#she put herself in danger and got caught without regarding the consequences her death would ensue

[starfaring-princelotor]

Ranting anon. I have a lot. I’ll try and split this into pieces. I wouldn’t say that Lotor was my absolute favorite character, but he was an enjoyable and interesting one. He was a more refined antagonist (not necessarily a villain) who had every capacity of being a great ally and friend. I won’t lie, I liked the idea of Allura and Lotor together, (1/?)

As a parallel to Zarkon and Honerva by being a Galra/Altean power couple that fought for good instead of evil. Lotor is clever and diplomatic and poised, so I honestly thought that he could help Allura cool down her impulsive nature and rash temper and help her become a good leader through example. (2/?)

But in the end, all we got was Lotor giving her an ego boost that in the end didn’t even matter because she dropped him like a hot potato in what feels like a forced “girl power!!” Moment. And I feel like that’s a big problem with how Allura’s character was handled. (3/?)

She’s meant to be this wise, kind, but fierce leader lady, but unlike say, Zelda (another warrior princess,) she doesn’t display the patience or level-headedness that Zelda does, despite people making numerous comparisons between the two. The argument that she’s inexperienced falls through halfway through the series at the very least. Allura never takes any steps to curb her temper or his pushy nature. (4/?)

And somehow no one calls her out on it! A big red flag for me was her reaction when Keith was revealed to be half galra and she just…turned fucking mean for no reason. And while Keith felt guilty for something he shouldn’t have felt guilty for, everyone else was…taking her side? (6/?)

And basically the matter is resolved by him mostly apologizing and her kind of mumbling a half-assed sorry. She was literally being racist to someone she called a friend right until she found out about his heritage. Despite him having done absolutely nothing to her. And no one called her out on it. That pissed me off. It feels like the paladins personalities suffered in order to make Allura look good. Like their moralities and personalities got tossed out the window to revolve around her. (8/8)

A forewarning to Lotura shippers, I never liked the ship in the first place, so if you are looking for validation about Lotura or even Allura herself, this rant is not for you. Allow me to pitch in my own two cents about myself, Allura, the Paladins, and the comparison referring to Zelda.

Anon, let me just say this first, I adore reading the asks you sent because all of it was basically the biggest problem I had with Allura the second she was revealed in Voltron. And the main reason for that? Was how she introduced herself by being a glaringly-obvious Princess-brat trope that does not think before she decides to speak. This was her first rash and impulsive act as a “royal” Princess.

This is why I have a hard time believing those who say Allura’s racism towards the Galra is valid because, I do not know about you, but being cryogenically frozen during the heat of war then waking up and thinking the main important thing to do is call someone’s ears hideous? What happened to “the war is still fresh in her mind”? And no, suddenly opening up a journal to remember “Oh, yeah, the war! Zarkon evil! I should be angry!” does not fly with me. 

I am not saying her trauma is not real, only her reaction to it is slightly misplaced. 

In any case, let us move on to the comparison of Allura and I being similar to Honerva and Zarkon. Oddly enough, I did not see this clicking at all in the show. Mostly because, in terms of what happened between them story-wise, Allura and I are more like Alfor and Zarkon. And this is just based off their relationship. Maybe I am a man who strives more for platonic relationships in shows aimed towards children, but I really did not feel the romance at all in Lotura. 

Not even with the sickening way she suddenly started pining after me at the realization that I am half-Altean.

And this is the big point in the show. Zarkon and Honerva loved each other not because of their race, but because they just do. Alfor and Zarkon? They both use their power as royals to achieve a greater good. Except, in the case of Allura, she chose to commit unspeakable acts of betrayal based on feelings. Sounds oddly familiar to Alfor, no? Sacrificing all of Altea to ensure she lives? Because he is such a good father, pure of heart who must protect his daughter at the expense of not one, but two entire planets. 

He loves her so much, he sacrificed his own people for her. That is why Allura is more like her father in that aspect. Both rulers let their feelings control their actions. Throughout the entire 8 seasons of Voltron, Allura has constantly gone either completely irrational or completely poised for the public, never in between. She does her self-sacrificing bit way too many times and, when she coincidentally lives afterwards, she puts herself on a pedestal as if she was right in her self-indulgent martyr actions.

Which she most certainly is not, because it is common knowledge that if you want to help people, you should be actively staying alive to do so. It is as though once she believed all “her” people died, she has no real purpose to stay around after her grand plan of eradicating all the “evil” Galra from space gets completed. I am sorry to say, or perhaps not, but she really does remind me of a terrible Mary Sue who can do no wrong. Alive or dead. 

And this shit? Gets brushed aside or ignored by a majority of the Paladins. I will go ahead and blame it that most of them are all very, very young and lack the experience to speak out against those in charge. In fact, the only two who spoke against her in any sense were Shiro and Keith, even Pidge for family reasons. Shiro when he wanted to support putting myself on the throne and Keith? Well, that is a bit more complicated. 

Anyone remember the scene where Keith kept telling Allura that he does not want to hear a lecture from her, and she does it anyways because she is just looking out for Voltron and emotionally guilting him is the best way to go about it? No? Oh, right, maybe it was because she acted like a mother admonishing him for “shirking” his responsibilities. I do not even need to go on about how much I heavily dislike one of the two female members mothering her teammates.

You know what would have been a great development here? If she supported him instead of “disciplining” him as if he stayed out past midnight. Maybe not even support him! Just be like “Okay, I know this is important for you, so tell us what we need to do to help you. We’re a team and as a team we will help you however we can.” 

In this sense, Shiro was trusting Keith and doing the right thing by giving him the space he needed to find himself. Allura, on the other hand, was pushy and ultimately did not care at all for him as a person, but him as a useful Paladin tool. If he was so revered as the Black Paladin, then should she not be, I do not know, following his orders by the T? Or is her role as a royal, Altean Princess whose spirit is connected to Voltron more important?

And even before all this, she believes her and Keith are supposedly buddies now since she gave a half-assed apology for being a racist cunt to him. No one, I guarantee you, no one forgets racist comments, regardless of repaired friendships. Especially when her cold-shoulder and outright blatant ignorance is being seen as “Oh, it’s okay for her to feel like this! What do we know, we’re just humans from Earth who have apparently never read a history book.”

Before I get into the nitty-gritty details about why comparing Zelda and Allura are the same people, let me just say this concerning Allura’s hot-headed temper and unchecked racism involving a relationship with myself. That shit does not work and Allura should have taken the time to sort herself out before mixing in a “loving” relationship with an Altean and Galran man. I am all for equal support in a couple, but she did nothing to support myself as a person because she never saw both sides of my heritage. 

Allura only saw Altean blood and hyperfixated on that alone. Which, do I even need to spell out how terrible it is to judge someone based on their appearance? Based on their race? Whether in a good or bad light, she once again goes from “I will not have some quiznaking Galra on my ship” to “Your mother was Honerva? You’re Altean!” mode. It is fine to be prideful, but she should have already known the dangers of being too prideful of one’s race. 

Considering she is a royal, considering she was raised with political knowledge, considering her father and the Emperor of the Galra Empire worked together, Allura should have been aware of her Achilles Heel and understand her responsibilities. 

Okay, now, Allura being like Zelda? 

Alright, I only played a handful of LoZ games, but even I know that Allura is absolutely nothing like Zelda, even with both of them having the Princess title. 

We already established that Allura is way too rash and irrational when under any duress. Even when shit is not going down, her way of thinking is very straight forward and linear, disregarding the bigger picture as a whole for her own closeted judgements. Allura has even ignored her royal advisor’s advice too many times to count, excusing her reasoning as “It’s the only way, Coran. I must do this.”

Zelda? Zelda does not, at all, follow Allura’s way of thinking. In fact, OoT has a similar plot to Allura and myself. Link skips 7 years of his life, wakes up to Hyrule being controlled by Ganondorf, and the Princess is MIA. Though, if any of you have played the game, then you know that the Princess was actively trying to save the kingdom. Not just Hylians, but Zoras and Gorons as well. 

And the way she accomplished this was by disguising herself as Sheik. Not because she was a coward, but because she knew the importance that came with being a Princess, the next heir to rule, and the one who has the Triforce of Wisdom under her control. Key word here: WISDOM. Something Allura did not display at all in the show. 

If we are comparing Zelda to any character, she is more like the exiled Prince than Allura herself. Both Zelda and myself have the wisdom and first-hand experience of suffering under active war. Both actively saved, or tried to save, those they came across. And both understood the political discourse that hurt everyone, not just one specific race. Everyone.

But if that is the case, then Link would be similar to Allura in the sense that they both woke up to disaster. The big difference between Link and Allura? Link would not have killed Sheik once he revealed himself to be Zelda. Not even because Sheik was being deceiving. Link would understand why Zelda had to hide for her own safety, because she was vital to the plan to restore balance to Hyrule. 

Even if Link was miffed about Zelda not being truthful? He knows that, under no circumstances, can they chance the risk to kill her over his own personal feelings.

“But that doesn’t mean Zelda never curbed her temper!”

In Twilight Princess, when the kingdom was already starting to fall under evil clutches, Zelda teams up with Midna, an exiled Princess of the Twilight world. I can not imagine how helpless Zelda felt in the face of Zant overthrowing the kingdom, but did she go off and leave the citizens to suffer for all of eternity? No. She accepted aid from those who were willing, even the Princess of the other world. 

And, on top of that, Zelda understood that Midna’s world and her own were like two sides of a coin. They must coexist with each other to achieve peace. In fact, I vaguely remember Zelda sacrificing herself to help Midna. Imagine that. Using your powers to help the “enemy” for the greater good. Tell me when Allura helped the Galra out of her own free will? Her own understanding that the Galra need her help just like every other race in the universe?

No, the BoM does not count. Not with her attitude shining through after her “Zarkon is in power because you guys are cowards!” spiel. Not when she begrudgingly helped save Warlord Lahn while simultaneously profiling him out of spite with “Did you buy those weapons or steal them?” And no, not when she built Sincline with myself with the intention to harvest unlimited quintessence then immediately turn around and aid in murdering me, the Emperor of the Galra Empire, over a weak accusation. 

Overall, Allura really is the type of person to barge into other people’s problems, claim “I am here to help you all!”, then throw a hissy fit when people ask for specific aid rather than follow her “My way or the highway” attitude. Terrible writing or not, she was always like this since the very beginning. It is kind of like…she had many chances to improve, but she just made her own situation worse and refused to stop to reflect upon herself.

[smkkbert]

Time for a story - Broken Arrow

Of all the windows she could see from the front of the building there was only light behind a single one of them. That told Felicity everything that she needed to know.

With large steps, she crossed the distance towards the steps and hurried upstairs. Michael and Joe, the two night guards were standing in front of the doors, smoking a nightly cigarette. As soon as Michael, the older of the two, saw her, he stubbed out his cigarette and held the door open for her.

“Good evenings, Mrs. Queen.”

“It’s rather a good night,” Felicity replied with a tired smile, “good evening to you too.”

When she stepped through the open door, she looked at Michael. He didn’t seem willing to follow her inside for the usual security check. She perked up her eyebrows at that, but he just waved it off.

“If you wanted to kill your husband, I’d assume you did it at home.”

“Very true,” Felicity replied, “which is why I will get him home now.”

“About time.” Joe, who was still standing next to the ashtray, took a puff of his cigarette. “He’s going to work himself to death otherwise.”

Felicity nodded her head in agreement before she turned away and headed towards the stairs. Joe’s words were still echoing in her head. She knew that he was right. Oliver was going to work himself to death if he continued the way he was handling things right now.

It had been a week since Starling City had been shaken by another earthquake. Again, the Glades had been hit the most. Again, buildings had collapsed and buried people beneath them for hours until they had been found. Again, people had died. Again, a Queen family member was taking responsibility for it.

This time, the Queen Family wasn’t to blame though.

Felicity shook her head slightly when she turned into the hallway which led to Oliver’s office. He was probably brooding over papers that told him the number of casualties and critically as well as slightly injured people the earthquake had caused or how much it would cost to fix the damage. Maybe, he was even reading some of those stupid articles that stated how the damage could have been minimized.

It was stupid, Felicity thought to herself and shook her head once more, how easily the Queen Family or at least Oliver had been blamed for the consequences of the earthquake. Felicity got that the people living in the Glades were putting their blame on him because they needed somebody to blame. That high-ranking politicians of the city were doing so wasn’t fair though.

Oliver hadn’t done anything wrong. He had optimized the earthquake warning machines and the fitting protocol regularly. He had handled the critical hours and days after the earthquake well. He had even gone out there and helped people in person because he hadn’t just been reacting to the earthquake as mayor but also as a good human being that cared about this city deeply. There was nothing that Oliver could blame himself for.

Still, in those eight days since the earthquake, Oliver hadn’t come home. She hadn’t seen him at all except from the few video calls they had had. No call, with or without video, had lasted longer than ten minutes though. Oliver had always been busy.

After eight nights that Oliver had caught little to no sleep, Felicity had decided that enough was enough. Somebody had to stop him. Who would do it if Felicity wasn’t going to do it?

The door to Oliver’s office was opened slightly. Felicity knew that he usually liked to have it closed because the many noises from the hallways were distracting him. Oliver heard a lot better than most people. His years in hell had trained him to have his eyes and ears open for any possible danger, and he was almost unable to switch that off now. If Oliver had left the door open, he must had been deep in thought because he even closed it when nobody was there.

Felicity put her flat hand against the door and pushed it open. Oliver was sitting behind his desk. The jacket of his suit was put over the backrest of his leather chair. He had opened the first two buttons of his shirt and he had rolled up the sleeves. His hair was tousled as he had probably torn it again and again. Although Felicity couldn’t see his face, she was sure that it looked tired if she got to take a look at it.

That Oliver didn’t notice her standing in the door told Felicity how deep in thought he was. He was hypervigilant most times, so his lack in attention said a lot about his current mental state.

When Felicity cleared her throat, Oliver flinched. He ripped his head back, looking at her with threatening eyes that grew a lot warmer once he realized that it was her standing there and nobody else. A long sigh of relief fell from his lips in one moment, be he already frowned worriedly the next.

“Are the kids alright?”

“Not really, no,” Felicity replied, stepping into his office and approaching his desk slowly, “because they haven’t seen their father in a week.”

Oliver sighed once more, closing his eyes. He kept them closed for a long moment, pinching his nasal bridge. He was shaking his head softy.

Felicity watched Oliver. Seeing his face, he looked even more exhausted than she had assumed from what she had seem from the door. The shadows under his eyes were almost black. His eyes were small and slightly swollen. He hadn’t shaved, so his stubble had actually grown a lot thicker.

Eventually, Oliver rested his head back and looked at Felicity with tired eyes. Smiling sadly, Felicity lifted her hand and put it to Oliver’s cheek. He leaned his face into her touch instantly. His nose pressed against her wrist, breathing her in.

When his eyes locked with her the next time, there was an almost defeated expression in them. He knew that she wouldn’t let him get away with what had happened the last week easily. She wouldn’t just let him apologize and come home with her. They both knew that Oliver wouldn’t be able to relax until he had got everything off his chest.

Nodding his head slightly, Oliver straightened up a little. His hands moved over the mess of papers on his desk. He pulled some of the closer, while pushing others away and even trashing some. Felicity waited patiently.

“So, our priority is to make sure that the people who have lost their homes. Some of them are living with friends and family. Others are still in the emergency homes. I have bought some multifamily homes in the names of Starling, so everyone can move into provisory homes by the end of the next week. I have also made sure that the building companies that are assigned to rebuilt the collapsed buildings are supported.”

Felicity could see that Oliver was calming down as he talked to her. She guessed that everyone had been so busy with their own assignments in handling this crisis that Oliver hadn’t had many people to talk with aside from the daily meetings that had taken place. Oliver needed someone to tell him that he was doing great and doing everything he could though. John usually did that for him, but he was handling crisis management in regards to some crime issues and currently out of town for that.

“Apart from that, the need for psychological help has grown immensely. The new earthquake has triggered the old trauma that a lot of people still have after the Undertaking. I have located two advice centers for people in need.”

Still listening to everything Oliver told her, Felicity got up from the desk. She walked around him to take position behind him. Her hands moved to his shoulders, massaging them. She could feel the tight knots that had built in his muscles.

“I have already visited some of the patients that are currently treated at Starling General,” Oliver continued to explain, “and there are problems with taking care of the family’s children in six cases. I have managed to shelter all these kids with responsible local families, so neither of them had to be given into the care of child protective service and- oh my god.”

When Felicity dug her fingers tightly into some particularly hard tension in Oliver’s muscles, his eyes rolled back into his head before they fluttered shut. He leaned more and more back, pressing his tight back into the touch of her fingers. His head fell back onto the backrest of his chair. His fingers grabbed her wrists, keeping her hands exactly where they were.

“Sleeping on the couch is not good for you.”

“I have slept on worse.”

Felicity knew exactly what Oliver had been going through in the years that had followed the Gambit’s shipwreck. Sleeping on cold ground had been the least of his problems back then. It did offer a quite visual impression of what he must have gone through though.

With a sigh, Felicity wrapped her arms around Oliver’s shoulders from behind and leaned her face against his. Oliver moved his cheek against hers a couple of times.

“You are doing great,” Felicity whispered with her lips brushing against his ear, tightening her arms around him, “the best anyone could.”

Felicity knew that Oliver wouldn’t exactly agree with her. He knew that he was doing well, but he was always looking for ways to improve. He was that kind of person, always aiming for more even if he was doing great already.

“You have to relax now,” Felicity told him with soft voice and kissed the shell of his ear, “because you can only do more of the good things you already have been doing when you are relaxed and energized to do so.”

Oliver sighed, snuggling his head against the side of her face once more. When he turned his head, he brushed a featherlight kiss against the corners of her lips.

“I am not sure that I can relax then.”

Pulling back slightly, Felicity watched Oliver’s face. She could see that he meant it. He had honest doubt that he could relax. He wanted to because he knew how important it was to her and to him too, but he didn’t know if he could. There were too many things stuck in his head and too many thoughts making his stomach tighten.

“Back-up plan then.”

“Back-up pl- hm…”

The moment Felicity stepped around his chair and dropped her coat to the floor, the words died on Oliver’s lips and he hummed instead. His right eyebrow perked up slightly while he was letting his gaze travel down her body. She was only wearing one of his shirts, panties and her shoes since she had already been in bed when she had decided that it was time to get her man home.

“I figured that if you couldn’t be convinced easily,” Felicity said slowly, straddling his lap and pressing the juncture of her legs against where he was already growing hard in his pants, “if I came with good arguments.”

“I am already convinced.” Oliver put his hands to her hips, pulling her even closer and rubbing his hips against hers. “My body could need some motivation to pass out though, and we both know what happens after sex.”

Felicity chuckled, knowing exactly what he was referring to. Oliver usually passed out within ten minutes after sex. If he had to, he could delay his death-like sleep until night, but sex always made him quite tired. Hopefully, it would help him here too.

“It’s going to be my pleasure to help you relax.”

With that, Felicity leaned forward and captured Oliver’s lips in a kiss. It started out slow and gentle. It was a sweet way of welcoming each other back. There were no words needed for both of them to understand that they loved each other and had missed each other terribly. They hadn’t spent a week apart in like forever.

Soon, their kiss grew into more though. Their lips opened to the touch of each other’s tongues. They danced together slowly and intimately. Felicity’s hips shifted closer against Oliver’s in response. They picked up a rhythm of their own, thrusting against Oliver’s hips at the same time that her tongue stroked against his.

Their rocking movements spurred them. Oliver’s hands moved from Felicity’s hips over her legs to her knees. From there, they started a slow path up her legs again. They pushed the hem of his shirt up her body, getting them out of the way for the touch of his hands.

His touch felt so good, Felicity thought to herself and thanked him for the warmth he spent on her skin by gently biting into his bottom lip. Goosebumps were spreading on her skin wherever he touched her, and a warm shiver of absolute comfortableness was running down her spine.

“Oliver.”

She whispered his name into the kiss. It was a sign of how turned on she was and how she wanted to move things along. At the same time, she knew that whispering his name that hoarsely while her hips were thrusting against his turned him on beyond belief. She could literally feel the blood rushing towards his groin.

Oliver stroked his tongue against hers one last time before he grabbed hold of her hips and pushed her further away from him. He grabbed hold of his belt, but Felicity was too impatient to wait until he had unfastened it. She pushed his hands away, making work of his belt quickly. She unbuttoned his pants and lowered the zipper at the same time. Oliver wiggled his hips, helping her to pull his pants and boxers down in one go.

Hovering over Oliver’s lap, she stroked her hand through his hair and pulled at some strands lightly. Oliver angled his head back. His eyes locked with hers. His pupils were blown wide, and his fingers tightened around her small hips.

Felicity felt her heart skipping a beat. She had missed Oliver so much, even more than she had known so far. She knew that she was her own person, and she had insisted on having something for herself for a long time already. Still, she only felt like she was whole if Oliver was around. He was such a great part of herself, and she didn’t feel inferior when she admitted that she needed him to feel whole. It just showed how close they were, and how they had made the right decision by getting married to one another.

Slowly and with her eyes still locked onto Oliver’s, Felicity sank down onto Oliver’s cock. He stretched her perfectly in that special way that was so familiar and still felt so excitingly new every time. Her slick walls welcomed Oliver gladly, snuggling around his hard cock and squeezing down on it gently.

Once he was seated deep inside of her, they both stilled. Oliver’s fingers tightened around Felicity’s hips for a moment longer before they moved up her body. Through the thin fabric of his shirt, she could feel the warmth of his hands. They made her feel warm and caused her to sink even more against Oliver’s chest.

When Oliver’s fingers reached the nape of her neck, tickling the sensitive skin there, Felicity released a hum. As low as the sound she made was, it vibrated through all of her body and made her need for Oliver grow even more.

Oliver put his hand to the back of her neck and pulled her down towards him. Their lips met in a searing kiss while their hips picked up a slow, almost lazy, rhythm. Felicity sighed into the kiss, her hands grabbing the fabric of his shirt at the shoulders and tightening around it.

With the way they moved, their hips thrusted together harmonically. Whenever Felicity thrusted down, Oliver thrusted up to meet his rhythm. Her clit rubbed against his pelvic. Both made her pleasure rise quickly, causing her to feel hot and cold at the same time and making her need only more.

When it came to Oliver, she always needed more. She needed more of his hands roaming over her body. She needed more of his lips stealing hot kisses from her mouth. She needed more of his hips thrusting against hers and touching spots inside of her that only he had ever managed to stimulate.

Their joint moans echoed through the room as they moved towards the peak of their pleasure. Since the door to the hallway was still left ajar, Felicity was sure that it could be heard outside of Oliver’s office too. The building was empty though, so Felicity couldn’t care less. Actually, the thought of how their sounds of pleasure were echoing through the entire building only turned her on more.

Soon, Felicity felt the peak of her pleasure nearing. Her need for breath grew too much to take at the same time. She pulled back, finally managing to take in a shallow but urgently needed breath. Oliver tried to chase her lips for a second, still wanting more. As soon as his eyes locked with hers, he could see how close was so. Instead of trying to chase her lips any longer, he stayed with his eyes locked on hers.

Their thrusts grew quicker and more urgent. Their hips chased towards the relief they both wanted and needed. Felicity’s stomach was tightening. All of her thoughts, her feelings and actions were revolving around that release. She wanted and needed it so much.

With only a couple more thrusts, they both fell over the edge. Their moans turned into one when Felicity angled her head down and caught Oliver’s lips with hers. Kissing each other, their hips continued to move together lazily, trying to get the last of their pleasure.

Once the last waves of their pleasure had run through their body, Felicity broke the kiss. Her lungs were burning for air. Resting her forehead against Oliver’s, she smiled. She knew that, if she told him how out of breath she’d feel, he’d joke about working on her condition. She’d remind him that the first to have failed their phenomenal sex life had been his cock or little Oliver as Felicity liked to call him just to tease her husband.

“What are you smiling about?” Oliver asked her and nudged her nose with his. “What is so amusing?”

Chuckling slightly, Felicity pulled back and looked at Oliver. “Just us.”

“You thought about your bad condition,” Oliver guessed correctly, “and then you thought about Little Oliver. Of course you blended out the part where your vagina was so exhausted that your doc told you not to have sex anymore, right?”

Felicity grinned. Oliver knew her so very well. It was why her marriage with Oliver meant the world to her. She had never felt as understood as she felt when she was with him. She had grown up feeling misunderstood all of the time. With Oliver, she felt utterly safe, protected and understood though. Everyone who was in a relationship should feel the way she was feeling when she was with Oliver.

“Of course.”

She leaned forward to peck his lips gently. As soon as her lips touched his, Oliver framed her face with his hands and deepened the kiss though. Felicity couldn’t do anything against it. She just melted against his chest, responding to the kiss.

Oliver was the one to break the kiss this time. He looked at her with a soft smile that made Felicity brush her thumb against the dimple there.

“Let’s go home,” she whispered, “it’s time to go home.”

Oliver nodded his head. “Yes, it is.”

They cleaned themselves up before they left City Hall hand in hand, on their way back home to recover from the long hours without each other.

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I'm sorry, guys! I am going through a terrible writer's block. I barely haven't written anything in the last weeks, and I can't get myself to it either. Maybe posting some chapters will help though...

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[stargazer1682]

Buffy’s Leadership - Season 7

Let’s start with the concession that just being the Slayer doesn't make Buffy the de facto leader - I don't think anyone actually generally argues otherwise. Buffy was the leader on account that EVERYONE turned to her and expected her to have the answer for virtually everything. They all made her leader. She never sought the role, but it was expected of her.  She DIED and they brought her back and still expected her to be the one to make the final decisions. Giles turns up at her door with a batch of Potentials, seeking the benefit of her training and protection. In short, she was called upon again and again to be the leader by those who were prepared to follow her – until it became less convenient for them to do so.

Now, before we get to the merits of that leadership, let's look at some of her team.

There's Anya, who was made essentially immortal and given god like powers capable of bending all of reality a thousand years ago, all because she got revenge on an ex that one time. When she finally grows a conscience and finds herself in danger as consequence, she gladly accepts Buffy's offer of protection, and then has the audacity to question whether Buffy "deserves" the great gift of being the Slayer; what with the abbreviated life span, the constant danger of herself and her loved ones, everyone expecting her to have all the answers; and, oh, yeah, if you're really lucky, when you died your friends might actually let you stay dead. Meanwhile Anya brings.... (checks notes) nothing of actual value to any fight or conversation....

Then we have Robin, who's a newcomer, but he's a skilled fighter; he has a long history being part of this world, what with his mother being a past Slayer and being raised by a Watcher. He hits it off with Buffy and seems to fit right in with the group.

....And his judgment is immediately compromised by his blind, yet understandable passion and motivation for revenge against Spike, fueled by.... The First.....

But then there's Giles; stalwart, trustworthy.... and he's going behind Buffy's back to have Spike secretly executed..... Right.

Well, I'm sure the Potential have redeeming... (Sigh) No, Kennedy, it's not your turn to be in charge, that's not how this works. And even if it did, there's WAY more people ahead of you. No, leave Willow alone; she's still kind of emotionally vulnerable and you're coming on kind of stro.... Fine, you can either have Willow or be leader, but you can't have both.

Andrew, stop filming everyone; you're not our guest, you’re our murderous prisoner, with a dubious moral compass. (Sigh) Fine, yes, you can tidy up; just tell us if the First starts talking to you aga... What? It is? What do you... Willow kept the what?

What do you mean ANOTHER Potential is dead?

Willow, why are you asking about our policy about having murderers who betrayed and even tried to kill us, living in this house? You and Anya are... Oh, hi Faith.

And then there's Buffy's much belabored leadership.

Let's start with her decisions and objectivity regarding Spike. I am distinctly not a fan of "Spuffy," but I don't know that I entirely disagree with Buffy's reasoning here regarding Spike in season 7. The writers muddled a lot of the character behavior and motivations in season 7; even the First's ultimate plan never seems to make full consistent sense. It's attacking the Slayer line and waiting until it's killed all of the Potentials, before going after Buffy and Faith. Wait, no, there are a TON of Potentials still out there in the world and it’s barely made a dent before going after Faith. No, it just wants to be corporeal. No, it wants to be... inside of everyone...? 🤷‍♂️

And it brings Caleb to Sunnydale to dig up a powerful weapon the Slayer knew nothing about, that it wants to keep out of the Slayer's hands; and then has Caleb tip off Buffy about it by relaying the message he has something of her.  And when she comes and takes the scythe, the First says they'll get it back, but then doesn't even try.....

But I digress.

Spike. The First wanted to use Spike for... something... What that was, who knows? 🤷‍♂️ He was siring a bunch of regular old vampires that Buffy didn't even break a sweat dispatching, accomplish jack squat. But he can't be trusted; that's the important thing. Not like Andrew or Anya or Robin or Willow or Giles..... 😒

Well, he's a murderer, unlike.... I want to say.... Dawn...?

At the end of the day, the First didn't need a post hypnotic trigger to risk the lives of anyone in the Summers house. It did plenty of damage without Spike. Meanwhile, killing Spike would be premature until they knew that that didn't play exactly into the First's plan; especially when Spike was easily the third most powerful fighter among them, after Buffy and Faith.

Then there's the preparation of the Potentials. I don't know exactly what there is to say, because for one thing, it's not like Buffy was alone in their training. They all had some degree of involvement; Kennedy's drill sergeant routine was perhaps a bit dubious, but she’s hardly any more at fault for Chloe’s death than Buffy. Ultimately that came down to the First. There’s no sense blaming anyone else.

Could Buffy have done more to undermine the First’s influence?  Sure.  So could the house full of other people.  

This wasn’t a flipin’ football game, this wasn’t a game at all; they were in a fight for their lives and Buffy wasn’t there to coddle them.  They came to her and she continued to freely put her own life on the line for these people, many of whom were strangers; and at least some of them, most of them even, were only committed so far as protecting themselves and that’s it. They were in it to win the battle for their individual lives; Buffy was in it to win the war to save ALL of their lives.

And sure, so was Willow, so was Xander and Dawn and Giles.  Again, Anya was mostly there for Anya.  

So what’s Buffy supposed to do when the big bad is managing to pick them off when it can’t even raise a weapon?  How was she supposed to respond to the First whispering in their ear?  Is she supposed to make them all hot chocolate and tell them it’ll be okay and that all of them are going survive this?  It sounds sweet and comforting, but hardly realistic. She’s had to face the prospect of dying since she was at least 16 and kept facing that danger, and even flippin’ died and it didn’t stop.  They keep turning to her to make it better; and in exchange for that and while she tries to come up with answers, she gets to dig their graves, one at a time, because it all has to end up resting on her shoulders.  But it’s BUFFY’S attitude that sucks here.

And then there’s that “moment”.  When Caleb set the obvious trap and Buffy lead them into danger and failed them, because it was a trap; and they’ve NEVER gone into an obvious trap before and it’s NEVER been worth the effort.  You know, except all of the other times they did that and it ended up being completely worth it.

It’s not like they went in blind. Buffy and Faith did recon beforehand, yet despite their best laid plans, they got their asses handed to them. Some of them got hurt, some of them died; which is exactly the thing she was trying to prepare them for, yet it caught them completely by surprise, somehow.

And then Caleb comes to grandstand about the seal – and Buffy is exactly right; the school was deserted, and Caleb makes a point to proactively engage her and talk about the seal, but by all accounts their resources are focused on the vineyard.  And it’s at this point all of the characters turn into complete fraking morons.  Because there is a certain reason to what Buffy is saying; and they’ve acted on much sketchier ideas – like Xander’s idea to steal a rocket launcher from a military post to fire at a blue demon that can fry your soul just by looking at you. Or, you know… fighting a literal god…  But just entertaining the idea that there might be a reason the latest big bad has amassed their forces at the vineyard and left the seal unattended is “a hell of a lot to ask.”

And then they all just attack.  They don’t have an alternative. Rona seems to think Buffy is “obsessed with beating Caleb,” gee, I wonder why???

Giles points out that Buffy isn’t sure how much she can trust some of them, and again, who could imagine the cause for the foundation of their trust to be shaken?

She wasn’t suggesting going in half-assed without a plan.  She was very clear about that.  They’ve collective put together much wilder plans with arguably much lower odds of success and still succeeded, but they want to do… what instead?  

Ultimately, Buffy managed to do it all on her own.  Sure, she arguably got lucky with part of that; maybe one person getting in and getting out of the vineyard instead of a larger group increased the odds of success without casualties.  But she did it.  And she killed Caleb single handedly.  Part of that may have been because of the scythe, but whatever the reason, if she could do it by herself, then there’s no reason that with the right plan, she could have done it just as easily, if not more so with the support of everyone else.

[raywritesthings]

Happy Accident 1/3

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Oliver Queen, Laurel Lance, Felicity Smoak, Curtis Holt, John Constantine, Rene Ramirez, Rory Regan, E-2 Laurel Lance Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: Felicity’s punch has consequences no one intended, driving Oliver to take drastic measures with their own unexpected result. *Can be read on AO3, link in bio*

Oliver watched, tensed to make some kind of move, to intervene. He couldn’t let this twisted version of Laurel kill Felicity, yet hurting her could possibly be one of the hardest things he’d have to do. His verbal appeal to her not working, however, he was left with little choice.

Curtis intervened before he had to act, using some kind of device to neutralize the Black Siren’s metahuman-enhanced Cry.

She turned around to look at Curtis with shock and impotent rage, Oliver’s teammate coldly stating, “You really need to shut your damn mouth.”

They could bring her in without violence, Oliver realized with relief. They could secure her to keep her from hurting others, and maybe, just maybe, he could try to reach her and find out why she was so determined to hurt herself.

But then Felicity moved.

“Hey, pumpkin,” she said, just barely catching Siren’s attention before her fist connected with the other woman’s head. Oliver’s heart stuttered in his chest for one crucial moment as he watched Laurel Lance fall to the ground once more. It almost felt like he was stuck in slow motion or even frozen — just like the damn prison — until she hit the concrete floor with a hard smack that jolted him out of his horrified reverie.

“Hey. Kept my wrist straight,” Felicity remarked to him with pride as she straightened up. She eyed him funnily as he failed to provide a response, but as much as he was glad Felicity finally seemed to be picking up defensive maneuvers, but he could not delight in them being used against a woman with Laurel’s face.

And then Curtis, who had gone to handcuff Siren while she remained on the ground, said something that chilled Oliver to the bone: “Uh, guys? She’s not moving. Like at all.”

Oliver rushed forward, crouching on the other side of her as he and Curtis turned her over.

“Oliver, careful, it could be a trick,” Felicity cautioned.

But as he looked upon her pale, unmoving face and the red blood that ran down her temple to her chin with just a small amount continuing to ooze from the wound, he knew it wasn’t. His voice, when he found it, sounded strangled to his ears. “She’s dead.”

“What?” He didn’t know if it was a whisper or a shout; Felicity’s voice sounded far away while his head pounded and his eyes blurred and stung. On impulse, he reached for Laurel’s cooling body, pulling her into his arms.

“Oh God,” Curtis muttered under his breath. “Oh God, oh God.” It was clear the younger man was panicking, maybe going into shock, but Oliver could do nothing for that when he felt like throwing up himself.

Instead, he closed her mouth to rid it of the permanently slack-jawed expression Felicity had unknowingly etched onto her face and slowly stood. His head was bowed, but he still could make out Felicity’s wide and horrified eyes.

“Oliver, I- I didn’t mean to — she was going to kill me.”

“We're going back to the base,” he directed, and something in his tone seemed to work at getting both her and Curtis moving to follow him.

Laying her out of one of the tables was agony, because she looked too much like she had in the hospital. She looked dead, because she’d always been dead. He’d known that; he’d fought to escape a whole other reality because he’d known it was true no matter how much he hoped and wished and dreamed it wasn’t.

As he cleaned the blood from the one side of her face, he could hear the others talking quietly a good distance away.

“I shouldn’t have let her escape. One of the guards could have died, and now this.”

“You didn’t know it would happen.” Rory paced the floor, nervous energy rolling off him. They were all nervous and tense, maybe even more so than when the truth about his past as the Hood had come to light. Maybe it was because Oliver was no longer the only one in the room with blood on his hands. “Prometheus was there. We almost caught him.”

“It wasn’t your tech that did this,” Rene was offering Curtis in comfort.

All Oliver was really hearing was excuses. Reasons this wasn’t their fault, reasons it wasn’t so bad that a woman was dead, again, because of mistakes made by him and his team, again.

“My wrist is really gonna hurt while typing tomorrow,” Felicity muttered. “I guess I deserve that.”

Something broke in Oliver at that word as he stared down at Laurel’s long lashes fanned over her cheeks and her blackened lips. “You deserved better.”

“What was that?” Felicity called, the rest of the base falling silent and still.

“I said she deserved better,” Oliver said, speaking at normal volume as he finally turned to face his team. “Laurel deserved better.”

The recruits looked at each other, clearly unsure what to say. Felicity stepped forward. “Yes, our Laurel deserved better, Oliver. And I’m sorry that this other Earth version of her died, but she wouldn’t have hesitated to kill any of us.”

“You put her in a position to,” he reminded her, not nearly so willing as Rory to make excuses. He was tired of protecting Felicity’s innocence when she wouldn’t even defend his actions to the others. “With our Laurel, I can at least lay the ultimate blame for what happened on Darhk. But this? We did this. We have to fix it.”

Felicity recovered herself and asked, “How?”

“I don’t know yet. But I’m gonna find out.” Constantine had gotten back from his trip to Hell months ago. Oliver had the chance to ask his advice this time, something he hadn’t had when they’d lost their Laurel.

Maybe he’d just say it was hopeless. But maybe he wouldn’t. All Oliver knew was, he couldn’t just accept that this had happened. He wanted more for Laurel, even if she wasn’t his.

Oliver got out his phone and stepped away to make the call with one final warning. “Do not touch her while I’m gone.” Then he marched from the room that was silent enough to be this Laurel’s tomb.

---

Felicity was still struggling to process what had happened in the last 48 hours. She had thought her dead friend was back, gotten suspicious that she wasn’t, proved that suspicion was right and then… killed her not-friend?

It sounded horrible like that. She hadn’t meant to kill anyone. She never did! And it had basically been self-defense. The others all agreed.

But Oliver didn’t.

He had been off-center for a while. If Felicity had to put a date on it, she’d say since April. Since Laurel’s death, the real Laurel’s death. And he had only grown more so in the last month or so, since they had all teamed up to fight the Dominators. Maybe it had been from facing Sara for the first time since her sister died. Maybe he was just struggling in his own way to process that they were living in a timeline just slightly to the left of what they’d been living months ago.

But neither of those reasons explained his fanatical need to help this new version of Laurel, to reach her. Was it his Helena Complex rearing its ugly head, or was it simply because she looked like Laurel? If the latter, that did not bode well in Felicity’s eyes at all.

She looked across at the dead woman, recalling her mocking words and the smirk on those now-smudged black lips. How could she hold such a sway on Oliver when they were, for all intents and purposes, strangers? Why did it always have to be Laurel?

“Look, I’m sure this, uh, whoever he’s calling is gonna set him straight,” Curtis offered timidly. “He’s just in shock. I mean, I’m in shock. Honestly? I’d prefer she be alive because I am not gonna be able to sleep tonight knowing I helped—”

“You didn’t help anything. The concrete killed her,” Felicity decided crisply. Black Siren could have tripped in her heeled boots and cracked her head open, and it would have ended the same. It’s not like if this went to court that Felicity would be charged with the first degree. The real Laurel would’ve told her that, probably defended her if it came to that.

“Well, you did help her down to the concrete,” Rene said, not looking all that apologetic when Felicity glared at him.

Oliver re-entered the room then, so they all shut up, and Felicity was dismayed to see the spark of hope in his eyes. “Oliver?”

“There’s other Lazarus Pits.”

Her heart dropped somewhere deep into her stomach. “What?”

“Constantine. He says Ra’s didn’t have the only one. We can bring her back.”

Felicity knew the others were lost — probably wondering what the heck a Lazarus Pit was — but she didn’t care. She marched towards Oliver instead. “No, we can’t. The Pits are dangerous and using them irresponsibly like this — Malcolm warned you about Thea, and you didn’t even want Laurel to use it on Sara!”

“And both Sara and Thea are fine now. We’ll restore Laurel’s soul and get the Lotus.”

“Not even the Lotus is going to cure her wanting to kill me,” she stressed. “I mean, what is the plan after you bring Prometheus’ metahuman lapdog back from the dead, Oliver? Just let her run around screaming people to death?” There probably wouldn’t be much difference between the soulless version and Black Siren in that regard.

Oliver wasn’t even facing her, too busy repacking his quiver. “We will transfer her to a secure ARGUS facility. From there, I can talk to her, try to reach the part of her that has to be like the Laurel we knew.”

“While ordinarily I would love to celebrate this newly optimistic version of you, I think you’re just repeating history here, because this sounds a lot like Helena Bertinelli.”

“This is not about Helena!” He finally snapped, finally facing her, except he was clearly angry, which Felicity hadn’t wanted. “It hasn’t been about Helena in years, and if you didn’t bring her up every time we had an argument, I might have forgotten she was ever part of my life. This is about Laurel, about giving her another chance, believing in her when—” To her surprise, the anger that had been building in him seemed to deflate, and his shoulders slumped as he looked at the ground. “When I didn’t before.”

Felicity closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Of course it was about Laurel. It was always about Laurel. She wouldn’t be surprised if Helena has really just been about Laurel all along.

“When this inevitably goes sideways, I am going to be there to remind you that I told you so.”

“I know you will be,” Oliver said wearily.

“And I’m gonna be there, too,” Curtis piped up unexpectedly. “I have to see this through.”

Oliver gave Curtis nod. “John sent me the location of one of the Pits. We’re meeting him there in two days, so make any arrangements you need. Rene, Rory, keep up your patrols. Thea’s on her way back and should be able to help with any questions or emergencies.”

“Fine by me, Hoss.”

Rory gave a short nod. Felicity has really been hoping for someone to ask Oliver to stay instead.

But here they were again, going on another ill-advised trip to the Lazarus Pits.

---

Oliver was too preoccupied with carrying one end of the makeshift casket they had place Earth-2’s Laurel Lance in to shake John’s hand where they met at the bottom of the mountain in Siberia, but he did say, “Thanks for agreeing to this.”

“What can I say? The pretty girls in your life left an impression on me.”

He heard Felicity’s scoff behind him. He didn’t think Curtis had even registered the remark, too busy muttering under his breath about trying not to focus on the fact he was carrying the other end of a casket.

“Truth is, this helps me as well,” Constantine admitted as they started the trek upwards. “There’s been rumors that bad actors are looking for these Pits since Nanda Parbat’s destruction. Gives me the opportunity to layer at least this one with some protection and concealment magic.”

Oliver nodded. If this meant he and John were still even by the end of this, he wouldn’t complain.

By the time he called for them to veer off the common path, both Felicity and Curtis had put in their fair share of complaints about the climb. Oliver had done his best to ignore both or to keep from pointing out that neither of them had really worn the right shoes for it, though at least Felicity’s boots didn’t have her customary heel.

“Through here,” John instructed, directing them towards a crevice Oliver might have otherwise passed up. It was going to be too tight for the casket.

“Lower it — gently, Curtis!” He scolded, as the other man quickly set his end down with a sigh of relief.

“Sorry.”

Oliver set his own end down and opened the lid. Under the shroud, the body was cold and stiff in his arms. His mind went back to his father, and he fought down the usual wave of nausea.

Inside, a Pit much like the one he had seen in Nanda Parbat bubbled with the mystical waters. Oliver waited as the others all filed in.

“So, what happens now?” Curtis asked?

“Well, last time there was a priest lady who did a chant,” Felicity explained. “Do we need the chant? Does it not work without it?” Oliver couldn’t help noting she seemed hopeful that was the case.

“Nah, that’s just all for show,” Constantine said. “You can lower her in, Oliver.”

He did so slowly, pulling the shroud off as she slid down under the bubbling water. Moments after her head disappeared beneath the surface, the waters stilled.

“Curtis, Felicity, stand back,” Oliver instructed, though Felicity was already doing so.

“Why?”

“If this works, she’s gonna be a little disoriented.”

“Well, you catch her, and I’ve got something to put her to sleep to make the soul retrieval a little easier,” John told him to his left. Oliver nodded, swallowing once as the waters began to roil once again. Here went nothing…

Laurel’s body, rejuvenated and alive, sprung from the water straight over his head. Curtis let out a shriek if terror, and Felicity darted back through the crevice towards the entrance of the cave. Before Laurel’s soulless body could make another move, Oliver seized her from behind, lifting her feet off the floor and getting the whole front of his jacket and pants wet as she struggled to free herself from his hold.

John thrust something under her nose and spoke some sort of incantation. Instantly, she went limp. “There. Not so hard?”

“Nope,” he agreed. Oliver looked down at her. Were she not still wearing the Black Siren suit, he wouldn’t be able to tell a single difference between her and his Laurel. If they had only known about this Pit last year, before they had been forced to announce her death and her identity to the public… he would have to settle for making this right.

Oliver laid her down, this time on the ground far enough from the Pit for John to begin drawing his circle and placing those items only he knew the purpose of. By the time he had finished, Felicity crept back in with a muttered, “It’s freezing out there.”

“Now then, I need at least a volunteer to go with me to the other realm,” Constantine said. “I assume Oliver’s game, but is there anyone who might have known her better?”

“Too bad we couldn’t ask Prometheus,” Felicity snarked.

Oliver just looked her in the eye. “You coming?”

She shook her head. “I can’t even fight.”

He bit back the remark that they wouldn’t be here right now if not for her foray into the field, and instead said, “John and I would take care of it. You would just help to pull her out.” Given it had taken two of them to pull Sara’s soul out of the darkness it had been trapped in, he couldn’t imagine it would be any easier to extricate Black Siren’s soul. “You trust me?”

“Oliver… I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said, one hand raised as she shook her head in denial.

“Okay,” he replied, his voice tight. “Curtis?”

“I think I should stay and stand guard,” Curtis suggested. “In case those other guys that want the Pit show up.”

“Fine,” he bit out. “Let’s go, John.”

“Very well,” his friend said, then raised his hands, his eyes rolling back a little as he spoke in that strange tongue again. Oliver stood over this Laurel and waited for the familiar sensation of being sucked away in a blinding flash of light.

Darkness met him. Oliver blinked, but it didn’t go away. “John?”

“I’m here,” his friend said very close, yet Oliver could not see him. “Damn, I was worried about this.”

“What is this?” He raises his hand up and moved it to touch his face, and still he couldn’t see it.

“You said this was a Laurel from another Earth. I think her soul must have fallen out of our vibrational frequency. I don’t think we can reach her.”

“What, there’s just nothing here?” That couldn’t be it. There had to be something, some way to do more. If it was vibrations, maybe they just needed Cisco.

“I’m sorry,” John started to say, but Oliver shushed him as he heard another voice far off in the distance.

“Ollie?”

“Did you hear that?” He asked bear a whisper.

“Hear what?”

They both listened. The silence seemed to stretch on an age before it was broken, so much so he had started to wonder if he’d made it up.

“Ollie?” The voice asked again, and there was no mistaking it this time. Oliver’s heart leapt.

“She’s still here,” he said, and started walking towards it, almost wading through the strange darkness. “Laurel?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m coming to you. Just keep talking.”

“Oliver! Don’t go too far.”

But he couldn’t heed John’s warning, not when he was so close. He reached and reached out, no even able to see his hands through the unending darkness, not until he suddenly stepped through what could have only been a barrier of some kind separating the inky black space from here, in the light.

It was a cosy studio apartment that met his eyes. A desk stood against one wall piled high with work while a punching bag hung in the opposite corner. Candles sat in the fireplace, and Laurel herself stood in the center of the room as if she had just risen from the couch.

“How did you…?” She seemed just as stunned to see him as he was to see this.

He had expected a fight, some kind of representation of the pipeline or Prometheus or Zoom. What did it mean that this was her soul? Was he right that beneath all the snark and the cruelty, there was someone like the Laurel he had loved and lost?

“You’re going to need to come with me,” he said, holding his hand out, and to his disbelief she took it without argument.

“But what are you doing here?” Almost without argument, then. Trust Laurel.

“To make things right. I’m sorry for what happened with Felicity.”

Her mouth fell open, though she said nothing. Oliver wondered if she had forgotten what had happened here in this place, if death was that kind.

He had begun walking backward the way he’d come, and she went with him. Rather than return to the total darkness, however, it was almost like the light from the room he had found her in followed them, lighting their way just a few inches ahead at a time.

“Oliver, where the bloody hell are you?” John’s voice called from up ahead, apparently still stuck in the dark. “I have to take us back now!”

“Then do it, John! I found her!” He shouted back. “We can go home!”

“Was that Constantine?” Laurel asked, and the satisfied grin on his face slipped.

“How do you know who Constantine is?”

Laurel — and it struck him then just how much like Laurel she truly looked and sounded — opened her mouth, but there was a blinding flash of white light, and Oliver found himself blinking the spots from his vision and standing in the cave again.

On the ground, Laurel blinked and slowly sat up, looking down at herself in clear disorientation.

“Well, not sure how we managed it, but another successful restoration,” John said.

“Congratulations,” Felicity remarked dryly. “We should definitely cuff her now.”

Oliver placed a hand on Curtis’ shoulder to block him when he came up with the meta cuffs. “I’m not sure we did exactly what we meant to.”

Laurel coughed a couple times and asked, “How did we get here, and who put me in these clothes?”

“We did something better,” he said quietly, a smile blooming on his face as she turned her gaze towards him.

“Fishnets, Ollie. Really?”

[gwenbrightly]

One Does Not Simply Jump Overboard

aka the long awaited Of Milk and Cookies Chapter 14 

Lloyd was pretty sure that if there was an award for totally reckless bravery in near-death situations, Zane had just won it. He'd felt his heart drop when the nindroid dove overboard into the frothy ocean below, the dangers of losing a teammate (no, a brother) before they even made it to the Dark Island to confront his father suddenly very real. And this realization terrified him. His inner monolog of oh no, oh no, oh heck no had lasted way too long before he'd finally sighted the master of ice arriving safely back on the deck of the Bounty again. He was pretty sure Zane had no idea how not okay they would have been if he hadn't ultimately reappeared. Lloyd was barely holding himself together without this reminder that his adoptive family of awkward teenagers might not make it through this in one piece. It had been easy to channel his inner Kai while they were back in ninjago and act all cocky and confident, like nothing was wrong. But the farther from home they traveled, the less sure of himself, or their mission, he felt. The fact that he still wasn't used to his mother's somewhat smothering presence wasn't helping. She was obviously trying, but her efforts couldn't erase years of absence overnight (a fact he sometimes wondered if she realized). He wasn't oblivious to the dark looks Kai and Nya had been shooting Misako whenever they felt she was overstepping unstated boundaries, either. If only their reunion could have been like Zane and Doctor Julien's...

"So," Nya said, interrupting his thoughts as she finally managed to figure out where Lloyd had hidden himself away after dinner, "Today was kinda a lot, huh?"

He grinned wearily at her as she joined him in the little tent he'd scrapped together where the sloped roof of the Bounty flattened into a platform like surface.

"Yeah. Just, just a little." the blonde agreed. He looked out over the darkening expanse of ocean, not quite sure what else to say. They sat there in silence, enjoying the temporary peace.

"I, uh, just wanted to check on you. Make sure you weren't too furious with Zane for almost getting himself killed out there today." she explained, eventually, before wrapping herself in a spare blanket. Nya's ability to sense when he needed someone to talk to never failed to amaze him.

"Oh." Lloyd replied softly, "I – yeah… that was… How does he do it?"

"Do what?" Nya asked.

"Just jump right into helping people, without worrying about his own wellbeing?" he clarified.

"He's Zane, built to protect those who can't protect themselves. It's just who he is. I'm not even sure he realized jumping into the ocean to save that leviathan was dangerous at the time…" She told him as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Lloyd looked over at her, quietly asking, "Nya? What would we have done if – if he didn't…?" He cringed a little, not liking the way his voice cracked. She leaned against him, grounding him before he could allow himself to dwell on the what if's for too long.

"I dunno. I really don't. But he's still here. We all are. It's gonna be okay."

"Yeah, but for how long?" he couldn't help but mutter. Nya shifted sideways, regarding him for a moment before saying anything.

"You're worried about what happens when we reach the Dark Island." she observed knowingly. The Green Ninja opened his mouth, shut it, and sighed.

"I-I… it's just… everything is happening so quickly now… we'll be there by mid-day tomorrow and… I'm… not sure I'm ready for this… facing my dad? It scares me… I'm not brave like you, or Kai, or Zane… I'm just…. A scared kid in a teen's body." he stated in a small voice, turning wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed them.

"You know, sometimes I wonder how you can be so amazing at seeing the good in others, but totally miss it in yourself. You're one of the bravest people I know, Lloyd."

"R-really?" Lloyd snorted wetly in disbelief.

"Would I lie to you?" she retorted, booping his nose with affection and pulling some tissues out of her pocket. Yeah, she could definitely tell he'd been on the verge of crying.

"Well... If you thought it'd make me happy..." he offered up lamely. The raven-haired girl shook her head in disbelief.

"I guess you've got me all figured out, green bean." she relented, marveling at how grown up her baby brother was becoming. Even if he didn't recognize it yet.

"But I'm serious. You really are an incredibly brave person. Who came to save us when everyone got captured by Pythor?"

"I mean, I kinda got caught too, but, me." Lloyd stated.

"Who talked an entire school of future villains into embracing their inner light?" Nya continued.

"Also me. Just not sure I'd call that brave." he protested, making a face, not sure if he appreciated this trip down memory lane.

"And who used the Tomorrow's Tea to defeat the Grundle, knowing full well that it would have irreversible consequences for them?" she finished. Lloyd frowned. He'd rather not dwell on that decision. It had really done a number on him since.

"That's different..."

"Is it, Lloyd? Because I don't think you would've done any of those things if you weren't at least a little brave."

"Okay. So maybe I am brave..." the blonde caved, deciding to let Nya win this one, "But that doesn't change how terrified I am, Nya. What if I can't do it? Mom says he'd never hurt me, and I don't wanna hurt him, either..." he said, referring to his father, "But when it comes down to it, one of us is gonna have to hurt the other... I-I... we're supposed to fight..."

Nya listened to his ramblings with patience, waiting for him to trail off before she offered her own thoughts.

"Remember what I told you when we first found out you were the Green Ninja?"

"That... you couldn't wait to see Kai's face when he realized I technically won the deal?" Lloyd recalled, looking a bit less troubled at the memory.

"I wasn't wrong. His reaction was priceless!" she laughed softly, "But what I meant was... Kai and I – we promised you wouldn't be alone when the time came. We're gonna do everything in our power to keep that promise. So, you don't have to fake being okay just because you don't wanna worry us."

"Pft... I definitely haven't been doing that." he deadpanned, knowing that to deny it would be a lost cause. His sister rolled her eyes at this.

"You're allowed to be scared and unsure. Just remember, you have an awful lot of people who'd do anything for you, no questions asked. Even if some of them are total idiots in how they go about showing it." she reminded him. He put his head on her shoulder, comforted by her words. His family might not be experts when it came to acting responsibly, but he loved them just the same.

"Definitely total idiots." Lloyd agreed, laughing a little himself. Nya gave a contented sigh and let him snuggle against her. This conversation seemed to be just what he'd needed. She only wished it wasn't necessary, that she could give him some assurance about how the prophesied battle would turn out okay because he was Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon, the kid with a heart of gold and an incredible sort of light radiating off of him. But she wasn't psychic. She didn't want to make false promises or whitewash the danger they were in. So instead, she settled for, "Speaking of idiots, I can think of one who needs to be told a thing or two about jumping overboard with no warning and giving us all a heart attack."

"Wanna go yell at Zane?" the Green Ninja asked with a snort.

"Do I ever!" Nya said, grinning wickedly. Together, they left the safety and seclusion of the rooftop tent in favor of locating the nindroid. As it turned out, they didn't have to look for very long. The sound of laughter drew them to the kitchen; Zane had turned his humor switch on once again, much to the bemusement of his father. Obviously he'd ended up in good company.

"Oh, Zane..." the samurai sang sweetly as she and Lloyd entered the room.

"Yes, Nya?" he answered, reverting back to his usual self. Nya took a big breath before laying into him.

"Do you have any idea how DANGEROUS it was to jump overboard like that?! You could've gotten yourself killed! Are you trying to traumatize Lloyd?!"

"Yep, I'm definitely traumatized now," Lloyd joined in, showing no mercy. Dr. Julien followed the tirade with amusement. His poor son seemed to be at a loss for words.

"But I... We... Sorry?" Zane protested weakly. He rushed over to Lloyd. He seemed... Fine? There were no visible signs of emotional scarring?

"Promise me you'll never do something like that again?" Lloyd begged, giving him his best puppy dog eyes.

"You know I am unable to completely guarantee anything, as it is my duty to protect you and others, but... I shall do my best." he told them. Having weaseled out this assurance, Nya decided that it was time for them to stop pestering Zane over his questionable life choices.

"We're glad you're okay." she stated, smiling at the nindroid to make sure he knew they weren't too terribly upset with him. "So am I." he replied. Lloyd hugged him tightly, catching him a little off guard, but he didn't mind. Tomorrow they would reach the dark island. The future was unpredictable, but for tonight, everyone was safe and sound.

[carrotwine4captainhops]

Major Character Death as a creative writing tool

I’ve always been interested in the craft of writing. I’ve been mulling over the way Major Character Death is used as a tool in fiction for awhile, and after watching the extremely problematic death of Quentin Coldwater, (and the self-congratulatory responses of the show’s producers who apparently believe they invented the concept) I thought I’d give you the the high school level compare and contrast MCD essay you didn’t really need or want.

Before I start, I want to be clear that MCD as a tool is not a bad thing by itself. Many, many fiction authors use it in a very calculated way, and as long as it serves the story well, they’re doing their job. Many essays and books about the craft of writing discuss its use because it is just another tool in the creative writer’s tool box. When done well, it makes you cry in a good way; when done badly, the death feels like a cheap gimmick to force an emotion without doing much work as a story teller. The latter is definitely what happened with the season finale of The Magicians.

If season 4 of the magicians had been a novel, it would have been sent back for major revisions before publication.

The first MCD that came to mind while watching the season 4 finale of The Magicians, wasn’t technically an MCD, but may as well be: the ending of the Golden Compass trilogy. The two protagonists have recently fallen in love, and make the difficult decision to return to never see each other again as a way to save the multiverse from the damage caused by traveling between worlds. They won’t even be able to contact each other, and will have to live out their lives as if the other had died.

It was incredibly painful to read (it’s the first book I cried over), but it was beautifully written and a very logical conclusion that the author set up from book one. The books are about (among many other things) the failures of adults and authority when they make selfish decisions, and by choosing to put the health of the universe above their own happiness, they made the bravest, most adult decision they could. It’s a message about the hope that younger generations can fix the things that their predecessors broke if they’re brave enough. The Magicians almost had a similar message.

The second MCD I thought of was that of “Wash” from Firefly. Like a lot of other fans of the show, I got angry at this death in the movie Serenity (essentially the series finale of the TV show). Wash was the comedic relief and voice of optimism in a dark and dystopic show. While Quentin was clinically depressed, and, in the words of Margo Hanson, ”moderately socially maladjusted”, he also acted as the voice of hope to his peers. Both characters were the emotional core of their shows, which was a big reason why they were chosen by their perspective creators as the deaths that would be most felt by the audience. They both got a funeral scene, to really drive home how much the other characters (and by extension, the audience) would be impacted by their death.

In Wash’s case, having his death be accidental impalement during a crash didn’t feel entirely satisfying or necessary. It felt like a lazy way to make the audience sad and motivate the rest of the characters to Really Get That Baddie… BUT, this cheapness is balanced by the symbolism of an outlaw pilot literally dying at the helm of the ship he loved while trying to save the world. It also didn’t send any problematic messages to the audience. Wash was not the protagonist or a “self-insert” the way Quentin was; he wasn’t suicidal or part of an underserved minority group (and make no mistake, by making Quentin sexually fluid/bisexual, the producers signed themselves up for a more thoughtful treatment of his death, if it had to happen.)

The message from Wash’s death is one that is very familiar to readers of genre fiction MCDs: simply: “not everyone lives” and “people who put themselves in high-risk situations sometimes die”. Both of which are painful but fair messages to absorb.

This same tactic was used again by Whedon with Agent Coulson in The Avengers. As an optimistic “plot-armor-free” side character who had become a fan favorite, he was given an entire arc in the movie that the audience wasn’t expecting, made to be even more loveable, and then killed off in a long emotional death scene which was then used in the third act turning point of the movie. Whedon made it clear in interviews that the whole death was coldly calculated to squeeze emotion from the audience, and up the stakes in a way that a large body count couldn’t. It upset a lot of fans, it wasn’t perfect, but it was well done and fitting for the narrative and made the movie stronger, and, again, he wasn’t a member of a minority group. (And as a side note, a different creative team knew how popular Coulson was and managed to resurrect him for his own TV show and managed to do it in a way that wasn’t flip-his resurrection had consequences that lasted at least until season 5, the current season).

There is no mitigating balance to Quentin’s death. He was suicidal  from day one of the series, and he left via (a purposefully plausible) suicide. His first question, once he realizes he’s dead, is not, “Did the plan work?” or “is Eliot OK?” (the friend he’d been working so hard all season to save) or even “is Julia/Alice/Josh/all my other friends ok?” These are questions that would be plausible and fitting in a character who’s journey has about helping friends and the world out of tough situations. But no, the first thing he asks is “did I finally kill myself?” 

With one sentence, his character returned to the self-centered, timid, low-confidence, suicidal mess he’d been established as within five minutes of the show’s pilot. He had no self-realization until after watching his own funeral, at which point he happily and peacefully goes to heaven. At best, that’s heavy-handed symbolism. At worst, it’s erasing all of his character growth and making his entire story pointless, while sending the very dangerous message to the audience. 

The writers stated in interviews that they made his death all about suicide on purpose, and now (as of this writing) they continue to refuse to grapple with how problematic that is.

Another MCD that seemed to do the same thing was Tris from the Divergent series. Like Quentin, she was the protagonist. Also similar to Quentin, her arc was almost too on the nose: she was born into a clan literally named “Abnegation” and indoctrinated from birth to sacrifice herself for her community. She wasn’t even allowed to look into mirrors in case she caught even a smidgen of self-regard. And how does her story end? By her sacrificing her life to get the “big baddie” and save her friends and family. 

Like Quentin’s death, a lot of her character growth appeared to be erased in the last few chapters of the book. Prior to Book 3, Tris had been learning to question her upbringing, to think for herself, that it’s ok to look for happiness for oneself, and that selfishness takes many forms, not all of them bad. When she makes the decision to kill herself in the end, it left a bad taste in my mouth. The plot didn’t require her death, (for example, there were other characters who could have gone in her place, and as a leader at that point, the more difficult decision probably would have been to send someone else on that mission and learn to live with the guilt). Her death and the manner of it, seemed to say, “just kidding, actually the only way to realize your self-worth is to is sacrifice your happiness and entire self for your community.”

Sound familiar?

Quentin Coldwater was just starting to learn (and because he had an audience, to teach) many of these same things. For three and a half seasons, we see him form strong friendships (when he thought he couldn’t); help people (when he thought he was useless), pursue romantic relationships (when he thought no one could love him); he lives an entire lifetime with Eliot during a quest on alternate timeline, where he’s shown having to make the difficult decision every day, to stay alive, to keep working on the tedious and almost hopeless task of completing the puzzle to finish a quest, and then it turns out that the answer to the puzzle all along WAS that daily struggle. Later, in season 4, he tells us that he hopes to be a dad (again) someday; he shows more and more confidence in his magical abilities every season. All of that was erased by the way his death was written.

Even with the uneven messaging of Tris’ death, there is at least lots of room for interpretation. I believe the author was trying to show her final sacrifice as a way of reclaiming part of her upbringing that wasn’t toxic. The character went through a rebellious phase during book one, during which she seems to reject all parts of her former life, even the good ones, right after leaving the Abnegation community for the hedonistic clan of Dauntless. It would definitely be good growth for her, as part of self-actualization, to accept the good parts of her upbringing. I don’t necessarily believe that’s the message we get at the end, but we at least have the possibility. Not everyone has reacted negatively to the way Quentin’s death was handled, so maybe there is more possibility of interpretation than what I see. I’m willing to be proven wrong, but nothing I’ve seen from critics or the showrunners statements has yet convinced me.

Another (highly speculative), parallel I couldn’t help but make over the last few days, is between the Magicians showrunners’s treatment of this MCD and Joss Whedon of a decade ago. His recent fall from grace has finally allowed more critical examination of his past works, but I remember how, at his peak, he could do no wrong. He was the voice of hollywood feminism. He was lauded by critics, peers, and fans. Any voice that questioned him was mocked, dismissed, and even harassed. Anyone else remember when critics call “Dollhouse” a feminist show? None of that has not aged well, has it?

The Magicians producers, riding high off of critical acclaim of Quentin’s homosexual romance in Season 3x05, had ample chance to make the braver choice: to allow a queer suicidal boy make the choice to keep fighting every day despite how hard it was; To break rank with 99% of other TV shows and allow his homosexual romance to be explored and given the same consideration as the hetersexual romances. Instead, they made him kill himself and be happy about it, literally saying in interviews that he had nothing left to live for. Without even addressing his feelings for Eliot. They buried yet another gay, all in the name of a shock-value gimmick, and they think they’re being “revolutionary” and that anyone critical of their choices is “just sad”.

There are about a thousand different ways season 4 could have gone that would have made the writers’ intended message less problematic, more impactful, and more satisfying, and none of them involve a MCD OR a trite “happily ever after”. Consider, for example, that Zelda could have completed her redemption arc in some kind of sacrifice similar to quentin’s. Everett was much more her “big baddie” than he was Quentin’s, it’s just strange that she never got to really confront her mentor-turned-enemy. Consider that, since Quentin’s main focus and motivation all season was to get Eliot back, that he actually succeeds, but, their reunion and relationship is strained. If we must push this idea that “magic comes from pain”, think how much more painful it would be to be to have Eliot finally confess his love to Quentin, but now Quentin is unable to pursue that relationship because of all the trauma he’s suffered at the hands of Eliot’s possessed body all season. Consider that he finally breaks under the strain and excuses himself from further questing, which would easily allow Julia, Kady, or Alice to get more screentime. (I mean, this is just stuff off the top of my head. For a hundred other ideas, check out Archive of Our Own).

They did just about everything wrong with this particular major character death, and I don’t think their choice is going to age well in the years to come.

[bardicknowledgeblogger]

My RPG Characters

Alright - so here are the characters I have in any ongoing games (note - none of the games I am in or run are by the book D&D. They have a lot of homebrew stories, settings and gameplay)

I tried to keep things short and sweet, and then started to fail a little bit, so I’ll have the characters below the cut. It’s not SUPER long, but definitely longer than I had intended :/ 

I probably won’t ever remove characters, even if their games end, just so that if they are brought up there is a standing reference of who they are. I’ll keep it alphabetical though, and add new characters as they are made.

Alexis

Background: A human character from a Dark Fantasy Homebrew campaign. Alexis woke up on the table of some being calling himself The Sculptor, and was told he had died at some point, and that his soul had been pulled from the beyond and put into a carved stone body. He was being asked to fight back strange horrors invading this foreign land - the more he remembered and did, the more like his old self he would become. Before that he had simply been a man who loved life, travelling to meet all he could and write their stories, sing their songs, and experience all that life could offer. A true renaissance man.

Appearance: Currently he’s of course completely made of stone, barring a few cracks and random patches where his “true bodY’ peeks through. Before that, however, he was tall and lean, with light brown skin, bright blue eyes, and sunkissed brown hair that feel in loose waves and curls to about his shoulders. He generally had a bit of stubble on his face but never had a full beard. He always wore the finest things he could find - embroidered silks, handcrafted lace, and finely tooled leathers were all common parts of his wardrobe. He had a few slight scars with grand tales behind them (in reality they were generally caused by his own negligence in highly embarrassing ways, but he’d be damned if he was going to admit it) and the most charming smile you’d ever seen.

Personality: Outgoing and friendly, Alexis made friends easier than enemies. He took up work as a bounty hunter, but regularly would talk with his targets and convince them to turn themselves in without a fight. He made friends in places high and low, and could find something to talk about with nearly anyone. He has a high appreciation for the arts, and thinks it is the duty of all who live to preserve and share the stories, experiences, and creations of those around them. He truly loves life, loves people, and loves discovery.

Ariyna

Background: A Pantoran Character from a Star Wars Homebrew game. Ariyna was a young heiress and only child, growing up in the lap of luxury as her parents served in fairly high political positions (not the she paid that much attention to it). She always dreamed of seeing the galaxy around her but for various reasons was always kept at home by her parents. When she found out they were arranging a marriage for her with an available noble, she took her chance and ran away with the help of a bounty hunter, dragging her poor guard along in the process. Unfortunately, she was almost immediately captured by Sith who sensed great potential within her...

Appearance: Ariyna has soft blue skin with intricate gold markings on her face (one of which looks similar to an upside down lotus flower between her brows, the symbol of her family). Her hair is bright white and falls in very slight waves to her lower back. Her eyes are a soft pink that is so pale it almost appears white. She is incredibly petite, barely coming to 5 feet in height and is small enough that most larger aliens she meets are able to lift her one handed. She strives to wear the most current fashions, leaning into pinks, berry tones, and golds that compliment her best. The best way to think of her is as being “doll-like”

Personality: Ariyna grew up learning to wear different masks depending on her setting. However, at her core she’s selfish and rash, but still cares about others. She will act without thinking, then immediately regret her choices when she sees the consequences of her actions. She doesn’t like others getting hurt, but will let them get hurt before she allows harm to come to herself. She does good things, helps people, and pursues grand goals, but deep inside it’s because she wants the attention and validation from others for doing so. She’s not a good person.... But she knows how to make people think she is. And all in all - she’s scared. She makes choices based on self preservation, and a desire to find somewhere she belongs and feels safe.

Edwina

Background: Human Character from a Bloodborne homebrew game. Edwina joined the church of healing right before Old Yharnam had to be burned due to the scourge of beasts. Was too low down the chain to know much, but had seen enough to suspect the church was responsible, and tried to run away before being conscripted into being a hunter. Has worked her way into the choir where she has been able to learn about great ones, and is actually fairly sympathetic towards them (based on her understanding of them) and has shared dreams with them. Trying to experiment and find ways to use the dreams and the presence of the great ones to counteract beasthood.

Appearance: Pale skin (does not get much sun AT ALL), black curly hair that she haphazardly iles on her head, brown eyes. Likes long sleeves, lots of layers (long tunic, with a vest, and then her robes, and then a coat), fairly average height, slender build with little to know muscle - kinda bony. Currently has some pretty nasty twisted scars along her shoulder, chest and right forearm, and again in her lower legs due to some cultists attacking them with bear traps and nailed planks.

Personality: Very introverted - would love to curl up with a book and tea at home. Very curious and likes to learn things. Will definitely lie and attempt to go where she maybe isn’t supposed, but will also crack under even the slightest amount of pressure. Has a very low threshold for bullshit of any kind. Very inexperienced with ost worldly things (got hit on by her current beau, did not realize what was happening and never would have if he hadn’t specifically explained himself). Very low self esteem that she hides by just not talking. Currently really struggling with the thoughts of being physically intimate now that she has a bunch of nasty scars that she wants to keep hidden.

Fitz (Full name is Fitzgerald, but he hates that)

Background: Fitz is an automaton (magic robot, basically) in a heavily magic based setting where said automatons cannot use magic. Instead he is a skilled tinkerer and craftsman, and makes many fine tools, baubles and decorative pieces, along with an impressive array of mechanical things. One day he did such a good job for one mage, that they decided to enchant him with the ability to do artificy, but only on metal he has gathered and forged himself. Now he has to occasionally travel about for fancy materials that people want him to artifice so he can continue to amass more wealth. Even though it’s super inconvenient. On one such excursion he wound up getting caught in a sort of… compound for discovering the next “architect” - a being who gets to live a life of luxury and get access to untold power, in exchange for keeping the people of the world safe from outside threats. He has to go through a gauntlet of tests, challenges and more to earn this spot, and he is greedily doing everything he can to play the other contestants and get the prize for himself.

Appearance: Made of dull gray metal with bits of clockwork and other mechanical parts occasionally peaking out at the joints of his body. A fairly unassuming automaton, and he’s okay with that. His eyes glow a nice blue color, and he wears a loose tunic with a vest and tight trousers that have many loops for tools and pouches for bits. He has a lovely pair of cuffed boots that he wears as well. He is always accompanied by his companion - an artificed bug that holds a number of his most commonly used tools and is able to come when called and produce the proper item. It can’t speak or understand anything else, but that doesn’t stop Fitz from talking to it like it can.

Personality: Fitz is kinda an ass. He prefers to be able to just live a calm and relatively boring life, because he has no desire to incur the dangers that adventuring brings. However not using his artificey skills, now that people know he has them, is becoming more of a difficulty as people harass him about it. So he begrudgingly goes out and collects what he needs and will absolutely complain the whole time. He really doesn’t care about other people and will not hesitate to leave them behind if it’s easier to do so. However he will help them if they provide more benefit to him alive, or if it isn’t too difficult to do so. The biggest thing that can entice him is the promise of the easy life that power and money can bring. It’s not a big enough draw for him to hunt it out, but if the path is laid before him… well he’d be a fool not to follow.

Kati

Background: Her father was a highly respected doctor who worked tirelessly to help people by treating sickness and disease. he was very strict and good, and held high regard for the accepted morals of society. Her mother was a bit more eccentric - she was mortician, and treated death as just another stage of the lifecycle. This allowed Kati to develop an… unusual, and at times unhealthy, interest in death. She was very intelligent, and extremely curious, and she moved into medical research. She studied diseases, how they spread, their symptoms, etc… But began to push the limits of what all “research” entailed. She began allowing patients to die for the sake of documenting the entire cycle of the disease. She stole samples of diseases and took them home, where she would effectively poison others and document what happened to them. Eventually she began soliciting her services as an assassin, using diseases commonplace enough to not be suspicious, but difficult enough to treat that death was all but guaranteed.

Appearance: She is a young woman in her thirties, with olive toned skin and deep brown eyes. She has thick, black curly hair that is almost always worn up. She wears glasses all the time, even though she really only needs them to read or work on delicate, small scale things. She is fairly plain, and is okay with it as she has little interest in relationships (or people in general, for that matter). Her style is mainly about what is comfortable, and is usually loose pants and simple blouses that can have the sleeves rolled up. She does have a few outfits that are tight and dark that she wears when working as an assassin, along with a black cat mask that she uses to cover her face. She is thin, more from poor health choices than anything else, and does not do well with too much physical exertion.

Personality: Very blunt and frequently thought of as cold and uncaring. Mainly just socially awkward and not sure how to engage with people - which is fine, as she doesn’t really care to do much with others anyway. Has little regard for human life and is extremely curious about the concept of what the afterlife may hold. Collects any paraphernalia she can that relates to death and the macabre, including skulls, mummified body parts, etc… Concerned with herself and her own wellbeing first and foremost, but learned enough from her father that she will help others if she has nothing to gain from leaving them (for example, she will not leave a child to die from pnuemonia, if for no other reason than it isn’t interesting and provides her nothing to learn). She will not hesitate to justify death with the pursuit of knowledge, however. Has little care for what others think of her, and has been called things like weird, quirky, ugly, unapproachable, rude, etc… her whole life. Attempts to be minimally polite when required, but rarely succeeds.

Kyllä

Background: Dwarven character from a homebrew-y psuedo gothic fantasy world. Woke up one day in the middle of a city with no memories. A human woman who ran an herbalist shop took her in. She didn’t really fit in, because most of the dwarves rejected her due to her lack of knowledge and reverence for their ways, and everyone else is just a little bit racist. Developed skills for thievery out of boredom and a desire to save for the things she wanted, and now relies on it as a general lifestyle. Primed to take over the potion shop her adopter runs, and was travelling to expand it when she was forcibly made a “reaper” - someone who uses elemtnal magic to defeat dark, demonic beasts infiltrating the world. Now that kind of serves as her primary focus.

Appearance: Short, a bit squat but not as much as many other dwarves (strives to make sure she is light on her feet and can squeeze through small places), fair skinned with slight tanning on cheeks, shoulders, etc... Auburn hair that is wild and unruly. Wears leather and dark clothing with hoods, gloves, face wraps, etc... has a blade that straps along the length of her forearm and can be popped out into a scythe. Uses shadow based magics.

Personality: Loud. Will say what she wants, when she wants - ifshe doesn’t like you, she will absolutely tell you. Enjoys fucking with people, and will use trickery to overcome obstacles when given a choice. Does not like to be looked down on and will go to great lengths to prove you wrong. Does not like the idea of commitment due to intense trust issues, but will not hesitate to indulge herself in whatever way she wants at the time. Prides herself on her ability to seduce just about any woman she comes across.

Petra

Background: Naive faun girl who lives in a tiny town in the middle of a wild forest and has literally never left. Her husband goes out adventuring and stops writing one day. She decides to go after him and experience the wonderful world! Surprise - the world is actually awfully. Cinnamon roll faun girl has a few exestential crisis before finding her husband who had become a revolutionary to try and make the world better before she could ever come see it. (It didn’t work). The world she is from is one where most people can use magic, however faun’s are born with “half” magic. They can bond with someone to give them their half of magic, meaning that between two bonded fauns, one can use magic. She gave her magic to her husband, and so in order to survive on her adventure has taken to collecting a meangerie of magic knicks knacks and items to compensate. Not all of them are good.

Appearance: Very small (smol) - just over 4 ft. Broad, branching antlers. Long wavy pale blonde hair that turns to a rose color at the ends. Very dusky brown skin with white freckles. Deer ears and a tail, as well as soft fluffy fur on her chest, forearms and lower legs. Big blue doe eyes. Wears impractical pretty clothes and an eclectic mix of jewelry (namely a gaudy collar of different gemstones that her husband had sent from a treasure trove - it does NOT match her clothing and is VERY expensive, but it was a gift so it doesn’t come off)

Personality: Cinnamon Roll that has had to witness too much cruelty of the world for her taste. Wants to make things better, but has doubts on her ability to do so. Has struggled with questions like what makes someone good, what is right and wrong, etc... and is still not settled on an answer. However, this challenged naivity has led to the development of the idea that most people are bad, and to assume people are bad until proven otherwise. Takes betrayal like a knife to the heart and can hold a grudge - especially if she thought you were better than that.

Vivian

Background: My longest running character who has ascended into some ridiculous territory. Vivian was basically an Aasimar Cleric. She was descended from a race of near immortal beings with the ability to access different dimensions (an ability that was awoken within her in her mid twenties). She has an angelic companion named Ezekiel who gives her some of her magic abilities and travels with her as both a fighting companion and a romantic partner. She is currently considered a God on 2 different worlds/other dimensions (one of which is basically dead so...)

Appearance: Tall (like... 7ft. tall), lean muscle (she is trained with a sword and shield, hand to hand combat and a crossbow, and wears heavy plate and chain), Sun-Tanned skin, long bright red hair, quite a number of scars (legs are covered in acid-like burn scars, chesst has a magic internal scar that runs along the veins, assortment of smaller scars from other attacks). Was missing right arm which was replaced with a magic prosthetic, but had it... replaced? When she ascended to Godhood (like you do). White angel wings with gold accents. WHEN ON A WORLD SHE IS A GOD OF her scars are replaced with ethereal gold filigree patterns, her hair dissolves at the tips into a sort of galaxy thing and her eyes glow a bit. Gold and White aesthetic.

Personality: Neutral Good - Values what is right and just abov eall else, even if she must kill or lie for it. The good of the many outweighs the desire of the few. Doesn’t believe that anyone is beyond saving, but will not risk others to try and save someone who doesn;t want it. A mediator - will try to find a middle ground of peace if she can before escelating things. Loves to find flowers to braid into hair, will adopt literally any kind of animal (which has included a giant spider in the past) and likes feeling pretty even when covered in heavy armor that can obscure almost her entire being.

[clairekatswritingcorner]

Alien Encounter

Word Count: 2,135

Summary: Alexys hears an unusual noise rustling loudly in her backyard one evening. While she wants to think nothing of it, it’s hard for her to ignore. Considering the alien invasion that recently shook the town, part of her fears that if she fails to investigate, it could end up leading to her untimely demise.

*Author’s Note*: A commission for @bad-blue-moon-rising! This is a first meeting between herself and a character named Rudy from a horror movie I’ve never seen. The concept seemed very interesting though, and the alien designs were both comical and unsettling (at least, they were to me!) After surmising what I could about his species, I think I was able to do him justice, especially considering the rarity of the situation. I hope you enjoy!

The town had survived, somehow, which was a relief. It was hard to think that anyone wouldn’t call it that, considering the future and wellbeing of the area and all its residents was at stake. Alexys was one of the many individuals that hadn’t suffered much direct or irreparable harm; she knew that made her lucky. She’d seen the reports, heard personal testimonies, even been around to witness some of the brutal carnage firsthand herself. But now, a few weeks after the strange and devastating invasion, things were starting to wind down. Things were starting to return to normal. But not everyone was out of the clear just yet.

Even though she wasn’t present for many of the key events that had permanently altered the town and its citizens, fate was going to ensure she got her chance. Not to suffer, necessarily, but to come face to face with a threat that should have sent her fleeing the moment she laid her eyes on it. But Alexys wasn’t going to do that, because she wasn’t that type of person. Sure, she was timid and wary and could be overcautious, but she also had an inquisitive streak that often contradicted those aspects of her nature. Whether it was to her benefit or not, she couldn’t help herself; and this encounter would prove to be no exception of that behavior.

It all started when she heard something in the backyard. It was unusual for her to hear much of anything rustling outside the house, especially at this time of night. Sure, there was the occasional neighborhood cat or racoon or other scavenging animal that might decide to pass through the yard in the process of looking for food or just prowling along. This time the noise was much louder; a distinct sound that she’d never heard any small animals make. No, it was undeniably the movement of an animal more the size of a deer, or something similar…but she could tell that it wasn’t something as simple as that, either.

She knew it probably wasn’t safe to go snooping around. Well, actually she was sure of that, but the noise was starting to freak her out. It grew fainter after a few minutes, and she thought about letting it slide. It must have really just been some random animal passing through. Before she could confidently settle on this assumption, she started hearing something else. It was a sound akin to that of a groaning voice. Was she being haunted by some kind of spirit now? Whatever it was, it wasn’t in the house, so her best bet was to leave it be until it finally took the hint and left. But the groaning seemed to be agonizing; whatever creature was making it was truly suffering. Was her soft heart really going to push her to investigate against her better judgement?

She knew the answer before she’d even asked herself the question. Slipping on a coat and a pair of shoes, Alexys hesitantly made her way to the backdoor. She had a flashlight with her, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to turn it on yet. Her best bet was to play it safe and examine as much as she could of the dark scenery from a distance. She didn’t want to take the chance of disturbing whatever creature she may come across with the light, subsequently triggering a reaction that would put her in more danger than if she’d just investigated it while it was still shrouded by the cloak of night.

Displacing the door just a bit, she peeked out to see if she could observe anything without needing to venture outside. It didn’t seem like that was going to work in this case; she could hardly see anything for all the shadows, intensified by the clouds that blocked out the moon on this particularly eerie night. She took a deep breath and brought a hand to her chest, clutching both sides of her open jacket together as she hesitantly stepped outside. The flashlight was hanging heavily in her other hand, and she tiptoed her way off the back porch into the yard.

Near the center of the lawn, obscured by the greater density of shadows cast by the surrounding trees, something was curled up in the grass. It definitely wasn’t a small animal, another one of the roaming foragers that called every nook and cranny of this neighborhood home. No, it appeared to be the form of a human curled up in the fetal position, shivering and muttering something under their breath. Alexys couldn’t make out their speech, but she assumed that they were probably uttering words or sounds of pain to accompany whatever injury had put them in this state. Their groaning had ceased, but they were clearly far from alright; perhaps they’d gotten quieter simply because they didn’t have the strength to keep up their laments or call for help.

“Excuse me…is everything alright?” Of course it wasn’t, but she couldn’t come up with anything better to open with. “Are you hurt? Is something wrong? If you need help—”

She felt her stomach sink like an anchor at sea. This human…they weren’t an ordinary human. They might turn out not to be human at all. Violent flashbacks of the grisly incident that had shaken the town to its core only a short while ago flooded her mind, causing her to drop the flashlight in her shock. As it hit the ground, the impact displaced the switch, casting a blinding and unexpected light on the person she’d been unfortunate enough to come across. As expected, they reacted in an unfavorable way, one that startled Alexys even more than the light’s sudden presence.

She took a step back and ended up stumbling on an unsightly clump of dirt, a seemingly inconsequential thing that might have just ruined any chance she had to make it out of this mess alive. As she collapsed to the ground, scampering away from the creature as quickly as possible, she started to get lightheaded from the agitated rhythm of her lungs. This was one of the creatures that had tormented the town, that had taken lives, that had traumatized a countless number of people who some theorized would never manage to recover from the tragedy.

“Y—You’re…” her words were garbled, disrupted by the fog of panic overtaking her senses. Her muscles started to lock up, which was the opposite of what she wanted, and the opposite of what her fight or flight response had in mind as well. There wasn’t really anything she could do about it, though, so she was kind of just along for the ride. Things were going to play out around her, and however they did, she had no choice but to accept whatever consequences remained.

The creature she’d startled flailed and thrashed, trying to escape the light that blinded its eyes. It had a brightly colored face, droopy ears, and wild red hair that made it look like a roaring flame was burning on its head. The rest of its outfit was exactly what Alexys and many others had come to expect, recognize, and fear. A simple clown suit complete with a circular, vibrant cherry red nose. She’d heard rumors the nose was a weakness to these creatures, that if it was injured or popped it would send them into an uncontrollable frenzy that would destroy them in the blink of an eye.

That’s what she needed to do, then. However…something was holding her back. It wasn’t her frozen muscles this time, she could tell, but rather something in her mind that had shifted. She couldn’t help regarding this trembling, alarmed creature with a sympathetic gaze. It hadn’t tried to attack her yet, which was a relief, and a surprise. It was her understanding that these creatures—more specifically the aliens known as Klowns—needed to liquify humans and consume them to survive. They’d crash landed on this planet and started wreaking havoc on the first settlement they came across, which happened to be the place Alexys called home.

But right now, this Klown was defenseless and scared. And injured, if she wasn’t mistaken. When it held its arms up to shield its eyes from the intrusive light, she caught sight of a few painful looking wounds. None of them were lethal, but they might become that way if they weren’t tended to properly. She had a box of basic first aid supplies back in the house…if she brought him inside, would she be making a fatal mistake? Condemning herself to a slow and gruesome death at the hands of a bloodthirsty alien with the visage of a nightmarish circus clown?

Once access to her rational thinking was restored, or perhaps it was objectively more irrational, Alexys noticed she had full control of her motor functions again. Only a few seconds had passed, but she’d already gone through so much in her mind. She wondered if the Klown had done any of the same. Against her better judgement, or at least the judgement she knew she should be adhering to, she got to her feet and brushed off her clothes. She walked over to the defending alien, picking up the flashlight and switching it off. The moment she did, the Klown’s arms fell, and it made the surprising decision to look up and meet her gaze.

Foreign eyes unlike any she’d ever seen before…Alexys was more than a little captivated. And unbeknownst to her, the instant their eyes connected, the Klown realized he felt the same. Even if he didn’t exactly comprehend the experience, he somehow knew he could trust this person. And that he didn’t want to cause her any harm…she hadn’t done anything to him, unlike so many other humans had been trying to, which was how he’d ended up like this in the first place. Without a word Alexys offered the creature her hand, and he took it without question. Things seemed to be going smoothly so far, and as she led him back towards the house, he continued to follow her without complaint.

“Can you tell me your name?” Alexys thought exchanging such information was probably important and could even end up being beneficial. She was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with the heavy silence that kept them company. She’d brought her unexpected guest into the living room, directing him to the couch while she fetched the first aid kit. He got himself situated quietly, cooperatively. She wondered if all of this was just one bizarre dream. “My name’s Alexys. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Alexys…” Her name sounded so strange in his voice, but not in a bad way. “My name is…Rudy.”

“Rudy? That’s a nice name,” she complimented as she started treating his wounds to the best of her ability. “I honestly expected something more exotic. I’m just glad you can understand me. And that you didn’t attack me.”

“Attack?” Rudy raised an eyebrow, unable to help wincing and hissing as she hit a sore spot.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she quickly exclaimed in apology, hoping she hadn’t just committed a blunder that spelled her inevitable doom.

Rudy huffed in annoyance but quelled his urge to conduct a more violent response. “I did not attack you…because you did not attack me.”

Alexys’s expression became heartwarmingly soft. “Well, of course. You’re injured, and clearly scared. I wouldn’t do something to hurt you. I think I have more to fear from you than you do from me. I mean, you and the rest of your friends are the ones who came here looking to ransack the place for the next living thing to devour.”

“Not many of us left now. Everyone that could went home,” Rudy explained, and the ache plaguing the empathic girl’s chest grew stronger. “Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. We can’t fight off this many people, all people who want us dead now.”

“You got left behind?” she reiterated for him, and the abandoned alien nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that. You can stay here with me for now, if you want.”

“Stay?” The redhead perked up, looking at her with eyes that displayed the most human expression she’d ever seen a Klown make. So, this is what they could be like when they weren’t acting so threateningly vicious. Alexys was starting to think these new circumstances might not actually be that bad. In this light, and this setting, she even found him kind of cute.

“Of course,” she reassured, presenting him with a smile that made his heart (or whatever alien counterpart he had of said organ) jump in his chest. Maybe there really was more to humans than he and the rest of his species thought. He was certainly going to find out.

[royalpains-roleplay]

Original Characters - Female

» ; ♛ ❮ORIGINAL CHARACTER❯

Character quote: ❝ Something 'bout you makes me feel like a dangerous woman. ❞

✗ — Name: Elsa Grimaldi. ✗ — Age: 19. ✗ — Kingdom: France. ✗ — Sexuality: Heterosexual.

— Personality; Compared to what she once was, Elsa is a complete nightmare. There is not much left of the shy, sweet and innocent child that had once been Elsa Grimaldi. Whether it was shattered by her mother in early childhood, or by her weakness, Prince Ashton, Elsa has not much left of the kindness she once harbored for others. Elsa is a party girl, the liquor chugging, coke snorting princess that everyone loves to have a good time with. She likes the ability to lose herself in the buzz; it makes her feel better than getting in all of her deep emotions. She puts on a cold, bitchy demeanor, showing no sign of care or even awareness for other people, which is just another way to protect herself from being hurt. She used her abrasive personality to push people away, so they didn’t hurt her as her mother did. Deep down, the outwardly confident princess is really just broken on the inside, torn between the need to let someone in and to protect herself.

— Biography; Elsa grew up being the youngest child, yet still close in age to her brother, Luca. Despite being close in age the pair didn't have a close bond. As they grew, older Elsa became a quiet, shy girl. Her mother felt as if she wasn't fit to be a princess much less a queen because Elsa didn't possess the same manipulative qualities Mrs. Grimaldi had at that age, the qualities Mrs. Grimaldi seemed to deem important for a ruler. The queen began to treat her daughter terribly, acting as if the girl was an unwanted step child. Although the abuse wasn't physical, it took a toll on the girl. She developed an eating disorder, formed by her eagerness to please her mother. She strived to make her appearance perfect, and often worked for success in all other aspects of her life. She would go days without eating and it became effortless for her. She would often throw herself into the perfection of her own life. At the age of sixteen, she officially met Ashton Deutch, the Russian Prince at a party and they slept together. Elsa, still the shy girl from before panicked because of what she’d done and left before the boy could wake up. They had been in puppy love from years of glances from across rooms and brief encounters at balls so once Elsa left and refused to see the boy it crushed the both of them. She convinced her father to ban the boy from entering France. Elsa was taking all precautions she possibly could to prevent herself from letting Ashton in, which led to her ditching the shy sweetheart part of herself and becoming a liquor chugging princess with an attitude. Her cold-hearted demeanor was used to push people away from seeing the flaws her mother so eagerly pointed out. With her complete change in personality, her mother finally decided she was good enough and she was sent to Royal Pains Estate in order to develop the skills of a leader so she could maybe become the ruler of her country. A distraction became present when she discover Ashton was also at the Estate. It was at the Estate that she also met the old flame of her brother, Sophie and made the connection that her two year old child was her nephew.

✗ Secret; She suffers from anorexia and although it has drifted to a less severe problem it hasn't completely ceased. Its formation was heavily influenced by the treatment of her mother and although it has become less of the problem, her drinking often triggers it.

「 Faceclaim: Ariana Grande. 」

» ; ♛ ❮ORIGINAL CHARACTER❯

Character quote: ❝And the things bottled inside have finally begun to create so much pressure that I'll soon blow up.❞

✗ — Name: Arlo Dawson ✗ — Age: 18 ✗ — Kingdom: New Zealand ✗ — Sexuality: Pansexual

— Personality; Arlo is typically nice and sweet, but she’s very quiet, especially around her sister. She’s level-headed most of the time, though she can become dark and irrational and act out some times. She’s very intelligent. But living in her sister’s shadow, she’s learned to become a little insecure and strive for perfection from herself. She’s working on allowing herself to be an individual from her sister and be confident.

— Biography; Arlo’s parents were set up for an epic love. Her mother, Isabelle, was next in line for the throne when she met Elijah, Arlo’s father. Isabelle didn’t want the throne; she was going to step down and let her brother take it, so she could have a relatively normal life. She put herself through university with working off jobs, and she worked very hard to move all the way to medical school, to become a doctor. Elijah was a small town boy, who taught literature at a community college. When the two met at a party, it was instant attraction. The two started dating a few days later, much to her family’s dismay. They were only together four months where they decided to get engaged. Then a month later, Isabelle discovered she was pregnant. Is and Elijah decided to have a shotgun wedding the same day; they went to their local court house and got married. When Isabelle’s parents found out, they insisted on giving her a proper wedding, one that would take place after the babies’ birth.

The day of their wedding, everything was going to plan. They were ready to be each other’s forever...again. But as Isabelle was saying “I do,” her brother swooped in and stabbed her in the back. Elijah and the doctors did everything they could to save her, but she passed away later the same evening. The kingdom wasn’t the same again.

Shortly after Isabelle’s death, Elijah took the girls to the country side to raise. Being a widowed single dad was hard on him. He turned to alcohol to soothe the pain, and the girls’ godmother stepped in to help them. After getting him help in sobering up, Elijah went back to teaching, and the girls grew up rather normally. The girls were best friends as they, but it seemed Arlo was the more submissive twin. She did whatever her sister wanted just to keep her happy, never really voicing her opinion; and it only worsened when they discovered her sister was bi-polar. Arlo became a sort of anchor to her sister, calming her down and cleaning up her messes. When the girls turned sixteen, their grandparents wanted the girls to start their royal training. Arlo was content to just be a normal girl, but agreed to go to keep an eye on her sister. After several months of training, their grandmother threw them a “coming out” party. Arlo met Antonia and completely fell for her. But her sister didn’t approve. For weeks after the party, Arlo snuck behind her sister’s back to start a relationship with Toni. Arlo was caught in her secret as her sister walked in on them being intimate. The whole thing turned into a fight that almost ended their bond. Feeling overshadowed and alone, Arlo attempted to take her own life by swallowing pills and downing her dad’s whiskey. Elijah found her in the morning and rushed her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with depression. Once she was healed and seemed to be in better mental health, her father, with backing from her grandmother, sent her to the estate to get some distance while she finished her classes and training.

✗ Secret; Arlo was diagnosed with depression and codependency after her attempt. If she doesn’t take her medicine, she’ll soon be a grenade and the darkness inside her comes out.

「 Faceclaim: Kaylee Bryant」

» ; ♛ ❮ORIGINAL CHARACTER❯

Character quote: ❝ From porcelain to ivory to steel, I rise above. ❞

✗ — Name: Sloane Luxem. ✗ — Age: 22. ✗ — Kingdom: Germany. ✗ — Sexuality: Pansexual.

— Personality; coming off as antagonistic and cold, Sloane has built up walls around herself. She had been a happy child when she was younger, filled with curiosity and thirst for knowledge. After she was kidnapped she learned real quick to block out emotions and not let anything phase her. Otherwise she'd just get herself killed. She's sarcastic beneath her shield and loves to provoke people into fighting her. She's reckless to the point of self-destruction and thrives off danger. She holds no regard for her own life, but she does care about the lives of others. Sloane can hold a grudge unlike anything else, she's unforgiving and ruthless especially when she has been wronged. Beneath the surface, Sloane is playful and quick to tease those that she’s allowed in and through her shields and armor. Most of the time she doesn’t think before she acts and reacts based off of instinct. She’s a protector when it counts and will do whatever is absolutely necessary to protect the few she cares about, willing to make the hard decisions and bear the guilt of the consequences so others wouldn’t have too. Sloane is empathic and despite the fact that she rarely shows it, she empathizes fairly easy with people, she just buries the emotions down and pretends that they are not there.

— Biography; The Luxem Queen was as independently strong as they came. For her entire reign she has refused to marry and hand over control to her husband. A decision that has always made waves. Her two children were the product of test tubes and doctors, no men directly involved. Another wave, a major wave that decision had made, twice. Sloane had been protected as she grew up, always having guards present. Until one day their loyalty was bought. Sloane was twelve when she and her brother were kidnapped from their home and taken by men who wanted them gone. Initially meant to be trained as an assassin, Sloane spent four years being taught how to kill. Before she was sold to the highest bidder. At sixteen she was bought by a fighting ring that heard of her vicious nature. She never had the finesse for assassination work.

Two years with the ring, she fell in love despite the fact that she knew she shouldn’t. Love was a weakness in that dark world, it painted a target on your back like a neon arrow screaming that you had a weakness. She knew loving him would get them both killed, but she did it anyway. It had been a love as fierce as the way they fought and it wasn’t long until their owners found out. At first when they did nothing, Sloane naively thought they didn’t care. But they did, especially when the love of her life was plotting a rebellion behind her back. He was killed for it in front of her. Each man and woman involved were slaughtered and the only reason Sloane had been allowed to live was because they knew she had no knowledge of the deceit, and they knew she’d been broken beyond repair and would not foolishly rise against them.

For the next few years she completely froze out all emotions, vowing to never love again, to never let another soul behind her walls. She lived, breathed, and survived fighting every day. About a month ago the ring was taken down by law enforcement, the fighters were all taken to a hospital and asked for names or had DNA tests run. Sloane knew who she was and didn’t say, knowing no matter what a test would be run. But she didn’t want to return, she didn’t know who she was outside the fighter she had become. Seeing the damage done, and her vicious nature, Sloane’s mother had her sent to the Estate after she finished healing of whatever injuries she possessed.

✗ Secret; Sloane was kidnapped as a child and a few years later sold to a fighting ring by her kidnappers. She watched the man she loved get murdered in front of her while there.

「 Faceclaim: Marie Avgeropoulos 」

» ; ♛ ❮ORIGINAL CHARACTER❯

Character quote: ❝I am damaged at best, like you’ve already figured out.❞

✗ — Name: Hana Myung.

✗ — Age: 25.

✗ — Kingdom: South Korea.

✗ — Sexuality: Heterosexual.

— Personality; If you didn’t know her than you would be convinced that Hana truly is the embodiment of the stereotypical princess. From an outside perspective, she comes across as shallow and self-centred, only really caring about money and her looks. She knows that she can be a little conceded and often tunes out to the world around her. There is no doubt that Hana is spoilt, she’s used to getting what she wants and it shows. It’s a terrible habit really but she’s not ignorant to it. In fact, Hana is very self-aware with what she does and who she is. She chooses to embrace the negative sides of her personality as well as the good ones. No one’s perfect and that’s a statement that she lives by. Of course, Hana is no angel, she’s made plenty of mistakes in her lifetime but she’s always managed to learn from them. She’s no so ignorant where she would be stupid enough to make the same mistake twice and allow herself to be made a fool out of. You’d never guess it with the way she acts but Hana is a deeply sympathetic person, she doesn’t like to show her kindness in public settings but if she ever notices someone is having a particularly rough time, she’ll take time out of her day to talk to them. Not the kind to cause meaningless problems, Hana won’t purposely sub people unless she has a prior issue to them. She’s pretty open to talking with others and so she’s always been fairly popular with her peers. She may not look like much of a threat but Hana will do anything and everything to protect her friends and she’s not above playing dirty tactics in order to do that. Though she does sometimes come across as naive, she’s anything but. Hana doesn’t allow others to walk all over her. Even in a vulnerable state, she’s smart enough to realise when people are trying to dominate her or prove that they’re of more importance and she refuses to stand for it.

— Biography; Growing up in a big family was always going to be difficult. Hana wasn’t the oldest child and she wasn’t the youngest. With seven siblings in total, it was hard for her to ever really get any of the attention a normal child craved. Instead, her parents would usually just give her whatever she wanted in order to get her off their case so they could focus on more pressing issues. This often meant that Hana and her siblings were left alone with nannies to take care of them who only did it because of the money rather than the fact that they cared for the kids. There was absolutely no hiding that she came from a wealthy family, the Myung’s were a well respected royal family in South Korea, they had been ruling for hundreds of years until the last vote when the Myung family lost to the Kim family. It was the first time they’d lost in centuries which meant that Hana’s parents were set on doing everything they could to ensure the Myung’s would be back on top the next time a king or queen was needed, so of course a lot of pressure was placed on their kids to be perfect. Hana’s parents drilled into her head that it was up to her and her siblings that to make an impact in the world and that meant that they had big plans for their kids. Wanting to maintain their family status, the Myung siblings were forced to go to classes 14 hours a day with minimal breaks in between. They were a hard-working family, determined that they would be the future rulers of the country. The kids didn’t get a lot of time to just have fun and act like kids but they never complained, falling into line so that they would please their parents and their country. Hana was a middle child, the only two siblings younger than her was her sister Youra and her twin brother Arlo. Particularly close to her sister, Hana grew up with a protective instinct to take care of her. It was obvious fairly soon into her life that Hana was different from the rest of her family. While still entitled and arrogant, she longed for more than just the life of a royal. She didn’t want to have to fit into this perfect box her parents had created for her. While her siblings were more than thrilled with the way their lives were heading, Hana wanted more than that. She wanted freedom, adventure and all things in between and so she made the bold move to tell her parents about her dreams and ambitions. It was a sensitive topic, she was well aware of the risks she was taking telling her parents she didn’t want to follow in their footsteps. Her siblings never questioned their parent’s authority and with good reason to. While they weren’t physically abusive by any means, they definitely knew how to hurt their kids. For Hana, it was through their pets. Growing up, she’d grown attached to her dog, Bruno and when she was seven and refused to finish her classwork, her parents got rid of the dog and she never saw it again. She worried that perhaps something similar would happen to her pet cat but surprisingly they supported her. She has six other siblings so she didn’t really have to worry about the crown, it was unlikely that she would ever get to become queen so her parents said that as long as she kept up her good grades and reputation, they would allow her to travel on her own terms. Of course, Hana agreed to their terms and happily packed her bags to travel around the world. She loved it, the freedom of being who she wanted to be rather than the princess she had to be and the funds she had were endless, it was bliss. She’d always been exceptionally intelligent so it wasn’t hard for her to maintain her royal classes high grades. Hana moved around frequently, never staying in one place for long because she just wanted to see everything the world had to offer. She was happy and wanted to share that. Her younger sister, Youra often contacted Hana and told her how bored she was so after two years of travelling on her own and meeting a bunch a wonderful people, Hana asked her sister to come and visit her for a month.

For the first couple of weeks, everything was running smoothly, they decided to go to America and that’s where the real trouble began. Hana decided to go and have lunch with a friend and leave her little sister to her own devices for an afternoon. Youra agreed to pick her up with the car they rented later on and when that time came, disaster struck. Hana had only been in the car ten minutes at the most when the accident happened. Tires screeching and the sickening sound of metal crashing haunted Hana but before she could process what had happened, Youra sped off leaving the other car and the person inside it. It was revealed later that night on the news that the man had passed away and they were looking for the suspect that had committed the crime. Youra was hysterically crying at this point so Hana knew she had to remain calm and so she did. Without hesitation, she phoned her father and informed him about the hit and run that claimed a man’s life but she changed one major detail. Protecting her sister, Hana told her father she was the one that committed the crime and he immediately flew out to help his daughters. Like he always did when there was an issue, her father threw money at the problem and it disappeared. Hana and Youra were in the clear but their father was furious and insisted that they pack their things and go home. Though she loved travelling, Hana didn’t put up any protest, she was devastated by what had happened so she did what he asked. No one realise just how negative of an impact it made on Hana until she tried to jump out of her third-story bedroom window. When asked why she did it, Hana explained that she kept seeing the man from the crash wherever she went and he constantly told her to hurt herself. She had been harming herself for months and no one even noticed until she almost died. Hana’s parents insisted she see a specialist who decided to put Hana on a medication to help her out. Though she’s stopped seeing the man putting awful thoughts in her head, her guilt lingers and so her father insisted she be sent to royal pains estate so that she could recover properly there.

Secret: Hana and her sister were involved in a hit and run accident. Instead of letting her younger sister take blame accident for the accident she was responsible for, Hana said she did it. The crash claimed a mans life and instead of it being publicised, the girls father threw money at the problem and it disappeared. Although she wasn’t actually the one driving, she’s devastated about the situation and it caused her to start seeing the man that died who kept encouraging her to harm herself.

「 Faceclaim: Jennie Kim. 」

» ; ♛ ❮ORIGINAL CHARACTER❯

❝ I am here in my mold. But I’m a million different people from one day to the next, I can’t change my mold.❞

✗ — Name: Elise Dawson

✗ — Age: 18

✗ — Kingdom (do not place character in a Kingdom with three ruling families already): New Zealand

✗ — Sexuality: Heterosexual

— Personality; From her looks right down to her personality Elise can be considered a typical mean girl. Almost every word that comes out of her mouth is laced with venom. She’s fun, witty and brutally honest. She’s not afraid to tell it how it is, even if it hurts someone else in the process. That includes people that she cares about. She’s a narcissist with a fragile ego that hates it when she doesn’t have someone’s full attention. She might care about her father and sister more than anything and do anything for them, but she’s self-absorbed and finds it difficult to see things from others perspectives. A lot of that can be attributed to her bipolar disorder. The desperate search to have some form of control and stability in her life. That’s why she craved so much attention from her father and clung to her sister more than she probably should have.

— Biography (at least two hundred words); From a young age Elise was always a little more dominant of the Dawson twins. When it came to choosing what the girls were going to do it was always Elise’s idea and Arlo just went along with it. At first nobody questioned how she acted. That was how some children were. When she got older though the changes got worse. She started having manic episodes that didn’t go unnoticed to her father. She got sent to be seen by a psychologist who after a few sessions diagnosed Elise with bipolar disorder. While she spent a lot of time with her father doing things like meditation and calming exercises, her sister was just as much there for her as she had ever been. Whenever things were going seemingly well and Elise had an episode that she didn’t want anyone finding out about Arlo would be there and help do damage control. When the twins turned sixteen and their grandparents wanted them to do royal training Elise got excited. The idea of one day being able to take the throne and be queen of their homeland was something that she didn’t take lightly. She agreed to it before they could even finish their sentence.

After several months Elise felt like she was really getting into what the royal lifestyle had to offer. The royal outfits were similar to her everyday outfits so she fit right in. She was even working harder on her mental health to be the leader that she thought was needed. When her grandmother thought they were ready she threw the twins a “coming out” party to introduce them into the royal life and circles. While Elise was more focused on the attention she didn’t realise that her sister had found an interest in one of the royal girls that were there. She felt like she was losing her sister and that there wasn’t something right about the girl she fancied. Arlo gave in and agreed not to see Toni anymore. Everything was going smoothly after the party. Elise began going to royal parties and occasions to get an “in” with them. When sneaking back in from one of the parties Elise overheard her father and grandmother talking about how they were going to choose Arlo to be the one to take the throne. The girl began spiraling as she made her way up to her room that she shared with the slightly younger Dawson twin, only to find her sister in an intimate situation with Toni. Whatever anger she had was just intensified ten fold. The pair got into a fight, the worst one they had ever had. Because of the betrayal and thing that she had overheard Elise took it all out on Arlo. Blaming her for everything and being a lot harsher than she should have. When the fight finally ended Elise left to go and stay somewhere else. Not wanting to be under the same roof as her sister, who in that moment was the enemy. It wasn’t until the next morning when she got a call that Arlo had tried to take her own life and was in the hospital that Elise actually thought about the fight that they’d had again. She wanted to get better. Learn how to control daily challenges, her outbursts and regain control. With Arlo being sent to Royal Pains after her suicide attempt her father didn’t want Elise being far away. So instead she started going through the process of intense behavioral therapy at a local facility. Everyday was spent being bombarded with medical professionals and healers to try and help her with her bipolar. She was making great strides until her grandmother attempted to introduce training back into her routine. Making her first reappearance since her sister had been sent away all Elise could focus on was the chatter amongst everyone of what happened to Arlo. Everyone talking bad about her sister caused her to have a massive episode. Attacking people both verbally and physically. After the incident her father and grandmother decided to send her to Royal Pains after deciding that was the best place for her to make progress and have some stability amongst the royal life.

✗ Secret; She has bipolar disorder and can be a loose canon because of it.

「 Faceclaim: Jenny Boyd」

» ; ♛ ❮ORIGINAL CHARACTER❯

Character quote: ❝So much history in my head, the people I’ve left, the ones that I’ve kept.❞

✗ — Name: Mercury Zoegar.

✗ — Age: 25.

✗ — Kingdom: Iceland.

✗ — Sexuality: Heterosexual.

— Personality; On the surface, Mercury seems like the typical mean princess. She is beautiful and popular but can be a complete snob at times. Her strive for popularity stems from her parents need to make her into the perfect daughter with the perfect reputation while Mercury just wants to be herself. However she’s not a complete lost cause as some would think, at times, Mercury does display forms of kindness and support towards other, and often shows it to those that deserve it instead of doing it for everyone just for the sake of being nice. She is much smarter then she lets on and much more lost then she wants people to know. She used to be the kind of girl that thrives off living in the moment but certain recent events have caused her to live in the past and she’s afraid she’s never going to get past it. Mercury is excellent at hiding her own emotions though so she can easily prevent people from seeing how badly she’s coping. Sometimes she finds herself dewlling on the past and wishes she could go back to a year ago when she was truly carefree and happy as she worries she will never feel that way again. It’s hard for her to get out of that head space but she really is trying.

— Biography; Mercury lived in a household where being royalty came second to religion. From a young age, Christianity was forced up on the young princess and at first, she didn’t mind. After all, it was all she had known. She had always considered herself as a religious girl, but unlike her parents, she never mocked or discriminated against others with different religious beliefs as her and was open to the possibility of new things. As she grew into her teens this became more of a problem for Mercury, she never lost her faith but she had questioned it a few times. First when her mother fell pregnant and lost the baby four months into the pregnancy, again when she became scrutinised by the public on the internet for ‘growing up too quick’ because she was seen out wearing a bikini to the beach and the last time she questioned the religion was when she was sexually abused by one of the kingdom guards when she was only fourteen. Of course she told her parents and he lost his job and was sent to prison but that was when she decided that religion wasn’t everything and she also became cold and confrontational towards people because she didn’t trust them not to hurt her. For years she lived like this, keeping a comfortable distance from everyone. Of course she wasn’t a complete nun, Mercury had a few boyfriends here and there but nothing too serious and she never really had friends she completely trusted. She was labelled as the ‘bitch from Iceland’ in her country so it became rather shocking to her parents when they discovered that at the age of nineteen, Mercury was sleeping with her fathers best friend, Warren, and they had been in a secret relationship for months. Her father was furious, threatening to send the man to jail but Mercury managed to calm him down by telling him that she deeply cared for the man despite the big age gap. It was true, after the sexual assault she suffered, Warren was the first man that she ever really trusted. He didn’t treat her like a china doll, he knew she was tough and could handle herself so he acted normally around her. Sometimes they drove each other insane and they would be up all hours of the day arguing but at the end of the night, he would be back in her bed holding her close, they never went to bed on an argument. Mercury thought everything was great in her relationship especially after her father agreed to calm down and renationalised the situation. It was the first time Mercury ever truly felt what it was like to be loved but when she met and soon became best friends with a local girl called Bianca things soon took a turn between the couple.

Quickly the two became inseparable. Bianca encouraged Mercury’s careless behaviour and despite her parents and boyfriends disapproval of their friendship, Mercury enjoyed Bianca’s carefree nature and let that come between her and her relationships with other people. Bianca claimed that Mercury’s boyfriend had attempted to hit on her. It was the one thing Mercury ever really questioned when it came to Bianca because she knew Warren adored her but she was a fantastic manipulator and cried her heart out to Mercury and always acted scared when her boyfriend was around so Mercury believed her despite having no evidence and the relationship broke apart taking a bit of Mercury with it as it faded away. She was heart broken over the loss of her longest relationship that she fought so hard for her parents to except but Bianca wouldn’t let her mope about and always come up with new things for them to do together. Mercury fell hook, line and sinker for all the lies she was being told because she truly believed that they would be friends until the end of time but that didn’t happen. Mercury tried to block out the painful thoughts of losing her ex by replacing him with a less boy her own age, he was called Malcolm but despite her attempts at trying to act normal around him, he never compared to Warren. One day Bianca invited Mercury to a party and she agreed, insisting that she brought Malcolm along despite the fact they were just a casual fling. Things quickly took a nasty turn when the car Bianca was driving them in crashed into a truck, instantly killing both Bianca and Malcolm on impact. Mercury fell through the windshield and was in a coma for two weeks due to the incident. The doctors were unsure of her survival but she did pull through. When she woke up her parents explained to her what had happened and Mercury was devastated, completely broken by the loss of her best friend, and was flooded with guilt because she made her Malcolm join them in the car when all he wanted was to spend time with her alone at the movies. A month after the car accident, while Mercury was still recovering and wallowing in her own guilt, the truth was revealed. There was never a party going on. Bianca was part of a secret organisation set up by the rivalry royals to take down the Zoega family and had set the entire thing up. She had crashed the car on purpose. Mercury was the first cause of action, they wanted to take out the only heir of the Zoega family to devastate her parents hoping that they would become too depressed for to run the country and hand it down to someone else. Fortunately for Mercury, she survived but the mental scars lived on. Ever since the incident, the girl has been failing to sleep much and when she is able to, she always wakes up screaming because of the flash backs she has. She can’t wrap her mind around the idea of her best friend wanting to hurt her after she finally let someone close. The situation became so bad that Mercury began to pinch her arms and legs to keep herself awake to avoid the nightmares. Warren came to see her in the hospital because her parents hoped it would calm her down and though it did somewhat help and she was happy to see him again, Mercury’s mind was too messed up for anything to really sink in. Seeing what was happening to their daughter, her parents decided it was best for Mercury to be sent to Royal Pains Estate until she has fully healed from the trauma, but things have spiralled further then ever. Since arriving to the academy, Mercury hasn’t been able to forget that an organisation is set up and they are hell-bent in ending her life. It has all became too much and Mercury has began to self harm as a way to help her cope.

Secret; Since arriving at Royal Pains Mercury has began to self harm.

「 Faceclaim: Margot Robbie. 」

» ; ♛ ❮ORIGINAL CHARACTER❯

Character quote: ❝ A wolf is still a wolf, even in a cage, even dressed in silk. ❞

✗ — Name: Raven Avalanche ✗ — Age: 21 ✗ — Kingdom: Colombia ✗ — sexuality: Bisexual

— Personality: Raven has built a rather cold brick wall around her heart. She doesn’t let people get too close to her especially after her last failed relationship. She prefers it that people see her as someone that is coldhearted. Raven is sarcastic and has a rather big attitude. At first Raven can come off as a typical , bitchy Royal but she is so much more than that. Once you manage to get past the cold exterior Raven is actually caring and compassionate. She is the type of girl that would do everything for the people she loves.

— Biography; On the rare occasions two Royals fall in love without being forced into marriage beforehand. That was what happened to Raven’s parents. Raven’s mother was the Princess of Poland and her Father was the King of Colombia. The two fell in love , got married and decided to have a child. However, each story has an obstacle and in this case it was the fact that the King of Colombia couldn’t provide a heir. The Royal couple couldn’t allow that information to be leaked to the news so they started to search for a sperm donor and then the King came up with a wonderful idea about getting their trusted advisor Richard to do the honors of allowing them to have a child. Of course, they paid him well and he accepted the offer. Several months down the line a baby girl was born she had a head full of black hair and her parents decided on calling her Raven. the King loved his daughter more than anything in the world, he kept her out of the media in fear that his enemies would think of kidnapping or hurting his little princess. However, one day, when she turned 12 and was returning home with her father after spending the weekend away in a different city whilst her mother, was back in Poland dealing with some important stuff. For safety reasons, the king traveled in a different car and Raven traveled in a car with their parents trusted advisor. When her father’s car got attacked the driver of Raven’s car stopped in order to go and help the king. Richard the advisor couldn’t allow anything to happen to Raven the only Heiress to the throne. Quickly he found himself behind the wheel and drove in a completely different direction. The news of her father’s assassinations reached her mother faster than anything else. Magdalena rushed back home to her child, unfortunately, Raven couldn’t stay with her mother she got put into a witness protection program considering the fact she was one of the few people that survived the attack. She got sent away to Canada to make sure her daughter was well protected Magdalena sent Richard along with her.

Raven had to go through a whole makeover, she wore wigs and changed the color of her eyes using contact lenses. Raven and Richard also lived in one of the poorer houses and Raven attended a public school. Every now and then she would have to fly back to her home so she could attend all the important events and visit her mother. Whenever Raven would be back home she would have bodyguards surround her throughout every moment.

Back In Canada Raven was known as Mary Santiago, she got told not to stand out too much but her dominating nature took the best of her and eventually she became one of the popular girls that attended the school. She also had a best friend that was younger than her by two years called Nesryn Elliot to who she developed romantic feelings towards, however at the time Nesryn was dating a boy in Raven’s class so she never acted upon it. For her seventeenth birthday Raven’s mother decided to take her to Australia since it was a place the girl always wanted to go too. she decided to sneak out of the hotel they were staying at for the first time ever. She was tired of being followed by the bodyguards and wanted to live a little. Raven managed to get herself inside one of the clubs, enough flirting caused her to achieve that.

In the club she met Cayden Moore, the two clicked pretty instantly and Raven liked the fact he was older than her. They spent the rest of the night talking and then just as dawn was creeping up, within the space of a few hours she had formed an opinion on Cayden and it was a good one. She liked him a lot , she liked the fact he was older and she wanted to forget completely about Nessie at least for one night so Raven was drunk enough to spend the night with him and experience her first time. When she woke up in the morning and saw that he was nowhere to be found with not even a single note the girl felt rather hurt. She returned back to the hotel and headed straight to her Room to pack back for Canada being ready to leave earlier. When she returned back to Canada she decided to tell Nesryn about how she felt and the two of them dated. Until Nessie’s nudes from one time have been leaked, Raven in an instant assumed that Nesryn cheated on her so the two got into a heated argument and broke up before Nesryn left for France and Raven once again left for Colombia. Being back at home she found out that her mother was having an affair with Richard and that her fathers death was planned by the two of them, she found the documents and all that stuff. Raven couldn’t believe her own eyes, but her mother caught her the moment Raven found the documents and sent her away to royal pains before she could act on it.

✗ Secret; Raven found out that it was her mother and her father’s trusted advisor that have planned his death.

「 Faceclaim: Sofia Carson. 」

» ; ♛ ❮ORIGINAL CHARACTER❯

Character quote: ❝ We do what we have to so we can do what we want to. ❞

✗ — Name: Luna Evans

✗ — Age: 19

✗ — Kingdom (do not place character in a Kingdom that already has three ruling families): Monaco

✗ — Sexuality: Bisexual

— Personality; Growing up in the royal lifestyle isn’t for everyone. In this case, that involved Luna. She always dreamed and looked for more than just the royal life she grew up in. She’s very self-possessed, able to keep control of herself and her emotions no matter the situation. It’s the thing that helps her stay level-headed, even in the face of chaos. Luna has always been very smart and knowledgeable, that didn’t matter much to her parents, however. They preferred someone who was able to not get distracted by words and meaning, and just be able to rule their kingdom. And that wasn’t who Luna was. She couldn’t just ignore the meaning behind things. Although knowing just how cruel the world can be, Luna never liked to linger on the topic. Instead finding interest in ways that she was able to help better the world. Be it through psychology, literature or charitability. She never thought that she would find herself in a position where she would have to act for her life, finding sly and conniving solutions. But after the abduction and death there was a hint of darkness always lingering inside her, simply waiting for the next opportunity to jump out.

— Biography (at least two hundred words); Due to her mother having infertility issues after her birth, Luna was the only child to the Garcia family. There was worry from an early age that Luna wouldn’t be enough to take the throne. As she got older it was clear they had a right to be worry. Luna continuously strayed from her royal duties, instead finding comfort and interest in books and learning from the environment outside of the palace. It was important for a Queen to be well-educated before she took the throne, so her parents encouraged her at first. But when she turned 18 it became clear that she wanted more than the royal life had to offer her. She wanted to continue to study, earn a degree and make the most of her life. Taking control of the situation, her father organized a marriage to another Monaco royal. Tying two royal families together seemed like the perfect idea to strengthen their country. Luna hated the idea. She hated not having control of how her life was going to turn out and who she was going to marry. So, she concocted a plan with one of her best friends, Elijah to stage a kidnapping. The day before the wedding Elijah and Luna staged her room to make it look like there had been a struggle and Elijah drove Luna to a smaller town where she was able to change her last name to Evans and enroll in a local college where she could study. Or at least that was the plan. On the drive Luna filled out the papers, but they were never filed. Luna trusted Elijah, but it turned out that he was obsessed with her, even stalking her at her home and while she was out. Not wanting to risk losing Luna to someone else Elijah did the only thing he thought where he wouldn’t lose her. He drugged her coffee on the drive and chained her to a bed in a locked soundproof basement. It had been decorated to look like the bedroom she had as a child when she had first met Elijah. It creeped her out to say the least. Attempting to reason with Elijah didn’t work since he thought he was protecting the princess from a fake marriage and miserable lifestyle when he was able to provide for her and be the person she needed. One day while Elijah was out. Luna attempted to escape by using a key chain she found on the bedside table next to the bed. She succeeded in getting the lock unlocked, but she was quickly found out by Elijah. Something Luna hadn’t thought about was that he had cameras in the room, watching over her. She was drugged once more and chained back up. This time making sure that there was nothing around that Luna could possibly make-shift into a key. When Luna woke up, everything hurt physically and mentally. The drugging was taking a toll on her and she knew it. She became bitter. Bitter towards Elijah, towards the situation, that she didn’t have control over anything. She began snapping and swearing at Elijah whenever he tried to sit and have conversations with her. As a punishment Elijah would only come in to give her food and water once a day. Needing a more conniving solution to help her escape, Luna one night decided to position the chains around her neck making it look as though she had strangled herself. From the cameras watching the room, Elijah freaked out when he saw the seemingly lifeless Luna on the bed. When he came down to try help her, he unlocked the chains and unhooked them from around Luna. Acting on impulse, she grabbed the most solid thing closest to her and hit Elijah over the head with it. He fell to the ground, still alive but struggling to move and breathe properly. He grabbed his phone from his pocket with much effort saying that something didn’t feel right. Climbing off the bed, Luna grabbed the phone from his hand and took a step back before sitting on the ground and watching as Elijah died in front of her. Once she was sure he was dead, Luna escaped and ran outside learning they were in the middle of nowhere. It took what felt like forever to get to the next closest house where she announced to the person that she was the lost princess Garcia. Her parents didn’t know the full story of what happened. All they knew was that she was kidnapped and that was enough for them to send her to Royal Pains Estate to work through the trauma she went through and catch up on what she missed. Luna agreed to go if she could change her last name to Evans, not wanting to be known as the helpless princess that got kidnapped and not wanting to let others know the full story.

✗ Secret;  Luna staged her own kidnapping and watched her kidnapper die after landing the crucial blow to his head.

「 Faceclaim: Danielle Campbell 」

» ; ♛ ❮ORIGINAL CHARACTER❯

Character quote: ❝Isn’t it lovely all alone?❞

✗ — Name: Asenka Alexandra Ivanovska (Nickname: Alex) 

✗ — Age: 19.

✗ — Kingdom: Latvia.

✗ — Sexuality: Demisexual.

— Personality; Alex is nothing like a royal is supposed to be. She could be quite sarcastic and ungraceful with her words and demure. Insecurity is her best friend due to the fact she had never been comfortable or really liked herself. Alex never felt like she was allowed to express herself without reprimand which has led to her feeling like she isn’t much of a person. Alex often finds herself trying to live up to other’s ideas of what she should be and how she should act out of fear of people leaving her or disapproving. She is often very self-critical and when she fails at something she tends to be self-destructive. There are times she feels very anxious especially when it comes to dealing with her grandparents and trying to prove to them that she can be royal so that maybe they will care about her as a person. 

— Biography; Asenka Ivanovska was pronounced dead on 03/30/2001. Along with her death, her mother, Dahlia, was pronounced dead the same day, having died during childbirth. Alex’s grandparents were never happy that their son, Mikelis, married the daughter of a slightly well off merchant, they had intended for him to go through with his arranged political marriage. Mikelis and Dahlia had been meeting up in secret behind his parent’s backs which had led to her getting pregnant and Mikelis couldn’t just leave her after that so he took her hand in marriage. To add salt to the wound Dahlia and Mikelis had learned they were expecting a daughter who they had intended to name Asenka. However, Dahlia had unexpectedly gone into labor while Mikelis was away and she had her twin sister Azalea visiting. Due to a complication during labor Dahlia hemorrhaged and the bleeding couldn’t be stopped in time. Azalea had heard Asenka cry once before she was taken out of the room, her grandparents following to check on Asenka. They walked back in a few minutes later to pronounce the death of the princess. Azalea couldn’t believe that bother her sister and niece had died but no one would listen to her. For months she tried to convince private investigators and nurses to try and find the girl or tell her what happened, but no one would question the king and queen. Eventually, the king and queen had Azalea institutionalized under the argument that she wasn’t in her right mind, that the death of her twin had been too much for her to comprehend just so she would stop asking questions. 

In a way, Asenka had died that day or at least her ties to that name and her family had. Her grandparents had made a call and managed to get the girl put into the foster system under a different name. They had wanted to erase any trace of Asenka and her ties to royalty leaving room for their son to have a different heir. Asenka was promptly renamed Alexandra when her new birth certificate and information was forged. 

Happy was never a word Alex would use to describe her childhood or honestly herself during any of that time. It seemed like Alex never quite fit in anywhere or even stayed somewhere long enough to fit in. She was constantly in and out of different foster homes. When she was younger it wasn’t so bad but it got worse when she was no longer an adorable baby and toddler. One thing she could always remember from being that young was feeling lonely, hungry and scared. She never quite got past feeling scared. When she was younger she found herself constantly getting attached to her foster parents just to be abandoned by them. As she got older despite knowing they would eventually get rid of her she still found herself trying to impress them and give them reasons to keep her even if it meant changing herself to make them happy. It never seemed to work no matter how hard she tried. 

It wasn’t until she was fifteen that she was placed in a home for longer than two years. At first glance this would have been a good sign, however, it was a new form of hell. Alex never could seem to do anything they asked her to do right, and every time she got it wrong her foster father would find a way to punish her. At first, he just hit her where it wouldn’t be seen when she went to school until that wasn’t enough. He eventually escalated to using a belt or other objects to hit her with until she bled. Alex had multiple scars on her back from her many different screw-ups. She couldn’t help but think that maybe if she did something different or was better then maybe she wouldn’t beat. It led to her believing she deserved to be punished, that she really was just a waste of a life. Her foster mother offered her no comfort, nor did she try to stop her husband. Instead, she found comfort in ridiculing Alex and making sure that she knew exactly why she deserved everything that happened to her. 

Alex’s only escape from home was school, it was the only place she was basically invisible. For the most part, no one noticed her or rather cared that she existed which she grew to enjoy. She wasn’t the new girl or the charity foster kid she was just that random girl you might have to partner with in science class. In all honesty, Alex wasn’t surprised when her foster father crept into her room for the first time at night a year after she moved in. But, that didn’t make it hurt any less when he got on top of her and forced himself inside of her. He hadn’t been the first person to use her. She had been eight her first time and hadn’t really known what her older foster brother was doing outside of the fact that it hurt. There were times after that she would tell a foster brother or father yes just because it made the beatings stop or for a moment they were nice to her. Sometimes it was just easier to comply and ignore that it was happening to her. That didn’t stop her from wearing baggy clothing that hid her figure or trying to avoid it when she could, but she knew that she wouldn’t fight it. She was too tired and hated herself to try and stop it, a part of her thought she deserved to be used that at least some part of her pleased others. 

Alex was sixteen the first time she tried to end her life, or at least the first time she had planned to but her younger foster sister had walked in on her tying the rope. After that, she felt guilty to try again because the little girl had almost been the one to find her body and she wasn’t about to be responsible for inflicting the girl with that trauma. So instead Alex told herself that when she turned eighteen she would try again once she was no longer in this house and on her own at least that way there would be no children walking in. 

Soon enough her eighteenth birthday came and took the bus away from the hell she had been living in for the past few years finally free of it. She got off in the next town over and locked herself in a diner bathroom where she downed a bottle of pills and slit her left wrist first and then as she went for the right one the knife slipped from her grasp when she heard the sound of someone pounding on the door. By the time they had made it into the bathroom, she was unconscious and she had been sent to the nearest hospital. 

Instead of being dead, Alex was admitted to their psych ward. At first, they had to restrain her because she kept trying to finish what she started that night until finally the reality of the situation sunk in. At first, Alex refused to leave her room until they dragged her to the group therapy session they were having. She was angry at the whole situation that at first, she didn’t notice the woman across from her staring at her like she had seen a ghost. What was even stranger was that the woman had tried to get her attention and called her Asenka. 

When one of the nurses noticed Azalea getting more and more insistent that Alex was Asenka they had her brought to a different room where they explained that Azalea’s twin sister had a child Asenka who had died and she had never got over it. At first, everyone had tried to ignore Azalea’s plea that Alex was Asenka but no one could deny just how similar the two of them looked. Finally, one of the nurses was tired of hearing about it that she ran Alex’s DNA with Azalea figuring it would come out as a nonmatch and it would get the woman to shut up. Azalea would be a perfect match to her twin sister due to being identical that it wasn’t a big deal to use her DNA in place of Dahlia’s. Everyone was surprised when the DNA results came back positive. Alex was the presumed dead princess Asenka. The news of it hit the media before the king and queen could get a hold of it to stop it. They were forced to agree to the release of both Alex and Azalea from the institution they were at. In the time that Alexa was in the foster care system, her father had never remarried or had another heir. Instead, he spent his time away from drinking and gambling. He hadn’t even come back when he heard about Alex and just sent word that he had no interest in the girl who was supposed to be dead, that it would hurt too much with how similar she looked to her mother.

Alex went from being no one to being royalty overnight and she couldn’t cope with it. Her grandparents were not happy that she was the heir they were stuck with and as a result, they held her to unrealistic expectations. The more Alex failed to meet them the more self-destructive she became. She couldn’t turn her anger outwards so instead, she internalized it and used it against herself. The one thing Alex couldn’t grow accustomed to was her grandparent’s insistence on her being called Asenka because unlike Alex it was fit for a royal, not a common street urchin. More often than not Alex felt like she was lost and defeated like the weight of the world was resting on her chest. Eventually, her grandparents sent her to royal pains informing her that she needed to come out acting like the perfect royal or they were going to arrange a marriage for her with one of the royal families so she would become their problem.

✗ Secret; Alex struggles with self destructive behavior and self-worth issues, she was also sexually abused throughout her childhood which she hasn’t told anyone about. 

「 Faceclaim: Liana Liberato」

» ; ♛ ❮ORIGINAL CHARACTER❯

Character quote: ❝I didn't have it in myself to go with grace, and you're the hero flying around, saving face.❞

✗ — Name: Cassandra Kallas.

✗ — Age: 22.

✗ — Kingdom: Estonia.

✗ — Sexuality: Pansexual.

— Personality; Cassie’s a sweet and generally optimistic girl. She likes to look on the bright side of things and tries to be as positive as possible regarding situations. Compassion and empathy are two of her main traits. When someone is suffering in any way, she needs to be there to try and help them. Whether it’s bandaging a wound or giving comfort to help a broken heart, Cassie is the first one to be there for a person, even if they’re a perfect strangers to her. She is probably one of the more relentless people in helping others, and it is one of the few times she doesn’t find herself being more sensitive or reactive to rudeness. If she sees someone in danger, she disregards her own safety and wellness to ensure they’re okay. Cassie is generally a more sensitive person. While name calling doesn’t affect her a lot, sometimes if they strike a chord in particular she’ll be affected. Though Cassie is brutal for hiding her pain and often just bottles away her feelings. She’s quick to respond with a sassy remark and go on. She’s a very playful person and doesn’t consider herself held back by her royal status as without a great deal of seeing her dad involved she wasn’t always raised in the royal way. In Croatia it was obvious she wouldn’t get the throne so she didn’t bother being prim, proper and snobby. She’s got no problem letting her hair down and having fun. Though a part of her always has to be controlled. She often doesn’t drink until blackout or do drugs of any kind. She doesn’t ever dress too provocatively or she refuses to spend too much money even though she has plenty. Along with this, Cassie often experiences moments of dissociation. This is heavily due to the fact that despite the fact she bottles things up as to not remember them, or her amnesia now, she still is suffering from PTSD from what has been done in the past.  Sometimes it’ll be as little as not responding a lot in conversation. Other times it can be a full on, staring off into space check out. Cassie also has a habit of being slightly paranoid and does things she doesn’t have a reason for. Such as locking the door for most rooms she is allowed to. Or sitting in the back corners of rooms. All things related to her PTSD that she isn’t aware she has. 

— Biography; Cassandra’s parents were one of the few couples who actually fell in love and got married. They had both been engaged at the time. With Cassandra’s mother being a wealthy lady whose father was a lord, and her father being the crowned prince of Estonia, champion of all of his siblings. After meeting, they broke off their engagements and talked their parents into agreeing to allow them to be engaged. Cassandra’s paternal grandfather’s were reluctant to accept, but allowed it nonetheless. The first years were happy, after being married for two they had their first child, Cassandra. She was the light of her parent’s lives, even her grandparents were happy to meet her. They loved her dearly. She was given just about everything she wanted, though her mother was determined to teach her about work ethic so she encouraged her to do things for herself, bonding with her by teaching her life skills like baking and cooking, all supervised of course.  At four years old, Cassie’s father inherited the title of king, and she became the princess and one of the next potentials to be a ruler of Estonia. At six years old, Cassie’s mother and father told her she was going to have a new baby brother or sister. She was over the moon with excitement, overjoyed to be a big sister. To her it was an honor, and she couldn’t wait to meet the new baby. Tragedy struck, and her mother suffered a late term miscarriage, one that resulted in the loss of fertility. After that, things began to grow strange. Cassandra’s father, once enamored by Cassie and her mother seemed to want nothing to do with either of them. He was always away on business, or meeting with other royals. She barely saw her father, though part of her thought it might have been worth it. He always seemed angry, or he was yelling at her mother. It wasn’t something she felt entirely comfortable with. Cassie’s mother seemed sad, but she didn’t stop trying to be a mother to her child. One night, her father was out and Cassie was given the go ahead to stay with her mother that night. It hadn’t happened since her mother had lost the baby, because her dad said dependent children didn’t make good rulers. That night, her father showed up drunk. His walking through the bedroom door woke her up. She stayed quiet as she watched him try to talk her mother into going to the other room. When her mother said she wanted to stay with the kids and repeatedly turned him down, he punched her. Cassie screamed, and while the fight was quickly broken up by a few house servants, Cassie was changed. Three months later, Cassie’s parents announced to her they’d be getting a divorce. Cassie’s mother would be leaving to stay in her estate house, and Cassie would go with her for now. For about a year, Cassie lived like this. She only saw her father occasionally, and it was always awkward. About a year and half later, her mother announced that she was to be arranged in another marriage, to the fiance she had rejected years ago to be with Cassie’s father. He was recently widowed, with a young child of his own and he understood Cassie’s mother hadn’t wanted to marry him for love. He was also a King, in Croatia. Cassie’s mother accepted, and they were soon headed off for Croatia. At first, her father put up a fight but it was quickly dropped when Cassie’s mother threatened to tell everyone what he did. Cassie liked Croatia. She even liked her new step father. Cassie watched her mother start to fall in love with the man she’d married, and she knew they were happy like Cassie had never seen her mother before. Soon, Cassie’s step brother came home from boarding school in England. He was strange, there was no doubting that, but she didn’t mind him. Slowly but surely, they adapted to each other. Most tabloids painted it as a story for the ages, love in unexpected places, and a family found from nothing. Before her stepbrother left again at the end of the summer for boarding school, he told her he liked her a lot. And he kissed her. She didn’t exactly return the feelings, and she was deeply confused by what had happened. This was not the end of the strangeness. Whenever her stepbrother would come home, things like this would happen. He’d taunt her, pull on her clothes. He did a lot of things that made her uncomfortable, like walking in while she showered. Cassie felt more estranged from her father than ever, but her paternal grandparents were desperate to try and keep her around him. So she’d go visit them, and often see her father. These visits were awkward, uncomfortable and sometimes he was downright cruel to her. But she was always happy to go home. She could even ignore her stepbrother. Even if he made her uncomfortable, kissing her and touching her when she didn’t want him to. It was only when he was home. And he wasn’t home a lot. So she justified it, considering this normal. When she was fifteen, her stepbrother was kicked out of boarding school. He came home for good to attend a private school in Croatia. Things got ugly. The small things that she had brushed off were harder to brush off. He was always there, all the time, doing things and growing more bold each time. One night, they were attending a gala and after having a glass of champagne she felt dizzy and woozy. Her stepbrother took her to her room, and finally all the weirdness came to a climax after he forced himself on her. She woke up in the morning, confused and uncertain of what had happened when he asked her if she enjoyed herself. It happened three more times. The drinking and feeling woozy, him carrying her away. She could never stop it. She just constantly told herself that it was normal, and that she wanted to do this with him. Yet, despite the lies she told herself, she convinced her mother, who was too busy with her relationship to notice what her daughter had been going through to send her to boarding school. Sure enough, she agreed and Cassie went away. Slowly but surely, Cassie suppressed all the horrible memories of her stepbrother. She forgot them, whether through willful ignorance or the trauma hurting her so badly that she’d break from the memories, so her mind was protecting her. She went on and got through school, eventually graduating and going on to start some general studies programs her mother wanted her to complete. She might not have needed it, but her mother wanted her to have a degree of some sort. On her twenty second birthday, she was home from the university she’d been attending. After a night of having fun with her friends back home, she returned home and went to bed. Later that night, a hangover driving her, she was woken and went to sip from a water glass on her nightstand table. A familiar feeling washed over her. That dizziness. The room was spinning than her step brother walked in. This time, she was lucid enough to fight him off, realizing all those memories she denied herself for years. She finally remembered all that he had done to her, and now after getting out of the world, she knew that what he had done was not right or normal. She confronted him rather violently about everything he’d done, and decided she was too much of a liability now he started to beat her. He staged it so it looked like a ‘rogue’ guard had done it. When she woke up from the coma three months later, she couldn’t consciously remember nearly the last year of her life, or what her step brother had done for her. After two weeks in the hospital, her grandparents came to her and told her that her father was sick, and soon she may be considered for a royal position. They wanted her to be their choice to endorse as their heir. Her mother didn’t agree to the idea of having her daughter who just woke up hauled away. But something told Cassie to do what her grandparents wanted. She agreed to study to become Queen. They started the ball rolling by sending her to The Estate, where they assumed she would end up receiving an education while also recovering her health.

✗ Secret; Cassie has been pretending as if she still remembers the last year of her life, but has secretly been trying to fill in the blanks the entire time and figure out what had happened to her.

» ; ♛ ❮ORIGINAL CHARACTER❯

Character quote: ❝Sometimes quiet is violent.❞

✗ — Name: Violet Ahlström 

✗ — Age: 21

✗ — Kingdom Sweden.

✗ — Sexuality: Bisexual

— Personality; Violet can be fairly shy and quiet especially when it comes to meeting new people or any form of public speaking. Socializing had always made her feel anxious and self-conscious to the point where at times it made her sick to her stomach. She tends to avoid large crowds of people due to her fear of not being able to keep up with the conversation. Violet has difficulty letting people in and actually letting down her walls so they can get to know her. Instead, she tends to show people a more happy cheerful side of her. She uses humor and optimism to avoid people getting too close to her and having to say anything personal. She was raised to keep her emotions bottled up inside to avoid showing any weakness which has led her to have emotional outbursts that she usually directs at herself. There is a darker side of her that is more prone to anger and depression that she internalizes instead of expressing. Violet believes if anyone were to actually see her insecurities or outbursts of emotion they would grow to hate her or be disappointed in her. She constantly feels like she is never good enough and strives for perfection to the point where if she doesn’t achieve she feels worthless and angry with herself.  

— Biography; From a young age Violet had experienced problems with her hearing. At first, it was little things where she couldn’t quite hear someone talking from the next room over but every time it got worse. Eventually, it became difficult for her to keep up with conversations especially when more than one person was talking at once or there was too much background noise in the room. At first, her parents had decided that Violet just hadn’t been trying enough, that she had just refused to pay attention. So they would give her extra lessons outside of the tutoring she received or quiz her on certain social events she was expected to attend. Violet tried to be perfect. She found herself studying in her free time trying to make up for the fact that she often would only hear or comprehend half of what her tutors were saying. Even then she could still feel her parent’s disappointment with her progress in her lessons especially when it came to learning other languages or public speeches. Violet began to dread having to attend parties that her parents arranged and even just social engagements. The prospect of having to speak in front of people and engage with them turned her stomach to the point where it often made her sick and anxious. This only fueled her parent’s disappointment in their daughter and their view of her being socially inept. It wasn’t until she was thirteen that she ended up seeing a doctor for her anxiety and they also diagnosed her hearing loss. Her parents were unhappy with the fact that their daughter had the disease and viewed it as a stain on their bloodline. They allowed her to get hearing aids but they still expected her to keep up at social functions and they pushed her harder to keep up. Anytime she couldn’t keep up with a conversation and her parents noticed they would take her aside and have her hold out her hand palms up and then hit her hands or wrists. They figured that if she associated it with pain then she would learn to be better. Her parents wanted to be sure she understood to never show weakness and to them her hearing loss and the issues it caused her were a weakness. At one point they told her that if a suitor found out about it before she was married it could ruin any alliance they would make and that she would be responsible for the destruction of their family name. 

For years Violet tried to live up to her parent’s expectations and every time she failed to meet them it made her hate herself for being unable to garner her parent’s approval. Eventually, her self hatred and the weight of the expectations she put on herself got to be too much for her to handle. She started to act out and sneak out in the middle of the night. She started to go to clubs and soon she came across a place where she met other people who were deaf and hard of hearing and she felt less alone. Violet had even started to get a few of them to teach her sign language so she didn’t always have to communicate with words which helped with her anxiety. She found she could express herself better with it and keep up with the conversations she had with her friends easier. It was a feeling she had never felt before, a sense of belonging and the ability to express a part of herself she always kept hidden. 

When she was seventeen her parents found out about her sneaking out and after that, she was basically on lockdown. They yelled at her for hours on end about how stupid it had been to go out in public and flaunt the fact she had difficulty hearing by using sign language. After that Violet was back to being alone with only her anxiety and her own expectations for a companion. The weight of everything crashing down on her and the emotions she kept bottled in the hopes her parents would finally not be disappointed in her had started to trigger episodes of rage. She kept those episodes hidden from her parents and instead internalized it and inflicted that anger on herself. At first, she only hurt herself when it got to be overwhelming or her anxiety got bad but eventually she was doing to cope with socializing and appearing normal. She found it easier to pretend she was fine and less like she wanted to just disappear and stop being a problem for everyone. She finally took it too far and her parents found her in the bathroom surrounded by her own blood. Violet hadn’t been trying to kill herself; she just wanted to stop feeling everything at once and be able to breathe. Her parents sent for a physician to come to the house so no one else had to know about Violet’s problem because if she was hospitalized for it then everyone would know that their daughter was weak. So they sent her to royal pains hoping that would fix her and that maybe they could mold her into the perfect royal.

✗ Secret; Violet was born with type 3 usher’s syndrome, over time she has begun to lose her hearing which her family has kept hidden. She also struggles with her emotions and self-harm issues. 

「 Faceclaim: Vanessa Marano」

» ; ♛ ❮ORIGINAL CHARACTER❯ 

Character quote: ❝They told me all my cages were mental, so I got wasted like all my potential.❞

✗ — Name: Kalina Marek.

✗ — Age: 21.

✗ — Kingdom: Poland.

✗ — Sexuality: Pansexual.

— Personality; Kalina isn’t rough and tough, but she’s not the heart on her sleeve type either. She likes to keep it someone reserved, but is generally a rather friendly person. She holds a lot back, many of her secrets, true emotions and feelings, but often puts on a face of outwards being rather laidback. She’s rather charming and gets along well with most. Holding back most of who she is often grants her the ability to also morph into the more subtle factors of what others decide that they want with her. It’s all part in portion with the fact she doesn’t truly believe that she can be loved as she is. The rejection from her parents have led her from hiding most true parts of personality, scared people will turn her away for them. Because of her fear of rejection, she often ends up being something of her people pleaser and will often put up with a lot in order to keep people happy. Kalina missed out on a great deal of familial affection, and because of this, she seeks for love through other mediums. Often through meaningless one night stands with strangers who she doesn’t really know. It’s a bad habit of hers. Kalina is a compassionate soul, and does like to take care of people. She’s very sensitive to the feelings of others and can often pick up on small things some people can’t.

— Biography; The Marek’s were always a family of self-importance. They held themselves to a high standard and prided themselves on being the possessors of the throne for so many years. They were the rulers, and they would remain that way for the rest of their lives. They were perfectionists about it really. It didn’t just cause discourse with the rest of the world. With other rulers, potential suitors and allies. But it caused issues with the Marek family itself. Siblings would compete and throw themselves at each other’s throats to gain the throne. Their parents would only choose to endorse the one who was most qualified, who’d put in the most efforts. Unlike most royals, they did not choose their eldest son and their eldest daughter, but the one who showed most promise. It wasn’t uncommon for Marek siblings to argue. It was more rare than anything for them to actually be getting along. Jakob and Antoni were poisoned by this just as much as any Marek sibling.  They duked it out for several years for their parents endorsement as the male heir to be put up for election. It was extremely promising, given that the Slyvinksy’s male heir wasn’t anything to scoff at. Tooth and nail, with snipes and jabs and sometimes physical blows, Jakob and Antoni would fight. Unlike their sister who never actually had to, given she was the only female. It was shortly before the election when their sister committed suicide. It was then Antoni decided that he was going to do better, to try and do better. He vowed to stop fighting Jakob and cherish his brother. He would end their feud. This is what made their parents choose him to endorse. And sure enough, with his promising resume and tact for politics, he got elected as their King. He got married. Little did he know that in Jakob’s heart, the feud was still ongoing and he was determined to win. Right under Antoni’s nose, despite having his own wife, Jakob slept with Antoni’s wife and got her pregnant. The woman was suddenly far more scared so she covered the affair quickly by saying her child was Antoni’s. His experience with his sister caving to the pressure of royal life meant he didn’t let any of those royal curses near his daughter. Instead he kept the paparazzi from her as much as possible, limited staff in contact with her. Kalina, born Isobela, was kept away from most people but her parents, uncle and aunt. Things were good for her. Her parents doted on her, her father completely unknowing of the truth of her lineage, and her mother just happy to have a child. She was spoiled, but most importantly loved. She was one of the lucky royals who knew the love of her parents. However, when she was four tragedy struck. Most would say it was up there with the suicide of Antoni’s and Jakob’s sister’s suicide. The palace was invaded by assassins in the night. They were bloodthirsty, killing most maids and guards in their wake. But their main targets were the royal family. The King, his wife. Though they’d been given special orders by those who’d sent them not to hurt Isobela. Because, while the feud burned in Jakob’s heart, with his power hungry wife cooing in his ear they plotted to have his brother killed so the family power would default to him. But there was one line he couldn’t cross. Jakob knew that Isobela was his, and he couldn’t bring himself to kill her. So he devised another plan. He had her injured enough so that the blood patterns would make it appear as if she had in fact died. And then he brought her quietly to his home. Most of those who were around her were killed in the attack, others were bribed. A month later, Isobela was living with Jakob - who had been crowned King -, now named Kalina. She was confused a lot, and often shouted for her mother and father. And soon the press statement was released. Jakob guiltily admitted to having an affair on the camera with a common woman. He begged for the forgiveness of his Kingdom and wife. But was now faced with the fact that his former lover had died and had left him behind a child he hadn’t known he had. He convinced them all that Kalina was his daughter and that he was going to do the noble thing and raise her while paying penance for his unfaithfulness. Kalina slowly forgot the memories of those who had raised her. And life with this man became the new normal. She came to know Jakob and his wife as her father and mother. To her, her father was the best to her. He was harsh with Alexa and Lena, their newer addition, but he would always take time to quietly dote on her. He would bring her gifts from his trips, get her new dresses. His wife however didn’t show any love towards the daughter she had adopted. Kalina was ignored by her mother for the most part. The woman was cold most of the time, without emotion. Sure, she was still bossy, still enforced that she couldn’t let down the Marek name, but she refused to even let her husband acknowledge her as a true potential heir to the throne. Old time royal views haunted her and spite that Kalina was alive at all. Kalina craved love from her mother, or even love from her father that could be more than a secret from his wife. She felt as if she was just a shame. She may have had bloodright to the throne, but she was treated as awfully as if she was a bastard in the older days. Kalina tried to keep her head down and stay rather lowkey. At the end of the day, she just needed to get away from her family, so when her mother suggested she attend a boarding school in Switzerland she jumped on the opportunity. She gradually distanced herself from the royal world. While it was still upper class members of society, at least she wasn’t judged so harshly there. Eventually, she graduated and moved onto a college campus. It was in her second year attending college that she stopped getting invited to galas and events. It was like not only had her mother given up on her, which she knew had happened a long time ago, but her father too. She felt like she was being left out on purpose, abandoned. So she started to act out, seeking love in others. Often this led to one night stands with no real love or romance involved at all. Sometimes, the men and women she found herself with were find with it. Others were looking for more. Most overall took her rejection pretty easily. But there was one man who swore up and down he was in love with her and tried to be with her.  He was bullied on campus often, and she was the first one to really show any interest. Of course it was all superficial, she was just looking for someone to fill the emptiness inside of herself.  Almost a few months later, after dodging all of his text messages, it was announced on the PA system that there was a shooter in the building. Lockdown procedures were fallen into, but it didn’t stop the shooter from ripping through the school. Many students were injured and killed that day. And finally, he came to Kalina’s classroom. He took off his mask and revealed himself to be the man she’d slept with who’d become obsessed with her. She was forced to watch him kill almost four members of her class when he finally started addressing her. He told her that he didn’t know why she couldn’t love him back. She tried to convince him that it wasn’t anything to do with him. And finally she tried to convince him she did love him, if only it meant the stop of the carnage. She managed to almost nearly talk him down, but at the last moment he told her that he knew she was lying and shot her before ending his own life. As she bled on the floor, she remembered her arm being cut as a little girl, and a man taking her away. Kalina was surprised when she woke up in the hospital if she was honest. She hadn’t expected to survive. She believed she had endured her last moments of life. But, sure enough she awoke. Only to find an onslaught of memories coming to her the more days she spent in the hospital. Finally, the dam broke and she realized what had happened. She confronted her mother and father, telling her she remembered everything. Her father surprisingly seemed happy to unload his guilty conscience, but her mother was furious. She said it was too dangerous. They had to end her. Her father refused, and finally they institutionalized her instead. She spent most of her time out of it, filled with things that were so strong she could barely open her eyes. It lasted for a few months, this new hell. Honestly, she was barely conscious. She lost almost twenty pounds, slowly starting to fade away as she could barely function. Finally, her father decided enough was enough. He wanted to rescue her, get her out of there. So he bribed the doctors to say she was still there. And for a long time she was put up in a hotel room, forced to undergo withdrawals from the drugs she’d been given, but finally he brought her to the Royal Pains Estate on the condition she wouldn’t say anything. She agreed to avoid returning to the drugged state. Anything to keep from going back there. And so she went. She just relied on the fact her father had somehow taken care of Lena and Alexa.

✗ Secret; Kalina was originally born Isobela, the legal daughter of King Antoni and his wife. She was kidnapped by her biological father after he had her legal father killed.

「 Faceclaim: Sabrina Carpenter.」

[setoangel01-fanfiction]

Concern

Rocker and the Mechanic - Chapter 5 (Previous Chapters)

Rated: T

Chapter Summary: Johnny continues to try and fix Ash's motorcycle and she learns something horrific...and something rather heartwarming as he does so.

Fanfiction.net

A03

Thirty minutes came and went as Johnny struggled with figuring out exactly what the problem with the motorcycle was.

Normally, Ash would be pacing around, checking the time every five seconds and telling him to hurry the fuck up, but in this instance, she remained rather amused watching him remove and replace parts to little to no success. Hands acquiring a fair amount of black grease smeared into the lines of his skin in the process, yet he didn't seem to mind or care; didn't even bother rubbing his soiled hands onto the dingy red rag he had stuffed into his back pocket.

Ash watched as Johnny's brows became more furrowed with every passing moment, the quirk of his lips and steady hands not waning as he continually tried to figure out exactly what was keeping the bike from running.

"Aw, bugger - mus' be electrical." he grunted under his breath, pulling back another metal plate to reveal the wiring. The mess of blues, black, reds, and yellows tangled together in what she could only describe as a fucking mess.

Ash's eyes gravitated from the revealed wiring to Johnny's face.

The mechanic was studying the chaos with a professional gaze, flitting about from one port to another and trying to diagnose the underlying issue in the mess of colorful wiring. The gorilla lifted his grease smeared hand and inadvertently brushed his finger over his cheek before he began tweaking a mess of blue wires.

Without her consent, Ash followed his fingers to his face where her eyes remained; the smear of black grease it left behind on the gray skin was strangely attractive.

"Oi. Aw man, um, hey - if it's no trouble, would ya mind handin' me dem needle-nose pliers?" Johnny was suddenly speaking to her and she immediately jolted back. Face flushed crimson when he gave her a strangely amused smirk and she pursed her lips, about to bite back a retort about having been caught blatantly staring.

Yet, Johnny didn't say anything, rather motioning to the toolbox nearby and the red handle of the tool in question easily within reach.

"Uh…Sure. Whatever." Ash swallowed back her shame and did as he asked. His occupied hands holding two tangles of wires he obviously didn't intend to let go of so easily.

After maneuvering his right to hold both sets so he could grab the pliers from her small outstretched hand, he muttered a breath of 'thanks' while Ash tried not to flinch back when his warm fingertips brushed her tiny palm.

"'orry." he continued after tying off the ends and reattaching them to the correct port, "I woulda got it myself if these weren't so bloody tangled. The last bloke who worked on this bike didn't have a damn idea what they were doin." he finished while shaking his head and trying to play off the seriousness of the situation with an empty chuckle.

Ash pursed her lips at his comment and narrowed her eyes at what had to be the lack of professional work he was referring to and she couldn't help but agree with him.

Forcing her to recall the last time it was worked on flitting into her subconscious.

Lance paying some dude a measly twenty bucks and fast food lunch to "fix" the bike when it had been backfiring and the engine rattled more than what was normal. Ash pestered him to get a professional considering this was their vehicle they were talking about! If he fucked it up and they were on the freeway when something happened, that meant certain death, yet Lance didn't seem to care or even consider the consequences.

Ash sighed under her breath, "Ya can thank my worthless ex for that one," she grumbled lowly. Arms crossing as she fought another onslaught of anger rising in her; pushing down the desire to track Lance's worthless ass down and beat the shit out of him for putting her life at risk to save a few hundred bucks.

"Yer boyfriend tried ta fix it?" came Johnny's confused reply.

"EX-boyfriend," she balked, "and no, he hired some random handyman that lived, or rather squatted, in our apartment complex. The guy told him he'd fixed plenty of motorcycles before - heh, yeah right! Worst was Lance fuckin' believed him even when the fucker could barely even figure out where to put the key!" Ash shook her head at the memory and purposefully ignored the highly concerned look Johnny flashed her.

"...Yer ex-boyfriend jus' let some random bloke fix your motorcycle?" Johnny said aloud as if mulling it over in his head and the incredulous meaning behind it.

"Yep." Ash popped her lips with the 'p' and tightened her arms around herself. "Surprised the damn thing even ran after whatever he did to try and 'fix' it."

Johnny's mouth opened and closed a few times as if wanting to say something but changing his mind at the last moment.

He remained silent.

Turning around to continue his careful (and grueling) work of organizing the wires into their proper place as the garage fell into an uncomfortable silence and there suddenly was a tenseness that hadn't been there before.

So much so that Ash started rubbing the toe of her scuffed biker boot into a marginal crack in the pavement below her feet; mostly to keep her mind occupied and eyes off the gorilla near her. Recalling some things she tried and forget as well as accepted that it wasn't necessarily wise to air out her dirty laundry to an absolute stranger but in him asking about the bike's history, it was bringing out a lot of resentment she tried burying down to little or no success.

Ash suddenly flinched when she heard a clang - eyes rising to Johnny who had dropped a wrench and was shaking his head and working in a rather frustrated manner; so unlike his steady assurance that had been there just moments prior.

"Uh, somethin' wrong?" she asked, coyly backing up a step and instinctively reaching for the pocket knife in her jacket. It was a sudden change in demeanor from the laid-back gorilla and she was not at all pleased to see it.

"It's just a flippin' mess in 'ere." he grunted a reply, motioning to the mess of wires. "Ya were right! I'm surprised it ran at all after what he did - one overpowered jolt or misfirin' would have made it die out in an instant! It's lucky ya broke 'own where ya did instead of the blasted freeway!" his eyes were locked onto hers now and her stomach fluttered at the obvious concern and barely concealed anger lacing those impossibly kind eyes.

"You're telling me…" she muttered under her breath but Johnny wasn't done.

"Pardon my French, but yer ex's incompetence coulda killed ya - the wanker! I mean, who the hell hires someone not even certified ta fix their vehicle? It's not only incredibly idiotic - it's bloody suicide!" he muttered before a flush of red shame filled his cheeks and he quickly turned his attention back to the work of his hands.

"..."

"…I'm 'orry, Miss...Pardon me - i-it's not my place to speak out. I'm sorry." he said as almost an afterthought before quietly getting back to fixing the last "mechanic's" mess.

Ash deflated, not even noticing her quills had puffed out and her body was incredible tense. A sense of relief and something she dared not question filled her chest as she mulled over Johnny's words and uncharacteristic (from what she's known of thus far) anger.

It hit her now just how little Lance ever cared.

Aside from the harsh words and pushing her to the background, and hell, even before the slimy asshole decided to shack up with two little sluts in their bed (what she later discovered was no where near the first time) - he risked her life. Sure, perhaps it wasn't willingly - Lance was dense as fuck and probably would have no idea how dangerous it was to have some random handyman try and fix a motorcycle - but still, it fucking hurt.

How five years of her life she gave meant shit to him that even her safety wasn't even a slight concern.

The many times he brushed aside her warnings to reap his own benefits whether if it was from their careers or otherwise. Lance and his indulgent selfishness being the reason she still felt the aftershocks of their harsh break-up. Cutting words and actions from their time together effected her deeply - how he pushed her aside and didn't give credit to her input regarding their career. Doing what he wanted when he wanted and she was the one in the wrong if she chose to do otherwise or go against his wishes.

So many times she had to apologize for shit she didn't do or him walking out when she denied him anything (or he didn't get his way). How this guy she thought loved her; called 'boyfriend' for so many years…didn't care about her whatsoever. It was a hard pill to swallow, but she realized she could have easily died tonight because of his uncaring nature and it was only luck or even some sort of divine intervention she broke down in front of a shop. A shop with someone who was competent and kind enough to fix a stranger's bike in the middle of the night.

Tenseness in her body fading, Ash lifted her eyes and couldn't help the small smirk forming on the edge of her lips upon seeing Johnny's incredibly flushed face as he continued his work. It was obvious the guy rarely went off or spoke out of turn by his reaction and truthfully, while Lance never cared, it was nice that someone did.

Johnny breathed out a deep sigh, "Don't worry." he muttered, breaking her out of her semi-trance all without ever looking her way, "I'll make sure it's fixed properly this time 'round."

Ash bit her lip and watched him toil away; the gorilla seemed to have a new-found determination to fix the problem and fix it correctly. While not exactly sure of the warmth filling her chest at his concern, she had to admit it wasn't a terrible feeling. With that thought, she found herself allowing her lips to curl up only slightly as she continually watched him work.