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letoasai · 1 year

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dp x dc

I’m usually more of a lurker in this fandom, you know? But this happened and it just needed to be written down. If someone wants to take the idea or continue it, go for it! Prompt - Consort

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Danny is told that while he is officially the Ghost King, there are a few last minute things to check off the list to keep the Observants from being able to mess with Danny's business. Clockwork even subtly confirms that this is something Danny should consider carefully. Being able to keep them in check is important.

While not keen on a to-do list, Danny sighs and trusts that Clockwork is ultimately giving him less work.

He spends a few years doing odds and ends. Whatever task Clockwork mentions and it honestly suits Danny fine. It’s giving him time to grow into his position. It’s going well, that is until he learns that in his last task he has to consummate his newly acquired position in a very traditional way. With someone else...

That's bad enough, but it's thrown out to him that he must do this with one of his own kind. It's never been an issue before since The Ghost King is usually... a ghost and can pick whoever they want in the Zone.

Danny however is a halfa and because he's only one of three halfa's he's forced to pick between Vlad and Dani. A fruit loop and his clone/sister. The first is horrifying on many levels and the second is just plain unappealing. It's not happening, nope.

It's practically a miracle that before Danny can completely fall into panic, Clockwork mentions the existence of a forth halfa.

It doesn't matter who they are, it HAS to be better then his current options. That's how Danny ends up in Gotham.

"I can't believe you went without us." Sam complained. "We could have gone with you. What if you need help?"

"I don't think Gotham is ready for ghost powers, Sam." Tucker commented. "Any trouble he runs into won't know what hit them."

"Could you both stop wishing trouble on me?" Danny asked, he should have known he'd get ganged up on when he had them both on the phone at once. He was looking around and had noticed how he wasn't headed to the...best of neighborhoods. Had he not had ghost powers he might have turned right around.

He'd gotten a fairly nice hotel room for the long weekend in a somewhat nice area. All of Gotham looked pretty damn bleak to him but at least he could easily survive in a place like this. There was so much ambient ectoplasm in the air that he was, frankly, surprised he hadn't spotted more ghosts. It was all to his benefit though.

"Wishing?" Tucker chuckled, the sound of his keyboard clicking on the other side of the call. "It'll find you whether we wish it or not."

"And then you'll be able to say you got to fight in Gotham." Sam lamented.

"So this isn't about me not bringing you along to help me find this halfa, but because you just wanted to see this city in particular?"

"Little bit."

Tucker started laughing. "Damn, Sam. Nothing's stopping you from visiting."

"There absolutely is." Sam grumbled. "Their names are Jeremy and Pam." "We're graduating soon, Sam." Danny commented. "After both your eighteen birthday and graduation you'll find your freedom."

"And possibly your way out of their living will." Tucker commented, but Sam only snickered at the thought.

"That doesn't help me today. Danny's out in one of the coolest cities ever on a quest to get laid, and we’re stuck having a boring weekend." "Sam." Danny hissed as if someone else could have possibly over heard their conversation. This entire situation was beyond awkward. He didn't even know how to start. Hi, you're a halfa too? Wild? Wanna sleep with me so i can make sure my position isn't puppeteered? "What? That's literally why you're there." Sam was back to being amused, conveniently forgetting for a second that she wasn't with him in Gotham. "You're not gonna seduce anyone with that attitude." "I'm not trying-!" "Aren't you supposed to be though?" She hummed. "Gotta put that charm to work, Phantom." "Oh shut up..." Danny grumbled. If this halfa immediately pegged him as king, would they feel obligated to sleep with him? Ugh, this was the worst. If the ghost he was tracking lived in this neighborhood then it was no wonder he was half dead... "I mean, the wording of this could mean anything." Tucker commented right as the clicking stopped. He'd shown his to-do list to Sam and Tucker ages ago, and this hurdle had always seemed so daunting. "Go forth and find what's just. A night of bliss and trust. A match for your soul in desire. A second coming to conspire." Tucker repeated the lines. "Man, someone did not take a poetry class." Danny just made a face, so sick of the instructions that even making fun of it didn't help anymore. "And you think that can mean anything?" Sam hummed quietly. "I guess you were told it was a basic innuendo so that's what you hear. It’s what we all heard." "Yeah, it doesn't say go fuck." Tucker said. "Could just mean you could hang out for a night and vibe. Video games. Take out." Danny made a face. "I can't see me doing that with Vlad either." "I should fucking hope not." He could practically see Sam's disgusted face. "Okay but that still doesn't make sense. I gotta hang out with another halfa? Why? Why would that block the Observants and their never ending input?" Danny wondered. "No idea." Tucker relented, "But it's worth a shot. right? You can always hang out first and see if it works. If it doesn't... well then you know what you gotta do." "Flirt. Bend over and show your butt. It's eye catching." "Sam..." Danny sighed, this was exhausting. She clucked her tongue. "It's good advice. Even Paulina did a double take last week." Danny just made an irritated sound in his throat, nearly tripping over a destroyed section of the side walk. All the businesses nearby had bars across their windows as extra security and more and more people seemed to loiter. "So glad that ship has sailed." Young crushes were painful. "It could also mean cuddling?" Tucker offered. "How'd you make that leap?" Sam asked. "Guys." Danny interrupted suddenly, his ghost sense chilling him. "I'll call you guys back. I might have tracked them down." "Don't forget!" Tucker said, tone only slightly accusatory. Sam just made a noise of agreement. "We'll want the whole play by play." "Well... maybe not the whole play by play." Tucker added, but Danny just hung up on them. His support system was filled with bullies. See if they got their Gotham tee-shirts now! Danny turned down an alleyway, not sure just yet what he was following but it felt fairly powerful. So far he'd seen mostly shades and remnants of what was. He was left to try to find this halfa the same way he had to track down Dani when looking for her, and that usually meant looking for a big source. When he took a turn and nearly walked right into an obvious drug deal, he inhaled sharply and turned invisible. The dealer had looked up at the sound but brushed it off a moment later when he didn't see anyone rounding the corner. Gotham was nuts but at least they weren't clowns. Deciding it really was within his best interest, Danny transformed completely, staying invisible for the time being as he followed his ghost sense through the scary part of town. Minutes felt like hours but he spotted a dude coming closer on a motorcycle and Danny's skin felt like it was vibrating. The halfa was a guy, okay. Danny could work with that, he really could. Even sitting on the bike, the guy looked a head taller than Danny. All the ghost powers in the world couldn't take away him inheriting his mothers build. For fucks sake, did he have to become evil to bulk up?! Danny flew closer, wanting to get a good look, only to have his vision impeded by a red helmet. When the bike swerved and the rider looked around around, likely sensing him, Danny backed off. His jaw was already hanging open in disbelief. Red Hood. That was Red Hood. Red Hood was a halfa?! Okay, he was the freaking Ghost King. When was that memo gonna land on his desk. Holy crap. Was he actually going to ask Red Hood to have sex ...er... platonically hang out with him? Danny's face was going to explode with heat. He flew away, watching him from the sky. Red Hood slowly brushed off whatever he had felt from Danny and rode on, making only a few more turns before stopping at an apartment building that Danny wouldn't have thought was still in use. This had secret lair written all over it. Danny followed, waited, watched. Of course he knew all about the vigilantes of Gotham but he hadn't really expected to run into any of them. Honestly, what were the odds? What did he do? Red Hood was technically a killer but he'd met more then one ghost who'd been avenged. It caused mixed feelings really. After two hours of nothing, a guy walked out of the same apartment. This time in street clothes. Same build, same height, same half energy. Crap. There goes that secret identity. Danny didn't know his name but he knew what he looked like. Dark hair, that curl of white in the front. Light eyes. Permanent looking frown and... Well now, Danny was frowning too. Something about his energy was off putting. Twisted. Wrong. Well... that would need to be looked into. From afar, Danny watched him go about his evening which involved stopping into those little stores and checking on people. Those people seemed to greet him with a friendly smile and know him somewhat well. Danny also got the impression that none of these people knew he was Red Hood, though he wasn't sure it would have mattered if they had. Red Hood was a crime lord but this was his territory... his haunt. Danny wasn't quite sure how this was both incredibly confusing while making all the sense in the world. He'd have an attitude too if his ectoplasm was all jacked up. What was he supposed to do? Suddenly if felt so presumptuous to show up at this guys doorstep to ask for such a favor from a stranger. He could leave and figure something else out, but the guy clearly needed help too. Maybe they could work out a trade or something. Danny felt torn about the whole damn thing and only decided to suck it up and act like an adult when his alternative was to call Jazz and ask for advice and he was not asking his sister about this. He flew ahead of the guy, making it back to his apartment first. He turned human again and sat on the stoop to wait for him. Internally he went over his lines in his head, what he would say, what parts he could leave out but all of that stopped when a shadow towered over him. The guy somehow seemed so much bigger in person. "You alright, kid?" he asked, there was the strange mix of concern and suspicion on his face. "There's housing up the street if you need someplace to go. They take anyone." "Oh uh..." His haunt had a place like that? Cool. So much for all those lines he’d been rehearsing. "I wanted to talk to you, actually. If you have a second?" He raised a brow but gestured to Danny with a nod to continue. Guess they were doing this out here then. "Okay, this is going to sound strange as hell but i've been looking for another halfa to help me with something. It's like.. a stupid huge favor and, fuck i hate even calling it a favor because that sounds weird. I also wanted to say up front that you can totally turn me down too, this isn't like, a demand or anything." Danny started talking, and couldn't seem to stop. His nerves were getting the better of him along side this guys emotions which were confused and itching with something aggravating. "It's not like i wrote this particular law either. I'm not even sure why i agreed to this shit but i've seen bad alternatives before a-" "What the fuck are you talking about, kid?" he interrupted. "Rude. I am actually eighteen." Danny grumbled. His eyes narrowed. Did he think he was lying about his age? "You sure about that?" "Yeah, my birthday is the same day every year." Danny deadpanned, almost getting a smile. "Let me start over, um, my name is Danny." he stood but didn't offer his hand because this guy didn't look like he'd take it. "And i've been looking for you." "Right i sorta got that, but why?" Danny could already feel his ears turning red. "Okay, hear me out because this sound fucking awful. I need to sleep with a halfa." Just rip that baid-aid off right?

Red Hood's frown was back full force. Guess he was still Red Hood since he didn't offer a name. "What the fuck is a halfa?" Danny short circuited. Was it possible this guy didn't know? "Okay." Danny said slowly. "Backing up and starting over again. Did you... You... You know you died once, right?" He scowled. "Yeah, i was there. How the fuck do you know that?" "Oh good, we don't gotta go back that far. Okay. Okay, so a halfa is someone that died. Like me." He gestured to himself. "Who came back. Someone who is half dead and half alive. There's only four of us. I have to sleep with one because of some political bullshit and i know how desperate that has to sound to you but i absolutely can not sleep with my sister or a fruit loop that wants to marry my mom." Red Hood stepped closer, a large hand wrapping around Danny’s bicep and pulling him along with him towards his door. It was opened long enough for the two of them to slip through and then shut and locked again. "Alright, lets unpack everything that just left your mouth and start to pick out the sane verses insane pieces." He said, somewhat exasperated. He was unhappy. Very unhappy. Danny had to hide a wince, guess Hood wasn’t ready to talk about his death. Jazz would be pissed, he needed to learn to be more sensitive about these things. "You're half dead?" "And so are you." Danny said. "Haven't you noticed any ghost abilities?" "Any what...?" Distress. That was an odd reaction. Danny looked around, there wasn't much furniture but there was a couch and Danny made a show of going intangible and walking right through it. "Anything like that?" Red Hood was frowning. "No. Look. Half dead and half alive sounds more like a zombie to me. Where are you getting this ghost shit? How did you find me at all?" "Ghost sense." He scowled. "Of course." Danny sighed a little, biting his lip and brushing a piece of hair from his face. "Okay, this is my fault. I'm bad at explaining and i'm sorta having too many conversations at once. Lets start with you. You ever seen like.. glowy green sludge?" His scowl deepened, for a second there was true hatred etched into his face but it wasn't directed at Danny. The suspicion and distrust however were. "What do you have to do with the Lazarus Pit?" Danny blinked, it was evidently his turned to be confused. "The what?" "The green shit, kid. The Lazarus Pit. It's what did this shit to me. What drives me insane." Danny frowned. "The green sludge is ectoplasm, which we need. It shouldn't hurt you, but if it did...could explain why you feel so twisted up inside." He scoffed. "Twisted up, that's the kindest way anyone has ever put it. I don’t need someone elses insane ramblings on top of what i already got in my head. So if you're looking for a fuck, go somewhere else." "Okay." Danny muttered, he'd known that could be an option. "But would you let me see if i could straighten out to ectoplasm anyway? I think i can help at least a little and uh, i think your's is trying to eat away at your soul which is...bad?" Hood actually dropped onto the couch, looking beyond done with this day. "Do you think you there's anything i haven't tried?" "I bet you have." Danny said, stepping closer. "But my ectoplasm is healthy and isn't trying to eat me. You don't really have anything to lose, do you?" Trustme. Trustme. His expression was nearly murderous and Danny could taste the rage. It seemed like he was having a hard time controlling it, and the more Danny looked, the more he was blaming the tainted ectoplasm. It even seemed to block some of the calm Danny was pushing towards him. "Kid, you have no idea what you're -" Danny stepped closer, hands on Red Hood's chest. He could feel the faint humming of a drowning core, trying to breath through the toxicity that had been forced into his body. Danny added his own ectoplasm to the mix, a sort of ghost transfusion. Ghost King privileges came with a wide aura and a lot of energy. There was a shudder, and the difference was almost instantaneous. The tainted ectoplasm had tried to rear up, tried to roll into rage and snowball but Danny just had more to work with. Danny didn't remember kneeling in front of his new acquaintance, or shutting his eyes, or shifting into his ghost form. He was however, aware of his core tuning into Red Hood's, trying to coax it to life...so to speak. He didn't know what it would have been like, a half ghost but confined only to his human side. Maybe if he'd never known any better it wouldn't have mattered to him but the thought of it now was suffocating,

There was a moment when Danny suddenly felt Hood’s confusion. It seems like he was finally picking up on Danny’s silent messages.

"What did you do?" Red Hood asked, sounding tired, but far less hostile. "You made it quiet. You're also..glowing." Danny looked up at him with a nervous laugh. "Well, i did say i could fix it. This fix is kinda temporary but I know Frostbite can fix it for you permanently. I'll talk to him." He reached up and rubbed at his eyes, "...Thanks...." "No problem Hood." His eyes jerked up and Danny just smiled. "I won't tell anyone..." He hissed in soft irritation but it didn’t match his emotions. He was still riding the high of being in control of that rage. "So i did feel you following me earlier? I swear there was something around." Danny nodded once. "Had to be sure you were who i thought you were... and all..." Excuse. Excuse... Red Hood shook his head. "My name's Jason. I have a hundred questions minimum about this half ghost thing." "I could probably answer most of them?" Danny offered, realizing he was still on his knees in front of Jason and quickly getting up, a cold blush coloring his face as he shifted back into his human form. Jason watched him, brow quirking again but he seemed so much more relaxed now that the tension was drained out of him and the taint to his ectoplasm was quiet. It almost made him seem a little younger too, not that Danny would have pegged him any older than early twenties, if that. Maybe he was still a teenager too. "Halfa's... You said there were four of us?" Jason asked cautiously. "Yeah." Danny sat on the other end of the couch. "My sister who is also my clone, and Vlad. Billionaire asshole who's a major creep." "Clone. You have an interesting life." "That's a lot coming from Red Hood." Jason snorted. "Fair." he paused, proving he'd been listening to all the jumbled up words Danny had been spurting. "Why do you have to sleep with a halfa?" "Aah..." Danny's face went hot again. "So...i..." he paused. "Okay this all sounds bad. I defeated the Ghost King in combat, making me the new Ghost King." Jason brow arched again, "Kudos." "Thank you? Anyway... there's a lot of stupid... add on rules. I didn't make them. Hell i don't even know them all. Some ancient jerk just tells me one at a time. Usually with bad timing which is stupid because he basically is time." "And one of them is fucking?" "Ugh." Danny actually groaned, head falling into his hands. "Someone of my own kind and there's only us four..." he spoke into his hands. "Sucks." "Little bit, yeah." Danny looked up at him, hoping Jason wasn’t actually feeling any of Danny’s nerves or embarrassment. "My friend has a theory that it might not mean sex exactly and might be more of a proximity thing." Jason didn't look overly convinced. "And you decided to try that with some guy you don't know over your clone?" Danny blinked, brain crashing. If he could have just had a sleep over with Dani and avoided all of this... certain ghosts were going to get banished from the Infinite Realm. "Didn't think of that did you?" Jason snickered suddenly and Danny just groaned again. "No.... She's like my sister, i just completely wrote it off." He was going to die... again. This time of embarrassment. Jason laughed softly, the sound not used very often these days. "I mean, i guess i get that. Some times things are easier when you're family isn't involved." "You can say that again..." Danny muttered. Jason leaned back on his spot on the couch, watching Danny with something like amusement in his eyes. He was...so different without the tainted ectoplasm gnawing on his soul. He was finally relaxing. "Well, your Majesty. Would this get me a favor with the king?" Danny's blush stretched down his neck. "Don't call me that. It's too weird." "Nope." Jason was grinning now. "Too much fun. You are way too easy to fluster for a guy that just popped up to ask for sex." "That's not-...!..." Danny winced. "I mean you said no, so that's that." "Changing my mind." Jason said instead, attuned to Danny's look of surprise. Ah, fuck he was definitely able to read Danny now. "Besides. "I have a hundred questions, remember? I'm sure we can mange between rounds." "Rounds?" Danny mouthed the word but no sound came out. Okay, it wasn't a big deal if his heart stopped beating but he was pretty sure it just did. Yeah, it stopped. "O..okay." He attempted, but it just seemed to endear him more as Jason moved again, his time leaning closer. Okay, hot guy in his personal space, he could handle this. It was why he was here. Jason tugged on Danny’s hair. “It changes. Black to white. That’s cool. Kinda wanna see it more.”

Okay, hot guy in his personal space, he could not handle this. “It uh..yeah. Does that. Alive verses dead i guess. I’ll show you once your ectoplasm is worked out. I don’t see why you wouldn’t gain abilities too once your core is sorted out.” “You really love to say words without context, don’t you?” Jason said and his amusement was loud. “I guess... i get ahead of myself.” Danny muttered, unable to make eye contact as Jason slid closer. This was not his first kiss. What was going on with him? "It’s alright, i’m a quick learner. Besides, i really want to say thank you for you clearing my mind, even if it is temporary." Jason muttered. He’d been screaming for help but no one had ever heard him before. "We will get that fixed." Danny promised, voice just as quiet. "First thing tomorrow, if you want." "Second thing." Jason said, reaching out to cup Danny's cheek this time before drawing him closer to kiss. Danny didn't think you could see stars in Gotham but he was sure seeing them now. ~~~~ ~~~~

I kinda wonder who’s going to tell Danny he just found a consort. My money’s on Frostbite.... ...As for who tell’s Jason?....That’s Dani barging in to meet her new brother in law Hope you enjoyed this, feel free to add whatever you want.

Master List

#dc x dp crossover #danny phantom #danny phantom x jason todd #Jason Todd #Red Hood #Clockwork spent years setting Danny up for this #consort #my writing #dc comics #Sam and Tucker think this is hilarious #They'll never let Danny live this down #how Danny met his boyfriend #politely asking for sex #crossover #danny phantom/jason todd #Don't tell Jazz

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ctitan98official · 3 months

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Anonymous: How dare you break my heart like that with the latest Alcina fic. I demand (but in a polite way. Like a really polite way) that you make a fluffy one with maid!reader who's quite strong and Alcina has a big ass crush on them so the girls would constantly ask for help lifting the most random stuff whenever Alcina is around so she would gay panic (uno reverse card tall vampire lady!) and it doesn't help that reader is also a big flirt but only with her. Bonus points if the reader is also quite tall and is actually strong enough to lift Alcina. I saw a post with Alcina being a blushing mess and now I want more so there's that. Thank you!

I must confess that I have no idea what fic is being referenced at the beginning of this ask lol. But, this is a really great prompt! Reader, as usual, is gender neutral. Let’s get into it!

You had been working at the castle for a few days. It’s kind of an intense environment. There is always work to be done, but you have definitely been given a lot of the tasks that involve heavy lifting… Okay, damn near every task that requires a lot of physical labor. You don’t mind. It feels nice to have something you’re good at.

You have always been a bit of a misfit in the village. You’re incredibly tall compared to pretty much everyone. You also have a very muscular form from working various jobs such as carpentry and farming. You can come off as very… Intimidating, shall we say? However, you’re really just secretly longing for company.

One morning, you have your first encounter with Lady Dimitrescu’s daughters: Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela. They are… Interesting.

“Holy crap, Hercules! Anyone ever teach you to fight with these massive paws?!” Cassandra says as she compares how large your hand is in relation to her own.

You instantly blanch at the comment which makes Daniela coo at how shy you are. “Oh, It’s okay, tough stuff.” She says, patting your shoulder. “Cassie is just being mean!” She says and sticks her tongue out at her sister. “I bet you’re a gentle giant!” She gushes.

Your cheeks are now flaming red. “I… I, um-” You stammer.

“Cool it, you two!” Bela admonishes her sisters before turning to you apologetically. “I am so sorry about my crazy sisters.” She says and gestures at the brunette and redhead. “I’m Bela. What’s your name?” She asks warmly.

You smile at her, thankful to not be gawked at. “I’m Y/N.” You say.

“Oh, now I get it. I heard Mother talking about you! She never remembers any of the castle staff.” Dani says. “I heard her ask one of the maids to tell her more about a certain ‘Huge and strong servant’. You’re definitely her type.” Dani giggles wildly.

Your stance becomes rigid and you clench your teeth in discomfort. Lady Dimitrescu… You’d seen her around the castle and… She’s definitely your type. But, you’d never let yourself become emotionally invested. She’s your boss and off-limits. It doesn’t matter if you think she’s gorgeous because she’d never give you the time of day. Alright? Feelings appropriately squashed? Great. Let’s continue.

Suddenly, a very devilish look overcomes Bela… The sister who you thought was the most well-adjusted. She eagerly pulls Dani and Cass away from you and the three huddle in a nearby corner to talk.

You assume that you have been dismissed so you return to your daily tasks. What a crazy trio.

Over the next couple of days, you start getting bizarre requests from the sisters.

“Y/N, can you pick up this couch and move it to the other side of the room?” Cassandra orders one day.

You raise an eyebrow, but quickly nod your head. “Of course.” You say. You easily grab the couch around its middle and carry it all the way across the room. When you’re finished, you look up to see… Lady Dimitrescu… Right in front of you… Face-to-face. When did she get here?

Alcina did not expect to get so turned on by someone she barely knows. This is torture. Her usually calm but commanding presence is failing her.

Your thoughts are all over the place, but you take in the sight of Alcina’s red cheeks. She looks completely flushed. She must be hot! Do something, Y/N!

“My Lady, may I go grab you a glass of cold water? You look a bit peaked.” You say, hoping you haven’t offended her.

Alcina’s face only becomes hotter as she hears your voice. To be honest, she’s been fervently imagining what it sounds like. But your real voice is even better than in her dreams. Alcina finally snaps out of her gay panic as you look at her before clearing her throat. “I… Um, I just need… Some air, that’s all.” She squeaks out and leaves as fast as possible.

Before you can ask Cassandra what that was all about, she swarms away. Of course. You hope you didn’t just fuck things up.

Later on, Alcina and Bela are playing chess and you are assigned to bring them tea. Everything seems to be going fine right now. Alcina looks better than she did earlier. However, at one point in the game, Bela “Accidentally” drops one of her pawns on the floor and it rolls underneath a giant grandfather clock not too far away.

Bela clucks her tongue before asking if you wouldn’t mind moving the clock to get the piece.

Alcina’s eyebrows shoot up at this. “Bela, that clock is easily hundreds of pounds-” She begins.

But, you easily lift the clock up and move it over. “Here it is, Lady Bela!” You say, happy to have found the little pawn. You hand it back to Bela, who can’t help the self-satisfied grin she’s wearing. She’s a genius.

Alcina is red hot. Again. Just how strong are you?! She tries to continue playing and focus on the game, but on the inside she is freaking out. Her mind eventually wanders to the idea of you easily scooping her up into your arms in a show of romantic passion. She’s certain you could hold her without breaking a sweat and that feels… Nice. Normal. She hasn’t been held in so long. It’s torment to have you to rile up these deep fantasies, but… She just knows you would take excellent care of her.

Alcina looks to you out of the corner of her eye, before politely excusing herself from the game with the lame reasoning of needing to get work done.

Bela smiles and nods at her mother. Mission accomplished. Just wait till her sisters find out about this!

You and Alcina are both completely smitten with each other… What could the future hold?

Masterlist

#alcina dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu #re8 #re8 village #re8 lady dimitrescu #alcina dimitrescu x reader #lady dimitrescu x reader #re8 shitpost #re8 incorrect quotes #bela dimitrescu #cassandra dimitrescu #daniela dimitrescu

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esther-dot · 11 months

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How do you think Dany as foil to Virgin Mary?

The Virgin Mary is often pictured weeping and that imagery, a weeping woman, a weeping mother, tears of blood, crops up over and over through the series, and Dany cries a lot in AGOT, but Martin starts to insert lines about weeping, not weeping, that seem pertinent:

She should weep, she knew, yet her eyes were dry as ash. She had wept in her dream, and the tears had turned to steam on her cheeks. All the grief has been burned out of me, she told herself. (AGOT, Daenerys IX) "The blood of the dragon does not weep," she said testily. (ACOK, Daenerys III)

"Khaleesi," he said, taken aback by her fury, "the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—" "I have heard all I care to of their training." Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry. Mormont touched the cheek she'd slapped. "If I have displeased my queen—" (ASOS, Daenerys II) Yet the thought of seeing Jorah Mormont again made her feel as if she'd swallowed a spoonful of flies; angry, agitated, sick. She could almost feel them buzzing round her belly. I am the blood of the dragon. I must be strong. I must have fire in my eyes when I face them, not tears. "Tell Belwas to bring my knights," Dany commanded, before she could change her mind. "My good knights." (ASOS, Daenerys VI)

"Remove this liar from my sight," she commanded. I must not weep. I must not. If I weep I will forgive him. (ASOS, Daenerys, VI) "This one has been told that your servant Stalwart Shield sometimes gave coin to the women of the brothels to lie with him and hold him."The blood of the dragon does not weep. "Stalwart Shield," she said, dry-eyed. "That was his name?" (ADWD, Daenerys I)

Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark. "Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …" Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. "I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons." Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children. (ADWD, Daenerys X)

Mercy, compassion, these are essential to Martin, and Dany has been going through a long process of steeling herself, convincing herself to have less. Not tears (mercy) fire. To support that interpretation, the exclamation, "Mother have mercy," and the song, "Gentle Mother, font of mercy" are worked into the series. It isn't just the imagery of a weeping woman or incidents of a character crying or not, but Martin telling us the representation of mercy is "the mother" (his take on the Virgin Mary), as she is the intercessor for her people. The fact that the dragon in Dany "burns" away her tears is a huge sign of where things are going, and yes, indicates she is being contrasted with an ideal Martin has included in the story.

There are also parallels between Cersei and Dany which indicate their children (Joffrey and Drogon) bring death and destruction to Westeros, not life, not peace. That's a direct contradiction to what the Virgin Mary's son is meant to do. In fact, Dany's son was what prompted Drogo to swear to invade Westeros, so Dany's children have always been surrounded with the death of others.

"The thunder of his hooves!" the others chorused. "As swift as the wind he rides, and behind him his khalasar covers the earth, men without number, with arakhs shining in their hands like blades of razor grass. Fierce as a storm this prince will be. His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood and rend their flesh in grief. The bells in his hair will sing his coming, and the milk men in the stone tents will fear his name." The old woman trembled and looked at Dany almost as if she were afraid. "The prince is riding, and he shall be the stallion who mounts the world." "The stallion who mounts the world!" the onlookers cried in echo, until the night rang to the sound of their voices. (AGOT, Daenerys V)

When Cat becomes Lady Stoneheart, I mentioned that she goes from the positive version of “mother,” the one pleading for peace instead of war --in her death scene, literally pleading for her son's life-- to the one who turns on humanity and wants vengeance. No longer the "intercessor", now the one who brings death. The fact that Dany has purposed to pursue war and conquest is a contrast to her, and seeing the transformation of Cat should alarm us for Dany who ended book one burning a person alive.

That's all I got, anon. I'll tag @minitafan in case she has some additional thoughts!

#anti daenerys #dot chat

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kingsansa · 2 years

Note

In good faith prompt - hair

He’s drunk enough one night that he ends up in the web archives of the Westerosi Chronicle because he’s tired of pretending not to care.

There are several filter options. The mouse hovers over the drop down menu. Selects From Earliest to Latest.

Sansa Stark. Two words, 10 letters.

Enter.

Three pages of results appear.

STARK TRUST HOUSES THOUSANDS OF THE CITY’S HOMELESS, Eddard Stark and a smiling Catelyn at some gala. Robb is at their side, a stone faced teenager, trying so hard to be his father’s son.

Not Sansa.

It’s her mother she’s trying her very best to emulate, beaming into the camera, missing teeth and all. Her father’s hand holds her shoulder and her mother’s hand holds hers.

A team player, even then.

Jon scrolls down.

THE WOMEN WHO SPENT THEIR MOTHER’S DAY HELPING OTHERS. Alerie and Margaery Tyrell, Wynafred and Wylla Manderly, Maege, Dacey, and Alysanne Mormont. At the very end, Catelyn and Sansa.

She’s older, here. 12 or so. Her mother’s arm is around her shoulders. She’s still wearing her hairnet, something her and the Mormont’s have in common. Even tired, she still remembers to smile.

Then, she isn’t anymore.

He has to scroll past them, all of the titles beginning with her father’s name. The pictures of her wearing black. It’s like pressing on a bruise. He remembers his father’s funeral, how he felt at the sight of the cameras outside of the church, the rage that rose up in his throat like bile—

He never gave her much; always took. But he would allow her to keep this.

RHAEGAR TARGARYEN CELEBRATES 20 YEARS AT TARGTECH.

The night they met.

An entire article, waxing poetic about his father’s improvements and accomplishments. Pictures of him everywhere. He’s always haunting him, but tonight, Jon is preoccupied with another ghost. It’s the only reason he doesn’t click out of the article, the only reason he keeps going despite the tightness of his throat—

She was beautiful.

And he’d been so angry that his father thought fit to trust him with something so beautiful, something so delicate. Innocent. Big blue eyes, waiting for him to prompt her to speak. Gloved hands holding a flute of champagne, skimming the pearls strung around her throat. Red hair pinned artfully at the top of her head to reveal the slender slope of her neck. To tempt him.

When he got home, must have told himself a thousand times that it didn’t work.

In this picture, they are strangers, surrounded by people that are much more familiar to them. Dany is to his left and Robb and his wife are to hers. His hand is high on her waist. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

She’d asked him if he wanted to dance, and he said he didn’t like dancing. His first time being a disappointment. Not his last.

And just a week later, their very first event as a couple.

Some dinner for the Stark Trust. Them leaving the hotel where the party is being held, hand in hand. The very beginning.

And then:

A museum opening. Them on the steps, hand in hand. She’s smiling. He isn’t. An official confirmation.

It was more than enough.

There’s a set of photos for almost every couple weeks that they were together, accompanied with a story. Not his father’s doing, even with how much he used to talk about legacy, and not Robb’s, who hated any kind of press. It was just…them. The rebellious heir to a weapon empire who seemed to be falling in line, and the stunning spare. An unexpected, charming match. A dangerous one, too.

People watched them. They were worth watching.

Jon scrolls, flexing his hand. As if he’d be able to feel hers inside of it if he tried hard enough.

JON TARGARYEN, ROBB STARK, RENLY BARATHEON, AND MORE HIT THE PITCH FOR CHARITY BASEBALL GAME.

The last good day.

Towards the end, they were having more and more of those, and it was starting to scare him. That he was picturing her as someone that could be permanent, rather than what she was. A distraction, young—

Someone who deserved better.

She gently pestered him until he let her put sunscreen on his face—multiple times. She cheered him on from the sidelines. She fussed over his resulting injuries, insisting on bandaging him up herself. Alright, darling, she’d say, after he told her that he’d be going in every time she tried to convince him to sit the next round out.

There’s a picture of her leaning down from the bleachers to talk to him, pig tails hanging from her shoulders. Jon doesn’t remember what they were talking about. He wishes he could remember. He wants to know what he said that made her smile.

There’s no article about the split.

It wasn’t a public thing. It helped that it happened cold turkey. That one day they were together, and the next day they just weren’t. By the time he realized what happened, she already left. He stopped going to parties, to galas, to luncheons—there was no need for that anymore.

It took a minute for people to catch on, and when they did, it was after the funeral, and his father was dead. That overshadowed everything else.

Besides—she was just gone. There was no story in that.

Jon clicks in the third page, even though he knows what he’ll see.

Willas, holding her hand. Willas, carrying her on his back. Willas, with his arm slung over her shoulder. Willas making her laugh, and Willas making her smile—

It always reaches her eyes. Makes the corners crinkle.

He always makes her happy.

Jon shuts his laptop, leaving himself vulnerable to the dark. He tries not to wonder, selfishly, if he could have ever done the same. There’s no point.

She might be back, but she’s still gone. Lost to him.

#answered #ficlet

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viscountessevie · 2 years

Note

As a fat woman with a similar story to Penelope's (in the book) it's incredibly disheartening to see what they have done with her character and people praising it. Book Penelope was someone I could relate to as the ugly, unattractive friend that no one ever looks at twice. But even if I did some things I now regret (for example commenting one or twice on my friend's thinness even if it was out of worry, which I now know is not a cool thing to do) I was never actively a bully or used my weight to play victim. And now I can't relate to the only fat woman on a regency period romance I have seen because she is using her 'oppression' to hurt others (I do think fat people are very discriminated against but this isn't Penelope's case since she has had to face the same amount of insults as the rest of the characters (most of them coming from her herself too)) and that's not how period dramas really work. Maybe in modern times it could have worked but not in a show like the bee one.

Took me a while anon but I made it!!! Since I am on a roll talking about Pen, it motivated me to finally finish writing and post this ask :D Thank you so much for waiting and I hope you're still around on my blog to see this!

I can't quite remember when this ask got prompted but I feel like it was during my S3 speculation era so it was likely the My Fair Lady essay that prompted a lot of S3 asks. Aights then, let’s get into this:

First off, I want to genuinely thank you for feeling safe enough to share this with me and I’m so sorry the show massacred the one character you related to. I’m sending you all my love and hugs <3

Also it must not have been fun growing up thinking of yourself in that way but I’m here to let you know that I see you and I’m sure you’re lovely!! Glad to know that you recognised those comments to be harmful and have learnt from it. We all make mistakes. The best thing we can do is reevaluate, apologise and move forward to do better.

I have seen because she is using her 'oppression' to hurt others (I do think fat people are very discriminated against but this isn't Penelope's case since she has had to face the same amount of insults as the rest of the characters (most of them coming from her herself too)) and that's not how period dramas really work.

You’re so right for this and honestly I don’t have anything to add much tbh. I think the one thing in-universe that hasn’t be horrible is that no one in the Ton really shuns Pen? Only her sisters poke fun at her, but mostly Pen is largely ignored. As my friends and I’ve mentioned here, if anything the showrunners are the ones villainising her and not giving her a proper romantic arc. Maybe it will get better in S3 but that remains to be seen at the moment.

I hope you’re doing okay though, anon. I understand the feeling of not being seen or represented in the media you love and I know there aren’t other Regency romance shows that feature a fat woman as a main character or love interest but I thought this list of show and HR books might help ease that hurt, enjoy!

Shoutout to @jeanvanjer @hptriviachamp @sharmasandcorgis and @kateandanthonyaremyparents for all the amazing suggestions thank you guys so much for helping me with a bulk of this list!!

HR (Historical Romance) Novels:

Callie from Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean

Hattie from Brazen and the Beast (also by MacLean)

The Perfect Wife by Lynsay Sands

Hannah and the Highlander by Sabrina York

Chasing Cassandra by Lisa Kleypas

Contemporary Books:

All of the Brown Sisters books by Talia Hibbert - Get A Life, Chloe Brown - Take A Hint, Dani Brown - Act Your Age, Eve Brown

Princess Trap by Talia Hibbert Honestly all of Talia’s books feature plus-sized WOC leads it’s great I mainly recced The Brown Sisters because I read all three and they’re just so amazing! Dani’s love interest is a hot brown guy named Zafir and that was my fave book of the three ehehe

Anything Naima Simone has written - she writes body diversity well I’m told

Misadventures of a Curvy Girl by Sierra Simone

Glutton for Pleasure by Alisha Rai (Plus-sized Indian Girl let’s gooo)

Spoiler Alert series by Olivia Dade (its about fanfiction ehehe)

Electric Idol by Katee Robert (kinda more fantasy but still mythology romance)

Shows/Movies:

Rae from My Mad Fat Diary

Annie and Fran from Shrill

Mindy Lahiri in The Mindy Project

Helen in The Tourist on HBO

Penelope ‘Lupe’ Alverez from One Day At A Time (my personal favourite Penelope on a show shkjdh)

Anything Michelle Buteau is in: Isn’t It Romantic, Always Be My Maybe, Someone Great

Sookie in Gilmore Girls

Amber RIley in Glee (this may give you brain damage but she was iconic in it) and The Wiz

Everything Gabourey Sidibe is in - especially Precious!

*Kate Pearson from This Is Us

*Willowdean in Dumplin

*I was hesitant to name the last two because while they are great reps, the early seasons of This Is Us kind of made being fat Kate’s whole personality but I will say it has improved since then and she becomes a fully flashed out person.

I can’t speak directly to the discourse around Dumplin because I wasn’t around for it but I do know some people did enjoy it same with Kate in This Is Us hence why I kept them on the list! Feel free to ignore those two suggestions if you aren’t interested in seeing those journeys; while the other characters simply just exist as characters and are treated like everyone else which I thought was cool - that’s how I believe we should normalise fat rep: not all their stories need to be about them on a journey to accept themselves, the story already starts with acceptance!

Anyone else has any recommendations - feel free to share via reblogs and comments, I’ll add them to the post/reblog! Thanks for reading yall and hope you enjoy the recs and better rep for you all because you deserve the best!

#Bridgerton #Book Penelope Featherington #Fat Representation in Media #The Viscountess Approves #(My rec tag)#The Viscountess Answers

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africanotaku92 · 3 years

Text

AUs List

Ok, wow. Y’all really liked my last Au post! Because of that, I now have enough confidence to post a list of all the dumb AUs me and my sisters, @baaaa-king and @omniithedeer, have come up with. If you’d like to enquire about any of these ideas, send me an ask!

Danny Phantom AUs.

1. An AU where Danny and Dani get adopted by a ghost family and gain 400 siblings and an Eldritch grandma.

2. Supernatural Delegations AU (a one shot of the same name is in progress.) Other supernatural/paranormal beings exists and commonly interact with each other. Ghosts have been out of contact since Pariah Dark’s reign, and when they hear about the new monarch (AKA Danny), things get wild.

3. Young Ancients AU. A forgotten ghost artifact is rediscovered, and all the ancients hold a meeting to decide who should have it in their possession. Pariah crashes the meeting and, in the scuffle, activates the artifact, de-aging everyone into their teens. Of course, they go to Danny for help. We have collectively decided that Pariah is British. No one has a say unless it's to confirm.

4. Addams Family Danny Phantom crossover where, after Danny’s powers are reviled and the whole Fenton’s A+ Parenting, Danny runs away. He ends up being found and adopted by Morticia and Gomez. Honestly disappointed no one has made this yet >:(

5. Ghost Royalty AU. Danny, Sam and Tucker are all royalty/nobility in the Zone (Undergrowth is less of an ass here, and formally adopts Sam in Urban Jungle instead of mind controlling her. You already know Danny and Tucks royalty qualifications. Also, I know this isn’t my AU specifically, but my sisters and I have a lot of prompts, so its here.)

BNHA AUs.

1. Isolation AU, inspired by Telescope by Cave Town. AFO is not Hisashi. Inko, Mitsuki and their husbands went to a fertility clinic to have children via IVF. The clinic is actually the fore front for quirk experimentations funded by AFO. Izuku and Katsuki are born from the clinic and taken away, while AFO administers a mind-altering quirk on them to make them believe their children are stillborn. They are then taken and raised in a facility with other children for 15 years before Aizawa comes and rescues them.

2. Gore Warning for this AU!!

Isolated Cannibals AU, Inspired by Animal Cannibal by Karen Skladany. Quirked Izuku AU, specifics below.

Izuku and Katsuki are kidnapped just before their quirks came in and given to the Doctor to perform experiments on them. Along with the quirks they were born with, they were given copies* of a quirk called Carnivore, which lets them digest any form of meat from any creature, and get more nutritional value from it. They can still eat fruits and Vegetables though. For 12 years, they were tortured, tested on, and used as “Disposal” for failed experiments and Nomu before they got rescued.

* Izuku’s quirk is called All for All. He can temporarily posses a quirk, make copies with either temporary or permanent features, and either bind them to himself or another person of his choosing. He can also get creative and merge two copies into one unique customized quirk. The strength of the copied quirk depends on his base quirk, so the more he practices, the stronger the copies. Holding too many quirks could affect his physical and mental health, along with possessing the original drawbacks of the copied quirks.

3. A crack AU where everyone from Class 1A + Monoma and Shinsou is related to the Addams family.

4. Homestuck crossover AU where Izuku has a tiny bit of Troll Ancestry in his bloodline and that makes him pupate when he’s 4 and in an ironic jackpot of the Troll Genetics Lottery, he pupates into a Fushcia blood Troll. This is not his actual Quirk though. His actual quirk is a mix of hydrokinesis and the ability to control sea life. Think of Percy Jackson’s demigod powers. He also has natural pheromones that allow him to control or manipulate anyone his Troll instincts think of as lesser both Humans and Trolls. I plan on making Alternia invade Earth. It happens a few weeks After the Kamino Arc.

Miscellaneous AUs.

1. Homestuck AU where there’s A mafia/syndicate organization called The Ophiuchus Collective that believes in blood equality and that rank should be dictated by hard work. The Signless helped the syndicate in the past and owe him the favour of taking care of his descendant. As they hate owing favours, once they found Karkat they do everything in their power to protect him and ascend him to the position of Heir to the Leader.

2. Smitten Kitten Eyes: Post reveal crack miraculous AU where after a mission Plagg reaches his daily cheese limit (so as to not eat his family into bankruptcy) and Adrien refuses to give him more. Because of this, the next time Adrien transforms, Plagg leave his Chat Noir eyes once everything is over. Now he must navigate life trying to explain to everyone who doesn’t know why he has Chat’s eyes. Marinette has a blast the entire time.

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justplainwhump · 2 years

Text

Blackmail

For @amonthofwhump 12 days of Whumpmas, here's day 6 - Blackmail. And a little sneak peek at future Dany, after she's free from Ridley. (Or, boss!Dany, as I like to call her).

References the ongoing (explicit) Christmas party arc [On Tumblr] [On Ao3]

As all Dany pieces, this is dedicated to @hackles-up

Thus, cw for referenced past noncon.

[Dany Masterpost]

I remember his eyes. Pale green irises, thick, dark eyelashes. Lindsey Manners' eyes are hauntingly beautiful.

In my memories, they're staring down on me, hungry and lustful.

Right now, they are wide with fear.

I enjoy this far more.

I push my chair back from the huge desk and give him a cool smile. I picked a corner office, on the former conference floor. Not the very top floor, where Ridley used to reside. High enough to make an impression, though. "Mrs..." He clears his throat. "Mrs Lordin, before you try and fire me, you must know that -"

I lift an eyebrow. I can guess what he's aiming for. The man is desperate. He's built his whole existence on my husband. This company. My company. He can't lose it.

"Yes?", I prompt. "What is there that I have to know?"

"You can't", he stammers. "You can't fire me. I have... I have videos. Files. Of that party. You wouldn't want those sent to your business partners."

I throw my head back and laugh, first at his bluntness, and then at the confusion spreading over his face at my reaction. "I wouldn't, that's right", I admit. "But..." With a shrug I reach to the picture frame on my desk. Ridley's and my wedding photo, and run my fingers over its rim. It's creepy, how thin I was. I've been free of him for just short of two months now, and already look a lot healthier. "You know, my husband won't exactly leave me for what happened. And whatever traction this would get, I still own a multi-million Dollar Corporation. You however..." I look him down. "You have nothing but your reputation. Maybe, maybe your fiance. Bianca, isn't it? I've had coffee with her. She's lovely."

Lindsey blanches.

"You've been with her for quite a while, haven't you? Starting dating a while before this... party?" I point at the picture of Ridley. "He likes to keep videos, too, you know. That particular one is a favorite of his. Had me watch them often enough. So I do happen to have my own copy of it. You are very well recognizable on it, Lindsey. Every last part of you. And I, your boss' wife, have very, very clearly been drugged, which you don't seem to mind. At all. So. What do you think, which one of us would suffer more from the repercussions of that publication?" With a last look at it, I put the picture frame back on the table, face down.

"I..." He stammers. "You..."

"Fucking whore?", I assist him. "Mh. Yeah. You sure liked to call me that."

"What... What do you want?" He almost chokes on his words.

"I don't want to fire you. That 14 mil project my husband so kindly rewarded you for? That was pretty good work, actually. I want you to continue that. I'll name you head of portfolio management. You'll work your ass of for me, Lindsey. You'll get married this summer, you'll keep my business going, and these videos stay where they are. Here's your new contract." I slide a Manila folder over to him and he puts his hand on it shakily. "I think it's in your best interest to sign."

I place a fountain pen next to the folder and give him a short smile. "I'll be less generous with the bonus, though."

He swallows and licks his lips. For a second I have to fight my nausea. Then he nods, and I manage to keep my smile straight.

Lindsey takes the pen, scribbles down his signatures next to mine and hurries out of the room.

I carefully close the file, align the folders with the table and lean back in my chair.

Only then do I allow myself to cry.

#amow twelve days of whumpmas #blackmail #whump #lady whump #Dany #future dany #boss!dany #noncon reference

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andawaywego · 3 years

Note

If you’re still taking prompts, can I make a suggestion? Could you maybe write one about Jamie being busy starting up the leafling (or something) and Dani feels a little neglected so she buys something sexy to get Jamie’s attention.

so i actually had a few prompts for Dani buying lingerie. i guess we were all thinking it, huh? this kinda got away from me, but i hope you like it! smutty smut ahoy.

Valentine’s Day, Jamie is learning, is one of the most brutal holidays there is; at least, it is when you own a flower shop. Two years in and it’s a hard lesson. Tiring, even. Exhausting. The orders start pouring in starting about a week out and then it’s practically nonstop until the whole thing is over.

Last year, it felt like they got through it by the skin of their teeth. By the end of it, she and Dani had gotten so good at communicating a lot of information quickly—order sizes, specifics, pickup times—that they’ve almost become mind readers. At least when it comes to each other.

This became especially useful once they hit wedding season that same year and Jamie only realizes how much she’s come to rely on this anomaly once she’s without it.

On Valentine’s Day this year, Dani is sick and at their apartment resting and Jamie is forced to finish everything up on her own. It could be worse, she thinks, because the timing is at least a little less suffocating than it may have been if she’d had to send Dani home early the day before. The only business she’s really had all day were customers coming by to pick up their orders or last-minute love day stragglers coming in to buy whatever she had left.

It could be worse. Really it could.

By the time she closes things up, the whole shop sort of looks like someone took a large vacuum to it, sucking up just about all the plant life from the displays and walls. It looks sort of like a ghost town. Jamie briefly imagines a tumbleweed rolling by. Locks the door behind herself. Turns her feet towards home.

She worries as she walks, the complex where they live only a few blocks from the shop itself. Wonders if maybe she should stop somewhere and get some soup for Dani or something, and then remembers that it’s Valentine’s Day and decides to avoid going to a restaurant.

She can always come back out and brave the headache later. Right now, she’s mostly focused on getting home to check on her girlfriend.

The apartment is quiet when she steps inside. It isn’t as if she was expecting any different, but it still catches her off guard. Only the lamp by the sofa is clicked on, meaning that the rest of the space is shadowed in darkness. The radiators by the window hum and it’s a little too hot—buildings like this, she’s learned, don’t know the meaning of “happy medium.” They spend the summers fanning themselves like southern church ladies and the winter much the same. Fall is reserved for wearing too many layers as they wait for the building manager to decide to turn on the radiators.

She shrugs off her jacket and hangs it on the coat rack. Keeps her boots on for now even though Dani hates that in case she ends up having to go back out. Heads toward the hallway, toward the bedroom, where she assumes Dani must be resting. Walks slowly to keep the floorboard-squeaking to a minimum.

It isn’t until she passes by the bathroom that she hears it: the music drifting gently from the bedroom. A soft drum beat and a voice singing. She doesn’t immediately recognize the song, too busy wondering why Dani is listening to music while she rests. Gives up on tip-toeing and just hurries the rest of the way.

And then, well—

Hot and stuffy in the apartment from the radiators, sweating a bit in her shirt right at the small of her back, and a shiver still trembles through Jamie’s body when she steps into the bedroom, when she sees what’s waiting for her.

“Hey,” says Dani, perched at the bottom of the bed and smiling in that way Jamie knows she only does when she is very, very nervous.

“I thought you were sick,” says Jamie.

“I know. I’m sorry. I just wanted some time to set all of this up.”

All of this being the record she’s got playing from the stereo in the corner of the room, the candles she has lit on top of the television and on the table next to her side of the bed, and, most importantly, what she’s wearing.

Her makeup, her hair, decked out like every single fantasy Jamie’s ever had and never before let herself consider. Worst of all: she’s wearing lingerie. Purple lingerie. Purple lingerie that hardly leaves anything to the imagination. Jamie swallows so hard it hurts a little.

And she’s seen Dani naked before. Of course, she has. Plenty of times. She’s seen her in nice underwear that matched the bra she had on a handful of times, too. But this is different. Lovely on her or not, those things were still functional as undergarments. And this? This isn’t.

This is see-through lace and long, smooth legs. It’s ruffles and a short-sleeved silk robe that’s hanging off her shoulders just enough to make Jamie’s mouth water.

This isn’t functional. This was designed to cause the exact reaction that it has; this was designed to be taken off.

Dani rolls her shoulders back and flutters her eyelashes in a way that should be silly, but only succeeds in making Jamie’s blood race more thoroughly through her veins. “You’re staring,” she says, playing innocence so well that Jamie almost feels guilty about her inability to tear her eyes away.

Except Dani bought this at some point just for the sole purpose of sitting on their bed looking like that. She did that knowing full well that Jamie wouldn’t be able to keep from eyeing the curves and sways of her, the pale skin and soft lines of her jaw and neck. Wouldn’t be able to want anything more than to press Dani back into their mattress and cover every inch of her, lace and all, with her mouth, her tongue, her hands, and—

“Yeah,” she says. “I am.”

“Something the matter?” asks Dani, so utterly dedicated to this flirtatious act of naivete.

“No, I’m good. Perfect.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yep.” Jamie turns to glance at the record player as “All Out of Love” comes on. “Cheery song.”

Dani’s act falters. She blushes. “I didn’t know this was on here. It’s...new.”

Jamie frowns and walks over to the record player, reaching for the unfamiliar album sleeve. “Oh? What is it?”

She feels almost guilty for knocking Dani off her game, but she’s so desperately starved for context, for anything concrete to grasp onto so that she doesn’t just pounce, that she just waits for an answer. As it turns out, she doesn’t need one; the cover speaks for itself.

“Wait,” she says, looking it over. “Is this…?”

“You’re not allowed to laugh,” says Dani, pointing at her sternly.

Jamie smiles. “Not laughing. I just can’t believe you actually bought this.”

“The commercials were very convincing!”

“Did you actually call the place?” is her next question because she can’t imagine her girlfriend calling some commercial-boasted number to buy a four-record album named Secret Love just for this occasion. Jamie usually has to call and make her doctor’s appointments for her.

Dani blinks. “No,” she says. “I sent them a check.”

Jamie grins. Can’t help it. Loves Dani so very much at this moment. “Just one payment of $19.95?” she teases and it works: Dani smiles, too, looking less nervous by the second.

“It’s a good deal, you know,” she says.

“I never said it wasn’t.”

“You had a tone.”

“I did not have a tone.”

“Sure you did.”

Jamie isn’t actually sure how she’s managing to control herself anymore. That silk robe slipping off Dani’s shoulder looks so enticing; she wants to press her mouth to the skin it’s left uncovered. Wants other things, too—so many she can hardly decide where to start.

She sets the album back down and takes a few, slow steps towards her girlfriend. Still too far, but closer. “You went to all this trouble,” she says, “for me?”

Dani’s expression softens and she gets to her feet, moving closer. “Yeah, Jay. I did. We’ve just been...so busy lately, which is great! Don’t get me wrong! But...you’ve had so much on your plate and it’s stressful and I didn’t want us to...not get a Valentine’s Day. You know?”

Jamie isn’t sure what there is to say to that except for: “I love you.”

Another step forward and then Dani is grabbing her hands. “I love you, too,” she says, hypnotizing in this outfit, in this lighting, all the time. Her gaze sticks to the pale skin visible through the lace at Dani’s waist, so distracted that she hardly notices when she’s being turned around and pushed back toward the bed, gently guided by Dani’s hands on her shoulders to sit down on the mattress.

The mattress isn’t very tall, which means that, when Dani sinks to her knees, she’s only really a head shorter than Jamie. Her palms run up Jamie’s trouser-covered thighs, fingers curling around them a bit to guide them open a bit so that she can slide her body between them, get closer. Her body is fever-hot and Jamie has the sudden thought that she may not make it out of this surprise alive.

Dani has a knack for making her feel like she’s two seconds from a heart attack every time they’re intimate already. Now she’s wearing lingerie and looking at Jamie like that and Jamie doesn’t know where to put her hands, or where to settle her eyes.

The swell of Dani’s breasts is enticing, so she looks it over for a bit, and then there’s her freckled collarbones, the sleek and taut muscles of her neck. Her pink lips. Jamie feels hot, sweating in her clothes from the heat of the radiators.

Dani looks up at her, blue and brown eyes bright and eager beneath the flutter of her eyelashes. Normally, Jamie would be filling the air with mindless, nervous chatter, trying to calm herself down before the main event, but it feels different this time. The silence, save for the gentle croon of another sappy love song coming from the record player, seems sacred. She doesn’t want to break it for anything.

She curls her fingers in the ends of Dani’s hair, brushing it behind her shoulders, and then Dani is leaning up and she’s leaning down and they’re kissing. Dani’s hands fist the fabric of Jamie’s shirt right at her hips and Jamie cups her face and cranes her neck, and it’s too fucking hot. They should open a window. But Dani’s kisses are hungry and eager and there’s this knot of pain in Jamie’s chest because of it, so she doesn’t dare break away.

Instead, she lifts one of her hands and curves her fingers around Dani’s breast, pushing her palm against it to make the rough lace fabric brush against her nipple. Feels it poke up against her skin a bit and Dani’s answering moan vibrates her lips, flicking her tongue out to tickle the roof of Jamie’s mouth. Jamie scoots forward on the bed to be closer and lifts her other hand to do the same with Dani’s neglected breast.

“Jamie,” Dani pants as she rips her mouth away, eyes clenched shut, “this is supposed to be about you.”

Jamie smiles. “Trust me,” she says,“it is.”

Dani’s eyes open. “That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean, then?”

A long look of consideration. Jamie momentarily stops her movements at Dani’s chest. And then Dani unbuttons her trousers and starts tugging at them, saying, “Get these off. That’s what I mean.”

Jamie takes them off. Her shirt, too. Drops each of them to the floor carelessly, too eager for the next part to worry about where they land. In all the rush, Dani begins to slip the silk robe from her shoulders, but Jamie stops her with a shake of her head.

Says, “Leave it on,” with the sort of breathlessness that makes Dani smile.

She leaves it on.

Jamie brushes her thumb against Dani’s nipple and then trails her fingers up the bony press of her sternum. Cups her jaw and cranes her neck down to kiss her, hot press of lips together and Dani gasping into her mouth.

Wanting to be closer in a way this particular position won’t allow, she breaks away from the kiss and guides Dani up by the shoulders until she is sliding her knees onto the mattress on either side of Jamie’s thighs, straddling her. She rolls her hips down and now Jamie can feel the fabric covering Dani’s body against her own skin. Fears she’ll go mad from desire before she can do anything about it.

It’s cooler in just her underwear, certainly, but that doesn’t mean the friction of their bodies together isn’t creating a fine layer of sweat between them. Their legs slide together and Jamie is so wet, so ready, that it’s beginning to hurt a little.

She kisses Dani’s neck and slides her lips up to the corner of her jaw, to her earlobe. She nibbles a little, then scrapes her teeth down to her neck again. Nips at her pulse point then smoothes it over with her tongue. Dani curses against her hair, breath a hot spread across Jamie’s scalp as she rolls her hips down.

A moment later, her hand is working its way inside Jamie’s panties, fingertips brushing against her clit very lightly and it’s Jamie’s turn to curse.

“Fuck.”

Dani smiles, kisses her forehead. “Doing okay?” she asks, that impersonation of complete chastity back in her voice, in her lips, the way her head tilts flirtatiously as Jamie meets her eyes.

“Doing great,” Jamie manages through gritted teeth. She is fighting back the urge to simply reach between them and push Dani’s hand against her harder. She drops her head and presses her lips against one of Dani’s nipples through the lace, mouthing at it hotly and making Dani sag against her, a little boneless, with a moan.

Payback, she thinks, is definitely a bitch.

She can be one, too.

She grips Dani’s hips in that tight, fierce way that Dani likes—thinks it must be at least a little painful, but maybe that’s why Dani likes it—and rolls up into her hand in a way that pushes the back of it between Dani’s own legs.

“Jay,” breathes Dani, and her expression is purposefully seductive, playful even as she is genuinely reacting to Jamie’s movements. She flutters her eyelashes with the best of them and she is the only woman Jamie’s ever been with that can make her go mad just by smiling at her. “Lie back.”

Jamie doesn’t understand the order at first, can’t wrap her head around it because Dani’s fingers are circling her clit now. It isn’t until that hand pulls away and Dani gets back, slowly, to her feet to give her room that she gets it. It feels like every part of her is positively vibrating as she uses her hands to slide back and back. Lowers herself to the mattress all the way and tilts her chin down so she can watch her girlfriend climb up her body in this ridiculously erotic and mind-numbing way.

“God, how are you not naked yet?” she asks, pressing her lips to Jamie’s breastbone, dipping down to tongue at the edge of her bra.

“How are you not fucking me yet?” Jamie returns, just to see Dani’s reaction—the way her cheeks go even pinker, the way she blinks in surprise at her sudden vulgarity.

She swallows thickly. “Patience is a virtue, you know.”

“Not when you look like that it’s not.”

Dani tugs the left cup of Jamie’s bra down and ducks her head to hide the way her expression changes, lips curling around Jamie’s nipple. Jamie can feel her smiling. “Like what?”

“You’re a tease, you know that? You’re such a bloody tease.”

Her mouth moves down to Jamie’s ribcage. “Would you like to lodge a formal complaint?” she asks.

Jamie curls her fingers into her girlfriend’s hair and cranes her neck to get a better look at her in that damned lingerie. “If you don’t touch me soon then yeah, I would.”

She feels the blunt edge of Dani’s teeth below her belly button, scraping down to the waistband of her panties. “Your request has been noted,” says Dani, her voice even and sort of mockingly robotic. “Please allow three to four business for—”

Jamie’s laugh cuts her off, fingers combing through her hair until Dani finally lifts her eyes to look at her again. “Dani, I love you,” she says.

“I love you, too.”

“But you have to do something, or I’m going to—”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Dani catches the edge of Jamie’s panties between her teeth and begins to pull them down like that, laughing around the material as Jamie wiggles and shifts her hips, giggling like a maniac, to try and help. Eventually, hands are required to finish the job. Jamie isn’t actually sure what Dani was thinking.

Goofy, ridiculous Dani. She’s the only woman Jamie’s ever loved, the only woman she’s been able to laugh in bed with, and she went out and bought sexy lingerie, called a number from a commercial to get the proper mood music, sat here on their bed on Valentine’s Day to surprise her.

Jamie doesn’t understand her life, doesn’t understand how she could possibly ever deserve this.

Once her panties are all the way gone and Jamie is naked, save for her bra, Dani’s eyes linger between her legs, a loose smile fixed on those pretty lips. “There you are,” she says.

“There I am,” Jamie exhales, shakily. “Now—”

She should be expecting it, but she isn’t, and so Jamie makes the most embarrassing sound ever when Dani’s tongue first makes contact. An electric shock between her legs, a match being struck, and she arches a little too much off the bed, one of her arms going back so she can comb her fingers through her own hair. Slams her eyes shut to keep from coming almost immediately—this won’t be her only chance, she’s sure of it, but she wants this first one to last—and then has to look, so she opens them back up.

And Dani is always a sight between her legs like this, but she’s on her knees and bent down in a way that makes her breasts hang deliciously, bumping a bit as she licks and curls her lips around Jamie’s clit. Jamie brings her other hand down and brushes her hair out of the way, over her shoulder, so she can see her mouth work.

“Fucking fuck, Dani,” she says, so eloquent with a beautiful woman bobbing between her legs.

Dani hums in response and Jamie can’t help it, groans a little too loudly. That fucking silk robe and the contrast of purple lace to pale skin, blonde hair fisted in her hand, and then Dani brings one of her hands up and slips a finger inside and Jamie feels, very suddenly, like she is splitting apart at every seam that’s ever kept her together.

The sound of Dani fucking her like this is almost obscene. It’s slick and loud, the suction of her mouth audible as she alternates movements against Jamie’s clit. She’s smiling despite how busy her mouth is and then she slips a second finger in, then a third.

It’s so hot, sweat pearling on her chest and forehead. Her hair feels damp at the base of her skull, she feels sort of like she has a fever but everywhere, and fuck—

She nearly bites through her bottom lip as she comes, trying to keep quiet. Her pulse drums like waves on the shore as it whitewashes through her ears, her veins.

Dani pulls back, licking her lips clean sloppily and her eyes are so dark that Jamie feels like she's burning again in moments.

“Come here,” she croaks, propping herself up on her elbows. Hopes that Dani knows what she means.

She must, though, because she doesn’t come up on the side of the bed. Instead, she just straddles Jamie’s waist, giving Jamie a full and uninterrupted view of what she’s wearing again.

“God,” is the next thing she says. Then, “You know how to pick ’em, huh?” as she tugs a bit on the end of the robe.

Dani smiles, somehow shy despite everything else. “You like it then?” she asks, like she has no idea, like she didn’t just fuck Jamie stupid while wearing the sexiest thing to ever exist. “Successful Valentine’s Day?”

Jamie rolls her eyes affectionately. “And the award for Understatement of the Year goes to—”

Dani pushes at her shoulder, giggling. “Hey,” she says. “Give me a break. I stuck out like a sore thumb in the shop I got this from.”

“I doubt that.”

“No, really! Like, three shop girls came over to help me because I was so lost.” She looks so sincerely flustered by this that Jamie can’t help but be endeared by it. “They kept asking me what my ‘boyfriend’—” and she uses air quotes there, “—likes to see me in. What his favorite color is.”

Jamie laughs. “What did you say?”

“I told them I didn’t have a boyfriend.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And what did they say to that?”

“They asked me what my husband likes then.”

Jamie nearly chokes on her tongue from laughing so hard. Almost knocks Dani to the floor, too.

And, yeah, it’s a pretty successful Valentine’s Day.

#damie #damie fic #damie prompt #dani x jamie #thobm #thobm fic #the haunting of bly manor #dani/jamie fanfic #dani/jamie #3k #smut #like #smutty smut

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mistical52 · 3 years

Text

Death Makes a Villain Out of Us

I'm putting this up for 'Going Angst Week'. But It's also in the same AU as the comic I'm working on. Just as a warning please read the tags first. I also have this on Ao3 if you like that format better. Prompt: Death.

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Valerie's breath caught in her throat and squeezed at her lungs. Her heart pounded at an odd rhythm. Oh god, oh god.

Valerie had dropped by Mr Masters mansion to get some upgrades to her suit before she headed to college for the day. But when her suit pinged a massive amount of ghost energy in the area Valerie didn't wait for an invite and burst into the mansion. She then followed the energy and hoped that Mr Masters was safe.

But when Valerie reached the lab, she knew it was bad.

Even in the dim light, Valerie could see the carnage. The lights were blown and most of the light illuminating the lab came from the ghost portal at the far wall. Instruments were destroyed and scattered across the floor. The lab glowed faintly with splatters of ectoplasm which painted the lab in its unnatural horror. Valerie saw no traces of ghosts upstairs, so whatever it was it must have come out of the portal. There was no other way in. Unless the ghost somehow got past Mr Masters’ ghost shield.

Then Valerie saw it and instantly bile rose and she had to force back her gut wrenching gag.

There was blood on the floor, accompanied by chunks of something Valerie couldn't name. She wasn't even sure it was human. Until she saw the largest part. And those, those were definitely ribs. Fuck they were human ribs still connected to the spine, and some muscle. Whoever that was, they were completely torn apart.

Valerie took a shaky step towards it and god, oh god, there was a tie around the person's neck. She recognised that tie.

Valerie started shaking. That person who was scattered across the lab was Vlad Masters.

How was she going to tell Danny that Mr Masters was dead too?

Valerie took a step back and looked anywhere other than at what was left of Mr Masters.

That's when she spotted another light source, it looked like pale blue fire.

Her suit was beeping at her. A ghost was right in front of her. Valerie focused on the fire and saw the rest of the form. Valerie wasn't sure about the size of the ghost, they were hunched over something Valerie couldn't see. They had green skin and pointed ears.

Instincts took over steading her hands and calming her breaths, "Hands up ghost," Valerie spat as she raised her gun. That ghost had killed Mr Masters. She would avenge him.

The ghost stiffened then glanced over their shoulder.

Blood red eyes locked with hers and that sent chills straight through her spine.

The ghost turned back to whatever they were holding and started to gently brush it.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!"

"I don't care," came a cracked whisper.

"You killed Vlad Masters and I'm going to get payback. Now stand up and face me!"

"He deserved it!" The ghost hissed his voice deep and unnatural. He clutched tighter to what was on his lap.

Then Valerie noticed the shoes sticking out from the ghost's lap. Dread filled her gut. She knew those shoes.

"Get the fuck away from them!" Valerie growled.

The ghost's gaze snapped to Valerie and it snarled, showing its fangs.

Valerie's gun whined as it powered up, "Get away from Dani you monster!"

The ghost slipped Dani from his lap and in one fluid motion spun to face Valerie with his feet planted on the ground between Dani and Valerie.

"You can't have her. I won't let you take her!" The ghost snarled.

Valerie shot and the ghost threw up a shield.

With the new light, Valerie got a better look at the ghost. Her eyes narrowed when she saw the familiar symbol, body shape and facial features. Phantom had gotten larger and more ghostly over the years. But the green skin and fire hair were new.

Valerie ran to the left and shot behind the shield, "You've gone too far this time Phantom!"

Phantom just snarled as he dropped the shield and lunged at her.

Valerie narrowly dodged his claws, "You killed Vlad Masters and you hurt Dani!"

"Vlad got what he deserved! He killed her! Dani's dead!" He roared as he started to swing again.

Valerie could barely think. Dani was dead?

Phantom stopped mid-swing, "Dani's dead," he said quietly, his eyes wide and unfocused, "she's dead, she's dead, she's dead."

Phantom lowered his hand and slowly turned back to Dani. He took a step towards Dani and Valerie raised her gun again.

"You stay away from her!"

Phantom just kept walking towards Dani like he was possessed. Before Valerie could shoot a ring of light slid over Phantom. When the light died Danny Fenton stepped out and walked towards Dani with the same lost look as Phantom.

Valerie couldn't, Phantom was Danny Fenton?

"I'm sorry Dani, I'm sorry Dani," said Danny as he dropped to his knees beside the unmoving Dani. "Why did you leave me? Why did you leave me alone? He killed all of them and now he's killed you. You were supposed to stay away. He only wanted me."

Danny gently gathered Dani into his arms, his voice breaking, "I'm sorry Dani. I'm sorry Dani. Please don't leave me."

#going angst week #going angst week 2021 #Danny Phantom #tw character death #tw blood #tw gore #tw language #swearing #I have descriptions of gore and blood so please don't read if you don't like it.#dp #Danny Phantom Double or Nothing #Danny Phantom DoN #Spoilers for Danny Phantom Double or Nothing #angst

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alcalexandria · 3 years

Text

The Most Important Person In The World - Pt. 3: "Free Radical"

"The whole thing goes... 'The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.' "

[Continued from "Pt. 2: The Prophet"]

Dani closes her chapter of the story with a vow - not to save the world, or prevent the war or defeat the machines, or anything so grand as that. Her mission is something far more personal: she promises she will prevent Grace from dying for her again.

Everything else may be necessary for that, but it's secondary. Becoming Commander, forming a resistance, winning the war, all of that is incidental. She understands her cycle can be broken, and her aim, explicitly, is to do that. She means to break the cycle and so spare Grace from its next iteration.

When the smoke clears in 2020 though, Dani can come to Grace’s body to say a goodbye in person. She is not alone, because Sarah is with her. When we hear Grace’s name being called, it's not in unheard despair by either of these characters, or even by uncaring bystanders; but by Grace’s blood family, echoing through from the next scene.

Sarah didn't make the same vow for Kyle in 1984. And realistically, she couldn't have; she had no reason to think it was even possible. And for anybody else, that could well have been true. When the smoke cleared then, she was taken away from the scene calling Kyle’s name, and his body was removed by faceless strangers in uniforms - nobody seemed to hear, nor care to.

Unlike Sarah's nightmares of playgrounds, where she would scream and scream unheeded by the doomed before they burn, Dani must keep silent and remain a bystander for everyone's sake. And so for all these people, the only hope is as unknown to them as the danger itself. That hope is slim, but - we know - not zero.

There we see Grace at maybe 10 or 11 years old. She is in a playground, protectively hovering around a little boy who will die in the next 3 or 4 years, along with nearly everyone else. The boy is probably her little brother, and Grace won’t be able to save him, any more than she will be or was able to save Diego. Or to save Dani’s father; or her own, or their mothers, or any of the other people in this place, this city, this state, this country, this continent, or almost anyone else on the face of the Earth.

Dani and Sarah have presumably taken quite a risk and done quite a bit of detective work just to get this close, without even Grace's surname to track down, which speaks to quite a turnaround from Sarah's rejection of sentimentality earlier in the movie.

In fact, where is Kyle Reese now?

But it raises a question on her own behalf. While Sarah's taking Dani to visit the Harper family... why doesn't she visit Kyle?

The answer to that is wrapped up in some fairly heady stuff about Sarah's role in this timeline (and indeed, any other possible ones, from her point of view) and really, lies at the heart of these posts and their premise. But we'll get to that.

Canonically, the last time we saw Kyle was in a body bag in T1 - but for most people, the last time they actually saw him was in the extended cut of T2 (T2 is an oddity, in that the extended version has almost completely supplanted the theatrical cut in collective memory - if you've seen the scene with the learning chip, that's the extended version).

In this extended scene, Sarah has another one of her strangely prophetic dreams, imagining him coming to her in her Pescadero asylum cell. He prompts her renewed efforts towards an escape, for John's sake, and he reminds her of the message; the message, sent from the future for her with him - that there is no fate but what we make for ourselves.

It’s the most iconic line of these movies, the good guys' mantra, but it's a line with a really odd career. It's never actually said in T1 at all - though it’s in the script twice, and the "future's not set" wind up is intact. The closest we get to hearing it in T1 at all is having Sarah say it to Kyle in a deleted scene - and even then, she does so as if repeating something back to him that he’s never actually said to her, so it doesn't even make sense.

We might next hear it in the above dream sequence in T2 – technically also a deleted scene – when Sarah imagines Kyle saying it. But again, it's said as if he did before, as if it was part of their history together.

Later, young John Connor will tell the T800 about it – canonically, in all versions – as if all these prior scenes really did take place, by way of explaining how his mother thinks, what she's instilled in him, and what she is likely to try to do. He says the whole thing as if the audience is expected to be familiar with all its history and resonance, even though they can't be.

So it’s been Mandela-effected backwards into a key ideal of both the first two movies. But not only is the line itself something of a retcon, it’s actually not even true to both movies if we think about it.

T1, as we've already covered, is a sealed loop. General John Connor has sent Kyle back to ensure he is born and will be there to win the war in future, but he doesn’t intend to change the past – he means only to secure it, so he will still, ultimately, win the war. He is ensuring things play out the way they have before, the way they’re supposed to.

Even if we treat General John's cut “No fate” message though Kyle as canon then, he doesn’t seem to believe it - his entire strategy depends on "fate", it depends on his inevitable rise and victory. He not only keeps Kyle from understanding his real part in it, he actively steers him towards it, by supplying him with a photo of Sarah and mythologising her as a "legend" Kyle will take a suicide mission just to meet.

Kyle may believe he makes his own fate - but the guy who gave him that idea doesn't, or at least doesn't act like it, and ensures Kyle can't either.

It's actually only the next movie, T2, which establishes the motto as more than a piece of rhetoric, as a true and meaningful idea.

More specifically, it's Sarah - personally - who makes it meaningful.

Midway through the movie, in the wake of another prophetic doomsday dream, Sarah comes to a radical decision - having decided she’s unwilling to simply surrender to fate, to let things play out the way they’re meant to - at the cost nearly six billion lives and her son’s chance at some kind of normal future - she will go on the offensive.

She sets out for this assault with one final declaration of intent.

Instead of simply protecting her son from this threat or the next, like she's been told she's fated to do, Sarah resolves to brute force the loop open instead - to break the timeline and change the future. It's not enough to win. She’s going to prevent the war in in the first place, by preventing the enemy being born - a poetic reversal of Skynet's attack on her in '84.

Whereas young John Connor could recite "the whole thing" like a prayer, and Kyle relayed it as a message learned by rote, Sarah has whittled it down further, into something far more like a battle cry. Just as she's honed herself and her body down to its keenest edge, she's reduced this idea to two words, and altered its meaning - subtly but significantly - in the process. She's no longer promising to reject the fate set out for another of her own making - now, she's declaring she'll reject fate itself.

Her plan is to destroy every germ and seed of what will some day be Skynet, and so prevent it from ever even existing to be fought. She attacks the military contractor who will one day build it, she destroys the artifacts, data and facility key to the research, and - in something I do wish Dark Fate had addressed directly - she attempts to assassinate the genius leading the development, the brilliant and tragic Miles Dyson.

Ultimately, with no small sacrifice (not least of the heroic Dyson himself) she does. She successfully scrubs the foundation of Skynet from the present, and stops Skynet from ever coming to be, aborting the future it ruled over. Having derailed the preordained future, Sarah closes the movie uncertain where they will go from there - sure only that she prefers an unknown future to one as dark as that mapped out otherwise.

The result of this is that Cycle 1 is now broken, irreversibly. Like a freight train missing a fork in the track, there is no route back to the future we've seen in Kyle's dreams and Sarah's nightmares.

T2 is such an iconic story by now it’s hard to stress how radical a shift that was from everything T1 laid down six years before – Sarah pulls off something that, as far as we knew until then, was completely impossible within the “rules” of the Terminator universe.

T1 has already established that time travel works in Bootstrap Loops – in other words, that you can’t really change the past, because anything you can possibly do has already been absorbed into your present. In a sense, your actions have already taken place and been accounted for.

T2 – or rather Sarah – says fuck that. She kicks that Bootstrap Loop out the fucking window. She does something which didn’t happen in any previous loops, something completely unprecedented and new even to any previous version of herself, and in so doing hijacks the whole course of reality. The idea of doing anything like this was proposed in T1 only so Kyle could explicitly dismiss it - but she goes ahead and does it anyway.

In breaking the loop, she creates a Grandfather Paradox - an impossible contradiction, where a time traveller can set in motion events which mean they’d never be sent back in time to set them in motion.

The name comes from a thought exercise – what would happen if you went back in time to kill your own Grandpa? Well, you could never be born, obviously, so you could never go back to kill your Grandpa. So that couldn't have happened... although it did.

Where a Bootstrap Loop is self-sustaining, a Grandfather Paradox makes itself impossible.

Source

In any theory of time travel, Bootstrap Loops and Grandfather Paradoxes should be mutually exclusive, so there's no way Sarah can know a Grandfather Paradox is even really "allowed" by reality at the point she makes the decision to trigger one. The great General John Connor may have preached there was no fate, but even his imagination doesn't seem to have stretched this far.

And why would it? The fact Sarah pulls it off just about a miracle, but even attempting it in the first place is irrational. It's an all or nothing bet to make based on nothing. She has only ever experienced the effects of a Bootstrap Loop, in T1, and as far as she knows that’s all that can happen. Even Skynet, a world-conquering warfighting AI, was entirely unable to anticipate her pre emptive attack, as if it was so irrational as to be beyond conceptualising, again inviting the question that maybe Sarah really is a little crazy now.

And just crazy enough to see outside the edges of the moviescreen a little bit, perhaps. Again we're presented with the prospect Sarah has a range of vision beyond what she really should from within the story - Sarah gambles everything on this, the possibility that she might be able to break the rules of her own movie. It’s hard to even think of another fair comparison, where the whole underlying logical device of the first movie is deliberately defeated by a character in the second.

Her narration over T2 and the other Cameron movies makes this prospect even more complicated. Sometimes she narrates in First Person, as the Sarah Connor we’re seeing onscreen. Other times, her narration is actually a recording she’s making within the movie, for John’s benefit later.

But Narrator-Sarah can also speak with apparently impossible omniscience. At the beginning of Dark Fate, she’s even able to present and describe to us two contradictory versions of the same moment, and we are shown both in full colour.

One of those is a version which never happened, will never happen; that she’s even aware it might have otherwise in makes her unique. She is its last remembrancer. With the deaths of Kyle, John and Dyson (and later Carl), with her destruction of all the physical relics of that timeline, the last trace of that future is Sarah’s memory, her experiences, her subjective understanding of reality.

But Sarah Connor's perspective, in Terminator, is all.

By preventing Skynet coming about, Sarah should in theory also be retroactively deleting her son, since Kyle Reese will now never be sent back to meet her. Never mind the future - she should be retrospectively changing her own past.

But that doesn’t happen – John dies, but he has inarguably existed. Even if T2 means he will never become the guy Kyle knew, he has not been unravelled out of reality simply because his father could never have fathered him - just as Carl doesn’t stop existing simply because the future won’t ever build him. John did exist, and somewhere in Guatemala there is an occupied grave to prove it.

When Kyle Reese comes back from 2029 to protect Sarah in 1984, he’s about 25. The nuclear apocalypse he tells Sarah about was supposed to take place in 1997. Unlike Grace, he has no memories of a world before the war, because he himself was born in 2004; his parents would have met in what was meant to be the post Judgment Day world.

Which brings us all the way back to our first question. What of John's father? Where is Kyle Reese?

And in a world where Judgment Day didn’t happen? They won’t meet at all.

The chances of the same two people meeting in our 2004 as would meet in that one are remote, as are the chances of any couple already together both making it through J-Day are slim to none.

In other words - Kyle isn't anywhere.

By thwarting Judgment Day, Sarah isn’t just living into a future where Kyle will be sent back to die in 1984, she’s prevented Kyle from existing at all. By averting Judgment Day she didn't just save her son, she's changed the course of reality for everyone else, forever.

Tim Miller confirms this here about 3 minutes in - https://collider.com/tim-miller-terminator-dark-fate-interview/

As we see with John and Carl, artefacts from the aborted future can continue to exist - but only so long as they’ve made it into her version of the world before she changes something, does something new.

Perhaps those other aborted timelines continue to exist off in some limbo somewhere outside “our” Sarah’s access - but they’re irrelevant to her now.

They’re irrelevant to us, too - Sarah’s “subjective experience” is also apparently our experience of the Terminator universe. The three movies now considered canon are distinguished by the fact they’re Sarah’s – and this Sarah’s, Linda Hamilton’s Sarah – subjective experience.

From this it seems we can take it that what has happened will always have happened if it happened to this iteration of this woman.

We can sense that, as audience members – we have seen events in memory and flashback that not only won’t happen in her world, the “canon” world, they haven’t happened when they “should” have. But they only count when they're experienced by Sarah, "our" Sarah.

Throughout the course of the franchise we see multiple futures, multiple alternates, multiple memories from things that won’t come to pass – but it’s always made clear that the thing that matters is here, now, it’s what “present day” is for Sarah Connor, Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor.

The course of reality within the Terminatorverse then, and “canon” from outside of it, is defined entirely by Sarah’s subjective experience and the decisions she can make.

Her memories are real even if they're impossible, even if everyone else in the world tells her she's wrong to remember them. Her understanding of the future is more informed than theirs, even when it's not going to happen.

What she has done will always have been done. What she chooses to do from here is unbounded by the same rules that seemingly apply to everyone else.

In Dani and Grace’s cycle, as we've seen, Dani’s accounted for. Grace is accounted for. They have predefined roles, with predefined histories and futures. Commander Ramos and Grace both seem to understand that, and Ramos has tried, we’re told, everything to make it otherwise, to no avail. They are, in a sense, trapped, locked into a cycle of death and creation that’s beyond their own power – as far as we know – to change.

Dani needs Grace to save her to become Commander Ramos; Grace needs the Commander to save her, and drive her to become person who can travel back. Both women are essentially made who they are by the other. It’s a self-sustaining bootstrap loop that cannot, logically be broken.

Except, of course, it can. We know for a fact that such a thing can be done, because Sarah's done it, Sarah has demonstrably rewritten the course of reality. And understanding T1, T2 and DF as “canon”, she is apparently the only human being in history who has ever done it. John didn’t even try it. The world’s most advanced intelligence of 2029 couldn’t anticipate it, even to save itself from a half crazy luddite armed with 1995 industrial equipment.

The implications of that are far reaching. If the future is decided by Sarah’s experiences and decisions then, as far as we know, she is the only person in the entire Terminator universe we can be sure has true free will. Decisions she can make can warp or delete whole timelines, people, versions of the world. Things from other futures can arrive into her life and continue to have existed, even if the future they come from is aborted, even if it’s not the one she heads into, because they existed in the timeline she's on.

She can make new choices. She can switch lanes to different outcomes, even when that should be logically impossible. Sarah can create paradoxes. Sarah can use historic future knowledge of events which won’t happen to prevent them happening.

Maybe Dani or someone else can too - now - but we only know for sure that Sarah can, and in Dani's case, she's able to make her vow at the playground exactly because Sarah's gone before her. She doesn't need to wonder if such a Paradox is possible, because Sarah is proof.

So even then, if she does pull it off and manages to rewrite Grace's future, it's because of her contact with Sarah. She is armed with knowledge General Connor never had, and never could have had - that the future can be changed from the past. Her access, via Sarah, to the knowledge of the events of T1 and T2 has a direct bearing on the decisions she is able to make. Sarah may be an agent of chaos so potent she's contagious.

In a deleted earlier scene, Dani tells Sarah she hopes not to turn out like her – Sarah agrees. Forearmed with Sarah’s wealth of knowledge and perhaps untouched by some of her worst experiences, and under the influence of her chaotic sphere, she may not have to.

Moreover, having repeatedly interrupted or distorted Dani's cycle thanks to the foreknowledge granted by her own, Sarah remains the wild card in a loop that seems otherwise inviolable. Skynet barely knew who she was, and Legion doesn't seem to at all - but both have proven unable to predict or defend themselves from her decisions.

Grace doesn't know who she is - but neither does the Rev 9, as far as we can tell, and who can blame them. Even Skynet had to try killing every "Sarah Connor" in LA for lack of information on her movements. Sarah has rejected every fate set out for her - whether that's waiting tables or raising General Connor - and is simply unknowable beyond her own here and now.

Sarah's influence then, inside and outside the movies, is unique. Not only can she decide which futures to rule out, she may also be able to prompt others to do so, and her ideology and memory has echoed down regardless of which course results.

If any version of Grace is to survive 2021 or 2042, or however you want to reckon that, it will ultimately be because of the domino effect Sarah started in 1984, expressed explosively in 1991, and rode all the way to a highway in Mexico City. The last version of Commander Ramos failed to save Grace – but this version, the nascent one we see at the end of Dark Fate, is rolling with this Sarah, our Sarah, the one we’ve been rolling with for nearly 40 years. And this Sarah is the one who defines canon, reality, the future.

Having broken one cycle, Sarah would seem to be Dani's key to breaking the other, and so will be involved in redefining all known reality, for at least the second time.

(And in fact, we do have an idea of how that might work out)

In a particularly lovely meta moment, DF has Grace recite her own version of the No Fate mantra back to Dani in the cockpit - apparently unaware it's an inheritance passed down to her by Dani, from Sarah, tying all three women together in a single evolutionary strand. Though she didn't recognise Sarah the day before, what Grace believes in, faithfully and absolutely, is an ideal Sarah alone has managed to make real and pass on.

It's a tribute not just to the woman in the story, but to the impact of Sarah as an icon; whether she knows it or not, Grace is Sarah's descendant just as directly within the storyline as she is more abstractly as an action movie heroine. Characters like Grace (and Dani) simply wouldn't exist now as they do without the character Sarah Connor going before, and - in its own way - steering the future to come.

In the end, Sarah's legacy is not one guy or bloodline or battle doctrine or even catchphrase. She isn't just John Connor's mother or Dani's mentor or Grace's spiritual ancestor, though she's been all those things. Sarah is the Mother of the Future - every future we've seen so far. Whatever course she sets, her influence remains a constant.

It is, and always will be, Sarah Connor's world. The rest of us just get to live in it.

#The Terminator #Terminator 2: Judgment Day #Terminator: Dark Fate #Terminator Franchise #T:DF #Kyle Reese #Sarah Connor #Grace Harper #Dani Ramos #John Connor #Dark Fate #T2 #Terminator #scifi #MySarahConnorEssays #terminator dark fate #mackenzie davis #linda hamilton #natalia reyes

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larrythefloridaman · 3 years

Text

Y'all like your deities with or without the shell?

Under the readmore is aaaaaaaaall color god observations and musings based on them, because I am studying to become the world's Premiere Chromatheologian and RGB Understander so under the cut is pretty much Oops! All Spoilers! up to the most recent episode of season 3.

Apparently Universal Color God Attributes:

Damage to their domain hurts them, but fixing the issue, or lashing out by using their powers destructively, can help them to repair the damage.

If they sustain enough damage, it can temporarily paralyze them and send them into a strengthened but 'exposed' state (chartreuse's spirit activation in the last fight of 19) and further damage after that will activate a failsafe, which is unique by domain but seemingly designed to give them the chance to balance things, but can get… very out of hand or backfire depending on circumstances. (see: cobalt’s failsafe sending mark's universe into a never-ending apocalyptic war because word of the cure for death became too widespread for the killing urge failsafe to affectively balance anything because every side could simply revive their fallen.)

Chartreuse's failsafe is something of a stopped time bubble quarantine where processes that require the passing of time cannot complete, allowing her the time to wear down the offending party to beat them to death or plan around finishing them.

Cobalt's is inciting war, the casualties serving to balance the scale. I'm not sure we know Crimson's yet- he's never taken enough direct damage without doing damage to compensate in order to trigger it, although i dont remember season one well enough to recall if any of the universe stuff in it tracks with the pattern bc season one is a bit fucky

Connected in a fashion that allows them to simply Sense the overall status of the others to some extent, although they don't know Why theyre in the state theyre in without asking (chartreuse [and by extension, folk, presumably on her information] confronting crimson via crimsonaut for pretending to be dead, Cobalt confronting both his siblings about how they are handling their duties improperly but not knowing about Folk. He knew about the constants deaths because hes a death god, duh, but he didnt use their names like crimson did, possibly implying they're erased upon death so thoroughly that only crimson and the constants can really recall a shattered constants' existence, not even the other guardians.)

Abilities of the guardians can be replicated by mortals through three apparent methods- through machines (dimensional bus, the time machine, presumably J0hn's part in Sephiroth's resurrection,) simply through advanced enough individual skill (Home MD curing death, potentially Dantoinette's universe portal travel, maybe Genwun's sped up time bubble that evolved them into Genfour? although that could very well have just been an illusion and theyre just like, a fuckin theater kid that was doing pretend character development for the Bit or something given GenFive turned out to be a zoroark) or through stealing some of the power of the relevant god (Dr. Order stealing Chartreuse's power, Dani maybe having stolen some of Crimson's when she beat his ass. Dani's one woman universal travel is like, wicked ambiguous)

Cobalt:

Can seemingly perceive or act through any living material. (The Tree. Cobalt instructed Larry to slap his hand on that tree, that shit glowed and he had a new deal tattoo without Cobalt ever having been physically present)

Can influence the resurrected by giving them a killing urge. Represented by an aberrant brainwave and a ringing in the undead's heads. This doesnt appear to be direct control- as the Grunk could clearly restrain himself from killing people that genuinely didn't deserve it (like nightly and cha cha, who WERE grunk event targets but not fatally so. Nagito was a crimson thing so it really doesn't count here. God poor grunk his life really is just a constant plaything in the hands of the gods huh) and Sephiroth very much had personal motivation to want to kill Folk. failsafe activates this ability on the scale of war.

Deals. The extent of what Cobalt can do with these is unclear but Iggy's god powers were taken from him as his part in the deal so what he can take isn't limited to physical things or things obviously related to his domain.

Weaknesses:

Deals. While this ability is impressive his preference for making deals for those that offend against his domain is potentially very exploitable- Larry's knowledge of the cure for death is, if word of it were to ever get out beyond Larry, wildly dangerous for this dimension, so technically the safest thing for the iron-fisted cobalt to do would be to nip the problem in the bud and get rid of him. But, fascinatingly, that wasn't even put on the table, the first thing Cobalt does is threaten J0hn, prompting Larry to make a deal. While Cobalt enforces death, he also doesn't like unnecessary death, and Larry demonstrably knows how to keep a secret for the good of the world even at great cost to himself and Cobalt is aware of this- easily clarifying to Larry the aberrant thing endangering the universe wasn't his timeloop business. So while he's clearly not letting his resurrection fuckery go unpunished, he's being pretty merciful when he doesn't have to be and from a strictly, brutally pragmatic perspective probably shouldn't be.

His control over the undead manifests as a ringing and an aberrant brainwave trackable by J0hn's equipment, and could probably therefore be accounted for and circumvented? J0hn has, wisely, largely sworn off fucking with people's brains after the sephiroth fiasco went So Wrong, So Very Wrong, Oh God Oh Fuck Someone Cool Almost Died, but if he hadn't, and if J0hn let his dislike for authority and keeping Larry safe outweigh reason like he let safety, spite and comedic value outweigh good ethical sense when reprogramming sephiroth, in theory Mr. 'hacked a time machine for breakfast?' could. y'know. probably do it. what is a god's authority to an anarchist, what better to challenge life and death than the cold and eternal machine, you get the point its a fun scenario

Olive Garden Breadsticks and Small Cute Dogs, apparently

Chartreuse's:

Time Clones: taps into parallel timelines to retrieve alternate versions of herself to utilize.

Time Travel: what it says on the tin. Travel to the past creates painful splits in the prime timeline, but through careful action and traveling back into the past, these can be weaved into a time loop. A split from the timeline is a wound, and a successful timeloop is the surgical scar it can become with attentive care, to use a medical metaphor. Carefully closed and healing. Keeping Folk here is essentially akin to chartreuse pulling out her stitches on the initial incision.

Time Stopping: creates a space wherein things that take time to complete cannot complete, where things can move, but everything within is in a perfect unchanging stasis until the bubble drops. This is the form her failsafe takes.

Timeline Creation: can create timelines from scratch.

Can fuse alternate timeline versions of the same individual to allow them to coexist. (Ryan's confirmed in the discord that Dantoinette experienced both failures in 20, because Chartreuse fused the two instances of her to save the post-raid instance from fading. Could... theoretically do this to Folk and save herself the pain, but while Folk and Therapuppy are the same person, there's seven years and untold amounts of difference deriving from the time and circumstance between them and the inherent cognitive dissonances that would result from attempting that would be wicked fucked up to inflict, and that's assuming there isn't some reason that it wouldn't be possible anyway. while the two Danis had like. A day or so's difference between them, so she could be safely fused with the only dissonant thing being that she remembers both being too slow to prevent order's time escape and beginning to dissipate post-raid, AND losing that fight to her pre-raid. RIP Dani, that perfectionism must be kicking her ass)

Weaknesses:

Unwilling to use her powers destructively in her pursuit of domain repair and thereby much easier to damage to the point of paralyzing her, making her particularly vulnerable to Power Theft

Morally Optimistic. At one point in 19, she briefly justifies Crimson's shitty evil actions to herself after experiencing for herself how Wack the kerfuffleverse is firsthand, ("and all he did was kill a couple people!" Chartreuse. Honey.) and when she fights Crimsonaut she seems to actually believe for a second that he's actually worried about her when Crimson asks if she's okay after he beats her. Additionally, as D+, she concerns herself with trying to understand doctor order's motive, and after Larry defeats Order, he makes a point of confirming she feels no remorse before making his request for what Chartreuse does with her, and appeals to the idea of letting Order fulfill her desire to be a god in a way which isn't a problem for anyone and Chartreuse is more than happy to oblige under these conditions after what Larry's done for everybody. Then immediately threatens to evaporate him for playfully teasing her about having a crush on folk. Fucked up a little bit

Crimson's:

Universe Shifting: Travel between universes.

Universe Correction: appears to replace an aberrant individual with the 'correct' version of themselves for that universe, presumably sending them back to their own. (Mario from super mario was universe corrected, but still seemingly exists in wario form as evidenced by smashup kerfuffle, and was simply temporarily replaced with his corrected universe counterpart. But like. The dimensional bus system is still active crimbo doing the Put That Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me routine aint gonna work if they can come back with a shrug and bus fare. you're fighting the symptoms without treating the problem)

Universal Constants:

Three individuals per universe that serve as the pillars which stabilize said universe, created by absorbing red orbs Crimson creates. Becoming a constant grants power, but also makes the constant fragile, and death wipes them from the face of the multiverse, only crimson, those he's possessed and the other constants seemingly able to recall they ever existed, although some physical evidence is still left behind (Larry's record of Nagito's death, which is just as redacted as everything else relating to him but still is very much something Larry has. Kind of a Voidfish adventurezone type beat ironically enough? Taako really has seen all this shit before no wonder he peaced tf out)

To counterbalance the weaknesses the constants have, they have a sort of spidey-sense to alert them to danger, and an intrinsic bonded connection to their fellow constants, and additionally, Crimson apparently doesn't suffer any pain from the death of constants or the structural instability of a universe.

Possession: what it says on the tin! Seemingly can only be done with permission to living things- none of crimson's direct hosts seem to have entered that agreement unwillingly, Valentine lost a bet, Hamburger and Crimsonaut have been by all evidence intentional allies to Crimson- but electronics are fair game, as seen with The Guy's suit. Kinda curious how that rule applies to bitches that are half and half, like J0hn or the clonebot gang, as its unclear whether The Guy's suit was yoinkable without permission because it was mechanical or because its not sentient. could go either way but if it's the former that's potentially very frightening

Fusion: Two individuals from alternate universes can be fused into one shared body which can take on aspects of either depending on which is currently in control. (possibly allows someone who traveled into a given universe to become a fixed resident there without it being an issue for Crimson, whose job is to prevent interdimensional travel?) Monday Mark and possibly T.O.M. are our main examples.

Corruption:

Unpleasant As Hell and can even kill you instead of changing you if you cant handle it.

turns the corrupted individual into a twisted exaggeration of themself, allows them supernatural control over their shape, and makes them very difficult- if not impossible by traditional means- to kill, based on Garfield.

Subjects them to control by Crimson, but can be exorcised of this influence just like crimson's direct hosts can, although the supernatural changes to their physiology are seemingly permanent, judging from Shantae.

Notable Weaknesses:

Exorcism can be performed to free a possessed or corrupted individual of Crimson's influence. Its unclear how exorcism works/is learned in CPUK, but confirmed exorcists: dantoinette and yung papaya's snake dad, confirmed non-exorcists: folk

The universal constant orbs are physical objects so they are Very Stealable and they grant a power boost so theres literally an Incentive to beat his ass for anybody who wants to be strong and either doesnt know or doesn't care about the whole 'getting erased when you die' part

Crimson has lots of tools to create pawns, but all of them have drawbacks. Corruption could kill a potential pawn, possession generally seems to require permission, and he has no control over the constants' choices and actions

Manipulative bitch's highest stat is charisma and it shows. This motherfucker is selling snake oil. If he was mortal rather than a Whole Entire God he'd make an excellent ineffectual saturday morning cartoon supervillain and i think everyone, including him, would be happier for it, ngl

Something interesting ive realized that likely wasnt fully intentional, is that a lot of Dr. Order's creations, considering her motive, can kind of be sorted by a color god it appears to be a crude attempt at mimicking the abilities of. My Grunk is a poorly executed resurrection, the clonebot gang vs chartreuse's timeclones (this one deserves special mention because Chartreuse used this shitty attempted mimicry to her advantage with D+, very smart and ironic play, excellent job Treusy,) spirits are somewhat similar to universal constant orbs (orbs which can be absorbed to grant power, but which have physical repercussions- key differences being that spirits require activation and grow stronger while attuning to a user without being used, and having far less severe drawbacks, taking a heavy toll on the body, but only once they've worn off and without the risk of wiping yourself from the face of existence,) and she also augmented Perfect Spriteman and Larry, which kind of track as crude imitations of Crimson's corruption!

Garfield was an acerbic cat who loved food and hated mondays, now its an actively malicious ever-hungry amorphous entity whose only weakness is monday and whose only consistency in form is 'cat-like.'

Shantae was (to my extremely limited understanding of shantae,) a friendly heroic type who had to introduce herself often, and she became something akin to a biblically accurate angel that can *only* introduce herself.

The Grunks a tough but sweet and supportive single dad with stage presence and a tendency to fly off the handle when he or his family are slighted, and now he gets so hype in the audience when his son does well that he bursts into flames and ascends and we get random grunk events along with the associated murder charges when he gets mad and the target sucks enough that he doesn't hold himself back from killing them.

Perfect Spriteman and Larry fit the trend of exaggeration of already present traits- Spriteman fucking loves sprite and became something that only thinks about sprite, and Larry the Florida Man, characterized from minute one by unpredictability and who spent his first matches in the series pre-shapeshifter transformation staying alive keeping stocks for Shockingly Long even despite getting seventh, became literally physically random as well as developing the ability to regenerate, albeit with the ability to feel pain normally very much intact, unlike Garfield just... Soaking up damage like its nothing in his pursuit of Jon. The fact that Arbuckle legit defeated Garfield, even temporarily, is terrifyingly impressive honestly that dude is fucking built different for being so chronically bland

i dont think they're actually corrupted in any meaningful way we have to worry about, to be fully clear, Spriteman was cured with fucking antacids, i simply think they could be a fucked up attempt at making something that kind of seems like it from a functional standpoint, from the wannabe god doctor that brought us green clones whose only fundamental association with time was accelerated aging and who thought an actively rotting corpse thats just reanimated enough that it can throw hands was as good as curing death

#cpu kerfuffle #cpuk cobalt #cpuk chartreuse #cpuk crimson #im like. 80% all this info is correct but im not feeling up to rewatching matches to doublecheck rn ngl asdsfgfghgfhfgsdf #will probably edit with fixes if im misremembering smthn later

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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Note

For the Meet Ugly Prompts-38, NSFW Danbrey?

Here you go! Note: there are mentions of blood in this.

38: overhear you ordering your coffee in a coffee shop and I’m trying to place your voice when I realize that you’re the phone sex operator I’ve been calling on and off for the last few months but the realization startles me so much that I accidentally spill my drink on you and you’re pissed

“One spiced mocha, one oatmilk latte!”

Aubrey reaches for her mocha just as a painfully cute blonde in overalls grabs the latte.

“Oh, excuse me” the blonde calls over the counter, “could I get a lid, it looks like you’re all out at the station. Thanks, you’re the best.” She smiles at the teenager who hands he the lid while Aubrey tries to figure out where she’s heard “thanks, you’re the best” said that exact way before.

Oh shit. Oh shit.

She’s heard that voice every Tuesday and Friday when she calls LoveBites, the premiere service for people who really like vampires. Really, really, like vampires.

Honeysuckle, as the woman on the other end of the line calls herself, probably isn’t a vampire. Aubrey figures most of the people who work that line are just very good at pretending to be fictional monsters. She is, however, incredibly good at getting Aubrey to cum with vivid descriptions of where she’s going to sink her teeth.

“AH! Hey, watch what you’re doing.”

Aubrey snaps back to the coffee shop to discover her drink is now all over Honeysuckles shoes.

“Ohmygod, I’m, I’m so sorry.” She grabs a fistful of napkins, drops down to clean the mess of coffee and chocolate syrup from the floor. She reaches to help clean off the other woman's shoes only for her to wave her away.

“It’s fine, I got itshit” she glares as Aubrey, in her attempt to get out of her space, stands too quickly, bumping her head into Honeysuckle’s cup and sending it all over both of them.

Okay, she can totally salvage this. Right?

----------------------------------------------

“...then I just ran away.”

Duck laughs so hard on the other end of the phone that he startles Dr. Harris Bonkers.

“Oh come on, like you’ve never done something embarrassing in front of someone cute.”

“Dunno, you might have just beaten my ‘six Freudian slips in a row trying to ask ‘Dird how his weekend was.’”

“Ugggggggggggggggh.”

“It’s okay, Lady Flame” he manages to sound genuinely sympathetic through his giggles, “lots of cute folks out in the world who you ain’t spilled two cups of coffee on.”

“Yeah.” She checks the neon orange clock on the wall, “I gotta go practice my tricks for this weekend. Thanks for listening to me whine.”

“Any time, Aubrey. See you at the show.”

She gets through two tricks, including the one where Dr. Harris Bonkers disappears from a box, but she can’t focus. It’s not nerves; instead, she feels like if she got off just once, she’d stop feeling so tense and be able to run through the rest of her act without issues.

It’d be a very bad idea to call LoveBites when she spilled a drink on her favorite operator. She doesn’t feel like talking someone new through her preferences, and she knows with Honeysuckle she’s guaranteed to get off, which wasn’t always the case with previous operators. Besides, the length of her calls must be enough to pay for a replacement drink.

She grabs her phone and dials. Soon a familiar voice purrs down the line.

“Hi, Aubrey. How’s my favorite human tonight?”

“Good?”

“You don’t sound so sure about that, fireblossom.” It’s a new pet name; ever since she mentioned her stage name, Honeysuckle likes to give her ones woven through with flames.

“I, um, I'm fine?”

“Did something happen today, hot stuff?”

“Uhhhhh. Um. I, uh, I made a fool of myself in a coffee shop. I, um, I spilled my drink on a cute girl. Also hers.”

Honeysuckle goes quiet.

“I, um, I think the person I spilled them on was you.”

“..............spiced mocha?”

“Yeeeeah” Aubrey curls inwards, trying to cringe away from her phone, “I’m really sorry about your shoes. And your overalls. And your drink. I, um, I wasn’t gonna mention it but it feels, like, weird not to and I really was going to offer to replace your coffee except I was kinda worried I’d somehow spill that too. I’m, I’m sorry. I just really like talking with you.” She smiles shyly, “you’re my favorite vampire.”

Dead air, then “you really want to make it up to me with another drink?”

“Yes!” Aubrey sits up, hopeful.

“Even if the drink isn’t coffee?”

“Sure it, it can be whatever you want.”

A hungry purr that makes Aubrey reach for her trusty vibrating wand, “In that case, don’t go anywhere.”

“What? But you’re-”

The line goes dead. Aubrey stares at it, frowning. What is she supposed to do now? Did they get disconnected accidentally? Should she just call back?

She shoves the toy back in the drawer, paces back and forth between the kitchen counter and the table where her cards and flashpaper are strewn about, unsure whether she should make dinner, practice, try to get off, or just give up on everything and go to bed.

From his hutch in the corner, Dr. Harris Bonkers honks, thumps his feet in alarm, then turns his bugged-out eyes on Aubrey and thumps again as if to say, “what the fuck, why aren’t you heeding my warning?”

“Aww, it’s okay buddy. Is that cat on the fire escape again?” She looks out the window, finds nothing but some mist. Mist that’s hovering on her tiny balcony and no one elses. She blinks.

Honeysuckle is standing on the other side of the glass; she’s wearing a loose green tank top and grey yoga pants, golden hair taking on the tint of the nearby streetlights. She gives a demure wave as Aubrey throws the back door open.

“Holy fuck I thought the vampire thing was just, like, a gimmick.”

A shrug, “There’s more humans than vampires working the line, but some of us are the real deal. I know a few vampires who do it because it lets them work nights and keep an actually nocturnal schedule. But some of us do it as a side job and go out during the day. Which means we see cute girls in coffee shops who we think we might ask out who then spill drinks on us.”

“Aw beans. Wait, were you checking me out for real.”

“Uh huh. You must have been doing something super interesting on your phone to not notice.”

Aubrey resolves to delete Candy Crush immediately.

“Um, so, not that I’m not happy to see you again, but like how did you find my house?”

“We can trace numbers on our end. It’s a security thing; back when the line started some hunters kept trying to use it to go after vampires, so we needed to know where calls were coming from.”

“Blegh, that sucks.”

“Yeah, not my favorite.” She flutters her eyelashes, “any chance I could come in?”

“Absolutely, uh, here” she holds the door--which has no risk of closing without a lot of force--so the vampire can step into the apartment.

“Do I, um, should I still just call you what I always have?”

Golden eyes look her up and down hungrily, “Dani is fine.” Then she squeaks, “ooooh, hi there little guy, can I say hi? Oop, okay, some other time.” Dani smiles as the rabbit ducks into his covered box, “animals can be kind of skittish around me at first. Which makes sense.” When she turns to look at Aubrey, her fangs are visible.

“Hooboy that’s, that’s, uh-”

Dani steps back, “I can back off. I just, um, I thought since we’re both into each other and you were, um, already in the mood for some lovebites maybe we could -”

“NoItotallywantto!” Aubrey grabs her hand, pulling her towards the bedroom, “sorry, the fangs are apparently an insta-horny button in my brain.”

“Good to know” Dani spins her by her shoulders and pushes her back onto the bed, fangs now on full display, “take your clothes off, fireblossom.”

Aubrey thanks herself from two hours ago for changing into her pajamas so she doesn’t have much to rid herself of. When she gets her shirt off, Dani is down to her underwear, green boyshorts showing off her legs and completely distracting Aubrey from any unwelcome self-consciousness.

“Mmmmmm” Dani crawls onto the bed with her, “I thought you were cute before but fuck, you look incredible like this.”

“Thanks” Aubrey’s breath catches as Dani bumps their noses together, “can, can I kiss you?”

“Please.”

She raises up on her elbows, mapping Dani’s mouth with her own. Aubrey’s kissed plenty of people in her life, and there have only been a few where the gesture felt like coming home, like she was slotting against a body that was meant to be with hers. All of those pale in comparison to the way Dani’s body seems to meld with hers. She gasps when the vampire cups her right breast, teasing the nipple with her thumb as she eases Aubrey all the way down. Her other hand finds her face, traces from there to the base of her neck, touches moving from light to sharp as she curves her nails down her skin.

When the fangs scrape her sternum she moans. Dani snickers against her, kisses and nuzzles her way down her chest, sighing when Aubrey threads her fingers into her hair.

“So, my pretty snack, what were you going to ask me for when you called?”

“I, I was kinda hoping we’d talk about you eating me out.”

A kiss above her belly button, “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“OhgoodOH, ohfuck” she opens her legs wider as Dani dips her head between them, “ahhhn, please, a little higher, ohfuck, god.” Her hips twitch as Dani sucks her clit. There’s a muffled laugh as two fingers tease her cunt.

“Wow, you really do like the fangs.”

“I mean yeah, but that’s more because you’re really hotOH, ohyesfuckthat’sgood.” She moans as Dani presses two fingers in, stroking and rubbing in time with the vampire’s increasingly wanton groans.

“Fuck, Aubrey, that’s it, you look so pretty like this, be a good girl and cum for me.”

“Trying” Aubrey squeaks as Dani laves her tongue across her clit and curls her fingers inside her, “fuck, right there, yeah, ohyes, that, just like that.” She squeezes her eyes shut, clinging to Dani’s head and to the hand gripping her thigh. When she cums it’s intense enough that she’s terrified she’s going to kick Dani accidentally, but the vampire simply holds her thighs down, lapping at her until her moans die down.

“Fireblossom?”

“Uh huh?”

“You still owe me a drink. Whatever I want, remember?”

“Yeah? Oh, oh fuck yeah.” She squirms in excitement as Dani drops to the floor and pulls Aubrey towards her until she’s able to hook her knees over her shoulders.

Dani pushes stray hairs from her face, “If you start feeling lightheaded, tell me okay?”

Aubrey gives a thumbs up, winces at how dorky it is, then giggles when Dani cranes forward to kiss it.

The vampire kisses a line from her right knee to her inner thigh, sighing loudly when she noses a certain patch of skin.

“Perfect.”

Fangs sink into her skin and Aubrey clamps her hands over her mouth to avoid waking the neighbors. It’s a sharp, precise pain, flooding her body with the urge to lay back and let Dani take her fill. Then the teeth retreat and Dani’s tongue takes their place, licking the red rivulets and moaning as she sucks at the punctured skin.

“Such a perfect snack.” Dani looks up at her, heavy-lidded and scarlet-mouthed.

“Dani” Aubrey reaches for her, not sure what she’s even asking for.

The vampire takes her hand, rubs it against her cheek, “Does it still feel okay?”

“It feels so good.”

Dani smiles, turns her head to pierce the left thigh, Aubrey moaning weakly as she drinks from her. The moan is echoed, and when she manages to lift her head she sees Dani’s hand is not between her own legs.

“Oh god that’s hot.”

The vampire grins at her, “I get dinner, you get a show. It’s perfect.”

Aubrey watches her lick the bites until they cease bleeding, her moans pitching higher as she fucks herself, getting off on the taste of Aubrey’s blood-tinted skin. Then she tenses, tipping her head back, fangs glinting in the light from the windows, and gasps Aubrey’s name as she cums.

Then a blonde head rests on her knee. Aubrey sits up, Dani’s hair as they catch their breath.

“I, um, I should clean you up. Do you have band-aids?”

“Bathroom.”

Dani stands, cheeks much pinker than before, and returns a minute later with the Pokemon band-aids that Aubrey bought solely for the Charizard ones. She wipes her legs with a warm hand towel, gently pats the bandages into place, stealing giddy glances at Aubrey the entire time.

“You know that fucking ruled, right?” Aubrey rests her head on her shoulder when Dani joins her on the bed.

“Glad you liked it, fireblossom. Can’t believe I’m lucky enough that the hottest human I’ve met in years has a thing for vampires.

“Pretty sure I just have a thing for you. Which, um, I mean this can totally stay casual but, um, do you want to go out sometime?”

Dani nods, leans in for another kiss. She must have borrowed Aubrey’s mouthwash, since she tastes of mint instead of iron.

“I’d love to, Aubrey. But, um, let’s avoid coffee shops for awhile?”

“Good plan.”

#danbrey #aubrey little/dani #taz amnesty #meet ugly #vampire girlfriend

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jaskierswolf · 3 years

Note

Dearest Wolfie, I am here to humbly request some Jaskilion vampire smut pls 🥺

Dear Buttercup

Prompt: Frottage/grinding/scissoring Relationships: Jaskier (netflix)/Dandelion (book) Rating: E Content Warnings: vampire sex, sex magic, frottage, biting, blood drinking. Summary: Jaskier gets caught in a thunderstorm, luckily there's an appropriately spooky house near by to shelter in.

For my darling @dani-dandelino and also my last prompt for @witcher-rarepair-summer-bingo

Art by @dapandapod

Lightning shot across the sky in a vicious streak of blinding light, and there was a resounding clap of thunder that made the ground shake. Jaskier’s hair was stuck to his forehead as he tried, with very little success, to shelter under his guitar case. He blamed Geralt for this entirely. The bastard had gotten into another fight with Yennefer and Jaskier was left to find his own way home from the pub. He wasn’t drunk, just mildly tipsy and sorely lacking a driving license. It had been too late to catch a bus so here he was stomping through the park in the middle of the night, during a fucking thunderstorm. The old house in the centre of the park looked like something out of those stupid horror movies that Geralt and Yennefer liked to watch. It looked haunted during the day, but at night… fuck. It was something else entirely.

So naturally, Jaskier wanted to have a look. He was soaked through to the skin and shivering. His house was still a good hour away if he didn’t get lost, which, if he was being completely honest, he probably would. Directions just weren’t his strong suit, and everything looked the same at night. The house, despite scaring the shit out of him, looked incredibly tempting. It would be warm. He could dry off. Maybe the owner would even let him stay the night, if they were kind.

And if he was really lucky, they might not kill him.

He laughed and he wiped his nose, pushing his sopping wet hair off his forehead and away from his eyes. His fringe immediately fell forward again.

“Oh fuck off,” he muttered and shook his head, wrapping his arms around his chest in a futile attempt to stay warm. “Stupid Geralt, stupid Yennefer, bloody fucking thunderstorm.”

The large wooden doors creaked open, startling Jaskier from his pity party. There was candlelight flickering in the hallway and the sound of a violin singing from somewhere in the house. Jaskier crept forward, cocking his head as he peered inside. The house was extravagantly decorated in burgundy and gold. From the porch, Jaskier could see a faded painting of a young man, dressed in old-timey clothing, regency if he had to guess. It was rather Mr Darcy. The young man was tall and slender, with a mess of golden curls that just about covered his ears. Jaskier couldn’t look away. The man was beautiful, with soft pale skin and rosy cheeks, a smile that could outshine the sun. He had a long dark blue tailcoat, and there was a small white dog bouncing at his feet.

But it was his eyes.

Beautiful cornflower blue.

Utterly stunning.

The door slammed shut behind Jaskier and he spun round, arms flailing, “Oh cock!”

The sound of the violin stopped. The house fell eerily silent. Jaskier could hear his own heartbeat hammering in his chest and he pulled at the edges of this shirt, flexing his fingers and tapping out a rhythm on his leg. Nothing helped. He was pretty certain he was about to die. The worst thing was he couldn’t even remember entering the house. One minute he was admiring the portrait from afar and the next he had his hand raised, ready to trace the sharp cheekbones of the handsome blond.

“I haven’t had a visitor for a long time,” a mesmerising tenor voice lilted from the top of the stairs.

Jaskier jumped, almost falling over as he twirled again to face the mysterious owner of the murder house. His mouth fell open as he saw the beautiful blond at the top of the stairs. His skin was deathly pale, and his hair now fell to his shoulders in a cascade of curls, but there was no denying that it was the same man from the portrait. Blood red eyes glowed in the darkness, never blinking as he peered down at Jaskier with a haughty expression. Gone were the elegant regency clothes from the portrait. Instead, the blond wore an unreasonably sexy lingerie set, black as the midnight sky, with garters strapped around his thighs. On each thigh above the garter was a holster, with an elegantly decorated hilt; daggers.

Seriously, who the fuck carried daggers in this day and age? Surely you needed a license for that?

But on the mysterious stranger it just seemed to work. He was timeless in his beauty.

The fine silvery silk robe trailed behind him, and he raised one perfect eyebrow, looking considerably unimpressed. Jaskier’s eyes widened as he realised he still hadn’t said anything, too busy gawking at the angel before him…

Or perhaps the devil.

There was no way this gorgeous creature was a man from god. He was too sinfully tempting.

“Ah, bollocks,” Jaskier stammered. “Well, you see I just- there was a teeny problem with my ride, and then the storm, and well… the wine. Oh the wine, it was absolutely delectable, you have never tasted anything as delicious, a true blessing from the gods themselves.”

He was rambling. He knew he was and yet he couldn’t shut up. Jaskier just kept talking, letting his wine fuelled brain spew poetry about everything and nothing. He talked about Geralt, the flowers he’d seen on his walk, the stars that had been glittering in the sky before the clouds had ruined the view. He talked about the way the river shone in the moonlight, and Geralt, and the cute adorable kitten he’d seen sheltering in an alley… and well… about Geralt.

“Forgive me, dear fellow,” The man finally interrupted with a wave of his hand, “but if you are quite done, I’d like to ask what you are doing in my home.”

Jaskier blushed, glancing between the very much shut door and the handsome figure before him. Gesturing wildly between himself and the door he stammered, “The door? It- it- ah, well, it just sort of opened.”

“And you walked in? I must say, you really have no sense of self preservation. Pretty little thing though, aren’t you?”

Jaskier scoffed, putting his hand on his hips. “Little?!”

“How old are you? Barely twenty by the looks of it,” he smirked, a long finger brushing Jaskier’s cheek. “So young.”

“I- I-!” Jaskier spat out, “You! I’m twenty five!”

“A child,” the man hissed.

And Jaskier’s heart jumped. He froze, an icy feeling creeping through his veins.

Fangs.

Red eyes.

Definitely immortal.

“Oh fuck, fuck!” Jaskier fell backwards, tripping over his own feet. “You’re a vampire! No. No, no, no. This is a joke. Fuck!”

“Vampire,” the vampire scoffed. “How rude! I have a name, buttercup.”

“I- how- oh cock,” Jaskier whined.

But before he could flee, the vampire’s hands were around his neck. The bastard moved faster than light. His pale skin a blur as it pressed against Jaskier’s throat, lifting him from the floor.

And Jaskier, in all his idiotic horniness, was starting to feel rather aroused by the whole thing. Sure, he was scared shitless, but if the vampire didn’t kill him…

Well…

Jaskier really hated his dick sometimes.

“So, ah- umm, will you do me the pleasure of telling me your name?” Jaskier squeaked, gasping for air.

The vampire chuckled, a beautiful melodic laugh that could charm aphrodite herself. “Finally, some manners, darling. My name is Dandelion, you would do well to remember it.”

That was… promising.

“A flower for a flower?” Jaskier suggested, praying that this would not be his last night on earth. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Oh, my dear Julian, I have no intention of killing you. Contrary to popular belief, I am not a monster, unlike the villain that turned me. Now, he was an utter cock. He didn’t even ask! Day before my wedding, unbelievable.”

Jaskier laughed. Was the vampire, Dandelion, actually telling him his backstory? What the fuck had he walked into?

“That’s… unfortunate?”

“It was a complete disaster, my darling Henrietta married the deplorable Valdo Marx instead and I had to flee to the shadows like some bloody monster. It gets lonely.”

Jaskier blinked, feet still dangling as the vampire held him by his collar. He was struggling to breathe, his cock was hard in his pants and he was almost certain that he probably would survive the night. “Can’t- breathe.”

“Oh, poppycock! I am ever so sorry, dear boy,” Dandelion cooed and dropped Jaskier to the ground. “Better?”

“Yeah, yup.”

Dandelion inhaled deeply, “Oh, you do smell good, really good.”

This felt more like what Jaskier would expect from a vampire encounter. Before he could even respond, Jaskier felt himself being thrown back against the nearest wall, Dandelion’s cold body pressed up against his. The vampire ran his nose under Jaskier’s jaw, a low moan falling from his lips. “Talk about fine wine. You, my dear buttercup, smell utterly irresistible.”

Jaskier whimpered, his hands nervously gripping Dandelion’s silk robe, fingers intertwining in the soft fabric. He wasn’t really sure what was happening but he knew he liked it. Getting fucked by a vampire, there were worse things in life, especially when the vampire was as pretty as Dandelion. Jaskier wondered whether his eyes really had been such a dazzling blue before he was turned into a creature of the night. Red eyes burned like fire instead, the pupils almost completely black.

It should have been fucking terrifying.

It should have.

And Jaskier thought he’d never seen such a beautiful creature as the man before him. There was a scrape of teeth against his throat, and Jaskier groaned, helplessly baring his neck to give the vampire better access. He’d never thought getting his blood drained would be so alluring, but he was achingly hard and feeling heady with arousal at the mere thought of it.

The vampire just laughed and pressed a skin to Jaskier’s neck. “Eager little whore, aren’t you?”

“Shut up.”

“Now, now, patience,” Dandelion purred, making Jaskier shiver. “First we need to get you out of those clothes. You must be absolutely freezing, where are my manners?”

“Fuck your manners,” Jaskier grumbled, yelping as Dandelion scooped him into his arms and flew through the house. “Oi! Watch it!”

“Such a fragile little flower.”

“I- You, oh fuck off,” Jaskier protested weakly, because to Dandelion, he was fragile. He was human, mortal, weak. Despite looking like the stronger one of the two, Jaskier was like a glass rose compared to the glimmering diamond that was the vampire.

Dandelion fussed around him in a blur of silver and blonde, peeling Jaskier’s wet clothes from his skin, bringing him a steaming mug of sweet tea. It was all… kind of nice?

The vampire had said he was lonely after all, and maybe Jaskier’s blood would taste nicer if he was not miserable and cold. How was he supposed to know?

“Dandelion?” Jaskier asked, cocking his head as he looked up at the pretty blond from the pile of soft silk sheets on the bed.

“Yes? Did I miss anything? It’s been a while since I’ve had human company.”

Jaskier couldn’t help but smile. He’d been in the strange house less than any hour and yet his head was spinning from the rollercoaster of emotions, fear, arousal, panic, and now whatever this was, a sort of fondness perhaps?

“Everything is perfect, Dandelion, but why- why am I here? I thought… you’re a vampire. I smell good? Didn’t you want to- to-, you know?”

Dandelion giggled and perched on the bed next to Jaskier. “Sweet buttercup, I would never drink from you unless you wanted it. It’s not expected of you. I can go without.”

“You can?”

“But of course! And I’m not about to fuck you when you’re shivering, and reeking of fear, no matter how hard your cock is. I have standards, Jaskier.”

The vampire had standards. Of course he fucking did. “I’m not afraid now,” Jaskier whispered, “And I want you to drink. Come on, trapped-”

“You’re not trapped.”

“- in a vampire’s house, in the middle of a thunderstorm. It practically writes itself.”

“And yet, I made you tea?”

Jaskier laughed, “Yes.”

“Well then?” Dandelion breathed in a soft low whisper that made Jaskier’s skin tingle, “Perhaps a kiss?”

This time it wasn’t Dandelion’s hands that forced that air from Jaskier’s lungs, but his words. Jaskier swallowed, his tongue feeling heavy in his mouth as Dandelion approached him. The daggers had been removed from their holsters and set aside on the table, but the rest of the vampire’s ensemble remained. Jaskier, on the other hand, was as naked as the day he was born, only the silken sheets to protect his modesty. His cheeks warmed under the heat of Dandelion’s gaze, a blush that he was sure bloomed right down to his heart. He nodded dumbly, unable, for the first time in his life, to find the right words.

Dandelion’s skin was like ice as he cupped Jaskier’s cheek, their lips barely a breath apart. “You really are such a pretty flower, I love beautiful things.”

Jaskier whimpered as their lips met, ice and fire, vampire and human. Their breaths mingled as Jaskier eagerly parted his lips, and Dandelion’s tongue slipped inside his mouth. Jaskier had kissed a lot of people in his life but never anyone quite like Dandelion, centuries of practice served the vampire well, and Jaskier was left breathless and panting in mere seconds. His arousal from before reared up and he moaned wantonly against Dandelion’s lips.

“Divine,” the vampire murmured as they parted, and he pushed Jaskier backwards against the bed, their legs entangling so that Dandelion’s thighs pressed against Jaskier’s cock, “simply divine.”

“Dandelion,” Jaskier moaned, his head falling back onto the pillow.

“My venom won’t harm you, darling,” Dandelion whispered, his lips pressing against Jaskier’s neck, “but it will enhance your pleasure, dull your other senses so you know only me, my lips, my hands. You’ll be more relaxed than you ever thought possible…”

“Yes,” Jaskier answered Dandelion’s unanswered question.

The vampire sank his teeth into Jaskier’s skin, sharp pain soon subsiding into what could only be described as the most intense pleasure that Jaskier had ever felt. It was heavenly, magical, a blessing from god herself. He vaguely heard himself moan, arching his back off the bed as he thrust against Dandelion’s thigh. Every movement sent wave after wave of never-ending pleasure through his body, fire burning in his soul. He whined when Dandelion pulled away from his neck, rocking into Jaskier’s body, unheard praises whispering into his ear. When their lips met once more, Jaskier could taste his blood on Dandelion’s tongue.

It was addictive. He wanted more, more, more. “‘Lion,” he slurred as their bodies rocked together.

“Shh, little buttercup,” the vampire cooed, brushing Jaskier’s fringe from his eyes, before biting once more on his shoulder.

Jaskier keened, his orgasm shattering through him as he bucked up against the vampire. It seemed to be an eternity before he came back to himself, covered in cum and his own blood on Dandelion’s bed. The vampire in question was running his fingers through the thick hair on Jaskier’s chest, blood staining his lips, smearing down his chin. He looked as fucked out as Jaskier felt, smiling serenely as he hummed under his bed.

And his eyes were cornflower blue.

“Fuck,” Jaskier breathed shakily. “Did you…”

“Mhmm, not long after you. What a sight you made, truly stunning? I really would love to paint you one day.”

Jaskier groaned and rolled over, grimacing at the mess but too tired to care. “If the sex is that good, you can paint me every fucking day.”

“Oh, darling buttercup,” Dandelion cooed, pressing a kiss to Jaskier’s shoulder where the bite mark was beginning to heal. “You and I are going to get along splendidly.”

#the witcher #jaskilion #jaskier x dandelion #vampire dandelion #wolfie's witcher writing

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novelconcepts · 3 years

Text

fic: the shape of it

for a prompt from @karatam

They expect the Lady to come, one day. They expect the Lady to take Dani, in the end.

They did not expect it to go like this.

“She’s going to take me,” Dani says in a voice so thick with resignation, it nearly kills Jamie outright. Says it like a foregone conclusion, like something biblical ingrained in her from childhood. Jamie looks at her, and thinks, She believes it. Nothing else matters. She believes this with her whole heart.

Jamie takes her hand anyway. Offers her company anyway. Loads up the car with bags and dreams of outrunning all of it anyway. The way she sees it, it’s the only path forward. Anything less would leave bits of Dani--bits of Jamie, too--behind in this house forever.

They are not running away together, exactly. They are moving slowly, carefully, checking the road ahead for obstacles and cracks in the pavement as they go. Slowly, the distance between the pair of them and Bly Manor expands. Slowly, the world stops looking so much like a ghost story. Jamie, more and more every day, thinks, She believed it with her whole heart, but maybe not so much anymore. Maybe not so much.

Even so, even as the months turn to years, Jamie can’t forget the certainty in Dani’s face that day as she said it. She’s going to take me. The most certain Dani has been about anything except Jamie herself. Though the days are gorgeous, long and lazy, stretching on like there will be millions more ahead, Jamie can’t forget. She’s going to take me.

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” she murmurs, brushing Dani’s hair back. She’s fallen asleep on the couch again, her head in Jamie’s lap, and though it’s well past midnight, Jamie can’t bring herself to wake her. Moments like this. Moments like this are so many, and so precious, and so much more than how very small they seem.

Dani thinks the Lady will take her, someday. Jamie thinks Dani knows her own mind better than anyone. In two very different ways, they’re both primed to fight.

And even still, when it begins, it’s a blind strike to the side of the head.

***

Dani has lost her key.

It sounds so small, so nothing. She turns up at the shop an hour after she’s gone home to get dinner started, looking more than a little sheepish. Jamie, wrist-deep in repotting some of the hardier flowers, cocks her head.

“What’re you doing back? Don’t tell me the apartment caught fire.”

Dani, head bowed, sits behind the counter. “Can’t get in,” she says miserably. “Left the key somewhere.”

Jamie smiles. Dani hates making silly mistakes--she sometimes thinks it’s this vaguely type-A attitude that drew her toward teaching in the first place, toward helping kids not screw up the little things in life. It’s endearing, the rare occasion Dani lets her see a side of error not confined to her tragic inability to make a hot beverage.

“I’m sure it’s in with the laundry or something,” she says, brushing off her hands and setting aside her trowel. “No worries, I’m just about finished here anyway. You want to pick up tacos on the way?”

No worries. That’s how it feels, as a pouting Dani tucks her arm through Jamie’s bent elbow and follows her out of the shop. People misplace things every day--it’s not like Dani pitched her key down a gutter or something. It’ll turn up.

And, within an hour of arriving home with the best Mexican food suburban Vermont has to offer, it does: under Dani’s purse, dead center of a couch cushion. Jamie produces it with a flourish, dropping to one knee like a knight of old and raising it upon her palms like a magic sword.

“M’lady,” she drawls. “Your treasure.”

Dani laughs. She plucks the key from Jamie’s hand, tucks it into her hip pocket, pulls Jamie into a giggly kiss--and just like that, the matter is forgotten. A nothing. A moment.

If she looks a little puzzled, a little irritated with herself, it passes before Jamie can even comment.

***

The plants in the back are wilting.

Jamie stands, hands in her pockets, regarding them with some alarm. Shouldn’t be a problem, she thinks, running through the possibilities. Roots should have plenty of space. Lights are working fine. No sign of rot anywhere to be found. They just look a little...

“Dani,” she calls, eyes still on the yellowing leaves. Dani pokes her head through the door, a bundle of roses in her hands.

“Yeah?”

“Have you, uh. Watered these recently?”

She waits for the obvious answer. Dani always waters this side of the room. She takes the left, Jamie takes the right, and everybody gets the nourishment they need.

When Dani doesn’t answer for a full ten seconds, Jamie turns to her with a frown, surprised to find Dani’s brow furrowed like she’s thinking hard.

“I...thought I did,” she says slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, I must have.”

“How many times this week?” Jamie asks. Dani closes her eyes as if counting.

“I...” She steps into the room like she’s half-asleep, staring at the plants so hard, it’s a wonder the flowers don’t burst into flame. “Twice? Three times, maybe. Or...”

More than that, Jamie thinks, gently lifting a drooping leaf and inspecting its unhealthy pallor. If she didn't know better, she’d say Dani had watered this poor thing twice a day for the last week.

“S’okay,” she says, though a faint bloom of annoyance is opening in her chest. “It’s salvageable, I think. Just so long as we let ‘em dry out some. Leave this side to me, okay?”

Dani is staring at the plant nearest to her like she’s never seen one before. Whatever annoyance Jamie feels at having to quite possibly start over with previously-perfect plants vanishes at the sight of her expression.

“Hey,” she says, taking Dani’s hands and squeezing. “Honestly, Dani, don’t worry about it. These things happen.”

Dani’s frown deepens as if to say not to me, they don’t. Jamie gives her hands a gentle swing from side to side until that frown lightens.

“Maybe I take care of the watering for a bit, yeah? You can supervise.”

She doesn’t look too closely at any of it, at the way Dani’s brow creases like she’s still trying to keep track of how many days are in the week. She doesn’t look too closely at why she’s just heard herself say “supervise” instead of “keep the books”, as she normally would. Don’t look at it. Dani’s fine.

Just a little scattered today, is all.

***

“It’s, uh...hang on...”

Dani is scowling at the ceiling, racking her brain for something Jamie can’t help with. There was a woman, a woman in the grocery store, who spoke to Dani as though she’d done it a hundred times.

“Barb?” Jamie suggests, plucking a name out of thin air. “Carol. Monica.”

Dani shushes her, flapping a hand for silence. Jamie shuts up, her mouth pulling into a relaxed grin she doesn’t quite feel.

Dani’s been doing this more and more lately--stopping mid-sentence to grope for some detail Jamie can’t see behind her eyes. It shouldn’t worry her. She doesn’t want it to worry her.

These things just happen, she tells herself, watching Dani bend forward to press her face with frustration against her knees. They’re getting older--have been together almost ten years now--and their lives are busy. Busy brains are easily worn out by an abundance of minor details, and sometimes, the less important stuff slips. It’s okay. It’s nothing to be concerned about.

Except Dani looks like she’s on the verge of tears, scraping around in her head for the name of some woman they ran into in the bread aisle. Dani is dragging deep breaths in that old familiar way that says the trigger is small, but the imminent explosion could take out the whole night.

“Poppins,” Jamie says, prodding at her ribs until she sits up and stares with wet eyes into Jamie’s face. “Is this a woman I’m meant to invite to dinner?”

Dani shakes her head. Jamie shrugs.

“Then I’m going to go right ahead and call her Honeywheat, and we can just be done with it.”

Dani laughs--not a real laugh, but a huff through her nose to tell Jamie she’s trying. Jamie smooths a thumb across her cheekbone, pretending this hasn’t been happening more and more frequently. Pretending she hasn’t noticed just how badly it pulls at Dani’s threads, each time she loses track of something small.

“Charlene!” Dani says, half an hour later, practically shouting the word into the silence of the living room. Jamie jumps, losing her place in her book, looks up to find Dani staring at her with a fierce sort of pride that scares her. It’s a look that says I did it, and I’m okay, goddammit, and this is not happening.

“Charlene, hm?” Jamie repeats. “I think I prefer Honeywheat.”

***

The day of the fire, she has to admit there’s cause for concern.

She thinks, at first, it’s just her. That she’s had such a long day at the shop, been yelled at by far too many young men who didn’t understand why it’s less than appropriate to give your spouse flowers by way of asking for a divorce, and her brain has been scrambled. It’s the only explanation, she thinks, for smelling smoke the minute she walks into the apartment building.

Except it gets worse as she heads up the stairs. Worse still, until she’s fitting the key into the lock, opening the door, realizing with a jolt of horror that the smell is both very real and very much coming from the kitchen.

“Dani?” she calls, and her voice sounds to her own ears like a scream echoing over a moonlit lake. She forces the panic down, forces herself to walk--not run--to the kitchen and survey the damage.

A plate of something undefinable is sitting in the microwave. It is no longer on fire, she notes, but the microwave is still, as she wrenches it open, counting down. The little green numbers flash 40:03, blinking at her, waiting to resume their cook time.

“Dani!” she calls again, jamming her thumb into the Clear button and slamming the microwave shut on a wall of acrid smoke.

“Yeah?” Thank Christ. Dani, poking her head out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her body. “You’re home! ...what’s that smell?”

“You tell me,” Jamie says, more sharply than she intends; her heart is in her throat, blocking off anything resembling restraint. She staggers toward Dani, whose face is the picture of bemusement.

“It’s not...coming from our kitchen?”

“Dani.” Jamie takes her by the shoulders, reassured by the soft slide of Dani’s skin against her palms. Real. Here. Okay. “You had something cooking. Did you...”

Forget, she doesn’t say. The color pours out of Dani’s face, answering the question so completely, Jamie sags against her.

“Threw it in,” Dani says slowly. “Leftovers. Just...”

Jamie thinks she can guess. Threw it in, walked away, forgot it completely. Would have been fine, if that had been all. If Dani had simply spaced on the idea of retrieving the dish before it grew cold, if she’d opted for a shower instead, there would have been no harm done.

Except that counter was so high. Except Dani had, plainly, set the timer for nearly an hour.

Dani is looking at the smoke hazing the air, polluting the hall, with an expression of such grim anxiety, Jamie nearly forgets to breathe. Pull it together. She needs you to keep focus.

“I’m sorry,” Dani says, so softly, Jamie would have missed it if not for staring at Dani’s face like it might slip away at any second. “I don’t know how...”

“It’s okay.” Jamie pulls her close, struggling to keep her heart from pounding out of her chest. So much could have gone wrong. If they hadn’t gotten lucky. If she hadn’t gotten home in time. So much could have-- “It’s okay.”

“Jamie?” Dani’s voice is tiny, her face turned against Jamie’s neck. “I think there’s something wrong with me.”

***

She calls Owen after Dani falls asleep, careful to keep her voice down. France is six hours ahead, and it’s clear her call catches him still in bed, but his voice is cheerful all the same.

“Jamie! Big surprise. How’s everything--”

“How did it start?” Jamie keeps her voice low, her eyes on the hall. She doesn’t like leaving Dani alone in the bedroom, doesn’t like the idea of Dani waking and not knowing where she is. Make it quick, then.

“Sorry?” Owen sounds confused, and rightly so. “How did what start?”

“Your mum.” She can’t think of a cleaner way to approach it, a nice, easy route to opening Owen’s old scars. “How did it start, with her?”

He’s silent for so long, she wonders if the connection has severed. Finally: “Jamie, what’s going on?”

She can’t. She can’t get into it. If she says too much, if she explains what she’s been seeing in drips and drops over the past few years, it might cement the whole thing into reality. She can’t.

“Please,” she says, hearing her own voice break with exhaustion. “Just tell me.”

***

There are tests. Dani doesn’t want to take them, and Jamie quite frankly doesn’t want to force it, but there are tests all the same. CT scans, and doctors who ask probing questions that grit Dani’s teeth and put fire into her eyes, and Jamie thinks for a hopeful few minutes that this is stupid. That they don’t need to be here. That Dani is okay, and fierce, and strong, and here.

“I’m not going to say there’s no cause for concern,” the doctor says, when Dani has jumped through all his hoops. “But your scans don’t show much yet, and your grasp on those questions seems strong. Keep an eye on it, all right? Call me if there’s any change.”

He’s looking at Jamie like he knows why she’s here, why she’s standing just a few inches from Dani’s side. She nods once, sharp, and he pats Dani lightly on the shoulder.

“You’re young,” he says, like youth means anything at all where tragedy is concerned. “I have a good feeling about this.”

***

Jamie starts coming home when Dani does, starts waiting for her to get ready before going into the shop. She can’t help when Dani loses track of details inside her head--the date, their plans for the weekend, a longtime customer’s name--but she can help with other things. With knowing exactly where Dani’s purse is at all times. With knowing exactly where Dani’s favorite earrings are. With knowing exactly when Dani last ate.

“You don’t have to do that,” Dani says in a voice like iron. Jamie raises her head from the salad she’s preparing for lunch.

“Don’t have to...?”

“Fuss,” Dani says, almost coldly. “I’m fine, Jamie.”

It hits her like a punch, almost doubling her over, the look in Dani’s eyes. Some horribly chilly combination of frustration and anger, maybe not at Jamie, but directed her way all the same. She pauses, setting the cheese grater down, looking Dani in the eye.

Really? Only, the last time I didn’t set us up with a timely meal, you went ten hours without eating anything and nearly passed out on me.

She doesn’t say the words. Instead, she says, “I love you.” It’s become a mantra in moments like this, when Dani is so not herself, it’s like staring at someone else in a mirror. I love you. I love you on bad days, and I love you when you remember every detail of our first kiss, and I love you tomorrow.

The fight goes out of Dani’s body, her hand cupping around her eyes. The gold of her ring stands out in the afternoon sun, and Jamie thinks, It’s still her. It’s still her.

“I’m sorry. I just...I feel...”

Jamie moves toward her slowly, like approaching a trapped animal. She's never moved like this with Dani in all the time they’ve been together, never felt the need, but lately, Dani is so unpredictable it hurts.

“Trapped,” Jamie suggests softly. Dani nods into her hand. “I’ve been hovering.” Dani nods again. “Too much?”

Hesitation. A final nod that is also sort of a shake. Jamie sighs.

“Just want to make sure I don’t--” Lose you. “--miss out on something important, is all. I’m sorry, too. I can back off some.”

It terrifies her to say so, to promise that when Dani sometimes looks around the living room like it’s brand-new. But Dani’s right. She isn’t a child. She doesn’t need Jamie to treat her as such. She’s okay. She’s still here.

“I love you,” she says again, and Dani walks into her arms like she’s the only thing in the room not spinning.

***

She tries not to panic, when Dani doesn’t come home. Tries to will herself back to ancient therapy techniques, to breathing rituals, to steady reminders that Dani is okay. Dani is fine. Dani has had a really good couple of weeks, in fact, and when she told Jamie she wanted to stop off at the store after work, Jamie had agreed.

An hour passes. Two. Jamie’s pacing, doing fevered mental math: the shop is a ten-minute walk from the apartment, the grocery store a five-minute walk from the shop. How long does it take to pick up eggs, cheese, tomatoes? Half an hour?

Okay, she thinks, forcing a calming breath through her nose. Okay, so that’s five--fifteen--forty-five minutes...

Not five minutes after this less-than-bracing thought, she’s throwing on a jacket and storming out the door. A fifteen-minute walk to the grocery store, she completes in eight. The cashier is a teenager in an outdated Nirvana t-shirt, looking at her like she’s out of her mind when she blows through the doors and says, “Blonde woman, brown jacket, one blue eye, one brown. Seen her?”

He has not. She forces herself not to sprint through the tiny store, peering doggedly down each aisle in turn. No sign of Dani.

The shop, then. She makes her way back, cups her hands around her eyes as she leans into the dark window. Door is still locked, and not a light is burning. Dani wouldn’t shut them off unless she was at the door--no matter what happens, no matter how confused she gets, she never plunges herself into darkness until she’s ready to make an escape into light.

Breathe, Jamie thinks. Breathe. Maybe she’s just taking a stroll.

She walks for blocks, her legs carrying her at twice the normal speed, looking around every corner with absolute terror. When she finds Dani at last, seated on a bench outside their favorite Mexican restaurant, the relief almost stops her heart.

“Dani.”

Miserable eyes turn up to her, Dani’s face shell-shocked. “How long,” she says brokenly, “have we lived here? In this neighborhood.”

Jamie swallows. “Fifteen years.”

Dani nods, like she’s just given a complicated multiplication problem to a student who got it right on the first go. “Fifteen years,” she repeats. “Jamie. I couldn’t. I couldn’t remember--”

Jamie drops down beside her, arms wrapping tight, not caring who might be looking. Dani is so small, hands gripping Jamie’s shoulders, shaking all over.

“I’ve got you,” Jamie murmurs. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

***

“It’s her,” Dani says. They’re laying in bed, Jamie’s head on Dani’s chest, Jamie trying desperately not to count all the things that have gone wrong in Dani’s head this week. How Dani stared in confusion at an order she’s put together a hundred times. How Dani snapped at a customer, who looked at her like she’d just stabbed his mother. How Dani had been midway through a joke when she lost track of the punchline, and looked ready to burst into tears.

“It’s her,” Dani repeats. Jamie raises her head.

“Dani...”

“It’s. Her.” Dani reaches for her hand, fingers pressing down on the gold band she once hid in a plant. Jamie closes her eyes, inhales.

“Dani, I don’t want you to--you can’t go thinking--”

“Every day,” Dani says, her eyes on the ceiling. It’s like she thinks looking at Jamie would splinter her self-control. “Every day, I feel it a little less.”

Jamie waits. She’ll go on, eventually, explain herself. Jamie hates cutting her off, hates stepping in the way of a thought, lest Dani never quite get it back again.

“Every day,” she says at last, “we’re here. Living our lives. I see that, I feel...I feel you touching me, I feel how much we...and still, it’s like...like someone’s putting up glass. That fogged-up glass you can only see shapes through, you know? I can see us through it, but every day, that fog gets a little thicker.”

Her voice trembles, her throat working. Jamie shifts until her fingers are threaded with Dani’s, clenching tight.

“You’re here,” she says, unable to think of anything more reassuring. It’s what she’s been telling herself about Dani for months. Years. That Dani, no matter what else is going on, is still here with her. Still smiling at her. Still whispering her name in the dark.

“What if I’m not?” Something in Dani’s voice wavers to breaking, a hairline fracture in the words. “What if I’m looking at you, and I...I...”

Jamie can’t breathe. A muscle is jumping under her jaw, straining against the sob she’s been holding back for days.

“What if I’m looking at you when she takes me,” Dani whispers, and Jamie breaks. Can’t not. She presses her face against Dani’s skin, tears coming hot, and Dani holds fast to her like they both know the ship is going down.

“I love you,” she says, that same voice Jamie’s been leaning into for almost twenty years. “I love you. I love you. I love--”

***

“How is she?” Owen crosses his legs, sips his beer. Jamie’s own leg is fidgety, sock-clad foot hammering a mad rhythm against the floor.

“She’s...”

“How is she?” Owen repeats before she can polish off a pretty lie. She shuts her eyes against his too-kind stare.

“Told the same story four times yesterday.”

He’s nodding, sympathetic. “Mum used to get stuck on one about the best dinner she ever made. How she rescued it at the last second from burning. Proudest moment of her life, I think, except for the day I got into culinary school.”

Jamie sighs. “It was about the kids.”

“Ah.” He leans back, surveying her as though looking for cracks. If he finds any, he wisely keeps it to himself. Jamie, bottle still angled toward her lips, leans a little to look down the hall. The bedroom door is shut, no sign of Dani waking.

“I tried to get her to stay up,” she says, wondering why she feels the need to convince Owen, of all people. “She does miss you.”

She doesn’t tell him about the heartbeat of confusion, the way Dani’s brow had knit when Jamie mentioned he was coming into town. How, for a second, Dani had seemed uncertain if she knew Owen from Bly, or from Iowa.

“There’s always breakfast,” he says, placidly keeping tempo with this song they’re tossing back and forth, the one that goes everything is okay, everything is just fine, so long as we don’t look at it.

It’s good to be around someone who understands, even if she doesn’t really want to talk about it. Good to know Owen, who is watching her with knowing eyes, remembers all too well what it feels like to watch someone slip away.

“Seem to remember,” she says, taking the last swig and dropping the bottle against the breakfast bar, “saying once that this was a just shoot me situation. That it wasn’t fair.”

“And now?” He unfolds from his seat, moving in three strides to the fridge to replace her drink. Owen Sharma, at home in any kitchen without even trying.

“Now,” she sighs, “I don’t care about fair. I don’t care about burdens. I don’t care about anything except making sure she still....she’s still...”

He hands her the bottle, leans his elbows against the counter. There’s an abundance of gray in his hair these days, and contacts in his eyes. He smiles like Owen, though. Always that familiar, warm smile.

“She’s still your Dani,” he says. It isn’t a question. “Even on the days she isn’t. It’s the hardest part, maybe, remembering that. When she slips up, or can't remember the apartment number, or gets angry because you’ve reminded her of a gap she knows shouldn’t be there. But, Jamie, remember. She is still Dani.”

“I know.” Jamie scuffs a hand under her nose, rubs hard against her wet eyes. “I know. And sometimes she is so Dani. As if she was never anything else.”

As if, she doesn’t add, there wasn’t something else in there with her. Wiping her away a little at a time. Something else, matching her movements. Waiting.

“To Dani Clayton,” Owen says, raising his bottle and clinking against her own. “Your anchor.”

***

She thinks she’s getting used to it, if this is something one can get used to. Thinks she’s building a rhythm, a routine, around Dani’s bad days. Little jokes work sometimes. Little kisses and touches. Dani responds to Poppins better than her own name now, and Jamie leans into it, trying to pretend that doesn’t tear at her. Trying to pretend she can go back to a time when safety was a nickname, a silly joke on her lips to keep the well of feelings from overwhelming her good sense.

She says, “Morning, Poppins” and “I love you, Poppins”, and “G’night, Poppins”, like she hasn’t mostly been calling Dani by her real name since the day she admitted just how in love she was.

Even so, it’s a method of getting by. Dani is still Dani, after all, just as Owen said. Maybe sometimes she thinks it’s 1987, and maybe sometimes she thinks there are ghosts in the mirrors, and maybe sometimes she looks sharply up from a movie with the name “Eddie” harsh on her lips. Sure. Sometimes. But, mostly, she is still Dani.

Jamie is prepared, most days, for the mood swings and the bewilderment. For finding Dani’s toothbrush in the bedroom, or relocating Dani’s wallet back into her bag. She’s prepared for almost all of it, after so much time.

Nothing. Nothing can prepare her for the day Dani forgets her name.

They’re setting about readying for the day--readying themselves for the plane, in fact, which is slated to leave in three hours--and Dani has gone off to the bathroom to shower. She returns in one of Jamie’s softest shirts, her legs bare, her hair dripping. Jamie raises her eyes from last-minute packing, smiling.

“Nice and clean, then?”

Dani freezes. Turns slowly on her heel. Stares at Jamie like she’s never seen her before.

Something in Jamie cracks. Something in Jamie, something she didn’t even know could break, splintering wide open.

“I--who--” Dani, backing up fast, backing toward the door. It’s like she walked into her apartment to find some burglar lurking at the foot of her bed. Her hand extends, warding Jamie off, and Jamie realizes she’s been trying instinctively to move closer. To take Dani into her arms. To remind her.

“Dani. Poppins. Hey.” Each word, a knife turned back on herself. Each word, a question. She’s never said Dani’s name like this, with so much uncertainty weighed into each letter. “Dani, please.”

It’s the please that really breaks her. The please, like begging Dani for the kindness of her own name on Dani’s lips is something she ever thought she’d need to prepare for.

Dani blinks. Blinks again. Raises her left hand, stares hard at the band wrapped around her third finger. As Jamie watches, she touches the heart, the hands, the crown.

“Jamie?”

She’s on her knees, she realizes, on her knees on the floor with her arms wrapped around herself, and Dani is all but running to her. She’s on her knees, sobbing, feeling as though she could not be more wrung out if she’d walked in to find Dani cold on the bed.

Don’t let me find out, she thinks desperately, please, fuck, don’t ever let me find out how that feels compared to this.

“Jamie,” Dani says against the top of her head, holding her, “Jamie, hey, shh, come on...”

She doesn’t know, Jamie thinks wildly. She has no idea where she just went. No idea what almost washed away just now. She doesn’t know.

“Still here,” Jamie rasps through a sob. “You’re still here?”

Dani is silent a moment, and Jamie knows she’s heard it: the question at the end of the sentence, placed there for the very first time. Her hand tucks beneath Jamie’s chin, guiding her face up until her swollen eyes are staring into Dani’s tired ones.

“Still here,” she says softly. “I promise.”

***

Twenty years. It’s been twenty years, almost to the day, and California is glorious. Vermont is home, and Jamie would never trade it, but there’s just something about California she loves. The air is sweeter, somehow. The people, warmer. Or maybe they just care less.

Dani holds to her arm like a life preserver as they make their way through people much younger and more aloof than they’ve been in years. Jamie tries to stand taller, tries to look as though she belongs among Flora’s friends. Flora, who barely knows who she is, even--her eyes coasted right over Jamie when she walked up, right past Dani’s smile, the polite disinterest of a stranger.

It’s different than what she’s been watching with Dani. Different--but no less harsh, in its own quieter way.

Miles, practically a man now, shakes their hands with undue formality. Henry, just this side of relaxed, kisses her cheek. Embraces Dani. Jamie tries not to notice how her wife goes stiff in his arms, like there’s some part of her that can’t quite put a finger on why he feels entitled to such friendliness.

“Flora’s uncle,” Jamie whispers against Dani’s hair under the guise of a kiss. Dani nods once to show she understands, smiles at Henry like it’s summer, like it’s ‘87, like she couldn’t forget her past no matter how hard she tried.

“Lovely to see you both,” Henry says, oblivious to it all. Jamie’s glad she kept this to herself, kept it between Dani and her and Owen. No one else knows Dani here, anyway. No one needs to pry into the battle she’s been waging for two decades.

The rehearsal dinner is pleasant--everyone drinking a little too much, Flora beaming up at her groom-to-be, Owen telling bad jokes and advising them both to run off to Bali. With Dani’s hand gripping hers on the tablecloth, in full view of the world, Jamie almost feels at home. If she has to lean over from time to time to whisper a name in Dani’s ear, if she has to gently guide Dani to the bathroom, it all feels fitting of an out-of-town wedding. It’s fine. It’s okay. They can do this.

They’re sitting in the parlor of a presumably-haunted wedding venue, Dani leaning out of her chair to hold Jamie’s hand, when Jamie hears herself say it. She hadn’t planned on it in advance. It feels like flirting with fire, somehow, something that might keep them all warm or burn them all down.

“I have a story,” she says, Dani’s fingers warm around her own. “Well. It isn’t really my story...”

She glances up, catching Dani’s eyes, and for a heartbreaking moment, finds them blank. Dani, looking at her with jaw clenched and brow furrowed, trying to place herself. Trying to ward off the thing still working so hard to take her from all of them.

“It isn’t my story,” Jamie says again, a question, seeking permission. Dani’s face clears. She smiles. Nods once.

Jamie leans forward, takes a steadying drink. This may not do anything, she cautions herself. May not matter beyond the scope of a single night, with a room full of strangers waiting on her next words. Tomorrow, Dani might wake and not have the first idea whose bed she is sharing.

That, Jamie thinks firmly, is tomorrow.

“The teacher,” she begins, squeezing Dani’s hand, “was, by choice, a solitary young woman...”

#the haunting of bly manor #the haunting of bly manor spoilers #fanfiction #dani x jamie #jamie x dani #this is 1000% jess' fault #she knows it #and I genuinely wasn't sure I could write it but #here it is anyway #I promise future stories will make up for uhh any emotional damages

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