#so called great love in the dungeons right? or whatever...

[gojuo]

ah yes prioritizing fanservice over logic and meaningful writing. that never went wrong in the history of ever.

[loving-daisy]

You Had Me At Hello | Severus Snape x Reader

Young Severus Snape never knew what love was. That was until he met her, his Valentine.

YHMAH Masterlist • loving-daisy masterlist

—————————————

Chapter 2: No Vacant Seats

Word count: 1,668

Severus Snape really wasn’t fond of sticking up his nose in other people’s business. After all, he’d rather spend the day sticking it inside a textbook. But truth be told, even if the boy felt invisible to other people’s surroundings, Severus liked to observe them. Not stalking, no. Rather, be aware of what’s currently happening around him. 

For example, right now, as he sits at his usual space in the Slytherin table at the Great Hall, he spots his friend Lily Evans seated at her house’s table beside Slytherin’s. He notices how James Potter shoves another Gryffindor boy seated beside the ginger to take his place instead. Severus also notices how Lily cringes at the boy, turning away from him. 

Or another example, Severus notices how his Defense Against the Dark Arts professor drinks coffee instead of tea in the morning. Nothing really special. Just some random day-to-day things. 

However, after his encounter with James and his friends the other day, not to mention the unknown caster of the freezing spell, Severus became more aware of his surroundings. He just felt the need to know and to confirm who helped him deal with the arrogant Gryffindors. 

Taking place a few days ago, Severus clearly remembers what happened. He was on the ground, his ankle getting twisted as he fell because of the hex James sent his way. Before he was able to grab his wand, he was surprised to see ice crawl throughout the Gryffindor’s body, making him frozen. 

Severus' eyes searched for all the students nearby. Most were Gryffindors, all on James’ side. He just knew that there was no way someone from the house of Godric would prevent the quidditch star’s acts against him. In case that they did, they’d be the next target of the Marauders or whatever name they called themselves. 

Unless it was Lily, of course. James fancied Lily. 

But Severus knew that the ginger was currently in her Care for Magical Creatures class so there was no way that she’d be around the hall they were currently in. 

“What did you do?!” Sirius Black growled, furious after seeing his best friend frozen. Good thing Remus, one of the friendlier Marauder was there to immediately confiscate Black’s wand. Severus would have been doomed. No one wanted to deal with an angry Sirius Black. 

At the same time, the Slytherin heard a male’s voice calling out “Valentine! There you are! The twins have been waiting for you. They said something about showing their new matching bracelets?” 

Looking towards the source of the sound, which was behind a stone wall, his eyes landed directly on Y/N Valentine’s shocked ones. The girl immediately broke eye contact, grabbing the male’s arm to leave the hallway. 

Truthfully, Severus didn’t think it was Y/N Valentine but who else could it have been? 

So, as a result, he had his eyes on the Slytherin sweetheart, wanting to know if she still had eyes on him too. 

Severus wasn’t stupid. He felt a pair of eyes staring at him when he gave the girl permission to sit with him on that table in the library. He felt those eyes at the back of his head when he was walking towards the dungeons, sitting in charms class, and basically whenever he walked through a public area. 

_______________

After an uneventful Divination class, Severus was making his way down the last steps of the tower where the classroom was located when he noticed the familiar shadow of the Slytherin sweetheart. 

The girl was walking through the halls alone, different kinds of textbooks stacked in her hands. 

Deciding that it was the perfect opportunity, the raven haired boy focused his attention on the back of the girl’s head, muttering legilimens. 

Unfortunately, Severus’ focus didn’t last long, getting distracted at the sound of the girl’s gasp. For a second, the boy thought that it was because the girl felt him attempting to look through her head but the little stack of parchment that fell from the girl’s book told him otherwise. 

Before Y/N placed her books down, she was surprised to see Severus picking up her fallen parchment. What surprised her even more was the way the boy swished his wand, levitating her books away from her hand. 

Why didn’t I think of that? Wingardium Leviosa was literally taught in the first year! She thought. 

“Thanks.” She murmured, embarrassed. “You don’t have to levitate those for me. I can do it instead.” 

At the words, Y/N Valentine was able to see the expression written on the boy’s face. If ever there was. I mean, Severus was displaying his usual blank face afterall. Even if he turned to face her. 

“You can just put it down there.” Valentine mumbled, pointing to the ground which earned her a nod from the boy. 

Truthfully, the girl thought that Severus would turn and continue on his way. But he didn’t. Instead, he stood there, waiting for her. 

“Can I...Can I help you?” The girl asked, uncertainty present in her tone. 

“Was it you?” Severus interrogated. 

Before she was able to open her mouth to answer, the boy cut her off to make the vague question a bit more specific. “Was it you who casted the freezing spell on James?” 

Y/N felt her body run cold. So he saw me. 

She didn’t know why she was so nervous, why her palms were sweating, and why her heart was racing a hundred beats per second. She didn’t know why but talking to Severus Snape just made her feel like that. He was intimidating. 

Y/N contemplated denying it but decided against it anyway. “Yes.” She squealed out, a little less confident than she intended to. 

“Thank you.” Severus breathed out, the serious expression on his face not changing.  “But I didn’t need your help.” He added before finally walking away from the girl. 

Valentine was shocked with how the event just unfolded. She was expecting something a little more...lively. Maybe a little smile? Or maybe the words of gratitude without the last statement the boy said to her. 

If it was a different person, they wouldn’t have bothered going out of their way to get to know Severus Snape even further. Especially after one random encounter with an unpleasant conversation. But no, the girl wasn’t like other people. She was Y/N Valentine afterall. 

_______________

With Severus regaining his consciousness back, he found himself in the abandoned girl’s bathroom, the one which they famously call Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. 

He had no idea how he ended up here. He did, in fact, remember the familiar words to curse one the stinging hex, hearing James Potter’s arrogant voice. 

“That’s for messing with us, Snivellus!” He heard. 

“Hello.” Y/N whispered, examining the boy’s face for any other injuries. 

Severus didn’t notice the girl until now. However, her presence answered a lot of the questions that formed in his mind, as she was the reason why he’s laying on the girl’s lap as she sat at the floor of the girl’s bathroom. 

“Hi.” Severus mumbled, embarrassed at himself. 

Man up, Severus! You’re making a fool out of yourself! You don’t anyone else taking care of you. If only you have seen James Potter and his lot coming.  

Carefully, Y/N’s cold hand made its way under the boy’s chin making him flinch. “Sorry.” The girl mumbled, clasping her hands together to warm it up. 

Again, her hand made its way to hold the boy’s chin, lifting his head to tend his wounds. 

“This might sting a bit.” She warned before softly dabbing the cotton filled with ointment on the cheek of the boy. Severus only hummed in response. 

As the girl tended his wounds, Severus couldn’t help himself but be curious. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Aren’t you asking me one right now?” The girl pointed out teasingly.

Unaffected, Severus stared at the girl as she asked, “Why are you so nice to me?”

Y/N’s face was painted with confusion. “Why shouldn’t I?” She asked. 

“Because I’m Severus Snape?” Severus answered, unsure. 

The girl frowned at the boy’s response. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

The boy sighed, shaking his head at the girl’s obliviousness. “Let’s be truthful, Y/N. No one likes me. No one treats me like I’m human, so why should you?” He interrogated. 

Severus just couldn’t understand what was running inside the mind of Y/N Valentine’s head. Why would she help him? He was no one! But a more relevant question is this: Why would she help even after he told her off? And it wasn’t the first time that he helped him. She always saves him whenever James Potter and his friends mess with him. Why? Why does she do this?

The girl merely shrugged as she said, “I like you,” causing a shocked Severus.

“What?” He asked.

“And you’re human.” Valentine continued.  “So you should be treated like one. I treat you well, don’t I?” 

“Yes, but why?” Severus still couldn’t understand. 

“Well, because you deserve to be treated with kindness. Everyone does.” 

The boy didn’t know what this new feeling was but it was as if there was something pulling on his heartstrings. Warmth was creeping from his neck towards his face and sliding into his ears. It was as if a ball of sunshine was giving him a hug, melting away his usual stone-cold demeanor. 

“I wish other people thought like that.” He confessed. 

“Me too. I wish they treated you better.” 

_______________

Y/N was seated at the library alone as she studied for an upcoming test for her transfiguration class. She was burning her eyebrows off as she focused on the text inside her textbook and continuously wrote quick notes on her parchment. Her momentum was then stopped as she became surprised to see Severus taking the seat in front of her. 

“What?” The boy questioned. 

Shaking her head, she simply greeted the boy with a smile, “Hello.” 

“I hope you don’t mind. There’s no other vacant seats left.” 

End of Chapter 2

[wisteria-lodge]

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are not interchangeable.

(OR: Why Rosencrantz is the dumb one.)

Okay. First, their character introduction:

GERTRUDE. Your visitation shall receive such thanks  As fits a king’s remembrance. [she's paying them to spy on Hamlet.] ROSENCRANTZ. Both your Majesties  Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,  Put your dread pleasures more into command Than to entreaty. [Not a great opening move. What Rosencrantz is saying IS true, the King and Queen COULD just force them to do whatever. But why remind them of this, and risk upsetting them (and risk not getting paid??) ] GUILDENSTERN. But we both obey,  And here give up ourselves in the full bent  To lay our service freely at your feet,  To be commanded. [Guildenstern covers up Rosencrantz's faux pas, lays on the flattery, and is just much more politic with his 'thank you so much! We're so happy to be here! I am here to support your version of events 100%, whatever it ends up being!']

They later meet up with Hamlet, and at first there's an easy back and forth. Hamlet is friendly, happy to see then. But then Hamlet describes his situation as a "prison"... a red flag which Guildenstern immediately picks up on.

GUILDENSTERN. Prison, my lord? HAMLET.  Denmark’s a prison. ROSENCRANTZ. [doesn't get it] Then is the world one. HAMLET. A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ th’ worst. ROSENCRANTZ. [STILL doesn't get it] We think not so, my lord. HAMLET. Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is nothing  either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me, it is a prison. ROSENCRANTZ.  Why, then, your ambition makes it one. ’Tis too narrow for your mind. [COMPLETELY wrong, as Hamlet is about to tell him.] HAMLET. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. GUILDENSTERN. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition. [Guildenstern is again stepping in to cover for Rosencrantz, by saying... okay, that comment wasn't THAT stupid, since 'dream' and 'ambition' can mean the same thing]  For the very substance of the ambitious is merely  the shadow of a dream. [and I've got some additional thoughts: how can dreams and ambitions imprison you, if they're not real?] HAMLET. [Okay, I'll play, I'll bite.] A dream itself is but a shadow. [I'm talking about bad dreams specifically. A nightmare, like a shadow, isn't 'real' - but it can still affect you.] ROSENCRANTZ. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow. [I'm not ambitious! I go with the flow! Wheeee!]

When Hamlet accuses them of spying, it's Guildenstern who asks "What should we say, my lord?" He's giving Hamlet a politic non-answer... what's your game, tell me what you want and maybe I'll do it. But then Rosencrantz starts asking Guildenstern what they're supposed to do... totally giving the game away... which is when Guildenstern makes the call for both of them, and confesses.

Which sets up one of my favorite jokes in the play, because it's just so dumb. Hamlet LOVES it when people are honest with him, so Guildenstern confessing seems to have... unlocked some extra emotional honestly, and Hamlet goes into the "What a piece of work is man" speech, just pouring his heart out, until:

HAMLET. ...what is this quintessence of dust? Man  delights not me, ⟨no,⟩ nor women neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so. ROSENCRANTZ. My lord, there was no such stuff in my  thoughts. HAMLET. Why did you laugh, then, when I said “man  delights not me”?

Hamlet is doing his Hamlet thing. Rosencrantz doesn't get it. He's zoning out. But it sounds like maybe Hamlet is wrapping up, and and then Rosencrantz comes back in right at the end, only to hear him say "Man delights not me."

And giggles.

Because "Man delights not me [anymore]" sounds... kinda gay.

So Hamlet has to roll his eyes and be like oh my god I've ALSO stopped being delighted by woman.

Like that's the joke right? If there is another way to interpret this joke I want to know.

Then, in the next scene, R & G check back in with Claudius to make their first report. Rosencrantz says "[Hamlet] does confess he feels himself distracted/but from what cause he will by no means speak." (He said he feels weird but didn't say why.) Guildenstern comes in with the actually useful thing: "But with a crafty madness keeps aloof/when we would bring him into some confession/of his true state." (Hamlet is 100% faking, because he doesn't want to deal with people.) Which is, y'know. Correct.

I want to skip ahead to after Hamlet's climatic play, where R & G show up with the message that Queen Gertrude is angry with Hamlet, and wants to talk to him. This is very much Guildenstern's scene. He's the one who delivers the message, he's the one who has the back-and-forth with Hamlet about the recorder, culminating in Hamlet's "Do you think I'm easier to be played on than a pipe?" It's such a modern insult I love it. "Do you think you can play me? You can't even play a pipe." But of course that's the insult Hamlet gives Guildenstern, who is at least trying to play the game.

The only part of the scene where Rosencrantz talks is this:

ROSENCRANTZ. Then thus she says: your behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration. [Hamlet already has this information, Guildenstern already told him. Rosencrantz seems to actually think that the only reason Hamlet isn't coming is because he doesn't understand what to do.] HAMLET.  O wonderful son that can so ’stonish a mother! [*Deliberately* misunderstanding Rosencrantz. Making fun of... the way Rosencrantz tends to misunderstand things] But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration? Impart. ROSENCRANTZ.  She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed. HAMLET.  We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us? [This switch into the plural pronouns, and shift in register means that he is MASSIVELY pulling rank on Rosencrantz. It's an insult. Hamlet is saying "Why are you wasting my time?"] ROSENCRANTZ.  My lord, you once did love me. (... ) what is your cause of distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend. [I find this line heartbreaking, because it's honest. Rosencrantz really, authentically, does not get it. Hamlet was his friend, and now he's not. Something is bothering Hamlet, and he doesn't know what. And that's as far as he can go.]

The last bit I want to look at is the final solo interaction R & G have with Hamlet before he kills them (spoilers.)

HAMLET. (...) to be demanded of a sponge, what replication should be made by the son of a king? [Back to pulling rank] ROSENCRANTZ. Take you me for a sponge, my lord? [Doesn't get it] HAMLET. Ay, sir, that soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities. (...) When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. [When Hamlet insults Guildenstern it's - you're trying to play the game but you're bad at it. His insult to Rosencrantz is - you sponge. you don't have a single original thought or impulse in your head. Everything in there is something someone else put there, and the only reason the King keeps you around is to use you.] ROSENCRANTZ. I understand you not, my lord. [Doesn't get it.] HAMLET.  I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear. [Directly calling Rosencrantz a fool.] ROSENCRANTZ. My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to the King. [Doesn't know what to do, reverting back to just doing his job, therefore proving Hamlet's point.] HAMLET. The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body. The King is a thing— [Hamlet is doing a Hamlet, riffing on the idea that Claudius isn't really king, etc.] GUILDENSTERN. A “thing,” my lord? [Guildenstern hasn't actually said anything in a second. And this line... always feels cold to me. Cold, and a little angry. Because Hamlet is insulting the king by calling him a "thing," after he just insulted Rosencrantz by calling him an object. Rosencrantz didn't pick up on that... but GUILDENSTERN did. "Thing" is also slang for dick - Hamlet is calling the king a dick - and there might be an undercurrent of "is this really the time for dick jokes?"] HAMLET. Of nothing. [This does continue the dick joke. Nothing = no thing = vagina (in shakespearean slang) So, yeah, Claudius is not only a dick, he's a... pussy (sigh.) Claudius is also "nothing" as in worthless ect, but I actually think this is a three-way pun, because Hamlet was also JUST talking about Rosencrantz having no substance. Being "nothing" in the sense that he's an extension of Claudius, the "thing of nothing."

So yeah. It's Shakespeare. Ending the scene on a viciously insightful three-way pun... that is also a dick joke.

[sfznyxio]

-ˋˏ I CHOOSE YOU! ˎˊ

SYNOPSIS. new year, new you, new school. you’re determined to be the greatest trainer in history, and it starts at a pokemon academy. you hope to finish your studies free of drama, if you can ignore the noise of many battles within the student body to see who will come on top.

CHARACTERS. sakura haruka, suo hayato, nirei akihiko, umemiya hajime, hiragi toma, tsubakino tasuku, kaji ren, tomiyama choji, togame jo

CONTENT. gn!reader. pokemon au. comedy, fluff. 0.8k wc. inspired by pokemon scarlet and violet and its teal mask dlc. everyone goes to legit school here, whoa. reader sometimes ditches class to explore the wild. electrocution, one bad pun intended (kaji). they/them pronouns for tsubaki.

VERA. yelling with @stunie about pokemon was really fun so why not combine the best of both worlds. for zevie, my fellow pokemon (mystery dungeon) enthusiast!

𝄞༉‧₊˚. SAKURA HARUKA

sakura wants to be the best in the world through unconventional means, to battle the strongest right away. you’ve seen how he fought off a group of students who were ridiculing you earlier, but there’s no way someone could become a trainer with punches and kicks and without a pokemon. by chance, a sprigatito steals the pastry he was holding to eat and sends him on a wild goose chase. those two are a lovely pair, when it’s time for it to stop eating his food and he stops yelling at it for being a “brat”.

𝄞༉‧₊˚. SUO HAYATO

if you need a teacher for your team on how to behave on the battlefield, suo is at the yard meditating with his mienfoo. it’s impressive how he’s by your stress filling their air like smokescreen. your pokemon partner suddenly stops listening to your commands, and now your wallet is dry. he says it's the rebellious teen phase, something he can easily deal with. whatever he did to make your pokemon shudder when he calls on it for lessons with mienfoo as his assistant, you dare not to pry.

𝄞༉‧₊˚. NIREI AKIHIKO

midterm season is around the corner, what you dread the most this year. luckily you have nirei, a walking encyclopedia that is very convenient to have as a study buddy and useful to a certain someone who skips classes to explore the wild. his abra will teleport you back on campus whenever you try to ditch. the one day you venture farther, a very strong pokemon has you running for your life. abra has the ability to sense danger so you manage to return safely, but not safe from his disappointment. 

𝄞༉‧₊˚. UMEMIYA HAJIME

major concerns of newbies are what type of supplies to stock up on and how to train pokemon teams efficiently. your problem is money, due to spending too much and losing too much against people. umemiya is an expert in said concerns, but his togekiss handles his budget to curb his spending impulses. for someone who advertised himself as dependable, you definitely can’t depend on him for monetary matters. even togekiss judges him for buying fake plants for his fake garden. 

𝄞༉‧₊˚. HIRAGI TOMA

the academy is a scary place. there are strong and promising trainers in the making, and a tournament is a great start to see what they’re worth. competition drives everyone nuts, tailing down anyone such as yourself in their line of sight to battle. hiragi shoos them away, swearing he’ll be like his annihilape if they keep this up. he mistakes you as one with the crowd because you’re staring at him for so long, his pokemon readies its rage fist to send you flying, stressing him out even more.

𝄞༉‧₊˚. TSUBAKINO TASUKU

as the end of the school term draws near, students become anxious. fear not, tsubaki knows how to turn the doom and gloom around - throwing a party. their checklist becomes so long they need a helping hand. their gardevoir chooses you through its future sight, determining that you’re good luck. while shopping with your upperclassman, there’s an ongoing sale for clothes they’ve been waiting for since forever. they’re so excited that they drag you along and practically buy out the whole boutique.

𝄞༉‧₊˚. KAJI REN

the stock of candies at the campus store is somehow almost empty every time you check it out. a salesclerk then tells you that they never heard of a luxio with a sweet tooth. the pokemon belongs to a student who wears headphones and a lollipop in his mouth, kaji. you and your partner look at each other with the same plan: ditch class to buy out the entire candy section before those two can. you and him grab a candy bag in sync, but luxio electrocutes you as he and your pokemon stare in shock.

𝄞༉‧₊˚. TOMIYAMA CHOJI

photography in the wilderness for a project is, in reality, easier said than done. your pictures come out blurry as many wild pokemon have tried to break your phone. just as things can’t get any worse, you get whacked by an ambipom from its double hit. your hands feel light, and you look at it with your device. its trainer tomiyama proposes to retake your photos as compensation. but instead of you in there, the entire gallery is full of his selfies. seems like this project will take forever to finish.

𝄞༉‧₊˚. TOGAME JO

you can’t afford to be late for school… again. rushing to campus on your bike, you almost crash into a dozing snorlax that is blocking your usual route. you and your pokemon have done what you can to wake it up, and it turns into a stream of light which went inside a pokeball belonging to an upperclassman. togame was napping at the side of the road, and now he is late going to school like you are. as he’s about to ask you for a ride, you completely vanish, pedaling furiously like your life depends on it.

[ordering-milk-at-a-bar]

Winx Club? I haven’t heard that name in years. *slides you $20* got anymore drabbles or HC for the Links and fairy reader?

(If that’s okay to ask ofc. I loved Winx as a child and now I think you got me wanting to watch it again. I’ll never get over how stunning those girlies were 😩)

We love our beautiful and badass girls. I really hoe the reboot will do our queens justice (but I am sceptical).

I know that in the previous fic, I mentioned that [Name] had already earned their Enchantix, but I imagined them in their basic Magic Winx/Charmix form in this one.

--

This was the worst.

As if these monsters couldn't be more disgusting, you just had to get caught in a giant Skulltula's web. It was thick, sticky, stringy and stronger than it had any right to be. And you hated it. Any and all attempts to free yourself only resulten in you gatting more stuck.

Thankfully, you had just enough wiggle room to shoot a couple spells at the few remaining Skulltulas that wanted to sink their mandables into your flesh. But who knows how long it'll be until more come.

At this point, you would rather get swallowed whole by one of those "Like Likes" that Hyrule mentioned.

"[Name], are you okay?" Oh thank the Great Dragon, Wars was here. You were wondering when someone would notice that you were missing from the fight.

"Never felt better." You answered with some sarcasm. "This is so gross."

"Don't worry, I'll have you out in just a moment." He took hold of whatever parts of you weren't covered in sticky web and began to pull.

Wars was undoubtedly stronger than you, so he had a much better chance at getting you down. However, he was pulling too hard too fast and the web just wouldn't let go. It was as if he and the web were playing tug-of-war, but for keeps. Particularly, your wings and the rest of your body were being yanked in different directions. It hurt. A lot.

"Stop! Stop! You'll tear my wings off!"

It was only when you started pleading did he stop pulling. Thought he did still have half a mind to apologize.

The next brilliant idea was to cut you loose. But, to be fair, this one was much more successful. With just a few swipes of his sword, Wars had severed the bits of web holding you in place while staying away from any of your body parts. Thankfully, you were spared the fate of faceplanting onto the rocky dungeon floor when Wars caught you.

"Would you look at that, I caught a butterfly. A big, pretty one, too."

"One more word out of you and I swear I'll blast you."

"Fine, fine, just having some fun." He set you down before mentioning for you to follow. "The others must have already gotten rid of the leftover monsters on this floor."

Sure enough, Wars was right. Everyone - minus the two of you - had gathered in the middle room, each giving their reports from when you decided to split up.

"Are you badly hurt?" Time asked as he saw you coming back, pulling some loose hanging webbing from your clothes.

"I'm okay. But I won't be able to fly until I get this gunk off of me." That's going to be a day to itself.

Time gave a small nod of acknowledgement. Actually, taking a good look around at the group, they all looked pretty worn out. "We'll call it a day. Let's go back into town and get some rest. Tomorrow we clear the rest of this dungeon."

There were no objections.

--

Thankfully, the inn was quiet this evening. You didn't know how much more irritated you could be right now, especially if people were running around and causing a ruckus.

You've already gotten the web from your body, so that only left one thing. The part that you dreaded the most: your wings. Your hair had already been a painful mess to deal with, so you could only imagine what your wings would be like.

"How are you doing?" Sky's (or your self proclaimed "Flying Buddy") voice cut through the silence as he stepped through the doorway. He was probably one of the better roommates to have right now. You'd have to thank Time later for putting you with him instead of Wind or Legend.

"This web's really annoying. And it's in some hard to reach places, too." You grumbled, frustrated. "I swear, if I see a single Skulltula again, I'm exterminating the entire species."

"That bad, huh?" He cuckled a little, but stopped himself when he noticed you slightly flinch as you got another sticky chunk out. "Do you want some help?"

A sigh escaped from your lips. "You know I don't let just anyone touch my wings."

"I've had to help clean Crimson's wings many times before. I'm sure I can handle it." Sky sat down on the bed next to you.

"It's not you I'm worried about." You admitted. "I know I don't have my wings out most of the time, but they're still a part of me, and they're really sensitive."

You've long heard stories of fairies losing their wings, either in an accident or by someone destroying them. Either way, it's a horrible fate for someone of your kind. Yes, they eventually grow back, but that takes time, and it doesn't erase the fact that it was a traumatic experience or that it left the fairy vulnerable and weakened in the meantime.

"You're having trouble and I want to help. Besides, you won't be able to reach some of those places."

"You'd really do that?"

"Of course. What are friends for?" He gave a reassuring smile. "Just lay down and I'll handle it. You won't even notice I'm here."

He had a point, you supposed. Guess he couldn't do that bad of a job. You laid yourself on the bed, back facing Sky.

"Just... Be gentle, alright?"

"Promise."

--

And then, they fu-

Btw, if I have convinced anyone here to watch this show fo the first time or revisit it, my personal reccomendation is to watch the Rai English dub (you can find it on YouTube for free) because it's the most faithful of the English dubs (of which there are 5, apparently, and none of them have the entire series). I would also stop watching after season 4/the second movie. Trust me, you're doing yourself a favour by not watching seasons 5-8.

There are the Nickelodeon Specials that condense season 1 into 3 hour long specials and one that covers season 2, but I really don't reccomend them for new veiwers. Just watch the original full seasons. They butchered my precious season 2 so badly.

P.S Also, you should maybe skip the "Miss Magix" episode in season 1. It has a pretty bad scene that mocks a black woman's natural hair. It's a filler episode, anyway, so you're not missing anything.

[jimblejamblewritings]

An Observation of Humankind [thinkpiece number: 1]

Every girlie (nonbinary, women and men of all orientations included) is a type of Marauder and their partners are marauder love interest — fandom version included.

James Girlies:

either like sports or play sports, especially soccer/football or rugby

bad eyesight

defends everyone

himbo and ditzy but we love them for that

fanfiction reader/sharer

have had several short-term but very intense crushes

surprisingly not always high school sweethearts (which yeah odd cause of Lily)

nature bros

calls their journal a diary with no shame

are always outside and can't sit their ass at home for too long

love bouquets

own at least one pair of converse

loves pop music and Hozier

have scaled a fence before

might be able to play the guitar

handwriting could be nicer if they tried

didn't get their drivers' license right away

take their coffee any way that isn't straight black coffee

definitely think all people are hot even if they don't swing that way (think lesbians love Thor)

loved Merlin the tv show

James Girlies love Regulus and Lily people, which means:

cold people, smart people, black cat people, painters, polite people, readers, homebody people, gothic people, hippie people, people with beautiful handwriting, black coffee drinkers, whisky lovers

Sirius Girlies:

dog people and cat people equally

doc martens

loves coffee and tea equally

fanfiction writer/reader

gorgeous handwriting, probably cursive

might know or has had an interest in calligraphy

an astrology and/or astronomy girl

speaks at least two languages

plays an instrument, any instrument... but their parents definitely suggested piano

leather jackets

denim jackets

wears way less black than people think

fantasy nerd and has played dungeons and dragons

was a superwholockian

usually the only child or older child

doesn't smoke but everyone thinks they might

cocktails or whiskey and beer, no in between

virgin till like freshman year of college or later, to everyone's shock

looks like a black cat but is actually a golden retriever

however they could kill you don't get it twisted

has trauma but won't trauma bond

crooked smile and not perfect teeth but gorgeous anyway

perfect hair that is deliberately messed with

motorcycles and vespas and small cars

listens to every genre of music

tattoos (even if just one small one)

journal person

can quote certain movies by heart

unfortunately turned on by sweater vests

fashion girlie

Sirius Girlies love Marlene, Remus, and other Sirius people, which means:

warm people, confident people, tall people, flirty people, musicians, readers, intellectual people, fancy people

Remus Girlies:

sweets lover

probably likes dark chocolate the most as well as hot chocolate

owns sweaters, probably vintage, some handmade by their Sirius girlies

plays chess

can draw

mismatched socks

waits till the last minute to do laundry

is more of a cat person but also loves dogs

didn't have strict parents and ended up giving themselves curfews and discipline and only late realized the reverse psychology

keeps a notebook about everything their partner likes

messy cook in the kitchen

loves tea a bit over coffee

is probably the actual smoker of the group

doesn't make their bed

good kissers

always carries a jacket or wears a shirt under their sweater so they can give it to their partner

can hold their liquor a bit too well perhaps

has trauma and might trauma bond

great fashion sense but will wear literally whatever is clean

Remus Girlies love Sirius, Pandora, and Dorcas (hear me out) people, which means:

black cat looks and golden retriever personality, weird people, people that pour their pain and emotions into their art whether music or painting or drawing, people that take time to care for themselves in the morning, witchy people, smiley people

Peter Girlies (pretend there was no betrayal):

underestimated

asks the most off-putting questions without realizing it

takes a camera everywhere

loves board games

tea drinker all day every day

baker

sends selfies at literally any angle because they don't care

always pays attention to everyone

loves breakfast food eaten not at breakfast

had a ukelele phase

cleanest of their friend group

Peter Girlies love Mary people, which means:

sunshine people, almost always happy, excitable people, pda lovers, carefree topeople

[fumifooms]

i know you aren't really into marcille/laios any longer, but since you went looking online for dungeon meshi doujins, did you happen to find any other marcille/laios ones? (funnily enough at the convention i was at a couple weeks back they had like five, but they were extremely over-exaggerated and personally i prefer my fan content relatively in character...)

Ok first of all: Yeah listen laimar doesn’t have a grip on me anymore but I still quite enjoy it! Just more passively… Altho I do have an analysis that focuses a lot on the importance they hold to each other in my early stage wips drafts, and listen in canon I do think they’re queerplatonic flavored, call me an ot3 qpr truther because Laios Marcille and Falin have a something going on and it transcends being put into a box. But hey hey I reblog laimar artworks I bought that recent doujin I put laimar fics in my -checks- 106 pages long to-read list… Also I have like 5 pages of fanfic prompts for them I may or may not get to writing. Though yeah I do feel bad whenever I notice people following after liking all my laimar posts haha

Sadly to get to the meat of the topic, not really… I don’t go to cons for lack of opportunity so whatever I find is through online. The one I got is The Fourth Basement Floor, it has an english ver and seems so so very in character I can’t wait to get it! Otherwise I’ve looked on Otakurepublic & Doujinrepublic since I use their services for merch from Japan, warning if you click on the link, there are 18+ ones and covers can be pretty explicit. I don’t remember any other laimar one except the one nsfw one I think, but on the plus side there are a lot of gen no ships doujins. I’m bothered because looking back I feel like the catalogue of doujins was wider when I looked all those months ago and it feels like I’m forgetting something hmm… I wish I could help more, but yeah 😔 Pixiv has many laimar comics up (in japanese) if that sates the hunger any

As consolation since I’m already here, why not show some of my laimar things laying around gathering dust I’m fond of. Don’t look if you don’t want to be spoiled for fics I may or may not write I guess? All down below is just laimar prompts

I spoke about some various ones and esp my timeline where she gets him into Daltian Clan here. "Laios… I was wondering, because you enjoy fantasy stories right? I was wondering if you’d like to give my favorite book series a go… It has monsters!" I love love love post-canon laimar where he gets the habit of chewing on her hair because he’s stimming and hungry. Like a goat.

Laios goes to Marcille for love advice.  "You like someone?! Do I know them?" She eagerly asked. "Erm… Yes…?" // Post-canon. He’s so nervous and puts his foot in his mouth n lets things slip out that he thought would give him away. (Comic) "You like someone??! What are they like? Who are they?" And he’s like "Well… She’s a half-elf." He’s like shit she’ll probably know right away. And she goes still. "I’ve never met another half-elf!! We’re so rare! You’re saying you met one and didn’t tell me???!" She’s shaking him. And then she goes still again, contempt drawing on her face. "Wait… Are you asking me for advice because I’m a half-elf?" Laios runs with it "Yes!! And because you’re so savvy with romance and what people like…? If, uh, if you were a half-elf, what would you like to get as a gift? What sort of confession would you want?" "… You saved it there. Okay so since I’m so knowledgeable on romance, tell me what is she like?" "-describes Marcille-" She nods, smug yet oblivious. "Aah I can already tell we’d be great friends. Good taste." (then Thinking bubble with him giving her flowers at a restaurant "Did you know roses are edible and used in recipes", candlelit dinner, or wait maybe the most romantic is cooking together alone at home, chocolate! It’s expensive though… Wait I’m king now!)

Lil comic, Laios wakes up snuggled against Marcille’s back then promptly falls off the bed. The noise makes Marcille wake up and she’s like omg are u ok?? Laios is so sweaty and panicked and in denial about her being special to him.  She explains, disgruntled at the memory "Izutsumi is bunking in with Chilchuck again, they’re taking the whole bedrolls." Pause. "Sorry, I should have told you, but you like sleeping with Izutsumi too so I figured…" She looked sheepish. "Between you and Senshi, I much prefer sleeping with you. It feels sort of nostalgic, like a sleepover, no?" He relaxes and gets in the bed again, smiling. "But… We’ve never had a sleepover?" She chuckles "I guess not. I must be getting that impression because of Falin…" And the air between them is warm yet bittersweet now, as she smiles like that and his eyes and smile cloud over. The earlier instinctive reluctance to touch is gone now. She snuggles into his arms and is like "Hug me?" "Okay." And he does, wraps his arms around her and tucks his chin over her head.

Post canon, marcille takes him to a squid restaurant. Cute lighthearted hehe. He sulks "If there are any parasites in this I will ban squid from this kingdom or so help me…"

Short post canon fluff marcille pov about laios gaining weight n becoming chubby. She used to dream of chiseled abs and angular elves, laios in every way, shape and form is so far from the beauty standards she idealized so. And yet… She loves how soft sleeping against him is, how much there’s more of him for her to hug and nuzzle her face in. She loves seeing him and seeing someone strong, who isn’t malnourished or underweight, someone healthy with color in their skin. An healthy appetite. He used to look more like a rectangle, severe and strict, but now he looked rounder, and seeing him smile at her always made her feel like that roundness suited him. She smiled back, and melted thinking about how her boyfriend was the sweetest in the world. ^I still wanna do this one really bad. Sometimes a fic premise comes from nowhere and puts you in a chokehold and you must finish it to obtain catharsis

Short oneshot about laios musing about Marcille’s smile, how important it is to him in subtle ways etc: Ends with Laios being like wait there’s something off (succubus). Then he grabbed her throat. Or smth

Laios seeing her dungeon like "this is so wrong Marcille you can’t run a dungeon for shit" and also "WHAT ARE THESE HORRORS OF MONSTERS NOO THEY CAN’T BE EFFECTIVE LIKE THAT"

Dinner for two: Very warm. Marcille and Laios are meeting up and cooking a dinner just for them both, no one else is there. They’re being so domestic and it’s light. Laios pauses at some point, doing the dishes, saying… I’ve always worried, thinking doing things like these would remind me of my parents.

Laios doesn’t know what to do when he realizes he actually *likes* likes Marcille, so he avoids her. Everyone notices and is disapproving of him.

Her mana acts up and she shares her dream with someone, kinda like with Izutsumi. Listen the premise could be smutty but I think it’d be more fun if they just hanged out n were silly, like the nightmares chapter without the nightmare

Laimar pining but from the view of Chilchuck, his love hatred sensing a storm brewing. The giggling, the looks. Ugh! It reminded him of himself and his wife when they were young and newly dating.

I love Laios and Izu being worsties so. Laios sees izutsumi rubbing her scent on marcille’s clothes and gets possessive. Maybe Golden Kingdom maybe something else I have no clue but Laios being ridiculous and cheek rubbing or something <3

I might want to do an AU where Laios gets into werebeast ring fighting, before canon and the split happens after he deserts the military. So he’s alone, has nothing going for him and stumbles into that sphere and gets werebeast tattoos done. It doesn’t make him happier at all and fighting sucks actually, but it brings money and he likes being a beast and being cheered by a crowd aka illusion of being liked, and money brings food and eating is the privilege of the living etc etc. So then when he goes to check on Falin at the academy it’s a big AU where he has a whole other reputation and look to him, and when he meets izutsumi their relationship is different and aaaaaa… He’s freeer in this au, lets himself be animalistic and weird, even though ofc the arc is him letting himself be more human as well and connecting with humans, through talking and infodumping n shit. Oh I went off but the laimar is because it’s inspired by cool laimar art here (warning tho it’s an art dump with toudencest also 😔) but werewolf Laios laimar AUs… A lotta fun stuff there idk idk

[lazyscience]

Dungeon Crawler Carl Challenge

[EDIT: PARTY IS FULL, alas I have hit a wall for how much AI I am able to write in a single evening. thank you all though for there being enough interest to actually take time :) ]

So I've been feeling pretty low the last few months. I know I'm not the only one riding that struggle bus, that a good number of the friends and mutuals around these parts are also feeling um. Uninspired, by current events. Demoralized, saddened, angry, confused, bereft - some of all of that.

One of the things I've been enjoying over the last year or so have been the Dungeon Crawler Carl books; some of you are probably also familiar, given a number of tabletop RPG folks hang out around these parts. If you haven't tried them, I heartily encourage them - they're cartoonishly violent, thoroughly offensive to anything resembling a religious or socially conservative sensibility, laden with body horror, full of cocker spaniel slander, and wildly vulgar in a teenage-boy sort of way. They are also full of complex and interesting female characters, affirmative masculinity, kindness in great duress, found family, anti-capitalism, pro-skepticism and determination in the face of overwhelming odds. A LOT of shit blows up. And the hero's wisecracking BFF is a Persian cat who is half Real Housewife, half neglected child.

The point of all this introduction to say: the titular Carl's mantra with which he is surviving the dungeon is, You will not break me.

And damn if I don't think he's got a point.

Spraytan Hitler getting inaugurated and nominating his bumbling coterie of asskissers to the Cabinet? Fuck him. Not gonna break me.

Morons trying to take rights, safety and bodily integrity away from people I love? Fuck them, not gonna break me.

People at work making THEIR months of fucking around MY workload problem now? Fuck that, not gonna break me.

Stupid chronic pain? Fuck it, not gonna break me.

Stupid depression and anxiety? Fuck no. Not gonna break me.

Now, dear reader, your challenge, should you choose to accept (you don't need to be a longtime follower or a follower at all, just a fellow crawler in this bullshit dungeon that is currently our lives who would like to stick it to The Corporation/The Universe At Large)

The AI of the dungeon likes to give Achievements. These are snarky, profane, moments of catharsis when you've finished a quest or defeated an enemy describing your reward (frequently just 'you're still alive, good for you') And since I don't have the wherewithal to send you guys the Celestial Benefactor Boxes you're out there grinding for, that's all I can give you - but if you want 'em, tell me what quest you've beaten/mob you've splattered each day and I'll give you an Achievement.

Mobs can be tasks you've been dreading, phone calls you don't want to make, awkward conversations, doctor's visits you don't want to schedule.

Quests are good things you're doing for yourself. Working out/making opportunities to move in any way? Making art/crafting/writing/other creative endeavors? Learning a new professional or personal skill? Reading longform books (of whatever genre) instead of doomscrolling? Making an effort to heal your relationship with food in ANY way you think is appropriate FOR YOU? Treating yo' self? Pedicures are a buff in the dungeon! (it's probably best to not ask why)

Party up - when we're doing something with/for others - or letting others help us - we are stronger together than we are apart.

Some days, all you're up to is staying alive. Just staying alive is a worthwhile accomplishment.

I am going to try to every day for the next 30 to post at least one mob I've fought, quest I've been working on, or party I've joined. And anybody who would like one, reblog mine with yours and I'll give you an Achievement.

Now get out there, crawlers, and kill, kill, kill!

[pippin-katz]

I need a cast audiobook of RWRB. If no one else, then at least Taylor and Nick reading Alex and Henry. I need it in my life.

And in ACD fashion, here’s a few lists of lines/conversations from the book that I am desperate to hear them say. I want to hear them read all of the lines, but these are the ones that pop out to me!

Post Writing Note: These turned out to be way longer than I thought they were going to be 😭😂

Alex Lines:

Oh yeah, that was a wild night. Two whole keynote speakers. Nothing sexier than shrimp cocktails and an hour and a half of speeches on carbon emissions. - page 5

'Archnemesis' implies he's actually a rival to me on any level and not, you know, a stuck-up product of inbreeding who probably jerks off to photos of himself. - page 7

Jesus Christ, it’s like they can see into your soul. Cornbread knows my sins, Henry. Cornbread knows what I have done, and he is here to make me atone. - page 77

I always thought you’d kill me in a more personal way. Silk pillow over my face, slow and gentle suffocation. Just you and me. Sensual. - page 80

Shut up, shut all the way up, oh my God. - page 131

For fuck's sake, man, you just had my dick in your mouth, you can kiss me good-night. - page 145

What in the rich-white-people-sex-dungeon hell? - page 149

Bisexuality is truly a rich and complex tapestry. - page 194

Listen: I'll fly to London right now and pull you out of whatever pointless meeting you're in and make you admit how much you love it when I call you "baby". I'll take you apart with my teeth, sweetheart. - page 204

You don't get to sit up here and pretend like it's someone else's problem. None of us do. - page 209

i want to see a cage match between your grandmother and this fucking ghoul running against my mom. - page 221

I do think I got a gut feeling with you, I just didn't have what I needed in my head to understand it. But I kind of kept chasing it anyway, like I was just going blindly in a certain direction and hoping for the best. I guess that makes you the North Star? - page 244

Henry! Your Royal fucking Highness! - page 269

Really nice. Fuckin' ghost me for a week, make me stand in the rain like a brown John Cusack, and now you won't even talk to me. I'm really just having a great time here. I can see why y'all had to marry your fucking cousins. - page 270

I fucking love you, okay? Fuck, I swear. You don't make it fucking easy. But I'm in love with you. - page 271

I'll leave, as soon as you tell me to leave. - page 275

Okay, I'm into making history. - page 280

I completely fucking love you. - page 291

I'm there for whatever you decide you want to do, just, like, let me know if I need to start practicing gazing wistfully out the window, waiting for my love to return from the war. - page 296

AN INCOMPLETE LIST: THINGS I LOVE ABOUT HRH PRINCE HENRY OF WALES Note: just the entire list, I need it, but I'll point out some of the best ones anyway lol

9. How hard you try. 10. How hard you've always tried. 11. How determined you are to keep trying. - page 303

16. Your huge, generous, ridiculous, indestructible heart. 17. Your equally huge dick. 18. The face you just made when you read that last one. - page 303

20. The fact that you loved me all along. - page 303

God, I want to fight everyone who's ever hurt you, but it was me too, wasn't it? All that time. I'm so sorry. - page 303

Listen, I'm telling you right now, I will physically fight your grandmother myself if I have to, okay? And, like, she's old. I know I can take her. - page 312

You and me and history, remember? We're just gonna fucking fight. Because you're it, okay? I'm never gonna love anybody in the world like I love you. - page 312

Sería una mentira, porque no sería él. (It would be a lie, because it wouldn't be him.) - page 317

but i've kissed your mouth, that corner, that place it goes, so many times now. i've memorized it. topography on the map of you, a world i'm still charting. i know it. i added it to the key. here: inches to miles. i can multiply it out, read your latitude and longitude. recite your coordinates like la rosaria. - page 319

give yourself away sometimes, sweetheart. there's so much of you. - page 320

Zahra, you're my mean friend. - page 339

I've never... I haven't been through anything like that. But I've always felt it, in him. There's this side of him that's... unknowable. But the thing is, jumping off cliffs is kinda my thing. That's the choice. I love him, with all that, because of all that. On purpose. I love him on purpose. - page 344

For what it's worth, that is the bravest son of a bitch I've ever met. - page 347

My life is a cosmic joke and you're not a real person. - page 371

You are, the absolute worst idea I've ever had. - page 372

FIRST SON ALEXANDER CLAREMONT-DIAZ'S ADDRESS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE, OCTOBER 2, 2020 - pages 372-375 Note: just, the entire speech, the whole thing

America: He is my choice. - page 374

Henry Lines:

Hmm, I always liked Luke. He's brave and good, and he's the strongest Jedi of them all. I think Luke is proof that it doesn't matter where you come from or who your family is--you can always be great if you're true to yourself. - page 45

The turkeys are not going to Jurassic Park you. You’re not the bloke from Seinfeld. You’re Jeff Goldblum. Go to sleep. - page 82

You are the thistle in the tender and sensitive arse crack of my life. - page 73

fucking eyelashes - page 142

I shall just have to make it the best orgasm of your life. What can I do to make it good for you? Talk about American tax reform during the act? Have you got talking points? - page 196

How is a man to get anything done knowing Alex Claremont-Diaz is out there on the loose? - pages 202-203

They wanted something less fruity than the truth, but truly, what is gayer than a woman who languishes away in a crumbling mansion wearing her wedding gown every day of her life, for the drama? - page 205

Someone else's choice doesn't change who you are. - page 229

Most things are awful most of the time, but you're good. - page 230

The phrase "see attached bibliography" is the single sexiest thing you have ever written to me. - page 241

Should I tell you that when we're apart, your body comes back to me in dreams? That when I sleep, I see you, the dip of your waist, the freckle above your hip, and when I wake up in the morning, it feels like I've been with you, the phantom touch of your hand on the back of my neck fresh and not imagined? That I can feel your skin against mine, and it makes every bone in my body ache? That, for a few moments, I can hold my breath and be back there with you, in a dream, in a thousand rooms, nowhere at all? - page 242 Note: based on the parts of this we did get to hear Nick say in the film, I think this would kill half the fandom lol

When have I ever, since the first instant I touched you, pretended to be anything less than in love with you? - page 272

I never thought I'd be stood here faced with a choice I can't make, because I never... I never imagined you would love me back. - page 273

The Mail will write mad speculations about where I've gone, if I've offed myself or vanished to St. Kilda, but only you and I will know that I'm just sprawled in your bed, reading books and feeding myself profiteroles and making love to you endlessly until we both expire in a haze of chocolate sauce. It's how I'd want to go. - page 294

Here lies Prince Henry of Wales. He died as he lived: avoiding plans and sucking cock. - page 298

"Because I'm not like the rest of the men of this family, beginning with the fact that I am very deeply gay, Philip." - page 298

But the first time I saw you. Rio. I took that down to the gardens. I pressed it into the leaves of a silver maple and recited it to the Waterloo Vase. It didn't fit in any rooms. - page 300

I thought, this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen, and I had better keep it a safe distance away from me. I though, if someone like that ever loved me, it would set me on fire. - page 300

And then, inexplicably, you had the absolute audacity to love me back. - page 300 Note: I really wanted to just type out most of the page, but I restrained myself lmfao

I don't know if I would have chosen it yet, but it's out there now, and... I won't lie. Not about this. Not about you. - page 338

Bit short for a stormtrooper. - page 340

I've bloody well had it. I've sat about long enough letting you and Gran and the weight of the damned world keep me pinned, and I'm finished. I don't care. You can take your legacy and your decorum and you can shove it up your fucking arse, Philip. I'm done. - page 347

I've been as gay as a maypole since the day I came out of Mum, Philip. - page 353 Note: there's never too many times to hear the words "gay as a maypole" and the emotional infliction here is lot different lol

Both:

Am I offending you? Sorry I'm not obsessed with you like everyone else. I know that must be confusing for you. Do you know what? I think you are. Only a thought. Have you ever noticed I have never once approached you and have been exhaustingly civil every time we've spoken? Yet here you are, seeking me out again. Simply an observation. - page 18

This is idiotic. Let's get it over with. I'd rather be waterboarded. Your country could probably arrange that. Go fuck yourself. Hardly enough time. - pages 36-37 Note: yes, I know Nick read this part in his book-to-screen video thingy but it's not the same as having them both saying the lines fully in character.

What does Jedi have? Fuckin' Ewoks. Ewoks are iconic. Ewoks are stupid. - page 52

yo there's a bond marathon on and did you know your dad was a total babe I BEG YOU TO NOT - page 84

I'm going to die. I'm going to kill you. Yes, you are. - page 133

You were jealous. You want me. Yes, you preening arse, I've wanted you long enough that I won't have you tease me for another fucking second. - page 137

Hi. Hello. I'm gonna take your pants off now. Yes, good, carry on. - page 141

Ugh, you look ridiculous. Should I-- What? No, of course not, keep them on. Oh my God, what are you doing? I can't even look at you. No, Jesus, I just mean--I'm so mad at you. Just, come here. Fuck. I'm quite confused. Me fucking too. - page 150

I'm not... historically great at talking about things. Well, I wasn't historically great at blowjobs, but we all gotta learn and grow, sweetheart. - page 165

Bitch, you took me there. alskdjfadslfjad NORA YOU BROKE HIM - page 212

D'you know what I want? What? I want, to do the absolute last thing I'm supposed to be doing right now. Then tell me to do it, sweetheart. Fuck me. Well, when at Wimbledon. Just so we're clear, I'm about to have sex with you in this storage closet to spite your family. Like, that's what's happening? Right. Awesome, fucking' love doing things out of spite. - page 217 Note: I think this conversation could singlehandedly kill the fandom if we got to hear Taylor and Nick deliver these lines

Can't you ever just do one thing without having to be so goddamn extra about it? That is bloody rich coming from you. - pages 260-261

What do you want? I want you- Then fucking have me. -but I don't want this. - page 273

You seem... less pissy. You're one to talk. I wasn't the one who stormed the palace in a fit to call me an 'obtuse fucking asshole'. In my defense, you were an obtuse fucking asshole. - page 277

I honestly have never thought I deserved to choose. But you treat me like I do. You do. I think I'm actually starting to believe that. - page 279

What about you? What about me? Christ, Alex. The whole bloody time. The whole time? Since the Olympics. The Olympics? But that's, that's like- Yes, Alex, the day we met, nothing gets past you, does it? 'What about you,' he says, as if he doesn't know- Shut your mouth. - page 283-284

Hello, what was that for? I just, like, really love you. - page 286

What are you doing? I'm taking a picture of a national gay landmark. And also a statue. It's funny. I always thought of the whole things as the most unforgivable thing about me, but you act like it's one of the best. Oh, yeah. The top list of reason to love you goes brain, then dick, then imminent status as a revolutionary gay icon. You are quite literally Queen Victoria's worst nightmare. And that's why you love me. My god, you're right. All this time, I was just after the bloke who'd most infuriate my homophobic forebears. Ah, and we can't forget they were also racist. Certainly not. Next time we shall visit some of the George III pieces and see if they burst into flame. - page 289

If Alex from this time last year could see this. He'd say, 'Oh I'm in love with Henry? That must be why I'm such an arse to him all the time'. - page 387

Thanks for reading!! If you enjoyed this post & would like to support me, you can give me a tip on my Ko-Fi! ☺️

[madam-whim]

The Gold Road Reveal and my thoughts on it

I’m gonna start this off by saying I love ESO. I have been playing since 2017 and I’m pretty much doing everything the game has to offer. Quests, dungeons, trials, antiquities, sometimes PvP. That being said, this post will include lots of criticism that I feel (or know) is shared by many other fans.

But first things first, let me start off by listing some of the things on yesterday’s stream that had me bouncing in my seat:

The new zone is absolutely stunning! There’s a lot of variety to it and it does look very pretty. Exploring it will undoubtedly be fun and a feast for my eyes.

Also, Fennorian will be there, so I know there will at least be one well-written character that my Vestige has an actual bond with.

The scribing system being more of a roleplay thing – I don’t know what some people were hoping for, but I’m glad it’s not some Big Damage For Those Who Are Good At Maths kind of system. It still allows for a more unique playstyle, and I suppose it’s going to turn out like always: Do whatever you want in open world spaces, but keep your bow backflip heal out of veteran content.

And maybe the biggest “Yes!” moment of the evening: Ed Stark being the zone lead for Gold Road. While I did not like High Isle as much (too predictable for my taste, but at least it had recurring characters), he was responsible for Greymoor and Murkmire as well. I thought Greymoor was fantastic (good quests, excellent new characters alongside very familiar recurring ones), and Murkmire… well, I think Murkmire suffers greatly from being “the DLC that came after the Daedric Triad” so to speak. It kind of fell into the void created by a storyline spanning a full year (or even more, if you count the setup for the whole thing, which really began with the Varen’s ghost and Darien’s letter in Wrothgar and the Gold Coast sweetroll killer quests). I think that’s why lots of people don’t seem to like Murkmire very much despite it having great storytelling. My point is this: I do have some hope that after the fiasco some recent DLCs were story-wise, Ed Stark will at least make sure Gold Road makes sense.

And now for the criticism.

Ithelia’s design (Whenever, wherever, I want to kill Hermaeus…)

… yeah, about that. As one of my friends put it, she looks like Shakira with wings.

They really could have done so much better. The way she is now, as @akaviri-dovah said, she really just looks like a Meridia clone who somehow stole Jyggalag’s crystals, which is funny on so many levels (more on that later). Suffice it to say that I personally think the design choices are kind of lazy, given that we already have an angelic-looking Daedric lady.

Also, what’s with this picture? This kinda makes it seem as if she originally looked. Um. A lil different from the way she is now. In any case, I’m just gonna call this a missed opportunity for something more unique. I do like the glass shard aesthetic, I just wish they’d taken it in a different direction.

Dragon Break Princess Ithelia, or something like that

Now I know Dragon Breaks have to work differently from what Ithelia does, but I am kind of wondering what the consequences of her fate-altering abilities are. How do you alter fate in a way that threatens reality (with reality consisting of past and present events, with all possible versions of the future being possibly-real until one actually happens) without altering the timeline? Just by removing a possible future? Then one could argue that any Daedra could do the same just by manipulating people. Granted, it’s possible that Ithelia sees all possible futures and can do whatever she likes with them, but even then, she’d only be influencing what can become reality, not what already is. So how can she be THAT dangerous?

Right now, it just seems to me that they needed an adversary for Hermaeus Mora, and since his big things are knowledge, secrets and fate, and they couldn’t very well make a Daedric Prince of Anti-Intellectualism or a Daedric Prince of Snitching, she had to be a fate-altering type of Daedra.

At this point I’m still wondering how she even works, because how does she not accidentally cause Dragon Breaks? And if she is that damn powerful, how on earth did Mora alone manage to pretty much remove any trace of her? Which kind of brings me to my next point.

Memory Issues

I know, I know, Ithelia is not the first “new” Daedric Prince. (Which makes her stolen Jyggalag crystal vibes rather funny if you ask me.) And I don’t mind her being crazy powerful either, because so was Jyggalag or else he wouldn’t have been cursed. But that, to my knowledge, required several other Princes, whereas Ithelia apparently got owned by Hermaeus Mora alone, who then erased all memory of her. Which is not only quite the feat given how powerful she has to be, but also a very weird thing for Hermaeus Mora to do. I kinda thought stealing memories was more Meridia’s style. This entire part does not quite make sense to me yet and seems a little out of character, but well. By the way, speaking of Meridia…

Meridia-baiting the players

At this point, ZOS have to know we’re getting tired of waiting for villain Meridia. Everyone I know who is even the least bit interested in ESO’s storyline wants to see it. And I’ve seen people get their hopes up in recent days (new Meridia/Dawnbreaker-themed music box, the Ayleid ruin hint on the fragments sent to streamers…). Even in the twitch chat, there were people hyped about what they thought was Meridia, and who were disappointed when they were told it was Ithelia. And yes, I am absolutely saying they did this and made her a Meridia lookalike on purpose. But I’m well aware that we haven’t gotten any new hints about either Meridia or a certain someone since Greymoor, and that chapter will be four years old soon. Even I am beginning to give up, as much as I hate to say it.

By the way, I really did NOT appreciate Matt Firor name-dropping Darien right at the beginning. If you’re not planning to do anything with him, just let it go. I know absolutely nobody who appreciates being fed very tiny hints for two years and then being left in the dark for four years straight. If you don’t want to pick that storyline up again, just stuff the man into the Old Life quest and be done with it.

Honestly, once again, I’m gonna say this is a MASSIVE missed opportunity right here. ESO’s 10 year anniversary is coming up, what could possibly be better than to go back to the roots now and reward all those loyal players with the story they are waiting for? I distinctly recall Molag Bal telling me to watch my step around Meridia, and the setup is all there. I’m honestly disappointed that there is no Meridia content at all. And this ties in with my final point, albeit vaguely.

“Recurring” characters

Ah, yes, we do love recurring characters. Sometimes. We do love it when a fan favorite comes back – a character who’s accompanied the Vestige over the course of an entire story arc or has made multiple appearances over the years and has become beloved by many players, and, most importantly, who is well-written, i.e. has a unique personality. And that’s why “recurring characters” is not always a recipe for success when it comes to getting people hooked on a story.

It is when it’s one of the five companions, or a Ravenwatch member, or your main alliance buddy (Raz, Naryu and – oh, wait, yeah, us Covenant babies don’t have one anymore). It also works when it’s a character we’ve run across several times already, like Alchemy, who I know tons of people love, or my favorite walking disaster Revus Demnevanni.

But it’s certainly not working when it’s a character we barely know anything about, and who isn’t a hit with the community. Like Eveli’s brother whom I had to google because I could not remember who he was. He’s from a prologue quest. Nothing more. That’s not a “beloved returning character”.

ZOS have several of those just lying around, and they’re just not using them. And even the base game had so many characters that were there over the course of several zones, that were well-written and at least memorable to the degree that people would recognize them with just a little reminder, like Indaenir or Holgunn and Walks-in-Ash or the Vanos siblings. Hell, we haven't seen good old Vanus Galerion in a while. They are ten years old now and deserve to be dragged to the surface again.

Okay, I’m done now!

This concludes my rant (because that’s what it is, I’m aware). I just want to say again that this is not be dragging ESO through the mud, this is just me pointing out that the devs (especially the writers) could do so much better if they listened to their lore nerds and story-interested players more.

[esote-rika]

hii lovely erika long time no see i think i don't remember sorry whatever i come to you tonight because i lowkey wanna start watching dnd and ur one of the only people who watches that and i don't know what campaigns to watch i guess.,.,,,. i've watched other tabletop rpgs before and even dabbled in some of them (that's an overreaction i just sat in at one of my friend's sessions),, but never dnd and in fact i know absolutely nothing about dnd ... .,..

all of this to say what campaigns do you think i should watch first,., ..?., u're lowk becoming my recs girl sorry

Hiiiii!!!!! Screaming, I'm a fiend for D&D, the only way to really "understand" It is to fully jump right in with playing and/or listening. I had no knowledge of the gameplay too when I started watching Fantasy High (2 seasons on YouTube) but immediately still got hooked on the story. In general, my recommendation is always to go check out Dimension 20 on YouTube, they have several seasons that are pretty beginner friendly. So - Fantasy High is a really cute coming of age high school set in fantasy land story, but it has a mystery that the characters are trying to solve. They also have Unsleeping City which is an urban fantasy set in New York, basically playing with the idea of magic hiding in the city and the evil forces trying to overtake the city. Both of these seasons are completely free on YouTube!

It's a little intimidating though, because it's 2ish hours per episode (the only reason I managed to get through such a large amount of content was I started listening during the pandemic) but it's great and has one of the best Dungeon Masters around.

They also have Dungeons and Drag Queens so if you're into Rugirls, four of them play as newbies and it's a little more approachable (only four episodes, rules get explained to them as they go along) but only the first episode is free on YouTube, the rest is on Dropout TV (streaming platform, although you can pay for the membership on YouTube too and gain access to the same content plus they don't just post D&d stuff they have so much comedy shows but I digress I'll shut tf up about Dropout this isn't a dropout pitch).

If you understandably don't want to pay, I also listen to Not Another D&D Podcast on Spotify, they have, again, hundreds of hours of content lol but starting from the very beginning is great because one of their players is new as well, so you're learning the ropes alongside him. They are very funny (in a super stupid crass way lol) and is probably one of my favorites, the chemistry between the players is just top tier.

D&D adaptations also are a good stepping stone - the new Dungeons and Dragons movie with Chris Pine captures the feeling of a session with the long planning and silly side quests and a big boss battle etc. There's a TV show called The Legend of Vox Machina which is adapted from a different D&D group called Critical Role (I have not watched any of their campaigns, they usually run over 4 hours 😭) but I really enjoy the TV show and it again gives you a good sense of how characters work. Lastly, Fantasy High (yes the one I was yapping abt earlier) has a webtoon comic adaptation so if you don't have time for the long ass episodes, you can check that out as well!

Sorry this got so long. I rarely watch TV shows anymore, D&D media has truly consumed my soul lmfao.

[misc-obeyme]

"you and mammon are clearly made for each other" 🥹 🥹 excuse me while i go sob, that's so sweet

I really should start writing! I keep daydreaming scenes and the whole thing plays out in my head, but I never put it to paper. It's just rattling around (also I saw a tiktok saying that not everything you draw has to be with the intention of becoming a finished piece, and I've been having SO MUCH FUN sketching today.)

Like today, I got a tiktok about Orpheus and eurydice that really stuck with me. And there's the whole debate of whether or not you'd turn around if you were in their shoes. And I was imagining the brothers reaction to it, and probably some of them saying they could make it with ease if it was for MC (i think Mammon and Lucifer would argue they could, and maybe Satan or Beel would be the one to say they might turn around)

"Do y'all really think you could make it? His love for her was his reason and his undoing."

"C'mon! It can't be that hard, right? Ya just gotta follow the Great Mammon, I'd lead ya outta danger easy peasy! No turning back required."

"But think about it, Mammon. Can you? Could you hear me behind you, and never feel torn by wanting to take a peek? Could you trust that I'd follow you anywhere? You know you can, you know that I would, but you would still want to see for yourself. The anxiety would be eating me away."

"But it means both of us getting out if I don't peek! If it was for you, I'm sure I could do it... I just have to keep going. Ain't it that simple?"

"Honestly, if I was in his shoes, and I heard you speak my name, I'd have to drop to my knees to resist what's now become second nature. And even then, I'm not sure I'd make it. I would turn around, I would need to make sure you're okay...Think about it, Orpheus loved her too much, so he turned. I would turn around if it was you behind me-... *Coughs* Uh, anyway... That's how I see it..."

"...Did you just-" -Satan

"WOW WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE TIME, I THINK I FORGOT SOME HOMEWORK, NIGHT GUYS!"

"it's 5:00 pm??" - Mammon, who is trying to figure out wtf happened and why i ran off

and this is how i would be accidentally confessing i was in love with mammon. because god knows i would deny my feelings to hell and back in the beginning!! (I'm pretty sure I'm ALSO a tsundere unfortunately 😭)

anyway, who do you think would/wouldn't turn around? do you think Barbatos would? Solomon?

- ✨ anon

Yo, I'm just calling it like I see it!

I just find that it helps to get the ideas out somehow! That could be writing or drawing or whatever you like! I think most creating is like that, too - you can do a lot without necessarily having to completely finish it! I'm glad you've been sketching a bunch!

BAH that is the CUTEST confession ever???

Especially if he doesn't get it lolol classic Mammon right there.

Oh NO two tsunderes falling for each other!?! It's okay, slow burns are great lol. Though it'd be one of those situations where everybody else is fully aware that you're both in love with each other and they're just like siiiigh these two. That's so cute, though!

Let's see, who would turn?

I don't think Barbatos would. I think part of what caused Orpheus to turn around was that he didn't believe Eurydice was actually behind him. He didn't trust the gods and like... who can blame him? Greek gods do all kinds of crazy shit all the time.

But Barbatos? He'd know. He'd know somehow if MC was behind him. Not only that, but there's no way anybody would trick him. I think if they did, they'd unlock Murderous Barb in two seconds flat and I'm convinced that guy could kill a god if he wanted to. He's a very patient demon, but he won't stand being tricked over something like that. You do that, you forfeit your life. Possibly being dragged to the infamous dungeon even.

It'd be harder for Solomon. He just doesn't have the same kind of all-knowing master of time nonsense that Barb has. I feel like he'd be more on par with Orpheus, if older and wiser due to the whole immortality thing.

To be honest, I kinda see Solomon being the one to do the tricking. Like I don't think he'd just accept a deal like that. I don't think he'd trust it. So he'd either try to negotiate for something he does feel okay with or he'd use his magic to somehow hold the god accountable. (Not sure if it'd actually be Hades in this scenario since we're talking about the Underworld... wouldn't it be interesting if it was Diavolo????? OMG that would change my Barb answer lol. But let's assume it isn't him, but some other entity of Death or something.) I just think Solomon would be more likely to use his magic to guarantee that things go the way he would want them to.

If for some reason he couldn't do any of that, though, and it just came down to him having to walk out of the Underworld without turning around... I think he could do it. I think it'd be really hard for him. But I think he could do it. Especially if MC was still really young when they died.

MAN. That's tragic. Good thing this isn't something all our fools would have to do can you imagine???

[saiilorstars]

Ch. 38: The Bitter War

Fandom: Harry Potter (Hogwarts years 1-7) Pairing: Draco x OFC

taglist:@ocappreciationtag @arrthurpendragon  @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @foxesandmagic @kmc1989 @caplanbuckybarnes

​​​​Story Masterlist // Romina’s Masterlist

Fanfic • Ao3 • Wattpad

If you’d like to be a part of this OC’s work/edits, let me know

Romina and Arden had just come up the dungeons stairs to head for breakfast when they heard the high-pitched voice of Pansy Parkinson calling after them.

Arden sighed wearily. "It's too early to deal with her."

Romina waved her off, assuring her it would be fine, as she turned around to face Pansy. "Morning, Parkinson," she greeted with a sweet smile. "Sleep well?"

"You switched rooms!" Pansy got straight to business. "You and King switched with the Carrol twins!"

"Good job, Pansy," Arden said slowly, and clapped for the girl. "You figured it out!"

"I'm telling Snape," Pansy said with a smug smirk. "What a perfect way to start the school year! Both of you in detention."

"You can go ahead and tell him but it's not going to do anything," Romina shrugged her shoulders. "See, I read up on the rules with the help of my friend Hermione, and nowhere is it listed that students can't switch dorms. The only rule is that all boys and girls must sleep in separate dorms. Which we are. Aren't we, Arden?"

"Oh yeah," Arden nodded. "Carolinha and Daphne are quiet sleepers, unlike you and Millicent. And the twins had no problem switching with us either, so..."

Pansy was unconvinced. "You're making it up! I'm still telling Snape!"

"Go for it, I'm sure he would love to be bothered by something as petty—and rule abiding—as dorm switching." Romina patted Pansy's shoulder. "You were right, this is the perfect way to start the school year." Whatever trace of the sweet smile Romina had vanished. "Because I learned my lesson, Parkinson. I am not taking your bullshit anymore. Sure, you might get under my skin every once in a while but I'll be damned if I let you ridicule me in front of the school again."

Pansy couldn't fume any more than she already was. "We'll see," she said as a last resort to keep her standing...somewhat.

"Goodbye!" Romina waved and turned with Arden, both striding off for the Great Hall.

"How great did that feel?" Arden asked Romina as they headed for their table.

"So good!" Romina laughed.

When the two girls finally reached their table, they noticed that the Durmstrang boys had for some reason chosen their table as their permanent choice for the rest of the year.

"Not that it's much of a sacrifice, you know," Daphne said with a dreamy sigh, her spoon making languid circles in her porridge bowl.

"Ditto," Arden said, her eyebrows raised as she "studied" one of the Durmstrang boys closest to them.

"I kinda wish the Beauxbatons had been here, honestly," Romina said, surprising the girls. "They look more approachable."

"Really? You'd rather them after dinner last night?" Carolinha mused. "You weren't exactly approachable either."

Romina knew exactly what they were talking about and preferred to shove a spoonful of porridge into her mouth.

"Can't help but notice you're short one charmed headband," Arden said, humming innocently.

"You'll be one mouth short if you keep talking," Romina muttered. She had practically threatened Draco with what he would die of if he didn't take the headband back last night. "I meant because my grandmother went to Beauxbatons Academy. I'd like to start picking up on my French side, you know. Besides, these boys were idiots last night anyways."

"She's got a point there," Carolinha said, glancing towards the entrance to see her brother coming in along with Draco, Theodore and Blaise. "I bet they're missing like half the brain, you know?"

They snickered until they were joined by those missing half their brains.

"What's so funny?" Angel eyed his sister curiously as he slid in beside her.

"Oh, nothing," Carolinha waved him off. "Just talking."

"Oswell," Draco regarded as he sat down opposite her next to Carolinha.

"Morning," Romina greeted then, because he had given her an odd look for that greeting, she added, "I'm mad, not rude. I can be civil."

"They're still here," Blaise remarked when he saw the Durmstrang boys at the edge of their table.

"What? Were you wishing for the Beauxbatons too?" Daphne called. "Can always try to go find a spot at the Ravenclaws' table."

As they had breakfast, the owls poured into the room. Romina was surprised when she had an owl that didn't belong to her. It wasn't a stranger, however. She took the folded letter from the warm brown owl with a soft 'thanks' and started opening it.

"Who's that from?" Daphne startled Romina. She was leaning on Romina to see the letter.

"God—Daphne! Could you be a little nosier!?" Romina shifted slightly. Daphne shrugged and continued to eat breakfast.

"Anything good?" Arden asked Romina once she skimmed the letter.

"It's from my grandmother," Romina smiled broadly, clearing her throat to read (to the best of her ability):

'Ma douce Romina, I am ecstatic to know that Hogwarts will be playing host to the Beauxbaton Academy. Madam Maxime was an incredible headmistress during my time. Superbe. I have already written to her about mes petits-enfants who attend Hogwarts. Say bonjour to her for me, please! And also take care. We are aware of how dangerous the Tri-wizard tournament can be so please, don't attempt to go around the rules to enter.

Take care,

Grand-mère Abigail.

P.S. Do not worry about your dress robes, I have already spoken to your aunt and uncle about it. I will send them to you later in the year, along with Rolf's.

"No way—the Abigail Gejel wrote to you!?" Daphne snatched the parchment out of Romina's hands, leaving her stunned in place for a second. "You're so lucky, Romina!"

Romina snapped out of her moment to snatch her letter back. "It's Abigail Scamander, for your information! Gejel is her maiden name! And she's my grandmother, of course she would write to me! Though…" she gave the letter another perusing, "I don't really understand what she meant by 'dress robes'."

"You could have just asked," Draco said, "But you're too stubborn."

"Oh, not this again!" She frowned. "If you're just dying to tell me, go for it!"

"No, no, you're upset." He raised his hands in front of him. "But it must be getting annoying that everyone knows what's going on except for you."

"I still don't know," Arden reminded him.

He looked at her as if he was considering telling her just to spite Romina. At the last moment, however, he decided against it. "And if anybody else decides to spill—Angel—" he made a point of stating the brunette's name, "—you'll take it up with me."

Angel sighed. "Come off it, Malfoy. Don't you think it's going too far?"

"Not at all," Draco said plainly, He pointedly ignored Romina's flaming glare on him. "If it's the game Oswell wants to play, then game on."

"Oh God, not another competition," Arden shook her head. "You guys are way too competitive, you know that?"

"Fine," Romina decided, pushing herself up from her seat to leave. She'd lost most of her appetite anyways. "Just remember, we still have Care of Magical Creatures class together and I've learned a few things about creatures this summer from the expert, aka my grandfather Newt Scamander. Look him up."

Unfazed, Draco responded, "Yeah, and we're still Potions partners. I'd watch what you touch."

"Unbelievable," Arden mumbled to the others. They were more startled than anything else. Where did the sudden drive to be competitive with each other come from?

~ 0 ~

Romina was very much disappointed to find out Hermione dropped Muggle Studies. It left the little trio that she, Hermione and Rolf had created in the class as a duo instead.

"I don't blame her, though, I thought she was taking a workload," Rolf remarked in a quiet whisper during class. "I don't know how she managed to handle all of her classes."

"You don't even want to know," Romina said, eyebrows raised at the reminder of all the classes Hermione had been taking the previous year. She was glad that Hermione was de-stressing this year with the normal amount of classes.

"So did you get a letter from grandma too?" asked Rolf, ducking his head suddenly when the professor happened to look their way.

"The one where she said we should talk to Maxime? Yeah. Are you going to do it?"

Rolf's snort was answer enough. "What do I have to talk about with that woman? Not like my interests are going to match with hers."

Romina had to cover her mouth before her giggles became too loud. Sitting in the back didn't always shield them from getting caught.

"Are you going to talk to her?" Rolf asked a moment later. The professor had started talking about their plans for the first term, something about a project.

"Dunno," Romina shrugged. "I'm actually a little afraid that she'll know more about grandma than I will, and of course she will."

"That's not your fault, Romina," Rolf reminded, sending his cousin a soft smile. "And the important part is that you're with us now."

"But still, what if she asks me stuff and I have to tell her who I am—my name."

"Romina, when are you going to drop the stuff with your name?"

Romina pursed her lips. "It's a work in progress, trust me."

"Fair enough. Talk to her if you'd like, but grandma Abby won't be mad if you don't do it."

That, Romina knew was true. She focused on the class, the first time since it began, in hopes of calming her nerves. There were plenty of things to think about suddenly, and not all were good.

"Alright," the professor said, clapping her hands together, "This project—does anybody have any suggestions or—"

Romina's hand shot up in the air, so fast that she almost left her chair in the process. "Oh I do! I do! Professor—I've got ideas!"

Rolf looked at his cousin, deadpanning her, "Maybe it won't feel like Hermione really left the class..."

Romina's head snapped in his direction, brows furrowed and lips curled into a frown.

~ 0 ~

"Bubotubers," Professor Sprout announced to the fourth years as soon as class began. She was so excited which deeply contrasted the rest of the class when she said they would be squeezing to extract pus.

Carolinha's nose crinkled at the plants in front of her and Romina. On the other side of the table, Arden and Angel were looking more or less the same. Daphne was already refusing to do such a thing.

"These things are already so ugly, you're telling me they have pus inside them?" Carolinha could've whined if Pansy hadn't beaten her to it.

"Ew! I don't want to touch them, much less squeeze them!" she exclaimed.

Romina hated that she actually agreed with Pansy. The plants were gross, for a lack of a better word. They were thick, black and kind of sluggy. Each time they squirmed, they gave sight of their shiny swellings that were indeed full of liquid.

"The pus is extremely valuable so don't waste," Sprout warned them, "You'll collect it in those bottles in front of you. Wear you dragon-hide gloves, please. It can do funny things to the skin when undiluted."

"How is this not a crime?" Romina blurted, causing a streak of snickers amongst the others.

Sprout was one of the most lenient professors, definitely light-hearted with her own humor, so she cracked a smile. "Miss Oswell, there are worse things to do, trust me."

"Yes, but...couldn't we just learn, I don't know, the theoretical side of it?"

Sprout chuckled. "You can always write me an essay to turn in by the next class time. Is that appealing?"

Romina shook her head. "No, not really."

"Grab your gloves, Miss Oswell."

"Yes, ma'am." Romina dejectedly reached for her gloves and met Arden's snickering face. "Shut up, Arden."

"At least she tried getting us out of this," Angel shuddered as he slipped the gloves on.

"Ready, Carol?" Romina checked on the squeaking brunette beside her. Carolinha looked ready to pass out as she watched Daphne and Theodore squeeze the pus out of their plant. Romina sighed. "Guess not."

Her gaze fell on Arden and Angel who were having enough trouble finding their balance. Romina loved Arden but she was too brusque sometimes and that simply wasn't in Angel's character.

"Arden, not so hard!"

"Just hold the dang bottle!"

Romina laughed shortly and only because a stream of pus squirted right past her face. Startled, she stumbled back a step with wide blinking eyes.

"Oh my God!" Carolinha screeched when the pus splattered on the table in front of her.

"Oops," Pansy said, smiling far too sweetly for anybody to believe her.

Romina's surprise immediately vanished to be replaced with anger. "Parkinson!"

"It was an accident," Pansy said, raising her gloved hands. "Isn't that right Millicent?"

"Course," Millicent nodded.

"Don't get upset, Oswell, she was just getting a headstart for you," Draco remarked. He seemed to be doing good on his plant, though Romina wondered how long it would last since Crabb's hands were massive for the little bottle.

Romina scowled. "Siding with Parkinson now? Why am I not surprised?"

Pansy certainly was and she basked in it. Her heavy giggles were irritating enough, but to handle that for the rest of the class period? That was just cruel.

"Romina—eek!—could you not squeeze so hard?" Carolinha squeaked when some of the pus landed near her foot.

Romina was gripping the poor plant between her gloved hands. "I'm—agh!—not!" She groaned. She was also definitely not listening to Pansy gushing over whatever the hell Draco was doing either. Her back was to them for the very same reason.

"I'm actually concerned for the plant at this point," Arden said.

"Shut up!" Romina promptly snapped and squeezed the plant at the same time.

Carolinha whimpered. "R-Romina, how about we switch places? Angel—you want to take my place?"

Angel shook his head. "No, no, I'm good this time around."

Arden snorted. "Wuss." Later on, she would offer Carolinha to switch places. She had a better handle on Romina anyways.

When class was over, Romina, not quite discreetly, chucked her gloves in Pansy's direction. When Pansy shrieked, Romina sent her the same sweet smile Pansy had before. "Oops, honest mistake."

Arden quickly got Romina out of there before Pansy decided to retaliate. Neither girl should be anywhere near dangerous undiluted Bubotuber pus.

~ 0 ~

For some reason, the professors of that day had decided to start out with odd and potentially scary creatures for the first lessons. For Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid had chosen Blast-Ended Skrewts.

"Why does everything have slime today!?" Romina shuddered. She stared at the lobster-like creatures in the cages. They didn't have the shells, though, which took away a good part of the lobster-esque appearance. The legs sprouting from every angle and the lack of head also helped with that.

"And it smells bad too," Arden said, her nose scrunched.

"What did you guys do today?" Harry sent the pair of girls bemused looks.

"What, you mean Herbology wasn't enough for you today?" Romina said, still shuddering from the ungodly amount of pus they had seen.

Harry chuckled. "Yeah, it was funny watching Ron squeeze it out. But why are you in such a foul mood today?"

"Oh, don't get her started, Harry, please," Arden said quickly and ushered them forwards.

Hermione was calling for Hagrid ahead of them. "What are we waiting for, Hagrid?"

"For the rest of the class o' course!" Hagrid exclaimed. His eyes swept over the Gryffindor class and Romina and Arden. "Yo'r early!"

"No, Carolinha refused to go anywhere without changing first," Arden said. "And then went double for Daphne."

"Um, excuse me?" they heard Angel's call. The rest of the class was finally arriving. "Professor, what are those?" Angel pointed a finger at the cages.

Hagrid was happy to repeat and finally begin the lesson. "On'y jus' hatched! So yeh'll be able ter raise 'em yourselves! Though we'd make a bit of a project of it!"

"And why on Earth would we want to raise them?" demanded Draco from behind. He was just as disgusted as the rest of the class.

Romina sighed beside Arden. At Arden's glance, Romina confided a secret. "I hate that I agree with him." Arden shook her head but smiled silently. The creatures weren't appealing in the slightest.

"I mean, what do they do? What is the point of them?" Draco insisted.

"Tha's next lesson, Malfoy!" Hagrid said, "Yer jus' feedin' 'em today! Yeh'll wan' ter try 'em on a few diff'rent things! I've never had 'em before, not sure what they'll go fer—I got ant eggs an' frog livers an' a bit o' grass snake. Just try 'em out with a bit of each."

"Why?" Pansy groaned.

"Oh just pipe down and do it, Parkinson!" Arden snapped. She had no desire to do it but if Pansy hated it then she would gladly do it.

"They're just creatures, guys," Rolf said. He was about the only one out of the entire class eager to discover what the creatures would like to eat. "Don't hurt 'em and they won't hurt you."

"Rom, tell your cousin we still don't want to do it," Harry stepped beside Romina. She chuckled.

"I don't think he'll listen to my words right now. This is nothing compared to what our grandfather has told us."

"Would you like to take it first, then?" Harry stepped back purposely, gesturing towards the cages. Rolf was already reaching inside the cages to take out a skrewt.

Romina scrunched her face. "Not really. I vote we let Ron go first."

"What!?" screeched the redhead. "I don't want to do it!"

Hermione tutted at them. "C'mon, Hagrid looks really excited. We don't want to disappoint."

Indeed Hagrid did look very excited. He watched as each of his students took a skrewt out of the cage and attempted to feed them.

Dean Thomas yelped at one point, angrily waving his burned thumb. "Its end exploded!"

"Ah yea, that can happen when they blast off," Hagrid said. Behind him, Angel and Arden exchanged wide eyed glances then took a careful step away from their skrewts.

"Eurgh, Hagrid, what's that pointy thing on it?" Lavender Brown asked, sounding far too much like Pansy at that moment. Romina almost felt sorry for even thinking about it.

"Ah, some of 'em have got stings," Hagrid explained rather excitedly, "I reckon they're the males. The females've got sorta sucker things on their bellies. I think they might be ter suck blood."

"Well, I can certainly see why we're trying to keep them alive," Draco said with a loud huff to attract several gazes, including Romina's, "Who wouldn't want pets that can burn, sting and bite all at once?"

"Gonna call your father to have them killed too?" Romina snapped. Beside her, Harry was really wishing that, for once, nobody said anything to Draco. He didn't want to see Hagrid carrying yet more bad weight because of Draco.

Draco gave a bob of his head. "Wouldn't be a bad idea."

"Right," Romina rolled her eyes, "Cos you and your dad agree on everything, don't you? Such hard headed people."

Draco snorted at her. "And you're stubborn."

"That's the same thing, genius!"

Harry felt a light tug on his arm and found Arden standing some inches behind him. She made a motion for him to scoot back with her.

"That's been going all day," she informed him, discreetly pointing over to Romina and Draco who, in their bickering, had taken several steps towards each other.

"I've never seen Rom so animated, so...big on hating…" Harry remarked. Part of him was guilty for feeling relief. It wasn't very long ago that he had stupidly asked Romina if there was ever anything between her and Malfoy. Stupid indeed. "What's she so mad about anyways?"

"Oh no, I'm not getting into that." Arden raised her hands in front of her. "Rom would kill me. You can ask Hermione though. She probably already figured it out."

Harry's brow furrowed. "Hermione?" He frowned. What could Hermione possibly know that happened between Romina and Draco?

~ 0 ~

"Romina, what is that?" Carolinha had noticed the oddly shaped box peeking out from under Romina's bed. She and Daphne had been watching their newest roommates finish unpacking and settling in their dormitory.

Romina stopped rummaging through her small accessory box to see what Carolinha was pointing at. "Huh? Oh, that's my violin case!"

"You brought that here?" Arden snorted from her bed. She slammed her trunk shut and walked over to Romina to see for herself.

"Yeah, I figured I might have some time to practice," Romina shrugged. "Plus, it was getting kinda dusty back home. I don't want it to stop working because I don't use it."

"You actually play that?" Daphne crawled to the foot of her bed to get a better look at the box.

Romina stepped back and bent down to pull the box out completely. "Of course. One of my more calm habits." She unblocked the box and popped it open to reveal a deep mahogany violin. "Keeps me relaxed."

"Looks pretty," Carolinha remarked. "I've seen those be played but I think I wouldn't get it. I'm too impatient for that kind of stuff."

"Same—I'd rather see someone else play it," Daphne said.

"Maybe you could play something later," Arden suggested, clapping a hand over Romina's shoulder.

"What?" Romina laughed, her face flushed with embarrassment. "No, no, nobody wants to hear—"

"We do!" Carolinha and Daphne said, both of them even raising a hand high in the air.

Arden held a thumbs up at them. "The lake seems like a good place!"

"You guys really want to hear me?" Romina made a face. "I'm not...I mean I've learned it the muggle way, remember?"

"So?" Carolinha and Daphne asked.

"Stop doing that," Romina pointed at the pair. "And what I mean is, all the songs that I know, the tunes—it's from muggles. As in classical muggle music, pop muggle music...all that stuff."

"Then it'll make things more interesting," Carolinha shrugged, "Angel and I have never heard muggle music before."

"Well, alright, I guess. When we have free time, then," Romina said. She closed the lid and locked it.

"Locking it?" Arden snorted as she headed back to her bed. "Afraid I'll go picking it or something?"

"Not you, Pansy," Romina said ever so casually, and it was. She'd come back to school with the mentality that she should never be surprised with anything that Pansy does. She shouldn't underestimate Pansy at all.

"But she's in a different dorm," Carolinha said, "You really think she'd come picking through your stuff all the way here?"

This time, both Romina and Arden snorted.

"You have met Pansy Parkinson, right?" Arden asked, flopping down on her bed. "She already did it once."

"She's not that bad…" Daphne said, keeping true to her mediator kind of ways.

"Have you forgotten everything she did last year to Rom?" Arden pointed over to Romina who'd taken a seat on her bed again. She still had one last small box to go through before she was officially done unpacking.

"Of course not," Daphne puffed. "I just don't like the constant arguing between people I know. And I've known Pansy my whole life. She's never acted like that with anyone, I swear."

"Then I must be exceptionally special in her eyes," Romina said bitterly. Heavy silence fell in the room. Romina made herself busy with her last accessories but there was no doubt that she was thinking about the series of troubles she'd gone through because of Pansy.

"Why don't we go get dinner?" asked Arden, feeling like the silence was just growing more and more uncomfortable. "I'm sure that Angel's saving us seats. Rom?"

Romina nodded. She put a planet-shaped pin in her hair to keep it off her face. She then slipped her box under her bed as well and followed the girls out of the dorm.

"What do you guys think we're going to do for Transfiguration this year?" Daphne asked on their way up to the main corridor. "I heard McGonagall is going to go all out for our O.W.L.'s"

"What?" Arden scrunched her face. "But we won't take those until next year!"

"But we should still start preparing early," Romina said, prompting Arden to scoff.

"Oh please, you're like a genius in that class so you'll be totally fine!"

Their entry to the Great Hall would take a bit longer than they had anticipated. There was a great big crowd right outside of the entrance and in the center was the whole reason why. Draco had the latest Daily Prophet in his position and it apparently featured Ron's father. Ron, Harry and Hermione were amongst the group listening.

Mr. Weasley had apparently ensued a fight with the muggle policemen, resulting in the several modified memories to cover up what Mad-Eye-Moody had swore was a true emergency. It was all a false alarm and it'd basically blown up in their faces.

"Well that's just terrible," Arden mumbled to the girls, "Why aren't they bothering Mad-Eye Moody about this? He's the one who raised the alarm, after all."

"Doesn't matter, Rita Skeeter always looks for a story to tell even if it's from the wrong angle," Daphne remarked.

"Who's Rita Skeeter?" Arden asked.

"The worst reporter in the wizarding world," Carolinha sighed. "She's a liar, manipulative, and unfortunately for some reason, people still hang onto her every word."

"Not much of a mystery why," Romina muttered. "People thrive on rumors."

"This looks bad..." Carolinha said as the tension ahead grew worse.

"MOVE IT!" Romina's sudden roar had most of the crowd flinching, all except for Arden and Harry who'd heard it many times before. "GO!" The crowd started rushing inside the Great Hall, most of them anyways. Romina pushed her way through the remaining people, including Harry. "You just couldn't help yourself, could you?" She stopped in front of Draco.

"Hey, I just read what was on the article," he said, raising his hands in defense. Behind them, they heard Ron snort and mutter 'Fat chance!'.

Romina snatched the paper from him, rolling it up fast to then smack him over the head with it. "You're not actually dumb but I guess today you're striving to prove me wrong!"

Draco was momentarily stunned, his eyes wide. "Did you just…?" Romina raised an eyebrow at him, confirming his unfinished question. "You're off your rocker, Oswell!" He huffed, snatching the rolled up paper from her.

"Not as much as you are! Rita Skeeter of all people? Seriously?" Romina pushed past him into the Great Hall. She wasn't very hungry anymore but it beat staying where she was. She went directly for the Slytherins' table and plopped down beside Angel, startling him in the process.

"Uh, hey Romina," he greeted kindly as was his usual style, "You okay?"

"Peachy." Romina started grabbing different meals, though her hand stopped halfway to a bowl with something creamy inside. "Is that fish stew?"

"Yeah, the Beauxbatons are already eyeing it," Angel said, making a nod towards the Ravenclaw table. Several blue robed students were glancing their way. "I'm just waiting for them to come get the thing. It stinks."

Romina agreed. She gathered more things on her plate and began eating at once. Little by little, the rest of their group started joining them. From the corner of her eye, Romina saw Draco take a seat further down the table with Crabb, Goyle and (unfortunately) Pansy.

That's fine. She met Arden's face which was smiling for some reason. "What?"

"You smacked Draco Malfoy in public with a rolled up Daily Prophet and got away with it."

Angel nearly choked on his pumpkin juice. "You did what?"

"Ron sends his eternal gratitude," Arden went on, reaching for some mashed potatoes, "I think he'll be building you a shrine now."

They all laughed.

"You need to control your temper before you get into actual trouble, though," Daphne warned, "Draco has his own temper too and you know what he's like with Harry. I wouldn't want to see that become your problem too."

"Oh, he's not doing that with me," Romina said with absolute certainty.

Angel eyed her curiously. "And how do you know?"

Romina stopped to think. She didn't know why she said it so surely but she just knew. Maybe it was their past coming into play. "I just...do," she said, shrugging her shoulders.

"Well, maybe it's not him you need to worry about," Carolinha said, earning Romina's strange glance. "Pansy's giving you the stink eye."

Romina looked past Carolinha down the table to meet Pansy's death glare. No doubt she'd learned about the incident. "They're a bit cozy," she remarked suddenly.

"She's a piranha looking for opportunities and you're handing them to her on a silver platter," Arden said.

Romina snorted. "Bloody how?"

For her own safety, Arden kept quiet and switched topics instead.

~ 0 ~

Later in the week, Romina managed to find some time alone with Harry to talk. They'd been slightly missing each other in school for whatever reason, even when they shared some of their classes. They walked along the bridge in the afternoon.

"Is Ron's Dad really okay, though?" Romina was wondering. She didn't have the nerve to ask Ron directly. After the fiasco with the article, Romina assumed he wanted to forget and move on.

"Yeah, yeah, just a big misunderstanding," Harry said. Like Romina, he didn't really discuss the matter with Ron.

"Arden made a good point, she said why wasn't Moody getting his spotlight for starting the problem in the first place."

Harry half smiled. That sounded like Arden. "I don't think the Ministry wants to further the issue. They want whatever that woman wrote to die along with the problem."

"Makes sense," Romina shrugged. "Kinda like Hollywood, huh?"

Harry laughed. "Yeah, like that." He side-glanced Romina with another smile. "I missed you, you know."

"I know, me too," she sighed. "I thought we were going to be able to hang out during summer but I guess that didn't happen much, right?"

Harry shook his head. "You got a new family and...I got the Dursleys'."

Romina patted his shoulders. "You are always welcome to move in with me."

Harry laughed at the idea. "That ought to give your aunt and uncle a heart attack or something."

"At the very least, it would take some of the attention off of me," Romina said, bringing a hand to her chest. "Because after the World Cup incident, they watched me like a hawk. Speaking of, how are we doing with you and your scar?"

Harry shrugged. "Hasn't hurt anymore."

"And did you actually write to Sirius?"

"I did…"

Romina stopped walking to eye her friend suspiciously. "Why am I getting the feeling there's a 'but' coming?" Harry pursed his lips and turned his head away. Romina swore he mumbled something else. "What was that?"

With a sigh, Harry repeated himself and louder. "I may have written a second letter telling him I made a mistake and my scar hadn't really hurt."

Romina's eyes widened. "Harry Potter!"

"I had to, Rom! He was flying north to be near me!"

"So!?"

"So?" Harry frowned. "Did you forget that the Ministry is still looking for him? I don't want him to get caught because he was trying to be near me! It doesn't even matter though, he didn't believe me."

"Good," Romina said, ignoring his incredulous face. "He's learned who you are, that'll be good for the future."

"Romima!"

Romina shook her head. "Harry, I'm really sorry for how this is going to sound but...Sirius is the only adult in your family who actually cares for you!" She winced at her own words. That really did sound terrible. It was even more terrible that it was true. "Please don't under-appreciate the fact."

"I'm not, I'm really not," promised Harry. "I know my reality and that's why I didn't want Sirius coming anywhere near here."

"But he is and the best thing you can do, the fair thing, is to be honest with him."

Harry gave a small nod of his head. "Yeah, I know. Don't really have much of a choice, do I? Seeing as he didn't even believe me anyways."

Romina laughed. "He knows you enough."

"C'mon, we should get going. We have our first session of potions today." Harry reluctantly turned back, and so did Romina. "It should be interesting with Snape given how sure he is that I helped Sirius escape."

"Harry, you did help him escape," Romina reminded him.

"Ha, ha," Harry bobbed his head. "So did you. I wonder what your head of House would say about it?"

"Hasn't said anything about it, actually."

Harry snorted. "Wonder why, Slytherin. You know you guys are immune to his wrath."

Romina chuckled. "C'mon Harry, neither of us will be immune if we're late! Let's go!" She grabbed his arm and pulled him back towards the castle.

~0~

Upon entering Snape's class, the professor immediately threw a hard look in Harry's direction. Harry was sure that both Ron and Hermione had received the same looks too.

"Coming to sit with us, then?" Harry mumbled to Romina as they took slow steps towards the seats. They'd managed to get to class with minutes to spare.

"To be frank, I'm not sure," Romina said, eyes falling on the empty seat beside Draco. Harry recognized the look on her face; she was calculating.

"Rom? C'mon," Harry pulled her arm forwards, "He's not worth it." As much as he would love to see to what extent Romina could get away with in the eyes of her head of House, he would rather not see it happen because of Malfoy.

Romina easily got out of Harry's grip. "Give me a second, I want to see something." She stopped walking altogether, forcing Harry to stop as well.

"See what?" Harry dreaded to know. Romina half smirked as she backtracked. Harry sighed. Romina was kind until someone poked her wrong side, then she was mischievous. He genuinely worried for her. "Rom, he can hurt you," he hissed.

Romina's expression was a clear indication of what she believed. "He's not going to hurt me," she waved him off. She turned on her heels and walked back to what used to be (or, depending on the situation, what could still be) her seat.

Whether or not Draco had been watching wasn't clear for her. He was scribbling over a piece of parchment. "Gotta say, thought you'd take a seat beside Potter. Or Angel for that matter."

"What? So my seat is still open then?" Romina looked around the classroom. "I thought you'd be saving it for Parkinson." Pansy had yet to show up to the class.

Draco snorted. He finally put down his things and looked up at her, his expression sour. "She's terrible at Potions. I'm not sacrificing my grades for her."

Romina's eyebrows raised. "Mm, so that means you're willing to do other stuff for her."

"Why's that any concern to you? Last time I heard, Angel's willing to do a lot for you. You know he's not talking to me because of you?"

"How is that my fault?"

"Really?" Draco tilted his head at her. Romina rolled her eyes and sat down beside him. "When are you finally going to tell him to get lost?"

"I'm not talking about that with you," she promptly said, eyes looking directly ahead. She could feel Harry's eyes burning on her. Clearly he didn't like where she'd chosen to sit.

When class finally started, Snape was even less than pleasant with the class. He left the assignment pretty early into the session, making it clear that he had very little faith they would be able to produce exactly what he asked for.

Romina put all her attention on the ingredients they needed and the best way to introduce them to the mixture.

"You're being ridiculous you know," Draco remarked halfway through class. Granted it had been a quiet remark so only they were in on the conversation.

Romina was looking over the passage of their concoction; she had very little interest in what it would even be in the end. "Me? Seriously?"

"Who's the one who's been violent?" Draco pointedly reminded her. "You've punched me and smacked me."

"I did not 'smack', I...lightly tapped." Romina flinched at Draco's hard snort.

"What? And I suppose the punch was a tap as well?"

"Mm, no, that was a punch." Romina looked up with a wide smile. "And you had that coming."

"Then I guess you have things coming too."

"What, you'll hit me back?"

"I don't 'hit', Oswell. That's beneath me. I have...other means of retaliation." Draco handed her the missing piece of her herb.

"What?" Romina took the herb into her fingers. "Couple jinxes?"

Draco shook his head. "No."

Romina rolled her eyes and dumped the piece into the cauldron. As soon as it landed, the contents gurgled and squirted against Romina's hand. She hissed at the contact, drawing her hand back and shaking it until the burning sensation died down. She met Draco's smirking, very pleased, face and immediately scowled. "You're a jerk!"

"I've heard worse," Draco shrugged.

Romina took in a deep breath. Yelling in Snape's class would automatically earn her detention, even if she was a Slytherin. And besides, being stuck in detention meant she couldn't possibly get Draco back. It was a lose, lose situation. She would hold her tongue for the rest of the class, but that didn't mean she let Draco go completely.

Maybe her elbow slipped on his side.

And, apparently, maybe his foot happened to be near her ankle when she got up.

With a growl, she slammed her book over his hand. (Snape may have yelled at Dean Thomas in front of them for that one).

"Maybe I will take Parkinson over you as a partner," Draco spat on their way out of class. "She's got to be less annoying than you at this point."

Romina scoffed. "Please. You just want someone who gushes at everything you do!"

"Potions is where I excel," he said smugly. The worst part was that he was right. He was a genius in Potions; Romina had always praised him for it. "It would be nice to hear someone give me credit."

"I'm sure she'll have no problem with that," Romina said with a huff and marched on.

~ 0 ~

When Hermione plopped down in the seat opposite to Romina in the library, the latter flinched but kept on writing. "You've got homework already?" Hermione asked quietly.

"That is why I'm in the library, Hermione," Romina replied in the same hushed tone. She looked up briefly to send a smile to the brunette. "That why you're here already? During dinner I should add."

Hermione bobbed her head. "Not...exactly. Let's just say I'm doing some research."

Romina chuckled very lightly. She couldn't afford another warning from Madame Pince. Arden had been with her earlier and they hadn't exactly been the quietest.

"What about you? You're here doing an essay during dinner?" Hermione asked curiously. "We didn't see you at your table."

"How could you—the Durmstrang kids are huge," Romina's remark caused a mutual snicker. "Girls and boys."

"Least you don't get the stink eye from the Beauxbatons, some of them are quite judgy," Hermione said, scrunching her face.

"Maybe it's cos they're older. They are 17, remember?"

Hermione shrugged. "Who knows. So, what's the essay you're working on?"

"Snape's," Romina muttered. "Liking him a little less today."

"Welcome to the club."

Romina half smiled. "Anyways, I'm almost done with it if you wanted help on whatever you're researching."

"You're not eating tonight, then?" Hermione asked, a look of concern crossing her face.

"Not very hungry." Romina reached for a book. "Besides, this essay's a little trickier than I thought. Ironic considering it's about the calming draught."

"What's that on your fingers?" Hermione's eyes had widened when she spotted the faint red tint on Romina's right hand fingers.

"Huh?" Romina followed Hermione's gaze to her hand. "Oh," she set her book down on the table, "Funny little trick from Draco in the last class. Gave me a bigger slice of an herb to put into the cauldron—that git. But it doesn't hurt. I'm sure it'll go away soon."

"That's terrible," Hermione said, reaching over for Romina's hand. "Romina, maybe you should drop it."

"Drop what?"

Hermione's expression sharpened. "I know what this is all about. I haven't told Harry or Ron, if you're wondering, but I can't just stand on the side knowing the whole reason you're going head to head with Draco is because of what he said about me. If anything, it's my battle and I'm not interested in fighting it so you shouldn't be either."

"No," Romina shook her head. "Hermione, it's not your fault."

"It is," Hermione bit on her bottom lip, "I'm afraid of what could happen if this escalates. It's all well for Harry, Ron and myself. We're not in the same House as Malfoy. We just go up to the Tower and we're done with him, but you? He could hurt you."

Romina groaned. "How many times do I have to say that he won't!?" She and Hermione both flinched when Madame Pince shushed them from her desk.

"How can you be so sure?" Hermione asked when the coast was clear.

"Because…" Romina shrugged several times as nothing else came to mind.

"Well?"

"Because I just know, okay? I just do."

Hermione wasn't sure whether to be concerned over the war she knew she helped start or rather be concerned over Romina's certainty.

A/N:

They are actual teenagers in this chapter I swear xD.

P.S. As always, I have Fanfic/Wattpad accounts under "noblecrescent" and a tumblr account under "saiilorstars" if you'd like to follow :)

[stillinthatweirdfaze]

I usually don’t make posts like this bc sharing hobbies and interests on the internet makes me very very anxious for whatever reason but I really really wanna share this issue of the Dragon magazine I found at the thrift store yesterday!!!!!!!!

25th anniversary edition of the official D&D magazine !!!!! It is issue 284 and it came out in June 2001. Unfortunately it did not come with the advertised bonus CD rom when I bought it though :[

I’m gonna use this post to show off some of the stuff that’s in it that I really liked or found interestingggg :]

First off we have a full spread add for baulders gate 2, which is kinda funny considering the third one didn’t come out that long ago. I want to eat this ye oldie early 2000ds generic fantasy font I bet it tastes like burnt shortbread.

A little step by step on how the artist made the cover which I find like. Infinitely charming. Especially since this cover itself is so gorgeous. I hope Todd Lockwood is doing good today.

A full page add for an online anime fantasy rpg called Nexus the kingdom of the winds. OUGGGGEEEEE this art style,,,,,,, it takes me back to places it takes me back to like that one vampire anime and clanad and YouTube anime top tens. Fuck graphic design we should start putting sparkles and radial gradients on everything again.

an add for a series of sound effect cds for your games which I want so so bad I need to know what’s on these.

Two little sections where it seems people can submit photos and stories about themselves or their game members to be published. The Dm of the month one is genuinely heartwarming and cute. The thought of Steve seeing that he won made me smile. Also “Nubile dwarf chicks” and “chaotic secretive” is a great example of how early 2000nds out of pocket this issue can be sometimes. You can fucking smell the energy off the second image.

An extremely funny review of a previous dragon issue.

an add for Gen con 2001 and a schedule of upcoming conventions. If anyone went to these I would genuinely love to hear about them I love convention history a whole lot especially from around this time

A page in, apparently a series, about what ttrpg players value in a game written by Gary Gygax!!! If anyone has any previous or the final issues of this study please do share I really really wanna see them. Also the three genders: males, females, and newbies

Two stat blocks for some half dragon characters

A Draconic to English translation table that I wish I had as a preteen because I would have eaten it the fuck up. Also I cut it off but the last sentence on the bottom right is “please don’t disembowel the dwarf” which apparently is “martiver thric gixustratt tundar”

Add for a brand of miniatures and in what stores to find them. I wonder how many of these places are still open

An add for WOTZ game stores with the tagline “it’s where you play the game” and advertising “Hella Bandwith” and “scantily clad BABES.” I find it unreasonably funny that they are three pictures of the same exact woman, scantily clad babe, one (1), one singular babe.

Spell and magical item themed crossword

A full on campaign setting of the real city of London. I didn’t take pictures of all of it but it has a history section, locations, npcs, adventure hooks, and what even looks like a little blank dungeon layout of a mansion . I feel like putting real places as campaign settings has always been like, a thing, but I don’t see it too often. Its charming I like it.

A stat block and gorgeous illustration for a lesser dragon companion. The gradient circle in the back is my favorite argggg I wanna draw like this sometimes

A section on how to assemble your own monster models. Admittedly I know close to nothing about model making so this was an extremely fun read for me

A bunch of PC portraits of half dragons that are so so cool. You see a lot of stuff about people getting really specific designs about different hybrids like oh a dwarf tyfling looks different than an elf tyfling n that sort of stuff in the modern day but you don’t really see it canonized at all. So it’s really interesting to see that concept in an officially published D&D thing, even if it’s just a magazine. I really like the dwarf one a lot.

Possibly my favorite thing ever is this cartoon that reads like a fucking wizard tumblr shitpost. Like down to a fucking tea this is some shit the evil wizard blog would say and it makes me so so so happyyyyyyyyy. It’s the cadence that amazes me they got the tumblr wizard cadence exactly right. Im posting this shit on its own without shame bc I need people to see it. Pour me something whimsical and arcane bar wench.

A absolutely chefs kiss add for a ????? Pc????? Pc game????? Pc accessory??? I honestly can’t tell anyway enjoy your free ps2 polygonal hotted woman ass

And finally the thing that made me fuckin gasp out loud when I saw it, an add for the original year of our lord 2001 shitty D&D movie with special features and online sweepstakes to win a trip to Prague. Holy shit. God I love this game.

anyway that’s it, I plan to frame this thing and put it up somewhere. Ty for reading all my nerd shit. :,]

[wiredtiresias]

This is an open journal entry. Just thinking my thoughts, and sharing in case someone benefits. I’m not, like, disavowing anyone or anything, not a callout post, or anything like that. It’s not at that level to me. I don’t hate any of those people, i continue to have a parasocial love for a number of them. I still have a subscription, and there’s shows I’ll probably keep watching. for now.

But gosh how fast the magic of dropout is fading for me. I always had critiques, but a few months ago, I still breathed dropout. D20 was my favorite show, period. Going back to previous seasons was an easy comfort. Now, it’s like, whatever, idk. Some of those stories are still close to my heart, but it’s not a cozy ride for me anymore.

There is a certain level of acceptance trans girls do for everything, where the world isn’t built for us, and we accept it. Almost all media isn’t for us, and we kind of turn off parts of ourselves to watch it comfortably. If we didn’t, we’d have, like, five books and ten web comics to read and no television.

It wasn’t until a bunch of girls on here turned themselves back on and complained that I had to look at how much empty air was in this pillow. How part of the reason I am so eager to see Evan Kelmp as a trans woman is because there are no trans women with lines in misfits and magic. Nor in most of the seasons. There’s been one (I think 3-4 of the questing queens are non-binary, but I don’t see anything anywhere that any of them call themselves women) at the table in d20 history.

And that wasn’t a huge problem! After all, we’re just one kind of person. One kind of person that’s like in the top 3 targets for fascists, but just one of the three (barring intersections of course…) Until we got a mis mag season 2, the show that is ostensibly a fuck you to terfism and a revision of some painful stuff for girls like me, and there’s even less tgirl content than last time (unless—no, stop it. Not now). And I was like “yeah, this is getting…uncomfortable.” And I know, they plan these things out in advance, pre-taped, but on the tails of this discourse, this discourse of “why are there more drag queens than trans girls on dropout?” we go…back to dungeons and dragons queens for a season 2. Like the best case scenario is they’re not listening. I hope they’re not listening. This isn’t some sort of response, I fucking hope it isn’t anyway.

And some people have come out of the woodwork to say weeeeird shit in the wake of trans women complaining about this. Misunderstanding people on purpose sometimes, in other cases just going full mask off to say trans women “just aren’t marketable,” like that’s not literally what the complaint is about, or that they just don’t exist in LA…or that there are only so few of us period.

Dropout is just some 2nd/3rd tier streaming service. They’ve always been pretty white, and pretty cis. They’re only so big, they can’t do everything, and they can’t do everything they do right. I know that. But they do talk a big game about doing it for all of us who no one else will do it for.

Except, not for me. Not for girls like us. Not really. I’m still watching, but I see that now. It’s just another thing that’s not really for us.

We’ve got some great stories about how fucking hard our lives are, but I have to…live one, so I’m still looking for stories where people coercively asssigned male get to play, experiment, laugh, feel safe, and end up or stay in transfemininity. No awful coming out, no isekai gender bender excuses, no undead/time travel psych torture, no Ranma Saotome gender Hokey Pokey. Stories about the joy of becoming or being yourself, and the magic of that, because it is magical, something that acknowledges that it’s hard, but isn’t about how it’s hard. Nice stuff for us.

My recs for that:

Yellow Brick Ramble, Daisy Finch McGuire (she has it rough at home but she leaves asap)

the one piece wano arc (good luck getting there), Eiichiro Oda

is it strange to feel dysphoric coming back from an isekai?, Squipkechi

I quit being a man, I got cancer so I decided to dress up as a woman and fall in love, Half-Me

She is convinced her half-brother is a girl, Mizukami Ice

And for the fembies, I cross-dressed for the irl meetup, Kurano I Want to Be a Cute Anime Girl, Azul Crescent

[oh-shtars]

You said you loved to get asks about your AU

Weeeeell I wanted to know, what are your plans for Amaya? What’s her deal? Her backstory? Her personality? Tell us about the queen 👀

I’ll be honest here Anny, I have NOT done her redesign yet and she’s a character I’m so frustrated with right now because I keep getting stuck on creating her- jdksjdjsks

But I have worked out her backstory! It’s just her role in the actual RFTS!storyline that’s bothering me 😭😭

Character Plans:

See, just as I’ve made Magnifico a parallel of Star, I’ve made Amaya a parallel to Asha. Whereas RFTS!Asha keeps her dreams and desires to herself because she’s insecure and afraid to take charge, Amaya is also just as highly ambitious but headstrong and ruthless.

I have Asha to represent how “To achieve great things and for people to believe in your lead, you need to be the person to believe in your capabilities first. To be brave enough to take a leap of faith.” Amaya is the opposite. She has her dreams and desires, but she’s willing to do whatever it takes to get her way. Even if she needs to crack a few eggs to get it. I wanted her to represent how “Pursuing your dreams is great, but at the expense of other people and dragging them down to get there, is a very shtty thing to do.”

Amaya has a passion for discovering and desires to learn everything there is to the world of magic around her. I did say she was just an eviler version of Zarina, didn’t I?

The thing is though, she is willing to sacrifice certain animals and “poor unfortunate souls” as fuel for her experiments. So umm, yeah. I wonder what happens to the people kept in the castle’s dungeon-

She believes the reason that most of the magic in the world is unknown and undiscovered is because people are holding themselves back because of “sympathy and feelings.” Amaya didn’t like that one bit, so her main hobby and goal is to keep digging out for more. Always hungry for more.

Bonus Facts:

- Unlike Magnifico, whose trauma has prevented him from effectively learning magic, Amaya is actually competent with magic usage without the use of any certain artefact. No staff or anything.

- She’s skilled at disguises and making up fake stories or lies on the spot that are easy to believe. (As a reference to previous Disney villains who used this tactic)

- Similar to Asha who has a sketchbook around with her, Amaya keeps a notebook that she keeps her notes in. (I guess this can be the substitute for the ‘forbidden book’ in the canon movie. lol)

- Amaya has a pet sphinx cat whom I decided to call ‘Espino’. It means ‘thorn’ in Spanish.

- While everyone else is just a tool for her to use, she does feel genuine love and concern for her husband when he does spiral into a PTSD episode. She’s had no one else in her life for a while now and Mag was the only one who ever understood her, so she’s willing to aid him whenever she can.

- She likes horse-back riding in the woods and does so often to relax or collect ingredients for her experiments

- She hates the idea of anyone or anything holding her back from what she believes is her true potential.

- Amaya holds the calculative and strategic skills in her ‘brains and the brawn’ duo with Mag. Mag is more on delivery and force if necessary. She’s calmer and aids Mag whenever he’s stressed or having temper issues.

- She’s also quite a fan of novels and poetry and likes the sound of poetic and fitting endings. It’s the reason why she’s being so nice towards Asha because she sees her as a fun toy to play around with. Especially when it comes to considering the king and queen’s strong opinion about Tomás.

(Tomás used to be hers and Mag’s assistant before he was tragically killed died after strongly holding beliefs that oppose their rule. It’s quite an entertaining irony if they were to have Tomás’ own daughter follow in his footsteps. One that he obviously would’ve hated to see if he was still alive.

Magnifico disliked the idea of having an inquisitive annoying girl around his work. Like I said in my previous drawing, he finds Asha ‘unbearable.’ But oh well, anything for the wifey. Happy wife. Happy life.)

Backstory:

Amaya grew up a little typical girl in Rosas with big dreams of mastering and getting to know everything regarding alchemy and magic. It’s a whole world that’s surrounded by it and who knows how much is left undiscovered?

The unfortunate thing is that her family was against this passion of hers since, well, not everyone thinks magic is a necessary skill worth your time when you can do it by yourself the traditional way. While her parents didn’t mind how King Oliver and previous other rulers have always provided an easier living for their people with magic, they want to keep the family tradition of achieving things by themselves magic-free. It’s how their ancestors established their livelihood as farmers after all.

Rosas had the best reputation of being the most inclusive and welcoming kingdom, so people holding these magic-free beliefs still have their boundaries respected and allowed to refuse magical help if they wish.

But Amaya? Amaya didn’t want to follow her parents’ footsteps. She wants to pursue her own dream.

…..

Mag and Amaya’s love story is basically Royalty x Commoner.

They met when Mag was 15 and she was 14 and were best friends ever since. Back then in the past, when there wasn’t as much worries and things were a little more simpler. But Amaya’s parents progressively start discouraging her to interact with Mag as they believe his role as prince and the future sorcerer king of Rosas is influencing their daughter to take up magic too.

Until one day, Magnifico never heard from her again. And then years later as young adults, they found each other again in the woods, where Amaya had fled away from her home to secretly study magic on her own there. They bonded over feeling so pressured to give up on their initial desires just because their parents and life decided to be unjust and cruel to them.

“Like, don’t you ever just wish you could hold the world and shake it soo hard because you’re so mad? OMGG BESTIE, SAAME.”

👆That was the look Amaya gave him when Magnifico asked if she ever felt “helpless and trapped,” like he did. It was at that moment that Magnifico fell down a flight of stairs and head over heels for this woman.

Sooo, childhood friends, to losing each other for a bit, to finding each other again, and then to romance.

(Wait- wdym they’re like Simba and Nala too? Pfft-)

The thing is though, Amaya is a wanted outlaw. (Or criminal? Idk the right word. Do they mean the same thing?).

Her identity is not exactly known. The guards are aware that there’s someone stealing ingredients and breaking Rosas’ rules and safety regulations about studying magic. The kingdom bans the production or study of any magic that could actively harm or terribly curse animals and humans. Remember when I said Amaya couldn’t give a single flying sht about that? She just managed to keep her real name clean because of her skills in disguises.

Amaya’s state and Magnifico potentially withholding information lead to another father-and-son argument with King Oliver again.

But just to sum it up before this gets too long, Magnifico ended up taking his role as the next king with Amaya by his side. Upon obtaining his magic staff and finding the ability to collect wishes, he banned the usage of magic with the exception of him and his wife ofc. Under the excuse it’s for Rosas’ greater good and safety. In the castle, Amaya is finally given the freedom to explore the unknown. Something about “I’ll give the whole kingdom to you if you asked for it” and “I promise we’ll both get that world we both deserved.”

Which would be a sweet kind of thing if it were another couple in another innocent context…. :)

Idk, Anny. Might change things up a bit but let me know what you think. Thanks so much for the asks btw!! 💖