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the-awful-falafel · 3 months ago

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Decided to share a megapost of my Fake Peppino relationship / character dynamic headcanons! Not comprehensive at all but should give a rough outline of my personal interpretation of things at least

PEPPINO:

Peppino and Fake Peppino's relationship is... deeply complicated lol

It's the focus of my brainrot (and utterly central to how I see Fake Peppino's postgame character development happening) so I won't quite get into all the progression and nuances here, but if I had to loosely summarize it, I'd say it's kind of a platonic slowburn "weird uncomfortable doppelganger housemate/employee" + enemies-to-trucies-to-uneasy-friendship situation. Lots of black comedy and ominous horror stuff too

More will be explained / shown off over time, hopefully!

GUSTAVO:

Gustavo generally seems tolerant or even oblivious to Fake Peppino's weirdness, although not to a Noisette extent

He doesn't get caught up in paranoia around Fake Peppino like Peppino does, although the odd behavior and comments the clone sometimes makes can be slightly unsettling

Gustavo casually calls Fake Peppino "Peppino" to be respectful (something that agitates real Peppino) and occasionally tries to encourage Peppino to do the same

Gustavo acts relatively friendly and encouraging to Fake Peppino-- believing in good faith that most of his behavior is harmlessly weird and that, if he's anything like the real Peppino, he could use a friend-- but he often feels out of his depth interacting with him for too long, so in practice it's more of a "cordial acquaintances" situation

Fake Peppino sees Gustavo as a nice friend/fellow chef, first as an extension of Peppino's relationship with him and then later more genuinely

Fake Peppino strongly appreciates Gustavo's penchant for adventure, and will often tag along Gustavo's adventures without asking and without warning when he's in the mood to forage for new ingredients or simply observe

BRICK:

Brick does not like Fake Peppino and she gets a bad vibe from him

Fake Peppino thinks the big rat looks delicious but politely holds off because he assumes that Gustavo is saving all that meat for himself

PEPPERMAN:

Pepperman is mostly face-blind towards humans and cannot tell Peppino and Fake Peppino apart unless they're side by side, and only then just barely

Pepperman somewhat admires the surrealism and ethical quandaries of Fake Peppino's existence, and rambles about it to him whenever he's around

Fake Peppino thinks Pepperman talks way too much and too fancily, and therefore tunes out at least 90% of what the pepper says

Fake Peppino has secretly stolen / borrowed paint from Pepperman before, and once or twice he brought over his weird Peppino caricature doodles to show him and get "art advice"

Fake Peppino has contemplated how Pepperman is an impressively big pepper, but there's no shortage of peppers back at the pizzeria, plus the smell of paint and ego kinda gets in the way

Fake Peppino is very pleased whenever Pepperman confuses him with Peppino

THE VIGILANTE:

Vigilante has only met Fake Peppino a handful of times and doesn't have a lot of knowledge of him or a strong opinion on him, thinking that he seems strange but friendly enough

Later on, Vigilante's opinion skews more pessimistic and he views Fake Peppino's creation as another one of Pizzahead's crimes that he must be held accountable for

Fake Peppino thinks the "cowboy cheese" is nice and helpful for giving him directions in the tower at one point, even though he finds his arsenal of guns and gruff demeanor slightly off-putting

Vigilante is the most likely of the bosses to go missing if there's a cheese supply shortage

Vigilante is also the most likely of the bosses to teach Fake Peppino what a flamethrower is

THE NOISE:

Noise finds Fake Peppino hilarious, seeing him as a total freakshow that mocks Peppino just by existing and being generally absurd

Noise would occasionally visit Fake Peppino in the tower alongside Noisette, mostly to just gawk and encourage the weirdo to do food crimes

Because of this, Noise also doesn't take Fake Peppino seriously-- an approach that has backfired on him a couple times, although he stubbornly refuses to learn. (Noise is good at using intimidation and startling loud noises in a pinch, but it never scares off Fake Peppino permanently)

Noise, when possible, likes to encourage Fake Peppino's general chaos and torment of Peppino, although it's just as likely to get thrown back in his face

Fake Peppino generally likes Noise because he sees him as one of his first regular customers alongside Noisette

However, Fake Peppino doesn't like how evasive Noise is at actually eating the complicated "pizzas" he orders, so he's increasingly determined to get Noise to eat one of his pizzas someday, even if it requires coercive methods

Fake Peppino can be unexpectedly passive-aggressive towards Noise when Noise is being more of a rude asshole than usual, although it's more in a playfully antagonistic sort of way... maybe

Fake Peppino was very confused by the whole NTV movie situation and went off-script a little too much for Noise's liking, but Fake Peppino still went along with it and got paid via expensive pizza ingredients afterwards (money was not enticing enough for him, for some reason)

NOISETTE

Noisette sees Fake Peppino as a funny guy and close friend, sharing both a goofiness and love for making dubiously edible food, and she is thoroughly immune to / oblivious of the horrors

She befriended him back in the tower via getting lost and obliviously stumbling into Peppino's Pizza 2, and her ditzy friendliness, utter lack of fear or acknowledgement of red flags, and promise to visit again led to a much more positive (and safer) interaction than all the previous customers had

Noisette's repeat visits were both because she genuinely found his pizzas "interesting" (... despite the fact they kept giving her violent short-term food poisoning, she assumed it was part of the Italian food experience and she thinks it's important to encourage his creativity) and because she was worried he was lonely, working so hard in his secluded restaurant all the time

Noisette always calls Fake Peppino "Peppino" and wholeheartedly affirms his identity

Noisette's overt tolerance and obliviousness of the horrors is not always a good thing and can lead to her enabling Fake Peppino's more dangerous and maladaptive behavior

Fake Peppino sees Noisette as his first and favorite regular customer, and he'd consider her his first friend too, although the lines between friend and customer are very blurry in Fake Peppino's mind

Fake Peppino visits Noisette on rare occasions (rather than the more common other way around), both because he enjoys her company and because he thinks studying her likes/dislikes up close and integrating them into his pizzas is key to maintaining her patronage

Fake Peppino will play party games and board games with Noisette and Noise when she offers, but he's kinda inattentive and doesn't follow the rules (it's okay because half of the rules Noisette makes up / doesn't care about either, and Noise cheats)

GEROME:

Gerome doesn't interact with Fake Peppino much, and when he does, he mostly just regards him with either vague interest or pity

Gerome is aware of the cloning lab and Fake Peppino's true nature/purpose, and has had a lot of experience with his brother's clones-- as a result, Gerome is pessimistic about the Fake Peppino's ability or willingness to change from what he is

Fake Peppino sees Gerome as the small stone man who sleeps all the time, and is interested by his janitorial work, but otherwise doesn't have much of an opinion on him either

PILLAR JOHN

John regards Fake Peppino with a similar sort of pity as Gerome does, although it mostly leads to him expressing sympathy and solidarity towards Peppino over both of them being cloned by Pizzahead and having awkward interactions with said clones after the tower collapsed

Fake Peppino doesn't really know John, but he was warned extensively to never touch the pillars holding up each level gate, no matter how tempting it may be to kick one over

Fake Peppino still follows this rule after the events of the game, even though this pillar is now walking around, but his curiosity will probably get the best of him one of these days

PIZZAFACE

Pizzaface has no opinion on Fake Peppino because he's a (secret) robot/mech whose autopilot AI is quite basic and limited-- he's obedient/loyal to Pizzahead and nobody else

Fake Peppino doesn't understand why you would make a pizza that isn't for eating

PIZZAHEAD

Pizzahead is directly responsible for creating Fake Peppino along with all the other clones, and even though the results didn't match his original "Better Peppino" design concept 1:1, he doesn't care and doesn't see it as a failure at all-- he thinks it's much funnier and more entertaining this way

Pizzahead doesn't really perceive Fake Peppino as a person or sapient entity deserving respect -- he sees Fake Peppino more like a fun new custom-built toy, guard monster, and walking punchline of a joke at Peppino's expense, all rolled into one

Pizzahead doesn't openly mistreat Fake Peppino, necessarily-- he's goofy and irreverent towards him for the most part, just like how he acts towards most other people-- but he certainly exploits and manipulates certain aspects of Fake Peppino's behavior for his own amusement, and saw leaving Fake Peppino on the fourth floor with minimal safeguards as the funniest possible thing to do with him. Look and watch the weird freak go! Wooooo!

Pizzahead is very affirming and encouraging of Fake Peppino believing himself to be really Peppino, mostly to better exploit/manipulate his behavior and to better egg on his established aggression towards "other Peppinos" in preparation for him being sicced on the real Peppino

Pizzahead's inability to take anything seriously extends to even the most bizarre, horrific, and dangerous of his creations, in a way that would probably backfire if it weren't for his power and cartoonish immunity

Pizzahead probably would have gotten bored of and abandoned Fake Peppino at some point if Peppino hadn't destroyed the tower

After the events of the game, Pizzahead is surprised by Fake Peppino's reduced aggression towards Peppino and has attempted to sneakily exploit Fake Peppino's behavior once more to see if he can generate any more funny conflict, but it's not very effective as Fake Peppino has already formed his own ambiguous goals and doesn't really have a reason to listen to Pizzahead anymore-- although he still cheerfully takes the "advice" into consideration

Fake Peppino doesn't know that Pizzahead is responsible for his existence, nor is he aware he was even created in the first place. (Fake Peppino would not believe Pizzahead if he told him, either)

Fake Peppino likes and respects Pizzahead as the tower's owner who pulled him out of the laboratory and gifted him important advice and a restaurant free of charge, but Fake Peppino is otherwise somewhat ambivalent and isn't even particularly loyal to the pizza, instead being obsessed with working the restaurant and working hard at being Peppino

Fake Peppino doesn't quite like Pizzahead's tendency to cartoon-logic grab and deposit him in new locations at random, as he (usually) dislikes being grabbed or touched and Pizzahead doesn't have much regard for his personal space, but it thankfully doesn't happen often enough for it to be a major concern, just an uneasy irritation

Fake Peppino is very curious about what Pizzahead's pizza head tastes like and has attempted to bite it off twice, to no success and Pizzahead barely acknowledging it aside from casually clamping Fake Peppino's jaws shut / sidestepping it and causing Fake Peppino to faceplant

#pizza tower #headcanons #fake peppino #peppino spaghetti #gustavo #brick the rat #pepperman #the vigilante #the noise #noisette #gerome #pillar john #pizzaface #pizzahead #long post

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girl-next-door-writes · 5 months ago

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Between the Stacks

Characters: George Weasley x reader

Summary: Snow falls softly at Hogwarts, but George Weasley’s mischief sparks warmth in the library—and maybe, something more.

Word Count: 1247 words

Prompts: Library. Mutual pining. A hug that lingers.

A/N: A lovely sweet anon requested this one, so I hope you see it. I have missed writing my favourite Weasley.

The library was quiet, the soft rustle of pages and the occasional scratch of a quill the only sounds breaking the stillness. Snow fell softly against the windows, casting shifting patterns of light on the stone walls. Christmas was just a week away, and most of the students had already left for the holidays, leaving the Hogwarts library eerily empty. You had told yourself you stayed back for the quiet. The peace. But the truth was, the silence felt heavier than you’d expected, wrapping around you like a too-tight scarf.

“You’re staring at that book like it insulted your gran,” a familiar voice broke your concentration, and your heart did a little flip. George Weasley slid into the chair across from you, his signature mischievous grin firmly in place.

“Maybe it did,” you quipped, snapping the book shut. “I’m not entirely convinced Potions theory isn’t some form of cruel punishment.”

George chuckled, leaning back in his chair, and you couldn’t help but admire the way the firelight turned his hair into copper and gold. He was always so at ease, like the world bent just slightly to accommodate him.

“What are you still doing here, anyway? I thought you’d have escaped this place by now.”

“I could ask you the same thing,” you countered, raising an eyebrow.

He shrugged, an easy motion that somehow felt practiced. “Fred and I thought we’d stick around. Fewer teachers means more room for…creative experimentation.”

“Ah, I see. And by ‘creative experimentation,’ you mean causing as much chaos as possible?”

“Precisely.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, and for a moment, his grin softened into something thoughtful. “But what about you? Why spend your holidays buried in books when you could be…I don’t know, having fun?”

You hesitated, twirling your quill between your fingers. The truth was, you’d stayed back partly because you enjoyed the quiet, but mostly because of him. George. His laugh, his jokes, the way he made everything seem brighter. Not that you’d ever admit it.

“Maybe I like the quiet,” you said finally, glancing away to hide the heat rising to your cheeks. “It’s…peaceful.”

“Fair enough,” he said, though there was a glint of something knowing in his eyes. “But don’t you ever get lonely?”

“Not when I have people like you interrupting me,” you teased, grateful for the shift in tone.

He laughed, the sound warm and rich, shattering the stillness of the library. For a moment, the cold stone walls seemed to fall away, and all that was left was him.

Over the next few days, George seemed to pop up wherever you went. In the Great Hall during meals, he’d slide into the seat beside you with a cheeky comment about your “intense focus” on your soup. In the common room, he’d swipe your parchment to doodle absurd caricatures of Snape, complete with a crooked nose and bat wings. And in the library, he’d appear from behind the stacks, always with a joke or a story that left you laughing despite yourself.

“You know,” he said one evening, as you both sat in the library again, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were avoiding me.”

“Avoiding you?” you repeated, feigning innocence as you turned a page in your book. “Why on earth would I do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, leaning back in his chair and tapping a finger to his chin, the picture of mock seriousness. “Maybe because you’re worried you’ll fall madly in love with me.”

You rolled your eyes, though your heart raced. “Please. I think I’ll manage.”

“Suit yourself,” he said with a wink. But his grin faltered—just for a second, the smallest crack in his usual bravado. His eyes lingered on you, softening in a way that made your stomach twist, before he quickly glanced away.

It wasn’t until the evening before Christmas Eve that things came to a head. You were alone in the library, the faint strains of carols drifting from the enchanted suits of armor in the corridors. The fireplace crackled softly, casting long shadows across the rows of books, and snow tapped gently against the frosted windows. The quiet was almost soothing, and you’d been lost in thought when you heard footsteps behind you.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually studying so close to Christmas,” George’s voice rang out, tinged with mock horror.

You turned, startled, to find him standing there, a box wrapped in red and gold paper in his hands. His cheeks were flushed from the cold, and there was a certain nervousness in the way he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“What’s that?” you asked, eyeing the package.

“A present,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “For you.”

“For me?” You blinked, surprised. “Why?”

“Why not?” he said with a shrug, though his grin was unusually subdued. He stepped closer and set the box carefully on the table. “Go on, open it.”

Your fingers brushed the crisp paper as you peeled it back, the firelight reflecting off the gold paper. Inside was a small, intricately carved wooden box. You lifted the lid to reveal a quill, its handle engraved with your initials and the crest of your house. The silver feathers shimmered faintly, catching the glow of the fire.

“George…” you began, your voice catching. You ran your fingers over the smooth handle, marveling at the detail. “This is beautiful. Thank you.”

“I thought you could use something special for all those notes you’re always scribbling,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding your gaze. “Figured it might make studying a bit less miserable.”

“It’s perfect,” you said, looking up at him, your chest tightening. “Really. Thank you.”

He grinned, but this time there was a softness to it, a vulnerability that made your heart ache.

“You know,” he said after a moment, his tone quieter, “I wasn’t entirely honest earlier.”

“About what?” you asked, though your pulse quickened.

“Why I stayed for the holidays,” he admitted, his gaze dropping to the floor. His hand drifted to the edge of the table, his fingers tracing invisible patterns on the wood.

Your breath caught. “Why did you?”

He looked up then, his brown eyes meeting yours with an openness that made your stomach flip. “Because I… I didn’t want to spend so much time away from you.”

The words hung in the air between you, soft and tentative, like snowflakes that might melt if you moved too suddenly. For a moment, neither of you spoke. Then, before you could think twice, you stepped forward and wrapped your arms around him. He froze for a heartbeat, then pulled you close, his hold firm and warm and lingering just a little too long to be purely friendly.

“You’re an idiot,” you murmured against his shoulder, though your tone was affectionate. “But thank you.”

His breath was warm against your hair. “For what?”

“For staying,” you said softly, tightening your hold for just a moment longer.

When you finally pulled back, his hands lingered on your arms, his touch warm despite the chill in the air.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, his voice just above a whisper, his gaze locked on yours.

“Merry Christmas, George,” you replied, a smile tugging at your lips.

And as the snow continued to fall outside, you couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, this was the start of something wonderful.

#George Weasley #George Weasley x reader #gndw Build a fic

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hey-august · 1 year ago

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Word count: Just under 1k Warnings: NSFW, MDNI, buggy x GN!reader, no use of Y/N, mentions of masturbation, sex, and oral.

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Buggy who is surprisingly good at drawing.

Buggy who doodles all the time. Ugly little caricatures of people who piss him off. Goofy scribbles of bits that make him laugh. Potential skits.

Buggy who scrawls on the margins of paper, the corner of napkins, anywhere he can relieve the itch in his hands.

Buggy who designs costumes for his crew. Colored pencils and oil pastels bring the flashy couture to life.

Buggy who carries a small sketchbook in his coat. Deckle edged paper wrapped in leather, perfect for practicing pencil sketches and graphite drawings as he observes the crew.

Buggy who doesn’t share the drawings in his sketchbook, though. Some had to learn the hard way not to look over his shoulder.

Buggy who realizes too late that you are overtaking his personal pages. What started as small forms to study pose and movement grew larger, capturing more of your essence.

Buggy who becomes obsessed with capturing the small details. How your nose crinkles when you laugh. The sneer in your lips when you’re pissed. The way you rake your fingers through your hair when you try to calm yourself.

Buggy who gets curious late one night. Curious and desperate.

Buggy who draws you from memory and fueled by his filthy imagination. The soft sound of pencil scraping along the paper is comforting.

Buggy who fills a page with you in compromising positions. The lewd expressions you might wear. What he thinks you’d look like split on his cock. Or mouth open, begging to have your face fucked. His hands gripping your plush thighs.

Buggy who fucks himself to the hand-drawn porn and cums all over the page.

Buggy who feels guilty and burns the soggy drawings, as best he can. It takes a few frustrating tries and he panics, even though no one is around.

Buggy who tries to ignore those feelings. Trying to draw anything except you. But everything looks like shit now. Proportions are off. He presses too hard when sketching, unable to erase the stark lines. Even his doodles lack life.

Buggy who gives in and scribbles you in the corner of his sketchbook before moving on to something else. And it works. His movements flow better. A weight is lifted off his chest.

Buggy who eventually caves to the nighttime muse once more. Filling another perverted page with the obscene images flooding his mind. This time, he doesn’t ruin the drawings with jizz or fire.

Buggy who revisits that page frequently. Adds to that page. Convinces himself that it’s okay, it’s not hurting anyone. In fact, it helps him by taking away other urges.

Buggy who eventually manages to misplace his sketchbook. He fucking lost it.

Buggy who doesn’t want to bring attention to his lost treasure. If he says it’s missing, some freaks might find it and look through the pages. They’ll realize what a pathetic loser he is.

Buggy who frantically retraces his footsteps, barking orders to keep everyone away from him.

Buggy who finally finds it in the hallway just outside his room. The book must have fallen out of his pocket and laid mostly out of sight with the brown leather blending into the wooden floor.

Buggy who is relieved. It doesn’t look like the book had been touched or moved. Even the leather string is still wound around the sketchbook tightly.

Buggy who needs to get back to other duties after sloughing them off most of the day. He’s still on edge, reading into everyone’s interactions. No one acts differently, adding to the relief that no one knows about his perversions.

Buggy who doesn’t open the sketchbook until the end of a very long day. Who waits until he’s alone and in his room.

Buggy whose stomach lurches at the note peeking out of one of the pages. A page devoted to your smile. A note with your handwriting. “This is so impressive! I look so happy”

Buggy who slams the sketchbook shut and starts to pace around the room. Fuck. Did you find it first? Did you look through it? Why? What else did you see? What else did you see?

Buggy who freezes at the thought. Who stares at the awful book, as if it would pipe up and tell him in a fluttery voice.

Buggy who grabs the book and roughly throws it into a drawer, ready to lock up his feelings. Ready to deal with his unhealthy actions with more unhealthy actions.

Buggy who tries to go to bed but can’t sleep. He lays in bed surrounded by a carousel of thoughts. Of fear. And anxiety.

Buggy who sends over a hand to retrieve the damn book. He has to know. He’ll die if he doesn’t find out.

Buggy who can feel his hands shake with each heartbeat as he thumbs through the book, looking for more notes.

Buggy who feels both calmed and excited as he finds your commentary on a few more innocuous pages. Praises for his skill and appreciation for scenes he captured.

Buggy who finally flips to the page. That one.

Buggy who’s afraid to read the note you left there. But he does. “Want to collaborate one day?”

Buggy whose stomach and heart are in knots.

Buggy who keeps reading. “I’d like to see what you look like too.”

Buggy who shows up at your door, panting and red faced. Sketchbook in hand.

Buggy who trails his fingers along your face as he fucks into you, commiting each detail to memory. The shape of your mouth with each moan. Your lust-filled eyes. The little teeth marks left after you bite your lips.

Buggy who can’t help but stare at your sex-tired body. Chest heaving. Glistening.

Buggy who still wants to taste you. To taste himself on you. Who uses his mouth and tongue to memorize more of your body.

Buggy who is surprisingly good at drawing and collaborating.

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A/N: Just want to highlight this line bc I love it "This time, he doesn’t ruin the drawings with jizz or fire."

#buggy smut #buggy x reader #buggy the clown x reader #buggy x you #x reader #buggy op #opla buggy #one piece buggy #buggy the clown #buggy the clown smut #one piece smut #buggy x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader #hey-august buggy fic

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wutheringmights · 3 months ago

Note

A humble request for chapter commentary. At your leisure. Because wow. That was a chapter.

One of these days, I will realize that I should write the commentary as I write the chapter so that it does not take me so much time/effort to make it. Alas, I am convinced that one day people will not want to read my ramblings, and I refuse to do any work that is not absolutely necessary.

As always, massive spoilers for the newest chapter below. Read at your own risk.

So this chapter took a massive chunk of time to write, which was not my plan. Last chapter, I was all gung ho about cutting down on my production time and going back to as close to a monthly schedule as possible. That was November. It’s February now.

I really underestimated how busy the holiday season was going to make me. From Halloween up until post-New Years, I think I had two weekends where I didn’t need to shuttle off somewhere or someone wasn’t shuttling up to me. Not a lot of writing time.

This could have been avoided if I didn’t stop writing mid-week. I’ve complained about this before, but in 2024 I stopped writing during the weekdays. I told myself that it was because I have zero time, but the real problem is that somewhere along the line, I told myself that if I didn’t have two hours to write, I couldn’t write at all.

Well, I’m over that. I’m squeezing in at least 20 minutes a night as much as possible. I will not let myself make excuses anymore, especially because my mood drops when I’m not able to write for a while.

I was also experiencing that classic “oh god why is my writing suddenly terrible?” panic, which I solved by forcing myself to slow down and stop trying to just the chapter. I wanted to actually take the time to make what I was writing good. Did this make the chapter take even longer? Yup, but I can’t regret it.

So here we are. No promises this time as to when the next chapter will come out, but I’m still aiming for a near-monthly pace. Sadly, this might mean that I won’t have the time to write an extra side story this year for the CTB birthday in April (yeah, I gotta really plan this out in advance). I guess we’ll see how I’m feeling in a few more weeks.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk this chapter.

You can tell that I was having fun trying to figure out what it would be like to have someone else’s emotions messing around with your head. As Jakucho suggested, Link is already so bad at handling himself that having to put in the work for two is a lot for him.

The way breath is used to cope with Proxi’s emotions is inspired by the way breath is used in, like, every yoga video I use.

I really hope that I’m properly portraying Link as “idiot white dude who is doing his best to be respectful of a culture he’s kinda fascinated by” and that it’s not the prose itself that is ostracizing the real world cultural practices that I’m putting under the Sheikah umbrella. Maybe the fact that I’m using a mismatch of things is already a bad sign.

The same can be said of my vague descriptions of Kabuki theater.

The play Link and Proxi see is inspired by two Shakespearen plays: A Merchant of Venice and The Twelfth Night. Merchant has a plotline where three suitors have to undergo a trial to prove their worth to a wealthy heiress, while Twelfth Night has the misadventures of the servants and the skeevy servant rising above his station to marry his mistress.

That later is meant to be a little world building nod to how deeply entrenched the class system is in Hyrule where the idea of a peasant trying to enter the upper classes is discouraged to outright mocked in classical art. If this play was real, the skeevy servant would be one of those comically disgusting characters the audience is meant to laugh at, like Malvolio from The Twelfth Night.

And of course, the foreign prince would traditionally be a Ganondorf caricature built on harmful Gerudo prejudice-- something akin to Shylock, to keep the Merchant of Venice allusion going.

Mostly, I imagine that the princess, hero, and Gerudo king are a set of narrative archetypes that appear over and over again in Hylian storytelling, for better or for worse.

This was a very long worldbuilding exploration for what essentially was an excuse to talk a bit about how the line of succession works in Hyrule, because I realized when I was writing about the role of women that I never actually explained this.

Side note: I have been so fascinated lately by the ways stories establish the presence of a patriarchy in their worlds. Legend of the Galactic Heroes has one of my favorites: using the way characters talk about Annerose as a litmus test. I will now refrain from elaborating on that because we are not here to talk about animes from the 1980s I am obsessed with.

The secret Sheikah techniques being Judo is 100% because I do Judo and I need to justify spending so much time at practice somehow.

The throw Ayane does is meant to be o-goshi-- one of the beginner throws that is excellent for a short person like Ayane to use on a bigger opponent. Because her hips would be lower than his, he would be pretty easy to tip over them.

Because o-goshi involves being flipped over your head, it’s kinda a scary way to be thrown in the beginning. Genuinely, poor Link for being thrown like that when he had just learned how to fall (here’s a demonstration of the side fall he would have learned, though he would have started from a squat as opposed to standing at full height).

All that’s to say that: do not throw someone who is not ready to be thrown.

Arlo, a character you may remember from that time everyone ran across a battlefield, was almost included among the gaggle of soldiers trying to navigate across Kakariko. The reason why has everything to do with Icarius.

For the sake of Icarius development, he assumed a role on the narrative of an unnamed, unremarkable soldier Link was going to have a short rendez-vous with. While that unnamed soldier was never going to be Arlo, I had toyed around with having Arlo be present as the soldier’s disgruntled roommate who got kicked out of the hotel room for the sake of the tryst.

It’s not plot-vital for Arlo to have met Link earlier in the story; in fact it would be kinda silly if Link kept on running into the same few people over and over again. But I have an impulse to try to use every character, even the more minor and impulsive creations, to the max.

I imagine the Teachings of Din as a cross between a socratic dialogue and the Art of War (though I’ve never read the latter), which is why it’s framed as a conversation between a knight and Din.

I also remember someone once telling me that old military strategy books like the Art of War has a lot of text dedicated to telling the upper class dudes reading it to treat their peasant armies fairly. I have no idea how true that is, but that factoid always stuck in my brain. I guess I’ll just hope that it’s true.

I like the idea that if you were to look just at the book, it would seem like Link’s past actions would have been completely rejected by the military as being too horrific. But in practice, despite everyone above him having read the book, no one thought what he did was out of pocket.

Link and Proxi’s conversation at the table was first referenced during the Fever Dreams in chapter 18. In that version of the scene, Link immediately confesses to Proxi what he did. Back in (checks date) 2022, that was my vision for their relationship. Finally writing it now, it was obvious Link was not ready so I pushed it off for him. That means that I retroactively made that moment in the Fever Dreams go from being a real memory to an idealized version of his past. I think it works, since one of his biggest regrets is his inability to truly confront his past quick enough.

There is also an early reference all the way back in chapter 9, when the Chain first passes through the refugee camp, that Link had helped built some of the homes there.

Link is someone who doesn’t quite understand who he is and what he wants from life, primarily because he has spent his whole life up until this point trying to be what others wanted. The way he clings to construction work has less to do with his actual enjoyment of it and more with him actually being given a choice in what he does with himself. If he didn’t have an ongoing identity crisis, I don’t think he would gravitate to it at all. After a few months, he would be sick of it and move on to something else, just like a child cycles through different after school sports and activities until they find their passions. It’s a part of growing up he’s never had access to before.

In a weird way, post-engineer Link’s story is some sort of coming of age story, which makes it a bit less compelling for me to write than literally anything that happened before it. But it’s important. I knew when I started this story that this latter part of the story was going to have a heavier emphasis on growth and healing; still, I really do miss getting to write Link being a horrible person and emotionally spiraling

If I really wanted to go for the dramatics, I would have Link turn the corner on his growth by having him argue with Proxi, or just be dragged into being a better person kicking and screaming. But that wouldn’t feel as sincere as him deciding for himself to be better.

And that’s the tragedy of it, isn’t it? Link decided to be a better person early on, but that desire didn’t get him far enough. Being better than he was isn’t the same as being the best version of himself. Who gets to decide when he’s fully improved anyway?

Ending with Link marching up the next half of the hill was a very heavy handed visual, as well as the reference to spring arriving soon. Connecting winter to depression and spring to happiness is so, so trite and I kinda stumbled into it by accident. But as cliche as it is, I love doing it. There really is something satisfying using old tropes and discovering why they became cliches in the first place.

Onto the present--

Fun fucking fact: I thought this chapter was going to be super short. Why? All my outline said was that I needed to a) do the Knights of Hyrule shit and, b) Kill Lincoln. I usually have to juggle twenty different plot points. I only had two, and it still spiraled out of my control!

Part of that is just that there were things I forgot would take time to explore, like how Warriors would win the Triforce back (which I will get to later), and the other times there just was a lot of plot machinations I needed to do to get to the important stuff.

And that’s been a theme with this last third of the story. Chapters 28, 29, 30, and 31 were all supposed to be a single chapter. Warriors and Spirit were going to have their Hot Mess, and the next chapter Lincoln was going to be dead in Castle Town. I just completely, severely underestimated how much plot machinations would be needed to get from A to B.

The Hot Mess all the way to now is about a year of my life. It took be a fucking year to cover one whole point on my story outline. Do you understand why I have been so frustrated about how long this story is taking me? Why I have been pulling my hair out? Does that put any of my feelings into perspective for you?

There was a lot of hubris involved. I think I have everything paced much more reasonably now that I shouldn’t need to add more than one or two, if any at all, extra chapters.

In massive hindsight, I should have realized that the plot to take control of Castle Town would be more than just a chapter. But I also think I was in denial about how much longer this story was going to be.

Ugh.

Anyway, the actual chapter. I should talk about that.

I am very amused by the idea that Endicott, for all of his faults, is the first person in the Royal Guard to truly take Warriors seriously. Warriors tells him about the black blood, and he not only believes him but is actually helpful. Kudos to you, Endicott. You’re not such a bad guy after all.

Endicott also had the lovely function of being a good tool for reminding the readers of some lore that they might have forgotten in the long stretch of story since we last dealt with the black blood stuff. I always prefer to have diegetic exposition over textbook narration.

Which then carried over to Warriors’s briefing while everyone else armored-up. Whenever I have Warriors make a grand plan like that, I always worry that there’s a glaring plot hole that I don’t see myself but a smarter reader would be frustrated by.

There is an extremely stupid bit in this chapter where Spirit puts his foot on the chaise in order to intimidate Warriors into agreeing with him, which Sky sees and copies because, hey, if it worked for Spirit it might work for him. Which Linkle mimics when she tries to convince Warriors to take her side. I tried to have Warriors snap at everyone to stop putting their feet on his chair, but I couldn’t make it work with the pacing.

Also, shout out to Icarius who has decided that Linkle is his enemy for shooting him in the leg and tries to hurt her with his words. Aka, the dictionary he uses to communicate.

I also enjoy that despite seeming like it would be the reverse, Warriors has turned into the doting older brother for Linkle while Spirit is the one who calls her a little shit. I wanted to subvert the expectations readers would have for their dynamic when first learning about how Linkle views both of them as her brothers.

I almost cut Time and Lincoln’s truce because I thought I was painting too big of a target on Lincoln’s back. But I kept it so that Time could have a moment of growth, and because I already shouted that Lincoln was on the chopping block by him making plans with Warriors for the future at the end of the last chapter.

I also enjoy Lincoln’s chapter-long thread of being utterly terrified of the black blood and still deciding to get involved anyways. It’s a quiet demonstration of his courage, and a bit of tragic foreshadowing (more on that later).

Spirit being snippy with Wild about sharing the horse is such a silly thing to use valuable page-space for, but I also knew that I could not state that they would share a horse without explaining how they got there.

Way later in the chapter, Lincoln asked Spirit why he never said anything about Rudeo not being under the black blood’s curse. But he did here before the scene with Remarque: “There’s a couple of dark spirits. Maybe three.”

Was he being super clear? No. If Warriors was any less stressed, he might have picked out the discrepancy. But as is, Spirit technically did say something.

One thing about this chapter is that we go in reverse of the Castle Town plot. We started at the Temple of Time with the wiseman Sevas, went to Colonel Remarque’s post at the wall, then ended in the castle with Endicott. And this chapter takes us in reverse. It looks like I did this on purpose, but as you can probably guess by the one year to cover one plot point debacle, I Did Not.

In the context of my long term plan for Spirit, giving him a moment to pure heroism now-- publicly renouncing his story to save Warriors --is just... he has a lot going on, and a lot of his previous moments of heroism haven’t been kind. This is truly his moment of selflessness, and it really is coming at the perfect time.

In terms of sillier moments in this chapter, I really like how much Warriors enjoyed making the soldiers squirm when they realized they were going to have to figure out how to handcuff a man with only one hand.

In meeting up with the Knights of Hyrule for the first time in actual years, I really wished a gave all of them more to say and do before the fight. Gaudin and Shigeo had plenty to talk about, but Faiza and Rudeo were kinda pushed to the side.

That being said, I had a lot of fun giving Lincoln a chance to confront Gaudin; it’s been a while since we’ve seen him with peak “I am someone you should not mess with” energy, even if it didn’t lead him far

In a political view, Lincoln is interesting in that he’s not particularly charismatic or likeable but he doesn’t need to be when his power is very secure; which is meant to contrast how Warriors has spent his entire career being likable in order to have a modicum of power

Sky was an interesting factor in this chapter in that he has this entirely separate grudge against the knights that is independent from what Lincoln and Warriors want; I had to make a decision as to how much closure if any I can give Sky

I landed on having Sky be at the head of the charge, particularly in terms of fighting Gaudin, but never giving him a real chance for revenge-- mostly because as angry as I think Sky is, his heroism streak is stronger than the average person. I don’t think he would allow himself the catharsis of revenge. He’s a master of repression, so give him a few years to realize he can’t ignore or repress his feelings about this.

I am really happy that I squeezed in a conversation with Shigeo, if only to better illustrate how much the black blood’s curse works with a person’s existing mind.

That being said, I think the effect would have been way stronger if I had featured Shigeo more prominently in the past like I had intended. Shigeo was meant to be the closest thing Warriors would have had to a friend or ally during his time in the war-- like an older brother figure. The relationship would have fallen apart when Warriors/Link started projecting his insecurities on Shigeo and perceiving anything he did to help as an underhanded attack. I cut this when I realized that Link’s downward spiral would be easier to sell if he was already extremely isolated emotionally without anyone but the engineer to rely on.

The protest outside the Temple of Time-- I had a good time writing that in that it was a little hard to nail. I wanted the protest to be motivated by anger, but I didn’t want to portray it as an act of violence in itself. I didn’t want the story to inadvertently paint protestors as aggressive, even if what they’re protesting is our hero.

I actually waited until the last minute to figure out their chants since I wanted them to be an emotional punch in the gut to Warriors without being too mean? My problem is that when I wrote the Turncoat Revolt, I was a little peeved that a lot of readers viewed the turncoats as evil because they tried to kill Link, the engineer, and the child despite the fact that politically speaking, the turncoats were right. Yes, you can like these characters but they are on the side of the government that’s ruining people’s lives.

Then I got over myself and remembered that I can’t really control what conclusions the reader draws from the story. So I kept the chants on the more viscous side.

This was a strangely hard battle to write. I usually can pop off a fight scene really quickly, but this one really gave me trouble. It took me way too long to string together what exactly I wanted each person in the fight to be doing and how to jump the narration from each pocket of the fight.

A lot of readers noted that it comes off much more like a in-game boss fight than any other fight scene in this story so far; I can’t say that was intentional, but it is convenient in emphasizing how out of a normal person’s wheelhouse the black blood is.

My favorite moments include Spirit tossed Sky his sword; once more, Spirit prioritizing getting the job done right over any petty grievance. A true MVP of this goddamn chapter.

Rudeo’s death... first, the Chekov’s gun of this story is establishing in Rudeo’s introduction scene that he will die if the sword in his neck is removed. Like, of course this guy is going to die by having the sword in his neck removed.

As I explored in the narration, Rudeo was meant to be another reflection of Warriors in terms of his struggles to maintain a footing in an oppressive power structure leading him to make bad political decisions. I wanted the irony of Warriors being unable or unwilling to realize that there was someone else in the same position as him. I needed Rudeo to linger in the background for this to have the thematic effect I wanted.

Nonetheless, I really wish I did more with Rudeo before this moment. Yes, he needed to be in the peripheral of Warriors’s life, but couldn’t I have thrown in one conversation before this about what he was feeling?

I was expecting at least one person to realize that Rudeo couldn’t have been infected since he didn’t eat meat, but no one did. I didn’t have any characters bring it up in-story because I thought it was an obvious plot hole but I guess I should have gone ahead and added it in anyway.

Okay, let’s talk the Triforce scene. Ooooh boy.

This was not in the original plan. I just wanted Warriors to get the Triforce of Courage back, and then move on with the story. But when I was writing that earlier scene where Lana talked to Shigeo, I suddenly remembered how significant the Triforce was and realized that I needed to make the moment Warriors got it back way, way bigger.

I fully believe that no matter how much or how little Legend of Zelda lore you know, there will always be one tidbit that is so bizarre that it boggles your mind whenever you remember it. Mine is the fact that the Triforce is sentient.

I can’t get over it. The Triforce is sentient and it means absolutely nothing. It rarely comes up, even in regards to how the Triforce judges its holder’s character (not for goodness or what not, but whether you are wise/powerful/courageous enough). It’s so wacky. I hate it, but my god, it made the basis for a really cool scene.

I love his conversation with the Triforce. I haven’t gotten to write a scene where reality is weird for a really long time.

The way the green woman couldn’t be looked at, messed with his memories, and put palpable “walls” around his mind and emotions-- it reminded me a lot of eldritch horror, but in the sense of a being from the 3rd dimension being pushed into the 4th or 5th. I like the idea that the Triforce’s realm had to be simplified for him to comprehend it.

Warriors being Farore’s tool is my favorite idea from this scene. It not only adds context to some of Zelda’s struggle with Nayru, but it upsets Warriors’s worldview. He is special, but he’s not loved. This is a man who wants to be appreciated and loved deeply, but even with Farore, he’s been denied that. But at the same time, he should be thankful that he has the freedom that comes with only being the goddesses’ tool.

Warriors’s declaration that he was going to become a better person no matter what put into words a theme I have been exploring throughout the story: what makes someone an idealized good person is not always realistic. And if it’s not realistic, how do we determine if someone is good or bad?

Plus, if heroes aren’t chosen because they’re morally good people, then what actually makes you a good hero? How do you define heroism when the gods themselves do not view it as a question of goodness?

In a related note, I also got a chance to acknowledge that Warriors being forcefully denied the “ability” to hurt someone isn’t character developement. It’s an excuse, and he still has to consciously decide to change his behavior.

So after I went through the whole emotional process of realizing that I have to hype up the Triforce way more, I then realized that I had to make a decision about what to do with Dark Link (because the black blood in the original LU comic is obviously him and I will not pretend otherwise).

My original policy was to not do anything with Dark Link. I wasn’t here to solve LU. I’m here to solve CTB. The black blood has been here as an excuse to propel the characters into the plot I actually want to solve. AKA: the war.

But I also realized that at this point, it would be weirder if I didn’t try to address what is going on with the black blood, especially if it’s been a subplot this entire story and is going to be the reason Lincoln dies. I could have left it alone. This is fanfiction, after all. You could go to the source material to find out about it. But... leaving it alone would have kept CTB very dependent on LU, which means that CTB will continue to fall apart as LU gets more specific with its lore. If I wanted CTB to stand on its own, I needed to provide my own explanation.

So now I was on the hook to try to explain the black blood, which would mean I would have to provide a Dark Link backstory.

He couldn’t be unrepentantly evil since that would go against the themes I’ve already established in CTB. But he still needed to have justification to, you know, possess people. And whatever backstory I come up with will have to be conveyed in the shortest amount of time and space possible.

I know I over thought this, and no one would actually care if I did this well or not. But now I cared, so I had to do this right. Luckily, Dark Link seems to care only about the heroes and not any other part of the lore, which provided a good set of parameters to work with

So I landed on him more or else being what remains of the First Hero after he’s reincarnated. Not only does this give him a very solid motivation to go against the heroes (just wants to have the other half of his soul back), but this explains an existing discrepancy in the lore: how could Time’s soul linger on as a living skeleton while the Hero’s Spirit was with Twilight. If the Hero’s Spirit was one half of a whole, where there would be something not reincarnated into the next hero, it could be possible.

I could also make Dark Link more morally gray by establishing that he was never just the dark parts of the First Hero’s spirit, but whatever parts of the hero Hylia didn’t like.

Actually, this is a bit of storytelling I am very proud of. As we know, the official-to-fanon lore is that there was a romance between Hylia and the First Hero. In my version, whatever romance they had was bordering on the unrequited. Whatever feelings the First Hero had for Hylia could not triumph over the fact he was already married. Even if it wasn’t a love-match, he was so chivalric that he would not betray his legal wife. So when he was reincarnated, Hylia left that part of him behind.

Side note: I have been listening to a lot of Noble Blood for months now, and I have a growing fascination with marriages based on politics that are affectionate, as opposed to love matches. I have been kicking around a lot of non-CTB story ideas that play around with marrying for any reason except romance, and it turning out perfectly.

I also just like how it’s a play on Arthurian legends, where chivalry, romance, and marriage seems at constant conflict with itself. This time, the knight chooses to remain loyal to his wife instead of the otherworldly beauty in pursuit of him.

And for the First Hero to have this torrid romantic affair while looking average at best? I love it.

I had Warriors not believe Dark Link’s story because I wanted to leave the door open for a later reader to insert whatever LU’s actual answer for Dark Link is. Officially, Dark Link in CTB is lying if you want him to be.

And finally, beheading him was such a good place to circle back to the whole Orlanda thing. Her death was this surprising moment where I feel like a lot of readers realized things were not okay (somehow?), and so I have been looking for a way to use it as a bookend for Warriors’s growth.

Did I want to do so much with Dark Link? No, and please do not expect any of this to be super relevant for this last half of the story. Everything here was an obligation.

Unfortunately, I also think all of this was interesting as hell and doing a full backstory will be added to the list of CTB spin offs I do not have time to write.

Also! One last note about the Dark Link scene I almost forgot about. There is an implication that Twilight's soul lingered behind like Time's did. That is because I headcanon Twilight being this ghost wolf that haunts the desert looking for shards of the Twilight Mirror (I think I wrote a drabble about it years ago). And that's how Wolfie managed to be in Breath of the Wild.

Now that all that’s out of the way, let’s get to the real meat of this chapter, which is killing off Lincoln. Yay.

Before I hop into what happens on page, there is a really fun bit of foreshadowing earlier in the story I want to point out. In chapter 19, the Chain minus Twilight, Legend, and Wind are at the Temple of Souls when Lincoln tells Lana about his plans to save the knights. And she provides this warning:

“You’re just a mortal man,” she said at last. “Careful not to trifle with what you cannot understand, Master Knight.”

This is, coincidentally, the first chapter to contain a character death warning, albeit for Clementine. But yeah, I mostly just wanted to point that out because it’s the first in-story suggestion that this subplot is going to spell his doom.

What kinda screwed Lincoln in the end was him jumping in to fight Gaudin and help Warriors when he knew he shouldn’t have. As Lana said, he trifled with what he did not understand.

I didn’t invent Lincoln to die, but as I was first drafting the plot back in 2021, I knew that I should kill him off. As I always do, I explored what the story would look like if I kept him alive, and I actually came up with an alternate ending to CTB that I can’t discuss right now because it contains a spoiler to how I want CTB to end.

So I knew from the beginning that he was meant to die, and I knew that I wanted to take the reader from hating him to liking him. This is why we meet him before chapter 5, which is the chapter that establishes how Link starts to fuck up the engineer. Link was a bit of an ass before that moment, but Lincoln’s dislike for him seems way more irrational.

The dual-timeline structure also became really helpful here since Lincoln’s harshest moment with Link, when he was rescuing the engineer in chapter 22, comes afters Lincoln’s proved himself by rescuing Warriors and carrying him across Hyrule. The reader is primed to like him at the same time they’re prime to hate Warriors.

To be fair, I think what made people like Lincoln the most was him being married to Ganondorf. If he had approval ratings, it would skyrocket.

As much as I was bitching about taking four chapters to cover one plot point, it did come with time for me to push Lincoln and Warriors’s reconciliation, going from tentative allies to family. Which in turn, made his death all the rougher.

Okay, back to the plot beats.

As a lot of you guys pointed out, the first sign that something was wrong with Lincoln was that he let Linkle run off to fight the curse. The second sign, was him calling Warriors son. As mentioned in story, that is a verbal tic that has never applied to Warriors before. If Warriors ever thought something could be wrong with Lincoln, that could have cued him.

I had a lot of different ideas for how Spirit would be involved with Lincoln’s death.

One version of the reveal I really liked was Lincoln having gone off to scout the area, leaving Warriors behind. Spirit would sprint in, demanding where Lincoln was because his spirit had disappeared while a new dark spirit was walking around. In the middle of the conversation, without looking, Spirit would raise his gun and shoot something off to the side. Of course, this would be Lincoln who would have moved out of the way just in time to only be grazed.

Lincoln’s possession really revealed how little he trusted Spirit. If Lincoln had a better relationship with him, he probably would have less readily believed Spirit had betrayed him.

Also, it is such a Spirit move to try to convince the curse to just leave Lincoln by promising to protect it from the others. As much as he wants to get the job done, the job went from “defeating the dark spirit” to “keeping Lincoln alive.” If he’s got to bend his morals a little to make that happen, then so be it.

And there is something sad about how Spirit ultimately does like Lincoln enough to betray himself a little to save him, but Lincoln did not like Spirit enough to not be easily swayed into attacking him.

My original vision for the duel against Lincoln would have been Spirit and Warriors teaming up like they did on the battlefield in chapter 23-- Spirit with the sword and Warriors with the shield. The problem is that I gave Sky the Lokomo sword.

I think Spirit is a great fighter, even if he had to be dragged into it kicking and screaming. I also think he relies heavily on being viscous over real technique. He could probably fight with an unfamiliar sword well enough normally, but he’s also really beaten up and weak at this point. There would be no way he could hold up against Lincoln no matter what I did.

So between that and the fact that Spirit and Warriors have already teamed up before, I decided to cut it. But now I’m starting to think I could have still included it but focused way more on Spirit getting his ass handed to him.

It’s really hard to sell an original character as being better at something than the canonical characters to the reader, which has always made Lincoln’s skills as a duelist a little interesting to sell. It helps that he’s a guy since there’s way less of a knee jerk reaction to label him as a Mary Sue. Nonetheless, I really wish I did a bit more to show off that Lincoln is one of the best fighters in the story.

You know that line Lincoln dropped around Marigold? Don’t worry about it. We’ll get to that can of worms eventually haha

I could not stop crying when working on Lincoln’s death scene. From writing to editing, I could not stop crying. This is not an exaggeration. I have been pumped to kill this man off, and I still found it deeply trigger.

One reason is that a lot of this scene was based on the emotions I experienced when my mother died. That description of helplessly staring down the inevitability of death-- I know what that felt like, and I splattered that experience across the entire scene.

I am also very close with dad, who is nowhere near young anymore (my parents had children later in life). Killing off Lincoln forced me to confront a lot of my fears about watching my dad die. When Warriors said that Lincoln couldn’t die because his mother was already dead-- the injustice that you will have to experience the grief and loneliness of losing your parents long before any of your friends ever will-- those are my feelings.

I know I have cracked jokes about Lincoln dying, but this scene inevitably became something very personal for me. I wanted this to be devastating because the very thought of having to experience a parent’s death again is paralyzing for me.

Every little moment of his death made me cry, but the biggest triggers were a) Hyrule saying “I’m sorry”, b) Linkle’s various pleading, c) Lincoln asking to wear his ring, and d) Lincoln admitting he’s scared.

The moment with the ring is my favorite. The small, quiet amazement when Lincoln realized that here, at the end of his life, he could wear his ring around his finger-- immediately crushing.

I was tempted to share the line “Can I Wear It” out of context as a “hahaha this is such a simple line but it’s gonna make you cry” post, but I decided to keep mum and not preemptively ruin my own moment.

I intended for one of Lincoln’s last lines to be an blunt realization on his part about where he went wrong as a father, but I cut it because even in death I don’t think Lincoln would be good at expressing himself.

The line is kinda important for, you know, the themes and stuff (I am so sorry that I keep talking about themes), but I think I can squeeze it into the next chapter.

So Lincoln admitting he’s scared... okay, let me get on my soapbox for a moment.

The older I get, the more I realize that everyone is terrified of dying. One day you are going to wake up and you are going to know someone who died very abruptly and far, far too soon. It will put a fear of death into you, and it will happen far sooner than you realize.

By virtue of having older parents and straight up bad luck, I had already been to a lot of funerals before I hit my 20s. Whatever fear I had got worse not only after my mom’s death, but also the deaths of other people in my circle. I had a college professor who died of an aneurysm. She was only in her 30s.

Everyone I know is at least 2 handshakes away from someone who abruptly died. I have had lunch dates with friends where all we’ve done is exchanged stories of really sudden deaths we’ve heard about from other parts of our social circle.

And there’s this point where you this that surely you’re going to get used to this, and death will stop being terrifying once more. But because my parents were older when they had kids, all of the adults in my life are also much older than average. They’re in their late 60s and mid 70s now. You would think they would be more comfortable with death.

But, no. They are also plainly scared of it. They have similar discussions around the dining room table about the people in their lives who have abruptly died, and the numbers rise every year. It scares them.

I think we invented this trope of the wise mentor who embraces death as a way to cope. We want to believe that there will be a point where we too will be so intelligent and world-weary that we could accept death with open arms. I’m starting to realize that I am never going to be prepared for death. That is not a fault of my character. That is the natural response.

Nonetheless, it’s still distressing to look at your own father who is only getting older and realize that he’s distressed by the thought of dying. He wants to cling to the world, even when he says he doesn’t. You want him to face it with grace because it will make his eventual death easier on you. But death is never going to be easy.

He’s not dead yet, but when he will, it’s going to hurt. And I just wanted to have a moment where Lincoln showed that fear of death because it felt real to life. Your loved ones will not go gently into the good night. They will rage, and it’s going to suck.

One last note about Lincoln’s death-- this scene contains one of my favorite uses of the “he lied” tag:

Warriors swallowed. He took Lincoln’s hand. “It’s like going to sleep,” he lied.

I love experimenting with this tag and finding the most effective ways to use it. This one is my favorite. It says so much about how Warriors views his actions, and it refrains his lying as an act of kindness. I love it.

Another really small moment I love is Lana kissing the back of Linkle’s head. I love that tiny moment of tenderness.

For killing off Lincoln, I knew it was going to be either Warriors, Spirit, or Linkle.

For Warriors, it would be a monkey’s paw moment for the reader who probably wanted him to kick Lincoln’s ass back when we all agreed he was being a dick.

For Spirit, it would have been another moment where he’s been forced to make another ugly, terrible choice because no one else will. Another moment of injustice.

But Warriors and Spirit were beat out very early on in my plotting process by Linkle.

I have tried writing my thoughts on Linkle multiple times, but I keep veering into a rant about the way people treat female characters that has absolutely nothing to do with Linkle. I’m going to try to stay on topic.

Linkle’s thematic (so sorry to bring up themes again) purpose is to give Warriors an opportunity to break the cycle. This entire story is about how maybe that whole system where we allow children to save Hyrule and solve everyone’s problems was not a good idea, and maybe allowing that to happen has devastating consequences. Yes, there’s Warriors and his fucked up bullshit. But there’s also the lowering of the draft age, Kat’s underage prostitution, and so on. Maybe the whole system is broken.

So enter Linkle: she wants to be heroic and fight. She’s very upbeat about it, and there’s a comedic bent to how Lincoln can’t quite stop her from running off and doing whatever.

My plan was for the reader to start out wanting to see Linkle be some kind of badass, only to slowly realize how badly that would go by virtue of learning more about Warriors’s past.

I don’t think that was successful. I think the desire to see Linkle do cool things outweighed any other argument. I don’t know if that is my fault or not.

On one hand, I think playing up Linkle’s desire to be heroic as comedic undermined the point I was trying to make. Plus, my desire to have Linkle involved in the plot meant that she had a lot of moments where she got to do very hero-esque things without consequence.

On the other hand... I don’t think I was subtle in establishing Linkle as both reckless and naive. Lincoln, Warriors, and the like all have moments where they outright explained to her (and the reader) why she needs to stay out of everything.

And most importantly, her pathologic need to be useful in order to earn love is a direct parallel to Time when he was a child.

I thought I was being heavy handed, but I don’t know. I guess time will tell if I actually did any of this well or not.

Warriors turned another really important corner in his growth in that he finally doesn’t fall back into his old patterns. Saving the kingdom, or even his political plans, are no longer worth the price of dragging another person into his mess like he did with the engineer and (to an extent) the Chain afterwards.

I almost named this part of the chapter “The Cycle Ends” because it’s such a significant moment for him. He’s clawing his way out, though it comes at the consequence of Linkle’s guilt.

As explained in the narration, she doesn’t get the luxury of having a grand purpose. She did this and, unlike Warriors, she can’t explain it away. She’s kind of speedrunning Warriors’s arc of realizing that your actions are your own and no divine pact can excuse them away.

I feel like I should have more to say about this. Like a final parting note about this tragic turn in Linkle’s story. Maybe I will in a few days, but I have already been working on this commentary for a week now. I need to be done with this already.

I don’t know. If you have any insight, let me know! You probably have more valuable to add to the conversation than the bozo who has been staring at these characters for too long.

#your bonus fun fact is that the bit about Warriors's favorite color being a cosmic joke is a repurposed headcanon I originally had for Wild #Amnesiac wild would have done all this self-exploration to realize his favorite color was green only to be disturbed to realize that it was #the original hero's color. I like the idea of the headcanon a lot but I am also never gonna write that wild-centric story idea I had back i #2021 so i figured the core concept could be reused here #me rambling #lu ctb #linked universe #ctb commentary #director's commentary #lu call them brothers #ctb lore #ctb spoilers #bonus bonus fun fact is that originally spirit was going to help Warriors with the necklace but i changed it at the last minute when #i remembered the bullshit going on in Spirit's mind right now. oh spirit... the things you are going to do....#ask

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fayewoodss · 2 months ago

Note

do you have any particular inspirations for ur cartoony dream team?? i love it so much!!!

I love love love this question bc yes I doooo!!!

I would say first and foremost, my love for illustration and cartooning comes from Spongebob Squarepants and the works of Craig McCracken, creator of the Powerpuff Girls, and my second favorite cartoon ever, Kid Cosmic.

Spongebob's detailed close-ups are something I hold near and dear to my heart and to try to depict in several of my comics.

Getting into more specific inspirations for the Dream Team designs, I pull a lot of shape language and playfulness with design from The Beatles cartoon, Clarence, and the YouTube animator dopatwo. Overwatch is one of my special interests and even though he doesn't animate for the game anymore, his cartoons are still so fun to rewatch.

The Enemy Sigma cartoon is one I rewatch a LOT.

youtube

Lastly, I am very into caricature art and the art of meaningful exagerration. You can see in each design I choose specific features to playfully exaggerate and build shapely silhouettes. Even even it doesn't look exactly like them, their prominent features are recognizable and translate them well into cartoon form.

Dream is tall and broad, made up of soft angles and straight lines. For his head and upper body, I exaggerate his curly hair, jaw (shoutout to the big chin girlies, myself included), and shoulders, then the rest of his body tapers down into straight and thin silhouette. I take full advantage of his old "ice cream scoop" hair. What's an ice cream scoop without the cone? I also give him pretty weepy droopy gooey mwah mwah mwah eyes because he's sad and wet and pathetic and cutesy and awwwww. (I'm articulating myself very well.)

George is more abstracted and built on sharp angles and dramatic lines. In my pinned post I compare him to a flounder because I enjoy the humor of putting all of his facial features on one plane. I exaggerate his nose because it's one of the more prominent features, being long and broad at the tip. All of the drawings are 2D, but there is an intentional flatness to George. His face is obviously the most abstract part of him, but I try to keep the flat and sharp angles throughout his body, and especially in his hands.

Sapnap is a bit more of a basic design as the other two, but the big factors in his design are his head and his height. For his head, I replicate it's long oval shape and then give him big puppy dog eyes and his eyebrows and mustache to tie it all together. His hair also changed from comic to comic, both representing his beloved horns and his newly grown, relatively tame fuzz. The choice to make him comically short is mostly from the fact that he's lied about his height and definitely gets that short guy complex, but I represent it with love as a tall person myself that loves short dudes.

Their designs have changed and grown some since the first time I've drawn them, but there are a lot of things I've kept consistent through it all. I'm planning on eventually doing more semi-realism with them, too, where they are less cartoon and a bit more based in realistic proportions. I think it's important to have multiple styles and be able to change between them, knowing when to be rooted in realism and when to practice abstraction.

If you have any more questions, or just wanna chat about art, I am so so down! This is one of my favorite things! :]

#we just got a letter #dream team #dteamblr #dtblr

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wren-writes-stuff · 4 months ago

Text

Of Lattes and Lab Rats- Chapter 10: The Party

(Wattpad version)

(Masterlist and TWs)

!!!!! TW: This chapter discusses topics of discrimination, alcoholism, unwanted sexual advances, sexual harassment, and spiked drinks. Please, please consider skipping this chapter if those things make you uncomfortable. !!!!!!!

"What do you think, Toffee? High heels or flats?"

Toffee licked at her paw, disinterested.

"Yeah, you're right. Flats are comfortable, but an event like this is once in a lifetime. I've gotta look good for him. High heels it is, then."

You slipped on your shoes and took a moment to admire yourself in the mirror. You had tied your hair up into the fanciest updo you could think of- and manage to pull off without help. The dress you and Jayce had picked out together was absolutely stunning on you, as well.

It was a sparkling floor length gown, with a wide slit going up the thigh. It hugged your hips in a way that accentuated your curves quite nicely. The shimmering gemstone necklace you wore, and the dress's heart-shaped neckline, combined with the built in push-up bra, did wonders for your breasts. You almost felt like a caricature of a woman; someone you'd only seen in advertisements and illustrations. Your matching high heels added about two and a half inches to your height. You were used to wearing heels; but these were so dainty you thought they might snap and break your ankle if you took one wrong step.

From your ears tangled heavy gold chains, sparkling with polished aquamarine stones. You were practically glittering from head to toe; even your eyeshadow. You had planned your whole ensemble around the folding fan Jayce had bought for you the week prior- gold, salmon pink, aqua blue. Mostly, you wanted an excuse to use it in a public setting.

You huffed, pushing your palms against your face. You really were gorgeous; but you felt nothing like yourself. You wondered if you looked like the kind of women Jayce usually spent his time with. You hoped you wouldn't stand out too much-

No. You shook your head, willing your usual pessimism to go away. Tonight was supposed to be fun. You were going to that party to have a good time with your....hmm. Well, Jayce wasn't your boyfriend. You didn't think you had been seeing each other long enough to call him that. It had only been about two weeks since you met him. Lover felt more apt, given your sexual activities, but even that felt like too official a title. You were....friends, you supposed. Then again, friends didn't usually exchange kisses in public, or buy each other fancy dresses and exquisite jewelry...or fuck each other senseless. Sugar daddy crossed your mind for a moment, but that didn't feel right either. You weren't exchanging sexual favors for shopping sprees.

Alright then.

You were going to go to that party and have a lovely time with your friend, and meet new people and drink expensive alcohol and it was going to be fun, dammit. You took a deep breath, trying to calm your nerves. Suddenly, there was a sharp rap at the door. You stumbled over the piles of clutter littering your bedroom floor, wobbling through the living room, and finally opening the door. When you opened it, you found Jayce standing there; and you had a hard time keeping your jaw up off the ground.

He'd traded his usual button-up lab coat and heavy boots for a tailored three-piece suit and dress shoes. His broad shoulders filled out the white tailcoat nicely, accentuated with red and gold patches on either deltoid. He was freshly shaven, hair combed through, and his cologne wafted towards you. It was pleasant- like cherry and something wooden, mixed with the smell of a brand new book when you crack it open for the first time.

'Hey, you," he said through a grin. You collected yourself, fixing your posture.

"Hey, yourself." Your heart fluttered at the knowledge that your joke had become a familiar greeting between the two of you. "Um, I'm just about ready to go. Please, come in." You stepped aside to make room for entry, and he complied.

"Would you like something to drink?" You offered.

"No, thank you. There will be plenty of that soon enough," he chuckled. "You look positively radiant tonight, by the way." He took your hand, placing a tender kiss on your soft skin. You blushed at the gesture, the butterflies in your stomach fluttering about.

"Thank you. So do you. You look pretty good, when you're not covered in ash and grease," you teased.

"Hardy har har. Cmon, we're gonna be late if we don't hurry." He checked his watch, then furrowed his brows. Looking to your clock, then his watch gain, he backtracked. "Actually, never mind. If your clock is correct, then my watch is ten minutes fast. Which means," he stepped forwards, closing the gap between the two of you, "we might have time for a quickie, if you like." He leaned in for a kiss, his hand trailing down your arm- but you stopped him. His eyes widened, taken aback.

"I'm sorry," you cupped his face in your hands and kissed his cheek. "Not tonight, I'm afraid. I'm much too nervous. I don't think I would be able to focus." He pouted, and nuzzled his face in your neck.

"But mi cariñooo" he whined, "that gown looks so good on you. I just wanna take it ooofff."

You laughed at his contradiction and moved your hands to his shoulders, pushing him away. You wanted to get a good look at his face, study him for a moment. His eyes were such a pretty color. You wanted to get lost in them forever- but another thought occurred to you.

" 'mi cariño'? What does that mean?"

He hooked his thumb and forefinger around your chin, bringing your face closer to his. He didn't answer for a moment, only studying your face in return. "It's a term of endearment," he said finally. He pressed a kiss into your lips, and you relished in it for a moment. But you didn't stay there long; you grabbed his face again, pulling away.

"But what does it mean?" You insisted. You had an idea of the translation, but your knowledge of the language was rusty. Instead of giving you an answer, he kissed you again. You sighed into his mouth, feigning frustration. You wrapped your arms around his neck, and he slid his hands around your waist. Your kissing grew slightly more desperate; the physical contact you shared with him was both comforting and deeply arousing. He pressed his thigh into your groin, eliciting a moan from your mouth- but that gnawing feeling in your stomach persisted. You pulled away, breathless, trying to steady your heartbeat.

"We can't. I don't want to. Not right now. I'm...I'm sorry." His disappointment was evident, and you thought he was going to persist- but he didn't.

"Don't be sorry," he removed his leg from its spot. "I would never ask you to do something you weren't comfortable with." He squeezed your arm, trying to comfort you. "I won't try to initiate again, okay? You do it next time- when you're ready." You nodded, swallowing.

'Okay. Thank you, Jayce." His expression softened, admiring you.

"Gods above, you really are beautiful."

You laughed, feeling bashful.

"Whatever, dork. I'll be right back." You flicked his shoulder and turned away to finish getting ready. You spritzed your favorite perfume on your neck and wrists, snagged the velvet bag from off your bed, and met Jayce back in the living room.

"Ready to go?" He asked. You took a shaky breath, willing the anxiety prickling at the edges of your mind to go away.

"Ready," you said. He opened the door for you and held out his arm for you to take- and you did. It felt more natural this time.

The two of you meandered up the street towards the academy. The party was being held on the rooftop. Jayce had said he was particularly excited about the view of the city from all the way up there. As he prattled on about this and that, you found yourself spacing out. Your nerves were tingling, setting your skin alight with pins and needles. You tried to focus on the sound of his voice. On the wam summer breeze, the vivid sky under the setting sun. Piltover was truly beautiful at times like this. The gold and white buildings shimmered, almost reflecting the colors like a mirror.

Before long, you were standing on the frost steps of the main building, and Jayce held the door open for you. You curtsied as a joke, thanking him. As he led you towards an elevator, his expression changed- he looked nervous, hesitant. You frowned.

"Are you alright?"

He glanced down at you and opened his mouth, but no words came out. The elevator dinged and you stepped through the ornate gold doors.

"Jayce?"

He worried his lip, then finally spoke:

"Look, um...I don't want to be rude, or insensitive. But the people here...well, they're not as understanding as me." You blinked, flabbergasted.

"I'm sorry?"

"Well, it's just...I mean you should be careful. About how much you drink tonight." He winced. "I'm sorry, I'm trying to put this as delicately as I can. These people, uh...well they don't know about the kind of shit you trenchers go through."

You stared at him, a certain anger rising in your stomach.

"Trenchers," you said, trying to will away the venom in your voice. "I don't catch your meaning."

He took your hands, trying to calm you down. "I just mean that they wont be so forgiving of your drinking problem. They don't get it. So...try to rein it in tonight, okay?"

You snatched your hands back, scoffing. "Drinking problem? What are you talking about?"

Jayce went wide eyed, floundering. "I-"

The elevator dinged again, and the doors slid open before he could finish his sentence.

You glared at him as you stepped through the doors, and joined a line of people being checked in by security.

"You think I have a drinking problem? Just because I'm from the Undercity?" You whispered angrily, trying not to grab the attention of anybody else.

"No- I'm sorry, that's not what I-"

"Ah! Jayce Talis!" Your conversation was interrupted by a booming, pompous voice. You both turned to look for the source, and found a short, plump man with a round face and receding hairline. His mustache was curled upwards with wax, and he was dressed in a regal looking green and gold suit. He chuckled, and held out his hand for Jayce to take. "So good to see you again, my boy. And who's this lovely lady with you?"

He held out his hand for you as well, and when you took it, he kissed yours. The way his lips lingered on your knuckles, and the prolonged eye contact sent a gross shiver up your spine. You tried to hide it, and forced a pleasant smile on your face.

"Professor Cooper," Jayce said with poise, "This is...my friend."

You introduced yourself and took your hand back. "It's lovely to meet you, sir."

Professor Cooper stood up straight and fixed his jacket, chest puffed. "Jayce here used to be a student of mine," he said. "A real prodigy, that one. I think he's going to make huge strides in the progress of our great city." He clapped a hand on Jayce's back and laughed, loud and boisterously. His eyes slid over to someone else in line, and lit up with excitement. "Er- do excuse me, Jayce. My lady. Let's talk more inside." He turned away from you. "Helena! How are you?...."

You grimaced, and Jayce placed his hand on the small of your back. Your dress was cut low, leaving your skin exposed. His calloused fingers on your skin sent sparks shooting across your body- until you remembered your anger. Trencher, he said. You thought he was better than that. You hoped he was. You thought, with all his ambition to help people, and his care for lower class citizens, he would know not to use words like that. Trencher. You scoffed to yourself, blood beginning to boil.

Jayce glanced down at you, his shoulders tense. "Look," he whispered, "I'm really sorry. Please, let's just try to have a good time tonight, okay?"

You didn't meet his gaze. He was right; you were going to put on a pretty smile, and have a good time; he went to all the trouble of buying you a nice outfit and expensive jewels, after all. You could pretend to be a wealthy party animal for a night. But after this, you were certain you would have to reconsider your relationship with him. Trencher. The word rattled around in your brain like a rock stuck inside your shoe.

The line moved up, and Jayce handed his invitation to the enforcer posted at the door. He hardly gave it a glance, clearly bored, before he handed it back and waved you through. You crossed the threshold onto the rooftop, and gasped. People dressed in glimmering jewels and colorful fabrics were scattered about the space. Most of them were holding gold chalices, or tiny plates with even tinier hors d'oeuvres. A live band played smooth jazz in a far corner, and a few couples were swaying together on the dance floor. Tall, golden lanterns lined the railings along the sides of the building. And, Jayce was right; you really did have a beautiful view of the city from up here. And the weather was perfect; what view clouds that were in the sky were small, and fluffy, turned a soft lavender in the fading light of the sun. An open bar sat off to the side, with couches and chairs for people to lounge upon.

"I told you it would be be a nice view," Jayce said softly. He held out his arm for you again, and you almost thought about refusing it; but you took it anyway. He was the only person you knew here, and you didn't want to be left by yourself. "I think I see a few people I know over there. You mind if I say 'hello'?"

"Sure," you agreed. He led you towards the lounge, where a group of four people- including Viktor- stood chatting. Viktor was the first to see you to approaching, and raised a hand in greeting. The other three looked to see what he was looking at, and they all lit up at the sight of Jayce.

"Hey, guys!' He said, genuine cheer in his voice. "Um, this is my friend," he introduced you. Then to you, he said "These are my friends- Ellis, Felix, and Gideon. And, you've met Viktor already."

"Hello," you said, waving your hand sheepishly.

The five of them launched into conversation, talking excitedly as they caught up. You didn't have anything to add, so you stood at his side, observing them. Ellis was tall, lanky, and had a mop of black hair. He was dressed slightly more casual than the rest of them, wearing a plain button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and slacks. Felix Was shorter, and more muscular. His golden blond hair was tied into a stubby ponytail at the base of his neck, and a scruffy beard decorated his face. Gideon was the tallest, but still nowhere near as tall as Jayce. A pair of round glasses were perched on his bird-like nose, and he kept pushing them up frequently- clearly ill-fitted. His hair was short, bright orange, and combed back with way too much hair gel. He looked greasy, almost. None of them were very attractive, you decided, and they all looked like textbook nerds. Which was fitting, you supposed.

Gideon snapped his fingers at a passing waiter, carrying a tray of snacks. Rude. He took one of the toothpicks, ladened with a piece of cheese, and...a tiny squid tentacle? Topsider cuisine was certainly different than what you were used to, you thought. You thought about grabbing one for yourself as well, but the waiter wandered off before you got your chance. You nursed your champagne instead, looking out over the city.

You were brought back to reality when Jayce guffawed, wrapping his arm around your shoulders.

"She really is a wonderful artist," He said. "I think it would look great in a gallery somewhere. You should see it- the way she utilizes color is stunning." You felt your face burn with the heat of embarrassment. You could tell he was being genuine, but you really didn't want to talk about yourself right now.

"That's kind of you, Jayce," you said.

"Really?" said Felix, taking a sip of his drink- something dark brown. "You don't get to meet many artists in a city like Piltover. Where did you study?"

"Oh...!" You floundered, trying to think of an answer. You didn't want to give any indication that you were broke, uneducated- that you didn't belong here. "Um, I studied under a former master. Uh, from Shurima." it wasn't technically a lie; you'd re-read Oil Painting Techniques and Applications by a Shuriman author hundreds of times by now. You couldn't really afford much else.

"Fascinating," said Felix. "Well, perhaps I should take lessons from you, sometime. I can hardly draw a stick figure!" He chuckled at his own joke, the others following suit. You forced a laugh as well. Never heard that one, before you thought sarcastically.

"Please," Ellis rolled his eyes, "you can't even write legibly. I almost failed Professor Cooper's final exam because I couldn't read your damn notes."

"Hey, you're lucky I even let you borrow them in the first place. It's your own fault you skipped class all the time," Felix bit back.

The conversation had shifted away from you as quickly as it came in the first place, and you took the opportunity to look around at your surroundings some more. These guys had nothing interesting to offer you, frankly.

The party was in full swing, now. The space had grown more crowded, more claustrophobic. You felt your anxiety return, like mosquitos buzzing under your skin. You tried to do your breathing exercises; inhale for eight seconds, hold for six, exhale for twelve. Over and over again, you practiced the mantra in your head. But noisy chatter grew louder. Your ankles hurt from trying to balance yourself on the tiny platforms you could barely call a shoe. The heavy earrings you wore made your earlobes ache. The underwire of your bra was itchy. It was too much; you were going into sensory overload. You placed a hand on Jayces arm to grab his attention without interrupting the conversation.

He looked to you, smiling softly. "Yes, pretty girl?" Your stomach fluttered at his flirtation, but you ignored it. You were still mad at him.

"Um, I'm going to sit down for a moment. I don't feel well." You tried to keep your voice low to avoid drawing attention. His face shifted to concern.

"Are you alright? Can I do something to help?"

You shook your head and forced another smile. "No, that's okay. You have fun with your friends. I'll be back in a few minutes."

He dropped his hand from your shoulder, nodding. "Alright. I'll be here if you need me."

Without another word, you stalked briskly over to the bar. The stools were all empty, thank Janna. The bar tender looked at you expectantly- and you realized he thought you were there for a drink.

"Uh- Sorry, I just wanted to sit down for a minute. Is that okay? Do I need to move somewhere else?"

He shrugged. "Whatever you want, sweetheart." He turned around to go back to his work.

You leaned over the counter, tracing the edge of your glass with your fingertip. You continued your breathing exercises, relishing in the relief your aching feet received while you sat. Finally, you felt the buzzing under your skin wash away, and you relaxed your shoulders with a huff. You downed the rest of your drink in one gulp, standing to return to Jayce- but when you turned around, there was a man standing behind you.

"Oh! I'm sorry, please excuse me-"

"No, no, please," he said, looking you up and down. "pardon me, madam." His spoke in a low, baritone voice. He wasn't that much taller than you, and was muscular, but still soft around the edges. Clean shaven, strong jaw, curly brown hair framing his face. He was rather attractive- but you felt a pit in your stomach. Something didn't feel right. You pushed the thought away, chalking it up to anxiety. He held out his hand.

"Name's Enoch. And you are...?"

You took his hand, and he kissed your knuckles much the same as Professor Cooper. Must be a rich person thing, you decided. You told him your name, trying to hide your disgust a second time tonight. He repeated it to himself slowly, his eyes landing on your chest. You suddenly felt very self conscious, and wished you could put on a sweater or something to hide your figure.

"Bartender," he said, without taking his eyes off you, "dirty martini. One for the lady, too." The bartender nodded, seemingly unbothered by Enoch's lack of manners.

"Um, that's okay," you said, taking your hand back- you almost had to tug it away, with how hard he was holding it. "I'm not drinking tonight." His eyes flicked over to the counter, where your empty champagne glass sat. He smirked, and your stomach dropped; you were caught.

'Well now, that's not true," he said slyly, "What's the matter sweetheart? You don't wanna drink with me?"

You glanced around, weighing your options. Jayce was too far out of earshot for you to get his attention without screaming, and his back was turned to you. You looked to the bartender for help, but he wasn't paying attention either. You were on your own. Better to play along, you decided.

"I'm sorry, you misunderstand me," you said, taking on a faux vampish tone, "I'm not drinking alone tonight." The bartender slid your glasses down the counter, and Enoch took them both.

'That's more like it," he said. "What's a pretty girl like you doing here by herself, anyway? I'm surprised the men aren't falling at your feet."

You forced a laugh, not reaching for your drink yet. You didn't want to get any closer to him than you had to. "Oh, I was just taking a moment to get acclimated to the atmosphere."

Enoch stepped forward, entirely too close for comfort now. He slid into the stool next to yours, and he gestured for you to sit, as well. You did. Just then, the band stopped playing, and you heard the tell-tale screeching of a microphone being turned on. You looked to the source, grateful for a distraction.

Heimerdinger had stepped up to a podium in front of the band, clearing his throat. "Good evening, fine gentlefolk. If I may have your attention for but a moment?" The space quieted as people turned to look at him, giving him the attentiveness he asked for. "Thank you," he continued. "I want to start off the night by thanking you all for being here for me. Truly, there is no greater gift than good company. And fine wine," he joked. Varying amounts of people chuckled softly. "Today marks my three hundred and eighth birthday- and my, what an excellent three centuries it's been. We've made so much progress in our great city, and I have all of you to thank for it."

"But there's one more thing I'd like to draw attention to. Progress cannot be made without some level of risk involved; I've learned recently that it's just as important as practicing caution. The student becomes the teacher, it seems, because I learned this lesson from none other than Jayce Talis-" he gestured out to where Jayce was standing, and the crowd of people turned to look at him. You tried to as well, but found that Enoch was blocking your view. He winked at you, and you tried to smile despite the growing sinkhole in your stomach.

"I'd like to announce," Heimerdinger said, "with great pleasure, that the council and I have agreed that it's time to move forward with the construction of Jayce's latest invention- the Hexgates. It is our hope that that they can bring about a new era of progress, and put us on the map as a global trade center." The crowd clapped, and cheered; you did as well, still confused. That was a rather vague description.

"Now I know you're eager to get back to the party, so I'll leave you to it. Thank you for listening to an old mans rambles." He bowed, and stepped off his little step-stool before disappearing into the crowd.

"Well, you said, standing, "That's quite exciting news, isn't it?" Enoch hummed, disinterested. His eyes skimmed over your body again, and you felt your arm hairs stand on end. "Perhaps I should offer my congratulations to Mister Talis." You tried to move away, but Enoch grabbed your wrist.

"What's the hurry?" He was grinning, but you saw the malice in his eyes. It was predatory. "We were just starting to chat. Don't leave so soon; I'd like to get to know you a little more." He offered you your drink, and you took it with your free hand.

You swallowed nervously. You grew tired of these games. You tried to tug your hand back, but he didn't let go.

"Come on, sweetheart. We've all heard the rumors; I know who you are. You're the Talis boy's new plaything, aren't you?"

Your heartbeat picked up the pace. How did he know that? What rumors?

"Why're you in such a rush to get back to him? He doesn't care about a sump rat like you. Stay with me, I'll take care of you, baby."

Sump rat. How could he possibly know any of this? Who was this guy? You froze, trying to think. He seemed dangerous; you knew you had to get away. But he had you trapped, and he knew it.

"Come on, baby, drink up. It wont be cold much longer."

"Is there a problem here?" You turned and found Viktor standing there, staring pointedly at Enoch.

Enoch looked him up and down, unphased. "No, there's no problem here. Right, sweetheart?"

Your eyes flickered between the two men, heart pounding. This could be very bad. If Enoch grew violent, there's no way Viktor could get the better of him. Then again, it was unlikely he would start a fight in front of so many people. At least, you hoped. You looked at Viktor with pleading eyes, and his brow creased lightly.

"Perhaps you should let go of her now," he said coldly. Enoch scowled. He finally let go of your arm, and you backed away. He stood, glowering over you, and leaned over to mutter in your ear:

"It's not nice to lead people on like that, slut."

He stomped away, leaving you and Viktor alone.

You exhaled shakily, tears forming in your eyes. Viktor looked to you with concern, speaking gently.

"Are you alright?"

You nodded, wiping the corners of your eyes before you actually started crying. "I'm fine. Thank you for stepping in."

'Of course, he said. 'I am sorry you were left alone with him for so long. It must have been...frightening. I am glad I was able to get to you in time, but I am surprised Jayce did not get to you first."

You shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, and sipped your drink. Viktor's eyes windened.

"I- I wouldn't drink that if I were you-"

God, not him too. "Why? So I don't look like I have a drinking problem and make us trenchers look bad?" You snapped. He looked confused, and you suddenly felt bad. "I-I'm sorry. I shouldn't have...you didn't deserve that." You sighed, and downed the rest of your drink anyway. Anything to take the edge off. Viktor cringed, his shoulders slumping.

'Oh, dear-" he muttered, but before you could ask about it, Jayce cut in, calling your name.

"There you are! I've been looking for you. I thought you said you would only be gone for a few minutes, but it's been..." He trailed off, looking between you and Viktor. "What? What happened?"

"Nothing," you said flatly. "Everything's fine." You swayed, your vision swimming at the edges. There's no way you were already drunk; unless the bartender put more vodka in your martini than you expected. Jayce noticed, and his eyes landed on your empty martini glass.

"Are you...you're not drunk already?" He said with disbelief. "We've been here barely an hour. How much did you drink while you were gone?" You rolled your eyes, losing your will to be polite as your stupor grew.

"Barely two drinks," you scoffed. You were growing more and more annoyed the longer he stood there.

"Jayce, I think we need-" Viktor started to speak, but you cut him off as if he wasn't even there.

"I'm fine, Mister Talis." You poked his chest as you spoke, stumbling a little bit. He tried to catch you, but you pushed his hands off you. You'd had enough physical contact for one day. "I'm sorry that I embarrassed you tonight. I know I'm just some poor, poor undercity...girl" You gestured wildly as you spoke, "But I'm not your charity project. I don't need your pity just because I'm..." you squeezed your eyes shut, feeling dizzy. You felt a hand on your shoulder, but you didn't know who's.

"I'm a trencher," you finished, spitting his own choice of word back at him. You finally opened your eyes, prepared to shove Jayce off of you again, but instead found it was Viktor supporting you. You blinked, feeling your anger melt away into something else. You felt...elated?

Both men stared at you, both with concern and also clearly feeling stunned. At least, that was true for Jayce. Viktor pinched the ridge of his nose, inhaling.

"I don't mean to be rude," he huffed, "But if you're quite done having your little argument, we need to get her to a doctor, Jayce." Jayce frowned at him, confused. You giggled, feeling a little bit giddy. You were dizzy, and your head felt heavy, but your body felt warm and fuzzy. You found you had a hard time moving your limbs, or your mouth. It felt like trying to run a marathon under water, the pressure weighing you down and a current lifting you up all at once.

"Doctorrr" you slurred. "What a...what a weird word." Your vision swam, and you found you couldn't keep your eyes open any longer. Your knees buckled underneath you, and the world around you went dark.

#arcane #jayce talis #arcane fanfic #fanfiction #arcane jayce #jayce league of legends #jayce x reader #wattpad #writing #arcane smut

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rel124c41 · 1 year ago

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NOW PLAYING ‘EVERYBODY LOVES A CLOWN’ BY GARY LEWIS & THE PLAYBOYS. floyd leech

The truest mark of a jester is not in his ability to make others laugh, but in his capacity to find humor in his own pain.

tags: unrequited love, hurt no comfort, character study, friendship, wishful thinking, angst, floyd is in his stańczyk era, complicated relationships

word count: 2,282

The game is in the first quarter. There are twelve minutes on the clock.

Floyd does not know where to start his confession to you.

As he plays, he tries to come up with ideas of love confessions: a dance, a letter, a bite, or a gentle touch? Planning however puts a damper on the sweetness of what should be a romantic fantasy. Not that Floyd allows the turmoil to show, he plays perfectly. Each move of his is effortless, on the court and when playing with you.

He has been trying for a while to confess. Cowardness ties him up like seaweed.

If anyone were to rival Floyd’s energy, it would be you. You are eudaimonia incarnate. Flourishing with happiness and good spirit, you are a wonderful yet unexpected addition to Night Raven College. Where even Floyd falls into tepid moods of anger or sadness, you stay afloat. Somehow, someway, you are always happy.

Dribbling at practice, Crabby once joked that you were made of sugar, spice, and everything nice. Floyd yearns to know what a combination like that would taste on his tongue in a mating bite, sealing you two in marriage.

The Coral Sea is a triptych of shadow black, unwelcoming black, and cold black. You jump into his world, exploding with the color your soul carries. Through grimacing eyesight, he watches the gaiety of you bounce around even if it is blinding. You are the pinkest of pinks. You are the brightest orange that would rival sunkist shrimps. You are as yellow as the sun or a sky of stars, all consuming.

If shooting stars could fall into anyone’s eyes, they would fall into yours. Making little homes of fluctuating solar energy and the thumping glow of hydrogen and helium. The only eyes worthy of having stars in them.

He can feel the heat of those blazing stars on his neck as Sea Snake passes the basketball to him at midcourt line.

You sit in the bleachers with a handmade poster in your hands. To keep himself happy, Floyd deludes himself with the image of you making it alone. Without anyone handing you certain markers or glue for the glitter, you wrote WIN WIN WIN FLOYD in big, bubble letters for him and him alone. In his mind, you did not ask for the green colored pencil from anyone’s hand to shade in the caricature eel’s skin and you did not hyena-laugh when you accidentally got glitter on someone’s cheek or clothes.

The delusion of a reality where you only think about him 24/7 is sugar, spice, and everything nice. That is eudaimonia.

When Floyd scores twice in the first quarter with the aid of Sea Snake, you raise that poster up. Cheers from you are whole-hearted and never half-assed, you put everything into rallying encouragement you hope reaches and motivates Floyd.

You could frown and it would still motivate him.

When he scores for the third time, there are no vocal cheers shining down from the bleachers. Looking at the sea of unimportant guppies, he finds the reason your lips are silent. You are sharing a kiss with Jade, just two short pecks. Something you definitely initiated as Jade is timid with affection.

As he turns back to the court, Floyd imagines his confession would go like this:

“I love ya, Shrimpy.”

You laugh, almost falling off your seat, and say with a happy grin, “That’s a good one, Floyd. Tell another joke!”

The game is in the second quarter. There are twelve minutes on the clock.

Floyd is a clownfish of an eel. Not entirely like Crabby or Sea Otter, but Floyd has been marked as a class clown enough. Loud and boisterous, he is a presence that fertilizes laughter and amusement with ease. Perhaps the amusement is only shared by him, Jade, and Azul mostly, but it is still a jester’s position he has fallen into.

Nothing he says is ever taken seriously unless his words are threats. Unlike Jade, whose words are always heeded and who is taken seriously as a plague.

Floyd can be serious too though! Him and Jade are cut from the same cloth. Why can’t you see the other side of him? Why can’t your bright star eyes comprehend him as something more than a joking jester?

For a while, Floyd was content in that position. Jingling bells, stomping around in oversized shoes, falling over himself to fish that melodious laughter out of your throat. And then one of Jade’s mushroom puns got you snort in the midst of stomach deep laughter. Since then, no matter how many more quarters he plays, Floyd knows he lost.

Pure laughter is pure love in many cultures. And he, trapped in that monk’s cowl and sea anglerfish bells costume, has failed to make you laugh in that same intensity.

As he dribbles and passes the basketball, blocks shots and runs across the court, Floyd unpurposely distracts himself with a vile memory:

A party in Ramshackle. Not as extravagant as Sea Otter’s but still entertaining. As always, Floyd was like a lamp for tiny moths to gather around. Despite his pendulum-ing emotions, his company is enjoyable.

One off stories and jokes were a jester’s speciality. Capturing the attention of your friends and his fellow second years, Floyd keeps the conversation light and draws laughs out of throats like the Sea Witch once did with the little mermaid’s voice. The corner of where he is in Ramshackle is usually the loudest, brimming with comedy. The kind that should have gotten you to come over and ask curious, “What’s so funny?”

Crabby would have dismissed you but Floyd would have reeled you right in. His little Shrimpy, snug under his protective arm, as he recounted another story.

You do not laugh.

You do not look.

You just do not care.

That fucking party in Ramshackle? You spent it giving Jade a tour around the place, showing him the garden you started in the backyard, and chatting with that magnetizing, permanent smile on your lips. Before you two even were dating.

Floyd knows he does not have your total attention. Your attention is always spread in too many directions in his opinion. But sometimes, he wants more than anything for just one period of twenty-four hours where all you think about is him.

You may hold a sign with his name on it but he is not your focus. Star eyes follow the basketball that bounces from player to player; you watch the game fully, but not him.

Who would ever want to see a crying clown?

The game is in the third quarter. There are twelve minutes on the clock.

And Floyd finds himself benched.

Coach pulls him out of the game when five minutes are left in the second quarter. Coach worries about that rapidly declining mood of his in the second quarter. It is a volatile, gambling choice but the Coach thinks it is the correct one. Better to have him refuel and get back into the swing of the game. “Have a Gatorade and take a minute, Leech. No need to dig yourself down.” Floyd doesn’t want to drink his passion fruit Gatorade, he wants a different drink and he wants a peppermint to crush between his sharp teeth.

Elbows on knees and head in hands, Floyd watches the red clock go down number by number. Anger pulses off him like smoke. Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven. Fifty-six. Fifty-five. Stupid fucking Coach. Stupid fucking game. Stupid fucking Gatorade. Forty-nine. Forty –

“Peppermint for your thoughts?”

Stupid fucking Coach, Floyd thinks a second time. As is per tradition, if Floyd ever finds himself on the bench, call in Shrimpy. A small little crustacean that can reverse whirlpools back to sailable water and can make even the hungriest shark swim in the opposite direction of blood.

“It's a penny for ya thoughts,” Floyd grumbles into his hand.

“Nah, I don’t think so!” Is it possible to hear a smile in a voice? Because it feels like you speak in smiles; he imagines an alien language made by grins, one where no words like bad moods or anger exist. “Can’t eat a penny, can you?”

You take a seat by him on the bench. The space is left wide open because no one ever wants to risk being so close to the eel-mer when he is explosive with rage. When you sit, your shoulders bump together and from hip to shin, you two press against one another.

“So, the doctor is in. Doc. Shrimpy.”

Even when you are handing him something, his world minimizes down to the sight of your star eyes. The crunch of a peppermint wrapper in his hand is infinitesimal to the scorch of nuclear fusion and fire.

Still, he pops it in and relishes in the calming breakage of candy in his razor sharp teeth, replying, “I don’t know, just pissed I missed that shot.”

“Yeah, I saw that.” Liar. “I also saw you make two of the cleanest shots of the entire game in the first five minutes of the game.” Floyd hums instead of grumbling. It is the slightest, micro improvement but you still hammer on your past doctor-slash-therapist metaphor. “Say aaah for Doc. Shrimpy!”

This is the hardest part of being a clown. You do sweet, pseudo-romantic things with Floyd and never take it seriously. Everything between the two of you is shrouded under the blanket of comedy. There are zero feelings behind it. Even when you unknowingly partake in eel courtship (opening your mouth wide as you demonstrate your ‘aaah’), it is hollow and satire. And when you learn about his species’ courtship you will really only mean it with intent when you are with Jade.

“Aaah!”

Into his mouth, you pour a drink. His shoulders recoil at bit, premature disgust at the thought of tasting passion fruit which he is not in the mood to drink. Floyd is surprised when the drink starts to fizz in his mouth.

As he savors it, the carbonation and sourness a welcome burn in his throat, you smile and show him the drink you have on hand. “Shit’s good, right?” In front of him, you shake a monstrously bright pink and yellow can with the words Ghost on it. “Sour pink lemonade.”

You take the Ghost you just waterfall into Floyd’s mouth and down your own sip. Be careful, Shrimpy, Floyd thinks. Sharing food and drink is also a part of courtship.

“Gross, Shrimpy. You backwash?”

“Yeah, I did. How does loogie and lemonade taste?”

At that, Floyd snatches up the energy drink from your hands. He downs a much larger sip, going as far as to have some spill around the corner of his mouth. He takes the opportunity too to touch his lips on where yours once were.

Once he robs you of half your lemonade, Floyd brings his wrist to wipe his chin and grins wolfish, “My compliments to the chef! Think Azul’ll add it to the menu?”

You laugh just as Floyd was aiming for, all saccharine and lovely, and joke, “Oh my spit could make a fortune! I can see it now!”

“Shrimpy spit?”

“Oh my God, Shrimpy spit! It has alliteration!”

You two fall into each other, cackling and laughing at the stupidity. When your hair brushes his cheek, Floyd thinks of how easy it would be to find his lips falling to a place more forbidden than the metal rim of an energy drink can.

After you both stop laughing: “Ya gonna feed me some more, Shrimpy?”

“Hm, I don’t know. Mmm, how about this,” you grin, stretching out your sentences teasingly. “I have some takoyaki with your name up there on the bleachers. Jade and I made it yesterday. You can have the rest when you win this game!”

Your star eyes burn him. Floyd melts under their intensity.

The game is in the fourth quarter. There are twelve minutes on the clock.

Everybody loves a clown, so why don’t you?

Has he not been enough? Self-sacrificial to always keep you bright and laughing, giving you his own light, letting you bleed him dry until his skin is sandpaper and his bone rice. This constant fear that he should always try to keep you happy lies in his heart like a nematode worm.

His sugar, spice, and everything nice Shrimpy who does not belong to him.

Standing on the edge of the 3 point line, Floyd, despite his cowardice, sends out the last shot of the game.

The basketball glides across the rim like a ship caught in a whirlpool, once. Then a second time, it makes its circular route around the open mouth of victory, leaning capriciously. With a suicidal fall, the basketball falls to the right. It bounces double on the ground before rolling away out of Floyd’s reach. Over the white tape of the endline, the orange ball is now out of the court, signaling the end.

Though under typical circumstances that losing shot should usher him into despair, a smile grows on Floyd’s face. It is only broken when he starts to laugh, his own joy singular in the groans and moans of his teammates.

He turns towards the bleachers, knowing you are expecting a miserable frown; he waves happily at you when your worried eyes fall onto him. You are out of his court. But … eels mate for life which means … Floyd gets to keep you in his life, just a bit out of reach, as he dreams of your love, not knowin’ where to start.

The game ends in the fourth quarter. There are no minutes left.

#twisted wonderland x reader #floyd leech #floyd leech x reader #twisted wonderland floyd leech x reader #twisted wonderland

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goblins-riddles-or-frocks · 4 months ago

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who fit their character more? jessie as alina or ben as the darkling

also, do you think half shu alina was a good idea?

….Neither?

I don’t think either of them really understood their characters. But Ben Barnes was incredibly egregious and I already parasocially resent him for his acting choices lmao so I guess JML was the better fit. It’s relative however

JML’s performance was mostly fine. They had practically nothing to work with. The decision to make Alina into like a waifish introverted ingenue seemed to be more from the writer’s room. But it’s very telling that they said they had to (paraphrasing) invent a character for Alina because there was none! Not to mention that their take was 200% blander

Like JML’s Alina would never dress up as a racist caricature to sneak into a party, nearly kill herself on screen like twice in ten minutes, or be primarily immune to the Darkling’s “we are fated to be together forever” bullshit because her main priority is hanging out with her silly teen friends that she doesn’t even like very much. Instead you just get a very generic protagonist with very little going on internally. But there at least isn’t much that’s antithetical to how Alina functions as a character, unlike another performance!!

The Darkling being an elusive, aloof, vampire is absolutely integral to his character. I’ve said before, but I think he serves as a deconstruction of how predatory the previous era of paranormal romance trends can come across. It just doesn’t work if there’s zero engagement with that in his portrayal. And there was none! Ben Barnes has spoken a lot on record about how he was involved in trying to make him into a more grounded, real person, and I resent him and his ugly beard for that lol

Ben Barnes just played him as such a woobie. He kept tearing up at the drop of a hat. He was like screaming crying throwing up through that entire show. And he was just so bizarrely uncharismatic, even though I’ve seen him have some gravitas in other roles. Idk I just think it was bad writing, bad direction, bad performance

Anyway I thought Alina being half shu could work! I strongly believe it was a choice made to counter the constant thread of sinophobia in the series (Six of Crows…) And I like how that would tie into her feeling isolated and without real community, hoping the Grisha might be that for her, and then that imploding badly. It also added another element to the Darkling fundamentally not understanding her, and not caring to. It could’ve been a really interesting choice!

The problem is that the handling was very clumsy. The racism portrayed is very on the nose and punishing to sit through. I can respect that if it’s going somewhere, but then in S2 the writers presumably folded after the backlash, and completely dropped it as a plot thread. It disappearing like that makes the incredibly heavy handed racism portrayed in S1 feel so much more pointless and aggravating! It was just very poorly handled

#remember that one panel where Ben Barnes was like ‘at the well Aleksander was wishing that Alina would love him 🥺’#no the fuck he was not!#the trilogy is fascinating bc it’s NOT a complicated or particularly opaque book but people struggle with it so bad #shadow and bone #grisha trilogy #grishaverse #dark stories of the north #step into my office #a mysterious stranger has appeared

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rapha-reads · 10 months ago

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To those of you wondering (aka no one), I finished both The Vampire Armand and Merrick and I have a lot of thoughts and feels. I'm skipping Blood and Gold for now to go directly to Blackwood Farm (I'll read B&G later), but first I'm going to read something else, just to take a break.

TVA thoughts: man, Armand is messed up. And extremely compelling. But so messed up. As always, the theme of faith crisis, which seriously reaches new heights with these bitchy vampires, is not something I can fully immerse myself in, but it was fascinating to see his numerous metamorphosis. I liked how he bridges Western and Eastern Christianisme, especially through art. Now I'm thinking that if Rolin Jones makes him originally Muslim in the show, that could expand even more the conversation on how faith, and especially Abrahamic faith, has been in conversation for thousands of years and could be such a rich, diverse and spiritual, intellectual and artistic theme. I can already imagine some fascinating discussions comparing (not in a superior way but in a complementary way) coming from Muslim faith to Roman Catholic faith, the way book!Armand talks about the richness of his life in Kiev Rus despite the poverty and ascetism, and the richness of his life in Venecia despite the luxury and abundance.

As for Benamin and Sybille... I don't have much thoughts about them. Sybille is one of those female characters AR seemingly favors, not so much human as a nymph or a dryad, "perfectly splendid". And Benji is a caricature of an Arab child. Nuance? 401 not found.

Merrick thoughts: David for the love if everything, shut. The. Fuck. Up. Holy moly. I like David, I do, but damn the entire recollection of his history with Merrick was looooooong. I'm here to see Louis haunted by Claudia and haunting Lestat's coma, not how hard you're pining for the kid you practically raised! Also. ALSO. You're just going to leave that whole thing with the Olmec or possibly another more ancient Mesoamerican civilisation without ever giving us more? That was the most interesting part of it all! The vodoo history, the connection between Louisiana and Caribbean vodoo and old Native South-American religions! More about this, less about Merrick's perfect breasts, I am begging you. (It is at this point that the reader of this post realises OP is 100% definitely ace and more interested in books and witchcraft than breasts and whether a 70yo man can still get it up - also, hey, Anne Rice's vampires are practically asexual and their lust and pleasure is mostly derivated from blood, with some notable exceptions like Armand and Marius, and a love relationship between two vampires is then based on romantic love and blood sharing, so can I hear a hell yeah for some ace representation or are we still conflating eroticism with sex)

Another thing I kept thinking about throughout the book is how Louis is perceived by his fellow vampires. Since basically the second book, since we've lost his own POV, everybody who's ever said anything about him (so Lestat, Armand and David) have insisted on two points: how very weak and meek Louis is, and also how irresistible, beautiful and charming. Granted, I've known Louis first through his portrayal on the show (hi Jacob you're so fiiiiiiine), and then through his own narration in the first book, but I've never had the impression that he was weak. Beautiful and seductive, yes. Weak? I see a human man going through tragedies and still enduring, going through vampiric transformation and then suffering for decades the loss of his humanity, struggling with reconciliating both sides of himself, but mostly I see a vampire who rebuilt himself after losing everything without sacrificing his sense of self. I see Louis as very strong actually (up to the point where resilience breaks, because resilience cannot be sustained on a long term, but that's another debate). He knows who he is, and don't you know how hard that is? He doesn't cling to faith or pride. He knows he's doomed, he knows he's monstrous, he knows there's nothing he can do to change that, and instead of railing against his fate, he goes on about his undead life. He gets his books and he reads them, he surrounds himself with literature and what little comforts he thinks in his shattered self-esteem he deserves (his ragged sweaters and soft trousers); let's not lie to ourselves tho, Louis doesn't like himself, or more exactly he doesn't care about his corporeal body - what matters to him is his mind, and once again, this author is extremely ace and also very aro and very nonbinary, so Louis to me is very much ace and agender coded, though really not aro, because his love for Lestat (and sometimes his fondness, shall we say, for Armand) is the only thing that can rouse him up from his literary slumber.

...

Oh, man, I have a lot to say about Louis, for how little he appears in the books so far. Still have BF, BC and the PL trilogy to devour. So I guess you can say, for as much as Lestat is occupying my entire brain, very much like him, my favorite is Louis? Yeah, that tracks. Melancholy, quiet, dark-haired green-eyed monster with more humanity than humans, preferring his solitude and the company of books to anyone else, hopelessly and helplessly devoted to one person, expert in brooding and grieving, literature specialist, not very attached to his physical self. Yeah. I'm not surprised.

#rapha talks #rapha reads #anne rice #the vampire chronicles #the vampire armand #merrick #vc books #armand de romanus #david talbot #louis de pointe du lac #lestat de lioncourt #books #literature #book review #wow that got long #wasn't expecting to write that much i just wanted to write a couple of lines about each book so i could move on to the next #but apparently i have a lot to say about louis in particular #i mean - vampires have been making me extremely verbose since i was 12 #so no wonder *the* vampire books of the last half-century are making me go insane #anyway - i'm going to read a couple of fanfics i've noticed maybe finish watching the bear s3 clear my mind a bit #and then i'll dive right back in with blackwood farm #by the way i totally encourage fic recs and also discussions of my thoughts (how flawed and incomplete my perceptions of these characters?)#(obviously over 40 years of existence and adoration of these books so much has been said and written and i would love to discuss it with #people who have read and studied and loved these books in much more depth than i)

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minu-moni · 1 year ago

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Both Kankri and Porrim are correct about gender roles in Alternian and Beforan society, but not on the way they probably think.

Easiest to address, let’s start with Porrim: she is indeed correct when she claims that women are oppressed in a way in Alternian and Beforan society. For example: Karkat calling the stuff Tavros likes “games for girls” on a derogatory way, Kankri being misogynistic to women, Doc Scratch being the real one in control of Alternia (him having an influence over HIC) etc.

Those are things that we actively see happen in Homestuck’s canon, they’re undeniable. We can’t turn a blind eye and pretend this isn’t a thing that happened. It literally is, just read the comic.

Meanwhile, Kankri is also right in that it doesn’t make sense for things to be like this. Alternian and Beforan society have no reason to have evolved in this way, considering male and female trolls serve the same purpose socially. So much so that, in canon, we don’t know what the difference between male and female trolls. Sure, female trolls have boobs but it’s never stated that trolls are mammals, while it was shown to us that they are born and grow up like insects, to the extent most people in fandom compare them to bees (they call their houses “hives”, there are drones that serve a reproductive role in their society, the Mothergrub functions similarly to a Queen bee, etc).

There was a point in fandom where people were theorizing that female trolls were actually biologically stronger than male trolls, specifically because Karkat calls LARP a “game for girls”, and we all know how deadly that game is. Also the fact that jadebloods are mostly females and are sent to take care of the caverns, which in practice means “your duty is killing unfit grubs”. Pretty brutal and nothing like human maternality (if you can even call what jadebloods do maternal)

So what’s the real issue? Why is their society like this? Well, I can’t say I know the truth, but I have an idea and it’s pretty simple:

Hussie did not plan troll society from the beginning and/or doesn’t know how to handle gender on a society where gender doesn’t play a big role.

By all means, troll society has no reason to be gendered the way it is. Female and male trolls serve the same purpose, only varying due to their blood, not their gender, and we don’t know anything about their history or worldbuilding to make a fair assumption that isn’t straight up made up.

It’s not really a perspective issue, but a writing issue. Hussie probably didn’t plan troll society all that much besides what little we see, and they sure as hell didn’t plan from the beginning to make 12 more trolls that were caricatures of tumblr users.

There’s multiple moments where characters are misogynistic for no reason and a few hundred pages later we learn that trolls care so little about gender that they don’t even have a concept of gay relationships, despite there not being gender prejudice in that regard. Meanwhile, at the same time, we have Feferi assuming Eridan was interested in a girl first and then later she suggested a boy and showed much more shock and intrigue on that possibility. It just doesn’t track!

For people who didn’t get the reasoning when people point out that Alternian and Beforan society have gender issues because of the way their biology works, now you have an explanation: poorly throughout worldbuilding, for which I can’t really fault Hussie for considering how insignificant it is on the long run.

So, how would a better gendered alien society with no gender influence look like worldbuilding wise? Well, I can’t really tell you a definitive answer since everyone is free to make their own version of it with a variety of possibilities. There isn’t a right or wrong to this question.

Now, if you would ask me how I’d write it, I’d tell you: I’d write it like Invader Zim’s Irken society.

On Irk, male and female irkens serve the same purpose regardless of gender. They all reproduce asexually (through means of the machine fuckery we see in flashbacks), serve the same roles, and societal positions are determined by another factor: height. Sound familiar?

It’s possible to explore gender oppression in a society like this regardless if the writer wants to, but it’s not a must. There’s plenty of space to write whatever variety of worldbuilding you want, and I think that’s pretty great!

Gender issues is a thing in Alternian and Beforan society as we see in canon, that’s undeniable, but now you know why it’s so weird that it’s a thing in a society where gender shouldn’t matter: poorly though-out worldbuilding.

#no pictures in post sorry :(#homestuck analysis #homestuck meta #long post #gender issues #worldbuilding #troll society #theory #technically

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middleearthpixie · 1 year ago

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Something in the Night ~ Chapter Twenty-One

Summary: Following the Battle of the Five Armies, a seriously wounded Thorin Oakenshield returns to Erebor to recuperate and eventually ascend the throne as king. With the deaths of Azog the Defiler and his son, Bolg, Thorin no longer has to worry about the bounty the Defiler placed on his head and can instead concentrate on restoring Erebor to its former glory.

Nina Carren of Esgaroth has one goal—to make Thorin Oakenshield pay for unleashing Smaug the dragon unto her home—where he destroyed the town and killed her family. The Defiler might be gone, but his bounty remains very much in place, and she fully intends to collect on it.

Finally, the opportunity shows itself for her to do just that, only to have it go horribly awry. Wounded and now at his mercy, neither Nina nor Thorin stopped to think what might happen, should things not go quite according to plan…

Pairings: Thorin Oakenshield x ofc Nina Carren

Warnings: None

Rating: T

Word Count: 4.1k

Tag List: @mrsdurin @i-did-not-mean-to @fizzyxcustard @xxbyimm @kibleedibleedoo

@legolasbadass @lathalea @arrthurpendragon @exhausted-humxn-being @knittastically

@notlostgnome @myselfandfantasy @medusas-hairband @guardianofrivendell @jotink78

@ruthoakenshield @frosticenow @quiall321 @dianakc @msjava1972

@glassgulls @evenstaredits @heilith @asgardianhobbit98 @way-too-addicted-to-fandoms

@sazzlep @night-ace

If you’d like to be added (or removed) to the tag list, please just let me know!

Previous chapters can be found here.

The infirmary at night was a quiet and lonely place. Especially in the royal chambers, which were closed off from everyone else. Oh, the chambers themselves were lovely, well-lit, with comfortable beds and although she knew the dwarves prided themselves on their gem work, she still gaped at the beautiful stones inlaid in the labradorite walls. Nina wagered her room alone was worth more than the entirety of Esgaroth at its peak, and that gave her such pause. Erebor was built on the riches of the mountain, literally and figuratively, and it boggled her mind just how much wealth it truly held. She’d never seen so much wealth, and certainly not in so small a space.

But to look at Thorin, one would never think him to be a king. Oh, like every other dwarf she’d ever seen (which, of course, wasn't many until recently, and even now, in the infirmary, they kept their distance from her and she from them) he favored jewelry, and adorned his fingers and hair, as they all did. But he wore no crown, nor any fancy robes. Instead, he dressed almost exactly as he had been dressed when he and his Company first arrived in Esgaroth. A most down-to-earth king, indeed.

Her only experience with any man of power was the Master of Esgaroth, who was practically a caricature in his love of what hie considered finery. Truth be told, he was one of the most physically repulsive men she’d ever seen, with his stringy, red combed-over hair and over-fed body stuffed into shirts and trousers that were at best a size too small. He flashed his wealth, mostly stolen by way of taxes on the denizens of Esgaroth, without shame and yet when one stood close to him, as she’d had the misfortune of doing once, it was apparent bathing was not a favorite activity. Not only that, but he tried to hide the smell of unwashed skin with perfumes that were cloying and sickening. He was, as Lenna once said, a poor man’s idea of a rich man, and that summed it up perfectly as far as Nina was concerned.

However, Thorin was not like that. In fact, he was as far from that description as possible. His dark hair shone when the light hit it, the silver streaks highlighting the glossy black curls, and when he passed by? She smiled into the darkness. He smelled of leather and earth and summer nights and she bit back a sigh now just remembering what it was like to be engulfed by them, engulfed by him.

Narnerra had told her she could leave come the morning and while she was impatient to get home and assure Sigrid she was all right, Nina also did not want to leave. She knew that when she did, she would likely not lay eyes upon Thorin again.

She didn't want to think about that. Now that he was no longer furious with her…

She frowned into the darkness. She didn't want to think about that, either. It was best if she didn’t.

The soft knock at the door gave her pause, for in her time in Erebor, aside from that first night, no one knocked on the door past suppertime.

It had to be a mistake, so she ignored it.

Then it happened again.

“Nina?”

Her heart leapt at Thorin’s whisper, her stomach fluttering as she kicked back the covers and rose from her bed to pad to the door. “Thorin?”

“Did I wake you?”

She tugged open the door. “No, but what are you doing here?”

He emerged from the darkness to step into her room. “Narnerra told me you were leaving come the morning and since I’ve a meeting in Esgaroth first thing, I will not have another chance to see you.”

“To see me?” She reached for her wrapper, draped across the foot of her bed and drew it on. “Does your girlfriend know you’re here?”

To his credit, Thorin blushed, which unnerved her to a certain degree. It was confirmation of his relationship with the beautiful dwarrowdam, and it was confirmation she dreaded hearing. Up until right now, she could fool herself into thinking that maybe—just maybe—she and Thorin were on the verge of something.

But that blush changed everything.

OF course, it was silly, not to mention downright foolish, to assume he’d not have another woman in his life. Despite his protestations to the opposite, Thorin was strikingly handsome. And kind. And gentle. And everything any sane woman would want. She’d come so close to be the one he called his… so very close…

Don’t think about that.

“Nina,” he closed the door behind him, leaning back against it, “I had not expected to ever lay eyes upon you again. And I certainly expected to remain furious with you for the rest of my days.”

“So why are you here, then?”

“Because I needed to see you. Before you left.”

“Does she know you’re here? Because judging by how cold she was to me, I doubt she would be happy with you’re being here.”

“No,” he shook his head, “she doesn’t know. And she is not my girlfriend.”

“What is she, then?”

He sighed softly. “At one point, I thought to ask her for her hand.”

That confession was like a punch to the stomach and Nina was thankful for the low light, otherwise he’d see how she blanched. And it had to be terrible, for she actually felt the blood drain from her face. “I see.”

“At one point,” he repeated, stepping up to her. “But I am not so certain that is the case now.”

“Thorin, do not tell me what you think I wish to hear bec—”

“I’m not. I’m telling you the truth.” He caught her face in his hands, his palms warm and his thumbs gentle as they grazed along her cheekbones. “I told you how dwarves do not take lovemaking lightly, remember?”

“How could I forget?” Those thumbs moving along her cheeks made thinking clearly almost impossible for her. Her eyelids grew so heavy, her thought grew just as heavy, and sluggish and she just wished to lean into the gentle caresses.

She forced her heavy eyelids to open and found him smiling down at her. A pleasant warmth came to her cheeks at the heat in his blue eyes. “Why do you stare at me like that?”

“Do you remember what abnâmul means?”

Nina swallowed hard. “I do. Beautiful.”

“You are beautiful,” he whispered, tilting her face to his. “So very beautiful, indeed.”

With that, he bent and as his lips touched hers, Nina melted against him, easing her arms about his waist, parting her lips to receive his kiss wholeheartedly.

He bent her slightly back, his tongue slow and teasing as it caressed hers and for the first time since that wonderful night in Mirkwood, Nina’s spirits soared and happiness radiated through her.

She tightened her arms about him, her fingers curling into the rough fabric of his henley to tug it up from the waist of his trousers. He sucked in a sharp breath as her fingertips brushed along the swath of skin she’d bared, and she smiled when he shivered against her.

He broke the kiss, smiling as he pressed his forehead to hers. “Do that again,” he whispered, and his eyes closed as she did it again.

His eyes slowly opened to meet her gaze once more. Her heart picked up its pace, trebled it as she managed to whisper, “Why are you here, Thorin?”

“Because I’ve missed you.”

“Missed me? Or missed this.”

He straightened up then. “This?”

“Yes, this. The feelings. The pleasure. That.” She managed to pull free from him, and looked up.

“Do you suggest I’m here only for that?”

“Are you?”

“Why would you ask such a thing?”

“Why?” She shook her head. “Well, for starters, you planned to ask another woman to marry you.”

“At one point.”

“Thorin.”

He drew in a deep breath and slowly nodded. “Yes, Nina. I had—at one point—thought to ask Elisin for her hand. But that was before. And now, I find I do not think a match between her and I would be a good one, for I am afraid my heart belongs to another.”

Nina’s pulse throbbed through her temples. “Thorin.”

“And although I had reason enough to be angry with her, this other woman has far more reason to hate me for the rest of her days.” He stepped closer to her.

She took another step backward. “How can you say I have your heart after everything that has happened?”

He moved toward her once more. “Because you have?”

A step back and she found herself flush against the wall, which was lumpy and rough from the gems running through the labradorite. “That isn’t possible.”

“Why?” He brought both hands up to press his palms against the stone on either side of her shoulders. “Who has decided this? Who do you think does my thinking for me?”

“Well, I—I don't think anyone else does your thinking for you, but remember… you are a king and I am a nobody.”

“So?” His eyes softened. “I am only recently a king and you are not a nobody.”

“Very well then, I am also not a dwarf.”

A hint of a smile played at his lips. “Nobody’s perfect, mesmel.”

“You are mad, you know.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been mad.”

“Thorin.”

“I love you, Nina. Now, we can keep fighting about this, or you can just tell me you love me back and then we can make use of that very comfortable bed or the floor, or anywhere else in this room you’d like.”

“I don't even like you at the moment, dwarf. In fact, if I had my steel…”

“You would do nothing, just as the last time.” He leaned in then, and this time, when their lips met, he flattened against her. Not in a dominant way, trying to prove to her he could do whatever he wished to her if the mood struck, but more in a need to feel her against him sort of a way.

At least, that was what she told herself.

Because the truth was she needed to feel him that way. And when he pulled away and she met his heated gaze, she whispered, “You love me?”

He nodded slowly. “I love you.”

“But, I was going to collect on Azog’s bounty on you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“But I was going to.”

“But,” he brushed her lips with his, “you didn’t.”

“But—”

“But you didn’t,” he cut her off gently, and this time, he kissed her more deeply. He lowered his hands to catch hers, to lace his fingers with hers and brought them back up to press gently into the stone.

Her eyes closed slowly as the delicious sensations swirled through her, tilted her head back when he swept his lips down over her chin, along the side of her neck. He nuzzled her, whispering, “Maralmizi, Nina.”

Her head spun as the sensations grew stronger, tingling along her neck, through her belly, to slightly lower, where delicate knots of desire formed to tighten within her. “What does that mean…” she managed to whisper, her fingers tightening about his.

He kissed back up toward her ear, his lips brushing it as he replied, “I love you…”

“Mmmm….” She smiled, then bit down on her bottom lip as the tip of his tongue swept over a surprisingly sensitive patch of skin just below her ear. “I love you back, dwarf…”

His thumbs grazed hers, his lips swept down into the hollow of her throat. He trailed soft, teasing kisses down into the hollow of her throat once more, each one playful and tender at the same time. When he lifted his head again, it was to regard her with blazing blue eyes and his gaze never wavered as he reached for the lacings of her tunic. The leather laces gave easily, the cotton parting slightly, and heat swept through her as he let go of those laces to part the throat of her tunic even wider.

He held her gaze, sliding his hands down along her body, over the rise of her breasts, to the hem of her tunic, and then he swept up, whisking it over her head. His gaze burned hotter as it swept over her, and he murmured, “Abnâmul, mesmel…”

As he spoke, he traced the tip of his finger along the inner curve of her left breast. Fire whispered through her, gentle at first, but it grew stronger as he brushed inward, toward its crest. Her nipple beaded in anticipation of his touch, poking up through the thin muslin of her chemise. He brushed it, slowly circled it, and as the sensations rippled through her, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth, but couldn't hold back her sigh.

“Oh, amrâlimê,” he whispered, his voice husky and his eyes smoldering as they met hers, “I have missed you, you know…”

Despite her sluggish thoughts and that delicious heat swirling through her, Nina nodded slowly. “I’ve… oh, I’ve missed you as well…”

The tingles grew sharper and steadier now as he swept lightly over her nipple, and it took every bit of will she possessed to not simply melt into a puddle. His smile spoke of promises she knew well, and her entire body trembled with anticipation of him.

He leaned in to capture her lips in a soft kiss as as their lips met, no more words passed. His hand came fully over her breast, kneading and teasing until the heat threatened to devour her. Her back bowed, pressing her breast deeper into his palm, a breathless sigh bubbling to her lips at the sensations running riot through her now. Those knots in her lower belly returned, sweet and tight and dropping lower, where the dull ache of arousal bit into her.

His lips caressed hers, and as she slipped her arms about his neck, he pressed firmly against her, then gently drew her away from the wall, turning to guide her back until the backs of her legs bumped her narrow bed.

Thorin urged her down into the soft mattress, and as she sank into it, she smiled at the sight of him above her, dark hair tumbling forward almost as a curtain to keep out the rest of the world. He looked almost feral, his eyes blazing sapphire, filled with desire that mirrored her own, and those eyes devoured her as he caught the hem of her chemise to gently sweep up along her thighs. Heat burned through her as the linen skimmed up over her hips. She waited for him to sweep it over her head, but instead, he bent and pressed heated lips against her lower stomach, which sent fire arcing through her.

Without thinking, she reached for him, shoving her fingers into his hair and as he moved lower, her fingers tightened. The tip of his tongue swept along her hipbone, following by a teasingly soft kiss. Those knots tightened further.

Thorin crept higher now, feathering kisses up along her ribs, taking care around the bandage, pushing linen out of his way, until he found what he sought and his lips closed about her aching nipple. The tip of his tongue did a slow, almost lazy swirl about the taut bead, her back bowing of its own as fire tore through her now.

“Thorin…” His name leaked through her clenched teeth, her fingers twisting tighter in his hair now as he oh-so-sensually tortured her. The ache between her thighs spread slowly through her, her legs parting of their own to let him settle between them.

She couldn't hold back her sigh as he came firmly against her. She’d forgotten just how amazing he felt like this, how much she absolutely loved being surrounded by him, how the rest of the world simply fell away and left them in peace. She had missed him, had missed everything about him and as his lips claimed hers, she lost herself in his kiss.

Still, they were in the infirmary and she had no doubt that any strange noises coming from the royal ward would bring Narnerra or one of her assistants running and the last thing Nina wanted was for anyone to burst in on them.

The bed let out an ominous squeak as Thorin rolled onto his back, tugging her atop him as he did. He grinned even as she froze. “What’s the matter, mesmel?”

“What if someone hears?”

He reached up, catching a wayward curl to tuck back behind her ear. “No one will hear a low squeak. And even if they did, no one would come in here. This is reserved for my family.”

“Which is exactly why someone might, if they thought you were in here. They might think I’m killing you.”

“We both know you wouldn’t, though.”

“We do, yes. They, however do not.”

He trailed his fingertips along her back, which brought a shiver along her spine and had her catching her bottom lip between her teeth even as her eyelids grew heavy. She managed to keep them open, smiling at his murmured, “I’ll take my chances.”

The air stirred, skittering cold across her bare back. “Thorin?”

“What?”

“Why are you still dressed?”

His laughter rang out and when she clapped her hand over his mouth, it did little to dull the reverberation. Peeling her hand from his face, he replied, “You needn’t worry. You and I are the only ones down here this night. And as for your question…”

He gently eased out from beneath her and slid to the edge of the bed to stand. “I won’t be much longer.”

She bit back another sigh as he whisked his henley over his head. Without thinking, she also slid to the edge of the bed, then rose to stand before him. She drank in the sight of him, the flickering candlelight dancing along the swells of muscle along his arms, shoulders, and chest and without thinking, she laid her hand along the curious scars dotting the left side of his chest. “What are these?”

“Reminders to avoid being caught in the jaws of a warg.”

She looked up at him. “What?”

He nodded. “A warg grabbed hold of me, just outside of Goblintown, when I was making my way from the Shire to Erebor.”

She trailed her thumb along one of the nearly perfectly round divots in his swarthy skin. Some were barely visible through the black hair spread wide across his chest, but she could still make them out. Small. Round. White. “And how did you pull yourself from the jaws of a warg?”

“Master Baggins came to my aid.” He must have seen the confusion in her eyes, for he smiled as he laid his hand over hers. “The hobbit who made up the fourteenth member of our company. He came to my rescue with the smallest blade ever forged, but pried me free. It was only one of the times he saved my hide, the last one being after my confrontation with Azog.”

His voice grew so soft, she could barely hear him, and as she brushed her thumb along the tooth mark, she whispered, “You need not tell me if it troubles you to think about.”

“Perhaps some day I won’t mind regaling you with what happened. But there was nothing glorious in any of it. I was a mad king, and warmonger, and I cost many people dearly, as you well know.

“But,” he caught her beneath the chin with a finger, tilting her face to his, “I will spend the rest of my days making it up to you, mesmel. I give you my word.”

He didn't offer her a chance to respond, but bent to her and as their lips met, her questions died on her lips. They no longer mattered and would wait. All that mattered was his warm, bare skin against hers, his arms tightening about her waist, and his lips also warm against hers.

Her hands went to the falls of his trousers, and a moment later, the heavy fabric pooled at his feet and with a soft laugh, he pulled away to remove his cumbersome boots and hose, then stepped from that puddle of fabric on the stone floor.

Her mouth went dry and her belly came alive with a million butterflies as he caught her around the waist once more and lifted her easily. Her legs, of their own accord, wrapped about his waist, and when their lips met, it was like a match to dry kindling. One spark, and embers became flames. Flames became an inferno and within moments, he was pressing her down into the bed once more, pinning her beneath him, and when he slid inside her, she was ready and welcoming and melted around him. There was nothing gentle or tender as he drove into her, but pure need and desire fired his powerful thrusts and she clung to him, her thighs tight against his sides, her arms tight about his neck, her body tight about his.

With swift precision, he brought them both to the edge of madness, every fiber in her body tensed and begging for relief. She pulsed about him, her fingernails biting into the warm skin of his back, and when it was his turn to tense, he crushed her against him, gave a powerful thrust, and shuddered as he came. Nina surrendered to the fiery bliss he sent spilling through her, her body tingling and trembling as his climax triggered hers and she savored every last pulse, every last shiver, every last knot coming undone at his touch. And when he sank against her, breathless, a fine film of sweat along his back, she smiled as she nuzzled him. “I’ve missed you, dwarf,” she whispered, her voice thready and airy as her heart raced and her head still spun madly from the force of their combined release.

He said nothing at first, a hot, husky laugh skimming the curve of her shoulder as he fought for breath. Then, he nuzzled her, and managed to whisper, “Amrâlimê…”

Her fingers slipped through his soft hair, traced along the braid at his left temple. “I don’t speak your language,” she murmured, trailing her fingertip along his cheek as he lifted his head once more. “Teach me?”

“Of course.” His eyes were sleepy, heavy-lidded and seductive without his even trying. “Amrâlimê means my love. And you are, Nina. You are my everything. My kurduwê, my amrâlimê, my mesmel.”

“Thorin…”

“My heart, my love, my jewel of all jewels.” His eyes glittered like perfectly cut sapphires. “And you know how dwarves regard jewels, so… you are my ghivashel, Nina. My treasure of all treasures.”

Nina swallowed hard as her throat tightened and unexpected tears stung her eyes. “I was so certain you would hate me for the rest of your days.”

He carefully eased off her to stretch out alongside her. “I admit,” he began softly, gathering her to curve against him, “at first, that was what I thought as well. But, the more I thought about it, the more time I spent with Elisin—and before you ask, I did nothing with her, not even a kiss—the more I realized I missed you, Nina.”

“Not even a kiss?”

He smiled. “Not even that. I love you, and you are my One. Once a dwarf finds his One, all other women cease to exist as far as he is concerned.”

“But isn’t your One supposed to be another dwarf?”

“Well, yes, but we both know things don’t always go as planned.”

She smiled as she curved against him, tucking her head against his chest, her fingers sweeping lightly along the black hair covering his belly. “I am so very sorry, Thorin. If I could do it over again, I would never have gone to Tarog. I never would have thought harming you would do anything other than make the world darker than it already is.”

“Let’s not speak of it any longer,” he whispered, then pressed a kiss into the top of her head. “We have much to make up for and plenty of time for doing so.”

With that, linens schwiffed softly as he eased over her once more and she lost herself in another magical kiss.

#Richard Armitage #AU #The Hobbit #Thorin Fic #Thorin Oakenshield #Is it hot in here?#Hobbit Fic #Romance #Hobbit Fanfic #Thorin x OC #Fan fiction #The Hobbit fan fiction

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