#well to be fair if i didn't want to be considered a fool i wouldn't be as into pop punk as i am

[deadtower]

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[bluelockmaniac]

itoshi rin giving you the last bite of his food. <3 wc; 676

watching rin's pretty face as he chewed on his cheesy potato pancakes wasn't something you had expected to do today, but it also wasn't your fault that rin could make something as simple as eating so tempting. the way the stuffed mozzarella stretched from between your boyfriend's lips and the delicacy had you salivating— you wished you hadn't declined his considerate offer an hour ago, when he called you on the phone and asked if you wanted him to get you something to eat. you were full when he called, so now you couldn't help but watch him with a ravenous gaze and a watering mouth as he eats bite after bite, the colours on the television screen bouncing off his face. "you're drooling," rin pointed out as he once again turns his attention towards you, "i've asked you seven times already, but are you absolutely sure that you don't want a bite?" "y-yes rin, i'm one hundred percent certain!" you laugh awkwardly, wiping your mouth with your sleeve as you notice how the number of cheesy potato pancakes on his plate seem to reduce every few minutes, much to your dismay. "hm..." he mumbles boredly, holding one savory with his fingers and pushing it against your stubbornly shut lips, "liar. open your mouth." you gently push his hand away, shaking your head, "i'm not hungry," you utter, although your firm eye contact with his plate betrays your statement, "i swear." "whatever." he sighs, focusing on the football match on the screen as he enjoys yet another bite. the fact that he could read you like an open book was irritating, but to be fair, your expressions wouldn't make it difficult for anyone to guess that maybe, just maybe, you were hungry. you had no idea why you persisted on being so stubborn when rin had generously offered you his food multiple times— perhaps it was the guilt of taking away the food he bought for himself despite him asking you if you craved for anything that got you so adamant— but either way, you were now eyeing the last crispy, golden coloured piece on his plate. "actually—" you blurted out, shifting on the couch until you were finally beside him. your nails harmlessly dug into his forearm as he looks at you knowingly, a subtle smile forming on his lips. "can i... have one, please?" "it's my last one," he mutters with feigned pettiness as he hands you the last potato pancake with no hesitation, wrapping his arm around your shoulder and bringing you closer to him, "but only because you're so cute." "thanks!" you smile as you lean against him and begin stuffing your face with the crispy good, but unfortunately, much to your disappointment, you wiped off its existence in about a minute. "it was really good..." you say softly while looking down at the empty plate, trying to appreciate this cute situation of your boyfriend giving you his last bite, but seriously, it only aroused your appetite. rin rolls his eyes and tilts your chin to face him, "don't look so upset," he deadpanned, licking the corner of your lips to remove the excess potato crumbs. "but i'm hungry—" "i know," he sighs, getting up and vanishing into the kitchen. he appears a few seconds later with a bag identical to the one for the cheesy potato pancakes, "...which is why i bought you some as well." "ohmigod!" you exclaim excitedly, quickly opening the styrofoam container and welcoming the exquisite aroma, "thank you, rinnie! i'm glad you bought one for me too." he pulls your face in for a quick kiss before squishing your cheeks lightly. "i ought to know by now, considering the amount of times you played this move on me." you softly giggle as you carelessly eat the food in front of you, "you know me so well." rin lays his head down on your lap and yawns softly, your clean hand quick to run its fingers through his hair. "i'd be a fool if i didn't."

comments appreciated <3

[fallenfrommars6277]

Okay, I've seen the cameo where George hints at Edwin's "first adult experience" with the Cat King and I wish to share my two cents about it.

First of all, disregarding which pair anyone ships, I believe we can safely say that Payneland will eventually be endgame: it is left as an option by Charles in Hell, it is hinted in the show and it is basically sustained by Jayden and George themselves.

I am, for one, a Payneland shipper. I admit that at first I wanted them to stay just friends because I am a sucker for great friendship stories, but rewatch after rewatch I started to see them as soulmates in a romantic kinda way.

Nevertheless, I think (and honestly have thought since the beginning, not just because they said that now) that it would be great to see how Catwin would evolve and in particular I think it's just right that Edwin has his first experiences with the Cat King, maybe not straight away sex, but in general intimate experiences.

Let me explain.

Yes, it would be nice to see Edwin and Charles getting together and awkwardly kissing and having together their first intimacies: it would be a first for both of them, because I believe that while Charles may have fooled around a bit, he didn't ever actually make love to anyone, let alone a boy. So it would be all romantic and gentle and blushing virgins and it absolutely would be great.

BUT.

Both Edwin and Charles are on a journey to self discovery, in general but especially in the love and sexuality area, but they are at different stages of it. While Edwin has been repressed for over a century, he has been now awakened (by Charles, by Monty and above all by the Cat King) to feelings and sensations and wants that he now needs and IS READY to fulfil.

On the other hand, Charles isn't there yet, he just now learns that his best mate is in love with him and he feels nothing but love and adoration towards him but he fundamentally doesn't know what actual love (as in being in love with someone and being the one someone is in love with) looks and feels like, also they're both guys and while he has been nothing but supportive of Edwin about him coming to terms with his homosexuality, considering the time and especially the household in which he lived in, I don't think he wouldn't have problems realizing and admitting to himself that he is bisexual (I know it's not canon, but come on) or at least that he fancies another boy. And even when this happens, I think that he would have a lot of holding back, being insecure about his "ability" to love and not wanting to hurt Edwin.

That said, I think that Edwin has always loved and will always love only Charles, but it is only fair for him now to start having his experiences and exploring his sexuality and, while Edwin and Charles have been a whole for over 30 years, doing everything together, I believe this is something he has to do by himself and the best person with whom to do this is the Cat King because they're both attracted to each other, because the CK is very experienced and I think this would be someway reassuring for Edwin (like he's doing this, he's experimenting with someone who knows very well what he's doing), because the CK would never be judgemental of his inexperience, and above all because the CK cares about him, but also knows that no matter how much he can care about him and be affectionate towards him and even love him, he will never actually have him because Edwin's heart belongs to Charles since that night in the attic.

I expect (yes, I'm talking like this is actually happening because maybe I'm delusional but I've not given up hope yet about a second season) that while Edwin does this and experiments and learns things about a part of himself that has always been hidden and repressed, Charles someway does the same, of course not realizing that he wants to have sexual experiences because he is, if not actually experienced, more acquainted with this "area", but that he has to explore his sexuality to understand how he can fit loving Edwin into it and then actually act upon this, but to do this he also needs to find a way to separate himself from his father, from his painful childhood, and control his anger and navigate and accept his own emotions, all the shades of them, to start appreciating himself and considering himself worth of loving and being loved.

In conclusion, as I said before, they both are going through a journey, but while Edwin's at the end of his and is ready for what comes next, Charles has just now started it, so it's just right that just this once they don't do this together, because they KNOW that even if they take metaphorically different roads, they eventually will find each other at the finish line.

[iheartmysun]

A Happy Halloween (George Weasley x Reader)

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Genre: fluff, friends to lovers

Warnings: very slight use of swearing, some mentions of alcohol consumption

Word count: 3.6k

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

As the leaves of autumn settled onto the grounds of Hogwarts, so did the excited whispers and enlivened chatter of Halloween. Gossip about the 31st became more frequent with each passing day. Each house discussing who was throwing what party, what costume ideas they had thought of, and who they thought would get shit-faced the fastest.

George, as to be expected, was especially anticipating Halloween. Aside from April Fools' Day, it was the perfect excuse of a holiday to get his fair share of pranks out of his system. In fact, he expects his fellow peers to enjoy the pranks that he has in store, considering everyone actually wants to be spooked this time around.

Although he had become quite preoccupied by his plans, there was something else much more compelling that seemed to have consumed his thoughts.

Your name echoed at the forefront of his mind in almost everything that he did. The fact that he spoke to you every single day didn't help this at all, but he wasn't complaining. How could he? The vision of your heavenly face, the lyrical sound of your laugh, your soothing touch with which he found solace in; everything that encompassed you. How could he possibly find it within himself to be dissatisfied?

This is, he supposed, how he found himself being whacked in the back of the head by a frustrated Fred, who was very much done with his love sick antics.

"Three guesses to figure out what you're lost in thought over." Fred remarked sarcastically. George glared at his twin as he rubbed the back of his head. "Shut up, you don't know what I'm thinking about."

The older of the two then moved to rest on his elbow with his chin now in hand and leaned forward. "Oh, really? Then please, do enlighten me. What were you thinking about?" he questioned with raised eyebrows.

George stayed silent as a soft blush crept its way onto his face. Fred simply leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "See? Told you." he stated with a smug smirk.

"Whatever." George mumbled back, fiddling with a loose piece of paper in front of him, not feeling bothered with bickering right now.

Fred sighed and gently shook his head. "I don't get why you won't just tell Y/N how you feel already. They clearly like you back. Besides, you're best mates, it's not like much could go wrong."

George scoffed thinly at this statement. "Yeah, sure. Nothing could go wrong. Y/N could decide to never speak to me again, but nothing could go wrong. Thanks for the words of wisdom!" he said before rolling his eyes, sarcasm evident in his voice.

"Alright, alright. Sorry mate." he said while putting his hands up in defense. "I'm just saying it wouldn't hurt to test the waters. You'll never find out how things might go if ya don't try. Y'know?"

As much as it annoyed him that Fred was right, he agreed. He just didn't know how to go about it. He wasn't this Casanova that everyone believed him to be. He had only been in one other relationship before, and he didn't want to look stupid. In his eyes, you may as well have hung the stars in the sky. And who would want to look stupid in front of someone who managed such a feat?

He sat up straighter and ran a hand through his hair, breathing deeply. "Yeah, I know." George said sighing.

Seeing his brother so full of dispirit because of how smitten he was truly was a sight for sore eyes. Something he'd rather not see again; especially when they were supposed to be planning one of their up coming escapades.

"You'll figure it out mate. Always do." Fred said while shifting his chair a bit closer to his brother. "You may not have my good looks, but you've still got more of a shot than you think you do."

George couldn't help but smile at this. The heavy feeling in his chest feeling lighter than before. "You're dreaming if you think that you have the good looks. I'd be concerned if I had a face like yours, Freddie."

Fred smiled, laughing in return, happy to know he gave his slightly younger brother some peace of mind. He playfully nudged him in the shoulder before gesturing towards the paper firecrackers that sat in front of them. With that, they both got back to the matter at hand, quickly gaining focus over their project again.

Later on in the early hours of the evening he found himself looking for you, slowly wandering off towards your dorm. He knocked rhythmically on the mahogany door and smoothed back any flyaways from his mop of hair.

Without waiting for long, you turned the golden looking doorknob with the sound of a quiet click, and opened it to reveal a much too happy George Weasley.

"Trick or Treat!" he exclaimed with a wide grin.

"Probably trick, knowing you." you said with a smirk, examining him for any potential jokes that he could suddenly spring upon you.

"Is that all you expect of me, Y/N? Some deviant ready to pounce on the next potential victim to one of his glorious pranks?" he said holding his hand to his chest in feigned offense.

You casually rolled your eyes, chuckling at his light-hearted behavior, and stepped out of the way to motion for him to come in. Which he gladly did so.

"Sooo, what's up? I thought you were busy getting things ready for Halloween?" you asked while shutting the door again before making your way back over to the tall man who was now standing by the end of your bed.

It was only then that he realised he'd gone to visit you without a cause. He had merely wanted to see you and that was reason enough. However, that wasn't very helpful when you were asking him why he went out of his way to stop by your dorm to see you.

"Oh- well, I was just-" he laughed, trying to hide the nervousness that was now growing in his chest. He desperately thought of any excuse that he could, but just stood there silently like a deer in headlights.

Now he'd done it, he thought. He went and messed up by making things feel awkward. But before he could finish berating himself, a chuckle broke through the air.

"What, did you forget?" you asked amused. The idea of him seeing you just because he wanted to see you hadn't crossed your mind at all. You over thought how he felt about you almost as much as he did with you.

Suddenly seeming at ease, he chuckled. "Yeah, must've."

After snorting quietly in response, you stepped closer to him once more and smile softly. The room feeling rather still all of a sudden.

The way that George looked down at you could send your heart racing for eternity. He took in every little detail of your face, not wanting to miss a single marvelous feature. Your breath caught in your throat as he studied you. George noticed this and instantly felt a warmth rise up his neck and to his freckled cheeks as he realised how intently he had been staring at you.

He stepped back and almost fell onto your bed before he caught his balance and stood up right again in a matter of seconds. Feeling more embarrassed than he did a few moments ago, he quickly moved off to the side and clapped his hands together in a single movement.

"Well! I should get going! With all this- this Halloween stuff that Fred and I have to plan. You know how it is with... planning things!" he spoke hurriedly while trying to sound calm. Admittedly unsuccessful, but he just wanted to escape the uncomfortable situation he had put himself in.

"Oh, uh.. Okay?" you said confused as you watched him swiftly make his way to the door again, barely making eye contact with you.

Just as he had left the room and was about to shut to door harder than he meant to, he popped his head back in with an awkward expression on his face. "See you at the party."

And as soon as he had arrived, he was gone even faster.

You were left standing there, blinking at the door, as you tried to process what had just happened. The first thought of the matter being how it felt to have him look at you like that. His gaze looked so warm and soft. It made your stomach swirl and feel fuzzy.

You turned back to face your bed and dramatically flopped your weight onto your mattress and groaned into the plush bedding which you had now buried your face into, wishing more than ever for the 31st to arrive.

It had been four days since you and George had had a decent conversation with one another. He was either acting strangely around you or he was whisked away by Fred and Lee to get up to who knows what. It was frustrating to say the least.

Without you knowing it, George was frustrated too. But this feeling was overridden by the nerves that had settled in his chest. It sent a warm prickly feeling down his body and made his head spin. Fred had been encouraging him to spill the beans to you and so had Lee, although he was more tactful with it.

"Excited for tonight, Georgie?" Fred asked while grabbing his brothers shoulders from behind, peering over to try and see his face.

"Leave the poor lad alone," said Lee, shoving Fred away from his twin. "he's already got enough on his mind without you bothering him." he finished, sitting down across from the both of them.

"Oh yeah, that's right, you still gotta decide how you're gonna confess your love to Y/N." he said now sitting down, batting his eyelashes and clasping his hands together.

Georges face went pink before he spoke. "Piss off, I still don't know if I'm gonna say anything. I don't even know how I'd do it."

"How'd you ask out the last person that you were with?" Lee asked with raised eyebrows.

George furrowed his, and shook his head adamantly. "No, no, I can't tell Y/N how I feel like that. That was ordinary. I just told them how I felt after potions. This is different. This is..." He went quiet for a moment as he tried to find the words without revealing anything too vulnerable. It would surely be used as teasing fuel against him in the future. "It's just different." he finished saying in a soft voice.

Before either of them could add their input, George stood up and pushed the wooden chair in, causing a high pitched squeak.

"I'll see youse later. I have to get ready." he said with a slight wave of his hand before he trudged back up to his dorm room, simultaneously feeling anticipation and apprehension for the night ahead.

A few hours later, the Gryffindor common room was thronging with people who were eager to drink as much as they could and handful of others who already appeared tired of caring for their already drunk friends.

The tenseness that George had felt mostly ebbed away as the room became more occupied by lively music and vibrant conversation.

His friends had poured a plethora of different drinks, and a couple of Ravenclaws had tried to egg him on to have a shot of firewhisky, but he refused. George didn't want to lose his senses. No matter how miniscule. He wasn't sure when he'd see you and would much rather not saying something to expose himself just because he wasn't in a sober mind.

Searching for you over the ocean of heads had not been as easy as he thought it would. He felt as if he could see almost everyone else but you. Someone had almost caught their hair on fire, a fifth year was literally bouncing off the walls, and someone else had been unfortunate enough to have been standing underneath one of the enchanted floating pumpkins which had suddenly fallen directly on top of them.

Just as he was about to sit down, he somehow heard your laughter through the cacophonous sound of noisy chatter and music blending together.

He shot his head up and spotted you instantly, noticing that you were talking to a wild-eyed Neville who seemed to have soot on his face. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips and he began to make his way through the crowd to get to you.

He swerved and squeezed his way past, being elbowed in the ribs in the process, but he finally reached you.

Neville said a quick goodbye to you before he noticed George with wide eyes, quickly escaping to go and wipe the dark powder from his face.

He looked down at you with a shy, yet wide grin. You looked more wonderful than ever; it shouldn't be possible for a human to look so breathtaking, he thought. And yet here you were, standing there with the glow of the warm light surrounding you reflecting onto your face; flashing a seraphic smile that you wore, to him and him only.

"What's with him?" he said pointing in Neville's direction with his thumb, a sly smirk growing on his face.

"You're telling me that you don't know?" you questioned with a short laugh, clearly not believing his unknowingness.

"Always with the accusations, Y/N," he said pursing his lips together and crossing his arms. "I'm a saint! You'll never meet someone as innocent as me." he said with a shit-eating grin.

"Don't go making me concerned for the types of people I'll come across, George." you say with a chuckle, causing George to join in. His eyes sparkling with the joy of being the one to make you laugh.

After a few moments, there was a quiet between you. The world around you both seemed to fade away as the two of you focused in on the other. You felt the warmth and softness of his gaze again. He realised that you were looking at him differently too, but he wasn't completely sure what to make of it.

His eyes lingered on you for a short time longer until he cut the silence. "It's a bit loud in here, don't ya reckon?"

"Yeah, it is." you say gently, almost inaudible over the background noise, unsure where he's going with this.

"Follow me?" he asks you, holding his hand out for you to take.

You grin and slide your hand into his. He gives you a reassuring smile and begins leading the way past the mass of people; squeezing your hand lightly as he guides you to the portrait hole.

Once there, you both crawl through and make your way out of the rowdy home of Gryffindor. With much reluctance he lets go of your hand and nods forward, motioning the direction to go.

As you walk down the corridor another silence settles. Only this time, there were no interruptions.

The faint shadows of your silhouettes moving carefully across the stone flagged floor. Not a sound but your footsteps that echoed quietly across the walls.

George looked to you and felt a strange feeling in his chest. He felt as if he could blurt the words out right now. This wasn't how he had imagined it. But the stillness of the air felt like it was pushing him to spill his secret. And it just felt right. 'I like you. I like you more than a friend.' But no. The words got caught and he couldn't spit them out.

As he led for them to turn a corner, they had almost stepped onto a small creature with glowing red eyes. It instantly let out a loud meow as if it was calling for someone.

"Fuck!" George whispered loudly.

He swiftly grabbed you by the wrist and started booking it. You almost tripped over your own feet at first, but started to pick up speed no sooner than he had started running.

You could hear the somewhat distant meows and calls of a man chasing after you as you were being quickly tugged into different corridors to escape any potential punishments.

George had almost collided with the Hogwarts caretaker as he rounded a corner, not realising that he had snuck through a secret hallway to catch the two students who were out after hours.

Filch called after him and whoever else was on the run with him, but after being pulled into a hidden passageway behind a tapestry of a two-headed troll by George, his nagging calls demanding you to show yourselves gradually faded away.

Your knees almost buckled at the sudden halt, George held onto you to steady you.

"You okay?" he said through uneven breaths.

"Think so." you replied panting. "Are you?"

"Yeah." he said as his breathing began to even, nodding along with his words.

Looking up at him, you started to laugh and so did he. Your heart still raced as you stood still. He looked gorgeous. The freckles that scattered across his face seemed to glitter while his ginger hair fell perfectly around his sculpted face.

The crisp night air flowed into the space that you occupied and glided across your skin. The only light being from the faint luminescence of moonbeams.

The cool breeze made him shiver. George could still hear the thumping of his heartbeat in his ears. He wondered if you could hear it too, though he hoped you couldn't.

Adrenaline was still pumping through his body. He felt brave and was alone with you, so what a better time than now?

"Y/N," he paused. "I- I need to tell you something. But I don't want anything to change between us." a shy expression snuck its way into his smile. "Anything bad, at least."

Your eyes flickered over his face for a moment before you gave a small nod. "Okay..." you said uncertainly, suddenly becoming acutely aware of how close you were to each other.

George inhaled deeply before continuing. "I like you, a lot. More than you might expect." he paused again, examining your now flushed appearance. "And I have for a while." he said with an awkward laugh. "I turn myself inside out thinking about you. Sometimes I feel like I could burst because of how confused I make myself about it but, then you look at me and- I just, I just really like you, Y/N." he stopped himself from rambling on as he was afraid that he'd said too much. He didn't want to scare you off.

You had felt yourself freeze. You had an inkling that he liked you, but now he was actually telling you. It wasn't some delusion of grandeur that you had made up to keep yourself from feeling jealous or to make yourself feel better. No, he genuinely and whole heartedly likes you back. George Weasley, has feelings for you.

So many things that you'd been wanting to tell him raced to your mind. You didn't know where to start. This left you standing there staring at him with wide eyes and a slack jaw.

He felt his heart on the edge of dropping as you stood still without saying a word. He scanned your gaze to try and get an idea of how you were feeling, and just as he was about to apologise, the corners of your eyes crinkled and you laughed.

"You like me?" you questioned with a finger pointed at yourself.

He felt almost felt taken a back by this reaction but the corners of his mouth began to curve into a smile. "I really do." he said, noticing the way that your eyes sparkled.

Stepping forward, you started to close to small distance between your bodies. You felt breathless as the simple knowledge of being liked in return flooded your mind. "I like you too, George." you said in a giddy voice.

George let go of a breath that he didn't know that he was holding and broke out into a very pleased, and very wide smile. He reached for your hands and held them with care. His focus was fixed on you as a new type of warmth made its way to his smile.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked gently, a pink blush now settled on his cheeks.

"I would like that very much." you replied with a keen smile.

He leaned forward and looked at you for a moment to see if there was any hesitation before finally closing the gap. He pressed his soft lips against yours and moved them slowly.

You breathed in deeply, taking in his scent and letting it fill your nose alongside the autumn air. He let go of one of your hands and let his float upwards to cup you face. You moved your palm to rest on top on his knuckles in response.

You could feel him smile against you as the kiss deepened. He held you close as his mind emptied of everything else but you. No one else mattered right now.

The two of you pulled away in unison to catch your breaths. You looked at each other for a few moments before laughing like little kids. Exhilaration filled your bodies as you reveled in the moment.

"You have no idea how long I've been wanting to do that." he spoke breathlessly as he wore a proud grin.

"I think I've got somewhat of a clue." you said with a coy smile.

Laughing once more, George peered out from behind the tapestry and turned to you. "Do you reckon we should head back now?" he asked quietly.

"Maybe. Orrr, we could stay here?" you said with a small grin.

George beamed at this suggestion and turned away from the exit to face you with the goofiest grin that you had ever seen. "I think I like that plan."

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a/n: This is coming out later than I thought it would, but I was determined to finish it before the end of this month! I've edited this a little bit, but I'll go through and fix any other mistakes later. For someone who doesn't write often at all, this was a lot for me, so I need to rest my mind 🧘‍♀️

I hope that you all enjoyed! ♡

[startanewdream]

A while ago you wrote older jily telling Sirius about their 2nd and very unexpected pregnancy. As it was on fool day Sirius didn't believe them.

Could you write a sequel with Sirius understanding it's not a joke? (If you think that a caustic remus should be a witness of this all, i wouldn't mind😁😘)

For you, Zin , hope you enjoy this pure *chaos* down here❤️ (first part)

***

With a flick of his wand, James sends all the dishes to the sink. "I'll take care of them in the morning," he promises.

Lily nods lazily; she stands up, moving to the liquor cabinet. James beats her to it, waving her to sit again. She almost laughs; hopefully, in a few days, his overprotective care will subdue.

In front of her, Tonks—well, Lupin, technically, but Lily still sees her as Tonks—winks at her.

"This one was the same," she says, nudging her husband. "Usually made a mess because he didn't want me to do anything."

"You were nine-months long, it didn't seem natural that you could move at all."

"I couldn't be more clumsy than I usually am—I nearly broke your front vase, Lily, sorry."

James chuckles. "It was a gift from Sirius, we wouldn't mind."

The man in question lifts his eyebrows. "You said you had loved it."

"No, what I said is that I could see you loved going for shopping in IKEA."

"I'm man of good taste."

"I find that hard to believe—how is the refurbishment of Grimmauld's Place?"

"That place improved a lot since I took down my dear mother's portrait."

"You mean since we took it down—two hours worthy of charms and I didn't get offered any beverage—"

"Speaking of," Lily begins, deciding that interrupting them is the best course; it's late after all. "Weren't you going to offer our guests a last drink?"

James flushes. "I don't think Sirius can be considered a guest anymore. He's part of the furniture by now."

"The nicest furniture," Sirius agrees, unashamed, accepting the glass with liquor that James offers him. He tastes the drink, then looks at James finishes serving Remus and Tonks, before closing the liquor bottle. "You forgot yours."

"Oh, I'm not drinking. Solidarity and all." He winks at Lily, who blows him a kiss in answer.

"Not drinking? Lily needs her sleeping juice."

"I do not," Lily says dignifiedly. "And I should drink in my current state."

Sirius rolls his eyes. "Are you two still keeping that joke?"

"What joke?" Tonks asks, curious.

Lily sighs. "Dear Padfoot is under the impression I'm not really pregnant."

"You cannot be pregnant," declares Sirius, as if it's obvious. Tonks snorts.

"Well, for the things I've unfortunately witnessed between them, I'd say she can be pregnant, no question."

"Yeah." James holds the back of his neck, his cheeks red. "Sorry about that, we thought we had locked the door—"

Remus laughs heartily. "That's how you know you are part of the family," he assures Tonks. "It's a tradition to catch them...ah... making babies, I guess."

"To be fair, it only happened twice," Lily notes.

"People catching you two or the babies?"

Lily nods gravely. "If I had a child for every time someone caught us, we could have our own Quidditch team by now."

"Your own Potter's Playground," sniggers Sirius. Then he throws a reproachful glance at Remus and Tonks. "Since when are you two into this prank?"

Remus smiles innocently. "Since James promised me I would be godfather—mind you, I had to wait twenty years—"

"I am the godfather!"

"You can be Uncle Padfoot now," Remus suggests, the corners of his mouth twitching.

"No one ever called me uncle—James! I'm okay with your fake pregnancy, but fake uncle is too far."

"Sirius," Lily insists. "It's not fake. I'm three months pregnant now."

Sirius blinks; twice. "You cannot be," he says reasonably. "I would have noticed it."

"Is it?"

"I'm an Auror."

"A lousy one," Tonks teases. "Let's see—there's that glowing aura, James hasn't let her hold anything heavier than a fork, Lily didn't drink wine the whole dinner—"

"And," Remus adds, "there's the fact that she told us. To use your Auror terms, she confessed her crime."

"Repeatedly," James whispers; Sirius ignores him. He kneels suddenly as if the weight of his body is too much, and he stares at James and Lily with awe.

"Pregnant—you two are really...?" They nod. "There is another Potter coming?" Another nod. Sirius' eyes widen. "Good Godric, I can't believe, I... I am going to be a godfather again!"

"Er..."

"Not now," Lily whispers to her husband, patting Sirius' head; he is actually crying. "We have six months to get him used to the idea."

[vidavalor]

hi again! rewatched the 1st season now. so first off thanks again for the excuse i appreciate it lol. but secondly hoping you wouldn't mind explaining the satan's obssession with crowley thing? cos he's obvs creepy as all hell pun not intended in the 11 years ago scene but i haven't found the bit that confirms it's a fixation on crowley and not just satan being satan. tysm!

Hi! Thanks for the ask. I can try and we can see what you think after, yeah? :) Christmas cookie? *passes plate and pours some tea*

TWs: discussion of PTSD, sexual assault, including rape, intimate partner abuse, anxiety, depression. We're looking at Crowley as an assault survivor here so it's a bit dark. Lindsay's abuse of Nina is also mentioned here. This will wind up having a companion meta at some point soon as I was also asked in comments on another post to talk about Crowley and intimacy issues which is then really also talking about Aziraphale as a trauma-informed partner so a less intense Part 2 at some point soon...

If you're the anon who asked me this (or anybody else) and you can't read something with these warnings but you'd like to see what I'm saying, PM me or throw something in my Asks and I'll see if I can do a version of this that gets the points across while omitting the darker aspects.

Meta on Lucifer and Crowley under the cut.

The Ask here was about why I see Lucifer as fixating on Crowley, in particular, and not just being generally evil as, ya know, he's Satan. It's a fair question since Satan's evil isn't exactly something that anyone would consider restrained as he's the devil. Some of this is inference here when it comes to Lucifer, since the show intentionally holds the character back a bit... but I also think that holding Lucifer back is by design to help illustrate some things that we'll look at here.

The first clue to me that Lucifer has a bit of a fixation on Crowley comes from Crowley's gigs in Hell. Before the end of S1, Crowley was high-ranked in Hell. He seems to go by quite a few names in his demonic world. By making himself Nanny Astoreth when he's looking after Warlock, it alludes the idea that Crowley is also the demon of that name, who is considered part of the "evil trinity" of Hell, along with Lucifer and Beezlebub, with whom Crowley used to spend time with pre-Fall and with whom he has history.

Astoreth is a genderbent serpent goddess in lore with an abundance of other Crowley traits so safe to say that Crowley is meant to be Astoreth as well. Aziraphale proposed in 33 AD that Crowley is also Mephistopheles and Asmodeus, which Crowley didn't exactly deny. Mephistopheles is one of the most famous demons to ever exist-- he of the Faustian bargain-- and Asmodeus is the demonic prince of lust. Crowley's already been shown to be a Bible figure in disguise-- Bildad the Shuite being a Biblical character-- so the idea that we are at the 2/3rds mark of the show and we've met all the high-ranking demons in Hell but several famous ones appear to not exist in Good Omens, despite more minor ones (Shax, Furfur) making appearances, implies that we probably actually have met demons like Mephistopheles and Asmodeus because they're all really Crowley.

Crowley retained power in Hell because it allows him what little freedom he can have in damnation. It means he likely won't be removed from Earth if he proves he's "good" at being a demon and that means he won't get stuffed in some cluttered, dark, cubicle in Hell for millennia. (Or destroyed.) More importantly, it means he'll be able to be on Earth with Aziraphale. That's easily worth taking credit for a bunch of human wars to fool Hell into thinking he's evil.

While we see that Crowley, when forced to come up with a demonic plot of his own, picks more annoying things than evil things and sells them as evil-- the M-25 design, taking down mobile phone networks, he's sometimes forced into doing things he doesn't want to do in order to not be outed as a demon who isn't super jazzed about being a demon and is really, secretly, a free-flying crow. He doesn't live to serve their Master Satan like some of the other demons do. He's going along with Hell as best he can and sometimes, he finds himself in a situation where he has to get creative because he's been tasked with something he disagrees with-- like we saw in the Job minisode. Other times, he might be forced into something he can't find a way out of, which is implied a little to be at the root of his terrible mood when he and Aziraphale meet up in Ancient Rome. He's wearing military garb that implies the temptations he's saying he's in Rome to accomplish are tied to Caligula, who wasn't exactly a swell guy.

What's interesting, though, is that Crowley is in this position of power in the first place. Other demons are shown in both seasons so far to be jealous of Crowley. He gets all the good gigs. Satan makes a bet with God that has both Upstairs and Downstairs in a tizzy for weeks and who is sent to whack the kids? Crowley. Who was sent on the first ever really Earth mission-- to get up into the Garden of Eden and "make some trouble"? Crowley, long before he'd cemented his big reputation. Who gets to deliver the antichrist baby and so kick off Armageddon, the thing that angels and demons basically "live" for? Crowley...

Across both seasons so far, Hastur, Ligur and Furfur are all given scenes of showing that they're jealous of Crowley being a favorite of Satan's and given the best assignments while they slum it in middle-management at best. What Crowley never says or admits to with other demons is that they actually don't want to be the favorite of Lucifer over here because he's the actual fucking devil and it's an absolute horror show. Crowley isn't about to admit that to them because he's supposed to want nothing more than to be Satan's slave and to express anything else is not demonic.

The other demons who are antagonistic towards Crowley are invasive and creepy but they stop short long before what we've seen Lucifer do. Hastur and Ligur pop up unannounced in Crowley's electronics-- the tv in his flat, on the screen at the movies-- and that's already disturbing. Imagine having your evil coworkers able to interrupt your r&r tv time in your own apartment... let alone the fact that Shax and even Beezlebub both pop up into The Bentley unannounced in S2. There's no evidence so far that Satan is out here "delivering instructions" like this to others in Hell the way he does to Crowley in 1.01 (and there's actually a scene in S2 that we'll talk about that suggests that he's not or, at least, that it's uncommon, which we'll get to in a second.)

He might well be but when you combine assaulting Crowley with giving him all the prime gigs in Hell and the other demons' jealousy of their Master's attention towards Crowley, you wind up with the impression that Satan is a bit fixated on Crowley.

The Bentley scene with Lucifer in 1.01 is analogous to rape. Crowley's sense of personal autonomy is violated. He doesn't consent to Lucifer forcibly entering his body. Lucifer does so by first penetrating through Crowley's two foremost metaphorical defenses-- The Bentley (enters through the radio and uses it to invade Crowley) and his sunglasses, which cannot shield his eyes/himself from Lucifer. Crowley already has these signature defenses mechanisms on in the attack scene and the horror in the scene is actually watching neither of them protect him. The scene is so early in the show that it's only the second scene we've ever seen Crowley wearing his glasses (and it's pitch black dark out, to add to it) so the glasses are basically introduced to us by showing us a situation that motivates Crowley's desire to hide his eyes from people he doesn't trust, even if they aren't human and know what his eyes look like. This is Crowley's third scene in the series itself and it's really arguably the second half of his second scene (the Hastur & Ligur in the graveyard one.) It's part of our introduction to Crowley in the modern era, with only Eden preceding it. Armageddon is new but the rest of this hell-- faking being evil, suffering violating attacks-- is thousands of years old for him at this point.

Crowley is driving when this happens.

Driving is the ultimate symbol of self-control because you're literally behind the wheel, navigating yourself through the world, in control of where you are going and the decisions you need to make to get you there, trusting yourself to make decisions that protect others on the road around you. Lucifer rips that from him by rendering him unable to drive while "delivering instructions" to his mind. Crowley-- a very powerful, magical being-- is unable to fight him off. When Lucifer leaves his body, Crowley had to grab the wheel and steer The Bentley away from hitting an oncoming truck with about three seconds to spare from a head-on collision. Crowley, The Bentley and the antichrist baby all would have likely survived that crash without issue because of their magic-- but the human driving the truck likely would not have. Obviously, Crowley would prefer not to kill anybody but Satan nearly made him against his will and rendered him unable to fight him, the powerlessness of which is then interesting when tied into things like Crowley essentially drugging himself to save Elspeth, trusting the present Aziraphale to help protect him while he did, etc..

As the attack happens, parts of "Bohemian Rhapsody" are underscoring it, picking up on a musical cue from when Crowley rolled up in The Bentley to see Hastur and Ligur in the graveyard. The graveyard scene sees Crowley arrive at the big crescendo of the song and what is it but the lyrics Beezlebub, has the devil put aside for me? and, prior to that, the eerie lyrics, especially on rewatch when you know what happens as a result of this scene: we will not let you go (let him go) x a million, not to mention the no no no no no no... bit.

By the time we're back in The Bentley and Lucifer has shown up, parts of the song play through it. I see a little silhouetto of a man plays as Crowley is literally seeing the driver of the oncoming truck in front of him, just as he loses the ability to control The Bentley. When Lucifer leaves him and Crowley grabs the wheel, we hear thunderbolts and lightning/very, very frightening/me and the Galileo segment of the song. Thunderbolts and lightning is interesting since God makes it a point to point out that this night is not dark and stormy but then that type of weather is what Crowley does in S2 that causes the power to go out and his parallel, Nina, to be trapped. It's also what demons in general can do so you could say sending a storm-- like in the Job minisode-- to be demonic and of Satan. (If it's not Crowley doing it to play Cupid, anyway.) The thunderbolts and lightning of Satan/Hell is very, very frightening to Crowley...

...Me/Galileo/Galileo/Galileo/Figaro... Galileo is arguably the most famous astronomer to ever live. He was a polymath, really, like Crowley was. Crowley, as an angel, made the stars and invented gravity. The scene with Hastur and Ligur that precedes this and ties into it has Hastur mistranslate the Italian Crowley spoke during it. Crowley said "ciao", meaning "goodbye", which Hastur correctly said was Italian but he claimed it meant "food" (mistaking it for "chow" because he's an idiot.) So a scene that ends with Crowley speaking Italian then connects directly into the scene of this attack, where Italian is spoken in the song scoring it, as Galileo was Italian and figaro in Italian is "fig tree".

While Eve does eat an apple in Good Omens, the Biblical 'fruits of knowledge' that tie to the Serpent tempting Eve in Eden are interpreted in different ways throughout different religions and at different periods in history. In Good Omens, Crowley got Eve to eat an apple and the pleasure of food opened a door to sexual pleasure. Eve shared the apple with Adam and they were *Aziraphale's hilariously judgemental voice* "expecting already" with Eve about 8 months pregnant later a day later because Eve's biology is atypical of other humans and all that. It's debated as an apple, with other different fruits and sometimes even wheat mentioned as possible things Eve ate-- if she ate food at all, as some people take the entire thing as a sexual metaphor. Figs are one fruit that some people believe it was instead of an apple, so this is a reference to Crowley as the Serpent of Eden.

Me/Galileo/Galileo/Galileo/Figaro... Crowley holding onto himself while under attack and just after it, which speaks to activation of a plan, which speaks to this not being the first time he's endured something like this. Galileo and Figaro = The Starmaker and the Serpent of Eden. The things he's done that he is proud of, that make him not evil, in his mind, and not deserving of this. Things he likes about himself. Things Aziraphale loves about him.

The song is narrating for us Crowley through the attack as he's basically frozen there enduring it, seeing the driver of the truck coming at him and Scaramouche/Scaramouche/Will you do The Fandango?

A scaramouche is a kind of mischievous scamp-- so, Crowley; The Fandango is a Spanish couple dance. Historically, one version of it is done between a pair of men who try to outdo one another with skill, in a kind of homoerotic competition. It's also slang for fucking during a concert and I have the feeling that Crowley would probably enjoying doing that Fandango a lot more as that would be consenting with a partner of his choice at a live concert rather than being mind-raped to Queen by the devil in his car. Regardless, it's another allusion to sex in the scene, adding to the rape overtones.

There's also something that is pretty horrifying about the fact that these scenes of Crowley and Aziraphale being separately reintroduced to us in 2008 after we first met them both together in Eden are intercut so that Lucifer's attack on Crowley scored by "Bohemian Rhapsody" ends with the Italian sung and cuts directly into Aziraphale speaking Japanese to the chef at the sushi restaurant.

He'll try to explain to Gabriel that eating sushi is "what humans do", which is the same phrase he'll use to try to explain to Michael and Uriel in S2 what falling in love is. During the bookshop attack, Shax will bully Aziraphale about his humanity-- about the same two things (food and love) in the two previous, connected scenes. (Gabriel, initially the one repulsed by tea in 1.01, leaves the scene after Aziraphale tells him to hide by asking if anyone wants a hot chocolate, in a pretty hilarious turnabout.) Shax calls back to the food-related and the love-related "it's what humans do" moments for Aziraphale by asking if she should "send up the sushi" and by mocking his relationship with Crowley ("What are you? Crowley's emotional support angel?"). Crowley and Aziraphale are the ones in love and it's tied together throughout multiple scenes in both seasons to sushi, in reference to the night Armageddon began in 2008.

The point then is that, making this all even worse, Crowley is actually supposed to be at a back corner table in a dark sushi restaurant sneaking a date with Aziraphale when he's attacked by Lucifer in The Bentley-- and then forced into helping start Armageddon, which could bring about the end of his and Aziraphale's relationship... and that's our grim introduction to his world in the modern part of the story.

As we go learn what Aziraphale is like in the modern era and contrast him with his head office's mentality via Gabriel's arrival, we also are given clues in the scene that suggest that Aziraphale was actually expecting Crowley, as he looks to the side Crowley comes up on when he hears the miracle sound that actually signals Gabriel's arrival instead. Aziraphale will then explain that he's there, doing "what humans do" and enjoying it, to Gabriel, and it will be only eating sushi in this moment, just as Crowley will not be present when Aziraphale explains that falling in love is "what humans do" while objectively talking about Maggie & Nina but, ultimately, talking about himself and Crowley beneath it-- his real motivation for keeping Heaven off their backs is Crowley. The writers then have Shax combine the two "it's what humans do" scenes around love and sushi and throw them back at Aziraphale while Crowley is once again not with him because of Heaven/Hell but is present in his absence in the moment.

All of this happens in the first scenes of Crowley in the modern era, all the way back in the first episode, and it's done to give us an understanding that he is a survivor of attacks like this and how that impacts his behavior, his choices, his relationship with Aziraphale. It's to give us a finer appreciation for his strength and his humor and his capacity to love in the face of it. It's to show that while some of the demons are just kind of amusing idiots, if dangerous, and that there's a lot of humor to mine there, some aspects of being a demon are not at all amusing. Crowley is really just doing the best he can to survive the absolute horror show that is an eternity of damnation as Satan's favorite over here because there are very dark, very violent aspects of it that he cannot permanently avoid.

While the attack we are shown is a mercifully short, if horrifying, scene, the implications of it are even worse. The assault we are shown had a plot purpose in that moment-- Satan giving instructions on delivering the antichrist baby to the satanic nunnery-- and since everything was in motion, that was the extent of it. Armageddon took precedence. What we are left with, though, is the impression that this type of demonic assault with its massive rape overtones is something that Crowley's experienced before and that the implication is that Lucifer attacking him is not always just to deliver a message related to an assignment but to deliver one of forcible control over him and that this is something that Crowley has been dealing with periodically for the 6,000 years he's been on Earth. It's akin to a kind of rape in 1.01 and that is already way more than enough to see how that would affect Crowley in the story... but then S2 takes this scene and both alludes to it in a key moment and gives it a whole paralleling subplot, highlighting its importance and continuing to expand upon the meaning of it. Both things together then suggest that while we saw a rape-coded assault in 1.01, the feeling that the scene was alluding to other instances where it was rape itself was definitely the implication of it.

In S2, in the group scene at the end, Crowley is out of the bookshop taking Maggie and Nina away from the angels for their safety when the subject of Satan comes up for the only direct time that season. Shax demands that Gabriel and Beezlebub be taken to Hell to be given "as gifts for Satan, our Master" and Head of the Dark Council Dagon replies that "he wouldn't want them-- maybe as hors d'ouerves." On the show obsessed with food symbolism and that codes different types of food with relation to sex-- in particular, because of Serpent of Eden Crowley-- and with the brothel owner named "Mrs. Sandwich", to say someone would want a being as a "hors d'ouerves" implies sex and if we're talking about Lucifer, then we've already established that consent isn't exactly a priority. Rape isn't about sex-- it's about power-- but the show is coding Lucifer's behavior in line with its coding of sex to highlight that his violation of Crowley isn't just of the heavily rape-coded variety that we saw in 1.01 but has actually, at other times, been rape.

Dagon's most significant line in S2 is essentially to point out that Satan's a rapist-- but it's also to point out that not everyone in Hell has been through that horror. Satan's choosy. Satan's a bit fixated. Dagon's comment is actually surprising. Your first thought when Shax suggests giving Gabriel and Beez to Lucifer is that he's the devil so they'd be in danger and what you've seen of what he's done to Crowley was skin-crawling and you don't want that to happen to Gabriel and Beezlebub. You assume that it might because we're talking about Satan but then Dagon puts a check on that and says-- to not a single bit of even implied disagreement in the room-- that Satan wouldn't really care that much about getting Gabriel and Beez.

Think about how truly kind of crazy that is.

Satan would not be that interested in being handed over his old friend and the Grand Duke of Hell who betrayed him and the Supreme Archangel of Heaven? He'd maybe rape 'em, sure, possibly, casually posits Dagon, but they aren't what he's really after. They'd just be hors d'ouerves.

Not a single being in the room even so much as signals disagreement with that assessment that the not terribly subtle Dagon chose to voice aloud, which means they all agree with her. They all know who Lucifer's fixated on.

*Gabriel* and *Beezlebub* would only be fucking *appetizers* to Satan.

That implies the existence of *a main course*, does it not?

Who else but Crowley (and Aziraphale) could be on that menu? No one.

We also have that Crowley is conveniently out of the bookshop for the moment that Shax and Dagon have this exchange about Lucifer. He comes back in on Dagon saying "hors d'ouerves" but was outside when Shax was referencing Satan so he didn't hear any of it. This seems very deliberate on the part of the writers, as if Crowley had been in the room, it would have prompted some kind of response and changed what happened in the scene afterwards. Instead, the only reference to Lucifer is specifically when Crowley isn't in the room, probably because this conflict is on-going and going to continue into S3.

Prior to Dagon's line, the show also paralleled Lucifer assaulting Crowley in The Bentley in 1.01 with Lindsay abusing Nina, which adds another layer into this. You could even make an argument that one of the reasons why we never see Lindsay and we just see their abuse of Nina via the text messages they send Nina is to draw an intentional parallel to how little we've seen to date of Lucifer/Satan in the series.

It directly ties to the 1.01 scene in The Bentley because, prior to Lucifer coming through the radio and assaulting Crowley, Crowley was trying to call Aziraphale (the Maggie to his Nina in this parallel, though obviously much further along in that relationship) to tell him about Armageddon but he'd taken out the mobile phone networks earlier in the night to have something demonic to share with Hastur and Ligur. This parallels Crowley knocking out the power in S2 accidentally and Nina getting locked in the coffee shop with Maggie. Lucifer and Lindsay both attack through electronic communication devices-- The Bentley's radio and Nina's phone-- and unleash a torrent of abuse. The difference is that Nina might be more easily able to escape Lindsay and live a more peaceful life after S2 while Crowley has yet to be truly able to evade Lucifer.

While Lindsay's abuse of Nina is at least psychological and emotional in what we are shown and Lucifer's abuse of Crowley is that with physical and sexual aspects that may or may not be present in Nina's relationship with Lindsay, the type of abuse doesn't matter to the parallel as it's all terrible and that's the point. Lucifer's abuse of Crowley is paralleled with the intimate partner abuse Nina is suffering in her relationship. This is objectively pretty interesting since it sort of suggests that Lucifer is Crowley's Lindsay, in the sense that they might have once been involved pre-Fall, which might add another element to why Lucifer is fixated on Crowley.

So, while Crowley can encourage his parallel Nina all he wants to take a risk and trust more and to trust him when he promises that it will be worth it, Crowley himself can't really extract himself from his own Lindsay-ish situation yet. He does know how to survive it, though, and it's not all about the defenses he and Nina put up-- it's about learning to shed some of those defenses enough to have a sense of intimacy with a kind person you can trust to love you and help you feel safe.

[otomiyaa]

PSA: Back up your blog, check your tumblr e-mail for copyright strikes

Hi everyone, after suddenly losing my account with main blog + sideblogs last week, I would like to share the following warning with y'all. Not to scare you even though it is shitty, but to raise awareness. If this somehow results in me getting kicked off the platform again, so be it lol.

If you post anything fandom* related on your tumblr blog**, whether that's gifs, screenshots, videos, cosplay pics or even fics (?), you may risk getting a copyright strike (up to 3 in 18 months) or even immediate account termination. The chance is still rather small, but just know that it can happen.

*I say fandom in the broad term, so blogs that post about movies and series, anime/manga, games, celebrities, models, sports/olympics, etc. and it goes for gif and fic creators too. Not just accounts that post music or videos for example.

**I say tumblr blog, but this goes for all of the internet ofc. People have been getting this problem on any platform, from insta to etsy, youtube and twitter.

Disclaimer: I am no legal expert, just an unlucky blogger who lost her silly multifandom fic blog after 7+ years.

This will be a bit long and detailed so I proceed under the cut!

What can you do?

...To make sure you don't suddenly lose days, months, and years of content:

CHECK THE EMAIL LINKED TO YOUR TUMBLR. I know a lot of people don't do it, myself included. Tumblr does send warnings (though not always). It wouldn't have changed anything for me because I wouldn't want to appeal - since I don't want to go into this "fair use" discussion for just a fic & editing blog. I personally don't know the chances of retrieving your blog if you protest against the claims, so can't say much about that.

Back up your Tumblr blog if you can. Also save your Tumblr chats with people dear to you if you can. Account termination seems to work differently than deactivation. I was still able to see chats with people who deactivated long ago. But my blog that got terminated has vanished from everyone's DMs and ask boxes à la Thanos snap. I mourn my years of Tumblr chat with my best friend. It was not as if we even considered exporting/copying it just for the memories of the start of our friendship. But now that it's entirely gone, hehe, well. It is sad.

Save URLs and masterposts outside Tumblr. After losing your account, for I thiiink about 24-48hrs (I didn't clock, but it was temporary) you will be able to access it at least temporarily through cachedpages, if you have the URL. It doesn't seem to work for everything, but most of my Tumblr posts I could still see shortly through this site, even after I got wiped off the platform. I did this by googling my tumblr username + certain keywords, and the posts would pop up and give me the URL.

...To prevent getting copyright strikes and losing your account?

Probably nothing - but like I said, I'm not the expert, just the fool who lost her account. The termination e-mail will give you a numbered URL so it's not easy to see which post resulted in the account loss, but for me the keywords were:

-

-

Despite the 7+ years of posts, many followers and a lot of memories, I did not gain anything else from this blog and didn't think it was worth the (legal-) risks and effort to try and get it back. It would require filing an objection against the copyright claims with personal info from home address to name, and consenting to USA legal law stuff.

Even if I don't know the exact details, I'm sure they're not wrong, because whether it's fair or not, most fandom stuff has copyright issues in the end, so I can't protest against the claims with 100% certainty it won't get me in real trouble. Besides, I read about similar cases, lost cases, and admitted defeat right away.

They work with manual reports and most dangerously, bots, who seem to be randomly picking unlucky people to take down their posts and possibly the entire account.

So besides putting an entire halt to fic writing, gif making, video editing and other fandom indulgement, or the inconvenient act of censoring every single word and image, I don't think there is a way to entirely prevent getting targeted.

The one that treated me to the strikes leading to account termination was a certain Mr. Green who seems to have targeted mostly people on Etsy. But apparently now also on Tumblr. More about this I can share here for further information. I also share some other links that can inform you about how far the copyright problem can go. Again, no reason to panic. It's rare and I was unlucky. But it happens.

About Mr. Green, using bots all over the internet to take down fandom related material:

Tumblr post about his attack on fandom.

Long detailed doc from an Etsy user.

Insta post about also loss of Etsy account.

Also Etsy related, but same Mr. Green and his bots taking down something only because it used the NAME of an anime character.

Tweet about him and his company not being officially contracted but getting compensated.

About copyright claims on Tumblr - they are still rare, no panic, I just call it russian roulette and these are all unlucky people like me :')

Post by user @/marilynjeansiims about claims against users who post about Sims, including a petition against it.

Post by user @/happyheidi about Moomin posts facing issues.

Post by user @/hanyusan about olympic related claims.

Example by user @/koov about what a vague copyright warning looks like.

Good news, post by user @/yunghos about getting their account back after filing a counter notice. It seems to be possible.

Post by user @/iamkatehardy about getting a strike for using a gif.

Post by user @/stxrshxpxd about getting their acc terminated for no 100% clear reasons.

Post by user @/tekweela about getting terminated mercilessly because of a reblog.

Post by user @/fromanotherroom-revived about losing their account with similar advice as I write here.

Post by user @/ladyphasma about gifs and US law

Knowing this won't bring lost accounts back, or change the law, I do hope at least you can be better prepared just in case it happens... Better prepared than I was at least.

[rems-writing]

Ateez as cards

I was bored one day and then my brain cooperated with me and said, "Hey here's this idea. Write it out asap before you forget it." So now here I am lol

@blossomnet

@mirohs-aurora-society

Thank you to @owlbeforesunset for helping and discussing with me on this. I had a lot of fun writing this out. Btw, if things go well, I might make separate oneshots of these

Clubs - Yunho and San

The club, or clover, is the symbol of luck.

If you're a hotteok, then you obviously know exactly why I placed Yunho in this suit. For those of you that don't know. Allow me to explain. Yunho is considered to be the luckiest member of the group. Of course he works hard for what he earns, yet it can't be helped. Whenever he competes in a game with the other members, he always wins by a longshot. Whether he tries or not, he always comes out as the victor.

I was originally going to put San in the hearts category since he has a huge heart and cares for his members, but I didn't want to leave Yunho by himself so to keep things chronologically fair, I paired San with clubs as well. I guess you can say he got extremely lucky when he was able to debut in Ateez despite having no singing or dancing skills to begin with. And in order to show that gratitude to this luck he was granted, he worked hard every day to make sure he stays on top of his game. For this, I admire him.

Diamonds - Seonghwa and Yeosang

The diamond is the symbol of wealth.

And when you see Seonghwa being a whole rich ass mother, you'd immediately think, "Oh yeah. I can see him decked out in a whole bunch of diamonds." I honestly wouldn't be surprised if on his next live, he shows off something that is chrome silver with a bit of diamonds encrusted somewhere.

The diamond is also the symbol of royalty. When you think of royalty, you think of kings and queens being decked out in a shit ton of diamonds or princes and princesses coming out with diamonds by their side or decked out all over their royal clothing. Yeosang fits that perfectly. He looks like a damn prince after all!

Hearts - Mingi and Wooyoung

The heart is the symbol of love and general human emotions. I immediately thought of these two when I was discussing this with a fellow moot of mine.

Mingi wears his heart on his sleeve and he values friendship a lot with his member. He's also not afraid to express his emotions through his songs.

Wooyoung is different. He basically shows his love to his members 24/7. A lot of them act like they hate it, including Yeosang, but I know deep down that Wooyoung is someone who is irreplaceable. Wooyoung is someone who will also call you out on your bullshit if you try to take them down and make yourself seem better than them. Wooyoung is a kind and caring guy, but if you get on his bad side, you might as well bury yourself into your own grave. Don't test his loyalty.

Spades- Hongjoong and Jongho

The spade is a unique suit. It is the symbol of power and death. But we'll focus on the power aspect of the spade. The spade happens to be my favorite card suite as well. When I was thinking of who to fit for spades, Hongjoong and Jongho were the first to come to mind.

As you know, Hongjoong is the captain of the group. He basically has power radiating off him. Even though he's the kind and caring father of Ateez, don't let this cute twink fool you. He has singlehandedly, alongside his fellow producers like Eden and Maddox, produced every one of Ateez's songs. He has worked day and night to make sure Ateez's name is known to the world. Nothing can stop him and Ateez from world domination.

If you're a ribo, then you know exactly why I placed Jongho in the spades category. From his crazy ass vocals to showcasing his strength through breaking apples, beating the members in arm wrestling, and having a hand strength of 49.1 kg, this baby bear is not to be underestimated. As an additional note, in that one Vanity Fair video, he said to his members that as he speaks, power exuded from him and I honestly find that sexy.

[put-me-out-of-my-destiny]

I'm not really dying for new DMC content at all tbh.

But, I think that if we got a new game focusing on Dante and Vergil's time in the Underworld, the ideal antagonist would be Machiavelli.

While he is said to have died, he's named after a political philosopher whose very name became synonymous with scheming and treachery. I wouldn't put it past him to fake his death.

He's said to be the creator of the first Devil Arm, and Devil Arms are a huge piece of DMC lore, as well as a major distinguishing feature of the twins' skillsets.

He is also the creator of Nelo Angelo's armor (and by extension, the Proto and Scudo Angelos), so he and Vergil have history.

Judging by his name once again, he's all about schemes and plots, while Vergil only resorted to that when he was V. Plus, he's all about guns, while Vergil refuses to use guns. They could make good foils to one another.

Dante's not likely to be fond of the guy either. His weapons are fun to use, but they've caused a lot of destruction, and even cost Enzo Ferino his hand.

I could totally see this guy approaching Dante and Vergil, and offering to help them return home. Neither of them really trust him, but Dante is willing to consider it because:

He's a little desperate to get home. He's had some fun dicking around with Vergil in the Underworld, but he doesn't want to spend his whole life here. He misses the human world, his friends, his pizza, the constant fighting is getting old.

He's not about to let Vergil hide from his own responsibilities either. He did sort of promise that he would return if only to fight Nero again. Plus, Dante's not about to leave Vergil here either, there's a reason he chose to go with him in the first place.

He doesn't regard Machiavelli as a threat. He's defeated far stronger demons by himself, and now he has his brother on his side, they're practically unstoppable together.

Though even if Dante did accept Machiavelli's offer, there's the concern of convincing Vergil. Perhaps he could be guilt-tripped into helping Dante go home, and he'd agree that Machiavelli isn't a physical threat, but we're still talking about the demon who stole nearly a decade of Vergil's life.

So if the game isn't about Dante and Vergil acquiring the materials that Machiavelli needs to get them back to the human world, it's about Dante doing so by himself, while Vergil does everything he can to stop him.

Whether it's both twins, or just Dante, the ordeal obviously ends with some sort of betrayal. Perhaps Machiavelli puts Dante into an Angelo, and the second half of the game is about Vergil saving his fool of a brother.

...This whole plot is weirdly poetic. The twins' first serious conflict was Dante trying to stop Vergil from opening a portal to the Underworld. There was even a guy who Vergil was willing to work with, because he didn't regard him as a threat, only for it to turn out that he'd been playing 5-D chess with the protagonists the whole time. Though to be fair, Dante's goal is a lot more reasonable than Vergil's was, and his belief that he's one step ahead of Machiavelli is more likely to be true.

[pure-garbage]

The Perplexing Heart Of The Matter Past

"You've been thinking for a long time now."

Zoro opened a single eye, following Lana's every move as she settled down on the deck beside him.

"I was napping. Why'd you wake me up?" he grumbled.

"Don't lie, you can't fool me. You woke up over an hour ago. You've just been laying here."

"I could have been trying to meditate for all you know."

"If you were, you would have had your swords in your lap," she observed. "You're just being lazy."

'She knows me too well,' Zoro noted. The thought should have perturbed him, but strangely, against his killer instincts, Zoro realized it was satisfying instead.

"Hmph. Nothing wrong with a little laziness after a good workout," he griped half-heartedly.

"Want me to scram?"

"No point. My peace is already disturbed. May as well tell me what you want."

"Who says I want anything?"

"You always want something."

"Heh. Can't deny that, I guess," Lana admitted. "And... there is something I'm curious about."

"Yeah?"

"That marine woman yesterday..." Lana didn't miss the way Zoro tensed up at the mention of Tashigi. "Why wouldn't you face her? Who is she to you?"

"Her? No one, really," Zoro sighed. "I've run into her a few times. She's on a personal mission to reclaim all the legendary swords held by pirates and outlaws."

"Hm. Okay, I get it now. That's why she was only interested in targeting you, not Luffy or the rest of the crew. But then... why did you refuse to fight her? I thought your swordsman code or whatever demands you accept any challenger carrying a blade?"

"There's no code, I just enjoy fighting," Zoro corrected her. "And since I aim to be the best at what I do, it would be unbecoming to turn away challengers. But... that woman is the exception."

"But why?"

Zoro grunted softly, carefully considering his next words. Kuina, his past, his conviction... these weren't things he spoke of lightly, and yet...

Lana's perplexed, hopeful gaze filled him with a strange sensation, countering his usual solitary tendencies. He was surprised to realize that he wanted her to know.

While Zoro grappled with his own mixed emotions, the silence stretched on for so long that Lana gave up on getting an answer.

"It's fine," she sighed. "I'm.. sorry I pried. It's not my business."

"Tashigi... she reminds me of someone I used to know. Someone who was... she was..."

Zoro couldn't settle on any words that did Kuina justice. Lana understood anyway.

"She must have been important to you."

Zoro sighed lightly in accord, a rare, sweet smile tugging at the corners of his lips at the perfect summary.

"Yeah. She was."

"Will you... tell me about her?"

No one had ever asked him that before.

"Yeah, I... I think I'd like that," he realized. "But only on one condition."

"Condition?"

Zoro stretched and sat up, matching Lana's cross-legged pose.

"I want you to tell me about where you're from too."

"What, like the town I'm from?"

"I'm interested in knowing why you left."

"Well, I was kidnapped by pirates because I was really good at picking locks," Lana explained.

"Sure. And I could say Kuina was just a girl from my dojo I always sparred with," Zoro illustrated with a roll of his eyes.

"I know, I get what you mean," Lana grumbled, rubbing the back of her neck as she considered the trade at hand. The issue was more complex than the devils that lived in their details. The heart of the matter past would lay bare their motives, the intentions driving them. "I've just... never really told anyone about that part of my life before."

"Good. It'll be a fair trade then."

Lana considered the offer for a moment. If she agreed, the exchange would be highly personal, but if Zoro was ready for it...

"Fine, it's a deal," Lana agreed.

Her fingers played idly over the sash adorning her wrist, tracing the gilding that wove through the braided silk. It was a habit Zoro had noticed before.

"You always go to that sash when you're uneasy," he noted. "It's important?"

"Very important," Lana agreed, bringing her wrist up to her chest reflexively. She realized a second too late that the defensive gesture was hardly conducive to the spirit of sharing. With a sigh of self-beration, she extended her arm instead, letting Zoro see the talisman. "It was a gift from my parents. A long time ago, when our family was still..."

Zoro leaned forward, resting his elbows on the deck while he waited.

"... It was the last gift I got from my father," she managed. "Before he died. Everything changed after his accident. Mama got so paranoid, she never let us leave the house willingly after that. Me and my brother, that is. I guess he'd be about Chopper's age by now. Huh. It's weird to think about. It's ben so long since I last saw him."

"Why haven't you gone back home?" Zoro probed, confusion tinting the words.

"I didn't leave on the best of terms. I was actually in the process of running away when Corrin took me... I was angry, and I... I don't regret leaving home, but I wish I would have done it... better."

"Don't tell me you're scared."

"A little, actually," Lana admitted. "My Mama wanted to keep us safe after we lost my father, but she took it way too far. I taught myself pick locks so I could get out of that house, kept getting better at it because she wouldn't stop buying better ones. I know she was just afraid of losing us the way she lost Papa, but I hated her for it and I let her know that when I was leaving. I'm not sorry. If I ever go back, it won't be to apologize. I've spent my whole life running from one jailer to the next and there's no way I'll ever aplogize for chasing freedom."

Lana caught herself, realizing she'd gotten carried away with her brief story. Zoro's gaze was still fixed to her, burning up at her and mooring her to the moment. She cleared her throat, remembering that she'd originally approached him with questions.

"Anyway, my sash is my good luck charm. It's the most precious thing I have... my treasure, I guess you could say. It makes me feel like my Papa's still with me, watching over me."

Lana studied Zoro's expression, gut churning nervously as he remained typically stoic.

"I guess that's gotta sound pretty silly to a guy who doesn't put stock in sappy crap like that," she sighed, wondering if she'd made a mistake. Would her superstitious idiosyncrasies chip at the respect that had been slowly building between them?

"Tokens can be powerful things," he said instead, surprising her. He straightened and reached around to pull his white sword into his lap, presenting it for her consideration just as she'd done with her sash. "Even if it seems silly to people who don't know any better... they can serve as reminders."

"Your third sword."

"It belonged to Kuina. It reminds me of the promise we made together, that someday one of us would become the greatest swordsman this world has ever known. She had an accident, too, like your father. I was always driven to be the best, but she was always a step ahead of me. No matter how hard I trained or how many new techniques I mastered, our duels always ended the same way. I never defeated her."

"So... that's why Tashigi reminds you of her? You can't beat her either?"

"Tsh! Not by a long shot! Tashigi can't hold a candle to me, let alone... no, it's not that. She actually looks exactly like Kuina. The first time I met her, I felt like I was seeing a ghost. I could take her in a fight, I have before, but..."

Once again, Zoro found himself struggling to distill his emotions into words. Once again, Lana understood well enough without him having to finish.

"Beating her feels wrong because you could never beat Kuina," Lana sighed. "It must feel like a slight to her memory, besting a doppleganger who can't match her skill."

Zoro accepted her articulation with a long, grateful sigh. Lana was perceptive and intuitive. Her way of getting inside his head could feel intrusive at times, but in this instance, at least, he was glad for it.

"Sometimes," he admitted, "... I wonder if I would ever have been able to win against her. If she was still here, I want to believe I would have surpassed her by now. But she's not here. So I have to be the best in the world. I'll take the title of the world's greatest and I'll hold it for both of us. And Kuina will always be the only opponent I was never able to defeat."

Lana and Zoro let silence have them, settling comfortably side by side into its embrace as they both considered the pasts that had been brought to light. They watched the stars that peppered the night sky of the grand line, each lost in their own contemplation of what might come next.

________________________________________

<== Previous Chapter

Next Chapter ==>

== First Chapter ==

[sweetestpopcorn]

Hi, hope you're well.

I've started re-reading your fic from the beginning and I love the scene with Rhaenyra and Mysaria.

Do you think anything would be different between Daemon and Rhaenyra had his child (son? Idk if them having a son is canon or not) with Mysaria lived? Rhaenyra is clearly rather possessive, and while in canon she seems to be a good stepmother to Baela and Rhaena, idk how much she'd like Daemon having a little person who is a permanent attachment to Mysaria around.

Thanks!

Hi there ❤️

Thank you for the wishes, I hope you are well too.

Let me begin with a HUGE apology for having taken so f_cking long to answer, but I really was a bit overwhelmed and struggling with updates so I had to take a step back and prioritise the writing over the asks... but I'm back 😊

Then, I hope you are enjoying the fic ❤️ and thank you for the beyond kind words.

Now unto the ask itself, so it is canon yes that Daemon impregnated Mysaria during the time they spent in Dragonstone (when Rhaenyra was a child of 8 years, all important details), and that he gave her a dragon egg. When Viserys found out he commanded Daemon to return to his wife in the Vale under penalty of being considered a traitor - which he did - and he also commanded Mysaria to return to Lys and leave the egg behind- which she also did. All of these things are canon. The parts I have added - and that we have no information about - is how far along Mysaria was, if the baby was a boy or a girl, and what they planned on naming the child. But the child indeed existed and died during a storm in the sea, when Mysaria was sailing to Lys - also canon.

How that could have changed my story (and even canon)... hum... I think at around 111 AC and 112 AC it would have made little difference. Daemon was 30/31, and a married man at that. Rhaenyra knew that he had had women (since he had no issues consummating things), and it was not at all that unusual for men to have bastards in asoiaf. Just like she overlooked his wife and just figured he could set that marriage aside, I think it's fair to say she would overlooked his potential bastard child as well, just as long that as Rhea Royce, it was kept away from her. Which without a doubt Daemon would have done. He was no fool, and if you haven't read the books - I highly recommend them, if you don't wan't the whole story you can just go to "The Rogue Prince" and "The Princess and the Queen" novellas - you wouldn't know, but his seduction of Rhaenyra was flawless I would say - minus the getting caught part. He spent his entire days with her, gave her countless gifts and praises, made her laugh, read poetry to her... you know, the kind of things almost every women on the asoiaf universe - very much including canon Rhaenyra - would swoon over -> and no these weren't rumours they were facts.

I don't think someone as skilled as Daemon would dare to bring up any subject to Rhaenyra's attention that could displease her or make him fall from her grace. It's clear in the books he came back to King's Landing on a mission - get the girl or get exiled trying.

Later on, and I'll just focus on my AU's case to keep this briefer and less complicated, she would definitely be highly displeased if she felt like actually his bastard child was a big part of his life, and most of all, if that was taking away from any time he spent on her and their actual children.

I agree with you that in canon Baela and Rhaena were a particular case. For once, we know that Rhaenyra and Laena were friends and Laena was also dead, so she posed no threat to Rhaenyra. Then, the two were girls, while her children with Daemon were the sons he waited so long for, doesn't take a genius to figure which of them Daemon would have been closer to and would have preferred. And then, if we have a positive view of Rhaenyra, we could even say that she didn't want to be to Baela and Rhaena what Alicent had been to her - and I subscribe to this view but I'm biased.

We do see Rhaenyra having no such friendly thoughts at the mere mention of Daemon having a son with Nettles, and honestly, who could blame her? Not anyone with half a working brain I would say.

Going back to how she would feel about a child between Daemon and Mysaria, I would say maybe something in between. She would make no attempt to have any such relationship with him, but I also don't think she would be irrational enough to expect Daemon to pretend like this child, who he clearly cared about didn't exist, so likely, as long as it wasn't brought up and she knew as little as possible, she might tolerate it. But I think that's as good as it would ever get. Definitely, however, I think Alicent would stay on the back - or on the front - of her mind in not wanting to turn into some Karen making her stepchild's life into hell, though neither would she want to be like she was to Baela and Rhaena in canon - not that we know many details, but Baela's loyalty to Rhaenyra's cause speaks volumes, as does Rhaena's stay in the Vale.

Nonetheless, no doubt that this would add to her dislike of Mysaria, and going back on my take of only speaking about my AU, I doubt Rhaenyra would have been ok with Daemon taking to Mysaria's bed again. Like I have previously argued, I believe she did because Mysaria at the time was no threat. Pretty much - and apologies for the very direct language - she was a h0le for Daemon to use since Rhaenyra was not in the mood and that was it. But being mother to his first child... ouch... yeah I don't see that flying with Rhaenyra, not even DanceRhaenyra because as we saw with Nettles, a threat of actually losing Daemon was enough to turn Rhaenyra from - obsessed with the war - to - obsessed with cutting a b:tch.

And people say that Rhaenyra didn't love Daemon and that they had a political marriage.

Anyway, I hope I answered your ask and sorry again I took so long ❤️ all the best to you!

[lumberwoof]

the final duel between Guel and Suletta and why I really love it actually

it's a final test of Suletta's resolve - it's "you understand what the game is now, are you still willing to throw yourself back into it?" and "this is your last chance to free yourself of all of this, you can turn back now"

it represents a true crossing of the Rubicon - Suletta isn't an oblivious player in someone else's game anymore, she's fully aware of what's happening in the world around her, and she's choosing to participate

it's also Guel selfishly still trying to shield Suletta

I think it's important to remember that Guel and Miorine both consider Suletta as their precious person. it's why they came up with the plan they did, why they entered their sham of an engagement to protect Suletta. so Guel is making a last ditch attempt to protect Suletta (by forcing her to give up on Miorine if she loses the duel, the way they forced her to give up Aerial), but Suletta is single-mindedly determined and defeats him easily

(Guel is someone who always rushes forward, who was inspired by Suletta's "move forward, gain two" adage, and in this duel, just like the others, he surges forward and his haste to move forward, to press, is what causes him to lose (but he doesn't run away, he moves forward even if he gains nothing, which is the true lesson here))

"What a fool I am" he says, for thinking that he could stop Suletta, for that tiny bit of pride that still seeped through and told him that, in a fair fight, he might actually stand a chance (the double meaning of standing a chance, too, not just as a victor of the duel, but in romance as well)

and the symbolism of Suletta at Miorine's door in her Holder uniform. it doesn't matter anymore, Miorine's birthday has already come to pass, the game is technically over, but that's the point, isn't it? the game is over and Suletta still chooses to be Miorine's groom.

without words Suletta says, pick me, choose me, rely on me, I want to be here. I didn't understand and you knew that and you pushed me away to save me, but I understand now and I'm choosing to be here, I'm choosing to be at your side, like I promised to be

I'm here, all you have to do is let me in

(and god, they're already married tbh)

it's also proof of Suletta's new resolve, to move forward even if she gains nothing, she's going to do this thing - to pilot Calibarn and speak with Ericht and her mother - where she might not gain anything from doing it might lose everything doing it. it's the same for her in that moment at Miorine's door. she's talking to Miorine because she wants to, because she has to, to move forward, even if it doesn't actually get her Miorine (the game is over, remember, being the Holder doesn't have to mean anything to Miorine) but Miorine responds, lets her in, because she wants Suletta to be there

(the game is over, and Suletta still chooses to be Miorine's groom. the game is over, and Miorine still chooses to be her bride)

-

post script: I still think about Suletta getting ready to pilot Calibarn, and Guel trying to protest because Gundams kill their pilots, but Miorine just ice cold stares him down because Suletta is making her own decisions now and we will not fuck that up, Guel! even if those decisions are absolutely fucking terrifying to Miorine, she will support them because it's Suletta who's making them

and god, that bit where Miorine is so matter-of-fact running the callback test with Suletta and Calibarn to make sure she can reach a high enough score to break through Quiet Zero's data storm and doesn't appear affected at all, but the second Suletta makes it to Score 5, Miorine just crumbles in tears and prayer

(how much of Miorine was silently hoping that Suletta wouldn't be able to make it to Score 5 so someone else could take on the burden for once, but this is what it means to be the hero's lover in fiction, they will always be the one, there is never anyone else)

[saiilorstars]

Ch. 57: Just a Thought

Previous chapters // Montserrat’s masterlist

Fandom: SVU // Pairing: Rafael Barba x OC

Warnings: Due to the nature of the series’ plots, I do have to rate this as ‘mature’ for constant mentions of rape.

Taglist: @ocappreciationtag​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @arrthurpendragon​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @anotherunreadblog​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @maaaaarveeeeel​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @stareyedplanet​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @averyhotchner​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @abzidabzy​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @hellofutur​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @foxesandmagic​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @xovalliegirlxo @sam-i–am @kmc1989​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

[If you’d like to be added to this specific OC’s stories/edits, send me a message

Montserrat could lie and say she had no idea how they ended up forgetting about their couch date with a movie and take-out dinner, but she had no desire to do so. Right now, her desires and senses were inflamed with Rafael's kisses. He hovered over her, lips working hard against hers until he decided to grace her with a trail of kisses down and around her neck.

"We should at least" — Montserrat giggled — "turn the television off. Save yourself a little something on the cable bill."

Rafael stopped altogether and looked deep into her eyes. "If that's what you're thinking of right now, then I have seriously failed."

Montserrat slid her hands over his face, fingers gently stroking his cheeks. "You never fail me," she said. "I'm in heaven right now."

"Really?" Rafael couldn't help the doubt that filled his tone. He couldn't help feeling slightly unconvinced each time they were together like this that perhaps he would end up pushing Montserrat too far and make her close off again. Yes, she was always reciprocating his advances. He kissed her, she kissed him back. He hugged her, she hugged him. And yes, when he touched her, she touched him. But when those advances became stronger—even if they were considered as simple as fooling around on the couch—Rafael always had doubt in the back of his mind. That doubt scared him. He didn't ever want to do anything that would push her over the edge; anything that would make him lose her. He was in too deep to lose her.

"Course I am," Montserrat said, lifting her head to kiss him. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Rafael didn't want to say it so...clearly. Why sour her mood?

"If you're overthinking things, then I'm failing here," Montserrat said, letting go of Rafael's face. "How to fix things, hmm…"

Rafael rolled his eyes at her. She really couldn't help being so sarcastic, could she? He silenced her hums with another kiss. He heard her giggles every now and then but they would lose their strength as well. He took that as a win. She'd forget about giggling and everything else when he kissed her.

She leaned into his touch, wherever his hands and lips were. When his fingers danced over her chest, she pressed her hand over them. She dragged his hand until the top button of her shirt got in the way. Whether it had been for the rush of feelings or maybe for something of the past, Rafael felt when Montserrat flinched. He stopped altogether, pulling himself off her even when he heard her soft 'no'.

"I'm sorry," she apologized fast and sat upright.

"It's fine," he assured her but she wasn't convinced. She helped initiate things and she was the one who stopped it. "Montserrat."

She sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm not being fair."

Rafael couldn't help the soft laugh that came out of him. "Fair? For what?" Montserrat couldn't put her words together but even then, he understood her perfectly. He straightened himself up then tugged Montserrat up to him until she was sitting on his lap. "I'm feeling pretty good right now."

Montserrat wanted to believe him. She knew that he wouldn't lie about these things with her. It was just frustrating that she kept pulling this crap on him. "I was too," she said, promising him. "I-I don't know what that was…"

"Involuntary reaction," Rafael helped her out. "It's perfectly normal for…" Even if he meant to avoid using the word for Montserrat's sake, she went ahead and said it.

"Victims," she whispered. "I'm over that term, you know. I feel like I'm too far gone to use that."

"Montserrat…"

"It's been almost 2 years!"

"So what? That doesn't mean you have to automatically stop having lingering feelings about it. Montserrat, c'mon, you're allowed to feel whatever it is that you feel." Rafael ran his fingers through one of Montserrat's curls. They were a little more out of place because of his constant interventions but in his mind, it made her look even more radiant. She just had that pesky pout on her face.

"I just feel like I'm not being fair to you," she insisted. "I love the way we were but I always have to go and do something to ruin it."

"You're fine," Rafael reiterated sternly. He didn't want to keep entertaining this conversation when all Montserrat felt was senseless guilt.

Montserrat thought he was too good to her. On some level, he had to be at least a little frustrated with things...but of course he would never admit to it. He always made it about her and her health. "You're so good to me," she sighed. "And honestly I don't deserve it all the time."

Rafael thought that was nonsense. It was just her guilt talking. "I just do what makes you happy, dear. I always want you to be happy. You deserve to be happy."

"And you deserve to be happy too," Montserrat said, "You've been with me for half a year now—you've known me for a whole year. You've handled my stuff way before we got together and you never once got angry with me when I lashed out."

"I do recall being slightly snappy," Rafael said, holding up his thumb and index finger for her to see how "slightly" he was talking about.

Montserrat rolled her eyes and pushed his hand down. "Snaps is all I got when I yelled at you. And you always forgave me."

"Hey, I'll always forgive you," Rafael said on instinct, smiling brightly. In his mind, there wasn't anything Montserrat could possibly do to make him think twice about his statement.

There were a couple things Montserrat could think of that would put his faith in her into question. "Would you forgive me for anything?" she asked him.

Rafael didn't even think for a second before he nodded. "Anything."

"No you wouldn't," Montserrat said with a shake of her head and a slight smile.

"I would!"

"No, because there are just some things that are unforgivable."

"Yeah, but I doubt that you would be capable of doing something considered 'unforgivable'."

"I lie," Montserrat offered up that reason a bit too fast.

Rafael stared at her for a better explanation, at the very least a 'kidding' would've deflated the terse air that'd fallen over them. But she never said anything else. Suddenly, Rafael was transported back to the very moment he deduced that Montserrat had gone through something similar to the victims he often worked with. Just like that evening where Montserrat didn't explicitly say it, she implied that something happened to her and she didn't—or couldn't—say it.

And tonight, she was doing it again.

Rafael thought as quickly as his skills allowed him to—he wanted to try and figure out wha was left for her to tell him—but then a little voice in his head cautioned him not to cross that line because once upon a time, Montserrat had said that to him directly. Don't cross where you're not welcomed, she had told him. If Montserrat wasn't talking now, it was for a reason.

Drawing in a breath, he slid his hands over her face. He leaned close to her; he was able to see those light sprinkle of freckles over her face. "There are just some things that you can't say. Nobody is owed your secrets, remember that?"

How could Montserrat forget? He only told her that a thousand times before they were together. "But you'd be mad with me for sure," she said with noticeable fear in her tone. "And Raf, if you were ever that mad with me...I don't know what I'd do. I don't want to lose you." It genuinely terrified her to even think about that moment happening. She loved him. She'd actually gone and fallen in love with him. She couldn't lose him.

"Montserrat Irene," Rafael gripped her face just slightly enough to keep her still, "You'll never lose me."

"But—"

"Shh," Rafael dragged his thumb over Montserrat's lips, "You want me to go all courthouse on you? Because I'm ready to deliver several pieces of evidence to back my case." Montserrat smiled lightly. "I'm here hasta el final."

Montserrat's smile had widened, her entire face nearly brightening up. It was exactly what Rafael wanted to see. "You're willing to go that big for me?" she asked. "Hasta...final?" She tried her best to mimic his perfect Spanish but of course her lack of knowledge gave her a sharp accent.

Rafael adored her attempt nonetheless. "Hasta el final," he said for her again. "Until the end."

Montserrat's stomach fluttered with nervous butterflies. 'I love you' wanted to spill out of her but a tiny part of her knew this wasn't the right moment. She wanted it to be the perfect moment, not soured by her problems. "You're prepared to stay with me that long, then?"

Rafael nodded. "Are you?"

"Of course! Hasta el final!"

"We're going to work on that," Rafael said with a light laugh. Montserrat tried saying it again but her accent was too heavy to get it right that time. Rafael was more than happy to keep repeating it for her. "Hasta el final," he pressed a kiss on her lips.

"Hasta el final," Montserrat dutifully repeated after him. She got another kiss. "Was that better?"

"Sort of. We can keep practicing." The more they practiced, the more kisses he could give her.

~ 0 ~

Montserrat barely stifled a yawn behind her hand. She fixed her gaze on her laptop screen, intending on finishing up her paperwork before lunch.

"Here," Amanda stopped by with a cup of coffee to put on the desk. Montserrat was eternally grateful for it and drank a good amount in her first go.

Amanda laughed teasingly. "Why are you so tired?"

Montserrat's shoulders slumped. She felt like a child being questioned.

"I don't want to be a snitch…" Sonny started, tapping his pen against the edge of his desk and completely ignoring Montserrat's warning look, "But last time I heard from Kara, you and Barba were out on a date…"

"Watch your words very carefully, Carisi," Montserrat glared. All Sonny did was smirk.

Already, Amanda and Fin were cackling with the new piece of information. It was as if Sonny didn't already know how childish and teasing their squad could be!

Montserrat let out an exasperated groan. "You guys are worse than my four year old niece!"

"Isn't she five now?" Sonny asked and received a very sharp 'shut up' in return that had Amanda and Fin laughing even harder.

Montserrat had some pretty good words prepared for all her lovely coworkers but a stranger walked into the bullpen asking for help. At best, she was better off tending to the man instead of getting pink slips. She got up from her desk and headed towards the man, sneaking in a smack against Sonny's arm on the way. "Hello," she greeted the man, "Can I help you?"

The man seemed to be looking around for someone, and confirmed it. "Yeah. Where's Nicky?"

"Who?"

"Nicky Amaro."

"Oh, Nick?" Montserrat blinked. The man nodded. "Um, he's sort of in the middle of an interrogation right now. May I ask who you are? Just so I know what to tell him?"

"I'm his father," the man said with a big grin.

Montserrat's eyes widened. Her head flipped over her shoulder. The others had stopped laughing instantaneously. Suddenly, Montserrat felt like the pink slip would've been ten times easier to deal with instead of what she now had to do. Because of course as soon as the others knew, they offered to stay with the man until Montserrat came back with Nick.

Montserrat mouthed an 'I hate you all' to the group before leaving.

Since both Nick and Olivia were inside the interrogation room, Montserrat couldn't come out with it. She figured Nick would have enough trouble dealing with the fact his father was there — no criminal needed to know that too.

"I just need Nick for a moment," Montserrat said to Olivia, ignoring the interested way their current suspect was gazing at her. It was disgusting but unfortunately part of the job. "It might be two, actually," Montserrat added, thinking about how long it would take for Nick to come back from all this.

As far as anyone knew, his father was no good man.

"Really? Now?" Nick asked, failing to see the urgency behind Montserrat's quiet tone. She nodded at him, making eyes with Olivia for help.

"It's okay, I got it," Olivia told Nick, gesturing to him to leave with Montserrat. He didn't have much choice after that.

"What's so important that you had to take me out of an interrogation?" Nick didn't fail to ask as soon as the door shut behind them. "In the middle of it too!"

"Don't shoot the messenger, please," Montserrat said, beginning their walk back to the bullpen. She made sure to take slow steps too. "Someone's here to see you."

"What, who?" Nick asked.

Montserrat's shoulders rose in anxious anticipation for her answer. "Your father…" She had said it so low that Nick didn't hear the first time.

"What?"

"...your father…"

"Montserrat, I can't hear you!"

"Your father!" Montserrat finally exclaimed, immediately taking a step back from Nick. He would need ample space.

"My fa— he's here!?" Nick scowled. "You let him in!?"

Montserrat's entire posture changed at the stupid accusation. "What!? It's not like I have the keys to this place!? We don't exactly keep people out!"

"That's my — you couldn't have said I wasn't here!?"

"He wasn't going to leave if I had said something!"

"I don't want to see him!"

"Then go tell him that!"

Nick stared long at Montserrat, and for a second she wondered if he was coming up with more things to blame her for. How bad was his relationship to his father? Montserrat wished that she knew and yet at the same time she wished she never learned.

"He's in here?" Nick asked again, his tone much calmer although Montserrat suspected it would take very little to push him again.

She nodded. "He's asking to see you."

"Did he tell you why?"

"No."

Nick shook his head, heaving a heavy sigh. It was clear as day that he would rather be anywhere but here right now.

"Look, if you don't want to see him, go tell him that," Montserrat suggested again. "Because if you don't go out, he won't get that message. You have to leave sometime."

Nick hated that she made sense. His muttered 'fine' came out like a child but given the situation, Montserrat wouldn't point it out.

The two returned to the bullpen to find that Nicolas had somehow enraptured the whole bullpen with a story. It marked an even deeper scowl on Nick's face. It didn't help when he was forced to go have lunch with his father, albeit a really short one at that.

"It was his father?" Olivia couldn't hide her surprise when the others told her. She had finished their interrogation on her own and was only just now understanding what happened.

"It was his father," Montserrat confirmed and nodded. "Kinda felt guilty for going to grab him knowing he wouldn't want to come."

"Yeah, but it's not like we were going to be able to let the man stay here all day," Fin said, shrugging, "Amaro was going to have to come out anyways."

"Well, how bad do you think it's going to be when he comes back?" Sonny asked, genuinely curious.

Nobody was sure how bad it would be but that it was just going to be bad. And sure enough, twenty minutes later as Nick had promised earlier, he was coming back full of rage.

"Nicolas Fiorello Amaro is getting married!" He dropped his coat on the back of his chair haphazardly. "Again!"

Everyone else at their desks exchanged looks. Their silence didn't deter Nick at all.

"To a child bride, and he wants me to come!"

It was obvious what his answer had been.

"And since going would require pretending that he and I have a relationship, or that what happened in our home didn't actually happen—"

"Nick," Olivia was the brave soul who dared to intervene, "You have every right to be upset, okay?"

Nick didn't hear quite right. He wasn't hearing anything at times. "He doesn't get to wipe the slate!"

"We know—"

"It's not fair—"

"We understand, but—"

"Nick, it's not about him," Olviia finally managed to speak over Nick, at least for a moment. "This is about you holding on to your anger. Okay? I've learned that in order to heal, we have to let go."

"Oh, so, what, you've forgiven your father? Or William Lewis?" Nick snapped before the words he spoke even registered in his head. Before Olivia could react to the thrown questions, Montserrat stepped in to help both of them out.

"Letting go and forgiving are two very different concepts," she said, eyes directly on Nick. He turned to her and she half expected him to throw something at her as well. "I don't know which one Olivia picked but I can tell you what I chose."

Nick seemed to contemplate but at the same time he was willing to listen.

"My mom? Regina?" Montserrat reminded him. "She skipped out on our family. I was four and I really needed a mom. Hell, half the times I'm pretty sure I could still use one. I have not forgiven her for abandoning us like that and I probably never will. But at the same time, I'm not going to spend every day of my life being angry at her because she's not worth my time. I let it go, Nick. I know what she did, I hate her for it, but I'm not spending my energy on it and her."

Nick nodded slightly, perhaps to acknowledge that Montserrat had tried helping him out, but whether or not it worked was still unclear. Montserrat leaned back in her chair, waiting to hear the verdict. In the end, however, Nick stormed away from the group.

~0~

"I don't think he liked my words very much," Montserrat later relayed the story to Rafael over dinner.

It was one of those nights where he couldn't get away from the office so they had dinner right there.

"Well, how'd you say it?" Rafael half laughed at his joke, much to Montserrat's annoyance. "You tend to speak loudly sometimes," he added but that didn't make it better either.

Montserrat promptly reached across the couch and took the last piece of chicken she had so graciously given to him because it was his favorite. She made a show of dropping it into her mouth.

Rafaep nodded at her. "Very mature."

"You're one to talk! Did you even listen to me!?"

Rafael pointed at Montserrat. "See? There you go!"

"This date is about to end a lot sooner than you think."

Rafael set his plate on the coffee table and raised his hands in front of him. "Okay, okay, I'm done."

Montserrat scooted closer to him, showing her grand pout. "Seriously, do you think I overstepped with Nick?"

"Nick's got a hard attitude anyways. Don't worry so much about it." Rafael knew he sure wouldn't.

"The only reason you say that is because you and Nick have similar attitudes," Montserrat said. "It's why you clash so much."

"Even then, I don't think you said anything wrong," Rafael shrugged. "You offered a different perspective. A good one, I'll say." He smiled at Montserrat, reaching up to stroke her cheek. "Noble of you." She smiled at him. "And if Nick has anything to say about that, he's going to have a word with me."

Montserrat chuckled. As much as she liked to believe he was joking, she knew it took very little to get him and Nick started. She was just an excuse but even then, she felt a tad special.

"Now about my chicken…"

Montserrat's eyes widened.

"That was my favorite part of the plate," Rafael said, pointing at Montserrat. She raised her hands in defense and yet her growing smile gave very few implications that she was not sorry at all.

"I needed to make a point," she said, trying to back away as he scooted closer to her.

"Mhm, and that meant eating my dinner?"

"It was mine first!"

"Mhm, you're such a thief," Rafael reached for Montserrat's waist to keep her from backing away.

"Am not!"

"I should prosecute you!"

"Fine but I'll get Rita as my defense attorney!"

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Or Buchanan!"

"Don't you dare!" Rafael yanked Montserrat up to him. Her head fell on his shoulder, laughing.

~0~

As it turned out, Nick's meetings with his father did not end after their first lunch together. One week later at half past midnight, Nick got a call. The following day, SVU was taking over the case.

"You mean Nick's father did this?" Sonny did very little to keep his voice down, although Montserrat chucking a balled-up paper at his face served to remind him for future references.

"Rollins is over at the hospital talking to the fiancee right now," Fin told the two detectives. They were the only ones in the bullpen for the moment. "But listen, Liv just got a heads up that the parademics think Nick forced the fiancee to change her story."

"What? He wouldn't do that," Montserrat made a face, "It is literally the last thing he would ever do."

"Why do they think that anyways?" Sonny asked.

"He was the outcry the victim spoke to and apparently Nick and her talked in spanish for a bit. They misinterpreted it."

"Big time," Montserrat nodded. "How's Nick doing right now? Is he coming in at all?" It was no rocket science that Nick would have to sit this case out given his extremely close ties to it, but it didn't mean that he would go quietly..

Sure enough, a few hours later, Rollins returned with the details of the victim's - Gabriella - story, Olivia and Nick walked in together with the latter looking none too pleased. He was back on desk duty until further notice.

"Look, if my father did something, I don't want anyone here risking anything on his behalf," Nick made the announcement as he begrudgingly sat down at his desk.

"No one said you were…" Sonny mumbled only to get another paper ball thrown at his face. At his questioning gesture, Montserrat mouthed 'stop talking' at him.

Men could really be an extra type of clueless when they wanted to be.

"Well now she's claiming that another guy sexually assaulted her," Amanda said, "So we need to follow that lead as well."

Olivia agreed and started passing out assignments. "We need a timeline, witness statements, cell phone pics, any video footage from that party!"

"And so who's the guy she's accusing now?" Sonny looked over at Amanda as the blonde had already began working at her desk.

"Hm," Amanda smiled sourly, "Javier Arenas. And look at this. Up until a year ago, he was on the registry. Statutory rape."

"Start there," Olivia gave the order.

Soon enough, they would be interviewing Javier to discuss the matter of his trouble with the law. He didn't take it so seriously.

"Statutory rape?" He scoffed at the pair of detectives. "I was 19, she was 16. Her father was a cop. Took me ten years to clear my name!"

"And yet it took only one night to mess it up," Montserrat said wryly, "Gabriella Nuñez claims you assaulted her."

Javier scoffed again. "Come on. We did some dirty dancing. I had my hands on her, but she was backing up that bus on me pretty good first."

"That's it?" Sonny raised a brow at the man.

"I whispered to her that I could do things without needing a blue pill. She caught Nicolas looking at her. She freaked out, took off."

"Downstairs, where you followed her?"

"No. I'm a lover, not a fighter—"

Montserrat made no attempt to hold her scoff in.

"I stayed on the dance floor... ask anyone."

"And Nicolas' daughter...Sonya?"

Javier nodded. "Yeah, whatever. I danced with her next. She didn't just back up the bus. She parked it. Better yet, ask Gabriella's father, Luis. He saw the whole thing."

"I think we're done," Montserrat couldn't have said any quicker. She did not like the man in across her and if she stayed there, she might lose her job.

Sonny led the way out of the interrogation room, leaving Javier inside to dwell on his misfortune. "What do you think?" He asked Montserrat and Olivia, the latter having watched everything from her side of the office.

"I think he's just about every jock in high school," Montserrat answered before Olivia's mouth even opened.

Olivia hummed at the image. She could very well agree with Montserrat's claim. "Rollins and Fin just came back from talking to the vic's father right now."

"What he say?" asked Sonny.

Olivia looked like she struggled to answer. They were all struggling with the case knowing who was being tormented every minute until it came to a close. "Mr. Nuñez claims that Nicolas hurt his daughter."

"Did he see it?" Montserrat asked, unsure if she even wanted to hear the answer. On the one hand, if they had a witness who could place Nicolas at the scene it meant the victim would have an easier trial but it also meant that poor Nick would be dragged under it too.

Olivia shook her head. "He didn't but he says he saw the looks that Nicolas gave Gabriella. He also saw Nicolas go downstairs after Gabriella. He saw Nicolas coming back and rubbing ice on his knuckles."

"Ah, so he saw but he didn't see," Sonny finally got it.

~ 0 ~

When it was time to bring in Nicolas at the station to talk, the squad decided it was best for Nick not to be in. Olivia gave him the day off — he wasn't happy about it one bit.

"Do I have to be one of them in there?" Montserrat asked Olivia once Nicolas was inside the interrogation room waiting for a pair of detectives to go in and talk to him. Montserrat didn't feel like she should be one of them. "It's weird."

Olivia guffawed slightly. "This is the job, Novak. Did you forget that?"

"Course not but he's just so...not Nick." Montserrat shuddered. "Nick's actually genuinely sweet? And a gentleman?"

Olivia seemed like she was ready to say something but ended up closing her mouth and smiling rather strangely. "You know what, I'll send Rollins and Fin instead. I've got another job for you."

Montserrat blinked. She didn't think that would actually work. "Um, okay! What is it?"

Olivia's strange smile widened. "I'll tell you in a bit. Barba, just in time."

Montserrat turned in time to see Rafael coming up to them. "Hey, you."

"Where's the fire?" Rafael went straight to the point.

Olivia gestured the way to her office, making a point for Montserrat to follow as well. They watched Rollins and Fin go back and forth with Nicolas, the latter keeping up his charade of a good guy. He even seemed to believe it.

"He's contradicting himself," Montserrat said in the middle of the interrogation. "If he hit a wall because he was trying to hit Javier, then Javier would have defensive wounds."

"And does he?" asked Rafael.

"Nope," went both Montserrat and Olivia simultaneously.

Rafael figured he shouldn't even have asked. He resigned to watch the rest of the interrogation before it got too unbearable and he called it quits. "You know, Cubans come to this country, and within one generation, we're doctors, lawyers, CEOs of major corporations, but the only headline you ever read in the paper is 'Crazy Cubans in wedding brawl'. I hate this."

"Yeah, we can tell," Montserrat remarked, eyeing him with some decent concern. It wasn't often that a case affected him more than it should.

"Look, none of us want to be here, but this guy is guilty," Olivia's reassurance was too...urgent, for Rafael's taste.

"You seem awfully sure…" He said slowly, giving the impression there was a question coming. He offered the Sergeant the chance to tell him before he actually asked but since it appeared like Olivia was stalling, he went ahead and asked. "Is there anything else I need to know?"

Olivia's gaze landed on Montserrat for some reason. The detective in question straightened up and waited for Olivia's sure to be coming instruction.

"Remember that other job I wanted you to do?"

"Um, yeah," nodded Montserrat, "What was it anyways?"

Olivia wore that strange smile she had when Rafael first showed up. "I'll let you fill in the blanks for him." She patted Montserrat's shoulder on her way into the interrogation room.

"Oh, no, no, no," Montserrat shook her head fervently. Doing the interrogation sounded a whole lot better now. "You can't do thi—" Olivia shut the door behind her. "Maybe she can do that," she said with a huff.

Rafael tilted his head at Montserrat. "I'm sorry, are we back to hating each other at work?"

Montserrat playfully rolled her eyes at him. "Look, you're not going to like what I have to tell you about this case."

"Didn't you hear me?" Rafael gestured towards the glass wall beside them. "I already hate this. What more can you tell me that'll make this worse?"

On another day, Montserrat would've loved the opportunity to prove Rafael wrong. But, given the situation and his feelings that he made clear, Montserrat decided to play it nicer. "Okay, um, so...Nicolas—" she gestured at the man in the other room currently trying to sweet talk Olivia, "—is, uh...well….he's Nick's father."

Rafael froze altogether. His eyebrows shot up. Montserrat patiently waited for the information to fully register in his head. She supposed it would take a while.

But Rafael was a prosecutor above all and that meant he was quick to come back on his feet. "Sorry — what? That man is Nick's father!?"

"...yeah…"

"I stand corrected, this is even worse than I thought!" Rafael turned completely to the glass window and watched the interrogation under a whole new light. As tensed as his relationship to Nick was sometimes, Rafael couldn't imagine Nick being related to the man in front of him right now.

"Yeah, I know, I couldn't believe it either," Montserrat sighed, as if she had read Rafael's mind. "They're so different. Although, I'm not going to lie, I can see where Nick gets his headstrong trait. The father's worse."

"Given the situation, yeah, I can see that."

"Sorry."

Rafael could've heard the wince in Montserrat's tone and that was unfair. "No, it's — this is hard." He raised his hands and turned from the window. "Where's Amaro right now?"

"Officially — off the case," Montserrat said, "Olivia thought it was best if he wasn't even in the precinct today."

Rafael nodded. "Yeah. That was a good call. He needs to stay far away from this case."

"He knows—"

"But he needs to actually do it," Rafael reiterated. "I know the track record of this squad and I'm guilty myself of doing the same thing when it was about Alex so I need you all to understand this. If Nick gets too close to this, there is no case."

Montserrat nodded dutifully. "I know, I hear you. We'll talk to Nick."

Talk. Rafael almost sneered at the idea. He knew how it would go. Nick would still try to do something even if it was with good intentions.

[minediamonds]

@burninq continued from here Calcifer stared at her, dropping the body to the ground with a soft 'thump'. he was confused - she was like him, was she not ? why was she denying his entry ? then again, he could enter wherever he wanted, he didn't need her permission as she was just like him anyways. he didn't need to be allowed in; he could do as he pleased. still, he remained at the doorway, head cocked to the side like a confused dog. "you're frightened. you don't need to be." he says, licking his lips clean of blood. "i wouldn't dream of hurting you, you know. i find you fascinating. i've been watching you for a while, Melike." how did he know her name ? oh, he's been watching her for a very long time . . . he's just now introducing himself as he lowers his body to inspect the corpse, drawing his fingers into the blood of the dead man. he looks down at him as he speaks. "he was a child murderer. he killed his own children and then some - tell me, do you think a man who kills children deserves to live?" he peels his fingers away and presses them to his lips, sucking the blood off. delicious.

Melike just glares at him, willing him to go away. When he doesn't, though, she groans and says: "Yes, I am frightened. You have a dead body with you, what did you expect?" Sure, she's a vampire too. She's left her fair share of bodies in her wake, all the way back to the Pasha she had been forced to marry. But in most cases, she only eats the bad ones. She doesn't kill innocent people. And well, she has no way of knowing if the other vampire is the same or not.

Her eyes narrow when he says her name. "How do you know my name?" She hadn't exactly introduced herself. "And watching me? You do know how creepy that sounds, right?" Often, men aren't aware. At least, in her experience. Vampire or not, she's not going to let any man creep her out.

When he mentions that the dead man had killed children, Melike's eyes widen. "Well, no." Then her eyes narrow again, and she glares at him. "But how do I know you're telling the truth? You could just be making this up to get in my good graces." She's lived for centuries, and doesn't consider herself easy to fool. That said, she really would prefer he leave. "What are you doing here, anyway?" She wonders aloud. "Surely you have better things to do than stalk me." Then again, maybe not. Melike doesn't know him. That's kind of the point, and why this whole thing is creeping her out.

Her red flags are going up left and right. And she would really prefer he leave. But of course, she wants him to answer her questions first. If she knows what brought him here in the first place, maybe she can ward off future unwanted visitors.

[walker-extended-universe]

3x15: False Flag Part 2

This episode was a lot to say the least

I actually enjoyed seeing Tessa Graves again and, as I mentioned in a previous post, she had a point in thinking Cordell could be connected to Grey Flag. I do think she was very dismissive of Kevin's involvement in everything (especially considering they know for a fact he's at the top) but from the outside looking in, Cordell is a prim candidate for Grey Flag. But maybe next time she comes around, she'll be working with Walker and we can see what makes her such a great FBI agent.

That being said, I did love seeing Liam "lawyer up" with his suit jacket and pointing out the obvious blind spots in the FBI's investigation.

It was a treat to see Geri again! I do have to wonder what's so special about that river house that even Bonham knew where it was. But I digress.

Cordell really needs to learn to listen to people about taking care of his health, especially his mental health. His speech to Geri about it being a good time for him to need to run away for good is one I've been waiting for for a few episodes now and I think Geri handled it well. Cordell was going down the same path Cooper did 20 years ago and he needed someone to snap him out of it, at least for the time being.

Trey stuggling to know if all this was really worth it was expected and I wish he'd gotten a better answer than "oh well we won". Because it's not just about him being undercover and Cordell being framed- it's about him letting a man die when his instinct is to help. It's about him becoming a different person to get the job done better and trying his best but still failing.

@theladywyn and I speculated for a long time that Clay was Kevin's father and I'm kind of glad to be wrong about that. It does make my heart break for Kevin a bit (kudos to Jake Abel for that). He just wanted his brother to come home and get him out of a terrible family situation and he really believed Clay had been abandoned by his fellow Marines. That doesn't excuse all the murder and his personal vendetta against Cordell but I digress. (Although now I have to wonder why Cordell got the frame job treatment while everyone else just died....)

Clay and Kevin's conversation was seriously heartbreaking </3

Cordell was an absolute badass in this episode and I'm glad to see more action but I hope Jared gets his ACL fixed soon

I want to talk a little about Cassie and Trey before I finish this off because their interactions in this episode were very interesting.

Cassie is pissed at Trey for pushing her at Kevin when she just knew Kevin was a bad guy. She had an instinct that there was something wrong with him but Trey and Walker kept pushing her to date him and work-life-balance so she just went with it. Because surely if there was a problem, someone else would see it. But there was a problem and no one else saw it (and even she didn't really see it but I digress). I absolutely get why she's feeling guilty. If she'd stuck to her guns, maybe things would've been different. Maybe Kevin wouldn't have gotten that big IN to the Walker family that she gave him at Thanksgiving.

But Trey is also right in that Cassie isn't the only one that got fooled. trey feel for Kevin's charms very early and very quickly. He brought Kevin into their lives just as much as Cassie did, if not more. And now he has to live with that.

I will say that I thought Cassie's speech at the end about "I know why it hurts more with you" was going to be a love confession but then it was a "You broke my trust" (which is fair but now she needs to have that conversation with Walker) and now I'm sad :(

All in all, great episode. 10/10 would let break my heart again.

[twistedsamuraiadvice]

tell us more about your and simon's animals, bobby! (i almost said "pets" but i know taka isn't considered one...)

With pleasure my good cheesecake!

First, there is of course, Taka. She, I'm told she's a girl, has been Simons companion for years, since she was a chick. I believe she's a Eurasian sparrow hawk, but I could be mistaken......she's a lovely bird, but I don't think I speak her language...she mostly just looks at me, but when I got back she wouldn't stop nipping me!! Simon says they were love nips, and I suppose they must be as she could really hurt something....

He says she was never fooled. Not even once. She knew.

*sniff*

Im sorry. I don't mean to get emotional, you know? I just...it matters, you know?

A-anyway, on to Rover. He's my good boy! He didn't come along till after I got back and realized I really, really didn't want to be alone. Simon visited me in the hospital, but, well...we weren't living together yet, and I couldn't bear go back to an empty apartment, so the little yellow lawyer gave us a lift to the animal shelter. He's been keeping me company since, he's a golden retriever and a very good boy. He knows sit, and stay, and fetch and come and walk and he believes in justice and is good.

I love him very much. When I'm sleeping by myself he joins me in the bed, but now thinks he can get up there any time Simon even gets up to use the rest room. He listens to him more then me! It's not fair.

Oh, but I can't be mad at him. He's my best boy.

In Justice We (all) Trust!

-Simon Blackquill