#the only thing in my brain as i drew this was LIFE ! IT NEVER DIE ! WOMEN ARE MY FAVOURITE GUY !
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YOUNG !! just us *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
#young justice#tim drake#cassandra sandsmark#kon el#bart allen#robin#superboy#wondergirl#impulse#conner kent#dc comics#young just us#backgrounds are my passion#mart#the only thing in my brain as i drew this was LIFE ! IT NEVER DIE ! WOMEN ARE MY FAVOURITE GUY !#thats why the angles are so whack
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SMG4: The PuzzleVision Movie
[SPOILER ALERT and more into the ship]
VERY.
MAJOR.
SPOILER.
PLEASE.
Its funny enough how i predicted spongebob squarepants in my theory
(It even also has the ship I had a true pairing with. Squidbob.)
When old fandom meets the new fandom I'm currently in be like-
I see how they got each other's backs...
Suprised that SMG4 has done this- because last time we remembered, Smg3 is the one who comes risking his own life to save his buddy.
Now it's giving the DEJA VU moment but this time SMG3 is the one who gets saved by smg4.
"You saved me!"
Notice how different they act around their partner when they get saved?
Smg3 during wotfi 2023 AND in his recolor design during the 10 year anniversary.
He himself has pushed those things away or pushing out the soft stuff saying— "yeah yeah" or "I'd like to see you die otherwise"
BUT HIM? He still couldn't accept himself with the softness he's gained alot. He still calls his FRIEND. Baka.
(Hah idiot.)
One thing to say that it WAS AWKWARD SMG4 just looks at our guy. My man... my homie... buddy chum pal old fella amigo-
You. Are not. Okay. My man. (GAY PANIC SAYS OTHERWISE)
I know its not relevant but I drew this back in march 25 believe it or not I may have predicted this as well
Me and my brain goofing around telling me what if the gays did do that.
Anyways- back when Three lets Four carry him, as much as they both hate each other they atleast had to do it somehow inorder to escape.
Yet four could ever care less and he was still grabbing his waist at that time, and Three not giving a sh-t just looking up at the sky noticing how pretty it is.
Three... DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHOSE GRABBING YOUR WAIST RIGHT NOW??????????
Two siblings getting both of their fingers broken.
And its even in the right hand! Since Mario is immune to broken bones, Meggy however gets to be on the same place Mario has been in IGBP. NOW she gets to feel the pain what Mario may had felt.
-
And thus at the near end where SMG4 hits PV with a meat hammer or aka luigi- HE LITERALLY KICKED THE HEAD OUT- AND THE ANIMATION THAT MADE IT SO SERIOUS.
I think I understand his anger so much from this clip that everyone would agree.
Ever since PuzzleVision gave back everyones conciousness- he showed the Western Spaghetti and IGBP act of the crew on how emotional things became.
"And SMG4... who knew you could play an antagonist so well! High ranks for me!"
He felt so guilty. He looked down. He knew what PV was talking about.
By an antagonist' actions.
Just like how he was possessed by the goop itself, he started going crazy during that time and he let his anger get on to him.
SMG4 DID NOT WANT TO BE THE BAD GUY.
He was so scared and felt pity to himself because of that. And it was all ruined because of PV himself.
Smg4 didn't want to remember what happened during that encounter and never will.
Besides on the deal with PuzzleVision. SMG4 and Meggy's traumatic experiences weren't talked enough from their problems during the movie.
So much things are happening from the show that no one is talking much about it while watching.
"Is... is it over?"
Smg4 proceedingly cried emotionally because of the torture. He was apparently too blind enough to notice now that he realized it was him to blame. He was so dumb enough and so angry that he could cry.
Three didn't even slapped him or shut him off, he lets him cry over there due to the fact that he may need to release his emotions.
Because he knows how sentimental Smg4 became when it involves with dealing his own emotions that HE couldn't even give an advice for. But could only stay quiet.
Because at what hell of a state would he even say to SMG4 when they're trying to escape from this hell of a nightmare?
Four still doesn't accept himself, and neither does Smg3 too. From everything that happened.
Our boys are suffering enough and its hurting us like hell.
#smg4#smg34#smg3#smg4 smg3#tv adware#lizafixates#smg4 x smg3#smg3 x smg4#mr puzzles#smg4 puzzlevision#puzzle vision
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Some Brain rot I liked to share
For " I can be a better father " series is my fave and since MC is technically the eldest out of all her siblings, I liked to think Neteyam looked up to his older sister to able to adapt and skilled with almost everything to hunting, warrior tactic ( even if she can't join in with the war party she dose strategies in aid and it mostly works as she good at planning), healing with medicine and improving it, arts like weaving and pottery, and taking care of children
Even if she is human she adapted well with her adopted brother Spider
But what make him consider the elder sibling is because as there an incident that his sister saved him but it leaves her critical injured and it made him very protective of her as she is not Na'vi liked them or the others
She and Spider will die if they are not careful enough, a fear he developed from that incident in secret
I love it, I think the incident that awakened these overprotective intents of neteyam. It was a hunt, which you and neteyam had been planning for weeks. It was a secret thing you were going to do, tsu'tey never used to let you go out hunting alone. He knew how good you are, and that you could defend yourself. But it was still too dangerous for you. And so it was, the attack of a thanator, wounded you heavily. The creature had Neteyam cornered in a log, the boy tried to defend himself but in useless. It wasn't until Y/N drew his bow, and with a single arrow he hit the creature in the head. The beast had enough time to turn around and run towards Y/N. Causing her to fall to the ground, and tearing her with its sharp claws. This left you badly injured, almost unconscious. Luckily for both of you, the creature fled through the wound Y/N had inflicted, running away and getting lost in the forest. Neteyam ran as fast as he could to his sister, he had tears coming out of his eyes, he felt so responsible for this. He was to blame for everything, he was supposed to take care of you and here you are. Neteyam held you in his arms and ran as fast as he could to the village.
From that day on, he promised to take care of you. Not only you, but spider. You might be older than him, but it was his duty to take care of you. I think after that incident he would look up to you a lot more…you saved his life. And you risked yours, you almost died. And yet you were now combing his hair, only 4 months after the attack. You were his role model, neteyam promised to be the best warrior of the clan to protect you. Because no one and nothing was going to touch his great sister.
I always talk about spider and Y/N. But I think in the lifetime of Y/N. Neteyam and Y/N would be very close, even closer than spider. This would cause stupid jealousy between siblings. But they would calm down…neteyam and y/n are so much alike. They have almost the same taste…some would say they are twins but from other species.
#avatar the way of water#avatar x y/n#neteyam imagine#human reader#tsu'tey x reader#request#neteyam headcanons
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Let me take care of you
Astarion x Durge OC (Eiji) oneshot
Author's note: the idea came to me when I realized I'd been giving all my healing potions and strong spells to Astarion.
Content warning: some gore (par for the course in this game), a bit angst but mostly fluff. Might contain SPOILERS.
Camp was more quiet than usual. Fighting a conniving wizard and his elemental myrmidons had not been an easy feat - even Dame Aylin, who had emerged victorious against yet another villain aspiring to exploit her immortality, had fallen into contemplative silence. By her own words, revenge felt... hollow. In quick succession, the proverbial "bad guys" had fallen by their swords and spells, but when would it all end? Was the end where they really wanted to be? A long road lay ahead, with the Elder Brain still writhing violently against its loosening chains. The party knew what they had to do, knew the price of being the hero, but Gods, a deep exhaustion had settled into their bones this night and none could shake it off quite so easily.
As she peeled off her dusty boots, Eiji mulled over her decisions. Though many in the group would sooner keel over and die than admit they were following anyone's leadership, the bulk of strategic planning had fallen on her shoulders. And as if resisting her psychopathic god of a father was not enough of a monumental task, she had her companions' conflicting desires to balance. Choosing Dame Aylin over the powerful wizard, who could have been a valuable ally instead of a useless, crumpled corpse, was one of those bets she was not entirely certain would bear fruit. Strong and fearsome as the Moonmaiden's shining offspring was, Aylin's temper may yet prove to be her undoing - without thinking, without a single moment of hesitation, the paladin had charged headfirst into battle, practically forcing Eiji's hand. Being referred to by the celestial being as "ally mine" afterwards was barely a reward, and it appeared that even Isobel understood the tension when she'd expressed her fear of her lover's future folly and offered her thanks.
But without any clear recollections of her bloodied past, there was not much else Eiji could rely on besides her instincts. And her first instinct was to never betray her companions, her friends, no matter their faults.
Rummaging through her pack, she was surprised to find five bottles of superior healing potion. She could have sworn her stock had been down to only one or two, especially since she had explicitly refrained from using the precious resource during battle. Even with the mysterious surplus, she figured there was nothing a night's sleep wouldn't fix. No point wasting the very thing that could save someone else's life the next day.
"You know, I do feel for the Dame, considering how revenge against Cazador gave me less catharsis than... well, emptiness," came Astarion's voice behind her back. As was natural for creatures of the night, the pale elf's footfalls were as light as a feather and made no sound, allowing him to make her heart jump whenever he drew near on his own accord.
Straightening up from reorganizing her pack, Eiji sighed in agreement. The movement caused the wound on her back to stretch and throb painfully. She tried to hide a wince, but nothing escaped her lover's blood-red gaze.
"Gods, there really is no justice in the world, is there?" continued Astarion with a frown, taking her pack from her hands. He strode towards a fallen tree trunk nearby and motioned for her to follow suit. Since that one evening in the Underdark, which felt like a century's worth of ceaseless struggle ago, they had grown accustomed to sharing these private conversations while the rest of the party hunkered down for a long rest.
"I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of sneaking these into your possession if I'd known you were too stubborn to use them," Astarion abruptly changed the subject, his tone going from contemplative to annoyed.
"I-- what?" Eiji turned to look at him, genuinely confused. It was the last thing she'd expected him to mention, given where their conversation had started.
"Don't tell me you didn't even realize you had healing potion on you," the elf rolled his eyes.
"No, I... I saw them," though not quite understanding what the fuss was about, Eiji went along with his harmless banter. "But I don't think I need them, really. I'll just go to sleep and wake up tomorrow, good as new."
"By that same logic, the rest of us should just snooze our injuries off instead of using the potions you so generously lavished on us," he pointed out. "Or is there something special about Bhaalspawn physiology that I might want to know?"
"No, I don't think so..." she answered under her breath. Vaguely, she was beginning to catch the drift beneath his characteristic quips. "But I don't lavish anything on anyone. I do what is necessary," she insisted. It was not entirely the truth. Only now did it come to her attention that indeed, she'd been loading her companions with as much aid as she could, her own safety be damned. And she might even be guilty of favoritism, seeing how she invariably made it a priority to shield her lover on the battlefield. It was as though her body moved on its own, without so much as a conscious thought on her part.
"And you find it necessary to leave yourself an easy target?" Astarion retorted, almost angry at what he deemed utmost foolishness. "Gods, I should have known you were doomed when you first started feeding Gale our hard-earned loot."
"That was necessary, too. Can't have him blowing us all up one sunny day," she chuckled, half-hoping the joke would persuade him from this particular line of inquiry. But she could see it in his eyes that he wasn't going to let it go. She could see his worry behind the annoyance, his concern and affection. Hells, she could see his love that she returned in equal measure. "I just don't want to see anyone hurt. I don't want to see you hurt. I wouldn't be able to think of anything else during a fight if..."
Astarion's expression softened as he listened intently to her quiet words. Gently taking her hand in his, he asked, "And has it ever occurred to you how much it pains me to see you fall?"
She said nothing in reply, rubbing his knuckles with the pad of her thumb in an effort to soothe him.
"There has been enough pain and suffering in my life to haunt me for a thousand years. If you're really asking me to stand aside and lose the one person I've ever truly cared for, then you should just drive a stake through my heart and end it all," he said shakily, lacing their fingers together so she'd know there was no smoothing over the matter. "Let me take care of you. Please."
For a moment, she refused to look at him. But he waited. Until she finally caved and leaned her forehead against his, letting him support her wary body. "Alright," she breathed, arms circling around his midriff for an embrace.
"Alright," he smiled, his hand coming to rest at the nape of her neck. Gingerly, he pulled away just enough to be able to examine the cuts on her cheeks. "I've got you, darling."
#bg3 astarion#astarion#bg3 tav#bg3 oc#astarion x tav#astarion ancunin#astarion romance#bg3 spoilers#baldurs gate#my oc: eiji
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All Of The Girls You Loved Before
Summary: I want to teach you how forever feels
OR:
That time Elain was a witch and Lucien was condemned to hunt her down
Part 2/2: I Can Wait For Years | Part 1 | | Read on AO3
Note: Big thanks to @octobers-veryown for the prompt and @the-lonelybarricade for being my beta. This is for @elainweekofficial day [mumble] because I don't want to post on a Friday/Saturday.
Lucien Vanserra had known his whole life he was going to kill her. Born with magic thrumming in his veins and an acute awareness of her, he’d spent his time honing his skill. Learning the small tells that separated ordinary women from witches. He’d never touched one—he had his own. The only witch he’d ever put his hands around would be the one tethered to his very soul.
It was instinct that drew him to her. Restless and unable to settle, Lucien had taken off as soon as he could fend for himself. Always moving, always heading to her. He’d only calmed when he’d reached a simple village at the edge of the sea.
It was there he waited for the magic in his blood to call him, to force him back toward her. He’d thought she must have died given how everything settled. Lucien had, in the span of that silent year, met a woman, betrothed himself to her, and watched her die. The village needed a healer—and a healer they got in the form of Elain Archeron.
The minute she stepped into his tavern looking for lodging, he’d known what she was. In his grief and rage, he’d gone up to the hall that first night intending to throttle her. It was her fault, after all, that he’d come at all.
It was the sound of her soft weeping that had stilled his hand. Not tonight, some wild wind had whispered. Wait until tomorrow.
And so Lucien did—for two years, Lucien had remained where he was, watching her settle into the village. He watched her deliver babies and guide the ill into death. She’d come rain or snow, sleet or shine, to illness after illness. The village had come to rely on her.
And she’d come to rely on him.
Lucien had begun to wonder what, exactly, the curse was. Were they truly fated to kill each other? He sent for books, reading by candlelight when he had the time. How to break the spell on them.
How to make her his.
With each passing smile and fragment of conversation, Lucien found the pull that had brought him to her settled. Calmed.
Silent.
Like this was what he was meant to do. Find her and keep her safe.
Love her.
Striding through the crowd, his blood aflame, Lucien let himself smile. Elain was looking at him with such horror—had she realized, then? Did she know that Graysen was nothing but an ordinary zealot who’d merely guessed right? Or was she merely terrified by her circumstances and how seemingly pleased he was by the whole thing.
Lucien was hardly pleased. That was his wife tied to a pyre and if anyone was going to slaughter her, it would be him.
“Untie her,” Lucien commanded, pushing to the front of the crowd. “Right now—she belongs to me.”
Smoke billowed from beneath the wood. How long before it caught her skirt? How long before the look of fear on her face was replaced with her sobs of pain?
“You were tricked–”
“UNTIE HER NOW!” he roared, hands clenching to fists. The world seemed to still, as if even the gods had stopped what they were doing to peer down at him. Graysen’s eyes widened.
“He—He is under her thrall. Guards—”
Lucien laughed humorlessly. “You have no idea,” he said. It took merely one thought to extinguish the flames beneath Elain. To blow the sentries now guarding his path backward. And it took only a second, vicious thought to see Graysen ignited in the very flames he’d meant to torment Elain and the other women with. The lord shrieked in pain, dropping to the ground in an attempt to extinguish the flames. There was no smoke–there wouldn’t be, either. No suffocating death, not black out into oblivion. Only misery and pain until his brain melted in his skull.
Climbing the steps, Lucien noticed that while the villagers he’d once known so well watched him warily, they too had rushed forward to free the other women. Lucien only cared about Elain, her face coated in smoke, eyes wide with fear.
“You–”
“Surprise,” he whispered, pulling a knife from his boot to free her of her bindings.
“You—” Elain gulped, looking up at him helplessly. “This whole time, you knew?”
He lowered his face to kiss her, well aware to the villagers around them, he was the witch. Let them think so. Let them imagine him the monster if only to save her.
Elain collapsed against him, her legs giving out. Lucien swept her up easily, turning to face the village.
“If anyone touches her,” he said, trying his best to look each of them in turn, “you will meet the same fate as Lord Nolan. And if you follow us, I will make sure you feel every moment of it right until death comes to claim you.”
No one dared to breathe as he descended those steps amid a chorus of pleading screams. The crowd parted and Lucien thought he’d make a clean exit.
“You lied to me,” Elain whispered into his chest, rubbing her burning eyes against his clean tunic.
Someone grabbed at his sleeve. “Are you taking our healer?” a woman asked, resting a hand on her round stomach. “Please, I…”
“Surely…surely you don’t want a witch among you?” Lucien replied. The woman trembled before him, unaware of his role. Unaware that he was more mortal than not. That the magic granted him was tailored for the witch he was meant to kill and would fade from his blood once he killed her.
“Before she came, we were dying more often than we didn’t. We—”
That woman took a gulping breath as she faced him.
“We don’t care that you’re a witch, Lucien. Just…just don’t take her.”
“I have to take her,” Lucien replied. “Just for a week. Just—” Just long enough to get her to a temple where he could offer a sacrifice to the mother goddess that might free them of the curse placed upon them. “Just a week.”
Elain was still curled against him, taut and breathing ragged. She’d fight him tomorrow and perhaps even kill him for his deception but for today she was still his wife and he’d sworn to protect her.
She nodded, stepping away with him.
“Don’t let my bar fall to ruin,” he ordered, though it was possible he’d never see it again. Elain could have it, he supposed. It was hers, given he’d managed to get her to marry him. Everything that belonged to him was hers, now.
Lucien returned home long enough to gather a few items and a horse. Elain was all but catatonic, unmoving and unseeing as she sat. She let him pick her up and move her around, setting her in the saddle with him just behind. He hesitated to bind her—her wrists were burned from Graysen’s casual cruelty.
“Are you going to try and kill me in the morning?” he asked once they were on the road. Elain pressed her head against his chest.
“Are you?” she asked, the first words since she’d accused him of lying to her.
Lucien ducked his head, pressing a kiss behind her ear. “No. I’m going to free us.”
She shuddered. She’d said she loved him—enough that she’d been willing to leave killing Graysen behind. Lucien believed her, even if it was foolish. He believed her enough to keep pushing forward, well aware he held the woman fated to kill him in his arms and when she came out of the shock of nearly dying, she might turn around and finish what the gods had started.
Night came and went, and when the sun peeked over the rolling hills, Elain seemed to rouse herself from sleep.
“Lucien,” she whispered, twisting in the saddle to look at him. He didn’t give her a chance to respond. If she was going to kill him, he wanted her to know he wouldn’t fight her. And if one of them had to die, it would be him. He kissed her roughly, tasting the ash on her mouth.
She clung to him like a lifeline, her mouth near frantic. He wanted to drag her to the grass and apologize for letting Graysen snatch her the way he had—for not knowing she’d been locked away all night while he’d slept peacefully, thinking and dreaming only of her.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped, unsure of what else he was supposed to say. “I thought you were safe—”
“Why didn’t you kill me?” Elain demanded, pulling back just enough to look at him. “If you’ve known this whole time?”
“I don’t know—at first,” he admitted, his voice rougher than he would have liked. “I wanted to. I thought about it all the time. Planned to catch you off guard, to…” Gods, he couldn’t bring himself to say it.
“And?” she prompted.
“Each day I waited was another day you didn’t know. And another day you greeted me with a smile and came into the bar to talk. And I told myself—at first—that I was merely learning about you. Figuring out your weaknesses so I didn’t make a mistake. And then I caught myself looking forward to seeing you. To watching you work, seeing how much you cared. I couldn’t…I was in love with you before I knew it and I couldn’t hurt you.”
“So you…manipulated me into falling in love with you?”
He winced. “I didn’t make you do anything. I wasn’t trying to trick you into loving me. I knew damn well you might never return my affection.”
“Is that why—the trap, the betrothal—”
Lucien snarled in frustration. “That was to keep him from looking at you and it would have worked if you hadn’t gone after him first. I knew if he took one look at you, he’d take you away. And if you rebuffed him, his ego wouldn’t allow him to suffer the insult. And I was right. If you’d stayed away—”
“I thought he was the witch hunter!” she snapped, though despair filled her eyes as she realized at every turn, Lucien had been one step ahead of her. He rubbed his thumb over her cheek because he knew why she’d gone after Graysen. “I didn’t…I thought I would know you when I saw you.”
“You did,” Lucien murmured, watching her carefully. “I was the first person you found, the very first person you came to.”
She’d told him so that morning in the cabin, curled in his arms with a sweet smile on her face. I think it was fate to find you.
“But I didn’t know…”
Lucien kissed her forehead. “I know you didn’t.”
“But you did,” she pressed, tears filling her eyes. “You should have killed me—”
“I would rather die,” he swore softly, letting her look at him. “And if one of us has to die, it will be me.”
“I couldn’t kill you,” she admitted, failure coating her words. Elain laughed without humor, though she didn’t pull away.
“So what now?”
“We go to the great temple,” he murmured as she turned, pressing herself against his body. “And see if the mother goddess will free us of this curse.”
“And if she won’t?”
“Then we spend the rest of our immortal lives wrapped around each other,” he said. “And pray one day she doesn’t demand one of us make a sacrifice.”
“Lucien,” she whispered, reaching for the arm tight around her body. She merely squeezed, her hand warm against his skin.
“I know,” he whispered into her hair. “I know.”
She said nothing else to him for the rest of the day. She didn’t eat, and stopped only to see to her body's needs before silently climbing back into the saddle. Lucien kept his arms around her, chin resting atop her head, until night had fallen again and he was all but stumbling in his steps.
“Come here,” he whispered once he’d unfurled a bedroll. She was curled against a tree, knees drawn to her chest. “Elain, come here.”
She looked up at him with those beautiful eyes and Lucien knew whatever was ravaging her on the inside hadn’t dimmed how she felt for him. He could see her gratitude, her love, all shining like stars even if she’d never said it. Elain unfurled her legs and came to him without protest. Lucien pulled her beneath the blanket, tucking her against his chest.
“Where were you?” she whispered once they were settled and her face was buried against his neck.
Lucien closed his eyes. His tavern had been overrun by Graysen’s men, keeping him behind the bar just as he’d been about to close up for the night. A fight had broken out—a ruse, he knew—and when he’d gone to break it up, he’d been knocked upside the head and locked in a closet.
By the time he managed to free himself, it was daylight and Elain was tied to the pyre. It seemed the lord didn’t trust him not to come rescue her. Smart.
“Tied up,” he finally said, arms tightening around her. “I came as soon as I was able.”
She didn’t move. “I should kill you,” she said, though she made no move toward him.
“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” he replied, his heart pounding in his chest.
“And if I wanted to?”
“I’d let you,” he whispered, wondering how much Elain knew about the bargain between them. “It’s not as if death separates us.”
“Of course it does,” she interrupted, finally looking up at him. “You die and I—”
“Have a brief respite before I return,” he replied, eyes searching her own. Lucien caressed her face, wondering how many lives they’d lived hunting the other. He suspected none, given Elain had told him how old she was—twenty three, same as him. This was their first time together but it wouldn’t be their last.
“What?”
“We’re are bound,” he said, letting his magic invade her senses. “Did you think killing me would free you of this dance?”
“Yes,” she admitted, her face pained. “I thought…I didn’t know…”
“I’ll come back for you. Over and over—until we’re nothing but dust, I will always be looking for you.”
Elain shuddered, burying her face back into his neck. “And if I died—”
“You won’t,” he growled, holding her so tight he wondered if she was breathing. “I’m not going to kill you, Elain. Surely…surely you must know that?”
He’d married her, after all. Had walked her out of that village curled against his chest. He’d killed a high ranking nobleman for fucks sake. Lucien knew he would have done far more to protect her, to ensure if they had to meet again, only she would remember him. That she would have enough of a head start that she was always one step ahead.
Just as he knew he would always fall in love with her.
“What if the goddess says no. What if—what if—”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Lucien whispered, kissing her forehead gently. “We’ve gone two years as friends, as—” he wanted to say lovers and was afraid if he did, she’d rebuke him. That she’d lie and say she’d never loved him. He swallowed. “If she says no, then we merely…”
Stay married, have children, and protect them the best we can for the duration of our immortal existence.
Elain kissed the hollow of his throat. “I can’t kill you either, Lucien. Surely you know that?”
He buried his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of jasmine and honey mingled with smoke and salt.
He had the vaguest sense they’d done this all before. Some watery dream pressed against the edge of his memory—him, holding her and swearing he wouldn’t kill her. It wasn’t real, though some part of him wished it was. And when she tilted her chin so she could kiss him fully on the mouth, Lucien didn’t care that they were out in the open, hidden only by swaying trees.
He only cared that they were together and she knew what he was. That she didn’t care. Elain’s mouth was warm—sweet, and filled with her desperation. She clung to him, hooking her leg around his to pull him closer. Lucien was tempted to give in, to let the spooling arousal override his good senses—especially when he knew what it was like to be inside her. He hadn’t had the time he’d thought he would. He’d expected Graysen to pack up and leave and for Elain to remain behind where he’d keep her as his mortal wife for a solid decade.
Maybe he’d tell her who he was before she realized he wasn’t aging, either. Or maybe one morning she’d realize who he was over breakfast. He’d grin and she’d scowl, but ultimately nothing would have changed.
“Elain,” he whispered against her frantic clawing at his clothes. “Elain, my love—”
She broke then, eyes filling with unshed tears. A sob ripped from her, cracking through the air like lightning.
“I thought—” she gulped down the rest of her words, bunching his tunic in her fists so she could bury her face into the fabric. “I thought you left me.”
Lucien shushed her, holding her close while all of Elain’s misery poured into the world. Why shouldn’t she doubt the mortal man? Why not imagine him as little more than a coward? He was certain she’d come across no shortage of them, even in her limited lifespan.
Lucien waited for her sobs to calm, for her breathing to steady before he whispered in her ear. “I’m in love with you,” he told her, though in truth it felt too muted—too dull, too mortal to encapsulate the depth of his feelings. “Nothing could change that.”
Elain looked up at him with those star bright eyes. “I—” she choked, as though it pained her to say it. Lucien started to turn his head, to pretend it didn’t hurt him but Elain reached for his chin and made him look at her.
“I love you, witch killer,” she whispered, pressing her salt soaked mouth against his own. “And regardless of what the goddess tells us, I will go with you to the ends of the earth.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her they should just go back. Forget the goddess, forget the curse that held them together. This was enough, for whatever time they were granted—it was enough.
But he couldn’t. Lucien couldn’t risk her ire if she ever looked down and realized they openly defied her. He couldn’t risk her twisting their hearts or forcing weapons in their hands. He’d go and beg on his knees if he had to, and if she told him no, Lucien would turn his own dagger inward and end his life so Elain didn’t have to.
Lucien didn’t remember falling asleep. One moment he’d been kissing Elain and the next he was waking to a rock wedged beneath his hip and a sheen of sweat coating his skin. Elain was exactly where he’d left her, nose scrunched in sleep.
He’d had her for less than a week. Four days—that's all he’d been given. Another night of travel and then they’d arrive and Lucien might very well lose her. Sunlight streamed over the canopy, freckling her face with the golden rays. Lucien brushed a loose curl off her cheek, waking her.
“You’re staring,” she whispered, not bothering to open her eyes.
“Because you’re beautiful,” he replied. Elain did look, then, fingers reaching for his cheek. She ran them over the scar on his face.
“How did you get this?”
Lucien swallowed. “I don’t remember…and I was too afraid to ask when I was little. My mom never spoke of it.”
“Am I to avenge this injustice, then?” Elain teased, rising up on her elbows.
“I’m certain it was my own doing,” he said in response. Lucien let Elain wander off to handle her business while he packed up. She returned with a cleaner face, though still in the filthy dress from the day before. Lucien cursed himself for not thinking to get her clothing and swore when they reached the city that housed the great goddesses temple, he would get her something clean to wear.
He offered her paltry rations once they were both back in the saddle. She seemed more like herself—less shocked, less angry. Pressing her head against his shoulder, Elain looked up at him. Lucien took advantage of the moment between them and offered her a polite kiss.
He intended to be far less polite once they were in an actual bed.
“Tell me about your life,” he said instead, wanting to hear her voice. “Tell me about life before you found me.”
She paused for a moment. “I probably shouldn’t be telling any of this to a witch killer.”
“I’ve never killed a witch,” he reminded her, kissing the top of her head. “Nor do I intend to.”
Elain’s eyes fluttered shut.
She began speaking then, telling him the story of three sisters growing up at the edge of a rather large town where her parents thought they’d be safe. Surrounded by so many people, absorbed by their own misery—who cared about the strange family among them? Elain’s father was a mortal man who’d fallen in love with her mother. There was a bitterness to her voice, an edge he thought he understood well enough. When her mother had been accidentally accused, the villagers sweeping up anyone who frightened them without knowing who was truly a witch and who was just strange, their father had made the choice to take his daughters far away.
Elain had all but whispered when she described how her sister had killed him in her rage. At just eleven years old, they’d been on their own, then. Lucien’s heart squeezed, imagining the three of them feigning a sick relative as they took on the burdens of a household, holding her just a little tighter.
Elain’s voice was soft when she told him how they’d drawn borders in blood, swearing never to cross. How they’d separated once the youngest had turned nineteen and could fend wholly for herself. The eldest had gone north, toward the Illyrian mountains, while the youngest had remained in the middle. And Elain had gone south toward the sea.
To him.
He told her about himself, too. He had five brothers—seven, technically, though two had died while he was still young. His brutal father who’d turned out not to be his father at all, and his mother with her kind, smiling eyes. In some ways, Elain reminded him of her, at least a little. Because she’d left out no details of her own, Lucien admitted to his first—and only—kill. He and his brothers had conspired to kill his father after a cruel and unprovoked beating had broken several of her ribs.
After that, Lucien had left. He knew what he was and that staying put his whole family at risk. Gifted with flame and light, he assumed he was bound to a powerful witch and had gone looking for her. He admitted he’d always intended to kill her and return home to his family.
He’d settled where he did because a thrumming in his blood demanded it. He’d taken over the tavern from a dying man, buying it cheaply with all his remaining money. It was there he’d met Jesminda, a farmer's daughter, and fallen wildly, passionately in love. And it was there she’d died of an illness that swept through not six months before Elain arrived. Lucien had still been grieving when she walked through his doors.
“And you knew? Right then?” she whispered, lacing her fingers through his own.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I said I’d help because I knew who you were—and I planned to kill you in your sleep.
“Why didn’t you?” she asked.
“Because you were crying—and I could feel your grief. And I thought…tomorrow. I’ll kill her tomorrow.”
“And why didn’t you?” she pressed, her thumb rubbing the back of his hand.
“I broke up a fight and someone broke my nose–”
“I remember,” she whispered, twisting in the saddle to look at him. “You knocked on my door and I bandaged you.”
“It seemed like poor form to kill you after that. I kept putting it off. There were so many people who were sick and even though you had nothing and you didn’t know them, you got up at dawn each morning to see them all. And I thought it was your fault Jesminda had died, but then…but then I realized she would have lived if you’d been here. And you’d just barely missed her, and I couldn’t…I couldn’t take you away from them. So I said I’d stay and make sure you were harmless.
“And then…?”
“And then you moved out of my tavern,” he admitted, wondering what it said about him that he couldn’t even accept his own easy destiny. “And I missed seeing you for breakfast every morning. I missed the easy way you smiled and how you were the only person who ever asked how my day was going. And I realized I was in love with you and well and truly fucked.”
She laughed, the sound all but exploding out of her. “You make it seem so romantic.”
“It took me a few months to come to terms with it. I avoided you as best I could, but I couldn’t shake you.”
He wanted to ask when she’d fallen in love with him and was far too cowardly.
“I don’t know if I ever had one defining moment where I knew I was in love with you,” she murmured into the dusky glow of the evening sun. The light bounced off the apples of her cheek, highlighting just how beautiful she was. Lucien wanted to turn the horse around and run far, far away. To take her away where no one, not even the gods would find them.
He kept the steady pace forward.
“You were the only person I trusted,” Elain continued, unaware of the fear churning through him. “And if I went too long without seeing you, I started to dream about your face. I thought…I thought it would never work and so…” Elain swallowed. “At the end, when I mistook you for Graysen, I thought I could figure out a way to stay with you. I was so distracted and…”
Horror filled Lucien’s chest. “It’s my fault–”
“No!” she twisted in the saddle, looking up at him with wide eyes. “No, if you hadn’t been there who knows…I can only imagine what would have happened. I just…I was so distracted by how much I wanted you that I didn’t realize everything I was feeling was the bond between us. I mistook all of it and placed it on Graysen.”
She pressed a swift kiss to his cheek before reclining back against him. “I think he would have tried to kill me regardless.”
“But you never would have thought he was your hunter if I hadn’t been there.”
She only shrugged. “I never thought it was you, either. I could feel you—but you seemed so far away.”
More guilt filled him, his silence condemning him. Elain turned, eyes wide. “You hid it, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did. I need some defense.”
“Oh, Lucien.”
Oh, Lucien, indeed. They reached the edge of the town just before the sun fully set. The streets were still packed, the streets bustling beneath the lanterns hung high above the streets. He found a nice inn just off the main market square and paid for a quiet room with a nice bathing chamber. It was stretching his coins, and to Lucien, felt like a necessary expense given he’d married her the day before and had celebrated by fucking her in a cramped, quiet closet. Elain was bleary eyed by the time he’d seen their horse to the stables and wound the three flights of stairs up to the room.
One bed—though he wouldn’t have let her sleep in a second one had it been provided—cleanly made and big enough to move around. Elain gave a small cry of relief when she saw the tub and Lucien left her to it.
If they were going to beg the goddess then he needed to look worthy. He couldn’t come in his ash stained clothes, reeking of horse. He handed over more coins for a set of dresses for Elain—one for the temple, one for the ride home, and something to sleep in—and a rather nice tunic and a pair of nice trousers. He picked up food while he was at it, lingering only long enough to collect a bouquet of flowers, shoved hastily in his arms in an attempt to carry everything at once.
She was waiting on the bed with damp hair, wrapped in the blanket from the bed. Lucien paused, admiring how lovely she was. His wife, if only for another night. She was looking at him too, eyes sliding to the parcels in his hands.
“For me?”
Lucien couldn’t suppress the shiver that raced up his spine. Everything was for her, though he didn’t say that. He didn’t want Elain to do anything foolish if the goddess denied them. No guilt, no fear. If one of them had to die for centuries on end, it would be him—always and only him.
“For you,” he agreed with an easy grin. It didn’t match his mood, suppressed deep in his chest as she rose and shimmied on the silken blue night dress.
He didn’t need any clothes at all and from the gleam in her eye, she seemed to know. Lucien took his time in the bath, carefully scrubbing every inch of grime off his body. As if he could wash away his fears, too. He wanted to believe this would work, because what else did he have? Only hope that the goddess would never peer down on her creations and realize she was being defied.
Lucien padded naked to the bedchamber where Elain awaited, picking through the food he’d forgotten about. She looked up, eyes sliding down his body like a caress.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She sighed with exasperation, gesturing at the spread before her. “For food?”It seemed a terrible waste of time to sit down and eat. Worse, still, given the way his cock was rising between his legs, interested in the beautiful woman nestled among the bed.
In a perfect world, Lucien would have had the promised eternity with her. Now he merely had hours and it wasn’t enough. He didn’t want to sleep and he didn’t want to eat.
Elain read it all plain enough on his face. “You think you’re going to die, don’t you?”
“No.” Yes.
“Lucien—”
“Don’t,” he breathed, carefully removing the boxes and dishes from her lap so he could crawl over her. “This might be the last night we ever have together. Don’t—don’t waste it on goodbyes.”
“Then how should I waste it, husband?”
He shuddered again. Lucien pressed his mouth against her own as he laid her out among the soft sheets. “Like this.”
She didn’t fight him like he thought she would. Didn’t demand they talk it through or formulate a plan that would keep them together. Good. Lucien didn’t think he could stand to see that kind of hope ripped from either of them. Let him go knowing she was safe, at least. That if they ever met again, she would see him coming a mile away, would recognize him on sight.
“Lucien,” she breathed against his mouth. “Lucien.”
She spoke his name like a prayer, like the answer to a question she’d been asking her whole life. Lucien couldn’t help himself, pressed against her. In his mind, this was all he had left. One last night, which was better than no nights at all. Better than having never known her—of being her enemy.
Lucien would have done it all exactly the same. He’d have done far worse, too, for just this one small taste of her. Still, lips pressed to lips, he sent a small prayer to whoever might be listening to grant him more. Even if it was just one mortal lifetime, that was enough.
Elain’s fingers raking through his hair dragged him back to the present. Achingly hard and far too clothed for his liking, all he could do was rub himself against her to help alleviate some of the building pressure.
He wanted to take his time with her but eyes closed, all he could see was her terrified face as he approached. Her dawning realization of who he was. Her distrust. Her hands, behind her back while smoke curled around her dress.
Losing her. Lucien felt like he was doomed to lose her.
He just needed her.
Lucien’s fingers had the fresh nightdress off her easily, so they were back to being skin to skin. His mind raced with images of those first few days. Of her writhing in his laps while he’d stroked between her legs, of her beneath him clawing at his back while he’d pumped himself in her.
He’d been foolish then, thinking they could outsmart the lord. If he’d been smart, he would have taken her away right then and there. Maybe stolen more time before they ended up out here, all but saying goodbye to each other.
“I love you,” he breathed against her neck. Elain arched into him. “I love you.”
He didn’t let her respond, though he heard her try. Salt soaked lips crushed against his own, Elain managed to mumble something akin to I love you, Lucien. Something far too final for Lucien’s liking. There was no amount of closeness that satisfied Lucien. Skin to skin, hands roaming the smooth, soft curves of her body and still he felt like he was writhing beneath his very flesh.
She understood. Elain dug her fingers into his chest and pushed until Lucien was panting, flat on his back. Elain swung her leg over his hips for a moment, sliding down, down, down, until she hovered over his thighs. Staring at his aching, weeping cock pressed to his stomach.
Touch me, touch me, touch me—
As if she read his mind, Elain wrapped her hand around his shaft as she lowered herself, nestling between his legs.
“I want to taste you,” she murmured, drawing a frantic groan from his lips. He didn’t realize what she was doing for several long breaths. Elain was slowing him down with careful, measured strokes. Forcing him to come back to her, to stay in the present. The pleasure of her though, of seeing her between his spread legs, looking up at him with eyes so dark they seemed to be made of nothing but smoldering flame, silenced all his fears.
She leaned closer, her long hair forming a curtain between her pretty mouth and the otherside world. Desperate to watch, Lucien gathered the soft curls in his hands just as she licked a long stripe up the underside of his shaft.
“Elain, please—” she took him into her mouth, holding his gaze with open, almost teasing defiance. Lucien bucked off the bed, gagging her without meaning too. Saliva slid down her chin as she adjusted, her gaze reproachful.
“Sorry, sorry,” he panted, sweeping his thumb over her cheek. “Come here, let me, let me—” his words choked into a groan. Elain slid her mouth further down, drowning him in the exquisite softness of being sucked by his wife. He didn’t want to come like this and couldn’t bring himself to stop her, either.
All he could do was beg. “Elain,” he moaned, his back arching off the bed. “Elain, ride me, please—”
“You beg so sweetly, husband,” she teased, pulling off him. Her lips were bright red and swollen, her eyes bright. Lucien reached for her, his fingers pulling at her hips until she was rubbing her wet cunt against his cock. He was going to die. Just like this, lying beneath her, subjected to her particular brand of torture and cruelty.
He smiled. “Put me out of my misery,” he murmured, though in truth he liked the way she rolled against him and the friction she’d created.
“Our misery is shared,” she murmured, gripping him at the base so they were aligned. There was no chance to consider if her words were double edged—if she too was worrying about tomorrow. Elain slid down him with ease, releasing her grip on his cock to dig her nails in his chest. Lucien moaned. Every inch of him was ablaze, awakened with the pleasure of being within her. Elain gripped him like a silken fist, so tight he could barely think of anything but her.
Not so mindless that he’d forgotten about her pleasure, but close. Lucien kept one hand on her hip, guiding her into an easy, steady rhythm while his other began rubbing steady, precise circles over her clit. He would feel her fall to pieces around him over and over that night. There would be no reprieve for either of them.
Elain whimpered. “Lucien, I—”
“I know,” he interrupted. No goodbyes. Not here. Not like this. “Come for me, pretty wife.”
She exhaled a shaky breath, bouncing over him. Lucien raised his legs, planting his feet on the mattress so he could do the majority of the work. It would have been a lie to say he hadn’t done it partly because he liked watching how her breasts bounced with each new thrust of his cock.
He was unfurling. Release gathered hotly against the base of his spine made worse by how she was squeezed around him. Lucien held himself back, but it was hell. Even with his head turned, eyes closed he couldn’t think away how good she felt and how badly he needed to come.
“Elain,” he gasped, still rubbing her clit. She was writhing over him, grinding into his cock to take her own pleasure. Using him. “Elain, come for me, sweetheart—”
She cried out, digging her nails so sharply into his chest he thought she might have drawn blood. Her cunt quivered, tightening unforgivably and Lucien was gone. So thoroughly wrecked that all he could do was obey the instinct to finish, to drive himself into her so deeply none of his come would escape.
Elain collapsed against him, hips still jerking even as their lips collided. Lucien held her, kissing like his life depended on it. Maybe it did. Maybe this would be the moment that convinced the goddess he loved this woman more than anything, including his own life.
He could feel her heart pulsating against him, pounding frantically against his cock. “Say it,” he whispered, nuzzling his face against her jaw.
Elain didn’t protest when he turned them, cock still twitching in her body. “I love you,” she said, reaching up to graze his cheek.
Lucien smiled.
He woke to sunlight and Elain quietly braiding his hair. For a moment, Lucien didn’t move. He wanted to pretend this was a normal morning between them. Another day in a lifetime of days where she might braid his hair. Lucien exhaled a heavy breath, turning his head when he felt her tie the end.
“Let’s go home,” she whispered, brown eyes shining with fear. “Let’s forget all this and just—”
A bell tolling in the distance silenced Elain. Lucien twisted, rising up on his elbows to listen, the sound clanging viciously against his heart. It was a warning, an omen not to agree. Elain’s face had become so pale, her hands trembling in the space between them.
“I think we have to, now,” Lucien murmured, though he would have preferred to go back, too. His rushing blood was answer enough, reacting to the witch before him. He’d felt that way, once, though never as strongly as it did in that span of a breath.
Kill her, kill her, kill her.
It passed quickly, but not quick enough to see Elain’s eyes darken. She shifted on the bed, angling away from him as her fingers fisted in the blankets. She’d felt it, too. They couldn’t risk going back. What if he woke one night, overwhelmed by the need to hurt her? What if it didn’t pass? He could have children—children he felt compelled to kill, children he’d then have to bury knowing he’d slaughtered them.
She was thinking the same. He saw the anguished shadow on her face, the realization the curse was cruel and would take far more than they were ever willing to pay.
“Okay,” she whispered. Elain didn’t stop him when he reached for her nor did she fight him when he pulled her beneath his body for one last frantic, desperate coupling. They still had time, limited as it was. He could have dragged it out forever—he wanted to. Sweat sliding down his back, her nails cutting through his skin and Lucien swore to the same goddess he was going to meet later than he would do anything—anything at all—if she spared them.
It was all over too soon.
Elain dressed solemnly in an ivory dress that felt like a wedding gown. Iridescent beads caught the streaming sunshine, bathing Elain in a rainbow of color. She was stunning, his ring on her finger, eyes brimming with the same thrumming hope he felt. He reached for her, pulling her against his chest.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he whispered. Arms wrapped around his middle, squeezing tight.
“I’m thinking about going home together,” she admitted, tilting her chin for a soft kiss. Lucien smiled.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he began, sweeping his thumb over her tanned cheek, “but we’re going to need more space.”
“Is that so?”
He grinned. “Yes. If I have an eternity with you…” he trailed off, letting the implications hang in the air. It was good to see her smile, even if some of the fear remained just behind her eyes. Lucien packed their things with more optimism than he felt, laced his fingers with her own, and led her to the street. It was packed, pushing them closer together in an attempt not to stain their pristine clothes and to remain together.
The temple loomed at the end of the city like a great, onyx mountain. Towering spires that led to nowhere grazed the sky like spindly fingers while the yawning entrance seemed to swallow the buttery light of day. Elain’s steps slowed as they approached and he wondered if she’d refuse outright.
“Whatever happens,” he started to say before the words died in his throat. She looked up at him and Lucien couldn’t tell her goodbye. He couldn’t tell her anything but, “I’m glad we’re together.”
She squeezed her fingers tight around him, looked over her shoulder only once—like she expected to see someone in that crowd. Lucien pulled her forward, stepping from the warmth of the city into the stretching darkness and creeping cold of the temple. It was nothing like the one from the village—and empty.
So, so empty.
Inside the cavernous belly, he could hear screaming. Elain had begun to tremble beside him, her steps dragging on the glossy marble floor.
“Please—please! I’ll do anything, don’t—-don’t!”
They made their way toward that woman with a voice so familiar it raked icy fear down his spine. Wide, arching doors had been thrown open from the open atrium, beckoning them. The dancing flame from blood red candles cast long shadows over the floor, though they provided no relief from the cold.
“Why?” that voice sobbed. Lucien could see the woman, then—not just because she was in front of him, but because the memory was washing over him. Elain, in a blood soaked dress, lay at the far end of that room holding his dying, broken body. With her face buried in his neck, she couldn’t see the goddess looming over, her beautiful, ethereal face cold and unfeeling.
“This is your punishment,” the goddess replied, sweeping a piece of golden hair from her delicate, pale face.
Both Elain and Lucien paused in the door to watch the scene unfold, clutching the other so tightly his fingers ached. Phantom Elain looked toward the door, as though she could see them standing there—as if she’d been here a million times before. Lucien swallowed his horror as she picked up a familiar dagger. On the floor, Lucien's face was bloodied, and with a lurch he realized one of his eyes had been gouged out. He reached to his own, running his fingers over the scars cut down his cheek.
It was the very knife hidden in his boot.
Elain plunged it into her breast. He heard the wet crunch of bone, her choking gasp as the blade sliced through skin and tissue to pierce her heart. The goddess did not react to that act of defiance.
She merely sighed.
“It changes nothing,” she said, turning her eyes to the two of them at the door. The scene before them faded, dissolving into a glittering abyss. “You have been here before and you will come here again.”
Elain was shaking so hard he could hear her teeth rattling in her skull. “How do we change it?” she asked as Lucien yielded a step.
“You come more often than your sisters,” the goddess informed them, her voice echoing through the vaulted ceilings. She stood atop a carved black dais, surrounded by more dripping, red candles. There was nothing else—no pews, no seats, nothing but open, empty space. “You have never once managed to kill him. Even they occasionally fulfill their end of the curse.”
Lucien dared to meet her teal stare. “What curse?”
An empty smile graced her beautiful face. “Tell me, Elain, if you remember. Once upon a time—”
Elain’s breathless gasp told Lucien she did remember. He didn’t, though. And he needed to know. Elain squeezed his hand tight, the only warmth to be found.
“Three sisters were blessed by the great goddess. Magic and beauty—they wanted for nothing. They were immortal, deities in their own right.”
“And they fell in love with mortal men,” Elain whispered, her eyes closing.
“Mortal men they swore to kill. An oath broken despite everything I’d done for you,” the goddess reminded her.
“And so you’ve cursed us to forget them—and them us,” Elain managed, a tear rolling down her face.
“It can be broken,” the goddess told her. “If you and your sisters all manage to love the men duty bound to kill you and come to me, on your knees, and beg forgiveness. You’re here, as you always are…and yet I don’t see Nesta or Feyre.”
“Please,” Elain whispered as Lucien groaned. His hand slid from hers, knees buckling. Wave after wave after wave of memories slid through his mind. Centuries of finding her—or her, finding him—of falling in love and coming here to undo the curse upon them.
And centuries of dying. They’d done it all before, on an endless loop they could not escape. Lucien parsed through them, looking for one instance he’d ever killed her.
“Please!” Elain cried, falling to the floor with him.
“Kill him, Elain,” the goddess ordered. “Your continued defiance displeases me. Even your sisters manage this one, simple task.”
“I won’t,” Elain sobbed, one hand pressed to his chest. Lucien was flat on the floor, unsure how he’d even got there. There was a blooming ache in his gut—and the heavy realization he was going to die. Lucien’s stomach was leaden as he looked at her.
“Do it,” he whispered, cupping her cheek in his hand. “It changes nothing. I’ll find you again—and again. In every life, in any world. I would know you on sight, Elain.”
Words he’d spoken to her that first time. A mere mortal in love with an immortal woman, doomed to die if not by her blade than from the ticking hand of time. She’d swore she was going to give it all up, that she’d bind her life to his and they’d have one lifetime together rather than an eternity apart.
“Lucien,” she whispered, clutching at his tunic. On her knees—not before the goddess she swore to worship, to obey, but before him—Elain said, “I won’t kill him. I will never hurt him.”
“Yes,” the goddess murmured, looking down her nose at the two of them. Her eyes flicked the door, her beautiful face curving into a frown. “I have heard this all before.”
She raised a long nailed finger and slashed. Lucien groaned from the pain, his back arching off the floor. Distantly, he heard Elain screaming, as he felt her magic worming through him, trying desperately to heal him—to keep him alive as she did with the villagers. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get the words out to remind her of how her magic reacted with his blood. Lucien knew
Elain remembered, just as he knew she still had to try.
“Please,” she begged, gripping him by the shoulders to try and sit him up. “Please, end this!”
“You know how to stop it!” the goddess snapped at Elain. “Forget this foolish mortal man and come back to me as you should have long ago! He is nothing—he is food for worms, he is the filth beneath your shoes. You could be great. You and your sisters could rule this mortal existence and yet you choose to lower yourself—you choose to be little more than a common whore to a mortal man!”
“And I would again!” Elain screamed through her tears. Eyes on him, Elain said, “I will choose him every time, in every life. Every world. Even if it always ends like this—I will always choose him.”
“Foolish,” the goddess snapped. “Let him go and accept your destiny.”
“You are my destiny,” Elain whispered, lowering her face until her hair became a curtain around them. “And I will always love you.”
“I will find you again,” Lucien managed, trying and failing to raise a leaden arm.
He felt her fingers in his boot, and knew, even as he choked on his own blood, that Elain was coming with him. Elain pressed an urgent kiss to his mouth, fingers grazing his jaw. Everything was hazy—like he was underwater, slipping further and further away from her.
“I’ll see you soon,” she whispered, a tear dripping to his cheek. “Next time—next time we’ll kill her.”
“Elain—”
“ELAIN NO!”
Whoever screamed those words, whoever tried to stop her failed by mere seconds. Lucien saw the goddess smile, and knew she must have known someone was coming.
“YOU CHEATED!” another woman roared, her voice as icy as death itself. Lucien’s blade was buried in Elain’s chest. He reached for his wife, holding her against him one final time. Through her careful curls, he could see two women striding forward, trailed by two equally furious men.
“Looks like you’re too late,” the goddess said with a smile. “Just as you always are.”
“You swore we had until sunset. You break your own promises and yet call us oathbreakers!” the first spat. Darkness seemed to ripple off her, obscuring the bow slung over her delicate shoulders.
“You are not the only goddess,” the other sister said—because they were sisters, he realized. Elain, heaving a terrible breath, said, “Nesta. Feyre.”
“You wouldn’t,” the goddess snarled at them both. Lucien could feel Elain slipping, her frantic heart slowing with each new beat. He willed himself to go with her, to leave the exact moment she did. He couldn’t stand the thought of being separated, even by a few minutes.
“We’ve made a deal with death herself,” one of the sisters was saying. Lucien tuned it out—tuned it all out to look at Elain.
“My wife,” he whispered, trying and failing to touch her face. “My beautiful wife. I love you, Elain.”
Her eyes were glazed, dull and nearly devoid of life. “We will be together again,” she managed. “Lucien, I—”
He never heard what she said. What came next, though as darkness washed over him, sweeping him away, Lucien knew.
I am yours. And you are mine.
Twenty three years later:
Elain had been moving around for the last two years, looking for a place to settle. Thrumming in her bones, deep and unrelenting, was the call of the hunter—witch killer. He was out there, waiting for her. Looking just as surely as she was. Hoping to catch her unawares, to end the delicate dance between them. Elain had been aware of him from the moment she had consciousness. A stranger and yet more than that. Someone she was bound to.
Someone she could never escape.
With each passing step, Elain’s blood settled, as though the very world itself was assuring her this was where she needed to be. This little village, nestled just beside the sea, was the sight of the last ravages of a terrible illness. She’d heard from a passing traveler they needed a healer.
Elain was exhausted. She needed a place to sleep and a hot meal more than anything else. Passing through arching gates, she let herself breath in the smell of animals and cooking meat. Villagers passed, their eyes curious as they looked at the stranger among them. She’d need a home somewhere just outside and thought the swaths of farmland she’d noted, buttressed by the towering woodland, was the perfect place to maintain distance and the sort of garden she’d need without drawing too much attention.
Though, an unmarried woman was always cause for suspicion.
She could make her excuses well enough, just as she always had. Elain meandered neatly laid cobblestone streets, turning when she saw a brass sign swaying in a warm breeze. The orange glow of dusk illuminated the sign—The Ensnaring Snake.
Perfect. She glanced up at the three story building, built of sturdy brick and wood, before pushing open the front door. Inside, warm ale and sweat invaded her senses. Despite the encroaching night, the tavern was mostly empty save for a few stragglers hidden at little round tables and shadowed booths. No one was at the bar, which was Elain’s target.
Just as she approached the scratched wood top, a man stepped from the back. She was struck for a moment by his beauty. Tall, with gleaming, golden brown skin and auburn hair half braided off his beautiful face. A trio of scars streaked over one of his russet colored eyes though they did little to mar how truly lovely he was. Elain’s heart thudded in her chest.
He blinked, slinging a dish cloth over one of his broad shoulders.
“Hi,” she said breathlessly.
He cocked his head for a moment. “Can I help you with something?”
Elain swallowed.
He didn’t remember—of course he didn’t remember. Nesta Archeron had made a deal with the goddess of death after their latest betrayal. Elain could still hear the words ringing in her ears.
Elain will retain her memories this time.
For as long as she’d been alive, she had the memories of every man she’d ever loved—every marriage proposal Lucien had ever made, every kiss, every night.
And every death she’d ever witnessed.
“A room,” Elain told him, though what she really wanted to say was I missed you. I love you. I’ve come back for you, just as I promised I would.
“For how long?” he questioned, likely calculating how easy it would be to kill her. Elain didn’t betray that she knew him at all.
“I heard the village needs a healer,” she said instead, smiling at him with all the hope she felt.
This time we’ll get it right. This time we’ll best her and be together. “Perhaps you could point me to someone that might help me build a cottage.”
He blinked, a flicker of hesitation crossing his features. “I could do that.”
“Until then, a room? I can pay,” she said, digging in her pockets for all a gold coin. Elain laid it on the counter, sighing when his fingertips brushed over her own.
Lucien Vanserra looked back at her. “I could do that.”
Elain’s smile was undimmed.
You are mine. And I am yours.
“Perfect.”
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A Sweater
Alright. Last week's Critical Role has burrowed its way into my brain today and wouldn't let me rest until I wrote this. SO.
Have this little thing, based on Imogen's visit to the Dawnfather's Temple... and a conversation about things to offer him.
“Things that represent importance, of bright color. Crafts made with passion. Things that represent maintenance in creation. A snip from a garden you keep. A sweater that has grown too small for your children. There are many things.”
Laudna/Imogen
(I guess you could call this a preemptive fix-it because who doesn't want these witches to eventually be okay??)
(This is continued beneath the cut)
Winter’s Crest at Whitestone never quite failed to drive home the adage old habits die hard for Imogen. Several years nearing to a decade of a quiet life had left her unused to crowds; and despite the hard fought victory that gave her much greater control over all her powers, the mind reading included, the swell of the crowd as they neared the square had her scrambling within her own mind to put up blocks she no longer needed. Reality caught up to her as Laudna turned to glance over her shoulder at her with a wide smile from a few feet ahead. Imogen’s lungs seemed to remember the job they were meant to do automatically at the eye contact and she smiled at her wife through a sharp intake of cold air to her suddenly burning chest.
Dark eyes she loved so much narrowed a bit in question and Imogen reached out, “I’m alright, Laud. Just. A lotta people.”
Laudna reached back with her free left hand to grab Imogen’s and pull her closer until she was practically tucked into her side. Imogen smiled into the soft, familiar fabric at her shoulder when a reply came in her own head, “You know I don’t mind heading back to the castle at any time, Imogen. Just say the word and we’re back in our room, Darling. With a lot less people.”
An excited shout from just in front and a couple of feet or so below them drew their gazes down in unison to the small girl clutching tight to Laudna’s other hand. “Can we play the games, Mama?” Purple pigtails framed her tiny, freckled face and Imogen’s heart squeezed a bit in her chest as big brown eyes turned from herself to Laudna in turn. Four-year-old sweetness all but weaponized up at them. If Imogen hadn’t known any better she might have thought their daughter had caught the conversation happening in their heads. But Cadence was spared the burden of learning to tune out other people’s thoughts. A small miracle. Wrapped up in the real miracle that she was. That this life was.
Paté floated into view with some level of difficulty due to the crowd of people that continued to pass by them where they stopped near the side wall of some business or another as if they were little more than a small collection of boulders in a flowing stream. Snowflakes drifted by on the slight breeze that Imogen had only just noticed had begun to fall and the general chill in the air had her tucking that much closer into Laudna’s side, her cheeks undoubtedly flushed in the winter air. “Yeah Mum,” the familiar echoed, “I can help with the ring toss.”
Their voices tumbled out over each other in reply.
“Of course we can play, love.”
“Don’t teach her to cheat at the carnival games, Paté.”
The dark blue woolen pea coat straight from the de Rolos’ tailor highlighted the pinkness of the little girl’s cheeks. Her hair was also a stark contrast to the dark fabric, buttoned up to the very top as it was; Laudna’s potentially overprotective instinct that won out on their way out the door after they’d paid for the garment. Excited brown eyes and a second pair of mischievous glowing blue ones watched them, a bit of confusion peeking through at the garbled messages. “We can play?,” Cadence asked, beginning to hop a bit on the tips of her toes.
Laudna’s gaze turned to her, concern-filled and an identical brown to the other set she could still see gazing up at her in her periphery . “Are you sure you’re alright, Imogen? We don’t have to stay if this is too much.”
Imogen laughed, and gestured to the two little beings to their side. The familiar perched on the little girl’s shoulder, eliciting an excited giggle as he did. “Honey what kinda monster would I be to make that face leave all this fun?”
Laudna bit her lip in amusement and glanced to her right. Their daughter began to tug on Laudna’s hand a bit. “Please, Mummy?”
Imogen squeezed her arm fondly when their eyes met again. “You go. I’ll just take a walk for a bit where it’s less crowded and meet you by the food stalls in an hour? That okay?”
---------------
Somehow, despite the fact that their visits back to Laudna’s home town only really happened on special occasions like the Winter’s Crest Festival, Imogen’s feet carried her on a path as if she walked it every day. The visceral memory of it all must have embedded itself in her brain and soul, she supposed. Without really an end destination in mind, Imogen ended up in front of the Dawnfather’s Temple. Just like she had that other winter day all those years before, when she’d gone hoping for something or someone more powerful than they were. Something to outweigh the sum of the parts that was Delilah Briarwood and her hold over Laudna.
Unsurprisingly for a festival day such as this one, the building was empty when Imogen finally willed herself to rise off the perch she’d made on one of the headstones nearest the building to go inside out of the cold. The series of events involved in saving the world from Ludinus and Predathos and finally ridding Laudna of Delilah hadn’t exactly made Imogen a pious woman. She didn’t spend her days in prayer or set up a shrine to any gods in the little cottage they’d built in the Heartmoor Hamlet, but she was a sensible one. And as such she made sure to check in from time to time, in an effort to show gratitude to Pelor. Because she knew she owed him that.
The door creaked a bit as it swung open. Whether that was from a rusty hinge or simply a side effect of the cold, she couldn’t say. The huff of a breath Imogen let out in response resulted in a small cloud of fog in front of her face and she tucked her hands a bit deeper into the pockets of her coat. She glanced around the space as she walked and went on a circuitous path that ended up rather predictably at the altar at the back of the building.
The words of Mother Brazilda echoed in her mind from the past and she tried in vain to hold back a shiver at the memory relived.
“It is rare, but the gods work in all sorts of strange ways. In the little miracles, in the gifts that come unexpected. In the warmth that keeps you in the coldest of night. In the luck that feeds your family when you’ve lost the ability to keep them. In the communities that rally around you. All these are the small miracles. And if you stay around, sometimes the real miracles present themselves as well.”
Tears she hadn’t realized had begun to form blurred her vision as she stood there. Outside the building a crowd of what she thought must be teenagers shouted at each other over footsteps that crunched in the packed snow; Imogen shook herself out of her reverie. She took a shaky breath in and pulled her hand out of her pocket. When she did, she dislodged the piece of clothing she’d tucked between her coat the strap of her bag. Cadence’s coat from last year that they’d brought along only to discover she had outgrown it.
She wiped at the tears that collected on her cheek as she bent down to retrieve it and more of the small speech she’d been given years ago floated into her consciousness.
“Things that represent importance, of bright color. Crafts made with passion. Things that represent maintenance in creation. A snip from a garden you keep. A sweater that has grown too small for your children. There are many things.”
She trailed her thumb over the fabric and smiled. Faded patchwork from a quilt Zhudanna had insisted they take with them on some visit to Jrusar after they married. Laudna had been so excited to make the little coat out of a section of the fabric, and Cadence loved it too. Even wearing it on days when it was objectively too warm to do so.
Fresh tears began to pool in her eyes as she realized she now had something to offer other than a joke t-shirt she just happened to have on her. Something that was colorful and important. A piece of clothing made by her very passionate wife. For the child they’d also made with passion of a different kind. And that child had outgrown it. Would continue to grow even. Because a whole lot of people had worked together to stop a god eating god.
She cleared her eyes with the soft fabric that smelled like her daughter and set it on the altar. It looks much better there than that stupid fucking t-shirt, she thought with a laugh that caught slightly in her chest.
After a steadying breath, she looked up toward the roof, sniffed to clear her nose of the lingering sting of the incense that was just constantly being burned in the space. Unsure how to begin, she cleared her throat.
“I’m still not sure if I’m doin’ this right,” she began, ran her hand over the coat. “But, uh, I have this now. It’s my daughter’s. My wife made it. And, you know, I wouldn’t have any of it without-,” Imogen trailed off, then. The burn of emotion settled in her torso. The tears thick in her throat. “Well- without help.”
“So, uh, thank you. Again.” She stood at the altar a few more moments, the only sound in the room her unsteady breathing and the faint sound of the fireplace in the adjoining room. Equally unsure of how to close these kinds of monologues into the empty air, she laughed awkwardly to herself. “Alright, bye.”
The return to the cold air made the tears that had trailed down her cheeks unawares sting slightly on her cheeks and she dried them with her sleeve. Imogen’s heart surged with the thought of her girls somewhere ahead of her having fun and she set back off for the crowded square to meet back up with them.
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HII I LITERALLY LOVE your page so much,, I find the rarepair Xara x Ellegaard so original but well working . so sorry if this has been asked before, but what makes you think this rarepair work so well?? I’d love to hear
oh my goddd this means so much to me, thank you!! <3 I’ve actually never been asked this question before, and i’m more than happy to answer anything xaragaard related!
I don’t even remember the pinpoint reason i started liking the ship, but a big inspiration (and probably the pinpoint inspiration actually but i’m too chicken to admit it) was probably this one animated video i found on youtube a few years ago by bluegirlstarlette that was like “omg what if xara and ellegaard met”
i don’t even think i watched this video at first, i just looked at the thumbnail and something clicked in my 14 year old lesbian brain and i thought “wow they would be a cool couple actually”. Which is funny because not only in this video, but with every single mention of Xara and Ellegaard, everyone seems to have the same opinion of “oh they’re related somehow because they sound and look the same/they both work with redstone” which i always have the strong urge to shut down immediately but hhhfjdhdjdj that’s a whole other can of worms i don’t feel like opening. To me, they’re wives and that’s that.
I’m not exactly sure what drew me to the idea of Xara and Ellegaard as a couple in the first place. I would say it was because they’re such different people and i’m a sucker for polar opposite couples that compliment each other, but they’re only different on a surface level if you don’t think too hard about it. Ellegaard is a stable, hardworking, and sometimes arrogant genius who is able to run an entire town while also working on insane projects. meanwhile Xara is fresh out of prison, and is very bitter and aggressive. not a very stable woman, but she’s very smart when she wants to be. her stubbornness just gets the better of her sometimes. put these two together? absolute perfection! Ellie is able to ground Xara and teach her that she is more than her emotions, and Xara teaches Ellie that she can relax every now and then and that there’s more to life than just working yourself to death.
Like i said, they seem like (and pretty much are) polar opposites, but they have a lot more in common if you look just a bit deeper. below the iceberg, you’ll find that besides practicing redstone, they’re both just two introverted older women who get too caught up in their own heads sometimes. They prefer to do things themselves instead of letting other people get in the way and making things more complicated. They’ve both encountered the dreadful experience of having friends drift apart first hand. They’ve both seen a close friend die in front of them. It’s all there.
The idea of Xara and Ellegaard finding each other and being given a second chance at life in their middle ages, slowly learning how to love themselves again by loving each other, being able to heal one day at a time from all they’ve been through as long as they live those days out together, that’s what i think makes xaragaard work so well. they can find comfort in familiarity, and become better people because of it. if not for everyone else, then for each other.
thank you so so much for letting me dump all of this on you op, i really appreciate your interest!! i just get so excited when i find people that have the same love for xaragaard that i do since they’re such a rare topic. Much love! :D 💕💕
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Queen Of Mean ||BellFemReader X Russell Adler
"Where am I?" You woke up in a hospital room, you remember the last mission in the Solovetsky islands, where Adler took you to the cliff to talk alone, walking away from the team.
I'm so tired of pretending, where's my happy ending?
At the moment you felt betrayed when Adler shot you to tell you that “i hope you understand. . . it was never personal” So he leaves you there to die when you helped him end Perseus’s plan, you wonder why did he do it? Why kill you? he thought that trusting you, he would let you live and have a normal life but his orders were to kill you.
I followed all the rules, i drew inside the lines. . . I never asked for anything that wasn’t mine.
Now you wonder, how did you get to the hospital and not be dead as you expected? Well Lazar and Park found you almost losing a lot of blood, they both took you to the hospital no matter if Adler and the rest of the team found out you’re alive.
“You’re in the hospital Bell, we found you almost dying on the cliff, we never thought Adler would be able to kill you” You feel anger, pain, betrayal and distrust, now you can have your revenge against him but that will be from now on.
I waited patiently for my time, but when it finally came, he called my name, and now i feel this overwhelming pain
Passing the months, you work in MI6 with Park and Lazar decrypting information, following the search for Perseus, you were in the office trying to decipher some information in looking for his henchmen, before that you looked at the photo of Adler, where inside you felt a lot of anger and hatred, until you heard the sound of the door opening no matter who it was.
I mean it’s in my veins, I mean it’s in my brain, my thoughts are running in a circle like a toy train.
“Is something wrong Bell?” Park asks you without looking away, walks towards you to see what you were looking at Adler’s Photo. “Bell, you must forget what happened”
“How do you want me to forget it? I never stop hearing in my mind, his voice saying: “Bell, we have a job to do” Why did he have to do it? why murder me? The only thing i did was help to stop Perseus’s plans and thus pay my trust, killing me” You put the photo on the desk, covering your face with your hands, “I hate him Park, I hate him with all my rage”
Park hugs you to comfort you, trying to calm you down and let go of all that hatred you have against Adler. Between the mission that you did together, little by little you began to fall in love with him but everything fell apart, having a broken heart.
I’m kinda like a perfect picture with a broken frame, i know exactly who to blame
A few days later, you deciphered the information in searching for explosives equipment and intecepting Perseus agents, but in that mission there are three hostiles, who must rescue to complete the mission.
When you and Park entered the building to intercept the bombs, killing the rest of the agents, both of you released the three hostels but when the took off the hood, you never thought of meeting. . . HIm.
Your first reaction was to laugh, for the past weeks, you had been obsessed with thinking about what you would you if you ever saw that man again in your life. Your anger, betrayal and sadness would bubble up, leading to thouhgts of the various ways that you could send his man to hell, where he belonged, He destroyed your life, your trust and your loyalty. Now that he was here, in the situation where you are the one who’s saving him, all you could do was laugh. Which you proceeded to do, the person in the chair looked up to you, his mouth falling open slightly like me couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"Bell?!" he exclaimed, while you looked down at Adler, deep down you heard Woods' voice saying "what the fuck?!" he looked at you, bewildered "You were dead"
"She was" Adler said through clenched teeth, you looked back at Park who looked almost as worried as you were beginning to feel, it felt like everything around you was going numb, you didn't want to do this.
I never thought of myself as mean, I always thought that i’d be the queen, and there’s no in between, cause if i can’t have that.
"Are you sure about that?" Mason asked, rubbing his wrists after Park cut his restraints. He looked over at you, then at Park, "Is she still-?" Park shook her head and opened her mouth to speak when Lazar burst into the room.
"We got company," he exclaimed. "Let's-" he cut himself off, looking at who you had just rescued. He then looked at you. "And you thought tonight wouldn't be exciting" Multiple people in the room glared at him. "Really though, we might want to consider leaving, Now." He tossed the rifle in his hands toward Mason, who caught it.
"Park-" Adler started, still tied down in the chair, but she interrupted him. "We'll explain later, we have to go" Park looked at you "Bell, cut him loose"
Then I would be the leader of the dark and the bad, Now there’s a devil on my shoulder where the angels used to be, and he’s calling me the Queen.
"Why me? tell Mason or Woods to do it, I'd rather get away from that bastard who made my life hell" you looked at Adler with hate "Even you have to admit, the irony of this situation is quite hilarious" You walk over to Lazar who has a worried look and you tell him that you're okay.
The sounds of gunfire from upstairs snapped you back to attention. You quickly swung your M-16 back around and wait for the others to join, it was another few seconds before Adler was the last one to follow, you jogged up the stairs, seeing that they were taking cover behind a few knocked-over tables against what appeared to be an army at the other end of the warehouse. You crouched down beside Park, she looked at you, worried in her eyes.
"Are you alright?" Park asked you while peering over the cover. "Just great, but we'll have a big problem when we get to the safehouse." you told her firing a few shots.
"I promise you, i didn't know" Park went on and you shook your head "don't worry, now we need to focus to get out of here and stay together"
Being nice was my pastime, but I’ve been hurt for the last time, and I won't ever let another person take advantage of me.
When Park pulled the truck into the garage of the MI6 safehouse, a small house near the edge of the city, and you quickly jumped out of the truck, but Adler was already in your face when you closed the door to the truck.
"You shouldn't be alive," he stated, you ignored him and pushed past him into the house. "Bell" Adler shouted behind you, and you curled your hands into balls, trying to resist the urge to try and make his broken nose even worse. "Bell!!"
"Stop calling me like that !!, I no longer belong to you" you hissed over your shoulder, Adler scoffed.
"Oh, yeah?" He crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Bell," he started. "We've got a job-" Before he could say anything more, you had lunged towards him, pulling the knife out of its sheath, you held it up to his throat.
The anger burns my skin, third-degree, now my blood’s boiling hotter than a fiery sea.
"Care to finish that sentence?" You asked, pressing the tip of the knife just enough into his neck that a drop of blood dripped down. Even though he hadn't even finished the line, you could hear a ringing in the back of your head, the way it back when they would-
"Bell…?" You heard Lazar warn. You turned your head, noticing that both Woods and Mason had their guns aimed at you, and Park and Lazar were aiming at them.
You looked back at the knife that you still had against Adler’s throat. The ringing in your head only grew the longer you looked at him, the echoing of the trigger phrase playing in your head.
“Tell your boys to drop their weapons down” you said with a cold tone and Adler motioned for Mason and Woods to put their guns down, and Park and Lazar followed suit while you lowered your knife down.
“Park?, Lazar? we are going to investigate what we have done in the mission" you do not take your eyes off Adler "If you want to work with us, you will respect the orders and if you don't respect them, you can leave with the rest of your team. . .Am I clear?”
There's nobody getting close to me, they're gonna bow to the Evil Queen.
Hours have passed when You explain to the team the names of the Perseus agents, who would be Portnova, Stitch and Naga, then you explain which are the objectives of capturing or intercepting them until suddenly the front door to the safehouse swung open fully interrupting everything. Adler walked in, a cigarette between his lips, instead of closing the door behind him, two more people followed him in, and you started to get nervous but you didn't show it. As they walked in Sims and Hudson looked at you with disbelief.
“Told you” Adler grumbled, taking another drag from his cigarette. “What’s this?” Lazar was the first to ask, casually stepping in front of you as if to defend you. You wanted to push him away to show you didn’t need to be protected, but you were starting to get scared. if there had ever been anyone that wanted you dead more than Adler, it was Hudson. Even when you were brainwashed, that man still didn't trust you, and you were pretty sure he had more authority than Adler did.
“Adler, What the fuck?!” Park exclaimed, walking into the room. “This isn’t your safehouse”
“Yeah, well ours is burnt,” Adler started, but Park folded her arms across her chest “That doesn’t mean you can just bring whoever-”
"Enough" Hudson decided to cut in. "What is she doing here?!" He asked, his voice harsh as he looked at you. "Bell is supposed to be dead"
You rolled your eyes about that comment. "We'll, surprise, I have returned to the world of the living" You keep looking at the papers on the table, ignoring the presence of Hudson, Sims and Adler. "Bell is helping us find Perseus" Park matched Hudson's tone
Your nightmare's my dream, just wait until they fall to my wicked schemes.
"She don't belong to you" Hudson countered, Lazar confront Hudson in defending me "And she sure as shit don't belong to you"
"We made Bell," Adler jumped back into the conversation. You stopped what you were doing and you felt yourself curl your hands into fists. "Who do you think you are?!, you ruined my life by killing me and letting me die in that place, that sounds like a way of gratitude to stop Perseus's plans," you walk around the table to head towards Adler with a serious expression "That explains your way of distrusting me, you think I'm going to go back to Perseus but how can you know if I don't even remember my life?" You stopped in front of Adler "You are the one to blame for being your lab rat and followed your orders in finding your enemy that you couldn't even kill him when you had that chance" you walked around him, like a prey "but you didn't, because you are afraid. . ."
I never thought of myself as mean, I always thought that I'd be the queen, and there's no in between, 'cause if I can't have that then I will be the leader of the dark and the bad.
"Do my words hurt you? You see that I am right, although now I am no longer the Bell you know, I have changed and it was because of you, do you remember?" Then you walked away from him without taking your eyes off him, you looked from your shoulder at Park and Lazar "They saved my life, as if I had a second chance to have a normal life in which you completely destroyed" You look at each one of the old team "I should have lied to you about going to Duga but I didn't, but I don't want to talk about it, now if you don't mind I have business to do and if you and your team don't decide to help" you point the door "you can go"
you walk to your office before telling Park and Lazar to keep investigating the information, you were going to close your office door but a hand got in the way and you notice it was Adler. . . "Do you need something Mr. Adler? "
"We need to talk" he said and you act like you doubt it but you refuse with a fake smile."You and I have nothing to talk about, so if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."
"Bell, listen to me please, I know I shouldn't have done it but it was an order, and I had to carry it out."
"Really? So I was nothing to you? Between you and I are just agents or partners in crime, in pursuit of your obsession with Perseus? I thought you were different, I thought I had fallen in love with a faithful man who cared for me, for my life in those stupid missions, but I was wrong "
Bell turns her back on Adler as he walks over to her. "You know I didn't mean to do it, I wanted to tell you but I didn't know how you were going to react."
“Well that doesn’t change things Adler, I still hate you but inside my heart asks me to forgive you. i really loved you, but ever since i found out i was just a lab rat, taking those mission's to persue that man you have obsessed with all those years in your life” she turns around to look at him with anger “maybe is time to separate ways, when this job it’s done, you will stay away from me, to make a new life without you”
Adler shakes his head, looking at "Bell" who tries to get away from him "Bell, don't do this, I don't want you to get away from me, you love me and I love you, just give me a chance to have what we want"
She raises her hands in a way to get away from Adler "Please don't say that word, you don't love me, you just obeyed orders to kill me to fulfill what you wanted, and you did it, you killed me on that hill, but it was a miracle in that Lazar and Park found me, without them I wouldn't be here" she looks up and down at Adler in disgusted way "In front of you. . . What a pity it gives me to fall in love with you and it was a mistake in my life to be. . . Now leave me alone, I want to finish the mission and start my new life without you"
Now there's a devil on my shoulder where the angels used to be. And he's calling me the queen of mean (calling me, calling me) The Queen of mean. . . .
As Adler leaves the office without saying anything, "Bell" turns around and covers her face with her hands, sobbing that her heart has broken but now she must be strong to get over Adler and forget about him forever. . .
I'm back, it's been a long time since I posted anything on this blog, if you are fans of resident evil, far cry 5 and the bad batch star wars, here are my blogs so you can follow me:
@chrisredfieldmyalphawolf @thebadbatchgirl21 @farcry5seedfamily
Do you guys want a second part or leave it like that?
I hope you liked it. . .have a good night 💖
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Ep 45 Part 1: Wife Gone, Miss Wife
Hey y’all, been a while! I fully blame this last unexpected haitus on Tears of the Kingdom. Also a billion other life things I won’t go into because 👏 I 👏 Want 👏 To 👏 Talk 👏 About 👏 Dead 👏 Wife 👏 !
Like damn, we’re coming back for just...a wild episode. Remember how a few episodes ago we finally united Seto with his long lost wife card? (and I had to check my notes and um...it was actually last episode if you count Kaiba, and only Ep 39 if you count Egyptian Seto. So uh...6 episodes.)
Remember that moment? Anyway, she dies this episode.
Yeah. Like. Damn. That quick huh? Knowing Yugioh’s track record with wifeys we’re pretty lucky she’s been on screen even that long before she went the Valon route and just full on died from one brush of cards with Joey.
Speaking of Joey, we last left the gang fumbling through a series of puzzles to unlock the pharaoh’s name. Bakura, disguised as Tristan, ran head first in there and threw off any semblance of a disguise and y’all, lets see how long it takes the guys to realize this isn’t Tristan.
Inside of this glowing door is a room with absolutely no light in it, which, don’t worry about it. That’s just a thing we do in art when we don’t want to draw a background--blow it out with light.
(Read more under the cut)
MAN I have questions about the support bricks on the wall, but for now we’ll ignore that and look at the even more confounding giant bricks on the ground.
faced with a wall of Egyptian text on this pair of ancient Egyptian sunglasses they drew on the floor, it is lucky that Bakura cursed Tristan’s bean or else they would have never gotten past this room.
They’re zooming right by the fact that their friend is reading ancient Egyptian. A friend who is best known for 1.) Being a student janitor because he failed to become class president, 2.) being head of a “melons” club, and 3.) punching god-strengthed villains in the face when he should know better. A god which definitely didn’t get pissed as hell and immediately possess his bean earlier today.
So he levels with Yugi, using the biggest most simple baby words that Bakura knows, and they still talk right completely round each other.
Hey remember in Season Zero when that effed up thing happened and we all assumed it would never show up in this remake? (and by we I mean me)
It freakin showed up. My audible gasp when this show remembered that Yugi cursed um ALL of his friends. Like and he just straight up told them? Just like this?
Like at the start of this arc he and Pharaoh did have a chat about how Yugi didn’t have friends before he came along, but I thought they were gonna glaze over it! But nah, he just laid it out there that the past few years were all because Yugi got bored between class and wanted a buddy.
The implications of “hey we would not be friends if I didn’t curse your ass” is already pretty deep. But doing it within a brain puzzle that you followed your friend into, despite the fact you could literally die doing this, and realizing...the only reason you’re in this puzzle to begin with is because you were cursed 2-3 years ago...
...this is the Yugioh I never thought would come back. This season, man! This season goes so freakin fast and so freakin hard through things that like...this could be a whole episode in another show.
But, this is Yugioh, so we’re gonna put a pin in that.
Because it’s time to go back to Seto Kaiba’s past life and his nearly dead stranger friend that we have collectively decided is his wife, and by “we” I mean literally everyone on this show but Aknadin.
Aknadin sure doesn’t know what a “wife” is, but he sure as hell knows what it ain’t.
Kissara runs towards Seto in this huge, empty boss arena that I would avoid like the plague in any video game.
And speaking of based, Seto Kaiba shows up. Because this episode wasn’t unhinged enough yet. Seto Kaiba is here to be the greek chorus of his own wife’s death.
He’s noticed. He’s noticed this is weird.
It’s a different storyboarder this season, but this storyboarder is still dropping some great frames. Look at this Seto they gave us, just snooping behind a pillar. New PFP just dropped (that is if anyone was even still using twitter which like, my life has been extremely blessed ever since I left it, we should all leave it together.)
So anyway she farts out a Blue Eyes on turn one, and Seto just kind of seethes from behind a pillar while trying to parse just anything that is going on.
Aknadin decides to shove her (well, her dragon...spirit...thing) into the rock tablet during the card shenanigans that followed. I, at first thought it was with an Orichalcos, and I got very excited about how complicated this season was going to get before I realized it wasn’t lime green.
I do not fully understand the card shenanigans at play here, it was not covered in my education playing through Yugioh Duel Masters (Master Duel) but it doesn’t matter because of the power of...love? or whatever the hell vibes are going on between these two goobers. They, with their vague as hell energy, will stand together against whatever life throws at them.
And by that, I mean literally dying 5 seconds afterwards
Seto Kaiba behind a pillar watched this go down, confused by whether he should feel anything at all by this random series of events between a girl he had half a conversation with, and a guy who looks like him except with guns the size of barrels.
Seto, filled with the pure anger of his wifey’s revenge, also immediately biffed it in solidarity.
Seto still remained behind the pillar, because why interrupt this? I mean yeah he looks like yourself and that girl absolutely died but eh...he’s gonna stay behind the pillar. Maybe if he had a duel disk he’d have thrown a couple cards and done some property damage. but as you can see, there are not helicopters or cranes to do property damage with.
So instead he remains behind the pillar, which they didn’t draw here in this next frame.
And on the back of a horse, in gallops Pharaoh.
I live for these popcorn moments in TV, where we’re like “hey, what if we just threw these characters in a weird blender and see how they reacted?” and this episode is just--everyone ends up in this one random spot and they all collectively are like like “what? The hell is happening?”
And we will see more of that next update.
As usual, here is the link to read these in chrono order:
https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono
Next post will go up like tomorrow probably, but, may my post after that not take 2 months to make, lmao, I swear guys we are going to finish Season 5!
#YGO#Yugioh#Yu-Gi-Oh#recap#episode recap#long post#yami muto#seto kaiba#preist seto#?Was that the name?#yugi muto#bakura#Theif King Bakura#Season 5#Episode 42#Kissara#BEWD#SHE DEAD
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tell us more abt ur romfan au 😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨
omg than k u for enabling me
so. this is what i want to draw
-isagi kicking ass (comically)
-first meeting kaiser sae rin nagi
-full body designs kaiser sae rin nagi isagi
-shirayukimiya and the seven dwarves
-individual kaiser sae rin nagi
-kurona isagi hiori nanase besties REAL
-kaiser backstory comic
-sae pre angst
-sae intimidating
-crying rin
-rin pre angst
but i feel like u are here for the kaiser lore instead so
sorry if nothing makes sense😭
in my silly little brain there is kaiser angst and his father is the pope (thanks mitzi)
-kaiser but hes more fake and more bastard than canon
the setting is divine power does not do well with magic ESPECIALLY in this nation bc it is a blessed land (real not clickbait)
-the royal familys defining trait?? is golden hair that never fades and every 20 years someone with this golden blood will be blessed with stigmata
-stigmata in this case means the deity of this land has chosen u to be the next ruler
-so breaking news!! kaiser does not have stigmata he only has social stigma bc his mother was a naive witch that fell in love with the king
-he still has the golden hair but its also "tainted" with blue from the bloodline of a witch so the hair colours are all natural babie🤩🤩🤩
-anyways his mom thought they would be fine if they just lived quietly in a corner of the palace but nope she dies lol
-cue evil queen who does not like the concubine so she plots an assassination
-michael kaiser, age 6, motherless
-idk how to go deeper into explaining his backstory but i do have an image in my head that i feel like would be better if i drew it out instead
-but ofc kaisers world view is now flipped
-living quietly and hoping for peace doesnt work so he will live as if he were dead while plotting his grand murder spree
-and also two years before the family die kill murder
-one of his half siblings received a stigmata
-but kaiser kills him anyways bc how would u keep ur faith when all ur life u have been mistreated by those who call themselves children of god
-and then the stigmata appears on him and hes just 😟😟
-after claiming the throne he kicks out a bunch of ppl and starts establishing diplomatic connections with the magic tower (cue ness)
-bc it is very obvious that its a good thing. to establish connections. but holy kingdom vatican city here doesnt do that bc they are held back by traditions and bias
-so after that hes just known as a blasphemous child sitting on the throne
-but theres a party of intellectuals and new nobles who support him so like kaisers not dead YET
-stuff is messy, his bad rep spreads and rumours get twisted so now hes not only known as Tyrant Who Scammed God (partly real)
-hes also somehow a Sadistic Villain That Hypnotizes You With Magic (also partly real)
now in the main story hes all 🤪😏😏but thats how he acts when there is something he wants (scammer mode)
-deep down hes 😐😔😠emo irritated and thinks hes a bad person (he is a bad person)
-he probably does feel guilty for killing his father and not being able to protect his mother
-and like tries to convince himself that what he did was right but sometimes he thinks of his mother and wonders if this is what she wouldve wanted :/
-and sometimes he doubts his ability as a ruler bc his half sibling was the chosen one and not him
-being compared to and discriminated throughout ur whole life does something to a man huh
-so the insecurities and jealousy issues still apply🫶
-but he is actually quite capable bc what else would u do in ur free time other than study
-if u were stuck in the palace and ur mom is dead and ur father is pathetic
-i want kaisers character arc to be him actually having a proper meltdown now that his life is no longer Constantly In Danger
-and at the end of the arc he finally feels happy to be here something something i havent thought of this part yet
ok so this is very long and its still just kaiser and idek if anything makes sense but i also have stuff for rin and sae and isagi going on in my head
idk if the old romfan rant i posted can still apply to the au thats in my head bc i changed some roles around
#krn answered (❁´◡`❁)#i hope it makes sense😭😭😭#michael kaiser#bllkrfau#i rlly want to draw the kaiser backstory#but its gonna take like forever#but im worse with words than i am with lines#i know u told me to share but also im sorry u had to see this side of me#the rot is real#ive been here for 4 hours trying to take word from brain and make sentence#I promise i ever draw them its gonna be more entertaining#so just take this bad blob of kaiser thoughts and feed ur brain
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i love saito. i love that uchikoshi does not know or care what's wrong with him. i love that everyone else in the game has real life medical issues and his brain issues are just "i don't fucking know he kills people. we're doing a Bit about Love And Family. he's got Murders People disease."
i love whatever's going on in both versions of in the VaiN. and that when someone asked uchikoshi what was with the scene at the end of the hit route with So was he was like "he's fucked up. you know how it is." and that was the full explanation.
everything he does as a-set especially in the arg videos is so so so funny. this man is having the time of his life pretending to be a fucked up and evil teen idol streamer. "this is your idol" "be seeing you. but you won't be seeing me" i will shove him in a locker also i know i already drew it but "this is kaname date he's a real hot piece of twink ass but unfortunately his personality is awful. he lost his memory or something i don't care" is everything to me
love that he's making this incredibly intricate plan to ruin the life of this random fucking guy he CHOSE to bodyswap with on a whim because he... what, he escaped out the window? you really just wanted him to sit there while you killed a guy as rohan, realised the oxytocin release didn't carry over also half your vision is fucked now, swap back, and then kill him so he can't narc? that was Theft Done To Personally Spite You? anyway he's doing all that and he's like "i mean i guess i'll kill my dad while i'm at it" and i love that.
i'm. still thinking about "killed by your own father" why are you pretending to be your own dad shooting yourself in the middle of your last ditch "well whatever plan's fucked may as kill him" moment!! just another one of your "i'm technically not lying teehee" bits?? (and i KNOW the reading that it's about mizuki but that makes even less sense to me. & i'm a 'most cringefail reading possible' truther.) i really do love 'i didn't lie, i kept my promise' just to be a jackass
i love that he's so candid about talking about his murders and says shit like "homicide is my hobby" but when it comes to shooting people he either says some bullshit like "blowing their brains out" or calling them "fireworks" or it's about date "watching them die." the only time he calls it "shooting" is when someone else is doing it. and normally that sort of thing reads as 'distancing yourself from the crimes' but wouldn't that be fucking wild lmao. i think it reads more like it's above just shooting? it's art! perfect, beautiful art of a lonely moment in time.
and all the "(you were) a murderer. a serial killer" "have you been using other men's names for so long that you've forgotten your own" talk feels like it should be leading into a "we're not so different you and i" but it never does. (i'd be tempted to say it's just self restraint on the part of the writing team but i find that VERY hard to believe given the. everything. about every uchi game.) like he hates date but he views himself as above him and he can't pull himself down to date's level, even to upset him. he's just taking hypocritical shots at date because he knows he cares about "justice" and "morality" and garbage like that, without acknowledging their similarities
i'm normal? i'm normal.
#sorry this is 5x longer than i thought it would be i only slept like 20 minutes last night i am lightly deranged#don't read this. all my takes are always correct.#but don't look at me. but i'm right.#i need to know if i'm wrong about any of this to avoid embarrassing myself in the future. but you can't tell me i'm wrong or i'll die.#you know how it is.#i could keep going but i have to stop this was how the dog rant started and i Cannot make another dog rant length post#it's the one literate thing i've ever written and that's fine. i can't start being a guy who has opinions about media.#aitsf spoilers#saito sejima#also if i write anything it has to be with a ridiculous framing device#so i can call it 'the dog rant' and say i wrote 3.5k words about the random dog npc in yongenjaya#it's not funny otherwise. and there's no point if it's not funny.#could i make a dog rant length post about the sejima family without even getting into the sequel?#probably#but oh the mortifying ordeal of having takes#i love bideo gane. thanks for reading. don't read this post. please un-read this post.
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Sarah Marie Connors
Sarah Marie Connors, The Most Popular Girl in town
Scorpio: The Secret Nature
Catchphrase: "God save me."
Favorite Ride: The Carousel
Intro: In her life, Sarah Marie had been know as one thing. Perfect. In everything she did. Growing up in Uranium, Sarah had been relatively normal. Making friends with the other kids in school and staying quiet around most others. It was when she and her parents moved to New York that her conventionally attractive face bought her a ticket to Instagram stardom. Her parents, seeing an opportunity to make money off their daughter, immediately turned Sarah into a rich internet star. After 10 years of ruining her mental health by forcing herself to be better so the internet would think she was good enough, a dying grandmother brought Sarah’s family back to Uranium. Excited, she packed her bags. When she got there, she tried reconnecting with her friends only to find them sending her Instagram hate mail because she betrayed their small town and became a quote, “popular bitch.” The only one to welcome her back was the boy who see had always seen as her little brother. Noel Gruber. Seeking an escape from her controlling parents, she joined the choir. She joined too late to sing at the competition, but Noel decided to take pity on her by inviting her to the fall fair with them.
Song Title: Picture Perfect
Song Theme: Just because a life appears perfect, does not mean the person did not have issues.
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzBTynurJ0naURU7hJn16tuBkXkbzTpmc
Dialogue lines:
“I have so many issues, but no one sees. I’m never good enough no matter how perfect I try to be. Everyone sees me as some perfect girl except the people I care about, they just think I’m an annoying mess. My family will never think I'm good enough. I didn’t act like myself because I was trying to be who they wanted. I don’t know who I am because of that. I’m beaten by my parents practically daily, and no one hears my cries for help. I try to be nothing but kind and people still think I’m a bitch. That, my friends, is why I resign.”
“....Cat girls? ….Really? ….ok.”
“We can be nerd buddies!!”
“My baby brother is a whore in his little brain and I'm so proud of him.”
“If no one shuts her up in the next five minutes, I'm killing Ocean myself.”
“I’d rather die- wait.”
“That was the most romantic thing I've ever heard!! Ya kinda lost me with the rapping, but hey I'm still diggin it!”
“Jane isn’t even that scary, she’s just socially awkward. I think...”
“Can I hug you?”
“Connie that was so sweet!”
“Everyone thinks I’m ok. I’m not besties. Thanks though.”
Character Thoughts:
Ocean is the worst
Noel is my baby brother
Mischa is so freaking hot....
Ricky! Bestie! Nerds together forever!
Jane is my new bestie, I think shes fascinating!
Connie is the sweetest girl ive ever met and I'm forever grateful she is my friend in a town that feels so against me
Choirsona thoughts:
Juno,,,, sisters. Best friend. Darling. She’s insane. I love her though.
Robin seems nice! He is an amazing artist!
Lucille is a sweet girl, she drew me once! I love how shes always there
Arabella.... She's what I should be.
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in defence of eloise bridgerton
before i post yet another unsolicited thinkpiece, i have to credit @alrightsnaps and @torchwood-99 for inspiring these thoughts in the first place. (they have no idea who i am lol but i'm not about to plaigarise.) i've embedded their posts at the end. i read them when they were first published however many weeks/months ago and they've remained in my brain ever since.
nb. again, i didn't intend for it to be this long lol. not rambling is not my strong suit.
i was surprised to find that so many people dislike show!eloise (and book!eloise as well it seems) because i am such an eloise apologist lmao. i can fully understand that she’s very sheltered and privileged and often presents a very “not like other girls” attitude that we as a culture are trying to move away from. i understand that due to her family's circumstances and her position in society, eloise tends to unfairly judge other women, particularly her peers. however, she is also only 17, maybe 18, years old. as a modern woman in the 21st century, i displayed similar behaviour in my teenagedom despite believing myself to be a big old feminist, progressive, and socially aware. (which i do believe is was, within the context of my age and where i come from, but i also had a lot to learn and reevulate - and am certain still do and will do forevermore.) granted, i didn’t express myself as aggressively as eloise is wont to do, but there were certainly many things i do not know or understand and therefore probably said a few things that i would not even think to say today.
eloise has only just discovered wollstonecraft, she has so much more reading to do, which is crucially something she actively desires. i do not interpret her character as believing she knows all she needs to and that she knows more than anybody else, even if her countenance sometimes suggests otherwise. eloise clearly wants to learn more, to develop her mind by engaging in debate and having her ideas challenged. indeed, i think that’s what drew her to theo in the first place. with both eloise and penelope (whose behaviour warrants even deeper analysis), it seems the audience often forgets just how young they are. yes, legally they are ladies out in society, but they are still very much girls. they don’t even know how babies are made for heaven's sake. they are kept so in the dark about the contractual obligations expected of them and would be naive not to approach "the rigmarole of courtship" with some wariness.
in my opinion, it’s no wonder that eloise is so opposed to marriage and motherhood because of what she has witnessed in violet. in the throes of giving birth to hyacinth, violet had no autonomy over her own life or body, or hyacinth’s life of body, which was very much still attached to (read: inside of) hers. violet's powerlessness in this situation was compounded by the fact the choice, of whether she or the baby would live or die, was given to her totally inexperienced 19 year old son, who had never raised children before and would never know what it feels like to be with child. not only is violet barred by the doctor (until permitted by anthony) to decide the fate of her own life, and her unborn child's, she is forced to relinquish this power to someone she still considers to be a child himself.
although eloise may not be aware of the exact details of hyacinth's birth, her distress at whatever she imagines to be happening is explicit. we see her crying heavily in daphne's arms, surely a vignette of her trauma (and daphne's as well, which is not the same of course, but definitely related). that she probably hasn't been informed about what did go on makes the memory scarier still. when this is the example eloise is given of what motherhood and marriage entail (i.e., no autonomy, no self-control, possibly death), i am not surprised at all that she seeks to avoid such a fate in the strongest terms, and likewise cannot fathom why other women would desire it. in her mind, to wed a man and sire his children is to sacrifice her life, wants and freedom to choose. based on the template provided, a married woman would lose all subjectivity, existing as an object whose only real purpose is to fulfil her husband's wants and needs.
moreover, the way her character arc is structured is problematic. before the audience meets eloise (or daphne, francesca, and hyacinth) or learns her name, we already know she will inevitably fall in love, get married and have children regardless of her personality or ambitions. that her character has been set up to change her mind about marriage and motherhood really stuck with me. by fixing her storyline in such a way, the writers essentially position a woman's desire for singledom or spinsterhood as the immature fancies of a chila. while eloise's criticism of others for desiring such things can be quite severe or inappropriately timed (e.g., anthony’s failed wedding), the underlying message is not what it ought to be as a purportedly feminist programme. at its most basic level, that is, "women should be able to live their lives in whichever way they want", here as spinster or wife. instead, by having eloise “realise” that her original goals were misplaced, that her life is in fact incomplete without the things she railed against, the narrative ignores the fact that there are women who chose not to marry or procreate that remain perfectly happy and fulfilled. to suggest otherwise does these women a great disservice.
this is not to say that i believe eloise is right, per see – that marriage and motherhood spawn inescapable doom – but that a woman has options, that there are multiple ways to lead a happy life. i wish they would show (even if very briefly) that it is possible for ladies (not just working women) to remain content in singledom and, further, prefer it in some cases to the status quo. by nature, the series will always demonstrate the positive effects of marriage, whether for love (bridgertons, queen charlotte) or convenience (lady danbury, henry granville), so it is a shame that the writers do not acknowledge the alternative.
in fact, the writers seem to double down on eloise’s disdain for these roles precisely because they know she will change her mind. being aware of how her story ends, they could have presented her character as more sceptical/scared of these concepts rather than outright hostile/insulting. i think this would have completely changed the moral of her narrative as well as the tone of her relationship with theo. i think a big part of their relationship arc was to show eloise that perhaps it is not so bad to love a man and desire a life together. i believe it was probably the writers' intention to introduce theo as a way to segue into her love story with phillip. however, it is important to remember that to love and marry a working man does not carry the same implications it does a gentleman.
from the outset, the balance of power between the sexes is more equal with theo and eloise knows this. she can see that theo appreciates her mind for what it is - not an “accomplishment”, as she would say, to increase her stock, but genuine interest in her voice. because of their class differences, she doesn’t owe him anything, nor does she expect anything from him. so, when eloise does share her thoughts with him, she can be secure in the knowledge that theo is spending time with her for no other reason than because he wants to. eloise knows theo takes her opinion seriously and sees her as an independent subject instead of a marriageable object.
in this regard, eloise's fears of marrying a gentleman (a specific type of man) have not been reasonably assuaged because what a man of phillip's rank typically wants/offers a lady is inherently different to a working man. this is not to say that i’m against her relationship with phillip, on the contrary philloise is my favourite ship after hyareth (more so due to fandom lore and ao3 headcanons than to sir phillip, with love, which i have not read and do not intend to). i simply believe the writers could have developed her character more sensitively with regard to her feminist identity.
in defence of the writers, i believe eloise's bravado that so many viewers seem to dislike (her attitude that she is "not like other girls") speaks to her insecurity as a young debutante. early in season 2, eloise admits to peneolope the shame she feels knowing (though, this is surely in her head) that she will forever disappoint her mother, her suitors and the ton for not being daphne ("the perfect diamond"). in the way people so often do, i believe eloise wants people to know that she does not care about their opinions because deep down she actually does.
eloise has shown instances of social anxiety and clearly worries about measuring up to daphne and possibly francesca, who is canonically next season's diamond. i get the impression that eloise wants to reach the punchline before her critics can, to ensure suitors know she has already found them disagreeable and, therefore, does not care if they think the same of her. as is somewhat symptomatic of girls her age, i think eloise is afraid, and perhaps ashamed, to be herself.
when she sneers at other debutantes for desiring courtship and the like, eloise appears to project her insecurities about finding a suitable match onto others. i do not mean to imply that she secretly wants all the things she argues against, rather that she loves her family and wants to please her family (particularly her mother) and is afraid of disappointing them simply by way of who she is. from this perspective, eloise endeavours to keep others' expectations of her as low as possible so as to not let anybody down.
#bridgerton#eloise bridgerton#eloise x theo#i love her your honour#theo sharpe#sir phillip crane#this is what i do to procratinate revising for stats :)#i am fuckeedddddddddd#eloise x phillip#daphne bridgerton#violet bridgerton#trash essay#*
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Who wants some tidbits about OCs that I never talk about because my Tumblr profile has slowly been getting murdered thanks to hiatus
[REDACTED]/KREATUR/WESEN
- Spawned from the one (1) time I drew GL!Ranboo as a creature (because why not) while listening to ‘Bloody Mary’ on a five-hour loop and the idea that came from it went so far off course from canon that it went from an AU to an original story idea
- (In my defense I drew him when I was only 20 minutes into the first episode. I barely had any idea what I was getting into at the time so of course my creative drive was going to derail)
- (My brain needs to stop dragging people up when I’m 30 seconds into their source (iykyk))
- ANYWAY.
- Wesen’s real name has been lost to time. He’s not that old, he just doesn’t remember his name due to being punished whenever he tried to correct his captor on what it was
- His captor called him Kreatur ("Creature"; "die Kreatur - creature, creation, wretch, minion") to dehumanize and objectify him. This drove him insane for obvious reasons so he somehow got his hands on a German dictionary and fought to change his name to Wesen ("das Wesen [German] being, nature, essence, creature, character, entity") instead. Because if you’re gonna call him a creature you could at least be nice about it
- His captor let it go and he’s gone by Wesen for years since.
- Wesen’s also a walking bomb! He has a kill switch built in to the base of his skull that can also be used to give him a headache ranging from “oh owie” to “my brain is pressing against my skull and I am in agony”. If his captor cranks it all the way up his head will explode. It’s supposed to stop any act of rebellion and is therefore a literal explosive leash.
- He’s not aware of its existence and his captor gives him a headache severe enough to make him pass out from the pain if any of his fellow prisoners draw attention to it, so he won’t know it exists until it’s too late.
- It likely might’ve been put on him since he killed two people when a team tried to catch him. Maybe they should’ve left him alone, then.
- Wesen isn’t human. Avery (a fellow prisoner) calls him a canine, and she’s half right. He’s a dog-like bipedal creature with white fur covered in black spots
- I’ll get around to drawing him one day. He’s on the planned roster for Art Fight.
- He wouldn’t hurt a fly, most of the time. He’s sort of a doormat. That said, he’s not totally innocent and he does have blood on his hands--not all of it unintentional, either. His captor holds this above his head as a reason why they can’t let him go.
- He’s a lot smarter than he acts. Turns out he’s playing dumb, since—as he’ll later tell Avery—it’s saved his life over and over again.
- He’s masculine-leaning agender.
BELPHALAGOR
- Goes by “Bel”. Also masculine-leaning, but more genderfluid than agender.
- Belphalagor is a bipedal goat who swears he’s average height and everyone else is just a tallass. They use Wesen as its “proof” of this, but Wesen’s barely an inch over average height (5′ 9″)
- Whereas Bel herself is 3-4 feet tall.
- Bel is made of ink, sort of. He has flesh, but their blood is black, smells strongly of something not natural and is poison to ingest (as some more feral enemies will find out). It obviously wasn’t born this way but tends to dodge the question as to how this came to be.
- She’s stuck in a suit most of the time, but prefer wearing dresses. The once time he gets a chance to they jump on it.
- Bel’s eyes are closed 90% of the time, rendering them blind. It heavily depends on Wesen to guide her around.
- Something happens later on that reveals why he prefers to keep their eyes closed as much as possible.
- (he/they/it/she pronouns. Bugger’s collecting the things.)
[REDACTED]/AVERY
- Avery is the must humanoid of the bunch. This is because unlike the other two she’s not a canine creature or Mountain Goat stolen, experimented on, then stolen again. She’s a human that got kidnapped and freed herself when they tried turning her into a bird woman. (These people really like amalgamating animals with the weirdest shit.)
- She acts like your typical action woman cliche—no-nonsense, only sane person in the group, tragic backstory, “I don’t need a man”—but she’s not immune to being silly. She slowly drops her guard the more time she spends around idiots 1 and 2 (affectionate).
- They’re both fools but they’re HER fools and she loves them. (The sentiment is returned ten-fold once she drops the “I’m too good for you” act.)
- She’s a bit of a fool too, though she won’t admit it.
- She has a plague doctor mask pretty much fused to her face. A modern-day one, based off a crow. She can take it off, but it’s very painful and what’s underneath isn’t pretty.
- Her hair is pretty short and growing...Weird. It’s all spikey and feathered. She’s kept it short as much as she could until she can find someone to reverse this bloody bird transfusion.
- She’s also got feathers growing out of her arms. It’s painfully slow, but they’re becoming more noticeable as time goes on.
- She and Bel butt heads often over who should do what in what context. Sometimes they fight for so long that by the time they’ve worked it out Wesen’s solved the problem already.
- She and Wesen didn’t exactly hit it off immediately. She was a bit patronizing towards him; treating him like a dog or very slow human. Once she learns that he’s not that fucking dim, though, they bond very quickly.
- She’s the only cisgender one of the group. Bel calls her the “token female” despite also using she/her pronouns (likely just to piss off Avery, who always takes the bait).
- Avery’s name was given to be a play on “aviary”. She can’t stand it, but she doesn’t remember her old name so she’s currently stuck with it.
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a gift for @sunshine-in-a-bottle , because i promised that i’d write something with dream and a knife, and apparently my brain latched on very quickly.
Dream had to admit, no matter how much he wished to be doing literally anything else, that at least his ass looked great in his dress. The fact that it hid more than five weapons was merely a bonus- he’d still picked it because, no matter how good he knew he looked in suits, there was nothing that clung to him in all the right places quite like a nice dress. As a plus, he got to wear more accessories than was normally accepted when in a suit, and so his favorite hairpin (a little more polished than normal but still as sharp) glinted in his hair.
Most of the time, he didn’t set out to go to a ball quite so dressed to kill, or not in a literal way. High society was lethal, yes, but murder at the dancefloor was a bit more of a social faux pas than everyone tended to think. The deaths were a bit more socially, these days.
So normally, he’d set out with the standard warnings in mind, keep an eye out, take a knife or two with him- the usual. Nobody could take him for a fool, and somebody had to watch out for his idiots. Punz could take care of themselves, and it wasn’t like he came to the events often; on the other hand, George’s recent crowning had led to more than one less-than-wise attempt at murder, and Prime knew that George would probably let an assassin approach him just for a better shot rather than deal with them the right way.
This time, though- this time was a little more complicated. Their normal celebrations included significantly less foreign parties, and especially less dead-of-the-night threats, delivered by a deluded messenger who’d rather die than spill his master’s name. They also- Dream concluded, picking up a flute of some alcohol he knew he’d have to pretend to sip at all night- did not tend to happen at the same time as Dream's best friend's return from what had once been a happy relationship, only to turn sour as soon as things got hard. Sap had come back with a new type of fear in his eyes, one that made something in Dream boil with anger that he had to forcibly restrain.
So, the dress and weapons. One because he had a feeling, deep down, that the threats were not unfounded; the other, because he also had more than just a gut feeling of where those threats came from, and making his best friend speechless for a moment was a good way to get some revenge.
Also didn't hurt that the way George was looking was less subtle than normal.
But while standing in a corner observing was a great way to not get murdered, Dream was aware that it was also a good way to become somewhat of a social pariah, so off he went to chitchat with people who he knew about an incredible amount, for being basically strangers. At least they were friendly, or “friendly”.
But, while talking with a duke and his (honestly a little intimidating, holy crap why did that man have a stare that could cut through souls) husband, an unwelcome sight caught his eye- someone he’d kind of hoped he wouldn’t see at all, despite the unlikeliness of such a thing in a social event this big and his own wish for revenge.
The reason Sapnap had spent days curled up in his bed, upset, needing constant prompting to open up and share himself with both him and George, as though his thoughts didn’t matter. As though he wasn’t the one who’d constantly brought opinions to him, sparking play arguments with George like he drew breath, constantly and tangibly there, a part of Dream’s life that he’d never thought he’d have to be without.
Quackity and Schlatt spoke on, ignorant or uncaring of the fact that Dream's gaze had set on them like a hunter spotting prey. The man Sapnap had fallen in a whirlwind love with- and the man that Sapnap had been dumped in favor of, promises of love and safety and togetherness ignored for bitter revenge and more power, something like control. And Dream knew; that could have been him. So, so easily. But he valored the others more than himself, and he knew that he could sacrifice anyone, everyone, fuck whoever was in his way, just so that the ones he loved would be happy. And Quackity- Quackity hadn’t learned that yet.
But Dream was quite happy not teaching him that particular lesson. Parallels or not, empathy or whatever else- he’d hurt his best friend. And Dream intended to make him pay for it.
He excused himself as politely as he could- that blonde avian was not a man to be crossed, and he already knew that the duke himself was more of a danger than anyone knew- and headed over to the disaster he could already see brewing. Because he wasn’t the only one to have seen the pair, and whispers were the bread and butter of these places- and Sapnap was not one to back down. Not from him, not from George, and certainly not from someone who he’d been steadily regaining confidence against, with help from them both.
See, Dream wasn’t there to confront Sapnap’s bitch of an ex. Sapnap could do that well enough, and he had George’s experience with subtle barbs to aid him. No, Dream was there as backup- because they all knew that this would turn ugly fast.
After all, the spy in Quackity’s midst had been quite delighted to inform them of every stage of the plan. She’d been a valuable asset, an incredible liar with enough charm to get away with everything, and one of Dream’s favorite people. Tina was always a delight to talk to, really.
The mercenary hiding in the crowd, less so.
The moment Dream stepped forwards, the silk of his dress flowing with the movement, revealing tanned skin, he could feel the eyes on him intensify. Only three pairs of them he received with any positive attitude- but the feel of Sapnap’s ex fiancee’s eye on him had him restraining a smug grin, of knowing damn well that it was him Sapnap was looking at, him who woke up with all three of them in the same bed.
Once he was beside Sapnap, he gave the slightest bow- barely better than an incline of his head. Dream knew he couldn’t laugh, couldn’t say anything that would ruin the moment, but oh, he wanted. “Oh, hello- I hadn’t had the chance to see you yet. A pleasure, I’m sure.” His voice was calm, friendly, a trained pleasantry. Nothing anyone could ever accuse him of being rude.
Compared to his normal way of speaking, a slap to the face would have been less of an insult. That voice, he only pulled out of hiding when he truly, genuinely did not care if the person in front of him dropped dead.
Next to him, he could feel the warmth as Sap leaned towards him, a small smile on his face and his eyes filled with an emotion he couldn’t quite parse in his eyes. But Dream had all the time in the world to figure what that was all about-
Unless, of course, that the until-then unknown mercenary Quackity hired chose exactly that moment to attack.
A flash of purple was his only indicator; there weren’t that many people in Punz’s circles that Dream didn’t know about, but this one was a newer one, one he hadn’t had the chance to meet face to face with before. The knife was a pretty good hint of intentions, though.
The mercenary was fast, and definitely skilled- sadly for him, Dream was even more so. It took him less than a second to whip out the sharp blade of his ‘hairpin’ and deflect the blade with a flick of his wrist and the strength that long hours of training gave him. It also didn’t take him long at all to sink that same blade into the man (or maybe not, that face looked awfully young)’s arm and kick him back into the same men who’d hired him.
The man took several seconds to react afterwards, not even to bring up his knife in his defense. To be fair, the knife was rather stuck- in Schlatt’s chest. The rapidly-spreading pool of blood must have been part of the shock. Most people tended to be a little struck by the sight, after all.
Close to him, he could hear George mutter something under his breath, not loud enough for him to decipher but apparently enough to make Sapnap huff a laugh and tug him forwards by the arm, until all three of them stood together, a solid line of defense towards any attack, and a more solid show of partnership than if they’d announced it officially.
Dream mused internally that he kind of liked this purple mercenary, actually. He might prove to be useful in the future, if he wasn’t killed for murdering a such a high-ranking man in foreign grounds first. He was plenty fast, though, and he seemed to have skill fleeing from the scene. Left behind was Quackity, stood a step behind where his husband had been, pale, with a look on his face that said more than he’d probably ever admit.
Dream didn’t really care though. After all, this party had gone particularly well; revenge achieved, nobody would ever pin the blame on him, and most importantly- his dress had come out of it without any stains.
#hello hello i bring you fic#don't ask me how or why i whipped this up so quick this straight up possessed me#i had 0 words written before today and then boom#my writing#i also. have not one clue about the worldbuilding here it's just pure Vibes#dsmp#dnn#cdream#csapnap#cgeorge#my aus#lo's stuff
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