#idk why they never felt good enough to post but whatever throwing them at the void now djhdh

[ash-and-starlight]

i have no particular ideas but i would die if you ever did griddlehark <3

not rlly griddlehark but u know what i do have some misc bone lesbians thingies laying around

[antianakin]

Also, I had another question for you, if you don’t mind giving your thoughts on it: I recently came across a post criticizing Obi-Wan and Yoda for not telling Luke that Anakin was ‘Darth Vader’: AKA: his father. And I think it’s been kind of established that they were going to tell Luke when they felt he was ready, but when things spiraled out of control at the beginning of ‘A New Hope’ that they thought it would just be too painful? And like… OBVIOUSLY they are not telling Luke he needs to kill Anakin to be cruel. They’re telling him Anakin WILL force Luke’s hand into having to defend himself because Anakin will try to slice Luke’s fucking head off. Lol.

But anyway, the reason this tumblr post I came across bothered me is because it was really vindictive and bitter in accusing Yoda… of wanting revenge. Like… saying THAT’S the reason Yoda tried to get Luke to kill Anakin. And not… idk… the fact the galaxy was on fire. 🤦‍♀️ Essentially, they admitted that what the Jedi went through was a genocide. But instead of showing SYMPATHY, they turned it around by saying that Yoda was CRUEL and demonizing him even if he DID want revenge… as a GENOCIDE victim. And it just felt… SO gross. 😭🤢 Because it was OBVIOUS what they cared about the most was Anakin’s pain in the suit and Luke’s conflict with killing Anakin. But Yoda being a GENOCIDE VICTIM meant nothing to them. And that isn’t even the REASON Yoda and Obi-Wan say Luke may have to kill Anakin! It’s because Anakin is dangerous and burning the galaxy down with Palpatine at that point in time. Essentially; they believe it’s for the greater good.

But what REALLY grinds my gears is how even if their theory about Yoda WAS true… they would demonize the GENOCIDE VICTIM over wanting justice/revenge over the actual guy who helped slaughter them. 🤦‍♀️🤢 It just… pissed me off SO much. Lol.

But anyway, you don’t have to give your thoughts if you don’t want to, but I always love hearing your take on backwards logic like this from radical Anakin/Anidala/anti Jedi fans (this was from a radical Anidala fan, which I guess makes sense now that I think about it why they didn’t care about the Jedi’s plight and just the Skywalker family’s pain).

Someone else sent me an ask about something very similar to this yesterday. My response is in the queue, so I don't want to completely overlap this. But whatever post generated these asks, I'm so glad I've curated my dash enough not to have to see it.

I think people seem to overestimate the amount of time Obi-Wan and Yoda have in which they could have told Luke about Vader.

Obi-Wan is a stranger to Luke for most of his life, something that generally gets explained away in other media as Owen not wanting Obi-Wan around, but it's not super clear in the films themselves why Obi-Wan has kept his distance for so long. But regardless, he has. And Obi-Wan DOES give Luke quite a lot of information that his aunt and uncle have been keeping from him in the immediate aftermath of them meeting in ANH. He tells him that his father was a Jedi who was "killed" by Darth Vader, and he tells him Darth Vader was his student and that Vader betrayed them all. The only thing missing is that these are the same people, but also this is their FIRST conversation about this and Obi-Wan is pretty clearly trying to gently bring Luke into this wider world he's never known and not just drop a bunch of massive bombshells on his shoulders. He's also trying to convince Luke to leave Tatooine with him, and it likely won't help to tell him that his father is a traitor who is currently still an incredible danger to him.

And then Owen and Beru die and Luke is in mourning and Obi-Wan's primary focus is on getting to Alderaan and not throwing more pressure on Luke than he can handle in a situation where he's already going to feel under a lot of pressure. And then he dies. And while Obi-Wan is occasionally able to speak to Luke after he dies, it seems to be pretty sporadic at best and he can't stick around for very long until after Luke gets to Dagobah. So his ability to have a nice long conversation about Vader is incredibly minimal.

And finally there's Luke's time on Dagobah where he does seem to have more ready access to both Obi-Wan and Yoda, but Yoda is still seeing a LOT of reasons to keep this information from Luke. Luke struggles with believing in himself, he takes a weapon into the cave, he's reckless and impulsive, etc. And there's no telling just how long the two of them have together and it's more important to get Luke as trained as possible so that he stays alive (and also so that when it IS time for him to learn this information, he can HANDLE IT).

And that's it. There's always bigger priorities and good reason for both Yoda and Obi-Wan to believe that Luke isn't quite ready to learn this given how painful of a truth it would be. And you know what? When Luke IS given this information, he nearly gives up on everything as a reaction. He wasn't ready. Yoda and Obi-Wan were right.

The other ask I answered is more about Obi-Wan telling Luke he has to prepare himself for the super likely possibility that he'll have to kill his father, so I won't go into that much here. It's weird to put accusations on Yoda since, to my memory, Yoda and Luke never HAVE a conversation about Vader, let alone one where Yoda tells Luke to kill him. Is the argument supposed to be that Yoda kept the information from Luke so that Luke would always hate Anakin and therefore be more likely to kill him?

But. Yeah. The kinder, more objective answer to this is like you said, they're preparing him for the possibility that Anakin will try to kill HIM and so he might have to defend himself. They're preparing him for the possibility that Anakin CANNOT BE SAVED because he's shown exactly no inclination to stop murdering people for the last twenty some-odd years, even when faced with people he used to claim to love. Don't lose a thousand people just to save one. If Luke refuses to do what has to be done and dies as a result (or is turned into a Sith himself), the entire galaxy suffers. Leia MIGHT be able to pick up the torch after him (although she'd never have a living master to help her train), but it would probably take YEARS before she could manage to do what Luke could not.

The more bitter answer to this from someone who's not a fan of Anakin is that Anakin deserves it. Like you said, I'm more inclined to feel sympathy for the people who are genocide victims wanting justice or even vengeance for what was done to them than I am inclined to feel sympathy for the person who committed said genocide. It's why I feel a hell of a lot more sympathy for Reva than I ever have for Anakin (Reva also stops killing people WAY earlier than Anakin and shows more empathy towards people she's not personally related to than Anakin ever does). I'm over here HOPING that suit hurts him, I HOPE that he struggles to breathe every day, I hope his breath burns in his lungs every time air is pumped into him, I hope he feels that pain every moment of every day he has to stay alive. I could not give less of a shit about Anakin's pain. It's not even just the one genocide, either. Every single clone who dies after Order 66, their enslavement and loss of what little autonomy they had, can thank Anakin for what was done to them. And then he spends over TWENTY YEARS spreading pain and destruction and death across the galaxy. There are MILLIONS of lives gone exclusively because of Anakin. Anakin is DROWNING in the blood of the people he's killed. I hope it suffocates him. Even if Obi-Wan and Yoda DID want Luke to kill his father out of vengeance, I wouldn't blame them.

So yeah. Fuck Anakin. Who gives a shit if he's in pain. Luke is so lucky he didn't have to actually get to know his complete shit heel of a father and that his primary father figures ended up being Owen, Obi-Wan, and Yoda. Imagine how awful his life would've been if he'd actually had to live with Anakin as a father at any point. Luke dodged a bullet in so many ways.

This is why I don't engage with people like that anymore. There's so little point. I'm set in my ways and opinions now for the most part and they likely are, too. Arguing with them is just going to make everybody feel worse. I'd rather stay in my corner, even if I'm ranting in that corner.

[hollowtones]

i can't find the vods for the rest of your endwalker playthrough (if you even did stream the rest) so i was wondering, what were your opinions on 6.0? (also what were your reactions to That urianger scene)

I think I only did like one or two streams of it. It ran kinda bad when I streamed it, people didn't want to watch it, and I wasn't getting much out of streaming it compared to just playing it on my own time. That and I think I had a really severe depressive episode at the time (for unrelated reasons).

IDK if anyone's still trying to avoid spoilers but I'll throw it under a read-more.

It's been a while since I last played so my memory's kind of spotty. I liked it, though. It felt like a satisfying conclusion to what they've been getting at since 2.0 MSQ, and a nice little dialogue on despair and exhaustion and depression and hope, and finding ways to carry on and keep living and keep loving and keep trying. I feel like that's when the game's overall writing and theming tends to be at its strongest (yes I liked the Dark Knight questlines haha).

I remember having mixed feelings about how they pulled off the Garlemald segment & the "Alphinaud and Alisaie's shit head dad" plotline but I don't remember enough of the specifics to really elaborate on that.

Alisaie has lesbian college admirers and I thought that was funny.

I came out of 5.5 MSQ expecting White Woman Jumpscare Hydaelyn to be a little trite but I ended up really liking Venat. I felt kinda whatever about Emet-Selch coming back, but I didn't hate what they did with him I guess, and his earless-Viera boy toy was fun. Fandaniel felt like The Joker but he still felt like a fine first-act villain. The way they write him (& Meteion) in the later chunk of the game felt more interesting to me, & felt like a fun play on "Shadowbringers"-era Emet-Selch's whole "AMAUROT, BABY! GREATEST CITY IN DA WORLD, BABY! SLIMES ALL OVER DA STREET, BABY!" nostalgia. It was funny when he was The Joker, though.

Final area was thematically and visually really interesting. I'm excited we got more stuff related to Omega & I'm glad we got more "btw the dragons are aliens" stuff. I've seen a lot of people forget about that, for whatever reason. That one area right by the end that was completely desolate, with no people & no indication of who lived there, was a really good setpiece. The Namazu canonically suffer in all possible dimensions and all possible worlds and you cannot help but laugh out loud.

I kind of rolled my eyes at Zenos coming back. "By the way he's a Reaper now" felt like it amounted to nothing, but admittedly I never did the Reaper questline or the post-6.0 stuff. Getting to punch him in the face at the end was fun.

Music was good, I liked the way they played with different motifs & I really like how that comes to a head in the final boss fight.

I was expecting moon rabbits to be grating and insufferable but I liked them. I fucking love that none of this planet's moons are normal. Why are they both orbital prison-ships. I love it.

Zodiark's design owned and Hydaelyn's design was okay. Very Yoshitaka Amano design, which makes sense given how he did that one boxart for "A Realm Reborn" & she looks a lot like she does there, but I kinda wish she got to look more monstrous and weird. She kept talking up becoming a monster to do what she felt was right!!! I wish that had informed her design a little more.

Hamburgers exist & I do like that the animators got to livingly render G'raha Tia going to town on one like those weird clips of anime girls where it looks like they've never eaten in their lives.

I don't remember what you mean by "the Urianger scene". LOL

You didn't ask, but the crafting/gathering questlines were a lot of fun. I feel like they (& the guildleves) added some fun extra context to everything going on while I was going through the MSQ.

I liked it overall. I don't think it's the highest point of the game's writing, but I had a good time and felt very satisfied by the time it came to a close.

[yuukei-yikes]

shintaro and kanos toxic relationship can be something so deeply appealing because of how horrible they are for each other. like. kano having to analyze his actual emotions towards shintaro and shintaro also finally giving in to the im bisexual crisis and also dude youre aware thats your dead girlfriend’s little brother right? also something something kano getting upset with shintaro and using his eye powers to turn into ayano just to hurt him. theyre unhealthy. they make me absolutely insane ok sorry if this was unintelligible in ur inbox lmao

RIGHT but ALSO IT COULD EVENTUALLY TURN INTO SOMETHING HEALTHY... like ofc a lot of clownery has to go on before and that clownery is so so so so so so much fun to explore. but i do think they're capable of getting to a point of a peaceful relationship despite it involves mutual compliance/resignation with both each other and themselves that leads to WOW eventual happiness and contentment with each other. it gets to a point where they aren't together out of their own gratification but bc they LIKE EACH OTHER AS PEOPLE AND YEAH THEY ALWAYS DID BUT THEY NEVER LIKED EACH OTHER MORE THAN THEY RESENTED EACH OTHER BUT NOW THEY DONT RESENT IT THEY JUST LIKE EACH OTHER AND THATS ENOUGH(holds head) bc "well i guess we deserve each other" and it is still sad but...not so much?? idk if that makes sense. but like... Healthy peaceful kanoshin (explodes) like they're arguing and getting all on each other's faces and the Dan's like can u stop fighting and theyre like ?? that's just how we talk though we arent fighting? and they rly arent. ppl who have never been in a loving relationship (not necessarily romantic by the way) with this dynamic wont understand but it IS possible. *shakes you*

idk ive read some stuff where they're so tooth rottingly sweet to each other and i just can't see it💔 i think they can have rare tender moments ofc and they DO but then both act super awkward despite they're in a relationship LOL like they can have 1 tender moment then turn around and just sit there holding hands and awkwardly scrolling on their phones idk idk idk (goes crazy) or they just tease each other abt it or whatever. i think they both rather show affection physically rather than verbally?? i think kanos super touchy. shintaros like do u have to sit here (shot of the completely empty couch aside from shintaro sitting on the edge and kano pressed right beside him) and kano's like wdym. kano's always with an arm around him even if hes shorter. hehe. its so normal shintaro gets used to it so kano just casually throws himself on his lap and shintaro's just like lifting his arms to give him space and never looks away from his phone *destroys all my pillows shaking them like a dog*

not me getting into love language territory. sorry. whatever. idk what all of them even are i think there is 5 but kanoshin is NOT words of affirmation. i think both want them but can't handle hearing it. like yeah they flirt (it IS cringe) but man idk i just cant imagine them being super outwardly sweet to each other... like their flirting is super cringe its the oh REAAAALLY?? kind of flirting not HEHE... kind. DO U UNDERSTAND WHAT IM SAYING OR AM I INSANE

sorry u sent an ask abt toxic kanoshin and i answered with fluff THATS NOT TO SAY UR WRONG. UR TOTALLY RIGHT. BUT I THINK THEY CAN GET TO A GOOD POINT TOGETHER AFTER A LONG CIRCUS MOMENT i just felt bad i kept using them as punching bags everytime i talked abt them... and they are both so capable of love. they are so capable of love that is why they suffer like they do(holds head) they deserve to flirt and be silly i think. tender kanoshin *world explosion*

BTW u mentioned dead ayano. dont get me started on dead or alive ayano for str thats another subject (quickly: dead ayano is a more meaningful end but AYANO I LOVE YOU so i always keep her alive in my post str stuff) kanoshin can work even if ayano lives‼️‼️‼️ ALSO COME ON THAT MAKES IT SO MUCH FUNNIER

[girlvinland]

Ehhhh. This is just a vent about something not too serious rn but it annoyed me enough to want to write about it lol. And I’m sorry if this is perhaps comes off as a bit judgmental in some way.

I was watching one of Drama Kween’s videos yesterday about Gen Alpha and Millenial parents and I heavily agree with the message that you should not be putting your kid in front of an ipad and calling it a day and that you should be tending to their mental, emotional, and physical development, but omg one of the tiktoks she showed rubbed me the wrong way so badly. It was this person talking about how a mom brought her kid into the person’s workplace, and the kid started throwing business cards on the floor or something while the mom did nothing, but the person kept completely dehumanizing this child and calling them “it” and “satan spawn” and speaking with so much hatred about it and it just totally shut my brain down. I was honestly kind of stunned by it bc I thought we were moving past that a bit. Guess not?

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that kids are a lot and can be annoying/loud/overwhelming/etc. But whenever someone speaks about them like that, even out of frustration, it makes me feel like they have no empathy for the child at all and like everything is centered around their day and their inconveniences like they’re not talking about a child being a child and you know, acting like a child (and possibly one who is bored or under-stimulated in some way and therefore acting out). And in this case, the mom should have said something to the kid or redirected their attention or disciplined them somehow like. I agree! But man, hearing people use those terms or have this overall hatred and disdain for children and acting like it’s a good thing just. Idk. I think it says a lot about someone, esp if they’re willing to post it online and everything. It’s one thing to criticize a parent’s actions or behavior in a certain situation, but it’s another to act like a child is an animal or an object that’s just there to ruin your day and who isn’t a human with their own needs. It’s not the child’s fault that the parent isn’t parenting, you know? I’m not a parent, but I’ve had jobs where I was interacting with children for large portions of time, and I do understand the annoyance of it sometimes, but just. They’re still human too.

I think this is why I really dislike a lot of the overall vibes of the “childfree” community sometimes (not that this person in the tiktok was, but the language reminded me of it). It’s like, even if I’m not currently a parent (and for a while when I was younger wasn’t even sure if I wanted to be/felt more on that side of things), I truly have never understood what’s good about referring to children as “spawn” or parents as “breeders” and acting so high and mighty about not having/wanting children. It’s like once I hear someone refer to kids with dehumanizing terms, I kind of mentally shut off and am not really interested in hearing any more. It’s very possible to say “yeah I don’t like children or being around them” without being a complete asshole about it. I mean, we were all kids once. We probably annoyed the shit out of people at one point or another too. We were still humans who deserved respect, even if we were tired or cranky or annoying, and even with regards to discipline.

But yeah, idk. It kind of just got to me, and I feel like they could have gotten their point across in a much better way without putting their disdain on full blast or whatever. Even if someone has good points to make, it doesn’t exactly make them seem like any better of a person than the parent when that’s how they choose to talk about the child, at least imo. Again, I understand kids being annoying sometimes. I don’t understand why using dehumanizing language about them is so common in these cases.

[ilovekazuhaa]

oh and can u please write some sort of an ansgty (ending good) sequel of the pepa's child in their rebellious phase

like bc of the life quality of the average madrigal, reader feels pressured and not good enough

even after they're grounded, they continue being a troublemaker using their gift with their little friend group and pepa gets even angrier but reader breaks down when being yelled at and and pepa feels bad and idk they solve the problem together????

also it would be cool if reader has fire gift that can cause outbursts with strong emotions but it's okay if u want another gift since u have already wrote for a reader with fire gift

(yes this is my first time using colors in a request how could u tell)

“My Little Firecracker”

Pepa x reader

genre: angst, followed by fluff

Part 1

Extra info: reader has a fire gift here as well, it causes outbursts with strong emotions. btw colors are fun lol they make it more exciting to write requests. like when i read the colored words in my head the little voice in my head reads them deeper and slower haha idk how to explain it. anyways, enjoy what i wrote :) also, sorry for not posting for like 5 days. I’ve been super busy and out with friends, but posting is back to normal now!

Well, you swore to fix your behavior since your mamá caught you that day. But there you were a week later, egging houses with your friends. The five of you laughed as the eggs splattered on the windows of Señora Guzman’s home and the bright yellow yolk stained her white house.

You were rebelling because it was fun! Plus, you didn’t want to be a “little perfect princess” and a “overworked, burnt out kid” because you never felt good enough to follow that specific agenda anyways. It was just too much pressure and you didn’t think you could live up to it. So you found it easier to go against the flow and do whatever you wanted, even though you knew your mother would kill you. But whatever, who even cares anymore right? Wrong.

You all continued throwing the eggs, laughs echoing through the town as you did so. To add a little more fun to it, you used your gift to heat up the eggs, and when they hit the home they were practically cooked. It left little burn marks on the woman’s house, but nothing too serious that could burn the home down. You also set her little plants outside on fire too. It wasn’t the end of the world, Isabela could grow her new orchids anyway. It wasn’t anything personal either, she was just an easy victim.

The poor old woman came out of her home, so confused and angry as to why you children were doing this. A horrified gasp escaped her as she saw her little plants shriveling up. God it was hilarious. A few of your friends purposely threw eggs at her, drenching the elderly woman in egg yolk, causing her to become even more upset and that’s when you decided that doing this wasn’t cool anymore, realizing it wasn’t a very smart idea. But it was far too late for that. Your mother was somehow in town and she had seen everything. From her perspective, she swore her eyes had not deceived her.

Pepa didn’t see your face go from one that was laughing to one that was frowning. She just saw that you were vandalizing a house, burning plants and throwing eggs at a poor, elderly woman.

This made your mother incredibly angry. Rage filled her from head to toe as she practically ran across the bustling plaza. A dark cloud appeared above the home of Señora Guzman, you, and your friends. At first the sudden appearance of the cloud confused you, until you realized what caused it, or more like who caused it. Slowly turning around, total terror was plastered all over your face, and you prayed that it wouldn’t be the person that you were most afraid of.

‘Please don’t be her” you thought “Please god, cut me some slack just this once.”

But of course, your prayers weren’t answered and it indeed was your mother charging towards you, her usual soft green eyes glowing red with rage. Your friends gasped and took several steps back as drops of rain started to fall on them.

“Y/N MADRIGAL! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING! YOU’RE SO DEAD!” the woman yelled. The sound of her voice alone could’ve caused you to get a stroke, but luckily you were somewhat prepared for this.

You looked around you as your heart raced and your breathing became panicked. Your friends ran away at the sight of your mother, the old woman stared at you wide eyed, and you saw the plants that you lit on fire burn out due to the rainfall caused by your mamá. With no warning, you felt a hard tug on your ear. Before you could let out an ‘ow’ your mother started yelling at you, showing absolutely no mercy.

“ARE YOU SERIOUS!?! YOU’RE MISBEHAVING AGAIN?! Seriously Y/N! All you do is everything I tell you not to, even after you have been given punishment!” A mini tornado formed behind your mother as she let go of your ear, pacing back and forth “Why do you do this to me? You can’t do a single thing I ask of you and I’m sick of it! What do I have to do to make you liste-”

“Because I’m not good enough!” you said, cutting the woman off. Your eyes were glued to the ground but you knew everyone around you was staring. Tears filled your eyes. Why couldn’t your mother understand what you were going through? Why you were acting this way? Couldn’t she see anything that was happening at all?

“I-it’s because I’m not good enough” you let out a sob “Going against everything is easier than being perfect all of the time and dealing with this never ending pressure! If I could be the way you wanted me to, I already would be!” you yelled. The bushes surrounding the both of you started to catch on fire. The flames sprouted on some bushes and not others. Thankfully, it was raining so the mini fires you created were put out almost instantly. Staying focused on the ground, your body shook and you covered your face with your hands in efforts to wipe away your tears and partly hide your red face due to crying. Were you being ridiculous for acting this way? Should you have just took whatever punishment she gave and never said anything at all?

Your mother stood there, wide eyed as the mini tornado that followed her immediately stopped. The falling rain began to drench your clothes as you turned around to run away. But before you could, you mother acted quickly and took ahold of your wrist, holding it tighter than ever before. As you looked back at your mother with your tear filled eyes, her green orbs stared into your soul, getting a glimpse of how you really felt and her heart broke. She related to your feelings at some point, realizing that she found herself doing the same when she was young. How did she not notice the signs? How could she not notice what was happening with her baby?

Trying your best to escape her grip, you continued pulling and tried to run away as she brought you in for a hug. Your face landed directly into her chest and you tried pushing her away but her embrace was just too strong.

“Mi amorcito, don’t fight it anymore. I’m sorry. Por favor, let’s talk about this” the woman pleaded.

This only made you want to run away more because it meant you were going to have to come face to face with those feelings you were trying to hold back for so long.

You shook your head “No, no, no! Leave me alone! We don’t need to talk!” you tried pushing her away again, but there was no way you could escape her.

Pepa then gave you a soft kiss on the forehead and as if it were magic, it made you melt. Your legs felt wobbly and you started to feel warm despite the cold rain that was coming down on you two. Finally accepting the woman’s desire for an embrace, you wrapped your arms around her waist and let yourself cry, your salty tears drenching her somewhat wet shoulder. She didn’t pay it any mind though. She just wanted to figure out what was wrong, what exact thing made you feel this way, so that it would never happen again.

Sinking into her touch, your head was now buried in Pepa’s neck as you sobbed. You hugged the woman so tight, your irregular breaths and sudden jerking eventually calming down as the woman drew little lighting bolts and suns on your back. Her soft coos and her occasional “I love you” or “you’re perfect just like this” phrases made you relax a lot more.

After a few minutes of silence and awkward stares from others, your mother apologized and promised to compensate the woman as she took your hand and led you back home. Without protest, you followed her, looking down at the ground the entire way back in shame and embarrassment. The both of you were soaked, and when you guys got back, she gave you a warm towel and sat you on the couch.

Your eyes were tired. You had eye bags and dried tears crusted at your eyelids. Your nose was completely stuffed and no matter how much you blew your nose, it never went away. You felt like any more words about your emotions would push you over the edge and make you cry again. You felt so fragile, so vulnerable, so weak. Your mother hugged you, wrapping her arm around your shivering body and the yellow towel she gave you.

“Now” the woman said “Let’s talk about what has made you feel this way. You shifted uncomfortably as you shook your head.

“Please mi bebe” she begged “Tell mami what’s going on so she knows how to help you.”

You sighed. Were you really ready to unload all of this emotional baggage you had been holding back for this long? Running a hand through your wet hair, you ultimately decided to give in. You told your mother exactly how you felt and you only continued because of her encouraging looks and occasional nods she gave you to signify she understood and was listening.

She tried to make you feel as safe as possible, so you would tell her something. She knew you probably wouldn’t tell her everything, but she hoped you would say enough so she could help you out a bit.

Explaining everything to her, you feared she wouldn’t understand. But to your surprise, she told you that she related to you and that being a Madrigal was never going to be an easy job. You were glad she was honest, but comforting. It was exactly what you needed.

Pepa gently took ahold of your face in her hands, her fingers tracing behind your ear to tuck a hair behind it. Leaving a soft peck on your rosy cheeks, she moved your face to kiss one cheek, and then the other.

The woman then told you “If you ever feel this way, talk to me bebe. You are far too important and I don’t want to see you suffer like this. If you feel too overwhelmed or if you need to talk, don’t hesitate to let me know or spend a little extra time in your room during the day” you saw the concern in her eyes and you studied her serious, yet fearful expression “I promise that I will never be mad at you and neither will Abuela or anyone else in the family” she pulled you in and left a kiss at the top of your head as your cold body snuggled into her chest. You cracked a small smile and sighed contently. This felt so much better. Maybe you wouldn’t behave as bad anymore, since it felt like you had freedom now and that someone else actually understood what you were going through.

“I know that it won’t solve all your problems right away, and that’s okay. Even the sun takes breaks sometimes, that’s why the moon comes out to provide temporary light” Pepa said, turning your face towards hers as she rubbed her nose against yours, she called them ‘nose kisses’. The two of you shook your heads, clashing noses and the woman smiled at the sight. It reminded her of old times when you were young, it brought a smile to her face.

“Thank you mami. Te quiero” you told the woman, playing with her signature orange braid as the towel rolled off you, exposing your wet body to the cold air. You shivered, putting it back on.

Pepa returned your smile “I love you more, my little firecracker. Anything for you.”

You loved this nickname. In fact, you remember the exact moment she gave it to you. It was your 5th birthday, the day you got your gift. You accidentally set all of the fireworks on fire for your celebration. At least they worked, but not in the intended way.

Your mother remembered that you were cold and wet, asking “What do you say I start up a hot bath, and we have a fun night, just you and me. We can talk about anything you want and whatever is said in that room, stays in that room. Your choice.” The woman smiled and winked at you as she said this, pointing her head towards her room.

“Really?!” you asked, excitedly.

“Of course, but under one condition.”

You rolled your eyes adoringly “What is it mamá? Lay it on me.”

“Promise me that you will always tell your mami whenever you feel sad so that she can help you! And let her give you infinite kisses with no resistance!” she said, raising her eyebrows and smirking.

You gave her a ‘seriously?’ look and sighed, shaking your head. You couldn’t give up an opportunity like this!

“Fine, you win” you told your mother “I’m only saying yes because of the bath” you joked.

Pepa let out a fake gasp “Is our relationship that shallow to you?! Fine, so be it. But come on, let’s hurry! We don’t have all night for this fun night of ours!” your mother said, taking your hand and bringing you to her room.

As she tugged you by the hand you couldn’t help but laugh “But mamá, isn’t that the point?”

[remcycl333]

you don’t need to be happy to be manifest!! but...

who doesn’t want to be happy?

(long post alert, sorry in advance lol. but please read it all the way through, i really think it’ll be worth it<3)

ok, to preface this, you don’t need to be happy to manifest. i’ve manifested great, positive things while i was in depressive episodes. i manifested wonderful things with tears streaming down my face. BUT, i think something a lot of people overlook is that it’s really beneficial to feel positively about your desires.

this is something i realized a few months ago, saw great results from, and then forgot all about and, well, stopped seeing the progress i wanted. but i’m back on track now, don’t you worry.

(i’m going to be using the example of my sp, bc that’s what i have the most experience with, but this applies to literally anything u r manifesting) 

i’ve made a few other posts saying pretty much what i’m about to say in this next paragraph, so if you’ve already read those, i’m sorry for repeating myself. just bear with me lol. 

so i came to a realization a few months ago--and i don’t exactly remember how i came to this realization--that i kind of...hated my sp? like i fucking resented him. and i was like, wait a minute, that’s not right. i love my sp. that’s why i’m trying to manifest him! so why do i feel like this?

i used to focus on manifesting in steps, so naturally the first step was contact. so i’d be affirming all day every day “my sp is texting me right fucking now😡“ (and other variations) and then when he didn’t text me, it’d just make me angry at him. but technically, he didn’t even do anything wrong?? sure he didn’t text me, but he had no clue he was supposed to? idk it was all complicated and weird. and then when i wasn’t mad that he didn’t text me, i was having arguments with him in my head, preparing for some weird fight that my brain just assumed was going to happen whenever we did get into contact. which is weird, bc my sp and i never fight. like, this is my ex. yet i literally cannot tell you a single fight that we have ever had. we literally get along perfectly. we have never fought (or even argued) once in all the time that we’ve known each other. yet my brain was always fighting him. and it was just, exhausting?

and so one day, when i was troubleshooting, i realized: rem, if you were in a relationship right now with your sp, would u hate him? would u be constantly fighting with him? god i fucking hope not! 

now, what would i be thinking? i’d be laying in bed at night, hugging my pillow, thinking about how much i love him. reflecting on how happy he makes me, how perfect he is, how good he makes me feel. i’d be thinking about how he is the most perfect boyfriend i could ever have asked for. i’d be content after spending a long day with him, excited to spend the next day with him as well. 

and during the day i wouldn’t be wondering why he wasn’t texting me. if anything, i’d be wondering why he was texting me considering we were literally hanging out, together, at that very moment! 

i would trust him. i’d be walking on cloud nine. i’d be content. i’d be...happy. 

now, in no way am i saying that you need to be happy 24/7, or dancing on air, or feeling intense butterflies in your stomach. you’re allowed to have other emotions. you’re allowed to feel anger, you’re allowed to break down and cry! you’re allowed to have bad days. but if you’re feeling these negative emotions about your desire, i want you to try your hardest to release them. i don’t think any of us want to have breakdowns over our manifestations and cry about them, but if it happens, it happens. just pick yourself up afterwards--or stop it before it even really begins, trust me, it gets easier to do this--and maybe do a few deep breaths to calm yourself down, and remind yourself why you’re on this journey in the first place. once again using the sp example, it’s because you love your sp. because they are perfect for you! they make you happy. you love their smile, their laugh, the witty conversations you have with each other. you love being in their arms.  you love when they’re in your arms! they did something that made you fall in love with them, or want to be in a relationship with them. what was it? focus on that. 

enough with the sammy ingram (i could go on a whole rant about her) style affirmations. with the “he’s going to fucking text me, he has no choice, he’s my fucking boyfriend and he does what i say.” like....ew?? i used to say shit like this, and it was really what started making me resent my sp. i was ordering him around in my head, creating this weird dynamic between us (which, he wasn’t even aware was there), and getting mad when he wasn’t doing what i was ordering him to do. looking back, it was borderline psychotic. it was just turning it into me against him, and that’s not what i wanted at all. i want to be in a relationship with him, with mutual love. i don’t want to be his boss, or his mom, or his fucking military sergeant!! (i don’t even know if that was the proper term bc fuck the military, but u guys know what i mean lmfaooo)

(disclaimer if u use these types of affirmations and they work for you, go for it. but i used them for a while and they just weren’t it for me. carry on)

i guess what i’m trying to say is, those affirmations weren’t making me feel good. they weren’t making me feel like a “boss ass bitch”. they were making me feel...like a bitch. and strangely, powerless. i’d say these affirmations, or just bland ones where i wasn’t necessarily demanding my sp to throw himself at my feet and kiss my shoes and tell me he is nothing without me, and ultimately, if i wasn’t feeling resentment, i was feeling...nothing. 

once again, i want to make this so so so clear, you don’t need to be happy to manifest. but my belief? if your affirmations aren’t making you feel joy, or excitement, or contentment, then what’s the fucking point? if you think of your desire, and don’t feel positive feelings about it, then you might have lost your way a little. 

don’t worry!! it’s an easy fix. easy, and even...fun? rewarding? comforting? i just want you to take some time--laying in bed at night is the perfect time to do this in my experience--to think about why you want your desire so badly. do you want money? think of how great life is going to be once you have it. of all the stuff you’re going to buy, for yourself, and maybe even for others. don’t focus on the problems you want to fix with it right now. think of that clothing item you’ve had your eye on, or that book you’ve been wanting to read but haven’t felt like “wasting” money on. think of how excited you are to buy those things, because you’re going to! think of the good. not the bad.

remember: you create more of what you focus on. focus on the good, get the good. focus more on the bad...get more of the bad. 

your manifestation is done. it is created. it is on it’s way to you. it is here! all there’s left to do is feel excited. it’ll be here any moment now, how fucking exciting is that! it’s safe for you to be happy. it’s safe for you to focus on the feelings you would have if you had it, rather than focus on affirming specifically to bring it to you. it is safe to be happy. 

i used to affirm solely for contact, all day every day, and sometimes i’d get it. but it’d be short lived, my sp would be distant, etc. but then once i started focusing on truly living in the end and basking in my love for my sp, thinking about how perfect and amazing he is, i not only got contact (without having to specifically affirm for it), but he was actively engaged in our conversations, making up new topics to keep the conversation going, asking me about and expressing interest in my hobbies and interests, bringing up and reminiscing on old memories of our previous relationship, complimenting me, flirting with me, asking me to hang out, etc. shit i was not getting when i was “he is so fucking in love with me and he’s texting me right fucking now”-ing all day long. i started focusing on how amazing and perfect and good to me he was, and that’s exactly what i got in my reality. who would’ve thunk? 

and you know what? yeah, he fucking loves me. he misses me and he wants to be with me. but that’s a given. but that doesn’t fucking matter. i am the only person who matters in my reality!! sure he loves me, but do i love him??? that’s what the universe wants to know. that’s what truly fucking matters. the universe brings me my desires. so i’m gonna fucking desire it! 

guys, please trust me on this. just try it out, with whatever you’re manifesting. this could be what you’re missing. this could bring your manifestation to you. i promise, if you’re like i was and feel resententment or anger or hatred towards your desire, this is going to make you feel so fucking good. just stick with this for a week or two. i promise, you’ll see movement.

and remember, there is no one to change but self. don’t change them (or it), change your perception of them (or it). 

let’s make manifesting fun again!!! it’s the perfect tool to bring happiness into your life. so fucking let it!!!! 

so no, you don’t need to be happy in order to manifest. but....maybe, just maybe, prioritizing your happiness isn’t such a bad thing. i mean, who doesn’t want to be happy?

[traumxrei-archive]

quick shit post before i go to sleep,

i'm currently playing book 4 on my jp acc, and i'm literally playing the "try not to fall in love with jamil viper" challenge every two seconds. (the floating text on the side is the english translations in case anyone's wondering sjdjdn)

[ book 4 spoilers, jamil analysis, book 4 n 2 comparison, and bad pick up lines below the cut ! ]

like jfc, what are you doing you snake man ? tryna slither-in to my heart ? (bad joke, ik) i know that he's manipulating yuu but hey, you can manipulate me any day ahaha /j

dude when he's like "you'll help us out, right ?" in that VOICE of his. almost dropped my phone. like sir that is dangerous for the health of my heart. but also, yes, i'll help you out with whatever you need, let's make you housewarden, sorry kalim–

like man i haven't even gotten to the overblot part, and i know him acting this nice is fake but i can't help but like him. someone start playing clown music right now bc that's me, folks, the biggest clown in existence.

once again mentioning his voice bc i like it sm. and i have his lab sr on en, his voice lines are so funnyyy you bet ur ass i went to go listen to all his lines that i had unlocked. p pog of me, ik.

n then like his story. man. again i haven't gotten to the overblot, but ik him well enough to know that he's been throwing away everything and folding his own talents and achievements up so small and telling everyone they're insignificant, all to appease his family and live up to his responsibilities. and the control over his emotions too. living like that must be so exhausting. how numb must he have felt to make a plan like this to overthrow kalim ? they were friends once upon a time, but now their relationship's all twisted, tangled with half-truths and whole-trust, a spider web that will forever exist in some dark corner of his mind. i wonder, did he feel sick as he manipulated kalim ? did he ever want to stop, only for his resentment to fan flames of anger so big it burnt all his compassions away ? did he feel that intense satisfaction when he learned that everyone sided with him except for poor, innocent kalim who he could never be free from.

also does anyone else feel like book 4 is like. similar to book 2 but if book 2 was actually written well– the major plot is kinda the same, there's a person who's in power they want to overthrow. (malleus in magift/spelldrive vs kalim being housewarden) n the mastermind makes a plan so that they will get glory in the end. it's just the planning part that's different + how they got to their goals.

like jamil is rallying and using people's opinions in order to get to his goal. he makes use of his powers to manipulate kalim and make HIM the bad guy, since he knew public opinion on kalim wouldn't change overnight. to get what he wanted he bides his time and continues to build his own reputation whilst destroying kalim's. in the end, he adds fuel to the fire by making ppl believe that kalim's housewarden position was given to him bc of the al-asim name, making them all rally around him. which was so fucking badass and hot of him to do. he is gaslight gatekeep girlbossing all that shiz.

meanwhile leona. the base of the plan is v good, taking out players by injuring them would give them a bigger chance to win their games. but that last part ??? had me so confused ?? like wdym you're gonna make a stampede at the parade and run over the diasomnia players, that's so fucken stupid. and it doesn't make sense contextually bc leona's whole shtick is making spelldrive easier so that savanaclaw could win over diasomnia. but why tf would you ALSO injure malleus, its so counteractive since that was the last chance he had at beating them in a tournament.

n in octavinelle arc we CLEARLY see that leona's smart, so idk why he would choose such a dumb plan that would put malleus outta commission (he was literally advocating NOT to put him in the hall of fame.) if anything leona should've taken a page from jamil's book and made people hate malleus, whether by framing him for the accidents or starting rumors, or whatever. (n e ways enough abt leona dndjfjf)

also, it's so fucken funny seeing kalim's personality switch from nice to mean every two seconds. bc like he's being KMT (kalim maji tenshi aka kalim mega angel) n then the next second he's a broody angsty boy who yells at people for not raising an umbrella high enough over their own head. n i don't find his yelling voice scary at all :')))

but also. i find it so wholesome that the entirety of scarabia cares so much for kalim, so much so that they hesitate to abandon him because of all the good deeds he did for them. they accepted him even if he wasn't the best at careful planning like the sorcerer of sands. that moment when yuu was like "you love him too much to throw him away." i was about to bawl my figurative heart out. i wanna write more kalim but im so attrocious at writing his personality someone send help and prayers.

i wonder what'll happen next bc iirc i'm at chapter 4-20 (blaze it aha-) n if i'm not wrong there's supposed to be 4-40 sumn chapters ? also i'm not ready for his overblot hhhahhaha i think i'll cry when i see his story-

(it's like 3am ??? 4am ????? as im writing this so sorry for any grammatical errors ! ill fix it when i wake up lmao– edit: there was quite a few n i've fixed them noww)

[kayxleeee]

Loki Laufeyson: Fatuous Love (Loki x Reader)

Warning: SMUT 18+ finger, oral.

A/N: I have PT2 and bait of pt 3, but idk if I’ll end up posting them.

Summary: Loki just wants to make you forget the fate that you can not escape. 

Word Count: 2k+

*NOT MY IMAGE* Do not copy my work

“Do not speak of this again! I do not want to hear another word about this foolishness, (Y/n)!” Your father yelled at you sternly dismissing the complicated conversation at hand. “You will not behave this way when we are guest in this palace. How dare you act like such a child under the same awing as your future king!?” 

You were the soon to be Queen of Asgard, set to marry the prince, Thor son of Odin, god of thunder and future king of Asgard. Any woman would be overly joyed to be in your shoes, but you personally could not stand the thought. It was an unchangeable fate that you could not bare, so for about the one-hundredth time you plead and  beg your father to let you out of the arrangement.

“But father, I do not love him!” You cry out in frustration.

“THEN YOU WILL LEARN! This is berserk and if you ask me you are ungrateful and are no better than his fatuous brother! I will not tolerate this one more second!”He narrows  his eyes and stares you down as if testing you to speak again. When you don’t, he storms out of your room slamming the door so hard you were sure the kingdom could hear its echo.

Unfortunately for you, you were in love with the wrong Allfather child. Loki was the one thing that you could not resist, your forbidden fruit if you will. He was not supposed to be yours, and you were not supposed to be his because it has been written in prophesy. Even when the three of you were children playing in the garden under the sun, you only had eyes for the mischievous one. It seemed that everyone in your family knew your fascination of the dark hair boy and it only grew fonder as you aged. Although the fascination was known, the extents of your relationship was oblivious to them all, even Thor. As adults, your relationship soon blossomed into more than just lust or want, but it became more of love and an urgent need to be around him. This feeling is why you fought so hard to get out of this arrangement with Odin Allfather, which ended with you marrying his first born son.

Loki was the most incredible being you had ever come to know. Arrogant? Yes. Mischievous? Absolutely. Selfish? Sometimes… But also in the same breath he was  loving, with the most beautiful soul. For some reason he has always had a soft spot for you, even when he hated everyone else. He has always put you first, even before the two of you were romantically involved and he would do anything in his power to try and please you.

You angrily finish getting ready for bed, slipping your hair into a silk wrap and letting your night gown loosely flow against your skin. You get into your nicely made bed turning off the lamp that sat on your bedside table. You lay in the darkness of the room, over your soft sheets, wishing there was a way to get out of this marriage. You then see your door push ajar slowly as the light from the hallway illuminates the bedroom. The shine of the light quickly goes away as the door closes, just as it was opened.

“Fatuous?” You hear his familiar voice fill the silence of the room as he walks in. Your heart swells at the sound of his voice and butterflies filled the pit of your stomach. This is how he made you feel on a daily basis, just by being in his ever lasting presence. “He believes I am Fatuous.” He scoffs. “I may be many things, but I am without a doubt, unquestionably not Fatuous.” He chuckles slightly as he makes his way onto your bed.

“Loki, my love!” You smile ear to ear reaching your hands out to him as he climbed beside you, engulfing you into a warm embrace, his soft sleeping garments brushing against your skin. “I have not seen you all day.”  You pout.

“That is because you have been busy all day, with my idiotic brother.” He reminds you. “Although I am fond of your father, I thought he would never leave.” He says referring to the argument he overheard. “And I am not fatuous.” 

“I know my love.” Is all you say as the two of you lay there quietly in each other’s embrace enjoying every moment of it. The warmth of each other and the rhythms of your breath was all you needed to feel close to him. “I love you…” You mumble breaking the silence. “And I’m sorry this is set in the prophecy” 

“You say this every time we meet.”

“Because I am— it makes this venture so much more miserable.”

He sighs loudly shaking his head, “Please, we can speak of it another time. Tonight we shall just enjoy each other.” He smiled as he places a kiss to your temple. 

You wished it could only be that easy. He did not understand that the time was winding down quickly and in a few short months you would be marrying Thor, and all of this would have to end, regardless of how either of you felt.

“But of course,” He speaks again as he switches his position slightly, “that won’t stop you from worrying will it?” He lets out a small chuckle to himself, already knowing your mind is going around in unusual circles.

“Of course you know me.” You let out a slight giggle as he runs his hands over your sides, the pads of his finger tips tickling you as he caressed. 

“Well, what if I said I have a remedy.” He coos smoothly, mischief in his voice.

His hands begin to travel down the side of your curves, outlining every inch that he could over your night gown. He slides it up slowly as he begins to caress your hips with one hand  and make his way down the shape of your thigh with the other. His fingers sneakily pads to the inner of your thigh,  sliding in between pressing them apart slightly and you shift your position so that you are  laying on your back instead of your side.

“Loki…” You say in a low voice.

“Yes?” He says inching away from you and positioning himself in between your legs. “Remember when we first met each others acquaintance? Meek children I suppose, enjoyed sweet treats and childs play. Now look at us, adults with weakness in each other. You are my weakness, my dear.”

You lay there with your legs spread apart, giving him access as he continues to trail his finger down your thighs and then back up. He grips each thigh in either hand as a smirk played against his lip. He takes his hand  raising up your night gown completely exposing the dark black color of your satin underwear. He rubs his hand over your covered core, causing your breath to hitch into your throat.

“Loki.” His name falls from your mouth again, this time in a desperate whisper as the feeling of need is building up in your core. “What are you doing?”

“Whatever you would like me to be doing your highness?” This came out in a low growl, sending chills over you. He continues his hand movements on your covered pussy.

“We shouldn’t.” You bite down on your bottom lip to stop yourself from letting out any type of moan.

“What would you like me to be doing (Y/n)?” He repeats himself now tugging at your underwear. “Live a little my pet, nothing will change our fait, we might as well enjoy our time together. Even if this is the last night I every intention to pretend that you are all mine. Oh my beauty, there’s no need for you to feel sorry for yourself, when I can help you forget.”  He smirks. 

“I want you to help me forget.” You follow his words.

“Then that shall be what I do.” He says confidently as he places kisses down your inner thigh, leading them to your core. His confidence and skill was what aroused you quickly as you felt his hot breath. His tongue delicately rolls over your clit, his skillful rolls making you wet almost immedietly.  He massages the inside of your thigh as he continues to lap his tongue over your pussy.

“You are so beautiful.” He marvels lifting your thighs over his shoulders for better access. “And all mine.”

 He skillfully connects his entire mouth to the fabric open mouth kissing and rolling his tongue all over your parts. You moan at the new sensation of him hiking up your undergarments causing friction against your clit as he soaks them with his mouth. 

Loki pulls away only to pull off your now soaking wet underwear “Look at you, so beautiful.” He admires you again helping you out of them and then going back down to get back to work, this time sloppier.

In no time you are a moaning mess. He laps his tongue around your clit down to your entrance, over and over again. Your moans get progressively louder as he continues the movements of his tongue causing a sloshing noise from the wetness.

“Ohhh.” Is all you could  manage out as you grip his dark hair and barrie his face deeper into your pussy. “Don’t stop.” You moan breathlessly, the noises from your wetness enough to make you cum.

He lets out a growl into your core, the vibrations sending you into over drive. As you run your fingers through his hair you arch your back bucking your hips, needing him to keep going. He removes his mouth pushing your hips down, grounding you down to the bed as he slipped a finger into your wet folds. You throw your head back has he adds another, moaning all types of profanity.

“Listen to me (Y/n), while you marry my brother, I want you to remember how I’m making you feel in this moment. All wet for me not him.” He says maliciously. “Who’s making you feel so good?” He asked this while gliding his thumb over your clit fast as he thrust his fingers into you hitting that sweet spot that makes your toes curl.

“I’m so close Loki! My love I’m so close…” You moan louder as you roll your hips, grinding on to his fingers as they fuck you.

Loki thrusts is fingers into you faster, meeting your grinds while hitting your g spot. You felt the familiar warm feeling spreads from the bundle of nerves that is your clit to the pit of your belly as you began to cum over his hands. 

-

After you come down from your high, he finds his way back up to you lying next to you as you shift  positions to lay on his chest.

“You're too good to me and I can’t live without you.” You say feeling the warmth of his body as he wrapped his arms around you tightly. “But we can’t keep doing this.”

“I think we can.” He chuckles to himself. “They all are incompetent, so I think we can manage our time.” He says rubbing small circles onto your back. “ They hardly even notice you’re involved with someone who isn’t their beloved prince. “ Loki sighs. 

“There is no way for me to get out of it.” You relax in his embrace and trace the lines of the sleeping garment he has on. “It will be a sad lonely life of being Thor Odisons wife.”

“Listen to me,” His voice is now more serious. “... you need not to worry about that because it most certainly won’t be a sad lonely life. You will have me (Y/n), and I will not be going anywhere.” He kisses your head. “I most certainly do not say this quite enough, but I love you .”

You sighed. You knew his words were kind, but there was no point in pretending this wasn’t pointless. The only thing that was fatuous, was loving someone and not having them completely. Love is the fatuous one.

“I love you too” You finally mumble before closing your eyes ready to drift off to sleep as he continues rubbing soothing circles around your back.

Comments, Questions, Opinions :)

See more of what I have written so far: Masterlist

[egcdeath]

checkmate

summary: you’ve always refused to lose, and love was no exception. (gone girl-ish au)

pairing(s): ransom drysdale x dark!reader, a special mystery guest ;) 

word count: 3.7k

warnings: 18+ because of heavy themes! faked death, framing of crimes, manipulation, alluding to sex, alluding to cheating, terrible relationship dynamic, very loose usage of the word crazy/psychotic, implied mention of self harm, brief choking & slapping (in a non sexual way lol), pregnancy trapping (idk if thats the right term), the reader is a very bad human being, overuse of italics  *please let me know if i’m missing any warnings!

author’s note: this is my 2nd submission for @stargazingfangirl18’s 5k soft dark challenge, i decided to make the reader dark >:) but ransom is also not a good person. I used these prompts: “I’ve waited a long time for this, sweetheart.” & The town golden *girl isn’t as sweet as everyone thinks.

this is definitely the most unhinged thing i’ve ever written, but blame @literate-lamb for making me write this because when i pitched this to her and said that i’d probably never write it, she enabled me. 

okay that's enough from me. join my taglist if you want :D

“I know women whose entire personas are woven from a benign mediocrity. Their lives are a list of shortcomings: the unappreciative boyfriend, the extra ten pounds, the dismissive boss, the conniving sister, the straying husband. I've always hovered above their stories, nodding in sympathy and thinking how foolish they are, these women, to let these things happen, how undisciplined. And now to be one of them! One of the women with the endless stories that make people nod sympathetically and think: Poor dumb bitch.” Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

Your whole life, you’d considered yourself a competitive person. Constantly overcompensating for one thing or another, whether it was the chronic desire to achieve perfection that had been installed in you since you were a little girl, or your persistent internalized sense of inadequacy. You realized early on that it was much better for you to win than for you to lose, no matter the physical, emotional, or mental cost of the prize of perfection.

For the most part, this mindset worked out for you. You graduated as Valedictorian from your high school, neared the top of your graduating class at Harvard. God knew you earned it, all those tears you shed into overpriced textbooks, all the popping of unprescribed Adderall, and robbing yourself of the parties and social events that the rest of your peers gladly indulged in. 

You were just different, which was why you gained a job nearly immediately after your exit from school, quickly climbing to the top at the Blood Like Wine publishing company after only a few years of being there. 

And one night, at the party celebrating the release of A Thousand Knives when you laid your eyes on Hugh Ransom Drysdale, the grandson of your boss, you knew that you needed to have him. Rich, hot, a bit of an asshole. You deserved to finally complete your image, and that socialite flavored eye candy seemed to fit the part perfectly. Luckily for you, he was desperate. It only took a few tugs on your dress’ V-line, and a number of knowing smirks to find yourself being finger-banged in his family manor’s bathroom.

From there, you wormed your way into his life. Leaving belongings at his place as an excuse to come back, and offering booty calls in the middle of the night. Ransom must’ve been much more desperate than you originally thought, as it really only seemed to take one night of stroking his hair while he vented about his family to make him want to be with you. Men with mommy issues were always so easy. 

Except, he wasn’t that easy. The longer you got to know Ransom, the more fucked up you realized he really was. He had no boundaries at all, became jealous and enraged at the drop of a pin, and occasionally told you things that made the hairs on your arms rise. 

This of course all came to a head after the night of Harlan’s 85th birthday party. When the news broke of his tragic death, you’d immediately known it was the works of your Hugh. If your intuition wasn’t enough, his confession in the shower, where he’d demanded you take off your clothes to display that you were without a bug, certainly was. 

You were completely devastated. The man that you’d invested so much into for years had thrown both his and your reputations down the drain in just a matter of hours. Of course, you felt bad for Harlan too. He was a good guy (when he wasn’t instigating a family fight).

Still, you showed up during the funeral in your best mourning clothes and dawning your biggest crocodile tears. You rubbed Linda’s back while she mourned the loss of her father, and the new truth about her husband. You played dumb when interrogated by some Southern private investigator, even giving Ransom an airtight alibi. You testified on his behalf in court with enough conviction to grant you an Emmy. 

You’d gotten so far, devoted so much energy into him, that you simply refused to lose now. 

To your friends, you’d seemed to lead a near perfect life. Dream job, dreamy boyfriend, dream bank account, but it wasn’t enough. You wanted more, you just didn’t know what. 

It dawned on you while sipping mimosas at the country club, Ransom playing tennis with his friends just a few yards away from you while Danielle showed off her brand new engagement ring, a .59 Carat Asscher Diamond, that if you heard her speak of again, would probably make you lose your shit.

You zoned out as she droned on and on about the shape, and how Matt proposed to her in their own private room in one of the most exclusive Parisian restaurants, instead focusing on how you could find yourself in the same position as that airhead next to you. In all honesty, you couldn’t stand the idea that someone was doing better than you, let alone someone in your own social circle. Dani got all the bragging rights of being engaged to the heir of some tech giant, being the first in your friend group to get eloped, and worst of all, Matt wasn’t even making her sign a prenup. 

You blankly watched Ransom from afar, taking occasional sips from your sweet drink, while you thought of how you deserved all of that and more, and you were going to get it one way or another. 

——

It didn’t take much to come up with something, your first and most obvious plan being to simply ask Ransom when he was going to propose to you. Of course, this wasn’t the first time you’d tried to approach him about this subject, you just wondered if maybe this time things would be different.

Panting heavily after a rather rough night in bed, you rolled off of your boyfriend’s chest and gave him a messy, yet sincere kiss. You knew your man well, and if there was any time to pop the question, it was in his post-nut haze.

“Baby,” you said breathily, “I wanna ask you something.”

“Shoot,” he responded casually, glancing over at you. 

“When’re you gonna propose to me?” you hummed.

Ransom groaned and shook his head, rolling his eyes, “this is about Matt and Dani, huh?” he tutted, then extended a hand out to your warm cheeks so he could gently caress one with his thumb. “Thought we agreed marriage is just a piece of paper and it’s stupid.”

You huffed in response.

Of fucking course.

“I never said that,” you muttered, setting a hand on his broad chest. “Besides, it’ll be good if you get pissed and decide to like, kill your dad or something. Y’know, spouses don’t have to testify against each other in court.”

Ransom chuckled as if this whole thing was funny, like your feelings were some kind of sick joke to him. “You know my lawyers, babe. They could prove that bees don’t make honey. That bears don’t shit in the forest. I appreciate your attempt, though. This has been some really nice pillow talk.” 

“Whatever,” you muttered, pinching his nipple in retaliation before turning your back to him and yanking the blanket onto your side. 

You weren’t sure why you were so surprised that he was being stubborn, most of the time you felt like you were pulling teeth from the man. But that’s why you had a backup plan! You always had a backup plan. That’s what separated you from your boyfriend. Where Ransom was extemporized and impulsive, you were calculating and prudent. 

Although you devised your plan that very afternoon while watching your partner backhand small green balls, you were going to need some time to get everything in order, to prove Murphy and his stupid law wrong in making sure that everything that could go wrong wouldn’t. 

After all, love was a game. And you sure as hell weren’t losing to Hugh Drysdale. 

——

You sacrificed too much to have your plans ruined by some trust fund baby with impulsivity issues. You deserved your dream marriage, the stability you wished you had as a child. You wanted the white picket fence, and everything that came along with it. Your desire to be the best, to be perfect was what drove you to poke holes in every condom in the box, what led you to draw liters of your own blood in hopes of staging a fake crime scene, to buy a cheap getaway car and burner phone off of Craigslist, and reach out to a high school boyfriend who you knew was in a position as desperate as you. 

You planted seeds of doubt in your friends throughout the following weeks, feeding them lies about Ransom’s behavior, how you were afraid of telling him that you did in fact see two faint red lines on that damn plastic stick– only half of the statement truly being false–, telling them that he was behaving erratically lately.

It all was going without a hitch. Ransom didn’t seem to notice anything was off, despite your frequent visits to the bathroom and newfound affinity for true crime documentaries. 

You almost felt guilty, knowing the world of pain you were about to throw the man into. Granted, he deserved the pain. You were in a relationship with a genuinely terrible person, and that person had made a conscious effort not to commit to you. You tried to make this easy for him, give him a chance to say a few words to you and slide a ring on your finger, but no, he always seemed to take the hard route.

You slept like a baby the night before you were setting your plan in action. You made sure to uphold the facade of everything being fine, making Ransom a nice breakfast before sending him halfway across town to the hardware store with an oddly incriminating list.

Once he was out of the house, you hurried off to the fridge in the garage where you’d been keeping a small stash of your own blood. It wasn’t pretty, but it had to be done. You poured the blood throughout the kitchen, splattering bits of it on the counters and cupboards. You poorly cleaned the mess, just as he would.

You put your next move in motion, falsifying a home invasion. You tossed over a table and some chairs, throwing books and photos onto the floor, but left some aspects slightly untouched, like an upright picture frame to give yet another hint that things were not exactly what they appeared. 

You left a tiny blue post-it note on the nightstand of Ransom’s side of the bed, a quick and simple doodle of a ring along with the first initial of your name inked onto the tiny piece of paper. 

With that, you were off. Technically missing, soon-to-be presumed dead.

----

 The days following your disappearance had gone even better than you’d initially planned. Local news coverage had been all over you, search and rescue groups were assiduously looking for you, your parents had opened a tip line, and begged for you to get home safe on news segments. But the best part of it all was that Ransom had been briefly found himself in police custody, only to be released shortly thereafter. His past of an accused murder quickly made your disappearance even more of a national story, and you watched the whole thing unravel from the safety and comfort of your high school boyfriend, Andy Barber’s Newton home. 

Of course, you fed him the same lies you’d given to your friends, and seeing the rather lonely position he was in, he gladly let you stay with him. You were absolutely having a hay-day with it all, dedicating hours of your day to watching Ransom slowly unravel. Maybe it was a bit sadistic of you to enjoy torturing your partner so much, but he needed to learn his lesson. You deserved better. You needed Ransom to rise up to your level, allowing you to finally complete your image. To let you two appear to be the perfect couple. Really, this was all on him.

Andy, for the most part, had been a good host. He was gone for the majority of the day, dedicating himself to his work while you lounged around on his dangerously cozy couch. Around two weeks into your stay, you were sharing a box of pizza in the living room with your old lover when something interesting on the television caught your eye.

Ransom, broadcasted on CBS, being interviewed on your disappearance. 

You watched with wide eyes as Ransom begged for your return on national television. It was one thing seeing your mother plead for you to come back, the same woman who had installed such toxic behavior in you sob for your return, but Ransom. You’d never loved him more than in that moment.

“Hugh, if you could tell Y/N one thing, what would it be?” the interviewer asked.

Ransom turned, looking straight at the camera, directly into your soul, “Y/N, I love you so much. More than you’ll ever know. I need you to come back safely, to see you, to hold you again. I’d give anything in the world for that right now,” he looked down, a tear falling down his cheek. “I can’t live without you in my life, I-”

His sentence was cut off by Andy grabbing the remote, and turning off the TV. You turned your head and frowned deeply at him.

“Why’d you do that?” you asked with a bit of a pout.

“I just couldn’t stand listening to him talk about you like he hasn’t treated you like shit for the past few years. C’mon, let’s get ready for bed.”

Your blood boiled. Andy was once a means to an end, but now he was interfering. He was clearly much too selfish to see that you and Ransom were quite obviously soulmates. A match made in hell. 

You followed him to bed regardless, curling up on what had been your side of the bed for the past few days, and staring at the wall until Andy’s breaths moved from a soft and rhythmic pattern to loud snores. God, those snores were obnoxious. 

You slipped out of bed and to his dresser, grabbing two soft ties from the drawer, and daintily tying his wrists to each side of the bedpost.

“What‘re you doing?” he mumbled, instinctively yanking both of his wrists as he awoke.

“I’m going back home,” you whispered.

“You can’t be serious,” Andy huffed, tugging on the restraint attached to the headboard.

You shook your head, “I am.”

“I should’ve known. Why would you do something like this? Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in with the law?”

“Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in when the world finds out that you kidnapped me?” you retorted.

This threat seemed to wake him up right away, “what about this was kidnapping? I gave you a nice home, fed you, I didn’t even make a pass at you. I didn’t do shit to you,” he hissed. “You think I can’t prove that? I’m a lawyer, for god's sake!”

You nearly laughed, “Okay, Andy,” you paused for a moment, “As a lawyer, who do you think everyone’ll believe? Someone who the world was on a wild goose chase for in the last two weeks? Or the man with a family history of violence? Must I remind you that your father and your son have killed people?”

Andy shook his head, face pinched in sorrow at the mention of his deceased son, clearly a low blow. “You’re insane,” he muttered.

“Swear to god that you won’t tell a soul what happened here,” you leaned over him, getting right in his face. “Or I promise, Andrew Barber, I will ruin you. You’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars, or disbarred, or whatever the hell I decide to do with you. So keep your goddamn lips shut.” 

You pulled away and he solemnly nodded, not bothering to put up a fight. You loosened the fabric around his left wrist and walked out of the room. You picked up the keys to Andy’s Audi on your way out, checking the time as you adjusted the driver's seat. 

9:45 PM. Fatherhood really changed the man.

You pushed that thought aside and began your drive home, which turned out to be a surprisingly short trip. When you pulled up in front of your home, you were met with a slew of reporters outside of the house, along with a police car that seemed to be permanently camped there.

As you slowly got out of the car, a gasp, followed by a loud silence fell across the crowd. You limped for dramatic effect up the driveway as cameras followed you, and glanced back at them pathetically. From your peripheral view, you noticed the officers get out of their vehicle.

You finally got to your door, ringing the doorbell and waiting. You blinked harshly a few times, conjuring up the tears you needed to really make a spectacle of the event. After a few minutes, Ransom opened the door, eyes widening as he looked at you. He stepped out, and you wrapped him in as big of a hug as you could manage, genuinely missing his embrace. It was possible that you even let out a few real tears in the moment.

Your emotional embrace was interrupted by the man you recognized as Lieutenant Elliott, the same officer who’d been assigned to Harlan’s case. 

“Ma’am,” he began, only to be shut down by you. 

“Please, just let me be with my boyfriend,” you pleaded, crocodile tears streaming down your face as you spoke with the officer. You still needed time to get your story straight.

“Just give us the night, Lieutenant. We’ll come in first thing tomorrow morning,” Ransom added, furrowing his brows at the officer that he’d come into contact with far too many times. 

He looked to his partner, who shrugged, then to you, “enjoy your night.”

Cameras flashed around you as civilians, journalists, and newscasters alike attempted to catch your attention. You grabbed Ransom’s hand and dramatically pulled him inside, insincerely attempting to hide your face by ducking and covering half of your face with your arm. 

As soon as you were in the privacy of your own home, Ransom threw you against a wall. 

“Why. The fuck. Would you pull a stunt like that,” he hissed through gritted teeth, eyes wild, and a hand around your throat. 

You whimpered as he tightened his grip, rage clearly flowing through his system uncontrollably.

“Do you know what you did to me? You almost had me thrown in fucking jail. Do you understand that?”

You nodded weakly, “Ran,” you whispered, “the baby,” you glanced down at your stomach.

He paused, dropping his grip on your neck and staring at you in awe, “no…” 

You nodded again. 

“How…? You told me you were on the pill… You- you made me use protection…”

“Surprise?” you said weakly. 

“You’re a psychotic bitch.”

“I’m your psychotic bitch. And no child of mine will be born out of wedlock,” you taunted. 

“That’s what this is about?” Ransom laughed manically. “You did this all because I won’t fucking marry you?”

You didn’t even have to respond.

“I should send you to the loony bin right fucking now.”

“What happened to all those things you said to me on TV?”

“You’re fucking delusional. I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. And you will. I’ve had to put up with you and your stupid little antics for way too long. How do you think I felt when you killed your own grandfather?”

Ransom scoffed, throwing his hands up in exasperation, “you are so fucked up.”

“I’m the fucked up one? You killed your own blood in cold blood! You’re unhinged!” 

“You faked your own death for attention, and got pregnant while doing it! Is that baby even mine?”

“The fuck are you trying to say, Hugh?”

“I asked if it’s even mine.”

“Really. You’re accusing me of cheating on you. That’s rich considering Mia, Layla, and whoever the fuck else. You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m being ridiculous? You couldn’t have a normal adult conversation with me!”

“Are you kidding me? I asked you time after time to marry me and it was always some bullshit excuse!” you wagged a finger in his face as you spoke. “Oh, commitment scares me, oh, marriage is just a piece of paper, oh-“ you mocked his voice in a deeper tone before you were cut off by the sting of his hand against your cheek.

“Can you shut the hell up?” he growled at you as you held your own cheek, before you reached out and slapped him back, “I can’t believe that I’m stuck with such a deranged bitch for the rest of my life.”

“Maybe work on your vows a little, dear. I don’t think that those words are as charming to me as they’d be to the rest of our family and friends.”

“You can’t be serious,” he groaned.

“But I am,” you hummed, rubbing your cheek softly once again. “Look at how fast your life fell apart without me here. How quickly the public turned on you. Imagine how upset they’d be if you left me. I love you, Ran. I really do. You and I are perfect for each other, can’t you see that now?”

Ransom took a step away from you, pacing slowly in front of you. He ran a stressed hand through his hair, and took a long and drawn out breath, clearly at a loss for words.

“So when should we have the wedding? I’ve always wanted a Spring wedding, and I know it’s a little short notice, but I don’t want to be showing too much in my wedding dress,” you grabbed Ransom’s bicep gently, as if you were just having a regular old day with him, as if you hadn’t been choked and slapped moments ago. “But we can make it work. We always make it work, right?”

Your now fiancé stared vacantly at the wall ahead of him, giving you a slow, empty nod of agreement. 

“It’s settled then,” you smirked. “I’ll start looking at venues. You find me a nice ring, okay Honey? One that puts all those other bitches’ rings to shame,” you sighed pleasantly to yourself, “I’ve waited a long time for this, sweetheart.”

You pressed a soft kiss to his cheek before hurrying up the stairs and into your bedroom. You heard a distant shriek of  “fuck,” from Ransom, but you truly could not care less. 

You hopped into bed, grabbing your laptop from its charger and promptly opening it. You couldn’t help but to smile at your own reflection on the empty black screen. This wasn’t how you imagined your engagement, but you did the impossible. You tied yourself down to Hugh Ransom Drysdale, he went down kicking in screaming, and you were likely in for a lifetime of cheating and resentment, but you did it nonetheless. 

You finally won.  

[gins-potter]

Casting Thoughts

Yes, I did a long post when the rumours first dropped but hey now it’s confirmed plus we have characters descriptions, and I’m bored so let’s do this all over again people.  Under the cut because it got long

Sisi Stringer as Rose Hathaway

I said this in my other post but I’m pretty happy with Sisi as Rose.

Visually I think she’s a great fit, I love that they casted a WoC in the main role, and I think if she can bring Rose’s humour and sarcasm to the role, she’s going to do great.

The character description mentions Rose being “fiery and outspoken”, happy to jump into the action, and the strongest fighter in her class but struggling to toe the line, which is all very Rose-esque, especially in the first book.  It sounds to me like they have a good grasp on her character.

I’m a little disappointed we didn’t hear more about Rose as a character since she is the lead - it felt like the descriptions for Lissa and Dimitri both gave us a little more to go on - but it is only a very preliminary description so I’m happy to wait for more.

Daniela Nieves as Lissa Dragomir

Daniele is another one who I was happy with straight away.

She’s probably not what I imagined for Lissa visually but that’s not a bad thing either; I will be interested to see if they dye her hair a lighter colour (like a caramel-blonde) but personally that’s not something I need to see for her to be a great fit for Lissa.

I think she has a very sweet face which works well for a character like Lissa but I think she’s also going to be able to stand up in Lissa’s more fiercer moments which is nice to see as well.

The character descriptions mentions her as being “carefree and kind-hearted” who “coasts” through life until a death in the family thrusts her into a new role.  That sounds a lot like pre-series Lissa so I wonder if we’re going to see a bit of that in the show before Andre (and her parents??) die and see that change.  

It’s curious though that she’s described as the younger sister of the heir apparent - which would be Andre - so it sounds like they’ve changed it so Andre was supposed to be King.  Obviously a deviation from the books but I don’t hate it?  I don’t think it would change Lissa’s arc all that much because obviously she was always going to grow up to be an influential royal figure, this just slightly changes the dynamics of it.

The description also specifically mentions that she’s uninterested in “political machinations” and the “hypocrisy of the moroi royal society” which sounds very accurate to book!lissa as well.

All in all I’m very happy with what they’re doing with Lissa.

Keiron Moore as Dimitri Belikov

This is one who’s really grown on me since the rumoured cast list started circulating.  At first I was kind of eh about him but I can really see him as Dimitri now.

I will be curious to see if he grows out his hair or not though.

As far as I know Keiron is not Russian, there’s not a lot about him online, but there’s some instagram activity on his account linking him to UK based companies so that would be my guess as to where he’s from.  They’ve kept Dimitri’s incredibly Russian name so I guess we’re to assume Keiron might be doing an accent and they’re keeping Dimitri’s backstory relatively the same?  I’m not gonna be super mad if they change it just because I think it’s doable for him not to be Russian (I know, I know a whole book is set in Russia but lbr here they could make him from anywhere and just send Rose there in that book).

The biggest thing for me will be his chemistry with Sisi, Danila and Zoey had great chemistry (imo anyway) which saved the move a little for me, so it’ll be important that Sisi and Keiron do as well.  They’ve interacted a few times online which is cute so I’m hoping they were able to do some chemistry reads and that will translate on screen.

The character description mentions Dimitri as being “lethal, disciplined, discreet, and totally committed” as well as living by “a deep moral code” but with more going on “beneath his stoic, watchful surface” which sounds exactly like book!Dimitri to me.

They don’t really specify what his role at St Vlad’s is going to be but they do mention that he is a guardian so I’m assuming they’re keeping some sort of age gap between him and Rose.  They also don’t mention anything about their relationship in the description, be it student/teacher, platonic, romantic, whatever, but they do say he has “an expansive spirit that could threaten to expose the underlying tension between his sense of what’s right and his formal duty to the Moroi.” which seems like a nod to their relationship.

Andre Dae-Kim as Christian Ozera

This was one of my favourite casting choices from the original rumoured cast list and I still love it.

The idea of a non-white Christian makes a lot of sense to me and I think Andre could do a great job of Christian’s aloofness (in the first book) as well as his sarcasm and growing confidence across the other books.

His character description confuses me a bit though: “Intelligent and thoughtful, Christian is the pariah of the school and royal court, due to his parents’ unforgivable societal sins.” sounds accurate enough to the book (although idk if thoughtful is quite the word I’d use for Christian - maybe they mean it in the sense that he’s quiet and keeps to himself?).

Even “Well-read and hungry for knowledge” doesn’t sound that far off, idk if he was *that* particularly studious in the books, but it doesn’t necessarily not make sense either you know?

But “he searches for faith-based answers and discovers a kindred spirit who is also looking for the truth” ??? My cynical, irreverent asshole Christian is now a man of faith? I’m assuming Lissa is the “kindred spirit” (again weird word choice but maybe they mean she’s feeling lost because of the death of her family?) but I just cannot see Christian as being particularly religious.

I’m trying to keep an open mind about these changes because you never know they might play out totally different on screen, but I really hope they didn’t make these changes, particularly that Christian is studious and religious, just because they cast an Asian actor as him (because they feel a little like Asian stereotypes).

J August Richards as Victor Dashkov

This is one that didn’t appear on the original rumoured cast list (as far as I saw) and it’s so different to his description in the books that I kind of don’t have an opinion about it as a casting choice.

I’ve never seen him in anything before so purely on a visual level I think he could be a great fit for Victor, I just think it’ll really come down to how he plays it.

As for this character description: “Victor is a Moroi noble vampire with a heart of gold who’s highly regarded for his role as advisor and political strategist to Moroi dignitaries.” as well as mentioning that he has intelligence and influence, sounds pretty accurate to the book.  Obviously if Andre was the heir to the throne, Victor had to be shifted out of that role, but I think his book 1 arc could still work if they wanted it to.

The “heart of gold” bit obviously made me chuckle and I really hope they threw it in there as a kind of decoy to throw non-book-readers off the fact that he’s actually the villain in book 1/s1.

As for giving him a husband and two daughters, my thoughts are: why the fuck not? He didn’t have a love interest in the original books and I’m always down for more lgbtq+ rep.  My only concern is it maybe playing into the trope of evil/villain characters being queer-coded.  And as for having two daughters, well as long as one of them is Natalie I don’t mind.

Anita-Joy Uwajeh as Tatiana Vogel

Okay this is the most bizarre one imo, not because of the casting, but just the character description.

I mean “Tatiana is a Moroi vampire and political underdog who slowly takes the royal court by storm. Motivated by love and a sense of justice, Tatiana has a unique skill of making herself seem of no consequence until we realize much too late that she was always the one to watch.” sounds extremely Tasha Ozera to me, so like why not just make this character Tasha?  Nothing about this sounds like Tatiana, and Tatiana wasn’t even a Vogel anyway (well Vogel wasn’t even one of the 12 royal families), she was an Ivashkov.

In terms of Anita-Joy herself, well I mean we don’t really have a character to compare her to, is she supposed to be more like Tasha or Tatiana?  She looks fairly young, so my guess is actually on Tasha, but we’ll have to wait to see I guess.

Mia McKenna-Bruce as Mia Karp

This is another one that I was instantly a fan of.

I was so not a fan of Mia’s casting in the movie (I can’t even remember who played her tbh but I really didn’t like it) so this Mia is a lot closer to how I imagine her.

I think she’ll be able to carry Mia’s transformation from bratty social-climber to badass fighter really well.

The character description is interesting though.  “Witty, cutting, and just the right kind of ruthless when necessary, non-Royal Mia has a long-term plan to social climb her way into the ranks of royalty, with all the privilege and freedom that entails.” sound pretty bang on to Mia in the first book.

“A plan complicated by her instant chemistry with Meredith, a Guardian-in-training, as Mia struggles to reconcile her attraction to Meredith with her lowly status.” is an obvious deviation though, and one I kind of love???  Give me all the queer rep, and if we get to see Mia confront the issue of comp-het I’m so here for it.  

It’s kind of funny though because I’ve seen theories that Meredith is a replacement for Eddie and Mia/Eddie has always been my sort of rarepair ship.

The last name Karp is weird af though.  Is she supposed to be Sonya’s daughter?  And if that’s the case I wonder if we’re going to actually see Sonya turn Strigoi in the show’s first season or something and that triggers the change in Mia?  Interesting concept but I’m not sure how the timeline will work.

Rhian Blundell as Meredith

So this is another new one, and tbh I hadn’t given Meredith *that* much though in the past but she’s probably close to how I would have pictured her which is cool.

The elephant in the room with this casting is that Meredith’s role in the books was relatively minor - she was just kind of that character that got brought up whenever R.M needed a dhampir who wasn’t Rose/Dimitri/Mason/Eddie.  So clearly she’s going to have a bigger role in the tv show which I don’t mind but I do wonder if we’re going to lose a character - probably Eddie lbr - in order to have her.  They haven’t casted an Eddie yet as far as we know, but I have seen it pointed out that Eddie’s role in book 1 was pretty small so maybe they just aren’t announcing it.  But there’s also the possibility that maybe Meredith will sort of replace Eddie and be the third part of Rose and Mason’s friendship.

I’m very interested by this part of her character description though, “She has little patience for Rose’s volatility or Mia’s elitism, and regularly calls both of them out.”

Jonetta Kaiser as Sonya Karp

I don’t necessarily dislike Jonetta as Sonya but I am confused by this choice.  She looks fairly young, which tbf Sonya was young-ish I guess, but if Mia is supposed to be her daughter she doesn’t look old enough to have a teenaged daughter.  So maybe Sonya and Mia are sisters? Cousins? Just have each other’s last names for no reason? I really don’t know.  They also look nothing alike.

Other than that, I don’t really have an opinion about Jonetta as Sonya.  Obviously looks nothing like how Sonya was described but that’s not new nor a massive concern for me.  

I can’t really tell just from looking at her, and I haven’t seen her in anything, if she would play a good Sonya.  I think with a lot of the characters it’s going to come down to the personality they bring to the part and the writing.

I looooooove her character description though:  “Quiet, careful and decidedly odd, Sonya is not of royal bloodline and sits out on the fringe of Moroi society, preferring to spend her time in the library or her gardens. Not a person who likes a scene, nonetheless she has a quiet but profound power of her own. She is taken by surprise when a Dhampir Guardian named Mikhail shows interest in her, a relationship that will expose both the brightest and darkest parts of her heart.”  It’s everything I would probably want from a description of Sonya and I’m more and more convinced that we’re going to see Sonya’s descent into madness and transformation into a Strigoi play out in maybe the first season which I am so curious how they’re going to work into the timeline.

Andrew Liner as Mason Ashford

Our last one and another one who doesn’t look remotely like his description but again? Not a surprise and not a problem for me.  He looks like he could play Mason’s goofiness really well as well as be a solid contender for a love interest for Rose.

“Charming, loyal and popular, Mason is Rose’s main competition in the quest to become the No. 1 Guardian-in-training. Though their relationship is casual on her side, he is hopeful she will finally look at him and see him as something more.” His character description makes a lot of sense, maybe him being Rose’s main competition is a bit of a deviation? But I think that’s more an indication that he’s supposed to be a strong fighter which isn’t inaccurate to the books.  The rest sounds great.

Other Thoughts

Descriptions of the show specifically mention friendship and classism as major themes which I am very happy to hear about because those are the two parts of VA that I love the most.

Am a little more worried about it being described as “sexy” though, if they shove a whole bunch of meaningless sex scenes in it just because it’s a YA show I’m not gonna be happy.

Seen the show compared to “Game of Thrones” and “Bridgerton” which at first had me like oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck not good not good not good.  But thinking about it more and trying to understand where Plec’s coming from with that description I wonder if means similar to GoT as in the cut-throat nature of the Moroi/Dhampir society cause I can kind of see that.  And as for Bridgerton I wonder if she’s referring to the kind of social-climbing aspects of it, because again that makes sense and it seems like a theme she really wants to concentrate on.  I hope that’s what she means by those comparisons, or that she just wants to compare it to popular shows to get people to watch it.  The worst would be if she tries to throw in a lot of unnecessary sex scenes to make it like those shows, because I hate when they do that, especially when the characters are teenagers.

Interesting to hear that Plec has known about the series since before Twilight or TVD - not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Seems like it’s actually mostly (or all??) written by Marguerite MacIntyre which is interesting because I know people were worried about Julie Plec - I’ve never watched anything by either of them so I’m neutral at this point.

[dashedwithromance]

Secret Moments In A Crowded Room - Princewitch

okay so DISCLAIMER im scared to post this because we’ve never really seen romantic wrath before so idk if people might think this is OOC but i wanted princewitch fluff desperately and cant wait til october. inspired by the teaser quote she released yesterday and ‘dress’ by taylor swift

-

The ball raged on around her, dancers swirling around impossibly fast, flashes of fabric catching the light of the serpent scones. On and on, all without her. Her husband sat to her right on his larger throne, staring into nothing. They had exchanged all of five words that evening.

She did not blame her husband for his coldness, not truly. If their positions were switched, and she had been forced to marry a random demon while still loving and grieving her murdered spouse, she doubted whether she would even manage civility. Pride continued his business, barely taking notice of his young wife, and she was glad, of that, at least. If he’d wanted her... a shudder snaked down her spine, curling in her gut. Her mind still echoed with the unnatural violation of Lust’s magic, and the thought of another demon prince perusing her like that was foul. There was only one prince she wanted, and his sin was wrath.

Dancing in Hell was nothing like she’d seen on the streets of Palermo. Nothing like the carefree dancing of Vittoria, so full of light and life and love that nothing seemed to touch her. Here, movements entwined with danger, every dance a flirtation with living death. People danced with weapons, exchanging daggers and rondels and rapiers like secret lovers. Jewelled garrottes hung around every neck, poisonous pearls glittering in various ornate hairstyles. An unholy masquerade indeed.

Her own mask was a fine decoration of gold and jewels. Metallic serpents entwined across the mosaic-like surface, darker cracks embedded across it. The mask had arrived one evening at her rooms, wrapped in luscious velvet. No letter accompanied it, the only sign of the sender being a golden snake that slithered up her arm before dissolving into sparks. The decoration matched her dress, a similar mosaic of black silk, lace, and golden serpents. Truly befitting a queen.

Fury burned through her as she watched the revellers pass her by. They danced without a care, members of the seven houses intermingling freely. She wanted to scream and shatter the very throne she sat on. How dare they dance as if mere months ago, one of their own had not been taking the hearts of witches? As if she did not sit on a dead witch’s throne? A witch who still had not found justice, who’s body had been ripped to shreds in the cruellest way imaginable?

“Careful, little queen.” Pride’s voice rumbled in her ear. He still did not look at her, but leaned closer to whisper, “Lest the people learn your ungrateful thoughts.”

Closing her eyes to avoid murdering the demon she’d married, she took a deep breath. The air smelt like fire and spirits and the sweat of colliding bodies. Suddenly, the sight of it all disgusted her. The dancing, the drinking, the living, all of it. Selfish, she knew – others were allowed to live despite Vittoria being denied the very same. But she couldn’t help it. She longed for nothing more than her sister to live, even if it meant sacrificing her life to the demon beside her. There was nothing to be done, however. Her sister was lost forever.

The night dwindled on, interrupted by the occasional violent thought towards her situation. Though, as contrary as it sounded, not all was dark about her time in Hell. She had one bright spot, one flame in the dark. Something she kept locked against her chest for fear of discovery.

Casting her eye across the room, she caught the gaze of the hidden secret. Prince Wrath leaned against the wall from across the room, his eyes flickering as they locked with hers. He was dressed in a sinfully beautiful suit, a pattern of golden serpents slithering up the fabric from the floor. The snakes seemed alive in the firelight. Perhaps they were. A smug sense of satisfaction ebbed through her when she realised they matched. No one else would notice – serpents weren’t exactly an uncommon motif in Hell – but they knew, and it was comfort enough. With a movement, so small she nearly missed it, he tilted his head towards the exit.

A thrill raced through her, paired with genuine, loving excitement. They had not been alone in much too long.

Things had not always been so relaxed between her and the prince of Wrath. Her first few weeks in Hell had been spent furiously glaring in his direction. He’d given her the ultimate cold shoulder until she’d nearly burned from it. She’d been full of fury at his leaving her – at the humiliation she felt from having the human audacity to trust a demon. One day, when they crossed each other in a hallway heading to court, her temper had bubbled to boiling.

She remembered yanking him into a nearby room – he let her, she realised now – and yelled at him for the cruelty of leaving her alone. Of giving her hope and wrenching it away, like a child suddenly filled with jealously over a shared toy.

The sheer incredulity on his face was the first indication she was mistaken. He laughed, a sardonic sound coated in disbelief.

“I left you?” His voice was low. The walls around them seemed to thrum in response to his deadly power.

“I left you?” He repeated, “I gave you all the tools to summon me, witch, and you refused. Too good for my help, perhaps.  I have no more responsibilities to you. Our deal is done.”

Wrath turned to leave, but by some miracle, she managed to dart in front of him. Her body was pressed against the door, the cold stone mixing with the heat she felt roaring off him. Emilia should’ve been afraid, should’ve been trembling in her gifted boots at the sight of him, but she wasn’t. Why, she couldn’t quite tell.

His gaze burned into hers, but her own was just as powerful.

“I tried everything to summon you after what Envy did, and you didn’t come.” She hissed. The wrath of a prince was one thing, but hell hath no fury like a witch scorned. “You left me. I was foolish enough to believe you would ca- that you would come for me once, but I will not be fooled twice.”

The look he gave her was indiscernible. Equal parts rage mixed with... something lighter. If anyone else looked at her like that, she would’ve described it as hopeful. But demons did not hope, no more than they loved.

He was scanning her face with the focus of a battle-hardened warrior. Whatever it was he found made him take a step back.

“What did you do wrong?” He muttered, almost to himself.

“I did nothing wrong,” She couldn’t help but fire back, “I did everything correctly – even used the ring you left for me in the drawer.”

At that, he stilled. Stilled and stopped breathing entirely.

Then, as if talking to someone who’d sustained a head injury, he said, “I didn’t leave you a ring. I left you my house seal, solid gold, of course, but no ring.” He went on to describe where he’d left it – the top drawer beside her bed – but she already knew.

The conclusion settled in her stomach like a stone. Another feeling, one she didn’t let herself scrutinise, unfurled within her.

“Someone didn’t want me to summon you.”

“Close. Someone wanted you to think I wouldn’t come.”

A question hung in the air, so loud neither could bring themselves to give it voice.

Would you have come, Prince Wrath? Would you have come to my aid when I needed you most? When I needed to know you were alright?

Keeping those treacherous thoughts under lock and key, she focused on another facet of the curious mystery.

“Who would it benefit? And who would’ve known what to switch – the house was warded, was it not?”

Silence from her princely counterpart.  

“Would the wards collapse with your ‘death’?”

The look on his face told her all she needed to know. Someone had stolen into the house and replaced the seal with a ring to deliberately throw off their efforts. Which meant-

He hadn’t abandoned her at all. Given her the cold shoulder, yes, when he believed she’d forgotten all about him.

What a hellish mess this all was.

From that moment on, the demon and the witch had become begrudging allies once more. Wrath had been furious one of his brothers would dare interfere with his affairs, and she needed an ally, desperately. While it rubbed against her pride to accept help, she knew it would’ve been foolish to refuse. She would be a vengeful queen, but even queens needed council.

Their alliance had turned to friendship, then burst into royal flames as they look the leap to lovers. In the candlelight of a stolen moment, Wrath had held her with more care than she’d known possible. Still Wrath, still echoing that immense power of his, but softer, somehow. Not gentle, not truly, but tender. It was not love, but it was fire and anger and care all pieced together in a ball of desire.  

Which led her to that moment, as she stole away from her husband’s masquerade ball. She had stayed long enough, and the party celebrated nothing of importance. Rather a show of unity between her and Pride, a display of wealth and power.

As she left the throne room she realised she had no idea where her prince had gone. Back to his rooms? No, they avoided meeting there. Being caught together in casual rooms could be explained away as strategic briefings, but being caught in the bedroom of her husband’s brother... did not leave for much escape room.

Just as she was about to curse his name, a snake slithered around her ankle, causing her to start. Was that Wrath’s laugh, she heard? Looking to her feet, the snake stared back up at her, its golden eyes winking in the candlelight of the hallway.

Of course. Wrath and his dramatics.  

The snake made its way down the hallway, keeping close to the wall to be inconspicuous. It led her to an offshoot of the main hallway, then came to a halt at the final door. The serpent dissolved into golden sparks as they reached their destination. She knocked quietly before letting herself in.

Wrath lay stretched out across a dark velvet lounge, watching her entrance. His mask dangled lazily from his fingers, the ribbon used to tie it brushing across the floor. His shirt was unbuttoned halfway, a toned chest peeking out from the fabric.

Deadly, dangerously beautiful.

And hers.

“You look exquisite,” He strode across the room before taking her in his arms. His hands quickly untied her mask before tossing it to the floor with haste. He took in her form for a moment, then tilted his face down to capture her lips with his own.

No matter how many moments they stole, it was never enough.

His kiss was liquid fire igniting the flame of her desire. One hand rested against her back, with the other cupping her face. She gasped against his mouth, revelling in how desperately hard his body felt against hers. Greedy hands slipped up his chest to unbutton the rest of his shirt. Pulling the material away, Emilia broke the kiss for a single second to gaze at her lover.

Smooth, tanned skin met her eyes, followed by a swift appreciation of the hard strength that lay beneath his trousers. He laughed as he caught her gaze, knowing exactly what she was admiring.

He kissed her again, this time grabbing the backs of her thighs and lifting her up. Her legs wrapped around his waist. The taste of him- Taste was her speciality, but there were no words to describe how perfectly Wrath kissed her.

After too long and never long enough, the lovers parted for breath. He still held her against his chest. In this position, she was the perfect height to rest her head in the crook of his neck. Their breathing echoed through the room in perfect harmony.

She could feel every rise and fall of his powerful, tattooed chest. Such lethal power contained within his body, yet he held her with all the tenderness the world could offer.

“You know,” He mused, “We never got to dance.”

“Are you asking?” A sly smile in his direction.

“Yes. Witch, will you dance with me.” He said witch the way men said love. She looked down at him, grinning.

“No. I can’t dance.”

He laughed. Such a bright sound for one bathed in darkness.

“Liar.”

“Fine. I don’t dance, because I’m awful at it.”

A teasing hand ran down her back.

“I’ll teach you.” At her raised brows, he continued with, “A queen must use every skill in her arsenal.”

Lowering her to the ground, he held out his hands for her to grasp.

“Place your right hand in mine, and left against my shoulder.” Even through the fabric of his shirt, she could feel the heat roaring off him. When she did as he instructed, he pulled their bodies together until not even an inch separated them. Emilia was fairly certain this wasn’t part of the dance, but she wasn’t going to interrupt. She quite liked this position, pressed against the prince of Wrath, his breath rustling her hair. His hand settled against her spine.

“This next bit is the most important, do you hear? It is crucial even that beginners like yourself get this right.” He teased, and she scowled back at him, though they both knew it was merely in jest.

“Tilt your chin up so you can gaze adoringly into my eyes.” He grinned down her scowl. “I want you to focus on how handsome I am, how talented, and forget everything else. Except how much you want to kiss me.”

She couldn’t help herself, she laughed. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Perhaps.” His voice turned low and seductive as his hand slid down her spine, drawing her a little closer. “But you’re waltzing like a goddess now.” As he spoke, they started to move. Slowly, he stepped back and followed. To the side, and she followed again. On and on, their little box pattern continued, until Wrath picked up the paced and spun her around.

A gasp left her lips at the movement, but before she could overthink and stumble, he caught her once more with a smile.

“Who are you, and what have you done with the moodiest prince of Hell?”

He shook his head at her words, huffing a laugh as he did. She felt the truth bloom in his chest, he didn’t have to say it. These borrowed moments, these secret trysts... it was happiness, rare as it was, that fluttered between them. They both knew it couldn’t last, but for now, it was real. In that moment, it was all that mattered.

“Teasing witch,” He murmured, and kissed her. Kissed her as if they were not members of two rival houses, as if she was not an unwilling wife to his bastardly brother, as if there were not a chasm of reasons to keep them apart. Tomorrow would bring hellfire, and perhaps regret, but tonight was theirs.

They kissed until night dwindled away into day, and their secret was no longer safe. With the promise of “soon” and an unspoken “I miss you”, Wrath kissed her once more before exiting her side.

The queen of Hell picked up her mask from where it had been tossed across the floor, and stood still for a moment, taking a deep breath. The moment had passed, and she was no longer just Emilia, a powerhouse in her own right, and friend and lover of Wrath’s.

She was the Wicked Kingdom’s vengeful queen, and she would find her happiness once more, or burn the world trying.

-

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tags: @shadowturtlesstuff @otome-azarada @chococannolii @beccalovesbooksstuff @duchess-of-nothing-and-nowhere @caseyannblog @constantwriter85 @fleawithadegree @athousandsilversuns @emiliadicarlos @silversublime @watch-the-pen @sleeping-and-books @demirunner

[kikis-writing-world]

Bug in the System

Summary: Reader has a complicated relationship with Nathan, living and working with him. They’ve always been nervous to bring up prescription medication, so shit hits the fan when they runs out and their mood plummets.

Pairing: Nathan Bateman x GN!Reader that struggles with mental health.

Word Count: 2k

Rating/Warnings: Mental health - depression and anxiety are expressly mentioned and reader is in a bad low. Talk of medication and ramifications of not taking them. Mention of doctors. Brief mention of sex. Worries of the stigma around mental health. Lots of swearing because it’s Nathan. Unedited/Betaed. it’s almost fluff in Nathan’s asshole way, there’s a happy ending.

A/N: I blame @foxilayde​ that I’m suddenly writing for Nathan... I hated him when I watched the movie and now here we are. Idk, this idea hit me last night while trying to fall asleep and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I had to write it.

You weren’t sure how to define the relationship you and Nathan had. He wasn’t your boyfriend - not only did that feel so juvenile, but also… he just wasn’t. There had never been a declaration of love between the two of you, no commitment to monogamy or even non-monogamy. The two of you lived together, worked together, slept together- it could almost be called a friends with benefits relationship, only… softer. You ate dinners together, danced around the house together, and cuddled together when watching movies. You also spent days, sometimes weeks at a time where you hardly spoke to each other when engrossed in a project. Did this form out of attraction, or emotion, or was it an inevitability when two adults - whose sexualities, attractions and availabilities lined up accordingly - lived together in isolation for an extended period of time? 

In summary: there was no easy way to define what was between the two of you, and you were happy there were no other humans around to ask. You didn’t feel the need to defend what you shared, but you had no desire to try to label it either.

Despite the friendly and casual nature of whatever the relationship was, there were still things that you had yet to admit to Nathan. The dwindling supply of medications tucked safely in a make-up bag inside the drawer of your bedside table felt like a ticking time bomb. You only had so many doses remaining and it wasn’t like you could walk down to the local pharmacy for a refill. Any supplies coming to the fortress of a home had to be called in, ordered, and helicoptered to you. There was no way to do it without Nathan finding out along the way.

You watched the pills slowly empty from their plastic bottles like a reverse hourglass. Despite the effects they had on your malfunctioning brain chemistry, they never quite tampered down the anxiety you had about opening up about your mental illness, let alone to someone like Nathan.

Nathan worked hard and played harder. He strove to be the best him he could be at all times. He accepted nothing less than perfection and no matter what the relationship between you two could be defined as -coworkers, employer/employee, friends, friends with benefits, lovers -  you didn’t want to disappoint him.

You avoided and avoided until inevitably, the last pill came out of the last bottle. It only got worse from there. Without the anxieties in check and the chemicals being balanced, the insecurity flared even worse. Your inner voice told you that you deserved the unhappiness flowing through you, that you should just stay in bed and give up since Nathan would kick you out of the house soon enough: he’d either get tired of your low mood, your falling productivity, or he’d discover your secret and be done with you.

He noticed. Of course he did. You stopped dancing, stopped cuddling, stopped fucking. Then you stopped eating, stopped talking, stopped leaving your room. You felt like you couldn’t get out of bed at all. You spent your time sleeping or curled up under your blankets in the dark room wishing you could sleep more. That or just disappear.

That was where Nathan found you, a month and a half after you’d run out of your meds.

“What the fuck is going on with you?” He barged into your room one morning… afternoon… you had no idea what time it was.

Nathan turned the light on and you could hear him pacing. “Are you sick? Do I need to call in a doctor? Are you even alive under there?! Hello?!”

You sighed, forcing yourself to sit up and prove you were alive, awake, and hearing him. The blankets dropped to your waist, revealing what you were sure was an absolute mess of a human. You knew what you looked like the last time you’d been brave enough to look in the mirror and you were sure it was even worse now.

Nathan cursed and you swear he nearly recoiled at the sight of you. “Are you in here dying on me or something?” He questioned. 

You weren’t sure how to answer, what you could possibly say to him.

“Hello?!” He snapped his fingers in front of your face. “Is anybody in there?!”

You blinked as he crowded you, hysterics growing as you seemingly ignored him. You could tell he was close to grabbing you and shaking you, and you didn’t know if your body could handle that. As it was, your muscles had protested sitting up. Instead, you leaned over and opened your drawer, taking out the zippered make-up bag.

You tossed the pouch at him, hearing all the plastic bottles click together as it landed at his feet. He bent down to pick it up, opening it carefully like he thought some sort of creature might jump out at him. His brows furrowed when he saw the bottles inside and dumped them out onto the mattress.

“Are these all empty? Fuck did you take these?” He questioned, panic rising in his voice. “Are you trying to OD on me or something? Shit.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, about to call for help.

“No.” You croaked. “Well, yeah. I took them… but… they’re my meds.” You gave in. “I’ve been taking them since I got here. I[was taking until they ran out.”

Nathan looked down at the bottles, picking one up as he read the label. “What are they for?”

“Depression mostly. Anxiety.” You shrugged, listing the simple ones.

Nathan was quiet as he read the bottles. You had no idea if he knew what any of them meant. It’s not like the labels read “Take one daily to stop the crazies!” The names, the dosages, the frequencies meant nothing to someone with no experience… but then again, Nathan wasn’t just anyone.

“How long?” He sighed, turning to sit on the edge of the bed.

You would have deflated if you didn’t already feel as low as you could go. Having assumed the worst, you weren’t surprised he couldn’t look at you.

“I was diagnosed in junior year-”

“No, I mean how long have you been without your meds?” He interrupted you, turning to stare  you down.

“A month.” You shrugged. “Almost two.”

“For fucks sakes.” He grumbled, turning to his phone again and typing away.

“I’ll pack my shit. Just, give me a few days and I’ll go.” You mumbled, laying down on your side and facing away from him. You didn’t want to watch him posting for a new assistant or scheduling the pick-up or whatever he was doing. You’d wallow for a bit, probably take a nap, and then you’d pack anything here that was important. Fuck the rest. You didn’t have the energy. You didn’t care.

“The fuck are you talking about?” He asked distractedly, like he hadn’t heard you as his cogs of his brain jumped to life. He did that a lot when he was preoccupied. He would hear your voice, realize you’re talking, but not absorb the words. Sometimes he needed to ask 3 or 4 times until you gave up and texted him instead.

“I’m bringing in a doctor. You need to get checked out before you start back up on anything. You’re not supposed to go off of these without supervision. Says so right here. Black and white.” He chastised you.

You frowned, looking over your shoulder in confusion. You saw him still typing away on his phone, holding one of the empty, orange-tinted bottles in his hand. He set it down, picking up another. He took a picture, looking over the label quickly for himself before setting it back down.

“What are you doing?”

“Sending him the labels so he knows what he’s walking into. Why the fuck would you just stop taking your meds?” He sniped. “Why didn’t you get more? I fucking ask you if you need shit and you just conveniently forget your pills?”

You picked at a thread of the blanket, not wanting to watch him as he grew angrier with you. As soon as you were in good health and his conscience was clear, he’d be rid of you. You were sure of it. It was more than you’d expected to be honest.

You heard the quiet noise from his phone, indicating the email had been sent. That meant his attention wasn’t divided as he rounded back on you.

“Why won’t you answer me? It’s like fucking talking to a wall or something. If I wanted one-sided conversations, I never would have brought you up here. Why didn’t you get more?!”

You took a shuddering breath before answering. “I didn’t want you to know.”

“Know what? That you take medication?” He scoffed in disbelief.

The room was quiet as you didn’t answer, but you could practically hear his brain processing, whirring like a computer with a squeaky exhaust fan.

“Hey, look at me.” He ordered, his voice dropping in volume to a kinder tone, but it was still not a request. It was a demand. You sat up again, looking at him stare at you with dark, angry eyes.

“When a program isn’t working, do you throw away the whole CPU or do you debug it and fucking find the fix?” He asked. You didn’t answer, assuming it was rhetorical.

“Your software is fucked, and these,” he picked up one of the bottles to hold up between you two. “These are the fix. Why the fuck would you be embarassed about shit like that?”

You shrugged your shoulders, dropping your gaze again. “You’re…” you struggled to find the words, but Nathan jumped on your train of thought frighteningly quick.

“Me?! So it’s my fault? I eat brown rice and salad and work out every day so I’m some health nut hippy who wouldn’t understand, is that it?”

He was putting words into your mouth, but he was essentially getting the point. You were scared he would reject you, mock you, think less of you.

He crawled towards you on the bed, cupping your chin a little too tight as he lifted your face. He was clearly done having you look away from him. “I’m a fucking reclusive genius who lives in the middle of ass fuck nature and only lets people come and go with a goddamn keycard! Do you not think I’m self-aware enough to realize that? A fucking prodigy, multi-millionaire by 15, CEO of the most successful technology company in history. The President calls me and I hit ignore. Do you really think I’m not self-aware enough to know we all have our own brand of fucked up?” He laughed.

“If you need these to get through it, to be my little genius-” He released your jaw to cup your face in both hands, giving it a shake. “To keep up with my shit, to live here without losing your mind at the isolation, to be my dance partner and dinner partner and movie date - then fucking take them. Would I be having to tell you this if it was for your blood pressure or a heart condition or something?!”

His phone buzzed and he released his hold on you, leaning back to read the message that had just come through.

“Doc’s gonna be here tomorrow morning. Gotta keep you hydrated until then and you should try to eat.” He summed up the message as his eyes skimmed the screen. He tucked his phone back into his pocket before slapping your blanket-covered thigh. “What are we eating tonight? Your choice.”

“I’m not hungry.” You mumbled.

“Not an option!” He declined as he stood off the bed. “What are we eating?”

You sighed, letting your head fall back as you thought. “Grilled cheese?”

“And tomato soup? Coming right up.” He leaned over to you, cupping the back of your head as he pulled you close enough to kiss the top of your head. “Rest. I’ll bring it in when it’s ready.”

Tagging: @wickedfrsgrl @din-damn-djarin @dinthisisthe-wayson @seasonschange-butpeopledont @kesskirata​ 

[snowdice]

Big Bang (Sort of) Editing Story [Day 68]

I started writing this fic while editing my Big Bang story, but am going to continue doing it for other things now that Kill Dear is out. I will write and publish 100 words of the story every time I finish doing whatever task I’m doing. If you’d like to block these proceedings, please feel free to block the tag proofread stories. I will reblog this post with the parts of the story I do today. Edited chapters are linked; everything else I’ve done so far is under the cut.

My Master Post Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30

Had an early doctor’s appointment today so I’m tired, and the tests done made things feel worse, so idk how long this is going to go, but I want to get at least a bit of my work done. Also brain is not running at full capacity... so if I just disappear it means I forgot I was doing something, laid down, and fell asleep and/or zoned out.

Chapter 31

Logan waited for a while after Patton left to check on Virgil, but the two never resurfaced. It was odd, Patton would usually remember to come back and get Logan or at least tell them where they were. With a sigh, Logan climbed to his feet to go find them. It took him a while to weave his way through the maze of bushes to them especially because they were suspiciously quiet (Well, suspicious for Patton. Virgil was often unnervingly quiet when alone.) Luckily, he knew the bushes enough after all of these years not to get lost and managed to find the two after a few minutes.

“Ah,” he said, immediately identifying the reason for Patton disappearing.

 “Logan!” Patton said, his voice excited, but also quieter than normal. “We found a kitty!”

“I can see that,” Logan responded, taking a step closer. The cat hissed at him in response. The hissing was so intense and wild that he’d suspect the thing was feral if it wasn’t happily on Virgil’s lap having had it’s head in Patton’s lap before Logan had approached.

“No,” Virgil told the animal as though it could understand words. “That’s Logan. Be nice.”

The cat still glared at him and swished it’s tail back and forth threateningly. Virgil pet the top of it’s head and it broke eye contact with Logan to purr.

 Patton seemed delighted by the purring, reaching to stroke under the thing’s chin carefully. “We should give her a name!” Patton said.

Virgil frowned. “I thought her name was Ghost Kitty.”

“That is ‘Ghost Kitty’?” Logan asked skeptically. From what Patton had said about that cat, it was terrified of people and no one could ever get near it, even him. Now it was in Virgil’s lap?

“But that was a temporary name,” Patton said, “for before we officially met her. Now we have to give her a real name.”

“Do not give it a name,” Logan said. “You will get attached.”

 “How do you name a cat?” Virgil asked.

“Do not name it,” Logan said.

“You give them names based on their personalities, how they look, or even just because it’s a cute name,” Patton explained. “Like, remember Mittens? I named her Mittens because she has white fur and black paws!”

Virgil looked at the cat. “She’s completely black,” he said.

Patton hummed. “So, we could give her a name based on that like Midnight or Shadow.”

“Those are fine,” Virgil said.

“No, no,” Patton said. “I’m just giving you examples. You get to name her yourself.”

“This is a bad idea,” Logan said.

 “Just throw out some names,” Patton said. “Anything you can think of.”

“Uh,” Virgil said. “Knife.”

“…Just Knife?” Patton asked.

“Nightmare.” Virgil seemed to think about it. “No, that’s mean.”

“How about things you like?” Patton suggested.

“Alfredo?”

Oh no, Logan thought, he was worse than Patton at cat naming.

“Good start,” Patton said. “Logan, do you have any suggestions.”

“Cat,” Logan said.

“Real suggestions,” Patton scolded.

Logan sighed and thought for a moment. “Aphrodite.”

“Catphrodite!”

Logan glared at him. “Helena.”

“Helenpaw.”

“Claudia.”

“Clawdia.”

“Persephone.”

Patton smiled at him, cheerfully.

“…Damnit!”

Patton turned to Virgil again. “Like that! They don’t even have to be serious. Like, uh, you could name her Madam Fluffywuffykins the Great!”

“Do not name her that,” Logan said, scrunching up his nose.

 Logan sat on the ground, the cat eyeing him, but no longer hissing. Logan gently guided them towards more sensible names despite Patton trying his hardest to drag them into stupidity.

Virgil still didn’t quite get it. He mostly tried to name it after foodstuff, and often not even appropriate foodstuff such as “Corn” and “Acorn Squash” and “Sandwich” and occasionally would drop in semi violent ones such as “Razor,” “Nightshade” and “Void.” Patton suggested names like “Fluffers,” “Bobette” and “Darling” as well as some that were puns. Logan tried to direct them towards more sensible ones like “Salem” and even went so low as to suggest the contrary “Snowball.”

 It quickly seemed to become less about actually naming the cat and more of a game. Patton had taught Virgil about playing with cats and had even gotten out a ball of yarn he cared around for his crafts. Both Virgil and the cat seemed to find endless entertainment with that. Logan hoped Patton had another ball of yarn that color because, he was never going to get that ball back.

The barrage of names fizzled out into naming things around them like “Leaf” and “Bush” until they stopped suggesting names altogether. Patton and Logan sat back and watched Virgil play with the cat.

 Logan watched as they stopped playing suddenly and Virgil and the cat squinted at each other. “Marisol,” Virgil said, pulling the name out of nowhere. “That’s her name.” He said it with a certainty that was surprising considering how he’d treated the naming process with confusion and caution earlier. If Logan did not know better, his tone of voice would indicate that the cat, or Marisol he guessed, had gotten bored of them coming up with stupid names and decided to tell him her actual name herself.

The cat made a sound and batted at Virgil’s face without claws to grab back his attention.

 He turned back to it and bopped its face with a finger in kind. It attacked his finger, but in a clearly playful matter as it still did not extend it’s claws and its teeth did not draw blood.

“That’s a great name, Virgil,” Patton said.

“Much more pleasant than any that Patton suggested all afternoon,” Logan said. He received an elbow to the side for his quip.

“A pretty name for a pretty kitty,” Patton said, scooting over to where Virgil was sat and attempting to pet Marisol’s head. Marisol, however, was too keyed up and batted at the hand.

 “I love you too!” Patton said.

Logan rolled his eyes, but he had long since resigned himself to watching the two of them play with and coo over the cat for the rest of the day.

Eventually, though, it started to get darker. Even after Logan pointed this out, it still took over an hour for them to relent and leave the bush maze to go to the door. The problem was of course, that the cat had managed to grow very attached to Virgil in the last few hours and she followed them all the way to the door with manipulatively heart breaking mews.

 “You’ve got to stay out here,” Virgil said, when they got to the castle door. He pet her ear softly and she shoved her head into his hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t have anywhere to put you.” He sounded horribly sad about that fact and Logan felt himself shift uncomfortably. “I basically live in a closet and Logan doesn’t like cats in his room anyway.”

Logan immediately felt unreasonably guilty, probably more so because Logan did not think Virgil was trying to make him feel guilty. “…Bring the dammed thing inside.”

Virgil blinked up at him. “What?”

“It will get cold soon anyway,” Logan said.

He frowned at Logan from where he was crouched. “But you don’t like fur in your room…”

“I will have to find a potion that works,” he said with a sigh, “and we’ll have to say it’s mine to the guards and Father since it will be staying in my room, but it is yours in every other way. That means you are going to feed it, clean it, and clean up after it.”

Virgil nodded immediately and swooped Marisol up in his arms. The cat went without complaint. “Thank you!” he said. “I love her.”

“I know you do,” Logan said, already regretting it already. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to even consider recanting the offer considering how happy Virgil seemed to be. They had a cat now, he guessed.

  Chapter 32

“What are you doing?” Helen asked a few minutes after her son walked into the kitchen and started looking around as though he were trying to find something. It was a few hours into the afternoon, and she and a few workers were already prepping for dinner.

“Uh,” Patton said. “Have you seen Virgil?”

“No,” Helen said. “Why.”

“Er… Logan and I sorta, lost him,” Patton said. He was wringing his hands anxiously. Helen put down the knife in her hand.

“What do you mean you lost him?” she asked.

“Well, see, we were trying to teach him how to play hide and seek, um, but then we didn’t think to tell him that he eventually had to come out if we didn’t find him, and now we haven’t seen him since breakfast.”

 “He didn’t know what tag is?” she asked. That was just one more thing to add to the list of why Helen worried about Virgil and where he came from. Every morsel of information she’d managed to wring from Patton despite his evasions made her lists of concerns grow larger, even little things like him not knowing about simple childhood games. Actually, thinking of concerning things having to do with Virgil. “Wait, so he hasn’t eaten lunch.”

“Um, we don’t know that,” Patton’s mouth said while his eyes said ‘no.’

“He needs to be on a consistent diet, especially when he’s still taking the malnutrition potion,” she scolded.

 “I know, Mama, I know,” Patton said. “I’m trying to find him. I’d kinda hoped he’d gotten hungry and snuck down here. He probably wouldn’t want to risk being caught stealing food though.”

Helen grimaced. Yet another concerning thing.

“Wait! I have an idea, I’ll be right back.” Patton turned and ran out of the room. Helen frowned at the space he’d been and finished chopping the carrot on the cutting board in front of her. If it had been any other person in the castle missing, Helen wouldn’t have worried, but she had literally never seen Virgil without Patton and/or Logan by his side. Even when he’d gone to help Jeff can some fruit, Logan had reportedly hung around to read a book.

 Considering that Logan had never exactly been clingy even with Patton, she imagined that either Virgil asked, or Logan thought he should stay with him for his comfort. So, she was surprised that he was apparently hidden away somewhere in the castle where neither of the other kids could find him.

Still thinking about this, she walked over to the entrance to the cellar below the kitchen where they stored most of the vegetables, planning to grab some more carrots. She was confused for a moment when she heard movement from deeper in the pantry. She reached over and touched the panel near the door that controlled the magic lights.

 The newly illuminated figure startled as the lights came on, whipping around to stare at her with wide eyes.

“Virgil?” she asked.

“Sorry,” he said immediately, taking a step back.

“It’s fine,” she said immediately, “but what are you doing here?”

He considered her for a long moment, but apparently, she passed some sort of mental test, because he relaxed, at least as much as he’d ever relaxed in her presence. “Where are we?” he asked.

Her brow knit together. “The cellar under the kitchen,” she said, “You don’t know that?”

He shook his head.

“The only entrance is from the kitchen.” Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen him go through the kitchen at any point.

 “No, it’s not,” Virgil said. “There’s a tunnel.”

“A-a tunnel?” she asked. Actually, taking a closer look at him, he seemed a bit grimy. He had dust all over his front and dirt on his nose. She thought he might even have a couple of cobwebs in his hair.

“Yep,” he said.

“Where’s the tunnel?” she asked.

“It’s right over here,” he said. He took a couple of steps and pointed to the ground. There was an open square hole there that clearly had been made a long time ago but which she had never noticed in all of her time working here.

 “How did you find this?” she asked.

“We were playing hide and seek,” Virgil explained. “Logan said I could hide anywhere inside the castle. I hid on top of a dresser upstairs in some unused sitting room. There was a hole in the wall above it, so I climbed into it. Then, I crawled a little bit and it let out into a hidden passage in the walls. I wandered around in it until I found another hole in one of the walls. I thought it was a way out, so I squeezed into it, but it took me to a different hallway where I found an old room. There was a different hole in that room that had probably been covered by something because it was in the floor but whatever it was had rotted away. I crawled though it into a tunnel and came out here.”

 She couldn’t help but laugh a bit at his explanation. “Well, it sounds like you went on an adventure,” she said, “but Patton and Logan have been trying to find you. You missed lunch.”

He tilted his head at her. “I know. I was supposed to hide.”

“Yes,” she explained, “but you are supposed to come out at some point if they can’t find you for things like food.”

“Oh,” he said.

“They probably should have explained,” she said. “For now, why don’t we get you something to eat? You must be hungry.”

Virgil frowned. “But I missed lunch.”

“You can still eat even though it’s not in normal hours,” she said. “You could even if you had made it to lunch.”

 “Really?” he asked, he looked tragically confused by this offer.

“Of course, sweetie,” she said. “In fact, I insist you get something good to eat right now. How about I made you a grilled ham and cheese sandwich? Maybe some cookies too!”

Virgil titled his head. “You are Patton’s mother,” he stated.

Helen laughed softly. “He gets its all from me,” she said. “We should probably go find him and tell him you’re okay. He was worried.”

“I didn’t mean to worry him,” Virgil said with a frown.

“I know,” Helen said. “It’s okay. He’ll probably laugh when he figures out where you’ve been, and Logan will interrogate you all about the secret passageways.” He seemed happy about the prospect of seeing his friends. “Come on, let’s go upstairs for a bit,” she said.

  Chapter 33

Patton’s mom had already made Virgil sit down at the small table in the corner of the kitchen and had handed him a sandwich by the time Patton barreled into the kitchen, Logan coming after him at a more sedate pace.

“Virgil!” he said, sounding surprised and relieved.

“Patton,” Patton’s mom scolded. “No cats in the kitchen.” Patton had brought Marisol in with him and had let her go as soon as he’d seen Virgil. She immediately plodded over to him and hoped onto the table to sniff at his face in greeting.

“But she’s the princess!” Patton argued.

“No,” Logan said.

 “Yes, she is!” Patton said.

“The stupid cat is not a princess.”

“Don’t be mean to your little sister, Logan.”

“I regret every life decision that has led me to this point.”

While Logan and Patton were distracted squabbling and Patton’s mom was distracted watching them squabble, Virgil tore off a bit of the ham in his sandwich and offered it to Marisol. Marisol gracefully took it from his grip and ate it.

“So, this is Logan’s new cat I’ve been hearing about?” Patton’s mom asked.

“Indeed,” Logan said, his lips thinned. He and Marisol were mostly amicable when alone with just them and Virgil, but Patton had a habit of cooing over the kitten and needling Logan into being irritated.

 “Mmm, yeah,” Patton’s mom said. She glanced over at Virgil right as Marisol basically slammed her face into his chin in a bid to get pets. “Your cat.” She shook her head. “But Princess Kitten or not, I do not want fur in dinner,” she said.

“Sorry,” Patton said, honestly not sounding sorry at all. Virgil was always a bit surprised when the insolent shrug garnered nothing more that a scowl that did not reach Patton’s mom’s eyes. “I thought she could help me find Virgil, but you already found him.” He turned to Virgil. “Where have you been all day?”

 “Found a tunnel,” Virgil said. He had to use one hand to hold Marisol back from his sandwich as he took another bite, but then gave her a bite of cheese.

“You found what?” Logan asked.

“There’s a tunnel under the cellar,” Virgil said. “It goes to an old closed up room and also to a set of secret passageways.” It was a bit of a security risk honestly, though clearly no one had used it in years by how dirty it was. He did plan to go back into it and make sure the sprawling tunnels didn’t go to anywhere more dangerous like the royal wing.

 “A closed-up room?” Logan said. He could see a bit of curiosity already building in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “Where the door used to be seemed like it had been bricked over.”

“Really? Can you show me.”

“Sure,” Virgil answered.

“Ah, perhaps we should be a bit more cautious about climbing through random tunnels we don’t know the stability of,” Patton’s mom said.

Logan’s frown edged on a pout.

“Talk to your father,” she said. “I’m sure he can get someone who understands these things so you can safely investigate.”

“It was safe enough for Virgil,” Logan pointed out.

 “No, Logan.”

He sighed but seemed to concede. That was another strange thing about living here. By all rights Logan didn’t have to obey anyone except the king, but he often listened to those around him, not just the adults but Patton as well. It was interesting though it sometimes made the hierarchy hard to figure out. Virgil did sometimes stress out about the hypothetical situation where he got conflicting orders from two people, and he wouldn’t know which one to obey. So far it hadn’t been a problem luckily. They always seemed to work it out amongst themselves in some give and take social interaction that was a bit too complex for him to understand.

 Patton walked over to where Virgil was sitting. “I’m glad your safe,” he said. “We should probably put a time limit on hide and seek in the future, so you know when to come out.”

“Did I win?” Virgil asked. He’d honestly forgotten they’d been playing a game until Patton’s mom had asked how he’d found his way into the cellar.

Patton laughed. “I’d say so, yeah,” he replied. He leaned over to kiss Virgil’s forehead, but drew back immediately with a pinched expression. “You are… very dirty,” he said, rubbing his mouth.

Virgil nodded. “Your mom made me sit on a tablecloth,” he said gesturing to the fabric she’d laid over the chair.

 Patton snorted out a laugh. “We’ll get you into the bath when you’re done eating and you can tell us all about your little adventure.”

“I would also like to hear about your discoveries,” Logan said. “Though you are not allowed to sit on the bed until you do not have spider webs in your hair.”

Patton’s eyes widened and he jumped away from Virgil, startling both Virgil and Marisol. The latter hopped from the table onto Virgil’s lap. “Spiders?!”

Virgil tilted his head at him in confusion.

“He isn’t a fan of spiders,” Logan informed him, his voice amused at Patton’s reaction.

 Apparently deciding that she was no longer startled, but more confused by the noises Patton had just made, Marisol jumped out of Virgil’s lap to investigate, wrapping her way around Patton’s legs. He bent down to pat her back, though he still looked a bit startled.

“Your cat, huh?” Patton’s mom asked Logan once again. Virgil studied her. She had apparently missed Logan mentioning that he allowed Virgil on the bed. Or perhaps Logan was correct in his insistence that it wasn’t actually that big of a deal here. Virgil would rather not test that assumption, however, so was glad that it had been distracted from by Patton’s outburst.

 “Creepy, crawly death dealers,” Patton mumbled into Marisol’s fur, having picked her back up. Virgil made a note to not inform Patton of all of the different types of spiders he’d seen skittering around in the castle walls today. Maybe he’d talk about them with Logan once Patton left. He’d probably be interested. Virgil had seen some he’d never seen before! Logan probably could even help him figure out what their names were. “You’ll protect me, won’t you kitty?” Patton asked Marisol.

She made a little ‘burrrr’ sound in response, which Patton seemed to take a confirmation.

“Aw thank you, baby! Such a good baby.”

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Virgil popped the rest of the sandwich into his mouth. Patton’s mom turned away and grabbed a plate stacked with cookies. She handed it to Logan. “Take these, and please get the health hazards out of my kitchen,” she requested.

Logan took them without complaint. “Come on, Virgil,” he said. “Let’s go get you clean.”

“We’re going to need so much soap,” Patton said.

Virgil looked down at himself. “I can go outside and get most of it off if you get me a bucket of water,” he offered.

“Virgil, it’s below freezing,” Logan said as though that had a baring on what he’d just said. Logan sighed. “No. Bathtub.” Virgil shrugged. “Honestly,” Logan said. He turned with the plate of cookies in his hand, clearly expecting to be followed. “You’re not going to catch your death pouring a bucket of water over yourself in the cold when there are literally over a hundred perfectly good bathtubs in this castle. For goodness sakes.” And well, Virgil wasn’t going to complain.

  Chapter 34

Patton, to be completely honest, was not all that interested in the room that Virgil had found. Beyond just the fact that it would definitely have creepy crawly death dealers in it, he really did not understand the intrigue. If it had just been him, he probably would have just let a castle worker deal with it, but it was not just him. Logan was ecstatic with the prospect of investigating a secret in the castle. People who didn’t know him well may not believe it considering he spent most of his time with his nose in a book, but he was an adventurer at heart.

 Thomas had been easily swayed into finding someone to help tear down part of the wall into the secret tunnel near the room (so no one would have to crawl through the kitchen cellar like Virgil). It had taken a few days, however, and Logan was practically bouncing off the walls waiting. Virgil, despite having already seen the room before, also seemed excited, though if that was because of his own curiosity or because he was just excited that Logan seemed so exited remained to be seen.

“They are silly, aren’t they,” Patton asked Princess Marisol. He was laying on his stomach on Logan’s bed and Princess Marisol had just put her little paw on his nose.

 “Yes, I agree,” he said. “Don’t they know that we’re literally going to be 2 feet away from the normal hallway?”

“It is not silly,” Logan defended himself. “Any number of things could go wrong.” He sounded far too excited about the prospect of something going terribly wrong. “The tunnels could cave in and block off the exit or there could be some unknown pathogen in the air.”

Patton did not ruin his fun by mentioning that Logan’s dad had definitely basically baby proofed the tunnels for them ahead of time. Instead, he just said, “Don’t let Virgil hear you say that sort of thing. It will just stress him out.”

 “Yes, yes, of course,” he said, waving off Patton’s concerns as he mulled over two different weird green planty things (potion ingredients, Patton assumed) before setting one aside and sticking the other in his bag.

“So silly,” Patton cooed at the cat. Logan let out a huff but did not choose to say anything about it this time.

Speaking of silly, Virgil came back from Logan’s bathroom then, and Patton tried not to giggle. “Is this right?” Virgil asked, sounding and looking confused. Logan, in his overexcitement about adventure had commissioned Virgil an outfit that actually fit. Said outfit, however, very much made it look more like Virgil was going on a safari instead of a two-foot detour from the normal castle hallway.

 “Almost,” Logan said, “Here, let me.” Logan started straightening everything out and flattening the collar, reminding Patton of an overbearing parent on picture day. Virgil accepted the fussing without protest. It was adorable. Well, the outfit was ridiculous, but still, adorable. “There,” Logan said. “I think we’re ready to go now.”

It was about time. Patton was sure people were already waiting for them downstairs. Patton got up and patted Princess Marisol on the head. She looked up at them with interest.

“You can stay here, sweetie,” Patton told here. She seemed to consider it and then hopped down from the bed to go rub up against Virgil.

 Patton guessed she was coming. It didn’t matter too much since Logan had given her a magical collar that allowed her to open most doors in the castle and everyone knew she was the royal cat now, so if she decided she wanted to come back to the room and nap, she could. (She was very aware of the power she held.)

She pranced happily by Virgil’s side all the way down the steps to the first floor of the castle. She was such a good kitty.

Well, she did hiss angrily at everyone who came too close to them, but still, a very good kitty.

 Patton did lean down and pick her up so they could actually talk to the man waiting for them at the large hole in the wall. Logan went to talk to the castle worker while Virgil half hid behind Patton. He was clearly listening very intently to the conversation however, at least more intently than Patton was. Patton was busy shaking his head fondly.

“Yes, yes, Princess,” he said to the cat. “I know we do not trust the strangers, but I promise this stranger is perfectly safe.”

“How do you know?” Virgil asked.

“His name is Chester and I’ve known him since I was 9.”

 This seemed to slightly alleviate Virgil’s suspicion, but Princess Marisol still seemed antsy. Patton really needed to start slowly introducing the both of them to more people.

Logan finished talking with Chester after a few moments and it was time to climb through the hole in the wall. He wished he saw in the tunnel whatever Logan with his excited eyes and bounce to his step obviously saw. Or even that was more comfortable in the dark closed in space as Virgil obviously was. As it was, Patton’s nose scrunched up at the thought off all of the spiders that could be living everywhere in the secret tunnel, but he pushed through.

 The entrance to the tunnel had been made only a little bit from the room Virgil had mentioned and Chester had led them through it after only a couple of seconds. As Patton had suspected, the room was already lit up and probably cleaned a little bit by the people who had cut into the wall, not that he was complaining.

Virgil was still clinging a bit to Patton’s shirt, though it seemed to be less out of anxiety at this point and more out of a desire to stick close. He was peering around curiously at the lit-up space. He probably hadn’t seen much of it in the dark when he’d been here before.

 Yet, his curiosity was nothing compared to how excited Logan seemed to be. Now Patton may have not been interested in the room itself, but he was entertained by how interested Logan was and was happy to encourage that.

“What do you think this place is?” he asked Logan.

Logan hummed contemplatively, eyes looking around. “Well,” he said. “It’s a bedroom clearly, and old. Considering the location it is in in the castle, the size, the decorations, and it’s likely age, I’d imagine it was a bedroom of a royal family member. This used to be the royal wing three royal lines ago.”

 “Bearing that in mind, there are a couple of likely possibilities for the origin of the room as well as the reason it was sealed up, but we will need to investigate more in order to come to an actual conclusion.” He had already placed the bag he’d brought on the ground and was going through it, pulling out things that Patton did not recognize. He also got a piece of paper and sat on the floor to start to sketch.

“What are you doing?” Virgil asked.

“I’m sketching the floorplan of the room,” Logan said. “I will then put a grid on it so we can investigate while being sure that we aren’t missing anything.”

 Virgil seemed uninterested in this part of the adventure, instead electing to go poking around by himself. Princess Marisol squirmed out of Patton’s arms to go follow him. Patton swore that he only looked away from those two for 5 seconds, but the next thing he knew he heard metal clicking against metal.

“Oh,” Patton said, eyes wide when he saw what Virgil was fiddling with. “Honey, you probably shouldn’t touch…”

The old but fancy looking chest that had been at the end of the remains of the bed creaked open. Virgil sneezed as a cloud of dust puffed out of it. “Huh,” he said studying the contents. “There’s a skull in here.”

 “Oh, I don’t like this adventure anymore,” Patton commented.

Logan was on his feet within moments. “Let me see,” he said eagerly.

“What if it’s cursed?” Patton pointed out.

“Then I’ll just break the curse,” Logan waved him off. “Oh, it’s just a horse skull,” Logan said, sounding disappointed. “And also what seemed to be potion ingredients. Though they seem very fresh considering the state of the room.”

“Maybe we should get someone else to…”

Logan already had both arms inside the chest and was pulling things out of it. “This chest must have some sort of stasis effect to it.”

 He started pulling things out to look at them before setting them on the floor with no caution. “Well,” he said, “that answers the question of what this room is.”

“It does?” Patton asked.

“Ah, yes, between the horse skull and the potion ingredients, this is obviously the bedroom of Princess Marianne Elicia. She was the third child of King Simon IV and was quite the fan of horses.”

“…So she kept a horse skull in a stasis chest in her bedroom?” Patton asked.

“Of course,” Logan said. “Back when her family was in power, magic was outlawed and had quite the stigma against it, but she ended up learning magic and become quite proficient.”

 “It’s debated what exactly happened when her father found out about her activities. Some sources say that she was executed silently by her father, but others say she managed to escape with the head of the stables but not before putting a curse on the country of Prijaznia. That is until she or one of her bloodline sits on the throne, every royal line will end in madness and blood by the 5th seated monarch before an heir is born.”

“Isn’t that something you should be worried about?” Virgil asked.

Logan shrugged. “It’s just a myth,” he said. “Besides I’m 6th in the line, so there really isn’t any concern.”

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“There are a lot of interesting things in here,” Logan said, still focused on the chest. “Not to mention the books. We’ll have to be careful with those though since they don’t appear to be in stasis.”

Logan pulled the horse skull out and set it on the floor making Patton wince.

“Marisol no!” he said as Princess Marisol immediately went to go sniff at it. He swooped her up in his arms. “How long are we staying in this creepy room?” Patton asked.

“Patton, we just got here,” Logan said.

“We just got here and already found a skull!”

“Yes! Exactly!”

Patton groaned into Princess Marisol’s fur even as she tried wiggle away to go back and investigate the skull. This was going to be a long day.

  Chapter 35

Logan was surprised when he woke up alone in bed. He’d grown to anticipate waking to a smaller body unrelentingly clinging to his in the past couple of weeks. Confused he sat up and peered around his bedroom. He wouldn’t have seen Virgil with the way he melted into the darkness if it he hadn’t heard the sound of purring coming from near the window. He could just barely make out a dark blob shifting up and down at the cat kneaded at a different blob sitting mostly hidden behind the thick curtain.

“Virgil?” Logan questioned. “What are you doing?”

 “It’s snowing,” was the answer.

“That is not an answer,” Logan grumbled at the ceiling. With a sigh, he pulled himself out of bed. It was a bit chilly in here, he thought. The temperature must have dipped suddenly and intensely enough that the runes keeping the castle at a warm enough temperature hadn’t caught up yet. He pulled one of the blankets off of the top of his bed to wrap around his shoulders as he approached the window. There wasn’t much light outside, the stars and moon covered by clouds, but there were some lanterns lit for the night guard who patrolled the outside. “Oh,” he said in surprise. “It’s really snowing.”

 It had been colder but not quite cold enough for snow to stick the day before, so it came as a surprise when he saw snow was piling up quite high to the point where familiar paths outside his window had disappeared.

“I don’t like it,” Virgil informed him.

“Why not?” Logan asked.

“It’s cold,” Virgil answered. It was clear in his tone that in Virgil’s opinion ‘cold’ was a horrible insult to the concept of snow. Logan quirked a half smile and his attention was drawn to the fact that it was quite cold right here close to the window.

 Frowning, he pulled at the blanket around his shoulder so he could wrap it and his arm around the lump that was Virgil. He brushed the boy’s hand when he did so and found it was like ice.

“You’re freezing!” Logan said. “How long have you been by the window?”

“I dunno,” he replied.

Logan was already tugging at him. “You need to get back in bed,” he said.

Virgil obeyed the pulling at his arms even as he frowned. “I’ve been colder than this before,” he said.

“That actually doesn’t make me feel better,” Logan replied dryly as he shooed him towards the bed.

 He took the thicker blanket that usually stayed folded at the end of the bed and pulled it up over Virgil before climbing into bed beside him.

“There,” Logan said, rubbing Virgil’s arms through the fabric of the sweater he wore to bed. He was glad he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt at least. “The runes for heating the castle should catch up within a few hours, but until then this should do. Assuming we don’t sit by the freezing window for an undetermined amount of time.”

“I don’t like the cold,” Virgil told him.

Logan sighed. “Then why did you sit by the window?”

 Virgil shrugged and ducked his head a bit. Logan reached out to grab his hands to help him warm more but was surprised when one of the hands was much warmer than the other. He found his fingers were clutching a crescent shaped stone: the protection charm they’d made. Logan knew that he kept it in his pocket most of the time, but he didn’t normally see him holding it like this. It was warm to the touch, of course, indicating the safety of the room around them.

Logan looked over his face. “Are you…” he said. “Scared of the snow?”

 “I don’t like the cold,” he said once again.

“You’re scared of the winter,” Logan concluded. He looked at Virgil who was far too small for his age and seemed surprised at every casual act of kindness. It was clear that his basic needs were far from being met before he came here. Logan had to wonder what winter usually meant for him. His experiences were doubtlessly very different from Logan’s own. “That makes sense,” he acknowledged, “but you don’t need to be scared of it here. The castle is always perfectly warm and safe in the winter and Mr. Deknis and Ms. Heart work hard during the other seasons to make sure we have plenty of food. There is nothing to fear here.”

 He did not seem convinced.

“You don’t even have to go outside if you don’t want to,” Logan promised. “The castle is plenty big if you’d like to stay inside all winter long. It was made for the winter even without the magic devices that keep it warm. We have fireplaces and well insulated rooms even if those that ends up failing.” Logan pulled open the hand that had the protection charm just to transfer it to his other hand to warm it. “Though, while no one would force you to go outside, the snow isn’t always bad.”

“Yes it is,” Virgil said, his voice sure.

 “Not all the time,” Logan insisted. “Some people love the snow.”

“They’re stupid.”

Logan laughed. “It can be fun for a while with the right equipment if you have someplace to get warm again afterwards. Royal duties slow down during the winter and Patton tends to come up with all sorts of games for both the inside and the outside to pass the time. He’s particularly proficient at snowball fights, at least against me.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Play fighting,” Logan answered. “Like pillow fights, but snow.”

“I’ll stick with the pillows,” he replied.

“And then there’s a hill to sled down on the western side of the castle, and people like to build snowmen along the path.”

“What are snowmen?” Virgil asked.

 They’re temporary statues made out of packed snow,” Logan explained. “Typically, they’re made of three different sized balls of snow: the largest being the base and the smallest the ‘head’ though there are some variations. After building them one typically decorates them with different articles of clothing and objects found lying around. It’s usually sticks and rocks for the face and then things like extra hats and scarfs for decoration.” He smiled softly. “When my Pa was alive, we used to steal my Dad’s crown and fanciest robes. Sometimes Pa would steal it right off of Dad’s head and we’d run away. We’d find a secluded area of the castle yards and build the biggest snowman we could as quickly as we could before we got caught. He’d usually end up letting us keep the robes, but we’d have to give the crown back since some of the metals in it would rust when wet.”

 “That sounds…” Virgil’s nose twitched. “fun if you take away the touching snow part.”

Logan laughed. “It is fun,” he said. “Even with the touching snow part. Though, I admit that some of the ability for it to be entertaining does come from the fact that we could warm up afterwards with ease. You’ll enjoy Patton’s mother’s constant offering of hot chocolate during the season even if you never go outside, I’m sure.”

“Hot chocolate?” Virgil asked intrigued. His dark eyes shone brightly in the little light coming through the window. It was clear he could guess something about the drink just by the name and enjoyed the implications.

 Logan smiled fondly. “It is a hot drink,” he explained. “It’s a warm drink made out of milk and chocolate. I can get you some to try in the morning.”

Virgil nodded, eyes still wide with interest.

“For now, we should sleep though,” Logan said. “Are you warm enough? I can get more blankets.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Good,” Logan said, reaching up and adjusting the blanket over them once more, tucking it around Virgil a little bit for good measure. “Goodnight Virgil,” he said.

“Goodnight,” he replied softly. Logan reached under the blankets to grab the hand that was still slightly chilly from the window between his own. Virgil’s eyes slipped closed after a moment as he nuzzle his face into the pillow. At some point they both drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 36

Thomas had already been well aware that winter was on the way, but he and the rest of the castle occupants had been surprised at how intensely and suddenly it had come on. Most things were ready for the winter, but not all of them had been initiated. The fireplaces that took some pressure off the castle heating runes were cleaned out and ready, but they hadn’t been started yet. The stables for different animals on the grounds had been checked over and staff assignments had been made, but most were still in far out fields. Staff that went home for the winter months had been dismissed, but there were a few stragglers that would have to be helped home before things got worse.

 He’d gone out to the main stable to talk to the three workers that were the heads of different areas of animal husbandry to make sure a plan to get everything to where it needed to be soon was in place. It took a while to figure out considering that they’d expected a little more time before the first major snowfall. Thomas also asked them to make sure all of the workers’ homes were in good enough condition for the weather. Ranch hands typically had homes on castle grounds but not in the castle themselves since they needed to be close to the animals. Thomas knew at least half a dozen of those who spent most of their times out in the fields were the type to forgot to maintain their homes because they preferred camping amongst the animals in the summer months and then would be in for a bad time when snow began to fall.

 There should be enough extra rooms in the castle if they needed a place to stay until repairs could be done.

Those conversations took a good couple of hours, before Thomas was satisfied. Before trudging back to the castle through the still falling snow, he made a point to stop at one specific horse stall in the main stable. The horse turned his head to see Thomas when he stopped in front of his stall and puffed out a rather disaffected snort before sticking his head over the gate so Thomas could pat his nose. “Hello, Mr. Apples,” Thomas said.

 The horse seemed to conclude he’d tolerated Thomas’s petting enough and ducked his head to nudge at his torso. Thomas rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I brought you an apple. Some things never change.” He reached into his pocket to grab the red apple he’d brought the white Arabian. “At least you don’t bite me anymore.” He paused, apple slice in hand and eyed the horse’s nose suspiciously. “Do not bite me,” he said even though he hadn’t felt the animal’s teeth in a decade. It would be just like Mr. Apples to wait until his guard was down.

 After a bit of scrutiny, he offered an apple slice. It was snatched out of his hand and there was a loud crunch as it was bit into.

“It’s snowing out,” he told the horse. The horse seemed to roll his eyes at the statement of the obvious. “I’ll remind again that if you run out in a snowstorm, I’m not running after you, so you’d be out of luck.”

Mr. Apples snorted.

“You’re old now. You’d probably not survive long enough for people to find you. Besides, you blend in with that white fur of yours. They’d probably walk right past you a few times.”

 He went back to nosing for treats as soon as he finished his first and Thomas sighed, pulling out another apple slice. “What are they not feeding you enough?” The gusto with which the horse snatched the apple slice was a very clear answer. “Well, we both know that’s not true.” Thomas fed the horse a third slice of apple when he was done with his second. “I have to get back to the castle now. Don’t be a devil horse.”

Mr. Apples threw his head a bit, splattering apple smelling foamy spittle all over Thomas’s front.

“Understood. Have a nice afternoon.”

 He left Mr. Apples in his stall then, knowing he’d be well cared for no matter how ill-tempered he could be at times. He’d been a king’s horse once, after all, no matter that said king had been dead for more than a decade now.

Winters were hard.

Winters were the times when things always slowed down at the castle, where royal duties were often thin. There were a lot of memories in winter.

The trip back to the castle was not particularly long, but it was also not particularly pleasant. The snow had not been cleared away considering it was still snowing which meant his feet and legs were wet and cold by the time he made it to the nearest castle door.

 He wasn’t sure if, when he entered, the castle heating runes had started to work in earnest or if he’d just been so cold that any measure of warmth was appreciated, but he was relieved to be out of the snow either way.

He decided to check up on the progress of the castle staff lighting the fireplaces. With any luck, they’d be lit already, and he could warm up even more. That in mind, he headed towards the main foyer where the largest fireplace in the castle sat to take off the chill brought in by the large front doors.

 The main foyer was bustling with activity when he snuck in along the sides, giving the guards stationed around nods as he passed. The main fire in the room was burning brightly, though only one of the two smaller ones near the side exits from the room was lit. The other one was still being set up with safety mechanisms. It was good progress and assuming other areas of the castle were being set up as efficiently, he assumed they’d all be set up by nightfall.

He’d need to go check around to be sure, but for now, he walked up to the main fireplace to warm his hands.

 He’d gotten into the habit when he was younger to every so often glance upwards. There had been a certain stable boy who had a propensity for climbing trees. These days, he usually found nothing when he did so, often not even consciously noticing that he’d turned his gaze momentarily skywards. Yet, today, he was startled out of his own idleness by dark brown eyes looking back at him from a small ledge in the shadows high above him.

He froze as he met the young boy’s gaze. Virgil seemed as surprised to be caught as Thomas was to have caught him.

 Slowly Thomas raised one hand and waved to the boy. He slunk back into the shadows at the acknowledgment. If Thomas peered hard enough, he could see a shadow stretch up towards the third-floor balcony in the darkness and disappear over the railing.

Interesting boy.

Thomas found himself smiling despite the oddity. They still had not found out much about Virgil. He would speak to Jeffers about many things apparently, but often could not be redirected to invasive topics and he was still a bit skittish around Helen. He hadn’t willingly existed in a room with Thomas. Thomas hoped that changed at some point. There was something about him that made Thomas like him.

  Chapter 37

Virgil had not spent a lot of time out of Logan’s room. What little time he had spent outside of it was either with Patton and/or Logan or tucked away in secret corridors he found in the walls where no one would stumble upon him. Yet, here he was willingly in a, well, not public by any means place, but one that was still more exposed than he was used to being in. Somehow, he was managing to not care at all.

It was helped by the fact that both Logan and Patton had been in the room at the start, but they had gone off to go… somewhere. Food sounded like it might have been the reason.

 He liked food, and usually he would have been all for going to get some, but between them promising to bring him back some and the fact that he was never going to move ever again, he’d decided to stay.

Princess Marisol seemed to be the only other rational being in the whole castle because she had also not moved since discovering the contents of this room. She was currently laying on his chest purring happily.

The fireplace was a wonderful invention. Now, Virgil had, of course, warmed up by a fire before when it was cold, but this was much different. There was a grate that blocked off the fire a bit keeping it from burning the person in front of it and there was a plush rug right by it, perfect for laying down on. Someone had known what they were doing when designing this room.

 He didn’t even care that the king had access to this sitting room as well as Logan.

…

Okay, so he did care a little bit, but he was ignoring that. He was probably busy this time of day anyway, right?

…

He really didn’t want to run into him after being caught watching the castle workers set up the bigger fireplaces. Kings probably didn’t like people sneaking around watching things from the shadows even when they didn’t know that the person sneaking around was literally sent to kill them.

Princess Marisol must have had a sixth sense for his anxieties (or he’d just started breathing faster and disturbed her) because she stirred a bit.

55304

She started up a calming purr as she moved to gently kneed his chest. “That sort of hurts,” he noted idly as she dug her little paws into his sternum. She responded by purring more. He moved his arm to scratch behind her ear.

Virgil still was feeling a little bit anxious about the fact that he was out in the open, though he very much did not want to leave the room with the nice fire, and Patton and Logan would be back soon anyway. He should find some way to distract himself, and, well, the best way to distract himself was to investigate his environment, and it had the added benefit of making him feel safer.

 He carefully turned to his side to gently deposit Princess Marisol on the rug. She gave an insulted ‘mew,’ but quickly forgot her ire to sprawl across the ground with her belly to the fireplace. Virgil got to his feet and eyed the room as a whole.

It was fancy, to be sure, but a lot more homely than he’d expect to be in the royal wing. Logan’s bedroom was much more extravagant than this. It was closer to what he’d expect in the home of a financially stable, but not well-off family’s home both in contents and décor.

 There was a nice, but older looking couch that was probably older than Logan, perhaps even older than the king. It was huge though and comfy looking. It had two chairs that weren’t quite matching but were close enough and a table in front of it that had slightly chipped wood. A seemingly random set of pillows was on it, none quite matching the rest, but all sort of earthy browns and greens. There were bookshelves stuffed with books of all different shapes and sizes, and a giant painting of a turkey of all things over the fireplace. The fireplace itself was probably the fanciest thing in the room.

 Most of the fireplace was made out of bricks, though it had a wooden outline a good distance from the fire, and there was an ornate iron grate in front of it with pretty little leaf designs. On top of the mantle were little figurines that grabbed Virgil’s attention. They were small little wooden things carved into animals. Some were painted and some left the wood to be exposed. There were a good number of horses, but there were also things like rabbits and birds. There was even a few creatures Virgil did not recognize himself. They ranged in size from only about as big as his thumb to about as big as his hand.

 He leaned closer to take a better look at them, careful to keep his legs away from the hot iron grate, though he could still feel the intense heat from how close he was. He did not dare touch them. The room may seem like it did not belong in a castle, but it still was in one, and who knows how expensive or important the little figures were.

He settled his chin on the edge of the mantel, getting as close to the decorations as he dared, his eyes locked on a little robin that had been painted orange and grey with a bright yellow beak and eyes that almost looked alive.

 He spent a good minute staring at the wooden creature, before finally drawing back.

“They’re nice, aren’t they?” a voice asked, and Virgil just about jumped onto the ceiling, but there weren’t any good footholds, and the ceiling wasn’t very high besides and wouldn’t give much cover. “And that is why I waited until you stepped back,” the same voice said and perhaps it sounded a bit amused, but Virgil was not focusing on that.

“S-sorry,” he stuttered, cringing back. Why did he always have to be screwing something up when the king came upon him. Why did the universe hate him?

 “Oh, it’s okay,” the king said. He was still by the door, having only paused outside of the room instead of coming in. “You weren’t doing anything wrong.”

He certainly had been doing something wrong even if he was allowed to get that close to little things that seemed so fragile (which he almost definitely wasn’t) or be in one of the royal rooms without Patton or Logan in sight. Virgil had come here to kill this man even if he didn’t know it. He was an assassin in one of the private royal chambers. If the king had any idea, Virgil would be dead

 He made as though to take a step into the room, but he paused when he saw Virgil take a step back and grimaced. “I’ll, uh, just be going,” he said. “You can stay. You can look at the figurines all you want.”

Virgil looked at the man’s feet and didn’t say anything. He hoped he didn’t take that as an insult.

“Okay,” the king said. “Goodbye.”

He walked off then, likely to his own private room. When the footsteps faded, Virgil bent down to pick up Princess Marisol, who meowed her complaints at being pulled from the fire. He snuck quietly back into Logan’s room.

Logan and Patton found him in the closet 10 minutes later.

  Chapter 38

It was a bad day for Virgil. Now, Virgil had been skittish for the past few days ever since Patton and Logan had left him half asleep on the sitting room rug and came back to him crammed into a closet with Princess Marisol for company. He hadn’t told them what had happened, but obviously something had, and he’d been jumpy ever since. However, today seemed even worse.

The snow outside had only gotten thicker in the last few days since the first snowfall, and it had put Virgil’s anxieties through the roof. Often literally.

This morning, Logan had a meeting with his Dad, and so it was Patton’s job to coax the boy out of his closet. He’d reportedly slept in Logan’s bed but had stalked off to huddle in on himself in the closet as soon as Logan had had to get up.

 Patton entered Logan’s bedroom to a greeting meow from Princess Marisol. She, at least, was still in bed, happily perched on Logan’s pillow. “Oh, sweetie,” Patton said. “You know Logan doesn’t like cat hair on his stuff. She just purred happily, and Patton didn’t bother to push the issue any further. Instead, he turned to the closet.

He tapped twice. “Hey, Virgil, honey. Are you in there?” he asked, though he already was fairly certain of the answer.

There was a pause and then Virgil called back. “Yeah.”

“Can I open the door?”

A longer pause.

“Can I open the door long enough to join you in there?”

[uwumessenger]

random headcanons i have for each om! character teehee

hi it's been a while since ive posted some hcs bc uni has been kicking my a$$! luckily i only have a few papers to tidy up and im done. here r some hcs for each obey me character that ive accumulated over the past few months wink wonk

most are random but some constants you'll find are what i think they smell like, languages they can speak (other than their native (demon/angel) and eng/jp), and music tastes !

lucifer

i have a strong feeling that he showers twice a day: in the morning after waking up and at night before going to bed

his cologne is probably the type that will last in an elevator for like a week after he uses it once. i dont think this mf ever smells like anything other than his cologne

has a secret folder on his phone of semi-nudes and other scandalous pics from when he felt sexy at the time omg

aside from demon language/eng/jp he can speak french and knows latin

listens to classical stuff yea but he also listens to diavolos mixtapes (re: diavolo's section)

not a fan of sweets but will eat sweet things when craving

really bland sense of humor...borderline cringey 😭✋🏻

mammon

has gone to google images and searched for "inspirational quotes tumblr" "gold aesthetic tumblr" & "relatable crush post tumblr" then reposts it onto his socials or just taps thru them and giggles bc he relates

his cologne doesnt last as long as lucifers and probably smells common. he has to reapply a lot but it's a people pleasing smell. it's cheaper hence the constant reapplying

he probably does have an expensive bottle but is the type to totally overspray...eek

he is canonically a car guy 🥲 and probably tells the one in his room good morning & good night + kisses the hood every once in a while. has tons of car magazines

he doesnt really speak other languages but has attempted to learn spanish before

listens to whatever is on the radio. doesnt rly stan anyone but he eventually will listen to mc's playlist and mc's playlist ONLY

levi

lurks on mc's socials ALL THE TIMEEEE like he will rewatch ur stories and scroll thru ur feed and overanalyze ur tweets/rts or blog posts. if ur mc isnt the type to use sns much he still googles ur name all the damn time just to find any sites u might be on fjdjdjdjskks

probably streams on whatever youtube or twitch devildom site equivalent there is, but only has like 40 or so followers. which he is okay with!

until he sees someone else who gets more attention than him. then the envy starts kicking in bad. especially if they suck 🧍🏻‍♀️

classic gamer boy smell. you know, sweat, tears, must, and (sometimes) axe deodorant. lucifer has to do a scent check before he goes out to any event & lets him use his cologne. how sweet!

kpop stan!! more girl groups than anything and his ults are probably GIRLS GENERATION, wonder girls, twice, loona, & red velvet

cried when ioi disbanded and refused to leave his room. the only thing u could hear was downpour on loop at full blast

can also speak korean & communicate in echolocation like dolphins 😏

satan

listens to country music you cant change my mind

smells like whatever environment he is in. he doesnt really have a designated smell just throws some deodorant on and goes about his day.

he's sooooo bad at driving...gets road rage way too often so his license has been REVOKED

but hes totally a backseat driver. needs to be sedated on long trips

do not let him watch finding nemo when luke asks to watch it. it's not worth it. he will cause mass destruction.

if he was a human or lived long term in the human world he totally has the ability to be a doctor

is studying as many languages as possible, but he mostly knows latin & french & german etc etc. wants to learn all the dead languages out of curiousity

asmo

dont think this mf has ever held down a relationship. ever

he doesnt compromise much & is not willing to change his lifestyle to fit an s/o into it. you keep up with how he lives or it just isnt meant to be (but dont worry! he'll eventually learn...maybe,,,,)

has the hardest time out of everyone when it comes to breaking bad habits

his smell varies bc he uses a variety of perfumes (whatever is the most popular at the time) but he probably sticks to floral and fresh scents. he never uses generic people pleaser scents like mammon

listens to electropop, mainstream pop, & some alternative rock

as for languages he too knows french, spanish, italian, etc. in general, if it's a romance language he knows it!

opposite of lucifer in the sense where he loves sweets and will refrain from eating too many bitter things

i think we all know that asmo is the biggest rockstar of the group! he's probably been in a boy band at least once, but now he makes his own music

has tried to teach mammon how to sing once. ended up in a broken piano and bleeding ears...

beel

i feel like he is SO SHY

like unless ur close to him he will not start conversations or anything

i think he listens to r&b a lot ! and jazz 😎 maybe rock as well

smells like ur typical athlete with undertones of wet wipes. he carries them around bc he likes to clean his hands before he eats & is prepared for when theres no sink nearby

he can drive and he drives really well. no rough turns, parallel parks perfectly, and never has problems with merging

driving with beel is probably really soothing. left hand is steering the other is gripping ur thigh 😫

dont think hes really fluent in any other language but hes probably semi fluent in korean because levi wanted beel to help him out

definitely know how to order food in practically every language tho HAHAHA

belphie

he reminds me of randall from monsters inc

smells kinda musty IM SORRY but not the way levi does hes more like the kind of musty u feel or smell when it's a shitty morning

but that's only because hes so lazy, when he cleans up hes like satan

has definitely murdered multiple people before. mc is not the first 😐✋🏻

with that being said belphie has been put into prison at least twice when visiting the human world, the mf had such a strong hatred for humans theres no way he never got into trouble before

lucifer probably broke him out and they used the pen thingies from men in black to erase everyones memory of that 🙄

dont think he listens to anything other than music that'll put him to sleep. really likes lazy song by bruno mars but thinks that bruno mars put too much effort into the song. should have been one acapella verse and then finish

similar to beel hes only semi fluent in one language, probably french bc of lucifer. doesnt remember much but knows a couple of lullabies and bedtime stories

the sandman used to be his bff until they drifted. they do, however, like and comment on each other's sns posts.

diavolo

once he found out who nicki minaj was he became her #1 stan

def an ariana grande stan too 😌

choreographs dances when hes stressed...idk just seems like a diavolo thing to do

also makes rly bad soundcloud rap music sometimes. turns to poetry when hes feeling emo but only lucifer knows this. barbatos is suspicious of him but doesnt have enough evidence to confirm.

his dad is like hudson abadeer from adventure time aka marceline's dad? something must have influenced him to want to unite the 3 realms + he would need the approval to do so, so his dad must be more chill than all the others before him 🧍🏻‍♀️ IDK ok anyway

currently going through his hamilton phase bc of mc. whether mc's intent was to get him hooked onto it or just to explain it bc of something he saw online, he tells everyone that he found out abt it bc of mc!

this man cannot drive his skills are only second to jumin han

not too fond of many languages but knows the widely spoken ones like spanish, mandarin, etc. if it's taught in high school he knows it

smells like a las vegas casino. not sure why but i feel like he does. but there's also an interesting & nice smell to him if he embraces you. it's a smell you cant quite identify. but it smells nostalgic, it's mysterious, and it's tempting.

barbatos

very calm demeanor but underneath hes WILD hes probably done everything at least once oof

he just has a lot of control and stability over himself (must be nice!)

on a more angsty note i feel like he might have had his heartbroken sO BAD IDK he is hurting and maybe that's why hes so willing to obey diavolo and not abuse his time lord power thingies bc he learned his lesson the hard way

mans is so smart he knows every language you could switch languages mid conversation with him and he wouldnt be thrown off. he'd probably start speaking it too.

BUT HE SPEAKS VIET P E R F E C T L Y

listens to the same stuff as lucifer but also likes eminem. likes the movie 8 mile but criticized it heavily

have you ever been to a chinese herb shop? naturally, he smells like that. his room probably smells like it too. he doesnt really have a significant smell like some of the others

when he bakes he smells like whatever hes baking tho

one of the few out of everyone listed to have been able to travel to literally everywhere

solomon

was probably on kitchen nightmares once, but only to get feedback from chef gordon ramsay. then he used his magic to prevent the episode from airing...

was in an orchestra, one of the best times of his life. played the violin. asmo watched him in the audience once, but didnt approach him until well after that performance.

he CANNOT sing. he can, however, rap.

doesnt listen to music. he listens to podcasts! but every now and then he turns on background music, but prefers it to be instrumental stuff

never wears sunglasses. also does not have a driver's license. cannot drive a regular car. could maybe fly an airplane.

due to his immortality he has learned almost every language to exist, but finds himself speaking mandarin the most. knows most dialects too

similar smell to barbatos but u can also smell some sunscreen on him too. like, generic beach day suncreen

he has a lot of pact marks, so he once had the idea to match foundation to his skin. it took him two weeks but he eventually perfected a combination. yes he will help u find ur perfect shade if u ask him to

simeon

another country music man. has also made a tiktok or two to that one song that goes "he cant even bait a hook." they are private tho

angel country music exists and simeon invented it

if he visits the human world and wears more causal clothing he probably tucks his shirt into his pants

wears a speedo at the beach i tell u, speedo at the beach

he can speak german...i can feel it

uses his pointer finger to type and holds the phone like 2 inches away from his face so sometimes his nose will push a key hence all his typos

has no signature smell. he simply smells like your favorite scent all the time. if multiple people are around him at once, everyone smells a different smell. it's pretty rad

"what does he smell like to himself?" u may be asking. hmm...a church? 💀

luke

his first pet was a goldfish and a few months before the exchange program happened, he was given a koi pond!

secretly likes hanging out with levi sometimes just to play with henry. makes him miss his pet fish back home

so his favorite movie is probably finding nemo and he threw a fit when nemo touched the butt

luke is probably learning german bc of simeon, though he'd like to learn more of the dead languages just for fun

i dont think he listens to music often or has any preferences, he just listens to whatever is playing on the radio

but he finds himself listening to the music mc listens to

smells like freshly baked goods all the time. or fresh laundry. but like, not combined. just depends on the day

[allthingskakashi]

Hi! Coul a request a scenario that involves Sukea please? Like the reader has a crush on Kakashi and he finds out because her friends tease her in front of sukea and then Kakashi asks her on a date idk if I’m making a point, or can just do anything you wish that involves him pleasee? Thank you ♥️

Okay first of all, that's a really innovative idea!! I loved it. Secondly, I'm sorry it took me so long to get to this but ahh well here it is now and i really hope you like it ❤️

• Serendipity •

[Kakashi x Reader] || 3k words

a/n : ugh tbh I've been running a little low on creativity lately which is why i hadn't posted anything for like a week but i also didn't wanna go without writing anything so well... I tried. 😩

You sit in the small dumpling restaurant with your friends Kurenai and Anko. Beyond you, the falling dusk envelopes your village in mystical hues of blue and red. It’s Friday, which means the weekend has rolled in after a long and tiresome week. The thought of being off duty for the next two days lifts your spirits, and you look forward to spending the time relaxing at home in your own company.

The evening is busy, streets bustling, vibrant with the hustle of villagers; some heading for a night out with friends, some returning home to spend time with family, some getting ready to go out on a date, everyone looking like they have somewhere to be, something to do.

You sigh, shoving a dumpling in your mouth.

“Why the long face?”, Anko asks between chomps.

“It’s nothing” you shrug, your tone failing to fool anyone.

There’s a soft creak as the gate to the shop opens behind you, a small gust of air whooshing in from outside. The merry chatter in the room comes to a sudden halt, to be replaced by sounds of hushed murmurs and whispers. You glance at the group of women sitting in the table ahead of you, staring at something with mouths open wide in awe. Ahead of you, Anko’s eyebrows are furrowed, a curious smile touching the corner of her lip.

You turn behind, wanting to catch a glimpse of whatever it is that has managed to elicit such a response from the entire room.

Your eyes fall upon a handsome young man, who has just now walked into the restaurant and taken a seat behind you. You feel your heart skip a beat. He’s easily one of the most handsome men you’ve ever seen. A mop of thick brown hair adorns his head, a tint of purple on his eyelids and stripes of the same colour running across both cheeks. His face is sharp with an angled jawline and he has on a long trench coat with a scarf around his neck. He’s also holding a camera, you notice.

Probably an outsider.

A waitress walks over to him, standing by him and twirling a curl of hair, visibly enchanted by his charms.

Someone thumps the front of your table, startling you. “Jeez y/n, get a grip!” Anko’s voice brings your attention back to your friends as you finally tear your eyes away from the mysterious man in the table behind you.

“What? I wasn’t checking him out” you sputter, unnerved.

“We didn’t say you were”, Kurenai chimes in.

You feel your face getting hot as red tinges your cheeks and you look away, avoiding your friends’ eyes.

“Hey, why don’t you go talk to him? Maybe ask him out?” Kurenai says, her eyes lighting up.

You open your mouth to say something, but Anko cuts in.

“Because she’d rather sit around pining for Kakashi and doodling his name on her diary. How long has it been now? 7 years?”

Kurenai giggles, but puts a comforting arm around your shoulder.

“Alright now, go easy on her”, she says kindly. “But she’s got a point y/n. You and Kakashi have known each other for a long time. You’ve kept your feelings to yourself for years now, I really think it’s time you go out and do something about it. Who knows, maybe he feels the same way about you. Why don’t you give it a shot?”

You let out another sigh and look at your lap. “I just don’t think it’s the right time yet.”

But that was a lie. You’d had feelings for Kakashi ever since you were a teenager. You had always been friends, but you wanted more. You loved being in his company and you had a lot of mutual respect and admiration for each other. But you could never bring yourself to just say the words to Kakashi. There were times when you almost blurted it out, and times when you felt like maybe he felt the same way about you too… but they may have been delusions, for all you knew. You didn’t know anything for certain. And that’s what stopped you from gathering up the courage to say it to him. You told yourself and your friends who knew that you would someday, when the time is right, but it was all a big fat lie. You were scared, and that was the truth, as much as you hated to admit it.

You watch Anko roll her eyes as Kurenai exhales, tilting her head.

“Y/n…It’ll never be the right time. Just do it. You’ve taken down S-rank criminals, you can handle this. Trust me, even the copy ninja can’t resist THAT” Kurenai cheers, grazing her eyes up and down over you with a suggestive smile, her voice encouraging. You chuckle, waving your hand dismissively in embarrassment.

“Look”, Anko interjects in her matter-of-fact voice. “Kakashi’s a wuss. If you wanna get it on with him, you gotta make the move. He’s even worse than you so pussy up and ask him. If I have to hear another of your lovelorn sighs one more time, I’ll go tell him myself.” She says, shoving her last dumpling in her mouth and gulping down a glass of water.

You’d been friends with Anko long enough to know not to put it past her. Besides, they were right. It HAD been very long. Perhaps you really did need to pussy up.

Ughhhhh. Why couldn’t this be easier?

“Anyway, I’m gonna go hit the bar. Any of you suckers wanna join me?” Anko asks, getting up from her chair.

“I can’t. I invited my team over for dinner tonight so I’ll get going.”, Kurenai says, collecting her purse and getting ready to leave as well.

“It’s okay, you guys go. I’ve got some things to do” you say, waving them off.

You watch your friends go out the exit and disappear along the curve of the street. Truth is, you kind of want to be alone, maybe take a walk around the village, gather your thoughts. This conversation with your friends today stirred something in you and you need time to think. You’d let things go on as they were for very long now, but it was time you took matters in your own hands.

Putting the bill down on the table, you head towards the door. Your eyes fall where the man was sitting but the seat is empty now, and you catch him ahead of you, just a few steps away, also heading towards the door. You stand close behind him, clutching your purse to your rib as he opens the door. His elbow juts out, knocking the bag out of your hand as it falls to the ground.

For a quick second you think it’s a thief and you’re almost about to strike a blow but the man crouches down quickly with an “I’m so sorry”, picking your purse up and holding it out to you.

Up close this way, you can see his eyes. There’s something familiar about them but you can’t put your finger on what it is. “Thanks” you mutter, taking the purse from him, your mind still trying to comprehend why this man you’ve never seen before feels so familiar.

“Are you a tourist? I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before”, you ask, concealing the suspicion in your tone.

Your village is a small one and almost every face is familiar. Having a visitor in the village is quite unheard of and your instincts tell you that something feels off.

He clears his throat before answering. “Hi, I’m Sukea. I’m a reporter from the Land of Fire. I’m here to conduct research for an article” the man replies, almost in an automated tone but with a smile that immediately softens his features. He’s got a mole under his bottom lip, you notice.

Gosh, that’s a pretty face.

Before you have the chance to say anything else or ask more questions, he mumbles that he’s getting late for something and turns away, hurrying down the street.

You stand there, watching him go.

Weird.

But you’ve got other things to think about now, decisions to make, so you shake the thoughts of this mystery man off your head, although you can’t help mulling over why he felt so eerily familiar.

You walk down your usual route in the quieter part of the village. Walks always somehow help you clear your mind.  The air has cooled down now and there’s a slight chill in the air. A sweet smell of flowers wafts through. You lose track of time walking around the entire village, over the cliff, through the forests, by the stream which shimmers under the moonlight.

It’s almost ten by the time you reach home and the walk makes your calves ache. Probably wasn’t such a good idea to go on such a long walk after injuring yourself on your last mission.

You freshen up and throw yourself down on your bed, glad for the two days of rest that awaits you.

Pulling the blanket over your head, you turn to your side and close your eyes. Kakashi’s face appears almost instantly, the images playing a montage in your head.

His smile that makes buds bloom into flowers… his laughter so pure like a young boy’s…his silver hair which sparkles in the sun, making you want to run your fingers through it… the warmth of his voice when he talks to you-- and suddenly something goes off in your brain. Like a flame igniting. Or rather, a long burning flame finally receiving emancipation. There’s a jolt through your veins and you think—Tomorrow. I’ll tell him tomorrow.

And before you have time to process the sudden thought, languor takes over your body, lulling you to sleep.

You’re up early the next morning, the jolt from last night still coursing through your veins. You’re feeling pretty confident, more than you ever have. Today’s the day you tell him.

But first, you have to head over to the Missions Desk to submit your report. You bash yourself for putting it off till now.

The day outside is beautiful, white cotton clouds floating aimlessly across the azure sky. A pleasant breeze tickles your skin in soft whispers.

You reach the main office and submit your file. The room is empty, except for the people working behind the desks. The man in front of you takes your file, checking the date of your mission and you’re sure you can see a look of judgement flash across his eyes.

You almost feel a little guilty.

“You know, all the other jounins have submitted their reports already” he mutters, not looking up from your file.

“Well actually…”

There’s a voice behind you, and you turn around at the sheepish tone of the familiar voice. Your heart instantly paces up. Kakashi. There’s a file in his hand too. You can’t help the smile that escapes.

You look at him as he comes forward, handing his file over. The man shoots him a similar glance and shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything. You can tell that this must not be the first time. Kakashi smiles sweetly at him, before turning away and looking at you.

“Y/n! Didn’t think I’d run into you here…”

Your blood pounds in your ears as you recall the resolve you made to yourself last night. You’d promised yourself you’d tell him today but right now, in this way? You weren’t ready for this. You hadn’t prepared what you were gonna say, or how you’d say it. A hundred thoughts run through your head.

Hell with my resolve. This really isn’t the right time. I can’t do this.

But on the other hand…

Your brain goes at odds with your heart as you realise you haven’t answered Kakashi yet.

“You okay?” he asks, his voice concerned.

You straighten up, composing yourself.

“Oh hey yeah, I’m fine! I’m great. What’re you upto?”

“Just got a few things I need to do”, he shrugs, walking beside you as the two of you come out of the office into the main corridor of the Hokage Mansion.

“Right. Got any missions this weekend?” you ask, stalling to give yourself time to think clearly.

“Nope. You?”

“No. You?”

“You already asked me”, he chuckles. “So uh. Where are you headed?”

Ugh. This is a disaster.

“Just the market. I… I need to buy fish for dinner”

You feel your palms getting clammy as the air starts to feels too tight. You look at Kakashi out of the corner of your eye and you notice.

He looks nervous too. He’s fidgeting with his hands and there’s something strange about him.

“Well…uh” he stutters, rubbing his neck with his hand before looking at you. “maybe you don’t.”

You look up at him, your eyes wide and face scrunched up in confusion. You’re outside the tower now, standing on the street.

“I…don’t?”

He scratches the back of his head.

“Uh…I mean…I’ve got fish.”, he stammers. There’s a very visible tint of red on his cheeks.

You’re utterly wrapped in confusion by now, and you wonder why he’s acting so strange. Unsure of where he’s getting with that, you say, “Um…That’s nice. Where do you buy fish from? I’ve heard the market by the Temple is good for seafood. I haven’t had the chance to try it out myself though.”

Mother Earth please swallow me whole.

Kakashi lets out a nervous laugh, still fidgeting around with his hands and looking everywhere but directly at you.

“Y/n what I’m saying is…maybe you don’t need to buy fish for dinner because” he looks at you from under his shaggy bangs,which fall over his eyes in the absence of his headband. The tint of his cheeks deepens. “well, because I was thinking maybe you could come over…and I could…cook dinner for the both of us...? Or um go out, whatever you’d like” he says, immediately looking away.

You’d never thought it was possible for the calm and cocky Kakashi Hatake to look this nervous. It’s quite a sight. You might have laughed at it if you weren’t just as nervous yourself.

“Like on a date?” you ask, shock evident in your tone. Your heart is battering in your chest.

This is a very, very surprising turn of events.

“Well…yes”, he breathes, barely meeting your eyes now.

You can hear your heart in your ears. And suddenly, it feels like spring has bloomed inside your heart. Not just your heart but everywhere around you. Like you’ve been transported to a meadow and there’s only flowers and rainbows and butterflies all around.

A breeze passes through, sending a few petals from nearby trees floating along the street. Strands of your hair blow into your eyes.

You sweep them away, looking up at him to see him looking at you, his eyes hopeful, waiting.

You meet his gaze with your burning eyes and smile, tucking another loose strand behind your ear.

“I’d love that” you say before looking down, your tone barely containing the ecstasy you feel within. You feel the chirp of a thousand birds singing inside your heart.

His eyes light up, mouth forming into a grin as you see the muscles on his face relaxing visibly.

Kakashi’s eyes crinkle from the smile and he says, “Well then…I’ll see you for dinner.”

He starts walking away, before turning back and calling out “Oh and yes, I do buy my fish from the market by the temple.”

And with that, he turns away grinning, disappearing with a whoosh, leaving you to stand there, still in shock and gaping after him; wondering which stars had aligned, what forces in the universe had conjoined and what twist of fate had occurred, turning your life around, making you the happiest woman in the world, in the span of just one day.

                                 *     *     *

Aaand a lil bonus addition :-

It’d been around two months that you and the silver haired jounin of the Leaf had been together. Almost everyone in the village knew by now and it had been two months of pure unadulterated bliss. You fit so well together, it felt as if you’d never been apart.

Today was just another lazy afternoon, with you and Kakashi in bed, entangled in each other’s arms, neither one of you wanting to leave your little heaven on earth.

You intertwine your fingers with Kakashi’s, backing into him so you’re pressed against the warmth of his body.

“Hey, Kakashi?” you whisper.

“Hm?” he replies, sleep mangling his voice.

“I’ve always wondered. Why did you ask me out that day? You told me you’d liked me for a long time too. So… why not before? Why that day?”

He chuckles softly into your hair, pulling you closer with his arm.

“Well” he says, almost in a whisper. “I thought it was time I stopped being a wuss.”

“Huh?”

“It had been a really long time and… I thought it was time to, how do I put this, pussy up.” he says into your neck, his voice calm, but with just a tinge of amusement.

WAIT A MINUTE-

You jerk up on the bed, freeing yourself of his grip and turning to face him.

A subtle smile plays across his lips but his face is tranquil, giving nothing away.

Panic rises in you and you shake his arm vigorously. “KAKASHI! HOW-HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?”

He doesn’t stir, eyes closed tight, pretending to be sleeping.

“KAKASHI TELL ME RIGHT NOW” you continue shaking him, but it’s in vain, the man doesn’t stir.

You sigh, replaying the day from two months ago in your head, ravaging your brain for any possible hint. And just like that, it dawns upon you.

“Oh my god—That was you.” You blurt, everything suddenly clicking into place in your head. You feel like a fool for not realising sooner.

He remains unmoving, eyes closed shut. But you don’t miss the slight wrinkle of his mask as his lips upturn into a grin beneath it.

“That was you, wasn’t it??? It was! You sneaky little bastard!” you shriek, jabbing at his arm with a few pokes, but it does nothing.

“Kakashi!”

“Ssshh, I’m sleeping” he whispers in fake slumber, a smile grazing his mouth as he wraps his arm around you, pulling you back into the bed with him.

“Did you really just shush m- “ you begin in protest, but your sentence remains unfinished as he presses his mouth onto yours, catching your lips in a kiss and shutting you up before you can say more.