#someone in at 1 has already called in (i only know cuz i had to call abt the missing 6am ppl)

[monsterbisexual]

wish i was smashing my coworker(s) w comically large cartoony mallets rn

[krysmcscience]

It’s finally done, guys – five whole pages of Narilamb AU comic AND MORE be upon you! (If you have trouble reading any of the text, view the full-size! These pages are huge!)

Yeesh, this took forever. <:)

There’s probably a ton of inconsistencies and anatomy/perspective wonkeries, but this was mostly just comic practice, so Oh Hekkin Well, Lol <:D

(Yes, I am aware the Gateway’s door isn’t present in the Afterlife, and the actual way in is just a pentagram portal. Yes, I put the door in there anyway because Artistic License, i.e. it felt more impactful for there to be a prison door of sorts to walk through to freedom, rather than just a bland boring portal on the ground. 😠)

anyway, i hate backgrounds so much lmao

Alternate ending and a buttload of bonus art under the cut, followed by goofy AU rambles and headcanon stuff:

I’m calling it the Revival AU. It’s not all that creative a title, and someone else has probably used it already, but I am too lazy to really care, LOL

Alternate ending page, which you will Definitely need to view the full-size for, Whoopsie Daisy:

The alternate ending was actually the first ending I finished things off with, because I had a brief badbrain moment where I forgot the emotional beat I initially wanted the comic to end on, and I tend to write comedy, anyway. I later remembered and drew out the proper ending, but I preserved and finished this one, too, because it still makes me giggle.

They had to go back for the followers off-screen in the AU’s real ending. And by ‘they’ I mean just the Lamb, because they weren’t about to ask three newly freed cats to go back into what used to be their prison. The Lamb DID spend some time watching Narinder and the bois enjoying the outdoors first, though:

In other news, here’s the Lamb and me making fun of my anatomy-drawing ‘skills’:

Meanwhile, if you’re wondering why the Lamb is just a-okay with how things went down vis a vis Their Murder, this bonus comic should answer at least some of your questions:

Ah, yes, also this is how they get engaged outside of the alternate ending. Forgot to mention that bit. XD (I already refuse to believe that Narinder is capable of flirting normally, so why would his initial marriage proposal be any better???)

Oh, and before any of them get a chance to actually head back to the cult grounds, there is one potential problem:

And by ‘problem’ I mean something Narinder intends to ignore for At Minimum a thousand years. Cuz he’s a petty bitch like that. :D

what do you mean i drew the lamb too tall compared to the background? clearly they’re standing on top of baal and aym lmao, why else would you think those two aren’t in this one??? (aym and baal got way too excited about finally being outside, you see, and their silly modes are nothing to sneeze at)

And, speaking of heading back to the cult grounds, I’m sure y’all would love to know how the Lamb’s followers felt about the brand new change in management:

It all went better than expected. <:D Tiny ramble now, feel free to skip down to the next comic.

Before you ask, no, the Lamb does not have any actual powers anymore, other than the immortality Narinder definitely grants them. The Red Crown just thinks it’s funny to suggest otherwise, and Narinder does nothing to discourage this. Also, the Lamb and Narinder aren’t actually married here yet, but, uh. Pretty safe to say that particular ritual directly follows the events of this comic. XD

Given how quickly he mellows out in canon, Narinder probably chills out a lot in this AU once he’s in charge of the cult, too, if only because 1.) He’s finally free, and 2.) He’s equally smitten with and distracted by the Lamb. He’s definitely in charge at least 95% of the time, though, because the Lamb never actually wanted to be a cult leader and, now that their time as a vessel is done, they just want to be a normal(ish) sheep who’s wholly devoted to their hot new divine husband.

Some followers do still have some valid concerns about these two being together, though, which I’m sure at least a few of you might share…

Unfortunately for any such concerns, the Lamb is a bonafide masochist in this AU. :D

They’re also 100% a sub, obviously

Anyone at all: Your relationship is problematic and potentially toxic

The Lamb: fuck yeah it is, it’s so hot~ OuO

Here’s just the last panel, made transparent for whatever nefarious purposes y’all might have for it:

Additional exchange Narinder and the Lamb have at some point, probably after the Lamb does a fatal whoopsie while out on a mission trip or in response to things getting a little too sadistic in the bedroom, ahaha:

Look, there is a very important distinction between life and death, and if you don’t understand that, then you’re probably not worthy of being the God of Death, anyway. (At least, according to Narinder, and ONLY Narinder.)

Last but not least, have these shittens:

~Such creative naming conventions I have utilized, lololol~ :D Anyway, there's a few deets on them in the rambles down below.

The rest is all ramble, so before I get to that, I’ll just say – likes and especially reblogs are very much appreciated!!! :D If you happen to really really REALLY like my stuff, meanwhile, I do have a link in my bio to my ko-fi page, where I’m accepting commissions and donations if you’re especially generous… ÓuÒ

Now, BE FREE IF YOU AIN’T DOWN FOR READING MY GOOFY RAMBLES

First ramble is re: Baal’s question of ‘Did it really work?’, since I didn’t feel like expanding on it in the comic proper, and it’s arguably pretty vague? He doesn’t ask because he doubts Narinder or his capabilities, exactly, but because neither Baal nor Aym have ever actually seen their god at full power before (he’s still technically not at full power here, either). It’s not expressly stated how soon the brothers were brought to Narinder after his imprisonment, but whether it was early on or after a length of time for Shamura to (somewhat) recover from his attack, he must have already been weakened, since I have no doubts that there was a huge battle that accompanied the Bishops working together to trap him. So, between that fight with all four of his siblings, sharing his power with a variety of vessels over time, and being chained immobile for a thousand years, he must have been severely weakened by the time he lent the Red Crown out to the Lamb, which would have only weakened him further.

I like to think this is how the Lamb is able to defeat him if they refuse to be sacrificed, despite how it took all four Bishops working together to subdue and chain Narinder in the first place.

All that aside, the three cats have been trapped in the Afterlife for so long that Baal also wanted verbal reassurance that they are all, indeed, actually able to leave it now – something that I headcanon isn’t possible without a significant amount of power (i.e. the Red Crown’s cooperation with its bearer/vessel).

(On a semi-related note, I don’t headcanon Aym and Baal as twins. I like sweetheart big bro Baal and snarky little goth bro Aym too much to have them be that close in age.)

Ah, teeny thing: If you noticed I switched up the art style for Narinder on the second page, that was intentional. It's sort of a visual indicator that there has been a Big Change for him - that being, how much power he has after sacrificing the Lamb. As for why I changed up his arms in the grass rollin' pic, I don't really subscribe to the notion that his arms are spooky bones because they're horrifically injured (beyond chain-chafing scars, that is), but rather just because he's the Bishop of Death, so he can change how normal-to-spooky they look at will. At some point I might doodle out how I imagine his appearance to range between least to most eldritch... 🤔

Next ramble, regarding Narinder’s feelings towards the Lamb...he was initially too focused on being freed from his imprisonment to form any real attachment to them. They were a tool for his use, first and foremost, but he did notice their intense devotion towards him. It was impossible not to notice, because the Lamb was always very happy to see him, even if it was because they died during a crusade (yet again). He wasn’t originally planning to revive them once he was freed, either, because he saw no real point to it – after all, they were already dead when they first met him, just as any other mortal would be when meeting him in the Afterlife, so death has very little real consequence in his eyes. But, once the chains were off, and it really sank in that he stood to lose the most devoted follower he’s ever had, he decided…why put their soul to rest for good or leave them stuck in the Afterlife when he could just as easily revive them again? And why not reward them for their hard work, anyway? Not only would it cost him nothing by comparison, but the future devotion that could come of it would surely make up for his (bare minimum) effort in reviving them.

He wasn’t expecting to get a full dose of that devotion and a smiling face so soon after killing them, though~ :3c (because the Lamb is a bonafide freak, and not-so-secretly into the fucked up power dynamics going on here, lol)

I should mention here that I am firmly of the belief that any non-god/vessel who crosses through the Gateway and into the Afterlife just straight up dies. So, Aym and Baal? Also straight up dead, from the second Shamura brought them through. Their souls were just never put to rest so that Narinder could have some company – if only according to Shamura. Narinder kept the two around mostly out of bewilderment, because honestly, who are these kittens, and what is Shamura’s game here, anyway??? They never even explained anything, they just tossed these kittens into the Afterlife and LEFT!!! At any rate, Aym and Baal being dead is how I explain why their souls apparently become lost in the void if they’re killed, along with the added complications required to revive the two because of it.

So, with those deets in mind, and given a bit of time, if Narinder hadn’t chosen to revive the Lamb, and also hadn’t chosen to put their soul to rest, they still would have woken up at some point, despite being as straight up dead as Aym and Baal. Who, don’t worry, were also properly revived while Narinder was waiting for the Lamb to wake up. Because I am also firmly of the belief that, first, the dead cannot leave the Afterlife without the use of a ritual/relic (and can't stay in the living world for long regardless), and second, dead followers’ devotion isn’t anywhere near as potent as that of the living, given how much more the living stand to lose.

Final ramble, regarding the Lamb’s feelings towards Narinder, and why they’re so devoted to him…

Well, you don’t spend most of your life on the run with your steadily-dwindling herd, trying to evade the ongoing genocide of your species, without becoming a little fucked up in the head. Maybe a lot fucked up in the head. Life is suffering, so might as well have fun with it, right? Maybe start finding death and pain to be kind of hilarious, even a little bit hot, once everyone you know and love is dead and gone, leaving you all alone? And maybe after that, there’s something comforting in how, despite the cold, cruel uncertainties of life, at least you can always count on the inevitability of death, patiently waiting for you until your very last breath? Who knows. Either way, as soon as the Lamb was killed, and they learned that the literal God of Death was offering them a second chance at life and vengeance via effective immortality, they were 100% ride-or-die-devoted all at once. Turns out death is kinder than life – go figure. (Of course, it helps that Narinder is 100% their type.)

They weren’t put off by Narinder’s thinly-veiled sadism or manipulations, either – they’re not too different in those regards, albeit opting for vastly different methods. It’s a very ‘two sides of the same coin’ sort of deal. In order to stay alive once they were made the last of their kind, the Lamb had no qualms with using others to their advantage, and that did not change once they were revived and expected to run a cult. They didn’t care for the position of authority, though – being a sheep and all, they’re much more of a follower than a leader, and thus greatly appreciated Narinder’s need for control. With how they had to keep on their toes for so long, the Lamb was also pretty good at reading people by the time they died, so they could recognize that a lot of Narinder’s posturing was just that – posturing. Dude’s 95% bluster and only 5% bite. He could obviously be vicious when he wanted or needed to (the Bishops' injuries were clear proof of that), but underneath his outer layer of cruelty was a generous layer of tsundere, and underneath all THAT was a soft squishy middle sibling velcro cat in desperate need of attention and affection.

(Which, for the record, he Did Not feel comfortable getting from Aym and Baal – Narinder still has no idea why the fuck Shamura sent them to him, beyond acting as keepers at best or trying to sabotage his attempts to escape at worst. Which, he thought HE sabotaged in turn, by guiding the kittens into being his devoted disciples instead. He thought he was very clever for it. ‘I outsmarted Shamura!’ he thought, despite that there was never anything there to outsmart. ‘What do you mean, Shamura sent your kittens to me for company?’ he demands of Forneus later. It may or may not lead him to pull Shamura out of Purgatory just so he can shake them and scream about how they should have Fucking Explained that!!!)

But, getting back on track as to why the Lamb was so willing to be sacrificed, I cannot stress this enough – if you pay even a minimal amount of attention to what he’s saying, Narinder is REALLY NOT SUBTLE about his intentions. ‘Death is of little consequence.’ ‘Followers are for you to use to your advantage.’ ‘Sacrifice a follower to absorb more power.’ So, yeah, the Lamb knew exactly what would be expected of them once the other Bishops were dead. They knew Narinder would expect them to die for him one last time. But, after all, death is of little consequence (not to mention hot), so when the time came, they wanted to see him freed, even if it meant oblivion for them in the end.

He’d given them a second life, and the ability to avenge their kin, and they felt indebted to him for that – so, while they were still pretty glum about the possibility that they might not get to see him free of his chains, nothing beyond their devotion and debt to him mattered. They never wanted all the drama and expectations that came with the Red Crown’s power, anyway, so, better for Narinder to have it back so that he could deal with it. What he did with the Lamb afterward would be up to him, and seeing as he was their god, they’d accept his decision gladly.

Were they in love with him by that point? Oh, obsessively so, but only in the devotional sense – romance was nowhere on their mind nor radar. That is, until he unexpectedly revived them again, told them he still needed them, and then offered down his hand to help them up.

The Lamb fell HARD for him in that moment. :3c

And now, a tiny shitten ramble. Lu and Li are twins, because sheep tend to have those a lot, and are conceived not long after the Lamb and Narinder’s marriage ceremony. Lu is the minutes older one, but Li is much more mature. I have put no further thought into these two, other than that they are utter menaces, birthed by the Lamb, cling hard to both their parents but especially Narinder (who spoils them rotten), and they are both genderfluid, using whichever pronouns/names they feel like at any given time. They are also both intersex, same as the Lamb, who was initially infertile up until Something Something Vague Magic, which I have also put no further thought into ¯\_(シ)_/¯

oh, and before anyone tries to suggest i headcanon this AU’s lamb as trending more female due to them giving birth or whatever, no, no, a thousand times no, they might have a vag, but they've also got a dick, and even if it's not as big as they'd like, they still know how to use it

Finally, the very tentative name for the Lamb in this AU is Yazdi, which is really just another name for the Baluchi breed of sheep XD (Not that the Lamb is this specific breed, I just didn’t like any of the other sheep-related names I found, ahaha...)

THAT’S ALL FOR NOW (collapses into an exhausted pile of goopy limbs)

[exocaliii]

❦︎ You've Been Walking, You've Been Hiding

(pt. 1) (pt. 2)

| Kang No-eul / Guard 011 x fem!reader |

side! | Se-mi / Played 380 x fem!reader |

Summary: For six years, you've watched your best friend and only companion mourn a child she barely got to know. Now, you're given a chance to finally rid her of this lifelong guilt.

Word Count: 5.4k

Warnings: mentions of self harm, death, violence, angst, hurt/comfort, occasional use of Y/N even though I try my best to avoid it lol, some jealousy and yearning, very plot heavy guys no porn this time...

A/N: first fic yay!! it's incredibly plot heavy (like seriously look at the word count man I haven't even reached the Mingle game yet😭😭) and tbh i've already written most of pt 2 (which dives far more into the romance part), but please please lmk what you think so far!! :D seriously any comments or messages or whatever are appreciated!! this is the "I wrote this cuz no one else did" fic

—

It’s been nine years since you've met her, and she’s still the most beautiful woman you know.

Her head is tilted back, shallow breaths filling the silence. You don’t make a move until you see tears flow down her cheeks, and by the time she raises an arm to cover her face, you’re already by her side. There are no words or even glances shared as you use the sleeve of your jacket to wipe the tears off her cheek. Though, for a split second as your hand lowers, you swear you see her head tilt in your direction, and maybe you’re hallucinating it (god knows what could happen after two bottles of whatever hard liquor that was) but your eyes meet for a brief second.

It’s a bit too much for you, and you need this night to end. Besides, you had someone to meet. She knows that.

“It’s late, Eul.”

It’s an unspoken suggestion for her to drive you home, but she doesn’t move - just looks over at you with a heated gaze and that’s all it takes. Whatever emotion she was trying to express is unknown to you, but it’s familiar in a way that deeply disturbs you. You’re the last person she should be looking at like that.

“...Alright then,” you whisper, placing your head on her shoulder. She doesn’t react, but she doesn’t move to push you off either. You should leave. You both know this.

God, you’re pathetic.

—

250 million won.

Fucking scammers. Who could even pay that much?

Your meeting with the head of some shady smuggling group based in North Korea went… alright. They were willing to help, but less optimistic than the last. What really went wrong was the price they were charging to help search for No-eul’s baby. Even if you worked your current job for 16 hours a day for an entire year straight, you wouldn’t have enough.

The thought of seeing her hope dwindling once again made you want to pull your hair out.

Perhaps it was this heartache that made you call the number on that card.

—

She’s known about the games for six years.

She signed up to kill people every summer for five years.

Today is the first day she’s genuinely, completely thrown off guard.

When she twists the scope of her rifle, she almost accidentally fires a bullet straight into your face with a twitch of her hand. Even after leaning back and rubbing her face in exasperation at her own mind supposedly playing tricks on her, she leans back into the familiar pad of the rifle to see your face once again. You look the same as the last time she saw you, which was barely two days ago. The strain in your face, the fear that twists your expression into one she recognizes from seven years ago - God, what the fuck did you get yourself into?

She lets out a shaky breath and readjusts her grip, her nerves making her hands quiver just enough that she has to lean back again to roll her head to relieve some of the newfound tension in her neck. When she finally lays her cheek back against the rifle, she’s quick to refocus her attention to another player, one that 012 (or was it 010?) failed to kill. It’s a disgusting ordeal, but she deals with it the only way she knows how to, even as her mind wanders.

Survive this game, Y/N. Do not leave me behind.

—

All you can do is clutch the number on your chest - 037 - after what had just happened. After you watched a woman’s blood splatter onto a young man right next to you. After you watched him flinch and die moments later, right at your feet. It feels like a fever dream when money begins to drop into the piggy bank above the room, and you’re told each 100 million won added was somebody’s life.

That woman and the boy were, combined, only 200 million won to the pile. You want to vomit.

You drown out so much of it, but when you hear talk of money being passed out to the “winners” of the game you all just played, you’re disturbed to find it’s only reached about 75 million. You’re even more disturbed by your immediate desire for more, more money to fill the pig’s empty stomach (and more lives lost, apparently).

When it comes time to vote, you can’t bring yourself to care much about the man who claims he had played these games before. His pleas mean nothing to you, not when you have 250 million won to conjure up in the next month to continue the search for No-eul’s sweet daughter. You hesitate for only a split second before you hit the O, and you force yourself to drown out the fearful cries to your left as well as the howls from the hungry wolves to your right.

A blue patch is placed over your chest, but you do not cheer with the rest of your side.

—

When night comes, sleep refuses to come to you. It feels like a punishment now, especially as you look at the young girl just diagonal to you. 095. She shakes like a baby in her bed, and the red X on her sweater shows you why.

Have you damned this poor girl to death? Maybe even the kind old lady lying across from her?

The sick feeling in your gut prompts you to get up and head over to the side door. Three knocks prompts nothing but silence, but you refuse to give up so easily. With another set of knocks on the door, this time hard enough to make sure the guard on the other side (at least you hoped there was even anyone on the other side) heard you, you spoke up.

“I’m sorry, I don’t feel well, can I please-”

Without you saying another word, the door practically swings open.

Standing across from you is a pink guard with a triangle mask. The rifle at their side draws your attention immediately, and some paranoid part of your mind wonders if they only opened the door so they could shoot you for interrupting their quiet time. However, the guard surprisingly only takes a small step to the side after a strangely tense silence.

“...Thank you…”

You scuttle past them and immediately head to the bathroom. The moment you enter, you rush to the sink, turn on the faucet, and let a stream of icy cold water fall from your cupped hands onto your face. For a second, this helps your heart rate slow.

What brings it back up is the sound of the door opening, and what spikes it is the fact that it’s not a fellow player that walks into the silent bathroom, but the guard. Based on their height alone, you can tell it’s the same one. This is even more frightening somehow.

Did you do something wrong? Should you have just stayed in bed? Why did you pick-

“Why are you here?!” The guard’s raspy voice interrupts your thoughts. Her question (you now realize it’s a woman) was just barely quiet enough to not be considered a yell, but the frantic nature of it still makes you blank out. You’re so afraid that you end up completely missing the familiarity your body feels at the sound of her voice.

“I-I’m sorry ma’am, I just need to wash my face, I’ll-”

You’re interrupted once again by the guard’s movements, but this time, she’s practically ripping down the red hood of her jacket to pull off her mask. She doesn’t even need to take off her face covering by that point, because a single short glance at her eyes, the ones you knew so well, were enough.

“No-eul…,” you choke out, staring as she pulls the face covering down completely to reveal the face you’ve known for nine years. Her hair is sweaty and sticks to her face in a way that you recognize from her summer shifts at the fair.

Seeing her here is only comforting for a short moment though, because the pink of her uniform against the green of yours is still visible in your peripheral as you take in her confused, almost panicked expression. Her eyes scan your face for an answer, not nearly as patient as she typically is, and when you refuse to even make a sound, she takes a small step closer.

“Answer me. You shouldn’t- God.” She runs her gloved fingers through her hair in poorly hidden frustration as she sighs and turns away for a split second. “You shouldn’t be here. Not in a place like this.”

You don’t respond, but she can very much see the frown on your face after that last statement.

“Then what the hell are you doing here?” It doesn’t take much for you to regain your snarkiness, but it clearly throws her off guard.

“It’s just a temporary job, and you know why I need it, so answer me.”

Yes, you know full well why she needs it.

“...I need it too, Eul.” It’s not enough for her. You sigh before accepting your fate. “She needs it.”

For a second, there’s silence. She’s confused, and you watch as the gears turn in her head and she slowly comes to understand the intentions behind your words - understands the blue O plastered on your sweater. Somewhere in the blank expression she’s trying so hard to keep up, you can spot the shame, the guilt, and the sadness washing over her at the realization.

“Don’t look at me like you pity me. This was my choice to make.” I don’t regret it.

When she fails to even acknowledge what you just said, you simply sigh and move over to the wall, sitting down with your legs pulled close to your body. As if it were muscle memory, she joins you a moment later.

For what feels like forever, you two sit in silence and stare at each other. She can’t stop glancing down at the patch on your chest, and you can’t stop glancing at the mask she placed at her side. When she notices this, her expression gets even more shameful, and she lowers her head.

“Eul…” She doesn’t answer you, but you hear the soft exhale she releases when she hears your voice. “Eul, I don’t blame you.”

You reach over in a bold move and take her gloved hands. They’re mostly steady, but you know her too well by now. Even the slightest tremor is enough for you to practically feel the shame washing over her in waves. When you attempt to hold eye contact with her again, she breaks it uncharacteristically fast.

“You should’ve never come here.”

You sigh heavily and as she begins to pull her hands back, you tighten your grip on them and lean forward.

“I want to find her, No-eul. Please let me try.”

She’s damned you, just as she damned her daughter. She’s sure of it.

—

Whilst others around you are quickly gathering into groups, you find yourself lost in the crowd. No one pays you any mind as they shove past you to team up with people they had been interacting with, but what could you do when you’ve really just been ignoring most of the people here?

It’s humiliating when you find yourself inching towards a group of men that side-eye you and turn away before you can even ask to join their group. To be fair, if you were them, you probably wouldn’t want the meek girl in the corner either. It’s life or death, and you can’t blame them for picking the former. All you can do is sigh and turn away, but before you can go far, a hand gently grabs your upper arm and spins you around.

“Hey, you have a team yet?”

380.

She’s a girl you made eye contact with only once, right before your late night trip to the bathroom. From her appearance, you would’ve expected her voice to be a lot more gruff, but it’s soft and gentle and draws you in immediately. In a place like this, it's normal that you find yourself easily drawn to any sense of safety you can find (especially when your usual safe haven is hidden behind a mask that dozens of others are wearing - others that are probably far more willing to shoot you in the head for trying to stick to them).

“No.” An awkward silence fills the space between you two before you remember why she’s even asking such a question in the first place. “Do you want to…”

You don’t get to finish that question - thank god - before she chuckles and shakes her head slightly, answering you by taking you by the hand and dragging you over to her group.

Standing with her back against the wall, an armed guard keeps her eyes trained on your every movement. When 380 takes you by the hand, her grip on her rifle tightens just barely.

—

In a twisted way, you almost found the last game to be fun. The cheers of the spectators, 380’s tight grip on your arm and quiet encouragement after you failed the first round of gonggi, it’s all kindness and attention you never typically receive. You can almost bring yourself to completely ignore the fact that you’re pretty sure you just got yourself thrown in with a group of two drug addicts (you don’t know how they managed to sneak substances into this seemingly sterile environment, but it’s very obvious they succeeded in some capacity).

What wasn’t fun, however, was watching the previous losers get gunned down by people in the same outfit as the woman you were empathizing with just last night. You’re actually 99% sure she was one of them, which makes it that much worse. You pity those who lost, and for a second, as you watch a young boy fall to the ground with blood seeping out from a single hole above his heart, you feel an indescribable hatred towards those putting these people down like dogs.

But then No-eul’s face flashes in your mind and you feel the ghost of her hands on yours, and it all fades away.

“What’s your name?” Your train of thought is interrupted by a soft and familiar voice. You turn to face 380 and are slightly thrown off at the sight of 230, 124, and 125 also waiting expectedly. Albeit with some hesitance, you give them your full name, and 380 nods in acknowledgment.

“I’m Se-mi.” Her choice to leave out her surname isn’t lost on you, but you ignore it for now. After all, you don’t really know this woman, and she doesn’t know you.

“Two beautiful names for two pretty girls.” Maybe you should’ve left out your surname as well. “I’m the legend: Thanos! I’ll revive half the world with my lyrics, so watch out.”

After Thano’s little declaration, you couldn’t really pay attention to the other two (Min-su and Nam-gyu, if your memory serves you well). The short shy boy that had been trailing Se-mi when she asked you to join the team was just as quiet as he was before, but now that you’re really paying attention, you realize that he bears a striking resemblance to someone you knew.

Laughter rings out as you chase him through the yard. Short legs, shorter than yours, don’t take him too far before your open palm collides with his small back, causing him to practically faceplant into the dirt. His muffled cries come out soon after, and even with your sorry attempts to soothe him, your aunt still comes running out, scolding you for playing so roughly with her young son.

It’s the last time you’ll see them, even if you didn’t realize it then.

You break your gaze away as you shift uncomfortably at the sudden memory - 125 is not your cousin, he’s a stranger.

You glance around the room for a bit before deciding you’ve sufficiently distracted yourself. When you draw your focus back towards Se-mi, you see her staring off into the distance as well, having made the wonderful decision to not pay attention to the drug-riddled rambling of the rapper who had become the de-facto leader of the group. As if she can sense your gaze, she breaks her staring contest with the wall across the room to turn her head in your direction.

As your eyes meet again, you don’t look away, and you’re pretty sure she smiles a bit at this.

Smug.

—

When it’s time to vote yet again, you’re just as set on your choice as you were before. The guilt of voting for the games to continue even after seeing 095 cry and beg for her life weighs heavy on your heart, but the money just isn’t quite enough for you to quit yet.

When you drag yourself back over to the side cheering and throwing their fists in the air for the death games to continue, you have to stop for a second and close your eyes.

No-eul’s face is so clear in your mind, and so is every memory you have of her crying over her lost daughter.

It’s easier to stand with these people when you remember what you’re fighting for.

—

Even with the confidence you felt in your choice, your guilt isn’t dispelled and you can barely bring yourself to eat the dinner provided to you. You push around the egg with your spoon, head cradled in your hand as you stare down at the ground; it’s a pitiful scene, and you’re probably scaring off any potential future teammates, but in the moment, you truly couldn’t care less.

“Does it taste that bad?” The voice is teasing, and you immediately know who it is before she even sits down beside you.

“I’m not hungry right now, that’s all.”

“Bullshit,” she says with a laugh, and you finally look up from the speck on the floor just to shoot her a dirty look. She responds with a mischievous one in kind. “You feel bad or something? Starving yourself isn’t gonna change the vote on your chest.”

With a heavy sigh, you shove a spoonful of rice in your mouth just to shut her up, but all you do is earn another laugh from her. It’s a nice sound to hear, but you'd jam your spoon into your neck before admitting something like that to her.

“Where are the other three?”

She raises a brow and slightly leans back, revealing Min-su almost tucked into her side like a shaking child. If you all didn’t share your ages earlier, you would've thought he was only in his late teens with the way he was acting. “Thanos and Nam-gyu are digging into their candy stash again, if you know what I mean.”

A loud unprompted Woo! C’mon Man! from across the room confirms her answer, and you scoff.

“Addicts.” Another laugh from her, and finally, you’ve decided that you’ve had enough with trying to eat when your body damn near wants to reject it. “So, why are you here then?”

“Same as everybody else,” she looks over at you with an expression that says ‘obviously.’ “I’ve got some debt I’m trying to get rid of.”

You’re about to clarify that you actually meant to ask her why she was here, next to you and not why she was participating in a bunch of death games, but you push that thought aside for now. Curiosity takes over as your eyes try to uncover something, anything in her expression.

Piercings, careless attitude, but her eyes are soft when she looks at you and Min-su. She seems smart enough. Beautiful as well. How the hell did someone like her get into enough debt to want to participate in something like this?

“Aren’t you afraid of dying though?” It’s a weirdly deep question that you regret asking as soon as it leaves your mouth, but she only does her signature smirk before answering you.

“There are plenty of things out there that can kill me too. This place isn’t so different.” Except for the fact that you’re now living with the possibility of being shot for failing a kids’ game, but alright, you can accept that answer. When faced with your silence after her answer, Se-mi lifts a hand to gently grab the blue patch on your chest, examining it with apparent interest.

“How about you? Why did you choose to die?”

It’s an incredibly morbid way to put it even though from her tone, you can tell she’s obviously joking. Either way, it makes you grimace and destroys the confident demeanor you tried to hold up to match with hers. What could you say to a question like that? That you signed up to get money for someone else? That you could maybe even have lived a debt-free, semi-peaceful life without this other person, but you would rather die without her?

“It’s�� yeah, it’s debt money for me too.” The lie leaves your mouth easily, but Se-mi doesn’t look convinced at all. Her doubtful gaze burns holes into the side of your face, and you’re beginning to desperately search for something to take her attention off you. Your reprieve comes in the form of the slight movement you spot behind her.

You don’t actually know this woman, and for now, you don’t intend to.

“Min-su, how about you?” Her intense gaze finally breaks, and she shifts to look at Min-su as well.

“Huh?”

“Why are you here?” You force your voice to be softer this time, less urgent to match with his jumpy nature. He’s calmer now, but there’s still shame evident in his expression even though he hasn’t even told you two anything yet.

“I… I just had some student loans, that’s all.” Se-mi makes the same face she made at you towards him and he winces, obviously unwilling to spill his secrets. You almost feel bad for the guy, especially with the way Se-mi is beginning to pester him a bit now. Seems like two unnecessarily vague answers were pushing her buttons a bit, and the idea that you’ve managed to irk this carefree woman is kind of satisfying.

After a while of listening to their back and forth (which mainly consisted of Min-su asking Se-mi how she’s so calm in ten different ways), out of pure boredom, you decide to test the waters one last time.

“It’s not really debt money for me.”

This catches their attention straight away, and Se-mi looks far more interested in this answer than your previous one. You drop your eyes back to the ground in preparation for your admission.

“Then what’s it for?”

“I’m planning on giving all the money I win to someone else. They’ll use it for their own... personal reasons.” Not exactly the full truth, but it’s part of it and you think she deserves at least that after recruiting you to her team.

For a second, you expect laughter to break out right in your face. You prepare to answer questions about why you would risk your life for someone else’s goal, but it never comes. Instead, when you look back up, all you see are two pairs of understanding eyes, not a hint of mockery in their gaze.

If anything, Se-mi almost looks proud of your answer.

“Actually… I joined the game to try and help my mom out a bit, that’s all. I wasn’t able to get a good job after school, so I want to make up for it.” Min-su’s words sound like those of a young boy still trying to understand the world around him. “I’m all she’s got left now.”

What was someone like him doing in an evil place like this?

“Man, you two are making me feel kinda bad,” Se-mi says, chuckling to herself before leaning back a bit to look at you square in the face.

She doesn’t doubt Min-su’s story, and even though she doubted yours for a split second, she sees nothing but genuine honesty and a hint of embarrassment in your eyes. This revelation fills her with relief, and for the first time, she spares you both a genuine smile.

“I figured you two were nice, generous people when we teamed up.” The newfound but genuine friendliness she exudes surprises you, but it’s a welcome change. “I’m glad I might just be right, and I’m hanging out with some good people for once.”

“Well, I hope I could say the same about you.”

She throws her head back in laughter at this, and you begin to think that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to know these people after all.

—

“Can I use the bathroom please?”

This time, you don’t bother to knock, and as expected, your voice is all she needs to open the door and step aside. It was actually surprisingly quick this time too, as if she had been waiting on the other side already.

The air is tense, a feeling you never really associated with No-eul, but it’s late and the earlier conversation you had with your two new friends didn’t do much to dispel your undying anxiety about tomorrow. You can feel her gaze on you even from behind that mask, but you pay her no mind as you rush your wet hands across your reddened face and hair. The cooling effect is instant, and now, you finally feel ready to face her.

“Take off the mask, please.” Your voice is more exasperated than you intended it to be, but you can’t cover up the fatigue you’ve been feeling since the start of the games. It’s probably more of an emotional exhaustion thing, but you don’t want to think about all that right now.

As she’s going through the process of removing the layers covering her face from you, you begin heading over to the far end of the bathroom, eventually dropping to the floor with a heavy sigh. She’s staring at you expectedly.

“The gloves too.”

She doesn’t protest or even sigh, simply pulling them off her hands before shoving them into the pockets of her pink tracksuit. She takes this opportunity to run her fingers through her hair, bangs previously stuck to her face being pushed back out of the way. In that process, she reveals a red, clearly fresh cut on the side of her face. You practically jump up from the floor and stomp right back over to her.

“What the fuck happened?”

“Don’t worry, it was just a tussle with some of the other guards.” Your hands gingerly cup her face as you tilt it to examine the wound. She can feel her skin tingle where your fingertips gingerly graze it. “I handled it.”

You sigh heavily at her dismissal of the open wound on her face and walk around her to grab some paper towels, turning on the faucet to let cold water flow onto them.

“Fuck, No-eul, you’re not even participating in the games and you’re still finding ways to get injured.” Your hands are still shaking a bit when you come back over to her, gently dabbing the dried blood off her cheek. Her gaze is heavy on you, but you can’t bring yourself to look her in the eye right now. Not when you can practically feel her eyes all over your face, your body, every part of you.

As she stands there, No-eul’s mind begins to wander. How can you stand here, right in front of her after everything? Sometimes she genuinely believes you’re an angel sent from heaven to give her reprieve from the pain in her life; a gentle soul, who, even now, overlooks her greatest faults.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes out, gently taking your trembling hand in hers and pulling it away from her face. There’s an uncharacteristic softness in her expression, but you’ve seen it enough times to understand what it really conveys: guilt.

“You don’t have to apologize for something like this,” you say, clearing your throat as you turn to throw the paper towel away. “If you say everything’s fine, I’ll believe you.” Like always.

It's silent for a moment - almost peaceful - before her face twists as if she's just recalled an unpleasant memory.

“Who was that girl you were with? 380.” You scoff at her sudden question and turn around with pure confusion on your face.

“What?”

“She brought you over to those drug heads earlier. It’s not safe to hang around people like that, especially not in a place like this.” You bite back a response that said, well, you're currently with one of the guards that were gunning down people earlier, so how does that work?

“God, No-eul, it’s just a shitty temporary team-up kind of thing,” you laugh slightly at your own words, making sure to leave out your already growing attachment to two people in your little group. “What, did you expect me to try to do this all on my own?”

Her growing agitation is evident as her jaw visibly clenches and she turns away a bit, resting her hands on the back of the rifle slung around her shoulder. “I’m saying you should choose better, they’re the type of people who would drop you in a split second if it meant they could survive another day.”

“You think I don’t know that? Two of them are constantly high out of their minds and the other two-” You interrupt yourself with a sigh, shutting your eyes as your head droops; unfortunately, you can’t actually think of any reason you could have to distrust the unexpectedly kind girl and the shy boy you’ve grown acquainted with.

If they turned their backs on you, you would be lying if you said it wouldn’t phase you in the slightest.

No-eul begins feeling guilty again when she watches your shoulders drop and your eyes dim at the realization of the shitty situation you’ve found yourself in. Even so, her eyes don’t miss the unchanging patch on your sweater: a blue rectangle, neatly stitched with an O in the center. She bites her lip and curses under her breath. Always playing the hero, even at the expense of yourself.

She slowly walks back over to you, lifting up a single hand to trace the patch that signified your choice to give your life for hers.

“The issue isn’t the money,” the broker exclaims, his voice a mix of pity and exasperation at her persistence. “We’ve searched, we’ve been searching for years now, but a one-year old alone… especially after her mother deserted…?” Her expression hardens and he winces at the unintentional cruelty in his statement. “It’s almost impossible by now, No-eul.”

Her anger is barely contained when she feels a gentle hand on her shoulder, and a newfound calmness washes over her in waves.

“We understand the circumstances, sir, but please, please keep searching.” His expression softens slightly at the kind, weary smile on yours. “We’ll handle the expenses, all we ask is that you believe in this search too.”

She almost wants to cry at the sound of your sweet voice.

“We still have hope.”

“Get out of your head, No-eul.”

She’s startled back to reality when she feels gentle hands caress the scars on her wrists. Instinctively, she goes to pull away, but you step forward at the same time and press your body against hers, keeping a firm yet gentle grip on her wrists, fingertips still tracing the marks of the pain she’s held onto for seven years.

“Please don’t forget, this was my choice.” Your voice is muffled against the crook of her neck, but it’s just as gentle as she remembers it to be. “I still have hope.”

With those simple words, she feels the dream she’s held onto for years glow just a bit brighter. Closing her eyes, she leans head to rest atop yours, gently removing her arms from your grip to wrap them firmly around your body. You don’t hesitate to reciprocate her hold.

“Me too.” Your grip on her tightens just barely. “I still have hope too.”

—

A/N: WOW SORRY PLOT DUMP ALERT!! I love some good set-up but I hope the yearning was enough to make up for the lack of obvious romance like smut..

Never posted on Tumblr before too so I have no clue if I did this right (like formatting)! again, any thoughts on the fic are appreciated and ill probably (hopefully) finish part 2 soon! that part will prob be better cuz the relationship between all characters are all set up now. might cross post on ao3/wattpad but haven't decide yet

[byersfilmss]

hey so js cuz i can here are some of my stranger things headcanons !!

1. Jonathan and Joyce know that Will is gay, even if he’s never outright said it. Joyce got upset when Hopper asked “well if he?” when Will was missing after she told him Lonnie called him a f*g because she didn’t want the only thing known about her son to be that he was gay. People were already barely looking for him as it was, she knew this would stop many searches.

2. Jonathan still doesn’t know the camera is from Steve, so whenever Steve used to see him around Hawkins using it, he would feel a bit better because he knew he did a good thing and he didn’t need an validation from it.

3. Nancy and Mike used to have tea parties in the basement, but Ted soon forced Mike to stop playing with Nancy, saying it was too “girly” for a boy his age to be doing. Nancy secretly placed her tea set in a box in Mikes closet when she stopped using them, just incase he ever needed a reminder that his big sister was always there if he was ever lonely.

4. Dustin was never the first choice in his friend groups, so hearing Mike tell him that he was also his best friend made him incredibly happy, and like he mattered for once.

5. Max has a small box under her bed of bracelets made by El, drawings made by Will, small trinkets made by Dustin, writing from Mike, and matching stuff with Lucas in a box under her bed. Sometimes when she can’t sleep, the guilt eating away at her, she’ll look through it to remind herself that she has someone, or had. She also has a bunch of pictures of Robin, Steve, Jonathan and Nancy with the rest of the party.

6. At first, Eddie didn’t like Mike. He thought he was obnoxious and a little rude. But soon enough, and with some convincing from Dustin, he began to hang out with the boy more. It made him realize that was all just walls Mike had built up, and he was really still a kid at heart.

7. Mike was completely distraught when Will’s “body” was found. He acted as if he was fine, but some days he would lay in his bed and not move an inch. He’d just lay there, staring at all the drawings that he had made by Will hung up on the walls, sometimes, he would move to the basement and stare at their D&D board, sometimes he would cry if Ted wasn’t home.

8. Lucas fell in love with Max the moment he laid eyes on her, and his opinion of her has only grown in a positive direction ever since. He was ecstatic after the snowball dance, continuously talking about it to Erica, who really couldn’t have cared less, but she listened anyway, because her brother was finally happy.

9. Steve really did fall in love with Robin, but after finding out she liked girls, he realized that everyone wasn’t the same as him, and that people like Robin already felt alone in this world, so it just made him want to be her friend even more. Sometimes, he’ll even give her girl advice.

10. El and Mike used to have English “classes”. Due to Mike’s love for writing, he helped her with her pronunciation and spelling, thats why El could tell something was up when he only wrote “From, Mike” and not “Love, Mike” in his letters when she moved away to California.

let me know if you want more 🫶🏼

[omgfangirlland]

Hiya,

I was re-reading all of the series cause for some reason half my teachers decided to just not do anything today at class

It got me wondering.... That all of my asks are about everyone else in the series but Batsis really, soooooo let's give her more attention

I was wondering if Batsis herself will be clingy and protective of her loveds one, especially meaning the Grayson's family, the ones that adopt her with less steps (kidnapped her, at this point it's the same really) is she gonna cling to Debbie and Mark when the Batfam goes a bit out of their place?

Also IMAGINE THIS

Debbi vs Bruce confrontation?!

She gonna tell him all his truth's, she not gonna let all those years they neglected her baby slide.

-Nameless

Hiii 💚

This wasn't supposed to be this long but I just kept writing as the scenarios came in mind :))) I had fun with this, sorry for any spelling errors, didn't really check it through.

Yes she will! I do believe I hinted at that in the earlier chapter(or I wanted to hint at it and just forgot 🫠) EITHER WAY- yesss she will be clingy and protective.

She may be emotionally mature and chill, going with the flow in most situations, but even when she left she couldn't help but stay in contact with the Gotham rogues. She knows the risk of Batman finding out, of the possibility of him using her attachments against her- but she isn't willing to let go of the few people who, quite literally, raised her better than Bruce ever did.

Her vendetta against Joker wasn't because the clown did anything to her personally, but he had hurt enough people in her life for her to want him dead, and for her to be willing to do so herself. From Jason to Harley to even Barbara. Now- does batsis believe in rehabilitation? Yes, but some people can't be and don't want to be helped, and Joker was a long lost cause.

You know Cecil's whole "You can be the good guy, or you can save the world" spiel? Well Batsis would let the world burn if it meant keeping her loved ones safe and alive. Someone makes her choose between her fam and some stranger she's already out the door with Mark, Debbie whoever under her arm. She is a good person because she wants to be, not because she has to. And once she doesn't want to be anymore because of whatever reason- well, better to ask for forgiveness later than permission.

AZJHSD IMAGE THO

Like Debbie has been in the same room as the man before, she just glared. But once he tries to step on her toes? Once he tries to take her child, her baby girl, the same baby he carelessly buried in the back of his head? 1. Someone better call an ambulance, but not for her. 2. Get the cameras ready cuz the celebrity news reporters would have a month's worth of content.

She not only will eat him out, but beat his ass too if he says something wrong. And what's Brucie supposed to do? Bruce crafted his daytime persona to be a himbo- he can only cry and take it but if he does cry at least two reporters will say "Bruce Wayne tried to play the victim after being accused of child neglect" and mind you- the reporters already have slight proof of it- there are articles over articles of baby batsis being alone at competitions, so the media isn't on his side, not when they can milk it even more for the sweet, sweet clicks.

And if anyone comes to Batsis? Well, she'd prefer it be Lois, but beggars can't be choosers. Batsis is pulling out proof after proof after proof, the poor reporter is going to need another month to check the sources, they'll need another month to even begin to process everything and to put it into coherent sentences. Batsis isn't looking for trouble, but if trouble comes to her, well- she can't just ignore it :))

But if it is Lois- Batsis would help at every step, she needs security footage from years ago? No problem, here you go Miss Lane, Bruce keeps them on this private server, here is how you personally can get in without being noticed. She needs an article that's only in Gotham's archive about xyz? No biggie, here's the original, and ten copies.

Light work, batsis already helps her with stuff like this, she'd be cackling behind Lois as she writes, kicking her feet like a chaos-hungry gremlin. If Dami has a better relationship at the time with batsis rather than the fam? He'll jump the wagon too, hell he'll probably do it anyway. "If I had a nickel for every time I had to find out about an older blood sibling from another source but my father, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird it happened twice." Twitter goes wild, this produces another week worth of content, batsis liking the post and retweeting "At least he raised you, I had better parental figures in Killer Croc and Harley Quinn." another week of articles.

Bruce Wayne's PR team wants to quit.

[leocchisart]

OKAY; We need to talk about this TyZula scene:

this scene has been talked about a LOT. specifically by anti-tyzula/azula fans. but for this "rant" im looking at it through the lens of just azulas character.

it is DETRIMENTAL to azula as a character. this will be a slightly indepth review i guess. im sure someone already talked about this and what im going to say, but i just want to bring it to light considering some of the anti-azula/tyzula stuff i've been seeing recently

Part 1: Azulas reaction to the way Ty Lee approaches her

the way ty lee approached azula is really important here. you might just think, "oh leo it's just Azula being jealous!" but when ty lee walks up to azula saying, "thank goodness you're here!" (i didn't get this part in the clip cuz im a fool and didn't record it on time but whatever go watch the clip on youtube) this qoute is really impactful. it possibly made azula feel less than ty lee. here is the qoute again, "Thank goodness you're here", i feel like azula would take this very personally.

even just the single first sentence. "Thank goodness" is obviously ty lee thanking azula, but for what? you might say, "well yeah for being there" but i genuinely believe azula would interpret this along the lines of, "she only wants me when she needs me" or something like that.

Part 2: Azula's jealously towards Ty Lee

i think a lot of people solely think she's jealous over the boys liking ty lee more than her. but it's not just that. i genuinely find that azula is not only jealous of the boys, but also social interaction in general. specifically with ty lee having that skill and her not.

we don't have much information as to mai, ty lee, and azulas experience in the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, but im assuming azula didn't need much social skills to succeed there. she had two close friends to deal with people speaking to her, and was literally a crown princess of the FIRE NATION. if she couldn't get what she wanted whether mai or ty lee were there- she could always use her royalty as her advantage. i also can see her threatening those in school who opposed her (without using her royalty as a reason). there is a key moment we see during a flashback where azula and ty lee are playing. azula did her best to preform a cartwheel and failed while ty lee succeeded. because of this azula actually pushes ty lee down!

keep in mind that this is one of azulas closest friends other than mai. we can only IMAGINE what azula would do to a student who got in the way of something she wanted.

so yes; azula is jealous of ty lee getting attention from boys, but it's not solely that. it's her social skills that she's also jealous of.

Part 3: The Conflict

azula gets defensive after her reaction to the previous plot point. she verbally attacks ty lee because of it. azula says to ty lee, "those boys only like you because you make it so easy for them! you're not a challenge, you're a tease."

yes azula is "critiquing" the "way" ty lee attracts men. azula is saying she'd do the exact opposite. but the opposite is all she knows. she grew up learning the power of being the best, being perfect, and fear mongering. she genuinely sees that as the way to handle ANY social situation.

as far as, "it's not like they actually care who you are." qoute goes; azula sees this as another flaw in her interactions with men.

example is when she tries to convince chan to to maybe (?) have a relationship or farther; she uses (not exactly royality) but her skills as a skilled bender for a reason to stay with her. considering she has no social skills, her only option (in her mind) is to use her higher power. ty lee doesn't use her high rank in nobility (along with her chi blocking abilities) to what azula would call an advantage.

im not defending azulas verbal assault on ty lee. im solely explaining (imo) the feelings behind it.

Part 4: Ty Lee's reaction

This one is simple. ty lee is hurt by azulas words. obviously.

Part 5: Azula's redemption for this scene

it already baffles me when people say azula is (pure evil) just based on her actions between others. but this scene shows a side of azula we haven't been able to see so far through the series. an apology. not only did she apologize to ty lee but admitted her mistake and explained why she said what she did. i think it's insane that people solely walk past this scene and only see it as azula bullying ty lee. if anything it's the opposite. yes she makes a rude remark, but after seeing ty lee's reaction she IMMEDIATELY takes her comment back an apologizes.

this is so human and shows a side we hardly ever got to see. especially when it's specifically between her and ty lee. their relationship is so important as far as azulas character goes. (not to get too deep into it but,) even in "Azula and the Spirit Temple" ty lee is one of the illusions that the spirit attempts to make her happy with. azula obviously has a strong connection to ty lee in a loving and caring way that most people look past. whether it's from these scene or that specific comic. obviously their relationship has unhealthy flaws but what relationship doesn't?

Part 6: A quick resolution

so there you go. basically an essay on a single 36 second clip i just wanted to give azula some light because people ALWAYS paint her as "crazy" or "evil" but that's simply not true. same goes for TyZula. yes there is a power imbalance, but azula does admit her mistakes and apologizes for hurting ty lee's feelings.

Anyway thanks for reading!!

[chesie-blog2]

TGG analysis Part 1

Hi, this is part one of my analysis of the great game. In this post i’ll be highlighting moments which display Sherlock’s growing fascination with Moriarty and Moriarty’s undeniable obsession with Sherlock. I aim to (at some point) explain their dynamic beyond the romantic undertones already present in a lot of their lines. This is only an intro into my big theory - the analysis of pool scene.

*low k might be my fav ep

Sherlock’s obsession with Moriarty

Moriarty’s obsession with Sherlock

these may or may not be just shameless (intellectual) flirting

Here is what i wrote down while watching, might be a little sparse, but the important bits are all there. Also disclaimer: my formatting skills suck and i’ll be editing the post a lot post posting (now that’s a trippy sentence), because i can’t sleep at night knowing i don’t make any sense 💀

p.s. - every quote that's numbered is also provided at the end of the post (Moriarty's words said by the victims), they’re important as i think it’s Moriarty’s way of avoiding vulnerability.

There’s an explosion at Baker street. Sherlock is unharmed but gets a package. A pink phone replica. 5 pips = 5 bombs = five tests. On said phone a picture of 221C that Moriarty knew Sherlock’s seen before. in there Carl Powers’ shoes.

Sherlock gets a call (1): “Hello, sexy. I’ve sent you a little puzzle just to say hi.” Sherlock: “the curtain rises. i’ve been expecting this for some time”. He’s excited, and he’s been waiting for Moriarty to act ever since A Study In Pink. 

In the lab, right before Jim comes in. “Why is Mycroft trying to bore me, when someone else is being so delightfully interesting” ((ok not to be biased but that is literally sherlockese for “i have a crush on a boy 🤭” ))

Jim walks in, Sherlock looks at him(reads him in a fraction of a second). Jim looks Sherlock up and down. No but literally how did no one notice his weird fan behaviour around Sherlock?? Molly was invisible to him and he was speaking to John while staring at Sherlock.

(Also can i just mention how Sherlock says “tinted eyelashes” when proving why he thinks Jim is gay and the picture is of his eyebrows) 

Carl Powers, “it’s where i began” Sherlock’s first case - Moriarty’s first crime it's pink this time cuz this is so gay at the age of 14 (20 years ago). Tbh we don’t know if it’s Moriarty’s first crime but i just find it romantic to think so. Of course he could’ve committed that one just to get Sherlock’s attention OR his obsession with Sherlock started after that, because maybe Sherlock's involvement in that case led him to believe that they were “meant to be” rivals. Perfect opposites (i mean they’re like 80% similar but sure dude). Basically he felt personally seen by someone who had the incentive to dig deeper, beyond the standard practices of police work, someone who believes that there is more to see.

Sherlock solves the case, blogs about his findings, communicating with moriarty and making him stop the clock 3:“well done you, come and get me”. When alone Sherlock says to himself: “Elegant”.  “No, i can’t be the only person in the world that gets bored.” As one wise person has said: any emotion that is experienced by a character in private is real. (SHOUTOUT TO @asherlockstudy) This of course applies to truths as well, and here Sherlock is being as honest as possible. This line proves how much Sherlock truly needs Moriarty, someone who understands that inexplicable pain of being bored. Just by knowing that someone like that exists, Sherlock feels understood, freed from the loneliness of being estranged, from the discomfort of being a “freak”. This game is the highest form of entertainment, something that allows him to be himself and to be valued for it. But more on that in the pool scene.

Another puzzle, 8 hours. (5): “We were made for eachother Sherlock”*Sherlock smiles* and softly says “Then talk to me in your own voice”bro is cheezing after the call bro…

“Our friendly bomber. I am on fire!”(he’s having fun ☺️) 

(6):“you can come and fetch me” Sherlock is smiling like crazy again.

John: “It’s all meant for you”. Sherlock: “Yes, i know 😏” !!!!! (video 1 below for the face expressions) (btw I was literally just filming my laptop so sorry for the shit quality, I just want to have proof for my yapp :DD)

Like how special one must feel to have someone be willing to kill tens or even hundreds of people just to entertain you? It’s not even about the lives to be honest, just the fact that someone is creating these personalised little puzzles. Like, isn’t that hot? This is also one of the MANY moments when John expresses his disapproval for Sherlock’s involvement in this game, mostly the giddiness about it. This will be important later on (i’m edging y’all so hard with this hinting :Ddd but i’m writing this after everything else so oops).

Sherlock is kinda defends(?) Moriarty, when Lestrade asks why is the bomber doing this. Sherlock answers *shrug* “good samaritan”, Greg is all like ‘he’s a bomber, hello?’ Sherlock: “bad samaritan 🤟😗” (Idk what's with the emojis but I just wanted to show how relaxed and goofy he was about it all). Basically, Sherlock interprets Moriarty’s “game” as a personal service, despite it being morally questionable.(ok but bro can’t stay serious, like he’s smiling all the time “[we’re dealing with] something new 😁” )

Ok now that i’m going over everything for the millionth time i noticed that this moment here was one of the worst attempts of hiding his “intellectual crush”. Sherlock isn’t big for conventional morality, and i’ll touch on that later, but this was so unserious it almost seemed like he became more comfortable in himself. He began to see that saying out of pocket or perhaps cynical stuff like that is fine, however much of a crime against “preserving the social peace of normies” it seems to be. I made that shit up, hopefully y’all get what this means :D Having someone like Moriarty allowed him to question his own role in society and how he, despite often being against succumbing to what's normal(and boring), conforms to it, to society, which further strengthens his feelings of estrangement. We're getting kafkaesque in here, boys! (sorry)

“Novel” Sherlock realised Moriarty is a consultant criminal(he organises crimes but no one has direct contact to him). When John asks (again) why Moriarty’s doing this, Sherlock can’t help but smile. “i think he wants to be distracted” *says in a breathy tone(intrigued/touched)* (WAIT I didn't know I could only put 1 video omg I literally feel 80 years old, how does Tumblr work!? *crying*) So Sherlock was staring into space, his face lit up upon realizing that him and Jim are the same, that they experience the same things and blah blah blah he looks horny in this scene I legit don't know what to even say bruh. (I'm mad that I couldn't put the video in lmaoo)

No but fr John noticed Sherlock has an intellectual crush on Moriarty and was annoyed at how entertained (and fulfilled) Sherlock was by this morally grey game.

The golem was hired to kill the astronomer guy and his friend professor because they would’ve been able to expose that the painting was a fake based on the stars. Sherlock figures it all out: “Oh that is brilliant, that is gorgeous. this is beautiful. Love this!”. The gallery woman admits to the fraud. Sherlock learns that this is in fact Moriarty behind this. *smiles*. 

our baby boy solved everything and now is curled up, watching shit telly :( 

Sherlock was waiting for John to leave to write to (more like at) Moriarty *smiles*. He lied to John about having given the missile plans to Mycroft. Sherlock actively wants to keep John out of this, because of his disapproval, John finds Sherlock’s fascination with Moriarty repulsive. 

So to summarize the absolute randomness I spew out in this thing: the connection between Sherlock and Moriarty is quite vague, but ultimately based on their eccentricity(and in this case it doesn't really matter if(more like "how") it's romantic). I'll talk about it all in the big post I PROMISE, this is just the intro so you can follow my impossible thought process. Another important thing: John as the symbol of conventionality and morality. That's it, I'll post again in like a month because the feeling of responsibility paralyzes me LMAO. ok bye ;)

+

Moriarty’s words said by the victims:

“hello, sexy. i’ve sent you a little puzzle just to say hi.”

“12 hours to solve the puzzle, sherlock, or i’m going to be so naughty”

“well done you, come and get me.”

“clever you, guessing about carl powers. i never liked him. carl laughed at me, so i stopped him laughing. This is about you and me.”

“the clue is in the name “janus cars”[s:why’d you be giving me a clue] why does anyone do anything? because i’m bored. we were made for eachother sherlock”

“you can come and fetch me” 

“i like to watch you dance” 

“you’re enjoying this, aren’t you? joining the dots.”

“nice touch this, the pool, where little carl died. i stopped him. i can stop john watson too, stop his heart”

[wolfertinger]

Hey Wis, I know you read this blog so what's up girl? I shut up for a little while but IDK. You're pretty amusing.

You ever been called a spic before? Probably not. I have though! If you don't know what that is, it's a slur. Commonly used towards Hispanics and Latinos. I got called that quite a few times growing up, despite my fair complexion. You wanna know why I've been called that? Well, gee, as I've said before: I'm quite literally mixed. It's been stated a few times.

Oh but who am I kidding. OF COURSE you know what the word spic is. Just like we all know you are quite familiar with MANY slurs, surely. I'm sure it's all laced somewhere deep in your vocabulary due to the minority hating 4chan loving blood that runs deep within your veins.

You can denounce my background and call me cracker all you want. Doesn't make you right. Same as Sawyer. The more you speak, the more your nazi slips out. And the only people that agree with you are people who are as disgusting as you are, or are probably too young and impressionable to know any better. And disgusting filth like you are merely a minority in this world. Some people agreeing with you, doesn't mean you're right. They just like the vitriol that seeps from you, because they identify with it, or they're misinformed.

You would never be allowed in any punk spaces. You OR your slimy boyfriend. You claim you can't draw anymore cuz you're so stressed, but you're the only mf putting yourself in that situation. What is your damage? Genuinely? WHAT is it with your hatred of Sawyer. I never asked to be involved with this but you just HAD to defend a creepy ass groomer who's been obsessed with me since day 1 all cuz I didn't want to be associated with her ass anymore. I mean for God sakes, you lied (shocker) and told people Majora was my ex. Funny cuz we never dated. Why is it that you only ever lie? If you're so bold in what you believe, then why are you not willing to sit down and have an actual conversation and face the facts of all the evidence like an innocent person would?

Is this really the hill you want to die on? The more you go on, the more this will be remembered. I'd say it'd be hard to come back from, but as your disgusting boyfriend has proven, some people can just do the most disgusting shit imaginable and get away with it no matter what I guess. So I guess there's still hope for you count crackula. Oh...you don't like being called cracker. Right?

I really don't care. You are, quite literally, a fucking cracker. You act like using that word against someone like me will make me melt down. Unlike you, I'm not fragile. It doesn't bother me to be called such a stupid fucking slur like it does you, cuz you know exactly what you are. For me, it's laughable. You accuse me of using AAVE and pretending to be poc (Jesus Christ we have already been OVER this) when you're over there misuing AAVE in the most embarrassing ways imaginable and just throwing the word "cracker" around like it's a fucking prize to be handed out at a fair.

But please. Do go on. Please continue to make an ass of yourself. I hope you know the art and furry community are starting to catch on. Quite a lot of them have started gravitating towards me on bluesky and have been paying attention. I've also received quite a lot of dms and private contact from people thanking me for helping bring more about you two to light because a lot of people are fed up with the both of you.

But keep digging your grave.

You're helping nobody. You especially are not helping yourself.

Don't ever think I'd piss my pants and cry over insults being flung at me from a fucking nazi that is willing to die on the hill of defending rapists and predators. You're exactly the kind of scum I defend my community against.

Live with your guilt for the rest of your life.

thank you, again, for speaking out. why she thinks dragging you into this, will do anything in her favor, is beyond me.

[the-perverse-library]

Prompt (RWBY): Team RWBY are sent to detention with Glynda after another food fight. Unfortunately for them, Glynda has a new lesson she wants to give them, and she has the tool to do it.

Glynda was furious! The name, the reputation, and the prestige of Beacon Academy were being destroyed by a quartet of simple-minded ne'er-do-wells and their sloppy, stupid schoolyard antics. She had caught Team RWBY instigating another food fight at the mess hall and decided that she needed to set them right. If they wanted to behave like brainless little bimbos, then Glynda would make them brainless little bimbos.

The blonde disciplinarian stood before the four seated students. Her eyes drifted from face to face, gauging how much shame or guilt they felt as she glowered at Beacon's four biggest troublemakers. Ruby had guilt written all over her face, Yang seemed smugly defiant of her, Weiss retained her haughty, arrogant disposition, and Blake was more invested in whatever was on her scroll rather than her. Glynda tensed up before she slapped her riding crop down on Blake's desk. "Welcome to detention, girls, I hope you know why you're here." Glynda coldly stated as she towered over the four girls.

"B-because we had a food fight." Ruby meekly offered up. "But we had fun, you can't punish fun, right?"

"It wasn't even that bad, though. Do we really need to be in detention?" Yang probed as she flexed her arms a little. "Did someone just whine cuz they lost?"

Weiss just rolled her eyes. "Just tell us we need to write an essay or something. We promise not to do it again, " she remarked dismissively.

All the while, Blake kept her attention down and on her scroll, entirely ignoring her or the nature of her punishment. As if she was pointedly ignoring her.

Glynda only felt justified in her decision as she strutted to the blackboard and used her telekinetic powers to pick up some chalk. "Your punishment ends when I say it ends. Read the rules and understand that they are absolute." Glynda remarked as she pointed to the three rules written up on the board. Goodwitch's Rules 1. Twerk when twerked to! 2. No Eating *except me* 3. Obey the Boombox

"Eh? What kind of rules are those?" Yang asked as Glynda pulled a shimmering gold boombox onto the teacher's desk before her.

Glynda just smiled as she poured her aura into the golden device, bringing it to life. "Well, Miss Xiao Long... these will be the last set of rules the four of you will ever need." Goodwitch firmly instructed the blonde brawler as the thrumming baseline echoed through the classroom. The mature disciplinarian could feel the unique power of the boombox seep into her already as she stood in front of Team RWBY. "I hope you're all ready? Not a soul gets to leave until I approve of your twerking." Glynda's eyes flickered purple as she ripped her skirt clean off her body and began dancing. Her fat, round asscheeks slammed and crashed together as the boombox's music filled the classroom. ~Shake it, twerk it, clap it, break it~!

Glynda looked over her shoulders to see her students were beginning to feel the power of the boombox overwhelm them. A cruel smirk found its way onto her lips as she called out the four Huntresses. "Eyes front Ladies! Listen carefully, or you'll find yourselves crushed under the weight of detention." The mature witch joked as she walked backwards and practically started to bounce her ass against their faces.

The quartet didn't know what to say or what to think. The music was loud, piercing, and repetitive, slowly but surely replacing any thought they could have with its four simple commands. ~Shake it, twerk it, clap it, break it~! The four Huntresses soon found themselves dancing, making their asses bounce like Miss Goodwitch's, which they ogled with both reverence and envy. Ruby could only whimper as she made her ass bounce and ripple as hard and as fast as she could as Goodwitch slammed her ass directly onto the raven-haired reaper's face. I-it's in my head!! M-My ass~! I can't stop moving m-my ass~! Ruby thought as her eyes flickered and turned purple.

Yang shuddered as she felt herself cumming as her the bass rippled through her, making her ass and thighs swell until her pants exploded. "Hey~! I-I wanted ~thunder thighs~... B-b-but not like... a-ahhhhn... ~this~." The blonde fell into a deep squat and made her ass clap as pleasure flooded her mind, turning the powerful Huntress into a mewling, moaning mess as she twerked harder and harder.

~Shake it, twerk it, clap it, break it~!

Weiss wished she was as resilient as her fellow teammates. But she wasn't; even Glynda could see it. The moment she heard the aura-infused music, the Schnee heiress had lost complete and total control of herself. The dainty thing rushed forward and buried her face deep into Glynda's mature cunt as she twerked her little Atlesian heart out. C~Can't... stop~... Can never ~stop~... Weiss's thoughts were sluggish as she ravenously teased the headmistress, desperate for praise, desperate to be a good girl who follows the rules.

The only holdout was Blake, the faunus, who had her hands covering her ears, which only sparked a fire within Glynda. "Hands away from your hears this instant, Miss Belladonna!!" The mature blonde pulled Ruby out from between her growing asscheeks and quickly made Blake take her place. "You better learn to listen to me and focus if you ever want to grow as a Huntress." Glynda giggled at the blatant lie she was telling the cat-girl. Only to feel that Blake still had her ears covered. "Hrmmmph! Yang, please make Blake listen to reason." Glynda watched the climaxing blonde give a shuddering nod before she fell against Blake.

"N-no, Yang! Please, let go of my ea-~OooooOoooh!!!" Blake's plea collapsed into a lewd, mewling purr as the full force of the golden boombox hit Blake all at once. Causing the kitty to shred her clothes and nearly pass out from the intensity of her own storm of orgasms. Each one making her as dumb and as brainless as Weiss.

Glynda smiled at her four "students". "Now, you will report here every day for an hour so you can be properly equipped to handle life as a Huntress." Glynda gleefully lied to the four twerking, climaxing troublemakers. "Then I will send you on missions to the dorm rooms all over the school to help the other teams prepare to take on Grimm. Then every afternoon, I want you in this classroom, practising with me." The disciplinarian felt smug as she had planned to use her four most troublesome students as part of the free use fuckdoll rollout to incentivise Huntsmen to go on more missions.

"Y~yes mistress~!" Team RWBY squealed in unison as all four came, gushing and squirting over each other before passing out from exhaustion and extreme bliss. Glynda smiled as she turned the boombox off and confidently leered at the four transformed bimbos with a depraved hunger.

"I think I should get the first round, after all... I made you, why shouldn't I get to take all four of you for a test drive." The disciplinarian darkly chuckled to herself.

[pilfappreciator]

ATTENTION TROLLS FANDOM!!

This is very important. Mostly to me but maybe you guys have been wondering this too idk but anyways:

How does troll reproduction work exactly?

Cuz I'm genuinely curious. I dont think anyone on the series production team has said anything and so far I've seen absolutely no one touch on this subject but as someone who's always had an interest in the habits of creatures (both fictional or otherwise), I kinda sorta maybe NEED to know this otherwise I'll never be able to sleep peacefully again

Full disclaimer that I'm specifically talking about the whole egg situation, I am NOT ASKING HOW THEY GET IT ON IF I WANTED THAT ANSWER I'D GO TO DEVIANT ART OR TWITTER OR WHATEVER LAWLESS PLATFORM GOD STEERS CLEAR OF. This discussion shall remain STRICTLY educational, thank you very much

But anywho. Let's dive in

So trolls come from eggs. This is basic knowledge. First instance of this phenomenon (as far as I know, I've only seen the movies) is from World Tour.

Egg pops out of Guy Diamond's hair, egg hatches and BOOM, (literal) baby. Now I understand that this whole sequence was probably just a gag and a way for DreamWorks to implement another (merchandisable) addition to the cast HOWEVER this sequence also raises a few questions

First off, as far as I know Guy Diamond has no partner (again: I haven't watched any of the spinoff shows). Either that or maybe the other troll was a sorta one-night-stand/no-longer-in-his-life kinda situation? Which is great either way cuz its shown he obviously cares for his son and we at Tumblr appreciate a loving single father no matter the circumstances, but if my former theory is correct than that would imply that trolls are capable of reproducing asexually. Like onions.

Now if that hypothesis is, as they call it, "cap" then that would mean that some sorta hanky panky has to go down before an egg comes into question. And if that's the case, does this mean that male trolls are traditionally the ones who carry the eggs?

But that can't be right, can it? Afterall, World Tour gave us yet ANOTHER egg scene later on in the movie

In Cooper's flashback, we clearly see Queen Essence being the one carrying the eggs meanwhile King Quincy is eggless. Now, as far as i see it, this could be explained either one of four ways:

1) Quincy was the one who actually produced the eggs and Essence is merely holding them for her husband (since her hair seems more fitting to be a makeshift nest compared to Quincy's)

2) Female trolls are the ones who produce the eggs. Guy Diamond is just a trans icon

3) Troll reproduction differs from genre to genre

4) There is a... *sighs* a/b/o type of dynamic among troll kind where certain trolls are capable of giving birth/siring children depending on a secondary gender

In regards to theory #3, this could also explain why Guy Diamond seems to reproduce and hatch an egg in such a short amount of time (like 5 seconds I'm pretty sure) as opposed to Queen Essence/King Quincy who's eggs presumably went a while longer before actually hatching.

Actually, speaking off eggs, are trolls the only species in their world that reproduce that way?

Because now that Band Together has officially been released, we now know for certain that it's possible for different species to crossbreed. Biggest example? Resident DILF Bruce and his giant muppet wife

(Credit to @captainunderkrupp )

When I saw these two... I swear...

And these two already have a shit ton of kids okay so like... either Brandi was the one giving birth or trollsona Daveed Digs was over here pumpin out eggs, which I mean-

DO YOU SEE HOW BIG THESE THINGS ARE COMPARED TO BRANCH AND POPPY?? Believe me I am PRAYING that Bruce gave himself some serious maternity/paternity leave because my guy is honestly a trooper

But yeah any thoughts? :))

[bonewaryreblogs]

I’ve decided how Batman meets Danny Phantom.

While connecting characters between DC and DP, I came across the DC villain Pariah, who shares a name with DP villain Pariah Dark. I’ve decided that these two are the same person and fighting him will bring Danny Phantom into contact with Batman, or at least get Danny onto his radar as someone to look into further.

But first, some backstory...

Since we don’t know much about Pariah Dark, other than being sealed away a long time ago, I’ll mostly be pulling his backstory from Kell Mossa, a scientist who accidentally brought his universe to Anti-Monitor’s attention and watched it be destroyed as the only survivor, renamed Pariah by his savior, Monitor (Anti-Monitor’s “good” twin brother). He involuntarily watched Anit-Monitor destroy several other universes, blaming himself for (supposedly) releasing Anti-Monitor, though he is later assured that Anti-Monitor was just doing what he had always done and Pariah had simply diverted his path of destruction. Pariah is dropped off in a random universe, where he tried to live a normal life, though he was constantly drawn to impending disasters that he had no hope of preventing, as no one heeded his warnings (like a mix of Pokemon’s Absol and Greek’s Cassandra); he was killed and revived a few times, only to eventually fall through the cracks of reality and driven insane. Instead of being found by Flash and sent to the “paradise world” called  Earth-Flash.1, Pariah became the first inhabitant of the newly formed Ghost Zone pocket dimension and declared himself the Ghost King, sometimes calling himself Pariah Dark. (He may or may not have connections to the cosmic Great Darkness, I haven’t decided)

Pariah decides to use the ghosts of the Ghost Zone to invade the living realm of Earth but now he needs a lieutenant he can trust...

After turning completely evil, Eclipso was replaced as the Wrath of God (yes, THAT God, cuz apparently He exists in DC) by Aztar, who instead calls himself the Vengeance of God, and is bound to a human host to keep him from turning evil like Eclipso did. He’s had many hosts over the millennia and his most recent host, James “Jim” Corrigan, had been the hero Spectre with Aztar since Jim’s “death” around 1940, but he was getting old and had chosen Detective Crispus Allen of the Gotham Police Department as his replacement in 2005. The ritual to transfer Aztar’s host was interrupted by Pariah Dark and Aztar was “recruited” as Pariah’s lieutenant, killing Jim and leaving Cris unpowered and in distress. Pariah convinces Aztar to join him by promising freedom to choose his own path rather than be tethered to some goodie-two-shoes human and Aztar accepts. Danny is called on to defeat Pariah by the ghosts that don’t want to serve the self-proclaimed King (most of whom end up being Danny’s various Rogues Gallery) and is thrust into leading the resistance; meanwhile Cris enlisted the help of Batman and the rest of the Batclan (and maybe some members of Justice League Dark), who join the resistance as well.

I’m thinking this will be the first big crisis Damian will participate in as Robin, though I’m not sure if I want Duke Thomas (Signal) to have been recruited yet or not; if he has been recruited already, he’s still in training and hasn’t become Signal yet. I’ll get my timeline ironed out for my next post.

Various other connections:

There is a Pandora in both continuities, so after she “accidentally” released the Crime Syndicate (evil JL) into this universe, she decided to move and found the new Ghost Zone to be acceptable, as the inhabitants amused her. She recognized the ectoplasm that saturated the pocket dimension as being related to the Fountain of Life but didn’t bother looking into it or telling anyone because she didn’t want to risk them ruining her fun. She let the Box Ghost steal her box and toyed with Danny before agreeing to help him retrieve it. She could probably take down Pariah on her own but that would be really hard and this resistance thing sounds like more fun than she’s had in ages anyways.

DC Cronus is more-or-less the same as the god from Greek mythology but has also been equated with Chronos, the Greek god of time. After Cronus was imprisoned in Tartarus by the Olympian Gods, Clockwork was given his duties as the God of Time by Hera, loosely working with the Quintessence’ Observants.

Speaking of, DP’s Observants seem to fulfill a similar role as DC’s Quintessence, so I’ve decided that the Quintessence are the gods in control but they employ the Observants to catalogue and categorize events for the Quintessence so they don’t have to do everything themselves. The Observants are the ones who decide what deserves the attention of the gods in charge. I’ll probably have the Quintessence decide the fate of the Ghost Zone after Pariah Dark is defeated.

The Guys in White are an obvious reference to the Men in Black. Looking up various government agencies in the DC Comics, the Bureau of Normalcy (formerly Bureau of Oddities) seems to serve a similar function, so I’ve decided that GiW and BoN are both departments of the larger Department of Extranormal Operations (DEO), where the GiW are specifically focused on eliminating threats from ghostly (and similarly paranormal) origins, while the BoN handles cover-ups and convincing the public that everything is “normal” and work both in the field and in cyber security. BoN people often accompany other agencies to run interference so the other agencies are able to do whatever they need to do without fear of being seen or regular people getting in the way. The GiW was beginning to investigate the uptick of paranormal activity in Amity Park and would have contacted SHADE if they ever discovered Danny Phantom was anything more than an ordinary ghost.

Other departments include Knightwatch (general military enforcement), the Suicide Squad (generally works with Knightwatch, enlisting the aid of established heroes and villains alike, the roster constantly changes), Squad K (which is specifically designed to take out Superman if he ever went rogue), the Super-Human Advanced Defense Executive or SHADE (focused on talent acquisition), Project Cadmus (technically Research and Development, but actually trying to clone heroes for SHADE), the Department of Metahuman Affairs or DMA (the public face of SHADE), and probably others I couldn’t find in my quick search. 

[sweetmariihs2]

⊹₊୨୧ ⁺₊☾⊹ Cedric and Aurora's universe dynamic (the full lore) — a canon x oc ramble of mine ;

⊹.✩₊˚.☾⁺₊🔮 ⊹₊୨୧ ⁺₊.✩° ₊♡ ˚🪄⊹.✩₊˚.☾⁺₊ ⊹୨୧ ⁺₊🍒 ⊹.✩ ₊♡ ˚ ⊹

Tw: sexual intimacy mentioned, family abuse, self-loathing thoughts, and by the way the characters have around like a 15 years age gap so be aware of that.

I have like, so many fictional worlds in my head that were only made for myself, but I know them so in-depth, that I wish I could share them to someone else like some kind of work like a book, or a series, or videos, but I just can't, because it's only in my head. It's like when you write a book and try to convey the feeling of that story through moodboards and songs to try to make your readers understand the movie that going through your mind when you were writing the story. With the exception that I don't want to write a full story on this, because it would be too long and with no actual start, middle or end. It doesn't have the structure that a story would have, and I don't have time (or enough motivation) to write. I made this post with informatiom about Aurora and her story, intending to turn it into an instagram post, but I want to speak more about the characters and some stuff has changed since that post. Still, I consider it a significant part of my character's story so I'll add it here. The aesthetics and songs still match her the same.

First of all, I have whole playlists for them and their "story". It's not exactly about the characters (it is, actually), but the feeling that comes from their story I have in my mind is different from the feeling that comes from Sofia The First. I feel like Sofia The First is much more like a Disney princess cartoon, with ballgowns, castles and princess life, you know what I mean. While Cedric's and Aurora's story feels much more like... blue hour, you know? The Last Unicorn. The Secret of Moonacre. Feels like dark fantasy, a little. It's very quiet, calm, if it had a color, it would be defined by darker and pastel tones of purple and blue. They also gave off the intimate and slow pace of the story that I think that doesn't match very much with Sofia The First. It's almost like a spin off for a more mature public, because the characters overall are less "characters from a children's show" and more like something that would be part of those 90s slow movies. Like Girl Interrupted maybe? With the exception that they're not in a mental hospital, of course...

By the way, I found it relevant to mention that months after I had already created Aurora, I discovered a music artist called "Bambi Baker" and got honestly shocked at how much she visually resembled the image I had of Aurora in my head. She's beautiful and I do like some of her songs. Aurora's name, on the other way, came from one of my favorite singers, Aurora Aksnes. But they don't have anything in common, the singer Aurora and the character Aurora.

This is a link to my Cedric folder on Pinterest (I'm the person who posted most of his icons there so it's all saved here), and there is a subfolder called "Aurora", which is specifically focused on her and the story I made for them. This is the vibe I'm talking about.

The quotes in the folders are also relevant to the characters and their story. Aurora's ones specially because Cedric's folder is more neutral (cuz in the actual Sofia The First universe Aurora does not exist and Cedric is not in love)

I also recently posted a video that I recorded in august 2024, painting one of the arts I made of them. I also incorporated their aesthetics in the video using stickers, pinterest images, and my Cedric and Aurora folders. Also the songs playing in the video are actual songs from their playlist. (Gosh I wish I could add cute dividers, stickers and aesthetics to this post the same way I can do in this video, but the 10 image per post limit doesn't let me to)

⊹₊୨୧⁺₊☾⊹ Their playlist:

The songs in their playlist actually have lyrics that talk about them, most of the time. It makes me upset that they probably won't be appreciated like this by other people becuse the work that Cedric and Aurora together come from simply does not exist out of my mind. But I have a list of songs that I listen to when I'm writing about them, thinking of them or drawing their moments together (which is the best way I found to express the characters and share what I have of them in my head). Most of the songs that remind me of them are calm, slow and sweet, with some exceptions. I don't exactly have a playlist exclusively for them, their songs are mixed with some other writing songs on spotify, some other songs that I feel like would be part of their playlist are unreleased (Lana Del Rey's unreleased songs) and thus are not on spotify, and I need to hear them separately in my phone's storage. So it's better if I wrote their names down. I don't think that anyone will actually hear these but why not.

Piero Piccioni - Violino + Amore Mio Aiutame - Version 3 (two versions of the same song)

Nino Rota - Love Theme (from Romeo and Juliet)

Vangelis - La Petite Fille de La Mer

The Electric Prunes - Onie

Alice Phoebe Lou - Lover // Over The Moon

Lila Ravelle - Cherub

Lana Del Rey - Buddy's Rendezvous

Lana Del Rey - Oh Say Can You See

Lana Del Rey - For K Part 2

Lana Del Rey - Pawn Shop Blues

Lana Del Rey - Raise Me Up

Mazzy Star - Quiet, The Winter Harbor

Aspidistrafly - Countless White Moons

Aspidistrafly - Landscape With A Fairy

Christian Henson - Maria's Room

Christian Henson - I'm Glad That You're Back

Takatsugu Muramatsu - When I Held A Doll

Alice Phoebe Lou - Open My Door

Alice Phoebe Lou - Witches

Liana Flores - Nightvisions

Mitski - Me And My Husband

Black Box Recorder - Child Psychology

Leith Ross - Like We'll Never Have Sex

Almost the whole soundtrack album of the movie "When Marnie Was There" by Takatsugu Muramatsu

I wrote everything in this post in my own order, I decided to add everything that came to my mind, so I didn't organized the actual events in the story in order, just told about the characters until it culminated in me telling about their story and about the end of it. I will try to, not to divide this post in topics and titles, but help the readers to identify what will they be reading about in each part of the post through small summaries that would work like how actual titles work. Like this, for example:

⊹₊୨୧⁺₊☾⊹The characters's routines, lives and environments:

They spend most of the time inside Cedric's tower, and I see the tower as a very silent place due to the height and distance from the ground and from the rest of the castle. I also think it's very cold and windy, due to the wind that travels through that height. It is all made of stone and the floors and walls get cold in a way that Cedric tells Aurora to always walk with shoes on, because he doesn't want her to catch a cold. During daytime, the inside of the tower is dark and the only source of light comes from the windows and the candles in the room, or from the magic they practice. In the night it gets much colder and the moonlight travels between the curtains to illuminate the inside of the tower. Cedric's (and now also Aurora's) room is in a mezzanine at the very top and highest spot of the tower, just some meters below the ceiling, in a way that the spiral staircase travels through all the floors with Cedric's bookshelves to finish at the start of their room. Their room doesn't have a door. The fact that it's a mezzanine divides the platform in a half-circle shape, leaving room for them to look down and see eachother in case someone's at the workshop. At the same time, the tower seems a bit larger than the actual tower in Sofia The First, but not enough to get alarmingly different, only the room inside (the whole inside of the tower, workshop and everything) is a little bigger, giving more space to move around. Other than that, everything is the same.

When Cedric lived alone, he slept in a canopy bed with white curtains and only had his bedside table and a closet. When Aurora moved in, he used a spell to duplicate his furniture for her to have somewhere to sleep and stay, too. Their beds are apart from eachother (not facing eachother, just separated, a bit next to eachother but not too much), and their furniture is in a mirrowed position, but the room is circular, which is just a small bit similar to the Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses bedroom. Aurora decorated her side of the room with flower vases, flower garlands on her canopy, hanging stars here and there. When she got better with spells, she was able to conjure her own dressing table to store her romance books, her makeup, ribbons and little trinkets. The belongings she brought from her home to Cedric's workshop in the suitcase she carried were placed as part of the room (some clothes, dresses, books, almost half of the things she had now). Most of them stay stored but some are on top of her dresser or bedside table. Cedric's side of the room is a lot more simple, with only some spell books and candles, and a lamp.

Their routine is very simple, and they spend most of their time inside the tower. Cedric always wakes up first, gets dressed and goes to the workshop to work in some potions for the king, because King Roland comissions specific potions according to the kingdom's demands, like healing potions. He lets Aurora sleep a bit more because she's not a royal sorcerer like him, thus she is not there to work and doesn't need to do a full time job like his. She wakes up around one or two hours later than him, Cedric wakes up at six and she wakes up at eight. As soon as she Aurora gets up, she gets ready and go downstairs to meet Cedric at the workshop and to help him in whatever he needs. Aurora is not only an apprentice, she also helps him sometimes in making potions, and Cedric takes advantage of his work to teach her some lessons in practice. Everyday Aurora does the same "routine spells" for around 30 minutes to prepare her wand, like warming up, before learning actual new and more advanced spells. She is there to study but occasionally she helps him cleaning the workshop, organizing his books and ingredients, brewing a potion or bringing something to his hands, stuff like that. They need to help eachother and keep the place organized (like a couple who own an apartment).

Most of Cedric's work inside the workshop is making potions commissioned by the king, and he also studies his own spells to keep himself "in shape" and always learn new things, or refresh old spells in his memory. Of course sometimes people appear at his door asking for stuff and he comes out of the workshop but basically that's it. He also plans the lessons he will give to Aurora and monitors her performance closely. Cedric teaches her practical lessons and tutoring classes where she listens to him about magical theory, watches Cedric perform spells, and practices them. He also teaches what not to do and why. Usually Cedric lets her practice her spells in a table while he works in the other one, keeps giving her tips and correcting her posture, tone of voice when pronouncing spells, so Cedric keeps tutoring her even when he's busy at work. They tend to be more professional during the day and more romantic during the night due to old habits.

⊹₊୨୧⁺₊☾⊹ How they dedicate their night time to eachother and how much this habit matters to them and their story/relationship:

In the past, when something started to blossom between them, Cedric and Aurora agreed to make a rule: In the daytime they were professional, in the nighttime they didn't needed to be, to put some order in there. Because of this, now they don't really have that rule anymore, but they are used to being more intimate after work. At first they tried to ignore their feelings during the day, but now they are fine with that, they're just casually less clingy. At first they were very strict about what was allowed and what was not, and Aurora found little ways here and there to bend the rules a bit. Now their rules are far less strict, but they still tend to follow their old habits. Like, for example, they can kiss or flirt in some moments during the day at the workshop but they will have actual romantic time at night since it's their resting time.

In my mind I have this very peaceful idea of Enchancia at night, with blue lighting, moonlight, the busy corridors of the castle all empty and dark, only illuminated by candles and the moon. From Cedric's tower it's possible to look at Enchancia's domain and see everything from up there, including the castle, the gardens, the mountains and rivers, the light that comes from the village or the lamps and candles in the castle, and in the night everything gets more silent and cozy. Once I made a moodboard of what I think that would feel like staying in Enchancia at night, it really conveys what's in my mind, after all I made it inspired by Cedric and Aurora's story at the time, I even added one of the songs from their playlist.

The night wind makes the sorcerer tower get a lot colder and the silence of the night makes it feel more private and peaceful compared to daytime, where they need to live under certains expectations and pressures that only come from their daily routines. At night they feel a lot more free to be themselves and enjoy eachothers presence. During the day there is a lot of work involved, how people perceive them and act towards them, like for example in Cedric's case when he interacts with people and remembers that he is "the Cedric from Enchancia who is the royal sorcerer and who is also weird and a bungler to everyone", while at night he is just what he knows of himself, vulnerable and honest, with no one to watch or judge.

They can love eachother more freely at night, be able to talk and show affection, like kissing, hugging, sleeping in eachother's beds and talking until sleep. When they're dressed in night clothes like Aurora wears her white nightgowns and Cedric wears his blue striped pajamas. It's often at night where they speak the most about their feelings, about their love but also about eachother's insecurities, traumas, it's how they talk about boundaries, about eachother's traumatic past (the only thing that Cedrid didn't told Aurora yet it's about his evil schemes, because he knows what she would think of him if he ever told her, and dares to keep it hidden until the moment they finally happen just like how he did with Sofia, because he is afraid of losing her, but let's go back to this later). They talk to eachother about everything they don't say in public or during the day. Imagine their insecurities... they talk to eachother about that, they whisper about that. And hold eachother's hands, get comfortable in eachother's warmth under the covers, share some kisses here and there.

It's during night when they get much more intimate too, in a lot of senses. I mean, the night provides them a lot of intimacy and privacy, when someone say these words people tend to think that we're talking in a sexual sense, but not only that, I mean actual intimacy and privacy, emotional stuff, the hability to be themselves next to eachother, like I mentioned earlier. But since we touched on the subject, sexual intimacy is really important for their relationship as well, and it's also during night when most of the stuff happen. At first things were a lot more unusual, they were more strict with their rule of "roles at day, couple at night", and everything they were trying was very new and thrilling, but now they're far more comfortable around eachother, clearly like when people start dating and the first months are more thrilling but the next ones are more comfortable and used to eachother's presence, not less loving. I think people tend to talk less about their character's sexual lives, I mean, sometimes they're only mentioned when it's intended to actually sexualize them, or they just aren't mentioned because it's not relevant to the story, but in this case is very relevant to the story. I mean, what would be of this couple if it wasn't for their intimate moments? Intimacy is very important for them, it's one of their main ways of showing affection and emotionally connecting with eachother besides talking and being vulnerable, I can't ignore this part of the story because it's crucial.

I can't even quite put into words how much this showing of affection means to them, it's not something like the stuff you see in media, is something much more passionate, personal and visceral, like, a true, true way of showing intimacy and connection. They usually do their stuff only in the dark and in the middle of the night when there's no noise or anyone awake, and I feel like, that very dreamy, blue hour, moonlight vibe fits perfectly with them and with the moments they're like this. I feel like there isn't a way of talking about a sexual subject without it being unfortunately sexualized by people, if you know what I mean, but if there's someone who certainly are professionals in avoiding that, are Cedric and Aurora. It's like their intimate moments aren't just intimate, they're the most sincere ways of showing eachother their souls, hearts, insecurities, pains. They forget about the whole world when they're in that dark tower, under the moonlight that comes from the windows, in their canopy beds and in eachother's presence. They don't even need to do anything sexual to feel a deep sense of connection, it's like their room is a box where they keep all their feelings inside, and then they have a small amount of time every night to be in it and forget about their troubles until the sun rises again and they have to go back to their lives. I'm not only talking about sexual intimacy here. Should I make another Barbie And The 12 Dancing Princesses reference again? Maybe it's not a good moment for that...

At first they were much more emotional and impulsive because it was new and definitely dangerous but not too many time later it just became their thing. When they confessed their feelings to eachother, that was the first thing they did because they were very impulsive and were dealing with a lot of frustration for weeks straight. This happened like, a month after Aurora lived at Cedric's tower, and they promised they wouldn't talk about it again, but that didn't worked, of course. They made the "studying at day, lovers at night" rule but sometimes they broke the rule because Aurora is that much of a troublemaker and Cedric has an awful self-discipline, even though he was the one who made the rule in the first place. For like, around three to four months, they were very crazy, reckless and impulsive towards eachother in talks about intimacy, because none of them had that kind of thing before in their lives, so it was new and thrilling. Cedric never had a pretty and amazing girl so into him before (in fact he never had anything before tbh) and Aurora never had the guy of her dreams that's so similar to the ones from her books and that comes directly from her wildest fantasies (she also never tried anything before) so they were a bit too much. But that urgency slowly faded into passion and into a long-term healthy relationship, and now they're a couple who are very intimate with eachother and also happen to be eachother's best friends.

I'm writing many of these paragraphs with no order in particular so since I'm going so deep into their relationship, I'm gonna start introducing the story by parts (since the beginning, that means, Aurora's past) and then pick up the conversation about their dynamic again after you guys know better of the events that brought them to this moment.

⊹₊୨୧⁺₊☾⊹ Aurora's past as a baker's daughter in a village and her arrival at the castle:

I had already spoken about that in the past but I changed some details about this part of the story, Aurora's past is quite upsetting. She came from a commoner family in a small village from a distant kingdom, one that was far from it's castle and thus kinda forgotten by everyone (I gave it a name but it's not very important and I don't remember it anymore). In this village, Aurora was being raised by her family in their house that was connected to their bakery. This was their income. She had a mother, father, and older siblings, Aurora being the youngest in the family. Some of her sisters became wives, and her brothers also had their own wives and everything, but she neved liked the idea of being a wife, even though her family pressed her to it. Her family is very traditional but she isn't, probably the books that she read growing up (that came from other kingdoms, other places, writers from out of that closed-minded village, telling true romantic stories) and the watching of older girls marrying and living unhappy lives as sad wives made her notice that this wasn't exactly something she wanted for herself. Her family tried to raise her into it but she fortunately refused, and got into trouble for that. Her relationship with her parents (and siblings) is very damaged, but it's not her fault. Her "weirdness" make her family and other villagers see her as an outcast and she was known by that back then. The weird baker's daughter.

Once when Aurora was a child, a traveling wizard came to her village and performed magic shows for the children in the street, and from then on Aurora fell in love with magic. Some time later, as a young teenager, she found a dusty magic book lost in the village's library and the librarian gave it to her, having in mind that no one cared about this book. She also found a magic wand along with the book, that went unnoticed by the librarian. That's when Aurora started practicing spells by herself, but without guidance and previous training the spells obviously went wrong. The wand being old and damaged didn't quite helped her but back then Aurora didn't know that. The spells worked only when they wanted to work... only 20% of the time. Because of that, Aurora failed a lot, and in front of other people. She tried to organize her family's bakery but then ended up destroying half of the baked goods. She tried to bake bread faster and set the kitchen on fire in the same way that she burned the entire batch. Her parents had never supported Aurora's choices anyway, but this passion for magic was also extremely rejected by them: she was a disgrace for their family. Her hair was brown, Aurora was born brunette like her whole family was, but she tried a hair spell once and her hair got permanently white. She was shouted for it and cried due to her mistake for days. Everyone in the village knew how much of a failure she was, how ashamed her family was of her, and how now she carried her mistake on her head, to make her look even more weird and ridiculous to other people. Her white hair really stood out because there weren't any magical beings around their village often. Also, just for context, some of her clothes were actual clothes that she bought/owned/got from her family and village, and since her mother taught her how to sew and embroider (for marriage and gender role reasons), Aurora used that sewing knowledge just to make her own clothes.

She was known by everyone as really pretty since she was very young, but after her teenage years, villagers said that she wasted herself. There certainly were expectations that a pretty girl only served to being a good wife in the future, but Aurora was doing the exact opposite of that. The prejudice that other villagers had towards Aurora is unfair, because she is very kind to people and is a constant attendant at the bakery, who treats all the customers very well. Took scoldings from her father all the time, but still kept working at the bakery kitchen/counter and treating everyone kindly.

Her comfort were always her books. Romance books, for that matter. She loved to read and the librarian gave her tons of books because of that. In these stories, the characters were all open minded, respectful, kind. They didn't needed to be under the pressure of their families all the time, and even when they were, soon they were freed of it, or found comfort in eachother. The open-minded writers that came from far, open-minded kingdoms wrote open-minded characters, showing Aurora relationships and people far more respectful and comfortable to be around than the ones she met everyday. She loved to daydream about those romance stories, and the male characters from these books shaped her taste in men, too. She started reading these books when she was a tween (she certainly shouldn't be, by the way, but she did) and she was part of a girl group of friends that shared the books and everyone spoke about their crushes and favorite stories, like a neighborhood friendship. Due to the traditional (and sexist) culture of the village, her friends gradually got married and became adults, and housewives, losing the joy they had in reading books together and laughing with each other (living a life they didn't wanted, but were obligated to live). Aurora was the only one that lasted without changing. She feels sorry for them but despite those girls living unhappy, they see it as something they were destined to do, thus they think that Aurora acts like a child. A very weird girl who has not yet taken on the responsibilities of her life. They're not friends with her anymore — she doesn't have any.

As I mentioned, her relationship with her parents is quite bad. She was always beautiful and kind, people loved her for it, but once Aurora started rejecting tradition, her family started to reject her back. Aurora noticed the harmful patters in their traditions and refused to accept them, or to keep quiet about them, and then their relationship started to deteriorate. Her father had always been very stern, but he personally holds a grudge against her because, once again, she is "the failure of their family". For him, Aurora ruins everything, Aurora is annoying, Aurora is ungrateful, Aurora only brings shame, she does everything wrong, she looks and acts weird, she reads those weird books and daydreams about magic, etc, etc, etc. Her whole family is not very fond of her, but her father is mean. He shouts at her. He startles her. He calls her names. He takes things from her hands. He treats her like a nuisance. And he does all of this in front of other people, customers. There is a lot of sexism in her family and in her village, and she's certainly a target. Her mom is a victim of their culture, but then she became part of it, agreeing about Aurora having to accept her role and about her always making mistakes.

Her father wanted her to get married, to be free of her, but Aurora didn't want to. Besides, a marriage could generate a business deal and financial benefits for her family, but she doesn't cooperate for obvious reasons. Some guys tried to ask for her hand, but it never worked out, because there were times where Aurora rejected some guys, and other times she did everything she could to make the guy regret it and cancel the deal. It wasn't funny, it was really bad actually, because she knows that these guys only care for her looks and wish to prey over her appearance, make her clean their house and take care of children, and this makes her deeply uncomfortable.

She wants to be a sorceress, be a witch, travel through kingdoms, meet other people, other places, live in a castle helping a king or a queen. She heard about the royal sorcerer role and it sounded amazing, a dream come true. Aurora thought about her spells and tried to understand what was wrong, and finally understood that without help she would never learn anything. Without guidance, she would never be a sorceress. Then she made an important decision: There was nothing in her hometown worth staying for. The idea went around in her mind for a few months, long months, and Aurora began to prepare to leave. She started telling people that she was leaving, that she would travel far away to study magic, and of course, her family discouraged her, but she insisted on continuing. Aurora already didn't had many things, so she packed her books, clothes and other belongings into a few suitcases that she could carry, bought a flying broomstick from a traveling salesman (it was very difficult to find one, but she did!) and in the end she said goodbye to her family to begin her journey in search of a royal sorcerer who could teach her about magic. She decided to go after royal sorcerers because there is a guarantee that they are disciplined, experienced, stay in castles (where she can find housing) and because it is the job she would most like to have in the world. It would also teach her how it is to live their life, to prepare her for what was to come. It was the best and safest choice.

⊹₊୨୧⁺₊☾⊹ How Cedric and Aurora met:

I had said before that she left home and began her journey at 18, but I no longer agree with that. I think she went in her own time, some years older by the way, when she was in the start to mid of her twenties (I thought before that she might have traveled for years, but this is a very long time, it's too much, so it's better if she started her journey a bit older and traveled a lot less). She also didn't traveled for so many time, just for some months now. Aurora visited several castles and asked permission from several kings to stay in their castles and learn from their royal sorcerers, but she didn't stay in any of them for long. Sometimes the kings themselves rejected her, sometimes the sorcerers rejected her, sometimes she realized she wasn't welcome and left. There's a small chance that Aurora knows most of the people in the Order of the Wand lmao. Maybe she tried to be Greylock's student but it didn't work out and she left. Honestly, Aurora was starting to lose hope when she arrived in Enchancia and told King Roland about her situation. She wanted to stay and study magic, to become a royal sorcerer, and asked if his royal sorcerer could offer her magic lessons. Roland thought about the answer. He figured that Cedric could learn a little about responsibility and practice his own spells more by teaching an apprentice (a current apprentice, differently from Sofia, who very ocasionally showed up there). Plus, he would be less lonely in the tower with a companion, maybe he would look less depressed and fed up, and Roland really wanted to help Aurora. In the end, the king decided that it was a good decision, and without even telling Cedric first, he asked Baileywick to take Aurora to the sorcerer's tower. She was very excited to meet Cedric.

Aurora arrived at Cedric's tower at around January 10th (I choose this day based on the period I entered the Cedric fandom). 10 days after Cedric's 38th birthday. (The pilot movie of STF: Once Upon A Princess came out in december 2012, the series released january 2013, so I like to think that Aurora "arrived" at the castle around the middle of the first season, after the Cedric's Apprentice episode and some others. When Sofia arrived, it was december, and Cedric was 37. His birthday is said to be at the start of january and most of the fandom headcanon that it's january 1st, so he turned 38 and then met Aurora.)

Cedric was in the middle of brewing a potion when he was interrupted by an unfortunate visit from Baileywick and a strange girl at the worst possible time. Of course the potion was ruined. Baileywick told him that this was his new apprentice, that it was one of King Roland's orders and she would live there from now on. Cedric didn't even had time to speak up and understand things better (to rage and complain actually) before Baileywick left and Aurora had to explain her situation by herself, and the more she spoke, the more Cedric got infuriated. Suddenly, now the antisocial and grumpy Cedric had a random girl living in his tower who he had to teach as if he were a school teacher, as if Sofia weren't already enough. There would be no more privacy, he would not spend all day alone with Wormwood, he could no longer talk about his evil plans out loud, much less plan them, and he would not even get extra pay for it, all because of the damn annoying King Roland again. When Aurora arrived at the tower Cedric was very rude and stern with her, and a while later he went to Roland's throne room to discuss his decision. Cedric said he was not consulted before this decision, said he did not want to share the tower with a girl he did not know, said he was not a teacher. Roland explained himself by saying that he thought it was the best decision because of... Cedric's declining performance, and that it would be good for both of them. Besides, Sofia said that Cedric had been a great teacher for her, and Aurora needed help. She had traveled far and wide looking for a tutor, and Roland said he believed Cedric could do it. So, reluctantly, Cedric returned to his tower and his unfortunate apprentice. He would have liked to, but there was no debate with the king (We are talking about season one Cedric, by the way). But still, King Roland said he took Cedric's suggestions into consideration and would think about the case, being answered with a very bothered "thank you".

Aurora overheard his conversation with the king but decided to ignore how that made her upset and tried her best to prove to Cedric that she was worthy of learning, that she was useful, and could be helpful. She was very polite to him and treated him as if he were a celebrity, always with kindness, attention, interest and plain obedience (definitely a result of his reaction towards her, but she was naturally drawn to and impressed by royal sorcerers, or any kind of sorcerer). Cedric, on the other hand, treated her like he treated Sofia at the beginning of STF, rudely, grumpy and doing the bare minimum since King Roland forced him to. Aurora didn't had a magical amulet or anything that could convince Cedric to treat her kindly, so he was quite transparent about complaining of her staying, not being directly rude to her, but sending indirect comments like "If you didn't liked the room, save your complaints to the king because I sure did, and guess what? I wasn't heard. I have a better idea, don't do that, he probably won't help you with anything, if you think the room is bad then leave. I'm sure other castles will have better ones." And she would politely answer with "No, sir, the room is really good to me. Thank you." And Cedric would say "Whatever."

He went to his room and duplicated his furniture for her because it was easier that way. He gave her a tour of the tower and told her not to touch anything. And in the end, he gave her something random to study so that she would let him work in peace. Gave her any book, taught any easy spell, did the bare minimum so that she would stop watching him, muttering to Wormwood about how much the girl's presence bothered him. Aurora was not dumb, and she picked up his behavior, but didn't said anything at first; she thought that he might be just in a bad mood. But eventually, in the next few days, she considered that maybe this wasn't her place after all, maybe Cedric wasn't the one she was looking for, and considered leaving. She cried once because of his rudeness.

That's what Cedric does, if people push him away, he will push people away back and hide in his dark tower pretending he is not upset, and that this was his choice (but it wasn't, he just pretends that it is, and then turned bitter as the years went on). "I don't fit well in a ball? Well, I don't want to go to the ball either. I don't even like social events. I'll just stay in my tower... again... while everyone is at the ballroom having fun...". He tends to push people away without giving them the chance to dissapoint him, to avoid trauma, and eventually started being mean to people who never intended to be mean to him anyway. This happened between him and Aurora. Thankfully she was patient enough to wait and know him first (to be honest she needed to stay so that she could study, but this was just one of the reasons since she could have left if she wanted to).

Living together and following Cedric's routine, he had to go to the village to look for and buy some ingredients, and on the way they talked a lot. To get to know each other, mainly. He didn't want to bring her but he had no choice. Cedric was still reluctant about her presence but answered her questions, and Aurora talked about her life too. She shared that she always wanted to learn magic, but always failed and was judged by the people of the village as weird and a bungler, and realized that without a tutor she would never learn anything. All she wanted most was to learn magic, and her eyes lit up when she talked about it or saw Cedric perform any minor spell. Cedric then sympathized with the girl and realized that he was being too harsh... reluctantly. Maybe he could be more kind towards her. He stopped with his rude comments and started to be more patient with her.

⊹₊୨୧⁺₊☾⊹ How their romance blossomed and how their relationship developed after some months (and fun facts to take into consideration):

Over time, Cedric began to realize that Aurora was actually quite nice. In the end, Cedric liked seeing the pride on her face when her spells worked, and it made him feel rewarded in a way (He likes teaching, he just hasn't realized it yet). When Roland called Cedric's presence and said he considered Cedric's suggestions about sending the girl away, Cedric surprisingly refused (And Roland felt a sense of accomplishment because of that). Little by little her presence became pleasant and Cedric was getting used to having a happier company, even though Wormwood was still there, Aurora brought joy to the tower and the days seemed less gloomy. (Wormwood wasn't the healthiest of friends, he usually made Cedric worse, but Cedric didn't realized. Having new company, a more positive one, certanly had positive reactions). A feeling of affection for each other began to spark between the two. Cedric had always noticed that Aurora was beautiful, it wasn't hard to notice, but now it seemed like it was getting to him. She was kind, sweet and polite to him, she was beautiful, she had a strong admiration for Cedric, she was perfect in every detail and was similar to him in so many ways, as if she understood him deeply. Cedric then began to notice that he was nurturing a great affection for her. That the touch of her hand on his fingers left him tense and speechless, that the sight of her in the dresses she wore every morning gave him a pang in his chest, that her delicate and attentive eyes watching him explain and perform spells were making him awkward and flustered. On the other hand, Aurora found him charming, he resembled the characters in the books she read, he was careful and patient with her, talented and performed magic. He understood her struggles because he was also mistreated in the castle. There was a bond and a pull between them that could not be accurately described in words, they cared for each other so much and wanted each other so badly, they simply had a tension that was impossible to ignore and it was becoming agonizing to do so, but they kept pushing it forward.

One night Aurora couldn't sleep alone because of her poor adaptation to the dark and cold tower and had to go to Cedric's bed to ask for company. They were getting quite used to eachother and creating a bond, so it wasn't that sudden. He simply couldn't say no, and so after a while of talking in the silence of the tower they shared an "accidental" kiss. After Cedric realized the mess he had made, he asked for forgiveness and the two agreed to never speak of it again, and so the next day continued normally, one day after the other nurturing feelings for each other but doing nothing about it. The biggest problem were their roles. Cedric feared that he could get into trouble with King Roland, he feared that this could affect his role as a royal sorcerer, making him even more of a disgrace to his family and anyone else in the kingdom who knew him by name, he feared ruining his reputation, and besides, Aurora would be a huge obstacle to his evil plans, because not only would her presence hinder him from planning, but he also wouldn't be able to execute them with her by his side and he wouldn't want to disappoint her. Everything was now going, and could go, terribly wrong. How could he take over the kingdom with an apprentice and a possible lover under his wing? Impossible.

Aurora was afraid of being kicked out by Roland if someone found out about them and she needed to stay there, both because she wanted to stay in Enchancia (perfect place with kind people and Cedric by her side) and she needed to study (for her future). She was specially scared for Cedric too, that could lose his job and stain his reputation. So they both kept ignoring their feelings for a 'long time'... (a month). Eventually, after a long work day, Cedric and Aurora were alone in the silence of the night once again, Cedric was working until late and Aurora was in her nightgown telling him "good night", saying she was going upstairs to their room, and Cedric, overwhelmed by all his thoughts and feelings that were being all pushed back and pressed together into a rain cloud through a whole month, couldn't hold back anymore. He had to get up from his desk, had to tell her about his feelings, about how much her presence was affecting him and taking over all of his thoughts, and that this was consuming him from inside. Aurora couldn't hold back and did the same, telling him that she couldn't bare looking at him knowing that he couldn't be hers. It was all too much to take and they were too emotional to fight the urges. Cedric just said "You know what? Forget it. Tomorrow we can pretend that nothing happened. I need to deal with this today" and they kissed really, really passionately. After that, they spent more than half the night awake doing some stuff they had never tried with anyone, ever.

In the following weeks, or months, Cedric and Aurora kept being reckless and doing stuff that they shouldn't. That's when they made the "studying at day, lovers by night" rule, but this only kept them from talking about it out loud. Aurora would often find ways to bend the rule by subtly flirting during the day and teasing Cedric until the night fell (or until he gave in, and this could be at anytime, sometimes to get some kisses and affection, sometimes more), Aurora often got on his nerves, but he couldn't stay mad at her for long. She would "unintentionaly" touch her hand on his, stare at his lips while he explained something, touched her leg on his while they're sat, there were times where she was even bolder in her "subtle" teasing, and worse times where she subtly teased him in public, in a way that people won't notice. Cedric felt like he was spoiling her too much by letting her get away with everything all the time, but deep down he didn't felt exactly mad at her for that, and she always found a way not to let him.

(I don't know why the quality of the image got so bad. These are screenshots of my stories/highlights from Instagram. In the tumblr app there is a 10 image limit so I can't show these drawings separately, I have to put them all in the same image.)

Wormwood was getting pretty sick and tired of Aurora's presence in the workshop and Cedric knew it. He wasn't being exactly subtle around it, refusing to help Aurora, refusing to touch her, to land on Cedric while she was around, once Aurora tried to made friends with Wormwood and he tried to peck her, or better saying, he did. Cedric pushed him out of the workshop for the whole day after that, like he did in the When You Wish Upon A Well episode, and took care of Aurora instead. Wormwood hated Aurora, not only because of jealousy, but because she was distracting Cedric from their goal of taking over the kingdom. The better and healthier Cedric was, the farther was the dethroning of King Roland. One night, when Aurora was away, maybe in their room, Cedric sat with Wormwood by the window and spoke to him about how rudely he was treating Aurora. Even though Wormwood couldn't talk yet, he could show signs of his opinion, and Cedric could guess what he meant sometimes. Wormwood tried to make Cedric feel bad for what he was having with Aurora, trying to convince him that he was being too selfish and reckless (Cedric was only asking stuff like "I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, am I?" And Wormwood answered with different intonations of caws, meaning different things). "I just... like her too much. I can't help but think of how would she feel after finding out the truth. I mean, can you blame me? No one sees me like that, like I'm worthy something. No one except for Princess Sofia and Aurora, but Aurora is... a different case. She just pulls my heartstrings too much and... makes me doubt things. I can't choose between her and the kingdom. Besides, I'm definitely going to affect her studies and her dreams. Should I leave her for her own good?" "Caw caw (absolutely)" "No, I won't. I can't do that. Maybe I should wait until she's graduated from this magic tutoring thing and take over the kingdom after some years." "Caw caw! (ARE YOU CRAZY??! NO!!)" "I know! I know I can't waste all that time! I don't know what to do. You think I'm making a bad decision, Wormy?" "Caw caw (yes)" "I know... this is awful..."

In the first weeks and months, they were still new to eachother and were getting used to their presence. They had tons of adventures in the first half of the year. I remember I planned them taking a walk through the castle gardens and subtly flirting for a long time someday in the first months; at that time Cedric still felt flustered and, at the admission of Aurora of her romantic type, he got all nervous because he matched a bit too much (she was flirting with him, but it was true though). There was also a day where they were walking through the castle and Aurora imitated Cedric's accent, running from him and making him run after her until he got tired. When he said something to her, she would imitate again and run even more. Aurora also brought him to the kitchen to bake a chocolate cake for him, and he loved it (she grew up in a bakery, so...). They had tea in the castle gardens and spent evenings at the castle's library. They had picnics in the village sometimes next to a pond and the forest, and had to sneak some kisses here and there. All the time acting like they're just walking by or studying together, but as soon as they're alone Aurora starts to subtly flirt until it culminantes in risky kisses.

When they met eachother, both of them had no experience with anyone, in romantic aspects and sexual aspects. Cedric had spent his school years being an outcast and bullied, he was seen as weird and people mocked him, and he didn't wanted to stay with these people anyway, so he wasn't obsessed with trying romantic stuff. He had his crushes in certain girls (or boys) but Cedric was considered weird so he didn't even tried to confess or show interest to them. Maybe he did kissed someone at some moment? But when out of high school, he spent his days in his father's tower as an assistant until the day he was ready to become a royal sorcerer (around 22 years old) when King Roland also became King. Since then he stays in his tower most of the time and people still view him as weird and unwelcoming, so he didn't had sexual or romantic experiences, and he gave up and didn't cared about having. Aurora had suitors in the village (suitors and perverts, all different types) who were interested in her and proposed/harassed/disrespected her, but her situation is like Belle's (from Beauty And The Beast), she is considered weird and these guys are only interested in her beauty, but they are interested in pruning her interests and her individuality. Aurora never kissed, never dated anyone, and never had her first time, just like Cedric (maybe he kissed, I'm not sure). I will go back to this subject later in the post.

Once they decided to take a day off and spend their day in the village. This was a very special day for Aurora!! They only planned to hang out a bit and maybe make a picnic, but when walking through the village they passed next to a seamstress shop and Aurora saw the most perfect dress she could ever think of. It was white, sparkly, and the light reflected on the fabric, giving it magical, almost holographic rainbow colors, very subtly. It had big sleeves and a lot of fabric, looked like it came out of a dream. It looked similar to Sarah's dress from Labyrinth or Aurora's dress in the music video of Temporary High, I have some references saved in my Pinterest Aurora board. Aurora got defenitely absolutely in love with the dress and since she always speaks her mind, she started to rant about how beautiful was this dress, with her hands on the showcase glass and everything. After praising the dress and showing her admiration for it, Aurora thought twice about her words and remembered that her parents could never afford something like this, and now that she was on her own, she couldn't afford to buy it with her money either. It was expensive, the price was right in front of the dress, and it costed a lot, which would be around 1000 US dollars, just so you can get an idea. She didn't even considered ever owning the dress, the idea hadn't even crossed her mind, but when Cedric looked at her, so in love with the dress but thinking she would never get it due to her financial condition, he made a bold decision and said that he would buy the dress for her.

Aurora got very surprised by this, and after telling Cedric he didn't needed to because it was very expensive, he reassured her that he wanted to buy her the dress, and that he could afford it with the royal salary he receives from the king, even if it was a bit expensive. Aurora started to cry because no one had ever treated her so well, not even her family, and she was never able to have that kind of thing; ball gowns, living in a castle, having a good, stable life in a calm place, with people that give her communication and care instead of just scolding. Aurora then hugged him tightly and thanked him, getting his robe wet from tears, but Cedric just chuckled and said to enter the seamstress shop now. When they came in and spoke to a gentle lady in the balcony, the owner of the store, she told them that the dress had actual magic in it to give it that glowy and sparkly color, and Cedric could actually tell it was true due to his experience with magic. The seamstress took the dress off the mannequin and gave it to Aurora, telling her to try it, and she ran to the fitting room. When she came out, wearing the dress, Cedric felt like it was made for her. She looked so beautiful and so happy. He paid the seamstress, this was one of the only times he would spend his money on something else than himself, but it was worth it. Maybe Aurora and Sofia were softening his heart too much? Probably, but to see that huge smile in her face, it was worth it. he had to diffuse some of the seamstress's comments by telling her that Aurora was just her apprentice, and he had to listen to her talk about how Aurora would be a heartbreaker in that dress at the ball, rolling his eyes a little in jealousy. She wore that dress to a ball a few weeks later, and the only heart she wanted to touch was his.

Their version of the sun/moon trend (who's the sun and who's the moon of the relationship) is actually moon and stars. Because Cedric is the moon and Aurora is his stars. People tend to see the starts as less than the moon but the starts are everywhere around it, and keeping it company. What would be of the moon if it didn't had the stars around it? Lonely in the darkness of the sky?

They sometimes go to eachother's bed, they both do it, for comfort, for affection, sometimes just not to sleep alone. When with Cedric, Aurora always sleeps close to his chest, but if Cedric is upset and is having a bad self-esteem crisis or had a bad day she'll hold him instead and let him cry. Cedric doesn't like to cry in front of her because it makes him feel stupid (due to trauma, right Goodwyn?), but Aurora's soothing voice does not let him hold back and convinces him to let the tears out, until he's sobbing and hiding his face in her hair. Differently from what Cedric thinks, she is not threatened by his crying and will kiss the tears away if he let her;

Aurora is afraid of small critters like lizards, frogs and certain bugs, while Cedric is used to/and was raised touching them, alive, or in dead parts to use in potions. He laughs a bit and tells her that they're harmless but Aurora is afraid of them anyway, so he takes them into his hands and frees them outside the tower. He knows that Aurora is terrified of them so he won't push her to touch/approach or make fun of her, despite finding her reactions a bit amusing. Cedric tells her that she will need to get used to touching that stuff to make certain spells and be a sorceress, but Aurora says that she doesn't care. Cedric rolls his eyes with a smile, taking a mental note that they'll have to work through that. She refuses to touch them so Cedric gave her tweezers to still be able to make potions.

There was a time when Aurora was bedsick and Cedric had to take care of her, give her medicine, and convince her to eat something healthier than just pastries and baking goods. He gave her a soup and some health potions, which she didn't liked much, but at least she got better. The royal doctor making questions was really uncomfortable though, he questioned if Aurora had any chance of being pregnant, and Cedric and Aurora eyed eachother. It was a nightmare. They had to say that Aurora had a boyfriend... somewhere.... in the world, idk... but turns out it was just a cold and the doctor was asking standard questions.

I also like to imagine how they would be like if they went together to Merroway Cove with the royal family in their floating castle. Aurora had never went to the beach or seen the sea so she has tons of fun. She is very playful, so she would play around, play games with the royal children, make sand castles, take a sea bath, and call Cedric all the time. Cedric doesn't like the sun, doesn't like the sand, doesn't like the sticky sea water, he's very introverted and doesn't enjoy being around Roland or the royal family, so he would try to stay inside the floating castle. There are some moments where he would get out though, and would sit in a shadow while watching Aurora have fun. He would rather not go, but... Aurora would convince him to have fun with her, and he would take some time to finally roll the hem of his pants and wet his feet in the water. She would like to, but she wouldn't throw water at him or push him because it's disrespectful to his boundaries; "I want to push you on the water so badly", "don't you dare", "alright hihihihi". Cedric would try not to stare too much at her from where he's sitting.

Aurora is friends with some castle maids and cooks, and also with Gwen, Chef Andre's daughter. Sofia is also friends with her, and Baileywick also knows her and her bubbly personality quite well, calling her "Miss Aurora". Amber and James are not so close to Aurora, but they see her as nice too, and Roland and Miranda, well... they see her as nice but she's one of the dozens of castle residents so they don't pay much attention to her, despite aknowledging her existence.

In this story I apply my personal headcanon that Cedric is bisexual. He discovered it when he was a teenager at Hexley Hall, feeling attracted to boys and masculine traits in some situations during school, and since then he prefers to hide it and pretend he doesn't know, but he does know. He felt wrong for many years, and preferred to stay true to only the side of him that liked girls, so as not to step out of line and embarrass his parents/himself even more. He has this feeling internalized and wouldn't even tell the truth to Aurora herself if she hadn't discovered it on her own. How she discovered it I still don't know, but I think she had doubts for a while. Finally, when she found out, she welcomed Cedric very well and accepted him with an ease that honestly surprised him a lot. He asked her if she didn't think it was strange, if she felt less interested in him, if she felt he was a liar or seemed stupid, and she denied it, saying she didn't care. If he wanted to be with her, it's because he likes her. She also educated him on the term "bisexual", but Cedric was hesitant to admit it for some time. He also asked her if she could keep it a secret for now, until he felt comfortable in coming out, and Aurora agreed.

Aurora had the habit to read tons of books, her favorite ones were romance and drama (if she existed today she would love reading fanfiction), and her absolute favorite book is called Field Of Violets. The book is purple, and the cover of the book is wrapped in a worn light violet fabric, with a violet embroidered on the oval frame in the center of the cover, with the title and information also embroidered. The book appears to be of good quality and much read and used before it reached her hands, but it must have belonged to someone of high income due to its quality and because it ended up thrown away in an old and decaying library of a small village forgotten by the kings, surrounded by forests and mountains. The story is about Rosella, the daughter of a wealthy baron who needs to adjust to her studies before marrying Prince Caspian by family contracts, which leads her father to hire a very known and experienced tutor to recover her from her years spent at home instead of at school. "However, Rosella did not expect to fall for the cold charm of her tutor August before being handed over to the firstborn to the throne" (pretend I just read this very dramatically and with a very cliché tone). The story itself happens almost entirely inside the baron's huge mansion and Rosella and August have a enmity between eachother due to August being very harsh and firm with Rosella, because she reminded him of his deceased wife and Rosella's presence made him vulnerable. After tons of discussions and twists and turns, alarmed by the romance that gradually developed, August's possible departure and Rosella's imminent marriage to Prince Caspian, by the end of the story everything is resolved and Rosella and August live happily ever after. Rosella has brown/ginger hair and uses long rococo floral pink/white dresses while August has long tied black hair, with glasses, a lock of white hair, is usually wearing a grey vest and smokes, has a british accent, a hawk nose, and tired facial features. Turns out that he's a gentleman but very rough in the edges (how cliché). It's very cliché on purpose and we can get that Aurora definitely has a type, because August is her favorite fictional crush. When she moved to Enchancia, Aurora brought this book with her, and convinced Cedric to spend some quality time at night reading the book together.

Cedric is not a fan of cheesy romance books, specially with spicy scenes, he honestly gets a bit surprised and shocked by the fact that Aurora reads that kind of stuff. Again, people have such a sweet view of Aurora that they don't consider that she has her own preferences, even Cedric himself judges her without noticing sometimes. One day, while he was studying spells and Aurora was reading next to him, before discovering that she liked reading that kind of thing, he asked what was so funny about the book that made her smile so much, and Aurora tried to brush it aside and say that it was nothing. Cedric's curiosity about her suspicious behavior and the small frustration that Aurora didn't want to tell him made him insist on seeing it, so he picked up the book and came across the most explicit scene he had ever seen written in a book. He got shocked, he got surprised, for a second he felt even uncomfortable with the knowledge that she could be reading that kind of stuff, but Aurora argued "I can't read it but I can do it with you? I don't get it", and he... well, he shut up. Months later Aurora convinced Cedric to read Field Of Violets with her and he, despite finding the story cheesy and a bit too explicit for his liking, got very invested in the story. He teased Aurora about August and she giggled. She read his character description and gave emphasis to some features, like the nose, facial lines, gray hair and british accent, giggling and blushing like a fangirl, and Cedric answered with "I feel represented" and "no wonder why you like me so much... you really like that stuff?", Aurora nodded, biting her lips and smiling. The hard part for Cedric were the spicy scenes, where he felt flustered because Aurora had absolutely no shame in reading that stuff out loud.

Around the end of the first year, Aurora traveled to a wizard camp for some time and when Cedric felt alone he would borrow her romance books to read. He would hardly admit it, though, but she found out anyway because her books were out of their usual order, questioned him, and Cedric admitted the truth. Aurora missed him too but told about Cedric to all the girls in her cabin instead, with absolutely no worries about their secrecy. They're from far kingdoms, ok? She returned to Enchancia near the end of the year, and on New Year's Eve and she and Cedric went to the New Year's ball that was held at midnight. She also brought him blue bellflowers, a small moon sculpture with a star as decoration because it reminded her of him, and a bow tie like his, but white, for his birthday. On the first day of the following year, at lunchtime, she also surprised Cedric with a birthday party, attended by the royal family, castle servants and Cedric's family, where they met Aurora for the first time, but she was introduced only as Cedric's apprentice. Winifred loved her. Aurora planned everything with letters and requests to the king and with the help of Sofia and Baileywick. Cedric cried because he hadn't had a birthday party in years. This was his 39th birthday.

Aurora's birthday is at the end of september so before traveling they also made a small party for her in the castle gardens. It was purple-themed, and had tons of flowers, and cakes. It had towels on the grass like a picnic but also tables and tea. It was very simple, but she didn't often got parties like this, so for her it was amazing.

Cedric is not jealous of Aurora and values ​​her freedom to come and go, but he doesn't like it when guys hit on her assuming she's single, or when they treat her like an object in uncomfortable situations, like harassment, obviously. In the matter of harassment, it's obvious: he steps in and defends Aurora, putting himself between her and the person, and asking the person to leave. In more serious cases, if the person insists, he will say he's the royal sorcerer and point the magic wand, again asking the person to leave, more aggressively. Usually this is enough. In moments when guys are polite and approach her with ulterior motives, interested, Cedric obviously doesn't feel comfortable. The situation is more delicate because he can't say out loud that he and Aurora are a couple and that she's not alone, so he's usually rude to the guy, getting grumpy about him and his presence. Usually the guys understand that Cedric is an overprotective tutor and prefer not to have any problems with the royal sorcerer, but Aurora also needs to say that she is not interested so that they will truly leave her alone. There are times when they try to talk to her in private, when she is away from Cedric, precisely so that they do not have any problems with him, but she continues to make it clear that she is not interested, saying that she is not his type, that she needs to finish her studies first, and saying that Cedric is just being careful with her. In private, Cedric feels uncomfortable competing with men who are usually a decade younger than him, he feels out of place, and thinks that the right thing would be for Aurora to be with one of them, but he cannot help it. She wants him, and he will protect her and respect her choice.

Aurora has many opinions about gender norms and roles, misogyny, sexism, and can talk for hours about it. Cedric is a lonely man who doesn't spend much time with women, or anyone else for that matter, but he listens and agrees. He doesn't really know much about the subject, but when he hears her talk and explains her frustrations to him, he agrees. She usually talks while she's studying/practicing and he listens while he's working. She talks about everything while he's working, Cedric usually listens. He talks more during his lessons, or when they have free time to go for a walk, or at meals, or at night when they're spending time together. She talks a lot more than he does. Aurora complains about the expectations people have of her because she is a woman, they expect her to be a housewife, be delicate, quiet, and have children. She doesn't want to have children or spend all day cleaning the house. She asks what Cedric thinks about this (with him busy at his desk, listening to everything like a podcast) and he answers "I think you should do what you feel like doing, right?" and Aurora answers "Right?! I'm glad you think so too. Yeah, I should." She is happy to know that he doesn't think like the people from her old village, and again confirms that people from other places outside her village are more open-minded. She mentally thanks for having managed to get out of there. It's not like Cedric constantly informs himself about this subject, or thinks much about it because of his lonely life and for being a man, but listening to Aurora, he agrees.

Aurora says whatever comes to mind and doesn't care about filtering her words. When she lived in the village, she tried to avoid saying everything that came to mind because of judgment, but because she is comfortable with Cedric, she talks to him about everything. She says funny things, she says serious things, and she can even disconcert him, talking about sexual matters without much concern or saying morbid things without thinking about it too deeply. He may feel embarrassed or even worried, but he knows that it is her way of acting, and because she is comfortable in talking to him. He is sometimes surprised at how much Aurora knows about social issues, has strong opinions on certain subjects, and says things that are more intelligent than he could say himself. She may seem sweet and because of her appearance people tend to judge her as too innocent or stupid, but she is certainly very intelligent and knows how to make a speech about many things that Cedric has no idea about in his 40 years of life. Or have never thought about. She can talk about pretty clothing, reading habits and then start phylosophical about how nothing really matters but everything, about death, about many things.

I have never spoke about this publicly but Aurora is autistic, she just doesn't know it yet. Loud noises hurt her ears (which is different from people shouting at her - this is because of trauma), she's not really good at social cues, Aurora doesn't always understands sarcasm, she also has trouble with some foods and gets overwhelmed in certain circunstances and experiences shutdowns or meltdowns not so frequently. Her comfort foods are baked goods because she always baked and ate them back at her family's bakery since she was a child. She loves everything cherry. Cherry fruit, cherry cake, cherry sweets, cherry syrup, cherry liquor.

There is a very funny (and a bit unfortunate) story about an evening where she got cherry liquor from her friends at the castle kitchen an hid it from Cedric because she knew he wouldn't like it (he doesn't mind about Aurora drinking small amounts, but full bottles? Absolutely no), turns out that she wanted to read her favorite novels in her room while drinking cherry-flavored liquor, but ended up being irresponsible and drinking a little too much (as expected). She got extremely drunk in a level of not being able to get up. Cedric, still working at the workshop, heard some laughs and some noises coming from their room and went upstairs to find Aurora completely wasted. She even smelled like alcohol and tried to hid the bottle from him in fear of getting in trouble but it didn't worked. He got seriously worried and tried to talk to her about how irresponsible she was being; but then noticed she was too wasted to understand. Cedric got that she was irresponsible, yes, but knew how fragile she was at the moment and knew that she needed help right now, so as a good mentor (and lover, by the way) he helped her by giving her a cold bath to sober her up, dress her in her nightgown and put her to bed. Of course he did everything in a bad mood, and he was angry with her irresponsibility, but it was very difficult to stay angry for long when he saw her unable to walk and talking nonsense. He realized that, even though she had ignored the warnings he gave her about being more responsible, and lied about her condition thinking he wouldn't notice... he loved Aurora too much and saw her naivety in doing this, thinking it wouldn't go wrong for her too (and she was young, never got drunk before, and young people do stupid stuff sometimes, Cedric himself had done many mistakes). She ended up talking nonsense about how she wanted to marry him and live with him forever. That night Cedric had to stay with her until she fell asleep. The next day, of course, she had to listen to a very long scolding... this all happened in the first year.

⊹₊୨୧⁺₊☾⊹ The characters's physical aspects and self-care habits:

I was wondering if this topic was really necessary but I decided that it is, since it's information about the characters, and every information about them is valid in this post.

Cedric himself it's his own character in Sofia The First but I apply some small headcanons on him, like for example his height, that's 1,85 cm, or 6'1" feet, but because he always has bad posture, Cedric appears to be around 1,80 cm, which would be around 5'9" feet. Aurora on the other way is shorter, her height is 1,60 cm or 5'3" feet, which means that her forehead usually reaches his mouth, at most. The fact that Cedric wears shoes with heels do not help at all, but Aurora also does wears Mary Jane shoes with heels, so their heights usually match when they're with or without shoes. Cedric gets taller when he fixes his posture and Aurora gets shyyy

Their skin color is slightly different too. Of course, both of them are white, but Aurora is pale with pink undertones, and Cedric is white with grey/beige undertones. At the start of Sofia The First, Cedric is very pale because of his unhealthy habits, mental health, he was literally sick, but later on in the show his color got warmer and he looked healthier, so his skin color is just a little bit darker than Aurora's, since she's healthy and is pale like that naturally.

His hands feel rougher and more calloused than hers, though. Cedric spent tons of years handling potion ingredients and experimenting with magic that his hands (specially palms and under his fingers) got a bit damaged with time, but not too much. His hand is not much different from the hand of another man his age, like Roland's, it's natural that his skin will feel a bit rougher, but Roland's hands are softer than Cedric's because he doesn't do manual labor (which is one of the things that turn hands rougher, even though it's not Cedric's case) nor does he handle dangerous chemicals and potions (which is Cedric's case). Aurora's hands on the other way are very soft and they're a bit smaller than his, so when they touch they can feel the difference. I have this headcanon based on how Cedric's hands look in his concept art, very calloused and wrinkled, but in the actual show they look perfectly soft, so I imagine the texture can't be seen from far away, it's mostly kept on the inside of the hand, and it's not much of a visible amount, just a small difference in feel. He tells Aurora to try to get used to wearing gloves when possible... but sometimes some ingredients must be handled with fingers and there's not much they can do.

Aurora has natural medium nails and she takes care of them constantly. Cedric's nails are a bit bigger than what it's traditionally seen on men, but "long" nails (for women they would be considered short) are a culture among sorcerers and he files them like this.

Aurora takes great care of herself and likes to dress up. She likes to wear and apply makeup, she likes to match clothes, she likes to take care of her hair, put on perfume, use accessories, and do her hair. By the way, because her hair is wavy, it shrinks and seems shorter; when her hair is dry it reaches halfway down her back, when it's wet it reaches her waist. She has a routine for combing and washing her hair properly, she likes to use lipstick and powder on her face, sometimes she uses glitter (which is not called glitter in Enchancia, but we won't talk about it much because they live in a fantasy world that seems to take place in another time), she takes care of her nails, braids her hair, and wears ribbons. As I mentioned before, her mother taught her to sew because it is a common habit expected among women and future wives, but she uses this knowledge to sew details on her own clothes and embroider her own things. Cedric thinks that this self-care she takes reminds him a little of Cordelia, and he recognizes that it is her preference. He can't understand and wouldn't do the same to himself, but he doesn't need to understand to respect it, after all, she wants to feel beautiful and he thinks it's adorable to see her taking care of herself and putting on makeup. He also thinks she looks beautiful with makeup. A true angel on earth. Even when Aurora is not wearing full makeup she's using cherry lipbalm and puts some powder in her face. She smells like her sweet and flowery perfume, smells like soap and the products she uses in her hair, and sometimes smells like cherry. She tastes like cherry because of the lipbalm. ////

Cedric does his basic hygiene, brushes his hair, files his nails, trims the beard that he never lets grow and that's all. He is very careful never to grow a beard, he hates it, doesn't look good and feels weird to him Cedric's hair doesn't just have gray bangs, he has a small bit of gray hair mixed with his black hair because of age, health and stress, but not enough to be very noticeable from afar, just from up close. He smells like washed clothes, books, sometimes smells like herbs because of potion ingredients.

Aurora loves his haircut, his gray bangs, the graying hair mixed with the black, his eyebags, smile lines, the touch and look of his calloused hands, the long nose, and when he blushes, she likes to touch his face and hair and has affective tact memory. Cedric likes her "silvery wavy hair", as he describes, when it's spread over the pillows, he likes her reddened cherry lips, and her sweet scent, he likes how her hands are so soft when touching him and he likes the feeling of her soft skin in his hands, when touching her hands, or her body.

Cedric is a born sorcerer. A bit of theory from the Sofia The First fandom: There is a theory in Sofia The First about the sorcerer characters. The Mystic Isles are a group of isles that are the source of the whole magic of the everrealm (the Sofia The First world), and each isle is populated with a different species of magical creatures, and ironicly there is an isle which all of it's residents are sorcerer background characters that always appear in sorcerer populated places like Cordelia's birthday, Mystic Meadows, Hexley Hall and others. So it seems like there is a sorcerers isle, and it's existence implies that sorcerers are magical creatures, not just simple humans. Besides, Cedric does simple magic using only his hands multiple times in the show, while characters like Sofia have the need of using a wand. This would explain why certain sorcerers and wizards are so old in this universe, like Merlin. A common headcanon that appeared is that Cedric is not only a human, but a sorcerer human, which means that magic runs in his blood and he is a magical being himself, just like the rest of his family and the long line of royal sorcerers that he belongs to. Another common headcanon is the long lifespan, so that means Cedric lives more than Aurora, and this is a source of worry for both. Aurora can only perform magic with the help of a wand. This is a source of worry for both.

⊹₊୨୧⁺₊☾⊹ About their intimacy:

TW! sexual content mentioned ahead! This part can be skipped.

I am unsure if I should include explicit and sexual paragraphs (a whole topic) so I'll just leave it for you guys to decide what's best. I don't know if it would be too explicit, but I have tons of opinions on this subject. In a way I would like to include it because it's part of the story and they're also details of the characters (this post is supposed to include every single detail, right?). On the other way I fear it will be too explicit and also very unserious to some people. Something I also don't get is why a story would be treated less or more seriously if sexual details are included. I question tons of social norms because I'm autistic and for me it doesn't make sense the way people tend to change how their view certain things different because there is sexual subjects in it, like, for example, other people or characters in stories. But at the same time I wouldn't like people to view these paragraphs as something erotic, just as mere aspects of the characters. So many doubts surrounding this.

Both characters had no sexual or romantic experiences before knowing eachother.

Cedric is considered a late bloomer, because he had his first times when he was 38 years old. Honestly, he didn't cared much about this aspect of his life, but sometimes he got a bit upset about it, for being an adult who stayed virgin for so long, watching people of his age around him dating, marrying, having children, while he's a bachelor who stays in his tower with his raven and dozens of potions and spellbooks. It's not like he wasn't interested in having a romance, it's just that he was conformed that he didn't had tried his first times and he didn't minded about it. If someone showed up, he might consider. If no one did, then he would focus on his own stuff, but deep inside he always felt a bit of a sense of rejection from people, not only in talks about magic, or socially, but also romantically. He didn't came out as bisexual so for people he didn't liked men, and women were not interested in the weird, grumpy, "old" sorcerer who stayed in his tower, looking weird, talking weird, and overall looking like someone who people do not like to approach. So no, Cedric has never dated anyone, never hooked up with anyone, never held hands or slept with someone, and he doesn't care about it. Or at least pretends not to. This was until the moment Aurora showed up.

Aurora had suitors her age and men of random, weird ages were interested in her. Not only in marrying her, but with pervert intentions, and she rejected all of them. It's not like there were many since she was considered weird but they were still there because she was young and pretty, like Belle from Beauty And The Beast, but considered a bit more odd. She rejected tons and tons of them and then left to study. Her only experience with romantic or sexual subjects were the books. Not only romance books, but she also had an anatomy book and studied to understand about all this. Then, in the romance books, she read different stories, situations, places, and learnt a lot of stuff from there. She learnt how to apply that stuff to real life situations, what should be done or what shouldn't, how people interact, how people do (Cedric also understands anatomy but he is not a romance book reader so his knowledge comes from life (sometimes Aurora tries bold stuff that he never had any idea that she could know about)). The anatomy books were used to explain the functioning of it all and the romance books taught how to act in situations like these, and she read many, many, many romance books. The books also gave her many ideas that were bold enough to scare a sailor. This was until the moment Cedric showed up.

When they met and Aurora started living at his tower, day after day, he was doing his best to resist Aurora's subtle flirtations, her breathtaking beauty, her closeness, her delicacy and sweetness, it was very difficult when he couldn't stop looking at her when she was around. Not only that, he liked her as a person, and thought she was absolutely beautiful, he would unintentionally catch himself staring at her and thinking things he shouldn't be thinking about her. He hated that. Aurora, on the other hand, would do her subtle flirting and see him getting all flustered, trying to pretend not to notice and not to care, and she really liked that. She would also stare at him and observe his appearance, and think about things without any shame, unlike him who would think and try to resist. Most of the time she would do things on purpose just so he would look, like climbing one of those ladders in the tower wearing a skirt, leaning over to clean a table, touching her foot on his leg under the table "without realizing", busy with a potion or a book, idly reading a book while eating cherries out of the stem, seeing Cedric stealing glances here and there.

Their first time happened in one night, after a long day, with Cedric busy in his lab with some books and work, Wormwood was out, and Aurora appeared in a nightgown, wishing him goodnight. It wasn't exactly an indecent nightgown, but it had straps and the length was above the knee, kind of transparent, like a very thin layer of fabric that was suitable enough to call a nightgown but certainly not appropriate to wear around others, or him, for that matter. Aurora's extra subtle affection for him didn't go unnoticed, on the contrary, it was almost driving Cedric crazy for having to avoid her so much. That's when Aurora asked why he was like this, acting strange (she knew exactly why), and Cedric resisted, saying it was nothing, that he was fine, that he was working and would go to bed later. Aurora was still there, she insisted in staying there, in that silence, looking at him from the stairs, wanting some more answer from him, after asking simple questions and hearing equally simple answers. Cedric was trying to ignore her to make her leave. Because just having her standing next to him, or walking around the workshop wearing that dress, was enough to make Cedric break out in a cold sweat and tell himself not to look. The silence in the tower was unbearable, and she wouldn't go back to her room, she insisted not to, but then eventully she said goodnight and started to go upstairs to the room.

Cedric was troubled. He didn't understood why she did this to him, if this was on purpose, and needed an answer. His head was racing, and his feelings for her were too much to control. He needed to say everything he was holding in. So when Aurora started to leave, Cedric snapped, calling Aurora back again and telling her to wait. Aurora waited, and Cedric asked her to come to him, and she did. He questioned her if this was on purpose, if she was teasing him and exchanging glances or he was just seeing too much. He asked her to stop it, because his feelings were being unbearable to deal with and that they would be in big trouble if they gave in to this. He was thinking of her every day and night, every time, he needed her, and if she didn't liked him back and did all this things for fun it was better if she just stopped. Aurora was honest and said that she had been liking him too, but was unsure if she should tell him so waited for an answer. They stared at eachother. Things got out of control and in the blink of an eye they were kissing. Not just kissing, they were making out. They went all the way with grabbing, touching, doing the stuff they were too afraid to do before. Aurora was celebrating mentally, while Cedric was in a mix of fear, nervousness, and he was suppressing his thoughts of uncertainty and worry about what would happen later, because now they had already crossed the line and there was no turning back, so he just did whatever came to mind. He's anxious and nervous, and lacks self control, of course this would happen. Seconds later they were in his bed. He was trembling and was very inexperienced at the time, so tried to be careful, but not much. In the other day they agreed in not talking about any of what happened and pretend it was just a crazy dream, but of course that didn't work for long. I already spoke about the day and night rule, Aurora breaks the rule all the time.

Recently I saw someone saying that Aurora and Cedric are a very sweet and innocent couple, and that speaking about their intimacy in the post would "stain" that image of them, thus it wouldn't be a good decision. What made me giggle is the fact that Cedric and Aurora are actually the opposite of that view, they're like two rabbits. I said what I said, not sorry.

Since we are in the intimacy topic I'm going all the way!!! Aurora teases Cedric all the time. After they started hooking up and Cedric created the day and night rule she always found a way to break the rule. She would innocently place her legs over his lap while she's reading and he's working, moving them around to catch his attention. Not "would", she did, actually. She brushes his shin with her shoe, catching his attention. She sits on his lap, she kisses his face, she makes subtle references to events in the previous nighte, she's something in between Cedric's best dream and worst nightmare. Aurora's drive is super high, maybe because she's younger than him and has more energy to spend on that stuff, but she is always trying to get his attention and give him ideas, sometimes in the worst moments. It's not uncommon for her to try to tease him in the middle of the day to get Cedric to break the rule. She whispers bold flirtations and ideas she would want to try out and Cedric blushes and shouts "Aurora! Stop! I'm working". It's not like he doesn't like it, he's just not used to it, and there's the rule and the risks... If he didn't actually liked it, Aurora wouldn't do it. If her teases are good enough sometimes he gives in. After some months the day and night rule started to dissapear, but they tend not to be too romantic during the day anyway, because of work and everything. But Aurora still teases him and still convinces him to stop the work just a little tiny bit to spend some time with her. You know what I mean. They usually do their stuff at night more often than during the day.

Cedric is usually more self-conscious and stays with pieces of clothing on. Aurora too does that but she doesn't mind taking it off. She usually stays in that short nightgown, but she likes to undress because his eyes go everywhere on her body and he gets so flustered. When I spoke about how he likes to feel her soft skin in his hands, I meant he likes to touch her almost in a reverent way, looking at her like she's an angel on earth, the most beautiful woman that ever existed. He likes everything in her, everything, many people would consider her too skinny but for him she is perfect exactly like that. And he does feel very attracted by her, of course we can't leave this out. Cedric, well... Cedric is also very skinny, but he thinks he looks weird. Aurora disagrees and sometimes is able to convince him to take those pieces of clothing off because she likes to see him too.

About places it's anywhere in the tower. Table, floor, wall, bed, workshop and bedroom. Usually they wouldn't risk to do that out of the tower, Aurora is crazy but Cedric is very cautious with that so no. They do stuff in different ways too, Cedric is more vanilla than her, surprisingly (or not). He enjoys simple stuff, but Aurora always likes to try new things, so he agrees, but both the old simple ways and the different new ways are very appreciated. Cedric started inexperienced in both knowledge and practice but Aurora had a bit of knowledge to compensate. They learnt together how to please the other and how to do certain things. Cedric has his own clumsy way of doing stuff but he now knows what Aurora's preferences are and he does what she likes to please her, and she does the same, but more confidently. It's just their way of acting. Cedric always liked the stuff that Aurora did to him, but he wasn't very experienced at the beginning in pleasing her, he had to learn. Now he's great. Aurora sometimes praises him because Cedric now knows a lot more than he did when they met and he gets all flustered. He loves praises. 🫶 but he is clumsy and she finds it cute. And she likes to grab his bangs.

Their contraception are magic spells because it works okay? You think Cedric is that reckless? Of course not.

Their boundaries: no hitting, no grabbing harshly, no calling anyone names or cursing, no hurting on purpose like hickey or bites unless someone explicitly asks. Not doing stuff without the other agreeing, always asking first. Aurora's specific boundary is that she does not want to be looked like an object, but Cedric absolutely agrees with that and follows that rule very strictly. Not doing stuff out of the tower and being too risky.

trimmed w seven inches BYE i'm sorry. is there a way to make the text look smaller?? No?? Sorry guys i needed to, pretend you never heard this from me this wasn't me it were the voices

⊹₊୨୧⁺₊☾⊹ Their inevitable (or not) bad end (Aurora's departure):

Cedric has his own life and Aurora has to go after hers. He could never be able to hold her back from that, but it pains him deeply that they had to fall in love in such an unlucky context. Their social differences and different paths seems to push them farther and farther away from eachother, like if they were never supposed to be together, and Cedric... kinda agrees. He and his bad adjectives don't deserve Aurora and he thinks it's unfair to keep a beautiful and unique girl like her under his wings forever. Cedric believes she deserves to go after her stuff and get better things in her life instead of rotting inside a dark tower with a boring and tired (almost middle-aged, since he's 3 years before turning 40) adult like him. He looks at her and she's so full of light and dreams that he can't bring himself to insist her to stay. It's not fair with her. She's a free spirit, while he can't even leave his cold and dark tower without getting tired. They live their romance knowing that they're doomed to part ways and Cedric hopes that she'll find all the happiness she's searching for, in a good castle, with good staying, with people who admire her talents, and loving a young guy who can provide more to her than Cedric can.

Aurora came to study and will leave after she's done. This will take around four years, maybe. She came to Enchancia already planning to stay temporarily and leave to get a job and to go after her own dreams and responsabilities as a royal sorceress in a different kingdom. Her relationship with Cedric is fated to be damned due to the nature and context of it.

First of all, their lifespans are something that bothers them. Aurora will die earlier and this worries Cedric, because he can't bear the idea of spending a life with her and having to watch her die earlier, and for him it is another reason of why the world doesn't want them together.

Aurora on the other way has never been happier by his side and can't imagine wanting someone other than Cedric. He's the perfect one for her, he is exactly what she likes, and she cares for him deeply. Aurora can travel by herself and live on her own, without depending on him, but the worst part is how much she'll miss him. She sees Cedric as her other half, the missing part of her that she's being dreaming with for so long, since when she started to read and fall in love with the stories and characters she's seen in her books, since that moment she already wanted Cedric, and he can't understand that, cause he thinks she's naive. In an "I love every single thing about you" and "You don't know what you're saying" way. Having to leave him... it's painful but Aurora can't really understand how painful it will be yet. She knows it will be painful but it's like... the penny hasn't dropped, you know? Like her usual demeanor, Aurora cannot predict long-term things, such as the consequences of certain actions for example, like eating too much candy without thinking of getting sick later. Cedric is absolutely heartbroken by their sad reality and Aurora is sad but... she lives the moment without thinking of tomorrow, like it will never end. She knows it will end but her brain can't wrap around the idea that she won't see Cedric anymore, that this is temporary, and Cedric thinks this is extremely painful to watch because she is just unaware of their current situation. She is aware, but it's never worried, and while this is good, it breaks Cedric's heart to crumbles.

And if you think it can't be worse, their romance is a secret they should never have indulged in, and after it ends they will have to act like it never existed. They will have to publicly hug eachother, stare into eachother's eyes, say goodbye without even a kiss, like if they don't mean nothing more than tutor and apprentice to eachother. They will have to spend the previous night enjoying the last bits they'll have of eachother's presence and affection, to finish things up and say goodbye. In the next morning Aurora will part with all her stuff, some of the castle staff will be there to watch, and all Cedric will be able to do hug, look into her eyes and show pride as a tutor who finished his work with her. Only that. As he comes to terms with the end of their story and accepts that now is the time for Aurora to be free from him, grow up and live her own life. With her own history and her own social circle, including romantic, with a future lover who could be "so much more" than Cedric ever was to her. Without even... their romance being mentioned again. This will affect both of their routines because they are used to each other's presence (Especially Cedric who hasn't lived alone in his cold tower for over four years, or even Aurora who won't have his presence and support when she needs help) and both will have to live pretending that whay they lived together never happened, or was never important. Even though that when said goodbye they were still dating and still in love.

— "Dear, I want you to be happy, live your dreams, trust in yourself, position yourself against people that put you down, have a great life, and fall in love again with someone that will take very good care of you."

— "I will never fall in love again if it's not you."

— "Don't do this to me..." (Saying goodbye to you is painful enough.)

Cedric looks at her sometimes, in the night, and thinks "I would do everything to have this forever".

Once they were cuddling and showing affection, then mid-cuddling Aurora mentioned she wish she would never leave him. Cedric was completely paralyzed and worried by this statement. He argued, telling her that this was not an option and that she could not throw her future away because of him. She seemed to not take it very seriously and laughed, reassuring him that she was being sincere, and would like to stay with him longer, in Enchancia, as it would be a good life. Cedric could not bear to hear her say such things and began to get irritated with her insistence on not seeing reality; he stated that she would leave and that would be that. There was a small conflict between them, as Aurora felt rejected, and Cedric's mention of her not having any idea of ​​what she was saying made her feel like he was treating her like other people do: seeing her immaturely. Cedric got calmer, reassured her, and said that there was no debate about that: she came there to study, and she would finish studying, then leave and go pursue her dreams. This comes from his own low self esteem and his wish for her to find something better in the future, instead of "rotting in an old, dark tower with a man as awful as him". But he wouldn't dare to say it that easily, cause he knows she won't see it like he does, since she's "naive and has a view of him that's better than the reality" and will only get heartbroken after she finds out that he's planning to take over the kingdom. He's not capable of telling her the truth and breaking her heart.

Aurora's staying went from after the episode Cedric's Apprentice to after the end of the last season of Sofia The First, so it took four years. She went through all those moments in STF (even the Day Of The Sorcerers episode, which was an actual chaos, but the episode events remain and there are no big changes to it except for Aurora's presence and her discovery of the truth. Aurora was by Sofia's side all the time and went back to the castle with her, too. She got heartbroken, but Cedric ended up telling her his point of view, and he cried... a lot. She had a conversation with him in the dungeon and Cedric felt so, so bad for seeing Aurora crying so much and being so heartbroken because of him (maybe I could make a drawing of this?). She was absolutely in pieces and questioning why would he do that, why did he do that to her, lied to her for so many time. She said she could've helped him instead of doing all that if he hat let her know. She also suffered because now he was a locked up criminal and traitor so basically ruined everything. After he saved the kingdom from Grimtrix and got everyone's forgiveness, Cedric had to work a lot to regain Aurora's trust like he did to Roland and had to communicate with her a lot too.). All the events that happened in STF happened the same exact way except that Aurora was included as a background character this time.

⊹₊୨୧⁺₊☾⊹ Their problems, power imbalance, maturity difference, bad personal traits and how they work through that:

Both characters have their advantages and flaws.

Their relationship, of course, have problems. Their power imbalance was definitely an obstacle. Being Aurora's mentor makes Cedric the responsible one and he's responsible for her well-being. Despite that, he's much older than Aurora. Cedric is 37, while Aurora is 24, they have a 13 years difference. What bothers them the most is their power positions and ages, Cedric is technically superior to her position, being her mentor and an actual royal sorcerer who's teaching her and letting her stay in his tower. Cedric is more mature, he lived more than she did, he's an adult while she's a young adult, he already has a stable life, has his own job, own place, own money, and his own frown and bad mood that with how unhealthy his routine is. Aurora still has to get her life together and search for her own things herself, and Cedric helps as much as he can, not letting their relationship affect her apprenticeship and being very responsible in talks of teaching and making sure that she's learning. He's a very good teacher by the way, he is patient, despite being a bit stern, and tells her to try again and again until she mastered the spell. It's the sorcerer's secret!

Obviously, it would be unrealistic if they had an age difference but no actual difficulties that come from that problem to work around, and their personalities are different as themselves. Cedric is older, his past experiences made him a bit tired of his life, you guys probably know that he's been bullied since he was like, seven, and everyone sees him as a stupid weird sorcerer that can't do anything right, except for Aurora and Sofia. Cedric is an adult who's tired of adult life, and expectations, and he's quite lonely and introverted, he's quieter, can have bad mood when bothered (not by Aurora, of course), and despite having his own mental health problems, to make matters worse, his sleep routine is bad, doesn't exercises, and well... despite eating quite okay, can skip meals or skip sleep hours due to work (or just the need to not show up in public - he would rather not eat if that means he'll have to show up in front of the castle staff when he's feeling down about himself). He also has a quite low self-esteem due to his past, and thinks of himself as not very attractive, weird looking, someone people (or women) wouldn't want to approach (we'll get into that later too), Cedric's main trait is that he's tired, but he's caring and patient.

Aurora, on the other way, is very lively and excited. She wants to live adventures, wants to have fun, wants to drag Cedric into fun situations like balls and walks, she lives for the fun. She wants to learn magic but sometimes has difficulty repeating the same spells tons of times and staying still while listening to Cedric's teachings, she wants the classes to be fun so some stuff tend to bore her, while Cedric tells her that often there are some boring stuff that can't be skipped. This is where they tend to conflict a bit, in some parts, because Cedric wants to be responsible with her while Aurora is a bit reckless and tend to not understand what is discipline or obligations: stuff like eating healthy food, sleeping well, or studying boring subjects that she'll have to master before doing actual spells. Cedric is aware that they have a relationship but at the same time he wants to keep them as equal, he can't be negligent, so he uses his own knowledge and maturity to work through their problems and have dialogues with Aurora. Their difference is there, that's undeniable, the important part is how they use it for good, how responsible and aware they are of it, and how they face their obstacles together. Their maturities clash sometimes, but with dialogue they are able to end the conflicts and understand eachother's thoughts, making it a flaw that they can work with.

I wrote about this in this post.

So, for example, most of their conflicts happen in situations like these: Cedric took a responsible decision for her best, despite seeming bad to Aurora, and in private he'll show vulnerability by saying: "I'm sorry dear, I am doing my best to take care of you." (I am trying to balance our relationship with your studies meaning that I can't neglect you) and Aurora will angrily answer "I don't want you to take care of me." (I am not a child and I don't want you to decide what's best for me like other people expect you to). Even though that most of the time Cedric is taking the best and most down to earth decision while Aurora can't see it because she's seeing his actions through immaturity glasses. She thinks he's treating her as a child, when he's trying the best he can to balance the responsability he feels for her with their romantic relationship without being disrespectful or authoritative. He knows that Aurora can be reckless so she takes decisions without thinking too much, and he can see how that stuff won't work out (he has himself as an example), so he tries to keep her from taking those bad decisions and she says "stop telling me what to do". If things escalate too much he'll let her take the bad decision, and Cedric is the one who will take care of her later, so the disadvangages of the situation will also reach him anyway. He has a talk with her about the situation and Aurora will say sorry, understanding what he meant.

Cedric didn't found it fair to demand obedience and respect like a stern tutor because he didn't treated like a simple apprentice either. So they had conversations about this and found it better to see eachother in the same level of importance, authority, and keep mutual respect — no "you should respect me because I'm your tutor" discourse. Like a couple, they both would have conversations and decide stuff as a duo, if something bothered them they would try to express that via dialogue. This is the way they learnt how to work around that said power imbalance. Unfortunately they can't change the way people perceive them, but it's probably better if they don't, since the idea of ​​them being a couple wouldn't cross anyone's minds and that would guarantee their secret a little better, despite being... depressing. But they treat echother as equal and that's what matters. Honestly, it pains both of them that they can never come out.

I think that what happens the most is Aurora living in Cedric's shadow. This happens a lot because she's always with him, being his assistant and his apprentice, and people often refer to her as "Cedric's apprentice" when they don't know her name... even when they do, in fact. They know they're not talking about Princess Sofia, because when they're talking about Sofia they know her by name and title. When people want to ask something about Aurora, they ask Cedric, and not Aurora. The way people perceive her is something that bothers Aurora, but it is the way it is, since neither Aurora nor Cedric can do anything about it. People have a very innocent idea of ​​her, they see her as the sweet young apprentice who assists Cedric, and this bothers her because even though she is an adult, they perceive/treat her like that and indirectly end up making her relationship with Cedric seem even more uncomfortable if they came out. She is capable of making her own decisions, she has a happy and sweet personality but that does not mean that she is stupid or innocent, it does not mean that she cannot have strong opinions, take bad decisions, or have sex with someone she likes. Cedric does his best in including her in conversations and treating her like an adult in front of people so that they'll understand, but some people around them seem to not notice and see them as narrative tropes (young cute apprentice with old, stern sorcerer Cedric)

Their relationship doesn't really surround the teacher x student trope, most of the characters in this trope are written in a very disgusting manner and the trope itself has school grade implications, pedo tendencies, cheating husbands, lots of manipulation and old guys taking advantage of young girls, for me it falls in the context of pr0ships. I watched many video essays about that, and I don't like that kind of story, neither support it. But before someone asks, Aurora and Cedric ARE NOT in the common teacher x student trope. Aurora is Cedric's apprentice, yes, but I have a list of arguments about why it's not one of these stories: first of all, Aurora's apprenticeship is not like a common student and a teacher, Cedric teaches her, sure, but she is more like a sorcerer's assistant, and she is his only apprentice (besides Sofia very occasionally) meaning that there is no way she can bribe him into anything. The second argument it's that her training does not revolve around grades, she can't buy anything from Cedric, he wouldn't let her do it, wouldn't accept it, and would shut her down immediately. Her tutoring is 100% based on how her skills improve, and only when Cedric sees that she's ready for the next lessons he'll give her more advanced spells. If she's not ready, it doesn't matter how much affection they show behind closed doors, he won't move on to the next spells and absolutely will not graduate her knowing that she is not ready. Aurora may be young and they do have an age difference, but she's in her mid twenties, does not look like a child, and they both do their best to be responsible and learn how to work with their imbalance, which are all clear differences to student x teacher romances; Cedric is specially patient and understanding, while Aurora is specially kind and respectful, so they both try to make things work. Their personalities match with eachother so their relationship is not challenging, except when their maturities clash, but they eventually communicate and learn how to work things out, specially Cedric, who is more calm, mature and prepared to do this.

You can't read real people's minds but I can read my characters and I know how they're written and how they feel: Cedric has no bad intentions with Aurora. He doesn't want to exploit her, abuse her, manipulate her or anything like this. All he wants is for her best, even when she doesn't think so, like when he didn't let her drink a full bottle of liquor or eat only sweets for lunch because she would feel weak later. The intimacy they have is a showing of affection between them and they don't want anything from eachother besides love.

Aurora may think otherwise when she's feeling down, but once Cedric discovers how she's feeling in that night, he will absolutely reassure her that he does not want anything from her that she may feel obligated to do. Her view of self worth sometimes gets damaged by her own thoughts and past trauma but Cedric helps her through it, the same way she does to him. Their relationship is purely and genuinely made out of love and care for eachother.

Cedric will be like "Wait, Aurora, what is that? Why are you acting like this? Look at me. What are you doing?" and she will start sobbing and muttering "I'm sorry, I don't want you to stay angry with me (about something that happened earlier), I'm just... doing my best. Don't be upset, please." and Cedric will establish limits "No, no, no, no, stop that, that's not how we work things out. I don't want you to do that, we solve our problems by talking. Don't do that, dear. I don't want you to. Come here, let's talk, shall we?"

I don't like how some character's bad traits are only harmful to themselves, like if the characters were like only victims somehow, and never perpetuators. For example, a character having mental health issues and hurting only themselves in the process, but never acting stubborn, never being rude, never being angry. I think that's very valid, for sure, but most people have bad traits that aren't only the glamourized ones, characters can be rude, they can be mean, they can take bad decisions, like real people. And I think this makes the charaters more realistic. Into that same line of thought, I also believe that every single person in a relationship must have topics they don't agree with eachother about, couples and friends fight sometimes, no one is perfect all the time, and the important part is to say sorry or try to find an agreement about that certain situation, try to find a way out of that situation. So, due to that, I added some flaws and disagreements in Cedric's and Aurora's relationship, to make it more believable and realistic. Because none of these characters are perfect, they can get into conflicts sometimes, and the important part is to find a way out and a resolution to these problems.

For example, Cedric taught Aurora some spells and she surprisingly watched him as if he knew everything, which contrasted with the way most people treated him, and that's good. Of course, this thought comforted him and made him feel more confident, but at the same time, he knew that Aurora didn't know him completely and didn't had any other sorcerer as a role model, meaning that while she admired him, she didn't know how "stupid" he could be (in his view). It made him feel sorry for her innocence to a certain extent, because he feels like Aurora deserves someone much better than him... in every way, for all the things he could do for her. And so he always tries to do the best he can.

Cedric is insecure and you know that, but sometimes he looks at Aurora and thinks that she deserves someone better than him. Someone more vivid and full of energy like her, someone younger and that doesn't have all the problems, questions, insecurities and impediments like he has. Someone who's not "a boring one who's too introverted and tired to get out all the time like she wants to, a weirdo who hides in a dark tower and stares at prople, an old, worn out and ugly guy that never had a prime moment in his life, who's planning on destroying the place she had loved most in her entire life, lying behind her back, ruining all the good image that she has of him" and all the other bad adjectives that he sees himself having. He came to terms with all these adjectives and is used to his life being "bad" as it is, he thinks he's ugly and he is used to that, but when he looks at Aurora he does his best to take care of her, cuz he sees her as out of his league. He doesn't deserve her but he does his best to treat her the way she deserves: with utmost care.

Once when Cedric and Aurora started secretly dating, at the first quarter of the year, King Roland asked Cedric to perform a magic show for him and a few other kings at an event in the castle, and as usual, Cedric was very nervous. He practiced, worked hard, planned his performances, and trained Aurora to be his assistant. A few days later on the night of the performance, Cedric became very nervous and Aurora, being a novice and making mistakes, embarrassed him and ruined his performance in front of the kings. Cedric cared a lot about what those kings would think of him and did everything he could to make it work, but Aurora ruined the performance (partly his fault), and his self-esteem issues affected the situation. He was very nervous before, and afterwards, when they left the hall and went outside the castle, Cedric contained his anger while hearing Aurora's apologies until he exploded and threw everything at her. He said he shouldn't have done that show with her, he said she wasn't ready and he knew it, he said she embarrassed him in front of people, and he wasn't surprised by that, because she gets distracted by other things all the time and would rather be idle than practice her magic enough (she trains enough, but he was angry). It turned out that Aurora's breaking point was when he angrily said he didn't understand how someone who was so good at so many things could be so bad with a wand (and his sentence was open to several interpretations with that). Cedric only realized what he said when the words left his mouth, and immediately tried to apologize, but Aurora was already crying and ran to the garden, saying she wanted to be alone and away from him. Obviously that wasn't true, and after a long chase by Cedric running after her, Aurora fell to the ground, crying. Cedric knelt down next to her, panting because he's awful at running, and hugged her, saying sorry for all the things he did and said to her. Aurora tried to refuse his ask for forgiveness and escape his hug, but she honestly still liked him so much that she ached for his regret, and hugged him back, in sobs and disappointment. Cedric thought about what he did and understood that his low self esteem clouded his judgement and his own problems made him take it out on her. He shouldn't have put her in that situation, she was an apprentice and was not prepared, maybe his tutoring was bad, maybe part of this was his fault. It was not her fault. Cedric said sorry to her and promised he would never let his own issues affect his treatment towards her. She forgave him, and Cedric made up for her in the following days, saying sorry through actions too. Aurora also has her moments of doing stupid things and they can work through that together.

Cedric has a lot of self-esteem issues, as you probably already know. He sees himself as ugly, too skinny, too wrinkled, he feels like he looks tired with those eyebags, his nose is too big, he has bad posture, his hair is stained from his mistakes, he feels weak, tired and old compared to Aurora, who is so beautiful and bright like a star. And he doesn't understand how he means everything to Aurora, because for him, he's not even half of what she thinks of him. Aurora, on the other hand, thinks she is weird and clumsy, she thinks that if she manages to be incompetent enough Cedric will yell at her, tell her she is a disaster, that her interests are ridiculous, that she dresses badly and... that she is nothing more than a pretty face. This is her biggest fear, Cedric "finding out" that she's actually worthless. And so is his. They are like two sides of the same coin.

Now let's touch on a very sensitive subject, which is how Aurora demeans herself because of what her family taught her. Unlike Cedric, Aurora feels that people don't see value in who she is or what she likes, but rather in the fact that she can be helpful. She tries to make up for her "lack of qualities" by doing favors, so for example, to make up for Cedric reading a book she likes with her, she will try to organize his shelves. If he gave her quality time, or a gift, she feels like she owes him tasks, favors. She may end up crying if she breaks one of his potions, even if Cedric says it's okay. Aurora will apologize for hours and clean up the mess if necessary, saying that she doesn't want to be a bother to him. Aurora is afraid that if he finds out how much of a bungler she is, he will get rid of her quickly, and she loves him so much and wants to learn magic from him, so she does everything she can to prevent that from happening.

Both of them feel like they're less than how their partner perceives them. Cedric knows that Aurora loves and admires him, but he feels like she only thinks that because she didn't had the chance to notice how he actually is, and the same goes to Aurora. Cedric doesn't feel like he's worthy at all, he thinks that he's ugly and an idiot, who lies to her about the taking over the kingdom thing, so he tries to compensate with being caring and patient with her (which are things he naturally does to Aurora, without having to pretend just to have her attention. Cedric genuinely cares for her and hopes that this is enough to convince her not to leave him behind, even though deep down he feels like it's not, and that she will eventually find out the truth... he just hopes it's not soon and enjoy every single moment spent by her side). Aurora on the other way is too stuck to the opinion that her parents had of her, so she thinks that she's stupid and annoying, but is pretty and polite enough to make Cedric think that she's worth something. They spoke to eachother about how they feel about this, and everytime one of them talks down about themselves, the other one immediately denies it to be true. Cedric reassures Aurora that she's sweet, pretty, smart, and that he loves her just the way she is. Aurora reassures Cedric that he is indeed wise in magic, he is smart, he is attractive, he's caring, and that he is everything she ever dreamt of having in her life. They just need to learn a bit better of how to stop putting themselves down. They try not to, but of course, bad habits are hard to kill.

Cedric tries to make up for everything that's wrong with him, while Aurora knows that she's pretty and tries to use that beauty to compensate for every other trait she has and that she thinks that it's flawed.

Aurora's toxic traits is that she's childish and can throw "tantrums" sometimes. She has a strong temper and sometimes acts like a stubborn child who can't hear a "no", and it's irresponsible with her actions. She gets angry over things that for Cedric may be childish but for her are important, and acts impulsively. Their way of dealing with it: Cedric has mature conversations with her and shows more emotional responsibility to Aurora to bring her to her senses. He often uses a stern tone to guide her into being more responsible and taking accountability for her actions. If her target is specifically him, if she is angry at him for not letting her do something irresponsible, Cedric makes her aware of it. And she embarassingly says sorry, feeling guilty for being cruel to him in the first place.

⊹₊୨୧⁺₊☾⊹ Different Endings to the story:

I considered some different endings for them.

There is the King Cedric ending, where Cedric succeeds in becoming king and taking over Enchancia at the end of Day Of The Sorcerers. As Aurora was unaware of his plans to betray the kingdom until he put the plan into action, it came as a shock to her. The entire royal family had been frozen in stone by Cedric and he was now a dictator in Enchancia, threatening all those who opposed his rule, and claiming that he deserved to have all this, to be treated like a true king. Aurora was heartbroken, but Cedric tried to tell her that he would take care of her, that she could be protected by him as his queen or even his princess if ruling was a bit too much, and made it clear to everyone that no one would lay a finger on Aurora, or they would suffer the consequences. Cedric was not mean to her, but the things he did were truly bad, and Aurora no longer recognized him, nor the kingdom. Even though she was pampered with dresses and jewelry and was offered larger rooms, royal belongings, and a life of luxury, this was not what she wanted and she was unhappy with Cedric. She agreed with the part of the population that rebelled against him and considered him a tyrant, but she did not have the courage to tell Cedric this, out of fear. She gradually refused his affections and presence, to the point where she packed her things and fled without a trace. Cedric was also dethroned and executed, with the involvement of his own subjects and other kingdoms. Not a happy ending.

There's also the ending where they're separated, with Aurora moving on with her life in the other kingdom and falling in love with another guy, dating, getting married, and sending letters to Cedric as if he were just a tutor that she holds dearly, and thanking him for his affection and the lessons she's learned over the past few years. Yes, even after loving him for so long. She moves on with her life as Cedric asked, and also walks her down the aisle, at Aurora's request. Even though it's what Cedric asked for, it's not what he wanted, and he's deeply unhappy, but he tells her that he wants her to be happy. Aurora goes a bit out of character here, since her type is Cedric and the connection she has with him is too strong for her to want to move on with anyone else, so let's just consider this a really bad nightmare that Cedric had.

The true ending is the one where Aurora goes to her new castle and Cedric stays in Enchancia. Some months before Aurora's leaving, and a little before she actually finished her studies, Cedric helped her to write and send letters to some other kingdoms to prevent her from travelling everywhere alone in search for a castle that would be interested in hiring her as a royal sorceress. In a process that took months to fully happen, Aurora was choosen by a castle, got ready, packed her stuff, and in a monday morning took her breakfast and had a small farewell at the front garden with some employees and friends. She said goodbye to each one of them, Cedric handed her the same suitcase she had used when she arrived at the castle, now full of her old belongings and new ones she had acquired over the years, (because he helped her to carry her stuff through the castle halls) and hugged her tightly. She also had another suitcase now, to carry a few more things. But they said goodbye, unable to stop crying, and Cedric told her he was very proud of how much she had evolved. He thanked her for everything he had experienced with her in these past years and everything he had learned from her as well. He wished her all the best and asked her to send him letters about how her life in the new castle was going. Unable to said goodbye with a kiss, they showed all their last acts of affection in the last few days, especially last night and the last kisses and hugs that morning. Their true goodbye to their romance was in the tower, when Cedric and Aurora went up to the tower after breakfast to get her luggage, and said what they wanted without filters, showed kisses and hugs without fear, then took a deep breath and pulled themselves together to go to the public and watch Aurora's departure in the front garden. Aurora got in her flying broom and parted with the luggage tied to it, waving goodbye.

Her new castle was nice and she met new and nice people (don't ask me what kingdom it was). The royalty was nice, the employees were also nice, her bedroom and workplace was also good. She was a bit clumsy at the start but was very polite and did most of the spells right. They were patient for knowing that it was her first job. There were people her age and she made friends, including even some guys, and even politely rejected a love confession because... they weren't Cedric. She was still in love even though she wasn't seeing him anymore. Of course they are able to exchange letters but it's not the same thing, and letters take time to arrive. In the new castle Aurora is hired as a royal sorceress and she does her job quite well there. She meets new people, makes new friends and even people who might be potential lovers but she can't feel interested by any guys when she's still in love with Cedric. In their exchange of letters, she wrote him about what happened weekly, and he did the same. They exchange pressed flowers, feathers, buttons and other objects.

In one of her letters Aurora sent to Cedric, she said: "[...]...One of the boys recently confessed his love for me, but I politely rejected him. None of the guys around here look interesting when the only one I can think about is you. You're always in my mind, every day, every hour, I wish you were here with me to hold me tight and be my support like you always did. I love you so much, Cedric. And I miss you so much." She is always affectionate and loving with him, and Cedric honestly wish she wasn't so that their separation could be easier to take, on his part. It hurts to read that and not be able to have her by his side again, it would be better if she treated him just as a friend, but he can't bring himself to ask her not to, since he also loves her the same and misses to have her by his side just as much as she does. It hurts not to have her affection and presence every day, so when he has that small glimpse of her in his now once again lonely life... it feels good, but painful, very painful.

Cedric wrote back: "[...]...I miss you very much too, my dear. But I must encourage you to live your life and move forward, without worrying about me. I am fine in Enchancia, and I want to see you doing well in your new kingdom. Don't be afraid to explore new things, live, have fun, fall in love with any boy you want, my happiness is knowing that you are well. Forget about me, I am already a turned page in your book, go ahead and write the next ones, I will be here to support and encouraje you. You are young and many experiences await you, I don't want my absence to hold you back from living. I will love receiving your letters and knowing the adventures you will experience in the future. I love you too, and I wish you the best, my dear Aurora." Aurora obviously didn't obeyed him because she never does, and her next letters were still affectionate the same. She's very stubborn.

Cedric's life was almost just as lonely as it was when Aurora wasn't present in his life. Of course now he was friends with Sofia, but his dark tower was once again empty (that is, in talks of company). Now he had neither Wormwood nor Aurora, this caused him to go out more and visit other places in the castle to satisfy his need for company and social interaction, but Cedric always returned to the tower because he is an introvert and needs time alone. The silence there bothers him every day, and Aurora's cheerful presence is sorely missed. Both of them feel lonely living alone in their rooms because they used to share their routine with someone else, but things really got bad for Cedric. I have no doubt that Aurora invited her girl friends to "sleepovers" in her room/workshop sometimes, to have someone present by her side, and she certainly told them about Cedric too (he would deeply disapprove that for many reasons but he doesn't need to know). But Cedric didn't have sleepovers, he went to his tower to work and fulfill the king's demands for a few hours, then he would go out into the castle to socialize. He went out to take random walks, randomly offer to help to people with spells or anything. At one point he vented about how lonely he felt now that Aurora was gone, even though he cut the romantic part in it. Sleeping alone at night was really bad. They also really missed the affection and, of course, the intimacy. They both were absolutely lovesick.

Aurora couldn't take it no more. She asked to be sent back to Enchancia, and despite Cedric disapproving this notion for a long time, she wrote letters to him saying that she had already finished her studies, had already become a sorceress of a castle, had already fulfilled her dream and that she was now free to choose what she wanted for her future from then on, and what she wants is to stay in Enchancia with him. Cedric wanted to deny it, he tried to deny it, but he couldn't pretend to himself that this wasn't good news. Cedric sent a letter to Aurora, saying that he didn't want to be the reason for holding her back from the things she wanted, he finally opened up and admitted that he had always been afraid of holding her back from her potential, and still was. But Aurora wrote back, saying that she was sure of what she wanted, and her goals had already been achieved, now her goal was to return home to Enchancia. And after much resistance on Cedric's part and much uncertainty about whether this would be a good thing, he accepted that he did in fact miss Aurora too, and having her by his side again and forever would be the best thing of all. So yes, Cedric finally gave up his stubbornness and agreed to Aurora's return to Enchancia. There were conversations between Cedric and King Roland and letters sent by Aurora from her kingdom to both of them, communicating about her desire to return, and after some time dealing with documents and with the king's authorization, Aurora was accepted back, this time as a royal sorceress. Both she and Cedric would be two sorcerers of Enchancia. Aurora spoke to the royalty of the kingdom where she was now located, telling them about her desire to return to Enchancia and King Roland's permission. She also communicated that she needed to return home to the people she loved. So the royalty did not refuse her request, understanding her reason for wanting to leave. Aurora said goodbye to her colleagues in that castle, packed her bags and returned to Enchancia. She also sent a last letter to Cedric in the meantime.

Aurora left her previous castle in her flying broom and came back to Enchancia, being greeted by people (close friends, few, but enough) waiting for her arrival in front of the castle, and Cedric walking around trying to control his nervousness. They haven't seen eachother for aproximately two years. When Aurora arrived, she dropped her broom and bags on the floor and ran to Cedric, hugging him very tightly. He cried first, and more, by the way. His first words were "I missed you so much" and "You look beautiful. You haven't changed at all."

Aurora returned to her previous room (Cedric's room) (with some new things she had gotten in the other kingdom now), and a few weeks passed with both of them getting used to each other's presence again. They didn't kiss in front of others, only when they were alone in the tower, like before. There was also a conversation about getting back together, the answer didn't take long to be yes, and for a while (a few weeks) it was a secret. Now Cedric and Aurora both did their current work together and as the demand was enough for Cedric alone before, now being divided between two people, it left them with more free time, being able to go out more, go for walks, spend more time together without worrying so much about the amount of tasks. It was wonderful.

There was one small issue that bothered them, though. Not a small one, a big one. Now that they were both living together, working together, and with Aurora having finished her studies, they both started talking about whether now would be a good time to come out in public. They were both apprehensive about the past few years, and they were afraid of what Roland would think of it, but after a few days of deciding, they went together to the throne room to talk to Roland. Of course, logically they wouldn't need his approval to be together, but since they were two servants of the castle, in addition to their history of studying together, they needed to confirm with Roland whether they were free to be together in his castle, and make him aware of it.

Now a few years later, after Cedric's redemption and the strengthening of his friendship with Roland, she spoke to Roland not only as a king, but as a friend as well. They went to the throne room and told him the truth, that they had been enjoying each other since Aurora started living in the castle. Roland was afraid, but Aurora intervened and told him that she was not vulnerable even back then, that she was old enough to make those decisions and the way people saw her as lesser did not affect her ability to do so, that Cedric had always been respectful and never wanted to interfere with her studies and departure to another castle to achieve her goals, he did not want to harm her future, and so he was responsible with her. But now she had done everything she wanted for her future, and now Aurora wanted to stay with Cedric, in Enchancia. Not as an apprentice, having to deal with the secret and with Cedric's worries about keeping her there or with the fact that she would leave. She wanted to stay with him as a lover and with an equal position. No more obstacles, difficulties, or reasons to go our separate ways.

Roland was apprehensive at first, but after hearing Aurora's story and seeing the looks on their faces, Cedric's apprehensive but the clear mutual affection between them, he reconsidered and understood. He and Miranda had both suffered resentment when they first got together, and even though it didn't affect their choice, it wasn't easy to deal with it in the early years. Roland also knew how lonely Cedric was, he had been bitter for many years, and spent his days alone — now apparently lamenting and mourning the distance he had from his loved one for years — and Roland didn't want to be the one to deprive them of that happiness. Miranda also had a hand in that decision. Cedric and Aurora looked so vulnerable from that point that he saw them from the throne, almost reminding him of the day Cedric begged for his forgiveness on the ground after betraying the kingdom, a few years ago. So Roland saw no reason to refuse their request, he could see that the two of them were responsible enough, that they needed this permission, that his childhood friend also needed a happy ending and a new beginning like Roland himself had gained, so he gave them his blessing and permission to stay together in the castle. Aurora couldn't contain her joy and jumped on Cedric, giggling loudly and hugging him tight, kissing his cheek a little too much, and Cedric, despite a bit embarassed, hugged her back and thanked Roland for his blessing. Roland said the only condition was that they be happy... and that they not show so much public affection in front of him, but Miranda nudged him and said they didn't need to worry about that.

Leaving the throne room, Aurora couldn't stop showing her joy in the corridors, holding Cedric's hand in public, leaning on him on purpose, laughing. Sometimes some castle employees would pass by and Aurora would say "We're together!" "We're dating now!" raising their held hands. Cedric would laugh and pull her hand down, nervous, desperate, whispering aggressively "Aurora, stop!! Not yet! Stop doing this, please. I beg you. I can't take it." and she'd chuckle and do it again with the next person that passed, sometimes saying she stopped, before doing it again. It didn't take long for people to know they were together, because now they held hands (or had Aurora holding his arm), Aurora could kiss his cheek, they could have picnics or romantic teas together, and they were free to say out loud that they were together, yes. Eventually the view that others had of them as mentor and apprentice faded and they were finally seen as a couple of royal sorcerers. Cedric's family also found out about it, and Aurora sent letters to her family, not expecting to be mailed back. Not long after, perhaps by the end of the same year, Cedric proposed to Aurora, they got married and they lived happily ever after in Enchancia.

⊹₊୨୧⁺₊☾⊹ Final Considerations:

I started creating this story back in january 2024, when I entered the Cedric/Sofia The First fandom. Aurora had been on my mind since that period, and at first she was a silly self-insert I made just to have fun and create fun scenarios, but she became her own thing overtime, and now she's a character. Just drawings or short posts here and there cannot convey the whole story I have in my mind to other people, and I feel like it's a story that's worth telling, after so many time working on it and creating so much around it. It will never be a movie, or a cartoon, or a comic, or a fanfiction, because so many things happened and I am not willing to write it. But at least sharing it is a good thing, because it deserves to be told and remembered.

It not only has a story, it has it's own characters with their own personalities and conflicts, the characters have designs, moodboards, playlists, and they're almost like people by now. They have their own scents I defined in my head (Cedric smells like books, herbs and clean clothes, Aurora smells like her cherry chapstick and soap), they have their own heights, their own preferences for clothing, food and pastimes, the texture of their hands feel different because Aurora's hands are very soft while Cedric's are rougher and calloused due to chemicals and magic (almost like his concept art ones), Aurora's skin has pink undertones and Cedric's has gray undertones, their have their own sleeping clothes, formal outfits, their haircuts are very defined. Aurora humms and sings when she's focused, Cedric stays working and secretly scheming his evil plans until late at night to the moment when he crawls over the staircase to simply fall into bed exhausted, with headaches and back pain, next to Aurora, being received by her affection and tender care. In the days where they feel like trash they have eachother. Cedric have so many physical traits of tiredness and age due to his stress and bad habits for years, like dark eyebags and smile lines, while Aurora's skin is much softer, still she thinks he's beautiful. They have so many layers, so many traits and habits.

You can find other posts about them and specifically Aurora because she's my creation in the tag "#aurora the apprentice" in my blog. Everytime I mention the couple, this tag is in it. I don't have a title/name for them together though. I accept suggestions.

For those who read until this moment here is a speedrun of every Cedric and Aurora drawing I ever made until today (april 9 2025):

Follow me on Instagram and Youtube to see my art. I usually post Cedric x Aurora art on Instagram so if you'd like to see more of them stay tuned there.

I will probably come back to this post to edit stuff in it in the future, or add more paragraphs, but this is the main post about Aurora and Cedric where I write all the information that there is to know about them in my head.

Thanks for reading until this point of the post, if you did. Please if you're interested in the characters and if you like what I'm creating tell me your opinions. Write about what do you think, reblog, interact. This post took me months to write and this story has been in my mind for more than a year, so listening to what you think will be great to me. Tumblr doesn't care about likes or sharings like other platforms do, this is more because of the actual interaction, because I want to know what other people think of these characters.

[dreamyblossommwrites]

Rockstar x stalker reader???1?1?1

TW: bad English (tell me if you spot a mistake!!!)

Rockstar who sees you on every single fan meetup, always taking pictures with him and telling him how much you love his work

You always tell him you already own every single new album he released, every single merch and everything else thats asosieted w him

He also sees you on his concerts, always in the 'vip members' part of the event

Sometimes he wonders how much money you spend on him

Rockstar who stops calling you his fan and starts calling you by your name cuz "youre always here, might as well treat you as a crew member"

Rockstar who geniusly start letting you in behind the scenes... You just love him so much! Always spending so much money on the concert tickets! You deserve something for all the support!

Rockstar who stsrts seeing you outside of his public life! You like the same movies,drinks, snacks... everything! How could he not want to be friends with you??? He just needs to take you for a walk after a concert or fan meetup

Rockstar who starts getting freaked out seeing gifts and plushies and other stuff outside his door every morning.... Hes fans dont know where he lives... You dont to (at least thats what he thinks)

Oh how happy he was when you offered to give him your number when he told you whats happening <33 now he can call you when hes felling like someones watching him

Then he starts to get wierd messages on every single account on every single platform that has his number attached to it.... (Hes just so dumb 😔)

Rockstar going thru those messages only to find pictures of his house.... Terrified calls you to ask if he can stay with you until he doesnt find out whos stalking him!!!

Rockstar who doesnt know youre not planning to let him leave your house ever again

Lmao Im back ig :33 prob nobodys gonna see this but atleast I had fun writing this <333

[goodolddumbbanana]

WHOOOOO, SOLAR DIDN’T FALL FOR THE BULLSHIT NEXUS TRIED TO SPEW-

I am so happy!!!!!

Damn Nexus delulu really went off the cliff, am I right? Become a God???? That dude is not only trying to be worse than the person he hates, but he also wants to compete with his God Complex with his Dad.

Solar heard so desperate. I bet he really got triggered back to his Moon, and his Sun.

Solar be like if I have 1 dollar for every person I care about because of me went crazy, it is weird that I will have 2 dollars.

And the way he stabbed Nexus and realized nothing worked? That Nexus turned worse because of himself, not because of someone else? Haha, that dude went straight to murder. Guess he has learnt his lesson with his Moon somehow. Once my boy tastes blood, it just keeps going like that I guess...

But... Seeing Nexus to be this cringe and ask Solar to come and work with him... And just flushed away his family and blamed Sun for being scared of him and pushing him away while in reality, Sun rarely mentioned Old Moon anymore and that is just Nexus being self conscious?

I want to say I am surprised but honestly, I had guessed this for like several days before. It actually turned out better than I expected though. I guess I just expect the worst, that Solar will be captured or such or he is too weak to kill Nexus - his used to be friends, family once again.

Although it is really a concern that Nexus can talk into Solar's head. God knows if he will whisper something really stupid for Solar to do something stupid... And I guess the shards things Sun can detect properly related to Star power.

Cuz even the Astral Bodies couldn't realise Nexus is here, but Sun can, so I guess... Sun will be more in danger than he is now, especially after Nexus stops avoiding him.

I still don't get it. Why does Nexus keep threatening everyone but leave Sun. He wants to hurt Lunar, Earth (again), bashing off Moon's head, Dazzle and Jack, but he never mentioned what he would want to do to Sun? Maybe it is the mercy for someone who is used to his brother?

Cuz the way Nexus keeps repeating himself that Solar is his brother, Solar is the only one he cares about is bull. We both know it is bull. And also weird.

Because in the dream he had, he lost Sun and he just totally wiped off Solar's existence. He was screaming his lung out that he wanted his brother back. And while with Earth and Lunar, their sins were wanted to do nothing with him, then with Sun, he mentioned Sun only liked him because of pity.

I guess in some twisted levels, Nexus really understands Sun, and still misses Sun, somehow. But he feels bitter towards Sun too, like he is never enough for Sun.

While Solar still very couldn't accept the fact that Nexus becomes this egomaniac, and the conversation was just end ups with Nexus laughing and mocking Solar runway. With Sun, they understand each other too well which leads them to really don't need to say anything, and just accept the fact that Nexus is already gone.

And.... If before it is Sun and Solar hopes to somewhat bring Nexus back, now in that boat the only one person left is Sun.

Sun seems not surprised when hearing what Solar says is really sad. He also seems like he wants to say something more... I really hope this Endgame will be Sun stop Nexus because for real, right now, it is only Sun does not totally give up or want to kill Nexus.

Surely he is angry at Nexus for stabbing him in the back. But like Nexus used to say when approaching Dark Sun, even Sun in his head isn't that mean.

Please Tsams, let Sun and Nexus have one big fight!!!! Please Sun!!!!

Note: it is really hard warming to see how Sun and Solar get along really like siblings. Solar pouring water on Sun's head and both three of them hang out? Peach!!!

And... Nexus really calls Dark Sun his partner huh? Guess he still feels lonely somehow with his new shiny self destructive power.

I wonder what kills him faster, his negative star power or Dark Sun will betray him in the end or Solar and Moon and the Astral Bodies will come to get his ass.

It's really just screaming Eclipse-has-star-power-v2.

I feel bad for Nexus, that dude has none of origin thoughts in his head. Becomes God? Creator. Consuming Star power? Eclipse. Pushing everyone away and becoming the biggest ass of yourself and doesn't even care if it kills you or not because you to blind on hating yourself? Old Moon.

He just continues to do what he has seen. For someone who doesn't like to be a puppet on strings, he really let himself play like a fiddler a lot.

He rather let himself drown in his delusional freedom (thinking he is the one who controls when in fact he knows Dark Sun is just using him. And maybe this is better because Dark Sun doesn't care about him. He doesn't want anyone to care about him...) than let himself be loved.

And that's really sad and like Solar said, pathetic.

Solar: Is there anything this situation can get worse?

Life be like: Bet.

I really think it is foreshadowed for something really bad will happen in the future.

[racingmochi]

Predictions for Next Year’s Prema Seats

Wanted to put my thoughts out there (I know Ugo was already announced but I'm just curious how close I'll be with this)

FIA Formula 1 (I know Prema isnt racing in f1 just put this here cuz im going based on this year's Prema teams)

Oliver Bearman -> Haas

Andrea Kimi Antonelli -> Mercedes

FIA Formula 2 

Gabriele Minì

Arvid Lindblad (Campos Racing)

Dino Beganovic (Not prema)

Honestly kind of the hardest to predict. I think MinÌ is the one that makes the most sense cuz he's already competed in an f2 race and had a pretty strong f3 season. Arvid has already been announced for Campos Racing. Dino is rumored to be having financial troubles so it's unclear if he'll be racing in f2 next year. If he can figure out finances, I can see him staying with prema. If he doesn't stay, I'm not too certain who prema would sign. Maybe they'd call up Rafa but that's kind of a far jump from FRECA (yes I know kimi just did that but......) Ofc they could choose another f2 driver or a maybe an f3 driver that's not currently with Prema but I dont know the rest of the grid well enough to say for certain

FIA Formula 3 

Ugo Ugochukwu

Rafael Câmara 

James Wharton 

I think these just make the most sense based on their FRECA performance this past season. Finances allowing I can easily see them all continuing with Prema for F3

Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine 

Freddie Slater 

Alex Powell

Doriane Pin (Iron Dames?)

Maya Weug

This one's also a little hard. I was thinking I don't just want to only have the guys moving up and FRECA is the next step after F1 Academy. Doriane and Maya have both had really strong F1 Academy seasons so I can see them moving up to FRECA. Doriane is currently competing with Iron Dames in FRECA so it could just be that she stays with Iron Dames. If Maya and Doriane don't move to FRECA, Kean and Tomass or maybe Rashid moving up to FRECA

Italian Formula 4 

Kean Nakamura-Berta

Rashid Al Dhaheri 

Tomass Stolcermanis 

Dion Gowda 

Oleksandr Bondarev

Again, this is assuming that Maya and Doriane move up and compete with prema in FRECA. I can easily see Kean, Rashid, Tomass, and Dion sticking with prema (again finances and other things willing). Also, they're most likely gonna have Oleksandr Bondarev move up to f4. He's already racing with Prema in karting and he's already done an F4 race so like i will be SHOCKED if he doesn't move up to f4 with prema (though i guess, stranger things have happened in the 2024 motorsports world LOL)

F1 Academy 

Tina Hausmann 

Nina Gademan

Ella Lloyd

Again this is under the assumption that Maya and Doriane both move up to FRECA. The two of the could stay in F1 Academy since they're all in their first year of F1 Academy (and could even compete in FRECA cuz Doriane is doing it right now). But if they decide to leave F1 Academy, I can see prema signing Nina Gademan and Ella Lloyd. The two of them both raced as wild cards this season with prema and did pretty decently! Other than that, idk who else they'd sign since i really dont know karting and I don't think there's any women racing in Italian F4 that might move to F1 Academy

IndyCar

Callum Ilott

Robert Schartzman

Figured I should add Indycar since prema is going to be racing in indycar next year! Nothing super interesting predictions-wise since Callum has already been confirmed for next year. Robert is the main rumor for the other seat and I feel like that makes the most sense since he came up through f3 & f2 with prema.

Anyways, those are my predictions! Obviously, there's a lot of room for change and we don't really see a ton that's going on behind the scenes. Aside from finances, drivers might just decide that they don't want to race with prema anymore or maybe prema decides to drop them as drivers, it's so hard to say. I think especially as someone who literally just got into f1 this season, there's probably a ton i don't know about that might skew these predictions. ALSO i really don't know other drivers outside of prema so i don't really know if there's anyone vying for a prema seat but it's possible that non-prema drivers could sign with prema fo 2025. So I guess just think of these predictions as solely based on performances from this season and nothing else LOL

Excited to see what comes from these predictions and excited to continue to follow and cheer on prema in 2025!

[joysmercer]

okay I’m so curious about the short fic you posted yesterday

can I ask how in this universe nina dies? And does eddie too?

(it’s mask of anubis on main btw)

ooh fun questions!! i was hoping someone would ask cuz i couldn't figure out how to work it in. also i added way too much info that you didnt ask for so now it's under the cut :D

first of all, this au is a much darker take on how i think nina's life "actually" played out – I think she'll always have random spirits coming up to her etc, but in this au, it's pretty constant and can get very dangerous very quickly. on the flip side, she sees a lot more fame for her "irl" work than she does "in canon" (see below).

somewhat ironically (given how guarded nina becomes from the constant barrage of gods forcing her to do things), she makes her living off of writing movies about her experiences. i think she does this in canon too, but here she really throws herself into it, almost like a form of therapy since there isn't really any professional she can process things with, you know? she eats, sleeps, breathes her craft – whenever she has downtime, she's writing, editing, networking to get her words out there. she's so fast and so talented with it that she graduates university in three years with honors, by which time the chosen one (season 1) has already been picked up by a major company and has started filming; she wins her first oscar two years later, and the next two each year after that.

(actually, all four scripts got picked up at the same time, which is why the turnaround was so quick – but they didn't announce the sequels until after the oscars because at that point she was a relatively unknown person)

(also i know this isn't how these things work irl but just work with me here. maybe she called in a favor from a random god and had things sped along idk)

anyway, the point im trying to make is that she spends her whole life balancing what she wants to do (her work) with what she has to do (paragon shit) and has a weird sense of self-worth as a result (she knows she's good at what she does, but wants to hide it from the world at the same time (out of fear). she hates that she needs others to keep her safe and refuses to believe they're doing it out of kindness, even though she also knows that they genuinely love her. it's weird) (also she and fabian make up sometime during their uni years so all is good there)

anyway, they (amber + KT) set up a rota of all ex-sibuna members (+ willow as she learns about it pretty quickly post-grad) to spend time in the states for a couple months out of the year each. this essentially made sure there was always 1 other person on the mission with her and 2 people nearby who knew where they were going, should things go wrong and they need rescuing or something. but for small/random tasks, nina would just do those alone.

her last mission (that fabian alludes to) had taken months to complete: three formerly-benign ghosts had been "turned" by a magician up in canada, released from the underworld, and, driven mad by the magic (and confusion of being back in the real world), had started a series of freak thunderstorms across the american midwest. together with jerome, she had to figure out how they got released, stop the magician, construct the device necessary to trap the spirits and send them back, and use said device to stop the storms. the effort had completely exhausted her (so much so that she – making headlines – decided to take a step back on touchstone production, instead of hanging out on set like she did for the other three)

(that's why tor is the way it is. with her dropping off of the face of the earth, someone decided – while she couldn't argue against it – to absolutely slash the budget, which lead to a mess of a story (screenplay is the only oscar it wins)

nina's death (as alluded to in the article) really seemed out-of-the-blue. basically, she was on a mission – alone – that suddenly and very unexpectedly turned dangerous. but when she was found (by KT and amber together) it looked like she just collapsed at home – there was no indication of any foul play or anything, really, of how she died.

also alluded to in the article, but a lot (but not all) of KT's "investigative journaling" was her covering up the consequences of nina's missions with theories that would make sense to the general public. nina's last request of her was to halt any investigation into her death prematurely as she knew things would unravel pretty quickly otherwise

joy's role in nina's life was mainly to book her for enough public-facing events/etc so that people wouldn't question where she was when she "disappeared" for a month or two, as well as act as her social media manager/"source close to her" to tabloids during extended absences so people continue to think she's okay. this was especially important given nina's monumental rise to fame (and as a screenplay writer, at that! usually it's the actors/directors who get most of it!) and her relatively young age, which meant she got herself a fandom very quickly…and we all know what the rumor-spreading capabilities of stan twitter are like. there were quite a few times nina came back from a mission to find several "new" pics on her instagram or that shes going viral for something she doesn't "remember" saying lskdjf

amber's role was to media-train the hell out of nina so she never gives any indication that a) there's an element of truth in her work; b) she lives a double life; and c) weird things keep happening in the cities she happens to frequent (eg random buildings falling, artifacts disappearing, etc). we all know this girl can't lie to save her life…amber is nothing but a miracle-worker in that regard lol

as for eddie – his death is basically the reason things are so awful, now. he actually dies at the end of tor, and not only does osiris himself blame nina for it (using "logic" that can rival senkhara's in s2), but it also leaves nina terrified since she no longer has a protector – something all the other gods/spirits quickly take advantage of (threats/blackmail/etc) for the first few years, by which time word of her willingness to do anything spreads and she can't get rid of the constant requests. it doesn't help that his death also proved to them that nina (like her counterpart) can, and will, sacrifice herself to save the world, if it came down to it, making her the perfect pawn in a lot of schemes.