#i just love that they exist in some way or form. art is beautiful and comics are great (until theyre not <3)< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[martyrbat]

seriously though i know im mostly a comics blog so complaining is expected and is second nature and there is a LOT to complain on (from disgusting writers to character developments being nuked) thats justified but also i love comics so so much.... i love this medium and how unique it is and the story opportunities it gives. i love seeing so many different art styles and writers and how comics can be dialogue or visual heavy (or a balance of both) and how theyre equally important or emotionally moving. i love how many stories and arcs these characters can have. i love when you can tell something is a passion project and when you can tell someone truly loves these characters. i love how long theyve been around and seeing the development of them and the way they been empowering or something to look forward to and bring hope or laughter or excitement since the 1930s. i love that i can not like something in a specific story but still enjoy the character or medium because theres so many different factors in that one story alone but also because theres so many different writers and stories and spin offs and solos and everything to still read and enjoy if that particular one isn't for me. i love how their timelines can be complete bullshit and how sometimes an event is important and sometimes theres no consequences and the only way to find out is to keep reading. i love the melodramas, i love the cheesiness, i love the camp, i love the passion projects, i love the dark themes, i love the slow and developing timelines and arcs, i love the tragedy and humor and horror and action and how many different genres it can have while still in this one medium and still about this one character. i love how any character, no matter how minor, can have a person that loves them and gets excited to see them. i love the community aspect of them (sometimes) and i love how so many different people can enjoy the same comic for different reasons and have their own community of mutuals that enjoy it the way they do. i just love comics so so much.

[obsessive-valentine]

Yandere Artist x GN!Maid-Reader

Julian (or Jules as you nickname him), an esteemed artist in Victorian society, becomes captivated by a forgotten maid who moves through life unnoticed by others. Obsessed with finding ways to capture the adoration he has for you on canvas.

You’d been a maid at the gallery Julian visited, and the reason he returned over and over. He, a man of great status, an esteemed artist too, became drawn to you beyond his own understanding.

On one of Julian’s many visits, he found the courage to speak to you. "You work so hard, yet make it look as graceful as a dance", he murmured, his voice soft but sincere. You were startled—maids weren't meant to be noticed by men of his status. But Julian wasn’t like the others.

It was only after weeks of shared glances, whispered conversation and quiet sketches that Julian dared to ask you for more.

Losing sleep over the way you made him feel, emotions so deep and unexplainable he began going mad over trying to express it. His current models and pieces of art just weren't good enough compared to you and the way you make him feel.

A type of suffocating love he never thought could exist.

“Forgive me for being so forward,” he said, his voice gentle and earnest. “I understand this may come as a shock, but if you’d allow me, I would be honoured if you would be my muse."

Though you were hesitant to overstep and cause a scandal, he promised you everything you could want if you were to only be his muse, he’d give you a place to stay and all you could ask for, you wouldn’t have to be a maid anymore. But then being his muse, turned into friendship, then lovers.

He fell in love with how you so effortlessly inspired his work -but fell harder for how you grounded him as a person. Smitten by the little things- your soft laughter, the gentle way you spoke. He loved the small gestures you made without thinking, the way you’d hum as you worked. He'd notice it all.

While initially hesitant from the intensity of not being spared a glance to having a man tripping over himself at the sight of you -you grew to enjoy his presence. The idea of being someone who inspires him, someone who is at the centre of his world. After living your whole life in the shadows.

...

Many hours a week are sat in his study as he paints you, his work taking on a new life, new meaning that only makes it so much more beautiful.

Julian loves to draw you absentmindedly—it’s almost like an instinct, something that he can't stop even when he's lost in thought. He has many books filled with fast sketches that are almost abstract that he scribbles without even looking at the page, to incredibly detailed sketches that almost look like photos.

Parts of your day are recorded in those books like his own form of videoing you. Some are so attentive they could be made into a seamless stop motion.

Sometimes he even finds himself sitting on the bathroom floor as you bathe, talking to you as he once again absent-mindedly draws. finding inspiration for his next piece.

He’s obsessed with the little details. He gets lost in those details, and every sketch is a desperate attempt to capture your essence. But not necessarily just when he’s drawing either.

When he’s not drawing, Julian traces his fingers over your skin studying every part of you.

His love language is physical touch, though it’s always gentle and respectful. Gently running his fingers through your hair or resting a hand possessively on your waist.

But that doesn't mean he lacks in the other 4 departments. Like how he loves to whisper to you just how much you mean to him.

His feelings for you are intense, to the point of worship, though he doesn’t fully realise how deep his obsession runs, he doesn't do anything to correct it either.

Sometimes that can be overwhelming for you, especially going from such an ignored life to one in a lovely house, a handsome gentleman of a husband and the title of being a muse.

But you can't bring yourself to make him stop, he’s Prince Charming in your eyes.

You don’t see the way he glares or scowls at men who dare talk to you when you accompany him to town or an event. Or how he makes borderline cruel verbal jabs to women who try to take his attention from you even for a moment.

[scribeofmorpheus]

Dragon Age Veilguard: Love, Wisdom and Pride

A very long Dragon Age post!

Warnings for: Veilguard Spoilers, Solavellan spoilers.

Okay, so I will preface this by saying that this ‘analysis’ primarily focuses on Solas’ arc; both romanced and unromanced. It isn’t intended to be a romanticised analysis, though it is very much enamoured with how a romanced Solas and his relationship with Lavellan foils (and informs my reading/reception of) that of Solas and Mythal’s relationship in Veilguard. There is a relationship I will address that I feel does parallel Solas and Mythal! Scroll down to “Reading Between the Lines” if you wanna skip my little intro below. Spoilers follow.

Truth be told, I wasn’t ever expecting much in terms of actually getting a sequel to Inquisition. The game dev market went through a tumultuous reshuffle before the remake madness breathed life back into many studios. Bioware game sequels (Mass Effect Andromeda) were underwhelming and not as fleshed out since the EA acquisition. I absolutely believe Bioware would have been shunted had Mass Effect Legendary Edition not been so successful. EA’s reputation was always lacklustre and underhanded, but laying off or losing several head writers attached to Bioware with almost two decades of work under their belts was the biggest red flag. Trevor Morris not being asked to return in exchange for a ‘bigger name’ was also a grave warning that returning to the atmosphere, ambience and world of Thedas that we knew was getting further and further away from a plausible reality. And on top of that, there’s the fact Solas was never intended as a romance interest during early development of Inquisition.

Solavellan seemed doomed!

Despite this, I still held out hope for a sequel, but I feared we’d always be in permanent Solavellan/developmental hell. Heck, I’m still waiting for a Beyond Good and Evil sequel—the game released in 2003! So, actually witnessing people play Veilguard, seeing reactions to it, seeing memes and gifs and essay pieces (like this one), it’s like my community has awoken again, and I never thought I’d see the day. Yet I am not blind to the fact we were robbed of so much potential. I knew thing’s wouldn’t live up to re-emerging expectations when Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was rebranded to Veilguard—the shift seemed to imply less of a primary focus on Solas (and apparently, according to the artbook, the early concept art proves this implication correct).

Things seemed even more dire when the devs revealed there was no tapestry mechanic. I had only one hope: that with the Inquisitor’s confirmed return, we’d get at least some form of catharsis for our Inquisitors (Lavellans and otherwise), if we couldn’t get the conclusions to so many storylines present in each of our worldstates. My main fear was that they’d go the clichéd Ultimate Sacrifice route (which happens anyway, but in a way that makes thematic sense given the stakes and heavily blighted worldstate).

Suffice it to say, there was a lot of evidence that Veilguard would disappoint me in the end. But it hasn’t. It hasn’t lived up to the many expectations and marks of excellence that the Dragon Age world built itself into with the first three entries, that’s for sure, but I am also just so deprived of conclusions, of endings (whether it be because TV doesn’t exist in a sustainable format anymore or that comicbook movies are made with a sequel in mind, never letting anything just “Exit Stage Left” gracefully; or the fact we live in a regurgitating content cycle with late-stage-capitalism where anything remotely profitable gets turned into a caricature of itself: Squid Game, Star Wars, etc.). The cycle is so exhaustive that I am actually at a point where I can say I am content with the ending we were given (on a Solas/Solavellan front), Veilguard gave me relief, and beautiful, achy pain to boot. Though I would absolutely be disappointed by both the "non-romanced Solas" endings, given that Solas winds up either "dying alone, forever" or turns to Tyranny.

Now onto the actual review of that Solavellan ending, Mythal and themes of Love!

Note: I have only gotten the ‘best’ ending in my first playthrough, but I also thought the consequences of not maxing factions would be more… dire? Another note, pls, if your romanced Inky swore to stop Solas, how does that ending differ, if at all? Let me know, I’m dying here!

Sidenote: I’m working on writing another review about my views on the ‘sanitised’ worldstate, the new companions (and why I think Varric was the wrong choice to have as an advisor in the game, given that the Inquisitor or Morrigan would have been more impactful; and not to mention that Cole or Briala should have been companions), removal of the tapestry and what it means for the future of stories in Thedas (The Story We Lost is such a poignant compilation of the sheer volumes of lost lore and depth that I honestly think I won’t go as in-depth on that review as this one), and why I think Veilguard is my final entry into Dragon Age.

Reading Between the Lines: What Pride Hath Wrought

One thing is for sure, Trick Weekes flourishes when writing within the ambiguities and complexities of meaning. This makes every word uttered by Solas so great to dissect, he's a god of lies not because he 'lies' but because he's so careful with how he phrases things, what he holds back, and what he reveals.

For instance, the famous Trespasser exchange where Solas mocks his own follies with sarcasm by saying:

“What is the old Dalish curse? May the Dread Wolf Take you.”

Then a softer, more saddened and beaten-down Lavellan replies:

“And so he did.”

This irks him. Because he then realises in that moment that he absolutely did take advantage, but for some reason he frames it around sex rather than power because that’s easier to address than the latter. And he rejects the notion, even though he brought up the expression he knows to mean nothing close to a sexual inuendo for being ‘taken’, and yet he has the gall to try and derail the conversation by pivoting and saying:

“I would not lay with you under false pretences.”

When I first had this dialogue exchange, I was baffled, because did this mean that there was another meaning to ‘Dread Wolf take you’ that Dalish clans lost through the years, or was it more of a self-deprecating joke Solas had with himself because he, the Dread Wolf, romanced (took) a Dalish Inquisitor (away from her people’s beliefs, histories, past), and he found irony in the saying?

On the surface, “wouldn’t lay with you under false pretences” could simply mean “we didn’t sleep together” or “we did sleep together, but I wasn’t taking advantage as the Dread Wolf, I was simply Solas in your presence”. But I have recently thought of a more… ambiguous reading.  Lay could have been used in a milder, more vulnerable way; to mean to be at peace, to be completely vulnerable, as if to sleep. In that sense, the phrasing becomes: “I could not be at peace with you because I was living a half-truth”.

I absolutely think the moment he feels he is truly beyond hope is when we see his expression of abject horror as Lavellan shouts: “I would have had you trust me!”. He realises then that he did fuck up, he did take the choice away from her because he thought he knew better, him and his pride led to a decision that hurt someone close to him, and he could finally see how wrong he was, how alike the entire situation became to Mythal’s treatment of him. Especially if Lavellan asks to go with him. Because he can see that despite the hurt, the lies and the betrayal on his part, Lavellan still wishing to join him draws too close to his first regret: following Mythal.

Whether he likes it or not, Solas’ love which could burn like a bonfire was directed at a powerful woman—a Herald, an Inquisitor—and inspite of her greatness of character, it still shaped her into someone willing to follow him on his dinanshiral out of love, much like he left the Fade and took physical form for Mythal. So now whenever I hear Lavellan shout “Var lath vir suledin”, Solas replying with “I wish it could, Vhenan,” changes drastically with the Mythal reveal, knowing he always walks away from the Inquisitor in Trespasser.

“I wish it could, Vhenan” sounds heavily like: “You would regret me, as I regret Mythal, and I cannot bear for that to happen us.” More poetically, it could read as: “I wish our love could overcome a duty that has lasted an incomprehensible amount of time, I wish I could change my nature, but then I’d be twisted into a demon, like the spirit of Wisdom in the Dales; and yet again, I would become your regret.” These two readings are very, very romantic. Realistically, given what we know of his kinship with Felassan, and how they were comrades and friends for centuries (“A story unfinished. His back turned!”), and given what we know of the complexity of Mythal’s will that presides over the creation of his very being, and yet he was still able to muster the strength to kill a fragment of her to fulfil his mission,  “I wish it could” was most probably a lament: “Do not ask me to hurt one of the two women I’ve loved on this journey, because if it ever came to it…” he would.

Knowing what I know of Solas, of how he was able to convince himself that Varric’s death (avoidable as it was) was just another necessary step, that it was just another sacrifice, another loss that would be worth something only if he completed his ritual, I have no doubt that Solas would also be able to rationalise hurting Lavellan (which is why in his mind, turning away from her, breaking her heart, leaving with no explanation and aiding her in Trespasser so she could live whatever few years remained in “relative peace” is actually an act of preserving that love). I partially think the reason he reveals the truth in Trespasser (especially for a romanced Lavellan) is in the hopes his ‘truths’ will push her away. But on a deeper note, I think he also thinks of it as some twisted form of repaying her for loving him to the point that he could have almost forgotten what it was to be the Dread Wolf, to just be with her as Solas, that night at Crestwood. Maybe his harsh truths would push her to the point where she’d give up her love for Solas, now that she knew he was the Dread Wolf, freeing her from the shackles of their love. He’s very self-flagellating, all about self-sacrifice for the ultimate goal, the ends always justify the means, he will endure any pain and punishment as long as Arlathan returns in the end.

What is his love of a mortal compared to the despair and loss of an entire empire? Solas views himself as selfish for falling for her, and that nearly broke him, if he was selfish enough to leave the dream of Arlathan behind for her, what would that do to his spirit then?

In his way of thinking, perhaps telling the Inquisitor the truth is a way out, a rationale they can use to justify stopping him or to make it easier to hate him as the Dread Wolf rather than love him as Solas (someone he hasn’t been in so long).

‘Masking’ as the Dread Wolf

During Trespasser, the Inquisitor has every right to despise Solas after all they’ve learned, and I think he half reveals the truth as a tactic so the Inquisitor can have an excuse to hate him, to be driven to anger and have less pull over his choices, once they learn the truth. Solas is particularly skilled at making other’s play the role that makes his own choices seem inevitable, he orchestrates a lot of events to play out in a manner where it's easier for him to talk himself into bringing down the veil.

He goads Elgar’nan to anger easily. He inspires the spirits to fight for him to the death as a necessary distraction during the war. He absolutely allows the Inquisitor to speak to him one last time so he can offer insight, yes, but also so he can easily frame his actions as just and inevitable. But, Oh boy does he get in for a shock if the Inquisitor shows empathy towards him, it scares him because he’s become accustomed to being seen only as the Dread Wolf. To be understood? That gives way to remorse. And remorse gives way to doubt. And he cannot doubt his purpose, twisted as it is, it is all he has left of his former self. Without it he would most likely change into something different. Someone he doesn’t recognise.

This fear intensifies more so if a romanced Lavellan asks to go with him, and in that case, he takes command and distances himself away (rejecting the help of someone close to him; the chance for a possible betrayal; the chance at another Felassan or Mythal [x]; the chance to twist Lavellan outside of her purpose, in this case, the purpose would be love/empathy) but not without showing remorse at having sacrificed yet another relationship for his crusade.

“Ir abelas.”

Sorrow for what cannot be is at the heart of why the Solavellan romance is so powerful, especially because even though both Solas and Lavellan love each other passionately, love alone cannot be enough when faced with regrets. Love would ultimately be stifled. Corrupted into something else over time. And so, for Solas, having loved and lost tragically is better than having loved and corrupted.

He will not do to Lavellan what was done to him, even if it is her choice, because she knows so little, her naivete cannot close the distance of a millenia’s old sea, and it would hurt him immensely to take advantage of her kind heart [x].

By leaving, he keeps her heart pure. And the yearning! Knowing the love is there, but on its own it cannot be invulnerable to corruption, so it is better to lose it than twist it. Ugh! Him leaving Lavellan is the ultimate show of love! IT IS A WISE DECISION. A rare glimpse into pure wisdom. Which is why he kneels beside Lavellan in Trespasser, he does not “Stand Tall” in the face of Wisdom’s heart. He kneels beside her. And when he stands tall again, he is Solas once more, filled with regret, and once through the eluvian, he returns to masking as the Dread Wolf.

Sidenote: It’s especially confounding that Veilguard allows Rook to push the Inquisitor to save or stop him after you’ve reached act 2 despite your world state choice (I think this was done in case they feared the Inquisitor wouldn’t stand by Solas after everything he was revealed to be responsible for in Veilguard, however it doesn’t work because the Inquisitor wasn’t an advisor, Rook never told them what they learned from the wolf statues, so having a stranger hold the ability to make Lavellan keep her promise or not rings hollow). Personally, I wish the Inquisitor’s presence had more weight in the non-Solavellan endings, too. I wish the Inquisitor could end up being the last friend/former love that Solas destroys (if you don’t collect the wolf statues) which then prompts Rook to fight him because Solas’ last tie to empathy failed to redeem him, that the Inquisitor falling is the last straw and Solas snaps, choosing to be a villain in the hopes of being stopped because he can’t stop himself, and not the ‘I am a God’ ending they gave us. Same for if your Inquisitor vows to stop him. I also wish the Inquisitor was the one to do the wolf statue missions. Would have been a nice secondary protagonist mission like the switching perspectives between Kratos and Atreus in GOW: Ragnarök (the old guard and the new; Inquisitor and Rook). I would have loved if they dedicated more dialogue to Inquisition days too, which is why I think Cole should have been a companion (if he wasn’t recruited, he could simply be a compassion spirit that ‘follows’ the greatest pain in the Fade that yearns to be healed, giving a compassionate viewpoint to Solas’ folly; recruited Spirit Cole could have a greater connection to Solas than even Varric, seeing as Cole was most likely a literal representation of Solas rewriting his own history by preventing a spirit from becoming too ‘real’; Human Cole would have a deeper connection to the world of Thedas, and could have been a great tool to prove how change was inevitable, not always a bad thing, and inevitably out of even Solas’ control. But alas, we live with what we are given! Even Imshael could have served in this role! Spirit/Demon of choice and it wasn’t incorporated into the game that supposedly asks you to make the greatest world-changing choice ever; redeem the Dread Wolf or end the age of the Evanuris entirely?!

Now onto the next segment: I want to talk about Solas’ regrets and how I read the ‘love story’ between Solas and Mythal, and why Lavellan (and what she represented) wasn’t enough to get through to him (and that’s a very believable thing, that’s what makes their love both tragic and epic!).

The High Price of Redemption

A romanced Lavellan has the most agency to see through his guises, if she resolves to save him, but even she cannot undo the shackles that still bind him to Mythal—the binds that twisted Wisdom so far from its purpose it became Pride, even when he burned (Mythal) from his face. (Likewise, A close friend Inquisitor who promises to save him is most likely a parallel to Felassan, again, they cannot undo the shackles of regret either.) I fully believe the vallaslin had a deeper magic than simply marking one as being committed/devoted to an Evanuris, I think it linked them magically, and since Solas was the first to burn the vallaslin away, he probably wasn’t as good at severing the link on himself as he was for other elvhen, so maybe a part of Mythal’s will still lingers in him, twisting him to Pride still.

In Veilguard’s final confrontation, I love the intention of showing how Lavellan approaches Solas slowly, as she doesn’t know who she’ll be faced with up those steps, Dread Wolf or Solas. But when she speaks to him, trying to get him to change his mind yet again, forgiving him for his wrongs, we are reassured that Wisdom hasn’t been completely consumed by Pride despite everything we’ve witnessed in the game because he bows his head at her in reverence as he apologises.

He shows humility towards her. He elevates her and her enduring love as worthy of his respect, but he does not consider himself worthy of hers. Thus, Lavellan pries open the door to acceptance but his heart is still not enough. Which is why love alone cannot turn the tide. He’s too broken to accept it. He doesn’t think he deserves it, so the only way out is through; to continue the ritual, to prove he was right. The shackles persist. Varric’s death weighs on his conscience now more than ever. Possibly members of Rook’s team too if they died on his crusade. But he is vulnerable enough for Morrigan to approach, and now Rook can use Mythal’s essence to make the final push. The only way he could be with Lavellan, the only way he could atone for the past and shed the weight of his armour (his crushing duty to the Elvhenan) is as Wisdom, fully restored, unbound by mistakes.

“Ar lasa mala revas.” He could only find absolution once Mythal (the angered and more brash essence of Mythal, the one unchanged by Flemeth and all the human women’s lives she’s been shaped by, but the closest iteration to that of Mythal in Arlathan, the version that he perceives as having every right to be angry at him for turning his back on her, for not going that last final stretch with her and subsequently, not being by her side when she died) severed the final connection: facing his regrets, showing humility and apologizing, while not taking away the blame but sharing it.

What is Benevolence without Wisdom if not Hubris?

We know Elgar’nan was twisted to Tyranny during the war, and I saw a post somewhere where someone wondered what led to his corruption, and what he was before (leadership/command). Likewise, Mythal was not above corruption.

So far, I’ve seen a lot of takes on Solas’ ties to Mythal, the power dynamic of being a student/disciple enamoured (could be romantic) with the benevolence of Mythal, but not how Mythal’s purpose was possibly also twisted towards hubris the moment she asked Wisdom to turn physical and build weapons from its knowledge, twisting it to Pride. Without Elgar’nan’s tyranny to rally against after the war with the Titans, Mythal would most likely turn a similar route, seeing her ruling as “necessary” for the people: “If not me then who?”. And that is a very short stop and quick drop to “I am your all-powerful ruler, I liberated you, and only I can guide the way”. Benevolence twisted by hubris can easily turn to Tyranny too, only one more subtle, a kind of cultish indoctrination compared to violent subjugation. If Solas had not turned his back on Mythal when she chose to be Evanuris (a god over her people) then they most likely would have made the worst (best) pair in the Evanuris. Pride is the Seventh Deadliest Sin. But imagine Pride next to Godhood?! That is frightening. So, when Solas burns the vallaslin, walks away and works against the Evanuris, I believe that he also inadvertently stops Mythal from becoming a corrupted version of herself. The sorrow at having lost her closest confidant and “love” grounds her, keeps her saintly in Solas’ mind, and in some ways, perhaps saves the Elvhen empire from a worse fate than him erecting the veil to begin with. But neither of them ever consider this. And I think that sort of self-blindness perfectly encapsulates how flawed both Mythal and Solas are. Now onto love.

Solas and Mythal – a Love too complex to simply classify as mortal ‘Love’.

There’s no doubt Mythal and Solas shared a deep bond, one that definitely had love in it, when we hear Mythal calling him ‘love’, without the possessive ‘my’ in front of it, it’s easy to misconstrue what type of love they share. A small nitpick, but like a thorn, it applies sometimes just enough pressure to change a perspective. Not calling Solas “My love” but instead choosing to simply use “love” works within those wonderful ambiguities/complexities that Weekes thrives in.

If one started out as a spirit, it’s safe to say concepts like familial bonds, romantic bonds, and blood ties mean little to nothing. There is no one type of love and there is every kind of love all at once. It is only once physical bodies are introduced, that physical touch, the ability to stab someone in the back, to kiss out of affection, to hug out of empathy, to strike out of anger, that love now becomes this twisted thing too. There are no spirits of love because spirits always possessed love, but there are demons of Desire (Gluttony) and of Rage (love denied).

I believe, from GDL’s acting skills, his soft whisper, his almost submissive smallness in the breadth of Mythal’s already soft voice, that Solas was in love with Mythal, devoted as a student, beguiled by her benevolence, content even in her shadow, and possibly star-struck. He was in love with someone who doesn’t have the possibility to love him back the same, it is not in her nature to love those beneath her in the same intensity that those who look up to her do. It’s like a priest being in love with God. The priest can devote themselves, sacrifice everything, but a God will always love their flock equally, but they can still play favourites.

Benevolence cannot be enamoured with Wisdom because to be truly benevolent they must possess Wisdom but there is also Pride to be had in walking beside benevolence, but they can never be on equal footing. Likewise, Solas’ love is not reciprocated entirely by Mythal, but she does love him back in her own way. While Mythal is definetly Solas’ first love, layered and complex, it is also strangled by regrets and twisted by uneven scales of power. It would never be a nurturing love, only a consuming kind.

When he speaks of Mythal during the Solavellan ending, he calls her his “oldest friend”, much like what Mythal says, (paraphrasing) “would you have me be angry at my oldest companion whose experienced so much with me”. Because friendship is perhaps the easiest way to describe their companionship. They went through many iterations, one certainly holding romantic tensions (specifically from younger Solas), but ultimately, with that much time shared, kinship/friendship becomes the easiest to surmise. You can love your friends, fall in love with them, fall out of love with them, only to love them again, be disappointed in them, etc.

Media today is flushed with romance as a linchpin for driving a hero to make dire choices, and that has warped our perception of how a platonic/non-romance-based relationship can be all-consuming, and sometimes more impassioned than strict romance. But, to make it easier for people to understand Solas’ motivations, it's easier to see their love in the light Taash sees it (an unreliable, somewhat “still juvenile” narrator, in that they are still growing into themselves and their culture and the world): “They were doing it”.

However, Bellara, a companion whose entire companion story is linked to her strong, deeply character-driving relationship with her brother (platonic love) refutes that reading by saying (paraphrasing here): “We don’t know if their ‘love’ is the same type of love we tend to think of in a masculine and feminine relationship.”

Felassan’s letter after the Mythal Dragon fight alludes to Solas having been in love with Mythal, but nothing about how she felt. This is why I consider the Solas/Mythal relationship to be more of a one-sided romantic love, but a requited ‘love’ relationship for them both.  

A parallel I find so compelling: Solas and Mythal vs Briala and Celene. Solas and Briala both hold deep emotions for people in great power with the ability to end a tyrannical cycle of subjugation, enslavement and classism, yet for both of these ruler’s charisma and well-meaning intent, they often are swayed to side with tyranny. For Mythal, that was Elgarnan, the Evanuris who made all the other’s worse tyrants; as well as her own hubris for believing her presence alone could dampen the ravenous hunger for power that the rest of the Evanuris held at the small prospect of leading the Elvhen in a time of confusion (being a North Star is hard when all the other lights around you aim to blind the flock into submission). For Celene, this is more about the nuances of retaining favour, pull and power over other noble families, their backing (be it financial, political or simply cut-throat), and their support so she can be the ‘lesser of two evils’ compared to Gaspard’s warmongering personality and Florianne simply being a puppet with no backbone. Both Briala and Solas are turned to pawns despite their immense strength and compassion for their respective elven plights; Briala is rendered a fangless lion (for lack of a better metaphor) if she is reunited with Celene, whereas if she is chosen to puppet Gaspard, there’s every likelihood her story could parallel a ‘power-mad’ Solas if he’d been tethered to Rage (at betrayal) and not Regret (at having not rejected Mythal when she asked him to take a physical body) throughout his tenure as the Dread Wolf.

Solas and Lavellan – a Heart that was never intended to be Given/Taken

Now I will compare the lack of possessives in front of Mythal’s “love” to Solas declaring Lavellan as ‘Vhenan’ and then ‘Ar lath, ma Vhenan’ vs ‘Ar lath ma vhenan'; again, the coma is the thorn, the pause that shapes the quiet unsaid things we can deduce. In the Trespasser cutscene DGL puts the pause after “Ar lath”, even though the subtitles construct the sentence with Vhenan as a proper noun since it’s a nickname often used by Solas: “Ar lath ma, Vhenan”. But I believe Solas actually says “Ar lath, ma Vhenan”.

With “Ar lath, ma Vhenan” the stressor is after the pause, so the line reads: “I love [you], my heart.” And with “Ar lath ma, Vhenan” it makes even less structural sense but can be inferred to mean: “I love you, Heart”.  

The possessiveness of “My” is what definitively differentiates the love Solas feels for Lavellan as one more of the romantic side, it is a love of yearning and desire and a wish to have one last good thing that is pure and incorruptible. The one thing he had left to give. His heart. But that does not mean his heart is enough! The rest of him is still bound to the love of Mythal that was twisted through the ages. That changed him. And given how Pride often comes before a fall, I absolutely understand why Solas is actually very brash and ill-considering when he’s romancing Lavellan (“The kiss was ill-considered”/”It would be kinder in the long run”/”I wanted to show you what you mean to me”). He's on a precarious cliff during Inquisition. His first plan failed. He's allowed ancient elvhen magic to fall into a blighted Tevinter magister's hands. Literally everything the Inquisition did could have been for nought if the Mark had fallen to the wrong person. Things could have easily fallen apart for Solas too, so why not indulge in something trifling and fleeting? Execpt it wasn't trifling. Nor was it fleeting. And when he saw that the fall could potentially not happen, that the Inquisitor could do it, save Thedas and retrieve the orb, he was struck by the gravity of his brashness, of letting impulses control him instead of acting according to a plan. But it was too late. They'd both fallen for each other.

Solas didn’t expect to form entanglements within the Inquisition. He was committed. He was angry at the world, “walking through a sea of tranquil”, called flat-ear by the Dalish that later chased him from their village when he proved he was the Dread Wolf. He was despised by people who looked like him. Spirits were constantly being abused and turned into demons. People erected monuments to heroes who slew demons. Mages were caged. Elves were subjugated. The empire fell. Humans razed the lands with their wars and petty squabbles of succession. The darkspawn tainted the land. The dwarves would never dream. Solas awoke to the worst possible fate; in his eyes, it was all his fault.

So when he kisses Lavellan in the Fade, impulsively, he isn’t kissing her there because it is less ‘real’ than if they kissed while she was awake, it makes it so much more real. He’s kissing her in the space where he is most himself. Where he can shed the body he was forced to build and trap himself within, the body of Pride. He is acting on the impulses of an enlivened Wisdom spirit that does not consider tomorrow, for the first time in a long time. It isn’t a long game with Lavellan, like so much of his life has been about always thinking to the future, always considering the outcome, machinating, scheming, the wiles and woes of every trickster god in mythology. It’s being in the moment with her that is all-consuming. It lowers his guard, leaves him vulnerable, and when she enquires about the Fade or spirits or histories, he gets to be useful as pure Wisdom again.

Lavellan challenging him when he first shows animosity or irritation towards the Dalish (a prideful act), and then him being taken aback when she explains that maybe the Dalish could be shown another way (making him consider her words, being given a morsel of wisdom back, reminding him of his old self), these are all small moments where Solas can begin to see springs of hope in the broken world. And that’s terrifying. It means he’s destroying not just himself, but the memory of Mythal and Arlathan too, all for the love of a woman who fell for an apostate.

The best, most genuine unmasking of Solas for me is during Wicked Hearts, when he’s tipsy on wine, has no inhibitions, and revels in the intrigue, the gossip, the dancing, the music (something we now know is important enough to have an entire music room in the Lighthouse), the sex! He is at his most relaxed, and then he asks Lavellan to dance, not caring about how it would look for the “Inquisitor’s serving man, Solas” to be intimate in a fucking Orlesian palace with the Herald of Andraste, right after stopping an assassination attempt! He finds comfort in the world of Thedas at that moment. Something he rarely shows so outright.

When he takes Lavellan to Crestwood to confess, I believe removing her vallaslin wasn’t entirely just for her, it wasn’t just to free her from slave markings or to simply reveal a form of a truth he wanted to tell her, it was to resolve himself of what his first purpose was supposed to be, what she distracted him from. Removing the vallaslin had been something he’d done for the slaves of Arlathan, it was what earned him the mantle of Dread Wolf. When he removes Lavellan’s vallaslin, he resets.

Thedas cannot allow Wisdom to truly exist without fear of corruption to Pride, Thedas the world he was responsible for shaping, literally the Maker of the Veil, and he falls for a woman Heralded as Andraste’s Chosen One, Mythal’s incarnation in the South. The irony. The cruel, cruel irony. The Inquisition is tied to his past, every Andrastian he meets, every Dalish person with vallaslin on their face, every slave or city elf. Tevinter worshiping the dragons that still have the essences of the Old Gods. His heart alone cannot withstand all of the punishing, gruelling, oppressive weight that is Thedas. Even for Lavellan. So he frames their romance as this tragic, short-lived tale that was beautiful but ultimately destined to end. He expects it to pass for her, she’s mortal after all. But he also leaves his heart with her, literally giving her power over the last uncorrupted part of himself. Think Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann at the end of World’s End, but metaphorically. He gives her his heart to safe keep as he goes on a journey that could corrupt a heart, turn it cold and bitter, destroy it.   

Ar lasa mala revas. You are free.

He frees his heart.

Lets it go.

Twice!

So only once he is relinquished of his regrets, once Mythal does the same for him, only then is there “Nothing left except their love”. Because Lavellan still held his heart there was still something left after. Something beyond despair and regret and loss. He had given his heart to her to safekeep. And she did. Lavellan returns his heart to him when he is freed. What Mythal had to break so Solas could heal right again (like a bone), Lavellan casts a splint around so it can be set and heal properly. This is the difference between Mythal’s love and Lavellan’s. Both Mythal’s love and forgiveness broke him, but Lavellan’s love gives him the strength to Stand Tall one last time.

Solas, before Pride alone, as Wisdom (perhaps Solas always meant both Standing Tall and Wisdom, for Wisdom can grant one pride to stand tall for what they believe in), finds contentment with the rare and marvellous spirit that endured (his Vhenan). Wisdom endured because of humanity, something benevolence is beyond.

Bellanaris

When Lavellan offers to go with him, to continue on the dinanshiral that she already considers herself a part of, Solas is legitimately taken aback. His expression is soft yet full of disbelief and awe. He actually stops walking a few frames before Lavellan says this, as if hoping Lavellan would say something to him!

And then she basically proposes to him! “Bellanaris!” I absolutely adore the fact that Lavellan promises them eternity. A vow as sacred as a death right, as protected as an ancient, elvhen, undisturbed burial ground in the face of Orlesian colonialisation. They endured and now they will have an eternity. For once, we have an elvish tale that is not a curse, it is a love story with reunion at its core, where both elves reclaim something precious that was denied them.

Lastly, i am absolutely frothing at the mouth that Solas and Lavellan primarily speak in elvish! And even more feral at the fact Solas does not try to talk her out of joining him (because this sweet talker very well could!). He simply tells her where he is going is terrible. And she shuts that shit down immediately. No repeat of Trespasser. She's standing beside him, the South has all but fallen, whatever ties yet survive are strained, and she has fought the good fight for 8 years. I think the Inquisitor was about ready to leave Thedas behind.

The last decisions Solas makes are of his own volition. Entering the Fade for atonement. Stepping into the Fade with Lavellan (It was confirmed by Weekes that Lavellan’s presence in the Fade prison would fundamentally change it in a way we haven’t seen!). Thanking Rook for giving him one last shot at getting happiness. All his own!

This is the look of a man finally reunited with his wife! So much emotion in ONE frame. God! There’s never been a character like him. A love story like theirs! I’m so happy I got to see this ending. Full circle!

P.S. If you read this far, woah nelly! That’s crayyzeee, so here are some more great pieces: Why it was important for Lavellan to kneel for Solas as he knelt for her in Trespasser in the Solavellan ending [x], and here’s a great deep-dive on Solas as a spirit of Wisdom [x].

[lxkeee]

MY HEART IS BROKEN SO I NEED TO CRY First of all, I LOVE how you write, and I wanted to make a request about Lucifer breaking reader's heart, it doesn't matter how, I just want a broken heart 😔note: Sorry for the English translator, I don't write it but I understand it, TOTALLY CRAZY

TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

—Part One

Pairing: Lucifer Morningstar x Seraphim Angel! Fem! Reader

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Genre: angst (for now)

Warnings: none.

Notes: this one is short, 450 ish words but will serve as a foundation for the entire series lolol. Also, it's okayy:) your english is finee^^

PART TWO | NAVIGATION

Life was good in heaven. Having been brought to existence by our creator, we were given a chance at life. The world is still currently in progress, slowly changing to adapt to newer life forms.

We angels were tasked to help this new world grow into such an amazing world. Speaking of worlds, I am very much grateful to be alive as I am given a chance to love. As one of the first few angels created, I was able to befriend Lucifer. God's most beautiful angel and whom I have the honor of calling mine.

Lucifer was such an awkward romantic lover, showing off his affections in his ways. Giving flowers, a pretty stone he managed to pass by while flying around, or perhaps by giving her kisses.

They've been married for some time now, being together for a few decades and recently got married. The wedding was amazing, friends and their creator attended the celebration. It was a very beautiful celebration, the wedding night was awkward yet romantic, two innocent angels experimenting, learning about the art of making love. It was wonderful. Despite being inexperienced, both had a great time being each other's firsts.

Life was truly good, until God announced that he made new creatures, mortals or humans as he calls them.

They looked like angels but without wings. They will be the very foundation of humankind.

Slowly and surely, Lucifer began to act weird. Ever since he visited the garden of Eden, he's been purposely avoiding [y/n]. Making up excuses to not spend time with her.

Rumors started to spread that Lucifer has begun to form ideas that threaten the order of heaven, [y/n] tries to stop him but Lucifer is stubborn. He believes that mankind needed this.

[Y/n] was heartbroken, why is the love of her life acting like this? Why doesn't he look at her with love and passion in his eyes like he usually does.

Why does it look like he doesn't love her anymore?

Deciding to spy on him, she followed him to the garden of Eden. There he saw her husband looking at the mortal woman, named Lilith with so much love and adoration in his eyes.

[Y/n] felt her heart and entire world shatter. Broken hearted, she quickly fled the garden. Returning back home and sobbed into her friend's slap.

She cried the whole night, Lucifer didn't even notice she wasn't home.

Not long after, Lucifer was cast out of heaven along with Lilith. [Y/n] was heartbroken beyond her understanding. She couldn't understand, her emotions all over the place. Her husband doomed humanity and was cast out of heaven with another woman.

[Y/n] didn't even get to tell him she was pregnant with his child.

Happy Valentine's Day:)

Also, guess whose lap she was crying on? His name starts with A;)

[veneralice]

art credit: @sesamefruit on x / twitter! all credits to the artist!

divider credits: @cafekitsune ! all credits to the original creator of the divider!

seaborn soulmates / rafayel (m.)

in a cruel twist of fate, it is the god himself who becomes the most fervent worshipper. after lifetimes of looking for you, rafayel has finally found his beloved bride once more - but this time, it is him sinking to his knees to chant your praises, not the reverse. (20.4k words)

content warnings: maybe ooc-rafayel idk i’m still an inexperienced writer, me making up lemuria lore as i go because my ass wasn’t playing the game when god of tides came out (also i’m clueless about lads lore), mc as an independent character called michaela (pushing my wlw agenda with her and simone fr), kind of dubious consent???? (past!reader worships rafayel and acts very self-sacrificing so uh? idk? i’ll note it just to make sure) (also drunk rafayel initiates some skinship but reader shuts it down because you cant give consent while youre drunk yall), they fucking, p in v, switch!rafayel (bc we all know it’s canon /j), some biting, some scratching (rafayel’s back bleeds), overstimulation (fem. receiving), violence (blood and cutting is involved in deity worship), is it stalking? 💀 (he keeps tabs on reader in the same way he kept track of mc in-game before they met), idek man, let me know if you need more content warnings 🙂‍↕️, kind of inspired by @poisonf0rest bc i read her siren rafayel fic and saw god and immediately decided i had to write a raf fic myself, so honorary mention of them LMAO (pls read their fics they are so fucking good)

A thousand moons and a thousand suns have risen and fallen on the waves, but none compare to the sight of you entering Rafayel’s court. You are the only celestial constant in this life from that day on, the planet around which Rafayel’s immortal life spins. How humorous, that mortals are so below Lemurians that they are not even worthy of appraising their worship, but it is a mortal bride that weakens the god of the tides.

You are radiant, ephemeral in your beauty. There is a certain kind of delicate balance in your mortality, a rose so ethereal before it withers. Your skirts, although handmade and of unparticular material, a sign of your lowborn upbringing, part to reveal the soft skin hidden beneath, an image that makes Rafayel’s fingers twitch in yearning. He has never envied the land-walkers their bodies, not once. But at the sight of your clay-formed body, loved and created by the earth, he finds himself straining for the shape. Your feet land on the coral floor as if the ground there had been prepared for your stride, blessed by your existence.

It’s not love at first sight, certainly not. But it feels like brushing your fingers over a book and knowing the story already. It feels like helplessly wandering into the trap out of your own volition, although you know that trap will bite. But you let it. It creeps in, the sweetest kind of death you could imagine.

Like poison, the first taste of you condemns Rafayel to eternity.

“Your divinity, we have brought you your sacrifice,” the priests chant, the human part of your procession. The Lemurian guards accompanying them cast them a dubious glance. Not every sacrifice is deemed appropriate, but it is not like the world beneath the waves would balance itself without the human’s worship. A necessary evil, an ugly truth. Their sacrifices are not acknowledged, but appreciated nonetheless. A god feeds on what is given, no matter how all-powerful they are. Even blood as soiled by the human world’s elements is sustainable. “Your bride, your blood, your heart. We have brought you your sacrifice.”

When you walked in, your beautiful face had been angled upward. Even the most stoic of people are forced by the frescoes set in the wall to halt and wonder, because there is nothing else in this world that compares to the sea’s creations. Rafayel’s court was closed in by a dome, decorated with mosaic illustrations of the kingdom’s history. Painted in with elegant whorls of blue, white and red, the image depicted here showed the creation myth of his people, rising from the foam on his fingertips. You had looked straight at that painting, ignoring the gaggle of eyes that had looked on, feasting on the sight of you. But at the call of your entourage, you lower your gaze, meeting his straight-on.

There had never been a feeling so violent seizing him than in that very moment. He wanted to crush you. He wanted to own you.

He wanted to know you.

Rafayel is not the first monarch to hold this court in his blue-scaled fist. He is also not the only one whose heart has ever been stirred for something that could wreck this empire forever. It feels like being hunted, heady and dangerous and addicting. In your eyes lies a future more enticing than anything the seven seas could ever offer him. This is damnation.

What a powerful heart that frail chest must contain; secured only by the soft bones that would willingly give way to his monstrous hands, protected only by the warm flesh surrounding it. Rafayel is the king of sirens, monarch of the abyssal deep, but it was your song that drew him in. He wonders if the prayers you had dedicated to the waves tasted as sweet as your lips looked.

The soldiers surrounding his throne stepforward, signaling the silent message until here and no further. But Rafayel has already risen. Not registering the court which sinks to their knees as they pay their respects, he draws near enough that he could grasp your hands, tucked away in your companion’s crook of his arm. You lowered your head, obedient supplicant as you are. “Court of clay, I accept your sacrifice,” he announces, breathless. He doesn’t care how giddy that makes the humans, how his court begins to whisper. A scandal, an outrage. He only sees you. Not able to hold himself back, he reaches forward to cup your chin - you are shaking, an information he shouldn’t delight in, but does - and your gaze is steady, certain. You are a docile little lamb, not afraid of the knife about to fall. He could crush your right then and there; he could snap your neck if he wants to.

That was his first mistake. Gods have always been unmade by the most simple of human emotions, a fact every single predecessor had heeded. He should have struck you down where you stood, before you could lay the seeds of destruction. But Rafayel doesn’t heed his instincts. There is nothing else in the world anymore but you. Your eyes search his face, taking in every detail, as if the roles were reversed and you were the executioner who was gently lowering him to the chopping block. He imagines your hands roaming his body as you prepare him for certain death.

Deep inside his cold, scaled body, under the layers of divinity and immortality, his godly heart skips a beat.

Rafayel is coming undone, unravelling at the seams. It is only a matter of time until he dissolves into the sea, cupped by your gentle hands, until he finally disappears.

Later, when night draws closer and washes the world in darkness like a paint dissolving in a glass of water, he accompanies you and the bridal party to the rooms you will be residing in for the near future. Gentle, gentle fingers in his hands; you are ashamed of being able to touch him like this, and he notices it. Rafayel angles his head so he can look at you. Although this is nothing but a fancy dress-up of the matter at hand, which means your death at the end of this foolery, the sacrifice is still honored. That means becoming familiar with the heart that will soon bolster his powers, immortalized in him forever. It’s an excuse, of course, but it’s what his mind settles on as a reason for trying to commit your existence to memory. Your eyes are swimming around, looking like the schools of fishes that lounge around in his stronghold. Taking everything in. His own are obsessed with gazing at every inch of your face; soon, it will become more familiar to him than his own. “Your name, supplicant,” he says, breaking you out of your trance. “You have not given it yet.”

Your answer is quiet, and he has to lean even closer to actually hear it. Your female companions, who will wash you and prepare you and celebrate the wedding with you, are chattering behind him to the point of annoyance, but the excitement is understandable. The syllables of your name take physical shape as they go through him, and Rafayel finds himself closing to his eyes as he listens to the melody of your words. Settling in. Taking root. “But you may call me as you wish, Your Divinity,” you demure. Someone has trained you well in the niceties. “I am honored to become anything that you desire.”

“Bride of blood,” he says, and his treacherous fingers finally begin to wander. The supple flesh draws him in, and he adores the way goosebumps claim your skin. He is quite cold-blooded after all. And you are oh, so warm. Human bodies are so confusing and strange that Rafayel can’t help but wonder what moves them. The unreliable skin that gives way too easily to the lightest of bites, the awkward bones that bend at the simplest of angles. As Rafayel chases the muscles running down your arms with his fingertips, you turn your wrist so he can seize it, as if you know what instincts he is following. An instinct as old as time. Life was created when intuition turned into contact, after all. You watch as the deadly king of the abyss stares at your flesh as if it was a wonder to behold. As if he is not the father of all miracles.

Soft, soft flesh. Brittle as wood worn out by the water. Rafayel does not relinquish his hold on you as he speaks. “Bride of clay. You have already become what I desired. You are welcome to ask any wish of me for the sacrifice you will accomplish. Let no one speak that the ocean’s court is ungrateful to your service.”

“I would never imply otherwise, Your Divinity.” Your cheeks are aflush with your humanity, heating below his touch in reaction to being so close to the object of your worship. You do not seem like a typical, blushing bride. He has already taken notice of the harsher, roughened way you admonished your bridal party earlier. Often times, the brides sent to him are scared, chosen at random, unprepared for what the sacrifice means. Often times, it means that Rafayel chooses other brides, casting over the human’s lot. Every year they visit, fighting to compete in their adoration with other worshippers, not realizing that they cannot compare. But you are true in your faith. There are scars feathering all over the palms of both your hands where you have drawn blood to cast into the sea. A moon-shaped indentation, where the lunar priests of the sea (as his worshippers are called above, named for the moon’s strained effort to become one with the sea) brand themselves after ascending to their positions, is situated in the hollow of your throat, right above that precious collarbone he could snap like a coral branch. You are calm, clear-headed.

You could not have been more perfect.

He tugs you along, deeper into the cold water. You do not complain once. The court to strangers is built like a maze, intended to confuse and rattle. A safety measure that is laughable. There is no one who’s might parallels the god of the sea. But Rafayel had taken care to implement it nonetheless, to protect the weak, even though the most vulnerable Lemurian could still overpower the weakest of humans. It is why it so unsettling that you stir him like this. He has loved nothing else on this earth than he has loved the folk of the water. He angles another look at you, suspicious.

The moonlight makes every edge of you luminous with beauty. From the tips of your lashes, to the curves of your features, down to the shape of your human body. It is normal to experience attraction. You were very comely, after all; it wasn’t only Rafayel’s head that had turned to follow your every move. During your presentation, even the most cranky of attendants had lit up with pleasure at such a delicious sight. But he wonders if this means more. He shouldn’t be so attuned to you, shouldn’t be so drawn in by a first encounter. Fate had such a funny way of working its motives. Its cruelty and its humor affected the happenstances of all beings, even gods like him.

The doors to your room have already been affixed with a pair of guards. They are armed with lances, sharpened at the edge to stab through even the most enduring of scales. Warriors of the sea are trained to handle even the most extenuating of threats. Rafayel dismisses them at once, and they stand aside, each taking a few steps away to grant the party their privacy. They will return to their post when Rafayel has left. He gesticulates with his free arm that the women may enter; your companions mouths shape oohs and aahs of wonder as they step inside, but you remain where you are. Your warm hand still lies inside his, a fact that makes his fish-blooded heart tucker inside his chest. “Forgive me for this presumptuous question, Your Divinity,” you say then, affixing your gaze to his face. A face of polite pliancy. He can almost imagine you leading the prayers in the rooms of your faith, the prideful upraised head looking to the sea. “But might there be a fountain which we can use for our prayers?”

“Praying to what, when all your prayers have been answered?” Rafayel swipes a thumb over the blood-darkened veins inside your wrist, the blood you wish to cast into the waves in the same manner as starlight spills over the endless sky. Your skin is as malleable as sand. He wants to dig in, a primal urge from when Lemurians still hunted humans for sport. Some still do. “You may ask the guards to show you to an appropriate location to perform your prayers. But you have already become a symbol of faith, bride of clay. You are being rewarded as such.”

You dip your head in acknowledgement. “I have, Your Divinity. But it does not mean I should stop dedicating myself.”

He stares at you, hard. You are going to die for your faith. That precious little thing you seem to guard so weakly inside your mortal chest will be ripped from you like a human child is torn out of the womb. And yet here you are, asking to dedicate yourself to the very faith who will murder you. Piety is a wondrous thing, and it has moved you so far that you have surrendered to your own sacrifice, but is it really piety that is making you go through the motions of something as superfluous as prayer, when the very act of sacrifice is the highest religious duty you could fulfill? “What an interesting bride they have brought me,” he says, and you lower your gaze, the picture of humility. “Pray, then. As long as you meet me after you do.”

You hum in response, and he watches as you finally rejoin the women already appraising the room. One of them, a younger woman who shares the curve of your jaw and the color of your hair, reaches out to grasp your hand. You free it almost immediately to brush over her hair, a startlingly gentle display of affection in comparison to the chiding you subjected her to earlier. She must be family, though she does not share your beauty.

How confusing to be jealous of a simple gesture like this. How idiotic to yearn to be in that woman’s stead. Rafayel turns his back on the bridal party, before he can do anything that could tarnish his reputation.

Rafayel finds you where he guessed you would be. Your blood is still dripping into the fountain as he approaches you, the thick drops submerging quickly as they fall, like tears of pearl. It was once said, a myth unfurling in the motions of history due to the fascination other creatures often felt at the people of Lemuria, that his folk cried pearls, a myth they had been hunted for. “Wasteful, don’t you think?” he quips at the sight, but his touch is gentle when he takes your hand into his own. “Spilling blood when you will spill so much more when we are wed.”

“Nothing performed in service of the sea god is wasteful, Your Divinity,” you answer calmly. The supplicant at your side, not the family member he saw yesterday, sends you an alarmed look before she lowers it. You questioned the words of a god, an action most people would never even dare. Had you been anyone else, your bones would have already become the fishes’ supper. Even if you had been part of this court, such a comment could still have costed your head. But Rafayel feels himself begin to bend, turning over in your scarred palms. For being the most powerful entity roaming this planet, he feels as though you are the one holding all the cards. “It may not be worthy, but I beg you to accept our meager offerings to you. It is an honor to live in the light of your divinity.”

A memorized answer, devoid of anything personal. It is not the answer he craves, and he wishes to tug at your hair, to tear the secrets you carry in your heart from your head. It is a gruesome instinct, supped on the desire that is beginning to grow inside his heart. “Come with me,” he says, and then, addressing your companion, “You may remain here. I wish to become my bride’s acquaintance.”

The companion lowers her head in pliancy, but she seems nervous, apparently not trusting herself to formulate words in answer. Not because of his presence, perhaps. Rafayel has the inkling that it is you who’s distressing the bridal party. Something mysterious is unfolding in front of his eyes, and he itches to know more. He turns to offer you his arm, and you hesitate, shying away from the fact that he is an immortal being that is worshipped by everything the waves washes ashore on. But you take it, your warmth as shocking as the flash of lightnings the rainstorms sometimes inflict on his domain. Rafayel begins to walk, directing you to the royal gardens.

The weather is much nicer today. The sunlight fights to flood the scenery wherever it reaches, creating shadows of myth. Power is appearance. This court has been designed in a way to strike both fear and awe in hearts untouched by the heavens. You turn your head as far as it reaches, taking in the sight in the same way you had admired the ceiling yesterday. You must have an eye for art. “Tell me about yourself, daughter of clay,” he says, using the address most non-humans utilize to respectfully interact with an unknown land-walker. You whip your head back around to look at him. Today, your face is kissed by the sun, the lovely light enunciating every feature, every trace of the ancestors who had loved the idea of you so much that they willed you into existence. The sight rips into him like a shark bite, and for a moment, he finds himself envying whoever created humans. They had been much more adoring and obsessed with their work than he has, and it is reflected in the creation of you. “And none of the faithful derision today. I do adore being admired, but we are to be wed, and I wish to know whose heart I am going to consume.”

“Faithful derision,” you repeat, clearly taken aback by him reducing the faith of the sea to a simple piece of doggerel. Most of humanity’s prayers go unanswered, after all, expected from an existence so frail it could be wiped out with the smallest of tsunamis. “You mock me so, Your Divinity. Very well. What is it you wish to know of me?”

How have you managed to bewitch me, you evil thing? Rafayel thinks, but does not say. The urge to consume not just your heart, but you in your entirety has still not left him, even after a cold night of serious self-reflection. He has never realized how much desire could blur into hunger. “Who raised you?” he asks instead. “Who were you before you came here? What is it that made you become the lamb to my slaughter?”

Your eyes glaze over, an unidentifiable emotion he only manages to glimpse before you veil it over with the distanced civility you employ to interact with him. “I never knew my father, but my mother is a shepherdess above the sea,” you answer, slowly. The words are chosen carefully. “My mother used to be a priestess, but she was released from her duty when she had me. I was born of sin, you know. A lunar priestess is supposed to remain unwed and untainted, but she became pregnant with me. I am absolving both my mother and me of that taint.”

What a human belief, Rafayel thinks. To categorize love and coupling and touch as something sinful. As if the simple act of dedicating yourself to another wasn’t the holiest experience one could live through. The wax and wane of desire is as holy as the kneel of prayer to a Lemurian, which live and die for love. Above all else, it is the connection to someone else that could be the most well-guarded treasure a Lemurian could ever possess. But humanity’s civilization keeps its own rule, and to laugh about their beliefs would mean disrespecting you, so he only responds with, “I am sure the taint you speak of does not exist.”

“You are kind to say so, Your Divinity.” You do not sound like you believe it. Your words are, like nothing else, an act of worship. But perhaps it is because you understand him that you accept the answer, and that means something to him: to be understood as he is. He guides you along until he reaches a pavilion in the middle of the garden. You sit down first, a distance away from him in the spirit of propriety, but Rafayel is done acquiescing to your silly human rules. He sits near enough that your knees knock against each other, and as he cages you in like a hunter would circle his prey, he takes hold of your hand again. A bone-deep ache has claimed Rafayel, an ardor he never knew he possessed. It is taking hold of him, surging up in him like a wave. It is more than just your body he craves, something that runs deeper and hotter than the center of his own existence. “There is something you are hiding from me,” he tells you, watching as your eyes darken. You do not like being perceived, and the realization almost makes him laugh. “I will not make you tell it. You are free to do whatever it is you wish. But you fascinate me, daughter of clay. It is rare to enrapture a god’s attention, you know.”

As the night before, you roll your wrist in his hold so he may grasp it properly. Perhaps you search out his touch in the same manner as he does yours. Your fingers graze the flesh of his thighs as he lowers your hand to his lap. “I will get in over my head, Your Divinity, if you keep complimenting me like this,” you say. It makes his lips quirk into a genuine smile. Clever human, to play along like this. Your pulse thrums below his fingertips, the rhythm addicting. A true siren song. “I may overstep myself. That would not befit me at all. I am here to be free of sin, after all.”

“You are free already.” Rafayel’s fingers trace patterns into your skin, lower and lower. He unfolds your fingers for you, stretching them as far as they go. The scars on your skin are hypertrophic and ugly, but they fascinate him as much as every inch of your body does. They tell the stories of experiences and lived memories. Each one contains another secret he wants to unveil, a pearl he wants to claim as his own. “And we are to be wed, aren’t we?” His fingers curl over your own, and then you’re holding hands, intertwined in all manners of fate. Rafayel leans in, close enough to make you uncomfortable, close enough to kiss you. You don’t lean away. “There is nothing sinful about being betrothed, or what you do in the name of love. You are mine now, daughter of clay. All mine.”

For the first time since you have arrived here, you smile, your teeth gleaming like knifes. He feels it cutting into his chest, cutting away at his restraint. Although Rafayel is part of a species that is the apex predator of all predators, hunting and reigning over all that lives and breathes, in this moment, it is you who becomes the huntress.

How easy it is to climb a throne. How easy to be torn from it.

In the following days, he feels that tear at his existence in everything you do. Your allure only grows with every minute spent in your vicinity, and finally he has grown so needy that he absolves you of your prayers. Instead, he makes you worship him in person, and the time blurs into eternity, the noose at the end of the road long forgotten.

Rafayel spends afternoon tracing the traces of your creation; every bone, every tendon he explores with the devotion of a fervent prayer. Your fathomless eyes, glinting with the knowledge and the plans you keep hiding away from him, draw him in like the bait at the end of a fishing rod, and even though he knows it’s a trap, he lets himself be caught. Three nights before the day at your wedding, he finds himself caught on the sharp hook as he submerges into a bath with you.

You are not naked, but it almost seems like you are with the way the fabric of your dress begins to cling to you as the water kisses your skin. The shivering claiming your human bones create little currents in the pool, the water much colder than the ocean that surrounds this make-shift castle. Rafayel presses you closer to him, and then his face is in your hair, breathing in deeply. You both have long stopped caring about the rules of polite society. Rafayel has not allowed you to. Every touch, every word, every smile has made you more pliant, until finally you have even allowed him to partake in your ablutions before the wedding.

Every sacrificial bride of the sea god is supposed to take a bath before her wedding, washing away her past so that she can present herself in her most purified state. Most times, the bridal party is asked to help her with that, but Rafayel has stolen that role. It is the single most blasphemous thing one could do. But he is a god, and it is him who dictates the rules, delivers the scripture. All it took was a jut of his lip, the allusion of a pout, and you had caved immediately.

And now you were here, in the curve of his arm, your ear hovering above his chest. His heartbeat was powerful, pounding as loudly as the waves crashing on the beach, the sound susurrating inside your very soul. You breathe in deeply, shaking. This is the most divine thing you have ever experienced, something your mortal shell never thought it would be able to feel. “Sweet conch shell,” Rafayel murmurs in to your ear, shocking you to your core. “I’m sure you know that we have to step in even further to be able to perform the purification.”

“Just a second, please,” you speak through gritted teeth. This man vexes you in the most alluring of ways, and you cannot help but acquiesce to his every whim. You know your pleading falls on deaf ears, though, because Rafayel’s immediate reaction is a smile so mischievous it borders on schadenfreude, and he is already tugging at your shoulders in an attempt to submerge you further. You try to stand firm, even though your determination is crumbling. “It’s cold. It’s really cold.”

“Hmmm.” Rafayel nips at your ear, then your throat; you shudder violently enough for the water to splash. In the silence of your private little bubble, it almost sounds like an explosion. It makes your eyes snap open, as if preparing itself to fight or flee. Never had you let a man so close into your proximity. The village had always been ripe with gossip-mongering and backtalk. Your mother, although the most honorable person in the world to you, had been a demonized figure, to the point where your own worship had made you cull out the presence of men. No one had ever expected you to follow in your mother’s footsteps. No one had expected you to become a bride worthy of the sea. The simple pleasure of his ministrations floods your cheeks with hot blood. “See, I already warmed you up,” he teases, mouthing the words against your carotid artery. Speaking the words directly into your heart. You are guided much easier now, the water sloshing as you are pulled in. “I’ll take care of you, my pearl. You’re with your god, aren’t you?”

With your god. You turn your face toward him. Rafayel’s fingers tug at your lower lip, and you watch as his eyes zero in on the flesh; he is weirdly entranced with the way your human body works, the strange reaction it elicits from him. It is something you have become accustomed to in the past few days. His nail is sharp enough to draw blood. “See, that wasn’t so hard,” he coos, mocking you outright. But his fingers are shaking. It’s you who’s got him wrapped around your little finger, and that feels both emancipating and sacrilegious, a conflict so confusing that you do not know where you have to draw the line. You don’t even want to draw a line. When you had joined the faith of the waves, the image you had conjured during prayer had been ephemeral and fleeting, as changing as the sea. Not in your wildest dreams would you have been able to picture a man, a deity as flawless as Rafayel. His beauty kills. It constricts your lungs and tugs at your heart, as if falling into the maw of a great beast. The still water does nothing to take away from your hypersensitivity to his proximity.

Mortals aren’t made for divine dalliances. You burn too easily. But here you are, playing with fire.

You aren’t delusional enough to think he loves you. You are clay-born, after all. Rough and hastily assembled, none of the precision that the sea god had employed to give birth to his people. You are dazzling in the same way as a fire is dazzling: a short burst of destruction that is as awe-inspiring as it is revolting. But even you can recognize that he is attracted to you, and to a simple servant of the faith, that is quite enough. You are basking in whatever affection he grants you, any scrap at all.

Although you are still on the cusp of youth, old enough to yearn but young enough to grasp the moment, you had never in your wildest dreams conspired of something like this ever happening. Love just wasn’t on your cards. You had your sister, and your mother, and your faith, and that was truly enough. It was fulfilling to the point that you had felt untethered to the earth, free from the judging glances of the village, free from all the expectations the convent placed on you. Living and breathing and becoming one with the sea. If you had died tomorrow without ever having glimpsed the miraculous sea god you had entrusted yourself to, you would have died happy anyways. It was as simple as that.

But this was life-changing. Altering. You were experiencing an out-of-body experience, mythology come true. After all those years you had thrown your love into the universe, the universe was reaching back. You were spinning off axis, losing sight of everything but Rafayel. He was the new epicenter of your existence.

You jump as his fingers trail the naked skin of your arms. He settles on your hips, the touch so electrifying that you bite the lower lip he is still so fascinated by, staring at it as if it were a treasure he discovered at the bottom of the sea. The moon behind him outlines his shape in silver and white, making him seem more like an apparition than an actual person. How fitting, when you have been fantasizing about him all your life. “We should perform the purification now,” you whisper, but Rafayel is still lazily drawing patterns into the flesh of your curves. “Certainly,” he drawls out, every syllable enunciated in the abundant leisure only a god could possess. Your nerves feel like they are on fire. “In a minute.”

“Your Divinity,” you caution.

“Raf-a-yel.” He pronounces the words slowly, but with a deadly intonation. His eyes are dark, unreadable. “Say it. Say my name.”

You look at him, unsure. He looks just as much the deadly hunter he is sometimes depicted as in the murals. Before humanity had started building shrines in honor of the sea god of the abyss, they had painted warning signs about him, about the quick and bloody death he delivers. Some sailors still caution against all interaction with the creatures of the sea, their doom-calling stories a fresh batch of nightmares every time you hear them. The way Lemurians used to drag their willing prey beneath the waves, where they watched as the light left their eyes. What remained of them were the last bubbles of air as they rose to the surface. You cannot say his name, not with your tainted tongue. Not with the bastardry you carry in your veins. Not when you are deceiving him for the sake of your sister. But … “Rafayel,” you whisper.

You should feel scared about the way his lips curve into a smile. Beneath the most beautiful skins still lies the deadly bite of a venomous snake. Somehow you don’t think it’s fear that spikes the speed of your heartbeat, though. It’s not adrenaline that makes you angle your face upward so Rafayel can nuzzle your neck, and you almost buckle at the swipe of his tongue. Tasting the salt on your skin, the earth you came from. “Here, I purify you,” he answers. “I’ll lick you clean.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s what the scriptures meant, Your Divinity. Rafayel,” you hastily correct. He had frozen in his motions, but resumed nipping at your skin when you had added his name. The cold water was doing absolutely nothing against the fire racing inside your veins.

“Don’t care about the scriptures.” Rafayel draws up, pulling you with him. The languorous stretch of his figure forces you upward, and following his guide, you wrap your arms around his neck until you’re flush against him. His eyes darken at the press of your breasts against his chest. You screw your eyes shut at the delicious pressure, the way your nipples had brushed against his skin. How easy it is to throw all caution into the wind. You were losing sight of everything you built, in the name of love. “My word is law. Isn’t it?”

“Yes, Rafayel.”

He almost seems to purr at the sound of his name, easily pleased. It’s a deeply unhuman sound that should make you shrink away in fear. You screw your eyes shut as his lips trace the shape of your cheeks, inching closer to your mouth. “My name sounds so delicious on your tongue,” he whispers against the corner of your lips, bordering on a kiss. “If only all your prayers had been like this. I would have flooded all the ports and claimed the land just to have you.”

“I am yours,” you tell him, and you mean it. Rafayel grips your hips hard enough to draw blood, and he doesn’t need to tell you to know what he wants from you. You repeat it, again and again, telling him you belong to him, until Rafayel shuts you up with a kiss that tastes of both sanctity and sin, and the poison he pours into you is so decadent you almost don’t realize it’s killing you. You forget that at the end of this, it will not just be his kiss consuming you whole. You welcome the knifes and the sharp teeth and let Rafayel devour you.

The night passes then with the two of you trading kisses in the dark, small touches bordering on disgrace. You bend so many of your rules that at the end of the night, you’re not sure whether your virginity is sacred after all. But Rafayel never asks you for it, and you both remain clothed, although the bath has made you drip all over the floor. Inside the enormous bed that Rafayel claims as his own, you watch the sun rise as his fingers trace your ears, your collarbones, the shape of your body. It feels intimate in a way that is devoid of sex. It almost feels like Rafayel is the supplicant and you his deity, with the reverence he dedicates to touching you. “You do not need to be purified, bride of blood,” he says, addressing you like he did on the day you met him. Once again, it is a sign of respect. A sign that although he doesn’t understand your beliefs, he still wants to adhere to them because you treasure them. “You are flawless as you are. I chose you because you are everything I want.”

Although your sight is already blurring from tiredness, you make an effort to look at him. “Even though I am human?”

“Despite everything,” he tells you. “My heart sings with the presence of you.”

The sincerity of that statement dizzies you. You fall back into the blurness, feeling light as a feather. Never in your life before have you experienced a joy as profound as this; you have seen the face of God, and God has looked back at you. He is only looking at you.

“You do not have to do this, you know.”

It is the sister who speaks. Rafayel turns over the ceremonial knife, staring at it as he strains to hear the soft voices in the room behind him. Technically, he was eavesdropping. It was a breach of privacy, of course, but there was the matter of intention; he had come to see you, to fall into your lap as you told him about the human world, to allow himself to be reduced to a lover at the beck and call of a mere human like you. The days were beginning to slip away like sand in an hourglass, the wedding inching closer with every passing second. He had been trying to identify where the pit of dread inside his stomach came from when he heard your sister speak up, a feat so rare that he had forced himself to stop behind the door before she stopped. Your bridal party was composed of the most annoying people in the world, all of them paling in comparison to you in both faith and creature, but your sister guarded her words like a clam her pearls. And now, when she finally spoke, it was to deter you from marrying at all.

Rafayel hears something shift. You must have sat closer to her. “Do not say those words,” you hiss, a tone he has never heard you take before. “Do you forget how easily it is for a human to lose their head down here? We are already on thin ice.”

“I’m serious. You do know we could all die anyways, right? How can you be so calm? I feel like I’m about to go insane!”

“Then keep it together!” The answer is too loud, a cat mother snapping at its young. The anger in your voice is palpable. For a moment, the silence claims the room alongside the tension created by the secret conversation, but then you speak up, much calmer. “We either die together for this treason, or I die and you will live to tell my tale. In either case, it’s fine by me. I don’t care about my own life, but so help me god, Alia, if you even think of ending this ruse I will send you above water myself. I’m your older sister. It is my duty to think of you first.”

Treason. Rafayel’s fingers skim the edge of the knife. Blood pearls at the tip of his fingers, the sight of it as nauseating as the thought of a possible betrayal by the human world. Already, the world above them has started to leave them behind, with their experiments of gunpowder and weaponry. More and more patrols return decimated, the serving soldiers reporting death and violence. Complaining, pointing fingers. It’s no secret that the bridal party at court has become somewhat of a group of hostages. And hadn’t Rafayel already known that you were hiding things?

But he thinks of the way you let him cup your face in the sight of only moon and sky, how your eyes glint with the unspoken tenderness between the two of you. It was easy to lie with words, but your souls sing to each other. You both know it. There is something tucked away inside your human heart that belongs to him and him alone, something that makes Rafayel forgive you for every past and future grievance you could possibly muster against him. There is something every living heart wants for itself, and his heart wants you. The metaphorical knife sinks and sinks and sinks into his chest, slamming into bone, stuck there like Rafayel is stuck on his throne. Forever a hand-width away from everyone else, even his happiness. Just then, your sister whispers, “You love him, do you not? You have already given him your heart.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you gently reprimand her. Rafayel closes his eyes; the hand twisting the knife is rough and scarred, but familiar. He imagines taking that hand to aid it. Stab here, he wishes to say. Just a little deeper. I permit you. Only you. “This plan isn’t going to work, and I don’t care. I’ll take them down with me if I can. If I’m dead, I can’t be blackmailed, can I? I don’t care whether I die, as long as you live.”

As long as you live. Rafayel thinks of hearts, and the consumption of them, and of weddings and happy endings. He tucks the ceremonial knife away, his insides cold with the grim certainty of what he is going to do.

Later on, Rafayel will not remember the way his wedding had crashed and floundered into flames. He will not remember the sharp sting of betraying his own people, how his power had bled and bled. It was always so gruesome when gods fell. They weren’t destined for tragedies of this scale.

The only thing Rafayel will be able to commit to his recollection is how stunning divinity looked on you. He will forget the way his home had tasted, how the blooming kingdom of Lemuria had seemed to explode with colors, how the laughter of his folk had accompanied him everywhere. The only thing left will be you, your radiant face and your warm, warm tears, as warm as blood, sparking a fire in even the coldest of deep sea creatures. It should make him curse your name.

And yet he cannot forget you.

He looks for you everywhere, at every time, in every moment. The way your smile looked like the warm rays of the sun as they broke through the rain-heavy sky. The way the sound of your steps seemed to echo like the drum-like rhythm of his heart. He races after people who seem to have just the right hair color, who seem to share the shape of your eyes, who remind him just too much of you, only to realize that it wasn’t the person he was chasing after. You are haunting him. In every waking moment, in every dream that tortures his sleep, it is always you.

The resulting soul-devouring longing has turned him into quite the artist. When Lemuria fell, it took everything with it. Every painting since then he has ever drawn up fails to compare with the real thing, and he is terrified by the idea that he is forgetting how his home looked like. Already the details begin to slip away from him, becoming eroded over time. What remains crystalline is the imagine of you. Devilish you, crux of Lemuria you. It torments him to love you, but what torments him more is the loss of you. He had never been prepared for this possibility. He had never even considered what giving his heart away would look like.

And yet, he would do it again, and again, and again. Selfishly, egotistically. What he wouldn’t give to be able to make you smile again. In his most desperate nights, he strains himself to remember the way you used to laugh, the sound more heavenly than any music ever composed on earth. Even the falsification of the sound still manages to bring him so much peace that Rafayel stills his hands and abstains from painting another death trap. Although revenge has become the new mistress of his heart, he doesn’t love her as much as he will ever love you. It is the memory of you that makes him halt, makes him grant mercy to a possible victim. That, and the everlasting fear it is your blood he could be punishing. Your wish had been granted, after all - it was your sister who had lived and witnessed the death of a civilization, your sister who had escaped all culpability.

It was one of the most earliest memories he managed to commit to his brain after the atrocity that was the destruction of Lemuria. He had dug your sister’s grave with his bare hands. He had never even known her, not closely anyways, but it was your blood running in her veins, your love that had raised her. After so many years of searching and retracing his steps, he had finally found the village you had been born into. But by then, his bride had disappeared, and your sister had grown old waiting for you, and she had barely been able to squeeze Rafayel’s hand before passing on peacefully. That had hurt him in an entirely different way. Here was someone, who loved you and missed you just as much as him, who would understand how severely the loss of you had impacted him, but then she went and died. A cruel fate, as usual. But he did not regret finding her. For a little while, someone had been able to share his grief. And for a little while, that had been enough.

In his worst nightmares, Rafayel dreams he will never see you again. He will live and die for his love, but it will not matter. The bond that connected your souls stretched on into nothingness, past the place where living beings could reach, and you have already passed onto a place he will never see, because you’re an angel and he’s going to hell. Whether he believes it or not, he has betrayed his people, his court, his duty. There was no redemption, no way to come back from that.

Sometimes he resents you for it, so much so that his soul grows heavy with the anger he carries within. He stares at himself in the mirror for hours, trying to claw off the Lemurian mark that bonds you to him, but then he dissolves into sobs. He is hollow of you, a carved out corpse, a mermaid drowned. An oxymoron, like he was. He loves you so much that he convinces himself the pain is worth it; he convinces himself that he can survive this.

He becomes a renowned artist, his paintings a manifest oh the emotions he tries to overcome. But in every single one, his muse remains the same.

Like divine intervention, it is his paintings you admire when Rafayel finally finds you again.

He almost doesn’t trust his eyes. After all, this is not the very first time he has chased after a mirage like a traveler lost at sea. The back that is turned to him is not as scarred as yours was, and the curls of your hair are tucked away in a neat coiffure that almost makes him look away; you had hated to have your hair up. His favorite part of the morning routine you both established was when you had let him sneak into your rooms, and you had let him brush your hair until it was smooth and silky to the touch. But then you cock your head at the painting, and Rafayel sees your face, and he almost buckles.

The moon pales in comparison of the sight of your face twitching into the amazed expression at the painting before you. The sharp teeth remember him of your knife-like grimaces, the ones you used to grace him with when he saw a little bit too much of the truth inside you. There is a horrifyingly familiar birthmark where your brandmark used to identify you as one of the most devoted priestesses of the sea’s faith. You are as beautiful as the day as he lost you, as stunning as the day you had walked into his life.

He stumbles into Thomas, who steadies him with an appalled noise. The rest of the world falls away as Rafayel drinks in the sight of you like a man completely parched with thirst, as if he might die from it. You’re staring at a rendition of how Rafayel had imagined you might look in a bridal gown. His legs carry him forward, and never has the burden of walking on earth hurt him as much as now; he feels that knowledge tearing at him, clawing away at every protective measure, before he even reaches you. Every step is razor-sharp and painful, a conscious memory of what he sacrificed to roam the earth for you. He already knows before you meet his eyes. Your eyes are as clear and amazed as the day you had been brought to him.

You have no idea who he is at all.

It had already been a weird day. You had woken up to your face wet with tears, but as you touched it, you couldn’t for the life of you remember what you had dreamt about. There was only the disturbing feeling that were was something missing, something you couldn’t live without. You had laid in bed for a very long time, your hand placed over your heart, before your bestfriend and roommate Simone had burst into your room and told you to ‘get your ass up before we miss work’.

In the subway, the feeling hadn’t subsided. Beneath the bones of your breast cage, your most vital organ sputtered and stuttered, strangely arhythmic. The thing wasn’t very reliable, anyways, and you already had monthly check-ups to ensure it wasn’t fucking you over and you could continue your work. And then sometimes, it performed miracles. So many times you had woken up in a hospital bed after having passed out with the certain thought that you were going to die, but every time your heart had won out, like it loved battling death and beating the shit out of it every time. It had mystified Zayne, your childhood friend, to the point where he had suggested setting up a field study for his university studies, but you had firmly declined. You didn’t want anyone else to know about this freak heart, thank you.

Work itself had passed by quickly either way, and you had almost passed over the opportunity of going out with your friends. But Simone had wheedled at you and whittled your rejection down until it turned into acceptance, so now here you were.

Staring at this stranger.

He almost looked familiar. In another life, perhaps, you would have walked up to him and struck up a conversation. You had a special weakness for pretty boys, even though you knew even the most beautiful of predators are still deadly. But you had sworn off men after college, the short dalliances that had sparked up remaining unfruitful, so you thought it was for the best.

But the look in his eyes was so heartbreaking.

If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought he knew you. He seemed to be looking at you like someone who he had believed dead had magically been brought back to life and returned to him. When you finally mustered up your courage to approach him, because he had been staring at you for quite a while now, the gorgeous man had turned and left. You quickly lost sight of him, which made you frown.

You were a Deepspace hunter, one of the best. You usually don’t lose track of your prey, especially not pretty ones like him.

It didn’t matter. You never saw him again afterwards. Your fake vow of chastity remained stable, even after the countless club nights Simone dragged you to and even after Tara’s desperate pleading to please, pretty please let her set you up with someone. You declined every time. Not because you were stubborn, but because there was a hollowness inside you that starved for tenderness, something so unreal you were sure you were never going to find it. There was a beast encaged by your veins and bones, starving for the scraps of affection. You had fed it and fed it and fed it, to the point where at the end, you were the one who had been left unnurtured, so you had abandoned the search.

You had never once thought it would find you instead.

There were times when the timing seemed almost too suspicious. The appearance of a fake account perceiving your social media posts. The feeling of someone keeping watch of you. Not following you, but checking in on you. The knowledge that someone was looking out for you, but every time you turned the corner, what greeted you was the sight of a whole lot of nothing.

It’s Wednesday night after Simone’s shift when the doorbell rings. “Did you order in?” you ask the girl, but she shakes her head, the freshly washed hair whipping around like a flag in the wind. “Maybe it’s Michaela?” she theorizes, and you shrug. You’ve met Michaela before; she was Xavier’s hunting partner, a competent hunter that was sure to rise through the ranks. You hadn’t realized that Simone and her had become so acquainted, though. You were definitely going to needle Simone about that.

You went to open the door, but it wasn’t Michaela standing in front of it. Instead, a delivery boy that looks like the most bored employee you’ve ever seen holds out a packaged bouquet to you. “Please sign here, miss,” he says, and holds out a board where a paper has been pinned to it. You scan it quickly to confirm it’s actually for you, then give him the signature he requires.

“Who was it?” Simone appears in the hallway, scrubbing away at her hair. You are momentarily distracted from the bouquet and stare at her instead; you always scolded her for walking around with wet hair. “Is that a bouquet?” she asks before you can say something, her voice amazed. “I thought you were a chaste nun and all that!”

“I’m not dating anyone!” you immediately defend yourself. But your heart is racing as you pass her, and you quickly walk to the kitchen counter where you reach for the scissors in the drawers. Simone rejoins you and watches as you free the flowers from their paper cage.

It is the prettiest bouquet you’ve ever received. Nestled inbetween baby’s breath and foxgloves, water lilies in full bloom reach upward, filling the kitchen with their dizzying fragrance. Simone begins to sneeze almost immediately; she is violently allergic to foxgloves. You, on the other hand, breathe in deeply, almost light-headed with the violent longing the flowers fill you with.

You stare at the flowers for a very long time.

After almost an hour of theorizing and reaching to no conclusion, you place the bouquet on the windowsill in your room where it can be seen from the street. It’s intentional, because you are almost sure that the feeling of that watchful stranger was not just a feeling. Maybe it was a secret admirer or something. But your heart was at peace with that knowledge, and the feeling that encapsulated you was as familiar as a dream; a dream where you are loved as you are, with every inch of your being. You sleep deeply and restfully for the first time in a very long time.

As someone rounds the corner, he angles his eyes upward to stare at a certain window. He passes by here almost daily, just to see whether you were sleeping and taking care of yourself. Worrying about whether when the lamp burned deep into the night, it meant you were overworking yourself or haunted by nightmares. Reassured when the light was off and your shutters closed, because it meant you were home and sleeping. When the shutters are open, he doesn’t even bother to pass by this street, having learnt quickly it meant you were on a business trip of some kind. He has quickly become resentful of your vocation because of how much it drains you. But today, he sees the bouquet he sent you, proud on display on the very windowsill he is able to see from below here, so far away from you.

Almost unwillingly, because he has yet to relearn the motion, his lips curve into a smile. Rafayel walks home, his heart as light as it never has been before. Well, maybe once. Back when the waves were still the emperors of the world. When love meant a certain, moonlight-illuminated face.

It doesn’t take long for Rafayel to re-enter your life under the guise of a part-time job. A bodyguard, for a painter. The joke almost writes himself. But you couldn’t deny how you had clapped your hands in joy when you saw him again, the pretty face with no name you had seen on that day of the art reveal. You let him seduce into the worst side-gig ever, which might as well have been a babysitting job instead of a bodyguard position.

You learn that he’s a recluse, famous painter with the weirdest quirks. You’ve never met a man as strange as him. He was immature, and whiny, and a brat. Most times, you were too exasperated to handle him, despite the ridiculous amount of money he was paying you (the dude was rolling in money) and the bonus of getting to see his gorgeous face every day for free. Sometimes, though, when you are careless, your heart jumps to your throat when your fingers brush. Other times, when you watch him paint, you have the counterproductive urge to grasp his face and kiss him until you’re breathless. You cannot understand it. You don’t know where the instinct comes from. But it runs deep in your blood, a calling as old as time.

Simone calls you a horny freak, almost guffawing when you meekly admit to having developed a crush on him. And hey, sure, maybe you were a little horny. (A woman gets quite desperate when her only sexual encounters were the reliable appendages of her own hand.) And sometimes you did want to jump Rafayel’s bones until you were sure you (or him) wouldn’t be able to walk for a least a week. But it’s not what stirs you when you look at him. Deep inside your heart, something yearns for Rafayel, something that’s even hungrier than the beast you call your own heart.

You’re never sure what will overcome you. On most days, where Rafayel mooches off the vacation days you get from Deepspace hunting and calls you in to watch him live his life, your cravings run on the need of wanting to touch him. You want to ruffle your fingers through his hair to discover whether it’s as soft as it looks like. You’ve even candidly wondered what it would be like to hug him while he sleeps; Rafayel often falls asleep on his own job, curling into a sleeping position right in front of his unfinished paintings, the elegant fingers unfurling around his brush. The need to touch him can get so severe that you brush your fingers over his hand as he sleeps, just to satisfy it; it feels like fire grazing your skin, as dangerous as his Evol. You never tell him about anything of this, though, even though you know the secret is burning you.

Sometimes he looks at you as though he can tell exactly what you’re thinking. Like now.

He looks up before you can tear your gaze away. You had been staring at him for a little too long, admittedly, but he was looking downright ethereal today. You had almost collapsed on his porch when he had answered the door. The man was already a threat because of his looks, but he had opened the door looking like he fell right out of the bed and walked to the door without doing anything. The sight of his sleepy face and frazzled hair was doing a number on your heart. He claimed he’d already had breakfast and had laid out a plate of pancakes for you (not prepared by him, of course, the man was too lazy to stand in the kitchen without incentive), then gotten straight to painting. You were fantasizing about what it would be like to wake up in bed with him, to wipe away the sleep from his eyes and kiss the eyelids, when he caught you red-handed. “What, do I have something on my face?” he quips, and you jerk upright.

“No. Why would you think that?”

“You’re looking at me as if I sprouted another head. I’m not an alien, you know.”

“Technically, you are. Aren’t you?” You blink at him, the question innocent. Rafayel rolls his eyes, though, as if he had both expected your stupidity but had hoped you would overcome it. “Lemurians are from the ocean, idiot,” he retorts, turning back to his painting. He was swiping away at another creation, something that looked like the abstract rendition of a hurricane on the sea. “Last I checked, that was still on earth.”

Well, he got you there. Before you could think of a smart response, your phone rings, bringing the conversation to a halt. Rafayel clicks his tongue in annoyance; he likes to be the center of your attention and has often hidden your phone during work hours just so you couldn’t distract yourself. As someone with the attention span of a goldfish, you had rebelled pretty soon. You turn your attention to the device in your hands and read Simone’s name on the display before you answer the call. “Hello?” You drawl out, gaze still fixed on Rafayel.

“Where are you?”

“Working. At Raf’s.” You don’t miss the way Rafayel straightens up at the nickname, looking like the satisfied cats he often chases away due to his hatred of them. It’s your turn to roll your eyes; he was easily pleased. At the same time, his simple joy at a nickname makes your heart soften. Although his dramatic flair ensures that he is never taken seriously, deep beneath it all, you have come to realize that Rafayel is a genuinely tender person. And who are you to judge for being needy when it comes to affection? “I told you that this morning. You know, when you were in bed with Michaela.” As far as you knew, they weren’t dating, since Simone claimed Michaela had only slept over yesterday because they had stayed out late, and she had refused to let Michaela walk back home in the dark.

“Do not say that out loud,” comes Simone’s buzzing response from the other end of the phone, and you momentarily hold your phone away as you cringe at the sound. You put it back just in time to hear her add, “I do not need the fish-man to know about my private business, thank you. He’s an employer after all.”

“Everyone knows about your fat crush on Michaela.”

“Well, how about your fat crush on…”

“NO!” you shout down the phone before she can speak it out loud and ruin your life. You manage to startle Rafayel so strongly that he topples from the chair he was situated on; you wince and turn around guiltily, not wanting to deal with the consequences of that. Simone had almost given away your secret feelings for the man currently painting his heart out on the canvas. “Alright, point fucking taken. Is that why you called me? To bully me?”

“You decided to bully me first! Anyways, I called to let you know that they emergency-scheduled you for this afternoon. Something about you being familiar with that no-hunting zone.”

You narrow your eyes. She was probably talking about the suburb north of Linkon that had just recently been declared a no hunting zone; they were still carrying out evacuations from the area, although majority of the place had been abandoned ages ago due to a factory accident. You often ran patrols there and had been the one to notify the agency about the rising threat-level which had ultimately led to the declaration of it now being a no hunting zone. Still, it must be pretty serious if they scheduled you without checking back with you first. Jenna usually didn’t take advantage of your willingness, since you often offered to cover shifts for your colleagues.

“When?”

“7:30 at the subway station. North exit. You’ll patrol alone, but I can join you if you want to.”

“No, that’s fine,” you answered absentmindedly, already racking your brain about what could have happened and how you could get there. Perhaps another luminivore? But you had cleared out a nest of wanderers just a week ago…

You barely remember to say goodbye to Simone before you whirl around to face Rafayel. He’s still on the ground, pouting, his full lips jutted at you in irritation. “Let me guess,” he grumbles. “You’re gonna abandon me again. Forget aaaaall about me on your fancy wanderer-hunting job.”

“Rafayel,” you sigh. He always got vexed about this, the fact that you had a life aside from basically being his handbag that he carried everywhere. Rafayel doesn’t even like public appearances, and rarely appears often enough where the necessity of a bodyguard was warranted. You step towards him and offer him your hand so he can let himself be pulled up, but he turns his face away like a child. “Don’t be like this. I’ll literally be back tomorrow.”

“Oh, will you? And what if you get another emergency? And what when your free days are over and you have to go back to your regular work? Since you’ve managed to forget to text me every time you’ve been busy, I’m assuming you’ll check back with me as soon as sharks have started walking on land.”

“Now you’re just being dramatic.”

Rafayel turns his head to glare at you. It’s the only thing your register before the world is flipped upside down in a rapid whorl of colors. Rafayel has taken hold of the hand that had intended to help him and had pulled you down. The movement is so swift and sudden that you squeak in indignation before you can remember your training, but your fight-response dies down as soon as Rafayel leans over you, his hands pinning yours over your head. You could easily free yourself if you wanted to. You were a Deepspace hunter, for crying out loud. But it’s Rafayel who’s pinning you down, Rafayel whose lovely hair is as blue as the swirling sea, his eyes capturing you like a predator hypnotizing its prey. “You’re a liar,” he tells you. It’s an insult, but your skin tingles as if the word was a caress. You squeeze your hands into fists in his hold, and he grips your wrists tighter, as if he can imprison them. As if he can imprison you. Rafayel’s eyes are as hard as flint, and you recoil from the real anger inside them; he’s never looked at you like this, never. The air is thick with tension. “You humans always lie. You’ll leave me and forget about me.”

The situation seems so silly, but there’s something urging you to take it seriously, something in Rafayel’s eyes that tugs at your heartstrings. You feel like a deer in the headlights, yearning for the approaching car. “I’d never lie,” you tell him after a few moments, unsure where the words are coming from. “And I’d never leave you.”

Rafayel scoffs, and you feel the embarrassment creep up on your face. Well, it’s not like you were the one who initiated this ridiculous situation! But you cannot help but feel this isn’t a joke. You scan Rafayel’s face, but he’s as unreadable as the calligraphy of a foreign language, unavailable and unreachable to you. “How can you be certain?” There’s a tang of anxiety to Rafayel’s voice, a tone so disquieting that you feel desperate to get rid of it. The urge is strange, but not unwelcome. You think for a long time before you tell him, “I can’t be. I’m only human, after all. But I mean it with all my heart when I say I would never intend to.”

Rafayel’s eyes visibly soften at the words. It’s a confusing, mind-muddling reaction. Although your relationship to Rafayel is indescribable by words and constrained by its professional setting, you would still be able to claim that you had grown close enough to realize this was an extremely uncommon reaction. What’s even more confusing is when Rafayel lowers himself to tug you closer; you fit like puzzle pieces as he cradles your head in the hollow of his neck, holding you against his heart. You return the embrace with a racing heart. This is everything what your touchstarved brain had asked for and more. You turn your face to tuck it into the crook of his neck, and the man above you sighs with what sounds like content. After a few moments, he finally releases you, his arms unfurling like the petals of a flower. He’s still pouting, but he looks appeased. “Go, then,” he says, sitting up and crossing his arms. “But don’t expect me to miss you or anything!”

Like a sea creature that’s washed up on the beach, unable to breathe air, you gape at him. Meanwhile, Rafayel dusts himself off, as if nothing ever happened. He goes straight back to his art, sparing you not even a glance as he says, “Be sure to lock the door behind you, will you? I really don’t want Thomas to crash in whenever he wants again. I like my privacy.”

That damned fish!

This is the shape your relationship takes on, the constant push-and-pull between tearing each other apart and digging into every crevice you can reach in the other. What has started as a simple crush is starting to drive you insane, what with how Rafayel begins to take advantage of how familiar you both become. It’s on a night like this where he makes every effort to blur the lines between you two, like colors mixing and washing over each other, creating something new. It’s the middle of the night, and you should really be in bed sleeping before your newest mission in the morning, and yet you’re standing in front of the art gallery in the middle of nowhere. Thomas’ face looks like a tomato. He’s been blushing and apologizing for at least ten minutes, begging you to forgive him and spewing excuses about how he absolutely couldn’t call anyone else. He pawns Rafayel off like a discovered item being handed in to lost-and-found, abandoning you to your new task so he can hush back inside and hide the fact that a) the artist in question being discussed in there is drunk out of his mind and b) he’s pulling the Frenchest exist ever known to humankind, having slipped out the backdoor that is supposed to be reserved for the staff. You stare at the label that marks the closed door as such long after Thomas has left you, ignoring the whiny little sounds Rafayel is making. Asking for your attention, probably. Eliciting a very different kind of response in both your pissed and tired mind, but also your easily excited abdomen.

How did you even get here?

“Can you pleaaaase stop staring at that door and stare at me instead? And I made all that effort to look pretty, too.”

Your eyes snap back to Rafayel, momentarily distracted. “Surely you didn’t dress up for me, mister,” you huff, although you did take note of his attire. It’s an elegantly cut suit and tie, the cuffs of his shirt studded with something that looks like glinting stars in the dark. As you step closer, you realize that the buttons are not buttons, but rather pearls. From Rafayel’s left ear dangles an ear ring, a silver fishing spear that seems to pierce through the earlobe. “Because you best believe I didn’t agree to be dragged out at the ass-crack of dawn to pick you up just because you can’t hold your liquor.”

“I can hold my liquor!” Rafayel complains. You want to muster up a snarky response, but then he grabs your calf and falls forward, his head coming to rest on your thigh. The proximity is making your breath catch in your throat. “That was just …. a lot of piña coladas. They were just so delicious. It’s not my fault.” The drunkard at your feet squishes his stunningly beautiful irritating face against your leg, looking up to catch your gaze as he pleads you to swallow the lie.

You are robbed of speech.

It’s one thing to have an unrequited crush. It’s another thing to live with it. And then it’s something entirely different to have that crush used against you. Rafayel’s cheeks are red from intoxication, his eyes lidded, seemingly in a haze. But his hands are steady, goal-oriented. They feel their way along your legs, up to the hollow of your knees, until finally Rafayel digs his fingers into the back of your thighs and closes his eyes.

If anyone knew how fast your heart was racing right now, you’d never live to hear the end of it. You are shy and overwhelmed and in love. Before you can embarrass yourself even further, you take Rafayel’s hands into yours and pull him, the sound of your blood rushing in your ears reminiscent of the way the thunderous waves crash on Whitesand Bay when it storms. “Let’s get you home,” you hear yourself speak as if from a distance. For once, Rafayel is obedient. He nods eagerly, wrapping both his arms around the one you offered him, and you manage to find your way back to the main street as you round the art gallery and hail a cab.

The driver looks as tired as you are. The meter, calculating the price for the amount of distance travelled, sets a ticking rhythm for the drive. As you settle in and buckle up both Rafayel and you, the former uses the chance to inch closer to you. You direct your gaze to the roof of the car, thinking, dear god, please help me survive the ride back home.

Because this is just plain torture. It takes Rafayel five minutes, tops, to fall against you and hide away his face against your throat. His breath comes more steadily now, not as erratic, and he’s still got the scent of coconut syrup and rum on his breath, but beneath all that, he smells like the Rafayel you have come to know. That strange smell of salt and paint and mint, the latter being part of the perfume he prefers to use. He’s close enough to bite through your throat if he wanted to.

Somehow, the thought doesn’t terrify you. The lack of fear ought to be a warning sign, but all you can think about is how lovely it would be die on those teeth, like the drowned sailors crushed to pulp as the waves throw them against the cliffs over and over again. You curl your fingers to your fist in your lap, willing yourself to endure it. In the darkness of the cab, every touch seems amplified.

“Missed you,” Rafayel mumbles then, almost making you leap out of your skin. He hadn’t been loud, but you’re growing incredibly hypersensitive to his every mood. His lips brush your skin as he speaks. “Thought you wouldn’t come.”

You slightly turn your head to create some life-saving distance. Your heat is threatening to jump right out of your chest. “Of course I would come to get you, silly fish,” you whisper back. Through the window, you see the cab cut by the city, drifting through its streets like a snake through a flower field. Even in the middle of the night, Linkon City doesn’t seem to sleep. You try to fixate on the sight outside, instead of the man beside you that was threatening to make you lose your grip on sanity.

Rafayel grunts, then shifts his position. As he sits up, his hand falls into your lap, and with an ease you usually only ever see him exert on his brushes, he claims your hand for his own and turns it over. He presses a thumb to your palm, the touch light, but something feathers in your muscles. Your hand twitches. “You sound so sure,” he sighs, sounding petulant. He doesn’t believe you.

When finally the sight of Rafayel’s humble appears on the horizon, Rafayel manages to step outside the cab without falling over once. In the time it takes him to step outside and stand up-right, you’ve already paid and thanked the cab driver, who only nods and speeds away as soon as the door to his vehicle closes. You watch for a few moments until the cab merges with general traffic and then disappears, then turn back to your drunk, pouting companion, avoiding your eyes as if the eye contact could be embarrassing to him. For being so touchy in the cab, he sure has some nerve of acting like this. Without another word, you enter the passcode to his door, and Rafayel slips inside.

The studio looks like a mess. Clearly, nothing had been cleaned or tidied up before someone left to attend their oh, so important event. There is paint everywhere, even on the couch you know costs more than an entire year of your salary. You avert your eyes and press your hand on Rafayel’s back; you would talk about that tomorrow. The studio usually was a representation of Rafayel’s mental state. Whatever bothered him, had exploded into the artful reorganization of his home. “Quit pushing me,” Rafayel nags at you. He winds around so that he can free himself from your touch, then glares at you as if this was somehow your fault. “I can walk on my own.”

“Well, then maybe you’ll take yourself home, too.”

Your voice comes out too harsh. You know it as soon as you close your mouth, but Rafayel has already flinched. “I’m sorry,” you say as you try to soften the blow, and it feels ridiculous. Why is it you who has to apologize right now? But you continue speaking as if compelled, because you can’t stand the thought of hurting him, of him thinking he meant nothing to you. He doesn’t answer, so you step closer, intending to make him look at you so he’d see that you’re being earnest. That’s not what happens, though.

What happens is that Rafayel’s hands find your shoulders, and you’re about to ask what he’s doing, and then the only thing you can feel is the shape of Rafayel’s full lips crashing against yours, swallowing your words. It’s not even an actual kiss, too messy to be actually deemed one; his teeth clack against yours, grazing your lip painfully enough that you’re almost sure he’s drawn blood. But then he re-angles his face and Rafayel is actually kissing you, tasting you, stealing the air you breathe. Your brain shortcircuits. For a second, you forget why you’re here, and your fingers act faster than your mind does, gripping onto Rafayel’s shirt so forcefully you almost rip the pearls off them. Thankfully, your brain snaps back to reality almost immediately, and you push Rafayel away before the realization that you had been tasting his sinful tongue can actually hit you. That would be an information your brain would deconstruct later. “You’re drunk,” you exclaim. It is the most difficult thing you ever had to do, tearing yourself away from Rafayel. His face is the very picture of longing, an expression that makes you want to eat him alive, bones and all. But you did it anyways, because it would not be fair to him, and this is something that would have to be discussed when he’s sober. “Come on, Raf, I’ll take you to bed.”

“I don’t want to go to bed.” His fingers haven’t left you. They wander up the sides of your throat, digging into the space beneath your jaw, forcing you to angle your head up. Like this, he almost looks like the deep-sea predator he is. There’s a dangerous glint in his eyes that seems to reflect your own hunger, a kind of starvation that will not leave a single scrap of you to scavenge. If you’re not dangerous, he will drag you into the depths of the ocean, never to be seen again. “I want to make you feel good and make it up to you, please, pretty please. You’ll let me, won’t you?” He tugs and tugs, unrelenting. His wicked lips are shaping his typical pout, his favorite expression of getting you to do his bidding. He almost gets away with it, too, and the only thing keeping him from kissing you again are your quick hands, placed on his mouth before he can even think of capturing your mouth again.

“Raf, I will not take advantage of you while you’re being drunk!” you exclaim. It’s unbelievable how his face grimaces into the most heartbroken expression ever, just because you refuse to be the villain here. It physically hurts, to see him in so much anguish. You quickly spin him around so you don’t have to see his face, directing him to his bedroom. “You can make it up to me tomorrow,” you say tentatively. Secretly, you hope he will forget all about this, and you’ll never have to talk about it all. You’ll file away the kiss in your secret drawer inside your mind palace and polish the memory until it physically deteriorates, like it’s your last dinner on death row. You’ll make that memory last. Because you know he doesn’t love you; you had just been a warm body who had been kind to him at the wrong time.

“You’re so mean.” Rafayel sniffs, but this time, he comes more willingly. In the bedroom, the atmosphere has almost returned to its original tranquility, the silence enveloping you both seeming to sober him up. The bed feathers, creaking as Rafayel falls into it, but then the only sound left is his quiet muttering as he continues to complain about your attitude. He falls asleep like that, grumbling about how you would regret not letting him kiss you, how he could make it worth your while. He almost looks innocent like this, his face relaxed and devoid of his usual dramatic flair. It smoothens out the deeper he falls into sleep, sinking further into the mattress, looking like a pre-Raphaelite angel in a painting. Peaceful. Neutral. Entirely ethereal. He’s so surreal, you wonder if you might not be imagining this moment, the way you imagined him doing other things to you as you laid awake at night.

You fan your burning face, wondering what exactly had Rafayel intended to with you. It only adds on to the maladaptive daydreaming you dedicated your time to every day, ever since the fish-eyed king who called you his bodyguard had stolen your heart.

You stare at him for a very long time, until every ethereal feature of him is burned into the back of your eyelids. Your heart is light as a feather, floating, yearning. It sings his name in a steady pattern, synching almost naturally to the breath that stirs in Rafayel’s chest.

From then on, there is a current of tension underlining every interaction.

It’s not on purpose, of course. You just can’t help yourself. Every single nerve is on fire, at the beck and call of your favorite painter’s whims. You twitch when your fingers accidentally touch. There’s an involuntary gasp whenever he comes near, a sound tugged out of you against your will. You would have never thought that love would feel like a thousand fireworks going off at once. Soft, resounding explosions going boom, boom, boom in your chest.

You are so very conscious of Rafayel. Your heart jealously guards every moment you share with him.

Amor vincit omnia, famous poet Virgil once said in his own works. Love conquers all. Poets have to describe it like that, for emotions to be so consuming. It’s supposed to be a fun little tale, a nice piece of text, to be read and enjoyed. It’s not supposed to be something that happens to you, in the most violent way possible. Rafayel, although his own empire has been laid to rest centuries ago, his claim on the throne long faded, has succeeded in conquering you after all, heart and soul.

But, spoiler alert: you do not talk about what happened. In fact, you make every effort to escape the conversation whenever Rafayel tries to bring it up.

Why, you ask? Well, that’s something not even you can answer. Your friends have grown intolerable with frustration, to the point where Simone has staged an intervention to get you to fess up and confess to Rafayel. (Michaela, finally dating Simone, had planned an entire powerpoint dedicated to the benefits of admitting your feelings to someone. Which is ironic, because it was Simone who had finally gotten her shit together and told Michaela about how she felt.) Even Zayne, uninterested in your love life and its endeavors, had chipped in with his own opinion, which you had quickly ignored, because Zayne was the only mentally-sound, responsible adult in your friend group, which meant unresponsible you didn’t want to think about his advice at all.

It probably has a lot to do with how Rafayel is the epitome of perfection in your eyes, and you are nothing. You know it’s completely idiotic to think of someone as flawless, although Rafayel, being a sea creature of mythological background, might be a little closer to fitting that description than a human would. But you do. He is tender and attentive and all-encompassing. You refuse to lose him like this, to lose him to an unrequited crush that he had nurtured on a whim because he had been intoxicated.

No, you’d rather dance around it and be able to stay in his vicinity. Even if it kills you to be the outstander in his life forever, you’ll sacrifice yourself for it.

Unluckily for you, Rafayel is entirely fed up with sacrifices.

To say the door was closed would be to put it gently; it crashes into the hinges as Rafayel shuts it in front of your nose, cutting off your only route of escape. The evening sunlight paints him in a rosy hue that only adds on to the weakness your heart feels when you see him. He is exquisite. “We are going to talk about this,” Rafayel states, crossing his arms in petulance. “Whether you like it or not.”

“Ah, I’d love to, Raf.” Your lips quirk into a nervous smile. The memory of those arms wrapping you up in their embrace is so powerful, it manages to spike your blood with adrenaline. You theatrically check your wristwatch, then point at it, as if Rafayel needed some kind of extra confirmation that you were out of time. “But I really have to get to this meeting, and I already told Simone that I would…”

“Nope, don’t care.”

“But I…”

“Nooooope. You want me to say it in Lemurian?”

“Raf,” you groan out. “Don’t be like this.”

“Me, not be like this?” It seems as if you’ve missed some kind of signal in his communication, because suddenly Rafayel draws up, taut as a bowstring. There is a palpable taste of anger on your tongue, like a shark tasting blood in the water, and the realization dawns on you that you probably shouldn’t have answered him like that. “You’re really one to talk. You know, I thought we were finally getting closer. But you can’t even look at me properly! Have I done something to you?” His eyes are unhappy, glassy with emotion. It tears at you. His anguish has always been like a knife in your gut, disembowling you like a fish being gutted.

Your breath hitches. Yes, you have done something to me. You’ve ruined me. All I can think about is you, and the way your smile looks like the first streak of warm light at the break of dawn, and how even your annoying jokes make me float with joy. You’ve done something, alright. But all you say is, “No, of course not. I mean, no you haven’t done anything. I like spending time with you.”

“Then, what is it?” Rafayel has stepped closer. You instinctually step back, craving distance from him so that your heart won’t explode in your chest, but it seems like he has had enough. He ignores your attempt at evading him and grabs your arms, shaking you like a child would its toy. You look up at him, helpless. “Please. I can’t stand the thought of being apart from you.”

“Don’t say that, please.” Your voice is meek. You cannot believe he is even saying those things to you, that he could possibly replicate all the feelings in your heart, both the light and the dark.

Rafayel sucks in a breath, as if the words were a slap to his face. “Does it disgust you? That I feel like this? Because if you don’t want me to take liberties, if you don’t want me to bother you, then that’s all you have to say. I promise I’ll go back to any role you want to cast me in, as long as we go back to what we were, and you will talk and laugh with me again.”

What even is this moment right now? You are dizzy with emotion, incapable of producing speech. In all your wildest dreams, never once had you thought that it would be Rafayel begging for even a scrap of your attention. It was always in reverse, the natural order of things. You shake your head, appalled at his words, heady with them. “You can’t possibly feel like this,” you manage to say through gritted teeth. “You can’t possibly feel like you’re the one being pushy, when all I’ve done is ruin things between us. I shouldn’t have let you kiss me. I knew you did it because you were drunk, and I’m not mad at all, but I should have been the responsible one, and now I’ve ruined everything.”

“Ruined everything?” Rafayel’s voice is ripe with incredulity. When you finally gather courage to look up, you see Rafayel’s face suffusing with blood, although you can’t tell if it’s in anger or frustration. You don’t understand that in reality, Rafayel has spent his entire existence living in devotion to you, praying to you, deifying you. There is a split second where you both look at each other, completely silent, but then Rafayel’s painter-roughened fingers circle around your wrist and guide you back into the studio.

There are art supplies strewn everywhere, littered on every surface, but the actual paintings have been draped in curtains, hidden from view. Sometimes, even the most talented of creators gets shy about his works, and you’ve never once pushed him or teased him for it, respecting his privacy. But now you’re standing in the middle of his domain, his one hand still gripping your flesh, the other curling around the soft fabric that hides his art. “Then believe this,” he scoffs, and before you can protest, he rips the curtain off to reveal what is beneath.

You are robbed of speech.

That day in the gallery, your eyes had been cloudy, blind. You never once thought to stop about whether Rafayel had a muse that he venerated, something he enshrined with his paintings in an effort to cage in the feeling. Like the visionary described in Plato’s allegory of the cave, you are stumbling towards the light, blinded by the grace Rafayel utilizes in everything he shapes and touches.

Blooming all over the canvas is a rendition of you, floating in the ocean, kissed by the sunlight straining to reach you in the depths of the water. You almost reach out to feel the brushes, each stroke of the paintbrush a loving word, a compliment to your existence. Rafayel has painted you with the loveliness of an artisan completely entranced with their source of inspiration. There is an unspoken language of love woven into the material of the canvas itself, every color, every shade fondly handpicked to highlight your radiance. The drawing of you is glowing, basking in Rafayel’s attentiveness, completely wrapped up in his adoration.

“This,” Rafayel speaks up at your side, leading you back to reality, “is how I feel about you. I worship you.”

“Worship me?” You are breathless. It’s an impossible feat to tear your eyes off of the craftsmanship, but you manage to do so. The sight of Rafayel almost knocks you to your knees anew. His gaze is so full of warmth that for the first time in years, your heart is expanding, feeling full and hungry at the same time. Rafayel takes your hands in his, pulling them towards him. “You sound so shocked,” he laughs gently, the reaction so untypical for him. You let yourself be guided closer into the circle of his arms, into your safe haven that Rafayel represented for you. “Is it so hard to believe that I love you? There is no one else I’d want to kiss, no matter whether I’m drunk or sober. I dream and think of you all the time, and I hate it, trust me. Did you really think there would have been anyone else that could take your place in my heart?”

You are still adoring the painting, but when you angle your head back to look at him, Rafayel is already looking at you. It’s a soul-connecting look, the kind that reaches deeper than his eyes, the color of them ressembling the star-speckled sky reaching to kiss the pink waves. He is literally cracking open inside his chest so that you may look within, so that you will believe him. There is a memory at the edge of your consciousness, something that washes the saltiness of the ocean and the strangely sweet taste of divinity over your tongue, something that you cannot recognize yet. But what you can recognize is the heart inside Rafayel’s chest, so similar to your own, even hungrier than yours possibly could ever be. “Say it in full,” you plead with him, just to hear it once more. To realize that this incomparable man, more legend than reality, in all his heavenliness and gracefulness, belongs to you. That although your heart has always been the most insatiable creature alive, it has finally found a twin that matched its voracity. “Say you love me.”

Rafayel’s hands come up to cradle your face, cupping it like one would hold their most precious treasure. He is looking at you like a devotee who has seen his salvation, like you are the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on. It’s the look of love you’ve always, always wanted directed at you. “I love you,” he says, sounding entirely to exultant for a moment like this, his voice like the bells of heaven. It is utterly unlike your sassy crush, the man who’s outwitted you countless times, who always tugs a laughter out of you whether you want it or not. This is someone else, someone who’s set fire to the earth just to dig you out of its ashes. “I will love you until the day I die and if there is another life after this one, then let me love you in that one too, in all lives that may yet come.”

You screw your eyes shut then. You are blinded by joy, amazed at what just a single string of words can do to you. There is a key turning in the lock inside your chest, something that opens up a tsunami of emotions inside you. I love you. I love you. I love you. “Rafayel,” you whisper, and then you stumble forward at the same time as Rafayel tips down, and you collide like stars. When Rafayel finally kisses you, it tastes of cosmic dust and red strings of fate and it tastes like eternity. Your hands reach upward, seizing at his clothes and shoulders, until finally your fingers claw at his cheeks and you are probably hurting him. Neither of you cares. You fold around each other until no one can tell where you stop and he begins.

Rafayel groans into the kiss, a sound of such profound relief that you almost manage to stop kissing him just to laugh. There is no opportunity to do that, though, as Rafayel keeps dragging you back for another kiss, and another, and another. “My pearl,” he gasps against your lips, and you swallow the sound eagerly, lips moving against his like the tide crashing back into the shore. There is a loud crash as Rafayel moves backwards; you are momentarily distracted and look downwards to see the palette having strewn all its paint and contents all over the floor. In the heat of passion, you had completely forgotten your surroundings. “Whoops,” you murmur, not feeling sorry at all. It makes Rafayel burst into laughter, and for a moment, you are two idiots stumbling in the dark, two boats in a storm.

Holding on to another.

“It’s so typical of you to make a mess when I’m trying to be romantic,” he whines, becoming your unserious Rafayel again, love of your life Rafayel. You brush a lock of his storm-blue hair aside, and he tilts his head until his cheek is fitted against your palm. “You exist to sabotage me, admit it.”

“You admit something first.” Still love-drunk from the kiss, you swipe your thumb over his cheekbone, the touch electric. “When did you paint this? Do you really like me for as long as I have liked you? Because if I’m being honest, I’ve been having the most embarrassing crush for the longest time. Simone can tell you all about it.”

Rafayel dips his head, looking at you straight on. “You have no idea,” he tells you, entirely honest. He looks as if he can tell that your heart is racing, like he’s speaking the words into your veins, carried to your heart with the steady pump of your blood.

You step closer to him then, the need so primal you feel your entire body shivering. The urge is so tantalizing that you threaten to choke on it, succumb to the threat that Rafayel’s love poses. He is a walking siren song. “Help me understand then,” you whisper. “You’re always so chatty. Chat to me now.”

“But I’ve done all the talking, you know.” He pouts, the expression entirely bratty and so Rafayel-coded that you can’t help but giggle. The corners of his own mouth twitch, clearly pleased by the reaction, the sound the only symphony in his ears he likes to hear more than the swell of the ocean.

Your arms come to wrap around his neck, and you slot together like puzzle pieces, every rib fitting into the hollow of Rafayel’s chest. It feels like you are made for each other. You place your lips on Rafayel’s ears, your own only hearing the rush of the ocean, the sound of your blood racing. “Tell me, please, Raf,” you whisper. He shudders violenty, a reaction that reaches deeper than evolutionary instinct. His hands find their home on the dips of your curves, every finger digging in. “I want to hear about every single thing inside your head. Always.”

“You are unfair.”

You kiss the curve of his ear. “Of course I am. I’m the human that stole your heart.”

Rafayel’s lips are seized by a helpless smile, an expression you’ve never seen before. It’s almost as if he’s reminiscing about a secret that you don’t know, something that feathers along the edge of your memory. But he answers you nonetheless. “But there was no theft, my love,” he purrs. It’s the sound of pure, languid affection, the kind that wells up from the depths of one’s heart. “I’d give you my heart again and again and again. You can tease me all you like, but in truth, I’d sink to my knees whenever you’d like and worship you forever.”

Your lips part in astonishment. You don’t miss the way Rafayel’s eyes zero in on the reaction in hunger. “You were right, you shouldn’t talk,” you stutter then. “Your words are gonna go right to my head.”

“And it’s such a pretty head, too.” Rafayel’s lips begin to chase the soft slopes of your face, tracing a fiery path across your cheeks. It is unbelievable how such a simple act unravels you, how you are going to explode beneath the simple touch of Rafayel’s kiss. You almost preen beneath the ministrations. You angle your head to entangle him in a kiss, but this time, it’s him who moves before your lips can touch. “Let me prove it to you,” he whispers, the words itself as soft as a kiss. It’s a dangerous promise, an even more dangerous game. “Please, pretty girl, let me prove it to you, show you how much I adore you. I’m all yours. Let me show you, I beg you.”

You bite your lips. You’re pretty sure the bar is in hell, but this is the single most attractive thing a man has ever done for you. Here he stands, his heart on a silver platter presented to you, his entire being at your whim. You are heady with power, dizzy with the implications. But at the same time, you have never felt so safe. You are in the palm of Rafayel’s hands, safe and comfortable and oh, so loved. “Show me,” you tell him, biting your lip. “Please, Raf, show me.”

Those are the magic words. You didn’t even need to plead. Before a single ‘please’ has left your mouth, Rafayel’s lips once again crash into yours, and this time, he kisses you properly. His tongue, as commanding as his personality, tastes like a weirdly enticing combination of cherry coke and ocean salt; there is a loud, embarrassing squeak that escapes you when Rafayel’s teeth drag over your lower lip, but the sound quickly changes into a drawn-out moan when he gently sucks on it. He releases it with a groan of his own, and his eyes, like mirrors to his soul, reveal the depths of his hunger. “God, you have no idea what I’d do for you,” he gasps out, his brain working faster than his own mouth, the words hurtling from some part in his soul he has been jealously guarding. You are his only vulnerability, the only one. “What I have been looking for all my life. Light of my life, my love, my pearl. Need to show you.”

“Show me what?” You’re so drunk on his kisses, you’ve already forgotten what Rafayel requested from you in the first place. He tugs you in the direction of his bedroom, and you follow with a scary compliance. Maybe all those stories about the sailors drowning at sea had more than just a kernel of truth to them. Who wouldn’t throw themselves into the waves, for a chance to experience Rafayel’s experiences, even if it was only mere seconds? Your haziness chases you into the bedroom; your head is still spinning when he pulls you down into the luxurious bed you’ve always mocked him for. Suddenly, all that space begins to make a lot of sense. You spread out on the bed entirely too easily, unfolding beneath Rafayel like the blossom of a flower.

He sucks in his breath, his chest rising rapidly. Even though you are dizzy in your stupor, your brain still registers with a delight that it’s not alone in its sensation. You are doing this to him, you are undoing him just as much as he is you. The knowledge is so sweet that every inch of your body seems to sing. “Show you how much I love you,” he says. “Never gonna make you doubt me again. You’ll never think about anyone else after this. No one will ever love you like I do, I promise.”

The promise sounds entirely too harrowing for the romantic atmosphere you had been cultivating since the reveal of the painting in the studio. You almost sit up. Not too argue against him, but to question where the need for the promise came from; after all, you’d be just as ready to prove to him that no one in your life would ever come close to the reign he held over your heart. But then Rafayel bows over you, and you’re entirely engulfed by his shadow, and Rafayel’s hands are carving their way out to your abdomen.

It almost makes you shy. You’re not a blushing virgin, but you’ve never let anyone into your body in this way, not like this. You’re afraid that Rafayel’s gonna get inside and seize evey cell of your body for him, and he’ll settle in your bones and your marrow and your blood, and he’ll stay there forever. It’s a delicious fear, a kind of anticipation that makes you peer into the void, listen to its call. You want it so bad that your own fingers dig into the way-too-expensive fabric of Rafayel’s blankets, tearing, anchoring. Finally, finally, his lips kiss their way down the shape of your hip bones, chasing their way to the edge of your jeans. “May I, please?” He asks, his voice laced with desperation, the picture of a petitioner.

You look down at him, at this siren bewitching your body and spirit. Although he looks like something straight out of a pornographic movie, you don’t think you’ve ever seen anything this beautiful. Rafayel was like the most ethereal pictures, his lovely features carved out with the tender carefulness that makes even stone seem soft. His eyes are hopeful, open, trusting. You are falling in love with someone more divine than your mortal mind could have ever conjured, your every dream come true. “You better,” comes the weak response from you.

It’s all the consent he needs. Rafayel all but tears the pants off of you, his hands chasing flesh, craving connection. “Thank God,” he moans, and you almost think he’s enjoying this just as much as you are, more than you are. You watch his own hips buck into the soft mattress, chasing the mock-sensation your pussy would offer him, and you clench your thighs so hard your kneecaps almost pulverize. He grinds into the blankets, the torment of his own desire seemingly making him delirious, but his touches are determined, measured. Your curves fit perfectly into his hands, the elegant painter fingers gripping into your ass to angle you to his liking. “I thought I’d die without ever tasting you again.”

Again? You repeat in your mind, thinking you misheard. But Rafayel doesn’t permit you to think. Another pull, another tug, and then his treacherous mouth is around your core, kissing you through the cotton, mouthing around the shape of your pussy. You cry out, more in surprise than pleasure, but that quickly changes when he begins to drag his tongue across your pussy in a long, languorous swipe that makes your insides twitch wantonly. “Get those panties off of me or so help me god, Rafayel,” you manage to push out between gritted teeth, your own hips flying up to chase his touch. His grip is unrelenting, pinning you back into the mattress. “Weren’t you gonna prove something to me?”

Rafayel’s answer comes in a purr. “Your wish is my command, beloved.”

He pulls your panties to the side in a swift motion, placing another kiss on your clit. “Fucking hell,” he seems to mutter in amazement, and you’re not sure you were supposed to hear that. A mere moment later, Rafayel digs in like a man starved, moments away from the death sentence. You are not just a death row meal: you are the entire five-star course. You cry out entirely too loud as Rafayel plunges his tongue into you, the flexing muscle angling up to trace the soft, sensitive spot you chase with your own fingers when pleasuring yourself. You have no idea how he knows that, but you have no time to ponder as his left hands begins to trace circles around your clit, bullying the bundle of nerves with the pencil-roughened pads off his fingers. “Raf, oh my god!” you gasp, the sound dragged out of you in the same steady rhythm as his tongue pumping into you.

“I’m your god,” comes the moaned response, the sound’s vibration making your insides twitch in response. His fingers don’t let up, the ministrations steady, slowly picking up in speed in tandem with the coil of pleasure tightening inside your belly. You are twisting like a snake, your body shortcircuiting. “Say it.”

“Rafayel.” You are suprised in the coherency you fathom in expressing his name; your mind is already blurring at the edge, falling apart in soft colors like the confetti inside a kaleidoscope. “You’re my god, Rafayel, mine all mine.”

“Yours,” Rafayel keens. You notice the admission make him almost feral; he immediately puts his mouth back to work, slurping your essence in the most obscene manner. You are way beyond proprieties, way beyond embarrassment. All you can hope for is that he catches you at the end of this, as he hurtles you past the point of no return, the death-drop on a scary rollercoaster. You almost scream his name when he sucks your clit into his mouth, nursing on the spot like he’s going to die from thirst. The flick of his thumb makes you come undone; you fall back into the mattress into oblivion, shaking out of existence as Rafayel’s skilled tongue continues teasing your slit until you push him away, over-sensitive. “Stop, stop, stop,” you chant, the words slurred around the mind-blowing effects of your orgasm. Your tongue is heavy, your throat scraped raw. Did you scream that loud? “Can’t, Raf, can’t anymore, stop. So sensitive.”

“But I wasn’t done,” he whines out. His fingers still chase after you, even after you hastily sit up, dragging your unwilling body up the bed. He crawls after you, looking deliciously pathetic, his stunningly beautiful face pulled into a heartbroken grimace, as if the world was going to end if he couldn’t keep you eating out. There’s an unmistakingly large tent inside his thousand-dollar-designer pants, one that makes your mouth run dry again with hunger.

Heavens have mercy, you’ve never wanted to suck someone off so bad. You wonder if his pretty eyes would roll back into his head if you took it deep enough into your throat.

You don’t get to fulfill that wish, though. Rafayel pounces on you almost immediately, your sight taken over by his beautiful face as he kneels over you. His hips knock aside your thighs, demanding entrance, and you open up to him too easily. “Wanna make you feel good,” he begs you, but you’re too distracted with how delicious his kiss-swollen lips look. You trace your thumb over his lower lip, watch him as his mouth chases to suck on it.

He almost gapes when you place your thumb into your own mouth, tasting yourself. If he didn’t look so fucking attractive like that, you’d have laughed.

“You’re killing me,” he admits. Despite how vulnerable that sounds, he doesn’t hesitates at tearing at your legs until you’re laying below him chest to chest, ignoring the way you squeak at being manhandled into position. “Are you doing this on purpose?”

Now you laugh. “I have no idea what I’m doing. But I’m definitely not trying to kill the person I love.”

His face softens. It’s that expression you’ve begin to adore, categorized in your mind palace which is entirely dedicated to being a shrine for Rafayel. It doesn’t matter that he’s the one submitting to you at the moment, wrapping himself around your finger. It’s you who’d move all the seas in the world just to be with him. “I love you more,” he tells you, and he sounds earnest. “I love you so much more. Here, I’ll show you.”

The kiss he places on your lips is entirely too sweet for the debauchery his lower half is committing. While his teeth gently tug at your lips, begging for entry, his hips have begun to grind against your pussy. You mewl into the kiss, the sound quickly swallowed by Rafayel’s greedy tongue as he curls it around your own, tasting you, tasting him. There’s a string of saliva connecting your lip when he disentangles from you, and you’re too busy staring at it to notice the way he stares at you like you’re the single most important thing in his world.

He’d die a thousand times just to live through this night once more.

You’re only pulled out of your thoughts by the realization that Rafayel has begun tugging off his clothes. You quickly mirror him by shedding the last of your own, tugging aside all the fabric until you’re as bare before him as the day you’ve been born. You feel a little self-conscious, but to him, you must look glorious: this time, you visibly see the way his chest expands with the sheer joy, the admiration that drowns out all the color in his eyes. “Like what you see?” you tease him, but there’s an edge of nervousness tainting the words. You’re literally offering yourself up to him like a sacrificial bride.

“I adore you more than anything,” he answers, his voice reverent. His fingers shiver with tremors as they brush their way down the curves of your breast, enveloping your waist until you’re snug in his grip. It makes you blush; he’s looking at you as if he’s seizing up every detail so he can paint you anew, the devotion only a painter can muster up for a muse he loves. “This is the single greatest thing I have ever experienced.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You haven’t been inside of me yet.”

His eyes darken then, returning to their sinful mischievousness. “No, I haven’t,” he retorts, and then he pulls you towards him, the head of his cock nudging aside your labia, knocking at your entrance. You yelp, and he snickers like the bastard he is. “May I come in?”

“Fuck you,” you tell him, breathless. It was supposed to be a harmless insult, your usual banter with Rafayel that most often ends up in you guys thinking up the most creative “your momma” jokes until you guys dissolve in laughter.

This Rafayel doesn’t. “You should not have said that,” is the only warning you get, before Rafayel drags you down on his cock, sheathing you entirely on it. Your back arches off the bed as if your heart was trying to escape your chest; the intrusion is so sudden that the nerves in your brain spasm before you register there’s something kissing your cervix. Not possible, you think. Not fucking possible. He can’t be this big.

Oh. Oh.

Rafayel bundles you up in his arms and pulls back his hips just to snap back into you with the deadly precision of a predator who’s killing its’ prey. This time, you’re fully conscious of the scream you let out, your insides squeezing the living hell out of Rafayel’s dick in a desperate attempt to contain him. The only thing that amounts to is him being spurned on; you turn your head to the sound of Rafayel’s sinful moans flowing into your ear, tingling right down into your abdomen. “Rafayel, slow down”, you manage to squeeze out, but at the same time, you raise your hips to meet his every thrust, your eyelids fluttering at the same time as the rapid rhythm Rafayel sets as he pounds you into the mattress.

“What was that, my pearl?” Slap, slap, slap. The lewd noise of his Rafayel’s balls smacking against your entrance makes your toes curl in delicious pleasure, and you wind around in his hold, sobbing from how good he makes you feel. His cock cruelly bullies into you, your cervix screaming up through your nerves every time the circle of muscles makes contact with his cockhead. Your fingers claw at his back, desperate to steady themselves somewhere, anywhere. You barely even register the fact that there’s blood dripping from where your nails dig in; you’re too distracted by the fact that the pain you’re inflicting on him only seems to make him fuck you into the mattress harder. “You want me to go faster?”

“Can’t,” you wail, feeling incredulous by the fact that sex can illicit a response like this in you. You’ve severely underestimated how much everything changes when you do something with the person you love. “Can’t, Raf, it’s too much, too much.”

Rafayel’s only response is to ignore your begging. He frees a hand from where it’s digging into the mattress above of you to balance himself and cradles your face in it easily, angling your face up so you look at him straight-on. “Wish I could stop, my angel, but I’m obsessed with you. Need you to cum all over me, mark me as all yours so I can never run away again. Can you do that for me, sweet thing? Cum for me, please?”

“Raf,” you whine out, the tell-tale sign of your orgasm approaching muddling your mind again. How exactly does he expect you to form a coherent thought when he’s fucking you like it’s his last night on earth? Your fingers search for purpose, gripping into his shoulders, weaving a cradle around his neck. He bows then, kissing you like his life depends on it, never once stopping his rhythm of fucking into you. “Gonna cum.”

“You promise?” he whispers against the curve of your lips. He angled his head, instead kissing his way down your throat, swallowing the sound of your heartbeat screaming his name inside your veins. Every thrust claims your soul more and more, until you’re nothing more than a prisoner to his love. “Please, my seastar, I can’t fucking take it. Need to cum with you so bad.”

“Pleeeease.” The sound is a single cry, hollowing out your chest as you hug him closer. Rafayel bites into the soft flesh of your shoulder, and you interlock your legs behind his back, seeing white. It should hurt, but it doesn’t. His bite feels like the soft brush of a kiss, violence mingling with lust. “Come with me, Raf, I’m coming, coming, coming.”

Your orgasm washes over you like a tidal wave. You arch off the mattress, weightless for a moment; Rafayel continues to fuck you through it, chasing his own release as the most lewd moans tumble from his lovely lips, which are probably going to haunt you and your daydreams forever. His semen mingles with your release, the messy sound making you hide your face in the hollow of his neck; you slap at Rafayel’s chest when he doesn’t relent, almost wailing when the pleasure gets too much. Your heart feels raw and cradled at the same time; Rafayel doesn’t pull out when he falls off from you, instead pulling your leg with him so that you’re locked in an embrace while you both lay there, panting like animals who’ve been chased. For a long time, no one says anything. There are no words for the way your souls have converged. You’re almost not sure whether what you did even can be called sex. But then you feel Rafayel’s cum drip out of you, and the blush that rises to your cheeks reassures you that yes, it still is sex.

Rafayel squeezes your hips, hugging you against him like someone would a teddybear. “I love you,” he drawls against your still naked skin, kissing the raw teeth marks he left behind on your shoulder. You sigh out, a sound of pure contentment. Your heart still feels like it’s on the tip of your tongue. “Love you more,” you tell him, but Rafayel, stubborn as always, shakes his head. He kisses you into silence, hands cradling your face gently as he angles you upwards to receive his kisses. “Never,” he murmurs into each one. You don’t argue with him. As the moonlight bears witness to the whispered love declarations you speak in the dark, the two of you curl around each other until you’re an indistinguishable tangle of limbs, cuddling into each other like cats bathing in the sunlight.

You fall asleep like that, head pillowed against Rafayel’s chest as he props you up against him. He continues to mumble compliments into your hair long after you’ve fallen asleep, thousands of words of adoration he’s had to keep to himself in the years that have passed waiting for you.

It’s finally his turn to become your worshipper. Finally, finally, Rafayel’s hearts soars with happiness again. The sea always returns what it takes. You have washed up on the shores of his life again, mate of his soul, love of his life. And this time, he’s never going to let you go.

[starimusprime]

okayyyyy here me out on this one….

fancy dinner party disaster for bodyguard oplita au!

(it’s been established they do exist)

except,,, this dinner party does not go as planned

elita senses a change in atmosphere

believing a drink offered to her prime, she suggests he does not take it, as she slips away from the party to meet the butler whom offered the beverage

unfortunately, oppy ends up taking the drink due to peer pressure from the other guests and he wants to be a good prime and not disappoint anyone

queue him being drugged/spiked, and him being attacked by old followers of sentinel prime (the guards from the beginning)

he could either be attacked or, if u want a lil angst, he gets that nemesis prime treatment and lashes out, forcing elita (and possibly other Autobots) to take on a prime

either way, elita manages to escort him to safety and takes him to a medical bay

she laments on how she could’ve easily lost him again and she wasnt by his side when he needed her most :(((

(unfortunately I couldn’t include all my doodles bc the ask option has a limit of photos but I have a scene in which Elita returns to Optimus when he’s in a hazed state, but he acts all romantical towards her in a garden, she realizing that she does have romantic feelings for him, but refuses to make any moves on him bc he’s not in the right state of mind. in which he practically begs for her yada yada how much he’s been in love w her for so long yada yap. But idk about this “missing scene”,,, thats just me talkin)

I’ve sat on this for a few days now because I simply couldn’t form my feral thoughts on this into words

YES.

This is just…omg so good. I am taking it. I am pulling it out of your gorgeous art and tucking it into the fic like a cozy blanket.

Perhaps Optimus will hold a celebration at the Well of AllSparks to celebrate the completion of its reconstruction, and all Iaconians are welcome to come and go as they please. Some troublesome functionists slip some form of drug into OP’s energon before it reaches him. Elita can sense that something’s not quite right about the bots offering the drink, and Optimus recognizes them as the two Archive guards and is coerced into accepting the energon under the guise of it being a peace offering for being so cruel to him when he was cogless Orion.

Elita takes the energon from them and goes to find where it came from, but one of the guards had a backup, which was assumed to be for that guard. They give that one to Optimus and he appreciatively drinks all of it. Once the drug starts affecting his systems, leaving him dazed and confused (and wondering where his beautiful bodyguard went), the two Archive guards call out a phrase in support of Sentinel (some version of “all hail Sentinel Prime” or something) and launch their assassination attempt on Optimus, who is very nearly overpowered *but* is not seriously injured bc he can still put up a fight, though he does sustain minor damages from the attack by the time Elita comes flying in to incapacitate the Archive guards.

Elita promptly takes Optimus back to Iacon Tower and into the medical bay with the help of a couple other bots. He’s put under for the minor repairs and to flush the drug out of his fuel lines, and Elita watches, brooding and holding back optic coolant the entire time.

The missing scene is absolutely being swept into a later chapter, too :)

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I'm so sorry to bring up the recent Silver card again, but I would like to get my love for it out of my system. As someone who has had, quite literally, a lifelong love for Sleeping Beauty, this Silver card is like my perfect card.

Any time Twst leans into the movies design wise or atmosphere wise, I'm immediately reminded of what drew me into the game in the first place, and Silver's brought up all my love for Sleeping Beauty all over again. AND THE GROOVIED VERSION?! THE PINK AND THE BLUE!! I can never really put into words how much I absolutely adore that movie and now I can't even put into words how much I love this card. I feel like it just really brings everything together, like this is the kind of thing I would expect a movie poster for Sleeping Beauty to look like.

Sorry this is kind of all over the place!

I don’t have an attachment to Sleeping Beauty myself, but it’s great that book 7 brought you joy in the form of it ^^

Silver’s Dawn Armor initial illustration and its groovy are for real works of art!! Twst usually has this issue where the groovy is “off” in some way, but this one was such a slam dunk 😭 The gleaming armor, Silver’s determined expression, the looming threat of the dragon in the distance… contrasted with his gentle and teary-eyed smile, his fluttering cape shifting from blue to pink and back, the dreamy colors of the ballroom—and!! His friends and family surrounding him, rather than the desolate, doomed battlefield of the initial artwork. (I still can't get over Sebek crying in the background while Grim's chilling on his head??)

It feels like a perfect encapsulation of the climax of the Sleeping Beauty story but also a showcase of the happy ending that results thanks to his heroic efforts.

[You can read my thoughts on the book 7 finale here!]

YOU AREN'T THE ONLY ONE 😭 I feel like I've been seeing this sentiment floating around a lot on socials and even in my own smaller Twst circles. The pre-book 7 "He's okay but sort of boring!" to the post-book 7 "He wrung all the tears out of me and left me emotionally devastated but I thanked him for it." is pretty wild. I'm happy that many more Twst fans are discovering his charms through book 7 and his character arc in it.

I'll admit that I wasn't a fan of him for most of the main story myself, but it was still so satisfying seeing him formally adopt Lilia's surname with all his peers in attendance, and Malleus officiating it. Silver had to work so hard to accept his father's love for him, and to realize that he is someone worthy of love... and you can tell he cares so much about having this thing to call his. Not something tangible that glitters like armor or a medal, but a name forever bound to his identity for as long as he shall live, and much, much longer after he is no longer here. A surname that once existed to mark a blood-stained warrior is now granted to the one that restored peace, at last bringing father and son together. (The official in-game character profile also reflects this change:)

[jellyfishsthings]

WARNINGS: reader is a Velaryon with some Targaryen features but not an OC, this is just some story building there will be other parts. I just finished the books and I am obsessed with GOT wither way I was bored and this is the result so beware ... I think that's it. Also Theon is a pookie in this fic because I said so

PAIRING: fem!reader x Robb Stark (romantically), fem!reader x Jon Snow (platonically), fem!reader x Theon Greyjoy (platonically)

part 2 , part 3, part 4

The cold wind still raged on, hitting the walls of Winterfell. Her room was one on the lower floors next to Jon's and Theon's rooms. The sunrays gently fell on her sleeping figure dragging her from her deep slumber. The fireplace was filled with ashes and the chill in her bones was reasonable. It might still be summer on the North, yet the occasional snow always drifted down from the dark grey clouds. A discreet knock pulled her out of her thoughts and Theon's irritated voice filled the room.

"If you are not in the courtyard in two minutes, I am ratting you out"

Like clock work the same words sounded the moment dawn greeted the North. It was a small routine they had formed two namedays ago. She covered herself in Robb's old furs, the ones he secretly gave to her and claimed he lost them. They had kept her warm for over six moon cycles, they had holes in several places and the edges were coming apart but it was her most prized possession. At first it smelled at him and she was always trying to bask in his scent, that was until Theon caught her smelling the neckline while wearing it and she wouldn't hear the end of it until she openly caught him staring longingly at Sansa.

Unfortunately, they were both in the same position, they wanted people they could never have, and only each other knew. They would drink together glasses of wine and they would stumble giggling around the castle. One time he had drunk so much that he composed atrocious poetry about the beauty of his lady Sansa and her copper hair and then about the Northern prince that fell in love with a girl that had mud brown hair adorned with streaks of silver grey and deep violet eyes that appeared dark blue in the right light. She knew that her appearance betrayed her ancestry the Targaryen blood that flowed in her Velaryon veins.

Her family had been brutally murdered, she had heard and read the tales of how her mother gave her life to protect her dark-haired girl and the bloody necklace that hugged her fathers throat. At the tender age of seven moon cycles her whole family had perished and she had been the only survivor. Ned Stark had found her in a bundle of fabrics crying her heart out and once he saw the sword that could have taken her head, he swore to protect her and take her in as his ward. She should have been grateful, she knew as much, he had given her everything, a warm house, plenty food, clothes and a loving family one she wasn't actually a part of and maybe that was the reason she was closer with Theon and Jon, the outsiders. It wasn't like she didn't like the Starks, she loved them to bits and yet she could never be one of them. She would be the squire under their Maesters care with her nose hidden in ancient books and scrolls, lost in maps and various languages and basic training as a healer. But her new passion was sword fighting. As a woman she had only been allowed to practice archery that she was quite good at and always betted with the boys around their performance.

And that was how Theon found himself at incredibly early hours with a wooden sword in his hand, frowning at drawings of fighting styles freezing his "balls" off. She had bested him at the fine art of combat at practically her fifth lesson in a few hits. She had a strategic mind and she was quick on her feet, the most perfect and most deadly combination that existed.

He pitted the man that would take her as his wife, because most men were incredibly controlling but there was no chance, she wouldn't get things her way. He was proof enough.

She had the three of them wrapped around her little finger from all those years back. She had grown up with them from when she was a babe, but at her seventh nameday her and the Maester left, since she was his squire, she had to follow him, he had taken her under his wing, she had practically been his daughter, the one he never had. At that day and several later they had cried so much that even Lady Stark was regretting her decision, she liked the girl enough, she had the tendency to wreak havoc and get lost in her books a bit too much, neglecting her chores and her lessons at needlepoint half the time, but she made her kids happy and she was too smart and witty for her own good that it was impossible not to have a sweet spot for the orphaned girl. She had been overjoyed when she learned about her return nine namedays afterwards. Her son, her calm and collected Robb was shuffling at his feet, nudging rocks around and toying with the hem of his cloak, the bastard and the Greyjoy ward were portraying similar behaviors and she had to control herself not to laugh at their antics.

Ned had pushed his son forth, claiming that it was around time he greeted their guests, he shot him a glare and his parented watched him as he wiped down his palms at his breeches and headed towards the carriage, his hand shook as he lightly grazed the handle and pulled the door open while staring into place, not ready to accept that his best friend might have changed. He was frozen in his place as a girl wearing a dark blue dress and heeled leather boots stood before him. She tilted her head to the right and only then did he notice her hair.

A knot at the back of her head that was a swirl of chocolate brown and silver white strands that framed her face beautifully. Her violet eyes hid a familiar mischief that he had dearly missed. She nodded at him, before facing his father and dropping into an elegant curtesy. It was as if he was on a trance, unable to tear his eyes from her form. It wasn't until he heard her voice, she was speaking in a language he didn't understand, yet he could recognize the bite on her tone. His father wore an amused smile as he answered her back. He would learn at the evening feast what had caused such reactions, the news almost swept him from his feet, his whole existence reduced to one word. Betrothed. Ever since then it was like they were walking on eggshells around her. All three of them longed for their missing link.

It wasn't until a few days latter when they invited her on a hunt that they could glimpse on what they were. They had found a boar and his in bushes only to lose their horses in the process. They had been walking for hours and all it took was an ill-fated joke from Jon.

"No. I do not love you. Of course I lied to you. Yes, it does make you look fat. No, I have never been in the Riverlands. It is pronounced Eyrie. And all of this pales to utter insignificance if we are to let ourselves be food for the hounds."

They had all been tired and snappy, making comments left and right and picking fun at her the way they used to. They had been waiting quite impatiently for her to snap back and the moment she did, loud laughter echoed in the woods. And just like that everything was back to the way it used to be.

Ever since then life seemed dreamy to Robb, he had his friends and his family all getting along and everything seemed perfect. But reality hit him hard each night knowing that the girl he fostered feelings for was promised to another.

[zooophagous]

PLEASE say more about your cultural understanding of tattoos if/when you feel up to it; your perspective on it is really interesting!

I can only really speak from my own perspective on it as a fairly recent initiate into tattooing, but the way tattoos have been viewed in the past (even the very recent past) had changed very quickly with new technology.

Finer lines become possible, and greater variety of colors, so the necessity of sticking to thick lines and heavy black with few color options is no longer the case. Improved technology means more styles become possible to tattoo in, and as such instead of the restrictions of the media informing the tattoo, tattoos are now available in a wide variety of art styles and the art world and overall cultural zeitgeist now heavily influence tattoos instead of tattoos by necessity having their own set style guides and language.

This means more mass appeal, you can do almost whatever you want art wise now and many tattooers are fine artists in their own right. So now we have more and more women and young professionals into it and not just bikers, gang members or sailors as the stereotypes used to hold.

So now tattoos are trendy for everyone, as the nation slowly but surely sheds its puritanical leanings. But now that tattooing is no longer an underground art form and is largely regulated and legalized, a new underground form of it lives on.

Thanks to online buy-anything sorts of sites like Amazon, Temu and Wish, it's easier than ever for the garage, apartment or party to host impromptu tattoos. And because it is often very difficult to get someone to agree to teach you how to tattoo, almost all of these people are self taught and receive instructions via youtube.

So why then, if you can get anything you want as a tattoo, would people still go for these dubiously sanitary pieces by untrained artists?

Part of it is related to why tattoos may have existed in the first place- they denote your culture, your people, who you belong to. For a lot of the apartment tattoo getters, they're allowing their friends or family members to practice on them as a sign of love and trust.

Part of it is cost. Cheap things always have a market, even if they're not good.

But part of it I think is nihilism. That is, a sense that you have no future, nothing to live for and therefore nothing to lose. Many young people cannot envision themselves in old age and many of them tell you they'll likely die young. So why not, then, get the bad tattoo? The tattoo is temporary because life is temporary. We lead such short desperate lives that refusing a tattoo because of some imagined professional setting you might be in seems as asinine as thinking one day you might be a billionaire. It's just as unattainable.

Throw in a little postmodernism, a little dadaism and you have the perfect storm for the rise of ignorant style tattoos. They're not good, but that's largely the point. They don't have to be. In fact the ugliness is largely the point of this art form. Much like how Duchamp's Fountain was never meant to be a beautiful piece of sculpture but rather a biting satire, ignorant style tattoos become the response to the former underground artform of tattooing going mainstream and suddenly costing thousands and thousands of dollars, and people showing off wealth with perfectly technically done sleeves.

It's for obvious reasons a very divisive style of tattooing, and now even legitimate shops are turning out things that look "bad on purpose" but are technically well applied when examined closely. Personally I think most of them are ugly as shit but what the Hell do I know I'm just some bitch.

[shadowgast-recs-weekly]

Asexuality and Demisexuality: A Shadowgast Rec List

This week, we have asexuality! Check under the cut for 14 fics that explore and feature asexuality, demisexuality, and explorations of the whole spectrum! Don't forget to comment and kudos if you like them!

I’ve been lost before by Toneofjoy (165000, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: Choose Not to Warn

It’s about professional rock climbers but that’s not important to the story, it’s just great writing.

Reccer says: Spectacular writing and world building. I have no interest in rock climbing but am glued to this story. Great representation of healthy relationships goals of all types

The Upward Arc of Sun and Moon by Marsastronomica (255854, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: Choose Not to Warn

“ Though Essek and Caleb met three years ago, a misunderstanding put them at odds. The more they talk, the quicker Essek falls into his first romance…which unknowingly leads them both into a web of underhanded machinations.”

Reccer says: The best Shadowgast AU that might ever exist. Lovely demi vibes for so much of it, and great character exploration

The Art of the Possible by CatgirlTheCrazy (3655, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek's libido was an annoyingly unreliable thing. Caleb, on the other hand, was pretty much always open to sex. Making that disparity work was not a simple matter.

Reccer says: This might just be the single most thought provoking, revelation creating story I’ve ever read. It’s BEAUTIFUL.

On the Nature of Attraction by eeveev (7536, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek finds himself falling in love, and has a few revelations along the way. They prompt a conversation with Caleb.

Reccer says: Among the greatest Shadowgast fics out there! This so perfectly captures part of their relationship and their relationship with the Nein. I love it!

a gentle warmth filling the deepest of needs by nevenne (4101, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek has never had any interest in romance, or physical touch, until Caleb.

Reccer says: It's a very relatable demi experience, and highlights some very sweet experimenting between the wizards.

go ahead, decipher me by lakrisrot (enheduane) (2854, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Early relationship, Caleb and Essek discover that drow have sensative ears.

Reccer says: So sweet and sexy!

How to Rest by eeveev (17762, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

After Aeor, after making their feelings clear, Caleb is in Rexxentrum and Essek is on the run. Still, they find ways to be together. Or: Six months in the lives of wizards falling in love.

Reccer says: Delicate as lace and just as intricate, a must read. Also, BOTH wizards are ace-spec and I love them to bits. This fic is part three of four in the series On the Nature of Love, which further explores Caleb and Essek's dynamic.

Sex Education by sociallychallengednerd (25487, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

College AU where Caleb and Essek hook up to 'learn' about sex, but miscommunication between them complicates their relationship.

Reccer says: Sappy, sexy, and with a happy ending! All of my favorite things!

you know that time is all we’re made of by Chronocrystal (20107, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

5 times Essek saw Caleb's unmasked self (and loved him all the same) and 1 time Caleb saw Essek's (and loved him the way he deserved).

Reccer says: A beautiful story of a developing relationship. I love it!

a winter's crest detour by jaskofalltrades (22873, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

No powers modern AU where Essek and Caleb meet on a plane and quickly form a connection neither wants to end.

Reccer says: One of my favorites! I love seeing the two of them getting to know each other and their immediate connection. The way Essek describes his demisexuality is very similar to my own so I connect very closely with this fic.

A Body in Absentia by Nonwal (103602, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

A scourger!Bren au with amazingly written and in depth exploration of Esseks demisexuality.

Reccer says: The characterisations especially, this fic is exactly what I look for when I’m reading. The plot is one to have you gripping your device nervous for the outcome of the next chapter.

The Heart is Hard to Translate by CatgirlTheCrazy (6964, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

“Are you telling me that you’ve been forcing yourself to have sex with me when you didn’t want to?” Caleb’s voice is soft, yet paradoxically echoes around the space as if the salon has become a mausoleum. Essek shifts about uncomfortably. “Well—yes, I suppose that is a way to describe it.”

Reccer says: A fantastic story that continues/preceeds another in this series but can be read alone. It’s incredible and so relatable. I love it dearly.

both our tender bellies wound in baling wire by lakrisrot (5233, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Months after Essek has moved in with Caleb, he finds he has trouble sleeping. He visits Caleb’s room one night.

Reccer says: I like the atmosphere and the unconventional first time together.

Hands to Myself (Can't Keep My) by Luuuna03 (6399, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek explores his new and confusing feelings toward initimacy - in regards to one wizard, in particular

Reccer says: Very soft and fluffy!

This is one of our weekly communally-generated shadowgast rec lists. Every week we announce a new theme and allow anyone to submit a fic recommendation. 

And hey, anyone includes you!

Next week, we'll be featuring merfolk fics!

Any fics coming to mind? Well, then use this form to submit!

[yoongsriverandme]

𓈒 ꪆৎ PROM SONG (GONE WRONG)!

❝ At the gate, stop and say, "be my valentine"… ❞

⤑ pairing: kim taehyung x fem!reader

⤑ genre: fluff, mutual pining, idiots-to-lovers, strangers(?)-to friends-to lovers, "unrequited" love, secret admirer!au, college!au.

⤑ wc: 3.8k

⤑ summary: with valentine's day right around the corner, you somehow have to muster up the courage to confess to taehyung - but oh yeah, two things: 1. he doesn't know you exist, and 2. you're his secret admirer.

⤑ rating: g/teen & up audiences

⤑ warnings: none besides a literal sprinkle of light light angst, and a little cursing! everyone gets a cameo

⤑ date posted: feburary 14, 2025

⤑ authors note: AHHH HI!!! i'm so excited to be here! this is my first ever post on this account, and i'm so happy it's on valentine's day! i cooked up this sickeningly fluffy fic for my four followers, so enjoy!

𓈒 ꪆৎ masterlist

⁘ preface: i only use bts as face claims! they are my muses, so anything they say or do, do not reflect their real life character!

Valentine’s day.

A time where couples all over the world celebrate their love with treats, and dates, and cute little notes riddled with the cheesiest, loveliest words.

What a fucking chore.

Your school was cascaded with an ocean of pink and red, the halls drowned in hearts and sweet aspirations to encourage the young lovers that housed their classrooms, and the yearners that were thinking maybe, just maybe, today might be the day.

You smack a low hanging decoration out of your way as you walk, the small scowl that was forming on your face deeping because of the irritating spangle.

You didn’t hate love. That’s just stupid.

Normally the amorous energy didn’t get on your nerves. 

How could they? With all of your friends gushing about the holiday, it’d be fruitless to be miffed over something as trivial as that, and it wasn’t like you didn’t want your friends to be happy.

You just had a bad morning.

‘Bad morning’ means seeing the guy you’re… mildly interested in, talking to another girl.

Feelings of jealousy felt like such a frivolous matter, because what’s the point in being mad at something or someone that wasn’t yours in the first place?

You hate the way your brain has labeled Kim Taehyung as yours in the first place. 

He was well known around school, a fine arts major with a minor in photography, and quite popular on the internet. 

He had a big Instagram account where he’d post personal pictures of things that were monotonous to any other person: a half empty cup of coffee, a sleeping cat on the street, a wildflower that seemed to have held some sort of beauty to the eye of its beholder.

Not that you were stalking him of course, it was just an admirable feat.

It was clear he was going to go far after graduation, and that in of itself was the most attractive part about him; not to mention his unwavering kindness or his off-kilter smile that appeared more like a box than anything.

Taehyung was also unshakably loyal. You’ve seen his anger directed at those who’d hurt his loved ones before, and it was terrifying.

So, it wasn’t strange that he’d be talking to someone that he knows. That’s just the way that life works. People talk to other people, plain and simple.

Just not you, it seems.

It’s not like you run in the same social circle, and you’ve never really made yourself available to him. It was your own fault.

It’s not that you didn’t want to talk to him, you were just… shy.

He’s the embodiment of sun, joy wrapped up into a small gift of a human being; and while yes, he does pick up where you lack, it seems to be too big of a gap to bridge. So, you’ll stick to admiring him for now.

“There’s another one, hyung!” Taehyung calls out in happiness as you round the corner to the hallway that houses the lockers.

Oh, and that too.

The love letters.

It was a lapse of judgement in your opinion. 

You were vulnerable, and one of your closest friends had managed to weasel their way into your brain and placed false hope that sharing your writing would somehow win him over.

It seems to be half true, for what it’s worth.

You were prepared for the sheer amount of warmth to spread through your chest after watching Taehyung react to your love letters the first time.

It was very simple: “your art is beautiful.”

You had haphazardly shoved it through the slits in the metal locker before hauling ass to your next class. The only reason why you were able to see his reaction is because yours was only four lockers down.

It was hard to act inconspicuous when your hands were damp with sweat, every negative thought flowing through your mind at the same time:

‘He thinks it’s stupid’

‘He’ll throw it away’

‘“Your art is beautiful”? Yeah, not like he’s never heard that one before’

But the funny part about life is that sometimes, it goes the way you want it to.

“Wah! Taehyungie, is that a love note?” His close friend Hoseok, had sounded from behind him.

It had only taken Taehyung a handful of seconds to open his locker, watch the note flutter out, bend over, pick it up, and read it.

Your body went rigid, and the grating silence that fell the nearly empty hallway was deafening.

Then, “I don’t know.”

Hoseok looked over his shoulder, and his eyebrows drew together. “It’s not very long.” He speaks unsurely. 

“I know,” Taehyung’s words were then followed by a wide smile. “It’s perfect.”

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. 

He had called the notes perfect.

From then on, you hadn’t really written a lot, because there was so much that you had to say that you couldn’t really say anything at all.

You wanted to write more, you wanted to give him more. There were so many times that you would go to write him a note with more than a sentence or two, but you’d end up sitting there and just staring at the slip of paper.

Your compliments never seemed to bother him, because every time you’d seen him go to grab his books, he’d give a quick, ecstatic glance over its internal contents, searching for your note.

It was flattering.

So, you kept writing, and he kept reading.

But now that Valentine’s day was around the corner, you couldn’t help but feel like you should have been doing more.

More of what? More words? Gifts? Actions? Confessions?

It leaves you in a conundrum, because while yes, you did want to confess to him, you had no fucking idea how, and secondly, to address the elephant in the room, he had no fucking idea who you were.

Okay, yeah, your lockers are only a foot or two apart, and yes, you do share a class with him, but you’ve never talked to him before. You’re lucky he would even remember your name because of attendance purposes.

You're snapped back into reality by a force slamming into you from behind, sending you stumbling forward and out from behind the corner you had been standing behind.

You let out an unattractive yelp, and your headphones had been ripped out of your ears and tumbled to the floor along with your phone.

You don’t even have time to blink before one Jeon Jungkook is in your field of vision, apologizing profusely and stumbling over himself to pick your things up.

“Oh, God – I’m so sorry! I – I didn’t see you, and I just wanted to –”

You swallowed harshly, keeping your eyes downcasted as embarrassment seeped into every crevice of your body.

So much for good introductions.

You know he was looking at you, and you knew that the ‘hyung’ he had been talking to was dance major Park Jimin.

Kill me. Kill  me. Kill me – 

“It’s fine.” You spoke blankly, almost as if you were bored. Almost as if you weren’t about to spontaneously combust where you stood.

You pushed out a hand, gesturing to him to place your lost objects in them; and he did, albeit hesitantly.

“Again, I’m –”

“Sorry. Yeah, I heard you the first time, and I said it’s fine.”

You finally look up, and you try to not cringe at the overwhelming amount of worry that’s etched into Taehyung’s face. 

Worry for who? You didn’t know, but you can’t help but risk a glance his way and his large brown eyes pour into your soul.

Dangerous.

This is exactly why you weren’t going to say anything.

“I’ve got to go to class. Just be careful next time.”

You rip your eyes away and turn around, abandoning your textbook and journal in exchange for safety. 

Safe from what?

The hardest part about sharing a class with Kim Taehyung was actually having to see him.

What makes it even harder is that he has been non-stop looking at you the entire period, and you can’t help but be a little self-conscious.

You shift in your seat, straightening your shirt, and nonchalantly wiping around your mouth just in case you might have saved anything from breakfast on your face.

It was like heaven had opened up when the bell rang, and you were the first one to shoot up, shoving your backup materials into your bag. You could’ve gone faster.

Just when you thought you were free, two sneaker covered feet encroached your vision.

“Hey.”

The deep timber of his voice shook you to your very core, and you paused briefly, glancing up at him even though it felt like cinder blocks were tied to the back of your eyes.

“Hi.” You breathed.

“I’m sorry about Jungkook.”

“I already said it was fine.” You sighed, putting away the last of your things and hauling the strap of your tote bag over your shoulder.

“It’s not, though. He shouldn’t have been running in a busy hallway like that. He could’ve gotten him or someone else hurt.”

Your nerves practically hummed at his fussing, but you forced it down.

“I appreciate your concern, and I don’t blame him for running into me. A lot of my friends are like him too. Excitable, quick to injure. Like a puppy.”

At your dry-witted joke, Taehyung cracked a grin. “(y/n), right?”

Even though he was clearly in front of you, hearing him say your name nearly startled you half to death. It sounded good coming out of his mouth. Too good.

“Yeah, and I know you’re Taehyung.”

“I’m sorry we’ve never talked to each other before, I’ve just been busy with, you know…”

“Your art and stuff, yeah. I know.” He seems caught off guard by the show of information, and you think that now would be an excellent time to chuck yourself out the nearest window.

“You know about my art?”

“And your photography.”

Wow, very inconspicuous.

“Oh?”

“I… think your work is excellent. You find beauty in the small things. It’s admirable.”

For a moment he just stares at you, and you stare back. For the first time since coming in contact with him today, you didn’t have the overwhelming feeling to run.

Maybe you can give him a bit more.

“What are you doing today?” Your breath catches in your throat at his question; had it been this easy all along? “Why?” 

For the first time today, you make him work for an answer from you, and you can see his grin melt into a small smirk. A sign that he appreciates the challenge.

“I was going to invite you to go out to lunch with me and my friends as an apology. Jungkook still feels terrible for almost tackling you.”

You wave off his statement. “As much as I’d love to, I’ve got a few things I’ve got to do today, but let Jungkook know that I’ll be around soon enough, so he can give me reparations then.”

Taehyung lets out a booming laugh.

“Alright, I’ll let him know.”

When you go back to your dorm that night, your hands practically shake with the adrenaline that your interactions with him gave you today.

You fumble to get out a pen, and instead of going for the half sheets of paper you had meticulously cut in half, you opt for a full piece.

You write what you’ve been feeling for these last few months; weeks upon weeks of yearning spill through your fingertips as you express your love for his laugh, how deeply enchanting his eyes are, how inspirational he is.

You write and write and write until your fingers cramp and you near the lower half of the page.

This. This was what you have been meaning to give him all this time.

This was the part of yourself that you were so desperate to show him. What you wanted him to acknowledge about himself.

In a corny show of vulnerability, you steal a heart sticker from your roommate and slip the letter – an actual letter! – into an envelope, sealing it shut with the glittering craft.

There’s rustling coming from outside, which means said roommate is home, and you quickly shove it into a random drawer in your desk for another day.

For the day.

You don’t expect Taehyung to talk to you the next day, or for the day after that.

He waves at you in the hallway when he sees you, comes to talk to you after class is over, and even gestures you over to sit next to him when he sees you sitting at lunch by yourself.

Normally you would take lunch as the time to catch up on a few things, the music blaring through your ears drowning out the restlessness of the campus goers around you.

You all but waddle over there, plopping down next to him a respectable distance away and fiddling with your jacket sleeve when your presence draws the attention of two of your seniors.

You bow at the waist in greeting of Yoongi and Namjoon, and they bow back, but you’re hit lightly with the back of Taehyung’s hand to your arm.

“Don’t bow to them, they don’t deserve it.”

Instantly, Yoongi’s sleepy demeanour slips and he hisses, swatting over at his dongsaeng half-heartedly.

“Don’t be such a brat. Respect your elders.”

You grin a bit, raising a brow Tae’s way as he cackles and leans back to avoid being hit.

“I didn’t know my friend was so disrespectful.” You find it in yourself to tease. It’s like a flip is switched in Taehyung, and he shoots you the most breath stealing pout you’ve only ever seen him give to the men in front of you.

Your grin slips and your eyes fall to his lips, watching them closely as he speaks. “Don’t be so mean to me, (y/n).” 

Your mouth flounders like an idiot, your gaze zeroing in on the beauty marks and imperfections that riddle his face. God, he was so beautiful.

Someone clears their throat, and he pulls away from you, and you spin to face forward.

You catch Namjoon’s knowing look and act like you didn’t see it.

“Don’t worry about him, he’s just butt-hurt that his secret admirer hasn’t left anything in his locker for the past few days.” Yoongi mumbles.

You force yourself not to cringe, but you can’t help but ask, “What secret admirer?”

“Someone’s been leaving Tae little compliments in his locker. It’s one of the things he’s been looking forward to, but the person hasn’t been by in a while.” Namjoon finishes for him.

“Hyung.” Taehyung whines, but it’s clear he’s been affected by the absence of your notes.

You had been so worried about the big bang that was ‘the letter’ – as your best friend had coined it – that you had forgotten about the compliments you were supposed to be writing to him.

But why would you write him compliments when you had the real deal right in front of you?

It didn’t seem to matter, though, because you can see the sad pull of his smile, how it doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

You can’t take it.

“What if the person was planning something for valentine’s day?”

Three pairs of eyes land on you – suspicion, hope, and intrigue.

“Really?” Taehyung asks, but before he can answer, Yoongi goes, “How do you know?”

You flounder once again.

“I… I’m just making a logical guess.”

“Wah! So smart, (y/n).” The box-smiled man says in wonderment. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’ve been too in your head about some compliments. Idiot.” The last word is followed by a snapped flick to Tae’s forehead from Yoongi. 

“Ow, hyung!”

You know Namjoon is staring at you. No – not staring at you – analyzing you.

You know the older man had always been too smart for his own good, so you’re not surprised that he might’ve caught on this quickly.

You refuse to look at him, because as they say, “eyes are the window to the soul,” And you aren’t interested in letting the dragon-eyed man in front of you into it any time soon.

“Well good thing tomorrow is valentine’s day, right?” You don’t realize Taehyung’s talking to you until he nudges you with his shoulder.

“(y/n)?”

“Huh?” You ask intelligently, lifting your gaze from a spot on your table to look at him. “Right… right.” You agree with a nervous smile.

If Taehyung notices your anxiety, he doesn’t say anything, and you’re all the more grateful for it, though it feels like you're not alone with your thoughts.

That night, you prop the letter up on a stack of books and just stare at it.

You lean back in your seat, crossing your arms and staring it down as though it had personally offended you.

You can do this. It was easy.

Right?

You’re sick the entire morning, stomach swimming with something nasty as you tuck the offending piece of paper into your bag.

You’re just going to slip it into his locker, the same as you have every other time. The only difference is that your name is on it, and it’s up to him on whether or not he’ll decide to ever speak to you again.

It’s not the most foolproof plan you’ve ever had, but hey, a plan is a plan.

You tremble the whole walk to school, and it isn’t until you’re face-to-face with said locker that you finally feel bile start to burn at the back of your throat.

Oh God, were you really about to do this?

You force yourself to just bite the bullet and shove it in, but you’re stopped midway by a voice from behind you.

“(y/n)?” 

Your arms that were raised to push the paper through the slots freeze midair, the only thing piercing the silence is the sound of the hefty envelope sliding in and landing somewhere inside the metal container.

Taehyung is behind you.

Taehyung is behind you and he just watched you stand here and slip a note into his locker confessing your love to him.

Yeah, this plan was sure as shit not fucking foolproof.

“It was you?”

There’s something in his voice you can’t detect, and it’s taking you everything in your power to not haul ass.

“I…” You don’t know what to say as you turn around and are confronted by a slack jawed, wide eyed Taehyung.

You swallow the sand that’s in your mouth. Tears burn at the back of your eyelids at the thought of his rejection. Your heart already aches.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry… for leaving all those notes in your locker and for getting your hopes up… I –”

“Stop.”

“What?” Air rushes out of your lungs like someone sat on your chest.

“Don’t say sorry for doing something that made me happy.”

“What?” Now it’s your turn to be confused.

When he looks up at you, you can finally see the red hue that paints his caramel cheeks; he shares a nervous smile with you as he steps forward carefully, as though he’s afraid you’d disappear.

“I have a few secrets of my own that I think I should share with you.”

He reaches forward and encompasses your hand in his, and they are as big and warm as you had imagined they would be. They’re a bit calloused, but you figure that comes from holding a paintbrush for hours at a time.

“I… I’m really happy that it’s you.” He swallows and chuckles wetly. “I like you, (y/n). If you haven’t noticed.”

“But you don’t even know me.”

“Don’t think you’ve been the only one watching someone around here.” He’s smiling brightly and his teeth are so white they nearly blind you. 

“I confess that, I’ve known you for longer than when we first met.”

“What?” You ask again, but now you’re smiling just a bit. Butterflies swarm in your stomach as he speaks. They’re fluttering so fast you feel nauseous.

“I’ve liked you since the beginning of the year.” He’s staring at you dead on. “I… I remember seeing you and thinking you were so cool.” Taehyung laughs at himself. “And not just cool, but I thought you were the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

“I would look for you in the hallways, I’d watch you sitting alone at lunch, and I’d watch you watch your friends. I thought it was always a bit strange how you never wanted to talk, because I know you have so many brilliant thoughts in your head.”

Your cheeks flush with an unbearable heat, and you express your shyness by squeezing his hand, and he gives you an answering squeeze back.

“I remember when you presented your project and being so enamoured the entire time. I couldn’t help but think about what else you had in that brain of yours. And then I remember thinking after that, that I would read or listen to whatever you came up with.”

“Then the notes started.”

Your breath catches.

“Then I got confused. Because here this person is, telling me how beautiful they think my work is, when I already have the most beautiful thing right in front of me.”

Beautiful. You.

“Hoseok-hyung grilled me so hard after the first time you had ever given me a note.” He chuckles once more. “He had asked me, ‘what are you going to do?’ and I remember saying, ‘I don’t know.’”

He licks his dry lips. “But I knew that I hoped it was you. That you were the one that came up with those sweet words.”

“I was content with watching you, and the flattery of the notes. But then Jungkook ran into you, and I knew my time of spectating was over, because I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t want to ruin any potential chance I may have had because my best friend was a bit of an idiot.”

You laugh at his words, and you hadn’t noticed you were crying until his free hand had come up and swiped at a stray tear rolling down your hot cheek.

“You were a bit scary to approach I admit, because if you had treated me the way you did Kook, I think I might have cried.” You cackle a bit. 

“But you didn’t and then now here we are, on valentine’s day –”

“Confessing to each other in the hallway.” Your own words made yourself cringe, but you can’t stop the cheek splitting smile that forces its way onto your face.

“Is that what we're doing?” He asks cheekily. “Is that what you want to do?” You bite back playfully.

“It depends on what that note says.”

Oh no.

“Ugh,” You groan, and allow your head to fall forward and land on a surprisingly lean shoulder. “Don’t read it around me please.”

“So that means it’s good.”

“Taehyung!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” A hand comes up to rub at your back comfortingly.

“But not really.”

You take the skin on his side and twist.

“Ow, ow!”

© yoongsriverandme 2025-26

[mibkid]

Can i just say as both an artist and cosplayer i am so greatful and amazed over Jojo's amazing linked universe comic and just how much time and effort she puts into it.

i mean i am floored over 10 pages a month fully colored with detailed backgrounds and good story, believe me it's crazy amount of work. ...and speech bubbles. eurgh typography...(u can guess which part of comic making i enjoy the least)

Not only that but i am eternally greatfull for just how many angles we get to see the characters in the comic, the varied poses and expressions are not only amazing to look at and great way to show personalities, but also just such great reference points when either drawing the characters or trying to figure out how the hell a costume is built up.

AND jojo has drawn them in various stages of their clothes on during the comic, so you KNOW HOW THE LAYERING WORKS.

How is Time's armor built up? Boom right there in multiple angles and sometimes off.

Ah how does Hyrule's layering work? BOOM right there with an interesting maybe leather based under-armor??

How large is Twilight's chainmail and how is it built up? BAM right there.

Jojo literally drew a whole page of how Sky's clothes are built up, layer by layer.

It's truly a blessing!

AND IT IS CRAZY that jojo added so much beautiful embroidery to the characters' clothes.

(my brain is like "oh but me like to know every detail of the embroidery of every character", and i end up looking at the pictures and say "sush brain don't be a spoilsport they're already detailed just use your imagination of what jojo has drawn and what could fit the specifics", because that is fun too! like Sky's embroidery on his over-undershirt could very much be berries of some sort on twig together with some sort of classic skyloftian forms, like lingon berries though it isn't,( i know that lingon berries don't exist in hyrule...) but it would be a fun idea!)

As you can see by my... detailed oriented nature i am very interested in their designs. But again the whole comic is a true wonder, i mean, so many angles not just the characters but the surroundings. So many different zoom-outs and zoom-ins utilized, the comic knows when to change from one character to another to more than one. So it's great on a technical standpoint too. And it's SO cool to see how Jojo's art has changed through time. (that is not a pun)

Anyway, i felt like i had a lot to say, and this was me saying it. I guess it's a Appreciation post for jojo, for showing other artists and creatives so much different and amazing artwork. (and giving us amazing references)

But also it's that i want other people to see(though i think they do already) how much time and effort and love has been put into it, not that it matters much coming from me as a random person who happens to enjoy her work.

But i think it's fun to show appreciation for artists and writers anyway.

[aziraphales-library]

Hello! Ive been absolutely obsessed with fics where Crowley is insanely powerful lately, but there’s not really a tag for that since BAMF Crowley is pretty general. Do yall have any recommendations? :)

Hi! We have a #powerful crowley tag, so check that out. Here are some more fics to add...

I Do Not Forgive You by Puerinrotis (M)

The most powerful thing in the world, in the whole cosmos, was love. The second most powerful thing in the cosmos was rage, pure and unadulterated, red and white and blinding, hot and seething rage. Crowley had plenty of both in him to do the impossible. “I’ve had enough of your games, Mother,” Crowley growled, dangerous. “You made the choice to turn one of your most powerful children into a demon and now it’s time that you paid the price for creating a monsssster.” The Supreme Archangel looked up to stare at him in horror as he raised hands drenched in silver blood upwards in a grand gesture and announced with a feverish glow in his golden eyes, “Hello, Aziraphale. It’s time for you to welcome your new God.”

Cast Thou Send Lightnings? by midnightdragons (G)

Cast thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? — Job 38:35 A brief argument between angel and demon spirals a bit out of control when Crowley's tendency to become struck by lightning when caught up in the throes of his smoking anger makes itself known.

The Art of Creation by Bookwormgal (T)

Once upon a time, long before humans set foot outside of Eden and long before his inelegant landing in a pool of boiling sulfur, Crowley had been an angel. An angel with a very different name and far less cynicism. And that angel was made to build Her creations. He built stars, nebulas, and other beautiful and complicated things far out there in the cosmos. He shaped fundamental elements and materials into new creations. He molded burning fires and sculpted dust into breath-taking patterns. He started bright and powerful reactions, serving as a catalyst to spark the birth of stars. He set various celestial objects spinning. He built. He took raw materials and built wonderous things with them. He built because that was the role that She made him for. In the end, was rebuilding that much different than building? And wasn't rebuilding fairly close to healing? When it was his angel's existence on the line, Crowley was willing to grab at any chance available. He would find a way to fix what had been damaged. He would find a way to save him.

But I would walk 500 miles by Augenblickgotter (T)

There's a conspiring of foes from both sides that forcefully kidnap Aziraphale. Crowley is in hot pursuit and will stop at nothing, finding some unlikely aid along the way, and bringing up his True Form when the time is needed. Some depictions of pain and violence, minor character deaths by Holy Water, and mild gore. Also mild claustrophobic and dingy descriptions of Hell. And the boys relationship can be flat out platonic asexual best of friends or downright dirty lovers. The story is up to you and is more about how far they would go for each other. ;) No, no monster sex in this one either (comb for my last fic if you need it). Just BAMF Crowley ready to walk 500 Miles through Heaven or Hell to save his Angel.

This Is Who You Are by Azeutrecia (M)

Post S2 finale. Canon-friendly. This is a story of two tricksters …who have strong feelings for each other that they’re terrible at expressing …who have a status imbalance …who aren’t who they thought they were …who both are dealing with multiple types of trauma …in a dystopian divine+occult world …that may be entangled in a conspiracy based on the power of names and stories

- Mod D

[sugarcubetikki]

If you didn’t know, Christian Linke recently said that they weren’t intending to make Jayce and Viktor romantic but just to show a really close relationship between men which they believe is underrepresented in media.

Of course, as expected, antis have taken this as a way to shut down gay interpretations and bring up how “romanticising a relationship that is meant to be brotherly demeans it”. It is definitely important to have relationships that depict multiple forms of love and yes at its core we can all agree that Jayce and Viktor are two men who love each other.

I believe that despite what Christian Linke says, the way one chooses to interpret that love ultimately falls on the viewer, as their relationship/love can resonate with people in many different ways.

I personally view Jayvik to be partners, friends and lovers because it resonates with me as a queer fan. I personally see a lot of queercoding in the way they were written and that makes it hard for me to perceive them as not having a romantic love.

For example:

Viktor being shown to take Mel’s place in many scenes like Jayce hallucinating him with after Mel and he’s wearing her black eyeshadow.

Mel x Jayce sex scene overlaps with the scene of Viktor becoming entwined with the Hexcore in a way that it makes it difficult for you to even focus on Mel and Jayce.

Amanda mentioning that Viktor was projecting his relationship with Jayce onto Sky this season - the whole science-y bond.

Viktor making the “this is not the bedroom” joke when Mel catches him and Jayce trying to sneak into the lab.

This all resonates with me as queer comphet and their love for each other being superior to that of their romantic interests also feels very queer for me.

And I have the right to interpret them in that way. I respect the way Christian Link interprets them and has shown to depict them but I personally do not see their relationship in the same way and I believe characters are just as much as the audience’s as they are the creators so my interpretation is also valid.

(Also, creators genuinely don’t always agree with each other and they differ in opinions when it comes to interpretations of characters/relations whilst Christian Linke may not see their love as romantic. I believe there might be other creators who do which could explain some of the ambiguity in their scenes).

Also, to the antis, queer love is also a valid form of love, it can exist with/without physical intimacy and still be queer.

Perceiving Jayvik as queer does not demean their love for each other at all. Perceiving them as having a platonic or brotherly bond isn’t wrong either. All forms of love are pure. Queer or not. Jayce and Viktor’s love for each other is pure and can be seen no matter how you interpret it.

The beauty of a story or a piece of art is enabling the perceived to interpret it in a way it resonates with them and it may not be what the creator intended and it may not be what resonates with you but it is still a valid interpretation.

That is to say I also respect platonic readings of their relationship despite not personally seeing it because you have the right to interpret them in the way you want to. And I am asking you to do the same for me and give me the right to interpret them in the way I want to.

[chillygourami]

💌 you pulled: Cheerleader Yulia! + vignette

+ background-free version at the end

thanks to @cheerleaderman for hosting this amazing event! 💜

tried to write a vignette to show off her character a bit 🎲 please read and enjoy!

You are walking next to the gymnasium, immersed in your thoughts. 

???: One, two…

???: …Three! Agh, wrong one. Starting again… again.

Yulia: Ah. Good day.

Yulia rolls the sleeves of her shirt, preparing to start the music over again. 

You: … What exactly are you doing? 

Yulia: … It’’s a bit embarrassing to admit. 

Yulia: Crowley said he’d get bonus points for the best cheerleader performance.

Yulia: But I couldn’t exactly keep up with others, so I want to practice our moves until I get in sync. 

Her moves were looking almost pathetic, honestly. 

…

Yulia: What’s that look for? 

She frowns lightly.

Good luck to you, really.

Yulia nods. 

Yulia: Since class is over, would you mind counting in rhythm for me? My head cannot stand another round of music. 

Fine, I have a bit of time. 

What do I get in return?

Yulia: I’ll buy you a bun from the cafeteria. 

Gymnasium. Evening.

You: And… five! 

Yulia: Let’s… take a break… huff. 

She sits on the floor, carefully sipping from the cola bottle.

You: Are you sure you want to perform? You look worn out. 

Yulia: Of course. 

Yulia: It may be exhausting, but it’s nice to be a part of the group too. At least sometimes. 

Yulia: Besides, Idia bet I won't survive all those "extrovert activities". If I do, he will do our cheerleader dance as a support for our class.

Yulia: Aren’t you performing for your class too? 

No, I’m participating in contests. 

Yulia: Oh! So you’re the sporty type.

Yeah. 

Yulia: I’m looking forward to our class beating yours, then!

Yulia: I’ve been wondering. Why do people love things that have rhythm to it? Like music and cheerleading activities. 

Yulia: It seems we are striving for some sort of order in our core. 

Yulia: Then I thought “If so, how come abstract art exists?”

Yulia: But it is another form of order, isn’t it? 

Could you elaborate?

I don’t really understand what you mean. 

Yulia: Sorry. I’ll clarify. 

Yulia: Let’s suppose the definition of order is a state of an object which has a firmly established structure. 

Yulia: For example, the very basic transistor. The order for it is having a few terminals of semiconductors. 

Yulia: Or, moving to art. Academic art has an order of certain rules like anatomy, shadows, lighting… etc.

Yulia: So, let’s suppose abstract and futuristic art itself defies those rules in favour of human psyche reflection.

Yulia: But creating something opposed to whatever already exists is creating another set of rules which is just a logical negation.

Yulia: Hence, order still exists, because we have an established set of rules. And that’s why we perceive such art as beautiful. 

Yulia: And even the statement “No rules” is a rule itself.

Yulia: Of course, that depends on the definition of aesthetics. Those thoughts are based on the belief that beauty is an order in some sense. 

Yulia: So… how would you define aesthetics?

Thank you for reading all the way down here 💜💜💜

[pickypickypeak]

So I FINALLY got the art of wish book which is so so good and? I’m honestly a little surprised that the only things that got leaked online were the starboy and evil amaya concepts when it’s literally filled with gems? Here’s a few but first let me tell you, the art alone makes it worth it. It’s amazing

THE HAMLET! LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE HAMLET!! Apparently in an early draft Asha and her community had left Rosas and started living hidden in the forest so their wishes could be safe from Magnifico. This hidden place was called “The Hamlet” and it still exists in the final movie, though it’s just a part of Rosas and doesn’t have the original lore. I really hope this trope gets reused for a future Disney movie because it’s a really cool concept!

Live action Valentino??

Some Sakina dump because I love her (also meet Tomás)

Oh and you know the wishing tree in the movie? It’s based on Walt Disney’s own actual wishing tree?? Wtf???

Also there’s a whole 2 pages about Dahlia explaining how much effort and care were put into her creation as a character with a disability. They actually had consultants making sure that ANY form of representation felt authentic and positive. They did not just made the cast multi-ethnic, they actually did their research so that any culture was well portrayed, all the way to the littlest details like textures on their clothing or even each character’s way of greeting.

And about the animation not being fully 2D… Haters conveniently forget mentioning that the movie is expressly made to celebrate both the past AND future of WDAS. Then like it or not, but you can’t possibly celebrate all of Disney without CGI animation. CGI is also Disney. Tangled and Frozen and Moana became instant Disney classics. I would die for a traditional animated movie, but when you put it this way, it makes perfect sense to me that they went with hybrid style for this movie specifically. It just feels right.

Also going through these pages… you just feel the love the producers and animators put in every single reference to older classics. Animation techniques were literally inspired by actual frames from Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan. So were coloring techniques, lighting, cinematography… There was a breathing effort of paying homages to these movies with tremendous talent in them, while also creating something new. So hate on this movie as much as you want, but mind you calling it “AI-made”. It’s not. It’s made by humans.

Oh, and finally, Starboy. Well, yeah, I fell for it. People literally made it all up. There’s zero indication that he was gonna be Asha’s love interest, let alone be the one singing At All Costs instead of Magnifico. From what the book says (there’s literally two short paragraphs about him, before Star comes in) I think they didn’t even have a plot then, they were just exploring ideas and made some brainstorming sketches deciding how Star could have been. Same with evil Amaya! That one pic that leaked of her with Magnifico is all we got. There’s no indication that it was gonna be “a better movie” because there is no plot for that lol