#people don't talk about the dark side of gardening which is what happens when you have a 30 year old plant you can't let loose

[confinesofmy]

when spring is sprung next year i'm tearing my stupid fuck huge cactus apart. i'm tipping her onto her side and either cutting and beating the pot apart or jiggling until she falls out of it and i am tearing her segments apart from each other to go into other pots. at least. it's this or planting her in the ground and simply letting nature take its course next winter. like i'm not playing no more, she's killing me.

[whipped-for-kpop-fics]

Naive - L.C

💡Who: Lee Chan (Seventeen) x female reader 💡What: Best friends to ??? Angst. Thriller. Soft moments. Dark themes (please check warnings). 18+ 💡Word count: 11.5k 💡Warnings: Profanity. Stalking. Nonconsensual voyeurism. Nonconsensual photos. Cheating. Major injury (Not Chan or reader). Mentions of a car accident. Mentions of sexual harassment. Mentions of panic attacks and almost panic attacks. No smut, but suggestive content, some dirty talk and mentions of sexual acts. Very morally dark character. Drugging. Kidnapping. Restraints. Chan calls reader angel a lot (mostly because I don’t wanna use y/n), and baby in the second half.

Summary: Breakups are always painful, but at least you have your best friend by your side to make everything better. Right?

Minors do NOT interact, which means reblogging and/or commenting on this story. I WILL block any account that interacts without an age indicator in their bio.

-2024 Masterlist-

A/N- I know nothing about flower meanings, it all came straight from Wikipedia so don't blame me for inaccurate meanings, it's just a fic.

“It’s okay, he’s in the past, he’s not worth your tears,” your best friend soothes as you cry into his chest for the third night in a row.

“I-I should’ve li-listened to you,” you sob, gripping his t-shirt tighter and curling up smaller.

“It doesn’t matter now; what matters is you ended it and never have to deal with that asshole again.”

“A-asshole is too kind.”

Chan chuckles and tilts his head against the top of your head yet says nothing more and simply continues to hold you until you run out of tears for your cheating, pervert of an ex-boyfriend. Proving once again that Lee Chan is the only man you can ever trust to be good and honest.

Over a year ago, you met Lee Chan while in the gardening section of the bookstore. It was a cliché romcom moment where you both reached for the same book and your hands met before your eyes did. He smiled at you with a soft little chuckle and said something like “guess we both want to know what Victorian people thought flowers meant”, which somehow led to you both buying a copy of the book on the Victorian language of flowers to take to the nearby coffee shop with the intention of reading side by side. Though very little reading happened, and you found yourself sitting there with Chan for hours; laughing and talking as if you’ve known one another for years. It was like he was made to be the other half of you, designed with only you in mind.

At first, you thought maybe it was true; that Chan was your romantic soulmate. But you were seeing someone else at the time and pushed the thought of Chan being anything but platonic entirely out of your mind.

It’s a year and multiple failed relationships later, while you’re out shopping on a rare day off, that something changes.

“What do you think of this one?” Chan asks, drawing your attention to where he’s a few racks away donned in the black, leather biker jacket he just found on the men’s sale rack.

“Oh,” you murmur, suddenly hit with the realisation that your best friend is ridiculously attractive.

It’s not that you’ve ever thought Chan is ugly; in fact, you first paid attention to him in the bookstore past a glance because of how handsome he is. But that was over a year ago and your thoughts have never moved on from considering him the same kind of beautiful as you would a piece of art that you see in a store, yet easily move on past without looking back.

Yet now, you’ve noticed and suddenly can’t draw your eyes away from him.

“Hello?” Chan laughs, waving his arms to bring you back to reality when you do nothing more than stare at him for almost a full minute. “You alright? Getting hungry?” He pouts at you teasingly. “Does the baby need num nums?”

“I hate it when you say that” you remind and stick your middle finger up at him, making him laugh while you turn back to the sale rack you had been looking through.

“I know, why do you think I say it?” He cackles and bounces over to prod you and gain your attention back. “You didn’t say what you think? Do I look sexy?” He wiggles his eyebrows at you while posing in the jacket. “Should I get it?”

“Yeah,” you answer with a nod after taking his body in once more and turning away.

“Was that yes to getting it, or that I look sexy?” He murmurs from suddenly behind you with his mouth right by your ear. You jolt in surprise having not heard him approach, then turn to whack his arm while he cracks up laughing. “You think I’m sexyyy!” He sings loudly, just to annoy you.

“Why are we best friends again?”

“I took pity on you and your bad taste in men.” He definitely deserves the hit this time, even if he’s right.

Ever since you’ve known Chan, you’ve had nothing but terrible luck with picking men to date. You always think they’re okay at first, but then the red flags start popping up and begin waving manically in the hot air spewing from their mouths.

You really thought you had run out of bad luck and finally picked a good one with your ex. He was kind and endlessly attractive; a hard worker, yet always made time for fun and relaxation; and his parents loved you.

It lasted a whole seven months before you found another woman’s underwear in his car, and you realised you should’ve listened to Chan’s gut feeling about Kyle from the start. Finding a stack of polaroids of various women getting changed when you were emptying his apartment of your belongings that same night only made the heartache worse. Not only did he cheat on you, but he also likes to take photos of unsuspecting women through windows and cracked doors.

Upon turning your back on him three weeks ago, you decided to give up on men and always listen to Chan’s gut instincts from now on.

You don’t need a boyfriend; you just need your best friend.

Just when you’re about to leave your apartment building to meet with Chan for lunch one day, you come face to face with your ex. He looks, frankly put, like shit. He used to be so well put together, never to an obsessive degree but he was always well rested and tidy, but now he looks like he hasn’t slept or eaten in at least two days with his hair sticking up a little as if he’s been running his hands through it repeatedly. He’s still wearing nice clothes, but they’re creased, and his shoes aren’t even properly tied.

“What are you doing here?” You hiss while glaring at the man and trying to step past him, but he gets in your path with his hands held up placatingly; he even doesn’t attempt to touch you or get in your personal space.

Vaguely, you think how weird it is of him to respect that boundary yet have polaroids of you half naked in the changing room at your gym. A completely separate gym to the one he frequents too, which somehow makes it even worse; that he went so far out of his way to take the photos you never consented to.

“I just want to talk to you, please? Just a few minutes and I’ll go, and you’ll never see me again,” he pleads. The genuine desperation in his eyes makes you relent and nod. “Can we go somewhere a little less public? I’m not asking to go somewhere isolated, just not the middle of the building lobby.”

Again, you relent and move to the side of the lobby out of the light foot traffic; still perfectly in sight of others yet far enough away to have a private conversation.

“Thank you,” he breathes out gratefully and relaxes a little as you lean one shoulder against the wall with your arms crossed over your chest.

“What is it? I’m going to be late to meet Chan.”

“Right, how is he?”

“Good, it’s Chan. He’s always good.” The words are a little pointed, designed to hurt, and the way his features flinch at the jab sends a little surge of satisfaction into you. Though there’s something in you aching at that same hurt in his eyes; it looks too real.

“Yeah, he’s a good guy,” he agrees softly, and you hum. “So uh, I just…I can’t stop thinking about what happened.”

“Cheating on me or taking photos of women without their consent?” You question, glaring again at the reminder of why you want nothing to do with this man before you. This pathetic, sad eyed, mess of a man.

It’s funny how far he’s fallen in so little time. Strange how a man who cheated on you in the backseat of the same car he often pulled you into with shared giggles, can break so much at being called out on his misdeeds.

You really thought he would just move on to the next conquest and forget all about you for good, just like he did while with the other woman. Or women. You never asked how many there were.

Yet the man before you doesn’t seem to have moved on at all.

“I didn’t do either of those things,” he repeats the words he had said to you a little over a month ago. You didn’t believe him then; you were so full of anger and betrayal as you tried to cradle the pieces of your shattered heart and hoped he hadn’t stolen any of the pieces leaving you unable to stitch it back together again.

Now that you’ve let go of most of your anger and Chan has helped you in putting the pieces back together to the point that your heart is almost whole and healing, you can see through the pain and tears and notice that this man in front of you looks genuine. He’s looking at you without any attempt to look aside or shrink away. He isn’t hiding.

“I found underwear in your car Kyle,” you point out, holding your ground even if you suddenly realise that something here doesn’t feel right. “And those photos in your apartment.”

“I know, I know, and I’ve been trying to figure out how the fuck they got there because it wasn’t me.”

“You live alone and don’t share your car.”

“I know!” He exclaims, hands flying up in frustration, though it doesn’t feel like it’s aimed at you, especially as he steps back to make certain that he doesn’t accidentally hit you. Kyle’s always been considerate like that; always made sure to give you a wide berth when he flung his arms around in play or frustration. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be a cheating pervert. A man can be against physically harming his partner and still betray their trust so deeply.

“Then only you could’ve put them there.”

“No, no, I didn’t though,” he steps closer while lifting his hands between you, though he brings them to his own chest instead of touching you. “Look me in the eye and tell me I have ever done a thing to make you think I would cheat on you or take photos without consent. I never even asked you for pictures; you were the one who offered and asked if you could send me pictures months into our relationship.”

The thing is, he’s right. Although you did have sex regularly and he would send you dirty texts when he was in the mood, Kyle never asked for nudes. You had to be the one to bring it up and ask if he was against that kind of thing.

Now that he brings it up, you can vividly recall him telling you that does enjoy nudes and would certainly enjoy seeing photos of you like that, but he also knows how dangerous they can be to send and receive because of hacking, losing phones or breaking up. He had been so genuine about it and triple checked that you were comfortable with it entirely before giving you consent to send him photos whenever you wanted.

“You had those polaroids, you didn’t need me to send you any,” you reason in a mumble. You don’t even know if you believe what you’re saying at this point, or if you’re just trying to explain the behaviour away. Something isn’t sitting right in you.

“Why would I want polaroids of random women I don’t even know when I have you?” He asks, eyes silently begging you to understand.

“There were photos of me too,” you answer.

“What?” He frowns confusedly. “I didn’t see those, just the top ones before you took them all away.”

“You know I was in there, at the gym changing rooms.”

“I’ve never been anywhere near your gym!” He puts his face in his hands. “I don’t understand what the fuck is going on. I swear I have never been to your gym.” He looks at you imploringly as his hands drop. “And you know I keep my car clean, there’s no way I would’ve failed to notice that underwear; so if I did cheat on you, do you really think I’d miss the evidence and leave them somewhere you’d see them?”

You open your mouth to retort automatically, only to realise there isn’t a single word ready to roll off your tongue. He’s making far too much sense and that doesn’t make sense.

He cheated on you. He’s a pervert who takes photos of unsuspecting women in vulnerable situations. He’s a terrible person.

At least, you thought he was.

Maybe Chan is right and you’re just naïve when faced with a handsome man giving you big puppy dog eyes.

“I need to go,” you decide after a few long moments of trying to form some kind of reaction other than staring at him with furrowed brows. “Chan’s waiting.”

“Right,” Kyle lets out a disappointed sigh, yet nods resignedly and steps back as if giving you space to leave. He hadn’t been in your way in the first place but it’s a silent sign that he won’t try to stop you. “I guess I can’t say anything else to convince you that I didn’t do those things, and I never would. I…I wanted to marry you, you know?”

“What?” You whisper in shock, eyebrows lifting as your eyes turn wide. “Marry me?”

“Yeah,” he lets out a soft, humourless laugh and runs one hand through his hair while looking aside, a shy flush creeping onto his neck and ears. “I was in love with you.”

“You were?”

“Yeah, well, no, actually, that’s a lie.” He looks at you and catches the way your face falls into a frown hearing him admitting to lying to your face like that. “I’m still so fucking in love with you that I can’t function properly knowing you hate me. I’m not asking you to come back to me; I know that won’t happen. I’m just…asking you to really think about it, about us, and me. I never lied to you, never showed you a false me. You know me better than anyone else. Do you really believe I did those things?”

“What took you so long?” Chan pouts at you when you sit down in your usual seat opposite him at your usual table in your usual café. “Angel?”

“Uh, so Kyle was at my apartment,” you inform, picking up your mug that’s been waiting for you for ten minutes already thanks to Chan always ordering for you both. Usually you arrive minutes before your food and drinks arrive, but today you’re late for the first time.

“What?” Chan’s face drops so drastically it throws you off for a second. You’ve never seen such a dark expression on him; you’ve never seen him so entirely void of any light. He doesn’t look like your best friend. “Your apartment? Did he force himself in? Did he hurt you?”

“No, no, I meant the lobby and no, he’s never hurt me. He wouldn’t do that.”

“He cheated on you, took fucking creeper shots of you in your gym and you think he’s above putting his hands on you?” He scoffs, shaking his head a little and pushes the salt across the table to you. You hadn’t asked for it, but you will before you start eating.

He’s always doing thoughtful little things like that for you, but you’ve never really noticed it until the last weeks. Silently noticing what you need and giving it to you with a smile.

But he’s not smiling now. He looks concerned now, rounded eyes locked on you and head tilted down a little as he frowns, almost looking at you through his eyelashes. “I don’t want to be mean or anything, but he fooled you before, angel, he’s clearly trying to do it again. I don’t know what he said to you, but you’ve got that lost look you get when you don’t know what to do.”

“He made good points, Channie,” you reply as you salt your fries before putting the shaker down. Chan doesn’t even look at it past a quick glance before sliding it back to its home out of the way.

“What good points could he have for cheating on you?”

“He said he didn’t do it-” Chan sighs heavily, cutting you off.

“Angel, he said that before, remember? Why do you suddenly believe that piece of shit?”

“Because…he looked honest.”

Chan stares at you for a moment before he sighs and reaches over to hold your hands. “I say this with all the love in me, but you’re not the best judge of character, angel. You’re naïve, innocent. I love that you see the good in the world and everyone, really, I fucking love it; it’s really sweet and cute. But it’s going to get you hurt all over again if you let him fool you like this.”

You look down at your hands in Chan’s, then back up at his face. His gaze is entirely open; big eyes and soft, naturally pouting lips. Your heart skips a beat.

You look away while nodding in understanding, silently telling him that you’re listening to him as you free your hands so that you can pick up your fork.

“Good, I really don’t want to see you hurt again like that. It broke my heart,” Chan says, relaxing as he picks up his own fork to stab too many fries onto the prongs, which he then points at you. “If you break my heart again like that, I’m stealing your TV.”

“My TV?” You sputter in surprise before laughing. Chan grins around the too many fries in his mouth and nods. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You love me though,” he sings around his mouthful while stabbing more fries.

Even with the view of his partially chewed food in his mouth, you can’t really deny it.

“No! Stop it!” You giggle while trying to block Chan from entering your kitchen behind you. “It’s not ready!”

“Just tell me what you’re doing!” He replies, laughing along with you as he tries to dart around you.

“Not yet! Just wait, you impatient shit!”

“No!” He wraps his arms around your waist to pull you away from the doorway and spin you both, so his back is to the kitchen now instead of yours. “Ha!”

“No!” You gasp and reach out, grabbing fistfuls of his t-shirt and in a panic, you yank him closer harshly, unintentionally making him stumble into you.

“Shit, are you okay?” He worries once you’re both steady and he’s holding your upper arms to nudge you back just enough that he can look at your face. You’re frowning, though he can only see your furrowed eyebrows thanks to your hand being over most of the bottom half of your face to cup your nose as his shoulder had collided with it. “Oh, did I hurt you?”

“Asshole,” you murmur while nodding, even if it doesn’t hurt that much; you just honestly like being doted on by your best friend to the extent that you are willing to play up minor injuries to gain his gentle touch and attention.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to,” he apologises, frowning at you as he carefully tugs your hand down. “Let Doctor Channie see.”

“You’d be a terrible doctor,” you reply, moving your hand down to let him cup your face so that he can tilt your head into the light coming in through the windows and see your features better.

“What? I’d be great!” He defends, pouting at you offendedly.

“You thought the uvula is what you pee from.”

“It’s not my fault!” He blushes a little at the reminder of his innocent mix up. “Nobody told me that dangly thing isn’t tonsils! And the pee pipe thingy starts with a U too!”

“Urethra.”

“Exactly, they’re so similar! They should name them differently. Anyway, that doesn’t mean anything, I’d still be a good doctor.”

“Yeah, until you try to catheter someone’s throat.” His expression turns unimpressed, and you can’t help but giggle. He rolls his eyes as his lips turn up into a smile.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” he murmurs, turning his attention back to your slightly red nose.

“Mm, so what’s the verdict doc?” You tease, poking at his stomach and trying not to focus on the physical reminder that your best friend has abs under his baggy clothes.

“I think you’ll be okay with the right treatment.”

“And what treatment is that?”

“The best thing for a boo-boo,” he replies seriously, and then visibly nearly breaks into a laugh at the almost glare you land on him. “What?”

“I’m not a baby.”

“Yes you are. My baby,” he coos and taps his thumbs to your cheeks. You hope he doesn’t see or feel the way they warm at his words. “I specialise in baby angels, I know this.”

“You’re seriously ridiculous.”

“Mm, so, are you consenting to Doctor Channie’s effective boo-boo treatment?”

You raise an eyebrow at him. “You haven’t told me what it is yet.”

“You know what the treatment for a boo-boo is, angel,” he chuckles and tilts forward to press a soft kiss to the tip of your nose. “Like that.”

“I didn’t consent to that treatment, I can sue you,” you mumble, trying to distract from the growing pink on your cheeks. Chan’s eyes glide over your features, lips turning up into a soft smile. “Stop smiling at me like that!” You whine, slapping his waist so gently that it can’t even be classed at a slap, more like you’re just putting your hands on his waist with a little force.

“But you’re so fucking cute,” he reasons, smiling wider. “My cute baby,” he murmurs lowly and brushes his nose against yours gently. Your breath hitches at the tender action while your fingers curl reflexively to loosely grip his t-shirt. “Do I have consent to administer treatment, angel?” He whispers, lips so close to yours that you can almost feel them moving as he talks.

“I…” Just as you start to nod, your phone starts to ring in the kitchen, making you jump in surprise and jolt away from Chan in a natural reaction to the unexpected noise. “I should get that.”

“Right,” Chan mutters, dropping his arms to his side with a disappointed frown as he watches you scoot around him to enter the kitchen.

When you pick up your phone from the counter, you’re more than just a little surprised to see your ex’s mother calling you.

You haven’t heard from her since the breakup when she messaged you to say that she doesn’t know what happened, but she hopes that you and her can still be friends as she values you so highly. You hadn’t responded then; you hadn’t wanted to interact with anyone who you knew through him, even if you had regret ghosting her afterwards because she genuinely is such a lovely woman who always treated you lovingly.

Still, even with the period of no contact between you, you pick your phone up to answer the call. “Hello?”

“O-oh thank goodness,” the still familiar voice sobs in relief.

“Auntie? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Kyle, there-there’s been an accident.”

Just over an hour after receiving the call, you’re tucked up in between Kyle’s parents on the couch of the private room with their arms around you, both of them crying for their son as you do your best to comfort them while feeling numb yourself. You’re too in shock at the sight of the heavily injured man laid unconscious on the bed to process it.

When you had arrived with Chan right behind you, the pair had just about managed to tell you through their tears that Kyle had been driving to work that morning when another vehicle had violently run him off of the road.

It had been on such a quiet road so early that nobody else was around; no witnesses to give details of the other car, nor to run to his aide or call for help. By the time someone found the wreck in the ditch, it had been long enough that too much damage had been done.

And now, even after hours of surgery, there’s no knowing if Kyle will make it through the night, let alone wake up again. There’s only waiting.

So, you wait.

“They’ll call if there’s any sign,” Chan reminds as he helps you out of your jacket. “You spent two days by his side, angel, there’s nothing more you can do for him. He’s not your responsibility or person to care for anymore. His parents and sister are there, and they promised to call you.”

“I know,” you reply, moving woodenly as Chan leads you through your apartment to the kitchen with his hand in yours to keep you moving.

He flicks on the light and falls still at the sight of the mess you left on the counter from leaving so quickly three evenings ago to get to the hospital. He never learned what you had been refusing to let him see until now. “Cake,” he murmurs, noticing the half decorated cake on the counter, surrounded by all the items you had been using to decorate it.

“For your new job,” you reply with a shrug. “It’s no good now. Sorry, I’ll buy you a replacement tomorrow.”

“No, no, you don’t have to. Just knowing is enough for me,” Chan assures, turning to bring you in to hold against his chest where you melt against him with an exhale. “I appreciate the thought and effort you went to, angel; that means more than a store bought cake ever could.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t finish it.”

“It’s not your fault. Let’s order something for dinner and while it’s on its way, I’ll clean this up while you go shower.”

“Do I smell?” You mumble against his shoulder.

“Like sadness,” he retorts with a joking edge to his sombre tone that makes you jab your fingers into his waist in scold. He yelps and contorts away from your fingers without releasing his arms from around you. “And meanness.”

“Meanness,” you repeat, scoffing a short laugh and leaning back from his shoulder to look at him.

“Yes. It’s mean to take advantage of my weak spots.”

“You do it to me all the time.”

“Yes, but you’re the nice one, my angel,” he coos, pinching your cheek before he lets you go to nudge you out of the kitchen while you try to recall just when it got so normal for Chan to call you his.

Since becoming best friends with Chan, it’s not unusual at all to return home and find him in your apartment as if he owns the place. Honestly, you genuinely think he spends more time in your apartment than his own, especially the past couple months. The couch is practically his bed at this point.

What is very unusual however, is to arrive home to find the door slightly open and hear another voice talking with Chan from inside your apartment.

“Chan?” You call in a cautious, soft voice as you nudge the door open and peer around it.

“Hi, angel, welcome home,” Chan greets, smiling at you and motioning you to join him opposite the two uniformed police officers standing and talking to him in the entrance hall.

“What’s going on, Channie?” You ask as you stand at his side and cling to his hand while remaining just a little behind him and away from the officers. They’re both taller than you and Chan, with one of them being thick with muscle and rather intimidating. Though when he smiles at you in polite greeting, most of the fear melts away.

“This is Officer Choi Seungcheol and Officer Chwe Hansol, they’re here to talk to you about Kyle,” Chan explains, motioning to each man in turn.

“Is there news on who ran him off the road?” You ask, looking at the two men with hope in your eyes and chest. It’s been over a week since the incident and there hasn’t been any more information about who put Kyle into such a devastating condition.

The last you heard, they had managed to get sight of a damaged SUV in the general vicinity from CCTV a handful of roads away, but the plates turned out to be stolen from another car across the country over a year ago and the windows were blacked out so there’s no way to tell who was driving the car. Whoever it was clearly knows the streets well enough that they escaped the CCTV quickly and the vehicle hasn’t shown up since. Nor has one matching the description been scrapped or sent to be fixed.

“That’s not our department,” the intimidating officer, Seungcheol, replies while giving you another gentle little smile. “I’m afraid we’re from the sexual crimes division, ma’am.”

“Sexual crimes?” You whisper in shock. “Wh-what?”

“We’ve received reports that Kyle has sexually harassed and stalked multiple women over the past year.”

“No, he-he wouldn’t-” you argue, shaking your head as your hands start to tremble ever so slightly, so you hold onto Chan’s hand tighter with both of yours to try and cease the shuddering movements. “You’re wrong.”

“I understand that it’s hard to hear these things about someone you thought you knew, but we have to follow up every lead we have to get all the information we need to press charges.”

“He’s in a hospital bed!” You baulk and let out an incredulous laugh. “You want to charge a man who might not even wake up? What kind of a person are you?!”

“It’s not our choice, ma’am. We’re just doing our jobs and trying to get justice for the victims.”

“I’m not having any part in this. I have nothing to say to you. He never did a thing wrong to me. Get out,” you insist, pointing to the door. “I’m not going to let you bring these accusations into my home without proof.”

“We have proof,” the other officer speaks up, earning a slightly disapproving look from his partner, but he isn’t stopped. “We saw proof ourselves; photos of women taken from outside of windows and other positions that clearly show a lack of consent. And a hidden, digital diary alluding to the acts that match up with statements we received from victims.”

“Photos?” You repeat disbelievingly.

“Yes ma’am, and I’m afraid you were in some. Based on the angle and quality, we believe the photos were taken from a roof into what we can only assume is your own bedroom.”

“My bedroom?”

“Yes ma’am. May we see your room and take photos for comparative purposes?”

“My bedroom…” You can only repeat, too in shock to do anything else as you stare dumbly at the two uniformed men in front of you.

“I think she needs a moment,” Chan says while putting his arm around you to support your gradually weakening body.

“Of course, we’ll wait right here,” Seungcheol agrees in a gentle tone and nods understandingly.

Chan carefully takes you to the living room to sit you on the couch and kneels in front of you. “Baby, breathe, come on,” he encourages softly as he holds your face. “You’re going to have a panic attack if you don’t copy me, come on.” He starts to take exaggerated breaths; big inhale, hold, slow exhale.

You blink at him unseeingly for a few of his breaths before your eyes drop to his mouth and you naturally copy the man who has helped you level your breathing more times than you can count the past year.

“That’s it, that’s my girl,” he praises. “A few more for me, you can do a few more for your Channie, right?” You nod so he smiles and takes a handful more deep, steadying breaths, each of which you obediently copy. “Good, well done.” He leans forward and kisses your head. “I’ll deal with the cops, okay? You just sit here and let your Channie handle it all. You just relax, angel.”

There isn’t a single part of you that wants to face the officers and their accusations again, so you simply nod and let Chan tuck a blanket around you as you curl up against the back of the sofa, before he turns on the TV just loud enough that when he goes back into the hall to talk to the two men, you can’t make out their low murmuring voices.

Throughout the remainder of the visit from the two officers, you don’t move, just sit staring blankly at the cushions in front of you as your mind whirls.

You don’t know what to believe. When Kyle had visited you that day, you really did believe him. Even now, there’s a part of you that struggles to believe the sincerity in his eyes and voice to be nothing more than a clever act to fool you. He has never laid a hand on you, never forced you to do anything or kicked up a fuss if you rejected his advances. Kyle was good.

Or maybe not.

If the police aren’t lying to you, then they have proof; more photos, even though you took the ones you found that time and burned them all, and witness accounts, or well, victim’s statements would be the correct term.

You know it’s possible to spend your entire life with a person and never truly know them, but you truly had thought that you knew Kyle. You had been so close to falling in love with him; that’s why it had hurt so much. You truly had believed that one day, you’d fall mutually in love with him, with a good man, and have a happy life together.

But all this; the accusations, the proof you had found yourself even if you still struggle to accept it at face value, it just goes to show that you never really know a person.

“They’re gone,” Chan’s voice breaks you from your thoughts. You turn your head to watch him cross the living room to sit at your side and invite himself under the blanket. He puts his left arm on the back of the couch in a silent offer that you readily accept, shuffling closer to tuck up under his arm and settle when it’s around you securely.

“Was it my room?” You ask, not really sure if you want to know the answer. But you need to.

Chan lets out a breath that sounds like a reluctant sigh. It’s almost answer enough, yet you need to hear it. “Yeah, angel, it looks like it was your room. They took photos and are going to go to the roof of the motel opposite to take a photo from there to see if it matches. I’ve given them my number to keep me updated and so they contact me if they need to, not you. I told them about the photos you found too and that you burned them so no-one else can have them.”

“Should-should I have reported him then?” You wonder, suddenly worried that you had potentially endangered women by not stepping up.

“Maybe,” he replies in a way that you just know means he thinks you should’ve, but he doesn’t want to upset you.

You curl up smaller and turn your face into his shoulder to let the familiar, soothing scent of his cologne and laundry detergent ease you.

Chan tilts his head on top of yours and holds you that bit tighter. “At least he can’t hurt anyone else anymore.”

The words are supposed to be comforting, but they don’t comfort you at all.

The news comes only a few days later.

It didn’t take long to gather evidence to support the accusations against Kyle. The warrant for his home turned up the photos and a hidden memory stick containing a written diary with documents matching dates of some of the statements, though many more entries without a woman to match to the words. The police just had to confirm the evidence and talk to some people before moving forward with it, like they did with you and Chan.

If it wasn’t for Kyle’s condition, the case would’ve been closed only two days after the police visited you, and he would’ve been sent off to prison. As it is, the man still hasn’t woken and the doctors aren’t confident that he ever will, so he can’t really be held accountable for his actions.

When Chan tells you the news, you feel bad that for the first time, you’re glad that Kyle is unconscious and likely to never wake up; at least this way, he won’t have to face the accusations which a part of you still can’t believe are true.

What you are finally letting yourself believe though, are all the times Chan called you naïve.

“Delivery for the cutest baby angel to have ever existed,” comes the greeting from behind the massive bouquet of flowers almost shoved in your face the very moment you open the front door of your apartment to see who has been insistently ringing the bell.

“That is an obscene amount of flowers,” you murmur while eyeing the bouquet.

It lowers and your best friend’s head appears as he pouts at you cutely. “Don’t you want it?”

“Gimmie,” you encourage, making grabby hands. Chan grins and hands you the bouquet, which is literally three times bigger than your head, before stepping into the apartment while you wander off, happily admiring and sniffing the multitude of flowers.

It’s not unusual for Chan to bring you flowers at all; rather, it’s unusual for your home to not have flowers gifted to you from your best friend. Even if he can’t visit you he sends you flowers at least weekly, and the ones he sends tend to always be more extravagant as if he’s making up for not giving them to you in person.

Every single bouquet is always handpicked by Chan; he always chooses which flowers to give you, not based on their colour or scent but for the meaning.

One of the things that helped you and Chan bond when you first met was your shared love of flowers and their meanings. You both know the meanings of a vast array of flowers, and he always includes yellow roses in his bouquet to symbolise your friendship.

Today is no different; there is an abundance of yellow roses in the bouquet, but there are a mixture of other flowers often in yellow themes, as it seems rather common for yellow flowers to symbolise friendship and happiness.

But sometimes there’s other colours; a little pop of pink tulips to show he cares, white carnations with a cheeky wink as he calls you baby angel, fragrant lavender to remind you of his loyalty to your friendship. Every bouquet is carefully crafted as a message; to tell you that Chan is your best friend and will always be there to love and support you.

And today, right there amongst the usual flowers, a handful of light pink roses.

You run through your mental list of flower meanings. Pink roses tend to mean grace, dark pink for gratitude and light pink has a few meanings just like many flowers. Many of the flowers Chan gives you have multiple meanings, but when put together the bouquets he gives you all mean the same thing. However, light pink roses aren’t used to symbolise friendship, innocence, or care. They mean youth, energy, passion, desire. None of those really blend with the rest of the bouquet’s meaning and it throws you for a loop.

“Did they put in the wrong flower?” You ask, pointing to the light pink roses as you look over at Chan puzzled. He walks over to peer at the bouquet and where you’re motioning, before shaking his head. “But they don’t mean friendship,” you mumble confusedly and look at the flowers again as you try to decipher their reasoning.

Chan doesn’t say a word, just leans his left hip against the counter, left palm on the surface and right hand fiddling with the unused belt loop on your jeans as he waits.

“Wait!” You turn to face him while pointing an accusing finger at him. “Is this you calling me a baby again? Light pink roses for youth?”

Chan chuckles and shakes his head, sliding two of his fingers into the loop now you’re facing one another and letting his palm settle against your hip. “No, it’s not that, though that’s a good one, I should’ve thought of that.”

“Then what?” You tilt your head a little, pouting naturally with your innocent confusion.

“You know. I know you know this one, angel,” he encourages and tugs you closer.

“Joy of life?” You offer, too used to him leading you around and being physically affectionate to really register how close he has you, or how his thumb is gradually tugging at your t-shirt where it’s tucked into your jeans.

“No.”

“Well it’s certainly not energy, you always say I lack energy. Or are you trying to like, manifest energy for me?”

“No, but once again, that’s good, I’ll make you a manifestation bouquet one day soon.”

“Then what? I’m confused, Chan.”

“Want me to tell you?” You nod in confirmation. “What if I show you?”

“What?”

He smirks a little, then pushes off of the counter and cups your jaw with his left hand. “Should I tell you, or show you, baby?” He murmurs, voice pitching low in a way that sends shivers up and down your spine. He leans in closer, brushing his nose against your cheek and nose in a teasing manner, but he doesn’t do anything more. “Well?”

It takes a few seconds for you to react; your heart is racing with anticipation, and you need to swallow a few times. He pulls back and notices your gaze slide down to his lips. “Show me,” you say in a voice so soft and shy it’s practically a whisper.

Chan doesn’t need to be told twice; he darts forward to slot his lips against yours for the first time. There’s no hesitance in his movements, no gentle teasing and dancing as he eases you into it; he kisses you passionately from the first moment, guiding your head to tilt in the perfect angle to deepen the kiss to a filthy degree when he coaxes your mouth open only seconds after his lips touch yours.

You never expected this from Chan; never imagined he’d kiss in such a manner that you feel like he’s consuming your heart and soul in the best of ways. He’s only been kissing you for a few seconds, yet your knees are weak, and you have to cling to him to keep yourself upright.

The moment your hand grips the back of his neck, Chan groans in pleased approval against your mouth and pins you roughly against the counter; his hips pressed against yours and his right hand giving up being subtle about his wants as he yanks your t-shirt out of the waistband of your jeans so that he can slide his hand underneath and run his palm against your bare skin.

Of course, a kiss that passionate can’t go on for too long, you especially need to catch your breath as you hadn’t been prepared at all for the intensity and keep forgetting to breathe as your lips and tongue move with his.

Though when you press against his chest and turn your head aside slightly to try and catch your breath, Chan doesn’t stop kissing you, he just relocates his focus, leaving a trail of hot, open mouthed kisses over your jaw and down your neck.

“Wanted you for so fucking long, angel,” he admits, voice thick with arousal and sounding unfairly in breath even if his chest is heaving too. He drags his teeth over the crook of your neck making you gasp and grip him tighter. “Driving me crazy, ‘m so hard. Can I have you? Can I take you to bed and drown in your pussy? Fuck you so hard I owe you a new bed?”

“Fuck,” you breathe out and grab a handful of his hair to drag him back up. His eyes are so hooded that you’re not certain he’s even looking at you. He looks so far gone and it does dangerous things to you. “Y-you do so much for me, Chan.”

“What?” He blinks away some of the lust dazing him to peer at you confusedly, and a little offended and the out of place comment. “What are you talking about all of a sudden? I’m trying to take you to bed, and you say that? You can just say no, not do some weird speech.”

“I’m not doing that,” you assure and move your left hand off of his shoulder, down his torso and under his oversized t-shirt to find the button of his jeans. He looks down in surprise, then back up at you with desire flooding back into his expression and eyes as you skilfully get his jeans open. Neither of you care that they immediately drop to the floor around his ankles with the jangle of his keys in his pocket, as you get your hand in his boxers. “Let me do this for you.”

“Fuck, yeah, yeah, whatever you want angel,” he approves before leaning in to seal your lips back together.

After your tryst in the kitchen, which lead to half of the bouquet getting destroyed when Chan bent you over the counter chest first into the flowers, sex is suddenly on the table for the two of you. Often literally. It seems as if that encounter opened the floodgates of a year of repressed desire from Chan and alerted you to the fact that his passion is more than just a little reciprocated.

Of course, you’ve known for a while now that you’re attracted to Chan; ever since the realisation that day in the store thanks to the leather jacket, which he is often prancing around in, especially since he’s realised how much you like him in it. Sometimes he’ll even turn up at your apartment, open the zip of his jacket and reveal that he’s wearing nothing but your marks underneath, leading to you pinning him to the closest surface to expand on the collection.

What you hadn’t known is just how deep your attraction runs. That at some point within you, the lust starts to morph and before it reaches your chest, it turns to a love which squeezes your heart a little every time he slows down to press a soft kiss to your lips, or you find him looking at you with eyes sparkling with adoration.  

You never imagined that you would fall for your best friend, yet here you are, weeks into your relationship turning sexual, and falling asleep naked in his arms more often than not while not wanting the morning to come because you know he’ll leave before you’re awake so that he can go home and get ready for work.

There’s a part of you that has, on more than one occasion, almost blurted out that he should just bring his work clothes over; you’ve already made space in the wardrobe to hang his shirts and space in the drawer for his trousers. But you don’t.

As much as you’ve come to understand and accept that the love you feel for Chan is no longer purely platonic, you aren’t ready to move on from your ex. There’s still a piece of your heart in Kyle’s hands, even if they are limp in his hospital bed and your heart should’ve been released back to you months ago.

You’ve tried to move on; you thought it would’ve happened naturally thanks to your recently developed feelings for your best friend and the regular sessions of getting fucked dumb into various surfaces by the man.

Still, Kyle remains, and you don’t understand why your heart won’t let you love Chan entirely.

You hope that Chan is happy with this; that he’s content to spend spare moments between your usual hangouts and your thighs. You don’t want to have to tell him that you’re not over Kyle; you know that Chan doesn’t like the man. Although he never voices his displeasure in you still visiting the Kyle in the hospital, you can always see it in his eyes when you leave and how he fucks you that bit harder when you return.

Hope, it seems, is still stubbornly stuck in the bottom of the box, and has no place in the real world, especially not yours.

“You have a key,” you point out flatly when you open the door having expected the takeout you’ve ordered for dinner for yourself and Chan, yet find the man himself on the other side of the door with his hands behind his back and still wearing his work clothes. “What’re you hiding? Please tell me it’s dinner; I thought you’re the delivery man you know?”

“It’s not dinner,” he chuckles, then brings his hands around to reveal this week’s bouquet. Tulips; red, yellow, and orange. Love.

“Chan…” you trail off, not sure what to say and expression downturned when you look up at him. You can practically see the moment you break his heart.

“Oh, I guess I misread this,” he smiles embarrassed and awkward, even with the pain evident in his eyes. “I thought that you might return my feelings finally, but I guess not.”

“You’re not wrong,” you confess softly. “I just…I’m not over Kyle.”

“What?” His features scrunch in bewilderment. “You’re not over the man who would be arrested for sexual harassment and stalking right now if not in a coma? Am I hearing that right?”

“I still can’t connect that to the man I knew.”

“He really fucked with your head, didn’t he?” His arms lower defeatedly.

“No, he didn’t. He was just…good to me.”

“He cheated on you, angel, he wrote about it in his diary and other women have said as much too. What’s it going to take for you to accept that and move on?”

“I-I don’t know, Chan. I’m sorry but I just can’t do that. I’ve tried to get over him, but it hasn’t happened.”

“Well…I’m not going anywhere,” he declares and steps forward to offer the bouquet. “You may not be able to love me and be with me the way I want, but I still love you, with everything in me and I’ll be here for you all the same.”

“Won’t that hurt you?”

“Baby,” he chuckles and tenderly cups your cheek in one hand, the other still holding the tulips you’ve yet to accept. “I’ve loved you since the moment I first laid my eyes on you; I’ve been by your side through all of the assholes you gave your time to, even if they didn’t deserve it. This one will pass too.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“It will,” a flash of determination appears in his eyes as he smiles at you. “You’ll be mine soon enough, I promise you that, angel.”

At first, you had been cautious with Chan after his confession. You don’t want to hurt him and make him suffer at your side, so you pulled back on the affection and stopped the sexual aspect of your relationship entirely. Chan hadn’t been very happy and pouted at you when you turned him down the first time, but he didn’t push it and accepted it. Though he still reaches out to pull you close to hold and well, you don’t really want to quit him truthfully, so you let that happen.

After a few weeks, it’s as if the month of mind-blowing sex never happened and you and Chan are back to being nothing more than best friends. He keeps to his word and remains by your side as he always has, with no pushing or attempts to get you to reconsider and accept his love wholeheartedly.

Maybe that’s why one day when you’re laid side by side on a picnic blanket looking up at the stars with the snacks and drinks, which Chan supplied for the stargazing session, contently settling in your belly, you look at him and for the first time, you don’t feel as if your heart is missing a single piece.

“What?” Chan asks, side eyeing you amusedly when you’ve been staring at him instead of the sky for a few seconds too long. “Are you about to tell me that the stars in the sky don’t sparkle as bright as the stars in my eyes?”

“Where do you even come up with this stuff?” You laugh and nudge him playfully before sitting up. “Whoa,” you murmur when your head spins, eyes slamming closed and hands flying out to try and balance yourself.

“Angel, what’s wrong?” Chan’s hands are on you in seconds as he sits up to support you.

“M wobbly,” you slur, trying to look at him as your hands grip him tight. “Channie,” you start to panic as the dizziness doesn’t subside at all, if anything it feels like it’s getting worse as he starts to multiply before your eyes. “S-something’s wrong.”

“Shh, it’s okay, Channie’s got you, lay down angel, Channie’s got you,” he soothes, gently laying you back down on the blanket and propping himself up on his right elbow as his left hand cups your cheek. “You’ll feel better soon; just close your eyes and let your Channie look after you.”

“Chan…” You’re finding it harder and harder to move your body with every second. It feels as if your muscles are turning to sludge and bones rubber. You try to lift your arm from where it flopped to your stomach when he laid you down, yet you can’t lift it.

Chan watches the panic fill your eyes and strokes his hand over your head, then back to your cheek again. “You’re okay, my love, I’ll never let anything happen to you. Your Channie will always look after you.”

You can’t even open your mouth to respond. A choked sound leaves your parted lips as your vision starts blurring darkly around the edges.

“I will do whatever I need to, to make sure that nobody can ever hurt you again, my angel,” his voice is taking on a strange otherworldly quality, fading in and out every other syllable.

It feels as if you’re becoming one with the ground under you. It’s still hard against your back, yet it feels as if you’re melting into it, like every point of contact is rapidly ceasing to exist as you fight to keep your eyes open.

“Close your eyes, baby,” Chan’s warped voice meets you. He says something else, but a buzzing appears, overlapping his muffled words until the high pitched sound is all you can hear.

You feel something touch your forehead and brush down gently, forcing your eyes closed. You don’t have the strength to open them again.

It’s pitch black, only the ringing for company until suddenly, it leaves.

There’s barely time to register the pure silence before your consciousness melts into the ground to join the rest of you.

Everything comes back to you all at once.

Your body jerks awake as your eyes fly open. The soft, natural light around you is too bright on your sore eyes and the gentle sound of the birds outside singing their morning song pierces your sensitive ears. Instinctively, you close your eyes and lift your hands with the intention of pressing your palms to your ears to block out the noise, but something stops you from raising your hands more than a few inches.

Panicked, your eyes open and look down to find thick, padded straps around your wrists and buckled in place with a chain connecting each to the wooden frame of the bed under you. You tug, but they don’t give. You try to move your legs, but your ankles are bound in the same way; even if you don’t look at them to check, you just know you’d see the same binds there.

“Breathe,” the voice is familiar, is the one that you’re so used to listening to that you find yourself listening and taking some deep, stabilising breaths without even thinking about it. “Good girl.”

After a few seconds, you realise that Chan is in the room; the strange room where you’re cuffed to a strange bed. You have no idea where you are; the walls look wooden and it smells kind of musty, like it hasn’t been used in a while, but the familiar scent of Chan’s laundry detergent meets your nose from the soft, clean pillow under your head when you turn your head to try and find the man.

He’s sitting in a rickety old rocking chair near the closed door of the small room.

There’s nothing else in the room; no curtains on the window on the wall, which the right side of the bed is pushed against; the window is cracked open, letting in fresh air but even from where you’re laid, you can see bars on the outside. There’s a bulb hanging from the centre of the ceiling emitting a redundant, soft orange glow. And nothing else.

Just you, the bed, the chair, and the man you thought was your best friend looking at you as he gently rocks back and forth, back and forth, the chair creaking with every movement.

For tense moments, minutes maybe, you just stare at Chan in horror. This is not the man you’ve spent the past almost two years side by side with. This is not the man you had been seconds away from telling that you finally loved him with everything in you.

Your Chan is beautiful inside and out; with bright eyes always shining with mirth and adoration when they find you, and a smile that could weaken the toughest of hearts. He was love and happiness. Your love. Your happiness. You don’t know where that’s gone.

This Chan terrifies you. His face is flat, no smile, no sparkle in his eyes. He’s looking at you with an expression so dark and haunting; something similar to the way he looked when you told him that Kyle turned up at your apartment building all those months ago in the café, yet somehow so much worse.

For the first time since meeting Lee Chan, you look at him and you want to be as far away as possible, and then further. This isn’t a man you want to be near. Yet, you’re left without a choice.

“Wha-what’s going on, Chan?” You stammer.

“This is your fault, you know,” he informs matter-of-factly. “If you had just said yes to me that day, if you hadn’t held onto that fucking asshole, then this would’ve never happened. We could be at home, in bed; I could be buried deep in your pussy and filling you with cum again and again until you’re round with my baby. We could’ve been happy; had our family, gotten married,” he huffs a dry laugh and abruptly stops rocking. “We could’ve had the perfect fucking family, baby! We could’ve been perfect. But no! You had to cling to that asshole!” He gets to his feet, flinging his arms up in the air as his lips start to split into a disbelieving smile.

He doesn’t even seem to notice that you flinch and try to move further away from him as he steps closer. He seems entirely caught up in his own monologue as he starts to pace the short length of the room to your left.

“I’ve done everything I can to win you over! I studied you for fucking months before showing myself to you. Changed my hair, changed my style, even changed my fucking interests to suit your tastes!” He wheels around and stalks closer to put his right hand on the headboard above you while he stares down at you with eyes wide. “I fucking hate flowers, you know? Hate those stupid fucking things, yet I read every fucking book I could find to learn about them. Learned how to grow them from tiny little seeds all for you,” he points at you. “And what thanks do I get?” He laughs and pushes away from the bed to turn and take a few steps away. “Nothing! Okay, no, no, that’s not fair to you,” he concedes.

Chan turns to face you with his hands and features settled so suddenly into something so placating that you wonder if you had imagined the unhinged mess he was seconds ago.

“I got to taste that pretty little pussy and feel it around my cock, your mouth too. Fuck, baby, I could’ve held out longer if you hadn’t ended that but you, you little cock tease, had to give me a taste of heaven and rip it away from me.” He tuts disapprovingly and gives you an exaggerated pout. “You’ve really broken my heart, you know?”

“Th-then let me go and you never ha-have to see me again,” you try to reason, but he laughs; a full, loud, rolling laugh while leaning over with his hands on his knees as if you’ve told the best joke he’s ever heard.

“Oh, angel!” He exclaims as he straightens up, clapping his hands amusedly. “That’s good, really good. You’re so funny, baby, it’s one of the things I love most about you. You’ve always made me laugh.”

For a few seconds, he looks at you so tenderly that he looks like your Chan again; the Chan you fell in love with, the Chan you wish you had realised was a trick from the start. It makes sense that he always called you naïve when he knows from experience how easy it is to fool you.

“You’re mine now, ‘till death do us part and all that. Sorry I don’t have a ring for you, I’ve never been one for accessories.” He lifts his bare hands to wiggle them at you.

It’s only now that you realise he isn’t wearing a single piece of jewellery, something you thought wasn’t possible for your Chan. His clothes aren’t baggy and hiding his form, and hair no longer shaggy and in his eyes. He’s wearing blue jeans like usual, but these ones are straight legged and show off his thick thighs and ass; his plain white fitted t-shirt is tucked into his jeans neatly, showcasing his slim waist and strong upper body; with his hair neatly styled back in a casual, yet neat, manner. You’ve never seen him like this; he looks older this way, less playful.

It's another reminder that he’s not your Chan. He never truly was.

“I wish it didn’t come to this; you know?” He comments while walking over to sit on the edge of the bed by your waist and brush the back of his fingers over your cheek, entirely ignoring the way you flinch away from this touch, even if it is painfully tender. “You’re so beautiful; I’ve wanted you from the moment I first laid eyes on you, even if you never saw me.” He sighs dramatically and gets up to stand beside the bed. “Even back then you looked anywhere but me. It’s funny though,” he muses, pacing a little as his lips start to lift and bring back that manic smile he earlier wore.

It scares the shit out of you.

“You never once questioned your bad luck,” he quotes your own words with a mocking tone, trying not to laugh as he does so. “Or how it only appeared once I came into your life. You really are fucking naïve, baby.”

“What did you do?” You whisper, horrified at the realisation that Chan had been the reason that all of your relationships have failed.

Now that you think about it, he had always warned you away from them all for some reason; some kind of claim of a bad feeling, a rumour, seeing them kissing another woman. You never questioned how he always had something to say about every single man you showed interest in, or seemed to know things he shouldn’t really know. You put too much trust in the man from day one and now it’s come back to bite you in the ass.

“Whatever I needed to. It was all so easy too, like you wanted a reason to leave them all. I really thought it was because you wanted me,” he laughs darkly and pins an equally as dark look on you as his smile drops. “And then Kyle came along. Fucking Kyle. Perfect Kyle with his clean record and respect and giant, squishy heart. Well, it’s extra squishy now I pushed him off the road,” he laughs, eyes lighting with twisted delight.

“No,” you choke out. “You- no- you didn’t- tell me you didn’t do that to him, Chan,” you plead desperately.

Chan laughs and walks over to lean over you again, his left hand braced against the headboard and the other playing with the strands of your hair on the pillow beside your head. “If only you had believed me. If you hadn’t let him talk to you that day; if you had just kicked him out and come right to me like you were supposed to, it would’ve never happened, angel. You had me right there waiting for you and you picked that asshole and now guess what?” He looks at you with a bright, manic smile, eyes wide and shining with mirth you wish doesn’t exist. “He’s never fucking waking up, baby!” He beams, looking so proud of himself. “I made sure of that!”

You feel sick to your stomach.

It must show on your face because Chan’s own falls and he frowns at you. “Don’t look at me like that. This isn’t my fault.” He scoffs and backs up from the bed as that terrifyingly haunting look returns to his features. “I didn’t think I’d have to go this far; I thought you’d accept all those rumours and evidence I spent so much time, money, and effort planting. I bribed and blackmailed so many people the past months. Got the asshole fucking convicted and you still refuse to pick me.”

Chan sighs heavily, as if it really does pain him, before he pivots and walks to the door to open it, though he turns just enough to look back at you.

“I can’t tell if you’re too smart to believe all that or fucking stupid to still want to be by his side after all the accusations. Maybe he did brainwash your naïve little self.”

He stares at you for an unnervingly long moment as if he’s trying to figure you out and wondering what exactly Kyle did to earn your loyalty, and how exactly he can mimic it to make you his.

“Oh well,” he decides with a shrug, making you jolt at his sudden voice. “Not that it matters anymore because I’m not letting you leave here. If you’re not going to be mine on your own terms, we’re doing it my way.”

He closes the door after him, and you break with the sound of the lock clicking into place.

Tears roll down your cheeks and temples, soaking the soft pillow under your head as sobs tear from your chest. You keep tugging at the binds holding you down, yet they don’t budge.

You’re stuck here.

Even if you somehow escape your binds, there are bars on the window and a lock securing the thick wooden door.

You’re stuck here. For good.

Forever.

Stuck with the man you had trusted to look after you, to be by your side for a long time. You just never expected it to be like this. You as his prisoner; his little plaything to do with as he pleases until he gets bored of you and then… you don’t even want to think about it.

The sun slowly rises higher and higher into the sky and finally, you stop pulling at your binds, stop crying; out of energy and tears with your whole body hurting, yet nothing in comparison to the pain in your heart where it’s stomped into the wooden floorboards and covered in Chan’s footprints.

You dread the moment he returns. Dread having to live your life like this.

But you know you don’t have a choice. You’re his now, to do with as he pleases. You no longer have a choice in how your life goes.

The click of the lock disengaging sends fear racing through your tired body, adrenaline pumping, yet there’s still nothing you can do as Chan steps into the room with a tray in his hands and a smile on his face.

“Hi baby, it’s time for food! I made your favourite.”

As you watch him approach wearing that same cute smile that first drew you to him, all you can do is curse yourself for being so fucking naïve.

Don’t forget to reblog if you liked to help spread the story and let others read it too! And don't be shy to leave comments or send an ask so I can see your thoughts 🥺 💖

Permanent taglist: @okiedokrie @variety-is-the-joy-of-life @tusswrites

[faeryarchives]

loved by the moon (riddle, leona, and azul x f!reader)

requested by @lydiacallas: Can i ask for a Moon Goddess like!Fem!Reader? Like they have magic linked to the moon, they have like- this ethereal, pure and calm vibe of the moon itself and their voice is calm too. Maybe their hair is a bit glow in the dark? With Malleus, Azul, Lilia, Riddle and Leona, please and thank you very much! 🥺✨ warning: minor spoilers to book 6 + somewhat long imagine note: reader uses she / they pronouns + is in the same grade as the boys !! this is very overdue im sorry 😣 and i based some characteristic and abilities to moonlight cookie and princess luna guilty as charged 😔 + malleus and lilia part will be in another post! recent fics: happy birthday (malleus x reader) & when your hopeless streamer gets a girlfriend (ace x reader) & its you, it always had been you

·˚ ༘ riddle rosehearts (2nd year ramshackle dorm leader)

"the decision of all professors and staffs of night raven college falls in favor for miss (name) (last name) to enroll here - exempting them from the all-boys rule. she will be in charge of the ramshackle dorm during her stay here."

riddle does not understand how on earth were you able to stay in the school and always hold yourself with such grace, he couldn't explain why your presence seems to be similar to vil like you were oozing of calm vibes

you were the total opposites - he is more accustomed to fire while you specialize in water magic*. he lose his rationality quickly while he had never see you even falter during the time you two were classmates + he always abides by the rules while you do what ever you want 

"you are not allowed to sleep in class!" "it's not sleeping, i am just resting my eyes..." "you must not pick flowers from the garden on wednesdays." "riddle, i am not under the queen of hearts rules."

and riddle actually holds a one sided grudge against you for that + makes it his mission always to remind you of the rules, going on about mini rants to which you nodded to while reading your books

typically, riddle would've mention something about the rule of the queen of hearts but he was strangely quiet. you see him looking down at his notebook, lost in his world. and that surprised you because never you would've thought you would know this side of him. "no rule trivia for today?" "...huh?" "there is something on your mind, no? why don't we talk about that instead our usual trivias."

as time passed by, you and riddle gradually close friends to the point that heartslabyul treats you like their saving grace whenever riddle goes on a rampage, even more when you became second years

when the first overblot happened, it was the first time he saw your face, usually so calm, crumbled like dust when the blot manifested into a large phantom

"hahaha! the law in this world is me! not even you, (name), can stop me!" "i'm not letting you go so easily, riddle. rules are meant to protect your people, but you don't realize you are using them to suffocate them. you even hurt my dorm mates, enough of this!"

riddle was sure you wouldn't speak to him again because you weren't there the moment he woke up. he tried asking trey and cater if you were avoiding him, but they could not answer him. the next few days, he didn't even get to talk to you.

then he found himself admiring nrc at night time, breaking his own rules, maybe it's okay to let is slide for now. as he needs some time to think

absentmindedly wandering around the school grounds, letting the cool breeze feel his skin, riddle had his hand brushing through the thick bushes until they got pricked by a stray thorn "ah-" he hissed, holding up his pricked finger. it was just a tiny injury that's nothing to worry about. the injury was nothing compared to what he saw next "riddle? what are you doing this here at this hour?"

riddle spotted you sitting under the tree where silver usually takes his naps, surrounded by bunnies as they piled around your lap.

after days of not seeing each other, riddle thought he was going crazy because the last time he saw you, he knew pretty sure that your eyes and hair do not have that silver glow - it was like you were the moon itself

"is it my fault that your eyes and hair changed?" "oh, this is awkward... " you look at the bunnies trying to hide behind you, being scared of riddle's sudden appearance, contemplating about something before sighing in defeat. "i think i owe you an explanation. but first, can you keep a secret?" this confused riddle very much. what do you mean explanation? did something happen while he was out? before he could even think of it, you were already in front of him - your point and middle finger placed on his forehead. 'the moon has come out to play, now bid your worries away.' a comfortable feeling of cold wrapped around riddle's body, feeling the fatigue from his overblotting disappear, the weight on his shoulder being gone and his pricked finger healed. while riddle stared at you in shock, you finally reveal your true appearance and float around him like a curious child. "would you believe me if i told you i am the descendant of the moon goddess?"

... oh. OH !!

prepare for him because this little goldfish right here is most likely a fan of reading books about your kind + cue the sparkling eyes

and oh my god are those butterflies he can feel in his stomach? or maybe he is just hungry but he only feel that way around you though. oh well !!

** okay so i think reader will be compatible with water magic because the moon has this gravitaional pull right which cause the high tides and low tides... and riddle is fire!

·˚ ༘ leona kingscholar (3rd year transfer student)

"kingscholar, think of this as your punishment for the spelldrive incident. i would gladly take miss (name) for a tour but alas, there are countless of papers that needs my attention."

leona knew that there is something like a cloak of mysteriousness around you the moment you appeared in the college mid-year as a transfer student from rsa

just you don't interfere with his plans and he will also stay out of yours but it turns out he was assigned by the crow to take you around

"... wow, do i look like a punishment worthy chore?" you sigh, shaking your head in disappointment before turning to leona and he could swear he could see your eyes glowing for a moment when you stare at him. "i take it that the dorm leader of savannaclaw will be my tour guide?" "just don't lag behind." giving you a shrug before he started walking ahead of you. despite his short descriptions and tour around the school, leona is thankful that you didn't seem to be a nosy type of person, just a little on the calm and reserve type than most people he knew.

doesn't understand how people seems to look starstruck whenever you walk by them i mean you are attractive yes but not being able to move? that's different

it also turns out you share most of your classes! maybe crowley was really punishing him for the incident as he was stuck with you, being your babysitter.

but you almost look like his babysitter + quickly became one of the most tolerable people in the school and he doesn't mind having you around

"leona? let me bother you for a moment, can you help me with this problem?" "oh that?" the lion lifted his head and stared at the paper you were holding before waving his hand in dismissal. "remember the activity we did as partners? that's the one." "..." you squinted your eyes and leona could see them literally glow in purple light causing him to blink several times if he was seeing it right but it disappeared quickly. "oh i get it now, thanks." "do your eyes really glow like that?" "huh? i don't know what you are talking about."

you were not the nagging type - letting him hide and snooze off behind you during class and surprisingly, you were fun to spar with during practical exams + too smart for your own good

he had never seen any kind of fighting similar to yours like your fighting style is only yours to begin with - not only you excel in defending, you never seem to get tired despite being a speedy defender.

you and the savanaclaw dorm leader spent the whole afternoon sparring with each other and by the time you notice it, the sun was already setting. "aren't you tired yet, leona?" "you better tell me how you manage to keep up with me all this time." you did say to keep up with you the first time we met." you twirl your spear around you before stabbing it on the ground, leaning on it and grinned at leona. "i'm just keeping my promise."

now leona was pretty sure you are not a normal transfer student + especially after fighting with you in the island of woe and it was pretty interesting how you unexpectedly exposed yourself in front him and jamil.

the moment you, who was assigned to be in the front of the group due to you having the most capable defensive powers, entered the room on the current sector, leona and jamil look at your back in surprise. "(name)-senpai?" "what's up, jamil?" "... is that a normal thing for you?" the room was oozing with the presence of phantoms everywhere and there was no source of light - aside from your hair locks that are now shining like a billowing night sky of twinkling stardust, borne in a void of black and fading in an indigo moonset "oh that's normal, we can just use it as source of light. save your magic for now." "no wonder your magic feels different from everyone else - you are a moon goddess, right?"

leona is not blind, he just need a solid evidence to confirm his gut feeling. unique magic spells + signature spear + glowing eyes and your hair locks literally looking like that?

while fighting along side each other, leona could literally leave his back open because heknew and trust that you always have his back and vice versa

"leona-senpai, watch out-" before jamil could jump in between the incoming attack and leona, you pulled the second year by his hood deflected the attack with your spear so effortlessly. "it's fine, moon fairy here got our backs." you hear leona said proudly before landing a critical hit on the phantom. "aren't you glad you're stuck with us?"

everyone in school knows how two of you would make an unbeatable duo when it comes to strategies and games

and not going to lie, leona thinks so too! you are strong, smart and everything above + treats you life his closest friend and respects you a lot but you do things sometimes that are not really necessary

"are you done yet?" he couldn't help but ask, his tail thumping on the floor with annoyance while you tried braiding some parts of his hair.

you peek over his should and smiled, trying to show him the small braid that you did on the side. "yeah, it's fun braiding your hair!" after your identity being revealed, you let yourself relax more around him - when you express happiness, your hair starts glowing as it did before and small crescent like moon thingy start appearing around you

... leona find that cute + now he understand why people become starstruck when it comes to you

**you know how moonlight cookie's hair color looks like? yeah that's the one!

·˚ ༘ azul ashengrotto (2nd year ramshackle vice dorm leader)

"did you hear about the rumors? recently, students are saying that when you go to the botanical garden at night and stand under the moonlight - all your questions will be answered!"

the fact that rumors like that exists made azul irritated because it means he got competition. and having competition in the thing he do best is not fun.

so he and the twins went to investigate - how and where the rumors first started and who are most likely to be involved in the case

surprisingly enough, it all leads to a certain ramshackle vice dorm leader aka you + azul already knew you due to being the same year and his 'rival'

he considers you as his rival because you two always seem to fight for the top 2 and 3 spot every exam but for you... i think he would be hurt if you say that you like to aim for the top spot because it's fun 🤩

it was during lunch time and you were planning to eat with yuu, grim and the others when all of a sudden, someone blocked your way out by leaning on the door. "(last name) can i ask a bit of your time? i would like to ask you regarding an important matter." the ever so charismatic azul asked, his usual charming smile on as if he wants to do business with you. "oh, hi azul. what is it about?" "how delightful! do you happen to know the rumor about your unanswered questions will be answered as you stand under the moonlight?" "there is a rumor like that? under the moonlight? why the specifics?" one thing that azul observed about you is that your emotion reflects on your eyes. call it his gut feel but just one look and he already knew you were telling the truth "a pity... it seems like i am back to square one." "... maybe i can go help you out? i am not that busy these upcoming days."

and so azul's little group grew in numbers consisting of him, you, yuu, grim and the twins. oddly enough, it was actually fun to hang out with you

azul never got to interact with you that much before and only knew information about your through papers and from what he heard from people but being with you right now exceeds his expectations

"if headmaster crowley is similar to crow... do you think he likes to hoard shiny things?" you suddenly whispered it to azul one day in class, your mind clearly wandering and not paying attention to what professor trein is writing on the board. "what is with the random thought?" what is we leave a trail of shiny things and create a trap, that would be really funny."

you were an oddball. sometimes you will joke around with him and trying to make him laugh during class. there are also times where he couldn't explain the calming feeling he had whenever you are around + he could never even feel any other intentions from your actions as if you genuinely want to become his friend

it took him a while to notice how you always seem to stand out and become the embodiment of grace and elegance - a confident yet modest person who knows what you want

you always help him out in solving the rumor mystery but there is something that made you look suspicious → you always go back to your dorm before sunset

it's not that he wants to take up all your time but the way you stand firm of not being able to join them during night time and saying how dangerous it is made him suspect you of something

so he went alone wearing his ceremonial robes (the twins are taking over his duties for a while i know very unbelievable but imagine) to investigate the botanical garden and there he saw you run inside - a trail of silver light following you behind

and when azul went inside to stand in the spot, trying to think of what to wish until he hears a familiar voice ringing in the building

"say your wish out loud and the moon will light its way to you." "well, now this is marvelous. can i see one guiding my wish for me?" azul looked up, trying to call out for you, even looking around to see signs of you. there was a moment of silence before he heard you sigh and in an instance, you appeared before him, avoiding his look. "i thought i told you to let it go?"

after finding out you were his competitor - he didn't really feel annoyed at all! rather he was intrigued on how you were able to do it ...? you help the students find the answers on their own in their dreams?!

seeing your hair glow in silver light in the dark reminds him of himself as some octopus also glow in the dark just like him!

"azul, do you know that i really admire you?" "me? what is there to admire about me? i do nknow i have a remarkable potential but compared to y-" "no, seriously. you don't need to compare yourself to me. having to do all these business related work AND studying at the same time? you should appreciate yourself more."

... do you want to make him cry on the spot? hearing such words makes him happy but hearing it from you aka one of the people he really admire and yes he admits he admire you as a rival - his emotions are going haywire.

even if he is smart, it will take time for azul to realize that his admiration is just growing stronger and stronger each day and bloom into something else

[writersundersiege]

The New Girl in Town

Race Cameron x F! Reader

Warnings; slight angst and someone missing presumed dead like John b’s dad .

Summary: All the kooks are shaking in the designer's shoes as the new girl in town moves from Malibu, California. She moves to Figure 8 with her father, who's the CEO of Surfboard Hut company, which does well selling pre-made boards and custom surfboards. All the girls want to be her friend or hate her; all the guys love her, and the adults think she's a sweet, free spirit. What may happen when the island's notorious bad boy, Rafe Cameron, can't get her out of his mind? Will she take to Rafe as he takes to her? Or will it take time to convince her there is more to him than the bad boy exterior?

The sizeable moving truck pulls up with a Land Rover and a beat-up-looking blue Jeep with a surfboard rack and multiple boards attached at the top, following in close behind. On all corners of the street, Kooks are walking their dogs, assembling, and checking the mail, all to stare at the new arrivals. Rafe is standing around shooting hoops with Kelce and Topper. Rafe hadn't paid any mind yet to all the people outside talking, too busy trying to prove the point to Topper he could still play as well as he did back in school. It is the only reason he's in the perfect place to meet, probably the most beautiful girl Rafe has ever seen.

As the vehicles come to a stop in front of the house, a girl hops out with (H/T), gorgeous tanned skin and a bright smile; as she walks to the Land Rover, she followed, stopping and talking to a man who looks exactly like her in the eyes and nose presumably her father they laugh, until a lovely looking woman; nearly captures the whole neighborhoods attention, heads turn her way with how pretty she is smiling smacking the older man on the shoulder and pulling the young carbon copy of her into her side looking at the house in front of them.

Rafe turns to Topper. “Did you know you were getting new neighborhoods? I thought the old McCaauns didn't want to sell that place since that's where they grow their stupid prize gardenias for the Charleston Garden Expo.” Topper shrugs, grabbing the basketball from Rafe's stagnant hands. “Mom said something about a meeting. Gosh, I can't even remember her name. The mom, though, said her husband owns part of a surfboard hut company with a buddy of his in California. It's called Crush Wave; it's kinda sick.” Topper pulls out his phone and pulls up their TikTok, showing you and your dad making handmade boards.

Topper pulls up a video of you making a Short Board that is blue and purple and a massive Kraken on the back that almost looks engraved in the actual wood of the board. Rafe watches as you talk and laugh, presumably at the joke your dad made behind the recording causing Topper to laugh too, but he stares at how your eyes crease, and the way you throw your head back in pure bliss.

He only looks up when he hears Kelce say with a dark look, “You're gonna have a nice view from your bedroom, Top.” As he looks up, there it is, your side bedroom window connected to the side of the house that looks right into Topper's room. Your curtain shades are open as the three boys stare up into the room, watching you, dancing around your room, organizing posters on the wall, and putting down little knickknacks and what one could only assume are memorable things from home. Your old home. Rafe watches as you open the window a little to let in a breeze, not even paying attention to the three boys ogling you through your window

In a moment, Rafe catches the lyrics of the song. You seem so consumed by you’re forgetting the whole world around you and he thinks he's heard it. Still, the only words he can catch are, “Baby, don't you see I've got everything you need?” and that line sticks with him, a plan forming in his head and a smirk on his face cause Rafe knows he's going to make you want, need, maybe even crave him but that is for later.

Suddenly, the boys are broken from their sudden stupor and infatuation, by a woman's voice. “Hey boys!” your mother smiled back at them, looking just like you in maybe five years; she doesn't look even that much older than you, which makes Rafes smirk deeper, knowing you are running in a solid gene pool. “My name is Andrea, but call me Andy, and that man over there struggling to carry his toolbox kit is my dear, sweet husband Charles.” The man struggling under the weight of a metal box called out “Charlie,” she laughed, shaking her head. “And our daughter.” she points to where you're now loudly singing a one direction song that has the boys laughing and blushing as you act like you have a microphone that is hanging in your hand and disappearing into what they assume is your closet.

“Her name is (F/N). She's 19 and just had a birthday a few weeks ago. She's our baby; her brother is 23 and at Princeton.” She smiles, watching you dancing and singing Fools Gold so loud you could’ve woke a sleeping giant; she turns to see all the boys entranced by you. She looks down and chuckles, “Would you boys mind helping us? We need help getting the dresser upstairs to that room.” The boys snap their eyes back to your mother and shake their heads while hurriedly rushing through the large white picket fence in front of your house.

As they walk in, they see a fantastic amount of items from all over the world, Maps of almost all countries all over the globe. Significant framed photos of you and your family in front of Buckingham Palace, You in front of the Eiffel Tower posing with a massive smile on your face, a tall boy who looks like you, his arm around your shoulder smiling just the same, Your family in traditional silks and gorgeous materials smiling with a beautiful woman and man she had ornate henna all down her arms and legs. Another photo with your arms over your head, standing on a waterfall, looking like an angel with the water creating a rainbow around you.

All over, there were little statues, maps, books, ship blueprints, rugs, and throws from all different kinds of cultures as the boys walked past the dining room that saw a Chabudai table set up with gorgeous adorned pillows and a large china cabinet full of different types cutlery and ornamental chinas. Rafe squints his eyes, looking at a large framed map that looks super old and says Amazonian on the bottom with more notes. Topper pipes up from one side of the large hall, picking up what looks to be a golden skull from a box. “Um, sorry, Andy, what kind of work are you into?” he says, holding the figure up and wincing as he twists it to look at it.

Andy chuckles, walking back towards the boys, grabbing the skull from him and placing it on the large bookshelf in the hallway. “I'm a history professor, and I just transferred to St. John’s Academy for boys. Do any of you go there?” she asks quizzically; all that boys can think to do is shake their heads. Suddenly, they watch the fumbling and tumbling of your dad with four boxes that cover his frame entirely. “Hey honey, I don't think (F/N)’s couch is gonna fit in that new room cause of how it used to be lofted; now it's a single floor plan, and the ceilings—oh hello.”

The boys grabbed the remaining boxes to reveal your dad's smiling face, staring back at them as he said, “And you are.” Rafe, Topper, and Kelce introduce themselves hurriedly as they set the boxes down and line up to shake your dad's hand, which they do. “Seems like their nice boys with gentlemanly manners out here in the outer banks will be a nice change for our little songbird up there…” but before your Dad can continue, your mother rounds behind the boys pushing through the kitchen saying, “Anyways, he babbles the dresser is in the garage” pushing the three through she opens the double doors to the garage so the three boys can easily fit.

They each take a side and quickly lift it up and through the house up the stairs down the hall to the first set of French doors; your mother knocks when, all of a sudden, the muffled sound of music becomes the center stage, and the bursting smell of ocean water, sandalwood, and coconut hits them in the face. Finally, when their senses returned to them, you were standing there holding the handles of the doors and the sun's yellow glow behind you and a grin from ear to ear.

Then, like a bunch of doves were let off into flight, in a soft, airy voice came your words, “Hello boys, it's mighty kind of you to help me bring my new casa into a retrograde” You laughed a small laugh that had them buckle slightly under the pressures of the weight of your dresser you pointed to the wall opposite the window they were all staring through earlier and said, “Right there would be just fine.”

At this point, Rafe looks around to see where your mother is, and it seems like she is nowhere near at all; this gives him more confidence not to make a fool of trying to talk to you. He has this weird pull for you, and he needs to know why. So far, your family may be the most remarkable group to have moved into OBX since any past gossip and any that will come, but he wants to know you.

After they place the dresser in a specific spot against a wall between the borders, you've created with tons of pictures of you and girls and guys your age, you and your brother surfing, you on a boy's shoulders messing up his curls as you look down on him laughing. He’s laughing up at you, holding you tight, more of you at almost every natural monument you can think of, like the catacombs, Everest, Mushroom forest, and more.

One picture catches Rafe's eye again; it's the curly-haired boy and you with white shirts and what looks to be yellow stripes on your shoulders; he turns to ask, “Were you a deckhand on a yacht?” you look up from the box you were going through crisscrossed on your bed and smile widely with a hint of devilishness behind your eyes. “Not just a deckhand, the lead deckhand, and that was my second 2nd; his name is Luca; we grew up together.” Rafe shakes his head slowly, looking over the boy and then at you. “Luca still around these days?” Topper and Kelce eye you both suspiciously while they are meandering, pretending to look at bookshelves and shells and things from your past on the walls.

Suddenly, the mood becomes grim, and you look down, hand coming up and thumbs running over a small ring attached to a shell necklace. “He's been presumed dead for nearly a year; he and his brother Cameron went deep sea fishing somewhere out here, actually on the coast, and they know their ship went down almost 400 km from shore. They are still gone. Nothing has been found besides this ring and a note in the black box of the boat Cameron got just in case cause—” you suddenly cut off.

You got up, holding a picture of once again the curly-haired boy. Still, he looked to be no more than 12 on one knee, and the girl standing in front of Rafe but so much younger, even brighter than he'd already seen, if that even seemed possible, with a ring pop slid on her ring finger she was no more than ten years old smiling ear to ear.

You look up with a sad smile. “The note said I told you I would get you a real ring one day, but if for some reason I am not there to give it to you, I'll be shining next to the north star, waiting for you to shine back, you know what I mean” she smiles sadly “I'm so sorry I —” You start to laugh “Rafe. Stop that.” Both of the other boys keep watching, stunned. “Luca always said that the only way we can survive as humans is by letting the world ride around us like a wave and holding fast to it, so that's what I do every day, see?” she shoved her wrist into Rafe's hand, which gently wraps his fingers around it to lift to his face to see and caligraphy type wave with a small sailboat and the words “Hold Fast” underneath he smiles and rubs his thumb over the small tattooed skin which send chills down your body

He smiles and says, “Brave the storm like the stories, huh?” Her face immediately lights up. He doesn't know a ton of history but Wheezies been obsessed with that new Percy Jackson show and watched an episode or a few with her and has learned some stuff.

You turn to wrap your hand through his interlocking fingers and drag him to your bed while you pull a big leather-bound sketchbook from under your bed. You flip a few pages to a beautiful pencil sketch of a gorgeous-looking woman holding a baby close to her face with tears trailing down to land on the baby's blanket. It's so detailed she drew and shaded the mother's tear stains on the blankets. At the very bottom, in scripture-style lettering, was “Hold Fast Perseus, Brave the storm.” you can see the swirling raging seas and the baby floating in the basket slowly and sleepily over the raging waves in the back.

He looked up to see that Topper and Kelce had slowly slipped out of the room and down back to Top’s yard and were sending him thumbs up from below in the window they were all just looking through, laughing and hitting each other as they went in Topper's back door.

He clears his throat, realizing you're still staring at him wide-eyed. He swears he can see the whole world through your eyes when finally words don't fail him saying, “This may be the prettiest thing I've ever seen,” not even breaking a moment of eye contact to reference the picture just looking at you. “ you're kind Rafe” you giggle nudging him with your shoulder when you both hear a slight knock and look up to see your brother Jason standing the hall you run and jump in his arms as he laughs and spins you around “Hey kiddo came here for the weekend to check out the place and get all moved in” he points to Rafe “already got a boyfriend I thought you said you were gonna leave the whole California surfer guy thing in the past.”

She throws her head back, laughing, and pushes his shoulder. “Jaz stops. That's Rafe. He's from OBX. He was helping Mom and just got caught up in my blabber fest.” Rafe stands to shake your brother's hand and, shaking his head, adds, “I enjoyed hearing what you were saying. I kinda like learning more history.” now he's lying through his teeth, but it makes you smile, so he smirks back. He doesn't understand why your family is compelling him to be so gentlemanly, but for a moment, he has to catch the smirk he feels from thinking of introducing himself to your brother as his future brother-in-law but thinks better of it.

After the introduction, he turns to you and says, “If you ever need to find me, I live at Tannyhill. It's not hard to miss. Just ask for me, and I'll be there.” he smiles. “ I hope to see you. Around.” You smile at him shyly, looking down and saying, “Me too,” and then you jump on your brother's back, saying, “Onward boah, we've got places to see.” he smiles and shakes his head but continues as Rafe slowly makes his way out of your house and down the steps.

He stands in your yard, watching you and your brother hop in your blue Jeep. It rumbles to life as the music blasts through your speakers so loud everyone in the whole neighborhood can hear the words from Cold Cold Cold by Cage the Elephant from your car as you jump out the top, yelling to your parents as Jason speeds off, saying “Catching some waves be home by the set love ya” you laugh throwing your head back again capturing Rafe with your whole aura.

He stands there watching you disappear, with loud music, a bubbly laugh, and a bright smile in tow with you. Kelcle and Topper walk up behind him, and Topper pats him on the shoulder. “She’ll be the death of you, that's for sure.” Rafe shrugs his hand off and stomps back to the pavement in Topper's yard and says, “Ball-in Top, let go.” Topper and Kelce laugh, shaking their heads, knowing he's already down bad as Rafe is simultaneously thinking about inviting your good Ol’ Pops and Brother to the country club for some golf and town talk to show them the outer banks; he has an excellent feeling about the new girl in town with a devilish smirk and pep in his step he starts to think.

Hey all this is my first writing I've done please let me know if you like and want more of this or something else in open to all suggestions thank you for reading this it means a lot 💕

if you would like to keep on reading:

The New Girl in Town - Masterlist

All rights belong to the owners of Netflix and the Outer Banks. I do not own any characters except the family. The fiction is simply for fun. All copyrights belong to the original owners.

[emmitaaa4]

Addressing some fandom BS inconsistencies

Gwyn was shadow mommy, Az was shadow daddy, they were gonna have shadow babies with her extra super pliable bones.

I audibly chocked when I read this @nikethestatue (btw everything said in this post was on point). No but seriously this is how they sound, too many of them insisting that there is nothing wrong with basing the likelihood of a ship on who has the more suitable uterus to be with a man... cause supposedly they're just picking up on the hints SJM wrote for them? She likes babies for HEAs so ofc children are the end all be all of a relationship, plus there's absolutely no way that she could ever write an adoption plot SJM is literally adopted and has done it in other series. Selective reading strikes again.

A minimum amount of critical thinking would tell you that 1) the infamous *magical uterus change* scene was about nessian (& feysand), not about any ship; 2) if SJM had written Nesta changing Elain's uterus, it would have given too much away, not to mention 3) how disturbing/violating it would have been for Nesta to change her sister's reproductive anatomy WITHOUT HER CONSENT?! None of it makes sense narratively; my girl Nes would never, especially given the trauma they both suffered from having their bodily autonomy--and so much more--ripped away by the Cauldron.

This argument is so trivialized that I see it every other day on reddit/tiktok/*insert media app*, and yet elriels are the toxic side of the fandom? The ones whom people are allowed to insult, to ridicule for theories all made in good fun, the women that are villainized over a difference of opinion? Don't get me wrong, there's assholes on both sides and people keep calling one another variations of delulu (and the nastier personal attacks). But by painting this fandom-wide villain there is such a lack of accountability for the plethora of harmful talking points spread by other portions of the fandom. (I've been silently reading the anti-elain & anti-elriel tags for like a year, and I'm on tiktok. Yes, I have self-destructive tendencies).

Anyways.

I never understood either how people ever actually thought (or well still think) that gwynriel would happen BEFORE elucien?? It makes no sense logically, narratively, or in terms of characterization & the arc she's set up for Elain, Azriel, and Lucien. Yet it took one controversial bonus chapter for people to decenter Elain in her own story, that is make her choice of romantic partner--which SJM spent 3+ books setting up--Azriel's. It took one bonus chapter that soo many readers are still unaware of, to brush Elain off as a "sexual object" Az is using to distract himself until his therapist-extraordinaire Gwyn comes in and heals him all up. Because ofc she will: she's badass and not the "passive and weak and boring" Eplain (aka "Plant" or "brain dead gardener"), she fits the YA archetype of the spunky warrior-girl so she can handle his darkness, and SJM supposedly spent time fleshing her out because she wrote her as a LI for Azriel; she's made for him, she is what he needs to grow (I actually enjoyed Gwyn's character btw, just pointing out how silly it all sounds). “Next book is a love triangle between Elain/Az/Gwyn” “Elain will turn evil or is secretly evil”. So you're telling me that SJM would pit Elain & Gwyn against each other in a love triangle over a man... all because of a necklace that was not even mentioned once in the actual books? Please, let's be logical for a second.

All this because instead of reading the bonus chapter in the context of the books, some people are reading the books in the context of the bonus chapter. Which now that I think of it is probably why so many people mischaracterize Az the way they do--because yes we know enough of his character to know half of the stuff the fandom diagnoses him with is questionable. Azriel? Entitled incel x fuckboy hybrid (gotta be the first of his kind, minute slay ig)? Interesting tell me more. No joke I saw a semi-popular post on here where a gwynriel said they read the bonus WITHOUT HAVING READ ANY OF THE BOOKS. I'm sorry, ship wars are silly and believe it or not idc who ppl ship, but it makes it hard to take some of the things they say seriously.

All this to say that the fandom isn't even debating the right thing. If you consider everything SJM has said in her interviews:

(she's been planting seeds for Nesta & Elain's book since acomaf; she knows who she is writing the first 2 books about + is keeping things open for the 3rd one--with 5 different ship options--which automatically rules out "Elain will close the series"; she said she's doing research for Elain's book in the ACOFAS bonus & there's seeds for future bookS in acofas; all she said recently about her beloved *heroines* and the themes of fate/true love/choice she finds *very* interesting & wants to discuss)

and if you also consider all she's written in the actual books (elain's characterization + the overarching plot in general & how she fits into it), then it's pretty evident that Elain's book is next.

The question then would be who is the MMC / 2nd PoV in her book, aka would acotar 5 be an elucien or an elriel story? Because logically, gwynriel was always a consequence of elucien. I honestly do not understand how people don't see that.

Oh and they always think they're gagging elriels with the "obviously Azriel is the next MC" as if elriels aren't saying the same thing? And we're the ones twisting info and not making sense. It's just funny at this point.

---sidenote: I realize that this post generalizes some things, and I just wanted to say that I have interacted with lovely eluciens / people on either side of this headache of a ship war. My hard limit is Elain haters though... back off I say 🤺 BACK OFF 🤺

---sidenote 2: I would have written this as a reblog except im not entirely sure how tumblr works and I get no visibility from them rip.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

now that I've had some time to think about Book Three's cover/description, here are some bullet-point thoughts

The art style has vastly improved from Book One. It feels like Tillie's finally comfortable with style, and the characters here don't have same face syndrome here. Also the color palette here is my favorite of the three covers. From everything that I've read from Tillie, the way she works with color is a strong point of her work... which again, makes me wish the entire comic was in color but nooooo...

It looks like Ricca has her own cane now, which makes sense given a bit point of her character through the series is her worsening vision like... even with her glasses, she's practically blind.

Clementine has a new hat. Y'know... because her iconic hat got left with AJ... y'all still remember AJ, right? The comics don't.

Dr. Barnwell the cat made it onto the cover.... you know I'm in too deep with these damn comics when I see some random person be like "Clementine's getting a new cat" and I say, out loud, "That's Dr. Barnwell, you dingus, he's been around since the end of Book One." AS IF ANYONE ELSE CARES!

I know too much about this series, y'all

In my defense, I'm a little snappy about stuff like that after Book Two came out and people were just making shit up about what happens, going as far as to fake screenshots, and tell people it's "just like fifty shades of grey" when uh NO? it's not? People were deliberately trying to deceive others over certain elements and it still makes me mad whenever I think about it.... ANYWAY

We also see Fen and Olivia featured here, too. Fen's one of the more interesting side characters we've gotten, and I'm glad she survived Book Two, and Olivia.... I notice the way she's drawn with the front of her body hidden. I know that's probably to not show spoilers for Book Two since that reveal's a big deal, but still.

"Clementine finally has it all–a safe place to live, a girlfriend, and even a cat…but nothing lasts forever. And when Clementine suffers a loss unlike anything she’s ever faced, a new mentor called The Gardener offers her a new family, and a new way of living… but at what cost?" This is the description we were given.

First of all, Clementine had it all at Ericson, and it didn't make her happy. In fact, it made her so miserable that she left... I kinda hope this book does something with that by giving her everything she wants [as in, the safe home, a romantic partner, friends, a cat, etc] and she's STILL unhappy...? And it ends with her leaving again? But something tells me it won't.

Clementine's going to suffer a loss "unlike anything she's ever faced"? Ehhhh, press X to doubt. I played the games, I lived through all of her losses. I don't think anything will ever top seeing her parents as walkers and then losing Lee right after.

I mentioned before that the obvious direction here would be for Olivia to lose her baby, or for Olivia to die after giving birth, but uh... Clementine's been through both of those things with Christa and Rebecca... but we have to keep in mind that we're so far removed from the games at this point that it's never going to bring those up, y'know?

Real talk though? I'm very intrigued by the idea of a new mentor character called The Gardener who is apparently offering her a new family and a new way of life... but at a cost. What cost? What new way of life? What new family? Are we joining a cult now?

Listen, we missed out on the opportunity for a cannibalism plot in Book One, and Miss Morro left a lot to be desired in Book Two, so like... go extra dark this time. C'mon, Tillie, do it.

Also, Amos is definitely coming back as a twist villain, I feel it in my bones. We didn't see a body at the end of Book One okay!

I'm mostly joking but also NOT JOKING AT ALL!

My offer still stands, if Amos comes back, the book is an automatic 5/5 stars, no questions asked.

Anyway, I'll keep y'all updated on this, and when it releases next year, I'll write my in-depth review... "I read it so you don't have to" and all that.

Just as a final reminder, and allow me to make it extra big so that everyone can see it:

Leave Tillie Walden alone. I don't care if you hate the comics or think they're an insult to the game or whatever else. You want to express that, then do it on your blog. Don't send it to Tillie. We have enough pricks harassing her as is, and you're the bigger asshole here if you think it's okay to send her shit like that, so don't.

Seriously, it's the last book and then Tillie's done with the series, and I doubt they're gonna sign her on to make more. The games still exist, you can still go play them, these comics aren't taking that away from you... and if you feel like they are, then don't engage with them, period. It's not hard.

I cover the comics in-depth for people who don't want to read them but are curious about what happens. They don't bother me in that "they ruined the games" way that they used to, so I can handle it. If you can't, then do yourself a favor and just don't. Just don't!

[pascaloverx]

LAST LOVE — MYG

SUMMARY: You are about to become the Queen of Murak, a kingdom previously ruled by your father, the King. But there is something wrong with you, something your subjects must never suspect. You were born with powers, one of them being the ability to transform into a dragon. Because of a curse, you are condemned to be abnormal for the rest of your life. One of the only ways to alleviate your situation is by getting married. When Prince Yoongi offers to marry you, you feel there is a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This fanfiction will be a fantasy fanfic involving royalty. As the story progresses, a love triangle may develop, but for now, this fanfic will focus on Yoongi and the reader. This story will feature scenes of violence, fantasy, and romance. Inappropriate language will also be used, so minors should not interact with this fanfic. Other BTS members may appear in the fanfic. Taehyung will be an important character. I hope you engage with the fanfic and help it move forward.

AO3 LINK ONE

PREVIEW

When you were born, there was a seven-night-long celebration. Your father was so happy to finally have an heir that he couldn't contain his joy. Your mother was recovering from childbirth but was ecstatic that her baby was born healthy. She had been pregnant three times before finally giving birth to you. The kingdom no longer believed that any child would come out of her alive. So when you were born, she felt that she had fulfilled her life's purpose.

"Princess Y/L/N, the suitor for the engagement is already at the palace. As requested by Your Highness, the King has not been informed. But I must stress that the Princess is taking a risk." Taehyung, being a good advisor to the King, is always willing to help the crown's most precious jewel, which is you.

"Remember when we were children and played hide and seek? You always found me easily, so one time I hid in one of those secret hiding places in the palace and got stuck? That's my life now, stuck with this secret that only a few people know. The people are afraid of being attacked by a beast while I am afraid of being discovered. Every time I transform, I feel my humanity fade a little. The few books that talk about creatures like me say that after marriage, the situation becomes controlled. I need this, Taehyung. More than anything. I need control, and that control can only come from marrying someone. I can't wait for my parents to decide when that will happen." You speak as you approach Taehyung, who is dressed in formal attire. You gently touch his hands, holding them. He looks at you as if he wants to embrace you, but then he seems to come back to himself and steps back.

"I dare not say that the King and Queen are wrong. But I am on your side. Prince Yoongi is waiting for you. Go see if he is the answer to your prayers. Your parents will be out of the palace for the next few hours, but try to be brief. And remember that I'll be nearby, in case the Prince turns out to be a jerk." Taehyung reassures you once again why he is your best friend and confidant. You adjust your dress once more on your body and hug Taehyung. He doesn't like it when you break royal protocol like this, but you don't mind.

The path to the garden where Taehyung left the Prince seems so short when you're almost running the distance. The guards are watching you but they don't approach. Most of the time they leave you be because they like you. But there are those who fear you. They wonder why sometimes you disappear, only to reappear injured. Or why every time you vanish, the people of the kingdom claim to have seen a flying beast. When you arrive almost out of breath in the garden, you spot a man. A handsome man with dark hair, equally dark eyes, and a mysterious gaze.

"You're different from what I imagined. I mean, from the rumors; I thought you'd have claws or sharp teeth. Maybe even breathe fire. But you seem proper." Prince Yoongi speaks while still facing away from you. You're still catching your breath as you look at him uncertain of what to say. You're aware that your parents' efforts to protect your secret have only fueled the people's imagination about why you don't interact with them much.

"I should return the compliment and say the same. From the rumors about you, I thought you'd try to impregnate me without even speaking a word to me. But I see you're capable of having a conversation without trying to grab anyone." You speak, looking directly at him as he turns to face you with a mischievous look. He smiles knowingly, as if he appreciated your response, and then approaches.

"I appreciate someone who can come up with such a quick-witted response. That's why I'll propose something to you, no beating around the bush; tell me why you brought me here without your King's consent." Yoongi gets straight to the point, seeming impatient. You sigh, thinking about how to explain your situation. Then you approach him gently to speak calmly.

"There's a secret I carry, something I can't reveal right now. But I need a husband, and I know you need a wife. Your father is ready to strip you of all royal privileges. Your brother is about to marry and produce an heir to the throne. Be my husband, and I will make you Consort King; you can enjoy the good life without worrying about ruling for the people. You just have to be a good husband." You speak, looking at him with certainty. You know he's eager to break free from the constraints of being a Prince, but wouldn't survive a day as a commoner. You've researched him thoroughly, learned every detail about him.

"Your proposal seems overly generous. However, I need to know exactly what secret I'll be guarding for you. It's not fair for me to accept carrying a burden without knowing its weight. But fear not, I'm hardly easily impressed." Yoongi speaks, smiling proudly at himself. You look at him seriously, contemplating the consequences of revealing your other form. Well, if he dares to run from you, you could easily eat him, and his father would probably thank you.

"I can't reveal the secret until we are committed. You could walk away and expose my secret. Commit to me, and I'll commit to you." You respond calmly, trying not to panic at the thought of him running away and leaving you with no options. He's the third prince you've approached. Surely he has more to lose than the others, but you're running out of time.

"Are your guards trustworthy?" Yoongi asks, pointing his finger towards all the guards who are watching us. He's perceptive, that's good. You'll need an efficient husband.

"Surely they are," you respond, not understanding his reason for asking. He then moves closer to you, gently touching your face. He brings his mouth close to yours, pulling you into a delicate and soft kiss. Nothing forceful, but still very dangerous. Your guards immediately surround you both, as if waiting for a signal to attack.

"You can take this as our commitment. Tell me your secret, I won't say a word. If I do, you can claim I'm an opportunist who stole a kiss from you, and I'll likely be exiled," he says, gently pulling his face away from yours. You feel a slight difficulty in breathing, unsure if you're filled with anger or desire. Nevertheless, you sense your dragon form signaling the need to be set free.

"Follow me," you speak with a hint of anger in your voice. You glance at the guards around you and wave your hand downward, signaling them to lower their weapons. They comply, allowing you and Prince Yoongi to make your way outside the palace walls. He remains silent as he follows you toward the "dangerous" part of the forest.

Before you could even reach the heart of the forest, your transformation begins. Within minutes, your arms morph into wings, your legs into a tail, and you, once human, become a dragon. You remain silent in your transformed state but retain your human-like thoughts. Unsure if Yoongi is still nearby, you scan the area, devoid of trees in this part of the forest.

"You've got to be kidding me!" You hear from behind you, and you turn to look. Yoongi wears a look of surprise, not horror, but utter disbelief. It's as if he can't believe what just happened.

You snort a hot breath from your dragon nostrils, giving him your best dragon's judgmental look. He approaches you cautiously, reaching out to touch your face. He runs his hand over your scales, exploring tentatively. Though your instinct is to breathe fire and end it all, you let him touch you in your dragon form.

"Please don't take this the wrong way, but you're enormous. My lord, I don't even know what to say. If it's a compliment, you're a magnificent dragon. Not that you're unattractive in human form. But wow, this is impressive. You've truly surprised me," Yoongi says, still touching you gently, as if petting you. However, you roar in his direction, and he stumbles backward, falling to the ground. It's a bit comical. Immediately, you transform back into your human form, leaving Yoongi somewhat embarrassed. You forgot to tell him that when he returned to human form he would be naked. But you have a change of clothes stored near where you usually transform. Quickly as Yoongi closes his eyes, you put some clothes.

"I accept." He speaks while still on the floor, with his fingers covering his eyes and you still finishing getting dressed.

"Accept what?" You shout since you are a little far away from him. A few minutes later you approach him and take his fingers out of his eyes.

"To be your husband. To carry this burden with you, as long as we make one thing clear. You rule the country, but you don't rule me. I will be able to do and fuck whoever I want." He looks determined as he stands up. You want to kick him for talking like that but fuck it. You just need a wedding, nothing more.

"I will see what I can do for you but I do not expect loyalty from you. As for your obedience to me as Queen, know that I can transform into a dragon and set you on fire in the blink of an eye." You don't always need to transform into a dragon to scare men. Yoongi is no different, but at the same time as he is scared of you, it seems like he is excited. And then he reaches his hand towards you and you hold his hand, shaking it.

"It feels like the beginning of a beautiful partnership." Yoongi speaks as you shake your hands, and by the look in his eyes, you feel like you're probably going to regret this.

[jockons]

North

reading North's comments on YouTube about "she doesn't want freedom, she just wants revenge" how would she get revenge if she died by sacrificing herself for Markus and convincing an android not to detonate the dirty bomb? (North wants violence, but I guess she's aware of the consequences of a dirty bomb that would destroy any possibility of negotiation) gives the dirty bomb to Markus as a last chance, a desperate attempt to survive, it is clear that it is wrong, but that action is due to their survival, rather than wanting to kill humans, and even then, North did not will ever have the courage to do so, and if Markus uses it:

she doesn't seem to be happy, there's no reaction of joy or happiness or anything like that, but it seems like a subtle bitterness, and she shouldn't have that, I mean, isn't she a psychopath who just likes killing humans?

furthermore, although his relationship with her will diminish, the way he behaves varies when Markus decides what they should do in the Captain's cabin If Markus choose dialogue:

it's like, "I totally disagree with you, but at least we're trying to do something." then Markus will add that he will go alone to try and try to talk to the humans, North will tell him: "Don't do this, Markus, they'll kill you!" and let me tell you, she is absolutely right, if Markus actually went to talk to humans by himself, he would be lucky if he could just say "Hi" before then immediately get shot, the government is actively looking for him to destroy him anyway if Markus has followed the pacifist or violent path If you choose "Stay Hiding"

she will actively object and protest, only to be overpowered by the majority Markus: "We are going to dig in here, we'll lay low and when the time comes, we'll resume the fight. North: We can't hide in Jericho forever! We need to stop the slaughter now, otherwise we're next! You have to take into evaluate that they opened fields to destroy the Androids, and they are destroyed, North actively confronts Markus because that means letting the Androids be destroyed without doing anything, when Markus chooses dialogue, she still doesn't agree because she doesn't believe that the dialogue will work, but at least she sees that Markus wants to try to stop this operation of destruction by humans, for me I attack the camps to liberate your people, I don't consider it to be entirely evil, but it's up to you whether it is or not, after all everyone has a different point of view

Let's consider North who has seen the worst side of human beings, I mean her function was quite humiliating, compared to that of a Gardener or a University Professor, "even the other androids suffered" I know, but I mean that it is more likely for other Androids who have a "less extreme" function to have some good experiences with humans, than Androids who have the North function, and like people, each reacts differently to experiences, and also, she notices and feels that androids are being mistreated by humans, she spent a month in Jericho and seeing her people dying in the dark, with fear, because of humans, I think it made her feel more and demonstrate the her point of view, fake journalistic reports putting Markus's pacifist intentions in a bad light and "many of our people were burned in response to what happened" and the authorities who will shoot no matter what Markus does in Freedom March, not to mention the potential attack on Jericho, in which many androids will be killed, even if they choose to submit

North is just a reinforcement in what believe, everything takes place in about a one week, the conditions and time to change one's opinion are difficult, if the game were set over a month or more and could interact with humans who help her in her goal of freedom (like Rose) I could see it slowly change, but as the game is I find it difficult. But I like that scene with her and Kara, it gives her a point of reflection to think about the Human-Android issue if Markus dies, North seems in distress not to say depression after Markus's death, before Kara leaves after asking to North for help, the latter asks her about it in protecting a human child

her tone of voice, unlike Markus in this scene, seems more hostile, only to be answered by Kara "She needs me and i need her it's as simple as that.." then North goes silent and goes back to thinking, I mean, come on North, she's a child, she poses no danger to you or your cause, in fact she'll help Kara get passports, even for Alice, who I suppose doesn't actually know that she is not human.

“she wants to ask about Markus's past but she doesn't want her to ask him about hers.” Try to see it from her point of view, her past is one of pure humiliation, shame and so dirty, she is afraid that he might judge her for what she was, but at the same time she feels comfortable with him, she has feelings at on the contrary, sometimes we say something shameful that happened to us but we are afraid to tell our friends or even our parents for fear of being judged

she literally starts crying even before revealing her past to Markus, keeping everything to herself, without finding a shoulder, a support to lean on, North is that person who manages to hide her vulnerabilities well and acts tough, but inside she's vulnerable, she has her insecurities, her sadness and her fears. You can see it still affects her deeply, we also see her caring for injured androids, just like Josh and Simon do

usually I don't cry for Detroit Become Human, I know there are very sad scenes and things like that, I'm sad but I don't cry, but one of the few scenes that succeeded was this, her sacrifice in the attack on the camps like Friend/Companion

she was so proud of Markus, for how he had dragged them along, for how he had given hope to each of them, but at the same time she seems to be sad to leave him, she tries not to make him feel guilty for taking her heart, she says that in any case she will remain alive as long as he is "My heart is beating inside your chest ... Now when you're free, a part of me will always be free with you" She never thought she could be better than him, ever, except when she was angry at him after he failed everything, and even then, if Markus comes back and accuses her of cheating (although Simon and Josh also had a hand in ousting Markus as Leader) North doesn't make excuses, she accepts it and doesn't argue about it, otherwise, she tells Josh that "Markus would know what to do" even if he was a pacifist Markus

but one of the reasons why I became fond of her is that when Markus shows his difficulties, shows that he is not this "Self-confident and invincible Leader" but that he has his weaknesses, and North tries to encourage him, Markus gave North has the hope and courage to fight for change, for something different, and she reciprocates with loyalty and respect,

When Markus says he no longer hears the voices of their people demonstrating in the other camps since they have been killed, North naively (although I suppose she knows they are dead) tries to reassure Markus "Maybe the humans have scrambled our network...Maybe they just can't get through" North reminds me of a friend of mine, he hates women because he was teased and laughed at by them, he has had few positive experiences with girls and so for him girls are all the same, just as North does with humans, but at the same time my friend has always often supported me when I told him about my difficulties even though we strongly disagreed with his generalization about girls, just as North does with Markus, they make mistakes with their thoughts, but they both care about the people they cares about, because yes, North she cares about Markus, it's just hard work to say it for her "I just want you to know that I-...i'm glad i met you"

I guess it's ironic that i remind me of a friend of mine who hates girls lol I know North is always portrayed as the devil on Markus' shoulders, and like Cage tries to make the player hate North, but despite this I can't feel hatred for her, only sadness and pity for her, I wish we could see in the game her change on humans, the fact that they are not all the same and there are some who would treat her well, she could slowly trust them, unfortunately this doesn't happen, but I would like to read a fanfiction about it on a post-canon of hers about it, but I just read Fanfiction in whose her hatred and despise for Connor lol, for the rest I know that they could have done much more with her character, and I recognize that she is not really well done, and that her relationship with Markus is forced (even if there is more than one way to avoid it, in fact in most of my games I keep them as friends and that's it, and I should because I'm a phenomenon, since I tried to woo her in my first game and failed lmao) I don't hate Norkus, I don't feel sorry for them, but I prefer them to remain friends, with an additional my headcanon that North has a slight crush on him but because of her past and the situation she is facing in finding her identity and fighting for revolution she prefers not enter into a love story. but I still like her and I can't hate her , you can hate it or not like her, everyone has their own preferences I guess, but honestly I refuse to believe that she has never done anything good in the game, as I often read in Youtube comments. I don't think everything she does is right, to be honest, but it's understandable why she wants to do it, and sometimes I agree with what her says, but that's what Markus is for, to provide balance.

[dramaticl0vers]

HERE SHE ISS

SAY HI TO OLENNA AND HER HUBY

@amoexii here she is, I tried my best 😭,and also I changed her name from "Dhelia" to "Olenna"

Information about this beauty:

-In the beginning she I named her Dhelia, but in the end I decided that her name will be Olenna, which means "Ray of light or sun", for the reason that I will soon explain

- She is the eldest daughter of Hades and Persephone ( I love this couple a lot in the series, because in the original mythology it is...well, TURBIOUS)

-The reason for her name: Hades called her Olenna because living in the underworld, which is such a lonely and dark place, her birth symbolized the entry of a “ray of light” into his life and that of Persephone, which brought with it joy, love, union and the feeling of never feeling alone again.

-After her are her little brothers, Zagreus, Melinoe and Macaria (WHICH I DON'T KNOW WHY THE HELL THEY DIDN'T INCLUDE IN THE SERIES, LET'S HOPE SHE JUST HAS NOT BORN YET)

- She has blonde hair like her mother and eyes like her father, a kind of lilac combined with gray.

- Although in her physical appearance she is more related to Persephone, in her occupations as a deity you can see a mixture between both parents, mainly dominated by Hades, given that she is the goddess of peaceful death, protector of the living and the dead and guardian of the Elysian fields, but at the same time she is also the protective goddess of flora and fauna.

-A curious fact about her is that she had really fast growth, to give you an idea, she was already an adult millennia before the events of season 1 happened.

- She has powers, they are a kind of purple “fire”, and she can also make some plants bloom, but she doesn't like to use the first ones because when she was a child she tried to control them and, not being able to do so, she always hurt someone and that scared her a lot, especially when she once accidentally hit Persephone with they.

- The flowers related to her are: Forget-me-nots (her favorites), lilies, bells and white jasmines.

- As for her personality, she is quite reserved with people she doesn't know, but she is pleasant and fun when he gains confidence.

-she doesn't like to talk a lot. Olenna is afraid of ruining things with people outside her close circle, other deities, for example. Therefore, when she is in a social environment and her close ones are not around, she prefers to remain silent and express her opinion only when it seems necessary.

-She does not usually get angry easily, but she HATES it when those she loves are bothered, she has grown up in a home full of love and has a high emotional responsibility, she is willing to defend her family no matter what the cost, she learned that from her parents.

-Try to avoid Ares at all costs. (Why did they make him so bad? He is so good in the original mythology, he literally killed the person who raped his daughter, my baby😭)

-She doesn't like Demeter. She doesn't hate her, but she doesn't want to form close ties with her either.

-now, what you are all here for, OLENNA AND HERMES💕

- She knew Hermes, bah, she had seen him a few times from the balcony of her room in the Underworld. , leaving the souls with Charont, but never approached him, and then had the opportunity to meet him in person when he arrived at Olympus.

- Regarding their relationship:

- They both love each other in such a way that they feel empty when his partner is not there.

- Olenna, as I said before, has a great emotional responsibility, she hates seeing Hermes sad or downcast in any way and she feels truly fulfilled when she can feel that he feels loved.

- Demonstrations of affection are both sentimental, physical and material.

- Sometimes, when Olenna is in her garden taking care of her plants, or talking to Artemis and Athena, among others, he passes by her side using his speed skills and alone He places a kiss on her lips or cheek before continuing with his work, it always catches her off guard, but she loves that.

- They are quite passionate and fiery, you wouldn't want to share the same sector of rooms after they didn't see each other for a week because of their duties. .

- They both have long hair, which is why they both love to brush and comb each other's hair, especially Hermes.

- Neither of them really likes the idea of sharing their lover, Olenna is quite territorial when it comes to his loved ones and the idea of another deity having the pleasure of sharing the love of his life is not something he likes very much, to tell the truth. As for Hermes, he is more than satisfied with having his wife, he is not TOTALLY CLOSED to having a threesome, for example, but he prefers Olenna first.

- Hermes would definitely dedicate his career victories in the Olympics to her and Olenna would be like : “Honey, you know that if you wear sandals that give you speed it's technically cheating, right?” and he would respond like: “I didn't see any rules, darling.”

[thefirstknife]

Season of the Deep cutscene reveals

I don't even know how to begin this but oh my god. The cutscene. The origins of the Witness. I am absolutely on the floor right now. I will post the link as soon as we have it but until then, I'll try to do it justice with screenshots. This is absolutely groundbreaking for the whole setting. I'll put it under just in case (also it's long). Seriously don't click until you watch the cutscene:

First things first, the prediction was correct! The first victims are the Witness' people!

This matches with the first message from Ahsa, about the first victims being "nomads and wanderers." They appear to have discovered the Traveler:

It's interesting how it's shown here. As if rising from the ground. Probably artistic visual to show that it gardens and transforms the earth around it, but maybe it might also be showing that this was the first spot it showed up to garden. As if it emerged here first. The rest of the cutscene seems to support that, given that the Pyramid ships did not exist before this so there was nothing to chase it. So it was either gardening before this without being chased or it never gardened before and this was the first place it touched as it spawned into the universe.

This matches the stuff about how they ended up getting to live in a big city in an oasis. The Traveler did for them it did for us, helping them get into a golden age. But as the messages from Ahsa said, they wanted something more from it, which isn't what the Traveler wanted to give them.

I love love LOVE how ominously it shows them building what would later become the Pyramid ships.

Man. Chills. And then their discovery of the Veil! Interesting information; they didn't make it or have it inately, they found it by studying the Traveler. This lends credence to Ahsa's messages where she talks about "two halves of a whole long divided" as being about the Traveler and the Veil.

They went out to find and take the Veil, which they did. The Black Fleet already fully developed. It's interesting how the Veil is show up there without the Tree of Silver Wings/roots section.

Super cool stuff about how they got to perceive the Light as negative:

They already knew much about the Light. How it could bend the laws of the universe and create life. But they came to realise that it could bring ruin... just as easily. The cosmic events it set in motion could wipe out entire civilisations in a heartbeat... without reason. And so they saw the Light not as a source of prosperity... but of unfettered chaos.

This fits with how the Unveiling describes the Gardener deciding to pursue complexity and the Winnower being entirely put off by the mere idea that things could grow to be complex, uncontrollable and chaotic:

Your new rule will only make great false cysts of horror full of things that should not exist that cannot withstand existence that will suffer and scream as their rich blisters fill with effluent and rot around them, and when they pop they will blight the whole garden. Whatever exists because it must exist and because it permits no other way of existence has the absolute claim to existence. That is the only law.

This side of the Darkness philosophy despises chaos. It despises the idea that everything can develop as it wants, that there's no order, no goal, no rules, nothing special to strive for, just free will and your own choices. It seems that the Witness' people came to this conclusion too as they delved into studying the Darkness and started regarding the Light as too chaotic and without rules to follow. Without rules, there is no way to control anything and things can go in directions you can't predict which deeply troubled them. That means that anything could happen, including entire civilisations being destroyed for "no reason." Talk about an existential crisis.

The object in the top left corner showed up as they mentioned the Veil which seems to imply that this is their symbol for it and it's really really good because that's the symbol we know from Rhulk's Pyramid:

Here it is looming over Lubrae; is the Veil responsible for the power the Witness used over Rhulk and for Rhulk which led to Rhulk rising as a disciple and destroying Lubrae?

Darkness is described as:

And then The Woman :) with the text as she appears and gets sliced:

And in the Darkness they found the means to carve away the chaos of existence. To calcify it into a final shape. Eternal... and perfected.

Much to think about what the statue means now. I'll have to rewatch this and everything about it a few more times. But after this detour, it's revealed that the Witness' people returned the Veil to the Traveler and tried making a connection, just like at the end of Lightfall, in order to "reshape reality itself." Big potential implications for the portal:

But the Traveler said no and left. And then it happened.

Having witnessed the truth in the Darkness, they used its binding power to merge themselves... into the salvation they craved. Thus began the Witness's pursuit... its campaign to impose meaning on a meaningless universe.

The reason the Witness has a smoke filled with faces above its head is beacuse that's all of the Witness' people merged together into one being, eternally in pursuit of the Traveler (Gardener), to "reshape reality itself" and to "impose meaning on a meaningless universe."

There are a few very grim scenes of the merging which shows a lot of of dismembered bodies in the shape of a triangle just piling up and then something akin to their essences being pulled into one to create the Witness. Incredible stuff.

Wildest shit I've ever seen. Seems also like we're on a good track with the general theme the game is setting up here. The Darkness is a power of the mind and consciousness and was used to create this being. They learned so much about the Darkness by studying the Veil and the Veil is inextricably linked with the mind and consciousness as well. Its link with the Traveler could, apparently "reshape reality" which, again, interesting implications for the portal now and possibly strengthening my theory that in order to enter the portal and survive, we must get in by transferring our consciousness or perhaps merging our consciousness with something.

Still much to learn about! And we might, given that Sloane has told us that Ahsa and her bond became too weak for Ahsa to also tell us how to get through the portal, but that she will be ready to say more next time.

This season might actually end with telling us how to go through, which I did not expect at all since we have two more seasons to go after that. But then again, this will be just in time for us to be ready for the August The Final Shape showcase; perhaps knowing how to get through and what's on the other side are the basic necessities to understand the showcase at all. Which might mean that getting through and knowing what's on the other side aren't even close to being the biggest mysteries of what's going to happen in TFS.

Absolutely insane. I will be rewatching this cutscene on repeat until the end of my days. I will never be a normal person again after this. So much stuff to think about and try to put into place now with this hindsight. I'll definitely be looking over some stuff again now that we have this information.

[jelzorz]

170.

Claudia works in the gardens these days.

Personally, she thinks she got off easy. She knows what she did and what it cost, knows that if she were anyone else there might have been a cell waiting for her, and even that would have been a light sentence compared to what it should have been, but the argument is that there are other uses for her. She knows too much about plants—how to dry them, how to brew them, which ones and which parts to use to ward off fevers and ease pain. Things she picked up from Terry, she supposes, and from the books her father used to make her read in her youth.

It's a little like dark magic, and at the same time not. It's life that gives life, it's knowing which parts do what, but it's knowing the cost and using it to heal, not to hurt. It's a far cry from what she used to be: a nobleman's daughter, with all of its titles and comforts: the well-fitted dresses, the clean hands, the luxury of working at a desk, and steadiness of her future. The maids used to curtsey to her when the brought up her tea, their eyes down and hands folded, their voices quiet an polite, and now she is one of them, dirt under her fingernails and all.

It doesn't matter. Her back aches and there is sweat on her brow, but it's certainly better than being dead. She misses the luxuries sometimes, but she still gets to live at the castle, and she still gets to see Soren, and Ezran even comes to join her at times so it's not all bad. Not really. It's what he's doing today.

"This isn't super king-like," she says. It's the middle of summer. The air is humid and the heat of the sun is sharp on her skin, and Claudia is working on her knees in the far end of the gardens and planting flowers she knows the bees like. Ezran works beside her, dirt stained hands brushing hers. "It's not your job to get your hands dirty like this."

He shrugs. "Everyone has to get their hands dirty at some point," he says. It comes off a little cryptically and Claudia wonders if there's something happening in court that's bothering him.

She scoffs. "Don't I know it?" she says, wriggling her fingers and trying to pass it off as a joke.

He doesn't laugh and she presses her lips shut.

"Is everything okay?"

"Hm? Oh." He chuckles then, a little sheepish. "Yeah. Just council stuff. There are... things I have to do that I never thought I'd have to and it... doesn't feel good."

"Ah yeah." Claudia looks away from and stares at her hands. Sometimes, after bad weather, the silt on the side of the castle closer to the cliffs turns red and stains her fingers red in a way that makes her want to scrub them raw. "I get that. Sometimes it's... just what you have to do."

Ezran says nothing. Then the lunch bell rings in the distance and he gets up with a huff. "There's some stuff going on in Lux Aurea," he admits. "They need more of our troops but... we're spread pretty thin right now. If I send soldiers, it'd only be because it's Aunt Amaya and Aunt Janai asking, and it'd be our soldiers risking their lives for something we're not even involved in, but if I say no, there are people in Lux Aurea who are going to die."

"Mm," says Claudia, ducking her head. This is council stuff, high level security stuff that she absolutely should not be hearing, but Ez talks about it anyway, seeking counsel from someone outside of it all—from someone that isn't Callum.

"Is it supposed to get easier?" he wonders, holding a hand out to her to help her up too. "I just want to be a good king," he murmurs. "I want to help people, but it feels like one way or another, I'm gonna end up with other people's blood on my hands."

"Mm," says Claudia again. He tugs her up, and it does not escape her notice that he doesn't let go right away. "I can't answer that for you Ez," she murmurs after a moment. "I've done worse things than you, y'know? But... if you're gonna ask me, then I think you just have to do what you believe in your heart is right. You're doing your best, and at the end of the day..." She runs a thumb across his knuckles, clearing them of dirt clinging to his skin, and smiles. "These look pretty clean to me."

[thevoicefromanotherworld]

PANEM ET CIRCENSES (XIV)

The next morning Commodus' body was taken down from the cross on Maximus' orders.

He was buried with the other emperors in the city's crypt. His name was erased so that no one would ever have to remember the dark times Rome had gone through because of him.

Diana went back to work in the market. The general got her chariot back and provided her with top-quality products imported from the largest cities in the empire so she could resume her work as a merchant.

Every day she returned to what had once been the emperor's residence, where they both now lived.

As they dined by soft candlelight, Maximus asked her about her day and listened patiently and with interest until she finished speaking.

The days passed and they both could see that, thanks to his rule, Rome was slowly becoming the most influential city in the Empire again. Maximus had established one day of audiences a week, where he invited citizens to show him their concerns and interests.

The general listened to them attentively and solved any problems that arose within a period of two days at most.

Everything was going well until a couple of women approached Diana's stall to buy three pairs of potatoes each. While she was putting them in her respective baskets she listened to their conversation:

-I heard that ships have been seen approaching Ostia -said one of them looking at her friend- that can't mean anything good, right?

-I wouldn't worry -answered the other- the emperor will protect us, haven't you heard? He won't leave us at the mercy of invaders as the previous Caesar would do

-Even so, don't you think I should do something? –the woman asked, referring to Maximus- I won't believe that he's on the side of the people until I see him fight with my own eyes

-I'm sure the general has everything planned, ladies –Diana intervened, forcing a smile- you shouldn't worry so much, otherwise your faces will wrinkle sooner than expected

-How dare you talk to me like that, rude brat? –one of them bellowed, staring at her- Do you even know who I am?

-I could ask you the same question –she retorted without losing her manners, keeping her voice as calm as she could given the situation-

-Have you hit your head or something like that? –the other intervened- you are just a simple saleswoman, someone expendable

-Expendable –she murmured, holding the gaze of both of them, the women tensed when they saw how serious she became- ladies, I would not like to cause a scandal, so I suggest you go back where you came from

Of course the news of her dalliance with the women reached Maximus' ears through one of his soldiers, who that day was patrolling the market square, making sure that no one was causing havoc.

When Diana returned to the house, which had previously belonged to Commodus and was now occupied by the new Caesar, he did not have time to go beyond the threshold of the inner garden when her voice stopped him.

-Diana, you have returned early –said Maximus, who made a gesture with his hand- come closer

He was sitting in one of the picturesque chairs that were around the pond, dressed in a light blue tunic, similar to the color of his eyes. It was strange to see him in such a relaxed atmosphere dressed in those clothes.

Diana missed her armor, but if what the women at the market had said was true, she had a feeling that she would wear it again soon.

Maximus watched her for a few moments in complete silence, before speaking.

"What happened at the market?" he asked, his kind blue eyes scrutinizing hers patiently, waiting for her answer.

"Nothing," she murmured quickly, avoiding looking him in the eyes. "I haven't sold too many products today, a couple of potatoes and a little salt."

"Don't lie to me," she answered kindly. "You know that's not what I'm asking."

"I know that one of your soldiers told you," she said.

"I know that you know," the general admitted, looking at her attentively.

"Then why are you asking me what happened?" -I want to hear you say it- she said calmly, gesturing to the seat in front of him- sit down

Silence fell between them again until Diana spoke

-I argued with two women- she confessed under Maximus' watchful eye- they were questioning your authority- she defended herself- I couldn't let them leave just like that

A soft smile spread on the general's lips, she continued talking

-They said there were rumors that they had seen ships in Ostia- she added making the general listen to her more attentively- they were worried that they were invaders, and they fear that you will leave the citizens of Rome defenseless

-That's not going to happen- he intervened- I'm not Commodus, I'm not going to abandon them

-That's what I tried to explain to them, but they didn't listen to me- she whispered looking at him attentively- they're afraid Maximus and if what they say is true and they have seen ships in Ostia…

-We must prepare ourselves- he finished for her, Diana nodded finally -Just in case-he said--I'll tell Thracian to gather the legion.

-Okay, then-Diana said, nodding her head in agreement, as she stood up and took some water from the pond to water an orchid that was almost dry.

He watched her in silence, the way she held the root of the flower to place the water directly on her eyes and the concentrated expression on her face while she did it captured his attention for a few moments.

-Diana-he called her again without knowing why-

She looked up at him waiting for an answer. He shook his head.

-Nothing-he murmured, sketching a simple smile-

[kristailine]

On Kazuya's and Jun's Love Languages

I really love this ship with all my heart like I think I shipped them way before I have known what shipping meant. It's so frustrating that we really don't know much about their relationship and dynamic in canon but I can't help but wonder what they would've been like as a couple >.<

For me, personally, I really do think that Kazuya and Jun are both suckers on Quality Time. I feel like once they felt their attraction to the other, they kept longing to be in each other's presence, and at first Kaz was probably like "I just have to know more about her because she's mysterious." and shit like that like hunny, just say you're crushing on her 😩

Jun probably thought the same like "I need to be in his presence because of the darkness that surrounds him." Just say he's hot and you wanna date him, girl.

When they do hang out together, they make the most out of their time and just really let themselves get lost in the moment. It probably also supports that no matter how short the KOIFT 2 was, it was enough quality time for them to bond with each other enough for them to fall in love or get closer to one another or however viewers wanna interpret it (as we wait for tk8 to confirm wth happened between them in tk2).

Kazuya's secondary love language - I think I'm leaning mostly on Acts of Service. He probably isn't aware because he just thinks he's doing people a favor, but unconsciously, it's his way to show that he cares about the people he values. Like that man helped Bruce seek refuge after the plane crash and fake his death so he doesn't get caught by interpol. Hell he even granted Anna her request of being put in cryo sleep.

Doing acts of service to express his love for Jun was probably the most convenient and easiest way he could ever express how much he cares about her. Other love languages are just too explicit so he mostly tries to reason to himself that 'he's just doing Jun a favor' but it's probably him doing his best to get the message across that he truly values her so he's willing to do such things for her.

I can just imagine Jun having a bad day, and Kaz, being the man that he is who sucks with speaking comforting words and probably never initiated physical affection to anyone, gets up from his seat and goes "I'll show you some of the floras in the Mishima Estate garden since you love ecology so much." and then hopes she'll feel better. "I'll go get Lee to fix those papers you need for your work." or maybe even when they're sparring, Kazuya would always be the one to get her a bottle of water and a towel to wipe her sweat off with, since Jun is probably out of breath and needs more time to recover.

Jun's secondary love language - Words of Affirmation. Have ya'll just seen the sappiest ass shit she says to Kazuya in her tk8 intros and outros and even in Tekken Motion Picture like girlie has a helluva lot to say and she is so valid so let her speak 🗣️

Tekken Bloodline (tho non canon ugh) also kinda portrays Jun being comforting with words with the way she talks to Jin after his encounter with the bullies. Jun is seen as having some kind of profound sense of wisdom which enables her to empathize and feel people due to her being psychic and also spending most of her time during childhood getting in touch with nature. So I think with that, she always has the right words to say, and she knows exactly how to put into words how much she cares for a person. Plus she's an INFJ (lol).

Kazuya probably wouldn't have let her in his life had Jun not said the right words upon meeting him. Kazuya being in such a powerful position during TK2 had him surrounded with people who only spoke of deceit and lies to get to his good side and all that, and seeing how genuine Jun was with her words and how much it deeply soothed some of his inner wounds may have deepened the way he saw her. Thus, they became closer.

I do like to think that even though Jun is good with her words, she never really got the guts to outright say I love you to Kazuya 😩 I think she be too shy and bashful for that but argh with a little bit more of delulu to the ship, maybe I can convince myself that she did. Objectively speaking really, I don't think she could ever have said it during TK2.

Honorable mentions to Jun's secondary love language - Physical touch. Like idkkkkk, probably just me but I think I got it from somewhere that her tk8 outro literal translation kinda says she wants to snuggle up to Kazuya, and that is just so sweet 😩 im crying

Just a few two cents on them really :>>

[jrosa82fanfics]

Part 1 of Finding Family

Content Warning: This fic will include sexual content, child abuse (non-sexual), and is an omegaverse sequel to my previous fic Discovering Safety (which you don't have to read first but I recommend you do as the second sentence of this fic literally spoils a plot point for that one).

BEWARE: This specific chapter has a flashback to child abuse

That is all, please enjoy!

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Christmas is usually seen as a happy time of year when people come together with their family. Damian’s family has expanded over the years with the announcement of Dick and Jason’s second child, but even the thought of his niece and nephew isn’t enough to bring him out of his melancholy thoughts.

Damian doesn’t talk about his childhood often. It’s full of dark bitter memories that he keeps locked away from the rest of the world, and yet on days like these those memories break free and haunt his every thought. The first memory that always surfaces is from when he was four, the details blur in the memory nothing concrete except for the feelings that come with it.

Damian is standing in the garden with a bo staff in hand, his grandfather is in front of him. The older man is tall, everyone in Damian’s life is, but he always seems to loom larger than the rest. The man is his mother’s opposite, the harsh to her soft, the cruel to her kind.

Damian isn’t scared of him, not anymore, but the man continues to intimidate him with his greater strength. They train together like this everyday, as they have since Damian could stand on his own.

He’s learned how to fight little by little, the training leaving him bruised and aching and on one occasion he’d even twisted an ankle. At four years old he was finally ready to learn how to use weapons and he hoped he’d be able to train with something a little sharper soon.

For now he had the staff in his hands, the wood strong in his tight grip and his body poised for an attack. He makes a move instead, impatience not allowing him to wait for long before he rushes forward and strikes. His strike is easily blocked but the fight begins so he has what he wants.

He has yet to beat the man before him but he doesn’t let it stop him. He plans on defeating him one day, and that can only happen if he trains and learns. “Your form is sloppy Damian” is the first reprimand he hears as they fight, but it isn’t the last. He has to fight to keep standing as his grandfather strikes and he barely blocks the blow.

The force he uses is more than any other teachers Damian has to train with, but that’s what makes it a challenge. “Your mother was better at this at your age.” He says as he manages to trip Damian. He lands on his side and the scrape of stone manages to cut a slice up his arm.

He feels a swell of frustration at failing again but refuses to cry over the injury or his defeat. He learned early on that crying made everything worse. The first time he had cried during training he had been learning how to block punches with one of his teachers. His grandfather had snuck up on him and surprised him with a punch to his stomach.

The blow had been soft compared to what he had endured today, but at the time he had cried because he felt it was unfair. He’d been admonished right away though, and had quickly tried to stop the tears from coursing down his face. “You can’t expect to have an opponent who fights fair Damian, you should have been prepared for a surprise attack.”

His grandfather had then made a habit of striking him by surprise for weeks afterwards, catching him several times and leaving him paranoid that the man would materialize out of nowhere to get him again. He had been younger then, and he told his mother. He knew that she would keep him safe, she always told him so and with the way she showered affection on him, he felt confident she would ask her father to leave him alone.

“But Damian, you know why he’s doing this.” she had replied when he cried to her about how scary it was. “He’s trying to help you my darling. We don’t want you to be unprepared to survive without us. I know it’s scary at first, but once you get better it becomes easier to deal with everything. I’ve been through your grandfather’s training and I survived. You have nothing to worry about, just focus on getting better.”

It was the first time they had spoken of the training together, but not the last. Now he rises swiftly before his grandfather strikes him, and gets back into a fighting stance. “No, we’re done for now. You haven’t improved enough in the last two weeks to make this worth my time.” his grandfather dismisses him and he feels his shoulders droop as he turns and heads to his room.

He had been working hard but it seemed that no matter how much he improved he’d never meet the man’s expectations. He kept it together until he closed the door of his room, then he couldn’t stop the rush of tears that filled his eyes and the sobs that stole his breath away as he threw himself into bed.

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I'm sorry for starting this story off so sad, but I hope you liked it anyways

[scoutisnthome]

whats the lindworm???

Jay of jayberd fame you have no idea what you have done (unleashed my autism)

The lindworm is a creature (and my favorite little guy) originating in the Danish folktale of the prince lindworm, theoretically arriving in Denmark somewhere around the 1700s.

(read more for people who don't care about my prince lindworm synopsis)

What a lindworm is, is a basically a snake dragon thing? It's hard to describe because reports and descriptions vary in terms of how humanoid it is (my depictions of him air on the more monstrous naga side of things) but the common factor is "insanely huge snake".

The story for this specific lindworm goes that there was a childless king and queen in Denmark, the queen went on a walk in the forest one day and was approached by a witch.

The witch asked her what was wrong and when she said it was because she couldn't concieve the witch gave her a solution. She said to turn over two handled jugs in her garden and leave them over night. In the morning they will have a white rose and a red rose respectively. She should eat the red rose for a boy and a white rose for a girl, but never both.

The queen goes home not expecting much, but when she wakes in the morning she finds the promise roses! She goes back and forth but eventually decides on the white rose, eating it. But apparently said rose is so tasty that she eats the red rose too. Which as stated, is not a good idea .

The queen falls pregnant as promised, and gives birth while the king is at war. And instead of a baby boy or girl, her first child is a baby lindworm, which promptly skitters away into the darkness. The queen thinks she's hallucinating and moves on, giving birth to her second child, a son.

Years later, when the human son is older and ready to be married, he sets off which a horse and carriage to find a bride. The fully grown lindworm blocks his way saying "a bride for me before a bride for you". The younger prince promptly goes home and the queen goes "shit man I thought he was like a vision or something. He is technically the older son tho so I guess we gotta help him get married."

So they do that and they bring a princess from a foreign kingdom too marry the lindworm, which he promptly eats and demands a second bride because apparently it doesn't count. So the entire thing happens a second time with the same result. The king running out of disposable alliances approaches his shepherd, who has one daughter, asking the shepherd to allow his daughter to marry the lindworm. The shepherd refuses but the king doesn't take no for an answer.

So the shepherds daughter goes on a forest walk lamenting her death a little bit and is met by the same witch who talked with the queen. And the queen instructs her that if she is too survive her wedding night she should wear every shift she owns (presumed to be 10 or 9) and when the lindworm tells her to shed a shift (in order to eat her) she should respond by telling him to shed a skin and they go back and forth taking off layers for a while, and then when the shepherds girl is on her final shift she needs to hit him with the whips, throw the liquids at him, and hug him. If only for a moment. She agrees and starts preparations.

The wedding day comes and she is married to the lindworm. And after they are led to the wedding chamber the plan goes off basically without a hitch until the lindworm is a writhing mass on the ground (the body horror makes me insane). She whips him and throws the buckets and VERY NOTABLY IN MY MIND (I'm Ill about it) instead of just hugging him for a moment she picks him up, lays him on the bed and promptly falls asleep cuddling with him. That was NOT in the instructions that was a DELIBERATE act of kindness.

And then he wakes up as a prince and it's happily ever after I guess. But yeah I'm consistently Ill about the skin scene specifically because as stated 1. There were deliberate asks of kindness there on the shepherds girls part that were not required of her, 2. The lindworm isn't stupid at a certain point he HAD to realize what was happening, the fact that he didn't attack her then and there was a show of both immense vulnerability and trust, and 3. The intimacy of it all drives me nuts it's so good. Also something comedy about it is that when asked to remove a skin he says "no one has ever asked me too do that before" which makes him seem almost flustered by the request it's cute.

I think about them constantly and I'm insane about the nuances and symbolism of this story. Also the body horror and my trans lindworm theory (I can go into immense detail). There is both immense comedy, horror, and emotional turmoil in the details of this story and I'm insane about it.

[azures-grace]

✨Spoilers for TES IV and V if you're reading this.✨

I saw a thing a little while ago that said that Skyrim was darker than Oblivion.

As someone's who's played more Skyrim than Oblivion, here are a few reasons why I think that's false.

Gonna start with some of the dark stuff from Skyrim

So Skyrim has it's fair share of pretty dark moments: Mercer Frey trying to murder the LDB, Astrid trying to murder the LDB but it backfires, everything with Cicero, the Namira and Boethiah quests, the entire concept of Alduin, that one Barrow in the northeast with the necrophiliac, the whole deal with the Falmer and how their souls are no longer black souls, and more I'm sure I haven't found yet.

However, most of those fit with the general aesthetic of the game. Skyrim is a cross between harsh frozen wasteland, dangerous forest, and dragon raids. Also Mercer and Astrid are part of the groups that are well outside of the law. Also also Astrid broke all the tenets already. I don't really like Astrid.

On the other hand, you've got Oblivion, and I think I'll start with the Blackwood Company.

So in the fighters guild questline, the HOK joins the Blackwood Company to infiltrate it and like, see what's going on. They get sent on this mission and have to drink this hist sap that makes them think that they're killing goblins when they're actually killing the townsfolk.

You want darker? It gets darker.

I'm not entirely sure where this next one comes from, but some random dark elf dies in front of you after trying to be crowned king or something. He just straight up gets electrocuted by the Ayleid chair.

additionally, Oblivion has it's main call to fame: the literal realm of Oblivion. If you've played the game, there's really not much need to explain. If not, there's just random corpses hanging around, there's these things called something along the lines of "the punished". It's quite literally just flesh bags filled with loot.

The main quest itself is filled with dark themes, which makes sense-- you're stopping a cult trying to bring about the end of the world. The cave thing under Mankar Camoren's Paradise is full of people being tortured by being submerged in lava but they don't die. It seems that even those who were loyal to the Mythic Dawn are not safe from the Savage Garden.

This one's a random detail, but there's a alchemist in Leyawiin who wants to know the fine for necrophilia. Apparently it's less than Morrowind.

Corvus Umbranox was kept from his home and family because of the cowl of the Grey Fox and his wife almost arrested him when he tried to return to her. Their reunion was very sweet aside from that.

To close this out, I'd like to turn to the Dark Brotherhood from Oblivion. Throw out Astrid and her failed betrayal, let's talk about how Mathieu Bellamont almost succeeded in wiping the entire Brotherhood out. This gets its own group of sections. I really like the Dark Brotherhood and I'll probably go into that rabbit hole later.

To kick it off, let's start with the Purification. I think it's implied that Bellamont was the reason the Purification in the Cheydinhal sanctuary happened. So that's killing off everyone who trusted you.

Secondly, you have the dead drops. After the first two of those, you're just killing off members of the Black Hand.

After that is the murder of Lucien Lachance. I don't think I'll ever forget walking into Applewatch the first time. And then Bellamont kills two more people before getting killed himself.

Random side note, but Ungolim put up a heck of a fight when I tried to kill him. I think he knew he was next.

I've skipped over the Daedric quests, maybe I'll do something comparing the ones in Oblivion to those in Skyrim later, but Namira's was pretty gnarly.

Anywho, if you read all of this, thank you!