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zafirosreverie · 1 year

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Dynasty (Julieta x Félix)

a/n: I regret nothing

Warnings: cheating, child stealing, infidelity, blood mention.

For @doloresswife hope you like it

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She tried not to clench her fist too hard, for fear of hurting Camilo, but she couldn't stop the fear, anxiety, and anger from swirling inside her as more and more people came to Casita.

It was a special night, one filled with mixed emotions, fake smiles, and a party she didn't feel ready for, nor did she think she ever would. A new gift ceremony, a new birthday... a new wound that would never heal in her heart. She didn't even realize how the day had come so soon. It seemed impossible that five years had already passed, especially when she still felt locked up, when she had never left that room, at least not mentally.

"Are you okay, tía?"

Julieta jumped a little when she felt Dolores's hand on her shoulder. Her niece was the only one of the Madrigal grandchildren who knew... everything about that night and the months before it. It would have been impossible to hide it from her, considering that she can hear even the slightest change.

"I'm fine, Lola" she answered without turning around "Is Mirabel okay?"

Her mind took a moment away from the sadness that was beginning to consume her, to focus on her youngest daughter. She knew that the girl adored Antonio, but that didn't mean that seeing him at his ceremony, having an opportunity that had been taken from her, would be an easy thing for the girl.

"She’s okay...at least as much as she can be" Dolores replied "...it's Antonio who is terrified"

The healer felt her blood run cold. She had foreseen that Mirabel would feel bad about Toñito's ceremony, she had imagined that Dolores would see her with pain and pity, and she knew that she herself would end up with a broken heart and a soaked face. But she hadn't thought that Antonio was going to feel scared on a night that was supposed to be entirely for him.

She supposed that in a way it made sense, absolutely all the Madrigal grandchildren, especially those of her blood, were terrified, either in one way or another. Isabela couldn't see herself in any mirror without feeling a wave of anxiety, she was terrified that her reflection would show a woman that wasn't perfect.

Luisa lived in a constant internal struggle, punishing herself for every ounce that she could not lift, even if it was far beyond her capacity, the idea of appearing weak consumed her soul. Mirabel... her poor girl, so mature, kind, happy, and beautiful, who filled the hearts of all who knew her with deep joy, her precious butterfly, was afraid to look at the faces of her family and see in them the rejection, the hate, and disappointment.

All three of her girls were tainted, filled with a fear she herself had experienced, a terrible sentence they had to face because of a weak, pathetic, cowardly mother.

Julieta was not stupid, she knew that all the pain and fear that lived in her daughters was nothing more than a reflection of everything she had done, what she had kept quiet about, and what she had not fought for. She shouldn't have been surprised that Antonio was tainted by that curse as well.

Because the Madrigals, despite the false and plastic mask that their mother wanted to put on them, had a secret, a tragic, terrible one with the capacity to break not only the miracle but everything that the youngest members of the family ever knew.

Perhaps that was why neither she nor Félix had dared to break the silence, not even after Antonio's birth, despite the fact that it was precisely that moment when they should have ended all the lies in which they were submerged. None of them had the courage to break their children's entire lives, no matter if they themselves died every day.

She wouldn't admit it, not even to him, but a part of her always thought that Felix had been a little luckier than her. He was able to keep each and every one of his children by his side, he had seen them grow up and he had the privilege of being called dad by all three. Her youngest son had been stolen from her.

Remembering that day was torture, and sometimes she wondered if it was really over, if it really was a different day, everything felt the same to her from that moment on, even though the world went on as usual around her.

"Fifty years ago-"

Julieta shuddered when her mother's voice resounded in her ears, a reaction that did not go unnoticed by Dolores, who squeezed her shoulder again as a source of silent support. She tried to block out the sound, not only because she knew that speech by heart, but because every time the matriarch spoke, her stomach turned at the venom-flecked fake goodness that seeped through her voice.

Because she knew better than anyone, Alma Madrigal was everything, except the holy and kind woman that Encanto believed, on the contrary, she was cruel and ruthless, no matter whose soul she had to destroy in order to maintain the perfect image she had created of herself. Why else would she have ruined her own daughter's life?

It had never bothered her to know that she wasn't exactly mom's favorite, that was always Bruno, and even when the gifts came and Pepa replaced her brother as the golden child, Julieta hadn't cared, she was happy with her role in the family

But when she met Felix, everything had fallen apart.

They were alike in many ways, they shared the same values, and almost the same tastes, he loved her sensitive and self-sacrificing nature and she had completely fallen for his warm and kind presence. It was only natural that they would be attracted to each other.

It started with a tentative friendship that gradually escalated into a relationship that the two knew would last a lifetime, even if they didn't end up together. And it is that despite how obvious it was that they felt something for the other, not all people thought it was right. Especially her sister and mother.

From the first time Julieta invited Félix to her house, it was undeniable that both Pepa and Alma fell in love with the same things that she did when she met him, and by the time dinner was over, the air felt charged with emotions that at that moment she thought were good. Today, so many years later, she realized that it was just the moment when everything collapsed.

Her sister could not help falling in love with him, perhaps with the same force as herself, but unlike Julieta, who felt a warm, serene, and soft love for him, Pepa felt an immense threatening fire, and she had no intentions to take no for an answer.

Her sister's confession did not take her by surprise. The speed with which her mother accepted the idea and went to work to arrange a marriage, did. Neither she nor Félix knew how they had ended up like that, in the midst of a chaos of letters between his parents and Alma, with Pepa getting more emotional every day, Bruno avoiding her and her heartbroken begging to be heard.

It was useless, her mother didn't want to understand reasons, and she didn't care that Julieta felt something for him and vice versa. She had found the perfect person to keep Pepa's gift at bay and that was the only thing that mattered. Felix didn't even get a say in his own engagement, and both he and Julieta had to swallow their pain and sadness as they attended a wedding where they both knew he was marrying the wrong sister.

Time passed, she met Agustín, he came to appreciate Pepa, and they both learned to forgive her and created their respective sides of the family. They seemed happy, but it took only two months after Dolores and Isabela were born to realize they weren't.

It was not uncommon for the two of them to run into each other at night while tending to the babies. Agustín could not be trusted with little Isabela alone and Pepa was too tired to attend to Dolores, so Felix and Julieta took care of them. The first time was a painful blow, remembering all they had lost while holding in their arms the proof of what could have been.

Neither said anything, but both knew that the other had cried to sleep that night. The following times were torture mixed with blessing.

They didn't know when the agreement was created, but it seemed that while they were inside the nursery, holding, cooing, and rocking their daughters, the two allowed themselves to pretend, although never out loud, that they were living the life that was taken away from them, that dream of having a family together.

Of course, absolutely nothing ever happened between them, no kissing or touching or anything that would disrespect their respective marriages, but there was always a lingering longing in their eyes when they looked at each other, almost as intense as the wave of guilt that invaded them as soon as they left the room.

It was a dance that they danced for years, even when the girls grew up, when Luisa was born, and later when Camilo and Mirabel came into their lives. It didn't matter which baby was in the nursery, they would both take care of them with the love they couldn't offer the other.

And then...then Mirabel’s ceremony happened.

Alma once again showed how little she cared about her family compared to the image she sold to the town every day. She didn't even bother to find out if Mirabel was okay or how she was feeling, she simply asked Pepa to have a new child, to make sure the miracle was okay.

She didn't bother looking for Bruno, she didn't go to comfort her granddaughter, anything. She spoke of Mirabel as if she was a mistake in the chain, a weak link that could be replaced. Julieta's blood boiled when her sister agreed without hesitation.

Felix had been the one who had comforted her and he never agreed with the idea of fathering a child just to prove that a "miracle" that hurt them so much day after day was still alive. That's why it took Toñito so many years to come to the family... and not exactly in the way he should have.

Julieta still feels that terrible urge to cry or laugh hysterically, maybe both, when she thinks about how ironic it all was. In how unfair it was that, for years, she and Félix had kept their roles without complaint or reproach, regardless of their broken hearts, witnessing a false show in silence. But the only time they had dared to break that illusion, the only time they dared to be happy, to break that damned lie and surrender to the latent desire that had haunted them since they were young, they had ended up creating Antonio, and, in the case of Julieta, losing him.

As expected, her mother was furious, Pepa was devastated and Agustín simply looked at her with betrayal in his eyes. She could understand perfectly, she knew that she had crossed a line that she should never even have come close to, and neither she nor Felix tried to justify themselves, they knew that they had done something terrible and that they had to assume the consequences of their actions. The healer never thought that included losing her baby.

Alma had forced her to hide the pregnancy, she wouldn't allow her to leave the house, almost not even her room unless she had to cook. Her daughters wondered why their mother had locked herself away from everyone so suddenly and Mirabel even blamed herself for it. It broke her heart that she couldn't comfort them. Only Dolores knew the hell in which both her father and her aunt found themselves living.

Julieta supposed that in a way it made sense that the girl had noticed the tension between her and Felix even before Camilo was born, she was always good at things of love, and she had definitely known when her new little brother's heart had begun to beat inside her aunt's body. But she never thought that Lola would be okay with it. She had been taken by surprise when she found Dolores one night in her room, hugging her pillow as she sobbed uncontrollably.

Julieta had assumed that the girl would repeat the same insults that Pepa had yelled at her when she found out about her pregnancy and she had prepared herself for a new stab to the heart, but her niece had only looked at her with pain and asked why her grandmother hated her family so much and why she couldn't be her daughter like her half brother that was on the way. The healer hadn't known what to answer, so she only stayed with the girl in her arms all night. From that moment on, Dolores had become a kind of angel to her aunt, always by her side, taking care of her and supporting her in any way she could. But even she hadn't been prepared for that horrible night.

Antonio's birth had been terribly difficult, either because of her advanced age or because of the amount of stress and negative emotions that surrounded her, but whatever it was, Julieta had ended up too exhausted, almost on the verge of collapse, and with a bed flooded with her own blood. Evidently, Félix was forbidden to go near her during the pregnancy (although Lola had helped her father feel the baby on a few occasions, in exchange for being allowed to sleep with her aunt), and Pepa had taken it upon herself to send him to the other side of the town at the time her sister went into labor, and Agustín didn’t want to have anything to do with the baby, leaving her completely alone and helpless.

She supposed she must have been suspicious when her mother had taken her to her sister's room instead of hers to give birth. At the moment when Antonio was crying, Alma entered deathly silent, made sure that the baby was healthy and clean, without caring about the state of her own daughter, and when she was satisfied with the resemblance of the child to his father, she turned around and went out with her son in her arms, announcing him as Pepa's third son.

Neither she nor her sister had cared about the cries of pain or the pleas that had come wrenching from her soul. Simply, that baby was no longer hers, regardless of the fact that her life had been in danger and that she could have left her daughters without a mother to bring him into the world. The only times she was able to hold her child was to feed him, not even allowed near him until he was old enough to walk and approach her on his own.

The gasps of the people brought her back to reality just in time to watch Mirabel step out of the shadows. She hadn't even noticed that Antonio hadn't moved forward, and she was surprised to see him reach out his hand to the girl. Dolores didn't have to resort to her gift to know that her heart had raced the moment she saw her two youngest children walk hand in hand towards the door.

She could see her mother and sister's expression of ill-concealed hatred at seeing Mirabel walking Antonio, no doubt hating the reminder that they were siblings, not cousins, but it was Felix who really got her attention. By the time she looked at him, he already had his eyes locked on her and that same current of electricity washed over her like every time she locked eyes with him. She knew he was thinking and feeling the same thing: that they were in the wrong place, that they should be together, creating a dynasty.

#encanto #julieta madrigal #encanto preferences #encanto imagine #encanto au #felix madrigal #dolores madrigal #antonio madrigal #julieta x felix #i will die for this ship #let me enjoy myself #encanto fic

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fifthmoon0 · 1 year

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I want to take a moment to talk about why Dabi is the way that he is. I’m not going to go in depth about the correlation between his trauma and his actions. I’m also not going to try to figure out what mental illness / illnesses he may have. But I am going to talk about the trauma itself and how it severely damaged him.

It’s obvious, but the biggest reason he is the way that he is , is due to the trauma he endured growing up. I’ve seen a lot of people online claim that what he’s doing isn’t justified when you compare it to his actual trauma. That’s complete BS. What you endure emotionally / physically as a child can manifest itself in many different ways as you get older and into adulthood. Even the slightest bit of trauma can evolve into something much worse later on in an individuals life. Also, what Endeavor did may seem subtle and not that bad to some people, but it had worse implications than you may think.

You need to think about what Touya went through and put yourself into his shoes. Originally Endeavor thought so highly of him. Touya felt loved, cared for and special. Fast forward just a little into the future and you’ll find that this changes for Touya. Now he was being told that he is actually weak and because of this, he isn’t useful to his father anymore. On top of that, Endeavor straight up started to ignore Touya. He threw him to the side like he was some kind of wasted science experiment and not his child …. Endeavor only cared about him when he was useful to him. At this age, Touya was still developing mentally, so this behavior was detrimental to his mental health. Also, children, especially young children, love and admire their parents with all of their heart which just makes trauma all that much worse… I could tell that Touya really looked up to his dad. Trauma isn’t only an outcome from physical abuse. Emotional neglect , mental abuse and verbal abuse can also be super damaging to the ego and can cause so many negative side effects.

Quick side thought - I find it hard to believe that Touya still cares about his siblings, his father or even his mother in any capacity. And even if he does, I can tell that those feelings are nothing compared to the anger he feels instead. Mentally he isn’t well and and hasn’t been for a long time ... At this point he just cares about hurting and killing his father… 😓

Ok getting back on track. SPOILER ALERT - As a child Touya tried to kill baby Shoto. This is awful and you can’t deny that … However, you have to look at the situation at the point of view of a child. Touya was praised and loved so much but then suddenly tossed aside. Endeavor didn’t just tell him ‘hey we just can’t train anymore’ , he literally just stopped interacting with him in any way :/ At this point in time Touya was a very misunderstood, ignored and unloved child…. Children have a hard time expressing their emotions as it is and they often go to extremes without even fully understanding why. Imagine how much worse they must feel when they are also traumatized! Touya’s father straight up didn’t care about him anymore. I don’t think that he 100% stopped loving Touya, but I’m sure that’s how it felt for Touya. He felt an insane amount of misunderstood jealousy and anger towards Shoto. He probably also thought that ‘if Shoto is gone then dad will love me again’…. Again, he was at an age where his brain was still developing and he was going through emotional neglect. 😓… I do not think that this was in any way a case of Touya being naturally psychotic or anything like that. Not a chance. I think this was a negative set of emotions that stemmed from the trauma and neglect he was going through. Children already don’t completely understand the consequences of their actions or even understand death. And with Touya having having endured trauma so early in his life, his actions were probably more extreme than a usual child’s actions would be. Endeavor didn’t even consider this behavior as a warning sign or a call for help or anything. He did jack shit. That’s fucked up.

This may also be SPOILERS for some, just a warning. It’s also more or less a recap of some things I already mentioned. But basically , in the manga Touya learned that his body can’t withstand his own quirk. Because of this, Endeavor stops training him, which is honestly a good thing…. But as a result of doing that, he also just completely stops being there for Touya. He straight up ignored him and neglected him emotionally without any concern for him. He didn’t even go to check in with Touya. Just zilch. Nada. Nothing at all.

The fact that Touya was told that it was dangerous for him use his quirk no longer mattered to him. What really mattered to him was getting his fathers attention and getting the much needed affection that he was so desperately needing from him. That he used to get from him… Endeavor should have still been there for him, quirk or not. He should have been a loving and caring father no matter what. And he wasn’t. At that time, in Touya’s mind he believes the only thing that will help achieve this and make him feel better is by training himself so he can show his dad that he is actually worthy, even though his body can’t handle it. His flames became too powerful for him and well that’s as far as I’ll go because there’s more spoilers. But I can only imagine that this incident plus the events that took place afterwords only made his mental state that much worse. I can’t even imagine how bad it all must have been for him….

If Endeavor had just been there the whole time for his son & loved him for who he was and not just for his damn quirk, this would have not have ended up happening. For Endeavor it was just a matter of his son supplying him with what he wanted. We saw that with how he treated Shoto too. And he tossed his other children aside as rejects also, which is just so wonderful 🙃…. Touya was a different situation because he was cherished at first and then he was just thrown out like he was nothing. All of these children went through severe trauma but I believe this action towards Touya is particularly damaging. (It’s also interesting with Shoto because he was physically, mentally & verbally abused but also praised for being strong. This was also very damaging, but obviously brought a different outcome with it)

I don’t think Dabi’s actions are right in any way. He has done terrible and unforgivable things and he is not a good person in any way, shape or form. But you have to understand where it all stems from. And I can’t help but feel bad for him. I also really like him. He’s definitely a problematic fave of mine (I really like the other LOV characters too, for both similar and different reasons) To sum everything up, Endeavor was an awful father and husband. He has a huge mess to clean up that was caused by his actions as a father (and inactions) And although I find it hard to like his character, I’m glad that he is actually trying to atone for what he has done. That’s more than what most parents do. But like Dabi said… You reap what you sow…. :/

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feanorianethicsdepartment · 3 years

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Alright, I read your recent post and need to know - what is your interpretation of Maglor’s relationship with the twins?

askjdhslkjag my biggest self-inflicted problem in this fandom is that my take on maglor, elrond, and elros' relationship is so intensely detailed and specific i am forever tormented by none of the fic i read ever quite getting it right (from my perspective; i’ve read plenty of fic that presents a good interpretation on their own terms, it’s just never mine.) it’s simultaneously way darker than the fluffy kidnap dads stuff and nowhere near as black-and-white awful as the anti-fëanorian crowd likes to paint it, it’s messy and complicated and surrounded by darkness, and yet there’s also a sincere connection within it which mostly serves to make all those complications worse. angry teenage elrond is angry for a great many reasons, and the circumstances around him being raised by kinslayers account for at least half of them. there’s lots of complexity here, and i don’t see it in fic nearly as often as i’d like

(warning: the post... feathers? i already have an internet friend called faeiri this could be awkward - anyway, the post she’s talking about includes the line ‘everyone is wrong about kidnap dads except me.’ this post follows on from that in being as much a commentary about why various popular interpretations of both how the kidnapdoption went and the way people subsequently characterise the twins just don’t work for me as it is a setting out of my own ideas. i’m not really interested in getting into discourse here, i’m just trying to get my thoughts down. i’ve read fic with these interpretations before that i’ve liked, even, don’t take this as a Condemnation, aight? also this turned out long as hell, so i’m putting it under a cut)

i can never buy entirely fluffy depictions of kidnap dads

which isn’t to say i don’t read them! sometimes all i want is something sweet, for these kids to get to be happy for once. it’s not like i think their time with the fëanorians was completely devoid of laughter

it’s just. the pet names, the special days out, the home-cooked meals, it can get so treacly it stops feeling like the characters they are in the situation they’re in and turns into Generic Found Family #272

it soaks out all the complexity - which is the thing i am here for - and acts like oh, these kids were never in any danger, they were perfectly happy being abducted by the people who murdered everyone they knew, there’s nothing possibly questionable about this relationship at all

and... yeah. that’s not the characters i know. that’s not the context i know they belong to

i just can’t forget the circumstances that led them to meet

rivers of blood, the air filled with screams, a town ablaze, a woman choosing to die. every interaction the three of them have is going to proceed from that nightmare

(sidenote: i tend to hold it was maglor that raised the twins, with maedhros looming ominously in the background not really getting involved. it’s mostly personal preference, i’ve been in and out of the fandom since before this kidnap dads thing blew up and when i joined that was a perfectly standard reading)

(also the cave thing was a dumb idea, old man, if only because it implies beleriand had streams safe enough for children to play in at that point. the way it separates the twins from the third kinslaying is also something i don’t particularly vibe with)

probably my least favourite angle i’ve seen on the situation (edged out only by ‘maglor was actively abusive towards the twins’ which no no no no no no no no NO) is the idea that maglor (and/or maedhros, append as necessary) took the twins specifically to raise them

like, i get where it’s coming from, but it makes maglor come off as really creepy

(i have read fics where it is indeed played off as really creepy, but that’s not a maglor i have any interest in reading about)

(’mags 100% bad’ is just as facile a take to me as ‘mags 100% good’)

even if you’re saying maglor took them in because they had no one left to take care of them - i highly doubt they were the only children the fëanorians orphaned at sirion. idk, it always makes maglor seem much less sympathetic than i think it’s meant to

i prefer to think of it as more... organic? something that evolved, not something that was preordained. them growing closer gradually, the twins finding an adult who might maybe be on their side, maglor becoming invested in them almost by accident

and then the twins are so comfortable with the second scariest monster in amon ereb they frequently sass him off and maglor’s gotten so used to not hurting them he’s not even thinking about it any more. no one’s quite sure how it happened, but they’ve made a Connection

‘wait aren’t they a murderous warlord of questionable mental stability and a pair of terrified small children who’ve lost everyone they ever knew? isn’t that kinda fucked up?’ yup! that’s the point! complexity!

another idea i don’t like is the idea that maglor was an objectively better parent to the twins than eärendil or elwing

other people have talked about this already, i won’t rehash the whole thing. i will say that while i don’t think elwing was a perfect parent - someone so young, in such a horrible situation, i wouldn’t blame her for screwing up - i do think she (and eärendil) did the best by them they possibly could

this is one of the few things they have in common with maglor

something i come across now and again is the idea that sure, elwing and eärendil weren’t abusive or horrible or anything, but they were a couple of basically-teenagers with so many other responsibilities, there was only so much they could do. maglor, on the other hand, is an experienced adult who could take much better care of the twins

and...

first off, it’s not like mags doesn’t have a job. he’s a warlord, he has a fortress to help run, military shit to handle, lots of other stuff that needs to get done to stop everyone from starving or getting eaten by orcs. i feel like sirion had enough of a government there was plenty of opportunity for elwing to take days off and play with her kids, but in the fëanorian camp nobody really has the time to chase after a couple of toddlers, least of all one of the last points on the command network. they just don’t have the people any more

(seriously, the twins getting a formal education with tutors and classes and shit is a weirdly specific pet peeve of mine. this is a band of renegades, not a royal household; if there’s anyone left with those kinds of skills they almost certainly have more important things to do)

more than that, though - well, a quick glance through my late stage fëanorians tag should tell you a lot about what i think maglor’s mental state is like at this point. he is so accustomed to violence death means nothing to him, he’s lost most of his capacity for genuinely positive emotion to an endless century of defeat and despair, he hates everything in the universe, especially himself, he’s only able to keep functioning through a truly astounding amount of denial, and he covers it all up with a layer of snark and feigned apathy, which he defends aggressively because he’s subconsciously realised that if it breaks he’ll have absolutely nothing left

(maedhros, for the record, is... i’d say more stable, but at a lower point. maglor may interact with the world mostly through cold stares and mocking laughter, but at least his mind is firmly rooted in the present)

(on the other hand, at least maedhros lets himself be aware of what they are and where their road will lead)

which... this doesn’t mean maglor doesn’t try to be kind to the twins, or rein in his worst impulses around them

there’s just so little of him left but the weapon

he stalks through the halls like a portent of death and gets into hours-long screaming matches with maedhros and has definitely killed people in front of the twins

not even as, like, a deliberate attempt to scare them, but because when you solve most of your problems by stabbing them it’s pretty much a given that people who spend a lot of time around you are going to see you do it at least once

and sometimes, he curls up in an empty hallway, and weeps

... suffice it to say i don’t think elwing’s the more preoccupied, or the less mentally ill, parent here

just. in general, the fëanorians aren’t cackling boogeymen, but they’re not particularly nice either

no one has the energy left for that. not these isolated and weary soldiers at the end of a long losing war and the beginning of the end of the world. they don’t really bother to guard the kids against them escaping. where else are they going to go?

the sheer despair that must have been in the fëanorian camp after sirion, the knowledge that the cause cannot be fulfilled, that they are utterly forsaken, that they’re really just waiting to die -

it can’t have been a happy place to grow up in, under the shadow of loss and grief and deeds unrepentable, and the slow march of inevitable defeat

they would have had a better childhood if they stayed in sirion, raised by people who knew how to hope

but that isn’t the childhood they had. and despite everything i’ve said, i don’t think that childhood was an entirely awful one

yeah, see, this is where the other side of my self-inflicted fandom catch-22 comes in. just as much of the pro-kidnap dads stuff comes off as overly saccharine and simplified to me, i find much of the anti-kidnap dads stuff equally simplistic in the opposite direction

the idea that maglor and the fëanorians never meant anything to elros and elrond, that they had no effect on the people they became at all, that it was just a horrible thing that happened when they were children, easily thrown in the rear-view mirror...

that’s even more impossible to me than the idea that life with the fëanorians was 100% fluffy and nice

like, i’ve seen the take that elros and elrond hated the fëanorians from start to finish. they were perfect little sindarin princes, loyal to their people and the memory of doriath, spurning every scrap of kindness offered to them and knowing just what to say to twist the knife into the kinslayers’ wounds

... dude. they were six. hell, given their peredhelness, mentally they could easily have been younger

what six year old has a firm grasp of their ethnic identity? what six year old is fully aware of their place in history? what six year old would understand the politics that led to their situation?

don’t get me wrong, i can see hatred in there. but something else that doesn’t get acknowledged alongside it often enough is the fear

some of the stuff i’ve read feels like it gives the kids too much power in the situation. they’re perfectly happy to talk back to and belittle the people who burned down their hometown and killed everyone they ever knew, like miniature adults who don’t feel threatened at all

and, like, six. i can see them going for insults as a defensive measure, but it is defensive. it’s covering up fear, not coming from secure disdain

(and a lot of those insults sound, again, like things an adult who’s already familiar with the fëanorians would say, not a scared child who’s lost almost everything. why would a six year old raised by sindar and gondolindrim know what the noldolantë is, let alone what it means to maglor?)

(... i’m just ranting about this one fic that’s been ruffling my feathers for five years straight now, aren’t i)

i mean, i write elrond as the world’s angriest teenager, who snipes at maglor pretty much constantly, but the thing about angry teenage elrond is that he’s angry teenage elrond

he’s spent long enough with the fëanorians he has a pretty secure position within the camp, and he knows that maglor won’t hurt him from a decade and change of maglor not, in fact, hurting him

but as a small and terrified child abducted by the monsters his mother had nightmares about? he fluctuated wildly between ‘randomly guessing at things to say that wouldn’t get him killed’ ‘screaming at maglor to go away in words rarely more complicated than that’ 'desperately trying not to do or say anything in the hopes of not being noticed’ and ‘hiding’

(and i don’t think the twins were never in any danger from the fëanorians, either. quite besides the point that before they started orbiting maglor nobody was really sure what to do with them... well, they wouldn’t be the first children of thingol’s line the minions took revenge on)

(fortunately for them, maglor did, in fact, take them under his wing. by this point even their own followers are shit scared of the last two sons of fëanor, nobody’s going to mess with their stuff and risk getting mauled. tactically, it was a pretty good decision for a couple of toddlers)

more to the point, i feel like a child that young, in a situation that horrible, wouldn’t reject any kindness they were offered, any soothing touch in a universe of terror

in a world full of big scary monsters, the best way to survive is to get the biggest scariest monster possible to protect you. that’s how elros rationalises it when they’re, like, eight, mentally, but at the time they were just latching on to the only person around them who seemed to care about them

that’s how it started, on their end. two very young very scared children lost in a neverending nightmare clinging tightly to the lone outstretched pair of hands

as for maglor...

i’ve called mags evil before, but i see that as more of a... technical term? he is evil because he did the murder, he remains evil because he won’t stop doing the murder. hot take: murder bad

but that doesn’t make him, like, a moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villain. he is deeply unhappy with the position he’s in and the person he’s become, and he’s always trying not to take that final step over the edge

it’s not that i can’t see a maglor who is abusive or manipulative or who sees the twins more as objects than people. it’s just that that characterisation is one i am profoundly uninterested in. i do occasionally read fic with it, but it never enters my own headcanons

horrible people can do good things!! kinslayers can do good things!! the fallen are capable of humanity!! people can do both good and evil things at the same time, because people are complicated!! maglor is not psychologically incapable of actually taking pity on these kids!!!!

it’s... again, complexity. the fëanorians straddle the line between black and white, which is a lot less sharp in the legendarium than it’s sometimes characterised as. it’s what draws me to their characters so much, why i have so many stupid headcanons about them. pretending they fall firmly on either side of the line is my real fandom pet peeve

and, like, this moment? this sincere connection between a bloodstained warlord and two children who will grow up to be great and kind in equal measure? i may not entirely like the direction the fandom’s taken it recently, but that beat, that relationship, it still gets me

so no, i don’t think elrond and elros’ years with the fëanorians were an endless cavalcade of abuse and misery. i think there was love there, despite the darkness all around them

an old, tired monster, and the two tiny children it protects

maglor never hurts the twins, not ever, not once. his claws are sharp and his fangs are keen, if he so much as swatted them he’d rip them in half. instead he folds down the razor edges of his being, interacting with them ever so carefully. he has nightmares of suddenly tearing into their skin

seriously, the power differential between them is so great, maglor so much as raising his voice would break any trust they have in this horribly dangerous creature. fics where he does corporal punishment always get the side-eye from me

the mood of their relationship is... i find it hard to put into words. melancholy, maybe, like a sunny afternoon a few days before the end of the world. three people who’ve lost so much finding what respite they can in each other as the world slowly crumbles around them

there are times when it feels like the three of them exist in a world of their own, marked out by the edges of the firelight. maglor telling stories of the stars, elros giving relaxed irreverent commentary, elrond getting a few moments to just be, all their troubles kept at bay

they are the last two lights in a world sunk into darkness, the last two living beings he does not on some level hate. he will tear his own heart out before he sees them in pain

he teaches them to ride, he teaches them to read, he gives them everything he still has left. the twins should never have been in this situation, maglor probably isn’t entirely fit to take care of them, but it is what it is, and they take what love they can

(maglor depends on the twins emotionally a bit more than any adult should rely on any child. he’s still very much the caretaker in their relationship, but that relationship is the only one he has left that’s not stained by a century of rage and grief. he’s obsessed with them, maedhros tells him frequently. maglor’s standard response to this is to try to gouge maedhros’ eyes out)

(that particular darker side to their relationship, where maglor’s attachment to the twins turns into a desperate possessiveness - that’s not something i think i’ve ever seen in fic. which is a shame, it feels much closer to my own characterisation than the standard ways this relationship gets maleficised. darker, in a different way than usual. horribly compelling in its plausibility)

however you want to read it, i don’t think you can deny this is a relationship that defines elrond and elros’ childhood. they were raised in the woods by a pack of kinslayers, the text is quite clear on this

but i’ve seen a lot of talk about how elros and elrond are only sirion’s children. they are completely 100% sindarin, they love and forgive eärendil and elwing thoroughly and without question, they identify with doriath over - even gondolin, let alone tirion. the fëanorians - the people who raised them - had zero effect on the people they grew into and the selves they created

and that, more than anything else, i find utterly unbelievable

look, i get what this is a reaction to. a lot of the kidnap dads stuff paints the fëanorians as elrond and elros’ ‘real’ family, and i’ve already talked about what i think of the idea that maglor-and-possibly-also-maedhros were better parents than eärendil and elwing. i think it’s reductive and overly optimistic and just a little too neat

but to say instead that elrond and elros held no great love in their hearts for maglor, no lingering affinity with the fëanorians, no influence on their identity from the people they grew up around, none at all? that after it happened they just left it behind and resumed being the same people they were in sirion?

that strikes me as just as much an oversimplification. it sands down all the potential rough edges of their identity, all that inconvenient complexity that stops them from fitting into any well-defined box, and replaces it with a nice safe simple self-conception i find just as flat and boring as declaring them 100% fëanorian

we can quibble over who they call ‘father’ (i personally find that whole debate kinda petty) but denying that it was actually maglor who was the closest thing they knew to a parent for most of their childhoods, and that that would, in fact, affect the way they thought of themselves and their family, elides so many interesting possibilities out of existence

(i’m not even going to get into the most braindead take i have ever heard on the subject, namely that because their time with the fëanorians was such a small fraction of elrond’s total lifespan it was like being kidnapped for two weeks as a toddler and had no greater significance than that. do you not understand what childhood is????)

like, i tend to think of elrond as a child as being very loudly not-a-fëanorian. elros is more willing to go with the flow - hey, if the creepy kinslayer wants kids, elros is happy to play into that in order to not be murdered - but elrond is very firm that he’s not happy to be here and he doesn’t belong with them

(this is after they get over their initial terror, of course, when they’ve realised they won’t be fed to the orcs for the tiniest slight. even so, elrond only really gets shirty about it around people he’s comfortable with, whose reactions he can reasonably guess at. naturally, the first person he does it to is maglor)

elros calls maglor their father exactly once, when they’re... maybe early preteens? this is because elrond hears him do it and immediately loses his shit. they have a dad, elrond says, in tears, and a mum, and any day now their real parents are going to come to pick them up and take them home

... right?

it gets harder to believe as the years roll on, as their memories of sirion fade, as they find their own places within the host, as maglor watches over them as they grow. elrond still mentally sets himself apart from the fëanorians, but it’s more of an effort every year. life in the fëanorian camp is the only one he’s ever really known. he can barely remember his mother’s voice

then the war of wrath starts, and the fëanorian host drifts closer to the army of valinor, and the twins come into contact with non-fëanorians for the first time in forever, and it becomes clear just how obviously fëanorian elrond is. he always insisted he wasn’t like the kinslayers at all, but he dresses like them, talks like them, fights like them

the myth cycles the edain tell are almost completely unfamiliar to him, he barely remembers the shape of the songs of lost doriath. even these sarcastic commentary and subversive reinterpretations he made of maglor’s stories - those were still maglor’s stories! he’s been trying to guess at the person he was meant to be, but it’s growing nightmarishly blatant how little elrond ever knew about him

instead, the people he was born to are as alien to him as the orcs of morgoth. he is a fëanorian, through and through

... yeah, elrond (and/or elros) having an absolutely massive identity crisis upon being reintroduced to his quote-unquote ‘true kin’ is another angle i’d love to see in fic that i don’t think i’ve ever come across. all those potential grey areas around who they are and who they’re supposed to be sound utterly fascinating, and i think it’s the complexity i hate to see elided over the most

i really, really doubt they could effortlessly slot back into being eärendil and elwing’s children. not when they’ve been surrounded by, lived alongside, been raised by the people who were supposed to enemies for most of their lives

they just don’t fit into that box any more. they can’t

speaking of eärendil and elwing, while i do agree that they both (especially elwing) get a lot more flak than they deserve, i don’t agree that therefore elrond and elros were never the slightest bit mad at them and fully forgave them for everything with no reservations

because, well, they were left behind. elwing had no other choice, but they were still left behind; it led to the world being saved, but they were still left behind. all the best intentions in the universe don’t erase the weeks and months and years of waiting, of a hope that grew thinner and frailer until it finally quietly broke

that’s a real hurt, and a real grievance. even if the twins rationally understand that their parents were making the best out of their terrible situation, you can’t logic away emotions like that. it’s perfectly possible for them to know they have no reason to resent eärendil or elwing, and yet still harbour that bitterness and pain

(i did write a thing once where elrond loudly rejects eärendil as his father in favour of maglor, but something i didn’t add in that i probably should have is that elrond later regretted doing that)

(not like, several centuries later, when he’d grown old and wise. two hours later, when he’d calmed down. but he was still legitimately angry at eärendil, because the one thing angry teenage elrond was not lacking in was reasons to be mad at the adults around him, and before he could figure out if he had anything less furious to say the hosts of the valar left middle-earth behind)

(it’s another element to the tragedy of the whole thing. in that particular story, which is mostly aiming for maximum pain, the only thing elrond’s birth parents know about their son for thousands of years is that he hates them)

(and he doesn’t, not really. you can’t hate someone you’ve never known)

not that i think they couldn’t ever make up with their parents! fics where elrond and his birth parents work past all the things that lie between them and form a functional familial bond despite it all give me life. i just don’t like the idea that there’s nothing difficult for them to work past

i don’t like the idea that elrond and elros would naturally, effortlessly identify with the mother they last saw when they were six and the people they only vaguely remember. i can see them doing it as a political move, i can see them going for it as a deliberate personal choice, but i can’t seeing it being immediate and automatic and easy

no matter how great a pair of heroes eärendil and elwing are, that doesn’t change the fact that to elrond and elros, they’re at most a few scattered memories and a collection of far-off stories. and so long as the twins stay in middle-earth, they’re never going to draw any closer

compared to the dynamic, multifaceted, personal, and deep bonds they have with the fëanorians - who, and i know i keep saying this but i think it gets tossed aside way more casually than it should, are the people who actually raised them, their birth parents must feel like a distant idea

and that’s why i can never buy interpretations of elrond as 100% sindarin, a pure son of doriath, with no messy grey areas or awkward jagged edges to his identity. given everything we know about his life, it seems almost cartoonishly simplistic

honestly it seems like a narrative a bunch of old doriathrin nobles trying to manouevre elrond into being high king of the sindar or something would propagate. it's neat and nice and tidy, something that’d be much more convenient for everyone if elrond did feel that way

but i just don’t see how he can. this narrative is easy and simple in a way real people never are, it ignores all the forces pulling him apart. elrond being uncomplicatedly sindarin with the life he lives and the people he's close to - that doesn’t make any sense to me

which isn’t to say i think he’s 100% noldorin, from either a gondolindrim or a fëanorian perspective. (i find it a little more believable, given, again, who he grew up around and who he hangs out with, but it’s still a bit too reductive for my tastes.) it’s also not to say i couldn’t believe an elrond who made an active choice to emphasise his sindarin heritage

it’s not how i think of him, but it works. i don’t have a problem with other people interpreting the complexities of the twins’ identities differently

i just have a problem with people acting like it doesn’t exist

in general i think there’s a lot untapped potential that gets left behind when you declare the twins, separately or together, as All One Thing

they’re descended from half the noble houses of beleriand, and they have deep personal ties to most of the rest. they belong to all of the free peoples even the dwarves, somehow, probably and i feel like that was kind of the old man’s point? so many peoples meet in them, to say they wholly belong to any one species is probably an oversimplification

they sit at a crossroads of potential identities, and rather than narrowing down their worldviews to one single path, they take the hard road and choose all of them. that’s what you need to do, if you want to change the world

and, to bring this back to my ostensible topic, in my estimation at least this mélange of possible selves does include them as fëanorians! it’s not overpowering, but it’s certainly there, and the adults they grow into long after they’ve left the host still bear influence from their childhood

nothing super obvious, nothing that wouldn’t stand out if you didn’t know what to look for, but there’s something almost incandescent in how fiercely elros reaches out for his dreams

there’s something almost defiant in elrond’s drive to be as kind as summer

as for who they publically claim as their family... honestly, it depends. while it’s usually more tactically prudent for elros to connect himself to his various human ancestors, on occasion he does find a use for his free in with the elf mafia, and elrond, code switcher par excellence, is famously the son of whoever is most politically convenient at the moment, which is rarely, but not never, maglor

(in the privacy of their own minds, well, eärendil and elwing may have been the parents elros was supposed to have, but maglor was the parent he actually had, and elros doesn’t particularly care to mope over what might have been. elrond, for his part, figures that after all the shit maglor has put him through, the least that bastard owes him is a father)

but honestly? i think before any of their mountain of identities, before thinking of themselves as sindarin or gondolindel or hadorian or haladin or fëanorian or anything, elrond and elros identify as themselves

they are peredhil, they are númenóreans, they are whoever they make themselves to be. that’s how elrond finally resolved his identity, figured out who he was and found something past the pain and the rage

he wasn’t doriathrin, or gondolindrin, or falathrin, or fëanorian, or whatever else. he was elrond, no more and no less

and that person, elrond, could be whatever he chose to be

... elros came to a similar conclusion, with much less sturm und drang that he’s willing to admit. being able to go ‘hey, i can’t possibly be biased towards any one of your cultures, because i’m descended from all of you and i was raised by murderelves’ makes it a lot easier to unite people around your personal banner, turns out

the stories other people tried to force on them shattered into pieces, and the peredhel twins were free to shape themselves into anything they could dream of

and as the new world struggles alive, these lost children of an Age of death begin to bloom into their full glorious selves -

i just. i love the poetry of that. despite every single shadow that hangs over their past, despite all the clashing notes pulling them apart, they harmonise it all into a greater, kinder theme, determined to make their world a better place in whatever way they can

they fail, of course, but so do all things. the inevitable march of entropy doesn’t diminish the long millennia they (and their descendants) held onto the light

and their growing up in the fëanorian host definitely had a huge effect on the noble lords they became. you can see it in elros’ loud ambition to create a land of happiness and hope, elrond’s quiet resolve to heal all the hurts inflicted by this marred reality

it wasn’t a perfect time by any means, but neither was it a nightmare. it was what it was, a desperate existence at the edge of a knife where, nevertheless, they were loved

even after years upon decades upon centuries have passed, it’s hard for the wise king and the honourable sage to separate out and identify all the conflicting emotions swirling around their childhood. they never knew eärendil or elwing, true, but they also never really knew maglor

not as equals, not as adults, not as people who could truly understand him. he disappeared into the fog of history, leaving only childhood memories of razor-sharp, gentle hands

it’s messy and it’s complicated and getting any real closure would be like shoving their way through a thornbush with bare hands even if elrond could find the shithead, and yet at the core of it all, there is light. not the brightest of lights, maybe, but an enduring one

that contrast, above all, that note of warmth amidst the shadows, is what fascinates me so much about their relationship. three screwed up people in a screwed up world, finding a little peace with each other

and the fact that somehow, it does have a good ending - the children grow up magnificent and compassionate and just, they become exemplars of all their peoples, lodestars of the new world born out of the ashes of the old - that makes it seem to me like this relationship must have contained some fragment of happiness

but, fuck, all the darkness that surrounds that love, all the tangled-up emotions its existence necessitates, all the prefabricated self-identities it can never slot into - nothing about it is simple, nothing about it is easy, and i find that utterly enthralling. especially how, despite everything, that flickering light never goes out

well, i don’t think it does, anyway. my take on this relationship is both complicated enough no one else ever quite gets it right and well-defined enough every single ‘error’ in other people’s interpretations sticks out like a kinslayer in rivendell

it is an entirely self-inflicted problem, i will admit. other people are allowed to interpret those complexities differently from me, and it’s entirely my own fault i lack the :waves hands around nebulously: to write my own hypothetical fic on the subject at a pace faster than glacial

still, though. i do wish there was more fic out there that engaged with these complexities. a lot of the common fandom interpretations of this relationship just sweep it all away

#ask #my terrible headcanons #elros #elrond #maglor #elwing #earendil #feanorians #niphredilien #yellow feathered faerie #putting your old url in the tags for archival purposes #post nyanyannya askbox clearout #ironically it turned out almost as long as the songfic that clogged up my askbox in the first place #and it is DONE #fuck this took forever to write #stayed up late just to get it out the door so i don't have to think about it any more #this is a long ramble and i'm pretty sure the end is just me repeating myself ad nausem sorry #i'll admit to a certain pro-feanorian bias in my interpretation #but i also don't want elros and elrond to just. live in a neverending horrorshow for decades #the silm's cruel enough we don't need that #narratively i feel like elrond being All Of The Elves is a good mirror for elros being All Of The Humans #but it didn't really fit the angle i was going for #bleck #let's see how many followers i lose for this

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liketheinferno2 · 3 years

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NieR:Automata asks the question multiple times of whether androids or machine lifeforms are more human or imitating humanity better than the other and this is portrayed with... so much delicate complexity I keep thinking about it.

On one side you have androids who are human in appearance, human in intelligence, able to speak clearly enough and express emotions as mundane and extraordinary as the audience needs to identify them as people..... and then on the other hand there's machines, who even though they are on the large part very fucking dumb and prone to iterating the same behaviors, they have communities, social roles, FAMILIES even though they have no biology that sorts them into familial units in the first place.

Neither of them can age, neither are born through sexual reproduction, and when connected to their respective networks neither can really DIE, and this throws off the whole human thing of being born into families and growing from a child into an adult and potentially becoming the parent to a new child later, of having siblings you come into the world connected to, and of having family roles that are (usually) both innate and distinct -- a sibling might be older than you but that's different to a parent being older that you, right?

So machines have parents and siblings and uncles and aunts and family dynamics, but if they're not biological, then all child machines are adopted, that's simple enough. But they don't age. A child machine does not necessarily grow into an adult. They can stay children, even infants, forever, and their minds don't progress beyond that state even though there are other machines of greater maturity and intelligence and just mental age than the children, so being an adult is clearly possible, but it does not correlate with growing or getting to adulthood through linear change. How does that work? Are they born adults? Are they born parents?

I feel like this is pretty cleanly answered with Adam and Eve who are really like... communicative characters being machines that look and talk like the android characters. Android bodies and machine psyches or something... Anyway, you see them both be born within minutes of each other. Featureless, sexless, ageless, undifferentiated, basically in the world for nearly the exact same amount of time to gain experiences and maturity.

The next time you see them, Adam is the elder, he's more mature, smarter; a caretaker even if he's doing kind of a shit job at it, while Eve is concerningly dependent and childish, doing whatever he's told and just talking about baby things like he wants to play, he hates wearing clothes and eating dinner. Adam implies they've taken on physical sex at some point since they were last seen naked as well.

And they're not just acting like brothers either, there's something extremely off about these guys. It might be hard to identify at first because it's not really overtly stated, but Adam did technically give birth to Eve and is in that sense also his mother. He feeds him and clothes him and teaches him and even gave him a name, and their dynamic is all sorts of weird because they're multitasking mother and brother in the same relationship.

It stands to reason, then, that machines have a thing about taking on human roles, gender roles and familial roles and societal roles like knights and kings, and their minds and bodies shape around that role so that they can best fulfill it, not the other way around. The brothers were not born with genitals or any kind of gender presentation but they developed those as they took on that role of brothers, male siblings. Adam leans very androgynous and I think it's because he's got a female role as well. Eve stays immature because he's the little one, he's always going to be the little one as long as that's his role, even though they're the same size and the same age chronologically.

I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this I just think it's kind of a brilliant take how this game considers one of the core facets of humanity to be how we find purpose in relation to each other and form identities in the contexts of social groups.

When Eve loses his brothermom, he loses the thing that was connecting him to his social roles and goes, shall we say, off the shits. And the same thing happens to 9S later because the YoRHa combat roles are the same kind of thing, if more externally assigned-at-birth -- his entire purpose was to support someone else.

These two are secondary, they're the rib, the support, they were made to be dependent and when severed from their special person it results in a catastrophic collapse of identity. They get decontextualised and struggle to find that footing again without devolving into destruction or self-destruction, which is not unlike what grief can do to a person anyway.

Another thing is that throughout the game you see machines of all levels of intelligence hurt themselves and kill themselves, and for a long chunk of the game I had assumed this was because they were still robots in the end and had some kind of self-destruct programming that was acting up. The final route flips this on its head and shows self-harm and fear to be horrifically human things, something expressed even in the characters that act the most realistically like people... because they act the most realistically like people.

NieR:Automata shows you the most painful emotions of grief and loss of identity and insists that these are very basic and natural and HUMAN responses to traumatic events, even if they make you feel like the entire world is collapsing -- it's that capacity for love and hurt that we have in common with all other people. Fucking phenomenal game, the more I think about this the more it makes me feel serene and connected to the world.

#nier automata #meta #nier liveblog #let him speak

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neonlights92 · 4 years

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RUN: Chapter II

Jeon Jungkook hops from bed to bed, sleeping with as many beautiful, rich women as he can possibly find time for. He’s young and attractive, with a silver tongue that gets him practically anything he wants. So when his friend and boss, Kim Taehyung, tells him it’s time to settle down, Jungkook takes it pretty badly. And when he finds out that the woman he’s destined to marry is, in fact, his little sister’s best friend, he is less than impressed.

You have spent your entire life trying to forget the way you feel about Jeon Jungkook. So when you find out that Jungkook is to be your husband - and that he is anything but pleased about it - your world is thrown into chaos. How can you survive a loveless marriage with the man you are hopelessly in love with?

WARNINGS: Language, some violence and eventual smut.

A/N:ENJOY!!!!

Your wedding came and went like the wind.

It hadn’t been a large affair - barely more than fifty people had attended - but your mother had cried of course, and so had Jungkook’s mum, and at the end of it you were Mrs Jeon.

Your new husband had kissed you at the end of it - gently, quickly, like it didn’t really mean much - but you couldn’t help it that your heart skipped at the feeling. Your first kiss with the man you’d spent most of your life loving, and it was like vapour.

And now here you were, stood in the foyer of Jungkook’s apartment, wondering what the hell you were doing. You felt like some kind of imposter - a woman only pretending to be Jungkook’s wife. You tightened the hold on your suitcase, the one your mother had made you pack only a week prior.

“Most of your things will be sent over in the days after you marry,” She’d told you, eyes mischievous, “But you’ll need something special for your wedding night.”

You scoffed.

Your wedding night had been anything but spectacular.

Bangtan had splashed out on an incredibly expensive hotel complete with matching robes and expensive champagne, but you’d spent most of the night alone. You hadn’t been able to bare much of the reception, claiming a headache only an hour and a half into the festivities, and though Jungkook had seemed less than happy about it, he’d told you to make your way to the hotel room without him.

Of course, when you’d arrived all you’d done was to get into bed and cry yourself into some kind of dreamless sleep, feeling like nothing could ever make you happy again. Hours had passed before Jungkook joined you, and when he did, you didn’t mention the smell of perfume on him, and he stayed far, far away from you.

You shook your head furiously, trying to rid your mind of all those horrible memories.

One day, you hoped, you’d have beautiful children, and then you could shower them with all of your unrequited love.

“Are you listening to me?”

Jungkook’s voice shook you out of your reverie and you turned to face him sharply, eyes wide.

“What?”

He sighed heavily, “I said you can either move into the guest room or join me in the master bedroom. What would you prefer?”

You knew what your heart wanted of course.

As stupid as it may have been - and it was astoundingly dumb - you still wanted to share Jungkook’s life with him. You wanted to be able to indulge in the intimacies of marriage and your chest tightened as you remembered what you were to your husband - a hindrance.

“Will it be alright if we share different beds?”

He rose a dark brow, “What do you mean?”

“Your employees,” You clarified, tucking some hair behind your ears and avoiding his eyes, “They won’t think it’s… Inappropriate, will they?”

You hated the strange code of conduct you were being forced into. You loved Jungkook - you wanted to give him yourself, whole heartedly - and yet you had to walk around the truth. You had to pretend like every moment you spent here wasn’t causing irreparable damage to your heart.

Jungkook shrugged, “So what if they do? I don’t give a shit what people say and neither should you. You should sleep wherever you prefer.”

The words hung in the air and you watched his face carefully.

He knew how you felt about him didn’t he? So he had to know you’d prefer sharing his bed. You collected yourself, and after a moment smiled gently.

“Then I think we should share the master bedroom.” If he was surprised he hid it well.

“Okay. This way then.”

You followed him down the hallway and stared at the planes of his back. The suit jacket he was wearing hugged his shoulders perfectly, and despite yourself something in your stomach swelled.

You were his wife now, weren’t you?

Did that not come with certain expectations?

You wondered if Jungkook even found you attractive. Surely if he wanted you in any capacity, he would’ve come looking for your company on your wedding night.

You bit back the tears. Now was not the time for this.

The master bedroom was big of course, but basically empty. Jungkook cleared his throat as you stood in the doorway to the room, observing your surroundings.

“I don’t spend a lot of time at home,” He started by way of explanation, “So urm… That’s why everything’s quite bare.”

You nodded slowly, “I understand.”

“You can do whatever you want in here,” He waved his hand noncommittally, “Within reason, of course.” The joke was weak but you pushed out a soft laugh nonetheless.

“Is that all you have with you?” He pointed at the small piece of luggage you were holding.

You shrugged, “My mom insisted she’d have the rest sent over to me,” You dropped the suitcase at the end of the huge bed you’d be sharing with Jungkook for maybe the rest of your life.

“So what’s in there then?” He cocked his head to the side, confused.

You felt your cheeks blush, brazenly, and you cleared your throat, more than a little uncomfortable.

“She told me to pack some things for the wedding night,” You answered, finally lifting your gaze to meet with his, “It’s not a big deal.”

But you knew that was a lie. Your heart was beating rapidly at just the thought of Jungkook knowing you’d brought intimate clothing along with you, and you knew that the only reason you’d told him it was because you wanted him to think about you scantily clad in lacy underwear.

You wanted him to be attracted to you, despite the fact this marriage was born out of duty for him. You thought that maybe if he wanted your body, you could find a way to open up his heart as well.

“They still do that?” Jungkook’s voice was painted with disbelief.

You quirked a brow, “Do what?” “The whole wedding night lingerie thing,” He laughed tightly, “My hyungs all told me about it but it just sounds… Kind of outdated to me.” Another stab in the heart. You tugged a hand through your hair.

“Oh.” He frowned carefully and sighed, “I’m sorry. Did that hurt your feelings?”

It pained you how easily Jungkook saw through your armour. How would you survive a lifetime with him? How could you hide from his gaze when he knew you so well?

You felt stupid and useless suddenly.

“No.” You replied, voice catching slightly at the end, “You’re right. It is outdated.” You thought of the racy red number your mother had insisted Jungkook would love. He would never see it of course - but part of you had hoped he would. Part of you had hoped he’d not only see you in it… But love you in it, too.

It was a foolish hope.

“Is it alright if I rest?” You asked him after a moment, smiling despite the tears that crawled up the back of your throat, “I’m really quite tired. It’s been a long week.”

Jungkook’s eyes searched your face and you forced your expression into one of neutrality. Just because he knew how you felt - just because he knew you loved him - didn’t mean you always had to be the vulnerable one.

You could learn to protect yourself. You’d grown up around monsters. Around people who manipulated and hurt others.

You just had to learn how to navigate this new reality.

This marriage.

“Yes of course,” Jungkook told you once his eyes had searched right down to the very depths of your soul, “Dinner will be served at around seven, okay?”

You nodded, tightly, “Fine.”

He watched you for a moment more, before finally slipping out of the door and allowing your facade to finally relax. You crawled onto the king sized bed, and pulled the blankets up around you - finally giving way to the tears that had been scratching the back of your eyelids since the minute you woke up this morning.

And as you lay in the bed you’d share with your husband - crying once again over the man who had your heart but didn’t deserve it - you promised yourself that this would be that last time.

That you wouldn’t cry over Jeon fucking Jungkook again.

And even though you were lying to yourself, you repeated that mantra to yourself all night. Over and over again.

Until finally you fell asleep.

And even then you dreamt of him.

The days passed through your fingers like sand. You spent more time than ever pining after Jungkook - qua though the two of you now shared a bed, nothing had changed.

During the day your husband was barely home. And even when he was he was always too busy to pay you any attention.

And at night you slept as far away from each other as possible. Most nights were spent falling asleep to the sight of the planes of his smooth back.

Jungkook wasn’t cruel. He always spoke to you kindly. He smiled whenever he saw you, and occasionally laughed at any jokes you tried to make.

But he was distant. Always held you at an arm’s length.

He never searched out your company, and you wondered if maybe that was because he knew how you felt. He knew you loved him - he knew you’d loved him for so long - and maybe he didn’t want to make matters worse.

He had never promised you love. In fact… He had almost promised you the polar opposite.

And so you spent most of your time alone.

Today was no different.

You tugged on the thread you were using to patch up one of Jungkook’s suit jackets - no doubt he’d created the tears during one of his many business meetings - and sighed heavily to yourself.

You’d seen the jacket earlier that morning, hanging in your shared closet, when you’d noticed the hole. Perhaps it was a need to make Jungkook happy, or perhaps it was boredom, but either way now you were sitting with a needle and thread, fixing it.

A knock at the door pulled you out of what you were doing.

“Come in,” You said softly, expecting Jennie to be on the other side. When the portal opened and it was actually Nayeon you stood excitedly, dropping Jungkook’s jacket and rushing over to her.

“Did you miss me?” She smiled widely as you rushed into her waiting embrace, squeezing her tightly.

“Oh my god, so much,” You pulled back and felt your eyes well up with tears, “Sorry. I’m so emotional these days.”

She grinned and ran a hand through your hair, “Nothing to apologise for.”

You led her over to the small couch that sat in the corner of your bedroom, and the two of you sat down together.

“How have you been?” She asked after a moment.

You wiped at a tear that had unceremoniously tracked down your cheek, “He barely talks to me.”

The words were not accusing, but there was sadness in them.

Nayeon frowned, “He’s acting like a real jackass.”

“No,” You shook your head vehemently, “It’s not his fault. This whole situation… It’s fucked up.”

“Still. He shouldn’t be mean.”

“He isn’t,” You insisted, “We just… He’s hardly at home as it is… And when he is the last thing he wants to do is talk to me.”

“I’m sorry Y/N,” She really did look sorry too.

You shrugged helplessly, “How many marriages in Bangtan are loveless?”

“Whatever. I just hope he’s not…” She stopped herself abruptly and clicked her tongue, “Never mind.”

You quirked a brow, “No…What were you going to say Nayeon?”

”I don’t want to upset you more,” She answered honestly, eyes shifting across your face carefully.

“There’s next to nothing at the moment that could make me feel any worse.”

It was a terrible sentiment, but it was the truth. Things seemed so bleak that you couldn’t imagine any information would cause a further rift in your already distant marriage.

“It’s just…” Nayeon tugged a hand through her hair and pursed her lips, “You know what Jungkook is like. He’s always dated lots of women at the same time. I’m just - I hope he’s ended those relationships.”

Your heart sank.

Immediately his words from earlier that month rolled across your mind.

I’m not a man of commitment.

Did that mean he didn’t want to be faithful to you? Was he warning you of his inability to keep to just one woman for the rest of his life?

You hadn’t even considered the possibility that Jungkook would cheat on you. Sure, he’d told you he might never love you… But an affair would be too much, wouldn’t it?

“I don’t - we haven’t spoken about that.” You felt your voice shake.

“I know my brother can be a bastard,” Nayeon shook her head, “But if he cheated on you… I would never forgive him.”

Her words fell on you like concrete.

Would you be able to forgive him?

In a sense, Jungkook didn’t really owe you faithfulness did he? In fact… He might have very well warned you against it.

You swallowed thickly.

“You should ask him about it,” Your best friend’s words were resolute, “If he cares for you… Even a little bit, then he’ll give you that respect.”

She was right of course.

Arranged marriage or not, he still owed you basic decency.

You nodded gently, “You’re right.” Your chest was tight as Nayeon reached over and squeezed your hand, “I will.”

Now you would just have to work up the courage to do it.

Nayeon’s words played over and over again in your mind for the following week. You had thought you were strong enough to bring it up to your husband but the truth was every time you wanted to do it, the words had slipped into the back of your throat. Just one look into Jungkook’s dark brown eyes and you had found yourself rendered helpless.

“Y/N.” Jungkook’s voice caused you to look up as you finished working on his suit jacket, “Hi.”

“Oh.” The word left you in a rush, “Sorry. I didn’t realise you would be home so early.” It was a Friday afternoon - sometime after four - and he was standing in the doorway of your bedroom, watching you the way he always did.

“What are you doing?” Your fingers faltered and you pulled the jacket up slightly, “Fixing this for you. It’s been my pet project for the last week.”

“Oh.” He mirrored your expression of surprise from earlier, taking a step towards you, “I see.” There was a beat of silence and then, “Why?” You tightened your grip on the jacket and felt your stomach roll over in anxiety.

“Why what?”

His eyes flickered, “Why are you fixing it for me?” Because I love you.

Of course you couldn't say that, so instead you opted for a shrug.

“Something to do, I suppose.”

After another long moment of watching, Jungkook smiled softly.

“Thank you,” He said, words warm, “That’s very kind of you.” You blushed at the compliment, however small it may be, and returned his smile, “It’s nothing.”

“I uh…” He cleared his throat and shook his head, “I realised that I forgot to tell you something quite important.” You cocked your head to the side, “What is it?” “Tonight. There’s a gala. One of Jimin’s things…”

You felt something akin to excitement swell inside of you. It was sad… But any reason to spend time with Jungkook was something to be celebrated.

“Right.” Your smile widened, “What time?”

“Eight pm,” He told you carefully, “And you’ll need to dress up.” “I know that don’t worry. I’ve been to Jimin’s galas before,” Your voice was slightly teasing and you almost reprimanded yourself for it.

Perhaps once upon a time you could joke with Jungkook like that, but things were different now… Weren't they? Except Jungkook didn’t seem annoyed.

He chuckled and rolled his eyes, “How could I forget? You and Nayeon love causing trouble at the expense of my poor friend Jimin.” You giggled, “We both know Nayeon is the mastermind behind any and all trouble caused,” You shrugged, “I’m a helpless bystander.” “Helpless my ass,” His lips fell into a smirk, “Just because you look like an angel doesn't mean you always act like one.”

Your heart flipped.

An angel?

Jungkook must have noticed the change in your demeanor, because he suddenly seemed awkward himself. He coughed slightly and tugged a hand through his dark hair.

“Anyway. Just uh… be ready at half seven, alright?” His face had slipped back into that infamous Bangtan mask, but you were still warm from his earlier words.

“Okay. I will.” “And uh… Will the jacket be fixed for tonight?”

You felt slightly dazed. Jacket?

“Huh?” His smile was small but he nodded towards the piece of clothing you were gripping so tightly your knuckles had turned white, “Your pet project.”

“Oh right.” You turned the jacket over in your hands and nodded, “Yes. Yeah. It’ll be ready.” “Great. I’ll have Minhyuk prepare the matching trousers for me, then.”

He smiled once more before leaving, and you realised you were holding your breath.

God.

It felt like you had been punched in the stomach.

But you sort of liked it.

“You look beautiful Y/N.” Your maid Jennie tugged the brush through your hair one last time, “The red is striking.” You ran a hand down the bodice of the dress you’d chosen to wear - something stupidly expensive and incredibly tight - and smiled at her nervously.

“Thank you.”

“Jungkook isn’t going to know what to do with himself,” She giggled and your grin widened.

The two of you had always been close, despite the gap in social status.

You didn’t care what tradition dictated, Jennie was your friend - employee or not.

“That’s what I’m hoping for,” You chuckled, biting on your bottom lip, “What time is it?” A knock at the door caused your head to turn and Jennie smirked.

“He’s right on time.” Your stomach fluttered at the thought of your husband, and when your maid moved to throw the portal open you almost fainted.

He looked… so good.

“Hi,” He smiled gently, “Are you ready?” You knew you were checking him out but you couldn’t help yourself.

The suit jacket you’d fixed for him fit him perfectly… And the trousers he was wearing only served to accentuate his perfect thighs.

“Y/N?” He cocked his head to the side and your heart twinged as a lock of hair fell precariously across his forehead.

Damn it.

Jennie pinched your arm and you realised how obvious you were being.

“Sorry,” You cleared your throat, “Yeah. I’m ready.”

You weren’t ready at all. Not to spend the rest of the evening in close quarters with the man who made you feel like a lovestruck teenager, anyway.

But what choice did you have?

Jungkook led you towards the garage, where his very expensive Porsche was parked, and when he held the door open for you, your pulse squeezed.

“Thanks,” You said, cheeks blazing.

Jungkook’s eyes flickered as he watched you climb inside, “No problem.” He answered tightly, clicking the door shut and sliding into the driver’s seat.

It wasn’t until you eased onto the main road that Jungkook spoke again.

“You look nice,” He said, his eyes meeting yours in the rearview mirror.

You turned to face him, your heart thumping uncomfortably against your ribcage, “What?”

“Oh come on don’t act like I’ve never said anything nice to you before,” He groaned, “You’ll make me feel like an asshole.”

“Oh I uh…” You blushed hotly, “Thanks. I guess.”

“You guess? Wow, way to take a compliment, Y/N.” His tone was teasing and you felt yourself falling back into the friendship you’d shared with him before the two of you had been forced into marriage.

This was the Jungkook you fell in love with.

“I just didn’t expect you to say that,” You clarified, turning to look at this side profile.

God he was so handsome, it almost hurt.

“Well it’s true,” He shrugged and shot you a small smile, “You look nice.” “Well so do you.” The words slipped out of you eagerly, “The uh… The suit jacket looks great.”

His smile grew, “It does. Thanks to you, of course. My little seamstress.”

Your heart skipped.

His little seamstress?

“Right,” You choked out, “Well. If you ever need anything fixed then just send it my way.”

“I will.”

A comfortable silence fell between the two of you but all you could think about was the fact that he’d called you his. Sure, it was in jest, and yeah maybe it wasn't the most romantic of things to say… But still.

It had to count for something.

When Jungkook pulled up in front of the same hotel Bangtan always used for social events, your heart was still fluttering wildly in your chest, but you forced yourself to remain calm.

There were paparazzi milling around the front entrance of the hotel of course, like there always were whenever Jimin organised a gala. Suddenly you felt inadequate.

You’d never been photographed before - your family was not famous enough… You were not beautiful enough for the media to give a shit.

But you knew that Jungkook was well loved by the media - not only was he Bangtan’s resident casanova - but he was also the most open of the special seven. He smiled for photos and had even occasionally bantered with the paparazzi. He dated celebrities - models, singers… Actresses. He was the media’s golden boy.

He was everyone’s golden boy.

Jungkook must have noticed your nerves because he turned to give you a soft smile.

“It’s alright Y/N. Just hold my hand and ignore them okay?”

You nodded, wordlessly, as he stepped out of the car and after a minute opened your door for you. Immediately you felt the buzz of flashbulbs, and you were almost blinded by the light. A warm hand enveloped your own and soon Jungkook was tugging you along.

You blinked against the flashing and watched your husband’s sturdy back, as he led you towards the front entrance determinedly.

“Jungkook! Jungkook! Is this your mysterious new girl?” “Jungkook! Is it true you’re married?”

“Jungkook! Smile!”

Jungkook didn’t stop for any questions and you were thankful for that, holding tightly onto his hand until he finally slipped inside the lobby of the hotel and the paparazzi was behind you. He dropped your hand and you immediately felt cold.

“Here,” He offered his arm, “This is the way Jimin’s always telling me to enter a room.” You nodded and slipped your own arm through his, ignoring the buzz that flitted through you at the contact.

God. You loved him so much.

“Was that as bad as you thought it was going to be?” He asked, eyes sympathetic as he led you over towards the ornate marble staircase.

You bit your bottom lip and sighed, “It was tough.”

“I’m sorry,” He frowned, “Really. It will get better.”

“Jungkook-ah!”

You would recognise that voice anywhere.

Jihyo.

She was coming towards the two of you, beautiful face donning a wide smile. Her eyes flickered between your linked arms for a moment, before she reached you.

“Hello Jihyo,” Jungkook nodded his head politely, “How are you?”

“I’m great Jungkookie,” The nickname caused a hot flush of anger to roll through you. You knew exactly what game she was playing, “How are you?” “I’m fine,” He turned to give you a smile, “You know my wife Y/N, don’t you?” Jihyo’s body froze at the word wife. She was Taehyung’s cousin.

Surely she had to know the two of you had gotten married.

“Yeah, yeah.” She gave you a sharp look, “Nice to see you Y/N.” But her words felt anything but nice.

Immediately you were reminded of Nayeon’s warning.

Your heart thundered against your chest.

What if Jungkook and Jihyo were….

You felt like you were going to be sick.

“Anyway Jungkook I was going to ask you if you were free next weekend,” Her smile was coy as she fluttered her eyelashes up at your husband, “It’s my birthday and-” “We have plans.”

The words surprised you as much as they did Jungkook and you’d been the one to say them.

Jihyo’s gaze flickered over to your own and she raised an angry eyebrow, “What?”

“Me and my husband have plans next weekend,” You pasted the fakest smile onto your face, “Maybe next time.”

And with that you pulled Jungkook away from Jihyo pulse roaring in your ears. You had no idea where that bout of courage had come from but just who did she think she was anyway?

Just because she’d always had everything she wanted, didn’t give her the right to act like a brat.

After a moment, Jungkook turned to give you a smirk, “What was that?” You tried to act nonchalant.

“What was what?”

“That.” His smirk grew, “Were you jealous?” You felt something hot split across your cheeks.

“I don’t want you dating other women.”

The words fell like stones between the two of you.

Jungkook stopped, his eyes raking over you. He frowned.

“I wouldn’t… I would never do that.” “You told me you weren’t a man of commitment,” You told him sincerely, feeling irrational tears crawl up your throat, “But I can’t… I won’t be able to deal with it if you have an affair.”

Jungkook’s eyes softened. He shook his head.

“I didn’t mean I would see other women Y/N.” He pressed a hand to your cheek and you wilted at his touch, “You’re my wife and I respect that. Alright?”

You nodded, eyes boring into his. You wished he would just open himself up to you.

“Okay.” You whispered, not caring that you were surrounded by people, “Thank you.” He pulled his hand away and nodded gently.

Something in his gaze flickered. Whether it was genuine affection or desire or something else entirely you weren’t sure. But it wasn’t that cold indifference he wanted you to believe.

“Let’s go. The others are waiting.”

Your heart turned as he slipped his hand into yours.

If only he could learn to love you, then maybe you really could be happy.

If only.

#jeon jungkook #jungkook #jungkook x reader #fanfic #mafia au #arrange marriage #unrequited love #one sided love #bangtan #bts #fanfiction #angst #smut #fluff

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otakusheep15 · 3 years

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SFW Alphabet - Satan

I had a really hard time trying to get Satan’s character right, so I hope I did a good job with this one

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

He’s not super affectionate, physical, verbal, or otherwise. Really, that’s just a side-effect of him being born from pure wrath. He simply just can’t express emotions very well. You’ll most likely have to initiate any affection if you want it. However, he does also like when you lay your head on his lap and he reads to you since it doesn’t require much.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

He’s the mom friend for sure. He helps you with anything you may need from studying to pranks. Of course, he does also make sure you both make it out of any trouble unscathed. I also lowkey see him as the type to carry around random snacks to feed strays he comes across, and he’ll give some to you so that you can also feed the strays.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Like I said, affection isn’t his strong suit, so cuddling isn’t really his thing. The closest he’ll get to cuddling is either you two sitting next to each other on the bed/couch or with him sitting up and you laying on his lap. He may also pat your head like you’re a cat. There might also be reading involved if he’s awake enough to read out loud to you.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

He does like the idea of settling down, but he’s unsure if he really can. Yes, he can do basic household chores like cooking and cleaning, but he feels as though he couldn’t handle the more emotional side of settling down. Doing something like that means you truly love the person you’re with and he’s afraid that he might not have the emotional capacity to feel that strongly about someone. Then you came along and destroyed all of that nonsense. Now he wants nothing more than to drag you away and live out a romance just like in his favorite books.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

There would most likely be a lot of yelling. Also lots of things being thrown around in rage. When he’s mad, he’s mad, and a breakup is a great way to get him mad. If he’s the one initiating it, he’ll try to keep a level head, but that solely depends on how the other person reacts. If they’re also calm, then it’ll be pretty civil and respectful, and they might even stay friends after. However, if the other person starts getting mad, that only makes him worse and it does not get better for that other person.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Before you? He never even considered the idea. After you? That’s practically all he can think about. You know that one friend we all have that constantly gushes over sappy romance stories and constantly wishes how that could live them out with their partner? Yeah, that’s him. He’ll never admit that out loud though. The only one who actually knows about all of his fantasies are Asmo because he once walked in on him comparing you to this one character from a romance novel he liked (kinda like Levi with his anime).

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

He knows how dangerous he can be. Not only is he a demon, and a powerful at that, but he also the literal embodiment of wrath. Even after years of keeping up his gentlemanly facade, all it takes is the slightest inconvenience to set him off. So he’s extra careful around you. Physically, he tries not to get to close to you, especially when he’s pissed off. Verbally, he tries to watch his language around you because he doesn’t want to hurt you by saying anything mean.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

His hugs are extremely rare but surprisingly nice. Since he’s scared he might hurt you by accident, and his lack of need for physical affection, he doesn’t hug you very often. However, they are super relaxing when they do happen. He hugs you just tight enough to keep you pressed to his body, but not so tight that it’s uncomfortable.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Out of all the brothers, he one of the last ones to say it. He’s not all the familiar with the concept of love, especially in romantic context. Obviously, he knows how it feels in theory, but he can hardly figure it out in practice. The worst part is that he knows he loves you, but he has no clue how to go about it. When he does finally say it, he seems perfectly calm and collected, but he’s internally screaming the whole time. You’ll never know.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Surprisingly, he’s not one to get jealous easily. One of the benefits of having a poor grasp on emotions maybe? Whatever the case, he always tends to take a more logical approach to things, relationships included. He knows that you’re loyal to him and so he trusts you. If he has any reason to be jealous, then he’ll talk to you and workout any problems or concerns.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

His kisses can go one of two ways. They can 1) be the softest, most romantic kisses you’ve ever felt in your life, or 2) the most heated and passionate kisses you’ve ever felt in your life. Literally no in between. The former will usually happen during softer moments of bliss. Maybe you two were just in his room and relaxing or in the library studying. The latter only ever happens during more ~spicy~ times *wink wink*.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

He hates kids. That’s it. He hates them. They’re such a hassle, they need constant supervision and care, and they never shut up. He is a firm believer in children being the worst creatures in all the three realms.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

He always wakes up first no matter what. He’ll go down to the kitchen and make you a cup of tea, but that’s only when you guys don’t have school. If you do have school, he’ll wake you up as gently as possible and help you get ready.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

He’ll usually drag you to hs room so that you two can spend the evening reading together. Sometimes you end up sitting next to each other and reading your own books, others you may end up in his lap while he reads to you. You mostly end up falling sleep first, and he’ll follow soon after.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

This boy is the definition of closed off. It does not matter how close you are to him or how much he trusts you, he will never tell you anything. Okay, he does tell you some things, but only surface level stuff. If you want the real, honest answers he has, you need to pry them out yourself.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

Lmao what’s patience? Seriously though, he actually has a decent amount of patience. He trained himself really hard in order o control his anger, so he can actually be pretty chill for the most part. Obviously, he still gets mad all the time, especially with Lucifer, but he does try his best.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

He’s totally the type to write down facts about you in a secret journal somewhere so that he can reference it later. He has a great memory, but he loves just writing down everything you tell him about yourself just in case he forgets anything. He will never tell you or anyone else about the journal, but if anyone finds out, they will never be heard from again.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

He isn’t one to have any particular moment in mind, but he absolutely treasures those quiet moments when you two are alone. No brothers to bother you, plenty of books and snacks, and just each others presence. It’s quiet, calm and peaceful. These moments don’t happen very often due to the chaos around you, so when they do happen it’s special. Just being able to spend time with you is his favorite thing in all three worlds.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

He is arguably one of the most protective brothers, and that’s saying something. The second someone even hints at hurting you, they’re dead. They just cease to exist. He will not let a single thing harm his precious human, and he’ll do whatever it takes to ensure your safety. He’d even go so far as to get himself in trouble if it means getting you out of it.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

He’s much more casual than most of his brothers, so he doesn’t see the need in planning over-the-top dates. Obviously, he wants you to be happy no matter what, but he knows he doesn’t need extravagant dates to make that happen. I mean, if you like things like that he’ll certainly try for you, but it’s just not his style. He prefers causal, lowkey dates. Coffee shop dates, going to bookstores together, sitting in his or your room and reading all day, and going out to play with the stray cats are all ideal dates for him. He just knows that, as long as you two are together, everything is already perfect.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Obviously, he has some issues he needs to work out. His anger issues are, of course, the main issue, but that also leads into other problems. For example, his daddy issues hatred for Lucifer is something he needs to get sorted out. He also has a hard time expressing his true feelings for fear of letting his anger out as well. Most of his issues are emotional, so he needs a lot of time to work on them.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

He’s not so much concerned with physical appearance so much as social appearance. he is highly concerned about how he looks to the public. If he needs to look physically appealing in order to keep a good social standing, then he’ll do it. He’s not vain like Asmo or Mammon, but he’d be quick to put more into his appearance if it means he gains something out of it socially.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Honestly, he’s felt incomplete since being born, so even with you he doesn’t feel quite complete. You definitely help fill some of that void he has in him, but not even you can fix him completely. If you did leave him, he’d be back at square one, so he needs you to be there in order to make him feel even the slightest bit more whole.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

As I stated before, I think he keeps a journal of all of your interests so that he can remember then, but I think it goes deeper than that. I also think he has one for each of his brothers that he keeps on him. Any time one of his brothers mentions something they like, he’ll write it down to keep it for later. That way, if an occasion (birthday, anniversary, etc.) that would require this information would ever arise, he would already have it written down. No one knows about these, and he’ll take this secret to his grave.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

He refuses to even acknowledge someone without even the slightest bit of academic prowess. If he deems you to be stupid, you’ll never even hear from him again. He also cannot stand people who dislike cats.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

He has a tendency to move around a lot when he sleeps. No one has any clue as to why, but it’s not really a problem. That is until you two start sleeping together. He either ends up on top of you or kicking you out of the bed. In the morning, he’ll apologize, but it’s not something he can really fix.

#OBEY ME #shall we date obey me #shall we date satan #sfw alphabet #scenarios #headcanon

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getlitaesthetic · 4 years

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I’m interested to see what the brothers would be like if they had a child (probably with the mc purposely or accidentally) and the fucked up family dynamics that would come of it, like would they full on discard the child? Raise them to be just like their dad? I wouldn’t be surprised if Beel pulled a full on Kronos from Greek mythology

Also asked by an anon: “What if mc somehow got pregnant? How would the brothers be towards them during their pregnancy and how will they deal with the child?”

(Undateables version found Here)

Lucifer

It is on purpose, and Lucifer is the most excited to be having a child.

Will carefully monitor MC’s diet, exercise, leisure activities, everything they do to an extent far surpassing anything he’s done before.

He becomes obsessed with the child’s health.

Not that that stops him from injuring MC, but now he’s very careful with what he does to avoid any harm coming to his child. After all, they can’t get comfortable here.

When the child is finally born, it’s immediately taken from MC.

“I can’t have you passing on your weakness to my daughter, can I?”

He names her Lilith. It was always going to be Lilith.

Lucifer is a loving father, and abusive partner. MC only gets to see Lilith as a prize for a job well done. They become the most well-behaved human in the realm for a chance to see their child. It is such a rare occurrence, their daughter rarely remembers them.

He teaches Lilith to be a true demon, despite their half human nature. Raises them into the Devildom and is a careful protector to ensure that no corrupting influences touch her but his own.

Eventually, Lilith is ready.

MC is so excited to see their daughter, as soon as she enters the room, she’s swept into a big hug.

MC gasps, and gurgles as they choke on their own blood, Lilith giggling in their arms.

“Did I do a good job, Daddy?”

“You did perfectly, Princess.”

Mammon

This was definitely an accident

Not only was it an accident, but he may or may not have freaked out a little bit.

“Do you KNOW how expensive children are?”

But then he realizes that everything has a value.

So he sucks it up, and helps MC get through the pregnancy unscathed... Although he may or may not have chained them to the wall so they didn’t get into trouble while he was handling business.

When the boy is born, Mammon doesn’t bother to name him. He leaves MC to take care of the child. They name him Najjad, and dedicate all of their time to raising him to be happy, and healthy, and as human as possible.

He is a handsome child, born with a head of pale white hair, and MC’s eyes. Skin smooth and unblemished, with an easy, happy smile. They love him. They would do anything for Mammon in order to continue being allowed to raise their son.

But the fantasy is short lived.

Mammon quickly grows tired of MC’s time being split between him and the boy, growing greedy once again for their full attention.

It isn’t long before he has lined up a buyer. It is only days after that that, without warning, Najjad is taken from his parent’s arms, and delivered to a shady demon willing to pay a pretty penny for the offspring of one of the Avatars.

“Finally! About time I got you to myself again, eh?”

Leviathan

This was long since planned. It was only a matter of time before one of his brothers had a child, and Levi wanted one first. Maybe it was the envy in him. Okay, okay. Probably it was the envy in him.

MC is already locked in his room, so it’s easy to hide the pregnancy, just in case something happens. After all, the last thing he wants is for his brothers to know it was a race, and then for him to lose.

Or worse, for one of his brothers to hurt MC while they were still pregnant.

Levi forces MC to do a lot of floating during the pregnancy, and to have a water birth.

However, he is less careful than most of the others. Constantly forgetting to be gentle, always pushing and grabbing MC a little too hard.

Still, the baby boy is born healthy. He doesn’t look quite human, even at birth. Long ragged gills cut sharp lines along his throat, and his eyes are slit. A long black tail extends from his spine, with a fin on the end. The rest of him looks human enough.

Leviathan eventually settles on the name Mizuko. MC is not given the chance to disagree.

MC is still not allowed to leave the room, but is given ample time with their son, helping to raise him, as long as they follow Levi’s strict instructions. He often takes Mizuko away for significant periods of time, disappearing along with him. MC can only imagine they are in the Devildom’s waterways, their son learning skills they’d rather him not know.

Oh, but how good to be alive, and a parent. Even if they were chained to this room, to the torture of being Levi’s plaything. Mizuko makes the whole thing so much more bearable. In fact, they consider trying to get Levi to have another, if only so that they may have a chance to always have one at home.

“I did it, MC! I won! I wonder what Lucifer will have to say about that.”

Satan

A pregnancy with Satan was planned, and actually suggested by MC.

They wanted to show their devotion to him, still so unaware of how he had manipulated every aspect of their life.

He seems so excited when MC tells them that it’s happened, they’re pregnant.

He treats them so sweetly throughout their pregnancy, but continues drugging, manipulating, and casting spells on them without their knowledge and without regard to their child.

It is only luck that none of them hurt their baby.

MC gives birth to a beautiful daughter, who will grow to have soft blonde ringlets and beautiful blue eyes, just like her father. She glows softly.

Satan and MC agreed to the name Ismene for a girl early in the pregnancy, and once she arrived, it seemed just perfect.

She grows to be smart as a whip, but cruel. Satan is so proud. MC begins to realize they don’t know everything about their husband after all.

They sit in the garden, Ismene practicing a spell to set a flower ablaze. MC tries to frown, to scold her, but their face does not budge.

“How lovely,” they hear themselves say, as if far away. “Our little girl is growing so quickly.”

Satan kissed their forehead and knelt in front of their daughter.

“Remember, you have to want it to die, with all of the rage in your heart,” he instructs her.

She smiles, looking at MC as the flower begins to burn.

Asmodeus

A child with Asmodeus is unplanned, but not unexpected.

With all of the unprotected sex he has with MC, and how frequently? It was only a shock it took so long.

Besides, MC no longer had the brain capacity to agree or plan anything. All they wanted was more of their demon master, filling them up, using them, making them worth something.

What could possibly fill them more than a child?

Asmo thinks it’s adorable, to watch MC’s stomach grow as they lay there, mindless and drooling. Desperate for anything Lust could offer.

It does not affect his daily routine in the slightest. He continues to use and abuse MC as he sees fit whenever he desires, and still disappears for weeks at a time, leaving MC’s health up to whatever brother happens to remember to feed them.

They give birth alone, confused as to why they are in pain and what is happening.

When Asmo returns, he leaves MC in their pain and filth, taking the baby girl away to clean her up and dress in lovely silks.

He names her Bellerose Fayre, and is the only one of the brothers to give his child a middle name.

She is perfect, and would pass for human if it wasn’t for her long, winding tail that reaches and grasps with it’s velvety texture, pulling in anything it can touch.

What happens next is... incredibly disturbing, to say the least. If you are particularly sensitive, I would recommend skipping to Beelzebub.

Asmo is inseparable from his daughter. Always keeping her dressed in beautiful clothing and teaching her everything he knows. Bellerose is a very quick study. It isn’t long at all before she has fully tapped into her father’s power and begins to work at his side, seducing souls to Hell. Only a child.

How MC would have died to stop it if they could have. But they remained in that room, no mind left to care.

“Good job, Rosie! Another worthless wretch condemned to the pits. You’re a natural!”

Beelzebub

Unplanned. Unplanned. So unplanned.

Anon, you are unfortunately quite correct.

Beelzebub can smell it on MC before they even know. He had been holding back on feasting, saving them for a special occasion.

But now that they were pregnant? Their blood, their body, all of it was extra nutritious as it prepared to build his child.

He waits, for a while. Staying far away so as not to be tempted, despite MC’s desperate attempts to get him involved.

The day comes for the gender reveal.

A boy.

Since Beel refuses to be involved, MC picks out the name. Akuji.

It’s an apt name.

MC returns that day to attempt to tell Beel the news, only to be met by the lumbering form of the starved man that strikes fear into their heart. They eat MC whole, and their child with them.

But that isn’t the end. Awake. Akuji screams from inside MC, inside Beel. Tiny claws begin to scratch and dig.

Eventually, his son rips through his stomach and into the world, severely underdeveloped. Time would take care of that. The boy had curled hands with bloody claws, blindingly violet eyes, and the concave stomach of his father. He would eventually grow fly wings and a head of MC’s hair, but he would never gain a full human form.

Beel tried several times over the years to eat his son, to no avail. Every time, he would just have to sew up his stomach and continue on his endless stalk for sustenence.

Belphegor

A child with Belphie is so unplanned that he doesn’t even know about it until a thousand years after they are born.

He had trapped MC in his lair for his nap, but his grip had loosened in his dreaming, and while they remained locked in the room, at least they could roam. Food was stockpiled to hide from his twin brother, which MC subsisted on.

They had become pregnant after a slow, elongated night of fucking with Belphie as he gained their favor to get them where they were now. And they had no way to tell him without ensuring their own death in the process.

So MC coached themselves through the pregnancy, always careful not to wake Belphegor.

It was a close call during the birth, as he huffed and stirred, but MC bit down on their own arm to shut themselves up.

When their son was born, he looked perfectly human. Blinking slowly up at their parent. MC fed him only once, and whispered his name to him before he drifted to sleep.

Eventually, the food ran out. Their son did not wake, no matter how they tried. MC sobbed quietly at their loss, as surely he was dead. Starved and exhausted, they laid down to die.

Hundreds of years passed. In his sleep, the child grew, gaining more demonic features. Growing longer, sharper. Lithe wings extending from his back and sharp teeth appearing past his lips.

Their dreams began to intertwine, the boy learning so much from the Avatar of Sloth’s thoughts.

Finally, Belphie awoke, immediately spotting his son in the corner, strangely familiar, and the young one stirred at the movement.

“Who are you?”

“Cimon.”

“Hmm. Good morning.”

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me headcanons #obey me yandere #House of Lamentation #obey me dark au #children of the dark

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betweentheracks · 3 years

Text

Updates//Recent Inactivity

Hello all! This is me finally taking some time to sit down and offer up a rundown on how life is currently going as a means of explaining my inactivity. This is a personal post that is guaranteed to be both rambling and emotional so if that is not your cup of tea, I understand and happily advise you just skip over this post as it is not relevant to the actual content this blog was intended for.

EDITED: After reading this back I now realize this is really just me spilling the tea on my own life and is laughably dishy in details which is extremely not my usual stance on my personal privacy. But idk, it was cathartic so I'm leaving it as is despite the urge to redact 70% of what I say.

I'll start with the good news that I am officially out of lockdown and have remained COVID-19 free since my return home from the hospital. This also means my son finally was allowed to come home to me which is dazzling and exciting and also a little terrible too. He's at a precocious age where tantrums are the cool way to communicate and having been gone for so long completely thrashing his established routine has caused friction. He came home and his parent was not the same as when he left; is much weaker and less energetic than before, paler and shaky - but also there's the addition of my best friend having moved in to assist and take care of me/him while we all do our best to muddle through.

The readjustment has been rough and a lot of this week has made me incredibly thankful to have practically zero memory of how I was as a child. There have been injuries: I have been whacked in the face with the metal cover for a floor vent while dozing on the sofa instead of paying rapt attention to whatever silliness he was showing off to me, there was his complete dismissal of me asking him to stay back and away from the hot oven as I pulled lunch from it's fiery jaws only to then be faced with a toddler quickly approaching with his hand raised to touch so I naturally made a move to block him and in the process I let go of the oven door which slammed upward and clamped my arm tightly between it and the inside cavern of the oven while it was set to a roasty 400 degrees Fahrenheit - earning me a mangled arm with burns of varying degrees, and then we also had that fit where it seemed like a much more grand idea to scale the babygate cordoning the stairs and I had to rush up them to stop him from tumbling face first down two flights and of course did the falling all on my own and did it backwards then slammed painfully into the wall of the landing. This all happened within a 48hr time frame and makes me wonder why I am so catastrophically inclined.

I have bruises that range the majority of my spine courtesy of the wall and stairs, two minor first degree burns on my forearm that are in the shape of an equals and quite large despite the lack of actual pain I feel from them, and the underside of my forearm was instantly blistered then popped then melted down into a horrid glob of skin mush and sticky red-orange and is a second degree burn that I have been assured is no real cause for concern as long as I tend it with care. In all, I managed to escape my momjuries relatively unscathed and with a child that was scared senseless at having hurt his momma and is quick to listen and never stops cuddling me in the time since. Here's hoping he isn't significantly traumatized from this since exactly none of this is especially his fault and is due to my clumsy, accident-prone status in life.

So yes, The Toddler has returned home to me and after some happenings we have settled and are happy. However, his blast from the past father has suddenly just decided to reemerge after more than a year of radio silence and static and has slapped me with a custody petition. Hooray. While I have no worries on this matter due to my mother working for one of the top custody lawyers in the state and snagging him as my representation, and the utter lack of competency on my estranged baby daddy's end clearly being displayed in literally anything and everything the idiot does/says, I do have to now go through the overhaul of a custody case and that is just so weak and exhaustive. Not to mention the basis of his claims that I am not fit to raise a child are founded in my health concerns and the crazy work schedule I keep; ironically, my health is making it so that I have much less insane hours and makes this fairly moot but to each their own I guess. Also worth noting on this matter is that he only did this now because he was recently placed under penalty for child support back pay and nothing in this world matters to him like his money and this is his special way of getting one over on me for tampering with his meager earnings. (He's a wannabe musician - the soundcloud rapper sort, just so we are all on the same page here). If I thought for even a second this was a genuine desire to be an active and stable parent I would be a lot less pressed to act in favor of making it legally binding that he can only see him under a supervisory condition and share time evenly, but it just is not believable in the slightest.

So the thing is - my health is actually quite dismal presently. I'm due in for open heart surgery on the 8th of April and until then I have been doing my utmost to mind all the nagging I get from doctors, PT specialists, the surgeons that will be slicing and dicing me, and my in-family medical practitioner that sometimes remembers he is also my brother and not just an MD. But like, you guys, this surgery is terrifying and technically is two surgeries rolled into one. They'll be cracking my chest open and then stopping my heart while they lift it from where it sits sweetly unhinged and lopsided in my body and very finely shave away some of the excess muscle that has built up around the wall of my heart as well as some unfriendly scar tissue that has lingered since my last surgery years ago. Granted there is no accidental slip that nicks my ugly gargantuan heart and renders me as good as dead, once this first part is finished the other surgeon will need to be deft and very quick to place this ventricular assisting piece in the valve that has all but given up on functioning altogether and do so in the time remaining before the time limit for my heart being essentially unplugged from by body is up, which would also feasibly mean my death. Lots of exciting and terrible sounding consequences, am I right?

Well let's bear it in mind that I am just below 30 in age and therefore not duly experienced in the realm of facing down my own mortality via making all necessary legal arrangements and managing my affairs and assets so that, in event of my untimely death, the custody case still doesn't stand a chance of snatching my son away to the sad misfortune of being raised by a man that has stated openly he only has interest in his kids so far as what they can do for him/get for him in terms of benefit and that he would be unwilling to be hypocritical and never deter his children from drugs and a lifestyle of extremely questionable moral integrity and hygiene alike. Eugh. But I also have had to make sure there is a DNR in place just in case things go wrong during the operation, my will has also been finalized and notarized, all my savings and financial/material assets have been squared away to come into my child's inheritance when he is of age and, most importantly, a document that states clear and direct instructions for him to be placed in care of my mother or, if she is unwilling or incapable, he will be under custodial order and guardianship of my best friend whom he has always viewed as a pseudo-dad anyway. Legally binding and even in light of the paternity petition this document supersedes parental right by way of the provided evidence I have submitted to prove a lack of parental credibility. That's right, I spent days lowkey stalking and sleuthing about to capture what I needed to show this man for what he actually is and I have precisely zero guilt or shame for doing it; this is my child on the line and that means momma doesn't have to play by the rules of snitches getting stitches or whatever other scary street rules he tosses at me as idle threats. (He's done this routinely for all the years I have known him, and it is somehow both pathetic and hilarious because he knows for a fact that, if I wanted, I could throttle him in less time than it would take for him to form a rational thought between his drug soaked braincells - I was also a person of less than savory character not too long ago and can handle myself very well. But I digress because I am losing my track of thought.

After the surgery I will have so damn much PT and rehab, all of which will be specific to varying parts of my body that will need to be reworked and strengthened. Weeks, months of it really. This surgery is major and hits heavy enough that I will be in the hospital for at least 10-14 days just recovering from it without taking into consideration any number of complications that could pop up. Hell, if they get in there and find a situation worse than they currently have an understanding of in the limited capacity of cardiology tech can provide of such a gnarled beastly heart and realize they can't really do anything with it after all, I'll be added to the transplant list. I think this is more daunting to consider than the surgery, honestly.

In that way that doctors have about them, I was "comforted" by being informed that this was an inevitability and I would have been faced with this in a matter of years - less than a handful actually - but the way COVID-19 chewed through me sped it up. I'm sure my years of substance issues were also very helpful in this endeavor, but either way I still am unsure whether I feel better knowing this or not? Mostly I think I feel conflicted and hopeful tempered with the caution of life being super shady in the ways it has often brought me to the doorsteps of dying in situations that seem like odd chance. I also am gifted with being so capable in jinxing myself that I brought myself to COVID-19 ("The way life is going I'll probably square up with Rona next week or some bullshit." Positive test flagged within the following week) and also into labor ("Watch me go into labor on Labor Day since that would be the sort of universal pun that would strike my bad penny having ass." Indeed hatched my youngling on Labor Day of that year) by saying some things within the scope of my bad humor that instantly manifested as reality so I'm not taking any risks here lol.

The gist is that life is really stirring up the winds over here and so I haven't been online and posting anything that would make my blog valid in a fat minute. I do apologize for this and also for the fact that this post took me nearly a week to type up, but when things calm a little I will be back in full. For the time being I will be sporadic and do what I can when I can!

Thanks to anyone that read this mess all the way here! And a big thank you to all of you still supporting me!

#racks chats #entirely too long and too personal

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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Something I don’t think I’ve ever seen explored but that could be a possibly interesting subversion of the common conception that Dick is Bruce’s favorite, even according to his other children:

What if the things they viewed as favoritism were really just overcompensation? For instance, when Dick and Bruce started being presences in each other’s lives again after Tim became Robin, it was a gradual thing, they only slowly kind of got used to being around each other again over time. As I’ve often said in the past, my big gripe about this, and why I so intensely dislike all of that being framed as Tim being a catalyst for reuniting them, is its precisely BECAUSE of how it all played out that way, that Bruce....never actually needed to apologize or make amends to Dick or even ASK for him to come back....which compounded the fact that he’d never really ever gotten around to doing all of that because of the conflict between them for other reasons before Jason’s death happened.

And I do think a lot of that has to do with Bruce’s tendencies towards self-flagellation, though this doesn’t excuse it. I honestly do believe that it’d be perfectly in character if the reason Bruce never apologized for all that even then was because he didn’t think what he’d done WAS forgivable, so it felt....false to him, to try and ask for forgiveness. What this fails to consider though, is that apologizing, making amends, TRYING to make up for what you did to the other person.....its not about WHETHER or not they forgive you, or think they can.

Its simply about acknowledging wrong and harm done, and saying....you’re sorry. You regret it. You know it was a mistake and that you can’t take it back, but you just want them to know you’re....not unaware of the harm you caused.

After that, yeah, the ball is in their court, but if you never actually put that out there, how are they ever supposed to truly KNOW that you know that? Believe that?

How can people ever be asked or expected to grant forgiveness when its so commonly depicted as though for the people who hurt them, even just ASKING for it is harder than it must be for the people who WERE hurt to GRANT it?

But Bruce is very much someone who believes that actions speak louder than words, so I could see someone taking the angle that he tries to EXPRESS his regret to Dick in other ways, through various actions and behaviors with or around him.....which could be construed to others in the family as displays of favoritism....

Because they’d have no way or any reason to think of them as attempts at amends or expressions of regret, like they would, say, if any of those similar behaviors were exhibited around Jason - whether they were accepted by Jason or brushed off. Point being, they would GET that this was what it was with Jason, because they’re all aware Jason is angry at Bruce for very specific things, with most of them being aware what MOST of those things are (definitely not counting the ending of UTRH).

(And just pointing out here again for emphasis since its not like I tack it on as a qualifier in all my posts, but I honestly hate how frequently various parts of fandom decide one character or another is Bruce’s favorite or worse, that this is OKAY, like its not a fundamental problem if he definitively has a favorite. Of course that creates divides in a family. To me, ideally, a healthy Batfam has no favorites, they just have members of the family who are more favorite to them in SOME ways than in others.

For instance, I also dislike the idea that Damian is Dick’s favorite, but I don’t think the closeness of their relationship is threatened or mitigated by acknowledging that the bonds between Dick and his other siblings are just as strong, just in different ways. That its ‘special’ with Damian in a way it isn’t with the others because of how close they got that year Dick practically raised him, that makes the nature of their relationship different. But its equally ‘special’ with Jason, because Jason was Dick’s FIRST brother, they were each other’s first family beyond just parental figures, there’s a significance to that which doesn’t just go away, and still neither of those undervalues the fact that Tim and Dick spent years being close as the only two brothers, who had only each other and Bruce, and Bruce sometimes being emotionally or even physically unavailable to turn to making it that much more necessary for them to turn to each other, essentially, between Jason’s death and return and even after Cass became a presence in their lives, due to her usually going to Babs for the kinds of things Dick and Tim would work through together, and then of course Cass is Dick’s only sister which puts her in another category altogether, not better or worse, its simply that Cass is neither Dick’s brother nor was she ever a Robin so they have a relationship that for example, whatever else it consists of, will never be defined or threatened by any of the issues that have plagued the family when it comes to the Robin succession. And Duke and Dick’s dynamic of course is still basically just whatever the hell you individually decide it to be because hahahaha what if you wrote them interacting for more than like, one issue only, DC HMMM?

Point being - FUCK family favorites. The whole idea is stupid and toxic and IMO fundamentally incompatible with an actual healthy, functional Batfamily, so it kinda blows my mind when I see people UPHOLDING the idea of this character being so and so’s favorite or everyone knows Dick is Bruce’s favorite and Jason is Alfred’s favorite and Damian is Dick’s favorite....no. Why. Stop that. They can all be special to each other in entirely different ways for entirely different reasons. Family is not a zero sum game. And none of this means that there aren’t some of them who just GET ALONG better than they do with the others at sometimes, or like these two just tend to have more fun with each other, or this is who this one usually goes to when this happens, etc. There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s good, it just means.....things are different between different members of the family. That doesn’t have to equal FAVORITES though. Favorite to share this particular activity with? Sure. OVERALL though? Miss me).

ANYWAY.

Detour aside and circling back to my point.....say for instance the other kids see Bruce appear to be making an effort with Jason, singling him out for praise or acknowledgment....its not hard for them to imagine reasons WHY Bruce might be doing that, which don’t automatically equate to an insecure conviction that Bruce just loves Jason more than them and he’s his favorite....because there are other explanations, other reasons why Bruce might feel a need to act differently with Jason than he does with the rest of them, things unique to their dynamic. Similarly, say for instance Bruce is written making a particular effort with Damian to acknowledge him - there’s lots more angles to spin it as than just favoritism, they had a very rocky start everyone in the family is aware of, so its more likely to just read as like....Bruce making more of an effort where its already understandable to everyone else that an effort is merited.

And Bruce HAS admittedly at different times been written as very clearly making an effort and being a good father to his kids, like, the capacity has always been there of course. But there were ‘good times’ with Bruce and Jason, with Bruce and Dick, with Bruce and Tim, etc, etc. So when the effort being seen comes paired with an understandable or apparent GAP the others are aware of.....the effort is easily seen as nothing more than BRIDGING the already existant gap, rather than....advancing that one particular child AHEAD of the others.

So much of the conflict between Bruce and Dick during Jason’s time as Robin stemmed from the fact that.....there was a huge, existing gap between Bruce and Dick even BEFORE Bruce took Jason in....and there was no effort made by Bruce during that time to bridge that gap. And then Bruce took Jason in, adopted him, made him Robin....STILL while making no attempt to reach out to Dick, make amends, bridge the gap he was steadily INCREASING between both boys and their respective relationships with him....so y’know, its kinda hard NOT to see or at least understandably imagine favoritism from Dick’s POV there....

BUT, its also easy to imagine why from the other kids’ perspectives, Dick might be Bruce’s favorite or the one he’s closest with, and its not because he’s perfect or the original or anything like that, but rather just....time.

Quite simply, Dick is the one kid Bruce spent the most time with, before any of the others joined the family. He spent a good eight years growing up in the manor, Bruce’s only family other than Alfred. Its quite easy and understandable to imagine from the perspective of the ones who came later, this would translate into more closeness, more ease and familiarity, even more respect, more love......because that thing that they each have with Bruce to some degree, that makes them family, the time spent with him, the comfort or praise they’ve received from him, purely in an empirical sense, in terms of rough numbers if nothing else, Dick has had more of it. Bruce has given more of it.

Of course they’re resentful or assume they can’t measure up, in light of that. How can the mere two or three years some of them have had as Bruce’s family compete with the eight Dick had and that’s even just before any of the others came along at all.

So they look at Bruce making an effort with Dick, the way he doesn’t always do with them, they see Bruce making a point to acknowledge Dick or praise him or express he’s putting his faith in him - all the things they’re all eager to hear - and the easiest and most obvious conclusion to draw when asking themselves “why is he like that with Dick, but not with me, or at least never as much”....is that its because of that essential element Dick and Bruce’s relationship has that none of the others do.....time.

The problem is, of course.....they don’t have the whole perspective, and they’re drawing conclusions without paying proper consideration to all the possible alternatives.

Because yes, Bruce and Dick’s relationship has had more time to encompass so many of the good moments and the positives between them......but the reverse is equally true. Its had that much more time to encompass the bad moments and the negatives in their relationship as well. And this is part of the narrative trap created when not focusing on or even just acknowledging the downs of Dick and Bruce’s relationship, specifically where the burden of responsibility is on Bruce.....because it sets up a quandary - “Bruce often behaves differently with Dick than he does with his other children” - but only allows certain interpretations to be read in as possible explanations for this.

So the second you lock in the take that Bruce’s relationship with Dick has never really HAD any low moments because Dick wasn’t fired, they weren’t estranged for years (though cough cough, what’s your explanation for Bruce’s absence from major defining stories of Dick’s at the time where he really could have used some comfort or support from Bruce, like the Church of Blood or Titans Hunt BUT I DIGRESS), and NTT #55 certainly didn’t happen, then its like.....you’ve reduced the intricacies of their dynamic and past history down to only its fundamental positives, and as such are only really showcasing Bruce being more positive than not with Dick while layering in the impression that this is the way its always been.....

And not only are you giving cause to the other children looking at this dynamic and seeing only one possible explanation - whether or not its just because they’ve spent more time together, Dick is Bruce’s favorite and always will be - you’re also creating the inevitability that Dick pretty much MUST be written as equally positive towards Bruce at all times - aka appearing as the loyal footsoldier his siblings often accuse him of being, particularly when they’re having their own conflicts with Bruce and Dick is defending him - OR if you write Dick as behaving negatively towards Bruce or making complaints of his own against Bruce....who in the eyes of all the others, clearly already favors Dick more than them as is.....it makes Dick look like a spoiled, ungrateful asshole who can’t even appreciate the fact that Bruce already loves and respects him more than he does any of them, like nothing will ever be good enough for him.

Basically, as is a fairly common theme for me, lol, my point is that I think a lot of the more negative and two-dimensional portrayals of Dick in fandom come not even from writers innately or initially seeing HIM that way....but rather are just a symptom of the corners many often write themselves into simply by REFUSING to write other characters in certain negative ways....without paying consideration to the ripple effects this would have on the dynamic between both characters overall. And then more readers and fans internalize these negative and two-dimensional portrayals of Dick and add them or have them feed into their own predispositions towards any of the other characters aside from him, and it kinda creates and perpetuates this whole self-sustaining cycle, where Dick so often becomes the ‘bad guy’ in family conflicts purely because writers won’t LET anyone ELSE ever be even just more responsible for a conflict with him.

But the second you put back even just ONE of the elements often cut out from Bruce and Dick’s relationship in support of Bruce, whether its firing Dick, not trying to make amends with him the whole time Jason lived with Bruce, the scene between them after Jason’s death......

Suddenly, you’ve got another explanation for why Bruce might be making MORE of an effort with Dick at times, to show he appreciates him, loves him, is proud of him.....because Bruce fucked up, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. And this is his awkward way of trying to show and not tell, because he doesn’t think the telling is ever going to be good enough, and its not even that Dick’s too petty or spiteful to ever accept Bruce’s apology, its that because its never taken the form of an ACTUAL apology, an ACTUAL acknowledgment of wrongdoing and an attempt to make amends.....its more likely Dick not seeing it for what it is on Bruce’s part is just Dick not wanting to set himself up for more disappointment, figuring he might be reading more into it than is actually there just because he WANTS to believe its an apology of some sort, he WANTS to forgive Bruce and get back at least some of what they lost over the years.

And meanwhile, from all the other kids’ perspectives, they see Bruce clearly making SOME kind of an effort with Dick that he doesn’t always make with them, and that when he does, usually its paired with something in their mind that makes it read as “oh that’s why he’s behaving this way” rather than “oh, clearly, this is proof I am The Favored One,”...BUT having access to only parts of the picture and no clue about a lot of the rest, working off of limited evidence, there’s no real way for them TO draw the correct conclusion....that this is Bruce trying to make RIGHT something that went WRONG.....not Bruce just lavishing Dick with praise and respect and recognition any of them would kill for and he seems to get for no reason....other than the obvious one....Dick’s the first, the original, the one who has a decade headstart on all of us in Bruce’s eyes and who we thus will never be able to catch up to so why try, hey, we should totally just, stab Caesar.

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vampiresuns · 4 years

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Aelius Anatole Radošević De Silva

Anatole has changed a bit as a character since i was around the first time, so he’s getting re introduced. His open to make friends.

art by @elizastarkart

Name: Aelius Anatole Radoševic De Silva. He has two surnames because his mother is latina. He is a mixed Latine-Slav, with family that is all latine, vesuvian, and slavic. People he’s friend’s with call him Anatole (russian/greek pronunciation, he doesn’t acknowledge the French one). Only people he has a strictly professional relationship with, and his uncle call him Aelius.

‘Aelius’ means sun, while ‘Anatole’ means sunrise. He’s fully aware of this, he chose his name himself.

His nicknames are:

‘Nana’ is the most common nickname, and the one most people use.

His mother calls him Lilito, Nana, Nanito, Toly, Tolito, Tortolito.

His father calls him Lily or Lilu.

Toly, Tolytoly or Tolito are nicknames used by his maternal grandmother, his aunt, and his Vesuvian family.

He will not mind if you want to call him Toly, but you cannot call him Lily/Lilu if you’re not his father.

Asra came up with Nanatole, which he doesn’t like but lets Asra call him anyway. Asra also came up with Nana Banana and that is absolutely forbidden.

Family: on his father’s side both the Radošević, who are slavic (yugoslavic, specifically), and the Cassano, a prominent Vesuvian family who has had a hold of the Consulship for years.

On his mother side, the De Silva.

His father’s name is Vladislav, but everyone calls him Vlad, he’s an alchemist, a polymath, and works in what is most similar to biochemical engineering. He has one bother, named Valeriy, who you, however, might now as Valerius. Vlad’s biggest personality trait is being head over heels in love with his wife, and adoring his son more than he thought it was humanly possible to care about someone.

His mother’s name is Louisa De Silva (if you want to add her mother’s surname, it’s Lascal). The L-o-u spelling was a registry mistake she never changed. She moved half across the world while her native country suffer a military-civilian dictatorship to study Medicine. She swore never to go back as long as vestiges of said dictatorship remained in the country. She has two sisters: Paris, who lives in Vesuvia, and Alma, who remained with her parents out of her own choosing. Her medical experience include having been a volunteer war doctor. She didn’t change her surname when she got married.

The Radošević (pronounced Radozheveech) and the Cassano have been entangled families by friendship for generations upon generations, with some marriages between them. Notoriously: Vlad and Val’s father married a Cassano, Matilda, and his bother Mircea, Anatole’s great uncle, also married a Cassano: Florentino. Mircea’s brother and Matilda Cassano died when Vlad and Val were children still, so him and Florentino brought them up.

The Radošević are an overall eccentric family (think the european Addams family), whom are noted for: one, their self-sufficiency/self-preservation, which comes out in a very ‘eccentric people of the world unite’ manner. They appreciate people with character. Two, their leanings towards trades/professions, they do not conceive not doing anything (work hard to play hard). The Cassano, while sharing the quirk, they add the zest for life. It’s like they grabbed the Radošević and told them “you have forgotten how to live and we will remind you how.” Both of them are ridden with racially ambiguous bastard you cannot kill in any way that matters. They simply refuse to. Someone (either the courtiers or Lucio) compared them to roaches, they took it as a compliment.

This will tell you a lot about Anatole’s character.

On a last note, Anatole’s an only child. He has a good relationship with his parents, albeit marked by a sense of distance, solely because he was privately tutored from age 15 and on, which required him to travel a fair share. He was an argumentative teenager, but always cherished whenever he could see his parents. The older he gets, the closer they all become.

Favourite Food: Cake

Favourite drink: Coffee, in general.

Favourite Flower: Iris

Birthday: Nov 1st

Age: 29 (I calculate his age as if he had been born in 1991)

Zodiac:

Sun: Scorpio

Moon: Virgo

Rising: Libra

Mercury & Mars: Scorpio

Venus: Virgo

Patron arcana: Strength & Ace of Swords

Strength

Upright: inner strength, bravery, compassion, focus, Reversed: self doubt, weakness, insecurity

Ace of Swords

Upright: breakthrough, clarity, sharp mind, Reversed: confusion, brutality, chaos

MBTI Type: INTJ-A

Gender: Transmasculine, but Nonbinary. Uses He/Him pronouns only

Orientation: Identifies as NBLM.

LIs: Julian, Muriel, @ilyamatic‘s Andrico, @thelazaretmakesmesad‘s Vishal.

“The sun-like strategist with a solution for everything, and a whole lot of hope in the future.”

More details under the cut!

Physical appearance:

art by @lesbianarcana

5′4. As you can see in the sprite down below, while he’s slim but with muscle, out of doing a moderate to high level of physical activity. The man has a nice waist and inherited his mother’s hips, which he’s very proud of. He likes his legs and his butt the most about himself

Dark brown eyes, long eyelashes. His hair is naturally black, but he dyes it blond.

Has a mole over his right eyebrow, on the left side of the bridge of his nose, and on his left jaw. He has freckles.

An horizontal scar on his nose, which he got by getting hit with a wooden scaffold square in the face. His nose wasn’t broken out of sheer dumb luck. He has a smaller cut on his cheekbone, which was done by a fencing sabre which lacked the proper tip protection/button. It was done onto him by someone else.

The nose scar is how he met Julian before the plague, as he was the doctor which cured his face.

He has several tattoos:

Right arm: A rapier on his inner forearm. Over his elbow he has a black work band, and over it the words ‘THE SUN IS MY UNDOING’ in all caps, circling his arm.

Left arm: a snake wrapped around his forearm, near to the wrist. The Odyssey quote ‘let’s have a toast to the incompetence of our enemies’ under the inner crook of his elbow, and a floral half sleeve.

Chest and Torso: AMOR OMNIA VINCIT over where his heart is supposed to be. He has laurel leaves on the base of his waist.

Legs: ‘o serpent heart hid with a flowering face‘ in his upper, inner thigh, like really up his left inner thigh. A floral anklet on his right ankle.

Languages Spoken: Too many. He speaks nine languages.

Magic Specialities: His magic is connected to both light and languages (it is a play on words with ‘logos’) so he is both adept in photokinesis — he is able to create and manipulate sources of light — and language related magic — which includes incantation and language manipulation. He learns languages as a faster rate than most people, and while he cannot speak or literally understand a language unless he learns it, his magic allows him to intuitively grasp the meaning of words that are being spoken to him.

This capacity also makes him very good at recognising hidden intentions in people. This is not an ability that he broadcasts having, and when he later succeeds Valerius as the Consul, it is something which aids his diplomatic work but he keeps private.

His words tend to carry more weight sometimes because of his magic, something which he can’t always control — it depends on many factors — so he tries to choose his words carefully and with consideration.

His familiar is a Raccoon, named Antu.

Occupation: While he did study magic and is in touch with his magic, he studied politics, diplomacy and international relations. By trade, and out of will to help people, he is a political analyst and, later in life, a Statesman.

Personality/Trivia:

Willpower or Stubbornness? Depends how you look at it. Passionate, generally devoted, hopeful, independent and sometimes defiant. He is a people-oriented introvert. Competitive, but not aggressively so.

Smarter than he gives himself credit for. Overall charming, even debonair.

Curious by nature, hates having his decisions taken for him.

He is proper, sometimes even distinguished, but he is feral. A firm believer in being kind and compassionate with people, until you cross him one too many times, then nothing will make him taint his vindictive wrath.

Is he humble? For the most part. His humbleness comes from knowing his own limits and knowing he’s not infallible. He does have, however, a good deal of pride in himself and trust in what he can do, and he doesn’t like being underestimated.

He’s not particularly loud, though when the chatterbox is on, then it is on, specially if he’s nervous. He is often never still.

He’s known he has ADHD since he was seventeen.

Likes dancing.

He fences, almost every Radošević fences/sword fights, and he will let you know at the slightest chance. Which can be either him simply being hyper-fixated in fencing, him flirting, or him letting you know that if the occasion rises, he’s armed.

Friend shaped, lover shaped if you’re daring enough.

He wrinkles his nose when he doesn’t like something.

Speaking of which: he doesn’t like abuse of power, the Court, injustice, supremacists of any kind, unkind, hurtful and selfish people in general; he doesn’t like red meat (he says it tastes like metal or dirt), narrow minded people, incompetence, specially when displayed by people in positions of power, and purposeful apathy.

A mastermind archetype, but he draws his power from connection. He does not conceive a life not lived with others.

A bit of a bastard, he enjoys a good laugh.

He plays the piano and the harp, he sings, he cannot draw, he’s a lightweight when it comes to alcohol (which doesn’t really stop him), he likes the opera because he likes watching other people’s drama without being dragged into it, and his favourite season is winter. Also likes playing chess, reading, coffee, flowers, a well tailored outfit, learning, languages, the sea, mysteries, winter, a well laid argument, collecting quills, music, winning, knowing he loves and is loved in return.

When he was 7 he bribed his dad for more dessert, and he ate so much he vomited. His sweet tooth hasn’t gone anywhere, it is alive and well.

Perceptive little bastard, will knife cat you for the sake of it. He has a way more present sense of humour than what he comes across.

Would call himself a ‘trans masculine Mary Poppins’.

He is closest to his parents, his uncle, my other ocs Leonore, Medea and Sabine, his cousins Amparo Cassano and Milenko Radošević, Natiqa, Asra, Portia and Nadia.

If he liked women, he would be paired with Nadia. The possibility both terrifies and fascinates me.

@ilyamatic, @viviae, @gaybirdwrites, @arcanaprentiss @apprenticeofcups

#the arcana oc #the arcana mc #aelius anatole

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cameoamalthea · 4 years

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I think it's interesting how many people were wanting Jester to leave Artagan and go with the Moonweaver (who is awesome btw). I can't properly convey how relieved I am that didn't happen and that their already strong bond was made stronger and they both grew from it. Because that is how good relationships work and people are capable of changing for the better. Finding new faith worked for Fjord, but I don't believe it would have worked for Jester the same way. What they have can't be replaced.

If Artagan was forcibly taken from Jester it would have been traumatizing for Jester.

What the Mighty Nein, and perhaps a portion of the fandom, don’t understand is that Jester is a depressed lonely person who hides it. She puts on a mask of always happy and fine, it’s ok. She’s not ok and they don’t see it. Jester is also afraid of being alone, which plays into her fear of being disliked and abandoned.

Whether or not anyone else likes Artagan, Jester LOVES him and she has some serious attachment issues so just ripping him away from her would be super harmful.

There’s a scene in C2E19 where the party sees a shack and wants to investigate it. Jester suggests turning Frumpkin into a bird to go check it out since it’s like a mile away. Caleb does not like the idea, but then playfully says for you Fjord I will do it. Jester responds by being dramatic and pouting about him shooting her down but being willing to do it for Fjord.

LAURA: Can Frumpkin be a bird?

LIAM: (reluctantly) Yeah.

TALIESIN: For a bit.

TRAVIS: I want to check out the shack.

LIAM: All right. For you, Fjord, I will make Frumpkin a bird.

LAURA: Not for me, though. Caleb hates me.

SAM: We could just walk over there. It's a hassle to turn him into a bird.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Keep your cat.

LIAM: You are more sensitive than I would have imagined.

LAURA: I want people to like me.

Caleb is extremely observant and although this is a light, playful scene, says something that cuts really close. “You are more sensitive than I would have imagined.” She’s being over the top and dramatic, he criticizes her, and since what she was joking about what is actually some real insecurity she kind of deflates, her voice gets real small and she says “I want people to like me.”

It’s a blink and you’ll miss it moment made harder to catch by the fact everyone is talking at once and Laura is eating pizza (role-playing with your mouth full - this is not to shame her for eating, she is entitled to that pizza, but it might make it harder to pick up on the moment). However, I think this touches upon something important.

Jester is in fact extremely insecure about being liked, and you see this with her relationship with the Traveler. Worrying that he might not like her now that she has other friends at first, and constantly needing reassurance that she’s the most important.

There’s a brilliant thread on reddit that sums up Jester’s character as follows:

“She's a people-pleaser because she's afraid to lose people. She grew up with the only 'low resource' being people - caring, loving, laughing people. She had her mother, who definitely loves her, but that was it. Most children have scores of people, and other children! to play with. Jester didn't.

And she's afraid to lose that, at any cost. Even realizing she was manipulated, keeping Artagen is more important than standing up for herself or showing her disappointment, because she can't lose him.

Onto - Artagen. What we know:

He's openly admitted to being manipulative and selfish

More importantly: he's openly admitted to never wanting to be bored and never wanting to 'get into emotions'

This REALLY matters. Why?

Because Jester is afraid of losing everyone so she can't be what those people don't want.

Jester can't be upset in front of Artagen because he might get bored with all of her emotions and leave.

It's crazy important for her to be his favorite because, as she is helping him leave all of his followers (her biggest fear) he keeps saying he won't leave her.”

Jester has pretty serious abandonment issues. Children need the attention and support of a caregiver. RedditTotalWar made a great point on that reddit thread: “A significant withdrawal of attention is often enough to cause a child to develop abandonment issues. Children don't have the capacity to realize that some things aren't about them since they are the centers of their own universe.” So the fact Jester’s mother, who clearly loves her and is a good person, did not always have time for her and required Jester to keep her existence secret is damaging.

Note, this is not to suggest that Marrion is a bad person or was intentionally abusive. You don’t have to be a monster to hurt a child. Disney example: In Tangled, Mother Gothel isolated Rapunzel and was an abuser who just wanted to use her. In Frozen, Anna’s Mother and Father isolated Anna out of a desire to do what they thought was best for their other daughter Elsa and to protect Anna from what they saw as the threat posed by Elsa’s magic. Anna’s parents were not intentionally abusive and loved their children, but Anna was still neglected and isolated and harmed by their actions.

To Jester, the message she got growing up was ‘Momma loves me, but she’s busy and I can’t get in the way and no one can know I exist’ which could easily be taken as ‘Momma loves me, but I’m not the most important thing to her’ or even ‘Momma loves me, but my existence makes her life harder, so maybe I’m not completely lovable since I’m a problem’.

And while you may think, if she was that worried why would she act out and play pranks and cause trouble, the fact is that children who are insecure about being loved may self-sabotage with caregivers. You see a high rate of disruption in foster children right before adoption because the child starts exhibiting behaviors. Perhaps faced with the fear of, maybe my parental won’t love me if I cause trouble, it feels safer just deliberately causing trouble because then at least you’re the one in control rather than walking on eggshells terrified that messing up could mean abandonment.

The fact that Jester’s prank on Lord Sharp resulted in her having to leave the only home she’s ever known and never come back under threat of death and that her Mother could not (or in her mind, would not?) protect her may have made her abandonment issues a lot worse.

Jester is terrified of being left alone, of being abandoned. Taking away the one person who has been a constant in her life and who she has felt safe with all at once would not be good. As Laura said on her playlist “he’s always been the one person she could show her insecurities to” and losing that stable, trusted person would hurt.

I don’t think her relationship with Artagan is entirely healthy (it’s not healthy for a child to grow up with only one other friend and her attachment to him extreme and also he’s a selfish, manipulative Archfey - I don’t think Artagan thinks this relationship is entirely healthy). However, I do not think it would have been better for her to have him ripped away like that. Especially given the fact that the whole Moonweaver thing was her idea and she would likely blame herself for what happened.

How devastating would that be for someone with Jester’s level of insecurity?

The Mighty Nein, and again a portion of the fandom, may have preferred it if Jester broke up with Artagan and moved on or found a new god. Fjord’s relationship with Uk’otoa (Uk’atoa) was toxic and abusive, so the Mighty Nein are very wary of that sort of relationship. Fjord if projecting and thinks that any relationship with a powerful being that isn’t a god is dangerous.

The truth is Jester’s relationship with Artagan isn’t really like one of cleric and god. It’s more like a personal relationship where he happens to give her divine powers.

LAURA: I take a bite of my caramel apple, and I go walking down.

MATT: You hear a crunch sound and your handshakes for a second and you look down and a mysterious secondary bite was taken out of the apple.

LAURA: (gasp) I lick the spot.

(groaning)

SAM: You're making out with your god? Gross.

MATT: They have a special relationship.

A special relationship indeed, Matt. It’s intimate, she talks to him about her crushes and asks him for advice on boys then casually confesses love to him.

LAURA: You're not jealous, are you?

MATT: "No."

LAURA: You'll always be my number one love.

MATT: "I know.”

Fjord is an orphan who was looking for parental figures. Vandren was a mentor and father figure, and it was through Vandren that Fjord gained his connection to Uk’otoa. The Wild Mother felt Motherly to Fjord and in Talks Travis said that when Matt first described the feeling his thoughts were on like have I found my Mother somehow. To Fjord religion is a divine parent, an authority figure who provides guidance and direction, and in the case of the Wild Mother love and support for him.

Jester has never seen the Traveler as a ‘dad figure’. He’s just her best friend and based on her behavior towards him and jealousy towards his other followers, and the number of love songs on Laura’s playlist, I’m pretty convinced that Jester is IN LOVE with him.

(I don’t know if that feeling is required. Given they grew up together with him in the form of another child and the fact Artagan is actually ancient, I think he sees her more like a little sister. This might be why he was so confused when she grabbed his face and leaned in like she was about to kiss him despite the fact that like she’s flat out told him that he’s her number one love and requires constant reassurance that she’s his favorite and acts like a schoolgirl with a very obvious crush)

And again, all of this may not be healthy or ideal for Jester. She might get hurt. However, I think in order to grow the relationship has to run it’s course no matter what happens. Artagan not only acted completely selflessly by kicking her off of him rather than face the possibility that she’d have to choose between him and or friends or be banished with him but like - he apologized to her.

An actual, real, non-manipulative apology. He admitted he was manipulative and he’s sorry and when she tries to play it off as it’s fine, he says he doesn’t want to defend himself. He’s sorry.

That’s growth.

#artagan #jester lavorre #Critical role spoilers #critical role #critical role meta #meta #essays #Anonymous

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quillyfied · 4 years

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Mega Good Omens Fic Rec Post 5

What up, it’s back!

77 carefully-curated titles for your perusal today! As always, the fics are broken into the following categories: Jaunts through History/Canon, South Downs, Post-Apocalypse, Bus Ride/The Night Before/Heaven and Hell, AU/UA, Just Soft, Touch-Starved/Body Worship/Wings, Bonus, and H/C /Whump/BAMF. I don’t read smut fics but sometimes there are sexual elements to the stories and sometimes you get invested and then suddenly the author drops a smut chapter, so warnings where applicable.

Mega GOmens Fic Rec Post MASTER

LET ME KNOW IF A LINK IS BROKEN OR MISATTRIBUTED AND I WILL FIX IT RIGHT AWAY.

JAUNTS THROUGH HISTORY/CANON

1. Get Thee To A Nunnery – Owenjones (T, the one where Aziraphale is put in a nunnery and needs a bit of a rescue. More or less Ineffable Wives time, but warnings for Aziraphale being forced into a female corporation against his will, that’s pretty icky (three guesses for who the offending Archangel is). Crowley is posing as a little lady known as Julie D’Aubigny, which, if that rings no bells, you should Google her immediately and then go into this fic cackling like I did. Very sweet, a fun little adventure!)

2. Bibliophilia – @wingedspirit (G, the one where Aziraphale has a book nemesis and Crowley always seems to have the perfect book as a gift, what a coincidence. This is so funny, you guys, seriously. We stan ONE (1) oblivious angel in this house. And when Aziraphale finally catches on, it’s so cute, I can’t even. I cannot EVEN. Go read it right now immediately.)

3. The Heart Goes To Heaven, The Head Goes To Hell – Dekkles (T, the one where Crowley has intentions of making an angel Fall and it kinda…backfires. Guys fair warning, this one’s version of Hell is really gross, if you’re squeamish tread very carefully bc WOW it can get a bit graphic. Y’know what’s also gross? The PINING (obviously not gross in the same way but the pining is awfully feelsy and part of it does happen in Hell). Watching this Crawly go from an honestly nauseating portrayal of Hell to watching Aziraphale and kinda awkwardly twitching in his light is so delightful and I hope for more in the future (though maybe less visions of Hell, I will be so glad if and when the fic leaves that place because yikes).)

4. i like this place (it feels spooky) – @asideofourown (G, the one where Warlock manages to convince Nanny and Brother Francis to take him to a haunted house and it’s so cute. You guys. It’s SO cute. You really get a feel for little Warlock’s personality and how he sees things (and he sees ALL). Just a really cute “family” outing, really, and someone gets spooked at the end and it’s not who you think!)

5. Doubt the Stars are Fire – LilithReisender (T, the one where Aziraphale bails Crowley out of prison and they spend time together in an Italian villa. This one has cool history bits, really fun banter, and Crowley actively on the job while trying to pretend he isn’t on the job. It’s a delight, and it’s just getting started! Jump on this bandwagon, folks, it’s great!)

6. The Hellfire Club – @amarguerite (NR, the one where greater measures are taken to make sure Aziraphale isn’t promoted back upstairs. This one is so hilarious, you guys, I can’t even tell you which bit is my favorite. And the cherry on top? Wing grooming! (I can also tell you that something highly unpleasant happens to Sandalphon, if that sweetens the pot for anyone.) If you have a Thing for Crowley and Aziraphale being melodramatic and overacting, then stay put, friends. Also continue reading this list, there’s a few more that’ll catch your eye later on.)

7. The Immortal Look – MickyRC (G, the one where Crowley puts Aziraphale in some kohl and it’s awesome. A written entry for the Prince of Omens DTIYS, and even independent from Prince of Omens this fic is a winner, in my book. Crowley going dewy-eyed over Aziraphale’s looks in any capacity is always My Jam and this fic really goes for it.)

8. Merry & Bright – @peppervl (G, the one where Aziraphale and Crowley go undercover as a married couple in the Regency. You like fem!Aziraphale but don’t see it often enough? SIT DOWN, FRIENDO. Not only does this have a lovely Miss Fell for us to fawn over, but it’s a Miss Fell in possession of a fortune and surely in want of a husband, according to prim-and-proper London, and who better to help her out than one Mr. Crowley who happens to need some help on a temptation? Fun, romantic, and with a cute little twist at the end I shan’t spoil but you should really stick around for.)

9. Putting the Endearment in Dear – @joyandotherstories (G, the one where Aziraphale starts calling everyone “dear” just so he can also call Crowley by endearments. This one is sweet and a little sad and has the softest possible ending, y’all don’t even know. Read it, the point in time where Aziraphale doesn’t have to hold back his mountain of endearments anymore is a sight to behold.)

10. Between the Lines – cyankelpie (G, the one where Crowley and Aziraphale’s feelings are known but not spoken, at least not directly. This one is a historical jaunt where they have a lot of double-meaning conversations (and Crowley is very rightly lost through a lot of it, poor dear), and it aches, you guys, it just hurts. Not finished yet as of this review but WHEN IT’S DONE—I’m sure it’ll be worth it. Hot dang.)

11. No Matter How the Stars Align (They Make Me Think of You) – silentsonata (G, the one that covers stars that Crowley and Aziraphale have met under. Every once in a while there’ll come along a fic that shakes the ground as it walks. I understand the Big Bang events usually churn these out, and there are quite a few on this list, but this fic here? A masterpiece. Pitch-perfect in every way, just a stunner. I want to tell y’all to pay special attention to certain chapters but they all took my breath utterly away and it would be unfair to single any out over the rest, the whole work is a monument. Just beautiful.)

12. Too Wise to Woo Peaceably – purewanderlust (T, the one that’s five times they see “Much Ado About Nothing” throughout history. I love me some “Much Ado,” personally, and this fic knows what it’s on about. Wonderfully romantic and ends with the single most perfect conversation, I swear 2 someone. Hits right in the feels.)

13. Just Another Sword Fight – DemonicGeek (NR, the one that’s a 5+1 about Crowley swordfighting. If you’re here because Aziraphale taking on the role of the swooning maiden to Crowley’s dashing hero makes you, in fact, be the one swooning, say hello to your new best friend. If you like to follow all that up with Aziraphale taking charge when needed, I might suggest building a home here, because ABSOLUTELY that’s what you’re getting.)

14. A Few More Rescues – @poetic----nonsense (T, the one with, predictably, a few more rescues. If the previous fic had you reeling and begging for more, welcome to the buffet, children. These are some really fun rescues by Crowley on behalf of Aziraphale, and they’re unconventional and historical AF (especially the bit with the dragon) (you bet your sweet keister there’s a bit with a dragon). This fic is so much fun and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.)

15. Floriography – Frenchmeister (T, the one where Crowley doesn’t get flower language. The premise is, Crowley slept through a large chunk of the Victorian era, so he doesn’t know what Aziraphale keeps trying to say as they work at the Dowlings’ estate raising Warlock. He does know that the philodendron is a menace, no matter what it’s supposed to mean. Funny and nerve-wracking and so, so sweet.)

16. The Interplay of Illusion and Magic – SoulJelly (T, the one where Aziraphale tries to join a magicians’ society. This one has some delightful history and Aziraphale trying to perform sleight of hand magic to get in a secret magicians club and a surprising twist near the middle, all told; it’s a lot more exciting than I initially thought it was going to be (I was just expecting some fluff and that was not all I got; it’s always a good day when Crowley has to come to the rescue).)

SOUTH DOWNS

17. There goes the neighborhood – @bestoftheseekwill (G, the one where Crowley’s retirement peace is threatened by construction. If you’re here for Crowley wiles, anti-capitalism, and flashes of protective Aziraphale, get ready to take a load off because this is primo.)

18. Teatime Revelations – Cardinal_Daughter (T, the one where God invites Herself over for tea. This one is strained and it’s emotional and it’s all the softer for it. Aziraphale being quiet and protective while Crowley has a come-apart in the face of God is iconic, tbh; pretty sure this fic inspired a lot of my own portrayals of the GOmens God, looking back on it. A wonderful and light-hearted take.)

POST-APOCALYPSE

19. Lose a Kraken, Gain an Angel – MistressKat (T, the one where Hastur has an expected friendship. This fic has everything—Hastur being a sympathetic character, the Kraken, Crowley pining after Aziraphale, the Antichrist, and is hilarious from start to finish. A fun and tonally accurate diversion, please read.)

20. Something Old, Something New – shippityshipship (G, the series where Crowley and Aziraphale are involved in weddings. Short and hasn’t updated in a while but still excellent reading, I find; great characterization, some fun OCs, lovely atmosphere, oblivious pining while everyone else thinks they’re dating, it’s amazing.)

21. The difficulty with disposable demons – @areyougonnabe (T, the one where Eric the disposable demon shows up and it’s a madhouse in Crowley’s apartment. This is a really funny take on what happens to the disposable demons and why they are the way they are, and with the added bonus of driving Crowley up the wall and some mild miscommunications with Aziraphale that are all sorted out in the end.)

22. Care and Keeping – @arcafira (M, T, the series where Crowley is shedding and Aziraphale tries to help. Not rated M for anything violent or sexual, really more of a T than an M but there is a bath scene and a lot of self-loathing. There’s a lot of convincing Crowley to let Aziraphale care for him and a lot of working through Fall-related issues, but it leaves off in a wonderfully hopeful place.)

23. The Clockwork Days – redwinehouse (T, the one where the world’s ending again. There are many fics that have tackled possible sequels to Good Omens and this is one of the more tonally accurate ones, I feel; it’s very tongue-in-cheek and matter-of-fact, and the little twist at the end was a genuine surprise to me. Whack in plenty of mutual pining and a Bentley that has had it up to HERE with these idiots and you’ve got a recipe for a good little story.)

24. don’t leave me here alone – Elvendork (T, the one where Crowley asks for holy water again. This one is a tense argument, right up until it isn’t, and absolutely delectable, really. If you’re a fan of Aziraphale bringing up hellfire to go toe to toe with Crowley on the issue, BUCKLE UP BUTTERCUP, this one is dunking itself into Soft Town with that accelerant to really drive it home.)

25. The Next Time We Wed – seashadows (T, the one where a mix-up leads to marriage. If drunken mistakes and their aftermath is what you’re after, welcome to the party, folks, because this one’s a whopper. Can people pine while being married to each other? The answer is yes. Can it have a soft ending? Also yes. Can it include the mothers of such characters as Anathema and Newt being wonderful characters in their own right? The answer, incredibly, is yes.)

26. You Can’t Un-See A Dog – @holycatsandrabbits (T, the one where Crowley is summoned and there’s shenanigans afoot. I won’t talk too much about the plot of this one bc I don’t want to spoil it but suffice it to say that this one is hilarious and has some especially gratifying Ineffable Husband silent communication at play. If your entire reason for existence, like Crowley’s, is seeing Bastard!Aziraphale at work, then bunk down here, friendos, you’ve arrived.)

BUS RIDE/NIGHT BEFORE/HEAVEN AND HELL

27. Crowley, Big Bad Demon, Can Keep His Cool Around His Crush – @edennovik (T, the one where Crowley…well, see title, and then immediately disregard. Crowley cannot, in fact, keep his cool around his crush. Crowley is doing the opposite of keeping his cool around his crush. Crowley is a ball of anxiety and screaming pining gooey mess and Aziraphale might just like him anyway.)

AU/UA

28. If Not Now, When – @ineffablefool (T, the one where trans café worker Crowley strikes up a conversation with fat pretty Aziraphale. Listen. Y’all know ineffablefool. Y’all know he is a force that cannot be stopped or reckoned with, when it comes to Soft Fat-Postive Asexual Romance. So I do not say this lightly when I say that this is possibly his masterwork. There is a lot of good, good content in his catalogue but the emotional work put into this makes the whole thing stand straight up and resonate. It’s tender and respectful and handles conflicts of gender and sexuality with grace and gentleness and oh no I’m tearing up pls send help I’m DROWNING—).

29. Trip the Light – @summerofspock (M, the one where Aziraphale falls in love first. M for a sex scene near the end of the fic, second half of Chapter 17, so keep an eye out for that if you’re sensitive to it. Oh, y’all. This one goes through canon and a few scenes outside of it and the recontextualizing of those scenes as Aziraphale hopelessly in love and Crowley as oblivious is amazing. Even more amazing: once Crowley finally catches on and then it becomes Aziraphale once again in his role of holding back. Guys. Y’all. My DUDES. I am in the throes of agony. It’s so good.)

30. one love (only for you) – @weatheredlaw (M, the one that’s a vague Snow White AU. It’s truly unfair how poetic and romantic this one is, how lovely. It has fantasy elements and ridiculous vengeful brothers and soft, soft boys in love. A sweet little way to spend an afternoon, tbh.)

31. in the house we remain – @commodorecliche (M, the one where Crowley’s a ghost in the house Aziraphale has bought. M for masturbation, weird ghost sex, and a harrowing backstory for Crowley; if you’re squeamish about sexual things and not good at gauging how to skip them, or if you can’t stand abuse stories, I would pass this one up. Y’all. Y’ALL. So thoroughly upsetting, this one; the horror elements are real but so is the romance and it’s a beautiful balance of the two. What’s wild is how believable it is; it could easily have been a story about Aziraphale just becoming obsessed with and romanticizing a dead person who used to live in his house but it feels like an actual love story, with Crowley learning how to trust Aziraphale, as well, despite their planar incompatibility. The ending is so unbelievably sweet. And there’s art now! There wasn’t, when I first added it to the list! Huzzah!)

32. pop! goes my heart – @areyougonnabe (E, the one that’s a Music and Lyrics AU. E for a sex scene near the end of Chapter 6 that’s a bit difficult to skip, since there’s a couple of relevant paragraphs after it that set up the next chapter, but if you’re up for the challenge, godspeed. First things first: this fic has ORIGINAL MUSIC RECORDED BY THE AUTHOR AND IT’S AMAZING. Music and Lyrics is one of my personal favorite romcoms, and what’s been done with it is not only accurate to the actual music industry, but accurate to the characters, as well. It’s such a fun story, adapted well, and the writing style is just charming. Fantastic!)

33. For the First Time in Forever – @nicnacsnonsense (T, the one that’s a Frozen AU. I am excited for this one, y’all. The adaptation is already so much fun and it’s only going to get funner. Aziraphale as Elsa and Crowley in an Anna-adjacent role (but not actually bc no incest) is amazing, the Olaf stand-in outshines the original, and the emotional toll is already pretty high. Absolutely worth a read.)

34. Sailor’s Omens – NeverNooitNiet (G, the one where Crowley’s a pirate and Aziraphale is his prisoner. There’s a touch of historical homophobia but that doesn’t matter much out at sea, really. If the boys being clever and bickering and also one-upping beloved series antagonists is something you enjoy, welcome to the party, friends. It’s a good old-fashioned piracy romp that’s sure to satisfy.)

35. Pomegranate Seeds – @nicnacsnonsense (G, the one that’s a Persephone and Hades AU with Aziraphale as Hades and Crowley as Persephone. This one has a unique tone and is also romantic as all get-out; throw in genderfluid Crowley, love at first sight, and Aziraphale being a sweetie, it’s a story well worth its salt, imo.)

36. Laws of Gravity – @brightwanderer (T, the one where Aziraphale invents pining for Raphael. Listen. I think we all know at this point that brightwanderer, or Atalan on ao3, has earned her clout as a GOmens fanfic heavyweight. She didn’t NEED to write an awkward and earnest Raphael trying to go incognito as Crowley into the Garden of Eden. She didn’t NEED to write about how incredibly awkward Aziraphale is while heels over halo in love. She didn’t NEED to have an engaging plot and a wonderful twist on the Temptation of Eve and also the most awkward and obvious besotted angels in the universe. But she did. And we are blessed. So go partake.)

37. Incubus!Crowley – GenericUsername01 (G, T, the series where Crowley is a sex demon and we get to see what that means. This fic threads the very specific needle I personally enjoy where sex is an element of the story and has bearing on it, but the story doesn’t have any actual sex scenes in it. I love this writer’s style and where they take Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship; I love the view of Hell in the first bit; I love all of it, really. A+++.)

38. Everyone But You – @summerofspock (M, the one where Crowley is hired to seduce an angel. M for some saucy makeouts and some post-coital afterglow but nothing explicit. If y’all like stories where a conman is hired to do a job and starts to have complicated feelings about it, especially if those feelings are falling in love with his mark, then here you go. It’s amazing as all heck and hilarious to boot; Crowley learning what falling in love is like is always a treat but omg. Poor Aziraphale. And the most DELIGHTFUL resolution, my goodness.)

39. In Mixed Company, or the Corporate Retreat of Heaven and Hell – @theoldaquarian (M, the one where Heaven and Hell have a joint corporate retreat every so often and Crowley and Aziraphale are doomed. M for some adult themes but nothing explicit. Y’all. TheOldAquarian must be stopped. They cannot continue to be so funny and engaging. They cannot continue to have the most corporate and hilariously mundane depiction of Heaven and Hell. They are a MENACE who, in the space of one fic, has packed all the pining of the ages in so tightly that when it finally bursts free, my shoulders physically relaxed and my spine uncoiled. This fic in particular is too much and too wonderful. I really must protest.)

40. Loosely Ballroom – marginalia_device, @mortifyingideal (T, the one where Aziraphale is a professional dancer and Crowley is a contestant on a show with him (for American viewers, think Dancing With the Stars). This fic is so good and so funny and so achingly in-character. I love Crowley as the washed-up old star trying to kick his career back up, I love Aziraphale as the put-upon dancer on his last legs, and I love that they’re both the victim of a studio gimmick and then decide that malicious compliance is their best bet. It’s still early in the fic (…at over 40k words wow it’s gonna be a monster and I’m ready), but it’s going to be so good already, I can just tell. There’s already some art for it floating around by naniiebimworks for the interested.)

JUST SOFT

41. Repeat the Sounding Joy – @allonsy-gabriel (G, the one where they decorate a Christmas tree. This is a short and sweet look at what the holidays are like for an angel and a demon post-apocalypse and it’s so adorable, you guys. Crowley having FEELINGS and Aziraphale being fussy about his decorating, it’s just a treat.)

42. The Nesting Habits of Angelus Principalum – @obaewankenope (NR, the one where Aziraphale nests and is gently protective. This fic is quiet and understated and so unbelievably romantic without being over the top about it; it’s a quiet coming together that creeps up on you, much like how the realization of Aziraphale’s nesting habits creeps up on Crowley. A lovely little thing.)

43. we’ll get there fast and then we’ll take it slow – @tonyhawksmovingcastle (E, the one where Crowley and Aziraphale wind up faking a relationship on a couple’s cruise. E for Chapter 7, which is completely skippable without ruining any plot. This one gets a double whammy for both engaging plot and wonderful OCs that add to rather than distract from the story. Fake dating is fun enough but when you’re fake dating and also being wingmanned by well-meaning possibly supernatural sapphics, while also having fun in the tropics, it’s a recipe for a good time all around (at least for the audience). So lovely and sweet and that moment when Crowley and Aziraphale finally get together is magic.)

44. Road Trip Games and Love – rgfalso (T, the one where Crowley and Aziraphale go on a road trip together. This one almost takes place in real time, and has the most intense and emotional back-and-forth while these poor saps try to work out the Thing between them without actually talking about it for as long as inhumanly possible. Of course there are lots of road trip games, and of course those road trip games are a vehicle of conveyance for what they’re actually trying to say, and cue all the misunderstandings in the world. It’s frustrating and cathartic and amazing and the end especially is so, so sweet.)

45. The Most Stylish Wedding of AZ Fell and AJ Crowley – @leapoffaith1489 (T, the one where Aziraphale is determined to discard tartan for the wedding. Y’all. Omg. If relatively low-stakes cute wedding shenanigans are your thing, welcome home. If Aziraphale being pleasantly surprised is your thing, welcome home. If Aziraphale working through minor insecurities is your thing, welcome, truly, home. Featuring a lovely cast of side characters and a soft-as-butter plot.)

46. The Newlywed Game (Not What You’d Think) – @heavenslittlehellion (NR, the one where a game of drunken truth-telling goes a little farther than anticipated. Hello, welcome to the emotional gut-punch fic, you’ve arrived. The only thing that saves this from dunking into the last category on this list with the other h/c and whump fics is how low-stakes it is and how soft it is when they get past the unpleasant bit. People who love theories on what the Fall felt like, welcome to the table.)

47. On the Road to Love – Mizmak (G, the one where Crowley enters a motor rally race with the Bentley, with Aziraphale as navigator. While there’s great fun in Crowley and Aziraphale needling each other, there’s greater joy in their friendship and tenderness towards the other (and asexual bed-sharing fans, rejoice). It’s a fun concept all around and definitely worth the read.)

48. Mr. Fell’s Bookshop ficlets – @holycatsandrabbits (G, T, the series where Mr. Fell has regular customers and they love the place as much as they love its weird and eldritch owner. For folks who love seeing the Ineffable Duo through others’ eyes, this is a fun series to scratch that particular itch, and has spawned a number of spin-off fics, unless I’m mistaken. It’s a relatively low-stakes series, for people wanting something like that these days, too.)

49. Quiet Reflection – @shinyopals (T, the one where they have to duck into a church to avoid demons. If the phrase “spicy Jesus crackers” holds any appeal whatsoever, go read this fic immediately. It’s heartfelt and hilarious and really that’s all you can ask for in a good fluff fic. Also Crowley being held. Really, that’s all any of us want from life.)

50. Deck the Halls – forthegreatergood (G, the one where mistletoe should really not be this hard to get a hold of. Y’all you simply MUST stick around for the hijinks in this one. They are manifold and hilarious. Does it end in makeouts? Possibly. You’ll just have to read it, won’t you?)

51. The Secret Dress – GlitterSkullFairy (G, the one where Crowley has a secret wedding dress. This one is very dramatic and sad…and then Aziraphale pops in. Like with all things concerning these two, it immediately takes a turn from there. If putting Crowley in pretty dresses is a thing you enjoy, have a seat and enjoy the show, it’s a softy.)

52. Well…That’s New – @almaasi (G, the one where Crowley doesn’t realize he’s in love. If oblivious Crowley is more to your taste, this is the one for you. Takes the concept “what if Crowley was in love but didn’t realize it” and runs with it for all it’s worth. Hilarious and sweet and wonderful.)

53. serpent, serpent-bearer – @elsajeni (G, the one that’s about horoscopes. I realize the Soft section of the rec list is for things that are Soft but hhnnngkk you guys. This one is so cute. My heart can’t take it. They’re so gosh darned precious, with their newspaper and their horoscopes and their welcome invasion of each other’s personal space.)

54. If Only You Were Mine – @somethingscarlet13 (G, the one where Crowley gets so drunk he can’t remember who Aziraphale’s husband is, just that he’s married. This is a little sugar shot for your day, folks—short, sweet, silly, and did I mention sweet? It is so worth having a giggle at drunk Crowley’s expense, please do read it.)

55. Cupboard Love – @copperplatebeech (T, the one where Crowley is a cranky snek. I would also highly recommend this for folks who enjoy Madam Tracy, especially Madam Tracy being utterly unaffected by being face-to-face with the supernatural and cooing over things like the wonderful lady she is. Fun and a little silly and a lot adorable.)

56. affirmation, appreciation – pearlwaldorf (G, the one where Aziraphale helps someone in need a little differently than expected. This one has Aziraphale taking on the persona of an interested male party looking to pick up the spirits of a woman on the tail end of a messy divorce and Crowley understanding but still getting a little jealous. It’s so sweet and so lovely, both what Aziraphale and Crowley do for this poor woman and how Aziraphale reassures Crowley afterwards. Top notch.)

57. Forget-Me-Not – @dietraumerei (T, the one where Crowley gets amnesia. Not as dramatic as others, he just loses 200 years and it’s temporary, but it’s ever so sweet, watching Crowley fall back in love with the modern world and be gobsmacked that he and Aziraphale are finally together. There’s a lot of reassurance and tender sweet nothings thrown about and I’m pretty sure I developed a heart condition just from reading this, it’s too good.)

58. They Shake The Mountains When They Dance – @copperbadge (T, the one where Crowley finds Aziraphale’s scar. Operating on the theory that Aziraphale was injured in the War in Heaven and that’s why he clutches his leg and limps when he’s discorporated, this is the sappiest, sweetest rumination on the subject I have ever read. Crowley gets so protective and defensive, and Aziraphale is so gentle in talking him down. On the whole, it’s just wonderful and so, so cute. Omg.)

59. Familiar Care – ginger_mosaic (G, the one where the Ineffable Dads have to take their snabies in for medical help. This comes from the Wiggleverse, which on the whole I cannot strongly recommend enough, but this fic in particular centers around the most delightful OC veterinarian who handles Crowley and Aziraphale’s strange family very well. There’s also a fun twist at the end, so absolutely keep reading to find out what that is. And also, immerse yourself in adorable snake baby shenanigans, because they are the best sort.)

TOUCH-STARVED/BODY WORSHIP/WINGS

60. Rituals (or the Seven Layer Bean Dip Approach to Sex) – SleepySelfLoathing (T, the one where no seriously metaphysical angel/demon sex is super weird. Fans of truly esoteric ethereal/occult mating rituals rejoice, for this is your new home. It’s abstract but no less beautiful for it, I think; the imagery and emotional accompaniment are all lovely, even if they don’t meet conventional human romance standards. You can really tell that it means a lot to Crowley and Aziraphale, the ways they show how much they love each other. A weird and delectable little dish, by all accounts.)

61. Under Pressure – @copperplatebeech (M, the one where Crowley steals kisses. M for sensuality and body worship but nothing too explicit; also could be construed as dubcon kissing, for those of you sensitive to that. Hhhgkk y’all. Crowley thinks he’s being sly getting away with smooching Aziraphale throughout history while they’re both drunk off their rockers but does not count on Aziraphale actually remembering, and then once the Apocalypse is done with and they’re On Their Own Side and Can Aknowledge These Things…well. They do. Crowley is a mess and Aziraphale is a mess and they love each other so much. The writing is so tender and I’m CRYING.)

62. London Calling – forthegreatergood (G, the one with slow-burn wing grooming. There’s so much crammed into this bad boy and it balances it admirably—Crowley’s relationship with Aziraphale, Crowley’s relationship with Hell, Crowley thinking about retirement, Crowley getting preemptively banned from a certain European country for being a pest outside of its consulate, Crowley losing his cool over getting to touch Aziraphale’s wings. Humor, aching tenderness, the kind of longing that feels like a high, quavering violin note, tension and release. A beautiful piece.)

63. Elmie’s Ineffable Fireplace Fics – @almaasi (G, M, M, the series that is completely unrelated except for the physical and also figurative appearances of warm fireplaces. M for sensuality but nothing explicit. The first two are mainly short fluff; the third is a long Regency-esque AU with some gender and sexuality shenanigans on top of Real Danger and Intrigue. True to the writer’s promise, all three fics are pretty comfortable and warm, even if the third has some action and tension. They’re absolutely lovely, imo.)

64. The Hands Applauded (And This Was No Sin) – @ticketybye (G, the one where Crowley as a preoccupation with Aziraphale’s hands. Deals with both touch-starvation and touch-aversity in the same fic and weirdly enough it works. The fic is heartbreaking but it has a good resolution and that’s important.)

65. Moult – @sameoldsorceress (T, the one where Aziraphale molts and Crowley doesn’t. This is typical wing-grooming fare…right up until it isn’t. I won’t spoil the twist but rest assured that there is absolutely a twist. Other than that, it’s supportive and sweet and lovely and lord knows we all could use some of that right now.)

66. never get to heaven on a night like this – RestlessWanderings (G, the series where the Ineffable Wives are touch-starved and pining. The only reason this fic goes here instead of in Jaunts Through History is because especially in Crowley’s side of the story, the touch starvation is so horrifically visceral I very nearly bought myself a weighted blanket out of sympathy stress. They are both so afraid and so desperate for a bit of connection, the pining is absolutely ridiculous. And it helps that there’s worldbuilding there that’s both thematically appropriate and interesting to read. Engendered by lesbianism and catholic guilt, I believe the author said, and in this case what a delicious combination with an absolutely amazing ending.)

67. Strength in Modesty – flandersmare (T, the one where Aziraphale has a secret wardrobe. Y’all. I have a special love-hate relationship with clothes and my body and this fic somehow felt very soothing on both of those fronts. Corsetry is front and center, and it’s all very well-researched and well-presented. The story is so quiet and understated and is really told through excellent sensory details. The ending about broke my heart for tenderness. It’s a double love letter to Aziraphale and to fashion throughout history and I love it.)

BONUS

68. Tales of the Them – @lyricwritesprose (G, the series where Crowley and Aziraphale are the Them’s godparents, too. This is such a fun series, with a lot of stories that are not just funny in bits, but also meaningful. For fans of the Them and people who like stories about children that aren’t dumbed-down or grimdark.)

69. Stans in High Places – @doomed-spectacles (G, the one where there’s someone in the Earth Observation department keeping an eye on Crowley and Aziraphale. Another take on the angel(s) in charge of Earth Observation, this time featuring a singular angel called Grigori, and boy is he a cutie. His friendship with fellow angel Pravuil is also blossoming and sweet throughout, and the amount of innocent cuteness throughout is just spectacular. What an adorable story.)

70. Anthony J Crowley, Retired Demon and AirBnB Superhost – @theoldaquarian (G, the one where Crowley turns his flat into an AirBnB. Told as if reading a comment section, it is hilarious and paints a horrid picture of what interacting with Crowley—and Aziraphale!—is like for normal humans. I can’t give you any more details than that, you are just going to have to read it and laugh your head off about it like I did.)

71. A Guide to Fame for the Enterprising Demon – @asideofourown (T, the one where Crowley writes a book and accidentally becomes a queer icon. This is…so funny. And so sweet. And like most fics where human bystanders try to piece together what’s happening and come away with completely wrong conclusions, it’s utterly charming. You almost start rooting for the internet conspiracy theorists trying to unearth what exactly Crowley is from his (presumably) evasive or strange answers to interview questions.)

72. Hell Of An Angel – WaitingToBeBroken (T, the one where everyone thinks Crowley is a mafia family. This one is funny in a dramatic irony way; the way that every narrator in this is CONVINCED that Crowley is A. a family of redheads that all look eerily similar, and B. extremely dangerous, is entertaining all on its own. It helps that the writing is smooth and the characters are all fairly engaging, too. A fun little diversion for your day.)

H/C /WHUMP/BAMF

73. the only one i want – @qorktrees (T, the one where Crowley needs some convincing. The hurt in this one is real, folks. But so is the comfort. At last steps are taken to assure Crowley of how much he is wanted, of how much his love is cherished and his touch desired. If you cry while reading this, congrats and welcome to the club, we are all miserable touch-starved fools here.)

74. Always One More Time – boughofawillowtree (T, the one where Aziraphale has remaining psychological scars from Heaven. This one is tough, y’all, real tough. Aziraphale has a couple of abusive flashbacks and intrusive thoughts and his anxiety flaring up is a constant, so people sensitive to that should take heed. That said, this is a very healing fic, with a lot of underlying hurt that floats to the surface. But throughout Crowley does his best to be patient and understanding and even with a disagreement, it remains gentle and loving throughout.)

75. Smote and smitten – @nohaijiachi (G, the one where Aziraphale is a badass and we are ALL here for it. Screaming Hastur, briefly-sentient flaming swords, Aziraphale being amazing, and starry-eyed Crowley are all the ingredients chosen to make a wonderful little fic, and we are all grateful for it. What a guy, that Aziraphale.)

76. Nearly Romeo and Juliet – bisexual_dumbass (T, the one where Crowley’s hiding his panic attacks. This one hurts, friends. This one has miscommunications and fear and boundary communication, all while being so tense even the gentlest touch will snap something. It’s got learning to take care of yourself and value yourself and live FOR yourself. It is very important and I hope a lot of you read it because gosh dang.)

77. Pigeon Girlfriends With A Long Preamble – SleepySelfLoathing (T, the one that’s exactly what it says on the tin. This fic has it all: humor! Torture! Terrible humans! Wrathful Aziraphale! Pain and suffering! Tenderness and care! Pigeon girlfriends! The Hurt and the Comfort are present in about equal measure, but fair warning that what Crowley is made to do just before his rescue is more than a little disturbing, both to readers and especially to Crowley.)

#good omens #good omens fic recs #mega gomens fic rec list #mega fic rec list #whoof #probably take a break for a bit #then start work on six and seven's reviews #and maybe start on compiling eight #why do y'all write so much fic #why is it all so good

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ladynestaarcheron · 4 years

Text

Like Pristine Glass - Chapter Twenty

ao3 - ff.net - masterpost

(tagging these cuties: @humanexile @skychild29 @rhysandsdarlingfeyre @candid-confetti @rhysandsrightknee @missing-merlin @azriels-forgotten-shadow @books-and-cocos @sezkins79 @city-of-fae @someonemagical @dusty-lightbulb @messyhairday-me @rinad307 @superspiritfestival)

i’m back with chapter twenty! this fic is now officially a year old, so thanks to all of you for sticking with me. i love you. also thanks to taylor swift for folklore and illicit affairs which is my new nessian anthem. i love you too, taylor.

enjoy!

---

February 12 - 4 years after

Nesta's nearly out of breath when she knocks on Amorette's door, having practically sprinted from her house. Only half her mind had been present all day with Cassian and Ollie, and then with Avery and Nicky when they came home from nursery. As soon as they had put the children down to sleep, Nesta had told Cassian she was going to see Amorette for an hour or so, given him clear instructions on what to do if Ollie woke up coughing again, and bolted out the door.

Amorette appears almost instantly. "How's Ollie?" she asks, ushering Nesta inside.

"Fine," she says. "We've got a new tonic to give him. The usual, they said, slow development and weaker lungs, but now the healer says it'll even out by the time he's twelve." Nesta calms herself enough to grin-how can she not?

Amorette takes her hand and squeezes it. "That's wonderful, Nesta. What's wrong, then? Here," she adds, handing her a glass of wine.

Nesta downs half of it in one go before saying, "Cassian and I kissed last night."

Amorette's eyes widen. "Oh. Wow."

"Thanks. Anything else to contribute?"

"Well..." Amorette hesitates, then says cautiously, haltingly, "I'm not...quite sure what it is you want me to say."

Nesta tosses her hands up. "Anything other than the downward spiral that's been going around in my mind for the past eighteen hours would be welcome."

Amorette chuckles. "Well...did anyone catch you this time?"

"No, thank all."

"So..." Amorette swirls her wine in her glass. "You're spiralling because...you enjoyed it, I assume?"

Nesta straightens. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nesta," she starts, then stops. Her small lips are set patiently and her blue eyes are gazing thoughtfully at a spot above Nesta's head. "Here's what I think. I think you should let yourself be happy."

Nesta tenses again. "What-"

"Nesta," Amorette says, moving closer to her on the couch and setting a hand on her thigh. "You kissed a male you are bringing up three children with. You liked it. You are bound to no one and nothing else besides the children. You have no blood ties to any land. You have no duties outside motherhood beside what you assign to yourself. You are free. At this point, Nesta, dear, there is nothing stopping you."

Nesta holds her hands tight against her middle. That can't be true, can it?

"Spell it out for me," Amorette says, not unkindly. "It'll help you sort through it all."

Distantly, Nesta nods. She's not looking at Amorette anymore, rather at the tiny details on the teal cushions. "Well, you're going to leave, aren't you?" She doesn't mean to sound so blunt; she's thrilled for and proud of her friend, off to a big Ciyaluck hospital to cure whatever horrible vaginal disease she's currently specializing in.

"I don't know yet. But you shouldn't count on me staying here," she says gently.

"So you're gone," Nesta says, almost to herself. "And then...the shop...we're looking to spread out. So I could be sent...oh, but I don't think that's what I want!" she exclaims.

"What's not what you want?"

"I don't want to leave! And I don't want you to leave, either, but I've got no say in that."

"I wouldn't go that far. You've got some say. I mean, if they ever make a formal offer-"

"When they make a formal offer-"

"I'm definitely going to want your opinion. But continue. You want to stay here."

"Cassian can't stay here, though," she says, the words falling so plainly and simply from her mouth. Amorette has that effect on her. She frowns a little-she's changed so much these past years, hasn't she? And yet, some things are still exactly the same. While she can admit to herself what she wants, she still can't bring herself to do anything about it.

"You want Cassian to stay here?"

"I mean..." Nesta rubs her forehead.

"Paint me a perfect picture," Amorette suggests.

"A perfect picture?" Nesta pauses, but really, she doesn't need to think about it. "You're here to stay. I'm here to stay. The shop is...doing as well as Adil wants it to, but I don't have to do any travel. My children go to school here. They learn to read. My sisters are here. Cassian is here."

"In what capacity?"

"In my capacity," Nesta says, then burns scarlet.

Amorette is patient. "And yourself? Besides being here."

"I'm...under control." She doesn't have to go to the lake anymore, in this perfect picture of hers. The magic inside of her is either gone or permanently dormant. She doesn't have to learn about it and she never worries it will rear its ugly head again.

"Zeyn is married to some nice girl," she adds.

Amorette smiles slightly. "Some nice girl?"

"Someone who makes him happy," she clarifies. Nice girls make people happy. Elain is a nice girl. Perhaps in this fantasy vision where her sisters live here in Sugar Valley, Zeyn falls in love with her. Nesta dwells on this image for a few moments: cheery people, leading peaceful, easy-going lives.

"I think it's time for you to make your feelings clear."

Nesta winces inwardly at the words. "Haven't I been clear enough?" she asks, knowing the answer.

"Evidently not."

What hurts her the most is that to her, her feelings for Zeyn are perhaps the only thing in her mind that is clear right now. Everything else is jumbled up, but with Zeyn, the one person who has always been nothing but good to her, in the most perfect way...

"I know," she mumbles. And it's not fair to him, truly. "I'll talk to him."

"Collect your thoughts," Amorette offers. "Tell me what you're going to say to him."

So she does, thinking all the while that even though this is only one of the two looming dramatic conversations she needs to have, it will still grant her monumental relief when it is over, alongside the inevitable pain.

---

May 16 - 1 year after

Every day of pregnancy seemed to be worse than the last, with every realization that her body seemed less and less like her own accompanied by the truly terrifying thought it would soon somehow expel three people from it, and that she was supposed to find someone or some way to care for these tiny people. Worse still, was the utter cheer of other Sugar Valley residents as they pointed this out to her.

"Won't be long now!" said Leyla, from Sugar Books.

"They can play together!" beamed Classia, a female from Prythian with her own baby.

The worst by far was what Zeyn said to her. "What if you had the babies today? You'd share a birthday!"

Nesta had jerked so hard she spilled some of the isti Zeyn had given her on her hand. "It's-it's too early," she stammered. If only because it wasn't, really; not for triplets.

"Suppose so," he had said, and proceeded to indiscreetly hint at whatever surprise he had planned for the day.

Nesta's birthday was not something that she had ever been fond of in a while. First, it was just one more year without her mother, then her family had lost their fortune and it was another day they couldn't afford to celebrate (though Elain tried-for each of them, every year), and then as a Fae it just felt pointless. What was special about the years passing by if they would never stop?

And this year, of course, she was so spectacularly unenthusiastic about the passage of time, for a myriad of reasons, but it didn't seem as though Zeyn had given her much choice, as he followed her home that day, holding a large bag of food.

How had he even found out about today, she wondered. And who were these guests he was going on about.

"You don't strike me the type who likes a surprise party," he said.

"I am not."

"So it's a dinner! Right here, in your house. You don't even have to go anywhere. And I'll cook! Well, Miri's cooking, too."

Nesta sighed inwardly. "Zeyn, thank you-"

"Don't thank me yet. You haven't seen the cake." He winked at her. "Your pots are this drawer?"

Cake was always good, at least. "On the right."

Nesta tried very hard not to think about her last birthday-and Zeyn did make it easy, regaling her with tales of his own celebrations. And then his "guests" arrived-turning out to be her fellow employees of the shop and her healer, Amorette.

Leyla complimented her on her decor. "I love the red," she said, pointing to the throw pillows Nesta picked out for her new couch.

"Thanks."

"You painted in here," she noted. "Are these all from Sugar Books?" she asked, referring to the slowly-growing collection on Nesta's bookshelves.

"Of course," she said. "Wouldn't want to throw away business elsewhere."

"Gracious," Leyla said. "I actually don't keep so many at home. I just...read whatever I want at the store, you know? Keep more room in the house for my things."

A valid way to live, Nesta thought, for an archivist, but she liked to own books. She never again wanted to live in illiterate squalor.

"Ooh, these are pretty," she said, turning to a set of glass berries she had purchased while visiting a neighboring town with Zeyn.

The rest of the evening mirrored her conversation with Leyla. Pleasant, calm. Not particularly exciting.

It was not what a heroine in a book would strive for, but normalcy was still a luxury. If a quiet dinner party was the most she got, was that really so bad? She had been hungry; starving. She had been unloved and entirely alone. Sharing a potato stew recipe with a neighbor was not one of the adventures she'd dreamed she'd have as a young girl, but having enough was so much more than what she had for a long time.

After her guests had helped clean up and she was putting herself to bed, arranging her pillows to support her head and belly, a few things became clear to her:

The first, Cassian and her sisters were not writing back. In retaliation for her leaving or ignoring them or whatever reason. If it had not happened tonight, it would not happen in the future.

The second, she could not go to Prythian and risk being turned away in person. She would not survive the mortification.

And the third, whether or not the children growing inside her were hers, she still owed them this much: she would not let them ever live as she had in that small village. They would not need to beg. If no one wanted to respond to her reaching out-fine. She was going to stop trying. She could waste her energy on this no longer.

You owe them this, she told herself sternly as she choked back tears.

She would be a model expecting mother, from now until birth.

After that...well, it was anybody's guess.

---

May 16 - year of

It was officially spring in Illyria, and that morning was the first since she arrived that Nesta thought she didn't have to don any outerwear. When she entered the kitchen, she saw Cassian didn't have on his uniform with the thicker sleeves, either-although he was wearing a smirk.

"What?" she asked, scowling.

He shrugged and passed her a glass of orange juice, but his expression didn't change.

"I'm going to be late," she said shortly. Which was not true, but her skin felt too hot at the idea of staying here.

"Have a good day," he called after her. She mumbled something in response.

She tried to dissect the situation logically in her mind. The only way Cassian could know her birthday was if either she or Feyre or Elain had told him. She had not, there could not be more than a sixty-six percent chance of him knowing. Since she wasn't entirely positive Feyre knew her birthday, that lowered it, too. But surely when Elain was brought into the equation, that raised it indisputably, because Elain would never let Nesta have her birthday without a celebration. Then again, she probably would have sent her a gift, or at least another one of her letters, wouldn't she? But Cassian always left them for her on the table, and no new ones had been added in the past week or so. Perhaps she had sent it early? Or Cassian had hid this one? No, they were in a good place; if ever she suspected him of reading her mail, now would not be the time. But what if Cassian had told her sisters she was ignoring their letters...and now they were coming here? Was that why he had smirked at her? Was all of this some-some joke? The rapport they had between them now, was that nothing? After feeling settled here, finally, with a job she actually enjoyed, were they planning on dragging her back to Velaris? Well, she had news for them-

"You know, you look particularly cross today, considering it's your birthday," Emerie said, interrupting her chain of thoughts.

Nesta blinked. "How do you know it's my birthday?"

Emerie shrugged a little. "You're the High Lady's sister. I think it's common knowledge."

Nesta put down her pen. "It is?"

"Yes. I have this chocolate for you. It's got those nuts you like in it." Emerie handed her the blue-wrapped rectangle. "I assume you already have dinner plans."

"Thank you," she said, taking the chocolate gingerly. The same brand Cassian had once given her. "And no. Not that I'm aware of."

Emerie huffed in amusement and rolled her eyes. "All right. Sure."

Nesta whipped around and began busying herself with rearranging some stacks of paper until she was sure the red in her cheeks had disappeared. "I haven't made any plans."

"Romantic dinners are supposed to be a surprise, are they not?"

"There aren't any romantic dinners." Her entire face must be crimson.

"All right," Emerie said again, in the same tone as before.

"Are we investing in swimwear this year?"

"You can leave early, if you want some extra time to get ready," Emerie said, in the closest thing to teasing Nesta had ever heard from her.

She did not stay early. Instead, she stayed as late as she possibly could, until Emerie physically ushered her out of the store.

"Honestly, he's not going to bite you," she said while locking the door behind Nesta.

Of course not. And they ate dinner together all the time-sometimes with Emerie, and sometimes he was away, but most times were just the two of them. That wasn't new. But Nesta had had a whole day to think about what would happen if Elain or Feyre were waiting for her when she arrived, and she didn't like any scenario she imagined.

Though it took her significantly longer than usual, she did force herself to trudge back, craving for the first time in a while a drink.

She steeled herself before she opened the door. She did that slowly, too, letting her shadow fall in before taking a step inside, and watching it lengthen before picking her head up to survey the house.

There were no decorations-no vines of flowers that Elain used to drape or multicolored faelights the people in Prythian used. Wait-there on the table, between two table settings, was one, glowing a pale pink.

"I was beginning to think you had gotten tied up with the new rope," Cassian said.

She turned and looked up at him. "What?"

"Your new rope. At the shop."

"Oh."

"Tied up with the rope. It's a joke."

"Oh...yes. Very funny." Were those new plates? She didn't recognize them. And what was that bottle on the table? It couldn't be champagne. There was no way he would give her any.

Cassian snorted. "You seem really amused. Come sit. I kept the food warm."

She squinted down at the floor when he pulled her chair out for her.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Fine. Thank you," she added, as he ladled some duck onto her plate. Her favorite, the kind he made with the lemon.

"You have nothing to be scared of, you know."

"I'm not scared."

"Sure. That's the face you make when you're comfortable."

She scowled at him before straightening and relaxing into what she hoped was a smile, but at his laugh she guessed was more of a grimace.

"Come on, Nesta, give me some credit. I haven't mentioned anything, have I?" His tone was laughing but the slight crease between his eyes told her he was uncertain.

"I don't mind that it's my birthday," she said, offhand and ever-casual.

He raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really," she said, pausing to swallow some duck. "I mean. I don't really see the point in birthdays anymore. But it's not...whatever. I don't really care either way."

"Well, if you don't care either way..." he grinned at her. "Humor me, will you?"

She rolled her eyes. "What do you want from me?"

"Minimal to no effort on you part, I promise." He shook his head slightly as he uncorked the bottle of bubbling amber liquid. Nesta caught a whiff as he poured it into two flutes-definitely not alcohol. Far too sweet. But she took it when he handed it to her, albeit hid her smile.

"When I first met you..." he started, then trailed off. "We didn't get off to a good start the first time. Or the second time." His eyes darted around the room a bit before meeting hers again. "I have the Mother to thank for not messing up the middle of my second chance. I know you don't believe in Her, so I'm not sure what it was that convinced you to go along with it, but I thank that too."

Nesta didn't move for the next few moments. Neither did he. They only looked at each other until he started again.

"I'm not sure I know how to quantify in words what these past few months have been, but...I suppose I'm going to have to try-" here he paused to laugh, and her own lips tugged upwards slightly-"so...they have been...wonderfully unexpected." He paused again, opening his mouth a few times before finally saying, "When you're really there...when you don't give up on yourself? You're the most incredible person in the world. And I...am grateful to a lot. For everything. Happy birthday, Nesta," he finished, clinking his glass against hers.

He had it to his lips, tilting his head back, when he paused. "You're not going to drink?" he asked, for she still had not moved.

"It's poor etiquette to drink to one's own toast," she said softly.

"Oh." He put his glass down.

"You can still...drink...if you..."

He was hesitating now, his finger outstretched towards her but still very much on the table. His eyes lowered from hers to her lips back to his glass. He was going to drink now, make her toast to him so she would be allowed to drink, and then he would make fun of her for following the etiquette rules, and that would be the end of it.

The vision of the rest of the night played so vividly in Nesta's mind just then, as he lifted his hand. The night that would play into tomorrow, and the next day, and the next...nice and pleasant and nothing more.

And although she could have sworn on her mother's grave just that morning that birthdays did not matter to her...perhaps that was the reason why tonight, she decided she wanted-more.

So she grabbed his hand before he could touch his glass, and his gaze shifted starkly to her. He opened his mouth to say something, but this time, she was faster, making good use of her inhuman speed for the first time. Standing in front of him while he sat on the chair, they were about the same height. She was even a bit taller. Her left hand was still clutching his right. But her right was on the back of his neck, and before she could lose her nerve, her mouth was on his.

It was chaste, small. Quiet and soft. The same way she might kiss the top of his head.

She opened her eyes before she stepped back, still so close their eyelashes touched.

He wasn't saying anything.

Her mind went blank. It was times like these she envied the Fae and their pantheon, her sister's newfound faith, for she desperately wished she had some higher power to call upon to intervene now.

She drew her hands back to her chest. "I'm...I don't know what came over me," she said-or tried to say. Her voice caught, coming out barely a whisper. "I'm-"

He stood up, nearly knocking the table over. His arm shot out to still his glass before it tipped. She blinked at the sudden movement, and then he was kissing her again.

It was decidedly less chaste this time.

Less chaste, perhaps, but still soft. He held her delicately; very close against him, but his hands were gentle. She almost could not reconcile this tenderness with what she had seen him do in battle. Almost.

Her courage tonight had shocked her, but it was running out. She didn't want to push him any further than he went himself, so she tried to meet him with the same sort of caresses as he was stroking down her back, loosening her hair. But it proved a more difficult task than she could've imagined. How could she not tug his hair when her hand was wrapped in it? How could she not claw at his shoulders, his back, when her nails were quite possibly the only thing that would allow her to stay tethered to this moment? And how could she not lock her leg around his waist in an attempt to hoist herself upwards when she-well-when she wanted to?

Nesta may have been able to, in the right setting, deny her cravings for drink, but this was different. Cassian was sweeter than wine. And his hand fit perfectly against the small of her back...oh, would he not move it? Did he not feel this same rush of heat throughout his body?

Evidently he did not, because just then he broke apart from her, and breathed out, rushed, "That's your souffle."

Nesta blinked. She lowered her leg. "What?"

"The timer. I have a souffle..." He unhooked her arms from around his neck and turned, rather mechanically, to the kitchen.

She rubbed at her forehead. He must have...that wasn't one-sided. It was not. He was just...he just still had the presence of mind to not burn the house down. That was all.

"Here," he said, placing it on the table.

Did he want them to sit back down? Was he serious.

"Bit early for dessert," she said dryly.

"It is not," he said. "You were late for dinner."

"Hm."

He sat down. Nesta wanted to die.

So that was...all right. Fine.

She would just-well. She would. Move. She supposed. She tried to tell herself this calmly. Nothing was wrong. Just-the worst mistake of her life, and she would move in with Emerie. Everything was fine, and she didn't need to rush to her room or outside or slit her own throat-

"Hey, Nesta," he said, interrupting her slippery slope to suicide. "Sit with me." He pulled her chair next to him and yanked her into it.

He threw an arm around her and covered his face with the other. Nesta kept her own folded in her lap, her jaw locked, and her face pointed downwards, so it was a moment before she realized he was shaking with laughter.

"All right," she said angrily, standing up. "I'm-"

"What! Nesta!" He pulled her back, forcing her to look up at him. "Why are you-what's wrong!"

He couldn't even make his voice go up, so overcome with the stupid grin on his face, laughter still lacing his voice. She latched onto her anger the same way she latched onto his shoulders, because otherwise, she would cry. And tonight would not end with Cassian seeing her cry.

"Stop laughing," she snarled.

His eyes widened. His laugh turned surprised. "But I'm happy! Sorry, Nesta, we can't all keep our emotions clean off our face! Not all of us learned how!" He shook his head, still grinning.

Nesta stilled. Her fists relaxed. "You're happy?"

"Are you out of your mind? Of course I'm happy."

She couldn't bring herself to look in his eyes. "Then why did you stop?"

"So that your souffle wouldn't burn."

Was he really as stupid as she first thought he was in her family's estate? "Then why are we sitting at the table?" she said through gritted teeth.

He laughed again. At her this time, she knew it. "Oh, no, sweetheart-look at me. I just...I don't want to mess this up, all right? We don't have the greatest track record. I think it would be better if we went slowly."

They had been going slowly, had they not? And why did slowly have to mean they weren't allowed to have sex, anyway? Why did sex have to be the endgame? And who was he, to make these executive decisions?

"I'm not going to lie to you, I'm thrilled that you seem to hate that."

"Shut up," she snapped.

"Happy birthday. Really. And a happy Wednesday to me. Ouch," he added when she pinched him.

"Hush," she said, but without most of her bite.

He kissed the top of her head. "Happy birthday," he said again, softly.

And it seemed as though it was.

---

February 13 - 4 years after

"Are you absolutely sure?" Adil is asking her.

"Positive," Nesta replies firmly. "Cassian is at home and the healer said there's no reason to expect anything amiss as long as we give Ollie the tonic as she instructed. It's just a few hours in Chokecherry. We'll be back before dinner."

"I can go with Maz," Zeyn says.

Nesta rolls her eyes. "Please. This is important."

Zeyn laughs, but Adil doesn't look any less anxious. "Are you sure?" he asks her again.

"Do you want it in writing?"

"Just-go, then. And...hurry back." Adil gives her an odd look.

Zeyn shakes his head. "Let's go, then," he says, and heads out to meet the carriage.

"Nesta," Adil says, when he is out of earshot. "Do...what's right for you. He can take it." He gives her a short nod before walking away.

Zeyn will take it, she knows. It'll hurt, yes, but ultimately it's not him she's worried about. Nesta knows that someone losing her isn't too bad as she doesn't have so much to offer in the first place. But what is she going to do if she loses Zeyn as a friend?

---

June 12 - year of

Nesta knew she had not had the happiest life, what with her mother dying young, her father all but abandoning her and then dying too, losing her sister twice to the Wall, watching her other sister be violated in the most horrifying way she could imagine and then experiencing the same violation herself...but even if at all had been a walk in a rose garden up until this point, she still thought the past month would've won the title of best of her life.

They had been going as slow as Cassian deemed necessary, yes, but even then, it was still a high she had not ever experienced. While their tentative friendship had included spending most of their downtime together, the ante had been upped considerably. Cassian was now always sitting next to her, always touching her. He was not always talking, but he was certainly talking a lot. About everything. The trace memories of his mothers (in such detail she felt they were her own), meeting Rhys for the first time (she took great joy in knowing Cassian had loathed him at one point), and, consistently spurring an onslaught of emotion she was never sure she enjoyed or not, her. About her hair and her skin and her hips (a rather lot about her hips, actually), and about things she did that she didn't think there was anything to note.

"I love when you're preparing to flip a page in your book," he had said to her laughingly one night.

"What?"

"Like when you're still reading that page-" he punctuated this with a point at her book "-but you can't stand the wait of the second it takes you to flip the page, so you start lifting it as you're finishing reading it, so you can start the next page immediately after finishing that one."

She rolled her eyes, but she no longer fought to hide when her face flushed around him.

Nights had been spent separately, at first. But towards the end of May, he had gone for a short trip to Velaris, and when he had come back, they had started sleeping in the same bed.

She hadn't expected him to come home in the middle of the night. He never had before. So when he had been gone two days, she figured he would be there tomorrow afternoon. But she still missed him, missed his scent, and she didn't see the harm in sleeping in his bed

He woke her up when he came back that night, just past three.

"I missed you too," he whispered. "So I left as soon as I could."

She meant to say You didn't have to do that or Don't be ridiculous but instead she had only mumbled "good" and fallen back asleep against him, to the sound of his low chuckle.

There was no sex yet, to her eternal disappointment, but still. A girl could do worse than sleeping next to Cassian every night.

In mid-June, when they come back from another trip to a neighboring camp-he told her nobody terrified the lords like she did-Emerie was waiting for her at the shop, a slight smirk on her face.

Nesta glared to keep from blushing. Emerie had walked in on her and Cassian in the supply closet last week, and-well.

"How was your mission, Lieutenant?"

"It wasn't a mission. I'm no one's lieutenant. We should mark these coats down. People will still buy last season's coats in June if they're marked down."

"Well, either you're his lieutenant on official Night Court Military business or he just made up a reason to bring you along."

"Do you want your shop to go under or not? Mark these down," she snapped.

But Emerie only laughed. Really laughed. Emerie. "It's good to see you like this."

"I'm not like anything."

"Sorry. Could've sworn you were happy."

Nesta only made a show of rifling through some papers.

Emerie rolled her eyes and gathered the coats out of the closet. "You seemed happy when I found you in here last week," she said under her breath.

Nesta jerked her head up. She was never going to live that down.

---

June 1 - year after

Two weeks after her vow to herself and her unborn children, Nesta was deeply regretting it.

Her due date was rapidly approaching-Amorette guessed the second week of July at the very latest-and her body was not up to the task.

"It's not that you're not strong enough," Amorette had insisted. "It's that your body knows to focus on what matters. What matters right now is preparing yourself for labor."

So other things were deemed inconsequential by Nesta's body-like walking, apparently.

Bed rest. From now till labor.

She was allowed to go to the kitchen and spend a grand total of thirty minutes outside each day, but other than that, she wasn't to move. And Amorette checked up on her.

And so did Zeyn. Sometimes bringing along Miri or Leyla, sometimes joined by Adil, but he was there. Every day, without fail.

He brought her new books to work on from her bed, and sometimes things to read. He told her he didn't want her standing up to cook so he prepared meals for her and brought them to her bed. He never failed to offer her a back rub or to draw a bath.

Nesta wasn't stupidly argumentative. If her healer told her she needed bedrest, she would go on bedrest. But some of the protective measures were ridiculous-if she felt okay standing up, didn't that mean she was allowed to?

"You always say to listen to my body," Nesta complained to Amorette during one home visit.

"Well, normally your body speaks your language. You listen to me for now. Next pregnancy you'll know what to do."

"You take that back," Nesta snapped as Amorette laughed.

"You have a taker, at any rate."

She didn't answer. Yes, it was painfully obvious now, Zeyn's feelings for her. She was almost embarrassed to be accepting his help so brazenly, but what else was she supposed to do when she was all but forbidden to move and he carried plates of roasted squash to her room?

He had tried to bring up the subject of the children's father and she had firmly steered the conversation away. She was by no means ready to discuss that. But perhaps that would help...make it clear where her feelings were.

In the meantime...she felt devious doing so, and cruel, but she let him sit by her. She tried to make herself as unappealing as possible-although how she looked right now should have done it-but she didn't want to be...well...mean. She was naturally short-tempered enough that some of it came naturally to her.

Everyone who had liked Nesta prior to Sugar Valley had had to work at it. What was in the water here that made her attractive to these people? Perhaps it was the jam.

---

February 13 - 4 years after

Neither Nesta nor Zeyn are pleased to see that Chokecherry's bookstore is doing well, but they do take solace in the fact that their newest publication isn't selling as much as they had clearly expected it to, judging by the marketing all around the town. Zeyn even manages to chat up a local author and slip them Sugar Books' card.

He comes back to sit with her on a bench. She hands him a sandwich she bought him.

"Guess we have to go back now," he says. "Kind of a shame. I'd like to spend the night here, actually. Maz told me they have a diner here with a breakfast better than Jamal's."

Nesta supposes that's as good an opportunity to segue as she'll get. "Maybe...you should stay here."

"Oh, calm down. I'm not saying their diners are better than ours."

"No," she says, swallowing, "that's not what I mean. I mean...I need you to understand, Zeyn, that when we go back to Sugar Valley...we're not going together."

His smile falters. "You're going somewhere else?"

"No." If she dropped dead she wouldn't have to have this conversation, right? But Zeyn deserves better, she reminds herself, and so she forces herself to continue. "Zeyn. When I came here...you saved my life."

He stills. He's not smiling anymore.

"You never stopped being lovely, right from the beginning. Even when I wasn't. And as if that wasn't enough, all your kindness when I arrived and your incredible generosity during my pregnancy...you were everything with the children. You-" Nesta stops to catch her breath. She sees Zeyn's eyes start to fill with tears and she can feel some pricking in her own. "Everyday I could tell myself if I wasn't good enough, they would still have you and Miri and Adil. You're their family. You'll always be the first male they ever loved.

"And I have...bastardized that. Because of my own cowardice. You found the strength to give everything to a bitter, pregnant female, and then her children, every day for three years...and I could never find the nerve to tell you what you deserve to know. I-I'm not in love with you, Zeyn." She sobbed a little, but forced herself to maintain eye contact with him. "I never will be. I'm sorry. You're-it's not-you're the most wonderful, greatest-"

"Please don't," he says immediately, voice hoarse. "Please don't-don't tell me I'm the greatest right now."

She wipes at her eyes. "I...suppose that's fair." She pauses to catch her breath. "Can I-can I tell you that I love you and that I want you to be happy?"

He manages a laugh. "Of course."

"And...I'm sorry."

"No. Don't."

"I would..." Nesta stops to take a shaky breath. "People get what they deserve in this world. There's a balance. That's what your Cauldron says."

"Yes."

"So one day...I swear to you, Zeyn, you're going to have someone just perfect for you."

"Nesta..."

"I've been to more places than you, right? It's a really big world out there. She's there. And I swear to you...when you have children...I'll try and give them everything you gave mine."

There is silence except for Nesta's muffled cries for an unbearable two minutes. Then Zeyn says softly, "They...I always loved them as I would my own."

"Please don't stop."

"Of course I won't!" He looks at her, appalled.

"I didn't mean that you would," she says hurriedly. "Just-I don't want you to." How best to phrase this? "I know...you might need time. But...I'll be here when you're ready."

Zeyn laughs bitterly. She's never heard him like that before. "That's what I told myself when I first fell in love with you."

Another tear slips down Nesta's face. He really is so good. She really does not-she would not be right for him! Even if Cassian had never come back!

"I'll go now, then," she says quietly, and stands up to leave.

He doesn't call her back and she doesn't turn.

Nesta doesn't pray much. She doesn't see the point-the Cauldron hated her, so if indeed it is the product of some omniscient Mother, shouldn't She as well? But in that moment, Nesta knows there's nothing she wouldn't beg to grant Zeyn peace, and a friendship with him again one day.

---

Chapter Twenty-one

#nessian au #nesta archeron #cassian #actoar #never know what to tag this as #PLEASE tell me your thoughts #i'm dying here #thoughts on folklore and thoughts on this chapter #SPOILERS IN THE TAG AHEAD DO NOT READ BEFORE READING THE CHAPTER!#SPOILERS IN THIS HERE TAG that was my first time writing a kissing scene! was it good?#it was so hard to write!!#come talk to me people<3

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