#which is so weird to me considering it is clearly Four Thoughts On Names

[enchanted-by-fae]

One Day - Azriel x Reader

Part 2

Pairing: Azriel x Hewn City!Reader

Summary: A party is held to celebrate the upcoming marriage between you and the Shadowsinger. You have a conversation with someone unexpected.

Warnings: Arranged marriage, light angst (like just a smidgen towards the end)

2.1k words

A/N: Thank you so freaking much for all the love on part 1 of this series! You guys are amazing!

Part 1 Part 3

Beautiful you thought to yourself as you stood in front of the full length mirror in your bedchambers. The dress was a pale blue with white accents which was an unusual color combination for the Night Court, especially in Hewn City. Typically the court dressed in dark, muted colors. That was never your style though, preferring lighter versions. The dress itself was understated and simple, but still formal enough for tonight.

You made eye contact with yourself taking a few deep breaths in and out. Tonight would be your first time officially meeting your betrothed. The idea of actually seeing him wracked your nerves. Yes, you’ve seen him before but never this close and personal. 

Your father told you the news of your engagement four days ago. Four days of trying to process. Four days of anxiety. Four days of making peace with your fate. The wedding would be in two days which meant you had two days to find steady control with your emotions. You just repeated the mantra in your head it's for your people.

As you closed your eyes to find a moment of serenity, you heard a knock on the door. Your eyes shoot open as you almost jump out of your skin in surprise. You weren’t expecting for someone to be knocking on the door as you had agreed with your parents to meet them at the party.

Rushing over to the door, you do the best you can to not trip over the dress. You pull the door open and you find a face you weren’t expecting. You dip into a low curtsy as you find none other than your High Lord standing in front of you.

—

“My lord,” your voice as even as you can make it. A mask of coolness washes over your face, at least you hope so. Inside you were shaking to your core. Had you done something to offend the High Lord? You could only pray to the Mother you hadn’t.

The High Lord speaks to you then, knowing full well you were nervous, “stand. And please call me Rhysand.” You move to stand as your lord commands. You try not to look too confused at his second request. Since childhood you had been told to fear the powerful male. The idea of calling him by his name and not his title, it felt too familiar. 

You steady your voice as you ask “how may I be at your service?”

“I was hoping to escort you to the party. I have a suspicion that we should speak,” he offers you his arm, and you finally look to make eye contact with him. As you met his eyes he shared with you what seemed to be a… a smile? No, that couldn’t be right. Everyone knows that the High Lord- Rhysand, you suppose- doesn’t smile. 

He clearly can see the confusion that’s evident on your face. He just chuckles at you. You didn’t know he could laugh like that either. He just offered his arm out again, waiting for you to indulge his request. You motion to take his arm and he begins to escort you to the main hall.

“You thought we should talk, Rhysand?” you try to test out the nickname but it leaves a weird feeling on your tongue. Maybe you could get used to it? You had to, you supposed, if you were to marry one of his most trusted friends.

Rhysand’s smile was on full display now as it was just the two of you in the hall. You couldn’t quite believe the fact that the High Lord was currently your personal escort, or the fact that he was smiling. “Yes, after all you will be joining our family soon,” he tells you. “I just wanted to see how you were feeling… about everything.”

You can’t help but feel relieved that he just wanted to see what your feelings are on the matter. You obviously can’t tell him the full truth since he would likely be offended, considering your soon-to-be-husband was practically a brother to him. 

You offer up a smile of your own and turn your head towards him “I’m very well. I feel hopeful, bringing together the people of our two courts. It will be well worth it,” you didn’t lie. It wasn’t exactly the honest truth but it was half of it, which should count.

“Huh,” is all Rhys could say in response, his smile only dropping slightly. You and he both turned your heads forward again. “I’ll be honest,” he starts while dropping the smile, “Az isn’t all too thrilled either.” You’re not surprised. Of course the Shadowsinger wouldn’t be jumping for joy at the arrangement. He’s about to marry a girl from a city he’s spent his entire life hating. 

“I wouldn’t expect him to be, Rhysand, I am a stranger,” you explain. Rhysands smile returns, this time close-lipped but still there. 

Rhysand released a sigh, “I had to give Azriel a talking to about an hour ago saying he must be on his very best behavior. I promise you, Y/N,” he halted his walking and turned to face you, “no harm is to come to you. Az isn’t like that anyways. I just want you to know that you're in safe hands,” he gently informed you. 

You offer Rhysand a real, genuine smile now as you haven’t felt this taken care of probably since you were a girl. “Thank you,” you whisper, gratefully.

His smile is toothy again, “there’s nothing to thank me for,” he whispers back. “Now,” he voice returns to full volume and full of excitement, “to the party?” his arm coming back to loop around yours. 

This time you take it gladly.

—

You and Rhysand make your way to the grand room where the party is to be held. You can already hear the loud chatter of the people waiting for you to arrive. Before walking in, Rhys turns to you again, “nervous?” He knows the answer already.

“Very,” you respond, in full truth this time.

His contagious smile never faltered, “it’ll be great! When we go in I’ll take you directly to Az ok?”

You give Rhysand a tight nod in response. You take a deep breath in, hold it, and exhale. Rhysand nods for the guards to open the grand doors for the two of you, making your fashionably late grand entrance. 

The doors open and you’re met with the reveal of a packed ballroom of expecting guests, waiting to give their well wishes to the “happy couple”. Rhysand escorts you into the room and Azriel is very easy to find, since he’s standing there front and center. It was hard to tell if he was standing there awaiting your arrival, or if it was coincidence. 

Rhysand leads you over to Azriel, the first and really only feature of his you notice is his height. He was tall. Earlier when Rhysand came to your door you noticed how tall he was but Azriel, he had a few good inches on Rhys. 

Rhysand drops your arm and gestures his arm towards your betrothed, “Y/N meet Azriel,” he then gestures to you “Azriel meet Y/N.”

You dip into a curtsy and Azriel goes to bow, “a dance, my lady?” he asks you, returning to his normal stance from his bow. You’re taken aback by the sound of his voice. It’s deep but smooth. It sounds as if it was crafted to lure prey into a trap. You were immediately drawn to it, clearly his intention.

You rise from your curtsy and move to make eye contact with him for the first time. You swear all the air in your lungs was taken away from you at that moment. You’ve seen him lurking the halls the entirety of your life but here you were for the first time, directly face-to-face. He was beautiful. 

His eyes were a captivating hazel that you had never truly seen on any fae, until now. You felt a twitch in your stomach at the sight. His features apart from his eyes were gorgeous too. From his golden skin to his dark hair. That’s when you noticed the massive bat-like wings that he carried behind him. They were stunning, you could only help but wonder what they might feel like on your fingers. You shake the thought from your head and try to remain calm.

You glance down briefly and see that he has his hand outstretched for you to take. Right, he asked you for a dance. You go to reach out for his hand and notice the scars that litter his skin there. Azriel looks down to see where your hands almost meet, beginning to pull his hand away. You grab it before he can fully lower it.

“I would love to,” you spoke softly. You meet his eyes again and all you can feel is the safety Rhysand promised washing over you. It’s a perplexing feeling. Always being told to run in the opposite direction of the famed spymaster. But, here you are. Holding his hand and wishing for him to hold you as you dance. He could never hurt you. 

Azriel gives you a nod and leads you to the dance floor. You take the time to glance around the ballroom and notice just how many people are in attendance. Nerves return to you as the packed ballroom looks at you and Azriel. He places one hand in yours and the other comes to your waist. You can practically feel your heart skip a beat. You go to put your free hand close to his shoulder, feeling the muscle under the black jerkin he wears. The orchestra begins to play a waltz, one that you’re luckily familiar with, and your partner starts to lead you.

Azriel, sensing your nerves, looks at you hoping to meet your eyes again. “Just look at me, ok?” he coaxed. 

You meet his stare for the third time and while you should be used to it by now, you can’t help but melt. He offers you the tiniest smile. So small you could miss it from far away. But, as he stands here in front of you, it steadies you in a way you couldn’t have imagined. The smile is when you realize that maybe he truly isn’t as bad as what the rumors claim. After all, Rhysand gave you a smile and he turned out to be shockingly pleasant.

He leads you through the rest of the dance in a comfortable silence, still wearing his secret smile. When the orchestra comes to the end of the song Azriel removes his hands from you and you find yourself almost missing the contact. 

He gives you another bow and you curtsy back. The room erupts in applause and that’s when you remember the large audience that had you so nervous before. He makes his way closer to you once more and leans in to whisper in your ear. You hold your breath as you wait for him to speak.

“Thanks for the dance,’ he murmurs before stalking off back to the crowd. He leaves you there, alone on the dance floor and something in you feels crushed. You remind yourself that this is an arranged marriage, he doesn’t owe you anything. He didn’t even owe you that dance. It doesn’t stop you from feeling lonely, however. You’re not left alone for long though as you soon find your parents making their way over to you. 

“Y/N, my darling girl,” your mother greets with a warm embrace. You were quite lucky to have her. Both of your parents were rather good to you considering the environment in which you live. 

Your father stands there, not one to show public affection, “you did good.” The praise was enough for you. The two of them walk you back into the crowd, the opposite direction of Azriel, as they have you mingling with their friends. 

At one point you find Azriel talking with a group of people, one you recognize as Keir's daughter Mor. She was much older than you but she too originally came from the Hewn City. You always heard she was a disgrace to her family but seeing her now, she looks happy to have gotten away. Soon, you’ll be leaving too. Off to live wherever it is your husband resides. You can’t help but feel excited at the idea of the adventure, although you weren’t sure if you're brave enough.

Azriel looks up from his conversation then. It was almost as if he could sense you looking at him because he makes direct eye contact with you immediately. He offers one more secret smile, you can’t help but wonder if it’s just for you, or not. Azriel quickly goes back to his conversation.

He doesn’t acknowledge you for the rest of the evening.

—

Tag List (let me know if you want added!)

@phoenix666stuff @tele86 @rcarbo1 @1enas-12

[horangare]

my babysitter’s a vampire

pairing : vampire!hoshi x human!reader

content : smut (mdni), strangers to ???

in which : your parents hired a babysitter after deeming you as the “irresponsible” older sibling. when someone who isn’t junhui shows up in his place, you’re instantly captivated by this handsome stranger and his shiny white teeth.

warnings : grinding, fingering, finger sucking, big dick soonyoung, blood, mentions of a knife and minimal bodily harm (you cut your finger), unprotected sex (but mentions of birth control, be safe either way), cocky soonyoung (ugh i want him so bad), you threaten him with a fork, bff!chaeryeong, dirty talk, pet names, bulge kink (i think that’s everything but pls let me know if i forgot anything)

wc : 4.8K words

note : look y’all i am the youngest of four sisters so idk if my portrayal of a younger brother is a good one but…this is for u hoshi nation horanghae.

“What do you mean?! I don’t need a babysitter!”

Your mom sighed deeply, searching her jewelry box for her matching earring. “I’m sorry honey, but you do. Your sister clearly isn’t responsible enough.” You rolled your eyes, but remained quiet. “And I know Junhui’s mom. She says he’s a very nice boy who’s good with children.”

Ever since you and Chaeryeong shut yourselves in your room to rewatch Girl From Nowhere for the millionth time again and speculate if there would really be a third season, (Chaeryeong insisted there would be, while you thought the opposite) the fact that you were supposed to be babysitting your younger brother had completely slipped your mind. When your parents returned from their date, they pulled into the driveway only to find Leo out there screaming his head off.

After that, you were quickly deemed “irresponsible” by your parents and no longer allowed to be Leo’s babysitter. What did they want you to do? You couldn’t spend all summer break looking after the little brat. Anyway, it’s not like that was the part that bothered you, but the fact that you couldn’t talk or beg her out of it either.

“Mom, come on! I’m eight and a half now! I can pretty much babysit myself!” Leo crossed his arms over his chest, standing in the doorway so your mother couldn’t leave the room without giving him, in all his childhood glory, the explanation he felt he so richly deserved.

“It’s too late. Junhui is already on his way and we’ve already paid him.” She leaned down, kissing him on the forehead. “Promise me you’ll be good.”

Your brother glanced to the side, like he was actually considering not being on his best behavior, before nodding and smiling at your mom. “I promise.” What a little shit.

“That’s my boy. And the same goes for you, [Y/n]. Chaeryeong over but she cannot stay the night. Am I clear?”

You smiled, not even bothering to make it seem real or genuine. “Crystal clear, mom. Have fun with dad.”

“Yeah, yeah. We should be back at around eleven.” Your mom mumbled, making her way down the stairs and to the front door where your dad was waiting. You followed behind her, mostly so you could slam the door in a pitiful act of retaliation and lock it shut until your friend arrived, but also because you wanted to see what this Junhui kid looked like up close.

You’d seen him maybe once or twice before around campus or at the cute little coffee shop you frequented, but you had never gotten a close hard look at his face before. Some of your friends knew him, according to them he was kind of weird, but made up for it with his sense of humor. Maybe he could keep you some decent company before Chaeryeong showed up.

The boy on the other side of the door was not Junhui. At least, you didn’t think so. This boy was a little shorter, a little blonder, and a lot finer than you’ve ever seen Junhui look.

“Oh! Hello, are you…Junhui?” Your mom asked, raking her eyes over the boy standing before her.

“Hi. No, sorry, Jun couldn’t make it. I’m Soonyoung, I’m a friend of his. Can I come in?”

“Oh, sure. Leo? Your babysitter’s here!”

“He’s so hot. And he’s totally your type, don’t you think?”

“Chaeryeong, please!” You slapped your hand over her mouth, earning a dirty look from the girl standing beside you. She was right, this Soonyoung guy was super good looking, but she didn’t have to say it out loud. He was still a stranger after all. A hot one, but a stranger nonetheless, and it was only normal for you to have your reservations. “He’s not even the guy who’s supposed to be here. Junhui was supposed to be Leo’s babysitter. He says he’s his friend.”

Chaeryeong rolls her eyes, not understanding what your problem was. “I wouldn’t be complaining if I were you. Look, even Leo likes him.”

You and Chaeryeong watched from the kitchen island as Soonyoung helped Leo with his homework in the living room, and it’s the first time you’ve ever seen your brother smile while doing homework. Neither of you could hear what they were saying, for some reason you doubted it was about fractions—fractions were not funny.

The longer you observed them—mostly Soonyoung—the more you realized how right your friend was. He was fine. Really fine. It’s like there was some kind of aura around him, something almost otherworldly.

That’s when you started to stare. Like the hard, not even blinking type of stare. Soonyoung turned his head over his shoulder, the two of you making eye contact in what felt like the most awkward way ever. He smiled at you though, which made your cheeks feel embarrassingly warm, before giving his attention back to your brother. Chaeryeong, having watched the entire exchange, grinned while looking you up and down.

“You’re staring.” She mumbled.

Feeling like a stubborn child about to throw a tantrum, you narrowed your eyes and pouted. “Was not.”

Your friend was no doubt satisfied with herself, cooing at you and cupping your face with her hands to squish your cheeks together. “Denial is not a good look for you. Come on,” she released your face to pat you on the shoulder. “let’s go watch a movie before I leave.”

Looking back at the living room, you saw your brother sitting on the couch alone with no signs of Soonyoung. Some babysitter, you thought, leaving the kid he’s supposed to be looking after alone. How could your parents leave someone so irresponsible in charge of your brother?

Oh, wait…

“Just wait for me in my room. I’ve gotta use the bathroom.” She nodded, heading upstairs to your room while you made your way to the bathroom in the hall and swinging open the door.

“What the fuck?” Soonyoung shouted, tearing his eyes away from the mirror above the bathroom sink to look at you. Gasping, you took a step back from him.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know—” You started to apologize, glancing behind him into the mirror and you froze. The spot where his reflection should be was empty. You took another step back.

“You didn’t know…what?”

If you weren’t so scared right now, you would’ve definitely been offended by the way he was speaking to you like you owed him an explanation for wanting to use the bathroom in your house. You looked at him, then the mirror once more, trying to make it as subtle as possible.

“Uh…nothing! So sorry again.” You said, laughing awkwardly to diffuse the tension and backing away from him far enough until you were close enough to retreat up the stairs and to your room. Chearyeong, seated comfortably in your bed, snapped her head away from her phone to see you clutching your chest and panting.

“Woah, what happened?” She asked as she sat upright. “Why do you look like you just ran a marathon?” With one of your hands, you gestured that you needed more time to catch your breath before taking a deep breath and stepping closer to the bed.

“He doesn’t have a reflection.”

Chaeryeong raised one of her eyebrows. “The babysitter? Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course I’m sure! He was in front of the bathroom mirror but the mirror was, like, empty!”

You could tell she wasn’t really sure whether you were telling the truth or not, making you groan and cover your face with your hands. “I’m really fucking serious! There’s something wrong with him, Chaeryeong!”

A heavy sigh sounded from Chaeryeong’s place on your bed. “I don’t know…what kind of person doesn’t have a reflection?”

“All humans have reflections,” you shrugged, your head tilted as your mind considered each and every possibility. “maybe he isn’t human.”

Chaeryeong snorted and rolled her eyes. “What is he then? A vampire?” The comment was definitely meant to be a joke given the way she’d said it, but the way your eyes widened and jaw drop was all too serious. “Oh my god, is he really a vampire?”

You looked around your room frantically, feeling the smallest bit of relief when you saw your laptop resting on your beside table. Chaeryeong made room for you in the bed, watching as your fingers flew over the keys.

How to identify a vampire.

“Asks to be invited into your home…no reflection…powerful presence or aura,” you skimmed over the first three bullet points shown before you and felt your mouth go dry. Soonyoung, so far, was definitely fitting the description of a vampire.

“Look,” Chaeryeong pointed to the next bullet point and read it aloud. “When a person is injured, make sure to find out if their focus is more on the injured person or the injury itself.” You looked at her, unsure of what his point was. Nobody in the house had been injured?

“Yeah, so?”

“So we’ve gotta injure you.” She scoffed, a little confused as to how you weren’t following her crazy thought process.

You leaned away from her. “What? Why does it have to be me?”

“You’re the one that wants to prove it so bad, aren’t you?” It was hard to argue with that one, you were the one who brought it up in the first place. You grumbled and slammed your laptop shut.

“Fine! But if we do all this and he ends up being just some guy I’m expecting a very long apology from you.”

Chaeryeong just smiled brightly at you. “Yes, ma’am.”

Soonyoung had brought Leo up to bed much earlier than he thought he would; your brother mumbled something about using all his brainpower on the fractions, and Soonyoung had laughed and tucked him into the covers. When he returned downstairs, he noticed the kitchen lights were on. Once he reached the bottom, he could see Chaeryeong holding your quivering body in the kitchen, a knife and an apple discarded on the kitchen island.

“What happened?” He asked, the faintest hint of worry in his voice.

The truth of what happened is quite simple; you and Chaeryeong snuck down here while Soonyoung was putting Leo to bed, she gave you a small (but still painful) cut on your index finger, and now you were standing here trying to sell it.

“[Y/n] was gonna split this apple with me, but I totally forgot how awful she is with knives. I think she cut her finger open, does it look bad?” Chaeryeong grabbed your wrist, holding your now opened hand closer to Soonyoung’s face. The blood had pooled where the cut was and started to streak down your finger. He sucked in a breath, struggling to look away from it.

“Y-Yeah, it looks pretty bad.” Soonyoung gulped, watching the red liquid falling down past your knuckles. He licked his lips, an action that didn’t go unnoticed by you, and you pulled your finger away. Then and only then did Soonyoung look at you in the eyes again.

“Everything okay? You seemed kind of distracted.” You tilted your head to the side. “You seemed really focused on the blood, don’t you think?”

Soonyoung scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Oh please, I was not.” You and Chaeryeong exchanged a look, and you held up your bleeding finger in front of his face again. Soonyoung’s focus shifted once more, his eyes zeroing in on the streak of blood that was beginning to go dry. You turned away to rinse it under the sink and shook off the water once it was all washed away.

“Yeah, okay.” Chaeryeong said, reaching into her pocket and handing you a band-aid. “So you’re a vampire, right?”

To say the least, Soonyoung seemed shocked and offended that you had caught him so easily, as if he hadn’t been the most obvious vampire ever. “What? A vampire? Please, how could you ever think that?” It was almost pathetic how he was actually trying to convince you otherwise when the evidence was already there, maybe he actually thought he could wiggle his way out of this.

“Look, we already know. Just drop it.” You sighed, and Soonyoung did the same.

“Aw, mannnnnnn.” He whined. “What gave it away?”

“Do you really want us to answer that?” Chaeryeong asked him, her voice riddled with sarcasm. Soonyoung looked down and mumbled the word “no,” and Chaeryeong nodded pointedly. “Thought so.”

So you were right. Soonyoung was a vampire. He was also your little brother’s babysitter. It’s funny, you could’ve sworn you’ve seen a show like this before a really long time ago, one whose name wasn’t coming to mind right now. Whatever, back to the main point. Soonyoung was a vampire.

“Why are you here?” You questioned him, holding up a fork to his neck. “Are you gonna kill us?”

“Woah, um, first of all,” He closed his hands around yours and lowered it, and you noticed how cold he felt. Probably another vampire thing. You snatched your hand away, and he seemed confused, but shook his head and continued on. “That silver thing? It’s just a myth. Second of all, why would I wanna kill you? It’s not like your parents wouldn’t notice. Not to mention we don’t go feeding on people randomly, consent is a thing, you know.” You could’ve laughed at that. A creature that survived off of draining the blood of others caring about their right to say no seemed ironic.

“And anyway, did you seriously expect to kill me with a fork?”

Chaeryeong burst into laughter, though she tried to play it off by coughing when she saw you glaring at her. “Sorry…” She picked up the fork and the knife and dumped them back into the silverware drawer to prevent you from making any more threats against Soonyoung. Your parents also didn’t trust you with metal utensils for…reasons similar to this.

You rolled your eyes. “So what happened to Junhui? Why couldn’t he come?”

The blond shrugged. “I dunno, he said that he was feeling sick, so he asked me to come in his place. Does that really matter?”

“Of course it matters! I don’t want some freaky undead creature looking after my little brother!” You retorted, raising your voice just a little. He might’ve been against eating people, but that didn’t change the fact that he was still a monster.

“[Y/n], that’s kinda…” Soonyoung held up one of his hands, signaling for Chaeryeong to stop talking.

“How do you know Jun isn’t a vampire?” He tilted his head as he asked that, then pursed his lips while he waited for your answer.

So he was a vampire and a smart-ass. Great.

“I don’t know!” You turned your head away from him. “This is just…freaky. I didn’t know vampires could be so—”

“Witty? Handsome? Charming? I know, I get that all the time.”

“Stupid.”

Chaeryeong laughed again.

Soonyoung raised one of his eyebrows. “Stupid guys must be your type then. Well, according to Chaeryeong, if I heard correctly.”

You looked at him, eyes wide. “You heard all that?” Soonyoung nodded, smiling when he noticed the way you reacted.

“Every single word. You know, maybe you should do more research.” He flicked you on the forehead and grinned when you let out a yelp of pain.

“Anyway.” Chaeryeong mumbled. “It’s getting late, my sister is on her way to get me. Good luck with…” She gestured between Soonyoung and you. “whatever you’ve got going on.” She reached forward and grabbed the discarded apple from its place on the island and padded upstairs to get her stuff from your room.

A gleeful smile crept its way onto his lips as he turned his head to look at you. “She’s leaving. You know what that means, it’ll just be me and you once she’s gone.”

“If you try anything, I will go get the fork. I don’t care if it kills you or not.”

He laughed, and the sound echoed through the kitchen. It was weird, he didn’t sound or look like an evil blood-sucking monster. He just looked and sounded…normal. And a little shiny.

“Later [Y/n]! Bye Soonyoung. Have fun!” Chaeryeong waved to you from the stairs. You replied with a goodbye of your own, and Soonyoung hummed, listening for the sound of the door closing shut before turning you around and pushing you against the island.

You gasped. “What are you doing?” The way you squirmed in his hold was amusing to Soonyoung, acting as if you could get away. You were so cute, thinking you could get away from him. This would be more enjoyable than he thought.

“I don’t understand why you’re so afraid of me. I can make you feel so good, baby.” You scoffed, the sound turning into a low moan when he started grinding his hard cock against your ass.

“I’m not afraid of you,” The shakiness in your voice poked a hole in your believability, but Soonyoung didn’t think too much of it. He lowered his head to the side of your neck, pressing a kiss to your pulse point before licking a stripe up the side of your neck. You shivered with a horrible realization; you liked it.

“Mmm, then maybe you like me. Is that why your heart is beating so fast?” You could feel him smiling against your skin.

A whine echoed through the kitchen. Your whine. “Wait, my parents…”

You gasped a second time when Soonyoung turned you so you were facing him, and you watched him roll his eyes with that annoying smile plastered on his face. “Oh, them? They’re coming home late. Your mom locked the keys in the car, so they’ll be a while.” Just when you were about to respond, he turned you around again, the feeling of his breath on your neck making you shiver. “So just focus on me, got it?”

His hands traveled over your body, stopping to squeeze your chest or your ass. You should’ve been embarrassed with how you reacted so eagerly to his touch, but he was actually making you feel good. Well, whatever. It’s not like you’d actually let him know—

“I can get rid of these, right?” He hooked his fingers underneath the waistband of your pajama pants, pulling them down along with your underwear the second you gave him a nod of confirmation. The fabric drops down your legs and pools at your feet and you kicked it aside. Soonyoung reached between your legs, collecting the wetness between them and holding it up to your face, fingers glistening with your arousal. “Look how wet you are for the freaky undead creature. You like this, don’t you?”

“N-no. I don’t like this or you.” Even though you said all that and shook your head, Soonyoung could tell you didn’t mean it. He reached between your legs again, this time to ease one of his fingers inside of you.

“The way you’re moaning for me says otherwise.” As he said that, he pushed another one of his fingers past your walls and eliciting another one of those not so subtle sounds from you that he loved. You didn’t even have to see him to know that he was pleased with himself getting you all worked up like this.

He was arrogant. He was full of himself. He was a smug bastard. He was all of that and more, and it was making you weak in the fucking knees.

Three of his fingers were inside of you now, stretching you so good that it made your head spin, and you bucked your hips against his hands like you’ve never been touched a day in your life.

God, you’d never live this down.

You bit your lip so that he didn’t get the satisfaction of hearing how you were falling apart over his fingers, or how good it felt when he curled them inside of you just right, or how he had your legs shaking every time he reached your sweet spot. As if he needed the vocal confirmation (he heard the noises you were making regardless), the way you were trembling was pretty much a dead giveaway.

“You know, you still owe me a little blood.”

“What?” You turned your head as much as you could to look at him over your shoulder. Soonyoung’s eyes were darker than they were before, his hunger evident through his gaze.

How could you owe him blood? What did that even mean?

“You owe me some blood,” he repeated. “Waving your finger around in my face and refusing me a taste. You have no idea how worked up you got me all over that flimsy little cut.”

Judging by how his dick was still poking you, you seriously doubted that.

You turned your head back around, not wanting him to see your face as you weighed your options. You didn’t really know what would happen if he did bite you. Would it hurt? Would it feel good?

Only one way to find out.

“Just…do it fast.” You tilted your head to give him better access to your neck. Soonyoung smiles wide—not like you could see it, but you were imagining that he was in this situation. He withdraws his fingers from their place inside you, much to your dismay, but he’s now holding them to your lips. He groans when you open your mouth and allows him to slip his fingers in and mumbling something that you can’t pick up over the sound of your thumping heartbeat.

“It shouldn’t hurt too much, but let me know if I need to stop.”

He pressed a quick kiss to the spot on your neck that he was sinking his fangs into no more than a second later, giving you no time to process his little act of intimacy. It stung for a moment, but what followed the initial sting of pain was the most intense and overwhelming sense of pleasure.

Soonyoung moans with absolutely no shame when your blood fills his mouth. He’s never tasted anyone as good as you, and he realizes that he could quickly become addicted to you. Your sounds, your blood, your pussy, each and every part of you inside and out was intoxicating.

You wrap your hands around his wrist and pull his fingers out of your mouth, wanting to have him hear your next words clearly. “Fuck me…please.”

He nearly chokes when you ask him that, forcing himself to pull away just so he can ask you to repeat yourself. He licks the remnants of your blood from his lips and your wound so that it’ll seal. “Anything for you, sweetheart.”

Clearly your expectations for him were still far too high, because instead of taking you to bed or at least the couch, he had you laid on the kitchen floor. Yeah, you’re definitely never living this down.

And yet despite all this, you can’t help but drool when you finally got to see Soonyoung’s cock beyond the confines of his sweatpants. He looks down at you, smirking, and despite your heightened arousal you still feel an urge to kick his cocky little ass.

“Can you get down here before I change my mind?”

He waves at you dismissively as if he hadn’t been the one all over you. “Need a condom. Got one on you?”

You roll your eyes. “I’m clean and on the pill. Come on, just fuck me already, oh my—”

Soonyoung happily lowered himself onto the floor, his lips on yours as he guided himself inside of you inch by inch. He tasted like your blood, obviously, but there was an also a faint taste of pink starburst too. Something he probably got from Leo, no doubt. The combination was weird, but somehow you figured it suited him.

“God. So f-fucking big, Soonie!”

Gone is the last bit of your composure with Soonyoung’s cock buried inside of you, blurting out any thought that came to your head against his lips.

“Shhh, not so loud, baby,” he whispers. “Wouldn’t want to have your bother wake up and find out what a slut you are, would you?” Yeah right, you think. Leo could sleep through anything, including you getting dicked down by his babysitter. But getting called a slut by him in that sickly sweet way had you clenching around him. “Fuck, warn me if you’re gonna do that.”

“Like I knew it would happen.” You hissed, making him laugh. He found this back and forth thing going on between the two of you fun, especially when he could get you so worked up and vice versa.

He waited until your body had relaxed to start moving, having to keep one of his hands over your mouth each time he thrusted into you because despite what he’d said earlier you just couldn’t seem to stop yourself. It wasn’t your fault that the kitchen was so echoey or that Soonyoung was giving it to you so fucking good.

“You’re such a cute little thing,” He laughed breathily into your neck. “I loved how much of a fight you put up for me baby. Now look at you. You’re mine.”

“All—ah—yours,” your words were muffled by his hands, but he understood you perfectly. The embarrassment you felt earlier was gone, completely replaced with thoughts of him and his cock splitting you open right here on the floor.

You felt him nod, “Mhm, you’re all mine, and I’m all yours. God, wish I could just fuck this sweet little pussy forever.”

A laugh managed slipped past your lips and he finally moved his hand away from your mouth. “You can say that?”

“God? Duh.” He sneered, becoming more and more aware of just how clueless you really were about vampire culture. “Can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you right now.”

You were just about to say something else when Soonyoung changed the angle of his hips, slamming into you even deeper than before. Your back arched, chest pressed to his, and a second later you let out a frustrated groan.

“You still fucking suck.”

“I’m glad you noticed.”

He opts for a faster pace after that, spurred on by the way you close your eyes and babble his name over and over again as if it’s the only word you can say. He’s so desperate to cum, to get you to cum, to have him be the only thing on your mind when you make a mess of yourself all over him. He whispers for you to keep your eyes closed, taking your wrist in his hand and bringing it to your stomach.

“Can you feel me? Right…” He moves your hand around a little before he finds the correct place, “here?” Blindly, you press down on the spot, and your eyes shoot open. He’s so, so deep, you can’t keep it together anymore.

“F-Fuck, feels so good,” your breath hitches at the end of the sentence. “Need more…”

“Yeah? Pretty baby needs more?” Soonyoung raises one of your legs over his shoulders and you swear you start seeing stars with the way he’s fucking you. “You’re so t-tight, sweetheart. Gonna cum?”

“Mmm, yeah, so c-close. Make me cum, Soonie, need it so bad.”

Soonyoung lifts his head so that he can kiss you, only breaking it to quickly mumble the words “me too” before his lips are back on yours and his finger is rubbing your clit until your body goes limp beneath his and he feels you squeezing him so tight it triggers his own orgasm, slowing the speed of his thrusts as he floods your pussy with his cum.

Your head feels fuzzy, and you barely register the feeling of him pulling out or lifting himself off of you while you lay there and catch your breath. “Soonyoung?”

There’s no immediate response, and it makes you confused as to why. You try to lift yourself off the floor but the soreness hasn’t quite subsided, so you’ve no choice but to stay put. “Yeah, just leave me on the floor. Not like I need your help or anything.”

“Well excuse me for not wanting you to be all sticky.” He huffs, wiping the insides of your thighs with a damp washcloth, then proceeding to wipe down the floor and the top of the island.

“I’m still on the floor, Soonyoung.”

Smiling, he helps you to stand and even manages to get you back into your underwear and pajama pants. He won’t stop looking at you like he has something to say. Maybe, for once, it’s something important.

“What?”

“You wanna go again? I’ve still got a ton of energy.” You rolled your eyes. Of course he did. “Oh come on, I know you liked it.”

“That’s it, I’m getting the fork.”

[alliept2]

Felt I’d submit my personal spin on this thing. Sadly fem Y/n, I do give her a name just to be easy for me but it’s not a distinctive person, no appearance description nor even hair bc ik that’s annoying. First fanfic so be kind. Plus I’m going to mischaracterize him probably, sorry didn’t finish the show.

Chapter 1:

So, this is what a frat party looks like. Pretty much how you’d imagined it. The air is thick with body odor plus an amalgamation of drugs. Breathing in here feels like a chore; if it wasn’t so crowded maybe you’d cross the room and open a window. The idea of the fresh night air on your face was tantalizing. Only it’d remain a fantasy since there was no way you could cross the room without tripping over solo cups, the improperly organized furniture, or just plain getting your toes squashed.

Realizing it wasn’t worth the hassle, you sunk back into the couch and regretted your life choices. Younger you wouldn’t believe that you’d even came here willingly, this had always been your worst sensory nightmare. The music was getting on your nerves; they’d been remixing that same shitty Travis Scott song for ages now. Why did you even bother? Of course you remembered your friends insisted that you could hardly consider yourself a college student without attending at least one college party and since you’d been feeling so left out lately this would be the perfect time to earn their approval. However now as you squinted your eyes, scanning the sweaty scantily clothed crowd of young adults, Allie & the rest were nowhere to be seen. Fine by me,you thought. Spending the whole night in this little corner wasn’t so bad! The couch wasn’t that filthy…in the dark at least. Plus at least everyone else was mainly on the dance floor. It was kind of peaceful, perfect time to catch up on some homework at least. You consoled yourself thinking that at worst tonight was a waste of a good outfit. You pulled out your phone but before you could open canvas the smell of alcohol and bad cologne assaulted your nostrils. A couple plopped down on the couch next to you, presumably to make out. Naturally, it was time to relocate.

You awkwardly stood from the couch, maneuvering around the hideous orb shaped table in front of it (frat guys have weird taste) and started to survey the room for somewhere else to sit. The longer you stood up looking around the more stupid you felt. As if everyone could tell you didn’t belong here and your friends didn’t care enough to stay with you. Just as you were about to start naming five things you could see and four things you could hear the crowd seperated. People eased out of his way like water as he made his way across the room. Though it clearly wasn’t due to his charisma. People more so stepped aside with looks of apprehension. Maybe he wasn’t too popular. Which fascinated you because he was undeniably attractive. A little homely sure, (who knows who told him that outfit was okay) but still. He had nice delicate features even in the dark.

He was still sauntering through the crowd, probably on his way to the bar when he saw you and stopped. “Cassie?” He shouted over the music. Making the interaction slightly less sensual but he had a way about him. A lazy smile tugged at his lips as he glanced you over. Less in a flirtatious way but more so when you catch an old friend in the grocery store. Which made you wonder where you knew him from plus obviously he knew your name.

You tilted your head, “yeah…do I know you?” You examined his face a bit further but it didn’t ring any bells. Maybe because it was so dark. He stepped closer with his ear toward your face, signaling that he hadn’t heard. You hated shouting but reluctantly repeated yourself. He shook his head and you could tell he lost some of his confidence. Like he’d only worked up enough for that opening line. You didn’t know that for sure but he hadn’t expected to get this far.

“No uhh-“ his eyes wandered for a moment, “we have humanities together. You sit in front of me usually. Not like I keep track of where you- or everyone else sits.” He hastily explained, rushing out his words like he was choking. If it wasn’t so dark you’d be able to see his hands shaking.

You nodded stiffly, waiting for him to explain what prompted this conversation. He could sense that he was losing you so he quickly rushed to speak again. “I’m Armin. I just didn’t expect to see you here, doesn’t seem like your scene.” Maybe if you knew him better or felt a bit bold you’d point out that it didn’t seem like his scene either. The name did a bit to jog your memory. In class he answered almost every-time the professor asked and he’d yet to get one wrong. Plus the outfit he had on now didn’t exactly imply that he got out much. Instead you chose to engage politely. Why not? He was kind of cute.

“You’re right. I’m just trying something new today.” There was an awkward pause as neither of you knew what to say next. You looked around hoping to spot a friend for an excuse to escape this disaster conversation. No luck, only strangers playing beer pong or making out in corners. His voice brought your attention back to him. “Do you want to go somewhere quieter? I know a spot.” He grinned, seemingly reclaiming his confidence somehow.

Normally going to a second location with a guy you’d just met was basically asking to inspire the next slasher movie but there was something about him that was nonthreatening. Plus the glimpse of his tongue piercing that glistened in the overhead light when he last spoke was enticing. You nodded with a pleasant smile and promptly followed him through the crowd back to the outside world.

The campus was beautiful in a peaceful way at night. Only the street lamps illuminated the sidewalk, that was a lot easier to appreciate without hundreds of students coming and going in any given direction. You turned to him again. Likewise he looked a lot better in the new lighting. Armin seemed to be appreciating you the same way and a comfortable silence fell upon you both as you silently acknowledged the attraction. That was until he stumbled over a crack in the path then tried to play it off as him reaching into his pocket. You laughed to yourself a bit but he didn’t waste anytime speaking again to distract you from this.

“I was just going to show you the park nearby.” He shrugged, “it’s a bit of a walk but you look like you can handle it.” Armin winked at the implication that he found you physically fit, though the wink was awkwardly timed. He almost sounded smooth but his slight stammer and delayed wink revealed the fact that he was nervous to give you that compliment plus probably didn’t do much flirting in general.

Stopping there because

1: I’m evil and lazy and this is kinda ass, it’ll be better next time I’m tired.

2. Can someone please let me know how inappropriate I can make fanfic on tumblr? Not too familiar with the guidelines. Am I allowed to make them smash? LMK please.

[octo-in-the-mainframe]

Side Order Spoilers!!!

Okay does anyone else find it weird that Smollusk and Pearl referred to both DJ Octavio and Agent 4 as "big shots"?

And that Pearl says Agent 4 "was supposed to be such a big shot"??

And that even though pieces of their souls got sucked into the Memverse they canonically have not been seen after the events of Splatoon 2 and 3 respectively???

Knowing that characters were added to Tableturf after the DLC, namely, Pearl, Marina and Acht, I wouldn't be surprised if more characters are added later.

"But Octo, didn't Nintendo say there would only be two waves of DLC?"

Well, yes...but I have reason to believe otherwise.

First, when announcing the two waves of DLC, yellow and blue were used for the first and second waves, but despite there being four colors used for the announcement, red and green made no further appearance.

I'm sure if Nintendo really wanted to, they could have found a way to make just the yellow and blue look nice, but they specifically added those two colors. Red, I get, that's Big Man's color, even if they don't use it much in promotional material, but GREEN?

If Nintendo were to make more DLC, three waves WOULD make sense, considering the leitmotif of threes throughout the game. It's the third game, there's 3 idols, 3 forces united as one, 3 Splatfest teams to choose from, etc.

But that still doesn't explain the fourth color. It breaks the pattern of threes and uses a color that is barely anywhere among our cast of characters, besides Marie, DJ Octavio, and maybe Callie.

And then I thought...what if it's to give us a taste of the next game? Next IS Splatoon 4, so I wouldn't put it past them for a sneak peek.

My other, and more likely idea was that it would center around Agent 4, which kind of ties in with the weird wording used for both Octavio and them. Perhaps we'll finally get to see what they've been up to, maybe even teaming up with a certain DJ?

As for the third wave...I'm not too sure. I think it might have to do with Lil' Judd and Marigold, though.

As we collect scrolls in Alterna, we get tidbits of the other characters' lives and some info on the Splatoon world itself.

But something that stood out to me is when we get to Pearl and Marina's scroll.

It's their outfits from the DLC, clearly meant to foreshadow their next appearance. And right before that was a scroll for the Squid Sister's podcast (and that dried up squid), which lines up since their hub world was brought to the game in the first wave of DLC.

But after Pearl and Marina, it's Lil' Judd.

Lil' Judd planning for Judd's demise.

Which has not been brought up seriously in the main game.

That...that means nothing, right? I mean, more DLC hasn't even been announced, ha-ha!!

But then the next page is Marigold, with her many pictures crossed out, with multiple names to the same-ish face. It's secretive; does she have various clones, multiple siblings? What is she?

And then, there's also the concerning connection between her and Lil' Judd.

Marigold works at Grizzco, evidenced by her voice at the counter and her vocabulary. Lil' Judd...is in CHARGE of Grizzco now, majorly implied by the new inclusion of a headpiece on him after you finish fighting Mr. Grizz.

I think the third wave of DLC will be focusing on Lil' Judd's plans to get rid of Judd and will involve a further look into Marigold and how Grizzco operates.

I mean, we can't keep stealing Salmonid eggs forever, can we? Eventually they'll run out. This endless back and forth has resulted in Big Run's happening, so it's not out of the question that we get a resolution to this.

(I personally think Big Run will have its own version of an ending, one where whenever you play Salmon Run after it it's "in the past," so that it doesn't affect whatever the conclusion was. Otherwise, the Big Runs would likely just get worse.)

Maybe we'll get to be Neo 3 this time and learn more Salmonid lore with our Smallfry friend!!

Of course, most of these concepts are speculation, but I do want to show off one last piece of evidence that I think can be rather damning.

The roped off barrier by the Metro. (Sorry I don't have an image of it, and I don't want to use anyone else's footage.)

Only removed once the DLC trailer was shown.

And look what we have here, as far back as the original Splatoon 3 Direct...

Another roped off barrier in front of the arch. Not just construction, like how Splatoon always sets up new places for the next game, no. It's a barrier, with a big empty space behind it.

I always thought it was so weird we weren't allowed to go over there, and now it seems so obvious to me what Splatoon has been implying.

I don't want to get my hopes up, or anyone else's, but I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to just move past these details and pretend like they're nothing.

What about you guys? Do you also think all of this is mighty suspicious? Do you have any theories regarding more waves of DLC, and what they could possibly be? Oh, and if you have more evidence for there being four waves, please feel free to tell me in the comments or through message. (I might not see the messages, though, because mine haven't been working that well, so mostly stick to comments and reblogs.)

Lastly, I did want to ask if anyone knows what the European version of the shop for the DLC means by “It’s possible that additional DLC, not listed above will also be distributed with the Expansion Pass.” I saw somebody mention it, I don't remember what post, but I was wondering if that was just a standard description for the European page or if it was just for this DLC. I'm in the US, and mine doesn't say that. If I'm completely wrong about this fact please tell me,,,

That's all I got though!! So, buh-bye!!!!

[weikipedia]

The Elopement

Chapter One

Weiki X OC

Word count: 3K

Warning(s): Age gap relationships, smoking, swearing etc

Plot: When Sky got the news her sister was getting eloped to Kai Hansen, she races to Teneifer to stop it. While trying to find her she meets Weiki, and chaos unfolds.

I know I'm too late. I know she's already walked down the aisle and is married to him. It was pointless to come all this way. I had to try, though. I had to try and stop it.

I'm lost in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands. That’s about all I know about this place. My phone is dead, so I can't even pull up my sister's address.

Fuck.

Why the hell was I elected for this? Out of he seven of us, I'm the least organized and level-headed. I’m wildly impulsive. Then again, maybe that, coupled with the fact that I’m currently unemployed, is why I'm here. I could pick up and go on such short notice.

Twenty-four hours ago, I was happily back home trying to figure out my life post-Ph.D graduation. I was trying to find a job and move out of my sister's house when we got the message from Dana.

It wasn't like her—she's not like me. She's level-headed, a rock, and never does anything without thinking it through. Yet she was getting eloped to someone we’d never even met. Someone who might I add is 30 years older than her.

When she moved here a year ago, I was happy for her. She deserved a fresh start. She’d spend her 20s looking after us after our parents died. She deserved to follow her dream and teach English abroad. Now I'm not so sure how to feel.

He had a weird name too. I only remember it because I thought that it didn't sound very Spanish. Kai Hansen. Kai also stood out to me you don't hear many people over 40 named Kai.

I have no phone battery. I know no one here except my sister and I have no place to stay. I left in hurry thinking I could stop the wedding. Then I figured I'd go to my sisters place and crash for the night. Only now I don't have anyway of going there, I have no idea if she’ll be there and I have no idea if she’ll even want to see me considering why I came. In hindsight this whole plan has been ridiculous.

This might be the most insane thing I've ever done. Which says alot considering I went to Wacken once with like 60 dollars to my name. At least that time I had it all planned out. This time I have nothing. I might be sleeping in my car. Its already like seven in the evening. I mean the sun setting.

I jump as I hear someone knocking on the window.

I look out the window in shock and see a man standing there in the glow of the setting sun. He's smoking a cigarette. He has long brown hair, styled in a side part. His eyes are a striking blue.

I roll down my window, silently praying this man speaks English.

“I’m so sorry.” I apologize, figuring he's upset I parked on the street. This is a residential area after all.

“I’m just lost, I came here to find my sister and stop her marriage, I'm too late and now I might be sleeping in my car.”

I really didn't need to drop all this on this random man now part of me hopes he doesn't speak English.

“Thats…you came here with no plan?” He replies giving me a quizzical look.

He has a strong accent. Its not Spanish though. It might be German or maybe one of the Scandinavian languages.

“Well I had a plan kind of.” I try and defend myself but come on now I didn't come here with a plan. I came here with an idea, one that didn't work out.

“Who am I kidding no I didn't.”

He stares at me blankly for a moment. Then take one of his long fingers and points to my phone.

“Is that dead?”

“Yes,” I admit.

“Do you know where you sister lives?” He asks next, I can see the cogs moving in his mind.

“Not off the top of my head.” I tell him, “I also don't know her number.”

“What’s you sisters name and who is she marrying?” He asks next taking a drag of his cigarette. He's clearly trying to help me find a solution to this.

“Her name is Dana Blix, his name is Kia Hansen,” I inform him, being thankful in that moment this guy had a name that stood out to me.

“Kai Hansen?” He sounds taken aback by me saying that name.

“Yeah, I didn't think it sounded very Spanish.” I comment, as a response to his clear surprise.

“It’s because he's not. He's German.” He informs me, “I know him well. I didn't know he was getting married.”

Kai being German makes a lot more sense. I guess that means this guy is most likely German as well.

“I think it was an impulsive decision.” I tell him, “I found out last night.”

“He doesn't even live here.” I was not expecting him to say that next.

“What? Where does he live then and why is he here?” I'm shocked. This information makes everything way more confusing.

“He lives in Europe right now.” He tells me, sounding just as confused as I feel. “He’s here working.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s one of the guitarists in my band.” He drops another bomb I wasn't expecting. His long hair makes sense now.

“What band are you in?” I mean that is the next logical question.

I am a huge metalhead. As I mentioned before I've been to countless metal festivals. I've seen alot of European bands. The issue is I have seriously bad face blindness. I could have very well seen this man play live and have no memory of what he looks like.

“Helloween.” He replies casually as if he's is not in one of the biggest German metal bands, also credited for creating power metal.

I did in fact see them live. I wasn't close to the stage in my defence. So its not like I could get a good look at anyones faces. I just remember being floored they had seven members up on that stage. They kicked ass.

“Hmmm I saw you guys live once, great show.” I comment, before asking, “How long as he been here then?”

“A week.” He replies taking another drag before adding “I’m happy you liked the show.”

“So she’s made this decision with in a week.” I mumble. “What the hell is going on?”

“Well he was here a few months ago as well.” He adds, “I live here and so does one of the singers, so we do alot of work on the island.”

“Well my sister has lived here for a year.” I respond, things are starting to piece together a bit more.

She probably met him when he first came to the island a few months ago. They kept in touch. He came back and now they got married. He's probably planning on taking her to Europe with him. That would make sense. It would also explain the rush.

“I do know where he’ll be tomorrow.” He tells me.

“You do?”

“Well unless he cancels he’ll be in the studio with me.” He informs me, “I can take you with me.”

“That would be great actually.” I reply, “I might try and get ahold of my sister.”

“I’m Sky by the way.”

“I’m Michael Weikath.” He replies, “If you want you can come in and charge your phone.”

“You wouldn't mind?”

“No.” He waves it off, “You need help. I can help.”

“You aren't wrong.” I reply, Grabbing my carry on. And getting out of the car and locking the door.

Its a typical Spanish style two story house. With the terracotta roof tiles and smooth white exterior. The front garden has a few tropical-looking bushes and flowers in it, but you can tell they are naturally occurring. He isn't out here looking after the plants.

He opens the front door to his house and lets me step in first.

The first thing I'm hit with is the sent of cigarettes. Which shouldn't surprise me since when I met the man twenty minutes ago he was smoking.

The entranceway is rather empty. No photos on the wall of decorations of any kind. I half exspected to be greeted which his platinum reccord placks. Then again he seems very humble.

He leads me into the living room. The first thing that hits me is how none of the pieces of furniture match. It looks like he went to a thrift store and bought whatever was available. Its all varias shades of brown. There is no coherent style what so ever.

He has a cluttered booksleve on one wall. It has books, tapes and some random nicknacks all over it. In the center of the room is a round mid mid-century modern coffee table. It has an ashtray and some papers scattered over it.

Up against the couch sits a bright blue flying v in a guitar stand. Its brilliant blue colour standing out against the rather bland colour scheme. It's a gorgeous guitar. I vaguely remember seeing it and thinking the same thing when I saw Helloween live.

He has a flats screen tv cross from the couch. Its presence seeming wrong among the outdated nature of the rest of the furniture.

If I didn't already guess it, the way this place is decorated definitely confirms it. He's for sure single. No women is living in a house decorated like this.

I will give him that aside from the clutter and ashtrays, its relatively clean. Most of the single men’s house I've been to are filthy. Mind you those were mostly frat boys but still.

He takes the guitar and moves it to in front of the book shelf making space for me to sit on the sofa.

“Can I see your charger?” He ask me holding out his hand for me to drop it into.

I reach into my bag and pull out my charger handing it to him.

He looks at the plug end and then the part that plugs into my phone.

“This is the wrong…ummmmm…we call it Stecker in German.” The English word escaping him.

“Plug?” I guess.

“Yeah, plug.” He nods.

“Damn it.” I sigh, I mean I know they use a different type of plug in other parts of the world. I've travelled before hell I have an adaptor. I didn't bring it in my rush of course.

“You can use mine.” Michael offers, “We have the same cable type.”

“Okay, thank you.” I reply thanking god we do.

He disappears around the corner and comes back holding the charger. He unplugs a lamp be has plugged in on a side table next to the sofa. Then he plugs the charger to the wall. I then take my phone and plug it in, before sitting down on the couch.

“Is this out of character for you sister?” Michael asks me, taking a seat next to me.

“Yes.” I tell him, “Thats part of why I came. She's the reliable one. I have six sisters, I'm right in the middle. She's the second olest. She’s always been the rock. I'm the impulsive one, not her.”

“Hmmm.” He seems to be taking in my words.

“How long have you known Kai?” I ask out of curiosity.

“Forty years.” Michael tells me, “I wasn't always speaking with him, but I am now.”

“Intresting he never mentioned this to you.” I comment, “I mean don't you need witnesses?”

“Eh, just because he didn't tell me doesn't mean it didn't tell anyone else in the band.” Michael points out.

“True, and since my sister lives here she might know people anyways. So they might not have needed to go to the band for witnesses.” I consider.

“If he was going to go to anyone, it would probably be Andi or Markus.” Michael informs me, “They’re both happily married and believe in love.”

“Are you saying you don't?” I ask. I mean he's unmarried in his 60s so I can pretty much guess the answer.

“Do you see a wife?” He replies.

“Fair enough.” I say, “I’m not so sure I do either.”

“If you want I can message the two of them to see if they know anything.” Michael offers.

“Sure.” I shrug, “Anything helps at this point.”

He takes out his phone and starts messages them. While he does that I take click on my phone it has charge now. I have message from my older sister Angelica asking if I've been successful or not.

I’ll reply to that once I have something to report. First things first. I’m going to call Dana. I'm more than sure she won't answer. I mean she's probably avoiding our calls.

I have to try anyway. Part of me hopes she picks up so I can stay with her and her new husband. Otherwise i’ll be sleeping in my car. I highly doubt I can find a place to stay on such short notice. Its fine though. I've spend the night in worse places then my car.

I call Dana.

It doesn't even ring. It goes to voicemail. Meaning she has her phone off. Lovely.

I hang up.

“No luck?” Michael asks me.

“Her phone is off,” I reply, “I guess i’ll be sleeping in my car tonight.”

“You didn't book a place to stay?” Michael sounds slightly concerned by that idea.

“Nope.” I admit, “Listen I was in a panic I didn't think any of this through.”

“You can stay here.” He offers, I wasn't expecting that.

“I don't want to put you out.” I respond, I'm the idiot who didn't plan this isn't on him.

“You aren’t.” Michael insists, “I can't let you sleep on the street.”

“Fine.” I sigh, it sure beats sleeping in my car right?

“Thank you.”

“It’s what any decent person would do.” Michael waves it off like it's no big deal.

His phone starts ringing and he looks at the screen.

“It’s Andi.” He tells me, picking up the call and putting it on speaker.

“Speak in English, you’re on speaker and her sister is here.” Michael tell the man on the other side.

“Okay.” He replies at the end, “This is what I know. He asked me a few days ago about a good jewelry place off hand. I didn't think much of it because he wears jewelry. Then I saw him out with a girl later that night. I didn't recognize her. I figured he probably bought her something.”

“At least he bought her a ring.” I mumble under my breath.

“Now yesterday after the reccording session he comes to me and tells me he's getting married tomorrow. I was shocked but I congratulated him. He asked me to be a witness. I agreed. It was the same girl from before who I'm assuming is her sister. She was American her name was Dana.” He continues.

“Yeah that's my sister.” I sigh,

“They got married a few hours ago, sorry.” Andi apologizes to me, its not his fault.

“It’s okay, you didn't know,” I reply, “Thank you.”

“It’s problem.” He replies, “Are you taking her to the studio tomorrow Weiki?”

“I am yeah.” Michael replies, “We’ll see you then.”

“I’ll see you then.” He says before hanging up.

“I guess I'm meeting my new brother in law tomorrow.” I sigh, “I wonder if he’ll bring Dana.”

“We’ll see tomorrow.” Michael Shrugs, “I don't think i’ll get much done in the studio.”

“I'm sorry.” I apologize, I feel bad for slowing down their recording process.

“It has to be done.” Michael tells me, “It’s okay.”

“Thanks for being so understanding.” I reply, he's being very kind to me. He doesn't have to be but he is. I really owe him one.

“You’re welcome.” He smiles back, he has a cute smile actually.

“Am I sleeping on the couch?” I ask, I'm getting pretty tired. I travelled all day and I want to be sharp for tomorrow.

“No, you can take my bed.” Michael tells me, and like hell I can.

I'm an unexpected guest i’ll take the couch. Not to mention he’s older I don't want him to break his back or something sleeping on an uncomfortable bed.

“No I’ll take the couch its fine.”

“No. You will take the bed.” He’s being very firm on this, damn this man is as stubborn as me.

“Fine, but I don't want you to hurt your back or something.” I sigh rolling my eyes.

“I’m old but I'm not that old.” He replies, “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, I’ll sleep in your bed.” I sigh, accepting that this is how its going to be.

“You’re stubborn aren't you?” He comments.

“Yes.” I confirm, “It's a long day, where’s your bedroom?”

“A new one for me a women looking for my bedroom.” He jokes, as he leads me up to his room.

“Ha ha very funny.” I respond rolling my eyes.

He flicks on the light.

The room has the same mismatched none aesthetic as the rest of the house. With a large dark wood bed in the middle of the room. Surprisingly its actually made. The bedding has a godey pattern on it. Its god awful ugly actually. This man has no taste in interior design. Then again he's a German man in his 60’s what do I expect?

I dig into my carry on. I didn't think id be here long so I packed lightly. I might come to regret that, like I've come to regret most rash decisions I've made to get here.

I pull out pieces of clothes I shoved into the bag last night. I set a pair of my panties and my bra on his bed. Its not like it matters, they aren't black lace or something. Just regular plan old black. Nothing sexy about it.

Michael is behind me digging through a laundry basket of cleans clothes. I'm half exspecting him to make a comment about it, he doesn't though.

“Is that all you brought?” He points to my carry on.

“I’ve survived on less than this before.” I tell him, one time I made two outfits last a whole week. This is nothing.

“So you take impulsive trips alot?” He comments.

“Never as impulsive as this, I mean I do plan those out months in advance, I just forget what to pack a lot of the time.” I admit, I'm not good at remembering or not packing last-minute.

“You sure you've never gotten married in Vegas or something?” Michael jokes, “I’ll be out of your way in a minute.”

“Not to my knowledge.” I reply, “Then again who knows I did get black out drunk in Vegas once. Its your house take your time.”

My 21st birthday. That was a time. Thank god my sisters where with me so they stopped me from doing anything stupid, first and only time.

I figured I have enough time to quickly change since Michael disappear into the bathroom. I quickly slip my bra off from under the t-shirt I'm wearing and change my jeans for pyjama pants. I start putting all my stuff back into my carry-on bag, when Michael re-appears.

“All yours.” He says, walking over and picking up the book on the nightstand. It looks like some fantasy type book. Judging by the cover, with a dragon on it. Its been along time since I've seen someone read a physical book. I mean aside from a $200 textbook when I was in university.

Then again it's been along time since I've seen someone smoke real cigarettes and not Vape. I think smoking real cigarettes makes you infinitely cooler and less douchy. I mean they are both going to kill you eventually, rather smell a real cigarette then the fake fruit none sense.

“Good book?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“It's okay.” He shrugs, “I started it so now I need to know how it ends.”

“Fair enough.” I reply, “Good night.”

“Good night.” He replies leaving the room, and shutting the door behind him.

I turn off the light then flop down on the bed. It might be the ugliest comforter I've ever seen but it's soft and the bed is surprising comfortable. I close my eyes and the blackness of sleep takes over in no time.

[clockworksheep2]

i mean we did have like. a genuinely scary experience lol. i guess that would sort of put a damper on the whole day.

and it wasn't even objectively all that bad. but we overreact to things so. shrugging.

it was literally just... this guy who we had as a classmate in one our gr 10 or 11 classes has some pretty significant mental disabilities (I don't know the polite and proper way to say it so hopefully this suffices) and he was kind of ... creepy? towards us?? like... bordering on harassment. and that is not an exaggeration. never any touching (well he touched our hair once but we told him off VERY quickly at that point and he thought the whole thing was hilarious which is why Chase is so good at telling ppl off in a calm way because then it cannot be funny) just weird remarks and staring and shit.

and this kind of thing happened somewhat often at school because we were unfailingly polite and kind to Everyone (with the exception of like... four specific instances). and ofc nobody treated these guys with the kindness that we did bc everyone is a fucking asshole in school esp towards disabled classmates, so they assumed we must be romantically interested in them (or they just grew romantically interested in us and never considered how we might feel lmao) and would end up trying to flirt with us and often eventually ask us out to which we'd have to decline because we were not interested in that. and then sometimes they'd get angry about it bc they believed we'd been leading them on.

anyways. this guy who we have not talked to or seen since grade 10/11 appeared in the library while i was sitting with the old lady craft group and he made a goddamn beeline straight for me. i thought maybe he knew one of the ladies but nope he was like. coming right to me and staring at me and said hello very clearly directed towards me. so i awkwardly made small-talk with him while he just. stood there. and i had no idea if he knew who i was or if he thought i was someone else, but finally he said smth abt us going to school together and then was like "i dont remember ur name haha" so i gave it to him and i was like. so scared the entire time. bc i had no idea what the goal was for him with this convo 😭 like i was thinking he was going to try to ask me out on a date or smth or ask if i could go sit w him to talk at another table and i was going to have to figure out a way to turn him down in front of everyone. god. genuinely i got lightheaded from panicking and trying to keep it together and think of things to say but then Chase kept saying that i could just be silent because this is not My conversation that i started, so i could have awkward pauses and it's his job to fill those because he's the one who came over in the first place. but jfc that was so uncomfortable and scary. eventually he just was like "okay, well, see ya" and walked away. and i had to take like five minutes away from my crochet to calm down so I didn't start crying in front of everyone because i was so confused and panicked still.

[dreamdepot]

Dreams of the Kingdom - Chapter 21: Dusk and Dawn

Previous < First > Next

AO3 Wattpad or below!

It is never comforting to wake up somewhere unfamiliar, especially when waking up in an entirely different plane of existence, in a body that was unfamiliar to you.

The entire room was obsidian black, made of unnaturally smooth, square stone. Everything just felt wrong, sending your new fur on end. At the very least, the bed was warm and comfortable – save for the woman sitting at the end. “Hmm, two and six but fifteen spaces…” she muttered, looking down at a puzzle of some kind. She then looked up, noticing you.

She was a gorgeous woman, but just as unsettling as your new surroundings. Her skin was black and pale blue with glowing tattoos. Her fiery orange hair and equally bright eyes were the only burst of color in this monochrome room. Just one look felt as if she was able to read your deepest thoughts, and her mischievous smile seemed to hold secrets of her own. “Ah, you’re awake. That’s good, not many of your kind handle the trip to my realm so well… considering most are reduced to a shade, but you became a beast. Who are you?”

“I feel like I should be asking you the same,” you said. Talking felt strange with your new mouth. You looked down at your body. While you were foxlike now, you were at least still somewhat human shaped.

“You should be thankful I stopped the transformation before you turned fully into a fox. The last Hylian I knew that became a beast was stuck on all fours.” She narrowed her eyes. “Now, again, who are you?”

You decided to yield, given you were in no shape to fight if things went south. “My name is [Y/n]. Now who are you, where am I, and…” You stopped, suddenly remembering what she said before you blacked out. “I’m in the Twilight Realm. But wait, yeah, I should be a shade, not a fox! A-and last Hylian would mean…” You looked back up at her. “Princess Midna?”

“Queen Midna, ruler of the Twilight Realm,” she corrected. She studied you. “And you are still hiding things from me. The way you sit, the way you look like you’re on a mission… you remind me far too much of Zelda. So what? Did she finally get hitched and have a kid or what?”

You sputtered. “What? No, I’m not…”

She suddenly burst into laughter. “Can’t you tell when someone is messing with you? You really must be related to her if you’re this up tight.” Your new fur bristled, which did not go unnoticed. “Oh, no, you are?”

“It’s… complicated.” You were about to explain when your hand fell to your bare wrist. Your heart turned to ice. “Wait, where is it, where is it?!” You patted around the sheets.

“You mean this?” Midna held out Link’s hair band. “The strap snapped. Here, one second.” She ran her hands through your fur, carefully combing it back and threading it through the band. As she brushed and braided, you told your story. She quietly listened as she took one of her own hair sticks and locked the band in place. You looked up into the mirror, seeing the hair band glinting against your red fur. “Hair bands are meant to be worn, not sure why you’d wear it on your wrist.”

Your face fell. “It’s not mine, it belongs to my boyfriend.”

Her gaze softened, if for a moment. “Then I’m sure he’d rather you wear it to keep him close to you, than on an old bit of leather.”

“It felt a bit weird to wear it, but… kinda feels nice now. Like he’s here.” Your fingers brushed the band. “Guess being a fox isn’t the worst thing to happen to me.”

“Like I said, you’re lucky,” Midna said. “Lingering light energy was enough to give you a form here in the Twilight Realm instead of becoming a shade. However, without my power, it would have been snuffed out. The Twilight eventually warps anyone from the Light World without proper protection. Be thankful you didn’t become a monster.” She stopped, the mischievous twinkle in her eye again. “In fact…”

“Uh oh.”

She shrugged. “Well, I did stop your transformation and you’re clearly some kind of warrior. Therefore, I’d say you owe me a favor, don’t you think?”

You swallowed hard. “What kind of favor?”

“You’re not the only visitor I have from Hyrule today, though I can’t explain how he got here – let alone with an interesting present…” She looked you up and down. “First though, you should change.”

She was right. Your Sheikah armor was torn and unsuitable for battle, partially from the transformation and partially from your constant battling without a chance to do any maintenance in the previous eras. You made your way behind a privacy screen and started to change. “So, if you’re in need of a warrior, what kind of ‘present’ are we talking about?”

“You catch on quick. My people were cast out from Hyrule many years ago. Our ancestor’s shadow magic was considered dangerous and for good reason: their anger, hatred, and sorrow created several dark artifacts that threatened the light.”

You simply hummed in agreement; you had heard stories of things such as the Fused Shadow, the vessel that held the bound shadow magic that once was used to try and steal the Triforce.

“I’m afraid one of these artifacts has found its way back to us after it was long thought destroyed. I simply need you to��� get rid of it. I really don’t care how, I just want it as far as possible from my realm.”

“You don’t want to destroy it? Or maybe seal it away?”

You could feel Midna’s judgmental glare through the screen. “Prince [Y/n], you obviously have studied the history of Hyrule. Explain to me how many times sealing something away has gone well for the people of Hyrule.”

“Point taken, but what about destroying it.”

“Not an option. Doing so would likely release all of the bound magic and make things worse. You’re a time traveler, take it somewhere where no one will ever find it.” Midna sighed. “Are you done yet?”

You decided not to comment on the unease in Midna’s voice. Now in your Royal Guard armor, you followed her down the halls. Your new tail slipped out, thankfully without needing to tear a hole in your old uniform. “Oh, I’m going to need a weapon.”

“Suppose that would help,” Midna stopped off at an armory, pulling down an old box. She tossed something to you. “Here, use this old thing.”

A shiny ivory and gold crossbow landed in your hands. “Oh hey, always wanted to try one of these.”

“Just make sure to give it back, it belonged to an old friend.”

You tested the crossbow’s weight. “You wouldn’t happen to have a sword too, would you?”

She grabbed a longsword from one of the Twili guards as you passed toward one of the courtyards. “This good enough?”

You held the twisted blade. It was unlike anything you’d seen before but looked deadly as any sword you’d used before. “Oh yeah, this is perfect. So, what’s the target?”

“That.”

You looked out at the courtyard where a grotesque scene lay before you. Several Twili guards were dead. The body at the center thankfully appeared to be clinging to life. What wasn’t so great was that the body was definitely from Hyrule, a Zora. To make matters worse, the Zora was almost completely enveloped in a mass of gloom tentacles, all feeding up to the source, firmly fixed to the Zora’s face – a terrible nightmare you long thought merely a story.

“Majora?! You want me to fight Majora?!” Midna shrugged. “Majora should be dead. Hero of Time destroyed all the evil in the mask!”

“Yes, interesting, isn’t it? It’s as if another evil has resurrected it.”

This voice was new, and Midna seemed rather tired by it. “Oh yes, there’s him too.”

A strange man sat near the edge of the courtyard, seemingly ignored by the other Twili guards and he ignored them. The oddest part was that he simultaneously looked Hylian and yet not, as if it was someone or something pretending to be Hylian. Unlike with the others, he looked at you with a smile that was just a little too wide, wringing his hands. “You… you’re an interesting one, aren’t you?”

A chill crawled down your back as he almost scuttled closer to you. “Yes, yes, very interesting indeed. You’re an intruder too. Not quite an Interloper, no, no, but you really are someplace you don’t belong.” An unsettling laugh dripped out his grin.

“Who are you?”

“No one important as a prince,” he snickered, instantly raising your guard. “Just a salesman, selling his masks far and wide. But one day, that very important mask of mine was stolen away and infested by an evil hand. Of course, a mask needs a wearer, so it decided to grab the nearest body strong enough…”

“Okay, get it yourself, it’s right there.”

“Oh no, I’m not a fighter. Quite the contrary, just a humble mask salesman. Someone will need to tame the evil within.”

“What happens to the Zora?”

“I can help you restore that poor Zora to his rightful self, if necessary. All I ask is that you get back my precious mask, and we all avoid a truly terrible fate,” he said, suddenly behind you. His eerie grin was so fixed on his face, you half-expected that he was wearing a mask right now. “Deal?”

You clenched your jaw. “Deal.”

“Good, and good luck…”

The writhing mass of tentacles lifted from the ground, weaving itself into a body around the comatose Zora. The mask and its mutated host was twisted beyond recognition, the gloom forming limbs. Where the mask once was had transformed into a chest. The arms grew and deformed into long whips. With a shrill shriek, a head emerged from the mass, its eerie eyes locking in on you. Before you was the demon of legend, Majora’s Wrath.

The monster was deadly quick, lashing at you. Your body moved without thinking, leaping and rolling to safety. You drew the crossbow and took aim at the eye. With an almost silent thwip, the arrow sailed through the air, narrowly missing the monster. “Damn, wish I had a chance to practice with this one first.” You rolled out of the way of the whips again, reloading and trying again.

The whips snagged you, holding you as the monster flung you across the courtyard. You skidded on the ground, narrowly avoiding a fall into the void. The monster cackled as you reloaded the crossbow again, feeling a surge of energy rising within you. This time the arrow struck true, stunning the demon for a brief second. You ran in with your sword, getting in a quick strike before dodging back as it tried to wrap you in its whips. Again, you loaded your crossbow and fired before charging in again, determined to keep Majora on the defensive.

With each swing you felt strength beyond your own. Warmth flowed down your arm, as if another hand closed over yours on the blade, guiding your strikes. At first, you thought it was Link, but then you realized the invisible hand was much larger than his. Your sword began to glow faintly, channeling a forgotten power.

You…

The deep voice nearly made you jump. It sounded like it was in your ear.

You… are…

The rest was cut off as Majora shrieked in agony, its body contorting as it turned into light, before bursting into gloom mist. The mask fell to the ground with a dull thonk, lifeless once more. You ran to the Zora. “What… happened?” He wheezed. Kneeling at his side, you could see he was a regal looking Zora with pale pink scales. “Holy Nayru, are you a fox?”

“It’s complicated. Are you alright?”

He coughed. “I will be. I’m Ralis, you?”

“[Y/n].”

He gave you a wink. “Then I thank you for saving me, from the bottom of my heart.” A blue glow filled his chest before disappearing into the ether like the others.

“Well done, well done!” You turned, half shielding Ralis from the salesman. “Record time might I add, and your Zora friend is none the worse for wear!” He reached down and picked up the mask. “Hmm, yes, the evil is gone once again.”

He turned back to you. “Since there is no need for my end of the bargain, I believe I owe you something of payment.” He held out a package wrapped in old rags. Gloom seemed to seep out from the cracks. You carefully unwrapped it, careful not to let the gloom touch you as dissipated in the Twilight.

“The Fierce Deity Mask?”

“I think it’s fitting, don’t you? Or perhaps you don’t know yet. Isn’t time fun?” He turned to leave but you stopped him.

“Can I really trust you with that mask?” You asked, brandishing your sword.

He merely laughed. “If you have to ask that, you should never have let me pick it up. Now, I must be going, I have a long way to travel still.” Before your eyes, he disappeared, fading into the Twilight. A disembodied voice echoed around you. “Oh, and Prince [Y/n], shouldn’t you be getting home too?”

You could only groan.

Frustration and rage boils within you. Intriguing.

You froze, looking down at the mask. The voice again whispered in your ear as the mask seemed to glow. Slowly, it floated before you. The hollow eyes somehow still piercing you.

You fight bravely and with honor. I understand now why he chose you.

“What?”

You may have freed me from gloom and from that man, but you are not the one I seek. Farewell. We will meet again.

“Wait!” But it was too late, the mask too disappeared. Thinking to where you found the mask in your time, you could only wonder if you accidentally changed the future for the worse.

“Thank the goddesses they’re gone,” Midna muttered, strolling up to you. She looked you and Ralis over briefly, making sure you were both in one piece before relaxing. “My things please?” You, regrettably, returned the crossbow and Twili sword – much to the guard’s happiness. “Now, let’s get you two back to the Light World.”

You frowned. “I thought the Mirror of Twilight was destroyed?”

“It was, and that was for the best. That said, Zelda and I have had ways to speak with each other over the years. Being a queen does have its privileges.”

“Okay… then how are we supposed to get back?”

Midna simply smiled.

==============================

You and Ralis tumbled out of a mirror onto the cold stone floors of Hyrule Castle. Two gasps met you as you tried to stand. You looked down to your hands, happy to see they were back to normal Hylian hands. You then reached back to feel Link’s hair band, still braided into your hair.

“Well, this certainly raises some questions.” You then remembered you had two people watching. You looked up to see an older man peering at you through his spectacles, helping Ralis to his feet. He was dressed formally, though the fashions were very different from the ones of your Hyrule. You half-wondered how Cece would react.

“Ah, so you’re the one Midna mentioned.” You turned to find an older Zelda, standing tall and regal with the scarcest hint of a smile. By your guess, she must have been in her late thirties, well after Zant’s invasion. “I am Queen Zelda XIV, and from what Midna suggested, you are my future successor. That uniform of yours certainly helps seal it.”

“I’m sorry, it’s the only armor I really have right now. It’s better than my torn set.”

“That would be quite unbecoming for our family,” Zelda replied, stifling a laugh as she helped you up. “Shad, would you be so kind as to help our friend? I would like a moment with our new guest.”

The scholar bowed. “Of course, your majesty. I will see to it that King Ralis is escorted safely back to the Domain.”

Before he left, Ralis clasped his hand on your shoulder with a bright smile. “Thank you friend, I and the Zora people owe you a great debt.”

You laughed. “Believe me, your descendant would do the same for me any day of the week.”

As they left, Zelda moved to her desk and took a seat, motioning for you to do the same across from her. Her expression was unreadable. “You have me at a disadvantage.”

Manners aside, you felt it important to be honest. “I am [Y/n] Daltus Hyrule, ma’am.”

“I see. I am glad to hear that you were able to assist Midna in securing the safety of the Twilight Realm.” She poured you a cup of tea. “I hope you don’t mind Ceylon tea?”

“Not at all.” Your posture straightened as you accepted the teacup, a bit surprised how quickly castle etiquette came back to you after all these years. You took a sip, almost instantly feeling your aches and pains soothed.

Zelda savored the tea as well. “This blend is a particular favorite of mine; it’s unique as it uses a pinch of dried mushrooms. It’s a gift from a dear friend from a distant kingdom. You aren’t the only one who has seen other worlds and other times. I should write her a letter…” She seemed lost for a moment before turning back to you. “I apologize, it’s a bit daunting to meet a descendant when… well, I haven’t exactly been interested in anyone.”

“Your majesty, believe me, I understand the awkwardness.”

“Then perhaps an icebreaker. Do you play?” She asked, pulling out an intricately crafted chess set.

“Not for some time I’m afraid, but I used to play with my sister.” Given your military mind and Zelda’s analytical prowess, the matches would often go on for hours.

As the two of you started to play, you explained the situation, and Zelda opened with her pawn. You blocked it as you told her about the Calamity. Zelda would nod, casually moving her bishop. By the time you explained how you found the Gate of Time, her queen was in your back row, moments from locking you in checkmate. “Wow, I can’t believe I fell for that.”

“That’s alright, Shad and I play often, and you did outlast him.” She took another sip of her tea. “I was thinking of giving you something if you won, but I think you’ll need it regardless. Your uniform is very nice, but hardly what I’d call a strong armor.” She stood, walking to a chest in the back of her office, returning with a large bundle. “Perhaps you should try this.”

The armor in question was gold and silver, inlaid with a gemstone in the center of the chest and carved details of the Triforce. Under the plates was a scaled hauberk, partly covered by a tunic, not unlike the Links of the past. However, instead of green, this tunic was wine-red. All of it was topped off by a circlet, serving both as protection and crown. “This armor was designed for a prince,” Zelda said. “Of course, I’m an only child, so think of this as a gift for a future grandson.”

“Thank you.” You held the armor, the sturdy weaving and hefty plates were oddly comforting.

“I should mention,” Zelda added, “this is technically a copy of a different armor the Link of my time has, called the Magic Armor. It isn’t impenetrable like that armor, though I will say that this set doesn’t carry the rather significant drawback that one has. It wouldn’t do for you to run out of protection the second you run out of rupees.”

“No, not at all,” you muttered, considering you rarely carried many rupees if you knew you were headed into a battle. Still, holding this armor, something so regal and nice felt strange after years living in a Hyrule struggling to recover. “Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Of course. If you are to face the Ganondorf of your time, I would want to give you every advantage. Never hesitate to stack the deck in your favor. Even if you must make sacrifices, you have a responsibility to yourself and your people.” She motioned back to the chess set. “I used to think fighting against Zant and Ganondorf was like a chess game. I admit it’s not quite a perfect analogy, but you must consider where to make your gambles and where to make your sacrifices. And,” she said, picking up the king. “If someone was going to give you a few more knights on your side, why would you ever disagree?”

You laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t play against you anymore.”

“You just need to learn the better way to play,” she said with a smile. “No holding back, but no rushing in blind either. Look at all of your resources, [Y/n]. Which reminds me… I do have one more gift for you.” She took a cloak off her coatrack and draped it over her shoulders. “Come along, the gardens are quite lovely this time of day.”

==============================

Zelda led you to a part of the grounds that was walled off. She pressed in on a brick, and a small secret doorway folded inward. “This way please.” As you followed, you noticed the grounds grew colder and colder. Mist rolled in around you as the doorway closed behind you. This section was poorly maintained and overgrown, despite the trees seeming dead. “This is the old graveyard,” Zelda explained. “It has been sealed to hide one of our greatest secrets. Thankfully, even when he attacked us, Ganondorf never fully understood what was hidden here.”

She stopped before an old grave, marked with the Triforce. Time had long worn away the writing. “This is where I leave you, future grandson.” She smiled softly.

“But what am I supposed to do?”

“Just be patient. He has never let our family down before. I doubt he’ll start now. Good luck.” With that, she left you standing alone in the eerie graveyard.

You waited, half expecting a Poe to leap out at you, but you were alone except for the wind. Some of the stones in the graveyard were notched or carved with holes, reminding you a bit of the odd stones Kass once showed you near Jeddo Bridge. The wind whistled through them, playing different notes. Soon, you realized they were carefully designed to play a song, each stone contributing a different note to each chord. You started to sing along, easily placing it as the Song of Time.

The third time you sang with the stones, you realized your voice was accompanied by an ocarina. The wind shifted, seeming to blow in reverse as a blue glow appeared before you. The light steadily glowed brighter and brighter until a figure emerged from the light before you. He was tall and strong, a seasoned warrior – but the blond hair and blue eyes were unmistakable.

“You’re a hard man to track down.” You stared at this other Link. It was like looking into the future, seeing this thirty-something version of your boyfriend. He had a scar over one eye, and wore a set of armor and chainmail with a heavy broadsword strapped at his waist. Most eye catching was the royal blue ocarina in his hand. “It’s good to see you again, Prince [Y/n].”

“Y-you’re the Hero of Time!”

He grinned. “You’d be surprised how rare it is people notice me right away.”

You looked him over, enjoying the idea of what your Link might look like in a decade or so. “So, I guess this means you ended up finding the Fire Sage?”

“I did. Gotta say, I was pretty disappointed you never came back to visit after. Need to give you this back.” He reached into his pack and pulled out a glass bottle, the same one you used to heal him.

You couldn’t help but laugh. “Honestly, it’s fine if you want to keep it.”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged. “Can’t imagine anyone willingly give up these things, but maybe that’s just a difference in generations.”

“Sure, grandpa.”

“Hey, I’m not that much older than you, and you were the old one when we first met!” He tried his best to look upset, but a smile cracked through. “Well, if you won’t take the bottle, at least I can help you out a different way.”

“I wouldn’t mind a ride to another time.” Your face fell. “And maybe some advice. You’re the time travel expert.”

He held up the ocarina. “I have been doing this for a bit. I don’t usually get involved in the other Links, but… well, you’re a bit of a special case. Ganondorf has been messing with time itself.”

“Yeah, Link and the Sages turned to stone, and I know Ganondorf is doing everything he can to make himself more powerful in my time. I know if I fix the problems in the past, it’s a step closer to beating him, but trying to figure out which Link will help my Link…” You finished with a groan. “Honestly feels like my brain is going to pop.”  

“I know the feeling,” he said, patting you on the back. “How about we start with the simple stuff first. Just call me Time for now. I think it’ll help with the confusion, not thinking of me as a Link and all.”

“Alright, Time,” you said, “you wouldn’t have any ideas, would you? I don’t suppose it’s as easy as just jumping back in to stop Ganondorf while he’s still mummified?”

He sighed. “No, it doesn’t work like that. My hands are tied in many ways. I can’t change the events of past to stop Ganondorf’s rise to power, in your time or mine. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“What do you mean? You beat Ganondorf!” Suddenly your head swam. “Wait… did you?”

Time gave you an uneasy smile. “That will be you getting used to the timestream. Ganondorf shattered time in my era, leading to three possible outcomes. Unfortunately, I only win in two of them, which in the long run was a net-win for Ganondorf.”

“Wait, what do you mean you failed? I remember every book I read saying you won?”

“The timestream heals leading to a future filled with anachronisms, the Hyrule you come from. Your Hyrule is an anomaly, but that really isn’t saying much when you look back at our history. I guess in one way, you wouldn’t exist without Ganondorf’s meddling.” He stopped to think for a moment. “Actually yeah, you wouldn’t exist at all, considering your ancestors come from the timeline I failed in.”

“But in the timeline, you succeeded in, you-”

“Let’s keep it simple,” he said, holding up his hand. “Ganondorf shattering time only gave him more chances to gather his strength. Even with the other heroes stopping him, he always got one step closer to his goal, getting the Triforce.”

“And I practically delivered two pieces to him on a silver platter,” you groaned.

Time shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time. What worries me more is that all of us in your past only fought incarnations of Ganondorf or Demise – or on occasion another dark wizard. The Ganondorf you face in your time is the source of all evil. That doesn’t mean he’s undefeatable though.” He thought for a moment. “You already found two pieces of the Triforce, so where is the third?”

“I… don’t know. It’s not with my Link. Do you have it?”

“My piece of the Triforce returned to the Sacred Realm. And since that time, the Triforce seems to have been moved somewhere else.” Time frowned. “I haven’t been able to track it at all across any era. At some point or another, the Triforce simply disappeared. Besides, even if I did have it, I couldn’t give it to you, given how often it is needed between our times.”

You thought for a moment, back to your dreams and Sheik’s message. “The answer is nothing but silence.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s what Sheik said… it’s some kind of hint to where the Shadow Temple is in my time. Maybe it has the final piece. Maybe it means the temple is hidden somewhere so far in the past, it’s before Hyrule ever existed?”

“Perhaps,” Time muttered. “Though that does get a bit messy with Demise and Hylia.”

It was as if the puzzle solved itself, jingle and all playing in your head. If anyone would know… “Time, what can you tell me about the cycle?”

“The cycle? That thing Sky and Wild rode in that race?”

“What? And who?”

“Never mind. I’m sure you’ll meet Sky later, and Wild’s what I call your boyfriend.” Fitting. “What do you mean by cycle?”

“The cycle, the whole reincarnation thing. Sahasrahla said it was the cycle of a hero, a princess, and an evil, over and over throughout our history. My friend Sharpe said I have to break it, but I don’t even know how or why. Not only that, when I was in the Era of the Great Sea, it was pretty obvious the cycle doesn’t always work. I’m not sure where any of this goes.”

“Ah, that cycle…” He sat on his gravestone. “Listen, Sahasrahla knows his stuff, but he doesn’t know everything, especially with the Curse of Demise.”

“Curse? But Sharpe called it a cycle?”

“Most people see it as a cycle, a never-ending loop of hero, princess, and darkness, fighting as long as Hyrule exists, but it’s not really accurate to say that.”

“So, what is it?”

“Like I said, it’s a curse, and most of us will tell you the same. Where to start…” Time thought for a moment. “Long ago, before Hyrule, before the Zonai, there was a great war between the forces of Demise and the mortal races. Demise was defeated by the Goddess Hylia who imprisoned him, but at great cost. Hylia gave her life to be reborn in a time when her chosen hero would be strong enough to fight and destroy him forever. You probably know this as the Legend of Skyloft and the First Hero.”

“Yeah, mother used to tell it to me, She said that Hylia rose our people into the sky before being reborn as the first Zelda, and her chosen hero came back to slay Demise.”

“Yes, but when Demise was struck down by the Hero of the Skies, he vowed to return, laying a curse upon the three, starting what Sahasrahla and your friend call the cycle. There would always be three, forever reborn and forced to fight over and over until the end of time itself. Demise just never anticipated there being a greater evil than him – the Demon King of your era.”

“Okay I get that part, what didn’t Sahasrahla understand?”

“First, like you said, the curse isn’t ironclad. There are times when there’s been no hero, and times when Ganondorf didn’t actually bother to bring about a great evil, the evil just managed to worm itself in regardless – like in Hytopia. Second, the curse is really about a legacy instead of true reincarnation. While many times Ganondorf or whoever would return, it was because of your Ganondorf’s meddling. On the other hand, the Link and Zelda were always different. I am not your Link, but he carries my spirit with him, as well as all of the other heroes.”

“And me?”

“You’re not part of the cycle, but I think that’s a good thing. Ganondorf may have forced you – or your past self, Sheik – to reincarnate in the future so that he could have his revenge, but that makes you different. For the entire history of Hyrule, the three have been locked in replaying this curse on and on, three forces forever balanced, unable to overtake the others. And now, here comes you, a new force who has already disrupted balance by carrying two pieces of the Triforce. You’re the fourth force that will destabilize the curse.

“This war is finally going to come to a close soon, and I think you are the deciding factor, Prince [Y/n]. You are the one who stands a chance to break the Curse of Demise and end this forever.” He stood. “My greatest regret was that I could only seal Ganondorf away, and in doing so, the curse continued. The good news is you’re outside the cycle, so you can change time more easily than I can. You’re the only one that can undo what Ganondorf has done, and you’ve already made great headway.”

He was right, three sages were now free, leaving Yunobo, the Master Sword, and Link. Perhaps though, there was someone else you could save. “One step at a time,” you sighed. “If you can pick where to travel in time, can you take me all the way back? Back to the reign of King Rauru and Queen Sonia?”

Time shook his head. “I can’t take you to the Age of the Zonai; you’re too closely tied with the events then. One wrong move and you could be erased from existence. I might, however, be able to take you back to your Hyrule, prior to the Calamity.”

“Heh,” you said. “That was my original target.”

“Then let’s see if I can get you home, your majesty,” Time said, picking up his ocarina.  

==============================

A/N: While he only appeared briefly, I did have to include Shad as a cameo for a fellow Zelda fic writer. If you haven’t had the chance, please check out ShadyScripter’s stories on AO3, which also like to play with time travel in the Zelda universe.

Next time, we travel back to a Hyrule familiar to you and rescue a stranded friend.

[pinkmarbella2050]

A Wild ETN Wattpad Fic I Read

So... I just remembered this really wild ETN fic I read from when I was still on Wattpad. So wild, I've decided to summarise it and share my thoughts. This is probably gonna get REALLY long, so buckle up! (TW: This fic summary/review contains mentions of parent murder, childhood trauma, an affair, bulimia, suicide, just a ton of smut and a lot of death, period. There's also an arson in Chapter 6. If any of that is a trigger, do not read below the 'Keep Reading').

P.S: I'm not naming the fic because I don't want the author getting shamed. Not that I think anybody on here would, but just to be safe. P.P.S: This isn't me shaming writers for writing what they want. I can tell the writer clearly enjoyed writing this fic in question and I'm under the assumption that they were young and didn't know any better. This is just my opinion, I'm not trying to attack anyone and also, this author's been inactive for about four years now.

OK, so for some context, this fic is set in an AU of Escape The Night Season 2 where the cast are actually in the Victorian Era (specifically 1897) as their roles and nobody dies... at least in the way they do in canon.

So there's no supernatural sorceress murder shit going on, OK?

Just so you can see how unhinged this is... I'm just gonna summarise it chapter-by-chapter. I apologise now.

Chapter 1: The Trip

So the fic opens with DeStorm getting out of his carriage and going into a library. He peruses through some books he hasn't read and doesn't find them interesting, but then he finds one - Escape The Night.

Yes, that's right. Escape The Night in this universe is a book. And at that moment, DeStorm's so excited to read it... that he doesn't check who wrote it. Keep that in mind, its important for later.

So he checks the book out of the library, races home and reads it. He reads the whole book in a night and then, the next morning, he checks who wrote it in case the library has any more books by them.

...The book was written by Alex - who goes by his real surname Burriss in this version - who DeStorm has despised since he was eight.

MY THOUGHTS

So this chapter was actually alright. It was by far the least strange chapter of the fic (which you will see later).

One major thing I had an issue with, though, is that for some really weird reason, the writer kept shifting between the first and third person, sometimes even in the same paragraph.

Here's some examples:

I read the blurb and it was VERY interesting I was dying to read it. I eagerly checked the book out and ran back to the carriage.We arrived home and took off. DeStorm ran up to his room, coat tails flying behind him. He sped through the book catching every detail in the first chapter. He then closed the book. 

When DeStorm woke up, the only thing on his mind was the book. DeStorm quickly got up, undressed and headed into the shower. I lathered myself in body wash and rinsed it off. I dressed and headed to the book.

So that was a bit strange. Also, before anybody asks, yes, the lack of description is recurring throughout the fic.

Another thing - which is just another pet peeve of mine - is that the name on the book is literally just Alex Burriss. I find it weird that, considering his full name is Alexander, they wouldn't just put Alexander. They were probably really posh like that.

But all in all, it was decent.

Chapter 2: 29 Years Back

OK, so this part of the fic is set in 1868 (yes, I did the maths) and gives us the backstory as to why DeStorm hates Alex so much, which is pretty traumatic, yet a tad confusing in places.

So what happened is that basically... Alex's parents murdered DeStorm's parents when he was eight, and he saw their dead bodies. Since his parents were high in power, Alex's parents went to jail for life and both boys were left orphans.

He met Alex two years later and 'accidentally' shoved him over at a local playground, starting their rivalry. Then its randomly mentioned that Alex's adopted parents had a son named Andrew (which is important for later, even if handled very weirdly) and then, when DeStorm and Alex were in their 20s, they saw each other again and had a fight.

The chapter ends like this: Neither Alex or DeStorm would've expected what would happen next.....

MY THOUGHTS

OK, so the part where they were kids was actually OK. I mean, it makes sense that they'd both hate each other's guts considering their circumstances. The only issue I had with that section is that its mentioned that DeStorm was told about Alex by another child, to which I'm like:

Why do these kids know DeStorm's parents are dead? I didn't know kids could read newspapers.

2. WHO JUST SAYS THAT TO A GRIEVING CHILD?!

But outside of all that confusion about how fucked up Victorian children are, it actually made sense.

Also, the playgrounds in Victorian times were really dangerous, so IDK why the hell these rich people were sending their kids there, but that's just me being a history nerd and being a bit nitpicky.

When it came to the mention of Alex's brother and DeStorm and Alex meeting up in their 20s, I really think this could've been handled better, especially because, later in the fic, we see Alex's POV, so we easily could've worked in the mention of the brother through there. The fight in their 20s was also handled messily because it just gives off the vibe that they were shouting at each other in public and, assuming they're both upper class, I don't think that'd be good for their image and they'd know that, so what the hell?

But outside of that, it can stand on its own and it was fairly enjoyable if you ignore the shock value of it.

Chapter 3: Tea

So now we're back in 1897 - presumably - and we're in Alex's POV. And based on the chapter title, I think you can guess how this chapter opens.

That's right! Alex is pouring a cup of tea!

So after the tea shenanigans, Alex gets given a letter from DeStorm that says this:

Dear Alex Burriss,

I have become a big fan of you when I read one book. I know we are sworn enemies, but you are interesting. Maybe it wasn't you fault, Mr. Burriss. Could you please stop by my house so we could talk about it?

Sincerely, Destorm Power.

So he's reading it and then Lauren - Alex's girlfriend, just like in canon - comes in. Alex prepares to go write something, but then he agrees to help with cooking because Alex's brother, Aaron (yes, the Andrew from earlier - IDK how the author got his name wrong either), is coming over.

So they cook a bit, then Aaron finally arrives, but then Alex leaves to go visit DeStorm, questioning why he suddenly wants to be friends (just like I was when I reread this fic).

So then we end on a cliffhanger, shift to Lauren's POV... AND SHE'S HAVING A FUCKING AFFAIR WITH AARON. OUT OF NOWHERE!

So Alex gets to DeStorm's house, gets a tour (which takes an hour and a half, for some reason), goes into the bathroom and gives himself a pep talk, gives DeStorm some cornbread he made for Aaron as a gift and the pair agree to be friends.

DeStorm asks him to stay for dinner, but Alex declines since he told Lauren he'd be home by then.

MY THOUGHTS

This chapter is so weird and I have so many things to say.

First of all, the letter is kinda shitty, in my opinion, especially considering the context backing it. I get the point is to acknowledge that they are making amends and we're showing DeStorm 'grew up' or whatever because he finally realises that Alex isn't the same as his parents, but they still got into a fight last time they saw each other... which was over a decade ago (going off of the math, DeStorm would be at least 37 in this).

But Alex just accepts this and is like 'I didn't think he'd... apologise!'. I also understand that he probably felt victimised by everything and just wanted to forget, but I don't really understand why these two are associating with each other, tbh. If I was either of them, I'd wanna avoid the other person to forget my past. I wouldn't wanna be around them, period.

But that aside...

The whole thing with Aaron is really weird. The author not only got his name wrong last chapter and spelled it wrong several times here (it was spelled Arron several times), but the affair really just felt like shock value and like it was vilifying Lauren just to have DeStorm and Alex get together.

On the topic of DeStorm and Alex, it really feels like its moving too fast. Like, DeStorm read one of his books - just one - and now wants to get over the fact that ALEX WAS LINKED TO THE TWO PEOPLE WHO MURDERED HIS PARENTS and be friends again!

Where's the tension? Where's the 'will they, won't they'? Where's the bonding?

...Yeah, I hated this chapter. And the fact it only gets worse from here makes me die a little inside.

Chapter 4: Two Fingers

So we open in Alex's POV. He and DeStorm are hanging out and the latter decides to draw his house. Alex decides to draw some roses because he got Lauren them for his first date. At the mention, DeStorm opens up about how everyone who dates him is a gold digger, but Alex reassures him how he'll find love.

As DeStorm draws his house, he admires Alex and thinks he's pretty. Meanwhile, the roses Alex are drawing are FUCKING DEAD and CRYING. How lovely!

He then draws Alex asleep in the guest bedroom (I'll rant about logistics later), and they exchange drawings, with Alex getting the drawing of DeStorm's house. Then they go out to somewhere Alex picked, with him being in awe of DeStorm's carriage.

They sit by a pond and talk for a bit, then they go home and DeStorm makes chicken pasta for dinner. They have it, but then Alex asks to go to the bathroom.

...OK, so then it turns out Alex has bulimia and skipped dessert because of it.

DeStorm offers Alex a place to stay at his house because it started raining and he didn't want him getting sick from going home in the rain. DeStorm then kisses Alex on the head at the latter's childlike excitement. Alex goes to sleep.

We then randomly jump to Lauren and Aaron fucking because THAT makes a ton of sense.

So then we're back in DeStorm's POV and he's rereading Escape The Night. He then goes to check on the sleeping Alex, and his drawing of him asleep in the guest room is exactly what he sees when he goes into the room. DeStorm can't find him the next morning... but then Alex comes in with a batch of black roses. After breakfast, Alex leaves.

So then we're back in Alex's head. He goes home, catches Lauren cheating with Aaron, gets his bag and then RUNS to DeStorm's house. He then goes to the bathroom and throws up, gets rid of the evidence and then explains to DeStorm what happened, with the latter comforting him.

The chapter ends with Lauren (naked, for some reason) finding the drawing of DeStorm's house.

MY THOUGHTS

OK, I'd prefer if the chapter meant two fingers getting cut off than this shit.

It really feels like the author skipped over the bonding because the chapters opens with: DeStorm is so sweet! I didn't think he'd open up so easily. Too easily.

So we just skipped the whole-ass bonding conversation, the whole appeal of enemies-to-lovers! I don't even like that trope and I know that.

We do get some instances of them talking, such as them at the pond, but even then, its incredibly rushed and we don't go very deep, and pretty much all their conversations feel like it because we skipped the main one due to the way the chapter opened.

With the drawings, I'm very confused because how would DeStorm draw Alex in the guest room if he was drawing the front of his house? I had to assume it was two separate drawings, but even then, getting to that conclusion took a hot second.

The two bulimia instances read really badly to me. IDK that much about bulimia and I've never experienced it in any capacity (the only instance I've really seen of it is through Melanie Martinez in the K-12 movie and the song Orange Juice), so I don't think I can comment on it from a place of experience or extensive knowledge. However, from some research I've done and what I do know about it, I do feel that it was used as a form of shock value and wasn't handled respectfully, especially because Alex is only shown throwing up throughout the fic and doesn't show any other signs of symptoms throughout the entire story, such as body image issues or having binge eating sessions, just to name two.

The guest room thing, though cute, is a little weird because DeStorm just casually kissed Alex on the head and we're expected to just go with it. Dude, its the first kiss of the fic. Why are we being so nonchalant about it? I don't think the affair thing should've been in the fic at all, but even with it being there, I still feel like it got resolved too quickly. Like, we've only known about it for a chapter. I also still don't understand why we needed to even villify Lauren for this ship to work; this could've been so touching and interesting to see Alex grapple with his feelings for DeStorm despite having a girlfriend, but NOPE.

We could've had a Malec moment! Lauren as Lydia would've been amazing! But we got THIS.

I will say, though: The drawing scene, for all its confusion and the somewhat clunky writing, was interesting. I did enjoy the drawing scene. It was just everything after that that went downhill.

Chapter 5: Drawings

OK, so we open with Alex going into DeStorm's room whilst the latter is still asleep. There's a ton of papers on the floor, each predicting what happened towards the backend of the previous chapter (i.e: Alex calling Lauren's name and running to DeStorm's house and sleeping on the couch in Chapter 3 while DeStorm made dinner).

...Oh, yeah; DeStorm has this weird power where what he draws can predict the future and its mostly just becoming relevant now.

DeStorm wakes up and is chill about Alex 1) being shirtless, for some reason and 2) randomly coming into his room. They have breakfast and DeStorm gives Alex the option to move in, which he gladly accepts.

So they buy Alex some new clothes and decorate the guest room (which is Alex's room now), but whilst thinking about DeStorm... Alex gets hard.

Eventually, it goes down, DeStorm finds Alex's journal (and the latter freaks out) and they have dinner. Alex then charms his way into DeStorm's bed and the pair screw.

As they're coming down, they both finally say 'I love you'.

MY THOUGHTS

All in all, this chapter was fairly decent, better than Chapters 3 and 4.

I really liked the opening with the papers. The visual just scratched my brain in all the right places, even if part of me was like 'wait, so was he drawing while Alex was running to his house? When did he draw the couch drawing?', that kinda thing.

After he offered to move in... I started getting a bit iffy, especially considering that Alex just got cheated on, like, a day ago. Like, dude, we're moving a bit quick here.

And as much as they are cute together at times, I'm still struggling to shake the fact that this relationship started off as two people who hated each other because one party's parents murdered the other party's parents... and that childhood trauma is just kinda ignored.

I get that the writer just probably did it so one character could have a tragic backstory because who doesn't love a good one of those - emphasis on good - but at the same time, if you're not gonna do anything with it... yeah.

The sex scene between DeStorm and Alex made me uncomfortable. It was very clinical and just off-putting and, even in the lead-up with Alex charming his way into DeStorm's room, it all felt a bit sudden. Additionally, its a bit weird, to me, that the author warned for the two sex scenes with Lauren and Aaron, but never any of the sex scenes for DeStorm and Alex. Like, what the hell? Keep it consistent.

I did like the chapter. Its just in some places, it got a bit iffy.

Chapter 6: It All Goes Wrong

So the chapter opens with Lauren and Aaron planning to get revenge on Alex. Lauren's plan is to set wherever Alex and DeStorm are going on fire and then make a run for it.

Alex is gardening when DeStorm tells him they're going to see a play, so he goes to get ready (and also throws up while he's at it) and takes a shower before getting dressed. They then get in the carriage, but are followed by Aaron and Lauren unknowingly.

So they go to the play (which is being put on by Gabbie - go figure), but then suddenly, flames start flicking up everywhere so everyone, including Alex and DeStorm, legs it out of there.

The place is burning, but Alex and DeStorm manage to get out. When they get there, Lauren tells Alex this: "Well, you're ugly, a bitch, and don't deserve to live. Go kill yourself."

DeStorm and Alex go home, with DeStorm rereading Alex's book for the THIRD TIME NOW, and the chapter ends with Alex purging again.

MY THOUGHTS

So outside of the obvious vilification of Lauren that I've talked about several times now, I had a major issue with this chapter in the form of the headhopping. This chapter jumped between four POVs; DeStorm's, Alex's, Lauren's and Aaron's.

Everyone's POVs were really short and we were jumping all over the place all the time and it got a bit confusing.

Also, Lauren's line was so laughable and it gave off so many 'evil promiscuous ex in a romance novel' vibes that it was ridiculous. And I also understand that Alex was hurt by that line considering he did love her and she cheated on him with his own brother, but the fact he was crying feels a bit melodramatic, at least to me.

It would've been more interesting if Lauren used some of the things she knew about Alex when they were dating to her advantage to hit Alex where it hurt and didn't just swing and miss like a blindfolded child trying to hit a piñata.

Also, this plan was worded terribly. The author worded it like they were gonna burn down DeStorm's house, so when they burned the theatre down, I was SO CONFUSED.

But I liked the play aspect and the cameos from the Season 2 cast (since Tyler appeared along with Gabbie), so it could've been worse.

Chapter 7: Secrets Come Out One Way Or Another

So we open with these two diary entries from Alex:

April 7th, 1897

Sometimes I think about burning all my stories and killing myself. Lauren always stopped me, but I don't know about DeStorm. He just randomly sent me a letter. Yeah he's good in bed, but I don't know if I can trust him. My whole childhood I felt guilty for killing someone's parents when I didn't even do it. I don't hate DeStorm. I just feel out of place. Why would he be interesting in me?

April 8th, 1897

I really hope DeStorm doesn't find out about my bulimia. If he did, he would be pissed. I can't imagine that. I was trying to get better, but DeStorm is so fancy and I always want to look my best. I don't know what's going on. Lauren is also not who I thought she was. Ever since she cheated on me, I've felt depressed all the time. Life just isn't going my way.

So DeStorm made breakfast and Alex goes to shower, but then DeStorm finds the journal and reads it, finding out everything.

They have breakfast and Alex says he's gonna go use the bathroom, but then DeStorm confronts him. Alex gets upset, then pictures Lauren and Aaron happy together, so he grabs a bucket and starts throwing up to the point he gets a hole in his oesophagus and ends up passing out.

DeStorm takes him to the hospital and he recovers, but after he gets out, we get more smut OUT OF NOWHERE. They go for, like, three hours, too!

So a bit later, Alex and DeStorm go have a picnic, with the former trying to forget Lauren and Aaron's happiness. After the picnic, they go home and Alex has a dream about cutting open Lauren's body and ripping her guts out, same with Aaron.

We then end the chapter with Alex revealing that he threw his journal away since he had no reason to keep it.

MY THOUGHTS

I have several issues with this chapter and its portrayal of Alex's issues, especially extending upon his bulimia and making him suicidal basically out of nowhere. Like, I get he's had a hard time, but stop giving him mental health issues just to advance the plot. It looks really bad.

Speaking of which, the way DeStorm confronted Alex was so weird and honestly insensitive. Like, he said that he knew why Alex was going to the bathroom after he ate all the time, but then started SCREAMING at him, which led to Alex getting the hole in his oesophagus. Like, dude! I get your hurt that he didn't tell you, but screaming 'WHY DON'T YOU TRUST ME?!' at him?! Like, did you not read the entries?! That explained it!

Also, that is not how you help and support someone with an eating disorder. You don't criticise or judge them, you explain why you're concerned, which DeStorm clearly didn't do. And yes, he did realise what he did wrong and apologised once Alex got upset, by the way, but still. I also have an issue with how DeStorm confronted Alex. He confronted him right before he was going to purge again. Like, THAT IS TERRIBLE TIMING! I think it would've been more realistic if DeStorm found the journal, sat with his thoughts for a bit and THEN talked to Alex instead of springing it on him right then and there.

But for all the shitty eating disorder/helping a person with an ED portrayals in this fic, one thing I will give the author credit for is that getting a hole in your oesophagus is a real thing. Its called perforation of the oesophagus and it can be caused by prolonged vomiting and forceful retching, both of which Alex has been doing throughout the fic. The fic also acknowledges that DeStorm is glad that they got to the hospital quickly (within the first 14 hours) since the chances of Alex's survival are high as a result. Perforated oesophagi have an 85% survival rate if treated within the first 24 hours, so I will give the author points here for medical accuracy.

However, the descriptions here were also a bit weird because the author just described it as Alex feeling a hole in his oesophagus getting bigger and bigger. Why not describe the pain? Its not like he can see the hole.

The sex scene felt very out of place and strange considering Alex just got out of hospital for his oesophagus and DeStorm was shoving his dick down his throat. Like, DUDE.

I also find it very weird - and a bit disconcerting - that Alex's form of a happy dream is violently murdering his ex and his brother. Like, dude, I know you got cheated on, but we don't need any more men writing women! Or worse, any more incels.

Yeah. I was very mixed on this chapter.

Chapter 8: Happy? Hell No.

So this chapter is in the 3rd person and serves as the epilogue of the fic.

Alex goes out into the backyard and DeStorm's dead there with a knife through his head and, obviously, he's a mess and he falls to his knees crying.

DeStorm's funeral is the next week and, after that, Alex ends up cutting his wrists and killing himself in the kitchen.

Jump to 2019, and a man called Ryder now lives in DeStorm's old house. There's also a vase that used to contain the black roses that Alex gave to DeStorm.

MY THOUGHTS

...This is giving off similar vibes as Me Before You. Not because anyone here's disabled, but because of the whole idea of ADVOCATING FOR SUICIDE.

I'm genuinely tryna wrap my head around how in what world this would make sense. Alex killed himself for the man who he probably believed, for the longest time, got his parents put in jail. I get he got fucked up along the way because his girlfriend cheated on him with his brother and all, but WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!

I also get what the writer was trying to do via tryna get the fic to go full circle with the black roses which Alex gave to DeStorm, but it did feel a bit forced and I don't think we needed to introduce a whole other character and a time jump to do it. You could've had someone visit the house, find Alex dead and then explore the house and discover all the symbols of their love (like the drawings from Chapter 5) and then find the roses last.

Yes, it wouldn't ignore all the glaring shoehorning of several mental health stereotypes to make this fic a 'tragic love story', but it would make a lot more sense and contain some neat callbacks.

Another thing I didn't like about the timejump is that the author didn't really go very deep into anything. They just said the floorboards didn't creak as much as they did when Alex lived there. Why not explore other things? Like, was there blood on the floor from when Alex cut his wrist? Give us SOMETHING!

There was so much wasted potential here!

OVERALL THOUGHTS

On the surface, this fic seems very interesting, especially when you consider Alex and DeStorm's canon relationship. However, its not as enjoyable as the premise lets on, mostly due to the forced twists, the barely-there bonding and, by extension, rushed relationship between the main pairing and also some pretty shitty portrayals of bulimia and suicidal idealisations.

I'm trying not to knock the author for this, though, and I don't think that what they wrote here is a reflection of who they are as a person, since I'm assuming that they were quite young when they wrote this and didn't know any better, but I still think this is something that should be discussed.

Another thing I didn't enjoy about the fic is the vilification of Lauren. She's an absolute sweetheart in canon and, in this fic, she's such a bitch and really plays into some 'promiscuous ex' stereotypes from a lot of romance stories, original or fanfiction. Once again, I'm not knocking the author since Lord knows they're not the only one whose done this - hell, I did it at one point - but it still really took me out of things.

Despite that, I did enjoy some parts of it. I liked the initial cameos and Alex and DeStorm had some pretty cute moments together, but all in all, I really found this fic to be rocky.

But anyway, all of the above is just me and my opinions on this fanfic! I really hope my review wasn't too harsh, especially because this is my first time really reviewing any fics and I'm just tryna dip my toes into the wide variety of fics this fandom has to offer, but I hope you all enjoyed my first attempt!

Thanks for reading, Your Author, Marbella. <3

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Fed - a Magnus Archives fanfic

So. This was just what it was, now. Hardly the first time in my life I’d faced challenges, gray morality, and a strange situation in which I wasn’t precisely trapped, but all my other options were worse than the one I was considering.

It was heavy. Too heavy.

“Take a moment,” said Spider Martin. “Looks like you need it.”

I eyed him. “Reading my thoughts?”

“No, your face. It’s quite expressive. Whatever you’re thinking about, it’s clearly a lot?”

I hated his blue eyes.

That wasn’t his fault. Something about him just made me remember how I had watched him die.

(Then is your Martin really your Martin?)

Yes. Shut up. I couldn’t… That was not a box we were opening this afternoon.

Spoilers for the whole show. This is post-MAG 200.

Part four of the Magnus Monsterverse AU.

AO3

--------

The fog took me, and as if I’d spent a thousand years there instead of my own metamorphosis, I immediately succumbed.

It wasn’t even conscious: just a completion, a sense of self and no other, an aching, longing magnificence that hurt like pure joy, flooding through me. I think I cried out. I might have come. I definitely wept.

This place… oh. Oh. I ate it up. It ate it up. We ate it up, together. There was such strange joy in me. It was such a wondrously terrible new thing. It drank it in, and I drank it in, and I may have cried out again, because this time, he answered.

“I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m here.” And Martin pulled me in, shocking in his there-ness, his solidity, his presence, the very miracle of his existence.

He was the only thing that was real, and We loved it that way.

I clung to him and cried. I could not get close enough. I never could, not ever; it would never be enough, and I embraced that, painted my body, rolled my eyes back in my head to bask in its glorious void.

He breathed deeply, slowly, and his heart beat strong. “It was you,” he said. “While I was in the waves, it was you, missing you, thinking of you, grieving you… that’s what did it. That’s what powered everything.”

And suddenly, I saw.

Saw him in strange, wild waves, surfacing to stare at a gray sky that matched his eyes.

Saw that he rarely surfaced. He spent most of his time under, in the broad, booming silence, the current pulling him along, far from everyone and everything. The isolation under pressure; the magnificence of loneliness in a world with other living things—

He rejoiced in his pain, felt he deserved it—but it didn’t last.

“They died,” he whispered, and tears kissed his cheeks, so I kissed them off.

He felt them dying; felt the people—so far away their absence made him ache—winking out like lights.

Martin breathed in the water (and I did with him) and mourned and lost.

And when it happened, and all were gone, his god fed on him.

Because of me.

“It was you,” he whispered. “Missing you was… it became everything. I missed you so much that I…”

He lost himself.

I could look up at him, now, and saw him like burning mist, saw his perfect eyes with limbal rings I could tumble into and drown.

“When they found me…” He swallowed. “When Tim leaned through the door of fire that Maneula somehow got him to make and found me, I didn’t know his name. I knew his face, but it just made me cry.”

I understood that. I knew I’d cry when I met him, too. I was sure he still hadn’t forgiven me.

“When they came, I fought them. I thought that if they took me away from here, I’d lose missing you. That’s bonkers, isn’t it?”

“No,” I said.

He touched my lips. His eyes were wide. “What?”

“No,” I repeated.

He looked stunned. “You’re in my silence. You can’t speak.”

Oh. I felt what he meant; he had this weird, Lonely power, this silence he could enforce, but, I—ah. “Yes, I can.” I knew how to talk.

Martin still stared. He looked spooked. “We… we should go back.”

I’d scared him. That would not do, so I kissed him instead.

He made a sound and responded, clutching me, his blazing eyes sliding shut. Color washed his cheeks, and as it did, we became real.

The fog vanished as if eaten by summer sun. We stood together in our apartment block, in the central courtyard, under blue spring sky, in sight of all the windows.

We both breathed hard, shudders trembling through us like aftershocks.

“What did you do?” he whispered.

“I kissed you,” I said, still dazed. “Was I not supposed to?”

“You… you became the Lonely,” said Martin. “You were the Lonely. You… I don’t understand.”

Eh?

What?

Eh?

“I what?”

“Hey, kiddos,” said Mike, coming out from the same building I lived in. “We’re heading out to get a bite. Want to come?”

We had no time for this. We had to deal with what just happened. We—

Oh. Behind him came a rogue’s gallery.

That was Michael Shelley. Right behind him came Helen Richardson, scowling.

There was Arthur Nolan—an angry, angry man, made worse because there were two of him in a row. They had not bothered to be anything but identical.

Sarah Baldwin came out beside Jane Prentiss, both of them chattering away about something called Brother Love I’d never heard of.

(The Eye dropped three seasons’ worth of this bizarre forbidden-love-among-the-cloisters “reality” show into my head. Thanks. You shouldn’t have.)

(Drama! It happily tremored at me.)

I stared at the lot of them, frozen. So many of them had tried to kill me, or been part of my torment. My actions had led to their deaths, as well—and some of them, I’d never even seen in the light of day.

I made a small noise. I don’t know what it was. Some panicked thing.

“I've got you,” said Martin. “It's okay. They’re not going to hurt you.”

I couldn’t believe that.

They greeted Martin with smiles, though no touches, no personal space invasions (and I could appreciate that). Me, however… no one seemed to know what to do with. They eyed me. Jane stared. Michael tilted his head. Helen rolled her eyes.

“We going, or what?” snapped Nolan One with all the grace of a bulldozer. “I’m fuckin’ hungry,” said Nolan Two.

“I think we should initiate our new friend and make him join,” said Mike Crew.

Sarah Baldwin laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound. “He looks like a scared rabbit.”

“He’s fine,” said Martin.

Was this happening? This was happening. “You’re going?” I said to Martin.

He looked grim. “We should.”

He was trying not to be lonely. Trying so hard.

I would never get in the way of that. “I’ll go, sure,” I said, staring at Jane (whose skin boasted numerous scars, even more than my own, but no sign of worms just yet). “I, uh. I’m Jon. Hi.” So graceful. My face burned.

Jane grinned, stretching her scars. "Hi."

Helen laughed. As she did, her face shifted; she was still Helen, still herself, but she’d changed, like distortion through glass. “Hi, Jon. I’m Helen.”

Michael tilted his head further. Too far. Smiling in an utterly banal manner. "Archivist."

“I… yes. It’s weird to see you both at the same time.”

They just looked at me.

(It was thrilled. If I could have shrunk small enough to hide in Martin’s pocket, I would have, and It loved my misery.)

“Oh, I like this one,” said Michael. “You’re much less human than before.”

“Ah. Well,” I said. “That’s true, I suppose.”

“Still a prick,” said Helen.

“Hey,” I protested.

“From what I recall,” said Martin, “you were the one so obsessed with him that you wanted to keep him in your corridors until everybody else he ever knew died so you could have him all to yourself.”

And everyone turned to stare at her.

Helen’s dark cheeks blushed darker. “Well. Desperate times, and all that.”

Michael cracked up.

Crew followed, and Sarah, and soon everyone was laughing, even the Nolans—and it wasn’t a bad laugh, it really was not, but I felt no better.

“We’ve all come a long way,” said Jane.

“Archivist,” said Michael. “Come to us. Join us. Let us see your skill.”

“My what?”

“We’re, uh. We… can you guys go ahead? We’ll meet you at the curb.”

“Ooh,” said Nolan One, low. “Somebody hasn’t been told about the birds and the bees yet.”

“Be nice,” said Sarah, and swatted his arm.

Nolan Two bared his teeth at her.

“Sure,” said Crew, and gestured to them all. They all walked on, continuing their conversations or lack thereof.

Michael winked at me over his shoulder, then loudly said to Helen, “So what did that feel like, all trapped inside you?”

“Kill me now,” I muttered, covering my face.

Martin kissed my forehead. He’d lost just a shade of the color he’d had, but seemed to be holding steady. “So. Here’s how this works. We go and meet at a pre-set point in the city. Then we, uh. He gives us a list of people.”

I looked up slowly. “To what end?”

He just looked back.

“To what? To… to feed on?”

“It’s that, or we feed the Fears through ourselves—and something about us, about what we were at the ends of our worlds means that if we let them feed on us, we supercharge them. We could end it here all over again. So we don’t do that. Instead, we… Annabelle calls it ‘hummingbirds.’”

Flitting from person to person, sipping the nectar of fear. “So it’s all even less stable than Leitner said. This is horrible.”

“It’s not that bad. The people we see don’t even realize it’s happening, usually—we keep it light. Besides, we don’t do it to nice people.”

My look was dry.

“I mean it, Jon. People who hurt animals. That sort of thing.”

“A lot of those in London, are there?”

“You’d be surprised. There’s less fear in this world in general; it’s less spread out, so it’s potent. We only need a little.”

“This is insane. You know that, right? You must see it. This is lunacy.”

“It’s surviving. Which is a choice.”

Oh, how I hated that, but I understood. I knew. I got it. We could all do the world a favor and die, but none of us truly wanted to. Or at least… knew we should not want that. How did one judge the worth of a life? The risk of that life doing wrong? At what point could I or anyone say, you’re too dangerous to live because of what you might do?

“You’re right,” I whispered.

“It's going to be okay. I promise. Come on and join us today.” His smile was small, but real. “Keeps you from going crazy.”

And I knew that was true for him.

And I knew it was true for them.

And I knew it was not true for me.

Something weird was happening here. Or I was delusional.

Or maybe It was lying to me, wanting me so hungry I would make a mistake.

(I knew, though: It could not lie.)

“I’ll join you,” I said, softly. “But I swear, if I see actual innocent people being… being…”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I trust the people we’re working with.”

“Web.” I clenched my jaw. (Were my teeth made of eyes, too? Calcified, maybe?)

“I don’t expect you to be there right away,” he said, and kissed my forehead again. “I don’t expect you to adjust to all this quickly. But I hope you can at least trust me.”

I stared. “That is a hell of a thing to leverage, Martin.”

“It’s that important. I wouldn’t just say that, you know.”

I did know. “You’re really serious about this.”

“I need you so much.” It was a whisper. “I’ll do anything I have to do in order to keep you from… burning out, or getting devoured by your stupid Eye, or falling afoul of the hunters.”

“Hunters?” I said.

“Later.”

We were growing quite a pile of things to talk about later. “All right. All right. I’ll come with you. Show me, Martin. I trust you.”

So help me, he regained some of his color as we walked out of the courtyard to join the others, who’d waited by the curb.

#

I had never been good with groups of people.

The theater group in which I met Georgie (and through her, gained at least some social skills) had helped a little.

The Magnus Institute Library employees, of whom I was merely one of many, also helped—I could tag along without pressure, camouflaged by their gregariousness.

The Archives… that group was considerably less comfortable because I felt like it was all on me.

It wasn’t. I know that now, but my promotion went straight to my head, and not in a confident way. I’d felt immediately underqualified and out of place, and wondered daily why the hell I’d accepted the position.

I knew now. I could not have refused. I didn’t know that, then. I’m not sure that understanding would have helped, either.

Still, the social aspect of things had only meant stress. To this day, I did not recall going to Martin’s birthday party and rambling about emulsions while eating rum and raisin ice cream. The Eye did not give me that memory back. I knew it happened only because Tim and Martin and Sasha had never stopped teasing me over it. Very funny, really.

(Tim. Sasha. Oh, gods…)

(Right, Archive, focus, you’re all right, they’re here now—)

(Jon. Dear lord. Focus, Jon.)

So I was obviously in a good head space for something like this.

“So you’re really Jon,” said Jane Prentiss, and something that wasn’t a tongue moved in her mouth as she spoke.

I choked a little. “Y… yeah. Hi.”

“Huh. I killed you in my world,” she said.

“I’m hearing that a lot today,” I muttered.

She smiled, and dear gods, her teeth were squirming. “I’m glad they found you. I wanted to apologize.”

“To… wh… why?”

“Well, it wasn’t really you I was mad at. It was your Eye.”

“Oh.”

Her grin made it more awkward, not less; she stepped closer. “You smell delicious, by the way.”

“Martin,” I said in a tiny, pitiful voice.

“Jane, come on, be nice,” said Martin, pulling me closer.

She laughed and backed away.

“Did everybody here kill me?” I whispered.

“Not all of them, but, uh. Possibly most?”

Fuck.

We walked past the park and into the city. It was clean; the vehicles genuinely were all electric. I saw no one who seemed down on their luck, either, which was bizarre.

What kind of idealized place was this? And what, exactly, was the hidden underside?

They were all talking, and because I have terrible timing, I decided this was the moment to whisper to Martin, “What did you mean by, ‘don’t you try to take my choices and blame yourself for them?’”

He stiffened. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“All right. I can wait.”

“Liar.”

I laughed. “I am not lying.”

“You can’t wait to find out,” he teased.

Gods, I wanted to kiss him. “I may have learned a little patience in a thousand years.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he challenged.

I grinned, but before I could respond, he spoke.

No. Another him spoke.

“Right,” said his voice, but it wasn’t him, and I turned slowly to find the other Martin waiting for us all on the corner.

The moment I saw him in the light of day, I knew: this Martin was Web.

Completely Web, all the way through; his smile was perfect, and his stance, and the way he shifted his weight and barely met other people’s eyes and laughed easily.

It was completely fake, and I could see it, and I felt like my skin was going to crawl right off my bones. Or whatever I had under there. Eye-bones.

He seemed to know, and he stopped to stare at me. For one moment, when I met his eyes, they were dead. Flat. Dull. There in place to hide the spiders behind them, utterly without anything resembling emotion or true life.

Then he was just Martin (so similar to my Martin, or… no. What Martin had been before everything), and smiling at everybody. “I’ve got all kinds of assignments for you today,” he said, handing out Post-It notes.

“Sure, but did you account for our latest acquisition?” said Nolan One.

Sarah Baldwin barked a laugh, and Jane elbowed her.

“I did!” said Spider Martin happily. “Jon? It’s okay if I call you Jon, right? You’re starting out with me today.” He approached me.

Don’t reach for the Eye, I told myself. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

On my bright green Post-It was Martin’s flowing script with two addresses and the instructions, 1:30pm Martin B.; 3:00pm Mike C. “What?” I said.

“Why?” said my Martin.

“Because we’ve all got split shifts, and it seems like a good idea to help Jon get along with everybody?” said Spider Martin. “His second will be with Mike.”

“Not fair,” said my Martin, but without anguish.

Spider Martin shrugged. “It’s the best one for this afternoon. Trust me on this.”

Everyone seemed to accept this with ease. Great. They were all drinking the arachnidian Kool-Aid.

“Can I get him next time?” said Michael.

Spider Martin beamed. “Yes! Jane after that.”

“Yipee!” said Michael.

“What is happening right now?” I said.

“I think you’re popular?” said my Martin.

I did not feel popular.

“Shall we?” said Spider Martin.

“I don’t even know what we’re doing. I don’t understand. I don’t—”

My Martin cupped my cheek, turned me to him, and kissed me. Lingering. Slow. A delicate tasting of lips and tongue, a gentle whisper of love and attention, a promise. “You’ll be fine,” he murmured.

“I don’t have a box for any of this,” I murmured back. “And I think my label maker is broken.”

Martin laughed. “Your label maker of doom?”

“Something like that.”

He nuzzled me. “See you in a little bit.”

And he pulled away, paired up with Sarah Baldwin. (Stranger—and if she did anything to him, I would…)

(Would what? Would what? I didn’t know. Something terrible. Something…)

“I don’t bite,” said Spider Martin.

I looked at him.

Martin’s smile. Martin’s face. Martin’s body. No—Martin’s skin. I could feel he was crawling on the inside.

I turned away. Whatever happened to him was done. He wasn’t mine, never had been. I still wanted to react. Violently. As if to his murder.

“I’m not dead, you know,” he said.

“Yes, you are,” I whispered.

“No more than Annabelle. I know—or I’m pretty sure, anyway—that you’ll struggle with this, but I chose this path. I did. I’m happy with it, too.”

“You ended your world.”

“Pot, kettle?”

I swallowed. “Knowing I did wrong hardly exonerates you.”

“We didn’t really get to know you in my world,” said Spider Martin. “You caught up with Darren and took the book back right at Mister Spider’s front door.”

Darren. That’s what the bully’s name was. “Did I?”

“Yeah. You died pretty quickly. Your mind snapped before they could get much fear out of you, so there wasn’t a point to dragging it out.”

I turned to stare at him.

“There you are!” he said cheerily. “Your eyes were brown originally, weren’t they?”

“They were. And yours should be green.”

He beamed. “Naw.”

“Naw?”

“Blue tends to be trusted more easily. It’s racially offensive, and largely due to media influence, but there you go.”

I stared harder.

“Would you rather me pretend to be something I’m not?” he asked, putting genuine curiosity into it.

“No,” I said quietly. “I… it’s a nightmare. This. Is all.”

“Because you think it’s losing someone.”

“It is.”

“No. The Stranger—that’s losing someone. A weird ingestion and rebirth like the Distortion—that’s losing someone. This?” He gestures at himself. “This isn’t losing someone any more than you were lost.”

I wasn’t sure I hadn't been lost.

He smiled so easily. “Come on. Let me show you how this works. You’ll think better when fed,” he said, as harmless and bright as a children’s mascot.

I was already fed. Somehow. But I didn’t want to try to get into it. “Lead the way, I suppose.” Everyone else had already paired off and left. “Do you always assign partners?”

“And areas, yes. We wouldn’t want to cause harm, and the buddy system helps prevent that.”

I snorted.

“It’s true! Your Beholding might lack the ability to consider consequences, but surely you don’t think we do.”

“What, the Web has a stance against overfishing?”

“Yes! Exactly so. We didn’t even mean to end the world when we did. We’re significantly more careful now to avoid it ever happening again.”

“How did it happen, then?”

(The Eye offered to show me. I refused.)

“Get to know me a little bit better, and I’ll tell you.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to get to know him better, but I also didn’t feel like I had a choice.

In silence, he led me north, past old buildings I sort of knew, past silent cars I’d never imagined, past lovely boutiques and pubs with a distinct lack of loud music or voices coming from them.

I’d never seen a London like this. I had no idea how to feel about it.

Neither did It, and the drive to know why this was so grew in me with anticipatory joy like a child looking forward to their birthday.

I couldn’t blame It. This was absolutely unexpected. The differences in history must have been significant.

“How did your world end, anyway?” said Spider Martin. “You hardly have to tell me, of course, but I rather thought you’d prefer we hear your understanding over Manuela’s.”

I really needed to meet this woman. “And how the hell would she even know anything?”

“Same way she found you.” We turned a corner, and finally there was sound—a busker, just beginning to tune his violin. “She calculates things. Honestly, if she weren’t so firmly entrenched in the Eye, she'd have made a lovely sister.”

I stopped walking. “She’s Eye?”

“That she is. It was her desire to see more and know every world that had her prepared and able to escape when the time came.”

I couldn’t imagine Manuela Dominguez as Eye. “Then she didn’t build a Dark Sun. She didn’t hole up at Ny-Ålesund. She didn’t try to summon Mister Pitch.”

“Not her. Some of her alternates, yes, but they’re secondaries. She’s Prime.”

“Prime?”

“The first one of her kind rescued. In her case, the actual rescuer, too.” Martin produced paper money from his pocket.

It wasn’t a design I’d ever seen. “May I?”

“Of course.” He handed it over.

It was a ten-pound banknote. Julius Caesar glowered on the front of it, stern and uncompromising. The bill itself was cornflower blue; intricate guilloche in a gradient from orange to purple subtly deepened the design, and it bore such phrases as The Bank of Holy England and Toward the Greatest Empire.

Damn. I really needed to get hold of some history books.

(The Eye offered to show me how this banknote existed. How it had been designed. What the phrases meant. Why a long-dead Roman emperor decorated the front. No, I told It, firm and tamping down my need. Let me find out on my own.)

This delighted It. The joy of discovery through me was apparently worth the wait.

“What did money look like where you came from?” said Spider Martin.

“Do you actually care?” I drawled.

“Inasmuch as I’m trying to establish a decent working relationship with you, yes, I absolutely do.”

“Then surely you know telling me things is more valuable than asking.”

“What do you think I've been doing?” said Spider Martin. “We are here to pay that man over there to play ‘The Outlandish Knight,’ which he associates with a past girlfriend, with whom he associates the feeling of being trapped and controlled, and playing it makes him afraid he’ll never get free. Thus, shall I be fed. And you, my dear Archivist, merely need to watch him—because he’ll feel very, very watched, and thus shall you be fed.”

I frowned. “And he deserves this, does he?”

“In revenge against that girlfriend, he poisoned her cat.”

“He what?” Well, now I was furious.

Which (calm down, Jon) was probably on purpose. It was calculated.

“He did,” said Spider Martin. “What happened to him wasn’t nice, but he isn’t very nice, either.”

“Did the cat… die?”

“No, fortunately, though it did go blind.”

I clenched my jaw. Anger against this random man tempted. (Easy, Jon. Easy.) “If you’re lying to me, we’re going to have a problem.”

Spider Martin looked at me. “Jon, I’m not stupid enough to lie to you. You could just see it. If I lie, it’ll undo any attempts to build trust between us. All right?”

That… made sense. “All right. Why do you want to work with me, then?”

“Because we all need to work together. All of us. We’re unique in all the world, and we have a challenging existence. We need each other to keep each other balanced and prevent the world from ending again.”

Damn, but it was all logical. “Why did you call me Archivist a moment ago?”

“Because that’s what you are—and I suspected it would be easier to think of eating a bit of this man’s fear with that reminder.”

This honesty was refreshing. Maybe a little too refreshing. It was all calculated, every bit of it.

But then, it was calculated because it would be effective, and I couldn’t fault him for trying to be effective. Web was just… so disturbing about it, which was the entire point. “Will this mark him?”

“No. We’re getting a taste, caring for ourselves, but not doing enough harm to mark anyone. Most of them don’t even remember it happened after; they just shrug it off.”

I exhaled shakily.

So. This was just what it was, now. Hardly the first time in my life I’d faced challenges, gray morality, and a strange situation in which I wasn’t precisely trapped, but all my other options were worse than the one I was considering.

It was heavy. Too heavy.

“Take a moment,” said Spider Martin. “Looks like you need it.”

I eyed him. “Reading my thoughts?”

“No, your face. It’s quite expressive. Whatever you’re thinking about, it’s clearly a lot?”

I hated his blue eyes.

That wasn’t his fault. Something about him just made me remember how I had watched him die.

(Then is your Martin really your Martin?)

Yes. Shut up. I couldn’t… That was not a box we were opening this afternoon. No.

Maybe not ever.

“If you’re really not ready, it’s okay,” said Spider Martin. “Last thing I want to do is upset you.”

“Sure. Because I’m so dangerous compared to the lot of you.”

“You are, actually.” Spider Martin shrugged.

I rolled my eyes. “No, I’m really not. I can hardly damage anyone the way I could at the end of my world, and I was nothing but a punching bag before that.”

He tilted his head. “Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s not what we—oh, pardon.” He took out his phone.

“Not what you what?”

Spider Martin’s eyes went wide. “Shit,” he said. “Keep up!” And he turned and ran.

Spider Martin could move. That was not at all how my Martin ran, not at all his body language or motion or mobility, and the smooth, loping speed of it was freakishly comforting compared to the mask of the one I loved.

I ran after him.

#

Fun fact: being made of eyes and/or light beams made me better at running than I would have guessed.

I mean. I wasn’t good at it. But I also didn’t run out of breath, or stumble, both of which would have been the case before.

I kept up with Spider Martin, who I swear was running with the use of six extra invisible legs, and that was no small thing.

“What is it?” I called at his back.

“Get ready for a fight!” he said.

“A fight? A fight with wh-”

I saw.

Hunters, Martin had said.

Nolan Two on the ground with smoke pouring out of his chest instead of blood.

Nolan One behind a car flipped onto its side, unable to stick his head around it at all because of—

What was—

What WAS that, that was—

I couldn’t understand what I saw. Purple, green, wisps of things like tentacles, not solid, and yet they were, punching holes into that car, not just reaching around it but building Nolan’s fear, and—

We turned the corner at the same time as Mike Crew and Helen Richardson, and everyone acted at once.

Coordinated? No. They’d just done this before.

Helen distorted into a tall and mutated and terrible thing and dropped straight into the sidewalk—and at the same time, a yellow door opened beneath Nolan Two, and he fell out of sight.

(I couldn’t see the attacker. I needed to see it.)

Mike bared his teeth—a horrifying look, actual anger, which he had not shown with me the day he threw me into the sky—and gestured.

Lightning struck.

Struck… what?

(I couldn’t see it! I needed to see it!)

Mike couldn’t see it, either; he struck where those tendrils were coming from, the central invisible knot of them, but evidently did not hit it, because now, it threw tendril-attacks at him. He moved, guessing as much (he could not see them, I knew he could not), staying out of the way of whatever it was punching holes where he’d been.

Spider Martin picked up another car and threw it.

That one connected; the car hit something, but was not enough to stop it, and more tendrils shot out toward Mike and Spider Martin.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. My eyes burned, my head throbbed—I couldn’t see it, I had to see it, I needed to see—

Michael grabbed me and pulled me into a yellow door in a wall just as one of those purple-green tendrils slammed into the sidewalk where I’d been, cracking it, penetrating below the concrete.

The Corridors. So familiar. I knew this well.

“No!” I cried, throwing myself at the door.

“Easy, Archivist,” said Michael, right up behind me, long hands draping over my shoulders to pull me back. “You aren’t ready to deal with them.”

“No! I need to see it! I need to see it!”

“Archivist,” Michael thrummed at me. “You’ll make your Martin cry.”

Martin?

Martin.

I stopped, gripping the door handle. “I… I need to… see it?”

“You will be hurt. Maybe killed. That would be terrible.”

He did not sound like it would be terrible.

I shook. “I couldn’t see it. Michael. Please. I have to see it. I have to try.”

He sighed. “Silly Archivist. As you wish.” He reached past me, all around me, and opened the door.

We were on a nearby roof, and I could look down and see.

I looked.

Looked.

(Use me, It beckoned.)

And I did.

My vision opened as it had not since I arrived here, and I saw.

Connected it was all connected

Powers like the Fears but different

All through this world every living thing everyone was marked or

Not marked something like marked already connected

Connected it was all

The thing

There

A person but not

It was three persons in one

Three of them together standing there strange dark bodysuit a gas mask

No hands

No hands only those tendrils sprouting from their arms, tendrils which now seemed so solid

Each of them moving independently (three person in there, three minds to work them) trying actively to kill us all

To kill the Nolans the Mike the Helen the

I saw, and as I did, I broke the attacker apart.

I didn't even mean to. I just saw it for what it truly was, and made reality real.

One second, it was invisible, impossible to harm, its tendrils unseen by the others. The next it stood there, a person in a weird suit—and it shuddered, and then it was three. They exploded apart, splitting the uniform and popping the gas mask like a hatched egg in rapid-time.

And now, the others could see them. Could see three naked people on the sidewalk, gasping, shuddering, heads down, vomiting.

Nolan, Mike, and Helen surged in without hesitation, all at once.

I looked away, swaying, gasping.

Michael kept me from falling off the roof. He looked amazed. “What did you do?”

Fed.

I was so fed.

I felt rich with it, blissful, drugged. Absolutely relaxed and warm and tingling to the edges of every inch of my form.

Sirens. Coming.

“Time to go!” said Michael, pulling me back through his yellow door.

The Corridors did their thing, and I felt it, and floated in it, and spun and flew and was.

Michael cried out.

So did I. We became colors and swirling paint, flowing out of the drain against gravity in beauty and madness and bliss. And then—

#

I woke up.

I was back in my little bed in my gray apartment. My hair was wet; I smelled of soap. My heart pounded. (Benign essential blepharospasm, perhaps?)

Martin was next to me, asleep. I stared at my boring popcorn ceiling.

Had that… happened?

Next to me, on the nightstand, was a bright green Post-It note with handwriting I didn’t know. It said, Jon. We need to talk.—JL

Leitner.

Sure. Sure, we could talk. Fuck if I knew about what, though because I had no idea what had occurred.

It was four twenty-two in the morning. Martin slept. Leitner could wait.

I watched Martin, trying to understand (had I slept? If so, it was the first time in a thousand years), trying to parse what I’d seen and what I’d done.

The Eye did not help me because It could not. It didn’t know, either, and that frightened me more than anything else I’d seen.

------

NOTES

He's like a shammy; he's like a towel; he's like a sponge! A regular towel doesn't work wet, but Jon works wet or dry. Holds 12 times his weight in trauma!

[matcheadz]

THIS IS NOT A TUTORIAL

So I like to draw. That much is clear. In fact, I went to school for it! For an exorbadent amount of money, actually. Well, not drawing. Animation specifically but thats not the point.

I like to draw, but for a long time I felt like I couldn't because my 'process' was rather ridiculous. Or at least, I felt like it. I still sort of feel like it. I want to remind people here that your process doesn't have to look clean or pretty or whatever, because nobody (unless you go to an art college in that case just get in the habit of saving custom layouts for projects, trust me) is going to see it.

I call my sketchbook my 'shitbook' because its full of stuff that will never see the light of day. Blind contour drawings. Random mixtures of shapes. Observational drawings with little notes to myself. Don't worry about those 'aesthetic journals.' Fuck 'em, I say. Life is messy as shit, let your sketchbook show that.

So today I wanna show you the absolute mess that is my process. I like to take screenshots during a painting or sketch that I feel is pivotal in my learning process so I can see if I took the right direction or not. As a result, I have a ton of these .pngs lying around. Lets look at one:

What the fuck is that? EW! THATS UGLY! Hold on, what about this one:

Hmm, well what about this- wait what the fuck is this

These are all thumbnails/sketches from IT projects I did maybe two or three yearrs ago. These never saw the light of day, save for maybe a joke post or to a partner involved in a project. These were for me to look at, to carve out. These don't have good anatomy. They're not the final composition. Sometimes they're in a completely different style. Point is,

These are my versions of thumbnails. It's how I plan my shots, my layout, my composition, my expressions. Is some of it pretty? Maybe? Is most of it absolutely vile? YES. And I love it that way. The dirtier the better, as I like to think. Its a thought process. I want my thumbnails to look like I'm thinking so I can combine those thoughts. For example, I'll show you the last Vergil painting I just did and all the steps I did with that. Look at this ugly little motherfucker:

This is a strange sketch considering the final product. What I did here was look at the 'jinx pose' from Arcane and be like "hmm. Vergil?" and tried to use the perspective and anatomy. it did NOT work out in this sketch because as you'll see in a second, the rough colors did not work for me. But in this specifically, I focused on the musculatory anatomy of his shoulders, because I knew that was going to be something super defined and important to understand with how odd his vest is. So here are my flats. Sorta:

So at this point I'm clearly focused on the face and my file is still named Vergil Thirst Trap Lol and something clearly isnt working with my perspective. His head and arms are huge, and Vergil might have a grabable waist for some of you but this isn't it. So At this point I'm done with my first sit down and I step away. I come back the next day (during work hehehe) and I get to this at the end.

Alright! Color is looking a little better. Arms are more sculpted and while I'm aligning myself to my sketch more than anything, I'm also very closely looking at my pose reference, thinking about anatomy and my color palette. I step away (I clock out) and I take a minute to look at it. Its... looking better? But theres something off still about that perspective. At this point I'm a little frustrated with this vest and its weird rules. So I bare my teeth and gnash at it:

WHOA WHY THE FUCK HE LOOK SO WEIRD HERE?? Cause I flipped the canvas after painting and didn't realize how odd it looked oops. We'll do some fixing but that face looks nice for now and I think im better understanding the contrast I need through some actual photo editing. So let me tell you the story of Vergil's hair. Its a sad one. It will enrage you. This man had four different itterations. Most of which I can't show you because I painted over them so many times. But heres a screencap of the one I thought was gonna work.

Its NICE. I liked it alot. But the I realized this was not the way things were heading. Hair too swaggy. IMO anyway. I was slowly editing the name from Vergil Thirst Trap lol to Vergil to Vergil has mommy issues. and this hair? It matches the lightning well, but this was more Vergil Fucks. so what was the end result of the body?

more or less this (Those buttons didnt look like that I just realized this screenshot is fucked but you get the idea.) I did some composition editing, some contrast play and more effects, but this was pretty much done. So, like, shit gets messy. Thats not even counting the layer of overlapping reference photos I used because I don't use art boards like a normal person. shit gets messy! Let it get messy. Just clean up when you're done and hopefully you get something you're proud of >:)

[casspurrjoybell-25]

Cold as Ice - Chapter 50 - Part 1

*Warning - Adult Content*

Landon Reilly

I didn't really know how it happened but somehow I ended up eating breakfast at a diner with Rojas, Jess and Anthony one day.

I wasn't even sure the three of them had ever said more than a passing word to one another but I was walking with Jess one morning when we ran into Rojas, who then decided to join us at the coffee shop where Anthony worked.

Then Jess just probably assumed that made us all friends and now we were hanging out as the four of us, which felt weird.

It felt like the three of them all came from different parts of my life and shouldn't have been mixing together.

"Chris, pass me the salt," Jess said to Rojas.

She insisted on calling him by his first name, which he didn't seem to mind.

He said that it was really only the hockey guys that called him by his last name.

Jess was sitting next to me on the outside of the booth while Anthony sat across from her with Rojas next to him.

I couldn't get over how strange it felt to be sitting here with all of them but I knew Jess probably wanted to make sure I wasn't going to just sit in my dorm and wallow in self pity over my break up with Wren.

Without her, that was probably what I would have been doing but she made sure to keep me busy.

Even with keeping busy, my heart didn't hurt any less.

I still felt lonely at the end of the night when I got back to the dorm, even if my roommate, Kyle, was there.

Part of me wanted to just go back to Wren and tell him he didn't need to love me and being together was enough but I couldn't do that.

It would just end up hurting me more in the end and there was no way Jess would let me do that.

"You guys seriously need to start winning games," Jess said to Rojas.

They had already been talking but I was zoned out of the conversation.

Rojas just laughed then looked over at me, his expression changing to a puzzled one.

"Earth to Landon," Rojas said, waving a hand in front of my face.

"I'm here," I said, swatting his hand away.

"Didn't seem like it," he replied, leaning back in his seat.

"You looked far away."

"Are we not doing a good enough job distracting you?" Jess asked, looking genuinely concerned.

"I don't think anything could distract me right now," I told her with a sad smile.

"Well, if we're talking about it... I saw..." Anthony started but paused when Jess shot him a look.

"I saw, he who shall not be named, the other day."

"Yeah, so did I," I said, remembering the way we had run into each other.

It was reminiscent of one of our first encounters earlier on in the school year.

The thought made me sad, how we went from being basically strangers to so much more and how much had changed between us in such a short amount of time.

I wished Wren could just say what I needed to hear because I knew he loved me.

There was no way what either of us felt for the other wasn't enough but I supposed that just loving each other wasn't enough.

He didn't love me enough to say it back.

He didn't love me enough to hold onto me.

That was what my life had always been like.

No one ever loved me enough but that had never affected me as much as it was right now.

I wanted so badly for Wren to love me enough.

"He looked kinda rough," Anthony continued.

"He sat in the coffee shop for hours without even realizing."

The last time Wren and I had broken up, it was apparent that he was not as good at dealing with emotions as he liked to pretend.

He was actually quite bad it, so this news didn't surprise me but it did cause a squeeze in my chest as I thought about him feeling down and being alone.

"What if you try to make him jealous?" Jess asked, turning toward me.

"Let him see what he's missing. If he's going through it, he clearly wants you back. He just needs a kick in the ass."

"And how would I do that?" I muttered, not that I was seriously considering her suggestion.

I wasn't entirely sure Wren would even be jealous if I tried, though he seemed jealous back when Micah visited and our relationship was new but I didn't want to do that to him purposely and there was no way I was going to be able to find anyone to make him jealous with.

"You could pretend to be seeing Chris," Jess suggested, motioning toward Rojas, who stopped reaching for his food the moment his name was mentioned.

"Yeah, not happening," I said, shaking my head.

"I think it's a good idea," Anthony said, earning a look of appreciation from Jess.

"You would," I retorted.

"I'd do it with you but he knows I'm with James," Anthony said.

"And James would be pissed. He is the jealous type."

"It wouldn't really work if it was you though," Jess said.

"Because he knows you but he doesn't know Chris."

Rojas cleared his throat, causing the rest of us to look at him.

I was embarrassed this conversation was even happening.

"I don't mind, if Landon thinks this would help," Rojas said.

He sounded genuine but I was still embarrassed about him being dragged into this.

"No, I'm not doing it," I said, my tone making it clear that this was my final decision.

********

A couple days later, Jess invited Rojas and I to the coffee shop where Anthony worked and then conveniently something came up so she couldn't go with us, leaving just Rojas and me while Anthony was working and even more conveniently, Wren happened to be there.

I knew without even knowing that Jess and Anthony set this up.

Anthony must have told her Wren was there, so she got Rojas and me to show up as if the two of us being there together was enough to make Wren jealous.

Wren didn't even look up when we walked in there.

He was too focused on whatever he was doing on his laptop, which was probably the novel he had been working on.

"I swear I had nothing to do with this," Rojas whispered to me as we waited for our coffees.

"Oh, I know," I replied, shooting daggers at Anthony who was smiling to himself behind the counter.

"I know exactly who had something to do with this."

"We can leave," Rojas offered.

"Coffee for Landon," Anthony called out with a grin, placing my coffee down on the counter.

I didn't even know if Wren noticed or looked in my direction because I was too busy glaring at Anthony and wanting to shrivel up and die of embarrassment.

After Rojas got his drink, the two of us found a place to sit beside each other, which happened to be in view of Wren.

He still had his eyes glued to his computer, giving me no indication he even knew I was here.

I couldn't tell if I wanted him to look at me or if I wanted him to remain unaware.

"That's him, right?" Rojas said, nodding in Wren's direction.

I sighed.

"Yeah, that's him."

"Do you want to tell me what happened with you two?" he asked.

"I mean, obviously you don't have to but if you want to talk about it, I'm all ears."

The truth was I didn't want to talk about it.

I gave the whole story to Jess and she had been nothing but supportive, though what she did this morning might have been stepping too far.

I gave a brief rundown to Micah who did his best to be supportive but wasn't that good at it without knowing all the details or having to talk through text.

It was too embarrassing to tell it all to Rojas.

The two of us were friends but he we weren't that close and he was the Captain of my hockey team, so he kind of had to make sure I was good.

Being setup to be there with him at the coffee shop and pretend we were on a date was embarrassing enough.

I didn't need to tell him that this was happening because my boyfriend basically told me he couldn't love me.

"There's really nothing to talk about," I told him, taking a sip of my coffee while still looking over at Wren.

"It doesn't seem like either of you even want to be broken up," Rojas said.

"At least from what Anthony and Jess were saying, so why are you?"

"It's... complicated."

'Complicated and mortifying'.

Just then, Wren's eyes moved from his screen and looked right at me.

The world stopped for a moment until Wren moved his gaze to Rojas sitting beside me.

Rojas had gotten closer without me realizing, like he didn't know if I wanted to go through with the jealousy plan but he was ready for it if I decided to.

Wren studied us for a moment, like we were one of the only things he couldn't figure out.

I couldn't read his expression.

He was always able to keep his face blank and hide his true feelings from any outsider that tried to read him.

I liked to think that I had broken through him a little bit, that I could read him better the closer I got to him.

It was like all of that went away as soon as we broke up because as I looked at his face now, there was nothing I could gather from it.

Wren had put a wall up that I couldn't break through.

Part of me wanted to move closer to Rojas, let him put his arm around me just to see if there would be a reaction from Wren but I couldn't make myself do it.

It didn't seem to matter whether or not I tried to make Wren jealous because he quickly packed up his things and left, his expression never changing.

I felt myself deflate a little.

"Well, that might have worked," Rojas said after Wren was gone.

"And we didn't even have to do anything."

"No, he just didn't want to see me," I mumbled, looking down at the table.

Probably because when he tried talking to me the other day, I turned and left without giving him the chance.

Maybe he was ready to open himself up for me at that moment, to be vulnerable and I didn't let him.

Maybe he wouldn't be ready to do that again and I blew any chance I had of him coming clean about his feelings and the two of us getting back together.

Rojas and I didn't talk much the rest of the time we were there at the coffee shop.

We finished our drinks and headed back toward campus in time for my first class.

[guzhuangheaven]

I read some rumour that they are making a short drama "remake" of HZGG where apparently the premise is some random modern girl transmigrates into Jin Suo and becomes the main character or whatever. Which sounds completely hilarious or a complete disaster😂 Even if upon second thought this sounds like fake news because surely the IP is with Qiong Yao's family now and they're not likely to do anything in mainland any time soon...

But yes, HZGG is practically made for a fake dynasty considering there was very little about it that bothered to be historical to Qing in the first place other than names. And I guess the Princess Tomb subway station which it originated from...(which is mostly so anticlimatic 😂😂20 year old me really thought I'd have some sort of relevation when I saw it and it's....just a subway station in Beijing.)

Considering Zhen Huan in the context of dramas recently it's so weird...because back in the time of Zhen Huan, the mandate clearly was "we can't set things in fictional dynasties, we have to contort things to fit history as much as possible" which is why we have Zhen Huan being transferred from a fictional dynasty with that whole complicated four madam nine pin whatever harem system to the much simpler Qing. Then now, it's basically fictional dynasty galore, do whatever you want, just don't attach historical figures to your torture and murder!!!

(Honestly I always thought, if they insist on Yong Zheng, the second male for Zhen Huan being the Thirteenth Prince would have been waaaaaaay more devastating than Seventeenth considering Yong Zheng's historical obsession with Thirteen.)

@guzhuangheaven

I'm slow and steadily going to accumulate what I like to call "Chinese dramas set in fictitious dynasties but are based in source materials set in Qing dynasty."

Promise of Chang'an - actually a remake of Xiao Zhuang Mi Shi aka all about Duo Ergun, Da Yu'er, and Huang Taiji. It's funny because as I was watching Promise of Chang'an, I was like I SWEAR I HAVE SEEN THIS DRAMA BEFORE but it turns out, they literally retold that with every in Tang-esq costumes.

New Life Beings - I am told the source novel is actually Qing dynasty? Cuz when I was watching it, I was thinking "... fourth prince named Yin Zheng? That's ... interesting."

(it's the converse Zhen Huan. Which isn't a Qing dynasty novel at all, I think?)

Anyways, TL;DR - A Huan Zhu Ge Ge remake, if someone really wants to pay for that IP, is doable. There's nothing really about it that ties it to the Qing Dynasty.

[sineala]

So, Tony’s marrying Emma Frost now? I feel like Tony’s the only character that toss around like this, in that sense. What number wife will this be?

Uh... one, assuming it happens? Tony has never been canonically married before in 616.

He has had one retconned engagement to a woman named Joanna Nivena, who left him when he decided to be Iron Man. He was serious enough about Rumiko Fujikawa to want to marry her, IIRC, but he never had the chance to propose to her before she was killed. He proposed to Patsy and she said no. As far as I know, that's it. He's dated a lot of characters and he's generally very serious about them and I wouldn't be surprised if canon had said he had seriously considered marrying at least a few others that I can't name off the top of my head, but, yeah, he's only been engaged once.

(Across the multiverse, he's clearly been in serious relationships at least a few other times and famously engaged to Natasha in Ults, but the only non-MCU universe I can think of right now where canon has focused on him being married to anyone is the one where he's married to... Steve.)

Also, this shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone? We have known Tony and Emma have had a Friends With Benefits thing going, as was established in Civil War, like, fifteen years ago. We have specifically known for the past four years that the wedding was coming, ever since History of the Marvel Universe came out in 2019, and made several prophetic statements about the future, including this:

This is not coming out of nowhere; we have had four years of lead time. So far I think about half the things on that page have come true. Maybe more? I haven't checked in a while. So honestly for the past four years of comics I have been saying that I was still waiting for the Tony/Emma wedding, as the prophecy foretold, and that it seemed likely to be some kind of politically-motivated marriage for mutant/human relations especially given that Tony is canonically a member of the Hellfire Club, which has also been true for years, and that seems to be exactly how this is playing out, judging by today's announcement. As I was expecting.

I really like how Duggan has been writing Tony, and how he's been writing Tony and Emma, and I've always thought it would be interesting to see more Tony/Emma in canon, so I think this is gonna be a lot of fun while it happens and maybe there will be more Tony/Emma fic because the few I have read have been great. Tony in relationships with telepaths has been something I've thought was interesting for a while and I don't think we're ever getting Marianne Rodgers back, so Emma it is.

Given Marvel's track record with their characters' marriages I feel that there's no way this is lasting more than six months assuming the marriage happens at all (as the prophecy only foretells a wedding) and honestly I'm hoping no one sells them to Mephisto because seriously, he already also collected Strange and Clea's marriage for a bit in addition to Peter/MJ. I don't know why that dude wants marriages so much.

Honestly, if you want to talk about weird and unexpected canonical relationships involving Emma Frost, I am STILL not over the part where it appears to be canon right now that (1) Steve and Sharon have been in an open relationship for a while, (2) Steve and Emma slept together at the last Hellfire Gala, and (3) it was mommy kink. Because I assure you I absolutely didn't see that coming.

So basically I am intrigued now that the time of Tony/Emma is upon us as foretold in the prophecy. Also I hope fandom brings me some It's Complicated Steve/Tony/Emma because I can't believe we're really just going to leave the canon Steve/Emma thing alone, fandom, and oh my God it is all SO MUCH. Comics. Comics are so Very Comics sometimes.

[zelda-photography]

Tears of the Kingdom - Plot Ending Thoughts

Alright, I've officially finished the main story line of Tears of the Kingdom. I still have a lot to do in the game so I'll still be playing for a while, but I can finally focus on other things (yay!) and I can finally talk about what I thought of it!

My general and non-spoilery thoughts are: I think it was okay, the ending battle in particular felt very grand. What bugs me most about the story is not necessary what it did but more what it didn't do.

EDIT: Now with the Ganondorf Problem

The Fifth Sage

I go back and fourth about Mineru and what I think. Some of you probably saw my post where I was PRAYING for a plot twist and all of my hopes were hanging on her for my plot twist. Instead, she's not the sage of shadow, but the sage of spirit. I'm really glad that the sages got brought back, especially because you ended up with a team that can help you fight. They also changed some of the names to better fit the abilities of the sages which... I'm not super psyched about it. I mean, They got rid of shadow altogether!

Mineru is an okay character. I think she has a pretty good design, she has the whole 'trying to atone for what happened thing' but I feel like it could've been presented a little stronger. I'm not huge on the construct that goes places with you, it feels so weird compared to all the spirits you have hanging around you. It does fit in well with the constructs you've been seeing around, I guess. I'm also really surprised that the sheikah don't come up at all, considering they have an eye motif and the Zonai have a strong eye motif.

(Quickly back to Mineru, I love Zelink but I feel like there was at least a little moment between Mineru and Zelda lol)

I also find it a little strange that there are more or less five sages. I know there's technically seven, and Link does have all seven if you could the time power from Zelda and the arm from Rauru, but it still feels weird to me.

Like I said before, my biggest problem with the story is what is not done. I realize this is somewhat a 'me' problem, Nintendo can't anticipate the expectations of a single person.

Which lead to my tangent for the Fifth Sage section:

Fifth Sage Twists I Would've Liked Better

Mineru ended up betraying Rauru, at least in the past. It would've been a better set up I think for why she was so insistent on redeeming herself for making up for past transgressions

Mineru passes on the secret stone to someone else

Paya ends up being the fifth sage - get some Sheikah rep in there, and she also doesn't ahve much to do in this story at all

Tauro ends up being the fifth sage - I think he's Lurien, which are somewhat associated with the Zonai, and also I think he's interesting enough it would've been fun to have a new character

Before I close out this section, I will say that I am very happy there was a fifth sage at all. It looked like there would be, but also, considering only the four areas were highlighted, I wouldn't have been surprised if it ended at the four, other than the fact that it left Link without a ring on his middle finger.

Finding Zelda

I really liked that throughout the game, the search for Zelda is ongoing and constant. Not only do you get the feeling that Link is concerned, you understand that everyone is very concerned.

I figured out the twist to who Zelda was about 3/4 of the way through the tears, but it was still SO good to be rewarded by being right, the final tear made me cry especially when you wake up from it surrounded by the silent princesses. It also meant that I could visit her whenever I wanted <3 It does feel a little silly at times after that when people are still going 'where's zelda?' but you know the whole time, and Link himself clearly knows as well, but I also get it.

Yiga

I don't have much to say here. The Yiga are fine. I like that Kohga was in the Depths because he fell down the big hole. Tracking them down in the depths isn't that big of a deal, and I did all of it before I actually hit the point in the game where they explicitly tell you to go there. I've had most fun with the Yiga side quest where you get the uniform and go do their base.

Final Boss Ganondorf

I made it down to the final boss chamber pretty early on in the game, after Rito village, because I wanted to get past the bombable walls you see in the beginning. I teleported out of there as soon as it became clear this was the final boss area.

I love that at one point, you get deep enough below Hyrule Castle that the sages stop showing up and you're on your own; it sets the atmosphere greatly and makes it so perfectly spooky. I think the enemy rush is great, though it probably would've gone better if I was better at utilizing the sages powers. Having you get separated from them because they have to fight the other bosses on their own was also okay by me as a reason to get them away from you.

The battle with Ganondorf was good! It was a struggle, and for a while I thought I wasn't going to make it and would need to regroup and come back with better supplies. And then he eats the secret stone and also becomes a dragon and you're caught in his teeth?!?!

The final fight against Dragon Ganondorf is so good!!! I think his design is great, he's so BIG, and it's not htat hard of a fight, but for a third phase of a final boss, I think that's fine. it's not about being hard at that point, in my opinion, it's about feeling really awesome as you're flying through the air, climbing on dragons, and beating up the weak points. Zelda coming to help you out, even as a dragon, was perfect. It felt like we were really working together to do this.

And then, when you're falling, and you finally catch her this time, just like you failed to do before?!?! The ending is SO SO GOOD!!!

My only problem is I wish that Link's arm was gone, still Rauru-ified, or at the very least scarred from what happened to him.

The Ganondorf Problem

This seems like as good a place of any to talk about my thoughts on Ganondorf. For years, fans have been begging for a nuanced Ganondorf, like Wind Waker but better! This... is not that. This Ganondorf is evil looking, almost comically evil in the memory cutscenes, and I'll be honest, it was pretty disappointing. Without changing up the plot entirely, there are two ways I think they could've made this Ganondorf at least a little bit better of a character.

They make him charismatic. Ganondorf as a man who knows how to manipulate people in order to get what he wanted. You can at least see or buy Ganondorf as someone that people may trust, or who can trick people.

He's doing it for his people. See yourself as Ganondorf, first Gerudo Male in a hundred years, already burdened with great purpose, and now the Kingdom of Hyrule exists with god-like power and is growing fast. So you do what you can to get that power so you can save your people, and then maybe he got lost in the lust for power along the way.

Ending Cutscene

The ending cutscene seemed to be mostly a big send off for Mineru, which felt weird. Again I don't have a huge problem with her, and I'm glad she got to pass on, but I don't think it really warranted such a big part of the scene?

Again, here I thought Mineru would pass on her secret stone to Purah, but she didn't.

I liked all the sages swearing their loyalty to Hyrule and Zelda, that was nice, but I don't know. It just felt like it was missing a little something to me. What? Hard to say.

Last Thoughts

These last thoughts are going to be mostly problems I had, so I want to start it by saying that I loved this game! There's so much to do, it's so distinct from Breath of the Wild while also still being a sequel. Having played Breath of the Wild, I was able to explore Hyrule again, and I loved going back to places that I had been before and seeing what had changed about them. I'll be playing this game for a while :D

The Zonai were... hm, well I liked them over all... I think? I liked their designs, but I wished we got to learn more about them or see more than just Rauru and Mineru.

There's a lot of talk about the imprisoning war and people coming from the sky, so I thought there's be more connection to Skyward Sword, but there was hardly any, and I'll admit I was a little disappointed. We come to the whole 'zelda timeline theory' 'problem' here, which is that this worked more like a parallel to the events of skyward sword than a reference. Ultimately, I view the Zelda Timeline as a lense through which to view Zelda, not canonical but also something that still holds weight to how you consume Zelda. That being said, I was really REALLY hoping for Skyward Sword stuff to be prominent.

I wish there was a stronger second act or some kind of plot twist. You visit each region only once really, and it would've been much better if you ended up having to visit all of them again for some reason or other.

The names for the secret stones sucked and I think there should've been a different name for them.

The game focused a lot on Rauru. This is another thing that I can't decide whether it bothers me or not. It takes a step away from the the triforce and the goddesses. Considering the focus on Hylia Breath of the Wild had, this is probably a good thing. Still, at times it felt like the Rauru game instead of the Zelda game. However, Rauru is an interesting character and i liked learning more about him.

Again, over all, I like the game! It feels weird to say this a week after the game came out, but it makes me excited for future Zelda games and where they'll go from there. Really hoping for a 2D Zelda between now and the next one :)

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on the game!

[flightless-rising]

Made a new Flight Rising iceberg and also wrote an explanation.. man, this took way longer than it should have.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy :D

Iceberg explanation

( If there are any mistakes please let me know and I’ll edit this asap. Also, English isn't my first language so please forgive me for any grammatical errors)

EDIT 28/06: Added some new info! Thanks to everyone who tagged and responded with new stuff to add, I really appreciate it!

The Sky

Naomi

Back in the day, whenever you bought or sold something on the auction house a message would show up in your inbox confirming the transaction. These messages were sent by one of the dragon couriers: Pearl, Spitfire or Edgar.

On January 2016, a strange glitch occurred that replaced the images and names of couriers with the ones of a female fae named “Naomi”.

It goes deeper than that, though: if you looked up her name in the user search menu, a clan would pop up with over 15 million dragons.

It was quickly discovered that all exalted dragons had somehow become part of her clan. Naomi herself apparently didn’t exist, and clicking on her page redirected to an error page. This was later fixed and the original Naomi page can be now visited.

What exactly caused this glitch is still a mystery and today Naomi is still a well-known piece of Flight Rising history.

Missing Tidelord

In the official lore, the deity of the water flight disappeared in early 2018, as described in the short story “Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow”.

In the follow up story (Mixed Elements) posted in April of the next year it is confirmed that the Tidelord is still missing, but alive. This coincides with the fact that the Tidelord account hasn’t made any forum posts aside from festival announcements.

Emperors

Emperors are a type of unobtainable dragon that are formed when several Imperial corpses are left in close proximity to each other, which then fuse forming a multi-headed chimera.

Emperors are described in the lore as having an animal-like behavior and destroying everything in sight. They are extremely difficult to kill, which is the reason why in-universe Imperials have such strange burial rites.

An emperor named Luminax is first described in the Raising a Family short story, and their sprite can be seen walking around on the world map.

The Surface

Old color wheel

Originally, there were only 67 available colors for dragons. On June 8th 2016, 110 more colors were added, meaning that currently there are a total of 177 colors available.

When making a custom progenitor dragon, it is only possible to choose among the 67 original colors because it would be otherwise unfair for those who made their account before the new colors were added.

Imperial breed scrolls

Imperial breed change scrolls are one of, if not the most, rare type of item on the site. They were given only to those who pledged 30 dollars or more on the original Flight Rising kickstarter.

At the time, this was the only way of obtaining an Imperial dragon, which meant that the breed as a whole was pretty valuable. Now that Imperials are abundant this is no longer the case, but First generation Imperials are still extremely sought and probably the most expensive type of dragon on the site.

There were also other items that were only given to Kickstarted backers, namely Skycats, Bonefiend, Golden Idol and Cogfrog familiars, and those are also pretty much impossible to obtain.

Baldwin breed change

When Baldwin was introduced in 2015 he was originally a Pearlcatcher. On September 14th of 2016 however his site art started to gradually change, until his transformation was completed five days later.

In-universe, Baldwin started to change after a lightning strike hit his cauldron during an experiment, which made him slowly mutate into the breed we now know as Bogsneaks.

Trans Fiona

When Fiona was added as a trading post dragon people speculated that she was trans, because the female pose for Skydancers only displays two antennae, while the male one has four.

Since Fiona has four antennae in her site art, many wondered whether it was an oversight or actually intended. Aequorin later confirmed in a forum thread that Fiona is indeed trans.

Boolean

Speaking of rare items, the Boolean familiar was only given to a handful of Flight rising beta testers and as such is extremely rare and valuable.

Plaguebringer coli team

On the Plaguebringer’s page she is listed as being part of a coliseum team.

As of now we have no clue as to why this is, and even more strangely she is the only deity that does this.

Boston & Hope

This story is a bit complicated. I’ve scoured the forums in search of info but it seems like there are still some pieces missing. I’ll try my best to explain anyway.

So, for a long while the Lightweaver was the only deity that had other dragons aside from herself in her lair: these dragons were a Spiral named Boston and a Tundra named Hope. Strangely, they were both Earth dragons and apparently have been there since the beginning (?). When asked why (this happened back when deities would interact on the forums) the Lightweaver responded that they were having a dinner party together.

In August 2014 during a pretty heated dominance battle between Shadow and Light Boston and Hope disappeared from the Lightweaver’s lair.

The Shadowbinder now had them, and both their elements were alsochanged to Shadow. The two deities acknowledged this and changed their broadcast messages accordingly.

If I had to guess this was some kind of inside joke that the admins had, although some people got angry that the Shadowbinder now had both Hope and Boston. Some time later(?) Boston was returned to the Lightweaver and for some reason his element was changed to wind.

I don’t have any more info on the matter but if some of you do I would appreciate it if you tell me.

Shallow Waters

Eyepocalypse

On June 8th 2018 eye type variants were introduced. This update was pretty controversial for a bunch of reasons, and the topic is still discussed today. The majority of people(?) seemed to be upset by the fact the “best” eye types (primarily goat, primal and multi-gaze) could only be displayed on dragons that were born with them, and the fact that every dragon born prior to the update couldn’t have these eye types at all displeased a lot of users.

Another problem was the fact that most of the non-special eye types (i.e the only ones that could be applied to already existing dragons using a vial of Scattersight) were not clearly visible on the grand majority of adult dragons.

A smaller(?) complaint was that two of the primal eye types, Shadow and Plague, were seen as kind of disturbing by some people.

Three years later staff attempted to fix this issue by adding Eye type vials for every available eye type. This resulted in a market crash for special eye typed dragons, as now these eye types could be applied to any dragon. The value of Scattersights also tanked, and the people bought them and hadn’t used them yet lost money as now they were infinitely less useful.

EDIT 28/06: Goat isn’t actually obtainable via breeding, faceted is. Bad mistake on my part.

Also, Scattersights were given away freely by Galore on Flight Rising’s fifth anniversary in 2018 and could not be bought afterwards. I admit that I thought people could be able to buy Scattersights due to how upset people were that the value went down, but whatever.

Courier Breed

The courier dragons (Edgar, Spitfire, and Pearl) are part of an exclusive dragon breed that is currently unobtainable. Even though their eye color still reflects the flight they were born in, in-universe they are considered to be “neutral” and they are granted free access to all domains. This raises the question as to which deity created them, as every other dragon breed (Bogsneaks being the only exception) has been created by one of The Eleven.

Multiaccounting

According to the site’s terms of service, no one is allowed to have more than one account. This is pretty standard for pet sites, as having multiple accounts grants unfair advantages and can mess up the site economy. This doesn’t completely stop people for having more than one account, and the practice as a whole is called “Multiaccounting” or “having multis”.

Some people only do this to have multiple clans or reboot their account without deleting their old one. They mostly do no harm but it is reasonable that the site wouldn’t allow this because of how easy it is exploit.

The real harm of multis comes from a practice called “funneling” which is when someone creates multiple accounts only for the purpose of giving items to their main account. This practice violates the game’s rules and can result in a ban. Funneling is not limited to multiaccounting though, and having an account only to feed another is against the site’s rules whether or not the account in question belongs to another person or not.

Some people fear of being banned for multiaccounting even if they haven’t done so, especially if they share a computer with other people.

Purble

“he purble” is probably among the most famous Flight Rising memes.

In 2016(?) a rant was submitted to the original Dramarising blog by a very angry user that wanted to buy an XXX Purple Ridgeback back when triples were pretty expensive, but got beat by someone else.

I’m not going to copy paste it here because in my opinion it’s one of the funniest Flight Rising related posts ever and I don’t want to spoil the experience of reading it for the first time. You can find it pretty easily by searching it up.

Tert Picking

This is something that refaced recently, even though I’ve seen people talking about this for a while. Some people vividly remember being able to pick their custom progenitor’s tertiary color, even though the developers have made it clear that such thing would be impossible. This is without a doubt just one of those weird situations where a lot of people somehow remember the same thing wrong.

Still, it’s fascinating just how many people claim to remember doing picking their tert.

Swiftwings

Swiftwings were a dragon breed that was scrapped in development. The design was rejected because it didn’t fit the 2 arms 2 legs 2 wings format that every dragon design had to follow before the introduction of ancient breeds.

The reason for this rule is that otherwise it would mess up apparel placement. Although the concept was scrapped, echoes of the design were scattered throughout the site: for example, the empty dragon slots that were present prior to 2019 had the silhouette of a Swiftwings dragon. They are also mentioned in the April Fool’s update of 2018.

“Real” Lore dragons

Most people don’t know that some of the dragons featured on the lore stories are actually real, and you can visit their pages. This is the case for Tetra, Cracklinne, Velya, Liefa, Garote and Mirth, which are currently chilling in Aequorin’s lair.

All of the other dragons in the developers’ lairs are not canon and are used to test bugs and features on the site.

The Middle ground

True deity names

When the site first started the deities used to have actual names instead of titles. Some of these names were based off of the site founders’s usernames on other sites.

The names are the following:

Amogayvhi - Gladekeeper Xhaztol - Arcanist Rhenik - Tidelord Akiri - Flamecaller Thrage - Stormcatcher Undel - Shadowbinder Jhortanas - Plaguebringer Ghurab - Windsinger Artaios - Earthshaker Rhiow – Lightweaver

As you can tell, Xhaztol, Akiri, Thrage and Undel are the usernames of some of the admins of the site, and the flight they are a part of corresponds with the previous name of their deity.

No leg coatls

On January 16, 2015 an iconic thread was posted in the flight rising discussion forum, which displayed a photoshopped image of a coatl with its legs removed. Quickly the thread devolved into a general photoshop thread were people took official site art of dragons and modified it.

The thread was eventually locked due to spam and quote pyramids, but spiritual successors of the original “phoatlshop” thread still exist today.

Dress slot unlocking

A thing that a surprising amount of people don’t know is the fact that when buy an additional apparel slot, the slot opens for every dragon in your lair and not just the one you bought it on.

This is something I also discovered very recently and it’s kind of funny that so many people that have been on the site for very long don’t know this.

Clanbound scatterscrolls

I think the wiki explains it best, so I’ll just copy paste this here:

“Tri-Color Scatterscrolls suffered from an issue where they would only scatter a random range from colors 1-47 (white through sunshine) rather than 1-67 (white through rose). They have been fixed and are now functioning correctly with a random range within the 67 color set. The affected timeframe was from August 15th, 2013 until September 22nd, 2013. The admins allowed users who were unsatisfied with their bugged Tri-Color Scatterscrolls to receive the same amount of them back in the form of Clanbound Scatterscrolls to try scattering their own dragons again with the full color range.”

Beta Mirrors

Ever wondered why they’re called Mirrors?

According to Undel, the main artist of Flight Rising, mirrors originally were supposed to have every part of their body “mirrored”, meaning they had two sets of eyes, two pairs of wings, two tails, and so on.

This design ended up being too cluttered and looked weird shrunken down. The name was kept the same, even though the only mirrored part of the design are the eyes.

Dragons are evil

If you read the “Beastclans on the rise” lore bit, the dragons come across as… very evil, stealing territory from the beastclans when they have been living on Sornieth way longer than the dragons have and killing them for loot.

Furthermore, in the Bounty of the Elements lore bit the Beastclan rebellion guided by Talona is seen by the dragons as unreasonable and wrong even when in canon Beastclans are framed as the innocent party.

The Depths

Scroll of Divorce

In the alpha stage dragons were supposed to be monogamous and could only breed with the dragon they were “paired” with. To break their bond you had to use an item called “Scroll of Divorce” which even featured broken marriage rings in the art.

If I had to guess, this item and the concept as a whole were scrapped because the idea of dragons having “weddings” and needing to divorce before breeding with another dragon felt kind of weird, especially in a game targeted towards teens.

First Festival

The first Holiday festival in Flight rising history was the 2013 Brightshine Jubilee. The items that were available for this festival only are incredibly rare, particularily the Light Sprite which is one of the most valuable items on the site. Apart from that and the fact that the skincent contest only had 6 winners, not much is notable about it.

Offsite drama

Flight Rising has had its fair share of drama both on and off site, but due to the fact that it’s against the site’s rule to discuss user drama on the forums most of the notable drama happened off site (mainly tumblr).

Egg rot

Egg rot was a very early mechanic that was pretty quickly removed from the site. If you forgot to incubate your eggs, they would “rot” and no longer hatch.

It’s the reason why in the nesting grounds the text reads “Eggs healthy” and also the reason why on the stats section of the Account settings it says “Eggs discarded”. The mechanic was removed because it heavily punished casual players and the frequent downtimes of the site meant that even if someone logged in every day they could still have their eggs die.

Also, the images of egg rot look extremely cursed.

Pablo

From what I could gather, Pablo is a dragon which became somewhat popular after user “Desmondtiny” wrote a very long and detailed backstory of them being the Arcanist’s lost boyfriend.

I’m pretty sure it gues deeper than that but I couldn’t find any further information. As usual, if you know something more let me know.

Latest News

On November 12, 2014, a glitch(?) occurred that let anyone post in the Announcements thread. Anything that was posted went directly to the front page, which resulted in quite a bit of chaos.

This was fixed only half an hour later, but the screenshots people have from that time are extremely funny.

Lameforger

On the 2014 Flameforger’s festival announcement Undel accidentally misspelled “Flameforger” as “Lameforger”, which prompted the official account of the Flamecaller to respond aggressively. Lameforger is still jokingly used by users, even after the typo was fixed.

Festival of one (1)

On the first day of the 2014 Greenskeeper Gathering a glitch occurred which switched the site banner for the Starfall celebration banner instead of the Greenskeeper one.

It didn’t end there, in the coliseum Magical shards dropped instead of Bladed Flatleaves, even though skin chests dropped as normal(?).

The weirdest thing about it all was Joxar’s Space inventory, which didn’t display any items at all and had glitched dialogue.

The event was nicknamed by the fanbase “Festival of 1” and even the deity’s official accounts acknowledged the incident.

Vape Juice

As far as I know the original forum thread as been lost, but the vape juice fiasco will always remain cemented in Flight Rising History.

A company called Vape Daugz was making vape juice with Flight Rising dragons plastered on their packaging, completely violating the site’s policy.

The company’s site still exists, and browsing through their products I found that the products that previously had Flight Rising dragons on them still exist, but now feature completely different packaging.

I have no idea whether they changed the packaging spontaneously or staff did something about it.

I think there’s a potentially interesting story buried down there, but we’ll likely never the truth behind the Flight Rising vape juice.

The Abyss

Humans

There’s been some speculation over the years as to whether or not humans are canon in the Flight Rising universe. Some people believe that the “Mages” of the second age in the official lore are actually humans, but we can’t be sure because they are depicted with long robes that cover their whole bodies.

The idea of humans existing in canon has spawned a couple of memes, most infamously Thomas.

Plague healers

Again, I think the wiki explains this one better:

“According to Aequorin, Plague healers are an interesting bunch because rather than administer treatments that counter illness, they use a mixture of magic and contagion that stress the affected dragon further, allowing them to reach a stronger, healed, and resistant state faster than other elements. Plague healers will treat physical injuries with sutures, bandages, and braces, but they won't clean the wounds or apply ointments."

Akitla

As described in the original thread, Akitla was a dragon that user “qunii” saw on the front page, but noticed that she wasn’t accompanied by the username of the person owning them.

After clicking on her, an error page loaded. It was discovered that putting her color combination or ID in the search bar would result in an error page. This was later fixed, and both Akitla and her mate were now displayed as being exalted to the Arcanist. T

here are some theories as to what happened to the Akitla’s user, some think that she belonged to a deleted account, others that it was the result of an incomplete account creation.

As with a lot of things on this iceberg, it will likely remain a mystery forever.

Arcane sprite book

“what is the arcane sprite reading??” is probably one of the oldest still active threads on the forums.

On September 25, 2013 user “Kaadashi” started a joke thread were they wondered what exactly is the arcane sprite reading, and playfully suggested that it could be erotic fanfiction. People went crazy of course, and started to wonder what kind of juicy secrets were hidden within the pages of that book.

I don’t want to say too much because I really don’t want to spoil the experience of reading through this very cursed tread.

Sunshine

Sunshine is one of the most… interesting lairs on the site, and certainly one of the most well-known.

They(?) have a lair (almost) completely full of triple basic sunshine dragons, most of which are Tundras. So far they have collected about 320 triple hundred Sunshine dragons, almost all of which are also named “Sunshine”. They’re not all the same, some of them have apparel, some of them are gened and some have unique art and descriptions.

They’re dedicated and I respect that.

EDIT 28/06: Apparently some people seem to think that the sunshine-dedicated lair is based on a meme concerning the announcement of the color wheel expansion, which became so discussed that the itself site broke. The two things are unrelated however, as the Sunshine lair has been around for much longer.

The announcement of the color wheel expansion was cryptic, with only a few post showing off differently colored coatls and then 3 pages of reserved posts, with no explanation whatsoever.

Simple Farmer

Another very famous thread is the “I am but a simple farmer” thread started by user “someKindOfGenius”. It’s not really about anything specific, it’s just a rather silly thread were people photoshop flight rising dragons onto various crops.

Still, this thread is iconic so I had to include it.

Dragon Deaths

Way back in 2014 former flight rising programmer Thrage revealed on a forum thread that way back before the beta, dragons could actually starve to death if left unfed.

Yep.

Obviously they had to remove this mechanic because it would have been extremely harsh to casual players and make people frustrated with the game.

Zalvador

User “manojalpa” became fairly well-known for the extremely dark lore they(?) had written for their Clan, it was so dark in fact that every single one of their dragon’s bios had to moved to their tumblr where they couldn’t be easily seen by the site’s mainly underage usebase.

Their lore centered around their progen dragon, a tundra named Zalvador, which behaved and had the same powers as a flight rising user: buying dragons off of the action house, having “breeding projects”, exalting dragons, etc.

These things seem pretty normal when done by a player, but when taking them as actual real things that happen in universe… yeah, it was way too morbid for the site.

The Pit

Black linen neck wraps

For some weird reason, the apparel piece “Black linen neck wrap” when put on a male pose Coatl wraps around the dragon’s throat instead of it’s neck. It’s kind of subtle and hard to see, but if you compare it with the female pose the difference is clear. This is probably just an art error, although it’s weird that it hasn’t been fixed yet, since linen wraps are a very old piece of apparel.

Another weird thing about linen wraps in general is that the wing wraps just sort of… go through the membrane? This is not possible. These dragons are in pain.

Icewarden ears

Another very remarkably popular thread is the Icewarden ears thread.

In 2014 user “Llanai” simply makes note of the fact that the Icewarden has teeny tiny ears.

As we have come to expect from these threads, it quickly devolved into nonsense.

Forbidden Snapper lore

Snappers used to have a way different lore section that was changed because it deemed too similar to the lore of another petsite.

This is what the original section read:

"Snapper dragons do not sleep, but exist in a constant state of reverie. They receive and catalogue all experiences and stories told within their dreams. This persistent state of awakened dreaming awards them the longest memory of any dragon species. They are living encyclopedias, and any dragon who is seeking difficult-to-obtain information will have the most luck unearthing it from a Snapper clan - provided they have the patience for it. If you want two dozen quick answers, talk to a spiral. If you want a fully developed answer, camp out around a Snapper. These dreamers move at their own pace, which varies from dragon to dragon. For some, the awakened dream can prove to be more interesting than their surroundings. This leads to a focus upon the dream, and the waking world as filtered background noise. Interacting with these sleepwalkers can be a trying and repetitive task. Other Snappers may be fairly lucid, with a focus upon their surroundings and the constant hum of the dream pushed aside."

Bee movie script

I’ve seen this story around the forums a few times but I’ve never been able to learn the details.

From what I’ve heard someone copy pasted the entire bee movie script into their clan bio in a drop down text format, which completely broke the page for anyone who visited it. This was fixed, apparently, although I have no clue as to who this user is.

EDIT 28/06: Zeus

Zeus is an XXX gold g1 permababy imperial that used to belong to user "happywing".

Their account is now locked because Zeus was created with the use of a duplication glitch on an imperial breed change scroll, which is obviously not allowed (although I've heard some people say that the dragon was hacked in altogether). Before the account was locked, people speculated that Zeus was the most valuable dragon on the site, because an XXX g1 imperial is impossibly rare.

Wegg shaming

On July 2017 user “Dreamnorn” made a thread were they(?) claimed to have a dream where everything was the same except people used the term “wegged” when two dragons would lay only one egg in a nest.

Ex. Aw man! I’ve been wegged again! = Aw man! I bred two dragons and they only had one egg!

The dream ended up being prophetic, as the term catched on and people started to use it unironically.

The practice of “Wegg shaming” I think refers to the trend of people posting pictures of the dragons that “wegged” them in order to “shame” them.

Plague nest skull

The site art of the plague nest features an unique dragon skull that doesn’t match with any currently existing dragon breed or creature: It appears to have two sets of eyes, like a mirror, but also long and curled horns.

It’s probably just for decoration and it likely doesn’t have any significance whatsoever, but personally I believe it would be pretty cool if when they eventually release plague ancient it at least somewhat resembled this skull.

EDIT 28/06: On second thought, the skull doesn’t seem to have two pairs of eyes, It just has the generic shape of a carnivore.

Rock bottom

CAPTAINPLANET

…this is CAPTAINPLANET. Somehow, user “Decres”' managed to overlay a Fae skin on top of a Tundra, creating this horrifyingly fascinating abomination.

I have no idea how she did this, and she seems pretty adamant to tell.

EDIT 28/06: People have pointed out that this skin overlay glitch was actually somewhat common (although I still haven't found another dragon like CAPTAINPLANET). What you had to do was breed change a dragon while attaching a skin to them in another tab.

This glitch has been patched and such thing is no longer possible.

Lair 46264

A cursed lair.

Dreams

I’ve seen a lot of people, both on forums and on Tumblr, sharing dreams they had about Flight Rising.

A lot of people dream of just being on the site, while occasionally weird things happen.

I’ve read of people who dreamed the distribution of a new breed, buying an exclusive item, a new Fiona feat or Swipp trade, or just browsing the forums.

The most common type of Flight rising-associated dream I’ve seen however is being caught multiaccounting and having their account banned.

I’m no psychoanalyst, but I think it’s pretty clear that these nightmares stem from the paranoia of being banned from their beloved petsite instead of showing any actual intention of doing the “crime” in question.

Anyways, I think it’s fascinating how so many people dream about this site, and it reminds me of the dreams people claimed to have about Mario 64 where completely new levels were added or a scary monster appeared.

Dragon Slime

Dragon Slime was an infamous thread which was supposed to be start off point for an ARG.

It was deleted because it was considered too “spammy” and also because ARGs are banned from the forums. The thread has been lost, unfortunately.

EDIT 28/06: Thanks to @randompurple-fr for providing screenshots of the dragon slime tutorial! You can find them here

Cucumber

Cucumber is the only dragon ever to have been exalted with a skin, which is something that should not be possible. This raises some questions as to what exactly did the person that exalted them do to achieve this, but we have no way of knowing who Cucumber belonged to.

EDIT 28/06: Actually, we do know who used to Cucumber belonged to! Its owner was Osiem: an official flight rising artist. I couldn’t find the thread where they(?) acknowledged the glitch though, if someone has it please let me know!

[newcontinent]

ot4

okay so i made this largely ryden/polypanic reclist before i know, but i wanted to make a complete list of all my favourite longer ot4 fics as well as just smut. it’s fair to say this list is extensive and ever-expanding. enjoy!

(note: it’s safe to assume all these fics are nc-17 unless otherwise stated)

***

a sense of touch by liketheroad (16,000, rated PG)

from the very beginning, slowly at first but always steadily growing towards more, they touched. so much and eventually so without thought that they never had to wonder why it felt wrong when they didn’t, because that itself happened so infrequently.

(this is so so lovely it makes me cry tbh. canon compliant and delicate and wonderful)

all in by fictionalaspect (8000)

"last person still in wins the pot," jon says. he finishes with a flourish, folding up his two pieces of paper and dropping them on top of the folded twenty at the bottom of their empty weed jar.

brendon pushes his hair out of his eyes, bites his lip, and stares at his two scraps of paper. he writes the first two things that come to mind.

(well written, well read, well loved. brendon gets rimmed, ryan wears lingerie, we’re all happy)

be(side) the sea by liketheroad (21,000, rated T)

ryan and spencer grow up on a lonely island by the sea, two against the world, and then comes jon walker to make it three.

(and then brendon arrives too! this is so sad in places but exceptionally pretty in others and i just really really like it)

burn up in love love love by dsudis (12,000)

miss you miss you miss you

(who knew jon getting gang banged could be so sweet??)

circus verse by mokuyoubi (38,000 altogether)

spencer and ryan are part of pete's travelling circus. jon and brendon come for the show, but there's something about the place that keeps them coming back for more.

(this is ryan/brendon and jon/spencer in the first part, but it’s so good and i love the idea of this au tbh)

clearly aware of the stars by jenish (18,000)

(bby!brendon has a huge crush on jon, so spencer and ryan decide to, ahem, help him out. aka cute tiny gay boys having feelings)

different names for the same thing by liketheroad (24,000, rated PG)

wherein ryan, spencer, brendon and jon live in a house in chicago and go to school and work and make waffles and have misunderstandings and fall in love. also wherein tom conrad is kind of magic.

(i love everything this author writes to be honest, but this and the other 2 fics by them on here are just so cute and awesome and everything i love about polypanic)

discussion of children at prayer (divine in accepting your defeat) by ignite_it (4500)

in which ryan, spencer and brendon died before they could live forever, pete is ruthless and possibly crazy, the world might be ending, and jon walker just wants his family back. (sad and far-fetched, but it made me cry so it belongs on this list)

every turn a surprise by mixtapestar (56,000)

when brendon is 10 years old, weird things start happening. he quickly discovers his ability to read minds, and then he spends several years at the academy, learning how to control it. after he is forced to run away to avoid being drafted for his ability, he gets hired onto a spaceship, where he meets spencer, ryan, and jon. things just get crazier from there, especially when he starts to fall in love with more than one of his coworkers.

(considering the length, the plot is kind of underdeveloped in places, but still - space au ot4!!! with superpowers!!!)

find what you need by lady_deathangel (5000)

(this was written for a bottom!jon meme and it actually has a bit of a plot. what more needs to be said)

four men and a little cabin by gigantic (9000)

unrelated, non-linear scenes from a recording cabin

(i constantly thank god for cabin fic)

from countess to cabin boy by formerlydf (35,000)

to be fair, brendon never truly intends to join the crew of a pirate ship. It just sort of... happens. she's sitting at a table in the corner, sipping her water and trying to figure out where to go next, when a boy about her age sits down at the table with her. "have you ever considered a life of action and adventure on the high seas?" he asks her cheerfully. brendon stares at him. she also stares at his hair — at least, she thinks it's his hair. It could be some sort of weird, hair-like hat gone terribly, terribly wrong. "um. what?"

(pirate au!! is it kind of ridiculous? yes. is the genderswap awkward and/or offensive? surprisingly not! overall p adorable tbh)

high school verse 1 and 2 by softlyforgotten (38,000 altogether, rated T)

(the reigning monarch of high school aus writes more high school au. the first part is mostly vicky/greta, but seriously this entire thing is so good and the polypanic in both parts is so well done i love it a lot)

(i’ll be) the only thing between you and the stars by mokuyoubi (68,000)

pete likes to be the admiral of the fleet in his free time, the cobra is after the academy, the helena is after the cobra, and brendon gets caught in the middle, leaving it up to spencer, jon and ryan to come to his rescue. oh yeah. star trek au.

(*bangs on table* star trek au!! star trek au!!! star! trek!! au!!!! amazing tbh)

the less specific i become by notamagnet (21,000)

brendon was found wandering the desert when he was two and was later adopted by the uries. he’s never felt as though he fits in with them, but he loves them regardless. everywhere he goes he can’t help but wonder if he’s passing someone who knows what happened to him. one day on tour, he meets someone who does.

(brendon is adopted and his real dad is the president???? idek man but there’s just something about this fic that i really, really like)

let each who is worthy by mokuyoubi (86,000)

“it was probably just some shitty band, you know? i mean, how many high school bands ever go anywhere, what are the odds? but i still can’t help wondering how things might have been different, if i’d joined them. like. that was a bad time for me, and what if i had found a place where i fit in? where would i be now?"

brendon has his religious crisis but never meets panic! and goes away on his mission after high school.

(hugely long and ambitious considering, but it still works and it’s kind of amazing. absolutely worth a read)

one more than three by cynthia_arrow (9000)

"i think i want to have sex with ryan ross," jon says as he spills across the threshold.

to his credit, gabe doesn't laugh, doesn't even so much as smirk.

(brendonryanspencer are together, jon is sad and wants in, and gabe is actually a very good friend)

panic! at the discworld by imperfectcircle (+ podfic by reena_jenkins) (5000, rated G)

brendon came from a tiny farm in the ramtop mountains half a cow and two acorns short of being a hovel, and had assumed the city of ankh-morpork would be similar in size and variety to the kingdom of lancre. it might even be smaller, he had supposed, because lancre -- that huddled collection of villages, mountains and goats -- was a kingdom, whereas ankh-morpork was merely a city.

this was much like using height to deduce that a baby made less mess than a hat stand, and tended to have the same effect on one's shoes.

(oh man this fic THIS FIC. 100% as good as it sounds, it captures pterry’s voice perfectly, it features otto!!!, and it is just so fucking great i cry. podfic is a++ as well)

so tonight that we might see by softlyforgotten (32,000)

adventures and reunions of a spacely sort.

(more spaceship aus!!! okay ngl this fic p much broke my heart but i love it very dearly and there’s a happy ending i promise!!)

(songs about fighting for boys who don’t fight) by jae (17,000)

right when jon was joining, william had said to him, “you know, they’re a - tight-knit bunch.

(new beginnings are hard to navigate, and ryan is a little bitch (as per usual). jon centric and wonderful if painful)

spyro! by solarcat (9000)

in which spencer smith is a small, purple dragon, ryan ross makes magical scarves, brendon urie writes songs about lonely manticores, and jon walker is magic!

(okay so part of me can’t even believe i’m even putting this in this list, but i couldn’t not do it. it’s ridiculous, it’s hilarious, but it’s also well written and it’s sure as hell original!)

that’s what he said by cyclogenesis (23,000)

truckstops and statelines and boyfriends, etc.

(okay so this is, to be truthfully honest, mostly just smut, but it is smut that is very important from me. take it from rosie, i never shut up about this fic)

there’s no ‘i’ in ryan ross by jzbell (9500)

jon walker attempts the impossible: to make the gayest band on the planet even gayer.

(group sex as organised by jwalk - what’s not to love?)

triangulation and other games of numbers by redsnake05 (24,000)

spencer doesn't think he should believe mike or tom, at first, but he finds himself wanting to trust them. when he finds out what they've really been doing, he's lucky to also find something else that he actually can trust in. (features various permutations of tom conrad/mike carden/spencer, but ultimately a great polypanic fic about trust and boundaries. and sex. obviously)

the way you make me feel (it knocks me off my feet) by dishonestdreams (9000)

jon doesn't know how he ever got by without this. without them. (i’m not super down for dom!ryan but i am incredibly down for sub!jon so there we have it. also v well written)

***

(side note: because this list was getting kind of ridiculously long, i decided to split it into 2. my other ot4 reclist can be found here, and it contains smaller fics/pure smut fic that i didn’t want to put into this list)a