#the kind where I am a willing participant

[madeofsunbeams]

I head banged too hard tonight n all I got was a case of the sleeeepys 🌝💤

[someone-will-remember-us]

There is no collective noun for rapists but spend a week at the Pelicot trial and you wonder why. As the early morning queue of women who’ve come to support Gisèle Pelicot passes through security at the Palais de Justice, Avignon, you spy men with downturned faces scurrying across the lobby past the press. In court they sit on the left, clustered around a glass box containing more men, those in custody for the gravest crimes. Since there are 50 in total, the alleged rapists have been tried in batches and I’m just here for the final seven: Boris, Philippe, Nicolas, Nizair, Joseph, Christian, Charly.

Plus Dominique Pelicot himself, who invited them all into his marital bedroom, where he had his wife waiting, drugged and naked, and who joined in and filmed it all. Pelicot, 71, crumpled and fat now, but with a residual bulky power, sits sullenly alone with his guard in a separate glass box, protected from the other men who blame and detest him. Often after lunch he appears to doze off.

Such nondescript men. Grizzled, middle-aged (the mean is 47 years old), smart-casual in windcheaters or leather jackets and their best trainers, like minicab drivers waiting for fares. Ordinary men in many respects, not vagrants, junkies or career criminals. This week’s seven includes a fireman, an electrician and a journalist; several are fathers, two were keen weightlifters, one bred dogs. French trials helpfully begin with a personality profile formed from interviews with the men, their friends and colleagues. Poverty, domestic violence and mental breakdowns feature, but also that a man is “kind” or “gentle”, had a lovely childhood, adored his grandparents or is devoted to his mum.

Yet each one had sex with an unconscious woman, that is beyond doubt, thanks to Pelicot’s camera mounted on a tripod beside the bed, and by his own admission. “I am a rapist,” he has declared, “like the others in this room.”

From the Pelicot affair have come demands for reform to French rape law, for sexual violence to be treated more seriously, for an investigation into “chemical submission” — the coercive use of sedatives. But one question overshadows all others. How many men would have done the same? If Pelicot could recruit at least 70 willing participants (a number could not be identified) within a 25-mile radius of Mazan, the Provençal town where the couple retired, how many in the whole of France? As I walk through Avignon with Juliette Campion of radio station France Info, who bears the strain of reporting this case since September, she gestures to a bureau de tabac: “You think, ‘Would a guy in there have raped Gisèle? Or men in the boulangerie or those on the street?’ Women are looking at men differently: they’re asking, ‘Could you or you or you?’ ”

On the right of the court, behind her counsel of three serious, dark-haired young men, is Gisèle Pelicot with her female companion from victim support, leaning on the wall, as far from the men as the room allows, but facing her ex-husband. Her composure is remarkable. Although clearly tired and strained, she retains a quiet vivacity reflected in her clothes. Instead of shrinking away in black, she dresses each day as if meeting friends for drinks on a sunny terrace. A chic scarf, a faux fur bag, patent leather boots. Clothes that say, “I still have a life.” Every evening, when women line up to clap her out of court, she speaks to them warmly, neither reticent nor relishing the attention. Every day she walks through the cobbled streets past graffiti saying, “Gisèle, les femmes te remercient” (Gisèle, women thank you) to lunch at the same excellent brasserie, and people turn to gaze at her in awe.

The extraordinary woman who refused to be silenced

The humiliations of Gisèle Pelicot have a mythic quality. This is a woman who discovered the man she married aged 20, with whom she had three children and seven grandchildren, waited until she was deeply asleep before removing her pyjamas, dressing her in “sexy” underwear or writing on her buttocks, “I am a good submissive bitch,” then he let a stranger penetrate her inert body, filmed it, washed her intimately and replaced her pyjamas. This is a woman who thought she was going insane, had Alzheimer’s or a brain tumour, whose children thought she was dying, who stopped driving and going out alone, who slept all day and once woke puzzled why her hair was shorter. “But madame,” said her hairdresser, “you came in yesterday.” This is a woman who had mysterious gynaecological problems, including a swollen cervix (and still lives with four STDs), who thought her husband wonderful for accompanying her to medical tests, including an MRI.

This is a woman who, when her husband was arrested for “upskirting” in a Leclerc supermarket and police found the contents of his phone, discovered her whole 50-year marriage was a travesty, that he’d raped her in a service station car park, on Valentine’s Day and on her 66th birthday, and may have raped their daughter too. This is a woman who has listened to legal arguments about whether a man put his tongue inside or merely kissed her vagina, who heard another man say he’d only returned to rape her a second time because he couldn’t find anyone better, who sits in a courtroom while three giant TV screens show clips of her body being coldly humped by yet another “ordinary” guy.

Yet this is a woman who gathered up every scrap of her humiliation and with it constructed a mirror that she holds up defiantly to the court and to French society itself. “Shame must change sides,” she said, and in insisting the entire trial be conducted openly, that the worst men can do to women is witnessed by the whole world, she has done exactly that.

I ask many women I meet in Avignon how men in their lives regard the accused. They say they call them losers and freaks, that these are men on the margins, with no relation to themselves. But, along with the testimony I hear, the people I talk to believe this case raises many questions about French sexual mores. Whatever the decision later this month by five judges — there is no jury — Gisèle Pelicot will never be forgotten.

The court turns to Christian L, a fireman with a straggly castaway beard, who speaks from the glass box because after he was arrested, police found 4,000 child sex abuse and zoophilic images on his hard drive. We hear from his girlfriend, Sylvie, a small blonde in a grey hoodie, who says he’s a wonderful man, and is suspected of destroying evidence. Christian L recalls the victims he watched die in fires, the coffins of 11 colleagues he carried, the mental breakdowns that ensued. He was married but after his two daughters were born says he went off sex with his wife and turned to libertinisme. Strange, I think, that the French have coined this noble, philosophical concept, with its whiff of the barricades, to describe what we call swinging or dogging.

Like all the men, Christian met Pelicot through coco.fr — the murky, unmoderated site since closed down and now the focus of many major police investigations — on a forum called À son insu (without her knowledge). Christian L had already enjoyed “Sleeping Beauty” encounters with ten other couples. He spells out the rules: that you only dealt with the husband, sending him photos for approval, and during the sexual encounter he ran the show. Sometimes the wife woke up, other times not. How did he know, asked Gisèle’s lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, that she consented?

“In a libertine encounter,” Christian L explained, “it is the husband’s responsibility to ensure consent.”

But how could you be sure?

“Are we expected to sign a contract?” Christian L spluttered.

“You could ask the woman,” Babonneau suggested.

How the case could change French law

Given the overwhelming video evidence, the defendants can only claim Pelicot deceived or drugged them, or they believed Gisèle was collaborating in a game. If this case were before a British court, rape would be decided by two tests: whether Gisèle had “capacity to consent” (tough to argue given Pelicot admits to drugging her) and whether the men had “reasonable belief” in her consent. Unlike most European countries, French rape law has no concept of consent. Rather, it is defined as penetration “by violence, constraint, threat or surprise”. (The prosecution case rests on a convoluted definition of surprise.)

But rather than demand consent be added to the law, French feminists are divided. Some agree with President Macron, who supports change; many others argue that consent would put the onus on the victim to prove her conduct was not an invitation. This seems an odd objection, especially as the whole purpose of the video evidence is to show no one could believe Gisèle capable of consent, given she was so lifeless one man asked Pelicot, “Is your wife dead?”

Alice Géraud is the author of Sambre, an investigation into how, due to the indifference and cruelty of police, a caretaker called Dino Scala in northern France managed to rape 54 women over a period of 30 years. “The Pelicot case with 50 defendants and one victim feels a strange inverse of Sambre.”

Géraud believes the Pelicot affair could provide the same impetus for change as a famous 1974 case of two Belgian tourists, Anne-Marie Tonglet and Aracelli Castellano, who, camping near Marseilles, were brutally raped by three local men. As was normal practice, the crime was downgraded from felony to misdemeanour on the basis the victims eventually stopped resisting. But the women, a lesbian couple, persisted and thanks to their feminist lawyer, Gisèle Halimi, it became the first rape case to be heard in the higher assizes court. Like Gisèle Pelicot, the women waived their anonymity. “We believe that it’s one thing for a man to rape,” said Halimi, “and another to know it’ll get around his village, his work, the papers.” Shame changed sides: the men were jailed and the French criminal code was rewritten defining rape as a serious offence.

For Géraud, the greatest current injustice is that whether a man has raped one women or 50, the maximum sentence is 20 years (here a serial rapist can be jailed for life). “This is law made by men,” she says, “with a grave lack of knowledge of rape culture.” She is scornful too about libertinisme as a universal excuse for male sexual exploitation. “Libertinisme was why Coco existed for so long,” she says. “It is the justification for prostitution, for the porn industry.”

Charly A is the youngest of all the defendants, just 22 when he first entered the Pelicot house. Small, bearded, now 30, we learn his childhood was chaotic, his father an alcoholic, his mother had many sexual partners; there are hints of abuse. “This is a family of secrets,” concludes the personality profiler. A psychiatrist adds he is immature, struggles to sustain relationships and instead consumes porn, “especially the Milf [Mother I’d like to f***] category with mature women”. In 2016, he made contact with Pelicot via Coco: “He said his wife would be lying there pretending to be asleep, he doesn’t tell me more.”

Over time Pelicot asks Charly if he knows anyone they could drug for sex and he proffers the only woman in his life — his own mother. Pelicot gives him pills (which Charly claims to have thrown away), shows him how to crush them, keeps pressing him to use them. “When can I come and we f*** your mother?” he asks in one video, but Charly keeps stalling, saying his brother is at home. Yet he returns to violate Gisèle, always with Pelicot, once with another man, a total of six times. “Did you feel like you were in a porn film?” asks Babonneau. Charly shakes his head.

Until this point, very late in the trial, the influence of internet pornography has barely been explored. The court only notes paedophiliac images, not “normal” usage. Yet Mathieu Lacambre, a psychiatrist who evaluates Charly A, remarks how porn sites not only push users to more extreme content but to enact porn fantasies in real life. “Until now Charly A was behind the screens,” he says. “Now [in Gisèle] he has an object served up on a platter a few miles from home. The sleeping princess Milf, voilà.”

A rented home in a quiet cul-de-sac

I drive out to Mazan, a lovely honey-stoned French village set in the vineyards below Mont Ventoux, where the Pelicots retired from Villiers-sur-Marne, a Paris commuter town where he was electrician and she was a manager at EDF. I imagine Gisèle browsing the little boutique, dropping into the beauty salon, sipping an aperitif outside the bistro. The home they rented for ten years is five minutes away in a quiet cul-de-sac of four houses behind tall cypress trees. It is lemon yellow with blue shutters, a pool, a very prominent alarm system, and new tenants. Given how many men knew her address, Gisèle fled four years ago for her own safety, with just a suitcase and her dog.

Today an immense cloud of migrating starlings swoops over the house like pixels in a photograph. This was where their grandchildren loved to visit in the summer, but also the centre of Dominique Pelicot’s porn operation. For what else was this grotesque man but a pornographic auteur?

We leave our car, just as Pelicot instructed the men, in the sports ground car park, by the bottle bank. I think of them texting their arrival, then creeping down the lane. (One man made his girlfriend wait in the car.) Pelicot would meet them at the door by the light of his phone, tell them to undress in the dark living room and warm their hands on a radiator. (They’d been instructed to be clean, not smell of cigarettes or wear cologne.) Then they were led into a bedroom with a TV, a chest of drawers, a bed with a naked Gisèle motionless on white sheets, and a mounted camera.

Whatever followed next was carefully orchestrated by Pelicot, a director urging on actors in stage whispers, since the objective was to do what they desired without waking Gisèle. Pelicot would tell them how and when to penetrate her, or hold his wife’s gaping mouth to facilitate oral sex. Given four Temesta (lorazepam), a powerful anti-anxiety drug he’d crushed into her wine or ice cream, his wife was like a patient on an operating table. Even so, if her arm gave an involuntary spasm,the men would scuttle from the room. A friend who has sat through many court videos says it was Pelicot ordering the humping men to go doucement — softly — that upset her, since she knew this was not out of tenderness for Gisèle.

All the while the camera rolled. Why did these men agree to have their crimes recorded? They say it was part of the deal, that Pelicot told them Gisèle was shy and liked to watch the sex later. But perhaps also because, in taking part, these men were promoted from porn consumers to creators. Filming was central to their fantasy. When Christian L finally climaxes he turns to give the camera a cheery thumbs-up.

For Pelicot, each film added to his oeuvre. Police discovered a carefully curated archive of 20,000 images and videos on hard drives and memory sticks showing 200 rapes. He gave each film a title like “Squirt on the ass”, “Cock in mouth” or “Jacques fingering”. This man, once caught by his daughter-in-law masturbating at his computer, was now a porn impresario.

The question at the centre of the case

Why did Pelicot do all this to a wife he professed to love, whom he called “a saint”? Was it to punish Gisèle for an affair early in their marriage (although he was serially unfaithful himself)? Or because when he’d asked her to join him in the libertinisme scene she’d refused — so he devised a way to make her. But Gisèle was not his first victim: Pelicot has admitted to the rape of an estate agent, using ether to drug her, in 1999, and will be tried for the rape/murder of another young estate agent, Sophie Narme, in 1991. The French police cold case bureau is investigating his possible links to many other unsolved crimes.

But as the “Without her knowledge” forum suggests, his was not a unique fantasy. The Pelicot case has illuminated the issue of “chemical submission”, not only drinks being spiked by strangers in bars, but drugs used to control partners within relationships. The French health service is noted for being blasé about prescribing heavy-duty medications, which is how Pelicot stockpiled his vast stash of Temesta.

Documentary-maker Linda Bendali has made a film for French TV about chemical submission, featuring seven cases, including a 13-year-old girl drugged by her father with medicine supposedly for her allergies, put in lingerie and raped over two years, and a 60-year-old woman drugged then raped at home by a man she was mentoring at work. “I’ve looked back at 30 years of press reports of rape,” says Bendali, “which includes dozens of women saying they woke up — mainly with men they know— unable to remember what happened.”

The Sleeping Beauty scenario, she says, is not merely a means for a man to get easy sexual access, but a way to enjoy absolute domination. “You are not even giving her the chance to consent,” says Bendali. “You can do anything you want to a drugged woman, for as long as you want. You can dress her how you want. These men want total power.” Pelicot is typical in filming his crimes: “Pictures are trophies. He was driven by a mix of desires for blackmail and voyeurism.”

Gisèle’s daughter, Caroline Darian, who was also drugged and photographed naked by her father, is heading a campaign on chemical submission, demanding police take samples of hair from rape victims, the only way sedation can be proved.

In court, I hear another psychiatrist tasked with assessing whether each of the final seven defendants has the profile of a sexual abuser. One by one, he exonerates the men, saying they are not dangerous or likely to reoffend, to the growing exasperation of Gisèle’s team. Then he reaches Charly A. “He doesn’t search [for victims] systematically,” says the psychiatrist. “He’s not a predator.” Finally, Babonneau explodes: “Six times with a sleeping woman and he’s not a sexual abuser?” The men do not identify as rapists because, like this psychiatrist, they define rape as frenzied sexual violence, not an opportunistic act performed to whispers in a private home. As one defendant put it, “It’s her husband, his house, his room, his bed, his wife.”

Women unite in the town of Mazan

Both in religious and political terms, Mazan is a conservative town: for 500 years it was part of a papal enclave and in the recent French election voted heavily for Marine Le Pen. Villagers regarded the Pelicot case with horror and sympathy which turned quickly to resentment when press named it l’affaire Mazan. Amid longstanding families who’ve known each other for generations, the Pelicots were outsiders who’d brought disgrace into a rural community. Tired of inquiries, the mayor, Louis Bonnet, 74, told the BBC, “It could have been far more serious. There were no kids involved. No women were killed.”

At the Lucky Horse Ranch outside Mazan, women victims of sexual violence receive equine therapy. I’m sceptical at first about how grooming and riding horses could help rape victims, but somehow these large, placid animals are calming and restorative. Here I meet Latika, 33, who at first was too timid to touch a Shetland pony, but now sits high on a saddle for our photograph.

Latika was separating from her husband, the father of her two children, but still sharing a house. He was violent, hitting her daughters, putting her in hospital with cuts and a broken rib. Two years after they’d last had sex, she woke to find him inside her. She believes the sweet tea he often gave her was laced with sedatives, but that night she hadn’t drunk it all. She realised he’d been drugging her for years — her mother recalls finding her deeply unconscious early in her relationship — and, worse, she was pregnant with a third child. She told the police, who addressed the domestic violence but ignored the rape. Her husband fled to Guadeloupe and she was left traumatised, fearful of leaving the house.

“I didn’t feel people really believed what had happened to me until Gisèle Pelicot spoke out,” says Latika, who has since made the police reopen her case. In October, as women across France holding white flowers protested in support of Gisèle, Latika headed the local march into Mazan and the next day Gisèle herself visited the ranch. “She said it is almost unbearable to return to this place where terrible things happened,” says Latika, “but she wanted to thank us. She told me, ‘I didn’t know the meaning of my life before this happened — but I do now.’ ”

Watching Gisèle take such sustenance from her supporters, you wonder how she will cope when the trial finally ends. She is writing a book and could, if she chose, become a global campaigner. “There is something particularly powerful,” says Linda Bendali, “about her being an older woman — she represents all our mothers. All generations identify with her.” But those close to Gisèle say that, at 72, she may just return to a quiet life of friends, grandchildren and her garden, in the secret location where she now lives.

But she is already an icon of courage for the women who come from across France and beyond just to watch the trial on a screen in an overspill room. Some want to witness history, a few enjoy the sensational evidence like tricoteuses at the guillotine, but many have risen at 5am, taking a day off work, to support a woman they deeply admire. Marion Spiteri and Amélie Planche, both 24 and law graduates, feel the case opened their eyes. “How can it be,” Spiteri says, “that so many men did this without her consent?” “It is terrifying,” Planche adds, “that a woman cannot even trust her own husband.” They tell me, astonishingly, that neither they nor their friends ever go to the toilet in a bar or club alone.

But then the nation of libertinisme lags behind in its attitude to violence against women. Until 2021, France did not even have an age of consent, effectively decriminalising even incestuous relations between children and adults, allowing several high-profile child abusers, including firemen who groomed a 13-year-old girl, to evade rape charges. Each time a prominent Frenchman is accused of rape — whether politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn or, currently, actor Gerard Dépardieu — famous French actresses leap to defend him. This is the nation that convicted child rapist Roman Polanski fled to from America, and is still fêted. The #MeToo movement was regarded by many as a wave of Anglosphere prudishness, contrary to the spirit of French seduction. So what can the Pelicot trial achieve?

I meet feminists from Les Amazones d’Avignon, the creators of graffiti across the city supporting Gisèle. (So as not to spoil the city walls, they write slogans on paper that can be removed.) Their latest reads “20 ans pour chacun” — 20 years for each one. I suggest a drink in a café nearby: “Not in there,” says one Amazone, “that’s where all the rapists go.” Blandine Deverlanges, 56, is part of the Coalition Féministe Loi Intégrale putting 130 proposals about sexual violence before the French parliament, including a ban on lawyers harassing victims in court. They are disgusted the defence asked Gisèle why she swam naked in her own swimming pool.

“This is a trial,” says Deverlanges, “of one extraordinary man, the monster Pelicot, and many ordinary men.” And as we talk I see a group of them emerge nervously from their favoured café and head back to the court. A collective noun for rapists? A violation, a banality, a shame.

(archive)

[jayhyunglover]

On the first snowfall

Fairytale AU

Prince! Zayne x princess! Reader

Contents: depictions of violence (not hardcore because I am soft) , mentions of injuries and blood , slightly suggestive at the end , childhood friends to lovers. Angst but happy ending (yippie)

Synopsis: only a true love kiss can bring him back (based off Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs )

Word count : 8.9k

A/N: this took me forever to finish (4 days to be exact). It's my first long fic and English is not my first language so please be kind. Reblogs and like are appreciated. Happy reading !!

"Please Daddy" the toddler tugged at Zayne's sleeve lips jutting out in a small pout that made her resemble so much to her mother

"Ok but you promise you'll go back to bed after" Zayne sighed in defeat it was past curfew and his little angel seemed intent to give him an hard time.

The little girl nodded,  hazel eyes lighting up at the prospect of getting a bedtime story.

Zayne picked her up effortlessly making his way towards the bed to lay down on her bed full of plushies

With his daughter tucked comfortably against his side on the small bed he spoke in a rather monotone voice.

"Once upon a time , in a kingdom far far away lived a prince"

"Was he pretty ?" She interrupted him , voice filled with childlike excitement and wonder.

"According to some yes" he replied making small projections with his evol.

"This prince lived with His dad and never knew his mother"

"What happened to her?" She asked tilting her head like a sad puppy .

Not wanting to crush the 5 years old little girl's spirit Zayne choose his next words carefully.

"She joined the Angels up in the skies where she now look after him" he replied

"Oohh" her lips was forming  a small Oh,  surprise painting her soft features.

Zayne felt his heart melt at the sight , the love he felt for this literally bundle of joy too overwhelming.

"One day the prince's father the king got married to another woman , who had a son" Zayne continued the story while she listened intently,  eyes flickering over the snow figures he created with his evol to animate the story.

"The Queen didn't like our prince none bit"

"Why?" She asked pouting.

"Well because,  my snowflake,  the Queen wanted her son to become the next king" he retorted flicking her nose which make her pout deepens

"But our prince was there first" she huffed crossing her small arms over her chest.

Zayne just smiled patting her hair that was already ruffled from turning in her bed before picking the story where he left it.

"One day there was a big event taking place in the Palace. An hunt where the Winner will have to go in a forest and catch the biggest and fastest animal and bring it back to the Princess to earn a kiss from her"

"You're not considering participating right Zayne?"

Her voice made the young man jolt almost dropping his book.

"You" he looked at her who was standing on her tip toe to peek over his shoulder.

Adjusting his glasses he replied

"I am the Prince of Eladia , it is my duty to attend"

"You know there's no need" she waved him off "I am willing to give you a kiss whenever you-" her words got cut off by Zayne's hand who dragged her in a secluded corner , the tip of his ear flushed red , eyes darting around awkwardly to make sure nobody heard them.

"So you want it now?" She smirked deviously at  him , her words slightly muffled by his hand he hastily removed.

What is wrong with her?

"This is not-" a sigh "this is not what you think" he pinched the bridge of his nose but her smirk just got wider

"Sure your majesty" she nudged his elbow playfully before speaking in a more serious tone "but Seriously Zayne you really shouldn't participate to this hunt"

"And may I know why ?" He shook his head

Not even letting her answer he strutted his way ahead leaving her rotted to her spot.

"Why is he so rude?" The little girl exclaimed making Zayne stammer in his tale , the tip of his ear flushing bright pink.

"He might  be a bit stubborn" he replied before continuing

"I've heard the forest is dangerous with weird creatures roaming in it" she jogged after him but he was quicker , his legs way longer .

"You've  heard,  not seen" he retorted pace not faltering.

What a jerk I am looking out for him and this is how he Thanks me ? She thought to herself.

"But isn't it better to be prepared?" She retorted holding the pans of her dress while literally chasing after him , not even a care for the weird glances the servants and the Guards were casting toward them.

Everyone in this palace knew the Prince of Eladia and the princess of  Eralyon were close.

"I will be" Zayne reassured her finally stopping in his track.

"Fine" she sighed raising her hands in surrender "go ahead and participate but you better win because ain't no way I am kissing that pearlescent frog" she jabbed a finger in his chest earning a small smile from him.

He caught her wrist gently before bringing it to his lips and leave a delicate kiss on her skin.

"Anything for you your highness" he murmured against her skin , hazel eyes looking up at her.

She quickly withdrew her hand from his grasp , feeling her cheeks flush and her heart thump

"Hmm w-well" she stammered , words failling her . Cheeks blushing the prettiest shade of pink he has ever seen.

"All I can say is good luck and make sure to come back in one piece." She uttered after finally regaining her bearings

"I sure will" he nodded but she was already making her way toward God knows where leaving him dumbfounded in the alley.

What's wrong ? Was kissing her wrist inappropriate?

Zayne's eyes followed her form until she turned into a corner. Mind still mulling over her reaction as he made his way to the Royal library to return the book he was reading.

"How I hate this" she muttered herself,  moving her fan like she was wrestling with it , this dress felt too tight , the heat unbearable even if they were outdoor .

The Queen  was sitting on a small platform while the princess was sitting alone on another. The King well wasn't present because he was ill its been 3 months since he doesn't step out of his room. Only the Queen knows about his whereabouts.

The princess's eyes were roaving around the crowd below searching for Zayne When her eyes fell on him she quickly excused herself to go wish him Good luck.

"Zayne" she sauntered over him., eyes filled with a mixture of excitement and worry. 

A small smile crept up Zayne's lips when his eyes fell on her.

"I cant believe you didn't listen to me" she crossed her arms over her chest, a small pout tugging at her lips .

She looked so adorable he caught himself of thinking about leaning down and kissing that pout of her lips.

"I thought you gave me your blessing" he said tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear making a small shiver ran down her spine.

"You were gonna take part with my blessing or not" she retorted batting his hand away. "Just come back safely" she murmured in a small voice hands grasping his

He looked down at their hands before looking back at her face

"Why do you worry so much about me?"

His question seemed to catch her off of guard making her sputter out

"Because you're my friend of course" yet she didn't seem herself convinced by her words "and you have to win because I am not kissing that pearlescent frog you have for a brother" she let go of his hand to cross her arms over her chest .

Zayne was tempted to prob further but the sound of clarion interrupted them.

Before he could hop on his horse she took his hand and left a kiss on the top of his palm.

"Good luck kiss" she winked at him before making her way to her seat leaving him a fluttery mess of heartbeat and flushed cheeks.

The princess made her way toward her seat,  eyes heavy with a mixture of sorrow and sadness she couldn't quite pinpoint.

Zayne rode through the forest mind still reeling from the unexpected kiss she gave him , he could still feel the skin where her lips touched him tingling.

Get a grip Zayne he scolded himself.  You're here for a purpose not to daydream like lovesick fool.

The sound of scrunching leaves made his ear perk up , his horse coming to a stop when he felt a shadowy presence around him.

The forest was eerily quiet,  not even a bird singing only the rustle of leaves could be heard . Drawing his bow , his senses were on high alert ready to eliminate Whatever threat was lurking in this dense forest

"Well well look like his majesty can't even catch a simple prey" his stepbrother's voice Christian echoed , grating his ear as always.

"Christian" he lowered his bow , eyeing him suspiciously. "I dont recall inviting you"

Christian let out a small laugh stepping out the shadow, brown locks neatly styled , gray eyes filled with mischief. Hands raised in mock surrender

"Relax brother we're on the same boat aren't we ?" He grinned pearly white teeth gleaming like fang "both fighting for the princess's Attention and maybe more"

Zayne ignored him getting off of his horse to lead it through the dense foliage.

Christian was never up to no good and he wouldn't let him ruin his day , nope not today not when he has a beautiful princess waiting for him with a kiss.

"Do what you want" Zayne spoke not sparing him a glance. "Just stay out of my way"

Christian just trailed behind him, unnervingly silent

"The princess seems quite fond of you" he observed trying hard to sound disinterested  "Its a shame you didn't listen to her" he shrugged nonchalantly

"What the-" before Zayne could process anything he found himself pined against a tree a dagger pressing against his stomach

"Such a shame we could have been best buddies" he let out a dramatic sigh , eyes gleaming with a feral hunger "all because you had to be a legitimate son" he tsked dagger piercing through Zayne's stomach making hot white splashes of pain wash over him , the metallic tang of blood filling his mouth.

He withdrew his dagger , letting Zayne slump against the ground

"Its nothing personal you know" Christian reassured him cleaning his dagger in Zayne's overpriced coat "just politics and dont worry" he pressed his feet down Zayne's wound making him choke on his own blood . "I'll make sure to take care of your princess , I bet her lips taste sweeter than those  desserts you love to indulge yourself in Huh?" he smirked feet pressing harder against Zayne's stomach.

"Rest in peace , your highness, the kingdom will hardly misses you" he bowed dramatically before turning his heels leaving Zayne for dead in the deep forest

The young man couldn't do nothing but lay there in his own blood as his murderer walked away leaving him hopeless mind swirling with thoughts of her , his mom, his father , her bright  smile when she found him crying in the palace gardens after his mom death , how she offered him sweet to brighten his day  , how he likes them since that day.

What a shame she will never know how her smile brighten up his day , how he loves seeing her scrunch up her nose in annoyance when he tease her too much or how he likes it when she openly flirt with him even if he pretend he's annoyed by it . She will never know how much he loves her,  never know how much he wanted to win so she won't have to kiss his brother but it was too late now laying in the blood soaked ground , only his dead body and regrets remain.

"Is he dead ?" The little girl tugged at Zayne's wrist making his heart clench in his chest.

"No my little snowflake" he reassured her stroking her cheeks gently.

She nudged closer to him , her head resting against his shoulder waiting for him to continue.

The princess was pacing back and forth in her room , heart twisting with worry . It was already late in the evening and Zayne haven't returned.

"Be safe , be safe" she continued to murmur , clutching the jade necklace he offered her for her 18th birthday 3 years ago.

"Your highness" the sound of 2 guards standing at her doorstep pulled her out of her trance and before she knew it she was standing in front of them.

"What happened? Has his majesty returned?" She fired  question after question,  her anxiety coming off in a wave.

The guard looked oddly uncomfortable,  eyes darting away from her.

"What's wrong? Where's Zayne?" She pressed on

"His majesty hasn't came back" one guard spoke up eyes looking anywhere but her

"According to Sir Christian" the other continued "he got attacked by a beast and didn't make it"

"Bullshit"

The guard's eyes widened.  It was the first time they heard the princess Swear .

"Zayne is the best archer in the kingdom unless that beast was a certain pearlescent frog , I don't believe your charades" she waved them off strutting her way out of the room

"Your highness where are you going ?" The guards called out after her

"Going to do your job since you are so incompetent at it" she shouted adjusting her cloak.

"The princess did what?"

"S-she left" a small gasp left the messenger's lips when the butter knife that was in the Queen's hand flew pass his head.

"This little Eralyon brat" she stifled through her teeth before excusing the trembly messenger

"No need to get so worked up Mother" Christian who just arrived in the dining  room patted her shoulder.

"She's just a little girl with no defense ,a damsel in distress and who will be the prince that will save her?" He offered his mother that same mischievous smile.

"You" she scoffed "but that still doesn't solve our issue"

"What issue ?" Christian plopped himself on a chair across the dining table

"You haven't done your job properly Christian,  he's still alive" she retorted

The man drew a long breath , the gears already turning in his mind .

"How could you be sure ? The dagger was poisoned and the wound was fatal"

"Those nuisances of creatures saved him , the mirror told me so"

Ah this infamous magical mirror, such a pain in the ass Christian thought.

"So now what do you suggest?" He asked caressing his stubble.

"We finish the job obviously" she rolled her eyes as if the answer wasnt obvious.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~◇~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Is he alive ?"  A fluttery voice asked

"Obviously- what the fuck!!! Why are you naked? we have guest over"

"Narilyn stole my clothes- ouch! That hurts"

Zayne's head was throbbing , the pain in his stomach almost unbearable and now he was hearing voice ?? Was he in hell?

"Stop fighting you 2" another voice more mature, more firm "you're disturbing his sleep" 

Zayne's eyes fluttered open only to see 3 colored heads snapping back toward him

"He's awake" the same fluttery voice exclaimed making the blue haired being smack a book on her head. 

"PUT SOME FUCKING CLOTHES ON" she continued to smack her making her fly away.

Wait fly . Zayne eyes widened further . Aren't those early signs of schizophrenia ?

"No you arent dreaming" the white haired one who seemed the oldest spoke up.

Zayne had so much question . How did he get here ? Wasnt he supposed to be dead ? What were those winged being ?

As if reading his mind the white haired fairy provided him with answers

"We found you for dead in the forest and brought you here and as for what we are-"

"We are the 7 guardians of the forest" Zayne was startled by the presence of another fairy , this one had green hair and eyes , long wings shining with bright glitter that looked like stardust.

"Narylin" she offered him her hand with a bright smile. Zayne hesitated to grasp it still confused by this situation but she didn't seem to mind .

"Narylin you pest give me back my clothes" the fairy who was still apparently naked exclaimed, blonde hair sticking to her skin as she tried her best to avoid her sister's  book attack.

"I didn't take it" Narylin shrugged while the white haired fairy let out an heavy sigh.

"I am here" another presence stepped inside the small house only to quickly bend down to avoid a lamp thrown after the blonde fairy.

"They are fighting again" the red haired fairy who just arrived shook her head.

Feeling her patience wearing thin the white haired fairy flicked her fingers  making them stop their useless bickering.

The fairies all gathered around her after the blonde one successfully found her clothes.

"State your name stranger" the purple haired one pointed a lance at him making the blonde one giggle and the blue haired facepalm herself

"Melida this is not how we greet a guest" the oldest scolded her gently.

Zayne just watched them dumbfounded,  the fairies were no bigger than a water bottle ,  there were 7 of them all with different hair colors and translucent wings that shone brightly.

"Its an honor to meet you, your majesty" the withe haired one bowed at him making the other follow suit. 

They knew he was the prince ? How ?

"I-" Zayne's words failed him , this was too outlandish to be true , he never believed in fairytales or the existence of strange creatures not even when the princess would tell him tales about them.

"The pleasure is mine?"  He found himself replying , the words more like a question than a statement but that seemed to satisfy them.

"I am Sonia" the blonde haired one exclaimed flying land on his shoulder.

"And this is Melida." She pointed at the purple haired one , "Hydrangea" blue haired one that chased after her for dear life "Lily" red haired one , "Narilyn" green haired one "Rose" pink haired one "and our older sister "Sapphire" she pointed at the white haired one. She was the only fairy whose eyes were a different color than her hair , they were blue not white.

"What about you ? What's your name ?" Sonia inquired head tilted to the side to look at him.

"Zayne" he murmured eyes snapping from Sapphire

"Zayne it's pretty like you" she giggled

"Its pretty like you" she smiled brightly.

Zayne felt his head throb at the memory eyes screwing shut as the pain washed over him.

"We should let him rest he still hasn't healed properly" Sapphire said making everyone hang their head low in shame.

Sonia who was perched on his shoulder flew towards the rest of her sisters leaving him alone.

"Rest well your majesty" she waved at him.

Zayne waved back at her mind swirling with unanswered questions.

He plopped himself down on the small bed he was resting on thinking.

He's alive . Well that's a good sign . But how many times has passed since he's here? Does everyone think he's dead ? Does she think he's dead ?  Is she alright ? Knowing how stubborn she could be , she's probably searching for him everywhere but even him didn't know where the hell he was Exactly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~♡~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What made her think hopping on an horse and rode through this forest a good idea?

The thing you'd do for love. Wait love no she's not in love with him,  she's  just doing her duty as a future Queen and his bestfriend. That's it.

"Yeah that's it- AHH" the footsteps of nearby horse made her own drop her

"Fuck" she massaged her head taking of dead leaves stuck on the strands

"Princess,  princess" Christian tsked kneeling to be at her eyes level "don't you know this forest is dangerous for such a precious thing like you"

"You tell me it seems the perfect a habitat for a pearlescent frog like you" she shrugged leaning against her palms.

Christian chuckled trying his best to mask his irritation

"Such a sharp tongue" he cupped her chin , thumb caressing her bottom lip "makes me wonder if it can only give witty remarks"

she felt a wave disgust washes over her . Bile rising up her throat

Who the hell does he think he is ?

"It can also bite" she retorted making his eyebrows furrow before he could process her words she bit him hard enough to draw blood before starting to run away in the dense forest

"This little bitch" he hissed  "get her" he ordered the Guards "seems like I'll have to teach this Eralyon brat a lesson"

She ran as fast as possible, her heart pounding in her chest, breath erratic. She didn't have a destination in mind, engulfing herself deeper in the dark forest without a care for her safety. She needed to get away from this mad bastard and find Zayne.

But alas, fate had other things in store for her since she tripped on a dead branch and fell flat on her face, the impact causing the breath to get knocked out of her lungs.

No, you can't stop now. She was about to stand up and keep running, but Christian's booted foot pressed against her shoulder blade, pushing her against the ground.

"Such a shame, Princess. If only you didn't have to be so difficult," he yanked her by her hair while she tried to fight off his grip.

"So feisty. I'm going to have so much fun with you, Princess of Eralyon," he grinned ,nosing her pulse while she felt like throwing up. "I'll tame you," he murmured against her neck, inhaling her scent, "make you my little puppet."

"In your dreams, Christian," she spat, eyes blazing with fury.

"A dream that's about to become true," he chuckled darkly before injecting a potion into her side, making her body fall limp in his arms.

He carried her back to his horse after instructing the guards to get back to the palace.

Zayne was getting better with the fairies tending to his wounds when they weren't busy fighting that is

"It's mine" Hydrangea shouted  hugging the small snowman Zayne made for them with his evol.

"Nope" Sonia countered pushing Hydrangea off the snowman with a jet of gold glitters "my friend's confection,  mine" she retorted standing on top of the snowman,  wings fluttering.

"And stop fighting over this human ?" Melida who was sharpening her weapon added

"Will you 2 stop shouting for 2 minutes? There's people trying to read in peace" Lily who was reading a book interrupted them

"Its her fault" the blue haired fairy pointed at Sonia who stuck her tongue out mockingly.

Zayne just observed their interaction with a small smile while chopping the vegetables for dinner.

The oldest fairy suggested that he stayed here until he completely heal . The others were eager for hjm to stay (Sonia and Narilyn in particular) while Melida was still wary of him.

"Your majesty are you single?" Sonia asked flying to rest on his shoulder which seemed to be her favorite spot.

The question caught Zayne off of guard making his cheeks flush

"Mmh I guess" he replied focusing on the dinner he was making.

"You guess ?" Hydrangea tilted his head at him , eyeing him suspiciously.

"I mean I am not engaged or married" he shrugged,  stirring the pot on the stove.

"Strange your heart says otherwise" Rose the pink haired fairy spoke up , she has the softest voice out of them all.

"Haha told you he was taken" Hydrangea exclaimed before dodging the pea thrown by Sonia who was pouting arms crossed over her chest.

"How would you know?" Zayne asked in disbelief.

"Rose is a fairy of love of course she knows when someone's heart is taken" Lily who was still absorbed in her book replied.

"And your dear crush is" Hydrangea taunted Sonia who was now on top of her fighting again.

"Why would you have a crush on a human?" Melida who finally put her weapon down scoffed.

"Yeah he's so big it's not like it's gonna fit" Narilyn who appeared out of nowhere shrugged making Zayne's eyebrows furrow

"What is not gonna fit?" Zayne asked curiously making Sonia's cheeks flush red and Hydrangea giggle.

"How is he so innocent?" Lily whispered under her breath.

Some days when They weren't bickering they all gathered around Zayne to hear him talk about his life back at the palace or the princess who've taken his heart (not that he'll ever admit it )

Days turned into weeks and even if Zayne appreciated the fairies and their care one part of him longed to return to his home , to see his people,  to see her , hold her,  kiss h- no Zayne get ahold of yourself

They were in the forest,  picking up branches and berries for dinner when the pink haired fairy came up to him with a flower crown in her hands

"And a flower crown for the prettiest prince of the kingdom" Rose put the flowery crown on his head making his heart melt and his mind jog back to vivid memories

"I am the only prince of the kingdom and what's that for ?" The 14 years old boy asked , his eyebrows furrowing in confusion

"Consider this as a pre wedding gift until you actually accept to marry me" she replied resting her hands on her hips

"aren't we a little bit too young for that?" He asked adjusting the crown on his head

"Why ?" She muttered creeping behind him to steal a glance at his book "we are both from Royal family arent we ?" She smiled looking up at him and she was so close , her perfume enveloping him in a soft cloud.

"you cant even tie your own  shoelaces properly and you're already thinking about wedding" he flicked her forehead playfully causing her to let out a small oof nose scrunching up in annoyance

"I'll have you know I can perfectly tie my shoelaces" (lie she couldn't)  she retorted rubbing the sore spot on her forehead "and beside I don't need that to get married"

"To get married to me you do" he countered already making his way ahead while she trailed behind him. "And beside as I said  you're too young" he added making her huff

"I am 12 years old already" she retorted clutching the hem of her dress while she tried to keep up with his pace.

"Exactly too young" he deadpanned still walking ahead , flower crown sitting perfectly on his head.

He really hoped his words would dissuade her but it seemed doing quite the opposite

"Does that mean you'll marry me when I get older?" She asked , eyes gleaming with excitement

Please no.

Zayne let out an heavy sigh finally turnin back to face her.

"If you can tie your shoelaces by this time,  then yes" he nodded , the tip of his ear turning red while his eyes darted away awkwardly

"But I can tie my shoelac-"

"We both know that's not true" Zayne retorted pointing at her shoelaces that were undone

Before she could say anything he bent down on one knee to tie her shoelaces leaving her dumbfounded and blushing like a tomato

"Here future wife" he winked at her.

"Future wife" Zayne smiled to himself caressing the Jasmine petals of the flowers crown sitting on his head

"You really do love her, dont you?" Rose sat down on his shoulder pink eyes looking up at him

"Who ?" Zayne asked in disbelief

"Your princess" Rose offered him a soft smile

"You're mistaken" Zayne shrugged making her fly off  his shoulder. "She's my friend"

"It doesn't change the fact that your heart belongs to her" she retorted shrugging her shoulders playfully while Zayne bent down to pick up a stray branch.

"Aren't you planning to tell her ?" She asked wings fluttering as she flew around him

"There's nothing to tell" he replied making his way deeper through the woods

"Are humans always this stubborn or is it just you?" She asked her voice soft and genuine.

"Its not called being stubborn, it's the truth" he mused aloud adjusting the strap of the bag that was carrying the wood for the fire.

"It doesn't sound like it" she retorted

Now she was the one being stubborn. He thought

They continued to bicker (more like Rose trying to open his eyes and make him realize he's hopelessly in love. ) unaware of the fact the Queen was observing them through her enchanted mirror.

"Stupid creatures" she spat under her breath nails digging in her palms

"Why cant he just die?" She muttered to herself voice dripping with venom before turning her head to the princess who was trapped in a deep slumber

"Hopefully we got the perfect bait" she smiled , creeping closer to the girl peacefully asleep .

Once she was at her level , she cut a strand of her hair to carry on her schemes.

"Dont worry dear" she caressed her face "your beloved will join you soon" her devilish laugh rang across the room bouncing off against the walls

"The wound is healing nicely,  you'll be able to go back home in a few days" Sapphire who was checking his almost non existent wound spoke up.

"What do you mean 'go back'?" Sonia who was playing card with Hydrangea and Narilyn exclaimed making her way to where Zayne was sitting on the bed

"You didn't seriously expect he'd stay here?" Melida scowled but Sonia's eyes were already gleaming with tears making Zayne's heart clench.

Even if it was hard to believe during this short time Zayne spent here , he's grown quite fond of the fairies , even if they fought (over him) a lot , he found their relationship endearing .

"I mean" he rubbed the back of his neck nervously "I have to go back to my duties"

"And his lover" Hydrangea added earning a glare from Sonia

"But you won't forget about us right ?" Rose who also flew towards where he was sitting asked in a gentle voice pink eyes shining with a mixture of sadness and hope.

"Of course no" Zayne reassured them and before he knew it they were all tackling him on the bed in a group hug even Melida who seemed hostile towards him at first (and still now)

Zayne hugged them back carefully to not crush them with his arms when a shout of his name echoed outside.

This voice.

"ZAYNE" another shout.

"Who dare interrupting us ?" Melida grumbled under breath before they all carefully untangled from Zayne.

"Zayne" the girl shouted again voice bordering on desperation.

Zayne stepped out the small house only to fall face to face with her , his princess,  his love , the one he spent all those days longing for , all those nights dreaming of .

"You're here" he whispered,  he couldn't believe it , she was there standing in all of her glory. Face lighting up when her eyes fell on him.

"Zayne" she ran towards him arms wrapping around his neck to squeeze him tightly "you're alive, I was so worried" she cupped her cheeks to look closely at his face "I thought you were dead" her thumbs stroked his cheeks softly.

Zayne's head was swimming in an ocean of relief and joy , his love was there , she was there with him looking way to lively , clean and polished for someone who just rode all the way through those woods

The fairies who followed closely behind Zayne observed the scene with wary gazes.

"Something is off" Lily muttered making Rose nod

"She doesn't seem to be the one his heart call for" she murmured in that soft voice of hers

"How did you find me?" Zayne asked cradling her head gently

There was not a  single leaf in her hair as if she appeared out of nowhere but Zayne was too happy to notice

"I went through the hell that are those woods , even when I felt like  giving up I didnt because I knew I'd have to find you" she stood up on her tiptoe , hands caressing his chest in a way that felt way too wrong way too out of character.

She's there with you no need to get lost in semantics

"I don't know what I would have done  if I didn't find you" she murmured eyes dropping to his lips in a way that made Zayne shudder.

"Shouldn't we intervene?" Sonia asked voice bubbling with a mixture of jealousy and concer.

The energy coming off of this girl screamed to run away but they didn't want to come off as rude and possessive so they watched from the sidelines.

"So worried" she murmured tugging Zayne closer by his collar and he didn't  fight her off because why would he ?

After all this time , he finally get to see her ,to touch her , as if hypnotized he let her pull him in her grasp lips hovering above his.

"We need to do something" Sonia exclaimed shaking Narilyn by her shoulders.

But alas it was too late because as soon Zayne's lips collided with hers he sank to his knees,  a wave of fatigue  washing over him.

"So pathetic" she scoffed pushing him with her foot "it was almost too easy" she knelt beside him while Zayne was fighting to keep his eyes open.

"I knew taking this little bitch's appearance would do the trick but I didn't think you'd fall for it so easily" her tone was cruel,  dripping with venom so different from the Princess he knew.

"Who are you?" Zayne mumbled eyes drooping.

"I am the last face you'll see before leaving this world." she bent down to whisper in his ear before Zayne's body fell limply on the cold ground.

"Me?" Her eyes gleamed with a mixture of madness and feral hunger that reminded him so much of Christian.

The fairies all bolted towards him , Sonia furious threw a bolt of lightning toward the impostor princess who dodged it easily.

"Its too late" she laughed out features twisting into such a feral grin "it's just a matter of time before he die"

"You scum" Melida surged  forward planting her lance above the corner of the impostor's eyes who let out a shriek of pain.

The soft features that was once the the face of the one who stole Zayne's heart morphed into the sharp features of his stepmother.

"You have no right to be there Onyx" Sapphire who just arrived spoke up.

The Queen stopped dead in her track eyes narrowing at the fairies.

"You won't be able to save her this time sister" she spat before turning her heels , leaving Zayne cold and unconscious on the ground.

Will he make it out ?

Her eyes fluttered open , her head throbbing ,her mouth and throat dry.

"Where am I?" She sat up only to realize she was bound to the bed she was laying on by chains.

"What the-"

"Your majesty , you're awake" she heard a small voice says .

She turned her head toward the sound only to see a white owl talking.

Wait a white owl talking???

"What the fuck??" She almost shouted but the owl quickly shushed her

"You're gonna wake him up" he hushed out.

Pressing her lips shut , she observed the owl curiously,  after days being unconscious the first thing she sees when she wakes up is this!!.

"We need to find a way to get you out of here" the owl exclaimed landing on her arm with the key in his mouth.

Since only one of the Princess's hand was bound she took the key from him to unlock the locket that bounded her chains together.

When she was finally free she got off the bed not without caressing the owl's head.

"Thank you for your help"

The owl nuzzled against her hand before replying

"You're welcome,  your majesty,  please find my son and save him I've been too blind by love to see she was a degenerate,  only you now can save us all"

His son wait was that owl the king who apparently got sick 3 months ago ?

She had so much question but she knew now wasn't the time to ask them she needed to get away from here and fast.

The room she was staying in obviously wasn't hers , there was a large mirror clad in the walls and a table full of weird potions and instrument.

This has to be the Queen Room.

"Hurry, your highness" the owl croaked out.

The princess quickly grabbed a dagger that was resting on the table with a bottle that had "Don't touch , for emergency only" written on it . Shoving them on her nightgown's pocket , she stole one of the Queen's overpriced coat and stormed off the room with the owl following closely behind her.

The palace seemed to be in a whirlwind,  servants walking back and forth preparing what looked like a grandiose banquet.

Not wanting to dwell on this she clutched the cloak tightly around her making her way toward the palace horse boxes to steal an horse.

Her plan went smoothly,  way too smoothly for her taste as if someone laid out the path for her to take.

Focus , we need to find Zayne and fast. She shook her head, pulling on the reins of her horse.

The owl continued to follow her , leading her way through the forest to find Zayne.

"How did the Queen managed to trap you in this form?" She questioned him curiously

"She poisoned me" he replied  , still flying

"Poisoning you?" She tilted her head curiously.

"With a kiss" he responded before landing on a stray branch.

"How outlandish" she whispered under her breath.

She hasn't spent a lot of time with the Queen but she always found her shady , especially since her son Christian couldn't stop trying to win her over even when she make it clear she wasnt interested.

They continued their journey through the forest only stopping to feed her horse , she was too anxious to eat anything. The knot in her stomach not easing until she found him.

It was past 3 weeks since he disappeared the day of the Hunt. She didn't know what  could have happened to him during this time . Was he safe ? Was he alright? Oh Christ she was going die of worries at this rate.

"Do not worry" your majesty the owl reassured her, resting against her shoulder.

"My son is a tough one , he'll be alright"

"I hope" she let out a small sigh.

"Will he make it out ?" Sonia asked caressing Zayne's pale skin.

He was laying in a sanctuary of Jasmine's flowers , eyes closed shut , his beautiful features relaxed in a peaceful slumber.

"The incantation is strong" Sapphire mused blue gaze dropping to the ground "I fear only a true love kiss can bring him back"

The silence that fell upon them was deafening.

"A true love kiss" Rose repeated voice distant as her eyes roamed over Zayne's face.

"Snow" she looked up at the sky feeling a small snowflake landing on her nose.

"Its snowing" she murmured to herself.

"Its snowing Zayne , come and play with me" the little girl exclaimed tugging at his arm.

"No you'll probably catch a cold" the little boy shook his head not budging an inch from where he was sitting on the couch.

"B-but" her lips wobbled "it's the first snowfall of the season and you know what the legend said"

"I don't" he retorted,  hazel eyes boring into hers "please enlighten me"

"Don't you know" she sat down legs crossed in front of him , eyes gleaming with that same spark of excitement they had everytime she talked about something she was passionate about.

"If 2 people share a kiss under the first snowfall, they wil last forever" she smiled widely , eyes knowingly gazing at him.

"And what does this have to do with us?" He asked still skeptical

"Let's go outside and kiss so we will last forever" she exclaimed making him choke on thin air.

What is wrong with her ?

Zayne erupted in a fit of coughs , face red from embarrassment .

she's only 11 for God's sake . Why does she keep catching him off of guard like this?

"Are you ok?" She quickly stood up massaging his back as he slowly regained his composure

"I am fine I am fine" he uttered , his embarrassment finally subsiding.

She nodded seemingly reassured even if her eyes still held a trace ofconcern.

"Then let's go play , your majesty" she took her hand already dragging him outside to play.

"The first snowfall" she murmured letting the snowflake melt on her palm.

"2 people who kiss under the first snowfall will last forever. Sounds straight out of a fairytale,  don't you agree princess ?" Christian's sly voice made her ears perk up. Her senses on high alert.

"Here are we meeting in this forest again" he creeped closer towards her , boots scrunching the dead leaves , the same feral look in his gray eyes that haunted her nights . "I am starting to think this is becoming our little secret place" he smirked still wincing closer towards her while she took step back after step back putting as much distance between them as she can , mind running a mile per minute to find an escape

As if reading her mind he spoke again

"Don't be scared I won't hurt you as long you collaborate"

As if to prove his point he opened his arm widely.

"You are right" she sighed in defeat finally stopping backing down.

A flash of surprise passed over Christian's face.

Why the sudden switch up?

"Chasing after Eladia's little brat can be so exhausting, I tought if I tried hard enough and found him I'd finally seal an alliance between Eralyon and Eladia but now" she looked up at hom shoulder slumping in defeat.

"All hope seems to be dead just like him" she sighed before a slow smirk pulled at the corner of her mouth.

"You really think I am going to believe you did all of this for an alliance" he chuckled shaking his head "princess princess" he tsked crossing the distance between them in two effortless strides.

"You are so naive" he whispered hands hovering above her face and to his surprise she leaned into his touch

"Not naive" she left a kiss on his palm "just as power hungry as you are"

Oh now she was talking his language.

"And you haven't seen nothing,  your majesty" she leaned in to whisper in his ear the sound sending shiver down his spine. Coating his mind with the sweetest intoxication.

"And here I thought you were just a lovesick brat" he cuppoed her cheek caressing the soft skin with his thumb "you're full of surprises,  princess"

"Princess" he leaned in to nose her pulse , inhaling her scent.

"Yes my king" she caressed his shoulder blade , palm gliding down until it reached his side.

Lost in the sensation of finally having the princess at his mercy.  After years dreaming of this moment,  finally,  finally he had her Exactly where he wanted but not for long because a sharp pain on his side brought him back to reality,  paralyzed he sank to his knees,  eyes wide open looking up at her while the syringe stayed planted on his side

"You" he croaked out , the taste of blood filling his mouth.

She planted a foot on his shoulder pushing him down.

"Stay down Christian,  the only thing you'll rule is the dirt beneath my feet" she said voice dangerously calm and serene , eyes devoid of any emotions.

He convulsed on the ground , coughing blood while his skin started to darken eyes rolling to the back of his head.

"Do not worry,  the kingdom will hardly misses you, I just hope you have the most peaceful descend on hell" She turned her heels , leaving him laying on the ground writhing in pain with his unfulfilled dreams and wishes , like an unfinished canvas.

After leaving Christian for dead in the forest she hopped on her horse following the white owl who guided her toward Zayne.

She looked serene on the outside,  eyes fixed on the path in front of her but deep down she was shaking,   mind reeling as the impact of her actions finally sank in . She took a life , no matter how evil Christian was he was an human , a living being and she took his life  she was a murderer , a murderer.

"We almost there Princess" the owl's voice snapped her out of her morbid thoughts,  horse coming to a stop before she hopped off it , trembly legs running on the Snowy ground.

She was exhausted both physically and mentally,  legs almost giving out , head spinning , heart racing but she couldn't stop, not now , not when she was that close , not after all those sacrifices,  she had to find him.  She promised so.

"No matter what happens I will always find you" she intertwined her pinky with his offering him a toothed smile

"Always?" the little boy squeezed her pinky wiping  the remnants of his tears

"Always" she nodded eagerly leaning in to kiss his tear away.

"I'll always find you my prince" she hugged him.

"My prince" she murmured breath coming in short condensed puffs , vision blurring.

A loud crash made the fairies's head snap back toward the entrance of the sanctuary.

They haven't left Zayne's side since he was cursed by the King , waiting , hoping he'd woke up.

"You" Sonia surged towards the intruder tigging harshly at her hair but the poor girl didn't have any energy to fight back,  sinking to her knees at the sight of Zayne laying among the white colored flowers,  looking pale and lifeless.

"I am too late" she whispered tears streaming down her face.

The fairies a stood frozen and dumbfounded.

She was crying.

"His love is here" Rose murmured pink eyes fixed on the princess who crawled her way toward where Zayne was resting.

"What If it's that evil Queen" Sonia exclaimed still wary but no longer attacking her

"No" Sapphire murmured "her heart is not as evil as Onyx"

"I am so sorry" she sobbed , bouce broken, limp body resting at his side " sorry for not keeping my promise" she murmured against his hand , it was so cold but nothing was colder than the sorrows engulfing her , torturing her already battered heart. "Sorry for not finding you earlier"

The fairies all hand their head low , watching helplessly as she poured her soul out tears coating the white fabric of Zayne shirt. Hair splayed out like an halo around her.

It was still snowing outside , the first snow of the season.

"Your highness" Rose approached her , patting her hair gently making the heartbroken princess finally look up at her.

"Do not cry" she wiped her cheeks "he wouldn't like seeing you so heartbroken"

"It doesn't matter anymore" the princess sniffled softly "he's gone"

"Not quite" the pink haired fairy retorted

"you can still bring him back" Sapphire spoke up approaching them as well.

"With a true love kiss" Sonia trailed eyes fixed on the ground.

The Princess's eyes widened,  a new found flick of hope glimmering in her earlier dull eyes.

"A kiss?" She croaked out, voice hoarse from her sobs

"A kiss" the fairies nodded looking between Zayne still trapped in his dream and her.

Her eye flickered to Zayne as well , inhaling deeply. She moisten her dry lips bracing herself to kiss her childhood friend , her long last love. The man she sacrificed so much for but a fluttery voice interrupted her.

"Wait you cant just kiss hil withe day lips" Sonia interjected making Hydrangea groan

"Sonia now it's not the time" but  she wasn't listening already making her wat towards the strawberry plant then come back with a fresh and red strawberry.

"Here" she placed the fruit in the girl's hand who tilted her head curiously at her.

"For your lips" Sonia instructed.

"Oh" a flash of realization washed over her features before she hastily applied the red berry on her dried up lips.

Smacking them together to smear the pigment.  She took another deep breath.

"Ready now" she murmured more to herself than anyone.

She leaned down,  eyes darting between Zayne's closed eyes and startly parted lips.

Just do it just do it.

All the fairies hold their breath Sonia burying her face in Hydrangea's flower to not see her beloved being kissed by a woman.

When the Princess's lips finally pressed against Zayne's she felt small tingles down her spine. Her heart speeding up  but as he stayed still unconscious she untangled herself from him , sitting up to gaze at his peaceful face.

It didn't work

She looked over the fairies who were as lost as her.

Losing hope she sank against him , eyes filling with tears that trickled on his skin.

"Strawberry" an hoarse voice croaked out "I thought you hated them"

She quickly sat up, eyes widening in disbelief.

"You" she bursted in sobs , smacking his chest making him let out a small grunt "you're awake" she wrapped her arms around his neck , holding as physically close as possible.

Zayne caressed her back softly  , letting her cry against his chest.

"Dont cry" he murmured chin resting on top of her head.

"You stubborn little" she smacked him again still sobbing. "If only you listened to me and didn't participate to that damn hunt" she sniffled finally untangling herself from his form to glare at him.

"Well at last, I got my reward" he caressed her cheeks softly wiping her tears.

"On the first snowfall" he looked up at the Snowy sky through the glass above their head

"You know what that means?" He looked back at her cupping her cheek to bring her closer to him "we'll now last forever" he whispered against her lips before capturing them in a passionate kiss pouring all those years  of  longing  and  unconditional love in a single kiss.

"I love you my Queen" he murmured between kisses refusing to part enen for a second , afraid she might slip through his finger "and yes I wish to marry you" he rested his forehead against hers thumbs stroking her cheeks.

She was too stunned to speak , overwhelmed by too many emotions to process them properly

Her hands found their way to his hair caressing the soft  strands while she planted a kiss on his mouth another and another puncturing each of them with a small o love you. They were both lost   in their own words

While the fairies were celebrating ,dancing around them while causing small snowflakes raining upon of them .

"So how does it feels to see your dear crush having his happily ever after ?" Htdrangea teased Sonia who seemed to be the happiest of them all.

"It feels good I feel happy just by seeing him happy" she chuckled making Hydrangea's eyebrows furrow

Why isn't she jealous?

"I am still not forgiving you for not listening to me though" the princess murmured against his lips hands caressing the hair at his nape

"Its alright" he hummed still holding her close against his chest " I have a whole lifetime to make up for it." He placed a tender kiss on her forehead.

And this how hidden in secluded sanctuary in the deep forest , under the first snowfall they sealed their fate , after facing the hardest of the challenges , they finally got their happily ever after.

"And what happened to the Evil Queen and the owl king ?" Te little girl asked , brown eyebrows furrowed in confusion

"The evil Queen had to pay the price for borrowing the power of her mirror , some legends said she got trapped in that said mirror while her son rotted in the deep forest." Zayne replied adjusting her in her bed , tucking the little girl nicely under the covers

"Did the princess and the prince get married and the king ? Did he turn back into an human?" She fired question after question

"Yes , yes he did and the princess and the prince indeed got married and had a lovely daughter together" he said before leaving a kiss on her forehead

"Now go to sleep my little snowflake" he patted her head softly.

She hummed in response sinking into the plush mattress

"Goodnight Daddy" she murmured before letting out a yawn

"Goodnight my angel"  he smiled softly before carefully getting out of her room

"Is her majesty finally asleep?" A voice rang out behind him

"Finaly yes" he murmured turning around to face his lovely wife.

"Well now I guess it's my time to have the King's attention" she said before wrapping her arms around his neck

"Hmm" he braced his hand beneath her thighs lifting her effortlessly "I am all yours , my Queen" he murmured against her lips

"Ever since you kissed me on the first snowfall or even sooner" he added carrying her towards their shared bedroom.

"Careful if you keep saying things like that it will make it hard for me to stay quiet" she grinned cheekily , caressing the hair at his nape.

"Better keep it down sweetheart, we don't want to wake up our little angel do we ?" He teased closing the door behind him with his foot.

-----------------------------------

A/N pt2 : if you read it all the way there Well thank you for staying with us , this is the first Fic of the Fairytale series so stay tuned for the other fics (Sylus is next with The beauty and the beast )

Taglist: @jinwoosbabyboo @sunsethw4 @yourlocalcatscammer @mangooes @chibichibi-mia @zayneiezaynezayne

[canonizzyhours]

I'm a professional screenwriter. I know nobody reading this has any reason to believe that, and I work pretty hard to keep my fandom activity separate from my professional identity, so I'm not going to offer any proof that would doxx me here, believe me or don't. But it's true and I don't just mean I'm trying to get hired as a screenwriter, I mean I am pretty well established in the industry and I've worked on some stuff big enough you've probably heard of it. I've also been active in OFMD fandom for about two years now, since nearly the beginning.

The canyon really freaks me out because seeing it up close makes me worried I've drastically underestimated audiences' empathy gap around characters of color and tendency to sympathize with and excuse the actions of white characters. I've always tried to be conscious about that sort of thing in my work but now that I'm seeing the whole process up close it's so much worse than I always thought.

I think a lot about what I would have done during season 1 of OFMD, if I were in the writers' room and I'd wanted to make sure it would be clear to the audience that Izzy was Ed's abuser and wasn't acting out of secretly sympathetic motives and we're supposed to be genuinely horrified by his actions. I'm in writers' rooms workshopping issues like this all the time. I know the kinds of suggestions I'd make.

Like, if we were worried that the audience would think Izzy's hostility toward Stede was about class instead of homophobia, I might have suggested we make sure Izzy's dialogue never has any reference to Stede's class at all, and that we might do a subplot in one episode where Izzy is equally hostile toward Lucius, since Lucius clearly isn't rich but is extremely gay. But that already happened, and it didn't help.

If I wanted to make sure the audience understood that Izzy is bossing the crew around and screaming at everyone to work harder because he's a petty little bully on a power trip and not because the work actually needs to get done, I might have suggested a scene where Izzy deliberately makes a mess on purpose just so he can order the crew to clean it up. But that already happened, and it didn't help.

If I wanted to make it clear that Izzy has always been awful toward everyone around him -- especially his colleagues of color -- since long before the show started, I might have suggested we repeatedly emphasize throughout the season that while Fang is willing to work with him, he doesn't like or respect Izzy and this is because Izzy has always treated Fang very badly. Have him pull on Fang's beard for no reason and have Fang explicitly say he hates that but knows it wouldn't help to complain. Have Fang tell strangers jokes about times Izzy humiliated himself in public. Have a scene where everybody unanimously VOTES TO MURDER IZZY and someone explicitly stops to ask Fang if he's cool with this and Fang explicitly says yes this is absolutely fine with me and then he actively participates in the murder plan while smiling. But all of that happened and I still see the canyon insisting that Izzy was a much nicer person before the events of s2 when he wasn't under so much stress and has always been liked and respected by the PoC around him, including specifically Fang!

If I were worried that the audience might take seriously the idea that Izzy is motivated by "loyalty to your captain" -- well, honestly I don't think it ever would have occurred to me to worry about that, since he says that in a scene where he's in the middle betraying his captain and I'd probably assume people are capable of picking that up and understanding that when someone says they're abusing you for your own good you should not believe them. But if someone else insisted we address the concern, suggestions I'd make would include: make sure some of the first interactions we see between Ed and Izzy involve Izzy complaining about how he doesn't want to do the job Ed just gave him, then half-assing the mission and lying to Ed's face about it. Show Izzy deliberately undermining Ed to the crew by telling them he's half-insane, then insist to Ed that he's the only one keeping the crew loyal when they're worried about his judgment. But they did that stuff and we still have people thinking Izzy's central motivation throughout season 1 is selfless devotion to Ed.

The show did every single thing I would have suggested, and none of it worked. So what does it say about all the stuff I've already worked on, whenever I've written a scene where a white guy was being a dick to characters of color? Have I just been embarrassingly naive this whole time? Have I undermined my own work by not getting this?

You can't control audience reactions, I know that, that's part of what's great about art, you have to let go and accept that people will interpret things in ways you never intended, I get it. But if it's THIS impossible to choose words that will create the kind of feelings you meant to, what's the point? Is it even possible to write about the kind of abusive relationship Ed and Izzy have, where the white guy thinks he's entitled to control a brown man's life "for his own good" and that the brown guy is obligated to be grateful and reciprocate his "love" and not have a huge group of people creating elaborate justifications for the white guy? What else could they have done? What else can I do, when I'm writing about characters of color? I'm seriously asking. If anybody reading this has advice I want to hear it. What could I do?

#408.

[ohgollythatsuh]

My fellow fandom frequenters!!!!!!

This feels kind of weird to do because I literally use this blog to talk about gay people and reblog pretty fan art but ya gotta do what ya gotta do:

I am a student journalist and I'm writing an article for class about the way that fandom spaces have changed over the years (especially over the pandemic) and the effects of the popularization of fandoms. I'm looking for people who are willing to talk about their experiences in fandoms, the communities and relationships that they've built, how they feel about the shift in fandom culture (or if they've even noticed a shift), etc!

Some things to note: this is not going anywhere besides to my professor (unless all participants actively want me to share it on Tumblr or something, in case anyone is interested in reading it -- it's really up to everyone's comfortability levels). The mode of interview is, once again, up to comfortability: we can do zoom calls, conversations over DMs, in-person meetups (this is obviously going to depend on where we live) -- once again, this is up to your comfortability!!!

My DMS are open and I would reallllyyy really appreciate any and all participants! Your voices are CENTRAL to this story because fandom is based solely off of the real conversations between community members!!! I'm really passionate about fandoms because it's been like. My whole life since childhood. So I'm really dedicated to making a beautifully authentic story out of this!!

Feel free to DM with any questions :) Or if you know someone who'd be interested, or have some suggestions on things you'd like me to write about or have any leads that I could research, look at, etc. -- just dm or even comment or reblog this and put it in the tags!!!

Reblogs are appreciated! I'll be tagging some popular fandoms in order to get some more traction

Edit: so many people dm’d thank you guys for helping a poor undergrad get a good mark on their paper :’) sorry if it takes a second for me to respond to your dm I’ll get to you I promise!! My dms are still open so if someone is reading this, you can still participate!

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Ever since October 7th, the amount of misinformation and disinformation about Jews, Israel, Judaism, and even just like, basic facts about reality have been so intense that it's really dredging up a lot of my gaslighting trauma.

(No, not in the memic sense that it's been distorted into, but the kind of gaslighting that leads you to detransition and think it was your choice despite drowning in dysphoria, the kind that warps and changes and erases memories, and makes it so that you dissociate for literal months at a time to escape the pain. That kind.)

And I recognized this because I keep finding myself arguing facts and trying to reason with people who say that they're part of the compassionate left and care about working on antisemitism but yet spew the kind of antisemitism that would be totally at home on Stormfront.

It's that first arguing stage of gaslighting, where the abuser keeps saying outrageous, untrue things and you're still fighting to try and get them to empathize with you and seek mutual understanding. This:

A gaslighter does not simply need to be right. He or she also needs for you to believe that they are right. In stage 1, you know that they are being ridiculous, but you argue anyways. You argue for hours, without resolution. You argue over things that shouldn’t be up for debate — your feelings, your opinions, your experience of the world. You argue because you need to be right, you need to be understood, or you need to get their approval. In stage 1, you still believe yourself, but you also unwittingly put that belief up for debate.

(bolding mine) (source)

This is a pattern I recognize in myself in personal relationships and even within communities, but what's happening right now is a lot bigger and more diffuse. It's not one abuser or even a shitty cohort of abusive people who are monopolizing a community space. This is being encouraged in a frighteningly large number of non-Jewish progressive spaces. In the same way that stochastic terrorism adds up very quickly, this type of cultural gaslighting and stochastic emotional abuse feels like a deluge.

But if you look at history, this is not new, for Jews. This is but the latest version of a very long game of Why Won't You Just Give Up and Assimilate or Die that Jews have thus far prevailed on at great cost to ourselves.

Anyway I'm done arguing with goyim about things that absolutely should not be up for debate: Jewish history, Jewish culture, what certain religious concepts in Judaism mean, Jewish lived experiences, what is and isn't antisemitism. If you aren't willing to engage in a genuine way that seeks mutual understanding, I'm not interested. I'm done.

You are engaging in violent behavior and lying to yourself about it and calling it activism. Well I am no longer going to participate. You can lie to yourself all you want, but you are a bad person and I don't forgive you, and you can do that alone.

You are acting from a mob mentality and a mob cannot be reasoned with. You are drunk on your tiny bit of power and social capital, and years down the line you'll lie to yourself and pretend that you cared about us.

You didn't. And deep down you know it, too.

Instead of arguing with people who refuse to see facts or reason and put our experiences up for debate, I am going to work on compiling a resource for people who want to actually learn.

Everyone else can fuck off.

[yanderes-galore]

Hey! requesting some HCs for Ranni (Elden Ring). Thank you!

I watched her cutscenes, I watched her lore, and I'm still not entirely sure what's going on but that's normal for this kind of game. Pardon me if there's something wrong in this concept... I am trying. ALSO, the term "Elden Lord" is used, but it's gender neutral just like in the game.

Sorry if it isn't intense... I will appreciate feedback from the Elden Ring fans.

Yandere! Ranni the Witch Concept

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Manipulation, Possessive behavior, Violence, Isolation, Stalking, Dubious relationship.

I imagine Ranni's darling is the one who helps her achieve her Age of Stars.

You are her Tarnished who came to her at her call.

She needs someone to help her achieve her fate and destiny.

For most of her obsession, you may actually be a willing participant.

Right up until the end when you begin to realize something may be off.

Like most of Elden Ring's yanderes I feel, Ranni isn't all that intense.

She'd mostly watch her obsession through their journey to aid her.

She watches you closely, even if you may not know it.

She sees how you interact with her cohorts and how you fight in battle.

You are a promising Tarnished in her eyes... She can tell through the way you speak and fight.

Sooner or later, she'll deem you the perfect Elden Lord for her new age.

To Ranni, meeting her obsession was yet another destiny she was meant to meet.

To her, you two were always meant to be.

Her chosen Elden Lord.

Her obsession would span throughout her side quest to get the Age of Stars ending.

Since in that ending... Ranni and The Tarnished (you) marry as God and Elden Lord.

That would be the general story idea... Ranni obsessing over her most devoted helper.

At the beginning, she tries not to show much of her favoritism.

Although, by the time you defeat Radahn and unfreeze the stars, she shows her fondness more.

In terms of her overall behavior, I imagine she's mostly the observing type, watching you from a distance and praising your efforts when you meet her.

Ranni prefers to meet you as her larger life-sized doll form.

However, when you pick up her smaller form, she doesn't mind the idea of being held by you while you share a conversation.

Her obsession is unintentional.

She originally doesn't think you'll survive her requests.

Yet when you prove yourself by meeting her again... she thinks you'll prove to be useful to her for her plans.

Then from there... the moon witch begins to grow fond of you.

She's a subtle manipulation yandere, instructing her beloved to follow her every word like a divine command.

She watches over them through her dolls, often wondering when their next meeting will be.

Her obsession starts as curiosity.

As if she's wondering if you'll really be someone she can trust.

However, once you retrieve the lost treasure of Nokron...

She knows you're hers.

Before you even find the Dark Moon ring, Ranni has claimed you as her Tarnished.

You are not loyal to any other covenant, just hers.

Which must mean she has your heart, body, and soul as hers.

In a way, like other yandere covenant/religion leaders or deities, your loyalty makes her feel she has a claim over you.

To differ from canon a bit, maybe Ranni instructs you to find the Dark Moon ring.

She doesn't tell you for what, a subtle trick.

She just gives you small lies, deceiving you by saying it was a gift from her mother that she wants back.

Then she instructs you through her smaller doll to find her location.

Unlike in the game, where she's surprised you are choosing to be her Elden Lord...

She would deceive you into being hers once you slip the ring on one of her fingers.

This is a yandere story, after all, a dark romance.

Her deceiving her Tarnished, her obsession, into being hers in her new age would be something she'd do.

You aren't quite sure what you've done until Ranni appears, claiming you to be her Elden Lord.

There's a ghost of a smile on her face while she watches your shocked expression.

As if challenging you to rebel against her now that such a ritual has been done.

She doesn't think you'll refuse if you've gone this far to listen to her.

As her new consort, you are given the task of removing her old cohorts and defeating her Shadow, Blaidd.

Then after that, she oversees you defeating Queen Marika... Radagon... her traitorous parent of a dreaded Golden Order.

By the end of it, Ranni appears to greet you and the shattered corpse of Marika.

You can't help but feel a chill run down your spine.

Ranni merely greets you with a smile yet again, thanking you for helping her achieve her Age of Stars.

Unfortunately... You cannot part from her now.

Every God requires their Elden Lord.

Their consort.

It doesn't matter if you try to back out now or agree.

Your fate and destiny are sealed.

She may have tricked you, yes...

But she assures you she does it out of love, she only feels love for her beloved consort.

She takes your hand... and you just feel cold.

She grins teasingly, leaning closer as she congratulates you...

A cold kiss cooling your warm lips.

You two are meant to be together now... forever in her new age...

You'll be hers forever...

Just the two of you, overseeing the people in the Age of Stars... Together forever... Just as destiny told her.

You can't fight your destiny... no matter how hard you try... she'll always just tug you back with a kiss... She's as cold as the Dark Moon itself.

[dalishious]

Reclaiming Independence of the Dales

Before anything else, I’d just like to clarify that that vast majority of this is made of my own ideas, based on interpretation from the little canonical information provided, and a little inspired by my own people’s history and governing structure. Additionally, what I am presenting here is an ideal situation, not necessarily what I think is an immediately realistic outcome in the world-state established. So, please keep that in mind.

The Dales were established as a homeland for elves—a small piece of a continent that was once called their home in its entirety, before the humans colonized it—by Maferath in -165 Ancient. This was in reward for the eleven people’s participation in the fight against Ancient Tevinter. But in 2:10 Glory, Divine Renata I broke this treaty and declared an Exalted March against the Dales, ending in its annexation by Orlais.

[Related Post: All You Need to Know about the Exalted March of the Dales]

If Solas has very low approval with Inquisitor Lavellan, and Lavellan accuses him of not doing enough to help their people, he will say the following: “You could order Halamshiral returned to the Dalish, if you wished. But ultimately, you know that would fail. That even you cannot solve this.” I hate this with a burning passion. The reason I can’t do that, Solas, is because it’s not an option in the game! Why are you as a character angry at me, the player, for not doing something that is not an option for me to do? Why was this written? Just to push the point that it’s not worth it to try and fight back against oppression? Because if I refuse to accept hopelessness in real life, why would I in accept it in a video game where the story is made-up, and therefore anything is possible if the developers so wish it.

Regardless, according to Solas, the Inquisition has enough power to support the reclamation of an independent Dales. I imagine this would require a lot of political maneuvering within the Orlesian governance, and therefore I think the best opportunity to do this would be with Briala ruling through Gaspard. This would then later open the door for Briala to be the leader of the newly independent Dales, too. I would like to see Briala as ruler of the Dales not just because she is a favourite of mine, but because I genuinely believe she is the best established character fit for the job. She was trained in everything Celene was trained in, has first-hand experience in court, has extensive connections, and has demonstrated her ability and desire to utilize these skills and assets for the benefit of elven kind.

Briala’s blackmail on Gaspard may help prevent Orlais from invading again while under his rule, but to last longer, the Dales would need to establish itself as a strong, independent Nation with allies. This is why I believe it would also be important to have Leliana as Divine Victoria in such a world-state where this could happen. Leliana re-canonizes the Canticle of Shartan, and in making it available for the common person to understand, would ideally help sway the minds of the average Andrastian into supporting the Dales’s independence. The nobility would of course be much trickier, because they and the Chantry are the ones who actually benefitted from its annexation—but there is little they would be able to actually accomplish if they did not have the power of the people behind them.

As far as allies go, Ferelden could only gain from Orlais losing control of the Dales, because it would mean cutting Orlais off from a lot of Ferelden’s border, therefore reducing the threat of another invasion. Additionally, a leader with just plain good morals like say, Alistair, would easily accept the elven kingdom’s return. But even Anora is willing to grant part of the Korcari Wilds to the Dalish if Mahariel requests it, and while this sadly doesn’t last, it does show a positive sign into her potentially being open to the idea of an independent Dales as well.

I sincerely doubt that all Dalish clans would return to the Dales and re-settle down. After all, they have developed differentiating cultures over the years of wandering in separated groups, with different ideals and different ways of life that they might not want to give up. But many would return, and that would likely create conflict between the elves coming from the Dalish clans and the elves coming from the cities. We know that some prejudice exists against “flat-ears” as some Dalish call those from the city, and we know that city elves have adopted a lot of misinformation from humans into their views of the Dalish. It would take time and positive leadership to reconnect the people, without risking falling into some sort of hierarchy based on origin. This is why I do not believe one group or the other should single-handedly rule alone. Rather, I think there should be a Grand Council of High Keepers made up of those voted into the position each to represent a single district of the Dales. (I like the idea of there being seven High Keepers, not just because there are seven traditional districts of Mi’kma’ki, but because it works out that there seven of the Creators. So it makes sense that there would be seven High Keepers.) The Grand Council would meet and make decisions together, with one appointed leader at the head to act as the Council’s chair.

In terms of protection and order, the Emerald Knights should be reformed. This would include the Fade Hunters, to protect the people against demons and maleficarum, with there being no Circles or Templars.

Restoring the independence of the Dales would lead to a revival of elven culture in ways that could never happen before, because they would actually be free to pursue re-learning the language, re-discovering the history and culture, and sharing it all amongst each other. They would not have to fear arrest the crime of simply being an elf.  

But what of the other races presently living in the Dales? I see no reason why they would have to leave, so long as they would be willing to follow the Grand Council’s leadership. I imagine many nobility would flee to Orlais, simply because they would not stand for it. But for the average human or surface dwarf, their life wouldn’t really even change much; they’d still be managing their farms the same as always. Hell, it might even improve things for them, assuming the Grand Council gives fairer treatment than the nobility previously.

[raayllum]

Season 6 Trailer Breakdown

You all know what this is, although a quick note that I won't be drawing much from other teasers or clips released / a "this is what probs happens in each episode" amalgamation may come out later depending on motivation. There are some scenes I left out as 1) we know where those clips are from already (like the water funnelling shadowpaw clip) or they seem self explanatory (Karim and Sol Regem's plotline, etc).

Furthermore — there is one specific screencap with something I noticed that I'd argue is the biggest / most plot relevant spoiler in the trailer; I am enclosing it at the end for posterity. If you want to read the rest of the breakdown but want to avoid a potentially big spoiler, please stop reading after *** . I don't want anyone to be more spoiled than they'd like to be. Okay? Okay.

With that out of the way, let's dig in

First up: Kosmo's monologue overlaid with clips of the Starscraper and some kind of wintery storm. Kosmo is the male Skywing / celestial elf with vitiligo on the left in another shot

Kosmo: I see a thousand stars. A thousand eyes. Worlds one and myriad. All of us nothing, and all of us infinite.

This probably relates to his understanding of Star magic and possibly the arcanum itself. The wintery storm may be something from the past or present up here in the Frozen North, a lightning storm that Avizandum or Zubeia created, or it could even be from Callum pulling lightning down they face the large blue dragon we've seen in a few clips now (Luna Tenebris' "unsuitable" heir) and later on in the trailer.

Then we see Rayla, accompanied by Kosmo and Astrid, overseeing the beginning of Callum's trust fall 'trial' for lack of a better term with the blindfold over his eyes. It's clearly extremely cold and he doesn't seem particularly happy, but... willing participant, I suppose?

We're gonna come back to the staffs in a second, just you wait. To start, I want to affirm that there are multiple shots of this same location being unveiled, and make up the bulk of the Callum / Rayla + Starscraper portion of the trailer, such as these:

We see eight staff-holders, though it's not clear if one is missing. This could mean a 'Startouch' elf for each primal source + two others, or something unrelated to magic at all. There was "eight" singled out in the 5x08 poem ("eight in a line") though this is a circle, not a line.

The reason I highlight this is because 1) I've been confident that Viren's staff contained Star magic or extra power of some kind for years now and it seems that the answer is yes and (bonus points) it's not a quasar diamond, which also helps keep another theory of mine going and 2) we saw in the teaser some of the Viren-Kpp'Ar flashback fight scene, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were partially fighting over Viren taking the staff from Kpp'Ar, period.

Moving on, I'm speculating that the growing blast we see may be Aaravos (or another Startouch elf) being cast down to earth and creating the Sea of the Cast Out, given that Ripples describes it as, "The falling star plummeted, down and down and down, until it struck the breathless world below. With its impact came a long and terrible night: The earth bled! The seas churned! The sun and moon hid for weeks behind the sky’s screaming storm!" This may be what we've seen Aaravos weeping over additionally: not his own banishment per se, but the loss of someone else (Leola?).

the next main 'set piece' of the trailer is the big battle scene in the encroaching Sunfire civil war, and while there was speculation previously from a shot of Aanya and her arrow that she'd joined the fray, we now have confirmation. I am intrigued about what has Ezran being on the battlefield on foot without armour, weapons, or his usual dragon cavalry.

You can even see her in the background here on the stones, seemingly firing off her special flashy arrow in order to help Ezran get away from Karim's forces, which may be why he's caught up in the middle of things without a lot of preparation. This might be related to the closeup shot of her from this trailer with her bow and arrow, but given the nature of the arrow, it could easily be the other closeup shot of her with the fancy unfurling flower gemstone arrow we got in the Teaser.

For more individual shots:

Aaravos still has his chest piece in full and it doesn't seem like he's been expelled from the heavens yet. Looking very pointedly at my "his chest piece is out there somewhere and maybe in the cube as a quasar diamond" theory. I could see this being him on trial or something with the other Startouch elves

Then we have Rayla and some form of Runaan. He has red eyes like a corrupted Banther, but the green is completely base. This Runaan also doesn't have his canonically broken horn (just like Rayla's vision of him and her other parents in 5x01) so I'm willing to bet whatever this is is preying on Rayla's memory of Runaan > the actual Moonshadow elf himself. Could be a nightmare, or even some kind of illusion (maybe Luna's heir's moonstone collar has some messed up illusion stuff?). Rayla also seems to be underwater or in some kind of dark place, though the background for Runaan looks more fittingly like the Silvergrove. I certainly would not be opposed to Callum and Rayla having to face their worst nightmares, or something — stuff like that is always interesting angsty and juicy characterization.

Speaking of nightmares, that would also fit with this screencap of Callum. We know from 6x01 details that he has a nightmare regarding Aaravos, and we also know from people at cons that this screencap was not there. Looking at the scene itself, the deep purple lighting highlights that it's not quite 'real', nor is it necessarily possible due to the background being Finnegrin's office on the Sea Legs, where Callum last did dark magic. I could very easily see this being a dream where Callum is having horrifying visions of himself outside his body, and this is one.

I do find it interesting that, rather than black dark magic slug goop like I first thought on his hand, it's actually blood on his hand, and the changes this indicates of Callum's psyche / fears. Normally when Callum breaks things (primal stone, moon opal necklace, the green slug) it's with his other hand, for starters. But more importantly, I think it's interesting that this nightmare isn't about being flat out possessed, but of being more of a dark mage: the eyes, the corruption, the blood, etc. and how that may lead to Aaravos' will being further enforced over him. It speaks to a recognition of his own agency as well as growing fears of being not just controlled, but corrupted along the way.

Claudia on the beach probably after killing Sir Sparklepuff (hence the blood and corruption) having the worst mental breakdown of her life (which is saying something) so far, either upon realizing she's lost her father anyway, Viren being alive but leaving her, etc.

Then we have Callum the infamous Frozen Ship, now burning. Either he was in there with Rayla and escaped first, leading to him sadly thinking she's gone before she manages to get out on her own and they happily embrace... or he was vibing outside without her (by her request no doubt) and shit's hit the fan. I could see him mourning her and her reappearance is when they finally fully reconcile, and I could also see him running back onto a burning ship for her (or trying at least). Y'know, the way you do.

I am famously always here for Rayllum being desperate as fuck about each other's safety, so I know I'm gonna eat that shit up regardless and it will be Delicious.

Onto the less clear parts of the trailer, in some ways:

We have what seems to be Terry and Claudia presumably at the same place, the Valley of the Graves, back in Katolis, although for what reason is unknown. I could see them maybe coming back to Katolis to the Orphan Queen's grave, for some reason. I could also see the spell Claudia doing (hence the light hair and yellow on the chest) being a release spell for Aaravos — which asks when and how does she get the prison from Callum and co. — or some 'opening up the heavens' spell that'll come close to killing her; it could be something else entirely. It has to be something where Terry seems reluctant to let her go through with it and has probably tried to stop her (yes internal Terry turmoil!! Come back to me) and failed. I've kept meaning to make a post about it, but I could see Claudia post-6x01 come crawling back to Terry at Aaravos' beckoning ("He'll be a useful ally") and Terry realizing Claudia didn't come back to him out of love like he thought, but partially to use him because she's too far gone right now to see it and trying to keep her distance emotionally.

Which asks the question: we all thought this was maybe from the beginning of the season, with Viren or Claudia or something trying to get into Katolis. But what if it's closer to the end?

I posit this order of things for two reasons. The first is that we know in 6x01 Soren leaves to go look for Zubeia with Zym, reunites with Corvus at the Sunfire elves (6x02-ish?), Corvus and Ezran see Karim's forces at one point (the Teaser) with Zym helping Ez escape. We even have a shot of Soren leaving Katolis with Zym in the trailer.

The shot of Soren being bloody is clearly at Katolis on the battlements, so it seems that it has to be after the Sunfire battle has happened, and I doubt Janai and Amaya can win considering Sol Regem having his wings healed by the Sun seed, and it's S6 "everything goes wrong" time.

It could be that the Sunfire battle didn't end well (Karim as king or forces corrupted by Pharos-sleeper agent? Kim'Dael is free?) even with Aanya's help, and people have retreated to regroup in the stronghold that is Katolis... A stronghold that Claudia wants or needs to get to, for whatever reason. Soren would have good reason to look pissed. Maybe the big explosion from earlier on in the trailer is even just Claudia, making her presence known on her way into Katolis for some kind of scare-factor.

And, of course, Claudia could go to Katolis in the first half of the season (6x02—6x05) when bloodied and bruised Soren isn't there, and just Ezran in the rain. There could be some magical power-up, and then Ez has to flee and go to the Sunfire elves, the situation not much better. But this doesn't explain why we see Soren presumably at Katolis and looking as beat up as he does unless it's a shot from very near the end of the season.

And here's where we get to the Big Spoiler, imo, so please click away now if you don't want to see it!

Furthermore... we Know the Sunfire battle is happening near the End of the season (sometime 6x07 onwards) because there's no way Rayllum is leaving the Starscraper any earlier than the end of 6x06... and they're there, along with Astrid, at said battle.

Y'know this big shot of the Sunfire battle? Well, the trio is there in the upper red corner, when you zoom in.

There's Astrid (blue and white), Callum in between flapping his wings, and presumably Rayla with her borrowed wing bracelets from Kosmo (though I suppose it could just be Kosmo himself, but I doubt it). Why they're coming to the battle, I don't know — if Aaravos is out by this point, they might have bigger problems that they need to collect Ezran and co. for, and didn't realize the level of conflict had escalated — or somehow, we get through the Starscraper portion of the story without the prison breaking, though Callum is still presumably possessed (?) — and it is Claudia who releases Aaravos near the end of S6.

That could be possible, especially if Claudia, whose S6 plotline is a total mystery, comes sniffing around the Sunfire side of things and can steal the prison here and... take it back to Katolis because it needs to be? Orphan Queen had Aaravos' chest piece? Idk. But yeah, this is where things get kind of tricky, and if we did go this route I'd wonder why not let Claudia steal the pearl in 5x09 at all, but we'll have to see. It could work! My money is still on Callum possessed or otherwise having a hand in setting Aaravos free, but really anything could happen at this point

Just thirteen days to go!

[kingconia]

hiiiiii! ugh, i am not sure if you take requests? but if you do, can i ask you leona one, where reader is the descendant of scar, and afterglow savanna always treats her like shit, thinking she will try to kill farena or leona?? idk tbh the dynamic between her and others, but maybe with a prompt "why are you keep protecting me?" "because if anyone kills you it will be me?" BUT NOT ANGSTY MORE LIKE CHEESY ONE like she is joking she has no plans to do so!!

(also maybe she is friend with azul bc both of them manipulative masterminds idk)

A/N: that's actually sounds so fun. i am genuinely invested, though, i had never thought that someone will ask me to write something. but, oh, darling, thank you. i would love do that more, so if anyone wants, i am open to your ideas.

LEONA KINGSCHOLAR × READER, WHO IS SCAR'S DESCENDANT

warnings: not detailed mention of blood and some threats with mentions of gore? it is lighter than it sounds.

Hatred followed you from a very young age. And it wasn't necessarily yours.

You were six, when you learned to understand that kindness will not help you survive. But cruelty will.

Abandoned, throwed away, you were nothing in the world of kings and queens. Your whole existence were cursed from the day you made your first breath, and no one was going to tell you why. Why you were so hated by the whole country, by every single person in your motherland? Why your mother turned away from you? Why you were considered to be dangerous?

But the more you grew, the more you understood that it is for the better. Their hatred, their suspicion, their rage. It made you the independent person. The predator.

And you were fine with that.

At some point, you stopped caring about what all of them thought. Instead, it filled you with even more power to move forward.

And so you survived. Proudly, with chin up to the sky, ignoring the way others treated you.

Savannaclaw wasn't necessarily bad, though. You thought it will be; Farena Kingscholar never being kind to you, and his kingdom therefore, too. But Savannaclaw was different. There, your only king was Leona. And Leona didn't care whose descendant you were.

If anything, he never even took it seriously.

”Why the fuck I would care about that cursed king?” He spitted it out once, as Ruggie asked him in what he thought was a whisper, as you passed by. ”Stupid lion is dead for a long time. Why would she care about him, even?”

And that was it. Savannaclaw never acted like you were enemy, no one glared at you with participation, no one was suspicious about your every single world.

You were free.

And the freedom you had gained, finally, made your loyalty to Leona stronger.

So, you didn't really like, when someone offended him.

It was your job to annoy him, to try break his trust towards you by cynical remarks—”oh, my King, you shouldn't trust me with your nephew. What if I tear him apart?” or ”Tsh, tsh, little lion... Haven't your brother told you? You shouldn't really turn your back to the hungry animal,”—even if he never cared.

And if someone tried to steal your job... Well, that would be really-really bad.

”Remind me once again,” you yawned, throwing a grape in your mouth, ”why I am not allowed to fight that Pomfiore boy for you?”

Azul chuckled.

”You got almost expelled twice, tigerfish. I am flatted that you are willing to try it for me, too, but I have more interesting ways to get my revenge.”

Azul was probably the strangest friend you ever had—and you had the only one, who was Jack—but it wasn't necessarily bad. He always got you involved in his plans, and as both of you were thinking about this or that in complete solitude, scheming and laughing, you thought it actually was nice.

”I caught him applying foundation on his face a week ago,” you share with him quietly. ”On the whole face. And let me say, he is not that perfect without it, Zul.”

He gasped dramatically.

”And that after interview, where he says he hates unnatural beauty?!”

”Mhm.”

”Tigerfish, you are so cruel,” he smiled. ”I love it.”

”Sure you are,” your ears moved by itself and you turned your head on the right. ”Do you hear that?”

Voices. Very loud, very angry voices. Usually, you would ignore that, but it was a familiar scent that made you move forward, ignoring Azul's question.

”Are you fucking insane, Hunt?”

”Oi, oi, I only cared to see if you would react immediately!”

You groaned.

Fucking Pomfiore kids.

As you stepped closer, your annoyed expression shifted to a worried one. There was a crossbow in Rook's arms, and Leona was holding an arrow is his hand, face angry.

So, it was it: little hunter tried to hunt Leona down.

Before he acknowledged your presence, you moved forward, raising Rook by his collar, right from behind.

”Don't get frightened, little one,” you said, voice, despite a smirk, vicious. ”I only cared to see if you would react immediately.”

Leona scoffed.

”Aha, how nice! Jolie Lionne! Had you came to save your pretty prince from the trouble?”

You frowned.

”He is the king, hunter.” Your turned him to face you properly, still leaving him hanging in the air. ”Listen to me, sweet human, the next time I see you trying to shoot him, I will scratch your eyes with my claws, and eat them in front of your fake housewarden. And then, I am going to make a feast. Do you hear me?”

His face scrunched for a second, but he put his usual smile on the face rather quickly.

”My, my... We were merely playing! But, fine, fine. As you wish, jolie lionne!”

You freed him, and this time he was rather quick with leaving.

Other students shun you actively, so it wasn't surprising. Beyond Savannaclaw, Azul, and, well, Lillia Van Rouge, other either ignored your existence or avoided you in fear. You had one the hell of the reputation, and your own attitude never helped to fix the damage that rumours left on you.

”I didn't ask you to do that,” Leona clicked his tongue, moving to your right side.

”You never do,” you shrugged. ”I don't really care.”

Maybe it was the fact that you never denied his power, never looked down at him, that helped him to make a peace with the fact that you were so eager to protect him. Because, well, in the beginning, he thought it was offensive.

”You are so fucking strange that, do you know that?” You repeated your previous action, and he continued. ”If I were you, I would love to kill me. And my brother. Especially him. But you keep doing that. Keep guarding me like a lapdog. Why?”

Why?

You wondered about it too, once. But the answer came easily to you.

It was a boy with unusual scar on his young face that stared at you without hatred the first. Simply stared, without any particular emotion, and handed you a little red flower, before leaving.

And though, he probably didn't remember it...

It was still him, who looked at you without despise in his eyes, when both of you grew up, meeting here and there, as your presence should have been always controlled and seen by the royal family.

And it was him, who made Savannaclaw respect you, as he joined this school, a year later than you did.

It was always him.

”Having trouble with creating another lie?” He smirked, moving to stop in front of you, clearly disliking the fact that you ignore his presence.

”You want to know why, Leona?” You tilted your head, meeting his curious eyes. "Because I consider you to be the King, more than your brother ever will, and therefore, I should protect you.”

Before he opened his mouth, you caught him by the chin, moving him closer. He stared at you, not annoyed, but quite lost by this action. Your eyes shimmered with a familiar hunger that always lived inside you.

A hunger for fame. Acceptance. Peace. Blood. Cruelty.

Love.

”And because,” your lips brushed the corner of his, as you breathed out on his cheek, ”if anyone ever tries to rip out your golden heart, my King, it is going to be me.”

His lips curled in a same wicked smile that played on your face.

And as his arms fall on your hips, he accepted the game.

”What a coincidence,” his whisper came out like a purr. ”Because if ever try to rip our my heart, my dear Consort, I will allow it to you.”

A laugh that escaped your chest sounded so taunted that others would find it scary.

But you know Leona didn't. In fact, he enjoyed it very much.

And both of you had a very long journey to find out what else you enjoy about each other. Gladly, you had plenty of time for that.

[superm4ks]

Austria obvi been a doozy to process but 1 part of the conversation thats always interesting to me is how people are taking Max and Lando's battle as a textbook example of 'dirty' racing and comparing it wid other battles that are seen as 'clean'. Heres the thing tho, the choices both those drivers made in those laps dont have 'clean' alternatives that wud have benefited them in that moment. It was an inevitable type of confrontation. At least for the most part.

Clean/dirty racing in this generation of very wide cars literally just a matter of is there a significant enough delta to give one of the cars lap advantage or not. If there is, u get something like George and Landos lil dance in Spain. One of the cars has better tire wear, is faster, so its just a matter of waiting for the right time to make a move and build a gap. Its clean because its a waiting game, its not a battle at all. But if the cars are more evenly matched, and more importantly, if the driver defending/attacking is actually willing to defend/attack, thats when it becomes too close for comfort and as racing drivers what ur basically saying is, I am willing to take that risk because I need to gain ((or I need to keep)) advantage.

Something thats also been interesting is how people have perceived each drivers role in this particular 'dirty' battle.

I been reading and watching a lot of analysis of those laps and one of the things that jumps out immediately is that theres this assumption that Max had to get out of the way. He just had to. The fact that he didnt is what made the battle 'dirty' and the onus of 'cleaning' it was on him. When u press that narrative, and u ask the simple question of why wud a racing driver even consider allowing another one to pass him, the argument turns into endangerment. It was dangerous that Max didn't let Lando pass. The tactics Max employed to defend his line were dangerous. Follow up question, why does it matter if they're dangerous when ur literally racing cars 200 miles per hour. Oh, because what Max did specifically is not allowed'. And what is that, specifically. Then the 3 ghosts of under braking past come into ur house to offer Max a chance of redemption. And u think, why are they here. Wheres the telemetry, the wheel input, the driver cam, the stewarding precedence, the actual rule, that allows some hypothetical idea of intentional harm to even enter this conversation. But it doesn't matter anymore, because it has set the tone for how ur gonna deal wid Max's role in a 'dirty' battle vs Lando's. Lando will, inevitably, become a victim of Max, not an active participant in a battle for the lead. Max's tactics are dangerous, while Lando's were necessary.

Ant Davidson starts his analysis on skypad by comparing Max setting up a corner to Baku 2018. Baku happened in a straight, and both drivers were reprimanded for it. I personally think Max shud not have weaved in a straight like that, but thats my opinion, its not reflective of the sporting rules. Late maneuvers are dangerous but they're not necessarily illegal, not just when it comes to defending, but also attacking. What Ant Davidson does in this opening analogy is setting the tone of HIS opinion. And its interesting to me that he finishes the segment, in which at several points he talks of Lando's choices in first person, wid 'I rest my case'. The fact that he had a 'case' at all and feels comfortable admitting it is kind of shocking until u realize that the objective of his 'stewarding' is to turn defending into a punishable act because Max was the one doing it, and Max is 'dirty'. In no instance are Lando's late maneuvers questioned because, we go the back to the original point, Lando was entitled to make them. He was entitled to pass. Max, however, is not entitled to defend.

Johnny herbert who was one of the stewards in Austria, said that they looked at Max's defensive maneuvering and it was 'clever' and made Lando's life difficult but it was not clear it was under braking. He said Max positions his car very well but sometimes goes beyond the drivers 'unwritten code'. Then, regarding specifically the incident in t3, he says some people claim Lando could have moved and yes maybe but he was right not to, because it showed Max he was prepared to 'fight back' and he can 'beat Max at his own game'. Lando did not complete a single overtake in Austria. Not once did he get ahead of Max where he didnt have to fall back again. But because they bumped and Max was penalized, this is a net positive for him. The underlying implication here is that anything that threatens Max's position on track is a net positive for the driver, and for the sport. About how this battle will affect Lando, Johnny says, 'up until Austria Max had always won. Now he is not winning. It will be interesting to see how Lando responds. He will now be in a better place after what has happened. He has realized he knows he has a chance of beating Max at his own game.' Lando finished a race pointless the day after he got fleeced in a sprint. I dont think this was a positive grand prix for him. I think he engaged in a few laps of hard racing wid Max that ended in a puncture for both. Thats not important though. He challenged Max. Johnny seems content wid just that.

The issue is not that Lando isnt a victim because Max is, nor that pundits are not allowed to be biased, or that Max shud not have been penalized. Whats been bugging me about the reaction to Austria is that once something like that happens and it involves Max, its no longer about what actually took place or the dynamic between drivers that allowed it to escalate, its about deciding whether or not the battle was dirty, and how is that dirtiness attributed to a single actor. It takes motor racing and turns it into the weighing of souls. And Max's will always be heavier.

[enmstorytime]

The Vulnerable Writer: Chapter 6

To my knowledge, I am the only professor in the history of humankind to have willingly subjected himself to being stripped naked and forced to come at the hands of his students. As I sat naked in my office, my students having claimed today's clothing, and my heart pounding as I snuck peeks out of my office window to observe the parking lot slowly empty, I had a lot of time to think.

Most of my thoughts were geared toward thinking about how I would ever live this down. How could I go back to my students tomorrow, strip completely naked and teach them with any hope that they would respect me after they had shredded my clothing today and jerked me off (and if I'm being honest, they hadn't really jerked me off, I got so caught up in the sensation of them looking at me that I didn't even last a full minute from my cock flopping out of my underwear to my seed spilling across the classroom floor). If I kept going back to class and stripping completely naked, how long would it be before a student snuck a picture and posted me online, or before a more pious student decided to report me to my department head, or before I was caught in any of the other million ways that I could be caught.

But if I went back on my word? I knew I was more likely to be reported if I broke my promise than I would be if I kept showing up to class, stripping down to my birthday suit, and trying to carry on like my cock wasn't flopping around in front of my students and my ass wasn't jiggling unsupported with every nervous step I took.

And what if seeing my entire naked body stopped being motivational for my students? What more would they or could they ask from me?

And if this is successful? A quiet voice whispered in the back of my head.

Our faculty has spent the nearly five years since the COVID pandemic trying to find a way to motivate students to care about their studies. Every academic journal I read had a new study about creative techniques on how to motivate burned out students. To my amazement, once my class had calmed down after my little show, that very first day I spent fully naked in front of them, they all sat up in their seats and paid attention to me for the remainder of class. Sure, most of them weren't looking me in the eye, but instead they were watching my cock swing back and forth, but they had participated like no class I've taught even before the lockdowns. They asked questions, they volunteered to read aloud sections from the essays I'd assigned them. Whenever I asked questions, at least five students raised their hands to answer. I'd never taught a better class in my entire career.

Despite the fact that my face was certainly bright red for the entirety of our class period, or maybe because I was so embarrassed and so vulnerable with my students, we had entered into some kind of reciprocal relationship, where my students were graciously giving me support. The small quiet voice in my brain wanted to do more studies, to write an article about my experience, to see if other professors would be willing to do similar experiments with their students.

Of course, that was out of the question. My administration did not know that I had decided to use these methods. They could not know. Without having those conversations with my administrators, I would never be able to to move forward with any actual research. And I wasn't sure I really wanted to, since it would mean even more time naked in front of students, course after course to collect data.

I cracked the window blinds again, leaning back in my chair so my abs stretched and my armpit hair would have been on full display if anyone walked into the door at that moment. I watched my department head cross the parking lot, climb into his Lexus and drive away. I couldn't deny the thrill of pleasure I felt sitting in my work office, stark naked, watching my boss leave work.

For the next couple of months. I'd walk to my class in my new teaching suit. Wait for class to start, and begin the class by removing all of my clothing, folding it, and draping it over the side of the chair. Then, I would teach my lessons. Class after class, week after week, month after month, I would teach the best lessons of my life, with the most engaged students I could imagine. Whenever anyone started to act up, Cody or Seth would tell them to be quiet, and just like that, classroom tension would be resolved. And I'd walk back and forth across the classroom, my bare feet slapping on the floor, my cock at eye level with all my students.

It was near the end of the semester when my students let me know what they had done. They had all submitted their first vulnerable essays, the ones that had gotten me naked and spilling cum in front of them, to the school's literary magazine, and every last one of them had been published. I beamed with pride, and then the panic set in.

The first email came from my department head. I received it thirty minutes after the class period when my students told me they'd all been accepted for publication. He congratulated me on my accomplishments as a professor and let me know that he would be joining my class the following afternoon to learn more about my methods. Four more emails came in throughout the afternoon from other professors in the department, all of them scheduling opportunities to come observe my class.

With each email, my stomach plummeted. I would have five colleagues sitting in my class tomorrow. I imagined trying to start the day without stripping down and imagined the absolute uproar that would ensue from my students.

The next day, as I walked into class, I made eye contact first with Cody, who smirked at me. He was seated in front of my department head. Along the back wall stood four professors, all of them older, all of them men who had been on my tenure board, all of them men I admired.

I had spent the whole night agonizing about whether to inform them of what they could expect and debating whether or not I could ask them to choose not to attend. In the end I had just left their emails on read, and mentally prepared myself for the fact that five more men would be added to the list of people who would see me teach in the buff.

"Class, you'll notice we have some visitors today," I said as class began, taking off my suit jacket and folding it over the back of my chair at the front of the room.

All eyes went back to the department head, and then they settled back on me. They were waiting, curious to see if I was a man of my word.

"Since you've all performed so well in this department, some of my colleagues have asked to see my teaching methods," I continued.

Cody whooped. My department head cocked an eye brow but remained silent.

I unbuttoned the sleeves of my shirts at the wrists and started to roll them up, my forearms exposed. Then I reached up and loosened my tie and unbuttoned my top button.

"I didn't warn them how relaxed we get in this class," I said.

"Damn straight," Seth said, "We get really fucking relaxed in this class."

And too my amazement, Seth stood up, and started to undress. All eyes were on him as his skin came more and more into view, and within fifteen seconds he had stripped completely naked, his toes wiggling on the floor, his penis swaying. He winked at the head of the department and sat back down.

"Really relaxed," Cody said.

He also stood up and undressed completely. His cock inches away from my department head's face, and I watched my department head's eyes tracking the arc of Cody's dick.

Within a minute, every student had stood up and stripped completely naked. I'd never seen so much male flesh in one room.

"In this class, clothes don't get in the way of our learning," Seth said.

"That's right," I said, feeling grateful to my students. "None of us do."

My department head sat behind Cody watching me as I stripped off my own clothing. Within seconds I stood completely naked in front of my boss, in front of my colleagues, in front of all my naked students. I met my department head's eye.

He sat, one of the only clothed men in the room, and I could see that he was enjoying it. At the thought of my boss being pleased to see me in all my naked glory, I stiffened, my penis pointing directly at the department head.

"Let's get this class started," I said, turning to the chalk board and giving my department head the view of every last inch of my skin.

[kedreeva]

GAME OVER!

We have been playing The Marble Game (you can block "the marble game" if you get tired of looking at asks) again! If you'd like context, the initiating post is here!

Those of you who swallowed the marble received the following text:

Upon swallowing the marble, you gain access to a unique well of Void magic. In a few weeks, you will encounter a second god who will stay her hand from killing you because she recognizes your new magic, and you will go on to save the rest of the world with her aid.

Good job! Thank you for playing!

——-

Those of you who did not swallow the marble received something similar to the following text:

In a few weeks, you will meet a second, different kind of god who will have no reason to stay her hand in killing you, and will do so.

My condolences, and thank you for playing!

———

Where did this come from:

In my story The Final Pack, the main character has been led to believe that supernatural creatures are mindlessly feral and bloodthirsty. However, when his best friend is bitten, it is the humans who wish to kill him and the werewolves who agree to save him. This turns his perception of supernatural creatures on its ear, and in a bid to further protect his best friend from harm, he asks to set off into the apocalypse with the pack to find out what else he has been wrong about and what else is out there, and what to do about it.

Adventures ensue as they travel around the ruined world, including this particular one, where they happen upon Eden (the town in this game) and meet a trio of gods they help out of a bind. Afterwards, the main character is given the inert fragment, which he does in fact swallow and gains access to a well of Void magic which will aid him in later adventures (and do some horrific Void things as well, but he’ll get over that).

The reason I initially asked (a few years ago) about all of this was because I was concerned that people would not find it reasonable to swallow an unknowable object given to them by a likely-benevolent void god, but as it turns out, MOST people are perfectly willing to do so. Often without even asking questions. People just really want to put shiny things in their mouths I guess.

The god in this actually comes from the @void-lore tumblr (which is part of an original story), which is the setting for Georgia and Alex’s later story. Georgia and Alex actually have a story prior to interacting with The Final Pack characters. I am actually turning Final Pack into a novel! You can follow progress on the Final Pack discord!

Thank you again to everyone who participated, it was a pleasure playing with you all!

[forever-will-last]

Mean Girls Fanfic Gift Exchange!

A few of us in the fandom are organizing an AO3 gift exchange for Mean Girls Day (October 3rd)! If you would like to participate, check out the link above! Rules are below, and FAQs are under the cut!

Rules:

1. All works must be centered around Mean Girls. You may add side fandoms or center around specific renditions of it (2004, Broadway, Tour, 2024, etc) but it must be around the Mean Girls Universe.

2. All gift fics must be at least 500 words in length. There is no maximum limit on words, so go wild!

3. If you don’t think you’re able to finish a work, please contact one of the mods. This is in order to prevent people from not getting anything gifted.

4. All gift art must be fully finished. Submissions of only partially completed works will be removed.

5. All gifters must respect their giftee's triggers/DNWs. Any gift fics submitted that contain content that was specifically marked as triggering or unwanted by the giftee will be deleted, and you will be removed from the challenge.

Q: I’m not in the Discord Server, can I participate?

Of course! Anyone in the fandom can participate. But! If you want to join, feel free to ask us for a link.

Q: What do I have to do to participate?

You must send a request of something you want someone to make a work about, and do an offer for a piece you're willing to work on. Everyone must do at least one work and will receive at least one work.

Q: Do I need to have two separate requests for my sign-up?

A: No. You are allowed to submit up to two so your gifter has the ability to choose a prompt they feel most confident creating a gift for. You are welcome to submit only one. We can only guarantee at least one request to be fulfilled.

Q: When are the gifts due?

A: Your gift must be submitted by Oct 3rd, 2024.

Q: Can I create a gift for more than one of my giftee's requests?

A: Yes. You can put up to two offers and in case there’s a match, you can do up to two works.

Q: Do my request prompts have to be specific?

A: No. Your prompts can be anything you would like, from one word up to a summary for a complex plot idea.

Q: What is an offer, and what do I put in it?

A: Your offer is where you list what kind of gift you would like to make, and what your limitations are. Any pairing you list, for example, is one you are offering to write/draw/etc. Be specific about what you will and will not create in the offer description as this will help to better match you with a giftee. You can post up to two offers with different limitations.

Q: Can I create art rather than writing a fic?

A: Yes. However, if you create art, you must post it on AO3 so completion of your assignment can be verified. If you need help with how to do this, please contact Belén.

Q: If I want to add another request to my sign-up/edit one of my requests, can I?

A: Yes. If you go to your AO3 dashboard, select "My Sign-Ups," and click on this challenge, you will be able to add to or edit your requests and offer until the sign-up period closes at 12:00 AM EDT September 10th, 2024.

For any other question, feel free to contact any of the mods! @forever-will-last @pinkkrypto @acetone4veins @chisamayas!!!

[in-amor-veritas]

Hey hey,

Idk if you are still taking prompts but I thought I'd shoot my shot as I missed that you were participating. I absolutely understand if you aren't taking more though.

Wilmon+

"No, no, no, please no!"

Hiii I am still taking prompts :)

This is some kind of silly arts university AU where Wille and Simon are both dance majors (Wille is ballet and Simon is modern/street/hiphop idk what’s the exact term for what im imaging I just know he wants to be a choreographer and run his own studio) also idk why but Wille has s1 hair bc ballet Wille to me always had longer hair 🤷‍♀️

"No, no, no, please no!" Wille stares in horror at the four letter word greyed out under the stupid text message he’d meant to send to his best friend, Felice, and instead sent to the insanely attractive, intimidatingly outspoken and extremely talented boy in his dance history class.

He had sent it to Felice, moping about his crush and hadn’t expected the message to be read so immediately after sending it, so it had been with a horrified gasp when he realized after rushing to unsend that it was no use because Simon had already seen the stupid message talking about how distracted he gets sitting behind him and how badly he wants to get to know him better.

Fighting the urge to throw his phone across the room he lays back on the mattress, staring with some kind of masochistic fascination as the typing bubbles appear, fingers running through long strands of his blonde hair, twisting and pulling the ends in anxiety as he think about what Simon must have thought when he read it, what he’s writing back right now.

Simon must think he’s weird, after-all he’s always been socially awkward and quiet and they’ve barely exchanged more than a few words since the start of this class together, someone as social and popular as Simon Eriksson probably has plenty of people interested in him, Wille can just imagine the other boy showing his friends the message and laughing at how weird that Wilhelm guy is.

He almost doesn’t want to look when he feels his phone vibrate, but he’s too curious and when he see opens the notification he has a slight panic attack as what’s written there, sitting up and pushing his hair out of his eyes he reads it again.

sorry for being too distracting for you to pay attention in class…guess i owe you one…why don’t we get together and study or something sometime….for the record ive watched you in rehearsal and you’re pretty distracting yourself ;)

Wille grins, feeling his cheeks flushed and a sense of curious wonderment bloom inside of his chest—holy shit Felice wasn’t going to believe this.

…..

this is technically 6 but ive decided im not counting the text message as a sentence 😌

[gaybananabread]

I'm so excited to participate in your augtickletober! For number 28, please consider writing lee kirishima! with ler todoroki from my hero academia hehehe, a relaxing massage seems nice~ By the way if the number is already taken, feel free to change to any numbers (probably number 29 or 24 as backups just in case 28 got taken), thank youu!!

TickleTober Day 28 - Massage

Oooooh not a pairing I write for often! Still, the skrimblos must have their fun. Kiri would be the kinda guy to massage his friends, so nice! I hope you Enjoy!

Lee: Todoroki

Ler: Kirishima

Summary: A stressed-out Todoroki passes Kirishima, the boy’s mama-bear instincts kicking in. An innocent massage to help him relax leads to a rather tickly situation.

Warnings: none! This is a tickle fic, so if you don't like that, scroll away!!

Todoroki was stressed, to say the least. Working tirelessly to get his Provisional License, training hard to stay on top, and regular classwork had him going pretty much non-stop. Cold soba was his only escape, and even that was starting to lose its effect. It was all wearing on him, keeping his muscles tense and eyes sunken with dark bags.

The dual-quirked teen sauntered into the dorm’s kitchen, in search of his comfort food. His shoulders ached from tension, his neck and back in similar condition. The cold soba was the only thing he wanted at that moment. When he opened the fridge door, though, he deflated. “Damn it…” He had forgotten to make more the night before, exhausted from another night of rigorous training.

Kirishima walked into the room, a bright smile on his face. “Hey, Todoroki! How’s it…going.” He saw the other student’s tired, saddened form, concern blooming on his face. “Are you okay, man?”

He sighed, closing the door and cutting off the cool air. Was he okay? He wasn’t sure he knew the answer himself. “Uhm…yes. Why do you ask?” 

That only made the bubbly teen’s brows furrow. “Because you look very not okay. You’re more tense than Aizawa sensei after dealing with Bakubro and Midoriya.” He smiled softly, a small huff of air escaping him. Though they didn't interact much, Todo knew he could trust the boy and enjoyed his company. “Maybe I am a little wound up.”

Kiri chuckled, getting a bit closer and opening the fridge. He noticed the lack of his classmate’s favorite dish. “If you want, I could help. I’m not the greatest cook, but I could try and make you some soba. Maybe a massage or something.”

The massage option caught his attention. He was stupidly tense; he could use a break. “I wouldn’t mind a massage, if you’re willing to give one.”

“So formal, Todobro. You’ve gotta loosen up a bit.” He was more than happy to help out his classmate, moving over to one of the dorm couches. “And of course, I’m happy to. You wanna sit down and I’ll help?”

He nodded, following him and sitting down beside the red-haired teen. Normally, he wouldn’t have been so accepting of the concerned gesture. Midoriya and the others had been working with him on asking for help, though; it was working. Kiri went right to work, rubbing circles in his shoulders. It was unfair how quickly the tension began to ease.

Eijirou moved methodically, working to ease his peer’s tense muscles. The sheer amount of knots he had to work out concerned him. “Jeez, man. You’ve really gotta take more breaks. This isn’t healthy.” 

A small hum came from the tense teen; he was too lost in the calming feeling to do much else. At first, when Kiri was working his shoulders, it felt wonderful. He could feel the tension leaving, the tight pains fading to dull aches or going entirely.

As time passed, Kirishima’s hands wandered, moving to the base of his ribs and back. A small, annoying buzz came with the release, making him smile. Todoroki squirmed a little, trying to distract himself from the feeling.

Kirishima noticed the squirms, pulling his hands away. “You good? Sorry if I hurt you, I’m a little rusty.” Of course that’s where his mind went. That boy was too kind. “No, it’s fine. Just needed to move.” With a nod, the massage continued, right back at the dreaded spot.

Okay, that was fine. He could handle a little buzzing, no problem. At least, he thought he could, until Kirishima moved upwards again, gently poking his neck to feel for tension. Todo went rigid, a small giggle escaping him. Oh, he was screwed.

“Todoroki…are you ticklish?” Previous statement retracted. Kirishima wasn’t nice at all for asking. He knew the answer already, and knew the other boy would lie. “Uh, no. Just, um, thought of something funny.”

Bullshit. Kiri sniffed out the obvious lie, deciding to toy with his friend. “Okay then. I’ll be more gentle, just because.” He went back to massaging the other teen’s neck, making sure to scritch his nails on the skin every once in a while. Todoroki bit his lip, thankful his back was to the hero-in-training. Rosy cheeks and a poorly suppressed smile didn’t really help his case.

This continued for about a minute; Kiishima gently massaging the other teen, occasionally letting his nails scrape the sensitive skin, and Todoroki trying desperately to stay quiet. The bright boy’s patience was wearing thin, and although he’d love to continue massaging his friend, the giggle was too enticing. He gave up on subtlety, going and simultaneously squeezing both Todoroki’s sides.

He muffled a yelp, jolting forwards and grabbing the crimson student’s hands. There was no denying it now; Todoroki was ticklish, and Kirishima was gonna help him let loose. Kiri wrapped his legs around the other’s torso, pulling him back and against his chest. It was a classic Kiri play-fight move, one most of the other students feared and loved; it meant that he was about to get it.

Ten fingers drilled into both his sides, pulling a few surprised giggles from the serious teen. He tried to squirm out of it, but he was essentially trapped in a hug; pinned both around the middle by wiggling fingers and waist by strong legs, Todoroki was trapped. He probably could’ve burned his way out of the hold, but he would never purposefully hurt his classmate. 

“Wow, so wiggly, Todobro. I’m just trying to get you to relax! Like these sides, they must be tense if you’re fighting it this much!” He knew that wasn’t why he was squirming so much, but it was an “excuse” to continue the tickling. Besides, teasing him was fun. He experimentally scribbled Todo’s navel, The results were better than he could’ve hoped for.

“K-KIHIRISHIMAHA! NOHOHO!” He practically squealed when he felt the boy’s nails on his belly button, his cheeks almost matching his left hair as he laughed. Kirishima adored the sound, happy that his classmate trusted him enough to cut loose like that. He didn’t really have much of a choice, but still. “Aww, there we go. You gotta release all that inner turmoil and stress, bro. Laughter is perfect!”

His well-meaning teases were completely unfair. Todoroki drummed his feet on the couch, twisting and shoving at his classmate’s hands. He didn’t totally hate what was happening, but still, it tickled! He just wished Kiri’s nails were focusing anywhere but his belly button. “MOHOHOVE! COHOME OHOHOHON!” 

Feeling merciful, he did as he was asked, instead focusing his fingers on the candy-cane boy’s sides.Loud laughter gave way to sweet giggles, surprisingly bright for such a serious kid. “Kihiri- Kihirishihihimaha! Whyhihihi?”

“Why? You’re stressed, that’s why. I’ve never seen someone so determined to have an aneurysm before adulthood before. You could do with some giggles.” He squeezed his navel, making Todoroki emphasize it with a squeal. “Like that! Very cute, by the way. You should laugh more.”

Such a jerk! He wanted to protest anything Kirishima had just claimed, but he couldn’t. Truth was, the tickling was helping. While giggly and flustered, he was much less tense than when he’d arrived. He also felt much happier, though he attributed that to human interaction rather than the goofy touch. 

Kiri could tell he was enjoying himself, at least to an extent. He hadn’t heard the actual word “stop” once. A certain sound, though, made him halt the touch. Was that…?

*grrrrrrlm*

Todoroki’s cheeks somehow got redder, that time from embarrassment. His stomach had growled rather loudly, reminding him of his long day and skipped meals. Kirishima was the one to laugh then, releasing his friend from the tickly hold. “Ohokay, your stomach’s got an opinion. Think we should get you some food, huh Todoroki?”

The half-and-half teen mumbled something under his breath, but nodded in agreement. He was hungry, and some cold soba would be nice. Kirishima chuckled, heading back to the dorm kitchen to prepare some grub for him and his friend. 

Todoroki looked after him, a small smile on his face. He felt much better than he had before, his dampened spirits lifted by the other student’s silliness. He got up, following to help with the dish. He’d have to ask for massages more often…