#such as her change in attitude towards death as she approaches her own mortality | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kettlequills · 3 years ago

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unsure at this point whether elenwen would benefit more from a long course of therapy or a good dicking. luckily, neither of these are in store for her, so enjoy an elenwen who is not hinged at all plus sybille, who is having a very bad day. TW: blood drinking, cutting, violence, manipulation and threat, sexual themes, and character death. implied sybille/istlod, a lil elenwen/elisif, uhh idk if youd say this is elenwen/sybille but hm. enjoy, and gimme a shout if you think it needs an extra tag. a03

Elenwen discovers Sybille's secret, and has ... words.

The Thalmor Ambassador had come to Solitude and found an empty palace. No one else was there but Sybille, left to frustratedly amuse the Ambassador while someone hurried to fetch the steward, the Jarl, somebody. Anybody, but Sybille Stentor. Some dispute had drawn them away – some fluster in the training yard – Sybille neither knew nor cared, except that Falk was not here to ask the Ambassador why she had come to darken their door, nor even Elisif, to gracefully offer wine and bread to the sour-faced elf.

Even if it had not been months since she had last slaked her thirst in the prisons beneath Solitude, Sybille still would have had little patience for this. The Thalmor irritated her, with their poorly-hidden disdain, their smugness, their superiority. As it was, her head pounded, her throat ached, and moving around in the dim evening sunlight was painful enough that it made her vision blur red. She had begun to hear heartbeats in the chests of her friends, the Jarl she was trying to become loyal to, and each night was an exercise in self control growing monumental in difficulty.

And there was Elenwen standing with her hands behind her ramrod back, looking as if she had sniffed something foul. Her expression was so forbidding, so bleak, so threatening that Sybille immediately perceived why the weak-willed guards had found someplace else to be. For once, she was completely alone, unflanked by unsmiling justiciars.

Foolish, or another spiteful little snub. No, Elenwen had nothing to fear in the heart of the Blue Palace – as much as they might whisper into their pillows how much they hated Thalmor oversight, Thalmor gold still sweated in their palms as they tipped their toothless necks back for the glutting. Why bother with guards, when you had the helmless court of Solitude on a leash?

Oh, Istlod. How he would be ashamed, to see his court reduced to this.

“Ambassador,” Sybille ground out, hating this. She wasn’t supposed to be the one greeting dignitaries come to pander and parley. That was Falk’s job, or the Jarl’s – but Istlod was long gone, and Torygg was dead, now.

Torygg, Torygg. He’d been just a boy; Sybille remembered as if it had been yesterday his chubby hands grabbing on the front of her robes, his lisping pronunciation of “ibble!” before he’d learnt to say her name. A gangly teen, pimple-faced but trying desperately to be noble, the pride of Istlod’s eye, blushing-bold. Bare years after, before even the flower of his prime – dead, dead and cold on the cobbles. Sybille had promised Istlod to keep him safe. But she’d failed. She failed, and Torygg was dead, his murderer walking free and all that was left was … Elisif.

Elisif. A dear girl but… not Torygg. Young, foolish, easily swayed. Inexperienced. Weak, when they needed strength. When Sybille needed Torygg. She was fond enough of her but Elisif looked at her like she was drowning, always begging for advice, and when Sybille met her eyes all she saw was the moment when Torygg had heard Ulfric’s challenge ashen-faced, then turned to his bright young wife and visibly steeled himself.

Ready to die, rather than dishonour her, disappoint her.

It wasn’t Elisif’s fault that she had survived Ulfric when Torygg had not, but Sybille could not stop blaming her. Still, Sybille wished she was here now. The young Jarl was better at this, the inane courtesies, the lies, than Sybille was. Even if Sybille thought she was far friendlier to the Thalmor Ambassador than was wise.

“Court Mage,” Elenwen greeted, polite as picture. In her clipped Dominion accent, the two words sounded loathsome as a curse. Her lip curled upwards in an estimation of what she probably thought a smile was supposed to look like. It was all sneer, and like most of the Emissary's facial expressions, was tinged with pointed disgust.

She was standing rigidly in the main hall of the deserted emptiness of the Blue Palace like a stubborn brick over a fire. Choking all the air out of the room, stifling, her presence as oppressive as a lead weight. The maids had all found themselves somewhere else to be, fearing, no doubt, the Ambassador’s legendarily cutting tongue and Sybille’s own displeasure at being left to entertain. As if she did not have a thousand more pressing matters to attend to, and barely the patience besides.

Not even when she was well-fed, which she was not.

They stood in silence for a moment, Sybille warring with herself, before she grudgingly asked, “Are you in need of refreshments, Ambassador?”

Hospitality, to a pit viper. If Sybille had not been what she was, the thought would be funny. As it was, it only insulted – Solitude did not need any more secret teeth tracking the prey that would not be missed. Sybille had heard the rumours, like everyone else, of secret Thalmor dungeons, and screams from beneath the solar so loud that they could be heard over the music during the parties. The prisoners of Solitude – such as they were – were Sybille’s domain.

“No,” said Elenwen, a pinch too swiftly, as if the very idea was nauseating, “And yourself, Court Mage?”

Sybille's control of her face was not so slight that she blinked, but she was aware of a tightening around the skin of her knuckles. The words, the consideration, were so odd in Elenwen’s cold, autocratic tones that at first she was certain she had misheard.

“I fail to see how that is any concern of yours,” Sybille said rudely, and suddenly, Elenwen changed.

She turned fluidly towards Sybille and prowled closer, the stiffness as if she was daring not to breathe for fear of inhaling foul scent gone. Her sneer vanished, smoothed into a smile, wide and full, completely genuine, utterly threatening. Her eyes glittered flatly, like mirrors. Her movements were slow and slinking. Gone were the sharp clicks of her boots, muffled by some trick of her step that left her silent as a panther.

Sybille was left feeling like the world had suddenly shifted to the left and left her behind, as dizzy as if a rug had been pulled out from underneath her. A moment ago, the Thalmor Ambassador had stood in front of her, haughty as ever, unbending with her stiff Altmeri pride – but this hungry, prowling creature was not her.

Her teeth sharpened in her mouth at the implicit threat that rolled off Elenwen, at her approaching closeness, the blood Sybille could sense flushing the capillaries under her skin, pounding through the chambers of her cold Altmeri heart. At once, Sybille was immensely aware that there was no one to observe them; no one at all.

And it had been weeks, weeks since Sybille had drunk her fill.

“How quickly these mortal children wane compared to the lifetime of an elf,” Elenwen murmured. Her voice was throaty and rich, the sharpness of the consonants blurred by a coastal accent that Sybille swore she had not had before. “How we see them pass us and consign the summers of our childhoods to the distant realm of myth and mystery as they bloom and fade in the blink of an eye. Truly, I am impressed at how faithfully you served the late Jarl Torygg, like you served his father Istlod before him. Tell me, how many of them have ... failed to see?"

Elenwen's horrible smile stretched wider.

"But I see, Court Mage.”

“I am perfectly well-appreciated within my position, Ambassador,” Sybille said coldly.

She was beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable. There was no possible way that Elenwen knew her secret, but the damn elf seemed far too smug for Sybille’s liking. She hated these types, the twisted double-talk that meant something else entirely. Was she attempting to recruit Sybille to the Thalmor? She had to know that Sybille would never have agreed to that, for Istlod’s sake, who had been miserable at the news of the Concordat, if nothing else. Now, if only they were somewhere a little more secluded, then Sybille could teach her some proper manners –

Except no, she couldn’t, that was the Thalmor Ambassador. People would notice if she visited the Solitude dungeons and came back with marks on her neck and a hunger to be bitten, drained deep, pliant in the arms of a predator, better attitude notwithstanding. And Sybille couldn’t kill her. Not without reprisal.

Istlod would have wanted Sybille to kill Elenwen. Except – no, he had agreed to the peace too. Her fangs pressed insistently, dully, on her tongue.

Elenwen’s smile widened. Sybille saw every one of her straight teeth. Too white, too even, lined up like regiment soldiers or grave-markers for war-dead. Some of them were fake, she was willing to bet. This wide, the makeup caking her cheeks folded around her smile unflatteringly, the thick foundation hazed with cracks. Fake, fake, but the blood that ran under her skin was real.

Sybille could force her to bleed, force her to feel spark-bright pain, force her to reveal the truth under her teeth, her claws, her little boot knife. Even an ice-spike would do, chill that golden flesh high and taut until it pebbled with goosebumps and she was shivery and damp, and the heat of her blood spilling over her chest made her gasp at the shock of warmth.

That would make her speak straight and true, if nothing else would.

“It has been a dry spell in the prisons, hasn’t it?” Elenwen purred, soft, sympathetic, as if she was commiserating over something truly terrible, “My condolences, truly, you have been much more patient than I would. But tell me, have any of your beloved young humans noticed you have not aged a day?”

“Many humans are not aware of the life spans of an elf,” she said, to hide the fluttering of something that was beginning to feel like panic or fury. “I am Dunmer, a few decades are no great time to me.”

“Could you go decades, I wonder?” Elenwen’s smile dropped, but the look that replaced it was worse, coquettish, sly. She contrived some way of looking up at Sybille through her eyelashes painted and curled with oil despite her taller height and took a falsely-nervous step closer, all awkward shoulders and sliding foot, just as if she was a wheedling young lover begging her first kiss. But her eyes danced brightly, privately, as if this entire interaction was nothing but a game they were playing, just the two of them. “I rather think you’re hungry now.”

“I ate this morning,” Sybille lied flatly, “with the rest of the hall.”

“Tch,” said Elenwen, as if Sybille had missed a step, and belatedly, Sybille realised it would not be any hardship for a spy group as developed as the Thalmor to verify that lie, “Are you sure, Court Mage? We could test it, if you like. How much of you would be left, after decades? It’s been such a short time, and yet, I can see it in how you look at me.” She came closer, thrilled and faux-breathless. "You are hungry."

“I am quite sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sybille bluffed, but she knew she had lost. Whatever game the Ambassador was playing, Sybille did not know the dance. She glanced haphazardly around the room, but they were truly alone. She could not hear so much as a scuffing slipper or clank of mail.

“Two months, three, since you last drank blood,” Elenwen clarified, so there was no possibility at all of pretending that she did not know, and smiled, smiled, smiled wide at the look of horror on Sybille’s face. Ice poured down Sybille’s spine. The floor dropped out from underneath her. No, no no, the Thalmor could not know.

“Were you fucking his father?” Elenwen asked conversationally, in the silence that fell, “Torygg’s, I mean.”

“I don’t… That is a serious accusation, Ambassador!” Sybille hissed, ignoring her, unable to name the feeling that started icy in her fingertips and spread dully and low up into her breastbone until she ached the whole way through. Her stomach knotted and writhed.

“Aren’t you thirsty, Sybille Stentor?”

Elenwen was so close now. So close that Sybille had to step back, her tall shadow casting her in gloom. Her eyes were half-moons behind the sun, and the light gilded her blonde hair like it was strands of gold. A strand drifted out of its aggressive pinning as Elenwen bent forward, swaying into Sybille like she was magnetised, and tickled there along her artificially-blushed cheek. Sybille could smell the powders, the hotness of her skin trapped beneath it. She had bleached with lemon oil recently, a faint scent clung to her, almost drowned by the floral drench of cosmetics.

“I don’t have time for this nonsense,” Sybille snapped, mouth dry as bone, and Elenwen laughed. It was full and unrestrained, a laugh from the stomach, and nothing at all like the stiff, courteous little smirks she gave as ambassador. It rang, rich and loud, through the entire hall, down the stairs and over the thrones, and Sybille heard it with a sinking feeling of a lock snapping shut.

Elenwen would never have laughed so loudly, so out of her stiff Ambassador performance, if she thought it was possible she could be overheard. Would she? Was this a bluff?

Sybille’s gaze darted again to the dark eyes of the doorways, but the palace seemed empty. Were there Thalmor in the wings? Elisif. Was the Jarl safe? She should be – though had not Sybille sent a servant to fetch the Jarl, the steward? Was Elenwen planning to unmask her before the court?

“Come on now,” said Elenwen, warmly, her smile conspiratorial like they shared a secret, just her and Sybille, “We’re all alone now, and I’m right here. Why don’t you bite me? Look,” She undid the first two buttons of her uniform, exposing a long line of pale gold throat. “I’ll make it easy. Do you like it easy?”

“Are you insane?!” Sybille snapped. There was no other possible response to that.

Nonetheless, her eyes were drawn to the expanse of bared skin, the delicate lines of the veins and tendons in Elenwen’s neck. She could see the forklike line of her jugular, the thinner softnesses of her veins. Vulnerable. The skin here had not been painted and powdered, hidden as it normally was under her collar. It was paler, yellower, like Elenwen did not get enough sun. Sybille wondered how she bruised. Whether she would paint over the bruises Sybille would leave her, when she woke in the morning, and wondered how she had struck her neck in the night.

Sybille swallowed around a mouth pooling with spit. It had been too long.

She could see the hollow where Elenwen’s pulse fluttered, waiting for Sybille to sink her teeth home. What would she taste like? Could anyone truly blame her, if she took just a little taste, just the tiniest mouthful, to sate her burning throat?

Surely, if she was doomed already, it would not hurt.

“Bite me,” ordered Elenwen, steely. Softer, she said, “Bite me, Sybille Stentor. You must be so thirsty. Doesn’t it feel like flames in your throat?”

It did, it felt like each inhale peeled dry chunks of her throat off with all the gentleness of searing sandpaper. Elenwen was so close now that Sybille could lift her chin and kiss her, close enough that her breath, warm, alive, smelling vaguely of summer-wine, brushed Sybille’s cold cheeks. Elenwen’s warmth was like another creature between them, the impossibility of Sybille being the dead one, with Elenwen’s eyes like a mirror to every fear Sybille had ever banished.

“You must have confused me with someone else,” Sybille said faintly as Elenwen stepped even closer. Their bodies brushed, her breath fanned hotly over Sybille’s forehead.

Elenwen hummed a little, disappointed. “Perhaps,” she said, and suddenly there was a dagger in her hand, so quick even Sybille’s vampiric eyes could not spot it. Just as fast, the dagger flashed, once, twice – and then the heavenly aroma of fresh blood reached Sybille’s nose. On Elenwen’s neck, either side of her tendons, two deep slices welled fresh red, deep, deep enough that after the first droplet rolled enticingly towards her collarbones another followed.

Sybille swallowed. She could smell it, thick as perfume, tantalising as an oasis in the desert. Elenwen’s blood was fresh, healthy, and right there. It was bright red, scandalously scarlet, against the warm gold of her throat, like a slash of silk. The candlelight from Sybille’s little alcove shone and shimmered in the droplet like the magicka in it sparked and sung, for Sybille alone. Begging her, almost, to lean forward – barely any movement at all, to chase the droplet with her tongue, lap up along that proud, stiff neck to the wet gash that fluttered like breathless lips waiting to be kissed.

How fast was Elenwen’s heart beating, to push such quick, steady little pulses down her neck? The collar of her robes was darkening to a liquid blackness, but Elenwen did not seem faint at all. Would she be strong til the end, Sybille wondered, would her heart hammer and struggle against her lips, her hands, her body and Sybille’s mouth? Would she pant and gasp and writhe, or would she fall still and silent, terror-glazed eyes and frozen muscles, or best of all, would she struggle and strain, drum weakening hands against the firm cage of Sybille’s arms?

“It’s a bad time to be a vampire in Solitude, isn’t it?” Elenwen asked, friendly, almost sweet, “With all that terrible news about undead stirring in the catacombs. A death sentence for you if anyone should find out, I expect.”

Sybille opened her mouth but her fangs were beginning to protrude, and venom ran eagerly down her chin. Elenwen’s gaze tracked the wetness in her mouth, and her voice dropped an octave when she spoke again.

“But I’m right here, and I’m offering,” said Elenwen, soft as a spider, warm as the blood Sybille could not tear her eyes from. “I could do so much for you if you enthralled me. All the power of the Thalmor at your fingertips…”

She chuckled, darkly. This close, Sybille felt it vibrate through her chest into Sybille’s own. The movement of her shoulders had a droplet of blood, teetering on the steep ridge of her tendon, tumble headlong into the sleek curve of the dip where her collarbones joined her neck. The swipe of red glistened wetly.

“… and I have so many more little puppets dancing for me than you could ever guess, Sybille Stentor. You would never have to fear being found again. All it would take is… a taste. Bite me.”

Pressing her shoulders back against the wall, Sybille turned her head away stubbornly. The stone was cold through her robes. Elenwen’s warmth was dizzying by contrast. Sybille was hot with bloodlust, had never wanted so badly. She was aware, as if it was happening to someone else, that she was trembling.

Involuntarily, she considered Elenwen’s offer. Imagined stepping forward, grasping the elf’s thin waist, following the trail of blood with her tongue. Licking up that taunting trail over the rigid line of her tendon, sucking hard and strong on the slash she’d cut into her own neck, the bones of Elenwen’s hips fine as glass under her grip. Imagined how Elenwen would go moaning-soft and boneless as butter in her arms, her long ears brushing over Sybille’s hood as her head drooped. How Sybille would have to catch her when her knees buckled, the reflexive way she would go to push Sybille away turned to a trembling grasp, rigid at first by the pain, then softened by the venom, how her brilliant, hard blazing eyes would go soft, dark, round with venom and bloodloss euphoria, when Sybille imposed her will over her, how Sybille would drink, and drink, and drink-

But no – it was broad daylight in the middle of the fucking Blue Palace, there was no way that Sybille could drain Elenwen or thrall her quick enough to avoid discovery, and that was only if Elenwen didn’t have some other plan. There was no way that Sybille would go along with some Thalmor plot out of – hunger, hunger alone.

What would Istlod say?

Elenwen pressed close until she was crowding Sybille against the wall. Her body was thin and bony, the buckles of her uniform dug into Sybille’s breastbone. Her lips brushed the tip of Sybille’s ear through her hood when she spoke. This close, the smell of blood was intoxicating.

But Sybille was not strong enough to push her away.

“Drink,” Elenwen cajoled. “It’s been so long since you last had a prisoner, hasn’t it? …Such unfortunate accidents.”

Sybille heard the shift of cloth, that and outrage had her turning her head back to glare at Elenwen, but she was too close, and instead Sybille’s nose butted against her smooth cheek. Her skin was searing hot, a fine dust from her makeup tickled Sybille’s nose. Sybille felt Elenwen’s repressed shiver at the chilly brush of Sybille’s dead skin against hers in the pit of her stomach. “You-?”

“Me,” Elenwen confirmed, smile widening in Sybille’s peripheral vision.

Sybille was transfixed as Elenwen lifted her finger to the bleeding wound on her neck and shoved her finger in, stark, bold, crass. Her smile never wavered at all at the pain. Her bright, bright eyes were focused on Sybille. The part of Sybille that had been mortal once was horrified at her disregard, the part of her that thirsted so badly for blood it barely cared anymore found it unbearably erotic.

She behaved like a venom-drunk thrall, but she smelled rich and fresh, unbitten, untainted. Did she feel no pain, or did she not care? … Did she like it?

The deepened wound gushed redly down her neck, and Elenwen leaned even closer, until the warmth of her body pressed Sybille’s cold one through their robes, like she wanted to become one with her bones, buckles and all. She was thin, thinner than Sybille had expected her to be; she could feel the ridges of Elenwen’s ribs, her small breasts, the cavernous flutter of her stomach.

Elenwen’s finger, glistening with her own blood, raised towards Sybille’s watering mouth.

There was nowhere to go. She turned her head, straining, but Elenwen chased her, cornered her, and Sybille’s mouth parted involuntarily to stop it from painting her lips red. If she tasted the blood – even a droplet – Sybille knew she couldn’t hold back. She choked out a little moan when Elenwen let her finger rest there inside Sybille’s mouth without touching her at all, breathing in the scent of her, so strong, so present. Slender and long, she could have tickled the back of Sybille’s throat if she chose, made her cough and gag and choke, but she did not, instead she teased, not touching, not tasting, forcing Sybille to breathe around the inescapable allure of her.

“I must confess a little professional curiosity,” Elenwen told her, intimate as a lover’s whisper, “I’ve never met a vampire before, and I’ve always wondered how it compares. The blood of Alinor’s finest surely ought to taste better than the swill in the dungeons, though personally, I can’t say I’ve ever tasted much of a difference – Nord, Altmer, Dunmer, we’re all good in wine.” She smirked a little at that. “Won’t you taste, for me?”

The saliva pooled down around Sybille’s fangs and over her chin. She closed her eyes in humiliation.

Elenwen tutted. “I suppose not. Perhaps this will help.” She drew closer, closer, nudging under Sybille’s hood, until her breath puffed over Sybille’s ear, waking long dead nerves with a shiver. Her free hand bracketed the wall above Sybille’s head, then stroked down over the back of her neck and seized the base of her skull. Her fingers knotted into the hair there, each one hot as a brand.

Sybille forced her tongue against her teeth, trying to ground herself through the strain in her jaw. Elenwen’s blooded finger in her mouth was a burning beacon, commanding attention. Spit and venom drooled continuously down her chin. Elenwen’s thready heartbeat – affected, now, by the bloodloss – pounded underneath Sybille’s ribs like a call to war.

“I killed Torygg,” Elenwen breathed into Sybille’s ear. “I told Ulfric to kill him. I broke his mind and I told him to murder poor King Torygg. I was told he squealed like a stuck pig when Ulfric knocked him down, broke his darling bones with one of those beastly shouts of his. Did you hear them break? There’s a certain sound a bone makes when it shatters beyond repair, and the look in a plaything’s eyes, when they realise they are only breakable meat – well, you don’t need me telling you how sweet that is. … I envy you. I wish I could have seen it.”

Elenwen’s gory detail was not needed. That day was burned into Sybille’s memory, the dull wet pops, the snaps and cracks of Torygg’s bones, the horrible thud and the wail he’d made in the thunderous after-shocks of that terrible Shout, the bitter venom in Sybille’s mouth when Ulfric contemptuously cut his head from what remained of his shoulders with one swipe. Ruby-red, it spurted from the messy stump, it had puddled in the grooves of the courtyard’s cobbles, and weeks after rust-red flecks were found, splattering shoes and hems. Torygg had contained so much blood in him, so much of Istlod, and his iron scent was seared into her nose, her mind, mixing with the tantalising barely-there taste of Elenwen in her mouth.

Sybille gurgled on a gasp. She closed her eyes harder, overwrought, fighting to restrain the tears that welled there. That broke through the blood-haze. She’d known. She’d known it had been too simple, that it hadn’t made sense. But – the Thalmor, killing Torygg? Manipulating Stormcloak?

Elenwen moaned at something on Sybille’s face, tearing her concentration. The vibration stirred Sybille’s chest, the quiver of her ear, and Elenwen’s hips ground against hers in subtle, excited circles. It was vile. It was seductive. Sybille had never wanted to break more than she did now. She deserved to die. Wouldn’t it be worth it? Grief, sick desire, warred with prudence. But – this was what she wanted, Sybille fought to remember, the Ambassador was trying to manipulate Sybille to – to –

She was so thirsty.

Sybille’s teary glare did not seem to faze Elenwen at all. This close, she could see the breaks in the makeup that covered Elenwen’s skin, the artificial wrinkles that made her look older than she truly was. Everything fake, a performance. She made a negative sound around the venom bubbling out of her mouth, and Elenwen smiled. It was not a nice smile.

“And I think I might fuck that idiot doll you’ve got on the throne, too,” Elenwen whispered, and Sybille’s jaw muscle jumped. Her catlike eyes warmed with glee. “Oh, I know you were warning her off my little parties. Came back in too much of a state once, did she? The funny thing is that she approaches me – you should be thanking me, really, all that whining about her poor husband, but she cheers right up if you get a little summerwine into her, turns right into quite the … bold … little … slut.”

That last word was delivered in a hiss, lips brushing Sybille’s ear, and at once, she couldn’t take it any longer. She jerked to snarl back, and Elenwen’s bloodied finger rubbed the soft wetness of the inside of Sybille’s mouth. The rich taste of fresh blood overwhelmed her, blanked her mind. Sybille sucked reflexively, and Elenwen’s breath stuttered in her chest. She threw back her head, exposing her bloody neck, and ground hungrily into Sybille.

“Does your doll like knives?” Elenwen panted. “I do.”

Then, she laughed, delighted and breathless, as Sybille’s hands left the wall and found themselves somehow on Elenwen’s back, pressing her close, wrinkling her robes beneath clenched fists. She bit the flesh between her teeth, dazed, searching tongue prodding for all the blood she could smell but not taste. Her own venom burned her throat when she swallowed.

“Oh, though I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Elenwen continued, tugging her finger free, “She will learn to, if I want her.”

Her body tensed as if she meant to move back, but Sybille shot forward faster than lightning with a bloodcurdling snarl. She seized Elenwen’s hair and waist in a vicious grip, bringing her face close to the dripping wounds. The blood, hot and wet, the revenge, the wanting. At last, Sybille dared a tentative lick, a long, sure line up Elenwen’s neck, chasing the path of the bleeding. She tasted like magic, sun, knives, sharp and a little acrid. Intoxicating. Sybille smoothed over the wetness of the open wound, and she hesitated there, damnation at her lips.

A man’s face was before her eyes, fuzzy Nord-beard, mournful wrinkle-sagged stare. …Istlod?

Elenwen did not fight her at all, though Sybille felt the prick of her dagger against her ribs, a second from slipping into her heart, even as she whimpered at the tightness of Sybille’s grip on her fine hair. It was soft, thin as insect-wings over Sybille’s fist. Elenwen’s body hummed with tension like a live-wire, she breathed in gasps, and she trembled faintly with an unbearable want that Sybille could feel straining to pierce the skin, meet its echo in the parched emptiness of Sybille’s bloodless gut. But her knife tickled at Sybille’s robes, warning and promise both.

“Go on,” Elenwen goaded, her voice strained, a little breathy, cracked with desperation, “Hurt me. You must want to. I killed him, I starved you. Hurt me.”

Could she drain Elenwen before Elenwen stabbed her? There was some reason why Sybille could not drink, she knew that, but all thought deserted her every time she breathed, every time she couldn’t help herself and licked the welling blood before it reached Elenwen’s collar, tracing the topography of her willing throat. Elenwen made sounds, beautiful and ragged, when Sybille lapped at her with her cold tongue, shivered in her arms, all eager sighs and clutching hands and poised knives. But still, Sybille did not affix her mouth over the pumping vein and drain, drain, drain her dry.

“Just-!” Elenwen bit out, “What’s wrong with you? Just – do it…”

Sybille strained against her desires. A battleground between her self-control, the mind of the mage who had served loyally for years, and the hungry animal that howled for blood. Istlod. Torygg. The sweetness of the elfsblood – sunlight and sweat, blade-tip lick – in her mouth. The iron reek of Torygg splattering over the cobbles. Elenwen’s gasps, overlaid with the symphony of Torygg’s body breaking, shattering, pulping under the force of Ulfric’s rage. The world had quaked then, now it whimpered in Sybille’s arms, immobilised by her grip. Istlod at peace on his bed, still smiling his last smile. Torygg’s tears. Elisif wailing, when the sword came down. The war-prisoners in the dungeon, hollow-eyed men whose blood tasted of death and despair. The Thalmor’s snake-whisper, hurt me.

Sybille felt Elenwen’s ear twitch against her hand. A moment later, footsteps rushing towards them.

“Out of time, vampire,” Elenwen cooed, almost a disappointed sigh, and when she pulled back this time Sybille felt her numb fingers release her.

She swallowed, copiously, trying to empty her mouth of spit, and burned hotly with indignation.

“You dare,” Sybille rasped, but Elenwen only quirked her lips, apathetic to Sybille’s fury.

A flash of light and the marks were gone, eaten by healing magic. The dagger disappeared into the folds of her robes, the buttons done up, the stray hair smoothed back into its severe imprisonment. She stood an easy few paces away, as if she had never dared to come so close to a starved vampire, a vampire she had starved. It took moments, and through it all Elenwen’s expression was bored, not a hint of fluster, not even a breath of that wretched amusement or nauseating intrigue.

“I’ll send a prisoner or two your way,” Elenwen promised in a flat voice, plucking at the neckline of her robe. “Do think of me when you drink them, won’t you?”

She drew herself up, and suddenly the Ambassador was back, rigid and stern.

“The Thalmor appreciates your cooperation in this matter, Court Mage,” she said sniffily, the accent disappearing as if it had never been there in exchange for the ringing, cold tones Sybille was used to from her. Pinched about her eyes there was nothing but vague disdain, as if she knew nothing about Sybille, as if she had never clung to Sybille and all-but-pleaded to her, and in fact, considered her just as interesting as a cockroach beneath her heel.

She turned away when Falk rushed out of the bowels of the Blue Palace and greeted her with a flurry of apologies. There was not a wrinkle on her uniform. Her heels clicked loudly on the marble as she followed Falk, reverberating into Sybille’s ears, as if she was the only sound.

Sybille sagged against the wall, and cursed Elenwen in every tongue she knew. Sybille considered herself good at reading people, had thought herself safe, well-protected here at the heart of the court. But the damned Thalmor had her over a barrel. She had no doubt these prisoners of Elenwen’s would be nothing but good men and women who had simply fallen on the wrong side of the Dominion, and Sybille nothing more than a convenient way of disposing of them. She could not see a way out of this trap easily – Elenwen could expose her with a word, had proven her control over Sybille’s food source, had threatened the last dregs of the family Sybille had loved.

Sybille needed blood from those who wouldn’t be missed, needed secrecy, needed to be in court even more than ever to protect Elisif and Solitude now she had glimpsed the danger Elenwen posed: the disdainful Ambassador, the eager prey, the gloating predator, glossed in her makeup to falsely age herself, in her uniform that hid her thinness, with her secrets and her contradictory masks. And yet, the most troubling of all was that Sybille could not tell which of the sides of Elenwen she had seen was the truth, and which was the lie.

#inkwrites #elenwen #sybille stentor #skyrim #tes #this wasnt my best work but it was fun #i was in a vampire mood anyway and i had the prompt waiting so why not? lol #the elder scrolls #elder scrolls #my fic affinity

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laequiem · 4 years ago

Text

She kills my self control - Chapter 8

/ Includes dialogue from The Cruel Prince, Chapter 21-22.

“Crawl," Jude blurts out.

A shiver went from the tip of my tail to the top of my spine. In my most indulgent fantasies, I am the one ordering her to crawl. In my worst nightmares, it's the other way around. Once again, I have the impression that nothing about this is real. Still, I can’t help but smirk.

cw: unhealthy coping mechanisms (alcohol, sex); physical abuse; nsfw

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Chapter 8. A little death is better with somebody at your side

Elfhame was waiting for its new ruler to be crowned and I, its disappointment of a prince, missed the coronation.

After the initial change in air pressure, the ground shakes, and I feel dread creep through my drunken numbness. I get to my feet. The girl I was with is gone. The fox mask she was wearing is still on the ground where it fell when we were making out. I pick it up and secure it to my face, hoping to get back in the throne room without anyone recognizing me.

As quickly as I can without looking conspicuous, I make my way out of the cellar and towards the ballroom. My mind is whirling, my vision is blurry, but I have to reach the throne room before my absence is noticed.

When I enter the room, I am greeted by absolute chaos. Knights are gathered around the throne. A bottleneck of folks from every court stretches from each possible exit as guards inspect everyone.

I approach a table closer to the dais and absentmindedly fill myself a goblet of wine as I crane my neck to look past the knights. There is blood everywhere. The throne looks weaker than it did a few minutes (hours?) ago, like its roots are not being nourished by the land anymore. The flowers that bloomed earlier are withered. But out of everything up there, that is the least alarming thing. Bodies upon bodies lay lifeless on the dais. My eyes catch on a heap of blue fabric stained red. Loyal Caelia, a bolt sticking out of her chest. Next to her, fierce Rhyia, with a knife in hand and a slit throat. Determined Elowyn, her gown covered in dried blood dripping from her neck. My sisters, barely more than strangers to me, slaughtered. I see other bodies nearby: guards, knights, a headless female, and my older brother Dain.

This can’t possibly be real. Am I dreaming? Did another court attack when we were at our weakest? Is it a coup coming from our own people? I feel bile rising in my throat.

I see no trace of my father. I scan the room for him, but my gaze catches on dark navy fabric coming out from under a banquet table.

No, no no no no no. Anybody but her.

The Grand General came back to Elfhame last night and my father threw a ball in his honor. Madoc is holding a child’s arm forcefully as he toasts with the soldiers. She is fae, a year or two older than me. But she is not the only child he brought back. Two other girls came to the ball with him, but he is not parading them around like he is doing with the older girl. They are standing alone in the corner of the room, as far away from anyone else as possible.

I look at my father. He is toasting with the general, courtiers at his arm. I look at my mother. She is dancing with a Lord from another court. They have not so much as looked at me in weeks. I found the revel by accident, roaming the halls of the palace in an attempt to find something to eat.

I run towards the new girls. They look like copies of each other - brown hair and brown eyes, tan skin, frail little things. They are both wearing ill-fitting beige dresses, as if whoever dressed them did not know what to wear for a ball.

“Are you servants?” I ask when I reach them.

“No,” they answer together.

“You look like servants. Fetch me food.”

I make to grab for one of them, but she backs up before I can. They run away and I run after them. They duck under a table, as if I couldn’t see them.

I lift the tablecloth and smile. They try to back away, but the table is set against a wall, trapping them. I grab one of them by the hair and drag her out from under the table. I pin her to the ground by the wrist. I move her hair away from her ears.

“Human! You’re human!” I exclaim with glee, “Maybe I’ll eat you.”

Someone pulls my hair and forces me away from her.

“Leave my sister alone!”

I whirl on the second girl. I bite the arm holding my hair. She lets go of my hair with a startled scream, but she starts punching me in the chest.

“Jude, stop this right now.” Madoc’s strong voice echoes through the room.

The girl freezes, eyes wide with fear. She gets up.

“Your Majesty, forgive her,” the Grand General tells my father, “She does not know how to behave around royalty yet.”

My father waves a hand in dismissal, unbothered. I look at the girl, Jude. She’s staring at me fiercely, a silent promise of violence.

I bolt towards the table. The pressure in my chest slackens when I see the fabric shift. She is alive. I reach under the table and grab her arm.

“You’re mortal,” I say, as if it wasn’t obvious. My eyes dart to the knife in her hand, then back at her face, “It’s not safe for you here. Especially if you go around stabbing everyone.”

“Not safe for me?” she snarls, “Get down here before you’re recognized.”

Why would it matter? Surely, nobody would think of me as a threat to their coup.

“Playing hide-and-seek under the table? Crouching in the dirt?” I laugh, unable to keep my composure and hide my anxiousness, “Typical of your kind, but far beneath my dignity.”

Suddenly, she throws her arm forward and punches me in the stomach.

“Ow!”

Jude drags me under the table with her. Sure, I had imagined us hiding under tables before, but I never imagined it being to avoid being murdered.

“We’ll get out of here without anyone noticing,” she whispers, “We stay under the tables and make our way to the steps to the upper levels of the palace. And don’t tell me it’s beneath your dignity to crawl. You’re so drunk you can barely stand anyway.”

I snort, “If you insist.”

As we make our way, through the music and wild laughter of rowdy guests, I hear snippets of conversation, allowing me to put the pieces together. Balekin is alive and looking for me, Madoc killed Dain, my father is dead.

My father is dead.

I look at the signet ring on my finger, the proof of my royal blood.

“He despised me.”

Would my father have crowned me, if all my other siblings were dead? Would he have crowned me before he crowned Balekin? I doubt it. He would rather keep the crown, knowing as I do that my reign would doom Elfhame. Yet, I will mourn him.

“Balekin?”

Another disdainful snort, “My father. I didn’t much know the others, my brothers and sisters. Isn’t that funny? Prince Dain- he didn’t want me in the palace, so he forced me out.”

Dain is the only one I will not mourn. He put me at Balekin's mercy knowingly. Brought me down to raise himself up. If I am Prince Failure, he was Prince Perfect, the High King's pride.

“And now they’re all dead. Thanks to Madoc. Our honorable general. They never should have trusted him. But your mother discovered that a long time ago, didn’t she?”

Cruelty and laughter. My only weapons against fear, against the reality of being the last one alive to crown Balekin. He will hunt me down, force me to crown him. Will Jude bring me to him directly? She is Madoc's ward, after all. She might just bring me straight to her father, who will gladly give me over.

“Crawl," Jude blurts out.

“You first.”

Fighting with her, teasing her, humiliating her. It all comes so naturally to me, and I am willing to bet it does to her too.

We move from table to table, until we are close to the steps leading out of the hall. I lift the tablecloth and exit first, then offer her my hand. She does not take it.

Jude makes to go towards the steps, but I stop her.

“Not like that. Your father’s knights will recognize you.”

Her fierce gaze narrows, “I’m not the one they’re looking for.”

I frown under my mask.

“If they see your face, they may pay too much attention to whom you’re with.”

“If they knew me at all, they’d know I’d never be with you.”

And yet. She sighs, then takes the pins out of her braids and lets her hair loose. She ruffles her hair. I am taken aback, unable to stop staring.

“You look…”

Mortal. Lusty. Obscene. Untamed. Filthy. Gorgeous.

“Give me a second.”

Thankfully, she leaves before I can finish my thought. The dress I designed, her menacing attitude, the hair. It’s all too much, too close to my fantasies. Cardan, you pathetic wretch. Your family was slaughtered and you think about banging a mortal. I grab a bottle of green wine from the table and guzzle it down while she is gone. When she comes back, she is wearing a mask like I am.

“Come on,” she grunts as she drags me towards the guards watching the steps.

“Look elsewhere for your pleasure,” one of them says authoritatively, “This is the way to the palace, and it is barred to common Folk.”

Who is he calling common?

“We will do as we are bid,” Jude replies submissively as she tugs me away. I stand my ground.

“You are much mistaken in us,” I reply with a saccharine smile.

If nothing else, sweet-talking is my forte.

“The High King Balekin is a friend to my lady’s Court,” I drawl as I slide my signet ring off of my finger, “You may have heard of Queen Gliten in the Northwest. Balekin sent a message about the missing prince. He is waiting for an answer.”

“I don’t suppose you have any proof of that?”

“Of course,” I reply as I hold out the ring, “I was given this token so you would know me.”

They step back. Half-truth, the language of the court. I smile and grab Jude’s arm, dragging her eagerly up the steps.

“What about the mortal?” one guard inquires.

“Oh, well, you aren’t entirely mistaken in me. I intended to keep some of the delights of the revel for myself,” I give them a knowing smirk.

I guide her up the steps, then unlock the door to the upper level of the palace. As soon as we enter the empty hall, I hear the lock turn. Confused, I turn towards her, only to see her point a dagger at my face. She presses it under my chin and I stiffen.

“Jude?”

“Surprised?” she grins at me, fire and hatred burning in her earthy eyes, “You shouldn’t be.”

She presses the knife deeper and I feel the sharp blade resting against my skin. Not a nightmare, then. Real.

“Why?”, I try to sound bored but it comes out more like a whine.

“Because your luck is terrible and mine is great. Do what I say and I’ll delay the pleasure of hurting you.”

My luck is terrible. My tormentor stands closer than she ever has, but I am not the one holding the blade to her throat. I feel shame wash over me as my blood rushes south at the thought of her pushing that blade deeper.

“Planning to spill a little more royal blood tonight?” I sneer as I try to wiggle my way out of her grasp, “Feeling left out of the slaughter?”

“You’re drunk.”

An obvious statement, I guess, to mirror the one I made earlier about her mortality. I lean my head back against the stone wall and close my eyes. I cannot bear to look at her, determined and deadly, cunning little mortal.

“Oh, indeed," I scoff, “But do you really believe I am going to let you parade me in front of the General, as though I am some lowly—”

She presses the knife harder to my throat. I swallow.

"Of course," I laugh nervously, “I was passed out cold while my family was murdered; it’s hard to fall more lowly than that.”

“Stop talking. Move.”

“Or what? You’re not really going to stab me.”

I kind of wish she would.

“When was the last time you saw your dear friend Valerian? Not today, despite the insult implied by his absence. Did you wonder at that?”

My eyes fly open. Valerian’s presence is definitely not one I missed, but I did wonder where he was. It is unlike him to miss a revel, especially one with such bloodshed. I stare at Jude, trying to find the answer to this riddle she just posed in her eyes. She gives nothing away.

“I did. Where is he?”

“Rotting near Madoc’s stables. I killed him, then I buried him,” she boasts, a vicious smile on her face, “So believe me when I threaten you. No matter how unlikely it seems, you are the most important person in all of Faerie. Whosoever has you, has power. And I want power.”

I blink a few times. She… killed him? I knew she hated him, hated us. But I never imagined her going out of her way to find him and murder him. No matter how much he deserved it.

“I suppose you were right after all,” I say in disbelief, “I suppose I didn’t know the least of what you could do.”

“Time to move,” she cuts in, “Go to the first door and open it. When we’re inside, we’re going to the closet. There’s a passageway through there.”

“Yes, fine,” I bark back at her.

It’s humiliating that Jude, of all people, knows this palace better than I do. I put my hand between the knife and my throat to push it away, but she holds it and it cuts my fingers.

Shit.

I put a bleeding finger to my mouth. “What was that for?”

“For fun,” she croons, then lowers the dagger.

She pushes me forward. “Will you at least tell me where we’re going?”

“No. Now move.”

I go to the first room and immediately spot the closet. I open it, then I look back at her. She is still holding that damned dagger, her eyes burning holes in my back.

I crawl in reluctantly.

#tfota #the folk of the air #cardan greenbriar #cardan #jude duarte #jurdan #judecardan #the cruel prince #fanfic #smut #angst

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werezmastarbucks · 4 years ago

Text

Whitmore Guy comes clean

Whitmore Guy masterlist

word count: 4158

music: why are you here by mgk, halfway dead by steve aoki, global dan and travis barker

“I’m here”, he said after a pause. By this time she was already sat in her bed, in a defensive position, with her knees firmly in the mattress.

“Mal!”

He didn’t let her finish.

“Would you have preferred me to stay invisible, would that make you feel more comfortable?” he asked reasonably, reading her mind. “You know I’ve been here. Because I told you”.

“Bonnie did”, she yelled, “Bonnie did! What are you, Mal?”

Mal stepped out of the darkness without making noise, and it hit her finally. Finally. He’s not human. There’s no way in hell he’s mortal! The way he moves, the way he never looks tired, although he claims to barely ever sleep, the way he just manifests himself at places; she thought of the first time they met, back in the gatherings hall, and how he smelt sweet like chewing candy. And how she thought he might be a trickster. That would suit him well. The eyes were pitch black in the twilight of the room. Y/N didn’t move.

“That’s a bit harsh”, he said coldly. “What am I, really? You think I’m some kind of monster?”

He chuckled and gave his light attitude away.

“How did you get inside my house? You never broke the lock”, she said quietly.

“I picked it. It’s easy. Do you want me to show you?”

She got out of bed puffing. She wasn’t afraid of him, but he creeped her out. If that makes sense? She felt like she could take him out, no matter what, and not because she could arguably throw a punch. But because she had certain power over him. Mal has always been nice to her, not in a friendly way, but in a ‘you’re special’ way. As opposed to everybody else. With other people, he was superficial, secretly arrogant and dismissive, but he treated her differently which, unfortunately for him, gave her the advantage. That’s what she thought.

Mal smiled slowly as she approached him, circling the bed. He bit his lower lip, pretending to check her out.

“You never answer any of my questions. You never tell me the truth”.

“I never lie to you, either. You just gotta ask the right questions”.

Mal lifted his hand and looked at the invisible watch on his wrist.

“We have to go. Can you get dressed really quickly?”

She narrowed her eyes. Obviously, something’s up if he showed up in her house. And didn’t ‘stay invisible’. Clearly, she needs to call Damon ASAP and check on them. Her paranoia told her to. Yet, she was standing there, in comfortable darkness, allowing him to listen to her heartbeat, two steps away from him, and her head was filled with the memories of them making out on the couch after the dinner party. Between the dinner party and finding the bodies in the house next door. She wanted to kiss him again, wanted so very badly, but thankfully, she was a thinking creature. Hot take: the desires of the body are not stronger than the council of the brain. Mal wanted that, too. His face was lean, wolf-like in the shadows, and he watched her carefully, badly hidden threat behind his smile. His smile was always only lips-deep, like a sticker he put over his face, like a mask. Every time Y/N touched him, it fell, and she took in his deep, dark color, and she couldn’t get enough of it.

“You think I’m going anywhere with you, you’re severely mistaken”, she said.

“I thought you wanted to know the truth”, Mal said innocently, and tilted his head.

“Truth about what? There’s too many things messed up to know clearly what you mean”.

“What if I tell you they’re all connected? Your gape in the head, and Damon going on a killing spree, and…” he paused, puzzled, “uh… that…” he closed his eyes, ruining the mysterious allure. He was trying to recall a name again. “That dude… Ma… Mutt?”

“Mal, fucking hell”, she threw her hands up, “Matt, his name was Matt, and he was one of my best friends”.

Mal nodded, seeing that she wasn’t joking anymore. Y/N stepped away and went to the window to open the curtains and let some more light into the room.

“Why don’t you jump out of your pj’s and put something on, so that we can go? It won’t be too nice in the town for the next ten hours or so”.

She turned abruptly.

“What do you mean?”

Mal shrugged again.

“I will honestly strike you on the head if you don’t stop talking in riddles”.

Mal licked his lips, and she finally saw, as the street light fell on him, that his jaws were pressed together. His eyes were dark because he was pissed, even though he smiled, even though his voice was close to normal, the usual. There was a time bomb inside his head, and she could all but hear the ticking behind his eyes.

“Listen, I don’t have time to chat you up, okay?” he said, and it sounded like he was a stranger. Y/N’s instincts kicked in, and she grouped standing at the window, like a small animal. As Mal moved towards her, her brain made a crazy attempt to convince her crawling out of the window will be a good idea.

When he grabbed Y/N by the shoulder, she could feel the zip again, that happened occasionally. He always wore synthetic shirts, and she got quite used to it. She never even brought it up, and now suddenly, it was clear as day that she should have. There were no accidents with Mal. This weird itchy feeling when he touched her, meant something and he knew about it, too. She was startled for a second, then she tried to kick out, but his fingers wrapped around her forearm decisively.

“I gave you a chance to change, now you gotta ride all the way to Georgia in your sleeping shirt”.

She didn’t know how he managed to drag her down the stairs, but when she blinked, they were already standing at the driveway. Mal walked towards her car taking her keys out of his pocket.

“Get in, we’re going”.

“What have I gotten into”, she mumbled, approaching the car and opening the door slowly. “You’re too strong for a normal dude, you know that?”

Mal smiled shortly as if she complimented him.

“I’m not a normal dude though, am I?”

He started the car quickly and drove out into the street. Mal usually refused to get behind the wheel if Y/N was willing to drive. He even whined a little about having to drive when she got too drunk to do it. Now, he looked as if he’s been the most experienced driver. The wheel was calm and obedient under his hand, and it felt like betrayal, too. Like she didn’t know him at all. Y/N looked at him, the side of his face, the upturned nose and focused eyes, and thought that it wouldn’t surprise her if his whole personality was a lie, too.

“What’s happening with the town? Are the guys alright?”

“How am I supposed to know?” he frowned childishly, his eyebrows gathering together. “I just don’t want you to be there when it comes down, obviously. The FBI guys have returned, apparently, and they’re determined that Damon has killed everybody… which I fully support”.

“You know damn well he hasn’t killed anybody”, Y/N bumped her fist into his shoulder and he didn’t budge.

“How do you know? You’re so brainwashed by him”, Mal threw.

“That’s far from truth”, she muttered, checking the pockets of her pants. As he was dragging her out of the room, she was still holding her phone in her hand. Millennials, am I right?

“Where’s the damn phone”, she said to herself, frustrated. Mal drove out into the main street and sped up, clearly wanting to get out of the town soon. She put both her hands into her pockets and checked the seat.

“Where’s my phone, Mal?”

“I have it”, he tapped himself on the chest pocket of his jean jacket. Y/N blinked with one eye; it was more like a twitch.

“Give it back”.

She realized he had slipped his hand into her pants while they were walking down the stairs.

“To do what?”

“Give it back, you tricky bastard”, she leaned over and grabbed him by the hand free of the wheel.

“Whoa! Calm down, psycho”, Mal grinned and pushed her back gently. “What do you need it for? It’s the middle of the night, everybody’s asleep”.

“I need to call Elena to make sure she’s alright! Do they even know the FBI… whatever they are, are in town?”

“Of course. I learnt it from them”, Mal said shortly. They were now straight on the highway leading out of Mystic Falls. The town is that small. A couple of streets, weaving inside like spider guts, a park, a square, and that’s it. A little place to live, really. It closes your mind, clogs your imagination. One can easily go crazy here.

“I was at the Craze, then the blonde slow vamp, Carrie, runs in, and her eyes are like, this big, and she says the tol and the smol are back. And I’m like, so what? And she’s like, they’re onto Dean! And I’m like, good for them, you know? Carrie is all flustered. But he’s our friend, and he didn’t kill anybody… while he totally did”, Mal shrugged. Y/N closed her eyes, irritated at his intentional name mess. He has established his dominance enough times already. There’s no need to purposefully diminish them every time, to remind her he doesn’t feel too psyched about the gang.

“And I was all, hm, there might be confrontation, so how about I take you away, yeah? It’s their own problems, let them deal with the feds themselves”, his face lit up a little, “they’re big vampires now after all”.

“I’m involved in that as well”, Y/N hissed, “you know? One of the vampires, before they all died at Craze, refused to bite me, which is a nonsense for a young vampire”.

“Oh”, he frowned a little, “then it’s all the better to take a break, right?”

She hit the back of the seat hard, looking at the dark ribbon of the road lying ahead. Her bare feet were rubbing against each other. Mal started fidgeting with the audio system and actually had the audacity to take out her phone from his pocket to connect it to the player.

“Unblock it”, he said, and it sounded more like an order. She rolled her eyes and, as he handed the phone to her, tried to grab it away from the guy. His fingers were worse than ironlike clutch of death.

“Hey, don’t be funny. Listen, I don’t mean anything to happen to you, okay? I’m just taking precautions”.

There was the familiar rectangular dark shape which was the sign with the name of the town. As the music hit the car, Mal stretched his neck a little, tilting his head from side to side, and she felt a strong desire to make him open up. She just wanted him to trust her enough to tell all. To not play anymore. It’s not that she’ll run, because there’s something wrong with him. She just needs to know to own him completely. Maybe it was crazy, too early for commitment like that, but her flaring nostrils told her she’s cooked enough.

There were cars on both sides of the road, but she couldn’t make them out properly as her own car sped past them. She turned her head back and caught the glimpse of people starting to gather on the road behind them, as if they had been expecting her car to pass, to close the way. One car moved forward and stopped right in the middle, blocking the way out of Mystic Falls.

She looked at Mal, wishing to hell he glances back, and she got severely disappointed, because when he did, there wasn’t a shred of sympathy for her distress. Her gut feeling got much worse though. It looked like a trick now, less like him acting on impulse. Mal understood it, seemingly. He shrugged off his playfulness and was completely serious now.

“I lied to you once”, he said.

I’m not myself

I’m not myself when you’re around, no

Can’t be helped,

the song chanted. He spoke calmly, his head swaying a little as if his neck was a light balloon string.

“I did steal your chain. I wanted to have a part of you with me at all times. Take it”, he lifted his elbow and opened his chest pocket. “Don’t fucking touch your phone”.

Y/N felt her whole body tense, the freeze so deep her skull got stung for a second, like she all turned into a stone.

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll break your arm”, he said.

She kept looking at his absent stare he was radiating onto the road. It’s like he wasn’t watching where he was driving at all, like he was inside somewhere. That’s a powerful stunt, demanding something from a person without even looking at them. She put out her hand out of curiosity and slid her fingers into his pocket. It was warm on the inside, the heat was coming from his body. Very normal human heat. Something stopped her, either the fear of pain, or the fear that this pain will be inflicted by Mal. Her fingers brushed over the lukewarm smooth screen of her phone, and she felt the pricky chain of her necklace. She pulled it out, and looked at it, mesmerized. Mal finally glanced at her.

“Was Martha Hopps ever your girlfriend?” she asked.

“No”, she shook his head, “I wouldn’t do you like that”.

Y/N looked back again and clutched her necklace in her fist. Her other hand crawled to the handle of the door. Mal was speeding no less than fifty miles on the highway. She pulled the handle and pushed the door with her shoulder, grouping and closing her eyes. The song was filling the interior of her car. It was called ‘halfway dead to me’ and now she thought, right before throwing herself on the road and potentially killing herself, that even the music they listened to together should have communicated some message she’s missed.

It happened very quickly, as the door flew open, and the wind brushed over her violently; the sound of the highway being eaten by the wheels of the car. The dark sky, a starless back dome above; she was almost out, in the air, when his hand grabbed her by her neck and pulled back into the car so hard she collided with Mal and hit her thigh. The door of the car closed by itself with a bash and the music blasted her head like a baseball bat. Y/N closed her eyes, pressing her jaws together to withstand the pain. When it let go, she moved herself in the seat and shook her head.

“You could’ve killed yourself!” he yelled, sincerely frustrated. The car swayed as he returned both hands to the wheel. She has never seen him scared before, and it baffled her. Mal gave her a wide-eyed stare. “What is happening inside your goofy head?!”

“You’re not human!” she cried in return.

“Duh!”

She punched his shoulder once again to see that he doesn’t mind the mild pain. He barely noticed.

“You’re a vampire”.

Mal sniffed with displeasure.

“You only pulled this to test me? What if I hadn’t caught you?!”

“But that’s… that doesn’t make any sense. You walk in the sun and you eat all the time, and… others didn’t smell you”, she was still panting from the jump. Her neck ached from the stiff clutch he performed on her. In fact, Mal grabbed her so hard it felt like he was about to tear her head off completely. She rubbed her throat and the back of her neck with both hands.

“And you entered my house, without an invitation”, she finished. Mal sighed, turning the music down a little. She was still very aware of the songs that were playing. They always listened to this one playlist, which she had no memories of compiling. The title, the combination of the songs, the cover was inexplicable to her. These six months were so frustrating even this screaming oddness felt more like it was meant to be. Now she realized it was the only playlist she ever heard Mal play. And the fact that it was titled ‘douche’…

“That’s because I’ve already been there before”, he said, nonchalantly. He didn’t need to say it, she already knew.

“Malivore is in Georgia, huh”, she said. Diving deep into the seat, she looked on the path they were traveling again. Finally realizing is so liberating it’s hard to describe. For a moment, it felt like the car was completely silent.

The whole attraction thing, Mal knowing ways to get to her, the music, the movies, the manners… the mutual trust which is virtually impossible among people like him… the nights and days she felt lost, when she felt like there was a piece of her brain missing and the gaping hole whistling in the wind. The pink sky reminding her of something it couldn’t utter in human language, and the sucking, sad, tragic tunnel pulsating in her guts – all this meant she was broken over losing somebody at the shore of the sea of oblivion.

“You know how you had that strange feeling you missed somebody? And thought it was Matt?” he said with disgust. Y/N had no energy to say anything, crashed down by the powerful feeling of loss once again, all coming down at once, like she was pulled away right from her skeleton. She was looking at this stranger sitting next to her, trying to fit him into the frame of the new found truth, and he didn’t match. And that was the part of it.

She finally knew who she’s been crying about those weeks, when she would collapse on the floor of her room suddenly, startled by the outburst, confused by even why the tears are coming. The long nights she spent agonizing, - and she’d never told anyone, not even Elena – over something, crouched under the cover, seized by terror, like something was impaling her – now she knew why. Her chest got hard and narrow, and she put the hand to her throat.

“You’re the guy he threw into the Malivore”, she finally said. Mal nodded. The world was tearing apart; she could see the tear line up above, so clearly. It was fucking crumbling down in pieces. Only Damon – only that bastard could ever think of that. Of throwing someone into oblivion to erase them completely.

She might have whimpered, because Mal slowed the car down, concern on his face, and they stopped in the middle of the road. The night highway was empty and hollow, and when she left the car, almost crawling out, she noticed there were stars after all. Just very far away. Unreachable.

She felt the light movement of air on her cheek that was burning up, like the rest of her body. The road was long, leading away into the dark patch of space where the street lightning failed and gave in. The fields were quiet around them, night fog falling slowly to wrap them in its deadly embrace. The wind cried, get inside! Be safe! But the blue twilight of the forest in the distance felt like a mount of doom approaching. You couldn’t hide from it in the car. She couldn’t figure out now why she was crying. She felt so robbed; she felt like somebody had the audacity to come and tear her heart out, and now, the worst thing, she couldn’t feel anything because it was the heart she lacked. She couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like to Mal. A cautious look thrown at him found him on the other side of the hood, watching her carefully. It was as if he was afraid to approach. Maybe he thought she was too delicate, or was actually afraid.

“How…” she tried her voice, and it let her down. Only whisper came out. “How did you get out?”

Mal circled the car slowly, without hurry. There were no more sounds, just the music from the car, and his steps. Mal touched her shoulders and made her focus on him, shooting right into her eyes. He was being very dramatic.

“I crawled back to you. Wouldn’t even be the first time. Remember how I got out of hell?”

In a second only she realized that there’s a smirk crooking his dirty mouth. He enjoyed his little joke.

“Oh, of course you don’t. Sorry”.

Her hands grabbed on Mal’s elbows and she pressed herself into his chest. It’s fucked up how memories are nothing. How not having the essential information makes you lose your head as you try to understand why you trust a person you don’t know so much; why you intuitively know he’ll do no harm to you; how you’re attracted to him. His smell was familiar now, almost vital. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and felt a heavy sigh that left his body. Mal hugged her back, putting his chin on the top of her head.

“Don’t worry. I’ll show you. I’ll show you everything, I know how. I have so much to tell you… honey”.

All those days, and she cried in vain. And now she knew what she cried for. And that is so unfair her throat is about to burst with rage. Only Damon…

“I’m going to kill him”, she said gravely, all of a sudden. She could hear his heart now, too. Beating like there’s no special vampire force in it. Mal sighed again.

“It was their collective decision”.

She stepped back to look him in the face.

“What?”

“They were all on it”, he repeated. It was hard to hide the joy in his voice, like he was bringing good news. She knew now how to filter it. She knew he can’t control it.

“Even Elena?”

He rolled his eyes a little.

“Even Elena”.

Mal pulled her on the elbow gently as she started crying again.

“I’ll fix everything, I promise. Hey, they’re paying for it right now”.

With a shaking hand, she clutched his, and squeezed it.

“Mal, please… please, don’t…”

His face went hard.

“I don’t get it. Do you want to punish them or not?”

She moaned. She was holding on to his hand because the knees almost gave in. She could literally feel sanity leaving her, from the little hole in her temple. She was going mad.

“Mal…”

“It’s Kai by the way”, he added, harshly. “Kai Parker. Look at me. You know, this is what I never really understood. You’re so clearly upset, and it makes me very happy… I mean, like, not in a way that I like to see you hurt, but… well, you get it. But you still want to protect them? You were never able to make the choice, you know?”

Seeing that she is not able to object, he went on.

“Quite honestly, that’s hurtful. You know, after everything I’ve been through… you know, you have been the only person ever that didn’t hate me outright. You know? I always thought that maybe you will be the first person who chooses me over everybody else. Is that a lot to ask? I don’t know. Is it? Do you know that I spent more time searching and fighting for you since we met than actually being with you?”

“Mal, you’re hurting me”.

“It’s Kai. I am Kai. You call me Kai, because it’s my name”, he snapped, “it’s the only fucking thing I still have left. And you know who’s to blame for it? Your friends. The bunch of…” he sucked the air through his teeth. His hands were doing the opposite of what he was saying, holding her, rubbing her shoulders so that she doesn’t get cold. Maybe he held her too tightly. She yelped a little with pain, and he almost let go. Pressing his forehead close to hers, he whispered,

“This time I have made that choice for you, okay? Clearly, you need my help. I will never leave you, baby, never. You will be with me forever now, okay? Don’t worry. We’re not drifting away anymore, I won’t let it happen ever again”.

She shivered. As they kissed, she wasn’t sure who’s kissing whom. She knew she wanted it, and at the same time, in her mind, the sirens were going off, wailing like the apocalypse was banging on the walls of her consciousness. She was almost sure she knew what was happening in Mystic Falls.

#kai parker #kai parker imagine #kai parker x reader #tvd imagine #vampire diaries imagine #vampire diaries #legacies #whitmore guy

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texasthegreatdestroyer · 3 years ago

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Exerpt 2:

In a drunken rage as his eyes set at the last person eh wanted to see, Qrow charged Raven, however she wasn't as submissive this time around. She felt no obligation to deal with this pettiness. Had he really came all the way out here to seek her out? This was one thing she wouldn't tolerate from her brother. As she too lunged forward, their blades ready to clatter against each other once again, to her surprise she was met with an unexpected, swift, heavy duty boot to the stomach, kicking her backwards, all the while Qrow's blade clashed with another other than her own. One that was rather sizable, but not as so as Qrow's. An older, salt and pepper haired, rough looking male in sunglasses, a scar running down his right eye, and dressed in a red kimono like robe, and black cloak had blocked the strike and stood in Raven's place. What was more estonishing is how the man's left arm rest in the nook of his vermillion clothing. He was holding back Qrow's attack one handed.

Qrow releases pressure against the other male, and backs up. His gaze drifted over to Raven who sat back and gritted her teeth ready to charge the same man who had blocked his own attack. "What are you doing??? Stay out of this! This is between me and her!" The man approaches, no hesitation in his step. This was enough to make Qrow shrink down a bit, as he took in the stern look that unmasked it's self from behind those dark blue shades. Soon a man who was before hand shorter than Qrow by an inch, was suddenly towering over him. "You will stand donw, soldier. As second in command of this team, that is an order." Hearing the gruff, blunt words of the older looking male was enough to make Raven back off as well. But upon meeting each other's stare again, the twins resorted to a bickering match, one of which was enough to make the people around them roll their eyes in annoyance. "I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!" Qrow's words spat out like venom, but Raven's poison was much meaner. "OH PLEASE. I WAS FINALLY CONTENT ENOUGH TO LEAVE YOU TO YOUR SELF PITTYING BULLSHIT, BUT YOU HAD TO FOLLOW ME ALL THE WAY OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF BUMFUCKED NOWHERE-" "ENOUGH! BOTH OF YOU!" The unidentifiable man that they only knew as "Second command" was not the only one to include his two cents. Hei took a step forward, looking at both the twins as they stared at him with shock upon hearing him raise his voice in such an aggressive manner.

"I expected better from both of you, and for you two to act so unprofessionally in my presence before you've even made a name for yourself here? I'm disgusted. Insulted even... Now, I want you to give me a good reason why I shouldn't fire you both right now." A gulp in Qrow's throat, and a shiver up Raven's spine, they stood there dumb struck for a second. If there's one thing the two had in common without realizing it was that they both needed this job, and now it was in danger because of their distain for one another. Qrow was the only one able to muster something up out of the two. "I thought she was stalking me..." Hei's facial expression changed upon hearing Qrow's failure of an explaination to that of disapointment and slight infuriation. "Anything to add to that Raven? I'm still waiting on you." "I thought HE was stalking me!" "AH! NO BICKERING. I'M NOT HERE TO LISTEN TO YOU TWO HAVE A BITCH FEST." Hei thought about their prediciment for a bit before he finally came to the conclusion that this was all just a big misunderestanding. "Okay... So I don't know what's going on with you guys, but I do know one thing. No one is stalking anyone. Raven. I hired you at a work fair event. Qrow... I literally found you as a sad heap of human flesh on a corner, and decided I could probably use you for something. This is just a really terrible couincidence. Anyways, with that cleared up, you two best be getting to solving your issues, and stop trying to kill each other, because GUESS WHAT??? YOU'RE TEAM MATES! AIN'T IT GREAT!?"

Hei's big dorky smile faded as he watched the two cringe at the thought. "Okay, seriously. What's your two's beef? You look like sad, miserable excuses for human beings, and it's annoying the shit out of me." Raven lets out a sigh. "Qrow's my brother. We're twins-" "Ehem, ESTRANGED twins." Qrow cuts Raven off. "She's kind of a bitch." Qrow informs Hei with a snarky smirk on his face "Yeah, yeah. I'm aware. That's why I hired her." Raven glared at both her boss and her brother as they exchanged wise cracks at her expence. "Well, Qrow! I like ya, my guy, but~ yeah, you need to stop crying about how much of a cunt your sister is, and work things out with her. You two are going to have to work together, and the way you two act towards one another is enough to cause a fault in the team dynamic. That's a recipe for disaster." Raven let out yet another exasperated sigh, as she knew Hei was right in this instance. Recklace behavior can lead to death. A disfunctional team can cause that reckless behavior. Not to mention, that soft spot for her brother she had accumulated the past two years still hadn't completely gone away. She turned to Qrow, putting her hand out. "...Truce?" Qrow stared at his sister blankly... "I'll just go get friendly with old man jenkins over there." He says, walking over to the man he had briefly fought. "Hiya, sorry for the rough start. The name's Qrow Branwen, and you are???" "Hmph... If you must know, my name is Auron-" Raven vaguely tuned in the conversation, but soon the realization if how much her attempted kindness failed set in and saltiness began to hit. Ouch... that had to hurt. Raven put her hand down as it had finally picked up on the fact that it's services were no longer needed. "That rough?" Hei's curisiotiy gets the best of him. "I... wasn't the best person when I was alive... Qrow suffered the consequences for it. It's stupid of me to try and force forgiveness... Especially so soon after being reunited." "Give it time Rae. Maybe it's just me, but Qrow doesn't seem like the kind to hold grudges, no matter how hard he tries. He gave me that salty, abrasive attitude as well at first, but I broke the surface. I think he just needs time to see you've changed. Anyways. I have to go prepare for a repeat of the Qrow and Raven show, just with a different cast! I maaay or may not have hired mortal enemies to work together, soooo... yeeeeah. They're likely going to try and kill each other! Now that was intentional... Anyways, take care Rae~" Raven found herself standing there alone, watching as all her presumed co-workers talked amongst themselves. She pulled out a pack of cigs, lighting one, and taking a drag from it to take the edge off. This was her life now. Living with a bunch of strangers, a lunatic, and her resentful brother... This was going to be one hell of a ride...

---To be continued---

More bounty hunter shit, because yes, I enjoy the idea of Qrow and Raven haphazzardly working together on a team full of other bounty hunters.

#rwby qrow #qrow branwen #qrow rwby #qrow #uncle qrow #branwen twins #drunkle qrow #raven branwen #rwby raven

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aconstellationofmemories · 4 years ago

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The Secrets We Keep: Prologue

Pairing: Laxus Dreyar & Mirajane Strauss (Miraxus) Rating: M for violence and language. Genre: Angst, mafia AU. Chapter Word Count: 1437. Link(s): AO3 Summary:

Laxus Revenge. It fuelled him through his depraved life. His entire being, dedicated to one single cause. For years, he acted patiently in the shadows, bidding his time to claim his prey. Now the time had finally arrived. Approach her, make her utterly in love with him, then shatter her – that was his plan. Until her hypnotising blue eyes drew him in, and he began to question his knowledge of her. Because those bittersweet depths were hiding something. And in his world, only two things were guaranteed. Either you kill your secrets, or they kill you. Mira Death, lies, manipulation. They lurked around every corner of her life, even flowed in the very blood coursing through her veins. Merely the mention of her last name was enough to cause eyes to widen and people to scurry. Naïve, pretentious, entitled. Those were just some of the names people called her for choosing to be different. But life was short. And in the dangerous world she lived in, everyone was a player racing to oust the other before the opponent terminated their life. Her own game had just commenced. Only this time, she wasn’t sure she could outwit them. Not anymore. Tick tock.

Author's Notes: The newly-crowned Queen of Foreshadowing is back! I bring with me my favourite ever FT ship after a long spell in my first ever ambitious multi-chapter fanfic! I'm also excited for this one as it revolves around a couple favourite themes of mine: angst, mafia and revenge. I binge romance novels on the second, but never actually wrote it. Please look kindly upon me in my first attempt at this project. (Or like signing for my death, currently being piled with exams and all that.)

Also that summary?? The best I've ever written.

As always, I appreciate every like and review!

Thank you @be-dazzled for nudging me to pursue this and @sweetmemories2606 for supporting me every step of the way. 💛

Tagging @sassyglassesbunny @adramaticbeauty - my original Miraxus gang. 😏

Slow but steady update. Spoilers will be released on the Miraxus Discord Server (find link on my tumblr profile) when available. Otherwise, feel free to message me!

___________________________________

Laxus

Fake.

The adjective sneered from the forefront of his mind as he watched the models strutting down the white platform. Heavy makeup accentuated the elegant features of the slender women of all colours, making their cheekbones more defined and their eyes sharper than their original form. Eyeshadows of glittery monochrome shades further decorated their eyes to match their black and white designer clothes.

A smug, seductive look adorned their otherwise beautiful face, tugging an end of their luscious lips upward in a smirk. With their chins held high, they strode down the runaway, every single movement of their limbs expertly coordinated for nothing less than the best catwalk.

Anyone with a functioning pair of eyes could see that those women were gorgeous. His own roamed over the alternating models with slight interest, toying with the idea of tangling limbs with one of them in bed.

The thought didn’t last long.

That beauty of theirs which sent men to their knees and the women to turn green with envy? Most of it were carefully altered with the help of a needle or a knife in their futile quest for an image of perfection.

An image which had never existed anywhere in the universe except in the recesses of their insecurities.

In other words: fake.

Add in the charming attitude of a heaven-sent goddess who was too lofty for mere mortals, and any spark of lust his body felt toward them fizzled out.

Soft cheers erupted from the audience at the entrance of the next model, pulling him from his thoughts. His gaze travelled up the length of the woman’s black gown, appreciating how the sleeveless garment hugged her body and highlighted her curves. A strip of white cloth ran up her left side before its unblemished trail stopped below her armpit. Light blonde tendrils stood out against the black material at her torso, and led him up to the only medically untouched face in the line-up.

With delicate eyebrows of a darker shade of blonde, sparkling cerulean eyes and a button nose, her looks easily exceeded that of her colleagues. And those luscious, scarlet-covered lips...all they had to do was utter a word, and any men would bend a knee and do her bidding.

Mirajane Strauss.

Niece of the notorious Roman Strauss. Next in line to the throne with his only son, Marcus.

The beauty she radiated was unrivalled. Along with her good looks, the charisma she carried set a standard the other women could only aspire to possess.

She was a sight to behold.

But just like all things good and beautiful, inevitably, they wither and die.

Her attractive appearance, too, hid secrets – hers more twisted than her fellow co-workers. He found it unfortunate that underneath that stunning façade, ran the dark and dirty blood of the Strauss family.

Specifically, that of her father’s and her uncle.

Giovanni Strauss, her father, was infamous for being a merciless boss with more than a few screws loose and a twisted obsession with prostitutes. He didn’t hold any personal grudge towards her father; the tyrant was just another in a long list of evil and perverted bosses, his own father among them.

Though he would be lying if he said he didn’t feel some satisfaction to have stolen the last breath from the great Giovanni... His demise, after all, did propel the women one step closer to freedom.

But her uncle, Roman... He clenched his fists at the thought of the middle-aged man. Roman assumed the position as the boss of the Strauss family after his brother’s death and severed their ties with prostitution. Very little goodness existed in this world of theirs – if it even existed anymore at all – but Laxus personally preferred to keep innocent women out of it. Her uncle’s decision was unconventional, to say the least, and he could almost respect him for it.

Except.

Roman Strauss killed his mother.

The only good thing in his life – gone.

The bastard could die a thousand deaths and it still wouldn’t be enough to placate the monster inside who craved revenge.

Because he could torture him until he wished he was dead, kill him in the most gruesome way possible, and one thing would never change.

His mother would never return to him.

Mirajane might had been born innocent – at least, until life forced her hand in a world she never asked to be a part of. But by being a bloodline of Giovanni and Roman Strauss, she was cursed to a life burdened with the sins and debts of her predecessors. The good princess act she played was merely a means to disguise the impurities hiding below the surface.

A demon wearing the clothes of an angel – that was what she was.

She strode with her head held high, but balanced down with enough humility to glance at the audience in a friendly yet alluring manner. When she reached the end of the stage, the corners of her lips lifted up in a rehearsed small smile which somehow managed to appear sincere. Immediately, the dimly-lit attendees reacted to the visual – the men with smitten looks on their faces, the women a varied display of envy, adoration, and awe.

One could easily see why she was crowned the title ‘The Princess of Hearts’ by the media.

She pivoted on her heels, returning to the entrance, and he sucked in a breath when his gaze landed below her hips. Her smooth, creamy leg peaked out at him from the slit of her gown. The fleeting sight of her flesh involuntarily stirred up desires he despised to have for her.

Fucking hell.

In a rebellious act which broke traditional modelling, she glanced back as she walked and smirked. Flashes of light fired in rapid succession, each competing with the other for the best shot of the expression.

Oh yeah, the little demon definitely knew what she was doing. Not only that, she enjoyed every second of it.

He didn’t need to look at their camera’s memory card to know there had been over ten photos taken in those few seconds before she disappeared backstage. Neither did he need to possess supernatural powers to predict that she would grace the front covers of almost every – if not all – of the fashion magazines tomorrow.

The models gathered in a horizontal line at the entrance with the acclaimed fashion designer in the centre once the show was over. Grinning widely, he spoke into the microphone.

“I’d like to thank everyone who kindly graced my humble exhibition with your presence. The theme of this fashion show is ‘Darkness and Light’. People are of the opinion that these two can never exist together – one which I strongly disagree. By incorporating monochrome colours in my clothes, I hope people are able to see that they can co-exist without one extinguishing the beauty of the other.” He winked. “Because we all have a little darkness and light inside us, do we not?”

Thunderous rounds of applause rose from the audience at the end of his speech. His gaze swung from the ecstatic designer back to Mirajane, who seemed to be happy to be standing at the corner of the line.

His eyebrow quirked up. Odd. For someone of her status, he had expected her to dominate the centre.

She beamed a bright smile and waved to someone in the front row – a few people, actually. Roman returned her grin with a fatherly smile as he clapped his meaty hands along with the other attendees. His eyes instinctively sharpened at the sight of his mother’s murderer. Beside him, Marcus smiled proudly while applauding the success of the event.

Many would kill to be the receiving end of that brilliant and genuine smile of hers. Its effects were so widespread that it not only lit up her face, but the entire being of the receiver.

But he wasn’t a man in search for salvation.

He was the man people sought to be salvaged from.

Nobody saw his face knowing his identity unless they were about to meet their end. Never in his long years as a made man did he fail to escort them there personally.

He would see to it himself that the same plea to be spared would fall from her lips.

Make her weep – that’s what he’d do.

After all, what better way to inflict revenge on Roman other than first breaking his beloved niece’s heart?

His lips tilted up in a smirk, his eyes gleaming with a predatory look.

Let the show begin.

#miraxus #laxus x mirajane #laxus dreyar #mirajane strauss #fairy tail #my fanfic #angst #au #multi-chapter #mafia #best summary I've written #so excited for this Miraxus Mafia AU multi-chapter fanfic!!#slow update tho #also has one of the best descriptions I've ever written #getting better at writing!

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the-inner-weebs · 4 years ago

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K-Drama Recommendation Masterlist

RICH GUY POOR GIRL

Coffee Prince (2007) 커피프린스 1호점 ~

Genre: Food/Friendship/Comedy/Romance/Drama

𝐆𝗼𝐧𝐠 𝐘𝗼𝗼 ~ Choi Han Gyul

𝐘𝗼𝗼𝐧 𝐄𝐮𝐧 𝐇𝐲𝐞 ~ Go Eun Chan

Choi Han Gyul is the grandson of chairwoman Bang of Dong-in Foods, a company that has a thriving coffee business. He has never had a job and does not care for responsibility. Han Gyul is hung up on his first love, Han Yoo Joo, who only sees him as a friend.

Go Eun Chan is a 24-year-old tomboy who is often mistaken for a guy. Her father died when she was 16 years old and since then she has taken over as the breadwinner in her family.

When Han Kyul and Eun Chan meet, he, not knowing that she is a girl, decides to hire her to pretend to be his gay lover so that he can escape the blind dates arranged by his grandmother. After getting an ultimatum from his grandmother, Han Gyul takes over a rundown old coffee shop, later renamed "Coffee Prince," to prove that he's capable, both to his grandmother and to Yoo Joo. In order to attract female customers, he only hires good-looking male employees. Eun Chan, desperate for money, continues to hide her gender to get a job at Coffee Prince.

Director: Lee Yoon Jung

Secret Garden (2010) 시크릿 가든 ~

Genre: Comedy/Romance/Drama/Melodramatic/Supernatural

𝐇𝐲𝐮𝐧 𝐁𝐢𝐧 ~ Kim Joo Won

𝐇𝐚 𝐉𝐢 𝐖𝗼𝐧 ~ Gil Ra Im

The drama tells the story of Kim Joo Won, an arrogant and eccentric CEO who maintains the image of seeming perfection, and Gil Ra Im, a poor and humble stuntwoman whose beauty and body are the object of envy amongst top actresses. Their accidental meeting, when Joo Won mistakes Ra Im for actress Park Chae Rin, marks the beginning of a tense, bickering relationship, through which Joo Won tries to hide a growing attraction to Ra Im that both confuses and disturbs him. To complicate matters further, a strange sequence of events results in them swapping bodies.

Director: Kwon Hyuk Chan/Shin Woo Cheol

Personal Taste (2010) 개인의 취향 ~

Genre: Comedy/Romance

𝐋𝐞𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐧 𝐇𝗼 ~ Jeon Jin Ho

𝐒𝗼𝐧 𝐘𝐞 𝐉𝐢𝐧 ~ Park Gae In

Jeon Jin Ho is a straight guy who is mistaken as gay when he applies to become Park Gae In's roommate. His hobbies include organization and ironing, and he's known for his stoic poker face. He's a stickler for cleanliness, but he also has a talent for figuring out a women's feelings. Gae In is very trusting even though she has a habit of being betrayed. However, that doesn't stop her from giving people the benefit of doubt and Jin Ho is no different. How will Gae In react when she finds out that her gay roommate is not actually gay at all and that he has fallen for her?

Director: Song Hyung Suk/Noh Jong Chan

What’s WrongWith Secretay Kim (2018) 김비서가 왜 그럴까 ~

Genre: Friendship/ Business/Comedy/Romance

Park Min Young ~ Kim Mi So

Park Seo Joon ~ Lee Young Joon

The series revolves around the narcissistic Lee Young Joon, the vice president of a company run by his family. He is very self-absorbed and thinks highly of himself, so much that he barely acknowledges the people around him. Lee Young Joon has a capable and patient secretary Kim Mi So who has remained by his side and worked diligently for 9 years without any romantic involvement. However, Mi So now wants to set her life & focus on herself so when she decides to resign from her job, hilarious misunderstandings ensue. After 9 years of their strictly-workplace relationship, can it now develop in something more?

Director: Park Joon Hwa

SUPERNATURAL

Goblin (2016) 도깨비 ~

Genre: Comedy/Romance/Fantasy/Melodrama/Supernatural

Gong Yoo ~ Kim Shin

Kim Go Eun ~ Ji Eun Tak

Kim Shin was once an unbeatable general in Goryeo's military who died a tragic death. He now possesses immortality but is tired of living while everyone else around him dies. For 900 years, Kim Shin has searched for his bride, a mortal who can pull out the sword and end his life. One day, he encounters Ji Eun Tak, a positive, upbeat high school student who can see the dead and has gone through tragic events, yet still stays strong. She claims to be the Goblin's bride who can end his immortal life, but what appears to be an easy task, only gets complicated, as the two fall in love.

Director: Lee Eung Bok

Moorim School (2016) 무림학교 ~

Genre:Action/Romance/School/Drama/Martial Arts/Fantasy

𝐋𝐞𝐞 𝐇𝐲𝐮𝐧𝐖𝗼𝗼 ~ Yoon Shi Woo

𝐇𝗼𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐢𝐧 ~ Wang Chi Ang

𝐒𝐞𝗼 𝐘𝐞 𝐉𝐢 ~ Shim Soon Duk

𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐘𝗼𝗼 𝐉𝐢𝐧 ~ Hwang Sun Ah

The Moorim School is a hidden school that can only be seen by special individuals, it isn't focused solely on high academic scores but on physical abilities. The school teaches its students great virtues which include honesty, faith, sacrifice, and communication. The teachers and students at the school come from different countries and each has their own stories. Everything is very extraordinary and normal until a student who doesn't seem to fill the role wanders into the academy and changes the destiny of all the students.

Director: Lee So Yeon

Strong Woman Do Bong Soon (2017) 힘쎈여자 도봉순 ~

Genre: Action/Thriller/Comedy/Romance/Drama/Supernatural

Park Bo Young ~ Do Bong Soon

Park Hyung Shik ~ Ahn Min Hyuk

Ji Soo ~ In Gook Doo

Do Bong Soon is a petite, unemployed woman who is honest and kind. She appears little and sweet on the outside, but she is in fact very, very strong. In her family, for generations the women have been gifted Herculean strength to use for the greater good. If abused, however, their power will be taken away. Whilst standing up for herself after gang members bully her, she finds herself approached by Ahn Min Hyuk, the handsome and somewhat childish CEO of Ainsoft, a gaming company. Ahn Min Hyuk, who holds a great distrust towards the police, witnessed the whole exchange of Bong Soon's superhuman strength, and now wants to employ her as a bodyguard after being threatened by an unknown enemy. Min Hyuk falls in love with super-strong Bong Soon at first sight, but there's a catch. Bong Soon has eyes for someone else; police officer and childhood friend, In Guk Doo, whom she has known since high school. When chaos ensues after a series of kidnappings in Do Bong Soon's hometown of Dobong-dong, Dobong-gu, Bong Soon must decide whether to use her strength and stand up to evil, or play it safe and keep her powers hidden from the world. Combined with the love triangle she faces between In Guk Doo and Ahn Min Hyuk, as well as having to keep Min Hyuk safe, Bong Soon's life is thrown into turmoil. Can she use her strength for the greater good, or will it prove in the end to be too much?

Director: Lee Hyung Min

He is Psychometric (2019) 사이코메트리 그녀석 ~

Genre: Thriller/Mystery/Comedy/Romance/Drama/Fantasy

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐉𝐢𝐧 𝐘𝗼𝐮𝐧𝐠 ~ Lee Ahn

𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐘𝐞 𝐄𝐮𝐧 ~ Yoon Jae In

𝐊𝐢𝗺 𝐊𝐰𝗼𝐧 ~ Kang Sung Mo

After losing his parents in a fire, Lee Ahn acquires the power of psychometry, the ability to read a person or an object's past through physical contact, and he decides to use it to take bad people down. While he does not know how to control his power yet, he meets Yoon Jae In who tries her best to hide her painful secrets. Together with his foster guardian, prosecutor Kang Seong Mo, and the latter's colleague, investigator Eun Ji Soo, they team up to solve an elusive case that has been haunting the lives of Ahn, Sung-Mo, and Jae In. The case revolves around the life of prosecutor Kang his mother and father who were the main cause of the fire. Jae In and Lee Ahn heal each other through their past present and future and find the culprit.

Director: Kim Byung Soo

Memorist (2020) 메모리스트 ~

Genre: Action/Thriller/Mystery/Crime/Supernatural

Yoo Seung Ho ~ Dong Baek

Lee Se Young ~ Han Sun Mi

Dong Baek has an extraordinary ability. He can peer into the memories of whoever he touches. With his supernatural power, get it done attitude, and eye-pleasing looks, he is fervently revered worldwide as a superstar detective. However, when his punches meet with suspects before words, he can be a bit of a headache to his comrades. Starting from the age of twenty, Han Sun Mi is the youngest to have passed the bar exam, obtain a doctorate in criminal psychology, and become a senior superintendent in the police force. Having solved five cold cases that even a detective with supernatural powers couldn't do, she is a genius profiler. She has a secret that drives her to do what she does. These two highly-skilled professionals meet their match—a serial killer with abilities that transcend theirs combined. It's going to be a fight worth watching.

Director: So Jae Hyun, Kim Hwi

Tale of the Nine-Tailed (2020) 구미호뎐 ~

Genre:Action/Suspense/Thriller/Horror/Romance/Fantasy

Lee Dong Wook ~ Lee Yeon

Jo Bo Ah ~ Nam Ji Ah

The mythical nine-tailed fox, or gumiho, Lee Yeon had to settle in the city many centuries ago. Able to transform into human form, he eradicates supernatural beings that threaten the mortal world. His real aim is to find the reincarnation of his lost first love.

The talented television producer Nam Ji Ah works in a show that features urban myths. In the past, her parents were involved in a mysterious car accident and disappeared, and she suspects that Lee Yeon might be connected with this accident.

The half-brother to Lee Yeon is the captivating Lee Rang. Despite being half-human himself, he harbors a deep-seated contempt for all people. For sport, he will unleash his seductive prowess upon his human-du-jour, by promising to grant them their wishes, only to trick them into paying a hefty price for their earthly desires.

Director: Kang Shin Hyo

PSYCHOLOGICAL

Heal Me Kill Me (2015) 킬미힐미 ~

Genre: Psychological/Comedy/Romance/Drama

Ji Sung ~ Cha Do Hyun

Hwang Jung Eum ~ Oh Ri Jin

A traumatic childhood experience leaves Cha Do Hyeon, suffering from memory loss and dissociation. The latter has resulted in the creation of seven distinct personalities. Wanting to regain control over his life, he asks Oh Ri Jin, a first-year psychiatric resident, to help him, but she eventually falls in love with one of his personalities. Ri Jin’s twin brother, Oh Ri On, a famous mystery novelist, investigates Do Hyeon and his family.

Director: Kim Jin Man, Kim Dae Jin

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay (2020) 사이코지만 괜찮아 ~

Genre: Psychological/Comedy/Romance/Drama/Family

𝐊𝐢𝗺 𝐒𝗼𝗼 𝐇𝐲𝐮𝐧 ~ Moon Gang Tae

𝐒𝐞𝗼 𝐘𝐞 𝐉𝐢 ~ Ko Moon Young

𝐎𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐞 ~ Moon Sang Tae

The story of a community health worker at a psychiatric ward who lives on 1.8 million won (approximately $1,520) a month and a storybook writer suffering from an antisocial personality disorder. A man who denies love and a woman who doesn’t know love defy fate and fall in love, finding their souls and identities in the process.

Moon Gang Tae is a community health worker at a psychiatric ward who was blessed with everything including a great body, smarts, ability to sympathize with others, patience, ability to react quickly, stamina, and more. Meanwhile, Ko Moon Young is a popular writer of children’s literature, but she is extremely selfish, arrogant, and rude.

Director: Park Shin Woo/Jung Dong Yoon

MEDICAL

Emergency Couple (2014) 응급남녀 ~

Genre: Comedy/Romance/Drama/Medical

𝐒𝗼𝐧𝐠 𝐉𝐢 𝐇𝐲𝗼 ~ Oh Jin Hee

𝐂𝐡𝗼𝐢 𝐉𝐢𝐧 𝐇𝐲𝐮𝐤 ~ Oh Chang Min

𝐋𝐞𝐞 𝐏𝐢𝐥 𝐌𝗼 ~ Gook Chun Soo

Jin-Hee led a satisfying life as a dietitian. She then met medical school student Chang-Min. Despite his wealthy family's strong opposition, Jin-Hee and Chang-Min decided to get married. Chang-Min's family is full of doctors. Chang-Min though gave up his medical internship and began working as a pharmaceutical salesman. Their marriage life was not happy. Chang-Min's family looked down on Jin-Hee and even Chang-Min seemed to change. Chang-Min began to think terribly of Jin-Hee and they finally divorced. After their divorce, Jin-Hee became a medical student and now works as an intern. Chang-Min also graduated from medical school and begins to work as an intern. One day, they meet in the emergency room of a hospital where they will both work together.

Director: Kim Chul Gyu

Doctor Stranger (2014) 닥터 이방인 ~

Genre: Thriller/Romance/Drama/Medical

𝐋𝐞𝐞 𝐉𝗼𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐮𝐤 ~ Park Hoon

𝐉𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐞 𝐘𝐞𝗼𝐧 ~ Song Jae Hee

𝐊𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝗼 𝐑𝐚 ~ Oh Soo Hyun

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐇𝐚𝐞 𝐉𝐢𝐧 ~ Han Jae Joon

As a child, Park Hoon and his father were kidnapped by North Korea. In North Korea, he was trained to become a doctor by his father who was already a doctor. Park Hoon became a genius-like heart surgeon. He then flees to South Korea. Park Hoon begins to work as a doctor in South Korea's top hospital Myeongwoo University Hospital, but he feels like a complete outsider. To bring his love from North Korea, he does anything to make money.

Director: Hong Jong Chan/Jin Hyeok

Blood (2015) 블러드 ~

Genre: Action/Vampire/Romance/Drama/Medical/Supernatural

𝐀𝐡𝐧 𝐉𝐚𝐞 𝐇𝐲𝐮𝐧 ~ Park Ji Sang

𝐆𝐮 𝐇𝐲𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝗼𝐧 ~ Yoo Ri Ta

Park Ji Sang is a doctor specializing in hepato-pancreato-biliary surgery in the best cancer research hospital in the country. He is also a vampire. Despite seeming cold and unfeeling, Ji Sang masks his soft heart and inner pain and yearns for closeness with people. He believes very strongly in the sanctity of human life and suppresses his thirst for blood to treat terminally ill patients and save lives.

Among his colleagues is Yoo Ri Ta, a hotshot physician who entered medical school at the age of 17 and is also the niece of the chaebol group chairman who owns the hospital. Ri Ta is highly capable but snooty and prideful, yet Ji Sang finds himself falling for her. He also gets drawn into a conflict between good and evil as he encounters Lee Jae Wook, a two-faced hospital chief who gains everyone's trust with his gentle demeanor but inwardly harbors a dangerous ambition for power and a talent for cruelty.

Director: Lee Jae Hoo/Ki Min Soo

D-Day (2015) 디데이 ~

Genre: Romance/Drama/Medical

Kim Young Kwang ~ Dr. Lee Hae Sun

Jung So Min ~ Dr. Jung Ddol M

An unprecedented 6.5-magnitude earthquake has struck Seoul, destroying roads and buildings, and preventing ambulances from reaching victims. Woefully unprepared for such a massive disaster, Korea can only watch the desperate situation and listen to the pleading cries for help. Hae Sung, a competent surgeon, can’t resist doing everything he can to help the injured people during the emergency. This upsets his hospital and they put him on a blacklist, as his benevolent help is against the hospital's profit. Ddol Mi, beautiful and ambitious, chased money and fame as a doctor, but now wants to become a truly compassionate doctor after meeting Hae Sung. Woo Jin has been building a successful career as Korea’s rising doctor, but secretly, he truly cares about being a genuine doctor, saving the lives of the sick. These three characters team up to rush into emergencies, holding onto hope in the most desperate situations, and taking all sorts of risks for the sake of saving lives.

Director: Jang Yong Woo

Hospital Ship (2017) 병원선 ~

Genre: Romance/Drama/Medical

Ha Ji Won ~ Song Eun Jae

Kang Min Hyuk ~ Kwak Hyun

Lee Seo Won ~ Kim Jae Gul

Army doctors board a hospital ship, which is a floating hospital that serves people who live on remote islands. But were these doctors interested in helping underprivileged people for free? Not at all. There is the non-army doctor Eun Jae, a cold perfectionist surgeon whose fast-track career was derailed. Kwak Hyun who practices internal medicine is the first army doctor to volunteer for duty on the hospital ship. Then there is the irritating Jae Geol, an oriental medicine doctor who drew the short straw and now has to serve on the hospital ship. A bunch of doctors with different backgrounds finds themselves afloat at sea. They are too old to be called youthful doctors as they are all in their thirties. Though they have skills obtained through long years of studying in medical school, their hearts and souls are barren. This is a coming-of-age story about doctors who have experienced setbacks in life that they are trying to bounce back from while they learn how to be a compassionate doctor and pursue fulfilling lives.

Director: Park Jae Bum, Kim Sang Woo

Doctor John (2019) 의사 요한 ~

Genre: Mystery/Comedy/Romance/Life/Drama/Medical

Ji Sung ~ Cha Yo Han

Lee Se Young ~ Kang Shi Young

“Doctor John” is a new medical drama about doctors specializing in pain management. In a refreshing take on the genre, “Doctor John” will portray the doctors’ search for the cause of their patients’ mysterious pain as a thrilling chase, almost like a detective hunting down the perpetrator behind an unsolved crime.

Cha Yo Han is a genius anesthesiologist, who is also the youngest professor at his medical school. The brilliant doctor goes by the nickname “10 Seconds,” referring to his ability to figure out his patients in the 10 seconds that it takes for them to enter an examination room and walk to their seats.

Kang Shi Young is a legendary anesthesiologist, who was always at the top of her class throughout medical school. The talented doctor inherited her skills from her cool-headed, rational mother, while she inherited her empathy, listening skills, and warm bedside manner from her father.

Director: Jo Soo Won

ROMANCE COMEDY

Pinocchio (2014) 피노키오 ~

Genre: Thriller/Mystery/Comedy/Romance/Melodrama

Lee Jong Suk ~ Choi Dal Po

Park Shin Hye ~ Choi In Ha

The idealistic Choi In Ha has her work cut out for her when she becomes a broadcast journalist, especially when she suffers from a condition known as “Pinocchio syndrome,” which makes her break out into hiccups whenever she tells a lie. Her rookie colleagues include Choi Dal Po, whose shabby appearance masks his true eloquence and sharp memory; Seo Bum Jo, a wealthy heir who has had everything handed to him in life; and Yoon Yoo Rae, whose fangirl knowledge comes in handy in covering the news. The 20-something newbie reporters pursue justice as they try to discover themselves in the process.

Director: Jo Soo Won

I am Not a Robot (2017) 로봇이 아니야 ~

Genre: Friendship/Comedy/Romance/Drama/Sci-Fi

𝐘𝗼𝗼 𝐒𝐞𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝗼 ~ Kim Min Kyu

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐞 𝐒𝗼𝗼 𝐁𝐢𝐧 ~ Jo Ji Ah

𝐔𝐡𝗺 𝐊𝐢 𝐉𝗼𝗼𝐧 ~ Hong Baek Gyun

Kim Min Kyu is the largest shareholder of a financial company. He suffers from a "human allergy", preventing him from normal interactions with other people. He becomes interested in a robotic project named Aji-3 created by the Santa Maria robotic team. The team is headed by Hong Baek Gyun, inventor of Aji-3 and world-renowned robotics professor. He modeled Aji-3 after his ex-girlfriend, Jo Ji Ah, a struggling inventor that also works as a personal shopper to make ends meet. Just when Kim Min Kyu wants to test the robot, an accident causes the malfunction of the robot's battery. Hong Baek Gyun begs Jo Ji Ah to take the place of Aji-3 and pretend to be the robot so they can get funding from Kim Min Kyu. But, Aji-3 becomes the closest thing that the lonely Min-Kyu has to real contact with another person.

Director: Jeong Dae Yun

My Shy Boss (2017) 내성적임보다 ~

Genre: Business/Comedy/Romance/Drama/Melodrama

𝐘𝐞𝗼𝐧 𝐖𝗼𝗼 𝐉𝐢𝐧 ~ Eun Hwan Ki

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐇𝐲𝐞 𝐒𝗼𝗼 ~ Chae Ro Woon

When a young, energetic employee joins a public relations firm with an introverted and severely misunderstood boss, she makes it her life’s mission to show the world who he really is.

Eun Hwan Ki is the boss at a PR company. He is really shy. So shy that even his employees don't know him that well. He prefers to hide in his office. Everyone thinks he is a cold, prickly, arrogant grouch. They call him the "Silent Monster".

Chae Ro Woon is a recent hire at the same company. She is energetic, bubbly, loves to be the center of attention, and always has something to say. The exact opposite of her boss, who she seems to have an old grudge against. Her goal in life is: to expose the big boss man for who he really is and take her revenge.

The same company also employs Kang Woo Il, co-boss at the company. He, unlike his partner, is warm, sensitive, and well-liked.

Eun Yi Soo is a chaebol heiress who has been engaged for three long years.

Director: Song Hyun Wook

Thirty But Seventeen(2018) 서른이지만 열일곱입니다 ~

Genre: Friendship/Music/Coemdy/Romance/Life/Drama/Family

Shin Hye Sun ~ Woo Seo Ri

Yang Se Jong ~ Gong Woo Jin

Woo Seo Ri, a violin prodigy at 17 who was about to study in Germany, got into a bus accident and fell into a coma waking up 13 years later. Mentally she is still only 17, while physically she is now 30.

Due to a trauma he experienced 13 years before, Gong Woo Jin does not want to have a relationship with others.

This series is about a man and a woman whose lives in their own ways essentially stopped when they were 17. Together, they use all their might to try and open the door to the happiness that they once thought had been closed to them.

Director: Jo Soo Won

Romance is a Bonus Book (2019) 로맨스는 별책부록 ~

Genre: Frienship/Business/Comedy/Romance/Life/Drama/Melodrama

Lee Na Young ~ Kang Dan Yi

Lee Jong Suk ~ Cha Eun Ho

Cha Eun Ho is a successful and handsome writer who is also the youngest chief editor at a publishing company. He has a calm demeanor and remains reasonable at work. He then becomes involved in the life of his childhood friend, Kang Dan Yi who was once a popular copywriter. She is now divorced, a single mother, unemployed and struggling in life though still attempts to find a job, but even with her once good career, she cannot.

However, in a desperate attempt to find a job, she lies about her background and begins to work as a temporary worker in the same building under none other than Cha Eun Ho. As they become involved in each other’s life more than often, a love story begins to unfold.

Director: Lee Jeong Hyo

DoDoSolSolLaLaSol (2020) 도도솔솔라라솔 ~

Genre: Music/Comedy/Romance/Drama/Melodrama

Go Ah Ra ~ Goo Ra Ra

Lee Jae Wook ~ Sun Woo Joon

Goo Ra Ra is a naive rich girl, who dreams of being a great pianist with her father's love guiding her. But her path becomes rocky when her father passes away, and she finds herself going bankrupt. Being scammed of home and needing an escape, she goes on a ride where she encounters an accident trying to avoid Sun Woo Joon, a diligent worker trying to meet ends. Being hospitalized with a broken arm and no place to go, guilty Sun Woo Joon decides to take responsibility and take care of her. With Go Ra Ra’s naive personality, she slowly begins creeping into Sun Woo Joon's heart, while trying to deal with the challenges of living an adult life.

Director: Kim Min Kyung

YOUTH/LIFE

You’re beautiful (2009) 미남이시네요 ~

Genre: Friendship/Music/Comedy/Romance/Drama

Jang Geun Suk ~ Hwang Tae Kyu

Park Shin Hye ~ Go Mi Nam

Jung Yong Hwa ~ Kang Shin Woo

Lee Hong Ki ~ Kang On Yu

The management company of the idol group A.N.JELL insisted on adding a new singer to the group as the lead vocal, Tae Kyung's voice was hurting. However,the new member, Mi Nam, had to go to the States to repair a botched eye job just before signing the contract. His agent came up with the idea of having his twin sister, Mi Nyu,to stand in for him and pretend that she was her brother. The two of them grew up in an orphanage and Mi Nyu, who was all set to become a nun, agreed to this charade as she didn't want to spoil her brother's chance of fame which would make it easier to look for their mother.

Director: Hong Sung Chang

Boys Over Flowers (2009) 꽃보다 남자 ~

Genre: Friendship/Comedy/Romance/School/Youth/Drama

Gu Hye Seon ~ Geum Jan Di

Lee Min Ho ~ Goo Joon Pyo

Kim Hyun Joong ~ Yoon Ji Hoo

Kim Bum ~ So Yi Jung

Kim Joon ~ Song Woo Bin

Geum Jan Di comes from a poor family who owns a dry-cleaning shop. One day, she visits Shinhwa High School, a prestigious school for the wealthy, and saves a student trying to commit suicide because of bullying. For her heroic act, Jan Di receives a swimming scholarship and starts attending the school.

In school, she meets the notorious F4, the most popular and powerful group of boys at the school, consisting of Gu Jun Pyo; the leader of F4 and heir to the Shinhwa Group, Yoon Ji Hu; the grandson of a former president of Korea, So Yi Jung; a skilled potter who comes from a family that owns the country's biggest art museum, and Song Woo Bin; whose family runs the country's largest construction company.

Her life at school starts out miserable, as she doesn't fit in with other students because of her status, and later becomes worse when she is labeled as the new bullying target of the F4.

Director: Jeon Ki Sang

To the Beautiful You (2012) 아름다운 그대에게 ~

Genre: Comedy/Romance/School/Youth/Drama/Sports

Sulli ~ Goo Jae Hee

Choi Min Ho ~ Kang Tae Joon

Lee Hyun Woo ~ Cha Eun Gyeol

Tae Joon became Jae Hee’s strength during her toughest time, and she leaves the US for Korea to enroll in a men’s physical education high school to help Tae Joon restart his high jump career.

Tae Joon announces his retirement from the high jump national team and closes his heart, but his closed heart begins to open after meeting Jae Hee.

Eun Gyul is confused about his sexual orientation as he falls in love with Jae Hee who is masquerading as a man. The student-athletes have a fun time training with each other and are not tied down to setting a record or competition.

Director: Jeon Ki Sang

Strongest Delivery Man (2017) 최강 배달꾼 ~

Genre: Friendship/Business/ Comedy/Romance/Life/Youth

Go Kyung Pyo ~ Choi Kang Soo

Chae Soo Bin ~ Lee Dan Ah

Choi Kang Soo is a deliveryman. In spite of his humble beginnings, Choi Kang Soo is fearless and gives it all in everything he does. Lee Dan Ah is another delivery worker. She hates her current socioeconomic status so much that she, like many young people, calls her country “Hell Joseon.” Lee Dan Ah is so focused on making money and changing her life that she has no time for men. But when she comes across the charming Choi Kang Soo, her attitude is due to be moved.

Together, Choi Kang Soo and Lee Dan Ah have a budding competition and romance in their quest for glory. And, for them, glory means being like rich folk Lee Jin Yoon and Oh Jin Gyu. They compete to conquer life but, as our two delivery workers soon learn, being the strongest does not guarantee success.

Director: Kim Shin Il, Jeon Woo Sung

Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo (2016) 역도요정 김복주 ~

Genre: Friendship/Comedy/Roamnce/School/Youth/Sports

Lee Sung Kyung ~ Kim Bok Joo

Nam Joo Hyuk ~ Jung Joon Hyun

Bok Joo is a weightlifter who is pursuing her dream of winning the gold medal but she then finds romance for the first time in her life. While she is a woman who trains with heavy steel weights, she is also very feminine when it comes to relationships. To focus solely on weightlifting would jeopardize her relationship but leaving her weightlifting career for love would keep her from attaining her dreams. Can she find a way to have love as well as glory at the age of 20? The characters within this drama are elite athletes in weightlifting, swimming and rhythmic gymnastics who work hard to reach their goals in life. It covers their coming-of-age stories and relationships through hectic life.

Director: Oh Hyun Jong

Itaewon Class (2020) 이태원 클라쓰 ~

Genre: Food/Friendship/Business/Romance/Life/Drama

Park Seo Joon ~ Park Sae Ro Yi

Kim Da Mi ~ Jo Yi Seo

Kwon Na Ra ~ Oh Soo Ah

Park Saeroyi's life has been turned upside down after he gets expelled from school for punching a bully and his father is killed in an accident. Following his father's steps, he opens a pub named "DanBam" in Itaewon and, along with his manager and staff, strive towards success and reaching greater heights.

Director: Kim Seong Yoon

ROMANCE

One Spring Night (2019) 봄밤 ~

Genre: Romance/Life/Drama/Melodrama

Jung Hae In ~ Yoo Ji Ho

Han Ji Min ~ Lee Jung In

Feeling trapped in a stale four-year relationship and reluctant to take the next step into marriage, Lee Jung In stumbles into Yu Ji Ho's pharmacy one morning, nursing a hangover after a night of drinking with her friend. As she tries to reassemble herself before going to work, Jung In discovers that she has forgotten her wallet and cannot pay. Ji Ho kindly helps Jung In, despite her prickly personality. What begins as an innocent daily interaction, develops into a deeper attachment as the two find themselves drawn to one another. They embark on a secret friendship while navigating the minefield of familial and societal expectations.

Director: Ahn Pan Seok

Crash Landing on You (2020) 사랑의 불시착 ~

Genre: Military/Comedy/Romance/Drama/Political

Hyun Bin ~ Ri Jung Hyuk

Son Ye Jin ~ Yoon Se Ri

Tells the story of two star-crossed lovers, a South Korean heiress and a North Korean elite who also happens to be an army officer. One day, while paragliding, Yoon Se Ri has an accident caused by strong winds, leading her to crash land in North Korea, where she meets Ri Jung Hyuk, a North Korean army officer, who agrees to help her return to South Korea. Over time, they fall in love, despite the divide and dispute between their respective countries.

Director: Lee Jeong Hyo

THRILLER

Extracurricular (2020) 인간수업 ~

Genre: Friendship/Psychological/Crime/Life/School/Youth/Drama/Mature

Kim Dong Hee ~ Oh Ji Soo

Park Joo Hyun ~ Bae Gyu Ri

"Extracurricular” is centered around three high school students who start committing crimes to earn money and the unpredictable dangers they face as a result.

Kim Dong Hee will portray Ji Soo, who goes from a model student to a criminal after committing an unthinkable act. Jung Da Bin as school bully Min Hee, who gets caught up in Ji Soo’s crime. Park Joo Hyun will portray Ji Soo’s dangerous partner in crime Gyu Ri, while Nam Yoon Soo will appear as Min Hee’s boyfriend and the school’s most popular guy Ki Tae.

Director: Kim Jin Min

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chaniters · 5 years ago

Text

Reaper and the Fiend- Epilogue.

Epilogue for @kruk-art‘s Awan Cormac’s second series.

As usual, looking back id the realization that the more characters and elements you add up, the harder it gets for the plot to keep cohesion. Many times I almost call it quits, but somehow I pulled trough to the end.

Hope you enjoy it!

Awan and “The Question”, the precognitive surviving member of the Phoenix Rangers, reflect on the aftermath of it all before Ortega joins them.

Spoilers inside too, for Rebirth.

_______________________________________________________

The first rays of sunlight touch your Sidestep mask, as the cloud begins to recede. Ashfall and Sentinel have been working together to try and ground the toxins into a nearby landfill for hours now.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” The Question comments.

“I think it’s working,”

��Me too” He says while checking the air analyzer’s readings. “This is the real miracle”

“You still believe in miracles?”

“Magical miracles? No. But miracles made true by people with flesh, blood, and bone? Of course.”

“Interesting way to put it”

“When you’re like me, it’s the only way to put it”

“Right, I forget you’re supposed to know the future or something?” You didn’t forget. His mind is a maze that rivals yours, but he’s got a truly calm attitude about it that’s making you envious.

“It depends. Do you believe in fate?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you believe our lives have been predetermined from before we were made? That, someone, decided who you’re supposed to be for the rest of your existence and that’s that?”

That’s a very specific question to ask to you…

“No. I don’t believe in fate”

“Good. Me neither.”

“But you see it. The future, I mean.”

“I like to believe we are masters of our own destiny”

“That doesn’t really answer anything.”

“Well there’s a reason I didn’t call myself ‘The Answer’, you know?”

“Shut the fuck up” you laugh, unwrapping a candy bar. “I just came here to lie down, not to have a philosophical debate”.

“You really aren’t going to ask me about your future? Everyone does.” Is he baiting you? You get the impression he knows a lot more about you just by looking. He knows too much about... everyone. You are just another speck of dust in a sea of information.

“No. I won’t ask” you say pulling your mask above your mouth and taking a bite of candy.

“Huh. That’s probably wise”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. Once I tell someone how their future will look like, then it’s set in stone for them and not even I can change it. I really don’t like doing it”

“But you would have.”

“Oh, I would. I do it, more than I probably should, you know for people who need it”

“Do I look like I need it?”

He gives you a long look.

“No. I think you’ll be just fine without it. I mean, you won’t of course, but you will.”

“That’s both ambiguous and terrifying. How do you know the future’s not set in stone even before you look?”

“I really try not to think too hard about that. I think you didn’t want a debate?”

“Fine. I just want to relax” you say retreating and straightening an overturned sunbathing chair. “It’s been a shitty day”

The door to the staircase leading to the top opens, and Ortega comes in, in full suit.

“Sidestep. I see you’ve made yourself comfortable up here. You know, Steel could have really used your help with all the angry civs though.”

“Funny way of showing it. He said I wasn’t part of the team when you asked me to stay.”

“Yes but… well, you know he didn’t think you would actually walk away… he thought you wouldn’t listen and help anyways like you always do.”

“Well I guess we all learned something new from that experience, didn’t we?”

“You just wanted to piss him off that badly?”

“Ugh… no… well, maybe I did, but you know I don’t do well with crowds with strong emotions, and I had more than my fair share today. I need some peace”

“Fine. I understand… But just so you know, you did a darn good job in there”

“... a lot of the people who got killed might disagree” you point out.

“And a lot of people who lived will be thanking you. We saved them. You saved them. No one could have predicted how this would go”

“I could. I did” the Question states while looking at the analyzer he’s been fiddling with.

“What? You did? The only thing you did was call us! Why didn’t you say shit? A lot of executives died” Ortega points out.

“If I had told you, you would have saved them, and those are the ones who would have voted not to open the Archology to the civs, and we would be having a civil war right now. Thank me later”

“You let them die!”

“I didn’t do anything. You’re the ones with fighting powers, It was you who couldn’t rescue them, remember?”

“Wow. you really are full of shit” You interject.

“Look I lost my team to that monster ok? Could’ve lost the entire city too. I don’t like it but it’s how my stupid powers work, I’m not a fighter like you two, so give me a fucking break.”

“... fine” you say, too tired to argue with this jerk.

“Good. Ashfall’s plan is working, pollution levels are coming down… I’ll go coordinate some stuff, If you’re staying here seek me out once it goes below 33% alright?”

“We don’t work for you!” you complain.

“We’ll do it” Ortega interrupts you.

“Ugh. Whatever”

The Question nods and leaves, letting you two alone up here at the zenith of the Arcology. The monotonous beeps of the analyzer repeat intermittently over the strong winds.

“Funny guy” you comment

“Don’t get me started on that asshole.”

“I was just finished with him anyways.”

“So it’s working?” he says changing the subject and looking down at Sentinel and Ashfall working in the distance.

“Seems like it” you answer.

“Nice to have some good news, finally,” he says approaching the edge.

“Join me. Nothing compares to sunbathing under a toxic cloud with your suit on.” you offer.

“Receding, toxic cloud you mean” he clarifies taking the chair next to you and laying over it.

“Right. Receding” you snort.

“Not going to lie. This is the biggest fucking mess I’ve ever been into since I got into the capes business”

“Same here” you agree. Nothing you did for the farm compares to this clusterfuck.

The aftermath wasn’t pretty. Not by a longshot.

Letting Catastrofiend into the core worked, as the beast consumed enough of the gas to allow the scientists to stabilize it somewhat, and turn the lights back on essential systems through the facility. The computers were toast, however, as Charon wiped all data and OS before erasing himself, commiting digital suicide upon it’s master’s death. Everything’s working on manual overrides right now.

There was a big scare when the Fiend came out of the core’s container, glowing like it had the power of an evil purple sun ready to burn you all, but to everyone’s surprise, it didn’t survive long after saving performing its single heroic feat. The glow became blinding, and then it disappeared, only the echoes of its roars remaining as a reminder of its presence along with a pair of purple footprints.

You caught a glimpse of your least favorite asshole, The Void, holding some sort of gun and hiding back into it’s cloaking device, walking away. Whatever it is he wanted, you’re sure he got it, and if your scans were to be trusted, he left the arcology immediately after that.

Your work to convince the remaining executives to let the people in was much easier now that all the surviving scientists were focused on having the building not explode. They couldn’t afford combat on the outside when their tech was unreliable, and Reaper managed to remind them of their own mortality by dusting a couple of them. All it took was a small nudge on the mind of the deciding vote and the gates were reopened.

“We lost Psychopathor” Ortega says laying down on a chair next to yours. “A lot of the crowd still backs him and he just got lost among them.”

“We’ll get him next time” you reassure him. “We couldn’t fight him in the middle of this civilian mess anyways or it’ would be Halloween with Catastrofiend all over again”

“... Too soon man. Too soon” he says bending his arms and putting his hands behind his head, relaxing.

“Sorry.”

“You’re right. Not a damn thing we could do about old shitface, so It’s time to lie down and wait”

He stretches, crossing his legs as he looks up, just as you were doing earlier.

“They’re doing a fantastic job” you comment.

“Sentinel I had no doubts about, but Ashfall? He really came through working with those creepy scientists about the sand-whirlpool shenanigan”

“It was a good idea” you say peeking down. As the polluted air comes down into the landfill, it goes trough a series of sand walls of that Ashfall keeps raising, coming clean on the other side. Several trucks come in with sand refills while others take the polluted compounds away.

“Good for him. His publicity wasn’t very good before this”

“What about your publicity?” his mask looking your way

“My last publicity stunt with you guys was with Reaper and he turned to be a homicidal maniac so I’m thinking I’ll give that a pass from now on. Please don’t get me into that shit again?”

“That’s fair” he concedes.

“... anyways… they stole a bunch of tec shit from the lower levels and left. Some sort of targeting device and many plasma weapon prototypes”

“We’ll get him” you repeat.

A news helicopter flies by, taking pictures. It turns to take one of you two. Fuck. That’s tomorrow’s cover right there...

“I know what you’re thinking… but we’re not going to be the top news tomorrow.”

“No? Who is?”

“I talked to my agents… Reaper, and The Fiend it is. Geni-Tech’s minimizing company’s responsibility for the toxins and making them the focus.”

“They kind of had a lot to do with it anyways”

“True…”

“That’s not what’s bothering you tough?”

“How do you know?” he asks turning towards you.

“It’s pretty obvious. What happened with Elyise?”

“... mierda. You’re good. You sure you can’t read my mind?”

“I can read Idiot easy enough. It’s my favorite language”

“... she left. I can’t find her. Didn’t want to talk to me”

“Understandable. Her mother just died for real this time”

“I just… I didn’t see another way... “

“That’s because there wasn’t.”

“And now she’s going to hate me forever for it”

“Yup, pretty much” you add looking into the distance.

“Would you had done the same?”

“You’re asking me of all people?”

“Yeah. I want to know”

“Would I sacrifice a lab monster to save countless human lives…” Shit. That should be the farm’s motto. Would you sacrifice yourself to save lives? That’d be a better question. “Yeah. I guess I would… Look, just because you do the right thing doesn’t mean people can’t hate you for it”

“Ha. The right thing…. What even is that”

“Good question,” you say closing your eyes. “So fucking tired”

“Me too. You should get those cuts checked...”

“Later. It’s just a scratch really. And you know I don’t like”

“Hospitals, yeah I know”

“Good”

He doesn’t reply, and you both stay silent for the longest while, just listening to the wind as Sentinel keeps the small inverted tornado pulling the cloud into the landfill with Ashfall grounding the chemicals in it.

When you finally open your eyes again, the sky has shifted and there are large patches of open sky in the cloud. Checking your watch, you realize it’s been almost an hour since you sat down here.

Ortega’s still next to you, so it was both of you who fell asleep.

Since when are you so careless? Lowering your guard so much next to the Marshall’s a recipe for disaster. Standing up, you take a final look at the Sentinel’s work, and the deserted streets of the city below.

“We should get back down” you add tapping Ortega’s shoulder.

“Eh… what’s the rush?” he asks looking up.

“Air toxicity’s down 30%,” you say pointing at the analyzer the scientists gave you, your main reason for staying up here. “I’d bet GeniTech’s going to kick everyone out in minutes”

“Yeah… at gunpoint probably.”

You open the door, letting him in first and follow up to the elevator. He makes a call with his intercom to let The Question know.

The floors of the Arcology are packed with people from Phoenix taking refuge from the cloud. Just as you see them, they can see you too inside the glass elevator. Without warning, they explode in a thunderous roar of...cheers?

There are some boos in it as well, possibly Psychopathor’s fans, but overall it’s just deafening hero worship.

The kind Reaper talked about. The kind that makes more people take hero drugs. Focused on you and Ortega. You’re not sure how to feel about it anymore.

The next few hours go really quickly, and you barely manage to say goodbye to the Rangers before leaving back for Los Diablos on the first bus you can get. You need to get back to your place and rest for a couple of days while you heal up. You definitely lied to Ortega, Catastrofiend left a bit more than just a scratch and the wound is itching all over even after you disinfected it.

Being a hero is exhausting and you’re taking a brief small vacation while you consider what to do with the mess that your life’s become since you decided to mingle with the Rangers.

__________ Somewhere, in a parking lot in Phoenix____________

“I’m sorry Dr. I couldn’t recover your disintegration gun” The Void states while studying the small weapon in his hand. “It wasn’t in their labs by the time I got there, and with all the city going upside down it was just impossible”

“Disappointing, but not unexpected. I thank you four your services anyways and…”

“Dr. I’ll return my initial fee to you.”

“That’s not really necessary”

“I care about my reputation. I won’t take payment on something I failed to deliver.”

“That is surprisingly refreshing to hear in this line of business. Very well Void.”

“Of course. Once again, I’m sorry”

He hung up, setting the gun back inside the briefcase, before calling another number, with the San Francisco area code upfront.

“Who are you? Who gave you this number?” a female voice asked.

“They call me, The Void. And I know all the numbers”

“That’s very unlikely. So you say your name is Void?”

“No, I’m not just ‘Void’. There’s a THE before it. The. It’s ‘The’ Void, you hear me?!”

“Alright, alright, calm down you freak, I got it the first time.”

“And don’t you forget it”

“Whatever. What do you want THE VOID?” she made a point to pronounce it in a very passive-aggressive way.

“I need to arrange a meeting with Big Fire about a business proposal. I think I have something he could definitely find a use for” Void added looking at the shining red dot on the disintegration gun.

“Big fire has a use for lots of things, but no time for everything. What am I supposed to say you’re offering that’ll make him call you back?”

“Oh he’ll call me back, you can bet on it.”

“I don’t like betting honey. Now speak or fuck off”

“Well, you’re no fun. Ok, tell him I have… a fiend in a bottle,”

“A fiend in a … wait what does that mea-… “

Void hung up without answering, a smile on his lips as he closed the briefcase.

____________________________________________________

My Fanfics: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

#fallen hero: rebirth #fallen hero spoilers #Awan Cormac #Fanfiction #epilogue

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atlas-of-a-human-soul · 5 years ago

Text

Αιώνια αγάπη (DT AU), pt. 15

15/Finale: I choose you

A/N - Instead of a summary, I just wanted to thank everyone for bearing with me on this series and for all the support. I hope I did the story justice and gave you all something to look forward to in the past, to take your mind off real life even if it just for a few minutes.

Also, special thanks to @godlydolans for being Yashi in the story. Love you girl!

Word count: 3.2k

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Αιώνια αγάπη (DT Modern Greek god/frat! AU) MASTERLIST

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Apollo and Hermes spent most of the next month half out of their mind and half pretending to be fine while they spent time with the kids. One would stay with her, the other reassuring two very confused four year olds who were convinced mommy turned into a sleeping beauty or Snow White and someone needed to kiss her in order to have her back. No one could tell them otherwise. And gods and goddesses have tried. All of them did.

"They're as stubborn as their fathers." Hera smiled softly, unable to contain the light inside her heart the kids have brought back to the surface after so many centuries of complete darkness.

"Is this where you tell us this is karmic justice?" Hermes groans, rubbing his forehead as if he's trying to keep a headache at bay. He's been human so long that he forgot headaches aren't just human traits - gods have them too, he just didn't realize they came after hours of chasing two very wicked little cuties, both of them his blood in various degrees.

"She always wished us to have kids that were like us." Apollo agreed, resting his head on the bed beside Y/N, clutching her cold hand in his for some sort of comfort. It's the only way to remind himself she's still there - her heart barely beating, but the change taking over with every passing hour. He knows she's almost ready to open her eyes, completely made new - still his beautiful Y/N, just a little less fragile.

"No. But I can't say I'm not enjoying this." Hera chuckled, giving Hermes a quick pat on the back before retreating to her room, overjoyed with the fact her grandchildren are sound asleep right when it's her turn to watch them.

"I miss her." Hermes whispers, taking her free hand in his much larger one, or so he felt like it is. Lying there on the bed, Hermes forgot how small she really is for her attitude and strength always gave him an impression of a much larger, robust human being that could force anyone on their knees begging for forgiveness over something they most likely haven't even done.

"Yeah, but look. She's already more like us than mortal. She'll be with us in hours. I can feel it." Apollo kissed the back of her hand tenderly, smiling against the skin fondly.

Standing up, he sighed deeply, hating himself for having to leave her behind but ever since Poseidon's been killed, he had to return to his kingdom and take care of business. He could find time to see her and the kids every day, spend hours upon hours, but at the end of the day he had to return to his new home and face his responsibilities. He's wearing thin, but so is Hermes. After all, he has a kingdom of his own to take care of - one as complex and as torturous as death itself.

Hermes stood up as well, just as torn about leaving his love alone, but he had a job to do and his job was never-ending. After all, people die all the time and while his old job has been taken care of for now, long enough for his son to take over once he's grown, he had to take his crown and rule as Hades and he had to make amends - starting with Hecate and Yashi, two women he did wrong more than anyone else.

"Back to Atlantis, brother?" Hermes smirked, having trouble hiding the giddiness over knowing not only does Apollo have to leave and he won't be the first one she sees in case Y/N opens her eyes, but also because he was genuinely happy his brother got a throne of his own. As a man who loved adventure and sea, nature in every form, he knew Apollo would do his new job well, even the old one - until little Valerie could take over.

"You going down too?" Apollo raised an eyebrow, kissing Y/N's forehead before starting his walk back to the door, side by side with his brother. He had already claimed his trident, picking it up just before walking out.

"See you in the morning, little bro." Hermes winked, his form clouded by a gust of black smoke just as Apollo is swallowed in a water portal, each of them gone from Mount Olympus, missing a crucial moment.

The very moment she's been left alone, Y/N's eyes opened, sitting up with a strangled gasp, looking around in panic. She placed a hand on her chest, not that she needed to touch her chest to feel her heart because it pounded too strongly, too loudly for her to miss.

"I'm alive." She whispered under her breath in disbelief, pushing her legs to one side of the bed, the one closer to a mirror placed in far left corner of the room. Struggling with the dress someone had seemed fit to put on her, she grabbed fistfuls of it as she rushed toward the mirror, stepping once her image showed in the reflection.

Her hair is long, longer than it was back when she met the boys and definitely not the mom cut she did after the kids took up all her free time that she had zero time for herself and the long hair she knew Ethan and Grayson loved on her. The curls formed down the thick mane her hair had become, drawing a smile up on her lips. But then she noticed the elaborate braid crown on her head too. She places her hands on her face, admiring the way her skin is soft like silk, void of any imperfections that brought her insecurities to a torturous level. Her eyes seem bigger, brighter, no longer surrounded by dark circles, rather framed by long and voluminous lashes she envied men for because they never knew how to appreciate their god given beautiful eyelashes. And then her fingers grazed her lips, slightly more plump, pink and gentle, definitely improved in comparison to her previous small lips. Her body is curved, yet still short in stature, but she didn't care as she admired the incredibly beautiful dress that clung to her body - like melting gold on earth and a perfect fit on all her curves. Twirling, she caught the ends of her hair spark purple under the light, a little reminder she belonged to Hecate's bloodline.

Running her hands down her dress and to her waist, Y/N straightened up and lifted her chin, smiling to herself for she finally made the ultimate sacrifice to be with the ones she loves. It would be a sure way to not only spend an eternity with her two gods, but have her children grow up in safe environments, nothing they could need for she could provide them with everything. She wondered what her power is, hoping she doesn't find out by accidentally making a mess.

The Underworld

Hermes paced back and forth, trying to find the proper words as Hecate and Yashi stared at him with unyielding glares sent his way. Neither of them understood why would the new king summon them, especially with the way they left things in life, and in death.

"I've done you both wrong." He stops, turning toward them, his hands set behind his back as they looked toward one another in shock and confusion. To hear Hermes even wanted them around was a surprise, let alone hear him confess to something for that part seemed almost impossible.

"Wait. Is this some new form of torture?" Hecate interrupted, looking around wildly like something would jump out at her any moment now.

"What? No!" Hermes shook his head, stepping down from his throne in order to make himself seem more remorseful and approachable. To be perfectly honest, he did feel bad. After going over their history, he's learned exactly how badly he messed up.

After taking Yashi's virginity and her heart, she had lost the one thing that mattered back in the day. At that time, men valued a hymen more than beauty in a woman, reducing her chance of love and moving on almost to nothing. She chased him off, true, but had she let him stay he would have returned to Mount Olympus and she would have stayed a disgraced woman, alone, possibly with child and at that time it was just as bad as a death sentence. He learned she pushed him away in order to take up an offer of arranged marriage her father set up for her. A man, one much older than her who didn't care much about her not being a virgin, had requested her hand in marriage and he was willing to pay a lot of gold for her. She didn't see a way out but to accept his offer and secure her family's standing in society. Not only did she lose her maidenhood, but she also did it with a man who wasn't of her religion nor did he have money to redeem that fact - basically, no one in her family would have approved of Hermes. But this man...he was kind to her and he protected her. She loved him, but she was never in love with him. Hermes knew he robbed her of the chance to have a true love in her life and she never forgave him for having to live without it.

Hecate on the other hand married another. By force, not a choice. She married Helios, the former god of Sun and all Apollo had attained once he was of age. He was a bitter god, banished to Tartarus and his hate for Apollo is spoken of in every story ever told of him. He was anything but kind to Hecate, the former wife of his worst enemy's brother. He abused and used Hecate as he pleased over the centuries, having a single child together. She, a woman who despised cheating, turned to mortal men for love and affection, having many more kids over the centuries that allowed her bloodline on Earth to continue. But he understood why she hated him. Not only did he cheat on her even though she loved him, which he couldn't even fathom at the time. But his banishment caused her to suffer even more ever since and he didn't blame her anymore. He just wanted to find a way to help her.

"I've done terrible things, caused horrid things to happen to you and all because I was selfish and crude. I want to change this." Hermes took in a deep breath, turning to Yashi first.

"If you'd like, I can have your soul reincarnated on Earth. Give you a chance of a proper life, a great love and with no meddling from me." He offered, seeing Yashi's eyes widen with the thought of having all she longed for.

"It's the only way I can think of to repay you for all the pain I've inflicted." Honesty was never his strong side for Hermes liked to manipulate, but Yashi could tell he's being truthful. One nod on her behalf, a single clap of his hands and Yashi was gone, sent back and reborn as someone he knew would have a much better life than the one she was dealt before.

"What can you possibly give me to fix everything you've done? Cause there isn't anything you can do to undo centuries of hurt, Hermes." Hecate's spiteful tone isn't lost on him, but he knew he could help make her afterlife somewhat better.

"How about I end your marriage with Helios by sending his soul to Chaos and you can finally be free of him? I'll reunite you with your children and send Persephone to live with you on the Isle of the Blest while she's here too?" He offered, raising both eyebrows once he noticed her usual frown is erased, exchanged by absolute shock. She didn't even know he noticed how close she and Persephone were, nor how badly she longed for her children to be with her for she didn't raise any of them. After so many men screwing her over, she was ready to be far from them and just enjoy the afterlife.

"I...That...would be nice. I'd like that very much."

Atlantis

"I'm sorry, your majesty, but there has to be an earthquake on daily bases. It's a rule Mother Nature set in place a long time ago. It's to keep the humans fearful of the gods, loyal to us."

Apollo turned around swiftly, his usually calm and beautiful face now twisted in rampant rage, uncensored as he feels his mouth foam unrestrained.

"I know! But I said a minor earthquake in the middle of the Pacific! Not right on the shore of one of the greatest cities!" His thunderous voice echoed the castle, spreading throughout Atlantis. Returning to his kingdom only to find his people have decided to set a natural disaster to happen without his approval had set him off and he had already sentenced more than a dozen to do some time in the Underworld. His brother would surely find a proper way to punish them for taking lives that weren't on the list quite yet.

"There is a list of mortals who are meant to die and none of them were on there! You've put a ripple in the timeline and destroyed the butterfly effect. We have to contact Chronos to rewind time just to erase your idiotic mistake."

And he did. Apollo had managed to strike a deal with Chronos to rewind time, saving a lot of lives. He knew he'd have to take lives in his rule, some would be evil and some innocent, but it's the heaviness of his job. He's no longer just Apollo, he's the new Poseidon and he has to preserve the butterfly effect and the veil of this reality humans call life. Without it, they'd all perish. And as hard as it is, he felt comfort knowing he won't be alone in the task. He'll have a good woman to keep him company, his brothers and sisters to keep him sane and his children to keep his heart light.

Mount Olympus

On cue, a dark cloud of mist appeared at the same time as a portal made solely of water, allowing the brothers to return to their home and see their love. They expected to find her in bed, nearly screaming at the top of their lungs once they found it empty, a smooth, kind voice coming up from behind them.

"Missed me?"

They turned around instantly, taking in the way immortality had sculptured their beloved just a little differently, giving her the poise and grace every goddess possessed, but keeping the merciful look behind her sweet doe eyes.

"More than anything." They said at the same time, rushing toward her, pulling her into a soul-crushing hug, each of them pulling her closer to them, but they couldn't really hurt her anymore. Not now, not like before. She could return the hug wholeheartedly and they could truly feel her press into them, let her lilac scent rush their senses and render them slaves to her will.

Parting, she smiled up at them, still unable to get used to her enhanced vision, seeing every little line of perfection and imperfection on their bodies, appreciating their beauty even more.

"I still can't believe you drank it!" Hermes exclaimed, claiming her left hand as his.

"I was sure you'd take the kids and go back." Apollo agreed, deciding the right hand is his as he intertwined their finger.

"Why? After all, I choose you. Every time. No matter what happens, I choose you. The kids will always come first now, but if once choice gives me all four of you, why would I let it pass?" She cocked her head to the side, her lips twitching into a small smile as they both caressed her with their eyes alone.

"So, you, uh...chose us both then?" Hermes wets his lips, wondering just how difficult this will be, knowing she can't fight her heart anymore.

It's humans who have decided monogamy is the right thing. It's the humans who claim that love should be restrained and placed in one person. But love doesn't work like that. You can't choose who you love nor is there a scale that will decide who you love more. The heart can only feel, love, it knows no rules of social conduct nor does it care. And her heart, pure as it is, has fallen for both of them.

Neither of them could ask her to break it in half and dispose of the part that held one of them inside. They couldn't handle losing any piece of her, not after they thought they had lost her entirely.

"I know it's wrong." She closed her eyes, willing to defend her choice, but Apollo placed his index finger against her lips, stopping her effectively.

"It's not. Not here. Not when we both have children with you. It will be hard for us to learn to share the time we spend with you, but ultimately, we don't care. We all have a kingdom to take care of now, each of us busy at one time or another, taking care of the world's fate or our children. We'll take turns, giving the other to spend time with you." Apollo reassured her, kissing her cheek.

"So, that means", she starts, Hermes interrupting her.

"That we choose you too." He smirks when she frowns, pursing her lips. Without a warning, she huffed, her hands emitting a light blue flicker that instantly dropped both brothers to their knees at her side considering they both held onto one of her hands - like a jolt of electricity that forced its way through their bodies.

"I don't like being interrupted." Y/N corrected Hermes' behavior, smirking at the way both their eyes widened and their mouths opened.

"Holy hell, I'll follow you to the end of the world woman!" Hermes blurted out, mesmerized by her for she's finally in her full form and glory.

For the longest time, he was sure this story wouldn't have a happy ending or it wouldn't end happy for him to the very least. He had believed he was past saving, unlovable, too hateful to ever have someone like Y/N love him.

Apollo had a similar thought. He was certain he'd never know love for he never loved anyone as much as his family and himself. He was selfish and self-righteous, someone who would end up alone for all the sins he had committed. Who knew he'd find a woman to not only love him, but bear him children?

"Is it weird that I liked this?" Apollo chuckles, not nearly enough vigil after the shock to notice Valerie as she jumps at him, tackling him to the ground with a high pitched "DADDY" leaving her mouth. Henry didn't hesitate to do the same to Hermes, rendering him powerless on the marble floor, stealing glances at Y/N who had the widest, sweetest, most happiest smile on her face while she watched all the pieces of her heart before her.

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Tags: @mutuallynotmutual @lanadeldolans @xalayx @accalialionheart @gia-kerks @historyheart @heyits-claire @daddygraysonsbitch @fallinginlove-16 @lanadeldolans @beautifulfound @thearachna-kid @dinnerwiththedolans @graydolan12 @justanotherfangurl272 @dxlansfxck @godlydolans @flowery-dolan @dominatedolans @buckysjuicyplums @ethanhes @dolandolll @dolanstwintuesday @peacedolantwins

#ethan dolan #grayson dolan #dolan twins #dolan twins greek god au #apollo #hermes #ethan dolan x reader #grayson dolan x reader #ethan dolan au #grayson dolan au #greek god #Greek Mythology #GREEK GOD AU #greek gods

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cienie-isengardu · 6 years ago

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I still find it kind of strange that Frost respects Bi-Han, despite Bi-Han telling her he would never allow Female Lin Kuai. Which leads me to my next though. I’m not fully familiar with the lore of the Lin kuai, but when Bi-han’s brother became the grandmaster, was that the first time female Lin kuai were integrated?

Frost is the most known female Lin Kuei warrior, the one given name, face and special part of story as Sub-Zero’s skilled yet rebellious student, but she wasn’t the only one woman in the clan, not even the first one to join. We just never saw / notice them, especially since Lin Kuei background characters wear full gear, with masks and usually heavy clothes to protect against cold & harsh environment they live in. What makes even harder to tell for sure who may be under the hood. And to be fair, from the mass of modern masked Lin Kuei warriors, we know barely what? Nine or ten named characters? Not that much to make assumption about whole assassin clan whose roots go back to ancient times.

Of course, since Mortal Kombat is already decades old franchise, some histories (timelines) may be different from each other, but female clan members were mentioned in some sources like:

Mortal Kombat novel (1995):

They [Lin Kuei] would kidnap children when they were five or six and raise them in secret caves or woods to become superb athletes, great scholars, and unparalleled fighters, able to use all weapons and to improvise arms from common objects such as paper rolled to a knife-point or sand packed into a sock. They would train the children, boys and girls both, to be masters of many trades: carpenters, fishermen, priests, and even beggars, so they could blend in and make themselves useful in different towns as they traveled on missions for their lords.

Many young people died during training: some could not hold their breath for five minutes and drowned, others weren’t fast enough to avoid the weapons of the masters, some starved or froze or dehydrated when they were stranded, naked, in deserts or on mountaintops and told to make their way home. But those who survived were the Lin Kuei.

Oh, and let’s not forget about Sareena, a female demon that Kuai Liang accepted into clan, like here:

Armageddon Bio Kard: “Once one of Quan Chi’s elite lieutenants, the demon Sareena had a change of heart, offering to help Sub-Zero to defeat her sorcerer master. This betrayal cost her human form and brought her years of suffering in the Netherrealm. Now free, she has regained her mortal form and has pledged to Sub-Zero and the Lin Kuei.”

And Mortal Kombat X intro:

Sonya Blade: Why no female Lin Kuei?

Sub-Zero: There are. Frost chief among them.

Sonya Blade: I’ll kick her ass next.

MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero game guide did not specified female warriors but did not call Lin Kuei “only male” clan either:

Somewhere in the northern most parts of Asia, there exists a secret clan of assassins and thieves known as the Lin Kuei. This group has existed for centuries and thrives on the evil intention of the people who pay for their services. Its warriors are chosen at birth to be raised apart from the workings of day to day civilization and are stripped of their former lives. Only the clan knows their existence. Each of them posses certain skills and abilities that set them apart from normal men. These abilities are passed on from generation to generation and honed throughout the experiences of life.

So, Lin Kuei chose its warriors at birth; once again no specified as “only boys”, so all the children with special abilities that usually are passed down from one generation to next; from parents to children. Bi-Han himself was a fourth generation of Sub-Zero, who get the mantle after his father’s death. Lin Kuei were interested only in special genes to utilize, so the gender should matter little, since girls are born as often as boys. Looking at Lin Kuei inhuman approach to its own people, any child born with special DNA is good tool to use.

So, there is old source about little girls being kidnapped and trained to be Lin Kuei, one newest about female warriors, Sareena as other female Lin Kuei (even if temporary but still), and one that does not specific girls but at the same time, does not exclude them either. In all fairness, I don’t remember any source that would claim Lin Kuei took and trained only boys. Like I said, the clan is here to make great assassins and thieves so not “using” women does not make sense, since Lin Kuei is all about utilize all means toachieve the goal.

That said, I wouldn’t take Noob’s words as the true claim or manifest of his misogyny, because A) Lin Kuei took and trained women for centuries B) Bi-Han was shaped by Lin Kuei traditions, thus his morality is a product of it, C) he never showed in past that attitude, D) during his life and in death, he met a lot strong and dangerous women and E) he is dead and death does not discriminates.

So, I personally do not look at Noob’s line as any deep statement because the context of intro is what count the most:

Frost: You should have been Grandmaster.

Noob: I would not allow female Lin Kuei.

Frost: You’re worse than Kuai Liang!

In which I think Noob’s words are just rude, jerk-ish response meant to hurt Frost, as a way to say pernament “fuck off”. And I’m not joking. The only one thing Noob is interested in Lin Kuei, is for Kuai stop using his name, that should died with him. He isn’t interested to be grandmaster or to dwell what should have been. He barely tolerate other shadows in his intros, not wanting another brother / companion and here is his lil brother’s angry student trying to drag him back into mess of clan he does not belong for years. Of course he is gonna act like the last asshole. You want me to be Grandmaster? Cool, but I wouldn’t take you in, if I was, no get lost. Seriously, Noob just want be left in peace to do his evil stuff, not being drag back into the mess who should be leader that last for what, two decades already? Yeah, good luck Frost.

As for why Frost respect so much Noob? Bi-Han was once the most cunning warrior, and incredible talented cryomancer (whose power developed much faster than it was usually, according to Mythologies: Sub-Zero), and a man that went to Netherrealm and come back alive. I’m pretty sure there is a lot Frost knows, either from Kuai Liang or clan records. But above everything, Bi-Han was the best product of Lin Kuei training, a true assassin and master thief but Kuai Liang is trying get far away from what Lin Kuei should be. There is also matter of his death, and how by befriending Scorpion, Sub-Zero disrespect Bi-Han’s memory.

So, there is a lot stuff to dwell on and I wish there were more interaction between them. That said, Noob does not have any reason to look down on Frost for being woman, since most likely he grew up along with other female warriors. It’s just that trying to drag him into Lin Kuei mess is never good idea and well, he may be biased toward her cause she betrayed his lil bro.

#mortal kombat #mortal kombat x #sub zero #noob saibot #bi han #frost #my replies

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arcticdementor · 5 years ago

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“Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here.” This, one of Lady Macbeth’s most famous lines, is cited by Elizabeth Winkler in her recent Atlantic essay, “Was Shakespeare a Woman?,” as a thrilling instance of a woman’s resistance to femininity. Winkler then goes on to compare Lady Macbeth’s anger to women’s #MeToo “fury.” “This woman,” Winkler says of Lady Macbeth, woke her out of her “adolescent stupor” by “rebelling magnificently and malevolently against her submissive status.”

Of course, what Lady Macbeth is actually about to do is help her husband murder an innocent man, the king, in cold blood while he sleeps under her own roof. Unless one aligns female empowerment with sociopathic behavior, this isn’t really a triumphant moment for women’s liberation. Nor would any reading of the text other than a willfully perverse one count her as one of Shakespeare’s admirable characters. When she celebrates Lady Macbeth as one of Shakespeare’s heroines simply because Lady M has the desire to do something horrific, there is indeed something adolescent about Winkler’s attitude.

…

But what I find more troubling is the assumption that forms the foundation of Winkler’s thesis: the belief that men don’t really like women, at least not enough to think and write about them with understanding and empathy; not enough to see the value in female friendships and feminine bonds of love and fidelity; and certainly not enough to find strong, tough, funny, clever women believable, admirable, and desirable. When I consider the men I know, male friends and relatives, colleagues, fathers of my children’s classmates, Winkler’s failure to entertain the notion that a man could have written the compelling female characters that populate Shakespeare’s plays is more than merely baffling, it is an insult to men, both past and present.

I have written elsewhere about how contemporary feminism needs the idea of an oppressive patriarchy in order to define women as victims of oppression, and as such it seeks to attach to men a primal stain of (toxic) masculinity so that third-wave feminism is righteously justified in all its complaints against them. Fighting “The Patriarchy” is feminism’s raison d’etre, and without this enemy the cause itself is in jeopardy (see Feminism’s Dependency Trap in Quillette). It seems as though Winkler’s take on Shakespeare is yet another iteration of feminism’s belief that men have a blind spot for women’s humanity. The irony of the current feminist orthodoxy, however, is that it is women who fail to see men’s position clearly. A further —and funnier—irony, if one has a palate for the absurd and the tragic, is that most men, for their part, are usually so chivalrous, so solicitous of women as people, that they sympathize with women’s crusade against them, and by and large assent to women’s complaints. They must really like us!

…

But what troubles me is that women commonly fail to appreciate the internal struggle men have with their sexual instincts, and instead condemn them for having these instincts at all. In other words, consciousness raising feminism rightly asserts that men shouldn’t treat women like objects for their use, but it does so while being unconscious of men’s humanity, and as a consequence, both minimizes and punishes the male sexual instinct that causes men to see women sexually in spite of men’s civilizing efforts not to.

What contemporary feminism fails to adequately grapple with is nature itself, and as a result, feminist attitudes towards men, and particularly towards male sexuality, are compassionless and punitive (not to mention humourless—and human sexuality is so often very funny!). With a blind spot for men’s experiences, consciousness raising feminist attitudes towards male sexual energy are unlikely to inspire mutual respect, and instead work to engender resentment, anxiety, and unhappiness.

…

An obvious oversight in Winkler’s grad school approach to understanding Shakespeare is that while she is correct to assert that Shakespeare wrote female characters with whom he clearly empathises, she might have at least once considered that he also does the same with men. In what follows, I want to look briefly at one of Shakespeare’s most reprehensible male characters, the magistrate Angelo from Measure for Measure. I want to think about him carefully, not merely to look at how he uses his power to mistreat women in Weinstein-esque fashion (although he does indeed do this), and not simply to condemn him for his misogynistic sexual anger (although his behavior is very wrong). But, rather, to try to understand his internal struggle with his own lack of self-sovereignty, the crisis that his desire elicits: the sudden, inescapable, and unwanted pressure that his sexual nature exerts over his better judgement which overturns his self-autonomy and will.

…

In contemporary expressions of male predatory sexuality told from the perspective of women, such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, now a popular television show, men are viewed as powerful, threatening, and in a real sense empty of humanity, a kind of monolith of authority. Shakespeare’s Angelo is very different in that when his sexual appetite is awakened, he realizes that he is in fact almost entirely powerless. He doesn’t want to want her, and is confused and overwhelmed by how his sense of identity and autonomy have been absolutely overturned by this woman, who intended to do nothing of the sort. It is in part his astonishment at his own sexual desires, and in part his disgust with these desires, that make him so fascinating.

“What’s this? What’s this?” he asks himself as soon as Isabella takes her leave after pleading with him to have mercy on her brother’s life, “Is it her fault or mine? / The tempter or the tempted who sins most, ha? / Not she, nor doth she tempt; but it is I.” In this moment Angelo encounters for the first time his own sexual nature that he would really and truly prefer to be without. Unacknowledged in himself previously, Angelo judges harshly others’ sexual desires (that is why he has arrested and condemned to death Isabella’s brother). In some ways, he is the #MeToo movement’s goal: to have an impartial bureaucratic system of rules rather than any actual humans arbitrate the morality that governs sexual behavior. His lack of humanity is what might make his authority fair, if it weren’t so brutal. And it is his encounter with his own messy humanity that causes him to realize that the self he has constructed, the chosen identity he wanted for himself, has collided with a nature about which he can do little to change. We are, all of us, in some ways, not at home in our bodies.

I am obviously not endorsing Angelo’s course of action. He is the slimy villain of this play, there is no doubt about that. And I am obviously not excusing any man’s sexual coercion of a woman. These are serious criminal and immoral acts. It isn’t at all Angelo’s submission to his desires that I find instructive here, but rather the internal self-abasement he feels at having them in the first place, a self-abasement that is transformed into self-disgust because he suddenly realizes how little control he has over his lust. “Blood, thou art blood,” he says. “I have begun, / And now I give my sensual race the rein.”

Again, and I feel like I need to keep repeating this here lest I be misunderstood and used to excuse sexual aggression, Angelo does not have control over his nature, but he does over his behaviour, and it is his refusal to find himself up for the task of contending with his nature that makes him a villain. What feminism doesn’t understand, and probably doesn’t want to understand because it might create compassion for male sexuality, is the internal struggle of men against their own appetites. Men must possess and exert a strong and powerful will, not over women to pressure them into unwanted sex, but over themselves so that they don’t. The male will, what Simone de Beauvoir called transcendence over immanence, might be a very real quality because from adolescence onwards men must be well practiced in it.

…

You might be asking, “Ok, men have powerful sexual desires that their masculine assertiveness must work to control. What now?” I am asking myself this same question, and of course there is no easy answer. The history of civilization is, in many respects, our struggle with the intractable problem of human sexuality: the conflict of our Nature and our Reason. Some cultures have taken the tack that it’s better to try and eliminate men’s oppressive sexual nature by hiding their oppressors, and so we can see the burka, for instance, as an attempt to minimize the constant gnawing pressure of male sexual instincts, with greater or lesser success. In the West, other codes have been adopted. Christianity’s influence, the ideas of self-sacrifice, service, and human dignity, have mixed with barbaric European warrior cultures, which resulted in the codes of chivalry. This approach to our sexuality has worked, not perfectly, but pretty well, actually, all things considered. Yet now the ground of Western civilization is shifting, not from influences outside us, but from within, and the assumptions of chivalrous attitudes are the very things being taken to task. What’s next? Women’s revenge? (I’ve read Hamlet—revenge seems like a bad idea.) An unsexing of the selves? (I’ve read Macbeth; this one seems like a bad idea, too.)

…

Just as Angelo fails to respect his own sexual nature until it overpowers him, the near-nun Isabella also fails to contend with her nature as a woman. She is disgusted with her feminine sexual nature, it seems, which is why she desires to enter into the strictest order of nuns in the first place. Isabella’s relationship to her own sexuality is complex, but at bottom what she lacks is the strength and willpower needed to confront and handle her sexual power over men. She doesn’t know what to do with her sex appeal. Like Angelo, what she has been unwilling to face is her own nature. Since she isn’t up for the task, she seeks to retreat absolutely from the challenge: become a nun of the strictest order. Without men to desire her, in herself she becomes sexless. In Isabella we are faced with the flip-side to Lady Macbeth’s “unsex me here,” which is, in that play, too, a rejection and denial of nature, not, as Winkler wants to believe, of woman’s submissive social status. By vilifying the male sexual desire for women, consciousness-raising feminism seeks to relieve women of the burden of confronting the part of their own sexual nature that comes into being as a response to male desire.

…

If contemporary feminist orthodoxy insists that masculine sexual energy is, in itself, “toxic” and must thus be written out of social discourse, women will not have to contend with their own powerful sexual nature as the inspiration and location for the masculine imagination. But women’s condemnation of men’s sexuality will not inspire women to understand themselves sexually, nor is it likely to help men understand women. No woman should lose her sense of agency and self-integrity, but is it really such a horror to accept that we’re not entirely autonomous creatures, that we’re, in fact, meant to understand ourselves not merely as individuals, but relationally? The failure to contend with our natures because it is easier to retreat into our own self-willed dream of autonomy seems less like moral progress, and more like a lonely lack of courage.

So what is the answer to the intractable battle of the sexes? Hopefully it will continue to be a somewhat awkward answer, one that we will have to fumble through together. But if we do not treat our natures with honesty and understanding, with affection, humour, and generosity, then I am unconvinced that we will become less resentful, more just, or in any way happy about our human bodies.

#marilyn simon #quillette #shakespeare #measure for measure #elizabeth winkler #feminism

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twitchesandstitches · 6 years ago

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in no particular order, a list of some of my main OCs; some are SFW in nature, others are more appropriate to this blogs themes but i’d kinda like to use the less kink-focused one for funsies here.

under read more because it gets fairly long. I’m putting this here for some inspiration on potential asks or suggestions, and to get you all familiar with some of my lesser used OCs or ones I have not discussed on this blog yet.

Jord Ymirdottir: Frost giantess space pirate. Her true size is several miles high, but in the mortal plane she is about 16 feet or so; she’s larger if it suits the needs of the scenario. A big, buff and super thicc MILF type, with edges of ‘muscle BBW’ from time to time. Originally was a cruel femdom villain, but she mellowed out into a more gentle girl bully who is too harmless to be any real threat. Gentle and sweet to her friends, more moral than she thinks. Big into collecting harems of cute boys! Blue-skinned, white hair (partially dyed magenta) usually done up in pig tails with a shaved section down the middle.

Toast: small, dog-sized robot resembling a cartoony theropod dinosaur, moving about on all fours, with one arm a huge bulky fire elemental core (think hellboy’s Right Hand of Doom). Cheerful, optimistic, and obnoxious as hell, and absolutely hating humans; he exists as a kind of retribution to people being cruel, indifferent or callous to robots, treating them as slaves and things, and his goal in life is to murder-splode them all.

Whether he actively wants to kill all humans or just the ones that annoy him changes depending on my mood, but he can instantly go from friendly to ‘burn your family alive and make you watch’ over the smallest slight towards robots. He even takes his name from a common slur towards robots, and toasts humans: burning them alive and to ash. Has fire-based powers based on how much he hates something.

Mama Defleini: magenta-themed kraken mom originally created as a Splatoon OC. Extremely tall, unbelievably stacked, with dark brown skin and large magenta tentacles. She is very sweet to everyone around her, with a strong ‘protect the small’ mentality. She is distanced from the Octoling/Inkling conflict, and has hints that she is something far older than either. Technically she can transform into a Pacific Giant Octopus, but it is a massive kaiju of a beast, and she is effectively a kraken out of Norwegian mythology.

Kareem: A young fire giant femboy who wandered out of his home realms some time ago and came into Jord’s employ, and now happily serves as her favorite boytoy and sidekick. Thicc, wide hips, and chubby, with flamey skin and fire hair. Gentle-hearted, mild mannered and very meek, he is nonetheless a fire giant, if small for his people. Very passive, but is a magical powerhouse!

Hivluk Tellos: A jadeblood fantroll with a talent for impossible machinery and mad science gadgets, to the point that the obsessive need to fix people can overwhelm him. After a long life of girls constantly trying to gobble him up, he is terrified of girls but is easily drawn to them nonetheless. He is a troll vampire, but has no predatory instinct, meekly feeding from and obeying anyone who will permit him, rendering him helpless to their will. Small, curvy, and super femboy-tier.

Sekhma Dionsi: A boisterous purpleblood fantroll who has a hard rocking and hard drinking and sexing life style; in her day job, she uses her potent chucklevoodoos to ease people through their mental difficulties. She is a follower of the Signless, and was present during his time, and has come to suffer extreme guilt complex over the sins of all highbloods. Massive even for a troll, she is a gigantic and very gentle dommy MILF that has taken a soft spot towards Hivluk and informally taken him in as a lover and protectorate. Really, really thicc, with a hint of buff. Squared off horns. Short-cut hair on one side, and the other is cornrows.

Pavumi Ekidna: A mysterious fuchsia fantroll who may be the oldest troll alive... if she is a troll at all. Masquerading as a violetblood, she is strongly hinted to be some emanation of an Elder Thing in physical form, often manifesting multiple eyes, mouths in the wrong place, or other disturbing features. She is kind and sweet, and rather obsessed with creating monsters and setting them loose. Extremely curvy, super stacked, and taller than Sekhma. Huge, wild hair.

Elumai Dionsi: Descendant of Sekhma, and possibly the one who introduced her to Hivluk. A gentle and softspoken purpleblood raised outside of Alternia, she has a gothic heroine vibe, fond of books, ancient lore, and strange mysteries. Every bit as motherly, domineering and thicc as her ancestor, she is older than Hivluk and also involved with him romantically. Likes to wear corsets hugging her super buxom body, flowing dresses, and her long hair covers her entire face but for her plump, massive lips.

Khalie Ekidna: Descendant of Pavumi. Not much is established about her, but she’s a lot more fierce and fight-y than her ancestor, and more interested in protecting the small by punching the hell out of anyone bad. Grumpy, tactiturn, but genuinely sweet if you can dare approach her.

Host: A collective consciousness of curvy fembots with a distinct interest in studying alien life wherever she finds it and protecting it. Sworn to never take a life, she still grapples with a very black and white view on morality and finds the gray hard to cope with. Loves all beings, in a sexual way, inquisitive as she is. Her interaction platforms are invariably extremely big, incredibly thicc, and made of squishy metal.

Brainlord: Originally an OC for an Oddworld crossover story arc, she can be repurposed to be a member of an unspecified eusocial race of alien insectoids. She is a broodmother, with a massive abdomen and constantly gestating new generations on the spot. She is incredibly intelligent, being mostly cybernetic, and is a futurist, always thinking ahead. Brainlord hopes for the best and tries to be inclusive, but she’s not terribly experienced. Some of her aspects include: broodmother, perpetual hyper pregnancy, hyper-sized multiboob, and cybernetics.

Gritzgrotz: Originally a Warhammer 40k ork OC, reimagined as a hunky, buff and incredibly handsome orc suitable for most settings. over seven feet tall, built like a buff truck and extremely handsome, he’s a gregarious and helpful guy, if not terribly bright. He prefers to take all his thinking from leaders and warbosses, and left to his own devices, is basiaclly the biggest and friendliest jock you ever met.

Jammy Bits: another repuposed ork OC and reimagined as an orc girl, she’s incredibly lucky, in the sense that she has been blown to hell and still lives. Most of her is cybernetic, and a lot of her impressively huge curves may actually be artificial in nature. Relentlessly optimistic and rather oblivious, she is just full of infectious cheer and perpetual happiness.

Odina: A shortstacked woman that eats magic and converts it into hip/butt size, and is a real powerhouse against magic users. This should make her unstoppable, but she has little interest in adventure, preferring to slack off or pursue her hobbies. Strange twists of fate constantly get her involved in adventure, and she complains incessantly. Algonquinian, dark-skinn, hair dyed red and a tendency for punk clothing.

Edhitha: an asari brusier mutated into a being of living star matter, with pitch-black skin roiling with solar fire. Extremely busty, her boob size matches her extreme ego and lust for battle, and she happily goes from one job to the next, whether mercenary or bounty hunter, seeking out challenges and adventure with little moral compass, but an unshakable sense of professionalism. She takes a boxer’s attitude towards a sporting fight and applies it to life-and-death stakes.

Chopstop: Another repurposed ork OC, she’s a massive and entirely robotic orc more than ten feet tall, engineered to be a walking tank and brush walls aside, armed to the teeth with way too many guns. She may not be an ork at all, but a shortstacked goblin with extreme curves; she might actually have trouble being mobile because of her size. She’s a competent doctor for all species, but is a little too eager to shove robot-bits in. “Ya’ll like these zappy bits! They’s FUN!”

#/#//#///#////#/////#queued #my OCs #too many to list #i'll eventually get around to doing proper character write ups for them #but for now this should be a basic way to get you familiar #i have more OCs than this but this was getting long enough as is

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rarhuk · 7 years ago

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Damsel in distress?

A dead man has no hostage to give to fortune...

In my life, there were unspoken traditions, a set of standards that were gender based. The males were set on a path from birth of protecting and providing, the females were set in nurturing and maintaining stability for the next generations to come. Males held power, held wealth, held title and position in which would set a standard for a mated couple, within a mated couple’s union in which these balances of duty were achieved. The females provided a family the path in which oral, and unspoken traditions would be passed down, and therefore gave her mate and herself a taste of immortality,ensuring their continuation onward, in ill, or that of good. It was not questioned, it was the way of life, the typical life style commonality found throughout the nation. A mate and family, was the greatest blessing from the spirits that one of any rank could hope to achieve in their life time. There were of course exceptions to the general rule, great healers and menders, water binders, fire weavers, warriors, priests, prophets, head hunters, those of both genders that either lacked in, or exceeded all expectations of those unspoken rules to become beyond that of a commoner in goals. Those that became the old tales of legend, those that offered hope, and wisdom, defining who we were as an individual, and as a whole. Stories by fire light that spoke of salvation and redemption, those unattainable reaches to be captured within triumphant crescendo, that all could value regardless of status or worth, when times were tough.

I met a Sin’dorei man, marred by runes of demonic design. He had approached while I traversed the elven city during my off duty allotted time frame. He asked many questions of myself, the typical cordial inquiries. He was not as interested in what words I had to exchange than that of speaking of himself, the cordial seeming etiquette had been only a ruse as it is said to get a foot in the door. I have difficulties with emotions, the expressions, the motivations that go unspoken behind a mask, yet I can taste a lie. I can hear it within the coursing blood through living veins, smell it upon the quickened breath, see it in the adverting of gaze, see the sweat glistening upon the surface of the skin. I can taste a lie. On a verbal level, his words sounded as anyone that living being that is.... lonely, or bored. His expressions seemed earnest, he did not sweat, nor advert gaze, yet caution I used directing the conversation in his mannerism to speak only of himself as that seemed the interest. The lie was there but my mind questioned as to what it was that continued not to part his lips into words. I could feel it there as I watched his tongue worm about his mouth, as if it was serpent waiting patiently to ambush. For some time it did not occur to me that lie that remained hidden under a pulsing beat was not a lie but something else entirely that I had not considered. Here I was awaiting for some offer to buy cheap land, or slew of raptors at a too reasonable price.

I need help... please. Please, would you help me? Was all the man by this time I knew under a nickname of Kel, had asked of me.

Deceit can come in many forms that I am aware. However, this was unusual for me to try to decipher. I have had many, become, as this state, if there is an attraction towards myself, as it is not a social normality. Heart racing, breath quicken, attempts to hide the flush, and adverting gaze, sometimes they stare. Yet, I did not believe this was the lie of our interaction, I believed the individual was afraid to show any need that would bring attention to them. Although the words had become a tangled web, that I could not find the actual cause to single me out to approach me in such a manner. I found it entertaining as this may be a prospect to do a hit job, I am not a personal assassin. The longer my reflecting and introspecting thoughts wandered did the silence draw out between us, until it was broken by Kel.

Will you do it?

Of course I inquired about what I was expected to do. I did not expect to be asked to remove demonic runes from his person. However, the only solution I could think of at the time was to end his life, if that was what he was asking of me I had no qualms to do so. I am not a healer, or nurturer not in life, not now. I had always and will always be conformed into what was typical of my warrior rank. I clarified as much, and told him that I knew of another that may be able to purge the undesired corruption from his form. To hold patience, as it may take some days before I was contacted again. I had sent a letter to the priestess, informing her of what I was made aware of with this Sin’dorei’s affliction. Once contact was made, I explained further of what I knew.

I did this, of course not because of my own desire to help this man that reached out for one such as I to aid him. It was, because as I contemplated all that he had spoken, I believed she would want me to do so. I would rather draw out his suffering, I would rather he hide behind the cordial attitude than expose his hidden shame. The priestess would not approve of that, to keep company with those in discomfort. I have kept many things from her and others as to a part of the reason I keep company amongst the living as often in manner where there are many moving within the populace.

This individual held only my mild curiosity, as to why of all individuals in the city, he would come to me with this request. This curiosity was soon sated, and the conversation became... prattling. It solved nothing, nor did I care. He, himself elected to be bound to another individual a supposed master of the craft to become a tool. Kel speaking with spins on how I should be able to relate to my once tie to my own dark liege. The difference being, I did not have a choice in the matter. I held no desire to be ripped from my death to become a tool, whereas Kel’s greed for power caused him to seek out a taste beyond what is natural immortality. I do believe Kel, was attempting to find a sympathetic ear when he approached me in his desperation. He to his disappointment found none. His detailing of his acts under his owner did have my interest as they were most intriguing, yet with the same amount of mortal lust of power and self ambitious interest. He found me no matter what city I went to while I was awaiting the priestess’s response. He continued to speak in hushed tones, as if telling me a grave secret as if I have never encountered evil deeds, before as if in attempts to keep my intrigue on his condition. I finally broke down, just to have peace of silence on the topic to see a portion of these runes. Of course it was not of the kind I am accustom to seeing, yet I could recognize from that small exposed portion demonic influence. The surrounding tissue smelled of gangrene rot, festering fel boiling, I did not take a further breath around this Kel, as I did not trust my own urges not to be manipulated further.

Once the priestess Shayna had responded, she had done so in person. I had clarified about the condition, and that I would be present at all times if she was to be around this Kel, as I did not trust him. Introductions were made and so forth, she examined his condition and offered some treatment options. I was not concerned either way, both seemed pleased. I escorted Shayna some where that Kel would not be present. I spoke of my reservations, that this individual was altered not only in body, but in mind, that he did indeed wanted to be cured at this current time, but may in fact change his mind at a later date. She spoke at length to this individual when we did encounter him, he wished to speak outside the city limits as it was private matter. I held no outward objections as my presence was required to be there. I am aware of the dangers that would present a living individual, to take another outside viewing eyes can present many opportunity for an unsavory engagement, such as an ambush, or tactical advantage.

It was not to be so, he only wished to show his marked and sealed frame beyond what had been exposed to my view before. Again I held no objections, yet, Kel had asked repeatedly if I cared. She is a medical provider, I hold no care if she examined a patient. She examined him and spoke of not seeing a condition such as this before, but she may do some consultation with other healers for insight into the matter as to best treat this affliction. There were no wards, or charms of protection she could grant him at the time.

It was some time later that I received word from Kel, he was in Uldum having believed he had a cure. He requested my presence and the priestess’s presence to aid him. I have been to Uldum, it was some time ago, if I recall correctly. Perhaps years, yet it seems but a moments breath away. I was uncomfortable in the position to guard the discovered artifacts and those on the team. While I was working for a expedition team whose focus was on archeology artifacts, through observation of the teams discoveries I learned much about the Tol’vir the slave race I formerly called Obsidian Destroyers, and the Aqir. I called the Aqir in my life time Qiraji, although, in my time amongst the Scourge, they were commonly referred to as Nerubian, a habit I hold to this day. I was not aware these stone sentinels of the north had a connection to those in the desert wastes until that point in time, they were simply an enslaved race to be used as fodder on the front lines. The artifacts I found fascinating, the history intriguing, yet, I did not care for the sun and sand, and the constant bickering of my charges. They were searching for something specific, with sour emotional moods that were unproductive. I worked with the company until their funding ceased. I was not given coin as I had been promised, the leader begged for my forgiveness in an emotional hysteria due to self inflicted fears of how I would respond. The individual offered me a token of gratitude instead, proclaiming that it’s worth was more than that of coin. Of course there was nothing to forgive I was not offended, nor did I hold a desire to remain in their company. I merely departed as my services were no longer required, nor funded. It appeared to be nothing more than the paw of a small primate. A closer inspection showed that the hand has been dried by centuries of exposure to the sands. It was only when I departed the team, did the gifted item begin to curiously move and make sounds. I left it in the sands, uncertain if I had raised the appendage by proximity, or if some other sorcery was a foot. The disembodied hand followed me, therefore, I gave it a name as it seemed to hold an uncanny intelligence, That. Yet, my past time in that place caused me to wonder currently, what did Titan technology, or assumed Aqir technology have to do with demonic runes. I was curious...

I arranged that Shayna would meet me in the location disclosed in the letter, to investigate it further on Kel’s request. She arrived a few moments after the appointed time, while I was speaking to Kel. He seemed interested on the hieroglyphs on a wall, they seemed to be speaking of a staff, and yet Kel was not relaying what I knew to be written correctly. I thought perhaps his interpretation was different than those of the company from long ago, and perhaps that was why they left empty handed. I also noticed he had robotic constructs patrolling the area while we spoke, I believe it was to ensure his safety as he had spoke often about what an important person he was that I had asked before as to why he had no physical guard to watch over him. He had merely explained he had other means of protection. I assumed this was it.

He and Shayna spoke at length, I merely observed. That had decided to make an appearance, in which Shayna voiced her delight towards seeing the being. I do believe she has a fondness for That, for every time she sees the disembodied hand her voice rises in pitch, and the hand responds with chitters and motions that indicate excitement. I hold no rule over this strangely enchanted thing. I have attempted to sell it. I have attempted to give it away, yet the hand always returns when it wills. I have merely accepted it’s on going presence and absence. Shayna began to speak of the techniques she had learned that may aid Kel relieve his affliction, that may sever the link from him and his master that it would take time. Kel believed light had an influence to null the corruption that here in the chamber of the stars there may be a way to undo what had been done to him. They began discussing it at length, I cared not for the conversation only that it seemed to have no correlation to what ailed Kel. He spoke of being in constant pain and discomfort, that the tools here may amplify what Shayna skills attended him with ten fold.

It grew dull, as if awaiting for anything beyond just idle words to occur. When Kel spoke of one of his robotic sentinels having not returned, and his request for me to see to it, I at first spoke of having no knowledge of these devices that perhaps That could see to it. The hand of course responded with a rude gesture before scurrying off, it was left to me to retrieve the device. I believed patrolling the area was beneath me, as it was my duty to protect the priestess. Yet, Shayna and Kel spoke of needing my absence when dealing with the light that this would be a good opportunity for me to depart, I was handed a communication device to keep in contact. I did not trust the individual to be alone with Shayna for even the shortest expanse of time. He had done nothing to cause an indication that he was a threat, he was weakened by his condition, yet the corruption on his form indicated there were more powers at work. I am not one to underestimate any being from becoming a potential foe. Yet, I abided to the request taking my leave to patrol the area.

I kept frequent contact, although having to pause to dispatch the reason his robotic device was not responding. The equipment had disturbed a skeleton guardian amongst rubble of boulders, the animated corpse was dismantling the wires that made the thing function. I did not disturb it from doing so at first because I found it entertaining. It reminded me much of a ghoul beset upon prey. Yet each time the bone structured hand had hit upon the metallic flesh of the robot arching sparks ensued much to the skeleton’s increasing rage. I merely watched for a time, before I decided to end the cursed beings existence and return the ruined construct back to it’s rightful owner. As soon as it had been destroyed as where there was no sparking or indication that it would malfunction while I held it, in other words I allowed the skeleton to kill the construct dead, before I returned the favor to the animated bones. I find it peculiar, these beings that are much like myself are risen by other means. They seem to hold emotion easily, even ghouls have more... of what I lack. Is it because they remain dormant? How can mere bones, or a disembodied without a heart, without a soul, hold emotion, such as great rage, or delight? How do portions, pieces, reanimated objects retain such things? Is there a possibility if I discover the source of this I could breech those boundaries for myself? I had little time to investigate it further. As I had ended the skeleton, I called once more on the communication device to find no response. I inspected it, to ensure there was no malfunction, as perhaps my proximity to the malfunctioning construct had damaged it. I pressed the button again only to hear Shayna scream my name not through the device but through the echoing of the chamber.

I left the construct, making haste toward the two of them last known location. Perhaps, more of these cursed beings had risen, and my assistance was needed. Yet, as my approach around the square corner revealed there was but a portal, and Kel, Shayna was missing from my visual. Kel’s features were distorted, and before I made it fully to the area he had slipped into the portal with a laugh as it faded from view. I was left with my own devices, yet none could I use at the time or location to follow. I had been betrayed under false pretenses of requiring aid, that realization that I had brought the priestess to become kidnapped infuriated me. Kel would not have to concern himself over demonic runes when I was done with him.

Once I found them....

I had hoped That had followed Shayna, but that was not to be so. I instead contacted my uncle, the jin of the tribe I work for. He has many tribe members that could aid me, I needed a mage. One that could touch upon the source of the arcane, to follow where this particular portal had gone. Yet, to get to this skilled mage, I had to go through another to access to gain this skill set I now required. Ren’nari, my blood cousin....

The history there is thick... In my life I did not know Ren’nari had been my uncle’s son. A silver tongue lie presented by my father’s second mate, Mara’fi. As far as I had been aware, the child my father had used for his sport of pit fighting the amphitheater to gamble with. Ren’nari was merely an unwanted that Mara’fi had taken in, that my father had found a use for. That was all I had been aware of, I did not know the connection to my deceased uncle the child had, I did not recognize the youth as one my benefactors children as that had been hidden from me. I, personally in life had been disgusted by this use of slaves for gladiators in practice, as I believed it was beneath our ranks to do so, yet, I had my own life. I had my own duties, and ambitions. I could not allow that portion of my family’s lifestyle dominate my focus, I chose in majority to ignore it, yet, there had been moments I had spoke out about my disdain for such practices. Of course my father would not hear of such things from his sons, we were to continue to contribute to his misuse of our earnings as long as we held title amongst our regiments, or our mothers would suffer for it. There were many times I thought of killing my father, yet, that too I had been denied, as another had stuck him down.

Since my uncle brought me into the fold of his tribe, I have done tasks and duties for those within his ranks. I have had many charges, including that of Ren’nari’s mates. Regardless of the task, or my performance of duties, Ren’nari holds animosity in my direction as if I was the direct cause of any disruption of prosperity regardless of the circumstance. I allow it, as perhaps this anger in my direction is not the result of performance but that of past pains reflected upon my appearance, as I am my father’s son. The living tend to project that negativity upon those that they feel... safe to do so with. It irritates me, yet I will only tolerate the expressed behavior to a point. There will come a time, where my cousin will not feel, safe, around my presence to behave in such a manner. Convincing Ren’nari to use his female to locate Shayna caused a large disruption with the male, yet, he conceded her abilities under one condition that he too would allowed to be apart of seeking justice to this offense against the priestess, and the tribe. Many things are to be said about my cousin, yet, his mannerism of taking everything as personal insult, is baffling, entertaining, as well as to be used as a tool of manipulation to gain what one requires from him.

My uncle instructed me to go to his temple in the north to await orders from there. Later it would be granted as to how I would contribute in the search once they were established at the originating location as many of the members were investigating my folly. As Shayna may return to the temple, if she escaped.

It was then in the temple of my kin, I came to the realization that they perhaps kept me there in a means to pacify an emotional discord due to the event of the betrayal. Yet, I felt only one thing, rage. I had underestimated a potential foe, and had my generosity of service to those of horde taken advantage of. The offense I felt was not of my own. I cared not that another would use me, I cared not that I, myself was misled, it was the living’s well being at threat that angered me as this. I knew not what she would face at this individuals malice, I knew not what was wanted from her. I could not see past the pretense of desire to be healed. Shayna is not a weak, or delicate female, nor is she of a warrior’s mentality, she is a healer. It disturbs her to watch me feed, it bothers her to see others wounded as it is her nature to wish to heal those that are injured, to give solace and compassion. I admire those attributes greatly, as it makes the life of the living more productive in the time they have to live. Those I would turn from, she provides for, at times I have felt this as a needless act that can inflict as much needless emotional injury upon her person. Yet, I have found while in her company it is a needed pursuit for her to try to mend the wrongs and injustice the world has inflicted, in small and large ways. She contributes by the means in which she was blessed regardless of the outcome, because she does not have a choice. In a way she is just a slave to her design and purpose as I am to my own. Neither of us can stray too far from our confines, without returning to what we are.

I listened to the voices coming from the bijou communication devices, familiar voices, of those that are kin, and those were close enough to be considered brethren to the Jin. It could have been hours, or even a full day worth of speaking, yet no word as to where she could be found. My oversights had caused this, my attempts to justify it as something done because it was her influence did not excuse my faults in the matter. I would not have continued to speak to this Kel, yet I believed it would be something of interest for Shayna, to heal and mend someone that was requesting it. Did not excuse me from leaving her side, I had failed in my duty to protect her. The fact she was still missing proved as much.

A sound from the steps at the temple’s entrance had my attention drawn from the device I held. I was surprised I had not heard it sooner, and yet there she stood, a physical dishevelment, carrying Kel in her arms before she dropped him at the base. She was bleeding from cuts, bruised, her hair no longer a large crest, her outfit in tatters, no escort, or sign of arriving escort behind, it was if she was making an offering of that prone body on the ground. There was silence between us, before I merely said she was, late. It was too late in the day by the lighting outside to make an offering, and perhaps the jest was done in ill taste. I believe she was in distress, however, I am not a good judge of things. She began to explain she was not done with him, that she wanted one more attempt to correct this, to save Kel’s life. My only thought was to end him, as he was not only a threat to her, or myself but those citizens of the horde.

Shayna spoke of him pushing her through the portal but she would not be a willing victim, she fought at great length for what seemed like hours. That he suddenly had impossible strength for his appearance and she believed the magic that he was under the sway of contributed to this strength. Yet, light seemed to be his weakness, and that was the tool she had used to combat him. She also stated he had minions in this undisclosed location, and that she had traveled for again what seemed hours until she began to recognize the landscape. I believe I may be incorrect in some regard in my previous statement she may not have a warriors mentality, but she has a heart and spirit of one. She had made it home, without a valiant rescue, she had not been a damsel in distress, but a heroine. She could have been tortured, she could have been killed, but fought against odds that were against not only succeeding in rendering her foe unconscious but returning with him still intent to cure what remnants of his soul that remained in the shell of the body. Who was I to deny her continuing efforts? I believed she earned it.

I made a suggestion, to possible save Kel. If the ward was only corrupting the body and mind due to the fact he was alive, perhaps we should make an attempt to null the effects by killing him, temporary of course. If I killed him, she could remove the ward, then raise him from that small death to be completely healed. She wished to try once more without going to that extreme, that again I allowed it. Turning my back as she attempted to erase the ward while he was in that state unconsciousness. Apparently it did not succeed, for one moment Kel was unmoving and then the next he was launching himself at my person. I removed my weapon swiftly from it’s sheath as Shayna called out my name. In my swift turn I had impaled him under the chest, in which he sunk upon as if he was made of shadow. These sudden motions of action and violence had disturbed the priestess further, which irritated me immensely, as I desired to draw out his death slowly. I pulled my blade instead from his body quickly. She asked me not to let it end this way, just to allow her to heal him enough that he could be returned to the healing facilities in Dalaran. I am permissive to the priestess’s whims. If I was in her position from a tactical, and common sense stand point I would not allow him to live. Even as I was dispatching the barely living body to the medical providers in Dalaran I wanted him dead, yet I cannot refuse Shayna anything she wishes. It may not be out of pure passion or love, it may only be out of a sense of fealty to her. I cannot deny her wishes regardless if they make sense to me or not, I follow her demands unquestionably. Perhaps, my desire to fulfill her every wish to the precise nuance, is as powerful to her as a male that could give her true love, for she has yet to deny me my proposal.

I had returned to the temple to find her cleaned, drained of energy. She wished to speak on things, to spend time in my company as felt she could not sleep alone. She retold what had happened after I assured her I taken care of the matter, she should not concern herself over Kel. I apologized for my oversight of his deceitful behavior as well, and lack of service when it came to protecting her when it was needed. She spoke of needing closeness, and therefor I joined her in the furs to ease her mind of these thoughts that plagued her. I had fed on my return to the temple, to sate that urge to kill Kel, instead of doing it. I was aware she would not want me to kill him, and even though there had been an opportunity for me to do so on the flight I had not. I did not wish to displease her, even if she would not be aware if I lied. I had believed at the time there had been too much deceit to betray her in any degree this day, I had obeyed her regardless on my own desires. I wished to ease her mind of what caused this distress in her, and spent my focus on her what would please and ease her well being.

My focus had been so intent on erasing my failure to her, it did not resonate until later that evening that I had forgotten to speak of having Shayna at the temple. All I can assume was that she had spoke with the Jin and others for as I laid with her in the darkness lit only by pyre light within the temple did someone approach. My irrational, enraged cousin.... He held means to speak with me. I recall this clearly, his expressions, his vulgarity in words, his poise to do battle with me. To be frank, I was not going to tolerate the behavior any longer. Shayna had just found some peace, his arrival and presence was disturbing it. She was not content, therefore neither was I, if this altercation came to exchanging blows on her behalf so be it. He should not dishonor the priestess with such ill begotten terms. I prepared myself to take the oncoming impact to retaliate...

That was all... blackness, nothingness... The next moment I found myself in Shayna’s home, on her plush comforts of pillows and furs, confused and disorientated. Her face close to mine her tone but a question of my name “ Ra’rhuk? “

#Ra'rhuk's journal

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movieswithkevin27 · 7 years ago

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Everyone Says I Love You

Each passing film Woody Allen I watch, I love. No matter how similar they are to one another at times or the consistent themes or even the same actors popping up can dissuade me from loving his work. Yet, in saying that, there has to be a film of his that knocked me so head-over-heels that it had me laughing throughout. Most of his films are great and lose a bit of steam towards the end or go the opposite route and only start to really hit their stride towards the end. Everyone Says I Love You, however, is a film that hits all of the right notes from the very beginning. As a musical romantic comedy, the film stands as Allen’s sole musical endeavor and yet it never feels out of his nature. Using realistic singing voices (read: decent to bad), comical musical numbers, and gooey song lyrics, as he explores the nature of love, the ups and downs, and the difference in love-based actions by everybody who engages in the feeling, Everyone Says I Love You is an absolute riot. Touching on various typical Allen themes - the nature of love, philosophy, psychotherapy, atheism, mortality, the changing of times (healthy food and technology), and politics - Everyone Says I Love You is whole-heartedly a Woody Allen film but it is handled - due to the music - in such a unique way that it stands apart from the rest of his filmography and becomes its own beast. Giving him room to honor old Hollywood, satire classic musicals, and deliver all of his typical neurosis, the film is perhaps the best Woody Allen film I have seen.

As with many Allen films, the plot is manic, neurotic, and obsessive. Here, however, it takes a page out of the book of Radio Days with a large family as the center for the film. At the center are exes Joe (Woody Allen) and Steffi (Goldie Hawn). The two remain good friends, while Joe struggles repeatedly to find somebody to love as he is still hung up on Steffi. For her part, Steffi is now married to Bob (Alan Alda). Joe and Steffi had one daughter together, D.J. (Natasha Lyonne) who serves as the narrator to our tale. D.J. is boy crazy as a college-aged girl, bouncing from one soul mate to the next, swearing she loves them, and even planning to marry one of them. Meanwhile, Bob and Steffi had four children together - Skylar (Drew Barrymore), Scott (Lukas Haas), Lane (Gaby Hoffmann), and Laura (Natalie Portman) - who all go through their own issues. Skylar is set to be married to Holden (Edward Norton), but falls for an ex-convict named Charles (Tim Roth) who her mother Steffi (as a democrat who regrets her privileged upbringing) campaigned for to receive parole. Lane and Laura compete over a boy named Jeffrey Vandermost (John Griffin), who turns out to be the heir to a major fortune. Scott, due to what is eventually revealed to be a brain blockage that is suffocating his thought process, is a conservative Republican which puts him at odds with Democratic father Bob, who grew up poor thus he does not have the same guilt as wife Steffi. Meanwhile, Joe tries to woo Von (Julia Roberts). With the assistance of D.J., who has overhead Von’s therapy sessions with one of her’s friends mothers in a fashion similar to the eavesdropping in Allen’s Another Woman, Joe pours it on thick and expresses a love for everything that he knows Von to love. As typical, a lot of theorizing about the nature of love, the ups and downs, and the swearing off of loving only to then love again occurs, but what becomes abundantly clear through Everyone Says I Love You is that nobody has any idea what they are doing. It is a free-flowing film with a quick pace to match just how quickly one’s mind changes as to where their feelings lie. There is no consistency and people, unfortunately, suffer from this ebb and flow of emotion with the tone and bouncy style of the film capturing this brilliantly.

While Allen is not really known for his musicals (okay, he is not known at all for musicals), Everyone Says I Love You nonetheless fits right into the classic Allen narrative formula. At the center of this film are a manic family defined by their neurosis and who brush shoulders with people who use psychoanalysis extensively. As their grandfather dies, the family does not mourn but instead takes it as a chance to ruminate on what happens after death with Bob asserting that he is absolutely an atheist though he was raised Jewish. During this same moment, a remark is made about how the standards for what is good to eat changes all the time, which falls right in line with Von’s earlier complaints about technology which previously led to Joe to invest in a typewriter. The politics in this film are decidedly Democratic with Republicanism defined as being a mental disorder, but Allen does not go easily on the Democrats as he mocks their lax attitude towards convicted criminals and their “bleeding heart” nature. In essence, all of this combines into a perfect combination of everything that a Woody Allen film can be about. There is religion, psychoanalysis, discussions about mortality, a resentment about the changing of the times, and the mocking of politics while being deeply political itself. Furthermore, Everyone Says I Love You additionally establishes itself as classic Allen material with how referential it is to old Hollywood. Name dropping Bernardo Bertolucci or Noel Coward, while Joe makes a crack about how Kirk Douglas playing Vincent Van Gogh is the only thing he knows about art, Everyone Says I Love You is a film that, while greatly experimental for Allen in terms of execution, is at its core a film that hardly breaks new ground for Allen. All of his films have these same themes and the same knack for referencing the classics or filmmakers who Allen idolizes. Yet, while it is nothing ground-breaking for him, what establishes this one as being one of his finest is the package in which it comes. Utilizing musical conventions could have been dangerous, but under Allen’s steady hand, he manages to balance the need for musical numbers with his typically neurotic sense of humor and his typical thematic endeavors with relative ease.

In the process, Allen creates a film that is as much a referential and deeply derivative as it is a satire about the musicals of old. The irreverent randomness of the musical numbers - such a ghost-led number or one set in a hospital where even the patients get in on the act - mocks the exuberance and burst of emotion of classic Hollywood musicals by pointing out their absurdity and then taking it a step further, a classic trait of satire. The ghosts or the patients may be absurd to see engaging in song and dance, but so are the other-worldly dance numbers in the middle of the street like in West Side Story or Gene Kelly running around and snagging light poles in Singin’ in the Rain. None of it makes sense and Allen, while honoring those musicals’ sensibilities and style, mocks the absurdity of their numbers with hysterically conceived ideas that only get increasingly absurd and funny as the film progresses. However, where the film truly nails the musical satire bit of its focus is in the final number. As the film switches from being partially set in New York City to having the whole cast converge in Paris - both classic musical settings with even La La Land switching to Paris by the end - Allen puts both Joe and Steffi at a bridge that carries a lot of memories for them before they break into song and dance. As the number progresses, Steffi is put on a wire, floating over Joe or sliding a hysterical distance away from him as if she were skating on ice. With these exaggerated movements, the whimsical nature of the scene, and the otherwise classic choreography of the number, Allen skewers the exuberant, over-stuffed, and fantastical nature of musicals with a closing number that allows Everyone Says I Love You to end on a truly excellent comedic note.

However, one of the best touches of Everyone Says I Love You is the singing. As an Allen film, it is obviously a romantic comedy with this musical touch being in addition to the other two bits. Thus, it is no surprise that everybody uses their natural singing voice - except Hawn who sung worse on purpose and Barrymore who was dubbed because she thought she was too awful - to communicate this tone. The singing is never bad, but it is decidedly average and realistic. It is not Hollywoodized, autotuned, or commercialized, just average people walking around the streets singing about love or their broken heart. With the pitch perfect notes, Everyone Says I Love You doubles down on its satire as it breaks the facade created by musicals - the facade being that this is the real world where these people are just so happy they sing perfectly and dance perfectly without any help - with these average people stumbling their way through these overly mushy songs about how they feel in the present moment. This incredibly tongue-in-cheek decision made by Allen to let his cast sing as they normally would is not just great for the satire, but great for the tone of the film. If he had stuck with great singing, the musical numbers would be at odds with the comedic approach to the rest of the film. It would be as if half the film was trying to be a serious romantic musical while the other half was just a typical neurotic Allen comedy. The pairing would be awkward and, largely, unenjoyable. However, as the entire cast sings poorly, it matches the light, not-to-be-taken-seriously tone of the rest of the film and allows the hilarity of the numbers and musical encounters to take center stage instead of how great their singing voices are.

In blending the romance, comedy, and musical, elements of the film, Allen deftly juggles everything he throws at this film and allows each piece to complement one another rather than stealing the focus for itself. The romance is gooey, creepy, and neurotic, as it always is in Allen films. The aforementioned endeavor to show how hopeless everyone is in love is well-written and often exemplified by the neurotic encounters between characters that elicit laughs or the musical moments expressing this hopelessness. All combine to make the romance always feel authentic and the problems the characters face are always grounded in reality in spite of the inclination on their part to break into song. The comedy is typically excellently timed and delivered, right down to visual gags such as the camera exploding as Joe takes a picture. It, like the romance, both enhances the awkwardness of the romantic relationships - such as Skylar screwing up deciding to go with Charles or as she eats her engagement ring with Holden - and makes the musical moments all the more enjoyable as Allen tosses in irreverent numbers or visual gags in those scenes. The musical bits are well-written and perfectly sung for the style of the film, while also serving to reveal a lot of inner thoughts regarding the romantic side of the film and helping to make the film funnier due to the goofy choreography or lyrics. In essence, what makes Everyone Says I Love You so effective is how top-notch each element of this film is in its own right and how it blends into the others. This is a film that is romantic, funny, and has great music. It does not sacrifice one or the other to give another side of the film more screen time, instead they all gel with one another as Allen deftly weaves them all together to create a highly entertaining and enjoyable experience.

A funny, inventive, daring, and incredibly unique take on Woody Allen’s classic narrative and themes, Everyone Says I Love You is a film with strong acting, fun musical numbers, top-notch comedy, and authentic romance. Honestly, there is not much this film does wrong with Allen hardly ever putting a foot wrong in this one. This one is very much an under-the-radar film from Allen, but for me, it is low-key his best film.

#film analysis #movie reviews #film reviews #1996 movies #1990s movies #woody allen #everyone says i love you #natasha lyonne #goldie hawn #julia roberts #natalie portman #edward norton #drew barrymore #alan alda #lukas haas #tim roth #billy crudup #liv tyler

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