#me realizing fang wanted to immortalize this guy in some way and being like 'oh geeze this is gonna b kinda fucked up. sorry guys'

[inchidentally]

Write a list of all the landoscar concepts u want to read 👀

oh fuuuuuck anon

ok so bearing in mind I'm still way behind w fic reading so if these already exist pleeeaaaase link me up (and ofc if anyone writes these link me!!):

there's the vestal virgins thing I blurted out

vamposcar AU and this could go the way of it being more like a minor health condition that results in lots of daytime sleeping/sun sensitivity/needing blood during duress like races but Lando is ??? when he finds out, or full-blown immortal Oscar who keeps having to remember to act like a normal young man and not a highborn son from Renaissance Italy and Lando makes the realization during a stream when chat jokingly suggests Oscar's a vampire, basically I want lots of horny Lando and trying-to-hold-back-fangs-Oscar

EDIT: @nyoomfruits has this delicious and funny and beautiful vamposcar fic I’ve Tasted Blood (and I want more)!!

fae-but-doesn't-know-it Lando was actually found as a magic baby in part of an ancient forest near his family's Somerset home, nestled among bluebells when his brother wishes for a little brother - they raise him as normally as possible but have to hand-wave how often he gets hurt but heals super quickly and only Jon is informed for Lando's protection - Oscar being the first person outside the family circle to pay close enough attention to Lando and notice a few odd things: the strange light that seems to follow Lando wherever he goes even in the dark, the way the gold specks in his green eyes sometimes move around, the way certain metals make his skin rash up, how Lando isn't just a fussy eater he can somehow sense where food he hates is being stored even if it's out of sight, how he's wary of cats because they react strangely to him, and the way Oscar sometimes has to avoid looking directly in Lando's eyes because he's actually falling prey to Lando's instincts to trap and keep him. I'd love a scene where Oscar approaches Lando about it in private and does a little experiment he found on the internet where he intentionally hurts himself and Lando freaks while Oscar keeps telling him to "fix it, you know you can fix it" and hey presto! Lando has a lot of questions for his parent because he just healed Oscar with his hands and some weird glowing light came out?? EDIT: @lemonadedino has begun a fic for this!! and here's the finished fic!!

Lando who everyone assumes has been with guys but hasn't who then finds out that Oscar who has been with more guys than girls (Oscar having to talk Lando through a whole lot of realizing things)

Oscar adores casually sucking dick with no feelings attached and has blown just about every guy in racing that he could - except when he asks Lando he's unexpectedly excited and Lando is snorting a drink out of his nose in shock and oops has Feelings when Oscar gives him the best head of his life

Lando loves making straight men crazy for him and collects them like beaded bracelets but when it comes to Oscar he has an attack of guilt and can't work his usual wiles. Oscar assumes Lando is just especially not interested and ~miscommunication~ ensues

eternal-dork-complex Oscar has no interest in his own appearance and just kinda hopes the people he dates/sleeps with will be game but also lets a lot of hotties slip by because he doesn't bother - oops that's the case with Lando who Oscar assumed would be out of his league so he friendzones himself. Lando perceives this as Oscar somehow ?? not finding him smoking hot ?? what is wrong with this guy ?? but Oscar is also so incredibly kind and funny and attentive to Lando and his best teammate yet. he assumes it's that Oscar is just not interested bc it's not like being straight has stopped guys when it comes to Lando but ohhhh it hurts more and more that Oscar is the one to not be head over heels for him. lots of inside Lando's poor confused head POV and he ends up back in his apartment in Monaco all alone and wanting to cry every five minutes because Oscar just hugged him goodbye in Abu Dhabi and went off without a care in the world! texting miscommunication where Max F checks in worried and Lando spills it all out but through his blurry wet eyes he accidentally sends it to Oscar who had texted at the same time asking about the Autosport Awards videos they'd recorded. Lando falls asleep miserable and jetlagged and only wakes up hours later to the building's security guard pounding on the door saying that a Mr. Piastri has been asking to get in for the past hour but ofc Lando has missed all the texts and calls and intercom buzzes. Oscar is finally allowed in and he's frantic and rumpled with his little backpack and so adorably confused that Lando has to kiss him. LOTS of communication and feelings ensue etc.

ok that's all I could do for now but I'm gonna keep this to update anon, thank you for making me do this bc I had no idea I wanted all of this aslfjlashfljhf

[rodolfoparras]

!!!

Working on the eerie xmen oc🔥🔥🔥 his name is Wren !!! And I don't know how exactly to explain his ability but like bro can't really die. Like he can get injured, you could literally blow him up and he'd come back in like an hour like "that kinda hurt :( " but also he doesn't just immediately heal??? He just kinda survives things he definitely shouldn't.

No one knows how to kill Wren, not even him

He feels the pain but he's just gotten numb to it :( overall he seems very eerie and unsettling, being unable to die only adds to that plus his bones make crackling noises more than normal😭 like he tilts his head to the side and the loudest crack over rings through the room😭

He's so silly tho😋 Wren loves Scott so much but has kinda a weird way of showing it. He just ominously stares at him and whenever Scott notices Wren tries smiling but it's kinda more like 👹 because of his fangs😭😭😭 Scott learns (Charles told him) that Wren is trying to be sweet and nice, not spooky and Scott starts absolutely adoring those goofy smiles🙏

Logan takes a little longer to realize Wren is trying to be nice💀 he low-key thought Wren's smiles were like a "back off" type of thing by showing off his fangs😭🙏

Wren also has so many scars, the majority of them from humans trying to kill him :< but some are self inflicted

There is so much angst but also comfort because I love my eerie little guy❤

-🌱

He kind of reminds me of Deadpool!! Not only because of the superpower because of the humor too! I guess with immortality you just got to learn to laugh at life 😭

And I absolutely love me a man with an unsettling vibe want to pet him like a stray cat 🏃🏻‍♂️ besides whenever someone does show them any kind of mercy they turn into the biggest sweethearts

Oh my god the image of the whole entire scene just flashes past my eyes and it’s the cutest image ever 😭 when they get really close Scott will poke at his fangs suprised at the fact that they aren’t as sharp as he thought they were and now he sees wren as a baby shark

GIVE HIM A CHANCE LOGAN HES JUST A BABY SHARK THE SWEETEST OF THEM ALLbut also thinking about Logan giving him a silly nickname for his smile like shark tooth or something 😭

ALSO PLS NO ANGST it’s too early for little heart to process that😭

[tanjamikaelson]

BITTERSWEET - CHAPTER 2

MASTERLIST

CHAPTER 2: | LE JOUR OÙ VOUS DEVENIEZ MON AMANT (The day you became my lover) |

[NEW ORLEANS 1919]

It was a full house in a theatre and Klaus was sitting in a private box, looking bored and impatient while he read through the program of the night. When Lorena arrived he immediately looked up.

“Rebekah just went to find Marcel. Their first big date after I gave them a blessing and he’s nowhere to be found.” Klaus informed her as Lorena sat next to him.

“Well, I came to keep you company.” Lorena informed him with a smile, “If you don’t have anything against it.”

Klaus raised his eyebrows with a smirk forming on his lips, “I wouldn't dream of having something against it.”

As Lorena was about to speak the two of them heard a voice coming from behind, “There you are, boy.”

When Klaus realized that it was Mikael he forgot about everything he was talking about with Lorena.

Mikael sat down behind him and poked his white oak stake against Klaus’ back. “I would advise against trying to flee, boy.” Mikael warned, “I can drive this into your heart before you can even think of getting to your feet, and I don't want you to die.. yet.”

“Father..” Klaus whispered in shock and fright. That was the first time that Lorena saw him being afraid of someone.

Mikael chukled, “"Father? Still clinging to that word after all these years, a bastard desperate for a daddy? I wonder if your real father would be as embarrassed as I was of you before I discovered you were not mine. Most likely.” Angry, Klaus was about to turn around but Mikael stopped him, “Oh, oh. Uh-uh. Easy now, boy.” Mikael gripped Klaus by his shoulder to tug him back into his seat, “Don't worry. Death will come, but we need to have a little chat before you shuffle off your immortal coil.”

“Any words we have for each other have been spoken long ago. But, know this - I am no longer the animal begging for scraps of your affection. I will die knowing my hatred for you was just. I will feel proud of all I have achieved here. So, Mikael, if you're going to kill me, then get on with it.” Klaus told him and Lorena felt him grip her hand.

“Au contraire, Niklaus. Some things remain unsaid. For instance, you were right to be proud of your achievement here. As I walked the streets, your name was spoken of in reverent tones by the city's finest. So, after I kill you and of course your lovely lady.” Klaus stiffened at the mention of her death, “I will remain here in New Orleans until every last person who remembers you is dead. The deeds of the mighty Klaus will be remembered by no one and you, boy, will simply never have existed.” The orchestra began to warm up in front of the stage, “Ah. The grand show.” Mikael’s interest was taken to the orchestra, he relaxed, pulling the stake away from Klaus as the lights went down. He leaned forward and tapped Klaus' shoulder, “Oh, I made some alterations in your honor. You'll love it.”

The curtain went up to reveal Marcel staked through his hands to a wooden cross. He was barely conscious. And Rebekah was laying down on the floor with a wooden stake impaled through her chest. The audience laughed and applauded.

“Rebekah..” Lorena said worriedly and she lifted herself out of her seat but Klaus caught her, slamming her back down for her own safety. But she couldn’t bear the sight of Rebekah dead on the floor, even though she wasn’t staked with the white oak stake. Lorena vamp-speed to the stage, ignoring the laughter and applause as she pulled out a stake from Rebekah’s chest.

Suddenly Lorena felt a grip on the back of her throat causing her to gasp. Mikael looked down towards her before he twisted his hand with ease and snapped her neck, letting her body fall limp beside Rebekah’s.

・ • ・ • ・

“The three of you must flee the city. I'll hold him off, Niklaus.” Elijah said to Klaus and Rebekah.

“No.” Klaus said and looked at Lorena who was still unconscious, lying on the ground, “She can’t go with us. She will never be safe.”

“And if she stays here Mikael will kill her and you know that.” Elijah told him.

“He’s right Nik, there’s no way that we’re leaving her here.” Rebekah argued.

“I-we almost lost her.” Lorena heard Klaus say as she began to wake up.

“Bekah?” Lorena said as she opened her eyes and began to lift herself up. Klaus was right next to her so he was quick to give her a hand.

“Niklaus, please. Sister, come.” Elijah said, then hugged Rebekah and kissed her cheek softly, “You must leave. Go.” Klaus stared at him as a single tear fell from his face, “Leave!”

Klaus reluctantly obeyed Elijah's orders and disappeared with Lorena and Rebekah into the night.

[CHICAGO 1920]

Lorena was on a dance floor, dancing with some guy. Her hand was on his shoulder and his was on her waist as they started moving slowly from side to side. Her gaze went over to Klaus who was sitting in a booth and feeding on some girl, but as soon as he felt Lorena looking he stopped feeding and looked at her.

"Lorena, you are beautiful." A guy she was dancing with said as he leaned closer to her ear so that she could hear him over the music.

"Thanks." Lorena replied, and in the next moment, all she could hear was blood pumping through a vein on his neck that was close to her. Lorena slowly tilted his head to one side but tried to fight to urge to feed on him right where everyone could see.

Suddenly she felt the other pair of hands on her waist and Klaus whispered into her ear, "Don't fight it, love, do like I taught you."

Immediately Lorena relaxed, taking a step back to lean into Klaus. "Compel him." Klaus whispered again.

Then Lorena looked deep into the guy's eyes and said, "Be quiet, don't move." After she compelled him she tilted his head again and buried her head into his neck, sinking her fangs into his flesh and enjoying the feeling of fresh blood filling her mouth.

“Listen to his heartbeat, he's almost gone." Lorena heard Klaus say, his breath felt hot on her skin.

Then she pulled back and withdrew her fangs, she decided not to kill the guy and she let him go.

"Why did you stop, love?" Klaus asked as he turned Lorena around to face him. "Gloria probably wouldn't like it if I killed him here." Lorena told him.

"Well, I don't have a problem with her." Klaus told her.

"That's because you always get away with everything." Lorena replied, placing her hand over his shoulder and around his neck.

Klaus smiled, "Exactly, so no one can do anything to you either. I wouldn't let them."

"Thank you, Nik." Lorena said with a smile.

"No need to thank me, love." Klaus told her and with one of his hands he moved the strand of her hair from her face and behind her ear, keeping his hand on her cheek afterward and she leaned into it giving him a smile.

Then he leaned closer and kissed her, she didn't think twice about kissing him back. Lorena wanted to kiss him for a few months now, but everything between them was moving slowly. Especially now at this moment, everything seemed to stop, Lorena didn't hear the music anymore, she just felt his lips against hers. The kiss was not rushed, it's passionate and slow, just like Lorena imagined it. All too soon she felt Klaus pulling back from the kiss, but Lorena moved forward keeping her lips connected and she felt him smile against her lips. The two kissed for a few more minutes but knowing they both had to breathe, their lips disconnected.

Lorena immediately misses the feeling of his lips against hers, her eyes flutter open just as Klaus' do and the two of them stand there, her eyes locked relishing the moment that they just shared their first kiss.

"I wanted to do that for quite some time now." Klaus whispered, his eyes darting around her face. His eyes locked with hers and he smiled again.

"Me too." Lorena said softly, and leaned forward again, kissing him gently, but all too soon the kiss was over.

"So you think my sister approves of us?" Klaus asked.

"Like you care about that." Lorena told him, "But I think she does."

Klaus gave Lorena a smile and kissed her again, it was a simple yet passionate and emotion-filled kiss.

"You're right, I don't care." Klaus said through the kiss.

Lorena smiled against his lips and he grabbed her waist more tightly pulling her body closer to his, and deepening the kiss. She felt his tongue touch her lips and she parted them, allowing him to dance with hers. She threaded her fingers in his hair, tugging gently at the locks.

Slowly he kissed down her jaw, to her neck. He sucked and bit at her neck, causing a low groan to escape her throat. He groaned too as her blood filled his mouth.

When he stopped he looked at her saying, "You taste as good as I imagined." Lorena smiled at him and he added, "Feed on me."

Klaus’ hand slipped behind her neck gently pulling her head towards his throat. Lorena couldn't help it, her fangs broke through and she greedily stared at his pulse point. Klaus tilted his head to the side to give her better access.

Lorena kissed the spot on his neck before she sank her fangs into the soft skin. His blood was delicious, better than any she ever tasted, even human. Klaus was sighing with pleasure now, his hands running over her hair, her back, her hips, and she didn’t even care that everyone could see what they were doing. “It’s getting a little too hot in here.” The two of them hear Rebekah’s voice. Lorena reluctantly pulled away from Klaus and he didn't like that. Her eyes saw Rebekah who was grinning at both of them.

"Don't listen to her, love." Klaus said into her ear and before she said anything back Lorena found herself in the alley behind Gloria's bar. She was standing against the wall, Klaus' arms placed on the wall on each side of her head.

"Klaus, why did you.." Lorena spoke.

"I want some alone time with you, without Rebekah around." Klaus said, she could feel his breath against her lips.

Her lips were on his after that, pouring their passion into each other and tugging at his curls with her fingers. Her mouth hung open as he started grinding his erection into her tight.

"Klaus." Lorena muttered.

"Yes, love?" Klaus asked and started kissing down her neck.

"Maybe we should take this to the bedroom." Lorena suggested, a raspy moan erupted from her mouth as Klaus started sucking on her neck.

"That's not a problem." Klaus said and used his vamp-speed to quickly take Lorena back home.

As soon as they entered the apartment both of them started to strip each other's clothes leaving them on the floor until they were both in underwear. The next thing Lorena knew she hit the bed with a sharp gasp and Klaus pulled her panties down her legs, before hovering over her.

Closing her eyes Lorena moaned when his fingertips teased her entrance. Then his hand moved to her chest, ripping her bra off. He trailed his mouth to her nipple, swirling his tongue around it and sucking. Her head fell back and another moan sounded throughout the room.

"But.. Klaus.." Lorena breathed out and he came back to her face.

"But what?" Klaus asked, looking into her eyes.

"I've never done this before." Lorena muttered.

"I figured." Klaus smiled, "I promise I'll be gentle." He assured her and cupped her cheek before he returned to kissing down her chest and lower. He parted her legs and sucked at her inner thighs, humming as he trailed closer and closer to where she wanted him the most. She sucked in a deep breath as Klaus placed his tongue over her clit. Lorena dug her fingers in his hair and moaned, tilting her head back onto the pillow. Klaus looked up at her and the eye contact caused more heat to spread in her core. He closed his eyes and gave a little suck. “Oh my god.” Lorena tried to cover her mouth but Klaus tugged her hand away from her face. He wanted to hear her, he wanted to know how good he was making her feel. The more noises she made, the more pleased he got, intensifying his moves. He sucked again and her lower abdomen built up with unfamiliar tension and she held onto the back of his head tighter. Then she felt how her first orgasm ran through her body. Lorena didn't know this feeling, but it felt divine.

All contact made with Klaus was lost when he pulled away from her body briefly. Lorena propped herself on her elbows, letting her eyes wander over his body as he quickly discarded his boxers. She bit her lower lip as she watched him crawling back to bed to hover over her. He lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Klaus asked sweetly as he held her hand above her head on the pillow. He gazed into her eyes, waiting for her answer. Lorena nodded, "I wanted to do this with you." she assured him. She could feel the tip of his length pressing into her folds. She squeezed his hand next to her head and gasped as he pushed inside, slowly sinking into her. It was uncomfortable at first, the foreign feeling of being so full, his cock stretching her with some difficulty. She dug her nails into his back and Klaus tried not to lose all his self-control. Lorena felt him stop when he was half-buried inside of her.

"You can move, I'm okay." Lorena whispered and held onto the back of his neck. She pulled him into a kiss. He kissed her back, but quickly ended the kiss, as she clenched her muscles around him to reassure him. Klaus breathed in sharply before he continued his moves, which were a little more delicate now. He was slow and steady, gentle with her, and Lorena soon began to move with him, pulling him closer, raising her hips, kissing his neck and face.

He began to move faster, as her legs moved higher, wrapping around his hips instinctively. The rhythm sent waves of pleasure through her, her voice was low and throaty as she urged him on, saying his name. She pulled him down for another kiss and hummed into his mouth. Klaus groaned into her mouth with each thrust and the room was filled with your muffled cries and grunts. "Oh god.” Lorena whispered against his lips.

He pressed his lips to her neck. “Klaus.” She whispered before the built-up tension took over her body and she scratched down his back. Klaus growled, his intensity building to a punishing pace. He was moving faster than Lorena had thought possible now. Her gasps and moans send him to the edge. And she let out a loud moan when a wave of numbness and warmth swept her away. Klaus' body collapsed onto hers and she welcomed him in an embrace, stroking his hair. The two of them laid tangled in sheets, covered with sweat, still panting.

END OF FLASHBACK

When Lorena woke up she noticed that Rebekah didn’t even come home last night. Then she left Rebekah’s room and went to her guest room. She saw that her suitcases were brought to the room and he put new clothes on and walked downstairs. When she entered the living room she saw Klaus holding a sketchbook in his hands and drawing. Quickly before he noticed her, she turned away, but it was too late.

“Are you avoiding us, darling?” Lorena heard Kol ask.

And now she couldn’t do anything but turn towards them, Kol was looking at her but Klaus didn’t even move, he was still looking down at his sketchbook. “I’m not avoiding you, Kol.” Lorena told him.

Kol smiled at her, “Fancy a drink?” he said and poured her a glass of whiskey and Lorena took it, swallowing everything in one gulp, “Didn’t drink enough last night?” he asked.

“Not nearly enough.” Lorena replied.

“So I wanted to ask you how you know Bekah?” Kol asked.

“I lived in New Orleans, and met her at one of the Mikaelson parties.” Lorena replied while she filled one more glass with whiskey and drank it in one gulp again.

“Easy on that, you don’t want to get drunk.” Kol remarked.

“Maybe I do.” Lorena told him.

“Why didn’t you bring a date last night? A boyfriend?” Kol asked.

“I would if I had one.” Lorena shortly replied.

Kol smirked at her, liking the sound of that, “I’m surprised that you don’t.”

“I’m not really interested in dating..” Lorena told him, a moment later adding, “And getting my heartbroken, again.”

“Well, whoever broke your heart doesn’t deserve you.” Kol stated, not knowing that it was his brother.

Lorena looked down to the floor, “I guess you’re right.”

Suddenly Rebekah walked into a room, still wearing the green dress from the day before. Kol immediately jumped up to his feet making his way towards his sister and blocking her way.

“Well, well, well, there’s our girl.” Kol greeted his sister.

“Get out of my way, Kol.” Rebekah hissed and Klaus finally looked up from his sketchbook at them.

“Out all night. What a scandal!” Kol said as Rebekah tried to walk past him, but he blocked her way again, “I trust you did better than that commoner?” he cocked his head to one side to increase the effect, “Matt, was it?”

“If you don’t shut your mouth the next thing to come out of it will be her teeth.” Rebekah warned him, glaring down at him and Klaus couldn’t help but grin at their conversation. Rebekah turned her glare on him, “Don’t start, Nik.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Klaus said, raising his pencil indignantly.

Kol sat back down on the armchair and looked at Klaus, “I’m bored. Our sister is a strumpet, but at least she's having fun. I need entertainment.” he told him.

“What are you waiting for? Go on, have at it.” Klaus said, waving his arm to make his point.

“It's not fun to go alone, join me Nik. It's the least you could do after sticking a dagger into my heart.” Kol whined while Klaus just scoffed.

Klaus was silent for a moment before he closed his sketchbook and stood up, “Okay, why not? I didn't have nearly enough to drink last night, with you trying to murder Rebekah's date.”

Klaus quickly exited the room and Kol was at the door when he turned towards Lorena and said, “And if you want to get drunk, you can join us.”

“Please go. This house has enough men rolling around in it.” Rebekah shouted at him.

Kol smirked and pointed at her, “Just like you, Bekah.”

“Good riddance, both of you.” Rebekah told him, throwing a shoe at Kol, who avoided it with a laugh.

“You wouldn’t mind if I go with them?” Lorena asked her.

“You can go if you want to, I need to take a shower and cleanse myself from..” Rebekah spoke and stopped.

Lorena raised her eyebrow, “From who, Matt?”

“No. From Damon Salvatore.” Rebekah muttered.

Lorena's eyes widened at the realization, “Wait. Damon Salvatore as the brother of a ripper Stefan Salvatore?” Rebekah only nodded, “And I thought I saw him last night.” Lorena added.

“Yeah, well they live here and Klaus and Stefan are not on good terms anymore.” Rebekah informed her.

“Well name one person who’s on good terms with your brother.” Lorena remarked.

・ • ・ • ・

Lorena went to the Mystic grill and found Kol and Klaus sitting at the bar. She sat next to Kol and ordered a drink.

“I’m glad you decided to join.” Kol spoke when he saw her.

“Well Bekah is taking a shower and I didn’t want to be alone.” Lorena explained.

“I agree, it’s no fun drinking alone.” Kol said as he clicked his glass with hers.

Half an hour later Kol and Lorena were quite drunk, Lorena ignored Klaus as long as they were there and he did the same.

Then Kol pointed at the blonde girl from last night, “I remember her from last night. She looks like a tasty little thing.”

“If you say another word I'll tear out your liver.” Klaus told him through gritted teeth, then he greeted her with a smile, “Caroline!”

But she didn’t look happy to see him, “Oh, it's you.”

“Join us for a drink?” Klaus suggested, holding his glass to her and so did Kol. “Mmm, I'd rather die of thirst. But thanks.” Caroline smirked, before oddly heading back out of the bar.

Lorena almost spits out her drink at the rejection that Klaus just got.

“Isn't she stunning?” Klaus asked his brother before he drank his drink in one gulp.

“She certainly looks good walking away from you.” Kol taunted, a grin on his face.

“I'll take that as a challenge.” Klaus stated before he quickly stood up and made his way after her.

As soon as he left Kol turned towards Lorena, “So what’s the deal with the two of you?”

“Between me and you brother?” Lorena asked.

Kol nodded, “Yes, the tension between the two of you in the room is unbearable.”

Lorena finished her drink before saying, “We used to have dated.”

“That’s what I thought.” Kol stated, “How long ago?”

“Almost a century ago, it ended when he daggered Rebekah and left me in Chicago with a fucking goodbye letter.” Lorena told him bitterly. She didn’t like to think about it.

“Well, I’m not surprised, that’s what he does.�� Kol shrugged as he told her, “But I can help you get your mind off of him or make him jealous.”

Lorena raised her eyebrow at him, “Oh, really, how?” she asked.

Kol smirked, “All in due time, but for now, let’s play billiard.” he suggested. The two of them went over to an empty billiard table and he handed her a cue stick.

“I take it, you know how to play?” Kol questioned.

“I'm good at a lot of things.” Lorena smirked at him.

"Looking forward to discovering more of them." Kol winked.

Kol set things in place and Lorena took the first shot, balls stretched across the table. She poked one purple striped ball with the first shot and then took the next shot, but she didn’t have luck this time.

“You hit them too hard.” Kol said standing behind her, “Here let me show you.” then she felt his body touching hers.

He placed his hands over hers on the cue stick and connected the stick with the white ball, before hitting it with just the right amount of force and Lorena watched how the ball slid across the table and hit a yellow solid ball, dropping it into a pocket.

“That’s how you do it.” Kol whispered into her ear and gripped her waist with another hand pulling her closer to him.

“You didn’t have to do this..” Lorena muttered, turning her head towards his.

“Maybe I wanted to..” Kol whispered his lips were so close to hers that Lorena could almost feel them. And a moment after that he captured her lips with his, she was surprised at first but she kissed him back. In the heat of the moment, her fangs came out and she bit his lower lip, then she pulled away.

“I’m so sorry.” Lorena apologized.

“I don’t mind, darling.” Kol smiled, still holding her against him

“I haven't fed for almost a day.” Lorena told him.

“Are you serious?” Kol’s eyes widened, “That's not good, let’s find a snack for both of us.” he suggested and scanned the room, "That one." he pointed with his head.

Lorena turned around and saw a girl who was currently alone at the other pool table.

Kol walked up to her, saying, "A woman of your caliber ought to choose a more suitable company. What's your name, love?"

"None of your business." She replied.

"Let's try that again. I'll start. I'm Kol." Kol told her.

"Why don't you get lost, Kol?" She suggested.

"And why would I do that? I like pretty little things with sharp tongues." Kol said in an amused voice and walked towards her.

He easily cornered her, running his hand over her cheek. He looked into her eyes, compelling her, "Come with me."

She slapped his hand away, "That's not gonna work, jerk."

Lorena laughed as she watched him fail and felt someone's presence behind her. She turned around just in time to see a tall guy with dark hair and blue eyes, but quickly after that, he snapped her neck.

When Damon snapped her neck, Alaric was the one to dagger Kol and they pulled them outside at the back of the grill.

It took Lorena a few minutes longer to heal because she hasn't fed for almost a day, but when she did she heard voices of Klaus, Elijah, Kol, and Damon close to her.

She heard Elijah saying, "You tell me where the witches are or I'll have my sister kill Elena right now."

Damon looked up at the clock tower and sees that it's 8:30, "You told me we had until after nine."

"I'm sure Rebekah will be more than happy to start her work early." Elijah replied.

Kol noticed that Lorena was awake and he helped her to get on her feet, while Damon told Klaus and Elijah where their mother was.

"What's happening?" Lorena asked Kol.

"Nothing you should worry about, we'll handle it." Kol told her, "Go back to the mansion and feed, please."

Then he gave her a quick kiss on purpose right in front of Klaus.

・ • ・ • ・

After that Lorena went back to the mansion and fed on the first servant girl that she came across there. She was so hungry that it didn't take long for her to drain her dry.

She waited for the Mikaelson's to come back and they all came back together, except Rebekah.

"What happened?" Lorena asked them.

"Our mother lost, she and Finn are gone." Elijah informed her.

"That's great." Lorena replied.

"Yes it is, we can continue where we left off." Kol said and cupped her face in his hands before kissing her.

When Lorena pulled away he looked over at Klaus who just turned his head away.

Kol smirked and leaned closer to her ear, "It's working." Then he grabbed her hand, "Come with me?" He didn't give her a chance to answer, he just vamp-speeded her to the hallway and slammed her against the wall. His palms slammed against the wall on either side of her. Kol's eyes trailed down her body, and she was filled with excitement.

He trailed the index finger down her throat, "Do you want this, darling?" his eyes flick away from her neck to her face and Lorena meets his steady gaze. "Yes." Lorena breathed out.

"You're gonna have to be louder than that." Kol told her and leaned forward, placing his nose along the column of her neck, inhaling. He's hardly ever touching her, but the moment his skin brushes her, she felt her knees go weak. "Kol.." Lorena opened her mouth to speak but found that the only thing she could say was his name. She said it softly, voice scarcely above the whisper.

Kol looked at her, his eyes lit up, "Say it again, but louder." he whispered, his lips almost touching hers. He pulled back and returned to her neck again, this time Lorena felt his fangs scrape her skin. She inhaled deeply before she felt his fangs piercing her skin. Lorena moaned out his name louder than before when he bit her and she tangled her hands in his hair.

He was sucking her blood for a few moments, before he pulled away and crashed his mouth against hers, slamming her further against the wall. Lorena clawed at his neck, trying desperately to get a little closer to him if that was even possible. He reached down, hitching her leg over his hip, his hand hovering dangerously high underneath her skirt. His fingers brush the edge of her panties and Lorena hissed against his mouth.

He answered with a deep laugh and she could see that he was clearly enjoying this, not even sure anymore if he wanted to help her make Klaus jealous or he was doing this because he wanted her, or both.

Then he grasped her other leg, lifting her up. Lorena locked her legs around his waist, then cupped his face, kissing him harder. Kol knew that it was time to move to the bedroom so he flashed them to the nearest one. He dropped her down to the bed, then nudged her legs apart with his knees and crawled between them, kissing her inner thighs. She raised her hips and he pulled down her skirt along with her panties and tossed them down on the floor. His fingers moved slowly over her throbbing clit, circling it. Then his fingers finally entered her, making Lorena clutch the sheets on the bed. His fingers were moving frantically in and out of her, curling inside of her and driving her insane with pleasure. Lorena kept trying to be quiet, but it all felt too good, Kol was making her writhe and she couldn't stifle the loud moans. Kol felt the spasms of her inner muscles around his fingers and he knew that Lorena was close to the edge. Lorena felt like her body was on fire, every nerve ending being connected to her core, screaming for release as Kol used all of his skills to make her come undone in front of him. He started kissing her inner thighs again, moving closer to her clit and she curled her fingers into his hair. His lips brushed over the heated skin of her core and Lorena pushed her hips into him, urging him on. His tongue flicked her clit, working three of his fingers into her at this point. The immense pleasure was radiating through her entire body feeling his lips sucking her hard. "Kol.." Lorena cried out in pleasure, as he pushed his fingers harder into her, feeling her whole body tremble under his touch when waves of pure ecstasy washed over her. Then he stood up and grabbed her legs before he flipped her over so she was laying on her belly. He ran a hand down her back and over the curve of her butt, humming in pleasure. He spanked her ass, "Stay still." he ordered and she felt that he moved away. Lorena heard the sound of the zipper and jeans piling down onto the floor and then felt his warm body hover over hers again. He brushed her hair over her shoulder and nipped lightly on her neck, before roughly thrusting himself into her. Lorena felt her breath being physically shoved out of her as he pushed into her with such force without warning. He held her in place firmly as he drove himself into her repeatedly, setting her nerves on fire once again. "Oh..my..god.." Lorena screamed as he angled himself slightly differently to hit her deepest wall. "Scream my name, darling." Kol rasped out, feeling himself nearing the edge as her already swollen heat began to grip him tighter with every dive he took into her. "Ko..Kol." Lorena cried out, digging her nails into the pillow beside her head. "Uh, you feel so damn wonderful." Kol stopped pulling out and instead kept pressing himself as deep as he could go. He sat back on his legs and pulled Lorena against him so that her back was against his chest and he could grind deeply into her. Lorena lopped an arm around the back of his head and pulled at the hair on the nape of his neck as one of his hands reached down to play with her sensitive clit. She ground on him harder, feeling herself near the edge as he picked the pace with his fingers. He kissed her neck as he felt himself come into her. When Lorena felt the heat of him fill her, she reached her climax, arching her back and crying out his name as she trembled against him. He slowly eased her forward until she was once again lying on her belly before pulling out and lying beside her, both of them trying to catch their breath.

・ • ・ • ・

I know, this chapter is basically smut, but a few next ones are not going to be. I'm probably going to update this story every Saturday or Sunday. :)

[moonlit-jeno]

secrets | n.jm

genre/ warnings: vampire au, explicit sexual content, angst, way too much blood/ blood drinking, b i t i n g, character death (kind of), references to drugs, religion

word count: 9.5k

summary:

“I’m not scared.”

“No?” The sharp points of his fangs graze your skin and you swallow down your whimper, head falling back against the wall. You’re not scared of what Jaemin could do to you.

You’re scared of what you want him to do to you.

notes: big thanks to @jaemallow for pushing the jaemin agenda and helping to keep me sane

“Come on, we’re going to be late.” Mark grumbles at you, throwing an agitated glance over his shoulder. You roll your eyes and slow down even more just to spite him. “Dude, my dad’s going to kill me.” “He’ll be fine. Murder’s against the word of God, y’know.” You speed up despite your words, laughing at the way Mark glares at you. 

There’s a crack in the sidewalk that he trips over and you laugh good naturedly. The street leading up to the church is in less than optimal shape, littered with cracks in the sidewalk and missing chunks of cement. Mark’s dad had tried to raise money to fix the street, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Mark starts walking slower all of a sudden and you grumble, glaring at him when he grabs your wrist to yank you backwards. You’re about to ask what his problem is when you see the three figures at the end of the road, moving closer towards you two.

“You’re kidding me.” They hear it, they must, with their superhuman senses. It only makes them smile brighter. You glance at Mark. “Wanna turn around?”

“Too late.” Mark breathes, staring straight ahead of him with wide eyes. You look away from him to find the three vampires standing directly in front of you, blocking your way.

A groan leaves you and you cross your arms, raising your eyebrows expectantly. “Can we help you?”

The ringleader of the bunch, Jaemin, smiles. “Well, since you’re offering, I suppose I am feeling a little hungry.”

The church is only one block down but if they don’t want to let you pass, you’re not going to get there. Mark shifts nervously next to you, shaking his head when you open your mouth to make a remark. That doesn’t stop you from saying it. “You realize that just because you’re from the 1200’s doesn’t mean that you have to talk like you’re from the 1200’s.”

“I resent that.” Jaemin frowns, clutching his hands to his chest likes he’s been stabbed. “I was born in 1706. It’s almost like you don’t care about me at all.”

“Is it? Must be because I don’t.” The other two vampires are silent, though one of them- Jeno- watches with amusement. The other one is unfamiliar and looks like he’s trying to figure out to pair you with white or red wine. You shudder and turn your attention to Jeno. “Nice cross. I thought shit like that burned your skin? You know, because you’re a demon and all that.”

Jeno’s eyes smile with him and it’s hard to remember that he’s a monster. He brushes his thumb against the small mark under his eye, shrugging. “Nah, only the blessed ones. Or, y’know, the silver ones. But this one? I just wanted to piss off the church daddy who told me that I deserved to rot in worse places than the sewer.“

You snort before you can stop yourself. “Church daddy?”

He waves a dismissive hand. “Church daddy, father, same thing.” A pause. “Hey, Mark, isn’t that your dad?”

Mark avoids eye contact and nods. “Yeah, but I like, I don’t like, speak for him, y’know?” He laughs nervously.

“You don’t have to.” That’s the one you don’t recognize, glaring at Mark. “We can tell it’s what you’re thinking. You don’t even have the decency to look at us?”

“And who are you? Their vampire bitch or something?” You snap to Mark’s defense, not wanting the vampires to prey on Mark’s nerves.

The boy lunges like he’s going to attack you but Jeno grabs him by the neck. Jaemin laughs. “Careful princess, that hits a little too close to home for our little Renjun over here.” To clarify, he leans a little closer and lowers his voice. Not like it matters, the other two can hear him just fine. “Jeno got carried away while feeding the other day and turned him.”

Your eyes widen in surprise and this time you don’t have a witty comeback. Vampires are monsters, yes, but they have laws. And it is very, very illegal to turn a human. “That’s-”

“Against the law?” Jeno finishes. “Yeah. It was an accident though, plus he’s from out of town! So I can’t technically get in trouble.”

“Technically.” You mock, rolling your eyes. “Whatever, we’ve got places to be so if we could speed this conversation up?”

Jaemin pouts. “So soon? You’re already late for church, why even bother going?”

You stand your ground. “Good bye, Jaemin. Make sure you do a better job of training your new puppy.” Renjun snarls at you.

“What, like how you trained your puppy?” Jaemin nods over at Mark and the boys face turns red. “Bye, y/n, Mark. I’d ask you to say hello to God for me but he doesn’t exist!”

He walks off with that as a goodbye, Renjun and Jeno on his heels. Jeno at least has the decency to smile at you and tell you to have a good rest of your day.

They’re right about one thing: going to church when you‘re already late sucks. A few people glance back at you and Mark when you sneak in, sitting in the last row. You spot your parents sitting in the front row along with Mark’s brother. Luckily none of them notice you slipping in, so they won’t know just how late you were.

Mark seems on edge and you pat his knee, frowning at how violently he flinches. You raise an eyebrow, silently asking if he’s okay. He just gives you a tight smile. Mark’s always been a nervous kid, so you figure it has to do with the little vampire interaction you just had. Or fear that his dad will yell at him for being late. They’re both pretty scary.

It’s not until after the service that you talk to your parents- your mother taking the time to hug Mark and pinch his cheeks before she even looks at you- and your father asks where you were.

“It was my fault, sir.” Mark speaks up, knowing that your parents adore him and won’t be upset. “I couldn’t find my church clothes, I forgot that they were in the wash and had to sort through all of my laundry. Y/n was an angel and stayed with me to help.”

“Huh,” Your father says, looking Mark up and down. “Well, your shoes could use a good polishing, but you look sharp, kid. Good man.” He pats Mark’s shoulder and walks off to talk to a friend. Your mother raises an eyebrow and shrugs, loading you up with tasks to take care of when you get home.

Do the dishes, fold the laundry, remember to take the store bought pie out of the container and pop it onto a plate so that it looks homemade. “Oh, and one last thing.” She stops you, turning away from her conversation about her book club meeting with some lady that she can’t stand. “I don’t want you walking through the city. Those vampires are getting braver and braver, attacking in broad daylight.”

“Okay, I’ll take the long way.” You promise her. She nods, and satisfied that you won’t die, turns back to her friends. You say goodbye to Mark and a handful of other people- most of whom you don’t like- and head home.

You have absolutely no intention of taking the long way home. It adds an extra half an hour to your walk and you swear you always get attacked by bugs. Besides, vampires might be dangerous, but it’s not like you have a high chance of encountering one. The three you’d talked to earlier were harmless, two of them attending your same university.

Jeno did medical research, occasionally stepping in to teach if the professors needed help. He’s technically a doctor, but he finds ways to multitask. The benefits of being immortal, you suppose, is that you learn a lot, especially if you’ve been alive since the 1100’s. He was nice enough by himself, though he would never answer your questions about history. Not that he wouldn’t try, but the poor guy would just get so confused that he would end up rambling about a completely unrelated topic.

Jaemin was a little different. He took classes, though his goal was to learn about interesting topics and keep up with the culture, not to fit in like Edward Cullen and prey on teenage girls. For someone so old, he’s surprisingly good at the technology classes, learning how to use a camera faster than your much younger parents. Jaemin also holds tutoring sessions for struggling students, pretty much offering help for every subject. Sometimes he assists Jeno with his research, though he never says what they’re researching. It’s always the same vague answer: medicine.

You know them pretty well, and yet you wouldn’t say that you’re friends. Vampires and humans coexist, but it’s not always that peaceful. There’s a definite divide between the two, a definite feeling of “we’re better than them” coming from both sides. And you can see why that divide is there, you can understand why.

After all, it’s not like you’re too fond of vampires yourself.

Cursed to hell, is a phrase used too often by your parents, by the church. God’s reject’s is another. And when you look at them, it’s hard to disagree with those statements.

They don’t burn in the sun but they can’t touch silver, can’t say God’s name, can’t enter a building without explicit permission. They catch on fire when they enter holy places (they’re fine to enter the one across town, but that’s another story).

Similar insults are used to describe humans. “How can you call us God’s rejects when you die so easily?” One vampire had countered when you were in middle school, pointing out that vampires couldn’t get diseases or die of natural causes like a human. He’d called you weak. You’d thrown a cross at him. Both of you had been suspended.

Still, you don’t hate vampires. And you especially can’t hate vampires now, not when you’re failing your chemistry class and your only option for help is Na Jaemin.

Mark has a different opinion. “Y/n, you can’t go to his house! He’ll kill you!”

You laugh. “Mark, come on. It’s either he kills me, or my parents kill me when they find out I wasted my tuition on a class I failed. It’ll be fine.” He still looks unhappy. You wiggle your fingers at him. “Look! I have silver rings on. I’m wearing my cross. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not going to be the one telling your parents you were killed by a vampire, y/n.” He sounds dead serious and you raise your eyebrows. 

“Mark, I’m helping with a research project. I’m not deciding to work for the food bank.” You point out. “This is the only way I can make up my grade, Mark. It’s generous of my professor to even let me do this.” He sighs, knowing there’s no arguing with you, and pulls his necklace off. Walking closer, he drapes the silver cross over your head. “Fine. Just, please be careful.” You smile and pat his cheek, tucking the charm under the collar of your shirt. “I always am.”

Jaemin lives in a pretty nice house on the top of the hill, which sucks because your calves are burning by the time you get up there. It has a pretty view, though, and it’s a decent distance away from his closest neighbor. You always joke that he could kill someone up here. Going up alone, that joke doesn’t seem as funny.

He’s got an old fashioned knocker on the wooden door that you only use because you’re not too fond of digging splinters out of your hands. It makes a pretty solid sound, and it barely takes five seconds before Jaemin answers the door. He looks good, wearing a dark blue button up with his hair pushed off of his forehead. Almost like he put some effort in. He obviously catches you giving him a once over and he grins.

“Eager to see me?” You tease, stepping past him into his house. He laughs, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, of course. The world revolves around you, I just had to get a glimpse.” Jaemin drawls. 

“Alright, what’s the research project?” You ask, wanting to get straight to the point. “I’m only here because I need to pass my class, Jaemin.

He takes his time flipping through a book on his coffee table before glancing up at you, rolling his sleeves up to his forearms. “The effects of vampire blood in humans.”

Your eyebrows skyrocket. “If you say that you’re making me drink your blood, we’re going to have a problem.”

“Fucking hell, y/n. I know you humans have a problem with vampires, but I’m a researcher. I do research, and I do it just as responsibly and professionally as human researchers.” Jaemin snaps, and it’s probably the first time you’ve ever heard him not use a flirting or teasing tone. “And besides, we already know what that would do. It would only turn you.” You swallow thickly at the thought of being turned. “Then what do you need me here for?” “We just need a few of your cells and a tiny blood sample.” Jaemin says, moving to where you stand next to the counter. “We’re researching if vampire blood has an effect on strengthening human cells, or preventing undesirable circumstances that affect humans. You know, aging, disease, the like.” He hands you some paperwork and you glance over it briefly. There’s nothing about him draining you dry of blood, so you sign it. “Great. We won’t be taking the samples today considering we’re at my house, but I’ll walk you through the basics of what we’re doing. You know, assuming that you’re smart enough to understand it.” “I’m not fucking dumb, Jaemin.” You snap, glaring at him.

“No, of course not.” He sympathises, smiling down at you. “Just a little slow. Come on y/n, you’re failing one of the easiest courses at the university. You’re not exactly smart.”

You shove the papers over to Jaemin, purposely letting your silver rings graze his exposed skin. Jaemin flinches back from your touch, a sharp hiss leaving him as he grabs at his wrist. He glares at you. “You fucking serious?”

It’s mean, but what he said wasn’t exactly nice. You meet his gaze head on, eyebrow arched. “What’s the matter, leech? Can’t take the heat?” He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes to ground himself. It’s probably not smart to goad him, but that’s exactly what you do. “Aww, don’t ignore me, leech. It’s rude. Didn’t your parents ever teach you any manners?”

All the air in your body leaves you with a whoosh as Jaemin pins you up against the wall, wrists held over your head by one of his hands. A dull pain radiates through your body and you’re sure you’ll have bruises on your back from the impact, not that Jaemin seems to care. The boy stares down at you with dark eyes, standing way too close for comfort. 

“My parents died 300 years ago.” Jaemin snarls. “But yours are still alive. Didn’t they teach you to respect your elders?”

“You’re not older than me.” The words are intended to be fierce, defiant. They come out shaky, timid. “You’re a dead man, Jaemin.”

That makes him laugh, though you don’t think he’s found your words funny. “Yeah? Do I seem dead to you?” He tightens his grip on your wrist and uses his free hand to tilt your chin up, make you look him in the eyes. “I can feel your heartbeat, little girl. You’re scared.”

“I’m not scared.” You are. He knows that.

“No?” He raises his eyebrows, cocking his head to the side before dipping down, letting his mouth hover over your neck. “Not even now?”

You shake your head, swallowing down a whimper. He’s right about your heartbeat, it’s fluttering so frantically that you can hear it in your ears, feel it under your skin. You’re scared, but not for the reasons he thinks you are.

Jaemin smiles at you, fangs on full display, and moves even closer to your neck. The sharp points of his fangs graze your skin and you swallow down your whimper, head falling back against the wall. You’re not scared of what Jaemin could do to you.

You’re scared of what you want him to do to you.

He scrapes his fangs along your neck, an action that’s painful in the most pleasurable way, but doesn’t break the skin. His tongue darts out instead, soothing over the pain before his lips press to your skin in an open mouthed kiss. Your fingers flex above your head and you ache to touch him, to fist your hand in his soft hair and pull him closer.

A moan leaves you and he pulls away, pressing his thumb to the area. Jaemin can feel your pulse from there and he smirks at how frantically your heart beats.

“You’re not scared?” Jaemin asks, the question condescending. He doesn’t believe you. “You do realize that I could sink my fangs into your pretty little neck and drain you dry, right?”

The mention of him biting you drags a keen out of your throat, and you find yourself whimpering out a “please” before you can help yourself. It has Jaemin pausing, eyes roaming over you as he reassesses the situation.

“Oh, you really aren’t scared.” Jaemin smirks. “Who knew that you were so fucking filthy?” He doesn’t wait for a response, dipping his head down and trailing the tip of his tongue up your throat. It feels nice, so, so nice, but it’s interrupted by a burning pain, a sob ripping from you at the intensity of it.

You thrash against his hold, but then the pain starts to get replaced with a pleasure unlike anything you’ve ever felt, and you slowly melt into his touch, arching against him to expose more of your throat.

Jaemin pulls away eventually, licking over your wound a few times before pulling back to give you a bloody grin. “Feels good, yeah?” You nod, and the bliss must be apparent on your face because Jaemin chuckles darkly before leaning back in. “You want more, don’t you?”

“Yeah, want it.” The words are breathless and slur together, your body thrumming with heat, begging for more. Jaemin does the opposite of what you want and steps away.

“Be a good girl and take those fucking rings off, then.” Jaemin commands, and you swear you’ve never moved faster than you’re moving now, carelessly dropping your jewelry to the floor. Mark’s necklace lands near his foot and he scowls at it, crushing the piece of metal beneath the heel of his shoe.

You immediately grab for him when you’re done, but Jaemin doesn’t let you pull him forward. He just scoops you up into his arms, carrying you to the sofa. You end up straddling his lap, his back pressing into the couch, and he wastes no time before sinking his fangs back into your neck.

“God,” You breathe out, winding your arms around his neck, pulling his head closer to you. “F-fuck, Jaem, that feels so good.”

He just hums against your throat, continuing to suck and lick at the wound. There’s a little bit of blood on his lips when he pulls away and you wipe at it with your thumb before letting the digit slip past his lips. He sucks on it slowly, gazing up at you with dark eyes, and lets his fangs graze the skin. Arousal jolts through you and you whimper, pulling your hand away and dragging him back to your neck.

“Baby wants more?” Jaemin teases, not waiting for an answer before sinking his fangs into you, this spot even more sensitive than the last. You whine loudly, tugging at his hair and feeling your eyes roll back in your head at the euphoria spreading through your body. Your head feels fuzzy and there’s so much heat coursing through you that you can barely function.

“Mhmm, yeah.” You pant out. “Want more. Oh my God Jaemin, I’m so fucking wet.”

Jaemin groans at your words, one of his hands sliding up your thigh before moving inwards, cupping your pussy over your clothes. He pulls his hand away when you try to grind down, grabbing onto your hip to stop your movements.

“No.” He growls, the simple word vibrating through your entire body and making you shake. “You come from this, nothing else.”

Tears slip down your cheeks as you hold onto him for dear life, your core clenching desperately around nothing. You hug him tighter, letting your head fall back on your shoulders to expose more of your throat, your lips parted to let Jaemin drag sound after sound of pleasure out of you. It feels good, way too good considering the action, and you lose yourself to the feeling.

The collar of your shirt is tugged down and then Jaemin’s lips are attaching to the top of your breast, fangs sinking into the delicate flesh. You keen and shove your chest further into his face, not knowing what else to do besides hold onto him for dear life. Your body feels heavy but your head feels light and it’s such a startling contrast to the euphoria coursing through your veins that it makes you dizzy. It’s hard to see straight, let alone think straight, and your pussy throbs with every little bit of blood that Jaemin takes from your body. Your hips rock against nothing but air, desperately searching for some sort of friction, something to fill your needy cunt, but you can’t find anything and it has you sobbing out in frustration.

More bite marks are left, more electricity shoots through your body, more wetness drips out of your pussy. You swear you’ve never felt this good in your life, and that’s only confirmed when Jaemin seals his lips over the first mark he left, licking and sucking at the wound until it opens all over again and you feel yourself falling, white flashing behind your eyes as the most intense orgasm of your life crashes over you. You grab at Jaemin as tightly as you can, screaming his name and babbling incoherently as he drags out your pleasure, lets you get high off all of his kisses and bites.

It lasts forever, and it takes even longer for you to come down to yourself, Jaemin stroking your hair and your back. You open your eyes to find him already looking at you, his face clean and dry of any blood. It takes you a while to notice that there’s an ice pack on your neck and a plate of food on the table in front of you, and you vaguely wonder how long you were out for if Jaemin had time to do all of this for you.

“Don’t move too fast, baby.” Jaemin cautions, noticing you struggling to sit up. “I took way more blood than I meant to, you’re gonna feel a little weak.” “A little?” Your muscles feel like jelly when you try to push yourself off of him and you collapse back onto Jaemin’s chest with a soft groan. Jaemin huffs a laugh and helps you sit up, turning you around on his lap so that your back is to his chest. He drops a soft kiss to your ear and your eyelids flutter. 

“Here, take these.” Pills are dropped into your hand, a bottle of some energy drink you don’t recognize. “It’ll replace all the nutrients and stuff you lost.” Jaemin watches you down the drink in one go, tossing it across the room when you hand the empty bottle back to him. “How are you feeling?”

Your vision is much clearer than it was, though you still feel lethargic and would like to do nothing except lay down in a soft bed for the rest of your life. “My head hurts.” Jaemin hums. “Okay. I would rattle off some instructions for you to follow but I know it’ll just make your headache worse. I’ll write them down for you instead, how’s that.” “You’re so self aware.” Reality hits you when you feel the bruises on your throat, on your chest, and realize that yes, all of that did just happen. “Um. I didn’t know it could feel that-” You trail off, hand waving vaguely in the air. “Good?” Jaemin offers, laughing when you nod. “Mhmm, did they not tell you about that? I’m sure they make it sound like being bitten by a vampire is the worst thing imaginable at that fancy church you go to.” You look away, embarrassed, and Jaemin laughs. “You know that humans make drugs out of our saliva, right? That’s why there are hunters.” Your eyes shoot open in alarm. “Really? That’s awful.”

 Jaemin hums, nodding. “Yeah, well, when it’s profitable...” He laughs bitterly. “Anyways, it’s an expensive drug. And you just got that shit for free.”

“I feel so honored.” You laugh, snuggling into him. He pushes you back. 

“Y/n, I need you to understand something.” Jaemin says, tone suddenly serious. His eyes burn straight into your soul. “That was a mistake. I’m not- we can’t do that again.”

It shouldn’t hurt you. What you just did is considered shameful by many, you should be relieved that he’s telling you it can’t happen again. You shouldn’t want to spend more time with a vampire. “Oh. Yeah, yeah of course.” You nod, looking away from his intense gaze to blink back your tears. “Yeah, we just got carried away.” Jaemin looks like he wants to say something else, lips parting for a second before shaking his head, offering a tight smile instead. “We got everything done that we needed to get done. You should rest now.” 

He doesn’t mean now as in right this second, which he made especially clear after telling you that it was a mistake, but you can’t help it. You’re asleep in seconds.

When you wake up for the second time, Jaemin is nowhere to be found. You’re in your own bed, tucked in nice and neatly, and you smile as you realize it meant that the vampire had carried you home. There’s the list of instructions that he’d promised you on your nightstand, signed with nearly illegible hand-writing. Your smile grows before promptly dropping off. Vampires can’t get into a house without being invited. You’ve never invited him in, which means that he must’ve either asked permission from Mark or your parents. Neither is good.

The gravity of the situation hits you when Mark walks into your room, jaw set, arms crossed. He blanches when he sees your neck, the sight clearly making him uncomfortable. “Holy- y/n, I told you that you couldn’t trust Jaemin. You’re lucky I was here when you brought you home because I can guarantee your parents would react way worse than me.”

“Jaemin was fine. He didn’t do anything I didn’t want him to.” You see the exact moment that those words process in Mark’s mind, his face going from worried to angry.

“You let him drink from you? What were you thinking? Y/n, you look like you got mauled.” Mark sounds disgusted and you try not to shrink into yourself.

The bruises ache when you press over one of them and an overwhelming sense of embarrassment washes over you at how it makes you shiver. “Relax, it’s not like I let him turn me. We just got caught up in the heat of the moment. Mark, it felt so good.” Your eyelids flutter shut at the memory, snapping back open when Mark scoffs.

“So what? You want to be their blood bag now?” Mark’s voice rises in pitch as he yells and the sound grates on your nerves. “Wanna be a vampire whore for the rest of your life? Live in a dusty ass attic and let whoever walks by have a go at you?” “Mark, what- do you hear yourself? What the fuck is your problem?” Mark’s been your best friend since you were five. Never, never, have you heard him talk like this. It hurts.

“Do I hear myself? Y/n, I should be the one asking you that. Here you are, creaming yourself while talking about letting some fucking, some bloodsucker tear your throat open! It’s disgusting.” Mark scoffs, shaking his head. “You’re just as bad as Do-” He cuts himself off suddenly, but you know what he was about to say. “Just as bad as who? Donghyuck?” You shake your head, feeling hot tears prick at the back of your eyes. “It must run in the family to become filthy disappointments, then.”

Mark’s eyes soften and he grabs your wrist, rubbing circles into your skin with his thumb. “It’s not too late for you. Let’s go to the church, you can pray for forgiveness.”

You feel numb when you nod, letting Mark wrap a scarf around your neck and lead you down the road. He sits next to you in the pews, rubbing your shoulder while you rest your forehead on your hands, pretending to pray. But you can’t focus, can’t stop thinking about your brother.

Donghyuck was Mark’s best friend before you were. The three of you would hang out a lot, though you only joined the two because as Donghyuck’s younger sister, he felt obligated to include you. The two boys were inseparable, and then one day, they weren’t.

Your parents say that he was tainted by the devil. Mark’s father says that he betrayed God. You think Donghyuck simply fell in love. And love is a beautiful thing, but not when it’s between a vampire and a human. Your brother was forced to choose between his family and his love.

In the end, he chose love. 

That night, you toss and turn in bed, unable to stop thinking about your brother. If he’s alive, if he’s a vampire. If he’s dead. What you would do in his situation. Not that it matters, because you wouldn’t fall in love with a vampire, but you can’t help but wonder. Is it really that bad? They were once human, too. 

The thought doesn’t leave your mind even when you go to the lab, meeting an uncharacteristically quiet Jaemin, and a very excited looking Jeno. “Y/n! Thank you so much for doing this!” “Yeah, well, gotta pass my classes somehow.” You laugh. Jaemin doesn’t meet your eyes when you look at him, keeping his gaze just a little too low and frowning. 

“Seriously though, this is great. I’ve been trying to get permission for this experiment for ages, the fact that the administration finally caved is insane.” Jeno says, turning to ruffle through some papers on the desk. You shoot a curious glance at Jaemin, finally realizing that he’s staring at your neck. Or well, your covered neck. He’s trying to see the marks. With a glance towards Jeno, you carefully slide the fabric of your turtle neck down, laughing silently at how Jaemin inhales sharply, lips parting slightly. You yank it back up when Jeno turns around. “Jaemin informed you of the experiment, correct?” You shoot Jaemin a look. “Yeah! You just need to take a couple of blood samples, right?” Jeno shakes his head, tilting his head at Jaemin. “Not exactly. We’re going to need you to take microdoses of vampire blood.”

It takes a moment to register. “You want me to drink vampire blood?” You screech, eyes bulging. “That’s going to turn me!” Jeno shakes his head, laughing. “With the amount we’re giving you? No. It’ll only turn you if a vampire drinks your blood, and you die. You’ll be fine.” Next to you, Jaemin stiffens. You bite your lip. “Um. Like at the same time, or?” “It doesn’t have to be at the exact same time. If you’ve been bitten before, you can’t drink any blood or you’ll be turned. But again, that’s only if you die.” Jeno tilts his head. “Have you been bitten before?” “Jeno.” Jaemin draws his attention away before you can respond. “It’s just a microdose, right? Like, barely enough to have an effect?” He considers this. “Well, I mean, not enough to have negative effects.” 

You and Jaemin share a long look. Jaemin had drunk your blood not even a week earlier. It's dangerous. But it’s a small amount. Jeno said there wouldn’t be any negative effects. And you can’t fail this class. You send Jaemin a pleading look. Jaemin swallows thickly and looks back to Jeno.

“She’ll be fine?” Jaemin’s voice is shaky. 

Jeno nods. “Caring for a human? That’s odd, coming from you. But yeah, she’ll be fine.”

You exhale heavily. “I’ll do it.”

There are more papers to be signed, more blood to be drawn. Though this time Jeno takes it in a much more professional manner, drawing it out and putting it into a test tube. Next to you, Jaemin squeezes his eyes shut and you watch his jaw clench. You want to tease him but you can’t, not in front of Jeno.

Despite Jeno’s reassurances, the worry doesn’t leave you. He doesn’t know what you and Jaemin did, doesn’t know that you’ve been bitten by a vampire. And maybe it doesn’t matter- it’s not like you’re going to die or anything, which is what needs to happen for you to turn- but you need some sort of comfort. 

That’s how you end up bailing on your Friday night dinner with Mark’s family, saying that you need to finish a project that’s due that night. Your parents roll their eyes and scold you for not taking your studies seriously, but let you skip the dinner. Mark shakes his head at you, disapproving of you working with a vampire, but keeps his mouth shut. 

If Jaemin’s surprised when you show up at his door, he doesn’t show it. He just smirks at you, leaning against the door frame. “Hey blood bag.” You scoff and shove past him into the house, dropping down onto the sofa you sat on last time. “When did you start calling me that, leech?”

“When you let me drink from you.” Jaemin says plainly, sitting next to you. “Is there a reason you’re here? I mean, I know I’m irresistible, but-” “But we didn’t tell Jeno you drank from me.” You interrupt. “We need to tell him. He’s been waiting forever for this, he’ll be devastated if we ruin it.”

Jaemin nods, considering it. “Y/n, you know you’ll get kicked off the project if we tell him, right?” You nod, biting your lip. “Look, Jeno’s been my best friend for hundreds of years. I hate keeping this from him more than you do.” “Then why are you?” It doesn’t make sense. You’re certainly not friends, or at least you weren’t before last week. 

He doesn’t answer. His eyes are dark and it looks like there’s a war raging behind them, but he doesn’t elaborate on what’s bothering him. The sharp points of his teeth dig into his bottom lip as he bites it nervously, blood beading at the cut when he finally looks back at you.

You don’t think when you bring your thumb up to swipe at his lower lip, skin coming away red. Jaemin watches in fascination as you bring the digit up to your own mouth, sliding it past your lips, sucking the blood away. He swallows thickly.

“Does it feel as good for you as it does for me?” You ask, glancing from his lips to his face. He shakes his head gently.

“It feels good for you because of our saliva.” Jaemin explains. “But it doesn’t feel bad when you do it, it’s just-” He makes a vague gesture with his hand as if trying to pull the words out of thin air. “It’s very intimate.”

He licks his lips, then, digs his teeth back into his bottom lip. It’s a subconscious movement but you still lean in to press a kiss over where the blood pricks up, nipping just hard enough to have a growl rumbling in Jaemin’s chest before soothing the wound with your tongue. You pull away and smile, licking the blood off of your lips. 

You don’t even have time to make a witty remark over how affected Jaemin looks because he’s pulling you onto his lap, crashing your lips together with enough force that you’re sure they’ll bruise. It draws a moan from you and Jaemin eagerly drinks it in, fisting his hand in your hair and deepening the kiss. 

A gasp leaves you when he pulls away, trails his lips down your throat. You tense in anticipation, a whine getting trapped in your throat when his fangs just barely scrape the skin. He leaves a wet kiss there, pulling away to look up at you. “Want me to bite you, baby?”

“God, yeah.” You moan out, tilting your head to expose more of your neck. 

“Ah, I’d rather you didn’t say that name in my house.” Jaemin laughs. He moves back to your throat, digging his fangs into the spot he’d marked. There’s less pain this time, pleasure coursing through you almost instantly. You whine and tighten your grip on his hair.

Electricity runs through your veins as Jaemin takes what he wants, marking up your body. You breathe out something along the lines of “want more” and Jaemin takes it to heart, scooping you up and carrying you to his room in record time. He tosses you onto the mattress, crawling over you not even a second later to press his lips to yours. 

He fits himself easily between your legs, rocking his hips down in a rare show of desperation. You can feel exactly how affected he is, his hardness pressing deliciously against your core. Another plea of “more” is whispered against his lips and he doesn’t need any more encouragement, pulling away to move further down your body. He kisses and nips his way down your torso, pushing your shirt up to reveal more skin to him, dropping kiss after kiss to the sensitive skin just above the waistband of your pants. Your core throbs at the feeling of having him so close to you and you squirm, trying to spread your legs more, trying to articulate that you need something, anything. 

“J-Jaemin, take them off.” You whine, pushing at the waistband. “I need you.”

The coldness of his hands brushing against your skin when he drags your pants down has you shivering, squirming. He tosses your clothing to the floor and wastes no time attaching his lips to the inside of your thigh, holding you down when you squirm. 

“Is this okay?” Jaemin asks, concern mixing with his arousal. He brushes his index finger over your pussy, making your back arch in an effort to get him closer to where you need him. 

“More than.” Despite your assurances, Jaemin doesn’t touch you. He moves his hand up to your abdomen, flattening his palm to keep you pinned down. You whine in annoyance, but the teeth dragging over your inner thigh has you shutting up. A gasp leaves you before he even sinks his fangs in, your pussy absolutely throbbing with need. He presses another gentle kiss to the skin and, raising his gaze to make eye contact with you, bites you.

It’s more intense than when he bit your neck or your chest. It sets your body on fire in the best of ways, leaves you writhing under his touch. Your eyes roll in your head and your hands flail in an effort to grab something, anything to ground yourself. It’s amazing, and just when you think you’ve reached heaven, he touches you.

You’re soaking wet and Jaemin’s fingers slide into you effortlessly, fill you up so well. It’s too much effort to keep your eyes open and so you let them drift shut, let yourself fall into the bliss. There’s pressure against your lips and you open your eyes to find Jaemin hovering over you, sliding two fingers past your lips. You didn’t even realize he’d stopped biting you.

“Suck.” He commands, and who are you to disobey? You wrap your lips around the digits and hum at the taste of yourself, at the weight of them in your mouth. “Taste good, baby?” “Mhmm, yeah.” Your words are slurred around the digits and you suck even harder around them, letting your tongue trace patterns around them. Jaemin swears softly and grinds down against your thigh. 

He presses one more kiss to your lips before sliding down your body. “My turn to taste.”

Maybe there should be some sort of alarm going through your system when Jaemin lowers his mouth to your core. Some sort of reminder that he has some very sharp fangs, that he has just bit you in multiple places, and that his fangs are right in the place that fangs should never be. But it feels heavenly when he licks a stripe between your folds, when he fucks his tongue into your hole. His hands keep you pinned to the mattress, super strength coming in handy to control your squirming. 

The pleasure consumes you and it’s so much, too much, and your eyes want to squeeze shut but Jaemin looks up at you and his gaze is magnetic, making it impossible to look away from him. Your body’s on fire, burning brighter with every flick of his tongue, every moan he lets out into your core. He pulls away to drop his head to the apex of your thigh, digging his fangs into the delicate skin there, and you can’t fight the scream that rips from your throat. You’re babbling, chanting incoherent words as you try to explain how good it feels, how you never want him to stop. His hair is soft in your grip and it’s the only thing keeping you anchored, the only thing preventing you from drowning in pleasure. 

“You taste so good, baby.” Jaemin moans, pulling away momentarily to make a show of licking his lips. “Everything about you is so delicious.” He returns to your core, lapping at your hole before flicking his tongue over your clit, laughing at how your body jolts. There’s nothing but hunger in his eyes as he sucks your clit between his lips, fucking two fingers into your needy cunt. He does it again, hitting all of your sensitive spots, making you scream with bliss as you finally tip over the edge. 

Wave after wave of euphoria crash into you and your lungs burn as your gasp for air. You’re drowning in the best way possible, surrounded by nothing but pleasure and Jaemin, Jaemin, Jaemin.

He works you through it with gentle flicks of his tongue, hands smoothing over your thighs to bring you back down. You manage to find enough strength to shove at his head when it gets to be too much, tiredly sinking into the mattress when he pulls away. Jaemin wipes at his mouth and bends down to kiss you lazily, nipping at your lip just to hear you whine. He smooths your hair down and brushes a few strands out of your face, smiling down at how fucked out you are. And you’d be content to lay wrapped in his arms, with Jaemin cooing softly at how pretty you are and petting your head, but you can feel how hard he is.

“Jaemin,” You murmur, shifting in his hold. “Jaem, wanna make you feel good.” “It’s alright, you don’t h- oh, shit baby- you don’t have to.” He has to fight to get the words out, a groan interrupting his sentence when you grab at his cock. You pout at him and manage to tug his pants down just enough for you to pull him out. 

“But I want to.” You smile, leaning up for a kiss. Jaemin doesn’t bother replying, just presses his lips back to yours and melts into your touch. The way you jerk him off is lazy, your energy drained from how intense your orgasm was. Though with the way Jaemin groans against your lips and tightens his grip on your hip, you don’t think that he minds.

He moans your name when he comes, a beautiful sound that has your stomach twisting with heat. White spills over your knuckles and onto his stomach and you bring your hand up to your mouth, licking at it curiously. Jaemin watches you with heavy lids before collapsing onto the mattress. 

“Fuck,” He sighs, eyelids drifting shut. “Why’re you so good to me?” “Why are you so good to me?” You mumble back in response, curling up into him. “Thanks for not biting my pussy.” Something  about that sets Jaemin off and his body shakes with the laughter running through him. A giggle leaves you. “What?” Jaemin shakes his head, still laughing. “Nothing. Come on, gotta get you some food.” 

And that’s how it goes. You and Jaemin continue to hook up, although he does end up saying ‘fuck it’ and attempting to actually teach you chemistry. Despite Mark’s fears, he doesn’t end up killing you. He’s a lot of fun to be around, plus he keeps his pantry stocked with various snacks. Sometimes he even cooks for you, if he’s feeling nice.

“What’s a vampire doing with all this food?” You ask one day, watching him make fried rice. He doesn’t respond, just staring down at the pan and offering you a shrug, though you swear you see him blush. 

Your professor raises your grade to a C. It’s not stellar but it also isn’t failing, which you will happily take. There’s only a little bit of guilt when she beams at you while telling you how happy Jeno is with your dedication to the project. 

Jeno continues to take blood samples, and you continue to not tell him that you’ve been bitten. It eats you up inside, but Jaemin’s always there to reassure you. Whether he’s trying to comfort you or himself more is up for debate.

Everything stays the same except for Mark.

He gets more distant, grows a little more resentful. There’s no smiles or teasing jokes, except for the polite ones he flashes in front of your parents. He starts to make up lies, too, which is something you promised to never do. Excuses to get him out of plans, saying there’s nothing wrong. And your best friend, the most timid, nicest boy you’ve ever met, begins to pick petty fights with you.

You’re over it, and it bothers you even if you try not to let it show. Jaemin rubs your back and tells you it’ll be okay, but you know it won’t. Because Jaemin’s the reason that Mark’s distant. And you have no plans to stop seeing him.

Talking to Jaemin, you’re sure Mark would have liked him if the circumstances were different. If Mark didn’t hate vampires so much, or if Jaemin were just a regular human college student like you. But those aren’t the circumstances, and so you have to deal with Mark’s whiny ass showing up at your door to drag you to church.

“Mark, it’s Thursday night.” You groan, shaking your textbook at him. “I have work to do!” 

“Yeah, you also have praying to do.” Mark snaps, grabbing the book out of your hands. “Not like you even understand this.”

Which, ouch, that kind of hurts. Especially when Mark knows that you’re frustrated that you can’t get the subject down even though you try. You glare at him and reach for the book. “Mark, give it back. And I actually do understand this, Jaemin’s been helping-” “Helping what? Taint you? Turn you into one of their blood whores?” Mark grabs the book back and throws it across the room. “Y/n, come on. I’m not letting this happen to you too.” He pulls you after him despite your grumbling, though he at least has the decency to let you put shoes on. Just because you go freely doesn’t mean you’re happy about it, complaining as Mark drags you through the city. “Jesus Christ Mark, has it ever occurred to you that Donghyuck had free will? That he willingly chose to be with her because he loved her?” You’re fed up with Mark, fed up with everyone. “God Mark, they’re not that bad!” Mark stares at you for a moment. “What, they’re brainwashing you too? How is it that both you and your brother are so dumb? I know you weren’t raised like this.”

“Well at least I wasn’t raised to be such an ignorant asshole.” You snap. “I have the ability to make my own decisions, something you apparently lack.” “Oh, so what’s that supposed to mean?” Mark stops walking suddenly, crossing his arms as he waits for an answer. You open your mouth to yell at him when a flash of movement catches your eyes. Squinting, you make out a group of guys, and they’re close enough that you can hear them laughing when one of them wipes… is that blood on his mouth? “Mark, we have to go.” You whisper. The vampires don’t see you and you’re hoping that you can get the two of you out of there safely. “Come on-” “No, tell me what you mean!” Mark yells, stubbornly standing in place. You groan and try to drag him away but he doesn’t budge. “Come on y/n, tell me what you fucking mean.” You shoot a worried glance over your shoulder, surprised when you don’t see the vampires. There’s a second of relief, lasting only until you turn around to find them standing right behind Mark. You squeak in surprise. Mark freezes too, one of the men having grabbed him by the shoulders. His face presses way too close to Mark’s neck and you jump when you feel hands on your own shoulders.

“Aww, lover’s spat?” The guy holding Mark laughs. “That’s okay, we’ve all been there, right guys?” The rest of his friends cackle in the creepiest way that you can imagine. “Come on, we can resolve this.” You and Mark look back and forth between each other worriedly. There’s no way out of this, you realize. No way to even try. 

“Don’t you wanna know how we can resolve this?” This time the guy holding you speaks and it’s so close to your ear that you flinch, nearly jumping out of your skin. He laughs and his fangs graze your skin, but it doesn’t send pleasure through you like when Jaemin does it. It sends chills down your spine, makes you want to cry. “Answer me.” “N-no.” You stutter out, eyes squeezed shut in fear. “Please, just let us go.” The guy sighs and lets go of you. “Alright.” You and Mark share a look before bolting, adrenaline pumping through your veins. Freedom only lasts for a second before you’re being grabbed again, yanked backwards. 

“Stupid girl. I don’t appreciate being told no.” You whimper and you can hear Mark screaming your name, screaming for help, screaming for anything.

It’s the last thing you hear.

“Jaemin, you’re an idiot. Literally the dumbest person I know.” There’s a familiar voice swimming through your head and you try to move towards it, finding your entire body feels drained.

“Yes, I’ve been told.” Is that Jaemin’s voice? It sounds a lot clearer, drags you out of the darkness. “But look, it ended up being good, right? She’s alive.” You finally manage to pry your eyes open and immediately regret it, slamming them shut and curling into yourself. A groan leaves you and the two stop talking. “Y/N? Baby, it’s me.” There’s a hand on your cheek, brushing against the skin gently, and you press into his touch. “How are you feeling?” “Bad.” You croak out through a dry throat, cringing at how dry it feels. Jaemin laughs softly and something presses to your lips. “Here, drink this.”

You didn’t realize how hungry you were until you get the first taste, and then suddenly you find the strength in your body to take gulp after gulp of the drink. It brings a little bit of warmth to your body, makes you feel less achy. You even manage to pry your eyelids open.

Jeno and Jaemin greet you, both men looking relieved. Jaemin beams at you, dipping down for a kiss. “Hey baby.” “What happened?” You frown, trying to remember how you got to Jaemin’s couch. “Did I- I was walking to the church and we were attacked.” Oh shit, you weren’t alone. You search frantically around the room. “Did Mark- is he okay?” The thought of your best friend- no matter how strained your relationship was at the end- dying is too much for you to handle. 

Jaemin smiles. “He’s the one that brought you to me.”

“He’s okay?” Jeno nods in confirmation.

“They only wanted to kill for fun, guess you were enough.” Jeno says. “Speaking of killing, Jaemin has a lot of explaining to do. And since I don’t trust him to do a good job, I’m going to stay here!” You look between the two. “Kill? Am I- I’m dead?” Jaemin makes a face. “Fucking- I’m a vampire?” Your words come out shrill and the two boys cringe.

“Yeah, sorry.” Jaemin scratches the back of his neck. “My bad. But, um, I’ll take care of you! Don’t worry.” Then, to Jeno: “Come on man, can’t we have a second of peace? I literally never thought I was going to see her again.” Jeno sighs, glaring at his friend before walking away. “Dramatic.” 

You’re in Jaemin’s arms in the next second, held close to his chest. “Fuck y/n, I’m so sorry.” His voice is shaky and he keeps his face pressed into your neck. “This is all my fault, I don’t know how I’m going to make it up to you.” “We’ll figure it out later.” You tug at his hair to get him to look you in the eyes. “I almost died, Jaemin. Give me a headache later. Right now…” You trail off, letting your lips stretch wide. “Kiss me.” It draws a snort from Jaemin. “You were dead like an hour ago and now you want to fuck?” “No!” You whine and smack his chest. “I just want a kiss, get your mind out of the gutter.” Jaemin teases you some more, making you laugh and smack him to stop before you finally say fuck it and pull him closer, smashing your lips together. He smiles into the kiss, wrapping his arms around your body. You have a lot to worry about, but you’ve also got all the time in the world to worry about it. It makes you sick to think about, and for now, you want to just relax. Not that Jaemin seems to mind, happily letting you curl into his chest, stroking your head. You’re not alone, you have Jaemin, and you know he’ll help you through this.

+ You’re not expecting a welcome home party. You’re also not expecting to find all of your belongings scattered across the front yard, having very clearly been chucked from your bedroom window. 

“Lovely.” You scoff, staring at the mess. The front door has the biggest cross you’ve ever seen nailed to it, complete with the silver door knob that you promptly burn yourself on. You stare at the door, wondering if you should knock. It swings open before you make your mind up.

Mark stares back at you with wide eyes and parted lips. “Y/n? You’re alive?”

“Hey, Mark.” You smile, tight lipped. “Jaemin told me you saved me.”

Mark looks like he’s about to say something but then his mouth closes and he shakes his head. “Y/n, you- you’re a vampire now. I can’t.” Mark doesn’t look you in the eye when he says it and you scoff, rolling your eyes. “I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry.” You mock, shaking your head. “No you’re not. If you were sorry, you would fucking look me in the eyes.” He doesn’t. “You know it’s your fault I’m like this, right?” That gets him to look up at you. There’s fire in his eyes this time. “No, it’s your fault for whoring around with vampires.” You shake your head. “Who made me go to church that night?” He looks away and doesn’t answer the question. “Good bye, Mark.”

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

part 12

ink was getting nervous. Error was coming by at night, and since every other vampire was sleeping, he couldn’t do anything but wait in his garden-

Something wasn’t quite normal with error. He looked pretty anxious, wary even-

 Ink sighed. Life was so empty- not even death could fix that

 He discovered that over time, most vampires could get used to the sunlight after being exposed to it very lightly. He also noticed that vampires couldn’t be murdered unless they were shot or stabbed in the soul

He not only wasn’t affected by the sunlight in the first place, but he had no soul to begin with-

Death wasn’t an option.

Boredom was the only thing that was “killing” him

 Ever since he could remember, life was always so boring

 Empty

 Without any goal to achieve or get going with

 He clenched his fists

The only thing that was following him around and that let him stay alive was…

 Guilt

 For something he could never forgive himself for

Maybe he could fix it?

 He didn’t want to think about it now-

 He traveled inside his garden, wandering around his maze, then sat down near some bushes

He was an immortal being with barely no will to live, but he did have a passion to stay sane

And it ended up being art.

Painting, sewing, designing, sculpting-

Creating was a nice compensation for destroying everyone’s lives…

 Now that he was thinking about it…

…….

 Wait, who was that?!

 Ink noticed a shadow fly away from his garden. ‘Right when he had some inspiration to draw’. He ran to them, but he realized they already left.

It was probably another vampire, but the vast majority preferred to go out at night since they won’t be so visible to the mortals. Though it was unusual for a one to fly off so fast and early in the morning. The sun was bright, and even he felt pretty nauseous staying on spot without anything to shield himself from the heat of it.

Even so, he stared at his surroundings, curious to see if the person left something, when he noticed a crispy letter on the grass.

Ink sighed, who could it beee?

He painfully leaned down to catch the letter, and opened it.

Right, it was him.

Just when he thought he’ll get to talk to him personally-

He sat down and read the long paragraph that decorated its paper.

 …

 “…oh-“

 He got up and dusted off his clothes from the remaining dirt and leaves that stuck to him, then trailed off to his castle-

 “Looks like the meeting is still ongoing”

 ******

 His steps were heavy,

And he was getting weaker-

He collapsed on the ground

It was so painful to be alive

And he hated it

He HATED ink for what he did!

He-

He…

….

Well, the forest wasn’t a good place to fall unconscious in, so he painfully got himself up.

He could hate ink all he wanted, but the mortals were even worse

If only he could just KILL THEM ALL

ALL OF THEM

Ugh-

 “…”

 Huh

Crying?

Him?

Out of character, right?

He wiped away the tears that were slowly forming themselves in his sockets. He had to- he had to go and ask for help like the idiot that he is! He…he didn’t want him to-

…

Die? Who? What the flip was he even doing in that forest anyways?!

Oh yeah, heal himself

Obviously

He sat by a tree and painfully tightened the holes and scars with bandages after carefully removing the bullets and disinfecting the injuries with his magic. He really didn’t want to see him again,

But he didn’t have a choice anymore

********

*tap*

*tap*

*tap*

*tap*

*tap*

*tap*

He sat on his sofa, slowly waiting for his guest’s arrival in front of his large window.

He closed his eyes patiently, then sighed calmly

 “nice seeing you again, error”

His silhouette slowly appeared in front of him, threatening as always.

“…”

He looked away, a frown still in place.

“it’s okay if you don’t want to see me, but god can you be stubborn!” ink pouted. They knew each other for years, but one thing that didn’t change was the fact that error was never happy to see him

Nor to spend time with him

Actually, the times where he’ll be “happy” is when he almost “kills” him, or when he leaves-

Yeah, a nice “friendship”

“I swear if it wasn’t for an important reason I would’ve never stepped a toe in your hell of a castle!”

“but you still came here. And I’m sorry if I am worried about this reason that’s so important it actually made you sit here, and talk to me for once.”

Error flinched at his sarcastic tone, and he thought about giving a spiteful remark back, but he sat on the sofa in front of him, directly facing the window, choosing to ignore his off handed retorts to leave that place as soon as possible.

“… well-“ error tried to collect his words, obviously tired of what had happened to him this past weeks.

“there is a small town very far away from here who sent a…detective? Spy? Whatever, A trained mortal to hunt down the vampires while being hidden amongst the normal villagers, and he’s been very wary of YOU especially.”

“He had been giving some “ideas” to the mortals, and if he manages to convince them to overthrow your rules and influence, he’ll quickly discover your intentions and the hidden place of multiple thousands of vampire, causing the extinction of the race in a second. And while I flipping hate your guts and I despise you all so much, vampires and mortals alike, I can’t really be all that powerful and safe when the humans can win over me; the amount of vampires decreasing giving them “courage” to kill the remaining.”

He stated the last sentence with disgust. He didn’t give two cents about vampires, even less monsters or even humans, which he hates even more, but ink’s motives were vastly different

ink loved vampires, because he had to; Being the original vampire who first existed. He was the reason so many mortals turned into those people, feared by the pitiful society called the living. And just like that he and the other vampires that followed began growing stronger in number and power.

You could say that he didn’t have a choice- that it was in his nature; he’s a vampire! He can’t help but drink blood, in the case of monsters, magic-

But

No

Not only can vampires resist the urge to drink blood, by simply eating meat, but in ink’s case

He doesn’t even like drinking blood nor magic

He was more into literal ink

The only reason he drank blood in the first place was to get feelings

The first vampire didn’t have a chance to get a soul, so he discovered he could get feelings another way.

And he despised doing that

Because

Of how he discovered

That-

“INK!”

Ink looked at error, realizing he must’ve been daydreaming for too long

“…”

Ink got up, then undressed himself from his coat.

“Huh? What the he- what are you doing???”

“Well, suffice to say we’re going to catch that little comedian and eliminate him as soon as we can”

Error didn’t expect such bluntness from ink, but he couldn’t care less about that, more like, he was caught off guard by the “we”

“Hey, hey, hey- this is YOUR job, mister! It is not my business to attend”

Ink looked back at him, and gave him a warm smile

“Didn’t you say earlier it affected you if all the race disappeared? Wouldn’t you want to stop that from happening? I might add that you wouldn’t come here unless you really had to, so is it just for a message or did you need my help?”

He hated it when ink gets smart

But at the same time he was right

Though there was still another reason on top of it all, but he kept his mouth sealed

That bastard didn’t need to know

“…fine. What to do now”

Ink’s smirk became predatory

“What makes you think we’ll need to do anything?”

Error flinched

“What?”

Ink giggled-

“Well, it’s getting quite late don’t you think?”

Error looked back at the window, the moon shining bright in a cold, dark night

“Ink! I need answers!”

Ink paused his laughing, then smiled

“I’ll tell you more about it if you’ll be my guest.”

He bowed slightly, still keeping eye contact with the other

Error tensed- he didn’t know what to do now

“…is this a trap?”

Ink looked surprised at that statement, but quickly rectified

“Not at all!”

“Then what makes me believe that you’re not going to kill me in my sleep!”

Ink paused a second, kind of offended by the other’s skepticism when he just wanted to welcome him

Well, guess it can’t be helped

“I promise you that I will answer your questions tomorrow, It’s just that you might be exhausted from the constant travelling- the bruises and scars look like they just need a bit of attention, and you-“

He trailed off, citing multiple reasons why he needed a shelter from him, and error quickly cut him off

“Okay- okay- I get it”

It did make him feel a bit better though, considering ink takes his promises very seriously, so he might as well stay for a night

“Just ONE night”

He crossed his arms, and ink chuckled

“Sure, sure-“

He smiled

“Goodnight then, error”

*******

“well, how about we talk more about it in a more...private environment, yes?”

**********

ink belongs to @comyet​/ @myebi​

error belongs to @loverofpiggies​

dark cream belongs to @zu-is-here​

well, it took a while to update you guys, but i’m really happy about it!

error holds a huge grudge against ink- what is it? still haven’t finished that part yet guys ;D

also, the illustration is a spoiler for the next part focusing about ink, but as they say- it’s not a real spoiler if you have no context right ;)?

((remind me not to paint an illustration for a writing i haven’t updated in a while it just makes it worse))

also, the reason i haven’t drawn error once is because i can’t decide on a design he often hides his face with a very dark cape. i will give you guys a sheet with everyone’s faces (protagonists only) their mouths (the difference between their fangs) and their markings/eyelights

very exited to write more about ink though- it’s going to get interesting very soon ;)

first- previous- next

[reaperlight]

Do you have any lawryght headcanons?

@greenpactbosmer Thanks for the ask!

Headcanons... ooh boy, well...

(Oh and I saw you had another ask there too but I think I may have misunderstood the prompt/what was being asked? In any case I should probablt edit the paragraphs of brain vomit that came out of that but until then here's more paragraphs of brain vomit, uh... sorry 😔)

Anyway...

Headcanons for lawryght can vary greatly from fic verse to fic verse but let's see curtent HC generally...

These three getting together in a canon-like universe...

The RyukxLight will either be established relationship or at the very least Ryuk is more helpful to Light and his plans than in canon to the point Light feels secure enough in his position so he can give L a chance and not feel like he has to kill him immediately so a relationship could actually develop between Light and L beyond "oh no, he's hot... I still have to kill him." (Also expect Light to be even more arrogant and insufferable because he thinks he's immortal and has the power of deathgod and anime on his side.)

Ryuk and Light getting together: And then they were roommates (oh my they were roommates) and there was only one bed--Shinigami don't really need to sleep but Light doesn't know that and the bed is comfy so Ryuk doesn't fell the need to tell him.

They are both extremely bored. Ryuk is absolutely fascinated with this human--he may not be on Light's side (or so he claims) but the entertainment value is beyond his wildest dreams. He is smitten, even if he doesn't admit it. If Light is curious about something hell try at least once... Or Light may be trying to get free Shinigami eyes out of him and they catch feelings.

L enters the picture... Ryuk doesn't mind sharing 1. Hes immortal and bored and... two interesting humans! This is so cool! 2. Shinigami don't have the same ideas about monogamy. 3. Headcanons about Ryuk vary depending on if rule 36 valid up to this point in the ficverse. (I.e. Chad!Ryuk vs. Virgin!Ryuk)

L and Ryuk--L is very disturbed to learn that his case actually has a supernatural component and is more leery of Ryuk than of Light at first. This lasts for all of the moment it takes to remember that Light is Kira and Ryuk is afraid of tennis balls.

After 5 minutes of soul searching, L can admit to himself he has a thing for monsters--both internal and external.

Assuming they are all alive and this takes place in early canon this shippable version of L is probably more interested in having fun then bringing Kira to justice. Either that or he has become disillusioned with the status quo or hurt and and wants revenge to the point that he's willing to entertain Light's way of doing things.

If its post series, maybe Ryuk is bored so goes looking for Light in Mu and ends up pulling both Light and L out of Mu because their souls are intertwined and once restored as humans or Shinigami or something shippable in the afterlife then it's just learning to rely on each other as they forge a new arrangement in the Shinigami realm.

Top/bottom it's not assigned seating Regardless of bedroom positions or what arrangement they have out of the bedroom Light is the dom/one in charge of this arrangement in bed... but subs L and Ryuk unionize and gang up on him. Light is a dom in bed but not always a top. L as a sub but not always bottom. Ryuk as a service top or power bottom. Ryuk doesn't really feel pain like humans do and will go with whatever he and his partners find interesting.

Contrary to rumor Light and L aren't always fighting over who gets to top. Fighting is for chess matches, clashes of ideology, and the last chocolate eclaire--not the bedroom. Consent, safe words, and mutual respect are all very important.

(The safe word is vegetables)

Light is very dom. In every relationship before or since. Except there's Ryuk, looming over him. Making him feel kinda excited and confused and then theres that stupid sexy voice of his... But ryuk is the exception. (But he might let L fuck him if he asks nicely and submits to Kira's reign.)

When they sleep together Ryuk likes to keep them both wrapped in his wings. He likes being the little spoon sometimes though...

L gets Ryuk addicted to apple desserts.

Light frequently ends up cleaning up after the other two. Ryuk helps when he remembers but typically L is a brat.

Light: How can you stand to live like this?

Ryuk: I was formed in a dustbowl.

Light: Yes, it shows.

L [throwing candy wrappers on the ground]: Why are you doing that, that's what Watari is for?

Others who might potentially join the polycule under the right set of circumstances: B, Mikami, Aiber, Matsuda...

Some very noncanon AU ideas...

Superhero aus (current wips)

Winning and ruling the world(s) au (current wips)

Light gets in trouble (of either a mundane or supernatural variety) and Ryuk goes to L to ask for his help because he's the only human he can think of who would be clever enough to help Light and because of supernatural restrictions Ryuk can't save Light by himself. L is annoyed to have his fun ruined by having it confirmed that Light is Kira in this way, pissed that Light could get himself into a situation like this, and also pissed at himself that Ryuk doesn't even need to threaten him to want to risk everything to save him. After they save Light, L decides there's no point in continuing the kira case because it no longer interests him. He returns INTERPOLs money and after Light recovers from his ordeal the three go on vacation looking for something interesting but less hazardous than their previous ordeal. L becomes fascinated with the supernatural and wants to go ghost and cryptid hunting, seeking out ancient mysteries and Ryuk has plenty of leads in that. Light is still more interested in becoming god of the new world but "fine, if you guys insist..." (he doesn't want to admit he's having fun too). They drive around in L's pink crepe van huntjng ghosts, solving mysteries. Light occasionally writes the names of murderous jerks and people who are assholes to L thst they meet along the way while Ryuk laughs and L scowls in a mildly disapproving way but never really discourages him.

Au inverting the dynamics so its established relationship of lawlight first and then Ryuk joins the polycule: AU where Light and L are the same age and are childhood friends and when Light finds the Death Note they become Kira together. Ryuk is fascinated by them both and slowburn they realize their feelings for each other.

Or... Human!Ryuk and mundane college AU Ryuk is in a metal band and is probably studying art and helps rival law students Ligtt and L to chill... at least until Ryuk gets in trouble for drug possession and then Light and L compete to be his better defense counsel.

Monster AU werewolf or vampire au that's canon adjacent--Ryuk bites Light, Light goes on to monster better than Ryuk does then Light bites L, the monster hunter who falls for him...

7. Haunted house au

8. The quarantine au--Light is annoyed because now killing as Kira feels rather pointless. L is annoyed because this is boring. Ryuk is having a blast because they're playing with him a whole lot more. If L and Light doesn't just use the L screen, Ryuk is always in the background, having floating, juggling apples photobomb the zoom calls.

And suddenly Ryuk is important.

Ryuk runs errand for them because he has no danger of catching the plague. They play video games, watch movies, bitch at each other, and get into pointless arguments over stupid things.

Also L makes them custom masks modeled after Ryuk's fangs just because.

Other ideas:

Wammys house and lawryght

Option 1: Wammy's house tooth rotting fluff, adopting all the orphans

Option 2: Wammy's house evil, B was right. It's really just about being raised as a weapon. It's like the stormtrooper program for genius orphans that may not have actually been orphans before the institute took an interest in them.

Option 3: Wammy's house complicated. The institute really is trying to do better, is the best place for the kids and while not perfect its closest thing to home/family they have.

Lawryght and Morality

These 3 can be awful enablers of each other's worst qualities. Then again...

Light: Huh, Ryuk thinks we're going too far. Maybe we should rethink this.

L [already has the prisoner tied up and being forced to listen to polka music on repeat]: But where's the fun in that?

Finding a home together

With Kira and a Shinigami as his boyfriend L feels secure enough to do more normal things he's been denied all his life.

With Ryuks help, Light finds the names of all of L's major enemies and gets to writing in the Death Note.

Light: Be mad if you want. I'm not sorry.

L tries to be mad, and fails. He can't help but feel relieved that they're gone.

He might even entertain the thought of having a permanent address.

He still enjoys traveling though.

Also L gets a kitten

The cat loves chasing Ryuk's feathers.

The cat likes Light's lap the best because Light went out of his way not to look at the cat.

....

Ah, that was probably way too long. But thanks for letting me ramble! 😆

[milktaru]

vampire! Niki

🖋 requested by @yooraaaaa

Theme: new vampire! bulleted au, it’s pure crack, a bit of fluff

Warnings: none 😉

Niki is a confused recently turned vampire who thinks Twilight is the vampire’s bible.

all the students from the school used to say the chemistry teacher was somewhat eccentric. Nishimura Riki, however, realized too late what they meant the moment Miss Clarkson successfully bite him.

in his defense, everything happened way too quickly: in one minute he was holding the broken lab becker in his bloody hands, and, in the other, his chemistry teacher had her fangs (fangs!!) was all over his neck.

Miss Clarkson flew right after she realized the mess she had made and, after one night of restless sleep, cold hands, and a weird thirst for his dad’s blood, Riki was fast to understand that he wouldn’t be able to stay home or meet his friends and acquaintances, unless he tried to convey the news to his mom in some way...

“Hey mom, just so you know, I’m now, by accident, of course, a monster who thirsts for other people’s blood. Oh, and I will live forever. Can we add a nice velvety coffin to our Xmas list?”

yeah, thanks, Riki did not want that. The upside to this though, is that he wouldn’t have to frequent High School anymore.

so, vampire! Riki ran away from home and went walking to the next state (he discovered that vampires have great cardio power) and then decided to change his name to Niki, because, y’know, since he was a vamp he could at least have a cool, stylish new name. And VonDracuHawk sounded a little bit off.

even with his new, fancy name, vampire life wasn’t going so well. Niki slept on the streets for days and somehow sneaked into trashcans at night. 

his first meal was a diabetic guy and, besides the trauma of feeding off a human being, Niki developed some rather impressive cavities the day after.

overall, Niki was a baby vampire. He had 15 years of mortal life and, erm.... 1 month of a very messy and confusing immortal life.

and probably his life would have gotten way worse if it wasn’t for the local vampire coven that adopted his cast - out - vampire ass. 

the leader of the coven, vampire! Jungwon, who found him one night while throwing his trash off, was a pretty nice guy and tried his best to teach Niki the life hacks of a vampire.

vampire! Heesung was also one of the oldest immortals in the coven and advised him to do read some books about vampire habits and history in the coven’s library.

advice which Niki accepted gladly!  

“Listen, I’ve been thinking about what you told me and I decided to do some research - ” 

“Wait, is that a copy of Twilight? Oh my god, please tell me you’re joking. That’s what you based your research off???”

 Heeseung half pitted Niki and half pitted the coven for adopting (once more) a vampire with only one brain cell.

“Do we glitter in the sunlight like in Twilight?”

“No sweetheart. We burn.”

after the shock of not shining as a diamond disappeared, Niki had to deal with the fact that he couldn’t eat, oh no! Listen to this: garlic bread. And he loved garlic bread!

“BITCH, what do you mean I can’t eat GARLIC BREAD?!”

Niki went crazy when vampire! Jay, the one in charge of the kitchen, told him about vampire’s restrictions. 

Niki didn’t listen to Jay though and had food poisoning, which vampire! Sunghoon, the coven’s doctor, had to tend to.

also spilled blood once on the coven’s couch by accident and vampire! Sunoo legit wanted to kill him

“WHY IS THERE BLOOD ALL OVER MY NEW COUCH?”

Niki hissed, he would probably just blame vampire! Jake anyways. Jake was a young vampire too who was just finishing paying his student debts and, to Niki, and Niki only, seemed to have a marvelous wit. 

 “Jake, if we can’t go outside then what do we do in the daytime?”

“I don’t know bro, I mostly play Mario Cart.”

Overall Niki was a vampire going through puberty and needed a lot of help from his hyungs. 

“Sungwoon, I thought becoming immortal would include no acne.”

“At least you don’t have wrinkles forever.”

Sunghoon shrugged. It was good to have a new pet in the coven and Niki was adorable anyway.  

Niki felt weird being a vampire but, at least, he was loved and felt home. 

[signofwolf]

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – book review

Series: Throne of Glass #7 Genre: YA, Fantasy Theme: Fae, magic users, war Warnings: mentions of torture, imprisonment Star rating: 0,5/10

Why did I pick this up?: I wanted to end this horrible series once and for all.

[Heavy spoilers ahead]

To make myself clear, before this book I quite liked this series. It wouldn’t place in my top 100 books, not even close, but it was a pleasant pageturner to listen to in audiobooks when working.

Language

Let’s start slow. I lack the words to express how much I hate the words ‘male’, ‘female’ and ‘mate’ after this series. Not even gonna try to express my trauma. But these 3 gems aside, Sarah J. Maas needs a dictionary. Or compress her work to a manageable size. Everything sang, Everyone melted, Every man roared, Every woman trembled, Everyone was unleashing themselves at least once a chapter (number of chapters: 122) ). And now I know definitely too much about Yrene’s ‘womb’. I know so much…

Dynamism

I thought that was a book about a war with heavy action content. Oh boy, I was wrong. This 984-pages monstrosity has maybe 5 pages of action. If you squint.

Every sequence, where by design action should take place was followed by one of two scripts:

Few sentences of action and then a few pages long internal monologue. Often repeated with the same character after the next few sentences of action, or with the next character and then the next (sometimes the first character made a second appearance and then everything would go all over again). And the word ‘character’ used in these sentences is not because I’m rambling. This book is written that way!

Few sentences of action and then action stops, and we are graced by a few pages long conversation. In the middle of a battle. Or spying. Or in Erawan’s chambers, when his castle is going down, and he is running up the stairs...

Time

Leaving alone the fact that apparently all series took less than a year (till this book I estimated the plot for about 3 years, Wiki told me it was 2, but Maas knows best), because that is a can of worms in itself. Time in this one? I honestly have no idea. There were many ‘few weeks of travel’ parts with two main groups of POVs. Personally my only time indicator was ‘Orynth won’t fall till Aelin gets here’. But nothing just fit. And I saw Lost Song when in the last episode we as the audience realized that our two POVs parallel storylines are in reality millennia apart. Lost Song made sense.

Emotional loading

… there wasn’t any. Really, it was like reading a milk label. Every time the scene was potentially emotionally impactful, Maas went ahead to overexplaining EVERY. GOD. DAMMED. THING. And it was abso-fucking-lutely everything. ‘Emotional dilemma? Let’s current POV explain it! 2 pages should be enough… Damn maybe it wasn’t enough. I know! I’ll switch POVs and explain it through the other character!’ <= My impression of Maas’ thought process. I’m fairly sure that the record was 7 POVs explaining the same thing in the row, but I was blacking out a little, so I cannot be sure.

And if that wasn’t enough, this book had a second way to defuse tension: random-plastic-repetitive-badly_written-smut. Really badly written and really repetitive. How could you not feel the spicy bits, when Manon (cruel, self assured 100+years old witch-queen) reacts the same in bed as Elide (20years old, virgin, ex-slave). And the rest of them were the same, there weren’t ANY distinctions.Just copy-paste.

The next point in current case: Someone died, it was impactful, I really liked the character, so I got sad. But then 2 of our characters came out of the room with a body, and after a paragraph of grieving they started making out, and then I was regaled with 2-pages-long description of melting cores. That was the place then this book stopped being badly written, and started being distasteful.

Characters

Remember when I was writing about switching POVs (which is 15(!!!) In the whole book. Oh and an omniscient narrator in places when our current POV was grieving too much to overthink something, but Maas still wanted to inform us about something)? They were all savagely murdered in the worst way: character mutilation. Somewhere between books our maybe-not-that-original but colorful and interesting characters became carbon copies of each other. I have no idea how many times I didn’t realise there was a POV switch. The only indicator was a change of pronoun, or when Maas was telling us the name of a current narrator. These were the only ways. And if you can't distinguish if you are in Dorian’s head or in Manon’s, that is the sign of a really BAD writing.

Romance

…there wasn't any. In all this book there wasn't any naturally progressing romantic scene. There were Maas’ endgame pairings which were sexing or pinning. As the author Maas loves to write about soulmates. And it’s not a bad thing itself. When I want some fluffy story I often tag ‘soulmates’ in AO3 and voila, +10 to good mood. But God above, it is not cute when every pair you write about are ‘true mates’ just BECAUSE. It is the only way Maas sees a relationship, as a fated pairing, written in the wake of the universe by the God himself. There is no choice, nor the work to put in it. They are the author's OTP and that means that they are perfect and they should have children right now. Point in case:

Guy was treating a girl like a shit on his sole, including throwing her naked out of tent, on a snow, with their friends present, all the while abusing her verbally in a worst way. But it’s okay, because when she almost died he realised his mistakes and apologised. Two scenes later, he was forgiven, because... fated mates?

The pathos

I know that many people don't like this type of scenes, but it's not my case. I’m reading by picturing images and not repeating words. I like sequences that I can imagine to be grand and glorious, even if they are a little corny. That said, the pathos scenes were the most disappointing ones for me. Maas likes to write parts that are more picturesquely exalted than logically possible [point in case: meeting of 5 armies/forces in the random patch of sand in Empire of Storms, and it being painted as ‘an Aelin’s great plan’. I laughed myself silly at that. But not taking logic and all the plot holes into consideration that was a nicely looking scene. In Kingdom of Ash that wasn’t the case. I would say that the author wanted to paint us a renaissance painting every 20 pages or so. In my opinion, every time she failed miserably. Each and every of those scenes was or to farfetched to be even remotely realistic, and evidently written only for a sake of the picture, or just plainly stupid.

Example, and it’s so priceless a scene, that I just need to share it: Battle of Orynth, 25th day or so (time in this book doesn’t exist), the 13. sacrificed themselves (like thousands before them but hush). And then, time stops: grieving Manon is going through the city, they open the gates for her (yes, the siege is still on), she goes to the place where they died, after her come out all of our main heroes, and half the city itself with ‘flowers, rocks and precious possessions’ and they lay it there in a tribute to these brave (evil till 2 months ago) witches. I honestly can’t remember when was the last time I saw such an abstract scene. It’s a material for an essay in itself. No, I could not take it seriously.

Additionally, it's hard to make an impact as every damn sentence is grand and lofty. In the end it became truly pathetic, Aelin vs Maeve was unreadable.

Character deaths:

Let's make a quick count: main characters in a series at the start of KoA: 12 secondary characters in a series at the start of KoA: 20ish minor and total background: a lot more

Death count: main: 0 secondary: 3 minor: 2 (11 if we try very hard)

Resurrections: 1 (possibly 3, but not gonna analyze it)

Did you feel emotions of this impossible war against this all-encompassing, all-powerful, invincible, immortal, cunning Evil with armies from 3 continents and 2 worlds? No? Me neither.

Oh well, but there were a lot of deaths of ordinary soldiers. I’m quite certain that all of Terrasen’s army was at least twice brought back to life for them to die in these numbers.

Logic or lack thereof

Oh, and let’s not forget about the Deus ex machina army of unbeatable, magical elves on wolves, from legends, living for the past thousands of years in the unreachable lands of the north, because they managed to run from the surprise attack 10 years earlier. Did I mention that they came from portals, which the whole book was telling us were impossible to make in this scenario? After the previous saviour army was already fighting there for a day? And that Aelin didn’t know they would come for sure (how did she contact them again?)? Even though they were waiting in the full armours for these portals? Ah, and also: that army didn’t do anything. They just came and fought for maybe 4 minutes. And there were just so many things like that!

And if we’re on the topic of armies I present you: ‘My favourite absurd-list in the series: allied armies’.

(As a comparison, in A Song of Ice and Fire by J.R.R Martin, in 7 kingdoms of Westeros, at the peak of war there were 7 forces present, but not all were even engaged in a war.)

First the ones that made sense:

Armies of Terrasen’s Lords (counted as one, not gonna nitpick)

The Khaganate army (also counted as one)

Galan Ashryver’s armada

Whitethorn fraction

Rebel Ironteeth witches

…should Dorian be counted as an ‘army’?

And there were some that did not:

Ansel of Briarcliff’s army

The Silent Assassins

Mycenians

Wild Men of the Fangs

Army of magical elves on wolves

And the ‘I don’t even know’ category:

Crochan witches

Overpowering and overreaching

Section title tells it all. The stakes were too high. I was honestly waiting for Aelin to become Super Saiyan and start to throw planets at Maeve and Erawan. I won’t spoil if this happened.

In my opinion it could be a really great series, if our list of villains ended with Arobynn and King of Adarlan, and the list of Aelin titles with an assassin and a princess. We could have had two main fight plots: one emotional with Arobynn, when Aelin would have to face a damage he had done to her, and overcome it. And the second one, with freeing Terrasen from Adarlan’s rule. That’s it. There was an asshole, power hungry king, who feared magic and wanted to rule the East part of a continent. A lot of plot, but not so much that we stopped to care, or didn’t have time to cover everything. We could really get to know what Terrasen and his people were like and not JUST GET TOLD that it was ‘the greatest place in the world’ every damn 20 pages.

Plus…should Dorian be counted as an ‘army’? It's a REALLY valid question.

Climaxes

IIf I have to write a list of things that disappointed me in this book, this review would be thrice its current size, but one of the worst grievances I have is the complete lack of acknowledging the plotlines that had been started. This book series has overall 4 372 pages (not counting novellas) and 12 main characters (still not gonna address this). All of them had their storylines and arcs but if they weren't tied up in the previous instalments they wouldn’t be in this one. I get it, Maeve and Erawan got beaten (in an extremely unsatisfactory way) but they were only a background in this series' plots.

Aelin Well, Aelin was one of 3 people (+2 paragraf-long insertion from Nesryn and Chaol) who got their own POV’s after the battle (second was technically Rowan, who was ‘Aelin’s POV outside of Aelin’.The third Dorian, who got almost a full two pages). And from this we got that: she got crowned, Aedion got his bond and that Maas have no idea how the city looks after weeks of siege. In her case what angered me the most was ‘Terrasen is my home’ subplot. Only in this tome we read at least 3 times that Aelin will be okay with dying, if only she gets to see Terrasen one last time, or if she get to die on Terrassen soil. But you know what? Maas forgot to write the scene where Aelin actually ‘comes in’.

Mannon Didn't get her own POV after the battle, but here’s what we’ve got: She is going to the Wastes with Croachans and Ironteeth. Whait. What? Yes, that was the ending of this 500+ years of feud. They fought together and they decided to unite their two species, completely forgetting more than half a millenia of slaughter. I can only hope that there were at least some talks behind the scenes… NO! F*** NO! This isn’t how it works!

Rowan, Dorian, Chaol, Yrene, Lysandra, Aedion, Lorcan, Elide, Nesryn, Sartaq Lived happily ever after

Secondary minor and total background characters Survived (I acknowledge that they would be ignored in most books’ epilogues, but this abomination is almost 1000 pages of nothing!!).

Good Scenes

That saying, this book actually had 4 good scenes:

Crochan witches go to war - gathering-forces-to-fight trope, which is my *love-always trope* so I’m not even sure if it was relatively good, or if I’m just a slut for this trope. It was still only a paragraph long though.

[recurring] The children’s tale Aelin repeated to herself to remember who she is.

‘Lorcan Lochan’ - the only marginally funny scene in the whole book

I actually found Darrel making Evangeline his heir charming. Even if circumstances were far-fetched at least.

But the words crime of this book? It was agonisingly, mind-numbingly boring. If the overexplaining and repetitions were to be taken out I highly doubt that there would be 300 pages left.

For these 33 hours of audiobook I suffered through I give it half a star. Because Abraxos exist.

Please see my garishly accurate cover on my instagram! You can also like it there :D

instagram | goodreads

[annabethsgodcomplex]

Hunters of Artemis Adventures: Two Hunters, An Empousa and a McDonald’s Happy Meal

(So I decided to go ahead with the Hunters of Artemis stories thing I was going to do. I present to you my first one. Hope you guys like it)

‘McDonald’s’ Bella said, while pulling her hair back into a braid.

‘Isy, that’s an incredibly random way to start a conversation.’ her friend Maria replied. ‘Would you mind elaborating?’

‘I was thinking that we should go to McDonald’s.’

‘Why?’

‘Normal, non-death related purposes?’

Maria sighed. ‘Like those deer bones we were going to leave behind and you tried to hide from me?’

‘No idea what you’re talking about’, the daughter of Hades grinned cheekily. ‘But the McDonald’s may be for death related purposes. Just a little bit…’

‘Do continue.’

‘You know how we visited Camp Half-Blood the other day and I was talking to my brother Nico?’

‘Half-brother.’

‘Same thing. Anyway, he was telling me how to summon the dead with Happy Meals.’

‘Let me guess, you want to try it. And you want me to help.’

‘Correct. If you help you can choose who I summon.’

‘How could I say no to such a tempting offer?’

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’ll just grab my weapons and some mortal money and we can head off.’

‘Sounds good.’

Bella darted off to her tent and picked up her bow, her hunting knife and an axe she found in one of the trees and decided to keep. ‘I’m back!’ she called out to her friend.

‘What’s with the armoury?’ Maria giggled. ‘You planning a fight?’

‘Nah. Just wanna be prepared.’

‘Fair enough.’ Maria fiddled with the chopsticks she wore in her hair. They had been a present from her older brother in Italy before she’d joined the hunt in the renaissance period. They were all she had left of her brother other than memories. Bella slung her bow over her back and stashed her hunting knife in her belt. She struggled to find a place for the axe. Maria giggled watching her friend try to stuff it in various places before turning it into a silver brooch with a symbol of Hades on it.

‘Nice trick, how did you do that?’

‘Like my sister Hazel, I have control over precious metals. I prefer my death related powers but the metals thing always helps in a pinch. Let’s Naruto run to McDonald’s!’

‘Naruto… run?’

‘Right sorry. I keep forgetting you’re not from this century. It’s an anime thing. Watch me.’

‘Ok.’ Maria said, confusion etched on her features. Bella ran, leaning forward with her arms straight out behind her torso. ‘Now you try Mari!’ Hesitantly, Maria mimicked her friend’s actions as the ran through the woods. They ran to the edge of the woods and stopped. ‘So was that supposed to achieve something?’ Maria asked.

‘Other than fun? Not really. It’s just more fun than normal running.’

‘It’s certainly… interesting. I guess.’

‘You loved it.’

‘I didn’t hate it.’

‘Good enough.’ A cheeky grin took over her features, a glint of danger in her eye. As much as her friend liked to feign a cheeky sort of cheerfulness, Maria knew there was a certain darkness within. Bella had once confessed that she felt a constant pull to do something terrible. She scared even herself. She had been bullied relentlessly by a pack of boys in the mortal world and she joined the Hunt to get away from them and what she’d done. She’d found a new family in the Hunters of Artemis but Maria worried her friend’s darkness might come back if she could no longer control it. Maria pushed the thought out of her mind. She trusted her friend could control herself. Maria grinned back.

They headed into the shop. It wasn’t too busy, they had beat the lunch time rush but the few people in there didn’t seem like much to worry about. An elderly couple ate at a table in the far corner, some teen troublemakers who must have been ditching school hung around together casting glances in their directions before Bella pulled out her hunting knife and glared at them. ‘Bella!’ she hissed. ‘Put that thing away. We don’t need the police getting involved. We’re already sneaking away from camp. Imagine what would happen if we had to be escorted back in handcuffs!’

‘Ok, ok. But did you see the way they looked at us? Men. Ugh.’

‘True’ Maria giggled. ‘But they’ll have got the picture now thanks to you and your knives.’

‘You say the word ‘knives’ like it’s a bad thing.’

‘Well consider bringing knives out in public is considered a threat, it probably is a bad thing.’

‘Touché’

Maria rolled her eyes and went up to the counter to order. ‘Stay here and don’t cause trouble’ she told her friend.

‘No promises’. As Maria went to order, Bella noticed a young girl, around the age of 5 or 6, staring at them intently. She had a Monster High-Style fanged lipstick accessory in her hair. The girl’s gaze was piercing and sent shivers up her spine. There was something off about her and she didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out what it was. When their food was ready, Bella said to Maria, ‘There is a creepy girl staring at me and I don’t like it.’

‘You’ll live.’

‘Look at her! She’s creeping me out. I think she might be a monster.���

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure.’

‘Then let’s get out of here before we get confirmation of that. Lady Artemis will be worried if she finds out that we’re missing and it’ll be worse if we come back dead. You know how she is.’

‘Yeah. I don’t want to get a lecture.’

They left the store and the girl followed. They quickly realized they weren’t going to get out of there without a fight. ‘Maria. Get your weapons ready. We’ll most likely need to fight our way out of here.’ Maria nodded. ‘Need a weapon Mari?’ her friend asked. ‘I brought 3.’

‘No. I’m good milady.’ She pulled the chopsticks out of her hair and pretended to rearrange her dark curls into a neater updo.

‘Excuse me. I’ve lost my mummy and I need help.’ A child’s voice called out. They turned around and saw the little girl. Instead of looking lost or worried, she was smirking and a sadistic light flared in her brown eyes. The smirk turned into a fanged grin. Her voice changed from child-like to demonic. Maria held her chopsticks in and ‘x’ position and they morphed into long swords. Bella on the other hand was having a crisis. ‘Mari which weapon should I use. It’s so hard to pick!’

‘Use your bow, it will give you a better range.’

‘Good idea.’ Bella unslung her bow and loaded it with an arrow. ‘Bring it on Empousa! Fight me like a woman! Or are you scared enough to fight like a man?’

‘Good one.’

‘Thanks milady’ she replied with a mock bow.

Unbeknownst to the girls and the Empousa, Artemis had appeared at a safe distance. She was prohibited from intervening unless necessary by the ancient laws.

‘Well, well, well.’ The Empousa snarled. ‘Let’s see how your so-called immortality holds up against me. I heard you can still die in battle. I’ve always wanted to hear the screams of a dying huntress being ripped to shreds by my talons.’

‘Oh bring it on! I haven’t had a good workout in centuries!’ Maria called out. ‘This is your last chance to turn back.’

‘You talk a big game huntresses. You amuse me.’

‘We’re used to big game. It’s what we do’

‘Your bark seems worse than your bite, Empousa.’ Bella chimed in. ‘Oh wait. That’s for dogs! You’re like what? One quarter donkey?’

‘And 50% chicken it seems.’ Maria smirked, preparing to strike.

‘Okay Maria. On three. You take one side, I’ll take the other.’

Maria nodded. ‘One…two…three!’

‘I normally go for men’, the Empousa growled, growing impatient with the smack talk. ‘But I must say ladies, you’ve earned your deaths as much as them’

A dangerous glint in her eye, Bella snarled. ‘We’re nothing like men!’

‘You just won a free trip to Tartarus Resort!’ Maria taunted. She advanced with her swords, slashing savagely at the Empousa. ‘Nice one Maria!’ Bella called encouragingly, firing arrows at the weakest points on the monster and avoiding its bronze leg. ‘How’s it looking? You got her other side covered Mari? I’m almost out of arrows and she’s still breathing.’ Maria slashes at the Empousa’s donkey leg, crippling it. ‘I’m ok!’ Maria called back, dodging the monster’s attacks and slashing her in several places. She chops the monster’s hand off and calls to her friend ‘Isy. End her! Now!’

Bella stashed away her bow and brought out her hunting knife. She lunged at the monster’s heart, landing a fatal blow that causes the monster to disintegrate into dust. Maria’s swords turn back into her signature chopsticks as she places them in her hair. ‘Good job kiddo.’ She smiles. Panting, Bella turns around. ‘You too milady. You were quite impressive out there. We should get back to camp before anyone notices we’re missing and starts to worry.’

‘We’ve only been gone for a little over an hour.’ Maria pointed out.

‘That may be so, but I’m incredibly noisy and it won’t take long for them to figure out why the Camp is awfully quiet.’ She retorted, flashing her friend a cheeky grin.’

‘Very true.’ Maria laughed. They turn to head back to camp after picking up their bag of food and spot Artemis. ‘Oh. Hello milady.’ She said with a curtsey.

‘Hi milady,’ Bella said awkwardly, attempting to look innocent. ‘How’s the… weather?’

Maria laughed at her friend’s attempt at innocence.

‘Where have you two been?’ Artemis fretted. ‘I was worried sick when I couldn’t find you!’

Maria attempted to explain the situation. ‘My apologies milady. We were just…’

‘Just what?’ Artemis countered. ‘No note. Bows gone! You could have died at the hands of that Empousa! Or worse men could have kidnapped you!’ They all shuddered at the word men.

‘In our defence milady. That wouldn’t have been likely for us but you’re right I suppose.’ Maria admitted.

‘Regardless of if it could have happened or not, I had no idea where the two of you were!’ They started off back to camp, Artemis chastising them.

‘So,’ Bella piped up. ‘Do we get a punishment or is this a first offence sorta thing?’

Maria facepalmed at her friend’s bluntness. Artemis cracked a smile. ‘No my dears. No punishment except for making me worried out of my mind.’

‘Milady.’ Bella said softly. ‘You worry too much. We’re very capable and you have trained us well.’

‘I know my dears. I just worry for you. You and the other Hunters are the daughters I will never be able to have.’

‘I understand milady.’ Maria replied. ‘But we know how to take care of ourselves. You saw that.’

‘I guess you’re right but I don’t have to like it.’ Artemis allowed. ‘Now I’ve changed my mind about not giving you a punishment. You are so cleaning up after the campfire tonight. But if you’re lucky, Thalia might pitch in to help the both of you.’ They all shared a laugh as they made their way back to camp, the sun starting to set behind them.  

[robinrunsfiction]

The Spike In My Heart

The third, and final, installment of the Like A Secret In Your Throat Trilogy

Adjusting to being a vampire was strange. It took almost a week of being laid up in bed as your body healed from dying and coming back a whole new creature, but you finally started to feel better. Your mouth hurt the worst because of the fangs that were coming in and you now understood why babies cried so much when they were teething. 

The first time you drank blood was when you knew there was no going back. It helped that Mikey brought it to you in your favorite mug, but the last shreds of human nature in you screamed to stop, while your brand new vampire brain reminded you of how hungry you really were.  The metallic taste repulsed you at first, but as it slid down your throat, it was as if there was nothing you could ever want more to satisfy your thirst.

But by far your favorite part of being a vampire was the closeness you now felt to Mikey. He had barely left your side, holding you close and whispering about how much he loves you, and how brave you are as you suffered through the healing process. Knowing how much he cared made you even more secure in your decision to spend forever with him. You had been getting that close before he disappeared and changed, but when he came back it was as if he was afraid he would be unable to control himself if things got too heated. Now that you were both vampires though, there was nothing stopping you.

You had just woken up, limbs tangled with Mikey's in the plush bed you shared. Mikey pressed a kiss to your forehead as you started to stir, his hand roaming over your now ever-cool skin. “Evening love.”

“Mmm evening,” you smiled as you stretched.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, brushing away a piece of your hair.

You paused and considered everything. “Actually better than I have since I was changed,” you replied. “Are we still going to meet Frank and Ray tonight?”

Mikey’s expression changed. “Let’s talk to Gerard about it first,” he replied.

“Ok,” (YN) nodded, confused by his response.

“Hey lovebirds,” Gerard said when you and Mikey emerged from the room.

Mikey rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. You, on the other hand, were more focused on what Mikey had told you when you woke up.

“Hey Gee, umm, I was wondering if we could maybe get out tonight, maybe meet some of your friends you guys are always talking about?”

Mikey and Gerard exchanged a look. “I don’t think we will,” Gerard said looking down. “Because everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“I mean I am, aren’t I?”

“Well yes, but we told them you didn’t survive the attack.”

“Why?” You asked, totally confused.

“We thought if they thought you were dead, he would stop trying to attack us,” Gerard answered.

“So I’m just supposed to spend forever here in this basement?” You cried. You wanted to be with Mikey forever, you were completely certain in this decision, but you didn’t for a moment think that it meant eternity trapped in one place.

“No,” Mikey answered. “We’re gonna finish what our great-grandfather started.”

~

Over the next few nights, a plan was devised to get revenge on Benedict, the vampire that had turned Gerard, and subsequently attacked you and Mikey. You would wait alone, late at night in an area that Benedict was known to hunt. Meanwhile Gerard and Mikey would be hiding, waiting to strike. They figured that if they fought together, they’d be able to overwhelm Benedict, especially if he was looking to feed. He might be weak enough for them to overpower him.

“If you don’t want to, you don’t need to be a part of this,” Mikey said walking up behind you and wrapping his arms around you as you got dressed.

“I’m not afraid Mikey,” you replied, turning around to face him. “Are you?”

“I’m just afraid of losing you,” Mikey said as he placed his hand on your cheek. “I’ve never been so scared as when I saw you laying there that night,” he trailed off, closing his eyes tightly.

“Hey, it’s okay,” you comforted. “It’s different now. I’m not as breakable as I was before, ya know.”

Mikey nodded. “I just love you so much (YN),” he replied.

“I love you too Mikey,” you replied before leaning in and kissing him deeply.

“Sorry to interrupt, but we gotta go,” you heard Gerard say from the doorway. Mikey sighed as you pulled back.

“Come on, let’s go get our revenge,” you smiled.

~

You sat on the park bench, alone, nerves finally settling in. It was almost winter by now, but you didn’t even feel the cold of the wind against your skin. Suddenly you knew you weren’t alone, and it wasn’t just Mikey and Gerard lurking in the shadows. You tried to keep calm to appear unaware of the other vampire’s presence.

Before you could even blink, Benedict had grabbed you by the neck and slammed your back against the tree behind the bench. “You think you can fool me that easily?” He laughed darkly. “Oh (YN), your blood was so sweet. Shame you never got to drink it like you planned, Mikey,” Benedict sneered.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Mikey emerge from the shadows. “You bastard,” he snarled. “We’ll make you pay for what you’ve done!”

“What I’ve done? You mean giving everyone you love immortality? Powers you could only dream of? You should be on your knees thanking me, Way.”

“I’m gonna finish the work my ancestors started,” Mikey replied.

“It’ll take more than just you to bring me down,” Benedict smirked.

“Good thing I have that whole immortal family to help me,” Mikey replied. With that Gerard stepped out of the shadows to stand at his brother’s side.

“Oh clever,” Benedict sneered. “So be it. Neither of you are nearly as strong as your hunter ancestor so two against one is almost fair… for you.” With that he tossed you aside like a ragdoll. You skidded across the wet grass into the dark, your head spinning.

In the distance you could see Mikey and Gerard lunging toward Benedict, the fight was on. You didn’t know what was happening, or who was winning as they were moving too fast. Mikey and Gerard assured you that they didn’t want you in the fight, as they were unsure if you had fully regained your strength since getting turned. You had been okay with that decision until you saw Gerard getting thrown, hitting a tree in the distance and crumpling to the ground. You knew you had to help Mikey, or he might not win.

You ran over to Gerard, and found him groaning softly. “Gee, are you okay? Can you get up?” You asked frantically.

Gerard just groaned in response and you knew what you had to do. You reached into his jacket and found the stake he had at the ready. When you looked over at Benedict, he was holding Mikey in the air by the neck, and Mikey was struggling to break free.

You took off running, faster than you’d ever expected you could, another perk of becoming a vampire and launched yourself at Benedict. He whirled around, caught off guard, and dropped Mikey. You sank the spike into his chest with such force that he staggered backward and fell back into MIkey. They both hit the ground with a sickening thud. That’s when you realized how far into the other vampire the stake had been driven. And he had landed squarely on top of Mikey.

“Mikey? Mikey?!” You shouted, frozen by fear of what you’d just done. “Help me get him off Mikey!” You shrieked when you heard Gerard’s footsteps running over. You pushed fruitlessly at Benedict’s corpse until Gerard helped you easily roll him off Mikey and you rushed to your love’s side. 

“Mikey? Please be ok baby, please!” You pleaded as you tore open his shirt. A small cut marked his chest, but it didn’t pierce his heart. 

“He’s gonna be fine,” Gerard said with a sigh of relief.

Mikey opened his eyes and groaned, rubbing the back of his head as he sat up. “What happened?”

“(YN) staked Benedict,” Gerard smiled. “We gotta make ‘em an official Way now, to keep up the family tradition and all.”

You laughed and shook your head before throwing your arms around Mikey. “I’m just glad you’re ok. I was so worried I’d accidentally staked you too.”

“You aren’t getting rid of me that easily,” Mikey smirked before grabbing your face between his hands and kissing you deeply.

~

“Thank you all for gathering here today,” Gerard started and the murmuring in the room quieted. Your heart hammered in your chest from where you stood in the back of the crowd. “We are here to witness the joining of two who have proven they cannot be separated by life or death. (YN)?”

You stepped forward and the crowd of vampires parted and you stepped forward to where Mikey was waiting for you next to his brother. “Hi,” you whispered to him.

“Hi,” he whispered back as he took your hands, unable to hide the smile on his face, no longer afraid to show his fangs like he was after he was first turned.

“This was supposed to happen two months ago, but as you all know by now, (YN)’s turning ended up being more of an emergency situation, but (YN) and Mikey still want to have this moment to commit to each other forever. (YN)?”

“Mikey, when you offered to turn me into a vampire, I was scared at the idea for a moment, but then I realized, you’ll be there with me at every turn. I knew I would be safe forever because you’ve already saved me so many times. I love you so completely Mikey. I commit myself to you.”

“(YN), I was so afraid when I was turned that you would want nothing to do with me. But you embraced me and loved me anyway, even though I was a monster. When I thought I lost you,” Mikey paused, his voice breaking, “I didn’t want to live without you. I was so scared I wouldn’t be able to turn you in time, but you’re here now and that’s all that matters. And we’re gonna be together forever. I commit myself to you (YN).”

You heard a sniffle and looked over to see Gerard drying his eyes and you couldn’t help but smile through your own happy tears.

“Then it’s set. (YN), Mikey, as if you weren’t already, it’s now official. You are joined together for eternity.”

The crowd cheered and Mikey pulled you in for a deep, passionate kiss. It was a long road to this moment, but you were so happy you were here. And couldn’t wait for everything that lay ahead of you and Mikey.

[psyga315]

Fixing RWBY Volume 7

Much like my Volume 6 Tweak, this Volume 7 Tweak doesn’t change a lot of things, but the things that do change will be to be centered around a theme: Who Can You Trust? With the amount of the word “trust” being thrown around, it helps to add more than just characters parroting “I trust you, do you trust me” and “can we reeeeaaaaally trust you” ad nauseum.

Now, normally, I’d begin with Episode 1, but for the most part, Episodes 1 & 2 do a great job setting up the conflict for the Volume. The only thing that would be changed is an earlier introduction to Robyn. Either through a character short style random fight or have the group bump into her during their trip to Mantle.

Also, probably change up how Weiss handles the drunkard because… Yeah, you don’t just fling a guy into the trash bin for being racist after you spend the past six volumes having a villain faction of murderous terrorists motivated by racists attacking their kind. The problem is that I don’t know how. The best I can say is that Weiss tries to do something about it, the dude’s like “wait, aren’t you a Schnee?” and then Weiss realizes “Oh shit, we should be incognito.”

Episode 3

Now here’s where things start to change up. Have a split in the group over whether Ruby was in the right to omit Salem’s immortality to Ironwood. A clear 50/50 split or as close to one as possible. If I was deciding who was on who’s side, Weiss, Blake and Nora would be on Ruby’s side and Jaune, Ren, and Yang would be on Ironwood’s side. Over the course of the Volume, they give their reasons, but I’ll explain their reasons now.

Weiss and Blake’s reasons are virtually the same, with Weiss’s added caveat being that she overheard Ironwood going “OZPIN SHOULD HAVE TRUSTED ME!” bit. Nora would be too pissed at Ironwood to care what he wants and anything to fuck him over is a win in her book, even egging on the other side to join by saying how he disqualified RWBY from the Vytal Tournament and how this would be good payback.

Ren’s reason was implied, but it’d be more pronounced that he wants Salem dealt with now. Not out of apathy or tiredness, but because he knows the Grimm now have a mistress and that the only person who has an actual plan to deal with her is being lied to. Yang and Jaune share their reason, but in different ways. Yang isn’t too keen on Ruby omitting information to Ironwood after they had just spent an entire two Volumes distrusting Ozpin for the same thing and Jaune especially doesn’t like that Ironwood is going to go into an unwinnable battle without knowing all the details, much like how Pyrrha never found out about Salem.

Oscar, Qrow, and Maria would be the middle of the fence. Maria doesn’t care too much about the situation and is just there to help out Pietro, Qrow has known Ironwood more than anyone but recent events had him uneasy, and Oscar just doesn’t want to be hurt because that tends to happen whenever people find out about Ozpin’s many, many skeletons. However, they all have faith that Ruby is doing something right…

The only other thing I’d change with this is giving the outright confirmation that these are the mines that Ilia’s parents died in. Maybe even have Marrow allude to how it was a major turning point in making the White Fang what they are now.

Episode 4

Not much changes, except for Ironwood showing genuine remorse for what’s going on with Mantle and trying to make amends by making the group Huntsmen and having them broker peace to Mantle by helping them out.

The other major change is Qrow not telling Ruby that she’s done nothing wrong. Instead, he warns that Ironwood, while he’s a very valuable ally, is also one whose trust is hard to earn and easy to break. He reveals to Ruby about how Ozpin was put on thin ice in Volume 2 and how Ironwood became the head of security for Vytal. Because the Tweaking Volume 6 showed Summer in the flashback to Ruby, I don’t think we’ll get that here.

A minor bit would be Penny and Jaune talking about Pyrrha, because what’s Jaune’s character arc without bringing Pyrrha into it?

Episode 5

Nothing really changes that much except for a training montage between the Ace Ops and RWBY so that we get that out of the way. Maybe even have Nora note the hole in the wall and get more furious at Ironwood for just leaving that out in the open when a simple patch would fix it. Ironwood would then give a rebuttal that it wouldn’t fix the Manticore problem.

There’s a small change in Robyn’s demeanour in which she doesn’t like Penny. “Just because you’re the protector of Mantle doesn’t mean you’re not another one of Ironwood’s machines. Once I get in power, you’re the first bot to enter the scrapyard!” Like, the world knows Penny is a robot, right? Speaking of, we have Ruby talk to Penny about how depressed she was when she died. Because remember when she broke down into tears over that and had Penny’s death be a major impact to her psyche?

The biggest change would be that whole scene with Winter and Fria. Weiss is appalled that Fria is locked up in a room before Winter tells her that it’s to secure her, explaining how Maidens end up having their powers taken from them through murder instead of the natural way and using the Fall Maiden’s death as an example. Weiss then asks “isn’t that what you’re going to do to her? Why don’t you just do Ironwood a favor and stab her right now?” Winter is silent.

Oh, and there’s no scene of Jacques inciting a riot. You’ll understand why later, but this will eliminate the stupid “riot happens off screen” bit. Instead, we get a scene where a plane flies towards the blockade. They demand to know who’s on the plane, only for Cinder to come out, smirk, and her Maiden eye flares as a snowstorm kicks off.

Episode 6

Not a lot changes here save for the obvious minor detail of a snowstorm hitting Atlas and Mantle (as well as Ironwood receiving reports about his blockade being taken out, thus he tells the group to take the night off while he looks into getting replacement planes) and one major detail: Tyrian’s attack during the rally would be him busting in during a power outage (engineered by either Watts’s hacking or Cinder’s snowstorm) and slaughtering people as they try to whip out their phones to try and illuminate the area. We’d even have an earlier scene where we could see Tyrian sneak in the background as Nora kisses Ren, giving the notion that, had Nora not macked on Ren, they would have seen Tyrian.

Penny tries to fight Tyrian because of her night vision, but Tyrian gets the better of her, even dancing through her slashes and have other people get hurt and possibly killed by her blades, blood being on her swords once the lights go back on. Robyn instantly attacks Penny, leading to Ruby to try and defend her and prove her innocence. Marrow gets the angry mob to “STAY!”, but it’s pretty clear that Robyn was out of the radius when that happened. As Ruby and Penny run off, Robyn gives chase, the Grimm invade, a plane lands without any problem on Mantle, and we get perhaps the largest change in the entire volume: An entire episode gets shafted in favor of one we were promised.

Episode 7

We see Blake and Yang with FNKI when they hear the Grimm siren go off and they go to investigate. Meanwhile, Weiss, Jaune, and Oscar exit the theater only to get attacked by Grimm. The majority of this episode would be them fighting the Grimm until Ruby, Penny and Robyn come in to Blake and Yang’s perspective.

Not sure what’s going on, Blake and Yang fight Robyn while Penny runs away. It isn’t until Robyn rants about Ironwood does Blake stops fighting her, tells her about Ironwood’s plan, and the whole truth Semblance thing happens. Yang confronts Blake on this, to which she gives her rant about how she distanced herself from the White Fang and that what RWBY is doing is exactly like the White Fang. It doesn’t help that, when Yang reassures Blake that they did what they had to do, she sounds exactly like Adam, right down to her saying “It's good to know I've still got you...”

Weiss, Jaune, and Oscar find Ruby and Penny and have a brief moment to reconvene before a mob comes after Penny, demanding her head. In the middle of this, Cinder and Neo look on. Neo nonverbally asks if they should get Ruby while they have the chance, but Cinder smirks upon seeing her scroll and says she has a plan. During a stand off where Ruby tries to proclaim Penny’s innocence, Cinder sneaks into the mob and, with the help of Neo disguising her as an old lady (because what’s RWBY without making characters into two different fairy tale references at once?), tell the group how Penny had been going out and murdering people for Ironwood, showing the group the doctored footage of Penny murdering Forrest and Cinder lying about how Forrest is her (grand)son.

Now in an even bigger frenzy, the crowd swarm Ruby as Cinder slinks into the background. Despite all their best efforts, the people of Mantle get their hands-on Penny and dismember her from limb to limb. The despair of Penny dying again followed by several more Grimm coming in causes Ruby’s Silver Eyes to go off, turning the Manticores to stone (and, if you want some instant karma, one of them could be in midflight and fall on top of some of the more ruder Mantleans, crushing them in the process) before she gets weak and Weiss carries her away, with Jaune and Oscar carrying Penny’s remains from the blinded crowd.

In the middle of all this, Ren and Nora fight Grimm on their own, getting into an argument about how Mantle is being treated. This is where Nora’s rant comes in, not to Ironwood, but to Ren. Ren tells her his reason why Ironwood is their best bet and because of his words, it upsets Nora enough to go her separate way. We end the episode with Nora coming across Robyn.

Episode 8

It’s been a week since the battle and we reconvene on Penny being rebuilt. Ruby and Jaune converse about how coincidental it is, with Ruby being clearly upset that she had to watch Penny die twice now. Jaune, however, elates that at least she’s alive, awkwardly bringing up his dead girlfriend again. Pietro comes in and tells them that it is not as coincidental as they believe and demonstrates by using his Semblance, the ability to be a make shift deliberator.

Basically, this is where I reinvent how Pietro’s relation to Penny works. I’m keeping the disturbing aspect that he slowly dies a little each time he uses this power while taking out the unintentionally disturbing aspect of Penny really being just Pietro in the robotic shell of a young girl. As for who Penny is… You saw this coming and if RT wanted to really make those fairy tale references, it just makes sense for them to pay homage to the very first anime that just so happens to also reference Pinocchio, or at least is compared to Pinocchio.

We have a flashback to Pietro and Watts working on the Paladin project together before Pietro gets a call. We don’t hear what it is, but we can definitely tell from how he reacts and how it’s framed exactly what happened. We cut to Pietro in the morgue grieving over a dead girl who looks similar to Penny and get that hard confirmation that Penny was Pietro’s daughter… or rather was the basis of Pietro’s daughter.

He uses his Semblance, which he says allows him to jumpstart people’s aura and save them from the brink of death. While normally an Aura technique in of itself to awaken another’s aura, it’s another thing to awaken another’s aura and save their life in the process. However, he tried that on a long dead Human Penny and all it did was put her in a comatose state, needing to be put on constant life support or else she’d die. Not wanting to let go of Penny, Pietro invented a means to transfer her aura over to something else: The Aura Transfer Machine. He places Penny into the shell of V1!Penny and jumpstarts her. She opens her eyes and says “Salutations!”

As the flashback ends, he explains how what he did was unnatural and, as a consequence, whenever he jumpstarts Penny with his Semblance, his Aura completely depletes and it damages him. It’s how he became crippled. Normally, the Aura would return slowly and he’d be recovered, but because he had to do it so many times in a short amount of time, it damages him. Jaune says he’ll use his Semblance to save Penny next time, but Pietro brings up the contrast between their Semblances: Jaune just dumps aura into other people, but Pietro is bringing the dead back to life. Even if Jaune were to use his Semblance, all it would do is put Aura into a robotic shell and not Penny. A sad reminder that, no matter what he did, Penny will never be a real girl again. Especially since, as one last flashback shows, Ironwood was more than pleased with Penny and convinced Pietro to turn Penny into a living weapon, something he was very hesitant about.

I’d add that Pietro would die right there to show that Penny has no ‘extra lives’ left, but I feel like RT would do that already… So I’ll say he’s written out of the volume by going into a coma.

Interspersed with this is the dinner scene. Because there’s fewer people going with Ironwood, RT might splurge a bit and give characters different outfits for the scene, like Weiss having an all-white version of her Mistral dress or having Qrow’s new outfit be the outfit he wears to the dinner. Obviously, not everyone gets new dresses, as the Ace Ops still have their uniforms. Only Weiss, Blake, Yang, Ren, and Oscar attend for obvious reasons.

Weiss investigates Jacques like usual, but she gets quite a few encounters, such as running into Harry Marigold (who gets in a heated argument with May and establishes who she is right there and then instead of doing Twitter) and even the Trophy Wife who she tried to kill. They’re brief, but show the consequences of Weiss’s actions. Maybe have the Trophy Wife flee in terror. She then comes across Willow, who, for the first time in Weiss’s life, is not drunk. In fact, she is elated to see Weiss return, but understands why she doesn’t share the same notion. She reveals to have sobered up since Weiss ran away and had done a lot of contemplation. She doesn’t say too much, but she does leave Weiss with the video and guilt trips her about Whitley.

While Watts turning off the heating grid is still in, it’s not the final scene. Instead, it’s during the dinner with Ironwood and the others, in which Robyn, as part of the “get Ironwood impeached” party, brings in someone who had been “tormented by Atlas’s boot on Mantle’s face for far too long…”: Nora.

Nora’s Backstory

Okay, granted, this is something that is operating on information we don’t know yet, so there’s a lot of speculation to go on here. I’ll probably make an update to this once we get a proper backstory for Nora, but for now, this is what I think would be Nora’s backstory:

Mantle had been scapegoated as the cause of the Great War and while they had a hand in it, the real cause of it, the nobles, decided to take their ball and go home by using the Relic to lift their Kingdom high into the clouds, leaving the rest of Mantle to take the fall. The Oz at the time allowed this to happen knowing exactly why they did it, but instead tried to cite it as creating a beacon of hope instead of what it truly was.

As a result, Mantle hit an unstable depression and unable to even be on the same level as the other Kingdoms, essentially being Menagerie before they made Menagerie. This resulted in people starving and dying. Of the few people who remained hopeful was Fria Valkyrie, who proposed life living out in the lands of thriving kingdoms rather than be ruled over by Atlas. She went to Mistral and got a few people into pooling their resources to make a new Kingdom, one that would exist outside the four and be by the people, for the people.

Unfortunately, not everyone shared her vision and some even took her resources to create Menagerie for the purpose of dumping the Faunus there. After she gained the Maiden powers by chance, she was forced to give up her dream by Oz. Her child grew up and inherited that vision, getting a child of their own, moving to Mistral, wooing someone to birth Nora, tell her about how Mantle became a shithole thanks to Atlas, and then head to make Oniyuri with the others. The Nuck came, killed Nora’s parents and left her an orphan, only for her to bring the Nuck with her to Kuroyuri and the rest is history.

Of course, this wouldn’t all be shown and is a rough idea, but the core idea is: Mantle suffered long ago because the people who caused the Great War refused to take blame and went into their floating castle while Oz just looked at it and said “hey, look at this shiny beacon!”

With that in mind, let’s return to the story:

Episode 9

Nora lays down Mantle’s grievances to Ironwood in front of everyone before she includes the two members of the council and Jacques into the shit pile, saying how they’re not blameless. When called out on going all “sins of the father” on the group, she says how they should have thought of that before doing that to Mantle. Robyn attempts to expose Ironwood before Weiss drops in and tries to expose Jacques…

And here’s where major change #2 comes into play. As the video plays of Jacques and Watts having their conversation, it takes a turn for the weird as Jacques just throws Watts out of his house and refusing to hear any further of his offer. This is one of the major scenes that convey the theme of trust. Throughout the Volume, we’re built up to not trust Jacques and trust Ironwood before the tables turn around this exact moment. Now, with the revelation that Jacques refused to work with Watts and Ironwood turning Penny into a weapon against her and Pietro’s will, Jacques is the trustworthy one and Ironwood is the deceitful.

Though, before any consequences play out, it’s all put on hold as news of the heating grid had been turned off. And yes, before you ask, in this tweak, the heating grid is in Mantle and thus is just as easy to hack. The reason why Watts decided to do this now is to make it look like Ironwood is doing it in retaliation for what happened to Penny. As a result, riots and Grimm naturally come. Robyn asks Ironwood why he’s working so hard to hide Amity Arena and this gives Oscar the (unintended) signal that now’s the time to tell him the truth. He covers for Ironwood, then gets him to a secure room to tell him all he knows about Salem.

Especially how she boned Ozpin.

Okay, joking aside… The rest of the episode (as well as Episode 10) play out like normal, but with Ruby and Jaune arriving to help from the ground instead of from the plane for obvious reasons.

Episode 10

The only big change is the reveal that Tyrian is a serial killer here because we retconned the original Episode 7. The only sight twist I can add to this is that he was part of the White Fang, had a hand in some of Weiss’s family members being killed, and that’s why Salem knew of them.

Episode 11

Okay, this is the best episode of Volume 7 so there’s not a lot to change. The only major changes are as follows.

Ironwood confronts the group over Robyn knowing about Amity. When confronted on why he had to keep that a secret, he explains that it was to prevent the enemy from learning about it, like what happened with Watts. When Yang calls him out for lying, he snaps and calls her out for lying.

“Oscar told me the truth. About Salem.”

“What!? He wasn’t supposed to!”

“Then who would have? And when? When everyone threw their lives away for nothing? You’re just like Ozpin.”

And then Salem shows up, gloats a bit, goes yo mama, and Ironwood decides to use the Relic of Creation to send Atlas somewhere else. He’s not doing the stupid thing of yeeting it into space, though. Instead, he’s going to use it to move them away from the continent and towards another Kingdom. When Blake says that they’re leaving Mantle to die, he just coldly remarks that “they did this to themselves”.

Naturally, RWBY protests about this. The funny thing is, The Ace Ops are almost able to convince the girls to leave Mantle… But then Ironwood says this to Ruby:

“After what they’ve done to poor Penny… Surely, you’d agree that they don’t deserve our protection.”

This causes Ruby to quietly turn that comment around:

“Yeah… But after I heard about what you’ve done to Penny… The only thing I agree about is that you don’t deserve my trust.” Before she calls the others and says how Ironwood had gone mad. This leads to the confrontation with the Ace Ops and the end of our episode.

Episode 12

Well… How do we make the worst episode of V7 better? Well, we begin with showing what happened to Oscar. Robots come to take the Relic from him, Ruby comes in and Oscar saves her. They have some romantic tension, but uh oh! It’s Neo! And she took the Relic!

We then cut to the airplane. I should bring up that the arrest warrant has been changed a bit, excluding Qrow, Oscar, Jaune and Ren from the list. Qrow and Oscar because they gave Ironwood their trust and vice versa, Jaune because Ironwood overlooking Jaune would be hilarious, and Ren because of the kids, he was the most trustful of Ironwood. Nora, however, is still on the list due to her standing against Ironwood. As well as Robyn.

This leads to a more natural reason for Robyn to pick a fight: She’s resisting arrest. They crash and Clover calls for a medical team. Qrow and Clover have a conversation about what’s going on. Qrow insists they talk to Ironwood about this, only for Clover to insist he arrests Ruby. This leads to a natural conclusion as to why Qrow fights Clover: He wants to protect Ruby.

Tyrian joins in and the fight isn’t a 2v1 like the original, but instead Qrow vs. Clover but with Tyrian running interference against both sides. This leads to Qrow and Clover teaming up against Tyrian, but Qrow, at the last minute, knocks Clover aura out so as to disable him. Tyrian is kinda shocked at the betrayal but stays around to let it play out, especially since he knows something Qrow doesn’t.

Clover asks Qrow why he did that and Qrow told Clover that sometimes, you have to do the right thing instead of doing what you’re told to. Clover remarks that the right thing is often the hardest and stands firm with his belief that Ironwood will do the right thing, even if the cost is people’s lives. Qrow then says “then he will take the fall.” Clover chuckles, says good luck, then dies because it’s freezing out on Solitas.

Tyrian laughs at this, Qrow gets pissed, he runs off, and the aircraft comes.

RWBY vs. Ace Ops goes about as well as the best of the best of the best going up against a bunch of college drop outs who only had a week or so of training with said best. Very poorly. In fact, the group takes advantage of the team’s insistence of fighting in the White Rose and Bumblebee pairs, curbstomping them by exploiting their weaknesses. However, just as they’re about to be arrested, Marrow takes a look at Ruby.

“You know, I never wanted to actually arrest you guys…” He breathes in. “And I don’t want to.” Turns around and shouts “STAY!” to the rest of the Ace Ops and tells Ruby and her friends to run. As soon as they do, he gets out his weapon and glares at his ‘friends’. Harriet asks why he did this, only for him to reply:

“Well, maybe we were just tired of being pushed around.” He says before he tosses a volatile Dust crystal on the ground and hurts the group, making a getaway.

And the JNPR bit stays the same.

Episode 13

Because this will be setting up Volume 8, this is mostly speculative at this point. But then again, I did the same with Volume 6’s Tweaking before Volume 7 premiered… That said, Volume 6 was more conclusive than Volume 7 so…

Bottom line, this will most likely get disconfirmed by the time Volume 8 rolls around.

JNPR vs Neo stays the same, but Nora and Ren bicker about whether to stay on Mantle and help the others, causing Neo to give them the slip with the Relic and further sever the ties between Nora and Ren.

Cinder vs Winter, Penny and Fria is also a little changed. Namely, Penny takes a blow for Winter that destroys most of her body. Despite this, she struggles to go through the whirlwind that Fria makes and saves her from Cinder. Penny is dying as a result of putting herself through the extreme and with no Pietro to save her, this will basically be her final death.

Fria knows this. She also knows that Ironwood had sent only one person to see her to make it easier for her Alzheimer’s and that Penny is not that person. Despite this, she is moved by Penny’s dedication, asks for her name, and passes on her powers to Penny, saving her life. Ruby flashes Cinder and secures Penny. On the ship during Ozpin’s speech on fear, Pietro wakes up, checks up on Penny to see if she’s alright. Upon seeing that there’s blood on a cut from Penny, he’s at first afraid, but then cries in joy as she had become a real girl. However, if RT decides to do a plot point like this in a future volume where they make Penny a real girl, then disregard this bit.

The final bit (don’t worry, I’m going to the Ironwood vs Oscar bit later) is that Maria explicitly says that they’re leaving Atlas. As soon as she says that, Nora and Blake object. Nora because they’re leaving Mantle as well and Blake because they just had an entire fight where they wanted to stay and fight. Yang tries to reason with Blake, but she just comments about how she’s not going to run. Likewise, Nora is tired of sacrifices after losing Pyrrha. They both leave and go to Mantle just as the plane leaves.

Ironwood and Oscar’s Conversation

Okay, no amount of summary is going to do this justice, so I’m going to include this as a subsection like with Nora’s backstory. This would take place roughly in the same spot(s) as the original. It starts out roughly the same until Oscar pleads to work this out.

Ironwood: There is no working anything out. People have been demanding me to do things their way, to make things easier for them, and every time I try to bend to their whims, Salem and her forces go two steps ahead. The easiest solution is for me to do everything myself.

Oscar: Including leaving people to die?

Ironwood: That’s what Ozpin had been doing for most of his life. You don’t hear people complain about that. Because he kept it all to himself and never told others the bigger picture. Just like Ruby.

Oscar: Ruby only hid the truth because she was afraid of what you’d become if you found out.

Ironwood: That’d I’d become another Lionheart? I’m not that weak-willed a coward.

Oscar: Then why abandon Mantle?

Ironwood: Because Salem’s forces are on our doorstep. If we don’t do anything, then we will fall!

Oscar: No… If you divide us, then we will fall… It’s what she wants, James.

Ironwood: … James is what my friends call me. To you… it’s General.

And the rest of the scene plays out like normal, including the ending of Salem’s forces arriving.

Stinger

This is less fix and more wish.

Marrow stumbles onto a rooftop, the top portion of his face heavily burned from the explosion, and sees Salem’s forces arriving. A recovering Fiona approaches Marrow and tells him how protecting Mantle had just become more complex. Marrow shakes his head and takes out something from his pocket before he fixes it to his face.

“It was never about protecting Mantle, Fiona… It’s about making Atlas pay for what they’ve done.” He turns around, wearing a White Fang mask.

And that was Tweaking V7, perhaps the most intense tweaking I’ve done with five thousand words.

[mxsmwndr]

Little Do They Know

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x PJO (crossover)

Summary: Little do they know, the Great War is only the beginning, and the reason behind Voldemort's doings are different than anticipated. Little do they know, there's a whole other world outside of the one of the Greek Gods' and Goddesses', or that of the wizards'. Little do they know, one so called 'son of Athena' can change the all history (or all future), and one Slytherin boy can do just as much. Little do they know, Malcolm Pace doesn't exist, and Draco Malfoy isn't as bad as he seems. Or maybe... he's worse than they could have ever imagined. (Basically in short form, Draco has to choose between Camp, or Hogwarts. If confused, read author's note)

Terms: X

Warnings: None? If you haven't read Percy Jackson or Harry Potter, there may be spoilers... but I think that's it. People are a little OOC, too.

A/N: Okay, so a few things. First off, Draco is 15 instead of 16, and Percabeth/others are 13/12/whatever. The prophecy of the Seven isn't out yet, too, because it was the prophecy that Lucius was supposed to get (and failed to, so therefore Draco takes his place). Lastly, Hogwarts and Camp Halfblood are in the same country--you choose whether it's America or Scotland, or wherever you want, but Draco still has a different accent than Percy/Annabeth. (As requested by @marieskeez , let me know what you think! Sorry it's not completely the request, it I do hope you still enjoy)

Disclaimer: Idea was a request, so I don't own it. I also don't own Draco, Percy, Annabeth or any other characters/scene. Also, the part that describes the Dark Mark is from Wikipedia... or something like that. I did change a few things, though.

Draco hesitantly rose up from where he slept seconds before, the creaky bed below him causing him to flinch, while he tried not to wake any of his siblings.

C'mon, Malfoy. He told himself. You can't hide forever.

And he was right, Draco couldn't hide forever. Some day, they're going to realize that he isn't a son of Athena. That in fact, he isn't even a demigod. And when that day came, Draco didn't want to be there.

Draco opened an old notebook of his siblings', and scribbled a quick farewell after he took off his sweatshirt. He set it onto his bed. Then, he grabbed his packed bag and fled the camp, pushing the dread of his future away.

--

Draco noticeably shivered as soon as he stepped into the old hotel.

"Are you cold, my love?" A woman's voice asked.

Draco swallowed, "No," he said.

The woman cackled, and stepped into the faint light. "Are you sure?" She asked. Her blood red lips glistened, and her pearly fangs peeked. However, her eyes were still hidden in the shadows of her helmet. But that didn't stop their faint glow.

Draco nodded, scared, like a child. This isn't what Father would have wanted. He told himself.

The woman cocked her head to the side slightly, "Come here, my love." She said.

Draco dragged his feet over to her, and held out his elbow for her to take. The woman did just so, and guided Draco deeper into the Labyrinth, where Voldemort awaited his new tool.

--

All around, demigods cheered for their victory, hugging each other, clashing swords, and even a few scattered kisses from couples.

Well, most demigods cheered.

Annabeth Chase's happiness was short-lived when she realized what really happened. It meant Luke was dead, and Percy...

Oh, Percy! Annabeth's mind screamed at her. Her grey eyes widened, and she sprinted over to where she saw him last, but somehow missed him.

--

The mystery of Malcom Pace was still unsolved to Annabeth and Percy, but they knew he wasn't taken from monster.

At least, not a monster they knew of.

Annabeth Chase paced in her cabin, back and forth, back and forth, until interrupted by the sound of the front door slamming.

"Annabeth! I think I got something!" Percy's shouts echoed through Athena's cabin.

Annabeth shot towards him immeaditely, "What?!" She asked him.

Percy bent over his legs, and panted, holding up a finger to signal Annabeth to wait. Annabeth rolled her eyes, "Give me this," she said, snatching the paper out of Percy's hands.

Annabeth's grey eyes scanned the sheet of paper infront of her, while Percy's expression mocked her. Obviously, Annabeth noticed this, so she stuck her tounge out at him, and proceeded to read.

Finally, she asked "What the Hades is a death eater?" While handing Percy back the paper.

"That's the thing, I-I don't know. No one knows. I... haven't you read anything about it in your books?"

Annabeth looked back to her bookshelf, and back at Percy with a frown. "No." She simply said.

Percy squinted at her like she was crazy, but shrugged it off.

Something wasn't right here.

Annabeth must have noticed, because she walked over to her books, and started to scan though them. Percy followed her, and did the same.

Or, he tried to do the same. Dyslexia didn't mix well with ADHD and reading. Especially the reading part.

"Ha!" Annabeth cheered.

"What?" Percy asked, while scrambling over to her.

Annabeth pointed to a symbol on the paper.

"The Dark Mark is the symbol of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. It refers both to a magically induced brand that every Death Eater bears on his or her inner left forearm, and to the same symbol summoned in the sky by curse.

"The Mark appears as a glittering green skull with a snake protruding from its mouth, which is believed to have been inspired by a Basilisk emerging from the mouth of Salazar Slytherin-- Heir of Slytherin, and founder of Slytherin house.

"The symbol is believed to also may be related to Lord Voldemort, as he is a Parselmouth, and leader of the Death Eaters.

"The original Dark Mark that is tattooed on the forearm is black, while the Dark Mark conjured by spell is green. It is also said that the Dark Mark represents immortality and power, a reasonable symbol for the Dark Lord.

"Inactive Marks appear faint, placed on the inner part of the left forearm. Active ones are jet black.

"As both a sign of loyalty and a way of summoning them, Lord Voldemort placed the Dark Mark brand on his followers' inner left forearms. The full process of Lord Voldemort's allies is unknown, but anonymous sources have claimed that this was done by the Dark Lord pressing finger to any Death Eater's Mark, which turns black immeaditely and delivers a burning sensation. Feeling the burn, the Death Eaters then Apparate to Voldemort's side--"

"What does Apparate mean?"

Annabeth shushed her boyfriend, and kept reading.

"It is unknown whether all Death Eaters feel the burning, or if Voldemort can choose to signal a specific person or people. Well known traitors hhave been rumored to somehow reject their summons.

"The deepness of the Mark's colour is connected to Voldemort's physical health. When Voldemort suffered his first defeat, the Marks on the Death Eaters faded. As he began regaining his strength, the faded marks became clearer, and burnt slightly to some, an eager sign of Voldemort's return. Other sources claim the burn comes suddenly and stings rather sharply.

"Death Eaters could also use it to signal Voldemort by pressing on their Dark Marks, as their lord would do. However, only Voldemort's inner circle is supposedly branded with the Dark Mark, which is considered a great honour among his followers.

"As a signature of their work, Death Eaters can also use an unknown spell create an image of the Dark Mark in the sky. The appearance of the Mark in the sky is the same as the Mark on the forearm, but green. It normally appears where there has been a murder by the hands of Death Eaters or Lord Voldemort. Due to the terror Voldemort and his Death Eaters had brought to the world in the First Wizarding War, the Dark Mark being cast over a location brings deep fear to the community, even after Voldemort's downfall.

"The spells used to brand and conjure the Dark Mark were likely invented by Lord Voldemort. He may have based the spell on the Protean Charm."

"Woah," Was all Percy could say.

Annabeth's eyes widened once again, and she scrambled to her feet, taking the book with her.

"Wait!" Percy called after her. "Where ya going?" He sprinted after Annabeth, into the Big House.

"Chiron!" Annabeth shouted, waving her free hand to the centaur. "Chiron," she panted, once she reached him.

Chiron looked down to her, and smiled sweetly. "Yes?"

"It's about Malcolm... the mark on his arm. We-we know what it is! We can--"

Chiron's face grew pale. "Come with me." He said, his eyes flickering to Percy for a minute.

He led them to the beach, and Percy's muscles immediately relaxed.

"Now, I understand you--"

"It's called the Dark Mark!" Annabeth said. Chiron shot her a look, as if to tell her to be quiet. Annabeth winced in apology. "Sorry," she said. "But it's from this guy named Voldemort... we," Annabeth looked to Percy, as if to say 'him and me', "read this book, and it told us something." Annabeth explained, flipping though the pages of her book. "It said that the Voldemort guy has these... followers, named Death Eaters. And they wear the Mark on their arm. It's supposedly set by a spell, but that doesn't make any sense, right? Magic doesn't exist."

Annabeth stopped when she saw Percy, who was talking to a crab. She rolled her eyes, mentally cursing his powers.

"Okay, well that's besides the point! The mark appears--"

"Uh, Annabeth?" Percy called, backing away from the crab infront of him, staring at the darkened sky.

"Black on their arms, but--"

"Annabeth?" Percy asked again.

"Can be spelled into the sky, which will turn it green, and--"

"ANNABETH!" Percy shouted.

Annabeth froze, astonished at Percy's sudden tone of voice. "What!?"

"Look up." Was all the demigod could squeak out.

Annabeth gasped.

There it was, the Dark Mark, in the sky, with people apparating out of the sky.

"Malcolm!" Annabeth squealed, and sprinted towards the horse stables.

"Wha-Annabeth!" Percy shouted while he dashed after her. Chiron just chuckled from behind the two, and trotted after them.

"C'mon, Blackjack." Annabeth said, trying to lure the pegasus out of his stables. Blackjack looked to Percy, Is she for reals? He asked. Percy just shrugged, "It's Malcolm." He said. Blackjack winnied, but followed.

--

In the air, Percy and Annabeth suddenly didn't feel so confident in themselves. Percy shivered from the cold airs touch, and Annabeth got an 'off feeling' in her gut. (It's called instinct, Annie, but whatever.)

When the couple made it to the Mark in the sky, fear brushed over them. But unfortunately, this was nothing new.

Suddenly, a flash of blond hair flew past the two.

"Malcolm!" They shouted. Startled, Malcolm turned around, but it wasn't Malcolm.

It was Draco.

But of course, they didn't know that.

"What are you doin' here!?" He asked. His voice changed, though. A tad deeper, yes, but it was also his accent.

He was British.

"Malcolm..."

Draco pressed his lips together in an attempted smile, but struggled to hold the expression.

"W-we came to save you," Annabeth mumbled, her eyes drifting towards the Mark on his arm. The Dark Mark.

Draco furrowed his eyebrows, Saving? He didn't need saving. He was fine.

"I don't need your help." He simply said, and tried to fly away. Annabeth had other plans, though.

"No, you're not. Come on, Malcolm. Come back to camp with us. You'll be safe--"

Draco's eyes widened, "Safe? Safe?! How can I ever be safe? Annabeth, I'm sorry but you know there's no escaping this."

Percy thought for a moment, and turned to face his friend. "What if there was?" He asked, right as Draco was about to fly away.

"What... what do you mean?"

"I mean, what if you didn't have to fight in... whatever this is. There's gotta be a way out, right?"

"'Fraid not." Draco mumbled.

Annabeth looked down, "No. No, there is a way out!" She suddenly exclaimed. "There is! And here's what we'll do." Draco inched closer to his two friends, and they discussed a plan.

--

Back at Camp Halfblood, life was no less messier than the usual, but Draco was there to help.

As Draco, too. Not as Malcolm.

After fighting his war, Draco was reluctant to go back to Camp, in fear of what others would think of him. What would they do? What would Chiron do?

The answer was, nothing.

Well, within reason.

When Percabeth and Draco returned to camp, demigods cheered. Again. But this time it wasn't because they won a war.

It was because Draco was back, healthy as ever. He greeted his 'siblings', and friends, but unfortunately, like any other good thing, his joy was short-lived.

"Malcolm!" Chiron said, excited that the demigod returned. Draco flinched, but reluctantly dragged his feet over to the centaur.

"Hey, Chiron," he said, and winced at the sound of his own voice.

"We are so glad to have you back." The centaur said. "But... I've been told that things are different, yes?"

Draco nodded his head.

"Very well. Come with me." Chiron said, and Draco followed, with his head hung low in shame.

"So," Chiron said once they made it into a more private area of the Big House.

"So..." Draco echoed, trying not to burst from emotion. He had finally found a place that loves him for who he is. Not for his mother. Not for his father. Him, for him.

"Look, I'm really, really... sorry." Draco said. "I never meant for anything to go this far, I just... it's so beautiful here, and I actually feel like I belong! But I just, I... I'm sorry." He said again.

Chiron laughed. He actually laughed. "No worries, my child." He said. Draco furrowed his eyebrows.

"What did you just say?"

"I said 'no worries'. Hakuna matata, right?"

"I uh, I have no clue what you're talking about."

Chiron laughed again. "It means 'no worries'." He said with a trace of fondness in his voice. "But anyway, don't fret. Percy and Annabeth told me everything." He paused, and then said: "And I believe you did the right thing."

Now, Draco was more confused than ever. Was Chiron mocking him? Was this a trick? Where's his punishment? Was this it?

Chiron must have noticed, because he smiled sadly at Draco, "I understand your pain," he said. No, Draco thought. No, you don't. No one does.

"But I do believe... you still deserve a second chance?" Chiron said. Although, it sounded more like a question to Draco than a statement.

So, of course he said: "If that's alright, yes."

"Of course." He said. "But I must ask, you're not a real demigod, are you?" He said.

Draco pressed his lips into a thin line, "No." He said. "I am a wizard."

Chiron nodded his head, "And I assume your name isn't Malcolm?"

Draco shook his head. "It's Draco." He mumbled.

Chiron studied the boy, and watched the way his eyes filled with panic. "That settles it, then." He whispered.

Draco heard him, and visibly flinched, expecting some sort of punishment.

"My child," Chiron said. "You don't need to worry anymore."

At that, Draco looked up.

"It will be our little secret."

Draco smiled. "But what will we say when they ask?"

"Hmm, family problems, perhaps?"

Draco nodded his head slowly and sheepishly. I mean, it's only partially a lie.

"Very well, then." Chiron said. "Off you go!"

Draco smiled wider at him, the worry lines across his face suddenly dissapeared, and walked out of the Big House, to find his friends.

But of course, not before thanking the gods.

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 28

Last time: We had a “Surprise, you’re shipping my son and my great-granddaughter” scare, unresolved Season 2 issues gave way to a recap episode, and Beard argued with himself. Onwards!

Straight into the Crush Flower/Spare Flower intro this time (still can’t get over young!Armstrong crying GUH), let’s hurry up and get some answers! A fanged skull being used as a candle-holder? Obviously the laboratory of a reputable scientist! So yeah, Gluttony’s just shown Al into Father’s lab (who isn’t in his chair for once, did he actually go fishing?), Al and Shao are just a little freaked out at the interior decoration. Gluttony doesn’t give them time to settle down though, calls out for Father- What. Oh my goodness. Father is Papa Elric? Who would have ever guessed. What a shock.

Episode 28 - “Father” So! Awkward family reunion time! I’m sure that Al has lots of questions. But surprisingly, Father isn’t that happy that Gluttony just opened the door for a Protagonist, Gluttony’s in a heck of a lot of pain. Father targeting his Stone, somehow? A deadman’s switch if any Goths went against him directly? Oh! Jeez, I’d almost forgotten about how Ed, Ling, and Envy were forcing their way out of a Leto-forsaken pocket dimension. Jailbreak! Al’s a little concerned to see a titanic monster burst out of Gluttony, but is distracted by seeing his brother and the freeloading prince alive. Easy with the hugs, Al! After the brothers get their “OML I’M SO GLAD YOU’RE NOT DEAD” out of the way, time to talk with pops. Who… notes their metal limbs/body, and asks if they’re the Elric Brothers? Hold on, what? He doesn’t recognize his own kids? But he saw Ed in Resembool just a while ago, how- Oh. OH! D’oh, it’s so obvious. Dude’s made artificial humans with fragments of his own personality, is that kind of guy really going to do drudge work when he can pass it on to others? And someone who makes “superior beings” out of himself is too vain to just hire common workers, oh no. Why stop at making only seven Goths, when you can make a couple more to keep the place clean? Yup, Uncle asks if they mean von Hohenheim, is surprised (and pleased?) to learn that the guy has children. More confused as to why they call themselves the Elrics, learning that it’s their mother’s name just has him ask where Hohenheim’s been if not with his kids. See, Beard/Father? Even your clones think that you’re being a jerk. Ouch, Ed’s still a bit beat up from the escape (so wait, are Envy, Gluttony, and Ling just hanging out by the wall while this is going on), and Al’s missing his hand. Didn’t Ed bring that back? Let’s go ahead and- uh. Um. Uncle just Transmuted Al’s hand back, and fixed Ed’s arm. And then Ed’s broken ribs as well. Without any Transmutation Circles, no movement, and without drawing on any pre-existing materials. [Ed/Al]: “There isn’t any Equivalent Exchange!” EEC: 10 And with that, Uncle goes from “quirky household help” to “terrifyingly powerful Goth”. Ling points out that he’s obviously not human- [Uncle]: “I would ask who you are, but I honestly don’t care.”

While Ling stands shocked at the utter disrespect, Uncle just walks away and says Gluttony can eat him. Whoa dude, hold on. Maybe the Elrics can argue that if Uncle wants them to be well, he should spare their friend? Nope, Uncle DNGAF about an insect such as What’s-his-name. Ed? Ed buddy, I know that you’re the hotheaded Anime Protagonist, but maybe this is the time for a strategic retreat? Maybe you shouldn’t attack the dude who can do freeform Transmutation, and who has two Goths waiting just off to the side? Or you could Earthbend at him, whatever. Guys? Guys, please think about what you’re doing. Uncle here is a minion of Father, and he’s powerful enough Transmute without EC. You’re facing the Big Bad’s Dragon here, and the show’s barely halfway through. You need to get out of there, now. Envy’s attacking the kids now, and they’re all but ignoring the Titan!Goth to try and hit Uncle, who at most raises a hand to block Al’s attack, then sends Ling flying. This is not a fight you can win, and I can tell Uncle’s patience is running out. He takes one step forward… Uncle takes a single step, and the sheer force of his power radiates through the room, to Scar and May where they face the chimeras, and even out to Beard himself as he apparently is still on his fishing trip. Point is, dude’s strong. Ed and Al snap out of their shock, strike the ground… ok, good, they’ve finally realised they’re outmatched and are surrendering. Or… not? [Ed/Al]: “What’s going on? I can’t Transmute!”

Oooooh Leto. That’s not good. Not only is Uncle ludicrously strong, but they can make an anti-Alchemy field? And one that’s selective, too; Ed and Al have been depowered, but Envy can still smash them into the ground. Envy mocks them as lower life forms, blathering about how humans don’t even understand their own power. (Oooh, sudden thought. If that implies that Alchemy comes from Truth, and we can assume that the Elrics are gonna defeat Truth to get Al’s soul back, is that going to disrupt Alchemy as a whole? Is Amestris going to have to reorganize around not having magic?). Uncle tells Envy to shut up, then says that Ling may be useful after all. Holy crud, the intro was right. That was Ling standing with the Goths? Hoo boy, Lan Fan is not going to be happy when she hears about this. Envy’s expositing that Uncle’s got the Stone in his bloodstream, and can spread it to others to create Human Homunculi. All Ed and Al can do is pound hopelessly at the ground, crying about how they’ve lost their powers and can’t do anything. But wait! Ed has the pistol! But before Ed can/has to use the gun, Ling yells at him to stay out of it. [Ling]: “I came to your land to find a Philosopher’s Stone, and now this guy wants to give me one! I’m not gonna turn this down!” Come on, Ling! You’re going to go through what Bradley did, stay strong! Battle of the mind again, Ling’s floating in a sea of tortured red souls, when ok here’s Father’s Sin. You… you can do it Ling? Ok, ok good! Don’t fight the Sin (assuming Greed, not Lust), but work with it, be unconventional! [Ling]: “I said come! I freely accept you!” [Greed]: “Y’know, people normally reject me.” But Ling is anything but normal. Future Emperor of Xing here (disregarding the whole “making the guy whose job I want immortal” thing, but whatever). Greed at least is amused by Ling’s ambition. And yeah, as much as I applauded the first Greed for acting so Slytherin (views subordinates as possessions, angry that someone would steal from him by harming them), if Ling does end up going Goth then there’s no better way than a quest for power, to provide for his people.

Ling goes into the light… And Greed wakes up. Damnit. So yeah. Ling’s gone, replaced by the new Greed. Ed and Al frantically plead for Ling to remember, to answer them, but no dice. Greed just stands there and smirks at them. Door? Someone else coming to the party? Oh hey, Scar and May! About time you showed up! Ok, ok, let’s get the important stuff out of the way; Shao reunited with May? Check! Scar finally realizing that the Elrics aren’t working with the Goths? Check! May finally seeing Ed, and all her romantic dreams being shattered in a tragic and hilarious fashion? Check! Gluttony points out the Ishvalan, and Uncle lets him loose. Crap, and they don’t have their Alchemy, Scar’s Hand O’ Doom won’t- work?! And May, too? All right, the effect’s worn off! Or not, the Elrics are still depowered. Well, when punching won’t work, try talking. And what better thing to say that tell Scar that the one responsible for the destruction of his people is standing right in front of him? Scar… does not take this revelation calmly. Like, May’s backing away from the fury of Yoki’s servant. And Uncle’s going to have a bit of a mess to clean up after all this is over. Uncle orders Greed to eliminate the outsiders, Ed tries to run interference and talk Ling back into control, and May’s fleeing from Gluttony. Uncle’s in his Investigative mode, ports right behind Scar to ask how he’s still using his Alchemy. Scar goes for the Hand O’ Doom, and Uncle just stands there, and calmly works through the technique. Scar’s freaked. And almost killed, Leto! May pauses for one second at seeing Scar hurt, and gets struck by Gluttony for her concern. Thankfully Al comes in for the save and gets the protesting May outside. Where there are chimera waiting, great. Ok, Scar’s there now but injured, the chimera are still massed, and both Gluttony and Envy are heading directly for them. Al tells Scar to take May and run, since he’s the one who at least will survive facing them. But Scar refuses and grabs his helmet, throws it to make a spark. Big boom! The smoke clears as Al grabs his helmet, only to get grabbed by Envy in turn. Looks like Scar and May escaped in the cover, so Gluttony’s ordered to sniff them down. Thankfully all of Scar’s HOD’s at least disrupted Gluttony’s regeneration ability so he can’t do much more than lay there and smoke. And OH MY LETO I just realized where the Ishvalan and Xings went to. Hopefully it goes better for them than it did for Martel. Greed’s fighting Ed, Ed’s still screaming for Ling to take back control. Knocks Greed down, challenges him about his country and Lan Fan- OH. That right there, Ling not blocking the punch and just glaring at Ed? Maybe it’s false hope, maybe I just don’t want Ling to go the way of Hughes, but I’m getting a message of “dude, stfu and stop trying to blow my cover” from that glare. Please please please let this be a ploy to enter the Goth circle as a spy.

Greed captures Ed and Uncle orders him to be taken upstairs to Wrath. Accusing them of “treason” and throwing in jail, maybe? Ed’s calmed down now, whispers to Al what he’s discovered/hopes for: Ling is still alive. End credits! Hoooooo boy. Lots of stuff this episode, lots of setup. Looking forward to next week, let’s give Uncle a bit of time to tidy up before the Elrics wreck his stuff again.

[realm-sweet-realm]

Infinity, Chapter 1: Indestructible

This is for an AU in which the 13 characters are immortal.

At first, I wanted to do a simple story about where everyone would end up after a century. Then, I realized that those guys being unkillable would totally change the course of the loops Henry would go through, and how Henry would go through them. So, you’ll get an exploration of the characters and the philosophical aspects of immortality, but first, have some good ol’ fashioned violence and OCs.

Sorry that this chapter’s a little short for the ammount of time it took. I ended up having to split things up differently than I thought I would. The second chapter’s already halfway done, and will prominently feature Sammy going through the sketch dimension on a special mission. Expect it by Friday.

---

It had all started when Joey had sent that god forsaken letter.

Dear Henry,

It feels like a lifetime since we made cartoons together. 30 years really slips by, doesn’t it? If you’re back in town, come visit the old workshop. There’s something I need to show you.

Your best pal, Joey Drew.

And P. S., this is what I look like now. Haven’t changed a bit, have I?

Attached was a photo of Joey shaking hands with a celebrity who’d only risen to fame a couple years ago. The girl couldn’t have been older than 18 in the current year, so the photo had to be recent.

In the coming days, Henry wrote to Sammy asking for a recent picture of himself. Sammy, too, hadn’t aged.

Henry would have gone to the studio, anyhow. Why not take Linda for a little New York vacation? It was a nice place, he hadn’t been in years, and catching up with Joey could be nice. However, he was also curious about whether Joey’s... doings had anything to do with Henry’s own freakish youthfulness. Henry knew that Joey had been up to some strange, highly suspicious stuff- it was a large part of why he’d left the studio twenty years ago. That, and wanting to jump off a sinking ship. Back then, he and Joey had merely been young-looking for their age. Now, Henry was 58 and looked and felt less than half that. People sometimes mistook him for Linda’s son. Linda took that it good humour- sometimes she’d even call Henry “son” as an affectionate little nickname. And, now that Linda was beginning to slow down with age, sometimes Henry felt like he was her child- someone she couldn’t really keep up with anymore. Henry had had pets get old on him, and, well, he hoped it wouldn’t be like that with Linda. Aside from that, though, Henry loved it like anyone would have even though it was getting a little strange. He had always been in excellent health as well- he could bounce back from anything.

When Henry arrived at Joey’s apartment, Joey immediately started talking. “Henry. You look like you haven’t aged a day. That’s good. You’re going to need that. But anyhow, who are we, Henry? I thought I knew who I was, but look where that got me. I let our work become my life. In the end we both chose paths of our own making- you, a lovely family. Me, a crooked empire. And my road burned. And now I have to face eternity with all that failure and sin behind me.” Joey hunched over the counter, looking remorseful. “I don’t know what to do.” Joey looked back to Henry with mournful eyes. “Henry, go visit the old studio. There’s something I need to show you.”

With those words, Henry started walking towards Joey’s broom closet. He didn’t know why, or what could have been in there. He urged his body to stop- he had questions to ask Joey. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even turn his eyes from the door. It was as though he was being piloted by an outside force until the door clicked shut behind him and he was staring into the studio’s sepia-toned halls.

A few hours later, Henry woke up in a pentagram surrounded by coffins, trying to remember where he was and what he’d been doing.

That’s right… I turned on the ink machine… and then that horrible monster chased me. And then I fell.

“Hello!” a cute, girlish little voice came from in front of him, making Henry jolt up. Before him was what looked like Alice Angel- from her halo to her pie-cut eyes to her four-foot stature.

“Uh, hi,” Henry said. “My name is Henry. And yours?” He offered her his hand to shake. She made an endearingly weak attempt at helping him up. Henry got to his feet.

“Alice Angel. You don’t look like you’re from around here. Are you here to save us?”

“Sorry to disappoint, but no. I’m completely lost and I need all the help I can get to escape from here. Could you help me?”

"Of course, sir! Come with me!" with that, the little angel turned to lead him down a dark hallway. At one point, they had to find three switches to open up a door. When the door opened, it was so dark within that it was impossible to see inside. "Oh, it's so scary in there!” she whined, a pitiful look befalling her face. “Can you lead the way, please?"

"Sure," Henry giving the little doll a fatherly look as he headed in. "You just follow right behind me."

No sooner had he stepped into the darkness had he noticed something sticky wrap around his face and wrists. Henry struggled to get out, but couldn't.

"Um... Alice? Know anything about what's in this room?"

Alice flicked on the lights, and Henry found himself eye to eye with a perversion of Edgar, suspended from the ceiling by a black, stringy spider's web. Henry realized that his hands and face were stuck in more of the same.

"Mmmm... thank you, Julie," the spider purred. The white of his face had dripped into where his mouth- if you could call that series of oval-shaped holes a mouth- should have been, and so Henry could see the creature's teeth moving as he spoke. There were tentacles behind those human teeth. "I guess you can stay here, after all."

"Thanks, mister!" the Alice said, making her way to the little fort made of plywood and bacon soup can that she had at the side of the room. The spider's teeth separated, and the tentacles, each with a tiny mouth at the end, went for Henry's face. Tore flesh from his cheeks. Sunk their fangs into his eyeballs. Henry screamed and felt one of them pull out his tongue. Straining and struggling to escape, Henry eventually broke free from the bonds and ran like hell for the exit, closing the door behind him and sitting against it. Thankfully, neither the spider nor Julie were strong enough to force open the door.

His escape had come at a price, though- in addition to being in awful pain, Henry was helpless. Blind. Deaf. Noseless and tongueless. After trying to come up with a plan, Henry came to the conclusion that he was solidly in a place of "wait for death, because there's nothing else to do." And so, for the following half-hour, Henry reflected on his life. It had been good, he decided, all things considered. He'd had a wonderful family, a great career, and met some amazing people. At the end of half an hour, Henry thought he could see the light. But it wasn't "the light." As more time passed, his vision improved, and the studio came into focus. Henry reached up and touched his face- a nose, ears, it was all growing back.

And that's when Henry knew: he wasn't just incredibly healthy and youthful. He was immortal. And in the coming hundreds of loops, he'd make good use of that.

[yoshimickster]

RWBY Volume 6 Episode “Alone in the Woods” Micksterecap-THINGS HAPPEN FINALLY!

Hey everybody hoping you had a good week, mine’s had some bumps but I’m still dancin’ so WHATEVS-lets get to Micksterecap!

OUR EPISODE STARTS OUT-

-with Ruby thinking about reenacting her favorite scene from “An American Tail”, moon and everything-BUT-

2:05 -CAN’T due to Bumblebee angst. Look at Weiss in the middle there, no WAY she doesn’t know she’ a buffer between the two of them. Girl just wants to be warm, why does she also have to be in between passive aggressive romance drama?

Its sad times like this when a girl JUST needs a stable adult to talk to, so she GOES to Qrow-

-aaaaaaaaaaand he’s drinking...super. Way to keep it together, one of only 2 stable adults. He then tells her that he’s okay and that he’ll wake everyone up in the morning because he’s the STABLE adult he is!

A CUT TO-Maria telling Oscar about the late man of the house Bartleby, and how the farming community was going through a BIT of tough times, which I’m SURE he didn’t try to solve by using the dark arts...so sure.

Ruby than tells everyone they gotta go to sleep as they gotta get out of this rejected Evil Dead setting ASAP, which I’m sure Qrow will DEFINITELY be awake to wake up everbod-

4:13 Oooooooooooooooooooooh Qrooooooooooooooow...you got a problem man. That’s an ENTIRELY different bottle of booze. AND-just when you think his drinking problem couldn’t be even MORE of a problem-

-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH she woke up before him and saw him in this state. We’re getting real here folks, we’re tackling alcoholism, WE’RE DOING IT FOLKS!

In a FIT of anger-

-Ruby SMASHES that shit-

-WAKING-his drunk ass up-

-making him INSTANTLY realize he broke a promise due to his drinking...we are getting DANGEROUSLY close to very special episode territory here folks.

Ruby than gives him a sweet hug telling him he could talk to her and Yang about stuff, but like many people with a problem Qrow brushes it off...uuuuuuuuuuuuuh...HAMMERS! Sorry...trying to make a joke here but its just...SUCH an angst fest!

5:36 Everyone else is awake, hell Weiss even welded a hitchemup to Bumblebee(the bike not the ship) with her dust magic so the cart will attach to it! When Weiss learned welding I do NOT know but I’m glad she did!

EITHER WAY everything goes out fine without ANY proble-

-aaaaaaaaaand Qrow’s Misfortune pops the tire (Ruby, HIDE THE BOOZE).

This single deflated tired sparks a chain reaction of mental anguish, where everyone is practically giving up on the mission, Yang even tells Ruby she should just throw the Jinn lamp down the well ALSO-

7:43 These three just...STARE at Ruby until she drops it in the well...like weird sleepy zombies. Ruby attempts to toss that sucker down the well-

-while ALSO sporting a sleepy zombie demeanor like everyone else which I’m SO SURE won’t mean anything later-BUT THEN-

“Hey kid...you like balloons?”

Ruby than drops the lamp, LOGICALLY freaks out about it ALL WHILE-

-these...three sleepy bitches don’t give a SHIT! If you can ‘t tell by now, some CLEAR devil magic is being had here.

Ruby somehow being the ONLY person to not be sleepified, gets her team to join her in getting the magical lamp that the bad guy wants that is STILL a freakin priority! And I’m sure Qrow, being a mature man of body and mind will FIGHT BACK the curse holding them-

Qrow: Everyone do whatever, I’m gonna drink away my feelings.

Ooooooooooooooh right, depression.

9:29 Team RWBY jumps down the well without receiving fall damage, in what is CLEARLY Killer Croc’s level in Batman Arkham Asylum. Get the Poison Ivy spores and then GET OUT OF THERE! The four than search for the lamp-ALL WHILE-

Maria continues to read Bartelby’s diary which I’m sure will have NOOOOOOOOOOOOO relevance at all...absolutely none.

After slightly more emo than usual Blake points out their scroll’s flashlights are useless when they’re looking for a glowing lamp of infinite glowing-

-BAM-they finds that shit, and I’m sure NOTHING bad will happen when they go look for it, not Salem’s crew, not White Fang-bangers, not nightmare Grimm that suck away your will to care about anything creating utter and total apath-

-ooooooooooooooh crap, RUN OLD WOMAN! RUN AND HELP THOSE FOUR TEENAGERS WHO AREN’T USED TO THE SOUL CRUSHING NOTHINGNESS!

OH SWEET JESUS-they’re all bendy and moaning, and GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE! They even freak out Ruby-

-BUT thankfully-

-THAT was enough to wake them up from their case of the SERIOUS mondays. TERROR-the greatest alarm clock of all! Ruby THEN introduces them to the monsters of the week-

-DAMMIT-I wish I could get a better picture of how unsettling they all are, like freaky inky skeletons. Ruby then gives the FIRST volley-

11:12

-WHICH does nothing! That’s what you get for forgetting those super cross-bullets from the character short Ruby...and RWBY in general, what the hell happened to those things? Its even worse when the Apathy uses-EMO SHRIEK-

And its SUPER effective! THANKFULLY THOUGH-

OLD LADY MARIA APPEARS to save the day...by...encouraging them to run! Hey, helping’s helping, I’m not picky.

Maria: LET’S GO LESBIANS, LET’S GO!

Team RWBYM then runs ALL throughout the catacombs, running into more and more of these Grimm zombie fucks and JUST when they get to the exit-

-AND they hit em with another depression wave, they make Blue Diamond look like Holly Blue!

12:29 That don’d stop Maria, the little Yoda that could from trying to open the door-BUT-to no avail! Strong will power has its limits. ALSO-Blake has the most...HORRIFYING reaction to the Apathy’s power-

Blake:...its fine.

While she just LIES down, complacent in the absolute nothingness the Apathy gave them, just CREEPY!

Things are just NOT looking good folks, the music keeps getting creepier, the Grimm keep getting closer, and the PROM is tomorrow! But RIGHT before one of the skeledudes try to Freddy Kruger Blake-

Ruby: NO-not my sister’s almost girlfriend!

WOO-silver eyes-STUN THOSE LITTLE BITCHES!

Things seem good for like THREE seconds, Yang rushes to the door to bash it open BUT-

-they blast them with YET ANOTHER emo wave-RIGHT before Yang could get to the door.

Yang: NO-I can’t reach one of my two almost girlfriends!

Don’t lie, some of you were thinking shippy thoughts with that shot, and you DISGUST ME!

13:54 Once again its up to RWBY Grandma Katara to SAVE the day!

Maria: Ruby, what color are your eyes?

By...asking questions about eye color apparently! Also her goggles don’t look THAT distorted, I’m amazed she hasn’t guessed their silver.

Maria than gives her the ULTIMATE pep-talk, Ruby gets up and REVEALS-

-SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HA GRIMM DISINTEGRATION POWERS! AWESOME! H-wait...did Ozpin KNOW about how Silver Eye powers WORKED? Cos if he did...wwwwwwwwwwwhy didn’t he get Ruby a tutor? Because that is one BAD ASS super power!

Either way it was an attack SO awesome-

-that it fixed Maria’s eyes! HUZZAH!

Yang bashes the exit’s door, REVEALING IT LEADS TO-

15:22 -THE HOUSE...uh, yeah where else would it lead? I’m just saying EVERYONE here is surprised, including Weiss and Ruby who saw the door LAST episode. Man, intense magical apathy must do TERRORS on the memory-WHICH-is actually true for those for depression. They ALSO see-

DRUNKLE QROW-who has been ABSOLUTELY useless this ENTIRE episode due to the Apathy amplifying his depression. Seriously, I want to point out he DOES look worse in this episode than others, most times he was a functional drunk, this time he went full off the wagon.

Everybody decides to logically leave this hellish house of hell-housery-RIGHT BEFORE THE ANIMATORS-

15:37 Give us SHIP BAIT! GLORIOUS GLORIOUS SHIP BAIT!

Either way, Weiss who is absolutely DONE with being scared and apathetic does the ONLY logical thing one can do in this situation-

-SET SOME BITCHES ON FIRE! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH-their gonna toast up NICE with all that wood and alcohol there!

After pushing a belligerent Drunkle Qrow who EVENTUALLY notices the death monsters-

16:26 See that look? THAT is a combo look of both breaking from a plus 10 apathy enchantment AND instant sobriety!

Either way, everyone gets on the cart attached to Bumblebee and they get OUT OF THERE-

...rather...smoothly I gotta say! I mean what is that, 25 miles an hour? Bumblebee has a GOOD amount of horsepower for a motorcycle, wander why Yang had so much trouble trudging it through the snow earlier.

Everybody than says sorry for ever saying they’d want to quit the debatably futile mission of stopping an immortal witch, Maria gives final backstory on the apathy inducing monsters they fought being rounded up there by dumb-ass Bartleby who just didn’t want to pay Hunstmen and thought putting his friends and family into a state of constant apathy was a good idea, bla bla bla-TELL US WHAT WE ALL READY KNOW WOMAN!

Ruby: Ms Calavera, how do you know so much about the Grimm, and in the tunnels you know exactly what to say to make my eyes do that...how?

Maria: Well, isn’t it obvious girl...I had silver eyes!

BAM-a creepy as hell horror episode, more examples of Qrow’s drinking being a LEGIT problem, and SECRETS REVEALED in Maria being a Silver-eyes! DAMN what a good episode, hell the Apathy are almost as creepy as the Nuckaleave, and I LOVES the Nuckaleave!

Either way, fun episode, if you want to support my Patreon or Kofi just ask or message me, SEE YA NEXT WEEK ON MICKSTERECAPS!

[yasminsqueendom]

Antique the Vamp Geek Pt1 Ep12

CW: The usual (stress, anxiety,anger)

A/N: Another good old Q and A

W/C: 1994

So hey, I feel like I’ve gotten away from my original purpose here. Y’all have been extremely supportive in the messages that you have sent me regarding the content of my last few episodes, but I really want to hear from y’all. 

I have had the opportunity to let you guys send me recorded questions. And I have to say, I really love hearing your voices. Y’all sound so cute to me. But, anyway, I have your questions, and I will answer them as I always have.  

Here’s the first one from @errbody.mad3: Hey, Tique! I have to say, I love listening to your show. I think that everything you do and say is amazing. There have been times that I wanted to give up, but you have kept me going with your sass, and strength. How do you do it? But, also, how are you? Just in general.

Hey, love. With beautiful people like you in the world, things can’t be so bad, right? Thank you, kindly, for listening to my crazy ass. And thank you for existing. You don’t know what it means to me to know that with everything that been happening, people like you keep pulling through and sticking it out with me.

Umm, I’m alive I guess. There is definitely a lot more going on than I have the ability to say here. Just know that I am surviving. There are some legal things that I have to deal with between me and my family (my parents in particular). I can't speak to my younger siblings at all. All communications have pretty much ceased. Outside of that, I don't have much to say. 

Oh yeah, and my parents have begun a campaign to get my show off the air. So there's that.

Ok, next question from @tko.winna876: I remember you said way back in the first show that not everybody becomes a vampire when they come in contact with the virus. Can you elaborate on that?

So…..when I was turned I did A LOT of research about what this was. There wasn't a whole lot of info at the time, but one thing was clear: everyone didn't turn. After some thought, I suppose it makes sense. If everyone turned at first contact there would be no more uninfected humans. But, I became curious about people who didn't turn. Apparently, the virus can still hide inside of an “uninfected” person for a period of time. The immune system can fight it. However, if that person becomes ill, and their immune system is compromised, the virus could become active. On average, out of 100 samples, this “reactivation” happened less than once. Similarly, with pregnant women, the chances of their babies becoming vamps were even smaller than reactivation. 

Oddly enough, white people are slightly more susceptible to the virus. But people of color still tend to contract it at higher rates. 

And then there is the population of people that just die. It is a slow and painful death. You end up bleeding out of various orifices and severely dehydrating. 

Then, obviously, there is the population that turns. Your kidneys are basically failing and you can't make new platelets, so you need to consume blood. What manner of sorcery manages to get it out of your guts and into your bloodstream is beyond my understanding. 

Most of the people who turn end up dying anyway. 

The ones that survive can live really long lives. But we aren't exactly immortal. Due to our bodies being repeatedly rejuvenated by consuming blood, we age a lot slower. Quality of blood also affects this. Drinking from alcoholics, or people with certain chronic illnesses can have negative effects on us. We may even experience a high from a drug addict depending on how recently they have used. 

The younger the blood, the better. But I am morally opposed to drinking from anyone younger than me. Just putting that out there.

So, yeah. That's what I know so far. You are always welcome to peruse the website for more info if you like. And there are several forums where older, more experienced vamps will discuss and give advice and survival tips.

Alright, I have a question from @subwaykid312: Will you ever have a guest on your show? Like actually there having a conversation with you?

Ummm, it’s an idea I have been playing with for a while now. I do want to have people come in and visit. Safety is a priority for me though, so I’m always sceptical of people wanting to meet me. Also, I would never want someone to come in if they don’t feel comfortable discussing things on the air. My ultimate goal would be to have an experienced vamp come on the show to talk about their experiences and share resources. And,, I would want to hear their thoughts on government involvement the treatment of our kind. I know that a few more experienced vamps follow my show, and I certainly want to extend an invitation to anyone who would want to participate. 

Here is another question from @lei.lei716: Hey Tique! It’s been awhile since you talked about sex and vampirism. Do you have any other advice about safe ways that we can be intimate with our partners?

Actually, yes. It’s something that has been weighing on my mind for some time. I really enjoyed a lot of the feedback I got on the practicing safe sex. Particularly, when you are infected with a contagious virus that may alter your partner’s life permanently, or kill them painfully.

I think that you should be patient. I definitely will get more in depth with safe sex, intimacy, and all that in another show. Also, just hygiene and upkeep in general seem like a good idea to discuss. Vampirism isn’t all that magical shit you see in movies. Your body still does weird things. 

Okay, one more question from @esthea.312: I remember you talked about getting punched in the face back in Ep 4. I got into a fight with another vamp, and they punched me in the face. And...um… one of my fangs fell out. I’m more than a little concerned with this. I know uninfected adults don’t grow another set of teeth. Do we get new teeth, since we got fangs?

So, this is a really good question. Yes, our teeth did grow and strengthen when we were turned. But we did not grow another set of teeth. If that were the case, then our old teeth would have been sitting on our pillows, and the tooth fairy would have left us a bag of blood as a gift. So, sadly, you will not grow another fang. However, there are some dentists that are progressive enough that they will be happy to create a new one for you. Hell, you could be like Beyonce with “diamond fangs” in your mouth. But, it will cost you a pretty penny. If you can afford it, go awf. Otherwise, try to only take photos from your cute side. 

Which actually reminds me of another situation. I’ve heard that there are some vamps that have their fangs replaced by flatter teeth. It makes them feel safer, and it’s easier to assimilate. Honestly, I have considered getting the surgery done since I don’t bite for sustenance. Then, I realized that people are always uncomfortable with my appearance. Being a big black girl with super short hair, people always feel the need to stare or offer their opinions about my health. So, there is that. At least now, they back away from me rather than trying to get closer.

Ok, one last question from @drea.ds.saint12: Do you have/know of any vamps that have dental issues? Our immune systems are stronger than the uninfected because sanguinilis kicks our systems into overdrive so that it doesn’t have to share us with other illnesses. Our teeth (and bones in general) strengthen a lot when we turn, but I have seen some vamps with rotting teeth. How is that possible?

Well, upkeep is still important. We are still susceptible to bacterial infections and such that can eat away at us. Fungi, and things like that, can still settle in us. The biggest difference between us and the uninfected are that we heal quickly. So, we can still contract infections, but our bodies fight them off faster. 

I know that wasn’t the best explanation, but think of it this way: If we develop an infection, the bacteria/fungus can live on us or in us, but the moment it starts to hinder our ability to function, sanguinilis kicks in and beats it’s ass. That means that, yes, our teeth can rot and we can get rashes and such, but they end up being minor inconveniences. 

Other viruses aren’t tolerated at all. It wants us to survive for a long as possible, and when that isn’t possible, it makes us infect others. It’s vain, but it isn’t stingy. It loves to share.

Alright! So that’s it for the Q and A session, but I did have other updates for y’all as far as our local government is concerned. 

Apparently, there is a vote in the works. The city council is trying to decide if underage vamps should be allowed to attend schools. Now, shortly after the discovery that vampirism was real, there was a push to test everyone who worked/attended schools where the students were under the age of 18. Fortunately, the vast majority (and I mean like 99.99%) of students under the age of 18, and their teachers came up as negative for sanguinilis. In fact, the largest population of infected people came up in the laborers that clean and cook in schools (at less than 3% infected). 

So, at the very worst case scenario, 97% of people who work in educational spaces that taught children under the age of 18 were uninfected. Keep in mind that “infected” in this case means that they were carrying the virus, but weren’t necessarily a vampire. That percentage was less than 1%. And those few cases were all night janitors who never actually came into contact with students. 

But, that was all it took to get parents up in arms. And understandably so, considering the alternative possibility that someone might end up taking a bite out of your child while they learn the alphabet. 

The “vamp ban” as it was termed tried to encompass college campuses as well. But, there is way too much money that goes into have college students around. And private institutions fought against letting the government make that decision for them. All the lobbying and city hall shout fests are what led to things like the testing they are doing on campus here. 

The vote will take place next Tuesday. So, however you feel about vamps existing, get into the ears of your representatives, and let them know exactly how you feel. 

Other updates: I got my results back from the nurse’s office. My results were exactly what you would expect. They came with a strong recommendation that this school may not be the best one for me. But, so far, they can’t legally expel me. It doesn’t matter anyway. I already made the moves I needed to make to ensure that I won’t have to still be there come next fall semester. 

So, fuck this school.

Lastly, I keep getting all these random threats, and all I can say to y’all is this: the more lives I save by speaking about our issues, the better I feel. And you can shove an entire bag of dicks right down your throat. I literally don’t care what you have to say about anything I do.

Ok, so that is it for today. 

I love you all endlessly. Please stay moisturized and hydrated. 

Look out for one another,

Love Tique.