#literally the best christmas fairy tale out there

[imnotalady]

i think we as a society don’t have enough jily-centered fanfics so i decided to write my own :) 

this is based on a german-czech cinderella adaptation from the seventies. It’s a Christmas classic in Germany (and I believe in the Czech Republic as well) and absolutely hilarious and sweet, if you haven’t watched it I highly recommend it!! Anyway, this is my first work for the marauder’s fandom (even though I’m a long-time reader) i hope you like it :))

Jily Cinderella AU

Or how Lily Evans gets herself a prince through magic, a little catfish and the power of fashion. Featuring magic hazelnuts, doves, lots of colourful tights and questionable hat choices.

[stevieschrodinger]

Part One TwentySix

Eddie climbs into the beemer, looking as hang dog as Steve has ever seen him, “what’s wrong?”

Eddie fiddles with his sweater cuffs, plucking at them with his finger nails, frowning, “we...speak English?”

“Yeah, that’s right. That’s what the language is called, English.”

“And...many more? Languages? Lots and lots, right?”

“Yeah baby, that’s right, what’s wrong?” Steve grows increasingly more alarmed, Eddie actually looks like he might cry.

“I have to learn more? Learn all?”

“Oh! Oh no, not if you don’t want to. You could learn another one one day, but only if you want to.”

“Sure? Do you promise?”

“Yeah. Yes, baby, I promise. Just this one.”

Eddie sags in his seat, whole body crumpling with relief. Steve can’t help but laugh, but he does give Eddie’s hand a comforting squeeze.

Eddie gets into the beemer holding one massive fucking sunflower. Like, the head of the thing is just. Huge.

“Too big. Too different,” Eddie elaborates, “can’t sell it.”

“Well, that’s okay, it’ll fit in perfect on the coffee table,” Eddie nods affably at Steve’s suggestion.

“Stevie?” Steve hums to show he’s listening, checking his mirrors as he pulls out of the car parking space. “Should we go to church?”

“Church?”

“Mrs. Vanderbilt,” Eddie sounds the name carefully, “say she’s worried about my immortal soul.”

“Does she now. And who is Mrs. Vanderbilt?”

“She makes flower arrangements for church. Stevie? What’s an immortal soul?”

Steve snorts a laugh, “well. Uhm. So there’s...some people believe that there’s God, and heaven and hell and stuff like that. And there’s loads of religions, like with languages, lots of places have different ones and...God is kind of like...do you remember El explaining about Santa at Christmas?”

“Yes. He has a beard and reindeer and choose if you’re good, then gifts. Not real though, fun for kids believe.”

“Yeah. Yeah God is like that, but for grown-ups. And instead of gifts you get into heaven when you die.” Steve sees Eddie’s face crinkle up in his peripheral vision, “actually, you know what, I bet there’s a book about this, library detour?”

Eddie nods, humming agreeably.

The book on religions they find at the library is probably, now, a little below Eddie’s reading level, but it seemed like the best option at the time. When Eddie looks up from it and asks, “think The Upside Down is hell?” Steve sort of regrets the idea of a book.

“No. No I don’t.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah. Hell's probably more like, fire. And brimstone. And I never once saw a little demon with a pitchfork. Also, and I know this for absolute certain, there’s no way someone as good as you comes from Hell.”

“Oh.”

“I think...it’s up to you want you want to decide baby, you read as much as you like, and you think about it, but I think it’s made up, like a-” Steve hesitates over actually saying 'fairy tale', since he’s talking to a guy who, literally, is like a character from one of those stories, “like something that’s made up," He finishes lamely. "Anyway, forget the book, come up here, I haven’t won the kissing game for a couple of days and I’m feeling lucky.”

Eddie leaves the book, forgotten for a while, and Steve decides the first chance he gets he’s taking that one back.

“Stevie!” Eddie bursts through the door of family video, luckily it’s the middle of the day and the place is dead. He breezes straight past Steve and presents four pink roses to Robin, “from Chrissy,” he tells her, causing a spectacular blush to form on Robins cheeks before she sinks down behind the counter.

Eddie completely ignores her. “Knock knock.”

“Who's there?” Steve asks reflexively.

“Eddie with some flowers,” Eddie says proudly, and then promptly bursts out laughing.

“Uhm...Eddie with some flowers who?”

“What?” Eddie looks confused.

“...what?” Steve asks, feeling as confused as Eddie looks.

Eddie brightens again a second later, “knock knock.”

“Who’s there?” Steve asks again, cautious this time.

“Family Video.”

“Family video...who?”

“Family video not house!” Eddie declares, and then laughs uproariously.

From behind the counter, Robin Whispers, “what is happening?”

“I have...absolutely no idea,” Steve answers, right before Eddie starts again on another nonsensical knock knock joke.

There isn’t much that Eddie does that annoys Steve, to be fair, there’s not really anything. But this. By the time he gets home he’s had enough of Eddie’s one man comedy act. “Joyce,” he hisses down the phone desperately, “you don’t understand how shit they are; they don’t even mean anything.”

She has the audacity to laugh at him, “I remember the boys going through that phase. They both did it when they were...four? Maybe Jon was five.”

“How long does it last???”

“Oh, I don’t know, few months maybe, off and on?”

Steve, very gently, bangs his forehead against the wall.

Eddie’s holding a bunch of something pink and only, maybe, a tiny bit wilted. He’s bright eyed as he gets into the car, “Stevie, Chrissy say at me about a new thing. We can try?”

“Sure, baby, what is it?” Steve has the car in reverse, checking his mirrors as he pulls out of the spot.

“Blowjobs.”

Steve’s really pleased with how well he just...doesn’t react to that. Because, truthfully, he’s thought about it. He has. Really. But...well. Eddie’s teeth are sharp. And it’s not that Steve thinks Eddie would ever, ever hurt him on purpose, but that doesn’t mean Steve doesn’t have some, potentially, unresolved toe loss related trauma. And then there’s Eddie’s dick, and how...wriggly it is. How the end opens up and the...well. Just the whole thing, really.

“Stevie?”

“Why...are you and Chrissy talking about blowjobs?”

Eddie shrugs, “Chrissy not really like them, she ask if I liked them. I say I not try them. She said…” Eddie frowns, thinking, “she said, ‘you never get a blowjob?’ and got...angry sad? At Stevie?”

“Oh, she thought I was getting blowjobs but never giving you blowjobs?” Steve can, vaguely, feel his eye starting to twitch. He also can’t help but be fucking irritated with Chrissy, not only is it not her business, but he also can’t really be annoyed with her because...really if that’s what she was worried about, she is only sticking up for Eddie. He’s so naive, there’s no way Chrissy hasn’t picked up on just how innocent Eddie is, so Steve can't really blame her for thinking that anyone could take advantage of Eddie.

Even if it is fucking annoying.

“Yes, but I tell her no blow jobs at all. But we can try now, right?”

“Right. Right. Yeah. Sure. Uh hu.”

Eddie nods, “when we get home.”

“Right,” Steve says, with far more confidence than he feels.

“Stevie? Why not tell about blowjobs before?”

Steve hums, “just kind of...was saving it for a special occasion?” He tries desperately, he can’t look at Eddie as he speaks, keeping his eyes on the road, “didn’t want to go through all the good stuff too fast, you know?”

“Oh okay.”

Eddie limpets himself to Steve the second they’re over the threshold, demanding kisses, his fingers already exploring around Steve’s jeans button, “hang on hang on, couch or bed?”

“Couch,” Eddie answers easily, still kissing Steve as they walk awkwardly though the house. Steve sits, letting Eddie kneel between his legs, fumbling with his zipper.

And, the thing is, Steve really, genuinely believed he could do this. He trusts Eddie, he does. He loves Eddie, really, but he’s not even half hard when Eddie gets him out. And like Eddie...is, he tends to just go for things. Steve catches sight of the teeth and just...can’t. His hands are in Eddie’s way and he’s tucking himself away again before he can really think about it, “could we, maybe, leave this until...later?”

Eddie pouts, “want to try.”

“I just, I don’t want to do this right now, okay?” And the guilt Steve feels is a live thing. He remembers so clearly when he’d been frightened of Eddie’s dick, and how upset Eddie had been. That same fear raises it’s ugly head.

“But why? Chrissy tell me boys really like it-”

“I mean, I do. Kind of. But I just think we could...not do this.”

“But Chrissy say-”

“Jesus Christ Eddie.” Steve snaps, getting angry now. He’s not going to be prodded into doing something he just doesn’t want to do. Especially not by Chrissy Cunningham. “Since you’ve been working with her it’s been Chrissy this and Chrissy that, can’t you just, leave it? For once?” Steve gets up, needing to be away from this conversation.

“But why?”

“Because I just don’t want to, okay? Why don’t you go and ask Chrissy since she knows everything,” Steve snaps again, he knows he’s snapping, and it’s just making him angrier at himself for reacting this way, but he can’t seem to stop himself, defensiveness fueled by the guilt eating at him.

“Maybe,” Eddie says, hands on hips, frowning from the doorway.

“Go then. Go ask her what I should do about it.”

Eddie’s frown is nuclear now as he faces Steve across the kitchen, he tries to speak, half formed words at first, Eddie clearly struggling as he gets upset, “you think? You think?? You promise forever! Stee scared of Eddidie more! Eddidie different! Stee tell away!”

“You are though, you are different!” Steve knows he's wrong the second he says it. He knows Eddie well enough that saying that in anger is a cheap shot, and unforgivable low blow.

Eddie’s mouth pops open, shocked and affronted. He goes to speak but just...doesn’t. He turns and leaves...Steve hears the front door go.

“For fucks sake,” he sighs to himself, angry and upset with himself, the fight goes out of him as he’s swamped by guilt. Steve makes himself move to follow Eddie out. He opens the door just in time to watch Eddie pull the beemer out of the driveway, “oh fuck.”

“There’s pretty much only one place he would go, I think.” Steve tells Hopper, “so I’m pretty sure he will be there.”

Hopper hums from the drivers seat, “and what exactly did you two fight about?”

“I...well. I think this is one of those times where you don’t ask unless you’re really sure you want to know.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, there it is,” Steve breathes a massive sigh of relief, the beemer is parked near the florist. Tight to the curb too, a good parking job, and there’s not a single mark on her. The florists however, is shut for the day.

Steve bangs on the door, peering through the glass. It’s dark inside, but there’s some light shining through that little door in the back. Steve knocks on the glass again, and eventually Chrissy appears. She unlocks the door, immediately telling Steve, “he doesn’t want to see you.”

“Kid, can I go?” Hopper calls from where he’s half tucked the truck out of the way.

“Yeah,” Steve waves him off, turning back to Chrissy, “I need to apologize to him. Please.”

She scowls and makes a vague humphing noise at him, “fine,” Steve slips awkwardly through the gap Chrissy allows him, and once in she locks the door behind him. Steve follows her into the shop, “Eddie, I’m putting some stuff in the car out back, you come get me if you need me, okay?”

Steve comes around the doorway to see Eddie nodding sadly, he’s sitting in what must be their tiny break room. There’s two chairs and a beat up Formica top table, a little electric kettle on top of a under counter refrigerator. Eddie’s got a scrunched up wad of tissues in his hand where he’s clearly been crying.

“Hi Eddie,” Eddie fiddles with his tissues and keeps his eyes on his knees, not looking at Steve, so he pulls up the other chair, “I’m really sorry.” Eddie nods, but doesn’t say anything.

“I just,” Steve sighs, rubbing at his face roughly, “I did get scared okay? But I shouldn’t have...I should have just explained, I shouldn’t have shouted.”

Eddie nods, shredding the tissue, “I sorry too.”

“It’s...not you're fault. Not really. I just...Eddie, your teeth are really sharp you know, and my dick is...my dick. I know you’d never hurt me on purpose, okay, I know that but…”

“Chri-” Eddie bites it back, and stops speaking again.

“Yeah. I’m sorry about that too. It’s good you have a friend okay? It’s good she’s...teaching you things I haven’t thought of. It’s…you can talk about Chrissy, it’s fine.”

“Chrissy say...no people should do anything they don’t want to. Especially with sex stuff...so Eddie a bit wrong,” he sniffles, “but she help me dig hole anyway.”

“What hole?”

“For your body. Dead soon, but that...kind of funny joke?”

Eddie says it in a way that means he did not find it funny at all, and Steve snorts a laugh, “yeah. Yeah, she’s a good friend.”

They sit in silence for another minute before Steve offers, “you did a really good job of parking the car...do you want to drive me home?”

“Yeah,” Eddie stands, and so does Steve, and then they both move in for a hug at the same time, Eddie desperately throwing his arms around Steve's shoulders and holding him as tight as he can.

Steve swears to himself he’s going to do better with this stuff, and lets himself nose at Eddie’s ear, his skin tickled by Eddie’s new curls.

Eddie answers the phone, “Harrington residence,” he says carefully.

Steve watches him frown for a second, before he says, “yes, wait please,” and then offers the phone to Steve, “doctors.”

“Oh, right, yeah,” Steve takes the phone, confirming his address and date of birth, before the lady tells him his test results are ready to pick up.

He hangs up, and Eddie’s there, offering him a pen, “that your birthday?”

“I- yeah. Yeah it was.”

Eddie nods, “should be on calendar before, Stevie,” Eddie admonishes gently.

“Okay, I’ll do it now, and then we can go get my results, okay?”

Eddie nods, “no more condoms,” he says solemnly.

Steve snorts a startled laugh.

There’s a frantic banging on the front door, then the bell rings. The bell rings again before Steve can even clamber up off the couch. It’s Eddie and Chrissy, and they hustle into the house before Steve even has the door all the way open.

Steve’s already alarmed, he isn’t due to pick Eddie up for another hour at least, and Chrissy wouldn’t just close the store unless it was an emergency.

“What happened?”

“There was a man,” Chrissy explains a little breathless, “Eddie hid behind the counter the second he saw him, and I’m sure he didn’t see Eddie, I’m sure. But he was asking questions. If a young man worked at the store, weird things about Starcourt. I just kept telling him no Steve but- he’s definitely looking for Eddie.”

Steve feels a mounting sense of dread as she speaks, “Eddie, did you know him?”

Eddie nods, looking frightened, “Starcourt. When I was in tank.”

“Tank?” Chrissy pulls a face, “what tank?”

“Uhm,” Steve suddenly realizes that Chrissy maybe shouldn’t be here for this part, Steve definitely needs to call Hopper, “Chrissy, thank you, but maybe you should go-”

“Absolutely not. Not if Eddie’s in trouble-”

“Okay, but the thing is-”

“Steve.” Chrissy huffs, “I know, okay?”

“You know...what?”

“I don’t know!” She flails a little, “I don’t know what I don’t know! But I do know that Eddie had never heard of the moon landing! He didn’t know that the guy on the five dollars is Abraham Lincoln! He didn’t know that other languages exist and he certainly can’t speak anything other than English even though, according to you,” she pokes Steve in the chest, “he should be able to speak Finnish! And he can’t!”

She’s getting worked up now, and Steve finds himself taking a step back, his hands up in defeat. For a tiny cheerleader, Chrissy’s kind of scary.

“He can find one bug in a delivery of a hundred stems Steve! And do you know how, he told me he can hear them! Hear them! I’ve watched him trim anything from daises to roses to full on sunflowers with his thumbnails Steve! He can cut baler twine with them. And don’t get me started on the florist wire, do you know what he does with that? He just straight up fucking bites through it!” Chrissy gets louder and pinker the longer she rants.

“He came to work with a mashed potato sandwich, like that's normal!! His tears are fucking brown! Brown! Those fingernails, that’s not polish, they’ve never been chipped, not once, they just grow that way, right? And I might be a blonde cheerleader but I am not stupid. So no. Okay, no. I don’t know what Eddie is. But I do know he’s my godamn best friend and if he’s in trouble, I want to help, okay?”

She’s all bright eyed and kind of breathless, and just a little terrifying. Eddie’s got his hands up in front of himself, nervously pulling at the threads of his cuffs, eyes big and worried as they slide back and forth between Steve and Chrissy.

Steve sighs, “okay. Okay. We can explain, but I just...I need to make a call first.”

Part TwentyEight

[twistedtummies2]

Top 6 Edgar Allan "Poe-ms"

In my previous list for Halloween-time, I discussed my favorite short stories by the great Edgar Allan Poe: my all-time favorite author. Poe’s work with short stories was vast and varied, covering all sorts of genres; he wrote plenty of horror tales, of course, but also works of humor and simple mystery. But of course, these were not the extent of his output: Poe was also a gifted “Poe-t.” And as we all know, “Poe’s Poems Pwn Posers.” (Bravo if you got that reference.) But seriously, Edgar Allan “Poe-try” (I’m sorry, these are much too easy) was rarer than his narrative output, but no less intriguing. His poems, like his stories, ranged in length, style, and tone, from dark and eerie, to multiple kinds of romance, both tragic and surprisingly heartfelt. Some of them even mingled elements of tone together, making for particularly unique pieces in the annals of literature. I figured that it was best to give his poems a separate, albeit shorter, spotlight from the short stories he wrote. So, without further ado, here are my Top 6 Edgar Allan “Poe-ms.”

Also, I promise that’s the last Poe and poetry pun I make. Intentionally. XD

6. The Haunted Palace.

This is one of two poems on the list that was initially written on its own terms, but then later - interestingly - was incorporated into one of his short stories. “The Haunted Palace” appears in the short story “Fall of the House of Usher,” where it serves an allegorical purpose, as the poem is a (none-too-subtle) analogy to the exact happenings in the story up to that point. Taking it out of context from the story, however, it’s still a very powerful and, as its title indicates, haunting piece of poetry. The poem tells the story of a beautiful palace, fairy-tale like, which was once a radiant and happy place…then goes on to describe the decline of this once gilded hall, as it falls to ruin, haunted by the ghosts of its fabled past - perhaps literally, perhaps metaphorically, perhaps even both. Many of Poe’s pieces reflected upon time, mortality, and the idea of something once beautiful being corrupted by both; a sort of constant theme of “innocence lost” permeates, honestly, almost every single poem on this very list. It seemed to be an idea that haunted Poe himself: perhaps in his own mind’s palace, he forever felt himself haunted by the idea that time marches on, and all good things must come to an end.

5. The Bells.

“The Bells” is one of Poe’s more…ambiguous poems. It’s a little harder to tell what it means, if it even means anything specific. Told over the course of four separate verses, this poem describes different kinds of bells, and the emotions they seem to instill. It starts off cheerily enough with silver bells, describing imagery and emotions that frankly sound like something of a Christmas song. It then moves on to wedding bells, which are equally happy, but somewhat more solemn in nature. Then things take a very sharp and horrific turn, as the poem describes next brazen alarm bells, which fill one’s soul with terror and dread…and finally, as you may perhaps expect, “moaning and groaning” funeral bells, signifying the end of a life and all that comes with that idea. It’s not clear if this progression is meant, like the Haunted Palace, to represent the passage of time, or if it’s simply a poem that uses the bells as an analogy for all kinds of different statuses in life: how the same kind of sound and item can mean so many different things, both good and bad, to so many people. This is one of several poems on this list written very, VERY late in Poe’s life, and - like two others still to come - it was not actually published till after his death. Perhaps it was Poe’s way of reflecting on the different turns his life had taken over the years…and the fear he had for his soon-to-be-short-lived future.

4. The Conqueror Worm.

Just like “The Haunted Palace,” this poem was first published separately as its own individual piece, but was later incorporated into one of Poe’s stories. Namely, it was made into part of the tale “Ligeia;” in that story, the titular character writes the poem as a way of expressing her own horror at her terminal state, as she is dying slowly from tuberculosis - a disease which ravaged Poe’s life at practically every turn. The poem is probably one of the most unsettling of the writer’s entire life (and given all the others on this list, that’s saying a lot). It tells the story of an audience of angels, watching a pantomime show, in which a collection of clowns fruitlessly try to capture a wayward phantom. The phantom escapes, and without warning, a hideous beast - a blood red creature described as “the Conqueror Worm” - rises up from nowhere, and devours the performers. Once all of them have been eaten, the pantomime comes to a close, while the angels weep. The titular Conqueror Worm is meant to be an allegory for tuberculosis in Ligeia’s story, but in its own universe, the Worm is actually meant to represent death, in general. The poem is one of the most harrowing and disturbingly frenzied in Poe’s collection, as it acts as a parable for life itself: a mad race that has seemingly no purpose, and ends in something unspeakably nasty. It’s a cynical and deeply troubling piece of work, but that’s what makes it so intriguing, like so many other dark poems by the author. While the Worm in the poem itself is purely an allegorical creation, and it’s likely that Poe’s mental image was closer to a “Wyrm” of mythology or fantasy, the kinds of images illustrators since have come up with for the idea of a huge red worm that devours everything in its path has led to some really nasty and yet creative stuff. Perhaps Edgar Allan Poe invented “Tremors” alongside the modern detective story; who’duh thunk it? :P

3. Eldorado.

This relatively short and simple poem was one of the last works of Poe’s life. Like many of his poems and stories in his later years, it was a reflection of the desolate situation he found himself in, emotionally. The poem tells of a brave knight, who goes on a gallant quest to find the mystic, mythical city of gold, Eldorado. (Which should really be spelled “El Dorado,” but I’m going to call it “Eldorado” for the sake of literary accuracy here.) After years of searching, however, the knight grows old and weak seeking this magical fantasyland. Finally, he encounters a “Phantom Shadow” - implied to be Death itself - who offers him directions, indicating Eldorado to be Paradise. While only a few stanzas long, the sentiment of this dark little fairy-tale is powerful and strangely ambiguous: unlike others here, there is a sort of warmth to it, despite the sorrow imbued in its syllables. You can read into it as a sort of heartwarmingly bittersweet piece, or as a condemnation on the futility of life’s struggles. You can see Eldorado as something you can only imagine in your dreams, or only find peacefully in the afterlife, or even as something you will never actually locate. Short and not exactly sweet, but also not entirely bitter…however you read into it, “Eldorado” remains a poignant reminder that some fantasies just cannot be reality…at least, not in this lifetime.

2. Annabel Lee.

“Annabel Lee” might be the single saddest of all of Poe’s poetry pieces, largely because of its context. Much like “Eldorado” and “The Bells”, it was among the very last poems Poe wrote in his lifetime. In fact, like the latter, it was not even published till after his death, and was written only months before his (rather mysterious) passing. The poem tells the story of a distraught narrator, who describes how his beloved bride - Annabel Lee, whom he has loved since childhood - was so beautiful, and their love for each other so pure, that even the angels felt envious. So envious, in fact, that they killed her. Now, the Narrator makes frequent visits to her grave, and sleeps there in her tomb, near a kingdom by the sea. The poem seems to be a metaphor for the emotions and turmoils Poe went through after the death of his own wife, Virginia: many passages seem similar to the biographical information about the couple, and Poe’s reactions to her tragic departure. However, others have been offered as possible inspirations for the fictional lady described in the poem. Whoever the true Annabel Lee was, the poem’s tragic content is only made more heartbreaking when you realize this hymn of long-lost love was the last thing Poe had to give to the world, before he, himself, was felled under baffling circumstances. The verses were the inspiration for the novel “Lolita,” and there is even an English standard song called “Kingdom By the Sea,” which is a musical adaptation of the poem, along with many other song-styled renditions. As one of Poe’s last great creations, this poem has cemented his legacy perhaps above all other works he ever made before.

1. The Raven.

Almost without a doubt Poe’s most lauded piece of work, “The Raven” is his undisputed masterpiece in the world of poetry. The poem focuses on the plight of a once again unnamed narrator, who is mourning the recent loss of his wife, Lenore. He is visited one night by a mysterious Raven, which repeatedly croaks the word “Nevermore” like a parrot. As the poem goes on, the Narrator comes to believe the Raven is some supernatural being, as its croaking seems to answer every question and demand he makes. It is unclear exactly what happens to the Narrator at the end of the story, but he marks with fear that the Raven is still sitting in his room, watching over him. “And [his] soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, shall be lifted…nevermore.” While not directly autobiographical, it is probably not a coincidence that Poe wrote this poem at the exact same time his aforementeioned wife, Virginia, was effectively on her deathbed. One can easily see this as Poe already anticipating his own grief, the fears and sorrows of the storyteller matching his own harrowing circumstances in an exaggerated and Gothic manner. However you interpret things in this verse-told tale, it is, without a doubt, one of the most famous and celebrated pieces of poetry in the entire world. It is also my personal favorite poem of all time. Not just mine, either! Many famous people, such as Stan Lee, have named this as their favorite poem, and even more have done readings of it, from Christopher Lee to James Earl Jones to Vincent Price and more. There’s even a professional American football team inspired by the poem. No joke! Look it up! While the poem did not make Poe much money in his lifetime, it has, beyond all his other works, become the piece he is remembered for best.

HONORABLE MENTIONS INCLUDE…

To One in Paradise.

The City in the Sea.

A Dream Within a Dream.

[12daysofmystrade]

Masterpost

Best wishes for 2023! We hope this January has been kind to you so far, but perhaps you are looking for some soft stories to cure the winter blues? You’ve come to the right place; we have some wonderful Mystrade fics for you!

Thanks to the many artists who participated in the "12 Days of Mystrade & Friends" Advent Calendar, we have all kinds of new stories!

Looking for a romantic story set during the longest night of the year? You’re in luck! For the first day of the calendar, Anarfea wrote Midwinter! For more info, head to this post!

Hoping for an epistolary story with a dash of enemies-to-lovers? We have just the thing! For the second day of the calendar, BlueMoonOnTheRise @once-in-a-blue-moon-rising wrote Major Revisions – and the second chapter is just freshly published! You can find more info here!

Seeking a romantic story with mysteries and secrets? We hear you! For the second day of the calendar, AbAbsurdo @aworldofgoldfish wrote Watch Over You! If you want more details, head to this post!

Do you want an angsty story full of the hard realities of a bleak winter, but with the reward of a happing ending? We’ve all been there! For the third day of the calendar, NeverLET @sunchay wrote Pawns Trying On Crowns! For more details, head over here!

Looking for a fluffy Christmas Eve story with our favourite duo being incredibly sweet? Well, don’t hesitate further! For the fourth day of the calendar, Kyruga wrote Better Than The Night Shift! If you wish to look at the post we did to promote it, you can find it here!

Do you love Christmas movies, and have always wished to see Mystrade replaying your favourite romcoms? We have good news! For the fifth day of the calendar, emmykay @mmmbuttery wrote When Greg Met Mycroft! If you want more details, you can look at this post!

Hunting for a cute Christmas story with an ensemble cast? We’ve got you covered! For the sixth day of the calendar, Lavender_and_Vanilla @lavenderandvanilla wrote Rosie’s Snowman! For more info, check out this post!

Hoping for a sweet story full of vulnerability and feelings? We have a surprise for you then! For the seventh day of the calendar, Mouse9 wrote Wrapping Up! If you want to know more, head over to this post!

Are you a fan of fics with tons of pining? As a gift, you can have a sprinkling of snowy Christmas for free! For the eighth day of the calendar, MsLadySmith wrote A Cold Winter’s Night! If you want a longer summary, please read this post!

Wishing for a cute story of two lonely souls finding each other at Christmas? Great news, it came true! For the eighth day of the calendar, 221Addie wrote A Mutually Beneficial Christmas! For more details, go over to this post!

Do you believe Christmas is a time to be brave? So do we! And that’s exactly what Mycroft comes to learn in Greg, a bridge over a broken heart, a lovely fic written by CrushedRose @acrushedrosestillwins for the ninth day of the calendar! To check out the post we made about it, head over to this link!

Seeking a lovely New Year’s Eve tale where Mycroft and Greg make the cutest couple? We know a fic perfect for you! For the tenth day of the calendar, Galadriel1010 @galadriel1010 wrote A New One Just Begun! For more info, please follow this link!

Are you a Bridgerton fan? If so, we have just the fic for you! For the twelfth day of the calendar, TheRedHeadInQuestion @theredheadinquestion wrote Lestrade: A Sherlock/Bridgerton Fairy Tale! For a more detailed presentation of this fic, head to this post! And to look at the gorgeous Lady Whistledown letter that the author has relayed to us, click on this link!

Looking for a short smutty fic that will leave you (literally) feeling like glitter in a snow globe? For the last day of the calendar, Topicabo wrote a delightful fic called Sugarplum Kisses! We made a post to promote it, which you can find here!

Once you’ve enjoyed the fics above, don’t forget to comment and give kudos, you’ll make someone’s day! And it’s a wonderful way to start the year – with comfy fics and kindness!

To all the readers who already took some time to read the stories, to give kudos and to write comments, you’re the best! Thank you for making this event a warm moment full of joy and sharing!

We would like to thank everyone who participated this year!! We didn’t expect so much enthusiasm and we’re thrilled to see all the lovely stories that our little event inspired! You’re all amazing and we couldn’t have done this without you!

As for us, we have officially closed the AO3 collection and we’ll hopefully see you again next year for another twelve days of fun!

[jadeylovesmarvelxo]

Traditions

hi :) would it be okay to request a fic where its eddie and readers first christmas together? and reader loves spending it with eddie and wayne because they have their own traditions and make the holidays special whereas readers family isnt big into the holidays and dont make it a big deal (you can make it angsty or not doesnt matter) love your eddies fics sm!

Request by anon.

Warnings? None

Likes or reblogs are always appreciated 💞 I don't give anyone permission to copy my work.

💞💞

Christmas was well on its way and she was spending Christmas with Eddie, their first Christmas together.

While she loved the holidays her family wasn't into it at all while Eddie and his uncle Wayne had their own special traditions that she thought was so lovely.

For the first time, they were letting someone else (her) into those traditions and she was so excited and very grateful to them.

Literally, the minute Eddie saw her sad face while she told him and Wayne her family didn't celebrate Christmas that much, they both looked stunned and immediately invited her to join them.

Truly she hadn't expected it and had already set about making sugar cookies, gingerbread men, and Christmas cupcakes which were met very enthusiastically by both the Munson men.

Now that it was Christmas eve night and Wayne had made her and Eddie the most delicious hot chocolate.

Whipped cream, cinnamon sugar, and marshmallows on top of the most decadent chocolate. She was even gifted her own mug a Garfield one to match Eddie's.

Stockings were hung, candles were lit and fairy lights twinkled all aglow. Everything was so perfect and to make it even better Miracle on 34th Street was on tv.

"Son, you wanna turn the tv off and join your uncle while you play something on your guitar, we do this every year honey, ever since Eddie could play"

Delighted she cuddles up on the couch and listens as Eddie begins to play rocking around the Christmas tree.

The sight of him in his element playing while his uncle brings out some more hot chocolate is wonderful, it fills her with such a warm feeling.

Eddie keeps catching her eye, his brown eyes fill with love as she listens to him enthralled.

When he's finished she gives him the biggest kiss and he pulls her onto his knee kissing her until they are both laughing with unbridled joy.

For supper, the treats she brought over are consumed along with the special mulled wine that Wayne explains Eddie helps him make and they have been doing it for the last few years.

Wayne regales her with tales from when Eddie was growing up.

"Eddie used to wait up every year on Christmas eve, thought it was darn cute of the boy that he was waiting to see Santa... Well that's what I thought" Wayne chuckles and she looks to Eddie for an explanation.

"I waited up for Krampus. The douchebag never showed up sweetheart" this makes her grin because of course Eddie would do that.

As night begins to fall flurries of snow outside distract Eddie who grows excited.

"Eddie we will have snow for Christmas day" she beams as they watch it fall and sip on the mulled wine.

Around eleven they head to bed and once they know Wayne is fast asleep Eddie kisses her and they begin to make love long into the night.

Before they go to sleep and as she curls up into Eddie, he turns to her and asks if she wants to make a tradition of their own.

She's so sleepy but nods eagerly.

"Like what?" he grins and begins to stroke her hair softly.

"How about I tell you a Christmas story sweetheart?" she peers up at him.

"D&D?" his gaze fills with nostalgia.

"You know my mom, what I can remember of her any way she told me stories all the time. Think that's where I get my love of storytelling from."

She kisses his cheek.

"You're the best storyteller I know Eddie" a proud grin caresses his features and he begins to weave a tale of magic, wonder, a noble knight, and a beautiful princess who come together to rescue Santa Claus from corrupt elves and trolls.

It's incredible and she listens as Eddie does all the voices perfectly and the tale is captivating.

Eventually, Eddie begins to tire and he finishes the story with a happy ending he pulls her into his arms and cuddles her close.

Little did they know that little tradition would be the first of many for them 💞

[armydreamerr]

Harry Potter headcanons.. I cooked these up during a bike ride w my brother

Harry - he/any, so bisexual it hurts. Half Indian from his dad’s side, doesn’t know anything about his culture because the Dursleys are painfully white. Animals flock to him (like a Disney princess). Contrary to popular belief, he doesn’t have a white knight complex. Has like absolutely no music taste, he just listens to and likes everything.

Ron - he/him, transmasc, straight. Listens to obscure music and is pretentious about it. Handwriting like a doctor. Surprisingly good at cooking/baking. Probably the most sentimental out of the main three (<- projecting). Literally eats anything he can get his hands on, but doesn’t like seafood. Slightly allergic to shrimp.

Hermione - she/her, bisexual. She’s black I don’t take criticism. Is that still a controversial headcanon? Anyway, she’s black. She has a serious sweet tooth, but doesn’t often indulge it because of her parents being dentists. She mostly read nonfiction, but she also reads a lot of novels, especially over the summer. Does her homework during class. Favourite meal is breakfast.

Ginny - she/he, bi and ace. Lowkey likes Muggle music, which Hermione shows her on a record player during the summer. Favourite season is the Christmas season. His favourite food is soup. And she drinks copious amounts of tea, coffee, and hot chocolate. Pretty much anything hot that you can drink. Lowkey best friends with Hermione.

Luna - she/her, agender, ace lesbian. The books describe her as kind of weird looking, but it’s because it’s from Harry’s perspective and he’s not a lesbian. Lesbians flock to this girl like moths to a flame. She’s not necessarily aromantic, but she’s mostly uninterested in romance. Loves fairy tales. Also a huge fan of science of all sorts. Kind of like a woodland creature.

Neville - he/him, straight. Token cishet friend. Kind of terrified of girls. Plays the violin and is actually pretty good at it. Shoes are always untied. Constantly doubting himself. He’d be so good at more stuff if he just had confidence. Would definitely do anything for his friends. Probably can make flowers grow just with his presence.

[ishotforthestars]

What are some good ff in the yr fandom that are written in swedish?

Hi and sorry for taking so long to answer! This is just a small selection of my personal favorites but if you want more you can check out literally anything by these authors, all their writing is A+!

"Vi skulle klara vad som helst, vi skulle aldrig säga nej" by ageminiheart: Fairy tale-esque AU where Simon is the son of a hairdresser and has to step in for his mum when she gets injured. He meets the very rude prince Wilhelm and slowly a very forbidden romance begins to form. This is like one of my absolute favourite fics like ever, I adore everything about it, from the language to the pacing and the characterization. 1000/10.

"Kvarteret Vallgossen" by harosia: Modern day AU where Wille and Simon are neighbors in a student dorm building. One day Simon gets asked to dog sit Wille's puppy and from there their relationship sets off. This one is so sweet and fluffy and makes you feel literally all the feels. Also 1000/10.

"går du trägen, på den vägen, som är smal men uppåt bär" by graveyardorgarden: AU where Simon and Wille meet at a folkhögskola (kind of like community college?) where they're both studying church music. Wille plays the organ, Simon wants to lead choir. This one isn't finished yet and hasn't been updated in quite a while but I'd recommend it anyway because the way it's written is so heartachingly sad and relatable and just really beautiful.

"Sikta mot stjärnorna" by SilvaGrey: Post-S1 from Linda's POV. The Eriksson's home is vandalized which launches a police investigation.

"Svart hål" by @hanna-kin : Post-S1. Wille has kind of the worst Christmas break possible. Very angsty but in the very best way, I adore this one and the way it's written!

"Din tid kommer" by @eypril-eypril: AU where future Simon and Wille find their way back to each other following the release of a Swedish version of "The Crown". The feelings portrayed in this one is just fantastic as well as the attention to detail. So well-written and definitely another one of my all time faves!

I could probably list like at least 10 more that would make my 'favourite fics-list' but they'd all be by these same authors so just check out all their other stuff if you want more!

[deltaengineering]

Summer Anime 2023: GoHands saves anime

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale S2

I wasn't really all that impressed with S1 of Sugar Apple, but it was fun enough. There was a chance it would do away with its naive ruminations on chauvinism and slavery, after all. And yeah, it did that. But maybe I should have stated more clearly that that bland nonsense also needs to be replaced with something better, and that part certainly did not happen. The show fills the vacant space with two things: The kind of completely uninteresting worldbuilding and politics that were all over S1, weren't good there either, but were so insubstantial they weren't worth of note. Well, now they are. The other is that we get a ridiculously evil over the top villain that's amusing for one episode, but gets old really fast. Not to mention that everyone (outside of the designated villain, which is why you know he's bad) seems to love Anne now, especially Challe. So the spicy romance interplay is gone and Challe is now an edgy white knight that tips his fedora to m'lady. And the big finale is that Anne inspires a dozen pretty boys to invent Christmas, somehow. This one just is very poorly written and as of S2 has optimized out all things that distract from that. 4/10

Noble Farmer

The appeal of Noble Farmer isn't what the show does, but what it is: Notable action shounen mangaka Hiromu Arakawa telling a few anecdotes about her growing up as a farmer on Hokkaido. Of course we've known that since Silver Spoon, but it's still enough of a novelty to just barely carry this short series. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's not. As usual, a short doesn't actually need to be all that good to be an easy watch, but I've seen better ones. 5/10

Instead Of Zom 100 You Get NieR:Automata Ver1.1a

Why hello, we have a vacant 5/10 spot for mysterious reasons. Let's talk about a production disaster from the season before that just managed to end in this one. To be honest, I've already forgotten about Near A Tomato Service Pack 1 (Backer Beta) so I'll have to patch it up with my knowledge of the game, which is probably for the better anyway. Or is it? I am one of the few people that don't think that Nier Automata is the pinnacle of storytelling¹, so one reason to even give this a chance is to see if the story clicks better if it's told in a more straightforward way. But then it just seems that the opposite is true: Yes, it is indeed the main plot of Nier Automata, but the lack of nonlinearity and other assorted participatory/environmental storytelling just points out that there isn't all that much to that, especially towards the end when it's just about beating up the big monster, but in a sad way. The few things that it does change or add either don't amount to anything we didn't already know or have their payoff pushed onto the sequel. At least the music is still fantastic but it's just literally the game music, so that's nothing new either. This anime is probably for the fans, but even the fans will quickly realize that it's inferior to the real thing - though for them, inferior to the BEST. STORY. EVER!!!! is likely still plenty good enough. 5/10

¹ Before a million salty Yoko Taro fans jump down my throat, it's pretty good, okay? Just not as exceptional as you think. Thank you.

Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR-

So why does this exist. I can only imagine that Numazu has a bit of surplus marketing budget now, so here we go, Aqours is back... In the form of an appealing, but pretty bog standard children's show. Sunshine already wasn't the most profound Love Live show, nor did it have the most multidimensional characters, but naturally this is a shallower version of that - with the curious exception of Mari, who somehow is a more well-rounded character here than she originally was (though what that means is left as an exercise to the reader). Yoshiko herself of course has a bit more going on, but she better have, given that this show is very definitely about her and her problems - and it's still not really enough. All of this of course is expected from a children's afternoon show where the big bad is a vague "calamity" that doesn't even get defined as much as being made out of people's negative emotions or something like that. No it's just uh, bad (and by bad I mean purple), and then gets defeated by friendship and good vibes and an Aquors single. This show should have really done more random nonsense like Chika and her sisters randomly having a Sentai team and Dia being Kamen Rider for tedious IRL reasons, but that quirkiness is so minor it feels more out of place than anything. I don't want to be too harsh on this because it's still fundamentally a good time, but there really just isn't much to it. But I guess that's just how it goes with entrenched franchises, right? 6/10

GoHands presents the GoHands Power Hour featuring The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses and The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today

Before I get to the details of these shows, there's quite a bit they have in common, and that is, obviously, being made by GoHands. I have a pretty complicated history with GoHands. Yes, I did watch the whole Handhakersverse mostly because it was unbelievably ugly, but on the other hand, there is something to be said about an unique, consistent aesthetic: GoHands is dreamcore. I don't think it's pretty, but I do think it's fascinating, which is why I wasn't amused when every Anime Opinion Haver immediately wrote these two off as being unwatchable and took cheap shots on Ecks Dot Com. So I'll watch them. I thought. That'll show em.

The punchline was obvious: Neither of these shows are crassly ugly in a meaningful way. They're a bit overdone, but honestly they're more reminiscent of some SHAFT productions. Really, outside a few meme gif shots in the first episodes, there's nothing special about the looks apart from an overreliance on postproduction gimmicks like particle and lighting effects and stifling color correction, and everyone loves those when KyoAni does them. So there goes the reason to watch them... Except then, in a truly GoHandsian further twist, they're actually good. I'm as puzzled as you are.

Well, "good" is maybe a bit much. Glasses Girl is definitely watchable though, mostly just because Mie is remarkably cute. Of course, this being an entry in the "my classmate is wacky and I can't deal with it" genre, the same cannot be said of Komura, whose React-Man antics are most charitably described as "occasionally not annoying". The show gets a lot of credit for actually finding new ways to make the one joke that is in its title reasonably fresh, and it even manages to elicit some d'aww feelings towards the clumsy kid romance it develops into. I can't tell a lie, it's fine. 6/10

This one honestly is pretty good though, even though the absurd wish fulfilment setup of "I'm a lonely dysfunctional office lady but my cat is actually a perfect homemaker" seems thoroughly sketchy. To be honest, Yukichi actually does act like a cat, so I can only assume this is indeed written by a lonely dysfunctional office lady. As far as surreal daily life comedies go, this one's a winner though. It's cute, it's funny, and all that. A rather simple comedy about a very obvious joke setup, but there's enough going on in the periphery to make it not boring - and then there's hooks like half the female cast having a crush on Saku, which if acted upon would instantly make this one of the dankest yuri shows of all time. One can only dream. 7/10

BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!!

It's always the same with these gacha franchise shows. Even when they're good, they're always bloated by too many characters, too many established plots, too much desire to make everyone equally likeable, and a strict adherence to the status quo. Over the years, many a time I have written "but what can you do". What can you do, indeed?

So here comes MyGO, where the plan apparently was "how about THIS time we just don't do any of that". Now, this part is interesting only for people like me who watched this show as part of the franchise. Nobody else would (or, honestly, should) care that this franchise show breaks the mould uncommonly hard — only whether it's good. Thankfully, MyGO is also just one of the best teen drama shows around, franchise or not. I guess it really helps if you make a show that a writer would actually want to write and not just a bunch of corporate mandates, but Ayana Yuniko takes it no the next level and does things that even "regular" shows in a similar lane don't attempt; for example, Tomori completely fixes the problems I had with Bocchi (of The Rock fame) by being treated appropriately seriously. Now, I don't want to oversell this show, you won't get the next Kids on the Slope here - it's still a small-scale anime about a bunch of drama kids that produces not one, but two marketable bands in the end. But within this framework, it really is about as good as it gets. Every character is complicated and has major personality flaws, which seems very risky but extremely worth when it pays off like here. In short, it's textbook character drama. It's a bit silly at times, but I'll accept that as yeah, teen girls in bands can be pretty goddamn silly. It also doesn't have an ending, but I'd question whether a low-key drama like this even can have a proper ending. They manage to make their disastrous teen band work for a bit, what more can you expect?

I guess I should mention the looks also, which are nothing particularly special when you know the fairly high level of CG animation Sanzigen have consistently been doing. Of course this serious show doesn't have much of the cartooniness, but makes up for it with select instances of really good direction — MyGO has a particular knack for uncomfortable wide angles.

In the end, MyGO is an uncommonly legitimate character drama with low stakes. It can dip into melodrama but not any worse than these shows always do. Ironically the most questionable aspect is that there will be a sequel based on the other band, Ave Mujica, which work extreme well as a joke about how they are everything MyGO is not. But that makes them an awful band full of awful people, and I'm not sure if I want to actually watch that. It's certainly a tall order, but then again, I didn't expect much from this show to begin with. For now it's an 8/10

[absolutefilthimsosorry]

Tagged by @calvinahobbes

Tag someone you want to get to know better! Or just check in with.

Favourite colour? Purple

Last song? Get Him Back! by Olivia Rodrigo. It’s clever, I like how it uses the two interpretations of ‘get him back’ throughout the song.

Last movie? I don’t watch a lot of films so I think either Red White and Royal Blue which was cute and hot but not as good as the book, and the erasure of women and Nora’s sexuality annoyed me; or Tall Girl with a friend (not my choice) which was a weird one and not something I’d recommend. It acts like being tall is the greatest hardship for a teen girl and her life is so hard when she’s an able bodied cishet rich white girl. I mean her best friend is a bi-coded (not explicitly out but you can tell someone wanted her to be and it was blocked) black girl but apparently they live in a utopian world where the only thing you get bullied for is being tall. If only huh?

Currently watching? Sex Education. New season just dropped and it’s queerer than ever! Obviously Netflix saw how well heartstopper did and ran with it and I for one am not complaining! It’s still cringe af at some points, I literally had to take me headphones off or look away a couple of times because the second hand embarrassment was too much for me and I’m only like 4 episodes in but overall it’s a bit of fun.

Other stuff I watched this year? Heartstopper - so cute and aroace rep means a lot to me. Good Omens - personally loved it but wow the second season is very different to the first so I can see why some people didn’t like it. Shadow and Bone - really enjoyed this season, it felt like a step up from the first series. Also Wylan and Jesper, I’m a sucker for a good flirty ship. Um I’m sure there’s other stuff. I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube this year, I’m loving smosh games right now and these YouTubers called Dan and Phil though I wish they’d post more often…

Shows I dropped this year? I’m not sure there are any. There’s a few I’ve started and do intend to finish. Oh was yellowjackets this year? I watched s1 of that and don’t think I’m going to watch s2 so I guess that counts.

Last book? A Swedish Christmas Fairy Tale. Should I have kept this for December? Probably. But I was in the mood for something cutesy and sapphic and this is what the library had. It was okay. Fine as a light read but not something I’d have spent money on.

Tagging @foreverjustanemokidatheart @cloudhowell @natigail

[jlilycorbie]

When I look back at my life (climate change-denying, right-wing conspiracy theories masked as science dad, mother who among other things claimed to have been apprenticed to the apothecary’s guild in German back in the days when it was a lot hard to fact check that and find out it’s literally not possible), I sometimes wonder how I didn’t end up an essential oil shilling, COVID-denying, conspiracy touting fascist.

And I think the answer is vampires.

I was always a spooky kid, though I leaned more toward ghosts, fairy tales, and fae. My mom tried her best to redirect me into fantasy, and to be fair, I do love fantasy. But I was always into the darker side of it. And then, when I was in 8th grade, the Interview with the Vampire movie came out, and I was super into it. Read the book, it was the first R-rated movie I got to see.

So for Christmas that year, my mom got me a book. Rosemary Ellen Guiley’s Complete Vampire Companion. It had chapters about Anne Rice and Dracula and more modern type vampires, but the primary focus was folklore vampires, which are marvelous.

Most importantly for ‘why aren’t I an anti-vaxx COVID denier,’ there are a lot of European vampires (and by extension, American vampires) that mostly never climbed out of their graves. Those old revenants fed by spreading diseases, usually consumption, and the ways to track them down and stop them gave me a mild interest in diseases and plagues and how people respond to them. And also patent medicines and medical grifts. And also vaccines and how they happened and what they’ve given the world and how it didn’t even take long enough for anyone to finish announcing the creation of any given vaccine for people to be against it.

It’s not that I’m remotely an expert, but I did learn just enough about how people behave when there’s a plague to recognize the patterns when COVID came around. Same with hand washing to mask wearing.

An old interest from childhood gave me just enough tools to avoid those traps that were perfectly baited for me.

[color-ns]

Dude I wish Jewish holidays were that simple- other then Tue B’shvat. That’s literally plant and tree day. We celebrate the new crops at the start of spring. It’s so simple.

But Purim? Damn, the story for that is way more then “people tried to kill us, let’s eat.” It’s told more like a fairy tale than anything, and more people consider it the jolliest time of the year, a lot like how Christians treat Christmas. It’s way more like, “this is the history behind the holiday, let’s sit down in a circle and eat traditional chocolate filled pastries while I tell you a story like it came out of a picture book, but it’s going to be way longer then that. After that you can go outside and dance to really loud music in your cool costume.”

Also you completely missed a huge detail when you explained Yom Kippur. No one can drive a car, or use electricity for a day and a half. While technically electricity is still running in every household (to keep food from expiring and such) the best part about it is the bikes.

Like. No one can drive other then police and ambulances. That means that literally every road is open for people to bike on. And the genius who thought that was a good idea spread it around and now EVERYBODY’S doing it. Like, it became an informal tradition to go out and ride your bike with friends and family. It’s the best part of the holiday!

Chanukah is also really fun, and you totally undermined the best parts of the holiday. It’s the holiday with the most traditional songs other then Passover, and the traditional pastry you eat is like an overly filled doughnut with no hole in the middle, with super fancy decorations (if you’re not buying the cheap one, that btw, still tastes incredible). You light candles, sing songs, and eat chocolatey/jammy goodness.

Anyway, explain it to me like I’m five years old, but accurately with the fun details included.

I get the “we almost died so let’s eat thing” because most Jewish traditions are based on that, (for a good fucking reason btw our culture is so universally hated all throughout history) but then you miss the true spirit of the the holidays, and that’s celebrating together.

Passing these traditions to the children, meeting up with family and friends, loving our culture together.

Thats the part I want to love about being Jewish when I celebrate these holidays, not just remembering how my ancestors died or almost died a long time ago.

Because genuinely, that’s sounds SO depressing.

someone explain the jewish holidays to me like i'm 5 years old

[hanakogames]

today in old books

It's not like no one has any emotions. The naughty girl has a complex relationship with her father. The beautiful-but-haughty girl flip-flops between wanting to be liked and being above everyone. Crushes are everywhere.

“I hope it will be Harding’s and Monroe’s last fight,” Doris said with sudden energy. “I know now that a certain other person was to blame for most of it. I know that you were not trying to be kind to me or belittle me. I’m not so sure about Miss Dean.” “She loves you, Doris Monroe.” Muriel sprang into affectionate defense of Marjorie. “You never had a more faithful crush. She is the one who started the name of the fairy-tale princess for you. She has adored your beauty and wanted you to be in theatricals so that you could be seen and admired. She was the judge who delivered the adjuration to Beauty at the beauty contest. She is the best friend you have on the—”

More drama among the girls, more sighing remiscences of the Hamilton love story, yet another theatrical production...

The play netted the dormitory fund over a thousand dollars. Augusta and Doris stepped into the spot light of campus admiration and were fêted by their friends for upwards of a week afterward. Marjorie attended the presentation of the drama with her mother, Jerry, Miss Susanna and Jonas. It was her mother’s last evening at the Arms and this sad knowledge put her in a rather forlorn mood. Then, too, she could not help thinking of Hal. She had suggested the title of the play as a result of seeing the costume of polar knight Hal Macy had worn at the merry-making in Sanford on Christmas Eve. Now she saw Hal as the knight, rather than Gussie. She wondered vexedly why she always thought of Hal in connection with the sentimental. It was because he had told her he loved her, she supposed. 

(The actual romance on stage is being played out by two women, of course. But this the first even slightly romantic thought she seems to have ever had for Hal, and it's still not terribly personal.)

Ah, now someone else plots to bring Hal secretly to campus:

Leila’s plan to bring Hal from Sanford to sing behind the scenes for her on the night of her play was not entirely one of self-interest. She had often thought Marjorie was nothing less than a sleeping beauty slated to awaken suddenly from a dream of life to reality and a lover’s kiss. She had long guessed for herself that Hal loved Marjorie. She had also been the only one besides Marjorie who had seen Hal’s heart-broken expression as he had stood before Marjorie’s portrait.

Literally everyone knows Marjorie's romantic destiny. Not that she secretly loves him, but that she'll just one day suddenly change her mind and get married.

Anyway, Leila brings Hal to campus and makes him a part of her next performance, off-stage so that Marjorie will only hear a voice singing love songs and be moved, and then surprised to find out the truth.

Marjorie looked blank. She had never before thought of Leila Harper in conjunction with Hal. How had Hal happened to know the words to the old Irish song? Leila must have sent them to him by letter. No, she must have sent the music for the minuet. She thought that he had not been in Hamilton more than a few hours. Still he might have been on the campus all day and she had never— There she stopped. Leila was her most devoted friend. She was glad that Hal had at last shown a preference for some one beside herself. Marjorie stopped the thought process again. She found she did not wish to think about Hal and Leila as being interested in each other. She wondered next if they had been corresponding long. Leila had never mentioned in her presence that she had received a letter from Hal. Leila had—

Slightly confused minor jealousy. Clearly a passionate love.

“Aren’t you just a little bit glad to see me for myself, Marjorie?” Hal could not resist putting this one question. “You know I am.” Marjorie attempted to look into his face with her old-time frank smile. She smiled, but the smile was one of shyness. Her brown eyes rested on Hal only an instant. The rose deepened in her cheeks. Hal looked at her, and wondered.

Literally within minutes she then agrees to marry him, because she now understands what love is.

“Hal, I always mean to be kind to you.” Marjorie did better this time. “I wish you wouldn’t feel that you have troubled me. I have read Brooke Hamilton’s love story. I understand more of love than I used. I know that true love is—it is—” “What do you know of love?” Hal’s hands suddenly dropped lightly upon her shoulders. The two had stopped before the great pink bush, facing each other, their young features set with the terrific earnestness of youth. “Have you grown up? Do you love me?” “I—have grown up this much—I—understand the worth of true love, Hal. That is—” “Not loving me yet, but very near it,” came the tender interruption. Hal’s hands slipped from Marjorie’s shoulders. “I love you,” he said. “I love you.” Marjorie regarded him silently. She knew that Hal was fighting against loving her. That in a moment of emotion he had spoken again the words he had tried to forget. He would instantly go back to his role of devoted friend. She did not wish him to go back. She loved him. How greatly she loved him she could not then guess. She knew only that she loved him. “What is it, Marjorie?” Hal reached for her hands, caught them, held them unresisting in his own. Came a silence. A faint vagrant night breeze stirred the trees, touched the faces of the two besides the almond bush. Very gently Hal drew his Violet Girl into his arms. “It must be a whole year from now, Hal,” Marjorie said later with charming practicality.

(I guess we're meant to interpret that some kissing happened there, but that we can't describe it because it's too scandalous? Anyway, that 'year from now' comment is about the wedding. Because she has work to do first!)

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #109

(taken january 31st, uploading surveys taken while gone... we're at least over halfway done? haha)

Have you ever gotten your legs waxed? No, that sounds absolutely excruciating, especially when your hair is as thick and long as mine is. Waxing my lip and eyebrows back in the day hurt enough.

Have you ever read anything by Edgar Allen Poe? Yeah, The Raven and The Tell-tale Heart off the top of my head.

Do you know anyone named Hunter? I do; he was my neighbor when I lived in the woods (I think where I've lived most of my life so far), and we used to play together as kids a lot. I'm quite a bit older than him, but he was still fun to hang out with, especially when it came to catching bugs and stuff and playing video games. He's all grown up now with his own girlfriend. :')

What was the reason for the last time you restarted your computer? Oh I was SO annoyed, Roman walked on my keyboard and did something where the computer totally, completely froze, and I was deep into an RP post so I was furious. Had to restart it incorrectly, but THANK GOD the drafts function on the site saved my post, lol.

Can you say anything in Korean? If so, please do: Nah, I can't.

Do you like horses? I absolutely love horses and I am VERY much looking forward to photographing horses soon thanks to a friend. <3

What are your grandfathers’ names? William/Bill and... WOW I'm awful, I don't remember Dad's dad's name. :/

Were you forced to read The Odyssey in high school? Yes; maybe not all of it, but I at LEAST remember reading some. We also watched the movie.

Have you ever seen a snake in real life? Yeah, both in the wild and as pets. I currently have one and love her to death.

Are you against seances? I don't care. I DO believe in treating the dead with respect though, if you're gonna do that; we don't have the slightest idea what really happens after death and I definitely do believe in angry spirits and their ability to loosely interact with our reality, so I wouldn't tempt shit, just to be safe.

Do you own any superhero shirts? No. I only have a couple Harley Quinn ones.

Game you were best at in P.E./gym? I absolutely hated P.E., so nothing.

Favorite crystal? Dragon's breath opal.

What did you learn from your first job? I am an absolutely horrible salesperson.

Favorite website from your childhood? Webkinz.

Least favorite flavor of food or drink? Cranberry flavored drinks are so awful I literally cannot drink them. I also don't like really fishy foods.

Least favorite pattern? Uh... I'm not sure. I'm not big on like, animal print as a fashion thing I guess. I love cool patterns ON the animals, of course, but not elsewhere.

Favorite weird flavor combo? I absolutely love waffles that also have a layer of peanut butter on them, like I prefer it over only syrup.

Favorite potato food? French fries.

Earth tones or jewel tones? Oh, come on, that's hard! It really depends.

Do you call them fireflies or lightning bugs? I've used both, but I think I only ever said "lightning bug" as a kid.

Writing or drawing? I get more joy out of creating a drawing I'm proud of, but I'm much more likely to write.

Lamps, overhead lights, fairy lights, or sunlight? FAIRY LIGHTS!!!! For Christmas I got this "tree" that you can wind across your wall(s) that have little tiny light bulbs as its "foliage" and I cannot wait til we can move my bed and set it up because that shit is ALWAYS gonna be on.

Nicknames? "Britt" is the most common one that everyone uses. Online though, "Ozz(y)" is frequented bc of the username I usually use. In WoW, everyone in my main's guild know me as "Alessa" because my main character is Alessand(a)ra. Oh, and my childhood nickname from Mom is "Twinkie" lmfao, she gave all her children sweets nicknames. She still uses it sometimes. Girt's pointed out he wants to have the "perfect" nickname click for me one day, which I think is absolutely adorable, but he can't pick one.

How many phone numbers do you have memorized? I have only JUST memorized my mother's phone number, and that's it. It took months upon months of regularly giving it to doctors and stuff to learn and as terribly sad as this is, I'm literally PROUD of myself for finally internalizing a phone number.

Do you prefer heroes or villains? Villains, duh.

What political cause are you most passionate about? Proooobably LGBTQ+ rights. I just find it so, so remarkably hard to fathom how people are against people consensually being in love.

Have you ever considered having children? I've never considered it for like, that current moment, but I go back and forth about the future.

Have you ever considered acting? Nope.

Who was the last person you slept next to? Girt.

Do you think you can be in love and still cheat on your S.O.? No, I don't.

What is the most embarrassing thing anyone has on video of you? Oh who even knows.

Did you ever get lost as a child? Yeah, in a Food Lion I think? Maybe Wal-Mart? An old lady helped me find my mom.

What was the last dream you had? I had a newborn baby is all I can remember. I forgot it until I read this question.

What is the best television show you’ve ever watched? Extraordinary Attorney Woo had the most touching story to me.

What do you believe is your weirdest habit? I take my breakfast biscuits apart to eat each thing individually.

What color are your parents’ eyes? They both have brown eyes.

Have you ever had a surgery before? Yeah, tubes put in my ears and a pilonidal cyst removed. I'm also being put to sleep to get my wisdom teeth taken out; there's simply no fucking way I can stay calm through it with my newfound fear of the dentist. I very barely stayed calm during my last filling.

Would you rather visit the Taj Mahal or the Eiffel Tower? Taj Mahal.

Was your mom over 30 when she had you? Yes.

Who is your 4th phone contact and how do you know them? Dad, and well... he's my dad.

Have you ever lived in a dorm? No.

Do you live in an apartment? No.

What’s the story behind your most noticeable scar? I passed out in the bathroom directly onto my chin.

Have you ever SERIOUSLY considered any kind of plastic surgery? I am very serious about getting loose skin removal on at LEAST my stomach if/when I lose all the weight I want to, and a breast lift also because of the effects of extreme weight loss.

What was the last thing you cleaned and why? My desk, because it was quite the mess.

Does blood make you queasy? No.

What physical features can you just not stand about yourself? My weight in literally every part of my body. How dark and thick and obvious my leg hair is. Cellulite and stretch marks. How insanely dry my skin is everywhere. I have absolutely zero ass. Because of my weight I developed sagging breasts. I could go on and on and on still but I'd really prefer to stop upsetting myself.

What is your favorite crayon color? I like hot pink ones.

Have you ever snorted cocaine? No and I absolutely never will.

Where is the scariest place you’ve ever been? In a bus-like... truck thing that carried me and other mental hospital inmates (some that were VERY unstable and aggressive) in full-body restraints to the local courthouse to argue about our expected stay lengths. If I hadn't argued, I would have been in this specific hospital for months. That whole experience, getting there and talking to the judge, was one of the scariest things I've ever done.

Do you like string cheese? No.

What state/province/country is to the west of your own? Tennessee.

Were you breastfed as a baby? Yes.

What is the cutest baby animal in general? Maybe I'm biased, but meerkats; they're cute when they're born, but pups become absolutely precious once their fur grows out and they open their eyes. I also really love kittens.

Do you find it difficult to tell others what you want for Christmas? Unless you're my mother, yes. Well, I'm even kinda uncomfortable telling Mom, but she's very insistent on us kids telling her straight-up what we want.

Do you enjoy literature from the past or more recent times? I'm perfectly capable of liking both; I don't have a preference. A good, strong story is a good, strong story.

Do you know anyone who plays World of Warcraft? Do you play? *raises hand* Girt also used to play, but it's not his thing anymore. My former roommate Jacob played, too, but he doesn't now (I know because we're friends on there and you see when they log on). I'm absolutely positive I have other gamer friends who have in the past too, just from like, contextual Facebook posts and stuff.

Have you ever been called a nerd? Yeah, but just playfully and not at all with degrading intent.

What is something that you do not like that everyone else seems to love? Manicures and pedicures come to mind. They make me uncomfortable. Oh, and the beach.

Do you enjoy poetry? I really do. I'd love to start writing it again... I even have poem concepts saved in my phone notes, I just haven't written them. I'm always so afraid of it not coming out how I want.

Have you ever written a poem? Oh, loads since middle school.

Do you own any fingerless gloves? Haha I sure do, all the way back from high school... They're still in my top drawer. I barely ever wear them anymore, though; they don't fit as well but also when I tried a few on the last time, I thought I looked pretty childish. I don't at all think fingerless gloves in general are, I think they're hot as fuck, but these ones just didn't look right on me anymore.

Last time you went out to eat, where did you go? We most recently went to McDonald's a good few days ago.

Tell me about the last animal you touched. My cat, Roman. <3 He's my literal shadow - he goes where I go almost without fail, unless he really feels like napping in bed. He's a COMPLETE cuddlebug that very, very obviously adores me/his mama and he's everything to me, too. ;_; <3 He is SUPER shy around strangers, like he will run and hide under our bed the moment he thinks he hears someone at the door, and it takes seeing you MANY many times before he's cool with you; like it took Girt months to earn his trust, and he comes over regularly. He is such, such a loving cat though once he's into you. Oh, and also very bossy, lol. He has such a personality.

Have you ever witnessed a birth? I've only seen cats give birth from my childhood; I absolutely fucking refuse to witness a human birth, I will not make it through it still conscious, and I also DO NOT understand the "oh but it's beautiful!" argument, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck no it isn't. I don't even like seeing videos of animals doing it, but it is slightly more bearable.

Have you ever known something that no one knew you knew? Uh, maybe?

Your thoughts on bacon? I like it, so long it's not mega crunchy or burnt.

Out of the 7 deadly sins, which are you most guilty of? Sloth.

Ever held a newborn animal? Kittens, yes.

Do your pets have collars? Describe them: Yes; Roman's is a light blue, and Cookie's is... wow, I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure pink.

Why do girls go tanning when it just makes them look orange? Because girls can do whatever the fuck they want with their own bodies.

What is the last thing you searched for online? "What is a revenant" haha, I've heard it plenty in fantasy material but I never really learned what it was.

Do sluts make you mad? lol no???????? If a person engages in a lot of completely consensual - and safe - sex and isn't keeping it a secret from a partner or something, that's whatever. If the person is open about it and takes care of their safety, that's their goddamn business that they shouldn't feel shitty about. Get mad over something that actually matters.

If you could live for a year with any foreign family, where would you go? Germany. If I hadn't had a boyfriend I refused to leave, I would've loved to do that in high school.

Think of a friend you know; how would you feel if they kissed you? I wouldn't be okay with anyone who is just a friend kissing me because I'm in a monogamous relationship. I would also probably stop that friendship because I expect my friends to respect my relationship. I don't think a kiss on like, the forehead or something from a close friend comforting me or something like that would upset me, but on the lips would.

Do you have bills to pay yet? No. Something Colleen once said that haunts me to this day is the claim that I'm never going to know what it's like to get my first paycheck and pay my own bills.

Will you be changing your hair any time soon? I desperately need a trim, so I hope I can at LEAST do that soon... but I can't afford to put money aside to dye it when I'm saving for my tattoo, no matter how badly I want it dyed.

Does your mom have a celebrity look-alike? I don't think so. There is, however, a deceased celebrity who had her exact first and last name, and people her age would sometimes point out how cool it was.

Why don’t girls like porn? ... Many... do...? I personally don't just because I have no interest in seeing two random people have sex, but that's just me.

Do you think it’s pretty when 100s of balloons are let loose into the sky? I don't even think about whether it's pretty or not, because I find it extremely, extremely upsetting. Those balloons end up as litter, and many animals even get wrapped up in the strings. If I'm not mistaken, in the ocean, some sea life mistake the deflated balloons as jellyfish and even ingest them. Don't fucking do this shit.

[thelonelyme]

♡ʏᴀɴᴅᴇʀᴇ ᴅᴏʀᴍ ʟᴇᴀᴅᴇʀs x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ [ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴs/sᴄᴇɴᴀʀɪᴏ] 2♡

.

𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞: ディズニー ツイステッドワンダーランド[Twisted Wonderland]

��𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐨/𝐢: Kalim Al-Asim, Vil Schoenheit, Idia Shroud, Malleus Draconia.

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭: The yanderes finds out mc is now a fallen angel due to them.

𝐑𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭: Hello honey, this is my first time asking you but please listen to me.. What do you think the reaction of the yandere house leader's reaction to their lover who is an angel has now fallen and become a demon's. especially the reason why they become a fallen angel is because they want to continue to be with the leaders of the dormitory even though their God forbids them, and to the point of plucking out their wings. Pretty pleaseee 🥺🥺

𝐀𝐕𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐙𝐄: GN READER. That's the second part of this post, so if you want to read about the whole dorm crew, make sure that you've read that. There will be explicit scenes of poisoning, blasphemy, allusions to rape, implied murder, delusional behavior, mention of not-voluntary imprisonment, allusions to NS/FW themes, kidnapping, explicit stalking, cyberstalking, mention of blackmail, mention of torture, mention of imprisonment. Sorry everyone for the prolonged time of inactivity, I did not feel good, and moreover I had for a period lost the motivation to do anything, so sorry again. I’ll try to bring my life back to order, so update more often. I hope you like it, honey💗. I don’t have the responsibility of who reads such my works, however good reading &lt;;3.

-𝐊𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐦 𝐀𝐥-𝐀𝐬𝐢𝐦-

For such a solar and enthusiastic magician as Kalim, your arrival at Night Raven College could not have been described in other words other than a literal blessing from God. The young student and dormitory chief of Scarabia had always been considered the exception to the college rule: in contrast to violent and petty behavior like those of Savanaclaw, or like those shy and manipulative as apparently almost all the students of Ignihyde, possessed a natural kindness and genuine concern for others; something that many times had made him get into some trouble.

He seemed like the perfect candidate for the famous college in the south of the island, with a young and fresh look like his and with a behavior worthy of the best prince straight out of a fairy tale, Many students in his dorm couldn’t and still haven’t been able to understand, how he ended up in a place famous for cruelty and for the rigor in training his students in the best possible way.

But Kalim could not have cared less, after all education is education, no matter whether in one apparently better school or another, and not understanding the reason for such a tense rivalry between the two schools.

So, during the upcoming Christmas holidays, he never expected to find himself in front of a literal angel. The first time he saw you, he would immediately be enchanted by your figure accompanied by two boys in the hallway. At that moment, he could literally drop all the books he had in his hand that Jamil was asking for and immediately run in your direction, as if he were a magnet and you were the magnet of his heart.

As in the fairy tales that by now Jamil had been forced to mark in his memory how many times he had to repeat them to the silver-haired and scarlet-eyed magician, that feeling of complete stiffness and a warm feeling in the heart that made him warm up in ways that no one had ever managed to do, the acceleration of his beat in a few seconds from your sight and a priminente redness on his cheeks- he was certain that he’d just seen his one true soul mate.

He had waited years and years to find the person who would be by his side all his life, and you finally showed yourself to him! Just as his parents had always told him, as he had always dreamed from an early age! You can’t blame her excitement and all her heat the moment you felt a pair of calloused hands on your shoulders.

"I’m touching them! And I can feel how soft their skin is even from over this uniform! I swear, I’m going to die of joy!"

He hoped that his heart would not keep beating so hard all the time, otherwise you would surely be frightened, and he did not want to cause you any kind of pain.

He was sure, and the brilliant and kind smile you gave him was only helpful in confirming it: You were certainly his soul mate.

From that day on, things would change dramatically: now all his attentions and his whole routine revolved around you, with his one and only Habibi ¹.

He could not help it, by now your presence was simply essential for him to function normally; basically for him you were like oxygen for a drowned, fresh water for a thirsty in the desert, abundant food to a hungry, you were a drug. Just being yourself with him had somehow made him feel like the only person with whom, according to him, you would share all those hugs and words of encouragement late at night on the large balcony of the castle in Scarabia.

Your magnificent and splendid body would only be the icing on the cake, for him you would have been perfect in any way you could have been. What brought him even closer to you had been your magnificent personality, so kind and comforting, so good and perfect from any kind of external or internal point of view.

He could not live without him with you, he had developed an addiction to your sweet caresses and your words so reassuring that they never failed to make him burst into tears for the ardent and genuine love that simple words positioned in the right way contained.

He could not help but imagine you together with your future children, biological or adopted, playing with them while gently stroking your head and watching with dreamy eyes your beautiful features. You would have both worn dresses worthy of a fabulous and fantasic person like yourself, traditional clothes of the Land of Hot Sands, dancing together dances in the center of the huge ballroom of the family villa during your future wedding. He already had in mind the perfect wedding for both you and him, even though he couldn’t bear less than what the main colors or how the flowers should have been arranged until he was with you. But he would do it with immense pleasure and joy knowing that everything would be for you and only for you.

He had already written tons of letters over the past months to his parents where he described your love for each other in the most disparate and romantic ways, even to the point of convincing and constantly writing them that soon you two would really get married, which the two were extremely happy about, and get them to send as many letters to convince Kalim to bring them home during the summer holidays.

For the next few months, Kalim was literally clinging to you, or continuing to praise you incessantly during every single moment of the day where unfortunately he could not be with you, and forcing the strict and diligent Vice Dorm Leader Jamil to endure hours and hours at night of awkward words and thoughts from the red-eyed boy, and ordering the latter to reassure him on his growing concerns. His need for you had become morbid, leading him to increasingly monopolize your blessed time along with him and Jamil, who obviously would have taken advantage of it in the best possible ways.

"Jamil, tell me they’ll never leave me."

"Jamil, they always say they’re happy to have lunch with me, but then why do they have lunch with others?"

"Jamil, do you think I should send them more presents? Maybe this way they’ll realize I’ll never get tired of them."

"Jamil, which chains do you think are better, the silver ones or the gold ones? I sincerely prefer the gold ones, but please choose! You always do a great job at these things, and as you know, I’m not very good at making decisions, hehe."

Unlike the imaginary world that Kalim had built in his mind, his ebony-haired servant would instead have seen beyond those walls with which the blood-red-eyed boy had long since begun to dodge all kinds of normal reasoning. He had seen all that time your face slightly frightened and surprised by the huge amount of gifts that Kalim had daily sent from home just for you, he didn’t lose how your presence had become a fixed point in his day. About how now he should not only look after the needs of the white-haired boy, but now also your own under the orders of his master.

"Remember Jamil, every wish of my Habibi must be fulfilled immediately, okay?"

And of course he always did, noting in the meantime how your simple word could change any previous opinion of Kalim.

"I think that’s a kind of fruit a little bitter, I didn’t remember it so-What? You don’t like it so much? True, not even me, actually."

Surely he would have noticed this, causing him to cling more and more to you, telling him that he had to spend all his time with you and instead leaving the duties of dorm head to him, something the silver-haired boy was extremely willing to do: all for her beloved and adored Habibi.

The ebony-haired servant would remain silent, as he had always done since his childhood, continuing to pull the strings of this little theatre so that he would finally have a real place in society; he did not care at all about your ever-increasing looks at him, or how he would always try to get the sticky kid to go away, but this would just reset everything he had done and built in the last few months in the dorm, reborn under a new regulation and under a new rigor rediscovered.

If he stopped you meeting with Kalim, everything would be erased, so you could definitely suffer a little longer before you left.

But Kalim wasn’t a complete fool, and he knew it.

He knew and saw the way he was subtly threatening you by threatening to spread disgusting rumors about you, about you not being such a pure, chaste angel, about all sorts of things that would bring you down at the slightest exit without him. He knew what power was, and he wasn’t below using it to hold you to him, not after what happened with Jamil before.

If you had refused or even hinted at a possible breakup of your relationship, the first reaction it could have had is to immediately throw yourself at your feet, tightly grabbing the fabric of your school uniform and crying, begging in sobs and wondering if it was his mistake, he swears he’ll make it up to you!

And if I kept trying to avoid him gently, since you’re such a nice person that you didn’t immediately kick him out of your life, it would have to come down to the ways he absolutely didn’t like to use. Usually his conflicts were not even resolved by himself, but this was neither a conflict nor a problem- don’t misunderstand, he still thinks that there were problems in the relationship because of your ever-increasing thoughts of wanting to leave, but he thinks there are problems for a completely wrong reason, which he swears on his own life and on those of his whole family never to repeat again.

He would never want to get to do this- after all he wants the person he will marry in the future to have a good reputation and be loved by everyone- so this move will be used as a last resort in case of failure of any previous attempt to make you stay with him.

He knew that Jamil was not one of the most sociable and transparent people you could ever meet, but he knew that he would never do something as petty as hypnotizing him again- and he was sure! He could remember every single moment of his days, unllike of when he had whole lapses of memory scattered throughout the days. And then he was helping him with his relationship, so he was certain that he could trust his and your life in his skilled hands.

And it hasn’t been that long since you last saw the bright sunlight, at least not in person.

He knew that every beautiful dove must fly, so he compensated for the time you normally spent in the luxurious rooms of his castle in the Land of Warm Sands riding with you on his magic carpet. But not before you have sealed your wings with a beautiful padlock and gold chains: after all, white and gold were such beautiful colors together. After all, as kindness had put Kalim in some trouble, and in a world like the human one, yours has put you in far worse trouble than you could have ever imagined.

You were enchanted by the mesmerizing eyes of the beautiful snake that, slowly and patiently, while you remained staring at the blinding vermilion, wrapped like a powerful and heavy gold chain tightly to your body. Making you immobilized by your own mistake, and remaining forever enchanted by the red gems that the young man possessed, those same irises that had been your end.

-𝐕𝐢𝐥 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐞𝐧𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐭-

Vil Schoenheit, head of the dormitory of the ancient Pomefiore, a very famous actor with an unnatural beauty and rigor, would never have thought he could fall so low for a simple person. The blond-haired perfectionist so focused and so devoted to achieving the perfection of himself and everyone in whom he could see potential, could not help but describe you as the exact opposite of what he would have considered his perfect soulmate: although you too could also have had a strong potential like that first year Epel, but, from what he’s always seen, you haven’t even tried to achieve the best version of yourself.

Like the scarlet-haired dorm boss or the smart silver-haired octomerman, he wouldn’t even have time to even know what you look like.

At least, before he heard about you.

With his increasingly emerging figure in entertainment and fashion, with his excellent school career to keep such, his relentless search for beauty and the burning desire for revenge on that useless being who had always stolen all the spotlight, he had a very narrow daily schedule. And the fact that he had to manage a dormitory full of people who still had to see that beauty and charisma were an immense and unique source of power, did not help at all the coverage of his imminent dark circles.

At first, and as I said before, he wouldn’t even want to know who you were. But the quick tongues of all these dirty hicks he had to endure in school, would let slip away in the luxurious dormitory room that in his school there was a particular little student who had the reputation of being the most beautiful in the entire realm of Twisted Wonderland.

Even more than Neige.

It wasn’t enough just that stupid idiot with a rosy face to put a spoke in the wheel, now there was also a third person against whom he had to win?!

He couldn't believe it.

He did not want to believe that a simple person like you could be considered by all even more beautiful than him and that idiot without even making an effort, while he had to work hard to get to the point where he was now.

He was jealous, he just wanted to be the one adored by everyone for once: not Neige, not you, just him.

He knew what it felt like to be one of the most beautiful of all, but he didn’t want to stop there. No, he wanted to be the one and only to hold the power of eternal beauty, he wanted to ruin your smiley faces to death so that you two couldn’t even get outside without you being labeled as deformed monsters, he wanted to destroy your lives, he wanted to eliminate you two.

But Vil was not such a reckless and incautious man, he already had a plan in mind, and now he just needed to add a few more details thanks to your arrival. He would have called his trusty hunter, and he, being a good subject as he was, had immediately satisfied the bizarre requests of the poisonus man.

A little setback, this was you in his eyes. Like everyone he had to compete with to get to the top, he just had to make sure that you didn’t get a chance to be better than him.

But your presence irritated him so much, he hated so much how your eyes didn’t even have a hint of make-up but that they still turned out to be absolutely delicious for the blond-haired man as he continually struggled against the increasingly strong feelings of desirability he was developing towards you, he hated how he would always have to pay attention to his strict diet to stay online while you would try every cake that Trey would cook for any unnecessary parties in his dorm.

He hated how he could not stop watching you as you posed as the hardworking and always available person you were, thus bringing to your side a herd of rednecks and useless potatoes that were shamelessly hovering over you, using flimsy and shabby excuses just to get a speck of your attention, and leaving a bitter taste in his mouth as he turned abruptly and forced himself not to curse everyone with his Unique Magic.

And while the handsome man was slowly falling into the abyss of madness, his trusty Rook would notice every single look of Vil directed at you, a look of such primitive hunger and such magnificent and pure hatred, a poison so limpid and deadly that it made to praise even more this new love of his.

But unfortunately such a scruffy and tacky frown did nothing but ruin the beautiful features of the poisonous beauty, the expressions of anger that did not belong to him did nothing but position themselves on his immaculate face as soon as he saw the dirty hands of a student of Savanaclaw on your shoulders as he hugged you, while that disgusting being was clearly looking for more from you.

"Oh, that student, la beauté de cette école, quelqu'un qui possède une beauté d'un autre monde ² , but not so much to compete with our wonderful head of the dormitory in appearance" And throwing a mocking and nonchalant grin at the other man. That made the handsome man frown even more for the casual tone of the hunter in talking about you so freely.

"Yeah, whatever but when- Umh, I apologize Schoenheit-senpai, but when can I train for Magishift tryo-?"

"Rook, I need your services one more time."

"Oui."

"And Epel, keep practicing your etiquette, your manners and the way you speak are barbaric. Don't forget what I've told you."

And suddenly, all those nights spent studying for the various tests that until then had not weighed on your physical health, had done nothing but drain you of all your energy, making you feel completely grounded. You wouldn't be able to understand why these sudden changes, until that moment your routine had never given you any kind of problems, but Ace would have just swept it all away by saying that most likely it was you who were just stressed out and that finally all that workload was hitting you all at once.

And you, being such a responsible student, despite all the warnings of Jack and Epel to rest, would have continued to help Riddle with all the preparations of the VDC instead. You couldn’t help helping all those people who didn’t ask, but clearly needed help. Something that the man with lilac irises had noticed from the beginning.

And how can he not exploit to his advantage a situation so useful to his cause?

And working with the Heartslabyul's leader, he would subtly observe you several times under the guise of having to control the stage setup process for NRC’s biggest event himself.

Normally he would have hated all those people who would only take advantage of the opportunities on the fly, and in fact he still did, but he could not call this "opportunism", but a small incentive to help himself in his life. And by the way, it wasn’t like he’d never worked hard for the duration of his stressful life until- like everyone else except him had- so he was sure that instead of hurting you, he was just helping himself.

Clearly the effects of the presumed fatigue were making themselves felt and seen: the skin once so bright and seemingly shiny would instead become sicker and battered, your face harbored light dark circles and your body began to feel much weaker and exposed to any kind of bump; you felt sick, as if you had ingested something that made you feel extremely bad, as if someone was sucking your energy away. And these symptoms would go on for so long that not even your friends would let you walk alone for fear that you might stumble and hurt yourself. And the effects would, at some point, even cause the first of a series of fainting in front of the blond himself.

He almost felt sorry for seeing you so weak and hurt, but he couldn’t help but feel a sadistic pleasure in your pitiful sight. A student so perfect in all respects, so good, kind and charitable, so good to his classmates and so understanding, reduced to nothing but a weak body kept alive for an unknown reason. He chose you to be the guinea pig for his famous poisons.

After all, there was a reason his trusty hunter always called him by that nickname.

"My beloved Roi du Poison, you truly are the most beautiful and poisonous man that the entire Twisted Wonderland has ever seen!"

He liked that nickname in a way, as he also loved his talent and knowledge in potionology. He had tried to recreate to the letter the infamous "poison kiss", created and perfected no less than the so esteemed Evil Queen. But alas, some ingredients could not be collected and obtained at the time of need, so he had to improvise by mixing several ingredients, making it all turn out to be a deadly potion.

Or at least he thought.

It was rather peculiar that a poison created to kill had not yet borne fruit, causing him to rage silently as it rechecked every single process of the potion that had kindly handed you nothing less than your beloved best friend. Of course, at the beginning even the first year was strange and annoyed by the strange request to give you a basket full of red apples,

"Why do I even need to do this- that's so useless. Why me and not Hunt, he would've loved to do this for him. By the way, the ones of my family would be definitely better, the colour is too much bright, surely they're all too much soft and ew..", he thought many times during the day, but he had not asked questions to the handsome man.

Vil couldn’t help but start ordering Hunt to write down every kind of reaction you were going through, every kind of change, even if it was insignificant. But more importantly, to tell him everything that was slightly out of the ordinary that you did or said. It wasn't possible to resist that much to a deadly potion.

He couldn’t understand the way that even though you didn’t know that he was the cause of your ever-worsening ailments, you would continue to understand when to leave him alone and help him with his problems, try to understand his thoughts and continuing insistently to approach him, both emotionally and physically. He did not understand you.

How could you ever approach and help your executioner? He did not understand.

And, as always, Rook never failed to satisfy him, bringing him what he had asked for and more.

And then he finally had an answer that appealed to all of his questions that had been running through his mind until that moment. No one, not even that idiot in the other school, could have such sweet and supportive behavior as yours, despite the fact that you were literally falling apart because of the envy of another.

No one would have survived for so long a poison that would have assured death. You can't simply die. What kind of angel would ever get killed by a simple human? Lose your body for what?

"Apparently I do, Vil."

An even tougher challenge than training Epel? After all, he couldn’t call himself a dorm-leader if he couldn’t even get you turned into clay in his soft, soft hands, he wouldn’t have been him if he hadn’t finally helped you see that he was the key to your salvation.

Only he had the solution, only he could really help you in all that discomfort that you had. All alone, betrayed from what you thought your best friend. Left behind by all those who you thought were friends. Betrayed by your own god. You were only deceiving yourself.

After all, you should have known that man was made in their image.

He would continue to be convinced that he was only attracted to your potential beauty, even though he knew it was just a pathetic excuse to avoid hurting his ego by forcing you into his luxurious, comfortable bed, observing that day by day the potion had not had the desired effects, but that it was still powerful enough not to allow your body to regenerate normally, and consequently letting him do whatever he wants with your fragile and now mortal body. He could finally keep you in a crystal coffin where only he could see you, in a place that only he had permission to access, a place dedicated entirely to your wonderful being, a being that divided his reason from his instincts.

Thus leading him to force you to live a different kind of hell, one where Vil was constantly torn between loving you obsessively until his death, spoiling you with every kind of luxury and every kind of wealth you could ever desire, treat you as a true queen, not as a mere ordinary angel as you had been treated up to that moment, while the other side of you was divided by hatred of the one who had made him wither like a dead rose, making him constantly and incessantly think about your beautiful face once so soft and so shiny, and letting him finally realize what he really wanted from you.

You got too taken in by the juicy red color of the apple in the hand of the beautiful evil, and this time, laying down, you would finally have a bite of the queen’s venomous grip.

-𝐈𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐒𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐝-

It is not a novelty that the blue-haired boy was an extremely shy and elusive person with self-isolative tendencies, who spent all his average days in a messy and gloomy room, and he never would have come out willingly if his little brother didn’t pull so much weight on this subject.

Idia Shroud, the descendant of the great God of the Underworld, a figure to follow and an inspiration to some, and terror and disgrace to others, had never aspired to a career as brilliant as his fellow dormitory chief, he simply did not feel the morbid need to be noticed and to receive so much attention from people, and even less, he did not feel the need to get even just in touch with a person outside his virtual bubble.

He absolutely did not see the advantages of having physical or "normal" relationships, and if there were, he was quite sure that the advantages were much less than the disadvantages he would suffer. By now he had resigned himself to being what he was and what each time he saw faintly on the screens: a useless rejection of society.

Someone who did not even have the courage to speak, even just to see, a real person in flesh and bones- someone who was just one face among a thousand in many forums he assiduously attended- almost maniacally- someone who could never carry on the surname of the noble Shroud family, hoping that the responsibility instead would go on to his younger brother that was definitely better suited to the task than someone who could not even leave his room without feeling weak and without energy.

"I already told you for the millionth time Ortho, I don’t want to go out at all, not even Hades himself could change my mind."

And when the news of the student without magic who had become prefect on the same day of their admission first arrived at Ignihyde’s dormitory, the handsome blue-haired male could not have cared less. He didn’t have a shred of curiosity about you, leading him to ignore his younger brother’s futile attempts to socialize with someone other than him. He was starting to worry about his older brother’s tendencies, and those concerns would come close to the limit of tolerable when he mistakenly read for once what he shared on those forums he was obsessed with.

And he knew that Idia meant every word he wrote, every word imbued with hatred of the world that was not good enough to accept him and to allow someone like him not to be targeted for his own interests.

Even if he had never been bullied, even if no one would have dared to touch a hair of him for fear that he might in return burn his finger with his flames. Ortho had been with Idia centuries and centuries before, and even there, his big brother had always had a tendency to hate being together with others, always isolating himself in his room in the family castle. But he thought he couldn’t abdicate beyond that. He knew that his brother had always suffered from extreme social anxiety, probably the cause of his problems, along with other disorders that interfered in establishing normal healthy relationships with real people.

Idia, on the other hand, saw no problem in his current life. He lived alone, in a room he didn’t need to leave, eating whatever food he wanted and being able to stay online for as long as he wanted. Maybe this was the only thing in his mind that he had control over, or maybe he had become so addicted to it that just walking out of the room would blind him for a moment.

But the fact is that he would never deign to see you, he did not need to see the annoying faces of his classmates, let alone the popular ones.

He would never meet them again, so it was useless for him to even try to make friends with someone who will inevitably forget you.

He thought it was pathetic.

He had no time for normal people, but instead he had too much time to spend on forums and games, always changing his interests and topics. And it would be right in those places that he would almost certainly meet you, named under a nice nickname that would spur him to talk to you. The male’s room was messy, smelly and completely in the dark except for the dim light of the blue screens, where Idia spent his time playing different games, talking occasionally and bitterly commenting on the stupid and senseless moves of his teammates. But he could not even finish the round before finding himself quickly reading the public chat, and then stopping to read the whole message.

The_Pref.ectme: "Hi, sorry if I’m sudden, but I don’t know this game well, and I need help. Sorry to disturb."

Obviously, a newbie like you wasn’t educated at all and didn’t even have a thousandth of his experience in that game, so he would have decided to mentor you for an evening, by writing quickly in the chat that he would call you on another platform and that there he would explain everything to you.

And when he first heard your voice, he could feel himself floating in the Olympus.

Your voice sounded so harmonious and so calm to his ears, so beautiful and so pure, as if a nymph was whispering softly in his ears, lulling him into a state of apparent trance, it almost melted his brain as calming as it could be.

He had never felt this way throughout his long life of isolation and loneliness, leading him to pant heavily at the first sign of another person even minimally attractive.

A sticky layer of sweat was all over his face, and the prominent redness on his face as you spoke and expressed your thoughts to him about how you found the game difficult, would have made him immediately change the microphone and abruptly interrupt the call and exhale a trembling sigh, almost trembling for the experience he had just had and making him take long and deep breaths to avoid melting the plastic of his chair with the warm flames of his hair.

In the meantime, and while the blue-haired man was biting his hand trying to suppress all kinds of noise and not alarm his younger brother, you would've continued to speak and speak, never imagining that he would've ended the call so abruptly.

A continuous and sudden knock on the dorm door would wake you from your worries about the the game, and welcoming kindly and as always a significantly tired Ace who had been kicked out by Riddle again for breaking another rule. And since Grim was soundly asleep in the main room, you would tell your bizarre adventure with this guy online.

"I don’t know, maybe he was a 50-year-old creep who just wanted to see you naked."

"I don’t think so, at first I could also hear a glimpse of his voice, and he looked like a boy!"

"Wait wait wait- a glimpse? Of his voice? Man, that's creepy as hell! And you.. spoke non stop?"

"Uh yes. But I don't think he's-"

"Nah, hell nah, If you ask me, I'd be creeped out. And didn't you think that he was... Being a pervert? Or something weirder? Maybe recording you! Oh seven, don't tell me it was a video call-"

"Ace, come on, be faithful."

"You have to be more careful on the Internet! I could never allow anything to happen to you, let alone Deuce."

"Don’t worry about me, Ace."

"And don’t so that again, okay?"

And for you it would have ended there, eventually deciding to sleep on it under the advice of one of your best friends.

But the same was not for Idia. At all. He’d spent the whole night imagining your mouth opening and closing only to produce those little words about useless things, the movements of your tongue so sensually moving to the palate, the vocal cords moving in the throat- and oh, that throat...

He kept thinking back to that exact moment when your words had entered his head for the first time, unable to do anything but begin to fantasize about how you might actually appear in real life and not covered and disguised by a beautiful avatar.

He wondered if you were tall or short, if you had short or long hair, what color it could be, and how you could be. He knew you’d never want someone so stupid like other idiotic people around you, but then again, he was just a dirty virgin who hadn’t showered in over two weeks doing nothing but sit in his room full of paper towels and energy drinks. He was a disgusting incel ³ that couldn’t even hope to have a beautiful person, like he knew you were, by his side.

This new fixation would have led him to look for every single clue to understand what your identity was, initially looking for any useful information about your game profile that you both were playing before, and then starting the actual process to see who you really were.

After all, what kind of student at Ignihyde would not know how to hack an account, especially one of such a naive person about the dangers of the internet? All those years spent studying programming would come in handy, which he had no doubt about.

He knew that in the end everything he had studied on his own would always come in handy: whether to ask someone for private information, or ruin another’s life, with a simple click and the right words, he could simply make another’s life a hell.

And after a short time, he had complete access to your computer, which had oddly not installed an antivirus or something to protect your device- it would've been a somewhat longer process, but in the end, he knew he would always succeed: the only thing he felt he could boast of was his almost infinite knowledge of technology, giving him the ego boost he needed to continue everything he was working on.

He had access to your search history, your daily logs, your downloads, your works, passwords, socials- and most importantly, your webcam and microphone.

Finally, finally finally finally finally finally finally- Finally!

He could finally know the face of the voice that accompanied him through his nights and days.

And when he saw you.. it was as if all the emotions he’d spent days stabilizing had suddenly returned.

His dead heart was pounding, as if he had a sudden attack of tachycardia, he felt himself suffocating with his own saliva, forgetting even for a few seconds how to swallow, and consequently dropping some saliva on his sweatshirt, the blush had returned, making him feel hot and scorching under the heat of his sweatshirt- and although normally his dorm was extremely cold, he continued to sweat profusely, his thin fingers were rigidly welded on the mouse, By clicking and zooming on every part of his body that was visible to him, his hair now threatening to melt his headphones.

"Oh- my- my- sev- en… oh- h-hah.."

The news of Idia’s interest in the prefect had been a shock to his younger brother, but also a huge relief. He finally met someone who wasn’t him! And he also fell in love! Years before, this huge change in the life of his niisan would have been nothing more than a mere image in his brain: a fantasy, an illusion, peraphs.

At a certain point he had even given up trying to reason with the man, and therefore he had lowered a bit the tentative to convince him to leave the dormitory. At least he could go out during night time, just something to make him go away from that smelly and disgusting room.

"NO-! I mean- what if someone wasn’t asleep and instead began filming me?! I- I don’t know! You understand!? What if someone even noticed my hair? NO."

So when you would hit not only the near-impossible interest of Idia, he believed it was fate. And that’s what Idia thought. It was repeated that your meeting had been planned in advance by the Fate, an omnipotent existence that ruled at will both human and gods.

No one could escape the Fate.

Not even the beautiful little angel you were.

He thanked the fact of having known you online and not in real life- also because there would be only one chance in a million that would have met you just when it was released for the first time in the last five or six months. But now all he could do was keep watching your every move from the camera that conveniently could spot you every time you walked in, making him find out as many things about you.

"Ah~ my little and tempting angel! I bet you would have liked to have such a devoted follower like me."

As the months went by, the adorable little Ortho would become a huge friend of yours, which his personality allowed him to do, starting with a casual conversation over lunch in the cafeteria, with the excuse of having to look for a volunteer to test a new machine, which, despite much concern expressed by none other than by your friends who were currently sitting at your same table, you had naturally and immediately agreed to do.Helping was your main mission, your only mission, and so helping a little boy like Ortho was enough on its own to fill your pure heart with joy, coming shortly afterwards into the gloomy dormitorium.

His brother lacked that ability to be with others, so Ortho would be the voice and body of Idia outside his room, and not wanting his nii-san to lose all happiness, that one glimmer and glimmer of a possible better future that you were carrying- He didn’t want to be the cause of his suffering.

Idia could not help but compare himself to the lonely and gloomy Hades, who for centuries remained because of an extremely favoritist society that had forced him to be what he had become. In the past he could only compare you to the wonderful Persephone. Now he understood his ancestor. Or maybe it was a family thing.

But in the end, his brother, a boy so kind that you would never be able to resist his constant prayers that you should visit him at least once in his dorm, always spent a lot of time alone, and all he wanted was to spend a little more time with his new best friend! Did you really want to leave him all alone in a place so isolated and full of people just as isolated? No? Perfect! Just follow him to Big Brother’s room and you can all have a big pijama party! Actually, do you want some pomegranate? They are produced by his family, so you can also binge on them!

And that tiny little grain.

A grain had been your sentence.

A mere grain of pomegranate would have been the invisible chains that would have kept you in the room of Idia, you should have remembered the immense jealousy and possessiveness of the god of the dead, you should have known of his obsession with his beloved little angel.

The light morbidly attracts the darkness.

And now you were bound to him forever like his Persephone. Until the end of time, governing together, one beside the other, in a world of death and silence, where a land of sinful and decrepit souls will be forced to obey you two without asking questions, and not letting you fly away in the world of humans.

Even for the god of the underworld this method had worked, so why shouldn’t it have been the same for him?

There was a very small chance that everything he did might end badly, but Idia didn’t care. He could have been discovered by the inhabitants of the island or by other students, but in the end he knew that you could never leave him in any way, and he enjoyed this. Even if he had disappeared, the bond between you would have remained unbreakable.

Don't you know how many times Persephone has tried to escape from that gloomy, old-fashioned prison? She even tried to kill herself.

But how can you die when you’re already in a dead world, and what’s more dead then a dead spirit like yours?

And you too, as she did, would have surrendered to the inevitable fate that had been forged only for the two of you. You would have been chained to a world where the dead speak, and where the living die, and where the red juice of the pomegranate would have continually stained the floors with crimson, dripping from your wounds and your mouth, sealing you forever with the fire of the underworld to him.

You were deceived by a soul, and soon you would have to pay a heavy toll. A soul for your freedom, throwing you into a whirlpool of familiar whispers and shadows, drowning in death with Idia.

-𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐮𝐬 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐚-

Malleus Draconia, an extremely powerful wizard with powers still unknown to most students, an honorable student with excellent scholastic returns, a powerful young man who was destined for the throne , a boy who conveyed immediate anxiety to anyone who was in the same room with him, thus leading many people to associate his presence with something to avoid, a gloomy fae that for all those who saw it was a complete enigma, seemingly no solution, an extremely well-known individual, but who, fortunately or not, did not show around so often. And the students were grateful for that, they were constantly chatting and talking so much that they even forgot his presence in the school, some always avoiding to speak of him as if even his name was a taboo and others trying to neglect the whole by pretending it did not even exist. After all, those who mind their own business live for 100 years.

And for Malleus this was and will always be just ridiculous.

Why the hell would he even want to touch someone, let alone attack a student clairvoyant much weaker than him? He did not understand how those humans had come to conceptualize such a ridiculous and useless idea as those "beliefs" that had spread in the school since his arrival, he would never stoop to hurt anyone, and this made him more and more nervous, the rumors about him, as ninety percent of the students who met him ran away immediately with the queues between their legs.

"What a cowardly behavior. Truly miserable."

He resented the way his appearances did not reflect, as he thought, his real behavior, but he loved that respect that only he, only Malleus Draconia could have from all those who knew him directly or who had heard only false stories and stories about him, After all, he loved to see how the majority of the student body didn’t even look at him in his emerald eyes, for fear of what he could do to them.

But they wouldn’t have to worry, he repeated, he wouldn’t have done anything, even if he recognized that those fictionalized and false rumors had reality funds; he knew what he was capable of, and he was extremely proud of it, he knew a lot, too much, well the dragon that lay dormant within him, a beast that no one until that moment had managed to wonder except himself, and one that no one had ever awakened. Being close to a volcano is always safe, until it erupts, at least.

But again, these nocturnal behaviors around him only annoyed him more and more, he knew exactly what his classmates were doing.

Had he really been alone so long that now no one remembered? But it would not have been possible, he always heard the occasional whispers from the students of other dormitories, and moreover, he was the head of one of them, therefore, he had happily excluded this option, instead leaving him to bitterly process the other hypothesis.

Are they doing this on purpose? Whatever it is, it makes his blood boil with rage, but being stubborn as it was, it would have denied him immediately and fiercely, leading him to think that they were not necessarily avoiding him, but that they were just extremely forgetful. He was defending all of them by every means possible, and the least they could do to prevent half the castle from being suddenly struck by random lightning was at least to recognize his presence in the rooms.

"Shut up Zigvolt. I’m perfectly fine. Now, don't bother me. Ah, no, wait, take note of the fact that I’m gonna love it for a while, so you don’t have to wake up half the dorm screaming like you always do."

Obviously he had heard about you, the infamous and so much on everyone’s lips, even the silent and mysterious dorm mates, a spirit so free and so well-liked by everyone, so much so that he always had someone who would like to be with you. And Malleus at first couldn’t help but be slightly amused by all your "adventures" that every day you carried out with those other freshmen, including the controlling Sebek, who, in your presence did not scream in the slightest, and who was extremely delicate, giving the impression that if he had used even a pinch of his fae magic on you, you would have broken instantly like porcelain.

But would you break if you were in his presence?

He noticed that every single student always had an aura of calm and well-being after being with you, walking or just talking quickly with you. He wondered if he could finally feel himself, like the others, at peace with everyone and in particular with himself, if he could confess to you all kinds of dark thoughts he had always had, and if you would eventually forgive him.

To him you were like an unknown but fascinating presence at the same time, how you could induce so many men to follow you without them making moves on you, and without even needing some spells for it, How each time you seemed to bring a new air into the rooms every time you walked into one, how you could possess a talent for attracting all to yourself, things that, unfortunately, he could not do.

You were the opposite of him, so simple but at the same time so complicated to have close despite your charitable nature, and until then he would have considered you only a "funny" human completely exposed to all kinds of danger and so seemingly and certainly unaware of every evil that the world could reserve for everyone.

And everything would have been in a stalemate for him if I hadn’t had so much mercy on him.

"Hi, I wanted to ask you, since my friends and I were having a little party in my dorm, would you like to join us, I would really like to have you with us."

Everything seemed to be temporarily immobilized the moment you asked that question. Almost every person who had the luck or misfortune to have passed in that instant whispered how you had just signed your death sentence, while some even prepared to fight in the event Malleus could hurt you at any moment, and others still staring without moving a muscle.

As for him, he had regained no control over his body, as if his soul had temporarily left the material and bodily counterpart while he had no strength to move even a single muscle, while his face would not show even the slightest hint of emotion on his clear and defined features, making him look like an imposing and impressive statue for others.

But to you, it was not terrifying at all, which is why you continued to keep a sweet smile on your soft features and patiently waiting for a response from the fae, you had vaguely guessed from the very sight that he, like many others who had helped you throughout your life, had unfortunately always been misunderstood and put aside, you knew he was not the type to hurt someone casually, something for which your friends kept comparing you to a nurse always ready to help any soul that needed, but that he also continued to convince them not to do anything rash with him, and what you reproached them gently. You had managed to see the real Malleus Draconia, that child deprived of the necessary love and always estranged from everyone.

Suddenly, with a sharp nod of his head, he took leave just as quickly, leading you to snigger and admire the lukewarm sparks that remained of him.

"What a brave human."

This show of affection towards him, in his eyes, would have left him breathless and extremely confused, he simply cannot understand what was the spark that would have provoked his curiosity, He didn’t understand why a human like you had the guts to talk to him, let alone invite him to a party. But don’t misunderstand it, amidst that blanket of sudden emotions, an immense euphoria and joy would predominate such inner chaos. Finally someone invited him! Someone didn’t consider him a monster! He had finally met someone he had seen through his scales, he would finally have a friend for the first time, and he was elated by it.

From this point of no return, Malleus would wander much more often into the places you were accustomed to attend more often, and with every mention of your name or your sight, a light, hard-to-see smile would appear on his mouth, a smile that made him more charming but at the same time something he was not used to, always seeing himself and being seen with a perennial neutral and sometimes sad expression.

By the way, he would eventually become more concerned for your safety, still believing that you were a being created from porcelain, and that it could be broken even by a breath. He would begin to watch over your figure incessantly, not even letting his supposed trusted knights have the task of watching over you: Sebek was an extremely racist half-fae towards any kind of creature other than his own- and what for which Malleus mocked him silently, finding funny how he hated and did not want to see the half of himself- and even if he was duìiventato your friend and said to be changed for the better thanks to you, he didn’t believe that once at your window at night he could control himself. Most of all he knew that controlling his fae instincts was extremely complicated, so he excluded the handsome young man with the mint hair from the assignment.

While Silver, he probably would have fallen asleep during the times he was supposed to be watching you and keeping you safe, and not feeling safe about his presence at all along with yours, contrivedly imagining the fact that you could have been more comfortable with someone like you than with a powerful fae like him.

And leaving the job to none other than the one he trusted most, Lilia Vanrouge, who would immediately accept the job, subtly hinting that the future monarch might have a little crush on the adorable human.

It would be useless to say that every guy who before wandered around you, would have disappeared for a long time, noticing the look quite strange and disturbing both of Lilia and the heavy and suffocating presence of Malleus at your side. He absolutely had to avoid that he could be replaced by someone else unworthy and ungrateful of your presence, so making him more self-conscious and stunned by your calm and long chats, from which he would learn a lot of information about your life and yourself. At first he did not know what to do with that feeling of constant burning in his chest, he being quite if not completely inexperienced and innocent about abstract concepts and never tried for him as love.

Lilia would be his humble mentor in this new world where the powerful black-haired wizard would stumble upon. It would teach him everything he knew about this new burning feeling, a feeling as wonderful as it was painful.

And Malleus was doing exactly what the wise ancient fae had told him. Even though he still didn’t fully realize what he was doing, he trusted Lilia blindly, and he knew for a fact that he would never do anything to hinder him in any way. He was sacrificing for you every single piece of his mind, every drop of his being for you, putting his heart on a silver platter so you could do the same with yours. His behavior would start to change in a twisted way, constantly giving you questions, some of which were extremely personal and you weren’t allowed to answer, which annoyed him to say the least.

He was doing everything he needed to do, bare his heart, revealing all the darkest secrets of his soul, and you dared to lie to him and not answer?

Didn’t you have to make sacrifices?

In a relationship no one would keep secrets for themselves, and Malleus knew first of all what it was like to keep everything inside, catalyzing those emotions inside, but that didn’t justify your unwelcome behavior towards that kind of thing. He knew how hard it was, but if he could, he knew you could, too, and just as you comforted him on all his worries and forgave him for everything he did, he knew he would, too, He didn’t think you might have done such terrible or uncircumcised things that you would have categorically refused to express. He would never have judged the only person who had approached him, it would have been the equivalent of a suicide for the young man. He would never do that.

"All right, child of man, I see, now what do you say we take a walk? The weather is great right now."

He was doing everything he had to do, bare his heart, revealing all the darkest secrets of his soul, and you dared lie to him and not answer?

Didn’t you have to make sacrifices?

In a relationship no one would keep secrets for themselves, it wouldn’t be right; and Malleus knew firsthand what it meant to keep it all inside, catalyzing those emotions and hiding them, But that couldn’t possibly justify your unwelcome behavior towards that kind of thing. He knew how difficult it was to talk about uncomfortable topics and say everything to a person who couldn’t understand exactly how they felt; but if he, Malleus, could open up to you completely, he knew you could do the same with him.

And just as you comforted him on all his cares and forgave him for all that he had done, he knew he would also do it: he would hold your hands gently, wrap them with his much larger hands, and bring one to your wonderful face, stroking his cheek with his thumb and at the same time wiping a stray tear, he would have moved your head so that your looks could cross, the beautiful color of your eyes in contact with his jade eyes, inducing you to tell him all that you hid in the depths of your pure heart, smiling at your best and trying to comfort you to the fullest of his abilities, and holding you gently and tightly in an embrace as streams of words and words flowed from your mouth, as Malleus would have listened to every drop of it, drinking from your lips as if he were thirsty.

He didn’t think that you could do things so terrible or so evil that you would categorically refuse to express, he knew that you could never do it, he knew that you were so pure that not even the most corrupt creature would be able to corrupt you. And even if he was wrong about him, he would never have judged the only person who had ever approached him, never dreamed of it. A stab in the heart would have been better than witnessing your pain and disgust. He would never do that.

But, regardless of his thoughts and wills, he knew full well that everything that was going on around him was just daydreams, an illusion created by his cruel imagination to fill those moments when you weren’t together.

He did not understand.

What was going on?

What was happening to him?

All those images in his mind, all those thoughts about you, horrible scenarios where you forget about him, where you would finally listen to your pathetic friends and start avoiding him, like so many people have done before. The daydreams were progressively and slowly turning into nightmares for the fae, who did not yet understand what was happening, for him a morbid fear of your rejection, and the anger towards your friends who at the moment when they spotted even a small spark of his presence, would begin to invent unnecessary problems just to get away from him, which he would have responded with an even thicker stickiness than before, indirectly forcing you to stay with him for hours and hours, he could not describe the anxiety and the prominent prong he felt every time he saw you among those people who would separate you. He didn’t want to lose you, he would have died if you had just tried to leave, he felt a twinge in his heart just at the thought of canvases.

All he wanted was to hold on to his treasure so tight that he could never escape from his arms, so damn and selfishly close that no pathetic human or any other creature would ever be able to see you again.

During those moments of silence he would begin to think about which of the towering towers of his castle in his land would be most suitable for your stay. Surely he would have chosen the room in the highest tower of the castle, and the most lavish and shining room you would ever see, and inevitably he would have basked under the pride that your compliments on the luxuries of the place would have brought him, swelling his chest with a smile of happiness, one of his typical smiles he would do only in your presence. He would have taken care of you personally, leaving you with no choice but to blindly trust him, which he did with you, he would have dressed you in the best fabrics and dresses ever made, all custom-made by your future husband, would order his cooks to cook every dish or delicacy that would come to your mind, would make you bathe in the best cosmetics and beauty products recommended no less cehe by Vil himself. He would have lovingly provided for your every wish, even and especially at times when you wanted to become closer to each other. He would cuddle you lovingly everywhere in his castle, whether it was in front of Lilia and her knights or in front of his entire kingdom. He wanted everyone to know that you were his and his alone.

His beautiful treasure, the purest and brightest of all that other rubbish that ran around you and him.

This behavior and abrupt change in his habits, would have been noticed by you and everyone you considered friends and acquaintances, which would have only fulfilled his greatest fears, Now, despite your cryptic look where he could vaguely distinguish those two emotions that he absolutely did not want to see on your beautiful features, pain and distrust towards him.

He could not bear to live a life without you, by now you had become the only person who had finally given him the wonderful feeling of being well-liked, what did you expect from a powerful dragon fae who had always been deprived of love throughout his long life?

It was obvious that he would attach himself to the very first person who would show him some affection.

Especially if that person was you.

It would have changed your mind. He knew you’d never give him up, it wasn’t like you, it would make you realize that everything you were doing was just because you were being manipulated by your rotten friends that you were with every time. He only had to show you that those you considered friends were not such, and that he alone was worthy of your holy trust, taking your splendid body in his arms and returning to his land.

The school years were over for him, and by a lucky coincidence all this would fortunately happen a few months before the end of his senior year at Night Raven College. And as long as you could have fought him and tried to spread your white wings, tried to go desperately to Crowley, what could that stingy little crow do to a guy like him? He could literally shatter his precious school and everyone in it with a simple earthquake, and he knew he would never want that.

"Me’è corom veh, m’j cora⁴"

Finally he could fulfill his deepest dreams, finally he had another half to spend eternity with. He could finally have his happy ending, an end that had always been denied him until that moment, now it would become reality, and all because of your kindness and kindness.

You both would have your happy endings, forever trapped in the dragon’s jaws.

¹= Habibi is an Arabic word that literally means “my love” (sometimes also translated as “my dear,” “my darling,” or “beloved.”) It is used primarily as a pet name for friends, significant others, or family members. "Habibi" is used for boys, and "habibiti" for girls. I choose to use habibi because it's easier to me, but you can always change that based on your preferences!

²= Translated: "The beauty of this school, someone who has a beauty from another world."

³= A member of an online community of young men who consider themselves unable to attract women or men sexually, typically associated with views that are hostile towards those who are sexually active.

⁴=Translated: "I love you, my love", from the Ancient Language of Feridia, the Feridian Alphabet consists of about 21 symbols with a refined spelling, which in most cases represent one of the elements of Nature that ruled the Island and the Fairies of Feridia. Almost every graphic symbol can be traced back to a letter of our current alphabet, allowing us in some cases to reproduce approximately some proper name.

· ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Part one

Part two

[missbrunettebarbie]

Has anyone tried to sort the characters from The Winx or the Barbie Movies ?

I assume you mean the original Winx Club and I am afraid I don't remember that enough to try and sort it. Buut I did a rewatch of (the more interesting) Barbie movies and with the help of @the-phoenix-heart @starry-sky-stuff @laufire here are the Babries we’ve sorted:

1. Clara (Barbie in the Nutcracker)- Lion Snake. The movie focuses a lot on Clara's dreams and goals. Her Snake is a bit more hidden, but she has the same quiet Snake secondary energy kids that grew up in controlling/abusive households tend to develop. Plus remember when she had to save Eric she straight up lied to the guards?

2. Rapunzel (Barbie as Rapunzel)- Double Bird; the brush is such a Bird sec tool and she has that Bird primary vibe. Not to mention this shows that you can have The (Mad) Scientist sorting with artists too 

3. Odette (Barbie in Swan Lake)-Badger Lion. Her secondary is a bit burned in the begining but she gets better. Badger because of how much she cares about literally everyone, from people to mythical animals.

4. Annelisse (Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper)- Snake Bird. Her People are her mom -for whom she might have developed a bit of a Lion model- and Julian and what other secondary would collect and classify rocks for fun?

5. Erika (Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper)- Snake Lion. She ~bonds with Annelisse which is the only reason why she goes along with Julian’s plan -her only other Person is her cat xD- and I will say Lion secondary because she is clearly Improvisional and so snippy to her employer

6. Elina (Barbie: Fairytopia series) - Double Badger. "For the friends you haven’t met” is such a Badger primary say and the only thing to get Elina out of her trance in the first movie. I hesitated between Lion and Courtier Badger but the last two movies made me choose the latter.

7. Teenage Barbie (Barbie Diaries) - Lion Badger. To quote Phoenix: “ People pleaser with dreams of being popular and a news anchor is a total Lion Badger ”

8. Genevieve (Barbie in the 12 dancing princesses) -Badger Bird. She is the one that is always willing to lend a hand and who keeps her mom's traditions alive. And she always go for logical solutions (dad is sick, call the doctor), makes the plan to defeat Rowena in the end AND when Rowena attacks her she defends herself using the fan skills she learned from the duchess herself :DD. Not to mention that she seems the most capable to rule out of all the sisters so The King sorting fits her well

9. Ro (Barbie as The Island Princess)- Bird Badger. We see her caretake in the very first minutes of the movie with Tika or how she chases away the crocodiles. I chose her primary mostly by elimination, but I think it’s fitting for a girl who has an entire song with lyrics that start with “why” and wears a peacock dress. Symbolism much xDD. Not to mentionBird Badger is The Survivor and Ro sure is one.

10. Mariposa (Barbie: Mariposa) - Lion Bird She's clearly an Intuitive primary abd the way she's carving adventure and visiting far-away places made me settle on Lion. Also it might be me, but the sentence "I don't know what's worse, failing or admiting it to people who believed in me?" sounds veeery Lion primary. She loves reading books, and uses the knowledge she gathers from them to accomplish her goal which is a very Bird secondary MO.

11. Liana (Barbie and the Diamond Castle) - Double Snake. Her Snake secondary is easy to spot: she tricks Slyder with switching the mirrors, she gets her and Alex to play music at the restaurant for a meal. It's obvious Liana is a Loyalist and for the longest time I thought she was a Badger, but a Badger would not have been happy living alone just with Alexa in their small cottage. Also, her very betrayed speech to Melody after Alexa leaves her is so Snake to me xD

12. Eden Starling (Barbie in A Christmas Carol). Snake Lion. Her primary is burned at the start of the movie and yet we can still see how she is loyal to both her dead aunt and her cat. The entire movie is about her unburning and it is cathartic to watch. Lion secondary because she is abrasive at the best of times and at the end she relies on grand gestures to make ammends.

13. Thumbelina (Barbie presents: Thumbelina)- Lion Bird. She's an inventor so the Bird is obvious. Her dedication to save her home, her adventurous spirit, and her confrontational attitude with Mackena all scream Lion primary to me.

14. Corrine (Barbie in The Three Musketeers) - Double Lion. Could the girl who lifted the ban on female Musketeers be anything else but The Revolutionary? Corrine is a dauntless improviser and very stubborn. She starts as a bit of an immature Lion who wants to fight for glory and has to learn to fight for what's right.

15. Merliah (Barbie on a Mermaid Tale)- Lion Snake. Another immaure Glory Hound Lion who learns to embrace her role as princess. I considered Lion secondary, but I am pretty sure her rival/co-protagonist in the second movie-Kylie- is one. And while they are similar, Kylie is much more direct and abrasive which makes me think Merliah is a Snake who loves to live in neutral. She's certanly charming enough to be one.

16. Actress!Barbie (Barbie in a Fashion Fairytale+Fairy Secret)- Badger Snake. She's an Exterior primary that's very affected by what the world thinks. Also note that when she wants to get away she does not go to a completely unknown place like her friends suggest, but to her aunt's fashion house because that's where she feels safe. Her determination to save both the fashion house and then Ken felt almost Lion secondary at times, but I think she's a Snake: she is an actress, the interaction with the crazy director in Fashion Fairytale points to Fluid secondary and The Advisor seems to pretty much sum up her role in the first movie.

17. Blair (Barbie in Princess Charm School)- Snake Badger. Probably the Snakiest Snake primary Barbie as everything she does is for her mom and sister. She's a hard worker as proven by both her job as a waitress than by the way she has to practice to do well in the charm school.

18. Kristyn (Barbie in the Pink Shoes)- Bird Snake. The Artist probably fits this ballerina best. She's an Improviser as the whole movie proves, yet has no Lion bone in her body. Also her glee at getting to play -not just dance the part, actually be- Giselle and Odette points to Snake secondary. Bird primary becauss when she's stuck in the plays her system automatically shifts to integrate the rules of the world she is in, no matter how crazy they are.

19. Lumina (Barbie: Pearl Princess) - Bird Badger. She craves adventure and it's most likely an External primary but has no sense of community the way Badgers do. Badger secondary because of how enthusiastic she was to have a job just because she got to work.

20. Alexa (Babrie and The Secret Door)- Bird Lion. All her daydreaming and escapist fantasies made me think Bird primary. I chose burned Lion secondary because in a lot of ways, Alexa reminded me of well, me.

21. Starlight!Barbie (Barbie: Starlight Adventure)- Badger Lion. She cares about people and animals a lot and well, she is an hoverboarder and a daredevil.

ETA: 22. Annika (Barbie and The Magic of Pegasus) - Lion Snake. Her sneaking out plus her Oedypuss style deception points to Snake secondary. Her rebllious and passionate nature as well as her determination point to Lion primary.

Wow, this was not easy. But also fun :D

[revenseventyr]

Putti Plutti Pott and Santa's Beard / Putti Plutti Pott og julenissens skjegg

This Christmas, my gift to the English-speaking world is amateur English subtitles for 'Putti Plutti Pott og julenissens skjegg' aka 'Putti Plutti Pott and Santa's Beard'.

The background

The musical was written by Per Asplin, a musician and composer whom I believe did some work in Hollywood but is best known in Norway for being a member of The Monn Keys in addition to being the creator of Plottiputt (as PPP is known to his friends).

The original album came out in 1969 and they made a film version in 1970 starring Asplin himself. It is a delightful blend of whimsical, heartwarming, and at points just plain weird in a way only children's media ever truly achieves.

The premise

Putti Plutti Pott is Santa's grandson. One day Santa takes off his magic beard to wash it and hangs it on the stairs to dry. The beard has magic teleportation powers (naturally; how else could Santa visit every child in one night), and Putti Plutti Pott can't resist—he steals the beard and tries it on and is immediately whisked away to emerge from the chimney in Uncle Per's living room.

Uncle Per and an assortment of nieces and nephews befriend Plottiputt and travel back to Elfland with him in a quest to return the beard to Santa in time for Christmas.

Where to watch

You can find the film on Youtube here. Please note I'm just an enthusiastic amateur so don't expect professional quality. Where possible I've been relatively literal as I did the translation for friends who were more interested in getting a sense of what's 'actually' being said rather than fitting the words to music.

Some reasons you should watch Putti Plutti Pott and Santa's Beard

1. Per Asplin

He's so charismatic and fun! Who wouldn't want to hang out at Uncle Per's cabin and listen to him sing about Christmas fairy tales?

2. Santa (Father Christmas)/Julenissen

He has an entire song about wanting his beard back where he repeatedly calls it his 'hocus pocus beard'.

3. The minutes-long sequence where Plottiputt and another elf do interpretive dance at each other in the snow

This is beyond description.

4. The genuinely lovely songs

The music is great and I particularly love the opening number, a sweet and cosy song about the Christmas landscape that references various Norwegian fairy tales and nursery rhymes. You will probably also enjoy Spikke-Sage-Lime-Banke (Chop-Saw-Glue-Knock) and never get it out of your head again, along with Klappeland (Clappingland), a traditional Scandinavian Christmas song for children.

5. Glupe Gløgg

The man, the myth, the legend. Glupe Gløgg is sadly only seen briefly in the truncated film version, but he is a secret agent elf tasked with hunting down and returning Santa's beard. Because he is a spy he disguises himself by wearing sunglasses. Unfortunately no one else in Elfland wears sunglasses, so people always know it's him. I love him and he is doing his best.

This film has changed my life and I need more, more, more!

More, you say?

There's seasonal productions of the musical in Norway in a similar vein to British panto season, so if you're ever there during the Christmas period... this is the kind of thing you might be able to get tickets for.

You can also listen to the soundtrack on Spotify.

Finally, you can try getting hold of the songbook. The songbook is a prose version of the story with all the songs written down (including notation), and includes a lot more material—not least a scene in which a small girl threatens Glupe Gløgg with a knife.

"If you're mean then I'll throw you in the rubbish bin!"

(HE IS DOING HIS BEST.)

In conclusion

Vil du være med så heng på!

God jul og godt nyttår!