#that flaming angel joins our ranks

[fghtinus]

[leareadsheresy]

Descent of Angels

This post contains spoilers for Descent of Angels, by Mitchel Scanlon, first published as a novel on (as nearly as I can tell) October 29th, 2007.

It's fine. It's not as bad as people say. I mean, it's not good literature, like, this is absolutely licensed tie-in fiction, of the sort that gets labeled extruded fantasy product, but as extruded licensed tie-in fiction it at least tries to do something interesting.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Descent of Angels is the first Heresy book about the Dark Angels, and all I ever hear about the Dark Angels Horus Heresy books is how bad they are. Seems like this is the only one Mitchel Scanlon wrote, so maybe the later ones are much worse and this is just tainted by association. It's interestingly structured and I can see the better book it could be. So, as is becoming customary, here's plot summary. I swear I wasn't planning on having this fuckin' blog be 90% plot summary by volume.

Our viewpoint character is Zahariel, supplicant in the Order, which is a knightly order on Caliban, which is a Middle Ages Arthurian Britain planet (except somehow they've retained the tech to make powered armor, chainswords, and boltguns, albeit primitive ones compared to Space Marine tech). The book starts before Caliban is discovered by the Imperium, so at the start of the book it's still a planet of great forests and walled settlements, protected by a bunch of knightly orders whose job is to fight the "great beasts," a category of monsters who haunt Caliban, each one unique and apparently unaging. Most of the knightly orders have their membership limited to various noble houses, but the (otherwise nameless) Order with a capital O is open to commoners and quickly growing to eclipse all the others, in part because it's open to commoners and in part because it's lead by two genius charismatic strategist. The first is a guy named Luther, who is a native of Caliban and who we are informed in any other time would have been the sort of hero remembered for thousands of years as the preeminent warrior and leader of his time, but who is utterly eclipsed by Lionel Johnson Lion el'Johnson a.k.a. the Lion, Son of the Forest, a ten foot tall giant superman who Luther just found in the forest one day, befriended, and taught language, and who turned out to be a tactical genius with the charisma of a god because he's a Primarch, this is the story of how the Emperor finds the Primarch of the Dark Angels. Sort of.

But mostly not! As the book starts, the Lion is in the ninth year of his ten year crusade to unite all the knightly orders of the planet and utterly wipe out the great beasts, and mostly the story is about Zahariel, an aspirant to the Order, and his rise through the ranks. Imagine a Horus Heresy book where all the named characters the Horus Heresy fans are itching to learn about are off to the side as secondary characters and the main protagonist is a dude with his own stuff going on. It's neat! This is what I mean when I say it's trying to do something interesting!

It's divided into four parts.

The first part is Zahariel as an aspirant, trying his best and engaging in a friendly rivalry with his cousin Nemiel, who joined it at the same time as him. This is the sort of rivalry where both try to keep it friendly but Nemiel harbors a secret flame of bitter jealousy in his heart that Zahariel doesn't really reciprocate, which does not pay off in this book but is very loudly present so I assume it'll be a big deal later because I know future Dark Angels books also star these characters. He meets Luther and the Lion and other higher-ups in the Order, gets mentored by a knight named Amadis, and at one point during a routine training exercise with a bunch of other aspirants where they're attacked by a great beast by surprise, he does something heroic and injures it so a full knight can finish it off before too many aspirants are killed. We also get hints that maybe Luther also harbors a bitter flame of jealousy in his heart towards the Lion, despite them being best friends. Also, the Lion's personality here is very much in line with how he's characterized in the 40k book The Lion: Son of the Forest, which is where he's reintroduced into that setting having slept for ten thousand years, which is interesting because his personality there is famously not in line with how he's characterized in future Heresy books. I guess that wasn't as much author fiat as people like to say, but rather a deliberate reversion to his initial characterization, which genuinely does fit with what he gets up to in that book.

Anyway the second part timeskips forward to when Zahariel is fifteen years old and starts with some politics between the Order and a rival order, the Knights of Lupus. The Knights of Lupus oversee an area of Caliban called the Northwilds, which are the only place left on the planet the Order hasn't cleansed of great beasts because the Knights of Lupus don't want them operating in their territory. Zahariel sits in on a diplomatic talk between the Lion and the head Lupus knight, a guy named Sartana; Zahariel is there because the Knights of Lupus are having recruiting problems and the Lion wants to show off all the cool aspirants he has no trouble recruiting. Sartana asserts that the Lion agreed not to go into the Northwilds and the Lion is like "No, I never agreed to that, I said we wouldn't go there for now but obviously I meant I was going to go there once we'd cleared the great beasts out everywhere else." Then the Order gets word that a settlement near the Northwilds called Endriago is beset by a great beast, and Amadis, who was born there, goes off to kill it. He comes back dying and gives his bolt pistol to Zahariel, who immediately declares a quest against this Beast of Endriago, which is a "Calibanite lion," a particularly fearsome monster of a sort that only Lion el'Johnson has ever successfully killed before.

This is some weird-ass vision quest shit, and it is both the best part of the book and would benefit from being even weirder-ass vision quest shit. Zahariel meets a peasant guide who tells him where the monster's located and leads him to the rough area but refuses to accompany him the whole way, while invoking the name of the Watchers in the Dark, some sort of deific figures that Zahariel knows about but doesn't believe in because the Order is (of course; they're protagonists in a 30k novel) atheistic, and then of course in the forest Zahariel meets some Watchers in the Dark! They're the little robed guys who look like Jawas and who carry gear for the Dark Angels in 40k. They speak to him psychically, tell him to go back, argue about whether he should be killed or not because he's apparently tainted somehow, warn against continuing the crusade against the great beasts, and explain that they, like the Order, are here on Caliban because they're fighting some great evil of which the great beasts are only a symptom. Zahariel vows to fight all evil, including whatever this evil they're fighting is, and so they let him go and just tell him not to pursue the easy path to power that's already unlocked in him. Then he fights the Beast of Endriago and kills it by using some sort of psychic power that slows down time and lets him see inside it so he can target its heart perfectly with his pistol shots, so hey, turns out he's been a secret psyker this whole time and he just found out. He goes home and everyone's like "We thought for sure you were dead."

As much as I like this bit I think it'd be better if it were even weirder and more allegorical.

Then the rest of Part 2 is taken up by the war between the Order and the Knights of Lupus, who are still refusing to let the Order operate in the Northwilds. It ends with the Order's siege of the Knights of Lupus stronghold, where they find that the Knights of Lupus have been capturing and sheltering great beasts, which they let loose on the Order knights. Zahariel and Nemiel, who's honestly a much bigger presence in this book than I'm making it sound here, confront Sartana, who explains that he's been opposed to the Lion's crusade against the great beasts because once they're all wiped out the purpose of the knightly orders will be over, and absent an external enemy humanity will turn on itself. My read of it is he also has some sort of additional motivator that ties into the Watchers in the Dark being afraid that killing all the great beasts will ultimately make the problem they're a symptom of worse (it's Chaos, it's always Chaos, Caliban is a planet infested with Chaos, the great beasts are enfleshed warp monsters). Sartana kills himself rather than let Zahariel and Nemiel kill him and then the war's over, the last of the great beasts are dead, and for their actions in siccing great beasts on the Order, the Knights of Lupus are remembered as monsters and traitors to humanity, and the war against them as just and righteous, but Zahariel remembers that initial confrontation between Sartana and the Lion where it seemed like the Lion was trying to goad Sartana into a war. Also the Lion starts favoring Zahariel because they're the only two people on the planet who've ever killed Calibanite lions.

Part 3 is the Imperium arrives and members of the I Legion, who Lion el'Johnson is the Primarch of, show up and greet him; they also do all the usual Imperial Compliance things like send out missionaries to preach the Imperial Truth and use the Mechanicum to start clearing great tracts of land and crack open mountain ranges for mining and such. The Lion is declared the new leader of the I Legion, which he renames the Dark Angels after mythological knights from Calibanite history who first fought the great beasts, and Zahariel and Nemiel start training again in a Space Marine recruitment drive. Older members of the Order do not like this sudden and drastic set of changes to Calibanite lifestyle and culture, and Nemiel invites Zahariel to a secret midnight meeting where some older Order members who used to belong to the other, shittier, more elitist knightly orders plot to turn the planet's population against the Imperium by committing some sort of mass atrocity and framing the Imperium for it, but they drop that plan in favor of trying to assassinate the Emperor of Mankind who's set to visit soon. Zahariel is vocally against this and they just sort of, uh… let him leave the secret meeting where only they know he's there? Nemiel follows after him and Zahariel goes "Tell them to drop their plans or I'll snitch on them" and Nemiel goes "Dude they didn't mean anything by it, remember when we used to imagine killing our least favorite instructors to blow off steam?" and Zahariel's like "Just make sure they know if they try anything I'll snitch" and Nemiel promises he'll get right on that.

So later Zahariel is part of the Lion's honor guard when the Emperor's about to arrive and he notices one of the guys from the meeting is in the crowd acting shifty, and his latent psyker powers tell him the bag the guy's holding is dangerous so he breaks formation to chase the guy down and discovers the bag is full of explosives, at which point a space marine in attendance grabs them both and calls them traitors and sends them up to a ship in orbit to be interrogated. The interrogator is a psyker who reads Zahariel's mind, figures out he's also a psyker, and tells him to tell the truth ("I could just take it from you but if I did there wouldn't be much of you left afterwards"), so Zahariel tells the whole thing except for the part where Nemiel was the one who invited him to the meeting, because he doesn't want Nemiel to get in trouble and he's pretty sure Nemiel really believed the bit about the meeting just being people blowing off steam. Just to summarize, Nemiel is now both harboring a secret one-sided bitter resentment against his childhood friend/rival and also maybe a secret traitor against the Imperium. This is the last time in the book where this matters! Anyway all the space marines are impressed by Zahariel preventing an assassination attempt on the Emperor and he's initiated into the Dark Angels and so are Nemiel and their other two friends I haven't bothered to name or describe. He gets trained by the psyker interrogator guy.

Part 4 is full Great Crusade. All these people we've been following as initiates to the Order are now Dark Angels Space Marines and they're doing a Compliance on a planet called Sarosh, which claims to want to join the Imperium but they have this political system where nobody's a full-time bureaucrat so all the bureaucracy is handled by part-time bureaucrats, which comprise a quarter of the planetary population, and the rules and regulations are so complex that it takes forever to do anything. (Also the only obvious punishment they have for criminals is to make them spend more time doing bureaucracy.) The White Scars Legion, who we haven't previously met in this series, are overseeing it but they want to get the hell out of here and do motorcycle combat like they're good at on more exciting planets, and the Lion is new to command of the Dark Angels, so the Dark Angels are reassigned to take over so the White Scars can do something more useful. Nemiel takes it as an insult, Zahariel is like "Dude it's just our duty, somebody's gotta do the boring jobs" and Nemiel complains that Zahariel is always going on about duty instead of glory, no red flags here, surely this isn't setting up some sort of internal schism where a portion of the Dark Angels are inclined to side with the gloryhound Horus while others will do their duty to the Emperor.

The planetary leader flies up to orbit to meet with the Lion on the planet's sole remaining orbital craft and seems much more accommodating of the Dark Angels than he was with the White Scars, and in the hangar, Luther and Zahariel happen to be around to inspect that orbital craft. Luther sees something weird about it and tries to pretend he doesn't and sends Zahariel away, and Zahariel leaves but then gets suspicious and goes back only to realize that the orbital craft a) couldn't possibly survive re-entry into the atmosphere so the planetary leader intended the trip to be one-way and b) seems to have a false nose cone. Luther comes back in and is like "Oh so you figured it out, huh? Yeah, it's a bomb, they're trying to kill us." Zahariel wants to know why Luther didn't take action against it as soon as he realized, and Luther admits that he was tempted to just leave and let the bomb go off and blow up the ship and kill the Lion because he's been jealous of being in his shadow for decades, but then says he got two steps out of the hangar bay and realized he couldn't go through with it because the Lion is his BFF. They vent the hangar and the bomb gets sucked out into space and explodes, during which time the planetary leader is up in a diplomatic chamber telling the Lion off and saying the Imperium are godless blasphemers and Sarosh is a godly planet who will triumph over the invaders.

Planet erupts in rebellion and it turns out their god is a big warp parasite that's been eating like five percent of the planetary population, and the Dark Angels go to war. Zahariel, the Lion, and that interrogator psyker from earlier go on a mission to blow up the warp parasite god with a psychic nuke in a sequence that feels like it's just there because the book has a quota of action scenes to fill out. Once that's done, the god's psychic hold over the population goes away and resistance to Imperial Compliance collapses. The book ends with the fleet leaving Sarosh, but Zahariel and Luther along with a bunch of other Dark Angels get sent back to Caliban to garrison it, presumably because the Lion learned about that whole "Tempted to kill me" thing and is big mad about it -- or at least that's my read, it's not made explicit but it feels to me like that's because Zahariel isn't privy to the Lion's reasoning.

(Incidentally, Luther and the other older members of the Order were too old to be turned into proper space marines, so the Lion arranged to have them be surgically altered into faux-space-marines instead, which is both very funny because it means Luther, one of the most famous traitor space marines in 40k since Dark Angels started getting lore turns out to have been not technically a space marine at all the whole time, and also kind of neat because it lets future Heresy authors put a few female counts-as-space-marines into these books here and there later without breaking their "geneseed only works on dudes" rule.)

And like… you know, I think I like this one more after typing up all of the above? It answers the question "What went down between Luther and the Lion?" (which up until this point had been a long time 40k history mystery) in a fairly prosaic way, but it also does this whole cool thing with pre-Imperial Caliban and half the book barely reads as a Horus Heresy book and it's just neat. It would deffo be a better book if it had committed to the bit more and had ended with the war against the Knights of Lupus and the arrival of the Imperium, though, and I can also see how people who wanted more space marine action would be put off by the first two thirds where everything is weird knightly order politics in Space Arthurian Britain and quests against mythical chimerae.

I was really bothered by the scene where Zahariel is invited to a secret conspiracy meeting to usurp control of the Order from the Lion and start a war against the Imperium, and he's like "I'm not down with this" and they just let him go back to being a favored member of the Lion's honor guard. It kind of makes sense if you assume these people are really not used to conspiring and are really bad at it, which I guess fits for a bunch of old knights who are used to dealing with duels and quests and not cuthroat politics and assassination conspiracies, but it could have been handled more deftly or with more tension or something. At the time it really felt like a conversation where a bunch of people abruptly stop acting like humans and have a talk no humans would have for the sake of the plot, the hand of the author or the editorial mandate reaching in to make sure the book sticks to the outline, and not, like, an interesting point of conflict in the story that adds to the quality of the story overall. Other than that it is pretty okay and often at least interesting if not well-executed. The prose is pretty clunky a lot of the time, but this is licensed fiction so that's par for the course.

Also, I would like to point out that when Lore Explainers (which, ugh, I guess I am now) go into this part of the Heresy they very often make it out like the Order is the only knightly order on all of Caliban, which always sounded fucking stupid to me. Reading the book and learning that no, they're not, and in fact their rapid rise to prominence and subsequent rivalry with other knightly orders is a huge part of the plot is exactly the kind of thing I am reading this series for.

Thinking about it, I suspect one of the reasons this book is unpopular is that it's not an exploration of the elements of the setting people were eager to see. Dark-Angels-as-cloistered-questing-knights is a very 40k thing, and where 30k often excels is when it presents ways that 30k Space Marine Legions are meaningfully different from their 40k status quo. Later on, when Dark Angels get more popular 30k coverage, it's as the (roman numeral) I Legion, the prototype Legion created by the Emperor as the testing ground for the tactics of all the other Legions, who contain reflections of all the other Legions in them, and who are especially entrusted with all sorts of forbidden and devastating technology the Emperor doesn't let anyone have, with the Lion himself being a dour commander entrusted with forbidden secrets the reader really wants to know. Absolutely none of that is in this book, this is a completely different take on a prequel to 40k Dark Angels that doesn't seem to have stuck with the fanbase because, while it tackles the subject matter from an unexpected perspective, the subject matter itself is too familiar.

I guess I'll see how future Dark Angels books pay off the Zahariel/Remiel rivalry that's set up here, but if they're anything like their rep, the answer will be "badly." Something to look forward to!

[davepetacreates]

Episode 1 (WTCV) - Laika

--start of broadcast--

CECIL: A soul is not always in the places it needs to be in. And sunglasses won’t protect you from the flaming tendrils of the green sun.

Welcome to Nightvale. 

[musical interlude]

CECIL: Well, good morning, listeners! To start off today’s broadcast, I think that we should discuss the newcomers in town. I sent interns Sapphrel and Ruben to go interrog– wait, no, that says interview – the incredibly large group that has taken over the Yellow Crown apartment complex. Yeah. Taken over. It’s a seriously large group. 

Interns Sapphrel and Ruben returned with the news that, in fact, there is no pumpkin, and there never even was one, and what pumpkin, and why are they talking about pumpkins anyway? 

I clarified that I had meant for them to interview the people who moved in, not the former residents. They exchanged looks with each other, said, “Ohhhhhhh,” with eight letters, and went back to the apartment complex. 

Yeah. Interns, am I right? *laughs*

In other news, Khoshekh has finally left the mens’ bathroom here at the radio station! I saw him just earlier chasing a dog around near the dog park. 

A perfunctory reminder to all Night Vale citizens that dogs are not allowed in the dog park. Humans are not allowed in the dog park. You may see hooded figures in the dog park. Do not look at, think about, or interact with the hooded figures in the dog park. 

Josie, out near the old car lot, has said that some new figures have joined the ranks of the Erikas. These new figures, who are definitely not and never will be angels, as angels do not exist, say that they came from the mountains, which also do not exist. Unless you believe that they do. Then they exist. Anyways, these new additions call themselves Nanna, Corbin, Crow, Prince, Carnelian, and Carols. They are, respectively, blue with a tail, flashing orange and green with legs, orange with a tail, green with horns and a tail, flashing pink and purple with legs, and light blue with horns, cat ears, and a tail. One of them appears to have teleportation powers. 

On – oh, hey! The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home has just handed me my phone. On it is a – a video… of the inside of the newcomers’... apartment buildings… Ugh. How is that much soda even healthy for a guy? Oh my god, is that Good Luck Chuck? Oh, well, at least he has Scott Pilgrim. That somewhat makes up for it. Wait – what the fuck? Did that girl just disappear into thin air? Did she steal from the Ralphs? Oh, no – she’s explaining how she left money. Alright, then, that’s fine. Ewww – I don’t want to see this part, skip skip skip skip skip – Oh, there’s Khoshekh! I was wondering where he had gotten off to! Aww, and it looks like the girl with dog ears is petting him! Who knew?

Well, anyway, it does not appear as though these newcomers are threats to our town! What a relief, Night Vale! What a relief. 

Dear Listeners, I have sad news. I just received word from interns Sapphrel and Ruben that interns Col, Void, Cactus, and Lynx are dead. Their bodies have not been found, as they are, apparently, inside the black hole outside the Moonlite All-Nite Diner. Intern Sapphrel tracked Void’s phone, and found it there. Our hearts go out to the families of interns Col, Void, Cactus, and Lynx. We're very sorry for your loss, and wish you the best in life. They died in the line of service, and were good workers who only wanted the best.

And now, the weather.

41. Moonsetter - Homestuck Vol. 9

Oh! It seems the ghost of intern Void has appeared in the studio, listeners! Let's hear what Void has to say.

INTERN VOID:

CECIL: Oh! Well, thank you, Void! 

Look, I know that the City Council has a policy that dead people can't intern here, and, listeners, I follow every rule that they set up, but you're a qualified candidate, right?

So, since you can't legally intern, you could come work here as our diplomat to the world of the dead! What do you say?

There is silence. She does not appear to be saying anything yet, but instead, mulling it over.

I do rather hope she accepts the offer, listeners. It would be a nice gesture to the ghosts, and, anyways, she could bridge people with their families!

If you have a loved one who died, imagine how lovely it would be to hear how they're doing!

Oh! She's speaking!

INTERN VOID: You can't offer me a job and immediately get mad that I'm not saying anything!! Also, I don't know that many ghosts…

CECIL: She looks… sad, for some reason? Or maybe just put-out.

Also, what do you mean, get mad? I was just describing to our listeners what was happening in the studio. I wasn’t mad at you. It makes sense that you wouldn’t know many ghosts, seeing as how you only recently died.

INTERN VOID: There's not many ghosts in space. 

CECIL: Wait, you’re in space?

INTERN VOID: Yeah. There’s a doggo here. It’s a very good doggo. *mild shuffling ensues* who’s a good girl~

CECIL: Huh. So space is real, unlike what Hiram says. Remember that campaign? Honestly. What a load of dragonshit! He based his entire campaign around defunding the space center, saying it was dumb.

What is the dog's name?

INTERN VOID: I’m not sure, as I didn’t pay too much attention in Martian class. But she has a space suit?!

CECIL: Okay...?

Wait! I think I know this dog! Is her name Laika?

INTERN VOID: I think so! She reacts to it, at least! 

She is a very good dog. 

CECIL: Oh! One sec, I'm going to need to call Carlos! He'll be very interested in this!

*phone ringing*

Hey, Carlos! One of my interns at the station died.

CARLOS: Oh. Oh, honey, I'm sorry-

CECIL: No, it's a good thing! She found Laika!

CARLOS: Wait, what?

Repeat that, please?

She found Laika?

She's in space???

I thought you said she died!

CECIL: I did! She's a ghost!

And she found Laika! 

CARLOS: Oh. OH! Oh my god! Hold on, I'll be over in a few.

I love you, bye!

CECIL: Aw, I love you too!

*hangs up phone*

Isn't he just a sweetheart? Honestly.

INTERN VOID: He is very sweet. But, the job thing…?

CECIL: Okay, I'm reconsidering. Maybe you could work with Carlos? He's been studying the position of Night Vale in the galaxy in comparison with the rest of the Earth. He's become very interested in space recently, and you, being a ghost and therefore able to actually go to space, could help with that!

If you want a job, that is.

I just realized how presumptive I'm being! You're in space! You might not even be able to work here on Earth! I am so sorry for how insensitive I've been, please forgive me, Void.

Honestly, my big mouth never stops running.

But the offer still stands if you do want it.

INTERN VOID: Oh, heck yee, I wanna be a space diplomat!

CECIL: Alright. When Carlos comes over, I’ll let him know and he can get you set up! Does that sound good?

INTERN VOID: YEET

CECIL: Perfect. 

Thank you, listeners, for sticking with us through that... brief interruption to normal matters. Now, for the Community Calendar.

Monday is Opposites Day, and is no longer going to be Monday, but Yaednehm. Yadmehn? Yadmon? I think that's right. Huh. The ground will be up, and all the blood will be rushing to our heads as we frantically contemplate what direction is what.

Tuesday will be a day in which you dream of a giant plush squid with narrowed eyes, embroidered onto a young girl's dress as she casts a spell over a well-loved bloodstone circle, trying to figure out how to save her friends and family from destruction. 

Wednesday is canceled.

Thursday is the big homecoming baseball game against Desert Bluffs! Desert Bluffs. Honestly, they're as likable as Steve Carlsberg! And that is not saying much of anything at all, listeners. Not much at all. Go get 'em, Scorpions.

Friday is origami day at the community center! Bring your kids for a day of fun! There will be activities held. Some of the activities will be closed off. Some will be imaginary. Some will be deadly. It's all part of the fun! And John Peters - you know, the farmer? - will be selling his imaginary corn snow cones there as well! I love those things. They're so nostalgic, you know? 

Saturday is the Concert of the Erikas. Come by Old Woman Josie's house out near the car lot to hear the definitely NOT angelic choir.

Sunday is also canceled.

I, for one, am excited for this week! We're going to have so much free time, what with two days canceled! What fun! Me and Carlos are going to take Estaban to go investigate some science-y things! He is such a cutie in a lab coat! Both of them are!

Next, dear listeners, we go to Traffic.

A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today is NOT this young man's birthday. The smell of cake permeates the air. This family is constantly on the run from the Secret Police for violating the ban on wheat and its byproducts. The dulcet tones of the radio host's voice lull the boy into a sense of complacency. Learned complacency, one could say. He's learned to take these kinds of peaceful moments when he can, as the times when he cannot are many.

A notification sounds from his computer. His friend with the purple text tells him that something is apparently going to happen on Tuesday that she's going to have to prevent. He tells TT to fuck off, and returns to gazing at the clouds. The red-flag-doohickey-thingy on the mailbox is down. It has been down. It will likely always be down, unless it's up. 

Further down the street, a teenager in a black sweatshirt stands wearily. They shield their eyes from the sun, staggering as they walk towards the young man's home. A mail truck pulls up to the home. They startle. The mail truck leaves the home. They run. As the young man perks up, they open the mailbox, steal the mail inside, and run away. The young man opens his front door and gives chase.

The timeline has been locked, listeners, and I can view it no longer. 

This has been traffic.

Listeners, we all have those moments when something is just so inevitable, so unchangeable, that we don't notice it? Well, today, I noticed it. I don't know what I noticed, but it was something, and I noticed the heck out of it. It was a young man in a red shirt, scars lacing down his neck, and I noticed. You are not alone. No one is alone. Loneliness is a concept. It is a state of emotion. One can be lonely, but one is never alone. Everyone is noticed. And when you are noticed, you are noticed. So please, take care, dear Listeners, and make sure to buy your privacy every month from the Secret Police. Remember, twenty a month keeps them out of your stuff.

A quick word from our sponsors:

Everyone turns into a spider eventually. Everyone goes through that awkward phase where they want to turn into a spider. And everyone goes through that phase where their spiders want to turn into them. But, for every stage of life, there's a certain black hole that wants to eat the spider inside your heart. If it's outside your heart as well, that's just a bonus. You will still be eaten. You just won't come back from it.

Walmart. Save money. Live better.

Our show is drawing to a close, dear listeners, but before we go, I have a daily prophecy to give! Let's see...

* slight plastic crinkling noises *

* sound of a bag opening * 

* eating sounds ensue * 

* a slip of paper scraping against something stale or burnt * 

Yjod pmr od gpt yszols gaumm. S nppl od mpyjomh eoyjpiy oyd qshrd. Trsvj omyp yjr dlu smf htsn pmr. Upi eoaa nr rcytrzrau fodsqqpomyrf eoyj ejsy upi gomf. Oy eoaa arsf upi yp trnra. Upi eoaa nr gohjyomh gpt upit aogr, s lmohjy om omlu stzpt. Fpm'y dsu er fofm'y estm upi.

* long silence *

W... What just happened? What was the prophecy? My God, dear Listeners, I don't think I know what I said! And I always know what I said. Do you think I was possessed? Hmm...

Anyway, as creepy as that was, everything must end, and this show is no different. I wish you all an amazing week. Stay tuned for the sounds of me curling up into a fetal position and having an existential crisis over what my brain does when it's on autopilot. It's terrifying to think it, but... It could hurt them. I could hurt them.

Fuck. 

Well, on that note, I leave you. Good night, Night Vale. Good night.

--end of broadcast (dated 2/6/23)--

[timelessxmemories]

Y E S

AYE AYE CAPTN!

So first of all, this is her backstory!

So, little spoiler from the background, Locket's mother was an experiment and then killed by Hojo, Locket's father, obviously, anyways, Hojo didn't want to experiment on Starlight, Locket's mother, mainly due to Locket being y'know, a baby, and Starlight being his wife and all, but eventually Shinra found out that Starlight was the last descendant of the angels and ordered Hojo to experiment on her, basically telling him that if she escapes kill her, not even considering Hojo's feelings or Locket's feelings. Of course, Shinra had a plan if Locket ever found out that her father used her mother as an experiment and killed her and such after she escaped, they told him to tell her that it was to put her out of her misery, and for Hojo to take the blame, knowing that it would ruin him and his daughter's relationship for good. Of course, when Starlight escaped, the reason why Hojo ended up running out of the lab so quickly is because he wanted to try and save her from death, but he was unable to. Starlight was killed, Hojo was devastated but had to remain calm and collected, despite his wife, the mother of his own child being literally dead now. He knew, that if Locket had ever found out about this, he would have to take the blame. He never told Locket that she was an angel, the last descendant just like her mother, because he wanted to protect her, he didn't want her to have the same fate Starlight did. So he hid it from her.

The Locket her father gave her when she was small, the bracelet she uses to summon her sword, her sword in general, the Mako green eyes from SOLDIER, her Moogle, Creme, her summon Leviathan and finally, her father, Hojo.

This is Lock:

Her views on love:

She finds love to be a little useless most of the times, she sees it as an obstacle that is often times in her way. However, she does have some moments where she wants to feel and be loved by someone. But she tends to shut that part out and block anyone from getting close to her in fear that she might become too vulnerable.

Basic backstory:

Lock was born to Hojo and an unknown woman, she is Hojo's biological child, her mother died when she was only 3 years old due to her father's experimentation upon her after finding out she was one of the last angels in Midgar. Hojo is a mad scientist, working for Shinra Electric Power Company. At the age of 16, Lock joined the Turks in Shinra to help out as much as she could. She learned a lot of scientific skills and research from her father and was trained by Angeal, a head SOLDIER. When she was 10 she became a SOLDIER, but soon after she was moved to become a Turk, leading into her becoming a higher ranked Turk due to her being a previous SOLDIER. Her father is what you would call an 'insane genius' and due to her inheriting those genes, she's one of the smartest and most skilled Turks in Shinra. She works alongside Reno, Rude, Tseng and Elena of the Turks. She does not know that her mother was experimented on by her own father. But you can bet that once she does, she won't like her father very much afterwards. She fights with a sword which holds 4 materia slots, when her fire materia is in use, her sword will light up into bright blue flames. Her father gave her a pendant when she was only so young which holds a materia called a Summoning Materia which holds the summon Leviathan. Leviathan is a water dragon summon. She also has a Moogle who follows her around named Creme, based around one of our alters here, who is also a Moogle named Creme.

Crackhead commentary:

"Cheese is just a concept. A mere figment of our imaginations." Lock spoke with a mocking tone as her friend, Nathaniel stared blankly at her. "What the fuck are you on?" He inquired, folding his arms over his chest as Lock sighs deeply. "Don't you understand, Nathaniel? Cheese.. it's... It's not real, Nathaniel!" Her response causes Nathaniel to glance around the room rather quickly, concerned that she might have had too much to drink. "Are you okay? I honestly have no idea what the fuck you're talking about." Lock frowns deeply, crouching down to the ground, picking a flower up sadly. "Think of the cheese, Nathaniel.. Think of the cheese!" In reply, Nathaniel simply walks away, shaking his head with a roll of his eyes. Surely, Lock was drunk or something along those lines. Either that or she just really cared about cheese for whatever reason.

[gmanwhore]

Lock was born to Hojo and an unknown woman, she is Hojo's biological child, her mother died when she was only 3 years old due to her father's experimentation upon her after finding out she was one of the last angels in Midgar. Hojo is a mad scientist, working for Shinra Electric Power Company. At the age of 16, Lock joined the Turks in Shinra to help out as much as she could. She learned a lot of scientific skills and research from her father and was trained by Angeal, a head SOLDIER. When she was 10 she became a SOLDIER, but soon after she was moved to become a Turk, leading into her becoming a higher ranked Turk due to her being a previous SOLDIER. Her father is what you would call an 'insane genius' and due to her inheriting those genes, she's one of the smartest and most skilled Turks in Shinra. She works alongside Reno, Rude, Tseng and Elena of the Turks. She does not know that her mother was experimented on by her own father. But you can bet that once she does, she won't like her father very much afterwards. She fights with a sword which holds 4 materia slots, when her fire materia is in use, her sword will light up into bright blue flames. Her father gave her a pendant when she was only so young which holds a materia called a Summoning Materia which holds the summon Leviathan. Leviathan is a water dragon summon. She also has a Moogle who follows her around named Creme, based around one of our alters here, who is also a Moogle named Creme. (Thank you for naming them! They are vv happy with it!)

Her Sword is a Buster Sword from SOLDIER which has been modified to her liking, and her eyes are Mako infused due to the Mako that has been injected into her being during SOLDIER.

Hojo is supposedly trying to protect her from harms way, for whatever reason he refuses to experiment on her as she is the last descendant of the Angels in Midgar.

Hojo:

Leviathan:

Creme:

Sword:

Eyes:

Very cool

[lily-of-christ]

Your soul is a jewel. A pearl He longs to find. A treasure for which He had paid the biggest price. The most precious friend for whom He had given away His life.

It's never too late to face the Love incarnate, the Man of Sorrow familiar and comprehensive of each weakness striking the humankind.

The Lord of Peace whom no earthly hate can surpass, the Saviour from any storm to call in the midst of tribulations.

The Light in the darkness that has no shadow in Him alight in the everlasting flame of the apocalyptic candlesticks.

The Divine Bridegroom who calls on the deepest abysses of our souls where the desire for Eternity lies, how often seemeingly conquered, recumbent in the muck of our sins but alive with us until the last breath.

The Word incarnate from whose lips we drink the sweetness of His Evangelic mysteries.

And the Advocate of Mercy who knows no end to His.

Look up to His divine Kingdom and the Saintly Choirs, the Angelic Adoration, the Mass of All Ages, day by day praising the Divine Lamb.

Call on Him. Join these divine ranks on earth, join the Church Militant.

Watch Him face to face in the Eucharistic Presence.

Meet Him in His absolutive words in the Sacrament of Penance.

Relive His Passion in the Holy Mass.

Find Him in silence and solitude in the divine contemplation.

Join His silent life of work in Nazareth pursuing your obligations and duties of life.

Proclaim His Divine Kingdom on earth through actions according to the evangelical counsels.

He is universal for any age and for any life. And yet all yours. There to be with you whatever it is your souls is meant for.

St. Mary Magdalene, pray for me so I might not waste God's Blood and Mercy and that I shall not return to my sins like a dog to His vomit. And if I do, caused by my weakness, may He pick me up and take by hand for I am small and feeble in spirit and body.

Christ, have mercy on me, a poor sinner. Let me seek You and let me find You and never depart from You.

Painting: Paolo Veronesi - Conversion of Mary Magdalene, National Gallery in London.

[shiningdesignersreflections]

Psst! Minor Spoilers!

We have a new Redeem Code! It gives you 200 Pink Dias and 18,888 Gold. The code is SHININGYOU. Be sure to redeem it within two weeks.

And that’s not all…

We are due for a game update next week. It’s not confirmed, but it’s very likely we will get the Angel and Demon Hell event sooner than July (first anniversary). We are probably going to get Chapter 12 with the next update (although the devs may be tricking us), and A&D is tied to the events of the chapter.

Plus, we are already getting Secret Letters in our Mailbox. In the Taiwanese server, 12 letters arrived, one per day, leading up to the arrival of the Desire Deity. And the Japanese server got Secret Letters in January and have just started the A&D event on 7 March.

Also, we are due for a Hell event in April or May. I am very suspicious that this next Hell will be the A&D event. In case it is the next one, here are some (minor!) spoilers to help you get ready.

(If you don’t want any spoilers, you can skip this part.)

Alright, to start off, when the Goddess of Desire comes, you will join an organization to fight alongside. (If you have played Love Nikki, think of the Four Gods Hell event.) Each group has a main character as a leader: Zoey (Justiciars), Qin Yi (Neverfall Troupe), Mercury (Mercury Group), and Loen (his secret organization, called Savior). This has no impact on the story itself. It just changes which award (most likely a new title) that you receive, as well as which celebration epilogue you watch.

Almost all characters from Volumn 1 appear in the Finale, including Ashley and Leonid. The story will contain strong moments of blood, hunger, and violence. It will get bleak, so emotionally prepare yourselves. On a happier note, past chapters will get new background art. You should especially check out the new art for Chapter 1 and Chapter 4.

The Goddess of Desire’s suit is a Pink/Sweet attribute. The non-spoiler reason why she has a Pink/Sweet and not a Purple/Sexy attribute is that she lures you in with sweet things and treats/rewards that you like. She is also very high-ranking, the same power as Loen’s Flame Fox suit.

Leonid’s suit is a Blue/Cool attribute, and its power is lower than Luming’s suit, but still very powerful. If you need a boost for Blue/Cool scoring, this is the perfect suit to get.

One suit takes about 180-200 pulls, and both suits take around 300-350 to complete. Plan accordingly, and make sure that you choose the suit you most want as your first suit.

Both of these suits will eventually get a Recolor: black for the Desire Deity and red for Leonid. I’m not sure when these Recolors will come, however.

And we will get a free UR suit, too! It’s Lilith’s Road to Coronation gown, and it is a Gold/Elegant attribute. If you haven’t been able to get Loen’s Glittering Date or Qin Yi’s Crimson Phoenix, this is the perfect suit to get for scoring boosts!

Much like the Wedding Hell, we will have a $130-ish Recharge Suit: Loen’s Triumph of Dawn. It’s a Ninir suit, and it is a Blue/Cool attribute.

Similar to the Chinese New Year Hell, this event will have its own Index (aside from Loen’s suit). As for the Archives:

-Leonid’s suit: Night of Reverie

-Goddess’ suit: Blinding Light

-Lilith’s suit: none (and it has no Reflection, just like other welfare suits)

-Loen’s suit: Symphony of Fate

We will also get up to 40 free pulls (to “lessen the sting” of having a Hell event so soon and the anniversary event coming so soon, according to the devs). This will help so much with the overall cost, so make sure to use all 40 pulls!

Be sure to use the code SHININGYOU to get lots of free diamonds and save up what you can!

Best of luck, Shining Designers!

[seraphsurvival]

episode 1: 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙𝙨 𝙖 𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙜

having completed all their challenges for week one it is time for the angels to face the music. with their votes in and team performances judged their final rankings decide who will continue on to become apart of 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇. will your favourite angel soar high or will they fall from grace ?

* note that indented + italic text like this means it is confessional footage *

the iconic seraph intro music played as the cameras focused on the show hosts nova and yen.

“good evening everyone and welcome to...” nova began before yen joined in “seraph!” they chorused.

“this week was a tough first week for our angels.” yen began before looking over at nova who enthusiastically nodded along . “they had 2 challenges to complete: the iconic angel song and a group performance.”

“having to juggle solo performances and group work proved to be quite difficult for some of our angels. both groups had their share of mishaps...” behind nova clips of the angels in their confessionals in tears or looking stressed covered the screen further proving her statement.

“but despite all of this we saw some amazing performances.” nova grinned as she turned back to all the angels on the platform behind her.

“judges, what do you think of our angels this week? who stood out the most to you?” yen questioned turning all focus to the panel of judges.

“i thought this week was fun, we got to see a different side to the angels usual concepts,” hyuna spoke first , making sunmi and j-hope nod along with her. “i personally really enjoyed ricky’s performance, it was so fun to watch. her expressions made it that much more entertaining.”

the camera focused on ricky as she bowed at the praise. her features stretched out in a bright smile as chloe squeezed her hand beside her happy for her new best friend.

“i think mine was yuri’s performance of ‘GOTTA GO’. she surprised me in a good way. i was not expecting her to stand out the way she did but i’m glad she did. i’m proud of her.” sunmi answered.

on stage yuri visibly blushed as she repeatedly bowed. her soft ‘thank you’ making sunmi smile sweetly.

“hmmm all the angels were truly excelled this week ,” j-hope chuckled , resting his head on his hand. “none of the performances were boring. did some have room for growth in technique terms? of course, but pretty much everyone performed well.”

“yeah, yeah, yeah. who was your favourite?” hyuna jokingly pushed making everyone laugh.

“if i had to pick i think my favourite would be summer’s cover of ‘DARE’. her lines were clean and moves sharp. it was great to see her do a much darker concept. you can tell why she is where she is.”

summer nodded happily as a response to j-hope’s comments. she had always been a huge fan of BTS and it took everything within her not to fangirl hearing her idol praise her for her performance.

“what about the groups what did you think?” nova questioned once again.

the judges shared a look with each other before hyuna leaned into her mic, “honestly group one really surprised us this week. im really impressed with their performance of ‘FAKE LOVE’.” the idol leaned forward to be in her fellow judge’s line of sight. “j-hope, was it up to standard?”

“it was definitely up to standard they really destroyed the performance. i feel honoured truly.” he chuckled

the entirety of group one laughed at his comment. each of the angels thanking him in their own regard, their pride evident in their faces the entire time. in juxtaposition the camera pans to team two who’s faces look less than impressed with

“overall, i’d say everyone did great today, yes there is definitely room for improvement but and i don’t think i’d be wrong if i said all us judges are proud of every single one of the angels on a successful first week,” sunmi concluded. hyuna and j-hope hummed in agreement and nodded along to every word she said. she sent the angels a reassuring thumbs up to try soothe the obvious nerves of all the angels on stage.

incase you missed it !

[ WATCH SOLO PERFORMANCES — HERE ]

[ WATCH GROUP PERFORMANCES — HERE ]

the lights dimmed as the entire mood of the studio shifted.

“even though all our angels deserve to soar high sadly for one angel their wings will be cut.” nova spoke, her serious tone emphasizing the tension in the studio.

“before we show the results here’s a refresher on how voting works: you have been voting all week for your favourite angel and those votes contribute 50 points each. these points are added to the group points.” she looked over at yen to signal her to say her next lines.

“but today’s episode has a special twist,” yen turned to the camera with a pause. “two angels will be going home today.” behind the hosts the angels heads snapped up in panic. none of them were aware of the double elimination.

“the first will be the angel with the lowest rank from the losing team, and the other will be the angel with the lowest overall ranking, even if she’s part of the winning team she’ll leave the show today.”

the silence in the studio was deafening. none of the angels dared say a word as they waited in anticipation for the results. the angels stood in the groups as they linked hands to give each other support.

“without further ado, let’s see the results.” nova spoke directing everyone’s eyes to the screen where everyone’s rankings were plastered.

𝙎𝙀𝙍𝘼𝙋𝙃 𝙒𝙀𝙀𝙆 𝙊𝙉𝙀 : 𝙁𝙄𝙉𝘼𝙇 𝙍𝘼𝙉𝙆𝙄𝙉𝙂

* every member of group 1 gets 350 points for placing first and every member of group 2 gets 250 points for placing last *

BAEBI - 1450 ( @whileinvenus )

YURI - 1300 ( @cube-vivid )

SUMMER - 1150 ( @se4sonz )

MIMI - 900 ( @inter-stellar-jyp )

RICKY - 850 ( @unholiied )

HAEJU - 800 ( @hcney-moon )

CHLOE - 800 ( @chloekwon )

EDEN - 750 ( @inter-stellar-jyp )

JADE - 750 ( @nct-krown )

AME - 700 ( @triptychexe )

DAHLIA - 650 ( @d3adfl0wers )

JAY - 500 ( @dulcetgg )

yuri brought her hands to her mouth, frozen in shock.

“i was not expecting to make it another week honestly,” she spoke in disbelief. “after being outshined by ricky all week, i thought it was over but here i am!” she giggled covering her mouth to hide the broad smile taking over her features.

baebi hugged her excitedly. her smile not only reflecting her pride in yuri’s high rank but also her own first place rank. pushing aside her dissatisfaction with their team losing she still was proud of what they’d done.

the same positivity was not felt as dahlia and jade saw the score board. as their team came last they knew someone was in jeopardy of going home but neither of them would’ve guessed it would be dahlia.

frozen in shock jade turned to dahlia who’s hand had flown up to her mouth as her eyes welled up. jade made quick movement to comfort dahlia before she fully broke down.

“don’t let them see you cry you know this says nothing about your talent or potential.” she whispered into dahlia’s ear. the older girl nodded along with jade’s words as she took deep breaths. as much as she was balanced now it still didn’t feel fair.

“dahlia doesn’t deserve this. she is one of the most talented girls here.” jade folded her arms as she turned her head to the side. “i can’t believe dahlia is gone and voice crack ricky is in the top 5. it doesn’t feel right.”

on the other team the girls huddle in an excited hug at their teams first place ranking. their teams ranking is what saved ame that week and she knew it. she had the second lowest rank of her team aside from jay who unfortunately had the least votes that week overall.

“at least some people voted for me”, she spoke to the camera as she let out a sigh. “i’ll just have to work extra hard next week,” she nodded as she encourage herself, trying her best to maintain the smile on her face no matter what.

in contrast to the rest of the girls , jay couldn’t keep her facade up. despite the positive energy around her she couldn’t stop the silent sobs that left her. she didn’t want her journey to end so abruptly, she deserved to stay longer mimi hanged her tightly as she let the taller girl cry into her shoulder. her eyes glossed over along with jays as she knew she was going to miss her, jay was one of the girls she’d grown closest to besides eden.

“i’m obviously going to miss jay,” mimi spoke softly wiping away at her tears. “she’s so talented i’m so sad to see her go. this week didn’t showcase her charms to the fullest,” she shook her head sadly as she sniffled.

the two eliminated girls took a step forward standing center stage as the judges said their last words.

“dahlia, how are you feeling?” nova asked as her teammates lovingly rubbed her back.

taking a deep breath dahlia spoke into the mic that was handed to her. “i’m obviously disappointed. our group didn’t go as planned and i just feel like i didn’t get to fully showcase what i’m capable of.” she sniffles loudly towards the end as she tried her best to hold in her tears.

“dahlia, you’re a talented girl. it's sad because it really felt as if you didn’t know why you were here, i couldn’t feel your passion and you need that to sell a performance.” sunmi spoke her eyebrows furrowed and lips downturned.

dahlia nodded, a sad tight lipped smile on her features as she handed to mic back. she was so focused on the rest of the team not messing up as well as feeling cheated out of the roll of main vocalist played against her. and it was too late to try again all she could do is find the spark that once lit a flame of passion in her and try again outside the show.

“jay,” j-hope sighed as the tall girl bowed her head unable to even look at the judges. “it’s sad seeing you go,” he admitted with a pout. “but i think it’s because you just haven’t found your sparkle yet and i think that’s something you have to do outside of ‘seraph’. but don’t give up and keep up the good work , and I’m sure you’ll be the next big thing.” all jay could do was nod, even having been handed the mic she couldn’t speak a word.

the focus shifted from the bottom 2 girls to ame who although safe still looked as distraught as the other angels.

“ame, you were so close to the bottom this week,” hyuna pointed out to which ame nodded her face sullen and disappointed. “you got lucky tonight but don’t let your guard down,” she pointed at the girl, giving her a knowing look. “something needs to change or you’ll be the next to say goodbye.” she warned. ame nodded once again taking a respectful bow.

the cameras focused back on the two hosts as the girls regrouped behind them.

the two girls descended the platform. dahlia wrapped her arm around jay as she still sobbed uncontrollably. the two made their way off stage waving to the remaining angels before exiting the studio completely and making their way to the dorms to pack up their belongings.

“it’s always sad to see and angel take off, especially so early in the show,” yen sighed sadly. nova hummed in agreement,” but sadly that’s how the show goes.”

“but let’s not focus on only the negatives but some positives. ladies and gentlemen give it up for our remaining 10 angels!” nova cheered making the studio erupt in excited claps and cheers. “congratulations girls you’ve made the top 10 out of hundreds of applicants!” the girls cheered once again as their moods lifted a significant amount compared to the somber mood earlier.

“that’s it for this episode! stay tuned to see how the angels spread their wings and soar through weekly challenges and compete to be a part of the ultimate super group !” yen ran over her signature closing line once again, sharing a sweet smile with her cohost

“thanks to everyone who participated and we’ll see you next week !” nova chimed in mirroring yen’s bright smile.

“goodbye !” they chorused as the 2 hosts waved at the camera before it zoomed out to focus on everyone in the studio.

*results below ! *

[tottymatsuno]

Temptation/One Aspect of Trisaigon

Asmodeus shouldn't be here lest he turn corrupt, but as a being without freedom or freewill even the thought of prevention is a sin. If Asmodeus does not question his rank, position, tasks and duty to God then he shall remain in the Father's infinitely extended light.

Another angel is next to Asmodeus as they guard a closed off section of paradise and it feels almost on purpose since the Seraphim rarely interact with the Cherubim but here Asmodeus is because the Archangel is removing Adam and Eve. It doesn't make sense even if you stretched it. Asmodeus has never heard of this area, not once. It's apart of His great architecture, His ultimate impassive design.

"Why did God -!" Asmodeus turns towards the voice that should not be speaking let alone asking a question. This voice was meant only to sing His Praises, not speak. It was a sin for the burning ones to talk, only should they sing the trisaigon on repeat, to harmonize exclusively, and endlessly.

When did the singing stop, every three holy's a pause and then a passionate hymn extolling God on a loop for all eternity.

The wings on the Seraphim jolt with the flames alight brighter and cover their already hidden face. Thousand of opened eyes close in anticipation and fear.

Never once did Asmodeus think that he should try to interact with a Seraph. Dutiful, unyielding, flawless and without error were God's design for those blessed with highest position of authority in heaven. A Seraph would descend akin to the morning star before committing a sin, and yet without notice the one next to Asmodeus three uttered words.

"Holy, holy, holy..." What a small voice now, as if panicking. Asmodeus knows that God heard that for He knows all. So God knows what Asmodeus feels right now the urges growing that simply should not be his to feel, what he will say next and whatever follows.

It's tempting.

Time doesn't matter in heaven so after what could have been seconds or eons Asmodeus steels his nerves and gives into temptation.

He opens his mouth as if to bite into the flesh of the forbidden fruit.

"What a beautiful voice you have," Against protocols to address someone of higher rank let alone the burning ones. The flame explodes and the other's voice shakes without vibrato. The eyes closest towards Asmodeus peek open as if studying him. The other angel could be more conspicuous if desired, make it so he couldn't perceive those eyes but Asmodeus takes this as a reciprocation. A small act of rebellion and flirtation.

Asmodeus savors the taste before extending the fruit outwards. Never once did he have such a reckless impulse, or an intoxicating gravitational pull towards another.

"Father bestowed the name Asmodeus, what gift has he given you?" The words are spoken friendly enough, and the attraction furthers like Asmodeus is a moth drawn to a flame. Closer to the smell of brimstone than ever.

The loveliest voices, the most beautiful faces, iridescent black wings free of blemish or imperfection. Prettier than Asmodeus has ever seen before even on other Seraphim.

"That name means wrathful demon." The voice speaks once more, the invitation accepted. The aftertaste on his tongue is so sweet it burns. Asmodeus smiles and wonders if sin tastes the same for all angels.

The first of the fallen just slithered out of Eden after tricking an ignorant being. Can Asmodeus still call him brother, or the others born the same as him who have turned away from His embrace? This must be how Asmodeus joins his kin.

Asmodeus knows what lies on this path and yet he can't help but be curious about what scenery he shall see on his journey down it.

"I know. I don't agree with it, but our Father is all knowing and chose it for me. For that I am grateful." The wings extend outwards, each one until the outline of a body made in His imagine is revealed.

How cute that the ever faithful is choosing Asmodeus above God, this is a mistake Asmodeus is more than eager to make. Will those pretty wings tangle with his when both casted out from paradise?

The feathers almost sparkle in the void of heaven, where everything is blindingly black since it's the vacuum of space. Angels have no need for sight in the same as man, no need for colors beyond what's provided.

The wings look like stars, twinkling about in colors Asmodeus has never perceived before.

"I am called Kokabiel."

This feeling must be lust, the urge to reach out and touch. Touch, and touch, and touch until melded as one entity. It's overpowering, images of what Asmodeus witnessed in Eden flood every thought, he wants that with Kokabiel now.

Asmodeus was created to help God's favorites procreate, to fall in love with each other through the pureness of a kiss, to assist those in consummation, he was created with lust in mind.

The necessity to swallow this burning star whole and let it's flame sweetly eat through his throat until the Holy Ghost plucks the seeds of what's left.

Asmodeus has never wanted before and the feeling is inebriating him as he stares wide eyed at the sinner before him, gazing greedily at the open invitation returned. There was no going back, Asmodeus realized as he stepped away from his post.

"Why did God test them when He knew they had no choice?" Asmodeus asks, "When He knows all, past, future and present. When this punishment is unavoidable and inevitable, when freewill is an illusion as this is all His design?"

Five wings wrap around Asmodeus, "You shouldn't speak of that." One continues to hide Kokabiel's true face while another pair of lips whisper softly full of trembling anxiety.

"It's a sin."

These feelings must be mutual, the flames only tickle Asmodeus as they engulf him whole.

"The only sin I can see is what I would like to do to you right now. Would you care to sing my praises instead?"

Kokabiel's voice carries on the currents and makes an idol of Asmodeus on the alter.

How could his fall from grace be so fast, and all at once Asmodeus understood his brothers as he buries his face in the remaining wing. Kokabiel's lips seek out his own first, once again Asmodeus gives into sweet temptation.

He prays this won't be the last.

[justcallmefox89]

The Demon Prince’s Wedding Part 1 - Truth or Dare Series

It’s been four months since Diavolo’s proposal to Mammon and Arianthi, and their wedding ceremony is only a few days away.  The trio has been trying to keep their bond strong even though resentment is brewing between Diavolo and Arianthi.  Mammon tries to hold the relationship together, but is fearful he’ll have to eventually choose between his first love and his new love.  Arianthi is keeping a secret from her fiances.

This story is told from the perspective of my female OC Arianthi.

I sit in an armchair in Diavolo’s study, my legs curled beneath me, restlessly tapping my pen against the notebook I’m holding.  I stare listlessly into the fireplace, the dancing flames captivating me and drawing my attention away from the list I’ve been perusing.  

We are making a huge mistake.

“Arianthi........beloved?”  Diavolo’s low voice eventually draws me out of my reverie.   

“Mmmm?  What’s up Dia?”

I glance over to where he sits bent over his desk, muddling though his nightly paperwork.  He’s stripped off his red jacket, loosened his tie, and rolled his shirtsleeves up on his forearms.  His auburn hair is disheveled, a sure sign he’s become frustrated at some point and run his fingers through it in irritation.  

He’s beautiful. 

“Could you light the candles for me?”  Diavolo asks absentmindedly, not looking up from the forms he’s signing.  

I look around the study in surprise.  I’d been so lost in my own thoughts I hadn’t even noticed that the room had grown dark.  I give a lazy flick of my wrist and tiny flames burst forth from my fingertips, lighting the dozens of candles strategically placed in the study, and bathing the room in a soft golden glow. 

“You’ve gotten very good at that.”

I adjust in my chair to look at Diavolo; he’s gazing at me with a proud smile, his eyes soft and adoring.

“Lucifer’s been helping me train,” I tell him.

Diavolo’s mouth quirks to the side, the barest flicker of annoyance at the mention of his second in command.  Several months into our relationship and there are still some bitter personal feelings between himself and our fiance’s eldest brother.  

“I saw that,” I murmur, turning my attention back to my list.

Extra food for Beel?  Yes.  Levi’s fitting for his ceremony outfit?  Scheduled for tomorrow.

Diavolo gives a rather undignified snort.  “Saw what?”

“That look you get when ever someone mentions Lucifer outside of work.”

“I do not have a look,” he grumbles, shuffling through the papers on his desk.

“Whatever you say my love.”  I don’t bother to glance up from my notebook.

Ceremony ribbons?  Yes.  Extra extra food for Beel?  Double check.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen my father this evening, have you princess?”  Diavolo asks hesitantly.

I suppress the urge to roll my eyes and almost give myself an aneurysm.  

Fucking Arawn.  

“I have not.  Do you want me to find him and see if he wants to join you for a late supper?”

Diavolo shakes his head.  “I was just curious.  I wonder where he’s got off to.”

“Sleeping with one of the servants?  Sabotaging the caterers?  Eating small children?  Torturing one of the Little Ds?  Planning yet another way to break up our relationship?  Maybe slashing up my wedding dress for funsies?”  I toss out several helpful suggestions.

“Princess........”  Diavolo sounds exhausted.  

“Diavolo.”  I arch an eyebrow at him.

“I’m doing my best here Arianthi.”  Diavolo visibly tenses behind his desk.

A sound of annoyance breaks low in my throat and I turn my attention back to my list.

My rings for the boys?  Locked in the safe at the House of Lamentation.  

“Princess.”  Diavolo’s tone is soft and cajoling.  

I set my notebook on the arm of my chair with a deep sigh and raise my eyes to look at him.  

“The man is a menace Dia.  I’m tired of him trying to ruin our relationship and seducing the staff.  And he absolutely terrorizes the Little Ds.  They're scared half to death of him.”  

“Five more days my love.  Five more days, and once we’re married the transfer of power will be completed and I will be king.  Once he has nothing left here to entertain him my father will leave.  I promise you.”

I sigh deeply.  “Fine.  But if I find him having sex with another servant I’m setting them both on fire.”  

I pause, thinking back to a day last month.

“I’ll never look at the dining room table the same way ever again,”  I shiver in revulsion.

Diavolo pushes his chair back from his desk and holds his arms open.  “Come to me.  That’s an order from you future king.”

I roll my eyes and huff out a low laugh, crossing the room to settle into his lap.  Diavolo gathers me in his arms and holds me tightly to his chest.  When he finally speaks I can feel the vibrations of his deep voice.

“I love you.  So very, very much.”

I raise my head and press a soft kiss to his jaw.  “You better,” I murmur.  “Devildom knows you’re a proper handful to deal with.”

He gives a low chuckle, the sound reverberating deep in his chest.  I snuggle deeper into his embrace and nuzzle my face into his neck.

“You’re cuddly tonight,” Diavolo whispers, idly playing with my hair.

“I’ve missed you.”  

Diavolo frowns.  “I’ve been right here princess.”

I frown, toying with the buttons on his shirt.  “Not really.  I’ve been busy with the last minute details of the wedding, you’ve been working at R.A.D. and with the court, and Mammon’s been working on his new photo campaign with Majolish.......”

“I’m so proud of him.”  Diavolo beams.

“I am too,” I answer, returning his smile.  “I miss you both though.  We haven’t all slept in our bed together in weeks.  Or even been able to eat a meal at the same time.”

His arms tighten around me and he brushes his lips against my forehead in a gentle kiss.  “Mammon should be home soon.  Why don’t you go on and start getting ready for bed?  Give me another thirty minutes to finish this paperwork and I’ll come up.  We’ll all spend tonight together princess.  Promise.”

“I have a proposal concerning our activities for the evening,” I murmur, running my hands through his hair and bringing his face down to mine.

“Mmmm.  Tell me more my queen.”  He takes my lower lip between his teeth and gives it a gentle tug.

“I’d rather show you.”  

He raises his eyebrows, smirking at me, before claiming my mouth in a soft kiss.  I sigh into the kiss, reveling in the plush satin of his lips.  Diavolo nips at my lower lip, teasing my tongue with his.  The kiss quickly turns heated and he works his hands under my shirt, stroking his fingertips along my rib cage. 

Someone loudly clears their throat behind us and we break apart, startled.  

“Hello Diavolo, Arianthi.”

Arawn stands in the doorway of the study, three lower ranking members of the demon court standing next to him.

I bury my face into Diavolo’s chest and groan.

What now?

“Can I help you father?”

Arawn gestures to the other three demons.  “There are a few matters we would like to discuss with you before the ascension ceremony.”

“Of course.  Just speak to Barbatos to sche -”

“Tonight.”

I stiffen in Diavolo’s arms.  “Dia,” I whisper.

He looks down at me and gives me a sad smile before kissing my forehead.  “I’m sorry my love.”

I push myself out of his lap.  “You promised.”

“Princess........”  He reaches out and grasps at my fingertips.

“Goodnight Diavolo.”  I know saying anything else is useless; I’ll be asleep long before he comes to bed.

“Goodnight Arianthi.”  Arawn gives me a charming smile as I brush past him to exit the study.

“Piss off old man.”

I hear a shocked gasp from one of the courtiers but I keep walking, making my way to our bedroom.

Arawn is lounging against our bedroom door when I get there.

I close my eyes and count to ten, willing myself not to set his hair on fire,

“Have I told you how much I hate you do this?”  I ask, leaning against the banister opposite our door.

“Several times.”  He gives me a charismatic grin, a carbon copy of Diavolo’s.  “Warding the room against me was a cute move.”

“I hope it hurt,” I answer, looking pointedly at a singe mark on the sleeve of his shirt.

The only reason we had to ward the bedroom was because you showed up naked in our bed trying to get me to sleep with you.

I shudder at the memory.

His eyes widen in mock surprise.  “You’re so mean Arianthi......we’re going to be family soon.  We should act like it.”

I sigh heavily and pinch the bridge of my nose.  “I’m not in the mood for this tonight Arawn.  What do you want?”

He shrugs nonchalantly.  “Just looking for Mammon.”

“He’s working.  He told me about you trying to bribe him into leaving Diavolo the last time you talked to him.”  I give him a dirty look.

Arawn pouts at me.  “You’re not really upset about that are you?  Besides, he didn’t take the Grimm.”

Five more days, five more days, five more days.

“The fact that you sound disappointed about that is almost as aggravating as you trying to bribe him in the first place,” I mutter.  “Don’t you have anything better to do than trying to destroy your son’s relationship?”

Arawn looks up at the ceiling, pretending to think, then gives me an impish smirk.  “Not really.”

I roll my eyes and shoulder past him to remove the ward and enter our bedroom.  I reach out to turn the doorknob and he grabs my wrist, catching it in an iron grip.   I suck in a deep breath and grit my teeth as the small bones of my wrist are crushed beneath his fingers. 

“You should remember who your king is little demon,” he whispers menacingly into my ear.  

“Diavolo is my king,” I hiss, glaring at him.

He yanks me closer to him, studying me carefully.  “I would think long and hard about how you speak to me young one.  Especially since you don’t have just yourself to think about anymore.”

My eyes widen in shock.  “How -”

“I’m not as oblivious as my son or that dimwitted fallen angel you both insist on bedding.  I wonder what it says about your relationship that neither of them have figured it out yet.  After all, it only took me a few moments.”   

 Arawn releases me, giving casual shrug.  “It was nice talking to you little demon, but I think I should rejoin the group in the study.  Tell Mammon I was looking for him, will you?”

He tosses me a backwards wave as he walks away.  I take a shaky breath before slipping into our bedroom.  

Five more days.

The bedroom feels too big without Mammon and Diavolo in it, and I scowl at the huge bed in frustration.  I send a small fireball floating through the air to light the fireplace and wander aimlessly around the room.  I run my fingers over the spines of the books sitting on the bookshelf before selecting one and tossing it into an armchair. 

I walk to the bathroom, shedding my clothes and leaving them haphazardly on the floor as I go.  I stand under the warm stream of water, moodily contemplating my upcoming nuptials and twisting my engagement ring on my finger.

Even if I decide not to go through with the wedding they’ll find out eventually.  And once they do I highly doubt they’ll ever willingly let me leave the Devildom.  

I shake myself and try to push worst case scenarios out of my mind.

Dia and Mammon would never force me to do anything I don’t want to, no matter what the circumstances are.  I know them better than that.  Right?

I turn off the water and towel off, feeling worse than I did before I showered.  I grab Diavolo’s robe and slip it on, the silk cool and smooth against my skin.  The hem of the robe hangs almost to my ankles and it smells like Diavolo.  Tears prick my eyes as longing washes over me.  For the first time since I’ve come to the Devildom I feel utterly alone.

I snag one off Mammon’s pillows from the bed and sink into an armchair, cuddling it close to my stomach.  I pick up my book and crack the cover, trying to lose myself in fantasy world of The Seven Lords.

Some time later I’m awakened by someone shaking my shoulder and a voice saying, “Oi!  Ya better not be drooling on my pillow!”

I grunt and cling tighter to the pillow, refusing to open my eyes.  

“Fine.  Be that way ya grouch.” 

Strong arms lift me from the armchair and carry me across the room to lay me gently onto the bed.  Mammon settles in bedside me and pulls the covers up around us before wrapping his arms around me and holding me close.  I grumble and try to burrow deeper into the mattress.

He presses a kiss to the back of my neck.  “Come on baby, tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Diavolo promised he would spend tonight with us and then Arawn showed up and sucked him into another meeting,” I mumble into the pillow.  “Dia didn’t even try to tell him no.”

Mammon hugs me.  “I miss him too baby.”

I roll over to face him.  “Mammon......do you think we’re making a mistake?”

He frowns in confusion.  “What do you mean?”

I hesitate for a moment, scared of how he’ll react.  “Marrying Dia.  Are we making a mistake?”

“Seriously?”  Mammon scowls and releases me from his hold.  

I roll back over and curl in on myself in an attempt to avoid his scathing gaze.

Mammon heaves a deep sigh and gently turns me back to face him.  “I’m sorry baby, I shouldn’tve snapped at ya.  Talk to me.  What’s got ya thinkin’ like this?”

“He’s already so busy.....and it’s only going to get worse once he’s king.  The court is virtually useless and they’re going to depend on Dia to handle everything.  Do you think he’ll make time for us?  Or will it always just be us two with him making the occasional appearance?”

I sigh and close my eyes.  

“You’ve heard the rumors floating around the Devildom.  To them we’re just his thief and his whore.  Barely anyone supports this marriage.”

“You’ve always known he was gonna be king someday.”  Mammon looks at me sadly, blue eyes filled with something that looks very much like disappointment.  “Do you still love him?  Still love us?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then trust Diavolo.  Trust me.  We both love ya more than anything and I know he’ll do everything he can to be a good husband to us.  And even when he’s busy we’ll always have each other.”

“I do trust you.  I trust both of you.  I’ve just been thinking.....”

“About what?”  Mammon cuddles me close to his chest.

“Just about how different life is here in the Devildom.   I never imagined my life would be like this,” I admit.

“What did ya imagine?”

I shrug.  “I don’t know.  I just, I had my own life before this you know?  Separate from you guys.  Before he brought me down here.  I had my friends and I was gonna start a new job and I had -”  I cut myself off, biting down hard on my lip before I say too much.

Mammon looks at me strangely and his blue eyes flicker away from me momentarily before resting on me once again.  “I’ve never asked ya this before but..........you had someone up there didn’t ya?”

I nod slowly, not trusting my voice.

“Tell me about ‘em baby.”  Even though his voice is soft this is a command, not a question.

“Their name was Ryan.  We’d only been together for a few months.  They were ten years older than me and ready to commit, ready for something serious.  We talked about moving in together after my lease on my apartment was up.”

I brush some hair out of my face and smile a little as I remember.  “They were sarcastic, gorgeous, driven....................one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.  Everything was just so easy with them.”

“Did ya love ‘em?”  Mammon asks, his voice rough and hoarse.

“It was going in that direction, yeah.”

His eyes narrow.  “Then why didn’t ya go back to them after your year was up?”

“Are you serious Mammon?  A year is a long damn time for a human.  My job wasn’t just going to welcome me back with open arms.  Ryan and I weren’t going to just pick up where we left off; not after a year of me being missing and not having any contact with anyone.”  I glare at him, angry and defiant.

He shrinks back from me a little.

“And I fell in love with you.  Both of you.”

“So what’s the problem?”

You dense motherfucker.

I just shake my head and roll my eyes.  “Really?  Are you being serious right now?”

Mammon glares at me.  “What?  Would ya go back right now if could?  Choose them over us?”

I start at him for one long moment before shaking my head.  “No.  I wouldn’t.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The point is I should have had a choice Mammon.  When he brought me down here Diavolo took away a year of my life; he took away my opportunities and my relationship.  Everything I’d worked so hard for in the human realm didn’t matter anymore.  I had to start all over; without my friends, without my partner.......he brought me here with nothing.  And when the year was over I couldn’t get any of it back.” 

I rapidly blink away tears of frustration.

“I love you both so, so much.  But I gave up everything to stay here; I gave up my humanity to stay with you both.   And yeah, maybe I’m angry about that.  Maybe I’m starting to resent Dia for bringing me here.  I’ve given him everything Mammon.  Everything.  And he can’t even keep a simple promise to spend one night with us?  After us being apart for how many weeks?”  

The words are tumbling out now, faster and faster, and I can't stop them.  Mammon is staring at me, shock and outrage warring across his face.

“Don’t you dare look at me like that Mammon!  What have you ever had to give up to be with us?  You were more than happy to move into the Demon Lord’s castle.  More than happy to accept all the perks of being with Dia.”  

I probably could have stabbed him and hurt him less but I can’t stop, letting out every fear and frustration I’ve felt for the past year and a half.

“Is it always going to be like this?  Am I always going to be the one giving things up?  Settling for scraps of his time?  Aren’t you mad about him never being around?  Or the way he never stands up to Arawn?  How long is this going to go on?  What happens when the-”  I clap my hands over my mouth before I finish the sentence.

“When the what princess?”

I close my eyes tight and grit my teeth in an attempt to block out Diavolo’s question and the anguished tone of his voice.  

“Arianthi........ do you really feel like I took everything from you?”

I refuse to turn around, locking my eyes on some distant point over Mammon’s shoulder. 

“Diavolo she didn’t mean it.”  Mammon’s eyes dart worriedly between me and Diavolo, and he’s starting to look panicked.  

“I meant it.  I meant all of it.”  I climb out of bed, facing Diavolo.  My stomach clenches at the sight of his ashen face, but I tamp the guilt down and anger quickly takes its place.  

“Have you always felt like this?”  Diavolo asks softly.

“Maybe, in the back of my mind.  It was always easy to ignore because I was so damn happy with both of you.  But now all I can think about is our future and what it’s going to look like and.......” I trail off, running my hands through my hair.  “I can’t do this right now Diavolo.”

I start to move past him so I can leave the bedroom, and he reaches out and attempts to touch my shoulder.

“Princess, please.....we can talk-”

“No!”  I unfurl my wings to block his hand and dart out into the hallway, leaving my fiances starting after me in shock.  

I walk the castle halls without a particular destination in mind, finally arriving at the throne room.  I gaze around the room, taking in the ornate decor.  The room feels oppressive, and it’s hard to imagine that Mammon and I will ever have a place here.

I wander the perimeter of the room, toppling standing candelabras and knocking portraits from the walls with languid flicks of my tail.  When  reach Arawn’s portrait I hurl it across the room, impaling it on one of the last standing candelabras.  Feeling slightly more empowered after finishing my path of destruction, I ascend the steps of the dais that stands at the front of the room.  I circle the throne, my fingertips dancing over the intricate carvings and gold inlays.  

I eventually sprawl out in the throne and look out over the cavernous room, trying to imagine it full of people looking up at me while I gaze at them from this place of superiority.  

That sounds completely miserable.  No wonder Diavolo was so desperate to be treated like a normal person.  For someone to just see him and not his title.  

I sigh and scrub my hands over my face in equal parts frustration and sadness.  I summon a tiny fireball and lazily roll it over my knuckles a few times before tossing it at the wall where it quickly fizzles out, leaving a sooty scorch mark behind.

Hmm.  Satisfying.

I spend the next several minutes tossing fireballs, peppering the wall and curtains with scorch marks, making random patterns.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” 

I roll my eyes at the sound of Mammon’s voice and summon another flame.  “If you’re here to get me to go apologize to Dia I’m not interested right now.”

“You should,” Mammon says softly.  “He’s really upset.”

I snort, sending a small orb of grimfire to orbit around Mammon’s head.  “And I’m not?”

He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks down.  “What’s done is done.  We’re about to get married.......what’s the point of worrying about it now?.”

I straighten up on the throne, staring at him intently, and for one brief moment the grimfire pulses with a dangerous green light.  Mammon’s eyes meet mine and I sigh; the orb fizzles out with a puff of acrid smoke.

“You always take his side,” I mumble.  “Always.”

“Baby come on.”  Mammon tries to cajole me out of the throne.  “Let’s go to bed and forget about all this.”

I shake my head and close my eyes.  “Just go Mammon.”

“Ari...”

“GO!”

My command echoes throughout the cavernous room, and I eventually hear Mammon’s footsteps recede at he leaves the throne room. 

I shake my head in disgust.

I don’t belong here.  

“Be careful my dear or you’ll shake something loose.”  

I whip my head up and stare directly into a pair of bright green eyes, a mirror of my own.  She looks different from the first time I saw her; her face is free of blue woad markings, and she’s wearing a plain black hoodie and a pair of jeans.

“Morrigan?!”  I’m so shocked I can barely squeak out her name.

She gives me a cocky grin.  “What kind of grandmother would I be if I didn’t show some support for my granddaughter’s marriage?”

“How are you here?”

“I’m ancient, not dead,” she replies dryly.  “Just because I choose not to waste away down here doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally visit.”  

“Morrigan why are you here?  For real.”

Morrigan sighs and pauses a moment before finally answering my question.  “I’m here to make sure you’re not making a mistake.”

“You think I’m making a mistake marrying them?”  I bite my lip anxiously, afraid to hear her answer.

“It’s doesn’t matter what I think, it only matters if you think you are.  And since I’m the only relative you have left I feel an odd sort of responsibility for you.”  She shrugs one shoulder languidly.  “So, do you think you’re making a mistake?”

“Maybe?”

Morrigan doesn’t say anything, just nods encouragingly.

“I had to leave a lot of things behind when Diavolo brought me here.  And I had to give up even more to stay with them,”  I say, trying to sort my thoughts.

“Do you love Mammon and Diavolo?”  Morrigan asks softly.

“More than anything,” I answer.

“But you still feel resentful.  Because you feel like Diavolo took choices away from you.”

I nod.  “Yeah.  That exactly.”

“I think it’s understandable that you feel this way,” Morrigan says slowly.  “Diavolo yanked you out of your life without warning, and even though you’ve made a new life here, it’s natural to mourn your old one.”

I slump back into the throne.  “So what do I do?”

Morrigan moves to stand next to me.  “I can’t tell you that.”  

She pauses, looking deep in thought for a moment before speaking again.  

“I was on a trip to the human world when I met Ayden..........your grandfather.  He was a force of nature, unlike anyone I’d ever met in the three realms.  Stubborn.  Fierce.  A born warrior.  At certain times you remind me of him so much.”  She smiles at me sadly.

“I couldn’t come back here knowing that I would have to leave him behind.  I tried once, but I only lasted a week.  So I went back and stayed in the human realm.  Ayden and I were married and eventually we had a son, Kane.”

She stops speaking, and I see her hands shake almost imperceptibly.    

“I watched my family grow old while I didn’t age.  I buried my husband, my son, my grandchildren.......... and it became too much, so I just faded away.  I couldn’t stay with them, but I couldn’t return to the Devildom either.  So I’ve just been wandering for a centuries, alone.”

“Why are you telling me this?”  I finally whisper.

Morrigan is silent for so long I think she’s not going to answer me.  

“Because even with all of the loss and the pain and the anger, I wouldn’t trade the time I had with my husband and my son for anything in the three realms.”

She turns to face me, staring directly into my eyes.

“And if I was given the gift of being able to have them with me forever.....”  She swallows hard and blinks rapidly.  “I know that you’re angry Arianthi, and you have good reason to be, but if you love those two even half as much as you say you do, don’t let that anger fester and rot your relationship.  Don’t squander the gift Lilith and I gave you when we sent you back here.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“That’s my girl.”

I push myself up from my seat and shift back into my human form before gripping Morrigan in a tight hug.  

“Oh!”  She stiffens in surprise before clinging to me just as tightly.

“Thanks grandma,” I say with a smirk when she finally releases me.

She rolls her eyes good naturedly and gently cuffs the back of my head.  “Like I said, you remind me so much of Ayden.  Now go, to bed with you.  You need your rest, especially now.”  

She quirks an eyebrow at me and gives me a knowing look.

“Seriously?”  I ask, exasperated.  “Can a bitch have no secrets here?”

Morrigan grins.  “Not from the old ones my dear; very little gets by us.  Besides, it’s time to tell them isn’t it?”

I grumble a few choice words under my breath.

She reaches for my hand and squeezes softly.  “I need to go before Arawn figures out I’m here.  Go.  Talk to them.  Trust in yourself that you’ve made the right decisions.”

“Am I going to get to see you again?  Outside of my existential crises and near death moments?”

“I’ll find you when you need me most,” Morrigan assures me, before she opens the doors to the throne room and slips into the hallway.

I wait a few minutes before leaving the throne room, shutting the doors firmly behind me and making a mental note to speak to Barbatos about the mess. 

I’ll take care of it. 

I climb the stairs to our bedroom and give a soft knock before hesitantly entering.  Mammon and Diavolo are in bed; Diavolo’s head cradled on Mammon’s chest while he softly strokes Diavolo’s hair.  They both eye me warily as they sit up.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, unwilling to meet their eyes.  “I should have brought this up along time ago instead of blowing up at both of you like that.”

Diavolo gives me a soft look of concern.  “I need to apologize as well princess.  I didn’t consider the long term effects that the exchange program would have on a non-magical human.  I was so enthusiastic about the program that I didn’t take into account that it would negatively impact your life in a very major way.”

He swallows hard and looks down, restlessly twisting the bed sheet between his large hands.  “If you wish it I can speak to Barbatos and have him find the proper timeline so that he can....send you back.  To before you came here.  You could have your old life back.”

“What?”  Mammon glares at him then worriedly looks at me, waiting for my answer. 

“No.”  I shake my head emphatically.  “No, I don’t want to go back.”

Both demons sag against the pillows in relief.

I start anxiously twisting my engagement ring around my finger.  “There’s something I need to show you both.  It’s why started thinking about my old life and our future in the first place.”

“Ok baby,” Mammon says reassuringly.  “Show us whatever you need to.”

Diavolo nods in agreement.

I dart into the closet and find the pictures I’d hidden in a giant pile of Mammon’s sweaters three weeks earlier.  I walk back to Diavolo and Mammon, pressing a picture into each of their hands.  I sit on the edge of the bed, anxiously waiting for their reactions.  

Diavolo furrows his brow and delicately traces the sharp lines that rise and fall the length of his photo with one calloused fingertip.  Mammon’s face mirrors Diavolo’s confused expression as he studies the glossy black and white picture in front of him.  The carefully study each other’s photos before glancing back at their own.  Mammon is the first one to put the pieces together.

“Baby are you....?”  He looks at me with wide eyes.

Diavolo’s realization comes a few moments later.  “Are we really...?”

I nod, a hesitant smile on my lips.

Diavolo cups Mammon’s face in his hands and gives him a sweet kiss before resting his forehead against Mammon’s.  “We’re going to be dads,” he whispers reverently.

Diavolo leaps out of bed and sweeps me into a hug, spinning me in a circle and laughing.  “You’re going to be a mom!  We’re going to be parents!”

He gathers me in his arms and carries me to bed, gently settling me between Mammon and himself,  immediately placing one hand on my stomach.  Mammon gives me a soft kiss and rests his head on my shoulder, while Diavolo is practically vibrating with excitement next to me.

“We need to make an official announcement.  The entire Devildom needs to know that there is a new heir on the way!  We’ll need Barbatos to plan a celebration ball and there will need to be new royal portraits to add you three-” 

As Diavolo speaks I find myself becoming more and more overwhelmed, his overbearing energy sweeping over me and causing a ball of anxiety to grow deep in the pit of my stomach.  Mammon looks over at me and takes note of my panicked expression.  He reaches over and grabs one of Diavolo’s hands.

“Oi!  Ya need to calm down, you’re freaking out Arianthi!”

Diavolo instantly wraps his arms around me and pulls me close.  “I’m sorry princess.  What’s wrong?  Tell me what I can do to make it better.”

“You could calm down for one,” Mammon says, impatiently raking a hand through his hair.

I nod in agreement.  “I know that there are certain things that need to happen, but this is a lot to take in right now.  And I’d really like to wait to make the announcement until a few weeks after the wedding.”

“Why?  Everyone should know now; this is amazing news!”  Diavolo frowns at me in disappointment.

“This is about more than just you,” Mammon grumbles, giving Diavolo a dirty look.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Dia, this is going to be a really big change for all of us.  I’d rather not draw more attention than we absolutely have to.  There’s already going to be enough speculation about the baby because of our relationship.”  I look into his eyes, pleading with him to understand.

Diavolo shakes his head.  “I don’t understand.  What’s that supposed to mean?  What’s wrong with our relationship?”

Mammon sighs in exasperation.  “There’s nothin’ wrong with it.  She just means that people are gonna be payin’ a lot of attention and gossipin’ about the baby, because there’s a damn good chance it could come out lookin’ like me.”

“We’ve already talked about this.”  Diavolo’s face darkens and he scowls at Mammon.  “This baby is ours, all of us together, no matter who the biological father is.”

“You really think everybody else out there is gonna see it that way?”

I shrink back into the pillows in an effort to stay out of the way of the two bickering demons.  

I finally hesitantly speak up.  “Does it matter to you guys?  Would you want to know who-”

“No!”  They exclaim in unison.

“Diavolo’s right,” Mammon reassures me.  “It doesn’t matter.  This baby is gonna be all the best parts of all of us no matter what.”

Diavolo hums in agreement.  “I don’t care what the rest of the Devildom has to say about it.  This is my child.  You’ll be my wife and Mammon will be my husband.  We’re a family, and I love all three of you unconditionally.”

He delicately strokes his fingertips over my stomach.  “Hello little one.  I’m your daddy.”

Mammon hesitantly reaches out and places his hand next to Diavolo’s.  

“I’m not hurtin’ ya, am I?”  He looks at me anxiously.

“Not at all,” I answer with a smile.

“That’s your papa,” Diavolo whispers conspiratorially to my stomach.  “He’ll never admit it, but he worries a lot about me and your mommy.  He’s already worrying about you too.  It just means he loves you.  You’ll get used to it.”

“You’ll get used to your daddy talkin’ too much and being bossy too,” Mammon grumbles with a slight smirk.

My eyes start to flutter closed, and I sink back into the pillows while Diavolo and Mammon continue to murmur endearments to their unborn child.

Morrigan was right.  This moment, these three.......... they are worth everything.

[charliesradiodemon]

Charlastor Week Day 2: Human AU

(Think of this as a wip/sneak peek at a future fic I’m planning on writing! It’s based off the Kiss Ask Requests: Because They’re Running Out of Time and In Grief. It’s subject to change, but I hope you guys enjoy <3)

Day 2: Human AU

The raging flame roared so intensely within Alastor’s bedroom that he feared that the flames would engulf his home. But as much as the flames clung to the floor and ceiling, nothing seemed to burn. He could even feel the heat that lapped at his face, but still nothing burned. He could run, but something kept his eyes at the heart of the inferno.

A single humanoid silhouette gradually manifested in the midst of the fire.

‘It worked! Mother was right!’

Thankfully the fires died down as quickly as the figure appeared, revealing the figure within the flames. In the middle of his summoning circle, a young woman with paper white skin, rosy red cheeks, ruby red eyes and knee length golden blonde hair with vertically elongated horns appeared before him. She certainly was small compared to him. He could even tell that she was abnormally thin beneath her lacy black and white dress.

She looked about, startled as if she’d been pulled out of thin air. “Are you...? Did you summon me?” She asked with a shocked expression on her face.

Collecting himself, Alastor straightened his back and nodded. “Y-yes! I am Alastor-“

Elation spread across her face instantly at his words. “It’s so nice to meet you! I’ve never met a human before!” She grabbed his hand, furiously shaking his limp limb with enthusiasm. Her demonic grip nearly crushed the bones in the human’s hand, but Alastor was too caught off guard to react to the pain. “This is the human world? Oh wait!” She dropped his crushed hand and rushed straight to the window, pressing her face up to the glass.

Dumbfounded, Alastor watched as his ‘demon’ squealed and bounced at the sight of the outside world. “The sky really is blue! I’ve never seen this shade of blue before!” Without even looking back at him, Alastor could just hear the grin on her face.

Was this woman really a demon? Not that he’s seen a real demon before, but he expected something more demonic or grotesque. Never would he have imagined a demon from Hell looking like a porcelain doll. Did he really sacrifice his own father’s heart for this creature?

Clearing his throat, Alastor walked up to the window to get her attention. “Excuse me,” he grabbed her wrist firmly in attempt to anchor her to where she stood. “Are you really a demon?”

When she turned, she no longer looked like herself. With the early morning’s light radiating off her porcelain white face, Alastor could see that her eyes no longer boasted its red color that it had and instead took on a light, sickly yellow color. Her horns seemed to have retracted as well, leaving her looking completely doll-like with her rosy red cheeks and large eyes. For a demon, she looked oddly humanesque. And had her otherworldly features been toned down, she would have looked like any other attractive human woman out there.

The demoness nodded, her enthusiastic smile never leaving her face. “Yep! Born and raised!”

“Oh. You’re much different than what I imagined.” He said as he gave her a long up-and-down. At least with her horns and eyes, she looked like a demon, but what could a sweet creature like her have done to earn herself an eternity of damnation? She’d never seen the sky before, so maybe she was something different than an ordinary sinner? “What kind of demon are you?”

She tipped her head to the side and blinked. “A kind of demon?”

“Do you have a rank, occupation or position in Hell?”

She visibly tensed. “I’m no one important if that’s what you’re wondering,” She tittered, looking back out the window. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” She suddenly perked up at something she noticed out the window. As soon as she managed to yank her wrist out of the man’s grasp, she twirled and as if by magic, she’d morphed her extravagant dress into a pale pink dress fit for the late spring season. She even shortened her waist-long hair into a wavy bob. “Now that we’re bound by contract, I can stay here as long as I want as a human! Oh wait!” 

She looked down at her hands before snapping her fingers. “I almost forgot, you humans look a bit different.” She giggled as her paper white skin bled into a healthier, more realistic pale shade and her sclera whitened to tie in her look. Her cheeks, although still very rosy, were no longer as harsh as they were a moment ago. “There! Now I’ll fit in a little easier!”

The man quirked a brow, still amazed and shocked by her show of ability. “So this is a holiday for you then?”

“Pretty much!”

Alastor snickered before bursting out into boisterous laughter that startled the demon in front of him. What a ridiculous situation! He used his father’s heart to summon a demoness from Hell and she was a soft-hearted young woman treating their contract like a holiday! Why if he wasn’t experiencing all of this first hand, he would have thought of this as some sort of fever dream!

Before she could speak, the chirp of a bluebird seemed to have caught his demon’s attention as she whipped her head around with a gasp. “What’s that?”

The repetition of chirps continued, followed by more birds joining into their collective song.

Once Alastor recovered, he looked out the window with his new companion. He looked back to her, noticing a sparkle in her large eyes. “Those are bluebirds.” He answered as he watched her dazzled expression with interest.

That’s right. This was her first time up in the human world, making everything about Earth a new experience for her. Though her ignorance was amusingly cute, Alastor also realized that she had a lot to learn about the human world.

Was it worth it? Maybe he could dispose of her with holy water once he was bored with her. Sure he went through pains to summon this demon, but if this was what he was going to be dealing with, he wanted no part of it. He didn’t need her or her baggage. This was just a fun little experiment and he was not interested in babysitting.

“They’ve got a beautiful song!” She said, leaning closer to the window.

And in the next moment, Alastor’s jaw dropped to the floor.

She opened the window, sat on the ledge and began mimicking the bluebird’s song in her own octave. Sure it wasn’t exact, but the heavenly sound of her soprano in the air was enough to capture Alastor’s interest with the skip of his heart. Her song was beautiful- no, she was beautiful.

What exactly had he gotten himself into? Was she some sort of siren?

He even tried to look away, but he couldn’t. Her bob moved with the gentle breeze, reflecting the sunlight once more and created a halo about her frame. Her fond gaze extended far past his view of the city that surrounded them, making her look more like a painting than an existing being.

If he hadn’t known any better, she could have been an angel straight from Heaven.

Alastor broke out of his stupor and approached the demoness. She was suddenly too interesting to let go. If she was too much of a pain, he would move on to his second plan. But for now, he wanted to know more about her and what other talents and secrets she held. “So tell me my dear, what is your name? I don’t believe I caught it.” He held his hand out to her.

She looked down at him with a soft, kind smile, which surprisingly did a number on his heart once again. “My name’s Charlotte.”

It was a beautiful name for a being such as herself. Just the sound of it coming off her tongue sounded musical.

He firmly shook her hand and grinned. “I look forward to our partnership, Charlotte.”

[incomprehensiblelentils]

Lentils’ 2020 Christmas Movie Rankings

My wife and I watched a lot of Christmas movies this year, and I thought it would be fun to rank them based on which ones I think were most watchable and enjoyable. I’ve left out a few that we watched during this time period, which are classic Christmas movies (Miracle on 34th Street), action movies set at Christmas (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3), or older romances set around Christmas (While You Were Sleeping and You’ve Got Mail), because it’s not fair to rank these amongst, well, some of the movies we saw.

my top 5, for those of you who don’t like reading (which is fair): The Princess Switch: Switched Again, Dashing in December, The Princess Switch, Jingle Jangle, Happiest Season.

my top 3 Chaotic Christmas Movies: A New York Christmas Wedding, 12 Pups of Christmas, The Princess Switch: Switched Again. Please watch these movies if you enjoy chaotic plots. Please especially watch the first two I listed because holy shit my summaries do not properly convey the chaos.

The Princess Switch: Switched Again (2020): Some people on the internet have been VERY RUDE about this movie and I’m sorry they don’t appreciate a true chaotic holiday gem when they see it. This movie involves two Vanessa Hudgenses, Scheduled Vanessa and Spontaneous Vanessa, who are distant cousins and not twins, switching places to try to facilitate Spontaneous Vanessa getting back together with her ex the baker, but Scheduled Vanessa is intercepted by a third cousin Vanessa, Horny Vanessa, who wants to take Spontaneous Vanessa’s place as queen. I don’t want to spoil anything that happens in this movie so that you can experience the batshittery for yourself, but I found every second absolutely delightful. It also has two very good romantic couples who are cute and who genuinely seem to like each other, which is not something I can say for every movie on this list!

Dashing in December (2020): This movie has gay cowboys, is set on a ranch, and features a squaredancing scene, so if that isn’t your bag, you are probably not going to like it very much. I found it deeply charming and the only reason it isn’t #1 is that three quarters of the way through, the lead suddenly turns back into a giant jerk for no real reason and that was very upsetting. But it all works out in the end. The main romance is very cute, there are horses, the horsemanship doesn’t totally suck ass, and there are some fun side characters. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but it’s pleasant.

The Princess Switch (2018): Again, some people are mean about this movie and they shouldn’t be because it is CUTE GODDAMMIT. It is absolutely The Prince and the Pauper but with two Vanessa Hudgenses, but also, it shows the aforementioned two good romantic couples falling in love and they are delightful. I am not saying this is a great masterpiece of romance, but the filmmakers actually tried to give these characters reasons to like each other, which, again, is not true for some of the movies on this list.\

Jingle Jangle (2020): I kind of feel bad putting this movie on the same list as TV movies that were obviously just shit out by Hallmark or whoever, because this clearly had a lot of love and heart put into it, and it really shows. I was so immediately charmed by this movie that I didn’t even mind when it immediately went in very silly directions. I don’t know if the plot makes sense at all (a cute robot shows up for seemingly no reason other than that cute robots are fun!) but it doesn’t have to, because everyone is having so much fun and there’s so much joy in this movie that I was just happy to be along for the ride. Also, I would love to see an entire movie in the stop-motion style from the opening scene.

Happiest Season (2020): I absolutely understand why some people didn’t like this movie, and I don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t dislike it, and also, it’s MY movie, and I love it, and I’m not interested in fighting about it. It helped me come out to my parents and also featured two of my faves kissing and that’s all I need. 

Noelle (2019): I was previously under the impression this movie was bad, and I don’t know why, because it’s a little embarrassing and cheesy at times, but it’s sweet. I suspect what will make or break it for you is if you like Anna Kendrick, and because I like Anna Kendrick, I like watching her play a neurotic Claus sibling trying desperately to fix the problem she accidentally caused. One weird thing though: this movie tried to convince me about halfway through that she was both spoiled and selfish, and I don’t actually think that’s true at all. I think she was a little naive and sheltered and wanted people to like her way too much, but she’s not really shown to be a selfish person - she’s constantly paying attention to other people in the real world and her brother is the one who refused to admit that he wasn’t cut out for the Santa gig and instead fucked off to “find himself” or whatever. It was weird! But anyway, I liked this movie a lot.

I’ll Be Home For Christmas (1998): So this movie...one Christmas Eve when I was in high school, I was having trouble falling asleep for whatever reason so I went downstairs to get some water. My mom happened to have the TV on and this movie was just starting, and she invited me to join her. Fun fact: this movie went to theaters and it stars Jonathan Taylor-Thomas and Jessica Biel. It is one of the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen in my life and at no point does anyone in it actually behave like a human being. It’s about a smooth-talking jackass who has to be bribed to come home for Christmas and then, after one of his dumbass moneymaking schemes lands him in hot water, he gets abandoned in the middle of the California desert wearing a Santa suit and glued-on beard. He then has to beg, lie, and cheat his way home for Christmas dinner so that his dad will give him a vintage Porsche they fixed up together. I have no defense for this character; he is insufferable and only becomes marginally less so by the end of the film. But also, I have to watch this movie every year (usually with my mom, although not this year for obvious reasons) or it doesn’t feel like Christmas. 

A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish (2019): We own this on DVD and have seen it three times. In our defense, we wanted to support Gregg Sulkin from Runaways and Isabella Gomez from One Day at a Time, both of whom feature prominently in this movie, and also sing songs. This is just Cinderella But At Christmas, and if that doesn’t sound like fun to you, I don’t think anything I can say will change your mind. I will say that the songs are amusingly autotuned, there’s a disabled dog that’s very cute, and I personally think that the leads have slightly better chemistry than some of the pairs on this list. But it is literally just another Cinderella Story movie.

The Knight Before Christmas (2019): This movie is Thor (2011) But At Christmas, and it would have been slightly higher except I always forget about the plot where at the end the knight becomes a cop. Bad, obviously! But anyway, the plot of this movie is: nice but clueless dude crash-lands on Earth for Reasons and bumbles around trying to figure out what’s up, while falling in love with a nice lady. That’s just Thor and you know I’m right. And for as dumb as this movie is, at least it’s ambitious. I have learned that Christmas movies can do one of two things to please me: a) have actors that have decent chemistry and charm and are fully committed to whatever nonsense is going on, or b) have absolutely batshit chaotic plots. This movie is like a 4 out of 5 on the chaos scale and I like it a lot, besides the copaganda. I hope this also gets made into a trilogy and Cole isn’t a cop anymore.

A Christmas Prince 3: The Royal Baby (2019): I will get into my problems with the first two Christmas Prince movies later, but my main criticism is that they are kind of boring and not chaotic enough. This one decided to make up for that by incorporating a missing ancient treaty, a curse, and a ghost, as well as a subplot about Girl Power (I use this semi-ironically) and a subplot about cousin Simon potentially committing treason again. I was so excited that things were happening in this movie the first time I watched it that I may be a little biased, but oh well. Oh, I was also absolutely terrified it was going to be racist and it is...mostly not? There are a few questionable moments but like mostly it’s fine.

Christmas With the Prince (2018): I wanted to watch this because the summary on Netflix did not match the summary on Google at all, and that’s because, uh, they’re both sort of right? Ostensibly this movie is about a pediatric oncologist who comes back into contact with an old almost-flame, who just happens to be the prince of a tiny European country, because he fucked up his leg and needs somewhere private to stay. And apparently a pediatric oncology ward is the best place for that? But then after they fall in love this random Russian lady shows up and is like “that’s my fiance.” This happens maybe twenty minutes from the end. Anyway, this movie isn’t great but I liked the lead guy way more than I thought I would and it has some cute kids in it.

A New York Christmas Wedding (2020): I...am at a loss for words to describe this...motion picture. On the surface it is a cute idea: a young Black woman, Jennifer, is getting married to her boyfriend on Christmas Eve, but she’s given a chance by her guardian angel (stay with me) to go back in time and redo her life, after losing touch with her childhood best friend, Gabrielle, who she was always in love with but never confessed her feelings to. She wakes up in an alternate timeline, where she and Gabrielle have been together for years and her beloved father is still alive. Then the movie, uh...veers off into some very odd places! They go to their Catholic priest and ask him to marry them, and he is like “but the Bible” and they are like “but that’s bullshit” and he’s like “shrug” and then later during a sermon he’s like “actually that IS bullshit, everyone gay in this church come stand up here with me. We love you. Also we’re going to perform a wedding now” and then he marries Jennifer and Gabrielle. And then Jennifer’s angel shows up and is like “you have to choose between this life and your old life now” and then uh...I really hate to spoil this next thing. It is the weirdest choice I’ve ever seen a movie make and if you’re even the slightest bit interested in this movie, I think you should experience this plot point for yourself. I’m going to put the batshit spoiler in ROT13 in case you want to avoid spoiling yourself. (GJ: fhvpvqr) Wraavsre'f thneqvna natry erirnyf gung ur vf gur fba bs Tnoevryyr, jub va gur bevtvany gvzryvar tbg certanag nf n grra naq ure snzvyl frag ure gb n ahaarel. Fur zvfpneevrq naq fhofrdhragyl qvrq ol fhvpvqr. Uvf anzr vf Nmenry Tnovfba. Anyway, uh, this movie isn’t very good, unfortunately, the adult leads have no chemistry and Gabrielle’s adult self is actively unlikable (the teen versions of them are cute!), but I think it’s 1000% worth a watch for the sheer chaos of it all. I...recommend it for that, I guess? Oh, also there’s a sex scene that plays a slow sexy version of “O Christmas Tree” in the background and I felt like I was losing my mind. 

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding (2018): As I said in my commentary on the third movie in this series, the worst sin this movie commits is being kind of boring. It also manages to make the romantic hero, Richard, even worse than in the first movie, where he was just kind of useless and petulant, because in this movie he is actively failing to do anything to revive the failing economy of his country. I have seen people complain that the prince in The Princess Switch and Cole in The Knight Before Christmas have no personalities; they are delightful compared to the wet paper bag of a man in this movie. Rose McIver is adorable and I don’t think any of this is her fault, she’s doing her best in these movies, but woof.

12 Pups of Christmas (2019): The Google summary of this movie, which we found on Hulu, is this: “Struggling to keep his dog GPS locator company afloat, Martin expects his new hire, Erin, to help him save the company and find homes for 12 puppies that were left behind after a photo shoot. As they work together, Erin and Martin begin to discover each other's positive qualities and find love just in time for the holidays.” My wife and I love dogs, so we put this on, expecting cute dogs. This movie contains approximately 80% chaos and 20% cute dogs. It opens with our heroine, a canine therapist, coming home from work to have dinner with her fiance and best friend. We find out that Erin and fiance are moving to California soon for her new job (they live in New York). Fast forward a few days to their courthouse wedding, at which point her fiance and best friend confess to having an affair, and she is dumped. Heartbroken, she moves to California alone, and ends up moving into the company-provided house. It is just a two-story house (??) that the CEO’s sister owns (???) and rents out to employees (????). Also Erin is, as the Google summary says, expected to come up with some grand idea to save the company. And there are 12 random puppies also. They are cute puppies. Oh, also Martin, the CEO of the dog collar company, hates dogs for some reason. Martin’s sister is aggressively friendly towards Erin in a way that I interpreted as sapphic. At one point, after they find a home for dog #3, Erin’s former BFF shows up on her doorstep (?????) begging to be let in. She insists that the fiance was also two-timing her, and she has proof that he had FIVE OTHER GIRLFRIENDS ALL AROUND THE COUNTRY - “that’s why he’s a traveling businessman”!!!! Erin never asks to see her proof, but I guess she believes her, because she lets her inside and then makes her take care of the remaining eight dogs out of spite. I guess they make up at some point. Anyway, somewhere in here Erin and Martin are starting to fall in love and also come up with a way to rebrand the business, so hooray for them. We also learn that the reason Martin hates dogs is that his beloved childhood dog, uh, ran away? Disappeared? Got eaten? He insists that “not knowing [what happened to him] was the worst part,” but I was out here expecting to see the child finding an actual dead dog like it’s John Wick or something so this was a little anticlimactic. They go on a business trip to New York talk with Important Japanese Investors, during which they fuck (it is? romantic? allegedly?), and then the morning of their meeting Erin’s shitty ex shows up in the hotel lobby to bother her. Martin decks him square in the face for not leaving her alone, and then someone calls the cops, because I guess this movie said ACAB, and both dudes get arrested and Erin has to do the presentation alone. And then in the last five minutes Martin gets out of jail and Erin says that she gave the presentation to the investors...in English, and their translator was twenty minutes late, and so the investors understood none of what she said. Thankfully we are spared actually seeing this “joke,” but they do play racist music over her explanation. Then Martin reconnects with his rich dad who bails out the company instead, and also he adopts the four remaining dogs. This movie was fucking bananas and very bad and I need more people to understand exactly how bad. Watch this movie.

A Nutcracker Christmas (2016): Amy Acker has two Christmas movies and this one seemed more palatable than Dear Santa, so here we are. I like to watch Amy Acker be cute and dance, and she has an adorable teenage niece in this movie that she’s helped raise. In this movie she’s a former ballet dancer whose sister (hilariously, one of the Wynonna Earp lesbians) died in a tragic car accident, and she never got to dance the part of the Sugarplum Fairy. Spoiler alert: she gets to by the end of the movie. Unfortunately the love interest is basically Satan incarnate and does not deserve her at all, so unless you like yelling at romantic leads I can’t really recommend it. 

Godmothered (2020): This movie is just, uh, Enchanted but worse, and also it should have been sapphic and it isn’t? Poor Jillian Bell is doing her best and is adorable, but it’s not enough to save this movie for me. If Disney were not cowards she would have fallen in love with single mom Isla Fisher. Oh, it also ends with the very white younger daughter doing a public cover of “Rise Up” by Andra Day that the audience joins in on, which, considering its use in the BLM movement the last couple years, felt, uh, not great to me.

A Christmas Prince (2017): It’s maybe not far to compare this to the rest of the Netflix Christmas Cinematic Universe, because it was the originator. But also, it’s pretty boring. Sorry. Simon, or Fiddles (Fake Hiddles/Tom Hiddleston) is the best character.

Married by Christmas (2016): Apparently an alternate title for this is The Engagement Clause, which is sort of funny. Anyway, this has Jes Macallan and we, being big fans of Legends of Tomorrow, lost our shit when we found this on Christmas Day and had to watch it. The plot is that Jes’ character runs the family business, but their shitty grandma died and left a clause in her will where the business goes to the husband of whichever granddaughter gets married first. You would think that Jes’ sister and her fiance would postpone their Christmas Eve wedding to give Jes time to set up some kind of platonic wedding for business purposes, since Jes’ entire life is this stupid business, but nope, they immediately turn into monsters who are determined to get their hands on the business for ???? reasons???? It’s not very good, as you can tell by how low it is on the list. Jes Macallan is not a convincing straight businesswoman. I wouldn’t even really enjoy this movie as an Avalance AU.

A Princess for Christmas (2011): Here we are, the worst one Christmas movie I watched this year. I don’t actively harbor any ill will towards Katie McGrath, although I confess to feeling a bit “her?” but it’s fine. I was hoping this movie would enlighten me to her appeal. Instead, this movie actively got on my nerves in multiple ways, including trying to pass Katie McGrath off as a normal American retail worker instead of an Irish vampire/sorceress/supervillain/fairy/whatever she is. Her accent is shockingly awful, which I’m not sure is actually her fault, is there a reason her family wasn’t just British? That wouldn’t have saved the movie but it would have made it just slightly more palatable. At every turn it makes the worst choices, including a scene where Katie’s character puts on a rap song and she and the prince dance to it in an attempt to show them “loosening up,” and then the mean grandfather comes in and demands that they “turn this ghetto music off.” YIKES. I know these movies are the whitest movies ever by design but was that racism necessary? The only Black people I actually saw in this movie were some of the servants, I think? Speaking of the servants, at the end of the movie there’s a grand ball and Katie’s dress gets fucked up, and she’s about to leave the country, and then the servants are like “don’t go! We pooled our money to buy you another nice dress!” which, also yikes! This movie has a real classism problem. It also was so boring I zoned out of it multiple times, and I have sat through Manos: The Hands of Fate and Birdemic multiple times. This movie has no chaos whatsoever and I hated all the characters. 0/10 do not recommend under any circumstances.

[langdxn]

sanctum | pre-outpost!michael x fem!reader

SUMMARY: What happened in the 18 months before Michael arrived at Outpost 3. I’m driven by filling in plotholes and this one intrigued me the most. This is my first fic so constructive criticism is more than welcome!

WARNINGS: More fluff than Build-a-Bear, pregnancy and mentions of children, trauma.

WORD COUNT: 1.8k - it’s pretty short for a first attempt but I was cautious about rambling for too long.

“I’m just going to Outposts 1 and 3 to check on their security, my little dove. I’ll return as soon as I can,” Michael breathed into the shell of her ear, scooping his arms around her waist from behind. Protectively placing her hands atop his statement rings and dipping into her shoulder, she clung to his touch as if it were the first time they met.

“I’ll miss you,” she sighed, tracing gentle, reassuring circles over his rings with her fingertips, “we all will.”

Her eyes darted across the room to the dark wooden crib, elaborately carved by her husband’s delicate hands as they waited in Outpost 2 for the right time to execute the next phase of his father’s repopulation plan. She recalled all the days and nights she passed his office expecting to find him nose-deep in important Cooperative paperwork, but instead her eyes fell upon him hunched over a carving knife and a mahogany branch. Stepping towards his desk and deftly sweeping up the discarded shreds of bark that littered the office floor, she examined the intricate flames he was crafting into the wood, her heart igniting with love to the point of implosion.

Sixteen months had passed since they first met in Outpost 2, nestled in a bunker in Beckley, his cerulean eyes meeting hers across the radiation decontamination chamber. She was the grey assigned to spray down his clothing as he entered the hideout, he was the mysterious Mr Langdon everybody immediately feared without really knowing why - everybody except her. She was assigned to the outpost after years of faithful service to the Satanic Church despite her kind nature, after all, nobody was perfect. She hadn’t remained a grey for long as she fell pregnant immediately after her first romantic meeting with Michael on his office desk, scaling the ranks from a mere servant to the outpost’s first lady due to the unplanned yet nonetheless welcome development in their new underground world. Out of the darkness above ground came the new life between the Antichrist and his angel.

“I promise I’ll come home to you and the boys.” He gently lowered his palms to meet her burgeoning bump, reminding himself of how much her womb had provided for him, one heir and another on the way in a matter of weeks. Not long after the arrival of their firstborn son, Damien, Michael and Y/N celebrated their status as new parents in the only way they knew how — between the sheets. The next morning, as they lay basking in the afterglow of an intense night of pure intimacy and love, Michael placed his hand on her abdomen and felt a new life once again.

If she had met the incarnation of Michael that chaired Cooperative meetings months earlier, she would never have stayed. The dictatorial, power-drunk Antichrist with his show-stopping red leather gloves and ominous black coat mellowed immeasurably at the mere suggestion of a family of his own. After the disastrous upbringing he endured, Michael refused to allow such a future for his own children, insisting on catering to Y/N’s every whim at any time of day or night. She gave him purpose, a reason to fight, a family to defend from the wasteland above ground. That said, if he had met her and her calming demeanour a month earlier, he would never have initiated the Apocalypse in the first place.

“Travel safe, please baby? We’ll be right here waiting,” she clasped her hands over his on her abdomen, willing herself not to shed a tear in front of him. The journey ahead of her husband would be treacherous, relying on a solitary pair of horses to carry him between the two outposts and back home again. He had only made this same voyage once since they first met, she had dreaded this day ever since but had remained strong for Michael and their growing family.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he whispered solemnly, snaking his arms around her waist and turning her to face him. As he planted his hands back on her bump, he dropped gracefully to his velvet-clad knees in front of her to level with his new life.

“Daddy’s going to be right back, little one. Don’t go making an appearance before I get back, you hear me in there?” He leant his forehead against the bump and closed his eyes, focusing on the strong heartbeat booming inside. He turned his head to face the crib where the blissfully sleeping Damien lay behind its bars, silently deciding not to wake him before he left so Y/N didn’t face another three hours to attempt to calm his cries.

“Let’s renew our vows when you come home,” she suggested as he rose to his feet. Michael beamed from ear to ear and nodded in agreement, while his eyes flashed with her thoughts of their wedding in the outpost just before Damien arrived. A dark affair of course, his bride wore black, an endlessly elegant gown cascading into a deep blood red as the taffeta reached the floor. Michael was always dressed for a wedding so he donned his favourite matching velour dress suit, with a single black rose threaded through his lapel. Fellow Outpost 2 residents Jeff Pfister and Mutt Nutter served as best man and maid of honour respectively. Y/N mercifully allowed her maid to attend without the embarrassment of a dress, Mutt’s unusually groomed beard offsetting his velvet suit in a most uncomfortable display for the typically slothful office-dwelling creature.

Silently acknowledging the urgency of his timely departure, Michael placed a deep, haunting kiss on Y/N’s lips as he ran his fingers through her raven black hair for one last time. Without the strength to say a proper goodbye, he closed his eyes and turned on his heels to charge out of their bedroom door. He wanted so desperately to look back, but then he might never leave.

The cold breeze grazing her bump signalled his departure and as she watched his angelic curls and velour coat tails make their way to the exit, she whispered to herself.

“Please don’t go."

———

Michael spent an arduous, mind-numbing fortnight examining the security procedures at Outpost 1 in New York. There was to be no unofficial communication with the ominous blonde Cooperative representative for the duration of his stay. Agents and informants flitted in and out of his makeshift office during the day, while the night would be spent alone in his quarters catching up on sleep or waiting to communicate with his wife after she finished her official duties in his absence. Tonight, a knock on the bedroom door broke the aching silence.

“Mr. Langdon,” a stern voice called from beyond the door. Michael could barely contain his rage at being disturbed when he had important emails to write, particularly one to his wife to let her know he was thinking of her and would be home soon. “A message has arrived for you, sir.”

She’s sent me a carrier pigeon? Michael thought, wracking his brains as to why his wife would require the archaic communication format over a simple email. Had the power gone down at the outpost? Was there something wrong with the baby? Had their son arrived too early? He slammed his laptop shut, rushing to swing open the door and nearly bumped into the grey behind it, holding a small copper tube in his hand.

“Give that here,” he hissed as he grabbed it impatiently from the grey's clutches, his hands shaking as he fumbled to find the end of the scroll inside, yanking it completely out of its casing. As Michael’s eyes laid upon the Cooperative’s signature obnoxious font filling the small sheet, his heart sank.

OUTPOST 2 HAS BEEN OVERRUN. CANNIBALS HAVE RAVAGED THE COMPOUND. MR. JEFF PFISTER AND MR. MUTT NUTTER ARE HEADING FOR THE SANCTUARY. INITIATE SANCTUARY RELOCATION IMMEDIATELY.

No word of his wife and children.

Michael's mind was already halfway to West Virginia before he shoved the grey out of his path and barrelled towards the exit. Throwing on a radiation suit as fast as he could on the way, he unchained his black horses from the Outpost gates and hurriedly connected them to the front of his bleak carriage. Bundling himself into the back, he cracked the driving whip furiously in a blind rage. 

——— A month later ———

The foreboding gates to the Hawthorne School for Exceptional Young Men bowed to the presence of Michael’s carriage through the toxic mist, issuing a welcome to the last remaining sanctum, Outpost 3. Two figures in dark radiation suits paced towards his vehicle wielding archaic weapons, Michael exited the vehicle and aimed his Cooperative identification card in their view. 

“Tend to the animals,” He dismissed in the direction of the figure he assumed to be Ms Mead, pacing towards the familiar school entrance. He would not be needing their assistance anymore.

His initial day of formalities and informing the outpost’s population of the developments outside of the confines of the former academic institution culminated in a meeting with the outpost’s leader, Ms Wilhemina Venable. Ushering the lavender-clad woman into the gloom of his office beside a roaring fire he conjured minutes earlier, Michael swallowed hard as he prepared to inform her of his journey that lead to Outpost 3. The length and trauma of the journey had hardened his resolve, returning to the arrogant facade shown only to the esteemed members of the Cooperative.

“You’re the leader in here. You need to understand what’s at stake, what’s really going on out there.” He slumped into a leather chair beside the ferocious flames, gesturing to the stern female to join him in an adjacent seat.

“On the way here, I came across a woman. A young mother with two children. They were some of the unlucky ones who were far enough from the blast radius to survive the fireball but not the radiation.” Michael raised an arm in demonstration, a chink emerging in his assertive facade as he detailed a vision more painful than he could bear.

“They were covered in tumours, sores, their lungs were burnt from the toxic air.” Molten tears coursed from both eyes, tracking multiple scorching routes down his countenance as he choked on his thoughts. His fists clenched and his throat constricted, memories searing before they reached his tongue, his steely demeanour long since departed.

“After a few moments, I realised that the child she was carrying in her arms was already dead. She was begging for us to murder her other child out of pity. Mercy. She didn’t have the strength to do it herself so she prayed for someone to come along and do it for her.”

“Did you?” Ms Venable queried. 

A single tear rolled down his pale cheek.

“No.”

---- read part ii here ----

[timelessxmemories]

*walks up to you ready for the ramble*

OKAY SO,

Lock was born to Hojo and an unknown woman, she is Hojo's biological child, her mother died when she was only 3 years old due to her father's experimentation upon her after finding out she was one of the last angels in Midgar. Hojo is a mad scientist, working for Shinra Electric Power Company. At the age of 16, Lock joined the Turks in Shinra to help out as much as she could. She learned a lot of scientific skills and research from her father and was trained by Angeal, a head SOLDIER. When she was 10 she became a SOLDIER, but soon after she was moved to become a Turk, leading into her becoming a higher ranked Turk due to her being a previous SOLDIER. Her father is what you would call an 'insane genius' and due to her inheriting those genes, she's one of the smartest and most skilled Turks in Shinra. She works alongside Reno, Rude, Tseng and Elena of the Turks. She does not know that her mother was experimented on by her own father. But you can bet that once she does, she won't like her father very much afterwards. She fights with a sword which holds 4 materia slots, when her fire materia is in use, her sword will light up into bright blue flames. Her father gave her a pendant when she was only so young which holds a materia called a Summoning Materia which holds the summon Leviathan. Leviathan is a water dragon summon. She also has a Moogle who follows her around named Creme, based around one of our alters here, who is also a Moogle named Creme.

Hojo:

Leviathan:

Creme:

[hanasaku-shijin]

By Her Side

Series: Lapis Re:Lights Characters: Tiara / Rosetta Words: 2,684 Genres: Friendship, General Summary: Rosetta is beyond thrilled to have her childhood friend Tiara join her at the Legendary Academy. Even though their lower ranking is at risk of getting them expelled, there is so much she wants to do by her friend’s side. ||  PATREON  ||  KO-FI  || COMMISSION INFO  ||

A/N: Okay, so I once again proved I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to fun series with cute girls who like each other, and I wrote this the day after episode 1 aired, before Lapis even has a fandom category on any site yet haha At this point, all I know about this series is what's been revealed in episode 1 and that's all. So I tried to just keep it all there and expand upon scenes that happened in canon so far, but just sprinkled in some of what I felt might be relevant, or have hopes for in future weeks of the show.

-----

By Her Side

Truth be told, Rosetta was absolutely thrilled to discover her beloved Tiara had somehow managed to end up at the Legendary Academy with her after two years, three months, and fourteen days of them being apart.

That glee and excitement had admittedly made her a little blind to the fact that - perhaps - some of the things that went on around here on a daily basis might prove to be a little overwhelming to someone who wasn't used to them.

Particularly the exploding arrows.

Presently, as one such arrow hits its target, the ensuing explosion bursts within the barrier in an eruption of flames and wind, and though the spell keeps the heat contained, the gust of air still snaps both hers and Tiara's hair and clothes back in a frenzy. To someone like Rosetta, it's just another everyday occurrence.

"You can basically take out a magical beast in one blow," she explains with a smile.

But as she turns her face to her childhood friend, she suddenly begins to understand this might not exactly be something she was prepared for.

Tiara's expression is frozen in spite of the flames, and as the winds die down, she begins to fall backward. It's such a surprise that Rosetta doesn't even have the time to remember how to reach out to grab her.

"Tiara? What's the matter? Tiara?! Tiara-!"

The poor girl hits the floor with a thud, and the shock on her face finally melts away as her eyelids fall shut and her head lolls to the side. Rosetta's heart jumps in panic as she drops to her knees beside her, and the old nickname comes without thinking.

"Tia-!"

The commotion draws the attention of the professor and the other girls who had been engaged in the exercise. They all peer around the pillars separating the firing range from the observation area in a fluster.

"Eh? What happened?"

"Who's that girl?"

"Oh no! Is she okay-?"

"Sh-Should we call the nurse-?"

Panicked, Rosetta reaches out to her friend and touches her cheek. Tiara feels a little warm, but it isn't feverish - likely just from the hot winds a few seconds ago. And her expression seems rather peaceful, so other than the fact that she's passed out, she seems all right. At the very least, Rosetta is glad she seems to have only fainted from shock, and nothing worse.

Rosetta breathes a sigh of relief. She lifts her head now to call out and answer the other girls' question.

"No, that's all right. I'm going to take her to the lounge."

Rosetta carefully slips her arms beneath Tiara's knees and shoulders, bringing her into her lap and close up against her chest. She strains out to also hook the handle of her suitcase on her fingertips. She braces herself to stand, and gets to her feet slowly. Somehow the weight of the suitcase is much more of a struggle to handle than Tiara's weight is.

Rosetta gets her bearings, checking to make sure her friend is secure in her arms before dipping her head to the other students, and then turning to start back the way they'd come.

As she walks with Tiara in her arms, Rosetta gets several concerned stares cast her way, but she smiles and reassures them all. She's glad that Tiara doesn't feel too hot across the rest of her body, so it's unlikely it's a fever. She has to keep reminding herself it was just the result of the blast, and nothing more.

By the time Rosetta reaches the main building, her fingers are beginning to ache under the weight of the suitcase, and yet holding Tiara still doesn't bother her at all. The stones sense her presence and allow the doors to open, and she hurries inside as quickly as she can manage.

She's a little grateful no one else is here at the moment, or else she'd have some explaining to do as to why their newest student was passed out in her arms.

She hurries to the couch and crouches to her knees, letting the suitcase slip off her fingers and onto the floor at last. With a sigh, she now focuses on laying Tiara down as slowly and gently as possible, doing her absolute best not to jostle her.

When she's finally succeeded in laying her down, Rosetta heaves a long sigh. But the worry continues wiggling in her chest like a fish out of water. She can't help but reach out again to touch her cheek.

"Tia…"

She's worried. How could she not be? After all, Rosetta had seen her fall ill many times in their younger years due to her weak constitution. She'd thought Tiara had grown healthier with age, but she can't help being concerned at seeing her faint like that after they've only just been reunited.

Rosetta shifts her hand, turning it over to rest the back of it against Tiara's forehead. She doesn't feel warm anymore. The fear that it could be another bad sickness like in the past begins to fade from Rosetta's mind.

But just to be absolutely certain, she moves a bit closer to her from her spot kneeling on the floor and picks up Tiara's hand from where it's been draped across her stomach. Rosetta holds her hand for a second, relishing the familiar softness of her touch before she remembers the bigger issue here.

She turns Tiara's hand over and finds her pulse, holding two fingers against her wrist. She locates the clock on the far wall and tracks a minute, counting the beats of her heart until time is up; she's relieved to measure a healthy resting heart rate of about sixty.

"Thank goodness…"

She sits back with a sigh, wiping her forehead where she'd started to sweat a bit from worry, though she still keeps hold of Tiara's hand as well.

Rosetta is quiet for a moment, gently lacing their fingers together and giving her a soft squeeze before letting go. She lays Tiara's hand back over her stomach, then lifts herself up onto her knees.

"Tia…"

She makes a move to touch her cheek again, but just before she can make contact, Tiara mutters a soft little moan. Rosetta gasps.

"Tiara? Tiara-?" She withdraws her hand to clutch them together at her chest now.

Tiara slowly opens her eyes, and Rosetta whimpers in relief.

"Tiara-sama! Thank goodness you're all right."

It takes some restraint not to embrace her. Instead, she sits back respectfully as Tiara slowly pushes herself up, looking around.

"Where are we?"

"This is the academy's lounge," Rosetta explains. "Are you in any pain?" She can't help but still worry for her a little. After all, she had fallen flat on her back and hit her head.

But thankfully, Tiara presents her with a smile.

"I'm all right now, Rosetta-senpai." Tiara takes a friendly stab at her with the formalities, and Rosetta relents.

"Ah… Sorry, Tiara."

"As long as you take the hint." Tiara gets to her feet with ease now, and Rosetta is glad she doesn't seem hindered in any way.

Rosetta stands as well.

"Why don't we head to our dorms for the day?"

"Sure!" she beams, giving a salute. "Lead the way, captain!"

"But before that, we'll need to get a certain something."

"And what's that?"

Rosetta steps up to her and pokes a finger at the thin red ribbon on her chest.

"Your uniform," she explains. "I'll go ahead and get it for you, so you can explore upstairs."

"Okay! Thanks, Rose!"

Tiara smiles again, and Rosetta feels a flutter in her heart when she uses the old nickname. She feels she should be used to it by now, since Tiara's addressed her by it all day, but it still makes her happy.

So the two of them part for the moment, Tiara heading upstairs as Rosetta retreats to the main office to collect her uniform. It only takes about five minutes, and once she has the bag in-hand she finds herself scurrying up the stairs rather excitedly.

She still can't believe this is real, that Tiara had not only managed to make her way here all the way from Bristol, but she'd managed to walk through the Chairman's doors right as Rosetta had. She wonders if it had been anyone else if Tiara would have been assigned to their group instead.

Just thinking about it makes her want to frown, so she shakes it off and hurries to the roof.

And even before she reaches the top of the stairs, she can hear the voice of an angel drifting down through the cool night air.

Rosetta slows her pace now as she reaches the top, and finally comes to a stop beneath the archway. She finds herself gazing at Tiara's back, and that sweet, beautiful voice of hers carries out on the twilight breeze.

"Oh guiding light, please shine upon us. Please shine upon us…"

Though she only hears the end of her song, it still brings tears to Rosetta's eyes almost instantly. She wipes them away, smiling as she offers a soft applause and starts walking to join her.

"You sound as lovely as ever."

Tiara turns around in surprise, then pouts a tiny bit.

"You should've said you were standing there. How embarrassing…"

"That takes me back," Rosetta says. "Wasn't that…?"

Tiara perks up and gives her a small smile in return.

"Yeah. It's my sister's song." She moves aside where she'd been standing at the railing of the balcony, making room for Rosetta to join her. Rosetta gladly takes her rightful place by her side.

Tiara turns around to lean her back on the railing, facing away from this new town of her future, and instead looking back, just for the moment.

"I was always so sickly, so she'd always make me feel better with her songs."

As she recounts the old memories, Rosetta is once again reminded of the troubling times of their shared past, when Tiara would often be bedridden with terrible fevers.

All Rosetta could ever manage was to stand and whimper, never feeling like she could do anything to help.

But Eliza would be there at Tiara's bedside to sing for her every time without fail.

Rosetta always wished she could provide similar comforts for her somehow...

"Eliza-sama loves you very much and was always worried about you."

"Yeah…" Tiara mumbles. "Back then, things were still…"

"Hm?"

"Oh, no. It's nothing!" Tiara gives her a reassuring smile, then leans back against the rail once more. "The reason I'm so much better now is because of my sister's songs. I'm sure of it."

Rosetta feels a wave of affection and adoration flood her heart, gazing at her strong and pure-hearted profile as a small breeze passes over them. She smiles too.

"Yes. I'm sure it is."

The wind strengthens just a little, stirring up their hair and caressing their skirts.

Rosetta looks out over the twinkling lights of the city and closes her eyes, breathing it all in. It's the first time in two years, three months, and fourteen days she's gotten to breathe in the night air with Tiara by her side. If she could be a little selfish, she'd wish to always be able to share her future days and nights with Tiara, too.

"What a nice breeze."

She reopens her eyes and turns to her friend, only to find Tiara's eyes closed once again. She's hunched over slightly, leaning in a comfortable stance against the rail, as if she'd simply fallen asleep on her feet.

And with the wind flowing gently through her hair, the city sparkling far below, and the calm night blanketing all around them, Rosetta believes she's never looked more beautiful.

She reaches for her, gingerly brushing the backs of her fingers across Tiara's cheek. She twirls a lock of her sunset-red hair, letting the strands slip through one by one, each like its own string of fate. If even one of them can connect back to her, Rosetta will be more than fine with that.

She lingers here with her, admiring Tiara's quiet beauty, and by some miracle resists the urge to kiss her.

Moments pass them by, until Rosetta is aware it's nearly time for the Lapis group to have supper. She wraps her arm gently across the small of Tiara's back, carefully coaxing the sleeping girl away from the edge.

"Tiara?"

Tiara moans softly, unconsciously turning toward her to rest her head on Rosetta's shoulder.

"Rose…"

Rosetta wants nothing more than to stay like this with her forever. But she can't let her own selfish desires get in Tiara's way of doing whatever it is she came here to do.

"It's time for supper," she murmurs, gently brushing her head against hers. Tiara yawns a little, but eventually steps away from the balcony with her.

"Okay."

She doesn't open her eyes right away, and seems perfectly content to walk with them closed for a moment, entrusting herself to her childhood friend. Rosetta keeps an arm around her and guides her as far as the staircase.

"All right, you've got to open your eyes now."

"Right." Tiara does as much, and when she looks up at her, it's like gazing into two endless summer skies. "Thanks, Rose."

Rosetta dips her head to conceal her blush.

"It's fine. Shall we?"

"Yes, we shall."

And so they head down the stairs together, and Rosetta savors the last few moments she'll have alone with her before they inevitably join the others.

And they'll still have to figure out a rooming situation, and there's also the fact that she has yet to tell Tiara about the ranks and risks of being a fellow Lapis like herself.

But Rosetta is certain that no matter what happens from here on out at the Academy - even if she gets herself expelled - she'd rather have done so with Tiara by her side.

--------

A/N: Gosh I have no excuse. They're just so good together. And if you really think Rosetta only thinks of her as a friend, I'm not going to say you're mistaken but like... oh man.

Not much for my first fic, but I wanted to keep it all mostly tame and in relation to canon, since at this point we have so little information to go off.

I wanted to mention not only Tiara's red ribbon but her hair also being red. String of fate and all that. I don't know, I think it'd be nice if she and Rosetta could be bound together somehow.

I'll more likely than not be writing more for them in the future if the show keeps being this good. After all, these two are gonna have their own room... My gosh...

[troybeecham]

Fr. Troy Beecham

Sermon 1 Epiphany 2021

Mark 1:4-11

“John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

The Gospel according the St. Mark pictures John the Baptist as a prophet who proclaims that the new era of the world has just begun, a beginning which would end the present evil age and finally and fully bring about the kingdom of God. This proclamation was received joyfully by those who were living under the cruel rule of the Roman empire. It was wonderful news because in this new world the Jewish people would finally be free, all evil people and evil regimes would be laid waste, and God would establish his throne and rule the earth from Jerusalem.

John called people to repent and to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins in order to be part of this coming new world. Now, to repent is to turn away from complicity with the old age and its values and behaviors and to turn towards living in harmony with the coming kingdom of God. Baptism gave to the baptized a physical assurance that their final destiny was no longer determined by the brokenness of the old age and its wicked rulers and systems of government. Now their destiny would be the kingdom of God and God would be their ruler, and righteousness and goodness would be the rule of life. Baptism was the public joining with the life of the kingdom of God and an invisible mark initiating those who received it into the community of the faithful who were eagerly anticipating God’s kingdom.

The writers of the Gospels want to make clear that John is not the one through whom this apocalyptic transformation will take place. The coming one -- Jesus -- will baptize the repentant people of Israel with the Holy Spirit and fire, and it is he who will carry out the final judgment. It is his appearing that will be the catalyst for the inauguration of God’s kingdom and in his name the Father will give the Holy Spirit to the faithful in order to empower the community to continue to witness to the coming of the kingdom of God after Jesus ascends back to the right hand of his Father.

So, what are we to make of this, looking backwards in time? Have we seen the dawning of God’s kingdom in the way that John proclaimed? What are we to make of this call to repentance? Does it even really make any sense given that the world has yet to be changed, and if history is any indicator, seems unlikely ever to change? The Church has been proclaiming the return of Jesus and the coming of the kingdom of God for two thousand years. Do we still believe? If so, what is the quality of our repentance?

In much of contemporary Christianity, repentance has been reduced to feeling sorry for personal moral transgressions rather than living in a way that is in alignment with the value systems of the world, with political parties, and the search for wealth. What are the wider ways in which we as individuals, as a congregation, and as a Church are complicit in value system and behaviors of the worldly kingdoms that John the Baptist, and Jesus, say are doomed to perish in flame?

Now Jesus’ baptism takes place as part of the community of those seeking to begin living according to the values of the coming kingdom of God, and so reminds us that they when we are baptized, we become part of a new heavenly reality that is coming to replace and transform the world. In this season of Epiphany, we get caught up in the several ways in which God reveals something new brought about by the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In this morning’s Gospel reading something unique happens when Jesus was revealed at his baptism: the heavens are invisibly opened over him and the Holy Spirit descends physically, visibly upon Jesus, and the voice of God is heard by all proclaiming that Jesus is the Son of God, his beloved. John the Baptist proclaimed that this would be the beginning of the end of the age, but what did John think that would mean? What do we think that means?

Apocalyptic theologians of antiquity, and those preaching today, preached that God would begin the end of time by opening the barrier between heaven and earth and send armies of angels to destroy the world and all the wicked with it. After this cleansing, God join heaven and earth and would for those who had been faithful to God in life. But rather than the beginning of the end commencing with destruction, St. Mark presents a different vision. St. Mark testifies that the beginning of the end of this age begins with the heavens opening over Jesus, and the Holy Spirit emerges from the heavens as a symbol of peace, not angel armies, and the Spirit is seen to physically enter Jesus in front of the thousands who have come to join the ranks of those choosing to be transformed in anticipation of the dawning of the kingdom of God.

Jesus is now the model for Israel and all the world for what living in the kingdom of God looks like. He is the one who shows us what a life of faithfulness looks like. All those present at his baptism saw the Holy Spirit enter Jesus. They, and we, can have confidence that Jesus embodies the life of the Spirit who would manifest the kingdom of God in his person. Indeed, the realm of God takes on bodily form in Jesus and is meant to be continued in the life of his disciples in his Church.

What is it, then, that we proclaim happens in our baptism? At one level we are saved from being ruled by the brokenness of our world and its ruling regimes, and are saved from ultimate condemnation at the end of time. But there is much more that we are called to manifest as the community of the baptized. All those who repent and are baptized, and are filled with the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, are empowered by the Spirit not only to become part of a community of disciples journeying towards the new world but who are called to invite others to join the journey of being disciples of Jesus, to work the signs of God’s kingdom, and to embody the qualities of the God’s kingdom in their common life.

My impression is that increasing numbers of Christians no longer subscribe to believing in such a new heavens and new earth worldview. We have been waiting for two thousand years, after all. Maybe we got it wrong? No wonder we see the Church in such disarray. Having lost faith in the faithfulness of God, we have slowly substituted the call for a life radically aligned with the kingdom of God with a life aligned with various spiritual and political philosophies. We see the brokenness of our world, and the failure of our political systems, and just how deeply corrupt are our cultural and political institutions. But we have stopped believing that God is really ever going to do anything about it. We have exchanged the proclamation of the kingdom of God, and of becoming disciples of Jesus beginning with repentance and baptism and living through the power of the Holy Spirit, with a call to believe in political philosophies and political leaders. Rather than submission to God, we are preaching submission to human rulers. We are fighting over to whom we should give up our liberty, whom should rule over us. It is a sad commentary on the state of the Church that pulpits are used for calls to political allegiance and action rather than expecting the end of this age of the world and the dawning of a new heaven and earth…rather than a call to a life of repentance and of faithfulness to God in Jesus.

We have exchanged a life of hope in God for a cynical, faithless image of a God who will come down and burn it all up all the bad people. The problem is that such a God is invoked by all sides of our conflicts with each other. All those ‘bad people’ that God is supposed to eliminate inevitably includes me, and you. Count on it, you are someone’s ‘bad person’, someone that needs to be gotten rid of so that there can be peace on the earth. This delusional, narcissistic, and completely faithless vision of God is at the heart of every genocide, every enslavement of peoples, every system of government that creates rulers and the ruled.

Thankfully, God is not moved by the faithless, narcissistic desires of humanity. It is both good news and bad that the same message of repentance, call to baptism, and a life of being a disciple of Jesus is at the heart of the true Christian religion. It is good news because in it we are connected to hope in Jesus by turning to him in complete trust, and bad because it requires us to reject the false gospel that promises salvation achieved by our own hands through political and social engineering. It is good news because the Son of God has come indeed, the Spirit really did descend, and the Father was “well pleased” in his Son and in all who truly become his disciples. In our world, so fractured and beset by sin, we are called to take heart on all those days when our spirit is locked up and unable to love others because our allegiance has been given first to political ideology. We are called to take heart on all those days when all the wrong people seem to be wielding power and our societies are coming apart at the seams, and God seems to be not nearly active enough.

We are called to persevere in living in the power of the Holy Spirit who empowers us to live the life of God’s coming kingdom in the midst of this present world, unfair and cruel as it is. We are to live in the light of the revelation of the Son of God, Jesus, who taught us to love all people with complete abandon of agenda or self-concern. We are being called to faithfully persist in proclaiming that the world as it is will not last forever, offering hope to all who will repent of their allegiance to the powers of this age and come to Jesus and accept him as Lord and Savior, placing our trust in his promise of the coming of the kingdom of God.

We are being invited to come today again to the throne of grace where Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father, to give ourselves wholly to him again, and to be renewed through receiving him in the most Blessed Sacrament of his Body and Blood. The world is waiting not only to hear about this hope that we have within us, but also to see us living the life of the kingdom that is yet to come in the here and now. The world is waiting to see God’s people living lives free from complicity with the powers of the world and in congruity with the promise of the Gospel. The world is waiting to see the people of God living by faith, and therefore at peace, when all around they see only strife and wickedness. In the name of Jesus, then, come, be renewed by grace, for your own sake and for the sake of those who are trapped in darkness. Come.

Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.