#in the wise words from the corpse bride

[xflixer7]

all of my yellowjacket headcannons (so far)

word count is like a trillion ok i’m not counting all this

lottie

she/her transfem! lesbian bottom (try to convince me otherwise)

-schizophrenic

-definitely has some type of ocd

-ptsd

started playing soccer when she was little

will actually go insane is you steal any of her clothes if you look at her she will actually be drooling with heart eyes

this girl is french and is HORRIBLE at it

plays piano

also knows violin because her parents made her take it doesn’t play is anymore though

lottie isn’t jealous but very protective of you

her favorite (modern!) singers are

-phoebe bridgers

-tv girl

-faye webster

-clairo

-#1 laufey fan on the world

unironically knows every katy perry song by heart because she used to be her favorite when she was little

her room is huge

likes putting her hair in pigtails

golden retriever girlfriend she’s so sweet to you and loves to spend time and money on you you guys always stay at her house would literally kiss the ground you walk on if you asked her too:((

also the worst cooker you ever met like how did you fuck up toast why is the smoke alarm going off??

favorite color is blue

lottie definitely has a hairstylist she goes too every month to get permed and there really close i can see her telling them about ALL the school drama

lottie wants write story’s when she’s older maybe romance or mystery idk but i can just imagine her having a typewriter and writing you story’s she has wanted to do it since she was a kid and is very passionate about it:((

what i think her favorite shows are:desperate housewives,american horror story,sailer moon

time burton enthusiast

so scared of horror movie like she will start crying

her favorite characters are:

-emily (corpse bride)

-bree (desperate housewives)

-starfire (teen titans)

always goes on and on about how she’s bubblegum and your marceline she LOVES adventure time

her favorite movie is bridge to terabithia

lotties favorite animal is a bunny and she really wants a pet bunny

BEGS you to give her your bra and your confused but you give it too her and she makes a bracelet out of it and wears it practically every day proudly

also think that lottie is a great artist? like sketching and painting wise

nat

SAY IT WITH ME transmasc! (he/they) definitely bi and a bottom why? because i say so

-depressed

-dyslexic

-ptsd

started playing soccer in middle school

LOVES christmas like has an unhealthy obsession with it

northern italian knows the launage pretty well also a great cook

wants to play electric guitar

his favorite (modern!) singers are

-tyler the creator

-radiohead

-alex g

-motley crue

-is so obsessed with mistki don’t even get me started

randomly painted his room black one day when he was bored

usually prefers his hair down

you give him haircuts he doesn’t trust anyone else someone definitely fucked up his hair once and he never went back

he’s stubborn black cat energy but he can be soft sometimes he hates being vulnerable around you

his favorite color is black or gray

just wants to be famous tbh but he wants to be in a band

what i think his favorite shows are:rick and morty,bojack horseman,shameless

LOVES horror movies and reality tv like 90 day fiancé and the kardashions

also likes claymation

his favorite characters are

-ash (fantastic mr fox)

-sidney (i am not ok with this)

-coraline (coraline)

his favorite movie is little miss sunshine

nat’s favorite animal is a panther he saw one in the jungle book when he was little and just thought it looked cool

always headcannoing characters as trans like finn from adventure time or jeff from clarence he’s so cute:((

nat skateboards too definitely not great at it but does it when he’s bored

jackie

(she/her) is just a bratty pillow princess lesbian you can’t fool me

-adhd asf

-neurodivergent for sure

-ptsd

started playing soccer because she was bored eighth grade tbh i don’t think she likes it as much as the others but she thinks it’s fun

always takes your hoodies fact

this girl is a vegetarian for sure

jackie is greek which is shocking to everyone

jackie is jealous always period

hey gays ass button ups bro

her favorite (modern!) singers are

-ariana grande her fav

-rihanna

-billie eilish

-harry styles

-lana del ray

pretty mainstream music taste

all pink room it’s very like coquette?

ponytail girl but also enjoys her hair down

is obsessed with you like unhealthy obsession always needs to be around you

favorite color is light pink duh

jackie gets perms so she really doesn’t care who does her hair

wants to be a makeup guiro or just stay at home honestly she hates working

what i think her favorite shows are:euphoria, grays anatomy,glee

i think she likes very drama files shows and will rant about tv show characters and there dynamics and why she think that there like that and etc for HOURS

ughhh jackie is such a girls girl like she is the friend who always has your back and has gum or a tampon for you she is the friend who would check you on your period

her favorite characters are:

-maddy (euphoria)

-regina (mean girls)

-amy (gone girl)

her favorite movie is DEFINITELY jennifer’s body

jackie is a cat lover and has 2 i can see her with a orange and a gray cat and they always fight

shauna

DEFINITELY bi (she/her) and i could see her as a switch?

-bipolar

-ptsd

joined soccer with jackie eighth grade

has like thousands of boxers

russian

knows how to play saxophone (she doesn’t even know how she learned she just did) she doesn’t own one though

so jealous but never says anything (this girl cannot communicate to save her life)

her favorite (modern!) singers are

-the cranberries

was so mad when they got popular on tiktok and had to let everyone know they where her fav since day 1 (everyone knew)

-suki waterhouse

-cigarettes after sex

-never got over halsey since 2017

-lady gaga

she honestly doesn’t care how her room looks but it’s never clean

doesn’t do anything with her hair really

writes you notes about how she appreciates you or how much she loves you cause it’s hard for her to tell you how she feels but she loves you so much:((

green is her favorite color

shauna’s hair may seem simple but she’s VERY picky about how it’s cut and is always worried there gonna cut it bad so she gets it cut like twice a year(she always ends up hating it)

she wants to be some sort of doctorate she’s fascinated by the human body so i can see her wanting to be a surgeon

what i think her favorite shows are:good girls, queens gambit,13 reasons why

her favorite characters are:

-velma (chicago)

-cassie (euphoria)

-susanna (girl interrupted)

her favorite movie is chicago (loves musicals)

a simple gal she really likes dogs

taissa

she/her lesbian switch

-ptsd

joined soccer in fifth grade

mixed (duh)

used to be in the marching band

her favorite (modern!) singers are

-bruno mars

(screams when i was your man and grenade in her car way too much)

-frank ocean

-post malone

(also screams his songs in the car)

-has a soft spot for shawn mendas has all of his albums

-really enjoys 60’s music so she really likes elvis

her room is pretty big too not huge on decorating

doesn’t care about hair like at all will wear a headband sometimes

a good girlfriend like if your cold she will give you her jacket type she has a temper never jealous either girlfriend material she’s the type you would want your kid to date y’know?

respectful to adults gets good grades and stuff

her favorite color is brown and everyone is like that’s weird and she is trying to convince them like “no guys it’s pretty hear me ou-“

cuts her own hair thinks it’s overpriced and dumb to have someone professionally do it

tai wants to be something important like president or some shit i can see her being a lawyer

what i think her favorite shows are:the umbrella academy,big mouth,skins

tai only watches skins and euphoria type shows because she loves the drama

her favorite characters:

-hermoine (harry potter)

-patrick (perks of being a wallflower)

-nadine (edge of seventeen)

her favorite movie is the 6th harry potter movie she also thinks it’s the most underrated

she likes tigers

van

she/her and lesbian switch

-anxiety

-ptsd

joined soccer in sixth grade

irish

plays the trumpet but is kinda embarrassed by it

her favorite (modern!) singers are

-nicki manaj

-fiona apple

-tori amos

-girl in red duh

-david bowie

-was ziggy stardust for halloween when she was 8

posters EVERYWHERE can’t convince me her room is not painted red

doesn’t care about hair either puts in a ponytail to keep it out of her face

is a great girlfriend all the same traits as taissa except not the best at school she’s honestly surprised she graduated

favorite color is red

her uncle cuts her hair for like five bucks out of his garage also i definitely think she used to have a bowl cut when she was little

doesn’t really care about money she just wants to be happy wants to own a record store or be a professional soccer player

speaking of records she definitely has a lot of collections like lowkey a hoarder…but her stuff is cool though! like funky pops hat wheels cd’s records etc

what i think her favorite shows are:beavis and butthead, avatar, south park

mostly likes adult animation

her favorite characters are:

-harley (suicide squad)

-ron (harry potter)

-beast boy (teen titans)

her favorite movie is the bee movie or lego batman there cinematic masterpieces

van likes pigeons for not particular reason she just thinks there funny looking

i can see van as a surfer too like her dad definitely is one also i can imagine her being really close with her dad and they have a local family business bakery:((

misty

she/her and idk her position or sexually like i genuinely have no idea

-autistic

-ptsd

always wanted to be on the team but knew she was bad at sports

german definitely

her favorite (modern!) singers are

-boy genius

-the beatles

-justin bieber

-pink

-melanie martenz is her favorite forever

light purple room has justin bieber posters everywhere

lowkey forgets she has hair whenever people comment on it she’s like “oh yeah!”

very obsessive of you and loves you almost too much sometimes you think it’s creepy but than your like “awww she’s so cute”

loves the color yellow

i can see her being a k-pop stan too

(her bias in bts is j-hope)

also is a famous editer on tiktok and no one knows😭her username is like “gxxbflix” or some shit

literally has had one haircut in her life like it never grows?

i see her as a pharmacist

what i think her favorite shows are:walking dead,mlp,monster high

i just think she really enjoys getting into all types of fandoms

has SO many online friends

definitely loves romance anime

plays clarinet

is in band

favorite characters:

-cruella (cruella)

-alice (alice in wonderland)

-edward (edward sciccor hands)

and mistys favorite movie is alice through the looking glass (because it shows the queen of hearts back story and misty loves her)

and misty likes birds duh

those are my headcannons for them i know it’s a lot but i’m obsessed ok send requests if you have any please

-🙈

#yellowjackets x reader #yellowjackets #lottie matthews #natalie scatorccio #jackie taylor #shauna shipman #taissa turner #van palmer #misty quigley #lottie matthews x reader #natalie scatorccio x reader #jackie taylor x reader #shauna shipman x reader #wlw

[blorbobird]

LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO

( another lucemond × taylor swift lyrics oneshot)

in which lucerys and aemond have a duel, and Luke licks Aemonds scar.

❛ But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time. Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time.❜

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

" Impossible."

Aemond whispers mainly to himself as the word falls dead, following with two decapitated bodies that sink onto the floor..

"I didn't want to do that," Lucerys looks up with an expressionless face. Aemond's the only one close enough, halting where he was as the pair of guards were slain in seconds, to see the trace of humour across the boy's eyes. His pride. The coldness in his eyes. "Look what you have me do." He tsks. It needed to be done.

This surely wasn't the Lucerys that Aemond had known all those years ago. Grown, sure. Alive, somehow. But skilled in the art of killing? That boy wasn't skilled in the smaller things let alone anything elegant or deadly. He once had issues holding anything heavy, speaking Valyrian correctly, keeping a serious face without cracking a smile or joke. That boy was nice, kind, seemingly innocent even if his uncle was the only one wiser to see past it.

Wise enough to now know that boy was dead. He died with Arrax. That boy drowned in the sea.

This man before him was skilled in all things elegant and deadly. Cruel, smart, hardened to Valyrian steel himself.

"But now that I have your attention," Luke begins again. Grabbing a sword that wasn't his — how insolent it is to show up to a duel unarmed — from one of the men he so easily killed.

He wipes the metal across the glittering dark fabric of his sleeve. Cleaning it carelessly with such an expensive fabric, an outfit all together no one in the court has ever seen. The material, the drape, the revealing skin. From the racier parts like Dorne perhaps? Somewhere farther? "I'd like to talk in the name of peace."

Peace? "Peace?!" Aemond chuckles darkly as he blinks out of his odd daze.

Unarmed himself, it was his engagement party after all, even in a time of war. One night before a wedding - you would think you'd be granted withsome peace? Instead, he has a whorish dressed reanimated corpse and blood shed on the great hall floor.

"Nothing about any of you Bastards are peaceful." he spits the term and squares his shoulders.

"No man standing in a pool of blood speaks of Peace." Alicent says, rising to her feet from where she sat at the table.

Lucerys looks down at where he stands. Boots already scuffed with blood. "Then I must go home and clean my shoes. I'll make this quick." He steps out of the puddle barring two swords.

Aemond is quick to dodge or tackle, becoming wise with his movement to not just pounce as he wishes to. Not after the flash of gore he just saw. Still stunned but the cogs in his mind work over his desires.

Instead, however, he isn't attacked. He's handed one of the two guardsmen swords and simply … walked past? Disregarded as a whole.

"My mother let you free," Lucerys begins. Ignoring Aemond or the court of eyes on him. "You were bound in chains weren't you?" His eyes dance as he looks at Alicent. "If not a week before today?"

The second eldest boy pounces at that and Lucerys side steps without even having to turn. Eyes turn to look at his — no longer that deep, chocolate brown he's grown accustomed to — but a vibrant green. Jade green. Made and gone with a flash. He doesn't know if anyone else sees but it makes his blood run cold. The tip of a sword presses his adams apple and Alicent yelps at the quick interaction.

"Behave." Lucerys warns cooly before eyes turn back.

Aemond looks to his wife, his soon to be bride, Alys. Wondering if she saw? If she was able to tell? She was a witch, older and wise. Perhaps she would know what-

"Yes!" Alicent says with a panicked gulp. Regaining her confidence but worried glances to her preferred son every so often. "Your mother now sits on the Iron Throne. She laid siege to King's Landing when Harrenhaal was overtaken-"

"And all the Strongs were killed." Lucerys drops his borrowed sword. Voice a sickening octave lower. "I am aware." His boots echo on the hard polished flooring. Making his way over to the largest table to which he stands back in front of before the little 'altercation' with his arrest. "All but you."

Lucerys and Alys match eye contact. Two Strongs, one a bastard, the other another kind as well.

Alys speaks softly but clear. Her voice edged with the wisdom that comes with age. "Im sorry, who are you again?" She stands, too. Warying of her husband's current predicament.

She looks to her husband. Silently wondering if she should intervene herself but he gently shakes his head no.

Lucerys grins finally. "Oh, No need to apologize," He takes a step closer. "Lucerys Velaryon. The dead son of your Queen Rhaenyra, ruler of the seven kingdoms."

"She is not our queen." Aemond says steadily. Leaving the looks from his mother to stay focused on the back of his Nephews skull. "And you are not our prince. The dead do not wear crowns and neither do bastards."

Lucerys doesn't look back. He instead clasps his hands in front of him, twisting the blade in his palm so it reacts to the fire-lit torches and fireplaces scattered across the room. The Great Hall of a Hundred Hearths. Not actually, but famous for its size. Its fire power. They were all surrounded by flames. As Targaryens should be.

"She's quite beautiful, your wife," He feels the cool metal of Aemonds sword presses to the back of his throat. He turns to look up and at the bride to be. Unwavering. "Nice eyes, curly dark hair … such Strong features!" He's amused and the groom isnt. Frankly, no one in the room is besides the 'dead' Prince.

"Stop talking or I'll make you."

Alicent interjects. Nervously picking at the flesh around her nails. "What say you of peace?" Her eyes are sad. Stressed. She's seen many things, she's tired. Arent they all? "Rhaenyra let me go. I still don't know why… has she accepted the offer I purposed?"

Lucerys know's well of this. A plea Alicent made to her former friend when the bloodshed had turned brutal for the Greens. Capital over taken, Haelena's son murdered brutally, all the fire and blood. An offer to split the Realm. For the Reach, Stormlands and Westerlands all to fall to the Greens. Mostly the rest to fall to the Blacks. In the moment Rhaenyra refused.

Jacerys had come back alive, however. Unknowingly to the opposite party thanks to his younger brother. He made it to Westeros in time. Now it was his turn to balance out the game. The tilted stage would be no more..

"No," He says clearly. "My mother has lost alot. We all have. She will not give up the throne, her birthright, and she shouldnt," Turning to face Aemond slowly. Blade now pressed to the front of his throat. "Just because men with their small cocks can't put their egos aside and admit-"

"I will slay you once more!" Aemond roars. Teeth gritted. "Make it final this time!"

"Then do it, Uncle." He says the word like a swear. Something he shouldn't be saying, something Aemond doesn't like hearing on his lips. "Kill me … That is your name after all, right?"

"Aemond-" Its Alicent, or Alys, neither are quite sure. A warning but its too late.

Luke whispers it. "Kinslayer."

A clash of metal as Luke slices up to meet the sword threatening his life. Weapons with worthy opponent's, finally. After all these years.

"I SAID SILENCE!" Aemond screams. He's seeing red, usually boasting on his so-called well level headed mind. Luke is an exception. Luke was taunting personified. Temptation, blood lust, ruin. Every nerve struck and blazing.

His nephew speaks louder to meet him, although not yelling.

"Kill me then!" They hit and switch, a circle of pattern forming. "Why? Are you not Strong enough?" He mocks and their feet move to balance eachother out.

Anyone who is near close enough to intervene, accidentally or personally, has their skin sliced to ribbons and moved away. It becomes prevalent quickly: Lucerys was Aemond's to finish. Or rather, with how it's looking, vice versa, perhaps.

"How does it feel?" Lucerys swings and Aemond ducks gracefully. "To be marked with me not once but twice?! Permanently."

Aemond slices up from his low point and is met with a defensive block. "I hope to return the favour threefold."

Not just his wounded face, but his name. Aemond One Eye. Aemond the Kinslayer. No matter what he did, Lucerys left his mark on him in more ways than imaginable. All the way then and still present to this day. Even in those days, months, years, lacking the middle born Valeryons presence. His impact was written all over him, marked and ruined.

It was a dance of swords. People gasp and others scream, some flee and some stay to watch. A pivotal moment in the war perhaps. Bloodshed or not the audiences always like a show.

Lucerys fights like he was born to kill, and Aemond fights like he already has. Targaryen on Targaryen. How it should of been all those years ago in Storm's End. How the Dance Over Shipbreak Bay should have gone. But Lucerys swore not to fight, a messanger and nothing more.

But times change. People do. Revenge corrupts the mind and karma always somes back around. For worse and for better.

Lucerys had become corrupt and still hadn't known if he, himself liked it. But he's dreamed of this moment for as long as he could remember. Since he picked up a sword all those months ago, since that night.

Aemond close enough to feel that furious body heat radiating off of him. Hotter then all hundred furnances combined. It warmed Lucerys blood to be this close. Taste the victory off the spray of hard-worked and close-encourted sweat.

Muscles ached as arms swung and blades clashed. Quick on his feet. Moving like those water-dancers taught him. Using his larger opponents weight against them, like the Dothraki showed him.

Aemond had yet to learn where all this skin came from. He'd only ever seen Daemon with such talent, to which he carried such envy. This was different. Something that excited him more, maybe because of who it was. Maybe the setting. Lucerys had been too good, too pure for him. He was something violent now, something wild. Like a white mare, perhaps. Something to be tamed. Something to be won and killed.

He didnt expect blood to be drawn with such difficulty. Especially not expecting it to be himself, the first to bleed.

A sword swipes up and the material around his bicep tears. Quick, nothing. Yet everything all at once as he feels just enough air meet him. A paper cut equivalent but with meaning. Three beads of scarlet form. Stunned from those three drops alone. The Strong Bastard made him bleed?

Lucerys crouched at the ready and, as he had been trained to do after first blood, called out: “Do you yield?”

Aemond pounced, and this time he twisted to the right where Luke had been dodging. "You continue to amaze me."

"My talent?" Twisting away to the left.

A scoff. "Your lack of wit!"

Swords flashed like they were lit in fire. Light reflecting off of them like lightening striking. The sounds echo. Their own private thunderstorm.

Lucerys slices again, Aemond dodges. The dance continues. All side stepping and swaying and ducking. Second born princes, dragon born sons. The fiery passion is met here and its a sight to see even if they themselves, can't witness these acts.

The Bastard is wearing hardly any armour, rather none at all. With his chest exposed it makes and easy target and the second the elder gets an opportunity, he ceases it. A slash across the chest, right above the best.

Luke groans and stumbles back for half a second. Glittering and pretty. The brief image of licking the blood off his breast crosses Aemond's mind, for some unknown reason, but it exits as quickly as it enters. Both men radiate with power, or maybe its just tension that fills the room.

A few more gashes there and there. Cuts and scars but nothing fatal or worthy of pause. They're skilled and deadly and quickly.

Lucerys wants to see what he did the last time him and his uncle fought like this. Curious to see his actions turned into proof. "Let me see those pretty eyes of yours-" He glides the focus of his weapon up.

The string of Aemond's eye patch is cut and it falls.

Perhaps its too close to home, it triggers something in him. He becomes feral with violence. His sapphire eye glints in the fire as well so bright Luke could swear it was vivid emotion.

"I dont want to kill you, Uncle!" Lucerys yells as Alicent screams nonsense somewhere beyond them. Probably saying much of the same.

"I want your eye!" Aemond yells and surges forward. He swings, Lucerys jumps high enough at the knees to miss. It meets the handle of his sword however as Luke's mind twirls with ways for this not to end with more bloodshed.

He's killed him in his dreams, he's planned this for years, why does this suddenly feel wrong? Why second guess now?! All those moments pining and waiting for this opportunity. Aemond, the top of his list. He could have his head in seconds!

Ruin, destroy, maim, kill. Revenge is a dish best served cold. No more weakness, finish what you came here to do.

A hand around his narrow waist as he steadies from the jump, loose legged and pulled close. Bodies clash. Fire on fire.

"It'll only take a second—" Aemond grins evilly but his movements are cut short.

Lucerys is finally close enough to see the damage he's done so many ages ago. The skin on his face is red, his scar white. The color of the jewel is a brilliant blue.

The arch of the blade in the air halted. Lucerys, maybe spending too much time with those savage people in Essos, does the first unplanned thing that comes to mind.

He licks Aemond's scar.

Clean across his face. He doesn't know why but its done and nearly every one has seen. A warm tongue against ever-burning flesh. He can taste the metallic twinge of salty sweat clearly now.

Aemond's body freezes and his good eye flashes with multiple volumes of hate. Registering with pain and shock and something else. Mocking him?! Like this?! On his pre-wedding day. How much humiliation must this boy lay upon him-

Its the last thing Aemond remembers before he somehow blacks out.

#lucerys velaryon #lucerys strong #aemond targaryen #aemond the kinslayer #lucemond #taylor swift lyrics #dueling #alys rivers #alys strong #aemond/lucerys #aemond fanfiction #aemond one eye #look what you made me do #magical!lucerys #aemond likes witches

[platypusplayhere]

Thank you @dangerliesbeforeyou for tagging me, im mentioning all kinds of media bc I love to rant, I have a lot of love in my heart and I have trouble choosing just 8: (im making this on mobile hope it's readable).

Howl's moving castle (2004)

My first experience of gender envy, gender fascination, gender emulation for Howl, at a time I didn't even know that gender was a thing because I was like idek 7 years old.

Kiss of the rabbit god (2019)

A short movie, stumbled onto it bc of Tumblr. You honour, I simply love it.

Shrek (2001)

I'm not being ironic I'm very serious about this one. My mom used to braid my hair weekly when I was little and I constantly played this one, I know it by heart and I'm not joking. I freaking love this movie. Same goes for Mulan, Beauty and the beast, Charlie and the chocolate factory, and the whole Shrek franchise up to the 3rd one. (Gotta watch Puss in boots 1 and 2 tho.)

V for vendetta (2005)

This is a shout-out to 14 years old me who might have at some point based their personality around this movie or maybe they didn't, who's to say. I'm not sorry. Kinda still like it tho.

Corpse bride (2005)

There is an independent cinema in my hometown and they did run it often over the years. Bestie I don't know how many times I went to see this movie with my mother as a child. Recently learned about the Jewish origins of this myth and im a lil upset about the stolen storyline without the context. But some will say it's a Burton movie and they're right.

Valentine's day (2011)

First movie I went to see alone with my friends, I was like 12yo. Rewatched it again like 2 years ago, yeah it ain't that great but it's the memories right.

Father and soldiers (2022)

The last movie that made me cry. I hate war movies but my friends convinced me to go because it was less than 2 hours and I've been mad at movies being more than two and a half hours lately (looking at u House of Gucci, Doctor Strange 2) yeah, I cried my eyes out. It's not a perfect movie but the message is great and very moving. I don't like the English title because the original/French title directly refers the name of a group of African soldier recruited by France in its colonies during WWI -> "Les Tirailleurs" (if I remember well, the soldiers were recruited in every colonies but they left Africa from the Senegal and so all these soldiers are referred as Senegalese regardless of their actual origins). The English title is more fitting thematically wise I'll give you that.

Fulmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009)

Knew about it, was recommended by a dear mutual of mine on this very hellsite and yeah, ppl keep saying it's good because it just is.

I told sunset about you/ I promised you the moon (2020-2021)

If you read my tags u know how I rant about this show often. Watched it 2 years ago thanks to someone i follow on Tumblr (but im not really sure who it was anyway if you're a mutual thank you sm). My first foray into BL (back when I didn't even know what it was) and I couldn't be happier that I started with this. I don't have enough words to praise it. (currently writing a post about it tho, stay tuned for whenever I get around to finish it (tell me if u wanna know when it's up), big up to Bad Buddy and To My Star too)

Honoured mentions bc I started making a list and had more than 8 and couldn't not mention them:

Other movies: O'brother, Love and Leashes, God's own country, Jackie Brown, The big lebowsky (idek if I like this movie but I needed something to base my personality around when I was 15yo)

The book The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo, I'm gonna keep my rant about how the English title is a misunderstanding of the book locked and not even start it.

Alice isn't dead and The Magnus archives (although they're podcasts and I haven't quite finished them, the first seasons are exquisite)

Welcome to Night Vale, I have a lot of episodes to catch up on (currently working on that) started listening like in 2016 then stopped around idek 2 years ago. Some of these episodes are masterpieces ( some I know by heart: Guidelines for disposal, Love is a shambling thing, What happened at the Smithwick House, If he had lived, and The Pilot ofc)

the ballet Swan Lake (1995, 2012) by Matthew Bourne. I don't have enough words. I'll just say it's on youtube.

.....and many more im not think abt rn

*acts surprised* this became a real long post, real quick

(That's why I take a lot of time to answer those lmao, shout out and thank you to the ppl who tag me in these and then I take a lot of time to answer)

Tagging these people and anyone who wants to do it can mention me: @sherlockig @dontbesoevil @lordmeowdemort @namelessbeing @hairbackc0llarup @comrademichael @johnlockdynamic @lovelywickedsoul @frenchsiren

#tagged #ask game #yeah this could have gone on for a lil while #i have some ive yet to answer but its coming #i have many rants locked if u wanna know about them just ask #thanks for tagging me #platypustalks

[thedawningofthehour]

I had just gone to sleep when a Doth thought decided to pop into my brain, because, sure! why not?

Draxum wins and gets to die peacefully in his bed after believing he has completed his objectives, only to be greeted by the cold stare of his family in the afterlife who do not hesitate to condemn him reproaching him for his actions in life, only to deliver him after into the furious hands of the spirits of the Hamato clan who are more than eager to get their hands on him to punish him, especially Splinter, because obviously he is there and believe me he never forgot what Draxum took from him.

And to top it all off! When his son gets to the afterlife he has to watch him suffer for the revelation of what his 'father' really did to him, because how does brainwashing work on a ghost when the brain stays on earth?

And not to mention Cass, who I imagine was the one who was most aware that the Utopia Draxum promised didn't really come true.

The point is, that it will be a hell for Draxum.

Anyway, do you think Splinter looks like Lou jitsu in the afterlife? I mean, when they were taking out his soul during the final ep his soul looked like Lou jitsu.

It's like the scene at the end of Corpse Bride where the guy who kills Emily drinks the poison and all the dead people are like "hooray he's blue! That means we get to torture him now!"

Oh yeah, whatever afterlife exists in the TMNT universe, brainwashing definitely does not carry over. Donnie would have a lot of Words for Draxy.

Nope, Splints would still be Lou. Not sure if he would be forties hunky Lou Jitsu or what Lou would have looked like as an elder-his mother appears young, but it also looks like his mother was young when she passed.

It really highlights the difference between Rise Splinter and 2012 Splinter. 2012 Splinter still appeared as a rat as a spirit because he had come to view that as his body. His mutation and adoption of the turtles was something of a rebirth for him, and after the initial grieving period was over he fully embraced what he was, was happy with it. Even when Donnie created the retromutagen, his response was basically "I'm good, use it on someone who needs it."

Where Rise Splinter still fully sees himself as The Great Lou Jitsu trapped in a rat body. Which-I mean, fair, 2012 Splinter got to be over six feet tall, built like a ninja, and has fur that doesn't make him look like grandpa has a body hair problem. Rise Splinter physically shrunk and is all bent over-his spine probably hurts him quite a bit, honestly, and he just...does not look good. (I've seen the discourse about how badly caricaturized Rise Splinter's design is and-like, I do give TMNT a pass on Splinter being a rat because 1) originally he was just a rat, he wasn't supposed to be a human turned into one, and 2) the whole premise of TMNT was started as a joke and a parody of other popular superhero comics at the time and was never supposed to become this big thing-but YEAH, I don't know how they got that design through. Especially when this show does such a good job of humanizing Splinter as a character and making him act like an actual first-gen immigrant parent and not reducing him to a cluster of Wise Old Asian stereotypes, but then they draw him like that?) Splinter is shown to have practically dysphoria over his body, because he still thinks and feels very much like the Lou Jitsu of legend, but then he looks down and his body is just wrong.

And yeah, he's happier now than he was as Lou Jitsu, because he has his boys. He'd rather be a rat dad than a single and childless movie star. That doesn't mean he isn't allowed to long for aspects of his previous life. That doesn't mean he has to be happy about absolutely everything. I just feel like that was such a good take. It makes him feel so human.

#i'm sorry this is all only tangently related to what you were talking about #it's the adhd speaking i spun the merry-go-round and shot off in one direction #doth asks

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

Stumpy note:

Until tumblr support fixes my account, I won't be able to respond to any replies or tags you leave on this post. 😢 I'm sorry. Please know I love all your contributions!

ADWD: The Prince of Winterfell (Theon IV) [Chapter 37]

The bride was shivering too. They had dressed her in white lambswool trimmed with lace. Her sleeves and bodice were sewn with freshwater pearls, and on her feet were white doeskin slippers—pretty, but not warm. Her face was pale, bloodless.

A face carved of ice, Theon Greyjoy thought as he draped a fur-trimmed cloak about her shoulders. A corpse buried in the snow. "My lady. It is time." Beyond the door, the music called them, lute and pipes and drum.

Unwilling brides and pearls in back-to-back chapters.

A corpse buried in the snow.

Like Bran's cave! Probably not intentional.

+.+.+

Talk like that will get you killed, or worse. That lesson he had learned as Reek. "You are the real Arya, my lady. Arya of House Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter, heir to Winterfell." Her name, she had to know her name. "Arya Underfoot. Your sister used to call you Arya Horseface."

"It was me made up that name. Her face was long and horsey. Mine isn't. I was pretty." Tears spilled from her eyes at last. "I was never beautiful like Sansa, but they all said I was pretty. Does Lord Ramsay think I am pretty?"

You have to be a depraved fucking animal to harbor any hatred towards this girl for this.

+.+.+

"Help me." She clutched at him. "Please. I used to watch you in the yard, playing with your swords. You were so handsome." She squeezed his arm. "If we ran away, I could be your wife, or your … your whore … whatever you wanted. You could be my man."

Similar to Theon, I would also like to be put out of my misery.

+.+.+

Theon wrenched his arm away from her. "I'm no … I'm no one's man." A man would help her. 

. . .

+.+.+

Jeyne, her name is Jeyne, it rhymes with pain. 

Theon, can you please shut up.

+.+.+

The music was growing more insistent. "It is time. Wipe those tears from your eyes." Brown eyes. They should be grey. Someone will see. Someone will remember. "Good. Now smile."

Someone will remember, the north remembers, Yohn Royce remembers. . . lots of remembering going on.

+.+.+

"She has a brother still." She has three brothers still, he might have said. "Jon Snow is with the Night's Watch."

"A half-brother, bastard-born, and bound to the Wall. You were her father's ward, the nearest thing she has to living kin. It is only fitting that you give her hand in marriage."

The nearest thing she has to living kin. Theon Greyjoy had grown up with Arya Stark. Theon would have known an imposter. If he was seen to accept Bolton's feigned girl as Arya, the northern lords who had gathered to bear witness to the match would have no grounds to question her legitimacy. Stout and Slate, Whoresbane Umber, the quarrelsome Ryswells, Hornwood men and Cerywn cousins, fat Lord Wyman Manderly … not one of them had known Ned Stark's daughters half so well as he. And if a few entertained private doubts, surely they would be wise enough to keep those misgivings to themselves.

They are using me to cloak their deception, putting mine own face on their lie. That was why Roose Bolton had clothed him as a lord again, to play his part in this mummer's farce. Once that was done, once their false Arya had been wedded and bedded, Bolton would have no more use for Theon Turncloak. "Serve us in this, and when Stannis is defeated we will discuss how best to restore you to your father's seat," his lordship had said in that soft voice of his, a voice made for lies and whispers. Theon never believed a word of it. He would dance this dance for them because he had no choice, but afterward … He will give me back to Ramsay then, he thought, and Ramsay will take a few more fingers and turn me into Reek once more. 

If this was my first time reading the story, I would think Theon eventually exposes the lie.

He doesn't though, and now that she's on her way to the Wall it's kind of unnecessary. There's still the Bran and Rickon lie?

Ramsay will take a few more fingers and turn me into Reek once more. 

I guess he's Theon today.

+.+.+

Unless the gods were good, and Stannis Baratheon descended on Winterfell and put all of them to the sword, himself included. That was the best he could hope for.

Theon has had multiple opportunities to kill himself.

+.+.+

Icicles long as lances hung from the battlements and fringed the towers like an old man's stiff white whiskers. But inside the godswood, the ground remained unfrozen, and steam rose off the hot pools, as warm as baby's breath.

x

Theon Greyjoy was no stranger to this godswood. He had played here as a boy, skipping stones across the cold black pool beneath the weirwood, hiding his treasures in the bole of an ancient oak, stalking squirrels with a bow he made himself.

Are the hot pools and cold black pool symbolic of something?

+.+.+

Theon wore black and gold, his cloak pinned to his shoulder by a crude iron kraken that a smith in Barrowton had hammered together for him. But under the hood, his hair was white and thin, and his flesh had an old man's greyish undertone. A Stark at last, he thought. 

He's so depressing.

+.+.+

The first time he had ever kissed a girl had been here. Later, a different girl had made a man of him upon a ragged quilt in the shade of that tall grey-green sentinel.

It's funny to picture baby Bran witnessing all these things.

+.+.+

He had never seen the godswood like this, though—grey and ghostly, filled with warm mists and floating lights and whispered voices that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Beneath the trees, the hot springs steamed. Warm vapors rose from the earth, shrouding the trees in their moist breath, creeping up the walls to draw grey curtains across the watching windows.

Speaking of Bran,

BRAN?!

+.+.+

The mists were so thick that only the nearest trees were visible; beyond them stood tall shadows and faint lights. Candles flickered beside the wandering path and back amongst the trees, pale fireflies floating in a warm grey soup. It felt like some strange underworld, some timeless place between the worlds, where the damned wandered mournfully for a time before finding their way down to whatever hell their sins had earned them. Are we all dead, then? Did Stannis come and kill us in our sleep? Is the battle yet to come, or has it been fought and lost?

Here and there a torch burned hungrily, casting its ruddy glow over the faces of the wedding guests. The way the mists threw back the shifting light made their features seem bestial, half-human, twisted. Lord Stout became a mastiff, old Lord Locke a vulture, Whoresbane Umber a gargoyle, Big Walder Frey a fox, Little Walder a red bull, lacking only a ring for his nose. Roose Bolton's own face was a pale grey mask, with two chips of dirty ice where his eyes should be.

what

+.+.+

Above their heads the trees were full of ravens, their feathers fluffed as they hunched on bare brown branches, staring down at the pageantry below. Maester Luwin's birds. Luwin was dead, and his maester's tower had been put to the torch, yet the ravens lingered. This is their home. Theon wondered what that would be like, to have a home.

Then the mists parted, like the curtain opening at a mummer show to reveal some new tableau. The heart tree appeared in front of them, its bony limbs spread wide. Fallen leaves lay about the wide white trunk in drifts of red and brown. The ravens were the thickest here, muttering to one another in the murderers' secret tongue. 

Ha! There it is. I went back to ACOK when I should have looked forward.

I bet that he could learn to fly too, him and Arya and Sansa, even baby Rickon and Jon Snow. We could all be ravens and live in Maester Luwin's rookery. - Bran III, ADWD

Please let every raven in the story be Bran and not Bloodraven. I will clown the fandom for life.

This is a Stark story. Get your musty Targ Big Brother theories out of here.

+.+.+

She raised her eyes to his. Brown eyes, not grey. Are all of them so blind? For a long moment she did not speak, but those eyes were begging. This is your chance, he thought. Tell them. Tell them now. Shout out your name before them all, tell them that you are not Arya Stark, let all the north hear how you were made to play this part. It would mean her death, of course, and his own as well, but Ramsay in his wroth might kill them quickly. The old gods of the north might grant them that small boon.

Theon has had multiple opportunities to kill himself.

+.+.+

Theon stepped back, and Ramsay and his bride joined hands and knelt before the heart tree, bowing their heads in token of submission. The weirwood's carved red eyes stared down at them, its great red mouth open as if to laugh. In the branches overhead a raven quorked.

Not sure what to make of that. Doesn't feel like a laughing matter, Bran.

Unreliable narrator?

+.+.+

Quick as that, it was done. Weddings went more quickly in the north. It came of not having priests, Theon supposed, but whatever the reason it seemed to him a mercy.

The author would like you to know a priest doesn't oversee a wedding in the north.

+.+.+

The musicians began to play again, and the bard Abel began to sing "Two Hearts That Beat as One." Two of his women joined their voices to his own to make a sweet harmony.

Mance nodded. "Good. You'll go with Jarl and Styr on the morrow, then. Both of you. Far be it from me to separate two hearts that beat as one." - Jon II, ASOS

+.+.+

Theon found himself wondering if he should say a prayer. Will the old gods hear me if I do? They were not his gods, had never been his gods. He was ironborn, a son of Pyke, his god was the Drowned God of the islands … but Winterfell was long leagues from the sea.

Let's see about that.

"Aeron is drunk on seawater and sanctity. He lives only for his god—"

"His god? Not yours?" - Theon II, ACOK

+.+.+

It had been a lifetime since any god had heard him. He did not know who he was, or what he was, why he was still alive, why he had ever been born.

"Theon," a voice seemed to whisper.

Theon's in the middle of questioning the purpose of his life when Bran shows up. Not exactly subtle.

+.+.+

His head snapped up. "Who said that?" All he could see were the trees and the fog that covered them. The voice had been as faint as rustling leaves, as cold as hate. A god's voice, or a ghost's. How many died the day that he took Winterfell? How many more the day he lost it? The day that Theon Greyjoy died, to be reborn as Reek. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with shriek.

Suddenly he did not want to be here.

Once outside the godswood the cold descended on him like a ravening wolf and caught him in its teeth. He lowered his head into the wind and made for the Great Hall, hastening after the long line of candles and torches. Ice crunched beneath his boots, and a sudden gust pushed back his hood, as if a ghost had plucked at him with frozen fingers, hungry to gaze upon his face.

The vibes are all off. What's going on Bran? Unreliable narrator?

+.+.+

All the color had been leached from Winterfell until only grey and white remained. The Stark colors. Theon did not know whether he ought to find that ominous or reassuring.

Reassuring.

+.+.+

Even the sky was grey. Grey and grey and greyer. The whole world grey, everywhere you look, everything grey except the eyes of the bride. 

This is how George R. R. Martin sees the world.

+.+.+

The eyes of the bride were brown. Big and brown and full of fear. It was not right that she should look to him for rescue. What had she been thinking, that he would whistle up a winged horse and fly her out of here, like some hero in the stories she and Sansa used to love? He could not even help himself. 

God bless Sansa and Jeyne for their love of heroes on winged horses who rescue maidens in towers.

+.+.+

Stout new gates had gone up first, to replace those that had been burned. Then the collapsed roof of the Great Hall had been cleared away and a new one raised hurriedly in its stead. When the work was done, Lord Bolton hanged the workers. True to his word, he showed them mercy and did not flay a one.

God damnit, Roose is cursing Winterfell. We need Sansa to burn some sage to cleanse this space.

His son Maegor the Cruel had seen it completed. Afterward he had taken the heads of every stonemason, woodworker, and builder who had labored on it. Only the blood of the dragon would ever know the secrets of the fortress the Dragonlords had built, he vowed. - Catelyn IV, AGOT

+.+.+

Theon arrived in Barbrey Dustin's train, with her ladyship herself, her Barrowton levies, and the bride-to-be. Lady Dustin had insisted that she should have custody of Lady Arya until such time as she was wed, but now that time was done.

Lady Dustin is nursing some doubts.

No, he thought. She is not of Lord Eddard's blood, her name is Jeyne, she is only a steward's daughter. He did not doubt that Lady Dustin suspected, but even so … - The Turncloak, ADWD

+.+.+

This was never my home. I was a hostage here. Lord Stark had not treated him cruelly, but the long steel shadow of his greatsword had always been between them. He was kind to me, but never warm. He knew that one day he might need to put me to death.

Theon kept his eyes downcast as he crossed the yard, weaving between the tents. I learned to fight in this yard, he thought, remembering warm summer days spent sparring with Robb and Jon Snow under the watchful eyes of old Ser Rodrik. That was back when he was whole, when he could grasp a sword hilt as well as any man. But the yard held darker memories as well. This was where he had assembled Stark's people the night Bran and Rickon fled the castle. Ramsay was Reek then, standing at his side, whispering that he should flay a few of his captives to make them tell him where the boys had gone. There will be no flaying here whilst I am Prince of Winterfell, Theon had responded, little dreaming how short his rule would prove. None of them would help me. I had known them all for half my life, and not one of them would help me. Even so, he had done his best to protect them, but once Ramsay put Reek's face aside he'd slain all the men, and Theon's ironborn as well. He set my horse afire. That was the last sight he had seen the day the castle fell: Smiler burning, the flames leaping from his mane as he reared up, kicking, screaming, his eyes white with terror. Here in this very yard.

If you start feeling a little bit of sympathy for Theon Greyjoy he'll quickly remind you why he's insufferable.

+.+.+

Up near the dais, Abel was plucking at his lute and singing "Fair Maids of Summer." He calls himself a bard. In truth he's more a pander. Lord Manderly had brought musicians from White Harbor, but none were singers, so when Abel turned up at the gates with a lute and six women, he had been made welcome. "Two sisters, two daughters, one wife, and my old mother," the singer claimed, though not one looked like him. "Some dance, some sing, one plays the pipe and one the drums. Good washerwomen too."

There's Abel aka Bael the Bard aka Mance Rayder on his little suicide mission that makes no sense.

Did you know pander means pimp?

+.+.+

Where they came from Theon could not say. They just seemed to appear, like maggots on a corpse or ravens after a battle. Every army drew them. Some were hardened whores who could fuck twenty men in a night and drink them all blind. Others looked as innocent as maids, but that was just a trick of their trade. Some were camp brides, bound to the soldiers they followed with words whispered to one god or another but doomed to be forgotten once the war was done.

Hints of Sansa and Tyrion?

+.+.+

His voice was so soft that the hall grew hushed as men strained to hear. "I am sorry that our good friend Stannis has not seen fit to join us yet," he went on, to a ripple of laughter, "as I know Ramsay had hoped to present his head to Lady Arya as a wedding gift." The laughs grew louder. "We shall give him a splendid welcome when he arrives, a welcome worthy of true northmen. Until that day, let us eat and drink and make merry … for winter is almost upon us, my friends, and many of us here shall not live to see the spring."

Lol, he won't say winter is coming. Coward.

+.+.+

The wedding guests gorged on cod cakes and winter squash, hills of neeps and great round wheels of cheese, on smoking slabs of mutton and beef ribs charred almost black, and lastly on three great wedding pies, as wide across as wagon wheels, their flaky crusts stuffed to bursting with carrots, onions, turnips, parsnips, mushrooms, and chunks of seasoned pork swimming in a savory brown gravy. Ramsay hacked off slices with his falchion and Wyman Manderly himself served, presenting the first steaming portions to Roose Bolton and his fat Frey wife, the next to Ser Hosteen and Ser Aenys, the sons of Walder Frey. "The best pie you have ever tasted, my lords," the fat lord declared. "Wash it down with Arbor gold and savor every bite. I know I shall."

True to his word, Manderly devoured six portions, two from each of the three pies, smacking his lips and slapping his belly and stuffing himself until the front of his tunic was half-brown with gravy stains and his beard was flecked with crumbs of crust. Even Fat Walda Frey could not match his gluttony, though she did manage three slices herself. Ramsay ate heartily as well, though his pale bride did no more than stare at the portion set before her.

Jeyne didn't eat it!

Looks like everyone who ate it will die in the story. Poor Walda.

+.+.+

No longswords had been allowed within the hall, but every man there wore a dagger, even Theon Greyjoy. How else to cut his meat? Every time he looked at the girl who had been Jeyne Poole, he felt the presence of that steel at his side. I have no way to save her, he thought, but I could kill her easy enough. No one would expect it. I could beg her for the honor of a dance and cut her throat. That would be a kindness, wouldn't it? And if the old gods hear my prayer, Ramsay in his wroth might strike me dead as well. Theon was not afraid to die. Underneath the Dreadfort, he had learned there were far worse things than death.

Theon has had multiple opportunities to kill himself.

Anyway,

They were not his gods, had never been his gods.

↓

And if the old gods hear my prayer

yeah.

+.+.+

"No taste for pork pie, my lord? The best pork pie we ever tasted, our fat friend would have us believe." She [Barbrey Dustin] gestured toward Lord Manderly with her wine cup. "Have you ever seen a fat man so happy? He is almost dancing. Serving with his own hands."

Barbrey Dustin ate it!

+.+.+

It was true. The Lord of White Harbor was the very picture of the jolly fat man, laughing and smiling, japing with the other lords and slapping them on the back, calling out to the musicians for this tune or that tune. "Give us 'The Night That Ended,' singer," he bellowed. "The bride will like that one, I know. Or sing to us of brave young Danny Flint and make us weep." To look at him, you would have thought that he was the one newly wed.

I don't believe Jeyne will die at the Wall, but I did feel instant dread the second I saw noted pretender Danny Flint's name.

Happy thoughts.

+.+.+

"He's drunk," said Theon.

"Drowning his fears. He is craven to the bone, that one."

Was he? Theon was not certain. His sons had been fat as well, but they had not shamed themselves in battle. "Ironborn will feast before a battle too. A last taste of life, should death await. If Stannis comes …"

"He will. He must." Lady Dustin chuckled. "And when he does, the fat man will piss himself. His son died at the Red Wedding, yet he's shared his bread and salt with Freys, welcomed them beneath his roof, promised one his granddaughter. He even serves them pie. The Manderlys ran from the south once, hounded from their lands and keeps by enemies. Blood runs true. The fat man would like to kill us all, I do not doubt, but he does not have the belly for it, for all his girth. Under that sweaty flesh beats a heart as craven and cringing as … well … yours."

There are two possibilities.

Barbrey Dustin is not a great judge of character. Even looney tune Theon realizes Manderly is not what he appears to be.

or

You can't trust anything Barbrey Dustin is saying, because she knows Theon is Ramsay and Roose's pet.

+.+.+

"You think Roose does not know? Silly boy. Watch him. Watch how he watches Manderly. No dish so much as touches Roose's lips until he sees Lord Wyman eat of it first. No cup of wine is sipped until he sees Manderly drink of the same cask. I think he would be pleased if the fat man attempted some betrayal. It would amuse him. Roose has no feelings, you see. Those leeches that he loves so well sucked all the passions out of him years ago. He does not love, he does not hate, he does not grieve. This is a game to him, mildly diverting. Some men hunt, some hawk, some tumble dice. Roose plays with men. You and me, these Freys, Lord Manderly, his plump new wife, even his bastard, we are but his playthings." A serving man was passing by. Lady Dustin held out her wine cup and let him fill it, then gestured for him to do the same for Theon. "Truth be told," she said, "Lord Bolton aspires to more than mere lordship. Why not King of the North? Tywin Lannister is dead, the Kingslayer is maimed, the Imp is fled. The Lannisters are a spent force, and you were kind enough to rid him of the Starks. Old Walder Frey will not object to his fat little Walda becoming a queen. White Harbor might prove troublesome should Lord Wyman survive this coming battle … but I am quite sure that he will not. No more than Stannis. Roose will remove both of them, as he removed the Young Wolf. Who else is there?"

"You," said Theon. "There is you. The Lady of Barrowton, a Dustin by marriage, a Ryswell by birth."

That pleased her. She took a sip of wine, her dark eyes sparkling, and said, "The widow of Barrowton … and yes, if I so choose, I could be an inconvenience. Of course, Roose sees that too, so he takes care to keep me sweet."

Tywin's mistake is believing Ramsay is his plaything.

Two takeaways,

Barbrey Dustin has the power to ruin Roose Bolton. We knew that.

It's a black mark against her the second it's revealed she has ambitions for power.

White Harbor might prove troublesome should Lord Wyman survive this coming battle … but I am quite sure that he will not.

Dot, dot, dot.

I am quite sure he will!

He'll definitely die. Later.

+.+.+

As Maester Medrick went to one knee to whisper in Bolton's ear, Lady Dustin's mouth twisted in distaste. "If I were queen, the first thing I would do would be to kill all those grey rats. They scurry everywhere, living on the leavings of the lords, chittering to one another, whispering in the ears of their masters. But who are the masters and who are the servants, truly? Every great lord has his maester, every lesser lord aspires to one. If you do not have a maester, it is taken to mean that you are of little consequence. The grey rats read and write our letters, even for such lords as cannot read themselves, and who can say for a certainty that they are not twisting the words for their own ends? What good are they, I ask you?"

"They heal," said Theon. It seemed to be expected of him.

"They heal, yes. I never said they were not subtle. They tend to us when we are sick and injured, or distraught over the illness of a parent or a child. Whenever we are weakest and most vulnerable, there they are. Sometimes they heal us, and we are duly grateful. When they fail, they console us in our grief, and we are grateful for that as well. Out of gratitude we give them a place beneath our roof and make them privy to all our shames and secrets, a part of every council. And before too long, the ruler has become the ruled.

Replace the word maester with Dr. Fauci and this becomes a standard Facebook post from your unhinged aunt.

This is what anti-intellectualism looks like in the world of ASoIaF, and I know George doesn't fuck with it.

+.+.+

"That was how it was with Lord Rickard Stark. Maester Walys was his grey rat's name. And isn't it clever how the maesters go by only one name, even those who had two when they first arrived at the Citadel? That way we cannot know who they truly are or where they come from … but if you are dogged enough, you can still find out. Before he forged his chain, Maester Walys had been known as Walys Flowers. Flowers, Hill, Rivers, Snow … we give such names to baseborn children to mark them for what they are, but they are always quick to shed them. 

We interrupt these nutty ramblings to remind you she hates Ramsay Snow. That's what makes Barbrey Dustin such a wild card!

The problem is Jon is also a Snow.

+.+.+

Walys Flowers had a Hightower girl for a mother … and an archmaester of the Citadel for a father, it was rumored. The grey rats are not as chaste as they would have us believe. Oldtown maesters are the worst of all. Once he forged his chain, his secret father and his friends wasted no time dispatching him to Winterfell to fill Lord Rickard's ears with poisoned words as sweet as honey. The Tully marriage was his notion, never doubt it, he—"

It's been almost twenty years.

She sounds half-mad. I can't put my faith in this woman. I don't even want her on Team Stark.

Is Walys Flowers important? Why am I being told all this?

Edit: Apparently there's a theory he's Archmaester Walgrave's son. I couldn't tell you why that's important.

+.+.+

As the Lord of the Dreadfort slipped out, attended by the three maesters, other lords and captains rose to follow. Hother Umber, the gaunt old man called Whoresbane, went grim-faced and scowling. Lord Manderly was so drunk he required four strong men to help him from the hall. "We should have a song about the Rat Cook," he was muttering, as he staggered past Theon, leaning on his knights. "Singer, give us a song about the Rat Cook."

+.+.+

"There's my sweet maid. Good lads. You may leave us now. Not you, Reek. You stay."

Reek, Reek, it rhymes with peek. He could feel his missing fingers cramping: two on his left hand, one on his right. And on his hip his dagger rested, sleeping in its leather sheath, but heavy, oh so heavy. It is only my pinky gone on my right hand, Theon reminded himself. I can still grip a knife.

See? Arya's fine.

+.+.+

"No." Lord Ramsay poured himself a cup of wine. "Laces take too long. Cut it off her."

Theon drew the dagger. All I need do is turn and stab him. The knife is in my hand. He knew the game by then. Another trap, he told himself, remembering Kyra with her keys. He wants me to try to kill him. And when I fail, he'll flay the skin from the hand I used to hold the blade. 

If you're not going to use it, could you give it to me?

I'm not going to cover the next part in great detail.

+.+.+

Ramsay smiled his wet smile. "Does she make your cock hard, Reek? Is it straining against your laces? Would you like to fuck her first?" He laughed. "The Prince of Winterfell should have that right, as all lords did in days of old. The first night. But you're no lord, are you? Only Reek. Not even a man, truth be told."

[...]

Ramsay rose, the firelight shining on his face. "Reek, get over here. Get her ready for me."

For a moment he did not understand. "I … do you mean … m'lord, I have no … I …"

. . .

+.+.+

Somewhere in the godswood, a raven screamed. The dagger was still in his hand.

He sheathed it.

Reek, my name is Reek, it rhymes with weak.

Reek bent to his task.

I don't have much to say. I'd like to move on.

Final thoughts:

Catelyn Stark

Her face, Brienne thought. Her face was so strong and handsome, her skin so smooth and soft. - Brienne VIII, AFFC

Barbrey Dustin

Though there were wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and more around her eyes, she still stood tall, unbent, and handsome. Her hair was brown and grey in equal parts and she wore it tied behind her head in a widow's knot. - Reek III, ADWD

See what being a hater does to your face?

That's why I use retinol.

-> return to menu <-

#operation stumpy re-read #adwd #the prince of winterfell #theon iv

[wraithstill]

I made this post for myself for reference, so it’s really just things about the saints that I think would be handy for writing inej & it’s a wreck bc my note taking hasn’t improved since high school, but anyone who doesn’t want to buy/read the lives of saints, here’s some tidbits?????

Every year, lanterns are lit along the canal and prayers are said to Margaretha, the patron saint of thieves and lost children - ketterdam

A servant had observed the whole endeavor, and word soon spread of the healing properties of Anastasia’s blood. Sankta Anastasia is known as the patron saint of the sick and is celebrated every year with tiny dishes of red wine. - tsemna

Every year on his Saint’s day, the people honor Juris by placing bunches of red amaranth over their doorways and welcoming soldiers and veterans into their houses.

But all the time the sorcerer had been talking, he had not bothered to understand just what Vasilka had been weaving—a grand pair of wings. All he could do was stare as she slipped them onto her arms and leapt from the tower. She soared away on golden feathers that caught the light in their glowing threads and seemed to set the last scraps of afternoon sun ablaze. She is said to have become the first firebird and is the patron saint of unwed women.

Nikolai is known as the patron saint of sailors and lost causes, and it is traditional to set a place for him at the table on the darkest night of the year.

So the general gave the order, as generals do, and Lizabeta’s body was torn apart, and the bees hummed lazily in their hives. It’s said her blood watered the roses of the field and turned the blossoms red. It’s said the blooms planted on her grave never perished and smelled sweet the whole year round, even when the winter snows came. But the bees have long since left those hives and want no business with those flowers.If you can find that meadow, you may stand and breathe in the perfume of its blossoms, speak your prayers, and let the wind carry them west to the sea.The roses remember, even if wise men choose to forget. Lizabeta is known as the patron saint of gardeners.

Sankta Maradi is known as the patron saint of impossible love.

at the base of the Sikurzoi, the Suli have always been able to find shelter in the caves that Marya left behind. She is known as the patron saint of those who are far from home.

Vladimir’s body drifted to shore on the tide, and the people of Os Kervo gathered him up and placed him upon a bier covered in lilies. For another thirty days and thirty nights, they came to pay their respects, and to the astonishment of all, Vladimir’s corpse did not rot. On the thirty-first day, his body dissolved into sea-foam, leaving behind nothing but a small heap of sea salt among the lilies.He is known as the patron saint of the drowned and of unlikely achievement.

It is customary for the mothers of brides to offer prayers to Sankt Valentin, and seeing a snake on your wedding day is known to be good luck.

Petyr would not let go. He died that day, but so did the demon.  Sankt Petyr is known as the patron saint of archers.

Yeryin is the patron saint of hospitality.

Feliks told them there was no magic, only nature. He refused to confess to any crime and only asked to be turned on the spit so as to cook more evenly. His bones were scattered over the ground, and without his care, the orchards froze and faltered. Ever after, the only tree that would grow in that soil was the thorn wood, its branches thick with fruit that never ripened. The people of the Tula Valley starved along with everyone else and had their equal share of misery. Sankt Feliks is celebrated in the spring with feasts of quince and apple and is known as the patron saint of horticulture.

Lukin’s head was placed upon a golden platter, and from it, he dispensed advice to the new king for the entirety of his rule, which was long, just, and miserable. Sankt Lukin is the patron saint of politicians.

The village continued to starve no matter how many girls they put to death. But the girls who prayed to Magda would often find themselves swept up and carried into the heart of the forest, and so she is known as the patron saint of abandoned women, as well as bakers.

The palace Egmond built was unlike any seen before it. A stone serpent guarded its high towers, its bridge of glass and moat of floating frost, its silver clock tower, and the sacred ash at its heart. Ever since, the Ice Court has stood, its walls unbreached by any army. Sankt Egmond is the patron saint of architects.

The child Ilya had dragged back from the next world wandered the village, asking for his mother and father, begging for a place to sleep. Every door was closed to him, and so he was left to the woods, where he can still be heard crying. Sankt Ilya is the patron saint of unlikely cures.

A chapel was built into the rock on her island, where sailors’ wives still come to pray to Ursula, patron saint of those lost at sea. They leave offerings of bread baked into the shape of fish, and wish for their lovers’ swift return. When they leave, some find bones or sea pearls in their pockets, though no one is sure if these are ill or good omens.(fjyerden)

The good people of the village set the hem of the wolfhunter’s fine velvet coat alight and chased Dag Ivar down the road and out of town. Mattheus continued to visit with the pups until they were grown wolves themselves. They came when he called, lay at his feet, thumped their tails when he told them stories. Their pups were tame in the very same way, and took to guarding the doorways and hearths of the village their grandmother had once terrorized.These were the first dogs, and this is why Sankt Mattheus is the patron saint of those who love and care for animals. (fjyerden)

Dimitri was the son of a king but wished he had been born otherwise. From his early days, he wanted only to contemplate the works of the Saints and study scripture rather than statecraft. When the time came for him to assume his responsibilities as a future ruler and to find a bride, he begged his parents’ pardon and informed them that he had no intention of marrying or of ever assuming the throne. He would give his life over to piety and prayer. At their wits’ end, the king and queen ordered their only son locked in a tower, vowing that he would be denied food until he agreed to wed and become the prince he was meant to be. At last the queen demanded that the tower be opened so that she could see her son. When the guards broke through the door, they found a skeleton sitting at Dimitri’s desk. It cheerfully waved to the queen and invited her to pray with him. The queen ran screaming from the tower, and the king and all their servants followed. Sankt Dimitri, patron saint of scholars, may be praying there still.

Gerasim is known as the patron saint of artists.

#STUDY — & i’m still a believer but i don’t know why *☾ #reference. #like these notes are so messy it's funny #the little headcanons I've put together about how inej celebrates their saint days tho

[one-joe-spoopy]

Back onto my spooky penumbra shit.

Okay, so, I have some basic outlines for them all. (Courtesy of @things-in-the-walls helping me with these)

Vespa is the same thing as Peter, except she's more substantial than him because she told her one true name and decided to stick to it, thus tethering her to reality in a way he never could (outer rimes are more likely to lose their souls as compared to those from the solar planets) and when Fresh Starts got to her, they pushed her from boogeyman to shade. Turned her into the flickering shape with no form or purpose beyond them winding her up, pointing her in a direction and watching her go. Unlike Peter who's built his entire brand on being a ghost, radiation plus being incorporeal essentially destroys her, so she and Buddy are very lucky to reunite when they do. Just like with Peter, she makes Juno's head hurt but mostly because he's squinting all the time just to see her because, well, she isn't always entirely there.

Buddy's a corpse bride. Well, that's technically not the proper term for her, but it sounds better than calling herself a zombie. The radiation killed her, yes, but the dead are so very stubborn sometimes and she just...got back up to continue her vigil. The metal replacements for her organs and skin grafts help make sure that she doesn't completely fall apart, but they don't work as well anymore, and sometimes you can find her sitting and stitching herself together again. But real talk, Buddy's not sure how long she can keep going as a patchwork monster of a woman because it's really not common for solar people to end up in her current predicament, but until that fateful day comes up she's going to keep going. And it is Jet's handiwork that kept her alive years before and continues to do so today.

So, speaking of Jet, I have decided that he is a wish-granting trickster. Don't ask me why, but that's all that keeps rattling about my skull. Like, he's not necessarily malevolent but it is wise to be careful with what you say around him. He likes pranks and practical jokes, but not the same way as he used to. Neometh plus an inclination towards playing tricks is never a good mix, especially when you're a criminal with very little impulse control. At any rate, Jet's turned his life around and definitely does not fuck with Juno because his reactions are pure gold. Absolutely not. Perish the thought. (I got very inspired by the ifrit's I do not grant wishes.)

Rita is a conduit (is that the word?) and mostly works with Juno, though he's refused her help one too many times. When things go wrong for him it's usually because he decides to hurtle headfirst into danger without consulting anything he sees with her. Rita's also...well, partial isn't the right word to use, because her grasp on technology borders on the supernatural itself. A real gift.

Of course the Ruby 7 is still a shapeshifting alien, no way I'd ever change that.

#spooky penumbra au #toldja i had plans for the others #jet siquliak #rita [redacted] #vespa ilkay #buddy aurinko #ruby 7 #the whole crew's here

[usagimen]

                                    @grievice   : "You don't have to hide them around me. The scars are just part of who you are, and I like all of what I see."

                Tattered, in ribbons the flesh dangled, she touched her cheek && bore a snarl. A rabbit hearted girl, thunderous her heart would pound, like a war drum that refused to succumb. Deity, there was forewarning in the word alone, your first solo assignment - how exciting. As the summer slipped through her grasp, the shattering of her heart bore itself into several shards, each she wished to grasp && reclaim, haphazardly fixing them with gold. Every God needs their altar, a sacrificial lamb to please upon it, bled in an illumination of crimson, for second it appears like wine gathering in her palms, soaking the bindings. Godhood was merely girlhood, the suffering, sin && virtue, to be flayed without a moment of hesitation, the executioner && wayward daughter. Emerging, she holds the corpse of what was innocent && pure, crystalline tears that fall onto the soft white of her blouse, everything aches.

           That is rebirth, sacrifice && tribulation, Goddess! Stronger than steel, unbending like iron, the shatter of storms - Goddess of the Feast who sups on the flesh of the divine. Glory was given in momentary sums, she flees without warning, the rabbit wishes to find a burrow && rebuke her newfound status. She’s dead, the rumors echoe, but hasn’t she always been? Between the cups of coffee && deep obsidian brews, there was a happiness that blossomed in her chest. From the withered cavern where her heart once reigned; sunflowers began to crawl towards the skies.

              Rightfully, she wishes to howl in indignation, he should have never bothered to retrieve her. The age where they clambered together && her awestricken gaze was warmed with admiration now remained buried. Between her fingers the wooden stamp rolls, why keep something that cannot be? In serpentine tongues, voices murmurs, cursed to seek the endless horizons, cursed to be ripped from the daylight that bore the  love of the wise moon, bride of winter, bride of shadows, isn’t fate a horrific thing? Her mind is a torrent of restless seas, colliding && clashing. “Huh….?” foolishly, she plays ignorant to Naoya's remarks. The typical tactic when she was corned, when her cruelty was drawn out, when she could not hide from the scathing of his gaze. “They make me nostalgic” with an idle shrug of her shoulders, melancholy begins to fill her, listless she tugs upon the warmth of her robes holding them in place. Beautiful, he utters it feverishly when her skin is set ablaze, tenderness that rips the seams apart && stitches them together again.

             Love is agonizing, yearning that consumes the essence of her soul, she often regales the two star crossed lovers, tendrils of red held in hands akin to bouquet, waiting to be tossed. In another life, was she brave enough to discard the relic that has brought her agony? A name that bore no benevolence, an outlier who wept - if there was no blessing bestowed upon her, could he still love her? Beautiful, once more it rings within her mind, he would love her in full. “It’s rather difficult to constantly sum the energy up to hide such marks, expensive makeup does less, when I see each blemish - they remind me of failure” how could she be anything but meager? A Kobayashi was a blade, one that intervene when need be. Equalizing those who believed they were righteous && bringing forth balance, harmony, prideful smiles in their candlelit features declared. How could that be? When Sayuri was left behind && used for political gain, thrust into a land not of her own. She sets the seal down, “In fantasies, I think of that day where our union was made by the elders, in that instance, I should have swallowed my pride” reject everything, the God of Reverly’s gift, the name she was born to wear, the one gifted to her in hopes that generation worth of feuds could end.

            “You were surprised when I refused to wear the title Zen’in, everyone else was horrified” she laughs, merrily with her calloused grasp clasping together. Home was not across the streams where beautiful beings whispered pleasantries, it was not amongst the hydrangeas && chrysanthemums, it was in a den of wolves that flashed their teeth. Who knew she was neither a rabbit or celestial being, but the beloved of Death himself, a bride unlike any other, monstrous && cherished. “It remains a fixture that I cannot escape, even now I still use the seal like an entitled wife that refuses to part with the decadence of her social standing - it’s tragic, isn’t it?” in one quick movement, she tugs upon him, just like in girlhood when her frame shook && she could not utter, I’m scared.

              “This was not my desire, I rather be a bride of the abyssal shadows than a deity to be worshiped - take me home, where the song of our ancestral land sings to me once more, where I am safe && we are together again”   

#––– ❛ answered ask 【 broken seals. 】 #grievice #gore /// #gore ts #// idk this became unhinged the moment she realized y'know #// naoya's mother was right: the kobayashi's can be disgraceful enough few us have strayed #// sayuri vc: I'm over my past life #// also sayuri: steals a zenin seal / mauls everyone for playful cloud / misses drinking with her father-in-law #// ma'AM JUST GET FORMALLY MARRIED ???

[barry-j-blupjeans]

17 or 25 for taako!

both? both!

17. “There are people who love you, you know”

25. “I made it the way you like it”

((prompts here - still accepting!!))

--

"I made it the way you like it," Lup said, passing the hot chocolate towards him. It was dark outside- Taako wasn't sure how long he had slept, because it had been dark outside when he fell asleep too, but he felt like absolute crap, so it had probably been pretty long. Lup had made him drink a whole water bottle before making the hot chocolate. She was making spaghetti too, but they were still waiting for the water to boil on that one.

Taako... felt like an asshole. Coming back home with no prior warning and "without any reason" was a dick move, especially to your sister her husband who had only just gotten back from their honeymoon. Taako was pretty sure Lup was missing work to be with him. Half of him wanted to tell her to just leave, but seeing as it was her home, and her job, he didn't really think it was his place.

Besides, he couldn't. Well, he could, but his sign language had grown pretty rusty and his voice certainly wasn't working right now. The therapist he had stopped seeing six months ago said that he "shut down" when he was stressed, which Taako had tried to dismiss, but like... yeah. Sounds about right.

At least the hot chocolate was good. It didn't get rid of the paralyzing fear of speaking right now, but it was pretty tasty.

"Taako..." Lup started. Taako shook his head preemptively. "You don't even know what I was gonna ask."

He set the hot chocolate down and it almost splashed out of the cup. He gave her a Look. Lup rolled her eyes.

"I'm not gonna pressure you on it," Lup said, "but I'd really like to know what's up before someone else ends up telling me."

Taako bit the inside of his cheek and shook his head again. Even just the thought of telling someone- of signing it out, or writing it out, or texting it- was nauseating. Maybe that was a side effect of arsenic, he honestly didn't know. They should really tell you these things before you leave the hospital or whatever.

"Can you tell... Barry?" Lup tried and Taako gave her even more of a Look than before. "Magnus? Merle?" Taako shook his head empathetically. If he wasn't going to tell Lup, he definitely wasn't to tell any of them. "There are people who love you, you know? Me, and all of them, and literally like, half the people I know. No one wants anything bad for you, Taako."

Taako snorted and picked up his hot chocolate again.

"I'm gonna find out eventually," Lup said, like a final attempt. At least, Taako hoped it was a final attempt. "You might as well tell me now."

Taako signed out "hell no" the best he could with the hand he had available. Lup rolled her eyes and squished herself moodily into the corner of her couch. Taako wanted to tell her that her home was designed like someone had picked everything out based on the texture (knowing Lup and Barry, they probably had). He also wanted to tell her she looked like a doofus.

He couldn't. He set his hot chocolate down and tried,

"You look like an idiot" but he forgot the word for idiot and ended up stalling too long, which just made Lup look at him weirdly. He flipped her off in place of the word and she rolled her eyes.

"This is how people can tell I'm the older twin," she said. "'Cus I'm not a dumbass."

Taako stuck his tongue out at her. She stuck hers out at him back.

"I gotta check the spaghetti," she said, backing down first, which made Taako the winner. She tossed him the remote and he let it fall in favor of drinking more hot chocolate. "Pick a movie or something, sitting here with you is gonna make me go feral if I can't distract myself. Don't do Corpse Bride again 'cus Barry's coming home in thirty and that one gave him nightmares last time."

Lup went back into the kitchen. Wisely, Taako put on Corpse Bride.

#tw nausea mention #taako #lup #taz #taz balance #mine #ise cube writing #asks #anon #ise 🤝 taako : going non verbal when really anxious

[farfromharry]

We all love a little ghost story, don’t we?

Summary: What else is there to do on halloween night than tell scary stories in hopes of making sure your friends can’t sleep later that night?

Word count - 1014

Warnings - none that i’m aware of!

Series masterlist | next part

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The night was young, halloween night that was. The party the group of you had planned to go to had fallen through at the last minute due to the ongoing, unforgiving thunderstorm attacking most of England, leaving you all dressed up with nowhere to go. And unfortunately the rain didn’t look like it was going to let up any time soon, so until further notice you were all stuck in the house praying that the power didn’t go out.

Which led to you all sipping beer in the shared house’s living room at nearly eight pm on your favourite holiday, fully dressed in costume and bored out of your mind.

Costume wise you and Tom of course had gone for a couples costume, and if you say so yourself, it was very well executed. You’d chosen Morticia and Gomez from the Addams family, one of your favourite TV couples and because of that, your suggestion. You thought you and Tom could compare in the way that those two would do absolutely anything for each other, a true true love. Plus you really wanted to see him put on a fake moustache, and you guess he wasn’t too bad looking decked out in that black suit.

Sitting across from you with their feet up on the table, ignoring Tom’s countless remarks about not doing that, were the twins. Harry and Sam had gone a similar route with the matching costumes idea. The two had decided to both be Batman villains, much to Harrison’s dismay when they told him they didn’t need a Batman.

Harry had decided he was going to be the Riddler, but his mood was sincerely dampened when he’d already been yelled at by Tom, merely an hour after revealing his costume, telling him he isn’t allowed to speak in riddles all night, all because Tom couldn’t work out the ones he’d already said. The man was decked out in a sickeningly bright green suit, purple tie, purple mask and purple gloves, however the mask had been discarded earlier in the night. And you were quite upset that he’d been unable to find the question mark shaped cane.

Sam had gone for a more classic Joker look. He’d rewatched The Dark Knight on multiple occasions to perfect his costume. He’d done the makeup himself, creating an even messier replica of the original, considering he had no idea what he was doing. When you or anyone else even attempted to touch his hair, he immediately shut you down. Even though the Joker was known for his statement green hair, the man refused to have anything go near it; plain and simple. All that was noticeably left was the plum coloured hexagonal patterned shirt with a dark green waistcoat thrown over top. He’d done quite a good job you had to admit.

Finally, on the single arm chair beside you, there was Harrison. Harrison was in a costume much like Tom’s. He’d opted to go dressed as Victor from Corpse Bride, so a simple black suit that accentuated his slender figure, slicked back hair, and a little makeup to really highlight his cheekbones, and even add some dark circles, was all it took to complete the look.

“What if we tell Ghost Stories?” Harrison suggested, taking a swig of his drink with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” you asked, feeling your boyfriend untangle himself from you, claiming he was going to get another beer. But you were very suspicious of his timing.

“Oh come on Y/N, you aren’t afraid of some silly scary stories, are you?” the redhead teased. You rolled your eyes, not even hesitating to flip him off. You all knew who the scaredy cats in the room were, you’d watched enough scary movies together to know exactly who hid behind pillows at the scary parts, or who let out a yelp every time there was a jump scare.

And speaking of, one of the men in question was trying to sneak away as you spoke.

“I wouldn’t be worried about me,” you stated, shifting in your seat to set your eyes on Tom’s already retreating figure. The man hoped that if he could get to the kitchen without being seen by anyone in the living room, then he could avoid the stories altogether. Unfortunately thanks to you that now wasn’t the case. “I’d be worried about Tom more than anything.”

He scoffed, trying to play it off like he had no idea what you were talking about, but it was no use considering the looks you, Harry and Harrison were giving him, Sam unfortunately in the exact same boat. “What are you- I don’t- I don’t know what you mean,” he stuttered, cheeks flushing a pale red. You pushed yourself up from your seat to lead your boyfriend back to the couch, hoping you could convince him that he’d have fun if he stayed.

You interlocked your hands together, tugging him back to where you were just sitting with a small pout on your lips. “But what if I get scared, Tommy?” you asked, nuzzling your face in his shoulder. “Who will protect me?” Of course everyone in the room knew there was a slight chance of you ending up the most scared person here tonight, but Tom couldn’t deny your guilt tripping pouty face was really working on him. How could he say no?

“Okay, fine. I’ll stay, but nothing too scary,” he insisted. You and Harry shared a sneaky glance at his words, biting back your smirks as you uttered an empty promise to your boyfriend.

“Great!” Harrison announced, motioning to Tom who was already cuddling up to your side as if he was trying to hide. “I think Tom should start.”

The brunette’s eyes widened, looking over his friend as his face paled. “U-Um, okay?” His words came out more of a question than a statement, but with a reassuring squeeze to his bicep from you, he was more or less all good. “Well, I guess there’s the tale of Ghostface.”

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tom holland taglist → @lmaotshollandd @photoshopart15​ @hopelessly-harry @call-me-baby-gir1 @icyhollands @sinisterspidey @siriuslyslyslytherin @musicalkeys-blog @itstaskeen @tpwk-grande @zspideyy @spideyssunshine @givebuckyhisplumsnow @lowkey-holland @hollandcrush @wizkiddx @sannie-san-shine @sonnydoesrandomshit @hopeless-romantic-baby @thehumanistsdiary @dummiesshort @itsbieberxholland @lillucyandthejets @piscesparker @bvttercupbby @mymilliefrommarketing @spideyspeaches @l0velyevans @celestialholland @captainamirica @tomsirishgirlx @lou-la-lou @slutforsr @tayyx @annathesillyfriend @lovableparker @whoeveniskendall @hollandswife @sunwardsss @dhtomholland @messedupmyfuckinglife @bi-lmg @scarletspideyy @multixfandomwriter @mrsholland96 @tomhollandismyhusband1996 @just-lost-inbetween-worlds @magicalxdaydream @hallecarey1 @aayaissaa @jacksnoodles @cedricdiggorysimpp @arianawasfound @edmundspevensea @lovehollandy12 @peterbenjiparker @tomshufflepuff @ifyouknewhowmiserylovedme @prancerrparkerr @tom-softie @stfuthiam @rqmanoff @mcushvft @nellabellaa

#tom holland #tom holland fluff #tom holland imagine #tom holland imagines #harrison osterfield #harry holland

[ayamari-no-goshi]

I was going to make a post about Revenants, but, you know what, this is just going to be a post about the number of BS ways one can become a Revenant and/or vampire (as the folklore isn’t always clear) in Slavic and Balkan folklore. I’ve only included ones where I’m aware of how they’re created. There are a lot of revenant/vampiric creatures in this part of the world than are listed here.

Please note, in some areas of a country, the various terms are interchangeable, but are very different entities in other areas of the same country. You will also see a lot of similar words - this is due to language similarities. Also, the idea of 2 souls appears a lot - folk who have this are also said to have 2 hearts

Also, Hungary is not considered a Slavic country and will not be included.

Long post, so line break:

Albania: Note: while not excusable, this was an area where a lot of damage was done during the Ottoman conquests and was part of the Ottoman empire until 1912. Please keep that in mind

Liogat/Liougat/Ljugat : created upon the death of all Albanians of Turkish descent. Does not matter how they lived their lives

Sampiro: created upon the death of all Albanians of Turkish descent. Can also be created by Albanians who committed an “unnatural act” in life. Examples are, bestiality, homosexuality, prostitution, transvestism, heterosexuality with a Turkish person, consuming meat handled by a Turk, being a habitual liar, or being a professional thief

Shtriga: a vampiric witch and not actually dead. Created from a woman who has become evil through envy or never marrying.

Vryolakas: created when an animal like a cat or dog jumps over the body before burial, person dies by murder or suicide, a person eats meat from an animal killed by a werewolf, or was an evil magic user

Belarus:

Mjertovjec: created when a witch or werewolf died. Uniquely similar to the Filipino Manananggal

Bosnia:

Blut Aussauger (originally from Bosnia, but brought into German lore.. and the German term is what’s used): created from either tricking/force feeding people to eat its burial dirt, eating meat from an animal a wolf killed, committing suicide, dies unbaptized, dies a witch, leads an immoral life, or if a nun walks over the grave (wtf?)

Bulgaria: Note: It’s very common for these creatures to take 40 days to form after death in Bulgarian lore.

Krvoijac -  created from a person who drinks wine or smokes during Lent.

Obour/Obur: traditions varied. Sometimes this ran in families. Sometimes it was created from someone who died suddenly, specifically of murder. Depending on region, this term can refer to 8 distinctly different creatures.

Opyrb/Opirb: created from folk who had improper burial rites, had a cat or dog jump over the dead body, a shadow fell on it before burial (I have no idea how this is prevented), a violent death, or sometimes evil people.

Ustrel/Istral: created from a child born on Saturday but died before being baptized.

Croatia:

Kosci: created from the death of a drowning victim, adulterer, or murderer

Kozlak: created from a child who was weaned before its time and died

Pijavica: created from a man who committed incest with his mother, or a particularly evil person

Vrukolak: (from Dalmatian region) - created when the victim of a Vrukolak dies, by being murdered without anyone witnessing the crime, or when a cat or dog jumps over an unburied corpse

Former Yugoslavia (Czech Republic and Slovakia)

Muroi - created from an evil person. Also similar to a Banshee - rings bells and calls the names of folk, who end up dying.

Nelapsi - specific to the Zemplin district. Created from someone with 2 souls

Upir - created from someone with 2 souls. Some areas state they were a witch in life.

Greece - included simply due to how old the legend is. Reported in ancient Greece.

Vrykolakas: traditionally revenants. Created by improper burial rites, something was left unfulfilled, they were cursed, or were seeking revenge against things something done to them or their families.

Macedonia:

Note: while not excusable, this was an area where a lot of damage was done during the Ottoman conquests and was part of the Ottoman empire until 1912. Please keep that in mind.

Ariogourouno: created from wicked Turkish people who never ate pork

Vryolakas: created when an animal like a cat or dog jumps over a corpse before burial, when a person dies by murder or suicide, if a person eats meat that came from an animal that was killed by a werewolf, or when an evil person who used magic dies

Poland: As a note: areas Poland have a history of looking for signs upon birth to mark folk as something similar to a wise man or shaman. Over years, these signs influenced some of these legends.

Mwere: specifically of Kashubian lore of north central Poland – created from the death of an unbaptized children. Girls are more likely to become one

Ohyn: made from children born with a caul and teeth and died shortly after birth

Strzyga/Striga/Strzygoń - person born with 2 lines of teeth and/or 2 souls becomes one upon death

Upiór - a person born with 2 lines of teeth and/or 2 souls or someone who had a defining feature marking them as ‘off’ becomes one upon death. Or, folk cursed before death, dying suddenly, dying in childbirth, or having a grave desecrated could also create one. Also, in some areas, it’s specifically stated they’re made when a male child who was born with teeth dies. Examples of what was ‘off”: being born with a caul, being a red head, being left handed, having a strange mark on the body, etc.

Vjesci: created from a person born with a caul or teeth renounces God on his or her last breath.

Wieszczy – made when a child born with a cleft palate and either a caul or teeth dies. As a side note: this creature is similar to a Banshee

Wili – created when a bride dies on her wedding day

Romania: Note: there are a lot of regional variations of the word Strigoi. Also, the term Moroi sometimes appears, but the descriptions of it are so varied its hard to place exactly what this term references.

Moloi - created when an illegitimate child is killed by one of its parents

Muroni - created when a person dies a violent death, was a magic user in life, was a child born out of wedlock to parents born out of wedlock in life, or died from a Muroni attack

Pricolic: can be created from a child dies before being baptized, or person burns a porridge spoon, or sweeps dust from the home out of a doorway and into the setting sun (that is insanely specific). BTW, this is the undead variety. The wolf variety… is born of an incestuous relationship and has a tail

Strigoi - there are both living and dead variations of this entity. Living Strigoi are sometimes considered witches or sorcerers, but the 2 soul tradition also comes up. If there is a 2nd soul, it slips out at night and causes havoc. Dead Strigoi (strigoi mort) bring misfortune, illness, and death to their families. Examples of how one can be created: suicide, cursed by a witch, born with extra nipple or tail, have a life full of sin, never married, be born as the seventh son of the seventh son or seventh daughter of the seventh daughter ((this can also make werewolves)), child born out of marriage, born too early, died before baptized, having red hair and blue eyes, being born with a caul...

Strigol: created when a magic user dies

Strigoiul Muronul: created when child born out of wedlock to parents born out of wedlock dies. Always a redheaded boy

Varacolaci: can run in families. Can also be created from an unbaptized child who dies, or a person who commits suicide.

Russia:

Eretik: created from the death of a human sorcerer

Inovercy: created upon the death of a person not practicing Russian Orthodox

Kudlac/Kudlak: created upon the death of person born with a red or dark colored caul.

Upierci: created from someone who committed suicide, died violently, or practiced witchcraft

Upierczi: created when a witch or heretic dies

Upyr: created upon the death of a heretic, sorcerer, witch, or a child born of the union of a werewolf and a witch

Viesczy: created when a person born with a caul or teeth or is the child of a witch and werewolf dies

Serbia:

Jedogonja: created from a person killed by a Jedogonja or the disease it can spread

Mullo/Muli: (Specifically from Roma who live in Serbia): created when a person dies suddenly of an unnatural cause or did not have proper funeral rites.

Nekrstenici : created from the death of an unbaptized child

Vlkodlak: created by when a man under 20 who was a murder, perjurer, or had improper relations with his mother dies, or if he was killed by a werewolf, or if he ate meat from an animal slain by a werewolf before death

Vukodlak : created when a heretic, magic user, or werewolf dies. Can also be created from someone who commits suicide or was murdered.

Slovenia - did not find any distinctly unique to Slovenia that are stated to be created from people

Ukraine - did not find any distinctly unique to the Ukraine that are stated to be created from people

Creatures found in lore of multiple countries:

Lampir/Lampiger/Lampijer/Lepir (Bosnia/Montenegro/Serbia): created from the first person who dies from an epidemic or plague

Navi (Bulgaria/Poland/Russia/Slovenia): created from the death of an unbaptized child or a drowning victim

Veshtitza (Montenegro/Serbia): created from a woman who practiced magic in life

Vompir/Vompiras (Macedonia/Bulgaria): created when a person is improperly mourned or buried, dies in disgrace, or passes on in ‘an unnatural way’ such as childbirth or suicide.

Vudkolak (southern Slavic countries): created when a werewolf dies, or if a bird flies over an unburied corpse

Creature of unclear Slavic lore

Kruvnik: created when a person was not properly mourned or does not have proper burial rites, committed suicide or was evil. Sometimes this is a person with 2 souls. Very neat side note with this one. They sometimes return to their wives. If the wife accepts him for 3 years, he will become human again.

Sources:

The Vampire Book: the encyclopedia of the Undead (3rd edition): by J. Gordon Melton

Night Creatures. The Enchanted World. Time-Life Books

Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology by Theresa Bane (the full book can be found for free online)

#I spent way too much time working on this #folklore #revenants #vampiric revenants #Slavic folklore #I have many questions regarding some of these #Danny Phantom #dp

[nooneeverlookedforagirl]

AU where Drogo does not kill Viserys.

Jhiqui runs to him when Viserys drags Doreah to their tent by her hair. She says the foreigner is mad with anger and she fears for the khaleesi. He walks in just in time to see him slap Daenerys so hard she falls to the floor. Daenerys, the girl Viserys gifted him. Daenerys, his wife. Daenerys, the moon of his life. Daenerys with their son in her belly.

Whatever Viserys might have done or said after hitting her was nothing. His fierce little wife strikes him so hard across the face with a golden chain that it leaves a mark. He falls to the side just as Drogo reaches them, and he picks Viserys up by the throat with one hand.

Drogo might have killed him then and there, but his wife begs for his life. He is her brother, her only family, she says, in broken Dothraki. Perhaps he does not understand all the words, but he understands enough. Send him away, Daenerys pleads, but do not kill him.

It might have been better if he had. Viserys follows them on foot for many days. On their first encounter with another khalasar, just outside Vaes Dothrak, Drogo gifts him to the other khal. The Andal tells his wife, he knows, but she says nothing to him and if she is angry it does not show.

Then Drogo falls from his horse on the Dothraki Sea, and Daenerys is reborn in fire and blood. One of their children she names Viserion, for her brother.

When Daenerys burns the khals one of their riders brings her a gift. It's Viserys, filthy and despondent, but alive. Neither knows what quite to do with the other, the beggar king and the dragon queen. Still, for the blood they share, Daenerys gives him a simple tent and male servants and a single horse, and he rides with her when they leave.

He rides with her all the way to Meereen, for when she finds Drogon on the Great Grass Sea she tames him with nothing except a whip, her khalasar in awe as she lands him in their midst. She looks at Viserys, and he at her, and then she pulls him onto Drogon's scales and together the last dragons fly toward the besieged city.

Daenerys keeps looking at him like she expects a fit, like she expects him to demand what is rightfully his, from a crown or a Targaryen bride to rooms suitable for the queen's brother. He does none of that. When the city has calmed and the slavers have died, he goes to her in her counsel room and kneels before her, taking her hands in his.

"I'm sorry." Viserys says, looking up into her eyes. "I was a poor brother and a worse king. I hurt you, I thought only of myself, I sold you into slavery. I was young and afraid and desperate, but I should have protected you. All we had was each other."

This Mother of Dragons, this Breaker of Chains, she is above all a rescuer. Daenerys drowned the slaver cities in blood rather than leave strangers to their chains, she can scarcely abandon her own brother. Instead she drops to her knees beside him on the floor and tells him of all that has happened since they parted.

When she is done, Viserys says, "I cannot be the king. You must go on in my stead."

"The throne is yours by right." Dany replies.

Viserys pauses, then admits, "I can father no children, Dany. You are the last of our house. You hatched dragons and conquered cities. You must be the queen."

"The maegi said-"

"That you would go to the Dosh Khaleen and become one of them. Or that you would die on Drogo's funeral pyre." Her brother touches her face with a gentleness she has never felt from him before. "A witch who murdered your son and husband is not a reliable source of information, Dany."

"If one of us has a child, then they must take the throne," she insists, "I am the blood of the dragon and for that I ruled, but Viserys I only want peace. The little house with the lemon trees and the red door. Peace."

"Let us rule together, then. As brother and sister," Viserys tells her, "We are the last of our blood and we only have each other."

Then they return to Westeros, where Cersei and the White Walkers await them. The dragons do not allow Viserys to ride, but they seem to like him. Brother and sister, Viserys rides behind Dany on Drogon's back, the last dragons the five of them.

"You are not here to be queen of the ashes," Tyrion tells her.

"Nonsense," Viserys scoffs, "You've lived through a starving Kings Landing, Lord Tyrion. It's said they ripped people apart and ate them still living in front of your eyes."

Drogon burns the Red Keep to the ground with its inhabitants inside but saves thousands from starvation and wildfire. The siblings find Cersei dead on the throne, having poisoned herself, and Tyrion weeps over her. Daenerys returns her body to the Rock, for his sake, and names Olenna Tyrell their Hand.

"With the queen's permission I'll go north and take one," Jorah Mormont offers.

"None of our men are going beyond the Wall. This is all ridiculous. You, the "King in the North" are going to personally go to the most dangerous place in the world for the sake of Jaime Lannister and his men?" Viserys touches his sister's shoulder gently. "You can never trust a Lannister," he tells her, Tyrion looking more uncomfortable by the second, "when Tywin Lannister swore to our father that he would fight for him, he sacked the city and murdered Rhaegar's family. Rhaenys, all of three. Aegon, the rightful king. Elia of Dorne. Jaime Lannister himself broke his sworn oath to our father. Do not trust them. Do not."

Jon Snow goes without Jorah Mormont, and of all the men that step beyond the Wall only he makes it back, bloody and battered, barely alive. Those that had gone with him had traded their lives for his, and had died for nothing. Jon has his wight. Jaime Lannister does not stir from the Rock. Perhaps he swears not to attack them, but he did not have the strength to fight in the field anyway.

"You will rule wisely and well, while she-" Varys begins, but Jon cuts him off.

"If you want another ruler, go and speak to Viserys."

And Varys has, but whatever happened to him in Essos has made it so that he will hear not a word of it. What Varys did say he expects made it back to Daenerys. "Viserys is his father's son, just so, and Rhaegar's son comes before his brother."

Varys will burn that night, when Viserys and Jon both swear that he is a traitor. Viserys would burn Jon too, but Dany refuses him. Burning the North's chosen ruler will do little to make them love her, she says. I love him, she does not, but he hears anyway.

Viserys has seen Jon's eyes. He is a Targaryen, that one, not a Stark, not like his beloved Ned. He takes to wearing full armor, even on Dragonstone, and warns Grey Worm as well. They come to an understanding, if an uncertain one, for Grey Worm has lost Missandei and he will not lose her as well.

As the Red Keep is rebuilt, Dany goes to walk among the ruins. Sometimes she goes up to the Iron Throne, although that room has not been started yet, just to be alone and think. She takes no guards but her children. In the throne room, she welcomes Jon to her, angry or not. They argue.

Casterly Rock has burned, and Viserys is looking for his sister. He finds her usual guard in the hall, and asks where she is. "The throne room," they say, "Jon Snow is with her."

He starts to run. Alarmed, the Unsullied follow him. She had commanded to be left alone, but Jon Snow is one of her generals, one of her trusted allies. The queen has been alone with him before, in more intimate places, and

"You are my queen." Jon says, and she lets him embrace her. There is a blade in his belt, one that almost killed his brother. He reaches for it.

Yet Viserys is not fast enough. He is only a man, but Drogon is not. While he is not Viserys' in the way he is Daenerys', he still feels his fear, still knows it's for his mother. With a flap of his great wings he shakes the snow away and soars up to the ruined keep.

Viserys bursts into the throne room steps ahead of the guards to find Daenerys naked and on her knees, weeping over the corpse of her lover, half-burned away along with her clothes. He still holds the blade he would have killed her with.

Removing his cloak, he drapes it over her instead, hiding both her nakedness and the swell of her stomach as she cries. Viserys pulls her away from the body, turning her face into his shoulder. His mother was careful, so careful, to shelter him from the worst of his father's atrocities, but this is not the first time he has smelled burning flesh. It's all he can do to mummer in High Valyrian to his sister, trying to calm her.

"You were right." Are her first words. "I should never have trusted him. You were right."

Above them is Drogon, the son she bore from Khal Drogo's pyre. Because of her they sit in the halls their ancestors built and call themselves king and queen. Three cities yet stand in Essos, their slaves free for the first time in thousands upon thousands of years. All her doing.

Viserys accepted a long time ago that he was never going to take back the Seven Kingdoms. He was never going to go home. Yet here he stands, all because of his little sister. Viserys had wanted his father's throne; Daenerys envisioned a new world. Jon Snow is but dush and ash.

"No," he presses a kiss to her forehead, and tries to wipe away the tears. "You're a conqueror, Dany, you're a queen. He chose the old world, and you will craft a new one."

#daenerys targaryen #viserys targaryen #game of thrones #fanfic #this started out much darker #but why can't they be happy?

[crazed-rambling]

After The Tower

You are unnamed and yet still unproven when you awaken among the bloodbath of your own corpse. You look more breakable from here, like this, as though made of brittle sparrow bones and spider silk. But you are not. You can see bone and flesh clearly. It is a long time before you awaken again.

 You are a princess. You are kind and graceful and beautiful because a princess must be all these things. One day you shall be a queen and you shall be humble and modest and wise because that is what a queen should be. But you are a princess right now so you are none of those.

You are silent though, because your governess said it was a virtue. You also lack something to say - it’s the first time you have seen a prince. At least you think he should be the prince; he is rescuing you but the lines on his face make him look more like your father than you. This might be how it was meant to be, princes become kings after all. You are confused all the same.

It wasn’t that you weren’t expecting this, it was common sense. A prince rescues a princess, they fall in love, they get married, they are happy. Mother had told you not to worry, that last day you saw her, in the carriage, gripped your hands too tight in her own and told you were a princess so a prince would save you, like she had been saved. That hadn’t made sense at the time, your mother was a queen not a princess, why would she need to be saved? You were young then and a bit stupid because your uncle said it was cute for a little girl, but you riddled it out in the end. You think you might be a bit less stupid now, you are a woman grown after all. Bled your first blood here, then one every after, here among your stories and your needlework and your dragons. But somehow blood is redder as you are lifted from your fallen dragons.

You are Antoinette when you wake again, is what they tell you. Sleep soon finds you.

 You are unsure how to go about falling in love, maybe you have already done it, you are married after all. You’ve done it, you will be happy now, mother said so. It feels deceptively easy, a few words, a kiss and you are a wife. Everyone around you seems to be doing the work for this marriage; servants laden with plate after plate of food, musicians playing songs you do not know over the sound of toasts to the couple, to the kingdom, wine spilling over onto silk sleeves and tablecloths that you imagine must have been weaved from gold.

The prince, your husband, has not had a chance to speak to you, there always seems to be someone for him to talk to. He does not introduce you. These men already know you; they call you ‘the bride’. It isn’t your name. You smile anyway because you’re happy now. The pins in your hair are pulling too tight.

  You are loved they tell you when you awaken this time, aching in places you’d never thought to burn before. A wife, a princess. You suppose those things mean you’re loved. There is a musky smell in the air, it tastes heavy on your tongue. You cannot help the way your upper lip curls in some imitation of disgust, humans are just always so damp. It is the softest mattress you have ever known yet still too hard against all your aches. Worse; you are not alone. Another clammy body lies sprawled beside your own.

 You sit up, ignoring the spike of pain between your legs to examine it. And stop. Because you know this one. He lives among your siblings screams, flames and the burning cold left behind sword slashes. Your murderer sleeps defenceless as though you are not a predator. But you are not. Your teeth are blunt now. You do not want to be here.

 You have a daughter now, a child all your own, and she is so small in your arms. You love her more fiercely than you ever though yourself capable of. Each time you hold her you feel as though the world has been made anew in your arms. If this is how your mother felt for you, how did she ever let go of your hand that day in the carriage? The thought of your sweet daughter leaving your sight is a knife, you think abandoning her in that tower would kill you.

She has taught you what love is, true love. Your mother was wrong. It was not love you felt on your wedding day and it has not been love since, you think the only thing you could love your husband for is giving you Therese. You do not understand how he cannot feel the way you about her, it is as though when you were given this all-consuming feeling you took all the love allotted to her parents. Your husband wants another child – a boy, an heir this time. You still ache from the birth. He visits your bed still.

Sometimes you long for the days in the tower, dull as it may have been. You imagine yourself there again, Therese in your arms because you do not think you could bear to put her down even in your mind, you are there once more. Making a home for yourself among stone walls; you���d place the crib in the alcove you used to read in, far enough away from the window that she wouldn’t catch a chill, tell her the stories sing her the songs that built you all those years ago. And you are always safe. Dragons are as dangerous as people say, you heard many knights try and fail to save you before, but you were never once in danger. Your dragon was as close to a companion as you had all those years, you may never have spoken but you understood one thing all the same. She would never have hurt you. She would yell and her gold eyes were cold but she’d bring you meat from her hunt, let you touch her smoothest scales near her neck, allow you let you feel her children move inside their eggs. They were so fragile and warm under your palm in that moment. That is the moment you prefer to remember of them, your first memory of them, your last is coated in blood.

Sometimes when your husband is angry you look down at your child, think about those baby dragons and wonder if this child is worthy of the mercy he never showed them.

 You are a wife, a mother the next time you are awake, with a stinging in your cheeks and aches beneath your sleeves. You are still loved apparently; you think that love must be a painful thing. You look down at a babe that looks nothing like you and wonder if this girlchild is as breakable as you were. You wonder if the next time you awaken it will be to this child’s corpse instead of your own. You fear sleeping that time.

 It is stressful waking up in the palace, you are never quite on your own anymore and you never quite know who you will wake up to. You have learnt to feign sleep, in the seconds after you wake, to listen unnoticed. It makes all the difference on bad days; to know the part your husband needs you to play. His moods change like the winds and like that tower you left so long ago you must simply weather through them. It is a relief to wake to the chatter of maids, the footsteps of guards, in those moments you allow yourself to feel safe. Just for those moments, you know they do not care for you - only for the son your husband will get from you, but in those short moments you dream.

Still, you are used to waking up not knowing who is there. You are not used to waking up not knowing where you are. You do not even remember falling asleep, you would not have fallen asleep. Your husband was angry, it is not safe to sleep. But you are here in your room, your bed, the setting sun bathing the room in an amber glow. It had been morning and you were afraid. Afraid the door might open once more and it would all begin again, afraid that you could do nothing about. It was not morning anymore and you are lost to how you got here. And that somehow frightens you more than anything behind that door ever could.

But your beautiful, perfect daughter is soft and safe and sleeping in your arms, your body curled around her as though you might protect her from all the world. Maybe it was you, in that time you can’t recall, this person who slept peacefully when you were shaking with fear. You too would protect your daughter from anything.

 The child is a fleshy thing, the next time you awaken, soft and weak and fussy in your arms. You must hold it certain ways or it will fall apart under its own weight, and you do have to hold it because it can’t seem to do anything on its own. Humans confuse you still. You had hatched with a hunger and the teeth to sate it; this child offers gummy smiles.

So, you take it to see things, things you had seen from the tower walls, things you never had a chance to see. It is far more fragile than you and you did not even last a year, you may as well make what time this child has worth it. But princesses it seems are not allowed to see much. It is not a tower, not like you’d known, it sprawled across the land soaking up the sun but its walls work the same. Despite this you hold this daughter of the body which is not your own and show it the world, limited though it may be.  And each time you awaken you find yourself understanding just a little more; how it smiles for the colourful blooms and things that shine, but wails when you hold a mint leaf to its nose – you do that less often now.

 You are a queen now but you are not wise, not like a queen should be. Maybe if you were things would not be like this, maybe you’d be good enough and things wouldn’t hurt. But you are not. You are never enough to soothe your husband’s rages. The child in you – his maybe son – does not make him softer, only more careful. You favour long sleeves.

The maids whisper stories, stories about you, from the times you cannot remember. They tell you of a woman who looks at your daughter with confusion and pity in her eyes but holds clumsily close all the same. Apparently, you take Therese for walks, stroll from one end of the garden to the other, skirt the walls of the palace as though there will never be enough room to run. They whisper of a woman with your face who speaks to your daughter as though she is a tiny adult. You wonder if you are losing your mind; you’ve lost so much already. It feels as though you are never alone here anymore, that someone is always there, watching you, now it feels as though you cannot be alone even in your own mind.

Worse is that some days you are so tired that you welcome it, that sleep. Those days you submerge yourself in the feeling of nothingness, to let something else live for a day. You are filled with guilt when you wake; you abandoned your daughter, your life. It just reminds you how weak you are, that you would rather sleep than live. It’s just that your Therese is safe and laughing, toddling along after you wherever you go. You always wake to a happy, content daughter and bandaged bruises. You wonder if it would be ok to leave your children to them. You wonder if it is time for you to rest.

 You are awake as often as you are asleep now. You have seen that girlchild find its feet. Watched her unsteady steps find confidence. Listened as she learnt to call for a mother who is not there because you are. Part of you aches at that. It makes you feel hollow. You have felt the sting of a blade before but this, this lingers far longer.

You are not used to feeling, not like this. Fear, hunger, rage they came easy, but this, this feeling has swept you up into its clutches. Raises you high with the laughter of the girlchild you watch grow, leaves you falling as you remember what it means to watch her. This body made a home for you in her, found a place for that child dying long before its time, let you live if only for moments at a time. And with every breath you take you steal one more from her.

 There is no happiness in you, what you have you have given your daughter, you accepted it. This was the life that you have been given. Cowered and cried, curled into yourself, drawn his attention away from her. Let yourself fade day by day so that she might grow more vibrant than you were ever allowed. You have carved away at pieces of that girl in the tower to make yourself palatable, to fit the space they gave you. You accepted it. For her.

But this – this will not stand.

Your precocious, vibrant daughter who just wanted to see her father, is sobbing in your arms. Violets blooming on her cheek to match those that grow on your arms.

You would have his heart for this; carve it from his chest like some deranged thing. You might be. You’ve been breaking for five long years of marriage, only this time your sharp edges face outward. The fear is gone though, or is just quietened, lost in the tides of rage that sweep through each and every corner of your mind.

You do not fear breaking anymore, the monster you married will have to shatter you entirely to lay a hand on your daughter again. This time you let yourself scream and rage, he comes home expecting a subservient shell of a wife and finds your claws at his face and poison on your tongue. But you are not a creature of fangs and claws and even if you were this man has killed dragons – your dragons. You fight. You do not win. You fight anyway. Kicking, biting, scratching at the weight on top of you. Letting your nails draw blood from the hands around your neck.

 Dying is unforgettable, well maybe not dying but the moments before are. The pain, the world growing cold, unable to move and forced to listen to the dying screams of your siblings. You are dying again. Your murderer has his hands around your throat, you can’t breathe, cannot breathe, cannot breathe. The world is cold again and he has come back for you like a nightmare brought to life. You can’t breathe as your hands scramble for purchase, clawing at his face, his eyes. You have changed bodies but the cold rage in his eyes is the same. You cannot breathe. You are dying again. You want to run.

And isn’t that worse. That princess with soft hands and a soft heart is dying with you. Yet you do nothing but sit inside a body that is not your own and think of how to desert her. She opened up a part of herself, took you in and all you can think of is finding another place to run, to hide. Wanting to leave the only person to show you mercy and that smiling child to the hands of this monster. As though you are nothing more than some human.

It is time you remember what you are.

You are not a queen, not a princess, not a wife, not a mother. You are a dragon, unnamed and unproven. This body has protected you for many years and as it has protected you. You shall protect it. You are a dragon and dragons do not fear kings.

 You open your eyes to the weight of your husband still on top. For a moment you are afraid. You think it is well past the time for fear. Because it is not your husband anymore you suppose, though it may be wearing his face. It is difficult to care. That girl who saw the good in everyone died by his hands, drowned in the blood of her dragons. Yet as this creature that is not your husband, is not you, falls over itself like a new born fawn to get off you, and your body is your own for the first time in years, you start to think you may still have a protector remaining.

#fairy tale #dark fairytale #fantasy #dragons #fairy tale retelling #short story #creative writing #story rec #original fiction #Fantasy Story #fantasy short story #princesses #royalty #happily ever after #My writing #writers of tumblr #writers on tumblr #lgbt writers #cw: abuse #cw: death

[imaginesbymk]

“Disciples.”

Dracula One Shot

Summary: Following the mysterious death of their brother Jonathan Harker, y/n travels to Transylvania to drive the stake into Dracula’s heart once and for all, ignoring how it’s easier said than done, and the monster himself has been expecting them for years.

Pairing: Count Dracula x Harker!sister!Reader

Tags: mentions of death, blood, violence, weapons + hallucinations

Author’s Note: imma be honest and say the first two eps of dracula (bcc/2020 netflix original) was good, however we do not speak of the the third episode because it was........ something else. in my opinion, at least. one shots are not open as this is a 700 follower milestone special! this was rushed because i do not know how to write gothic fantasy battles lol [milestone masterlist]

“JONATHAN Harker was my brother, and I will forever regret letting him ride off in the carriage that took him to the castle. His last words were, ‘Believe it or not, y/n, I’ll go. But prepare some bread when I return.’ If he were to. I was disoriented. Weeks after his fiancee Mina refused to come visit me because she mourned too much and she couldn’t bare to see how I was holding up. Mina is so frightened that I would share the same fate. I spent the long day of picking out locks for my doors and windows. I read more books and drank more tea to calm my nerves, but as I said, I was disoriented.

The date was marked as St. Valentine’s Day, the day I arranged a carriage to Transylvania... to come here, and drive a stake into your rotten heart.” I was wise enough to not eat the food prepared in front of me at the long dining table, not even a sip of the red wine he possibly tarnished with something to make me black out.

Instead, I watch him grin at me from across the table that served as a border. “Beautiful introduction, y/n.”

I smile. “Thank you, Count.”

His smile was still there, but fading like sunsets to dark night. “You have not touched your food,” he points out.

It’s not like he was touching his, either. I simply tell him, “Not hungry.” 

He looked down at his plate, then began using his giant cutting knife and fork to slice a piece of meat in his mouth. The flames engulfed in the small fireplace drew out as a guiding light that overpowered the dim torches and candles lit around every twenty or so meters of a room’s perimeter in his castle, and I could describe his look very easily. 

The way I was told about him from countless stories, true or made up, Dracula was old, frail and unkempt, despite dressing in an old fashion vest and suit. When my brother went to him for a business land purchase from England, he must of seen and could of described him the same way. He looked young, maybe not too young, possibly middle aged. His jet black hair was fixed, only a couple of wrinkles from the corner of his eyes when he smiled. Count Dracula knew how to keep himself attractive, and he didn’t even require a mirror.

“There are rules when you enter my abode, Miss Harker.” He plopped his pointing finger down on his lap, the leg he hooked over the other as his dark eyes never in the slightest turned a lighter iris from the lights used by fire. “One of them being you are to be well fed. It’s a compliment when my guests eat the meals I prepare for them.”

“You don’t prepare them. In fact, I doubt your personal staff prepared them, either.” My scowl must of made him grin at me even more. “Do they even exist?”

“Oh, I cannot lie to you about that.” And like that, that was his answer, even though it wasn’t the right one for my question. “That’s quite all right if you’re not feeling hungry, Miss Harker. I believe it’s getting late,” Dracula says as soon as lightning struck outside the gigantic windows. “I don’t think I can let you head back to England in this kind of weather.”

“You’re telling me that I should stay the night?”

He nodded. “You can stay here as long as you need to, Miss Harker.”

“I don’t plan on slumbering in your decaying castle, Count. You and I both know why I’m here, I was bold enough to announce it.”

Dracula got up from the table and began to walk over to my side, running his hands along the surface. “I have been waiting for this moment for years.”

“For someone to burn you to ash?” 

“For you.” He stops at my chair, not too close to reach me, but I felt more evil than I did as soon as I stepped foot inside. “I knew who you were when your brother made the decision of coming here. I knew who you were even though your brother mentioned you after I did, and he never once said your name.”

I shot out of my seat and stood in front of him, placing my hand on my holster. “So you’ve been expecting me?”

Dracula nods. “For... years. If you look in the mirror, you’ll see how red you’re turning. Either I’ve made you blush, or me just being one step ahead is making you even more enraged than the day you found out your brother mysteriously vanished.”

“You hate mirrors, Dracula.”

“Indeed.”

“And my brother didn’t mysteriously vanish. You killed him.” I began to walk away from him, approaching the rack of the stick that moves the firewood around. “And what else is there about you? You are so difficult, it’s hard to picture you as mysterious. Just.. difficult.”

I turn back around, and felt my heart sink to my gut. He was gone. The dining table stood as if it was never used, the lid that covered our courses swayed back and forth as if something zoomed past it to make it move. I was off my guard for a second and he took off on purpose. If he wasn’t the beast of the night I would of heard his shoes stomping against the ground when he was running from me. I would of been able to hear a gust of wind if he wore more loose garments. Oddly enough, he didn’t turn into a bat.

Now it was up to me to find him, alone.

I run out of the room and found myself lifting a torch off the wall, walking up the giant staircase made of stone. My question hung in the air, and he’ll never catch it. “Why are you expecting me?” I ask out loud, hoping he was somewhere, listening to me, or even watching me.

The only thing that came out as a response to my call was the storm outside, and the castle’s noises. It was indeed an old castle. No one lives in castles anymore as living homes evolved so much. Dracula slept in a coffin, and if I’m lucky, I can run out into the rain all the way home, and find myself sleeping on the streets.

I crept up slowly, feeling like I was being watched. I said louder, “Why are you expecting me, Count? You’re excited to finally meet your fate?”

His voice echoed from above. He stood on the ledge, almost as if he was preparing to jump twenty feet down to rough ground. “Because I knew you would come for me. Mr. Harker was your brother. Either the victim’s family mourns and fears and hates, you engaged in all three, and brought yourself here.”

Dracula smiled and hopped off the ledge, descending right on the tip of my head. I scream and dash to the upper levels.  

“I call them disciples, Miss Harker!” he suddenly appeared in front of me like witchcraft. “The people who come here, and I talk for humans who existed many centuries back come here. I learn about their childhoods, I learn about their loved ones, who they wish to cherish for the rest of their lives, how they taste...”

My hand reaches my holster...

“If you drive the stake into my heart here and now, you won’t be able to find the room I kept your brother’s corpse in.”

“You’re lying,” I sneer. “You used my brother’s face as a mask, Mina told me.”

“How is Mina doing?” he asks sweetly.

“Go back to hell-” and I jerk my hand forward, gripping the stake as I aimed bullseye.

“Y/N!” I shook my head. His voice. His hair. His smile. It felt like home. I was wrapped in warmth from the house we both grew up in, not the archaic castle.

My brother Jonathan, untouched and healthy, stood in the place I once thought Dracula was in, the tip of the wooden stake just poking the layer of his dress shirt.

“Jonathan...” I breathed out.

The world stopped... or was it me? Was it my senses? I didn’t eat or drink anything he could of manipulated, at least, he could manipulate me without using any kind of medication or potion. 

I couldn’t move, I couldn’t blink. It was a sense of sleep paralysis, but I wasn’t asleep. I blinked again, remembering the horror Mina described when the beast tore my brother’s face off of his like paper right in front of her.

I stared at the Devil himself dead in the eye, frozen stiff, helpless. Dracula lifted a hand and began tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “It took you years to prepare yourself for me. It must of been exhausting, for me I take it as a decade of waiting and waiting for your arrival, and here you are, and I am having so much fun with you.”

Everything went dark. Then light. 

Light?

My frail body was in the mocking care of his arms now. Who knew how gentle he was being when he was carrying me. When he searched for a bride, he would not be carrying the poor species who would be unlucky enough to ever be his bride. But I put the pieces together as he lays me down on the spot where the sun can hit on the balcony, where he could watch me as he shielded through the shade. of the stone wall that formed the entryway.

I felt the stiffness of my neck, specifically a stinging sensation on my skin, maybe even deeper. I was played out like a fool. A fool who lost Dracula’s game. I was too easy.

"The sun will love you so much, they burn you with love.” Dracula said in a stern voice.

“Please...” The sun gleamed from a cloud and a ray hit the layers of what was left of me, and I felt the change. 

I closed my eyes.

“To rise and to shine, Miss Harker.”

#dracula one shot #dracula imagine #dracula x reader #dracula #dracula 2020 #dracula bbc #claes bang #reader insert #one shot #count dracula #count dracula x reader #count dracula imagine #count dracula one shot

[yanderefantasies]

Ok so, right now I am writing multiple Aus but I am having a big ass writing block, so yeah, here is some John Mulaney quotes that represent the reader in each Au and some more stuff:

==========

+Royalty!Au

-The reader when Robbie almost told the Baron that he and the other maids had forgotten to prepare the dishes for the "Big Event":

-The reader after saying he had "more important affairs" to Norton even though he had nothing to do and just didn't want to dance with him:

.

+Horror/Thriller!Au:

-Jack during the whole Au:

-The reader on his way to tell Naib/Mister Inference that he just found Emma/Lady Truth dead in her apartment:

.

+Pianist/Corpse Bride!Au

-The reader at the start of the Au:

-Reader's parents putting him on a forced marriage with a woman even though he said multiple times he is not interested in a woman and that he does not want to make anyone:

-The harem hearing the reader play the piano for the first time:

.

+Noir!Au

-The reader's boss talking shit about him for the fourth time today:

-Demi giving the reader some advice and wise words:

-The harem after the reader brings up the fact that they are from different factions and that they try to kill each other everyday:

==========

Yeah that's it bye

HSHDHSHDUWGDHWHXGWJJJAHHAS ILY-

[optimistic-dinosaur-nacho]

𝕎𝕖𝕝𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕊𝕡𝕠𝕠𝕜𝕪 𝔽𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕤

It’s your monstrous dinosaur here. Unexpected right? Don’t worry. As you all know a certain month is coming its way to haunt us. You’re wondering why I’m giving you a long speech and you want to know why I’ve come here to give it to you so unexpected.

It’s Spooky Season, ladies & gentlemen. Grab your brooms, daggers, stakes, rope and a candle for the dark. I cannot talk for long, once this hour strucks 3am, I am no longer safe. And so are you. 

I have made a challenge. A Spooky Challenge.

Let’s hope you know your movies.

They’re about to come to life for your imagination.

Rules are simple. There is a list of Classic Spooky Films put back from the 1970s and 2000s. Films like Alien, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, A Quiet Place, Halloweentown, Hocus Pocus, and more! Your chosen Actor/Character shall play any character you desire in your Spooky Story. Will this character survive or will this character take another life? That’s your choice.

And choose wisely. Like I said.

You’re no longer safe.

Rules Below

You can choose any classic Halloween film. 

But choose wisely. First come first serve and you might not be able to turn back.

Do you have to follow Dino to participate?

No. You do not have to, this is for everyone. But I’d appreciate it. 

Limit of two films per writer.

Limit of two stories per character 

Once 2-3 people choose the same film, that film is gone. So hurry!

No Smut! Implied is allowed just have very little and a warning

Dark themes are allowed! Make sure you have warnings.

These can be reader insert or OC stories.

Ethnic, Interracial, LGBTQ+ and polyamorous stories are welcome and encouraged.

Minimum 500 words. No max.

It must be an original work and not part of an existing series.

No sexual situations with minors, no bodily functions and no snuff.

Can be scary if chosen to be. The characters can watch the film of your choosing or put them in the movie to make it even spookier. Whatever you desire!

Doesn’t have to be based on the film! Can be put in a different way but gives the same scenes for that film.

If your story contains anything that every horror film has (Blood, gore, Ouija Boards, Etc.) that should be in your warnings for others. Thank you

Deadline?

October 31, 2020

How do you participate?

Choose a film below then send in an ask along with your chosen film and character. If you’re doing more than one character add them, too. (There is no limited character choosing, just films)

When you have your Scary Story written, tag me in that fic, and use the tag #DinoScaryStories2020

Spooky Classic Films

First come, first serve

Horror Thriller Films

Jaws (1975) @just-one-ordinary-fangirl​

Carrie (1976) @ssebstann​ @nekoannie-chan​

Halloween (1978)

Alien (1979)

The Amityville Horror (1979) @sweater-daddiesdumbdork​

Friday the 13th (1980)

The Shining (1980) @nekoannie-chan​

Poltergeist (1982)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)/(2010)

Silver Bullet (1985)

Aliens (1986)

Little Shop of Horrors (1986) @hettie-drysdale​

Predator (1987)

Pet Sematary (1989)/(2019)

The Babysitter (1995)

Scream (1996) @queenofspades20​

America Psycho (2000)

The Ring (2002)

Saw (2004)

Paranormal Activity (2007)

Orphan (2008)

The Conjuring (2013)

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) @hettie-drysdale​

The Purge (2013)

World War Z (2013)

Annabelle (2014)

Ouija (2014)

Split (2016) @nbarnes​

Don’t Breath (2016)

It (2017) @unnuevosoltransformalarealidad​

Get Out (2017)

Happy Death Day (2017)

Truth or Dare? (2018)

Bird Box (2018)

The First Purge (2018) @writerwrites​

A Quiet Place (2018)

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (2019)

Us (2019) @just-one-ordinary-fangirl​

Ready Or Not (2019) @waywardodysseys​

Family Friendly Films

1984 - 2015

Ghostbuster (1984) @nbarnes​

Gremlins (1984)

Beetlejuice (1988)

Little Monsters (1989)

Witches (1990)

The Adam’s Family (1991) @unnuevosoltransformalarealidad​

Hocus Pocus (1993) @hevans-angel​

Casper (1995)

Halloweentown (1998)

Corpse’s Bride (2005)

Coraline (2009)

Goosebumps (2015)

Be creative with your stories, no need to write the exact film. If I were to do Hansel and Gretel, maybe the reader falls into Steve’s trap and he holds her captive. Be creative! I’d love to see the 2018 films in your stories. 

I will also participate in these but I will not take places of the films, those are your places to take!

Official Taglist:

@jtargaryen18​​​ @joannaliceevans-fanficblog​​​ @donutloverxo​​​ @axen-gers​​​ @captainchrisbaby​​​ @patzammit​​​ @bucksgoat​​​ @la-cey​​​ @void-hoechlin​​​ @lovepeacefood​​​ @stargazingfangirl18​​​ @sweater-daddiesdumbdork​​​ @stop-obsessing-over-those-actors​​​ @star-spangled-beard-burn​​​ @nickysurfer28​​​ @nbarnes​​​ @mcntsee​​​ @adriannajackson​​​ @chuckbass-love​​​ @sebbystanlover-vk​​​ @onetwo3000​​​ @captainamerica-is-bae​​​ @cheeseburgersstuff​​​ @iguessweallcrazyithinktho​​​ @rororo06​​​ @elliee1497​​​ @navybrat817​​​ @waywardodysseys​​​ @just-one-ordinary-fangirl​​​ @chris-evans-indian-fanfic​​​ @this-is-a-chilis-drive-thru​​​ @what-is-your-plan-today​​​ @princess-evans-addict​

 @queen-kass-the-writer​ @marvelinsanity​ @ssebstann​ @writerwrites​

#DinoScaryStories #Chris Evans Fic #Chris Evans x Reader #DinoScaryStories2020 #Challenge #Writing Challenge #optimistic-dinosaur-nacho