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abiiors · 2 months

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chocolate // ross macdonald x reader

valentine's week - day 2: love potion

a/n: this is about abiior ross specifically hehe (short hair, shot beard etc) cw: use of aphrodisiacs against their knowledge (lets suspend our belief there), masturbation (f), implied voyeurism, unprotected sex oops (they're too horny to think it through) wc: 4k

sweet taste of chocolate dissolves on your tongue as elena continues to recount her latest holiday to belgium. she has that “just back from holiday” tan on her and you laugh along to her stories, popping another square of chocolate in your mouth while sorting through the pile of gifts she’s brought for everyone.

a heap of chocolate wrappers sits between the two of you and you’re certain you have enough sugar in you to feed a small village—still, the sweetness lingers on your tongue and makes you sigh wistfully every time you think about it.

“i’m seeing ross later,” you slip in quietly when she takes a breath between her rambling and elena’s eyes go round.

“seeing him seeing him? you finally asked him out?”

your head hangs in shame at the question and you can’t help the wince that leaves you. elena tsks. “oh babe, come on! he’s such a sweet guy and he clearly likes you back.”

“you don’t know that!”

several seconds pass and elena arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow. she’s right, you know she’s right. you’ve had this silly, desparate crush for six months now and you should have done the mature adult thing of asking him out. but your heart races every time he’s near and every single word in your head disappears along with all sane and rational thoughts.

“well,” you shrug, “can i take some chocolate for him? he’s got a sweet tooth.”

elena smirks and flicks your hand away before you can reach for one.

“only if you promise to ask him out. a coffee date. that’s as casual as it gets!”

you blanch at her but she stands her ground forcing you to at least mull it over in your head.

once again, she is right. you can ask him out for a coffee and pretend it’s just a friendly little thing if the vibes seem purely platonic. you’ll figure it out. you know you will.

scrunching your eyes shut, you give in. “fine… fine, i’ll do it.”

elena squeals, pulling you into a tight hug. you giggle at her excitement but let the butterflies take flight in your stomach. once she lets go, she points behind her.

“the fridge has a better selection. go take as many as you want.”

you’re out of the chair and halfway to the kitchen before she’s even done speaking, big goofy grin on your face at the thought of meeting him later and teasing him when he inhales the chocolates faster than humanly possible.

the fridge is messy as usual—half empty bottles of milk, some past their expiry date, opened bags of cheese and old chinese takeout. you ignore all of it and dig your way to the back to find the rest of them (in elena’s little hidden space in the fridge to keep it away from her boyfriend).

most of them are the usual ones and you take a few to put it in your bag. a new one catches your eye—it’s just a simple black square with a golden heart embossed on the cover, not one you’ve tried yet and it instantly piques your interest so you take two of them and put the bag back in its place.

then you close the fridge and make your way back to the living room.

the backstage at the band’s practice show is chaos incarnate. everyone’s in a rush to set up things in their proper place. the props are strewn on the stage, waiting for their permanent place, the instruments are neatly arranged in a corner and ross is leaning against the wall, cigarette in one hand, phone in the other. his thumb scrolls on his screen. a second later, he snorts, types something on his phone and you feel yours buzzing in your pocket with an incoming text.

it makes your silly heart skip a beat.

his head snaps up when you clear your throat. a warm smile spreads across his face, and he quickly stubs out his cigarette, tossing it into a nearby bin.

“didn't expect to see you here so bright and early," he says, pushing off the wall to approach you. at his full height, ross is nearly a head taller. on top of that, he’s been working out and staying fit, his beard’s sparser than it was before, his hair neatly cut and gelled back perfectly.

ross looks devastatingly handsome, a proper rockstar. you look like… you.

“wanted to see you–uh, see what you were getting up to,” you hope the breathlessness stays out of your voice, you hope he hasn’t noticed you blatantly checking him out.

all that goes flying out the window the moment he gathers you into a hug. his body is warm and solid, his t-shirt soft and familiar. the scent of his aftershave surrounds you thoroughly, invades all your senses until you just debate throwing all caution to the wind and jumping him right here.

the hug lasts longer than you would have expected.

when he pulls back there’s a faint flush on his cheeks (probably the heating, you rationalise) and a wide grin on his face.

“are you excited?”

“to watch you play? always!”

you cringe at how eager it sounds, how desperate. fortunately, ross giggles and offers you his arm.

“come on, let me give you a tour.”

twenty minutes later, you’re back where you started, arm in arm and excited about the concept of the new show, about their new setlist and the live debuts of some new tracks. ross is already beaming with excitement and his eyes crinkle in they way they do only when he’s genuinely happy. it’s infectious. more often than not you find yourself staring at him and giving him a loopy smile.

utterly fucking love-sick.

“jamie’s gone all out too,” he continues. “there’s a whole dressing arena for us even though this isn’t a real show. we wanted to try out a couple styles i guess.”

“oh, you’re a fashion icon now?” you tease and he rolls his eyes fondly.

“let me show you what patti’s got for us,” he offers and once again, you take his arm and follow him to some corner of the arena.

the dressing room is pretty much what you’d expected—a room full of mirrors and closet doors. there’s a sofa in the corner and bottles of water on the table. clothes are scattered across chairs and hanging on racks, each outfit carefully selected for the show, each outfit a statement aesthetic for every member on stage.

and that’s pretty much it.

you plop onto the sofa. moments later ross does the same, slinging an arm around your shoulder that’s almost-a-cuddle-but-not-really. you desperately pray he can’t hear your hammering heart that’s almost in your throat now. he’s so cool and casual, so comfortable in the silence. you on the other hand, desperately feel the need to fill it.

“elena’s back from her holiday. stole some chocolates from her stache for you.”

his playful grin returns and ross straightens eagerly. “you really are a sweetheart.”

the word does funny things to your insides, almost like there’s an entire flock of birds going haywire in there until his hands comes to rest on your knee and every thought in your head goes quiet.

“go on then, show us what you got.”

one by one you pull them out—bonbons and candy and silly little heart-shaped sweets that were everywhere in preparation for valentine’s day. his face lights up like a kid at christmas, he unravels the nearest sweet, moaning at its sweetness dissolving on his tongue just like you had.

you stare at him unabashedly.

“i got this too,” you pull out the two black squares, handing him one. “dunno what they are but they looked fancy enough. i haven’t tried them yet though.”

together, you unwrap them and look at the dark square inside. they look nothing special, they smell like regular dark chocolate too. perhaps they’re a little richer than the ones before, slightly better but he shrugs and moves on to the next bonbon.

you do the same.

if the arena was chaotic before, it’s damn near cocophonous now. somewhere, someone’s yelling for all the instruments to be moved. jamie and matty are in a heated discussion with a few other creative consultants. adam has his headphones in and he’s plucking something on the guitar. george is nowhere to be seen and ross is on stage making sure his bass is tuned just the way he wants it.

you take the moment to stare at him while he’s busy. a stubborn strand of hair escapes onto his forehead, falling into his eyes while he focuses on the bass in his hands. his mouth is parted in concentration, eyebrows scrunched together with an adorable little crease in between.

a quick thought flashes in your brain—what would it be like to walk up to him and straddle him right now? to set his bass aside and demand his attention in a way you’ve never even imagined before. to kiss away his frown until everyone and everything in the room fades away into the background.

the butterflies in your stomach come back with a vengeance. ross shifts in his seat.

“will you settle a debate for us, love?” matty’s voice startles you enough that you almost stumble back but he’s already passionately begun explaining the dilemma.

you try to focus on him, you really do. usually, it’s fun to give your input on things, fun to listen to his everchanging and eccentric ideas as he tries to explain his vision in a cohesive way. but your attention can’t stop drifting to the man on stage.

your eyes can’t seem to move away from his fingers as they pick string after string.

heat simmers under your skin at the sight of them. interestingly enough, ross fidgets with the collar of his t-shirt and wipes a few beads of sweat off his forehead.

“are you… listening?” matty snaps his fingers, his face contorted in a puzzled look while jamie looks on impatiently.

“sorry, i—”

before you have the chance to finish again, they’re back at each other’s throats, bickering like an old married couple. you don’t even notice when they walk away and their voices peter out. you keep your eyes trained on ross and the hollow of his throat and his hands. subconsciously, you clench your thighs together.

what the fuck is wrong with you.

this isn’t the time or place to be horny. and yet the more strings he plucks, they more it reverberates through your entire body and makes your head spin with lust and heat. this is getting out of control and you cannot fucking figure out the reason behind it.

hurriedly, you make your way back to the dressing room. it’s deserted by now—everyone including the band and the crew are by the stage. it’s your luck that the room isn’t locked, that not a single person seems to be in this part of the arena.

you chest heaves as you slam the door shut, beelining to the sofa in a fucking daze. the chocolate wrappers from before sit innocently in the bin in the corner. you struggle with a bottle of water, gulping in down in hopes that it would cool you just a little. some of it spills down your top, the cotton sticks to your skin and the feel of it against your nipples feels overwhelming. electric, if you are being honest.

curses spil from your lips as you throw yourself on the sofa, on the left side of it, where ross had sat before. your mind conjures up the scent of his aftershave again, the feel of his hand on your knee, and you imagine it trailing up—fingers testing and taunting until they’re at the waistband of your jeans. until they’re dipping inside your underwear and swiping through your slick folds.

your breath catches and your hand drifts to the crotch of your jeans.

maybe if you could just take the edge off a bit. maybe if you could just do this and then never think of it again and then go back to to your day and never look ross in the eye ever again. your cunt pulses in rhythm with your heartbeat, which is already racing faster than it should be.

you’d be lying if you said you didn’t think of him then. his body hovering on top of yours, pressing down on top of you until he sinks into you so deep that you feel him in your gut. you think of his lips, fucking perfect and so out of your leage. you think of the calloused pad of his fingers tracing your lip, your cupid’s bow.

against your better judgment, you sink further into the sofa, running your hands on your breasts, stomach, the insides of your thighs, all the while imagining how ross’ calloused fingers felt on your back and waist the countless times you'd hugged before. how they would feel in other places.

it’s fucking depraved but the thrill of it feels so sinfully good that you can’t stop your fingers from tracing circles over your clit—languid and loose.

your fingers feels too small, too soft. this isn’t what your body wants. it desperately craves him but he’s busy doing his actual job. your ears ring with the bloodrush and every touch against your skin feels like a zap of electricity passing through you.

one hand buried deep between your legs and the other kneading and massaging your nipples, you are on cloud nine. once or twice, you bite your lip to keep the moans down but what’s the point? the solid concrete walls would keep all the sounds inside anyway.

your pants fill the room, sweat gathers on your forehead and you feel it drawing closer, some semblance of a release at least. through the haze you see ross standing by the door, still as a statue, his mouth slightly open.

“ross…” you moan softly, willing this hallucination to come closer, to replace your hands with his, and finish what you started, but he doesn’t move.

a second passed by and then another, and then as if you’ve been doused with cold water, your entire body goes numb and cold.

he’s here. he’s not a hallucination or a figment of your lust-filled imagination, he is really. fucking. here.

you go cold and then hot again, sure that your entire face—hell, your entire body—has gone beetroot red. helplessly, you scramble to get your hands away from you, as if that would salvage anything at this point. as if that would wipe his memory of the last five minutes.

how did he even get here without you hearing so much as a creak? and you’d just moaned his name for fuck’s sake. the blood drains from your face, your heart stutters—this time for all the wrong reasons.

‘ross…’ your voice sounds all high-pitched and thin. all wrong and panicked.

ross only stalks toward you, deliberately slow and graceful, and stops a few inches away from the sofa. too far, the pervy part of your brain chimes in, he’s still standing a bit too far away. his eyes look dark and stormy, his face utterly fucking calm.

you try to suppress the tremor in your limbs, try to look anywhere but at him. (ideally, you try to look for something sharp to stab yourself with) and it’s then that your body betrays your entirely. slowly, as if against your will, your eyes slide down his body and linger on the bulge in his trousers. hard and prominent and fucking big enough to make you salivate despite the current situation.

“what are you doing here?” the words comes out as a weak whisper.

“watching you.”

his voice sounds deep and husky, with a dangerous edge to it. his eyes roam all over your body, or whatever’s visible of it—over your stomach and a sliver of underboob—and heat, more intense than you felt just minutes before, floods your entire body.

and yet, you still can’t look him in the eye.

“you are fucking stunning,” he breathes.

the words make your brain short-circuit. hastily, you try to cover your face, wishing for the earth to swallow you whole and spit you out into some parallel universe where ross just doesn’t exist anymore.

“oh, baby,” he tuts, moving closer until you’re face-to-face, and even now it isn’t enough. inspite of your humiliation, you want him closer, on top of you, and under your skin, and inside you, pounding into you until you are dumb and drooling.

he hooks a finger under your chin, tilting it up so that you have no choice but to look him in the eye. your mouth goes dry at the sight of them. his pupils are dilated to the point where his hazel eyes are almost completely black.

“don’t–don’t hide from me… you have no idea how long, i…” the rest of it dies on his lips when you whimper. your body feels liquid, blood flowing through your veins like molten lava, searing every inch of skin that’s begging for his touch.

“so touch me then,” the voice that comes out of you is pathetic, needy, but you can’t care less right now. if you had to stay in this state of limbo anymore the flimsy little thread holding the last of your sanity together would snap.

agonisingly slow, he pulls his t-shirt over his head. his chest gleams with sweat, tattoos starkly visible against his pale skin and you want to trace each and every one of them with your tongue, memorise all the grooves of his body with your fingers, fill up his scent into your lungs until it’s all you can smell.

just in his trousers now, he settles over you, knee pressed between your wide-open legs, brushing against your clothed clit. you hiss at the barest of touches. ross looking down at you is the hottest thing you’ve ever seen, enough that you moan his name again. and again when he kisses you, softly at first and then harder, urgent and feverish.

his hands toy with the hem of your top and you nod fervently, eager to be rid of it. his tongue traces every inch of your mouth.

“just how i imagined you would taste,” he breathes in between kisses, and the words spear through the haze in your brain, burrowing themselves deep in there.

“you thought about how i’d taste?”

tenderly, he kisses your jaw, peppers a few more kisses on your cheek. “every moment of these last few months.”

you say something unintelligible, dumbstruck by how fucking sweet he sounds in the middle of everything. his hand trails up and down your spine, raising goosebumps in their wake, while his mouth continues to kiss your jaw, your neck, your cleavage. all you can do is tangle your fingers in his hair, pulling him as close as you possibly can. unable to take it any longer, you fumble with the buckle of his belt, undoing the button and unzipping his trousers till you can palm him through his boxers. in spite of them still covering him, you moan at how big he feels, how deliciously thick and hard.

something in him snaps at the sound. it’s as if he’d been holding back until now, but now he grabs the hem of your top and slips it clean off you. his discarded trousers join the small heap on the floor and he takes one of your nipples in his mouth while pinching the other between his fingers.

“i need you inside me. please ross…”

“ride me,” he says instantly and you nod, flipping until he’s on the sofa and you’re on his lap, fumbling to get out of your jeans and underwear while he pulls his boxers down.

with one hand around your waist, ross lifts you up until his tip’s grazing your cunt. “go on darling, you can take me,” his voice trembles with barely controlled restraint. and you might as well be his puppet because you obey instantly, sinking onto him until he’s deep inside you, until you feel the delicious stretch and burn.

your gasp makes him groan.

his fingers grip your face gently, moving it to make you look at the giant mirrors next to you, at your bodies locked together.

“look at you…” he moans and thrusts up into you. you mewl at the suddenness of it, but it’s impossible to look away from the image in the mirror. you bouncing on his cock, rutting and moving your hips, shamelessly chasing ecstasy. his face slack with pleasure, his eyes roaming all over your body, taking in every inch of it while you take in every inch of him.

his thrusts are slow in the beginning, punishing almost and you try to increase the pace, digging your nails into his shoulders, until he’s smiling smugly at all the desperately written so clearly all over your face.

“faster,” you almost beg and he obliges instantly, going deeper and deeper with each thrust. his fingers work at your clit again; pinching and rubbing, until you can no longer look at the mirror, can’t look at anything as your eyes roll back into your head and stars wink on the insides of your lids.

filthy words fill the room mixed with groans and moans from both of you. it almost feels like a trance—to feel him so deep inside you that your head buzzes, pleasure coild in your belly and you squirm and writhe, trying to feel more of him, greedy and insatiable.

heat builds in your stomach, the feeling from before starts at the base of your spine again, travelling up until it’s spreading throughout your body, to your fingertips. from the way ross’ thrusts turn wild and erratic, you know he’s close too.

“you feel so good, so–so fucking perfect,” you tell him, trying to get the words out in between moans and gasps.

“oh baby,” he coos, “we are fucking perfect together, aren’t we.”

frantically, you nod, capturing his mouth in another feverish hot kiss. “yes, yes.”

because that’s what you’ve been dying to hear for months now, dying to know that he felt the same want and yearning you did.

when the orgasm finally hits, you almost black out, eyes rolling to the back of your head. your loud moans fill the room, overshadowing any sounds he makes, but you’re too far gone to care. the sound undoes him within moments and ross thrusts hard into you, cumming with a loud groan. you feel the cum spilling in you and running down your thighs, sticky and wet.

vaguely, you’re aware if slumping forward and pressing your face into his chest. ross strokes your hair softly until you can get your breathing back to normal.

you giggle in his chest when the conversation with elena springs back into your mind. it feels so far away now, like it happened days ago instead of hours ago.

“what?” ross asks, sounding a bit amused.

“i was supposed to ask you out for coffee. elena dared me, in exchange for the chocolate.”

he giggles at your answer, pressing a quick kiss on your head, which instantly makes your heart melt.

“those chocolates were… something.”

you snort. that’s one way to put it. finally, you pull away, looking at him properly for the first time. his face is flushed and coated in sweat but he looks… happy. more than you’ve seen him before.

“so… coffee?” you bite your lip, irrationally shy now of all times.

ross kisses you in response, sweet and slow, a proper chaste kiss as if you’re not sat on his lap, still naked and dripping with his cum. but you kiss him back equally slow, giggling like a teenager.

“like you have to ask.”

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goodoldfashionlovercorpse · 2 months

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Soul Love

pairing: Luke Castellan x daughter of Loki! reader

summary: No matter what she turned into, blood was always thicker than water. Luke, however, saw her for more than she did.

a/n: hello! this is part one. i thought there weren't enough loki kid! readers, so i started this. comments and reblogs are appreciated. have a nice day :)

warnings: implied ED, daddy issues, angst, etc.

Camp wasn’t made for her. She knew this, others showed it. A daughter of Loki did not belong at a camp for greek demigods. Despite how inviting “Camp Half-blood” maybe seem by name, it was exclusive to Greeks. Unless you want to end up in the Hermes cabin, and Y/N knew that she’d rather her brothers tear her limb by limb than ever stay there again.Well, there is one way she’d stay. Luke Castellan. Not only was he a son of Hermes, but he was the best swordsman in 300 years.

And yet he looked at her with nothing but love, as if Aphrodite shot an arrow at him herself. He made continuous efforts to include her. When she sat alone outside of the Dining Pavilion, it took the boy mear seconds to accompany her – despite the chants at his home table.

“Hey, how’s dinner going?”

“It’s going…” She played with her food, fearing it a little yet still trying to take bites. She sighed so deep it became its own form. Nothing but gloom and gray sat behind those eyes. Isolation seemed to be her only friend aside from Luke. He was so much more than her; he was a hero and she’s doomed by the narrative. Forced to know not even nuclear warfare could end this world before her father. Yet he understood what he did not know.

“Your hair is turning to snakes. Wanna try again?”

Damn it. “No.”

He poked her continuously. Setting his plate down, he waited – like a predator to its prey – until she finished eating. He knew better than to make her meals more miserable than she already felt, so he sat there waiting for the other plate to empty. Grace wasn’t the sole word he could use for her. Even in a state of distress, she looked as if the love-gods handcrafted her and brought her to life. Unfortunately, the doom of her destiny haunted her mirror. Despite her father and her being shapeshifters, there was always a piece of him in every shape she became.

The pavillion was as loud as the wind, yet Luke and her were as quiet as the moon. Should she say everything she wants or just leave it be? Her father was never one to tell the truth, especially when he said “i love you.” Saying those words with his blood flowing through her veins felt like a crime. A punishful lie. The cries of cousins burning her at the stake. At some points she’d feel ashamed for her pride. Why should she be proud to be his daughter? He has done nothing but try to end the world. He wished nothing but awful things to his children – she is not the exception.

Despite her father being a horrible being, she was his favorite child. She represented everything he was: chaos incarnate. She didn’t pick sides; even if her best friend went to war, she’d stand in between, only adding fuel to the fire. Her dad wasn’t evil, yet he wasn’t good either. He passed his neutrality onto his daughter, then tortured her for it, only to then aid her. Her. Not her siblings, just her. Loneliness and regret filled her for this, but Samirah and Alex never blamed her.

Yet seeing the pure loathing some campers held for their siblings made her uneasy. They hated their parents, yet it was obvious they are their children. They hold the same opinions, never critique their actions, always knowing one story – the Hero’s story.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when Luke held her hand as he looked into her eyes. Those eyes. Oh, those eyes… the things they do to her and her soul. Those brown eyes held layers of her regrets and so little judgement. He knew every detail of her mind, even what she did not want him to know. War, Valhalla, Loki, Camp, all of it. He knows all of it. Still, love courses through his eyes. She thinks she’s delusional.

While Luke may accept her, he still doesn’t know every single thing. He knew all, except her part in Ragnarok. Odin didn’t owe her anything, neither did she owe him; she also wasn’t on her father’s side, she knew better than Calypso. Instead, she will stand back and get rid of either side. Destiny wasn’t her favorite thing, it was her greatest detest. No way to undo it, no way to fast-forward it.

Luke wouldn’t leave her be, his eyes showed that he’d follow wherever she’d go. He’d meet her where the spirit meets the bone. “Have i ever told you how well the moon suits you?” Goosebumps raised her skin like a cat. He knew what she thought, yet he knew better than to discuss it out here. He knew all her thoughts, as if he knew her soul once upon a dream.

Before either utter a word, Luke smiled, genuinely. it was the kind of beam nothing could rival. “I apologise if i haven’t, you truly are lovely under the light.” he bit his tongue, aching to comfort her and defend her. It was too early, too much. She was impaled by her the venom in her veins, a feeling he knew all too well. The boy couldn’t complain, though. Although he held distaste for his father, he had learned to forgive and make amends.

He trusted his father when he said "i love you." She never had the option to believe her's. War was all that he’d given her, but war was not love; his father didn't start one, her's claimed it was his love. Even Ares and Athena knew it in their cold, golden blood. A moment of quiet passed through the sand. “I’m sorry that-”

“Do you ever think of Death?” she perked her head towards him, staring deeply into his eyes. Constellations and worlds resided in them. Whatever girl he has is lucky to have him, she thought. Silent prayers hung at her lips like the Gardens of Babylon.

The question was raw. Was he going to really answer it? Should he finish this question?

“I mean, Love and Death are a lot closer than one might think.” He stared at her, willing to listen to her every word even if she was describing a plan to murder him limb from limb. “Not everyone loves death, yet death craves love. To be forgotten – to be completely unloved is to die forevermore. Love adores death, loss gives value to what we hold dear. Orpheus already held dangerous levels of love for Euridice, her death increased his awareness. When she died again, she felt so much love for him, knowing she’d never be forgotten. She lived eons because death and love are adaptive. They feed off of each other. Death is never truly the end, the end is being forgotten. Forever lost in the sands. Never to be loved again.”

Behind her eyes, Luke saw her thoughts. He felt them like bullets on his skin, one so deep you couldn’t mistake it. She looked at the stars not knowing she was one.

Death was valuable to her for other reasons, but she ran from it. Ran from her own hair. Why? He wondered. Valhalla loved her, yet his bones knew that they wouldn’t once a grave had her name engraved. Gods were Luke’s enemy for a while. Still, the boy holds resentment over them. Heavy resentment. Y/n, though? Her father wanted her dead. At least Greek Half-bloods get to have a count down, Norse ones just die. No monsters, just their parents and humans. Monsters are her family; howling behind the barrier are her brothers, willing to take her life.

Perhaps he took for granted his dad sometimes. Even though Hermes started to get involved now, he assured Luke that he would’ve been a father to him sooner had he could. Not once did Hermes go after him or bullied him, only to praise him and aid him in the depths of his mental illness. Hermes may not be the best, but he was certainly not the worse. Luke could never imagine what the Norse gods are like: the children of Thor didn’t pray to him, Odin was barely present — they didn’t even build a camp to ignore their kid, they just let them die.

Chaos followed every demi-god, special the Norse ones, mainly the children of Loki. He was neither good nor evil. Y/n prefaced this during all their talks. To him, Loki was pure evil; but to the most gorgeous creature on earth, he was her father.

Trickery was infused into her soul, unable to leave even if she bore red liquid like a fountain in Greece. Death was her escape, her only vice — yet now her views have change since the moment they met. Life is her, she is life; she adorns his world in her heart. But somehow he still felt so… Powerless. He was utterly powerless when it came to her heritage. She’d accepted it so quickly. Completely unfazed that she had this burden.

Meanwhile, he still had trouble facing his dad. Sure, all has been resolved and war has been evaded, but that’s only for the Greek demigods. His family is, for the most part, alive. But her? Her mom and dad are no where near, her father is out to either kill her or train her, and she’s already suffered the loss of a sister – a loss she dares not repeat.

“That was too much, wasn’t it? It’s not virtuous to praise death. But in this world, what else is there?

“Maybe you’re right. Or, maybe, we can talk about shows, or the gods, or even us.”

“Us?”

Luke swallowed his spit, trying hard not to sweat. Nodding, he looked at the sky. “Us.” He smiled warmly, making the air smells like honey and roses, “my favorite song is Soul Love by Bowie.” He didn’t have to turn around to see her face, the warmth of her excitement felt like enough. She was already more than enough.

#luke castellan #luke castellan x reader #pjo tv show #pjo x reader

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miseries-mistress · 2 years

Text

OUR LOVE | CHRISTIAN

Synopsis: Life was quiet. There was no blaring music from the Moulin Rouge or the streets alive with creativity and people bustling with excitement, but a part of Christain didn't mind the quiet anymore if it meant he got to indulge in a peaceful morning just with you.

Warnings: gender-neutral reader, all fluff. W/C: 872

Notes: ahh, i just watched this movie, and i needed to write a blurb about him. i'm going to try and write more blurbs like this was ewan mcgregor's, less popular, of course, characters, because i am in love with him

em masterlist

The subtle trace of a fingertip against your bare arm was enough to arouse you from the sleep that had claimed you many hours ago. You peeked an eye open, carefully watching Christian as his finger drew circles across your flesh, enraptured by the softness and beauty of it. He appeared intently focused on each dip and curve of your skin, admiring every inch of it as he did last night. Finally, your eyes opened fully, but you remained quiet, content with watching Christian perform his ministrations.

Your skin was still bare from the night before, the cotton sheets being the only thing to provide you any modesty. The warm blankets threatened to pull you under sleep's spell, the drowsiness finally catching up to you. You resisted the pull, blinking the sleep from your eyes.

Your leg brushed against his, and Christian's eyes tore from your arm and raised to meet yours. You melted under the sheer admiration and love brimming in his irises as they moved across every intricate detail of your face. You were indeed the incarnation of beauty as the sunlight poured through the open window, encasing you in a heavenly warmth that made you seem more ethereal.

He would say that he's sure to have memorized every detail of your face by how long he's admired it, but that's just not true. He would never fail to find a new scar or maybe a fresh freckle was strewn across your cheek. He would make sure to place his lips on any newly discovered markings he found, amazed by your ability to surprise him with something new, no matter how small. He liked the unknown you had brought to his previously drab life.

His hand moved with a will of its own to your face, his hand cupping your supple skin laced with sleep.

"Good morning, my love," the slight rasp in his voice from not using it brought a smile to your face. He must have woken up not long before you. Good, he deserved every second of sleep he could obtain after Satine's death.

It haunted him, and for a while, he was stuck in a place of regret and guilt, wrapped up in his mind's delusions, until he met you.

Christian was convinced that he could not love after his first, that no one could compare to the beauty and chaos she had placed over his life until you stepped through his apartment. Granite, it was purely accidental. You had mistaken your friend's flat for his, but when his eyes fell upon yours, the world seemed to fix itself. Instantly, there was a shift in his heart from mourning to hope, and boy, what a refreshing feeling it was. It brought a new light to his life that had previously shrouded over in darkness, like the rain clouds parting for the sun. At that point, he also realized the true meaning of Satine's dying words. She wanted him to love, to live a life outside of her and the fantasy they had created. It took a while to make that shift, to let someone else into his fragmented heart, but you were patient, slowly putting the pieces back together, placing a kiss on each one you patched up to remind him that he wasn't alone and above all that he was loved.

The process of healing from such a traumatic event was long. However, even from that day when you had embarrassedly asked him for the right room, promising him to see him again, he had begun to heal.

Now Christian stared at you, his heart in your hands. And although it was scarred, you cradled it so gently that he couldn't help but not be at ease.

"Good morning Christian." His chest hummed with the airy laughter that left his thin kiss-bitten lips, his starry blue eyes never parting from yours. "Sleep well?"

"How could I not with you at my side?" Now it was your turn to laugh while he adjusted himself on his elbow, his fingers tracing the outline of your face.

"Such a charmer," you cooed, pushing a silky onyx strand of hair from his eyes.

"I would be anything for you, my darling. You need only to ask."

"Oh yeah?" You raised an eyebrow, and he chuckled, his head slightly shaking.

"Yeah," he murmured almost breathlessly.

"I want you to love me."

"But my sweet, I already do." The crease between Christian's eyebrows deepens, his eyes filling with confusion as your hand moves to cup his face, and within seconds he relaxes within your touch, soothed by your actions.

"That's the point."

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wynsnerdyrambles · 3 years

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What do you think is the focal point of each breath? Like how thunder breathing seems to focus on speed, what are the focuses of the other known breaths? Love breathing seems to rely on the user's flexibility and insect breathing seems to rely on agility.

Oooohhhh the Breathing Techniques. I'm a sucker for sword stuff, and one of my favorite details in any story that makes prominent use of swords is the various forms of swordplay that exist in said world. So, of course the Breathing techniques in KNY were one of my favorite elements. So, we're gonna talk about them all.

Sun Breathing:

Sun Breathing, as the original form of the breathing techniques seemed a very logical place to start in our analysis of the focus points of each technique. Honestly though, Sun Breathing might be the easiest to identify. All other forms of breathing were derived from Sun Breathing, and as each of them focuses on more singular attributes, it would make sense that Sun Breathing is in general, a more holistic approach to swordplay. It relies on Yoriichi's Zen like state to function at its best, and is shown to feature a variety of techniques within its wheelhouse. It is the whole body, mind, and spirit, perfectly aligning into the sword strikes of someone in a Zen state.

Moon Breathing:

Moon Breathing is the only one of the original derivatives of Sun Breathing to not pass down into the repertoire of the Demon Slayer Corps in the form that we see it in, as it was only practiced by Michikatsu, who defected to the other side, becoming the demon Kokushibou. This one is a tricky one to pinpoint what's going on, as in the only form we see it in, the form has been tampered with so much by Kokushibou's Blood Demon Art so greatly, it shows very little resemblance to its former self. So, instead of analyzing the direct techniques to determine a focus, we'll instead take the thematic approach. Michikatsu was one of the first Demon Slayers to begin using Total Concentration Breathing after Yoriichi introduced it to them, and given the name of the style referencing the moon, which more dimly reflects the light of the sun, we can perhaps infer something along these lines: Moon Breathing requires much of the precise swordplay that Sun Breathing does, yet is lacking in the Zen that a true wielder of Sun Breathing must possess. It is a dimmer reflection of Sun Breathing's capabilities. In fact, given that there was some decay of the true forms of Sun Breathing as it was learned by the Kamado family, I would say that Michikatsu's original Moon Breathing might resemble the Hinokami Kagura.

Water Breathing:

Water Breathing seems to focus on the basics of swordplay, with a distinct emphasis on curved strikes and slashes. We know that Water Breathing is one of the more widely practiced styles in the Demon Slayer Corps as of the main story, with many different cultivators, as it is noted to be easy to learn. However, despite the relative ease of learning this style, I believe it is likely one of the more difficult styles to master, and I believe that the only true masters of the style that we observe in the story are Urokodaki and Tomioka, though I believe both Sabito and Makomo could have mastered the style had they lived.

Thunder Breathing:

Thunder Breathing emphasizes finishing off your opponent with a single strike, and because of this, places a heavy focus on both the art of drawing the sword, (Iaijutsu) and placing a lot of focus on the legs. (not me just barely realizing that Jigoro lost his leg, and therefore could no longer practice the forms effectively, hence his retirement). There is a lot of layering to the techniques of Thunder Breathing, as we know that mastery of the first form is key to mastery of all further forms. We also can see through Zenitsu that the first form is easily modifiable, accounting for both the sixfold, eightfold, and Godspeed variations, which I believe he developed himself, before using that base ground to develop the seventh form.

Stone Breathing:

Stone Breathing seems tailor made for intense physical strength and unconventional weapon choices. None of the five known forms of Stone Breathing seem like they would work at all for a traditional swordsman, and unlike many of the other forms, seem like they would require the user to be pretty physically powerful to pull off. So the focus here seems to be on pure physical power, alongside unique weapons.

Wind Breathing:

Wind Breathing is incredibly reminiscent of a real life sword style, namely Jigen Ryu. This style holds a high focus on high stances, as well as delivering an intense first strike, with teachings of the practice dictating that a second strike is not even to be considered. As far as things specific to Wind Breathing, the intensity and frequency of attacks should be noted. There seems to be a certain rough aggression to the style, and while that may merely be Sanemi's own personal take on the style, given we have no other sources, I would say that rough aggression is one of the focuses of the style, alongside its common ground with Jigen Ryu.

Flame Breathing:

Flame Breathing seems to focus on the energetic, passionate motion of a flame. However, that energy is channeled in a very precise manner, almost akin to the singular flicker of a candle's flame. Kyojuro's movements are energetic, but also incredibly precise. The movements are tight and controlled, but also have that passion and momentum of a fire burning. We see that the style must be incredibly precise by the way Kyojuro is able to use his sword just perfectly to deflect some of Akaza's punches, without damaging the blade at all. Flame breathing also features incredible variety in the types of strikes it employs, from the more straightforward slash of Unknowing Fire, to the almost defensive circular movement employed in Blooming Flame Undulation. Just like how a fire can be completely unpredictable, Flame Breathing seems to have a technique for every combat situation, rendering the user unpredictable in their own right.

Now we move on to the breathing styles that aren't directly derived from Sun Breathing.

Flower Breathing:

Flower Breathing was derived from Water Breathing at some point in the past long enough ago that a Sakura tree planted by the first wielder of the style is quite large in the main story. Flower Breathing places a heavy emphasis on observational skills, knowing your opponent, obvserving them and their environment to maximize chances of defeating them. Because of this focus on the gathering of information, Flower Breathing's techniques seem to be dual-purpose, serving as both methods of attack, and of evasion. The eyes are an important body focus for users of this style, as masters of the style tend to have very naturally good eyesight, as well as the final form, Equinoctial Vermillion Eye, raising the user's vision to such a high level that the world around them seems to move in slow motion.

Insect Breathing:

Insect Breathing is directly derived from Flower Breathing, and was the personal creation of Shinobu Kocho, the Insect Hashira. This style is quite unique among the Breathing Forms, as it is the only 3rd tier derivation from Sun Breathing that we know of, as well as focusing on an entirely different style of fighting than any other style. Given Shinobu's inability to cut off a demon's head, she has a uniquely designed sword, tailor made for piercing movements, rather than the traditional slashing movements. Speed is huge here, as well as taking the evasion elements of Flower Breathing and cranking it up to 11. After all, Shinobu's unique sword likely deals with additional fragility concerns, given it's function is essentially as a giant sword-shaped syringe. So, if Shinobu can inject her foe as quickly as possible, without risking a prolonged fight risking her sword's durability, that would be an ideal focus point for her unique fighting style.

Serpent Breathing:

Yet another derivative of Water Breathing, this style also seems to be the personal creation of one of the Hashira, namely Iguro Obanai. Serpent Breathing takes the 'flow' elements of Water Breathing and makes them the emphasis of the style. Obanai's sword is unique in that it's unique, but even Gotouge (who loves telling us the reasons why trivial details are the way they are) hasn't given us a reason why Obanai wields this unique blade. The blade is most similar in structure to an Indonesian Kris Blade, although with a much larger size. While there is no confirmed correlation, it seems to me that this style of sword would be at the very least, the optimal blade for Serpent Breathing. Serpent Breathing also likely incorporates Kaburamaru's role as a seeing-eye snake, likely avoiding making strikes too close to the body so as to avoid any accidental beheadings, as well as forms with very instinctual cues. In fact, of the derivatives, Serpent Breathing seems to be the closest related to its inspiration, likely only optimizing Water Breathing's styles to work best for Obanai.

Sound Breathing:

Somehow, this style is related to Thunder Breathing, although the styles seem completely different. This style makes heavy use of Uzui's njinja background, taking elements of that fighting style, and integrating them with the more conventional needs of the Corps' general fighting style. Mimicking the disorienting nature of sound and noise, Uzui makes use of small grenades, as well as his unique nunchuck swords, which notably have much larger blades than most standard Nichirin swords. This style is explosive and bombastic, and relies heavily on Tengen's unique ability to read the flow of a battle like a sheet of music. This style is pure chaos incarnate, and focuses on bringing the best out of Tengen's ninja training, as well as explosions.

Beast Breathing:

A personal style invented by Inosuke Hashibira, Beast Breathing is a distant relative of Wind Breathing. Making use of Inosuke's two jagged katana, excellent flexibility, and animal instinct, this breathing style is all rough edges and agression just barely channeled. Inosuke's excellent, animal-like sense of environmental awareness allows him to go full ham on aggression without needing to put much thought into an ambush, while also rendering him able to directly pinpoint a target in a large, chaotic crowd. None of these forms seem possible with only one sword, so it is necessary for any pupil of Inosuke-sama's to become a dual wielder like himself.

Mist Breathing:

Mist Breathing is a derivative of Wind Breathing, but seems more polished, making use of well refined swordplay, and streamlining the rough edges so key to Wind Breathing's identity. This is all for a good reason of course, for like the mist it evokes, this style is all about obscuring your movements and intent with your blade. In order to pull off feints, and other deceptive ploys with a blade, intense skill must be required to shift into the intended form with giving very few cues. Mist Breathing appears to be quite difficult to master, as the only known user of the style, Muichiro Tokito, is a literal genius with the sword. Mastery of Deceptive techniques as well as a refined grasp of swordplay is the focus of this style.

Love Breathing:

The personal creation of Mitsuri Kanroji, Love Breathing is derived from Flame Breathing, which she learned during her study with Kyojuro Rengoku. This style is incredibly personal, and it would take a miracle for someone to recreate it, given the perfect storm of Mitsuri's skillset. It takes the basics of energetic momentum focused on in Flame Breathing and multiplies it with Mitsuri's own flexibility, strength, and unique sword. It can be inferred through the flexibility of her sword that energetic momentum combined with intense flexibility is the key to this style.

And that about wraps up the breathing forms. Much like many real life fighting styles, these forms are very complex, and difficult to pin down to a single focus element. By giving a more holistic analysis of each style, I hope I was able to give you a sense of the essences of these fighting styles.

#an excuse to research sword stuff #probably more in depth than the ask really needed #kimetsu no yaiba #total concentration breathing #nichirin sword #kny meta

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jasontoddiefor · 3 years

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Title: infinitely varied Ship: obikin Summary: Sometimes your husband decides to develop an artificial intelligence capable of free choice and something called a soul and succeeds in the middle of a Thursday night. Or, more concretely: he's in the middle of succeeding because said intelligence first has to learn how to speak.Also known as Obi-Wan and Anakin teach a tiny program called A.H.S.O.K.A. how to be something more than lines of code via the power of linguistics. AN: Happy birthday @ghostwriterofthemachine

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

Noam Chomsky

Life was a query of expectations, margins on doorframes, bucket lists, first loves, broken hearts, and happy middles because only fools would settle for a happy ending when they had so many decades left to live. The thought never failed to bring a smile to Anakin’s face, no matter how frustrated, remembering the simple way Obi-Wan had proposed. There had been no fancy dinner, particularly stunning outing, or anything resembling outlandish romantic gestures. Anakin would have appreciated them because every act would have been colored by Obi-Wan’s love, but now, older and wiser than the rash youth who’s fallen in love at first heated debate, he preferred the way their proposal had actually gone down. A quiet Sunday morning, eating breakfast together on the sofa while the news droned in the background from Anakin’s old radio, a hesitant “I don’t need forever, but I want the present”.

And, well, for all his genius, Anakin could be a bit of an idiot sometimes, but not when it came to this.

Married life was interesting.

Somehow nothing changed, except also everything. They had bought a real house, moved out of their old apartment and made more compromises than Anakin had ever thought himself capable of, for they hadn’t been like fighting an uphill battle but dancing together. It had made him happy to paint the entrance hall in the shade of green Obi-Wan preferred if he got to paint the kitchen in the light blue he wanted.

Obi-Wan got the attic for his office where his antique book collection looked right at home, and Anakin got the basement where the hum of his servers and the generator powering them annoyed nobody else.

It was as close to white-picket-fence as it could be with two queer men, no kids, a bratty cat, and an anxious dog under one roof. His childhood self would be appalled to see how much Anakin, always the whirlwind, had settled. To a nine-year-old, Anakin probably looked very adult.

Anakin, however, did not feel very grown-up, banging his head against his desk in the middle of the night. Obi-Wan had gone to sleep hours ago, and so had Anakin until inspiration had struck and he’d snuck out of bed to return to his favorite project.

A.H.S.O.K.A may not be a child, but Anakin certainly could relate to exhausted parents when they complained about their children in endless repetitions. To this day, Anakin didn’t know why his mother figured it would be great parenting to encourage her WarGames obsessed kid to dig into the world of artificial intelligence when WOPR nearly started a nuclear war, but he’d forever remain thankful.

Or, he’d resume being thankful when he could finally get A.H.S.O.K.A to learn. He’d rewritten her code a thousand times. It was his ever-constant companion, from his first awful-looking early 2000s website to its current incarnation. A.H.S.O.K.A could solve simple logic puzzles, given that he fed her enough data. Her solutions to tasks could be downright hilarious, but they were not enough. He wanted her to be smarter, better, capable of gaining true understanding.

Perhaps, it was a dream for the future and not a Thursday night.

Anakin didn’t have any work tomorrow morning as he worked as a freelancer, so he could afford to pull an all-nighter. But his dear husband had planned a nice afternoon for them, so Anakin should call it a night or a morning as a glance at the clock told him.

Staring at the many lines of code again, Anakin sighed and leaned back in his chair and took another sip of his by-now cold tea. Obi-Wan would definitely complain that Anakin had snatched his favorite mug once he got up and couldn’t find it in the kitchen. Anakin had bought it at the last linguistic convention Obi-Wan had taken him to.

Language is a process of free invention, it read in delicate cursive before the rest of the quote disassembled in pure chaos.

Huh.

Now there was a thought. Anakin got out of his chair and left the basement, haunted by fixed principles and infinite combinations. Up in the attic, carrying Obi-Wan’s computer downstairs again, Anakin thought on interpretations and free creations. He was as giddy and nervous as he’d been on the morning of his wedding day, which had started similarly early. Connecting Obi-Wan’s computer, and more importantly, the priced result of his thesis, to Anakin’s server felt a little like unwrapping birthday presents.

language_acquisition_prediction.exe

Enter.

II.

Obi-Wan was not surprised when he woke to an empty bed. Anakin had a habit of suddenly pulling all-nighters or getting up early before the sun even thought of rising. Given that he couldn’t smell breakfast yet, Obi-Wan deduced that Anakin had pulled an all-nighter again. He slowly crawled out of bed to avoid disturbing Artoo and Threepio sleeping to his feet. Obi-Wan was pretty sure he shared his bed more often with his pets than he did with his husband.

He walked down the stairs to the ground level and went by the kitchen to prepare himself a cup of tea. To his displeasure, Obi-Wan couldn’t find his favorite mug and so had to settle for another. After another thought, he decided to make a second one for Anakin, lavender this time so Anakin would hopefully crash after breakfast. He put both mugs on a small tray together with a couple tomatoes. Obi-Wan usually wasn’t one for eating a full breakfast on workdays – that was the influence of Anakin and his mother’s kitchen – but he was the expert in smalltime snacks. With both in hand, he walked down the second flight of stairs, down to the basement. As expected, he found Anakin at his desk, clinging to what was bound to be a cold cup, staring intensely at his screens, which were running one program or another.

“Good morning,” Obi-Wan greeted him and kissed Anakin’s cheek.

“Mo-orning,” Anakin replied, a yawn interrupting him halfway. “Wait, what time is it?”

“Eight,” Obi-Wan said. “How long have you been up?”

“Uuuh.” Obi-Wan didn’t need to see Anakin’s face to know the answer. “Did you even go to sleep?”

“I did sleep for a while!” Anakin argued. “But then I had an idea, I mean, look at this!”

Obi-Wan gave the screens a closer look. Despite common misconceptions, he was not technically illiterate. Privately, he blamed the fact that Anakin was quite well known for his tech know-how and Obi-Wan tended to talk more about literature given that he was filling in as a lecturer in the British Lit. department. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan had gotten his professorship with a program he’d written, and the code currently displayed on the screens looked very similar to a section that had given him stress nightmares. “Is that my thesis?” he asked.

“Yes, sorta, partially?” Anakin replied. “I kind of took it apart a lot and maybe corrupted it a bit, but that’s not the important part! Look what she’s doing with it.”

She could only refer to one person, intelligence. There were a few constants in their life, their new house the most recent one, and Ahsoka was probably the longest. Obi-Wan didn’t know why Anakin hadn’t set her aside already, he was happy enough to leave other started-never-finished projects lying around, but the last time he’d even just suggested such, Anakin had looked heartbroken.

Obi-Wan looked at the screen Anakin was pointing at and began to read.

script input: inhibition auditory input 1 designation skyguy: /ˌɪn.ɪˈbɪʃ.ən/ auditory input 2 designation professor: /ˌɪn.hɪˈbɪʃ.ən/ analysis: mismatch diagnosis: outstanding

script input: better auditory input 1 designation skyguy: /ˈbet̬.ɚ/ auditory input 2 designation professor: /ˈbet.ər/ analysis: mismatch diagnosis: rhoticism? query: define

The text continued for a while, though apparently Ahsoka only picked out the mismatched parts in her analysis.

“Is that ‘Must have done something right’?” Obi-Wan asked, the connection between the words suddenly starting to make sense.

“Yes!” Anakin grinned. “I wasn’t quite sure how to teach her sounds properly because I hadn’t equipped her with a sound analysis program before and I figured that if babies just learn by listening to their parents, Ahsoka could learn by listening to us.”

“So you fed her audio of us singing?” Obi-Wan wasn’t sure whether to be impressed, confused, or just plain tired but decided to settle on confusion for now and let the course of the conversation determine where they’d end up.

“That too, but I actually just started by playing old voice messages. I figured getting her used to just one phonetic inventory would be enough for now. Honestly, for the first hour, I wasn’t even sure whether that would be of any use because she had no symbols to connect the sounds to, and I thought using the IPA might bias her.”

Because, of course, Anakin never deleted any of Obi-Wan’s voice messages and just kept them on his phone. The fact that he just glossed over it as if it weren’t anything special either made Obi-Wan smile.

“It’s cute that you think we have the same inventory,” Obi-Wan commented. “But continue. You just let her listen to sounds and then? Don’t tell me you gave her written texts.”

Anakin rolled his eyes and confirmed another one of Ahsoka’s queries before answering. “No, I gave her the IPA then and let her listen to the full inventory and then analyze which ones we use.”

That made enough sense. Obi-Wan was reasonably sure it was a great deal more complicated than Anakin was lying it out right now, but it was still within the realm of possible and not downright sci-fi. There were enough programs that could analyze speech and filter out patterns, recognize even emotions and tone. Feeding data to a computer wasn’t too different from the way babies learned, though, as far as Obi-Wan knew from talking to people with children, they didn’t like their progeny being compared to lines of code.

“And you accomplished this by feeding my thesis program, which is meant to predict the language acquisition of children, to Ahsoka?”

“Yes, that, uh, happened more or less,” Anakin said, his nose scrunched up just so that Obi-Wan knew he wasn’t certain. “I’m pretty sure I like, wrote some of it down. Not all of it because I knocked out at like 4 a.m., which resulted in pretty interesting inquiries on the great vowel shift.”

Obi-Wan froze. “She’s asking about the great vowel shift?”

There was a difference in the size of the Atlantic between analyzing sounds and recognizing a six-hundred-year-old change in pronunciation.

“Not really,” Anakin said. “She just noticed the patterns? And had inquiries? We’ve been following up on it since, mostly by also giving her written text, but I think that might have backfired and confused her a bit. I’m thinking of synching up the input with a visible feed so she’d learn to associate an actual object with the sound, but I’m not sure whether that wouldn’t just lead to her matching data instead of actually learning its relevance. Can teach an AI what an apple looks like, sounds like, tastes like, but that doesn’t mean you can teach it what an apple is and all that.”

Anakin smiled impishly, and unfortunately, despite his generally messy appearance, Obi-Wan still thought he was handsome. “Please don’t cite my book back at me like that.”

Closing his eyes for a moment and pinching his nose, Obi-Wan tried to focus. This was not how he expected to start his free day. He needed to wake up and possibly grab his notes to sort out this mess. This almost made him wish the car was still wrecked and Anakin would spend all his free time fixing that. “Did you have to start her on English of all languages?”

Anakin was fluent in two other romance languages; it would have been much easier to deal with a French AI than an English one. Sighing, Obi-Wan looked at Ahsoka’s latest question and promptly frowned.

script input: bear auditory input: /beər/ match found: bare analysis: mismatch diagnosis: failed word formation query: bear = bare? query: deletion >bare<?

“How long has she been doing that?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Doing what— oh, that’s new.”

So Ahsoka had jumped from matching sounds to text to comparing sound to words and then referencing those words against one another. That was a logical step, but also a step Obi-Wan wasn’t quite sure she should be doing without prompting.

“She thinks bear and bare are related because they have the same sound. Didn’t really expect that turn of events. Should I show her those are two different words?”

“Does she even know what a word is yet?” Obi-Wan asked in turn.

“No.”

“Then teach her what a word is first— after breakfast. I want your pancakes.”

“You never want pancakes on a Friday.”

“My husband also never decided to rope me into teaching an artificial intelligence morphology before.”

Obi-Wan needed a proper meal for this. He could talk to his students on an empty stomach, but he could not deal with the latest brand of Skywalker insanity without something sweet first.

“I haven’t—”

Ever the negotiator, Obi-Wan decided to shut Anakin up with a kiss. “After breakfast.”

Ahsoka’s many questions could wait for an hour.

#star wars #obikin #obi wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #anakin skywalker #fanfic

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itsmoonpeaches · 3 years

Text

The Ocean Meets the Sky

Chapter 7: Souls

Please note: Every prompt for this Kataang Week connects into an over-arching story.

Prompt: Soulmate AU

Story summary: After his battle with Fire Lord Ozai, something lingers within Aang's spirit. Katara is the one that pulls the seams back together. No matter what, Aang and Katara find each other.

Chapter summary: There were pieces of wobbling, rickety furniture. A stool with three legs and with uneven lengths, a crate being utilized as a table, a cracked Pai Sho board with missing playing tiles. There were inky shadows in the corners that filled the lines in between the timbers. Outside, it looked impossibly bright. It was oversaturated with odd tones of pigment and motes of speckled dust that lightened the room.

“That was a brave thing that girl did, you know,” said someone. Their voice broke the silence.

Or, Aang remembers a promise.

Written for @kataang-week

Read on ao3 or ffn.

---

Aang blinked and he was floating above a scene with a ruined palace courtyard. He saw his own body struggling to keep itself standing up as if in a war with itself, eyes flashing from violet to bleached white. Katara was grasping his body’s forearm, eyes closed, face eerily calm.

He blinked again, and he was nowhere near the same scene.

He rose in the middle of a dilapidated structure made of run-down planks that were half-eaten with rot and nailed together with rusty iron. Thick, twisting tree branches snaked through a rectangular open window. Another broke the ceiling and proceeded through the floor, holding up the poorly made building in the treetop it stood in.

There were pieces of wobbling, rickety furniture. A stool with three legs and with uneven lengths, a crate being utilized as a table, a cracked Pai Sho board with missing playing tiles. There were inky shadows in the corners that filled the lines in between the timbers. Outside, it looked impossibly bright. It was oversaturated with odd tones of pigment and motes of speckled dust that lightened the room.

“That was a brave thing that girl did, you know,” said someone. Their voice broke the silence.

Aang saw as upon the three-legged stool there materialized a man in unkempt, draping, orange clothing. He was young, maybe just a few years older than Zuko was. He was scrappy, youthful, with a demeanor that told of a boy trying at being older than he really was. He was cleanshaven with dark, black hair that stood up in a mess of spikes.

His eyes were a Fire Nation golden brown and had a piercing quality to them that Aang recognized, but he could not quite figure out from whom. It was determined like Zuko’s stare, kind like Iroh’s, but there was something ancient and knowing behind them that reminded him of Roku.

“It was brave,” the man continued, lips quirking at one end, “but it wasn’t ever going to work…trading places like that…not in the way she thought.”

Aang felt a pull, a call, from someplace inside himself. He stepped toward the man and left the center of the room. “Who are you? What are you talking about?” he asked. He stopped walking when he was only a few paces away. He was in the patch of light that spilled from the window.

The man chuckled. He leaned forward and placed his chin on his palm, his elbow resting on the crate. “Wan,” he introduced himself, “but you already knew that didn’t you?”

Aang gasped as soon as he heard the name. There was a click, a resounding bell that tolled and that he thought he could feel resonating within him. An invisible force sliding into place.

For a moment he saw himself as an old man in an era long gone, surrounding by snapped arrows and shattered weapons on a battlefield. He apologized to Raava.

“It’s hard, you know,” started Wan again and bringing Aang back to reality, “to live nearly ten thousand years and to live so many lifetimes.” His gaze lingered on Aang’s. “But what doesn’t change is that every life is new, and every life is a continuation of the last one.”

“You’re…the First,” Aang whispered, almost in quiet reverence.

Wan stood up from his stool, and it faltered for a few seconds before it stabilized. He met Aang where he was, and they were bathed together in the same beam of sunlight.

“You know what else doesn’t change?” Wan spoke again. He smiled albeit with a bittersweetness. “The fact that in every new life we have, we remember what it’s like to be human.”

He pointed to Aang’s chest, and it glowed softly with the same light of Raava’s intricate patterns, reacting to his presence.

“In every life we have Raava, the spirit of light and peace with us. But there is a balance that is maintained and still, Vaatu, the spirit of darkness and chaos must exist,” said Wan. “They have an eternal battle, you see, like that of our own world’s. No matter if they are there or not, the essence of them always remains…because the world is like that. Because humans are like that.”

It sounded like an archaic parable told to children as a bedtime story. But Aang knew, as he did the other lives he has had, what was true.

He did not have to be reminded that there was great good and great evil that existed in the world. He lived through a war that proved that. He had longed, beyond all else, for Gyatso to be alive, for his people to come back.

“What Master Katara did was pure and courageous, and so, so human,” Wan began again. His expression was unreadable. “That is exactly why it didn’t work.”

Aang clenched a fist at his side. “What happened to her?” he pressed. “What happened to Katara?”

Wan bowed his head a little, and there was something kind in the way he looked at him. “She returned to her body, as you soon will,” he remarked. “She healed your soul, as only a person bonded with the soul of an Avatar could. She helped you to remember that there is love in this world, love that is reborn.” He paused, peering at him in an inquisitive fashion. “Vaatu made a gamble that he was sure to lose, even if he didn’t know it. For his error, he returned to his jail. He gambled on the fact that he could bond with any human, and for some that might be true. But he forgot that there is something even stronger than peace and chaos, even if they rule our lives, even if they are connected.

“Love is what makes us human, Aang. It’s what has driven our incarnations to do what they have done, what we have done. It is the ultimate balance…not good, not evil. It is the reason why a soul is born alongside every reincarnation, a soul to help the world remember that the Avatar is human…because they have forgotten before.”

Wan’s eyes were bright with white light, and all Aang could see was himself sitting cross-legged in a locked room alone.

The wooden floorboards he sat upon did not even creak as he stood on bare feet. The resounding silence followed him, an infinite specter that clung to his shoulders like a heavy cape. He paced, sliding open the window to witness the morning as it blanketed the bamboo forest outside. He closed it, and then the shadows in the room grew darker. He opened the window again and the moon was full and the stars a hoary bright.

He stared at a copse of trees just below him, for he was so far up. He waited and waited, but no one came.

It was then that he turned to the empty teapot that rested on the chest in the corner of his prison. He called for a servant to fill it with water. His hand went to his sleeve where he had hidden the packet of powder that he had swiped from the apothecary while on a visit to the islands where the people of the element of fire resided.

All he wanted was to be free.

The light subsided, and Aang was looking at Wan again. They were both misty-eyed.

“A spirit is born out of necessity, out of wishes. A soul is often born like that too. And if the wish is strong enough, then they will be reborn again and again,” Wan explained. His brow was crinkled, and he could not look at Aang directly for a time. “The people forgot that we are like them...until the fourth Avatar, Kun, and he paid the price for it. It was the powerful, resilient wish of the person that loved him most to give him the humanity he deserved.”

Aang let out a breath he did not know he was holding. Rivulets of tears ran down his cheeks.

“I’ve made many mistakes, but I think this is the biggest one,” Wan sighed. He did not look away from Aang again. “I told the people that I was part of legend when I had forgotten to remind them who I really was, and that thought continued from one life to the next.”

His firm hand grasped Aang’s shoulder as he spoke. “But love has foresight,” he said quietly. “You will meet across times, across lifetimes, in different places, in different eras. You could be friends, you could be family, you could be lovers, but you will meet…and when you do, your heart will remember that promise.”

When Wan released him, the branches and the timber fell away. He was rushed through a myriad of moving pictures, pushed back through space.

He only halted for a moment in a field of white. A palm opened before him, and he could not stop the smile that settled upon his face.

“I found you,” Katara said, and he was whole.

#i fell asleep on my laptop as i was posting -_-#kataang week #kataang week 2021 #itsmoonpeaches fanfic #kataangtag #kataang #katara #aang #atla #atla fanfic #avatar the last airbender #lok #the legend of korra

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ask-the-almighty-google · 2 years

Note

Well, first, I absoloutely love your writing, it's wonderful. Technicolor especially, it's a comfort fic of mine and I always come back to it (I'm a sucker for Three and Rose!!).

Second, 🌹🌹🌹!!

This is the Prologue Chapter of an unpublished WIP fic, where Eight is a reincarnation of the Other, and Rose is the Eternal of Time. It is set in an alternate timeline where Time Lords never got the power of regeneration, so every incarnation of the Doctor 1-8 is in fact more like a proper Reincarnation. And, because it’s Eight, I have to throw in some Amnesia 😂

The fic is called Patience, Darling… and I hope to publish it entirely on Ao3 when it eventually gets completed. Feel free to DM me if you want to view the chapters and I can share them one on one, but because this is a casual fic I have kept it unpublished to avoid stress about having not updated in a while.

Enjoy!

Everything was burning.

The sky, the scarlet grass. The ships, their solar sails exploding with golden fire and losing their energy as the crafts plummeted to the planet below. The Edges of the Eye of Harmony, now a supernova poised to turn into a black hole. The Empire that had defeated the Racnoss, the Yssgaroth, beat back the primordial chaos entities to the Howling Halls, who relegated the Eternals to the pocket dimensions, who watched the Old Ones burn away, who banished the Carrionites to Hell, who upended the Pythia and their reign of blood, was tearing itself apart from the inside out.

Rassilon, first Lord President of Gallifrey, he who led his people in countless crusades, first of the Time Lords, had sought to remove the last of the Eternals from Gallifrey to make it a pure society. The Pythia’s Curse had been rectified by the creation of the Looms, and genetic superiority was a possibility. Rassilon sought to create the perfect People, the Time Lords.

What he didn’t know was that his colleague, his trusted friend, known only now in the stricken record as The Other, had fallen for one such Eternal, and she for him. The Eternal of Time, whose name is lost to us in all but a given moniker, Patience. They had married in secret-

“Oh, is this a love story?”

“Hush, Theta,” the elder of the two boys chided as his little brother whined. He smiled prettily at the exasperated but amused woman whom Theta had so rudely interrupted. “Please, continue, Aunt Flavia.” Flavia raised an eyebrow and then nodded.

-They had married in secret, and she was with child. An impossible child, with Pythia’s Curse, made possible only by the powers of an Eternal willing their offspring into conception. Now, Rassilon assumed that The Other would comply with his decision to deport the Eternals from Gallifrey, and when he found out about the forbidden tryst he ordered that The Other sign the paperwork himself. They fought, from the Office of the President to the scaffolding above the new Looms, Staff against sword, Gauntlet against bloodied fist. They fought, and fought, the respective factions following them painting the streets crimson, and both fell into the Looms.

Rassilon’s Gauntlet, keyed as it was into time, caused an explosion that threw him from the equipment and left him permanently in a half state between life and death. The Other was luckier. Or less so, depending on your perspective. He died, the last breath on his lips, so the legend goes, his mate’s name, and a cry for the child he would never meet.

Some say, that Patience heard him. That she answered his prayer, giving him the power of eternal renewal, of Spirit escaping from one body at death to be born into the next. Reincarnation, if you will.

Some say, that because Patience and The Other were bonded when he died, that their souls are forever linked, and that they will always find one another. Some say, that she is called Patience because she will forever wait to be reunited with him in each of his lives. Some say-

“Some say that it’s just an old Shobogan tale, and should not be taken at all seriously,” a male voice interrupted sternly. The two boys swung their heads around and then bowed them in deference as Flavia stood with a sigh from her seat and nodded to the intruder. The other children in the room, all cousins of House Lungbarrow, watched the exchange with rapt attention.

“It’s just a bit of fancy, Quences,” Flavia said tiredly. “If you cannot trust these children not to see the difference between myth and reality, then the future of this House is doomed.”

“I have great faith in the youth of Lungbarrow,” Quences retorted with a scowl, gaze landing on Theta and his elder brother Braxiatel, and narrowed. “Most of them, that is… tell me Flavia, do you think it wise to fill a boy that has his head in the clouds further with fluff and lunacy?”

“I don’t like romance anyway, Lord Quences,” Theta murmured softly, flinching when Brax lightly smacked the back of his head.

“Romance and the notions of Love certainly have no place in Time Lord society,” Quences scoffed. Flavia glared at him and he shrank under her gaze. “Well, they don’t!”

“Ignore this man,” Flavia said to the room at large, the gaze of ten or so children fixated on her as she all but glided with angelic grace and poise over the floor. “He’s just sore that he never got kissed at the Academy and will die alone.” Quences was left to storm from the room with a thunderous expression upon his face red as the grass of the fields of their House Estates as the children tried in vain to suppress their snickers. Finally she smiled and sat back down on her chair, leaning forward slightly. “I will leave you with this: Some say that The Other can be anyone, anywhere, any time.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Now, attend to your studies. I’ve kept you from your tutors for long enough.”

“Thanks for the story, Aunt Flavia!” Several children said in various ways as they left the room. Theta lingered at the back.

“Aunt Flavia?” He asked, head tilted slightly to the side in question.

“Yes, Theta?”

“Is any of that true? I just- you said it was a myth, a legend. And that’s different from a story because somewhere somehow it’s got a grain of truth in it.” Flavia smiled, an odd glint in her eyes as she looked at him and seemed to decide something.

“Well, that’s for history to know and for the present to guess at,” she said with a wink. Theta frowned at that before shrugging and walking from the room.

#doctor who #rose tyler #eighth doctor #the other #classic who #dw fanfiction #dw fanfic #fanfic #series: timepetals vignettes #wip ask game

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choerrypuffs · 4 years

Text

enchanted.

pairing: prince!jungwoo x witch!reader

genre: fluff, angst

word count: 9.4k

synopsis: the prince has always been a little unconventional, but no one ever expected him to fall in love with a witch.

author’s note: no one asked for this but it came to me in a fever dream and you can really tell bc my writing abilities match that (p.s. i am not knowledgeable on actual witches and witchcraft, and this is not meant to offend anyone! i just winged it and created my own version of a witch for this fic)

It’s way too early for this kind of tomfoolery.

You have your head buried under your pillow, trying to block out the extremely loud and quite irritating rapping on your door. Whoever’s knocking is using so much force that your humble little cottage is trembling with every strike. You groan, squeezing your eyes shut and praying that they’ll go away soon. Or at least come back at a more decent time.

It’s so early that the sun has barely peeked over the horizon, and the birds haven’t even begun chirping yet. You were up all night making potions to sell to the apothecary, so you’ve only gotten about three hours of sleep.

After letting them knock for a couple minutes longer, you realize that they’re not going to leave any time soon. You feel your temper boil over as you throw the covers off your body. Draping your shawl over your shoulders, you tie your unruly hair back and smooth out your nightgown before stomping over to the door and flinging it open.

“What do you want?” you snap loudly, crossing your arms across your chest.

The man in front of you blinks in surprise, fist still raised to knock again. He’s dashingly handsome, even in his state of shock. His hair looks like spun gold, managing to reflect beautifully even with the lack of sunlight. He has a snow white complexion with full, cherry-red lips.

You can tell by his attire that he’s royalty, or rather, a prince. The Prince. He’s wearing a black blazer embellished with golden brass buttons and detailed embroidery. There are two epaulettes on his shoulders, signifying his high status. He’s wearing a white cloak over it all, and you know from a simple glance that it’s made out of the finest linens in the kingdom.

“Are you the Witch of the Forest?” he finally asks, smiling jovially.

“You need not ask. Unless you’re aware of someone else who lives in the forest,” you say, raising an eyebrow.

He isn’t fazed by your sarcastic remark. “My apologies, my lady. I just wanted to make sure.”

“You should know best of all, Your Highness. Your father was the one who banished me here,” you smirk, tilting your head.

One of the guards standing behind him grips the hilt of his sword. “Why, you insolent—”

“Stand down,” The Prince orders, holding out an arm. The guard does as he’s told, albeit reluctantly.

“So, what brings you here at this godforsaken hour, Your Highness?” you ask, unbothered.

“Please, call me Jungwoo.”

“I’d rather not have my tongue cut off by your mutts,” you snort, nodding toward the guards.

“I insist,” Jungwoo says, shaking his head. “And what is your name?”

“You may call me Y/N,” you begin, eyeing the guards and grinning when you see the pure rage in their eyes. “Jungwoo.”

He’s oblivious to the contention, instead beaming happily. You can’t help but smile at his naiveté. Crossing your arms, you lean against the doorframe. “What can I help you with, Jungwoo?”

His expression turns solemn, and he reaches down to grip your hands between his. “Please help me, Y/N. My mother, the Queen, is severely ill.”

You’re taken aback by his casual touch. You’re so used to people treating you like you’re evil incarnate. Doing your best to control your expression, you clear your throat and try to continue looking elusive.

“You have my condolences, but I don’t see what that has to do with me,” you say, shrugging.

“How dare you!” The annoying guard pipes up again. “She is your queen!”

“No, she is your queen. I am not a subject of your kingdom,” you correct. “Therefore, I have no obligation to help you.”

Jungwoo releases your hands and steps back before lowering himself to his knees in front of you. Both you and the guards stare in stunned silence.

“Please. I am begging you,” he whispers with his head bowed, voice cracking. “I understand that you hate my father. I would too. But please, my mother is innocent in all of this.”

“Your Highness! Please get up immediately!” The guards say in a frenzy, all talking over each other.

He ignores the chaos and continues to stare determinedly at you. There’s something about his unrelenting gaze that makes you feel vulnerable. When was the last time someone looked you directly in the eyes like this? It scares you because it’s been so long, and you feel like he can see right through you.

You break eye contact first, turning away sharply. You grab him by the shoulders and pull him to his feet. Jungwoo also looks surprised when you touch him, but he doesn’t seem repulsed like you expect him to be. In fact, he looks a little crestfallen when your hands fall back to your sides.

“Have some dignity,” you chide, “how can a prince kneel before a witch?”

“I am willing to go to any length to save my mother,” he says without hesitation.

You sigh. After all these years and everything you’ve been through, you still can’t seem to harden your heart to situations like these. You can already hear your fellow witches taunting you in your head. They would never let you hear the end of it if they found out you were going to save the life of the wife of the man who exiled you.

Jungwoo picks up on your hesitancy, grasping your hand again. “Please.”

The desperation and panic in his voice shatters the remainder of fight you have left in you.

“Alright,” you finally relent, “I will help you.”

Now it’s his turn to be shocked. “R-Really?”

“You’re lucky I have a soft spot for handsome men,” you say, patting his cheek. “Stop looking so surprised. Aren’t you the one who be—”

You can barely contain your surprised yelp when Jungwoo wraps his arms around your waist and twirls you around in a hug.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” he exclaims as he sets you back down.

You’re so frazzled that all you can do is nod. Your heart feels like it’s going to beat out of your chest. You thought you were going to fluster him by calling him handsome and touching his face, but he somehow managed to fluster you instead.

“We’ll give you some time to get changed and prepare what you need,” Jungwoo continues, completely unaware. “My carriage is right over there, so you will know where to go when you’re done.”

You stupidly nod again, stiffly shutting your door. Your face feels like it’ll set on fire at any moment. Just how deprived of touch are you for your body to react like this over a simple hug?

Pull yourself together, you tell yourself, don’t forget who he is.

The carriage ride is horrendously suffocating. The Annoying Guard, as you’ve lovingly dubbed him, insists on riding with the two of you to ensure Jungwoo’s safety—in case you decide to hex him or something. The guard keeps his hand on the hilt of his sword the entire time, glaring daggers at you. Every time you even slightly shift, he jumps.

You’re starting to think that these palace guards are severely overestimating your powers—actually, they aren’t. They’re severely overestimating your ability to care enough to even go through the trouble of hexing Jungwoo.

Jungwoo keeps shooting you apologetic glances, attempting in vain to try and make conversation. The long stretches of silence are deafening, and all you can do is stare out of the window. Your mind keeps wandering to things you don’t want to think about, so you begin to map out all the chores you have to do when you return to your cottage.

You can feel Jungwoo’s stare on you the entire time. He clearly wants to talk to you, but he can’t because of the hawk-like watch of the Annoying Guard. You suppose you’re grateful for that. You’re not really sure if you want to converse with Jungwoo. He’s far too unpredictable for your comfort. You can’t read him like the others, and that intimidates you. He isn’t afraid of you, and it makes you feel...exposed.

Fortunately, you can see the palace from the window, which means this hell of a ride is finally over.

Unfortunately, when you step out of the carriage, the memories that you’ve spent your entire life trying to bury flood through your mind.

The last time you were at the palace was when the decree of your banishment was announced. You remember the palace guards dragging you and your mother out as she pleaded for mercy. She had asked the king to spare you. Of course, he merely scoffed at her and turned away without a second glance. To him, you two were just some of the many witches that he would go on to banish or simply just execute. He was lucky that the witches were a peaceful kind.

You watched as your mother pretended like everything was alright, like she was alright, as the two of you lived in that tiny cottage she managed to build with what little powers she had left. In return, you pretended that you didn’t hear her weep every night. Eventually, she simply just wilted away—a shell of the beautiful flower she once was.

“Oh, my poor child,” she had said with her final breath.

You dig your nails into your palm, hoping the pain will pull you out of the spiral you’re starting to go down. In an attempt to distract yourself, you try to focus on what’s in front of you. However, it’s not something you want to see.

The palace is, without a doubt, the most beautiful piece of architecture you’ve ever seen. Made out of pure ivory marble and adorned with ornate detailing that’s crafted from the most opulent of gold, it’s stunning in every way.

But it makes you sick to your stomach.

This was a mistake. You can’t even look at the palace. What makes you think that you can go in there and face the King? You’re still a weak little girl, and you always will be. Mother would be so ashamed of what a coward you’ve become.

Your inner voice continues to berate you, and you feel like you’ll vomit at any moment.

“Hey,” Jungwoo says gently. His naturally soft-spoken voice can’t be any louder than a whisper, yet it’s powerful enough to pierce through the myriad of unwanted thoughts going through your head.

He pries your hand open, running his thumb across the red, crescent-shaped indents in your palm. You don’t realize how hard you’ve been pressing your nails into your skin until you feel the stinging. Jungwoo’s hand is warm, and it manages to quell your uneasiness significantly.

“You’re alright,” he tells you, lacing his fingers through yours.

It unnerves you how easily he calms you down. It terrifies you to your very core how much power he seemingly has over your emotions. Jungwoo is an enigma, and you must stay far, far away. Everything about him screams trouble.

Pulling your hand away, you grip your skirt instead and take a small step back. He looks, dare you say, hurt by the way you recoil. Nonetheless, he doesn’t acknowledge it and simply clears his throat.

“My father is waiting for us,” Jungwoo says warily.

You tense, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by him.

“He isn’t thrilled about your presence, but I swear on my life that he will not harm you,” Jungwoo promises. “I will protect you, no matter what.”

“No,” you interject, “there’s no need. Your father will not lay a finger on me. He has always feared my mother and I, which is why he banished us.”

“You’re trembling, Y/N,” he whispers.

“It doesn’t matter,” you snap, “I have a duty to fulfill, and so I will. My personal feelings will be put aside, just as your father should be doing as well.”

You hate how he looks at you like he understands. Like he knows exactly what you’re feeling. Like he can see into the deepest, most hidden parts of you.

“Very well,” he sighs.

Jungwoo holds out his arm for you to hold. Inhaling deeply, you square your shoulders and straighten your back before taking it. You wore the fanciest dress you owned and made sure your hair was styled to the best of your ability for today. You want to show the King that you are doing just fine, that you still stand strong despite everything he did to you.

The doors to the throne room open, and the two of you are welcomed with a trumpet call that announces the arrival of the Prince. The King is waiting for you, sitting tall on his throne. Despite his commendable posture, his body is weak and feeble. He’s been worn down by age, and his robes hang off of him like they would a skeleton.

“Your Majesty,” Jungwoo greets, bowing.

You don’t follow suit, crossing your arms instead. The King doesn’t even glance at his son, focusing his beady stare at you. You glare back defiantly.

“You’ve gotten old,” is the first thing that comes out of your mouth.

“It seems even vermin like you can survive after all this time,” the King responds gruffly.

“I could say the same for you,” you shoot back.

“You will heal my wife,” he orders, ignoring your insult. “Or else I will make sure you join your mother in Hell.”

The mention of your mother flares up your temper immediately. Clenching your fists, you begin to consider hexing him (maybe Jungwoo’s guards were onto something). You have never really used your powers out of malice, but you’re starting to think it may not be such a bad idea.

“Father,” Jungwoo warns.

“Your words are merely making me want to do the exact opposite, Your Majesty. You should thank every star in the sky that I have already given your son my word,” you say calmly, even though you’re anything but.

“Foolish boy,” the King spits. He says it with so much anger and hatred in his voice that it’s hard to tell that he’s speaking to his own son. “Why do you insist on defying me? Now, you’ve gone and made a deal with a witch.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you sigh, “there was no deal.”

“You expect me to believe your lies? You could have easily tricked him into signing away his soul,” the King accuses.

You can’t help but laugh at his absurd claims, shaking your head. “Enough of this. We are simply wasting time.”

You turn to Jungwoo so you can tell him to lead you to his mother, but you’re surprised by the look on his face. His expression is stormy—a mix of anger, guilt, and shame. He’s biting down on his lip so hard that you’re sure that he will draw blood. His fists are tightly balled up by his sides as he stares down at his feet.

It’s clear how much Jungwoo is despises his father, but it’s also obvious how terrified he is of his own bloodline. The same blood that courses through the King also runs through Jungwoo’s veins.

Without thinking, you reach forward and slip your hand into his. He looks up at you with wide eyes, but he no longer seems as upset as he did before. You smile at him, giving his hand a small, comforting squeeze.

“Come on,” you say quietly, “let’s go see your mother.”

Jungwoo nods and grips your hand tightly before the two of you leave the throne room, not sparing the King another glance. You can feel his beady stare follow you as you exit, but you pay him no mind. Jungwoo continues to hold your hand as he leads you down the palace halls, and for some strange reason, you don’t feel the need to pull away.

When you arrive at the Queen’s chamber, only then does Jungwoo let go of your hand. He’s by his mother’s side in an instant, taking a knee by her bedside. You trail behind him, gingerly taking a step closer.

The Queen is a beautiful woman, even when she’s asleep. Her arms are folded across her stomach, and her hair is spilled across her silk pillow. She looks like she just came out of a storybook. However, her beauty is marred by the gray pallor of her skin. Beads of sweat dot her hairline, and her face is fixed in a grimace.

You frown. The grayness of her skin is not natural for a human, and you can sense a strange, familiar, energy flowing from within her.

“It seems your mother has been afflicted by a witch,” you say, examining her state carefully.

“What? How is that possible?” Jungwoo whirls around to face you.

“Either someone in her entourage is a witch or they are simply practicing witchcraft,” you explain, placing the back of your hand on the Queen’s forehead. Her skin is cool to the touch, despite sweating, which concerns you ever further.

Jungwoo still looks like he doesn’t really understand, but he doesn’t linger on the topic. “Will she be alright?”

“Yes,” you reassure him, “it’s a simple spell. I just need to make an antidote.”

“What do you need? I’ll have the maids gather them immediately,” he says, hurriedly standing to his feet.

“That will not be necessary. All the ingredients I need are at my cottage,” you say, already halfway out of the Queen’s chambers, “However, I will ask that you lend me a horse so I can go back and fetch them quickly.”

“I’ll go with you,” he offers, following behind you.

“Afraid that I’ll run off, Your Highness?” you ask, stopping in the middle of the hall and raising an eyebrow. He skids to a halt when you turn to look at him, nearly running into you.

“Jungwoo,” he corrects, “and no. I’m afraid you might run into trouble along the way.”

“You have my gratitude for your concern. However, I am certain that I will be able to handle it,” you respond curtly.

Jungwoo sighs, looking down and smiling to himself. You watch him deadpan before glancing back up at you. “Can’t you leave me just a shred of my dignity?”

“Pardon?”

He takes a step closer to you, leaning his head down so he can meet your eyes. You suck in a breath through your nose sharply, only able to match his gaze for a second before having to avert your eyes. His stare is stronger than any magic or spell, and you are no match for it.

“How many times are you going to make me beg?” Jungwoo asks softly, tilting his head.

“I—I don’t understand,” you stammer, focusing your gaze on the tip of his nose.

“I am quite aware you can handle it. I want to go with you because I would like to spend time with you,” he says, the corners of his mouth quirking up.

“O-Oh,” you say, dumbfounded.

From the short amount of time you’ve known him, Jungwoo has always been extremely forward in everything he approaches. But, surely, this is too forward.

“Are you doing this on purpose?” he asks, smirking.

“Doing what?”

“Acting oblivious so I will embarrass myself.”

“No, I—”

“I am only joking, Y/N,” Jungwoo says, laughing.

You blink, staring at him in a daze, before you finally realize that he’s just been teasing you this entire time. Huffing loudly, you whirl around on your heel and begin walking again. Jungwoo easily keeps up with you because of his long strides, no matter how much you quicken your pace.

“Don’t be angry,” he tells you, barely able to hide his grin.

“I have been meaning to say this, but you are much cleverer than you make yourself out to be,” you say in an accusatory tone, glaring at him. “And judging by your behavior now, it seems to be intentional.”

“Is that a bad thing, my lady?”

“Of course it is. It means you’re dangerous,” you snap.

“Then, that would mean you would have to pay more attention to me,” Jungwoo replies smoothly.

You give him a look of disbelief, wondering where the endearing man who had knocked on your door this morning went.

“Come. I’ll show you to the stables,” he says cheerfully.

“I don’t recall saying that I wanted you to go with me,” you remind him.

“Hmm?” he hums, pretending not to hear you.

Shaking your head, you can’t help but laugh a little yourself. It’s difficult not to get swept up in the phenomenon that is Prince Jungwoo. If you were smart, you would put an end to whatever was forming between the two of you. He is simply intrigued by you and wants to joke around, nothing more. Even if it is something romantic, the two of you could never be together. It’s better to draw a line before personal feelings become involved, especially on your end.

It would be so easy to let yourself fall in love with Jungwoo. So easy to let him tear down the walls surrounding your heart. So easy to let yourself need his presence, to crave his touch. So easy to let yourself be happy, even if it’s brief.

But it would be so easy for Jungwoo to destroy you, to trample all over you—and you’re not sure if you could withstand it.

For now, you try not to think about it.

“Have you ridden a horse before?”

You shake your head. “I don’t travel distances in which I will need a horse.”

“And you were planning on going alone, despite having no experience on horseback?” Jungwoo asks, raising an eyebrow.

“How difficult can it be?” you shrug.

He laughs; a bright, clear laugh that sounds like a bell. You’re so mesmerized by it that you almost don’t notice him step closer and place his hands on your waist. You look at him with bewilderment, and he simply smiles at you.

“Excuse me for a moment,” Jungwoo chirps. Without warning, he lifts you up and sets you onto the saddle of his horse as if you’re some sort of child. His hands linger on your waist just for a moment before he pulls them back.

You let out an embarrassing squeak, automatically gripping his shoulders for support. Once you stabilize yourself, you reflexively hit him in the chest before realizing that you just punched the Prince. Luckily, he doesn’t seem that hurt or angry. In fact, it’s the exact opposite.

Jungwoo is grinning so hard that the corners of his eyes have crinkled. He’s looks at you as if you’re the warm breeze during spring, sunshine on a beautiful day, a flower in full bloom—like you’re something wonderful.

“Do not ever do that again,” you warn. You mean to sound authoritative, but your voice teeters between octaves and it comes out as more of a question than a command. You feel like your heart is doing somersaults.

Jungwoo just smiles again and climbs up, situating himself behind you. His arms encase you as he reaches around to grip the reins of the horse. Your back is pressed up against him, and you’re glad you’re turned away from him so he can’t see the bright flush on your cheeks.

“Must we ride together?” you grumble.

“While I admire your confidence, I do not think it would be safe for you to ride on your own,” he explains. He flicks the reins, and the horse begins to trot at an extremely brisk pace.

“You are underestimating me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, my lady.”

“Now you’re being patronizing.”

Jungwoo laughs, and you feel it rustle your hair. Is he really that close to you? What if your hair smells bad? You had washed it with your favorite lavender soap yesterday, but what if—

“I apologize, Y/N. That was not my intention. Once my mother recovers, you are more than welcome to return to the palace, so you can ride a horse by yourself under much safer parameters,” he suggests.

You pause. That sounds like an invitation, and you know that can’t be right. Surely, Jungwoo is not crazy enough to ask you to come back. Right?

You have a sinking feeling that he is genuinely is that crazy, but you won’t allow yourself to even entertain the idea.

Unable to think of a response, you simply keep your mouth shut. The two of you ride in silence for a long stretch of time, but it’s not as awkward as you expect it to be. There’s something about being with Jungwoo that feels natural, comfortable.

“So,” you finally say, “how are you going to find the person who hurt your mother?”

Jungwoo’s face darkens and his expression turns solemn. You suddenly feel guilty. “Truthfully, I haven’t even thought about that yet. I want to make sure that my mother is going to be alright before I worry about anything else.”

“Replace everyone that is close to her, unless you know they are truly trustworthy,” you advise. “Whoever it is has managed to hide their tracks all this time, so you cannot risk it.”

He nods. “Thank you again for helping me once again. I know it was difficult because of my father—”

A loud clap of thunder makes you and Jungwoo jolt, and it’s like a dam in the sky has been opened. Instead of its normal blue, the sky has become a dark, ominous gray in a matter of seconds. The wind howls and the rain comes down with the force of an angry god. Within seconds, the two of you are soaked to the bone. The raindrops feel like you’re being pelted by small, freezing shards of glass.

Jungwoo shifts behind you before you feel the thick material of his cloak drape around your shoulders. He pulls the hood over your head and shields you from the rain with his body.

“Take your cloak back,” you holler over the wind, twisting your body so you can see him. “you’ll get sick!”

You don’t realize how close his face is to your own until he’s right there. Mere inches separate the two of you. You can see the raindrops in his eyelashes and the beads of water on his lips. How could someone look this beautiful in the middle of a thunderstorm?

He smiles softly at you, tugging the hood over your eyes before turning you back around so you can face forward. “I’ll be fine, Y/N.”

Jungwoo only slightly raises his voice, yet his words cut through the chaos. His calm demeanor and the way he’s cradling you against him makes you feel warm and safe. Like you have always belonged in his arms.

“We’re here,” he announces after a few minutes, breathing a sigh of relief. You see your cottage just up a little bit further. “Luckily, we were already close.”

After you arrive, he swings his leg over the horse and climbs down with grace. He holds his arms out to help you, and for once, you let him without any resistance. After finding shelter for his horse, the two of you dash into your cottage. Once you’re inside, you immediately begin to toss wood into your fireplace. With a snap of your fingers, you get a fire started instantly.

You both stand there in silence for a moment, watching the flames crackle as you shiver. However, you’re quickly snapped out of your haze when Jungwoo sneezes. You grab the quilt from your bed and swaddle him in it.

“Sit in front of the fire until you’re warmed up,” you order before going to your bathroom to retrieve some towels.

When you come back, you take a seat beside Jungwoo. Your soaked, ten-pounds-heavier dress, makes a gross squelch as you do. Cringing at the sound, you rise to your knees and begin to dry his hair.

“Don’t worry about me,” he protests, “dry yourself off first.”

“If something happens to you, your father will lop my head off,” you reply. “So, I will most certainly be worrying—”

One his hands reaches up to gently grasp your wrist, and all of your words die inside your throat. His fingertips are cold, yet your entire body feels so hot. He cranes his neck so that he can look up at you. You can see the reflection of the fire in his eyes, literally drawing you in like a moth to a flame.

“Really, Y/N. I’m alright,” he whispers, gaze transfixed on your lips.

You swallow. “I—”

Jungwoo slightly tugs you forward, tilting his head up even further and parting his lips as if he’s going to kiss you. You let out a small gasp, squeezing your eyes shut.

But nothing happens.

You crack open one eye. He releases your wrist and turns away, clearing his throat. His ears are red, and you can see that his cheeks are flushed too. You’re surprised, having never seen him lose his composure like this before.

“Here,” Jungwoo says hoarsely, removing the quilt from around him and handing it to you. “I am plenty warm.”

He takes the towel and begins drying his hair on his own. You stare dumbfoundedly at him with the quilt in your hand. You are certain that he was going to kiss you, so why didn’t he? The confident and headstrong Jungwoo losing his nerve? Impossible.

What’s even worse is that you closed your eyes. You expected it. You wanted it.

The two of you fall quiet, both staring at the fire once again. You can’t tell if the heat on your face is coming from the fire or from within yourself.

“So, you’ve spent almost your entire life in this cottage?” Jungwoo finally asks, turning to look at you.

“Yes,” you simply say as you take another towel and begin drying yourself off. You don’t meet his eye. Frankly speaking, you’re not sure if you can look at him right now without feeling like your heart will burst.

“Do you ever leave? Say, travel for the holidays?”

You laugh. “And where would I go?”

He doesn’t respond.

“I sometimes go to the neighboring town to buy supplies,” you continue. “Though I have to hide my face so the villagers don’t know who I am. Why do you ask?”

“You mentioned before that you don’t go distances in which you’ll need a horse, and that led me to believe that you must not stray far from your cottage,” he answers.

Jungwoo has the same expression on his face that he had when the two of you were in the throne room with the King. There’s a deep crease between his brows, and he’s biting his quivering lip. He looks down at his hands, the towel on his head slipping off and landing on the floor with a pitiful thump. His broad shoulders are drooped, which makes him look smaller.

“Why do you seem so forlorn, Jungwoo?” you ask, carding a hand through his wet hair so you can see him more clearly.

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Everything,” he says, voice cracking. “My father was the one who drove your mother to death and ruined your life. You’ve been trapped here for the past decade, and it’s all because of us.”

“Jungwoo—”

“I swear to you that your banishment will be lifted,” he promises, placing his hand over your hand that is still in his hair. “I will ascend the throne in a month, and I won’t let you rot away in this cottage. You should be able to see the world. To be free. I—I will not be like my father.”

His words sound more like he’s trying to convince himself rather than you, and you finally understand.

“Going against your father, seeking my help, bringing me to the palace—all of it. Was it because you wanted to differentiate yourself from the King? To prove to yourself that you aren’t following in your father’s footsteps?” you ask quietly.

Jungwoo looks at you with wide eyes. You can see tears glistening in them, and you know you’re right. Sighing, your other hand comes up to rest on his cheek. You lean in, unabashedly staring him in the eyes for the first time since you’ve met him.

“You are not your father. I, of all people, should know best. There is no need to take such drastic measures to convince yourself of it. Just be yourself, Jungwoo. You will be a kind and benevolent king,” you assure him.

“How are you so sure?” he whispers. His voice trembles. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know that you’re selfless and compassionate, even to someone like me,” you answer immediately. “You chose to throw away personal bias and even your own dignity to beg for my help. You are willing to do whatever it takes to help the people you care about. You have more kindness in the tip of your pinky finger than your father has had in his entire lifetime. Your subjects will revere you when you become king.”

Jungwoo is quiet, but you can tell that you’ve hit a chord with him. There’s no longer fear and pain in his expression, but rather, hope. He is still firmly holding your hand to his hair, as if it’s his lifeline. You gently slip your hand out of his grip so you can cup his face with both your hands, lightly pinching his cheeks.

“However, refrain from knocking on witches’ doors willy-nilly from now on. Not many witches are as generous and willing to help like I am. Like your father said, you could very well be tricked into signing your soul away with some,” you warn.

“Signing my soul away to you doesn’t seem so terrible,” Jungwoo muses.

“You must be feeling better if you’re able to make your ridiculous jokes,” you sigh, beginning to pull your hands away.

He catches one of your hands, placing it on his chest and over his heart. You can feel its steady rhythm, versus your own erratic one. You wonder if he’s aware of how effortlessly he’s able to fluster you.

“I’m glad it was you who answered the door, Y/N,” Jungwoo says sincerely. “Truly.”

There he goes again—smiling at you sweetly, as if honey is dripping from his eyes. He gazes at you like you’re his dream, the only thing he wants. It’s almost as if he’s fallen in love with you.

And then the reality of it all crashes down on you.

You yank your hand away from him, scrambling up to your feet. Jungwoo looks up at you with a mix of surprise and concern on his face.

“You’re smitten with me!” you exclaim, pointing an accusatory finger at him. You may have lived most of your life in isolation, but even you can see it now.

“Are you only just now noticing that? I thought I was being quite obvious.” He raises an eyebrow, standing up as well.

“Stop being smitten with me this instant!” you order vehemently.

“If it were only that simple. Besides, I don’t want to,” he replies breezily.

“No, no, no. This cannot happen,” you mutter, beginning to pace.

“Why not?” he asks as he watches you go back and forth.

“We can’t,” you insist.

“Says who?” he shoots back.

“Everyone! Can’t you see? You are the soon-to-be-King, and I am a witch. The witch your father banished. Think about the debacle that would take place if we became lov—er, involved with each other. Your reputation will be ruined,” you explain, frustrated that he doesn’t understand.

“I don’t care what anyone else thinks, except for you.” Jungwoo states.

“Don’t you wish to have any respect from your subjects and allies?” you hiss.

“None of that matters. What do you feel, Y/N?”

“It—it doesn’t matter what I feel,” you say, turning away. “We can never be together anyway.”

He stares at you, long and hard. “You’re afraid.”

“No, I’m realistic.”

“You’re using the fact that you’re a witch as a shield. You don’t allow yourself to feel anything simply because others see you as lesser, and you believe them. You’ve become comfortable like this, blockading off any sort of emotion and using the fear that others have of you as a buffer so you won’t get hurt. Your heart is trapped, just like you are inside this cottage. You’re afraid that if you leave, you might genuinely feel something,” Jungwoo continues, “—No, you’re afraid because you’re already starting to.”

He’s right, of course. Somehow, he’s always right when it comes to you. It’s so easy for him to unravel the feelings you’ve been suppressing. From the moment he laid eyes on you, Jungwoo has always been looking at you. Not the Witch of the Forest, not the fearsome creature that his father banished, not a tool that solely exists to achieve what he needs, but you. He’s found the real you, no matter how hard you try to hide.

But it doesn’t mean you won’t try.

“You talk as if you know everything about me,” you snap, “In reality, we’re nothing but strangers. The heart is a fickle thing, Jungwoo. You may think you’re in love with me today, but what about three days from now? A month? A year? You will be able throw me away without a second thought, but what will be left of me? I don’t have the luxury to act impulsively on my feelings like you. I only have myself, and I can’t afford to be hurt.”

“Do you truly think so lowly of me, Y/N? I would never hurt you,” he promises.

“You cannot predict the future,” you say quietly.

“Exactly! Are you going to live based off sheer possibilities alone?”

You don’t respond.

“What will you do then? Force yourself to never feel anything for anyone and stay in this cottage for the rest of your life?” Jungwoo asks.

“And what if I do?” you retort.

“You may have magic, but no enchantment can overpower your heart,” he says, shaking his head. “It is indeed be fickle at times, but you’ll be surprised to see how resolute and painful it can be.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you say again.

Jungwoo takes a minuscule step closer, gently putting his hands on your arms. He touches you as if you’re made of glass, a pained expression his face. “It does matter. Why do you keep dismissing your feelings like this? Why must you insist on hurting yourself?”

“Because it hurts one hundred times less if I do it, rather than someone else,” you whisper.

A tear falls from your left eye, and Jungwoo’s thumb swipes it away. His hands dwarf your face as they come up to cradle it. He holds your face like your eyes are made up of diamonds and your lips rubies. Pulling you close, his arms envelop your shoulders and your face is buried in his chest. Both of your clothes are still wet, yet it feels like you’ve been embraced by a ray of sunshine.

Your hands remain by your side as Jungwoo hugs you tightly. You’re to afraid to move, fearing that you’ll shatter the moment. You squeeze your eyes shut and try to remember this moment in perfect detail. You tell yourself that this, too, is fleeting.

“You are strong, Y/N. Stronger than any person I’ve ever known,” he mutters against the crown of your head, “but it’s okay now. You are no longer alone. Let yourself cry, get angry, be happy. There’s no need to bottle it up any longer.”

You feel yourself let out a sob, a sob that racks through your entire body. Trembling violently, your hands slowly reach up to place themselves on his back, curling your fists tightly into the fabric of his shirt. Hot tears flow freely from your eyes as you press your face farther into his chest.

You hate yourself for succumbing to your emotions, and you hate yourself even more for doing it in front of Jungwoo. However, it also makes you feel liberated. Jungwoo’s arms are a safe haven, and it makes you want to forget everything and run away with him. It makes you want to be reckless and impulsive, just like him.

“—Your Highness!”

The door to your cottage is suddenly kicked down, and a swarm of palace guards barge in, with the Annoying Guard leading the pack. You try to pull away from Jungwoo, but he holds onto you tighter before moving you behind him. His arm is protectively in front of you, as he shields you with his body once again.

“What have you done to him, witch?” the Annoying Guard demands, pointing his sword at you.

“Nothing,” Jungwoo responds, glaring at him. “What on Earth are you doing? Stand down.”

“You’ve cast a dark spell on the Prince!”

“She has not! I will say it one more time, stand down,” Jungwoo orders.

Seeing Jungwoo’s expression, the Annoying Guard slowly sheathes his sword. “Y-Your Highness? Is it really you?”

“Who else would it be?” Jungwoo huffs with annoyance.

“Why are you protecting the witch?”

“Because you’re trespassing and also threatening her. Why did you come anyway?” Jungwoo asks, gritting his teeth.

“His Majesty told us to make sure you were alright, since it’s storming,” the Annoying Guard ducks his head meekly. “We have a carriage for you.”

Jungwoo tells them all to get out before turning to check on you. By this point, you’ve already collected yourself. You’ve wiped away your tears and regained your composure. You look back at him coolly, refusing to let yourself break down like that again.

“Y/N—”

“Wait for me outside. I just need a second to collect all of the ingredients for the antidote, and then I will be out shortly,” you say curtly.

He looks like he wants to argue at first but obediently retreats a moment later. When he’s out of an earshot, you harshly slap your cheeks. The stinging rings through your entire body, like a wake up call from the gods themselves. You had let yourself pretend for a moment when Jungwoo hugged you, but the cold, sobering truth of it all is more apparent than ever.

If Jungwoo were to truly stay with you, his sanity would be questioned by his peers at every moment. Eventually, he too would begin to wonder if his feelings were conjured by your magic. The happiness the two of you would have will only last for a moment, and you can’t allow yourself to have a taste of it.

Because you know you won’t be able to walk away from him.

The carriage ride back is just as awful as the first time, perhaps even more so. The cloak that Jungwoo lent you has been snatched away by the Annoying Guard, so you’re left to shiver in your half-wet dress. Jungwoo is being swathed in towels and even provided a thick jacket, but all you get is a rag that looks like it’s been used to wipe the floor. Jungwoo tries to give you his jacket, but you ignore him and keep your gaze trained on the window.

When you arrive at the palace, the two of you are immediately ushered up to the Queen’s chambers by a frantic maid. Her condition worsened during the storm, and you can feel her life force fading. The King is there too, but he doesn’t say a word. His lips are in a thin line and his face is somber. You can see in his eyes that he’s pleading with you to save his wife.

You manage to whip up the antidote in record time, carefully pouring it into the Queen’s mouth with a spoon. Within minutes, the color returns to her face and her breathing becomes normal. You place a hand on her forehead, breathing a sigh of relief when you feel warmth return to her skin.

The Queen’s eyes begin to flutter, and you quickly withdraw your hand. You turn to Jungwoo. “She should be alright now. Let her recuperate for a couple of days just to make sure.”

“You have my eternal gratitude, Y/N. I—”

“Jungwoo?” The Queen’s feeble voice whispers. She’s slowly coming to, blindly reaching out for her son. The King perks up too, but he doesn’t move towards her.

“Mother,” he responds immediately, “I’m here.”

You watch him kneel by her bedside, taking her hand. They speak to each other in hushed tones, and you realize that Jungwoo must get his soft-spoken voice from his mother. The tenderness between them warms your heart, but it also wrenches it because it’s even more proof that you don’t belong here.

Taking advantage of the fact that Jungwoo is distracted, you easily manage to slip out of the room. It doesn’t occur to you until you walk out of the palace and pass by the stables that you don’t have any means of transportation. There’s no way any palace guard will agree to take you back by carriage, and you can’t just borrow a horse because you will have to return it.

You’re so deep in thought that you don’t notice a maid walking toward you and crash right into her. She’s carrying a bale of hay and it goes flying, straws of hay exploding into the air. You stagger backwards, trying to avoid it. The maid lets out a squeal and falls onto her rear pretty hard.

“I’m so sorry,” you say hurriedly, stretching out your hand to help her up. “I was distracted and did not see you.”

“It’s alright, I did not see you either,” the maid winces, grabbing your hand and letting you pull her to her feet. “I will sweep this up in a moment. I apologize for the mess, my lady.”

Her words are lost to you. Instead, you’re focused on the immense amount of magic you felt flowing through her when she touched your hand. It’s the strongest magic you’ve felt in a very long time.

“So it was you,” you realize, narrowing your eyes. “Hiding in plain sight.”

The maid blinks before her lips curl into an evil smirk. “Well, well, you’ve finally caught me. Honestly, I’m disappointed. I thought you’d find me much sooner. Surely, finding a measly witch like me should have been child’s play for the Witch of the Forest.”

“I’ve been preoccupied,” you answer, gritting your teeth. “What is your name?”

“Joohyun,” she says. Joohyun flicks her wrist, and the hay is suddenly rearranged into the perfect block it was before. “Are you going to tell Prince Jungwoo, my lady?”

“I will not betray one of my kind so easily. However, I want to know why you chose to harm the Queen.”

“That old geezer, the King, really loves her. Even though he doesn’t act like it. I figured the only way to truly make him suffer the way he made us is to target his family,” Joohyun says breezily, shrugging.

“The Queen and Prince Jungwoo are innocent in all of this. Do not drag them into our affairs,” you chastise, though you understand where she is coming from.

Joohyun raises an eyebrow before she smiles knowingly. “I had been curious as to why you agreed to help the Queen, but I see now. You’re fond of Prince Jungwoo.”

Were you that easy to read?

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you snap.

“Whatever you say,” Joohyun replies nonchalantly, a glint in her eye. “Then, I suppose you won’t mind if Prince Jungwoo is my next target?”

You scowl, your eyes flashing dangerously at her. “Are you threatening me?”

“Of course not, my lady,” she backs down. She still has a smirk on her face, but you can tell she’s nervous now. “It was a joke.”

“It would do you well to watch your tongue. I am warning you now to not lay a finger on the King’s family. Incurring my anger will make you wish that I had turned you over to the Prince,” you say calmly.

“I apologize, my lady.” Joohyun bows her head.

“Go,” you order.

She obediently picks up the bale of hay before scurrying off. You watch her disappear behind the palace doors, releasing the breath you had been holding. You know Joohyun will tread more carefully now, which is a solace to you only slightly. A part of you wants to run back inside and immediately tell Jungwoo, but you force yourself to turn on your heel and begin walking away.

The two of us have nothing to do with each other now, you tell yourself.

As if on cue, you hear a distant voice calling out to you.

“Y/N!”

You know who it is, and you know you should keep walking. But your feet drag to an eventual stop, refusing to listen to your brain. Stiffly, you turn.

Jungwoo is running up to you, bridging the gap between you and the palace easily. When he’s in front of you, he reaches down and grabs the sleeve of your dress with two fingers, as if he’s afraid you’ll run away. For now, you allow him to.

“If you’re leaving, I’ll escort you,” he says, slightly breathless.

“No,” you respond, “I will walk.”

“Y/N—”

“This is not up for negotiation, Your Highness,” you cut him off, harshly tugging your sleeve away. “I did what you requested, so our business is finished. Therefore, there is no need to involve ourselves with each other anymore.”

You can tell you’re hurting him. Jungwoo takes a step closer, and you take one back. His outstretched hand falls limply at his sides. His eyes have lost their usual mischievous sparkle, flickering like a dying ember. You feel like there’s a knife being twisted into your side. How did you manage to connect so deeply to him that you can’t stand to see him upset, despite only meeting him today?

“In two weeks time,” he starts quietly, “my coronation ball will be held. Would you accompany me?”

You let out a small laugh. Even though you’re trying your hardest to hurt him, Jungwoo remains persistent like he always is.

“You know that I will not,” you say, shaking your head. “Ask someone else.”

“I want to go with you.”

You sigh, and against your better judgement, you place a hand on his cheek. He leans into your touch, clutching your wrist. “You will forget about me soon enough, Your Highness.”

“I won’t.”

“Once you’re king, I’ll be nothing more than a bad dream,” you continue. “Don’t let a temporary feeling ruin your future.”

“Why do you keep discounting the way I feel?” he asks furiously. “You keep saying that I’ll throw you away, hurt you, forget about you—it’s cruel, Y/N.”

“It’s the truth, Your Highness. You’ll see.”

“Jungwoo,” he finally corrects again, frustrated. “Please, call me Jungwoo.”

“Joohyun,” you suddenly blurt out, ignoring him. You couldn’t help yourself. If you are truly never going to see him again, you had to tell him.

“What?”

“The maid,” you clarify. “She’s the one who cursed your mother.”

“I—thank you,” he says dumbfoundedly, confused at the sudden change in topic.

“Don’t punish her too harshly,” you request.

“Why?”

“Because I can’t say that I wouldn’t have done the same thing if I were in her position,” you answer honestly.

He doesn’t respond, looking at you with a wistful expression. The two of you fall into a brief moment of silence, staring into each other’s eyes. You don’t have as much trouble holding his gaze anymore, but it still makes your mind go blank. Your eyes travel over every inch of his face, committing it to your memory. You wish you could remember the sensation of his skin against your fingertips.

“Stay,” he pleads.

The hand on his face travels to the back of his neck, so you can bring him down to your level. You step on your tip-toes, placing a feather-light kiss on his cheek. When you pull back, you rest your forehead against his.

“Goodbye, Jungwoo.”

And so, the two weeks pass in what seems like a matter of seconds.

You’ve managed to somewhat return to your routine, but all of your efforts are shattered when the night of Jungwoo’s coronation ball arrives. During the day, you had been aimlessly pacing around in your cottage and doing the same chores over and over again. It was like you were in a trance.

Now, you’re laying in bed—wide awake. You kick the covers off, suddenly feeling extremely hot, before tossing and turning in an attempt to tire yourself out. It is useless; your mind always seems to come back to him.

You wonder if he’ll meet a beautiful princess from a neighboring country at the ball and instantly fall in love with her. The two of them would be perfect for each other. They would be the subject of envy throughout the kingdom. Their reign would be a prosperous one, and they would bear such lovely children. Jungwoo would be so happy, and that hurts you so more than you would like to admit. You know you’re being selfish now, but you—

You nearly scream when you hear a frantic knocking on your door. Instantly sitting up, you listen to the knocking for a little longer. Your heart is racing, and you can’t fight the hope building up in your chest. Getting out of your bed, you slowly approach your door and crack it open.

Jungwoo is standing there, in full royal regalia. He’s panting, shoulders heaving up and down with effort. His collar is popped, and you can see a bead of sweat roll down his neck. His hair is mussed and stuck to his forehead. He’s clutching a piece of paper in one hand.

At first, you think he’s a hallucination but then he speaks.

“By my royal decree, your banishment has officially been lifted,” he declares, still out of breath. He smooths out the crumpled piece of paper and shows it to you. It looks like it was written by a child. There are ink splatters everywhere, the writing is barely legible, and the signature looks like chicken scratch. Most people would not believe it was an official document if it were not for the royal seal stamped at the bottom.

“Wha—”

“You were wrong,” Jungwoo interrupts, “I didn’t forget about you. And trust me, I tried. I tried so damn hard because you were so cruel. You’ve only ever diminished my feelings for you, and you were the one that threw me away when I begged for you to stay. You walked all over my heart like it was your personal doormat, yet I missed you. I wanted to see you again, even if it would hurt. So, I wrote a decree on a piece of parchment paper without consulting or informing any of my advisors and then came to find you during the middle of my coronation ball. And here I am again, pouring my heart out in front of you like a fool—”

You throw yourself at him, and he just barely manages to catch you. His arms are tightly wrapped around you as you grab his collar and crush your lips against his. Jungwoo makes a small noise of surprise before he eventually reciprocates. He kisses you like you’ll disappear at any moment, and he holds you like it too. Even when you pull away, he presses you firmly against him.

“I’m sorry for hurting you,” you mumble against his lips. “You are much too good for me, Jungwoo. But I selfishly missed you too. So much.”

“If it means you’ll be by my side, hurt me as much you’d like,” Jungwoo says, his fingers entangling themselves in your hair.

The two of you share another kiss under the glow of the moonlight, whispering promises to each other that you know you shouldn’t keep.

Yet, you aren’t afraid anymore.

#neowritingsnet #cznnet #ncitynetwork #neocaratnet #nct imagines #nct scenarios #jungwoo fluff #jungwoo angst #nct 127 fluff #nct 127 angst #nct 127 imagines #nct u fluff #nct u angst #nct u imagines #jungwoo #nct #choerrypuffs

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awesamblr · 3 years

Note

PART TWO OF GHOSTBUR!!! Since you seemed to like the first one! :D

They all pause for a moment to take in what they just heard.

Wilbur...? Doesn't remember them...?

Tommy is the first one to speak up, sounding more hurt and confused with just an edge of anger to the words. "We...We're your family, Wilbur!! Wil- ...Wil are you-" Tommy doesn't want to believe that Wilbur doesn't remember them, he doesn't want that... "Wil, you better not be fucking with us-" he starts again, sounding more angry, fresh tears beginning to fall. "Cause if you are, I swear to god-"

And he stops as he finds a hand on his shoulder. Tommy turns and finds Techno.

"Tommy...he doesn't remember us Tommy..."

Wilbur shifts around, floating around slightly and awkwardly. "Y-you all seem to care a whole lot..." his hand moves to his chest. "I can't remember how I died...I can hardly remember anything...I'm so sorry if you knew me well..."

Tommy gets angry again- calling it anger is a disservice to the emotional turmoil, he was upset and scared and happy and so so sad- and Techno gets ready to hold him back again when another voice interrupts them.

"Knew you...?" It was Phil... "Knew you??" He pulled up his hanging head and tears ran freely. "Hell, Wilbur- I RAISED YOU!! I know you better than I know myself!! Wilbur, don't you recognize me? Recognize us?" He takes a step toward Wil and so much pain and hurt reflects in Phil's eyes- it hurt to look at them. "Wilbur we're your family! Those are your brothers...!! And I'm-" he remembers the explosion, the pleading of his son- kill me, kill me, please kill me- and takes a shattered breath. "And I'm your father."

Wilbur looks around at the broken family.

A boy who looks as if he once held his entire world in his hands, only to have it melt through his fingers and spill to the floor.

A man who looks like chaos incarnate, now heavy with guilt and shame, a horrible tiredness running through him endlessly.

A boy who looks as though he'd been through hell and back with a smile on his face, still trying to be happy for others around him.

A man who looks as though he had the world. As though he had absolutely everything. And now his everything was gone.

And Wilbur speaks. "Was..." he gulps in a breath at the teary eyes, almost not wanting to know the answer to the question on his tongue. "Was I a good brother?"

Memories flood the minds of the family.

Tommy recalls times of when him and Wilbur would make huge pillow forts when they were younger and of how whenever Tommy was upset, Wil would come up behind him and lay himself over his shoulders in a lazy gesture- not quite a hug, but something that felt the same.

Tommy also remembered Wilbur, eyes alive with insanity and agressive cruelty. The Wilbur that would scream at Tommy and pound his fist against the wall and tell Tommy that he was hopeless.

Techno remembers times in his life where him and Wilbur would sneak out of the house together to go hunt mobs- Wilbur never really wanted to be there, but Techno would never have gone without him. He remembered how when Techno would lock himself in his room and quietly panic, only to hear the calm strummings of a guitar from the other side of the door until Techno calmed down.

Techno also remembered the Wilbur that wanted to blow up Manburg, that wanted Techno's help in it's destruction. The Wilbur that craved chaos and hurt and pain. The Wilbur he had helped to destroy good.

Tubbo recalls times after he was adopted into the family, times where he would struggle with reading and writing and Wilbur would silently walk over and help him. He remembers times when he feels lost and Wilbur would pass by him humming a tune Tubbo would recognize, and soon the two of them would be singing loudly in the livingroom and laugh when Phil came down and yelled at them.

Tubbo also remembered Wilbur, actions shaky and plagued as he spouted on and on about Manburg and L'manburg and would sing stuttering and manic lyrics to a half-finished song and scribling them to a wall of his insanity.

Phil remembered Wilbur, the moment he came into Phil's life, the moments that he would have to wrangle the pure-hearted chaos of the boy with eyes that sparkled with neverending wonder and curiosity and passion. He remembered moments when Wilbur would begin to cry or leave the house telling the others he was "going for a walk" when they all knew he would break down the moment the house left his sight- he remembered the way he once cried for an injured bird when Phil told him the animal wouldn't make it, and remembered the way that Phil wasted a health potion on the little bird that night, just to see him smile again.

And Phil remembered the Wilbur in the control room. His eyes, his voice, his actions- a shattered and twisted version of what Phil had known him to be. The way his voice cracked and the way his eyes were alive with pain and madness and the way he fell to his knees as the home he had built was blown to bits. Phil remembered the way that on his knees still, Wilbur grappled onto Phil's coat and begged him over and over to end him, so much pain and hurt and trapped craze in his voice it shattered Phil.

"Was I a good brother?"

They were silent.

And then a small word from a small boy- a boy now president of a ruined land. "You were the best big brother anyone could ask for, Wilbur." They looked to Tubbo, who hadn't spoken a word the entire time. His eyes still dripped tears, but he had the most wonderful smile on his face. "You were the coolest big brother in the world. Why do you think we're so happy to see you again?" He gave a wet laugh. "Hell, you were amazing! Did you know that you used to help me with my english homework cause I couldn't read? A-and you would sing songs with me when I was sad!! You were the kindest brother a man could ask for."

"For real, Big Man!!" It was Tommy's turn to speak as he tried fruitlessly to dry his eyes. "You don't remember, but you and me made the most massive forts and we would hide there for hours and scare Technoblade!" Tommy laughed fondly. "I remember one time Techno was carrying a stick and hit me on the head when i scared him. You sat down with me and told me that I was okay and that we were gonna whack Techno with a billion sticks when I felt better."

"You..." Techno was hesitant for only a fraction of a second. "You used to help me sneak out of the house and we'd do all sorts of crazy things. You always said you were watching after me to make sure i never got hurt." He gave an amused chuckle at the memories. "You would play guitar in the hallway when i was upset, no matter what time it was. You got in trouble a lot for that, but you never stopped."

"Wilbur..." They turned to Phil as he adressed his son. Phil remembered and remembered and couldn't stop remembering and everything he remembered was good and every single memory was filled with thoughts of Wilbur- that's my son!- even in his last moments, and even the moments after when Phil had known he was long gone but held him closely anyway, he remembered the way he felt. Wilbur had never stopped being his son, Phil had never once stopped loving him. "Are you proud of me, Phil?" And the blonde man let more tears roll down his cheeks.

Phil tugged the ghost man into his arms and held on as if he ever let go, Wilbur really would disappear and be gone forever. "I'm so proud of you, Wilbur..." He spoke into the ghostial yellow sweater his son wore. "You were and still are the best son a man could ask for...i know you forgot that. But you know now and that's all that matters. I'm sorry i wasn't a better father, but know that i am so proud of you...so so proud, Wilbur..."

And Wilbur hugs him back.

It's hesitant, but it's there.

And Phil's other sons will know that as Wilbur embraced his father, tears rolled down his face in an unstoppable flow of emotion that Wilbur himself didn't understand completely, but his brothers did.

Wilbur doesn't know why he was crying. He didn't remember these people. But their emotions and connections were so so strong he felt the hints of distant memories flood him.

Someone giggling as they stacked things together.

Someone singing loudly with him as they danced around a room.

Someone chatting and joking with him under the stars.

Someone there, always always there. They never left...and they loved him so much.

"So..." Wilbur tried to keep his voice even, but found he could not. "I was a good brother?"

He was flooded with more arms- the embrace of his siblings, all shouting and telling him he was wonderful.

Tubbo...he remembered the name and he felt emotions attached to the name and the face, but he couldn't remember why.

Tommy...he could recall emotions attached to that name and was flooded with involuntary emotions when he looked at his blue eyes.

Techno...he could recall the name like an old friend and knew immediately that he was a comrade- a friend- a brother? He knew that name but couldn't understand why.

And Phil...he knew Phil. The memories were so blocked and so fuzzy and he could only just make out a smiling face, but it was Phil. He didn't know why and he didn't know how but he loved that name.

He loved all their names, and was overcome with inexplicable emotions when he saw them.

"...Dad...?" Wilbur finally let the word fall from his lips.

Phil held him closer.

"You were the best son I could have ever asked for..."

(I can keep the story going if you want! I really like drabbling this it's so much fun lol! But for now this is a good stopping place cause the ask is hella long.)

MANNNN I AM IN L O V E. THE WAY YOU RIGHT IS SO NICE AND FLOWY AND IT ALL JUST WORKS SO OERFECTLY TOGETHER! AND THE PARALLELS??? MMMMMMM

PLEASE KEEP GOING IF YOU WANT IM BEGGING

#DUDE COME INTO MY INVOX WHENEVER YOUD LIKE #YOUR DESCRIPTIONS AND STUFF SRE AMAZINF

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thoushallnotfall · 4 years

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Hi there! I'm new to The Lost Boys community (I saw the movie about three days ago and I deep dived in XD) and I really admire your works and posts. I'm a little shy about talking to everyone but I hope to eventually start writing and join the fandom on here. You're a wonderful writer and I was wondering if you, or any other writers you know, had any key points/tips for writing the boys?

Well first of all welcome! We're super happy to have you! ❤️

While I saw the movie for the first time YEARS ago, I actually only joined the fandom here on Tumblr a few weeks ago myself, and it's been a really wonderful experience so far! I think you'll really enjoy it once you get settled in; everyone I've interacted with has been nothing but kind and supportive, and that's the kind of energy I'm trying to put back out into the community. ☺️

Thank you so much for the compliment! I appreciate so much that you think I'm worth asking for advice! 🥺

I can't speak for how anyone else writes them/how others in the fandom view the boy's or their personalities, but I can give you some tips for each of the boys when I write them.

This is written more like a general headcanon list (I hope that's okay!), but hopefully it helps you for writing! ☺️

Paul

Paul is the biggest flirt of the group. The other boys do flirt of course, but Paul is always flirting. This also makes Paul the horniest of the four. The boy is handsy. He likes to touch you however he possibly can.

Despite being a flirt, Paul is also very sweet. He's go a sort of childlike sincerity buried underneath the top layer of horny teenager. So once he's in love, he's in love. An absolute sap. A lost puppy that will follow you everywhere and whine when you're gone or not paying enough attention to him.

I'm going to be 100% real; he's the dumbest of the four, but it just makes him cuter in my opinion. Doesn't always get things unless they're spelled out for him (or he's already in on the joke).

Things he really loves: his look, rock music, and pot.

He's BFFs with Marko and if the four of them aren't together the two are usually hanging out as a pair. Paul is not really the kind of person to enjoy the pleasure of his own company (unless he's doing something *personal*...if you get my meaning)

If he messes up and upsets you/you have a fight he's not the best at apologies. He'll pout, and stubbornly maintain it wasn't his fault regardless of whose fault it actually was. Eventually though, he'll miss you enough that his need to see you will win out over his need to be right, and he'll come find you. He probably still won't apologize unless the fight was really bad, but he'll pout at you and shoot you sad, puppy dog eyes until you you give in and let him grab you for a huge hug and a flurry of make-up kisses.

Will kiss you anywhere anytime with anyone watching. Will start making out in front of the guys and just, try to go all the way with them all right there. He doesn't care if he has an audience.

Marko

Marko kind of has these duel personalities, and I think that's why he's so chaotic.

On the one hand you've got this wild child, chaos incarnate, ball of pure energy that will literally fight anyone. Then on the other you've got this deceptively smart, sweet, sensitive boy who keeps pigeons. (No, I'm serious)

Marko is a little shit though. Facts.

Loves to fight. When he's out on the boardwalk just loves a good scrape. As a vampire gets a sadistic thrill out of killing. He has no qualms about what he is and won't apologize for it.

He's incredibly sarcastic and enjoys teasing. If he wasn't being sarcastic he would physically die. Making you blush from teasing you is one of his greatest joys in life.

Marko is smart. He's always watching everything that's happening, taking mental notes. Doesn't mean he won't run into situations without thinking like a huge dumbass sometimes, but he has the capacity for higher thought.

Because he's smart, David trusts him with more responsibility, making him a sort of defacto second. (We actually see some of this in the movie, I swear I'm not pulling this from nowhere...)

While he is a little shit, he doesn't actually want to hurt the people he cares for. He is fiercely loyal, and cares deeply about those close to him. He would never want to take his teasing too far, and if he did he would make up for it by making himself look like a fool or by performing some grand gesture.

Marko doesn't have much of a temper when it comes to his s/o(other people, oh yes, you, no), but if you do get into a fight and he knows it's his fault he'll own up to it and apologize. He doesn't want to leave things messed up between the two of you. If it's not his fault, he'll give you a chance to apologize, but even if you don't he'll probably just let it go unless the fight was really serious because he just wants you around again.

Marko is more sensitive then he lets on. He enjoys time to himself to just listen to music and pet his birds. It's his time to unwind and be alone when you normally spend every waking moment with three other guys.

Marko is totally fine with PDA. He likes to pull you into his lap and kiss you, and doesn't care who's there to see it. That said, he won't go as far as Paul. He's got some standards.

Dwayne

Stoic. The strong, silent type--but we all pretty much know that, right?

Dwayne is a tired single mother of three and he needs a vacation.

Constantly having to pull Marko out of fights and pull Paul away from girls they're not actively hunting.

If you're in a relationship with all of them and the two of them gang up on you to tease you Dwayne is the one who will keep an eye on you and make sure they don't take things too far. He'll even rescue you from David if he thinks he's being too mean to you, though he'll catch hell for it later.

Dwayne is very protective of you. If you're out in public he wants keep you close by unless you go off with one of the others. If anyone tries to hit on you he will stare them down so threateningly that they piss themselves.

Dwayne isn't really a fan of PDA. He likes to hold your hand when you're out, but he doesn't usually go in for too many kisses in public. He'll accept any you give him though, and if you try and sit in his lap or hold onto him it's not like he'll push you away. He's just not going to initiate anything like that himself while you're out.

When you're in private, Dwayne is very affectionate. He loves holding you in his arms. Just, all the time. Anytime. Enjoys small, sensual moments rather than wild make-out sessions.

Is a very good listener. Doesn't usually give advice, but he's great at just listening to everyone else's problems. The other boys always go to him when they need to vent.

You literaly never get in fights. Like, if you have a "fight" it's 100% some sort of misunderstanding on your part, and Dwanye will try and calm you down and bend over backwards to try and make you feel better.

Likes to spend time on his own reading. It's one of his ways of decompressing.

Just because he is kind, doesn't mean he isn't still one of the guys. If they're playing some sort of game or prank, he'll 100% join in, and have fun doing it. He is a teenage vampire.

David

David is an asshole. That's it. That's the list.

Genuinely though, he likes being a bit of a jerk; teasing you until he takes it just a little too far, then enjoying the process of making you forgive him.

He's always the one in control of every situation he's in. Period. When he's with the boy's? He's the leader. He decides what they're doing. When it's just the two of you? He's the boss. He's in charge. He's got all the authority.

David isn't opposed to PDA per say; if you're out in public he'll usually keep his hands to himself, or just keep it light, like have his arm around you. If he really wants to be affectionate or tease you, he'll pull you into an ally or under an overpass so less people will see.

If you don't go along with everything he says you'll fight. A lot. They'll probably get bad at times, depending on how stubborn you are. He'll be furious; of all the boys, David is the only one who really gets angry. He's never going to admit he's wrong, you'll never get an apology. He'll say really hurtful things if it's a bad fight, and if you don't come back after awhile he'll eventually come looking for you. He'll say the boys miss you, and that's the closest thing you'll get to an invitation.

David has a lot on his shoulders as the leader, and that kind of isolates him front the other boys at times. Sometimes it feels like the three of them plus David. He enjoys the power he gets as the leader, but he also doesn't get to be as part of the group as much because he has more responsibility.

He's genuinely got a lot of love and affection in him. Both for you and for the boys. But he's also probably the most jaded of the boys, so his real feelings are usually buried under layers of sarcasm and ice. It's very rare that you will get him to open up about his real feelings. If you do, it's usually just a quick glimpse before his wall is back up.

I hope you liked this/it was helpful! I tried to throw in a variety of things to catch a decent amount of their personality traits, plus just some fun little stuff. 😅

Again, welcome to the fandom! If you ever have any questions feel free to reach out to me! ❤️

-Rachel

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imintheunderworld · 4 years

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Night of Gods Worldbuilding: The Gods

the gods

In my previous post about Hescad, I mentioned the gods from the anara religion.

citing from the previous post: “The anaras believe in a vast pantheon of gods. Each of their deities represents spiritual and material values. They are believed to live in another dimension called Heasora.”

“They celebrare these gods in various festivals along the year and deeply believe that every monarch of Hescad — and some apply this to other kingdoms’ monarchs — is the incarnation of one of these gods.”

The anara gods are believed to have come from many energy explosions in the universe many centuries before the era Night Of Gods takes place in.

Energy is said to vibrate at different frequencies, which could be translated into the emotions humans display. Through this, the personality traits of the gods were formed depending on the vibrations each cosmical energetic explosion carried.

The gods all formed a group in Heasora, the place where all the explosions originated from. They were happy socializing with each other, despite their differences. They befriended each other, some got married, others’ fought, but all of them trained their godly powers in ways they could not even imagine was possible.

But there was something missing. They were the epitome of their vibration, but there was this feeling of being stuck. The gods craved spiritual growth, they craved to teach others how to live by the things they ruled and how they could become even greater than those things. They had all the knowledge they could have, but they did not know the practical aspects of their knowledge and knowing without experiencing it is not as powerful as knowing and going through it.

So the gods decided to work on the project that Caohr had previously brainstormed, but thrown away, believing it was not good enough.

With the abilities they were granted, they extended their own energy and created what we would call “souls”. Then, they proceeded to use their powers to create Oxeanur, a place where those souls could live and socialize. It was the equivalent of Heasora for a soul.

But the souls displayed the same thirst for spiritual growth as the gods and the souls wrre too pure and almost god-like for the gods possibly grow from them and teach them.

So they decided to take what they started a step further. They chose a place in the universe that looked beautiful and satisfying to live in and decided to form bodies from the natural sources that place gave them, handing them over for the souls to inhabit for an amount of time with lessons of their choice to learn.

Humans lived in small communities without rules or rulers to reign over them besides the gods. The lessons they learned throughout their lives fed the god their soul’s energy was created from, saciating that god with practical knowledge, as part of them lived through those souls as an extension of themselves.

However, the veil between humans and the gods was getting thicker the more years passed; their connection with their souls was progressively ceasing, therefore, pushing away the connection they had with their gods. Other people started to believe in other religions or stopped believing in it at all.

The gods weren’t furious. They loved their creations to much to be. But their need for knowledge increased and, not seeing other choice, they decided to incarnate in the physical plane too, becoming rulers of different places in the world in order to guide their people in function of the ideals their divine form ruled over.

Caohr

Believed to be the oldest of the gods. Some anaras believe he is the leader of the gods, but most don’t believe in a divine hierarchy.

Caohr is the god of chaos, destruction, natural disasters, reincarnation, transformation, life and honor.

He is usually depicted as less attractive than the other gods. His face is highly sculptured and his features are extremely angular. Strong eyebrows and lips that on thinner side. Grey hair.

Note: the anaras see the destruction ruled by Caohr as something positive. In order to have a new beginning, you need to let go of the past and destroy the influence it has in your life.

Linnen

Caohr’s wife. She rules Oxeanur and is said to guide passing souls with her warmth and voice. She is very accepting of people’s differences and has a kind heart for people who went through difficult deaths. She is highly celebrated during the Dawn of Gods and the Day of Oxeanur festivals, that marks the summer solstice.

She is the goddess of luck, summer, Oxeanur and the death.

She is depicted as beautiful and radiating. Often has this mature and wise air to her, yet youthful at the heart. Her hair is light brown and her skin is often shown as copperish.

Orena

She is the goddess of love, nature, blessings, spring and war.

Often represented as a young maiden with lighter hair, pale skin and a big smile. Is frequently seen in paintings and sculptures around birds or forest animals.

Isansor

God of art, inspiration, intelligence, rationality, strength, bravery and battle strategies.

Often portrayed with brown skin, amber eyes and curly hair. His muscles are believed to be defined and in paintings is always seen wearing clothes with golden tones.

Ceaven

God of harvest, alcohol drinks, happiness, physical pleasure and partying.

People usually depict him with a deeply tanned skin. He is said to have short hair, red eyes and, sometimes, is shown with red shimmer over his skin.

The explosion Ceaven’s energy came from, split in two different directions, creating his twin Caena.

Caena

Considered a minor goddes by many. Also highly associated with the Day of Oxeanur festivals just like Linnen.

Goddess of the supernatural, witchcraft, seduction, mysteries and dreams.

Characterized by her dark long hair and amethyst eyes. Often has a crow or a blackbird on her shoulders or lap.

Adon

God of the seas, winds, travels and messages.

He is usually painted as a humanized version of a wave or of wind. His true human figure, although not commonly represented, shows him with dark skin and ginger or dark hair.

Dolius

God of war, torture and opression.

Depicted as man in his late 20’s. Dark brown hair, pale skin and dark eyes. Always painted carrying a sword and in battlefields.

Came from a second explosion originated after Linnen’s and Caohr’s energy explosion. He is considered their son and goddess Elone’s brother.

Elone

Goddess of the sky, the stars, the moon, the sun and justice. She also rules over some methods of divination and psychic abilities, such as clairvoyance.

Is often characterized with silver hair and silver blue skin full of blue and violet shimmer. Her eyes have multiple colors, forming rainbows in them. Her facial freckles are similiar to stars in a dark sky.

Anara stories say that when a rainbow appears it means that Elone is looking out for someone.

wip intro | about the author | pinterest board

Night of Gods’ other worldbuilding posts:

The Kingdom of Hescad

The Pentacle Sisters

tag list: @lordfenric @writinginslowmotion @cuban-existential-crisis @planets-and-prose @latrantem @milkyway-writes @fierywords @persona-pax @pechaes @iced-ginger-tea @lmorasey

Images: I don’t own any of the images used and was not able to find the proper source. If you know, please contact me and I will add proper credit.

#wip #worldbuilding #thebluesthour #violetvineyard #writeblr #writers community #writblr #writers on tumblr #fantasy wip #medieval fantasy #dark fantasy #wip: night of gods #night of gods #night of gods: wordbuilding

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amicusbalderdash · 5 years

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K.O & What it Means to Be Turbo

This might not make sense, but I’m myself a little confused, so I thought I’d write it out.

O.K K.O Finale Spoilers to Follow:

So, T.K.O was K.O. Not an alternate self, the same self. This is perhaps getting at the idea of the self being both good and evil.

My first question: how did this problem of a personality split originate in K.O?

At first I thought of it being a genetic power trait from Laserblast/Professor Venomous, but it looks like P.V wasn’t messing with his own turbonic energy until after he’d abandoned Silverspark.

It seems clear to me that Shadowy Figure isn’t P.V’s turbo form at all. I think his experiment’s results created a mutated shortcut to turbo, that of Shadowy Venomous (heh, Turbonemous). S.V is perhaps a form that P.V might never have reached on his own due to a warped sense of self.

I think the turbo form could be described as a character’s darkness incarnate. K.O was so obsessed with the idea of goodness that he suppressed the darkness that should be present in every self. Any character therefore, has the potential for a split, it just depends on your perception of self. (that said, I think I remember a tweet of Ian’s saying Turbo power is not universal :/)

Anyway, my second question: how do you reconcile the idea of both a good and evil self in a world of villains and heroes?? Short answer: not well!!

The whole concept of a complex self is a good, strong message. It’s something I love to see kid’s shows tackling. I think this time, the ball was fumbled.

This message stops with T.K.O.

Heroes are heroes, with the occasional misguided goal. Villains are villains, with momentary heartbeats of warmth. As chaotic as “Thanks for Watching the Show” was, it was apparent that time moved on with heroes and villains very much staying in their lane. And that’s a darn shame.

I’d been hopeful when the boxbots moved into the plaza. But Lord Boxman ‘found inner peace��, and they all went right back to destroying the plaza once things settled down. Even if he has a vastly warped idea of inner peace, this really was a disappointing character move.

And then apparently Professor Venomous only wanted to destroy, so was given a whole planet to do so. And like?? What?? It was pretty well-established that his ultimate goal was power. Sure, that might have been power for destruction, but do glimpses into his lifestyle really suggest he enjoys pure chaos? I didn’t think so. What you have there is a glorified smash room.

So maybe these villains continuing in their villainous ways without redemption is a way to say, “Hey, sometimes people suck. Sometimes parents suck. Sometimes people don’t live happily ever after.”

Gosh darnit, maybe I’m vibing on too much Steven Universe, but if you’ve endeared me to characters, can I please see them trying to live a happily ever after?

I still enjoyed myself. Those are just my main points of contention

(p.s K.O’s wish was deus ex machina nonsense.)

(p.p.s I can’t even BEGIN to unpack the explanation for glorbs yet)

#ok ko #k.o #ok ko lbh #laserblast #professor venomous #shadowy figure #shadowy venomous #tko #silverspark #carol #boxbots #boxman #lord boxman #ok ko spoilers #ok ko finale #started analysis #ended as rant ^^

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clexaisheretostay · 5 years

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How Can I Be With You?

Kara is an angel, one in charge of fighting against demons walking amongst humans and causing evil to spread in both subtle and sometimes blatant ways. Her brother in arms, Kal-El had been fighting against the most notoriously influential demons known as the Luthors for years as they disguised themselves as a wealthy family on earth. Lex Luthor, in particular, hated him and made it his mission to cause as much chaos and havoc as possible. He had even gone out of his way to attack Kal-El in an attempt to kill him many times over. Things had been tense between the forces of Heaven and the demons of Hell for centuries, but more recently the contention and clashing caused even earth’s humans to notice something was wrong.

If that weren’t bad enough, Kara met Lionel Luthor’s hidden half demon daughter, Lena, at some point on her travels and hadn’t noticed her demon aura since she had been raised amongst humans with her human mother before her death. After her mother died, Lionel took her in and she didn’t even realize that she was a half demon until Kara came into her life but angels and demons aren’t really meant to live together and just what can Kara do when she finds herself drawn to the half demoness? No one in Heaven would ever understand her fascination with the half demon woman.

Chapter 1

So Beautiful To Me

Amongst all of the classes of angels, Kara was a special case. Not only was she one of the strongest amongst the angels, she was able to interact with humans for the sole purpose of helping them find their soulmates. And no, she was not cupid. Not really. She was more like … a guiding force for people bound to each other by the red string of fate. The Chinese got that part right about their belief in the heavens and what happens in the after life when it comes to certain roles of angelic beings. Kara was sunshine, happiness, effervescence, and she was the very definition of light incarnate, she was effusively happy. Everyone who knew her, well every angel, who knew here thought of her as one of earth’s more adorable creatures: a puppy. The angel she was closest to was definitely Alex, her sister figure, and they were thick as thieves. Any time they had something important to do with any sign of danger, one could not be found without the other and they always had each other’s backs.

James, J’onn, Winn, Lucy, Eliza, and M’gann were also like her family amongst the angels she knew in heaven, but no one was as close to her as Alex was. They were each other’s sisters in arms when they had to fight against any demons causing too much chaos, destruction, or tried to rise up to fight them. Any time a demon insurrection was a possibility they were one of the many chosen to take care of it before it grew to the point of losing too many angels in the fight. It hadn’t happened very frequently, but one of the prominent figures in the demon world currently was the wealthy Luthors. They hid in plain sight amongst humans because they were such high-level, powerful demons they could control their less than human appearance. Not only were they strong demons, one of the strongest demons masquerading as powerful, influential humans, they were extremely wealthy. Currently, they were one of three known demons with CEO status over companies in National City. Their own angel, Cat Grant as her human name was, had CatCo Worldwide Media as a way to keep an eye on their activities without them knowing she was one of them, though her blonde hair shining a certain way in sunlight wasn’t exactly human but her brisk demeanor wasn’t much what most people would think of angels. No, her employees probably thought she was a she-devil with how mean she was. She was good enough to fool demons into thinking she wasn’t an angelic being. Cat Grant appeared as human as could be.

Right now, Maxwell Lord, Morgan Edge, and Lex Luthor were known for being the big players but Lena Luthor had stepped into the game in National City while her brother relocated to Metropolis instead, where Clark Kent, a renowned reporter had been planted to keep an eye on his movement. For now, neither Cat Grant nor Clark Kent had given away to the fact that they were actually angels amongst humans keeping an eye on the demons yet. It wasn’t hard to make identities for angels since they had agents of their own for that very purpose just as the demons did. The angels did everything by the book though to make sure they didn’t just come out of nowhere and were found out by the demons they were watching unlike the demons and their seemingly abrupt rise to power. No one really expected demons to do any better than these underhanded methods to get ahead after all. It was expected with their nature. But heaven had its own system and would never stoop that low. No, they played by the rules and made sure that every transition was seamless.

Kara was chatting with Alex about the state of things where they were up above the clouds where most angels went to relax when they didn’t have an assignment or special mission. Of course, there were patches of heaven they could say was their personal space like a home but it was whatever made them happiest. And time didn’t pass up here, not like it did in the human world. For an angelic being, an hour in heaven was a day on earth and so time moved slowly for them. A single day in heaven was nearly a month for humans and for them, thousands of years had passed and still they were no older than the day they came into existence. Time moved so slowly for them that mere seconds were hours on earth and sometimes that was a blessing and for Kara it was sometimes a curse instead.

“I’m so bored, Alex,” Kara whined, pouting at the other angel who laughed at her, amusement causing her lips to quirk up. Being that she was a warrior angel, Alex was more prone to brooding and sarcasm since the warrior angels were more along the stoic type of angels, Kara being an exception since she also handled cases of love. She tended to help guide people towards love so it wouldn’t make sense for her to be a dark stranger approaching someone about being brave and just going for it. Now that would have them running for the hills screaming in terror. Well, that was how Kara imagined things going if she approached humans with Alex’s special brand of broody badass warrior angel of freaking heaven. Alex had merely scowled at her and Kara had laughed.

“That sounds more like a you problem than an us problem, Kara. I don’t know what you expect me to do about you being bored when you could be making people fall in love with their soulmates instead on earth.” Alex even rolled her eyes at Kara. She rolled her eyes! That was such a human thing to do honestly!

“I think you’ve been hanging around humans too much, Alex! You even roll your eyes like human teenagers do to authority figures in their lives when they’re told to do something!” Kara said with far too much enthusiasm for Alex.

“And you are far too chipper even if you are an angel of love.” Kara pouted at her and Alex smirked in response at her pouting lower lip. “What? You know it’s true, Kara.”

Kara resisted the temptation to copy Alex and roll her eyes too. “Whatever.” And then Kara made a face, crinkle that everyone loved to tease her about appearing in between her furrowed brows, “oh! I feel a ping for help coming in! See you in a few seconds!” Every angel felt a different sensation for when they were being called upon by their charges for help. Kara called it a ping because she liked to think of it as a sort of pulling sensation. So, ping for short. Alex referred to her as more of a tug or demand for help because she was in charge of fighting off demons. Particularly, she dealt with lower level demons usually. There were certain areas on earth considered neutral territory that both angels and demons frequented when half demons and partial demons who wanted nothing to do with their other side went. Often, those demons were considered lower level demons anyways and the establishment was actually run by a half demon, half human and their half angel, half human partner. They didn’t allow disputes between any angels or demons who frequented regardless of how pure or impure their blood because it was neutral ground. Those who fought were kicked out for the night and made to pay for each other’s drinks as their penance. Kara would sometimes go there and drink things acceptable for angels that the half angel, Maggie Sawyer, would make. Alex also had a thing for her even if she wouldn’t admit it despite how many times she’d managed to make Maggie think she didn’t like her with her mysterious silence when Maggie tried talking to her when she came in with Kara or as a group with their friends. Samantha Arias was the other owner and had been friends with Maggie for a long time.

It made Kara a little curious that she was being directed to the bar. Of course, the place was made so that no purely human being could enter the establishment, but that didn’t mean that outliers could exist. Someone who had even a single drop of non-human blood should not be able to cross the threshold, however, there was the possibility of someone with just enough blood for it to consider them non-human enough to enter even if they had no idea that they weren’t anything but human. Things like that did happen on occasion and memories were erased more often than not in those cases and they were specifically specially marked as human afterwards for their own protection as a precaution. Kara had no power over those who had any blood that caused them to not be fully human, so her being pinged towards the bar was extremely odd. It made no sense. She could not guide non-humans into meeting soulmates. In fact, Kara wasn’t sure if all half demons had souls. Most did but rejected their souls and half humans sides in order to fully become a demon. Those who didn’t reject their half human side retained a soul from their human halves.

Walking into the establishment she saw both women hard at work and greeted them both warmly. “Hi Maggie, hello Sam! I see you’re both hard at work already even though it looks like it might be afternoon in the human world from how bright it is outside. Though, we all know I’m not the best judge of earth time since it’s so hard for me to keep track!” Kara gave them an almost conspiratorial look, even winking at them with some exaggeration.

“Yes, that we do know,” Maggie said with amusement showing clearly on her face.

Sam interjected with a friendly inquiry, “so, what brings you here today? Is something wrong or are you here for … cupid business,” and Kara pouted at being called cupid.

“No! I am not cupid because that little cherub, as cute as they are, is not the proper representation of someone with my profession! We do not carry heart shaped arrows for goodness’ sake and how painful would it be if I went around terrorizing poor humans who cannot see me unless I make myself corporeal for them? They’d wonder why someone was going around shooting those sharp arrows at their behinds!”

Outright laughing, Sam cleared her throat after a moment, completely immune to Kara’s pout. “And this is exactly why I call you a cupid on purpose and you never fail to deliver. Honestly, it never becomes less amusing,” and this time she elbowed Maggie who wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding her own amusement. They teamed up on her all of the time, only made worse when Alex was also around to join in with some smart quip that never failed to make Maggie give her a look. No matter how much Maggie flirted, Alex denied her possible interest with well placed comments about how she was half angel and was nice to everyone and possibly flirted with many people because she was also half human. And no, she wasn’t flirting with Alex even if Kara was convinced she was.

“Well, whatever. I don’t know why, but I was pinged and felt it from somewhere in here even though I can’t influence either demons or humans. Speaking of, we angels don’t even have red strings attached to us. How did I receive a ping here if I can’t influence any angels or demons of any sort? I’m not sure if someone who is a quarter can be effected by me or not because I’ve never had a call for them either.” Kara looked around, trying to spot the target.

“It could be because my very human father has brought my half sister around and she is very human. She’s actually sitting at that table over there because she’s been making some googly eyes at the one half demon that way since she came in to have a quick drink. They mostly came in to say hi but now she’s turned it into looking at him because he is definitely her type. She hasn’t had the courage to say a word to him yet.” Maggie smirked and Kara knew what was going to come out of her mouth before it even happened. “Go do your job cupid and shoot that dangerously sharp arrow, Kara.”

Scowling but taking the out given anyways, Kara made her way over and smiled as she made herself invisible to humans but other angels, even ones with slightly diluted blood, could still see her somewhat though demons, no matter how diluted their blood, wouldn’t be able to see her or sense her if she was trying to completely conceal herself. Mostly demons with strength near the level of high demons would be able to sense her presence in this state. Some angels had been killed for recon missions because of that fact.

Approaching the woman, Kara was sure she looked like a beam of bright light to Maggie because of her class of angel, Kara sent out waves of energy towards the woman, encouraging her to approach the tall half demon who seemed the quiet, strong type. Octavia seemed to bolster from Kara’s energy and nodded to herself before approaching the man and introducing herself. With her assignment completed, she walked back over to the two women. “Look at that, ladies! I got them talking and I think they’re going to be in love faster than you can say Kara is an awesome Angel of the Red String of Fate instead of that other, silly word, that doesn’t describe me … at all!”

They both burst out laughing, unable to contain themselves in the face of Kara being so freaking extra. “Yeah, okay,” Sam said sardonically, barely managing through her chuckling. “Making people fall in love or rather get on the path to falling in love isn’t your job. Nope, I must be thinking about someone else’s work like … a dating website!” Leave it to Sam to be just as extra when it came to her teasing Kara.

Even angels could be sarcastic, if Alex was anything to go by, “oh, look at you! Having a laugh at my expense,” Kara rolled her eyes. “If there are days I ever wonder if you’re a half demon, well, today’s one of those days I don’t need to wonder when you have that flair up for the dramatics and tease me.”

Sam laughed at that good naturedly, used to Kara’s gentle teasing back at her. “Well, I never need to wonder when the Angel of Love is going to be around!” Maggie high fived Sam for that one, both of them tag teaming her not an unusual thing much to her slight chagrin. However, she wouldn’t change her friendship with either woman for anything because not only did they amuse her endlessly, they were kind above all else and they didn’t let their other halves control their fates or outlook on life either.

Most with mixed blood were treated poorly in some way. Those with half angel blood weren’t necessarily shunned, but looked upon with pity by those who were fully angelic beings for not being able to join them up in heaven because they were still partially human. Humans needed to have their souls brought up to be part of the cycle of reincarnation. Being half human meant that they had to live their extensively longer lives before they were allowed into the fold as an angel or be part of the process of reincarnation based on the lives they lead before their deaths. As for half demons … there were not accepted by most demons. Some humans were ignorant of the world of angels and demons and wouldn’t even bat an eye at the half demons living amongst them. And there were some humans with the power of having a sixth sense to detect when they were in the presence of either evil or great good and could detect even half demons despite their human half’s presence. They were wary of those presences though not all rejected them entirely

It was a lonely and hard existence to not have the acceptance of the half of family that caused the disdain in the first place or only being accepted by very few members depending on whether they chose to shed their human half and become fully demon instead. Sam wanted to change that stigma. After having met Maggie because they were both wayward souls amongst their families in a way, they came up with the idea of the bar being a perfect safe haven for both of their common status as halflings. Thus, Halfway to Heaven and Hell was born. And as word spread about the neutral territory to mingle and find camaraderie in other wayward souls who experienced similar rejection and pain came to be. Now it was the hotspot for almost all of the halflings to gather to commiserate in their miseries and triumphs without having to hide who they were and to find solace in others just like them. The half angel, half humans started to join in after also catching wind of the place being run by one such as them and they found a harmony and understanding in the misunderstood half demons who gathered there. It became cathartic for both halves to interact. And now the bar was never short of customers and sometimes there was a need for a third bartender and a few waitresses extra to come in to help out on the busy weekends. Neither women could be prouder of what they had achieved with their safe haven for others like them. It was an amazing thing to see from the start until the expansion of now with slightly more floor space after a quick renovation with the bar made larger to accommodate the increase in business as well as a kitchen being added to add some food to the menu for those who were drinking too much. The menu was made with food that would soak up some of the effects of alcohol, lean meats as well as heavy in carbs as needed. Even the food was well liked by the patrons, including exotic items from the demon world.

Kara loved coming here to see the two women going on strong. She also enjoyed seeing Alex’s lame attempts at indifference towards her obvious attraction to Maggie and how flustered she’d get when those dangerous dimples were flashing at her. Yeah, Kara loved this bar and its two amazing owners so much. Even when they teased her relentlessly. “One of these days you’re going to get tired of teasing me. I swear. Being half angel, you’d think your angelic side would tell you not to be so mean to me,” Kara said over dramatically, looking at Sam with the worst attempt at affront Maggie had ever seen in her life.

“Yeah, yeah. Like I always tell you, if you really hated it so much you’d stop coming by when you don’t have some kind of mission going on. Just admit it, Kara. You love us and how much crap we give you and don’t deny it! I mean, you do choose to come back every time without fail.” And Maggie wasn’t wrong. Kara was a frequent flyer there even if she couldn’t really pay for drinks with actual currency since angels didn’t exactly have paying jobs. Maggie and Sam didn’t mind giving the angels who visited free non-alcoholic beverages though. More than anything, the angels came for the novelty since they didn’t actually need to eat or drink to survive. The angels who had missions in the human world were able to eat and drink for the sole purpose of appearances and not raising suspicion that they were anything other than human. It was a strange concept, but they at least didn’t eat or drink much and bought the bare minimum and only kept their fridge sparsely filled with food and drinks. No need to waste things and resources when there were hungry, homeless humans out there on the streets. In fact, most angels used the salaries that they earned while on their missions to feed the homeless or provide some kind of shelter or comfort for them. This was their nature. Healing, comfort, encouragement, and being pillars of strength to humans. It was what they were driven to do.

“Okay, okay, so maybe I do enjoy your gross abuse of your human halves right to abuse me out of love and the fondness you have for me in your golden hearts.” Sometimes Kara was a sarcastic angel. It was either Alex’s influence or the fact that she was indeed a warrior angel as well despite her entirely too cheerful demeanor being an angel of love as well. Either way, she had her moments of extreme sarcasm however unexpected it was every time she let it out like she did just now.

“Right, well it looks like you really got my sister’s love meter hyped up,” Maggie said, eyeing the way her sister was practically inhaling that guy’s breath with how close their faces were despite the incredible height difference between them. He was a giant. Nearly a foot taller than Octavia.

“Would you look at that? My encouragement for them is blossoming beautifully! Speaking of blossoming love, I feel another person seeking my presence but this one doesn’t seem to be a human related ping. It was nice seeing you two! You know I’ll be back for that delicious human drink you call ‘apple cider’ meant for fall weather!” Kara had a particular sweet tooth despite not having to consume any food or beverages as an angel. However, she had grown fond of the various drinks that Maggie metered out as safe for angelic consumption since alcohol was not only forbidden but harmful for angels to drink. Something about them were toxic for angels and caused them to feel severe weakness and pain. It could even kill them if they consumed a high enough dosage. That was a discovery by an undercover angel trying to gather information from some lower level demons while pretending to be human and had been severely affected by a glass not cleaned out properly for all traces of alcohol and had quickly gone to throw up in the bathroom and discovering this weakness amongst their kind. Some demons had gotten wind of that, though it wasn’t widely spread knowledge amongst the demon world, and it was now more dangerous for angels parading as humans. One sip was all it took for them to figure out which seemingly human beings were truly angels amongst them.

Kara gave a cheery wave goodbye and left with a flourish, red hearts appearing for several seconds in the wake of her movement where she was currently needed. Every angel had varying aftereffects of them moving where they were needed depending on their roles. Warrior angels were more of a flash of light when they showed themselves to trustworthy people. The angels in charge of individuals or whole family’s had more of a sunny, warm glow. Angels charged with children tended to have a rather bubbly type of entrance, showing effervescence and hope in how they moved around. The angels like Kara tended to have more of a range of pink to red hearts left in the wake of their departure and entrance but in Kara’s case it only happened when she was on a more amorous mission than if she was completing a mission as a warrior angel instead. During those types of mission, she crackled like thunder and flashed like lightning because of how strong and powerful she was even amongst other warrior angels. She had been likened to Gabriel in terms of her prowess before. Kara was very nearly indestructible even. The most powerful angel in a long time.

Upon arriving where she felt her ping, she was more than surprised to see Cat waiting for her in her human appearance as the Media Queen Cat Grant. “Ah, Kara. I know that you are quite busy as bees as humans would say, but I have been tasked with keeping an eye on Lena Luthor from my perch as a human media mogul, as you know, but she is … rather elusive.”

“Yes, of course, Cat. I do remember that Clark has been watching Lex and you have been watching Lena individually.” Kara nodded, confirming what she currently knew of the situation.

Cat nodded her head, “right, but I’ve been having trouble keeping an eye on her because she is … rather difficult to meet with. I want you to pose as a junior reporter or at the very least try to see if you can get a job as her assistant instead somehow. We can’t keep an eye on her if we can’t even get close to her to see what is going on in her office. So far, I haven’t managed to do much of anything with her. Lena is … rather problematic to get into touch with even with my army of reporters. Getting her to grant interviews has been harder than me being mean to my employees Kara.” Being angels did make it rather trying when attempting any type of unkind actions towards those who were considered their charges whether they were personally responsible for them or not.

Kara gave Cat a calculating look, “do you think she suspects you at all?”

Shaking her head, Cat replied, “no, I know it’s not that, Kara. Rather, it is just her nature to be camera shy, I believe. Even before her take over as the CEO of L-Corp for her branch she wasn’t one to be in the spotlight or interviewed for any reason. She doesn’t really use most social media accounts and only recently started using both Twitter and Instagram but only for promotions for her products and release dates for her products. Those social media accounts are as old as how long she has been in office so … just about two months now. In all of that time I haven’t been granted a single interview from her. And in all fairness, no one else has been able to snag an interview with her.” Cat looked calculating as she looked at Kara. “I’m thinking that if Clark and you posed as cousins and both request to interview her … or at least have Clark interview her since you won’t know what to do being new to the journalism world, she won’t be able to refuse a well-known reporter like him.”

“So … what you’re saying is you want me to work under you and try to get close to Lena?” Kara asked, putting the pieces of what Cat was asking of her.

Giving Kara a grave look, Cat nodded. “Yes, I have already asked the Creator for permission. It was granted and the choice is yours, so will you help me Kara?” Kara nodded her assent and not long after she found herself standing right in front of Lena Luthor with her supposed cousin, Clark Kent, as the human named Kara Danvers. And goodness gracious, she was not prepared for how absolutely stunning the woman was. Being an angel meant that Kara had seen many beautiful things in her life but Lena absolutely was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen in her existence and she had seen some of the most beautiful humans ever created. Lena was another level of gorgeous, so visually stunning Kara stuttered, became tongue-tied, when she was asked who she was by the ethereal woman.

“And who, exactly, are you?” she asked, moving around her desk to sit down in her chair elegantly. Even the way she moved flawlessly spoke of how graceful she was. Kara had never felt this way before in her entire existence and that had been quite a few centuries going towards a millennia now.

“Um, uh, I’m uh, Kara Danvers. I’m not exactly a reporter but I’m with CatCo Media,” she’d answered with as little grace as possible seeing as Lena possessed all of it, it seemed from this little interaction alone.

Clark gave her a strange look and Kara decisively ignored him as Lena responded to her. “CatCo Media? Aren’t they more of a … fashion outlet than a real news source these days?” she asked, looking slightly put-off by where Kara was currently employed.

“Well, I’m just really here to observe so … um, I’m not really going to write anything anyways,” Kara muttered.

“Anyways, isn’t it convenient that when the Venture was going down, you weren’t on that flight?” Clark asked, his question leading and unlike what a journalist would ask.

“Luckily, Superman was there to save the day,” Lena replied to him easily as Clark continued to give her a measuring look.

“Yes, quite lucky indeed,” he responded.

“Just ask me what you want to ask me because I’m quite busy with running my company, Mr. Kent,” Lena requested briskly, opening her notebook containing many notes.

“Were you involved in what happened, the part’s failure seeing as it came from one of your manufacturers?” he asked.

“Are you asking because of my last name or because it was one of my subsidiaries that made the part that failed?” she asked with a calculating look.

He rolled his eyes at her. “I’m a reporter and I’m just trying to do my job by asking you these questions.” Clark had really gotten into his role as a reporter. He had been doing this for quite some time after all, but still, he was quite efficient in his role. For a brief moment, Kara wondered if angels were in charge of aliens and metahumans on this planet as well. Obviously, some of her fellow angels helped guide other species in the galaxy far and wide, but aliens were a bit of a gray area in her opinion. Some species just didn’t seem to gel with angelic guidance. Daxamites and Kryptonians being two examples. With the Daxamites, they were resistant towards guidance. Kryptonians thought that their form of justice had been perfected because no one was killed nor would they suffer in Fort Rozz in the Phantom Zone where no time passed. It was impractical to try to influence or direct a species like that into certain decisions. Some angels still tried as was tasked of them in spite of the difficulty. It was in their nature to help others after all.

Lena gave them a sad smile, “even so, not all of us are the same just because of who our family is. I may be my brother’s sister and my father’s daughter, but I wasn’t always their family. My father didn’t even take me in, claim me as his child, until he adopted me when I was ten. He didn’t want to admit to what he did so now here I am, defending myself to reporters because of my brother’s behavior rather than my own merits.” She paused as she looked at them both, “I’m just a woman trying to make a name for herself, can you understand that,” she asked, looking almost vulnerably.

Kara answered her, looking at her with understanding, “yes, I can understand that,” Kara said, looking at her with compassion.

The look Clark gave her showed he didn’t share her sentiments on the matter. “Okay, well, I’ve got an article to write and you seem like a busy woman,” he said, giving her a tight smile. As soon as they left the office, he rounded on Kara, “you’re not supposed to sympathize with demons, half blood or not.”

Kara scoffed, “we’re also not supposed to judge them before they’ve even done anything to warrant suspicion either!”

“Okay, we have things to do and appearances to make. We’re supposed to be cousins on earth so let’s keep that charade going for now, Kara.” She was offended that he was supposed to be above judgment since that was the Creator’s role and not theirs as angels. They only guided and helped humans as well as other creatures of the universe. Both of the Kryptonians on this planet were forces of good and did so without prompt. They were doing just fine on their own. Kara sighed. She wasn’t sure how everything was going to turn out, but she had her mission already laid out for her.

So, first chapter here! Hope everyone is interested about where this is going after reading this new concept! The next chapter is available here as well as my other works at: https://ko-fi.com/post/How-Can-I-Be-With-You-V7V714FLW

姫宮光る

#supercorp #fanfic #au #angel kara #half demon half human lena #angst #badass lena #badass kara #lena luthor needs a hug #kara x lena #sad kara danvers #sad lena luthor #kara needs a hug #alex danvers

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gdiwes · 5 years

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I don’t, like, EVER write shit about Real People but these Demon!Shane headcanons and memes got me LIVING so I jumped on the train LOL Some of these are my friend’s ideas cuz I was screaming to her and she was kind enough to A) tolerate me and B) bounce back LOL

Anyway they’re all below the cut cuz it’s LONG.

It’s like some Lucifer level shit. Shane’s a high-level demon who just got tired/bored and came to the mortal realm to dick around.

That being said, him being on Buzzfeed Unsolved is just to check up on other demons/ghouls/ghosts and keep them in line lol

To be honest, Shane being a high-level demon is the reason Ryan “Spirit Magnet” Bergara doesn’t actually have anything happen to him while they’re out demon hunting.

Most demons are actually HIGHKEY scared of Shane Madej. And because Ryan is friends with him then he ALSO must be terrifying since Nobody has managed to “”””befriend””””” Shane, even in Hell.

The truth is, Ryan just doesn’t know Shane’s a demon.

Ryan: “I've lived my life with one attage: don't fuck with demons." Shane, cackling to himself: “I'm aboutta ruin this whole man's career.”

Demons have spread the incorrect name “Ryan Boogara” around. Half the time demons say "Boogara" with awe and scorn because Shane is friends with him and he's not terrified. They wish they could stand where this Mere Fucking Mortal stands, like, even the WORST, MOST POWERFUL demons don’t have Shane’s respect. And the other half demons/ghosts shakily whisper "Boogara" on the wind in pure terror because “wow that's a Human that somehow tolerates Shane Madej. Clearly he must be the most wretched and terrifying humanity has to offer, especially because Shane hasn’t murdered him yet.”

That also being said, most demons/ghosts/ghouls don’t wanna fuck with Ryan solely because they know Shane will probably give them a fate worse than death if they hurt him.

Also some demons assume that Shane is using Ryan as a spirit magnet to lure them to him so he can kill them, bUT THAT WON’T WORK ON US!!

What Shane says: “Demons aren’t real.” What he means: “They’re too cowardly to fuck with me.”

Every time Ryan gives some gruesome details of a murder or haunting and Shane says “oh, I love that,” it just reminds every ghoul and demon in the surrounding vicinity how terrible Shane can actually be.

An actual conversation between ghosts before the spirit box is busted out: "Hey, I dare you to talk to Shane Madej over the spirit box." "Are you fucking kidding he's gonna kill my entire ass for the second time.” "Come on, it'll be funny, it'll freak out the little one." "BRUH. ARE YOU CRAZY. YOU KNOW NOT TO MESS WITH THE LITTLE ONE.”

Shane honestly hates the spirit box. Other demons make themselves known and he’s here like “what the FUCK are you doing my guy.” This why he’s always like "Imma spook ‘em good" whenever they bust it out lol

He does like that one spirit that said apple taters tho. Also the spirit that said spaghetti.

If spirits play music through the box it’s an offering to Shane, like some Axe Man Jazz level shit LOL This was not his decree tho.

Part of Shane’s reasoning for coming to the mortal plane is because he’s never actually been haunted, cuz yanno, he’s a demon, and he thinks it would be fun. All the demons that could potentially do that are too scared of him to do it.

And it's like some of the higher demons are like “we can't take him back he is chaos incarnate, he Will Kill.” and the others are like “look, we like to torment humanity but we gotta bring him back, this is too much.”

"What? They love him up there?? What the fuck is wrong with humans in this day and age????”

“He made a FRIEND????”

Some episode specific stuff:

"I have a vial of holy water, what do you got?" "Me." All demons in the surrounding area: *quaking* He-- yeah Boogara, he sure does!

Shit affecting Shane (like goosebumps and chills) but he's surprised because it's his mortal case reacting and not actually him as a demon lmao

Shane: “Whaddup demons, it’s me. Ya boi.” Half of Hell that respects him: “EEYEYYYYEY IT’S YA BOI SHANE WHADDUP BRO EEYYYYY!!!!!” Other half of Hell that utterly fears him: “oOOHh ohh MY g o D IT’s SHaN e O H NO oO O FU CKING FRUN —“

Shane telling the Goatman "this is my bridge now!" and Goatman's like "YO FUCK DUDE I HEARD A' YOU, YOU CAN HAVE IT—“

Annabelle being like "I'll kill you Shane" and there's like nine other demons they've encountered in the BG screaming "NOOOO YOU FUCKIN CAN'T HE WASN'T KIDDING ABOUT TRAPPING YOU IN HIS RIBCAGE.”

When Shane asked if she would kill Ryan, she only hesitated because the other demons almost managed to dissuade her.

Annabelle, Matilda, and Sally's demons all getting together in hell or something after their eps like "hollllyyyy shit guys how the FUCK did he find us up here. WHO RELEASED HIM. WHO DID THIS.” And all three of them are actually terrified.

In the La Llorona episode when Ryan said “I only know one demon” and looked at Shane, Shane genuinely thought Ryan knew. Ryan, however, did not actually know, and still does not.

Shane could show off his super-human strength, but knowing thousands of people watch Buzzfeed Unsolved and he doesn’t want to blow his cover, he won’t. This is why he couldn’t crush the apple and just threw it that one time.

Legitimately though, he was impressed watching Andrew split an apple in half bare-handed.

The fact that Shane and Ryan both freaked out because of bees and spiders has convinced a good chunk of Hell’s population that those two insects are even worse than the Ghoul Boys and should not be trifled with. They leave them alone most of the time.

#buzzfeed unsolved #buzzfeed unsolved AU #shane madej #shane buzzfeed unsolved #ryan bergara #ryan buzzfeed unsolved #demon!shane #demon shane AU #mayocado #I'm so sorry but also I'm fucking LIVING for this it's so funny #I'm mostly here for demons reacting to Shane and Ryan and just being genuinely frightened of the two of them LOL #god I'm cracking up buzzfeed unsolved is the only paranormal investigators show I'll ever care about again #I'm a shaniac honestly don't @ me lol

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c-qcatwrites · 5 years

Text

The Monster

Hello, everyone.

It’s been a while.

Ready for a fun, sudden genre change?

(Also, big thanks to @wtnvwritings for giving my brain when I wrote this originally some goddamn AMAZING images to latch onto and cackle ominously about.)

(EDIT: BIG THANKS to @alicesfracturedmirror for giving me the pet name headcanon, I was very silly to not remember to do this earlier, but I’m bad at remembering things anyway.)

Recommended Song Pairings:

Papers (Hades Finds Out) - Anaïs Mitchell (Hadestown)

NFWMB - Hozier

Like Real People Do (Live In America) - Hozier

Frank Castle was a monster.

There was no doubt of that.

He couldn’t die, there were murmurs, that’s proof enough, right?

He got up from a shot in the head and ordered someone to bring him to the only thing that mattered—home.

And when he couldn’t find that anymore?

He unleashed hell everywhere in the city he could touch.

Everyone was certain he was on that boat when it went down, that he hauled himself from the river, freezing.

Either that, or that the river swept him out to sea, and from there his chaos could only spread.

The Punisher. He was a monster. A kill count in the double, maybe even triple digits.

He got up from being beat half to death, his lungs cut by his ribs, from being shot, stabbed, choking on his own blood, and he was still not about to stop, not anytime soon.

He was a monster.

And there were stories that told of the strange shapes his blood would make on the ground if enough of it left him.

There were stories of a shadow that would bite if his enemies tried to run from him.

There were stories.

Because Frank Castle, after all, everyone knew, was just a man.

So then where was the monster?

You could feel something was wrong that night the second the spark in the air hit.

Less like a thunderstorm.

More like a Faraday cage.

Like if you stepped out of where you were safe, you would get hit.

But you needed to step out, because you knew what was happening.

You got out the first aid kit. You got out the blankets. You got out glasses of water, got out alcohol, got out everything you could need.

Everything you knew you would need.

Because you knew what was happening.

And knew that it was only getting worse by the second.

You sighed.

You sat down on the kitchen floor.

You closed your eyes.

You grit your teeth.

And you waited.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, you began seeing what was going on.

An ambush. A trap not spotted, not seen coming—or maybe it was seen coming, just thought it could be bested. You weren’t sure with Frank anymore.

But he was still standing.

And his heart was racing, pumping adrenaline through him, more blood seeping onto the ground, spreading out across the floor, and the stain he was stuck standing in, no longer looked like a stain. No longer looked random, looked normal.

There were gaps. There were patterns.

And he was lucky no one there knew to look at the blood on the ground.

You could feel your heart racing.

You could feel his pulse, your pulse, the pulse of the magic coming up from miles away.

You were scared, you were, but some ancient part of you had that urge to scream his name and cry locked away.

Underneath your skin, some part of you was human.

Some part of you loved and cared and lived.

But that part of you was becoming more and more gone, the more they shot at him, spilled his blood.

And the second the last part of that stain-that-wasn’t-a-stain beaded itself up, rolled along the ground, and sunk into place?

You took a deep breath and held it, because the cold shadow you sunk into made it feel like you couldn’t breathe.

In a flash of energy, every light in the warehouse flickered off.

No one could see anything.

But you could see them.

The lights flickered back on, and you heard a chorus of “JESUS CHRIST” just before a round of gunfire in your direction just passed through you.

Frank Castle was a man.

But the monster?

They hadn’t seen anything yet.

With a roar like an animal, you were on the closest one, no longer smoke and shadow, but too many limbs, too many mouths, and teeth, biting into him, ripping him to shreds even more than the gunfire trying to track you did.

You couldn’t tell if Frank was shooting anymore.

You couldn’t feel the bullets his enemies were aiming at you now because they lost sight of the man.

You didn’t care.

You just took a chunk out of the throat of the next one and flew across the room to the next—no, you didn’t fly, that’s too silent of a word, wouldn’t account for the sounds of a pack of animals running, howling, screaming for the kill.

You were tearing into the place, into its men, chaos incarnate as you spotted—tasted, really—the intention of the last man standing.

Frank was down.

This man had a gun pointed to his head.

That little human part of you had more in them than everything else you were made of had ever thought possible.

Because when they screamed “NO!”, it felt like the sky was falling, and the man flinched, covering his ears.

And that’s when you slammed into him, knocking him back against the wall with a roar.

You weren’t sure if you stopped screaming at any point as you pummeled this man with too many limbs, too many hits possible, eyes burning like stars, and you could see the fear in his eyes.

All he was was blood, blood and too much life still left.

But it struck you all too slowly that this was an empty room.

And you didn’t care about him, anymore.

He couldn’t hurt you anymore.

So you stepped back and let him slump to the floor.

Didn’t care about mercy. Just to protect the person you came here for.

You tried to become less smoke as you began to walk over to where Frank lay, tried to give yourself more substance, more of a shape, but you flared apart on instinct the second you heard the man’s voice.

“They say dogs remind people of their owner,” he panted, blood dripping from his open mouth. “Suppose that was proof enough.”

Some part of you was tempted to ask if he knew who was the dog.

Not tempted enough.

You turned back to him, but just when you were about to raise your hand and snap his neck with a power you hadn’t even needed to touch to take out everyone Frank hadn’t, a wheezed out, “Stop,” distracted you.

You turned towards where Frank lay, in the center of the pool of blood forming your summoning circle, his breath forced, labored.

You didn’t know what was wrong, but you could help him.

So you stopped.

You lowered your hand and hurried over, a silent question in your eyes, silent only because you couldn’t be scared, not with your mind, your powers buzzing like this.

Slowly, you shifted back into your human body, but you knew your eyes still glowed.

“Can I pick you up?” you asked.

He laughed at that, how strangely callous it sounded, and though the act itself should have at least got you to smile, your heart broke at the sound of it.

“You can if you can, but I’d suggest helping me stand up instead.”

You swallowed and nodded, lifting him up into a sitting position with his help, and then, slowly, carefully, your hand grabbing onto his belt as you helped him onto his feet.

You hadn’t even noticed he still had a pistol in his hand until, on the way to the exit, you turned him in the direction of where that last victim sat pathetically, barely able to lift his head from the mix of blood loss and exhaustion.

When you heard the gunshot, you couldn’t help the way you fragmented into smoke and tangible shadow, wrapping around Frank, eyes two glowing dots and a multitude of snarling mouths. You heard him easing you out of it, quiet murmurs, “Hey, hey, shh shh shh, it’s okay,” and felt his hand passing through the less tangible portions of you, those that weren’t holding him up, but you didn’t relax until you saw the final headshot where it wasn’t before.

Then slowly, slowly you coalesced back into your human form, still leaking shadow, still glowing red from your eyes, and still keyed up from the power of the summoning sigil as you got Frank into the passenger seat of his car and drove home.

Cleaning him up was less a matter of getting him actually clean, as much as it was a matter of making it so you had to clean your couch less the minute that part of you woke up again.

Until it did, you were simply careful, quiet hands, and eyes fading quietly away from the glowing red with each stitch you put in him, each gentle swipe of a washcloth to clean away blood.

It was only when you realized while pushing a glass of water into his hands, sitting on the floor by the couch, asking him to drink, that you were crying—only then did you feel like you had come back.

You shuddered, and swallowed back a sob threatening to tear itself up from your throat.

He took a small sip, at least, and set it down on the floor, wanting that hand, that one good hand, free so he could wipe away your tears, murmuring something quiet, something not quite intelligible from some mix of pure exhaustion and how much blood he had lost, but sounded suspiciously like, “Welcome back, bluebird.”

And that was enough to break you, to get your shaking hand grabbing onto his as you tried, somehow, to will that dulled part of you back, at least until he was okay, until he was asleep.

You hated this.

You couldn’t handle this, this wasn’t okay.

You needed to be able to help him, but he was the one trying to help you, trying to soothe your tears away, gentle hushing as, in spite of everything, you tried to push yourself closer to him.

This was what happened, every time he needed your help.

He would summon you, and you couldn’t feel a thing until the blood spilled from his veins had lost its form.

And then everything would hit you at once, like a freight train.

And you wished he didn’t feel like he had to help you through it.

Because here he was, only just safe of dying on your couch, and he was the one wanting to help you stop crying like a wreck.

But another sobbing breath forced itself out of your lungs, and it felt like the only thing that was keeping you from melting away into smoke was grabbing onto his forearm, letting him rub away tears from the one side of your face he could between laying down and being without the painless use of his other arm.

“You’re okay, bluebird. You’re okay. We’re okay.”

You couldn’t do much to listen to those assurances, just tried to breathe yourself through it.

He looked so tired, so sleepy. Bone deep and pond-surface thin, he needed sleep. He needed rest. You wanted to give it to him, even when you couldn’t breathe for too long without some spare tear slipping out.

But at least you looked better enough that some little curve hit the corner of his lips.

“There we go,” he muttered. “There we go.”

It wasn’t too long before you had your own voice back, too.

“You need to sleep, Frank. Are you in pain?”

“Not too bad. You need to rest, too, you—”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

He always looked taken by surprise when you say something like that after one of these bouts.

He blinked, dark eyes gentle, watching, but finally gave in.

“My arm is worst.”

“Can I fix it?”

“You need to sleep, you used enough of your energy just tonight.”

“I need to fix it,” you replied, firm, ignoring the tears threatening to spill from your eyes and the waver in your voice. “Please.”

He swallowed. “You need to sleep as part of the deal. You need to rest.”

“I know, just…,” you hesitated. “Let me stay with you.”

He nodded, after a moment.

And you leaned in and kissed him.

He woke up for a brief spell the next morning under the warmth of one of the blankets you had on the end of the couch, and with the pain in his arm was gone—in fact it was entirely fixed.

And you had moved the armchair closer and had bundled up in the rest of the blankets on it close enough to touch.

The deal was fulfilled.

And he felt okay enough to go back to sleep.

#reader insert #Frank Castle #The Punisher #Frank Castle x reader #HEY GUYS GUESS WHO TURNED OUT TO HAVE A HUGE ENJOYMENT OF WRITING SCENES WHERE THE READER JUST. DESTROYS EVERYTHING.#Also a really big fan of the following dynamic:#Man who thinks himself the biggest monster in the world finding out he isn't. But that the bigger monster chose him.#And will keep choosing him.#Not the most. Apt description but I'll take it.#ANYWAY enjoy my enjoyment of monsters. Or technically demons in this case but like.#You think demon and you think contract yes but you also think smarmy bastard who dresses nice and refuses to get their hands literally dirty #This is a my kinda demon. The hellhound kind. The kind that no one knows what it looks like because it doesn't stop changing. The monster.#If you have any questions please let me know.#Also can you tell I like Hozier?#So many of my writing playlists have at least one Hozier song.#Hozier and Lord Huron are great for writing playlists FYI.#I only rarely can do one around a theme and they're both routinely on them.#HMU for my demon!AU Spotify playlist

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