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velvetures · 2 months

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COD AU: Intro

AN: I love this. I have so many thoughts in my head. So many it’s killing me inside. Please enable me. God I hope at least one of you likes this enough to talk to me about it. To hc, to literally just share my words with. And yes…. There is a very heavy Ghost/romance element… but I’m totally not against picturing the other options ahaha.

So I’ve been thinking….

An AU where everyone needs to lay low for a while. Maybe they’re all compromised and someone with enough power and money shows interest to take out the 141 forever. And Laswell, being the problem solver that she is, suggests a safe house of someone close to her. Someone who can be trusted. Not just to provide somewhere physically safe, but also keep a close eye on the team while they’re -somewhat- forcibly being cut off from the world.

So the team are flighted into the middle of god-knows-where in the mountains. A tiny little town -if you can call it that- and they meet their contact.

Not only a girl… but civilian.

She refers to Laswell as Aunt Kate and the Captain and Uncle John. Sweet as can be, and so damn helpful that it’s almost infuriating. Especially to Ghost. She hasn’t seen a single thing about them other than what Laswell has offered, and really appears like she couldn’t care less about opening her house up to them. A house just big enough to fit all four men.

Ghost isn’t sure about the whole thing. It feels wrong being holed up in the deep holler of an Appalachian mountain with a girl not twenty-five. Like some kind of fucked-up movie he wasn’t aware of being cast for. It’s all too strange walking inside her house and seeing photos on the walls, a massive rack of cast iron skillets and pots hanging above her kitchen island, and the way she looks at Price so fondly.

Uncle John…

Something about it rubs him wrong. There’s got to be history there… at least enough for her to feel the right to call Price that. But he’s never heard of her before. And this kind of arrangement isn’t one to taken lightly. There are people hunting the 141… A threat so well documented that they couldn’t even just turn a blind eye and wait for the smoke to clear.

The sweet thing doesn’t notice Ghost’s apprehension.

But she does recognize Price’s excitement in seeing her, as well as his slight disappointment that she’d offered to do this. She’s too good to get involved in matters of war, and he’s honestly surprised that Kate let you. But then again, there could only be so much disappointment he could find in seeing his goddaughter. And funnily enough, there’s a sense of relief he has in seeing how well she’s done for herself since he saw her last.

Intelligent, scarily so. But not in an overt way. He can see it in the way she collects rainwater for watering the little garden out back, and the pistol safe tucked under her bed with a thumbprint scanner. He notices the small town she’d bought her home in, and the relatively tight community. Maybe a little old-fashioned… but it’s good in case something goes wrong. And right now, it’s paying off.

Unbelievably welcoming too… but Kate and John always knew there’d come a day when she’d get a chance to ‘mother’ someone. And now she’d have four men to do exactly that for. Even from day one, she’s already made trips to the store, rearranged her whole home, and bought god-knows-what in anticipation for their arrival.

What’s each of your favorite food, I’ll make lists so I never run out of dinner ideas.

Any preferences on how I should come and go around my the house? I don’t want to startle anyone.

Did you need anything you didn’t bring? If I can’t get it in town or online I’ll text Aunt Kate and have her get it…

She’s nearly frantic to get them settled, and everyone reacts in a muted tone of shock save for Price. He’s well-aware thanks to Kate about how excited she is… something about wanting to prove herself. And Jesus if it doesn’t make Price feel a bittersweet burn in his chest as he introduces her to the others. Seeing her wide eyes examining all of them without the slightest hesitation. Memorizing names and faces, and shaking massive, gloved, hands without missing a beat.

She’s got Soap wrapped around her finger on instant. Maybe it’s a big-brother feeling. One like Price holds for her. Since she’s younger than him -unlike his own sisters- there’s something of a chance to be one for a while. Soap almost instantly takes to her Appalachian lilt and bright smile. They’re both too sweet for their own good at times… and Price can tell right away there won’t be a knife sharp enough to cut the two of them apart after this.

Gaz is quietly polite is a way only he can be. Meticulously trying to stay out of her way as she flutters about. Wanting to help her out, but also downright flustered when she demands she be the one to carry their bags to their rooms. It’s a clear sign he’s not used to it… A woman being this damn sweet and intent on ‘helping’ a man. But he takes it in stride. Learning how to help without stepping on her decidedly ‘southern comfort’ style of catering to them. And god if Price doesn’t have to chew the tip of his cigar when she gets on his ass about something. The poor sod looks like a kicked puppy… and he’s certain she’ll end up training him with due time.

Christ above. If Ghost isn’t the most difficult bastard to deal with initially.

He’s much more sour than typical. Lurking in corners, and unable to settle down anywhere for more than an hour. He looks caged in by the comfortable couch and throw blankets. Swallowed by her pleasantly creaky porch swing and sun-couch on the wraparound. Not even her well-used garage housing an old Fold flatbed makes a good refuge for Ghost. She’s all encompassing in a way he can’t come to terms with easily.

Price sees her trying the hardest with him.

The way her voice lowers when addressing him. How she makes a conscious effort to tiptoe around the house after 10pm because that’s when he shuts himself inside his bedroom… She doesn’t exactly know he never sleeps. Dinners are often served close to the time he finally realizes he’s got to come back inside the house… and without fail, she can be found sitting near him.

Not friendly by any means.

But more like a girl who’s found an old bait-dog at the pound and can’t leave well-enough alone. Sitting with her back it to and tossing treats over her shoulder. Hoping silently that the old, scarred, dog will come around. Damn near predatory in a sweet kind of way. Price can tell she means well. She can see the same thing everyone else on the team can… and she’s just going about it her way.

She’s good like that. Maybe a little too good.

But John can’t deny he enjoys seeing it. All of it really. The way she dotes on them individually. Consistently. Hell, she even does their laundry and bought separate baskets to keep things neat and tidy. The fridges -yes… multiple- all are set with their preferences in drinks, and she’s scarily observant when things need replaced. Toothpaste… shoelaces… socks… there’s no missing anything. Brands and sizes don’t seem to be a problem either, to some shock and mortification.

Uncle John, what’s Soap mean when he says he misses Irn-Bru?

His quick and unconcerned explanation goes without another notice… until he sees Johnny taking a long drink from a bottle of it while sitting on a rocking chair on the back porch watching some hummingbirds fight over richly dyed sugar water.

John’s often preoccupied with worrying about the plans of those head-hunting them and what Kate’s doing behind the scenes in the meantime. But it’s clear there’s nothing concerning his goddaughter but whether or not they’re all fed, warm, and comfortable in her house…

Whether Ghost likes it or not.

Comments are so heavily appreciated on this… I want to make this more of what I talk about & I can’t keep it all on a notebook under my bed.

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wordstome · 5 months

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Endless Nights - Price x Reader

I started thinking about Sandman again because of Barry Sloane as Destruction of the Endless and went back to reread everything Destruction is in, including his Endless Nights story. Now I can't stop thinking about Price x archaeologist reader...

1.7k, please forgive any archaeological or military errors I only took like 1 anthropology class two years ago

You've been on all sorts of digs, but this has got to be one of the most chaotic. Your team's been sent to this peninsula to unearth some recently discovered artifacts. They think it's remnants of a little-known indigenous population, and it's your job to dig everything up safely.

Only problem is, there's a military base on top of it.

"Maybe it won't be so bad. Military personnel are good at following orders," your coworker says while you're unpacking your tools.

You snort. "Yeah, but they're equally good at putting holes in things and blowing things up. I don't think they have a lot of respect for fragile ancient artifacts."

"Ouch," your coworker says, wincing and putting a hand to his chest in a mock expression of pain. "No love for our nation's bravest?" You roll your eyes at him.

"It's not like that. I'm just saying we need to be vigilant about keeping them away from work sites. Take no shit, as it were."

"With the military? Good luck, I guess."

It's not that you dislike or even distrust every single person who's ever been in the military, it's just that you don't have much faith in their ability to hold respect for your work. Archaeology is quiet, meticulous work, a far cry from gunfights and kicking doors in. You're going to be here for quite a while, and if you don't establish boundaries right out of the gate, you'll be fighting an uphill battle for the rest of the dig.

That's what you're telling yourself as you sit in a gray, featureless meeting room. You and your supervisor are supposed to be meeting with a John Price, a British SAS captain. Kate Laswell, an American CIA agent, told you he's the proxy you'll be cooperating with during the dig.

You're prepared for all sorts of men to walk through that door: a balding middle-aged man with a power trip, or perhaps some blustering meathead whose voice no longer goes lower than a shout. Instead, the man that walks through the door and shakes your supervisor's hand leaves you staring, just barely keeping it together enough so you're not drooling with your jaw on the floor.

He's hot.

Your head fills with static as he turns to you and hits you with possibly the most endearing smile you've ever seen on a man. It's not just that he's somehow pulling off the beard and mutton chops look, or that his rough British accent is making you feel some type of way down there. It's the way he walks, like it's heavy—

"Pleased to meet you," Price says, shaking your hand. His hand engulfs yours as he gives it a brief squeeze. It takes your every last brain cell to answer with something other than Please tell me you're not wearing a wedding ring because you're actually single.

The meeting consists of him and your supervisor laying ground rules while you nod mutely and try not to audibly moan when Price adjusts himself in his seat, his hips moving in a way that is definitely going to undo you if you think about it too hard.

You walk out of the meeting having barely survived, but confident that the whole ordeal was a one-time thing. He's just who you complain to if one of the soldiers stumbles into a work site and smashes one of the artifacts, after all. You'll never have to see him.

Except you do. Every day, multiple times a day, he's there. He's obviously got his own shit to do of course, but it's like you can't get away from him: walk into a tent, and he's there chatting to one of your coworkers. Eat a meal, and he's there talking to a squad of soldiers and clapping someone on the back with a hearty laugh. Turn a corner, and he's there to full-body slam into you—

"Pardon me, sweetheart. Didn't see ya there." You're ashamed to say you don't do much more than stare at him with what must be the most pathetic petrified doe eyes as he gives you a pat on the shoulder and goes on his merry way. That was like running into a solid brick wall...

It would be fine if it were just you having a silly little unreciprocated crush. You've had those before and survived. But what starts to get to you is the little things: the way his eyes flick to you when you enter his vicinity, accompanied by a nod. The way his eyes linger on you for a moment too long before looking away. The brief touches against your shoulders or hips when he's maneuvering past you in a small space.

Frankly, it's driving you crazy, and it's starting to show.

"If you dust that piece any harder, you're going to damage it," your coworker scolds you. You all but jump backwards from the piece you're working on. You'd been so absorbed in mentally dissecting his body language the last time you were in the same room as him that you'd brushed the piece far beyond the point of being clean.

This won't do. You have to do something about this.

Mercifully, you've been given your own individual room to sleep in, which is quite the luxury after a career full of sleeping in dusty tents or sharing bunks with coworkers. It also gives you enough privacy to...take care of business, as it were.

Obviously, you didn't bring any "tools of the trade" that weren't useful for your work, so it's just you and your hand past 11 pm. You feel beyond perverted, slipping a hand between your thighs as you think of Captain Price.

You can still feel the weight of his hands on your body, brief though they were, and picture what else those touches could be doing. Your own voice slips out in a moan as you imagine his, low and grumbling yet soothing while he pushes you into the sheets, that endearing smile turned devious and devastatingly sexy as he spreads you open for him with those hands of his and collects your wetness on his fingers...

Your heart jumps out of your chest as you hear a knock at the door. You all but fall out of bed, scrambling to pull on enough clothing to be decent. "J-just a minute!" you call, inwardly cursing yourself for how breathless you must sound.

You answer the door, flustered and a mess, to see the subject of all your fantasies staring there. For a split second, you're petrified by the possibility of Price having heard your desperate whines and whimpers and knocking on your door to politely ask you to quit cranking it in his barracks.

"Apologies, sweetheart. Hope I didn't wake you up?" His eyes are so striking, so sincere, that you know he could have woken you up from the best sleep of your life and you'd still be unable to be mad at him.

"No no, I was...no need to worry. What can I do for you?" you say, relief flooding through you. Of course he didn't hear you. He's not a total pervert like you.

"Well love, I...it's probably best if you come take a look for yourself," Price says, looking almost sheepish. Your heart sinks a little—this cannot be good.

He leads you out of the barracks towards one of the job sites, directing you towards a table with several excavated artifacts laid out. "One of my men thought it'd be wise to steal his mate's torch, had him stumbling around in the dark out here. He says he bumped one of these tables and heard something fall on the ground, and I figured you should know right away instead of waiting 'til the morning and having all sorts of people tramping through here."

You give him a brief grateful look before crouching down with a flashlight. After a bit of looking, you find the missing object: a thick shard of pottery, lying forlornly on its side by a table leg.

You reach forward to pick it up, but the captain has spotted it as well, resulting in his hand landing on top of yours over the pottery. For a brief, dizzying second, his hand lays heavy and warm over yours, and you could have sworn that his fingers had shifted as if to take your hand in his.

In a blink, the moment's over, and the captain's hand shoots back to his side. Trying not to make an utter fool of yourself, you push yourself back up to a standing position, examining the pottery shard with a discerning eye.

"Looks like no harm was done," you say to him with a smile. "Mayday averted."

"Good to hear. I'll make sure the knuckleheads who did this receive a thorough dressin' down for this incident." You're grateful that the warmth rushing to your face at his stern tone can't be seen in the dark as you carefully set the pottery back in its place on the table.

"I'll walk you back to the barracks. Can't have my favorite archaeologist stumblin' their way around themselves, now can I?" You nod mutely, unable to look at him for much longer than a few stolen glances.

The two of you are quiet all the way back to your door, where you stand in the hallway, fidgeting with your hands and feeling the urge to say something, anything. "Thank you," you blurt out. "For not waiting until tomorrow morning. There's no telling what foot traffic would have done before we noticed the missing piece."

"Your work's important, love. And while you're here, you're our guests. It'd be rude to not be taking care of your work, wouldn't it?" You nod shyly, basking in the warmth of his attention.

You're frozen to the spot as he leans in to whisper directly in your ear, his lips brushing against it. "Next time you're relievin' a bit of tension, feel free to stop by my quarters, yeah? I think you'll find there's a lot more I can take care of than just your work."

Your eyes go as wide as saucers as he winks at you. Before you can even process what just happened, he's already walking away from you down the hall.

Feeling like you've just been handed some delicious and forbidden secret, you whirl around to shut yourself into your room, sliding down with your back against the door to sit on the floor. Did that truly just happen? Are you hallucinating? Or had you fallen asleep by accident and you're really just having some beautiful, delusional dream?

It doesn't feel like a dream when you realize you're soaking wet.

God, I cannot wait until Barry Sloane's Destruction promo images drop. For reference, these are the posters we got for season 1:

To be very honest, I wrote this like a possessed woman in the span of like an hour. I don't think there's going to be a part 2 unless you guys really get me going with some new ideas 😅

Also, I don't have a tag list (because I write almost exclusively for one particular Austrian), but I will tag my beloved @danibee33, and @ceilidho, as thanks for giving me Barry Sloane brainworms.

#price x reader #captain price x reader #price x you #captain price x you #john price x reader #john price x you #john price #captain john price #captain price #cod #call of duty #cod mw2 #call of duty mw2 #mw2 #Barry sloane

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yandere-daydreams · 1 year

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A little idea a yandere who is staying at the manor of a business associate, finds a sweet little nervous servant who was sent to attend to them and 'entertain' them. Naturally the yandere decides that this sweet and so very very terrified darling needs to be rescued of course and that they belong perfectly right by their side.

I feel like childe would definitely do that but it could fit plenty others

tw - implied non//con, unbalanced power dynamics, obsessive behavior, and manipulation on all-fronts.

childe would definitely do that, tho. we just have to wonder who he'd do it to.

one of the other harbingers, most likely - someone with a big enough estate to have servants to spare, like pierro or capitano, but lacking the human empathy it'd take to not throw the aforementioned servants to the wolves, like dottore or marionette. pantalone's probably the most likely offender. he's in the best position to enjoy the generous wealth his position affords him, and he takes pride in maintaining an extensive staff, in having a thorough enough grasp of his fellow harbinger's weaknesses to know exactly what type of bait it takes to get them in his debt. childe, of course, practically throws himself at pantalone's hook.

he's like a man starved; desperate to dig his teeth into the first soft, trembling thing his eyes land on. it helps that you've always been particularly soft, always trembling and tripping over your words, clearly intimidated by the blood-thirsty superiors you've been tasked to serve but too scared to try and squirm your way out of pantalone's iron-clad contracts. he can hear you two through the walls - childe's saccharine promises to take you away from this awful place and your whimpered pleas to be left as you are, miserable but safe. he's intercepted a few of childe's letters to you, grinned to himself as he tried to make sense of childe's delusional mantas of protection and warmth and domestic bliss, and while you never write back (the little temptress as you are, keeping your admirer deprived of your affection), he's seen fit to pen a few responses of his own, to ask that his junior find another hobby beyond harassing one of pantalone's favored servants and ignite childe's more territorial instincts while flaunting one of his most precious possessions.

it feels like a bygone conclusion when, after months of careful teasing, he finds you limping out of childe's guest chambers, your uniform torn and your cheeks tear-stained. he's a reasonable man, so he reacts reasonably; taking you by the collar and calling childe to his office, keeping you perched on the edge of his desk as he goes on at length about how, while he does loathe the dismissal of such a loyal servant, he may be able to part with you. for a fair price, of course.

a price that, if childe does truly love you, he'd be more happy to pay.

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere imagines #yandere genshin impact #yandere childe

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konigsblog · 9 months

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YANDERE TASK FORCE 141 + KÖNIG HEADCANNONS ✧.ੈ

tw; yandere behaviour, mentions of wax play (very brief, non detailed), manipulative behaviour, spankings, drug use, kidnapping, pet play (kinda, non sexual), use of fire to burn hair and skin, gaslighting behaviour and guilt tripping, lovebombing, sensory overstimulation, degrading.

✧ yandere!price who's an asshole, complete dickhead and doesn't believe in boundaries. punishments are spankings; bent over his big lap while you breathe in the toxic tobacco fumes, spanking with a belt roughly and making you sob.

uses sensory overstimulation, gets you all sweaty and sticky and whiney, begging him to stop and to be freed from the ropes bounding your limbs.

✧ yandere!simon who completely ignores your sobs - be quiet, he has work to do, reports to fill. grits his teeth when you thrash, he's non talkative, keeping you silent and your sounds muffled. treats you like his pet, on the floor. takes a lot of time to be able to sleep with him, otherwise he'll keep you locked in the basement, a dog cage if you really tested him.

only kidnapped you out of fear for your safety. why can't you see that he's doing you a favour? you're so selfish. when you finally listen, he's ready to pretend like a lovely couple in public, locked away or forced to cuddle into him when you're behaving.

✧ yandere!soap who's a fucking pyscho. burns your skin and hair, loves wax play, ect. isn't afraid to punish you for escaping, you'll never leave. absolutely hates locking you in the basement, instead tied and forced into a cage (just like simon would) a ballgag muffling your sobs and cries, drooling with your ankles and wrists tied up.

who smokes weed and gets you high with him. if he's not smoking a joint, he's smoking a cigar, lit and blowing the smoke in your face. manipulative and controlling, hated when you argue back and silences you quickly with threats. just sit all pretty on his lap and be good, maybe he'll treat you to an edible.

✧ yandere!gaz who gaslights. will cry and scream that you're unfair, how horrible you are for the things you're saying. gets all happy when you cuddle into his arms just like he asked. praising you for being all nice with him. he's honestly so loving, but you're so distant and terrified that he can't show the love he wants so desperately to show you.

really wants to prove his worth to you. struggles thinking he's good enough for the 141, just like how he is for you. punishments are harsh, usually degrading. then gets all offended when you don't immediately hug him when he's calmed down. you're so horrible to him, who do you think you are to reject his hugs? can't you see how kind he's being? wow, you really are like how he expected.

✧ yandere!könig who can't stop loving you. he only keeps you in the basement for your own safety (and so you can't leave him) you have a whole case on your missing person's report before it goes cold. the only one who kidnapped you from the world, and not from others. you don't understand him, he's so kind and doting to you, you just can't get over the fear of seeing him covered in your mothers blood, crimson head to toe.

he's doing what's best for you, what'll keep you safe. he'll keep you all warm beside him, cuddling you whenever. slowly, gradually gets you attached. oh, you want him to sleep on the mattress on the floor with you? he can't say no to those eyes... eventually, you're completely addicted and sobbing whenever he leaves, giving him a huge ego and sense of power over your miserable weak form.

#yandere imagines #yandere headcanons #yandere #call of duty modern warfare #tf 141 #captain john price #captain price #gaz call of duty #gaz cod #soap mactavish #john soap mactavish #ghost mw2 #simon ghost riley #könig #könig call of duty

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razorblade180 · 1 month

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Profits!!!

Paimon:We got a fresh batch of potions ready!

Aether:*writing* Put them front and center!

Jean: *walks up* Ummmm

Aether:Hmm? Oh hi! I was wondering if I’d see you.

Jean:Hello. Hard at work I see. *looks around* By a lot…. I just got a report back from Lisa. I knew things were in good hands but can you explain how this gateway into common alchemy is profiting five times its worth? Every time you come to town our budget increases.

Aether:Yeah I think I finally got a formula for success here! It’s all about where we send them. *shows paper* Sales to Mondstadt get the standard cost that breaks even considering how close clients are and the frequency.

Jean:We are selling them .25% under their actual value in Inazuma?

Aether:Inazuma’s are hesitant about trying things out of traditional practices plus the long trip there may reduce potency. However, we don’t really take a loss because I have them delivered by a reliable courier who gives us discount, as well as have them get shipped by a friend named Itto. He’s actually pretty used to the back and forth.

Jean:If that’s the logic, how are we getting away with selling the potions 1.5 times their price in Liyue? They also care about traditions.

Aether:Because Ningguang agreed to endorse us, and Beidou deliverers the shipments. Those are the only seals of approval we need.

Jean:*looks at Lisa*

Lisa:I didn’t tell him to expand. Our cutie has such an eye for business that even Master Diluc went in on a joint business venture.

Jean:*skims paper* We mark up the Sumeru prices by 2.5 times their actual value!?

Aether:I know that might look evil buuuuut *flips page* 80% of the stock that goes there by a merchant named Dori who’s incredibly rich. I’m positive she’s buying them to sell for at least triple their original worth. In the grand scheme we’re getting a bigger net gain than she is on paper but she’s also winning by knowing who and where to sell to. Also desert shipments are handled by a very trustworthy Mercenary.

Jean:And as for Fontaine being double the market price?

Aether:Mondstadt’s potions are approved by Furina de Fontaine. Not only does that attract the high society over there to buy, but it covers the for transport via Gaming as well as the transfer support from the Spina. Don’t worry, I made sure everything is perfectly legal.

Jean:(This is the market project all over again.) Aether, you didn’t have to start an empire, like…at all.

Aerther:I didn’t mean to do it. I just know people.

Paimon: *holds mora bags* Powerful people!

Jean:Well, I leave it all to you then. To think I’m able to redo our budget so freely is like a fever dream. Perhaps the extra funds can go into better training equipment and armor overhaul?

Kaeya:Or we can buy more horses. Just a thought.

Lisa:Do you miss your work that much?

Kaeya:I miss the title speaking for itself.

#genshin impact #kaeya alberich #lisa minci #jean gunnhildr #gi aether #gi paimon

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justaghostingon · 10 months

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Marionetta Theories:

Do you want to know if Tonny is evil or not? Do you wonder why Julia was chosen to kill him? Have I got the two connecting theories for you!

I don’t have a lot of evidence, since we’re only 28 chapters in, but i wanna get these out there to see if they come true!

@jay9marie this is for u. As only other mutual i know reads this comic.

Theory 1: The Custodian

I do not think Sahed is right about Tonny. I don’t think Sahed’s completely wrong either, but he’s missing an important detail: Tonny is not their jailer, he’s the custodian.

When we first meet him, he describes himself as the manager for someone else, not the one who supplies the magic. And this has been true since before the circus even existed:

If you notice the language here, he’s called custodian. Which means he takes care of the one who is truely in charge, the monster in the attic.

Now there’s a lot we don’t know about Tonny’s position. By the wording “allows” he seems to have limited power to invite others to join the castle. Which given how horrible it is inside, is not a very good deal. But we honestly can’t tell if the contracts is something he was told to do or not. We just don’t have the info.

My guess is Tonny has an awareness of the price of his contracts. Look at his face when he makes the contract with dotty:

He’s exhausted by the bags under his eyes, and clearly unhappy, but his set expression tells us he is still going to do it. He’ll doom them to eternity with him, with only the fine print to warn them of what that really means. And again, we don’t know how much of a choice Tonny has, but that’s still not okay.

But! Dotty and her husband bring new life into the castle. And Tonny starts to change.

He’s smiling, leaning against the door in a relaxed posture. His arms are still crossed, suggesting he’s not completely at ease, but he’s happy to see his people smiling again. He’s thrilled his people can be happy in the first place. And when Rainah speaks up and points out it won’t last, he’s willing to bring Dotty and her husband into the very secret that keeps this place running, something i don’t think he’s supposed to do given how even the ever talkative Dotty refused to mention it by name.

And now in the circus, we can see the contract has changed. They still have to stay in the circus, they still live eternally, but now they have to work - which keeps them focused and active, stopping them from falling into the despair of before. But most importantly:

Tonny is no longer confining them to the castle to waste away. He is actively trying to make this situation the best he can. He’s no longer just a monster’s puppet, but a leader dedicated to his people.

And yes, he’s still trapping people in these contracts, which is not good. Sahed (who i suspect escaped whatever research center/prison was keeping him) has a reason to be angry. But now where he can be, Tonny is kind. He��s taking care of his people to the best of his abilities instead of leaving them to rot. All because Dotty and her husband taught him he could.

Which leads me to my second theory:

Theory 2: Julia’s fate

So i’m pretty sure that Julia’s contract was made with the monster in the attic, not Sahed. When we see Kamela go through her contract signing, she is physically near both Tonny, whom she is making a bargain with, and Sahed, who helps her enter the spirit realm.

Given her smile, her trip is pleasant and short, she frays a bit, but nothing like Julia.

Her experience is terrifying, nothing is explained except the contracts own words, and if she resists she’s punished with a nightmarish experience. Neither sahed nor tonny’s deal with kamela goes like this. It’s frightening and inhumane.

But most damningly of all, when Julia wakes back in her body, she is directly under the monster in the attic.

There’s the contract, directly before Julia, but Sahed is nowhere in sight, unlike how it was when he was helping Tonny. This makes it pretty obvious that while Sahed definitely wants Tonny gone, he’s not the one who struck the deal. It was the attic monster.

By why would the attic monster want to get rid of its custodian? Especially when he still takes care of them and provides contracts.

The answer, i suspect comes from theory 1. Tonny has been putting the people of the circus first more and more, adding new clauses and promsing to make their lives pleasant. With all this attention diverted, the attic monster is no longer getting what it thinks it deserves. It is no longer first in Tonny’s priorities, and the priorities of all the circus folk.

It wants a new custodian to focus all their attention on it. To feed it with despair and contracts, and prioritize it alone. And it has chosen Julia.

#marionetta #marionetta theory #two theories really #julia and tonny: connected through more than just a murder plot #julia marionetta #tonny marionetta #sahed marionetta #the attic monster #spoilers up until episode 28

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blossom-hwa · 4 months

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memory lane | j.yh

I'm nearly two years late but in my defense I had this written for months already, I was just too lazy to create a graphic for it until now. anyway, this was sparked by the memory lane trip that dr. strange took in multiverse of madness - there are definitely spoilers (check the warnings below) and this story might be confusing if you haven't seen the dr. strange and spiderman movies so keep that in mind!

I made some changes to the plots of both movies, so bear this in mind - y/n instead of mingi (ned's counterpart) is the one with sorcery potential and later joins dr. strange at the sanctum, so y/n is the one who goes universe hopping with america chavez and ends up replaying memories they'd forgotten from when dr. strange erased all memories of spiderman (yunho). this story takes place after they've defeated wanda and returned to the sanctum. this should sum up the biggest changes, hope it helps :)

Pairing: Yunho x gender neutral!reader

Genre: angst (happy ending), Spiderman!au

Warnings: spoilers for the last Dr. Strange and Spiderman movies

Word Count: 5.3k

When you return to the Sanctum, armed with a name and the knowledge of a love you don't remember, you go searching for answers.

Ateez Masterlist

When the dust has cleared at Mount Wungadore and they’ve all made it back to the Sanctum, it takes Strange a few hours to realize that there’s something wrong with his apprentice. Not just the exhaustion, not just the trauma of universe hopping and fighting the most powerful witch in all of the infinite number of universes in existence—that would be normal. This is something different. Something darker.

Something more broken.

“Dr. Strange,” you say later that night when it’s just the two of you, everyone else gone to bed. Flames crackle in the fireplace, glowing weirdly on your face. “Do you remember what happened with Spiderman?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Spiderman?” He knows you were there, remembers that’s how he became aware of your potential for sorcery, but you’ve never really talked about it.

“Yeah.”

He tells you what he remembers. A spell, rips in the universe, a vigilante who wouldn’t let the aberrations die. The mirror dimension, hanging over the Grand Canyon for way too fucking long, and a second spell to right the wrongs of the first.

You take it all in silence, not a single question asked until the end. “Do you remember what the second spell was?”

He looks at you. You don’t look back.

“No.”

“…Okay.”

He ends up leaving first, exhaustion pulling his eyelids down to the point he can barely keep them open as he climbs up the Sanctum’s stairs. He tells you to rest, and you nod, but he’s still not quite certain you heard.

You probably didn’t. Because in the morning when he wakes, you’re gone, only a text left on his phone to give any clue as to where you went.

Gone to visit a friend. I’ll be back. I’m fine.

Please don’t follow me.

. . . . .

Standing in front of the apartment door, an arm raised to knock, you feel like time has been frozen still.

“Memory Lane. Replay your significant memories, now at a discounted price! We remember, so you don’t forget.”

A boy in the spider-suit, face bloodied, eyes broken. A wavering smile on his lips that couldn’t disguise the tears rolling down his face. Hugging you and Mingi with arms so strong but trembling so much you could—you could almost feel them shaking around your shoulders. Eyes zeroing in on the wound on your head, a short gash that left the scar you could never for your life remember where it came from—

He saw it. And asked about it. And heard your babbled reassurances, instinctively steadying you on your bad leg (how did he know? How did he know if you never knew him?) as you and Mingi tried to speak, before saying the words you don’t remember.

“You’re going to forget who I am.”

You swallow hard, trying to reconcile the smiling boy you’d met during your third fight ever with the broken, bloodied man standing before you in that moment. They had the same suit—nearly. Not quite. But they had the same face. The same eyes.

And though you didn’t have a name then, now you do.

“I love you.”

“I love you, Yunho Jeong.”

You loved a boy whose name you don’t know. And he—

He loved you too.

Nausea rolls in your stomach. Your arm has begun to ache from holding it up for so long, but you can’t bring yourself to knock. What if he refuses to hear you? What if he doesn’t want you to remember, doesn’t want you to ask? What if he just isn’t home? You don’t know if you could find the courage to come back again. You can already feel the adrenaline high of the past few days beginning to fade, that initial burst of anger and courage (or was it foolishness? Right now you can’t quite tell) falling away to reveal your confused and broken core.

Your sight blurs, the four numbers marking Spiderman’s door (Yunho’s door, your brain corrects you, and it’s unsettling how easily the name seems to roll off the tongue of your mind though you know you never knew it until the trip down Memory Lane) swimming in your vision. One zero two four. You remember it from the day you walked him back, one of his arms slung around your shoulders, one leg broken and propped up by a cast of your own magic.

The moment had felt—familiar, you remember. Vaguely. At least in the way his tired laughs left his lips, in the way he joked about the villain who had left him in this state, in the way he thanked you as he lay on his bed, the magic cast fizzling out of sight, his reassurance that he’d be healed by morning. It had felt easy, somehow. Like you’d done this before, or something similar.

At the time, you’d brushed it off as Spiderman’s charisma with everybody. The times you interacted with him, watched him fend off villains and help the elderly cross the sidewalk in just two breaths showed you enough. That infectious laugh, the witty barbs, his charming easiness with every person he encountered, villain or no, weren’t special somethings reserved for you, which you reminded yourself in the moments you thought that might be true.

But maybe it was true. That trip down memory lane told you that you knew him even before you did. Knew Spiderman, knew him deeply, knew him well enough to know his name, Yunho Jeong—

Knew him enough that you could kiss him and tell him you loved him, twice, even without the promise of a response.

“Wait. Wait and tell me when you see me again.”

He’d promised. With a nod, and a smile, and words said before that you know from the memory but still don’t remember. He’d said it, sworn it—

“It’s okay. I’m gonna come and find you and—and I’ll explain everything. I’ll make you remember me.” A deep, rattling breath. “And it’ll be like none of this ever happened.”

Yet he never came to find you. For what reason, you don’t know. But you found him. Over and over, you found him—during fights, on trips to the bodega, several times in the Sanctum. And he never said anything.

The ache of a memory that is yours but isn’t thuds dully in your chest. You need to know if it was real. And it if was…

You need to know why he never returned.

Your knuckles rap the door sharply—once, twice, three times. Something clangs and there’s a loud curse in a voice you properly remember, not just know from your trip down memory lane.

Footsteps sound. Something clicks in the door. You have just one moment to prepare yourself before it swings open—

Yunho Jeong’s face stares at you, confused, kind, smiling. If you hadn’t been watching so carefully, you would’ve missed the millisecond of hope and panic that flashed across his eyes that confirms everything you’ve conjectured so far.

You’re not sure how to feel about it.

“Good morning?” He laughs a little, and he’s so good at acting—so damn good, did he take acting classes before? Not that you would’ve known since you only got that one significant memory before you shoved America Chavez on, but you want to grab his shoulders and shake him hard enough to tug those memories loose and plant them back in your own damn head—

“Yunho Jeong.” You take a step forward. “We have a lot to talk about.”

. . . . .

His eyes are guarded when he lets you in the door, but he lets you sit on the couch before he lets loose with a question, more of a statement, of his own. “You know my name.”

You probe his gaze carefully. For once, it flickers as you stare at him, a shard of that steady, easy confidence he’s always had (was there a time he didn’t have it? Were you there when that was the case?) chipped and dropped into somewhere unknown. He doesn’t flinch away, though, not like you originally expected him to.

Maybe it isn’t just paranoia and caution behind those guarded walls, your mind whispers. Maybe there’s a bit of hope, too.

The thought is too much for you to handle, so for all your original bravado you’re the one who looks away first. “I do.”

Spiderman’s—Yunho’s—voice nearly trembles with how carefully he measures his next word. “How?”

You take a deep breath. How do you even start?

“I recently took a…trip, of sorts, with Dr. Strange.” Not really—it was more so just with America, but Spiderman doesn’t know America and you probably shouldn’t be telling anyone about her until Dr. Strange gives the okay. “Went universe hopping. Mostly unintentionally.” Ignoring Spiderman’s—Yunho, Jesus fucking Christ—sharp intake of breath, you continue. “One of them had a curious feature called Memory Lane. For a price, it would replay your most significant memories.” You swallow. “I got a…free trial, of sorts.”

The silence that follows your statement hangs heavily in the air. Never, not once in the time you’ve known him (at least not the second time you knew him, if the first time even existed) did you think Yunho (it’s still strange how not strangely the name flows through your mind) could have let such a tension weigh the conversation—he’s always been so charismatic, so ready to smile and laugh and joke away any heaviness that came. Hell, even when he had a leg snapped into so many pieces only a cast of glowing golden threads was holding it together, he wore a smile on the way back. But in the face of your words, Yunho’s head has fallen, the strong shoulders tensed to snap, his clasped hands trembling underneath his chin…

He looks up, straight at you. His eyes have fragmented and the shards you see in them frightens you—that’s just not a look that belongs on Yunho’s face. He looks ten, twenty, thirty years older than he is (your age, he’d told you with the perfect amount of surprise and warmth on his face the day you’d told him, the first time you’d had more than a few minutes to get to know each other more), with the tortured memories of someone who’s lived through millennia. And, you realize with a pang, there’s a reason for that. Because if you forgot him, if Mingi forgot him, how many others did?

And if you meant so much to him in that life you don’t remember, how much has he had to keep to himself in order to keep you from knowing?

“What did you see?” he asks quietly, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles have turned white. “If it’s okay to tell me, of course.”

Tears bubble in the corners of your eyes. That gentleness, that consideration, feels so warm. So very warm and familiar.

“I was with you. And Mingi. We were hugging.” You swallow. “You looked…beat up, but you still asked about a wound on my head.”

Yunho’s gaze flutters in the direction you knew it’d go, just to the side of your right eyebrow. Your fingers itch to rise, to touch the scarred flesh that’s still there, but you hold your twitching hands still.

“And then you said we were going to forget who you were.”

He goes still at that, still as a statue. It’s funny—there have been a few times where you mused, internally of course, that Yunho’s face—just Spiderman at the time—could have been sculpted by one of the gods, should they exist. A beaming statue of a hero, waiting for thousands to thank and worship him. But now, as he stares at you with no expression on his face, stone still and truly a human statue if there ever was one…

You promise yourself never to make the statue comparison again, because the warm Yunho, the alive Yunho, is the only one you’d ever want to know.

Swallowing hard, you open your mouth. And close it. Not because you don’t know what to say, because you do—it’s just recounting a memory that isn’t yours, basically a scene from a movie, how hard could it be—but because when you try to speak, you can’t. Your voice is gone.

Yunho’s eyes are shiny. A little too shiny. And there’s a little too much hope in them, now, a hope that makes you want to dig yourself into a hole and have someone cover up the dirt behind you. Because—it’s not right, that hope, it’s not right because you know what Yunho wants isn’t what happened.

He speaks first. “You…remember?”

“I—” You dig your fingernails into your palms so hard it hurts. “I don’t.”

His face falls. Crumbles. And this time, unlike all the other times you didn’t understand before when he’d see you and you’d do something—anything—and his face would do something strange for a second before his easy smile came back up—

He doesn’t try to pull it back together.

“I—saw it.” Your mouth moves on autopilot, trying to patch up a situation you’re not sure you can but anything, anything to bring something back to Yunho’s face. Even the terrible hope was better than this. “I saw it—and—I can’t say I remember it, exactly, because I don’t, but it—it felt like it explained things.”

Yunho looks up. Just barely. But he does.

“You—I’m comfortable with you.” Once it’s out in the open, you realize how stupid it sounds, but you barge forward because who the fuck cares anymore. “And I know—I know a lot of people probably say that, but—even at that first fight, it was like…it was like I knew you a little. Somehow. Even though to my knowledge I had never seen you before.” You wince at how that must sound but Yunho doesn’t, his eyes now fixated more firmly on yours. “A lot of things felt…familiar. Just stuff like your laugh. Smile. The way we could banter and talk and I—just—fuck!” Your own vehemence startles you and you slap your palms to your eyes and to your surprise, you find tears meeting your skin.

Damn it, you really hadn’t intended to cry when you came here.

“Y/N?”

You swallow the lump in your throat, scrub at your eyes with the heels of your palms. “I’m sorry,” you say, and wow your voice sounds so much more ragged than you thought it was. “I’m sorry. I—it all sounds stupid. I don’t know how to explain it. I just know that…sometimes, being around you felt like déjà vu. In some weird way.” The lump in your throat seems bent on returning so you swallow hard again. “The memory that I saw. It made some things, like that, make sense. But other things didn’t.”

“…What didn’t?”

It takes everything left in you to meet Yunho’s gaze. The adrenaline rush of yesterday’s fight has finally faded away fully and you think you might collapse soon, but you force your voice to remain steady even as a stray tear makes it cold way down your cheek.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

. . . . .

For a long moment, Yunho doesn’t speak.

“I…was going to tell you,” he finally says. “I was. When you still had your job at the diner, I was going to go in and…tell you everything. Like I’d promised to. I was—” He laughs a little, broken and fragmented. “I was right outside. I could see you. Mingi was at the counter, too.”

There were many days like those. You’re not sure which one this was. “I didn’t see you.”

“No, you didn’t,” Yunho agrees. “But I saw you. And I saw your scar.”

This time, you can’t stop your hand from touching the warped skin on your forehead.

Yunho’s eyes track the movement. “I had a whole speech written out, you know.” That same broken, fragmented laugh from before. “It was on a piece of paper. I was going to read it to you two. But I saw your scar and…you were laughing. You looked so happy. I couldn’t ruin that.” He smiles a little, but it doesn’t reach his eyes at all. “When you knew I was Spiderman, all it did was cause you pain. And harm.”

You open your mouth to refute, but you can’t. Because you don’t remember anything. Not at all.

“Something happened to just about everyone I cared about who knew my secret.” Yunho’s voice drops. “So I thought it would be better if you didn’t know. It would be better if no one knew. Just the way it was after that day.”

“But—Yunho, I—” Words trip over your tongue and for a moment you still can’t speak, not for lack of thought but for too much. “We—you didn’t give us a choice. How did you know we wouldn’t—”

“You were at the battle.” Yunho’s words cut through your own like a knife and you almost flinch. “A battle I caused because I was an idiot. You don’t remember what happened, do you?”

Slowly, you shake your head.

“I went to Dr. Strange with a request. To wipe everyone’s memory of the fact that Yunho Jeong and Spiderman were one and the same. So many shit things had happened to me—and us—because of Mysterio’s stupid fucking video. College admissions, people taking potshots at us across the street…” He takes a deep, shaky breath. “He almost did. But I kept interrupting with exceptions. People I still wanted to remember me. You. Mingi. Aunt Mei. Happy. And that…that messed the spell up.”

You sit silent, quiet as Yunho tells you about the multiverse, about the other villains who knew him but whom he’d never faced—at least not in this world. He tells you about Aunt Mei, how Osborn had found her, how she’d pressed it into him that all of them needed help, not just to be sent back to their respective universes to die, and how he’d decided she was right.

She had been right, Yunho stresses. But she’d paid for it. With her life.

There, Yunho stops talking for a moment. Puts his hands over his face and breathes deeply once, twice. When he finally looks up, his eyes look redder.

“I’m sorry.” You wince as soon as you say the words, how flat they fall in the silence. But the thing is—you knew Mei. Somewhat. You remember her face, her smile, her burned cookies—you remember her, if not necessarily her nephew. She was a good woman, one of the kindest people you’d ever had the luck to meet. “I…remembered her. Somewhat. Probably not as much as I would have…before, but…”

“Yeah,” is all Yunho says. “Yeah.”

He continues. Two Spidermen, two Yunho Jeongs from separate universes. They looked nothing like him and apparently you summoned them with rings stolen from Dr. Strange himself (so maybe some things are best left not remembered, because if Dr. Strange doesn’t remember this you’re not sure you want him to). Back in their own worlds, they’d faced the villains he’d failed to corral here. They worked together and there was a fight at the Statue of Liberty and you and Mingi were tasked with keeping the unbroken spell safe from Norman Osborn and later, Dr. Strange, too.

You failed.

“Osborn freed the spell,” Yunho says, grief and fury etched in every line of his face. “Broke the casing with one of his stupid little toys. And so all these people—villains, friends, I don’t know—from other universes started coming into ours. Dr. Strange couldn’t contain them.”

You’re starting to feel a little faint. “Oh my god.”

“Yeah,” Yunho breathes. “There was only one way to fix it. Everyone had to forget Yunho Jeong.” His eyes bore into yours.

Forget feeling faint. You think you’re about to be sick. “Everyone.”

“Everyone,” he repeats. A little dark laugh falls from his lips. “No exceptions this time.”

For a long moment, you sit in silence. All of this information—your brain was already exhausted from universe hopping and dealing with a crazy, grief-driven witch, and you got maybe three hours of sleep last night before you found your way here—it’s so much. Almost too much. Maybe you should’ve waited to confront Yunho, should’ve given it a couple of days of thinking before coming here all tongue-tied and stupid—

“But—Yunho. You promised to tell us. You promised to tell me and Mingi.” You can feel your face scrunching up like you’re about to cry again and you don’t need that, don’t need that right now at fucking all. “You could’ve told us—you didn’t have to go through this alone—”

“Yes, I did,” Yunho snaps. “It was my fault. All of this was my fault—”

“No, it fucking wasn’t!” you retort. “It was Mysterio’s fault—hell, it was mine and Mingi’s for not protecting the stupid spell enough—”

“No, it was mine, for trying to change something that couldn’t have been changed!” he yells. “I got the villains into our universe because I couldn’t think of anything beyond our fucking college admissions! I did a fuck up job of keeping the villains in line! I got Mei killed, I got you and Mingi injured, I caused so much trouble for Dr. Strange because I wasn’t thinking—”

“You were a kid!” you yell back. “We all were! Barely fucking eighteen! Not even college students, not even legal adults! And—Yunho! I may not remember anything, but I do fucking know that we never would’ve been coerced or something into helping you. You wouldn’t have done that! If we were helping you in that fight, it was because we agreed to, because we wanted to!”

“It doesn’t matter!” Yunho snaps. “It doesn’t matter that you wanted to! Because in the end, this was a fight that I started and that I should have ended myself! Instead, I got a whole bunch of other people involved and people were injured for it, people—people died for it, Y/N.” His face crumples, and he turns away.

All the fight leaves your body. You reach towards him, slowly take his hands in yours. To your surprise, he doesn’t tug them away.

“I wasn’t going to get you and Mingi killed off because I wanted you back,” Yunho whispers. “My fights were going to be on my terms and only mine. I know you fight now, as Dr. Strange’s apprentice—don’t bring that up with me. Those fights are your choices and on your terms.” Teary eyes look into yours and you can barely fight the urge to brush the wetness away. “It kills me to watch it happen, but that’s your choice. And I can’t interfere with that.” He takes a deep breath. “But I can interfere with the stuff that shouldn’t happen because it’s my fault.”

The anger starts to rise up in you once more. “You didn’t give either of us a choice in deciding that—”

“Right before Aunt Mei died, she told me something.” Yunho’s hands tremble in yours. “She said, ‘With great power, there must also come great responsibility.’”

You swallow hard.

“I don’t think I ever understood until then,” he says quietly. “Sure, I’d always known I had power, and I tried to use it well by being the friendly neighborhood Spiderman, you know. Protecting the little guy while others fight the big battles. But the responsibility…my lack of that is what started this whole thing in the first place.” Yunho swallows. “When I saw you and Mingi in the diner, and I made that choice. That was my responsibility. I wasn’t going to purposefully involve anyone else in my fights, my issues. Not now. Not anymore.”

One of his hands releases itself from yours. It rises toward the puckered scar, brushes it with a gentle touch. His fingertips tremble against your skin. “Do you know how you got this?” he asks, whisper soft.

Slowly, you shake your head.

“One of Osborn’s…gadgets, sliced you.” Yunho takes a deep, shaky breath, and you grip his hand harder. “And because of that, you—you fell. Right off the statue.”

You couldn’t speak right now, not even if you tried.

“You fell.” The words seem to rip themselves from Yunho’s throat and he looks away, his free hand covering his face for one, two awful moments before he turns back to you. “You fell, and I tried to catch you but Osborn knocked me out of the way midair, and it—it was only a miracle that one of the other Spidermen caught you. A miracle,” he repeats, almost as though he still doesn’t believe it.

This time you do reach up to brush the tears from his eyes. The movement feels so remarkably natural that you have to wonder how many times you made the same motion in a time before.

“I saw you with the scar. And suddenly I was there, watching you fall with no way to stop it.” Yunho squeezes his eyes shut. “I couldn’t have that happen again. Not to you. Not to anyone.”

His eyes open, and between the tears, all you can see is the certainty of his choice weighing dark in his pupils.

“Not because of me.”

. . . . .

Silence falls in Yunho’s studio apartment. The sun has risen, slats of pale light filtering through his windows, illuminating his face. In the glow of morning, Yunho’s young face only looks older.

And suddenly you feel guilty. So very guilty. You came to his apartment unannounced with a name in one hand, news you were certain he wouldn’t like in the other, and caused him pain. That was it. You forced him to relive all these memories, made him explain things he perhaps wasn’t ready to speak of, and yelled at him for a choice you’re not sure you would’ve made differently had you been in the same situation.

“I’m sorry,” you croak, throat suddenly choked. You drop his hands and step back, desperately trying to swallow your tears. “I—I shouldn’t have come.” Yunho’s eyebrows furrow, but you refuse to look at him. “It wasn’t my place to demand answers of you and I shouldn’t have yelled—”

“Y/N.”

This time it’s his hands that take yours, large and warm and gentle. You look down at your joined fingers, then up at his face. If you had loved each other as much as your memory would have you believe, this must have been a common occurrence.

No wonder it feels so safe.

“I don’t blame you,” he says, and it’s the steadiness of his gaze that convinces you he speaks true. “You had questions, and no one else you knew had answers.”

“Even so.” You blink a tear away. “Even so, Yunho.”

“No.” He grips your hands more tightly. “Do you know how I felt after I saw you the first time after? When you showed up with Dr. Strange in the middle of fighting the drakon?” You open your mouth to respond, but he cuts you off. “I was terrified, obviously, but watching you…” Yunho looks down at your joined hands and you think he’s going to start crying again, but when he looks back up, there’s a smile on his face despite the faint tears in his eyes. “It was good to see you, Y/N. Just so…good.”

You look down at your hands. Back up at Yunho’s face.

Eyes so soft with tears, so warm they could melt.

“I was happy to see you,” he says quietly, and for all his words are unbelievable you have to believe them because of the way he says them. “So happy. I mean—I’d made the decision. And I’d come to terms with that I probably would never see you again, or at least never be close with you again. But seeing you then, healthy and happy and just—you—”

A choked noise escapes your throat. Something like a laugh. Something like a sob.

“I thought I’d gotten over it, you know.” Yunho smiles and it’s beautiful and broken and brittle, echoes of joy bittersweet on his lips. “Thought that I’d be able to move on. And I did, in a way, but before I thought that I would forget it all. I thought that I could. But that moment just showed me that I’d really never be able to, and that I would be okay with it. Because seeing you like that—it was good, Y/N.” The smile grows. “Even now, seeing you in front of me like this…”

Oh. Oh, damn.

You’d thought that you were all cried out, but your eyes betray you once more. A headache is starting to build up in the back of your head but you force yourself to focus, to decipher Yunho’s words for what they are. “So—” You swallow. Try to speak. “Do—do you—”

“I still love you,” he says quietly. “Every time I see you, it feels like I’m a little more whole.”

Your face burns. “I—”

“You don’t have to say anything right now.” Yunho smiles, and even on his teary face he looks so handsome, so steady, and if it’s true that you were in love with him before it’s not difficult to understand why. “I know it’s a lot, and that you’ve only just begun to figure some things out. I’m not looking for an answer when I tell you this.” He takes a deep breath. “I just wanted you to know.”

For a moment, the two of you sit in silence. You look at your interlaced fingers, think about how natural it feels to have his hands in yours, to have come to him in this hour of answers and need. Briefly you think of Mingi, and it doesn’t surprise you to think that they could’ve been good friends too.

“I’m not…closed off. To anything.” You swallow hard, looking back up at Yunho. “Yet, at least. I can’t say I—that I love you, not now, but I do believe I loved you once, and I could be there again. Someday.”

Yunho’s eyes fill with tears again, but he doesn’t say anything.

“I just.” Tears of your own start to squeeze down your cheeks, past your lips and chin. “I don’t know if I will ever remember everything,” you finally warn, voice wobbly. “I think it’s more likely that I won’t. But if you’re willing, even then…”

“It’s okay.” Yunho’s smile is warm, and it’s what finally sends the rest of the tears spilling out of your eyes. “This is more than I ever could have hoped for in my life.”

“I want to remember,” you choke. “I want to remember, I want to so badly—”

“I do too,” he says, pulling you into his chest. His warm heartbeat thumps quietly against yours and you take comfort in its steady pace, one, two, one, two. “But even if you don’t, I want you to know that’s okay. And it always will be.”

“…How do you know?”

Yunho’s arms, warm around your body. His hold so gentle yet so firm, so safe and steady as he murmurs reassurances in your ear.

“Because,” he says, pulling away. You look up at him with your sticky, aching eyes, feel all of your trust in him only grow as he smiles.

“Because we can always make more memories of our own.”

If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3

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xx-vergil-xx · 19 days

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Can I ask what pushed you to end Hounds the way you did? It's a fantastic ending, but I'm curious. I expected the Fates to revive Dream, or allow him to inhabit a new form (such as one made by Daniel, so that Dream becomes a dreamthing), etc. But instead, his death is made to have never happened. Which makes it partly feels like Hob's whole road trip journey was for nothing since he lost all those memories and connections with Matthew, the Corinthian, Delirium, Despair, Desire, Death, etc. (thank god he kept the farmhouse). But it's almost like he traded all those memories and connections for Dream. Unless I missed something while reading (I was crying very hard).

Again, fantastic ending, and I'm also glad it's a happy ending. But I'm curious as to why you didn't go in the other direction

howdy! thanks very much for the ask — an excellent query, one which i’m happy to answer

(verg of the future: this answer ended up long! there’s a short form at the top here and at the end <3)

in brief: he did make that trade you described! but not strictly for dream — it was the price of swapping genres!

an explanation:

what i had in mind while planning and writing was less the idea of erasure of prior narrative action and more a subversion of the expected genre, in particular the genre tropes that follow dream in the original arc of the comics, where his story is very classically tragic (with the understood weaving of hob into that tragedy, this being a dream/hob telling and all)

for reference, i also drew a lot of inspiration for hob’s road trip odyssey from the aeneid, an epic that is, yes, about the founding of rome but also (at least to my reading) a fundamental tragedy — the cost of founding rome is aeneas’ home, many of his friends, much of his core family, and the very end of the story is not some victorious depiction of the glory of rome to be (which we do get earlier in the book, with the ekphrasis on his shield) but aeneas, overcome with fury and loss, killing a man who begs his mercy. i’ve always felt that the aeneid, while certainly stepped in the expected amount of roman nationalism, is centrally about a single man and his singular suffering as an instrument of higher destiny.

i wanted to model hob’s arc around the aeneid (minus, y’know, some of the chunks that are strictly battle sequences <3) both because intertextuality is a huge part of how i wanted to handle hounds (story about stories, made of other stories, etc), but also because hob and aeneas are fundamentally parallel characters — nomads with exceptional ordinances, permanently displaced by the passing whims of higher powers, men who are made to reckon with both extraordinary wonder and extraordinary tragedy regularly while still, at their core, just being human. that’s what makes aeneas so compelling — he’s just a man. and so is our beloved hob — that’s his whole thing, his whole narrative function and his whole central ideal, humanity

so then, approaching hounds with both the thought of the sandman’s original tragic contours (see: the whole lead-in to daniel. christ above is the way that goes devastating to read) and the man vs fate core of the aeneid, i was considering a lot of things about how to mess around with both notions without gutting them entirely. i tend to dislike tragedies that become un-tragic without some sort of Serious Payment For It (not to say i don’t like happy stories because i very much do! but i get ticked off when high stakes get deflated too quickly) and i didn’t want to undermine the very real fact that the Fates are typically not versed in notions of empathy and/or leniency, and that dream and hob and those around them did experience and endure devastation and loss, and that death is a fact typically immune to argument.

the world of sandman is not one with easy answers, and to my mind there’s no such thing as a bargain with the Fates where you break even. for hob to get what he wanted, something had to be given, something dear and vital and real. there’s more to what hob actually gives the Fates than he verbally stipulates, which i tried to address largely via the corinthian and his perception of the situation, especially those last conversations with dream in the “swamp”. i have a lot of options about the corinthian in his function as “dark mirror” having a blistering clarity of understanding much of the time, which is why i foisted the onus of those complexities onto his dialogue, rather than hob, who (and i say this with love) is a creature of bias and often blinded to greater repercussions of his actions insofar as they extend beyond his immediate objectives/enjoyments, or dream, who can see the bigger picture but i think often really keeps himself from doing so when it comes to anything at all that’s personal (king of stories has a blindspot for his own). what hob gives the Fates actually costs him almost nothing, in the long run, if we operate with the idea that he cannot remember, nor is there any lasting effect from, his 600-ish heavily-relived years. there’s narrative and symbolic weight, of course — he gives them love as an oath and as nostalgia (sidebar: his driving force is an almost pre-nostalgia, a continual love of the moment as the moment is passing, but anyway) (cuff links), he gives them in a captured moment the lovely discomfort and simultaneous brilliance of being alive (the hook, the finger prick the blood), and he gives them a rich and complicated experience of humanity (those 600 years). but practically, what is actually taken from him that he doesn’t just get back?

only those few months — and in them, a web of real and known connections, all of which matter, and all of which change his understanding of and relationship to things like grief, and loneliness, and fear, and forgiveness. those are important changes, real changes, that would affect how he operates in the world going forward. that development is gone. he returns instead to the (of course, fought-for and hard-won) stasis of what was, which becomes what will always be. in making the Fates and their judgement more complex, he has actually made his own life less complex. now, i’m not going to sit here and argue that “suffering has inherent value” or some shit like that because i think that’s bullshit! pain is just pain. but he does lose experiences which would have shaped him in new ways, and, i think, good ways. even important ways

and he may well be shaped towards similar courses with dream (especially re: learning that lesson about loneliness — i think hob suffers from the curse of always, ultimately, being alone (immortality etc there’s so much discourse about this), and the road trip was in part about him learning that though it is the simplest path it is neither the sole nor the best path), but he certainly doesn’t learn them the same way, with the same faces, with the same acuity and clarity and intensity.

the thing with the Fates (to me anyway) is that you don’t ever just win. maybe you can get what you want, but it’s not easy (it make take a thousand repetitions of your lifetime until friction and the touch of your hands wears the sisyphean boulder down to a pebble — like the parable of the bird scraping its beak on the mountain), and it’s sure not free.

so yes, those months are lost. that’s a big part of the price. and we don’t know, at the end, how much of that thing he really gave ultimately comes back — his new relationship depths with deanna or cori or the other endless, those things aren’t seen. the main arc is resolved — hob and dream — but there are still pieces missing. he loses a piece of his human experience, he gets tossed back around through the wringer of his life (which is often distinctly not pleasant), and he is, as he ever was, a character with a path whose impetus and dictation rest heavily on external forces. even in attempting to channel his life elsewhere, he still has to bargain, and is still subject to the choices of the fates, and in some ways the story remains irrevocably a tragedy, in that one way or another it has loss in a central place. in the latter half of hounds hob really became my attempted version of an aeneas type — a man with a quest and a fated directive, a deeply human and flawed individual, who can alter the path and even irrevocably change the genre of his own narrative, but only at cost.

of course let’s be clear! some of all the actual rendering of this ended up as it did partly because i am not always a clean writer, and for that i apologize! but i did genuinely want that sense of gaps — of faces and voices given over to the gravitational well of the principal narrative arc of hob/dream versus the Fates. i think those things are gone. the narrative is forcibly re-centered around hob and dream, and in doing this — in shifting the story genre — other ties and bonds are not just cut, but unwoven entirely. when you change the kind of story you’re telling, the change is done at the expense of something else. kind of like how there’s a fixed amount of matter in the universe? you can’t create or destroy matter — to make something new you have to take from another place. (sidebar: wow i’m realizing something about my fundamental storytelling beliefs right now! laws of physics! anon your ask has really got my cylinders firing, and most sincerely thank you <3)

still, they might come back. though i didn’t write it as fully as i could have (i will freely admit there was a great deal of burnout at play towards the end there), i had a lot of thoughts re: repetition and density, namely that if you stack a thousand repetitions of a lifetime against each other it’s the equivalent of writing a word over and over and over on a page. when you erase it, the channels remain. language flows most naturally in the direction once etched for it. maybe hob learns those same lessons and knows the same people in the same way — maybe he and the corinthian find that odd patch of common ground, maybe he takes a long drive with delirium through rural maryland. maybe there are echoes. maybe even if it is gone what was still shapes the topography. maybe a kindness or a word exchanged still ring out when you can’t see them or remember them. while the milestones of our lives rippled the most visibly, i think we’re shaped a thousandfold ways by accumulations of small things we can’t distinctly remember. only a feeling of a thing, or the negative space it leaves.

well. tl;dr — i didn’t want to let hob get away without actually giving anything up, nor without his choice to bargain affecting others besides himself in equally irrevocable ways (sidebar: at his core is a selfishness that is both charming and ignoble — he wants to do a good thing for dream but also he makes a call that changes a plenitude of lives other than his own, and i don’t think he really asks, he just does — grey areas are his whole gig to me), because nobody makes a deal with the Fates for free, and changing genre has a price tag. it was my effort to make the tone of the whole beast more authentically sandman-esque, since sandman does a lot of that sort of water-muddying, especially when using understood narrative models/archetypes/etc etc

i am. sorry this was as long as it is! jesus! but i’m sending it off all the same. anyways, anon, thanks very much not only for your lovely kind words and the high honor of your tears (no pulitzer could mean more to me than knowing a thing i wrote really moved someone, seriously thank you) but also for giving me a blank check to go buck wild and ramble about my own damn writing and Things I Just Think <3 i hope you have a lovely day/morning/noon/night, and thanks a bunch for dropping by <3 <3 <3

#the sandman #hob gadling #dream of the endless #dreamling #hounds #vergil says hello #vergil says way more than fuckin hello tbh #vergil writes a manifesto woukd be a better line for this #anon has given me the greatest gift: License To Monologue #fingers crossed any of that actually answered the question at hand #thanks for saying hi and asking things because i love both experiences immensely #<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

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guillotinna · 8 months

Text

Need an office! 141 au with ditzy but competent secretary! Reader

Reader walks around the office in tight little pencil skirts and button down tops that drive the men crazy unbeknownst to them. A sweet little thing is the first thing they see when they come to work and last thing to see when they leave. How can they not have a soft spot for you?? You don't even know you have all 4 coworkers wrapped around your finger. You just think they're super sweet for getting you your expensive coffee drink every day, for keeping the office at your favorite temperature even if they don't like it, for complimenting you all throughout your shifts.

One day the power goes out and all 4 men scramble straight to you. You grab the first toned arm you reach in the pitch black and it happens to be johnny's. He walks you out of the building at your pace because you can only move so fast in the dark and in heels. The others are right behind you fussing Over you.

Anytime a pervy, old client tries to hit on you, it is shut down by the closest man to you immediately. No one gets to talk to you like that period.

Every Friday, the 5 of you go out for drinks which always ends up torturing everyone but you. Since you're off the clock, your hair is down, your shirts first few buttons are undone and your personality is on full display. They can't get enough of you. You just make their lives so much easier, they need you.

At the first signs of you wanting to quit, they would do anything to keep you. You're theirs and no one else's.

Simon loves to follow you into the supply rooms or break room because he knows you'll need help reaching something. He's just so sweet for standing behind you with a big hand splayed over your waist while he helps you grab something. Kyle just makes the BEST coffee and he refuses to tell anyone his secret because he needs you to come to him only when you need caffeine. Price is just such a thoughtful CEO, giving you plenty of praise for your efforts and making sure the place is stocked with your favorite snacks. Johnny is such a sweety. He's always willing to lend you his time. He's so funny and talented too. You love to watch him draw only to be interrupted by Price scolding him for not working (even though you weren't either). Johnny has gifted you countless drawings that you keep at your desk and at home, which makes his INCREDIBLY cocky much to the others' dismay. Simon is often traveling for work and always makes sure to bring you back something from his trip, which you happily keep next to johnny's stuff. Price loves to buy (you) the office lunch or dinner when working late but never let's you pay him back or get it the next time. Kyle is such a sweety for always making sure your computer is always working perfectly. He's such an IT wiz, you love it. When the wifi strangely goes down for a day (🤨), you spend hours talking with him until he "figures out" the problem and fixes it. You make sure to tell him how smart he is. The others never hear the end of it

#cod mw22 #call of duty #cod x reader

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thegreatzombieartisan · 1 year

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Rings of Power + Tolkien Fusion Meta

Elvish Love, Sex, and the Single Maia

“Elves only love and marry once.”

Yeah, the Laws and Customs of the Eldar (Elves) aren’t this clear-cut. Foremost, Elves reflect Tolkien’s devout Catholic ideal including his strongly held belief in the dangers of unbridled sexuality. Also, Tolkienverse runs on morality and mysticism, not science.

Update: After performing direct research and analysis on Tolkien’s LACE text, I’ve come to new conclusions. I’ve highlighted updates in this post in blue. Otherwise the rest remains aligns and unchanged.

For Elves love =/= marriage. Most unions are love matches but at . However, Tolkien did write about Elves who love yet never wed à la courtly love. Elves that love with our reciprocity, even when married. Moreover, of lusty Elf men who wed Elf maidens with dubious consent gained from questionable means.

But sex complicates things. Elves are monogamous. And it's not just culturally.

Elf sex = marriage = binding. Elf marriage = intent + sex or binding of hröa/body and fëa/spirit. Since Elves are inherently bound to Arda’s fate through their fëa/spirit, marriages are thus eternal.

Most couples have children early in marriage and with each child, their sex drive would diminish. It infers that sex (at least cultural) is viewed as being primarily purposed for begetting of children. Based on that, though not explicitly stated in text, it’s also inferred that “real” sex, that kind that led to bringing, would be was PIV (pen-in-vagina). Perhaps a consolation price strong incentive for eternal monogamy, Elf sex is intensely pleasurable.

For Elves, choosing the right partner critical. Divorce doesn’t exist. More accurately, divorce can’t exist because Elves can’t unfuck-bind themselves. But the Valar, spirit stewards of Arda who favor the Elves, are capable. Otherwise an unhappy Elf couple could lead separate lives, and maybe love others, but not remarry.

Can widowed Elves remarry? In the uncommon event an Elf dies, its spirit is summoned to the Halls of Mandos (aka purgatory). After an unspecified amount of time, the Valar will typically reincarnate them. During this Time of Waiting, both dead and living Elf spouse remain bonded. Upon reincarnation, the formerly dead spouse returns home like returning from a very long trip to the store for bread.

As it stands, the Valar will unbind a widowed Elf’s marriage in these rare events: the dead spouse refuses the summons to Mandos (usually evil Elves), eschews reincarnation like Míriel (Celebrimbor’s great-grandma), or denied the opportunity like Feanor aka “Mr. Fuck the Morgoth, Valar, and Teleri Elves.”

Therefore, in RoP, even if Celeborn were indeed dead, he and Galadriel are still bonded. But look, the way she said, “And you? My king?” sounded thisclose to RISKING IT ALL for power and sitting on Halbrand’s handsome face for eternity.

Asking for a friend: Can Maiar and Elves “marry”? Yes, with ample space for speculation and theory

The only canon union between a Maia and Child of Iluvatar (Elves and Men) was Melian and High-King Thingol. They begot Luthien, a powerful Elf and fairest Maiden ever. She even once beat Sauron in a duel.

Maiar are disembodied Eälar or spirits that contrasted with fëar/spirits of Elves and Men. Halbrand is Sauron’s fana/physical form he can change like clothes. But far as an Maia-Elf marriage aka sexy times goes, it’s unclear if it’s inferred binding is like Elven marriage because begetting children requires mutual intention to impart each parent’s spirit to the child. But either way, it doesn’t provoke any mystical moral cockblocking.

Well, one thing is clear: Melian literally fucked around, begot Luthien, and found out such activity had a side effect. She became permanently bonded to her fana. Donning a new fana requires the death of the bonded fana. To note, even though Melian bonded to an Elven fana, she retained her Maia spirit class.

What if Thingol had an Elven wife in the Halls of Mandos? Understand that Elves live on Middle-Earth to guide Men toward a righteous path. Elves and Maiar cucking dead Elf spouses certainly defies Tolkien’s “ideal devout Catholic” behavior. Assuredly he’d invent some mystical punishment to reenforce monogamy. Perhaps even Valar intervention but if they let Morgoth and Sauron run wild, I doubt it. But without precedence, it can only be speculated.

But renegade Maiar like Melian and Sauron do not give a FUCK nor need the Valar’s approval. If they want to fuck elves, THEY WILL FUCK ELVES.

Thus, irrespective of likelihood, conscience, or wisdom, no laws bar love and/or sex between Galadriel and Sauron. Platonic besties, chaste courtly love, or cucking Celeborn to the end of Arda - do you, you crazy kids. Since she is still married to, the closet thing to binding with Sauron would be with a 3rd party conduit and magic. Like a blood oath. Or rings of power (teehee).

Many challenges exist to a productive Galadriel and Sauron union beyond the metaphysical. And the most awkward would follow her spirit husband’s reincarnation. Imagine Celeborn discovering Morgoth’s first lieutenant has been railing his wife for centuries (now that’s a good fanfic prompt).

Thank you for reading! Your likes and reblogs are appreciated. Got feedback?

What did you like? Got theories or insights to share?

Disagree? I love good faith debate and sparring!

Something not quite making sense? Got feedback on readability?

Spot an inaccuracy? Hey, Tolkien's work is complex. Drop it in comments or DM.

#tolkien #saurondriel #theory

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raayllum · 10 months

Text

When he was little, Callum had always thought Aunt Amaya and his mom were invincible. Strong, powerful, trading quips as well as blows whenever they sparred with each other. He’d clung harder to the idea after his father died, needing something to hold onto: the certainty that he wouldn’t lose another parent, because he couldn’t. Mom was too strong and even stronger when Aunt Amaya was with her, and everyone would come home from the trip into Xadia perfectly fine.

Two days after the funeral, Aunt Amaya had cut her hair and left to defend the Breach (“They may still be more prices to pay for our trespass,” she’d signed to King Harrow) without looking back.

His aunt is not invincible, and while Callum had worried about her during the Battle of the Storm Spire, eyes scanning the battlefield to keep her in his sight, his heart had been torn; half with Ezran on dragonback, and half with Rayla in the clouds, watching over another dragon who couldn’t defend himself.

Callum isn’t sure why he expected it to be any different now, as the creatures close in around them in the Great Bookery. He keeps one eye on the corrupted banthers, for lack of a better term, slippery rungs hanging from their snappsih maws as they advance, prowling.

Soon it’s chaos, Amaya’s shield wedged in one of the walls, and Rayla losing enough ground she has to abandon her newfound bow for her trusty blades. Callum has been doing okay — it seems the creatures are most vulnerable to magic, which makes sense given that they are magical, in a sense — but he can feel his strength and stamina waning. Amaya had said something of just having to wait till morning and the creatures will dissipate or retreat back to the wound they came from, but they won’t make it at this rate. Won’t last long enough.

His wrist bends painfully when he has to block a banther’s lunge by using his staff, tossing the creature off with an electric blast that sends it flying, but there are still two more, and—

Amaya lets out the rare yell and his head snaps to the sound, his aunt limping as she goes for her shield in the corner, her sunforge blade laying feet away on the floor. He starts towards her, lifting his staff, her pleading eyes catching his for just a second—

But then Rayla screams and he pivots without thinking, fury building in his veins. He gets just a glimpse of the banther charging toward her, helpless, hurting, and—He doesn’t even have to say say a trigger word before a fistful of lighting crashes into the banther’s face and knocks it off course.

He pants for a second, knuckles aching and head buzzed, before he rushes to her, frantically looking her over for injuries. He finds her sword lying side ways and pushes it into her hands, helps her stand.

Then there’s another yell behind him, and Rayla gives him a tiny push, her upper lip split and curving. “Go help your aunt,” she urges, and he sends a blast of wind that way before he goes to help Amaya, too.

Later, on Zubeia’s back, Callum helps bind the bandages around Amaya’s arm from where the banther sliced her open. He waits, curious and a little ashamed (and then a little angry at being ashamed), to see if she’ll comment on his choice.

She doesn’t, eyes settled with understanding as she reaches up to ruffle his hair.

“Just make up with her sooner rather than later,” Amaya signs, nodding to where Rayla sits with Stella by one of the further dragon spikes, eyes distantly on the horizon line.

Callum’s heart lodges in his throat.

Easier said than done... but so was punching a banther in the face.

He gets up and sits next to her, watching softly while she fusses and patches up his hand. And so, so worth it.

insp by the dnd skit forever ago, in which callum abandons defending an innocent barkeep in order to protect rayla instead when she gets attacked

#the royal family of katolis #snake boi callum #rayllum #s5 #arc 2 #fic #ficlet #my fic #headcanons #s5 speculation #s5 spoilers #tdp #the dragon prince #tdp spoilers

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cursedonyx · 7 months

Text

Hogwarts Legacy Masterlist

To be updated as I go 🙃

Asks are open - please feel free to send me a request!

Hogwarts Legacy: The Price of Power (Ongoing) 🔞

Sebastian, Ominis and Dracaena embark on a new adventure in their seventh year, navigating a growing love angle and discovering a dastardly plot against Dracaena. In trying to find out more, they discover something far larger than any of them had anticipated, and the fate of the world rests in their hands.

(Warnings - eventual smut, love angle, eventual throuple, lots of angst, some comfort and mature themes)

Ao3 🔞

Wattpad 🔞

Audio Version 🔞

_.-~*~-._

✨Professor Fig Adopts the Emerald Trio✨

An alternate timeline in which Professor Fig adopts Sebastian, Ominis and Dracaena at the end of fifth year, offering them sage advice, fatherly love and affection, and helping to get them out of (and occasionally into) trouble.

Hijinks ensue. Fluffy and sweet, some angst but mostly cute.

Part 1

Part 2

_.-~*~-._

Sebastian Sallow

A Promise of a Theory

Professor Fig almost trips over a studious young Slytherin desperately searching for a way to cure his sister outside his classroom. The kindly professor offers Sebastian some advice and comfort.

The Bars Between Us 🔞

Part 2

Sebastian is rescued from Azkaban after six long years, but he's not the man his friends once knew, and he needs some TLC.

_.-~*~-._

Ominis Gaunt

The Sleeping Snake🔞

Things get a bit too much for a very randy Ominis when his snoozing partner is just that smidge too lovely. (Unedited oneshot)

Taming the Serpent 🔞

In their final year of school, Ominis Gaunt is the only person in all of Hogwarts that seems to be immune to the captivating beauty of one Silvermaria Rivers. Little does he know that the one person who can't see her splendour may be the only one who can love her for who she really is. Ominis has his own demons to banish before he can even think of anything as tiresome as romance, but as time goes by, Silver opens his eyes, so to speak, to a brand new, intoxicating world.

Ominis leaves a voicemail 🔞

A lonely Ominis leaves you a needy and very explicit voicemail

_.-~*~-._

Professor Sharp x Professor Garlick

Brewing Desires (Part 1) 🔞

Aesop has long had a crush on Mirabel, and at the Hogwarts Professor's annual Christmas drinks at the Three Broomsticks, he finally decides to make a move.

Brewing Desires (Part 2) 🔞

Following their encounter, Aesop is confused by Mirabel's ordinary behaviour. Following his jealousy at seeing her talk to another man, things come to a head in his office.

Brewing Desires (Part 3)

Though they try to keep it a secret, a certain arsehole Professor learns of their relationship, and an unfortunate dose of Babbling Brew leads Aesop to say more than he should.

_.-~*~-._

Poppy Sweeting x Garreth Weasley

Of Creatures and Cauldrons (Part 1)

Poppy has a major crush on Gareth. There's only one problem; he's in love with someone else.

Of Creatures and Cauldrons (Part 2)

Natsai tries to help Poppy go on a date with her secret crush, Garreth, but things don't go to plan when Garreth's crush turns up.

Of Creatures and Cauldrons (Part 3)

Poppy is distraught over her lack of returned feelings, and Prof. Garlick steps in with an encouraging word.

_.-~*~-._

Headcanons

Garreth Weasley ABCs

Ominis Gaunt ABCs

Sebastian Sallow ABCs

Ominis Gaunt NSFW ABCs 🔞

Sebastian Sallow NSFW ABCs 🔞

Garreth Weasley NSFW ABCs 🔞

Sebastian Sallow is a Fox 🦊

The Emerald Trio's Wands 🪄

In a Muggle Nursing Home 🧓🏻👴🏻

Drunk at a Party 🍻

_.-~*~-._

Reactions

MC has a baby sibling

A cat terrorises everyone but MC

Going through a Haunted House

Cuddling them when they're sad

✨Commissions✨

Ko-fi - Art & AI voice commissions

#hogwarts legacy #ominis gaunt #sebastian sallow #ominis gaunt x mc #mc x sebastian sallow #hogwarts legacy fanfic #garreth weasley #poppy sweeting #aesop sharp #mirabel garlick #Hogwarts Legacy characters #Hogwarts Legacy reactions #hogwarts legacy headcanons #hogwarts legacy writing #dracaena hoctina

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fridaypls · 1 month

Text

AU Seed: Rival Art Thieves

Humming softly, Gale finished wrapping the portrait neatly in brown paper for removal and leaned it against the gallery wall it had once hung from so neatly, ready for easy removal. There were only a few things left to do, then he could be gone—into the night, as though he’d never been there.

First, though, he needed to leave proof he had been.

There were plenty of art thieves in the world; good ones and bad ones. Gale tended to judge good and bad on two scales; talent and morality. There were plenty of talented art thieves—perhaps a dozen with true talent—but morals? Scruples?

As far as he was aware, there was only one truly good art thief. One man working from the shadows to reunite art with the peoples it belonged to, ripping creations from the rich and powerful in order to return that art to the people it was created for. One silent thief, never caught on so much as film.

Him.

Gale was aware, of course, that there had been others who had trod the path of an enterprising, Robin-Hood-esque art-thief—Stéphane Breitwiese, for one, had been an inspiration. There had been others, their names less well known and their prior careers less… chaotic? Publicly enflamed?

He shook those thoughts off and went back to the task at hand, carefully wiping down the little glass plaque he’d brought to replace the stolen painting. It would inform the gallery of why the painting had been taken, drawing attention to reason for the theft—warning other galleries that he was coming for them, as well.

“Now that,” intoned a bored, cold voice from the shadows above him, “is just needless pageantry.”

Want to see more? Leave me a comment.

This is a story in progress, featuring retired-assassin Astarion, who retired from a life that his former mentor and master, Cazador Szarr, will stop at nothing to drag him back into. With a bounty on his own head, he seeks to buy back his life by stealing as many valuable paintings before his time runs out.

...except he has a rival. An exceptionally frustrating and dashing rival in the form of Gale Dekarios, who has made it his life's mission to return art to the people it belongs to, following years of stealing it on his ex-wife's behest.

Created with @wincestielfttfwin ♡

Scattered work start-up notes below for your amusment:

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||| With Astarion as a rival art thief in it for profit, with some formidable talents of his own; I think he’s a retired assassin with a price on his own head he’s trying to pay off before someone completes the contract on him ||| Stealing for his life while trying to evade the man who made him and who has offered him a choice; live by the sword or die by the sword. Or, less dramatically, come back to work and start killing people for Cazador again or get killed. ||| Astarion hopes he can just pay off the price on his head, since Cazador dangled an impossible price over his head ||| Intrigue sparks when they try to pull off the same job and the same time; Astarion shows up while Gale is still setting up his Stolen to be returned to the people to whom it belongs by Gale’s Art Thief Name Here display in its place because he’s Gale and he does have to show off a bit, after all ||| And Astarion calls it pageantry, they argue, sparks fly and neither of them realize it—Astarion baits Gale with something flirtatious, then escapes with the art while he’s distracted, possibly tripping an alarm deliberately on his way out to be a shit ||| They meet again while they’re both casing another job, Gale persuades him to work together and split the gallery; Astarion takes the art that Gale wasn’t there to steal, Gale takes the three works he’s there for and they go their separate ways. By working together, Astarion can take much more art, much more easily… so he says yes ||| Gets to see Gale on the job, realizes he’s actually pretty skilled (and he has been the whole time, but now Astarion’s having trouble denying it) ||| Jobs goes really well, Gale asks him to work together again, Astarion says no (to keep him safe) and vanishes the instant he’s not looking, leaving Gale pretty heartbroken ||| …until he starts getting anonymous texts that are very much Astarion, flirting with him more comfortably when they both pretend he’s anonymous ||| Astarion deliberately bumping into him again on a new job, working together… and the pattern repeating again. Perhaps a couple times more. ||| Until Cazador makes an attempt on Astarion while they’re both casing a job together and it could easily have killed them both - almost kills Gale, if Astarion hadn’t barely spotted something critical and saved them both ||| And Astarion vanishes into the wind again, rather than get Gale killed ||| And they go back to not talking ||| And Gale mourns the loss of his friendship and what he’d hoped was a blossoming romance ||| And keeps working ||| …until he finds a note behind a painting he steals with his name on it, in a familiar handwriting.

AND @wincestielfttfwin WAS IN CHARGE OF LAYERING MYSTRA

IT'S SO GOOD, HERE WE GO:

I really was picturing the vibes of some yeah, again, Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment, we’re wearing tight clothes and doing all sorts of gymnast-style feats to get our burgaling done, so I thought “what if Gale’s background is a gymnast?”

So then I thought, Gale, training for the olympics around age 15, catches Mystra’s attention

Mystra is a museum curator in my idea space, and she believes she can make use of Gale’s skillset and naivete

She convinces him that the real villains in the world are the private collectors who’ve smuggled art of artifacts out of their countries of origin and that all those important objects belong in a museum (with my apologies to Indianna Jones)

So, Gale gets into thieving for Mystra initially, going after targets who yes, are terrible people who’ve absolutely smuggled their art and have it illegally, and Gale brings the art/artifacts to Mystra, who waits until the initial heat around their theft has died down to display them in her museum as coming from an “anonymous donor”

And like, it’s not suuuuuuper secret that Mystra is up to some shady practices in her museum, but she’s got Important Social Connections enough to be pretty powerful and well-respected, and the people she-via-Gale is targeting are already into enough shady shit, they can’t exactly go to the cops about it, so *shrugs* all round

And of course, at some point in a barely-legal timeline, she and Gale start their romantic relationship, though Mystra knows it will reflect poorly on her, so she insists they keep it a secret, and Gale still has all his “not good enough for Mystra” self-esteem issues, believing *he’s* the problem (for some reason, he never made it to the Olympics, so he sees himself as a “washed-out gymnast” who clearly isn’t good enough for Mystra, the Curator of Important Museum who has her pulse on the rest of the art world too)

HOWEVER! There’s some specific artifact Mystra is butt-hurt her museum doesn’t have. I thought maybe it’s something she even wrote her Master’s thesis on and is convinced it would tie together some important/essential collection in her museum, her “brain-child” exhibit or whatever, and when it went up for auction X number years ago, she was outbid by someone else, so it is in Another Museum, and Mystra has never let it go

So, still young, trying to impress Mystra Gale decides to stage his first heist at another museum. He manages to steal the thing, and he brings it to Mystra, but unlike stealing from shady private collectors, this heist was BIG, and it made the news. People know the thingy was stolen, and the cops are looking for whoever did it!

So, Mystra of course freaks out, because she can’t handle having this kind of heat put on her. She can’t even take the artifact, because it’s too hot right now, it would ruin her if word came out she had it, her whole life would blow up in her face (heheh), etc. And she’ll never be able to put this in her museum now. So, she breaks up with Gale, leaves him with the very highly-sought after artifact, and he is utterly shattered

But in the end, he decides that maybe a museum in like, NYC or London isn’t the best place for the artifact anyway. He returns it to the culture it’s from and realizes that’s what he should’ve been doing all along. The museums and people like Mystra treating all this art as their personal feathers-in-their cap are part of the problem. And thus, Gale’s crusade is born!

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