#immigration not over but i’m physically OUT

[fiskki]

finally i escaped israel i am FREE

[nayatarot777]

how does your family view you? • pick-a-card

*please remember that this is your family’s perception of you. it might not be how you perceive yourself.

• pile one •

overall, i see a very positive and empowering perception that your family has of you.

first of all, they know that you’re intuitive af. clairvoyant specifically. you can see through situations and people clearly. aspects of things that they themselves perhaps miss. they feel like you can’t be lied to or tricked, so for a lot of you, your family doesn’t worry about you being naive within your friendships, relationships, and life in general. you’re not easily fooled.

there’s something about your anger too. they might see you rebuild yourself after experiencing destruction in your life - especially if someone has betrayed you or fucked you over. it seems as though you use that anger to rebirth yourself into a more “upgraded” version of yourself. you learn lessons quickly and seem to not make the same mistakes again. and thanks to your increase in awareness after these tower moments, these newfound experiences are added to your internal library of knowledge for your intuition to pick up on if similar people or situations are presented to you yet again.

you know your own power, so your family sees you as the person who dares to possess dreams and aspirations for yourself that not many others in your family would have the courage to put trust into achieving. and they know that your rebirths are motivated by what you see for yourself and your life in the future. they feel like you have a very good self esteem - or at least a high level of trust in yourself and your abilities. they feel as though you have a figurative crown on your head. if your parents are very successful people (whether that’s due to their career, building their lives from little to nothing - especially if they’re immigrants and worked hard to build the life that they have) then they believe that you’re someone who will continue on their legacy of success in your own way. i’m hearing that they don’t worry about where you’re gonna end up in life because the trust in yourself puts trust in them that you’ll build a legacy of your own.

they also see you as very head-strong. someone who controls and leads your life in whatever way you want to. you don’t seem to take no for an answer, nor pause your journey in the face of obstacles. there’s a lot of drive that you have when it comes to determining what your world looks like according to your vision. there’s something untameable about you. almost like you don’t listen to anyone. you trust that you know what’s best for you so you’re the ruler of your own kingdom with your clear vision.

despite all of your seemingly extravagant or unconventional dreams, your family believes that you’re extremely grounded in reality. you have a great balance of living within your internal world as well as the physical world. in stressful moments of life, you can balance out your emotions and view things practically. you have a good head on your shoulders and you listen to what comes from your heart space. what you actually feel in all of its authenticity and honesty.

your family also believes that you’re extremely body confident. whether this is because you take care of your body through exercise and eating well, or because you dress however the fuck you want to. the way that you dress could be a style that shows off your body for a lot of you. your family sees your self love and your self worth through this.

significant numbers: 12, 13, 28, 24, 15, 21

astrological placements/aspects: pisces/neptune, scorpio/pluto, aries/mars, taurus/venus

for more readings, check out my patreon!

• pile two •

your family views you as someone who has already undergone or who is undergoing some type of powerful personal growth within yourself. this could be related to listening to yourself and your own intuition. your family may feel like you feel as though you can’t trust them, despite trying to for so long. but for some of you, they can tell that you’ve finally decided to listen to yourself and see them for who they truly are. they can see sadness in your eyes or in your face whenever they look at you. there’s a feeling of betrayal here - from them towards you - that they recognise.

they view you as someone who feels detached from them. they could try to show you love but they can tell that you feel uncomfortable whenever they do. they’d describe the familial “love” between you and them as strange or unfamiliar to you. this “love” could’ve come after they realised that you were growing more distant from them as a last attempt at keeping you close to them. but again, they know that you know the truth about them and so the feeling of awkwardness during these attempts at trying to show affection towards you is mutually felt. they feel like you don’t want their love. like you’d rather just be left alone by them. these family members may be very energetically draining and this is how you protect your energy from them. and there’s also a feeling of this love being forced. not genuine. it’s fake or forced out of them for a lot of you and you can see that.

they might also be aware of some body image issues that you have. or this might just be their perception of you - especially if you have any body modifications like tattoos and piercings that they don’t approve of. they view this as “mutilation” of your body. i’m also seeing them view you as someone who’s very protective over your body with the clothing that you wear. based on the way that you completely cover up or your oversized clothing. so if you do have any body image issues, they might’ve picked up on them based on that observation. at least you dress like this around them. you might be uncomfortable wearing certain things around your family because they always have some comments to make about your body. but i am sensing some shame about your body for some of you. i’m seeing that for a lot of you, your family feels like you don’t treat your body like a temple. if these are the same people who’d make negative, nitpicking comments about your body then idk wtf they expect. that might’ve been their goal tbh (for those of you with malignant ass, jealous ass family members who want you to feel like shit about the way that you look).

for others of you, it’s the opposite and your family feels like you dress “too revealingly” in public or maybe online in your social media posts. for a minority of you, your family knows about your online sex work (or this is an assumption that they’ve made about you). but for some of you, there’s something about your family feeling like you’re too naked in the public eye. this could also be metaphorical, meaning that your family may feel like you’re well-known by people but i don’t get a good energy from this (from their perspective anyway). they may feel like you’re known for something that’s not a positive thing to be known for. or like you’re just vulnerable in the public eye.

they view you as someone who takes the time to take steps forward in your life. and they may feel like you’re waiting on divine timing to make moves in your life. but some of your family members view this as you just being lost and “behind” in life in some way. like your head is just up in the clouds and like you don’t really know where you’re headed in life. they don’t understand moving forward when you feel like you should be moving.

they know that you have a lot of childhood trauma to unpack. and they feel like your heart is blocked or locked because of it. for some of you, your family would like to figure out how to unlock it but i feel like they feel as though there’s not much that they can do. you may have been a very angry child, and i feel like you’re not necessarily an angry person now but your family can tell that you’re suppressing a lot. and that in order to unlock your heart (your feelings), you’re going to have to let out a lot of anger and resentment first.

significant numbers: 41, 27, 2, 18, 24, 35

astrological placements/aspects: chiron, venus in scorpio/8th house, venus conjunct chiron (particularly in the 4th house/conjunct the ic), taurus, lilith in taurus/2nd house, aquarius/uranus, lilith in 11th house/aquarius, pisces/neptune, mercury in pisces, chiron in 4th house, chiron in 5th house, aries/mars in 5th house, sun in aries, pluto in 1st house, scorpio rising, chiron in aries, chiron aspect mars (mainly conjunct)

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• pile three •

your family view you as someone who prefers to be alone. even if you know that there are people around you who love and care for you, you still prefer to be by yourself. and some of them can tell that it’s because you only feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable with yourself.

they also might view you as quite messy too, whether this is your bedroom or your home in general. but there’s a lack of energy that they witness you having that’s the root cause of this.

despite all of this, they view you as someone who’s very accepting of your solitude that you use for the sake of finding peace. you could be very meditative or very peaceful by yourself within your own energy. and they feel as though, whenever they bother you in your alone time, you become very defensive and repel them. some of you may struggle with depression, but it’s not depression that you want help with. not from them at least.

this energy is vastly different to how they viewed you before. maybe compared to when you were a child. because there was some type of sudden shift in your energy towards them that resulted in you being very isolated and repellent towards them.

they either feel like they don’t know you after this shift or they feel like you don’t really know yourself. someone in your family in particular feels like you’re forgetting who you are who where you came from. maybe even who you came from. they feel like you wear a mask around them. as if there’s always a detachment between you and them. kind of similar to pile two.

i’m getting a lot of “black sheep” energy from you guys. like your family just doesn’t understand you but they know that you’re not really interested in being involved with family gatherings or interactions. if you believe that they do know that you know who you are very well, they view you as someone who hides who you truly are from them. and if you’ve always been singled out or you’ve just always felt different to everyone around you then it makes sense.

they view you as someone who’s at peace with yourself though. just not at peace when being around them. this could make them deeply sad and upset as there’s an energy of them not being able to quite pinpoint why this is the way it is. unlike in pile two. pile two’s family we’re outwardly toxic. but for you guys, i feel like your family just don’t understand you. maybe they never really tried to make an effort to. but whatever the culprit of the reasons behind your familial connections, there are a lot of unknown things that your family feels like they don’t know or understand about you.

significant numbers: 17, 9, 17, 6, 22, 10 - look up the angel number 1717 for an extra message

astrological placements/aspects: pisces, leo, pluto in 5th house, (heavy) scorpio, lilith in 4th house, pluto in 4th house, strong sun-pluto aspects, connection between cancer + scorpio/pluto placements

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[jeanmoreautemple]

Thea Muldani: a rant

I feel weird about Thea but I can’t really put into words exactly why? So I’m writing down some things I’ve thought.

I honestly didn’t think much about her before TSC, like she was okay (I wish she’d been introduced earlier tho or that she hadn’t graduated already so she was a recurrent Raven player or something).

After reading the extra content I wasn’t bothered about the age gap between her and Kevin but yes a little bit about the fact that Kevin was fourteen when they first met + the -you fuck like a virgin, maybe some practice will make you better at it- comment that Nora included. It was uuhh weird but the rest of the Kevthea story was okay, and Thea is 100% not a groomer. Plus, Nora technically deleted the extra content so in theory nothing there is canon yet.

Now in TSC we get her sole appearance in TKM from Jean’s POV, who has known her since he was fourteen (like Kevin- this is important to keep in mind). The scene starts out cute! We find out she took him under her wing and even had nicknames for him like Paris and her little duckling🥰. So the fourteen year boy that just arrived from france with broken English looked up to her, Thea was ~21 at this point.

We know Jean is going through HELL during this time:

And we also know the Moriyamas were always particularly cruel with Jean, getting more physical him than with Kevin. Even though It’s said that Riko would torture Jean and Kevin (broken hand incident) in private, hence the other Ravens not knowing the whole picture, how can a fourteen year old kid hide such pain? But apparently , as we later find out, Thea was too deep into the Evermore raven cult mindset that she didn’t find anything strange about the coach and Rikk’s behavior towards Jean.

At 15 Jean is given a number and place in the perfect court, but only at 16 joins the lineup. He gets a lot of hate, especially from the other defensemen, whom Thea works with:

Although the Ravens are know for being extremely violent training, at least in the court Thea must have noticed that the defense line were especially brutal to Jean. Or SOMETHING.

But here comes the worst part: during this same year Riko forces Jean to sleep with 5 defensemen. By the time Jean is a junior most of these have graduated which means they were 20 or older. So Thea had been playing with each of these guys for at least 2 years (except for Grayson), she knew them.

They went on to joke and talk about the whole ordeal as Jean paying for his perfect court number. Thea also being in the defense line could have heard all of this first hand, we don’t know. But It’s so widely talked about that it reaches Tetsuji and we do know Thea witnessed Jean’s punishment:

Coincidentally Thea starts a sexual and emotional relationship with Kevin this year (it’s her last too).

So here’s the part that made me dislike Thea very much. In TKM she goes to Kevin demanding answers, Kevin then brings her to Jean, who is looking like this:

It’s been three years since she graduated but she’s still wearing her Raven number in a necklace, and when she sees Jean’s state in TSC she comments how if Kevin hadn’t said anything she’d think it normal:

By now it’s clear she at 26 is still 100% brainwashed, but this next line of hers cemented it:

YOUR OLD TRICKS ?!

So let’s break that down:

1. The immigrant kid (16!) she watched over for two years from age 14 to 16 suddenly starts having sex with members of HER (23!) defense line who are all around her age and openly hate him for 5 consecutive nights and she doesn’t suspect anything?

2. Said defensemen then brag and shame Jean afterwards calling him a whore, which leads to Jean getting beaten half to dead by their coach and still nothing?

3. Years later she recalls the incident as Jean being up to his little tricks and being rightfully beaten to a pulp?!!!!

I can’t. I know she’s also a cult victim but no. It was super common for Ravens to have hate sex with each other but her being close to Kevin (and somewhat Jean) during the time Jean’s (a 16 year old!) assaults were happening and still remaining this clueless… I’m sure she must be lovable for both Kevin and Jean to respect and care for her so much but her one scene convinced me she’s way too deep into the Raven spirit and her presence around Kevin and Jean would be just so harmful.

But I have to give credit when it’s due, apparently after some hours with Kevin and 7 years later she believes her King broke Kevin’s hand:

In conclusion:

Thea is absolutely no groomer but if one takes a look at her attitude towards Jean’s sexual history when he was 16 and how her relationship with Kevin was happening simultaneously, her you fuck like a virgin, maybe some practice will make you better at it and tell me you weren’t up to your old tricks comment combo, it all makes me dislike her. Cause you’d think someone who at 22-23 was dating a boy who had just turned legal would be careful or mature enough to choose her wording better when talking about the sexual activity between a boy close in age to her own boyfriend with people around HER age, but nope. The fact that Kevin married her, has a child and lives happily ever after with her seems unbelievable to me.

PS: Her and Kevin’s (we don’t know if he believes Riko) apparent ignorance or lack of suspicion of Jean’s freshman year assault was the most hurtful part of TSC tbh (not counting Elodie). Imagine having the closest people to you misunderstand/ believe lies about such a traumatic event. I guess this is why Nora didn’t include a Andrew POV, I would have died or wanted to kill Nicky and Aaron for not looking deeper into Andrew’s attitude.

[leslie-lyman]

Election Night

A Euclidean Geometry drabble

Summary: Election night 2024 does not go as they’d hoped.

Pairing: modern!Pero Tovar x Frankie x Jack x nameless!OFC/f!reader (written in third person, reader is only referred to as she/her/their girl, with no physical descriptors)

Word count: 1.1k

Rating: G, just some election-related angst/hurt/comfort

a/n: Trying to work through my feelings about the 2024 election results. Would like to have three large Pedro boys comfort me. Had a breakdown. Wrote this.

Masterlist.

———

She hadn’t wanted to stop watching the results come in.

Not even after the swing states had started to fall, one by one, like red dominoes. But at some point the hands she’d pressed tightly over her mouth had begun to shake, tears spilling down her face, breath catching in her throat with each shallow inhale.

Frankie had finally turned off the tv, slipped her phone into his pocket, and carried her to bed. They’d pressed in tight against her as she sobbed, soaking the front of Jack’s tshirt as he held her against his chest, crying so hard she nearly made herself sick.

I don’t understand, she’d said, over and over. I don’t understand. This can’t be happening again. I can’t do it, I can’t face another four years of this…

In that moment the worst thing is how helpless they feel. The three of them are smart, strong, capable men, men who are trained to protect, to figure out how to get out of impossible situations. And if they could they’d burn the world down if anyone or anything caused their girl to hurt like this. But there’s nothing they can do to fix it.

She’s scared for herself, yes, but they know she’s far more worried about the three of them. The horizon of possibility stretches terrifyingly wide before them.

Pero has his green card, but will that matter? How careless and indiscriminate will the promised deportations be? At the end of the day, being a tan-skinned, Spanish-speaking immigrant may be more than enough to put a target on his back. Frankie and Jack are citizens, but neither has to branch out terribly far in their respective family trees to find relatives who are undocumented.

To say nothing of the fact that the four of them live together in a queer, polyamorous relationship. Where even now they have to be vigilant in public, wary of how obvious they are, always aware that simply being who they are out loud could result in unexpected attack. How much worse will it get? How much harm will be caused?

And as they do their best to soothe the woman they love, they know this reaction isn’t just about fear, or frustration, or anger.

It’s grief.

It feels like suffering through a death because that’s what it is. The death of a hope, of a dream, of what could have been and what should be if there was any justice or common sense or decency in the world. And even though this grief inwardly pummels them black and blue too, they know they will never truly feel it the way their girl does. The unique pain of women, who hope so much for so little, for even just the opportunity to be equal, and to be denied so resoundingly. To have gotten so close to a woman president and to have that chance ripped away by a man as odious as he is dangerous not once, but twice? It’s just cruel.

They do what they can for her, holding her close, letting her cry it out, murmuring soft words of reassurance.

It’ll be okay, sweetheart. Just let it out.

We’re here. We’ve got you. We’ve always got you.

I’m sorry, darlin’. I’m so sorry.

Tears roll down their cheeks and they try to muffle their sniffles for her sake, but the looks they share with each other are pained and haunted.

At last their girl quiets, having cried herself into a fitful doze. The clock on the bedside table reads 1:37am.

Jack, Pero, and Frankie all lie awake, ingrained military instincts refusing to let them sleep when they have something precious to keep watch over.

Jack breaks the silence.

I’ll call our lawyer later today, he half-whispers. Make sure we have all our paperwork in order. Wills, power of attorney, that sort of thing. So we’re as protected as possible, legally speakin’, should anything happen to one of us.

Frankie and Pero nod in silent agreement.

We should sit down with Robert soon, Frankie adds, mentioning their financial advisor. Reassess where we’re at, have a contingency plan in case we decide we need to move.

She’ll want to increase where and how much we donate, Jack adds, looking down at their girl with her head on his chest, one first curled into his shirt.

This is good. This is a plan. This is what they need.

We should go away for a bit. Pero’s voice is low and deep in the dark. Take some time somewhere remote, just the four of us.

I can think of a long weekend in January when I wouldn’t mind be disconnected from the rest of the world, Frankie quips humorlessly.

There’s an old Daniels family cabin in the U.P., near Mackinac, Jack says. Snow-covered trees, big roaring fireplace, little to no cell service…

Their girl shifts to blink sleepily up at him, just awake enough now to interject.

What about someplace warm, Jack?

Oh you’d be kept plenty warm, sugar. Don’t you worry about that.

He softly brushes her hair back from her tear-stained face, placing a delicate kiss to her forehead.

How are you feeling, querida?

She reaches for Pero’s hand to anchor herself before she answers him.

Sad. Scared. Angry.

That is how you should feel, Frankie murmurs, and the validation is strangely reassuring.

And tired, she says, tears starting to clog up her throat again. Fuck, I’m so damn tired. Tired of fighting, of resisting, of feeling like I’m screaming at the top of my lungs to have my and others’ basic humanity recognized by people too devoid of empathy to care. I’m so, so tired.

I know, querida, I know you are. And it seems overwhelming right now. But the alternative is giving up. And that is the only thing that truly feels impossible to do, no?

Her hand squeezes Pero’s as she nods, reluctantly conceding that he’s right.

But not at this moment, Frankie says. We should rest. There’s nothing else we can do at this moment.

Their girl turns to face him, making sure she’s still touching all three of them before closing her eyes and snuffling down into the pillow.

Should call our lawyer, she mumbles, starting to slip away into sleep again. And Robert…make sure we protect ourselves…as much as possible…

The three men share an amused look.

Those are great ideas, baby, Frankie praises her quietly, pulling a blanket up to her chin. We’ll do that.

And maybe…find a place to go…a beach somewhere?

Muffled chuckles break out around her.

Whatever you want, darlin’, says Jack.

It doesn’t matter where they go. And whatever happens next, they can face it, as long as they’re together.

[scribbleseas]

Straight Laced, Chapter VIII: To Be A Keen Observer…

Description: After the London’s Royal Ballet company’s prima ballerina goes missing within a string of mysterious disappearances among the ballet’s young ballerinas, you finally get your chance to debut in the leading role, taking on the position’s physical toil and immense social pressure. Although this role was supposed to be your grand jeté into the spotlight, it is quickly complicated when these disappearances catch the eye of Ciel Phantomhive — the Queen’s Guard Dog. He is a captious and shrewd man who also happens to be one of London’s most eligible bachelors.

For enough profit for you to secure your freedom for the first time, Lord Phantomhive double casts you as both his accomplice to solving these dancer disappearances and… his pretend lover. While debuting as London’s new prima ballerina, you must perfect a brand new routine: deceiving all of the nation’s polite society while actively searching for a serial killer — all while being an immigrant from France with a dancer’s reputation.

What could go wrong when you realize this off-stage performance of yours may not be an act at all?

Story Warnings: detailed description of gore, pain, and violence, detailed death, smut & explicit sexual scenes, allusions to non-consensual sex, objectification, prostitution, allusions to under-aged prostitution, smoking, drinking, eating disorder tendencies (food restriction, frequent references to wanting to maintain a certain weight, over-practicing & exercising), infidelity, fake courtship, swearing

Author’s Note: I have nothing to say for myself, besides thank you so much for reading! And thank you so much for sticking with me. I’m sorry about that last cliffhanger. (Kind of.)

Dan

⇐ PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER ⇒

MASTERLIST

November 10, 1895

The British Museum

The Yard. The press. Throngs of pedestrians fleeing from the museum to catch a glimpse of the chaos. Flashing lenses immortalizing Maisie Stannard’s bleeding body, craning necks, overlapping questions.

“Lord Phantomhive, Lord Phantomhive, who’dunnit?” someone demanded, sick comedy in their voice.

Now the public knew. They no longer had the benefit of a quiet investigation.

The Same Night, Hours Later

Ciel’s Estate

The evening’s fiasco was practically the worst-case scenario for any crime scene, Ciel thought, staring into the lively orange licks of flames in his fireplace. The contained inferno crackled, demolishing the kindling Finny packed inside moments before their return.

The fall night was brisk, the draft blowing against his window, causing balding tree branches to scream.

Finally left alone, the Earl of Phantomhive loosened his tie, slouched behind his desk, and allowed his fingers to knit in his dark hair. He released a frustrated groan he’d long been holding, spat out a curse he’d long bit down in the face of the curious public. They wanted to construct a story that would attempt to broadcast Ciel’s shock, but he would never give them the satisfaction of witnesssing a Phantomhive plan go awry.

Still, the predicament was an embarrassment. He wanted the killer to be William, but the suspect never truly felt proper—even as he watched the Yard escorted the man in handcuffs. He’d merely convinced himself William was completely guilty because it was the most convenient solution, and that was worse than a confident response being wrong.

Ciel’s eye strained from analyzing the list of guests from the gala. The names and titles were forged into his brain, and yet, how could he stop? Another person was dead because of his shortsightedness. It was a smear on his name and reputation, one far worse than courting a prima ballerina.

At the end of the day, he should have known better. It was too convenient for the killer to be William. Ciel doubted he had much of a capacity to kill—not the intellect, not the bravado, and not the motive.

Was he a violent criminal who took what he felt he deserved no matter who he hurt? Certainly. But was he intelligent enough to poison a young woman slowly using dimethylmercury? To lure a young woman to a bridge and dispose of her in the river beneath? Not to Ciel. He had to be missing a significant part of this investigation. What could he be missing? Who could he be ignoring?

Someone had to have known William’s crimes against members of his company, and plotted to frame him. The death had to be connected to the rest of them—too convenient to be a coincidence. Y/n knew her. They were both part of the same company— rivals, even. All of the dancers were a part of this company, at one point in their short-lived careers. Even the victims who were working somewhere new during their time of death or the last day they were seen, worked under William at one point in time.

Y/n said that the incidents all seem to take place on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Days where the full company rehearsed The Nutcracker in full, and Natasha was occupied with costume fittings. The company was in its last two weeks of playing Swan Lake and now it was preparing to welcome the holiday season with the festive ballet. It always had a popular run, causing it to start at the end of November until the weekend after Christmas.

That couldn’t be a coincidence, either. Ciel thought it incriminated William because it ensured that his company— including his wife — would be at their most distracted. Perhaps, the real killer assumed Ciel would draw that conclusion. They would have needed to break into William’s South Hampton home to plant the weapon used to kill Janet Fischer, as well. It seemed that estate was the only property William left unkept.

“I’ve brought your tea, my Lord,” Sebastian said, his habit of breaking Ciel’s focus entirely too common. The Earl knew better than to be startled by his demon butler. After all, the being was at the mercy of his orders. They both knew the terms of their contract intimately well: Sebastian obeyed all of Ciel’s commands and once they apprehend those responsible for the deaths of the previous Phantomhive heads, Sebastian could consume his soul.

“How damned am I, Sebastian?” Ciel asked, half pressing for what the butler made of tonight’s accident and half assessing the damage dealt between him and Y/n, given that the butler had just delivered her a night snack. She was never one to hide her feelings, surely giving Sebastian an earful about how Ciel managed to offend her. Uncovering just what had sent Y/n into her tirade beckoned at Ciel more than he liked, distracting him even more than the investigation was. The prima ballerina was so nonchalant about her promiscuity; could their relations have truly meant that much to her?

Did she feel an inescapable sense of dread and thrill around him, too? A spark so addicting that all she could do was be near him? Just like a good sip of that sweet wine she adored.

“What are you referring to?” While the butler poured a cup of tea, he lifted an eyebrow at the Earl, questioning him. A knowing smile pulled at his lips.

“Don’t you play dumb. You know whom I speak of.” The irritation in Ciel’s voice filled the room.

Sebastian merely chuckled at him. “How do you think making an enemy out of the Norfolk duchy by refusing his only daughter would end for you, sir?” His question was anything but accusatory— amused at most. Curious to get an idea of Ciel’s honest priorities: the wise match, Caroline and her presumptuous mother, or the correct match. The prima ballerina. His prima ballerina, as they worked so hard to make the public believe.

Except, they didn’t understand how much Ciel was just as much her Earl of Phantomhive.

All there was in polite society was Gwen, insisting she and Caroline come to his estate for tea. A meeting he was far from in the position to reject, out of respect to the current Duke of Norfolk. Ciel should have put a formal end to the slow beginnings of courtship he’d hinted to Caroline. At the time, he felt there was nothing to end, since nothing had really begun.

Had the Norfolk line not been in jeopardy, Ciel doubted Gwen would have continued to pursue him for Caroline with such insistence, especially after he announced his courtship of Y/n. Without a male heir, the duchy needed to secure its new duke by marrying Caroline to a suitable noble. The position had been attractive at the time, but now, Ciel hardly felt the appeal. Instead, he intended to tell Y/n that Gwen invited herself to the estate for tea after she forced him to share a cordial dance with her daughter, but Y/n fled the ballroom before he could.

“I could withstand it. And if I could not, you would see me through,” Ciel insisted, turning his gaze back down to the names on his newest list of names— a compilation of suspects with motivation to either kill company ballerina Maise Stannard or the wife of a plagiarizing artist with a legion of enemies. “Unless something changed in our contract within the last seven-some years?” Ciel prompted, scowling at the supernatural being.

The side of Sebastian’s mouth twitched. “Of course not,” he confirmed, “though I may not be able to shield you from the wrath of a woman scorned. Those dangers are entirely different from one another, you’ll come to understand.”

Such reflecting over his personal life was a painful waste of effort. He needed to prioritize his thoughts. Another person died, dammit.

The distinction between company ballerina Maisie and wife of conman Maisie was critical because it decided whether the serial killer was bold enough to kill in front of a high-end gala lined with security or if one of Stannard’s enemies was sending him a message.

Ciel’s eyebrows knit together, unsure if Sebastian was referring to Y/n or Caroline. He cared significantly more about the former. Though, it was only fair to note that Y/n never made her intentions clear enough to be shunned in the first place. She was enigmatic, and beautiful with a puzzling charm— Ciel would’ve had to be daft to ignore that about her. But that didn’t translate to wanting him beyond physical companionship… at least it hadn’t until she confronted him.

Though he couldn’t help but wonder: didn’t Y/n know better? Didn’t she understand that she was deserving of someone who could love unconditionally. In what world could he? Ciel couldn’t even promise never to lie to her.

All relationships and promises in Ciel’s life were conditional. He was a self-serving man—the remnants of the disturbed boy who returned to the land of the living seven years ago with a ravenous demon counting the days to the end of their contract. If Ciel couldn’t even promise to never lie to Y/n—how could she expect him to love her? Did she love him?

There was no loving him. Not without letting it destroy her life. They both knew that. And yet… he had already given into his passionate whims with her. He’d already decided to throw his reservations to the wind, the last of his resilience shattering like glass when she broke into sobs caused by him.

“I thought I was protecting her,” Ciel replied simply, taking a drink out of his hot tea. He welcomed the scorching burn as it traveled down his tongue. The warmth filled in his empty chest. ”I did not scorn her.”

It didn’t matter if she loved him, nor did it matter how he felt about her. The consequences of anything more than a partnership between them would be immeasurable no matter what, but he was more than equipped to handle them.

Could Ciel justify trapping a ballerina in a life where the rest of society would remind her that she was an outsider every day? Gwen and Caroline were the least destructive instance of the social persecution Y/n would face for climbing the social ladder so ambitiously as the rest of the world would see it.

When the world looked at Y/n, they didn’t see her natural aptitude for investigation, her intelligence. Her humor. They saw the misdeeds put upon her by forces much greater than herself. They saw the reckless apathy that was placed on all ballerinas, and assumed that it was their own fault.

No one would see the regard in Y/n that Ciel took so long to notice. They misread her. And they would never care to read her properly until it was too late.

Until she condemned them in a tearful diatribe across the street from the British Museum. That spirit was what convinced Ciel that she had the potential to feasibly manage. If such was the life she truly desired for herself.

“Go get another history on Maisie Stannard,” Ciel ordered Sebastian, wanting to be left alone again. He felt the demon attempting to dissect him, and it was suffocating. Sebastian hadn’t even deigned to reply, merely looking at him with unconcealed amusement. He liked watching Ciel wrestle with such foreign conflict, provoking him for sport to further insult the injury— there was nothing insightful he wished to add.

“Yes, my Lord.” After a disingenuous bow, the demon was gone.

November 11, 1895, The Next Morning

Y/n’s Rehearsal Studio

“No,” Y/n’s irritated voice snapped the moment Ciel opened the door of his own estate’s practice room and let himself inside.

Rehearsal studio, rather.

He released a sigh that he’d been holding from the moment Mey-Rin told him that Y/n would be absent from their breakfast table. He knew she would make a childish effort to avoid him, but in all honesty, he lacked the time and the patience to entertain it.

Y/n sat in the middle of the room in a nude leotard, her legs fanned open on either side of her. Her back was straight and elongated, forming a perfect line with her neck. It looked effortless. All of her movements looked light and easy, despite the rage that her pursed lips and creased forehead displayed.

She didn’t need to turn around to look at him. Instead, she ignored his image in the floor-to-ceiling mirror’s reflection in front of them. Ciel had to read her expression from the glass, since she purposely kept her back to him.

Ciel caught the variety of materials sitting between her spread legs, several pairs of newly broken in pointe shoes in a row, scissors, adhesive, and a needle and yarn for sewing. They were the same items Y/n used to break in and darn new pairs of pointe shoes for balance and comfort. Ciel knew this routine well— it cost him hundreds of pounds a week to purchase Y/n five or six new pairs weekly.

“Y/n, we have much to discuss. Skipping meals with me will not put an end to the investigation… nor our personal differences,” Ciel told her, carefully stepping closer with the caution a soldier would in a minefield. He supposed a rehearsal studio was just that for Y/n: a battleground.

“All I wanted was a few hours away from you and your investigation. You cannot even give me that?” Y/n corrected coldly, giving the shoe in her hand a hearty smack against the expensive flooring to further break it in. Apparently, all ballerinas had to make their own custom alteration rituals to break in their shoes the exact way they needed it. Y/n liked to eviscerate her shoes’ insoles and shave down the bottoms, stretch the shoe, repair it with adhesive, and darn the flat bit of it.

His investigation? So now it was only his?

“It is not a crime for a ballerina to break in her shoes—I hardly have time as it is, and Nutcracker opens next week,” she continued, still refusing to look at him. She seemed satisfied with the amount of pressure she put on the shoe and squeezed adhesive into its stretched interior.

Of course she wouldn’t look at him. Ciel embarrassed her because he let his preconceived notions about her professions blind him to the extent of her feelings. Ballerinas like Y/n were not inherently promiscuous, and he, despite having one functioning eye, missed that she felt more for him than lust. In what world does a principal dancer fall for a jaded Earl, anyhow?

And he was somehow even more blindsided by his own intricate feelings for her. It was most likely too late. And that was for the best, wasn’t it? It was supposed to be, but the guilty discomfort that sat in his stomach insisted otherwise. It was simply too late.

“The last time I checked, a certain prima ballerina always insisted it was our investigation,” Ciel replied, watching Y/n’s eyes roll in response.

“Clearly, she did not know what she was talking about,” Y/n put her sewing materials and pointe shoes to the side once she was satisfied with the layers of adhesive applied. She continued facing the mirror, spreading into a center split and pushing her torso to the floor in a deep stretch. “Being wrong about so many things makes a person a true lavette, no?” Her stretching position muffled her voice somewhat, but the vitriol was clear to him.

She was comparing her intellect to a dish towel? Honestly? Ciel fought the urge to reflect the prima ballerina’s scornful eye roll to her.

After all, she purposefully referencing both their investigation and their personal matters— enough to show Ciel that there was little to be achieved with the stubborn ballerina at that time. The blows were too fresh.

“What is there for us to discuss, anyhow? That guest list will take ages to sift through, and Sebastian’s interview notes…” Y/n rolled her shoulders back and sat back up only to inhale and bring her torso back to the floor. Her arms stretched in front of her, showing off the sculpted muscle she forged through dance.

Her leotard clung to the trained muscles down her back and arms, causing Ciel’s mouth to run dry as he adjusted his trousers. (Unintentionally recalling her body’s warmth and strength under his fingertips did little to help.)

That realization caused Ciel to moisten his lips, quietly thankful that Y/n was pointedly averting her gaze from him. She would’ve caught and translated that pensive— scandalous — look in seconds, and rightfully called him out for it.

“I want to visit William today,” Ciel managed, barely maintaining his stable tone in the face of his straying thoughts. “The Yard said the bullet found in Maisie was consistent with his Winchester collection. And I still dislike that the Southampton house is William’s only unstaffed possession.” It was all too convenient. Too connected— down to the murders matching the company’s rehearsal schedule.

Even the gala was on a Nutcracker rehearsal evening: a night where it was guaranteed Natasha Wood had her hands full and the company was half alive after such a rigorous day.

“That sounds like the perfect plan, Lord Phantomhive,” Y/n answered bitterly, extending an arm over her head while she leaned to the side. She still had her legs parted in a center split.

Lord Phantomhive was a gut punch. It took all of his composure to hide his crawling discomfort. That had to be the first time he recoiled from the weight of his surname.

To her, he was Ciel. She had seen to it— demanded it, even.

“You can handle that on your own. He will not talk with me there, surely,” she added, her bored tone causing his fingers to curl into a frustrated fist at his side. Finally catching her stare, he noticed that her eyes were bleary as if she had been crying. Even her lips seemed bitten.

Ciel had to ignore the striking urge in his body that begged him to kiss her. Now that he knew her prowess, the way she moved her lips with the same elegance she did the rest of her body, it made her allure all the more intense. So much so that they forced Ciel to skip several heavy seconds before replying to her poor excuse for not wanting to be in the same room with him. He had been occupied with admiring her.

“I would prefer—” he started to object, only for Y/n to interrupt.

“Please see yourself out. I must rehearse, I am running on borrowed time as it is. The last Swan Lake showing is tonight,” Y/n said expectantly, assuming Ciel didn’t know her performance schedule. He merely happened to have committed it to memory.

Y/n rose to her feet. She was already wearing an older pair of pointe shoes, suggesting that she had been practicing before deciding to break in new shoes.

Having risen from the center of the floor, she took graceful steps closer to the mirror, fully turning her back to him as she put herself in the starting position for the Sugar Plum Fairy Variation. After putting in hours of labor as her unpaid pianist, Ciel could recognize those soft, exaggerated steps anywhere.

His stomach only twisted into a tighter knot, offended that Y/n would prefer to rehearse in complete silence than in his piano playing. After all, she once told him that she couldn’t keep time without it.

In unexpected surrender, Ciel closed the door behind him, softly letting the knob click back into place.

It was simply too late.

The Same Day, Hours Later

Scotland Yard’s London Headquarters

Even for a man living in a holding cell, William Wood did not look well. His facial hair, what was formerly a tasteful goatee, was now untamed and slightly overgrown. Deep exhaustion carved bags under his eyes. His sudden fall from grace seemed to age him years, even though it was only a week or two since Ciel made the arrest.

“They told me you’d be coming to see me today,” William grunted, dressed in plain clothes. He wasn’t formally charged yet, but Ciel and the Yard agreed that the threat of allowing an arrested serial killer to remain free before his sentencing was too great to risk. Ciel also needed easy access to William in the event they were wrong.

The criminal’s gray eyes attempted to bore into Ciel’s soul, but really, they were tired. Unfocused. Desperate. He reminded him of a cornered tiger— too proud to submit, but too exhausted to finish the fight.

“Yes… I have questions that demand answers. From you.” Ciel answered carefully. He exchanged a look with the officers guarding the door, silently urging them to clear their throats and seeing themselves out, guarding from the outside of the room. William’s holding cell sat in an isolated room from the rest of the headquarters. The basement was fortified with cement, making the area drafty and dark.

He wouldn’t reveal the news that there was another murdered ballerina, but there were other means to extract the information the situation required.

A condescending smirk twitched at William’s lips, unsurprised. “And you expect me to talk? To you?” He asked, his jubilant tone dripping with malice. “You’ve ruined my life, my wife’s…our livelihood.”

“No one forced you to cheat on your wife. Or assault defenseless young women. Or murder them in cold blood,” Ciel snapped, raising his tone. Natasha, from what Y/n said, was running the entirety of the company without William in the first place. She didn’t need him— he was a pathetic excuse for an heir to a business. That had to be clearer to her than anyone.

Only now, he made her work infinitely more complicated. Especially since the body of Maisie Stannard was plastered all over the front pages of most newspapers that morning, each depicting the mysterious murder that occurred near one of the side entrances of The British Museum.

“You don’t talk about my wife to me,” William’s fingers curled into fists at his sides as he took a step closer to the cell’s bars that separated them. His complexion was shades lighter. “I never killed anyone, either,” he was sure to remind Ciel.

“You will answer my questions, one way or another. How much of your blood gets spilled depends entirely on you, William,” Ciel replied, appreciating the cell wall that separated them. One of them was vulnerable, and it was certainly not him. It would never be.

The Earl pressed the nose of his Nanget Revolver into William’s hip, sliding the nose of the weapon between the bars. He smiled at the defeat that fought the stubborn ferocity in William’s colorless irises, placidly putting the weapon back into his jacket pocket just as smoothly as he’d taken it out.

“Do we have an understanding here?” Ciel asked impatiently. “I am only interested in the truth.”

It was exhilarating to watch the desperate fire extinguish in William’s face, the fighting militance in his shoulders dissipate. His fists unfurled as he sighed, coming to terms with his defeat. He was just smart enough to understand that concept— a lesson Ciel and Y/n fought hard to teach him.

“It’s not like I have a choice,” the former businessman crossed his arms, ignoring the weapon that Ciel threatened him with.

“Your Southampton house,” Ciel started, “why is it unstaffed? When was the last time you were there, before you instructed Y/n Y/l/n to meet you there?”

“I told Natasha I sold it, but it’s been my family’s for generations. I used the place for… meetings I didn’t want her to know about,” William sighed, choosing his words cautiously. “That time with…Y/n… was the first time I’ve been there since my trip to France. So I haven’t been since the end of September. Do I get to know why you’re asking?” He asked sarcastically.

The last time Janet was seen was September 27th.

“When did you leave, William?” Ciel asked with a newfound sense of urgency overriding his frustrations with the man. His mouth was dry, his heartbeat picking up. “Do you know the exact day you departed?”

William shrugged, either not noticing Ciel’s pique or not caring. “September 28th, probably? Early morning.”

Is that enough time to murder a woman— she was projected to have died late that night — hide the murder weapon in Southampton, and return to the London ports by dawn to leave the country? It wasn’t.

”Did anyone have access to your property? Anyone?”

“No one should have. I only… asked my wife to dispose of hers, after I told her I sold the property,” William frowned. It seemed it was only dawning on the careless man that his wife might have lied to him, curious as to the lack of official documentation from the sale, any shift in finances, given the major role in managing their company, according to Y/n.

“She wouldn’t… think I still use the property…” he mumbled the afterthought slowly with disbelief.

The more Ciel asked of William, the more of him and Natasha he understood. They fell in love because she transferred from a ballet school in Russia and starred in a company production of Sleeping Beauty. William was still learning how to run the company, one of the investments out of a larger corporation, but he fell in love with Natasha, the prima ballerina, at the time.

Natasha overworked herself in the role, causing a hip injury to end her professional career only a year into it. And that was two years ago. Now she was the company’s director—nothing like the inspired dancer she once was, William insisted.

He lost sight of his love for the young ingenue because the injury killed her. What was left was a completely different woman. Tired, bitter, frustrated from what she lost...only for her marriage to slowly decline the more she lost herself.

Opportunity, motive…was there a means? It was now of the utmost importance that Ciel found the answer to that question. No matter how Y/n would feel about his investigating Natasha, her mentor. Ciel trusted his instinct—the tugging in the pit of his stomach. The alarm that he felt.

How could he not have seen it sooner? He needed to leave. He needed to stop her before she left for her performance.

It took a frenzied carriage ride through the crowded London streets, but Sebastian’s demonic carriage driving managed to put Ciel in front of his manor just as Y/n was leaving for the opera house. He was always chasing after her, it seemed, but he didn’t care.

For her, he would. She would, for him. Or before he broke her heart, she might have. He was too late, in that regard, but he could stop her here and now.

“Y/n, stop, this is important!” Ciel stumbled out of his carriage, having stepped out of it before Sebastian could stop entirely. He had to intercept her.

The ballerina scoffed at the nerve of him, begging her to stop in her tracks and hear him out for the second instance in a row. At the same time, Ciel demanded that Finny keep Y/n’s carriage stationery for the moment through a brief look, causing his gardener’s superhuman grip to tighten on the horses’ reins. He gave Ciel a resolute nod, his jaw firm.

“What? Is this chasing a daily occurrence?” Y/n quipped bitterly, just as Ciel expected her to. “You have never cared to attend one of my performances before,” she accused, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder. Her hand fell still on the carriage door’s handle, frowning at him.

“I have reason to suspect that Natasha is—“ he started gravely, pronouncing his words carefully. He knew what Y/n would say, but he could only prove this theory with her help. If Ciel was right, one misstep could make them the adversaries of one incredibly violent, envious, and dangerous criminal who played the role of a wistful, wise mentor. And played it well.

Immediately, Y/n’s face reddened, defensive. “Stop,” she insisted, her voice hoarse. She turned the handle on the carriage door, causing Ciel to reach out and grab it himself, his hand engulfing hers.

He needed her to approach this logically.

Y/n’s face jerked to look at him, her hand attempting to move with the same speed, but Ciel’s grip kept hers stagnant. She gave their hands a long, hard look.

“You have no idea what Natasha has done for so many of us, how little I would have without her. She would never do this to any of us,” Y/n’s voice wavered.

And what has she done for you? She allows men to abuse you. She encourages you to skip nourishment to maintain some shallow aesthetic. She hasn’t reported any of these missing cases to any of you—

“—She does not know about them!” Y/n interrupted, wide eyed, tears threatening to fall. He had said that out loud. “I would not have this opportunity without her. I have known her for years. You, I have known for? A month? You care about me as much as she does? At all?”

“I care about you more than you know, Y/n,” Ciel replied, trying to keep his voice measured, in spite of his pounding heart. He could feel his pulse racing.

“You do not.”

“I do.”

“Then you show it by dancing with another woman in front of me? By inviting her to your home where I live as a guest the night after we were intimate?” Y/n asked, tears rolling down her cheeks. Ciel’s stomach sank. That was what had caused her outburst at the party: Gwen had lied to her. He didn’t invite the duchess; the duchess had invited herself.

His crime was failing to properly refuse her at the gala. Ciel intended to send his regrets the following day by insisting he had an overseas meeting.

“I did not invite the duchess and her daughter. Gwen seems to have lied to you,” he said, the force behind his words extinguishing. “I realized… that… I don’t want my marriage to be a business venture. I don’t want Caroline to be my Countess—I’ve hardly ever spoken to her! I would want…” he let his next word hang in the air. It filled the few centimeters that separated them.

You.

“I need to leave now or I will be late,” Y/n’s free hand wiped away another tear that escaped her tired eyes. “This is my last Swan Lake performance, Ciel. Please.”

She didn’t believe him. And he didn’t blame her. He had warned her about himself a long time ago.

Every instinct in Ciel refused, but he released the hand that he held stagnant on the carriage door handle. “Fine. You may,” he sighed, exchanging the same look with Finny. Y/n opened the carriage and sat inside, closing the door in his face. Again.

“Sebastian, this is an order. You will protect her as you would myself. Now go. Stay out of sight unless the situation demands it.”

In the meantime, Ciel could escort himself to the performance. He had a chance. No way in hell would he let himself squander it.

The Same Evening

The Royal Opera House

For the entirety of his life, Ciel was a keen observer. He could see through a liar’s carefully constructed facade by a glance, the bravado and charismatic grace that Y/n enlisted to maintain her confidence. The Phantomhive empire was as prosperous as it was because of his ability to read and interpret those around him… and manipulate them accordingly.

Now, all of his expert focus fell on the prima ballerina, just as blazing and intense as the spotlight that illuminated her.

Until this point, Ciel avoided attending Y/n’s performances because they knew they were spellbinding. He was more than aware of her talents—even watching her mumble through her moves as she rehearsed was enchanting. He had pointedly refused to allow himself the indulgence necessary to freely watch the woman act in front of an audience, encapsulating a character through mood and movement when he had grown so accustomed to admiring her individualism.

Rather than tell her so, he’d only insinuated that he was too occupied to attend these performances, despite her frequent invitations. Selfishly, he used to prefer her subdued look of disappointment than run the risk of her noticing the way he fell for her. Without meaning to. In fact, while actively trying not to.

Her raw pain was clear as she depicted Odette grieving the prince’s betrayal, having fallen for Odile’s impersonation of her. It wasn’t unlike her face moments before she stepped in the carriage in order to fulfill this very performance, or even her expression in the studio, or in front of the museum the night before. She channeled her hurt into her work—just as he did. She evolved with each step, every twist, in spite of him. Because of everything he put her through.

The bouquet in his tightening grip crinkled, the decorative paper around it crumbling from the frustration he let out on it. Ciel could hardly hear it over the orchestra in the pit, the assortment of musicians and their quality instruments masterfully recreating Tchaikovsky. But that wasn’t the most impressive aspect of the show— that recognition belonged to Y/n entirely.

He had to correct this gnawing worry in his stomach. The feeling that he was, once again, on the brink of being too late.

The moment the curtain drew after the company’s final bows, Ciel sprang from his seat.

He wouldn’t be too late. At the very least, he owed Y/n that.

[dontbesoweirdkira]

Yandere Alphabet - ABIJ

A/N: Let’s get the mafia trilogy fandom going shall we?? Here’s a little Alphabet dessert for ya ;) I know y’all love Sam so here he isss…

Warnings: Yandere so mentions of violence, forced relationships, toxicity blahhh blahhhh blahhhh

Requests: are open 24/7 for any characters on my masterlist

Masterlist

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Sam is not an outwardly physically nor emotionally affectionate person. We know him to be extremely reserved with a high sense of professionalism and this carries into his romantic life as well. Even deep into his obsessions with you he isn’t as romantically intense as someone like Paulie would be towards their darling; especially not in public.

(In private he does cuddle and do the whole shabang but it isn’t overwhelming)

Yes I know he is a proclaimed lady killer but I personally like to think it only applies to women he’s trying to sleep with. The whole shtick is a fake persona. It's for people he wants to exploit but for you…he’s different because his love is “true”.

Basically still charming but toned down a little and closer to his authentic self.

He does however love giving you gifts and little trinkets that he buys or “borrows”. It’s his way of saying I love you and I’m constantly thinking about you. He also likes to use affectionate terms that are reserved only for you like “sweetheart” “my girl” “doll”

(You can see how he is with Sarah, still charming but there’s a lot of respect there for her and he doesn’t cross a boundary unlike the women he sexualizes)

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

The man is in the mafia..need I say more???

He’s willing to do anything to protect and keep you. We saw his hidden temper by the end of the game. Usually, it would be under control and not much could make him lose himself but when it comes to you he just can’t help it. He’s a ticking time bomb now and he doesn’t like when anyone flirts or even looks in your direction. He’s not afraid to kill someone in cold blood or send a hit out on someone’s head. Abusing his power in the mob is absolutely nothing to him, he’s willing to do anything to make sure all other competition or potential danger is out of the way.

No man in Lost Haven is exempt from being beaten to a bloody pulp for disrespecting either of you, even the new recruits know they cannot fuck around.

Might even start a street war just for you…

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

Very stereotypical nuclear family. He wants to marry you, buy a house and have kids.

Maybe get a dog? Nahh he doesn’t like animals…

He’s a traditional man and wants to make the best possible life for you and the kids especially with him being an immigrant coming from nothing.

Regardless if you want this or not, Sam will still carry these plans out. This is the life of every Italian man of his time and he refuses to take anything less.

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

Sam won’t ever give anyone the satisfaction of admitting it but yes he gets so jealous.

You’re his and how dare someone mess with his prize possession. Extremely territorial over you and It consumes him to the point he does act out regularly on his compulsions. His charismatic gray eyes are almost always plotting something dark and sinister for whosoever crossed him.

By the way, Sam wouldn't ever get physical with you but if you ever got caught giving attention to another, it will end in a pretty nasty argument and him keeping you locked up for days on end.

[monellabella]

Being from a place doesn't mean that one group indigenous to that place gets to go and kick everyone else who is also indigenous to that same place. It certainly doesn't mean that one group indigenous to that place gets to bomb innocent civilians because that is not the way to catch terrorists. Even if the terrorists die, so did countless people who weren't terrorists. Being indigenous to a land also doesn't mean that said group should deny humanitarian aid to another group, whether that group is indigenous to that area or not.

First of all, if you really wanna have a conversation about this come off anon- I don’t bite.

Secondly, Palestinians as a national group do not fit the UN* criteria for indigeneity, even if many of them have jewish, druze, or ancestry from other groups indigenous to the levant- because indigeneity is not solely based on DNA and ancestry, it’s about cultural practices that show a clear connection to the physical land (among other things). Of course, I fully support the formation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and this does not mean that they have any less right to live on the land and claim it as their home, considering the very long history Palestinians have in the region. When Jews immigrated en masse to British Mandate Palestine after WWII, they did not kick anyone out- they legally purchased empty land. What happened was the neighboring arab countries felt threatened by the growing Jewish population, and when israel declared itself a state they told arab palestinians to leave their homes so the arab armies could come in, but that it would all be over within two weeks and they could come back. The arab armies lost the war and israel won the territory.

With all this in mind, are you telling me that Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that abuses its own citizens, has the right to enter a Israel’s internationally recognized sovereign territory, brutally rape and slaughter 1,400 of its people (1,200 of them Israeli), kidnap over 200 of them (130 are still being held in captivity, including the bodies of dead hostages which Hamas refuses to return), including children and the elderly, and yet the Israel has no right to respond militarily? Do you hear how insane that sounds?

Yes, the fact that innocent Gazans are killed as a result of the bombing is undoubtedly a tragedy- but that’s what war is. Over 2 million German civilians were killed in WWII, yet no one would argue that the allies didn’t have a right to attack Germany, nor has anyone ever made the argument (to my knowledge) that the allies had a responsibility to provide German citizens with humanitarian aid. The only responsibility a country responding to an attack on its territory has to the citizens of the opposing country is to take every measure to ensure that as few civilians are killed as possible- which Israel has done. They’ve sent down flyers, made phone calls, sent text messages, and use “door knocker” bombs that shake the building without destroying anything to warn people to evacuate. Strategically, telling civilians exactly when and where they will attack is a horrible idea as it alerts the enemy (Hamas) exactly where Israel will be striking. But i’m not at all opposed to these methods because they save innocent lives. It’s horrible and traumatizing when people’s homes are destroyed and they are only given minutes to evacuate, but is that not a better fate than death? Not only that, but Hamas has built MILES of underground tunnels underneath Gaza using money from aid organizations. With the money they have, they could’ve built bomb shelters, a defense system like the iron dome, but instead the leaders of Hamas are billionaires living in luxury in qatar while their people suffer. Because the truth is, they don’t care about Gazans, they have said themselves they have no interest in running Gaza and their only goal is destroying Israel and the Jewish people.

One could argue that Israel could do a better job of warning civilians, and at this point I (an American Jew) and most Israelis are unsure what further bombing of gaza is even accomplishing and are furious with Netanyahu and his cabinet. With that being said, Israel estimates it has killed somewhere between 9,000-13,000 hamas terrorists, if the death toll of 34,000 provided by the gaza ministry of health (which is controlled by hamas) is to be believed (and I say this bc Hamas has a history of lying about the number of deaths and also does not differentiate between civilian and combatant casualties), that still means that the combatant to civilian death ratio is roughly between 1:3 to 1:1. The average ratio in urban warfare is closer to 1:14. Israel has absolutely zero responsibility to provide humanitarian aid to Gazans, that is the responsibility of Hamas- the de-facto government of Gaza that started this war in the first place. And YET there are more than double the amount of aid trucks entering Gaza than before the war (70/day vs now 300/day). Yet half the population of Gaza is on the brink of starvation- Why? Because Hamas is literally STEALING HUMANITARIAN AID for themselves and selling it back at exorbitant prices.

[gibbs88]

my night hunter headcanon

I’m bored soooo

-Russian military vet who immigrated to America. Was previously exposed to American pop culture through various means including smuggled goods. Originally from a poor part of the country.

-Very poor after immigration, decided to join up with Murkoff on the promise of regular work like most.

-The experiments have rendered him completely blind without his goggles at the worst and extremely sensitive to light at best. His holding cell is usually kept in complete darkness and he’s learned to adapt, for better or worse. 

-The experiments have also left him in near-constant pain, which is a partial cause of his vitriol and sadism. He’ll go along with orders if it lets him take out his frustrations on Reagents but he hates Murkoff and everything associated with them otherwise. Nihilistic. Occasionally has bouts of PTSD where he lapses into pure Russian. 

-Has probably killed or at least injured any doctors that try to deal with him between trials. They’ve learned to keep him heavily sedated because he’s always more lucid than they expect.

-Smells like blood and sweat with a hint of electrical fire.

My Reagent x NH specific hcs under the cut.

-Never settled on a “real name” for him but he lets Selene call him “Sova”—Russian for “Owl”. 

-Sova took an interest in Selene because she was obviously new to the Trials and he wanted a shiny new toy to play with. He enjoys their predator/prey dynamic and pushing her to her limits, mentally and physically. Part of him considers it helping her learn to survive but it’s definitely not complete altruism. 

-Her naïveté often irritates him and he expresses his frustration mostly through physical violence or berating her, though this lessens somewhat over time if only because she’s no use to him dead.

-As cruel as he can be he’s also very possessive, not letting any other Ex-Pop touch her. As far as Prime Assets go he’s not stupid enough to tangle with them if they’re after her but he’ll at least be there to drag her into a dark corner afterwards.

-When the “Night Crawler” (Incognito) amp first came out I immediately thought of it as my Reagent using her experience dealing with Night Hunter so that she learned to move faster in the dark and better conserve battery. They changed the amp slightly but I still use that HC lol.

[magiarec]

🆘🏠 WE NEED SAFE HOUSING.

We moved across Canada last year to escape severe medical abuse, but our living situation rapidly degraded. Our next door neighbour is a violent racist homophobe who has dedicated the last year of my life to harrassing us. More details will be under the cut. After months of searching we finally found a new apartment an hour away, and can have it any time in the next two weeks as long as we have the money. We do not have that much money. We can cover moving costs, the remainder of rent on our current place, and all our normal medical/etc bills. We've asked family for help and gotten a resounding "bootstraps" from them. Mutual aid is my only hope.

Our triad is LGBT (what, all at once? yes!), severely mentally ill, two of us are disabled, and one of us is latina. I'm currently still trapped waiting on a reply from immigration, legally can't work yet, and I don't feel safe doing sex work here when an arrest could mean deportation.

🌈 ♿ £0/2000

total cost: deposit (600), rent (1200), eating this month (200)

Here’s what we’ve been trying to get away from for a year. TW for racism, homophobia, slurs, child abuse, assault, graphic violent/sexual threats, sexual harrassment, fatphobia, the police having to get involved, and anything else that I can add if you need. I’m going to list these in the order they happened.

• Tried to break into our house during a four hour long extended breakdown. Hammered on the door til it dented. Threatened all of our lives multiple times. This went on until 2am. First police report.

• Spent a week hammering on our door or window and screaming “WAKE UP” at any time between 4-6am if she heard us using the kitchen the night before.

• Followed me up and down the road when I ran errands calling me a disgusting pig, the d slur, and a pedophile. Followed all of us down the road more than once screaming at us for being worthless [d slur]s while she was a mother.

• Told her children I was a pedophile, and that I might kidnap them one day. Loudly. In front of their friends. Described in graphic detail what she assumed I would do to them if I did.

• Waited on our doorstep for me and pulled out a fistful of my hair when I tried to push past her to get inside. I have not left the house alone since. Second police report.

• Multiple months of her waiting until after midnight to begin blasting religious sermons or the same fucking eminem song six times through our conjoining walls.

• Began weighing our fire escape grates down while screaming at us that she’d burn us alive to ready us for hell.

• Waited until I was home alone and then came up to the door and began calmly telling me that she’d, quote, “cut my clit off” before offering to bring her guy friends over to rape me straight.

• Taped naked photos of herself to our bedroom window.

• Brought a fucking ant infestation into the basement apartments we split and tried to punch me in the face when I told the inspector we’d been putting down traps and all of the bugs came from her side of the building.

• Chased my husband down the side of our house, spat on his face, and tried (almost succeeded before we both tackled it shut) to kick the door open. Third police report that they actually bothered to come out for, and the first one where the officer who arrived took the genuine threats and physical assault seriously.

It’s going on trial tomorrow. Our landlord has had months to evict her for the assults, or not paying rent, or the harrassment, or the way she keeps threatening to shoot his family and calling them the N word. He has told her instead that we’re “probably” moving out soon for the past year and she insists she’s staying until that point - a thing we found out this week when confronting him about her still being here. We also found out that his plan to rent us her bigger unit is contingent on us furnishing it and leaving it for two months when his family comes to stay for a wedding in August.

We also also found out that when the baliffs said they can’t evict her until he does [basic legal step that she could contest] [... that he could have done last year] he decided it wasn’t worth it. So he’s going to illegally evict her. By waiting u til she leaves next week, unlocking her unit, loading her belongings into a van, changing the locks, and installing a gate. His plan is to have her arrested for tresspassing when she tries to come back to her house.

This is insane. It is not legal, it’s deeply unethical even if I hate her ass, and there is no way in hell that she will not just blame us for it when it happens. My husband leaves for work at 4am. She knows this. I am dead fucking certain she will attack him or us before the week is out if we remain here. I am terrified and traumatized and need your help. Please, please help.

[aliensunflower-fics]

For those who have been asking and wondering: “Hey where the hell has sunny been? She promised us new chapters to her stuff. Thats kinda rude that she fell off the face of the planet without so much as a note. I hope shes okay at least.”

Soooo yeah… My entire life KINDA exploded. Like you know ‘Murphys Law’ : Anything that can go wrong will go wrong?

WELL that’s been my life!

First off my computer decided to be quirky and special and not like the other girls and stopped accepting the existence of internet. That’s right my very expensive laptop that I use for my job decided I needed to touch grass and went “the internet is fake and you cant convince me otherwise.” So obviously that was a problem and I tried a bunch of stuff to fix it and taking it into a shop and nothing worked and I could not afford another one and again I need it for my job so eventually we figured out a way for it to accept the internet but it needs to be plugged into the router directly.

Then right as that was getting handled. My apartment landlord decided. “Yeahhh I want more money and to get more money I need to renovate so leave. Like asap.” So I have been frantically looking for a place to live. Me and my partner found a place but need to deal with the bank to finalize stuff and the bank is being stubborn and causing problems.

Then on top of that the government of the country im in. (Im an immigrant) went hey wait WE messed up your immigration paperwork and need you to resend a bunch of documents but also the mail messed up so you dont have as much time as we normally give not our problem though. So Ive been diving through our packed belongings looking for old paperwork from over a year ago.

Oh and every few days my very chaotic family sends me very stressful messages or needs my help with stuff.

So… yeah. Im physically healthy at least. But I have not had 1 moment of stress free rest in awhile.

The good news is ive taken care of a lot of the problems above. I mean my housing situation is still very up in the air thanks to money problems and bank laziness but aside from that the rest is mostly ironed out. So for those who have been asking: yes I’m alive, yes I’m okay, no i haven’t abandoned this blog, no i haven’t abandoned my fics, yes i feel bad that everything has been delayed so much.

I hope I can settle everything in my life soon and go back to posting more consistently. Until then please keep your fingers and toes crossed that the housing situation works because its a very nice apartment and I need somewhere to live.

[noxexistant]

multi-fold questions (jack edition):

• do you view jack and the delanceys as a sort of foil for each other? they’ve both been through physical trauma but have made different choices through that. or do you view them, alternately, as somewhat alike?

• how do you think jack’s trauma surfaces in everyday situations? (headcanons about specific things he’s gone through that contribute to this?)

• what does jack gain from being in a relationship with katherine that he can’t otherwise get from anyone else, any other girl? (i love the way you write jatherine omg)

• is jack closer to davey or to crutchie? and why?

my favourite kind of question!! my favourite guy!!! thank you so much for asking!!!!

ultimately, i do absolutely view the delanceys and jack as character foils — i firmly believe it’s how they were intended — but i also think that they’re alike. it’s what makes all three of them so incredibly compelling to me, and why i’m so obsessed with the dynamics there.

at their cores, they have such deeply similar traumas, physical and emotional; dead mothers, much less than perfect fathers, raising themselves against a brutal backdrop of poverty and violence. but, not only did they make vastly different decisions about how to deal with that and keep moving, they also had different surroundings while it was (and is) all going on.

the delanceys were alone for miles around on a farm with only their abusers — meanwhile jack, according to michael ahomka-lindsay’s backstory for him which i follow, was in overcrowded tenements within a community of other immigrants, people to lean on even after his mother passed and father was arrested, though he could never allow himself to do so with too much vulnerability. there’s still a comfort to having someone there — and there’s a dread to it too, influencing this incredibly complex persona jack has got. this balance of friendliness and faux openness and an absolute guardedness that always exists underneath.

the delanceys took to their solitude, and jack took to the people around him. he’s charming and kind and personable despite everything he’s been through, and that must’ve taken so much effort — and not only did the delanceys not put in that effort, they didn’t necessarily have the building blocks to do so. they had nobody to reach out to, and by the time they do, they’ve decided it’s too late. a decision jack is constantly tempted by, but ultimately never makes.

of the two, jack is undoubtedly a reflection of oscar. each an older brother with a younger brother they’d risked their lives to protect, though jack had failed. they have the same violence thrumming under their skin, the same clawing restlessness to destroy what is unfair, though oscar sees only what is unfair to him and jack sees only what is unfair to others.

jack’s trauma is incredibly complex. straight up c-ptsd, and i strongly believe it influences every single part of his life, constantly. changed his very brain chemistry the way c-ptsd does, and thus shifted all of his personhood into misaligned piles. i think he has an incredibly hard time trusting people with his own vulnerability, as he’s shaped himself into the figure of what he needed, someone brave and bold and always grinning — the cowboy — and he frequently loses sight of who he is underneath that. he doesn’t know if he’s jack kelly or francis sullivan, doesn’t know if either of those people exist.

he flinches when men raise their voices. carriage wheels make him nauseous sometimes, when his eyes catch in the spin of their spokes and he gets sucked in like he’s drowning, thinking of michael being caught in that motion over and over again. he has nightmares near every night, but rarely the types where he wakes up screaming — he wakes up holding his breath, drenched in sweat, silent. fireplaces make him uneasy, always thinking of the one in snyder’s office. the texture of rattan is enough to make him vomit, and he’s never once explained why he always stands instead of sits in the pulitzerses’ beautiful orangery with all the beautiful rattan furniture.

and katherine doesn’t understand. she couldn’t possibly. and maybe that’s why he loves her so dearly, why she’s so important to him, because she never sends him pitying looks or treads on eggshells the way others do when they know it’s rough, it’s sore. frequently, she doesn’t get it at all, and she pushes too far, and though it aches, it’s like stretching a stiff muscle — like jack’s bad shoulder. he adores her. she’s intelligent and levelheaded, and when he does want to talk about it, she’ll talk. she won’t shy away from the horrors, she’ll ask questions, she’ll want to understand. when he locks up, she’ll pry, and when they fight she will always be the first to come back to him, because she knows he thinks every fight is the last. thinks it would only take one wrong word to make her throw him away.

davey is also a deeply important relationship to jack, an indispensable friend that he Loves, but jack is undoubtedly closer to crutchie. jack and crutchie have part of their souls entwined. they have seen each others’ absolute worst and held each other through it. they have fought viciously and detested each other and still loved each other in that same breath, complex and disgusting and raw and as beautiful as love can ever be. something beside brotherhood, but too worn and gnarled at its edges to fit quite into the box.

if there’s one person on the planet that jack could truly bare his soul to, it’s crutchie, and crutchie will bare his soul to jack too in fury and exhaustion and tears.

maybe someday, jack thinks, he’ll be able to do the same thing with davey. but it’s a similar thought process as to with katherine — that he’s only one wrong move away from losing him forever.

[thesunpersists]

i want to know your #takes on the ‘this or that’ everlark ask game people are doing and also what pet names they call each other if any :))))))))))))

Hi!! thank you so much for the ask @alextcrner!! ❤️❤️❤️

They are making me work at work (heartbreaking, I know) so I am behind on pretty much everything and I could just now get around to typing my thoughts! Sorry for the delay!! 

Everlark this or that, let’s go! 🧚🏻

Katniss has an upturned nose or a hooked nose 

I love love love fanart with Katniss with a hooked or big nose!!

I don’t have a strong preference either way but I tend to only care about these things if they relate to the story. I recently wrote a Modern AU where Katniss’s dad is an immigrant and has a complicated relationship with his in-laws. I figured that Katniss would have her father’s features and there is a small part in that story where little Peeta teases her for having a big bumpy nose. So, this is basically how I try to think about physical features when writing or thinking about characters. 

Katniss is under 5’3 or over 5’7

Okay, this is an example of physical descriptions being relevant to the story and I think 5’7 is just too tall for book Katniss! (I also really don’t like jlaw’s portrayal of her and I don’t incorporate her into my imagination at all so there is that lol I’m petty!)

Peeta is strong and muscular or chubby and round 

I don’t think he was chubby but he is big, for sure. Before the 74th Games, I think he simply had a large and wide build without being too muscular. In Catching Fire, it makes sense for him to have gained more muscle mass from the training and better nutrition. Post-Mockingjay Peeta definitely puts on a few, as does Katniss. ❤️🥹

Peeta has two dimples or dozens of freckles 

Gahh I love both mental images so much! But I’ll go with dimples as I find them super cute. ❤️

They grow back together in less than 1 year or after 2 years 

This is the hardest. I think of it as a rather awkward period where they are feeling their way through but also, for the first time in their lives, they are left alone to do that and be themselves! So, I am certain that they started hanging out right after Peeta came back to 12 but I cannot pinpoint when exactly they would be together, in that sense. 

I also love how the book is deliberately ambiguous because I don’t think a strict timeline would work well in canon. Suzanne, you genius! 

They’re very vanilla or they like to try spice

To be honest, I don’t even know what would be considered spicy or vanilla! I think they have loving, healthy sex in whatever shape or form it looks like for them. 

Pet names! 

I think of Peeta as the one who uses nicknames more often. When writing canon Everlark, it always feels so natural for him to call her Kat, love, or baby. Katniss, on the other hand, calls him just Peeta in my stories, often in an exasperated tone haha

This was fun, thank you so much! Tell me what you think! 💫

[rainbow-femme]

So obviously I love just how much LGBTQ+ media exists now, and how much media has LGBTQ+ characters in it, but something Gen Z and later generations will never experience is being so desperate for anything that you end up finding the weirdest gay indie movies imaginable, watching them once at 2 am and then never seeing them again, and being haunted by the half remembered plots because you cannot for the life of you track them down again

So I would like to give you that experience vicariously through two of the ones I watched over a decade ago. If you recognize these please let me know I would love to track them down

The first was about this French gay dude in America who was marrying a lesbian friend to get a green card, and his boyfriend is like

“Hey babe my sibling is coming to town and going to stay with us.”

And the French guy goes “That seems like a bad idea, on account of you telling me that every time they come into town they become super toxic and make you the worst version of yourself and ruin your life.”

And the boyfriend is like “Ok but what are the odds that would happen again.”

The sibling I’m going to use they/them for because in an example of wonderful handling of trans characters, this person continually changes their mind about their gender, which is fine, except they keep managing to get full sex change surgeries every time it happens which is absolutely wild to me because it’s implied they have fully transitioned multiple times. They come into town having had a full MTF transition to the point of both top and bottom surgery and hormones but they’ve decided they’re a man again so they want a place to crash while they have a full FTM transition and I feel like I vividly remember them saying something about finding a doctor who can make them a pair of testicles. Like, specifically testicles was what they brought up, no other bits, this doctor apparently only made and attached artificial testicles and this character decided to start there

So naturally they start isolating the boyfriend from everyone by convincing him that everyone is out to get him and his French boyfriend sucks and is holding him back to the point that the boyfriend I’m pretty sure starts physically abusing the French guy along with other emotional abuse

And the story culminates in the two of them tipping off immigration about the green card marriage and literally get this dude deported, like he is handcuffed and put into a car and taken away, and also probably screwing over the lesbian friend who had agreed to marry him after the boyfriend had asked her to do it to help them

And as the car is driving away the boyfriend looks at the sibling and gives a “Nuh uh, I’m done with you” head shake and starts chasing after the car the French dude is in only to be hit by a different car and presumably killed

And that’s it, that’s the movie

The second is probably my favorite half remembered middle of the night gay movie

It’s about two lesbian friends who seem to be trying out dating each other to see if the relationship would work, and they end up meeting a group of BDSM lesbians who go “Uh, didn’t anyone tell you that lesbians don’t do monogamy anymore? We’re all polyamorous and have BDSM subculture personalities that we live in 24/7, that’s the only way to be a lesbian”

(Side note I don’t think this movie is actually bad about BDSM or polyamory stuff, it’s more about how people just coming out can easily get sucked into doing what they think they should and end up unhappy and over their heads in order to fit what a “real [X] person” looks or acts like. The characters who legitimately enjoy the lifestyle seem to be written in a good way based off my 10+ year old memory of my single viewing)

So the two lesbians decide that one is going to full time be a Daddy personality and the other will be a Little Girl personality, and they can sleep with whoever they want except the Daddy one can’t sleep with a different Little Girl or vice versa because that’s cheating

And this movie was so good because these two had 100% no knowledge of what they were actually supposed to do in BDSM situations and just kept acting like they did and the people in the scenes were like “… Ok, I guess I’ll trust you’re going somewhere with this?” and they never were, they were always just stalling for time

The best example is when the Little Girl one met a butch sub who was a Little Boy, I guess, and she wanted to do a three way with the Little Boy and the Daddy, and again they take things pretty literally so in the scene they’re like “ok you’re my dad and this is my son so that means you’re his grandpa.” And the Daddy one again has no idea what to do when genuinely faced with an experienced sub so she goes “Um, let’s make him sit in a box?” so they get a comically small box and make the sub squat down in it but again they have no idea what to do next and it culminates in the Little Girl saying she’s being drawn between the Daddy one she had been into before all of this and the Little Boy one she just met which pisses off the Daddy one so she leaves, fully confusing the Little Boy sub who thought that was all part of the scene

And then the Daddy one decides if the other is gonna have a new person she will too and she finds a super experienced femme domme and tries to flirt by pretending to be a dog and bringing her something in her mouth and the femme domme is just like “Ok A. I know you’re not actually into this so I’m not going to do anything to you because you wouldn’t like it, but also B. Even if you were I am so far above your experience level you would not be able to take it. So WTF is your problem cut it out.”

And there’s like a BDSM spin the bottle where you kiss or smack or lick the boot of whoever you land on and the Daddy one kisses a different Little Girl which pisses of the original Little Girl so she storms off so the Daddy One fully sleeps with the second one, and then gets in a fight with the original one over how one cheated because she got with the same archetype as the other but the other also cheated because she actually got feelings for someone else

And somehow they resolve everything and the story ends with them turning this into a performance art piece. You don’t see the actual performance art, probably because the writers wanted them to get wild applause but couldn’t think of a performance art piece based on this that would actually earn wild applause so you just see them being applauded while wearing a bunch of ties and jackets and scarves and stuff to I guess symbolize them trying to be things they weren’t

And then you see the butch sub getting whipped or spanked or something by the femme domme to show that everyone got their happily ever after

Heartstopper is great and all but they just don’t make ‘em like that anymore

[sarah-yyy]

drive-by rec post for warm on a cold night which just finished airing last night!!

super quick “no time to listen to sarah yell over cdramas now” overview and links first before we get into it as usual:

what: period cdrama // 36 eps, roughly 45 mins each where: iqiyi // viki (usual disclaimer that i do not use eng subs so i don’t speak to the quality of subs) why: fun period cdrama werewolf romance with a sprinkle of crime-solving and uh hand-holding for Plot Reasons

my sweet girl su jiu’er of the qian kingdom! she is the only female constable in the city, but mostly does chores that none of the constables do because she’s had this condition since she was young where her body temperature drops rapidly out of nowhere and she faints randomly so no-one really lets her out to investigate cases even though she’s got the brains for it :(

this loser (affectionate) is han zheng, prince of the qi kingdom - the people of qi are all shapeshifters (think werewolves, though the actual shifting is never really explored too much so idk if they all shift into wolves or if this is specific to han zheng and his branch) who have superior physical abilities. han zheng starts out aloof, arrogant, and low-key anti-qian, but goes through a whole series of character growth because of jiu’er.

these two meet when han zheng sneaks into the qian kingdom to investigate the disappearance of his old friend (who has been branded a traitor of the qi kingdom; hz does not believe this). 

jiu’er finds out that touching han zheng alleviates her condition, like he literally warms her up whenever she touches him, so she keeps trying to do that (sometimes with adorable please save me i’m dying begging, sometimes with buddy you are literally an illegal immigrant here i call the shots blackmail, my girl has range) to han zheng’s initial distaste :))) the two of them team up to first solve recent mysteries in the city targeting the qi people, and then later investigate han zheng’s bff’s disappearance and jiu’er father’s death.

this show is so funny!! jiu’er persistently tries to get han zheng to try new things and make friends (even with his love rival!!!!!), and the banter between them at the start is so funny! their rivals to friends to lovers transition is also so smooth, and there is A LOT of gratuitous hand-holding scenes thank you scriptwriter for feeding me so well

ANYWAY the setting is fun, the cases move really quickly and most of them are quite interesting. i think it’s meant to be more a romcom than it is a crime-solving drama, so i went in with lower expectations re: the cases etc which helped! most of them are not that complicated, but still fun to watch unfold! the fight scenes are done really well

the side characters are also a+++

sleepy boy in the middle is wen jun (prince of the qian kingdom), who has had a crush on jiu’er since they were little and she took care of him when he was banished to this temple with his sickly mother by the emperor. they lost contact with each other when he was taken back to the palace after his mother passed. he is THE SWEETEST BOY!!! he doesn’t really have a mind for politics (that’s all left to his elder brother), so his fam just lets him enjoy life writing plays and spending money. he helps out with their investigation and follows han zheng and jiu’er around like a puppy :’) major ot3 vibes but ALAS

HELLO DA-DIANXIA MY LOVE :’) i am a sucker for a smart, well put together man, so can y’all really blame me for imprinting upon wen ying like this??? he is SUSPICIOUS af from the get-go, but also he’s so good and so kind to wen jun that i keep thinking the show is just trying to bait me into thinking he’s the bad guy :( ANYWAY in the later eps, he’s got this Thing going on with chi lan (badass general of the yi kingdom who is also han zheng’s other bff) that just makes me go !!! because of the potential

moustache man is jiu’er’s godfather! also one of my favourite characters with a+++ comedic timing tbh!!! can’t say more about him because spoilers but I LOVE HIM OKAY

if y’all are looking for a nice, low-stakes watch, this is probably the show for you! it’s mostly light-hearted, nothing too complex that requires full attention, and really easy to binge - i probably could’ve done this whole show in one weekend if i weren’t also battling jetlag :D

[scribbleseas]

Straight Laced, Chapter V: To Be A Force of Nature…

Description: After the London’s Royal Ballet company’s prima ballerina goes missing within a string of mysterious disappearances among the ballet’s young ballerinas, you finally get your chance to debut in the leading role, taking on the position’s physical toil and immense social pressure. Although this role was supposed to be your grand jeté into the spotlight, it is quickly complicated when these disappearances catch the eye of Ciel Phantomhive — the Queen’s Guard Dog. He is a captious and shrewd man who also happens to be one of London’s most eligible bachelors.

For enough profit for you to secure your freedom for the first time, Lord Phantomhive double casts you as both his accomplice to solving these dancer disappearances and… his pretend lover. While debuting as London’s new prima ballerina, you must perfect a brand new routine: deceiving all of the nation’s polite society while actively searching for a serial killer — all while being an immigrant from France with a dancer’s reputation.

What could go wrong when you realize this off-stage performance of yours may not be an act at all?

Story Warnings: detailed description of gore, pain, and violence, detailed death, smut & explicit sexual scenes, allusions to non-consensual sex, objectification, prostitution, allusions to under-aged prostitution, smoking, drinking, eating disorder tendencies (food restriction, frequent references to wanting to maintain a certain weight, over-practicing & exercising), infidelity, fake courtship, swearing

Author’s Note: idk I have nothing to say for myself. i’m sorry this is so late. anddd keep an eye out for an upcoming poll! I need some input about which story you guys would like to see from me next, since we’re now officially halfway through this journey! As always, let me know what you think about this chapter! I love love LOVE audience interaction. So fun and so motivating. i love you all and hope you enjoy it!!

Happy Reading,

- dan (Depression Barbie LMAO)

MASTERLIST

⇐ PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER ⇒

The End of October

The Royal Opera House, The Practice Room

“Try it again, Y/n,” Natasha ordered. The bottom of her cane knocked against the floor to cue the pianist to start the music.

Despite your obedient nod, your whole body protested.

Every single muscle in your feet begged for mercy, and your legs and lower back began to do the same. The amount of complex pointe work and arabesques in the variation were what made it such a challenge— maintaining the perfect form but without being too stiff. The Sugar Plum Fairy had to be regal and majestic; you needed to be buoyant on your toes to create the vision of a fairy ready to flutter her wings and fly.

The Nutcraker’s Sugar Plum Fairy Variation was the physical and emotional equivalent of a chess game with Ciel Phantomhive. You watched yourself in the mirror, eyeing the streams of sweat that fell from your hairline and down the bridge of your nose. Still, your arms fanned to either side and your leg drew back to create your starting position: b-plus.

This was the piece that established the fairy’s power in the land of sweets. It needed to be perfect or near perfect by now or Natasha would have your head.

“Your pas de bourreé needs to be lighter,” the director criticized, catching every error in your movement. Her gaze was heavier than a magnifying glass. “It should be airy— and you must maintain the connection between your fingers and your head.” You frowned, your eyebrows knitting with concentration.

She has cautioned you about a heavy step sequence before, Y/n. Try harder— Tchaikovsky wanted this dance to be as light as raindrops; this is the second time Natasha has told you to land gentler.

Your throat felt dry with embarrassment, but you forced yourself to power through. The music hesitated to a short stop while you spread your arms as if you were bracing for a wide hug.

Seconds later, the music launched into its famous chorded sequence up the keys and you stepped into your piqué manége. While a pas de bourreé resembled a sideways sequence of you rapidly tiptoeing across the practice studio floor, the piqué manége and coupé jeté combination was a constant step and turn rotation. You had to spring into small jumps to make each turn, repeating the process until you outlined the perimeter of a square with your spins around the studio floor.

Your head swam, dizzied because you skipped breakfast and lunch that day because you wanted the extra time in the studio. The investigation with Ciel was eating more into your practice time than you wanted to admit— he summoned you to take short promenades through parks, short appearances at bakeries, and specialty boutiques, spoiling you. Showing the public that you were well provided for — frankly blooming under the warmth of his generous fortune— was the Earl of Phantomhive’s ‘love’ language.

“Keep your chest up,” Natasha’s voice felt distant, even though she was in the same room as you and the rest of the company. “You should be thinking of your spinal cord as a fixed structure that your ribs rotate around. And keep your arms controlled with these spins. You are delicate, but there is still a commanding firmness to you.”

You took your final spins, returning to the middle of the stage to chassé up— otherwise, arrange yourself into the performance’s ending position. Both of your arms were straight and angled upwards like you were reaching for a high shelf, and your back rounded to create an energetic arch. Your left foot extended behind your right leg.

Your heart pounded in your chest as Natasha inspected your chassé, peering at you in the same way Ciel examined whatever literature he happened to be reading at the time. Her cold fingertips guided your chin a few centimeters upwards before her head bobbed in a content nod. “Keep your gaze in line with your arms, in this position. Always.”

Natasha’s lips were relaxed in their frown. She was in a particularly stormy mood during this practice, all fortified scowls and impatient scoffs before this moment. Now, rather than completely vexed, the choreographer only seemed mildly frustrated. You struggled to hold her frustration against her— you had been having the same difficulties with this dance since the beginning of the month. You were frustrated with yourself.

“I appreciate your feedback, Natasha” you replied, maintaining your appreciative pretense for the rest of the company members present. Your smile was mechanical and fake, nothing more than the flimsy curtain that the backstage hands rolled in and out between every act. For you, harsh criticism gracefully was an act— smiling while your chest burned with indignation was incredibly blood-boiling.

Especially after you dedicated at least a full afternoon to perfecting the same piece.

She sent you a curt nod in response, only proving to you that there was something on her mind. Something unpleasant…along the lines of her husband being a serial rapist and potential murderer. Guilt sweat beamed in your hairline because, by Ciel’s orders, you still were not allowed to inform her of what you learned about William. But if she found out on her own…you could certainly comfort her, right?

“You are all dismissed,” Natasha addressed the class. “But remember! Soldiers have their designated costuming times with myself and the costuming director this upcoming week! Talk to one of us for your appointment.”

You waited until Natasha finished answering every post-rehearsal question, sending a nameless company member scurrying off with notes on the performance, or some set of miscellaneous instructions. Now that dress rehearsal was only a month away, it was time for each company member to make their dances technically perfect. Natasha preferred to focus on mechanical accuracy before adding the art and drama back into the ballet with the addition of stage makeup and glitzy costuming. Furthermore, Natasha was the heart and soul of the London Royal Company— it was a risk to so much as inhale at an undesignated time.

“Is there something bothering you?” you asked, your eyes breaking away from the door once you were sure everyone was out of earshot. “You were harsher than usual. I know dress rehearsal starts soon but—”

“Everything is fine with me, Y/n,” Natasha replied chillingly, jumping to the defensive. Her hand adjusted on her cane’s grip, bringing the walking accessory closer to her to re-shift her weight. She hissed through her clenched teeth at her bad leg, suggesting the old injury was hurting her. “If I were you, I would be more worried about my dancing than my director. Your rendition of Plum’s variation left much to be desired,” she said without a hint of hesitation.

Of course not— when it came to the choice of sparing a cast member’s self-esteem or breaking their confidence into jagged pieces of shrapnel for quicker results, Natasha would always, inevitably, choose the latter. She wasn’t the best prima ballerina in London five years ago because her feedback was obsequious. “Honestly. I would have thought you would have a breakthrough with your pointe work by now,” Natasha continued, disappointed.

With her sharp cheekbones and straight, raven hair, her visage reminded you of a slightly grumpier and career-driven Snow White.

“I will dedicate every free moment to it,” you insisted, your cheeks hot. Tears stung at your eyes, but you were accustomed to the suffocating feeling and managed to hold them in until you reached the closed door of your dressing room.

The moment you turned your lock closed, you turned towards the inner side of your door, resting your forehead on the cool wood. Your tears tracked down your cheeks, but you made no effort to flick them away. Not yet. You needed to sulk. You deserved to sulk.

“My wife doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” a man’s amused tenor told you, causing your head to jerk back in surprise. “I say, ignore her. I, for one, had a lovely time watching you today, my new prima.”

Ballerina, you wanted to finish the title. Prima felt much too familiar; much too oppressive.

William Wood was as relaxed as a lazy cat, his long and lean body poised comfortably on your couch. He gave a fleeting, yet bitter, look to the gold wedding band around his left ring finger before returning his gaze to you.

You made a rapid effort to wipe your distressed tears away. Normally, you were never one to cry over some constructive criticism, but you guessed it was your building stress— the amount of time and anxiety it consumed. The dark knowledge you had weighed on your mind heavily: knowing the truth about the man sitting in front of you, how he potentially murdered ballerinas like you. The fact that he was responsible for horrendous crimes and was still free to flash a winsome smile at you with the expectation that you’d fall for it.

Moreso, you imagined he used the same strong stare and enticing words to trap all of his victims; whether or not he persuaded them that he cared about them, or ripped all of their confidence away with his own surplus of it.

You cleared your throat, hesitant to meet his cool gray eyes. While Natasha’s were slightly blue, William’s were only a monochrome silver— as if all color was drained from them. His thin lips pulled into a half smile that he likely meant to be seductive and welcoming, but the longer you watched him, the more pursued you felt. He was watching you with the salacious eagerness a hunter would, aiming his rifle at an unsuspecting deer.

How could the other girls have reacted? Amélie, Eliza, Janet? Your heart was heavy with grief. The pain that these girls would never be able to share their stories with the rest of the world. Their lives were stolen from them. By this man.

“Thank you, Mr. Wood,” you greeted tersely. You knew your smile was unconvincing; you couldn’t bring yourself to bring the warmth of recognition into it, or the respect an employee would show to her handsome and potentially homicidal employer. All you could think of was the blood on his hands and the utter certainty across his lips. He was a huntsman. “I see you have returned from Paris. How was your trip?”

How could he live with himself?

“Just fine, Y/n,” William stood to his feet and took a leisurely set of steps towards you, casually crowding you against the door you just locked. There was enough room between you for him to deny his lack of respect for personal space, but so little room that you could spot every individual freckle across the wide bridge of his nose and his cheeks. “But I’m more interested in you. Your technique has simply flourished since that Janet girl left us.”

Left us?

You tensed, but you forced your body to remain open, fighting its natural urge to curl in and shield you from the danger. There was no hesitation in William’s face— not when he started flirting with you, and certainly not now, after he suggested that Janet simply retired from dancing and disappeared. Of course, the Yard was keeping these ballerina disappearances out of the papers. No one else knew there was anything wrong except for those clothes to the ten women, those investigating, and of course, the killer.

Ciel would tell you to talk about Janet and the recent company losses to gauge William’s response. His body language, what was saying, what he was not saying. He would tell you to either ignore the flirting or use it to your advantage, as rejecting Wood would likely bruise his ego too much for you to continue pursuing this…angle. Embarrassed, William would never speak to you again…or if you angered him, he’d simply kill you later.

You would need to use this interaction to set up future time with William. That way you and Ciel could make a plan to get his confession or gather concrete evidence, considering Ciel was too cautious to make the arrest if he wasn’t completely convinced.

If the course of the investigation was solely your choice, you would have already had William arrested for assault, abduction, and at least one murder. Unfortunately, your authority only extended to waltzing tips and how to make Ciel’s publicity smile appear less like a grimace.

William’s eyebrows raised, prompting your response. He was suspicious of your hesitation— which was surprising, given that he was married to your director. How could you fail to notice this…aggressiveness before this week? Now, it was clear to you.

“That is so kind of you to say, sir,” you paused, unsure of what to say next. How could you extract more information about Janet without appearing accusatory? “This opportunity has been extraordinary for my career. It is so hard for me to believe that Janet would give it up so senselessly.” You watched William’s face, looking for any flicker of emotion, but there was none beyond his pensive nod.

“You should know how it is, by now, Y/n,” William drawled with the wisdom of an experienced man who had been watching the ballet field for a near century, rather than a measly thirty years. While the Wood family owned the opera house since its construction in 1732, William only started running the Wood’s business empire five years ago — after his father, John, died abruptly. Heart failure.

The last production the opera house had under John Wood was the Sleeping Beauty run where William met Natasha, the new prima ballerina. They were both around your age at the time. You couldn’t imagine meeting your future spouse and marrying them only for your father to die a month or two afterward.

“Not everyone can take the heat. Not everyone should. They can’t handle it because they’re not like you. You’re a shark. A force of nature; someone special. I can see it,” William continued, taking a loose strand of hair that fell free from your bun and tucking it behind your ear. His fingertips lingered on the side of your neck, and the top of his thumb kept your chin tilted upwards towards his face.

“A force of nature?” You asked, almost as puzzled as you were uncomfortable. You wished you could take a step away, but your backside was pressed against your only exit.

William chuckled, pleased to have the opportunity to explain himself. It made him feel smarter than you— something that most men adored as much as staring at you. “Yes. That means, unstoppable, strong, and…unforgettable. Beyond control. Like I said: don’t listen to Natasha. You were flawless. You are flawless.”

Your breath hitched, unable to hide the euphoria that came with praise, but of course, not without recalling that these were lines he likely rehearsed. William knew how to attract his victims with honey before resorting to vinegar. Ultimately, it made you realize that this was how Amélie, Eliza, and Janet felt. Seen. Special. Noticed by the owner of the opera house. Frankly, if you hadn’t been promoted, you doubted you would have been William’s next target.

Still, even if you knew you were a force of nature before William said so, there was something more empowering about hearing so. For once, it wasn’t your ego; it was praise. Genuine, few and far between, praise. Something educated and intricate— it might have been nearly leagues more satisfying than faraway applause from an audience that didn’t know the first thing about ballet…if you didn’t know that William had ulterior motives. If you didn’t know that this was the trap the huntsman fabricated to catch his next meal.

William took your prolonged silence as encouragement. He leaned downwards, each gaining centimeter only pushing him closer to your lips.

“Mr. Wood…” you cut his advance short, hesitating as you remembered that rejection was not an option. You tried to soften your expression, and your body, given that your words came out somewhat flat. You thought of the weak-willed princesses in children’s tales; the submissive character you put on for all of your old patrons; the long set of polite society’s rules Sebastian branded into the front of your brain.

William’s approach was to take vulnerable and insecure girls and make them feel like a force of nature because of him. Not because they were, inherently.

But you were. This time, he didn’t know who he was messing with.

“I think…we ought to wait until we have more time together,” you said sweetly, your hand coming from your side and adjusting William’s shirt collar. It was folded unevenly, and even the minute gesture was enough for him to think you cared about him— that you were looking intently enough to realize that there was a problem with his wardrobe in the first place. Any special attention from intended prey was like a drug to these power-starved men. It made you wonder why they thought they had all of the power. “Could you imagine the scandal? If everyone in the company found out?” You asked, widening your eyes with ironic innocence.

You were the black swan, Odile. Mischievous, conniving, confident. Frankly, thinking about making the arrest and putting the bastard away was what created your reluctantly seductive grin— much in the same way as Odile’s excitement to manipulate Odette’s prince.

William’s back straightened as he considered you once more, looking over you with reignited vigor, now that you were fully committed to playing his game. He tilted his head, though his eyes were slightly more hesitant to leave your lips.

“I think you’d get some enjoyment out of all that attention, Prima,” William joked, taking your hand in his. He pressed a kiss onto your knuckles before doing the same for the inner part of your wrist. His thumb rubbed the same spot on your wrist as if he wanted the feeling of his foreign lips on your skin to linger. “But unfortunately, you do have a point. I think I have a remedy for us, though,” William looked ponderous before he fished out a ring of keys from his jacket pocket with his free hand— he was still holding yours until he needed both hands to sift through the crowded keys.

To you, it suggested he had several places he needed to keep locked away. That could be residences, safes, closed doors, drawers... the number of potential areas to hide murder weapons and implicating items could be limitless if all of the locations for these keys were his. It was suspicious.

Once William found the key he was looking for, he unlinked it from the key ring. He pressed it into your palm so hard that you could feel it indent in your skin. “Here. This opens the back door of my country house. We will meet there. Tomorrow— after your performance,” he ordered, closing your fingers around the key for you. He pointedly failed to ask if you were available, presuming you would make the time for him.

“The one in… Southampton?” Your mouth felt dry. You went to William and Natasha’s country home once— about a year ago. Natasha allowed you to spend the night after you arrived at the docks after midnight, returning from a short visit to France. Your director didn’t trust you to make it back to your home safely, and she insisted you stay the night with her and William.

The Wood’s Southampton house was a symbol of Natasha’s kindness to you, and now, you were about to use it to further betray her. Failing to tell her about her husband’s crime was the first; and now, you were about to seduce him in order to expose those misgivings.

“Yes. Natasha stays late with the costuming director on Thursdays and Fridays. It’s perfect,” William reminded you. While most companies started costuming for the lead dancers, Natasha liked to start with the ensemble. She claimed it was best to get all of the mass-produced costumes fitted and out of the way before focusing on the standout pieces like yours.

Thinking about your Sugar Plum Fairy costume made you giddy with excitement. While you haven’t seen the ensemble itself yet, Poppy (the costume director that William failed to name) showed you her beautiful sketches for it.

“Meet me there at eleven. Sharp,” William ordered decisively, offering you no chance to protest. Within seconds, he unlocked your door, made sure there was no one outside to see him exit, and swiftly made his leave.

The Same Day, Dusk

Ciel’s Carriage

“No. Absolutely not,” Ciel’s stoic, yet resolute frown pursed into a line. He angled his chin upwards, daring you to argue with him.

“What do you mean?” You demanded, your eyebrows knitting together incredulously. You wanted to stand up to punctuate your surprise and frustration, but the moving carriage wouldn’t allow you to. “This is the perfect opportunity. You said it yourself: We need to investigate William Wood. If he is with me, his guard will be down! And we need evidence and a confession!”

“We would do better to explore a…different angle. I would prefer to meet with him,” Ciel said boredly, opening his book to his current page. He clearly didn’t think much of this disagreement; you thought it was, by far, the most ridiculous one the two of you dealt with up to this point. He was being brainless— you had an opportunity to get into William’s home and make him vulnerable, and Ciel didn’t want to so much as entertain your idea! Your lead!

“But, why?” You insisted, protesting like a child fighting their mother for an extra piece of candy. “What could possibly be wrong with this plan? Setting a meeting up between you and him — without looking suspicious — could take ages!”

“It will not take ages,” Ciel said, emphasizing his use of your words. He skimmed over the words in the passage of his book — The Canticle of Saint Eulalie — idly, speaking while he read. The novel was a relic from medieval French literature, a name you vaguely recognized only to have Ciel snicker at you for not being as inclined to know every facet of your home culture. It was disquieting to know that Ciel was fluent in your first language. When he offered to speak to you in that language, you had denied it vehemently because it was simply too personal. Speaking in French took you back to your mother, dance school, and every painful memory you left back on the European mainland. “I want to extend an invitation to Wood about a business venture.”

“Ciel, it is too convenient. No one will believe that we are in love if you make a business deal immediately after courting me,” you insisted.

“It only matters if he believes that it is a true business meeting,” Ciel said, flipping the current page over.

“I guarantee you, he will not,” you shook your head, crossing your arms over your chest. “William might be a sadistic criminal but he certainly is not a moron—” unlike you, genius “…and he will make the connection between you and me. Natasha has to have told him already.”

“Honestly! You are being stubborn because this is my lead! It was my acting and my efforts that gave us this opportunity. You are insecure. You are selfish! If we let our investigation progress slower than necessary, more people die! Is it worth it? Is your—” You would have proceeded with your tirade until you and Ciel reached your destination, but he slammed his book closed with a start. The heavy sound caused you to hesitate, giving him the opportunity to intercede.

“Y/n! Your plan is too dangerous!” Ciel snapped. “You are an untrained civilian. You are not going to meet a man who has assaulted and likely killed ten other of your peers. Certainly not when he likely imagines you as his eleventh! Honestly! You must be mad. Do you have a death wish?”

“I do not care about that,” you admitted, taking in a long inhale through your nose and quickly glancing out the window. Your fingers intertwined in your lap as your shoulders fell sheepishly. “The danger,” you clarified at the Earl’s perplexed expression. “I truly…it is of no importance to me.”

“And why is that?” Ciel demanded.

“Why do I have the right? They all…died. Why do I get the privilege of…” You let the sentence die, gesturing with your clammy hands because you couldn’t string the proper words together. How could you to know to be careful when these girls didn’t know what they were getting into? They deserved the same warnings you had, but that would never be.

“Come on, Ciel. We need access to his home and his belongings. We will not get it if we pursue your business meeting idea. Please, please, let me do this,” you said, fishing William’s house key out of your jacket’s pocket. The silver key had his matching initials engraved down the side of it in cursive. “While I keep him occupied, you and Sebastian can find the spare office keys in the studio and—”

There was a new grudging respect in Ciel’s face, paired with a thoughtful frown. He was considering your idea, freshly reminded that you were extremely committed to the investigation. After all, it was a personal matter, now.

“No,” Ciel started. He quickly sent a silencing look at you, noticing the confrontational way you leaned in toward him. The carriage was rather small, putting you in the same proximity William was to you, earlier that day. “Not without us. I will not, in good conscience, permit you to go tomorrow without Sebastian and myself. We don’t know what William might try with you.”

A slow smile spread across your face, victorious. You truly were a force of nature.

“You care about me,” you grinned, nose wrinkling with glee. “How kind. Who knew the magnificent, oh-so-powerful, Lord of Phantomhive could care for someone besides himself…” Your hand flew over your heart dramatically. “I’m touched!”

“I had no idea it was controversial to ensure a civilian’s survival,” Ciel smarted, his exposed eye-rolling. His face flushed, but you couldn’t decipher the cause. Frustration from having to accommodate your ever-shifting mood? Embarrassment? No, Lord Phantomhive could never view himself as lesser-than!

Or perhaps, you were right. He did care about you.

Your cheeks grew warm at the thought, causing your head to jerk away before you could regard his lips anymore. (Were they always this plump when he scowled? And that pink?) You were all too aware of your closeness, given that you hadn’t moved back to your original position in the carriage and had been leaning towards him with the severity of either someone enraged or in love.

Enraged. You were enraged.

“Admit that I persuaded you,” you demanded, unable to keep the play stoicism on your face.

“I will not,” Ciel shook his head, relieved that the carriage was coming to a stop because it gave him an easy reprieve from the conversation at hand. “We need you to confirm the body’s identification. Will you come inside?” The Earl asked, gesturing to the Yard’s station outside the carriage. He reminded you of the meaning behind your excursion: confirming that the body found floating in the River Thames was Janet Fischer or a nameless victim. While there were numerous pictures of Janet, they needed a person to confirm her remains.

“Yes, I can.” Your heart sunk, bringing your joy with it. Your smile melted as you nodded gravely, well aware that there was no need to maintain any pretenses in front of the body. Ciel forced the Yard to clear any non-ranked personnel to avoid conflict with your public appearance versus your intended utility to the case.

Within minutes, you were facing Janet one last time. She was truly perfect— the type of beautiful that belonged between pages of a storybook. Her cheekbones were high, but her cheeks were full; her lips were soft and pink. Her blonde hair fell in wisps, too thick to stay in her bun perfectly. Even in death, her eyelashes were long and curled, kissing her cheeks.

Unlike Amélie, there was little sign of death on her, save for her lack of breathing and the obvious bruise on her temple. Otherwise, there was no foul smell, no bloodshot eyes, or gaping mouth. Janet looked as if she was only napping, her face serene without the deep sadness that used to inhabit it. No one in the company carried the same innocence and melancholia— that was why she was Natasha’s first choice for Odette.

“This is her,” your voice hardly registered above a whisper. “Janet…what happened?” you asked, blinking rapidly to keep tears from falling. You wished she could wake up and tell you. There was nothing you wanted more.

“She was officially reported as missing on the night of September 28th,” Ciel said, his presence somewhat comforting to you. Janet was already dead— there was nothing to be done except to bring her killer to justice and ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else. “Exactly one day after the last time everyone has claimed to see her— the night of Thursday, September 27th.”

“This wound seems as if it was from a blunt object,” Sebastian noted, peering at the purple bruise on the side of Janet’s right eye. “But she was found near the Tower Bridge, the rest of her wounds consistent with a high fall.”

“Could she have been hit with the object and subsequently pushed?” Ciel wondered, not truly looking for a response from either you or Sebastian. He crossed his arms, searching for answers from Janet’s body.

You battled a fresh wave of nausea.

“The bruise appears to be circular. I believe the object we’re looking for is slightly round — like a hammer, the pommel of a dagger, or even the end of a cane might create this shape of bruise,” the butler continued, the broad number of potential items doing nothing of note.

If the bruise wasn’t leading to anything concrete, you opted to focus on something — anything — else. Janet went missing on a Thursday… Today was Wednesday. William wanted to meet with you on another Thursday. You had full Nutcracker rehearsals on Thursdays and Sundays, but William said that Thursday would work the best because Natasha always stayed at the studio to work with Poppy.

That made Thursdays the ideal day for him to kill someone: Natasha was out of the picture, and the whole cast was exhausted after a full show rehearsal and a showing of Swan Lake.

You stiffened, your head jerking to look at the Earl. He startled at your sudden movement, knitting curious eyebrows together. What is it now, Y/n? He asked without having to speak.

“Ciel, do you have the dates for any of the other disappearances?”

“Sebastian?” Ciel prompted.

“Annalisse Sterling’s last sighting was Thursday, September 14th and Harriet White’s was August 31st, and…” Sebastian continued, as you flipped through a calendar. You ripped off one of the officer’s unoccupied desks. You circled every date Sebastian said until he stopped at Amelie’s disappearance date.

“The majority of disappearances have taken place between these three weekdays,” you declared, showing Ciel and Sebastian the months of circled Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. “Look. And these are days where we have full show rehearsals and his wife is thoroughly distracted…it cannot be a coincidence.”

Ciel considered the theory, nodding slowly with perceptible hesitance that you wanted to kick out of him. There was absolutely no basis for him to doubt you! Why did he need to be this stubborn? All of the time? “Is there anyone we can speak to regarding Janet? We have already spoken to her family and Lord Taylor, but—”

“She never had friends,” you shook your head. It was true— Janet always distanced herself from everyone. Even Natasha, who seemed to be the entire company’s older sister. “What did Lord Taylor tell you?”

“He has a solid alibi— hosting a birthday dinner for his niece in Tanglewood. His son’s betrothed,” Ciel said. “The party location puts him too far away from the Tower Bridge at that time, and there is no evidence that Taylor told Janet to meet him there.”

“She had to tell someone that she was going out of her usual way,” you shut your eyes for a moment to organize your thoughts. “Janet was not stupid, she would never leave without notice. Her mother and her brothers relied on her income to live.”

“The mother insisted Janet found a note in her dressing room, but there was no one — and no note — to corroborate that,” Sebastian recalled, as perplexed as you’ve ever seen him. Anyone could have left a note in Janet’s room— the murder had to be premeditated if that was how the killer lured her. They knew to leave it there after the performance and to either dispose of it themself or take it from Janet after killing her. Not only that— they had access to those backstage areas. It needed to be someone who blended in at the opera house, otherwise, the interviewed dancers and stagehands would have noticed a suspicious character.

“Ciel, we need to look into William. He owns the opera house— no one would think anything of seeing him backstage. William knows when rehearsals are, and his wife’s work schedule,” you demanded, wide-eyed. Honestly, if Ciel continued to doubt you, you would suspect he was in the wrong line of work.

“Say it is William,” Ciel pinched the bridge of his nose, “how would we proceed?” He asked flatly, guessing that you had a few ideas.

Your expression wasn’t gleeful. You were unsure what to call it, besides fierce and unyielding. It was forceful, it was serious. A real force of nature would do this. You were going to do this.

“We get a confession, then. Tomorrow night.”

[rot-never-ends]

Here's my first foray back into writing after way too long of a dry spell, just a short queer revenge story loosely based on a dream I had.

Wrath of Calypso

A man in a pinstripe suit awakens in… nowhere like he’s ever seen before. Rocky ground with sparse, but brightly growing, foliage. Ferns of various colors, some flowers, the occasional tree. He’s laying against one such tree: a towering, leafless thing, glowing magenta and gently raining… dust? Pollen? Spores? But the oddest thing beholding him about this place? The sky. It’s a bright, saturated cyan. No toning or nuance like the blue hues of the normal world’s sky, just a solid, hideous color that strains the eyes to look at.

That is to say nothing of, of course, all of the bugs. Glowflies, spiders, beetles, isopods, anything you could name and reasonably call a “bug”, everywhere as far as he could see was teeming with them.

“Wha th’ell?” he croaks out.

As if to answer him, someone else does emerge. Someone presumably human. A remarkably beautiful woman in a dress made of chitin with a blue sheen. She has an ethereal presence about her, as if your hand would go right through her if you reached out to touch. She is both the strangest and most normal thing here. The man sits straight up.

“...Who are you?”

She answers, a voice like wind chimes in the fall. “You may’ve known me by another name, but here I am known as Calypso. You’ll do well to remember that name.”

He ponders. “Wait, aren’t you the broad I was just dinin’ with?”

“So you remember.” “What’s this about, then eh? Can you tell me where the ‘ell I am?” “Physically? You’re still in the back of your fancy executive, fast asleep as far as your driver can tell. In soul, you’re in my own personal realm.” “WHAT D’YA MEAN I’M-”

He stands up in protest, but something grabs him from behind and binds him to the tree. He looks down to see a massive centipede coiled around his chest.

“Shhh, don’t struggle sweetie. He might accidentally sting you. His venom is not pleasant to have your nervous system full of.”

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MEANING OF THIS?”

She furnishes a photograph and holds it where he can see it.

“Do you recognize her?”

“Wait, her? That thievin’ rat dyke? Yeah I know of her. What’s she to you?”

“Then I presume you know how she died?”

“...”

“Try not to lie to me.”

“Look, I didn’t kill her.”

“Maybe not with your own hands, but you called the hit.”

“...It was just business. She was stealin’ from us, she was a liability. Besides, they weren’t supposed to kill her, just muscle a lesson into that head of ‘ers. Again, what’s she to you anyway?”

A pause. She closes her eyes and answers somberly. “That ‘thieving rat dyke’ was my girlfriend.”

“Ohhh… shiiiiit. Look I’m really sorry for your loss but like I said, it’s business. She shouldn’t have crossed us. You try building up a successful business from nothin’. You show any weakness and folks will walk all over you.”

She scoffs.

“Please, you gave me your whole rags to riches feel-good success story over our second wine bottle. You offer loans with absurd interest rates to immigrants then sell them coke on the side to keep them in debt. Some honest business.”

“...Your little lover girl was no saint either y’know. She worked for us. Was involved in the dirty work too.”

“I’m well aware. I knew what kind of life she was caught up in. But I also knew her heart was in the right place in spite of it. She risked everything to give back to the families you robbed, and to provide for the both of us on top of that.”

“So what d’you want from me? An apology? Money? An ass-kissin’?”

She doesn’t answer, instead she picks up a moth the size of a watermelon and cradles it to her bosom, gently stroking its head, neck, and wings.

“You know, I was utterly devastated when I lost my Alice. She was the first bit of real hope I ever had. She made me actually want to live again. When even my own family told me I’d never be anything more than a faggot in a dress, she alone saw me for what I really was."

The moth flutters a little. She plants one last kiss on its forehead and lets it fly free.

“But even without her, hope found its way to me for the second time. At my absolute lowest, the gods spoke to me. They told me I was an incarnation of one of their own. They beckoned me to arise and take up Her mantle. And I did. And they etched Her name into my being.”

“...C-Calypso…”

“You understand.”

“Ah jeez. I can’t fuckin’ win against a god.” “Your observation is correct my dear.”

“W-what are you gonna do?”

She lifts a finger towards him. In unison every creature around turns and faces the businessman out of his depth, and gazes motionlessly.

“You will remain here for now. I will hunt down every one of the miserable crooks on your payroll one by one. I’ll kill you last, so that you can see me take them all down, and suffer, suffer, suffer all the while. Your friends will surely realize you’re not just sleeping drunk soon and become paranoid, so I’d better get started now. Get comfortable, you’re going to be stuck to that tree for as long as it takes.”

“YOU FUCKIN’ FREAK. DON’T LEAVE ME HERE GODDAMMIT.”

“Oh, my children. Playtime.”

Calypso turns around and walks away from him. All at once, the bugs that had been surrounding with eyes locked to him scamper and flutter towards him, climbing all over him, until his vision is covered, and his ears are drowned out by buzzing…