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adarkrainbow · 13 days

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Romanian witches: Baba Cloantza

Last time I talked about Muma Padurii, the Forest Mom. And I promised you Baba Cloantza...

The whole idea of the Baba Cloantza is quite fascinating. When I read the article about the Romanian translations of Frau Holle which prompted me to do this series about Romanian witches (I'll talk more about this in the third part of the series), they evoked Baba Cloanta (yes, without the "z") as the traditional wicked witch and child-eating hag of Romanian fairytales. If you do research about Muma Padurii as I did before, you will sometimes find that "Baba Cloanta" can be an alternate name or identity for the Muma, especially in her "creepy wicked witch eating children soup" fairytale self. But if you research Baba Cloanta/Cloantza on her own, most of the time all you'll find is a mention saying "Baba Cloantza is the Romanian name of Baba-Yaga" or "Baba Cloanta is the Romanian equivalent of the famous Russian witch / she is the Carpathian Baba-Yaga".

Now... I do understand why everybody loves Baba Yaga, but I also understand why having Baba Yaga everywhere can be a problem. There is a reasoning behind saying "Baba-Yaga is a character present throughout all Slavic fairytales" and "Baba Yaga is a character of Eastern Europe fairytales"... But this oversimplification can cause a problem when it sweeps under the rug national "cousins" of the Baba Yaga. Again, remember that the Baba Yaga we know today was defined and shaped by Afanassiev's Russian Folktales... It is a specifically Russian character. Yes she does answer to and manifests an archetype present throughout Eastern Europe, and you have several Eastern European manifestations of a local Baba-Yaga... But then you have characters like Baba Cloantza. Who is indeed an equivalent to the Russian Baba Yaga... But she is still her own character, a specific Romanian entity, and saying she is just "Baba Yaga with a different name" can be a quite problematic claim...

So today I invite you to discover Baba Cloantza, a Romanian witch which yes, can be the Romanian translation of "Baba Yaga", but is also an alternate identity of Muma Padurii, as well as her own character with specific roots in Romanian folklore.

For this post I will rely onto an article written in French by Simona Ferent, "Baba Cloantza, la Yaga édentée" (Baba Cloantza, the Toothless Yaga) - it was published as part of a collection of studies and articles around the figure of Baba Yaga for a Sciences and Literature journal (it was called "Baba Yaga en chair et en os", "Baba Yaga in flesh and bone"). I literaly translated the article a long time ago and I do regret doing so because it might have made it quite unreadable... But if you can read French go check it out because it is one of the most complete resources I could find about Baba Cloantza online.

It is also because of this article that I write Baba Cloantza instead of "Cloanta", which Ferent highlighted as a better transliteration of the Romanian Cloanţa.

Baba Cloantza is one of the central witches of Romanian fairytales, and a well-known figure of the Carpathian folklore. But there is already a difference established between her and the Russian Baba-Yaga by her very name. Indeed "Cloantza" means an old woman, an ugly woman... a toothless woman. Hence the name of the article, "the toothless Yaga". Not only does this name evokes as such a toothless hag, it also insists upon her mouth, because "cloantza" is a pejorative name for a mouth. So the Baba Cloantza is a figure associated with the mouth - as much the decrepit toothless hole of an old ugly woman, as the devouring maw of the fairytale monster... and as the mouth from which ancient wisdom and magical secrets comes from. She is the "frightening wisdom", as Ferent says. Because, as a "baba", she is this ambiguous figure between the demon in human shape and the spiritual guide: the baba is the witch and the wise-woman, the isolated and lonely old woman that lives outside of the village, near or into the woods, the one who holds power over love, healing, divination and the weather... As such in fairytales she is the monster to fight and avoid, as much as the magical woman that will help the hero in his fight against a supernatural power, guide a lost traveller, or assist a woman with a tragic love story.

Ferent's article covers a wide range of sources and domains, as a testimony of the Baba Cloantza's huge presence in Romanian culture. The works of Vasile Alecsandri, where she is a prophet, a healer and a demon ; the ones of George Coşbuc where she is a leftover of an ancient Dacian goddess ; the modern, caricatural, buffoon-like depictions of Tudor Arghezi and Gelu Vlaşin ; and finally the great and iconic fairytale collections of Romania, those of Petre Ispirescu and Ion Creange, where the Baba Cloantza is a needed element within the hero's initiation and journey into the world/otherworld...

Given there is a lot of info, I will put this under a cut.

Simona Ferent identifies seven "faces" or seven "aspects" of the figure of the Baba Cloantza.

First, the Cloantza as the "village's oracle". In 1843, Vasile Alecsandri created a poem called "Kraiu-Nou" taking inspiration from the folktales surrounding the Sburător, a night-haunting supernatural entity embodying the "malevolent seduction", a sort of vampire preying upon sleeping women. This works depicts a countryside dominated by the moon - the "Kraiu-Nou" itself corresponds to the first phase of the moon, which is the most effective moment to formulate wishes (especially love wishes). The story describes Zamfira, which is a Romantic incarnation of the "beautiful, virgin, Romanian peasant girl", whi makes her own love wishes to the moon and becomes the prey of the Sburător. In this story, Baba Cloantza appears as a wise-woman who warns the girl of the danger that threatens her. She performs a divination ritual by looking into forty-one grains of corn, and by doing so she tells him she must flee a beautiful stranger with a soft voice (the vampire). [The poem notably opposes the frightful prediction of the baba with the predictions of the "wise men" and elders of the village who said Zamfira would have a happy life] The Cloantza even appears on a sort of mount that later turns out to be the very grave of the vampire... But despite all those warnings, Zamfira follows the eroticism and charms of the mysterious "lover of the shadows", who ends up stealing her life-force... Here Baba Cloantza is still the "old woman at the limit of the village", the physical margin of the community, and her role as an oracle highlights her ambiguity as the one who warns of the danger, but seems to cause it, since her prophecy is self-fulfilling. She is the first to mention the vampire before it appears, and she sits on what seems to be its grave... She tries to scare the girl away from the monster, but the way she describes him makes him appear seducing and conjures up the first fantasies of romance within Zamfira. As such, the baba Cloantza warns the girl of her doom... while throwing her (accidentaly?) in the arms of her killer. (There is also a whole thing to say about how the first crescent of the moon is strongly associated with the manifestation of ghosts and the apparition of malevolent beings ; and how the baba Cloantza embodies here an archetypal fear and archaic warning of sexuality, that the vampire embodies, as the one who preys upon the pure virgin girl...)

Second, the Cloantza as the "healer". In the folk-poem "Burueana de leac" ("the weed that heals"), we have a traditional depiction of the peasant man adressing a prayer/request to the village baba - in this case, we have the story of a man in love in such a desperate way he is ready to curse. The man, overtaken by a desire that strongly looks like a demonic possession (there are motifs of the extinguished sun , and the grave calling for the man), calls for the "mama Ileana", the only one able to "put out the fire" of his heart. The folklorist Alecsdandri explained that "mother Ileana" is another name for the "village baba" - more specifically it is the name of the healer of Romanian villages, who uses both plants and magical words, and bases her craft on the various times of the folk-calendar which mixes Christian celebrations with pagan feasts. This is all the ambiguity of this specific baba. On one side she refers to the Christian religiousness: she uses religious icons, the village's church, she sings in honor of the Virgin Mary or of God... On the other, her rituals are distinctively pagan: she uses flowers and weeds, she carries a supposedly magical water, her incantations are said to be "witchcraft" and she uses wands made of hazel-tree...

Third, the Cloantza as a caricature. The Romanian poets heavily relied on the figure of baba as the "village healer" - Tudor Arghezi depicted in 1948 a baba performing miracles within her village - said to know the spells of love that unite or separate lovers, as well as the remedies for various aches (from tooth-aches to heart-aches). But the portrait he makes of her is a caricature of a witch: she is a hunchback, who heals everybody with "two coal pellets and three lies", and refuses her services to the poor (due to being a greedy woman). This is no mistake that the poet makes "miracle" (minuni) rhyme with "minciuni", "lie". This baba is a scam. If we move to Gelu Vlaşin, we see baba Cloantza as an hallucination, or a psychological projection. The poet is half-drunk half-delirious, he wants to pay prostitutes but is too poor, so he goes looking for the "baba cloantza" so she can cast a "spell of wealth" onto him. And she appears in a middle of a series of very revealing symbols (dwarfs, circuses, prostitutes, spiders), in what the poet ultimately describes as a "fairytale for morons".

Ferent notably studies here a "variation" of the baba Cloantza, called the Baba Hârca. The Baba Hârca is a folktale character, an old witch who lives alone in a cavern within the depths of the woods, because she is afraid of humans, and who typically uses skulls (human or animal) for her magic rituals. "hârca" is a depreciative term for an old woman, an ugly woman or a wicked woman (or all three at once) - but it also means "skull", hence why the witch uses them to perform her spell. In the fairytales collected by Romanian folklorists we see that Baba Cloantza and Baba Hârca often appear as synonymous, in fact the two names can be used alternatively within a same fairytale. And in a Romanian "small-opera" of Romania created in 1848, by Matei Millo and Alexandru Flechtenmacher, it is under this name that the witch appears. "Baba Hârca, a small opera of witchcraft in two acts and three tableaux". Here the Hârca is actually a comical character appearing as a caricature of a gypsy woman, as well as a transvestite role (since the witch is played by Matei Millo himself).

Fourth, the Cloantza as a "ritualistic sorceress". Ferent reminds her reader that most of what we know of the Baba Cloantza has been "degraded" because it went through the literary imagination of a pastoral world disappeared (by authors who sang in a Romantic way the countryside of old), and through the prism of fairytales simplified for children - but she also reminds the reader of how the Romanian folklorists (such as Alecsdandri in his collect of "Cucul si Turturica") tried to identified the older roots of the folk-beliefs and superstitions. For example, in "Cucul si Turturica", the dialogue between the "cucul", the "cuckoo", a mysterious-dangerous bird son of a wicked witch, and the "turturica", the turtledove, the symbol of angelical love, we see a transcription of rural witchcraft. The "baba" preserved throughout the many proverbs of Romanian language is a supernatural entity within the village, a witch tied to the world of the demons. Baba Cloantza is recognized as different from regular human beings, but still accepted within the system of the community - because the witch is the intermediary between the living and the otherworld, and the catalyst of magical rituals. The baba, as the talented healer, "takes the ill upon her" - she is the mouth, as we saw, but the mouth that "sucks up" the evils to expel them in a symbolical way. The ritual is a manifestation of this "devouring" of the bad things, with an insistance on the power within the baba's words. The Cloantza, the "toothless", performs her magical as a ritualistic digestion (at least according to Ferent): she literaly feeds of the fears of the peasants, and uses as a magical "substance" her very words. This is why, while reflecting a distant, archaic form of hedonism and animism, the character of the baba always causes fear and fatalism... Let's return to the dialogue. The cuckoo is a playful, mischievious, jovial spirit who sings his desire and his determination, and will use the not-so-moral means his witch-mother taught him to seduce and have sex with the one he wants. Here, the malevolent influence of the Cloanta in romance becomes the game ; but a game of seduction filled with dangers, as symbolized by the objects the babas use. When a baba must bewitch a young man, she uses the bones of a bat trapped on Christmas Eve and buried alive in an anthill. With these bones, the Cloantza makes a hook to "hook" the heart of the one we want, and a small shovel to keep away those that are unloved.

Most of the powers of the baba seem to be tied to the element of water. The witch uses the water of rivers ; she can control the rain ; she uses holy water to cast spells, or she uses a "virgin water", "untouched water" (a term for enchanted water). Other elements can be used in baba rituals (the hazel-tree wand, the corn grains, the traditional "batic", the scarf around a peasant woman's head), and all they all call forward the society of the countryside, the world of the peasants where any everyday item can be filled with magic. Ferent reminds here of the importance of the communion with nature in the Romanian countryside. The peasant can sing a "doïna", a melancholic song, to his "spirit-brother", which can be a tree, a flower, a bird, an animal or the entire forest. All sorts of magical beings fill the countryside, such as the ielele (the "sirens of the woods") that inhabit hills and mountains. And if a young man is not careful when walking among the plains or choosing his travel-staff... he might get bewitched by the voice of a Cloantza, wandering forever, or snatched away in the sky "like an arrow flying". Only a knife stuck into the ground can break the spell of wandering.... Ferent also heavily insists upon the importance of recitation in spells: the baba always uses the "descântec", a form of invocation whose name means "a word, sung or recited, which can bewitch or break a spell". We have preserved a lot of these incantations, which were created for many various situations - there was a spell to heal snake-bites, there was another for people who feared to be alone... Or rather the fear of the "urât", a term quite difficult to translate, which literaly means "ugly", but explains a form of anguish towards the idea of being abandoned, mixed to a fear of the "other". Ferent proposes the idea of being "alone in a haunted house": that's the urât. To return to Baba Cloantza: she embodies all of the traits that were given to the village witch. Like them, she was here to offer magical solutions and answers to the very real needs and fears of the peasants.

Fifth, the Cloantza as the "shapeshifting female". The baba is also a manifestation of the archetype of the "Dreaded Mother" and the "Witch-Goddess" (or "Dreaded Goddess/Witch Mother ; or Mother Goddess and Dreaded Witch, however you like to arrange things). [Ferent highlights how there's always a multi-faced archetype of the "female", such as how the witch at the same time recalls ancient figures of priestesses or women initiated to the secrets of nature, and mythological characters such as Gaia, Maia, Circe, Demeter, Isis or Lilith]. The baba Cloantza is what happens when the "supreme female principle" becomes uncanny. For example, a recurring element in folk-mythology is that the baba can give birth to extraordinary physical beings. George Cosbuc, in "Atque nos!", reminds how the baba is the mother of a young man who was said to grow "in one year as much as others did in ten". George Cosbuc notably wrote texts celebrating the "magico-religious alchemy" that give birth in Romania to a rich gallery of female mythical beings: the baba Dochia (with probably Dacian origins), the Mama-Noptii (Mother of Night) surrounded by vampire-being, as well as the female Saints Tuesday, Friday, Wednesday and Thursday (described as pagan phantasm born of a Christianization of the deities of the Greco-Roman pantheon that were Mars, Zeus, Venus and Mercury). In fairytales, the baba usually appears as the embodiment of a wild elemental power.

The writer Ion Creangă, in the famous fairytale "Povestea porcului" (The tale of the pig), fragments the "baba" in three steps. First, she is the elderly peasant-woman who, despaired by her own sterility, adopts a pig she raises as a son (and will turn out to be a Prince Charming under a curse). Second, she is the Three Saints (Saint Wednesday, Saint Friday and Saint Sunday), three witches that will guide the heroine in her initiation-journey to find back her husband (the pig/prince she lost by throwing his pig-skin/pig-disguise into the fire). In a third time, the baba is "baba Cloantza the Toothless", the hag that keeps the prince her prisoner with malevolent powers. The pig-prince-hero not only will manage to outwit the Cloantza and find back his beloved, he will also free her from the spell that prevented her from givng birth (a four-year spell!). This story is haunted by the idea of the "cursed procreation", declined in three aspects. 1) the sterility of the old woman 2) the spell that prevents the heroine from giving birth to the child she is pregnant with 3) the idea of giving birth to a demon. When the pregnant heroine travels to the baba Cloantza's domain, she goes through a hellish-landscape filled with dragons and 24-headed otters, but especially in a world ruled by greed, cunning and wickedness. Here the wicked witch is formed as the antithesis of the naive young princess. The fairytale calls baba Cloantza "Hârca" (the name is invoked when the narration insists upon her old age, her crooked mind, and ugliness), but it also gives her the name Talpa Iadului (The Mole of the Devil). And the Mole of the Devil is actually one of the most evil beings of Romanian mythology, because it was believed to be the mother of all the demons, and renowned for its intelligence and treacherous nature. In the end of the fairytale, the Toothless baba/Skull/Mole of the Devil ends up punished by being tied to the tail of a horse - bringing back the comical and extravagant tone that opened the fairytale, and prevents it from falling into too much darkness.

But this structure of the youngest daughter of a king undergoing an initiation journey can be found in many fairytales. Petre Ispirescu, a great fan of Romanian folklore, published in 1676 "Porcul cel Fermecat" (The bewitched pig), a story that his own mother had told him, and that reuses the antithesis of the Baba Cloantza (here, a mother of dragons) with a young women (who discovers against her will the magical powers and the devious tricks of the witch). In this fairytale, the baba embodies a trial of Fate that the heroine must overcome to reach happiness (symbolized by a wedding out of love). The story tells the story of the youngest daughter of a king who, following her two older sisters, enters a room of the castle his father had forbidden her to go into. The princesses discover there an oracle-book which predicts royal weddings for the older sisters, a wedding with a pig for the third. The prophecy will come true and the princess is forced to leave her house to follow a pig, with a human voice so beautiful everybody suspects a spell is at work. The princess comes to love her strange husband, who removes his pig skin every night to become a man, but right as she was getting used to her new life she meets baba Cloantza who tells her she can break the spell by tying up her husband to the bed with a magical rope. Trusting the hag, the young bride uses the rope, but it breaks and her husband disappears - but not without telling her that, had she not obeyed the witch, he would have been set free from his curse in three days. The young wife, her newborn child in her arms, undergoes a quest to find her husband. Throughout hostile lands she obtains the advice and gifts of 1) the Moon and her sisters 2) the mother of the Sun and 3) the mother of the Wind. Arriving at the house of the cursed prince, the girl proves her intelligence and determination by making a ladder out of the magical chicken bones the three supernatural women gave her, and even cuts her own little finger to complete it. When she finds back her husband, he reveals her the full truth, and how his curse was caused by the Cloantza, because he had killed a dragon that was the baba's son. As we can see with all those stories, the idea is the same: to obtain her happy end and eternal bliss, the young woman must journey through a desert that symbolizes a journey outside of the real world ; the strange journey always begins with the girl breaking the law imposed by the father, and each time the baba Cloantza appears as the embodiment of the crime the girl must expiate/the evil she must vanquish.

Petre Ispirescu also depicted the baba Cloantza as the mother of a dragon in another fairytale, where the prince must kill it to free an enslaved princess. In this fairytale called "Poveste Taraneasca", "Peasant tale", the character of the Cloantza lives within a hellish world, with her courtyard surrounded by impaled human heads. In this tale, the Cloantza shows a trait that makes her close to the vodou sorcerers: she gains her strength and her immortality by swallowing, or rather "drinking", spirits that she keeps locked up in a barrel. By extension, we see that in this tale, the main threat of the story are the various vampires that live within her domain, and who try to steal away the soul of the old king.

Sixth, the Cloantza as the "devilish witch". An old proverb of Romania recalled by Alecsandri says "Baba-i calul dracului". Literaly "the Baba is the horse of the devil". Literary: "Old witch, bearer of Satan!". This proverb notably opens a poem of Alescandri called "Baba Cloantza" and written in 1842 - a folklore-inspired work that Alecsandri considered one of his best improvisations. In this text, the baba is reconstructed in the style of a Shakespearian witch. The Cloantza appears mad with lust for a beautiful young boy. The poem drifts into an infernal rural night, where malevolent ghosts fill the night-clouds, and snakes slither among the flowers of bewitched ponds. In this perverse Eden, under a "pale and blond moon", the Cloantza invokes several demons while threatening the young man with the worst torments if he ever resists to her charms. However, when the demons fail to perform their deed, the old Cloantza uses Satan himself, and offers him her soul without thinking about the consequences. The deal with the devil makes her act in a way that recalls a possession or insanity (running around, jumping, flying in the sky, screaming exorcism rituals). The "mad Kloantza", surrounded by the "thousand infernal spirits", fails to notice the laugh in the woods that announces her doom. Right as she arrives "two steps" away from her beloved, the Cloantaza's dream becomes a nightmare: the rooster's chant wakes up the village-folks, the ghosts of the night fade away, and we conclude on an aquatic final scene: Satan snatches his prey, the baba, and the two jump away into the depths of the pond... Nature returns to a seren and calm state, but the danger is not gone, because the poem adds that a "melancholic voice" can still be heard by the pond, calling and seducing the men that walk near it late in the evening, promising them to protect them "by my exorcisms of the evil eye, of cruel fate and snake bites." Critics have pointed out a dual reading of the poem. On one side, it is the epic depictions of an unhealthy love, the inappropriate passion of an elderly woman for a woman, doubled by the fairytale figures of the wicked witch in love with the Prince Charming ; on the other side, there is an humoristic reading of the poem as a display of petty feuds, vain quarrels annoying demands and bothersome requests. As such, the baba's original duality returns: a devilish character, and a spirit of mischief.

Seventh, the Cloantza as "the avatar of Death". In a very old folk-song of Romania, "Holera" (Cholera, collected by Alecsandri in 1853), the Cloantza appears with the imagery of the Roman Furies, with snakes in her hair. We find back around the witch another syncretism of Christianity and paganism, mixing the Furies of Ancient Rome with the vengeful angels of the Bible: wild hair, a dry skin, a "venomous" body, a sword of fire in one hand... Here, the Cloantza is the embodiment of death. More precisely, she represents the deadly disease of the cholera that appears on the path of the carefree and joyful young man Vâlcu. No negociation is possible: the Cloantza is a Grim Reaper. In fact, in the song she is exclusively referred to as "cloantza", the term "baba" disappears, removing any form of humanity.

In conclusion, Baba Cloantza throughout the Romanian folktales is a multi-faced, multi-voiced entity. She is the baba that heals or mutilates, she is the old woman that makes people cry or laugh. She is an oracle who sometimes has to work to make sure her prophecies come true. And Ferent concludes that somehow, the baba Cloantza acts as a double of the storyteller itself, as an entity that represents the "power of fiction". Because one of the main powers of the Cloantza is to turn the fears and anxieties of those that seek her into prophecies - aka into tales that will orientate the person's mind towards the future and force them to think about their own role in the world. The storyteller lacks a "real" power, and as such is as "toothless" as the Cloantza, but they still are the owner of a form of magic - a magic of illusions that can nourish or poison. As such, when the storyteller describes the baba, somehow they are describing themselves, presenting their own self within their fictional world. And as such, the baba kept evolving and changing throughout the centuries, going from a mystical therapeutic character in ancient days to a subversive but harmless entity in contemporary fiction.

#romanian mythology #romanian fairytales #romanian folklore #baba cloanta #baba cloantza #romanian legends #romanian literature #romanian witches #legendary witches #fairytale witches #baba yaga #witch

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vroomvroommbtch · 1 year

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Only us - DR x fem!OC

Masterlist

Summary: It only took Daniel four years to ask that question, but it was worth the wait.

Pairing: Daniel Ricciardo x fem!OC

Warnings: Fluff all over the place.

Word count: 4.4k

A/N: How are we feeling after yesterday, DR girlies?! One Monday not being sad is a tiny victory so I take it 😌 Here some fluffy stuff to enjoy on this Halloween day. Now I can go back to my regular schedule of watching The Addams Family movies again and again. ANYWAY, let me know what u think? Send me asks if u want? Thanks for the likes and love, kiddos. Means the world. Kay see ya bye 🫰🏻

---

Only us.

April 2022.

Having one second of silence when they were in Australia was something nearly impossible, but Jas loved it. She loved the mess that included being there. She loved the noise that included being surrounded by family and friends, so Jas was nothing but happy. Spending some days at the farm in Perth was like a breeze of fresh air that they all needed, but especially Daniel. Plus, the fact that the race in Melbourne had quite a decent result was a big plus, so things were good, at least for those weeks.

With yet again another season that started poorly and another car that wasn't as fast as Daniel was promised, things weren't looking good, but none of that really mattered when they were home. All they cared about was spending time with their families. Not a race, a CEO, a car or a team principal was gonna ruin the happiness that gave Jas seeing Daniel with his parents and sister. But especially, nothing was going to ruin the joy that brought them watching Olivia spend time with their family, and especially watching her play with her cousins. Listening to Isaac, Isabella and Olivia giggle together was something too pure, too magical and too perfect, and nobody in the world was going to ruin that.

But even in the middle of the beautiful mess and noise, her tiny little family of three always found a way to spend some time being just them. It didn't happen often all things considered, but Jas loved the little moments that included just her, Olivia and Daniel. They were pretty counted, so she cherished every single one of them, even if they included dirty diapers.

While everyone was chatting in the living room and Aoife, Grace and Esme were starting to make dinner, Jas was in their room, dealing with a change of diapers, which was probably her less favorite part of being a mom and having a baby. But as she was cleaning and drying Olivia, two arms suddenly hugged her back. She couldn't help but smile as she felt Daniel place kiss after kiss against her head, shoulders and neck, making her laugh like a little happy girl. That was the effect Daniel had on her since they met, but it all became somehow bigger since Olivia was born. If Jas loved Daniel before, she loved him a hundred times more since she saw him turning into a dad. She felt in love with him again and again and again every single time she saw him with their daughter, and that day wasn't different.

"You smell nice" Jas smiled, looking over her shoulder for a second as she stroked Olivia's tummy with her fingers. "Not like you, you stinky little butt. You need a shower after dinner, you hear me? Well get you a nice bubble bath" Jas said to her daughter, which she answered with some cooing and a big toothless smile.

"I just took a shower but that bubble bath thing sounds like something mom and dad should do tonight too" Daniel suggested, placing one last kiss right on Jas's temple before he moved to her side to look at Olivia, but still hugging Jas with his arm around her waist. "I'm sure Maggie and Michael won't mind looking after her for a night"

Jas couldn't help but giggle when she heard her sister and Michael's names coming from Daniel. She couldn't help but laugh not because they wouldn't want to take care of Olivia like they did countless times, but because she imagined they were going to be kind of busy that night. "You mean Michael and Maggie the ones that mysteriously left in a boogie like two hours ago? I don't think so, babe"

"Remind me again why the hell they say they're on a break if they're fucking around like mad rabbits anyway?"

That was a very nice question that Jas has been asking herself again and again, but she couldn't really find an answer. Plus, she didn't want to mention the subject in front of Maggie, knowing it was nothing but delicate to bring that up. She really couldn't bring it up in front of Michael either because his answer was always the same 'We're trying to make it work', but Jas doubted it. So not being able to talk to them, they all just looked away when Maggie and Michael were basically undressing each other with just one look. Or in this case when they disappeared on the farm, not really giving any explanation of where they were going. "Don't remind me what my little sister and my friend does. And I don't know. It's their thing"

"We can always ask your parents. Or mine" he proposed, looking down at Olivia as Jas made her laugh and move her adorable tiny legs in the process. "What's so funny, uh? Mum's tickling you, baby girl?"

And like any other day, Jas couldn't help but stay looking at the picture in front of her with a smile on her face. Daniel tickling Olivia's tummy with his fingers to make her giggle even more was just the most beautiful thing in the world. Hearing her cute little giggles was music to their ears. See the way her husband and daughter looked at each other was simply everything Jas ever wanted, so it made her heart be filled with nothing but happiness. And to see Daniel being a dad was something difficult to put into words. The way his whole face changed and lightened up when he was with Olivia was magical. The way his eyes seemed to spark and the way his smile just grew bigger was incredible and it all just made Jas melt of love and happiness.

"Wanna spend the night with grandma and grandpa? Wanna do that so mum and dad can have a little bit of fun sleeping tonight?" Jas asked Olivia while she secured a new diaper around her tummy. And once it was done, Jas took the chance to grab her chubby perfect legs to kiss first her right feet and then the left. "You've the most adorable tiny baby foot in the world! They're like paidrín. Look at those fingers!"

"We can sleep but maybe also we can give her a sibling" Daniel whispered, as if their three months old daughter was able to understand what they were saying.

Jas knew Daniel's suggesting was nothing but a joke, but she also knew that deep down it wasn't just a joke. They wanted more than one kid, they wanted at least one more sibling for Olivia and then maybe another one because three was the magic number in their home, but timing was far from right. Olivia came in whenever she wanted and it's magical how she ended up picking the perfect timing to show up in the lives. She appeared when they needed her the most, and for that everyone in their family was thankful and happy but for the next one they wanted to do things right. They talked about it when Jas was pregnant and again when Olivia was born, so no matter how badly they wanted to perpetuate the Ricciardo name, they were going to wait for the right timing for their next Baby Badger.

"Ah, no so fast cowboy. Not till she's at least two or three. We can barely survive with one" Jas reminded him, standing straight to give Daniel a loving kiss on his lips. "It'll come, you know that, right?"

"I know. We can practice some meanwhile" he affirmed, kissing Jas head once again. "Can I?" he wondered, pointing to the onesie that was waiting right besides Olivia.

With a smile and a fast kiss on his lips, Jas left Daniel took care of putting Olivia's clean onesie on her body. She didn't say a thing as she looked at them, too scared to ruin the moment. With the crazy, busy schedule he had, there were counted days Daniel could dedicate his full time to being a dad. There was always some event with sponsors, there was always a meeting, there was always some publicity thing to do, especially when they were in Australia. But on the days that he was free, he would put his heart and soul into it. From changing dirty diapers and clothes, making bath times a complete mess and tummy time as fun as possible to inventing the most ridiculous stories, warm perfectly her bottles or sing lullabies absolutely out of tune, Daniel wanted to do every single thing that would include Olivia. They knew it was the most normal thing for a dad to do, but Jas never complained when she was the one taking care of it weekend after weekend. She never complained when she was the one getting up in the middle of the night or when she had to take care both of an exhausted Daniel and a sleepy Olivia. It was her job as a mom and his partner, so she did it all with a happy smile on her face, thanking her lucky stars for having her wonderful family by her side.

But the days that she got lucky to see Daniel being a full-time dad were her favorite ones. The constant happy smile on his face, the constant shine on his eyes, but especially the constant relaxed state he was it was something amazing to see. Since they met, people used to say nothing and nobody made Daniel smile as Jas did, but Olivia replaced her. Since she was born nobody made Daniel smile as much as their baby girl, but Jas was more than happy to give that place to their daughter. She couldn't blame him because nothing made her smile more than Olivia.

As Daniel carefully dressed Olivia while tickling her, Jas just watched them with a smile on her face, just as big as the one on Daniel's face or as the toothless grin on Olivia's face. She just looked in silence, letting them do their thing and have another one of their moments.

"Remember what I said to Michael the night we met?" Daniel suddenly asked, buttoning the green material in the front part of the onesie.

"You told him you had no idea who I was but you were going to marry me. But he told you that first you needed to talk to me" she remembered, smiling even more at the memory. "I mean, first you stuttered and then your tried to charm me with the whole Enchanté thing, but then you got to talk"

Even after four years Jas could remember that night perfectly. It felt like it was yesterday when she was sitting on the side, talking with the girls as she saw Michael walking up to them. It felt like no time had passed since that handsome tall man with Australian accent apologized for interrupting them, saying that his stupid friend was tongue tied and dying to know if he could invite her a drink. It felt like it was just some hours ago since Jas smiled all happy as she was trying to act cool and chill when in reality she was dying because she couldn't stop looking at Daniel since they walked in. Sometimes, and even when they already had a daughter and a life together, it felt like they were the same kids. Even four years older and with shorter curls, somehow it felt like no time passed for the Daniel who got all blushed as soon as she started speaking French, making him think he fucked up with the Enchanté trick.

Everything that happened between them was like a weird fairytale and every single day since that night Jas thanked her lucky stars for meeting Daniel, for them falling in love but also for them getting stuck together side by side on good and bad days. From Monaco to Dublin to London to Perth and the rest of the world, Jas got to live her dream life all thanks to the man of her dreams, so she was nothing but thankful to whatever put them together, that also included Michael for getting up and going to talk to her back then.

"You really had to be completely perfect and talk fluid French. And Italian and Irish. Beauty and brains that's why I was so convinced there was no way you would ever want to leave with me. Thank God you did" he affirmed, placing one last kiss over Olivia's forehead, making her giggle. "Thank God your mom was drunk enough to ask me if I wanted to leave with her" he stated, grabbing Olivia in his arms and holding her against his chest.

But the second that Olivia saw Jas, a sad pout appeared in her face which meant he wanted to go with her. "What's us with you? You missed mum in the six seconds she was away?" Jas asked Olivia, who answered with some baby sounds, as she placed her tiny hands in her mom's face as soon as Jas grabbed Olivia in her arms. "Yeah? I missed you too. I always miss you when you ain't around. You're my práta, right? You're our paidrín"

"How many words you Irish people have to say potato? Cause I feel there's a new one every single time you speak" Daniel wondered moving his arms around Jas' waist, getting as close as possible to his girls.

"Ninety. Every single one means something different" she explained with a little shrug. In the four years they had been together Daniel really tried to learn some words in Irish, but it was just simply impossible. The only thing he could remember was how to say 'I love you' because Jas would say it to him and Olivia all the time but then that was it. But after four years Jas wasn't really surprised, especially when he barely knew how to talk a few worlds in French after a decade of living in Monaco. "Wanna go back to the living room?"

"In a minute. Can I talk to you about something first?"

"Alright. Now I'm scared. What did we do?" Jas asked, looking up at her boyfriend who was suddenly serious. That was more than rare considering it was Daniel and he was with them. Jas knew there was no way something was wrong between them and Dan promised not to talk about work for the rest of the week, but she could see how something in his eyes was eating him.

"You did nothing wrong. All's good" he promised, kissing her lips to then rest their foreheads together. "You know how much I love you, right?"

"I do know. I love you too. We both love you" she whispered, suddenly getting emotional. She knew. Clearly, Jas knew. For four years all Daniel did was to show her day by day how much he loved her. In every single way he could find, Daniel showed Jas his love for her and then for their family. She could have doubts about everything in her life, even herself, but never in her life she would have doubts about Daniel and their love. She would never do that, especially not when the proof of their love was right in their arms. "What's going on, babe?"

"I just- I love you. I love you so fucking much, baby. I'm the luckiest man in the world cause you're my girls. I see you every day with our baby and then I see you carrying our family with so much love while you also handle all the shit we have around us and I still don't know how you do it. You've so much on your plate while being pregnant but you keep holding all- holding me up in the worst days. I really have no idea what I would've done without you last year. I really don't know how I would've get through it if it wasn't for you there by my side. I really don't know what I did to deserve you, J. I've no fucking idea but I want you to know I don't take anything from granted. Especially not you and her" he explained, big brown eyes looking down at her, shining with love and adoration, all while he stroked her cheek with his right hand.

"I know you don't take anything from granted, especially not us. I know you, Dan, so you don't have to say anything" she whispered, holding Olivia with just one of her arms to place the other one against Daniel's heart. "I told you hundred times, I'd do it hundred times and I mean it"

"Actually I do have something else to say. You know I don't regret things in my life, but there's one thing I do regret not doing years ago. I like to think it didn't happen cause it was the wrong time. I should've done it earlier but then pandemic fucked us all over and you were right when you told me we should wait to be able to celebrate with our family. Besides last year was shit and then this one decided it was her time to shine" he smiled, looking at Olivia and kissing her tiny nose fast to keep talking. "I also know its pretty stupid to do it now cause the question's gonna sound stupid considering there's no better bound that our baby girl. Also I wanted to do it more special and remarkable but I can't fucking wait. I love you, Jas. I love you since the moment I saw you and I love how you always leave me speechless by just looking at me. You leave me so speechless that I had all this thing prepared in my head and now its all gone cause you're looking at me and I can't with those brown eyes. I love you so I'm just gonna-"

And right there in the middle of their bedroom, Daniel kneeled right in front of her, all while he took a little red box out of the pocket of his shorts. Jas knew it was gonna happen one day. She knew Daniel wanted to marry her just as badly as she wanted to marry him. They knew it wasn't really necessary, they knew it was just a silly paper and that none of that was gonna change their relationship, but they wanted it. Even when he had been saying for years that Jas was his wife, he was dying to make it official, so there he was, finally ready to make it.

"Danny, babe, you don't have to…" Jas whispered, grabbing Olivia with one arm as she reached down to stroke Daniel's cheek while tears started to stream down her face.

"Let me. Please, just let me" he begged, kissing her palm before he grabbed her hand in his. "I love you, Jas. I love so much it's insane. And I know the last four years weren't a walk in the park and they probably haven't been what your expected. I'm wide aware you deserve more, you both deserve more and better. You deserve a better husband and a better dad, but I promise I'll do better for you. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you. I just- I've no idea what's gonna happen in future, but all I know its I wanna keep living with you by my side. None of it will ever make sense without you so, would you please, please finally marry me, babe?"

In the middle of the pandemic and during one of her lower days, Daniel called her like he normally did every day. He was away working in X and she knew he was tired, she could see all over his face how tired he really was after a day of practice and quali. But even with all that, Daniel called to cheer her up. With some cute compliments and words, Daniel made her smile like nobody could. Jas had no idea how that turned into wedding talk. She had no idea how they ended up talking about their plans, but suddenly Daniel was confessing more than he should have. He was planning to do it some day that year but all his plans got ruined before he could even get a ring. He didn't want to ask while they were locked and away from their families and friends. He didn't want to do it without being able to celebrate with them. He wanted to wait, but that day he was so tired and she was so sad he almost did it. He was about to drop the question right there over the phone, but Jas stopped him. Promising there was nothing she wanted most than to marry him, Jas begged Daniel to not ask. Not when she couldn't hug him, not when their families were away, not when the whole world was a disaster.

But the thing that she asked for was a specific detail about the ring. Since he didn't buy it just yet, Jas told him that whatever he decided to do with the ring was his thing, but she wanted it to have three stones. She didn't care about color, size or karats, she just wanted three. 'I want you in everything, but especially in my ring, you heard me?' were her exact words over the phone, which made Daniel laugh as he promised he was going to make it happen. But then the pandemic and the lockdown came and went, they couldn't go to Perth, then the pregnancy and Olivia and everything in between. But after two years, an insane amount of kilometers, places, laughs, tears, love and a baby girl, there was Daniel kneeling in front of her with the most beautiful ring she ever saw. On a silver band there was an oval cut red garnet that was nothing but breathtaking, and on the side as accent stones were two smallest diamonds. It was just like she wanted. It was exactly as she had dreamed.

"Get up, grá" she stated, kissing Olivia's head as she waited for Daniel. She didn't need any of that. She didn't need him kneeling in front of her, or a big proposal, she just wanted the love of her life in front of her as she gave him an answer. She just wanted him and that's exactly what she got when suddenly he was back on his feet, stroking her cheek carefully to clean her wet cheeks. "I knew I was gonna marry you when you said 'Enchanté' the night we met. And I knew it again when I woke up by your side. I've known it for the last four years. I've been dying to marry you four years and there's nothing I want more than being your Mrs. Ricciardo, so of course I'm marrying you"

They had to be more than careful because Olivia was right in the middle of them, but the way Daniel kissed her was just the most perfect and beautiful thing in the world. They were just two giggly messes, trying to not smile as they kissed, but it was impossible. They both were so damn happy to finally be doing this that they just couldn't help it. There was nothing more Jas could ask for than being with Daniel and Olivia for such a moment, so she was all smiles and giggles as Daniel hugged them. "You've been my Mrs. Ricciardo since day one, princess"

"And I'm the luckiest for that"

"You're really marrying me?" Daniel asked again, double checking as he kissed her head during their hug.

"Of course I'm marrying you, sunshine" Jas insisted, tiptoeing to give him a short kiss. But as soon as she did, she could hear such a soft, adorable little giggle coming from Olivia, who was looking at both of them. "And I think she's happy about mum and dad finally doing it"

"I think she would be happier seeing mommy wearing this" Daniel affirmed, taking the ring outside the box and then grabbing Jas' hand. She shouldn't be surprised about it at all, but it fitted perfectly. It somehow felt like a dream when he grabbed her hand and put the ring in the right finger of her left hand. It felt like a dream the fact that Daniel asked her to marry him, especially with their daughter there. It felt like a dream to have both of them by her side, so like every day, Jas couldn't help but mentally thank all her lucky stars for them.

"You designed it, didn't you? Cause that's her birthstone" Jas pointed out, looking at her hand and its new acquisition, still not believing how beautiful it is.

But her favorite thing was the red garnet. It wasn't just her favorite color but also Olivia's birthstone, so Jas was absolutely happy that Daniel decided to leave behind the common engagement ring and go for something different.

"I did design it. I spent a lot of time looking for the perfect one and it seemed like it didn't exist. Nothing was good enough, that's why it took me so long. Besides I can give you diamonds any other day, that's why I thought this was way cooler. This way you can have us always with you" he explained, holding her hand to kiss her finger and the new shiny stone decorating it. "Thank you. For saying yes, for her and for everything"

"Don't thank me. It's my thing to look out for you and specially to love you. Its what I do best and its my favorite thing to do. Wouldn't change it for the world. Wouldn't change you for the world. We said its us forever, so I'm here to make it happen" Jas smiled, remembering the promise they made again and again, especially in the worst of the days.

Whatever happened, it was gonna be them forever. Two or three or whatever the number of their little family was going to end up being, it was them and that was the important thing. As long as they had each other everything was gonna be alright. That's what Jas promised to Daniel again and again, especially on the worst days when he needed a reminder that they were gonna be together no matter what happened in his racing career.

"Its us forever" he repeated, kissing her once again. But before Daniel could kiss his future wife once again, a little incoherent cooing interrupted them, making them look at Olivia. "Did you hear that? Mum and dad are finally getting married!" Daniel exclaimed, kissing Olivia's cheek, making her laugh with the scratching of his stubble against her skin.

And Jas wanted to make a joke, saying it was about damn time for him to ask her, but she decided to keep it for later. After all, she had the rest of the night and the rest of her life to do it.

---

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blackknight-100 · 3 months

Text

Hello there anon, and thank you for the prompt! I got so excited with this I accidentally posted your ask without answering it (I'm so sorry😭😭) so I'm afraid I have to use a screenshot. I hope you like reading this!

Character Swap - Arjuna and Karna

Phalguna comes to Kuntidesha as it always does, but this year the air is colder, and the soil is wet with rain. The ponds are full and even rivers flow swifter, for Indra turns his eye upon them.

Princess Pritha bears the last few weeks of her womanly toil with ill grace; she is yet sixteen, face perpetually wrinkled in agony. The King of Gods has promised her maidenhood, Pritha thinks she would have given that up to be rid of this soreness.

When her time comes one cloudy eve, her trusted maid kneels by her screaming self, and snips the cord off a divine child.

The babe is soft and beautiful, with her looks and her smile and her curled hair; he yawns in restless sleep like a little dark moon. Pritha’s head is bent in prayer, her still-young heart is numb. She is a princess of two noble Kings, a star in the darkness of Āryavarta. Few women have her fortune, even lesser have her power, and yet she is just another girl, at the mercy of sages and gods, and the thought makes Pritha's head bow lower.

She stands by the raging Aswa as her maid gently sets the basket afloat, for foolish she may be, but cruelty comes only through her orders, and never by her hand, and the sky shatters with thunder and rain. Of all the recipients of Indra’s wrath, there has never been one more tragic.

His father from his heavenly throne names the child Arjuna, swears to guide and lead and bestow divine counsel, but as songs later let us know: he is ever known by his mothers’ names, for he is Rādha and Pritha's son.

Karna is born the last of Kunti’s sons, and the third of Pāndu’s scions. He comes into the world like a shining light, with her face and her smile and her curls in his hair. For the first few weeks, Kunti cannot bear to look at the babe, and nurses him with her eyes to the sky. The sun shines upon them, bright and reprimanding, and Kunti wills Surya to chastise his own brother.

To Mādri she says, and to a concerned Pāndu, that the birth tired her, to the child she murmurs tales of a long-lost brother.

“He looked just like you,” Kunti tells him, as Karna swings in his cradle. It is a rickety thing, old as Yudhisthira, and worn with Bheema’s fervour, but it is a cradle still, and Kunti wonders if her other son ever knew one.

“I think you would have loved him,” Kunti says, wistfully, weaving dreams out of her yearning. “He would have been your big brother.”

The boy in the cradle coos at her, toothless smile lighting up the world, and for a moment his face is dark, and outside it rains, and the babe in her arms is Indra’s child.

“You are terrible,” Arjuna scowls at Duryodhana, even though his father has taken great pains to counsel him otherwise. “He is just having fun.”

Duryodhana turns an interesting shade of purple. “His fun involves beating up my brothers and acting innocent when Pitāmaha asks him about it.”

Arjuna has no reason to defend this new prince, one whom he has never seen nor met, but his mouth betrays him once more. “That is not a good enough reason to kill him. You are merely jealous.”

“Kill whom?” says a voice, and Arjuna nigh jumps out of his skin as a boy swings down from the mango tree.

“Karna,” Duryodhana sighs. “Are you troubling the squirrels again?”

“No,” the boy says, shoving his fist behind his back. He is barely five and... light; his eyes are light and honey-brown, his hair is the light of sunshine on tree-barks, and his face glows like day. “You’re going to kill my brother,” he repeats stubbornly.

Arjuna blinks; his father would not forgive him for this.

Duryodhana sighs once more. “Your brother is beating mine up.”

“I will tell him not to,” Karna promises, and Arjuna is a little sorry for the boy – all wobbling lips and earnest eyes. “I will tell Mother if he does. Please don’t kill him.”

Arjuna expects Duryodhana to say something like ‘Run along, child’ or ‘Do not eavesdrop on your elders’, but the prince has an indulgent, almost fond look on his face.

“Give me that,” he says, pointing at the hand Karna has behind his back. Arjuna thinks it a cruel thing to ask, then the boy reluctantly brings out a bursting handful of areca nuts, and Arjuna has to laugh.

Duryodhana smiles as well, plucks one of the six in his hand. Karna drops two others, and as he bends to retrieve his fallen treasures, Duryodhana ruffles his hair.

“Run along now, little scamp,” the Kaurava prince says.

“Are you going to kill him?” Karna asks, eyes wide and worried.

“No,” Duryodhana assures him, “but remember what we agreed, yes?”

Karna beams at them, one after the other. “I will! See you.”

With that, he is gone.

Duryodhana cracks the nut and hands half of it to Arjuna – sinfully possessive one moment, impossibly generous the next.

Arjuna gapes at him. “Are you really not going to kill Bheem?”

Duryodhana glowers at him. “Go lay an egg,” he says, rudely, and stalks off. Arjuna stares at his retreating back, confused.

But no news comes that day, or the next, or any of the weeks after, and slowly, Arjuna learns to breathe easier.

“Who is that?” Krishna asks.

Karna starts, he has not been paying attention. Krishna is the scion of faraway Dwārika, and not much of an acquaintance in any manner of the term, although the dark haired prince claims he has hardly ever been outside Vrindāvan, and never to the city by the sea.

“Pardon me,” Karna says, contrite, “whom do you speak of?”

“That boy,” says Krishna, and points towards a lone figure lurking by the stables.

“That is Arjuna. His father is Pitāmaha's charioteer.”

“May I speak to him?”

“Excuse me,” Karna hails the older boy, “can you spare a moment?”

Arjuna appears at his side, all muddy fringes and stiff bows. “Greetings, princes.”

“Greetings,” Karna nods. “This is Krishna, my cousin. Krishna, Arjuna.”

Krishna is tall and dark, his young face beams with pleasure. “How do you do, Pārtha?”

Arjuna blinks. “Uh... I am not called that. My mother’s name is Rādha.”

Krishna gives him a secret smile, and waves at someone above his head. Karna, distracted by a squirrel, nearly misses it.

“Duryodhana?” he says, delighted, when he notices the other boy on the balcony. “Come down, come down.”

Krishna shakes his arm. “Perhaps, the four of us can go to the garden?”

Sometime later, the four of them are seated around a bush, shears in hand. The rose shrub is not big enough to make a topiary out of, but Queen Gandhari has arranged tables around it with the hopes of giving the boys a more fruitful pastime to channel their excitement into.

“And what should I do?”

Arjuna is seated beside Krishna, facing the others. Duryodhana picks up his shears and snips a stray leaf. “We have to make this appear smooth and shapely.”

“Why?”

Karna stares at him. “Because Aunt Gandhari says so, of course.”

Krishna pulls his legs up on the bench, lifts a fist to the air. “Let’s dooo it!”

For the next couple of hours they work diligently, or at least pretend to, for Duryodhana starts kicking Karna under the bench, and Karna kicks him back, and it is an entertaining game; Krishna, meanwhile, shows Arjuna how and where to snip – he has clever eyes, and his hands are dexterous.

When they finally leave, one side of the bush poorer than the other, Krishna swings his hands around his new friend’s shoulders and lags behind the two princes. “You were saying Guru Drona does not want to teach you?”

Arjuna flushes. “That is true. It is er... his choice, of course, no disrespect intended.”

Krishna’s eyes twinkle. “Dau and I are going to study with Guru Sāndīpani. Do you wish to come with?”

Arjuna chances a glance at Karna, barely jealous, but there still. “I think I would like that.”

“Can we not do this here?” Arjuna hisses. His father looks over from the garden where he and Rādha Mā are talking to Lord Bhishma, and Arjuna is afraid.

“Come now,” Duryodhana groans. “We are settling it man to man, just as Pitāmaha wanted. What is wrong now?”

Arjuna glances at the Pāndava brothers, aching with the weight of Anga’s crown and the knowledge of the Jatugrīha. “Why am I a part of this conversation?”

Yudhisthira coughs politely, as he is wont to. It gets on Arjuna's nerves like nothing else. “If you will excuse me,” he says, “we must greet our mother.”

The Pāndavas glance up as one, and Arjuna notices Dowager Empress Kunti hurrying down the steps.

“Mother,” Karna and Sahadeva exclaim excitably and there is a flurry of motion as they settle down to accept their blessings. To his surprise, Duryodhana follows, and he is compelled to join in the flock.

“There you are, darling,” Kunti says, pulling him up, then freezes.

Something old and forgotten stirs within Arjuna – a shadow of a memory, a wisp of a dream, a woman still as a flame with a child in her arms. Mother, he nearly says, ancient words soaring to his mouth, the shapes of them lingering on his tongue. Mother, look what we have brought home.

Then the Grandfather joins them and the moment is gone.

His father throws him a disapproving glance, and Arjuna shrinks from the princes. His mother, though, is staring at Karna.

“Vāsu...?” she whispers, as if to a ghost, and Karna turns.

“Yes, Mā?”

“His name is Karna,” Bheema declares loudly, and glares at them. The prince has not yet forgiven Arjuna’s stunt at the Graduation, even if Karna claims he would have done the same.

Radha Mā looks flustered, and Karna shifts in discomfort, as if put on a stage for a part he does not know how to play. Adhiratha grabs Arjuna and wraps an arm around his wife.

“Please forgive her, Prince,” he says, and starts pulling them away. “By your leave...”

Arjuna supposes they have embarrassed his father enough. His mother walks as if in a trance. “Vāsu?” she murmurs under her breath. “Vāsusena... child, where are you gone?”

Arjuna, alarmed, turns one last time. Karna is miserable and bewildered, staring after Rādha like a lost child, and Kunti's eyes, seeking him, are wet with tears.

Arjuna sits silent and still, horror trembling beneath his skin like a fluttering bird.

“Duryodhana, please...” Arjuna whispers, unsure of what he begs, and fearful of the prince's wrath.

“I bet my brother, Karna,” Yudhisthira says, drunk on dharma and shivering with repentance. “If I win, I shall have him and all that is on the board; if you do, then he is yours.”

Karna looks up, stunned. There is betrayal on his face, and Arjuna’s heart stings. Even Duryodhana frowns, for Karna alone of all his cousins he names a friend.

“As you say,” Shakuni shrugs, and rolls his dice. “Lo! I win!”

Karna rises from his seat without being asked, walks over to kneel beside his brothers. His mien is smooth and calm now, all torment shielded behind a mask, but Bheema leaps up, enraged.

“Brother!” he tells Yudhisthira, “Hear me! Cease this madness before you lose all else.”

“I cannot leave them to this fate, Bheema,” Yudhisthira says, and picks the dice again. “I stake Bheema.”

“No, wait,” Duryodhana says, brows furrowed. “Māmāshree, do not bet now.”

The two players look up.

“No more?” Yudhisthira repeats slowly, as if he thought this game would go on forever, till the last brother was staked, and perhaps his wife and mother as well.

“Are you sure, my dear?” Shakuni asks.

Duryodhana ignores both of them, strides over to Karna. “Come with me.”

“I shall split your head open,” Bheema roars from beside Yudhisthira. “Leave him alone.”

“I won him,” Duryodhana reminds him coldly, “and I would that he comes with me.”

Karna rises with a grace that startles Arjuna, no longer the clumsy middle prince who dropped things, just like he is no longer a charioteer's dutiful son.

“I will go,” he says, and Yudhisthira turns to the court at large. “Please forgive my brother’s outburst.”

Arjuna wants to slap him.

Duryodhana wraps an arm around Karna's shoulders, and steers him to the doors. For a moment it appears that Bheema would follow, but then the Kaurava prince dismisses the guards, and they step just outside, far enough so no one can overhear whispers, but near enough that they are seen, and a fuming Bheema sits back down.

Arjuna sits and waits for a long time, like all others at court, even the blind Emperor, who can never walk without his son, and thinks miserably of how much Krishna would disapprove.

He is about to join them, either to pacify or to add fuel to the fire, when Karna speaks, loud and sarcastic enough to be heard all over the court. “I loved it. I loved it so much I am going to write a play about it, and have actors sent to perform it all over Āryavarta. Why, I should- ”

Duryodhana catches his flailing hands, shushes him. They whisper once more. The blind Emperor swivels his head in apparent confusion. Arjuna gets up to intervene.

Then Duryodhana walks in, a furious Karna in tow.

Arjuna seizes him by the arm. “Let them go, Duryodhana,” he pleads. “Do not do this.”

His patron and friend...? looks at him quietly for a long time, so long that Arjuna very nearly reaches for his bow.

Dhritarashtra, for once in his life, takes the cue. “Court is dismissed,” he calls, and the ordeal is over.

“You have counselled me wisely,” Duryodhana says at last. “Now, and before. It is a shame that I heeded you not.” Then he raises his head and says aloud, without preamble or explanation, “Let all be returned and restored to the Pāndava princes. Thank you, noble ones, for joining us in this game. We shall retire soon for lunch.”

Two years later, when the knowledge of the game is a rumour, and the incident at Indraprastha's lake is forgotten, Karna comes alone to Hastinapura. Krishna, who is visiting, gives Arjuna one of his secret smiles.

At the gates, Duryodhana meets him stiffly, for things have never been the same between the two sets of cousins. They bow ceremoniously, Dhritarashtra speaks a few half-hearted greetings, and Gandhari fusses over him.

Karna and Duryodhana stare at each other, and then Karna wraps him in a fierce hug.

“You’re not forgiven,” the Pandava prince says, voice muffled, but Arjuna notes Karna's trembling hands and thinks he knows otherwise.

Then, to his surprise, Karna turns to him. Krishna smiles at him again and whispers, “Prepare yourself, Angarāja.”

Before Arjuna can ask him what he means, Karna bows to him and says, “Greetings, brother.”

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nosuda-cringe · 1 month

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🥺👉👈 c-can you talk a lil more da mermaid AU, I loved da idea and prob gonn make a small storyboard for it

Hey! Sure, I have little parts of it fleshed out, but I can tell you a little abt the general idea! And please tag me if you do! I would love to see it

In general it’s more of a magical creatures AU than a mermaid au, just happens that half of the gang are mermaids XD. Thing is, Hiccup is a deep water merman, they are bigger and a little different looking than shallow water merpeople, who look more like Disney mermaids. Hiccup is tiny of a merman of his kind, and he is fascinated by humans, and the whole world outside the ocean, yet his father has it absolutely prohibited for him to go, very the little mermaid of Stoick, he lost Valka because a pirate ship took her, as mermaid scales and flesh are very valuable and expensive, and deep water merfolk have harder scales and supposedly delicious flesh, that is even more looked after since it’s so complicated to get.

Fishlegs is a shallow water merman, and just like Hiccup he is fascinated by humans, their behavior and technology, they are closely friends and they sneak out a lot to go and explore shipwrecks and shit. Snotlout is Hiccup’s cousin, he is a warrior and lost the arm because of pirates, saving Hiccup’s silly ass actually, now he isn’t much for the idea of him exploring and stuff but you know that man, promise him to get him something shiny and he will tag along. Astrid is a sailor, she meets Hiccup by accident and makes it her personal goal to capture him and sell him, after all she is the best there is! (She has never captured merfolk).

Also Toothless! He is a little silly buddy that Hiccup found one day when he was supposed to go hunting and learn how to catch a good meal! Toothless is not like any marine animal Hiccup has ever seen, and he has a weird glow on his eyes like the one cursed creatures emit! Maybe this is not his real form?

The twins are something snake related, can’t remember the actual name now but they are bored as fuck where they are, old ruins of a temple, they like to play with people but those silly little pranks usually end with dead folk so it’s highly advised to not go near them (it’s usually never on purpose! Humans are so fragile!)

I have more to say if anyone is interested! Just ask away because rn I can’t think of something specific AKSJSKKS

#httyd #httyd au #snotlout jorgenson #httyd snotlout #hiccup haddock #httyd hiccup #httyd astrid #astrid hofferson #fishlegs ingerman #ruffnut thorston #tuffnut thorston #magical creatures au

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tenebrius-excellium · 11 months

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I love your post about backend motivation vs frontend motivation in the HTTYD series!!! I’ve always had a bit of a problem with the sequels (especially the third movie) that I could never put into words, but the difference in motivation is EXACTLY it. The Hidden World in particular had a specific ending in mind, wich isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but their solution was to force the ending into existence instead of letting the story naturally build up to the ending. And you can feel the story straining soooooo much when Toothless acts like a dog for twenty minutes or Grimmel does something simple/obvious that the narrative treats as an ingenious act of strategy. It’s just not genuine! The characters simply wouldn’t act like that, but the writers let plot dictate characters instead of the other way around, and it’s just. so disappointing. There has to have been a way to keep the natural tensions and eventual triumphs of dragon/human bonds without resorting to flattening everyone’s character and taking the story in a weird, half-baked direction.

————————————————————————————-

Oh my gosh B. You’re still there??????? THANK YOU for being faithful to my blog even tho I’ve not really posted anything proper in ages!!! I’m so happy to hear from you!!!

I’m glad you liked my post XD Ok so. I remembered that what I tried to express is called “Watsonian vs. Doylish” interpretation in fandom (based on this post), or easier, it’s about giving in-universe explanations vs. ex-universe explanations for something that happens in the plot. The actual literary terms according to Gérard Genette for that would be “intra-diegetic” vs. “extra-diegetic”.

The specific difference the terms “back-end vs. front-end motivation” makes, seems to be the phenomenon that building a story from the start allows it to better make sense inside the universe, whereas building a story from its ending reveals the circumstances that the author found themselves in when creating it.

Anyway so what I always found strange is that Httyd2 had all those same problems you named, yet no one talks about that and only bashes on the third movie! Wanna enlighten me on why the second movie worked for you???

Ok so this is spontaneously going to turn into the “Ooc Hiccup post” that I promised at the beginning of the year. I hope you’re ok with that.

WHY IS HICCUP OOC IN HTTYD2?

because his new conflict (”becoming Chief”) was pulled out of thin air and wasn’t already an established extension of Berk’s situation. (a part I always loved about Httyd1 was that Hiccup wasn’t made out to be a Disney Princess who would have to face the duty of leading eventually. I expected the question of succession to be handled far more casually - that someone who wanted to be worthy could be Chief on Berk, not because Hiccup was expected to continue Stoick’s legacy. In fact I wish Stoick would have let him go rampant with the smithy and all his crazy inventions, making him Gobber’s successor first - since Gobber is also canonically older than Stoick - and lining Astrid up to be the next actual Chief. There could have been a sudden plot twist where Astrid realizes she doesn’t want to do it alone and that she needs Hiccup in this with her. It would have made them the ruling couple in a different way.)

because the movie made him immature on purpose so it could justify slapping the “necessary” growth arc on him. (Look, Hiccup has always been reckless and a little bit too trusting when presented with danger, but he was never ignorant of a certain reality or too stupid to see error in his ways. Httyd2 depicts him as a naive dragon geek who can’t see past the destructive potential this has on the humans around him. Eret has had a shit life and a dark past. Drago has his reasons for what he does. Yet Hiccup is far too quick to ignore the trauma that the tribes of the Archipelago suffered because of the dragon plague, and simply forgives his mother despite the fact that she chose to save dragons over raising her own son. It’s all in the name of dragon welfare now and that is just not Hiccup. Og Hiccup took time to engage with Astrid’s valid scepticism. Og Hiccup killed the Red Death to save his tribe. He did not attempt to train that one, if you get what I’m saying. The dragons were never pets.)

because Stoick died only so he wouldn’t get in the way of Hiccup’s leadership. (After all that happens, Hiccup - to me - hasn’t suddenly evolved into a wiser or more experienced person. He just righteously got his ass kicked for the stupidity that was forced onto his character. He then becomes Chief not because he has learned much from the situation, but because Stoick is now dead. It’s true that Hiccup says “Sorry, Dad” to the funeral pyre, but it is never specified what he’s sorry for. To me, he does understand that he got his father killed, but he doesn’t get a grasp on why. He hasn’t the faintest notion of what Stoick did for him, to what extent his father came after him. There was desperation in Stoick to save his son. And Hiccup never feels this guilt much. It is then very convenient that he can freely lead the people of Berk and appear as a competent Chief simply because there is no more Stoick to disagree with him. I loved the version in the books where Hiccup becomes king and Stoick as well as Valhallarama are both alive and well to see it!!!! And Stoick, Chief of the Hairy Hooligans, has to take a step back and let his son shine.)

Right. So that’s that. The second point is by far my greatest criticism regarding Httyd2. Hiccup, in my opinion, was always balanced between the needs of dragons and humans. He is not a “dragon geek”. It simply so happened that a dragon became his best friend because no one else wanted to be his friend at first. Movie!Hiccup is an “invention geek”!!! The time he spends building stuff in the smithy is so important to his character! He doesn’t fix stuff by talking. He fixes stuff by building tools first and explaining them to everyone else second. That’s how I’ve always understood him. Httyd3 Hiccup partly returned to that focus with his fireproof armor, the fully developed flightsuits and the docking contraption for ships that he made on New Berk. The Hiccup I know acts more, gains emotional insight by observation, and talks less.

Of course I agree with all of your criticism of Httyd3. Yes the movie felt strained. But I admit that because I enjoyed Hiccup’s hesitant yet determined character again, I can overlook its flaws much easier than the flaws of Httyd2.

Let me know what you think!

#httyd #httyd2 #httyd3 #httyd franchise #analysis #httyd analysis #httyd2 analysis #httyd3 analysis #wherethekiteflies #wherethekitethought #b #ask #asks #anon #anonymous

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hermesserpent-stuff · 3 months

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hiii spoiler scene for future of the fic, Claws and Calls au. not sure where this will come in. Astrid and Stoick talk and sorta explain themselves to eachother.

Astrid stares into the fire, eyes dry of tears. She had cried so many on Stormfly’s back during the journey home. She had sworn Snotlout to secrecy about it. With her ax and dragon. Snotlout had promised. Astrid watches the flames twitch and stir, eating the wooden logs.

“Astrid.”

Stoick’s voice is firm. Filled to the brim with disappointment. She refuses to look at him, knowing already why he is talking to her. He sits down heavily beside her, the new weight causing the wood to groan. It sounds all the louder with his clear frustration and dissatisfaction. He repeats her name.

“Astrid. I would have thought that you knew better.”

She knows what he is talking about. Astrid finds a growl bubbling up in her chest and she lets it come out in the words she speaks.

“I thought you would know better than to give up on Hiccup.”

The chief tenses.

“He disappeared in enemy territory, messing with dragon hunters for over a month. And while I hope and pray to the gods that he is alive, I am the chief. I have to think of the tribe. I was thinking of the tribe when I named you heir apparent. I would have thought you would have thought of the tribe before flying out and risking the winter storms. We could have lost another heir. Another stable future.”

Her eyes snap to him.

“Messing with? He was saving dragons. Hiccup was helping dragons.”

She is pissed.

“As good as that is, helping dragons was not among his duties to his tribe.”

Stoick’s voice is firm and she wants to scream. “And? It was part of him. Hiccup loves dragons. He would never be able to standby and watch. He feels like it is his duty to watch after dragons. To watch after his friends.”

“And he is now gone. Astrid. I need you to focus. Chasing after dreams and shadows of people will not keep Berk safe.”

“Like you never did that.”

She bites back and the chief clenches his fist, anger swirling across his face.

“I would choose your next words carefully.”

Astrid hisses and finds her mouth moving before her brain can truely consider what she says.

“You chased after the idea of finding the dragon nest for years. We lost people on that fool's errand for years. I lost my aunt! Everyone lost someone on that stupid idea! It took a dragon to find the nest! A dragon named Toothless that we only met because of your son, who you gave up on!”

She shrieks.

“How dare you!”

He snarls. She tries to speak but he cuts her off.

“No. Listen here. You will one day be chief and you will be faced with hard decisions that make you question yourself. Yes. I hunted that nest for years. But never in the dead of winter when storms were guaranteed to come and would most likely kill everyone who sailed. We all were already under threat from the dragon raids. So whether we sailed or not, the fate of death by a dragon was likely sealed for all involved. You know this. But your hunt for Hiccup? Right now? It's foolish and stupid. If he is dead, which is likely, then you are sentencing yourself to following him. If he is alive, then he is grounded by the rolling storms. So stop being a foolish child. We both know you are grown enough to understand.”

Stoick takes a deep breath, rage still simmering.

“Do you not think, that as his father, I want to believe that Hiccup is alive? That I want to try to find him? I can't hold onto a dream. I am the chief. And the needs of the village come before the individual. Something that I tried to teach Hiccup. I let him go to the Edge, hoping that he could grow. To learn. To become a good chief in the future and know what it takes to lead people and achieve goals.”

He touches her shoulders.

“I miss him too. But we can't throw away life because we miss him.”

Astrid looks away.

“You can't even bring yourself to think he is alive…”

She whispers, voice shaking.

“I cannot afford to.”

Stoick says, voice cracking. Astrid looks back and sees it. The heartbreak that is so reflective of her own.

“If I believe he is alive, I cannot do anything about it. Risk myself or the tribe? No. I cannot do that. It is better to think him dead than think he is out there suffering. Do you understand?”

Stoik frowns, fingers tight on her shoulders.

“I’m not sure I can.”

She states a little coldly. Astrid then takes a breath.

“But I’ll wait for spring. Alright? But I’m going to keep looking. Until I can believe that Hiccup is dead.”

She leaves the building and embraces the hit of cold against her skin. She hopes Hiccup is warm. She hopes he is not scared. She hopes Dagur has not found him.

#hermes speaks #httyd #httyd au #claws and calls au #stoick the vast #astrid hofferson

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one-strugling-bean · 2 years

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Random Thoughts on HTTYD RttE S2(Ep8-13)

Ep8&9 - Astrid is being a little meany to the twins, but i get why

Barf&Belch throwing that last tree trunk and then butting heads, looking super proud of themselves was funny

Daamn, Ruffnut! It seems she's been holding that in for a long time now

Okay, like, i can see where Ruffnut is coming from; there have been moments where Astrid mocks or scolds elements of her team (mostly either the twins or Snotlout) for really small things, but since it's always played for laughs, we as a viewer have never taken it into consideration until now, when Ruff throws it at Astrid's face.

But you can't completely blame her! Sometimes, the twins really do stupid stuff and put the team in danger, and Astrid won't forget that, as she shouldn't.

But then, she's also too inflexible and that's where Hiccup's better. He's able to reach a compromise with the twins and make them follow and help the team in their own way. Astrid - it's not even that she can't do that - it's that she won't. And the twins aren't dumb, they understand that.

Fluffnut and Stuffnut are genius names and i shall not take any criticism

Yeahhh capturing one of the twins might not have been your best move here

Im really curious to see what Tuff's plan is

Poor old cousin Lars #2

"-and that these guys love us?" and Hookfang promptly turns his head away - Hookfang is a tsundere confirmed!!

I love how the hunters did not care that Ruffnut escaped, they just let her go

Yayy apologiesss

Ep10 - Fishlegs is so freaking sweet - he's like a giant gentleman, super intelligent brave and kind, and i love whenever he's on screen doing stuff

"I promise I'll tell Snotlout where i hid his favorite axe!" Omg, what did Snotlout do?

He probably thinks the twins hid it btw

OMGGGG I swear i hadn't seen that far yet!! Snotlout does think the twins hid the axe!!

Poor Hookfang :'<

"You should listen to me more often" "Naaah, I shouldn't" This little exchange between cousins was great

Sooo Fishlegs kinda toasted himself there on the Seashocker's back huh

Ha, karma finally came to visit Tuff and Ruff

Ep11 - I've never seen him before, but the Skrill looks so damn cool! Just from his name, my guess on his design was a silver, slick-looking dragon with a big mouth, and i couldn't have been more wrong - it was a surprise to see him as black and purple, he's so pretty!

"Isn't Snotlout's dad acting more violent and deranged than usual?" That you would already characterize him as both does not bode well with me

I really wanted Hookfang to throw Spitelout off of him ngl, that was a rude push

Why did Spitelout come along?!

Also, Astrid being done with Snotlout, part34 (someone should make a comp of that, it'd be so long)

"I hate smart dragons. Which is why I love you!" Aww, Tuffnut sure has a way with words. Also, rider-dragon love

"How come he gets revenge?" Well, it's one of the many perks of being main character, along with a raging martyr complex and everyone wanting a piece of you (for good and bad reasons)

I'm kinda confused, what is Hiccup's plan here?

Soooo, does Dagur actually like the Skrill, ooooor

My lord, why is Spitelout still here??

Yeahhhh team effort timeeeee

Omfg, Spitelout why (Snotlout's "Wait, what?" was a nice way to show how dumb that move was)

Toothless is so protective of Hiccup, and for good reason

I write this up here, and the guy immediately has himself standing in front of a freaking arrow shot - of course Toothless is protective, his rider is always getting himself in dangerous situations!

Good for the skrill, good for him

Yeah, I do not like Spitelout

Uhm, what was that ending, why did you all laugh, he was hurting his son on purpose, peeps why

Ep12&13 - Don't think I've mentioned it until now, but I really enjoy Dagur's voice, it doesn't fit with what I inicially expected of him because of his looks - i expected a much rougher, raspy voice - but the animators and his VA still make it work so well

Toothless silently judging Tuff and Snotlout in the background while Astrid and Hiccup talk was a really funny detail

Sooo I'm guessing this is the Tufflout bromance episode I've heard about

Hm, first impressions of Viggo: he looks a bit common, not a lot of distinguishable features to him, and the way he grabbed Ryker's chin felt so creepy to me - he's already an unsettling guy that's for sure

Ah, he put his arm around her shoulders, noo

His voice is super smooth, it is unsettling

"Hiccup knows we have it-" "Yeah, he let us borrow it-" "I stole it." pfff great

Ngl, i was waiting for the whole "Heather being revealed" thing to take q lot longer

Also, Flightmare pretty, but he does a number on the eyes

Dagur still has no idea Heatger betrayed him huh

Nouuuuu Heatheeeer

Viggo can teletransport apparently, good to know

And Ruffnut makes a good point

Okay, i gotta say Hiccup makes a good argument there, Viggo demands a well thought out plan

Do i sense a Dagur redemption arc..?

"I thought you liked it toasty?" "I like toast-y, not toast-ed!" Snotlout, Astrid, i appreciate you two

Yeahhh Dagur will help Heather somehow by the end of this ep

Im gonna guess that the Dragon Eye Viggo got is merely a duplicate of the real thing

Thank you Dagur!!

Oh, okay, no, it was the actual Dragon Eye, damn

So, just to check, Heather is now gone, Dagur is kinda on his own side, and Ryker and Viggo have their own evil plans with the Dragon Eye - okay that's fine

Welp, and that's Season 2 for you! Can't wait to keep watching it now!!

Its 2am tho, so now i gotta sleep, byee

#httyd #httyd rtte commentary #race to the edge #hiccup horrendous haddock the 3rd #astrid hofferson #fishlegs ingerman #snotlout jorgenson #ruffnut thorston #tuffnut thorston #toothless #stormfly #meatlug #hookfang #barf and belch #viggo grimborn #dagur the deranged #Httyd ryker #Httyd heather #way too many tags

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lifeofkaze · 1 year

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BTS (writer ask) for PR Allies and Old Friends (22 Jan 1998)?

[ellie-e-marcovitz ☺️]

Thank you for the ask! It was so much fun revisiting the PR for a look at this. BTS, here you go!

The original chapter discussed in this BTS can be found here.

New Year’s Eve had come and gone and the Christmas lights had vanished from the streets of Greenwich. Without anyone noticing, the new year had taken over and Ava still hadn’t had a single word from Kaari Arcano or his ominous underground organisation.

So, we enter Book 2 (or rather, my contributions to the story) almost a month after Ava, Artemis (@the-al-chemist) and Kaari (@kathrynalicemc) have run their coup at Azkaban. Kaari left Ava on the beach with the promise of getting back to her about joining the PR, but that has still to happen.

Ava tried putting her mind back to the catalogue of found pieces from her latest excavation site, but her mind kept returning to the Phoenix Resistance. She wondered why Kaari hadn’t contacted her yet; when they had parted ways in Scotland, he had said that he would find her. Ava had waited for news somewhat apprehensively after getting home, but her apprehension had soon turned to impatience and eventually to indignant indifference. She had better things to do than sitting at home waiting, after all.

Ava is a person who loves being in control and having things in order. Kaari is very much the opposite. So her having to wait for HIM to go and contact her is grating enough as it is, and him seemingly not bothering to do so is making her a lot more annoyed than she would ever care to admit out loud.

The air outside was cold and smelled like it was going to rain soon. Ava flipped the collar of her coat up and snuggled deeper into her knit red scarf. She walked past the dark trees of Greenwich Park and into the direction of the Thames. She weaved through the crowds on her way along the King William Walk, past bustling pubs and shops.

Anyone who read my other Ava stories or the little ask on symbolism in my writing a little while ago might notice my reference to Ava's red scarf, which she wears in almost any short I have written for her so far (if the weather calls for it, ofc). It was given to her as a Christmas present by Charlie, who knitted it himself before they began going out. It started as a reference to the sock-knitting from the game but turned into a symbol for their presence in each other's lives when they can't be physically. Also, perusing the streets of Greenwich on Google Maps to get an idea about Ava's neighbourhood honestly was so much fun.

Ava chose not to answer him. She had spent Christmas with her parents in Castle Combe, but had skipped the annual dinner with her extended family in Lancashire. Christmas with the family was nice, but it wasn’t where she had hoped to be for the festive season. Distracting herself from the hollow feeling inside her chest, she nodded at Kaari.

One of the biggest challenges of the PR was to write it in a way that wouldn't sever all ties to canon characters for each and every respective OC while also not contradicting others. Hence, I never named Charlie as Ava's boyfriend directly, but only ever referenced him to not clash with any other content creators who had definite headcanons for Charlie and their respective characters, too.

Struggling with herself and her instinct at self-preservation, it took Ava a moment to do what Kaari had suggested. She couldn’t take her eyes off the play of light on Ryoko’s scales and how close he was standing to Kaari without so much as looking tense. Everything she knew about dragons and their behaviour was running through her mind, but none of it seemed to add up to what she was seeing in front of her.

Another challenge for me was how varied the perception of dragons is in the HP universe. I know that Ryoko was intended to be more like Toothless from HTTYD (who is the best, let's be real), but personally, I always stuck more to dragons as these wild and completely dangerous/uncontrollable beasts, how they are described in the HP canon. So, to get these two different ways of interpreting them to work together was a challenge, but I think in the end, it worked out quite well.

“No back rooms but an alley is fine? Curious where you draw the line,” Kaari laughed. “And we’re not strangers, we’re friends. Or allies, at least,” he added when he saw her look.

The dynamic between Ava and Kaari was just too much fun. Ava tends to be a little too serious at times, so having a goofball like Kaari to challenge her and bicker for a couple of lighter moments was really needed, I think.

“What can I say,” Kaari shrugged, “people are thirsty these days.” Ava only made a sceptical sound in response, but Kaari didn’t seem to mind. He just carried on talking. “We have barrels just like this one in Skalafell. Okay, maybe not that big, but pretty big. My friends and I used to ride them down a stream when we were kids.”

Considering Kaari's faceclaim, I just couldn't resist a nod to the infamous barrel scene from The Hobbit, and I ain't gonna apologise for it 😂

The dark corridor was even more narrow than the one above and stretched further than Ava had expected. It probably ran beneath the adjacent buildings as well and Ava itched to look at a floorplan, if one depicting this secret cellar even existed. There was a faint, rhythmic noise in the air she couldn’t quite place. Every now and again doors were leading off the passageway and she asked Kaari about their purpose.

Seeing as @kathrynalicemc didn't have any specific headcanons about the more detailed architecture of the headquarters, she kindly let me run wild here, and oh boy, I had way too much fun with it.

Kaari looked between Devon and Ava with a puzzled expression. “Where did you learn how to sign?”

So, Kaari was obv at Hogwarts at the same time as Ava and Devon, but to make things fit, I headcanon him to have been in the year above Ava. (That's actually a common thing that I/a couple of other creators do when trying to fit OCs with conflicting timelines into the same universe). That explains why Kaari and Ava don't know each other or about each other's friendship with Devon. You could argue that they must have seen each other, at the very least, but Kaari transferred to Hogwarts in the year that Ava's brother died and she just had a LOT going on. That and being in different houses, I think, is enough reason for them to have passed each other by.

“Still enough time to do it now,” Kaari said cheerfully. “We’re going to get you ready for your first raid. Consider this your trial of fire.”

Fire is a big theme in my PR chapters, more so for Mina than it was for Ava. But throwing the imagery in there every now and again is something that makes me smile looking back.

#the phoenix resistance #tpr #ava campbell #kaari arcano #devon marlowe #bts #behind the scenes

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raivokasmagma · 3 months

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Thoughts on UMK24

All the songs have been released this year. I've noticed that my opinions on the songs have changed quite a bit over time. Some I didn't like at first, but warmed up to them after few listens. Roster contained familiar names, whose music I'm not that familiar with.

At least for now, how would I actually rank this years songs? Which songs actually have chance to win? Let's see.

Ranking the songs

This year featured many artists, that are labelled as rappers. I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed songs from some of them. I used to listen rap music when I was a kid, but then I fell out of that train.

Let's start with the song I actually consider worse.

7. Mikael Gabriel x nublu - Vox Populi

Sigh... I knew Mikael Gabriel only by name. Never consciously heard any song from him. Apparently "biggest" rapper in Finnish popular music.

Didn't have much expectations, but I was surprised how this song didn't even meet those. Starts promising for few seconds, but then immediately momentum stops when MK starts rapping.

How the hell this guy is so popular?! Other rappers in this contests feel like they are on different level than MK. Can't comment on nublu, but what I read on lyrics translation, I don't know...

Feels like Portion Boys of this year. Popular, but somehow annoys me. I don't want to even hear this songs, really rubs me the wrong way.

6. Cyan Kicks - Dancing With Demons

Toothless.

The "heavy" contestant this year. Have to wonder why they are again here after so short time? But when I look at Melodifestivalen contestants this year, there are some I recognize from last year.

Song? I kind of remember the chorus, but eh? Very inoffensive song. Has some crunchy guitars. Hurricane I actually remember.

5. Sara Siipola - Paskana

The first song that was revealed that I actually was like "Huh, this is good.". I even thought this was the winner this year, no need to reveal the rest.

However, after some time and warming up to other songs, this really dropped on my ranking. It's not a bad song. Sara sings well (even though sounds processing kind of drowns her voice), topic feels relatable, has some t.A.T.u. vibes on the melodies.

Can't help to feel she is the "Loreen" of this year. Poses in music video, costume... One person commented on BlueSky on the t.A.T.u. vibes, if she had more that attitude than Loreen vibes.

4. Sexmane - Mania

It's a solid song. Crunchy guitars and rap is a combo I like very much :D

Another mental health song. Cyan Kicks and Sara Siipola had those as well. Sara maybe had better lyrics, but Sexmane more enjoyable song overall. I still want to see how he performs that scream at the end.

Feels like this song needs little bit more length. But when I looked at Sexmane's discography, he seems to be "short song" type of guy.

3. Sini Sabotage - Kuori Mua

I knew Sini Sabotage by name. I knew the viral hit "Levikset repee" from the past. I actually didn't remember hearing it consciously.

At first I was like "Eeeeh" to this song, but after few listen, I like it quite much. Very sassy, smooth song.

Made me actually think about, how appearances might be decieving, but how people are actually deep inside. Funny how such fun song makes you think that :D

Sini is damn good rapper! With nice vocals. Hoping this is contest does good for her career.

2. Windows95man - No Rules!

I love song XD

Eurodance is my guilty pleasure. Sound of summer. I predict this will play a lot during summer.

This song was the first I listened on repeat. It's very well done. Good vocals from Henri Piispanen. Very typical eurodance contrast of not so glamourous vocals on verses, but bridges and choruses have the obviously good vocals.

This song is fun. I want to see the live performance already X

1. Jesse Markin - Glow

I wasn't biggest fan of the song at first. But after reading people's thoughts and looking at reactions, this is well crafted song. Well produced. Rapping is strongest (although different style) in the contests. Makes me smile, dance on my seat. Fun.

I was surprised this became my favourite. Made me actually explore Jesse Markin's other material. He is damn fine artist, not limited to rapping. I think he deserved the win, even though he wouldn't go to Eurovision.

Overall thoughts on the quality this year

I know what I like to hear in my music. This year actually surprised me, how much I can enjoy songs outside of my comfort zone. Made me exlpore artist's other material. 5/7 songs I enjoy, which is better than last year. Which is better than last year, which like 3/7.

I would actually argue this year is better in quality. More even playfield. I don't think any of this will go nearly as viral as Käärijä did. Although Käärijä's influence can be somewhat felt, songs are not super obviously taking inspiration. Maybe MK does try hardest to capitalize to Käärijä crowd, when looking at music video?

Who might actually win?

This is a popularity contest in the end, so song's quality might not matter to some people, as long their favourite artist wins.

If we look at music video view counts, it's interesting.

Cyan Kicks song was revealed first, so it has the advantage on that. However, Sara Siipola has the most the most views. Mikael Gabriel has gotten quite a lot of views, despite being revealed last. So he might be the most popular option. Sara Siipola has gotten most views and what I've looked at comments, it's maybe the top contender this year.

Windows95man also has quite a lot of views, but Mikael Gabriel is very close. Sexmane has good amount of views, but seems to divide most people. Sexmane has the worst like-dislike ratio on the video. Sini Sabotage is close second.

Looking at the Yle's popularity vote, that went live on Friday 19.1, Mikael Gabriel is on the lead, Sara Siipola being close second. Windows95man is third, with significant lead to Sini Sabotage who is fourth.

Cyan Kicks seems to be popular as the "heavy" option, what I've seen on reaction videos. Jesse Markin has been positively recieved, even though reaction people don't think it is necessarily Eurovision material.

When I think about these factors, I think top 3 will consist of

Mikael Gabriel x nublu

Sara Siipola

Cyan Kicks

Maybe Windows95man will get enough votes to take over Cyan Kicks? I wonder how settled people are on their voting decision already or will live performances matter how much? If I think last year, artist's popularity matters so much (Portion Boys as second).

I'm sure hoping we don't get obvious winner like Käärijä, when looking at the results. Hoping for more exciting competition. And that Mikael Gabriel won't win XD

#music blog #umk24 #uuden musiikin kilpailu #umk #umk 2024 #eurovision 2024 #finnish music #suomalainen musiikki #thoughts on UMK24 #My opinion

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rivenlovee · 4 months

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Forgotten/Httyd

Okay, so, they just showed httyd again on TV and I watched other episodes as well.It's my favorite and the top three. And so I decided to write a smaller series about hiccup x reader/Elara. Since my winx series is not very successful so far, I would appreciate any feedback, including this one. I just hope you enjoy it because I enjoy writing it!!. If you want a sequel, write!

summary: When Hiccup learns about Grimmer and his dragons, he must venture away from Blp to another island. He can't risk the lives of so many Vikings and dragons. They make their way to an island where Hiccup is constantly trying to find a hidden world. His dad constantly told him about him when he was a kid. There's only one problem. Half the Vikings believe him to exist and half don't. And the one who does not believe, tries her best to convince Hiccup to leave it and not seek him. When she releases Toothless and Bura's hidden world finally finds, she doesn't just find a lot of dragons there. But also a man he didn't expect for anything.His former supposedly dead best friend..

prolog:

“Where are you going”? a blonde girl named Astrid called out to me. Slowly, very slowly, I approached the cliff with my belongings, beneath which stretched a wide blue never-ending ocean. “Like you ever care,” I turned to her and frowned. ``What do you mean? Of course I'm interested. We are friends” now Astrid frowned at me in return. I just smirked at that sentence. Friends? I don't even know what the word means anymore.

“Friends”? I asked Astrid to get the nod. “Hardly friends,” I chuckled even though tears were coming out of my eyes. As for that matter, Astrid frowned even more, but under her gaze I could see that she knew what I was talking about.

"Are friends lying to each other? They say it's a promise but they won't keep it”? I asked her again. I was referring to the situation that happened this morning.

*Flashback*

“Come on, girl,” I said, prompting my dragon to move from its place where it had been standing for half an hour, looking at the same place all the time. If it wasn't as big or heavy as the Skrills used to be, I would have pulled it away, or at least pushed it, but it didn't go that way by mistake.

“Maya,” I said in a frustrated voice, looking at her with a pleading look. Maya just stared and kept looking at the same place. I couldn't take it anymore, I went up to her and picked up the sheets that prevented me from seeing something Maya was looking at.

And that was Astrid and Hiccup. They sat together on the edge of a cliff, watching the sunset. They laughed together and Astrid had her hand draped over Hiccup's shoulder.

“You know,” Astrid said after a while. “Elara doesn't belong here,” she finished the sentence, looking for Hiccup. He also looked at her. ``What”? he asked. He clearly didn't understand. As he might as well. Only Astrid knew.``I mean. Elery's dad “started saying, and I started praying that she wouldn't say it. Astrid, don't do that.

“Please,” I whispered, hoping she hadn't said it. She made me a promise. “Vigo,” she finished the sentence, and Hiccup pulled away from her.

Astrid kept looking at him while he frolicked at the ocean. “Sure, he hasn't been here for a long time, but the last time he was here was when he brought the creeping red death. Didn't you find it strange? Offensive? How did Vigo know we were going to be here and where do we have corridors”? said Astrid, leaving Hiccup to reflect.

“No,” I whispered, letting my tears fall freely down my cheeks. How could she do that to me? She promised not to tell anyone. Everything in front of me was a blur, because of the constant tears. All I saw was Astrid leaning over to Hiccup and slowly kissing him. Astrid was the only one who knew who my real family was, but also the only one who knew about my crush on Hiccup.

From day one he was very nice and respected by everyone. And say. Having beaten so many hunters and always saved everyone, who wouldn't love him? I couldn't take it anymore, and Maya probably didn't either. She stuck her head on the floor. She grabbed me on her back, I sat in the saddle, and she took off. Tears were still dripping all the way down my cheeks.

If we'd flown a little longer, I'd have a pond instead of a saddle. I flew to the house where I used to be, collected all my things, and went away with Maya. On the way, Maya wandered off somewhere, so it looked like I was going alone. I also met Astrid with Hiccup, but Hiccup didn't even notice me. Obviously he was still next door from what Astrid told him.

He didn't even look at me out of the corner of his eye. Just nothing. Astrid turned around after a while, let Hiccup go home and ran after me.

*End flashback*

And now I was standing here. At the end of the cliff waiting for Maya to fly in with Astrid ahead of her. “I didn't want to,” Blonka said. “I had to,” she added, and I nodded at her ironically. You made a promise to me. But that word probably doesn't tell you anything,” I just said and jumped off the cliff where Maya was waiting for me just before the ocean.

I quickly jumped her into the saddle and she took off. I looked at Astrid for the last time and she flew away.

As soon as I left, Astrid ran to Hiccup's house. On the way, she jumped over a stream where she wet her eyes to make it look like she had them from tears. She flew into his house, and he didn't roll over from his chair. “Elera jumped off a cliff,” she said in a broken voice.

“She's dead Hiccup..”

English is not my native language!

#httyd #toothles #hiccup #hiccupxreader #Astrid #Berk #httydxreader #elara

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supernynja13 · 10 months

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Moxxie’s Mom Blurb

TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of some violent actions (slapping, death, nothing too gruesome), there is a part where a gun is mentioned

Please know that you are responsible for the content you read. I am open to constructive criticism, but I will not tolerate hate. Thank you.

(This is just something that I decided to write on a whim. This is told from Moxxie’s mom’s perspective, whom I have named Bellatrix. Keep in mind this is not her common name. She looked like a Bellatrix to me tho so :P. Please enjoy!)

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Bellatrix hadn’t cared much for her life. She knew who she was and what she was destined to be: an imp married off to a mafia boss. There was some times, when she truly sat down and thought, that she was envious of the other imps in other rings. They didn’t have to deal with forced marriages or loveless relationships. While she wished to visit the other rings, her father hadn’t allowed her. Neither did her rotten husband.

It was a union of two mafias in the Envy ring, and joining would create a larger and more powerful influence. Her father was more than happy to sell her off to gain more power, like every crime boss that she had met. Crimson, her husband, was happy with her looks. It was a match made in convenience. She hadn’t cared too much.

Bellatrix didn’t remember a lot of her time with Crimson. The days blended together as the same things happened. They’d wake up in the same bed without a word, she’d make them breakfast, he’d go work while she lounged about the house wondering what to do, he’d have a wine break for which she wouldn’t have to be present for, then she’d make dinner as he finished work, only to end up in the bed together without another word. Crimson wasn’t one for talk; he was a cold imp with mind set on power, money, and, most importantly, control. To make her life easier, she had allowed him to control her. She didn’t see a reason to disobey him. She had grown up with this life even though she disliked it, and appeasing Crimson would keep him at bay to not bother her. She had given up a loving marriage long ago.

However, one day that all changed. She noticed her mood shifting, her appetite had become near voracious, and her stomach began to grow. Bellatrix knew she was pregnant, but the concept of a child was numb to her. They were just something that would have to be sold away for more power eventually. She lived with a round stomach, uncaring to name the child she would come to give away anyway. She knew what Crimson was like.

Next thing she knew, the little imp was in her arms, her son, her Moxxie. He was so tiny, but yet he had such a cheerful personality. He was shy of his father, but yet with her he smiled a toothless smile that made her heart flutter. Was it possible to give birth to an angel? She was convinced the answer was yes after seeing Moxxie’s gleeful face. He was so beautiful, with her freckles and bright eyes. When the nurses had left her, she held Moxxie close and silently sobbed over him. She promised that she would make sure he didn’t end up like his father. She would be better.

For the first couple years of his life, it was easy to teach Moxxie how to be kind and caring. Crimson hadn’t shown any interest in what she did, so taking her son out for walks and showing him the parts of the Envy ring that she liked was easy enough with Crimson’s face stuffed in business deals. Crimson, however, was notably ecstatic when she came home with Moxxie, and he also wanted to teach him. She knew that he wanted to form her Moxxie into the perfect heir of the mafia. She wouldn’t allow it. So while Crimson was busy, she would love on Moxxie all that she could, teaching him that kindness and warmth was better than convenience and cold. And it seemed to work. The older Moxxie grew, the more Bellatrix grew to love him. Was it possible to love her son that much? It was to her. She would die for him.

She cherished each day with Moxxie. He was her light, her newfound purpose in the world she grew numb to. She loved to see him smile and giggle as he played with his toys. She was disappointed a bit when he gained an interest in guns thanks to his father, but having that skill could also be beneficial to him, so she let it go. She encouraged every dream of his, smiling and nodding along with his ramblings, and played with him when she wasn’t busy. She could see he was also very determined, taking lengths to even keep her happy. He was such a sweet boy. She recognized it could be a double-edged sword, but for Moxxie, she would protect him.

When Moxxie was around 5 years old, something had changed in the household. It started slowly, with odd glances and long stares, but something in Crimson had changed. At least, temporarily. He began to notice her more, sitting closer to her in their bed or demanding her to sit with him for a little while he looked over papers. These were all done in silence, but her sharp eye had caught the differences. She noticed the mixed looks he would give Moxxie.

Bellatrix’s suspicions were confirmed one night at dinner. It was a silent dinner, both her and Moxxie had accepted that there would be no talking at dinner, and steak had been served that night. Moxxie, being only five and weak, struggled to cut his steak. Naturally, she took his plate and began cutting it for him. Moxxie gave her a thankful smile with his large eyes, and she smiled back lovingly to him. Out of the corner of her eye, Crimson looked at Moxxie before staring back at her. She couldn’t fully see the expression in his eyes, but she had an idea. She felt Crimson’s foot touch hers slightly, and she swiftly moved her foot away. She didn’t want to give him any affection. He didn’t deserve it. He slammed his foot in anger at her refusal, and his expression soured as he continued to eat his food. Bellatrix gave him the side-eye as he grumbled into his food before continuing to eat as if unbothered by his attitude. She wouldn’t give him the time of day.

There was another time Crimson decided to take them on a “family outing” to a dinky and unkept amusement park, if it could even be called that. Run by shady shark demons and victimizing imps, Crimson of course thought it the best place for them to act as a family. Bellatrix just knew that he was trying to save a couple dollars not taking Moxxie to an actual park. She wondered why he even tried.

Moxxie was around 6 years old now. He had grown taller but only about where her mid-thigh was. Crimson watched from a distance as her and Moxxie searched through the park. He was drawn to many things temporarily, but nothing of which really catching his attention fully. That was until he caught sight of this shooting game at the corner of the park. He was so cute, jumping up and down and pulling her along as he pointed at the game. She smiled, droopy eyes beaming back at her son, and allowed him to pull her along. His skills were extraordinary for someone his age. He hit all three targets in a matter of seconds, each hitting the bullseye in the center of the dummy’s chest. Moxxie was so cute when he looked up at her for approval. She rubbed the white hair on top of his tiny hand and cooed at him at how well of a job he had done.

Her expression instantly changed to worry when one short shark demon slid his arm around Moxxie and urged him to play another shooting game. Bellatrix called out for him when the demon pulled her son away from her and to the game. She saw them setting up a live imp like a scarecrow in front of her son, and her eyes widened. Crimson then handed Moxxie a gun and pointed to the imp, telling Moxxie to shoot at him. She felt anger and disgust wrack through her body as she stomped over to them. Bellatrix got there just in time just as Moxxie was about to mindlessly obey his father, quickly grabbing the gun out of his tiny hands and shoving it into Crimson’s chest. She stormed out of the park while gripping Moxxie’s hand, fuming that Crimson was trying to destroy her sweet boy. She didn’t look back at Crimson. She couldn’t stand that monster.

It wasn’t long after they got back home that Crimson also walked through the door, slamming it shut. Bellatrix’s head shot up at hearing the door slamming and quickly placed Moxxie off of her lap, asking him to run to his room and pretend he was asleep. Moxxie did as she asked, running upstairs, just before Crimson entered the living room. He frowned at her, beckoning with a finger to follow him. He shut their upstairs bedroom door behind him as she entered, and he growled at her for her actions at the park. She replied sharply back at him, telling him that he had no right to make her son kill people. He was so young and couldn’t understand what he was doing. Crimson barked at her, saying that Moxxie knowing how to kill mindlessly would do him good. They fought, voices raised and faces twisted into anger, as all the frustrations that had come along with their marriage came to life. The last straw was plucked when she yelled at him, saying that he would never amount to anything and be angry the rest of his life. With anger and hate in his sharp eyes, he slapped her across the face. He told her to watch her tongue. She would not.

She stormed out of their bedroom, shutting the door behind her, before heading to Moxxie’s room. She would get him and leave Crimson forever. She would find a quiet place for them in another ring and raise him alone. She always did want a quieter life. She just needed a reason to leave. For Moxxie, she would do anything. She was horrified, however, when she entered his room and found him gone. Where was Moxxie? Did he run out of the house? For the first time, she felt her heart beating out of her chest as she flew down the stairs and out the door, calling for Moxxie while walking down the streets. Panic swelled in her chest as she searched for him all night, but yet not a trace of him could be seen. She wouldn’t rest until she found him. (How was she supposed to know that her son was hiding under their bed and currently eating with his father, nearly crying with not having his mom there with him?)

She returned to Crimson’s house, banging on the door frantically and demanding he tell her where her son is. Not long after, the servants escort her to Crimson’s office, closing the doors behind them as they give them space. They weren’t worried about her hurting him. She yelled at Crimson to tell her where Moxxie was, eyes welling up with fear, fatigue, and frustration. At first, he didn’t seem to be confused before quickly switching to a knowing glare. He grinned and mocked her, saying he was keeping her son elsewhere and that he was the only person who knew. Bellatrix pleaded with him, promising to not take anything with her except for Moxxie if he showed her where he was. Crimson thought for a while, expressions shifting from deep thought to a wicked grin, before accepting her request.

It took a good couple minutes for Crimson to row out in the bog. Bellatrix was rightfully nervous when he took her into the deadest part of the Envy ring where not a sound was heard other than the shifting black water. Crimson stopped after a couple minutes, and the boat came to a silent stop. He stared at her with a grimace, one she had brown used to seeing, but this one was different. This one was filled with seething hate and violent anger. He nodded his head to the water, and she immediately knew what he was saying. She cried.

Her light, her purpose in the world, was now floating at the bottom of the lake. She cried and sobbed and yelled Moxxie’s name into the night, but she received no answer other than the boat’s creaks and rocking. She continued to sob openly until she heard the click of a gun’s safety being switched off. She looked up and was met with the barrel of Crimson’s gun. Bellatrix was shocked at the sigh but not surprised. His anger had amounted to this ever since she started to defy him, and she would willingly accept it. Without Moxxie, her life meant nothing to her. She couldn’t bring herself to looked scared though. She was ready.

Crimson scowled at her, gripping the gun so tightly that it shook as he saw her face defy him even before death. With one final growl, he put a bullet between her eyes. The mafia boss glared at his former wife’s dead body with contempt and hatred. As beneficial as her death would be, he would now be tasked with raising the little tyke. It would be a hassle. He quickly dumped her body over the side of the boat and began rowing before she began to sink underneath the water’s surface. He had no room for defiance. And she had no room for his schemes.

#helluva boss #helluva crimson #helluva moxxie #helluva boss season 2 #helluva boss fanfiction #helluva boss fandom #my writing #original work #original writing

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wheelsup · 3 years

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okay but can you imagine spencer washing your hair for you?

like, i never (ever) let anyone (at all) touch my hair, but i feel like he'd be really gentle about it, and there is just something so soft and tender to me about the idea of washing someone's hair for them 🥺

that’s my dream <3 ik you didnt specifically ask for a blurb but i think about this very often. i wrote two versions of this, but this one (with two bickering best friends who are v much in love) won my heart.

wc: 1.6k contains: friends (to crushes, maybe ;) ), injured reader. gn!reader

“Spence, I promise you that I can do it by myself,” you huffed, attempting to yank off your tank top as you walked toward the hotel bathroom, using only one arm while trying to keep the other as still as possible.

“I’d be more inclined to believe you if you didn’t sound like you were going to cry,” he snickered, following hot on your trail as you tried to escape his hovering.

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Oh really? Lift your arm up, then.” He leaned his hip against the marble counter, crossing his arms over his chest as he waited for you to do it. One obnoxiously smug eyebrow arched on his forehead.

Sometime during the case, you’d gotten into a brief tousle with a suspect, who just had to run away when approached. If Morgan had been there, you wouldn’t have even batted a lash, but he wasn’t. So not only had you detained him by yourself, you also wound up with a minor pulled muscle in your shoulder.

You shot him a sarcastic smile, toothless and irritated, and raised your right arm into the air. He let out an airy scoff.

“Other one, smart ass.”

Your arm dropped down to your side, your smile falling with it as you turned sharply towards the shower.

“Look, I’m disgusting right now. So either I suck it up and shower, or you’re going to smell me until the day we solve this case.”

Spencer’s nose crinkled at the gross truth. He wasn’t ungentlemanly enough to tell you, but sharing a bed with a coworker was quite a quick way to discover if they were in need of a shower or not. Your shoulder might be out of service, but both of you could agree that hygiene was a bigger priority.

“You can’t even move. Just… just let me help you.”

You snorted. “Nice try, Reid. I’m not letting you shower with me.”

He rolled his eyes at your use of his last name. You only called him that when you were annoyed with him. He pushed off the counter and turned to the wall, hitting the light switch and earning a shriek from you as the room suddenly went dark.

“I won’t look,” he shrugged, amusing no one but himself.

“You’re a clown, you know that?” you muttered under your breath, drawing back the shower curtain and fumbling around, searching for the knobs in pitch black. “Absolutely fucking theatrical.”

You found them moments later and ran the water, testing the temperature on the back of your hand. By the time it went from cold to warm, you noticed that he still hadn’t moved. From the sliver of light peeking under the door, you could make out just his silhouette in the corner, perched on the vanity.

He was being stubborn about this. That, and the comforting fact that you couldn’t see a single thing –– thankfully, not even his face –– wore you down.

“Close your eyes,” you murmured.

“It’s already pitch black in here ––”

“Close your eyes, Reid.”

Sighing through his nose, he did just that. To make sure you knew it, and also maybe just to be annoying, he made a show of getting off the counter and turning himself around to face the wall. You peeled out of your clothes as quickly as you could. In the process, you caught the long shower curtain under the heel of your foot and, as you stumbled over it, accidentally dragged it along, sending the metal curtain hooks screeching as they slid along the bar.

The second you found your ground, you immediately shot daggers into the back of Spencer’s head, waiting for him to make a joke. As if he could feel them, he bit back his quip. Not without letting a barely contained cackle slip under his breath.

“Okay,” you warned, stepping into the shower. Grabbing the end of the shower curtain, you pulled it tightly over your body to cover yourself as you poked your chin out to talk to him. “I’m in.”

Spencer turned and approached the shower, eyes still shut with his hands out in front of him, feeling the walls for guidance. He was still mocking you for making him close his eyes. You raised your brows; he must’ve thought he was quite funny.

“You look like Velma when she loses her glasses.”

That knocked the funny bone right out of him. His hands dropped to his sides.

“Just get your hair wet and hand me the shampoo.”

You drew the curtain shut again as you dipped your head under the shower stream, coming back moments later with sopping wet hair and a little bottle of complimentary hotel shampoo.

He let you sit on the floor of the bathtub, just slightly removed from the spray of the water. Your back was to him, as he kneeled down on the tile floor, just outside of the bathtub so he didn’t have to get wet. You bent your knees to your chest, resting your chin on them.

Spencer first pushed up the sleeves of his sweater as far as he could before deciding to remove it altogether for the sake of protecting the wool against stray water. The cuffs of his work shirt were unbuttoned and rolled up to his elbows as he got to work.

Taking a healthy quarter-sized amount of shampoo into his palm, he lathered it between his hands before running soapy fingers through your scalp. The pads of his fingertips softly dug in as he carefully massaged the shampoo in.

When he started working his fingers in patterns, putting pressure near your temples and increasing it as he dragged them up the curve of your scalp, you let your eyes close. He was getting rid of a headache you didn’t even realize you had.

The tension you’d been carrying in your shoulders eased a little, and it made him think about how much you probably needed this. One of his hands came down to massage the muscle between your neck and your good shoulder, knowing it was best to just let the hot water do its magic on the bad one.

When the shampoo had been sufficiently lathered, he stood up and detached the shower head, bringing it down to you so you didn’t have to move. You leaned your head back for him as he carefully rinsed the soap out.

You weren’t going to ask, but thank God Spencer told you to hand him the conditioner next. This, he slathered all over the ends of your hair, making sure all of it was sufficiently covered in conditioner before loosely twisting it into a low, makeshift pony for you.

“Mm. I was about to ask how you’re so good at haircare,” you chuckled lowly to yourself, in a half-sleepy voice with your forehead resting on your knees. Dangerously close to falling asleep. “Then I remembered what you used to look like.”

You had a lazy smile on your face just thinking about the days where Spencer’s hair used to be down to his shoulders. He looked so pretty like that (not that he didn’t look pretty now, too), you always wondered why he got rid of it.

“Remember when I got shot in the knee?” he hummed, returning to work your shoulder. He adorned a tiny smile of his own as he started to reminisce. “You came by my house at least once a week. Brought me meals, watched movies with me. Helped distract me from the pain. Even drove me to my physical therapy appointments.”

You mm-hmm’d that you remembered.

“You pretty much did everything shy of helping me bathe. Though, I feel like you would’ve helped with that, too, if I asked.”

You both laughed at that. You hadn’t really noticed the parallels of your situation, being injured and needing his help for once. He was happy to repay the favor.

“I’ll, uh. Let you wash your body yourself,” he said, coming out of his daydream for a moment. He rinsed his hands off and got up, patting down his wet hands on his trousers. With one nod from you to confirm that you’d be able to do it, he quickly exited the bathroom to give you privacy.

You emerged seventeen minutes later, clad in pajamas with towel-dried hair. Spencer was still awake as you crawled onto the bed beside him, more than ready for bed after that. He looked to the side to ask you how the rest of your shower was, and before he could get it out, you shuffled up next to him, winding one arm around his and resting your head on his chest.

“I take it you had a good shower?” he laughed. This was one of his “I told you so” moments, and for once, you didn’t mind it.

“Mhm,” you smiled, chuckling behind it as you shut your eyes. You were falling asleep fast. “Spence, the scalp massage…”

“Was good, right?” he boasted, inflating his own ego a bit.

You nodded against his shoulder, not caring if you helped blow up his ego another two sizes. Burrowing deeper into the covers, nestling tighter against Spencer, you got one more quip in before falling asleep. “S’good that I think I have a crush on you now.”

Joke or not, he pulled the blanket higher until it reached your chin, holding you with both arms and kissing the top of your head before falling asleep himself.

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new tags not working: @chelsea-the-enchanted @craybae1116 @writingintheroses (rose i know u changed ur url but atm i have NO idea to what lol)

plus: @pissbit @redevil590 @kaz-2y567 @datsimplol @reid-to-me @rem-ariiana @thegirlinthedresscriedalltheway @jaddi-e @just_arandomwriter @spencerswildestdreams1 @sskylarpaige26 @zbgubler @nyasiablack1899 @faithsamantha @chrisdylan17 @just_arandomwriter @peterisbetterthanpietro @thegirlinthedresscriedalltheway @jaddi-e @chloehanson

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x gn!reader #spencer reid self insert #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fic #spencer reid blurb #criminal minds fic #b a queue

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stealforreal · 3 years

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Future kids - Todoroki Shoto I

Todoroki meets his children from the future. Part 2 is up now you can find it on my tumblr masters list. Or click [here]

Todoroki Shoto x F! Reader

Warnings: none

Todoroki was understandably confused. One moment he was eating his cold soba in peace and quiet, the next a little girl came barreling into him. Clinging onto his pant leg for dear life, tears streaming down her chubby cheeks. Todoroki tensed, even if he was coming out of his shell, dealing with a little child while not having complete control over his flames terrified him. What if he ended up hurting her, when he wanted to help? He refused to be like his father. hurting small children.

A small tug on his leg brought him out of his thoughts, and back to the reality that a young girl probably no older than 6 was clinging to him. He could feel his pants getting wetter by the minute, drenched in the redheaded little princess’ tears. Kneeling down to her height, he put a hand on her head and pattet it gently. It was the only form of comfort he could think of would be appropriate. “ Hey snowflake, where's your parents?” Todoroki asked the little girl, making her look up at the stranger whom she was clinging to. A small gasp escaped her lips, as she began to sob harder and cling to him even more if that was even possible. “ I-Im so so sorry daddy *sniff* I can’t find Ren” Todoroki stiffened. Daddy? He wasn’t a dad, not yet anyways. But that didn’t matter when he was comforting a young girl, so he would play along for the time being. Besides he felt drawn to the little snowflake, maybe it was the fact that she was comfortable enough to seek comfort from him. Maybe it was the fact that she looked like him, with beautiful heterochromia eyes, one classic Todoroki cerulean blue and one e/c.

“ Take a deep breath, little snowflake. Can you tell me what year it is?” His usual monotone tone, took on a softer note talking to the girl. He was kneeling at her height, rubbing small circles on her small back, while she clung to his shirt, sobbing in his chest. She looked up at him with her big mismatched doe eyes brimming with tears “ Its 20xx” okay weird that is 15 years in the future, Shoto wasn’t stupid this was probably the work of a quirk. He then proceeded to ask her if she was indeed hit by a quirk.

She told him that apparently her and her twin brother Ren, were playing with some of their friends at a park. But when they were playing tag one of their friends got their quirk, and the twins got separated. When Reina, as she told him her name was, woke up and couldn’t find her twin brother Ren she began to panic. Then she began looking for him, but then she recognized the dual colored hair and ran to him.

In between her telling the story and sniffling quitely, Shoto had picked her up. While she was calming down in his arms, he began making his way back to the campus grounds. Mr.Aizawa would hopefully know what to do, and maybe they would find Ren on the way. It broke his heart to hear her sniffle, his little snowflake crying was heart wrenching. Even if she technically wasn’t born yet, she was still his little snowflake and he would protect her no matter the cost. He was so possessive of his little girl already and he had only met her 1 hour ago, he promised himself then and there that he would be a better father than Endeavor ever was.

Her sniffles and sobs stopped, and her trembling figure relaxed in his hold. He could feel the little one's gaze on him, and he turned his head to her tilting his head a bit to ask what was wrong. “ Why do you look so young, daddy? '' She asked with the little innocent voice of an angel, he couldn’t help but let out a chuckle at her question. “ Well my little snowflake, right now I’m 16 and you haven’t exactly been born yet. I’m guessing your friend's quirk is something along the lines of time travel” he patiently explained to her, she nodded her head along as if she understood him. And if she inherited his intelligence, she just might have understood what he just told her completely.

The walk back to the dorms were filled with idle chatter, Shoto asking Reina about his future and how he was as a father. To which she exclaimed with a bright toothless smile ‘Daddys the best daddy in the whole world’ and he was so relieved that he wasn’t a horrible father like his own was to him. He ended up stopping for a minute so Shoto could pepper her with small soft kisses all over her cute slightly chubby cheeks. Her squeals of excitement warmed his heart, and a soft smile made its way on his face.

To onlookers they looked like a cute set of siblings, and small aw’s and so cute were heard in the background. But inside their little bubble, nothing could burst Shoto’s happiness at knowing he wouldn’t repeat his fathers mistakes. The long walk back to the dorms felt a lot shorter with his little snowflake talking his ear off. It was adorable really, she stumbled over a few words every once and awhile. She told him all about her and Ren’s adventures, how they accidentally froze their teacher when Ren got his quirk, and how he had to come and free the teacher.

Shoto was inexplicably happy that Ren got his quirk from his mothers side. But one thing caught his attention was the mention of their mother. He realized that Reina not once had mentioned her name, and as much as Shoto would hate to admit it he was beyond curious as to who he would ultimately spend his life with. A big part of him hoped that it was you, since he had finally found out what the fuzzy feeling he had around you was. Yep Todoroki Shoto was utterly and completely enamored by you, your personality was sweet and you would do anything for family and friends. Alongside Midoriya you were his best friend, and he was in love with you.

The closer to the dorms the two Todorokis came, the more his curiosity nagged him to ask his daughter who her mother was. When he could see the height alliance building a little longer down the road, his curiosity won. “ Snowflake, you never told me your mom's name. '' Reina brightened when he asked about his future wife, a big tell that his little girl adored her mother as much as she adored her father. '' Silly daddy, mom's name is Todoroki y/n of course, ``she said giggling. A bright smile adorned his handsome features as Todoroki stepped into the dorm's living room with Reina still in his arms with her head on his shoulder.

Class 1-A consecutively looked towards the door when it opened. They were trying to calm down the child that was crying on their sofa, who also happened to look suspiciously like their dual haired classmate. The young boy had dual colored hair and cerulean blue eyes, his hair was half white and half y/h/c. The child was obviously confused and scared, and had only stopped wailing when Kaminari short circuited. But alas he was still sobbing and the class was almost out of ideas. He had been asking about his parents, and calling for a person named Reina.

There in the door stood a smiling Todoroki, holy damn was the world ending. But what also caught their attention was the little redhead in his arms hugging him, the little girl's voice reached them and their jaws dropped. “ Daddy, is this the place you and mommy met?” It was such an innocent question, but 1-A was in a frenzy, so much so that they didn’t notice the little boy springing up from the couch and dashing toward Todoroki and the girl. They only came back to earth when a small happy “Daddy” was heard.

Todoroki was about to answer Reina’s question, when he heard the little cry “Daddy”. He turned his head towards the sound and so did Reina, she began bouncing in Shoto’s arms. “ Ren '' She shouted, making Shoto bend down and extend his arm that wasn’t holding Reina. Ren launched himself into Shoto’s chest, and Reina began hugging her twin brother as much as she could in their fathers embrace. “ Don’t worry my little snowflake, daddy’s got you” He whispered softly, calming Ren immediately. The rest of the class stood gobsmacked, daddy?

“Now my little snowflakes, let's go find Mr. Aizawa, so you can go home” Shoto’s arms were full, his little boy on one arm and his little girl on his other arm. How is he supposed to open the door? “ Midoriya, would you come with me to open the door?” Shoto’s tone was monotone as always, but slightly softer in the presence of his children. Midoriya simply nodded dumbfounded, nobody said a word. What were they supposed to say, with all the daddy claims, and seeing the children in the arms of their classmate confirmed it. They looked like the spitting image of the dreamy heterochromia boy, but with some tweaks. There were the y/h/c and the girls one e/c eye, that obviously must’ve come from their mothers side.

On the way to the teacher dormitories, the twins talked excitedly with each other, while Shoto explained the situation to Midoriya. Midoriya felt like he had seen the features on the twins that certainly didn’t come from Todoroki’s side, but with how much they looked like their father it was nearly mission impossible.

Coincidentally on her way to Mr. Aizawa as well, you spotted the tuft of green hair and tufts of red and white hair. Hm, must be on their way to Mr.Aizawa as well you thought. Jogging up to them, you poked Midoriya’s shoulder. Even if you were in class 1-B, you had a pretty good friendship with the cute green haired cinnamon roll. Your quirks were similar in a sense, since yours was a boost of strength as well. Not nearly as strong as Midoriya’s, but still. That is why you were training partners, and through him you had met his friend circle. It wasn’t an unusual sight to see Midoriya and Todoroki together.

But when they turned to you, you were left flabbergasted by the two cuties in Todoroki’s arms. Before the boys could react, Ren began squirming chanting ‘mommy’. Shoto sat him and Reina down, because she too began squirming once they caught sight of you. The two children that were previously in Todoroki’s arms, now tackled you in a hug. “Daddy look, we found mommy” they said in unison. Two children around 6 years old launching at you, could make even the best of them fall on their butts. Which was exactly what happened, they were squeezing you as tight as their small forms would allow.

Choosing to ignore the small ‘mommy and daddy’ comment, you carefully scooped them up in your arms. The look that Shoto gave you was enough to go along with this little charade, he looked at the three of you like you were his entire world. His eyes were shining with happiness, and his lips quirked up in a small smile. Lightly bouncing the ecstatic but sleepy children in your arms, you turned your attention to the two males before you. “ You wouldn’t happen to need Mr.Aizawa as well, would you?” You raised a knowing eyebrow. The two boys nodded, and you began walking again towards the teachers dormitory. You sent Todoroki a small pointed glare, silently commanding him to explain the situation.

The walk to the teachers lounge felt shorter than usual, since your attention was occupied. Todoroki explained his theory that a quirk sent the twins to the past, and that the two of you were their parents. As crazy as that sounded it made so much sense, and looking at the children you would lie if you said you didn’t see the resemblance. Midoriya explained how Ren was crying before Todoroki arrived, and how confused they were when they heard the little boy yelling ‘daddy’. Ren was probably the most scared, since he didn’t recognize anyone in his panicked state. Besides, most of the students probably look a lot different in the future, so it's kind of a miracle that the twins recognized you. Shoto will always be pretty easy to recognize, with his distinct hair, eyes and the showstopping scar. It complimented the handsome teen next to you so well, no wonder he was one of UAs top heartthrobs. Stopping for a second, you just realize something. If the twins in your arms are you and Todoroki's, then that means that you ended up scoring the half-n-half quirk user. Nothing could wipe the shiteating grin that made its way on your face, eliciting concerned and curious glances from the males beside you.

Mr.Aizawa had his fair share of strange situations. He had been teaching at UA for some time, and student’s quirks weren’t always a walk in the park. Never had he ended up in a situation quite like this though, he had to rub his eyes twice to make sure it was real. In front of him were 2 out of Class-1A’s trouble makers and one of his favorite students from Class-1B, they had two small children with them. Easily recognized as twins, and they looked like the half - n- half troublemakers children.

This was going to be a long night.

#mha #mha x reader #dad au #shoto todoroki #mha midoriya #mha todoroki #mha x y/n #dad todoroki #Twins #timetravel #quirks #Shoto is so cute #futurekids

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raayllum · 3 years

Text

i’ve seen people try to put canon rayllum (rayllum in various AUs is a whole other thing) into the broader “enemies to lovers” category with reblogging these tagged rayllum or links or what have you, namely into the sort of dynamic development these posts/tweets describe:

not sure which of these posts came first, but it’s a clear similar sentiment, and something about it when applied to canon rayllum has always felt... disingenuous to me? and i’ve talked about why marginally before, but i thought, why not expand a bit more on it

because one of the things i’ve always liked most about rayllum that immediately drew me to the ship was that yes, while they’re enemies to friends to best friends and lovers, they don’t take the usual enemy route. i’m all for the big dramatic slowburn when it’s done well, but i’m an even bigger sucker for enemies who enemies largely in name only, but have an emotional connection early on. i.e. if they’re not enemies who recognize each other’s personhood and worth right away, and have to fight against it and the inconvenient care they feel for each other, i’m 10x more likely to be less interested. it’s true for platonic relationships i love (think hiccup&toothless from the how to train your dragon franchise) and for rayllum from tdp, with their strong platonic foundation and additional romance

because rayla and callum aren’t “ugh i can’t believe i’m saving your life” or “because it ‘benefits’ me.” if anything, they’re “i’m saving your life because you need help (and it’s the right thing to do) even if it doesn’t ‘benefit’ me” and they know that, from the start

and they’re worried about each other! callum glances back, he wants to help her, he defends her to runaan even at risk to himself. rayla is terrified when runaan pulls a bow on him and worries when he’s up in the tower!

then, when it comes to “ugh we have to work together or the world ends but it’s not like i like you” or “we actually work pretty well together but don’t read too much into it” is also never their dynamic. rayla approaches him their first morning together with a soft look on her face just because she wants to talk to him and is genuinely curious about what he’s up to!

and callum is promising that “we’re in this together” and they call each other friends only a couple of days in. rayla takes his words to heart. callum knows he likes her and has no problem showing his interest and eagerness to get to know her!

then, for the last few stages - the similarity of “i’ll kill anyone who lays a finger on you” and “don’t read too much into it” - highlights the main problem, i think, which comparing this sort of general outline of “enemies to lovers” to rayllum. not only are they are not enemies for very long - or very personally - neither of them at any point in the series try to deny what they feel for each other and their connection to one another.

they may try to deny it to themselves

but it never stops them from reaching out in care and concern to each other. they never try to cover it up with any sort of “don’t think i care about you” sentiment. rayla can be a bit gruff, sometimes verbally, but it never shows in her actions, and those words never hold particular weight.

for example: when callum and rayla almost die for each other, it’s after they’ve made it clear just how much they love and care about each other.

there’s not a single part of either of these posts at the start that describe rayllum’s dynamic. not even a single day of their dynamic that fits, unless you compress all these into 1x03! and even then, it’s iffy.

because they’re not personal enemies, they don’t harm each other as friends, they don’t try and cloak their connection to one another and instead make it clear as day to each other. they never doubt if they like each other. they never, ever doubt if they care about each other.

raya and callum have a fast, fire forged friendship. that’s the Canon Text, it’s an objective fact. they aren’t enemies for long, or even really at all, in a lot of ways.

and i love that about them

#rayllum #mini meta #analysis series #s1 #arc 1 #analysis #slightly salty?? maybe?? idk #i just love these goobers and their fast friendship

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unrequitedloveletter · 3 years

Text

Forever- Pin Hawthorne

Okay, so, hi! This is a part two for Yellow, the Pin Hawthorne fic I wrote a little bit ago! I think it was actually the last thing I wrote before I left for a bit! Anyhow, this was requested by the lovely @fcvcritecrime and I couldn’t resist sitting down to write it!

Vee, if you’re reading, I hope that this did your request justice!

(there’s no gendered language, aside from a brief mention of the reader wearing a skirt, but even then, that’s only mentioned a couple of times!)

Fic type-fluff

Warnings- mentions of cats

Pin woke on the morning of December sixth nervous out of his brain.

You’d woken up early to get a train down to the city so that you could visit with family, so he didn’t have the comfort of your head against his chest, your arms wrapped loosely around his torso to wake him that morning.

He had his alarm, a bunch of polaroids taken by the polaroid camera you’d gotten him, and the polaroid printer he’d used to turn some of his favorite photos into polaroids. He had a bunch of small wooden clothespins, some string and some fairy lights.

He had the ring that he’d tucked away in his sock drawer a year beforehand. He had his promise to you. His promise that he’d give you forever if you so wished for it.

The one thing that Pin didn’t have? A plan.

The thing he lacked was the most integral part to a proposal. He had ideas, but he didn’t have a plan, even though he’d told himself he’d have one before Christmas.

But he was sure of himself. He was sure that he wanted to propose to you that day, just like he’d been sure of wanting to marry you throughout the entire year beforehand.

So, as he got up, brushing his teeth, showering and getting dressed into a pair of jeans, a long sleeved dark grey shirt and a short sleeved dark blue flannel, he contemplated. As he made himself a quick breakfast and fed the cat--you’d named him Toothless, simply because his fur was black-- he contemplated.

By the time he’d walked into Bright Fields, he had a location in mind, polaroids, fairy lights, clothespins and string tucked into his bag. He just needed a concrete plan that didn’t involve fidgeting with the ring box inside of his coat pocket.

He went straight to Becky and Jade for the plan part, with Zoe and Marcus at the ready to provide their input.

“Well, what’ve you got?” Jade asked. They’d settled on the haybales, sitting at different heights but managing to interact all the same.

“Uh, fairy lights, polaroids, clothespins, string, a ring, no plan whatsoever, though!” Becky grinned.

“That’s why we’re here! We’re gonna help you get the... the person!” Becky said, embarrassed as she stumbled over her words.

“The love of his life?” Zoe supplies.

“His partner?” Marcus suggests.

“His theyfriend? His joyfriend?” Jade questioned, looking to Pin momentarily for confirmation or denial. He nodded with a grin at the terms Jade had used.

“Joyfriend?” Zoe questioned, cooing seconds after. “Awwweeee, that’s just so adorable, Pin! I wouldn’t have expected you to call someone your joyfriend, not willingly!”

His cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but he clapped his hands together. “My brain keeps begging me to propose today but I don’t know what to do!” he said, letting the desperation he felt come clear in his tone.

“Okay, well, assuming that you’ve got more fairy lights than just whats in that bag of yours, Zoe and I can string them around the stables,” Marcus suggested.

Becky released an excited gasp, “moody horse boy, get your polaroids!” Pin did so while stifling a laugh as Becky motioned for Jades bag.

As he grabbed the container he’d put the polaroids into, Becky fished around Jades bag for a sharpie, squealling with excitement as she found one. “Okay,” she said. “Use this!”

“For what? You’ve not told me what you’ve got in mind!”

“Wait!” Becky was frantic, excited and moving around at quick speeds. Pin never thought he’d seen her move so fast before. “How many of those polaroids did you take on important dates? Anniversaries, birthdays, milestones!”

“Half of them, at least,” Pin answers. Becky hits the sharpie against the container lightly, not giving Pin the chance to grab it from her as she did moved about excitedly.

“Okay, so whenever you see a photo with an important milestone on it, write the date of that milestone! How many can you think of off the bat?”

“Uh...” Pin stumbled, gripping the sharpie when Becky dropped it into his open hand. “Three month anniversary, six month anniversary, year anniversary, two years, three years, four, five, uhh... first birthdays that we were together as a couple for? The day that we got our cat? I don’t know!”

“Good start,” Jade mumbled. “Write those down and... Becks, what’s the next step?”

“Jade and I will get the clothespins and attach the polaroids to the lights! And then we can get Y/N in and it can be like, a pathway, where they grab the polaroids on the way to Pin!”

“A path?” Zoe questioned. “Isn’t that a bit cliche?”

“It’s perfect!” Pin countered. “Would there be any way that we could lead them to the beach?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Marcus said with a grin. “Anything for loverboy, right, girls?”

“Yeah,” Becky answered simply.

“Seeing you happy for once? Hells yes.” Jade said with a grin.

“I want to help,” Pin interjected. “You’re all doing a lot of the work, I can’t stand to know that I’m not doing anything to help.” Zoe gave a shrug.

“Order us a pizza,” she said.

:Change into a tux. I’ve already told Y/N to change into a skirt once they’re home,” Jade informed.

“Smile for longer than a few seconds,” Marcus quips.

“Write your proposal speech and make it better than the way that Monica proposed to Chandler!” Pin laughed at Beckys words.

“You watched that show?”

“Haven’t you? Y/Ns American, I’d have figured they’d get you hooked onto it!” Pin just gave a shrug in response. He’d seen a few episodes of Friends, but by the time that he’d get home most nights, the only thing he wanted to do was eat dinner and cuddle you as soon as was possible.

Marcus clapped his hands together as Pin opened the container and started sifting through it to find the right polaroids.

“Everyone, let’s split up. Zoe and I are fairy light duty, Jade and Becky are to get Mia out of here as soon as is possible. Pin owns the place now, but--and I love the girl-- she’s got a stick up her ass lately and still loves to play the part of boss lady. Pin, how many yards of fairy lights do you have?”

He pulled the fairy lights--which he’d wrapped around a small wheel to keep them from tangling--out of his bag with a shrug. “Should be enough in there,” he says. “If theres not, well, let me worry about that.” Marcus nodded as he took the wheel from Pins grasp, motioning for Zoe to join him as Becky and Jade climbed off the haybales, waving goodbye as they left.

Pin thought through every single milestone that was important to your relationship. The six month anniversary that came in the winter of when you were both fifteen. The one year anniversary that followed suit the next summer. The first kiss you ever shared, captured via your phones camera. It was a blurry photo, but one of his favorites. You were both fifteen. Pins arms were around your shoulders, yours were on his waist, and you’d been swaying from foot to foot in a shitty slow dance as the camera clicking sound went off.

A photo taken while you’d stayed over at Pins house for the first time, during a summer where his father had gone out to London to handle some things that needed handling there. He’d thrown up his middle finger while you did peace signs, grins on both of your faces.

A million different milestones, it seemed. Dates written on polaroid pictures that wouldn’t have held significance to anyone else, but they held significance to you, and to your relationship. To him, that was all that mattered.

“Lover boy!” Marcus called a few hours later, after Pin had ordered pizzas for everyone during lunch and after he’d taken a thirty minute nap in the haybales, only to wake up with bits of straw littering his hair and his clothes ruffled.

“You’ve got all the dates?” Marcus asked as Pin moved off the haybales. Pin nodded, holding out the pile of polaroids to Marcus as he adjusted the strap of his bag. “Okay, then. Run home and change. Make yourself look like a gentleman, yeah?” Marcus’ remark was met with a harsh bodychecking from Pin as he left the haybales and made his way back to Elvis.

Jade texted him when you’d told her that you were about to get on the train, telling him he had forty five minutes to get himself ready.

He took another quick shower and fed Toothless before getting dressed into a pair of jeans, a white button up shirt and a black blazer, making sure his hair looked decent and that he didn’t smell anything like the stables.

Zoe came to get him and he rode Raven down to the beach as the sun was beginning to set. He had his bag on his back, and in it was a bouquet of roses, a bluetooth speaker, his phone, a blanket, and the ring.

“What song are you going to play this time?” Zoe asked with a grin as Pin got off Raven. He shrugged, knowing that Zoe might laugh if he tells her.

“You are In Love by Taylor Swift,” he says anyway, ignoring Zoes scoff at the answer.

He grins to himself as he picks a spot on the beach and sets up there, settling on the blanket he’d brought with him and silently praying that his proposal was everything you’d ever hope for.

---

“I just don’t understand why I’m blindfolded!” You told Zoe as you wrapped your arms around her middle. “I mean, I know it’s a suprise, but still! At least let me know where we’re going, especially after all the adorable polaroids! I just have to know!”

“I can’t tell you, but I can tell you that there might be a party waiting back at the stables, if this goes as planned.” Zoe responded. You heard the sound of Ravens easy gallop as you moved about. Zoe wanted to prolong it, make it more intense on Pins part for the sake of you getting to see him all nervous and riled up when you’d finally been allowed to remove your blindfold.

“A party? Hells yes!” Zoe grinned at your antics as you heard the sound of Bobs gallops matching yours. Jade and Becky were riding alongside you and Zoe, Marcus at the back.

“We’re taking pictures,” Becky said. “It’ll be too fun of a moment not to, you know?” Jade hummed her agreement.

“We want to have the looks on your faces captured forever,” she adds. “The photos can go into the photo album you give Pin on your next anniversary!” You laughed at that, resting your head against Zoes shoulder as a hand reached out to fix your skirt in case the wind had caused it to pick up.

“Are you wearing one of Pins shirts right now?” Zoe asked. You nodded. You’d worn a high waisted, black pleated skirt that went to your ankles, and you’d tucked one of Pins long sleeved turtlenecks into it.

“His scent is like a comfort for me,” you admitted. “I was visiting family instead of working today. I needed that comfort.” Zoe cooed at your response, and you just let yourself take a deep breath. It always got easier to breathe whenever you were near the beach, which was how you could tell that that was in fact where you were, but you said nothing.

“Pin probably won’t notice,” Marcus responded. “He gets panicky whenever you’re around. I don’t doubt he’ll just revert back into that ‘oh my god, my joyfriend is the most attractive person ever! OH MY GOD!’ mindset once he sees you.” You giggled in response.

“Seriously,” Jade added. “The mans been in love with you as long as we’ve known him. You could be wearing a bloody bin bag and he’d still get that way.” Despite yourself, your cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.

“He really does love you, Y/N,” Becky said. You could tell by the tone of her voice that she meant every word. “You two are like... Like the stables parents!”

“Isn’t that Marcus and Mia?” You asked.

“Used to be,” Marcus responded. “We’ll let you two take the spot, though.” You sat up slightly, mocking gratitude.

“Oh, thank you!” You mocked, giggling as you said the words. “Pin and I appreciate it greatly!” All you got from Marcus was an amused scoff in response.

“All right,” Zoe said, giving a friendly squeeze to the hand of yours that still rested on her middle. “We’re about thirty or so feet out. I’m going to stop here. Marcus, will you help Y/N off Raven?” Marcus gave a mumble of agreement as he dismounted his horse and moved over to you.

He helped you down, giving your shoulders a squeeze as he tightened the blindfold a bit. “Walk the thirty feet straight. Don’t make any turns. When you hear Taylor Swift, you’ll know that you’re close to Pin.” You nodded, mumbling a thank you as you slowly set off, arms out in the air to make sure you didn’t bump into any unsuspecting rocks or bushes that’d grown out from the sand.

Sure enough, you eventually heard the sounds of Taylor Swift playing from a bluetooth speaker, and felt Pins touch as he put a hand on either of your shoulders.

“Okay, love,” he said, pressing a kiss to your forehead before releasing your shoulders and stepping back. You heard the sound of something falling to the sand, but didn’t think anything of it, figuring it was just Marcus or Zoe off in the distance somewhere.

You recognized the next song as it started. You Are In Love by Taylor Swift. A song that you didn’t expect Pin to know, so much as play when something was about to happen.

“Love, you can take the blindfold off.” His words were signal enough for you, and you quickly got to untying the knot at the back of your head, relieved to finally get to take the thick strip of fabric off of your eyes.

You opened your eyes, blinking to adjust them to the view of the sun setting over the water, finding Pin on one knee, handsome smile on his face, ring held out to you.

Ring held out to you.

It took you a second to realize what was happening, but when you did, tears of joy clouded your eyesight.

“Y/N, I couldn’t really think of much to say, but thats because I also thought of a million different things that I wanted to say to you. I’ve woken up to the fact that you’re my joyfriend every day for the past five years, and I’ve woken up to you every day for the past two months, but why not make it forever?” You were already nodding, even though you knew he still had more to say.

“I want you, Y/N. I want your pleadings for five more minutes when we wake up each morning, I want your Criminals Minds and Narnia marathons. I want the version of you that dances with me at three in the morning while we wait for our brownies to bake. I want you at four am when we decide to go to Walmart and end up spending a little too much money on toys and treats for our dear son, Toothless the kitten. Hell, I even want drunk you that insists we adopt a kitten and ends up convincing me to do so the following morning,” You loved him. You loved him with your whole heart, and nothing would ever change that.

“I just want you, Y/N. However you’ll have me, I want you, and there’s nothing in this world that could ever even come close to changing that. Not for a second, not for a minute. You are the one I’d like to spend the rest of my life with,” you wiped hastily at your tears as the fell, smile spreading across your face as you did.

“So, six months ago, I promised you forever. Will you let me keep such a promise, my love?” Your hand moved to cover your mouth as you nodded, unable to speak any coherent sentences as Pin stood.

He slipped the ring onto your left hands ring finger as he wiped your tears from your cheeks, kissing you all over your face in an effort to get you to grin, or to giggle, or even to tell him to stop. He just wanted to get a reaction.

You kissed him, and he figured that was reaction enough.

When you pulled away, he wrapped his arms around your torso and yours moved to his shoulders, booping his nose with a giggle.

“You’re now stuck with me for eternity,” you teased. “You do realize that, right?” Pin laughed, kissing your nose as you heard the excited screams and cheers of your friends as they approached.

“I hope you know that being my partner means you’re stuck in on my antics and shenanigans,” Pin teased back, pressing another kiss to your nose. “First order of business, getting a completely white cat, naming her Luna, and letting her and toothless give us kitten grandbabies!” You giggled, pulling him into another kiss as your friends broke out into excited cheers, having surrounded you both in just bare minutes.

You let go of each other to accept the congratulatory hugs from your friends, the ones that you considered family, thanking them as they congratulated you both. Pin slipped his arm into yours, grinning as he held up two polaroids.

“Becky took these,” he says. “She captured the moment you realized what I was doing and the kiss I got as a yes at the perfect times, didn’t she?”

“Those are definitely going on the mantle!” You kissed him then, feeling your heart set itself alight, floating in your chest with the profound happiness you’d felt.

He’d promised you forever, and he’d kept that promise. You had him forever, got to love him until death separated you both. In the end, that made you happier than you’d been in a long time.

#pin hawthorne x reader #pin hawthorne #free rein #freddy carter #six of crows #shadow and bone #kaz brekker

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