#one thing about this show is that it almost certainly will lend itself well to a rewatch!
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Symptoms of a System Error: The Manifestation of Myungha's Depression in Love for Love's Sake
Ok I will almost certainly have more thoughts about this when I go back to rewatch Love for Love’s Sake in the next couple weeks, but I’ve been thinking about the finale for the last couple of hours and I want to get some stuff out of my head. Before I get too far in to this, I want to say that I think most of the ambiguity in the show is brilliantly executed in a way that allows people to take whatever meaning they want to from it without contradicting each other, without stepping on toes, and without having to twist or bend the narrative beyond all recognition to make it make sense.
So I want to talk about the use of depression in this show, because the way Myungha exists in the world is recognizable enough to me that these moments of choice, and the system errors were extremely legible. That doesn’t mean my take is the correct one (and I honestly don’t think there is one right answer here anyway) but it’s what I got out of it, so with the needless ramble complete, let’s get to it.
Prologue
gif by @dramascene
I connected rather quickly to Myungha as a character from right near the beginning of episode 1 because of how passionate he was about the character of Yeowoon and how much he hoped for a happy ending for that character. As someone who processes a lot of my feelings, and who understands myself better through media consumption, I was quick to appreciate the fact that Myungha recognizes the parts of himself that speak to Yeowoon and to know that because Yeowoon is fictional, he has a chance not to suffer with merely a stroke of a pen. The Author could have chosen from the beginning to give Yeowoon a happy ending, and did not because he believes that there are people for whom bad things will never stop happening. But from the perspective of a fictional story, the Author should consider who he is writing the story for. Myungha connects to Yeowoon, and it sends one hell of a tragic message for how Myungha’s life will end up if even in fiction the people who suffer have no hope of happiness.
Myungha tells the Author that someone like Cha Yeowoon, someone like him [Myungha] with awful lives can still be happy. Looking back on that statement with the knowledge that Myungha kills himself, sends a very clear message, at least for me, of the hope that he was clinging to and finally lost his grip on. The Author asks if Myungha can change the outcome, and thus begins our story.
Debuffs
Now, I don’t know that I will have much more to say here than what @jemmo said in their very brilliant post, beyond the fact I agree with their interpretation of the debuffs. But I am thinking about the debuffs as it relates to mental health and to Myungha’s independence. One of Myungha’s first missions is to befriend Cha Yeowoon, and we see the difficulties associated with doing so when it comes to the Fondness Level meter and the debuffs that happen as a result. I love what Jess said about the dichotomy there: the debuffs mean that every time Myungha gets close to Yeowoon, something bad happens, Myungha uses that as a reason to stay away from Yeowoon to protect him when in fact, being around Myungha and increasing his fondness for him is the only way to really keep Yeowoon safe.
gif by @dramascene
And here again there is something recognizable to me in this dichotomy. Myungha likes Yeowoon, Myungha wants to be friends with Yeowoon, every time something bad might happen to Yeowoon, Myungha is there to intervene. But Myungha is convinced that the potentially negative events that might occur during a debuff are because of him, and so he avoids Yeowoon as much as he possibly can. To me this makes the debuffs a stand in for depression symptoms. Myungha has convinced himself that he is the cause of the bad moments in Yeowoon’s day. Myungha has convinced himself that Yeowoon would be better off if they weren’t friends, because he only makes things worse. And that is not something he can easily shake off, it’s not something he can logic his way out of, that’s the game, that’s just how it is. And so he withdraws until Yeowoon comes to him.
And honestly thinking about it, nothing bad really happens during those debuffs. The light doesn’t shatter, the boys back off on the bus, Yeowoon doesn’t punch Sangwon. Maybe the reason why nothing at all happens is because Myungha intervenes. Maybe if Myungha hadn’t been there, the light would have broken, maybe if Myungha hadn’t been there Yeowoon would have punched Sangwon. But that is not a lens that Myungha is capable of viewing himself through, that is never an option that crosses Myungha’s mind because he is too focused on feeling like the cause of Yeowoon’s problems.
System Errors
I know there is a lot of confusion or at least uncertainty around the system errors. Why are they happening? Where are they coming from? For me, I think the answer is Myungha himself. The first time we get a system error, it’s in Episode 6, what I think is the day after Yeowoon and Myungha have their first kiss and very soon after Yeowoon and Myungha kiss on the rooftop at school. The first error isn’t subtle, but it’s not explicitly stated. Myungha walks in to a room to take a phone call and walks in to the middle of band practice, falling through the world as he tries to remove himself from the situation until he (literally) runs in to Yeowoon. Myungha goes home that night and gets his first moments in the black abyss, and the first explicit mention via pop-up of a system error. I have not gone through (yet) to track every instance of what happens before a system error pop-up occurs from that point on, but I will say moment that was most legible for me in terms of indicating that these system errors were stemming from Myungha himself were when he gets the notification both times that Yeowoon looks directly at him and tells Myungha “I love you.”
gif by @dragonsareawesome123
That moment was a guy punch for me because I was not able to see it any other way except that Myungha is so incapable of believing that people could actually love him that someone telling him directly and sincerely that they love him cannot exist in his world. He literally cannot compute it, and thus an error occurs. Again from the perspective of depression, or trauma, or what have you, this is familiar to me. It is perhaps the most reflective part of Myungha to my own psyche. Neither of us know how to be loved.
Myungha is called out on this repeatedly, he is nice to everyone, he does so much for everyone and refuses to ask for help himself. I’m the same way, I will bend over backwards as much as I can to help the people that I care about, but it is a rare occasion where I can ask for help myself. I’m not sure if this is the case for Myungha, but for me at least a lot of that stems from needing to make myself useful to people in some way so they keep me around. And so I end up feeling like a commodity to the people that I care about and help, and merely tolerated by anyone else that I do not help but that interacts with me any way. Myungha is called out consistently by multiple people, real or NPC about this similar habit. Myungha does not want to be a burden, Myungha only cares about other people’s happiness, Myungha is not happy himself and has maybe never been happy and so he pours everything he can in to lightening the load for others.
He loves Yeowoon, but to be loved by Yeowoon is different. To experience any moments of joy cannot possibly be real. Maybe I am projecting too much on to the character, but it makes complete and total sense to me that Myungha’s worldview would break down upon having someone state wholeheartedly that they want to be a support system for him.
Cruel Choices
gif by @dramascene
With the enmeshment of depression and video game mechanics in mind, I want to talk about the scene at the end of Episode 6. I love this scene so much for a number of reasons:
It turns the game on a head for me as we slip further and further in to a nightmare scenario
It raises the stakes and attempts to get Myungha to make a hard choice
It forces Myungha to think about what is important to him
It’s ultimate purpose and who is posting the mission is ambiguous/uncertain
I’m going to focus on number four. I think it is a perfectly valid read to see this and all video game mechanics as designed by The Author in an effort to help Myungha change Yeowoon’s story in which case this mission feels particularly vindictive and cruel. @lurkingshan posed the question in a conversation we were having about Love for Love’s Sake, where she wondered why the game could not hold two sources of love for Myungha at once. I love that question because it made me realize how differently this show can be read and how important who you choose to read as the entity in control of this game is for what this scene specifically means and I love so many interpretations of it, I love the interpretation that is was simply cruel, I love the interpretation that in retrospect this was the Author being angry at Myungha for dying, I love the reflection from @jemmo that said this felt like a choice between staying rooted in the past (sparing grandma) or choosing a future (sparing Yeowoon)
For me, I think I am leaning heavily in to the pop ups are under Myungha’s subconscious control, his mind, the missions he thinks are important, the problems he thinks he is causing are what is driving the base game. Because of this my base instinct is to lean in to the depression/anxiety/trauma tent where things have been going a little too well for him lately and he has convinced himself that he is due for something bad to happen. I am happy to once again acknowledge that this probably projection, but I know that my own mental illness(es) does not let my peace linger for long. Myungha is spending so much time with Yeowoon, Yeowoon who grounds him when his world is literally falling apart. Yeowoon who cannot contain his smile whenever he is around Myungha, Yeowoon who is downright desperate to bestow love and support upon Myungha, Yeowoon who has accompanied Myungha to the hospital late at night to be there for his boyfriend in a stressful time, and Myungha can’t have that. He loves his grandmother, he loves Yeowoon, they both love him and so obviously means that something bad is going to happen to them.
gif by @25shadesoffebruary
[As an aside I am thinking about what the Author said in the final episode about wanting Myungha to be able to see himself from the outside, and how I took that to mean Yeowoon is supposed to be a reflection of Myungha and a journey to self love, and how Yeowoon told Myungha that something bad always happens to the people around him in relation to this hospital scene]
Secondarily, I do think being confronted with this choice at all allows Myungha to have a moment of reflection, and is clarifying for him to know that both Yeowoon and his grandmother are important people in his life that he doesn’t want to lose. That’s fucking huge, in my opinion at least. And for all this mission was cruel, it was the first time Myungha refused to complete the mission. He was asked to save one, he decided to save both, and the game could have been cruel and taken his grandmother and Yeowoon away for refusing to choose, but it didn’t. They both got to live, and sure Myungha’s mission to make Yeowoon happy was shortened significantly, but I do think fifteen days was enough time to be successful in his mission if the depression and the grief had not gotten to Myungha instead.
Grief
gif by @my-rose-tinted-glasses
Something about grief that my therapist told me once was grieving people love helping others. And I think that is the case of Myungha here just based on the way he throws himself in to helping as many people as he can, especially Yeowoon. He knows Yeowoon is grieving, he knows Yeowoon is struggling, and he can distract himself from his own shit by helping Yeowoon instead. But once Myungha is confronted with the possibility that either one of the people that he loves could die, the penality for failing in his mission to make Yeowoon happy looms over his head like a knife. Just like Myungha considered himself the problem with the debuff, he knows how high of a likelihood it is that Yeowoon would regress, would isolate, would sink into a massive low.
And it would be Myung’s fault (in his mind).
Especially because Yeowoon keeps saying that even thinking about going on dates with Myungha is making him happy but Myungha’s mission isn’t complete. Myungha has started to get low, he is not as engaged in his relationship with Yeowoon, he’s convinced himself he is going to fail, and is thus setting himself up for failure because he decides 15 days is not enough time to find happiness, but it is enough time to break somebody’s heart in preparation for a devastating loss. And maybe, maybe Myungha would have snapped out of it with enough time to spare initially, but any hope of that being the case was shattered the second Yeowoon admitted that he wasn’t happy because Myungha wasn’t relying on him.
Myungha is so used to be self-reliant there is no way for him to break out of that habit in just two weeks. Myungha knew his death would hurt Yeowoon, but the final nail in the coffin for him was learning that his life was hurting Yeowoon too. And he almost got there, he almost did it, he admitted that he didn’t know how to, but he withdrew at the last second. He has spent all this time, all this energy, all this focus in to changing Yeowoon, he does not have the space to do that for himself.
The Choice
gif by @supanuts
The last moment I will really speak to as it relates to my interpretation of this game being controlled by Myungha as a manifestation of his depression is the author’s pen. Considering the fact The Author asked Myungha if he wanted to try again, I do not think if the Author was controlling this game world that he would have had Myungha disappear from it. Because according to the Gaga subs, the change that Myungha writes is that he wants Yeowoon to be happy, and immediately upon finishing that request, Myungha starts to fade.
If we hold these game mechanics as manifestations of Myungha’s depression, which I do, it makes complete and total sense to me that Myungha would fall back in to the pattern of believing that Yeowoon would be happier if Myungha wasn’t there. Yeowoon has a modeling deal now, he has some modicum of fame, he has friends now, he has supports in place that he did not have before, so what need does Yeowoon have of him, when his inability to let people love him is what is now causing Yeowoon to feel sad.
And I think that massive server error at the end where the world is burning and the universe is melting in to the game is a result of Myungha realizing too little, too late that this isn’t what he wanted. But it can’t be undone. The line he says when he is sinking in to the water about how at the last minute before he died, he regretted it. The game, the drowning here are one in the same to me.
And for me there was just something so beautiful and hopeful from Myungha telling The Author that he wants to try again. We started the show with Myungha telling The Author miserable people can be happy, and we end the show with Myungha and Yeowoon finally getting the happy ending they never thought they would have.
gif by @junghaesin
God I loved this show.
#love for love's sake#lfls#love for love's sake meta#love for love's sake analysis#one thing about this show is that it almost certainly will lend itself well to a rewatch!#and I *love* rewatching shows#wka long post
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Hello, I hope you are doing well!! I am going to add into the growing pile of asks in your inbox, but I need to get this out of my system!! Seeing these new images (and the season 3 announcement) has watered my crops, cleared my skin and all that jazz ✨🌟 both of them look soo happy and soppy and smitten and I really can't stop smiling at those pics... They radiate warmth (and are a far cry from the last pics of MS we got) and the best thing is, the people around them are looking like '😏😏 yes homo 🏳️🌈? If it is then good for them, good for them' (I even edited the pics XD)
Would love to hear more of your thoughts on this and I hope you have a nice holiday season (if you celebrate). Cheers 🥂
(Grouping these all together for ease of answering.)
Good lord, my inbox has completely blown up since last night. I can see we've all been greatly affected by the photo(s) of Michael and David at the Donmar, and there is surely much to discuss.
I think I am losing my shit just slightly too, so I am with you, @enchantingdefendorarbiter. What a joyous turn of events--opening night of Macbeth and Michael in (almost) the front row watching David with rapt attention, and someone somehow capturing the exact moment when they lock eyes from across the room in a "movie moment" made into genuine reality.
When I first saw the picture last night, I was so struck by the intimacy of it. Part of me wonders if this is due to the actual space--the Donmar is such a small theatre that lends itself to intimacy just by its nature, with the audience being so close to the stage and the performers. But there is no denying the intimacy that exists between Michael and David themselves--deep friendship, certainly, yes, but after looking at this photo, unquestionably the possibility of more.
As I've said before, I will not ever tell anyone that they have to ship Michael and David. It is absolutely correct for people to look at this picture and see best friends, because they are best friends. But being best friends and falling in love aren't mutually exclusive, nor does the possibility become closed off just because both of them are in other relationships.
So, intimacy. Another thing that intimacy can mean is feeling comfortable enough to show your feelings openly. That was what also struck me about last night, was that this was so public, and yet we got this (non-staged, non-planned) picture of Michael and David looking at each other ostensibly the same way they do when they're alone together. In this instance, maybe they thought no one was paying attention, but more significantly, they don't seem to care either way.
I think we think of "being in love" as this big, grand thing that exists the way it does in the movies. But in real life, being in love isn't just one specific thing, or specifically saying "I am in love with you." Being in love can also be I am looking at you like this right now because I don't know any other way to look at you. And that can be in private, or it can be in the middle of a crowded theatre, proudly letting the world see what you feel without apology.
(I also agree with you, @yami-no-kokoro, that the new pictures of Michael (which to answer your question @angelsandfelines are indeed from last night) are worlds away better than the ones we saw of him at a previous event. I am never not moved by the difference between Michael smiling his 'showbiz' smile versus smiling his real, genuine smile, and I love that that's what we got last night and that he was beaming so brightly because of David.)
To your comment, @phantomstars24, I could very much see that as well. Because last night felt and still feels like it was David and Michael's night. It felt like something took center stage in a new and painfully lovely way. It felt like Michael could go to David's dressing room with flowers and wine, and that they could sit on the couch and snog slowly and sweetly while Michael holds David in his arms and no one would blink a damn eye. And that is truly a beautiful thing.
So yes, those are my additional thoughts on the Macbeth press night. I have to do some traveling today, but I will try my best to answer the other Asks still waiting in my inbox. Thank you all for writing in and sharing your thoughts! x
#yami-no-kokoro#enchantingdefendorarbiter#angelsandfelines#phantomstars24#reply post#michael sheen#welsh seduction machine#david tennant#soft scottish hipster gigolo#macbeth#donmar warehouse#honestly if what we saw last night isn't being in love i'm not sure what is#an entire theatre full of people and it's like they're the only ones there#siri play 'I Only Have Eyes for You' by The Flamingos#a friendship that's become something more#they are perfect together your honor#i love them#and i love that they love each other#ineffable lovers#good omens rpf#discourse
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How To Get The Best Out Of Your Hold-Up Stockings - ZawzorLtd
The fact that you’ve landed on this blog post suggests that you might already be aware of the extensive selection of hold-up stockings we make available in the Zawzor online store. And as we have previously written about, they can be attractive and practical for many different reasons.
Before we go any further, what exactly are hold-up stockings? Well, they can be described as stockings that come with an elasticated band at the top. The purpose of this band is to hold up the stockings when they are worn, without suspenders being needed.
As gorgeous as the best hold-up stockings can undoubtedly look, though, not every wearer of these beautiful items necessarily gets the best out of them. So, let’s take a closer look at how you can impress in your own hold-ups, while minimising any hassle.
First up – how can you get your hold-ups to hold up?
Given that much of the point of hold-up stockings is that they are supposed to “hold up” themselves, it’s understandable if you feel frustrated at yours slipping down.
The first piece of good news here is that it’s nearly always down to poor sizing. If you’re a ‘small’ and you purchase a ‘medium’ then the hold-ups are sure to end up as ankle scarves! Take a moment to consider the right size for you and it’s highly unlikely you’ll get any slippage.
The second good piece of news is that simply knowing how to put on hold-up stockings properly will greatly help you to avoid them slipping down at all.
When you are putting on your hold-ups, you should be aiming to roll them on, instead of pulling them on. You can do this by rolling them up and putting them on your toe, before unrolling them all the way to your thigh. Remember that pulling at your hold-up stockings could stretch the fabric, thereby causing sagging that could make the hold-ups likelier to slip down when worn.
Other good tips here include to ensure your legs are kept dry – perhaps with the help of deodorant applied around the area where the ‘band’ of the hold-ups will sit – as well as to keep the hold-ups clean. The latter step will help to avoid sweat or body oils accumulating on the stockings that could make slippage more of a problem.
In what circumstances should hold-up stockings be worn?
You’ve probably already sensed that hold-ups aren’t the kind of thing designed as usual office wear. Indeed, their ‘sexy’ look tends to lend itself best to one-off special occasions such as romantic evenings out, although some women like to wear them for a ‘standard’ night out with their friends from time to time, if they are in the mood to make a bolder statement with their look.
So, our advice here would be to avoid getting too “hung up” about when you should wear hold-ups. Nonetheless, you should still think carefully about the social context in which you might wear them, and whether you will be able to deal with them OK if you have problems with them slipping down.
What items of clothing are best for wearing with hold-ups?
Again, it’s hard to say there are many ‘hard-and-fast’ rules about exactly what you should wear with your hold-up stockings, especially these days when it might seem like “almost anything goes”.
The most stylish hold-ups are certainly an eye-catcher, though. So, if you have an outfit that already looks good but could perhaps do with an injection of glamour or sexiness, this is the kind of circumstance in which you might consider adding hold-ups to your look.
One thing you might be worried about here is exactly how much of your hold-up stockings will be on show, especially if you will be wearing them in a public setting. To test this out, put your outfit on – complete with hold-ups – sit down, and cross your legs. This will indicate how much of the stocking will be visible when you are sitting in a bar or restaurant, for example.
As a general rule, you should be aiming for the top of the stocking to be covered when you are standing as well as when you are sitting. However, some women do like to have them at a length that leaves a bit of the top of the stocking on show when they are seated – and that’s a perfectly valid preference.
Has all the above got your imagination racing about how you could embrace hold-up stockings as part of your aesthetic during 2023, and beyond? If so, there could hardly be a better place to shop for your next pair than Zawzor. Get browsing our store now, and you are sure to find something well-suited for adding to your wardrobe or that of your beloved.
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Bleach vs naruto 3.2 fast loading sites unblocked
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It’s okay I suppose fairly average for a Shounen, and certainly nothing to rave about. Sadly, Bleach doesn’t even have animation rooting on its side. Even in its best moments, Bleach’s story is an incomparable farrago of uneven twists and random leaps. This one plot hole brought my respect for the show down to sub-Arctic levels. Rukia tells Ichigo that even Shinigami don’t know what it is that Hollows want, yet in the next episode, she states without any hesitation that Hollows are after souls. Another discussion set that confused me presents itself in episode 2, and concludes in episode 3. For example, in the moment when Ichigo first notices that Rukia is the new member of his class, he emits words that are so reminiscent of dialogue in Shaman King, that it is almost sickening. The interactions Bleach offers up could have been so much better, and for that, I was disappointed. Regrettably, it wasn’t, and I couldn’t help but glare at the constant plot twists ripped straight out of the bare bones of other well-known adventure stories. The saddest thing is, Bleach might have actually worked for me, had it been the first Shounen I ever watched. Unfortunately, through tumultuous filler and un-strategic battle sequences, it remains an obtuse insult to the genre it tries so desperately to personify. If only Bleach focused on this area more, and cast aside its dated centers as a plot-story. Hidden among an overabundance of these archetypes, there is a truly interesting story of friendship and sacrifice. Well, I don't.īleach is a romp of a Shounen, with limitless power-ups, busty female characters, and even a white-masked monster or two. Considering this fact, one might believe that I actually like Bleach. From ancient classics like Dragonball, to more recent works such as Soul Eater, I don’t just like it I downright love it! I don’t care if it’s mainstream, or if the animation is riddled with twitchy-flaws or even if the main character has hair that spikes up all the way to freaking Saturn! I truly adore Shounen anime. Now, here’s the moment to say that I like the genre of Shounen. I thought “what the hell? Maybe all those Youtube comments were right, and it can be compared to other not-so-hidden gems that the Shounen genre has been known to dish out.” As such, I downloaded the first three episodes and sat back, hoping that Bleach would be deserving of all the hype surrounding it.
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Bleach was a series that had been posted upon that note for perhaps eight months. Now a substitute Shinigami, Ichigo must follow the customs of a Reaper, including the businesses of hunting down Hollows and aiding lost spirits.Ī few years back, the eternal prowl for a good Shounen brought me back to my Anime to Watch Stickies note, and I found myself pausing my cursor upon Bleach. After an unfortunate twist of events, Rukia is left obligated to lend her powers to Ichigo, but Ichigo unwillingly steal all of her energy. This power leads him to encounter Rukia Kuchiki, a Shinigami sent to the living world with the task of eliminating evil spirits known as Hollows. All you need to do is search for Tigntone online, and you will find all the ringtones that you could possibly be looking for.Bleach tells of story of fifteen-year-old Ichigo Kurosaki, a High-school student who possesses the ability to interact with the dead. There are so many unique sounds that you are bound to love. You will easily be able to access them through a short cut on your cell phone menu. You can even have more than one stored in your cell phone if you want to.
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I recommend that you download this ringtone to every cell phone that you own. It is soothing to the ears and gives you a nice background noise every time you pick up your cell phone. This piece is something that I would include in my cell phone collection. This song will be perfect to go with your current ringtone. Downloading their wonderful Tigntone ringtone is going to be a great experience for any cell phone user. Using sounds from movies, music videos, and other projects is what this master does best. They are also well-known for creating many of the sound effects used in films. Boards of Audio are well-known for their amazing ringtone downloads. The link below will also take you to a free ringtone download of one of the most popular tunes by one of the masters, Boards of Audio.
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Eye of the storm
Nikolai Lantsov x Tidemaker!Reader
summary: »In the eye of the storm it’s always the calmest« — love hurts, even more when you met your lover again and things have changed. Especially when faced in battle love only remains a bittersweet memory.
wordcount: 2.2k
warnings: betrayal, angsty, hurt, „villainous“ reader
a/n: played an online escape game yesterday and got inspired by it plot ... or its ending, both could be improved tbh. Bon appetite, i hope you all enjoy it. And thanks again to @sumsebien for helping me edit and finding a name :) ✨
Ravkan words
Milaya — Sweet Girl
Moya lapushka — my darling
His breath tickled your skin until he pressed his lips to your shoulder, you could still feel it, him. Even filled with exhaustion Nikolai couldn’t stop cherishing, loving you. Yourself always felt a bit disgusting, skin sticky and shining, tasting like salt. But he never cared how much you sweat or its reasons, sparing or bed, he simply couldn’t stop caressing your skin with his lips. Suddenly they were pressed flat again your shoulder blade, body laying against yours. You could feel his laugh vibrating through his body before it escaped his lips, light-hearted and true.
„What? Why are you laughing?“ You asked him groggily. But all he did was shaking his blonde messy locks, you never could resist playing with his hair, chuckling. Nikolai only admired you with a cheeky smile, hazel eyes twinkling. Never did he tell you what he found so funny, always keeping it to himself. „Nothing.“
„I am only admiring beauty itself,“ he said.
„How so? I see no mirror.“ Nikolai grinned at your words, pressing his lips to your shoulder blade in a gently but loving kiss.
. . .
„You don’t need to do this Y/N!“ Nikolai yelled, waves splashing around him, hitting the sides of his ship, mirroring his emotions. The sea was enraged, maybe more so than him. Maybe it was your doing, anger and betrayal boiling inside of you by the sight of your former lover pointing his revolver at you, his other hand resting on the holster.
His words were unheard by you, not drowned by the sea but you simply chose to ignore them. „I should’ve known that it was you behind Sturmhond. — That name is ridiculous,“ you spat, arms stretched and hands ready.
„Oh, Y/N there’s no need to hurt my feelings even more,“ he said. If you’d not threaten him with your powers, if there wasn’t the danger of battle, Nikolai would put his hand to his heart and pretend, very theatrically, to be hurt deeply. „My heart‘s already shattered.“
. . .
Head laying on his chest, feeling the beating of his heart underneath you. The steady rhythm calmed you but him telling you the story of a pirate with childish excitement in his voice did more. Looking up, lifting your head from his chest, loving the smile and excitement in his face, you said, „he sounds great, the pirate.“
Since sleep refused coming over you, even though your day had been busy, Nikolai gladly offered to tell his love a story. Not an old tale his nurse used to tell him as a young, tiny princeling. But one of a mighty, and very charming, pirate who loved to trick the rich of Kerch, Fjerda and Ravka alike.
„Privateer,“ Nikolai corrected you. „Not pirate.“
At that you rolled your eyes at him. For you there was no difference, just synonyms for the same occupation. „There’s clearly a difference.“
„Which is, pirates are very sexy and privateers not so much?“ You asked, earning a gasp from him.
„Are you telling me that you’re having a secret liaison with a ruthless, attractive pirate?“
Giggling you shook your head. „A friend lend me a romance novel with a very handsome and charming pirate.“ Nikolai looked at you with judgmental eyes, facetious telling you that he couldn’t believe you read such kinky literature. “Don’t look at me like that,” you said. “I know you read The Princess and The Barbarian. Don’t deny it, I saw a copy of it on your nightstand.”
He chuckled at that, thinking that he should’ve hid the novel in the drawer. Only few people, one could count them on one hand, knew of his love for these novels. Nikolai couldn’t explain it either but after dealing with politics, war and blueprints, these books were a nice alternative. “They’re not lewd, it’s fantastical romantic literature and very entertaining, you should try it too.”
“Hmm, maybe after you finish telling me your privateer story.”
He needn’t have been told twice. Smoothly, he continued the story where you had interrupted him, as if nothing had happened. By the smile on his face you, no, everybody even the king, could tell that Nikolai enjoyed this story. There was nothing but pure joy on his face, childlike enthusiasm. When he ended his magnificent tale, you smiled. “I think I like him, your privateer.”
“Oh, I bet you would. You know, he’s just like me, very charming and incredibly handsome.”
Playfully you scoffed, patting his chest lightly. “Don’t flatter yourself, honey.”
. . .
But it was all but a sweet, painful memory. Remembering his story, you should’ve known that he was behind Sturmhond and nobody else. Back then he had practically told you everything about the privateer, the tale and Sturmhond were almost identical. When he told you the story to make you fall asleep had he already made his plans to abandon Ravka, to leave his love behind all for a teal frock and the sea?
“You don’t understand, bastard prince,” you sneered, knowing very well that it hurt him when the one he loved referred to him as mongrel. It was easy for him to shake it off if his enemies called him like that, fuelling the rumours of Nikolai not being a Lantsov at all. But when someone familiar, someone you trusted and loved called you that, it stung. “You would never understand. I do this for Ravka, for the Grisha! No one should ever live in fear because they are gifted!”
“Y/N you’re right, no one should live in fear!” Nikolai gripped his revolver, secured in its holster, tighter when the ship wavered dangerously by your power. Not only did the true sea portray his emotions very well, they also captured yours perfectly, getting influenced by your anger. “But you’re not doing it for Ravka. This will not bring peace, not for the Grisha and not for Ravka! The only winner is the Darkling and he doesn’t care for you or our country!”
You scoffed, believing none of the lies your former love told you. “Do you? Do you care for this country?”
He wanted to say yes. Of course he cared for Ravka, its people and for you. But you left him gaping like a fish, stifling his words before he could even utter them. “No, you don’t. You left Ravka to do what? Play pirate? We’re at war and all you do is sail the sea to annoy rich men. Do you call that caring? Did you ever care about–“
“Milaya.” Sweet girl, you hadn’t heard that word in ages, not from him. Nikolai put his hands up, showing you slowly how he put his revolve back into its holster. He stood there barehanded in front of you with both hurt and anger portrayed on his face.
It was ridiculous, but that one word, one of his stupid words he used to call you, had thrown you off completely. After all that time, weeks and months of not hearing anything of him, thinking he had forgotten you, leaving you behind as if you meant nothing, he dared to use this stupid word?
Your fingers twitched; a wave of newfound pain raged through you. Without much ado, you let the sea crash against the ship’s side making Nikolai tumble in surprise and fall to his knee.
“You’ve no right to call me that!”
. . .
The warmth of the sun grazed you skin while the wind tickled it with moving grass. You shielded your eyes from the sun, tilting your head to look at the blonde prince on your right, who enjoyed the kisses from the blazing star. He looked absolutely beautiful, perfect and calm, truly like the heroes from fairy tales. It sounded cheesy, especially when you thought about that Nikolai would say the exact same about you, but you could watch him for hours. “I’ve read your book, it is really good.”
With a grin he looked at you with one eye. “Have I promised too much? I told you it’s fantastical romance literature.”
You giggled. “It is way better than I thought, really entertaining.”
“I can’t believe you hadn’t read it before,” he said, propping himself up with one arm and grinning cheekily at you. “But now that you know it, we can certainly reenact some scenes.” It was highly possible and believable that Nikolai would try out some of its scenes. He even would let you be the barbarian. Laughing and snorting you hit his chest, and he couldn’t help but to laugh along with you.
More time passed with you laughing and just laying beside each other, enjoying each other’s company. But when the clouds began to wind up, (big and fluffy but clouds nonetheless) their shadows on your face, you began to wonder. He was a prince and you Grisha. As beautiful as it was, this wasn’t meant to last.
“Sobachka,” you mumbled.
“Da, moya lapushka?”
“Will you miss me?” You asked, starring into the sky and watching the clouds slowly moving by. Nikolai didn’t know what has suddenly come over you, you didn’t know either which wave had hit you, but you didn’t dare look at him.
“Depends on where you are going,” he said nonchalant. “You’re the thief of my heart. I miss you the second you’re not by my side.”
Your heart felt heavy in your chest, imagining a life without him or seeing him in the arms of another made you want to cry. But your future was laid out like this. Nikolai was a prince, and you were a soldier of the second army, a tidemaker not a princess or diplomat’s daughter. You could serve Ravka only in one way. “I know tidemakers aren’t as useful on the field as heartrenders, inferni or squallers. And there’s a higher chance for you to die by assassination or as a solider…”
Nikolai looked at you, he knew where this was going, he knew what you were saying, and he didn’t like it. Even as the second heir to the Ravkan throne he sadly knew that he wasn’t holding the strings for his future love life. But he hated to think about it. Hated to think about you and him not being together, about you dying. Already he feared that enough.
“I know we don’t have a future together, but–” you began to sob. “I miss you. I will miss you from my grave if I have to.”
“Milaya,” Nikolai whispered, gently wiping your tears away. “Lapushka.” He took your hand in his, gently kissing it, letting his lips travel from one knuckle to another. “I miss you. I always do and I certainly don’t intend to leave you. So don’t rack your pretty head about it.”
. . .
Quickly Nikolai extended a hand but not to stop you, it was meant for his crew. It was crazy, he must have lost his mind but for now, he did not want anyone to interfere. Not even the twins were set into action, even though their power could end this tragedy in a second.
Nikolai tried to regain his balance on the madly swaying ship, knowing it was all your doing. When he finally could stand on both of his legs again, he slowly moved forward, step by step. Only for you to have him fall down again with another strong wave. He shouldn’t have but he felt proud of you, admiring your power and the way you could held yourself steady on your feet. “Y/N, love, I never intended–“
“Don’t call me that!” You shrieked, sending him back to the floor when he tried to get up again.
“I never intended to leave you.” Nikolai knew he couldn’t say that he hadn’t left you. Well, he hadn’t abandoned you. Not on purpose. When he got send to Ketterdam he swore to do the things lovers do, to send letters. First, he wrote you almost daily, mostly raving about how huge the university and interesting the city was, but also how boring classes were. Even when he got no letter in return, he kept writing, telling you monthly about his adventures on the sea only to forget it. Life as a privateer had been busy.
“Saints, stop telling lies!” You raised your arms, hands ready for the final blow. Your heart ached, still longing for the boy kneeling before you. But he had dumped you, left you in the palace, on the battlefield to play privateer. The Darkling had been right, he felt nothing for you. How would he ever understand what it felt like to be Grisha?
Finally, the tears you had been holding back for so long began to pour, streaming down your cheeks in sorrow and rage. “Don’t paint me as the villain! Everything I do, I do it for Ravka.”
“You never were the villain, love.“ His words got devoured by the sea. Blinded by your rage and pain, you let two big waves ravage over the ship’s deck, right where Nikolai stood. You couldn’t see much, your eyes grew heavy, tired, until they fell shut. The storm inside your heart was calming down, arms feeling weighty as tons. With a scowl you noticed too late that this must be the work of a heartrender, calming your heart until you fell asleep, like a raged child. The world grew dark around you, sedative and warm, letting you slip into dreamland and not even make you question why you were still alive.
#own writing#nikolai lantsov x you#nikolai lantsov x reader#grishaverse#grishaverse imagine#grishaverse fanfiction#siege and storm#king of scars#shadow and bone imagine#nikolai lantsov imagine#shadow and bone fanfiction#sab#im editing this so much#Sorry Nikolai you don’t deserve this 🥲#Nikolai lantsov fanfic
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Seeing Red | bodyguard!Bucky Barnes x actress!reader (part 3)
(part 1) (part 2)
series summary: bucky used to brag that he didn’t have a celebrity crush, or really care about famous people at all, which is what made him the perfect person to start working for a celebrity like yourself. except, of course, it’s just his luck that he’d fall for you.
word count: 3k
chapter warnings: mention of past sexual harassment, very mature karaoke (lol), mention of pornography
Day 63 and you still hadn’t talked about it. He’d actually gotten to know you a lot better over the past two months, even almost confessing his feelings for you with that stupid half-asleep storybook thing he’d done way back when, but you still hadn’t talked about the night you saw him looking in the rearview mirror.
Tonight actually reminded him of that night; this time was a premiere, for a movie you hadn’t actually been in but apparently you were supposed to go anyways? He didn’t get it but he figured he didn’t need to. As long as you came back alone this time, he’d be happy.
Of course, when he saw you step out to the car to leave for the venue, he was confident that would be impossible— not that you ever looked bad on a red carpet or anything, but wow… this was different.
“It’s not too slutty, is it?” you asked him nervously, spinning around to show him the back. Don’t look at her ass don’t look at her ass don’t look at her ass—
“Just slutty enough,” he responded with a gloved thumbs up.
“Perfect,” you smiled, and he opened the door for you to get in the back. He took a moment to catch his breath before circling around to the driver’s side.
You actually chatted with him on the way, which was a new thing you two had started doing when he drove you. He looked forward to your talks a lot— especially the ones where you ranted about whatever was on your mind. You would usually apologize for rambling but he liked it; and, you were cute when you got really worked up about something, even if he thought it was kind of trivial.
As he pulled up to the red carpet, with cameras flashing and the indistinguishable yelling of reporters and fans, you shot him a look as if you didn’t want to go.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” you shook your head incredulously, “I just… I wish you would’ve come and seen it.”
He recalled a few weeks back when you offered him a ticket to the premiere showing, but he’d insisted on just sticking to what he knew and letting your assistant have the spare ticket. “I’ll catch it on Netflix,” he dismissed.
“No, I mean, I wish you were coming with me,” you explained.
Was it hot in here, all of a sudden? Because his cheeks felt warm. “Uh, you don’t want me in there. I always fall asleep in theaters anyways. Just go have fun and I’ll catch you after.”
“Okay,” you nodded with an adorable little smile.
So he waited, wondering if he should’ve taken you up on it all those weeks ago, but decided he probably made the right call. He would just embarrass you in a place like that, more than likely, and you had enough to deal with already. He felt more useful waiting in the wings than being in the spotlight, to use a fittingly-timed theater metaphor.
It was a few hours of him killing time in the car, but he got to relax a little more since the event already had pretty good security on its own. You’d recommended a book called Flowers for Algernon to him, even lending him your copy for the time being, and so he leaned his seat back and picked up where he’d left off from this morning. Of course, if he had known that you’d be gone long enough for him to finish, and that the ending was going to make him cry, he probably wouldn’t have read it. WIth his luck, it was inevitable that he’d be all but sobbing when you texted him to pull the car around.
Wiping his tears and hoping his eyes wouldn’t be too red, he tossed the book into the glovebox and started the engine. You waved cheerily when you saw him from the entrance, and he attempted to navigate through all the other cars pulling up so he could reach you. Thankfully, you didn’t have a new friend with you this time— or an old friend. Jealousy crisis averted, for now.
“How was it?” he asked with a smile as you opened the door and slipped in, unable to hide how happy he was to see you.
“The premiere itself was a lot of fun, I got to see some people I hadn’t seen in ages; the movie, though? Sort of pretentious,” you admitted as you shut the door and he got the car moving again. “And way too long! I could watch movies all day, but that doesn’t mean I want to watch a movie all day!”
“Fair enough,” he laughed.
“What did you do?” you asked innocently.
“I finished your book,” he frowned, trying not to think about it so he wouldn’t get emotional again.
“Ah, I can tell you’re still a little hurt about it,” you smiled mischievously. “Should’ve warned you about the ending.”
“No, no,” he disagreed, “it’s not a bad ending just because it’s a sad one… it was a good book.”
You’d already been smiling, but your smile undeniably changed as he watched it in the rearview mirror. Something softer, something more sensitive. He liked this one better. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
Just in time to interrupt the moment, you saw something on the passing street outside that caught your attention.
“Ooh, karaoke!” you piped up, pressing your face against the inside of the window excitedly. “Pull over!”
He chuckled at how easily distracted you were, but did as you’d asked. He barely found time to slow down to a stop before you were opening the door and running out, flashing your ID to get inside.
He groaned as he realized how completely unsafe it was for you to be in a bar… especially now, when you were at your most recognizable and literally still wearing what you’d had on at the premiere. Thankfully, he managed to pull the car around and park in the closest spot he could find, jogging to join you inside the bar and hoping you hadn’t already made too much of a scene. His hopes were dashed the moment he pushed through the door, however.
“Is she perverted like me? Would she go down on you in a theater?” you sang along with the grungy backing track of Alanis Morrisette’s You Oughta Know; your lips were curled into a faux snarl as you stood on stage with your heels in one hand and the microphone in the other.
Bucky’s head fell into his hands, looking around to see hundreds of bar patrons, nearly all of them with their phones out filming you.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Bucky mumbled to himself, hoping you would somehow hear it and take his advice. Instead, you pantomimed sucking a dick with a cute little wink and everyone cheered. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“And I’m here, to remind you,” you continued, jumping around wildly; you looked like you were having the time of your life, honestly. If he wasn’t so worried about you, he would’ve let himself smile seeing you so happy.
During the bridge, you stole someone’s water off their table and poured a bit on your head, slicking your hair back and shivering from the cold. There was something about the water dripping down your face, starting to soak your clothes and make your skin glisten...
Bucky glanced around to make sure no one was looking at him before subtly adjusting his jeans.
He watched you sing the entire song, making most of the notes and definitely capturing the anger of the original song— if clearly having a lot more fun with it than most would. The entire bar cheered when you finished, and you took a moment to take some pictures with people and meet a few fans, which he thought was sweet even if his bodyguard instincts forced him to interrupt after a moment.
“Alright, that’s enough,” he guided you away gently.
“Goodnight!” you waved goodbye to someone who was already buried in her phone and posting the photo you’d taken with her.
“Have a good time?” he asked sarcastically as the two of you began to walk out together.
“Would’ve been better if you hadn’t been glaring at me the whole time,” you smirked.
“I wasn’t glaring, I was just… watching. You have a good voice, you know.”
You seemed surprised by the compliment. “Oh. Thanks.”
“And your stage presence is certainly… energetic,” he grinned. “I bet your little charade is already trending.”
“I checked, and it is,” you giggled, showing him your phone for a moment where Twitter was open and you were the #7 topic in the United States and climbing. “And the part where I poured that water on myself is pretty gif-able, don’t you think?”
He raised a brow as he held the back door of the bar open as you slipped back on your heels and walked past him. “Is that why you did it? For the reaction?”
“I did it cause it was fun,” you corrected. “You wouldn’t know anything about that. And the water thing was just practical, I was getting hot in this dress.”
That didn’t seem to be a problem anymore with the way you shivered in the night air as he walked you through the parking lot. “Want my jacket?” he offered.
“No,” you frowned, but you eyed the leather with a hungry stare. He chuckled and took it off, draping it over your shoulders anyways. “How far is the car?”
“Uh, a block? Not much parking this time of night,” he explained.
“Ugh, these heels,” you groaned, “they hurt so bad. I don’t know if I can make it.” You began to slip them off but he stopped you.
“You can’t go barefoot out here, god knows what’s on the ground,” he shuddered; what if there was broken glass or something?
“Well, I can’t wear these,” you frowned, “and I probably shouldn’t be walking on asphalt in red bottoms anyway…”
He probably should’ve warned you before he scooped you up into his arms, but it was sort of instinct and he kinda forgot to say anything first. You squealed a little but then went lax in his grip.
“You’re gonna carry me the whole way?” you asked incredulously.
“It’s only a block,” he shrugged, adjusting you in his arms a bit before starting the walk.
It got quiet after that, the cool night air rustling the trees and blowing through his hair— frankly, he was a little chilly without his jacket, but it looked better on you anyhow. The drive home was quiet, too, or at least quieter than usual, but it didn’t feel awkward, necessarily. It didn’t feel like a lull in the conversation; it felt more like the conversation had just changed from verbal to non-verbal. You both looked around at the city lights surrounding you on the drive, silent because there was nothing that needed to be said. It wasn’t nervous, or tense, or anxiety-inducing like most of his interactions with you (or with anyone) could be.
It felt like time spent with an old friend. He hadn’t known you long enough for that to be accurate, but he was happy to think of you as a new friend. He just hoped you thought the same.
Arriving at the house, he dropped you off at the front and watched you make a mad dash for the stairs and presumably your bedroom, smiling to himself as he parked the car and came in to follow you. He saw his jacket tossed onto the couch and your expensive shoes discarded right by the door. Going upstairs and peeking into your room, he saw your limp form flopped onto the bed, your back exposed from the low cut of the dress.
“You’d better not get comfortable, you’ll kill me if I let you fall asleep with all that makeup on,” he frowned, leaning against the doorway.
"I couldn't fall asleep yet, anyways. I'm wired."
“Any plans to burn off all that energy?” he pressed.
You groaned a little as you sat up, starting to unclasp all the jewelry on your wrists, around your neck, and on your ears. “It’ll take me a while to get out of all of this— but not as long as it took me to get into it,” you laughed. “Then I’m thinking TV and beers.”
“Beers?” he questioned, emphasizing the plural. “You plannin’ to get toasted right before you go to sleep?”
“No, it’s plural because there’s one beer for me and one beer for you,” you explained with the slightest air of condescension, but he couldn’t really think of it as rude since it was an invitation.
“I don’t want to intrude on your chill evening,” he refuted.
“No, really, you’re not intruding!” you insisted, standing up and setting the jewelry on a nightstand before approaching him and turning to face away from him. “Will you unzip me please?”
He stammered a little. “I don’t… see a zipper,” he admitted with a weak voice.
“It’s on the side here, see?” you lifted your arm a bit, and pointed to it.
Reaching out to touch your zipper was reminiscent of that old boardgame Operation: he needed to touch the zipper and only the zipper, cause if he bumped into anything else nearby, he got the feeling he’d get zapped.
His breath caught a bit as he watched more and more of your skin become exposed, the zipper ending up so low that he could just barely see the top of something lacy around your hips— and he had to stop there because anything more could induce cardiac arrest.
“Thanks!” you piped up happily, slipping away to your closet to do the rest in private. “Will you get the beers while I take my makeup off?” you requested through the shut door.
“Sure,’ he replied, turning to leave but realizing he should ask first: “Shiner or Pabst?”
“Don’t patronize me,” you grumbled, and he laughed because it was a stupid question. Trodding downstairs, he grabbed the Shiners from the fridge, stopping to check his phone only to see that it had started to automatically send him headlines pertaining to you.
‘Touch of Blood’ star gives impromptu karaoke performance at Queens dive bar!
He laughed at the picture of you onstage, even though he thought it was kind of reductive to describe you by a movie you’d been in so long ago when you had so much great new stuff coming out. Jumping back up the stairs, beers in hand, he found you makeup-free (aside from some leftover mascara and eyeliner that hadn’t really made it all the way off) and in a robe, laying on the bed as you pointed the remote at your TV. He thought you looked almost more beautiful like this than you did on the red carpet; of course, objectively, everybody looks better when they’ve been painted to the point of perfection, but he liked the domesticity of this. When you were casual and relaxed like this, he could almost, almost pretend you were his girlfriend or something. And not, you know, a global superstar and his employer.
“Beer me,” you requested as he sat down next to you, handing you a bottle and trying to ignore the thorough view of your legs he was getting in that robe.
“Anything good on?” he prompted as he watched you scroll through the channels on the guide.
“Uh, not particularly,” you frowned.
“They’re showing a game,” he pointed out as you passed the sports channels.
“I’d rather watch this pay-per-view porn,” you rolled your eyes.
He cleared his throat but said nothing because he was confident there was no good response to that.
“Hey, I’m in this!” you beamed, changing the channel quickly. He nearly had a heart attack until he realized you weren’t scrolling through the porn channels anymore.
He recognized the film instantly as the one of yours that he’d seen the most, for one very embarrassing and slightly sinister reason; looking down to the corner, he saw the HBO logo and realized it wasn’t going to be edited. His palms got a little clammy but he tried not to worry about it too much.
“Oh, this girl was super nice,” you remembered as you pointed to a character on-screen. “She had a bigger role but most of it got edited out.”
“That must be a bummer,” he imagined.
“Eh, it happens,” you shrugged. “Beats getting fired, or recast in the sequel.”
“Have you ever been fired during filming?” he pressed, morbidly curious.
“Once,” you nodded. “We were only a few days into it so they had no trouble finding somebody new and redoing my scenes. Just think: I could’ve been a Bond girl if I’d slept with that producer.”
“You— what?!” he squawked. “You got fired because you wouldn’t have sex with a film exec?”
“I got fired because of ‘creative differences,’” you explained with exaggerated air quotes, “and, unrelatedly, those creative differences surfaced the morning after I refused to get down and dirty with the EP.”
“Jesus,” he shook his head, “that’s… I hope you told someone.”
“Yeah, anonymously. Somebody will care someday, but not yet. He’s still too profitable, and not enough people have come forward.”
He glanced over at you, admiring your profile as you kept your eyes on the TV and took a sip of your beer. When you turned your head and looked back at him, he realized he’d been staring a bit too long.
“What?” you asked, quirking your brow a bit.
“What?” he repeated.
“You’re staring at me,” you frowned.
“Sorry, I was just… sorry,” he shook his head and looked back ahead. What he found there wasn’t much less embarrassing, though: he knew all too well that this was the scene right before THE scene. The scene he’d watched over and over until his arousal overpowered his shame. The scene that he’d used to try to satisfy his crush on you, but it only made it worse. The scene that had burrowed into his mind and deepened his obsession even as he fought it with everything he had…
You know, that scene. And he was about to watch it with you.
Bucky was completely, entirely, and supremely fucked.
#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes fanfiction#bucky barnes x you#bucky barnes x y/n#bucky barnes au
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Day 5 of A/PI Heritage Month featured authors interview! The lovely Parker, everyone!
Parkerlyn, author of The Nameless
A/PI Heritage Month Featured Author
Legend goes when the world was formed, the mortal races, mortalis, were created with the gift of magic. But as time passed their hubris grew, and the sheevra were created to curb their pride.
When it comes to these chaotic and malevolent beings, the lands are full of cautionary tales. Though some would tell you that the stories are just that. To them, names have no power. There are no mysterious deals to fear, and the figure who seduces you into an alley at midnight is certainly no malicious spirit.
Which luckily for you means easy prey.
Author's Ko-fi | Discord
(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE INTERVIEW!)
Q1: First of all, introduce us to your project! What is it about?
The Nameless is a mishmash of fey stories and a... teetering on apocalyptic setting? The world itself is almost completely covered by desert save for four regions and cities that have maintained life around them. The origins of that desert, the Arids, are said to have been from wars thousands of years ago where there was too much magic siphoned from the world, and the cost was desolation.
The reader enters the story as a sheevra (the fey-based race) who's been taught that all this was the mortal race’s doing in their desire for power. And that the sheevra were created to take that energy back from them via deals and names to slowly restore the world's more verdant state.
If you asked the mortalis though, they'd sing a different tune. To them, the sheevra are the remnants of the entity mainly responsible for the state of the Arids, and they're the reason why the world is stuck like it is.
Where does the truth actually fall? Well…
The game itself kicks off when one of the four sheevra clans in the world goes missing, and you're sent to investigate what happened. Though whether or not you really want to find out remains to be seen.
Q2: If it’s not too spoilery, what are you most excited about your project?
I'm definitely buzzing over some of the reveals behind the Arids and other features of the world, and how things are tied together. The puzzle will start getting filled in towards the end of Book 1 and will culminate in the final major choice of the entire story, and I'm really excited to see how people handle it.
I'm also looking forward to exploring more of the backstories of the romances and various characters, and also for more descriptions of magic-tech and how that's integrated into each of the cities (had a BLAST with this in upcoming content). Just in general, excited to continue bringing the world to life!
Q3: What inspired the current project you’re working on?
The Nameless was initially sparked by a D&D NPC, Oisein's predecessor who was far more bitter and not quite the sarcastic chaos gremlin they are today.
Specifically from Kobold Press' Courts of the Shadow Fey, this NPC was supposed to be just a one sentence rumor. But (of course) my players decided to pursue that route more in depth. Said character that I made up on the spot then ended up being a regular that I eventually made into a PC for another campaign. And...things sort of spiraled and transformed from there as I created their backstory and fell in love with the characters who would then become the four romances of the game.
There's also a theme I've been wanting to write about for a long time which might lend itself to spoilers, that I was finally able to find a home for in the world of The Nameless. So it's a dash of old and new ideas!
Q4: Do you pull from your own identity for inspiration? How has that been reflected in your work?
There's some indulgent, more obvious ones like the city of Han, which is directly named after the Han River in Korea and is, well, the City of Rivers. There's also small references to Korean folklore within the sheevra that will probably continue to show up, and you better believe Korean inspired food and clothing will make an appearance haha.
But below the surface level, I think a lot of the mannerisms and backstories of the characters may unconsciously be affected by my identity. Until someone asked me about modern ethnicities for the love interests, I didn't realize how much I had tied my mixed culture into these characters. But I'm happy to have that little piece intertwined in their personalities, their values, and their attitudes, as a small nod to my own Korean-American background.
This will probably become more evident in the settings too. There's a lot of mixed inspirations and sources in the architecture, environment, and culture of each city that I'm looking forward to expanding on.
So yeah, it's kind of funny to see that manifest in my writing, but hopefully it helps to build up an interesting and unique environment for readers to immerse themselves in!
Q5: What’s been your experience so far? With writing, with the if community...
For writing in general, this is by far the largest project I've ever taken on, and there was and is a learning curve when adjusting for interactive fiction. But I've enjoyed the freedom and variation I've been able to build into this story with this medium, and think it continues to take shape in ways I never initially planned but love to see!
For the IF community, it's definitely been positive! I kind of just chucked this story out there not expecting much from it and figured it would be hard for anyone else to get into. Honestly I thought that maybe just a few people would see it, but that it would mostly be self indulgent.
But the support from other writers and readers and the questions I've received has just been amazing, and I’m glad I dived deeper into the IF community. Especially when the self-doubt inevitably creeps in and you have those moments of "oof this is terrible". The positive words and encouragement mean so much, and I don't think I'll ever be able to express how much it helps. I'm also really happy to have found an overall inclusive community, and hope I can extend that space into this game!
Also the stories and games out there? Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectac-
Q6: Do you have any future projects in the works?
None at the moment, my focus is mainly on writing The Nameless and continuing to develop features for the Twine version!
Q7: Finally, what piece of advice would you give to fellow authors?
Don't let yourself get down by comparisons. It's easy to slip into, and I'm definitely guilty of it too! But no one's going to tell your story like you can and the way you want it, so it's up to you to share that with the world!
#if: events#Happy Asian and Pacific Islander month!!#Asian/pacific islander month 2021#a/pi month#a/pi month 2021#aapiheritagemonth#aapi month#interactive fiction#authors of color
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None of them liked Ironwoods growingly tyrannical actions, it's the whole reason Ruby lies to him, he looked shady as hell. They are shown very clearly uncomfortable with what he's turned Atlas into in the First episode. It's just that at the end of Volime 7 he crossed the line.
The key words there are “first episode.” I’ve mentioned on other posts that if the plot had simply continued the forward momentum of the group being disgusted with Ironwood’s choices and working against him (hiding out in the city, gathering like-minded allies, etc.) then we would have been golden. Ironwood is Volume 7’s antagonist. There, done. The problem is what starts in the second episode. Our basic events are as follows:
The group (and audience) learn that Ironwood has arguably justified reasons for everything “shady as hell” that he’s done. The embargo? They are at war with Salem and people have been stealing resources since our introductory trailers (Blake). Soldiers in the streets? That first episode showed that grimm are attacking defenseless civilians and, if the soldiers hadn’t been there to fend the grimm off prior to Penny’s arrival, they likely would have died. Taking resources? That’s to re-establish global communications and enact a plan to stop Salem for good, freeing the world from the danger she presents.
However, they’re still morally gray choices which our group could have opposed… but they didn’t. They join Ironwood as public allies (standing with Clover and Penny against Robyn), as Inner Circle allies (they learn all of Ironwood’s plans—and we learn that he never lied to them), as huntsmen (it’s his power as general that gives them their licenses), and as fellow soldiers (they are indistinguishable from the Ace Ops in the missions they conduct). Now toss in a bunch of other connections like living in his academy, taking his weapon upgrades, and carrying the Relic. They might not like his actions, but they’re certainly doing everything possible to support and reap the benefits of them.
Ruby does lie to him… which two in the group oppose (however lackluster that was). Yang and Oscar both question the wisdom of doing the very thing they punished Ozpin for. Ren also develops a strong (if quiet) alliance with Ironwood that will carry into Volume 8... until his semblance changed and he forgot about it.
During all this there are efforts—mostly through Nora—to condemn Ironwood for his choices. How can you continue to hurt the people like this? Same answer as above: because he believes a short-term struggle is worth the long-term victory. Nora doesn’t agree… but Ruby, the leader, does. She pushes Ironwood to finish Amity somehow.
Which is an incredibly strange stance to take considering she knows that amassing a world-wide army will not defeat Salem. If the group wants Ironwood to stop hurting Mantle, all they have to do is tell him that Salem is immortal… but they don’t. They let him continue under this false belief, despite having more information about this war than he does and despite that information being the key to stopping the harm he’s enacting.
The arc of the volume is not the group choosing to trust Ironwood and then realizing he actually isn’t trustworthy, it’s the group (or rather, Ruby) deciding not to trust Ironwood and then realizing he is trustworthy. We get that climactic scene of Ruby and Oscar simultaneously realizing they should tell him about Salem and Oscar apologizing for keeping that secret in the first place.
Note that this occurs after they’ve talked him into telling Mantle about her. So not only is the group not made up of mindless subordinates being ordered about by a powerful general—it’s their advice Ironwood listens to—but now they’ve put an entire city in the position they were in during Volume 6. We’re told, via Ozpin’s arc, that telling people about Salem without including the issue of her immortality is a horrific thing to do. Those like Qrow have supposedly “wasted” their lives fighting an impossible war and the fandom has argued strongly that Ozpin has manipulated everyone involved in this fight by not giving them the full picture. Yet now, the group has spent months keeping that information from Ironwood when his questionable choices are based on that ignorance, and they’ve talked him into telling half his population that Salem exists and they should rise up to fight her… but not the pesky detail that she’s immortal. They did to Ironwood and all of Mantle exactly what Ozpin did to them.
Immediately after hearing that they’ve kept this secret from him the entire time they’ve been here (which he takes very well) Ironwood captures one of their main villains, loses his arm in the process, learns that two in the group have outright betrayed him to a political enemy, learns that despite all their best efforts Cinder has just waltzed into his office, learns that Salem herself is on her way and their defenses are already gone, knows that everyone is exhausted from a major battle… so when he decides to take all of Atlas, the majority of Mantle, and the Relics/Maiden they have to try and get out of Salem’s reach… Ruby says no. What’s her plan? She doesn’t have one. You’re just not allowed to leave.
The problem with the writing is it wants us to believe two contradictory things at once. Looking back, Ironwood is meant to be seen as an unambiguously bad guy in Volume 7, which we know because of scenes like Winter’s fight wherein she condemns him for everything he did in Volume 7, not just Volume 8 stuff like threatening to bomb Mantle. Yet at the same time, we’re simultaneously meant to believe that the group is made up of unambiguously good people who function as direct contrasts to Ironwood. Given what we got, these two things cannot coexist! Either Ironwood was a good man who the heroes backed for an entire volume and there’s no acknowledgment of that, or Ironwood was a bad man… who the heroes backed for an entire volume and there’s no acknowledgment of that either. If the group’s defense is, “We knew he was shady as hell. We knew what he was doing was wrong. We knew he was the bad guy here… but we still helped him maintain power, forward his plans, and reap the benefits of the flawed system for months on end”… that’s really bad. “I supported, assisted, and benefited from the guy who was shady as hell, but that’s fine because I felt uncomfortable about it the whole time” is not the hot take the fandom wants it to be. We cannot make these broad, sweeping statements about how the Atlas military—merged with its huntsmen—is an Evil Thing and then show scenes like, say, Jaune using his military grade huntsmen license to convince a bunch of civilians to follow his evacuation plan. The heroes cannot be Good and Pure while supporting the supposed villains and their systems; or, the villains cannot be purely Bad and Evil if they’re supported by the heroes.
The reality is that RWBY is badly written and this sort of simplistic, inconsistent writing doesn’t lend itself to a topic as complex as this one. To be frank, we don’t even know enough to make informed decisions about these actions because the world building is nearly nonexistent. What are these “resources” and how are the resources to patch a hole in the wall the same as the resources used to make Amity Tower into a world-wide communication device? How much power does Ironwood actually have and what other decisions has he made that impact Mantle? We never hear about any policies to explain things like the poor conditions, or the slum areas with the faunus. Why are the civilians so against the soldiers patrolling when we don’t see them abusing the public in any way, but we do see the grimm threatening them on the regular? Why does Ruby want Amity built so badly—willing to hurt Mantle to do it—when she knows a bigger army isn’t the answer/that telling people about Salem has almost always led to panic and betrayal? Is there really any difference between huntsmen and soldiers here? And if the answer is, “Yes. Huntsmen aren’t beholden to any power. That’s a good thing because following orders is Bad. They do what they think is best” than what are we supposed to make of someone like Rhodes who, apparently, did what he thought was best? If he’d been beholden to some superior there might have been a system in place to help Cinder. As it was, he was left to his own devices and a lot of fans are furious with the solution he, as one flawed individual, came up with. We simply don’t have a good picture of this world and when we do, things constantly contradict. It’s good for huntsmen to make their own choices, but only when Ruby does it, not Rhodes. It’s bad for heroes to keep the Salem secret and tell lies to their allies, but only when Ozpin does it, not Ruby. It’s bad for someone to try and save who they’ve got, but only when Ironwood does it, not Ruby, who apparently left Atlas after failing to create portals for her Uncle, Robyn, the Ace Ops, Pietro, Maria, and an entire army.
The way that the fandom gets around these problems—because too few are willing to just acknowledge that they are problems and RWBY is shoddily written—is by simplistically comparing RWBY’s military to a real world one. I cannot tell you how many posts I’ve come across that amount to, “Imagine thinking the teenage girls are the bad guys when a military general is right there, being a military general 😒 ” Those posts imply that fans like me are too stupid (too brainwashed, too close to “bootlickers”) to be critical of the military, but I assure you, that’s as far from true as can be. Those posts are trying to conflate real life politics with a fantasy story whose world looks nothing like our own. The is not a question of being critical of the military, it’s a question of being critical of RWBY as that fictional text… and that fiction never established any of the military problems we deal with in the real world. It might have (very easily), but it didn’t. Is Ironwood leveraging his people to conquer others or go after wealth? No, his world has literal, unambiguously evil monsters to fight. Does he amass power out of a desire to control the people? No, he lays out his exact thoughts on how these measures will help protect against those monsters and a witch. Does the military abandon its soldiers after war, leaving them with few resources and fewer prospects? No, we never see anyone struggling in that manner and one of the most prominent tragedies—Yang losing a limb—is answered by Ironwood personally sending a replacement to her home. Is the military at least built around propaganda, painting civilians an inaccurate picture of Freedom and Glory to convince them to fight? No, we see no propaganda, Ironwood—since Volume 2—has been focused on replacing people with robots and our entire story is built around one child’s desire to fight the exact same battle. Why do you want to be a huntress, Ruby? Because I want to help people! And that goal is never painted as a naïve outlook that Ruby becomes disillusioned with. Posts like the one mentioned above bank 100% on the reader mapping real life military criticism onto RWBY… rather than actually looking at the world RWBY built, what choices the characters make, the amount of information we’re given (little), and whether that in any way reflects our current, political problems. It doesn’t.
I’m never going to pretend there weren’t problems with Ironwood’s decisions. In fact, I love that this was actually a conflict in Volume 3 that gave both sides a fair shake: is it better to scare people and have an army at the ready to defend them, or is it better to keep them in the dark and potentially be defenseless? Ironwood’s kind heart bumping up against extreme measures is what made him compelling, especially when the story was having him grow in the “right” direction (AKA, listening to Ozpin). His treatment of Penny is another big issue, creating a whole ass person to serve as a military defense tool. That’s horrifying! So he’s absolutely had his problems long before the writing had him turn into a trigger-happy murderer, but part of the issue here is that the writing doesn’t acknowledge those problems in other characters. If Ironwood is “shady as hell” for forwarding a military agenda and using military resources… then so is Ruby, the leader who backed that for months. If Ironwood is “shady as hell” for funding the creation of a person to defend his kingdom… then so is Pietro, the scientist who not only built Penny, but came up with the idea in the first place. He’s not some defenseless victim who was forced by the evil Ironwood to create something morally reprehensible, he suggested it! The same way Winter wasn’t some defenseless victim who was forced by the evil Ironwood to go along with these plans. She supported them, agreed to be his Maiden, and was the first to suggest martial law! Yet Ruby, Pietro, Winter and their like are all presented as unambiguously Good People, whereas Ironwood is presented as the unambiguous Bad Guy—and when a lot of fans went, “But you’re not writing him like a Bad Guy? Especially when we compare him to the heroes?” we got his sudden, OOC murder streak in Volume 8. But it doesn’t work. Either the group is made up of morally gray/bad people because they did the things our antagonist Ironwood did, or Ironwood is not the morally gray/bad person the show insists he is (prior to Volume 8) because he did the same things as our heroes. You cannot give us that plot, those choices, that agency and insist on both at once. This problem has existed ever since we got an entire volume about how simplistically evil Ozpin is for keeping this secret… only for Ruby to immediately turn around and keep it herself, with no acknowledgement that either a) Ozpin wasn’t the bad guy then or b) Ruby is as bad as he is. But the show wants Ruby to be the Good Person in every situation, no matter how much she models her behavior after those she deems her enemies, and Ironwood’s arc only increased that problem tenfold.
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A Solstice Ball (Lilia Vanrouge)
About: Lilia x Reader (gender neutral) where Diasomnia invites you to spend the holidays with them back home, including the celebration of the winter solstice.
Warnings: None
Word Count: 2.6k
The Valley of Thorns, despite its rather prickly name, is a place that shines with an otherworldliness unique to itself.
It’s the same kind of timeless beauty that you’ve come to associate with Diasomnia. Even Silver, who is not fae himself, wields the aura. You’re a little jealous that they’d grown up in such a place, where mountains were aplenty and stars glittered clearer than you’ve ever seen.
And when you’re wandering around the hallways on a sleepless night, said stars lend you their company. It’s easy to gaze out of the windows since there are plenty flanking the walls. You’re currently staying in the castle and home of your friends, who were generous enough to invite you to celebrate the winter solstice together.
It’s tradition for the royal family to host a ball welcoming the Sun after a night of festivities - meaning the event would be run for almost twelve hours, starting with the evening and continuing into the next day, where the guests would eventually transition from the ballroom into the main gardens to witness the sunrise together. Malleus, for the past years, has been responsible for the ‘welcoming’, which according to Sebek was a magnificent sight, but Lilia insisted you not be spoiled of the details just yet, wanting you to witness it yourself.
Recounting the events that lead up to now helps calm your mind a bit, but the effect falls away briefly when you notice a figure walking down the hall toward you. While it’s unlikely they pose any danger to you, the suddenness of it spikes your heartbeat nevertheless. Many fae are undoubtedly graceful and agile in their movements, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to not have caught the noise of footsteps at first.
However… This person is entirely soundless, and it’s only when you catch a glimpse of pink-dyed strands that you realise why.
Lilia settles into a kind smile as he nods at you in greeting, making his way to you. “Is something keeping you up, Y/N? I never took you for one to wander about at night.” He holds his chin to ponder it for a second. “Though young people do tend to retire to bed at later times...”
“You say that as if your sprightly self doesn’t do the same.” You shake your head, lips lifting amusedly. “Between your liking for strolls and gaming habits, I sometimes wonder how you find the energy to cause trouble.”
Lilia chuckles, “I suppose that was deserved, for my prank on poor Silver. He usually doesn’t express himself too explosively, so it’s always a treat to be gifted with the sight.”
“...If only that wasn’t at the cost of his risotto.” You lend him a scolding look, albeit jokingly. “He was looking forward to it too - Silver may never recover from the shock, poor guy.”
“The experience is sure to be a valuable one.” His eyes glimmer like garnets, and you’re suddenly reminded of their dark-red hue. Mysterious and lively, and somehow communicating a depth forged through his long-lived life. “A knight has to be alert after all, both on and off the battlefield.”
“...I suppose so. And knowing how dedicated those two are, they likely accepted that excuse?”
“Indeed.” Lilia looks out of the window and at the landscape beyond. Part of you feels like he’s reminded of a memory, from the fondness in his expression. “Sebek and Silver are reliably hard-working. Even if they are mere hatchlings as of now, they will surely prove formidable someday. I hope you’ll be there to cheer them on when that time comes.”
“Of course, I look forward to seeing them grow.” Your smile grows warm at the thought. “They want to make you and Malleus proud after all. Their resolve burns brighter than most their age.”
A comfortable silence fills the air, and you notice Lilia’s posture loosening a bit more. His gaze turns to meet yours, light and content. “Malleus and I have regretfully been busier with the ball’s preparations, but I promise to take you to our favourite places once this is over with.” Lilia makes a small gesture toward your hand, to which you give a nod, allowing him to interlace your fingers and place a kiss to the back of it. “It’ll be fun to show you around our hometown. There are some things you can only experience in the Valley of Thorns after all~ Like that shop that sells enchanted sweets! I’ve been meaning to make a stop there before we return to Night Raven College.”
Your lips quirk as you raise a brow at him. “Why is it that you sound more excited for that than the ball tomorrow? Just before break, you were reminiscing of the winter solstices you attended in the past.”
“While the event is an annual one, it is the first time you’re spending the holidays with us.” Lilia winks at you playfully. “That, I am more excited for. And seeing what attire the fairies have come up for you - It’s not often they take to someone and mend them an outfit, after all.”
“Please don’t remind me…” You groan at the memory. “When they took my measurements they wouldn’t stop arguing about the colors. And at the end they never settled on a decision, so I’m left in suspense!”
Lilia laughs at your mournful expression. “This group is known for their craft, so it’ll certainly be worth the wait. Both for you and me.”
“Oh?” You narrow your eyes playfully. “So you’re looking forward to that.”
“A chance to see you more stunning than usual is always one I’d be interested in,” Lilia counters without missing a beat. “I just have to be sure no one else steals you away from the ball before I can - There was something I’d wanted to show you tomorrow.” He gives your hand a light squeeze, eyes bright. “The surprise will be around midnight, so please bear with it until then.”
“I’ll try,” you laugh as he presses a light kiss to your cheek. “Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, huh?”
~
Looking back, truer words couldn’t have been spoken. Right from the moment you awoke till right before the ball, you were constantly moving about preparing your attire and helping the others run small errands, like delivering a message or checking on the status of the main hall.
The venue was pretty before, but now that guests have trickled in and the night has begun to celebrate, the entire place transformed into a magical sight.
Despite the late hours the event has journeyed into, the room is lit just like any other time of the day. The lighting helps keep you active, thankfully, while the crowd seems to never tire; dancers exchange partners while others conversed at another side of the ballroom. The melody that lives in the air takes turns being magically played and performed by musicians, though the transitions are so practiced and quick that you barely notice until later on.
To your surprise, you find yourself at no short of stamina throughout the night. Perhaps it’s the shared energy in the room, the refreshments, or the entertaining chats you’re led into, but time flies as swift as a bird.
From some spellwork, flowers that glow like stars float above the crowd, reminding you of lanterns. On occasion the odd one would wrap into itself and descend onto the crowd, by which a guest could catch it, watching the enchanted bud unravel and bloom. It would then start to shine, before drifting off into the air like a feather caught in a breeze.
Throughout the night the flowers take turns falling onto the crowd, earning the attention of those nearby with their soft but colorful hues. You’re starting to suspect the intervention of a friend as the shadow of one floats above you; the third one this night.
Despite receiving them multiple times, the sight of petals unfurling so gracefully never ceases to put you in a state of awe. This time it is one of gentle lavender, though tinged with hints of blues and pink. It’s unexpectedly light to the touch compared to its size, which is just a little smaller than your head.
The bloom eventually starts to float out of your grasp, by which you give it a little push into the air as it rejoins the sea of flora. A familiar face approaches you from within the crowd, his gaze lending itself to the sight above before settling on you.
“It seems that the flowers enjoy your company as well,” Lilia jokes, before extending a hand for you to take. He begins to lead you somewhere, sending a small smile your way. “People say that receiving them repeatedly is an auspicious sign.”
You hum thoughtfully, “I was starting to think that the places that they landed are being controlled by magic. Sebek and Silver were there the first time, then Malleus at the second…”
Lilia grins almost proudly, the tips of his fangs showing. “Third time’s the charm~ I’m glad to have witnessed you carrying that flower. It was a fitting sight, especially with your attire.”
“I still can’t quite believe it.” You admit, looking down at the fabric - it feels weightless on your skin, yet is still woven with such detailed patterns. “The fairies really outdid themselves, this feels like something out of a fairytale… I feel a little bad keeping it.”
“Well, seeing as it was a gift, you have every right to have it as a keepsake of tonight.” He reminds you, pushing a door open. It wasn’t the main one that guests entered through, but another on the side of the ballroom. The air is quieter out here, save for the castle staff that would cross the corridor every now and then.
With every step away from the ballroom, Lilia starts to shed away his formal stance and shrugs off the feeling of the party behind. He sighs a little, sounding more tired of the situation than physically exhausted. The fae catches your amused look as he raises a brow in return, his smile more mischievous and relaxed - just like his usual self, outside of events like these. “Oh? What an expression you’re making. Do I have something on my face?”
“Not quite.” You mirror his tone. “But rest assured I’ll let you know if you do~ I have a question though, where exactly are we heading?”
“The gardens,” Lilia informs as your arms loop together. It’s less of a childish act and more reminiscent of a knightly escort - perhaps it’s because you’re in a castle and just left a ball, but you’re starting to see more and more noble qualities in the things he does. “I’ve been wanting to show it to you for sometime, but now seems like the most appropriate chance. It does offer a view of Malleus’ welcoming later on, so we’re free to stay until the end of the event.”
“You still never told me much about it,” you muse lightheartedly, “You overestimate my patience, Lilia. I’m growing curiouser by the minute.”
“In that case…” He’s led you to an outdoor garden on the upper floors, which extends into a balcony that overlooks the grounds. “Would this do for now? It’s one of my favourite spots in the castle,” he chuckles, “I hope you'll enjoy it.”
How unfair. There were flowers of every kind dotting the bushes and growing into overhangings. With this amount of space, you felt like it could pass for an attraction in itself. It was different from the grandness of the ballroom decorations, but held its own with its serene charm. Lilia takes your reaction as a sign of agreement. He chuckles and bows toward you, offering his palm.
“May I have this dance?”
You both start a simple one, more for the sake of enjoying yourselves and the cool air than trying to show off any moves. Although this doesn’t stop Lilia from adding a few twirls and steps to the rhythm as he hums softly, a tune that you swear you’ve heard before but couldn’t pinpoint where or when.
You wonder aloud of how your limbs hadn’t started to tire from the festivities, to which Lilia explains that the refreshments from the ball are suited to help replenish energy and revitalize the body, due to the sheer length of the event. The topic flows to other things, like an ice cream parlour he’d like to visit with everyone and how you’re adjusting to Twisted Wonderland. At this point the dance has also broken off into a simple stroll about the gardens.
Eventually you’re interrupted by the sound of doors opening and the chatter of guests.
"The sunrise." Lilia confirms in response to your questioning gaze. The two of you make your way to the balcony for a better view, where you can see Sebek and Silver accompanying Malleus to an open space that's elevated like a stage of sorts. Gargoyles guard the marble platform at its feet, though their presence is no comparison to the prince's, who stands facing his back to the crowd.
You briefly see the glint of a gem as Malleus waves his magic-pen in a swift motion, summoning a plant from the ground.
Or perhaps… It was more accurate to say that he grew it right before your very eyes, shaping the branches of what you realise to be a tree to form a circular frame of sorts. You doubt that any old magician could perform such a feat in mere minutes, judging by its sheer size.
Lilia smiles from beside you like a proud parent, though it edges into a smirk as he briefly mentions that this tree was more elaborate than last year's with its patterns. You're left confused for a moment before realising that it indeed has spiral carvings throughout its trunk and branches, ones that depicted the sun and moon, and even illustrating dancing figures and musicians. It held the story of the winter solstice and the ball that celebrated it, and you're left with your breath stolen from such a sight.
Yet the star of the show (quite literally, in a sense) only makes its appearance soon after - the Sun rises from the horizon and peeks between the mountains in the distance, accurately falling into the frame that Malleus created with the tree. He waves his hand once more, taking the moment to expand the light like a fracture.
You hear a chuckle from beside you as you shield your vision from the brightness. As soon as you lower your hand you notice a ball of light remaining where the Sun had passed, like a star captured in the frames of the oak. It still shone with a youthful light, as if daring its surroundings to challenge its worth.
"How temperamental," Lilia echoes your thoughts bemusedly. "I expect this year's tree to shine longer than the last ones."
The crowd bursts into applause as Malleus steps down from the stage. You're about to ask Lilia something when you suddenly realise how close his face was to yours.
"Is this another tradition?" You ask, studying his eyes.
"There is a saying about it, yes." Upon your answering smile, Lilia starts to lean in closer, a hand cupping your cheek. "Sharing a kiss with someone at the welcoming of the Sun is a good luck charm of sorts."
You can't help but laugh after pulling away, lips tingling from the contact. For someone mischievous, Lilia liked to use oddly innocent excuses to steal moments of affection. "Happy winter solstice, Lilia."
"May a fortuitous time be ahead." He returns, smile content. "I'm glad you're here to spend it with us."
#twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland imagines#twisted wonderland writing#twisted wonderland fic#twisted wonderland lilia#twisted wonderland lilia x reader#twisted wonderland x reader#twisted wonderland x you#twisted wonderland reader insert#twisted wonderland lilia x you#twisted wonderland diasomnia#twisted wonderland gender neutral#twst imagines#disney twst#twst lilia vanrouge#twst lilia x reader#twst lilia#twst x reader#twst reader insert#twst x you#twst fic#twst writing#twst diasomnia#tw lilia#tw reader insert#dtw lilia#dtw x reader#dtw imagines#storm writings#blooms
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This prompt from the Music Prompt List wouldn’t leave me alone, so have Geralt being awkwardly kind of fluffy. <3
incidental music
background music for a play, movie or television show. It sets the mood and illustrates the action for a play~unnoticed
Read on AO3
Does anyone ever mean to fall in love? Geralt doesn’t. It doesn’t happen like the ballads say, with flowers, and sonnets, and grand gestures. It happens in the in between, the quiet moments that Jaskier’s songs never touch on. Love creeps like a vine on a building, sneaking in and sprawling out so slowly that by the time it covers the wall, you can’t remember a time before it was there anymore.
It starts, at least, in things that make sense. It’s a lopsided little smile Jaskier gifts him with when he catches Geralt listening to him play. It’s the soft hum on the other side of the campfire one night when Jaskier knows Geralt can’t sleep. It’s warm hands patching up Geralt’s torn shoulder with a tenderness he doesn’t really require.
But then the feeling strays so unfairly, into the ridiculous and sometimes thoroughly obnoxious. It’s Jaskier looking hopelessly disheveled, his hair sticking up in strange directions from a hand absently run through it, a splotch of ink on his cheek where he tapped his quill against it, deep in thought. It’s listening to him complain off and on for two miles because he can’t think of a rhyme for bloedzuiger. It’s coming back late from a contract to find Jaskier has fallen asleep curled up in the entirety of the bedding in their room. These aren’t precisely lovable things. They’re messy, irritating even. And yet. And yet. And yet...
For so long, Geralt does not think they are things he loves. They’re just things that are, like the din of conversation at an inn. They’re the suggestion of something distant in a painting, smudges devoid of details that exist all the same.
***
Much like affection, winter sort of ambushes Geralt. Rich green foliage goes red and gold until all the world is ablaze. It’s beautiful in the way that these fleeting moments so often are, a riot of color that withers away even more abruptly than it arrived. There’s a chill in the air that promises snow will soon cover the dead leaves crunching under their feet, a sign Geralt can no longer ignore.
It doesn’t matter. They flit in and out of each other’s lives all the time, and already Jaskier has traveled with him almost nonstop since the spring. Geralt most certainly doesn’t need the company. To go their separate ways is as reasonable in this moment as it has been every other time they’ve done it over the last decade. Somehow this time it leaves Geralt feeling inexplicably hollow.
Geralt has always been at home with silence. It’s a quality that lends itself well to the life of a witcher, this ability to find peace instead of loneliness in the quiet of his own company. But they spend that night in their room’s single bed and Geralt lies awake wondering when the warm press of Jaskier’s face tucked against his neck became such a welcome thing, when his fingers tangling in the bard’s hair got to be so instinctive. When did Jaskier get to be so wrapped up in his life as to leave Geralt dreading the absence?
None of that chases away the sunrise, or the silence that promises to follow in its wake. They break apart the way they always do when their plans take them in different directions. Could be a week, a month, a year even. They’ve done it a hundred times, and they do not belong to one another, so Geralt doesn’t know what to make of the unexpected urge to look back.
He lets the Path carry him away as it always does, and it’s fine, really. A day passes, and then another, and a third. At this pace he’ll easily reach Kaer Morhen before the snow really starts in. It’s fine, as it should be… except when it’s not.
There’s no familiar face smiling at him from the other side of their fire. There’s no strumming of lute strings. There’s no endless, exhausting conversation. What he’s faced with now is everything his life was ordained to be, everything Geralt has been used to for decades, and yet this time it feels all wrong.
Maybe he’s always been lonely, but it’s the first time Geralt recognizes the feeling for what it is. Loneliness is a stone’s throw away from grief, and this is grieving in some strange, subdued way. It’s a hole in the shape of another person’s life and for a strange, fleeting second, he lets himself wonder if he ought to have gone to Oxenfurt with Jaskier.
That’s an absurd thought. He always goes to Kaer Morhen and Jaskier nearly always goes to Oxenfurt, and they’ve never broached the idea of any alternative arrangement. It’s only a few months, probably. Maybe. They always find each other again eventually don’t they?
Geralt sets out for Oxenfurt before the sun comes up.
***
He does not know, Geralt realizes, what Jaskier does in the cold months where they part ways. He knows the bard teaches when he's not entertaining in some court or another, but that's a sorry excuse for an answer. It's as paltry as it would be to sum up Jaskier's life in Geralt's company with the performances he gives in inns along their way. Both of these things are true, but neither of them are whole.
Does he sit in crowded spaces to soak up the atmosphere? Does he luxuriate in having a place that is his own and a roof over his head for a few months? Geralt has no idea, but he wants to.
Oxenfurt turns out to be less straightforward than he had hoped. He tries the college first where a young woman waxes poetic about the bard until Geralt finally manages to interrupt long enough to ask what classroom he’d be in.
“None today, I’m afraid. He’s probably- Oh, you must be the witcher.” The words hold an unexpected warmth. He’s not sure what to make of it, but before Geralt knows it, she’s rattling off Jaskier’s address.
The house is lovely from the outside. A gabled roof sits atop the gray stone exterior, not nearly so ostentatious as Geralt might have expected. It’s also further off the beaten path than he’d anticipated from someone so keen on being the life of the party.
But Geralt doesn’t even get as far as knocking before one of Jaskier’s neighbors spots him, a smartly dressed academic of some sort. “I doubt the professor is home yet.”
It’s so strange to hear anyone call Jaskier that, an uncomfortable reminder that the bard has a whole life beyond the time he spends with Geralt that the witcher doesn’t know about. Likely because it’s never occurred to him to ask, but Geralt finds himself sorely wishing he had now. “Where would I find him?”
“Are you a friend of his?” The man’s eyes narrow a little like he’s waiting for Geralt to slip up and give himself away as a thief or something.
“I’m his…” Geralt sighs. “Yeah.”
“The witcher, then.” The neighbor smiles in that absent, polite way that villagers tend to smile at passersby. It’s not a response that usually applies to him. Geralt has no idea what to make of the shift in demeanor, but the man does point down the road. “There’s an inn down that way. I’d check there this time of day.”
“Right...” It just figures, even in his absence Jaskier manages to be exhausting.
There’s a creak of hinges on Geralt’s left, and the neighbor smiles and waves. “I guess he’s home after all.”
Not entirely exhausting, then. Geralt forces his expression to remain neutral. “Jaskier.”
Jaskier lights up when he meets Geralt’s eye like it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. It’s such a tiny, inconsequential thing, but wonderfully, terribly, the world feels like it’s slid back into its proper place. The warmth that takes up residence behind Geralt’s breastbone is just further confirmation of the ruin he’s courting.
“What are you doing here? Aren’t you… don’t you have some witchery thing to run off to? It may shock you to know, but the Kaedwani mountains are that way.” As Jaskier ushers Geralt inside, he points in… well, it’s definitely a direction.
“No.” Geralt shakes his head. What a pair they make, the both of them completely ridiculous.
“No what? And will you please sit down already?” Jaskier clears some of his papers away, as if what’s on the side table has any bearing at all on Geralt’s ability to sit in the armchair beside it.
Too restless to actually sit down, Geralt leans against the doorframe as he takes in Jaskier’s slightly ruffled appearance. There’s no doublet. Just trousers and a chemise rolled up to his elbows. It shouldn’t be so hard to look away, and yet he has to force himself. “The mountains are that way.”
Jaskier follows the length of Geralt’s arm where it’s pointed north. He purses his lips as he turns back to the witcher. “Okay fine. I got a bit turned around, but nevermind that. They are… wherever they are, but you are here. Why?”
Fuck. Geralt had been so focused on the coming back and finding Jaskier, there wasn’t much consideration to what reason he’d give when he got here. What can he possibly say? That it was too quiet without his endless chatter? That Geralt’s world was somehow less for Jaskier’s absence. It’s too vulnerable, so he gruffly replies, “Didn’t think I could beat the snow.”
“I see.” There’s a sweet, uneven quirk to Jaskier’s lips. The minute Geralt meets Jaskier’s eyes he knows he’s been found out to some extent, but Jaskier responds in the least Jaskier-like way he’s ever seen. There’s no gloating, no teasing. Jaskier doesn’t even acknowledge that they both know he’s lying through his teeth. Most strangely of all, he’s quiet. “Well, it snows here too. You’ll probably want to think about taking a break somewhere until the weather clears up.”
Right. He hadn’t quite gotten that far either. On the road together, it’s just a given that they’ll share a room, but that’s quite a bit different from inviting himself into a space that is Jaskier’s. Not willing to admit that he’d sort of hoped to go back to the normalcy of that, Geralt sticks to answering vaguely. “I’m sorted out.”
“Are you? Because I thought you might just stay with me.” He’s seen this a thousand times. Jaskier has a knack for offering things the other person is too proud or afraid to ask for for themselves. It’s just Geralt usually isn’t the one subjected to that particular talent. “Unless I’ve got this all wrong and you didn’t come back because you missed me. Well, no. You could stay with me either way. It’s just that the appeal probably isn’t the same.”
“I could do that.” Geralt replies quickly to the offer while making every effort to sidestep Jaskier’s more dangerous insinuation. It’s kind of Jaskier to tolerate this thing Geralt can’t quite get to settle, but the witcher harbors no illusions that it’s anything more than tolerance. He tries for nonchalant and has no idea if he succeeds, but Jaskier’s lopsided smile suggests that no, he really doesn’t.
“Perfect.” Jaskier offers Geralt a hand. “Let me show you around.”
***
“Well, I guess there’s no backing out now,” Jaskier says as Geralt walks him to class. Well, no. That’s definitely not what this is. It’s just that he had an errand to run, and the college is in the same direction, so not walking together would be weird and awkward.
“What?” Geralt’s brows knit in confusion, and he watches Jaskier try to catch a snowflake on his tongue as if that will somehow give him the answer.
Jaskier smiles at Geralt, a little toothy. It’s the kind that makes Geralt feel pinned like a butterfly to a board. “It’s snowing.”
Oh right. He had said that. He knows Jaskier hadn’t bought the excuse when Geralt turned up, but the bard hasn’t said anything about it since. It was probably foolish to think that meant he’d gotten away with it. There’s nothing he can that won’t give himself away further, so Geralt opts not to say anything at all. That, at least, is normal.
And for a little while, it seems like it works. Jaskier prattles on about the weather and how beautiful Oxenfurt is at night when it’s snowy and the moon is out, and Geralt just immerses himself in the comfort of how normal this is.
At least until it’s not. The silence that falls between them is abrupt, and draws out so long that Geralt looks over at Jaskier. It’s a terrible mistake though, because Jaskier is looking right back, entirely too expectant. “Sooooooooooo. Are we going to talk about this?”
The question is oddly free of dramatics, but it doesn’t make the subject matter any less terrifying. Clinging to whatever balance they’d found since he got here, Geralt insists, “Nothing to talk about.”
“Okay.” For a second, Jaskier is quiet. His expression is thoughtful, teeth dragging enticingly along his bottom lip. “But just… It sort of seems like there is.”
He could maybe leave, say he forgot something at the house. Jaskier would probably even let him go, but they’d both know it for the retreat that it is, so Geralt doubles down. “There isn’t.”
Geralt doesn’t really know when he learned to recognize Jaskier’s ‘you are being exceedingly difficult right now’ face, but he knows the tightness at the corners of the bard’s eyes and the flat line his mouth pulls into. Yet, there’s no mockery or sign of irritation when Jaskier insists on pressing the issue. “Alright, but see there’s this one thing. Here’s what I know about you on account of traveling with you for a decade. You are generally consistent and you have never once in the entire time I’ve known you passed up an opportunity to tell me when I was wrong, or to poke fun.”
Geralt knows exactly where this is going, but arguing such an obvious truth would just bolster Jaskier’s point, he thinks. Silence isn’t really better, but it’s what Geralt sticks to as Jaskier keeps talking.” So, when you don’t tell me I’m wrong to assume you came back because you missed me… It’s hard not to assume that you came back for more than just a roof over your head.”
“What do you want me to say?” Geralt replies irritably, because if this is Jaskier’s idea of softening a rejection, it’s not helping. If he’s lucky, Jaskier will just laugh it off and Geralt will swallow everything back down, and they can move on to something less embarrassing.
“I don’t know.” Jaskier is biting his lip again, and despite the nervous tumult in his stomach, Geralt has never so badly wanted to kiss anyone in his life. “I just want you to say what’s true.”
What’s true. For the first time since they set out, Geralt pays attention to what’s there beside him. Jaskier’s heartbeat has picked up somewhere along the way, and when Geralt looks over, the bard’s cheeks are flushed from more than just the cold.
What’s true is that there are a thousand ways to tell a person you love them. Sometimes it’s a fond smile or a gentle touch or… oh. Geralt swallows and does not look at Jaskier anymore as he says, “Life is… quiet when you’re not in it.”
He knows that self-deprecating laugh he gets from Jaskier and regrets being the one to cause it. “I thought you preferred the quiet.”
“Me too.” It’s hardly more than a whisper. “But it’s not the right kind of quiet.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what that means,” Jaskier says and Geralt sort of hates that he’s the one struggling to say what he means and yet Jaskier is the one being apologetic over it.
“It’s like… fuck. I don’t know. When you think about the woods being quiet, it doesn’t mean silence. You still hear the wind and the birds and all that, but it belongs there, so it’s not noise.” Somehow, this doesn’t feel like what he meant to be saying at all either, but he’s committed to this ill advised analogy, so that’s a thing. “If those things stop, it’s not a good kind of quiet. It just means something’s wrong.”
“Geralt. Are you suggesting my company provides some sort of ambiance to your travels?” Jaskier’s eyes light up with some sort of mischief and Geralt scowls because he can’t decide if he’s being encouraged or teased.
Actually, Geralt supposes that is what he’s suggesting, but it doesn’t feel like a clear enough conveyance of what he means. Geralt might not need words, but Jaskier does. Sometimes ‘I love you’ is digging up the courage to admit, “The world around me feels wrong when you’re not in it.”
“So your solution was to drop the routine you’ve kept to for, actually I don’t even know how long to come back to me?”
“Obviously not. I-” With no small amount of horror, Geralt realizes that’s actually exactly what he’s done. He’s honestly very relieved that it’s still quite early and the streets are still largely empty, because Jaskier stops in the middle of the street and the witcher strongly suspects he’s about to make a very embarrassing scene. “Is that a problem?”
“Why would it be a problem? It’s absurdly romantic. I didn’t even know you were capable of that.” Sure enough, Jaskier is suddenly very close, a hand lifting to cradle Geralt’s cheek. Jaskier doesn’t say anything, but he signals his intent, giving the witcher plenty of time to pull away. As if he possibly could.
Geralt’s throat is suddenly dry, and when he finally manages to say something, it’s quiet. “What are you doing?”
“Well, you came all this way to get back to me.” Jaskier presses his forehead to Geralt’s. “I figured I could meet you partway.”
Geralt isn’t actually sure which of them closes the last couple of inches between his mouth and Jaskier’s. It’s just warm, liking what he imagines coming home would be like. Jaskier’s arms wind around Geralt’s back between his shirt and his cloak, and Geralt’s fingers tangle in Jaskier’s hair, and actually it turns out that he doesn’t care in the slightest if they’re making a scene.
Everything runs a little bit together after that. There is only the solid presence of Jaskier pressed against him and the snow coming down around them in fat, fluffy flakes that are just beginning to stick to the ground. Distantly, he thinks maybe they could just go home. It’s not as if there’s any reason to be out in the cold, except… With a disappointed groan, Geralt mumbles between kisses. “Don’t you have class?”
“Class… oh bollocks.” Jaskier pulls back, flushed and glassy eyed and Geralt wants nothing more than to pull him right back in. But there will be time for that later and the flustered way Jaskier stumbles back and looks around like he’s only just remembered they’re in public is terribly endearing. “Yes, well just… we’ll come back to this.”
Geralt laughs with unexpected ease at Jaskier’s reluctant efforts to get moving again. It’s another minute or two before Geralt remembers the one other thing that keeps crossing his mind. “When I was trying to track you down, people knew who I was.”
Jaskier’s mouth turns up, and it’s clear from the sheepish way he ducks his head that he hears the question Geralt isn’t asking. “You’re not the only one who prefers life when we’re both in it together.”
“You talk about me?” And sure, Jaskier talks about him all the time in songs and stories, but this is different.
Jaskier shrugs like it doesn’t mean anything, but they both know better. “It’s what I get to hold onto, what I get to keep when you’re not here.”
“Well, I’m here now.” Their fingers thread between each other’s and Jaskier hums the song he’s been working on. Geralt allows himself the faintest of smiles. Sometimes, love is choosing to share your existence with someone else and taking unexpected refuge in the background noise.
You can find the rest of my Witcher fanworks here. <3
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per auda ad astra. (tendou satori)
➵ latin. “through hardships to the stars.” you and tendou have been through everything together. so of course you’ll lend him a hand when he needs a date.
wc: 2.5k
warnings: references to bullying
“I have a favour to ask,” Tendou smiled, tilting his head at you.
You raised an eyebrow at him. Tendou had popped over for a ‘quick visit.’ But, while you were preparing yourself a tea for what would inevitably be a long conversation, he’d decided to spring the real reason for his visit on you. “Mhm?”
“Would you please come to dinner with my parents?” Tendou pursed his lips together. “Pretty please?”
“Why do you say that like you’re asking me to run a marathon in nothing but my underwear?” You bit back a smirk. “It’s just dinner with your parents.”
“Well,” Tendou took a deep breath, his eyes fluttering closed. “I need you to pretend to be my partner. Just this once.”
Your entire body froze. “Excuse me?”
“I know!” Tendou waved his hands at you, his face a strange mix of alarm and confidence. “It’s just for this one dinner!”
“Why though?”
“My parents are a trifle miffed that I haven’t found someone to settle down with.” A whisper of a blush graced his cheeks. “They’ll start taking matters into their own hands if I’m not careful.”
“Yikes,” you murmured, turning back to tend to your tea.
“And I was thinking,” Tendou hummed, propping his chin on his hand, “you already know them, right? We just need to get our little lie straight, and it’ll be easy sailing.”
“Worried someone else’ll think this is unethical?” You raised an eyebrow at him, biting the inside of your cheek.
“Maybe,” he drawled, tilting his head at you. “But c’mon, it’ll just be dinner with my parents. All you’d have to do is hold my hand and tell them you’ve had a thing for me this entire time.”
You laughed, ignoring the strange tightening in your chest. “You’re really scared of them setting you up with someone, huh?”
“They will!” He groaned, laying his arms across your kitchen counter. “They’ve already sent me a list. Do you know how awkward that is?”
“Anyone I know on it?”
“There’s no way in hell you’ll ever find out,” he grumbled, crossing his arms and propping his chin on them.
“Really?” You grinned. “Will you tell me if I pretend to be your partner?”
Tendou glared at you through narrowed eyes. “I thought I could trust you to have my back.”
You laughed, shaking your head. “It’s really this much of a big deal?”
“Look, every time I’ve gone home alone, at least half of dinner is spent talking about my marriage,” Tendou groaned, rolling his eyes. “I’d like to avoid that for once, you know? And hopefully stave off and awkward dates arranged by my parents.”
“Fine, fine,” you laughed, waving a hand at him. “But you owe me one, okay?”
--------
You’d known Tendou for pretty much your whole life. He’d been your next-door neighbour growing up, and you genuinely couldn’t remember a time before he’d made a lasting impression of you.
You were young; you didn’t know what the world expected from you. You didn’t know how people could be cruel. All you knew was that you liked the little red-headed boy from next door, and you enjoyed spending time with him.
You didn’t have many specific memories of your past together, but you remembered what it felt like; free, comfortable, full of possibility. The feeling that you could do absolutely anything, so long as you believed hard enough.
Afternoons drowned in the fading sunlight, chasing one another down the street as you embroiled yourself in some fantastical game. June days spent in the mud, making cakes or starting fights.
You remembered the stars best of all.
On an evening when your parents were feeling particularly lenient, you’d be allowed to pop over to Tendou’s for a sleepover. And an absolutely vital part of that was clambering up to his roof and looking out at the stars.
And, with the sense of surety only afforded to children, you’d named them yourselves. There was a dragon, of course, and a witch. According to Tendou, the dragon had the potential to swallow the entire earth – and if it weren’t for the efforts of the witch, we would all be doomed. He also insisted that the witch was quite a looker. You’d been too young to really care.
The witch also had a kitsune as a sidekick, whose nine tails seemed to spread out into infinity. Tendou insisted that a new tail grew every one hundred years, and that soon enough the sky would be drowned by those stars.
You’d snorted at that. But the thought stuck with you, resurfacing a couple of years later when you learnt of how stars were born.
Primary school had been as awful as you’d dreaded it would be. You managed to escape it more or less unscathed; you’d managed to slip into relative anonymity. But Tendou?
It was the first time you’d noticed that he was different. Unique. And everyone else noticed, too.
But they didn’t see things the same way you did.
You remembered some days with uncomfortable clarity; sitting behind the school, his scuffed knees brought up to his chest, face buried in his legs to hide it from you. You, knowing nothing other than holding his hand.
You’d wanted to do something. But you’d felt nothing but fear. And for many years after that, you’d carried the shame with you.
Tendou knew. And, bless his soul, he insisted you had nothing to feel bad about. But words weren’t enough.
Middle school had been easier. Tendou’s modus operandi changed; no more tears. No more submission. He didn’t fight back so much as guard himself. It seemed as if he’d gained some confidence.
You knew it was a lie; a cloak he’d put on to guard himself from the cold. But it worked, to some degree.
And better yet, he’d gotten quite good at volleyball. That, more than anything, was his armour.
You’d always be grateful for the volleyball team. For how they’d accepted him. They, more than anyone else up til that point, seemed to see him as you did. As someone full of virtue. Warmth may not have been the defining quality of those relationships, but they’d given him support in a way others never had. And they’d valued what he could give them, too.
He still spoke to some of them, even after all this time.
It was all you could’ve asked for. And even though they didn’t make it to nationals in your third year, you knew that he had no regrets. That even if he wouldn’t continue on with the sport, he’d done himself proud.
And even in the midst of all that, you two still found time to climb onto that roof and look at your stars. And every year, the witch’s chest seemed to grow more and more ample.
You’d ended up at the same university by some stroke of luck. It certainly wasn’t planned, and you’d both been preparing yourselves for what would inevitably be a painful goodbye.
But, it had continued like always. You and him, arms linked and heads thrown back in laughter. And he’d flourished at university in ways he hadn’t before. He’d really found his feet, and grown into someone he could be proud of. And you’re proud of him, too.
And through all your own hardships and successes, he’d been there. Cheering you on, lending you a hand… whatever you needed, you knew you could rely on Tendou for it.
You simply couldn’t imagine your life without him.
And all that’s running through your mind as you sit there at the dinner table, doing your absolute best to appear the adoring partner.
“Well, I thought you and Satori would’ve been married years ago,” his mother laughed.
You blushed at that. “I…”
She, in particular, had been the most delighted when you’d shown up at the door. Tendou hadn’t told his family who is ‘partner’ was; surely a tactic meant to simplify the web of lies.
“Love is blind, mother,” Tendou sighed, giving your hand a little squeeze. “And deaf. And mute. And it has a tendency not to realise itself til it’s too late.”
Confound and distract. Good tactic?
“I don’t think you used that idiom quite right,” you mumbled to it.
He shrugged.
“So, when are you getting engaged?” There was a twinkle to his grandfather’s eye that you didn’t like.
You cringed.
“All in good time,” Tendou said. You almost envied his total lack of anxiety. “You can’t rush this sort of thing, you know.” He tilted his head at him, lips curling into a smile. “Besides, you’re just trying to embarrass me.”
His grandfather chuckled, but said no more.
“Now, tell me darling, what have you been up to recently?” His mother had turned her kindly smile to you once more. And even though you felt awful for lying to her, it was comforting.
So, you told her. And as you were talking, you began to realise just how comfortable Tendou’s hand felt in yours.
You’d started your trip holding hands, in an attempt to ‘get in character.’ You weren’t going to pull this off if you couldn’t show casual affection to one another. But something about holding his hand felt… right. His fingers may be long and lanky, and still calloused from his stint with volleyball, but they fit so nicely with yours. You were doing your best not to think about it.
There was plenty of talk about the old times. Not that you were surprised by that in particular. What did surprise you was how many damn stories his family had about times they’d suspected the two of you were dating.
If Tendou had brought someone else home, would his family tell them stories of you?
But all that aside, it all flowed very naturally. His parents believed you; no need for them to get involved in his private life. You didn’t have to think up some lie to keep track of; you just told the truth, with a little embellishment. It felt so easy.
You finished dinner without a slip-up. His family had been completely fooled; and some part of you felt bad about the fallout to come. You could envision the look on his mother’s face quite clearly.
While this had been easy for the two of you, you had a feeling that made it much harder for everyone else.
You tried not to think about it as you lay on the roof, looking up at the stars you knew so well.
It’s fairly easy to see the stars in Miyagi. Easier than it is in the bigger cities. It’s probably the thing you miss most about your hometown – people aside.
You still can’t identify any of the major clusters. The only constellations were the ones you’d made together. Truth be told, the outlines you two had drawn were tenuous at best. But they were yours, and you cherished them for that.
And on that roof, you felt you might talk the night away. Something about being under the stars made you feel vulnerable. It made you feel ready to bare your soul. Some of your deepest conversations had taken place up here; the trading of fears and hopes, of those feelings you dare not show anyone else.
And to think, you were back here because Tendou needed to get his parent’s off his back.
“Thank you,” Tendou mumbled. “For doing this.”
You smiled at him. “Not a problem.”
You were laid out on his roof, maybe a hand’s width apart. It was a bit more difficult to fit, as adults. But that hadn’t stopped you when you were teenagers.
“Tell me, Satori,” you smiled, your eyes wandering the skies, “what does the witch look like again?”
“I’m not letting you bait me like that,” he grinned.
“Oh? Is that… shame that I hear?” You turned to look at him. He was already looking at you through the dark. The moonlight looked quite flattering on him.
Even after all this time, things with Tendou are so… easy. So relaxed. You never have to worry about being anyone other than yourself. And nobody celebrated you the way he had.
You wanted him to stick around. It was a gentle realisation; one the came as a relief.
“You know, this almost went too well,” he chuckled, looking up at the sky again. “We’d’ve almost fooled me, if I wasn’t so careful.”
You felt his hand brush yours. Was that intentional?
Maybe it would be better if you’d been fooled. Maybe that’s how things should be.
“Hey… Satori?”
“Mhm?”
You fought the urge to take his hand. “When we get back, would you…” You took a deep breath. You had to say it. You wanted to. “Would you like to go on a date?”
His eyes were wide and bright as he stared at you.
“I mean…” God, this was a bit awkward, wasn’t it? You hadn’t even given him time to reply and you were already trying to fill the silence. “If you’re not interested, please pretend that I didn’t say anything.”
Tendou laughed. “Oh, don’t think I’ll be forgetting this any time soon. I’ve gotta take the few boosts to my ego I get.”
You bit the inside of your cheek, torn halfway between smiling and decking him in the face. “I was being serious!”
“I know, I know,” Tendou grinned, taking your hand in his as he looked back at the sky. It’d been so smooth and natural that you hadn’t really noticed it. “How does tomorrow sound?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Keep the momentum going.” He flashes you a look, grinning. “Gotta make you fall for me before you decide this is a terrible idea.”
“See, when you say it like that—”
“Please don’t take it back,” he blurted.
“I wasn’t going to,” you laughed. “You’re…” You wanted to say that he was the most important person in your life. But you didn’t quite have the words for that, yet. “You mean a lot to me, okay?”
Even in the dark, you could see his face turning as red as his hair. “Geez… you can’t just say that to a guy, you know?”
“What? I can’t be honest?”
“Well you can be honest, you’ve just… gotta prepare me for such a hit.”
“Pft,” you shook your head, looking for the dragon in the stars. Maybe it was all a bit sudden. And maybe you were being a little too honest. But it felt right. And you felt that if you didn’t say something now, you’d just come to regret it later.
“You mean a lot to me, too.” His voice is quiet, and there’s a slight tremble to it. But it’s honest.
You squeezed his hand in response. For now, there didn’t need to be any more words. Just the two of you, hand in hand, looking up at the stars. The way it had always been.
“Hey.” He tapped your hand with his thumb.
“Hm?”
“What are we gonna do about the bed?”
#haikyuu x reader#tendou x reader#tendou satori x reader#tendou satori#haikyuu headcanons#haikyuu scenarios#friends-to-lovers week#haikyuuwritersnet#i love him this one's eh but he's a good kid#THIS IS THE LAST ONE I CAN'T BELIEVE
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King hero is an undead. I mean, he has the solid color than black scelera glowing eyes of both Taylor and Kard, so he fits the mark there. Is what I just said a common trait among undead?
Hero is biologically still alive! His sclera are hidden by his helmet. You are not wrong that there is a common thread between Taylor, Kard, and Hero that gives each of them luminous eyes- but it's not undeath, it's high concentrations of magic! Hero always had vibrant blue eyes, to the somewhat puzzlement of his parents that didn't have blue eyes in their family. It was only later in life they became as bright as they are now, though!
Glowing eyes are semi-common for mages. Taylor's started glowing at the point of their revival because their power had previously been 'dormant' in many ways, and falling immediately under attack kind of rocketed it to all-hands-on-deck status. You can think of Taylor as sort of like a supersaturated solution- they gave almost no sign of being a powerful magic user because that immense font of potential was in a state of suspension- and being pressed on powerfully by an antagonistic force pulled almost all of it out at once.
Kard's eye glows after death because as mentioned, his in-life fairly weak seed of magic has been slowly sprouting since his death, so he's much stronger now than he ever was alive, at least magically- physically his body has gotten weaker due to maltreatment and his bad leg. Various methods could reinforce it and toughen it up, but he at this point doesn't have access to them.
Incidentally, not all mages glow from their eyes, and some mages don't obviously glow at all unless actively casting, so it's not really a reliable sign of how powerful someone is, though it's certainly stereotyped as such in-universe, to the point of having a vibrant eye color 'naturally' is seen as favorable, in part because certain natural concentrations of light magic tend to show in tinting naturally brown eyes gold (e.g. Nan and Beau). This is assumed by many to be why Argent has a brassy/gold tone to his eye color, which is not true at all, but he prefers that assumption to the truth.
Andromeda's hardly a weakling but her two main eyes are naturally dark and stay that way; conversely Diana's eyes weren't naturally that wine red color before her initial turn to darkness. Deimos was plenty glowy at the height of his power, though his ghost has lost that now, and in his case it manifested heavily through his veins and scar tissue. It's basically just a quirk if any particular mage glows or not, and why.
It would actually be very difficult for Hero in particular to be undead, and to get into that I need to get into some things about light and dark magic and how they came to be culturally perceived the way they are!
Light magic is actually the "deathly" side of the axis, although it is hard to draw that conclusion when dark magic lends itself so well to raising the dead. But even outside of the conflicts of prior heroes and dark lords, light has mistakenly been seen as a thing of life for a very long time in the land of Terios.
Having a local priest say some words over your crop of wheat and then your village is conveniently the one spared from strange madness that afflicts your non-light-worshiping neighbor would seem to be a straightforwards case of, "well, see, they worship the demons, now what's befallen them" when you don't know what ergot is, or that light magic in certain concentrations has sterilizing properties- and you probably won't chalk your divine salvation to a famine after you ask your priest to bless the crop that's going into the soil and those seeds wither and die just as surely as the ergot did. You would instead, through trial and error, come to a conclusion that certain rituals must be carried out in certain order- the blighted seeds are a demonic machination or a lesson not to be too greedy, it is only the mature crop at the end that must be blessed, in gratitude.
Likewise, while there are a robust number of light magic healers, to be truly successful at their trade in contemporary Terios, mages such as Maenad study the body and its effects for years, because they know keenly that few things can tolerate the touch of the light at high concentration. Light-aligned healing can be thought of like a course of antibiotics, or chemotherapy for cancer- it absolutely can be a vital life-saver, but it works primarily by dealing death, in targeted doses where the larger body survives and the 'intruder' withers.
This is a completely different school of thought to how Taylor's dark-aligned healing works; because dark magic is the raw essence of vitality. You can basically slap dark magic on just about anything carelessly, and the only way that will really come back and bite you is the cases where light healing is most useful- if the affliction is itself alive, it will also bask in that vitality and grow stronger. But this is why Taylor's body can subconsciously yank itself back together and keep going after being blasted down to little more than bones- undeath is not a mockery of life, but the power of life to magically endure or reinstate itself in defiance of the loss of vital functions. Turning into a zombie, ghost, or other entity can be thought of as punching straight through to another method of living just to keep going.
This is actually why, as a skeleton, Taylor has some rather 'lifelike' quirks- they eat and reflexively breathe, though the latter is something they can go without for much longer than they could when alive.
Meanwhile it's very difficult for any sort of infection to take root in Hero's body, which is a good thing- to modern medical terminology he'd be significantly immunocompromised and only really protected by the fact that his physiological landscape is the equivalent of an irradiated no man's land. His ambient concentration of light magic also makes him nearly immune to most forms of light healing, much to the chagrin of his wife who would really prefer to not have to listen to him hack like he's dying for weeks because he caught an ordinary cold and viruses aren't alive enough to care about light magic.
#rpg tomfoolery#king hero the hero king#Taylor the Friend of Darkness#readmore#send me assumptions ask game#basically this setting takes 'evil darkness is usually visceral and full of zombies'#and 'good light is usually clean and pure and the heal spells that you cast on friends can obliterate the undead'#and runs with the implications#Maenad took out Taylor by basically using 'revive kills zombie' strategies on an ordinary non 'corrupted' living human
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Okay it's some awful hour but I can't stop thinking about This post that I made. And now I feel I need to highlight a flipside to the sentiment of that post. Because while having a shitton of different authors can leave Halo feeling like an awkward buffet of different things sometimes. There are the moments when it just works.
Like it's almost undescribable but there is this moment when you're consuming a Halo Story sometimes and you can just feel that the author is on the wavelength with what's going on. Things feel additive. The story beats feel fresh while building on what was laid before. There's respect and connections with the other material.
Like sometimes 'Yes and' -ing material you don't like is not fun, especially when you aren't a fan of what's there. But when you manage to make it work? Or better yet, actually like what the other authors are doing? Agh you can just tell, and it feels so so so good. It feels less like mediocre improv and more like a Jazz Jam session.
That's kind of what makes Halo extended universe content great in general. It's that even though it's "Halo Lore". It's not really just... "Lore" in the way you might expect.
It's certainly not Encyclopedia style articles detailing dry, uninvolved histories or sciences that are supposed to lend context to certain moments. No, what it really is, is stories. Just tons of stories all trying to work to give detail and rich meaning to every other story and when it works it can really make things feel like you are stepping into a large moment. They're stories that manage to personify the history rather than just explain it plainly and I have always appreciated that about Halo in general.
It's kind of a good example of showing rather than telling. Why try detailing the history of the forerunners when, for a stint, we can step into their shoes and see how they saw their actions? Through the eyes of characters we will come to care about? Its that kind of thing that makes you realize why there are so many Halo Lore Nerds in particular, because the act of consuming halo lore in itself, is actually a really enjoyable process of just... consuming more stories in a universe you already love.
Idk man I rag on Halo alot sometimes because I care about it, and want to see it grow but there are things I do love about it. And one of them is when I'm reading a halo novel and I feel like I'm actually waltzing with a story that has good footing and wants to actually dance with the music it's been given and does it uniquely, but well.
It's genuinely an incredible, individual feeling and it's not even my favorite aspect of Halo.
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you have me thinking about sharp objects again i know they can’t have a happy ending but i just want to pretend amma and camille can be sisters happy together forever and the whole murdering people thing is like a little blimp you can fix with therapy or something
I realize I Just Said I didn't feel like writing an essay about fictional characters in a fictional relationship but tbh that's because there are already a lot of fruits on here who have cornered the nbc hannibal essay market so I'm obligated to simply have a good gay time instead. BUT. Sharp Objects. Camille and Amma........that's different. This is gonna be very long and self-serving but I live for myself so here we are 😚
:MORE:
I went into it in the tags of my last sharp objects reblog but it's worth reiterating: when it comes to parental abuse, having a sibling (or siblings) truly can save your life. The abusive parent is less likely to focus all of the mistreatment on just one sibling (although of course that does sometimes happen; experiences of abused kids are by no means a monolith), and you are automatically granted a support system who knows exactly what you're being forced to survive. In my case, my sister is much older than me (similar to Camille and Amma) and was able to shield me from our mom for much of my childhood. There's a good chance that, had I gone through it alone, I wouldn't be here. I certainly wouldn't be as stable as I am, a large part of that being due to the lasting and unwavering support my sister and I have always provided to each other. Support which Camille and Amma both dearly needed and went without, Camille because her support system (Marian) died in childhood and Amma because her support system--or what could have been--(Camille) was a vague and distant thought for most of her life.
I actually think the show did a better job of portraying how siblings in an abusive home will learn very quickly to depend on each other, because the story lends itself to a visual and non-vocalized portrayal. The characters throughout the series say very little, and what they do say can almost never be taken at face value. Instead, we know who they are and what they mean because they show us. Intentionally or not, this is a perfect reflection of the roles abusers hold in society; Adora, like many abusers, is in good standing with her community. People like her. People believe her, because she is very good at manipulating her environment. Almost everything Adora says is a lie, but she's held as the pinnacle of womanhood in Wind Gap (and the Middle America that Wind Gap stands for). She's rich, well-mannered, and white. She's the marytred mother, having given up her life to raise her daughters, one of whom died at a tragically young age. Another ran off and deserted her, after embarrassing her at every turn. It's worth wondering if Adora would have gotten away with what she did if she wasn't white and affluent. Abuse can happen anywhere, across all societal divides, but people like Adora (and Alan, her accomplice even if only through inaction) certainly are given many allowances that people who aren't white and affluent would never see.
Camille is also dishonest, which she learned from Adora, but because the show relies on showing us Camille's world rather than having her tell the story, we can trust what she sees and experiences as real--or as real as we can get in Wind Gap. The entire town is a wound in stasis, never allowed to heal. It's a trauma memory. The most traumatic moment of Camille's life was Marian's death, and Marian is everywhere in Wind Gap. And so is Camille's younger self, haunting her present self just as much as her dead sister. It is the child in her that died around the same time, that was never allowed to grow and heal and flourish. When you grow up in an abusive home, you grow like weeds shooting up through the asphalt, every moment a trial in survival. Yes, we are strong enough to push through the cracks, but without the support and nurturing and care that is necessary for living things to thrive, we get stuck. Carving out a lonely existence for ourselves in the potholes, wishing for a garden.
This is how Camille has lived since Marian's death. Haunting and haunted by what was done to her, internalizing that violence and turning it inward. Adora planted the seed of generational pain which she received from her own abusive mother, and for Camille it bloomed under her skin. Gillian Flynn said "Camille is an inherently lonely person," and it's because she is the only one who will ever know what she endured in Adora's house, since Marian never escaped it. Camille is the only one of her kind--until Amma.
Camille and Amma are strangers to each other at first, knowing of one another only in a peripheral way. For Camille, Amma is only another hurt; every moment with her is outlined by the absense of Marian. Amma, who never knew Marian and barely knows Camille, feels only the sudden euphoria of no longer being alone. She lashes out at Camille, like any teenager unused to sharing the attention and wholly opposed to it, but only until she realizes the truth; Camille as her sister could never be a stranger. They've both been weaned on the same poison--to different effects, yes, but still the same. If anyone could know Amma, as she wants to be known, on her terms and without expectation of performance, it's Camille. Amma truly loves Camille, as much as she is able, and she is softer with Camille than with anything else she appears to love. After all, she learned from Adora; loving means hurting. Camille learned that lesson too, and turned all of the hurt towards herself. She may have stopped cutting, but she commits a dozen little acts of self harm everyday, from drinking and driving to putting herself into hands she knows will not be kind. Amma lashes out. She screamed "I love violence!" And she does. Violence is the only love she's ever known. Adora's acts of care can only accompany violence. She can only treat her daughters gently when they're at her mercy. When Amma expresses care for Camille, a small act of rebellion in itself, Adora responds by tearing the roof from her doll house, the thing Amma cherishes above all others. Having grown up in a venomous house, an only child in all senses, Amma imprinted on inanimate objects in place of real people. As a child with a mother that controls everything about her--from her clothes to her health--Amma reached for something she could control, in her dolls. Later this transferred to her relationships with other people, all of which exist only for her to manipulate others into getting what she wants. That Amma obsesses over a dollhouse well past an age where that seems normal also makes sense when you realize she is rewriting her childhood in the only way she knows how. Camille was forced to grow up young because she was trying to protect Marian, who was much younger than her. Amma, in contrast, only has herself to protect, which she does by babying herself and availing herself to Adora, who prefers Amma meek and mild, unwilling to see her grow up, as she watched Camille. But on the other side of town, Amma dresses down and sexualizes herself towards the whims of older boys, to better manipulate them. She lives this dual life daily, rolling through the streets of Wind Gap and committing the usual crimes of teenagerdom, but once she returns home, she becomes infantile, just as Camille feels like a helpless, traumatized girl when she returns. Amma has recreated her own house down to the most minor detail, and then signed her name to it in the shape of the teeth from her victims, forming Adora's marble floor. In this way, Amma's dollhouse is the most honest thing about her. She has taken the house that everyone in Wind Gap sees as a representation of success and good breeding, and shown it for the twisted thing it is: a place where bad things happen to little girls.
So, we have Amma, also a bad thing that happens to little girls, and still close to a little girl herself, attaching to Camille like a ship towards a lighthouse. She has never had a sister before, and she finds herself needy for the connection of it. They have this intrinsic thing in common that no one else ever will, and more than that, they're actually very similar. In the book, nearly every time Camille sees Amma acting like a teenager, she mentions seeing a lot of herself in her sister. Amma desperately wants to impress Camille and wants her to think she's cool, and Camille does. She surprises herself by wanting to reach out to Amma and provide comfort, something she has not been good at for a very long time, but it didn't surprise me at all. Camille is inherently lonely and self isolated, but she is always always always craving connection, while hiding herself away from it at every opportunity. She dresses head to toe in thick cloth so no one could glimpse or touch her scars. She does this out of shame, yes, but also fear. She doesn't want anyone to read her. In the dressing room scene, more than anything else, Camille is worried about Amma seeing her scars. But it's worth noting that, rather than disgusted, Amma is warm with Camille afterwards. Of course she understands what the scars really are; a reaction to what has been done to them. Amma makes scars too, hers are just on other people. Later, Amma is one of the only people Camille allows to touch her without flinching away, allows to run her hands over and read the scars on Camille's body. It's different from her experience with John, obviously, but she seems at peace with Amma just the same. Amma says "It's like you're my soul mate," and Camille says "It's like you're my sister." One and the same.
It surprises Camille, how easily she slots back into the role of big sister, trying to shield Amma even though Camille can barely protect herself, but it didn't shock me. Sisterhood, in my experience, is just not something you outgrow. Camille is still wounded by her failure to save Marian, and later Alice, which is another major change in the show that I think the story is better for. In the book, Camille barely has a relationship with her roommate, and certainly never bonds with her over music. In the show, Alice becomes the closest thing to a younger sister that Camille has experienced since Marian. And then she loses her too. So now, with Amma, Camille does her best to be reserved. She doesn't have the best track record with little sisters. But in the end, her reservations don't matter. She loves Amma in spite of their mother, and in spite of herself.
Sharp Objects did such a wonderful job crafting a story about three generations of inherited pain, passed from mother to daughter, the pain taking a different shape in each woman. What Adora does, despite what was done to her, is unforgivable. It is only fair that the same judgment applies to Amma, who robbed three other girls of life. Camille might one day manage to have an honest and open relationship with Amma, after Amma faces consequences for her crimes. Amma might one day be able to love without violence. The real tragedy is the future they might have had, if they had come together before the murders happened.
#idk how to add readmore links on mobile so yall gotta suffer this#asks#sharp objects#long post#abuse tw#sisterhood#camille preaker#amma crellin
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Notes: Listen, I saw those post of Bela and Donna together and my mind ran away with it. as a result I humbly offer you this story.
If anyone finds those drawings again would you mind tagging me. I would really appreciate it and I would like to thank the original artist.
Thank you. With that in mind here is a sneak peak.
Summary: Donna finds love in the most unexpected way. After all, who would even think of falling for her.
Therefore it came as a big surprise to her when someone did fell. Never had she thought that she would be courted by Alcina’s oldest daughter.
As with all grand stories of lovers finding each other, the story of how Donna Beneviento found love in Bela Dimitrescu started out on an inconsequential happenstance.
‘There’s a leak in my house, and I’m afraid living near a great waterfall has its benefits and pitfalls. One of which is having damp wall bad enough to get mold.’ Donna thought to herself as she made her way to Mother Miranda’s inner sanctuary for the weekly meeting.
“I wonder if this is the mutamycete’s cousin invading my house.”
“Did you say something my dear?” Alcina said as she herself makes her way to the door, stooping slightly to enter. She holds the door until Donna enters. “Thank you, Alcina.”
“We have a mold situation! Mistress is saying that it might be the Mold’s cousin” Angie pipes up happily enjoying the attention Alcina gives to her.
“Angie hush, it’s nothing Alcina. One of the downsides living near the waterfall, I’m afraid it got too damp in one of the rooms that molds has started to grow. It’s my fault really, I should have inspected the house more often.” Donna explains, it’s a good thing she was wearing her veil, she wouldn’t want Alcina to see her embarrassment from something so small a matter.
“In any case I’ve already contacted someone from the village to clean and remove the problem. Although a more thorough inspection must be done, I wouldn’t want any more surprises.”
To their surprise Heisenberg was already there in the sanctuary, usually the rugged man was the last to arrive on which he calls it “fashionably late”. Moreau always the first to arrive every time Mother Miranda summons them.
There was a companionable silence between the two, as they normally only interact when Mother Miranda was there.
“Hello Countess, Lady Donna” As Moreau turns his focus on the two ladies arriving and tries his best to smile despite his monstrous form, Moreau has always been polite with everyone.
“What’s this about surprises?” Heisenberg asked as he lounges on his chair.
Thankfully, Mother Miranda has yet to arrive, giving the four Lords enough time to chat after all it’s not everyday that they can just gather around to talk. After a small catch up, curtesy of Angie’s animated retelling, the four Lords are now faced with a small problem.
Where should they house Donna?
Of course, as one of the Four Lords of the village she is both loved (more than the others apparently, if the village gossip is to be trusted) and feared, and although the weakest among the four she is well protected in her shrouded mansion that she had no real fear of being attacked.
Even with the slim chance that anyone would be brave enough to attack her, taking her away from the mansion poses a real threat to her safety. And that would not do.
“You could always bunker down with me at the Factory. If you don’t mind the smell of oil and a little bit of heat” Heisenberg offered as he casually took a drag off his cigar. “Hey, we might even finish one of our projects it’ll certainly save you time traveling from your house to my factory.”
“Ugh, as if. She’s a Lady Heisenberg. She’s not slumming down there with you, and she certainly need her own privacy” Alcina countered with a huff. The nerve of the man can he really not think beyond his work.
“Oh, right sorry Donna” Understanding what Alcina implied, Heisenberg had the decency to slightly blush.
“Sorry I can’t offer you to stay in my reservoir Donna. Even I think that’s no place for a Lady to live, not to mention the fish smell and cramped living quarters.” Moreau said apologetically.
“That’s alright Sal, I understand. Thank you for thinking about my welfare.”
“Well that leaves my Castle. And of course, you’re staying with me. I will not take ‘No’ for an answer. You living in a hovel just won’t do my dear” Alcina smiled triumphantly at the revelation
“If you were thinking of housing her, why did you pose the question to us?”
“Simple. I wanted to see what your reactions would be and honestly I wasn’t surprised by it”
“Smug bitch” Heisenberg huffs under his breath, he had to admit he walked right in that one.
“What was that?”
“Nothing”
“Are you sure Alcina, I don’t want to impose to you and your daughter. Aren’t you busy with the harvest and wine production? Not to mention I still have the other dolls to rehouse I can’t leave them there alone.” Donna inquired slightly unsure on what will happen to her small friends.
“That can be taken care of. Heisenberg can house them as well as lending some of his soldat to ensure that the villagers won’t go snooping around where they’re not wanted. Isn’t that right Heisenberg?”
“Yeah, yeah, leave those to me. Anything else your Highness?”
“She’s gonna need some of her stuff carried from her house to my Castle be a good boy and fetch them for us will you” Alcina smiles.
At that Heisenberg growls
“Now, now no need for that. Thank you Karl for your help” as Donna pushes herself in between Alcina and Heisenberg
“No thanks needed Donna, anything for my favorite lab assistant.”
At that Donna chuckles “Karl, I’m you’re only Lab mate.”
“Exactly”
With that Mother Miranda enters the Sanctuary and everyone went back to their places. Alcina and Heisenberg opposite each other in front of Miranda, while Donna and Moreau are at her right and left side, respectively.
After a grueling five hours of discussion and bickering (mostly of Alcina and Heisenberg), Mother Miranda had deemed it right adjourn the meeting and continue it the following week with cooler heads and a more substantial plan.
“Well dear are you ready? I’m sure Angie here is excited to see her new home. Heisenberg will take care of the rest of your baggage.”
“Yes, I’m ready. Let’s go”
A short and companionable silent ride later and both Lords arrive at the front of Castle Dimitrescu. This isn’t the first time Donna came to the Castle, but this is the first time she would be remaining for an extended period of time.
She knew of Alcina’s daughters, but she has never interacted with them. The most of their interaction stems from short glimpses and hearing the girls giggle from one of the rooms when she visits. Not that she made a personal effort to meet them, she was still rather self-conscious and awkward with first meetings. The very idea of interacting with new people (even if they are close to the people she considers as family) freezes her.
It’s a good thing Angie’s always with her, she can be the extension of Donna’s subconscious.
“Welcome to Castle Dimitrescu dear, I hope your stay with us is pleasant. Consider this your home away from home” Alcina smiles widely as she leads Donna to the main hall. “Daughters come down here, we have a guest to welcome.”
With that swarms of insects came down from the foyer only to split into three distinct form. Three beautiful ladies came to rest in front of the pair.
“Daughters, Lady Beneviento and Angie will be staying with us for a while. I expect you to be on your best behavior.”
“Of course, Mother. Welcome Lady Beneviento, Angie.” Bela bows slightly as she welcomes Donna, the other two soon follows.
“Very good, I’m sure Donna is tired from the meeting as am I. Shall we all have dinner later? Bela would you mind escorting Donna to one of the guest rooms, I’m sure she’ll need to freshen up or lay down for a bit.”
“Understood Mother. Come my Lady, let me show you to your room” as Bela leads Donna to the guest room, there’s almost a tense atmosphere between them.
“Here you are Lady Beneviento. Ring the bell if you ever need something, We’ll assign a maid for your room and they’ll fetch it for you.” Bela smiles as she explains it to Donna, the room itself is big and opulent as expected from a guest room of the castle.
“Thank you, my Lady, for you and your Mother’s hospitality, this is indeed very much suitable. Angie and I will fit right in am I right Angie” at this Angie who’s been looking left and right at the place nods enthusiastically.
“Please don’t mind us, we’ll try to stay quiet as possible. We wouldn’t want to impose on your busy schedule.”
“Call me Bela, my Lady. and don’t worry, you won’t be an imposition. In fact, you just might be what we need at this castle right now. A breath of fresh air, if you don’t mind, I would love to chat with you about the outside world. As I’m sure you know, my sisters and I cannot leave the castle grounds for too long.” Bela asked unsure if what she’s asking is too much for the usually quiet Lord.
Sensing some hesitation from the young woman in front of her, Donna made her decision as well. ‘I will be staying here for some time. I may as well get to know the daughters Alcina is so fond of’.
“Of course, Bela, I would love to. And please call me Donna, if we’re to chat and get to know one another we can get rid of that formality. I certainly won’t mind.” And although Bela cannot see the smile on Donna’s face, she can surely hear the warmth of Donna’s voice.
“Yes please. Well then Donna, I’ll leave you to rest for now. Shall I fetch you for dinner time?”
“Yes, of course. I would love nothing more.”
With that Bela takes her leave of the room, and as she walks away, she can’t help but to smile to herself.
‘A breath of fresh air indeed’
#resident evil village#donna beneviento#bela dimitrescu#alcina dimitrescu#Donna x Bela pairing#The pairing I didn't know I needed#Until I saw it#Cassandra & Daniela tries to be good wing(wo)men#spoilers: they made it slightly harder#Oh well its the thought that counts right?#Right Bela?
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May I have a scenario/imagine, whichever makes more sense, of Trey, Rook, and Crewel trying to tame some sort of wild, magical invasive species of Poison Ivy that has taken over the greenhouse?
Crewel gives me perpetually disappointed wine aunt father vibes. This piece also lowkey turned out to be Trey x Rook, but you didn’t read that from me.
This imagine’s longer than my usual 1k word self-imposed limit, since it goes out to a friend of mine that’s been supporting me through final projects and exams. I’m not sure if they’d want me tagging them so publicly, but they know who they are.
Imagine this...
To Professor Crewel’s chagrin, members of the Science Club had never had strong academic intent. In actuality, the club was a thinly veiled excuse to bake cakes (just to find the perfect ratio of leaveners and sweeteners!) and to stalk watch students in their natural habitats (nothing wrong with an impromptu observational study, right?). Instead of test tubes and beakers, the lab benches were littered with cake pans and photographs of unsuspecting Savanaclaw students.
“I do wish you two would take this club more seriously,” Crewel would often gripe, fingers massaging his temples. “Science is not a play thing, it is a powerful tool with which we can use to redefine and reshape the world around us.”
Such were the woes of an instructor--but today, he had no time to lament.
Crewel’s jaw tightened as he gazed upon a sprawling mess--the shattered glass panes of the Botanical Garden, with massive stalks of ivy reaching for the skies. Casualties lined the ground--plants and flowers drained dry of their life, all withered and decayed. The ivy writhed in glee.
(He shouldn’t have been surprised that the headmaster summoned him and the Science Club to resolve the issue instead of hiring a real exterminator.)
“How unseemly,” Crewel noted, clicking his tongue. “Running amok and ruining so many of the specimens we’ve carefully cultivated... This shall not go unpunished.”
He glanced over his shoulder.
“Clover.”
“Yes.” Trey stepped forward, his magical pen ready.
“Hunt.”
“Oui.” Rook followed suit, smoothly drawing forth his own pen.
“The time has come to prove your mettle,” Crewel announced, rapping his pointer against his palm. His onyx eyes seethed with a quiet, controlled rage. “Show this overgrown weed what the Science Club is truly capable of.”
At his command, the boys nodded and tore off toward the Botanical Garden.
Crewel held his ground. The corners of his mouth curled into a condescending smirk as he addressed the poison ivy. “Come here.”
An arm of ivy flew at him, so fast that it was but a blur.
An alive, but livid, blur.
“Heel!”
A column of fire erupted from Crewel’s pointer. His attack slammed against the plant, settings its leaves awash in embers. The rogue plant let out a sky-splitting roar.
The battle had just begun.
Trey ducked under an arc of burning ivy and threw open the door to the Botanical Garden. Tucking his limbs in, he barreled through right as more ivy snaked in to seal off the entrance once more.
He could feel the heat upon his back, the earth quaking under his feet, and Rook close behind him--yet he willed himself to keep his eyes glued ahead, even as he launched across the threshold and into a terrifying new realm.
The inside of the greenhouse now glistened with ivy--covering the glass panes, slowly strangling what few plants remained. The Botanical Garden had always been warm before, but it was unusually so today. Sweltering, and almost so humid that the floors and walls seem to eerily pulsate with life.
“Keep your wits about you, and don’t look back, boys,” Crewel had instructed them. “Just get in there, and cut it off at its source--at the heart.”
Trey’s eyes darted this way and that. Green, green, green. It all looked the same to him. Where in the world was the point of origin?
“Got any ideas?!” He glanced over his shoulder at his partner--and his protective goggles nearly went askew.
Rook had dropped to one knee, pressing a gloved hand against the floor--now a carpet of vines. “Hoooh! What a fascinating specimen!” he marveled. “Such destructive power, and yet it also sports this emerald sheen... Très manifique!”
“H-Hey... No offense, but I don’t think now’s the time to stop and sniff the roses. Or, well. I guess it would be ivy in this case.”
“Non, non! There is always time for beauty--even in dire situations!” Rook insisted, his hands continuing to grope around. His eyes suddenly creased, and his smile turned sly. “Ah, te voilà.”
“Even if you say that, that’s not going to help us fix this...!!”
“Calm yourself, Chevalier des Roses,” Rook advised with an airy laugh. He cupped a hand to his ear and beamed. “Listen closely! Surely even your own heart beckons you to still your worries.”
“Heart?” Trey straightened, adamant as he folded his arms. “Sorry, but I just don’t believe in stuff like that. Come on, Rook. We need to focus--Crewel-sensei’s trusting us with this task.”
He cast a concerned glance at the doorway, ensnared in vines. They’d have to blast their way through later--but if they stayed in this space for too long, they, too, would soon be drained of all their life force. “We can’t just mess around!”
“Ah--but you must put your faith in me as well, Chevalier des Roses!” Rook insisted, pointing to the patch of floor that he had been not-too-subtly groping earlier. “I implore you to lend me your strength!”
“You want me to attack the gr--?!” Trey froze mid-sentence. He had become vaguely aware of a gentle sensation creeping around his ankles.
In an instant, he was yanked into the air, dangling upside down like a useless rag doll. Blood rushed to his head, and his surroundings spun.
“Chevalier des Roses!!”
“I’m fine!! I-I’m fine!” Trey called--though he clearly wasn’t. “I can just--” He waved his magical pen, the air growing tense as a small ball of fire collected at his command.
“Non!” Rook warned, startling his classmate. “There is nothing to cushion your descent, mon amie! You will surely break a leg--and certainly not in the theatrical sense!”
He’s right. Trey’s fire extinguished itself, replaced by a chill crawling down his spine.
“A little help then?!”
Rook’s eyes widened. “You would give me your trust?”
“Not exactly like I have any other choice.” Trey would shrug, but it was a rather difficult motion to pull off while suspended midair--and far more troublesome, his veins ran cold. It was a sure sign of the ivy sapping his energy.
“Have no fear! Today, it shall be my turn to be the chevalier.” The hunter grinned from ear to ear, magical pen in hand.
“Please, Rook! Any day now--before I become plant food!” Trey’s voice was hoarse--from exasperation, or from the magical ivy, he wasn’t quite sure. Perhaps both.
“Just for today, I shall be your Chevalier D’amour.”
And with a confident wink, Rook plunged the ivy-covered floor into a sea of flames.
The accursed plant wailed as it shriveled to ash upon a backdrop of billowing smoke. Embers flickered and danced in the afternoon, the Botanical Garden set ablaze. Crewel took a step back, grimacing at the growing fire.
A figure emerged from the greenhouse, carrying another. The professor squinted into the smoke, pinpointing the familiar outline of his Science Club members--Rook, cradling a pale-looking Trey in his strong arms.
“Puppies.” Crewel pinched his temples.
“C’est chose faite--it is now done.” The brim of Rook’s hat eclipsed his eyes, making the typically cheery hunter appear dark to match his tone. Then he lifted his head, basking in the sunshine, and that somber moment was over. “All is well and good again, as it should be!”
“I... I thought I was going to die,” Trey groaned. “... And Rook, I appreciate you catching my fall, but you didn’t need to carry me out like you’re an action hero in a movie or something.”
“Are you able to still stand after an attack from that heinous plant?”
“Yeah. Just put me down.”
“Oui.”
Trey stood on shaky legs--and instinctively leaned on Rook’s shoulder.
“Well, boys. You’ve exterminated the ivy--as well as just about every other plant in the Botanical Garden. How exactly do you intend to atone for this?!” Crewel snapped, whipping his pointer at his students. “I believe my instructions were quite clear--destroy only the heart of the ivy.”
“The fault lies with me, Monsieur,” Rook declared, dipping into a bow. “We dallied for longer than was necessary, and in a moment of panic, I unleashed my magic.”
“Always one with a flair for the dramatic. Unfortunately, that will not serve you well in detention, Hunt.”
“Wait. Crewel-sensei, that’s not the whole story,” Trey interrupted. “Rook got me out of a pinch--and he deserves credit for that. He’s also the one that found out where the ivy’s heart was--buried in the floor itself. I didn’t realize until it was too late.”
The professor’s lips pursed into a straight line. “Clover, are you confessing to your own negligence?”
“I am.” He nodded firmly. “I’m the one that deserves the detention.”
“Trey-kun is not responsible!” Rook protested. “He is the one that attempted to set us on the right path. I refused to heed his advice, which led to events escalating.”
“I didn’t listen to Rook when he tried to tell me about what I needed to do.”
“I should have phrased it more concisely.”
“You--”
“Trey-kun--”
“Enough. It is clear to me that both of you contributed to this chaos.” Crewel sighed. “... Hunt, take Clover to the infirmary. I will put out the fire myself.
“... Are you letting us go?”
“Of course not. Once you’ve recovered, Clover... you boys will be restoring plants in the Botanical Garden for the remainder of the semester as punishment.”
“Ahhh, I should’ve known. Riddle’s not gonna like this at all.”
“Chin up, Chevalier des Roses! At the very least, we shall have each other’s company!” Rook laughs, smacking Trey on the back and sending his peer nearly doubling over.
Crewel sighed once more--he was disappointed, but not surprised.
His Science Club puppies still had a long way to go.
#twst#Divus Crewel#Trey Clover#Rook Hunt#twisted wonderland#disney twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland imagines#twisted wonderland headcanons#twisted wonderland requests#twisted wonderland scenarios#imagine this
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