#can you tell how little i know about actual medieval life lol

[em-writes-stuff-sometimes]

As a medical student — and hopefully a future obstetrician, I am excited on your take on how babey will go on to labor and deliver her multiple baby BOYS (Yes, I believe Uncle Daddy Daemon made multiple copies of him 😆). Delivering multiples during the medieval times versus now is different, of course, but it will be the way on how you tell the story to us that excites me. I cannot wait!

On another news — DAMN RHAE-RHAE!

I do understand where she is coming from tho but she shouldn’t have come for her baby sister like that. The pressures of being the heir to the iron throne, having a gae bestie/husband who could not bear the sight of a cunt let alone put his ding-along on it, and now solo-ing on Ser Harwin’s massive cock (oh WE ALL KNOW it is massive) and giving birth to his strong, perfect boys instead of strong, perfect, silver haired boys does take a lot of toll on her especially with the green SNEKZ breathing down her neck. Seeing your little sister living the life you know you deserve will surely trigger a switch in you. But Rhae-Rhae should have thought better than that. Rhae-Rhae nooooo 😭

Babey’s decision on not telling her massive cocked-super handsome-very brooding Uncle Daddy is a better decision than Rhae-Rhae letting all that intrusive thoughts consume her 😆

As usual, this update was AMAZING, Em! Babey’s babies about to get familiar with how their papa’s dick is always knocking on their mama’s cervix. Oh, poor children 😆

Hey, anon! AAAAH, I'm super nervous to know there's someone with an actual medical background in obstetrics reading this fic, aaaaaaaaaaaaah. A good deal of this fic has been me scrambling for research crumbs in the background as I try to build something that's reasonably accurate while not forsaking style or pacing. I'm doing what I can, so PLZ FORGIVE MEEEE if I fuck anything up, lol. I do have plans re: the labour, born from watching one too many episodes of BBC's 'Call the Midwife' (a great fucking show). It's not gonna be a smooth going, that's for sure - there will be some, um, parallels to mummy, if we can put it that way. All will be well in the end!

Rhae-Rhae done fucked up this chapter, I know. She's a Targ, unfortunately for literally everyone around her; aka, not the best at dealing constructively with emotionz. When Babey pushed at that pressure point, she fucking exploded, and it was awful. I was sad for both of them writing it, it felt so horrible and nastey to do to them, but it was necessary. Rhaenyra's been a little too okay with everything from day dot, and a blow-up was coming. Oof, I cackled at the massive-dick descriptions, VERY ACCURATE and we all know it. Babey's thinking like a big girl this chapter, and we're proud as shit for her for that! She recognises the political ramifications of a public split from her sister, and doesn't want the wolves to come for her family as a result. She'll keep it as quiet as she can, which means finding ways to distract (hehe) her big-dick Daddy Daemon when he sniffs around all suspicious.

Lol, snorted at that last comment - true! Hope the smol ones like the sounds of rhythmic slapping, cuz that's their lullaby for the foreseeable future, haha. I'm so glad you enjoyed the chapter, nonnie! Thank you so SO much!

(P.S. - any tips you can give me on how to make dis bitch realistic would be SWAG AS SHIT lol, dying over here.)

#fanfiction comments

[its-monster-mash]

This has been sitting in my drafts for 1000 years oops Rules: Post the names of all the files in your wip folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it.

Thank you so much for tagging me @venus-haze!! I am also excited to participate in the self-callout lol

I don’t actually have a “WIP Folder”, I just have. A lot of WIPs. About to expose myself on a lot of different fandoms lol(I have a million different sideblogs that I organize a lot of the things I like by)

• Didn’t Your Momma Ever Tell You Not to Talk to Strangers? — Bo Sinclair x Reader (House of Wax) *I am also converting this one to an "Original" piece so I can publish it as a serial, so if you see the other version on Amazon under the pen name "M.E. Roselli" that's me. I'm still going to keep writing it as this fanfic, but there IS an alternate version. The other version is about a cult instead of Wax; instead of Vincent, Bo("Buck" in the alternate version) has a twin sister who was raised to be the cult's messiah. The cult is dead and gone along with their parents, but she's still living it. I just know that a lot of people's fanfics are being stolen, so I wanted to clear up that that is NOT the case with mine.

• Holmes and Dracula VS. Jack the Ripper — Original Work (Sherlock Holmes and Dracula team up to stop Jack the Ripper from bringing about the Apocalypse)

• Tides of Lust — Original Work (Meliora, a traveling bard with demonic blood, goes on a pirate adventure with a feared disciple of Davy Jones and also meets a Vampiric Warlord)

• What The Dead Men Say — Original Work (Ivar Ragnarsson ends up in Victorian England, where he has little choice but to team up with an archeologist; was technically an ACV fic originally, but I hate the ISU stuff and refuse to include it so really it’s just a history fic tbh)

• Playing House with Private X — Original Work (A cryogenically frozen super soldier navigates the modern world with the help of a would-be super soldier who slipped through the cracks. Very slice of life; it started as a Soldier Boy fic—American Pie, but I scrubbed it of IP so I can continue it as an original work and publish it as erotic shorts)

• ‘Til Death Do Us Part — Original Work (Would-be Murder victim Judith “Jude” Carpenter tries to start a new life in a small town…where her would have been killer has taken up residence as the priest. The two must work together to survive the town’s dark secret.)

• Careful What you Wish For — Original Work (Janie, a serial killer hitchhiking to avoid capture, ends up being held prisoner by Levi, a recluse out in the middle of nowhere, and she pretends to be a helpless victim in exchange for food and a warm place to sleep. The story focuses on her disturbing inner monologue through her act.)

• Lord of Roses, Master of Thorns — Original Work (Ancient Vampiric King Alistair Val Mirron must fall in love to end his curse of immortality; Myrinthe, an odd Peasant introduced to him by and old flame, seeks to remain in the castle at all costs to avoid being forced to marry the annoying rich boy in town.)

• Taken From the Ren Faire — Original Work (This was meant to be a cheesy erotica short but I accidentally gave it a plot. Oops. Fantasy Author Vera Fox is spirited away into a fantasy world after drinking some strange mead from an interesting new vendor. She ends up in a fake relationship with a former bandit while he tries to help get her home; when they get separated, she questions if she even wants to go back to her old life, and this is only compounded when she finds her Ren Faire lover is trapped there too. This one is full of tropes because I'll be honest, I'm "Writing to Market" here, but I love the characters anyway. Owen-her Ren Faire lover- has a huge Clydesdale named Stormbreaker that he rescued from a roadside medieval themed attraction, and I love him.)

• A Marriage of Inconvenience — Homelander x Reader (The Boys; Amazon Show)

• Woven Sagas — Eivor Wolfkissed x Ivar Ragnarsson (Assassin’s Creed Valhalla)

• Mother — Skyrim Fic about my Dragonborn raising Aventus

• Critical Darling — Homelander x OC(Darcy Hayes, Dreamweaver) (The Boys; Amazon Show)

• In All My Dreams I Drown — Reaver x Sparrow (Fable 2)

Tags: I am abysmal at remembering URLs off the top of my head, but I will try. @sketchy-rosewitch @visceravalentines @rottent33th @ventiswampwater

#tag game #I don't get to write for ME often because I ghostwrite for work #but I want to make a habit of publishing at least SOMETHING of my own between work projects. #'Till Death Do Us Part and Taken From the Ren Faire have priority right now

[astralartefact]

A magical life in a magical school that nudges you to marry young, but hey, at least this one is LGBTQIA+ friendly! (It's a NieR Reincarnation Reference)

Happy Birthday, Drakengard 3! My favorite game about love and friendship!

Cheers on 8 years of not getting referenced in any related media apart from absurdly obscure references! But to be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way <3

Why do I keep making my drawings bigger... but, hey this time I even rendered it a little bit... (at least I can improve on one thing in particular until their 10th anniversary, I guess...)

Anyways, let me explain the references, if you want to search for them on your own all of the disciples and angels are referenced in the picture, but you probably can't even read half of them because no matter how big I make my files I always end up pixel art-ing the details... (I don't know what I'm doing wrong and at this point I'm too afraid to ask) At first the concept was drawing them as the original DoD3(/4) premise where the game was called DoD4 and they were school girls with dragon phones that had to figure out what happened with DoD3 (Still mad we're never going to get that... That's such a good idea...) But then I thought what if NieR Reincarnation magic school so I did that instead! (Btw, fuck JKR, we have our own now and it has a lesbian)

I imagined they weren't actually sisters in this AU (at least not all of them, Zero, One and Brother One are siblings) and ended up as a weird friend group... But I will explain my thoughts along the way

Let's start with my favorite, Three Drakengard 3

I didn't want to draw her as sleeping again, because "Three is the sleepy one" is tired (please laugh) and her being passionate about her creations is what made me fall in love with her, so instead I made her excitedly present a weirdly specific bug book to Four, because for some reason this Four is always sitting around invested in an encyclopedia about bugs...

The books are references to the not-dragon angels, while the dragon angels are their pencil cases. (Three's is Dick Dragon Ezrael) I thought Octa would be a Professor at the school that looks out for Three because she doesn't have friends (The note on her notebook reads "You forgot this in my office -Octa")

Since most of the book covers are tilted/partially covered here they are in normal

(Abdiel is One's Golem, Galgaliel is Five's undead minions and Armisael are Three's doll babies)

Anyways on to my favorite intoner, Four Drakengard 3 (slight NSFW warning lol)

I thought it would be funny and in-character if Four took a random book to hide her phone (it's funny because it's medieval but she has a phone) to look at... pictures (because she's secretly just as perverted as five), but then somebody (three) approached her because she wants to talk about their shared interest and Four has to go with it or somebody would find out she's looking at... pictures (I later changed where she was looking for a reason I will explain later)

Symmachia is a random kind of butterfly (I noticed that if I called it "Armaros Butterfly" it wouldn't fit the placement of the page in the book...)

On her phone is a picture of Decadus (@ DecaDentalwork) sucking Dito (@ DeezToes)'s Toes. Because I thought it would be funny. (I know, I'm hilarious.) (I colored them their intoner's colors so you could tell better (didn't work) but maybe this Decadus is an Orc, who knows)

On to my favorite intoner, Five

(She's supposed to be sucking(?) on the joint of her finger, not her fingertip, but angles are hard)

Problematic Bisexual Five is drawing... loving depictions of One and Zero in Four's notebook. (It resembles the art from Saryu's Story in Reincarnation)

According to the DLC notes she's also secretly deep and philosophical so I gave her intelectual books like Crime & Punishment and Brave New World (I won't explain this part of the reference, but I'm also the only one who will get it) (One day I will be daring enough to explain it... but that time won't be now)

She doesn't have a dragon, but she has Phanuel who's holding the legendary meat of legend. I also gave Four's Zophiel a slight color redesign to make Zophi distinct from Gabriella.

On to Two

I have been informed that I also have to refer to Two as my favorite now... but I can't tell you why yet (If you know you know) (Which is also the reason why I won't explain half of these references)

Her pencil case is Raphael (but cute), she doodled an Egregori and she loooooves Cent. They don't have a good ship name (she's furious and is thinking about changing her name just because of this)

Anyways, on to my favorite intoners, One and Zero and everyone's good boy Mikhail is there as well!

There was no reason to keep Zero's flower, but I thought it would be cool to reference it by giving her an artificial eye. (She's trying to pretend that the one that functions and the other one are switched, but One is too smart and remembers) (okay, the real reason is that I wanted there to be a chain of people looking at each other so no matter at who you start you are then lead to another person next (two is pointing instead)) (and then I thought "But if Zero has a flower eye/eye patch you can't see where she's looking" so how about an artificial eye) (but how would you even know that it's artificial without making it look weird) (and then I thought it would be funny if Zero did something to upset One while looking really innocent in the picture) (and that's how we ended up here)

Her notes convo with One: One: Zero, I know this is your working eye, stop copying my homework Zero: Fuck, it worked with Four - But I heard you're marrying our brother? One: of course not, who told you that Zero: F- (The marrying thing is a reference to Saryu's story in Reincarnation (which is the Magic School Story) (Also the brother is Brother One))

The Angelic Script should be decipherable (they write with it in Saryu's Story so I thought their homework should be written with it too) but I won't make you do it:

One: This is how I conclude that the masked bean man known as Yoko Taro cannot be trusted

Zero: lol One you think way too much about this shit dont you know that he said once that he just liked girls

Anyways, moving on to...

Our favorite canonically trans dragon Gabriella <3 Her design is based on One's DLC story book!

In the book behind her are a mysterious individual and Accord is there as well.

Anyway that should be all... This took me way too long... But for my favorite game of all time, that's fine... I hope you like it!

also fuck hands

#Drakengard 3 #drakengard #dod3 #drag on dragoon #drag on dragoon 3 #yoko taro #nier #nier reincarnation #it's probably only funny to me lol #perspective is so hard... like almost nothing i drew makes much sense #also i suck at drawing clutter #i always leave giant holes of nothing that make it look empty #but i also don't know what else to add #some final sappy lines #i really think this game made me who i am today #i discovered it on a german livestream but the streamer never continued after ending a #and i just was enamoured with how edgy zero was #she said the f word!! #they made a shitting joke!!! #and she's covered in blood!!! #but she's also really pretty #some part of me just really resonated with that #and then to discover years later that there's so much more underneath the surface... #i just really love it <3 #might be cringe but ah who cares #also i recorded a speed draw of this with csp... probably going to edit that and post it too #i just realized that one's red ended up as orange but you can't spell orange without one! #let that be a lesson in paying more attention when adjusting colors at the very end!

[itonje]

people of color in arthurian legend masterpost

hi! some people said it would be cool if i did this, and this is something i find interesting so. yeah! are you interested in king arthur and the knights of the round table? do you like to read about characters of color, especially in older lit? well, i hope this can be a good resource for people to get into stuff like that, especially poc/ethnic minorities who might feel uncomfortable or lonely getting into older media like arthuriana. this post is friendly to both those who prefer medieval lit and those who prefer modern stuff!

disclaimers: i am not a medievalist nor a race theorist! very much not so. i am just a 17 year old asian creature on the internet who wants to have an easy-to-reference post, if i’m not comprehensive enough please inform me. i’m going to stay closely to the matter of britain, as well, not all medieval european literature as a. this is what i’m more familiar with and b. there’s so much content and information and context to go along with it that it would really be impossible to put it all into one tumblr post. (however there’s always going to be overlap!) also, please do not treat me or any other person of color/ethnic minority as a singular all-knowing authority on anything! we’re all trying to have fun here and being made into an information machine on things, especially what is and isn’t offensive isn’t fun. with that out of the way, let’s get into it! (under cut for length!) 

part i: some historical context (tw for racism and antisemitism discussion)

fair warning, i’m going to start off with some discussions of more heavier history before we talk about more fun stuff. while pre colonial racism was far more different than how it is today, there still...was racism. and it’s important to understand the social mien around nonwhite people in europe at the time these works were written. 

to understand how marginalized ethnicities were written in medieval european literature, you have to understand the fact that religion, specifically catholicism, was a very important part of medieval european life. already, catholicism has violent tenets (ie, conversion as an inherent part of the church, as well as many antisemitic theologies and beliefs), but this violence worsened when an event known as the crusades happened.

the crusades were a series of religious wars started by the catholic church to ‘reclaim’ the holy land from islamic rule and to aid the byzantine empire. while i won’t go into the full history of the crusades, (some basic info here and here and here) its important to understand that they had strengthened the european view of the ’pagan’ (ie: not european christian) world as an ‘other’, a threat to christiandom that needed to be conquered and converted, for the spiritual benefit of both the convertee and the converter. these ideas of ethnoreligious superiority and conversion would permeate into the literature of the time written by european christians. 

even today, the crusades are very much associated with white supremacy and modern islamophobic sentiment, with words such as ‘deus vult’ as a dogwhistle, and worship of and willingness to emulate the violence the crusaders used against the inhabitants of the holy land in tradcath spaces, so this isn’t stuff that’s all dead and in the past. crusader propaganda and the ignorance on the violence of the catholic church and the crusaders on muslim and jewish populations (as well as nonwhite christians ofc) is very harmful. arthuriana itself has a lot of links to white supremacy too-thanks to @/to-many-towered-camelot for this informative post. none of this stuff exists in a bubble. 

here’s a book on catholic antisemitism, here’s a book on orientalism, here’s a book about racism in history that touches on the crusades. (to any catholic, i highly reccommend you read the first.)

with that out of the way, we can talk about the various not european groups that typically show up in arthurian literature and some historical background irt to that. the terms ‘moor’ and ‘saracen’ will typically pop up. both terms are exonyms and are very, very broad, eventually used as both a general term for muslims and as a general term for african and (western + central) asian people. they’re very vague, but when you encounter them the typical understanding you’re supposed to take away is ‘(western asian/african) foreigner’ and typically muslim/not christian as well. t

generally, african and asian lands will typically be referred to as pagan or ‘eastern/foreign’ lands, with little regard for understanding the actual religions of that area. they will also typically refer to saracens as pagans although islam is not a pagan religion. this is just a bit of a disclaimer. the term saracen itself is considered to be rather offensive-thank you to @/lesbianlanval for sending me a paper on this subject. 

while i typically refer to the content on this post as having to pertain to african and asian people (ie, not european) european jewish arthurian traditions are included on this post too. but, i know more about poc and they’ll feature more prominently in this post because of that, lol. 

part ii: so, are there any medieval texts involving characters of color?

i’m glad you asked! of course there are! to be clear, european medieval authors were very much aware that people of color and african + asian nations existed, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. even the vita merlini mentions sri lanka and a set of islands that might (?) be the philippines!! for the sake of brevity though, on this list i’m not going to list every single one of these small and frequent references, so i’m just going to focus on texts that primarily (or notably) feature characters of color. 

first of all, it’s important to know was the influence of cultures of color and marginalized ethnicities that helped shape arthurian legend. the cultural exchange between europe and the islamic world during the crusades, as well as the long history of arab presence in southern europe, led to the influence of arabic love poetry and concepts of love on european literature, helping to form what we consider the archetypal romance. there are also arthurian traditions in hebrew, and yiddish too, adding new cultural ideas and introducing new story elements to their literature-all of these are just as crucial to the matter of britain as any other traditions!

when it comes to nonwhite presence in the works themselves, many knights of color in arthurian legend tend to be characters that, after defeated by a knight of arthur’s court join the court themselves. though some are side characters, there are others with their own romances and stories devoted to them! many of them are portrayed as capable + good as, if not better than their counterparts. (this, however, usually only comes through conversion to christianity if the knight is not christian...yeah.) though groups of color as a general monolith created by european christians tended to be orientalized in literature (see: mystical and strange ~eastern~ lands), many individual knights were written to be seen by their medieval audience as positive heroes. i’m going to try to stick to mostly individual character portrayals such as these. 

with that all said though, these characters can still be taken as offensive (i would consider most to be) in their writing, so take everything with a grain of salt here. i will also include links to as many english translations of texts as i can, as well as note which ones i think are beginner friendly to those on the fence about medieval literature!

he shows up in too many texts so let’s make this into two bullet notes and start with one of, if not the most ubiquitous knight of color of the round table (at least in medieval lit),-palamedes! palamedes/palomides is a ‘’saracen knight’’ who (typically) hails from babylon or palestine and shows up in a good amount of texts. his first appearance is in the prose tristan, and he plays a major role there as a knight who fights with tristan for the hand of iseult-while he uh. loses, him and tristan later become companions + friends with a rivalry, and palamedes later goes off to hunt the questing beast, a re-occurring trend in his story. 

palamedes even got his own romance named after him (which was very popular!) and details the adventures of the fathers of the knights of the round table, pre arthur, as well as later parts of the story detailing the adventures of their sons. it was included in rustichello da pisa’s compilation of arthurian romances, which i unfortunately have not seen floating around online (or...anywhere), so i can’t attest to the quality of it or anything. he appears in le morte darthur as well, slaying the questing beast but only after his conversion to christianity (...yeah.) in the texts in which he appears, palamedes is considered to be one of the top knights of the round table, alongside tristan and lancelot, fully living up to chivalric and courtly ideals and then some. i love him dearly and i’ve read the prose tristan five times just for him. (also the prose tristan in general is good, please give it a try, especially if you’re a romance fan.)

speaking of le morte d’arthur, an egyptian knight named priamus shows up in the lucius v arthur episode on lucius’ side first, later joining arthur’s after some interactions with gawaine. palamedes has brothers here as well-safir and segwarides. safir was relatively popular, and shows up in many medieval texts, mostly alongside his older brother. i wouldn’t recommend reading le morte of all things for the characters of color though-if you really want to see what it’s all about, just skip to the parts they’re mentioned with ctrl + f, haha. 

the romance of moriaen is a 12th century dutch romance from the lancelot compilation, named for its main character morien. morien, who is a black moor, is the son of sir aglovale, the brother of perceval. whilst gawaine and lancelot are searching for said perceval, they encounter morien, who is in turn searching for aglovale as he had abandoned morien’s mother way back when. i wholeheartedly recommend this text for people who might feel uncomfy with medieval lit. though the translation i’ve linked can be a bit tricky, the story is short, sweet, and easy to follow, and morien and his relationships (esp with gariet, gawaine’s brother) are all wonderful. 

king artus (original hebrew text here) is a northern italian jewish arthurian text written in hebrew- it retells a bit of the typical conception of arthur story, as well as some parts from the death of arthur as well. i really can’t recommend this text enough-it’s quite short, with an easy-to-read english translation, going over episodes that are pretty familiar to any average reader while adding a lot of fun details and it’s VERY interesting to me from a cultural standpoint. i find the way how they adapt the holy grail (one of the most archetypal christian motifs ever) in particular pretty amazing. this is also a very beginner friendly text! 

wolfram von eschenbach’s parzival (link to volume 1 and volume 2-this translation rhymes!) is a medieval high german romance from the early 13th century, based off de troyes’ le conte du graal while greatly expanding on the original story. it concerns parzival and his quest for the grail (with a rather unique take on it-he fails at first!), and also takes like one million detours to talk about gawaine as all arthurian lit does. the prominent character of color here is a noble mixed race knight called feirefiz, parzival’s half brother by his father, who after dueling with parzival, and figures out their familial connection, joins him on his grail quest. he eventually converts to christianity (..yeah.) to see the grail and all ends happily for him. however, this text is notable to me as it contains two named women of color-belacane, feirefiz’s black african mother, and secundilla, feirefiz’s indian wife. though unfortunately, both are pretty screwed over by the text and their respective husbands. though parzival is maybe my favorite medieval text i’ve read so far i don’t necessarily know if i’d recommend this one, because it is long, and can be confusing at times. however, i do think that when it comes to the portrayal of people of color, while quite poor by today’s standards, von eschenbach was trying his best?-of course, in reason for. a 13th century medival german christian but he treats them with respect and all these characters are actually characters. if you’re really interested in grail stories (and are aware of the more uncomfortably christian aspects of the grail story), and you like gawaine and perceval, i’d say go for it. 

in the turk and sir gawain, an english poem from the early 16th century, gawaine and the titular turkish man play a game of tennis ball. i’m shitting you not. this text is pretty short, funnily absurd, and with most of the hallmarks of a typical quest (various challenges culminating in some castle being freed), so it’s an easier read. it’s unclear to me, but at the end of the story the turkish man turns into sir gromer, a noble knight, who may or may not be white which uh. consider my ‘....yeah’ typical at this point, but i don’t personally read it that way for my own sanity. also he throws the sultan (??) of the isle of man (????) into a cauldron for not being a christian so when it comes to respectful representation of poc this one doesn’t make it, but it does make this list. 

the revenge of ragisel, or at least the version i’ve read (the eng translation of the dutch version from the lancelot compilation), die wrake van ragisel, starts off being about the mysterious murder of a knight, but eventually, as most stories do, becomes a varying series of adventures about gawaine and co. one of gawaine’s friends (see: a knight who he combated with for a hot sec and then became friends and allies with, as you do) is a black knight named maurus! he’s not really an mc, but he features prominently and he’s pretty entertaining, as all the characters in this are. i also recommend this highly, i was laughing the whole time reading it! it’s not too long and pretty wild, you’ll have a good romp. this is a good starter text for anyone in general!

i’ve not read the roman van walewein, which, as it says on the tin, is a 12th century dutch romance concerning some deeds of gawaine (if only gawaine was a canon poc, i wouldn’t need to make this list because he’s so popular...). i’m putting it on the list for in this, gawaine goes to the far eastern land of endi (india) and romances a princess named ysabele. i can’t speak to ysabele’s character or the respectfulness of her kingdom or representation, but i know she’s a major character and her story ends pretty well, so that’s encouraging. women of color, especially fleshed out woc, are pretty rare in arthurian lit. i’ve also heard the story itself is pretty wild, and includes a fox, which sounds pretty exciting to me!

now the next two things i’m going to mention aren’t really? texts that feature characters of color or jewish characters, but are rather more notable for being translations of existing texts into certain languages. wigalois is a german 13th century romances featuring the titular character (the son of, you guessed it, gawaine!) and his deeds. the second, jaufre, is the only arthurian romance written in occitan, and is a quite long work about the adventures of the knight jaufre, based on the knight griflet. what’s notable about these two works is that wigalois has a yiddish translation, and jaufre has a tagalog translation. wigalois’ yiddish translation in particular changed the original german text into something more fitting of the arthurian romance format as well as adding elements to make it more appealing for a jewish audience. the tagalog translation of jaufre on the other hand was not medieval, only coming about in 1900, but the philippines has had a long history of romantic tradition and verse writing, so i’m curious to see if it too adds or changes elements when it comes to the arthurian story, but i can’t find a lot on the tagalog version of jaufre unfortunately-i hope i can eventually!

this list of texts is also non-exhaustive! i’m just listing a couple of notoriety, and some to start with. 

part iii: papers and academic analysis

so here’s just a dump of various papers i’ve read and collected on topics such as these-this is an inexhaustive and non-comprehensive list! if you have any papers you think are good and would like to be added here, shoot me an ask. i’ll try to include a link when i can, but if it’s unavailable to you just message me. * starred are the ones i really think people, especially white people, should at least try to read. 

Swank, Kris. ‘Black in Camelot: Race and Ethnicity in Arthurian Legend’ *

Harrill, Claire. ‘Saracens and racial Otherness in Middle English * Romance’

Keita, Maghan. ‘Saracens and Black Knights’ 

Hoffman, Donald L. ‘Assimilating Saracens: The Aliens in Malory's ‘Morte Darthur’

Goodrich, Peter H. ‘Saracens and Islamic Alterity in Malory's ‘Le Morte Darthur’

Schultz, Annie. ‘Forbidden Love: The Arabic Influence on the Courtly Love Poetry of Medieval Europe’ *

Hardman, Philipa. ‘Dear Enemies: the Motif of the Converted Saracen and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’

Knowles, Annie. ‘Encounters of the Arabian Kind: Cultural Exchange and Identity the Tristans of Medieval France, England, and Spain’ *

Hermes, Nizar F. ‘King Arthur in the Lands of the Saracens’ *

Ayed, Wajih. ‘Somatic Figurations of the Saracen in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur’

Herde, Christopher M. ‘A new fantasy of crusade: Sarras in the vulgate cycle.’ *

Rovang, Paul R. ‘Hebraizing Arthurian Romance: The Originality of ‘Melech Artus.’’

Rajabzdeh, Shokoofeh. ‘The Depoliticized Saracen and Muslim erasure’ *

Holbrook, Sue Ellen. ‘To the Well: Malory's Sir Palomides on Ideals of Chivalric Reputation, Male Friendship, Romantic Love, Religious Conversion—and Loyalty.’ *

Lumbley, Coral. ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth and Race’ *

Oehme, Annegret. ‘Adapting Arthur. The Transformations and Adaptations of Wirnt von Grafenberg’s Wigalois’ *

Hendrix, Erik. ‘An Unlikely Hero: The Romance of Moriaen and Racial Discursivity in the Middle Ages’ *

Darrup, Cathy C. ‘Gender, Skin Color, and the Power of Place in the Medieval Dutch Romance of Moriaen’ *

Armstrong, Dorsey. ‘Postcolonial Palomides: Malory's Saracen Knight and the Unmaking of Arthurian Community’ (note this is the only one i can’t access in its entirety)

part iv: supplemental material

here’s some other stuff i find useful to getting to know knights of color in arthurian legend, especially if papers/academic stuff/medieval literature is daunting! i’d really recommend you go through all of these if you can’t go through anything else-most are quick reads. 

a magazine article on knights of color here, and this article about the yiddish translation of wigalois. 

this video about characters of color in arthurian legend!

the performance of the translation of arabic in Libro del Caballero Zifar, and how it pertains to the matter of britain 

a post by yours truly about women of color in parzival

this info sheet about palamedes, and this info sheet about ysabele-thanks to @/pendraegon and @/reynier for letting me use these!

this page on palamedes as well

this post with various resources on race and ethnicity in arthuriana-another thank you to @/reynier! 

part v: how about modern day stories and adaptations?

there’s a lot of em out there! i’m not as familiar with modern stuff, but i will try to recommend medias i know where characters of color (including racebends!) are prominent. since i haven’t read/watched all (or truly most) of these, i can’t really speak on the quality of the representation though, so that’s your warning. 

first of all, when it comes to the victorian arthurian revival, i know that william morris really liked palamedes! (don’t we all.) he features frequently in morris’ arthurian poetry, (in this beautiful book, he primarily features in ‘sir galahad, a christmas mystery’ and ‘king arthur’s tomb’. he has his own poem by morris here.)

and some other poems about palamedes, which i’d all recommend. 

for movies, i know a knight in camelot (1998) stars whoopi goldberg as an original character, the green knight (2021) will star dev patel as gawaine. 

some shows include camelot high, bbc merlin, disney’s once upon a time, and netflix’s cursed, all featuring both original characters of color and people of color cast as known arthurian figures. 

for any music people, in ‘high noon over camelot’, an album by the mechanisms, mordred is played by ashes o’reilley, who in turn is performed by frank voss, and arthur is played by marius von raum who is perfomed by kofi young. 

i’ve also heard the pendragon and the squire’s tales have palamedes as a relevant character if you’re looking for novels, as well as legendborn and the forgotten knight: a chinese warrior in king arthur’s court starring original protagonists of color! 

part vi: going on from here

so, you’ve read some medieval lit, read some papers, watched some shows, and done all that. what now? well, there’s still so much out there! 

if you have fanfiction, analysis, metaposts, fun content etc etc about arthurian poc, feel free to plug your content on this post! i’d be happy to boost it. 

in general, if you’re a person of color or a jewish person and you’re into arthurian legend, feel free to promote your blog on this post as well! i would love to know more people active on arthurian tumblr who are nonwhite. 

this is really just me asking for extra content, especially content made by poc, but that’s okay! arthurian legend is a living, breathing set of canons and i would love love love to see more fresh diversity within them right alongside the older stuff. 

a very gracious thank you to the tumblr users whom i linked posts to on here, and thanks to y’all for saying you want to see this! i hope this post helped people learn some new things! 

#finny.txt #arthuriana #arthurian legend #matter of britain #medieval romance #arthurian literature #arthurian mythology #<- :/ #but necessary #also ITS DONE ITS DONE ITS FINALLY DONE #PLEASEREBLOG THIS WRHSFSHDFDHSFSDF #2K PLUS WORDS..

[yandere-sins]

In His Clutches

Following up with what I said in my last post, I’ll try to do some requests for now until my mental health recovers enough to continue the Fox Wedding, and first on my list is a request I received over ko-fi and which got way too delayed because of yantober and christmas time >_< Please enjoy some Overhaul for a change!

Rating: Mature Warning: Yandere, Blackmailing, Forced Submissiveness, Rough Handling, Mentioning of Blood, Threats, Insults, Mentioning of Violence, Also Chisaki how he was before his arc I have no idea how he behaves currently lol Words: 2120

With the way your head met the linoleum floor, you wondered if the fluid you felt on your skin were tears or perhaps a bloody nose. Even if you weren’t screaming out loud from the pain yet, the impact hurt like hell, and you had to take deep breaths to deal with the aftermath. No wonder you felt an instant wave of dizziness hit you, but being unable to focus your sight and not have nervosity and your shaken mind puke all over the floor were the least of your problems.

Latest when something long and textured lowered down onto the back of your head, did you even realize what you had been forced to do with your involuntary fall to the ground. Without being able to make out anyone before you right away, you were definitely propped into a bowing position, forehead touching the floor, and when you tried to fight off what was holding you down, you looked entirely like a person pleading for forgiveness. “Look what filth honors us today,” a snarky voice picked up, and you could hear small feet pace before you. “The audacity that you’d even show here!”

You were about to complain and set the voice straight that you were not here because you wanted to, but rather because you’d been pulled into a car in the middle of the day and feared for your life if you didn’t move as you were told. But your head was turned to the side suddenly and ungently, and though you shoot daggers at the people before you, once you got used to the light blinding you, you felt a cold shudder run down your spine as your view cleared.

Penetrating, golden irises looked down from above, a body posture as unfazed and unbothered as only someone who knew they had the upper hand could have. The black mask moved slowly as the man before you spoke, never fully revealing his face, and yet the sight in front of you brought a shiver down your spine. “Like gum under my soles,” he agreed to the first voice, and you finally realized what was pressing you down. Polished, seemingly new, white shoes stepped all over you, applying and taking the pressure as he pleased but never giving you the chance to escape from the floor you were pinned to.

The realization of your failed plans began to slowly but surely manifest throughout your body, a light shivering overcoming you as you lowered your eyes, squeezing them shut. A meager attempt of wishing this was just a bad dream, and perhaps you could wake up in your bed soon and atone for what you had done, leave the country even and never come back. 

It had been a gamble, really. A half-hearted attempt to break free from the monotonous life you were living and become someone exciting and filthy rich. Everything seemed too easy and safe when it was proposed to you; write the letter and send it off. Gloves, face masks, using the mailbox furthest from your home-- you had remembered EVERYTHING. And yet, you still got caught, so how-?

“How did we find out?” Kai Chisaki, leader of the yakuza clan known as the Shie Hassaikai and the recipient of your attempted blackmailing, spoke calmly and outwardly unfazed. From his hand hung the white letter you had used, the paper with the demand for money so the truth of their doings wouldn’t reach the wrong ears peeking out from it. Yet, when he lifted it up into your view, gloved fingers dug inside between the paper, pulling something out that you’d have never expected to leave behind. It was so small, probably only the rest of it after testing, barely noticeable. Still, you cringed, realizing that they had traced your DNA back to you by something so minor and silly as a hair. 

“I’m not a criminal,” you mumbled, noticing the distinctive, fearful shiver in your voice. 

“Obviously,” a small, black form, resembling a stuffed animal, huffed, and you were sure if he could have, he’d have rolled his eyes at you.

“They just told me what to do, and I- I just wanted to make some quick cash. You have to believe me! I don’t even know what they know! I only made the letter...”

The following silence was downright disturbing to you, a few seconds turning into the eternity one must feel before getting beheaded back in medieval times. A sigh eventually signaled the end of the nerve-tearing wait as countless ideas of what was going to happen to you now circled through your head. Finally, the foot lifted from your head and flapping the letter in his hand, Chisaki gave the underlings assembled in the room a signal. 

With groans and clicks of their tongues, bodies all around you began to move and disappear through doors that you couldn’t have made out with how perfectly they fitted into the white walls around you. You slowly lifted your torso off the ground again, looking after the last one of them disappear without even so much as a glance back over their shoulder, the doors closing automatically behind them. Suddenly, only the boss and you remained in this interrogation room, even though you were too afraid to dare and look at him. Instead, you focused your eyes on your hands, wondering why he’d want to be alone with you. If what you had always thought criminals did with people that defied them, then disposing of you didn’t seem like the work the boss would do. Truly, combining with the confusion you felt, the situation was only growing worse by the second.

“Working at a bank, inheriting the house of your parents, a pretty penny in your accounts. Sounds like a good life, and yet, you’d still resort to this.”

The envelope containing the letter landed right before you, sliding over the ground up to your knees. Biting your lip, you didn’t know what to say, especially when he almost sounded disappointed in you. His patronizing way of pointing out your faults didn’t make you feel any better or less scared, as Chisaki still didn’t appear to mean you well. Even the truth seemed like such a waste of air if spoken out loud, but what better was there to admit?

“... interesting.”

“Louder,” he demanded, his foot falling back down, this time on your hand, crushing it the longer you refused to speak up.

“I wanted to make it more interesting!” you gasped out loudly, clutching your hand close to your body the moment he let go. “I didn’t mean to harm you, Sir! You must believe me!”

This time you did look at him, with the most rueful eyes you could muster even, hoping to achieve anything, literally anything that would change the situation. “Hm,” he hummed in contemplation, and you gulped as you felt yourself run out of options. However, you didn’t expect him to sigh again before leaning forward, his eyes drilling into you as if he was trying to break you just with his stare. You had heard rumors. Rumors that he wasn’t quite sane and overtaken by his ambitions and germaphobia. Nonetheless, his eyes were clear, your reflection in them more fearful than you must have ever been in your whole life.

“You can beg better than that, I think,” he declared. 

In your panicked state of mind, you agreed with a short, firm nod, barely inching closer before noticing his eyes narrow reprimandingly, making you stop immediately. “P-Please don’t hurt me! I’d do anything! I was just the deliverer of the message! I know nothing, and if you let me go, I’ll never speak a word about what happened here--”

“Then tell me who made you write this letter.”

His instructions were clear, even though they made your blood freeze. “I don’t know…” you whispered, your body slowly shutting down as you realized it wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. With a disapproving click of his tongue, a gloved hand reached forward, remaining at the corner of your eye for a split second. You ducked away from his touch, squeezing your eyes shut, but before you knew it, it was gone again, as if he decided against doing what he had wanted. Only now, you realized the tears collected in your eyes, not yet spilling but there as you had started to despair over the situation. However, there was no time to ponder about them as Chisaki spoke up again.

“Who,” he calmly said. “Tell me, and you are free to go.”

But you didn’t. You couldn’t. You had followed the instructions given to you online via an online forum you used to chat with strangers. You never actually met anyone personally before becoming a complice. You had always believed it was so much safer, but you were dead wrong. Sniffling, you shook your head, averting your eyes as you saw your chances of survival and escaping dwindling. “I have no idea…” 

Not much sound escaped you anymore as you lowered your head, defeated, accepting your due punishment for your stupidity. There was nothing you could have proven or handed to him to make you look any better. “Pity,” Chisaki said eerily calm, taking a deep breath before standing up, and you agreed. It was your life thrown away for the aspect of quick money. Naive thinking that you’d actually profit from this when in reality, you had simply been the decoy, or perhaps a lab rat, for the real masterminds behind the plan of blackmailing him. 

He didn’t say anything else as he watched you for a few moments more, rounding the chair he had been sitting on and walking towards one of the doors hidden in the walls, the sound of it opening making you snap back to reality. “W-Wait!” you called after him weakly. “What’s going to happen now?”

At first, you thought he’d ignore you, but just before disappearing in the dark corridor beyond this room, Chisaki stopped, being the only one to glance back over his shoulder at you. It was scary how little you could read the man from his eyes alone, no feeling whatsoever shimmering in them. 

“Now? You’re going to stay in here until you remember, of course. That or one of my men needs a new punchbag.”

And with that, he was gone, the door closing behind his back and leaving you all alone in the maddening white interrogation room. However, the worst was the ringing of his last few words that kept creeping back in your mind, causing you to cup your ears with your hands, hoping it would silence those thoughts. Thoughts of you - or rather, your blood splattered all across this room if his threat was to come true. 

Unfortunately for you and your anxiety-induced paranoia, you didn’t hear the words spoken beyond your whereabouts in the secret underground of the organization. Not the praising, “You showed ’em boss!” of Mimic as he ran after Kai, having waited dutifully for his superior. “How do you want to proceed? Should we get rid of them right away?”

Kai’s answer was hesitant as he thought about it, unusual for him as he always had quick instructions to give to his underlings. “No,” he eventually said, sternly so. Hand lifting to his neck, he felt the beginning of a new rash prick at his skin, scratching it as he got lost in thought. “The letter’s pretty good; maybe we can use their skill. And we don’t know yet who sent them. They’ll stay.”

He heard the confused and exasperated huff of disbelieve behind him, but his words were final, even if Mimic disagreed. “If they become troublesome, I’ll clean them up myself. No one is to bother them.”

And with that, Kai could devote himself to his thoughts, thinking about all the ways he could purify you. Perhaps, things finally wouldn’t be so boring anymore as you always complained to him on the forum he met you. If anyone, Kai was sure he could make your life much more interesting by his side, once he got rid of your filthiness that unfortunately still caused rashes to erupt from him, even though being so close to you made him feel so alive. 

But first, he’d have to delete the profile he used to trick you right into his clutches, as he couldn’t risk anyone else finding out about your whereabouts once they’d notice your disappearance. After all, it would take a lot of time to reform you, but Kai knew you were worth the trouble.

It was dirty work, but with your potential, how could he refuse if it was you?

#Overhaul #Kai Chisaki #Chisaki Kai #yandere overhaul #yandere!overhaul #yandere chisaki kai #yandere kai chisaki #yandere!kai chisaki #yandere!chisaki kai #BnHA #Boku no Hero Academia #MHA #My Hero Academia #yandere bnha #yandere!bnha #yandere mha #yandere!mha #yandere #yandere imagines #yandere headcanons #yandere scenarios #yandere fanfiction #yandere writing #yandere oneshot #yandere drabble #yandere x reader #yandere x darling #Yandere TW

[musclesandhammering]

Non-Controversial Loki Headcanons for These Trying Times

1.) Loki has had dozens of Midgard-based aliases over the years, for no other reason than the fact that he was bored and it was funny. DB Cooper was one of them. Hank Williams was another. He may or may not have even pretended to be a vampire at some point.

2.) Loki can definitely sing. Not just in a funny ironic way, but like.. he actually enjoys singing. It shouldn’t even come as a surprise considering he’s such a fine arts nerd, but yeah. He plays the guitar too. Surprisingly folksy.

3.) Loki’s rooms in Asgard literally look like a witch’s lair. I mean straight up spooky. All dark earth tones, spellbooks strewn everywhere, runes drawn on the walls to keep certain big brothers from messing with things they have no business messing with, vials of poisonous stuff sitting on every available surface, shelves full of strange little trinkets and talismans, a dramatic ass medieval-looking bed, a whole ass cauldron… and then in the corner on a stand there’s his Hank Williams Guitar aasdfghhjkl-

4.) When people call Loki a witch, they’re not joking. He’s. Like. An actual stereotypical, like.. witch. He doesn’t just do finger wavy magic- he mixes potions, he does rune work, he recites spells, he has a cauldron.

5.) He also used to dress super witchy. Used to. Past tense. I’m talking black nail polish, lots of necklaces, rings, eyes makeup (ok maybe I wouldn’t go that far, but Loki in eyeliner would be pretty hot, right?), clothes that were like.. 15% scarier yet more fashionable than the ones he wears in canon. The only reason he toned it down was because someone whose opinion he cared about (it was Thor) made a joking comment about his appearance looking “wicked” or “evil” and it made him feel self conscious, so he changed how he dressed. :(

6.) He was rocking the whole short hair look years before Thor in Ragnarok. In fact, by pre-canon Loki’s standards, his hair in Thor 1 was even a bit too long. He did this because a.) he hates how his natural curls soften him and will do anything to get rid of them and b.) in Asgard short hair wasn’t really worn by noblemen because it symbolised servitude, so this was Loki’s subtle way of being defiant and deviating from the norm.

7.) As Frigga said in Endgame, Loki is very good at sneaking. Even when he’s not trying to. There have been many-an-accident in the Palace of Asgard because he unintentionally almost gave Thor a heart attack.

8.) Loki and Thor weren’t always at each other’s throats. They actually got along pretty well up until Odin started planning for the coronation. Loki was still jealous of the way Thor was treated compared to the way he was treated, but he knew that wasn’t Thor’s fault- not really. And Thor was still arrogant and entitled, but that was mostly directed at other people and not his own family, so while Loki knew about Thor’s character flaws, it didn’t really effect him personally. When the planning started, though, Thor gradually became even more superior and insufferable than normal, and Loki became even more bitter and unsettled, and their relationship just kind of went downhill from there.

9.) Loki absolutely joined the Mile High Club with that flight attendant from the first episode of the show. Her name was Florence and she was adorable, Loki thought so too.

10.) Loki’s the only person on Asgard who can beat Volstagg at an eating competition. He has a giant’s metabolism, after all. And, contrary to his elegant and refined tastes in most other areas, he’s actually a straight-up carnivore. I mean he eats other foods too, obviously, but meats are by far his favourites. Boar, fish, poultry, steak. Just meats. He doesn’t know it, but this is because frost giants are mostly carnivorous.

11.) His relationship with the Warriors 4 was always split down the middle. He and Sif always hated each other. Hogun never trusted him and Loki never had any interest in spending time with Hogun. Fandral and Volstagg, on the other hand, were always much nicer and Loki always sort of considered them his friends as well as Thor’s. This is why they were more reluctant to believe that he’d let the frost giants in in Thor 1.

12.) I refuse to believe Loki doesn’t have at least one tattoo somewhere. Probably more. Probably of a snake. The only parts of his body we didn’t see naked in Episode 1 were his thighs, lower back, knee area, pelvic region, and the back of his neck. So it’s gotta be in one of those places. (Might I suggest: snake thigh tattoo, tiny nape tat, goth tramp stamp lol, rune tat behind his ear, Norse mythos leg tat, badass above-dick tattoo).

13.) Loki’s prickly and insecure and has layers like an onion, but once you get to the point of actually being friends with him, he’s a total sweetheart. I mean a literal smol dork. A bit hyperactive and excitable, but still very very soft. It’s because he’s had so few actual friends in his life.

14.) Sometimes Loki only goes a few days before his gender changes, sometimes he stays one gender for years at a time. And he tends to shapeshift his body to match. That being said, one of his biggest pet peeves is how his other-gendered clothes get all dusty and musty when they have to stay in the closet for long stretches of time. So he’s taken to wearing luxurious gowns around the house when he’s in his male form. You know, just to air them out.

15.) Loki hates sleeping with people. Sex is fine, but he’s just so solitary and paranoid that he’s never been comfortable sleeping in a bed with another person. This may or may not have gotten him in trouble a few times when his partners woke up and found him gone lol.

16.) Laufey is actually incredibly similar to Loki, the way Odin is very similar to Thor. He prefers smaller blades (ice daggers), he’s very analytical and calculating, he’s very calm and non-confrontational even when he’s in a stressful situation, and tbh he seems like a better king than Odin- much like Loki probably would’ve been a better kind than Thor. (Whoopsie this one’s a bit controversial)

17.) Loki adores animals! …But he’s also a bit obsessive about keeping his environment clean. Not organised, per se, just clean. And animals tend to be hairy and slobbery and feathery and slimy and poopy and dirty, so he’s never been able to have a pet. He just takes a lot of nature walks to compensate :)

18.) All jotuns are naturally intersex, including Loki. This is a bit unusual for Asgardians, but because Loki is genderfluid and a natural-born shapeshifter- and has always had a tendency to change his body parts around as his gender changes (male, female, both, neither)- he’s never had a reason to find it very odd. In hindsight, that was one of the many eccentricities that should have made him realise something was a little fishy with his “asgardian” genetics.

19.) The snake + stabbing story from Ragnarok was nowhere near as nefarious as Thor made it seem. What actually happened was: Someone accidentally mixed a real knife in with the blunted practice knives. Thor and Loki didn’t know this, of course, and when they were playing a battle game, Loki ended up with the real knife. When Loki “won” and went to “vanquish his enemy” he ended up actually stabbing Thor for real. They were both hysterical and it took longer to calm Loki down than his brother. It ended up just being a flesh wound, though, so everything turned out fine.

20.) A lot of people think Loki discovered his “secret passageways between worlds” from TDW through some sort of inter-realm questing or magical study or something, but in reality, he discovered them when he was like 16 and desperately trying to find a way to sneak out of Asgard without Heimdall telling his parents.

Tagging @natures-marvel & @little-s-creampuff for expressing interest. Thx for listening to my mad ravings lmao <3

#I have so many more of these it’s unreal #my musings #loki headcanons #loki laufeyson #frosty bby #long post #loki series #Thor ragnarok #thor the dark world #thor 2011 #Thor #language tw

[foxilayde]

Good morning/night Danny I hope you're doing well! Congratulations on hitting a follower milestone, this shipping event is so kind of you to do, and I can't wait to see all the writing you have in store for us in the future.

I am tall vegetarian w dark curls and green-ish kinda scary looking doll eyes hahaha (they look like 👁️👁️). I would say I'm a very loving, sensitive, loyal and individualistic person and I really want to make people feel happy and like they can talk to me. I love hearing people talk about their interests. My fave things to do are watch movies, play video games, talk to my friends, travel, drink, play with my aquabeads, make people laugh, shop for free people, volunteer and bake Betty Crocker mix cakes LOL.

I study English lit and my favorite stuff to read is Medieval stories and poems. I love horror, it's my favorite genre of movies, shows, games and watching a horror movie is usually comforting to me. I love movies in general and I could talk about them for hours on end. I also love plays and musicals. My favorite thing to do with someone would be to watch a movie, play or musical with them, especially if they picked it. I'm also a night owl.

My top kink is probably breeding cuz the idea of being "claimed" makes me absolutely feral. I'm also a sub. Tell me what to do and you bet I'll do it.

Hahaha sorry this is a lot. Thank you very much!! Congrats again!

Ahahahahhaaaa!!! Wether you like it or NOT your ship is with OTTR!LETO!!!! (my own Frankenstein creation. No objections allowed.) But a subservient little thing like you?? With great taste in art?? You're done for.

He's a tough customer. A rough customer. A customer who will put all the employees to the wall. But he's YOURS.

You meet at an open house showing in L.A. You go to these things from time to time for the free champagne and the freedom it gives you to pretend you live a different life. You buy a dress you can't afford on Rodeo Dr. And you park your Civic a few blocks away for good measure.

At this particular showing in Venice Hills you're standing in the backyard, admiring the sunset, and when you turn around- you run into a man in a dark black tailored ensemble. Cut to form, toe to tip; chain as gold as his skin.

"Hi, sorry" you breathe out, intimidated by his presence.

You don't hear what he has to say in return, hurrying inside and up to the second floor.

While you're admiring the closet space of the master bedroom you turn again to find- him. Closer than he was the last time.

You mutter your apologies and make your way downstairs to the kitchen, where the free wine is pouring, and the avocado toast-ettes are being served.

He comes up behind you once again, and you swear it's on purpose.

So you boldly ask him, "what do you WANT?"

He chuckles behind a ringed fist, covering his mouth and says,

"allow me"

and tucks the tag of your borrowed dress into the top hem. where it was SUPPOSED to be. Christ.

"Thanks" you mutter through a mouth of avocado toast.

His smile is all but laughter, but he asks you with earnestness,

"You come to these things often?"

You decide to be honest with this man who is keeping your secrets.

"yes, actually. nearly every weekend."

"so? how does it compare?"

You're a bit taken aback, thinking that he might be messing with you. But it doesn't seem like he is...

"It's a very good house." you admit

"Ocean view" you say at the same time. You both laugh.

"my assistant... he scheduled me for this place. Didn't know if it was the right fit though...."

You nod. An assistant, huh? you chew on your toast.

"Let me buy it for you?" He asks, with adoration towards you.

"THE HOUSE?!" you've been propositioned on sugar daddy sites but this is somethi-

He laughs, "No, silly girl. The dress. Let me buy it for you. It suits you."

God, his smile is so captivating. So warm behind the beard.

"I don't know... I think I'll buy it myself. Seems pretty lucky."

He smiles at you adoringly.

"Then at the very least let me take you out to dinner, so you have somewhere to show it off."

You swallow your toast and acknowledge him with an admiring look,

"Alright then"

#follower celebration

[deeranger]

Fic Writer Questions!

@oddsocksandstuff tagged me in this, thank you so much, sweetie!  ❤️

 1) How many works do you have on AO3? I’ve got 40 so far (of which 25 are SPN fics). There’s more to come! 

2) What’s your total AO3 word count? 486,667, apparently. That tells me each of my fics has an average wordcount of 12,166.675… Seems about right. I was never any good at keeping things short.

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? Uhh… On AO3 I’ve written for Supernatural, Supernatural RPF, X-men (Cherik) and McFassy (James McAvoy/Michael Fassbender). But I’ve written a lot when I was younger that has never made it online, including NCIS, Pirates of the Caribbean, and lots of weird one-shorts starring everyone from Michael J. Fox to Kevin Sorbo from “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys”. 🤨  

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos? “A Lesson to be Taught” – an SPN Wincest pwp fic where a dominant Dean fucks (and spanks) Sam and they discover that Dean apparently has a daddy!kink. Comes with a photo manipulation too! There be dick.    

“Taking Game” – a semi-dark medieval Cherik (Charles Xavier/Erik Lehnsherr from X-men) AU. Basically, Charles is a poacher hunting on king Erik’s land to his great dismay. And so, he’s captured and gets the choice between losing his life or serving the king for a bit… Dubcon and smut ensues.   “Only Like This” – a little SPN Wincest dub-con fic about hopelessly pining Dean doping Sam just so he can touch and kiss his oblivious little brother. It’s okay. Sam won’t remember when he comes to.   “It’s Only Carnal” – A dark SPN Wincest noncon fic where soulless!Sam needs to blow off some steam. And when it comes to carnal activities his brother isn’t exactly a novice – so why not use Dean’s body to make them both feel good?   “Demonized” – a long and dark af SPN noncon fic written in collaboration with the awesome @palishere. Sam is captured by some nasty demons who use him to lure in his brother. At first it seems the demonic scumbags are just really perverted and have a weakness for sexual torture, but they turn out to have ulterior motives…  

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not? Yes, always. I think it can be a bit demotivating for a reader to leave a comment and get zero response – and so, they might not bother to comment on the next fic. At least, that’s how I feel personally. And besides, I really want to let readers know that I appreciate them taking the time and effort to actually tell me what they think.  

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? Oufff… Seriously? How can I possibly pick just one when 99.8 percent of my fics are not only dark af but have gut-wrenching ambiguous endings as well? I, err… I’m gonna have to think really hard about this one, hold on… *Insert buzzing cicada sound*… Uhh… Well, I guess it might be… “Play or Pay” – a dark female!reader-insert Wincest fic where demon!Dean has you and Sam trapped somewhere underground. Sam ends up being on the receiving end of the demon’s cruelty when he tries to save you. Using Dean’s body the demon ends up raping Sam while the reader tries to escape to get help... There’s a little twist in the end. Loads of dead dove here, including death (not Dean or Sam).     “The Orange Hour” – where undercover inmate!Dean has to rape CO!Sam in order to save both of their lives and get them out of the jail in one piece. It doesn’t go completely as planned. (Comes with an nsfw photo manipulation).  “Demonized” – loads of bottom!Sam torture, full of hurt and absolutely no comfort... It’s just… I dunno, I think I and @palishere had a collective meltdown in the noncon and angst department. Sorrynotsorry.      

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written? Nope, I’ve never in my life written a crossover. Usually, I’m too laser-focused on 1 obsession at a time. I can’t multitask, okay?   

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic? Yes, the fandom purity police has visited me on AO3. The usual self-proclaimed know-it-alls vomiting their bullshit all over the comment section about how “problematic” noncon is and how “sick” I must be. I thought about moderating comments for a while, actually – but I just deleted their follow-up comments until they left me alone. 😤

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind? Yes!! Gimme! Usually, I write noncon smut or just good ol’ pwps that feature some sort of dominance. That’s it. That’s my jam. In general, the only smut I don’t write is the cute, fluffy, feel-good, cuddly stuff… My smut’s usually pretty rough and/or some sort of dub/noncon.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yes. Someone stole “It’s Only Carnal” and posted it as her own on some Portuguese fanfiction site. She even replied to comments, answered questions and talked about how much she loved writing it, etc… Luckily a sweet mutual on Tumblr let me know about it and I reported her for plagiarism. The stolen fic was taken down shortly after and the account deleted. Goddamn thief. 😡  

12) Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes. Honestly, I can’t remember which fic(s). But people have contacted me on AO3 and asked for permission to translate my stuff into Chinese. I have - of course - happily allowed them to. It’s such an awesome compliment to get, I think!  

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, 2. “Demonized” and the fluffy Ficfacers prompt fic “The Masks We Wear” starring Sam and Dean taking their pranks a step too far. Basically, the brothers get angry with each other and they need to talk it out… No smut in this one, can you believe it?!! But that was kinda the prompt we received. The prompt was literally: “Sam and fluff”. Anyways, both fics are co-written with the lovely @palishere. You can find her AO3 here. 😊

14) What’s your all time favorite ship? Wincest!!! Definitely. Gimme all the brotherfucking, please. No contest. And coming in on second place I guess there’s Samifer – never paired consensually, though. I just love Lucifer messing with Sam’s head and torturing him in all kinds of cruel ways.    

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? Oh, that’s a mean question… I have a noncon WIP where Sam and Dean are in prison. I wrote a whole story outline, gathered my own little dictionary of prison slang, etc… But I never made it past page 10 or something. Sam was supposed to get jumped by a gang of inmates and then Dean was supposed to helplessly watch from the sideline, offering to trade places if they’d just leave his little brother alone… And after that it’s all about a mix of healing and vengeance… But the story has been lying on the shelf for more than a year and I doubt I’ll ever continue it. Oh, wait! I almost forgot – I have a long Cherik WIP sequel to “To Have and to Hold”! Just checked, its wordcount is 18,729! Holy crap…. What a waste, huh? But I honestly don’t think I’ll ever finish it, because I’m not into Cherik anymore. That ship has kinda sunk for me…. So, now I’m hyperfixating on Supernatural, yeah?     

16) What are your writing strengths? Description, I think. I just love details and setting the mood. I like to think I’m pretty good at writing in English too even though it isn’t my native language… I wish to be better and expand my vocabulary but I’m doing okay nonetheless.

17) What are your writing weaknesses? Description, I think. Yes, you read correctly. I often describe things TOO much. Sometimes to the extent where the pacing gets so slowed down that I feel like the scene loses its ‘feel’. I don’t know if it’s just in my head, but that’s my major concern about my writing. That and my signature ambiguous endings, lol.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? Love it. It can be difficult to pull off, but if you get it right it can be magical. Just don’t overdo it and make sure that the reader can follow. I don’t think I have any fics online where I do it, but I’m not a complete stranger to it either.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for? Ack, my poor brain trying to go back to when I was friggin’ 13… You know how many years ago that was?! 25!!! Okay!? *Huffs*…. Anyway, I THINK it might’ve been Keanu Reeves’ character in “Johnny Mnemonic”. Or maybe David James Elliott’s character as Harmon Rabb in the early seasons of “JAG”. I dunno. Either way this question makes me feel really old and I don’t appreciate it. Don’t @ me. 😅   

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? That’s probably a tie between “The Orange Hour” and “It’s Only Carnal”. They’ve both got nice pacing and that’s my biggest challenge, I think. Also, I love the whole Morse code thing in “The Orange Hour”. I don’t even know what happened or how I came up with it, but hey, I can surprise myself if I want to, I guess! And of course there’s the smutty noncon and all of the hurt… So, those two fics are my personal faves. 😏  

I’ll tag @jackandthesoulmates, @pinkoptics, @palishere, @wrenseroticlibrary, @decadent-prince, @negans-lucille-tblr, @juinae and @impala-dreamer and everyone else who feels like doing it! Feel free to ignore, of course. 

#dee answers #fanfiction questions #personal

[erinhime83]

Since APPARENTLY I did the designs all wrong (I won’t lie - doing  my own design of Evangelia was sort of a thinly veiled attempted to get @callistochan87 to redesign her herself.  >.>), I figured I’d make it my life mission this week to go through and, like, fix them.  Partially because in my fuming about finding out that two of the people were talking about this behind my back, I kept giving myself ideas.  >.<

I am pleasantly pleased with the design that @callistochan87 did for Evania/Evangelia, although I’m worried how much is actually influenced by my design and how much she actually decided to do on her own.  *shrug*  I just like the simplicity of it and how it does make her look like a goddess.  I kept forgetting to add in the pieces in front of her ears, lol.

Antigonus I did fiddle with a little bit.  Mostly, @callistochan87 mentioned that she thought it was funny having this super old guy traveling with a bunch of teenagers, and she wondered why I didn’t just...make someone new.  Well, mostly because I didn’t want to, and mostly because when she did create someone new when I decided the Guides were supposed to be younger, it felt...wrong. 

SO, I decided to age him down a little.  Which I suppose sort of defeats the purpose of @callistochan87 creating another character when I wanted to do the same, but ignore that.  He basically has the same backstory - he was the youngest Guide of the previous generation.  He’s the heir of the empire, being the Emperor’s nephew, and now that his Guide duties are over, he’s preparing to take over the Empire.  EXCEPT, the idiot new Guide managed to get himself killed, so Antigonus is temporarily taking over the duties as they try to find someone else to take over.  BUT THEN GUESS WHAT?  He’s about 35, so while he’s old, he’s not stupidly older than than, and is sort of more of a chaperone than anything else.

His outfit come from an old one @callistochan87 designed, and I figure it’s just, like, a traveling outfit?  idk

Freyja...omg, Freyja.  She caused most of my strife.  Like, I honestly didn’t change THAT MUCH of her design, just sort of little piddly stuff to make it look more visually appealing, but APPARENTLY, that was still bad.  I stewed and hemmed and hawed on this for quite a while, annoyed before it hit me - this is a a redesign.  Shizuka sort of went back to her roots.  Why couldn’t Freyja as well?

(And yes, I realize I was in the wrong, but like I said, I hadn’t changed her that much from her last design, and, well, these were done years ago so I sort of...forgot that she didn’t originally look like that.  >.<)

And I figured, ya know, since I had minorly changed Freyja and she didn’t like that, I had better change Desiree, too, because I drastically changed her.  I don’t care what @swankifiedcos says about this one, I am IN LOVE with her outfit.  <3  Her hair, though, was inspired by a recent picture of @swankifiedcos of her hair between dye jobs where it was pink at the tips and she looked SO PRETTY.  Sure, Desiree is brunette, not blond, but I like that look on her so much I wanted to recreate it somewhat, and she looks so nice! 

Frejya, well, I did sort of tweek her design slightly to what @callistochan87 did, mostly giving her cold shoulder sleeves as a sort of call back to her old sleeves.  I won’t lie - I did attempt to do them again and failed spectacularly.  Sorry.  But apparently she approves of this sleeve, so that’s...one less problem for me to deal with.  XD   Just so you know, I gave her hearts rather than flowers merely because I can’t draw flowers.  Consider it a style thing.  Like, in reality, she has flowers, but i just draw them as hearts.  I am SHOCKED that I was able to make the feathers as nice as I did, though!  This look makes SO MUCH more sense than the way we used to draw it.  Me likely. 

(Also, you might be thinking that she’s still wearing the pants.  I originally indended that, with the thought that she comes from a cold kindgom, but then decided they’re actually shorts that she ended up added to her outfit for modesty sake, much like Sethos did with his shirt.  :P)

I really wanted to redo Nannin’s outfit as well, but I’m sorry - I’m lazy, and her original outfit is both too detailed and too simple.  So I just made her top layer a darker pink, and I like it better.  Also made her a blond again with the idea that the people of Melohdia like like normal ass humans, and the Chosen have colored hair, and the Guides have unnatural colored eyes, which is how people can tell they’re Guides.

Geoffrey (I’m thinking of renaming him Geauffery, because that’s how I prenounce it in my head) over there gets a new design as well because I didn’t care for his other one.  >.<  Also, decided, as much as I like the name Dimitri Kaminiski, I;m going to go ahead and make him Owen again.  Mostly because he’s sort of shifted more into being Owen.  I was sort of going with this old look while making it look a little more medieval, and I like it.  I also decided he’s not a soothsayer, but rather a magician.mage.

Which is sort of similar to Evangelia’s power, but not quite.  She uses the power of miracles, whereas he uses actual magic.  Its sort of like how Shizuka and Freyja’s power is similar, but Frejya’s is a little weaker.  (Shizuka has mastery over all weapons, whereas Freyja just has mastery over bludgeoning people with a huge ass axe.  But she has the benefit of also having  magic, whereas Shizuka can just use some fire magic.)

The next design is where it get all long and involved.  Basically as I was stewing about having my feelings hurt and how I was going to hide everything in my annoyance, I THINK I was briefly reminded of the last time I screwed up and within that instance a brilliant idea came to me, mostly because I needed more villains.  

I remember I really like Astrid’s design, but looking back, I’m sort of confused as to why?  It doesn’t look at all better than Freyja’s.  >.<  Anyway, the thought is simple - when the Chosen are originally yanked into Melohdia, Nuncio replaces one of them with one of his own that would be easily manipulated.  Why Freyja, you ask?  Plot reasons, since it does help explain the whole Nannin thing a lot better.  The thing is, though, that Ariadne and Atalo sort of find out and drag Freyja in as well, except she ends up in Baldernan rather than Azibo with the rest of the Chosen.

So the Chosen are in Azibo thinking Astrid is one of them, except they don’t really vibe with her that well.  They just figure it’s because they can’t like everyone, and ignore it.  Astrid herself doesn’t really suspect anything.  But then they travel to Baldurnan and find Freyja there, who they do vibe with very well, and they find out that Astrid is a fake. 

Which would be all fine and well.  Even Freyja’s willing to give the girl a chance because, hey, it’s not her fault she was falsely brought into this world with no purpose.  Except Astrid is a spoiled bitch and takes it as an affront that they would even want to include Freyja at all.  So she just sort of runs off and Nuncio catches up to her, and convinces her that she’s the real one, and and she goes around antagonizing the group from time to time.  They think she’s in league with Atalo at first until they find out of the truth.

NEW IDEA.  I actually had this very vague idea while musing around, but @callistochan87 had another idea that was similar enough that I can change things to make it work WAY better.  So, the new idea is mostly that Nuncio pulls Astrid into Melohdia way before the others.  The people are rather confused, certainly, but it’s not 100% unheard of one Chosen being brought over.  So she’s treated like something of a god and spoiled further, and Nuncio pretty much convinces her that she’s the soul savior of Melohdia. He assigns Thor to be her Guide, although he’s just some Random Dude (because I decided that matching genders to the Chosen is sort of weird, so Nannin is a full Guide now).

BUT Ariadne and Atalo end up pulling the REAL Chosen a month or so later, which REALLY pull the people for a loop, and they realize that Astrid is a fake once they realize that Thor isn’t a real Guide and that Nannin claims Freyja.  The group attempts to assimilate Astrid in with them, because they realize it’s not HER fault all this happened, but since she’s a fake Chosen AND a narcissistic bitch, they end up not viving all that well, and she ends up running away in anger and embarrassment.

Nuncio sort of blames the whole thing on Atalo somehow, since the people forgot that Ariadne is the only one who can pull true Chosen into the world, mostly to save face.

Astrid and Thor do end up joining with Atalo for a little bit, because he’s trying to be sympathetic to her as well, but their goals aren’t really the same.  She does prove to be a major threat to the group because she DOES have the power of a Chosen, although they’re sort of weak.  

Her real name is Katelyn Davis, and she’s pretty much the opposite of the other Chosen.  She’s a complete social butterfly, the sort to think the world revolves around her.  She’s not happy unless she’s around people, whereas the other Chosen are pretty much introverted and would prefer to keep to themselves. 

Her Guide’s name is Thor (I keep calling him that in my head, I think because of Frejya being named after a god), and he is, in fact, a true Guide.  It’s just that he’s not a very good one, nor is he a good person.  He’s a bandit and delights in the misfortunes of others.  The other Guides avoided him at all costs, and wasn’t sure why he was chosen to be a Guide.  He goes off with Astrid after they kick him out of the group when Freyja chooses Nannin over him.  (The two of them became close in the month Frejya was stuck there on her own, so of course she’d want to have her stay with her.)

The last picture was just me giving them their original hair colors just for the hell of it, and now I’m torn.  >.<  Because I like these as well.  I mean, I like the idea of the colored hair being how you can tell they’re the Chosen, BUT I also, you know, like the original colors BECAUSE they are the original colors.  >.<

#original charcters #designs #mi #evangelia #antigonus #frejya #nannin #geoffery #alden #astrid #thor

[volturialice]

3 and 20 for the ask game?

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all the setup and context it would require? (Consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

this one is hard bc I have an entire 50k+ scrivener doc of scenes just like this. But I guess if I had to choose, I’ve always wanted to write a scene about what jasper and maria would say to each other in the present, now that they no longer have to lie. I’m so interested in what they are to each other, how they see each other and how that’s evolved. I find it fascinating to imagine how they would talk about their history and their issues with the benefit of hindsight and independence from each other.

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

Lol. So, sooooo much.

people were just asking about this little tidbit on discord, so I’ll talk about it here in case anyone’s interested.

No, the town names from Perdition are not (to my knowledge) real places! But yes, about 70% of them have some kind of secret significance (I make no secret of the fact that I’m an etymology bitch.) I’ll put some hints/answers under the read more at the bottom of this post, but first, more rambling.

Perdition in general is both interesting and frustrating to write because it is deliberately historically inaccurate—it takes place in a geographically impossible caricature of Fantasy England™ and I do a lot of research (like, A LOT—my outline/research doc is 7k words) mainly so I can say “ok so real life would have been like this but that’s not useful to the story and/or Sexy so we’re throwing it out the window and writing this dumb anachronism instead” (I feel like it’s important to know what the actual history was before I bastardize it.) It’s really revealed all the gaps in my medieval history knowledge. Truly I could do an entire supplemental powerpoint comparing actual history to my silly fic that takes place in a Medieval Times restaurant, but the biggest things I’ve messed with are a) certain cultural attitudes and practices towards fortune-telling from an (English) Catholic Church standpoint, and b) how the actual Smyrniote Crusade worked.

Oh, and I’m never gonna describe anyone’s pants because they would all have been wearing hose and I hate that lol

send me meta asks

Town name clues below

Aberstowe - town where the story starts. “Stowe” just means like a village, but “Aber” means “fork,” like a fork in the road. Haha get it 🥁🤪

Kirkmere - city where they were supposed to take Alice for trial. “Mere” is another generic “city/town” suffix iirc and “Kirk” means “church.”

[redacted] - town coming up that has both a meaningful prefix and suffix and that’s all I’ll say

[redacted] - Alice’s hometown has an extremely on-the-nose name. It’s not naming a werewolf “Remus Lupin” but it’s in that zone

others - for Marcote I was kind of playing with the word “mar,” as in to injure or disfigure. Wythe and Hareswold I kinda just made up because they sounded right.

I also have a hilarious map hand drawn in the equivalent of MS Paint so I can keep track of my own silly fake geography lol

#ask games #meta asks #perdition tag #thank you how did you know I was DYING to do 20 lol

[em-writes-stuff-sometimes]

BIIITCH, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! Hush was so fucking goood!!! And that gif at the start???? I started out reading your story at ao3 but I’m so grateful for switching to tumblr. The thought you put into every detail of this AU blows me away every time (not to mention the research, the motivation of the characters, the life you’ve breathed into them 🤯). And don’t get me started on Daemon’s dirty talk - the way you write him is pure perfection!!! I’m always left wanting more and yet it’s always the perfect amount at the right time. I can read 50+ chapters of him just talking dirty shit. Thank you soo much for giving us another chapter from his perspective!!

I know the current story doesn’t have a plot per se buuut it’s such a great way pf building up their relationship without taking away from the amazing plot you’ve built in the other instalments. Plus, and idk if that was your intention, but I like that it shows that Daemon is really obsessed as a person and as much as they’re both wanting to have a child that’s not what their relationship is about. He’s never resentful or questioning why she’s not preggo yet. I honestly thought I would like the new story but I would be impatiently waiting for the baby fic, however once again you exceeded any expectation I had and I’m genuinely having the best time reading your story. Full honesty tho - at the end of each chapter I thinking ‘yep, that’s the one, ain’t no way she’s not pregnant after that dicking down 😅

I just can’t say enough how much I love your writing and and how much joy I get every time I get a notification you’ve posted❤️❤️❤️

Omg, thank you so much! I was terrified I went too far with 'Hush', as it's quite icky but I just so badly wanted to write this after @storyblackhold and I had the most FERAL discussion about it. I knew I wanted to post on AO3 as I friggin' love AO3, but there seems to be so much more of a community for this here on Tumblr (plus I can put thirsty GIFs in and make my page pretty lol). Can't tell you how much time I've wasted actually combing through footage and converting GIFs myself - the one for 'Hush' was one I cut! And it is so fun that my nerd love for research is paying off. To think this started as a dirty excuse to fantasise about Matt Smith in a platinum wig throwing the word 'cunt' around... Then I had to make the High Valyrian accurate by manually translating it... Then I was studying scenes and tweaking them for my own purposes... Next thing you know, I'm researching how a medieval healer could have inadvertently caused the death of their labouring patient by giving them toxic fungus lol. Now, we at a whole fic with a backstory, what the hell. Keep in mind that the remedy Maester Gerardys uses on poor Reader's leg in 'Hush' was also something I researched! Myrrh has a lot of antibacterial properties, and it was said that olive oil formed a barrier on wounds to prevent infection. Plus, the oil would stop the bandage from sticking as much.

This smut anthology is a great way to throw in tidbits of character building and general plot points without getting derailed by a whole narrative arc; for example, we learn that Reader goes back to King's Landing fairly regularly, that they've settled well into life at Dragonstone, that Daemon has stuff to do on the island (i.e. training those fuckwits from the Second Company) and that he's built a sort of reluctant friendship with Harwin. We learn that Otto's still being a bitter bitch about Daemon finding actual happiness, and that Lord Lyman is a G. Little things, ya know? As for the pregnancy thing, it can take quite a while to conceive, and as of yet it isn't the burning urge of both of them to have a kid; they're still learning each other (hehe) and figuring out how to navigate life as a married couple. Keep in mind also that this anthology will only vaguely span a few months - there's no exact order to them, nor a specific timeline, but we aren't talking years or anything. I know there are examples of women falling pregnant like immediately after they marry, but I see that used a lot and I wanted to explore the option of... not exploring it? I don't know if that makes sense. Let's just say that Daemon's not keeping track of her cycle or anything, he isn't quite that crazy yet. They're in the honeymoon phase of their relationship - they'll get there, don't worry!

Thank you so, so much for such a lovely comment! I really appreciate all the feedback I've been getting, it's insane!

#fanfiction comments

[xxmiizcornerxx]

Do I Love You Because You Are So Beautiful? (Sero Hanta x Black! Reader)

A/N: Happy Black History Month!!!! I am back with some fresh ideas, new motivation, and more drive than evah!! Now for the most part I’ve been gone due to personal reasons, high school, and juggling my very first job! Just some crazy things been going on. Lol I’ve wrote this about like 5 different times but yes now on to some context.

So a few nights ago before all this winter madness, I was watching Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella movie. And let me tell you right now, Prince Christopher reminded me of Sero so much. Plus WE NEED MORE SERO APPRECIATION  Anyways, this song just put me in my feels! So for my black queens let me give yall some serotonin! Enjoy~ Small disclaimer though, Mina is your fairy godsister 🥰

https://youtu.be/4P85B54YSuc

“It’s not midnight yet.”

“I want to go now.” (Y/N) said in a small panic. After her small talk with the Queen, the girl fled feeling overwhelmed with a sense of guilt. “Oh, so you’re just giving up?” Mina said with her hands on her hips with a look that screams ‘You can’t be serious.’ With a small sigh, (Y/N) looked at Mina, “I’m not who they think I am.” 

“All they’re thinking is that you’re the most beautiful girl at the ball. And you are.” Mina said motioning to (Y/N)  with an encouraging voice. While (Y/N)’s back was turn, the prince lightly rushed into the garden in search. With a turn of his head, he let out a small breath of relief seeing that the mystery girl hadn’t run off on account of his mother. “ You’re still here.”  As her fairy godsister disappeared, (Y/N) turned around to see Sero. “Yes. I was just-.” the girl trailed off before turning back around to find Mina was gone. “Please. I don’t know what my parents said to you, but I apologize.” He said coming up to her with a worried look clear in his face.

“Oh, no, no, they were wonderful...compared to my family.” she said looking up at him with a small smile, trying to ease his nerves. “I wanna meet your family.” And just like that her smile vanished as her eyes grew big with concern, “No you don’t.” “Everyone in your life.” “No, really, you don’t.” she said with a bit of a stern tone with a hint of dread of him ever having to meet her step sisters and step mother. Sero looked down at her and gave her a light chuckle, “That bad, huh?” With a glance down and breathless laugh she gave a tight wry smile, “Well they didn’t want me to come here tonight.” She explained walking past him, “Well I’m glad you did.” he spoke out quickly catching her interest. Looking at one another, they smiled giving a small laugh. Taking his hand, the two walked around the swan fountain. “To tell you the truth... I almost didn’t come myself.” he admitted to her, “Well, how can the prince not show up to his own ball?” she questioned. “Well don’t you think it’s a little medieval...?” he asked as they walked to the entrance leading into the ballroom. They stopped looking at the people dancing, “ Everyone circling around...as if I were some prize bull they were trying to rope in.” He continued on with a small smile.

It caused (Y/N) to give a little giggle, “Go ahead and laugh, but this is serious.” He said turning to face her, gently grasping both of her hands. “If I’m going to spend the rest of my life with someone, she’s gotta be-” Cutting him off, (Y/N) slipped her hands out of his walking away from him giving a small twirl, “Well she’s gotta be...exciting.” She stopped as Sero chuckled, “I guess.” He jogged up to her with both of his gloves clutched in his hands. “But sweet.” she said mocking sweetness, thinking of all her stepmother ever said to her stepsisters. “Uh...not that sweet.” he said stopping in front of her with a light laugh wondering where she was going with this. Taking a seat, (Y/N) kept going almost as if she were in a bit of a trance, “And a devoted servant, forever and ever.” she said with a fake smile. “Servants, I’ve got already.” he said sitting next to her looking into her beautiful (E/C) eyes. “ What I need, is someone I can really talk to.” ‘he said with emphasis on need. This caused (Y/N) to smile feeling as though she was right about what a man would want. At least what the prince wanted.

“You know what I wish? I wish-” he started off a bit with excitement, “You know the trouble with most people is? They sit around wishing for something to happen instead of just doing something about it.” she blurted out remembering what Mina said to her. If Mina was there, she bet that the girl would be smiling ear to ear filled with pride. After she said that, Sero thought about it for a second and smiled realizing, “You’re right.”  Getting down onto one knee, he looked up at her with total admiration and what felt like love in his eyes. “May I ask you a question?” (Y/N) gulped silently hoping he wasn’t about to ask what she think he was going to ask. “O..Of course.” 

In the pale blue moonlight, he looked up at her with a smile, “Do you think it’s possible to meet someone and know in an instant that she’s the one?” With a small pause she smiled with a nod, “It’s very possible.” “I feel so strange, like I’m not myself. Or maybe it’s just with you, I am myself. Not the self people want me expect me to be, but the real self I w.. ” he stopped catching himself. Laughing he shook his head, “I’m not making any sense, am I?” “Actually, you’re making perfect sense to me.” she said with a soft smile, “And yet...that’s what’s so scary.”  she shook her head a bit looking into his eyes. “Scary...and confusing...and wonderful...all at the same time.”

“Do I love you because you’re beautiful or are you beautiful because I love you? Am I making believe I see in you, a girl too lovely to be really true?” He sang softly standing to his feet causing the girl to follow, “Do I want you because your wonderful, or are you wonderful because I want you? Are you the sweet invention of a lover’s dream? Or are you really as beautiful as you seem?” He finished caressing the girl’s cheek softly with the back of his hand. “Maybe you’re imaging me. And maybe I’m imagining you too.” she said in slight disbelief walking away, “Am I making believe I see in you..a man to perfect to be really true?” She asked feeling Sero walk behind her gently placing his hands on her shoulders before she turned around to keep walking, “Do I want you because you’re wonderful or are you wonderful because I want you?” She stopped turning to him moving her hands up for him to take. Sero gladly went to her taking them with a smile. “Are you the sweet invention of a lover’s dream or are you really as wonderful as you seem?” They asked each other, both hearts racing looking deep into one another eyes. Sero took both gloved hand bringing it up to his lips and placed the softest, most gentle kiss upon her knuckles once he was done he placed a kiss upon her forehead. “I’ve always dreamed it would happen like this. And now it really has. I don’t ever want this night to end.” he confessed to her with a charming smile for which she returned. “Neither do I.” she whispered loud enough for him to hear before closing their eyes to share a kiss. Pulling away they embraced each other slowly, “Are you the sweet invention of a lover’s dream, or are you really as wonderful as you seem?”

The two remained like that for a small while  before sharing another kiss. The young pair truly have found one another and longed for the night to never end. But alas it had to, for the clock struck midnight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: DEAR LORD THAT TOOK FOREVER. But did you enjoy it? ╰(*°▽°*)╯Think I should make this into a full on story? Let me know!  Also Happy *late* Valentines Day!! More stories will be on the way ☆*: .｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆

#sero hanta x reader #sero hanta x poc!reader #mha x poc!reader #cinderella

[lemoncupcake]

Hey 💛 dif anon here!! Similar question. What are some of your fav Rio moments?

hey, nonnie!! same deal as before, ok? top 5 character moments + top 5 giffing moments under the cut :)

character moments:

the whole scene from 1x01/2x01 with the medieval speech that culminates in him shooting dean. the shot of him laughing while beth aims a gun at him is unmatched, to start with. the medieval line is iconic. and then i have to appreciate the fact that he shoots dean!! the only bad thing in that scene is that dean, unfortunately, ends up surviving afterward. i think we all know i'm a soft!rio gal, but sometimes i enjoy slightly unhinged, badass crime boss rio too, as a treat! lol

the scene of him reuniting with rhea and marcus in 3x02!! soft!rio, man!! i love the shot of him smiling at rhea. i wish they'd delved deeper into his dynamic with rhea instead of giving us only one scene of them together, but i think we can infer a lot from what we got?? or at least, i sure did!! namely that obviously they're bffs who co-parent and before beth came along they weren't against falling back into bed together on particularly lonely nights. and, obviously, i love the model airplane!! the fact that he was building it while in that hotel room, that he was doing something for marcus, it just kills me a little bit.

the scene in 3x06 where he and beth are sitting on the picnic table facing opposite ways and she tells him she can't print anymore. i love that he gives her a little space to be upset. i think it shows that he's not heartless, that he's not "ruining her life" for shits and giggles. he did what he had to do to get his point across while not crossing a line he can't uncross with her imo and he takes no pleasure in knowing that lucy is dead. i think he probably thought he'd be happy with beth's reaction, though. but, instead, it's just another thing they've done to each other, another thing on a really huge pile of horrible things. and he's just tired. and maybe seeing her suffer isn't all that satisfying. so he sits there and lets her cry and he agrees with her, that lucy didn't deserve it, that she was a nice girl. and then i love that they flip the coin. that we get to see him be the one who's hurt and pissed off, too. she shot him! on the pile of horrible things, that's def the biggest and most horrible one. she shot and left him to die!! he gets to be angry about that. i love that he gets to be angry about that, even if only for a second. i wish we'd gotten to a point on the show where they had like a full-out screaming match, where beth saw the damage she'd done and apologized. i wish the showrunners hadn't decided that he's "healed enough to not have scars anymore" because that's just the most laughable thing ever. i love this little pocket of honesty between them and i wish we got more.

that scene at the ob-gyn in 3x03. i love that he's a petty asshole the whole time. like, be honest, you would be too if a woman paid you after having sex with you and kicked you out and then shot you and had the balls to tell you she's pregnant with your baby. lmao, this show really is a telenovela at this point. most importantly, i love the shot when the doctor says she's pregnant and there's all this emotion on his face. becaus he didn't believe her before that moment. and now he's faced with the possibility that he's going to have a baby with beth, that he's going to have another kid, that he's going to be tied with her forever. it's so good!

last, but not least, the scene in 2x07 where he tells beth she's a drug dealer. honestly, beth pretending that she's just a "mom with a side hustle" like crime is anything like selling herbal teas or make-up on the side is kind of getting ridiculous at that point and has only gotten more so as the show goes on. and i mean if it was getting annoying for me, i can't imagine how the guy actually having to hear that on the regular felt lol. i love that rio called her out. very fun for me!! seriously, i love beth, but i really wish she could like get some accountability. anyways, what i love most about this scene is actually not included in this scene. it's the fact that he tells her "who cares?" and then goes to look for jane. and when he doesn't find jane, instead of leaving the blanket there, he gets the dubby for beth. "who cares?", you ask? you! you care! god, i love him so much!! soft boi!rio is everything i want in a fictional male character lmao

giffing moments:

that shot of him smiling at beth in his loft in 2x11

that scene of him reuniting with rhea and marcus in 3x02

that shot of him laughing with his head thrown back in 2x08

that scene where he tucks beth's hair behind her ears in 2x02

that shot of him laughing while beth is aiming his gun at him in 2x01

ty for asking!! :)

#anon #ask #txt #tv: good girls #ch: christopher rodrigo aguilar #*p

[bangtan-dreamland]

Golden Crowns, Silver Lockets

Pairing: kth x reader

Word Count: 18.3K

Genre: e2l, medieval!au, modern!au, reincarnation!au, genie/fae!Taehyung, some angst but mostly fluffy!

Warnings: none I can think of?

Summary: This is the story of the princess who held the crown and carried its weight at an age too young, and the genie who made her into an excellent queen… 

or

You are only twelve years old when you mourn your parent’s death, and, in an attempt to become a worthy queen, you call upon the genie trapped in your locket, V.

A/N: This is part of @ficswithluv​‘s ‘The Luv Library’ project, one of which I had a lot of fun being a part of- I finally had that push to finish an actual fic! Though admittedly this isn’t really that good to be included in the list lol but I spent a month working on it and I’m mostly content with how it turned out. Now I’m off to actually make the first chapter of another series that popped into my head the other day...

Masterlist

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In the daytime, the castle ruins are bathed in a solemn atmosphere. The sunlight gently streams in through the cracks that serves as their roof- flowers here and there add a touch of peace and calm to the scenery, making the place feel otherworldly. There is a word for the feelings you get from these type of places, you think to yourself. Desolate is not quite the right word- wistful, perhaps? Hiraeth seems to be a good word to sum it up as well.

The camera on your neck swings a little from side to side as you walk around, and you admire the engravings on the walls. So far you’ve been content with just walking around, not having particularly planned out a route. The castle grounds, big as though they may be are still easy to navigate through… somewhat. And besides, it isn’t as though you plan to follow any staircases leading up and/or down, so, really, you should be fine.

Your eyes light up with awe when you step foot inside the last room.

It is- huge, the first word that comes to your mind. Second is beautiful, its charm and the pull it has on you even greater than the previous rooms. Here you find yourself standing still, awestruck at the leftover parts of what must have been once a grand ballroom.

There are the broken down remains of chairs and tables scattered around, as well as pieces of torn fabric, faded and ripped.  Scorch marks litter the room, from the floor to the walls, and grass in random places where dirt must have gotten blown in the wind. You walk around slowly, mesmerized, before you stop at hearing a slight rustle.

You’re alone. You have to be. You haven’t seen anyone, since you stepped into the ruins, and you think you would know if someone has been here before you, but you don’t see anything and-

Oh. It must be an animal. Right? You are near the woods, so it would make sense, if an animal was in the ruins. Right?

You hear the rustling again and look around, now curious to find out what it is making the sound, before you finally pin it down to a small clearing a dozen or so feet away from you. You ready yourself, clutching the bag by your side should you need to swing it, before approaching. When you’re only a feet or so away, you take a deep breath, and go.

You take a step closer and- oh.

Oh.

There is not a wild animal as you thought, but instead a man seemingly around your age, sleeping peacefully on the grass. Even though he’s wearing a turtleneck and pants, you aren’t even sure if he’s a human- there is something very much ethereal about him, his beauty transcendental and you feel as if you are intruding on something sacred.

You take in his features- dark, curly hair that ends just above his eyes, unblemished skin, lips softer than anyone you’ve ever seen… his features that seem to be sculpted by the gods (how else could he be so beautiful?)

A part of you is itching to take a photograph of him- surely one wouldn’t hurt, right? How could you pass up such a beautiful subject? More than that- there is something about this stranger that draws you in…

You catch yourself just before you turn on your camera. Beautiful as he may be, you couldn’t just take someone’s photo without their permission. And waking them up for that- if you were shameless, maybe you could do that. Even now the words seem to burn against your tongue, painting your cheeks red. You turn around, willing yourself to walk away no matter how much every part of you seems to be begging you to stay with him.

“Are you lost?”

The baritone voice that suddenly echoes through the small field makes you stop short. Surprise runs through your veins at not only how deep they are, but how familiar they seem to be. You look back- the strangely familiar-but-not-familiar stranger seems to be looking at you, a small, inquisitive smile playing at their lips. You’d say it’s one of excitement, but it can’t be. Why would he be excited to meet you? And you know you’ve never met him before.

He raises an eyebrow at you- you realize that you haven’t replied to him or anything.

“Uh-“ you stammer the words out, flustered to be caught watching him sleep. “Well, no? Maybe- um.”

You pause, gathering your words. “… I was just wandering around… I’m sorry. Did I disturb your rest?”

At your reply, the stranger (you really should get his name, it doesn’t do to keep calling him stranger in your head. You could call him Mr. Handsome, but… yeah, no, you don’t want to call him that and then accidentally call him that out loud to his face later on) smiles even more, softer this time. “No, not really. It’s fine,” he stretches his arms, sitting upright afterwards and you can’t help staring at the minute flex of his muscles. When he speaks again, you flush at the knowing look in his eyes and the smirk that has overtaken his smile. He cocks his head at you. “You seem much more interesting compared to taking a nap, so I don’t mind.”

“And you seemed otherworldly when you were resting, so I didn’t want to wake you up, lest I incur your wrath,” you jokingly reply. You copy his action and tilt your head at him, smiling at him in a teasing way. “Though I guess you must hear that a lot- the otherwordly part, I mean.”

“I do, but coming from you it’s different,” he chuckles. “My name is Kim Taehyung. It’s nice to meet you- and you?”

You tell him your name, and you know it’s not just your imagination this time when he looks at you, even for just a split second, with eyes full of love and longing. It’s over like a flash though, and then there remains the friendly smile on his face.

“If you’re not in a hurry, stay and chat with me? You’re the first person I’ve seen here at the ruins. Just take it as a small break if you like.”

You tilt your head, considering his words, breaking out into a smile of your own. “Alright, I guess I can take a break.”

It should alarm you, you think. But this man- Taehyung, for whatever reason he seems to be reacting to you as though you are an old friend, it doesn’t raise any suspicion or fear within you. Instead there is the blooming of warmth and a lighthearted sort of giddiness. So when he pats the space beside him, you sit down- he leans back on the grass and you notice with a degree of amusement that his hand has ‘magically’ appeared close to yours. Note the quotation marks.

“So… a tourist, huh?” He casually brings up. You nod your head, then remember he can’t see you.

“Well, I guess you could call me that. This was where my family used to live, from our ancestors- until my mom and dad moved to a new city and began a new life away from here,” you tell him. He looks up at you, the interest in his eyes more visible than before as is his silent urging for you to speak.

“And you came back here to…”

“To look at the town I would have grown up in another life, I guess,” you finish for him.

“What difference do you think you’d have with the other you?” He asks. You chuckle at the odd question.

“Well, I’d probably be more into photography instead of the course I’m taking right now. Have you seen this town? It’s gorgeous,” you say, grinning.

“It is beautiful,” he agrees, before nudging you softly with his foot. “Are you staying here then?”

“For the summer, I guess,” you reveal. “I’m staying over at our old family house- the one near the woods, with-“

“-the big gate?” He finishes, before grinning. “We’re neighbors then. I live in the next house over- the one with the huge garden.”

You gasp- you’d seen that garden on the way to the ruins, and it had been as huge as it was gorgeous, no doubt well taken-care of. “You’re the one who owns that garden? It’s the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen!”

A pleased smile appears on Taehyung’s face, cheeks pinkening a little. “It’s just a little something I picked up for someone. Though she was more keen on enjoying the flowers than taking care of them.”

You feel disappointment wash over you- of course he’s already taken. Kind, sweet, gorgeous and attentive… although he never stated it outright, you had a feeling he was talking about a lover.

“Wouldn’t she be jealous then?” The words leave your lips before your mind processes them, and you backtrack on your words hastily. “Uh- not that I mean anything by what we’re doing, it’s just- um.” You freeze- Taehyung lets out a laugh.

“Nah, it’s okay, she wouldn’t mind it at all,” he says, shuffling closer to you, until there is less than a feet between the two of you. “I’m pretty sure she’d be happy if she knew, actually.” Red blooms across your cheeks again, and not for once since starting to talk to him that you find yourself wishing the ground would open up and swallow you whole.

“That- someone, I mean, she must be lovely.”

“She is,” he hums, eyes softening at the very mention of his beloved. “I’m lucky I got to be with her before...”

“Before?”

“We got separated,” he reveals, sorrow and loneliness entering his eyes, before he closes them. When he opens them moments later, the darkness is gone, and he shrugs and says in a much more lighthearted tone, “but I know we’ll be together again, eventually. I just have to wait for her.”

“Oh…” You look at him with confusion. What does that even mean? What was she to him? But before you fumble for words- the previous topic having unexpectedly gone down a dark path, Taehyung speaks again.

“But that’s enough about me- since we’re going to be neighbors, why don’t tell me about yourself.”

“If you ask me that, then I wouldn’t know where to start,” you mumble, before adding with a self-depreciating laugh, “besides, I don’t know if there’s anything intriguing about me.” He hums again, making you feel at ease, oddly enough.

“That’s alright. You can tell me anything- even what you’re thinking right now, I’d still find it interesting.”

You don’t know if it’s the way with which he utters the request- soft, pleading, or the way he looks at you- captivated, as if he could drink in your attention, or the way it feels as though you could weave out the minute fabrics of your life and he would find it as the most intricate tapestry that has you spilling words, but you find you don’t mind.

It’s strange. It’s really strange, and if Taehyung was another person you would never believe you could be like this- careless, some might say. But Taehyung is different, which is perhaps why you speak.

You tell him about what made you decide to come- the sense of wonder and curiosity you’ve always held for this place when you were young, but the fact that your parents never had the time to come back to this town held you back. You talk about finishing your semester, finally getting a break for a few months without schoolwork to keep you occupied. How you decided to come here, the journey, arriving here and arranging your stay. Hearing about the castle and making an impulse decision to explore. When you finish speaking, he is silent, attention still solely focused on you, and you quirk up a smile for him.

“… And then I encountered you and the rest is history, you could say.” You take a small drink of water before continuing, the hours of talking having made you thirsty. Even then Taehyung watches you, though you don’t feel anything but subtle contentment from being under his full attention.. “I’m glad I came here. This place… it has this feel to it- like I’ve stepped back in time. The good kind.”

You take another look around the ruins, at the way it seems to have stayed through countless decades with little to no human interference, remaining tranquil and unbothered. It isn’t long before Taehyung speaks again.

“This castle is always a huge point of interest to new people,” he agrees, before adding, “Though no one from the town really comes around these parts of the castle ruins.”

“I noticed that, but, do you know why?” You blink, eyes wide before you ask curiously. “I mean, this seems like a beautiful place, even if you argue that’s all that’s left are ruins.”

“It’s rumored to be haunted,” he shrugs, and you raise an eyebrow in response. There’s nothing that indicates the castle is haunted- when you think ‘haunted’ you picture a heavy sense of gloom, a sense of uneasiness and fear and you find none of those staying at the ruins.

“Haunted?”

“There’s a story behind the fall of this castle- it’s an old folktale around these parts at this point,” he explains.

“An old folktale, huh? I’d like to hear it myself… No one would tell me anything about this place,” you admit, remembering the way the residents had looked uncomfortable with a mention of the old palace ruins.

“… If you want, I still remember the story, somewhat,” Taehyung offers, chuckling at the way your eyes light up at his words. “Though, it’s a long one. It’d probably take me a few hours to tell you the whole story. Considering it’s early afternoon by now, I could probably tell you the story on the way home- hm, have you eaten anything yet today?”

“Not if you count a milkshake for lunch.”

“I have food with me- I can tell you the whole story, we can have a snack, and then I’ll walk you back home in the evening?” There’s a hopeful look in his eyes that makes you smile shyly- the next words slips from you so easily.

“That’s fine by me.”

“… Aren’t you wary being alone with essentially a stranger?” Taehyung’s next words are laced with amusement and disbelief, and you avert your eyes before replying.

“I would,” you fumble with the bag you’re carrying as you speak to him, the way your cheeks redden at the implications behind his words making it impossible to look straight at him. “But… for some reason, you’re the exception.”

“I’m the exception,” he echoes, voice softer, and you refrain from looking up, too embarrassed to look at his reaction.

For a few moments, you hear nothing but the chirping of birds far off in the distance, but then the grass rustles beside you and you see a hand offered to you. You take it- Taehyung tugs you down into lying on the grass with him, and, smoothly intertwining his hand with yours (and pretty much making your heart beat triple fast at the same time), he starts talking, his voice hypnotic.

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Centuries ago, when kings and queens still ruled the land, there lived a girl. She was crowned heir to be at the young age of twelve, as her parents fell under their untimely deaths. Her uncle, the king's brother, took over as regent, trying to shelter her from a truth she knew all to well- too young to truly be a ruler, and under heavy grief as well, the kingdom held little expectations for her.

Truly she would have, too, had she not had her mother’s locket, one rumored to grant wishes. One night she opened it- and out came a genie.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

His first thought of you, his new master is of not much worth- only that this time, he is under the beck and call of a human younger than anyone he has had before. There is nothing about that you that he finds special and he knows not why or how you were able to become his master when your predecessors have tried and failed. Still, it matters not to him in the end. This, he thinks, will be like every other encounter he has had.

You are the one and only child of the late royal couple, and it shows in every way. Decked out in nothing but the finest silks and jewelry that he remembers is from a queen who married into the throne centuries ago, you were, he suspects, one heavily doted upon by your parents. A pearl in the palm of their hands, so to say.

It would explain the heartbroken look you wear as you sit on your bed. The exhaustion evident in your movements, as well as your wan appearance. Beautiful eyes offset by the dullness of your gaze, pallor skin that reveals your lack of sleep, and the tear tracks on your face that are barely visible in the dim light of the candle…

And then you raise your head, and though surprise flits upon your face, it is soon replaced by a touch of hope, and then hesitation. You recognize him, what he is. You speak- he prepares himself for work.

The princess first asked for her parents back.

"No," refused the genie. "Death is irreversible."

“The myths are true, so it would seem, as there stands a genie right before me.” There is no fear or hesitation in your voice. It sparks a small amount of intrigue from him, as there is the lack of greed or lust for power as well.

“They are.” The gaze he sets upon you is with little emotion. He watches you slowly take in the fact that there stands a magical being in your room, a captured fae, able to grant your wishes.

“And you-“ here you pause, wariness and desperation warring against each other as you look at the supposedly magical being in your room. “You are to turn my wishes into reality?”

His lips curl in distaste and he prepares himself for whatever whims you force him to grant. “Only three.”

You look at him carefully, and then decide to throw caution to the wind- there is a fragile hope in your tone when you speak. “Then I would like my parents brought back to life, as they were days before.”

“I cannot grant you that wish.”

You chuckle bitterly, tears threatening to make a reappearance on your face. “Of course. And why not?”

The bite in your tone is thick at the instant answer he gives, the way you phrase your words a demand. It sparks an age old indignation in him, but the way your small frame curls up in disappointment makes him bite back the harsher words he would have said. Instead, he sighs and looks upon you with a little pity.

Death is never kind. Humans may be egotistical, selfish beings, but grief is special yet in the way it brings out the worst in anyone- a fact that he should know.

“Princess,” he starts. “Magic may be powerful, however, even magic in all its glory cannot bring back the dead. Were you to ask any other genie in regards to your wish- all that they will be able to give you is an illusion that they are still alive. And even then, it would only be for a short while. … I advise you to pick another wish instead.”

The princess cried out angrily. "Then what use are you, if you cannot do your job?"

The genie laughed angrily. "I, who have been and under rulers greater and grander than you, do you think I would choose to serve the likes of you?"

“I do not desire for anything else. All I want is my family back,” your voice wobbles, bitterness and frustration thick in your tone. You glare at him over your tears. “Are you truly a genie, if you cannot even grant my wishes?”

He sneers at you, sympathy for your situation vanishing like mist.

“And you are of the belief that I want to grant your wishes? That I chose to serve some selfish brat who believes them free to use magic without repercussions, out of my own volition?” His gaze darkens as he remembers the humans that set out to capture and enslave his kind, burning down forests and using sacrifices and rituals, all just to use them as inexhaustible tools of power. Hunted and secreted like shiny jewels- made to kneel in front of selfish, greedy, filthy mortals. It sickens him, even to this day, to think what has become of his brothers. Genies, they called them, merely another term for the fair folk captured and bound to human possessions- turned into human possessions. “Believe me, princess, I do not want to be in your presence as much as you do mine.”

You falter at his sudden change of attitude, before going on. “What does that have to do with anything?”

He purses his lips. “… Nothing. Is that really all that you wish for, is there nothing else? Toys, perhaps, or jewelry? The ability to read minds? Though it seems the latter is of little use considering you barely use your own.”

“Is that any way to talk to your master?” You scoff at him, and, in an attempt to get back at his comment you find yourself grabbing at a small detail. “If you cannot remember, then I will remind you- the moment you came out of that locket, you were bound to me as my servant.”

He hisses at the words, rage burning bright and true for a moment at the stark reminder of what he has become- the resolve with which he maintained to be civil with you disappearing. He comes close to you instead, the glare on his face glacial.

“Take heed of this, princess,” he growls, taking vindictive pleasure in the way you flinch back from him, fear crossing your face before you try to hide it by tamping it down. “I have been a fae longer than you have been a human, longer than this kingdom even existed. I have ruled and I have been with rulers for as long as time has been immemorial, and I will even after you die. Believe all you like that your position offers you protection, but I will not tolerate your disrespect towards me.”

A sudden sense of pressure bearing down on the room robs you of your breath- making it feel as though there is something pressing down on your whole body. Your genie’s voice softens as he continues, though there is no denying the amount of anger hidden in it. “My power may not reverse the laws of nature, but a twist of my fingers is all it would take to make you suffer. Do not test me.”

“You would never hurt me.” You barely get the words out with the way your voice shakes. He chuckles at the way you so obviously try to seem brave.

“Is that so, princess?”

“No, you would not,” you confirm, your voice becoming steadier as you continue, determined not to give in to his intimidation. “For the reason that if you did, you would be hurting yourself. Or have you forgotten about our contract?”

Silence follows your words, though the way he bristles is enough of a reply. The unnatural pressure vanishes so quickly, the air you greedily take in seems like heaven as you right yourself on your bed. Still when you regain your composure, you find him staring at you with equal amounts of disdain and hatred. Fair enough. You steel your gaze, look him in the eye, and click close the locket that lies on your neck.

“Leave. I have no wishes that need granting right now.”

At once he disappears, and you are left alone with your thoughts.

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Animosity instantly festered between the two of them- the princess, sunk in grief and the heavy weight of responsibility that came so suddenly, and the genie, in a permanent state of apathy and hatred. But as the princess realized the impossibility of her wish, she sent him back. All would have returned to normal, were her parents to come back to life, but the present was set in stone and instead she was to be the heir to a throneless kingdom.

Oh, her uncle tried to help her, but the princess was wise and clever, and she knew her situation. With little to no support from power hungry nobles, she struggled under their scrutiny. The crown was surrounded by enemies, ones that sought to use the death of the king and queen as a way to do whatever they wished, never minding how the smallfolk suffered, letting criminals and corruption fester in the kingdom.

But the princess’ most defining trait was how she cared. Family. Duty. Honor. She strove to become an excellent queen, instead of collapsing underneath the pressure. She set her mind to preventing the kingdom from falling into chaos, and instead create an era of peace and stability for everyone.

So out came the genie once more, and this time, she made her first wish.

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You find yourself opening the locket only a month after your disastrous first meeting.

“I am in need of your help.” You hope the words come out as you intend them to- calm, confident, even if the words speak otherwise. The genie- your genie, floats in front of you with a neutral look on his face, no ill feelings flashing across his face that might remain from your first meeting. You continue. “That is to say- I request you to teach me about my country.”

And isn’t it frustrating, to have to ask a genie, a captured, bounded fae, of all… beings, to ask for help? What would he know? Yet even so you are aware of how close you are to the edge, how much you need his help.

With the death of your parents, you understand that the kingdom has fallen into chaos- nobles of all ranks vying for power, and the citizens under their rules left to suffer. Oh, it may not be obvious now, you acknowledge with a grim look, but already plans have been set in motion to sabotage and replace certain people working under the crown.

Including you.

The moment the bells tolled, you knew you lost most, if not all of the people you could trust. And how could you not? The way your parents died… were murdered, it could only have been by being betrayed by someone they fully trusted. The lack of evidence all but proved that.

So here you are, hoping for the protection and knowledge of a genie (a fae, your mind corrects, a fae trapped by your kind, that hates your kind, and is it not ironic how you are asking them, in a way, to save your people?)

“Is that your wish? For me to give you knowledge on your country?” He raises an eyebrow at your wish- there is a gleam of surprise that flashes across his face all too quickly. To wish for knowledge is not unusual- that the knowledge will not serve you directly in power is the difference. Spells, weapons, servants- to those who wish for them, he is familiar. To history, however, he is not. Living as long as he has does not mean that he knows nor remembers what happens around him- he has never held a desire to stay and see the destruction wrought by his masters, regardless of his involvement. No matter though, his magic will see to it that the wish is fulfilled anyway.

“Make me into an excellent queen,” she asked of him. Under their bond of master and owner the genie complied, and though unwilling he taught her everyday what her tutors could not, in place of the king and queen who could no longer impart their knowledge to her.

You tilt your head and refute him without a second thought. “No, I do not believe that will suffice for a wish… if you must take it as so, then I ask you to teach me all you know in managing a kingdom.”

He looks at you in surprise, for once showing something other than indifference or displeasure. “And here I thought the princess had the sense to not act on our mutual hatred,” he drawls.

“Whatever gave the impression that it was mutual?” You counter back easily. The cold stare he gives you in turn, as if asking ‘is that so?’ makes you shiver, but you hold your ground. You swallow back your fear and go on. “Besides… as much as it pains me to admit it, you are the only one I can trust and are knowledgeable enough. Do you acknowledge my wish or not?”

He cocks his head to the side, amused and yet confused as well. Who asks a genie whether they will comply to their wish or not? There is steel behind your words that declare you will be heard one way or the other, but all the same, it is not a demand, but a request. Something seems to have changed since your first meeting, but a master he can at least tolerate is not something he will question.

“Two years,” he states, but you shake your head firmly. Two years is not enough- then again, how many years must pass before you are? However, you know you need all the time you can bargain for. You have been given the opportunity to ask for a mentor greater, if not at least on par with your (parents, you miss them, but they’re gonegonegone and you would be lying if you denied spending every night curled up in your bed, shivering from the lack of a warmth so familiar to you) would-be mentors.

“Ten years.”

“Four years.”

“Until my coronation in six years, then you are allowed to go,” you negotiate, fixing him with an unimpressed look. “Or am I asking too much of your abilities? So much for your ‘having accompanied many rulers’.”

He scoffs at your blatant attempt to bait him into accepting, even if all the same he agrees. “Deal.”

He snaps his fingers- there is no visible indication that your first wish has been placed into effect, however, you can feel magic heavy and warm settling around you like a cloak. A part of you knows that it is what binds you to him- you cannot quite see it, but you can feel it. How wonderful. Note both sarcasm and relief.

“Now where do we begin…?” He muses, for the first time a smirk breaking out on his features. Snapping his fingers again finds you suddenly sitting on your chair, a perfect distance from your desk. Another and several stacks of books appear to the side, a heavy thud indicating their presence. You feel a part of you quiver in fear at the sight, but you steel yourself.  Your genie, it seems, senses your apprehension anyway, because he chuckles low and long, the smugness evident.

“The first step to becoming a capable ruler, is discipline,” he says, smirking, before he tilts his head to the side. “Ah- before we start, little princess, you may call me as V.”

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"Do you not wish for anything for yourself?" He once asked her. The queen declined the genie's offers for riches grander than any other, for power so great that it was untold.

The princess smiled wryly. "I am to be queen- I live and die for those who serve underneath me."

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“You’re still studying, I see.”

It is late- you do not know exactly what time it is, though you wager it to be somewhere in the middle of the night. The moon rising overhead offers you little light, but the candle on your desk provides an ample amount that you are thankful for.

The warm glow of the flame illuminates your genie at the corner of your eyes- V, floating alongside your desk. There is the mask of indifference on his face as always. Though it sometimes slips, and you see him visibly smile or frown sometimes. Tonight though, it seems as if he has donned it tighter, closer, until you cannot tell where his mask begins and ends.

“Yes, I suppose I am. One cannot simply learn the trades of a market without seeing how it works,” you state, attention half on him, the other half remaining on the book you are reading. You do not see him study you with open puzzlement on his face, that underneath the ever present hatred for humanity he feels, there is something else making itself known. “Though the fact that every book I’ve gotten so far gives only examples and never explanations on how the barter system works in detail is a point of frustration.”

You turn your full attention back on the book as silence greets your answer, a confused frown coming on your lips at the complications listed in the book.

“Studying so much- what is the use of it?” Just as you wonder if he’s back in the locket, you hear his voice next to your ear. “In the end, all your position will ever amount to is a figure of power. Human men have hardly changed since the beginning of time- believing that the world runs around them, that a woman’s power will never equal theirs. Your advisors and generals… given your word, they would run the country on your behalf.”

“I would have to trust them first to give them even a fraction of power,” you scoff. V it seems takes your words as they are, falling silent for a while before speaking again.

“Wish on me then, princess, and I will give you the utmost loyal of servants. What would you desire for them to have?”

“V-“ you sigh out his name, a serious look in your eyes that compel him to hold his tongue. “Everything that I can accomplish by myself, I will. Am I not already under your guidance? Your wishes, on the other hand, I would rather keep them safe until I truly need it. For one, if a plague beset my people, I would use a wish to ensure their safety.”

Although you cannot see him, you can sense the magic in the air wavering, thick and heavy. The book on the table is forgotten, at this point, your attention fully diverted to the genie by your side. There is a look of frustration on his face, as well as confusion. “For your people? What do they matter in comparison to you?”

You consider your next words carefully, wanting to tell him nothing but the barest truth for some unknown reason. It has been half a year since your first meeting, and during this period you have grown to know more about V, as well as the limits placed on both of you through your contract. He is bound to you in every way, he cannot harm you, he is to give you three wishes, of which afterwards the locket will never open again until a new master has received it. It is these three facts that have allowed you to loosen and relax, knowing you are under no threat from V.

With that, lessons with him has allowed you to see more than the bitter fae bound to the locket you hold near to your heart, instead seeing him as a respectable figure. From what you have heard and guessed, it is not a surprise to learn of the hatred he holds for humans… you have accepted it. People with power often go mad, as they say.

Furthermore V grants you your wish without fail- and when he teaches you, it is riveting. He teaches you not by telling you what or what not to do, but by giving you examples, small pieces of history lost to everyone but him, of kings and queens past that have ruled over kingdoms far bigger than yours. Although they have all fallen now, their lessons still remain, and you find yourself with a growing amount of respect for V. Perhaps, that is why a part of you desire his respect as well.

You close the book gently, and speak slowly. “Someday, I will be queen. But even before that, I am a princess. A royal. I do not live for myself- I live for the people I rule over, and when the time comes I will die for them too.”

V looks at you with an indescribable emotion in his eyes, before he says a small ‘I see’. You do not know if your words reach him, the underlying meaning in your answer evident enough for him, but if it is, he shows not any sign of seeing it.

He asked less, after that. But what once was sharp, cutting words grew softer, and he stopped giving her undue grief from his mischief.

The next day, when you wake up you find a book lying by the table on your bed. There is no title that gives a clue of the content inside, though flipping it open reveals statements and stories of alleged merchants, on trading and travelling and bartering. You grin.

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As she grew up, her love for her kingdom and her subjects only grew even more. From the little that she could experience under her uncle's strict care, she made the most that she could, taking in every moment that she could see her subjects.

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Today is a good day, you think to yourself happily. The sun is shining, the clouds plenty, and the wind just right- even the weather decrees it so to be perfect. The people around you currently yelling, squealing, happily dancing in the full view of everyone around- the music drifting across the street and enticing people of all ages to dance… yes, it was a good decision to sneak out of the palace and wander around the festival. You always were interested in the kingdom’s festivities, though two years ago you would have been cooped up in the palace, playing, separated from the merrymaking. And although the past year has been filled with grief and suffering, life moves on, and so eventually when the festival’s date drew closer, you found yourself contemplating options previously locked to you before.

And although you would have liked to attend the festival with your parents… you look to your right, finding V with the usual mask of indifference on his face, as though he thinks little of the merrymaking. You smile widely anyway, moreso when he catches you smiling.

“Remind me again why I was persuaded to accompany you on this dreaded activity of you humans,” he grumbles. You beam at him, the bubbly joy of the people around you infecting you.

“Would you not agree it necessary for a ruler to know their subjects? More than that, today is a day of celebrations!”

“What is there that you do not know about this festival,” he rebuts. “Or shall I remind you of how the meetings for this festival planning occurred?”

“Perhaps I merely want to see for myself what it’s like up close,” you shrug. He raises an eyebrow at you, ignoring the slight flush to your cheeks.

“Why is it so hard for you to admit that you want to join the festival?” He mutters, fixing you with a dry look. “Even more, having me come along as your ‘bodyguard’ when I could protect you from inside the locket.”

You find yourself momentarily struck speechless at his words. “You say that as though it is a crime to ask you to accompany me,” you huff, a frown forming at your lips. “But if you really disdain it that much-“

“No need to be so aggravated,” he interrupts you, waving a hand in the air as a smirk forms on his face. “Human you may be, but you’re not that bad for company. That aside, so this is what you wanted to see so badly you asked me for help in escaping the palace today.”

You roll your eyes at him- would anyone from the palace see you, they would scold you at how unrefined you are right now, but the thought only spurs you to let yourself loosen up even more. Today, you are not the princess, the queen-to-be, you are merely a commoner girl wandering around the festival, followed by your good friend, an older brother of sorts.

Or so it would seem to other people, not being able to see underneath the magic that V has woven around the two of you to appear normal to other civilians.

It never fails to amaze you, how V’s magic is wonderfully intricate. It seems there is no end to the uses magic provides, from the smallest tasks such as straightening your clothes, untangling your hair or rearranging your books, to big ones such as teleportation and invisibility. It took you a long time of bartering- you never wanted to use up a wish for something so menial such as this, but all the same you wanted to roam around and experience the festival for yourself. It was only when you baited V again that he finally relented.

A child passing by with their mother brings your attention back to the festival, and your eyes widen- the two of you have walked straight into the main street of the festivities while you were unaware. The people milling around everywhere, coupled with the activities and the decorations turning even the drabbest house colorful- it is a mess of sensations that makes you quickly look around, trying to get every detail in.

“Awestruck, are we?” V chuckles even as he shields you from the crowd, a teasing note in his voice. Another thing that has changed recently- V, it seems, has taken to lightly teasing you, though you let it slide as there is no malice or ill will to be found in his tone. It seems as if he has taken you as someone he can look upon favorably- or at least with some degree of comfort, to joke around with you.

“Of course not,” you deny. “Just- so many people surround us…”

V tilts his head in contemplation, before nodding. “Ah, yes. You’ve never left the palace, now have you?”

It seems as though today brings you another surprise, when you feel the warmth of another hand envelop your own. You cannot help tensing up, eyes wide as you look at him. He raises an eyebrow at you, as if the thought of him initiating contact with you is not something that should be made a big deal of, before speaking. “Don’t misunderstand. If you get hurt because your attention is all over the place, that will reflect back on me through our contract.”

“Uh-“ you stammer. “Right. I… I suppose that makes sense.”

He nods and assumes his mask again, though his hold on your hand tightens. “In any case, since the little princess has brought me out for protection, then perhaps you should use what remaining time you have to fully immerse yourself in and learn about the culture of your own people firsthand,” he offhandedly suggests. You feel your lips curl into a grin at the way he plays along with you and excitedly nod your head.

This time, when you look around, you let yourself fully take in the joy of the people, the activities that surround the two of you.

There are stalls on the side, offering various kinds of food, and music from bards and singers all around. There is no end to the list of new things you are only seeing today.

You stop at a particular stall- the flowers bright and colorful, yet blending into the scenery as well. You scan the display, brightening when you find a certain flower.

V only raises an eyebrow when you talk to the merchant, several coins leaving your pocket as you exchange it for what a few stalks of small, blue flowers.

“Thank you!” You call out- there is a skip in your step as you bring the flowers close, inhaling the sweet scent they emit. You then place them in your pocket, careful not to press them or destroy  them.

A brief glance at V reveals him looking at you with interest in his eyes- you smile shyly. “Forget-me-nots are my favorite flower, just from the name and its meaning. Besides that… I thought it would be a good token to remember today by,” you admit.

“Should you not get more then, rather than a few?”

“Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to place them anywhere- forget-me-nots are rare here, and would anyone see they would probably spread rumours of all kinds,” you say, laughing at the thought.

V furrows his eyebrows slightly. “Still, the flowers will be in a poor state from this crowd.”

“I guess so, but… any later and there might not remain any more to buy… if it truly is in pieces when we return, then I suppose I will just have to let it be,” you shrug.

The two of you resume walking, and you find yourself falling in love all over again with the kingdom you live in. What truly takes your breath away though, is the presentation currently happening in the middle of the plaza. There, in the midst of the crowd, is a group of young men and women, seemingly dancing to the beat of a tune louder and heavier than the others. There synchronization in their movements amazes you, the grace with which they execute their actions a thing of beauty itself, not to mention the aura they seem to exude. 

You take a step closer, just to get a better look at them, but find yourself rooted to the spot as V’s attention seem to be elsewhere. You huff, waving a hand in front of him, but he does not react at all and you finally resort to pulling him close to the crowd of onlookers with you. Once you are as close as you can be- and with a clear view of the performance, you find yourself even more excited by their brilliance.

“V, look!” You tug on his sleeve repeatedly with your free hand, immediately pointing at the dance with your head when he turns to look at you, attention back from wherever he has previously been. The furrow in his eyebrows tells you your efforts were successful, though he seems to be irked. His next words come out in a grumble.

“I may have asked you to hold onto my hand as protection, but that doesn’t mean you can just drag me around-“

“Your mind seemed to be off elsewhere,” you chide him. “Besides, won’t you come watch- woah!”

You see for yourself with wide eyes the sudden, beautiful way the group seems to throw themselves up into the air, before landing with practiced movements, the easy cooperation with which they move spellbinding.

“Beautiful…” you breathe out, mesmerized. V rolls his eyes, though you cannot see it at the moment.

“You truly consider that stunning? I have seen casual street performances held by elves that hold more flair,” he dryly states.

You turn to him, a spark of exasperation and annoyance evident in your posture before you admonish him. “Can you not just appreciate it for what it is? You-”

The sudden fierce mumbling of the crowd grabs your attention and you look back at the group.

The problem is evident as soon as you look. One of the members performing seem to be struggling- though they push on the performance, and, throwing the other in the air, they prepare to catch them, but they trip-

You gasp, as do the people around you, before somehow, by some miracle, the catcher finds themselves with renewed strength as they correct themselves and catch their fellow performer. The crowd breathes out sighs of relief in unison, but your breath is still taken away, and you turn to V-

“You just-“ He scrunches his face in annoyance, scoffing as he interrupts your sentence.

“If they got hurt, it would only ruin the performance. No need to let something lackluster become even worse,” he huffs.

You tilt your head with a smile, biting back the giggle building in your throat. “Alright, whatever you say.”

The rest of the day proves to be less exciting, though still as enjoyable, and when the two of you return to the castle, it feels as though it is over all too soon. That the flowers you bought at the start of your excursion has been bruised so, well, you try not to let it dampen your mood too much. You leave it by your bed, unwilling to throw it away.

You find yourself smiling at the pressed flowers, forget-me-nots preserved and yet somehow the color still so bright, the aroma strong, lying by your bed the next day.

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Her heart, though it was tempered by steel, remained kind as ever- never turning away those who needed help, and holding a compassionate and fair mind when dealing with any problems that arose.

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“How is it that you still have paperwork?”

You release a heavy sigh as you look over the documents in your hand, a weary look on your face.

“A drought recently struck the western province. One of the barons near the border has volunteered to provide relief goods, but it’s still necessary we check over the supplies to know if it will be possible or not…”

‘You could leave it to your retainers to organize this problem’, he wants to say, though he knows it would be useless. He already knows what you would reply. Something so important- a drought, delivering supplies to those unfortunate to have been living there- left in the hands of incompetent, scheming, corrupted fools? There would be no way you’d agree to that.

“I do not live for myself- I live for the people I rule over, and when the time comes, I will die for them too.”

It is exactly that phrase that forced him to acknowledge you are different. It was that moment that he thought, ah, you recognize sacrifice, the kind that consumes your very being, the kind that goes hand in hand with love and determination, the kind that you should never know fully of, because it means that you have understood the suffering that begets it. At so young an age, at only fourteen years old you already understand and accept the heaviness of the crown, a ghost upon your head as it may be for now.

Not for once he curses the fact that you are in such a precarious position, loathes the circumstances that led you to where you are, and maybe even hates you a bit too- why do you have to care, so much? Here you are, running on fumes and still you insist on performing duties that should be underneath you.

You care too much, and even he cannot deny that he’s come to care for you too, too much as well. He had long resigned himself to hating humanity, to burying deep inside any remnant of the fae he once was, before everything changed. But you bring out all the parts he has done his best to forget.

Your head droops a little as a lapse of exhaustion washes over you, but you pinch your leg- there is only a few days before the paperwork is due, and you cannot waste a single moment.

Although your head aches terribly- you struggle to remember which line you were reading, before you feel magic envelop you, and in a moment the fatigue in your body eases. You shoot a look at V, who only utters a, “move over.”

You scoot over to the side and give him an inquisitive look that he ignores. V slides into the seat next to you, half a foot of distance remaining between the two of you, and you feel yourself relax from being in a closer proximity. Not for the first time you wonder if it’s because of the bond between the two of you, but your sleep deprived mind urges you to return to the issue at hand. Snapping out of your thoughts, you turn back to your paperwork, ready to review the next piece-

The mountain of paperwork on your desk stands a little more securely halved. The other rests on V’s side of the table, with the genie himself reading over the reports. You raise an eyebrow at him, surprised, but V only says in a matter of fact tone, “Leave the logistics to me, while you handle the situation reports. If all this is left up to you, you’ll get not a single wink of sleep tonight.”

“I do not believe I would take that long,” you hum, although there is no denying the smile on your face.

“You place as one of the most meticulous masters I have ever served under,” he drawls. “Dawn will break before you finish- and you would be in a poor condition come morning.”

“Then you would not be in any state to learn from me, and what would your wish have been for?” He finishes with a scoff, even as your smile grows wider. It’s ridiculous, how happy you suddenly seem to be. All the more so that his own mood improves with your own.

“Alright, alright, I concede your point,” you chuckle, before playfully leaning your head on his shoulder. In a soft voice you whisper a thank you to him, and try as he might, he cannot deny how his heart (and oh, he thought it was already dead, buried away forever, but like everything else you bring it to life) skips a beat.

Too much, indeed.

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"I could make them disappear," the genie told her. "With one word from you, a flick of my finger could turn them into willing servants."

The queen laughed. "No, thank you. What would come after then? I do not wish to rely on your magic."

"You are unlike any other master I have ever had," the genie said, the tone in which he said it conveying how odd and fascinating he found her. Yet still there was respect in his tone as well.

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“If you wished it of me,” V’s voice is low, barely a murmur- indistinguishable to everyone but you in the room. “I could erase all traces of corruption. I could turn them into people devoted to the future of their queen and country.”

You keep up a docile façade as the people in front of you- dukes and marquis speak over each other in chaos, insults and barbs laid throughout their speech as though somehow putting down the others will prove them better than the other. As usual, the yearly councils lead nowhere, nothing but bickering achieved. Truly petty, and more than that, your time wasted when there could be better use for it- for one, reviewing documents. Instead here you are, with a dull throbbing in your head from the noise and what would you not give for some peace right now?

When I am queen, truly queen, I will do something about this, you promise to yourself. A heavy exhale leaves your lips as the men seem to forget your presence, voices becoming closer to shouting, no matter that you are the highest ranking in the room.

“No, thank you,” you instead respond to V, deeming it safe enough to at least whisper to him- no one is paying attention to you after all. “Besides, let us say I allowed that. What then of the next generation? Or should I wish for that too? Will your magic be strong enough to account for every future noble then?”

“Of course not,” he says, a raised eyebrow in place. “I doubt even magic can hold back human greed.”

“Then there you have it,” you tilt your head to the side to look at him better, a wry smile on your lips. “I do not wish to use your magic on something that needs to be solved by us humans.”

“It was merely a suggestion,” V shrugs, and you close your eyes in relief as you feel magic sweep over your body and your headache, disappear. As the ringing in your head disappears, you realize as well that your surroundings seem to have been muted a little, the voices on a level easier to handle.

When you open your eyes, you find V looking at you with a soft smile, one that you wonder if he knows he’s making right now.

“You are the strangest master I have ever had,” he murmurs. “Perhaps even the strangest human I have met as well.”

You feel a smile bloom on your face, the first one you hold all day. “Is that a compliment?”

V raises an eyebrow. “Does it matter if I say yes? You seem to take it as one anyway.”

You stifle back the laughter bubbling in your throat, and turn back to the meeting- it would not do to seem absentminded, after all, in case someone would glance at you.

If you feel V’s presence though, unseen but felt solidly next to yours, a warmth around your body and whispers in your ear that makes the meeting bearable, well, that’s for no one but you two to know.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

With the genie, too, the years eventually brought them close together, as comrades. What once was hatred and prejudice turned into grudging respect.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

“Do you think- if they saw me right now, would they be proud?”

On the third anniversary of your parent’s death, you find yourself reminiscing over old portraits of the three of you, looking over old possessions that you found hard to even touch- the grief too strong then.

And although the grief is still there, a heavy weight on your soul, you find it easier to deal with- the raw edges smoothened, even if the hole in your heart remains so.

In their room, untouched by anyone (you’d forbidden it so, and who would deny the wishes of an orphaned child, to leave their deceased parents’ rooms so?), it feels as though nothing has happened- everything is the same as it was years ago. The only detail that would say so otherwise would be the thick dust that has settled over the room- though one snap of V’s fingers had seen to that.

“Yes, you have grown to be a fine princess under my tutelage after all.” That V is sitting so close to you is perhaps the only reason you are not currently weeping, his presence offering comfort, a reminder that not everyone you love, you have lost. After all, he still remains, and the feel of his hand on yours- an anchor, it keeps you grounded.

“I miss them,” you whisper. V holds your hand tighter, and, throwing caution to the wind, you lean on his shoulder. The warmth that he emanates helps you keep your tears at bay, especially when you hear his voice a gentle murmur.

���I know.”

And with respect came tentative trust,

“Have you ever had family before?” The fact that fae apparently have cool bodies is a hidden blessing you always make sure to take advantage of, pressing close to V in order to escape the dreaded summer heat that has currently befallen the kingdom, worse than the previous ones. You close the book shut- the forget-me-not in your hand having long been a wonderful bookmark.

Rarely do you ever take a break from your duties- but this is an exception, the heat too much for you to focus on anything. Therefore here you two are, sitting in a pavilion situated somewhere far off from the castle (V had rolled his eyes as he magicked the two of you here, and scoffed that it would be easy to do the same when you declare it time to return, why use the castle rooms where there was still a chance of people overhearing you?), for once you turn the topic of conversation to V, curious about him. Three years and then some- it had been surprising to realize how little you know of him.

“I once had six brothers,” V reveals, after some time of deliberation, an eyebrow raised at your sudden question. “I was the second youngest.”

“Six? You had a big family then,” you muse, trying to imagine it. You tilt your head at V- focusing on him. Would his brothers have looked a lot like him, you wonder, with features that were too beautiful to pass as human? “How are genies even born, I wonder?”

“How should I know?” V replies, a bemused look on his face. “Besides, it isn’t as though we were bound by blood as humans are. Fae simply come into existence- the brothers I mention of ones I’ve been with my whole life.”

“Childhood friends in a sense, then,” you murmur, before you ask him again, softly. “If it’s okay with you- what were they like?”

V looks away from you with an indescribable emotion of his face- for once, after years of being by his side you find you cannot read him. But then he takes a deep breath and turns back to you- there is nothing but a soft nostalgia on his face, and the tender way with which he speaks his next words makes your heart ache for him.

He tells you about his brothers- Jin, their eldest, always there with a smile and a laugh, who always looked after them, who came up with the worst jokes and was like what a mother would be to them. Suga, their second eldest, stoic and seemingly grumpy, but always ready to help them, soft inside even as he talked and acted otherwise. J-Hope, their third eldest, who radiated happiness and warmth like the sun, who was always there to cheer them up when they needed it. RM, fourth eldest, always a source of calmness and tranquility, ready to offer impartial advice and obscure knowledge when asked. JM, third youngest, their angel and fairy, who never failed to be there for them, love spoken through the many little actions he did for them, renowned as the best gift giver among them- JK, their youngest, mischievous but so so loving, always starry-eyed and a source of laughter from the endless amount of times he’d do the strangest thing just to get them to laugh and be happy, his adoration of them all so clear and plain to see.

And him- V, second youngest. He stalls a little, words petering out as if confused, and there is a blank, bordering on dazed, look on his face that makes you wonder if he has simply forgotten what he used to be like before he became a prisoner trapped in your locket. After a few moments he simply regales you instead with the other small details that he can remember, the few that remain.

And you listen. You listen as he tells you about the years they grew up together in a community of only supernatural creatures, how they found each other and created a bond so close that was unheard of even with other fae, the days they spent laughing and having fun, before they realized their own dreams, their goals, what they would dedicate their whole lives to.

V trails off when he reaches the end of their hundredth birthday, but it takes little to figure out the reason why, and the far-away look in his eyes makes you long to pull him into an embrace, comfort him like he has done for you. Instead you squeeze his hand- I’m here, you see, I’m not leaving, and hope that it comes through to him.

All too soon you notice the sky darkening into shades of pink and violet, dusk well on its way, and reluctant as you may be, you know you have to go soon. But when you look at V- at the wistfulness that can be openly read on his face, you find another set of words dying on your tongue.

“Speak up,” V says, “One look at you and I know there is something you want to say.”

“I’m sorry for what happened to you and your family,” you softly say. Perhaps you do not, and will not ever know what it feels like to have your kind be hunted and used, but losing your family, feeling as though you are trapped and surrounded by enemies… that you can relate with. It hits you for the first time, seeing V stare off into with a distant look in his eyes, that he has lost much more than you have, and it makes your heart ache to think of all that he has gone through.

When he speaks next, it is as if you can feel the emotions rolling under his voice, thinly masked by a layer of restraint and forced disconnect.

“Humans have always been power hungry, them coming for us was only a matter of time.” He closes his eyes, as if doing so will make whatever image in his head disappear, and you press closer to him, almost pulling him into a hug, I’m here, I’m right here. V leans his head against yours, and when he opens his eyes again you see the vulnerability thick in his gaze, though he still doesn’t look at you. “However, it isn’t as though you’re part of those who wish to harm and use us… so don’t be sorry.”

Dusk blends into night well before the two of you retreat back to the castle, the stack of paperwork sitting on your desk a perfect distraction, and if the morning after finds you with your bodies laid haphazardly across the bed (collapsing on the soft mattress after working on so much seemed absolutely tempting and V was not immune to it either), well, it only elicits laughter from you, moreso when you notice the (not the first time, but to this extent, perhaps) messy state your genie is in.

- and a steady friendship-

“You need a break.”

“You say that as though it is anything new,” you idly remark, a part of you wishing you had something sweet to drink right now- a cup of milk appears near you, steam wafting off the surface. You raise it and take a sip- the drink exactly how you prefer it to be. “Thank you.”

You feel V’s presence near you- he leans over your shoulder, and you need not turn to the side to know that he’s raising an eyebrow at the papers in front of you. “No need to mention it- what are these, anyway?”

“My suitors,” you explain, before amending it. “Or, well, people I might be betrothed to in the future.”

V nods understandingly. “Ah, the human intricacies. That a woman cannot be in power without a man to guide her.”

“Rightfully so,” you let out a chuckle at his words, though a part of you remains frustrated at the situation. “It is what it is, though,” you shrug, before a thought comes alive in your head.

“Tell me- do genies marry?”

“Marry,” V’s words are tinged by bemusement, making you chuckle again. “A human tradition.”

“Do the fae not hold concepts of romance?”

“We do,” he says, “Though not like you humans do. When we decide to mate, we swear our hearts to each other, and thereafter hold a ceremony by magic to keep our souls together. Much more meaningful than swearing on nothing but rings and to an audience of loyalty and faith.”

“Far better than the ones we hold, then,” you agree. V smiles at your response, before continuing.

“Quite so. Grand affairs too, with merrymaking that lasted for days on end and laughter everywhere.”

The thought brews in your mind. What would it look like, you wonder? Thinking of everything that magic has shown you over the years, and the little things that V tells you about his time as a fae, it does nothing but heighten your curiosity.

“I would have loved to see one,” the words spill from your lips easily, a sigh accompanying it. More than beautiful- you don’t doubt it would have been one of a kind, besting any wedding by humans. Still, it isn’t as though you can ask anyone to show you one, now can you? The thought pulls you back into reality, and you sigh as you turn back to the papers on the table, the task seeming even more uninteresting now.

It’s only when you pick them up that you find yourself surprised as your surroundings seem to melt away into nothing, being replaced by a sudden wave of colors that settle and-

Oh, you find your breath taken away at the dazzling display of magic and wonder- looking around shows that you are (somehow) in a clearing, surrounded by trees that are decorated with lights and tables and chairs and oh, (how? It must be by magic, you conclude, but it doesn’t take away the curiosity and awe in your reaction) the fae (they have to be, you have been talking about nothing else) fluttering around with laughter in their smiles and happiness in their eyes. It’s easy to get swept away, lost in the moment- a warm hand covers your own and you look at V with dazed eyes.

“Come on,” he hums, a smile spread across his face as your reaction is open for the world to see. “My magic can only hold up for so long, and all this is is a memory, but still- I hope it suffices.”

“Suffices?” You echo, flabbergasted. “More than that, this is beautiful though, what is this? V, did you-“

“This is far better than reviewing the profiles of men whose worth will never measure up anywhere near yours, I assure you.” V’s smirks, one that you cannot help returning with a chuckle as one fae in particular breaks into dance.

“Alright,” you concede, letting thoughts of other men disappear from your mind, determined to enjoy this present as much as you could. It’s the right decision, the best decision, you think, as you witness V beam radiantly at you. “Thank you.”

The two of you spend the evening dancing, laughing, singing and your dreams that night are filled with magic and wonder. When daybreak comes, you awaken to find yourself holding the locket in your hand, a smile on your face- not even the babbling of the nobles who have come to see you for some trivial matter can make the bubbly feeling in your chest disappear.

- lastly came solid affection.

It’s currently early morning- too early, some might say. There is not even a hint of the sun’s warmth or light, the only hints that it would be coming soon the twittering of the birds outside. The coldness of the night has not left yet, and so you feel the blanket covering the two of you is more than heavenly- it feels right, somehow.

V is warm against your skin- a detail that had made you giggle notoriously as he denied using magic to change his body temperature so, after you remarked that it would be nice to have a fireplace in the room- something you could not have as there were simply no space in your room for any, nor were there any fireplace built there in the first place.

When had the two of you gotten to this point, you wonder? Lying in bed with each other, your bodies pressed close to each other- V holding you tightly (he always does, though he denies it in the morning) to his chest, arms wrapped around you and a leg thrown over you as well (it will never fail to amuse you remembering the journey he took in knowing how to use legs and feet again, it may have been the one and only time he’d needed your help as a helpless babe did, as being a genie he only floated on air). The tips of his hair (of which you can still scent the rose oil he’d washed your hair with, and then you for him- V’s hair is luxuriously, puzzlingly, infuriatingly soft and you really should order more oil) tickle your shoulder from where he is nuzzling your shoulder, and surrounded by this, surrounded by him, you find that you cannot care at all, for once, what others might think.

V makes you feel like yourself, and the thought that this- blessed normalcy, that it might disappear soon fogs your head with dark thoughts. You find yourself shifting until you turn around, and, reciprocating V’s embrace with your own, you softly speak against his chest.

“There are still two years before my coronation.”

“I know.” V’s voice is a deep rumble, especially first thing in the morning, the raspness of his voice evident as well. His hands don’t pull you closer, but they stay where they are, a solid imprint of warmth on your back against the cold of the morning.

“And even after that, I still have my two wishes,” you continue, voice still a faint murmur.

“I know,” he repeats, and you curl deeper into the hug, hoping that actions will send your message across where your words may fail.

“Even when I am crowned queen, I would still need you, even if my wishes should remain as for reserve. Meaning- you cannot leave me then, even after I have become queen.”

V sighs, and you are struck with a sudden fear that you’ve overstepped some sort of boundary, although you know not what it could be. However, he only rubs circles against your back, making you instantly hum softly at how relaxing it feels. “Obviously, now go to sleep.”

You don’t answer, but the way your hand, curled against the shirt he is wearing, loosens is an answer in and of itself and he himself falls back asleep soon after.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

Still, as she grew, so did the corruption escalate, and whispers of crimes committed in secret grew worse. The princess tried, she did, but the result of her investigations only proved a horrible truth she did not want to know- the root of the corruption was from her very own uncle. From her parent’s death, to the suffering of her citizens, it was a bid in ploy to control her kingdom and remain a ruler in the shadows. It broke the princess, torn as she was between family and duty.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

The glass falls to the ground, the sound of it shattering echoing loudly in the room. You stare dully at the scattered pieces, your mind repeating the information you found out on a loop.

He never held any remorse, any remnant of guilt, and perhaps that was what made it worse.

“What happened-“ You look at V blankly as he materializes from your locket- previously still asleep from the heavy amount of magic he consumed the day before, hair mussed and clothes wrinkled, but his eyes alert and looking over you for any sign of a problem.

“I should’ve known,” you croak out instead, remembering the meticulous way your… their murderer (oh, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts and it feels like your body is shaking from the force of the tears you’re holding back and you just want it to stop) had discussed their deaths, the plans he made for them, for you.

“You couldn’t have.” The only thing keeping you grounded in reality is V’s hold on you, his embrace warm, and were it any other time you would find yourself embarrassed, but, now, all you do is lean into his embrace, your tears soaking his shirt.

The realization that V knows not what happened makes a part of you want to laugh, despite the situation. A larger part of you, numb, explains calmly that you should tell him, V must be confused, even if he doesn’t seem to be so should you not speak up already.

“All the evidence was there- my-“ you pause, a heavy shudder runs through you from the weight of the tears, “regent, my uncle, I heard him, he was the one who planned it, why was I too blind-“

“You couldn’t have known,” he says firmly, holding you tighter, as if doing so will make you tears stop flowing. You hiccup and grip him just as tight, the thoughts in your head never letting up.

“Why did I let myself be fooled for so long? All the clues were there, but whenever the thought would appear in my head, I pushed it down… because I was afraid of what would happen if it turned out to be true.”

“And it is,” you bitterly laugh. “You know what the worst part is too?”

“I still love him.” V remains silent as you choke the words out, his presence your anchor to reality. “I hate him so for what he’s done, but I still love him. I’m a horrible person, am I not? To still consider a killer family.”

“He is your uncle,” he finally says. “Someone you have known your whole life. Someone you have loved your whole life. Whatever it is that you are feeling right now… it is alright. You can love someone and hate them too. It is what makes you human after all.”

“I wish I did not feel so anyway,” you whisper. V smiles wryly in response, though you cannot see it.

“Perhaps not, but I do not think feelings work that way, princess.”

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

In the end, though, she chose duty.  She chose justice. And as her day of coronation grew nearer, she planned for a rebellion- one that would fully clean the roots of corruption in her kingdom.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

“You chose him?”

V levels a dry look on Sanha- your lips twitch into a smile at his unimpressed look.

“Yes- do you not approve?”

“Would you not want someone more suited to ruling a kingdom?” He bluntly states as Sanha almost trips over his own feet, the packages he’s carrying falling from his hands, but thankfully enough being caught before it hits the ground. Sanha lets out a sigh of relief- another man, one he has never seen before but presumes might be Cha Eunwoo rights him back up, and, laughing, helps him deliver the packages in his hand.

A servant. You found a servant of one of the prominent noble families serving under you to be the leader and your successor- there is no more surprise to be found from him at this point, he thinks.

“All that is needed is someone to guide him,” you explain, giggling at the deadpan look on V’s face, before you smile a little softer. “Besides, what I find most important to me is how they see the kingdom and how they treat the people. Sanha sees them as family, and he treats them as one too. He will be a wonderful king with training.”

V remains silent for a while, watching as the two men are happily greeted by almost everyone they come across, and the enthusiastic way the duo reply. “Not as wonderful as you though,” he eventually grumbles. “After all, you were taught by me.”

“No, I guess not,” you laugh.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

Her second wish was thus for her kingdom once more- to secure that the rebellion would happen without a hitch.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

“My second wish,” you murmur into the wind, though you are still sure that V can hear you, his chin propped on your head. Down below you can see the soldiers dragging Park Jin Woo’s family out, the yelling of the people you serve reaching even where you are, on a balcony several stories high. Your gaze lands on Jin Woo, and as you see his expression turn stony and hateful, you close your eyes. It begins, you think. “I want for you to fake their deaths- give them anonymity to everyone but Sanha.”

“Understood.” And with a flick of his finger you feel the world around you shift, the air stilling and everything, for a brief moment, blurs, before it becomes clear again. Below you, the scene has changed- although it seems to be the same for everyone, you can clearly see the faint shimmer around Jin Woo and his family, the only sign that they are constructs of magic. Jin Woo will wake up in Sanha’s bedroom, incorporeal, unseen and unheard to everyone but Sanha, who you have also already put plans in motion for, to guide him into being the leader of the rebellion.

You mourn for them, for the innocent boys you will be taking away and replacing with soldiers and tacticians. But duty demands it so, the rebellion is a necessity and you cannot let the responsibility fall to any other. Sanha- the highest ranking servant of the Yoon family, a charismatic and determined individual, trusted intimately by almost everyone. Even in the family he serves he is adored (to the point that he holds their surname, a highly irregular thing for a commoner) and you do not doubt that were he to lead, the Yoon family would follow. A person from both worlds, uniting the nobles and commoners- you can only hope it to be enough.

“You will be unanimously hated by your people after this.” V’s voice brings you back to the present, as the two of you watch the crowd of men and women all but fight the guards who do not hesitate to fight back, leaving injured civilians bleeding. Thankfully no one is dead- you have forbidden them to kill.

The screaming crowd is a testament to the influence that Park Jin Woo holds, as a peasant scholar famed in the kingdom. Having served many years as a sort of middle person for both nobles and commoners, if there is anyone who knows about the corruption and schemes in this kingdom, it is Jin Woo. Not only that, he is tenacious, and his loyalty fierce. You could not have picked anyone better, really.

“I know,” you affirm. “I accepted all those when I decided this.”

“You really will be all alone, at least until after it’s done,” his sigh is faint, but still you hear it. You smile a little, turn around and press your forehead to his- silly V, really, shouldn’t he know-

“Not true. I have you, do I not? You would not leave me alone, would you, V?” V smiling, slight as it may be will never fail to make you feel warm inside, moreso when he nuzzles his nose against yours and your smile grows wider, sadness and guilt alleviated for the moment.

“No, I suppose not.”

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

The night of her 18th birthday, there was a festival held by the kingdom. The princess, soon-to-be-queen, looked over her kingdom then- the weight of responsibility settled over her like a shroud she gladly bore, one she was fiercely proud of. As queen, she would do her best by her kingdom, over the people she ruled.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

“Envious, are we?”

You bat away V’s hands as they prod against your cheek, presumably to pinch them. His resounding chuckle is something you hear over the noise of the festival below- but only barely, and you feel his arms rest around your waist, you roll your eyes.

“Not really,” you clarify. “Just- it reminded me of the festival we went to years ago.”

V raises his eyebrows. “You still remember that, do you?”

“Of course I do! You were still so cold back then,” you protest, before grinning back up at him as you remember fondly the past. “I never knew then, what to make of you. I mean, of course, you looked and talked as if you didn’t care all the time, however, your actions always said otherwise.”

“What care would I have for humans, before and even now,” he scoffs.

“And yet I remember you helping that little girl,” you point out cheekily.

“I’m pretty sure I already told you that was for the performance.”

“Oh, whatever you say,” you laugh. “I would be lying if I were to say that I am not mad at myself right now. I should have thrown caution to the wind then, taken their offer to dance back then.”

“You speak of it so- what, pray tell, is so interesting about dancing anyway?”

“What?” You raise an eyebrow at V, who sports a bemused look on his face. “Is dancing truly unfamiliar to you? Have you never danced before?”

“Genies have no need to dance,” he says with a huff. “But if you must know, I’ve partaken in activities that included dancing a few times in the past, though mostly for celebrations.”

“Huh.” You scrunch your nose, trying to imagine V dancing. “Do you miss it?”

“No. And certainly not dancing like that.” He grumbles. You pout at his swift refusal, casting an envious gaze at the people down below.

Joining them is impossible- even if you were to use V’s magic to disguise yourselves so, you find it hard to relax among people anymore, especially in places so crowded. More than that, you find it hard to relate to them- the festivities and celebrations tempt you to join so, but you know that were you to step into the streets, you would only find yourself feeling out of place, suffocated.

Still, it does not diminish the feelings of wistfulness, the idea of joining- of being, of belonging, and you wonder, not for the first time, what you would have been like, were you not to be queen.

But that was a dangerous road to travel.

You shake your head to get the thoughts of your head, and then you are surprised as you hear someone loudly clear their throat- you turn around to find V, bowing, with a hand outstretched to yours, eyebrows raised.

“Well?”

You stared at him in surprise. “Are you… asking me to dance? But… I thought you considered dancing beneath you.”

“I do,” he drawls. “But further thinking led me to realize that this is not entirely a bad idea, if only because otherwise it would be a waste of your having dancing lessons.”

“You were not even the one who gave them to me,” you point out quietly, a smile growing once more on your lips.

“Does it matter?” He raises an eyebrow at you, his eyes flickering from your face to his hand as if to say ‘come on.’ “Well, what are you waiting for, princess? Dance with me.”

You let out a laugh as you take his hand- he smiles, raises his hand, brings your knuckles to his lips and gently pulls you into a dance.

What seemed to be a good idea at the moment turns out to be not so good though, when you step on V’s feet a few times. There is nothing on his face that gives away how irritated he must be- you wince and say a few words of apology anyway. “Apologies… I find it hard without music,” you admit.

V sighs- you flush, embarrassed, but then a soft melody surrounds the two of you, fireflies seemingly coming out of nowhere and providing a dreamy glow to the balcony. Your eyes widen as you look around in awe- V grins and whispers in your ear.

“Satisfied?”

“Very much so,” you grin.

“Don’t be arrogant,” he says, flicking your nose, ignoring the squawk of indignance you let out. He holds out forget-me-nots to you afterwards though, making you smirk as he waves his hand, and the flowers settle on your hair like stars crowning the night sky. “Tonight is merely because I was feeling generous for once.”

You stifle back the laughter building in your throat- would it kill him to admit he cared for you so? Instead, you lean your head against his chest, the dance taking a more intimate, vulnerable turn.

This is nice, you think. Under the endless expanse of stars in the sky, dancing with V (your closest, most important friend, no matter if he’s not human), it feels as if for once, you are being given a brief respite from the duties that bind you so.

Tomorrow, you will have to return to reality- return to the fact that you are trying to save a dying kingdom by setting it alight with the flames of a revolution. To the reality that tells you you are surrounded by no allies from either nobles or civilians, all of them hateful of you (because you hold the power, for the nobles who wish to obtain it, and to the civilians who want for nothing but a secure life but have to deal with the greed of nobles, who think that perhaps it is because of the princess that they run rampant so.) The thought of returning to such a thing is disheartening, and you cannot help wishing, even if only to yourself, that the night would never end.

“When I opened the locket- I find myself being thankful everyday for that moment. Meeting you is a blessing- thank you for staying,” you mumble into his chest. A pause descends on the two of you- he sighs and pulls you in closer, his reply so faint you almost miss it.

“You say that as if I would leave any moment- where else would I go, if not by your side?”

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

"Have you ever wished to be anything else?" The genie asked.

"This again," the queen sighed, though she remained silent. After a while, she spoke.

"To be normal- perhaps, once or twice, I desired to be without responsibilities and care," the queen wistfully replied, but then she smiled. "Though it matters not in the end. As a commoner, I would not have had the chance to meet you, and I love my kingdom so. Those are what is most important to me in the end."

The genie laughed. "So you admit you need me."

"Perhaps," the queen replied.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

“A question I asked you countless times.” V’s voice is like honey to the ears, you think absentmindedly to yourself. Sweet, velvety, deep and the way his fingers run through your hair makes you feel melting into his lap, though if the way he looks at you is any indication then it must be pretty obvious. He pinches your cheeks, as if to say ‘pay attention’, and you scowl at him- but you try and force yourself not to fall asleep anyway. “Though not once have you ever given me an answer.”

“Is there truly nothing you have wanted in your life for yourself?”

“You say that as though I want for nothing,” you say, sighing.

“You seem close to it, though, that sometimes I wonder if you do,” he grumbles. “You never seem to have any that you would be willing to wish for, anyway, and those that you do I cannot accomplish.”

“Have you ever thought that maybe I am, perhaps, already content with what I have?”

He scrunches up his nose at your response. “Alright then, let me amend my question. The confines of the crown- is there truly not a single time you wished to be free of it?”

“You- are truly insistent,” you grouse, but you take in a deep breath and try to sort out the words in your head. When you speak, your voice is low, but firm.

“Countless times I have wished to be anyone but the person I am right now. To be a commoner, with less responsibilities and cares, to live how I want to,” you admit, before you place your hand on V’s cheek and pull him closer. “But in the end I’d always choose this life, even if I were given a chance to change it.”

You look straight into his eyes, and think, yes, I choose this life, I choose you, though you would never admit so out loud. “After all, I have you, do I not? And though I loathe the days my duties tire me so, I still love the people I serve.”

“After all, I have you,” V repeats, smirk growing wider on his lips, though the distance between the two of you remains so. “So you finally admit my magnanimity, how fond you are of me?”

“Perhaps,” you laugh.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

Finally, the day came for her coronation. It was the day she planned for the rebellion to happen, as most if not all of the nobles that were corrupt in her kingdom were in attendance. The procession was grand- the following celebration even grander. It hurt her to know that she had planned for the deaths of people who she once thought were family, but she chose duty and duty demanded justice, retribution for all the crimes they committed.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

“You will do no less than amazing.”

As you stand in front of the mirror, you find yourself running a critical eye at the woman reflected back at you. Clad in a pristine blue gown, the intricacies and design of which makes you look like a figure of power, you wonder if the woman in the mirror is true. Are you a queen deserving of this kingdom?

V comes to stand beside you- the hand around your waist a comfort you greedily take advantage of, leaning close and surrounding yourself in his scent.

“You believe so?” Your voice, when it comes out, is small and quiet. V interlaces his fingers with yours, aware that this is the first time in months, perhaps years, since the vulnerability in you is as clear as day.

“I know so. There exists no finer queen than you in the world.”

“I know, I know. Because you taught me,” you huff, a slight smile appearing on your lips, but V only turns you around, and, looking into your eyes, he cups your cheek and says solemnly.

“All the magic in the world could never change a person’s true personality. You were always made to be a ruler.”

And with that, he presses a kiss on your forehead, a small wreath of forget-me-nots placed on your head. “I will be by your side the whole time.”

In the midst of the party, the nobles were surrounded by the servants. The nobles, suspicious from the unrest, sought to leave early- and so, the plan was set into motion far earlier than intended.

Fighting broke out in what once was the elegantly decorated ballroom, turning it into an arena. The citizens, greater in number and no less trained in the art of fighting than the nobles, began to win.

“V!”  You cry out his name, a whimper leaving you as you cradle his body in your arms. “No no no no…”

All around you, the fighting is no less intense that it had been when it broke out- though, you know, now surrounded by V’s magic, dwindling as it was, no harm would come to you.

“Must you really cry? You know I never know how to comfort you when you cry…” You ignore his words, your tears falling like rain on his face, and you hurriedly pull out the locket in your hands.

The queen, though, was left in the middle of the celebration, surrounded by swords and knives and spears. In an area too thick with the highest seated nobles, she found herself at grave danger. Though she tried to escape, she found herself in the direct path of an arrow- she awaited her death, but then...

Instead, magic, raw and wild lashed out around her and she found her dearest friend, the first one she made, closest to her heart and the one she trusted most out of anyone, lying over her.

In front of them, lay a cracked locket that she immediately tried to fix, but to no avail.

“It’s impossible-“ V hisses the words out, pain (oh god, never have you heard him be in pain before, no no no no), “once broken, it will remain broken.”

“What do you mean, ‘impossible’!?” You burst out, fear (for him, for you, for the two of you) hate (for the people who came after you, for yourself, maybe even for him) and deep-seated panic (because V cannot leave you, he cannot die because if he does, so will your heart) raging inside you “I wish- I wish- for you to heal, be okay, don’t die, please, V.”

“My apologies,” V’s voice is a faint murmur now. “My magic is too weak for so big a wish.”

The queen wept. She had come so far, planned for almost everything, but none that foresaw her without her the one closest to her heart.

It was then that the forces of rebellion noticed the flaw in their plan too. For all that they had foreseen every detail, they failed to notice that their enemy had a failsafe, one that they used immediately in the time of distress.

At once, the grand castle was set on fire.

“Should you really stay,” his voice a faint whisper now, strained. “Nothing but death awaits you if you do not leave.”

“And go on living without you?” You say, furious that he would even suggest doing so, before the heat leaves you and you brokenly ask him. “Do not suggest that, please.”

The crowd around you is long gone- having left in a stampede to leave the fiery inferno that the ballroom has turned into. All around you there is fire, but even then you know without a doubt that should you choose to do so, V’s magic will protect you as you leave.

But, sitting on the base of the throne that for so many years cast a shadow on you, V’s dying body in your arms, even if you are given a choice, you would always choose to stay. Pressing a kiss to V’s forehead, you grip his hands.

V levels a soft smile on you, nothing but warmth and love in his eyes, and you blink back the tears that never seem to stop. “Really now princess, was it not you who begged me to teach you how to be a queen all those years ago? What of the rebellion? What will happen to your kingdom if you are not there to lead them?”

“I made those plans because I assumed you would be with me the whole time!” You yell at him, your blurred vision offering nothing but his gentle smile. You hate it- why does he have to look so accepting of what is to come? You sob. “I cannot do this without you.”

“I love you in all the ways my heart will let me,” he says instead, an apology and a goodbye in one. The admission of love, put into words, even after both of you have declared it so in so many little ways, in a situation where you are forced to realize saying it back will lead to no future between the two of you anyway- it breaks you.

The queen was forced to watch her love wither away- and as the locket in her hand crumbled, so did her heart.

Servants and nobles alike scattered, the remaining forces of the rebellion swept up the ones that tried to escape.

But no one saw the queen.

The forces of the rebellion surrounded the castle instead, and as morning dawned, the ruins of what once was a glorious palace offered nothing but ashes and rubble. But nobody knew what happened to the queen. Some say that she died in the fire, while others say that she escaped with the help of her genie.

In the middle of what was the ballroom, they found the remains of a metal locket and a wreath of forget-me-nots, side by side.

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

“Are you alright?”

It’s only when Taehyung asks that you feel the tears dripping down your face, and you hastily brush them off, unsure of when you even started crying.

“What? Oh, no, I mean…” you trail off, eyebrows furrowed as you try to gather your thoughts. “It’s just, it’s sad, I think. She did all she could to save her country, but she died before she could see it happen.”

“You think so?” Taehyung’s lips quirk up into a secretive smile. “She did have her third wish though, she could have wished for her to escape.”

You frown at his suggestion. “And leave V alone? That doesn’t seem like what the queen in the story would do, in either version.”

“True,” he nods, before falling silent. You wipe discreetly at your tears in the meantime, stewing over the ending in your head. Is that really what happened in the story? No wonder the townspeople left the castle alone. Knowing that such a beautiful site holds such a sad history, you would’ve… well, it still wouldn’t have kept you away, you would have come anyway in the end, but… you would’ve been more respectful, you think. More appreciative, knowing now the history, the stories that envelop the castle.

You don’t know how long the two of lie there by the ruins, watching the night sky turn brilliant, decorated by the endless stars above. The silence between the two of you- it leaves you sorting out our thoughts, the chaotic mess that the day had turned out to be.

“I should probably go home,” you say regretfully, your heart still heavy after hearing the ending.

“You should,” he agrees, though he makes no move to get up as well for a while. It’s only when the two of you hear an owl hooting in the distance that he tugs you to your feet as well- you startle when you realize the two of you have been holding hands the whole time. “Come on, I said I’d walk you home, didn’t I?”

“Alright then,” you mumble. “Thank you.”

Taehyung’s eyes crinkle as he smiles, one that you can’t help returning easily- is it really so surprising to say that today has been one of the best days you’ve had? You can’t remember feeling so- so content, for a lack of a better word. Just his touch makes you feel calm and happy, as though all is right with the world. As if you’ve regained a missing part that you didn’t even know you had been missing.

“You know, there’s another version of the ending that I know,” Taehyung suddenly says as the two of you walk along, the moon bright enough that you can see the road clearly. Your hands stay connected anyway.

“Is it better?” You ask, tilting your head, and Taehyung’s smiles turns softer.

“I hope so.”

“Well, go on then, tell me about it.”

“She had her third wish, of course. But she couldn’t bear to leave him behind, and he was on the verge of dying- and in the first time of her life, she wished for something that was wholly for her and her only.”

“She wished for him to marry her.”

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

“You promised to stay with me no matter what, did you not, V?” You grip him tight, unwilling to let go- your next words ringing out sure and determined. “If your promise still counts, then… marry me.”

“What?”

“Marry me. Only a few more minutes remain until this place collapses, and so I would prefer it if we get onto it,” you say, staring into V’s eyes- wanting him to see that you are nothing if not serious. “The kingdom will be fine. They have Sanha as the next king, and Jin Woo will be there to help him if needed. They will be okay without me… but I would not be okay in any sense of the word without you.”

“I.. I’m not in any state to hold a marriage,” he says, stunned. You grin, widely, even as the world around the two of you rages, fire burning high and bright.

“Then,” you declare. “I wish- to marry you. Let magic bind us together. You are the only one I wish to be with, even in my next life, and the next.”

“You have-“ he laughs. “ You have the strangest wishes.”

“Perhaps, but this one is the best yet, isn’t it?” You say, winking at him, before you squeeze his hand playfully. “A marriage in human and fae traditions- with magic binding us… if only I remembered to bring my parent’s rings.”

For a few seconds he does nothing but look at you, as though to make sure that you are certain about this- you look straight back at him. A smile as wide as yours breaks out on his face, and you feel magic, faint but true and solid, wrap around the two of you. The wreath of forget-me-nots on your head are quickly taken off, repurposed into rings and the symbolism makes you blink back tears.

“A fae’s true name is known only to the fae themselves… you already know the stories of how much power a name holds,” he murmurs, before he intertwines his fingers with yours. “Too much time has passed- I barely remember my own true name.”

“Still I swear to you, not as V, but as Taehyung, to love and cherish you even into our next lives. Whatever burden you carry, I will carry alongside you- and even in our darkest moments I will never abandon you. As a friend, as lover, as the only one that makes me feel alive, with just your existence. There will never be another after you, should we be separated- no matter how many lifetimes come and go, I promise to love you still.”

Taehyung slides the ring onto your finger and you feel your heart swell with his declaration, before you repeat the vows. When you finish, you put the ring on his finger as well- you press your forehead to his and eagerly press a kiss to him. The barrier disappears, the flames instantly drawing close, loud and angry. You do not mind the blaze anymore, and if the look on Taehyung’s face is anything to go by, neither does he.

“I will see you soon- in our next life, and the ones that follow.”

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

“That seems wonderful,” you sigh in awe.

“Isn’t it? A wedding by magic that bound them together.” You don’t see the way Taehyung looks at you- asking, pleading, for what you might ask if you knew, the grip he has on your hand tighter, though his voice remains even. “They say their souls were intertwined so, that even after death and beyond, the queen and her genie are still together.”

Together… Taehyung’s words reminds you about the person he grew flowers for- the thought that he’s already taken makes you feel hollow. You can’t even get angry at yourself for hoping that this someone is only a friend, family, and not a wife or a lover like you first thought. It’s only been a few hours since you met him, that’s true… but there’s a pull to Taehyung that you find yourself gravitating to.

You feel guilty for holding hands, but the larger part of you is wholly satisfied by the way his grip on you is tight, as if he doesn’t want to let go. Neither do you, admittedly. You can’t help the sigh that leaves you when you see your house- only a minute or so before the two of you have to part.

“I like that version better,” you say, as you finally take the last few steps to your gate.

Taehyung hums. “I hoped so. I do too,” he admits. You smile at that, the two of you standing still in front of your house, neither of you making the first move to separate. When the moment lasts too long, though, you finally, reluctantly, let go of his hand, turning around to open the gate- before you gasp and turn around.

“Wait! I… will I see you around?” You ask him, cheeks red but the words sincere.

“I’ll always be here,” he promises, grin wide. “But if you want, I’ll come over in the morning with coffee.”

“Okay,” you say happily, finally stepping into the gate. “Tomorrow then. … Goodnight, Taehyung.”

He raises a hand to wave goodbye- when you enter your door, you turn around and see him finally moving from his spot, making you giggle, and in turn you watch Taehyung walk away until you can’t see him anymore.

It’s only when you get ready for bed that night that you discover a wreath of flowers on your head, beautifully crafted and intertwined together. You look at the flowers in surprise- bright blue, and the strong, sweet scent they emit makes you wonder if these are made from labs, not to mention you never even noticed them on your head.

Maybe Taehyung placed them there. Your mind jumps to the story of the queen, of her genie, of the ruins that lie as proof- you wonder if that makes you his queen, and Taehyung, the genie. You laugh at the thought, even as it makes you feel warm and you shake it off- placing the wreath near your pillow, you eventually drift off to sleep.

When you dream that night you see desks and parchments, a never ending sea of faces, and a locket on your neck- and when the flames swallow you whole, you wake up with a gasp.

#mine #my writing #bts x reader #kim taehyung x reader #taehyung x reader #fwl project #Luv Library

[adamarinayu]

Can you tell us more about your author au, back in action au, and Notre duck au? Sorry if I'm asking for a lot but I just saw them on your AU list and they caught my interest 😅

Haha sure! I haven’t worked on any of them in a while but here we go! It’s a bit long, especially the Back in Action section....

In the Author AU, Donald is an author who works under a pseudonym, so that he and the triplets can have some normalcy in life while also being able to support them comfortably. He’s the author of a best selling series, which is the Paperinik series (maybe in this AU it’ll be called Duck Avenger, idk). 

He began writing the PK stories during highschool, and they were published as shorts regularly in a small magazine. Of course, being a teenager, it began as a fantasy- it was how he vented his frustrations. Gladstone, of course, figured it out, as did Della, but Scrooge had no interest so no one else outside of Donald’s closest circle (that is to say, Mickey, Minnie, Daisy and Goofy) knew. It soon grew to be a hero story, rather than a story about vengeance. At this point there are no nephews in the story.

After highschool, his story got picked up by a publishing company and Uno was his agent. He ended up including the character ONE based off of Uno, which Uno is equal parts amused and exasperated by (”Honestly, I thought you said you wanted to be anonymous.”). The two don’t officially become friends, however, until a couple of years later, when Della went missing. Donald had taken a surprisingly dark turn in the story which would have resulted in killing off the main characters, at which point Uno decided to intervene and talk to him. With Uno’s support and growing friendship Donald rewrote the story, keeping the darker tone but ending it on a higher note with all the characters alive and happy.

Donald also gave PK a family of his own, having him be a single father to three children (hinted heavily at them being adopted, after PK saved them as eggs), a decision which forever changed the direction of the books from being about a duck who fights because it’s all he’s good for, to being about a duck who fights because he has something worth fighting for. He and Uno obviously become very close over this time.

Gladstone reads every book that comes out. He always wins a free edition but insists on buying it, as his way of helping Donald out. He uses the tone of each book and the events that happen in them to determine whether or not he needs to come and kick a little sense into Donald.

Donald ultimately concludes the book series after Della comes back, with the story having a happy ending all around. Which definitely includes ONE getting a physical body and joining the family. Unsurprisingly he and Uno get married. Scrooge and the kids find out he’s the author of PK after Scrooge announces his studio bought the movie rights to the film lol. Della and Gladstone are just like “wow seriously, you guys didn’t see the writing clear on the wall?”

--

The Back in Action AU is basically, PK was a TV show and Donald was the titular character, PK. His co-star was Uno, who lent his voice and face to the character ONE (the names of all the characters in PK are changed, ofc, their real names are the actors’ names now, except for Uno and Xadhoom). The entire cast (yes, including Angus Fangus) were a pretty tight-knit family, of a sort. So while Della and Scrooge were adventuring (as he had left the adventure life behind, feeling as if he wasn’t contributing or seen as an equal among the group) he became part of a family of his own. Daisy also played PK’s love interest, though the two of them are actually more like Best Pals. They went to highschool together so. Daisy wasn’t in the main cast and was just a recurring character, as she had a main role in another series.

The triplets in PK were just babies, but PK wasn’t their primary caretaker. They were more like background characters, but occasionally PK would get roped into babysitting them and having to balance watching the children and saving the world because “oh god even if I stop the Evronian invasion if any of their feathers get singed my sister will kill me!” (Note, PK’s sister was only seen in photos and was a blonde, like in the original comics. You can hear her voice now and then though)

Donald was close with everyone (oh the bloopers he and Angus had.... and of course the Evronians, something ALWAYS went wrong with their costumes!) but Uno became his best friend (and his almost-more). The series was the most popular thing on TV for a while, and Gladstone and Fethry were so proud of their brother cousin and so sad that Scrooge and Della were missing the best moments of his life. Gladstone and Fethry are much more involved in Donald’s life than Della and Scrooge are in this AU. That isn’t to say they don’t all love each other very much, it’s just Della and Scrooge’s interests laid elsewhere.

Anyway, every series hits its end, and more often than not it comes much faster than planned. PK ended a whole season sooner than expected, due to the sudden buyout of their studio and the new owners choosing to shut PK down in favour of one of their own shows (couldn’t afford both at the same time, and their own show had a smaller budget). So the series ended on the cliffhanger of PK losing ONE and (Lyla’s character), the Evronians being defeated and PK choosing to hang up his cape because of just how much that final battle cost him. It was an ending that angered many people, extremely upsetting especially knowing that it hadn’t been the planned ending of the series.

The entire cast and crew split up, most still staying in acting but a few leaving. Donald went back to adventuring with Scrooge and Della while Uno went back to Italy with his brothers (Due and Tre, the former of which played a major part in 2-3 episodes) to work in their father’s lab. They ended up falling out of contact (not by their own choice, just due to the nature of their jobs). Then a few years later Della went missing and Donald was left caring for her three children- it was a bit ironic, perhaps.

In the 10-12 years Donald was taking care of them, a “sequel” movie and a spinoff came to be with different actors and stories, but neither were well received because they lacked the “spirit” and charm of the original series. Especially the spinoff, which was animated in a very Saturday-morning style.

The triplets don’t really know about the OG PK, only knowing it by the spinoff, or that their uncle used to be a big name actor. However, 10 or so years later it’s announced that PK is coming back.... with the original writers and actors (except for the kids). Including Donald Fauntleroy Duck, the actor who played the titular PK. They are shook.

The original children who played PK’s nephews were unavailable (”We were like 2 during all that, we really don’t care”) and, besides that, had already aged out of the roles (the comeback was a Ten Years Later kind of deal, and it had been more like 14 or 15 since the end of the show, so the original kids were already mid-late teens. Therefore, when the director discovered Donald was now caring for his three nephews (convenient that there were three) he suggested they play the role of the triplets. Donald left it up to the triplets, under the stipulation that they would have minor roles (as the triplets always did) and this wouldn’t interfere with school.

They actually made a whole new role for Webby in the show! Because the triplets agreed on the condition that Webby gets to join them. And that’s how Webby began to play the triplets’ younger sister. The director decided to take a page out of Donald’s real life and wrote PK’s sister out (this was also partially because the actress had died) so PK was now being a full-time father to his kids who had no idea who he really was.

But then Donald finds out that not only is Lyla there, not only is Angus there... so is Uno. Uno and both of his brothers. It’s quite a reunion. And of course everyone expects Donald’s most emotional reunion to be with Daisy, but no. It’s Uno. And Uno is the one he ends up on the front of a magazine with lol.

Also yeah they get married :3

Man I think I may have overspoke about this one XD But I really enjoy this one what can I say jkkghfdsjlk

--

Notre Duck!! That’s another one I enjoy though it isn’t as in-depth as the last. So basically Everett came to Earth, and it’s kinda like.... a Duck version of medieval times. He came here for inspiration, then ended up building Uno, who became like a son to him. However, when other flesh-and-blood ducks realized he was an android, they became fearful and called him a monster, and tried to attack and run him out of town.

After that, Everett hid him away in a tower attached to a church, where no one but the church staff would go. He didn’t want to lose his android son. But Uno watches the world below his tower change, dreaming of a day when he could go out there too.

One day he meets Donald, who is a street performer with an association to Scrooge McDuck, a king in a neighboring kingdom. Donald finds out very quickly that he is an android and doesn’t judge him for it, instead encouraging him to leave the tower because “life is about the adventure.” This, of course, does not sit well with Everett, who forbids Uno from leaving the tower or seeing Donald.

Donald is wanted by the lord of the city, who wants to use him against Scrooge (and earn favour with his own king). There’s no creepy old men lusting after young women and no slurs being used casually so.

Also anyway this actually spawned from me imagining Uno to the song Out There so yeah.

#Ask #DT17 AUs #They're all DUno

[tamamatango]

Let’s talk about Kururu, again

Apparently the fandom is growing all of a sudden so I feel like talking about Kururu again cuz that’s all I know how to do and it’s been a while

First off disclaimer that fandom is fandom and anybody can interpret any character any way they want and if you like to portray a character a certain way for whatever reason go for it, more power to you (unless you put them in pedo/incest relationships that are displayed as good in which case fuck you). But in my personal Kirbpinion(TM) the Funimation dub was a fucking mistake because so many fan content creators write a way different Kururu than what he is in canon cuz the dub never got to his best episodes and also upped the sadism to ridiculous levels. Listen I know it’s funny to joke that he’s the kind of guy that has 3 medieval torture chambers but hear me out. Kururu is by no means a perfect person, he’s genuinely pretty rude/blunt (though sometimes his straightforwardness is justified :P), has an ego, sometimes acts pretty gross around others and likes extreme and elaborate pranks way way way too much BUT.

Assuming you’ve watched far enough into the series (like 100+ eps) I do not really understand the interpretation that he doesn’t care about anyone and that friendship and love are things he is totally incapable of. He says that yes but if you pay enough attention to his dialogue it becomes pretty apparent that he displays this attitude for multiple reasons. One is that he does genuinely have a hard time expressing the emotions he feels and often has awkward/guarded ways of doing so. But also he says many times over the course of the series that he has a “reputation” to keep up and wants people to call him a jerk; he wants to look cool and rebellious all the time and he thinks a nasty apathetic attitude is what earns him that status (not claiming that’s a healthy mindset, mind you). He wants to have full control over the way people see him and he gets super frustrated and humiliated when he can’t. This is probably why he gets so upset when people talk about how unpopular he is, because he’s spent so much time honing his image to a T and is like why the fuck isn’t this working?! In other words even though sometimes he is just an actual pain in the neck a lot of his asshole antics are part of a carefully manufactured persona, and he will do anything down to labeling his own memories to prevent other people from seeing through his facade and discovering the parts of him that are vulnerable.

And God forbid anyone does figure out that he does care quite a bit for the people around him, or at least if he didn’t at first he does now. Early on in the series he was commonly referred to as “depressing” and while the meta reason is probably just the anime writers just didn’t know how to adapt the character yet (he started out a little differently in the manga), in canon I believe he was just even more inclined to push everybody away from him, and as he began to get used to working in a group he gradually opened up. He commentates on how “soft” he’s gotten since he came to Earth a couple times, and the fact that he’s surprisingly one of the most loyal to Keroro out of the whole team (in many episodes where everyone abandons Keroro for being dumb he leaves last) and goes out of his way to help when he thinks it’s warranted (he asks for money when things aren’t dire yeah but hey labor deserves compensation :V) shows that he is dedicated to his team. There’s even episodes where he doles out some kind of moral lesson to the squad in his own Kururu-y way, especially to Keroro and Tamama. Even the Hinatas he’ll pitch in to protect when he has to, and we all know he’ll pretty much drop everything if Saburo needs him.

Speaking of which. I think the unspoken reason why he’s best friends with Saburo (besides the surface-level stuff like they’re smart and nerdy and seen as enigmas by everybody else) is because Saburo is the only other person in the cast who understands Kururu’s particular struggle of putting on airs as a means of self-defense all the time. He basically has a carefully managed celebrity life (that he has to constantly work to hide in anime canon), a somewhat formal/reserved public life, and the more quirky enthusiastic side of himself he only shows when alone and to the few people he’s close to and god damn that just sounds like the most exhausting juggling act ever. He has an outlet to free himself through his art but he still has to live with nobody quite knowing what he goes through on a daily basis, which is probably why we see him off on his own for most of the series (until he gets to warm up to everybody better...wonder who that sounds like) and occasionally have his bouts of frustration and insecurity like in 229 where he says “fuck it I’m gonna fight the apocalypse alone because I need something to do,” 354(? I think that’s the number) where he talks about just dropping everything and starting over, and I think one of the Christmas eps where Giroro has to like beg him to go to the Hinatas’ party cuz he says he’s “busy” even though he’s just sitting around pretty much (UPDATE: it’s 294 the implication is probably that he has his show or something but cmon that’s only like an hour lol). I am going off on a tangent now but anyway the point is he and Kururu are the most complicated communicators of the cast and they share feelings only they understand which is why they can more or less read each other’s minds and know exactly what to do when the other is in trouble.

Back to Kururu. Keroro, from what I can tell, is the closest to him out of the Platoon; Keroro gets freaked out by Kururu’s pranks sometimes yeah but they have a lot of common interests as the fun-lovers of the group and Kururu’s also kinda been interested in Keroro enough time follow him around for almost his entire life up to this point so there’s that. He also gets along with the other people he‘s around; we know he and Aki get along from the beginning because of how dynamic their personalities are but later on he gets close to Fuyuki to the point where they just hang out for the heck of it sometimes, and even though Natsumi is very justified in generally disliking him (many of Kururu’s more Eugh moments tend to involve her) even she seems to rely on him often, and in the cursed puppy episode she knows all his favorite foods by heart so she must care in some fashion lol. Dororo and he aren’t evidently super close but I think they get each other on some level as the (in-universe) least popular of the platoon and Dororo at least respects his abilities, and has clearly come to figure out his subtleties based on 229. Giroro and Mois...things get complicated. Just putting on record that I’m not a fan of either ship between Kururu and them. I’ve said this before but I think Giroro and Kururu are in a turbulent sibling-adjacent relationship in that they have completely opposing attitudes but they have a begrudging sense of respect for each other and, ultimately, they’re teammates, so they’ll defend each other when someone they don’t know tries to mess with them. I really don’t think the flirty stuff on Kururu’s end goes beyond teasing and I got kinda sick of that running gag if I’m being honest. (You can probably tell which frog I ship Kururu with by now :P) Mois went from something of a rival to Kururu to his lab partner, which is probably why he goes easier on her than he used to and even strikes up something of a friendship because the only other person he knows that might be capable of handling his technology is an Earthling who’s still against the invasion despite his lax attitude so. She helps :V

Now the question is why Kururu acts like he does if his relationships really aren’t all that bad and I think there’s two components to this. I’ve made it clear by now I think he’s autistic but your mileage may vary there. I think personally his childhood did something to the way he processes things as well. In Secret of the Kero Ball, he’s got a bandage on his head which may imply he got hurt somewhere and then he almost drowned which canonically definitely did something to him lol, was mostly seen alone so who knows if he has a family he still talks to, and then he got drafted into the army and placed into a high-ranking position of great responsibility at a very young age; it’s kind of a no-brainer why he rebeled and got demoted eventually. I’ve got plenty of headcanons about what his early days in the Military did to him but that’s for another day because good God this post went on too long.

In short: Kururu is possibly the most complicated character in the show and the F in Flanderization stands for “Funimation.” That’s it I’m never writing another essay about pee-color frog again I will make real content again at some point I promise

#keroro gunso #sgt frog #kururu #kululu #long post #i sure spent 2 hours on this #imo kururu is a more compelling tsundere than giroro there I said it