through wet glass as she chews the corner of her lip. She wipes her hands on her dress, not picking up that you’re standing in the doorway watching her.

The gown she has been stitching for the past few days lays on the table. It’s a beautiful thing, bursting with intricate flowers on the sleeves and the skirts. You don’t enjoy dresses - much less the kind for marriage - but you admire the careful needlework. 

“It’s a good dress,” you tell her. She startles from where she stands at the window, whirling around to face you. “One of your best.”

“Yes. I-” something crosses her face that’s unreadable. “Would you try it on for me? I want to make sure I got the sizing right.”

You shrug and pick it up. It’s not the first time she’s used you for sizing and you’re sure it won’t be the last. You just hope that she doesn’t make you stand on a stool for hours to place pins in the skirt, mapping where she needs to take in the seams and make the fabric fold. 

The material is a little scratchy when you put it on. It’s snug across the chest and a little bit long at the wrist, but the material ripples over you like water. Outside of your room, the sound of your father’s voice echoes. He sounds more jovial than usual, laughing loudly - another voice is with him. 

Frowning, you work the buttons on the side of the dress to secure it shut, pulling the fabric into place. It isn’t often that your father has guests over, but you can assume it’s one of his friends he has over for dinner. You make a sour face at the thought that perhaps it’s Mr. Laudermill and his son Nathaniel again, a family your father has tried to pawn you off on before. 

The list of people your father has tried to get you to marry is astounding. It’s become a joke in the town, a game of who will he ask next? At first, there were plenty of families who offered their sons to make the union. Now, after how vehemently you have protested for your right to pick your husband yourself, it’s you who is rejected when your father makes dowry offers.

It seems - much to your advantage - that the men of the town and even the neighboring villages grew tired of the girl who liked to say no. It gives you small satisfaction to know that sheer inconvenience has earned you freedom alongside your mother’s unwillingness to force you. 

Still, the Laudermills are a little persistent. Not your father’s favorite option he has ever brought up, but it was one that didn’t say no. 

You enter the main house with minor trepidation, uneager to spend the evening sighing at Nathaniel’s terrible jokes and attempts to win you over. You wonder if it’s sheer pride that brings him back this time, upset that he cannot beat the town's little conundrum. The unconquerable conquest. You get the feeling that’s why he and his father visit for dinner sometimes, Nathaniel’s pride unwilling to back down from the challenge. 

You’d respect him more if he had more admiration for the word no. 

Nathaniel and his father are in the main room of your home, speaking in laughing tones to your father. Your mother stands near the open back door, hands wringing together. There is another person in your house that you don’t expect, though. The village’s high priest nods his head along with something that your father is saying, wrinkled hands clasped in front of his robes.

Time seems to slow down. You take in the tight expression on your mother’s face, her eyes drifting over to the priest who is dressed in ceremonial purple robes, an air of professional courtesy about him. He’s nodding to Nathaniel who is speaking now, and it’s when you really look at him, dressed in nice linen pants, a long sleeved shirt and an ornate vest, that you put the pieces together. 

Too slowly do you react as your father turns to you. His smile is forced and his gaze is burning with warning when he gestures. “There’s our bride!”

The word sinks in like a blade. Right between the ribs and up, its point poking dangerous at your heart as your blood begins to roar in your ears. You’re frozen to the spot, staring at them from the threshold of your room. You can feel your pulse throbbing in your neck, your hands shaking. 

“You look beautiful,” Nathaniel says, grinning. It’s a genuine smile, a proud one. Something that says finally. “I’m so glad you’re ready, after all this time.”

“I… what?”

In a moment of razor-sharp clarity, you remember the conversation your parents were having last night, soft words whispered under the cover of the storm. You remember something about forcing her and someone having already agreed. 

No. No. Nonononononono. 

You don’t realize you’re speaking out loud as you back up into your room, the horror settling in as the rain begins to tap on the roof. Your mother looks crestfallen but remains silent as your father’s smile tightens and his face reddens. 

When he says your name, it’s full of warning. The back of your legs hit your bed and your weak knees buckle. You sit down with a huff and shake your head. “You can’t do this,” you whisper. You can’t find your voice, can’t work your throat louder. “You cannot make me marry.”

“Of course I can,” your father hisses. His smile drops and in its place is something dangerous. Horrific. The villain of all your dreams and epic fantasies. “I have given you more than enough time to choose. You have not. As the man of this house-”

“No!” you bark back, cutting him off and shooting to your feet. “I am a person-”

“You are a woman!” he roars, making the high priest flinch. “Your purpose is to grow up, get married, mind the household and provide an heir! You are the only fiendish woman in this entire forsaken village who seems to misunderstand this!”

“It is not my purpose!”

“It is, and you will fulfill it!” he hisses. “You will marry this man before the gods, with my blessing and the witness of the priest.” 

Behind you, thunder rolls. The rain comes down harder. Frogs croak loudly, bracketed by the sound of the trees bending with the weight of the wind. Your heart pounds in your chest as you stare at the people before you. Your mother with tears in her eyes, your father with fury in his face, the priest with disappointment and Nathaniel. Nathaniel with glee. With a grin. With a smirk. 

“I won’t do it,” you whisper. 

Before they can argue, you turn on your heel and leap onto your bed. Your father and Nathaniel rush at the doorway, their steps pounding behind you as you crawl through the window, your ribs slamming on the sill as you lean face forward. Rain soaks you immediately, your hands gripping the sill as you haul your middle half over the edge, intending to just flip down into the mud. 

Hands yank at your legs and you scream, a feral sound ripping through your lungs as you kick backward violently. You’re yanked back toward your room viciously, rib cage aching where you slide on the concrete frame. With another savage kick, you make contact and hear a loud shout before the hands drop from your waist. 

Pushing harshly, you throw yourself the rest of the way through the window, falling the few feet down to land with a splash. Your father is screaming inside the house but you’re already slipping to your feet, whatever he says drowned out in the rain. 

You don’t even think. You run, hands picking up the wet-leaden skirts on your dress as you tear off toward the woods. Water rushes around your ankles as you go and you hear commotion at the window as someone clambers through. You don’t dare turn around as you rush to the line of trees, unafraid of the dark but terrified of the slamming footsteps behind you.

It’s impossible to be fast in the flooded woods. You wince as your feet get cut up on rocks and sharp sticks that you can’t see. You trip over roots and kick solid things as you slog forward, biting back a cry as you try to flee. 

“Get back here, you wretched bitch!” Nathaniel screams behind you. 

It never occurred to you that he could say something so violent. It spurs you forward, mud and water sucking your feet down and making your flight sticky and slow. Rain pelts down between the leaves, the storm lighting up the treetops with purple flashes every now and again. Thunder shakes their branches and rumbles through your feet, the water rushing higher and higher. 

Nathaniel slams into you at the waist. You scream as he takes you down, his weight on top of you. Your scream is cut off as your mouth fills with water. You swallow in a panic, body thrumming with alarm as you choke, nose full of water, eyes burning. You can hear the dull roar of water, the swish of your tangled limbs on the floor. 

Clawing at him, you feel your nails rip down soft flesh and hear a muted yell. He lifts his weight off of you and you sit forward, breaking the surface and gasping for air, retching. Your lungs and nose burn as you gasp for air, fighting to get a breath in. 

Nathaniel is on you again, his hand going for your hair as he digs his fingers in hard, yanking at your scalp. Your hands fly to his wrist and you scream again, pulling at him, trying to free yourself. Tears smart your eyes from the stinging pain as he yanks hard enough that you think he’ll tear you right apart. 

“Fucking ungrateful,” he barks.

Your feet slide in the mud as he uses your buoyancy in the knee deep water to haul you back toward the house. You twist in his grip, mewling in panic and pain as you work to get your feet under you and fight back. You let go of his arm and throw a weak punch at his ribs. He grunts but doesn’t let go, even as you twist, hands shooting to the ground, digging through soaked earth and weeds until you feel the hard, rough shape of a rock. 

Grabbing it, you lift your hand from the water and bring it down hard on Nathaniel’s wrist. He screams and lets go of your hair. Your fingers ache from the blow but you don’t waste precious minutes, scrambling to your feet and sloshing away from him again. He’s already gripping at your dress, fingers ripping at the fabric to get a hold of you. 

Desperation claws at you and you scream for help. You don’t know if anyone else is out here in the dark of the woods but you don’t care. Bleeding, in pain, and terrified, you tear through the water, the rock clutched in your fingers, rushing in the dark as Nathaniel gives chase.

“Please!” you scream at the dark. “Anyone, please!” 

A thread of thought slivers through you about the gods. Praying to the gods has never gotten you anywhere. It didn’t make your father let you read. It didn’t get you out of your town. It didn’t save you from this. The supposed gods who rule with light and love had never heard you and you had long stopped believing in them.

But you’d never prayed to the gods of the dark. The gods who only listen to words whispered after the setting sun. 

“Please,” you beg, turning your head to the dark sky. Lighting flashes and thunder rumbles. Cool wind brushes against your face, wind that feels like it whispers I’m listening. “Please,” you scream again. “Help me, I’ll give you whatever you want. Help me!”

Nathaniel takes you down by the waist again. You gasp for air this time as your face slaps the water with a sting. The current is rushing faster here, pulling at you. Deeper. Colder. You’re close to the river, and you feel the suction of the force of the flow tugging at your body as Nathaniel digs his fingers into the meat of your arms. 

This time, he doesn’t pull you with him. He holds you down, shoving you deeper and deeper until you realize that he’s no longer interested in bringing you back. You kick at him, you tear at him. You slam his wrist with the rock again but his other hand grabs yours, wrenching the weapon away from you. 

Your lungs are screaming and water is rushing into your nose as oxygen escapes you. His grip is firm and you begin to panic. All you can think is help help help help. Please help. 

Bubbles escape your mouth as you’re forced to breathe out again. You’re running out of time and pain starts to build in your chest. You feel the way your lungs squeeze, needing air. You let out more air and press your lips tight, desperately trying not to inhale. 

Breathe in, your instincts scream. Breathe breathe breathe breathe. 

Agony. You’re in agony as you open your mouth in a final cry, unable to form the words. Unable to scream and ask for a higher power that you only believe in at this moment to help you. 

Water fills your mouth. You swallow it whole, feel it go down as you begin to spasm. 

You’re going to die. 

And then Nathaniel’s hands are gone. It takes you a moment to realize that there’s no crushing grip on your arms and in the brief moment of realization, you barely manage to push up. To break the surface and vomit, water coming out of you in a stinging, horrid mess. Your stomach turns and you feel your chest squeeze as you choke.

The storm is still raging around you, water pulling at you and pressing you into the rough bark of a tree. Blinking tears from your eyes, you look around but it’s too dark to see. You can hear Nathaniel looking for you, screaming your name in the dark. 

The back of your neck tingles. There’s a feeling in the air behind you - that sliver of breath that you often sense when you’re out in the woods alone just after dark. Like something or someone is there with you, just behind you. 

“What is it you want?” a deep, dark voice whispers. The hair on the back of your neck stands on end and you feel chilled to the bone. The voice is like none you’ve ever heard, sensual and dizzying. 

“Want?”

“You asked for help.” The voice switches to your other ear and you don’t dare turn around to find the speaker. “What do you want?” 

“What can you give?”

The voice chuckles. The sound makes you shiver, your eyelids fluttering. The voice purrs, “I can give you anything you dream, little lamb. Tell me: what do you want?”

You think about it. Lightning lances through the sky and for a brief moment, the world is a flash of silver. You see Nathaniel in the light, a few feet away from you. He’s bloody and heaving, his eyes snapping to where you hide against the tree.

“Freedom,” you gasp as the world falls to darkness again. “I want freedom.”

“What will you give me?”

“What do you want?” you beg, hearing Nathaniel move toward you.

There’s a soft hum and you feel lightheaded at the sound. “Your time.”

“My time?”

“Your time in exchange for freedom, little lamb. Better hurry, this offer is about to expire.” 

Nathaniel screams in a rage. Sloshes closer to you. Your heartbeat quickens. You can feel it in your chest, hear it in your ears, your pulse throbbing as he nears. 

“Okay,” you whisper, voice coming out shaky. 

“Then tell me you accept.”

You take a deep breath. “I accept.” 

There’s a brush at the nape of your neck, warm and soft. Though you’ve never been kissed before, you think that it’s the press of lips, intimate and barely there. Something inside you flickers to life, like a new instinct that has opened its eyes for the first time. You’re aware of another presence, a soft buzz that presses down on you as it stands up next to you. 

Thunder rolls and you feel someone brush by you.  A hand touches your cheek almost fondly, fingers dragging along the curve of your jaw. Blinking slowly, you lean into the touch, seeking its comfort. You don’t know who it belongs to. All you know is that just the feel of fingers on your skin has your stomach flipping, your toes curling. 

The hand drops from your face and you immediately miss the contact. Opening your eyes, you see another flash of lightning. There’s someone standing in front of you dressed in black, slick with rain. You can’t make out anything much, just the shape of a man in a dark cloak. 

A god. You know he’s a god, whoever this savior is. You know that something has heard your screams in the dark and has come to give you what you wanted. What you begged for. 

“She is no longer available to you,” the god announces to Nathaniel. It’s not the same whisper as a moment ago, but a deep, raspy voice. Dark. Demanding. “She’s mine.” 

“That’s my betrothed,” Nathaniel answers, though it comes out like a question, his voice trembling. “I– she belongs to-”

“Me,” the dark god assures. A loud clap of thunder makes you flinch. “Goodbye, Nathaniel Laudermill.” 

Nathaniel screams. You don’t know what happens. There’s just his shout of terror in the dark and a roll of thunder that shakes the trees and rattles the earth. You feel the vibration in the water from the unearthly thunder before you realize that this sound, this trembling, is the wrath of a god. 

The sound fades and the shaking stops. You feel more than see the god in front of you turn to face you, a sweeping warmth as he bends down. You cannot make out any features, your vision swimming with bursts of color in the lack of light. 

“You’re with me now,” he assures you. “And you should not be afraid.” 

Gentle hands reach out and cradle your face. You’re suddenly tired, every pain in your body weighing you down like stones, pulling at you until you’re closing your eyes and succumbing to the heavy exhaustion.

The last thing you remember is your whispered name on reverent lips. 

-

You’re dreaming. Your eyes are closed in this dream but you feel light and warm. Fingers brush over your cheek, soft and reverent. You hear a gentle, deep humming, a pleasant melody. It smells like clove and cinnamon, making you drift further into the dream. You lean into the hand cupping your face and hear a deep chuckle before drifting off into nothingness. 

-

The first thing you notice is the smell of clove and cinnamon. It’s a soothing scent that sends your heart fluttering as you roll over. The blankets wrapped around you feel divine, soft with a high loft that feels like you’re wrapped in clouds. The mattress is decadent, sucking you in further as you settle in on your side, inhaling deeply.

Then you remember hands tearing at your legs. Ripping you by the hair. Water filling your lungs and throat. The flash of lightning and the cold rain as you were dragged under a flood again and again. 

With a gasp you sit up in bed, heart hammering. You still as you look around, mouth dropping open at the opulent room. The bed is the largest thing you’ve ever seen, on a low platform swimming with charcoal colored sheets and pillows. The headboard looks like polished obsidian, glinting in the low light provided by dozens of flickering candles.

Stone walls make up the room, rough rock with sconces of flickering flames. The room is sprawling with a sitting area a step down from the bed, decorated with chaise lounges, a coffee table and high-backed chairs situated in front of a fireplace. Flames crackle on a log, orange light dancing across the room. On either side of the fireplace are bookshelves that stretch up to the high ceiling.

Across from the bed are open double doors where you can see a magnificent bathroom. From your vantage point, you can just make out sinks carved from a hewn rock and what looks like a trickling waterfall sluicing down the wall. 

Turning to the left, there is a set of glass doors, a balcony just on the other side. It appears to be nighttime outside, thousands of stars glittering through the glass and the largest moon you’ve ever seen suspended in the sky like a lone coin.

Carefully, you peel back the covers. You’re still in the wedding dress your mother made you. It’s stained and tattered and bloodied, making your stomach flip uncomfortably as you look down on it. Sitting on the edge of the bed, you place your feet on the stone flooring, expecting it to be cold to the touch. 

It isn’t. Warmth radiates from the floor through the soles of your feet, making you sigh, tension bleeding from your shoulders as you close your eyes for a moment. Though the aches and the pains from being scratched and hit and torn down are gone, you wince as you recall them. 

Your parents were going to force you to marry Nathaniel. You don’t know how you missed the signs before, how you thought that there was any other path. With your elbows pressed to your knees, you hang your head in your hands, pressing your eyes shut and taking another shuddering breath.

This time, a sob slips out. Somehow, you had tricked yourself into thinking that your parents would abide by your wishes to make your own choices. Foolish, you realize. Your father had not grown complacent. He had been biding his time, waiting to strike. 

The smallest viper has the greatest sting.

And your mother was going to let him do it. The woman who had brought you into the world screaming and bloody was going to pass you off to a man, even if it meant that man dragged you kicking and screaming to the altar. 

Disgust curls in your stomach and your hands turn into firsts, pressing against your closed lids and making bursts of colors flash in your eyes. Split down the middle, one part of you mourns the loss of the parents you thought that you had. The other is an open wound, festering with a hateful infection at the very thought of them. 

The sound of the door opening catches your attention. Your heart leaps as you sit up straight, dropping your hands into your lap as a man slips through the large double doors near the sitting area. Your breath catches in your chest as he sweeps into the room, looping his hands behind his back as he sets his dark eyes on you and approaches. 

He’s the most beautiful creature you’ve ever seen, you think. Inky hair falls into his enigmatic eyes. His skin is deep gold, a contrast to the all-black blouse that he wears tucked into black pants. You see the open collar of his shirt revealing a patch of tan skin and an elegant throat, but it’s his face that shatters your mind. 

The man - or god, you think - has a square, masculine jaw offset with a delicate mouth the color of rose petals. His nose is straight and wide and would look ridiculous on anyone else. On him, it’s the perfect balance, his cheekbones high and angular, cutting the roundness of his nose. 

“Good to see you’re awake,” he greets. The man stops at the edge of the step that leads to where the bed sits higher than the rest of the room. You stare and stare and stare at him, unable to process words as he grins at you. His voice is dulcet and warm, but not the voice that promised to save you. “How do you feel?”

“I…” you rasp out and you shake your head, unable to think of anything else.

His mouth quirks and he nods. “It sounds like you had a terrible time. How about you take a well-deserved bath and get out of that terrible dress? Sorry to have left you in it, I was under strict instructions not to invade your personal space.”

“Yes, please.” You hesitate. “Where am I? Whose instructions?”

“You’re somewhere safe with someone who wants you to remain safe.” 

“Where is safe?”

He gives you a secretive smile as he nods toward the bathroom before turning on his heel and striding away. On unsteady feet, you follow him. It helps that the floor is warm, giving you the strength you need to make it down the two steps and across the stone toward the bathroom. 

“I don’t think I’m the right person to answer your question,” he admits. “I’m just here to help you get settled. My name is Taehyung, by the way.”

“Taehyung.” You say the word, familiarizing yourself with the shape of it as you enter the room and stop. 

The bathroom is far more luxurious than you realized from afar. There is a waterfall running down the black rockface between two basins, trickling into a little fountain that drains on the floor. To the right side of the bathroom is a large body of steaming water. 

Herbal scents fill the room as you near the edge of the dark surface of the water. It reminds you of hot springs in a cave near the southern villages, a place you’d only heard of but never seen. It’s massive, surrounded by a smooth, stone edge. There is a corner full of what appears to be salts, soaps and herbs alongside flickering candles. 

Opposite the hot spring is a giant glass window that overlooks mountains and lush greenery. From the window, you can see the entire world of wherever you are stretched out in the most dazzling and wonderful display. You can’t help but feel as though you’re somewhere that belongs in the epitome of night.

“How deep is that?” you ask, turning to Taehyung with a wary expression as you gesture to the body of water. 

His expression softens. “Waist high when you stand in the middle. There is a ledge that you can sit on all the way around. It’s incredibly safe and very warm. I can stand just outside the door if anything goes wrong.”

“Okay.” 

Taehyung points to a stack of clothes resting on a stool near a cabinet full of towels and jars of things. “Those are for you to change into. The towels are for you to dry off, of course. Anything in the bathroom is yours to use.” Taehyung must sense your hesitation, because he gives you a soft smile. “You’re safe here. I promise.” 

“I’d feel better if I knew where here was.”

“Bathe. Relax. Then I’ll take you to him.” 

Taehyung does not give you a chance to ask to whom he refers. He strides out of the room and the door swings shut seemingly on its own. You blink a few times at it, standing in the middle of the warm bathroom in a daze.

Spinning, you look around the room and find yourself drawn to the window. Up close, you realize how high up you are. It’s a bit dizzying, and you look  down at the ground only to see that there is a garden bursting with purple and blue, neat rows of flowers that stretch until they meet a line of trees. 

A world of mountains unfolds beyond the window. You’ve never seen mountains but they are larger than you could have ever imagined, snowcaps stark against the night sky. It’s mesmerizing and a little too big, so you turn away from the window and head for the steaming basin of water. 

Peaking over the edge, you can see the bottom. It doesn’t look that deep, but your stomach twists as you pop the buttons on your dress. Your fingers feel stiff and disjointed as you work to undress. You look down at the ripped threads and the dirty fabric and think about how much time your mother spent stitching it.

Suddenly the dress feels suffocating and you pull hard on the garment, popping buttons from the threads and sending them clattering on the floor. You shed the dress and kick it away from you, stripping off your undergarments and lowering yourself to the edge of the water. 

A sigh leaves your mouth as you slide your feet and legs in first. The water is hot, though not scalding like you expected. Closing your eyes, you remain sitting on the edge for a moment, letting your calves soak and muscles unwind, fingers gripping the edge tight. 

Taking a deep breath, you slide forward a little, firmly placing your feet on the ledge Taehyung spoke of. For a moment, your fear spikes. You feel it sharp in your chest and you squeeze your eyes shut, gripping the edge of the basin. With a few deep breaths, you carefully slide down to the ledge proper, sinking in the hot water to the chest. 

“I’m not going to drown,” you whisper to yourself. The words come out shaky and you’re not entirely sure that you believe them. “I’m not going to drown, I am not going to drown, I am not going to drown.”

You repeat the mantra until you believe it, your fingers grasping the edge of the stone seat as you try to relax and melt into the water. It takes a while, but you finally grow too tired of remaining tense, taking a deep breath and gaining the courage to relax. 

Gently, you rest your head against the edge of the basin. Heat seeps into your skin and you feel the anxiety bleed out of you, your tensed muscles unwinding. You hadn’t realized how clenched up you were until you let go, and your body sags a little bit in the water. 

Time slips away. Thankfully, your body doesn’t hurt the way you anticipated that it would. Frowning, you press your fingers into your skin where there should be bruises and pain. There is no evidence on your skin that Nathaniel laid his hands on you the night before - the day before? You’re unsure how much time has passed, only that there is an eerie absence of your wounds.

Turning your head, you look at your dress discarded on the floor. There’s certainly evidence of a struggle spattered all over the fabric, but it makes you wonder if the god who answered your prayers has healed you.

A god. 

The thought comes to you in a snap and you stare down at the water, eyes unfocusing as you try to recall the details of what happened. You remember screaming for help, the sound of your desperation ripping through your mouth. You don’t think you’ve ever screamed like that, terrified and wild. You remember thinking about the gods, begging them to hear you, willing them to listen. 

Water had been filling your lungs. Crushing out air. You remember the rush of the stream around you as it pulled at your fighting body. Nathaniel’s hands gripping you and holding you under viciously, fingers like claws as he tried to drown you. 

Then you surfaced and choked, completely shrouded in darkness…. And you remember that quiet voice made of smoke and shadow. Thinking of it now makes you shiver, despite how hot the water is. The voice had promised you freedom in exchange for time and had taken you to wherever this place was. 

You open your eyes, unsure when you had even closed them. Glancing around the room once more, you decide there is no way that you’re anywhere close to home. You’ve never seen anything like this bathroom before, a feat of what appears to be architecture and maybe magic. 

Soaps and salts line the edges of the bathing pool. When you feel brave enough, you dart across the middle like a minnow, trying not to think about how you nearly crossed death’s bridge in a shallow body of water not long ago. 

Unscrewing lids, you smell each of the glass bottles of liquid, humming in delight. You settle on a hard bar of soap that smells like lavender and mint. It feels good to scrub your skin raw. You imagine that you’re washing away all of the memories of Nathaniel’s fingers on your skin and the scratchy dress your mother made for you.

Fingers and feet pruned and skin feeling stripped of a top layer, you reluctantly exit the bath. The towels are the softest thing you’ve ever felt. You run the fabric between your fingers, tilting your head up at the sky and sighing. Wherever this dark god has taken you doesn’t seem so terrifying, yet it puts you more on edge, these luxuries. 

The clothes Taehyung left out for you fit well enough, though it’s obvious they are not your exact measurements. He’s provided you with soft, black pants and a loose, black tunic with intricate designs that look like clouds on the sleeves and collar. 

You hesitate when you’re ready to leave the bathroom. So far, it seems that whatever bargain you’ve struck with this god has been in your favor. But you know you’ve made a deal in a moment of fear, and you’re not entirely sure what you’ve agreed to.

Time.

Though you’re nervous, you can’t stay hidden in the bathroom forever. Nudging the door open, you peek around the edge, gaze sweeping the room as you look for Taehyung. He’s standing in the sitting area, face toward the flickering fire. He looks both terrifying and beautiful, hands linked behind his back as he watches the flames. 

“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” Taehyung calls without turning around. “I mean it when I tell you that you’re safe.”

Slipping through the door, you walk toward him, regarding him warily. “Still,” you answer. “I don’t know where I am. Are you even human?”

He does look over his shoulder then, flashing you a wicked grin. “I’m not.” 

Taehyung’s answer doesn’t put you at ease, but you’re unsure what to do. Wordlessly, he gestures for you to follow him as he heads through the door and out of the room. For a moment, you hesitate. What would happen if you refused to leave the room? Is your deal with the god already in effect? What are its limitations? 

You can answer none of the questions you have, so you follow Taehyung, hoping to find answers soon. Except as soon as you step out of the room, you think you might have even more questions. 

The halls are dark and lit with flickering torches, casting an orange glow up to the cavernous ceilings. Though you’ve never been in a castle or seen one, you have an idea of how grand they are. There is no doubt in your mind that this is a castle, the halls resplendent and sweeping with artwork and fabric and statues. 

In front of you, Taehyung walks jovially with his hands linked behind his back. He hums a tune you don’t know, but it sounds smooth and warm. You follow behind him, casting your gaze around as you walk, trying to remember which turns you take and what paintings you pass. 

You reach a tall, closed set of wooden double doors. Taehyung raps his fingers against the door, looking over his shoulder at you with an excited grin. Your stomach flips and you wipe your palms against the bottom of your tunic. Your hands feel shaky and you twine them into the fabric, willing them to stop. 

Taehyung must hear someone on the other side of the door, because he opens it and steps in and to the side, gesturing for you to enter. You take a deep breath and walk by him into the room, stopping immediately as you look up, your mouth falling open. 

It’s a library grander than you could ever imagine. Your town had quite a small library at the church that belonged to the high priest, but this is something beyond your wildest dreams. The ceiling stretches higher than your imagination, filled with floating lights and stars - the entire night sky is stretched above you in swirling constellations of purple and blue. 

Three floors make up the library, each lined with books and windows that look out into the evening. You can see sprawling gardens beyond the tinted glass, but it’s the shelves of books that catch your attention. Stepping into the room further, you slowly spin, looking at the sheer amount of volumes that line the walls. There are multiple seating areas with rich, velvet blue armchairs and couches, tables full of books and papers and ink bottles and maps. 

Your throat tightens as you look at Taehyung, your mouth wobbling. The urge to burst into tears has never felt greater than this moment. You never imagined that you could stand in a room with so many books, and the desire to pull one off the shelf and delve in is cut short by the single, glaring fact that you don’t know how to read them. 

Distracted by the books upon entry, it takes you a moment to notice another presence in the room. You feel a tingle at the back of your neck, one that draws your eyes toward a long table near the fireplace. It’s the same feeling you had when you were saved from Nathaniel, an awareness that buzzes along your skin.

A man stands in front of the table, watching you with dark, feline eyes. He’s beautiful. Otherworldly, really. His round features remind you of the moon, but it’s the sharp eyes and the careful pout of his mouth that draws you in. He looks both delicate and dangerous, and you notice the quirk on his lips as he watches you watch him. 

He’s in all black. Black pants tucked into black, knee-high boots, and a black, long-sleeved shirt. There’s a layer of necklaces around his neck and you can see shapes and runes that are unfamiliar to you. The same runes and shapes are on the rings on his long, delicate fingers, folded in front of him. 

This is the face of a god. You know it in the way that there’s something ancient in his eyes and in the way he glows from within. His power is tangible, a crackling energy pressing up against every nerve in your body. 

“How are you feeling?” his voice vibrates right to your core. Soft and dark like you remember it, though a little rougher now. Gravelly. He studies you, unmoving. “Hopefully well-rested?”

“I feel…. Better.” Finding the words is hard in his presence, especially under the scrutiny of his gaze. You want to dart out of the room and hide, but you also don’t want to leave the library without exploring. “I think I should thank you?”

It comes out as a question and he smirks a little. Your stomach flutters at the sight; he raises a brow. “You’re welcome. Are you hungry? You’ve been asleep for nearly a day.”

The door shuts behind you and you startle, whirling around to see that Taehyung has left you. Your nerves fray further and you turn back to look at the god watching you. Behind him on the table, you realize it is a feast of sorts. Roasted meats and poultry, platters of fruit, plates of cheese and neatly arranged crackers, steaming pans of vegetables and things you cannot identify. 

He notices. “You must be starving. Come. Eat.” When you don’t move, he sighs. “I didn’t save you just to harm you.” 

It’s true enough. You carefully approach the table, eyeing him as he unclasps his hands and pulls out a chair for you. When you hesitate, he arches a dark brow again and you feel yourself grow warm in the face, muttering your thanks as you hurry over to the chair and sit down. 

The god’s presence is buzzing. He doesn’t touch you, but it’s like you feel him anyway, just an inch away from you. He helps you slide your chair in and gives a deep, contented sigh before he moves toward the opposite end of the table, taking the dull hum of energy with him. 

Across the table, he sits. His gaze finds yours again as you stare at him, finding it difficult to look anywhere else. Even with the smell of a divine meal, your attention on him is a fixed point. If this bothers him, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he leans back in his seat, casual and confident. 

“Have what you like,” he offers. “I don’t know what you enjoy and I didn’t want to pry.”

The table is full of options. You chew the inside of your cheek. There is glazed duck and roasted ham, creamy looking potatoes and sauced vegetables. Your stomach growls and twists painfully as you stare at your choices. 

“The duck is good,” he offers gently. You glance up. He nods towards the dish in question. “Sorry, it’s probably overwhelming.”

“A little,” you answer, but take him up on his advice and go for the duck. “Where are we?”

“In between.”

You frown as you plate different foods, fingers sticky as you do. You’re hyper-aware of him watching you and you try not to look up, feeling your hands quake as you add roasted veggies to your plate. “What does that mean?”

“Exactly what you think it does. We’re at the in-between of all things. Not a solid place in your sense of understanding. It’s not a physical manifestation of a land mass, but it is a world that contains physical things.” 

“A… dimension?”

“Exactly. This is my domain.”

“And what… are you?”

You look up at him then. His lips twitch at the corners and he tongues the inside of his cheek. “A god. But you already knew that.”

“Wanted to hear you say it.” 

Silence falls between you as you pick up a knife and fork, cutting carefully into your meat. You pop it between your lips, sighing when the duck melts on your tongue with the taste of honey and something else. You sag in the chair, not realizing until now how tense you had been to this point. The food sends a wave of warmth through you and the god watches as you take a few bites, patient as you eat.

“This is fantastic,” you say, glancing at him as you reach for a glass of water. “The flavors are like nothing I’ve ever had.”

“I assure you that all things here are like nothing you’ve ever had.” You hum in agreement, taking another eager bite. You cannot imagine anything in the real world tasting this succulent. You almost wonder if perhaps this is all a dream. “You didn’t pray before you began to eat.”

Your chewing pauses. He’s bemused, giving you a sideways grin with his brows raised. You swallow thickly and say, “Praying never got me anywhere until recently. Why did you help me?”

“Because you asked.”

“You didn’t have to, though.”

It isn’t a question. He answers anyway. “I didn’t.”

“So why did you? The other gods have never helped me.”

“The other gods aren’t me.” His voice is soft and lethal, raising the hair on your arms. “We are not all the same, and you’d do well to not make any further comparisons moving forward.” 

You lower your gaze. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Gods are fickle beings. We are quick to offend and slow to let go. You don’t know any better and are thus forgiven.” 

“What do I call you?”

For a moment, he hesitates. You think he isn’t going to answer just as he says, “Yoongi. You can call me Yoongi.”

“Is that your name?” 

“It’s one of them.” 

“How many names do you have?”

He chuckles. It’s a delightful sound and you smile, watching him lean his head back against his chair, looking up as he shrugs. “How much time do you have?”

Time. 

Suddenly, you remember that you aren’t here on this god - Yoongi’s - good graces. You’re here because you called for someone in a moment of need and he agreed to help you, but at a cost. Your time. He had asked for your time, and a sense of anxiety tiptoes its way up your spine as you think about the ambiguity of his deal. 

Swallowing harshly, you shift back in your seat. The food in your stomach feels a little heavy, far too rich for you to eat more than a few bites. You’ve only ever known your parents’ staples of meat, bread, cheese, and root vegetables. 

“When you saved me,” you begin. “You made a deal with me.”

“I did.”

“My freedom in exchange for my time.”

His eyes are glittering as he watches you, completely still. The fireplace next to you crackles. It makes shadows dance across his face, giving him the appearance of something wild and untamed. Your heartbeat quickens as you watch him, this godly being, as he stares you down. 

“That was the deal,” he finally hums. His head cocks to the side a little. “I don’t usually discuss business over dinner.”

“I’m done eating.”

He huffs but doesn’t seem annoyed. “Perhaps tea, then? It will help settle your stomach.”

You narrow your eyes. “How do you know that my stomach needs settling?” 

“I know a lot of things.” Yoongi rises and gestures to the chairs directly in front of the fireplace. You stand, following his lead. There’s a quiver of energy in the air and you pause, turning to look back at the table to see it’s completely bare, no trace of anything left. You whip around to look at Yoongi as he sits in a wingback chair. “I can do a lot of things.”

A steaming cup of tea sits on a wooden table next to the chair you sink into. The cushions are soft, swallowing you in and making your muscles melt. The cup is warm when you pick it up, steam curling off the surface. Sniffing, your eyes flutter as you inhale the smell of mint. 

“What are you the god of?” You open your eyes and look at him. Both of his feet are planted flat on the floor, his arms resting on the arms of the chair. He looks a little stiff, more so than he did at dinner. Orange firelight reflects in his inky eyes. “You’re a god of the dark.” 

“There’s no such thing,” he scoffs, and you frown. “Your concept of gods is skewed. There is neither good nor evil, light nor dark. There are just gods.” 

“So it doesn’t matter who you pray to?”

“We don’t need your patronage. If we did, we wouldn’t be gods, would we?” You’d never thought of it that way. You sip your tea, letting the warmth and sharp mint bloom in your mouth. “We’re beyond the simple classification that mortals use to understand and organize what they think our intentions are. I have been classed as both good and evil, light and dark, benevolent and malevolent.”

“But surely there are things that are inherently evil, even among the gods.”

“Of course there isn’t. Evil is a point of view. It is a word used to define the feeling one has when the opposite of their desire occurs.” 

“I… guess that makes sense. But isn’t something like murder wrong?”

“Are you not the villain of the duck you ate today?” You blanch. Yoongi looks smug as he gestures vaguely with his hands. “Are you not evil for calling down the wrath of a god on Nathaniel Laudermill?”

“He was going to kill me.”

“You rejected his hand in marriage. You did the opposite of what he desired. I believe in his eyes, you are the evil. Is Death evil for doing what he was made to do?” 

Yoongi’s words make your head spin. You gulp a mouthful of scalding tea before setting it on the table next to you, your mind reeling. The realization that you’re sitting in a library with a starry ceiling arguing over morals and the concept of evil with a god who has saved you from certain death makes you giggle. 

He seems surprised by your sudden outburst, raising his brows as you cover your mouth, your fingers pressed to your lips as you try to contain your sudden mirth. “Sorry. This seems absolutely insane. I’m arguing over the word ‘evil’ with a god in a realm that is everywhere and nowhere at all. It feels like perhaps I’m dreaming.”

“You’re not. Though your dreams are dizzying and far more colorful than anyone else I know. You should be proud of them.” You furrow your brows. How does he know what you dream of? Before you can ask him to clarify, Yoongi says, “You wanted to discuss the deal.”

“Oh. Right. What did you mean by wanting my time in exchange for my freedom?”

“It’s simple. I want you to spend two weeks each month here.” 

Yoongi’s words sink in as you look at the window behind him. Outside, the world is sinking into what you think might be night. The sky is swimming with stars and constellations, stuck in a perpetual twilight of sorts. You’re reminded that somehow, Yoongi is like the moon and the night itself, especially when you find his dark gaze on you as he waits for your response. 

“Why?”

He lifts a shoulder. “I’m often very alone. It would be nice to have some company.” 

“That’s it? You just want me to hang out in exchange for saving me?” He nods. “That seems too easy.” 

His lips curve upward. “Maybe I’m very annoying.” 

For some reason you think it might not be true. You think of all the things that you’ve heard about the gods. Yoongi tells you that everything you know about them is wrong, but you know that the gods of the dark are tricksters. They are experts in the art of luring mortals in, and you wonder if that’s what he’s doing now. 

“Does it have to be consecutive weeks?” you ask, trying to bide time to collect your thoughts and work out his intentions. “Or can it be a collective?”

“Consecutive.” 

“What… what happens when I go home? With my family.”

Yoongi’s face grows stormy. You shift in your seat. “You’re under my protection,” he says after a moment of deliberation. “You’ll bear a mark that protects you. No one will force their will upon you again.”

“Can you?”

He shakes his head, long hair brushing the tops of his shoulders. He looks haunting in the firelight, but beautiful. You avert your gaze, fixating on the books in the room instead. “You have my word, I will never control you. I promised you freedom, that includes me.” 

“But I have to be here. I can’t escape from that. Is that freedom?”

“You made that decision of your own free will. It’s your words that bind you here, not mine. While you’re here, you are able to do whatever it is you desire. In fact, I encourage it.” 

“Wording is really important to you, isn’t it?”

He chuckles and inclines his head, fingers tapping the arm of his chair. “It is. Consider the first day of your deal already spent. You slept most of it off while you healed.” Yoongi stands, drawing your attention to him. “Sleep more,” he insists gently. “Tomorrow, I’ll give you a tour.”

The thought of a tour - and seeing Yoongi for more days - thrills you. Taehyung appears at the doorway as Yoongi escorts you out. He wishes you goodnight and lets Taehyung take you back to your room, though you feel his gaze and presence as you leave. 

It isn’t until you’re back in your room that you realize you never asked Yoongi how long your deal is supposed to last. It occurs to you that while he has given you a sort of freedom, perhaps he has taken something from you after all. 

-

Tall trees surround you. Above them, you can make out a swirling sky of stars and planets and several moons, so bright that it turns the forest a shade of blue. The woods around you are familiar, and there’s a well-walked path just ahead of you that leads to the river by your home. You’ve walked among these trees and creatures hundreds of times, but never with a sky like this.

Crickets chirp as you walk through the woods now. Grass tickles your bare feet, the earth soft and damp beneath you. It smells like fresh rain, but there’s no flood or mud as you navigate by instinct. 

It’s peaceful out here. How many times have you come here to escape your father’s rage? How many times have you sat, back pressed against a tree, watching the light fade from the world until it was too dark to see where you were going? You always managed to get home safely, even with the lack of light. 

The river rushes a few yards ahead. You pick a spot to sit and watch, beneath the cover of leaves. The sound of running water and the smell of rain on the wind lulls you into a trance and you close your eyes, resting for a while. 

Here is where you find peace. Where you dream. 

Awareness creeps up on you and you open your eyes, looking upward as you sense someone approaching. Yoongi stands next to you, onyx eyes gazing at the river. He’s in black clothes like before, his hands tucked into his pockets. You smell clove and cinnamon, making you dizzy. Power radiates off of him but it feels warm and safe. Like the night air itself comes from his existence. 

“Am I dreaming?” you ask him. He looks down at you, an obsidian strand of hair falling in his face. He nods, giving you a gentle smile. “This is often where I go to dream.”

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

Yoongi doesn’t answer you. He looks back to the rushing river, his face becoming unreadable. He looks like he’s somewhere far away, lost in his thoughts. Absently, he says, “Your dreams are my favorite.”

“What do you mean?”

“They are bright, full of life and color and sound. You dream the way people create art, the way people create worlds. It is rare to see such magnificence among the sleeping.” 

“I just…” you shrug. “Think of places I would rather be.” 

Yoongi looks at you then and his face is shadowed, full of thunder. “You’ll never be forced to live that life again.” 

“Do you promise?” 

He opens and closes his mouth, narrowing his eyes a little before shaking his head. You feel a smile tug at your mouth, endeared by his microexpressions. “Yes, little lamb. I promise.”

-

You wake with a start, sitting up in bed and looking around. The room spins as your brain tries to catch up with your body, your physical and mental awareness completely out of sync as you swivel your head, drinking in the unfamiliar room and the soft sheets that smell like clove and cinnamon. 

For a moment, you forget where you are, and adrenaline surges through you. Your fingers twist in the sheets as you ground yourself, memories from the day before slotting into place. Letting out a long exhale, you relax, flopping backward in the opulent bed, your heart rate slowing down as your panic bleeds out of you. 

You’re in Yoongi’s home. In a place that is somewhere in between - whatever that means. The god has told you on multiple occasions that you’re safe and have nothing to fear from him and for some reason…. You believe him. Maybe it’s naive, but you can’t erase the feeling that Yoongi is being honest with you, that he has good intentions. 

Perhaps it’ll get you into trouble one day. For now, you cast off doubt and peel yourself out of bed, trailing to the windowed doors that lead to the balcony beyond. You try the handle and are delighted to find them unlocked. Slipping through the doors, you’re met with warm, balmy air. It smells like petrichor, the breeze kissing your skin gently.

Like before, the world seems wrapped in permanent twilight. There is no sun in the sky, but a vast stretch of swimming stars and the largest moon you’ve ever seen. In the distance, dark mountains loom over you, their peaks capped in snow and wreathed in mist. 

Forest stretches out toward them in a vibrant shade of green. There’s a settee on the balcony along with a table and chairs. Leaning on the stone railing, you look down to see colorful gardens and a large pond full of vibrant fish.

All of the radiance makes you smile. You’ve never seen colors so rich, and you’re unable to recall if your world was this vibrant. The garden below is bursting with violet and cerulean, the flowers unfamiliar to you. Their fragrant smell wafts up to the balcony, a hint of sweetness in the air. 

A roll of thunder catches your attention. You look to the east, noticing that one of the mountains in the distance is darker than the others. Lightning crackles in the sky around it and the mist is heavier there. You think the trees are darker too, though you can’t tell if they’re gray or if it’s the shade from the swollen thunderheads drifting over them. 

Behind you, the door to the balcony opens and startles you. Whirling around, you find Taehyung leaning against the frame, mouth curved upwards in a sideways grin. “When you didn’t answer the door I got worried.”

“I thought I was safe here? What is there to be worried about?”

He shrugs. “Maybe you took a dive off of the balcony.”

“What is that place?” you point to the thundering, shrouded mountain. Taehyung looks where you point, his smile dropping as he stares at the looming peak. “By the look on your face, somewhere bad.”

“Bad is a relative term.” 

You scrunch your nose. “You sound like Yoongi.”

“Already familiar, are we? Cute.” He pushes off the door frame and beckons you inside. “Ask Yoongi about it on your tour.”

“Are you not coming along?”

“I have things to do.”

“Like what?”

“Not give tours.”

If it weren’t for Taehyung’s playful tone and glint in his eye when he casts you a glance, you’d think you were bothering him. Instead of getting angry, he drapes himself on one of the couches by the fireplace, long legs dangling off the arm as he lounges.

Today, he’s in charcoal colored pants and a red, billowing shirt that shows off the smooth, tan skin of his chest. A dangling earring catches your attention as he leans his head back, silky hair shifting. If Yoongi is made of moonlight, you think that Taehyung might be made of sunlight: golden skin, warm energy. 

“By all means,” you mutter. “Hang out.” 

“This is my home first, human. I shall do as I please.”

You make a sound at the back of your throat and roll your eyes, walking toward a large, polished wardrobe made from dark wood. It smells like fresh cedar when you pull on the brass handle, opening the door to reveal tunics and dresses, all hung neatly. 

Rich silks, velvets and cottons greet you. You run your hand over the materials, amazed at how soft they feel. They are far better quality than your mother ever had access to. Your heart squeezes when you think of her, and you shake your head a little as if to physically dispel thoughts of your family out of your mind.

Facing them seems like an impossible task. You know that you’ll have to eventually. Two weeks with Yoongi in this strange world seems like a long time, but you’re not sure if it’s nearly long enough to mentally prepare to go back and face them after what’s happened. Will they still be angry? What will they say? Will they have been worried about you all this time?

There’s no way to know the answer. So instead, you pretend none of that exists. For once, you have stumbled into a dream and adventure like you’ve always wanted, and you intend on playing the part. 

An emerald shirt catches your eye. It’s made of a silky material, supple when you rub the sleeve between your fingers. It’s plain, save for the laced string at the throat to cinch and tie it off. You grab a pair of black, cotton pants as well, the fabric just as soft as the sheets in your bed. 

With Taehyung humming on the couch, you let yourself into the bathroom to change. You appreciate that the floor is warm wherever you go barefoot, and you quickly slide out of your clothes from the previous day and into the new ones. The measurements are a little off, but more than manageable as you pull the tie closed at your throat. Glancing into the mirror, you can’t help but smile a little.

You look so different. The shirt belongs to someone adventurous, you think. Perhaps a pirate or a huntress riding atop her horse through the woods. You slide your fingers along the material, its softness inviting and magical. 

Two weeks. You’ll be here for two weeks with Yoongi, a god who has been alive for hundreds of years, if your conversation from the night before was anything to go off of. It feels surreal and you’re a little nervous, but more than that, you’re excited.

Suddenly, the world is full of possibilities. No marriage to tie you down, no power held in your parents’ hands. 

 “Gods you’re slow to get dressed,” Taehyung announces when you enter the room. He sits up, appraising your outfit. “Green looks good on you.”

“How many are there?” he cocks his head at your question, peeling himself from the seat. “Gods and goddesses, I mean.”

“Pfft. Hundreds.”

“Hundreds?” 

“Maybe thousands, I don’t really know. There’s basically an infinite amount of universes. All anyone mostly cares about are the Eternals, the gods who remain the same no matter what name or history mortals assign to them.”

“Eternals?”

“Mhmm.” Taehyung leads you into the hallway. His hands are tucked into his pockets as he strolls leisurely. You follow beside him eagerly, looking up as he seems thoughtful. “Gods are hard to define. They are great beings with massive power. Some gods do the same thing, some don’t. They come from the infinite amount of worlds to which they are native, and somehow make it into mortal history. But the Eternals have always been here, always known. They do not change.”

“Who are the Eternals?”

“Life, death, chaos, time, pathos, dream and fate.” He makes a face then. “Fate and chaos are hard. They work in direct opposition to one another. It drives time insane, naturally.”

Seven Eternals. It makes sense, from a logical standpoint. Every world must have life and death and the passing of time. Where there exists a living thing, there exists a vessel of emotion and dreams. In all worlds there is the potential for chaos disrupting fate. 

“Yoongi is an Eternal?”

Taehyung glances sidelong at you, smug. “Yes, Yoongi is an Eternal.”

“Why do you look at me like that when I say his name?” Taehyung doesn’t answer, instead smirking as if he’s enjoying a private joke. Your fists close and open as you swallow down a demand to tell you what he finds so amusing. “Which one is he?”

“Have you no guesses?”

That makes you think. Recalling the night before, you remember the way Yoongi looks: dark eyes swimming with something magical, a soft and raspy voice, the way he appeared in your dreams. 

Though your dreams are mesmerizing and far more colorful than anyone else I know. You recall what he said about your dreams, the way he leveled his gaze at you, full of meaning that you didn’t understand. 

“Dreams,” you say, certain that you're right. “He’s the Eternal of Dreams?”

“He isn’t of dreams. He is Dream.”

You’re unable to clarify Taehyung’s emphasis on Yoongi being a deity of dreams as he opens the door to the same library as before. This time, he doesn’t knock. When you step inside, you realize it’s because the room is empty. Yoongi is nowhere to be seen, though pale light filters in through the windows. It’s still forever twilight outside, yet a little lighter. It feels like morning, even if it does not entirely appear to be morning. 

Behind you, the door shuts. You turn to see Taehyung has left without another word, leaving you entirely alone in the captivating space. 

Without hesitation, you walk to the nearest shelf housing rows and rows of books. The spines range from muted browns and neutrals to bright reds and rich blues. Velvet books, leather books, canvas, silk. There is no shortage of materials making up each one, letters painted, printed or stitched down the back of them to denote what they are. 

Each one breathes a world of possibility as you drag your finger along the shape of them. You wonder how many worlds and histories are scribbled away in the pages of this room, the very idea of it overwhelming. 

Trinkets and objects you’re unfamiliar with line the shelves as well. Your fingers trace their shape and you wonder what they are. One object in particular catches your eye in the corner of the room. It stands on three metal legs and has large, interlocking rings that spin lazily in some unknown pattern. The rings are hammered metal and appear to have markings engraved on them.

The device slowly spins of its own accord. Upon inspection, there seems to be nothing else responsible for its motion except magic or science that is beyond you. You can see that there are seven metal rings and different markings on each of them, but you cannot guess what the engravings read. 

“It represents the balance of the Eternals. Taehyung mentioned you had a vague starting point as to what I am.”

Yoongi’s deep voice makes you leap and screech, spinning on your heels to face him. Your hand flies to your chest and you can feel your heartbeat rattling wildly. Yoongi stands a few feet away from you, hands linked behind his back and eyebrows raised at your reaction. 

He’s dressed similar to the night before, though a little more casual. His black pants are tucked into knee high boots, and his black shirt is loose fitted with silver stitching around the collar. You notice that it’s in patterns of stars and moons, furthering your confirmation that Yoongi is associated with dreams in some manner. 

Yoongi’s long hair is pulled half out of his face today, tied away in a bun. The rest of his hair brushes the tops of his shoulders as his inky eyes regard you patiently. His curiosity makes you feel warm all over and you drop your hands to your sides, fingers twitching. 

“How so?” you ask. You turn back to the device. “What does it run on?”

“Our energy. Each ring represents a member of my family. The speed at which they turn represents the balance among us. When the speed is off, the balance is off.”

“What causes the balance to be off?” 

Yoongi steps closer to you. You hold your breath as he does it, but you can feel his presence like a buzzing vibration at the back of your neck.

His voice is softer when he answers, “A number of things. Sometimes some of us aren’t always performing the way we should be. Other times, we’re overperforming. Or fighting, really, as siblings are wont to do.”

“I don’t know what that’s like.”

“You’re not missing much. Especially when your siblings are as ancient and never ending as you are.” 

“How… old are you?”

You look at Yoongi to see he’s standing next to you now. He looks at you, face impassive as he lifts a shoulder. “How old is the earth? How old is existence? It’s hard to say.” 

“Where do you come from?”

“Chaos was first. Life and Death were next, twins born of the sudden whims of Chaos. I was next, for Life often dreamed. Time was always there, though no one knows if Time or Chaos came first. Pathos and Fate came later.”

You nod, though you don’t fully understand the scope of how old and fathomless the existence of things like chaos and time and dreams are. It makes your head spin, trying to conceptualize the thing next to you who looks very much like an ordinary man being something so ancient and primordial that he precedes human existence entirely. 

“You’re overwhelmed,” he notes, a bit of amusement in his voice. “I don’t blame you. The best way to understand it is that I am a living concept that can never be destroyed, so long as there exists something to dream about.” 

Crossing his arms in front of him, Yoongi clasps his hands and gives you a slight smile. He has a pretty smile, you realize. Delicate and almost shy. It makes your heart flutter and you mentally chastise yourself for thinking that a being of eternal dreams can possibly be shy. 

“How about a tour? Our deal is that you’ll spend two weeks a month here. I’d love for you to feel like this is a place you can be familiar with, if not something akin to a home.”

“Home?”

His smile grows. “If that word ever seems fitting, sure.”

Home. The word makes you think about what home means to you and suddenly you feel a pit form in the bottom of your stomach. Flashes of a flooded forest, lighting lancing across the sky, hands gripping you tight and shoving you under the water. 

“Um,” you clear your throat. “So a tour.”

Yoongi’s eyes glitter as he grins and turns, using a hand to gesture to the wide library. “This is the main library, but we’ll end our tour here. Let’s go through the gardens first, it’s nice weather.”

Yoongi starts without you, leaving you to stand staring after him as he goes. His gait is smooth and confident. He presses on a pane of glass that you realize is a door. A breeze teases the loose pieces of his hair, carrying the familiar scent of clove and cinnamon toward you. 

For a moment, you stare after him. Yoongi being a deity of dreams makes so much sense in this moment, stepping into the twilight, face tilted upward slightly as though he’s soaking up the sun. He looks radiant. Tranquil. When he turns to look at you expectantly, his rose pink mouth quirks sideways. 

“Right,” you say, hurrying to follow him. “Outside is where we start.” 

When you pass him, you get the sense that Yoongi wants to tease you further. Instead, he says nothing and leads you into the gardens. A cobblestone path leads from the door through wisteria trees, their amethyst leaves swooping down and filling the air with sweet fragrance. 

Up above, the sky is a mix of blue and purple, thousands of stars twinkling. There is a stone bench near one of the windows of the library, but Yoongi leads you away from the palace and down the path under the trees. The air is crisp and pleasant, cooling your anxious, sweat-slick skin. 

Yoongi links his hands behind his back. “This is the library garden,” he informs you, glancing at you from the corner of his eye. “It’s mostly wisteria trees, which are my favorite to walk through when I need to think.”

“They’re unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

“Much different from the woods outside of your home.”

“You know the woods outside of my home?”

“You called me there, remember?” You blanch at the memory, but if he notices, Yoongi says nothing. “Besides, I’m familiar with the woods that surround your home. Your village pays homage to my brother.”

“Your brother?”

He hums. “Life. Perhaps they don’t know that it’s him they pray to, but they do.”

Taking a left, Yoongi leads you on a looping path through the massive wisteria trees. They’re larger than anything you’ve ever seen, their bows sweeping monoliths of purple, trunks thick as boulders. A strange creature sits on the branches of one of the trees, making you stop and stare. 

A tiny, carnelian creature sits on a bough, bright against the lavender background of the leaves. It has four legs and scaled feet, sharp talons cutting into the bark as it keeps its balance in the tree. Small wings are folded on its back, bony limbs with paper-thin skin between them, a lighter red than the rest of its body. A long tail snakes around the branch, holding the creature in place as its long neck extends, head tilting to look at you curiously.

“Is that a dragon?” you whisper, staring at it.

You’ve only heard them described in stories, but you don’t really know what they look like. It has scales like a lizard and it blinks two large eyes at you, entirely black. There are small horns on its head, and a forked tongue snakes out as it tastes the air. 

“She’s a fey dragon,” Yoongi hums, looking up at the creature with a smile. “And she’s not supposed to be in the trees here, are you?”

A puff of smoke curls from the dragon’s nose as it huffs, making you take a step backward. Yoongi lets out a deep laugh that makes a tingle rattle down your spine and your toes curl. The sound is like smoke and velvet, heady in the air. 

“She won’t hurt you,” Yoongi assures, shaking his head to continue walking under the dragon’s branch. “She’s a pesky little thing, but she is incredibly sweet. Fey dragons are much smaller than their firedrake cousins and less dangerous than their basilisk relatives.”

With your eyes cast upward, you hurry after Yoongi, keeping your gaze on the large lizard as you run under the branch. Her dark eyes follow you, unblinking and fathomless. The hair on your arms stands up and you can’t help but feel that despite the dragon being small and what Yoongi calls harmless, it is incredibly intelligent. 

“There are dragons here?” 

“There is everything here.”

You frown, finally turning away from the dragon as you leave it behind. “That’s confusing. Everything as in…?”

“When you dream, you have limitless potential. You can go anywhere, be anything, see any creature. Dreams even invent things that do not exist in the natural world. Creatures, stories, songs, words, plants. The possibility for creation in a dream is limitless, and this place is the essence of dreams. It is me.”

“So you are this place and the place is you?”

He seems thoughtful before nodding. “More or less. This is a dream realm as much as it is a collection of ideas, thoughts and hopes. Everything that every living creature has ever dreamed about walks these lands.”

“Even nightmares?”

Yoongi pulls up short and whips his head at you. You bite the inside of your cheek, unable to meet his eyes under his severe expression. In the distance, you swear you hear thunder. An apology springs to your lips, but before you can give it, Yoongi nods sharply once and begins walking again.

“Nightmares too. Do not speak of nightmares here, lest they come searching.”

You think about Taehyung telling you that you were safe but being concerned when you didn’t answer the door earlier that morning. A chill seeps into your bones as you rejoin Yoongi on your walk, his pace not as relaxed now. 

“They come searching?” you try, a little curious, a little afraid. 

“Yes. They are different from dreams. Unpredictable in a way I admire and dislike.” He glances sidelong at you. “They have a mind of their own. You are safe with me always, but it’s best practice to not think of them while you’re here. This world has a way of manifesting.”

For a few moments, you walk in silence. You let your questions fall silent as you look around. The two of you exit the wisteria trees to see a large pond. A single, massive wisteria sits on its western edge with a bench underneath it. 

The surface of the pond is dark and smooth, reflecting the swirling stars in the sky. Yoongi leads you around the mirror surface and points out the mountains in the distance that you could see from your windows. 

“Mountains of Sleep,” he tells you. “It is where all beings who are ready for their eternal rest come to dream for the remainder of their existence. They are also called the Mountains of Divinity, for there are hundreds of divine immortals among their peaks.”

“Really?”

He nods. “Not all beings rest here. Some prefer their own planes and resting grounds. But this existed before those places, and has long been used for the tired and the weary who are ready to retire.”

“Are they dead?”

“No. The dead cannot come here.” He hesitates. “When they do, it is because they are not a dream.”

You get the sense that Yoongi is talking about nightmares again and you shiver as he takes you around the pond. “Don’t let anything in that body of water convince you to go swimming. They won’t intentionally hurt you but they don’t understand the concept of human life.”

“They?”

“They don’t have a name. They are water-folk who were dreamt up by someone once. I admire them and they’re beautiful and wicked smart, but they’re a bit cheeky.”

“I’m starting not to feel as safe as you said I was.”

Yoongi stops and frowns. He lifts a hand as though he’s about to touch your arm before he thinks better of it and drops it at his side. You realize you’re disappointed that he did before mentally kicking yourself, feeling a little ashamed to be so affected by a god. You’re sure Yoongi gets it often, but it makes you feel silly nonetheless. 

“You are safe.” He lowers his head a little, catching your gaze. Though his eyes are midnight black, you swear you see the stars above reflected in their dark pools. “But there are rules everywhere. This place has them just the same as your home did. You were relatively safe there, but there were rules.”

“And then I broke them and Nathaniel tried to murder me.”

“Nathaniel was dealt with and will never touch you again.” Thunder rolls in the distance and your heart flutters at the vehemence with which Yoongi says this. “The misdeeds of your family cannot chase you here.”

You don’t press Yoongi on the matter. Instead, you let him proceed with the tour, keeping your questions to a minimum as you wonder what Yoongi meant by Nathaniel being dealt with. You recall the soft, susurrated voice against your ear when Yoongi found you. The gentle brush of something like a kiss to your neck. The rage and power as he stepped in front of you to face Nathaniel when the deal was done.

It does not require much to make an assumption about Yoongi’s meaning. 

The yards of his palace are sprawling and full of color. Gardens with flowers he doesn’t know the name of but said a little girl had dreamed them and he liked them so he made more. Butterflies with colors you didn’t know existed flitting from plant to plant. Fruit orchards with the ripest, reddest apples you’ve ever seen. 

And the palace. It is the only word you have for it. The building is several stories tall, hewn from dark stone with at least five different towers. Starlight glitters in the windows as Yoongi guides you up the stairs toward the massive double doors that lead to the main entrance of the castle. On the door handle are two wrought-iron griffons with proud faces. 

Without a touch, the doors open on Yoongi’s arrival. You wonder if the building responds to his presence as the door swings open for the two of you. Inside, the foyer is as magnificent as the library, a lush purple carpet rolling over stone floors. 

In the center of the room is a massive spiral staircase. Looking up, you see that it goes all the way up the floors of the palace, dizzying circles of floor after floor. Yoongi explains there are other ways to go all the way up to the top throughout the castle but this is the easiest way, though he assures you that by the third floor you’d be out of breath. 

Each room Yoongi shows you is opulent and warm. Rich, deep wooden furniture, paintings with dark splashes of amethyst, scarlet and gold. Rooms for tea, rooms for painting, rooms for music, rooms for dancing. Yoongi has a room for everything, sometimes occupied by strange little creatures that hide when you walk in or curious things that lift their heads when they see him. 

No one else besides Taehyung seems to be there, though. You come across felines, little balls of light that bounce around Yoongi excitedly and light him up like a burst of flame, a little furry thing that you think is a fox but in a shade of shocking sapphire, and a massive wolf with eyes like ice that blink apathetically at you as you walk by. But never once do you see another person. Even Taehyung seems to be amiss. 

“Does no one else live here?” Yoongi takes you through another room empty of people and things. “It’s so empty.” 

He takes his time to answer as you leave the room and move into the hallway. It’s hard to tell which way you’re going, but you think that you’re headed toward the library again. Your legs ache from going up and down the stairs on an endless tour of rooms, and you’re eager to be in the library once more. 

“There used to be,” Yoongi says slowly. “But people don’t tend to do well in places that they don’t belong.”

“So you’re all alone here?”

His smile is sad. “I have Taehyung.” He pauses before he adds, “And now you.”

I’m often very alone. It would be nice to have some company. You think of Yoongi’s words from the night before and suddenly you’re filled with sadness. Sadness for this ancient being, who seems so gentle and quiet. Who lives alone in this giant castle with all of the world’s dreams around him and no one to share them with. 

Swallowing thickly, you nod. “How do you know I belong?”

“Pardon?”

“Do I? Belong, I mean. You wouldn’t… have me here if I wouldn’t do well, right?”

“No one dreams the way you do.” He says this firmly. Confident. Fierce. “I believe there is nothing you wouldn’t be able to find here.”

“Do you always know what I dream about?” 

“No. But you dream… loudly. Colorfully. Sometimes it’s hard to ignore. I don’t like to pry, though.” 

“Can you see everyone’s dreams?”

“Mhmm. I even make some.”

This catches your attention and you reach out and grab his wrist, stopping him. He glances down where your fingers touch his skin, your fingers buzzing where you’re connected. You flush with warmth and drop your hand, clearing your throat at how forward grabbing him was. 

Yoongi is smirking when you ask, “Can you show me?”

“One day, yes. For now, the end of the tour and lunch.”

At the mention of lunch, your stomach rumbles. His grin spreads into a full smile and Yoongi leads you back to the library. Again, the doors open without his touch and as you pass them, you study them for any sign of an auto-opening mechanism but find none. 

Yoongi’s magic appears limitless. You remember the food disappearing from dinner, the swell of power as Yoongi agreed to save you, and his sudden appearance as you were drowning. You know nothing about the god of dreams or what he’s capable of, but you’re awed at how easy it comes to him. 

“This is the main library.” Yoongi turns around to face you, sweeping his arms out on either side of him. “There are two others: one in my room and one located in the dream tower.”

“You didn’t show me the dream tower.”

“I’ll show you when you’re ready.” 

Unsure what ready means to Yoongi, you look around the library. Same as the night before, the shelves are crammed full of books and scrolls, so much paper and ink that it makes you lightheaded with excitement. It still smells of lemon and wax, though as you pass Yoongi to go to a shelf, you’re overcome with clove and cinnamon again. 

Trying to ignore the shiver that merely walking by Yoongi gives you, you brush the spines of books once again, feeling their potential under your fingertips. 

“You always have access to this library. You can read what you like.”

A pang goes through you and you drop your hand. Without looking at him, you mumble, “Thank you, but I can’t read.”

No response comes. You stare unseeing at the books before taking a breath to turn your head and steal a glance at Yoongi. You expect some sort of amusement or perhaps pity, but his face is unreadable, jaw working.

“That’s okay,” he finally says. “We will teach you. After lunch we will make a schedule to help fill your time here. Reading and writing lessons will be a part of that.”

Your heartbeat quickens. “Do you mean that?”

“Do you want to learn?” You nod your head eagerly. He grins gently. “Then we will teach you.” 

-

Yoongi’s eyes are dark as he presses forward. Your breath catches in your chest as you lay back, looking up at him with your lips parted, heart hammering in your chest. He settles his waist against you, the weight of him pressing you into your bed as you lay back. 

He is so beautiful that it puts you in a daze, staring up into his face as he leans over you. His hair is pulled back, but a few dark strands hang loose. His mouth is stained red with wine, making you want to lean forward and taste his lips and feel their softness. 

Tentatively, you reach a hand up and brush the loose strands of hair out of his face, tucking them behind his ear. You don’t stop touching him, though, hand cradling his flushed face. His eyes flutter shut and he leans into your palm as you cup his cheek, thumb sweeping back and forth. 

“Is this what you dream of?” he whispers, eyes remaining closed. “Being under me, like this?”

Dreaming. You realize you’re dreaming. You jolt and suddenly, you’re alone. 

-

“Your handwriting is terrible,” Taehyung admits, looming over your shoulder. You grip the quill tighter, nearly snapping it in two. “But you learn unbelievably fast. How many of these letters do you think you have consistently memorized?” 

Taehyung is in charge of your writing lessons today and you already want to kill him. It’s been five days of your new residency in the House of Dreams, as Yoongi calls it, and you’ve quickly learned that Taehyung is equally charming and playful as he is outright vexing. 

Instead of turning to give him a very harsh poke in the arm with your quill, you scan the shapes in front of you. There are twenty-six of them, all awkwardly slanted and misshapen where you’ve used too much ink or not enough. Using a quill and ink feels alien to your hand and your fingers struggle to remember the proper way to hold it as you draw your letters. 

“I think most of them,” you answer slowly, mentally sounding out each word on the page in your head as you go. “But there are a few of them that confuse me. The lowercase ‘d’ and ‘b’ I find nearly impossible to recall and ‘v’ and ‘u’ are rather frustrating.” 

“Whenever you see a ‘u’, think of it as having a scoop. Sc-uuup.” Taehyung points to a ‘u’ on the page and mimics the scooping motion. “Might be easier to associate the sound scoop with ‘u’ even though the word itself doesn’t have a ‘u’.” 

The desperate look you give him makes him laugh as you struggle to imagine why a word with a ‘u’ sound doesn’t actually contain the letters. You’re saved from Taehyung’s maddening - but helpful - instruction as Yoongi walks into the library. 

“You’d better not be laughing at her again.” 

Taehyung steps away from you and bows his head toward Yoongi. “I’m laughing with her. We’re just sharing amusement over the hypocrisy of letters.”  

“Yeah,” you deadpan. “It’s hilarious.”

Today, Yoongi is in a deep, amethyst colored shirt. It’s laced at the throat with the familiar moon and stars that he has stitched on much of his clothing, and his hair down and long, slicked back and tucked behind his ears. As always, he’s in dark pants and boots today, the sound of them clicking on the stone floor as he nudges Taehyung out of the way to peer over your shoulder. 

You tense. Being around Yoongi for the last five days has been intoxicating. It is bad enough that you get distracted during your lessons by the way his voice rumbles when he speaks and the way he chews his lips when working on his own things while you study. It’s worse that now he invades your dreams, whispering in your ear and hands wandering over your curves, sinful mouth brushing over your skin and leaving you to jolt awake in bed covered in sweat.

The very idea that Yoongi knows what you're dreaming of drives you to the edge of insanity. He’d promised he preferred to avoid your dreams, but you wonder if he knows. Knows that you have developed an insatiable habit of fantasizing about his hands, or about the tone of his voice. 

Gripping your quill tight, you hold your breath when he leans over you. He’s not touching you, but he’s close enough that you feel the heat of him and smell him, cinnamon and clove making your eyes flutter. If you didn’t know he was the god of dreams, you’d mistake him for the god of lust, if that was a thing.

“Why aren’t you breathing?” You peer upward to see Yoongi looking down at you. If you tilted your head back just a fraction more, you’d be pressed against his chest. Even from upside down, his moon-pale face and cosmos eyes make you want to scream. “Are you alright?”

“Nervous that I’m not performing well.”

His face softens. “You’re a quick learner. Don’t worry about progress and pace.”

“But what if I lose it when I go h- back.” 

Home. That’s what you were going to say. But the idea of home is terrifying. You don’t know what waits for you when you go back. You don’t know what splitting time between two worlds means. You don’t know what you’ll do when you have to spend two weeks there before coming back to Yoongi. 

Five days in Yoongi’s realm has been enough to make you feel like this has always been your life. You fit into the daily routines of Yoongi and Taehyung better than you imagined, and though you still sometimes get lost in the House of Dreams, you discover that you’re adapting. 

There’s always something new to discover, an adventure around the corner. You like learning your letters and the sounds that they make. You love studying the maps in the library and tracing the distances between countries you can’t name and have no idea where they are. 

Most of all, you love exploring. Rooms upon rooms of objects both normal and magical. Creatures that roam freely around the palace - including a clever little fox that has taken interest in following you around as you take breaks from studying by walking around the grounds. 

While Yoongi’s home doesn’t feel like it belongs to you, you’re more afraid to go back to your mother and father than you are to go near the pond at the edge of the wisteria garden. 

So you avoid thinking of going back.

“You’ll practice while you’re there,” Yoongi says, as though it’s the easiest answer in the world. “You have to practice every day.”

“My father won’t- he doesn’t…” You shake your head, unable to get the words out. That your father would strike you to the ground if he found you with books again. “I can’t bring anything back with me.”

“Sure you can.” You glance at him to find his expression is firm. “I told you, you’re under my protection. Things will be very different for you when you go back.”

“How?”

“It’s… difficult to say.” 

Yoongi offers nothing else. You become hyper aware of how close he’s standing to you again and you look down at your letter practicing. With a shaky hand, you dip the quill into the ink, lifting it from the inkwell and letting the excess drip before bringing it over to the paper. 

When Yoongi makes no move to leave, you inhale deeply to steel your nerves and continue tracing. He’s content to watch you as you work. If he knows how distracted this makes you, he doesn’t let on. Perhaps he has no idea that as you scrawl a shaky letter ‘k’, it’s Yoongi who consumes your thoughts. 

Even in your waking hours it seems you’re not rid of him. 

Most of your study sessions are like this, Yoongi watching you so closely that it makes your quill bleed too much ink. He is a passive teacher, letting you come to him with questions instead of correcting you constantly like Taehyung does. Even now, when you hesitate on the next letter of the alphabet, Yoongi doesn’t offer his help. Lets you figure it out. 

You dip the quill in ink and continue. 

After you finish the last shaky letter, you set the quill down, flexing your fingers open and closed. Yoongi makes a satisfied noise and steps away. You turn to see him walking toward the table by the fireplace, which is where you have started to take all your meals. Already, there are platters of food and drinks. Taehyung sits in a chair, plucking a grape from a plate and popping it in his mouth.

“I didn’t invite you,” Yoongi grumbles as he takes a seat at the head of the table. You push yourself up from your chair, legs aching from sitting so long. “Who said you can eat my grapes?”

“Ugh, I’m tired of eating alone.” 

“Let him stay, Yoongi.” The god looks at you with a glower, bottom lip jutted out slightly. It’s so cute that you can’t help but burst into laughter, hand flying to your mouth. “Sorry, I think you just pouted.” 

“He did.” Taehyung grins and leans back in his chair. “He wants you to himself.”

Yoongi hisses Taehyung’s name, shutting down the teasing immediately. You glance at Yoongi shyly as you sit down but he doesn’t meet your eyes, choosing to laden his plate with food instead. You can’t imagine why Yoongi would want you to himself, especially when all you do is ply him with questions. 

Still, a little bit of a thrill goes through you as you start loading your plate, your gaze drifting toward the deity again as he bites into a strawberry, the juice running down his chin. Your eyes track the movement as his tongue darts out, catching the drip before it escapes too far. 

Yoongi’s mouth is hypnotizing and it takes you a moment too long to realize he’s watching you stare at him. Quickly, you grab a cup and bring water to your lips, gulping the cool water and glancing up at the ceiling, feeling embarrassment bloom like warm liquid through you. 

When you put the cup down, you swear you see Yoongi smiling. 

-

Hungry lips suck at the tender flesh of your neck. You gasp, feeling your toes curl in pleasure, head spinning. Yoongi’s teeth scrape against the sensitive skin, the drag of his rough tongue soothing over the bites driving you mad. You let out a soft moan, eyes squeezing shut as you writhe under him. 

Yoongi’s large hands pin yours above your head, your fingers tangling in the sheets as he continues to ravish your neck with his hot mouth, tongue and teeth. His hips roll over you and you whine, feeling his hard-on pressing against you. 

Your parents would kill you if they knew you were here like this, trapped under a god of the dark as he sucks on your pulse point, mouth moving upward to nip your ear. Your chest is heaving and you can’t get enough breath, overwhelmed by the scent of cinnamon and clove, by the way his mouth pulls sounds from you so easily. 

Yoongi tears his lips away and looks down at you, eyes so dark and blown out that you think he might devour you, swallow you whole in one bite - 

“You’re dreaming of me again,” he whispers. “I don’t know if you mean to be dreaming of me, like this.” 

You startle, realizing this isn’t real, and the illusion fades. 

-

Twilight skies stretch above you. It’s warm outside, but the night air is cool against your skin, making you shiver as you sit down, folding your legs criss-cross. 

“Are you cold?” Yoongi asks, sitting down on the soft grass next to you. You shake your head, eyes fixed on the low table in front of you that's filled with platters of meats, cheeses and crackers. You eye a glass bottle of red liquid that you think is wine, mouth watering. “Are you sure?”

“Promise, the wind feels nice.” 

He looks doubtful as he sits down next to you, a healthy amount of space between you. 

Tonight, Yoongi has insisted on a late night snack outside under the stars. He seems eager, verging on giddy as he glances up at the sky before reaching for the bottle of red liquid and popping the cork. 

After nearly two weeks in the House of Dreams, you’ve learned that this world is forever twilight, lit up by dreams. Here, day and night don’t exist in their truest forms. There are always millions of people and creatures dreaming at every moment of existence, not limiting Yoongi’s world and power to times of day and night. 

The twilight is beautiful. You’ve grown accustomed to the purple tint to the world, the way that it gets just the barest bit darker outside during certain periods, as though even in a world where night and day don’t exist, there are still two separate halves of time. 

Yoongi passes you a glass. You bring it to your nose and sniff, delighted at the scent of cherries and something else. It’s certainly wine, though you wait for him to pour himself a glass to sip any. 

Earrings dangle in Yoongi’s ears tonight. Each lobe has a small, thin chain with a moon charm on the end that’s studded with sapphires, catching the moonlight as he sets down the bottle and sits back. His hair is pulled half-up, half-down again, leaving his full face in view as he looks at you and gives you a gummy grin that scatters your thoughts. 

“Chaos is moving through the sky tonight,” Yoongi informs you, glancing upward. “When she does, she’s beautiful to see. She doesn’t do it that often, but she’s passing us by on her way to do whatever it is she does somewhere. I wanted you to see.” 

He holds out his drink and you grip yours tight, raising your glass to clink with his like you’ve seen people do at the inn in your village. He turns away from you, bringing his wine to his lips to sip. You follow suit, tentatively tilting your glass.

Sweet cherries bloom on your tongue and you hum in delight. It isn’t just cherries you taste, though. There’s a lush sweetness too, edged with spice, filling your mouth with warmth. You look at Yoongi as you sip and see him watching with a closed-lipped smile, eyes searching your face.

“You like it?” 

You nod and set the glass down. “It’s delicious.” 

“You like sweet things.” 

“And you like salty.” He raises a brow in question. “You’re always going for the salted meats at dinner. And you have salted pork right there,” you point to the meat and cheeseboards. “Do gods get dehydrated?”

“We do not. I didn’t realize you were paying so much attention.” You shrug, picking up your wine to take small sips again. “Anything else you’ve noticed?” 

Everything, you want to say and don’t. You’ve noticed so many things about Yoongi, all of them coming to mind at once. But you don’t want to reveal just how much you’ve watched him over the last two weeks, paying far more attention than is proper. 

You could tell Yoongi how you’ve noticed that he wears seven necklaces exactly, each with a different symbol charm on them that you think corresponds to the seven Eternals. You could tell him that he has the habit of closing his eyes and tilting his face upward, like he’s absorbing moonlight. You know all of his favorite breakfast items, specifically crispy bacon and sugared strawberries. 

And there are other things you could tell him, like in your dreams his lips are soft as sin, his voice low and sultry. You could admit that most nights you feel his grip on your waist and that when you study his hands during your lessons, you can’t help but already know the shape of them. 

Perhaps two weeks back in your village is exactly what you need to get the ridiculous fantasy of this eternal being from your head. You don’t think you could bear the shame of him knowing exactly what living in the in-between realm has done for your imagination in a very unexpected way. 

“You like bacon,” you offer as an answer. “And sugared strawberries. In the evening, whiskey is your favorite. It smells a little bit like honey, but still spicy. And you must work in the dream tower often at night, because the door to the tower smells like clove and cinnamon and you always smell that way.”

Yoongi’s brows shoot up. You hide your expression with your glass of wine, taking a long draught. It hums in your veins, warm and rushing like nothing you’ve ever felt before. When you lower the glass, Yoongi watches you with an intense expression. You meet his gaze, suddenly unable to look away. 

The air feels charged as you stare. His eyes dip down to your mouth a single time, then back up to your eyes. The breeze moves strands of his hair and you smell the hint of clove followed by cinnamon, just as you always do when he’s near. Your heart starts to staccato as the silence presses on. 

A little shriek cuts through the tension like a knife. You flinch and turn around, looking at a red blur of movement burst from the wisteria trees. Tiera lands with a squawk, the fey dragon huffing as grey smoke curls from her lungs. She ignores you entirely as she normally does and skips over to where Yoongi is sitting before she settles next to him, curling like a cat and laying on her tail.

Yoongi laughs. “Hello, Tiera.” The dragon chuffs and lets out another puff of smoke. “Are you not going to say hello to our friend?” 

When the dragon pays no attention to you, you roll your eyes. “She hates me.”

“Dragons are capricious. She’s been with me for over a hundred years.”

“Not very mature then, is she?”

He chuckles again as you pluck cheese from the platter and pop it into your mouth. You’re delighted to find it’s soft and garlicky with a hint of rosemary as well. “She is still a child in dragon years.” 

“And you let her be a glutton.” 

“You could be too.” Your chewing slows and you swallow the cheese hard. You wait to see if he’s teasing you, but Yoongi watches you with a placid expression. “Dreams and desires are intertwined, you know. Desires come from dreams. It is in my nature to be indulgent.” 

“I’ve never really been indulgent in my life.”

“Do you want to be?”

“What?”

His mouth twitches. “Indulgent.”

“I think this is indulgent,” you gesture to the food. “And you’re teaching me to read and write. That is more indulgence than I could ever dream of.”

He hums and it sounds like disapproval. “I think your dreams are far more indulgent than that.” 

He knows. You think he’s going to say something, to ask about the way you dream of him. Instead, he says, “When you return, we’ll work on your indulgence. There is no shame in wanting things, you know?” 

“I don’t know. How could I?”

Light flashes above your head. You break eye contact with him to look up and gasp. The sky is full of shooting stars, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. The world lights up as you see rainbows streaking across the sky, bursts of colors and explosions of brilliance shooting through the sky. 

Your mouth hangs open as you watch, mystified into silence. You’re sure this is what Yoongi meant when he said Chaos was passing by, for the sky becomes a cacophony of color and stars and light. You blink your eyes, stunned by the display. It’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, your heart hammering with excitement as you watch it, legs crossed, head tilted up.

The stars begin to slow and there are less bursts of color, until finally, there is just a shimmering wake of stardust and pink simmering in the sky. You look at Yoongi, utterly speechless, to find him looking at you. His eyes reflect the night sky, full of constellations and stardust, glittering in the dark depths of his irises. 

Yoongi’s eyes are as wonderful as the display above, but you don’t say that. 

“That was beautiful,” you breathe. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

His eyes don’t leave you when he hums softly in agreement. “It was.” 

Tiera shuffles next to Yoongi, drawing your attention. She snakes her long neck out, tongue tasting the air as she eyes the meat on the table. Yoongi hisses at her and taps her nose in chastisement, earning an angry croak as the dragon shuffles back to her napping position. 

The rest of your evening is spent snacking in companionable silence. Yoongi doesn’t talk much unless he’s answering your hundreds of questions, but tonight, you have none. You’re comfortable to just look at the world around you, the wisteria branches dancing in the breeze. 

In the distance, you hear thunder. Your eyes follow the sound to the same dark peak with lightning crackling through the mist. You’ve yet to ask Yoongi about that peak in particular, but you think you know what looms there. You remember Yoongi talking about how there are nightmares in this realm too, and you’re not eager to ask what that thunderous mountain holds. 

Yoongi doesn’t divulge, either. He watches you as you regard the peak and says nothing. Perhaps even the Eternal of dreams is hesitant to speak of that place, which is a good enough reason for you not to press him further on it. 

When your stomach is full and you’ve had another glass of wine, you lay back in the grass. Your limbs feel heavy with drink and your world is tilted on a slow-rotating axis. The buzz in your veins feels pleasant, though your thoughts are a little sticky like honey and they run together, untamed. 

Careful to keep his distance, Yoongi lays back in the grass with you. His face looks up at the sky, but you look at him. His features are so delicate and soft, nose and cheeks so round. His face don’t make sense in your head, so severe and terrifying yet gentle and innocent at the same time. 

“You’re staring,” he says eventually. 

“I’m indulging,” you tease back, loosened up by wine. “You said I can indulge, so let me stare.”

“What is there to indulge in?” 

“Your… earrings.” 

That makes him look at you, a brow quirked. “My earrings.”

“Yes. Very shiny. Very dangly.”

“Shiny and dangly?”

“Is there an echo out here?” you demand, frowning at him. “Yes, I am indulging in your jewelry!” 

“Would you like some earrings?”

“My ears aren’t pierced.”

“Well then we’ll pierce them.”

“Well,” you grump. “Don’t you have the answer for everything?”

He smiles then, that rare gummy smile that makes you shut right up. “I told you. I’m indulgent. Anything you want, all you need is to ask.” 

Rolling your eyes, you bite your lip to hide your smile at his words. It is insane to you that this ancient being is laying in the grass next to you telling you to only ask what you want. You don’t know what you want, but you do know that this feels like a dream. That you’re not really here, and that you’re going to wake up tomorrow and be in your bed at home. 

Dread fills you at the thought of going back to your parents. In a way, you want to see them. They’re your parents and there is… unfamiliarity without the sound of your mothers needle stitching through cloth. You could do without your father entirely. The rage inside of you when you picture his face is difficult to quell and is often followed by terror. 

Yoongi has told you that you will be safe when you return. You believe him. There is no reason not to. But more than anything, you’re terrified about what comes next. Living between two worlds is something you remember dreaming about that one day in the forest, looking at the way the world was reflected back on the mirror-calm surface of the water. 

Now that you have access to two worlds, you don’t know what to do with the other that has brought you nothing but suffering. And yet, you still want to see what is there. You’re not ready to leave it entirely without knowing. 

“Are you afraid to go back?” 

Yoongi’s question is soft. You don’t hesitate to answer, “Yes.” 

“You won’t be alone. All you have to do is dream of me, and I will come.”

You hesitate then ask, “Do you know any time someone dreams of you?”

“It’s like hearing someone call my name, but I never answer. My business is in creating dreams, not invading them. People like you are able to spin up dreams on your own without my assistance. I help those who cannot.” 

“That sounds like a lovely job.”

He hums. “It’s not without its stresses. I talk a lot about the nature of dreams, but there is more to me and to my job than that. Perhaps we will leave that for your next visit, yes?”

You nod. “Okay.” 

“Come on,” Yoongi sighs, heaving himself upward. “It is late and in the morning, you must return.” 

-

“Touch me,” you beg him, straddling Yoongi’s lap. His head rests against the back of the couch and he looks up at you as you run your fingers through his hair. It’s softer than you imagined, sliding like silk between your fingers. “You told me to ask for what I wanted. Touch me.”

“Anything,” Yoongi agrees. His hands skim up your thighs, warm and rough. He squeezes your flesh, making you moan as his hands continue their worship. Yoongi grips your hips tightly, kneading your flesh as he pulls you closer to him. “Anything. Everything. For you.”

-

When you wake up, you’re confused. The roof above your head is wood and thatch. The mattress beneath you is thin and lumpy, sweat sticking the sheets to your legs. Rolling over, your vision blurs until it comes into focus once more, revealing a tiny room with just a bed, a wardrobe and a closed door. 

Your  room. Well, your room in your parents’ house, you realize with a panic. 

You shoot up in bed as terror claws at you. Did you dream it all? Was it not real? Nothing in your room has changed and the windows are open to the cool air. Grey clouds drift in the sky and you can smell the petrichor of oncoming rain in the distance. 

Rushing to your bedroom door, you rip it open, your heart threatening to burst with how hard it’s beating. You don’t know what you’re looking for or what you expect to find, but the idea that you have just woken up from the most vivid, wonderful dream is so maddening that you need anything to tell you it was real. That it wasn’t in your head.

Your mother is sitting at the kitchen table stitching. She looks up when she hears you. She looks different, leaner and narrower than you ever remember, her greasy hair tied low at her neck. Her hands pause their stitching as she stares at you, stricken. 

“What day is it?” you ask her. The day you had been attacked had been a seventh day. You remember that clearly. “Tell me what day it is!”

Instead, your mother screams in sheer terror. 

Masterlist | Ask | Playlist | Series Masterlist | Tag Lists | Next Chapter

[noellefan101]

Adopting Child!Reader

Characters: Wriothesley, Nilou, Childe, Candace, Itto x Gn Child!reader(meaning this is all purely platonic)

Summary: They adopt you and you're now their child, what do they learn you to do and what do they like doing with you

Warnings: platonic, modern au for the most part, implied char x char in some(you can ignore it if you dont like the ship, or see them as friends), sigewinne is your sibling in wrios, arataki gang being the arataki gang

Note: this is one of those fics that i keep looking for but cant find, so i wrote it myself. i really like reading from a child's perspective but whenever i see a fic were a char has a child and its x reader, its always the reader being the mother which i hate. anyway, have fun reading, luv you.

Wriothesley

Sigewinne is his child, sorry, you cant tell me otherwise(especially when its modern au), so you and her would definitely play together. have a tea party, dress Wrio up in cute ribbons and stuff, kill all your dolls together after one cheated on the other. yk, normal kid things.

Wriothesley caries your bags whenever you need to get home from school, he hangs them over his shoulder while you both walk beside him.

If Sigewinne is a little older than you, instead of being the same age, she would try her best to help you learn stuff you maybe dont even have in school yet, but she just needed to help you with it anyway. she just wants you to be ready for it, and learns it better in the process as well.

He would invite his Boyfriend over for dinner once, and you thought Neuvillette's hair was pretty, though you were a little scared of the man. it turned out to be fine after a few other times of meeting him, and you warmed up to him quite quickly.

I dont imagine he's the best cook, but would definitely learn how to make something if you were sad and really wanted a specific dish. Will also make tea for you both a lot, making sure its just how you like it.

Nilou

I love the idea of Nilou, the sweetheart of sumeru, adopting a child and taking care of it. like yeah, she totally would.

And if you showed any interest in dancing whatsoever, she would teach you some small easy steps. and show you a few of her dances made for shows, if you thought it was too hard. she has her own dancing room(?) at home, and she would happily practice a little with you in the room so you can watch.

She's very supportive of whatever you're interested in, but you will learn to respect everyone no matter what, she cant have you becoming like one of those scholars who want all the creative arts gone. But she would still support you in becoming a scholar if that is what you wanted to do anyway, just making sure you're a nice one instead of those other beings.

Loves to bake with you, and really wants to show you all the best recipes so you can make them on your own once your old enough. but of course she bakes the best cakes on your birthday, and it's decorated with something you like or her and you dancing via a messy drawing using buttercream.

Would make jewelry with you, and then wear some at one of her shows. So the people would see all her professionally made bracelets, and then this very vibrant and childish one shining trough.

She loves matching outfits with you, so she will try her very best to find a shirt in your size that matches one of her dresses, it would be very cute but she respects it if you dont really like it at times.

Childe

He seriously just wants to protect you, and probably ended up saving you before taking you in and caring for you when he learned of your reason for being out there all alone. (picture dark alleyway with cold snow and a few adults with weapons trying to get money out of you or smt)

Doesnt really like the idea of you knowing about his job, but he can't hide it from you the same way he hides it from his siblings, so you ended up knowing pretty quickly. But he assures you he won't let anything hurt you, not even himself.

He would have his parents take care of you when he had to go out for a mission, but you would have to promise to not mention what he was doing or he would just have to hire a caretaker next time.

But it was fun playing with his siblings, and the food was great. Plus it was way nicer to be able to play with other children at home, and not have to go out for it. Teucer also had really cool toys, so you and him play together a lot when you come over.

Doesn't let you near any of his weapons, and doesn't wan tyou near any weapon until your at least 13. He can't have you experience the same things as him, no matter how much he likes fighting, he doesnt want you to grow up like he did. So he won't teach you anything of that sorts, only when he thinks it a reasonable time for someone to learn that.

Cooks all your meals for the most part, and learns you how to cook as well, he can also have you help him cut the easy things like a cucumber. Plus you've been sent to school with what to a child looks like a three-course meal from a five-star restaurant. is also really good at getting you to eat your vegetables.

Candace

She's very good with children, but never expected to take in a child herself. She has both no idea what she's doing and knows everything about what she should do, so its a process for the both of you.

She is very loving and knows to let you warm up to her first, but she gets carried away at times and can end up hugging you a little to much for your comfort. But she makes sure to give you lots of your favorite sweets in return.

Loves dressing you up, and would pick your outfits for your when you had school, but of course you picked an item first and then she jsut picked out the rest. For example; you would pick out a cute shirt with a little red car on it, and she would find some matching socks and nice pair of pants or smt, give you a nice red hat if it was needed.

Goes shopping with Dehya often, so she would sometimes take you with her and will explain everything she's getting, and how to use this makeup and what not.

Dehya also comes over quite a lot, and they both do your makeup if you wanted, or let you decorate them in glitters and stickers if you pleased. You now have a special bag with all your little brushes, eyeshadows and all that stuff at home, just so you dont accidentally ruin theirs. (she would not let you put makeup on too much, only once or twice a week. but then there is also something to look forward too)

Itto

Is very chaotic and should not be taking care of a child, also because he gets in trouble so much. But he can't just leave you out there all alone, no one else wanted you clearly, but they are the perfect solution to that. (they are all basically unwanted as well, so you were just like them in a sense)

But Kuki is more of the parent than he is at times, but thats ok, she's basically the parent to all of them at this point.

Anyway, he loves beetle-fighting, so of course you are gonna learn too. He has spent hours with you outside, finding beetles and teaching you the perfect ways to win over anyone. it's only when Shinobu comes and tells you that its bed time for you that you stop for the day, but you have tomorrow to have fun as well.

It's hard to adapt to being with the Arataki gang, but it is better than being alone, so you can have your own little place to be alone in for a little bit, in a corner of whatever they're staying in(an old house that is really cheap i presume, or a really cheap apartment. maybe granny's place or smt).

Taking care of you honestly got the whole gang to stop their antics just a little, and they don't end up in prison for stupid things as much. Kuki is especially thankful for that, but is still concerned for the gang. They teached you how to depend on others, while you essentially teach them to be more careful of what they do, win-win.

You might have cried the first time they ended up in prison while you were there, Shinobu has now taught you how to bail someone out of jail. You will need this in the future.

im thinking of making a taglist but im not sure, so tell me if you want to be tagged in smt

Thx for reading my lovelies, have a nice day, luv ya-Masterlist

You are welcome to reblog and like any of my posts, but you CAN NOT translate, copy or hate on anybody for liking my posts

[the-peak-tmnt]

I want to say that I like that your fic is mostly Raph centric because those fics are rare and he deserves more love and pain lol

Raph: Mom says it's my turn with the trauma

Thank you so much! I'm seriously so grateful for people who are willing to give a Raph-centric fic a shot!

I knew writing Raph-centric fic that's also a Mutant Mayhem fic was gonna turn a lot of people off from giving it a try, which I totally understand because I usually go for Leo-centric fics myself lol. It also doesn't help that Mutant Mayhem still isn't super popular.

But Mutant Mayhem Raph is an exciting new version of Raph that's been SO fun to explore, and I'm gonna go on a little rant about why I'm enjoying writing (and torturing) him so much!

[Initiating Raph Rant] So, almost all Raphs are tough guys who also wear their hearts on their sleeves, which is what makes him such a fun character. He's "the angry one", but usually also super emotional in other ways:

Because MM feels more like an actual teenager than most other iterations, his moments of emotional vulnerability feel particularly raw and relatable. I might be old as dirt now, but I do still remember what it was like to be a teenager still trying to figure out who they were and what they wanted in life.

Mutant Mayhem does such an amazing job of hitting on those teenage insecurities and desires. The turtles whole goal in the movie is to be accepted. All teenagers feel like outsiders and want acceptance at some point. That teenage desire for acceptance is amplified for the turtles because they're not just teenagers, but mutants as well. The moment where Raph's voice sort of wavers as he says "we're never gonna be normal" breaks my heart every time, because they're so sure acceptance is completely out of reach for them 😭

...but the MM boys do get acceptance by the human world by the end of the film. Raph even seems to find his place own at Eastman on the wrestling team in the post-credit scene.

I think this is what has turned a lot of fans off MM, though, because the turtles' need for secrecy and using their ninja skills to remain hidden has always been an integral part of the TMNT franchise. Personally, I actually love that departure from the typical TMNT format and talked about it once before.

But there are some traditional TMNT elements that I did miss in MM, one of those being the fact that in most iterations, Raph is an outsider even amongst outsiders. His anger is what alienates him from his brothers at times, and it often gets him into trouble. It’s also what almost always leads to his friendship with Casey (another outsider).

Tales of the TMNT isn't out yet, and we don't how this series will give Raph that traditional outsider treatment, or if it will at all. They could save it for Mutant Mayhem 2, but that's still years away. And even then they might decide not to go that route because so far, MM Raph's rage has mostly just manifested in a propensity for fighting & violence rather than interpersonal issues with his brothers & other people. His rage is even framed as useful in the final fight against Superfly.

So anyway...as canon stands right now pre-tottmnt/MM 2, Raph is an "insider". He and his brothers can have a life on the surface, and Raph even seems to have found his own place at Eastman on the wrestling team. Again, I'm all for this happy ending and a brand new experience for the turtles, but I was also missing my personal favorite flavor of Raph...which is angry and alienated lol.

After I saw MM in theaters, I started looking at a lot of the concept art and other production material floating around on the internet and I came across this concept art by Garrett Lee:

And it was like "oh shit, there he is! Outsider Raph!"

He looks so lonely and separate from everyone else here, and I was obsessed with this idea of Raph somehow still being an outsider even after the mutants were accepted by humans. But again, we're still waiting for tottmnt and MM 2, and even then there's no guarantee we'll get an Angry & Sad Outsider Raph out of either of those.

So I asked myself "how can I ruin MM Raph's life so that he's as lonely and miserable as he looks in this concept art???"

...and Reciprocity was born 😅

[mvltisstuff]

hello again, i’ve requested a few times (the feels and sweet nothing) and i was hoping i could request again? (i think i might add an emoji at the end bc i love your writing and will keep requesting as much as you allow ❤️❤️) anyway, i hope you’re doing well and things are going good.

i was wondering if i could request a buck fic where is partner is an artist and he finds a sketchbook of sketches of him and when he asks about it they talk about how pretty he is and how deserves to be appreciated and just making him feel super loved with it. thank you if you get to it and ofc no troubles if you don’t. take care 🥰

also is 🚒 good for a way to recognize me??

wasteland, baby! - e.b

summary: request

evan buckley x reader

a/n: omg you always have such creative ideas! i love receiving requests so always feel free :)) 🚒 = ❤️‍🔥 i also won’t be posting as frequently for the next few weeks due to finals, but after that i’ll be posting a ton!!

buck had come over to y/n’s apartment after his shift for dinner, and the scent of thick acrylic paint and primer had stung at his nostrils. he began to love the smell, as he knew that it meant she was around. he had let himself in with his key, taking in all of the perfectly placed plants and artwork on the walls.

she had a canvas that was almost complete, with just a few finishing touches. buck had walked over to it to examine. her talent was extraordinary. he knew it was out of this world, and the way she was so proud of her pieces his made his heart swell up with love.

“hi, buck!” y/n says, beginning to walk out of the hallway from her room to her art. she was wearing a pair of dark green pants and a white t-shirt which somehow complimented her beautifully. her face had small specks of blue and red on her cheeks and black and grey streaks on her shirt. “sorry it’s such a mess in here, but doesn’t this look great?”

“no, don’t worry about the mess, but how long did that take? it’s amazing!” buck stutters a big, not being able to comprehend how art like that could come out of her hands.

“thank you, love,” she replies, taking his belongings and placing them down for him. “how was work today? anything good?”

“just a normal old day, but you know it’s the 118.”

“it is never normal at the 118,” y/n smiles and gives him a cheek kiss before going to wipe her face off. buck goes to sit down in her living room on the couch, and she follows behind him with a quick change of shirt. she placed a small pizza in the oven to cook for them, and cuddled up next to him while they told each other stories about their day.

“it was wild, y/n,” buck starts. “i mean this woman literally rose from the dead after like 15 minutes, after being under a street. oh! you’re going to love this- and we saved some puppies in a sewer.”

“oh my god, are they ok?”

“they’re all fine, but i’m not sure if we are right now.”

“what do you mean?” she asks, slowly and carefully.

“you don’t smell something burning?”

she takes a deep inhale and looks over to her smokey kitchen. it wasn’t too bad, but definitely enough to make it inedible. “shit! fuck, i forgot about it!” she says, bouncing the pan up and down while trying not to burn herself.

y/n was busy discarding of the pizza when buck looked over at her with joy. he had a cheeky smile on his face and was laughing at the forgetfulness of both of them. he looked back down in front of him and the coffee table, and he saw a book that y/n always has on her. she brings it to work, to her family, anywhere she goes, she has it. it was her beloved sketchbook, filled with hundreds of small doodles and big pieces. buck has seen a lot of things in it, admiring each one before he comes across a bookmarked section.

when he flips the pages of the book, he notices that the person that is sketched and shaded looks particularly familiar. he makes note of the sharp nose and soft, but hard jaw. he sees the famous birthmark on the side of his face. he’s never looking right on, though. he’s always focused on something or has a light grin on his face. buck knows these are of him, but he doesn’t think he had any importance to be the top drawing in her book.

y/n walks back in to greet her boyfriend, “i think we might just have to ord-“ she looks at the sketches that she had put on that paper. a heat rose up into her face, reddening her cheeks and making her feel a sense of embarrassment.

“a-are these me?” buck asks, quietly. y/n nods, slowly, praying that she didn’t make him uncomfortable and that she will see him again tomorrow. “i-um..”

“you don’t have to say anything, buck. i never meant for you to see those and if you don’t like them, i’ll never do it again i swear. you just, you’re so beautiful, buck. and i love to draw beautiful things.”

“i just don’t know what to say, these are so good. i feel like you know me more than i know myself,” he says, chuckling a bit.

“you like ‘em?”

“i love them,” buck says.

“good, i just couldnt stop myself. you are always so pretty, no matter what and i want you to know that, so i tried to convey it through this. i was going to show you eventually, but i wanted to do more.”

“why me, though? you could draw anyone,” buck asks.

“no one else is you! you might have a pretty face and all but there is really nothing more beautiful than your soul. you are filled with so much love and sweetness and i’ve been dying to find a way to show you, because you are loved, evan. i love you and i wanted to put my two favorite things together. not a day goes by where i have anything but love for you.”

suddenly, the feeling in bucks chest is rising stronger, feeling like it’s going to burst. when it does, he has strong riptides of tears in his eyes. with a pure smile on his face, he passionately leaves a kiss on her lips, and he feels loved for the first time.

growing up, his parents never showed him love. he always begged for it from everyone he knew, and now he feels like it isn’t deserved. but someone, y/n made him feel like he will forever be worthy of love. and he will never forget how she fixed him for the best.

[writing-for-life]

Sandman Meta-Analysis

Literary/Conceptual/Psychological

“But He Loved, He Should Have Been Forgiven”—About Free Will, Responsibility and Agency: Lucifer and Dream as Foils

When Destiny is Inescapable or: He Truly Is the Worst Older Brother (Based on a fun ask prompt that turned into a serious meta)

The Portrayal of Womanhood in A Game of You

The Sandman Overture and Exiles: Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit—Everything Changes, Nothing Is Truly Lost (Not Even Hope)

The Ultimate Character Tag Library

Hob Gadling’s Involvement In The Slave Trade Between The Late 16th And Early 19th Century (Addendum to someone else’s post, but I thought it important to include here)

The Mortifying Ordeal Of Being Known (Or: Does Morpheus Really Have Commitment Issues?)

Death’s Wedjat Eye: Deeper Symbolism or Random? (Based on an ask)

The Women of the Sandman: A Collection of Meta-Analyses, Fics and Art

Spun Stories And Hard-Hitting Realities As Bookends To Brief Lives

The Thing About Daniel (is that he is not a palette-swapped Morpheus)

The Sandman Timeline As Published In The Annotated Sandman (timeline with a few meta thoughts)

The Truth Of Mankind Is Also Dream’s (short comics panel/show quote comparison)

The Endless Are Not Their Opposite—They Only Define It

Only Hope (!) Calls You Out Like That (Dream, Desire, Hope And Loneliness),

The Difference Between Daydreams And Desires Or: How Dream And Desire Wouldn’t Have Saved The Universe Without Hope (Based on an ask)

Dream's Relationship To His Emotions & The Differences Between Show!Dream and Comics!Dream (Based on an ask)

About Love As The Catalyst For Change

Morpheus and Calliope: About Inspiration, Personhood and Change (Based on an ask)

What Does Morpheus Like in Women? (Based on an ask)

Dream’s Loss of White Hair as the Loss of Innocence: The Killalla-Situation

Touching Death or: Why Dream is Not Simply Touch-Starved in The Sound of Her Wings (Addendum to someone else’s post)

Keeping Them In Character: Could Morpheus Be Saved? (An exploration of fanfic, but lots of good meta thoughts, so I included it here)

Did Morpheus Want to Die? (Addendum to someone else’s post)

When Desire Stops Being the Villain

When a Story About Stories Can Be Read in More Than One Way, and Why a Story About Change Changes With Us

If It Is Implied Lucien Is Adam, What Does That Make Lucienne?

Sunday Mourning—About Dream Entities and Stars (Why Head-Canons Are Wonderful, But Forcing Them On Creators Isn’t)

Who Is at Fault for Dream’s Death? The Endless as Concepts (Based on an ask)

Dream and How He Experiences Love (Or: When the Unreal is at War with the Real, and Finally Understanding Unconditional Love Tightens the Noose Around Your Neck That Has Been There All Along)

Tales In The Sand—Did We Find the Women’s Story? Or: The Rejection Of Dream/Hope As A Concept

How Do You Solve The Orpheus Problem? (an exploration of ideas for fanfics, but too many good meta thoughts not to include it here)

Nuance in (The Sandman) Fandom

To Be Human Means To Die (Even For Morpheus)

Let’s Talk About Thessaly (In The Context of Second and Third Wave Feminism)

The Blood on Morpheus’ Hands (more a processing attempt than a meta)

Why The Order of the Last Three Issues of The Sandman Matters

The Facet is Not The Jewel (old post about the ubiquity of Dreamling)

Sandman Comics Reread & Netflix Sandman Rewatch: All my Sandman Book Club contributions, ordered by issue/episode (we are currently discussing on a weekly schedule, join us!)

#sandman meta: Even more metas of all kinds, like those of others I (sometimes quite extensively) participated in.

Next: Sandman Meta-Analysis Music >

Link to full pinned post

[evadewilson]

hi all, thought i would make a quick post introducing myself — i go by Lance online (he/him) and i’m a reader/writer/artist, an old hat at fandom, and a newly minted spideypool shipper. i like to post little bits and pieces that get stuck in my head, memes, ideas/prompts, and reblog lots of art.

eventually i may post my own art/writing but at this stage i’m just here to look! — this blog is run by an adult (i am in my mid 20’s) and for other adults.

it isn’t specifically nsfw so i put 18+ in my bio because i don’t want to expose any minors to nsfw content that i may post/reblog in the future. in saying that, i used to be a minor in fandom spaces and i understand that an 18+ warning can’t keep them out so whatever.

i’m incredibly receptive to interaction and i love when people add tags to my posts, suggest things in the comments, etc etc. once again… spideypool fanfic… save me…. i have a whole post where i am on my knees begging authors and pals to link their favourite spideypool fics. PLEASE YALL.

account related housekeeping below:

i’m incredibly cool/comfortable with pretty much any ship (particularly surrounding spidey and ‘pool, so if you’re a poolverine shipper, etc etc. hello and welcome. i have many peripheral ships and will likely engage with those (scott/logan, peter/johnny, peter/mj, wade/almost anyone…)

another thing— i don’t care what versions of peter and what deadpool get shipped together. when i’m talking about spider-man i’m usually thinking mcu spidey because civil war/hoco came out when i was a teenager, and although i grew up with tobey and andrew’s spidermen, i got very attached to tom’s spidey and he’s the one who stuck with me. i usually mix canon when i’m discussing spideypool (combining all of the spider men’s movie plots, spider-man and deadpool’s comics, deadpool’s movies, etc.) feel free to imagine whoever or whatever you want!

IN SAYING THAT — i keep having to remind folks that mcu!spider-man/tom holland’s spider-man is officially born in 2001 and therefore 23 as of the time i’m making this post. he’s not a minor so please stop jumping on my ass about this 🙏 in any case, he’s a fictional character, just let people live.

if you condemn or attack anybody for their fandom/fanfic/fiction preferences you are not welcome here.

personally i think a “do not interact” criteria is stupid because most of the people that i don’t want to interact with aren’t going to be sensible or respectful enough to conscientiously decide to not interact with me/my content. in saying that i do NOT fuck with racists, transphobes, terfs, antis, people who engage in ship wars, xenophobes, or zionists. i am a loud and proud activist who believes in land back, a free Palestine, free and safe fandom spaces, and every human being’s right to self determination.

if you’ve made it this far, congrats! ⭐️ here is your official welcome badge. pull up a seat and get comfy. lfg

[sugarwithtea]

moonlight sonata | myg [teaser]

pairing : pianist!yoongi x fem!reader

rating/genre : m (18+) // angst, smut, fluff, enemies to lovers

summary : Passion is a fickle thing. It is a feeling that drives you to success, but if lost -- you can turn as stagnant as a pond. Min Yoongi has always took pride in his passion, his skill, his art. But what happens when slowly the flame dies inside him? He returns back home, to the place where he had started to love music. But, you are there. The bane of his existence. You hate him like a sweltering flame, bigger than his passion for music. And you, are not so thrilled with the news of his return. What happens when you both inevitably cross paths and start a saga of hate and love?

word count : 978 [teaser] // TBD for the full fic (15k+)

warnings : for the teaser - none // full fic - explicit smut, use of drugs, alcoholism, mental health issues (not glorified) (all of them will be mentioned explicitly in the final piece)

note 1 : this fic is a part of the composition of the century collab hosted by @joheunsaram @raplinesmoon and @kithtaehyung !!

note 2 : this idea has been in my drafts for so long, I'm glad I'm getting the chance to finally put it out !! i hope i am able to do as well as i expected! HAPPY YOONGI DAY !! also, big thanks to @oddinary4bts and @moccahobi for helping me with this one and saving my ass !!

masterlist | taglist (permanent)

Yoongi is falling relentlessly.

He is also failing, relentlessly.

His hands slide down the keys making a sharp ping sound. They then rest on his lap, as his head hangs low and eyes burn with the tears that well up in them.

The moonlight spills into the empty auditorium as if to mock him of his upcoming days, if he goes on like this. An empty auditorium, no audience, no one who will listen to him.

He toys with the fake red ruby encrusted on the edge of the fall board, before he stands up abruptly from his seat, slings his bag over his shoulder and leaves.

He has been doing this for weeks.

He doesn't know how he got here. Not in the auditorium, that was with his Palisade parked snugly in the lot. No, it's not that. He doesn't know how he got to the point where he feels like a college student, struggling to write a composition and bleeding his tips by playing the keys for endless hours, and still not excelling or performing impressively.

It was not always like this, of course. The past five years have brought him nothing but success. He vividly remembers the first time he tapped the heels of his Chelsea boots against the sleek marble of the Juilliard and a swarm of admirers, fans, professors gathered around him.

The renowned school of music had invited him as a guest lecturer. Yoongi, a mere boy of 22, fresh out of the same school with a show stopping performance at Carnegie Hall, which was attracting the ears and eyes of people all around the world. He had clammy hands and a flushed neck as he practiced in front of his mirror in his small Brooklyn apartment.

That day, he gained a massive applause and a similarly huge following of budding musicians who looked up to him. He felt uncomfortable, out of place. As if it was not his place to gain the trust of these students, not his place to lead them when he himself didn't know where he was going, not his place to steer them in a direction when he himself looked in the eyes of his favorite professor, Mr. Castillo, to calm his nerves down. But still, he was able to do that.

And now, years later, he sees a dark fog sit upon his mind as he relentlessly tries to navigate through it.

He once thought of what he would do when he got so old that his fingers trembled when they touched the keys, when his back would hunch so he couldn't sit on the seat, when his face would be ridden with wrinkles. He came to the conclusion that at least he would still be able to write music and guide others.

Alas, he now sees himself nowhere near that Yoongi. The Yoongi he sees now is lost, unwanted, with no traces of passion and no will to move forward. He is like stagnant water, dirt and germs piling up on him. His melody is playing the same note again and again, with no chords supporting it, no tempo giving it rhythm; it sounds like a mess.

He is stuck in a happenstance – at least that's what he likes to think. Because his inner turmoil is still not bigger than his ego, and even though he is getting there, it is hard for him to swallow the thought that this is all because of him. He is not ready to accept that this is a domino effect, how one thing led to another, and now here he is.

After all these years, his brain is wired to think he can't do anything wrong. Although that is going haywire, as after years of working on himself and his self derogatory mindset, he is there again. He knows it's because of him, he just isn't ready to accept it.

Because accepting it will put him into a spiral, a dangerous spiral which will suck him in – like the eddy currents of a whirlpool, giving him no chance to escape. He knows he is weak, that's why he doesn't tread on the edge of the ledge, that's why he doesn't let things affect him. But it's high time now.

The emptiness of the auditorium has irked him, mocked him, laughed at him, made his blood boil. His fingers grip the steering wheel tighter as he changes lanes on his way home. An empty home – as empty as the auditorium.

His passion is dying, faster than the flame of a candle on a windy night. And that is concerning. Because Min Yoongi has a steadfast personality, a strong will, and a mindset to never give up. Then why is it that whenever he sits in front of the keys, his fingers refuse to move? Why is it that whenever he thinks of a melody, his fingers refuse to reciprocate it?

There was a period in his life, a few months, when he thought he was on the top of the world. The fall of a musician, and the rise of a celebrity. He didn't know the pianist in him would sleep so soundly when he embraced his public persona. Didn't know that the musician would starve when he fed his fame.

But now he knows what he needs. He needs to get back to the ground, touch his feet on the earth that gave him the platform in the first place. The place where everything started. The place where he dreamt his dream, the place where he found his first friend – a brown piano. The place which will never turn him away.

Home. His safe place. Back to his people, to the ones who never let him feel like he was a failure.

Min Yoongi is returning to Korea and there is nothing left that could change his mind.

taglist : @nuniah @jinsquishes @jeonkookiesworld @sailoryooons @jjkeverlast @aliimac @gimmethatagustd @namjoonwhoresworld @apotatomashedbybts @synnfulqt @saweetspoiled @chimchimmarie @sugababylove84 @axigailxo @yoongukie-ff @instabull @graycosco @wobblewobble822 @jungkooksseuphoria @kalea10 @yoongimarryme3

also, end notes : if you'd like me to tag you in the final fic -- join the taglist (which is permanent so it means you will be tagged in all my fics henceforth) or send me an ask, or reply to this post and I'll tag you in THIS FIC ONLY !! i am not making another form for moonlight sonata because it's too much of work, so it will be better if u reply to this post 🤍

feedback, reblogs and comments are highly appreciated so please let me know your thoughts :)))

© sugarwithtea. all works belong to me.

[esther-dot]

i'm a sansa stan first and foremost, and i tried to ship s@nsan so hard lmaooo but when they start saying shit like "sansa has wet dreams about the hound" and "sansa actually likes older men", argh, i just can't. do. that. i know george said something about playing with it in the books, but i also think that he wanted to raise a few questions with the relationship, one of them being "who protects sansa from her protector?". like, there's TRAUMA in there. it's funny that they accuse jonsas of using sansa as a self-insert bc i don't know if you ever read a s@nsan fic or saw the fanarts, but they REALLY wanna bang that man 😭

(about this ask)

Nothing in the fandom horrifies me as much as Sansan. I’ve had nice Sansans come into my inbox, so I do distinguish between my feelings about the ship and the shippers, but I hate the reinterpretation of the Hound because it minimizes what he did/tried to do to Sansa. Instead of the later scenes where Sansa thinks of him being about her processing the trauma of his assault, suddenly, they become a gross villain whitewashing, victim-blamey, “actually, she wanted it.”

I once even highlighted that whole "who will protect us from the guards" idea you mention because I think it was meant to emphasize what a travesty the Hound’s assault was:

(link)

This isn’t a romance, this is a pattern. The Hound saves her than tries to rape her, Tyrion is kind to her then agrees to marry her, a child, a prisoner of his family, and LF rescues her but then starts to sexually molest her. All the same, in each of these instances, Sansa is grateful, she thinks kindly of them, and I think that says a lot about Sansa that you completely miss if you romanticize it and pretend that the Hound is someone, something to her, that he isn’t. I also talk about the whole cloak thing in that post too because I think the more contextualized reading is the one we’re meant to adopt.

When I did take a look at the meta, I was so creeped out by the nature of it and the art. Although, I want to give credit where it’s due. Apparently they were some of the first people to start taking Sansa seriously and created the reading of Sansa becoming a political factor, so they did change the fandom’s perception of Sansa in a good way. But imo their love of the Hound causes an imbalance in how they read their scenes. The point isn't that the Hound wouldn't have hurt Sansa, the point was that he very well might have but Sansa's actions stopped him which ties into a much bigger idea and important aspect of Sansa's story:

Even after the Hound assaults Sansa, later, she thinks of how terrifying the fire was, as in, even then, she is able to empathize with him, the man who held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her. It’s laughable to suggest a man who mocked her relentlessly for who she was is capable of the same consideration. In fact, it is in a state of terror that the Hound attempts to rape Sansa and his fans use that to excuse his actions, and yet, while he is assaulting her, Sansa sings of mercy, gently touches his cheek. It’s almost like the very obvious interpretation, that the way to create a better world is Sansa’s method— not his— is what Martin expected people to understand, and his surprise people have turned it into something else altogether is genuine. (link)

As for Martin admitting he "played" with it, here's a clip. It's very short, and he's expressing surprise that his female readers like villains of which the Hound is one, and I think you can tell by his facial expression that the idea of the Hound and Sansa as a couple, is absolutely not where he ever intended to take things, not what he meant when he said he played with it. There are countless old monster movies with the monster being fascinated with a young girl or beautiful woman which humanizes him/shows a soft side. That's similar to Beauty and the Beast, the girl is what allows the monster to become human again, but in these variations, it isn't a romance. You can play with/reference tropes and ideas without it actually being a direct reiteration of the original story.

Anyway, filter and block and curate your fandom experience! 😅

[likeadeuce]

Challengers Fic, WIP Wednesday, Art and Tashi in their Friend Zone era

“I don’t want to get on a plane tomorrow and then never talk to you again,” Art said.

Tashi waited for the rest of it, the I know this is crazy and totally unexpected but if this is going to be our last night, what if we slept together, just for the beautiful memory.

She’d had the same conversation the night before she left high school for good, to play Juniors at the Aussie Open and train fulltime and home-school. With that guy, who didn’t matter, she’d barely had a hint he was interested that way before that night when he started kissing her -- and also she’d said yes because she was sixteen and a dumb virgin who was tired of being a dumb virgin. Compared to that guy Art might as well have had “stupid in love with Tashi Duncan” screenprinted on a T-shirt, and she’d indulged it and now she was going to have to say no and make both of them feel shitty.

“Come to Europe with me'" he said. Now that was crazy and totally unexpected. “After your exams. My folks rented a place in Mallorca for two weeks -- huge place, lots of room, and I’ll probably lose in the first round, and then Dad will want to take me deep sea fishing or something so we can be really masculine at each other and he can decide if he thinks I count as a person yet.”

“So I should ditch my plans and fly around the world to save you from the specter of male bonding. He shrugged, and she admitted, “Your mom already kind of invited me. When we were emailing about the photos for your slide show. Or, more like, she assumed I was coming, but possibly she thought I was your assistant.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he said. “See? Save me from having to be alone with these people. I’ll still mostly be training, and we can hit together, whatever you feel up to. Play some golf, go to the beach and eat olives and chorizo and -- what do they have? Flan? I can watch enviously while you eat the flan. Then we’re doing a few days of Wimbledon, I won’t make qualifiers yet but my agent and my marketing rep are supposed to introduce me around to industry people and you’ve definitely got a better head for all that than I do.”

Art had picked his agent and his marketing rep after a two hour phone call with Tashi’s father, who had been researching the best people to guide his baby girl since she was nine years old. Tashi was supposed to be on the call, too, but five minutes in, she fake-remembered a study group she couldn’t miss and went back to her room to take a few tequila shots and cry.

“You’d be doing me a favor,” Art said.

Tashi considered it for a moment. She really did. Sunshine and good food and the game she still wanted to love, sitting in the player’s box for a good-looking boy with a sky’s the limit future, sharing little jokes and secret looks and eventually, finally, falling into his bed because, Jesus, if he kept looking at her like that, she would forget all the reasons she knew that bed was a bad idea. Especially when the main reason was, simply, that he liked her too much.

“I would not be doing you a favor,” she said. “Because you know damn well what you’re talking about is girlfriend shit, and I’m not your girlfriend.”

She was ready for him to say No No No, that wasn't what he meant, they were friends, European beaches and shacking up with his family were just normal things friends did.

Instead, Art answered fast, with a broad grin that would let it be a joke if it had to be a joke. “Fortunately, that’s a fixable problem. Be my girlfriend.” For the first time in a long time, she saw the brash kid who had tried to get her number that night at the party, to hell if someone else wanted it, he had just as good a claim as anyone, and tonight it was even true. National champion with a face TV cameras would love and a body to kill for, and world number one in Being There for Tashi Duncan and never complaining about the Friend Zone of it all.

Art couldn’t keep up the bravado long enough for her to say no. His grin froze, then crumbled and he looked at the ground. “You don’t have to say it, Tashi. But I figured I needed to try.”

“If it helps at all, even if it weren’t for everything else --” She swallowed. “I couldn’t take being around all that tennis right now.”

[oldiesstationlover11607]

hellooo again!! i loved what you did with the dun!reader x tyler fic, it was exactly what i had imagined thank you!!:3 i’ll definitely be a regular here, you’re writing is TEWWW good not to be one 😁 id also love to be 🦝 anon if that works??

anyways id love to see an angsty fic, where reader & tyler are at an party or some sort of event and reader is spending a lot of time talking to her old childhood friend. and while tyler knows the reader would never hurt him, and that there was nothing going between reader and this guy. blurryface gets the best of him. so when they leave the party early because tyler has a “headache” and when the car ride home is nothing but silent, reader speaks up about it. and blurryface tries to argue with reader, paint her out to be this villain. but reader knows how to help tyler, she knows exactly how to save him from himself. i even if blurryface’s words hurt at first.

i hope i explained that correctly ☝️ but yeah just a angsty argument moment & once reader realizes she just has to save tyler from blurryface, she just reassures him until he’s safe.

again thank you so much for writing my request!!:) i have sooo many random ideas that id love to share with you, i truly enjoy your work soo much <3

- 🦝

Jealous - Tyler Joseph x Reader

Relationship: Tyler Joseph × Reader

Warnings: Blurryface, strong language (I did use swears lol), and Tyler being jealous - angst

Word Count: 2734

A/N: Hello 🦝! I'm glad you enjoyed the Dun!reader fic and thanks for coming back and requesting :) This was super fun to write bc I have an event with my guy best friend this weekend and lots of people that are going to be there haven't met him so I was able to take inspiration – hopefully it doesn't end up like this! Hope you enjoy!

We’d been planning this festival for months, 17 youth bands from Columbus, Ohio were set to play in a medium sized local venue over Saturday and I couldn’t have been more excited. Tyler had promised to  come as a guest and watch the bands. I’d asked him to have a chat with a few of the kids who I knew were fans and genuinely interested in taking their music further and into a professional sphere. 

“How’s this?” Tyler stepped out of our closet wearing a black hoodie, black jeans, and a baseball cap, doing a little spin. 

“Perfect,” I smiled, finishing my makeup in the mirror with my favorite music blasting from the speaker Tyler had installed in the ensuite bathroom for us. He fell back onto our bed, spreading out into a starfish position and staring up at the ceiling. “You look tired,” I laughed, looking at him through the mirror. 

“I am,” he responded, pulling down one of his pillows from the top of the bed. I grabbed my bag and slipped in my phone, keys, lip balm, and a comb. 

“Well you’re gonna need to wake up if you’re going to be speaking to these kids,” I said. Tyler sat up, letting out a loud groan that echoed through the bedroom. He opened his arms out to me, welcoming my presence between his knees. Resting his head against my chest, he pulled me in close enough that he was practically breathing me in. “I’m excited,” I smiled, knowing my hard work was finally paying off and that all of the kids I’d gotten to know over the last few months were getting the opportunity to showcase their art in front of people who truly understood them. 

“I’m excited for you,” he mumbled, his voice muffled through my shirt. His body heat felt comforting and the last thing I wanted was to step away. It was going to be a stressful day and any minute away from him would just make me more stressed, he was my own personal stress reliever. “We should get going,” I pulled away from his embrace and helped him onto his feet. Normally Tyler drove us places because I took control of the aux to play our shared playlist. We got into the car and almost immediately music started to flow around the car, the two of us singing as loud as we could and shimmying back and forth with the bass. The venue was about half an hour from our house and I’d gotten a couple text messages from the crew to let me know they were loading things in including camera equipment and the shared drum kit each band was going to use. We turned the corner and drove in through the back entrance, parking just to the side of the loading bay. Everywhere I looked there were people running back and forth carrying equipment and talking to the bands. It felt like just yesterday that Tyler and I were setting up for twenty one pilots’ shows together while Mark filmed everything. I missed it, I missed having a camera shoved in my face by one of my best friends–it was fun. Tyler jumped out of the car and ran over to my side, offering a hand for me and not letting go once I was down. We walked into the venue, music playing over the radio to keep everyone entertained during the long waiting hours. That was when I saw him–Luke. I stopped right there in the middle of the walkway, my breath caught in my throat. 

“Y/N?” he paused, his eyes meeting mine for the first time since high school. My heart was beating in my ribcage, the feeling vibrating throughout my body and straight into my hand, which Tyler gripped tightly. His brows furrowed as he looked at me with concern. 

“Luke?” Tyler tilted his head slightly. I let go of his hand and ran straight into Luke’s arms. “Oh my god, what are you doing here?” I gasped. 

“I thought I’d fly in and surprise you! I’ve been helping a bit behind the scenes with promotional stuff,” he looked down at me with a grin. 

“How long has it been?” Tears of joy started to well in my eyes. Luke was my best friend in elementary school, middle school, and even high school–our friendship lasting longer than 10 years. 

“Eight years Tink,” he said, ruffling my hair. ‘Tinkerbell,’ the nickname I’d adopted in middle school. I remember it like it was yesterday, the summer when our families went to Disney World together. Luke and I grew up on Disney movies and when we finally saved enough money to go to the parks we were so excited. Like the amazing friend I was, I forced Luke to stand in an hour-long line with me to meet Tinkerbell only to get heat stroke and have to step out of line. I cried and cried about how bad I felt about wasting his time but the whole time he sat by my side waiting for me to feel better before dragging me off to Walt Disney’s Haunted Mansion and forever cementing my name as ‘Tinkerbell’. 

“Sorry, Tink?” Tyler interrupted. I stepped back from Luke who chuckled. 

“Short for Tinkerbell. It’s a long story. You must be Tyler, I’ve heard so much about you,” Luke beamed, reaching a hand out to Tyler who shook it firmly. 

“Interesting, because I haven’t heard anything about you,” he mimicked sarcastically. Luke’s face dropped looking at me with confusion. He’d never come up in conversation, Luke moved out of state after high school, going to New York for business school. 

“We were friends at school,” Luke explained before looking back at me. “The kids are already here if you want to come say hi, they’re all super excited to meet Tyler.” I nodded, following him as he walked ahead. Tyler reached down and grabbed my hand strongly. Something was off, he was standing taller and felt more serious than he normally was. 

“Are you okay?” I whispered into his ear–he had to lean down to properly hear me. 

“Yep. Fine. Absolutely fine.”

“Tyler if you feel sick or something you can go home, I can stay here with Luke,” I began, rubbing the pad of my thumb against the back of his hand. 

“I said I’m fine,” he insisted. As we entered the backstage area where all the kids were he turned on a smile and went to greet everyone. The room instantly filled with cheers and squeals as he was quickly swarmed and disappeared from sight, leaving Luke and I alone. 

“Do you need any help with setting stuff up?” I asked, turning away from Tyler and trying to make myself useful. 

“Actually yeah, you could help me put together the gift baskets for the bands,” he nodded, leading me further down the hall into a dressing room full of brightly coloured baskets, bags of candy, drum sticks, guitar picks, and more gifty things. I jumped over the covered floor to a small square of carpet which was clear enough for me to stand. “So, what’s up with this Tyler guy? You told me he was chill but he was anything but that,” Luke spoke, kneeling down and grabbing a basket. He was right, Tyler was generally relaxed with the exception of a few work things with the band when he really locked in. 

“I don’t know Lou,” I ran a hand through my hair, “he normally is.” 

He shrugged and let out a sigh. “Maybe he’s jealous of my amazingness,” he bragged, fitting a pack of guitar strings next to the box of chocolates in his basket.  

“As if,” I scoffed, throwing the ring of ribbon to him. “I’m dating the frontman of one of the biggest bands on the planet and you’re… you,” I laughed as Luke placed a hand on his chest in mock offense. As Luke and I continued to fit each gift into the baskets we began to talk about the past. We reminisced on the make believe games we used to play, the popular girls in middle school who thought they were ‘all that’–who apparently these days were working at gas stations and malls–and that one time our math teacher talked about his couples therapy in class. I could barely breathe as Luke mimicked the teacher’s voice, clenching my stomach and gasping for air. 

“Oh my god, remember when he got on his knees in front of Kate and started praying for her to pass the exam?” I laughed as Luke gasped, continuing his perspective of the story. I could hear the thumping and humming of the bands playing as they started to roll out on stage–I couldn’t have been more proud. 

“What about Dylan, do you remember him?” Luke asked. We’d moved closer together as the empty baskets became perfectly full and were placed on the table I’d decided needed to be covered in pink paper.

“Shit that breakup was the worst. I was the a fucking mess,” I scoffed. Dylan was my high school boyfriend and for most of our relationship I was deeply in love with him–except for the day I caught him making out with Kathy from biology. It took me months to get over it, months of watching Disney movies and scoffing ice cream on Luke’s couch. It was so bad that our parents actually let us stay at each other’s houses. 

“I know, I was there,” Luke laughed, cutting the end of the ribbon he was tying. “I’m glad you’ve found your person though, he’s lucky to have you Tink.” Finishing another basket, I placed it on the table, finally able to move around the room as we’d finished about half of the job already. Just as I was about to go back to my spot I saw Tyler standing in the doorway. 

“Hey,” I smiled, opening my arms to him as he weaved his way around the baskets towards me. “How were the kids?” I looked up at him noticing he was picking at his hands–an anxious habit he’d formed. 

“Good,” he responded. 

“Are you okay man?” Luke asked, looking up from the bow he was tying. Tyler’s fists clenched. 

“I’ve got a headache, you know?” he gestured to his head. “I think we should head home Y/N.” I didn’t want to go home, I wanted to watch my hard work pay off and hear the music. 

“Oh I can give her a ride home after is she wan–”

“No. I–I–no,” Tyler interrupted. I stood up and interlocked my arm with his but he shrugged me off. I mouthed an ‘I’m sorry’ at Luke who flashed me a sympathetic look. I hated having to leave him, I’d missed his company more than I thought I had–all of the memories flooding back in a manner of hours. 

“Okay,” I nodded, placing the basket I had just finished on the table and smiling sheepishly at Luke. Tyler walked stiffly to the door and out to the car without a word. 

“See ya Tink,” Luke waved, “I’ll text you.” 

I ran out after Tyler towards the car seeing him already sitting in the driver’s seat with the engine running. His posture was perfectly straight and expression blank. I climbed into my seat and turned to him, placing a hand on his thigh. 

“Are you okay to drive?” I asked, genuinely concerned about what was happening to him. Either he was telling the truth and had a headache or something much worse was about to happen. 

“It’s fine,” he snapped, driving out of the lot. I reached for the aux cable to plug my phone in, hoping some music would help him feel better–it usually did. “Don’t. Please,” he spoke, his hands gripping hard onto the wheel. I nodded and sat in silence the rest of the way home, staring out the window. As each building passed us I felt worse and worse, an ever expanding pit of anxiety forming in my throat. Tyler didn’t say a word but as we got closer and closer to home he would occasionally let out a groan or wince of pain. We wheeled into the driveway and came to a stop, Tyler jumping out of the car and running into the house. Immediately I chased after him, catching the front door as he attempted to slam it. 

“Tyler!” I shouted, causing him to stop and look at me. His eyes were red–bright red. Fuck. 

“I don’t want to talk to you,” he snapped, raising his arms to cover his head. He was trying to hide Blurryface from me. 

“Blurry come on. Talk to me,” I said. 

“I don’t need to hear you talk about him. I don’t want to hear you talk about him. You ditched me the whole day to hang out with him,” he started a path of no return, we were going to have that conversation.

“Tyl–We–He’s…We’re not…” I tried to explain it but couldn’t get my words out.

“Save it Y/N. I saw the way he looked at you, the way you hugged him. God you’re such a slut,” he seethed. My jaw dropped. The same words high school bullies spat at me were coming from the mouth of the person I love the most–the person who I’d decided to spend my life with. 

“You’re awful,” I sniffled. 

“And you’re not?” he continued to push, his eyes glowing brighter than before. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to unleash hell on him but it wasn’t Tyler speaking and I knew anything I did to Blurryface would just hurt Tyler more than he already was hurting. 

“He’s gay,” I blurted. “He’s gay, there is nothing going on between us and there never has.” I wiped the tears falling from my face. It wasn’t my thing to tell him, Luke was out and everyone who knew him knew he was gay–in fact even those who didn’t know him could seem to tell. Almost instantly Tyler’s eyes turned from the flaring fiery red to a bloodshot brown, his shoulders falling. 

“What?” I could tell he felt awful, the buildup of guilt obvious on his face. 

“I said, he’s gay, and there isn’t and never has been anything going on between us. He’s my friend Tyler.” He held his hand in front of his mouth, shaking violently. 

“Oh my god. I’m awful, I–I called you a–” he started to bawl and I pulled him in close. 

“It wasn’t you Ty. It’s okay, it’s okay,” I hummed, rubbing my hand up and down his back and tears streamed down his face. Tyler buried his face into my shoulder, his body trembling with every sob.

 “I didn’t mean it. I swear, I didn’t mean it,” he choked out, his voice cracking.

“I know, baby. I know,” I whispered softly, keeping my arms wrapped tightly around him. My heart ached seeing him like this, so consumed by Blurryface’s anger and his own self-hatred.

“I can’t believe I let him do that… I can’t believe I said that to you. I’m so sorry,” he kept repeating, guilt lacing every word. I pulled back just enough to see his face, placing my hands gently on either side of his cheeks. 

“Tyler, listen to me. That wasn’t you. I know you, and you would never say those things. I’m not angry at you. I just want to help you through this.” His eyes, still red and puffy, searched mine, like he was desperately trying to believe my words but couldn’t let go of his shame. 

“But I hurt you,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. I shook my head gently. 

“I’m okay. I’m here, aren’t I? I love you, Tyler. Nothing he says, nothing Blurryface does, can change that.” He let out another shaky breath, his forehead resting against mine. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Don’t say that. You deserve all the love in the world, and I’m going to keep reminding you of that until you believe it,” I said, my voice firm but gentle. For a moment, we stayed there, wrapped in each other’s arms, the weight of everything starting to lift, even if just a little. Tyler’s breathing slowly steadied, his tears drying as he leaned into my touch.

“We’ll get through this, Ty. Together.”

He nodded, his voice still raw. “Together.”

//

Requests open!

[azrielgreen]

I could really use some advice if you're feeling up to it. I have been writing for a little over a year now. I hadn't written for fun since middle school probably. I genuinely have a lot of fun planning and writing and get excited about new ideas but lately more and more I've been have more moments of feeling like I'm horrible at it. I want to just do it because I enjoy it and it's a way to cope sometimes but the thoughts are still there. I can't help but look at the stats for the things I've put out there and number of hits versus kudos doesn't really help, like 95% of those don't leave kudos. I don't want to care about the stats, I want to just do it for fun but I'm feeling a bit discouraged. I almost deleted 30k/3 months of work because I just felt like everything I've done sucks. Thankfully a friend talked me down. I know I'm always going to be harder on myself than anyone else but it's still hard. Any advice so I can keep doing something I enjoy without letting it have that negative effect on me at the same time?

Thank you in advance 💜

Hello, lovely. Firstly, I'm so sorry you're feeling that way. Writing can be really lonely and self doubt creeps in through the cracks, so it feels natural to compare and check stats, but my god is that NOT an accurate reflection of anything resembling success/talent. Sometimes I really wish AO3 wouldn't publicly show things like hits/kudos/comments or at least give people the option to hide them if they wanted. Those numbers are tremendously distorted and will never accurately reflect what self doubt drives us to seek out.

At heart, you have the right outlook 100%. Writing for yourself is always the true path and if you follow your joy, you'll never go wrong but I think something I've noticed over the last year in fandom is how people have become quite bitter over stats and numbers, obsessive even, declaring something a "flop" if it didn't get certain numbers/likes/kudos etc... and that is just a recipe for fucking disaster. It's really hard to write something and work on it while wondering if anyone will even read it, so I do totally understand that doubt, BUT.

One thing I will say that I hope is heard by those who need it: FUCK THE STATS. They are no true indication of anything, are insanely warped over time and I do think that at this point the Steddie is oversaturated. It will always have a strong readership because it's a massively mainstream pairing in a hit show and there will be an upswing when SE5 drops (not that I'll be watching, fuck you Noah) but I think that people have to understand there is no level basis of comparison for numbers and that everything you see now is skewed by time or people using socials to market and plug their fics, driving traffic.

The attention is diminishing. All energy is cyclical, it ebbs and flows. It's been two years, people aren't reading like they were in 2022.

So, my advice to you. Don't write for other people. Don't write for popularity, numbers, relevance or praise because there is no consistent way to reliably ensure the attainment of such things in a fandom. Write for YOU and only you. You will always be your own biggest fan, so make THEM happy first and foremost and then if anyone else enjoys it, bonus. Your art is coming out through your passion, your stories are born through curiosity and creativity and they will be NEEDED by someone. Maybe not the day you post, maybe not a year after but one day, someone will find it and love it so much and it will save them.

Not to be all "back in the good old days" but I think often about a very formative and impactful fic I read which was already complete by the time I found it, it had been for years and I never got to follow & comment weekly encouragement at the time. The fic was extremely niche and controversial. It changed me as a person and I'm grateful every day the writer pushed on and completed it because I needed it so much and it was waiting for me. I think sometimes the social aspects of fandom are a real distraction from the core pull of what we are driven by as writers; creation. I think fandom was never meant to be this visible or socially accessible and comparison wrecks many people's confidence.

Those numbers are fucked, cooked or legacy. Ignore them.

In ten years, when someone is having the worst night of their life and they get on AO3, and they find your stuff that you posted, shared and created, it will be their shining light. Keep going, be brave, explore. Make a bubble for yourself with ONLY obsessively positive interiors where you create and trust that THIS THING is the greatest thing you've ever made and then move onto the next.

Writing is incredibly difficult for numerous reasons and I have nothing but the utmost respect for those who devote their time, energy and effort to it the way fic writers do. Self doubt is common, no matter how much people project success.

You're doing great. Fuck the numbers. Focus on yourself.

💜💜💜

[dragonmarquise]

Speaking of trauma and stuff, name all the characters you think have trauma in bomb rush cyberfunk, any crew, any reason. Feel free to use HCs and stories and fanfics to explain!!! Bc RN I am drowning in your content/pos

First and foremost, thank you for the interest in my ideas and stuff!! Even though art and fan fic writing has been on the backburner for me while I try to get the BRC wiki to a point where I can call it “finished” at least for now. So like, doing posts like this is the only way right now that I can share my stuff at the moment. ;u;

Second, OH BOY, this is gonna be a hell of a topic. Uhh, content warnings for mentions of abuse and injuries and trauma in general. I mean, given the topic, it’s definitely going to get dark. The big ones are probably going to be my 4 Devil Theory OCs, but I have some ideas for a few other characters…

Also this is gonna be VERY long just fair warning! No seriously, I think I basically wrote the equivalent of a short fan fic here. That ended up being the reason this took so long to answer. :u

Let’s start off with Felix! Since you brought up an interesting point about why he might be distancing himself from others. For other people’s reference, this is the reblog I’m referring to.

Actually let’s break this up into sections so it’s a bit easier to read, not to mention easier to get to certain characters.

Felix

So again, from your post! Felix distances himself even from friends a lot of the time, because it’s a subconscious thing where he doesn’t want to end up too attached to someone. And then hurting badly if he loses them.

Related to Old Amsterdam, maybe Felix somehow survived whatever happened that led to it being destroyed/buried and then having New Amsterdam built on top of it. The current fandom theory is that it was a giant flooding disaster. It’s mentioned in a couple of dialogs with the Oldheads that at least those three (i.e. Boombap, Oldschool, and Classic) still remember the original Amsterdam, and the way they talk, they definitely lived there for at least a short amount of time before the city got wiped out. Presumably they and other people managed to flee whatever disaster before it happened, while other people weren’t so lucky maybe?

Heck, I know there’s one particular dialog, I think from Boombap specifically, where he mentions how Felix was just a kid while Boombap himself was in his prime as a writer. Presumably back during Old Amsterdam, but maybe even during the early start of New Amsterdam?

So maybe Felix as a small child remembers the disaster, either having to stay with his parents and losing them while managing to survive himself. Or otherwise they all fled but something happened along the way where Felix had to leave by himself. There’s also fan theories about the coffin in the Old Amsterdam under Versum Hill, that maybe it was used to save him, but also kinda preserve him? Then again maybe the coffin is unrelated in that regard, and Felix has some other connection to it (maybe a very distant descendant of whoever actually made it).

We don’t know the exact time frame between Old Amsterdam being destroyed and New Amsterdam being built, other than the Oldheads being around for both based on the game dialog. Again, they mention having memories of Old Amsterdam and how it compares to New Amsterdam and all. But still, it could have been a decently long amount of time in the past, since we don’t quite know how old the Oldheads themselves are… I always imagined them in the 60s to 80s range tbh, and then most of the case being in the range of 25 to 35.

Well, okay, the Old Amsterdam stuff and the Oldheads’ ties into the game’s lore is an interesting topic, but I’m getting a bit too off-topic for this post, sorry!!

Anyways, Felix as a very young child was in Amsterdam at the time of the disaster, manages to survive, but loses his parents at minimum. That kind of loss, especially in such a presumably horrifying way, isn’t something that can be easily overcome.

But also! Here’s my additional idea for this: Felix doesn’t want to remember what happened back then. In fact, I like to think he’s repressed that particular part of his life so hard he genuinely can’t remember now. At least not willingly. Good thing DJ Cyber was helping Felix remember only the part about how to stop Faux, otherwise he might’ve seen some REALLY depressing stuff. I like to think the first bits of each dream Felix has at the end of each chapter (besides the 4th one, which just gets right into the actual dream stage) are subconscious symbolisms of those locked away memories.

The first dream has a black and white image of “Old Amsterdam”, with someone wearing his mask in a boat. The second dream has a bunch of people standing before a pyramid of stairs, and if you knock off the person at the top, the rest at the bottom start cheering. The third dream has a long line of people, waiting for something or waiting to go somewhere maybe. The fifth dream has a line of crows you have to chase away, leading up to the group of big crows that reveal Felix.

… granted I only have my own ideas of what those could symbolize, but I feel like there’s definitely something interesting there.

Anyways, as far as Felix knows, he grew up in New Amsterdam as an orphan. There was nothing else before that. Nope. But even if he never remembers the truth of what happened to him as a kid, that trauma is still affecting him as an adult.

Like what you pointed out in your reblog, I like to think Felix eventually realizing that pushing away people who care about him just to “protect” them isn’t a healthy way of handling his feelings. Even if he never remembers the root cause of why he felt the need to do that in the first place, I’d think he learns to handle it better from now on, especially with the events of BRC teaching him friendship and stuff (not quite but like, you get the idea lol).

Cueball

So now, Cueball! Oh boy, poor Cueball. He has two sources of trauma: the stuff that led to him going full-cyber, and Eight Ball being killed.

With the first, reiterating what I said in my big DOT EXE post: as a teen living in the US (or whatever is the equivalent in the universe of BRC), Cueball got COVID, and the resulting Long COVID left him in damn terrible health. Overall physically weaker, damaged immune system, some nerve damage, sense of taste and smell being messed up (“Can you imagine biting into a chocolate bar, and tasting nothing but a like, raw meat kinda taste? I still remember that. Wouldn’t wish that even on my worst enemies.”).

And his own friends being worried they might “catch” it from him too (even though it’s at the point where it’s just the Long COVID) so then this poor guy is socially isolated while he’s still getting through high school on top of all of this. Doesn’t help that both of his parents are convinced it isn’t that bad and it's just him being lazy or finding "excuses". It isn’t until years later when they finally take him to see some doctors to try and get him some kind of help, and even then, they only take him to see quack doctors that recommend snake oils over anything that could actually help him.

Even with Eight Ball eventually stepping in and helping Cueball moving away from his awful parents, seeing better doctors in New Amsterdam… and then it turns out Cueball’s condition is so severe that there isn’t much that can be done by that point. So then the full-cyber conversion happens, because from Cueball’s point of view, his only other options are to either continue to suffer, or just straight up die.

I mean, you can imagine that would leave some pretty significant trauma on anyone. But Cueball is repressing most of it. Especially since, he’s had other people pity him and feel sorry for what he went through, and he hates that. The only person he ends up telling about any of this in particular is Bō (my Devil Theory OC that I ship with him), and even then only after they’ve been dating for a while.

By this point, he’s mostly mad at his parents for letting it get as bad as it did, especially with how stubborn they were about taking it seriously at all. Not to mention, like I said in the DOT EXE post, Cueball originally had plans to becoming a chef or baker. But he couldn’t exactly do that with his sense of smell and taste getting messed up, nevermind everything else he had to deal with. There’s a bit of resentment there towards his parents, the people who were supposed to, y’know, keep him safe.

Oh also, he is dead to them. Quite literally. I imagine in some countries in the BRC universe, a person going full-cyber or even just getting a cyberhead makes the person be considered legally dead. Y’know, Ship of Thesesus, “How much do you replace of a person before they stop being the same person?” kind of thing. And if not legally, I can imagine some people just have that kind of thought towards cybernetics like that.

His parents even made a grave for him and held a funeral for him. To clarify, by that point he was already living in New Amsterdam with his brother and the other DOT EXE guys, going through the procedures to go full-cyber. He told them what was going to happen to him, and they basically cut contact and acted like he completely died.

But if he had a chance at the time, Cueball would have flown back home, dig open his own “grave”, then push his parents in and bury them alive. Otherwise, he just likes to think that if he’s dead to them, then they’re dead to him too. Hell, they probably are dead by the point of the game, but Cueball refuses to even think about them either way.

The main trauma response (not sure if that’s the right word for this?) from all this is that Cueball gets really worried for his non-cyber friends whenever they get sick. Also getting mad if they try to keep going around as if they’re not sick, “Dude!! Go rest!! You’re either gonna make it worse or get someone else sick!!”

He is also still very distrustful of doctors in general, even if they’re genuine. He goes along with Bō for his doctor visits like a bodyguard. He’s worried for his boyfriend, but it takes him a while to admit he might be overreacting.

So then besides that! Cueball also has the trauma from Eight Ball dying. Maybe he even saw it himself, I don’t think the game specifies if the other DOT EXE members were around when it happened, or if the police/Faux managed to catch Eight Ball alone and take him out then. Personally it feels more that it’s the former, like they were all talking together nearby after losing the crew battle, then Eight Ball got shot and the others ran for it before they were next.

From a different previous post of mine, basically what I’m thinking is that Cueball was not coping with Eight Ball’s death very well. At all. To the point of even making fun of Eight Ball for just dying “so easily”. Which of course pisses off the rest of DOT EXE and gets him kicked out, leading to him joining BRC to continue to try and ignore Eight Ball’s death. Even considers just deleting his memories of Eight Ball completely, even though doing so would leave gaps in his memories that are too noticeable to ignore.

Fortunately! I think he’d eventually get a better handle on his feelings and what happened, and reconcile with the rest of DOT EXE later. He still sticks with BRC though, but at least he lives with the rest of DOT EXE again.

Vela

This one is for the spring palette Eclipse member. This is gonna be a bit shorter, but mostly because, I don’t want to get into too much detail on what happened to her, since the character herself probably wouldn’t do so either, at least to most people. So, to the point: She is studying at the local university, and at one point ended up abused by a professor she thought she could trust. That guy very nearly got away with it, if it weren’t for the rest of Eclipse stepping in to make sure he didn’t.

Though even with the scumbag punished, for a very long time afterwards Vela ends up very distrustful of men in general. She does go to therapy to help cope with things at least, especially since she wants to avoid coping in a way that ends up hurting her more. The leader of Eclipse in particular, Cassiopeia, encouraged Vela to make sure to go to therapy, and of course all of them helped support her during this time too.

It definitely does help, with her becoming less distrustful over time. She even gets a boyfriend later on! After a lot of patience from him, which Vela really appreciates and loves him for. Unfortunately, the rest of Eclipse finding out about this is the reason (in my little headcanon/AU story thing at least) for them kicking her out of their crew. So then similar to Cueball, leading to her joining up with BRC.

To clarify, they didn’t kick her out because she’s dating a man, they kicked her out because she hid something fairly important from the rest of them. With what she went through, combined with the crew overall having a, well, dislike towards men in general, she was worried about what they would think of her if she told them. So kinda poor communication on both sides?

I like to think they do eventually sort things out, but also like with Cueball, Vela probably sticks with BRC for writer stuff. However, she’s still very happy to have her friends back by thatpoint!

(Also I ended up deciding that Vela’s boyfriend is someone I’ve talked about before already. Remember the guy who I said his friends joke about his “theoretical” girlfriend, because he insists he’s dating someone but they’ve still never met her? But yeah that’s probably for another post. :P )

Rise

For Rise, I think some people might debate if it really “counts” as trauma, but I think it still does. A lot of this is copy-pasted from a document that I don’t think I’ve shared publicly yet, or at least not outside of this one BRC server I’m on.

In essence, Rise was emotionally neglected by her parents. Rise's parents are the high/upper class kind of people. Rich! Snooty! Looking down on the poor! etc. They saw their daughter as more of a reflection of their own reputation and stuff instead of her own person. So plenty of criticizing her for her appearance, what she ate, who she hung out with, what she studied in school, etc.

I have a headcanon where Rise has a huuuuge interest in marine biology and ocean stuff. It’s partly why she ends up hanging out on Pyramid Island, at least in my mind! She knows a lot, possibly even more than most people who go to school for the same topic!

But then whenever she'd ramble to her parents about it, she was basically met with a lot of dismissive "Yes yes, that's nice dear" and stuff like that. And after a certain point they were like, "When are you going to be interested in something more practical? Like medical science or business?" and that basically made her never want to talk about anything to her parents ever again, let alone her hobbies and interests.

At one point they wanted Rise to get into ice skating, but only because they wanted to have the prestige of having an "Olympic gold-medalist~" as a daughter. But also making sure she didn't get into any sports that were too "masculine" in their eyes, oh no, what a scandal that would have been for these poor rich assholes!! She got into skating alright... inline skating, specifically just to spite them. From that, Rise made more genuine friends, then became a writer through that as well. Her first time getting caught by police, her parents were horrified and actually paid to get her out and scrub her records (like with what was happening with Faux).

But then Rise keep doing writer stuff, again out of spite towards her parents, and kept getting caught, etc. Eventually they just forced her to move out of London (or maybe, Neo London? Who knows how bad the floods were in the rest of the world) where they were living, and she ends up in New Amsterdam from there. They would have disowned her on top of that, but then that would be even more of a scandal in their socialite circles, oh no!! So they just quietly sent her off and even try to pretend she's just overseas studying at some prestigious university or something.

The only "contact" Rise has with her parents these days is them actually sending her money every now and then. In their mind, if she isn't something like a doctor or CEO, it means she's probably living off of dirt without their help. She always donates the money they send her to a local charity, she sure as hell wouldn't want to keep it even if she did need it.

Rise doesn’t mind if people assume she’s just some rich kid that got into writer stuff for the sake of clout/because it was trendy. She doesn’t care for other people’s opinions too much, and besides she thinks her beef with her parents is between just her and them, and nobody else's business unless she chooses to share it.

Though, even after that, Rise tends to have trouble opening up to people, at least outside of being a writer and all. Especially when it comes to talking about her oceanic interests. So like, for my headcanons she ends up becoming besties with Rave and Shine in particular once they’re all with BRC! But even then, she’s afraid to bring up her interests, and for the longest time they mostly like to talk about writer stuff or gossip and the like. She gets there eventually, it just takes her a while.

---

Now for my Devil Theory OCs! I’ve already written a lot in this post, and these four might be a bit shorter than the rest all together. Also like with Rise, this is mostly copy-pasted and cleaned up/added to from a document I haven’t shared outside of a Discord server.

Sai

He is the spring palette Devil Theory guy, and the one in my headcanons/stories who ends up joining BRC. His parents started off verbally abusive with him as a small kid, until it escalated into physical abuse by the time he was in middle school. His dad was the source of the worst of it, but his mom definitely wasn’t a saint either in all of this, being abusive as well. It’s effectively a sense of “If my son wasn’t around, he’d just go after me” cowardice, just “agreeing” with her husband for her own safety. Sai at least had Daishō (and eventually Bō and Nunchaku) to help him through it, in particular Daishō letting him stay over at Daishō's house for days at a time just to avoid his parents.

Unfortunately, the abuse still continued whenever Sai came home. Despite what was happened, back then he still had hopes that his parents might change eventually. They hammered into him the mentality of “family is everything no matter what”, and was hoping that would actually win out in the end. But then because of that, he never really fought back, thinking it would just make things worse, even once he grew older and was physically capable of fighting back.

It also didn’t help that for most of his life living in New Amsterdam, Sai felt pretty isolated. Him and his parents moved from Puerto Rico (fun fact, with a lot of maps that show what the Earth would look like if all the ice caps melted, Puerto Rico is still around since most of it is actually pretty mountainous! So not as badly affected by any potential world flooding disasters, at least compared to Old Amsterdam and other places). He gets picked on a lot as a kid for being Latino and just generally an outsider. Even a lot of teachers and adults end up not trusting him due to his “attitude”.

Daishō is pretty much his only friend for a very long time, and before joining BRC he only ever considered him, Bō, and Nunchaku as his friends. Basically, he doesn’t feel like he has a lot of other people to turn to for help. And at any rate, he wouldn’t want to risk his own friends getting hurt because of his parents. Especially since, his dad in particular is a cop, and has been using those connections to cover up what’s been going on.

This eventually accumulated into his breaking point sometime in high school. His father managed to give him a nasty cut on his lower leg, and his mother just sloppily stitched it up, seeing no need to go to the hospital (because otherwise the people at the hospital would probably find out about what was going on). Sai eventually snapped sometime after that, and beat the fuck out of his dad.

He would have done the same to his mom (who, again, was also very much physically abusive, even if not to the same extent as his dad), if she hadn't managed to barricade herself in a bathroom. Afterwards, both his parents decided to skip town out of “embarrassment” instead of trying to involve the police against Sai (i.e. realizing that what they were doing to Sai would have to be investigated as well, in a way that couldn’t be covered up with cop connections anymore). He hasn’t seen them since and plans to keep it that way.

Is it any wonder the poor guy ends up with anger issues? He at least gets a better hold of them later in life at least, especially once he joins BRC.

Bō

Bō, the blond one (winter palette for Devil Theory), mostly dealt with his mother being horribly controlling and abusive to him (largely emotionally, but also sometimes physically). Meanwhile his father was a doormat who effectively enabled her, even helping her cover up what was going on.

At one point she attempted to homeschool him to protect him from being "corrupted”. She and the father followed, from what Bō could remember, a “very strange niche of Christianity”, with confusing ideology, seemingly just her picking and choosing what she wanted to believe from the Bible (which, unfortunately applies to a lot of Christians out there, but I digress…). They never actually went to church, but she would insist they were are True Christians. Her attempts at homeschooling him were equally confusing, at least for him.

But then that resulted in Bō needing to be held back a bit once the proper authorities found out she wasn't doing a good job, and thus forced her to let him attend regular school. They tried to catch him up as best as possible, but eventually just let the schools "handle" him from there. Between that and continued abuse at home, he was all around miserable during this time. Also really not helping that he ended up with poor social skills due to how his mother was isolating him so much.

Fun fact, he met Sai and Daishō sometime towards the end of primary school for all of them (roughly middle school, from what I can tell from research?). They had planned to bully him into helping them with homework, thinking an older kid would know more about what they were studying. But then they found out about him needing to catch up on a lot of things, and actually helped him out instead! Also for a frame of reference on ages, Bō is 31 in the present, while Sai and Daishō are both about 28, and Nunchaku is about 27.

Anyways, back to the note about his mother isolating him. She would also manipulate Bō’s relationships, either scaring off other kids he tried to make friends with, making him paranoid that they secretly hated him, or otherwise making it so that he could rarely (if ever) see them too often.

Daishō and Sai were the only ones she couldn’t successfully scare off nor turn Bō against. They also helped him stand up to her and defend himself. This eventually led to Bō being disowned and kicked out of his home for being so “disobedient”, but he considers this the best possible outcome. As far as he knows, his mother and father both moved out in the country to get away from the “corrupting” influence of the city, so at least he doesn’t have to worry about ever meeting them again.

Unfortunately, he was still left with a lot of issues. One is with food. She would often say she was going to cook one thing and then make something completely different, intentionally adding ingredients or buy snack foods that he didn’t like, or add certain spices that would alter the taste in ways he didn’t expect. She did this mostly as a way to make sure he wouldn’t be a picky eater, forcing him to eat or go hungry. Even if it meant eating something that he found repulsive.

As an adult, this resulted in Bō being very, very picky about his food. He wants it a certain way, and if it isn’t the way he wants or is expecting, he refuses to eat it. Especially if it’s something he hasn’t tried before, he needs to be told what it’s like, be able to at least sample it first, and if it’s homemade food he has to trust the person who’s cooking it anyways. For ordering at restaurants, if they get his order wrong, he’d rather just throw it out and go hungry than ask for them to correct it. His friends (and eventually Cueball) have to be the ones to step in and get it fixed, even when Bō insists they don’t have to, “I’m fine, really, I’m not that hungry anyways I swear!”

Another thing is that he’s afraid of the dark. This one was a result of his mom often locking him in their basement as a punishment whenever he acted up (i.e. just acting like a kid would). He’s embarrassed that he has to sleep with a night light, or really any sort of light, but his friends and Cueball are very accommodating of that.

Nunchaku

Appearance-wise she’s the one based off of Devil Theory’s summer palette. She was born and raised in the United States, specifically in California. Her parents placed a lot of pressure on her to be successful no matter the topic (school, sports, exercising, even just hobbies), but she could never meet their standards, nor did she really want to in the first place. This led to a lot of mental and emotional abuse related to that, most of it in the form of guilt-tripping her about not being able to do “better”.

Skateboarding was one hobby she kept secret from them, in particular because she knew they would try and force her to become the next Tony Hawk or something, when she wanted to keep it as a fun hobby for stress relief. Especially given everything else they were putting her through. Another hobby was fixing machines, including cars, which she mostly did in secret away from her parents lest they try and force her to study mechanical engineering or something.

After a certain point this escalated into physical abuse in the form of pushing Nunchaku past her limits for any physical training/exercising she did for sports in particular, as well as attempts to control her health and diet. In regards to school sports, they basically forced her to join just about every sport team the school had to offer, even if she hated the sport in question. There were times she thought she would die from a heart attack or just exhaustion in general. Other times she was either actually sick or just pretending to be sick in order to get out of practice and sneak off to finally relax.

She also wasn’t having a fun time at school anyways. She was pretty open about being a butch lesbian since maybe around middle school. Her parents at first tried to discourage it, but then eventually tried to use it to their advantage. In short, her dad was a local politician, a conservative one at that, and used his daughter as a sort of “See, I’m not a bigot, my daughter is a lesbian!” thing. Outside of that they didn’t really do much to be supportive, other than not mistreating her specifically because she’s a lesbian (which is, y’know, bare minimum).

Also, they didn’t bother helping her with the bullying she was dealing with at school over her identity and her being a part of every team (most of the other kids thought she was stuck up for doing that, not knowing/accepting that her parents were the ones to force her to do that). Most of Nunchaku’s real friends were either kids from outside of her school or online.

The latter is how she ended up friends with Sai, Daishō, and Bō! It was mostly a shared love of anime between the four of them, I think I mentioned that in the big DT post a while back? But yeah, eventually they became closer friends once they realized they were all deal with shitty parents, so then deciding to stick together and help support one another.

Truthfully, her eventual move to New Amsterdam was less “just moving”, and more her friends helping her successfully run away from home once she turned 18. As far as she knows, her parents have long since written her off as a “failure” and have stopped looking for her. She’s glad that they aren’t trying to drag her back, but deep down she’s also still hurt that they just gave up on her like that, after all the pressure they put on her.

Despite the whole “be good at ALL of the sports” obsession her parents had, Nunchaku still enjoys some sports and plays games with others. She’s just, y’know, not doing it to be the best, she just wants to have fun! Though there are times where she get competitive, like with writer stuff, but at least it’s on her own terms.

Daishō

Daishō, the leader of Devil Theory (also for appearance he’s the autumn palette), has been through some awful stuff himself. Though, a big part of his problems is that he’s convinced what he went through wasn’t nearly as bad as what his friends went through. Even though, trauma is not a competition. Still, I’ll get into that a bit more later.

Anyways, starting off with the root of his problems, his rich parents had a messy divorce around the time he was in early primary school (i.e. roughly early elementary school). The parents' animosity against one another was so bad to the point where they lived in separate houses, with Daishō actually living in a house of his own. His parents wanted to see each other as little as possible, so Daishō's "own" house would be where he was dropped off when he wasn’t meant to be with one of his parents. But because of how much both of them worked (and sometimes them going on vacations by themselves), he spent most of his time at that third house anyways.

He was basically cared for/raised by a nanny and a few housecleaners at this point, and those people were certainly a lot more like parents to him than his actual parents. He still sends his old nanny gift cards and stuff for the holidays, sometimes having lunch to catch up, etc. So just to emphasize, he has no love for either of his parents in the present day.

Anyways, both of his parents tried to manipulate him, in order to get him on their “side” against the other parent. Said manipulation changed often, but ranged from bribery, threats, and outright abuse. Never physical abuse, since they were at least careful not to leave “evidence” (with them thinking poor mental health resulting from shitty parents doesn’t count as evidence of anything bad).

Daishō himself was kind of desperate to either get his parents back together and maybe somehow fix the whole mess the three of them were in, or otherwise just get them to calm the hell down and leave him out of it. Him wanting to fix things was moreso when he was a kid, and then the latter was more as a teen when he started getting sick of their bullshit. Though sometimes his feelings would yo-yo between the two.

Eventually, all of this drama and manipulation led to an instance of attempted murder by his mother on him and his father. During which his father also left him for dead. Daishō got his foot almost hacked off by his own mom, but at least managed to get away despite what happened. The only other major downside to this is that she somehow got away with it in court. That whole thing basically killed what little hope he had left for either parent.

So from there, he just decided to beat them at their own game. Manipulating them, especially getting a ton of cash out of each of them in exchange for his "loyalty", telling lies about one parent to the other as “dirt” they could use later, stuff like that. After a certain point, he had effectively scammed enough money out of both of them that he felt safe enough to cut them both out of his life. The scamming was also enough to leave them both poor as hell, especially since they continued to use their respective money to try and get back at each other during all of this.

As far as he knows, his mom went back to her home country "in shame", while his dad just outright vanished. Good riddance either way, in his opinion.

So now going back to how he thinks what he went through wasn’t as “bad” as what the others went through. Other than the murder, he thinks it wasn't as bad because they weren't "directly" abusive towards him, at least not all of the time like what the other three went through.

Because of that he feels like he has to be the one to make sure everyone else is alright and happy. He has to be the one in charge, he has to be the one to fix things, he has to be the one to organize things, because his friends deserve to have that kind of happiness before he does.

Of course, with what happened in the game, he and his friends almost getting killed by Faux has put a lot of guilt on Daishō. Especially since he was mainly the one pushing for their deal with Faux, being convinced that Faux would have their backs and they could enjoy being All City and keep having fun together. With how badly things turned out, the guilt is still eating him up to this day...

One Last Section for Devil Theory

Just going over how each of them lost at least part of their legs, which led to all of them ending up with the cybernetic legs they have in the game:

With Sai, the cut on his lower leg got badly infected, made worse from him trying to hide it from both his friends and just people in general, not to mention being worried that going to the hospital might lead to him getting arrested if they found out what he did to his dad. Eventually it got bad enough that there was no saving it and he had to get that part of his leg amputated.

Bō lost part of his legs not from anything his mother did, but while he was an adult, long after being disowned by her. It was due to an accident (i.e. a failed secret test with a walking tank, where other people got injured as well), which got covered up by the police. Bō actually isn’t even sure what exactly happened that day, no one else who got injured know either, especially not that it was because of the police in the first place.

For Nunchaku, she lost most of her lower legs due to a factory accident as an adult. With her being new to New Amsterdam once she moved, she was in desperate need of a job, and ending up working for a shady factory that had a ton of questionable dealings and safety regulations. Her getting hurt lead to many other employees quitting, because it was the last straw and a bunch of other employees also got badly injured in the same accident. It was in fact the most severe accident at that factory up to that point, which led to it being finally shut down. She now works as a mechanic at a shop run by another former factory employee who was her mentor.

Lastly, for Daishō, when his mother tried to kill him, his foot ended up so mangled that he was better off just amputating it. It didn’t help that he also had to crawl and even walk with it for a while before he managed to get it looked at. Mostly because he went into hiding for a bit because, y’know, attempted murder.

With all of them getting injuries that resulted in cutting off a foot or lower leg (I'm imagining a bit after Bō's accident, that was the last one chronologically), Daishō ends up declaring, "Clearly we're all fucking cursed, let's just get this over with already." And paid for all of them to just get what's left of their lower legs replaced with fancy cybernetics, as seen in the game. This eventually leads them to becoming writers ("With these legs we could probably manage it pretty good, right?"), and then forming Devil Theory.

Not to mention the abuse all four of them faced, from their parents, and even other people like employers as adults, led to them adopting an "If the world wants to treat you like trash, then you should be allowed to trash it right back" kind of attitude. Hence how they act as Devil Theory.

Suffice to say, a lot of the problems they caused as Devil Theory would have been avoided if they all got some dang therapy!! Bō at least went for a bit as an older teen after being disowned, but stopped after a while, convincing himself he’s “fine” now. The rest refuse outright though also insist they're fine. They're not fine. They’ll get better eventually, but it will require someone convincing them that they’re not really fine, and them accepting that in turn.

So… I think that’s it. I know this is, a lot. So much. Maybe too much, lol. But if you read this all the way through, then thank you!!

[tmntkiseki]

Hiya!!! This is for the TMNT anniversary ask game!!

My questions are 2, 13, 28 and 33!

Thank you and have a great day!! 😊

2.) What was your first exposure to [TMNT iteration]?

Since no iteration was specified, I'm gonna throw a curveball and go with 1987

So, by definition, the first TMNT iteration I became familiar with was 2003 because it was the one that was airing when I was a child. However, in the town I grew up in, there used to be a VHS rental store and every week, my mom would take my brothers and I there to rent movies and the like (since it was much closer than the Blockbuster.) While picking out some cassettes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, I spotted some cassettes of the 1987 show and was like "Oh hey, the Ninja Turtles! Isn't that the show that airs every Saturday on 4Kids?" and even though I was barely interested in the 2003 show at that point, I still got them anyway because. Cute animal protagonists. (I really loved cute animal protagonists growing up. It's a wonder I never became a furry XD)

Now, I was definitely confused as to why the show didn't resemble the one airing on TV (silly eight-year-old me had no idea that the 1987 and 2003 series were two separate shows), but to my memory I did enjoy those episodes of 1987 I watched via those cassettes. Which episodes were they? Absolutely no idea since I can't even remember what happened in them; it's part of the reason why I want to finally get around to watching Seasons 1 - 7 of 1987 in full so I can figure which episodes those were because it's been haunting me for MONTHS.

13.) Which version of Michelangelo is your favorite?

This one is tough... 2003 is my first exposure to the character and thus the one I think of when I think "Michelangelo," but... I mean... The Last Ronin, dude. That mini-series is the definition of "be careful what you wish for" because yes, fans finally got to see what Michelangelo would be like if he reached his full potential as a ninja, but it came at the cost of Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Splinter, and Casey all dying. (Speaking of which; imagine a TV special where 2003 Mikey is forced to fight Roninverse!Mikey. Would that be cool or what?)

28.) What is one thing you would like to see explored more in TMNT art/fics?

Damn, another tough one. I feel like fans of the 2003 series already do an excellent job of exploring things that were never achieved in canon. Michelangelo angst, Donny having severe trauma from his experiences in the SAINW universe, Raphael being put in more vulnerable positions where he's the one who needs to be rescued/saved... I think the one thing I'm craving is some introspection on Leo and the fact that, outside Usagi, who lives in another dimension and can't visit a whole lot, he doesn't really have any close friends? So much of his character revolves around his dedication to protecting his family that the big question mark is, you know, who does Leo become when he's without his father and brothers (just don't kill off Raph, Don, Mikey, and Splinter to do that please sdkgdgjk)

33.) What is your favorite thing you've made for TMNT?

This fanart

It's not my best work, but I am so stupidly proud of the shading and detailing on Leo and Raph. (If you decide to like/reblog, please be sure to do so via the original post.)

[alcorian-wizard]

Could you explain the concept of the transcendence au, I don’t understand it very well and could really use the help. Please

Hello!! I'm not the best at explaining things so first I reccomend looking at these following posts that neatly go through main points of the au!!

This Transcendence AU primer, which gives an overiew of the au and main points (alongside some good fic recs!!) (a lot of what i'm going to write underneath is based off this post!!!)

This one, that goes into an in depth summary of main events within the au

BUUTTT basically, to my understanding, the transcendence AU is a gravity falls AU that diverges some point after the sock opera episode where bill tries to end the world. The twins stop him, leaving him nearly dead. In an attempt to save himself, Bill tries to possess Dipper without a deal. Dipper stops bill in his attempts, killing him- but in doing so, all of bill's demon powers and magic infuse with Dipper, turning him into a demon.

(ALSO!! As a side effect of killing bill, all the supernatural of Gravity Falls spread across the entire globe, causing the event which is dubbed The Transcendence!!)

Following this, dipper finds that he can't be seen by anyone but Mabel (which leads to a lot of angst in the following years) who slowly but surely helps him through it all. as he grows up, he slowly develops more and more of his powers, getting a summoning circle of his own and making deals around the globe.

Being a demon, however, he ends up outliving his family. He keeps track of their souls, continuing his life as a demon whilst also looking out for their reincarnations (he often tries to bond with mabel's reincarnation, but often finds complications in doing so, considering the fact that having the world's most powerful demon show up in your bedroom isn't what you'd expect for a typical thursday afternoon)

TLDR: Bill tried to possess Dipper and failed. This killed Bill and turned Dipper into a demon.

(a demon that we know and love, called Alcor the Dreambender, based off the name of one of the twin stars found within the Ursa Major constellation (aka the Big Dipper))

Chaos ensues.

I 10/10 reccomend you to read the above posts since their explanations go into the smaller details of the AU. But you can find the main TAU blog here (or at @transcendence-au) where you can find a lot of art, fics, world building, head canons, and more! They have a pinned post there that links to a bunch of useful AU information (including the posts i had above!!)

But yeah! I absolutely love this AU with all my heart. the amount of lore and extensive world building that goes into it makes it feel like it's own vast universe, but because of how open-ended the foundations of the AU is, you can find many different renditions and takes of the various aspects of this AU. it's all just *chef's kiss* and I love to run away with the different components of this universe and just listen to everyone's different ideas of how things go (Alcor himself also lives for a veerry long time, so that gives a lot of writing potential or different stories during his time alive)

(if you're confused abt why bill is in my more recent posts with alcor, it's a tiny lil au of an au that i made where bill comes back when dipper's like, a few millenia old and at this point, everyone dipper knows and loves has been dead for a looong time and he's just lonely so when he sees bill come back he's just like fuck it, we immortal besties ig and they vibe (for the lack of a better term))