#TRUE LOVE SIPHON SHARING

[writingsbychlo]

surprise | cassian

summary; on starfall evening, you plan on revealing some big news, and giving cassian a very special gift.

word count; 4581

notes; this week was so insanely busy for me so I fell behind on these fics, but let's try and catch up at least a little bit, so here's day four!

As you stood in front of the mirror, smoothing a hand over the indistinguishable bump on your midriff, the smile forming on your lips was beyond your control. In the connecting bathroom, humming away to himself as he styled his hair was the love of your life, every inch of thick and terrifying General absolutely adorable to you as he prepared himself for the night ahead, streaks of excitement bursting down the bond to you every now and again.

You hoped the life growing inside of you got his passion for life, and his love of all the little things. One of the parts of Cassian you’d fallen hardest for was his ability to always find some kind of silver lining, to find a way to make even an empty glass seem half-full, to put a positive spin on any bad situation. He made every problem a joint challenge, he made every fear a shared worry, he made everything so much easier.

There wasn’t a single doubt in your mind that he would be a wonderful father, just as he had been a wonderful boyfriend for years, a fantastic friend for centuries before that, and a good man for his entire life. If anyone deserved the kind of joy you knew your reveal would bring, it was Cassian. 

For almost two years you’d been talking about having children, trying for a little warrior he could call his own, if the adoration he showered down on his nephew was anything to judge by. For six years, Cassian had loved Nyx like his own child, and almost three years ago, after the candles had been blown out and you’d been half asleep, Cassian had nervously whispered his desire for his own child. Three months ago, that wish had finally come true. 

It was far too special to just blurt out, and so you’d waited. You’d suffered through every minute of just wanting to burst it out to him, to save it, to make it truly special. Luckily, you’d managed to make it to this evening without your scent changing breaking through, or your bump coming in early. 

As Cassian stepped out, eyes scanning over the simple underwear set and somehow managing to make you feel sexy even in that, you tried desperately to fight the sudden burst of excitement. By the time the two of you went to bed tonight, Cassian would know he was going to be a father.

Every nerve seemed to leave your body as he let out an appreciative hum, gaze raking you in the same way you were for him. He’d tied his hair back in a neat bun behind his head, and trimmed and neatened the overgrown hair along his jaw that you loved so much. Dressed in smart dress pants and a black silk button-up that he’d purposefully left undone by a few buttons, chest hair on show, he was a sight to behold. Even more so as you watch him strap on just two of his siphons, one over the back of each hand, expertly clasping them without needing help.

“You’re staring, y’know.” His cocky tone made your gaze snap back up to his face, tongue sticking out childishly, and he only grinned in return. “Shall I pose for Feyre to paint? Then you can stare all day long, and never tire of it. Maybe I’ll post nude.”

Heat flushed your cheeks, but a smile crawled over them all the same, matching his joke-filled attitude. Cassian picked up your dress, admiring it before himself, before making his way over and stopping behind you. His eyes met yours in the mirror, a much more intimate smile on his lips now as his large form swamped yours, and he dipped to press a kiss to each of your shoulders. 

With matching kisses all the way down your spine until he was braced on one knee, he unzipped the dress, before holding it open for you to step into. One foot at a time, you did, and he began to smooth the grown slowly up your body, inch at a time. Both arms in and the material settled over your frame, he ran a single knuckle along the trail his lips had traced along your back, to grip the zip at the bottom. Slowly, it crawled up the tracks, getting tighter and tighter around your stomach until it paused. 

You’d had the dress made months ago, before you’d even fallen pregnant at all, and even though you weren’t obviously showing yet, you were beginning to fill out just slightly. Last week, you’d been able to get this dress on alone, with no struggle. Now, Cass had to give a little extra tug to keep the zip moving. Your lips flickered at the edges, biting your tongue to hide a comment about how fast your baby was growing, and how large they were sure to be, just like their father. 

Cassian, clearly misinterpreting the look on your face, spun you around as soon as the dress was fastened, pulling you in until his lips could brush your hairline lovingly. “All that extra training, doll. Got this pretty ass even thicker for me to hold onto.” 

He made a point of squeezing your ass in both hands until you smiled, head tipping up to steal a kiss from his lips. The look he gave you was wrapped in sin and lust, and you had to fight back the urge to jump on him then and there, knowing that look was exactly how you ended up this way in the first place. 

Instead, you tutted at him, pulling away and chuckling at his groan, only to reach out to hold his arm in support as you tucked your feet into your heels. Soon enough, your feet would be too swollen and you’d be too unbalanced to wear anything but your slippers, so you fully intended to make the most of these shoes while you could.

With hands wrapped tightly together, you cast one last look at your underwear drawer, a surprise for later tucked neatly inside, as he turned off the lights and led the two of you away to the party. 

When you arrived, the rest of your family was already there, but you’d expected as much. Cassian was nothing if not a drama queen when it came to his appearance for these events, even if it was family only. He spent so much time messy, un-groomed, wrapped in dirty leathers and covered in sand and sweat, you didn’t blame him for enjoying a little primping when the time presented itself. 

With the greetings done, Cassian turned to you, lips on the shell of your ear, “What can I get you to drink, baby?”

“Just water, I think,” You hadn't thought this far, knowing you had to wait for the right moment tonight, for it to be perfect, and unable to explain any odd behaviour leading up to it. His rear back with raised brows was enough to show you his shock and concern too, and you only shrugged. “I just think maybe I’ll hydrate a little before we get into the real drinking, save myself the hangover tomorrow.”

“Good idea,” His nose nudged over yours before he stepped back. “I make no promises of doing the same.”

Your laughter carried him a long distance from you, and your hand settled subconsciously over the life inside of you as you took a deep and shaky breath. Before even starting to calm your newly raging nerves, Rhysand was making a direct and pointed bee-line for you across the room, your eyes widening a little at his determination. An easy smile sat on his lips, but something calculating in his gaze, and when you glanced to Feyre behind him, she was doing her best effort to look anywhere but the two of you, bashfully. 

“You look stunning tonight, my dear,” He placed a friendly kiss on your cheek, a motion which you repeated for him, before pulling away. “Forgive me for my forwardness-”

“When have you ever been truly sorry for that, Rhys?” 

He only smirked, shrugging casually as his hands tucked into his pockets, but while his smile said ‘fun’, his eyes said ‘serious’. “You know… me and Fey could smell it as soon as you walked in. Everyone else is going to be able to tell soon, too. You won’t be able to hide this much longer, why doesn’t Cassian know yet?”

Your heart dropped a little, skipping a beat in dismay. Cassian had been hurt before, when Nesta had chosen to marry Eris instead he’d been wounded for years, he didn’t want his brother going through any more heartbreak, and you understood that. You appreciated his loyalty to his brother, and that the same loyalty would be inherited by your child, but you hated the miscommunication he seemed to have created. “I’m not hiding it, Rhys. I was waiting for a special time. I want this to be memorable for him.”

He looked a little bashful, and it was your turn to shrug. 

“Take a look.” Tapping one finger to your temple, only moments later, a tap at your inner shield was replacing it. You let the memories pour out; mornings in bed with Cassian discussing the future, moments after you’d babysat Nyx, or seen children out during the summer in Velaris. Every memory of discussions about children, about the picture of the future, and his utter joy at the prospect of having a child. You even showed him the little gift you’d planned, your way of telling Cass the news. “I know how much this means to him, and I want to make every single moment of it something special for him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Your walls crawled back up as he retreated, a much happier smile on his face. “I love how much you love Cassian, and how much you’ll love your niece or nephew.”

“I’m going to spoil them.”

“I know.” You grinned, watching Cassian begin to make his way back over, your water clutched in hand with just the number of ice cubes you liked. He knew you so well, it made your heart clench. Leaning a little closer to Rhys, you whispered; “I’ll need your help later, with sneaking the gift in.”

“It would be my absolute pleasure.”

“What are we talking about?” Cassian broke into the conversation, handing you your drink with a kiss to your cheek, and you leaned into the arm wrapping around you. You sipped your water for something to do, to occupy yourself so you didn’t have to lie. You hated lying o Cassian, even if it was an inconsequential one that was for the good in the end.

“Your darling girlfriend was just harassing me on when dinner would be ready, she’s starving. Truly, brother, do you not keep your girl well-fed and satisfied?” You choked on your water at the innuendo, and Cassian only scoffed, squeezing your hip at the insult. 

“Trust me, she has no room for complaints.”

“Men.” You scoffed, and Rhys only flashed a cheeky smirk. 

“Is now soon enough for food for you?” He clicked his fingers, varied sounds of awe all around as the table filled with food, and you were glad Cassian was distracted, because the abrupt clash of scents in the room made your stomach churn so violently your head spun temporarily. 

Thankfully, Cassian was once again caught up with Rhys, never looking your way again until he was pulling your seat out at the table he’d guided you over to, tucking you under with a kiss to the top of your head. By that time, you’d managed to quash the obvious look of nausea on your face. 

Across the table from you both Feyre pulled out a chair, and onto it hopped Nyx, his eyes lighting up when he found himself opposite his Uncle Cassian. Almost immediately, the two fell into conversation, the boy telling his favourite uncle all about his week at school, now that he was officially attending the ‘big boy school’ Rhys had been pestered into letting him enrol at. His stories never ended, ranging from playground games to classroom lessons to jokes his new friends had told him, and Cassian ate every bit of it up. 

He’s always been so good with Nyx, from the moment you’d first met him and seen him interact with the heir who was just a toddler then, you’d known he’d make an incredible father someday. You were just happy you were the one who got to go on that adventure with him. He reacted in all the right ways, gasping dramatically and laughing loudly and feigning abhorrent shock at the right times. They were always such a sight to observe together. 

As food was served, Cassian took charge of caring for Nyx automatically, his large hand leaving your thigh to pull Nyx’s plate over to him, never interrupting the child’s endless excited monologuing, and cutting up all his food for him while still managing to focus. You weren’t privy to the conversation, nor any of the conversations around you as you all ate, far too wrapped up in admiring Cassian. It was perfect. Everything about it, leading up to this moment, this night’s big reveal, couldn't have been better.

Only when you felt a prickle along the side of your face did you pull your attention away, the feeling coming from Rhysand’s stare, a smile on his lips, and he wiggled his brows a little towards Cassian and his son, neither of them any the wiser, and you only shrugged. At the squeeze of a hand on your thigh again, you tuned back, your boyfriend’s attention having moved to you as Nyx was now arguing with his mother about eating his carrots. 

“You okay, babydoll? You’ve barely touched your food.”

It was true, one glance at the plate confirmed you’d only taken a few bites, mostly having just pushed it around and considered it. Part of the reason was that you were distracted, the other part was your sudden intolerance and aversion to certain things. It had been nothing short of a labyrinth of poor excuses and lame misdirections these last few weeks to avert his focus on your meals and sicknesses and mood swings. How were you supposed to explain why you suddenly couldn't stand to eat your favourite sandwich fillings without telling him everything? 

By the end of the night, that was just another burden that would be lifted.

“M’fine, Cass, don’t worry. Just… not feeling it tonight.”

“But it’s your favourite.” He mumbled, eyes narrowing only slightly, the way he did when he was assessing someone he wasn’t sure how to read yet, putting all that military tactics and body language reading to the test on you. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I swear-”

“Babe.” His tone said enough, one brow raising, and so you sighed. Putting on a smile at his concern you leaned in, his lips puckering to receive the kiss you were offering, but his eyes never closed, telling you he wouldn't be distracted so easily right now. 

“I want to save some room for dessert. I’m really craving sugar tonight, and I kinda’ just want to binge out on a lot of cake and pastry and ice cream.” His lips stayed pouted for just a second, this time not for a kiss but out of confusion, before a soft gasp left him. 

“Are you… coming up a cycle? You always crave sugar on your cycle. Is that why you’re acting odd these last few days?” It was like a lightbulb went off in your own mind, and you wanted to slap a hand on your forehead for not having thought of that yourself. “That makes so much sense. Why didn’t you tell me, we could have stayed in tonight, cuddled and read in bed?”

“My cycle… yeah. I am, and I just want a ton of sugar right now. But I’m fine, really. I’m just going to wait for the cakes to roll out.” He was far more content now, gaze flicking back to your plate. 

“Do, you’re not gonna’ eat this?” You shook your head. “Can I have it?”

He didn’t get a chance, though, because Nyx was down from his chair now and tugging on Cassian’s sleeves with force, clearly desperate for the attention. “Uncle Cassie, Uncle Cassie! Let me show you my new toys now, you said we’d play right after dinner!”

“I know, buddy, but I just need to stay here for a little while.” Subconsciously, even as he turned to the boy, his hand smoothed up and down your thigh slowly, comforting and reassuring. You lifted it in your own instead, kissing the back softly before placing it on his knee. 

“Go play, Cass. I’ll be fine here.”

“What? No, I- no.”

“Go. I’ll be just fine. I’m waiting for my sugar rush.” You patted your stomach lightly, all this talk of cake and baked goods really was getting you hungry now, and you could only thank the Mother that you hadn't lost your love for chocolate. “Go be with Nyx.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

He hesitated only a second longer, before letting his nephew take his hand and lead him away to a patch on the floor where you could no longer see them, only the tips of Cassian’s wings sticking up. 

While Cassian was distracted, you saw your chance to slip away. A quick walk down the halls, past the flickering sconces and stone tiles, until you were back in your bedroom once again. Hidden away in your drawer, underneath all the socks and bras, was the small wrapped gift package you’d prepared days ago. Swiping it up, your thumbs smoothed over it. Soon, the truth would be out there, and everyone would know. 

It would be real. 

And you couldn't be happier about that. Smiling, you lifted it, pressing a kiss to the paper and the promise it held inside, before pushing the drawer closed again, and making your way back to the party, before your absence was noticed.

You were barely gone for five minutes, thinking you could slip out and be back in time before anybody noticed. But, your boyfriend had been suspicious all night, and you could hear his panicked voice from the opposite end of the central corridor. With the gift tucked behind your back as you rounded the entry and back into the main hall, your gaze closed in on Cassian. He was questioning Rhysand for your whereabouts, stopping only when he looked over his brother’s shoulder at you.

“Baby, hey.” He all but elbowed Rhys out of the way, stopping before you and smoothing his hand down your arms, eyes searching your face. “Where’d you go?”

His gaze shifted, to your hands behind your back, and so you leaned up swiftly to kiss him before he could look much further. He was gentle, as always, a sweet kiss as one hand smoothed down to your hip, the other large and warm and calloused as it sat on your jaw. Behind you, you felt Rhysand take the packet from your hands to hide, freeing you to put them on your boyfriend instead. 

As your hands found him, one gripping his shoulder to pull yourself further up and the other slipping into his hair, scratching at his scalp lightly until he gave a soft groan against your lips. “Don’t think you can distract me with kisses and playing with my hair.”

His mumble against your lips was low and gritty, but your laughter was much louder. His eyes twinkled a little as he watched you. Sinking back down to stand properly, your arms were slung around his neck, his hands smoothing up and down your sides slowly. “There’s nothing to distract, Cass. I just went to freshen up before the stars began to fall, that’s all.”

Those tanned chinks gained a hint of pink, his eyes widening just a fraction, and lips parting. “Oh… sorry.”

“Don’t be, I like it when you worry about me.”

His grin was back, wide and sparkling, and he just tugged you closer in response, until your chests were pressed together. You pressed one kiss to his stubbled jaw, the next one to his cheek, the next was just under his eye. Under your lips, you could feel his smile. Next was his temple, his nose, the side of his mouth, until he was huffing in disappointment and impatience. “Kiss me. Now.”

“So demand-” His mouth closed over yours, far more intense than that first kiss. That one had been a reassurance, this one was a demand, and you yielded to the force of his lips against yours, moaning softly into his mouth. “Cass…”

“Mhm?” He didn’t pull away, instead nipping lightly on your lip until you let out a shaky sound that he was quick to smother again. When he dipped you backwards, a giggle sounded from you. 

“Cass, c’mon, everyone’s waiting!” 

“Let ‘em wait.” The kisses moved to your cheek when you were too busy laughing to kiss back. 

“Alright, handsome, let’s go and watch the stars before you decide to throw me over your shoulder like a caveman.” As if to punctuate how close he was hovering to that border, Cassian left a single smack on your ass, a matching nip to your jaw, before pulling away. A few pieces of his hair were starting to fall loose where you’d played with his hair, hanging down around his face in strands that were beginning to curl in the warmth of the room, and you twirled one around your finger. 

“Alright, fine.” He took your hand, raising it to kiss your knuckles. “If you insist.”

“I do.” You tugged him along behind you, until the two of you were standing out on the balcony. Twisting your back to him, you settled into his touch, feeling his arms wrap around your body, wings following to grace your sides and block out the light breeze sweeping over your skin. 

The falling stars started only a few minutes later, bright colours lighting up the sky as the souls began to fly past. Your hand settled on your stomach, rubbing lightly at the growing life hidden within you. 

“Doll…” Cassian’s voice was gentle, almost too fragile, stubbled cheek brushing against your skin as he left loving kisses to the juncture of your neck. “I’m still worried. Are you truly okay? You can tell me if something is wrong, please tell me if something is wrong.”

This was the moment, you knew it. There was no more denying or hiding it, you didn’t want Cassian to start truly panicking, to put a bad tilt on something that should be a happy memory. Twisting in his arms, your hands lifted to his cheeks, something across the spiky hairs there and smiling at the way he leaned fully into your touch. 

Your gaze left his, flickering away just for a second towards Rhys. Cassian followed your gaze, his brows furrowing when his brother untucked the small, neatly wrapped package from his inner jacket pocket. “What’s this?”

“A gift, Cass.” He didn’t seem all that impressed by your joke, however his lips flicked up at the corners, adoration flashing through his eyes, even as his face still read confusion and worry. 

“Obviously. But, you should have told me we were doing gifts. I’ve had my eye on this necklace I thought you’d like for weeks, but-” You cut his rambling off with a sweet kiss, one he was quick to reciprocate, lips melding with your own. He was always so passionate, no matter the kind of kiss it was, or the moment or occasion, Cassian never failed to make you feel like the only woman in the world. As he was distracted, you took one of his hands, pressing the gift into it carefully, before pulling back. 

“We’re not doing gifts. This is different.”

His brows only rose in response.

“There is something. I’m going to be a little sick for a while, mostly in the mornings. I won’t be able to eat certain foods, or drink alcohol for a while. I’ll probably get some really bad mood swings, just like my cycle.” Your boyfriend smirked at that, you both knew how temperamental you could get. 

His hands were shaking, a shallow breath taken in as he glanced at the parcel in his hold. His eyes were starting to shine, ad his throat bobbed as he did, your own growing thick with emotion as the silent message was passed between you both. He was beginning to get it, beginning to understand, tears forming along his lower lash-line as his lips pressed together when the bottom one trembled.

“Open it.” 

“I’m nervous.” A watery laugh left him, rubbing a hand down his face before he leaned forward. A lingering kiss on your forehead, his nose dragging along your temple to leave another on your hairline, before he was glancing down at the parcel. Your heads rested together, and you were acutely aware of the group watching on, silence and anticipation. 

The stars overhead flashed different colours across you both, lighting up the scene in vibrant hues that made for the perfect setting, and you sniffed through your emotions as he tugged on the ribbon. The bow came loose, the ribbon fluttering away to the ground, and the paper fell open in his cupped hands. Revealed before him was the soft material, pale white and delicate and so small.

He lifted it out slowly, shaking it out, and when he finally got a real look at it, a sob left his lips. Loud and unashamed, and he lifted his head to take in the piece in all its glory. Pinched in his hands, so tiny to fit, was a baby’s romper. Plain white and warm, with a matching hat and pair of socks back in the room, the words ‘baby’s first Starfall’ across the front in sparkling silver thread.

Another sob, and your heart squeezed to the point of pain at the elated expression on his face. Tears were slipping down your face to match, his gaze finding your own once again. “We’re having a baby?”

“Yeah, Cass. We’re having a baby.”

“I’m gonna’ be a dad.” He whispered, voice thick, and stealing a series of happy kisses from your lips, wet cheeks sliding together and salt tasting on your mouth, but it was perfect. When he pulled back, it was to spin to his family. With clasped hands and wide eyes and huge grins, Cassian cheered loudly, hands throwing up in the air. “I’m gonna’ be a dad!”

Rhys whooped, Azriel cheered loudly, wings flaring out, and both leapt for Cassian. In big hugs and flaps of wings and excited pats on the back, they celebrated, Nyx scrabbling in his mother’s arms to join the fray. 

Feyre set him free, before making her way over to you, taking you into a tight hug that Mor and Elain and even a reluctant but smiling Nesta joined. You were still crying, as was Cassian, even as he scooped Nyx’s up and tickled his stomach and promised him soon he’d have a little friend to run these halls with.

And as you watched him, watched them all, you knew Cassian would make a wonderful father, and your baby would have the most loving family possible.

#cassian x reader #cassian x you #cassian/reader #cassian/you #acotar x reader #acotar x you #acotar/reader #acotar/you #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #cassian

[jeannineee]

Closure (Ⅴ)

Azriel x Reader

a/n: final part. Couldn’t wait until tomorrow to post so here it is :) This part is a lil short compared to the others. I hope you guys enjoyed this series as much as I did!!

Requests are open!!

warnings: angst, and then FINALLY some fluff

One month passed, and Azriel followed through with his promise to give you space and time.

That didn’t stop him from trying to win your favor back in other ways, though.

The first gift? A bouquet of your favorite flowers, sitting on your nightstand when you returned home after a day of training.

The second? A stack of books. New books, that Azriel recalled you showing interest in.

The third? He gifted you a basket of muffins. Poorly baked as they were, you did appreciate the effort.

Most recently, though? A necklace, with a gemstone matching the cobalt-blue of his siphons. He’d left it on your bed that morning. You’d yet to put it on.

Despite your better judgment, you tugged on the bond. An uncertain, nervous gesture.

Are you there? An unspoken question.

You felt a pull in response, sending warmth throughout your chest.

I’m here, it seemed to say.

~~~~~~~~

“Still on the outs with Az?” Feyre questioned from her vanity, where she applied her makeup for the coming Starfall celebration.

“Yes,” you said quickly, before clearing your throat. “No. I don’t know.”

Feyre laughed. “I know how you feel.”

You supposed your situation was rather similar to what Feyre went through with Rhys.

“How did…” you trailed off, trying to find the words. “How did you forgive him?”

With amusement twinkling in her eyes, Feyre answered without hesitation, “I forgave him because I love him, and I understood why Rhys did what he chose to do. I still give him shit for it, as a friendly reminder, every so often.”

You nodded, and toyed with the sleeves of your dress, swallowing thickly. “I love Azriel, you know.”

That much, you knew to be true. You loved him so much it made your soul ache, so much it pained you to be away from him, no matter how much he upset you. You loved him. Needed him.

Feyre smiled gently, understandingly. “I know.”

~~~~~~~~

From where you stood on the balcony of Feyre and Rhys’s townhouse, Azriel looked beautiful.

The dark blue shirt he wore had a few buttons undone, revealing the chiseled chest beneath. His tousled hair looked so soft you wanted to reach out and touch it.

Unsurprisingly, the Shadowsinger caught you staring. He offered you a small smile.

You gave him a smile in return.

It took several more moments before you realized he wouldn’t approach you. He was waiting for your lead.

So you took a steady, calming breath, and made your way to him, the sound of celebration drowning out behind you.

Azriel gulped—gulped—as he took in your form. You made a mental note to thank Nesta for buying this dress.

“Hi, Az,” you greeted.

Azriel smiled again. “Hi, y/n.”

You opened your mouth to speak, but all that left you was a gasp as the spirits of Starfall began migrating above you.

Bright, glowing orbs of blue, green, and purple loomed about. You watched in awe, as you did every year.

“Do you ever wonder where they go?” You asked Azriel, not tearing your gaze from the sight above.

“Somewhere better, I suppose.”

It was then that you turned to see Azriel’s reaction to the spirits, only to find that he was already staring at you.

Despite yourself, you blushed. “You’re missing the show,” you murmured, playfully shoving his shoulder.

Azriel froze for a moment, and then grinned. Your heart swooned at the gesture, and you realized then, that was the first time you’d touched him in weeks.

“I have a much better view right here,” Azriel mused as his eyes raked over you for a second time.

You watched the spirits for a few moments longer, before turning to Azriel once again. “We should—“

Azriel cleared his throat. “Yes, we should—“

“Talk,” the two of you said in unison, before sharing a laugh.

You sighed, before reaching into the pocket of your dress, pulling out the necklace Azriel gifted you. You fidgeted with it as you spoke. “I wasn’t sure, before. What to say to you. How to…go about what happened.”

Azriel’s throat bobbed. “And now?”

“Now…” you paused, swiping your thumb over the gemstone in your hands. “Now, I’m sure. Of a few things, I’m sure. I…I know I said it already. But you did hurt me, Azriel. Very much.”

You loosed another sigh. “But, I know that you were scared. You were scared of what the bond meant, scared of allowing yourself to be vulnerable with me.”

“I was scared,” Azriel admitted. “I still am, in truth. I’m afraid of failing you—I’ve already failed you. I—“

You shook your head, silencing him with by placing your hand on his chest, over his thundering heart. “I also know that I love you. With every bone in my body, with every breath I draw, I love you.”

For the first time in the centuries you’d known him, you watched as a tear slipped down Azriel’s cheek.

At the sight of it, your own tears began forming.

“I love you,” Azriel breathed. “I love you so much. I’m sorry I didn’t admit it sooner.”

You studied him for a moment, as though it was your first time ever doing so. You took in every bit of his features, down to the freckles that painted his tanned skin, the tiny, barely-there scar on his jaw, the tears brimming his eyes.

And you let your love for him flow through the bond, warm and inviting and all-consuming.

Your breath hitched as Azriel did the same, the feeling unlike anything you’d ever experienced.

A simple tether, connecting your soul to another’s.

Your mate.

Azriel glanced at the necklace you still held in your hand, and then met your eyes. “May I?”

You remembered what you sneered at him, all those weeks ago.

Do not presume to touch me. Ever again.

You regretted the words—you’d regret them for the rest of your life.

So you turned away from Azriel, and moved your hair over your shoulder, baring your neck to him.

He slipped the necklace around you, pressing a kiss to the crook of you neck as he clasped it. When you turned to face him, fresh tears streamed down his face.

You once again reached your hand into your pocket, cringing at what you revealed.

“It’s not much, but I figured this could be the final task to your retribution,” you said to Azriel, handing him one of the muffins he’d baked for you.

Azriel chuckled. “I’ll eat them for the rest of my life, if it makes you happy.”

“Don’t tempt me,” you teased as he took the muffin from you, and began to choke it down.

You giggled at the sight, brushing your lips against his once he finished.

“I love you,” you whispered to him once again. “My mate,” you added, almost to yourself.

Azriel’s eyes fluttered shut as you spoke. You found yourself wondering how often he’d heard those three words.

You’d be sure to tell him every day.

~~~~~~~~

taglist: @brekkershadowsinger @1nksta1neddesk @naturakaashi @officialleehi @sirenpearldust @j-pendragonx @positivewitch @aria-chikage @kemillyfreitas @librafairy @bbycowboi @theotheory @cat-or-kitten @azriels-shadowsinger @anyzandy @orangecomfortfoods @stargirl1714 @bubybubsters @morrie-rose @rubygirly @woodland-mist @previousloversandmuses @valeridarkness @thelov3lybookworm @going-through-shit @fussel9913 @starlight-hope @venuseuripedis @tothestarsandwhateverend @llovelydove @infinitely-kate @luvmoo @ladespedidas @torchbearerkyle @whysoanxious @hannzoaks @harrystylesfan2686 @amieinghigh @portkeytomyworld @i-am-infinite @leafsandstarlight @illyrian-dreamer @wannabewolf @marvelpotter @thegirlintheshadows101 @nastynesta @honeycriess @anxemoon @thewulf

#acotar #a court of thorns and roses #acotar headcanon #acotar fanfiction #acomaf #female reader #azriel x reader #azriel acotar #Azriel fluff #Azriel angst #acotar angst #acotar fluff #fluff #angst

[mika-no-sekai-blog]

Not my cup of tea

Word count: 2400+

Warnings: mentions of sex

You voted for this one to be posted, so here you are. I hope you'll enjoy it

I'm sorry for any mistakes as English isn't my first language 🫣

"Y/N, are you listening?" Mor gently touched your hand. The faint smell of cedar and mist reached your nose. He was about to walk in to the living room where you were talking with your best friend.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Actually..I'm afraid I have to go," you hurriedly excused yourself and walked through the closest wall.

It was exactly a week since you slept with Azriel and ever since then you were avoiding him at any cost. You truly loved him and were used to spend a lot of time around him, so this new situation was a real torment.

It all started when after years of flirting with each other Azriel finally asked you out. You were so happy and thrilled that he willed to deepen your relationship. You had eyes for shadowsinger since you two met, so it was a dream-comes-true situation. It took only few dates and you ended up in his bed.

It was perfect until that night, ideal. There was absolutely nothing to indicate that it could turn out this way. Not even the slightest hint. However the night became the turning point for you. Well, sex itself was amazing. He was amazing and you enjoyed that part, but problem was in everything else. Azriel seemed to have a thing for spanking, degradation, bondage and other similar practices that weren't to your taste at all.

You were ashamed and your heart screamed in pain because he was fantastic male who deserved to be loved and especially, Azriel deserved to have partner who would share the same interests. Unfortunately it couldn't be you. As much as it hurt, it was the fact you had to learn to live with. Problem was that you didn't know how to tell him and you were afraid you could hurt his feelings, so you were rather running away and hiding. You needed time to think it over and find the right words.

You were invited to a dinner in the House of Wind and there's no doubt Azriel would be there, too. You wished you could refuse the invitation, but the dinner was in honor of very important guests, so you had to go. All day long you were thinking how to attend and avoid him at the same time, but you didn't come up with anything useful.

And so with a heavy heart you prepared and went to the dinning room. As soon as you entered you scanned the gathered group and with relieve you found out Azriel wasn't there yet. It gave you some time to do the necessary greetings and socialization. It was time to sit to the table and he still wasn't there. You allowed yourself to relax a bit and took a deep breath. Maybe he had to go to some mission or something urgently needed his attention.

You were about to pick up the spoon and start to eat when you smelled the familiar intoxicating scent. You turned toward the end of the table and saw a glimmer of blue siphon. You panicked for a moment, drops of sweat forming on your forehead. There wasn't time to run away without being noticed by the whole party and shadowsinger. For once you were glad you had unique powers and merged with the chair.

Azriel walked into the dining room and immediately glanced over the people gathered around the table. He was sure you would be here, so he was late on purpose, waiting till everyone was seated. Even in the room full of people he could smell your scent, fresh and strong. You were in there.

He spent the week looking for you, but without success. Anytime he thought he caught you, you simply vanished most likely using the powers that he adored so much. It would make you a great spy, but unfortunately you didn't feel up to the job.

Your behaviour was really strange and unusual and Azriel was afraid it had something to do with the night you'd spent together. He thought you liked it and enjoyed it even more than him, but it seemed he was wrong.

Whatever the problem was, Azriel just wanted to hear it from your mouth. He needed to know what you didn't like, so he wouldn't repeat the same mistake next time. He knew how you felt about him and he felt the same way about you, that's why he dared to ask you out. You were perfect for him and he was decided to do anything to convince you to stay with him even though there were moments when he felt undeserving of somebody as good as you.

Shadowsinger spotted free seat next to Nesta, your second best friend. If you attended which you definitely did, she would know where to look for you. He headed towards her and sat down. "Have you seen Y/N tonight?" he asked bluntly.

Nesta looked at him in surprise. "She was sitting right here a while ago. I didn't notice she left."

"I see," Shadowsinger murmured. It was really strange. Your scent was as strong here as if you were sitting on his lap. His eyes widened as he finally realized what was happening. He had to laugh at himself that he hadn't thought of it sooner. Smirking Azriel picked up spoon and started to eat.

Hidden in the chair that Azriel was seated on, you were waiting for the best moment to slip through the floor to the room under the dining room. You were so nervous, you couldn't even remember what was down there. You waited almost until the desserts. Azriel was engaged in heated conversation with Cassian, his full attention trained on him. This was your chance.

You slowly materialized under the chair. You had to be very careful not to touch his long legs or sensitive wings. Mentally you prepared for hard impact from a height and slowly started to merge through the floor. When you were half through, your lower body hanging in the air in the other room, you inhaled deeply, closed eyes and holding breath you let go. Instead of a fall that would end in a great pain you landed on some tall piece of furniture.

Shakily exhaling you looked around. You were in a small family library. You looked down from the bookcase hoping to find a ladder that should be somewhere nearby. You found it resting against row of opposite bookcases. You sighed.

You were thinking about the best way how to get down, when a deep voice startled you. "What are you doing up there?"

Azriel was leaning against the bookcase on the end of aisle, arms crossed on chest, playful smirk on his face, shadows swirling behind his back. Your throat tightened. You totally forgot about his shadows. They most likely saw your pathetic escape attempt and reported it to him.

"I..I was just.."you couldn't come up with any good excuse.

He pushed off of the bookcase, lazily walking closer. "Let me help you," he stopped under you, holding out his scarred hands.

Heat consumed your face, but nodding you accepted. Azriel put you down as easily as if you were just a feather. But instead of letting you go, he pressed you to his broad chest. Smell of cedar filled your lungs and dulled all your senses. You could feel his hot breath in the crook of your neck, his eyes closed. One scarred hand travelled up your back and slipped into your hair. It felt so good, so right that a small moan escaped you. Only then you realized how much you'd missed him, how much you needed him. You wanted to stay like this for the rest of your life.

"What happened?" his voice was so gentle, no more than a whisper. With a jerk you sobered up immediately. It was just simple question, but it stabbed straight to the heart like a dagger. You swallowed hard.

Azriel pulled back a bit so he could look you in the eyes. "Was it too soon? Or did I hurt you? Didn't you like it?" These and other questions haunted him all the week. Now when he had finally found you, they poured out of him like water from a broken dam.

A silver lined your eyes and your lips wobbled. You couldn't look at him any longer. You shook your head, trying to get out of his grip, but he wouldn't let you. His fingers gripped you even harder, pulling you to his strong body.

"Please, don't. Tell me what I did wrong. Please," he begged you desperately. He was so vulnerable at this moment and you knew how hard it's for him to let someone in, to show his weaknesses, to beg for things he wanted. It wasn't easy at all for him to show such a vulnerability. It was against his nature. Yet for you he didn't hesitate.

"You did nothing wrong," you sobbed.

"I had to do something. You are avoiding me ever since then. Please, tell me what it is. Didn't you like the sex?" You shook your head. "So I hurt you."

"No, you never." Brows furrowed, he studied your face, looking for an answer, a hint, anything that would help him to understand.

"I'm trying to understand it, but I can't. I don't want to loose you. Please, tell me what you don't like and I will change."

His words were breaking your heart. It hurt so much to listen how he saw himself, how he considered himself to be bad person, undeserving, hurting others. First tears rolled down your face. "Please, stop it. There's nothing wrong with you. You don't have to change something you enjoy for anybody. It's me, I'm the problem."

He shook head. "Please.."

"You deserve to be with somebody who likes same things. But unfortunately it isn't me. Even though I really wish I could be the one."

"I'm not sure what you mean, but I assure you I can change. Just tell me." Closing eyes he rested his forehead on yours. You knew him enough to notice that he was trying hard to stay calm, not to burst out. You also knew he wasn't angry, not for real. Azriel was just very desperate and determined. "Y/N...Whatever it is, spit it out. Please," he groaned through clenched teeth, gently shaking your shoulders.

There was no other way but to tell him. Azriel wouldn't let you be, if you refused. You couldn't even make up some blunt, because he was the spymaster and he would know you lied. You felt so embarrassed, you had to shut your eyes close. Shakily you inhaled. "Okay..." even your voice was weak and trembling. "I.. well.. you remember as you bounded my hands behind my back, called me your whore.. and the other names.. also those punishments when I didn't answer properly.." You couldn't continue. But apparently it wasn't necessary.

Azriel's hands dropped and he took few steps back. He leaned against the bookcase running fingers through his dark hair. He was pale. "So basically all except the sex part," he mumbled. You nodded.

Groaning he sat down and covered his face with scarred hands. Suddenly he started to laugh so much he cried. You'd never seen him laugh so hard. You were confused and worried. "Azriel.. are you okay?" You wanted to touch him, but you weren't sure if it's good idea right now.

Finally he caught his breath and looked up at you. "Thank Cauldron," he said still smiling wide. "I hated that, too."

Wide-eyed you dropped to your knees. "What do you mean?" you whispered.

"As I said, I didn't like it, too," he laughed again.

"So why did you do that?"

"I thought you like it. That's why."

Now you had to laugh. "But why? Where did you get such an idea?"

"Those spicy novels you read. I noticed there is one you reread again and again, so I thought you must really like what's written there and tried to imitate some of those sex scenes."

Both of you burst into laughter.

"You really read it? Just because you thought I like it?" You laughed so much your stomach hurt.

"I did. Several times to make sure I remember what Im supposed to do," he admitted wiping his tears. You leaned in and kissed his cheek.

"It's so sweet of you." He pulled you into his arms and kissed you, enjoying the moment.

"I'd do anything for you." Pulling you even closer he looked deep into your eyes. You wrapped arms around his shoulders playing with the soft hair on the nape of his neck.

"Thank you," you whispered resting your head on his shoulder. Surrounded by his calming scent and warmth you sat there in silence for a while.

"Can I tell you a secret?" you whispered to his hot skin.

"Sure," smiling he whispered back.

"I don't like those novels. They are quite too spicy for me and I'm not fond of what males do to females, the way they interact with them. But I like Nesta and the girls. Every time we have sleepover party or just hang out, they talk about those books a lot. I want to be able to join the conversation and that's the only reason I read them."

"Dove, I'm sure the girls wouldn't like you any less even if you didn't read those horrible novels," Azriel chuckled on the last two words. "Nesta is your best friend. No need to push yourself so hard over something you don't enjoy."

"I know," you sighed. "By the way," you bit down on your lower lip, glad he couldn't see your face now, "if you don't like to do it like in those books, then how do you like it?"

Even from this angle you could see his cheeks turned pink. "Well, about that..," Azriel nervously cleared his throat. "I'd love to show you myself, but I understand that after the previous fiasco you might be against it."

One of his shadows picked a book from shelf and put it into his stretched hand. "Maybe this could convince you to give me one more chance." He handed you the book. You gasped when you read the title. It was one of your most favourite novels.

"If this is what you like," you smiled and kissed the tip of his nose," then we could go to your room and try it out. What do you think?"

"I'm in," Azriel said and standing up with you in his arms he headed to his room.

#az x reader #azriel x reader #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #azriel #azriel spymaster #azriel x you #sarah j maas #acotar #acotar fanfiction #azriel fanfic #azriel angst #azriel fluff

[screaminghomosexual]

The scene where Binx knights Andhera is actually so important to me. Because like, Andhera has just shared how their whole life they’ve been forced to compete for love, told that it, like magic, is scarce. And Binx tells him no, that in their house (their home) love and magic were plentiful. That magic has been largely siphoned from her and her court is almost gone, yes, but still she gives and fights for all the magic and love she can. Hell, she’s actively making Andhera an outfit and offered to take away the source of their constant humiliation after knowing him for a couple weeks max. And Prince Andhera takes in all of this and immediately pledges himself to them and their cause, because it’s everything he dared to believe in defiance of his own court being proven true by this weird little fairy of lost things wearing a dirty tshirt, knighting him with a cardboard tube under a radiator.

#a court of fey and flowers #this is rambly but I have a lot of feelings #I love this show #acofaf

[acourtofthought]

"I imagine that if Elain sunk into the depression she did after Graysen's rejection, someone she never had the connection to the way she does Lucien, she's even more terrified at what would become of her if what she's feeling for Lucien also ended poorly."

Lol there's no deep connection between Elain and Lucien. Neither of them would be okay with being away from each other for so long if there was. They don't even act like mates. We've seen Feyre and Rhys, Nesta and Cassian, and the pull they feel towards each other, the way they can't stay away. Elucien shows none of that. Only elriel resembles that level of pull towards each other, that level of connection, understanding without words.

You are a fool.

I'm sorry but it's true. Willful ignorance is getting you nowhere.

Was Feyre's pull towards Rhys evident in book 1 where she died because of her love for Tamlin?

Both Nesta and Feyre easily stayed away from Cassian and Rhys. Nesta stayed away so well she refused to see him for nearly a year and chose to sleep with other men. And neither she or Feyre were attached to their humanity the way Elain was. You are blind to the similarities while also not giving any leeway for them being different people coming from different experiences (Elain was in love and engaged while Nesta was not).

No deep connection? So these moments meant nothing?

Do explain to me why a female who has zero interest in a male, no pull at all and was at the time in love with someone else would bother arriving at the top of the stairs just to see Lucien one last time? Why she says she can hear Lucien's heart the first time she met him whereas she only tells Az his Siphons are pretty, sparkly jewels after knowing him for months?

She is drawn to Lucien and it scares her, just like Nesta:

You cling with your whole chest to the fact that you know how Elain is feeling except:

I am so sorry about your poor excuse for a ship because it's built on the heels of Elain trying to run away from her bond because she's scared.

Az is a rebound, if that. Because her fiance rejected her, because her bond scares her.

And what sort of pull did Az have to Elain when he chose to stay away from her because he couldn't stand her bond though it's clear she could have used a friend during her arguments with Nesta? What male love interest avoids a female who isn't pushing him away? Cassian, Rhys and Lucien stayed away because it's what the female wanted. Az stayed away because he was too much of a baby to do right by Elain and be there for her.

There is nothing of substance to hold she and Az together except daggers and potatoes whereas Elain and Lucien share a love of nature, a desire to avoid violence, the ability to not lash out in anger, a love of parties and balls and being good at talking to people, a life spent in the light.

Az does not support Elain unless he is playing the hero. He does not encourage her, acknowledge her growth, is staring at other females with yearning while she's in the room.

Also, elriel understand one another without words? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂. I love how you try to justify the fact that they do not talk at all. Two people who have such deep feelings for one another, both seemingly receptive towards hooking up yet they don't talk because "they understand one another without words" 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂. For an author who likes banter. If they understand one another so well than why did Elain look hurt over Az calling her a mistake? Shouldn't she have known he didn't mean it since she understands him so well? Why did Az give another female her necklace? Shouldn't he have understood that she was just hurt and therefore would hang onto it until they sorted things out? Az understands Elain so well that his words on multiple occasions contradict things Elain has said. Elain: "You do not decide what I can and cannot do" Az: "There is an innate darkness to the Dread Trove that Elain should not be exposed to" Elain: "Swear it" (in her conversation asking Feyre to leave Graysen unharmed). Az: "If Lucien kills Graysen, good riddance" Elain: "I'm not a child to be fought over". Az: "I'll defeat him with little effort".

I don't know why you continue coming onto my page writing anons against Elucien when all that does is reinforce my belief of how Az and Elain are the absolute worst excuse for a romantic pairing that I've ever read about and trust me, I've read a lot.

#anti e/riel

[acourtofmenandthirst]

The Throne

Cassian x Reader, where your mate shares his insecurities, then fucks the ever loving shit out of you

Warnings: smut, battle (fighting, killing) - I’m bad at writing battle sequences, idk why I wrote one lmao

Word Count: 5.1K

Cassian hadn’t sat atop a throne before. 

He didn’t think he would, quite honestly. He didn’t have a problem with that, either. In his 500 years of living, it was always Rhys who was set to be on the throne, Cassian flanking one side, Azriel the other. 

Cassian didn’t need the power - he had seven siphons for Cauldron’s sake - surely, that was enough. He didn’t want the power, nor the responsibility. He was by far intimidating enough without the status and the crown. His façade was difficult to keep up with just as Rhysand’s General: directing the Illyrians training, acting as courtier, keeping Windhaven in line. Playing politics was never his strong suit and he had his hands plenty full.

But he was a bastard born brute. Many people had reminded him of it - even multiple times in one day. While being told he would amount to nothing his whole life, that he would be better off dead, he always wondered in the back of his mind, what it truly felt like to sit atop that throne and be better than everyone else. 

He felt guilty for just the thought alone. 

It wasn’t something he had intended to share with anyone. That little tiny insecurity of his - that somehow turned out to be not so tiny, and now, not so secret. 

It was only in finding his equal did he finally allow someone into the deepest darkest depths of his mind. Cassian knew he was an open book - he didn’t inherently try to be, and Rhys had warned him about it before. Of course, he’d had these types of conversations with his brothers. But hell, even Eris could see his insecurities as if he were waving them across the room on a flag. 

It was with you, however, that Cassian had been free to speak to you about this. It wasn’t that Cassian had wanted to be perceived better than anyone else exactly, but to hold that authority over someone… he had power, that was the thing. 

But he was still Rhysand’s dog. 

It was the respect he wanted. 

It came after being holed up in Windhaven for months. He had come home to you in an altered state. Depressed, utterly exhausted after being beat down day after day. No respect: every order was challenged, all his subordinates untrusting of him after the last war.

Cassian had found you, nearly crushing you in the bear hug he swept you up into upon his arrival. His wings wrapped around you both, cocooning you in his safety, as if he would shield any outside intrusion so as not to disturb this moment. 

You felt ice radiating off his wings and skin, his flight home not only bitterly cold, but also hurried, the fast winds whipping around him harsher as he bolted home as quickly as his wings would carry him. And when he arrived home, you were so warm. Warmer than he remembered, in fact. His hands ran across the skin of your back, shoved under your thick sweater, to feel you against his hands. 

After days of fucking, not leaving the bed - save for a few baths and, of course, making love against the wall, on the desk, on the floor in front of the fireplace - he finally calmed enough to discuss his months away. You could tell something was weighing him down, that his mind had been pulling itself in a thousand different directions - but he was so relieved to be out of there, to be home with you, to be home in you. 

“I don’t like going back there,” he breathed, mouth brushing against the top of your head, words stirring your hair. It wasn’t something he said often, or at all, really. It was known that Azriel had strong distaste for both camps, but it was expected to be more of Cassian’s realm. He was afraid to let Rhys know his true distaste for staying there because he knows this is his job. He needed to stay there to earn the trust of his men, to keep everyone in line, to make sure they were trained. They were his responsibility, their lives were in his hands - quite literally. “I know I have to, but I just can’t help…” he trailed off, arms wrapping tighter across your back and shoulders. “I don’t know.” He huffed a breath of frustration. 

You pressed a kiss to his pectoral, where your cheek was currently nuzzled against, listening to his heartbeat thrum softly deep in his chest. You hummed quietly, an acknowledgement that you were listening, giving him time to find the right words to continue. 

He sat quietly for many moments, letting his thoughts pass as he searched for the right one. You almost shut your eyes, barely able to keep them open in such late hours of the night. “I’m so powerless there.” 

You turned up to face him, propping your elbow on the mattress beside him, staring into his hazel eyes. You wanted to tell him he was wrong. He was the most powerful Illyrian, most accomplished General in Night Court history. He has earned the respect of this Court and those beyond, he fought with his men, and had honored those who had fallen - whether they were his soldiers or not. You’d seen him in battle, seen him stand in front of his warriors, leading them, never faltering. But he continued, and you knew he needed to vent. “They don’t see me as anything beyond the bastard I was thrown in as. General or not, I have no true hold in those lands.” 

Not like Rhys. 

It had remained unspoken, the both of you knew what was implied. There was no inherent respect given to the High Lord’s two friends. They’d earned it all. Fought and bled and killed for it - for their rightful places along Rhysand. 

But no matter how much Cassian proved himself, time and time again, he wasn’t the High Lord. He was appointed by the High Lord to lead his armies. 

When Rhys commanded armies, there were no questions. No snarky remarks or questioning looks. 

Rhys exuded power. 

Cassian did not wear a crown. He did not sit atop a throne. He did not have the Court of Nightmares bowing at his feet. 

He didn’t want that. 

“I just want… respect.”

And that hurt. To hear the warlord’s voice just barely a whisper, afraid. By no means was he power hungry. The male had fought and sacrificed alongside his men and had his wings torn to shreds on what seemed to be a regular basis. It seemed to go unnoticed, under appreciated. Not that he ever wanted any praise for his sacrifice, perhaps a younger bigger-headed Cassian once did, but not now - now all he wanted was some gods-damned thanks.

“You have an impossibly hard job, Cass.” The proper words seemed to fail you at that moment. Cassian was not normally so vocal about his insecurities or about his challenges at work. The latter was usually saved for private meetings with his brothers, the former topic meant only for his mate’s pointed ears. 

“It’s a frustrating job,” he corrected, head falling back against the pillow. He huffed out a sigh and curled his arm around your back, holding you tighter to his side. You hooked a leg over his, settling again beside him. “One that I’m due back at tomorrow.” 

You giggled at the absolute dread in his tone. “But I get to come with you this time,” you hummed.

He grumbled a response, obviously displeased - he had fought with Rhysand (with words and fists) for you to stay out of tomorrow’s events. A siege on the nearly destroyed Spring Court. The Court had remained in disarray after the war and the remainder of Hybern’s army intended to make a move on the lands to use as a camp. Azriel had picked up word that Tamlin’s castle was still a wreck, unguarded and half-standing; making it the perfect place for some haphazard lodging before the next attack. 

Cassian made it very clear he didn’t want you there - he didn’t want any of them there, in fact. But there were still many innocent Fae in Spring; Rhys had agreed to help - perhaps in return for Tamlin saving his life. While it was expected to be just as dangerous as the first battles of the war, Cassian was still dreading seeing Kier and Devlin, and many of the higher ranking officers that had developed a need to disrespect the General. It was those comments and questioning that set a bad example for the other soldiers that could lead to distrust amongst the warriors. “So you’ll see it first hand then.” 

You pinched his hip. “You want me to beat up the big bad males who sass you?”

He stifled a laugh, rolling his eyes to himself. This is why you’re my mate, he couldn't help but think to himself. Always knew how to make him laugh when he was down, but he knew you were also dead serious - and you would be able to kick their asses, too. “You’ll have your work cut out for you then,” he whispered. Cassian pressed a kiss to the top of your head before he pulled the heavy blanket further up over your shoulders and back. “Get some rest, my love. We have a busy day tomorrow.”

________________________________________________________________

And how busy it was. 

Turned out the Hybern’s soldiers had already infiltrated the Spring Court, setting up camp throughout Tamlin’s whole estate. It was a battle from start to finish - the moment you’d all crossed the border, the opposing army, while not expecting you, still attacked on sight. They had not been able to get word sent for back-up quickly enough, which led to a swift assault on the remainder of the army.

The Inner Circle had split up in pairs, Cassian and yourself in charge of the East Wing. The halls were eerily empty, wide and gilded in gold. Mud covered the ornate carpets, flecks of brown dirt and red blood flecked the marble and walls. You both held your swords at the ready, Cassian held an Illyrian shield in the other, walking a half step behind you, allowing himself to track your movement. He kept you in his peripheral vision, noting how you fiddled with the string of the Illyrian bow strung across your back, waiting for any surprise attack. He carefully inspected each hall and doorway, ensuring neither of you missed any hidden warriors.

But at the end of the hall, the large golden doors swung open, and soldiers poured out. With a shout, Cassian lunged ahead, sword clashing with those who ran towards you; the males gilded in armor swung at your mate. Metal met metal with a large clash, and you sprinted up behind Cassian to cover his back as the warrior attempted to surround him. 

But he was too fast - he was too fast and they were too slow, still worn from the previous battle. Without a true leader they had lost their conditioning, it seemed as though some had lost sight of why they were fighting. Either that, or coming face to face with the General of the Night Court Armies indeed made their blood run cold. A handful of males gave up on the fight, seeing how Cassian’s sword cut cleanly through the male that challenged him, and ran past you down the hall. While you had half a mind to sink arrows deep in their backs - repayment for what they had done to your friends and family throughout the war - you let the cowards run; Rhys and Amren would deal with them later. 

Not lost in thought for too long, your sword met another, one carried by a large soldier who - smartly - maneuvered past Cassian and toward you. You worked quickly to bring him to his knees, slashing at his lower body, before finishing the job. You pulled your bow free from over your shoulder before sheathing your blade down your back. Pulling an arrow free, you began working on the males pouring from the entryway before you, who all had their sights on your mate. 

One by one they fell, your arrows flying true through their necks or unhelmeted heads. It never ceased to amaze you: how Cassian could fight off three men at once with just one sword in his hand. He moved swiftly, something surprising for how built that male truly was - must be due to all that gods-damned stretching he was always doing. You would never be able to grasp how any male would be ballsy enough to challenge him. He oozed power and strength - his reputation alone was enough to have these soldiers running away from him. But you didn’t have much time to spend gawking at him, surely you could watch him sword fight with his brothers later. 

You advanced to meet him, still shooting arrows at the males who advanced toward Cassian. You stepped between fallen bodies, grabbing arrows sticking out from the bodies on the ground, only to shoot them farther down the hall a few steps later. The last males trickled out the door - easily dropped to the ground by Cassian - before the entryway was slammed shut. 

Cassian took a sideways glance at you, before plucking the remaining arrows from the other males around him. He handed them to you, the siphon atop his hand glowing bright red in the dimly lit hall. He looked down at you, flecks of blood painted his grey helmet, his olive skin dotted with sweat. Those hazel eyes roamed over your body, while asking gruffly: “You okay?”

You nodded, rolling your shoulders to disperse the burning. It had been a few weeks since you had practiced with your bow, and the taught Illyrian string was not easy to pull. You’d need an ice bath if you had any hope of saving your shoulders. That would come later, though. You tucked the sticky, bloody arrows back in your holster, and rubbed your palms on your leathers, ridding them of the slick blood and sweat. 

“They’re barricading the door,” he huffed, mimicking your action and shrugging his own shoulders in preparation. You readied yourself with an arrow, sliding it between your fingers and pulling your shoulders taught. You stepped back and gave him a stiff nod, one that he mirrored as he dropped into his stance. 

Cassian lurched forward, slamming his armored shoulder against that golden door. It heaved open with a grunt, and before he could even rise to his full height, you released your arrow directly through the face of the warrior before him. His sword fell with a loud crash and he slumped to the ground, along with the male behind him, whose skull now bore the arrow. 

Your mate rose, towering over most of the remaining soldiers flocking toward him as he worked away, movements so fluid as evidence of 500 years of the strictest training. He slashed and slayed away at the crowd, ruby red syphons glaring, near blinding, as he worked his way through the males. 

You carved yourself a path forward, literally cutting down the soldiers in your path. It seemed two more took his place. 

Willfully though, you made it to your mate, relishing the sight as his back met eyeline. You turned backwards toward him, throwing a few daggers in the males that made for a surprise attack against Cassian. 

Darkness entered the room, blinding you. 

You felt the cool tendrils of shadow curl against your cheek, and instinctively backed up against Cassian. His wings settled as bodies next to you dropped. You shifted backwards until you felt the curve of his back against your shoulder blades, brushing against the underside of his wings. 

His breath settled as the males around you dropped their weapons, surrendering. The few that remained were walked out - dragged out - by Azriel’s shadows and Rhys orders. As the room cleared, Cassian joined his brothers in taking the prisoners to gods knew where. You surveyed the perimeter of the room, collecting your arrows and inspecting their forgotten swords. 

Your mate joined you eventually, wandering his own way through the mess of casualties. 

But the Lord of Bloodshed stood atop the platform, shoulders heaving, helmet tucked underneath his arm. His armor felt heavy, chest tight in the onset of soreness from wielding the heavy Illyrian sword. He turned his back on the scene before him, slain bodies littering the grand space; the spared soldiers had already moved the wounded, leaving a sea of weapons and spilt blood. 

He stood face to face with the golden throne, plush red fabric adorning the seat, embellished with the finest Spring jewels. 

You gave up on surveying the surroundings, kicking the boxes of supplies to the ground before making your way across the room. He heard you approach, yet instead of turning around, he took one step forward and sat atop the throne, his bright eyes flitted up to you only a moment later. His helmet was long forgotten beside him, his legs spread slightly outward, his impossibly large frame filling the throne perfectly. 

Your steps slowed, heavy boots now nearly soundless as you reached your endgame, stopping just short in front of the platform. There was something primal that battle and pure bloodshed brought out in the Illyrian male. You’d noticed it with all the Illyrian men - it seemed all logic could be thrown out the window, replaced with adrenaline, bloodlust, and need. Pure, utter, need. 

Cassian raised a hand to you, beckoning you over with a curl of his finger; he lifted his hips, pushing them forward on the chair, slouching further. The scent of his arousal filled the room and as you dropped your eyes from his, you saw the evidence pressing up against his tight leathers. 

You clenched your own legs together at the sight. His dark hair clung to his temples and fell in waves at his shoulders. His strong jaw was tipped downward at you, gazing at you from under his brow with half lidded eyes. Despite you climbing the platform, now standing before him sat on that gods-forsaken throne, he exuded power over you. 

You sucked in a breath and sank to your knees before your mate. 

His chest heaved, releasing a baited breath as your hand fumbled with the ties of his pants, fingertips fumbling around, grazing over the bulge before you. You bit your bottom lip, feeling how hard he was against your touch, maybe taking a bit longer than normal to undo it. Once fully unlaced, you moved his leathers just enough to pull his cock out, taking him firmly in your hand and admiring it with a loving stroke. 

He hissed behind his teeth, staring down at you with what could almost be a scowl - his dark brows furrowed, cheeks hollowed, and jaw set. He clenched his teeth as your hand moved up and down his dick, gathering the precum from his tip and spreading it all the way down the length of him, all the way down to the curly hairs at the base. His eyes narrowed down at you as you smiled up at him, toying with your mate, making him wait for something he so clearly needed.

“You can do better than that.” His voice was gruff, darker than you had heard it before. 

“You just feel so good,” you murmured, so low you weren't quite sure if he heard you. You brought your other hand up, wrapping your fingers around his thick base as the other worked at the tip, moving up and down and twisting just how he liked. 

“Taste better,” he huffed, fists clenched atop the golden arms of the throne. 

You smirked up at him, licking his tip and placing a kiss right under. His hips jerked, almost as though he’d never been touched like that before. Adrenaline still surged through his veins; his heart hadn’t stopped racing since you all had crossed into Spring. He’d take this over allergies any day.

You took him in your mouth, hands still twisting what you couldn’t take all the way in, and sucked, bobbing your head up and down. He dropped his head against the throne, sighing a breath of relief as you worked your way farther and farther down his cock. You moved up and down, up and down, until your nose brushed the dark hair at the base.

You released him with a sudden pop and smiled up at him, eyes bright, spit running down your chin. 

His heart swelled at the sight before him. His heart swelled and his cock twitched.

“Fuck, you’re not done yet, baby.”

You smiled wider at Cassian above you, opening your mouth and sliding your tongue up his shaft, holding his gaze as you made it to the tip. “More, Cassian,” you breathed. His name on your tongue always did something to him - he didn’t know what it was. It fell so perfectly from your lips. 

With a smirk, his hand snaked down to your jaw, thumb caressing your cheek briefly, before he pressed it against your wet lips. You sucked it into your mouth, dragging your tongue against the pad of his thumb before he pulled it from your mouth and dragged it against your lower lip. You followed his lead, and as he moved his hand to the back of your neck, your mouth returned to his dick, sucking the head between your lips, offering a lick as you just did to his thumb. 

His fingers snaked through your hair and he applied pressure to the back of your head, pushing you farther down on his cock. “You take me so well,” he crooned, nudging his hips upward slightly. He hit the back of your throat, and you hummed in response, the vibrations tickling the tip of his dick. He released you slightly and you brought your head up, still sucking at the tip, taking a deep breath through your nose. 

As you moved back down, so did Cassian’s hand as he pressed you against him once again, this time lifting his hips once, twice, three times. You lifted up again, taking another breath before allowing him free reign to fuck your face.

And, boy, did he. 

Lewd sounds filled the room, spit collected around your mouth and at the base of his dick. Your throat burned, trying not to choke but also having to force air through your nose. His fingers curled in your hair as he kept your head still, hips lifting quickly from the soft - ruined - fabric of the chair. 

His fist clenched; you could tell he refrained from cumming down your throat as he pulled your head up gently. 

With a cough - one that you failed to suppress - you blinked your tears away and stared up at Cassian, something that looked damn close to pride lacing his features. He hinged forward, grabbing your face with both his hands and smashed his lips to yours in a hungry kiss. You yelped in surprise, but grabbed him back, hands finding either side of his head, angling it sideways for a deeper kiss. He gradually began leaning back, not releasing you, though, so you rose from your knees, only to plant your legs on either side of his frame, sitting atop his spread thighs. 

Fuck, he was overheating. He dropped your face and quickly peeled the leathers off his torso, tossing them beside the throne in a heap atop his helmet. He made quick work on you, nearly ripping your top off, attacking your breasts with kisses and licks, nips and bites, before the garment even hit the ground. His hand came to your chest, squeezing and pinching at your hardened nipple, as the other found his cock between your legs. He rubbed the tip between your folds, groaning at how wet your pussy was already from sucking him off. 

You gasped as his head ran across your clit, gripping both his shoulders to steady yourself as he held his dick to your slit, guiding you downward on his glorious cock. You both moaned in unison, Cassian reveling in how tight you were around him - how tight you always were around him - and you at how he stretched you. You lowered yourself down on him, nearly wincing as he bottomed out inside you. 

With a steading sigh, you lifted yourself off him - if only an inch - and sank back down on him. Little by little, you worked your way up to moving closer to the tip, just to settle back down against his thighs. After a few minutes of bouncing, you found your rhythm, rising until his tip nearly fell from your folds before dropping your ass down again, squeezing his cock as you met his hips. 

“Fuck, (Y/N), you always ride me so good,” he mumbled, more to himself than you, hands finding your hips and moving you faster against him. 

Your legs burned, thighs and hips already turning sore as his grip tightened around you. He thrust his hips upward, jaw unhinged, his stare animalistic as he bottomed out inside of you, his hips slamming harshly against yours, throwing off your rhythm. You fell forward, hands splaying on his chest to keep yourself on your toes. 

He seized his opportunity, hands holding your hips still in the air as he pressed his boots to the floor and back to the throne, hips snapping up in the air to meet yours. Your legs trembled, unable to hold yourself up much longer, each thrust nearly lifting you off your feet. But he reached so far into you, so far that it almost hurt. 

It took him a moment to realize; he snapped himself out of his trance, blinking and shaking his head slightly, mouth closing, tongue swiping out to lick his lips. His hands found your hips, calluses rubbing over your sides, massaging the smooth skin. You settle on your knees, fully sinking onto him, your eyes meeting his bright hazel gaze. 

His eyes were blown wide as you remained still, clenching around him, letting him fill you fully while you massage his cock. 

Your hands palmed at his chest, now coated with a sheen layer of sweat. Blood trailed down his shoulders, mixing with the ends of his hair; you weren’t sure if it was his or his enemy’s, but as your hands snaked up his neck, burying themselves in his hair, you found him in perfect health. 

You continued your ride, slowly moving up and down, curving your back slightly to take the full length of him inside you. At your new pace, he dropped his head back against the plush throne, shutting his eyes and breathing out a heavy sigh. He stifled a moan deep in the back of his throat - not well, as you lurched forward at the sound, kissing up his neck and sucking purple marks at the column of his throat. 

His hands met your plump ass, squeezing harshly at your soft skin as you picked up your pace. Your legs burned, along with your shoulders and chest as you forced breath in your lungs. Cassian’s breath lurched in his throat as you felt his thighs tense up beneath you. You picked your head up, gazing lovingly down at him from underneath your eyelashes, brows furrowed, hard at work riding. 

He peered up at you with those beautiful hazel eyes, and he noted that, in that moment, covered in blood and sweat, this was his favorite view. 

Your hands slid over his shoulders, gripping tightly at the coiled muscles, before roaming back more, your index finger drawing a featherlight touch along his wingbone. He shuddered, brows drawn together in a mix between pain and pleasure, as his hand snaked behind your neck and he pulled your mouth to his, kissing you harder than ever before. 

Cassian’s other hand found its way between your bodies, circling at your sensitive clit as you bounced on his cock. You were both so tired, so sore, that neither of you could last much longer. Your hand traced along where his wing met his skin, muscle bounding his back. He broke your kiss with a groan - a break for air - before he pressed his lips against yours again, more loving this time, but no time or effort for tongues and dancing around. 

Your hips faltered as he pressed against your clit, unable to stop yourself from clenching around him as your hips bucked, riding out your high while Cassian matched your climax, jutting his hips upward, filling you deep. 

You fell forward on your knees, boots now dangling off the edge of the seat, Cassian’s dick still inside you as you fell against his chest. His hands roamed up and down your back, as he caught his own breath. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head - despite your sweaty helmet hair - and grabbed your hips, holding you sturdily against him as he stood. You wrapped your shaky legs around his thick muscled waist, tucking your head into the crook of his neck. 

He laughed to himself, turning around, and lifting you off him, only to place you down on the throne before him. You groaned at the loss of him, ready to fight him for breaking your embrace. But Cassian knelt, staring up at you with the most lust-filled expression you’d seen - one to rival the look he gave you at your mating ceremony. His hazel eyes were blown wide, completely in awe of his mate, sitting before him. 

He leaned up to kiss you, his one hand finding its way to cup your jaw, fingers tangling in the tendrils of your loose hair. He licked your bottom lip, and instead of meeting yours, which you gladly opened your mouth to allow him into, he made his way down your jaw, a devilish glint in his eye as he hooked his hands around your thigh and pulled your ass to the edge of the throne. He pressed a kiss to your tender clit, earning a soft yelp from you. He smiled before licking a broad stripe across your pussy, licking up the mixture of your cum. 

He hummed in approval, going back for another lick and a kiss. “(Y/N),” he murmured, peering up at you from his spot kneeling before you between your legs. “My queen.” 

#cassian #acotar #acowar #acosf #acomaf #cassian x reader #cassian fanfiction #cassian x you #cassian fan fic

[so-long-soldier-writes]

comfort

kai parker

summary: a flashback to his childhood. a terrifying memory he thought he had repressed.

tags: dead dove, non-graphic descriptions, physical abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, nonconsensual / noncon, underage, parent/child incest, mother/son incest, hand-jobs, blowjobs, repressed emotions, minor character death, sociopathy, anger/rage

word count: 2.5k

a/n: this not an 'x reader' fic, however, i may write a separate one-shot where he does talk about this stuff with her, and actually gets some real comfort from a person he's grown to trust.

also, i don't know why i wrote this. i don't know why i'm posting it, either. but i do feel like writing and reading this kind of fiction has helped me with my own traumas, in some way. i don't understand it, but as long as it's recognized as fiction, i don't think it's wrong to engage with it. if it bothers anyone, i can take it down, or move the page break to the top, before the warnings.

On the night of his mother’s death, Kai had never felt so numb. 

He was crowded in a room with his father and seven siblings, all of them sobbing and sneezing as they huddled around her body, willing her back from the hands of death, but he felt numb. Nothing. No sadness, no joy, no emotion at all. He stared at her, mind completely void, as he tried to think up a good memory of the woman, as prompted by his father to his siblings. 

“Everyone share your favorite memory with her,” he said in between sobs. The children immediately started spilling out their hearts. Snot dribbled from their noses and dripped down to the carpet. The oldest two were dry heaving in an attempt to catch their breaths, and the youngest were crying. His twin sister held one, while his father held the other, but nothing helped. “Malachai?” His father turned to him, “your turn to share something.”

Kai had nothing. When he opened his mouth, his tongue tripped over the first word - the I, in ‘I don’t know’.

“Malachai?” He asked again, nostrils beginning to flare. If Kai didn’t say something soon, he knew what would happen. But when he tried to speak, nothing would come out. “Would you give us a moment?’” He addressed his children.

Joshua took his eldest son by the hand then, gripping tightly, and dragged him to the garage. There, he slapped him across the face, pushed him up against the wall, and hit him in the stomach. Everything he needed to say, he said in his actions, and that was enough. Kai had grown used to his father communicating with his fists. 

“Twenty-four hours,” he spat, wetness hitting Kai’s cheek. The boy wasted no time getting up and heading to his room, where he’d be for the next day. Only this time, he wondered what it would be like without his mother. 

---

Madeline never had the same relationship with her firstborn son as she did her first daughter. They were twins, and expected to be loved the same, though that quickly proved not the case as they grew older. 

The change started around the time they turned four. At this time, his sister, Josette had begun to develop her magic, but Kai was never able. First impressions were that Kai was simply behind his sister in his development, but soon, whispers of something more sinister were born. 

At age six, the coven’s deepest fear was confirmed as true: Kai was a siphon, and could not produce magic himself. Then, like a black sheep, he was casted out from his family. His sister could not play with him, his coven could not give him affection, his own mother was not allowed to touch him. They feared he’d steal their magic and hurt them in the process, and so contact became forbidden. 

Madeline cried when told she could not reach for the child she bore. Her own flesh and blood, yet if she touched him, he could cause her harm. Her relationship with him became an obsession. She would cast him aside like the rest of the coven, but when given even a second alone, she’d return to him, coddling him with affection. She craved closeness she could not give, and her desires made her spiral out of control. 

Malachai was eight when his mother’s attention became one of his greatest threats. What happened was something he didn’t understand until much later in life, a sinking feeling in the soul as the memory resurfaces. Buried deep to protect himself and only remembered when he came across an old story she used to tell him to lull him to sleep.

Joshua would sit beside her as she’d read the story of Peter Pan, and she wouldn’t dare to brush the hair from his face. She wouldn’t kiss him goodnight, nor would she tuck the blanket up to his chin. She put her son to bed, and then she and her husband would leave the room. 

But on nights where Joshua had meetings with the coven leaders, and Madeline would stay home with her three children, she would visit him in the night. The woman would creak the door open very quietly and check to see if the boy was awake. Usually, he’d be fast asleep. Madeline would then crawl up next to him on the bed and trace her fingertips along his blanket. If Malachai did not stir, she’d slip a hand underneath the sheets and feel for his soft skin. First on his stomach, but her hand always traveled further than a mother’s should. One hand held his waist while the other felt his length, at the time, barely three inches. Her heart swelled with pride - three inches at eight years meant he’d grow much thicker by puberty. Girls would be tripping over their feet to sleep with him, she’d smile to herself. 

Sometimes while she was rubbing him, Kai would wake up. He would be confused at her presence in his room, but he’d never question it the way she held a finger to her lips. 

“I just missed you, baby boy,” she’d say, “mommy never gets to see her baby anymore.” And Kai, with a deep suspicion that something was wrong, yet never knowing what, didn’t ever ask. It was nice to receive attention from his mother, he had convinced himself. 

But by age twelve, it wasn’t such a nice feeling anymore. Madeline snuck into his room whenever possible, her head immediately ducking underneath his blankets. Her wet mouth would wrap around his length, a whole inch larger now, and pleasure him in a way he didn’t understand. If he fought against her, or begged her to let him sleep, she’d shush him and continue without a care. She called these nights her Mommy Time, and if Malachai interrupted, she’d grow inpatient with him. Twice she slapped him across the face before putting her hands back on him. So, he eventually learned to let her have her way. 

At fourteen, like most children his age, Kai was a tenacious kid. The more he acted out against his father, the more time he served in punishment. And every time he would be barred from being with his family, his mother would be his only visitor. Kai hated every aspect of his home life. He hated his siblings’ chatter, he hated his father’s hand, he hated his mother’s tongue. Most of his days were spent in his room, by choice or by rule, leaving him to rot through his teenage years. 

Ten years had passed from the date he was banned from human contact. Eight had gone by since his mother took it upon herself to break that rule.

Madeline would have other children as the years went by. Year after year, his father would impregnate her, and she’d bear him another. It soon became more unusual to see her not pregnant than carrying. But whether she had just given birth or was still round, she would still come to see him in the night. Sometimes, her breasts would be full and leaking milk, and she would offer him a taste, but Kai would narrow his eyes and shake his head. The woman would shrug and continue her ministrations on his lower body. Kai would squeeze his eyes shut until the sinful pleasure lulled him to sleep. 

A few times throughout his teenage years, Kai would ask questions about the rituals. Most of the time, she would refuse to answer, again, with a finger to her lips, but sometimes she’d give him something vague to chew on, 

“This is common for boys your age, exploring your body. You’d be learning about this in school if you hadn’t gotten expelled. Since you can’t learn it there, I’m teaching you.” 

Another common one would be, “you should be lucky to have someone touching you at all. Your father has forbidden it, and if you are to tell, we’d both be in trouble.”

So Kai never told. Because as much as he feared nights with his mother, he feared days with his father more. He knew, partly, that his mother was right. If she weren’t going to show him attention, he’d never get it again. 

Nothing changed at sixteen. Nothing, except for the fact that he’s longer now and produces more. The feeling of his mother’s hand still feels wrong upon his body. Though with nothing to compare it to, nor anyone with whom he could discuss it, he doesn’t. 

A couple of times, he’s felt a tension in his stomach not caused by her unlawful touches. Something needy from inside himself. He tries to ignore it, but ignoring it, he learns, only makes it worse. The few times he’s reached for himself, to follow some internal instinct he doesn’t understand, he’s retracted his hands immediately. The trashcan in his bathroom soon finds a new residency beside his bed.

Eighteen isn’t a healthy year for Malachai. He’s skin and bones, and face is a sickly pale color. Old clothes hang off his shoulders, barely fitting his frame. Bruises cover his body, both those visible in their purplish tint, and those invisible, known only in his mind. 

His parents don’t seem to notice his decline. If they do, they don’t care. That is, until his little brother, Joey, pokes his arm one time, and looks up to his father. “Malachai doesn’t look so good, daddy.” 

Joshua’s eyes go wide at the sight of his younger son touching his eldest. He sweeps him off his feet and scolds Kai, “do better.” Like Kai can control the way he looks when his father more often beats than feeds him. 

After that, though, his parents give a little more attention to his appearance. His father makes sure he eats three meals, and his mother applies a salve to the bruises that his clothes don’t hide. 

By twenty, he’s back to a normal weight. For the first time in years, he feels a strength accompany him, something he refuses to let slip through his fingers. His mind wants to fight; his body wants to escape. He’s been held down and tormented for twelve years. Twelve years too many, and won’t stand for a single one more. 

Twenty, it seems, is a year of change for more than just Kai. The year prior, his mother fell pregnant again, but that time, with twins. When the ultrasound of the unborn fetuses was produced, the coven had a small celebration, as if this was something they’ve been waiting for. Kai, feeling confused, angry, humiliated, and anxious all in one, watched from the window. The longer he stared, the more numb he began to feel. 

The twins’ arrival stole a lot of their mother’s attention. They were restless children, always seeming to need something from her. But despite their constant cries, she still made time to visit him in his bed. Fewer nights she’d come, though she demanded from him the same. So he let his mother do as she always had done, but now, instead of squeezing his eyes shut in the midst of the pain, he let his mind run wild. The pain turned to anger - red hot and eating him alive. Revenge carved itself a corner in his head, and hours were spent planning how he’d get it. The more space it took, the less he cared for other things, but Kai didn’t feel it necessary to occupy himself with anything else. In that moment, he chose to survive. 

Later that year, his planning was cut short by his mother’s death. She went in her sleep, in her own bed, and beside her husband. There was no warning, except for a mild flu she had earlier in the week. It was sudden, and unexplainable, but the doctor on call assured it was at least painless. Kai’s eye twitched at the news. Some dark part of him wanted her to suffer in her last moments. Just a little slice of what she made him feel would be enough retribution. Yet, she never paid. And now she was gone. 

Twenty-four hours later, when Kai had served his punishment in silence, and was allowed to return to his mother’s bedside, the paramedics came to take her body. He didn’t care to see it, nor smell the rotting corpse his father had probably slept beside that night. The paramedics entered quietly and worked swiftly, as if spelled to not ask questions. A doctor spoke to Joshua in hushed silence, careful to not let children overhear. The children, herded in a corner by Josette, only stared at the scene of their mother being carried out. His twin sister had tears in her eyes, but none of them fell. She locked eyes with Kai. A face wet with rain met a desert. She looked away in disgust, while he looked down, feeling nothing. 

“All due respect, Mr. Parker, if you had taken her to a doctor, we may have been able to catch if something was wrong earlier,” Kai heard the doctor say. His heartbeat quickens knowing there was a way to prevent this. Maybe she did suffer. 

“Madeline hated doctors. I’d never make her do something she wouldn’t want to do.”

“It might have saved her life. You can’t have eight children without any medical intervention and expect no complications, sir.”

“I would never go against the will of my wife. She hated modern medicine. Speaking of, release her body to me after you find the cause of death. I would like to bury her in my family’s tradition.”

“Very well, Mr. Parker. And again, I’m sorry for your loss.” 

Kai watched the body as it was wheeled out of the house, knowing in only a short time, it would be brought right back. His mother would be buried alongside the rest of the family, and the coven would gather to celebrate her life. Kai looked over to the small gravesite by the side of the house. Flowers had grown atop it, but they wouldn’t be there for much longer. 

When paramedics finally began to drive away, Josette cracked. A whine escaped her lips, and it quickly became a sob. She fell to her knees. Her father and their siblings rushed to her side, offering comfort he’d never felt. Comfort, to mourn the loss of a woman who had only ever hurt him. Kai’s throat dries. His head hurts, and there’s a pang in his heart. But it’s not for love, nor mourning of the woman, but for rage. Rage that his childhood was so different from his twin’s. Jealousy, anger, resentment, towards all those in his family who didn’t share the same fate of his youth. Kai’s need for revenge didn’t dissipate after his mother’s death, though that’s what he had expected. In fact, it only grew. 

It became his only comfort. Something he never felt from his family, but could find deep within himself. But to have it, he’d have to separate himself even more than he already was. A small price to pay: to sacrifice his sanity for survival. It was a price he was willing to pay. 

#kai parker #malachai parker #tw noncon #tw inc*st #dead dove do not eat #dead dove fic #dark fiction #tw minor character death #kai parker's childhood #tw child abuse #tw childhood trauma

[weirdraccoon]

Flufftober Day 1: "I've got you"

Tomarry - Tom Riddle x Harry Potter.

!!! - Murder. Fluff and Angst.

“I’ve got you.”

Harry was in shock. He was staring with wide frightened eyes at the blood in his hands. 

He felt dirty. He was dirty. His hands were red and dripping and the girl was lying on the ground still and silent. Not even her breathing was heard. A few minutes ago her cries were pitiful and angry and scared.

She had been so angry.

And also so scared.

“Come on, Harry,” Tom whispered frantically. “We have to go before someone finds us.”

Before someone finds her.

Before someone saw Harry with her blood all over himself.

“She- she was going to tell,” he mumbled brokenly.

“Hush, hush, I know, love,” Tom said, pulling on Harry’s robes to lead him towards the sinks. “I know. I’ve got you, don’t worry. I’ll take care of this, don’t say anything.”

Myrtle Warren had seen them. 

She was fascinated with Harry and she followed him that night. Harry was preoccupied and didn’t see her until it was too late. She threatened to tell everyone. She demanded Harry go out with her or else she’d destroy Tom’s reputation. His chances of working in the Ministry would be null and even in muggle London he’ll be known as a fairy. Her parents had important positions, apparently.

Harry didn’t even realize he had done it.

It wasn’t the first time he heard those infuriating insults. It wasn’t even the first time he heard someone threaten a loved one because of it. Sirius and Remus were the prime examples after all. However, they didn’t care about the Ministry’s beliefs or the Black family shunning them. They traveled for work, and Remus didn’t have to worry about his furry problem, as Sirius called it, since he and Sirius were they’re own bosses. 

Tom, however, wanted to change things. He told Harry- He promised that one day they would be together, publicly, without bigoted people daming them for their love.

It would take time and it required too much effort in manipulating and lying to certain people, but Harry thought it’d be possible. He wanted to believe that, in the future, love would be what mattered and not who shared it.

How could something be wrong when it was too good to be true? Too pure? Too… fulfilling?

Tom deposited Harry in the main hall of the chamber, ordering their basilisk to “clean the mess upstairs” while he tended to his beloved. With gentle hands and slow motions, Tom cleaned Harry’s hands and face and threw the knife he used far away from them.

At least Aunt Bella would be happy to know Harry used her Yule gift. 

“You’re fine,” Tom murmured lovingly, waving his wand over Harry’s robes to siphon the blood. “You’re fine, darling. I love you. I love you so much.”

Harry was still staring ahead, lost in thoughts and memories of blood, blood, blood. But with Tom’s hands around his and his scent so close and his words promising everything would be al right…

Harry felt warm.

He closed his eyes.

He was safe.

Tom’s got him.

#flufftober2023 #tomarry #tom riddle x harry potter

[countrymusiclover]

47 - Proper Family Meeting

( gif belongs to respective owners, I don't own it )

Part 48

Gemini Runaway

Three updates in a day again and almost to 50 chapters I can't believe it 😁

Tag list ask to be added @dragonixfrye @secretdreamlandmentality

It had been a few days since we had met the mysterious sister named Freya that claimed to be their long lost sibling. Rolling out of the bed early this morning I shrugged on one of Nik’s shirts and some ripped jeans. Walking down the stairs I saw Nik in the room with the girls. “Morning Rae, how did you sleep this time?”

“Still not good, unfortunately. I don’t know how but I can’t get her nightmares out of my mind.” Slumping my shoulders in a heavy huff I throw my head back still terrified to think that this mysterious woman would come after Hope.

Missy was playing with a chess piece sucking on it in her mouth when he rose to his feet taking it before she choked on the object. “I could attempt to sort of compel the nightmares away from you.”

“It wouldn’t work though. I am still part witch, remember. Regardless of you being an original hybrid.” I reminded him by raising a brow at him.

He set the chess piece down on the table taking my hands in his rubbing his thumbs over my palms. “Yes, that's true. But I am also your sire, Raelyn. You have to do whatever I say if I use the power. That is one more advantage of being a vampire.”

“But you won’t do it. I know you, Niklaus.” I pointed out tilting my head to the side.

“Grah!” We heard someone make a noise before we turned our heads and saw Alina with her hand raised up using her other hand to siphon Hope who was standing. The cheese piece that he had moved was floating into the air and dropped back into Missy’s lap seeing that she was about to cry.

Knitting my brows at them I glanced out the corner of my eyes to Nik. “Well that’s going to be a problem when they get older….sweetie no siphoning your sister - ugh!”

“Alina!” Nik raised his voice at his middle daughter when he watched me try to take the toy from Missy who whined. She grabbed my elbow, siphoning me where I drew my hand back.

Rubbing my elbow I looked back at him rising to my feet. “It’s okay, Nik. I’m fine. Now I know how it feels. We can let her keep it so long as she doesn’t choke on it.”

“She still shouldn’t hurt you or her sister’s for that matter.” He wraps his arms around my waist tugging me into his chest kissing me before whispering down to me. “I’ll snatch it from her when our three princesses are fast asleep, don't worry.”

Leaning up on my toes I kissed him slowly moving my arms around his neck. He leaned down bending his knees until I jumped up wrapping my legs around his waist. “We should get away from young minds if we keep this up. Don’t want to traumatize them.”

“Then we mustn’t waste another moment, Raelyn.” He vamped me back into our shared room with me landing on my back throwing my hair around before he kissed me again.

Running my hands up his chest I was seconds from ripping his shirt deepening the kiss until I heard Elijah calling our names from the other room. “Raelyn, Niklaus!”

“Ignore him. He’s just here to swindle tales of the fake sister I should trust.” He grumbled tilting my chin back to his when I glanced toward the door that was opened.

Shaking my head at him I agreed with him. I didn’t want to trust someone who could be toying with my mind throughout the night. “I’ve been thinking if we need to remind her that we don’t trust her. I could always do the flare for the dramatic like you do when you say I’m the Hybrid…cause it’s rather hot sometimes.”

“Ah, that's my girl. You’re finally seeing that you are a Queen fit for a King. And this city shall be ours forever.” He leans down, crashing his lips down onto mine feeling me smirk into the kiss.

Someone vamped into the doorway when he was about to tear my shirt and it was Elijah. “Brother, Raelyn. May we please talk before you make love throughout the entire compound.”

“Elijah, can’t you see we are busy!” I grumbled when Nik growled, flashing me the werewolf eyes where I kissed him tugging on the curls starting to make them a mess.

The original vampire spoke again. “I can see that, Raelyn. But I assumed you would wish to know that Rebekah is here and she needs help. The new body that she took over is now fighting back against her. So I have requested Freya’s help.”

“Brother, get out of here or I’ll dagger you!” Nik threatened him looking over his shoulder at his older brother.

The tux wearing vampire didn’t budge and said something that finally got our attention. “Freya is meeting her nieces.”

“What now!” Klaus and I both jumped up vamping past him and into the living room.

Raising my hand up I created a fireball in my hand with my fangs dropping down in my mouth stomping into the room halting in my tracks after what I saw before my eyes. “I’ll burn you if you don’t get your ass out of this house this instant…oh my gosh.”

Freya was down on her knees in front of our three girls. Missy was attempting to get to her feet beside her sister Hope. And Alina was playing with Freya’s long hair but untemanrly they were perfectly fine being with her like that. “I’m sorry but I couldn’t resist meeting them while Elijah went to go get you two. I could only sense one of your daughters' magic. So I am stunned that there are actually three of them.”

"Well don't get too attached. Now why exactly is she here Rebekah?' I crossed my arms over my chest putting out the flame in my hand.

She explains simply to me. "The witch is still fighting to regain their body. So that's why Elijah called her."

Klaus interrupts our conversation standing beside me throwing his hands up. "Have you lost your mind? Tell me we're not considering opening our sister's head to someone we barely know."

Rebekah shouted in frustration. "Nik, for God's sake, she is our sister. I've know it since she saved me from the fauline cottage."

"An act no doubt meant to secure your trust, perhaps for this very moment, to strike when we are vulnerable." Rebekah scowls at Klaus, but he shakes his head. "No. We've no way to prove that anything she said today is true."

Elijah sighs. "Niklaus, I understand your concern. Both of us are powerless to help our sister. Now either we leave Rebekah to suffer, or we place our faith in the hands of someone I believe to be our blood. Right now, I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to family."

"You needn't worry. Elijah explained the problem, and I can help.' Freya got to her feet.

Nik mutters loudly 'Rather confident, aren't we?"

Freya turns to look at him, partly amused and partly confused. "The spirit of the host body is powerful, but I can cast a spell, .. put you in a deep sleep, and then suppress this other essence. You'll be just fine."

Rebekah was nervous and I could hear her heartbeat inside her chest. "Lovely. When do we start?"

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me. She spouts off some magical diagnosis, and we are all supposed to applaud." Nik sat down at the bar pouring me and himself a glass of blood throwing his head back with a grumbling breath.

Rebekah was annoyed at him. "Nik, she's trying to help."

"Yes, but for the sake of keeping our options open, why not write down your spells and incantations? That way, we can have them double-checked by an impartial third party, say Davina. She'd love to prove me wrong." Nik slammed his glass down on the counter top raising his voice towards her. "I'd rather trust Raelyn than any other bloody witch on this entire earth because I have seen her magic!"

Freya eyes me clearly offended. "I doubt she would understand my magic, let alone have the power to execute it."

"Debatable I think not!" Nik raised his tone towards her. "She's the strongest witch I have ever seen."

Gripping the glass in my hand I was tempted to shatter it completely. "I can handle more power then you have ever seen, Freya. I dropped all the Originals on their knees. I consumed your mother Esther’s dark magic and didn't die. I put a hex curse on a werewolf's mother. My uncle wanted me to become the leader of our Coven and I didn't die when I consumed his power. Finally I am searching for a way to stop my Coven curse where twins compete in a battle of magical strength. Regardless, the thing you need to know is ... .I'm the Heretic and you can't KILL ME!"

"Bloody hell, siphon queen." Nik mumbled under his breath struggling to not throw her over his shoulder and ravish her right then. He had never been so turned on in his immortal life.

Freya walked over to me where I downed the blood in my glass striding up until we were pressed up against one another. "Regardless of how powerful you haven’t faced Dahlia, Raelyn. I have been raised by her and I am the only one here who can help Rebekah this instant. We can't afford for you or Niklaus to need to tend to one of your children during a spell."

Nik shook his head mockingly sitting back down at the bar. "Oh. So you're our only hope then? Seems rather convenient, doesn't it?"

"I knew it would be difficult to win your trust, Niklaus. Your reputation precedes you…" Nik smiles mockingly at her as she stands and walks toward him. "But if we are to face Dahlia together, you will have to trust me. Given the peril that Rebekah now faces, are you truly incapable of giving me even a chance to prove myself?"

Striding back over to Nik he poured me more blood tugging me up into his lap nuzzling his nose into my neck leaving kisses making me lean and moan into his scent. "Shall we leave the easily swayed alone so I have my way heretic fiancée."

"You are rather tempting but if we left them alone she might snatch our daughters and take them to this Dahlia woman." I draped my arms around his neck kissing him passionately then breaking the kiss showing my fangs to the stranger in our house.

"I know I appear as an outsider, but I have dreamt of you all for a thousand years." Rebekah and Elijah look at each other before turning back to Freya. "Elijah, when you were in Esther's womb, she would ask me to sing to you. I would feel her belly as I did. Heh. How you would kick. She would say, "it was as if Thor himself had raised his hammer"..."

Elijah finishes her sentence. " .. "And summoned thunder and lightning." Mother rarely mentioned you. When she did, she would say how enchanted you were by the prospect of my birth."

Freya grinned at the pair. "How I wanted more brothers and a sister more than anything, but between Esther and Dahlia, that wish was taken from me. I was ruined by those who raised me. If nothing else, at least we have that in common. There is nothing that can replace what was taken from us, but I hope we can make something better in its place. All you have to do is trust me."

Nik vamp-speeds over to her and breaks her neck. Rebekah tries to intervene, but she wasn't fast enough. "Nik!"

He smirks vamping back to me draping an arm over my shoulder, whispering the last part in my ear. "Well, that's enough of that, don't you think? Right. Now we can have a proper family meeting….no one is anything like you. You are the most badass and hottest witch ever, Raelyn." I leaned into his embrace eyeing Freya's unconscious body while we waited for her to supposedly come back to life.

Comments really appreciated ❤️

#gemini runaway #klaus mikaelson x reader fanfiction #klaus mikaelson x oc #klaus mikaelson fic #klaus mikaelson x heretic reader #klaus mikaelson x reader #klaus mikaelson x witch reader #klaus mikaelson x you #klaus mikaelson x y/n #joseph morgan #freya mikaelson #elijah mikaelson #oc : raelyn lane #indiana evans #oc : alina mikaelson #oc : missy mikaelson #tvd #tvdu #tvd fic #tvd x reader #tvd fanfiction #tvd fandom #tvd universe #the originals #rebekah mikaelson #gemini coven #siphon witch #tvd siphon #wattpad fanfiction #comments really appreciated

[inabottlelikelightning]

you are probably so tired of getting asks about yofoe after literal YEARS LOL so i’m so sorry in advance and feel free to ignore if you don’t feel like answering!! I remember you posting a couple snippets of the next chapter about a year ago and was just wondering if you’d be willing to share anything more you have? or if you plan to share it on your own terms? totally fine if not! (also if you’re wondering yes I am the same person who asked back in 2021 and yes I still have yofoe at the top of my bookmarks and reread from time to time just to see how she’s doing because she was a true moment in time for me)

U ARE SO SWEET please do not apologize i am sure it’s every writers dream to be getting lovely asks like this after years ❤️ thank you so much! u know what, i was saving this for a special occasion (the year 2030 when i finally finish this story oopsies) but just for you, because this warmed my heart so much, here u go (mwah):

——

"Good God," Argent mutters. And then, to the hunter fighting him: "If you shoot me in the head right now, you may be entitled to financial compensation."

He seems genuinely disappointed when the man is taken down by one of Kira's electricity strikes.

And then, out of the corner of Liam's eye, a stray bullet. Liam maps out the trajectory, is moving before he even registers it, springing off his back legs, hands going straight for Theo's shoulders, bowling them both over, the only sound exiting his mouth a horrible, strangled yell.

They hit the concrete floor with a thud, and Liam feels the bullet whiz past his head, barely missing them.

"The fuck?" Theo asks, and Liam focuses on him for the first time, all of him, and--

"You're shirtless," Liam blurts. He huffs. "Why are you always shirtless?"

Theo narrows his eyes. "That's why you jumped me?"

Liam realizes, way too late, that he has one hand resting comfortably on each pec. He snatches his hands back, hands burning almost hotter than his face.

"What!?" he splutters. "No! No! No. There was-- you were gonna be-- a bullet!"

"A bullet," Theo repeats, unimpressed.

The fighting spills further into the corridor, Malia having taken possession of Kira's sword while Kira siphons electricity from the building and channels it into blasts. Liam and Theo very nearly avoid being singed, when they catch sight of them.

"Uh," Malia says. "Hey guys."

"'Sup," Theo replies.

Kira clears her throat. "Um," she tries, hands crackling with sparks, "Whatcha doin' there?"

Liam looks down, at Theo's stupidly relaxed shirtless body. He's still straddling him, he realizes.

"This," Liam says, "isn't what it looks like."

Malia's eye twitches. "No one said it looked like anything."

Liam groans. "Okay, but your tone--"

#what a blast from the mf past!!! #thank u so much for the ask without u this passage might never have seen the light of day #yofoe updates

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Revenge of the Linkdumps

Next Saturday (May 20), I’ll be at the GAITHERSBURG Book Festival with my novel Red Team Blues; then on May 22, I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference in DC.

On May 23, I’ll be in TORONTO for a book launch that’s part of WEPFest, a benefit for the West End Phoenix, onstage with Dave Bidini (The Rheostatics), Ron Diebert (Citizen Lab) and the whistleblower Dr Nancy Olivieri.

If you’ve followed my work for a long time, you’ve watched me transition from a “linkblogger” who posts 5–15 short hits every day to an “essay-blogger” who posts 5–7 long articles/week. I’m loving the new mode of working, but returning to linkblogging is also intensely, unexpectedly gratifying:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/02/wunderkammer/#jubillee

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/13/four-bar-linkage/#linkspittle

[Image ID XKCD #2775: Siphon. Man: ‘Wow, it’s true — the water doesn’t flow up the tube anymore.’ Woman: ‘Honestly, it’s weird that it ever did. Why did we ever think it was normal?’ Caption: ‘Physics news: the 2023 update to the universe finally fixed the ‘siphon’ bug.’]

My last foray into linkblogging was so great — and my backlog of links is already so large — that I’m doing another one.

Link the first: “Siphon,” XKCD’s delightful, whimsical “physics-how-the-fuck-does-it-work” one-shot (visit the link, the tooltip is great):

https://xkcd.com/2775/

[Image ID: A Dutch safety poster by Herman Heyenbrock, warning about the hazards of careless table-saw use, featuring a hand with two amputated fingers.]

Next is “Hoogspanning,” 50 Watts’s collection of vintage Dutch workplace safety posters, which exhibit that admirable Dutch frankness to a degree that one could mistake for parody, but they’re 100% real, and amazing:

https://50watts.com/Hoogspanning-More-Dutch-Safety-Posters

They’re ganked from Geheugenvannederland (“Memory of the Netherlands”):

https://geheugenvannederland.nl/

While some come from the 1970s, others date back to the 1920s and are likely public domain. I’ve salted several away in my stock art folder for use in future collages.

All right, now that the fun stuff is out of the way, let’s get down to some crunch tech-policy. To ease us in, I’ve got a game for you to play: “Moderator Mayhem,” the latest edu-game from Techdirt:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/11/moderator-mayhem-a-mobile-game-to-see-how-well-you-can-handle-content-moderation/

Moderator Mayhem started life as a card-game that Mike Masnick used to teach policy wonks about the real-world issues with content moderation. You play a mod who has to evaluate content moderation flags from users while a timer ticks down. As you race to evaluate users’ posts for policy compliance, you’re continuously interrupted. Sometimes, it’s “helpful” suggestions from the company’s AI that wants you to look at the posts it flagged. Sometimes, it’s your boss who wants you to do a trendy “visioning” exercise or warning you about a “sensitivity.” Often, it’s angry ref-working from users who want you to re-consider your calls.

The card-game version is legendary but required a lot of organization to play, and the web version (which is better in a mobile browser, thanks to a swipe-left/right mechanic) is something you can pick up in seconds. This isn’t merely highly recommended; I think that one could legitimately refuse to discuss content moderation policies and critiques with anyone who hasn’t played it;

https://moderatormayhem.engine.is/

Or maybe that’s too harsh. After all, tech policy is a game that everyone can play — and more importantly, it’s a game everyone should play. The contours of tech regulation and implementation touch rub up against nearly every aspect of our lives, and part of the reason it’s such a mess is that the field has been gatekept to shit, turned into a three-way fight between technologists, policy wonks and economists.

Without other voices in the debate, we’re doomed to end up with solutions that satisfy the rarified needs and views of those three groups, a situation that is likely to dissatisfy everyone else.

However. However. The problem is that our technology is nowhere near advanced enough to be indistinguishable from magic (RIP, Sir Arthur). There’s plenty of things everyone wishes tech could do, but it can’t, and wanting it badly isnlt enough. Merely shouting “nerd harder!” at technologists won’t actually get you what you want. And while I’m rattling off cliches: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Which brings me to Ashton Kutcher. Yes, that Ashton Kutcher. No, really. Kutcher has taken up the admirable, essential cause of fighting Child Sex Abuse Material (CSAM, which is better known as child pornography) online. This is a very, very important and noble cause, and it deserves all our support.

But there’s a problem, which is that Kutcher’s technical foundations are poor, and he has not improved them. Instead, he cites technologies that he has a demonstrably poor grasp upon to call for policies that turn out to be both ineffective at fighting exploitation and to inflict catastrophic collateral damage on vulnerable internet users.

Take sex trafficking. Kutcher and his organization, Thorn, were key to securing the passage of SESTA/FOSTA, a law that was supposed to fight online trafficking by making platforms jointly liable when they were used to facilitate trafficking:

https://www.engadget.com/2019-05-31-sex-lies-and-surveillance-fosta-privacy.html

At the time, Kutcher argued that deputizing platforms to understand and remove which user posts were part of a sex crime in progress would not inflict collateral damage. Somehow, if the platforms just nerded hard enough, they’d be able to remove sex trafficking posts without kicking off all consensual sex-workers.

Five years later, the verdict is in, and Kutcher was wrong. Sex workers have been deplatformed nearly everywhere, including from the places where workers traded “bad date” lists of abusive customers, which kept them safe from sexual violence, up to and including the risk of death. Street prostitution is way up, making the lives of sex workers far more dangerous, which has led to a resurgence of the odious institution of pimping, a “trade” that was on its way to vanishing altogether thanks to the power of the internet to let sex workers organize among themselves for protection:

https://aidsunited.org/fosta-sesta-and-its-impact-on-sex-workers/

On top of all that, SESTA/FOSTA has made it much harder for cops to hunt down and bust actual sex-traffickers, by forcing an activity that could once be found with a search-engine into underground forums that can’t be easily monitored:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/07/09/more-police-admitting-that-fosta-sesta-has-made-it-much-more-difficult-to-catch-pimps-traffickers/

Wanting it badly isn’t enough. Technology is not indistinguishable from magic.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Kutcher, it seems, has learned nothing from SESTA/FOSTA. Now he’s campaigning to ban working cryptography, in the name of ending the spread of CSAM. In March, Kutcher addressed the EU over the “Chat Control” proposal, which, broadly speaking, is a ban on end-to-end encrypter messaging (E2EE):

https://www.brusselstimes.com/417985/ashton-kutcher-spotted-in-the-european-parliament-promoting-childrens-rights

Now, banning E2EE would be a catastrophe. Not only is E2EE necessary to protect people from griefers, stalkers, corporate snoops, mafiosi, etc, but E2EE is the only thing standing between the world’s dictators and total surveillance of every digital communication. Even tiny flaws in E2EE can have grave human rights concerns. For example, a subtle bug in Whatsapp was used by NSO Group to create a cyberweapon called Pegasus that the Saudi royals used to lure Jamal Khashoggi to his grisly murder:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/nso-spyware-used-to-target-family-of-jamal-khashoggi-leaked-data-shows-saudis-pegasus

Because the collateral damage from an E2EE ban would be so far-ranging (beyond harms to sex workers, whose safety is routinely disregarded by policy-makers), people like Kutcher can’t propose an outright ban on E2EE. Instead, they have to offer some explanation for how the privacy, safety and human rights benefits of E2EE can be respected even as encryption is broken to hunt for CSAM.

Kutcher’s answer is something called “fully homomorphic encryption” (FHE) which is a theoretical — and enormously cool — way to allow for computing work to be done on encrypted data without decrypting it. When and if FHE are ready for primetime, it will be a revolution in our ability to securely collaborate with one another.

But FHE is nowhere near the state where it could do what Kutcher claims. It just isn’t, and once again, wanting it badly is not enough. Writing on his blog, the eminent cryptographer Matt Green delivers a master-class in what FHE is, what it could do, and what it can’t do (yet):

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2023/05/11/on-ashton-kutcher-and-secure-multi-party-computation/

As it happens, Green also gave testimony to the EU, but he doesn’t confine his public advocacy work to august parliamentarians. Green wants all of us to understand cryptography (“I think cryptography is amazing and I want everyone talking about it all the time”). Rather than barking “stay in your lane” at the likes of Kutcher, Green has produced an outstanding, easily grasped explanation of FHE and the closely related concept of multi-party communication (MPC).

This is important work, and it exemplifies the difference between simplifying and being simplistic. Good science communicators do the former. Bad science communicators do the latter.

While Kutcher is presumably being simplistic because he lacks the technical depth to understand what he doesn’t understand, technically skilled people are perfectly capable of being simplistic, when it suits their economic, political or ideological goals.

One such person is Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called “father of AI,” who resigned from Google last week, citing the existential risks of “runaway AI” becoming superintelligent and turning on its human inventors. Hinton joins a group of powerful, wealthy people who have made a lot of noise about the existential risk of AI, while saying little or nothing about the ongoing risks of AI to people with disabilities, poor people, prisoners, workers, and other groups who are already being abused by automated decision-making and oversight systems.

Hinton’s nonsense is superbly stripped bare by Meredith Whittaker, the former Google worker organizer turned president of Signal, in a Fast Company interview with Wilfred Chan:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90892235/researcher-meredith-whittaker-says-ais-biggest-risk-isnt-consciousness-its-the-corporations-that-control-them

The whole thing is incredible, but there’s a few sections I want to call to your attention here, quoting Whittaker verbatim, because she expresses herself so beautifully (sci-comms done right is a joy to behold):

I think it’s stunning that someone would say that the harms [from AI] that are happening now — which are felt most acutely by people who have been historically minoritized: Black people, women, disabled people, precarious workers, et cetera — that those harms aren’t existential.

What I hear in that is, “Those aren’t existential to me. I have millions of dollars, I am invested in many, many AI startups, and none of this affects my existence. But what could affect my existence is if a sci-fi fantasy came to life and AI were actually super intelligent, and suddenly men like me would not be the most powerful entities in the world, and that would affect my business.”

I think we need to dig into what is happening here, which is that, when faced with a system that presents itself as a listening, eager interlocutor that’s hearing us and responding to us, that we seem to fall into a kind of trance in relation to these systems, and almost counterfactually engage in some kind of wish fulfillment: thinking that they’re human, and there’s someone there listening to us. It’s like when you’re a kid, and you’re telling ghost stories, something with a lot of emotional weight, and suddenly everybody is terrified and reacting to it. And it becomes hard to disbelieve.

Whittaker sets such a high bar for tech criticism. I had her clarity in mind in 2021, when I collaborated with EFF’s Bennett Cyphers on “Privacy Without Monopoly,” our white-paper addressing the claim that we need giant tech platforms to protect us from the privacy invasions of smaller “rogue” operators:

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

This is a claim that is most often raised in relation to Apple and its App Store model, which is claimed to be a bulwark against commercial surveillance. That claim has some validity: after all, when Apple added a one-click surveillance opt-out to Ios, its mobile OS. 96% of users clicked the “don’t spy on me” button. Those clicks cost Facebook $10b in just the following year. You love to see it.

But Apple is a gamekeeper-turned-poacher. Even as it was blocking Facebook’s surveillance, it was conducting its own, nearly identical, horrifyingly intrusive surveillance of every Ios user, for the same purpose as Facebook (ad targeting) and lying about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Bennett and I couldn’t have asked for a better example of the point we make in “Privacy Without Monopoly”: the thing that stops companies from spying on you isn’t their moral character, it’s the threat of competition and/or regulation. If you can modify your device in ways that cost its manufacturer money (say, by installing an alternative app store), then the manufacturer has to earn your business every day.

That might actually make them better — and if it doesn’t, you can switch. The right way to make sure the stuff you install on your devices respects your privacy is by passing privacy laws — not by hoping that Tim Apple decides you deserve a private life.

Bennett and I followed up “Privacy Without Monopoly” with an appendix that focused on a territory where there is a privacy law: the EU, whose (patchily enforced) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the kind of privacy law that we call for in the original paper. In that appendix, we addressed the issues of GDPR enforcement:

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy#gdpr

More importantly, we addressed the claim that the GDPR crushed competition, by making it harder for smaller (and even sleazier) ad-tech platforms to compete with Google and Facebook. It’s true, but that’s OK: we want competition to see who can respect technology users’ rights — not competition to see who can violate those rights most efficiently:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/gdpr-privacy-and-monopoly

Around the time Bennett and I published the EU appendix to our paper, I was contacted by the Indian Journal of Law and Technology to see whether I could write something on similar lines, focused on the situation in India. Well, it took two years, but we’ve finally published it: “Securing Privacy Without Monopoly In India: Juxtaposing Interoperability With Indian Data Protection”:

https://www.ijlt.in/post/securing-privacy-without-monopoly-in-india-juxtaposing-interoperability-with-indian-data-protection

The Indian case for interop incorporates the US and EU case, but with some fascinating wrinkles. First, there are the broad benefits of allowing technology adaptation by people who are often left out of the frame when tools and systems are designed. As the saying goes, “nothing about us without us” — the users of technology know more about their needs than any designer can hope to understand. That’s doubly true when designers are wealthy geeks in Silicon Valley and the users are poor people in the global south.

India, of course, has its own highly advanced domestic tech sector, who could be a source of extensive expertise in adapting technologies from US and other offshore tech giants for local needs. India also has a complex and highly contested privacy regime, which is in extreme flux between high court decisions, regulatory interventions, and legislation, both passed and pending.

Finally, there’s India’s long tradition of ingenious technological adaptations, locally called jugaad, roughly equivalent to the English “mend and make do.” While every culture has its own way of celebrating clever hacks, this kind of ingenuity is elevated to an art form in the global south: think of jua kali (Swahili), gambiarra (Brazilian Portuguese) and bricolage (France and its former colonies).

It took a long time to get this out, but I’m really happy with it, and I’m extremely grateful to my brilliant and hardworking research assistants from National Law School of India University: Dhruv Jain, Kshitij Goyal and Sarthak Wadhwa.

I don’t claim that any of the incarnations of the “Privacy Without Monopoly” paper rise to the clarity of the works of Green or Whittaker, but that’s okay, because I have another arrow in my quiver: fiction. For more than 20 years, I’ve written science fiction that tries to make legible and urgent the often dry and abstract concepts I address in my nonfiction.

One issue I’ve been grappling with for literally decades is the implications of “trusted computing,” a security model that uses a second, secure computer, embedded in your device, to observe and report on what your main computer is doing. There are lots of implications for this, both horrifying and amazing.

For example, having a second computer inside your device that watches it is a theoretically unbeatable way of catching malicious software, resolving the conundrum of malware: if you think your computer is infected and can’t be trusted, then how can you trust the antivirus software running on that computer.

Back in 2016, Andrew “bunnie” Huang and Edward Snowden released the “Introspection Engine,” a separate computer that you could install in an Iphone, which would tell you whether it was infected with spyware:

https://www.tjoe.org/pub/direct-radio-introspection/release/2

But while there are some really interesting positive applications for this kind of software, the negative ones — unbeatable DRM and tamper-proof bossware — are genuinely horrifying. My novella “Unauthorized Bread” digs into this, putting blood and sinew into an otherwise dry abstract and skeletal argument:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Then there are applications that are somewhere in between, like “remote attestation” (when the secure computer signs a computer-readable description of what your computer is doing so that you can prove things about your computer and its operation to people who don’t trust you, but do trust that secure computer).

Remote attestation is the McGuffin of Red Team Blues, my latest novel, a crime-thriller about a cryptocurrency heist. The novel opens with the keys to a secure enclave — the gadget that signs the attestations in remote attestation — going missing.

When Matt Green reviewed Red Team Blues (his first book review!), he singled this out as a technically rigorous and significant plot point, because secure enclaves are designed so that they can’t be updated (if you can update an enclave, then you can update it with malicious software):

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2023/04/24/book-review-red-team-blues/

This means that bugs in secure enclaves can last forever. Worse, if the keys for a secure enclave ever leak, then there’s no way to update all the secure enclaves out there in the world — millions or billions of them — to fix it.

Well, it’s happened.

The keys for the secure enclaves in Micro-Star International (AKA MSI) computers, a massive manufacturer of work and gaming PCs — have leaked and shown up on the “extortion portal” of a notorious crime gang:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/05/leak-of-msi-uefi-signing-keys-stokes-concerns-of-doomsday-supply-chain-attack/

As a security expert quoted by Ars Technica explains, this is a “doomsday scenario.” That’s more or less how it plays in my novel. The big difference between the MSI leak and the hack in my book is that the MSI keys were just sitting on a server, connected to the internet, which wasn’t well-secured.

In Red Team Blues, I went to enormous lengths to imagine a fiendishly complex, incredibly secure scheme for hosting these keys, and then dreamt up a way that the bad guys could defeat it. I toyed with the idea of having the keys leak due to rank incompetence, but I decided that would be an “idiot plot” (“a plot that only works if the characters are idiots”). Turns out, idiot plots may make for bad fiction, but they’re happening around us all the time.

In my real life, I cross a lot of disciplinary boundaries — law, politics, economics, human rights, security, technology. I’m not the world’s leading expert in any of these domains, but I am well-enough informed about each that I’m able to find interesting ways that they fit together in a manner that is relatively rare, and is also (I think) useful.

I admit to sometimes feeling insecure about this — being “one inch deep and ten miles wide” has its virtues, but there’s no avoiding that, say, I know less about the law than a real lawyer, and less about computer science than a real computer scientist.

That insecurity is partly why I’m so honored when I get to talk to experts across multiple disciplines. 2023 was a very good year for this, thanks to University College London. Back in Feb, I was invited to speak as part of UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law’s annual series on technology law:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/2023/feb/recording-chokepoint-capitalism-can-it-be-defeated

And next month, I’m giving UCL Computer Science’s annual Peter Kirstein lecture:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/peter-kirstein-lecture-2023-featuring-cory-doctorow-registration-539205788027

Getting to speak to both the law school and the computer science school within a space of months is hugely gratifying, a real vindication of my theory that the virtues of my breadth make up for the shortcomings in my depth.

I’m getting a similar thrill from the domain experts who’ve been reviewing Red Team Blues. This week, Maria Farrell posted her Crooked Timber review, “When crypto meant cryptography”:

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/05/11/when-crypto-meant-cryptography/

Farrell is a brilliant technology critic. Her work on “prodigal tech bros” is essential:

https://conversationalist.org/2020/03/05/the-prodigal-techbro/

So her review means a lot to me in general, but I was overwhelmed to read her describe how Red Team Blues taught her to “read again for joy” after long covid “completely scrambled [her] brain.”

That meant a lot personally, but her review is even more gratifying when it gets into craft questions, like when she praises the descriptions as “so interesting and sociologically textured.” I love her description of the book as “Dickensian”: “it shoots up and down the snakes and ladders of San Francisco’s gamified dystopia of income inequality, one moment whizzing up the ear-poppingly fast elevator to a billionaire’s hardened fortress, the next sleeping under a bridge in a homeless encampment.”

And then, this kicker: “it’s a gorgeous rejection of the idea that long-form fiction is about individual subjectivity and the interior life. It’s about people as pinballs. They don’t just reveal things about the other objects they hit; their constant action and reaction reveals the walls that hold them all in.”

Likewise, I was thrilled with Peter Watts’s review on his “No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons” blog::

https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=10578%22%3Ehttps://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=10578

Peter is a brilliant sf writer and worldbuilder, an accomplished scientist, and one of the world’s most accomplished ranters. He’s had more amazing ideas than I’ve had hot breakfasts:

https://locusmag.com/2018/05/cory-doctorow-the-engagement-maximization-presidency/

His review says some very nice and flattering things about me and my previous work, which is always great to read, especially for anyone with a chronic case of impostor syndrome. But what really mattered was the way he framed how I write villains: “The villains of Cory’s books aren’t really people; they’re systems. They wear punchable Human faces but those tend to be avatars, mere sock-puppets operated by the institutions that comprise the real baddies.”

One could read that as a critique, but coming from Peter, it’s praise — and it’s praise that gets to the heart of my worldview, which is that our biggest problems are systemic, not individual. The problem of corporate greed isn’t just that CEOs are monsters who don’t care who they hurt — it’s that our system is designed to let them get away with it. Worse, system design is such that the CEOs who aren’t monsters are generally clobbered by the ones who are.

So much of our outlook is grounded in the moral failings or virtues of individuals. Tim Apple will keep our data safe, so we should each individually decide to reward him by buying his phones. If Tim Apple betrays us, we should “vote with our wallets” by buying something else. If you care about the climate, you should just stop driving. If there’s no public transit, well, then maybe you should, uh, dig a subway?

[Image ID: Matt Bors’s classic Mr Gotcha panel, in which a medieval peasant says ‘We should improve society somewhat,’ and Mr Gotcha replies, ‘Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very smart.’]

This is the mindset Matt Bors skewers so expertly with his iconic Mr Gotcha character: “Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very smart”:

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

(Which reminds me, I am halfway through Bors’s unbelievably, fantastically, screamingly awesome graphic novel “Justice Warriors,” which turns the neoliberal caveat-emptor/personal-responsibility brain-worm into the basis for possibly the greatest superhero comic of all time:)

https://www.mattbors.com/books

Watts finishes his review with:

I’ve never fully come to terms with the general decency of Cory’s characters. Doctorow the activist lives in the trenches, fighting those who make their billions trading the details of our private lives, telling us that they own what we’ve bought, surveilling us for the greater good and even greater profits. He’s spent more time facing off against the world’s powerful assholes than I ever will. He knows how ruthless they are. He knows, first-hand, how much of the world is clenched in their fists. By rights, his stories should make mine look like Broadway musicals.

And yet, Doctorow the Author is — hopeful. The little guys win against overwhelming odds. Dystopias are held at bay. Even the bad guys, in defeat, are less likely to scorch the earth than simply resign with a show of grudging respect for a worthy opponent.

I often get asked by readers — especially readers of Pluralistic, which is heavy on awful scandals and corruption — how I keep going. Watts has the answer:

Maybe it’s a fundamental difference in outlook. I’ve always regarded humans as self-glorified mammals, fighting endless and ineffective rearguard against their own brain stems; Cory seems to see us as more influenced by the angels of our better natures. Or maybe — maybe it’s not just his plots that are meant to be instructional. Maybe he’s deliberately showing us how we could behave as a species, in the same way he shows us how to fuck with DRM or foil face-recognition tech. Maybe it’s not that he subscribes to some Pollyanna vision of what we are; maybe he’s showing us what we could be.

Got it in one, Peter.

And…

It’s also about what happens if we don’t get better.

Writing on his “Economics From the Top Down” blog, Blair Fix — a heterodox economist and sharp critic of oligarchy — publishes a Red Team Blues review that nails the “or else” in my books, and does it with graphs:

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/

Fix surfaces the latent point in my work that inequality is destabilizing — that spectacular violence is downstream of making a society that has nothing to offer for the majority of us. As Marty Hench, the 67 year old forensic accountant protagonist of Red Team Blues says,

Finance crime is a necessary component of violent crime. Even the most devoted sadist needs a business model, or he will have to get a real job.

[Image ID: A chart labeled, ‘With more plutocracy comes more murder. As countries become more unequal (horizontal axis), their murder rates go up (vertical axis).’]

Fix agrees, and shows us that murders go up with inequality.

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/#sources-and-methods

Which is why, while the average private eye is a kind of “cop who gets to bend the rules of policing”; Hench is “a kind of uber IRS agent who gets to work in ‘sneaky ways that aren’t available to the taxman.’”

[Image ID: A chart labeled, ‘Was the US prison state the inspiration for cyberpunk? The term ‘cyberpunk’ (which describes a genre of dystopian science fiction) became popular in tandem with mass incarceration in the US. It’s probably not a coincidence.’]

This observation segues into a fascinating, data-informed look at the way that science fiction reflects our fears and aspirations about wider social phenomenon — for example, the popularity of the word “cyberpunk” closely tracks rising incarceration rates.

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/#sources-and-methods

(It’s not a coincidence that the next Marty Hench book, “The Bezzle,” is about prisons and prison-tech; it’s out in Feb 2024:)

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

I’m out on tour with Red Team Blues right now, with upcoming stops in the DC area, Toronto, the UK, and then Berlin:

https://craphound.com/novels/redteamblues/2023/04/26/the-red-team-blues-tour-burbank-sf-pdx-berkeley-yvr-edmonton-gaithersburg-dc-toronto-hay-oxford-nottingham-manchester-london-edinburgh-london-berlin/

I’ve just added another Berlin stop, on June 8, at Otherland, Berlin’s amazing sf/f bookstore:

https://twitter.com/otherlandberlin/status/1657082021011701761

I hope you’ll come along! I’ve been meeting a lot of people on this tour who confess that while they’ve read my blogs and essays for years, they’ve never picked up one of my books. If you’re one of those readers, let me assure you, it is not too late!

As you’ve read above, my fiction is very much a continuation of my nonfiction by other means — but it’s also the place where I bring my hope as well as my dismay and anger. I’m told it makes for a very good combination.

If you’re still wavering, maybe this will sway you: the blogging and essays are either free or very low-paid, and they’re heavily subsidized by my fiction. If you enjoy my nonfiction, buying my novels is the best way to say thank you and to ensure a continuing supply of both.

But novels are by no means a dreary duty — fiction is a delight, and after a couple decades at it, I’ve come to grudgingly concede — impostor syndrome notwithstanding — that I’m pretty good at it.

I hope you’ll agree.

Image: Robert Miller (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/12463666@N03/52721565937

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: A kitchen junk-drawer, full of junk.]

#illustration #pluralistic #hand-waving #multi-party computation #linkdump #link-blogging #red team blues #uefi #supply chain attacks #xkcd #brain fog #say cyber again #privacy without monopoly #reviews #crypto-wars #inequality #social instability #blair fix #maria farrell #dicksenian #msi #villains #peter watts #global south #bennett cyphers #eff #data protection #content moderation #content moderation at scale #content moderation at scale is impossible

[stargazing-zani]

Fuckit, Texas Headcanons

(Source: I’m from there. Do you have to take my ideas any more seriously? No. As a matter of fact, please don’t.)

- Uhh he tall? I'm bad at estimating heights, let's put him at 6'5" and call it a day.

- He smells like gasoline and cattle.

- He did not attend college and does not ever plan to. That's not to say Texas is anti-univeristy (you can't be Best In The Nation if your colleges aren't top-notch) but he perfers to work with his hands, and trade schools are way better for that.

- Back in the late 1800's he worked as a cowhand and did the cattle drive all the way up to Kansas. And he loved it.

- He knows how to use a lariat, make a campfire meal, fix most tools, care for livestock, and "handle" native americans.

- Early on his cattle brand was a simple star. Cattle rustlers easily stole and rebranded his cows, so he changed that pretty quick.

- He misses those days a lot and gets emotional at the Fort Worth stockyards.

- During the Oil Boom starting in 1901, Texas became incredibly more powerful  physically and financially (and more of the asshole we know today). Although getting all that oil siphoned out felt a bit like donating more blood than a person could afford, he still boasted and bragged about it. He's gotta one-up California after that Gold Rush, after all.

- The back of his oversized Ford pickup is plastered with just about every Texan bumper sticker you could think of, including: Come and Take it Don't Tread on Me Remember the Alamo, Forget the White House Beaver Believer (from Buc-ee's) Don't Mess With Texas Pray to End Abortion Don't California my Texas and Keep Austin Weird And his liscence plate reads LONESTAR.

- Don't let the truck fool you, he still owns a horse. Her name's Bluebonnet ("Bonnie" for short). In fact, every horse he's owned was named Bluebonnet -- he kept replacing them as they died through the years. The OG Bonnie saw a lot more action than the current Bonnie, who is basically a pet at this point.

- He's a devout Christian, of course, but the specific denomination changes depending on what mood he's in. Any contradicions this causes doesn't bother him. He goes to church every Sunday, bible study every Wednesday, and prays every night. ("Our Father in Heaven, thank you for creating me to be the best. Please help Florida. Please serve justice to California. Forgive me for my transgressions, and thank you for brisket. Amen.")

- He's claustrophobic, but he doesn't know it. He just figures he's too big for anywhere outside of what he's used to. (This is based on the absolutely horrendous urban sprawl I've experienced -- dense cities are Not Very Texan.)

- When he goes to the beach, he wears swim trunks with his flag on them. And the cowboy hat and boots stay ON, thank you very much.

- He carries twin pistols and a large bowie knife with him everywhere he goes.

- Okay, I might as well talk about Austin. So unlike a couple of people, I don't think that Texas' other cities manifest as alternate personalities, mostly because they still all feel very Texan. Austin, however is Weird. He's Weird and different and exceptional enough that I like to think he's the only one who can break off from Texas yet share a body like that. The joke is that Austin and Texas are at odds despite being a part of each other, and I kinda like to stay true to that. 

-Texas is protective of him like a parent whose daughter is dating someone he doesn't approve of: harsh, suspicious of everything, overbearing, and ready to shoot any agressors.

-Texas' and Austin's emotions mix a little bit but basically whoever's fronting gets the say and the other one is fully concious but screaming and banging on a metaphorical glass wall.

-When Austin takes the hat off, he seems to shrink a few inches.

-Austin likes bright rainbow "hippie" colors, to Texas' disgust. He is not allowed input on fashion or interior design.

- However, they both like tailgaiting, dancing, and country music, so it's not all that bad.

- Maybe I should also mention the daddy issues? Uhhh honestly closest I can guess for the dad is Mexico (which is funny because Texas actively fought against him so the issues would be his own fault). Or maybe it's one of Texas' founding fathers like Sam Houston or Stephen F. Austin. But honestly, it could be a character called "Texas' Dad" for all I care. I just like that the issues exist. Austin wants to talk about it. Texas does not.

- He likes to remind everyone his territory once reached even farther, all the way into current-day Colorado, when people start taking Alaska's side.

- Despite his love of oil, cattle, and free-range capitalism, he is the biggest producer of wind energy in the country, which annoys California like you wouldn't believe. 

-Texas uses Spanish to trash talk the Gov to his face without him knowing. Although his pronunciation irks the other Spanish-speaking states, this usually grants him a few temporary allies during meetings.

- His pride makes it hard to find close friends (not that he minds) but he’s chill with Tennessee and Louisiana especially. 

- Texas doesn't believe in swearing ("hell" and "damn" and "ass" are ok) bc he thinks it's unchristian. He will not hesitate, however, to pull out a long-winded cowboy insult, you lily-livered, yellow-bellied, frog-faced, bull-headed, dung-smellin', cactus-sittin', donkey-ridin' son of a gun!

#you know that anti nostalgia feeling from seeing an old school you hated? #That was me writing this #you're welcome #welcome to the table #welcome to the statehouse #my stuff

[folkdances]

hi margot if this isnt spoilers can you please please please share what the hell is going on with carrier's whole deal. is he ok. whats with the siphoning. is that just evil wizard shit or is there some larger purpose for a hypothetical greater good. what colour is his hair (does he even HAVE hair???!!!) i need to know. okauy bye

hi cleo umm there's a lot about carrier's deal i cannot explain yet for his spoilerish nature and in fact most of the True Nature won't be revealed to u until 2 books in. but if u desire u can dm for private inquiries 😘 because i love you. at the base of it, he's an academic, and academics that research magic are called wizards ^.^ he believes that magic makes fairyland unfair and unequal and that through its removal, fairyland can become industrious. siphoning is a branch of magic he did not discover, but he's the one doing the brunt of the research on it (with merilance's blooooood 👻). siphoning would allow that removal to take place on a small scale. as far as you know, it goes no further than this. 👼. i imagine carrier would be a brunette also but at the point the story takes place it has mostly gone white. i always imagined he'd look like a slightly softer, slightly younger looking version of pavel tatarnikau's king lear!

#acorn missives #chelseahotel2004

[markofthelie]

My Destiny 2 OCS:

Zhevnâh, Lucent Deserter

Hive Wizard || Stormcaller Warlock

As a daughter of Savathûn, she possessed immense potential and innate magical abilities, shaping her destiny as a formidable Hive wizard. However, unlike her brethren, Zhevnâh chose a different path, defying the expectations placed upon her and turning her back on her hive and her mother.

When she deserted the Lucent Brood, she took her mate and children with her to the Cosmodrone where they currently reside.

Zhevnâh possesses a profound intellectual curiosity, a trait that she has inherited from her mother. She yearns for knowledge and seeks to unravel the mysteries of the universe, delving deep into the lore and secrets that lie hidden within the realms of Light and Darkness. Her insatiable thirst for knowledge often leads her down unexplored paths and drives her relentless pursuit of understanding.

Zhevnâh's relationship with her Ghost, Krekrak, is crucial to her development. Krekrak serves as her steadfast companion and confidant, supporting her through the trials and tribulations she faces. The bond between them is characterized by trust, loyalty, and a shared understanding of their unconventional existence.

In combat, Zhevnâh is a force to be reckoned with. She wields the powers of the Hive with deadly precision, conjuring dark magic and devastating spells to vanquish her foes. Her connection to the Darkness provides her with an innate understanding of its secrets, enabling her to manipulate and twist its power to her will. Despite her proficiency in the dark arts, Zhevnâh is not afraid to incorporate unconventional methods and adapt to unexpected situations.

Mel'keth, the Abyssal Blade

Hive Knight | Mate of Zhevnâh

Mel'keth shares a deep bond with his mate, Zhevnâh, forged through shared experiences and a mutual desire for liberation from the Lucent Hive

His loyalty primarily lies with his mate, whom he cherishes above all else. While he is initially reserved and cautious, his connection to Zhevnâh has unlocked a tender and compassionate side, allowing him to show vulnerability and care for his loved ones.

He wears a tattered, dark crimson cloak that signifies his renegade status and serves as a reminder of his past allegiance.

Mel'keth wields a massive, two-handed Hive sword, infused with the essence of the Hive deities, granting him the ability to channel devastating hive magic through its strikes. He possesses a unique ability to corrupt and manipulate the Light, enabling him to siphon energy from Guardians and repurpose it for his own dark purposes.

Eliza Thornewood

Human | Nightstalker Hunter

Eliza was revived in the Cosmodrone, an old space station within the ruins of Old Russia by a Ghost she later named Virgil.

She bears a striking resemblance to the legendary Iron Lord, Lady Jolder. Her strong, athletic frame showcases a combination of grace and power, reflecting her exceptional combat skills. Because of her striking resemblance to Jolder, she has grown closer to Lord Saladin.

Eliza's combat style reflects her versatile nature as a Nightstalker Hunter. Whether engaged in close-quarters combat or precise long-range attacks, she moves with the fluidity and grace of a seasoned warrior. Her proficiency in the art of the Void allows her to manipulate its energies, conjuring ethereal, purple-tinged bows that strike true with deadly accuracy.

She possesses a stoic and observant demeanor, her piercing gaze reflecting the depths of her knowledge and experiences. She is often found deep in thought, contemplating the intricate interplay between light and darkness, and the delicate balance necessary to preserve the fragile equilibrium of the universe. Her calm and collected nature allows her to make calculated decisions, even in the most chaotic of situations, earning her the respect and trust of her allies.

However, Eliza's bond with Rasputin was not without sacrifice. The loss of the Warmind deeply affected her, leaving her with a lingering sense of grief and a newfound determination to protect humanity at all costs. She strives to honor Rasputin's sacrifice by continuing to fight the encroaching darkness and safeguarding the secrets and knowledge she gained from her connection.

Eliza wears a gold ring with the symbol of the Warmind engraved in it on her right hand as a reminder of her lost partner.

#destiny oc #destiny hive #destiny headcanons #destiny hunter

[floralovebot]

I was going through your tags and found an old post of yours about Helia backstories. I found the closed time loop story with the boarding school and evil wizard really interesting!! Could you share more about it? Like what happened when that wizard returned? I love the idea of Helia being stuck in a time loop and then reverting back to a child once he’s out so much!!!

AHHH that's one of my favorite backstories for him!! I'm glad someone else likes it :')

It's actually been a minute since I thought of that backstory but! If I remember correctly, the wizard is imprisoned in this like.. real fancy prison that's completely cut off from everything else and he has his magic kind of... stopped? Taken away? Something like that! BUT plot twist because before they caught him, he was able to essentially set up this little magic portal thing that would siphon loose/wild magic and send it to him! So it takes A WHILE but throughout the years, he's able to "collect" this loose/wild magic and eventually collects enough to start escaping.

And! He "escapes" by sending out these magical pulses to past students and teachers of the academy (basically sending them messages in their dreams and stuff like that) which drive Some of them a little crazy (this happens over the course of months to years) and they get coerced to break him out. Helia doesn't do this but he is getting these magical signals and he gets increasingly frustrated and paranoid that someone is out for him/watching him/some other creepy thing and in True Helia Fashion decides to run away to throw them off (he doesn't realize what's happening right away basically).

The wizard either kills or severely hurts the people who broke him out to steal their magic for himself (think the wizards of the black circle!). I'm not really sure what happens after this actually! I thought he would be another "trying to steal the dragon flame" kind of villain so eventually he would have to go against the winx (and specialists). I also wanted some kind of mind control thing for some of the students or teachers so there's this wind spread panic that All of the students and teachers are helping him. This would obviously affect Helia and make people think he's Way Into It since he's so close to Bloom and the others! They basically think he's a mean spy :((

Anyway, yadda yadda everything is okay in the end :) it's winx club!! they save the day and everyone lives happily ever after (until the next flame obsessed villain appears)

#alhdglad #LOVE this backstory #its so weird good for him #i love giving him weird little tragic backstories #like yes king have mental trauma for the rest of your life <333 #answered #mine.headcanons #also thank you :') i just really love the idea of helia having this like.. second/secret life #he's such a good character for that!

[ohmygodtheywereparabatai]

my humble and for legal reasons sarcastic opinion of the characterization i’ve seen:

the prevailing sangihun dynamic is FALSE. uwu-ified choccy milk babygirl gihun with a moral line he’ll never cross ✨ DOES NOT EXIST. cold-blooded olympic athlete at black friday sales sangwoo with 2 alternating expressions (1.fuck, 2.off) DOES NOT EXIST.

mind that i project needlessly onto my favorite characters, and therefore may understand a fraction of the thoughts running through sangwoo’s head as my mans was slowly rotting alive in his own bathroom. which is to SAY the gifted kid’s fall from grace and the crushing pressure to meet expectations or greet your lifelong friend: Guilt hits a little bit close to home. in this Very critical essay, i’ll share what that’s like. please be warned that it’s heavy stuff (wait, this was supposed to be sarcasm-)

firstly, some screw-ups like us DO end up resorting to extremes to keep up with expectations. the logic is simple: even if it’s a lie, it’s just our weight to bear, isn’t it? often it’s these honor roll kids that are good at cheating, fibbing, and workarounds that carefully maintain the high standard imposed on them since childhood. do we feel AWFUL about it? does it wreak havoc on our mental health and in the long term pose some dangerous self esteem and integrity issues that cause us to spiral even more and damage our relationships…? WELL LEMME TELL YA, I SURE AS HECJK HOPE NOT but sangwoo’s clearly jumped from point A to point Z in that alphabet. he’s VERY much at a stage of misery that would take years to undo by the time of the show.

point is… you’ll notice (especially if you’re One Of Us) that we don’t do this because we stopped caring. often it’s the opposite, that we care a whole stupid lot. a divide starts between the you that deserves love and good things and the you that’s fallen so behind that any harm to them at the expense of loved ones’ pride and the community’s respect is an inconsequential and near masochist price to pay. (self-care also tends to decline, but south korean society is big on the importance of the physical face, so a businessman like sangwoo is understandably well kempt for other reasons.)

to me, pathological liar cho sangwoo hides agony and self-hatred. after every instance in which he’s chosen self-preservation, he ends up choosing his mother’s health and happiness over his own life. his mindset of wiping his worthless self from the equation so something better will replace him is DAMN FOLLY, I SAY!!!! sangwoo doesn’t redeem himself in the finale, he shatters. he thought it was the right choice to rob a mother of her son. what does life have to do to someone to think that? why does it scare me a lot that i’m starting to get an idea…?

what i’m SAYING is that the extremes sangwoo takes in the games are easily a continuity of lying about his residence in america, of siphoning the wealth of others to toss up and lose six billion and somehow never think to try something else. he’s a sick fuck with an attitude, but the Prodigy Turned Asswipe At Rock Bottom trajectory follows REALLY REALLY WELL here. therefore it’s my idea of how he ended up as the guy we see in S1. and you know what that asswipe needs??

A HUG!!!! REAL THERAPY!! and for GIHUN, seemingly the only person he trusts to accept him when he’s completely lost face, to PROVIDE love and support. to let him be weak and tender and NOT. NOT. NOT the callous bastard that came this 🤏 close to total desensitization to violence. imo THIS is the true sangihun dynamic!! one that doesn’t have any coping mechanism attached to it whatsoever!! this version sparks JOY!!! the possessive, domineering, and enigmatic stone face act that fandom interpretations give to a long-term depressed and isolated man doesn’t appeal to me tbh. he shows signs and hints of the altruistic and almost gentle person he can really be (with proper guidance…!)

his name means “helping each other” and while it was chosen to emphasize his contradictions.. maybe it could be a sign? i’ll take more of that sweet sangwoo please <3 my shriveled grinch heart needs it <3 <3 but that’s all i’ll say about that!! to each their own!!!

NOW. GIHUN.

YA’LL. THIS MAN……………..

A LITERAL WALKING RED FLAG??? how did so many shippers miss it COMPLETELY??

ignoring my additional lengthy history with deadbeat dads with an addiction (well, except for the extent to which it colors my opinions here, if you will 🥸) … gihun’s an alright dude at first glance. but the rift between his personality and the violence he encounters is just…. astounding? and deeply troubling, seeing as he’s joking about military ranks like this is a discord RP server after the first round. ahem. the exceedingly ruthless and gruesome first round?? the only other characters we see enjoying themselves to this extent are deok su and his pack - but there’s gang violence history there, so it tracks. but GI HUN??? (funny that his name means “high ranking”)

and not to mention the raging hot topic that was the very last scene. turns his back on the airplane terminal a few STEPS from boarding and JUST AFTER calling his daughter…. for the sake of revenge? for some righteous cause that borders on delusions of grandeur??

well. actually… i think my sangihun agenda can explain that one. which is where my idea of their dynamic from gihun’s POV takes form. (still keeping in mind that these are all opinions! thank you kindly)

gihun’s had experience with the almost primal violence in the lights-out section of the games. he tells ilnam about the protest that happened when he and his coworkers were laid off, where he watched a friend die. when this repeats with allies like saebyeok and most critically with sangwoo, he pretty visibly shuts down. a whole year passes before ilnam’s fucky wucky doctrine and the sight of salesmen recruiting new players shakes him out of it. so there’s already two reasons to be roused to Battinson levels of vengeance, but…? enough to leave gayeong?

enter: the darker implications of gihun coming to a stop just before winning the games. turning back and reaching for sangwoo’s hand. what choices is he making here, and how are they layered? he’s choosing survival, you’d say - he values life over monetary gain, and that’s noble. but… what about his mother’s life? her treatment?

in his last moments, sangwoo’s ultimate motivation is reparations. his purpose for competing was to right his wrongs, namely the years he’s spent deceiving his mother. he feels I’m Human Garbage tier remorse, and this was discussed earlier - in no way does jamming a knife into his neck help the woman he cares about the most! … but it doesn’t negate that his last act was, in his mind, selfless. gihun’s appears to be, too. UNTIL you read it as effectively putting sangwoo’s life above his own mother’s, his own daughter’s love for him, and even his ex-wife’s lack of financial independence.

in the last moments of the game, he chooses sangwoo. his safety is his only motivation - there’s a broken man laying at his feet, wishing they were kids again, and you can see the sorrow and pity in gihun taking over. when that choice gets turned on its head in a few fatal seconds, you can also see his radicalization finish as early as That Scene.

here’s what i mean.

he’s constantly putting sangwoo on a pedestal. i don’t even have to explain - we’ve seen the memes. i’ve become the meme just to annoy my friends. Did you hear? HUH? You don’t know about the SNU genius??!! … it was adorable and all too sobering to watch. but the answer. Is. Right. There!!! he’s a gambling addict doing irregular small jobs, debt-ridden and divorced, on the brink of losing everything else - of course cho sangwoo, the best of the best, the shining example of discipline and achievement, would give him hope? of course it isn’t possible for life to screw over someone so deserving of the most it has to offer? of course sangwoo’s going to be okay, and at least he’ll have him to lean on?

WROMG, SIR. he watches in real time as the system they’ve both become trapped in grinds up the last of sangwoo’s will to go on. he sees the fate of someone who really, truly had it all going for him, and when you’re witness to a death like that - the “long line of Buddhists” in your family may as well end right there. and i saw exactly that in gihun.

which is to say….. S2 gihun, at least to me, sounds like a scary mf. god knows about that hair but, thinking of where he’s coming from, i see a flipped sangihun dynamic (in life or in death, take your pick) as the True Gospel. intensely protective gihun who won’t let sangwoo go off the deep end again, who does everything in his power to get him help and bring his walls down, or in worse cases, avenge the heck out of him. sangwoo smoothing the furious edge in gihun so he doesn’t go off doing a Stupid when his family is perfectly intact and needs him. sangwoo being quicker to embrace normalcy and showing him what to be grateful for. this is just the park i’m in!

i see gihun as the rowdy, bloody-nosed fight-picking kid in their youth. i see sangwoo as the occasional extra pair of fists, but mostly the quiet, nose-in-books boy who was terrible at making friends and content with just the one. and they’re currently my everything :))))))

pls ❤️ ask me for sangihun thoughts if you want to, i will dust off my bible. xoxox

#sangihun #cho sangwoo #seong gihun #squid game spoilers #rarepair hell #an essay #tw sui #tw depressing stuff #tw blood #…..yea they’re fun :7