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radioactivepeasant · 3 years

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Fic Prompts: Star Wars Wednesday

(This is an excerpt from my unfinished but fully outlined Reign of Vader fic, in which Darth Vader assassinates Palpatine and then finds out that unfortunately this means he actually has to rule. After Luke is captured by the Empire, Vader reveals both his heritage and a desire to fix things in the galaxy. Luke is wary, but it's not like he has anywhere to go)

Darth Vader was not a man of infinite patience, and the Ruling Council was growing ever nearer to discovering the limits of his tolerance.

"Day-to-day procedures are a delicate matter, Majesty," Greejatus was saying, "It would be an unprecedented disaster to force change upon all offices all at once. May I recommend a gradual shift as your reign takes root?"

"Yes yes," Sate Pesage agreed. His eyes glittered out of his gaunt face with ambition. "This proposal to outlaw slavery, for instance-"

"-Is non-negotiable," Vader interrupted. "It was an idiot's decision to legalize it in the first place. My empire will have no need of slave labor."

"Of course!" Pesage bowed. He was beginning to sweat under that ridiculous hat of his. "We are eager to begin this journey into the future your reign promises, Majesty. But the galaxy is vast. Perhaps it is best to...phase the law in slowly? It takes time to bring new ordinances all the way to the Outer Rim."

Vader had heard quite enough for one day.

"Enough. The decree goes into effect tonight."

He stood, and all five members of the Council jumped a little.

"You have until then to review the revised legal codes I have provided for you."

[[MORE]]

With a sardonic lilt to his voice, he added, "The rule of the Grand Vizier through the Moffs has ended, gentlemen. If you do not feel that you are adequately prepared for the task ahead, I will accept your resignation and begin the process of finding your successor."

He waved a hand. "In the next week, we begin hearings for the Alderaanian Massacre. You are dismissed."

There was a certain satisfaction in watching Palpatine's five advisers bowing and trembling on their way out. After decades of putting up with their snide comments and inane commands, it was nice to see the shoe on the other foot for a change.

Of course, they hadn't covered much. Just an overview of what the Imperial Ruling Council actually did. Once Vader mentioned that he intended to sell his secondary residence in the district and distribute the funds as reparations, the meeting had devolved into excuses and protests for the next two hours. Luckily, he was far too stubborn to pay any attention to their complaints.

While he had no strong feelings about most of his actions in the last nineteen years, neither hatred nor regret, he was willing to acknowledge that not all of his targets had been legitimate in a military sense. For Padme's sake, he would make amends if possible.

Naturally, it was uncomfortable to try putting a price on life. But the sale of that ridiculous "castle" Palpatine insisted on him staying in would provide a good starting place.

It took about fifteen minutes of calculating, but ultimately Vader decided there was more than enough in Palpatine's personal accounts to cover about 17,000 wrongful death settlements, with additional funds in the cases of recurring medical bills.

Arranging reparations for Alderaan would take more work. Vader quickly decided he was going to delegate that to the department of finances.

(They...did have a department of finances, didn't they? Surely Sidious hadn't done his own bookkeeping.)

With that settled, Vader's itinerary consisted primarily of a meeting with the Hands to make sure they knew their boundaries. After that, a remote consultation with a newly-renowned surgeon living in one of the lower districts. It would, unfortunately, take up the majority of the day. But for now, at least, he had two hours to himself.

The emperor closed his eyes and stretched out with his senses. It took several seconds before he was able to pinpoint his son's location. Luke's presence was dimmed, slightly. Muffled.

The reason for this became apparent the moment Vader found him.

Inside the library, on the lower level, Luke was sprawled across one of the ridiculous armchairs the nobles had favored. A book lay open on his chest, rising and falling gently. A small stack of texts encompassing everything from speeder repair to adventure novels sat on the floor, just next to where one of Luke's hands dangled off the edge of the arm rest. Clearly, he had been in the library for several hours before falling asleep.

Sleep had softened the boy's features, painting him in a far more vulnerable light. The fear and caution of the previous night had been wiped away, leaving someone who seemed far too young, and far too small. How could he be twenty? How could Padme's baby already be twenty?

It was tempting to leave him there. To let him sleep. But the chair was not the most supportive frame, nor was the library the most secure chamber of the palace. Reluctantly, Vader bent to touch Luke's cheek.

"Luke," he said quietly, "This is hardly an appropriate place to sleep."

Luke's eyelids fluttered, but he did not fully awaken at once. Carefully, ever so carefully, Vader took hold of Luke's shoulders and guided him back into an upright position.

"Your spine will thank me later," he said.

Luke shifted, then opened his eyes with a groan. He didn’t seem to register Vader’s presence at first. One arm stretched up over his head, and the other came up to rub at his eyes.

“What time is it?” he yawned.

“Nearly noon,” answered Vader. The meeting with the Council had taken far longer than he would’ve liked. “Are you hungry?”

With a garbled sound, Luke waved a hand from side to side. “Don’t know yet?” he said in a still sleep-slurred voice.

After a few more seconds, he finally noticed just who had woken him. Instinctively, he straightened his spine, and looked a little bit nervous.

“Oh,” he said, very quietly. “H-hello, Father.”

“Hello, son.” Vader sounded amused. “Was your choice of reading that dull?”

After a moment, Luke nodded. He made a face. "I know there's supposed to be a famous musical made from this or something. But a whole chapter on how the sewer system of Ryloth's capital city works doesn't seem like good song material."

He jumped when Vader laughed. It was a warm, rich sound, utterly at odds with his austere appearance.

"Poor boy!" He gently took the book from his son. "That was required reading for our literature studies when I was a boy. I loathed it. Very few of my peers sought it out voluntarily."

"I guess I can see why," Luke admitted. "But it seemed like it was going to be a good story."

"Then you are better served finding an abridged copy, I think," Vader chuckled. "Come. You should eat something."

Luke pushed himself up out of the chair. “Do I...need to put the books back?”

Vader leaned back on his heels. He looked at the books, then at the shelves. “I...will leave that to your best judgement. I do not know where you got them from.”

It was such a normal sounding conversation! Why?!

Why did you have to be like...like this?! Luke fought a surprising burst of frustration. I have no idea how to talk to you!

Serious and formal one moment, then laughing the next? Vader? Laughing?! It was as if the man he’d met on Cymoon and the man idly examining his stack of books were two completely different people.

Luke set the books on the console with the Holonet terminal eventually. Vader had suggested that he learn the cataloguing system of the room at a later time. At least that seemed to mean that he would be allowed to go back to the library again. Luke thought about his conversation with Artoo. Perhaps his father was trying to be kind to him. Whether that kindness would extend to anyone else was a different matter.

“I thought you were still meeting with dignitaries or something,” Luke said.

He trailed along behind Vader up an ornate staircase with his hands in his pockets. He was still uncomfortable walking too closely to the man. For all that he acknowledged that the new emperor was, indeed, his father, he was still a force to be reckoned with.

Luke took a moment to internally groan at his unintended pun. Han would probably have elbowed him in the ribs for saying something like that. Chewie would think it was hilarious.

Luke’s attempt to stay safely out of range failed quite suddenly. Vader deliberately slowed his steps so that Luke couldn’t hang back without being extremely obvious about it. He didn’t want to offend the emperor, so he tried to ignore his fight or flight instincts shaking his insides and kept pace with his father.

“I have several more meetings to endure today,” Vader said casually. “But the most onerous of those has been dealt with.”

This was not quite true. The Ruling Council was too full of Palpatine loyalists. Just intimidating them into compliance would only work for so long. They had connections, and they had money, and that could prove to be a headache if not dealt with sooner. Vader needed to replace at least three of them.

He had almost considered appointing Luke as Vizier in Amedda’s place, but had quickly thought better of it. Such a position would almost guarantee that Luke would never have time to fly again. Cutting a Skywalker off from the stars for good seemed too cruel.

His son had not had the childhood he could have had if his mother had lived. If Palpatine had died much sooner. Let him enjoy his youth while he could.

But the problem of finding a Ruling Council that Vader could trust would still be waiting.

“The stupid hat club, right?” Luke asked.

He was unsettled by Vader’s proximity. Vader could sense that. He understood: the armor had been made to terrify. Perhaps one day he would have the option of seeing his son with his own eyes, but for now the boy would have to acclimate himself to the sight.

It was not often that Vader found himself cursing the cold, impersonal nature of his mask. He would have liked to smile at his son.

“Yes. The...stupid hat club.” He settled for letting his amusement be clearly heard in his voice. “That is not an inaccurate description. They run the day-to-day matters of ruling an Empire. But as they were all close to the former ruler, I find that I’d rather not trust them in matters of delegating governance.”

Luke grimaced. “That doesn’t sound like a good idea,” he agreed.

#star wars #star wars wednesday #fic prompts #writing prompts #Reign of Vader #luke skywalker #darth vader #ooc vader because Palpatine is dead and he's trying to decide what that means for his personality #luke is very uncomfortable but seeing Vader and Artoo arguing over upgrades helps #palpatine did not give vader any indication that ruling an empire meant actually working #he's operating on the bits and pieces he remembers from Padme's work and hating every minute of it #guess how long the empire is going to last when it turns out the emperor hates being in charge of that much minutiae #dad vader #he's actually making an effort

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iamdeku · 3 years

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Needy: Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

Me? Making a fic title that isn’t based off a song somehow? Seems unlikely.

Warnings: school stress. makin’ out. not proofread.

For @sems-diarie

You hated your classmate Bakugou Katsuki with a passion. He was arrogant, brash, and extremely loud. He was rude to you and he was rude to everybody else and he was completely convinced he was the greatest thing to ever exist. There was really only one thing you hated more than Bakugou.

Being teamed up with him for your class’s newest group project.

You had pleaded and begged with Aizawa to let you pair up with literally anyone else, but he was unyielding. All of his pairings were final, and you and Bakugou were no exception. You were just going to have to learn how to work with him, your grades be damned, apparently.

“Alright, listen up,” you said, taking your seat next to Bakugou the day after your group pairings had been announced. “You are not going to mess up my grades. If anyone is going to mess up my grades it’s going to be me. I don’t think you’re an idiot. I know you’re an idiot. So just sit down, shut up, and follow my lead.”

You were perhaps slightly harsher than necessary, even for a guy like Bakugou. In your defense though, you’d had a truly garbage day. Your coffee machine had broken, leaving you with no caffeine this morning. It was an expensive coffee machine too, and you weren’t sure when you would be able to buy a new one. You had spent half of your morning looking for the manual to the coffee machine in the hopes that Momo could just create another one for you, and by the time you realized what time it was you had no opportunity to do anything but toss your clothes on before heading to class. On your way to class, it had rained, soaking you through because you had forgotten your umbrella and provoking Mineta to make a comment on the clinginess of your wet uniform. You had gotten a worse grade than you were expecting on your last test, you had tripped and spilled all of your lunch across the floor, and now here you were, having to sit next to your assigned group partner, hair still damp and mood still very, very bad.

“Hey, I don’t know who you think you are extra, but I’m no idiot. If you think we’re not beating everybody else in this class, then you’re wrong. I don’t know what you’ve been told, but Bakugou Katsuki never loses.”

You had known the great Bakugou Katsuki for the last 3 years of yours and his UA career, and now, in your final year, you were pretty confident that you still knew him. You knew him as a guy who had definitely lost before in the past. There was no particular shame in that, but you couldn’t afford to lose this time, especially not on Katsuki’s account.

“You better be right about that, pretty boy, because this grade is important to me. If we get a bad grade on this assignment it’s going to throw off my entire average, which I really can’t afford right now. Speaking of which, we really don’t have the time for all this dilly-dallying. Let’s get to work, king explosion murder,” you mocked.

To your surprise, the ever confident Bakugou turned bright red at the old nickname.

“Whatever. Let’s just get to work. We’re going to have to trade contact information so we can figure out a time to meet up. Plus I don’t trust you not to screw this up without my advice.”

You rolled your eyes. The nerve of this boy. The sheer gall.

“Yeah, okay, whatever.” You reached into your soggy backpack and pulled out a pencil and a piece of paper, scribbling down your phone number.

“We should just be able to meet up in one of the dorm’s common areas. The trick will be finding a time when everyone else isn’t working there.”

You sighed, knowing your classmates wouldn’t make the scheduling of this easy. Even ignoring the fact that you might have to deal with their noise and obnoxious planning, Bakugou’s sleep schedule was another barrier to your project design. He went to bed early enough to severely limit your time for working on the group project. You honestly didn’t know when he found the time for homework. If you didn’t do yours immediately it probably wouldn’t get done until the very last minute.

“We can just study in our rooms. It will be quieter there.” Bakugou shrugged.

You froze at his casual words. Study in your rooms? As in study in his room? Nobody had ever been invited into Bakugou’s room. Not his best friend Kirishima. Not his childhood rival Midoriya. Not even that girl from the gen-ed course he’d dated when you were second years. Nobody.

“Uh…are you sure?”

“Yeah. Why?” He raised an eyebrow at you. “You’re making a weird face, idiot.”

You shook your head. “Nothing. I was just thinking. Yeah, we can just study in our rooms. Just text me before randomly showing up, okay?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Aizawa was starting up class, causing you both to shut up. You felt a part of you get very excited that you might be about to see Bakugou’s room. There was something sort of forbidden to the feeling, fluttering around in your chest like a stupid flock of butterflies or something. You were sure it was just the appeal of his room, the secrecy of it all. You loved knowing other people’s secrets. That must have been what it was.

As it turned out though, your hopes and dreams were all in vain. Bakugou texted you to ask about studying, not in his room, but your room. You complied of course. As much as you wanted to see the inside of his mysterious room, you respected his privacy. After all, rooms were sacred. Your room was a deeply personal expression of yourself, and you weren’t about to pry into his space. It wouldn’t get you a better grade anyway, seeing as your project wasn’t on the inside of Bakugou’s room.

You had cleaned up your room earlier in preparation for this moment, anticipating that sooner or later Bakugou would want to study in your room even if you had briefly entertained hopes that he would want to study in his. Your normally messy desk was cleared off, your bed was made and your dirty laundry was all in the basket where it belonged. If you hadn’t cleaned the room yourself you would probably think that you didn’t live here.

Bakugou walked into the room with all the posturing of royalty, shoulders thrown back confidently as he eyed your room. He sniffed, passing whatever final judgement he would, and proceeded to sit down at your desk.

“Nice room, nerd. Cleaner than I thought it would be.”

You grew uncomfortably warm at the truth of his accusation, feeling specifically called out. Could he possibly have heard you vacuuming earlier? It didn’t matter. You didn’t care about his opinion.

“Yeah, whatever. Let’s just get to work, shall we?”

You pulled out your notebook, taking a seat on the floor and gesturing for him to join you.

“Why are you sitting on the floor, idiot?”

“I don’t have two chairs for both of us to work at the desk, so therefore the floor is our next best option.”

“No it isn’t.” Bakugou rolled his eyes. “You have a bed, don’t you? We can just sit on your bed and that way you don’t have to break you tailbone on the floor. Unless you like sitting on the hard floor.”

You gritted your teeth, glaring up at the challenge.

You pushed off from your hand, standing so you could loom over where he sat at your desk. “Fine. Bed it is then.”

You took a seat on your bed as he stood up from your desk chair he had invited himself to sit in. You waited for him to take his spot next to you on the bed, but he hesitated. For a guy who had suggested this idea, he didn’t seem to like it very much. Your surprise wore off though when you realized that he was being…awkward. Bakugou Katsuki was being awkward.

Was it you? Had you done something to make him uncomfortable? Or had he just been shy this whole time?

You could have laughed at him, but instead you took pity. You remembered your first year, when you had been painfully awkward. Maybe Bakugou had always been like that and you had just never had occasion to notice until now.

“Go ahead,” you said, patting the bed next to you. “Take a seat. I don’t bite, and even if I did you would like it.”

You laughed a little bit at your own joke, even if Bakugou didn’t seem to think it was very funny. You did succeed in getting him to sit on the bed though, so some small victories were won. He was stiff and sat much farther away from you than necessary, but he sat nonetheless.

After hours of working together, you managed to have a rough outline for the project. It was sort of a tricky project, based around gathering knowledge and making a presentation on the hero you thought to be the best. Bakugou had insisted with surprising vehemence on making it on All Might, and you agreed with him. After all, he was the symbol of peace and had been the #1 hero for decades. Even though this was a move you would have predicted more from Midoriya, you figured if you were going to do this project you might as well do it right.

Bakugou got up to head to bed, but you stopped him before he could leave. “Hey…I didn’t know you were so into All Might.”

Bakugou blushed, nervously scratching the back of his head.

“I mean, we all love All Might, don’t we?”

“I mean, I know I do.” You laughed a little to set him at ease before revealing a little bit of yourself. “When I was a kid All Might was always my favorite hero because of his smile. I always thought that if someone were ever to come save me, I would want them to smile at me like that.”

Bakugou was silent for a moment, thinking about your words.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I was always so impressed by his strength, and the way people loved him. I always wanted to be loved like that. I wanted to make people believe that I could help them. That they could trust me.”

There was a deep sense of vulnerability to his words that made you want to know more and made you want to understand this boy you had clearly underestimated.

“Is that why you became a hero?”

He huffed, retreating back into himself. “I became a hero to prove I was better than everybody.”

In a way, it was a yes.

“Have a goodnight, Bakugou.”

He stopped in your doorway, looking back at you with a hint of that vulnerability from earlier.

“Goodnight.”

You had been working nonstop for the past 4 days. You had your schedule set up to an unreasonable level of strictness. You would work for an hour, watch a 10 minute motivational video, then work for an hour again. The only real breaks you took were to eat and sleep, and it was starting to wear on you. You just had so much work to do, and you needed to be free this weekend for the sleepover Mina was having, but you were exhausted.

You had finally reached a breaking point tonight, and you found yourself sitting in your bed crying. You weren’t pretty crying either. It was an ugly, exhausted cry, yanked out of you by the hours of work and stress. You had fallen onto your side, curled up in bed as the sounds choked out of you, ugly things breaking you open and cracking your chest and your voice.

Because of all the stress you had been under, you had completely forgotten about your group project. You had met up with Bakugou the first couple of days, but yesterday you had begged off and reschedule for…today. Right now.

You didn’t even hear Bakugou’s polite knock on your door, the same three knock rap he had given the last few days before coming in to work on your project with you for an hour. If he thought you were ignoring him or just not there, it didn’t stop him from coming in. You didn’t notice, completely oblivious to his presence until he spoke.

“Are you hurt?”

He rushed over to your side, rolling over your body to inspect you. His hands were surprisingly gentle as they skimmed over your body, checking for injuries, gently pressing into the divots of old scars. He found no hurt on you though, and pulled back, frowning.

“What’s the matter? Why are you crying?”

You sniffled loudly, shamefully wiping your arm across your face.

“I’m fine,” you reassured him, repeating it for your own benefit. “I’m fine, I’m totally fine. Everything is fine.”

“You sound like stupid Deku. Every time he’s ever told me he was fine he was lying.”

You choked out a giggle against your will. “Yeah, he does that doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, he does. But unlike Deku you’re not stupid. You want to explain this little episode to me?”

“I’m just…stressed.” You sighed, explaining your situation to him.

He sat back, stunned. “Well no wonder you finally broke. Nobody can work like that. You have to have fun, you idiot!”

For such a nice sentiment, he said it awfully aggressively. He almost made you burst into tears again, but he seemed to realize his mistake, quickly softening his voice again as he floundered for something to say.

“I…you…I’ve never seen you cry before,” he said.

“Yeah, well, I do it. This may come as a surprise but I’m human too, y’know.”

His hands still rested on your thighs, and you looked up at him hesitantly, breath catching in your throat. You had, of course, noticed that he was pretty before. Sharp cheek bones, harsh blond hair, bright red eyes that dug into your soul. Somehow though, he had gotten prettier over the past couple of days as you had gotten to know him, gotten to understand him better.

Before, you had thought he was arrogant. From your conversations though, you knew better. He just cared about people too much. Cared about their opinions too much, feared rejection. You offered up a little piece of yourself in exchange for everything he had admitted to you.

“Remember what I told you about All Might being my favorite hero? I thought to be a good hero you had to always be smiling. You could never show weakness. Not anger or sadness or anything else. That’s why you’ve never seen me cry before. Why I’m always so happy go lucky. Because I have to be.”

There was a pause while Bakugou processed that information.

“That’s…stupid,” he decided. “You shouldn’t hold back on your emotions like that. You deserve to feel things. You can’t dedicate your life to other people like that.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m starting to figure that out.” You stared down at your bedspread.

You were shocked when you felt a warm, calloused hand brush your cheek. Bakugou hesitantly, tenderly wiped the last of your tears away, and you felt something in your heart flutter. You had known Bakugou Katsuki a long time, but you had never known him like this. Looking up into his eyes did nothing to dispel your butterflies when you saw how soft his gaze was. Something in you ached to be looked at like that, to be held in someone’s hands as carefully as he was holding you now.

“Can I…can I kiss you?”

You weren’t sure where the question had come from, and yet you were, because some time along the way of getting to know him you had realized something. Everything you had thought there was to hate about Bakugou was really something to love. Over the course of this project, you had done something extraordinarily stupid. You had developed feelings for a boy who would never like you back. Which was why his next words stole your breath entirely.

“Please,” Bakugou said, his words a sticky sweet, fervent plea.

You blinked, daring to look at him again only to find him wide open to you. He was leaning forward, a look in his eyes you could scarcely describe, a feverish desire overcoming him. His hand on your face twitched ever so slightly in anticipation as you leaned forward.

When your lips met his, you were surprised by the easiness of it. You fell forward into him, arms draped around his broad shoulders as he pulled you in, large hand wrapping around your waist, firm and capable. He tasted like burnt sugar, impossibly so, and it made your head spin, made you dizzy with the sensation. It made you hungry for him.

When he licked your lower lip, you let him swallow you down, hands blazing a fiery trail across your waist to your back, making the trip over and over and burning into you with their warmth. You tugged on his hair lightly, eliciting a moan from him that shot straight through your chest. You gasped into his open mouth, your clumsy kiss flipping when he slipped his tongue into your mouth. Everything became easier when you let him take over, let him pull you into his lap up against the hardness of his body and tilt your head to the side just so, pliable and soft in his arms. Kissing him became easy and natural, shivers running through your body as you surrendered yourself to the experience.

When he finally pulled away, you found yourself licking a mixture of your spit and his off your mouth, not even minding how profoundly gross that was. Normally you would have shuddered, but you were far too busy staring at him, mesmerized and breathless.

“You, uh…that was…that was really nice. And I think you’re pretty.” Bakugou coughed. “Do you want to go out sometime? Because obviously you need somebody to distract you from your homework, stupid. Look what you did. Made a mess of yourself.”

You ducked your head into his shoulder at his words, hiding your face and your embarrassment. “Yeah, sure. That sounds nice.”

He hummed, the sound resonating in his chest and traveling straight to your ear. “Can I…kiss you again then?”

“I thought you would never ask.”

#you guys have to tell me if there are any glaring mistakes in here it is the law #i was too tired to proofread it #mha #bnha #bakugou katsuki #agedup!bakugou #bakugou x reader #katsuki x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader

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lunarecat · 2 years

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My Problem with the Arbiter Vildred Skin…

First, I want to preface this up front:

This is a rant essay and it is just MY personal opinion and you do not have to agree. I am also in the minority here, so you should not take my opinion on the skin as a point of elitism or attack on your tastes, especially when most people are likely to agree with you lol. i think its a good design on its own and that you are completely valid if you like it, and this is not meant to be a judgement towards anyone who does like it. Vildred is a character that matters very very much to me, however, so i just really needed to just release my emotional distress about the skin somewhere, so if my being negative about it would upset you in any way, please do not read and please surround yourself with positivity about the skin<3

(Do NOT read beyond this if you dont want to see the negative takes, just warning you cuz I’m scared the “read more” feature wont work anymore lkjdhfg)

That said, here we go:

Why i really fucking hate this skin lol

1. This doesn’t look like a Vildred design to me at all. This looks like a general “insert cool edgy anime villain here” design and it looks like little was taken into account about Vildred himself as a character. This is actually baffling to me because super creative tries to be so thoughtful about their character designs, so Vildred looking like this as an end result is just… weird to me. If its the tragic end result of his story then I guess that makes sense but they had no reason to turn him into a whole other character without any fashion sense.

I am aware that in the original story, the “Straze” design was based on Vildred’s designed before being scrapped. This was a fuckin wise decision in my book because Vildred is such a strong character on his own that stringing him out to suit a much more boring and less appealing narrative than the tragic and packed one he already had wouldve been cheap and risked a badly written end result.

Regardless, that is no longer the current canon so the fact that this design just took various elements of straze and plastered them onto Vildred, whose episode 1 design does not lend itself at all to that aesthetic, nor did it even with proto-straze’ s design, just comes off as fucking lazy. I will come back to this point about laziness later…

First though, lemme Segway into number 2 with my next point

2. This design looks like characters who already exist in the game. Ive already talked at length about how it looks like straze but it also looks like Ran. I like Ran a lot, i like his history with Vildred, i also like how close they were in that history and the idea that Vildred took a lot of aesthetic inspiration from Ran is very nice and all. However, here’s the result of this: I dont see Vildred anymore. I see someone i used to love lost in a mess of too many other clashing elements. It’s unnecessary.

“That might be the point tho”, you say! Well, thats a good point! The tragedy of Vildred’s story is that he was a victim of so many other people’s schemes, manipulation, and influence. He was a pawn, so desperate for anyone to just be honest with him and treat him like someone worthy of respect, someone who *mattered*, that he opened his heart one more time at the last minute. And it was *only* because Ras was 2 seconds late in noticing Meru that he died, because Vildred dared to give someone 1 last chance to do right by him. Vildred as a person was thus lost in the tangled webs of so many others around him, no matter how hard he tried to control his own destiny and save others.

But here’s why that still doesnt fucking matter regarding the design of this stupid rta skin lmao:

This is a gacha game. A gacha game based around anime with high quality art. This is a gacha game that many people, like me, spend money on regularly, because we fall in love with the characters, and the first impressions we get of them are always gonna be their designs. *VISUALS. ARE. A TOP. PRIORITY.*

SO THIS IS A *BAD DESIGN NO MATTER HOW YOU SLICE IT*. HERE’S A SHORT LIST OF REASONS WHY.

1. Silhouette is WAY too similar to other existing characters in the game. Mort, Straze, Garo, Daydream Vildred, Dark Corvus, Ran etc. This already hurts his presence as a design because he’s gonna blend in too much with other units.

2. Color scheme is WAYYYYY too similar to other existing characters, for the same reasons as 1, hes gonna blend in too much but also (see 3)

3. Color scheme is also BAD. It’s good to have a skin color scheme/silhouette contrast with the original, because it creates a really strong design to juxtapose with the old one. It’s why spec tennys design is so fucking great. I appreciate that they tried to do that here but it was done SO BADLY OKAY DFKGLJH its monotonous, its not striking, it too dark so its blurs too much, and the way it looks in the animation? IS AWFUL. The specific shades they chose for his gray hair next to his skin/fur are not distinct enough, they blend awkwardly and cause a really unappealing clash with the monotonous black and purple things going on below.

4. What the fuck is this outfit its so ugly and bad i dont even know what exactly to say cuz I’m baffled they really let this leave the drawing room??? What the fuck is the spider man chest nonsense, he looks like Venom, i dont understand why they would make this visual which looks so out of place in this grandiose anime setting such a prominent focal point of one of their most popular and most marketed characters in the whole game?! Why is he wearing furry boots that look like the kind of trash high school kids throw away when they get over their Lolita goth phase. Why does he have 2 capes? Why does the second cape magically appear when he strikes with his sword? Why do they turn into demon wings? Youre already here, why couldnt he just have wings? Why’d you give him 2 capes at all? He didnt even need 1 cape lmao. His hair already acted as a pretty dynamic visual in the bg of his art. Why’d they even touch his hair also, that was the most important visual element of Vildred’s design cuz it set set him apart from other Ezeran characters and added so much more animation his actions. Imo thats just way too important a feature to risk potentially ruining it by messing with it. They also gave him furry shoulders again, i have NO idea why they did that, i dont think ive heard a single positive review about the shoulder fur on his otherwise decent rgb skin lmao.

5. YOU COVERED. VILDREDS. ARM MUSCLES. YOU COVERED THEM UP. YOU TACKED NEEDLESS JUNK ON TOP OF THAT TOO, WHY DOES HE NEED THE DRACO SCALES???? THIS IS VILDRED DAYERN. THE SWORDSMAN. VILDRED WHOSE RGB S3 DIRECTLY SPOTLIGHTS HIS ARM MUSCLES. VILDRED WHOSE ML PORTRAIT SHOVES HIS ARM MUSCLES RIGHT IN YOUR FACE. WHY IN THE *FUCK* WOULD YOU HIDE THEM?! I talked a lot about that but this is similar to the hair thing, NEW DESIGN REMOVES THE KEY FEATURES OF HIS ORIGINAL DESIGN AND REPLACES THEM WITH BAD SHIT THAT IS BAD DLFJKGH. I think they were so desperate to make the titty and happy trail window work that they thought they had to cover his arms to “balance out” the design? But if you ask me? That means youre making a bad design? Fucking try again? You literally just needed to give him a low cut shirt that could flap up to show his stomach later, what the fuck is with this full front window lol. This goes for the bad ML Luna design too btw, why on earth they thought the correct thing to do on Luna Big Titty Dragon Bianca’s ML design was to hide her titties inside some ugly boob socks is beyond me lmao. Is this how spec tenny simps felt when they took away her feet? Cuz god i feel your pain bro dlfgkjh

TLDR ITS THE MOST LAZY AS FUCK DESIGN EVER

I could probably go on but I’m tired of thinking about just how ugly this skin is so I’m gonna just hurry up and get to major point number 3:

I do not think this skin was meant to appeal to me or my demographic at all. This skin was meant to appeal to dudebros lmao. Dudebros being the short version of “horny cissexual hetero male gamer audience” for anyone not savvy to this new discourse slang lmao.

The chest and abs window might be meant for us???? but… that doesn’t matter when the rest of the skin looks awful sorry lmao.

Here’s the appeal of Vildred to the people outside of the dudebro fandom who adore him. The queer and fem audience. The non normative audience. The audience who makes fan art, fanfic, fanimations, cosplays, and community projects that SG both desperately wants to milk for free advertising but also shuns and ignores and fucks over constantly cuz we dont fit the straight bros only brand theyre trying to pander to.

The appeal is that VILDRED. IS. FUCKING. BEAUTIFUL. INSIDE AND OUTSIDE. HE’S GODDAMN PRETTY, HE HAS A FACE THAT IS LITERALLY DRAWN THE SAME WAY THE WAIFUS’ FACES ARE DRAWN, HE HAS LONG GORGEOUS HAIR, A SENSE OF HUMOR, AND A WARM SMILE, AND BIG BUFF ARMS THAT WOULD HUG YOU NICE AND TIGHT.

Why does this matter you ask? CUZ THIS IS WHAT SEPARATES HIM FROM YOUR STANDARD SHONEN GENRE BEEFCAKE HUSBANDOS!!! This is what makes *VILDRED* stand out from so many in his own gender category. He’s strong but not a huge beefcake. Dont get me wrong, my bi ass LOVES me some beefcake but if i wanted beefcake when i play this game, I’d play ML Ken (as i have many many times), I’d play Straze, I’d play Ran, Corvus, etc, OR I’d log out and play another game with a beefcake i love in it, cuz do you know who i play e7 for?! MY GODDAMN BEAUTIFUL GENDER NORM-DESTROYING HUSBANDO VILDRED FUCKING DAYERN.

I play for Vildred because Vildred has a tragic queer narrative that speaks to me, he has a painful angsty story that hurts my emotions cuz he was being used and manipulated for so long, yet he still finds a way to make you laugh with his sense of humor and his open heart. I play for Vildred because he makes me feel less alone in this miserable life and he fills me with inspiration for creative works. This is what’s called a comfort character and e7 actively panders to dudebros for this (ie their “feel less alone at christmas with us :3” stream) as does a lot of the anime industry, thats why mascots are so big in japan, they make u fucking happy when the real world fucking sucks.

So with all that said: WHY DID THEY EVER THINK THE CORRECT DECISION WAS TO MAKE VILDREDS EPIC SKIN THE POLAR OPPOSITE OF WHAT MAKES VILDRED SO SPECIAL AND APPEALING???

Oh right I guess cuz my demographic literally doesn’t matter to smilegate lmao. It doesn’t matter how much money *I’ve* spent on the game, or how much time I’ve given, how much creativity I’ve devoted to it, how much i participate in their community events, how much i recommend the game to other people cuz I WANT the game to be successful and make MONEY.

I’m not part of the dudebro collective that funds the majority of the game’s profits, and i *especially* am not a dudebro who can play on the region locked japan server lmao.

So no matter how much Vildred Dayern means to me, no matter how much i cherished him over the past few years, no matter how much he comforted me when i was at my most dysphoric, when i was most depressed in school, or when i was most miserable at work… it doesnt matter what i wanted for him. 8’)

But guess what this is my blog lmao

So here’s what they SHOULD HAVE DONE, according to me, one of Vildred’s most devoted simps lmao:

I figured there were basically 2 SAFE options for this skin, safe as in you’d have to *really* work hard to fuck them up, they are no brainer husbando types that you cant possibly do badly.

Option 1: Demonic Husbando Vildred

Option 2: A pretty kimono Vildred (this would probably be like a “in death i long to have walked the path of light with you after all…” kinda narrative, a similar ‘saint afterlife’ thing as ruele/kise if they didnt wanna pretend vildras doesnt exist anymore now that they have violulu to pander with, but they also literally could have just stuffed him in a pretty outfit like they did with tenebria and it��d be goddamn FINE)

Demonic *Husbando*:

i realize thats technically what the actual skin was but i mean a GOOD demonic husbando, the kind we would WANT to marry, i mean a fucking PRETTY, HANDSOME, ALLURING demonic husbando, not the ugly tragic husbando they made cuz they actually thought what we wanted was to play with sad vildred for the next 10 years at the absolute *worsT* point in his miserable life.

The RIGHT way to do this:

-dark robes with a BRIGHT accent, usually red but purple couldve still worked

-a color scheme with STRIKING contrast. See above point^ that accent color needs to POP against the dark design

-SHOW THE SCAR IN SOME WAY BUT NOT IN AN UGLY WAY YOU DUDEBRO PANDERING MOTHERFUCKERS SLDFJKGH

-H O R N S. The current design does have these, GOOD FUCKING JOB YOU DID ONE THING RIGHT!<3

-dark hair cuz this is Vildred and thats one of those key elements i said they need to leave alone but ADD A POPPING ACCENT!: either bright colored hair tips (like spec tenny’s) or some popping hair pieces (big fan of bright colored eastern hair pieces, gold is especially nice) or add bright ombré colors to his horns (make them glow red/pink/purple at the end or something)

-NO EXTRA BULK ON HIS DESIGN, he can be shredded, just dont add any heavy or busy design elements cuz we’re trying to stick to vildred’s type here and avoid the bulky beefcake aesthetic we have with dark Corvus or ml ken.. or straze..

-I’d personally have the robes or capes drape entirely behind him so hes got a skirt silhouette but his front and legs are totally visible, mostly because thats the Ezeran style he seems to favor but if youre a demon lord we need some formality and we need to unify his rgb skin with the rest of his designs in some way

-add some loose areas to his clothing to reveal peeks at any non-human skin changes like we have on the real skin (they know exactly how to make it look cool on tenebria there is no reason for arby to be ugly about it lmao)

-if you still want the window on his whole front, thats fine, but here’s how to do it: literally give him a robe or shirt.. and have it be completely open lol. He does not need to be Spider-Man 3 to showcase his scar for people.

The corrupt Vildred thing can be just fine for this too, he can have dragon/demon arms and skin now but you have. To fucking. Think. PRETTY about it dfkgljdlkfjhg.

Option 2:

This idea is a little more vague cuz i wasnt actually sure how they SHOULD do this one since it depends on so many factors, namely whether they even wanted to do this over the more obvious archdemon option or if they wanted him to be reborn saintly like ruele or just hot like tenebria. The basic idea tho, is literally just design a pretty vildred in a kimono lmao why a kimono? Cuz we’re in natalon, we’re trying to appeal to Japanese players, we’re trying to appeal to anime fans, we’re trying to compete with Genshin who released inazuma last year, BUT IT DOESNT EVEN HAVE TO BE THAT DEEP OKAY, IT IS THE SIMPLEST THING IN THE WORLD TO TAKE A PRETTY MAN AND DRESS HIM PRETTY I AM NOT ASKING MUCH LMAOOO

If he does need a narrative tho, here’s one: The basic idea is design a Vildred who regret what he did or at least died at peace in his heart, so he’s now on a light path again in this new life after he died, despite the archdemon corruption. This means he still looks tragic but much more willowy and sympathetic way rather than a tragic sexy way like hed be in option 1 (tho this will still be a sexy style trust me).

-dark robes, (most likely one of those kimono-remixes he had in his rgb skin again just cuz the aesthetic suits him and it looks nice for a premium skin after years of using him in a western looking suit), with purple/red colors that appear at the ends and such

-some sort of halo behind him reminiscent of arch meru’s tho in this case it indicates a saintly vibe over a devilish one

-horns are still very fine i will never complain about giving my waifus and husbandos horns its my favorite thing dlkfjgh

-a nice slender and sleek silhouette, DO NOT BULK HIM UP I SWEAR DLFGJH this is especially important here tho cuz we wanna emphasize the tragic aspect which means the less powerful/hulky he looks aside from muscles, the better

In summary: just dont take a Bishonen man and turn him into an ugly monster man idk how thats so hard dlfkgjh

I also wanna complain about how rushed this skin feels, the animation looks so BAD?! WERE THEY EVEN DONE SHADING IT???? The english voice acting is also BAD (and i do NOT think thats his va’s fault, i think they just didn’t have this design finalized when he came in so there was a lot of ????? As to what to do for it???? No idea but its bad and they didnt even take the time to proof read the translations lmao “There is no light. All there is, is silence and regret.” I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THIS FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS, COULD YOU LITERALLY NOT HAVE RUN THIS BY A SINGLE OTHER TRANSLATOR DLKFGJH “There is no light… There is only silence and regret.” THERE I FIXED IT, IT TOOK 0 TIME DFLKJGH.

My final complaint for now:

I stayed up for this announcement like an idiot cuz i wanted to see the Vildred skin so bad… and not only did they reveal *this* lazy ass design, but also, Mashuu and Geguri spent the whole stream bro-ing out about their waifus for valentines, which is COMPLETELY fine, I’d be doing that too if i hosted cuz I’m bi for the women’s too. But because of the Vildred skin now being the biggest disappointment for me in this game so far, it just made me feel that much more erased, like this game is just 110% not for me lmao. It’s a horny cishet man’s game and they are just allowing me to exist near it. I’m just so glad to know exactly how little I and anyone else in my position matters to them because all they see is profit and only profits from the loudest, safest, most obnoxious majority to pander to. I feel awful for any queer person or woman who has to deal with the bullshit of working there, and i hope you find a better place to be, and i hope this IP finds a better company willing to respect its integrity.

OKAY I THINK IVE ROASTED THIS WHOLE THING THOROUGHLY ENOUGH NOW, GOOD NIGHT~

#catext

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sparklingchan · 3 years

Text

The Prince and I || Jeong Yunho(Ateez)

Pairing : Reader (fem.) x Yunho.

Word count : 9.2k+

Warnings : Cuss words, minor injuries, Yunho BEING A FLUFFBALL!!

Genre : Fluff, angst, Arranged marriage au, Royal au.

Description : Your marriage to Prince Yunho feels like nothing less than a fairytale - but a fairytale is incomplete without a villain, right?

A/N: This fic took longer than I thought it would lol

This is a part of the holiday treats event conducted by kafenetwork. This fic is for the lovely Anna! I hope you like it and I hope it didn’t disappoint. I’m sorry I cannot tag you here because this site always decides to eat up my posts with tags in it :((

Enjoy!

"This wedding dress is a little expensive, granny."

The silky cloth slips away from in between your fingers, as quick as sand. You hadn't ever touched a piece of cloth as beautiful and smooth as this one, really. In fact, you'd never ever seen anything like the dress presented before you at the moment. And well, as much as you want to buy it, you knew you couldn't. Not unless you use up all your life's savings.

"I'm sure Ms. Claire here could find us something less...royal." you mutter again when your Grandmother doesn't respond.

Ms. Claire, the owner of the elegant boutique you find yourself standing in this morning, smiles at you sheepishly. "Oh, what nonsense! You will be married into a royal family, y/n. I cannot have you wear a normal wedding dress."

You sigh, turning away from the mannequin that donnes your dream wedding dress and crouching down to speak to your granny, "Granny, we won't have any money left if we buy this."

Your grandmother has been in the wheel chair for as long as you could remember. But she has more energy and life in her than most young people out there, including you. She's like this ball of sunshine who adores you to death. And now that the most important event of your life is slowly coming close with every passing day, you find her enthusiasm increasing likewise. She would wake up every morning and coax you to work out and do your skin care routine every night before bed. Today too, she forced you to allow her to tag along on your last shopping trip before your big day. Though you never say it out loud, your grandmother is nothing short of an angle. And you'd do anything to make her happy.

"I have saved up enough money to buy three such dresses, y/n." Your grandmother says as you lean down , "Miss Claire, pack this one up please."

Miss Claire nods and smiles at your granny, "Surely, madam."

Her assistant takes away the mannequin to get it packed up and billed.

You sit on the small couch present in the room as your eyes roam around the room full of pretty dresses and veils and shoes. It feels surreal all of a sudden, as if you were in a day dream you'd often think about as a teenager.

"What? Do you want anything else? I have enough money for that too." Your grandmother chimes in, rolling the wheelchair a little towards you, "Should we buy one for your mom too?"

Your mom, though equally excited for your wedding as your grandmother, was more on the realistic side. She'd give you a reality check ever so often - about husbands and in-laws and everything surrounding it. You're also not very sure your mom would appreciate spending so much money on dresses in a single day, especially when your wedding stands only four days away.

"No, granny, mom has enough dresses." You run a soothing hand through her grey and thin hair, "Aren't you tired? We've been out for a long time now."

"Do I look tired to you? " she raises an eyebrow, her eyes wrinkling up as she smiles at you sweetly. She's such an adorable little woman that it makes your heart melt everytime she looks at you.

"No," you roll your eyes, "Guess we can go and pick up Maya's dress while we're at it."

"Maya as in your best friend? The annoyingly loud girl from your college?" You snort at your granny's choice of words to describe your best friend.

You hear Miss Claire call you towards the payment counter and before you could move a finger, your granny races you to it.

"Come on, girl, what are you- eighty?" She teases you with a loud chuckle.

And still, you may not say it out loud , but your granny is your whole world. And when you are married off into the royal family of your father's old hometown, the only person you'll miss badly is probably your sweet old grandmother.

Later that evening, after dropping your grandma back home, you decide to walk to your best friend's apartment which is located just a few blocks away from yours. You carry her dress with you but deep down, you know that's not the only reason as to why you wanted to visit her this late at night.

"I need advice. "

"About what?"

"Marriage and life. "

Your best friend's eyes widen at your words. Her lips part as if she wanted to comment something but then stopped herself. "Maya, dude please. I'm terribly scared and I can't talk to anyone else at home." You admit, playing with the hem of your dress. A sudden sense of embarrassment and shyness washes over you but you push all that away before they get the best of you.

Maya puts down her dress on the bed.

"Y/n, I could give you all the advice in the world but believe me, you won't be able to apply it practically. I married a normal man from a normal family. We live in a cozy apartment in a city. But for you, it's different. You'll not marry a common person- you're marrying a prince for God's sake. A Crown Prince on top of that. You'll be living in a castle far away in the mountains. I don't know how my advice would be of any help here, y/n." Maya says, her hand gently patting yours.

You shift in your place, the bed creaking softly beneath you.

Maya is unarguably right - her advice won't be useful in your case. In fact, no one's advice would be useful to you unless they've had a first hand experience with an arranged marriage and a royal life. Yet these facts do little to comfort your growing fear and anxiousness.

"I haven't even met him in person yet. I only saw him over a few stupid video calls and in his pictures. I don't know what to expect." You say.

His Highness Crown Prince Yunho is a pretty busy man it turns out. So busy that he hasn't even been able to take some time out of his duties and come visit his fiancé for a few hours. He's a beautiful man, you have to say. Elegant and stylish and well mannered and everything about him screams Royal. He often texts you in his free time and calls you once in a blue moon. He seems like a nice man indeed, the kind you'd love to marry even without his royal heritage. But being his wife and a Crown Princess is a challenge you'd have to face completely on your own.

"Your granny thinks he's a good man, y/n. Maybe you should trust her judgement. Old people have that in themselves, you know." Maya says with a small smile, "Plus he's a Prince. You'll live a luxurious life, y/n. Don't be so pessimistic! I'm sure things will turn out great."

You give your best friend a tight hug for trying to cheer you up and helping you forget your fears even if it's just for a few hours . That night, as you toss and turn in your bed, trying to keep your mind free from thoughts about your life after marriage, you realise how big of a change this one thing will make.

And you're not very sure if you're ready for that change yet.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

The weather is quite pleasant today, the sun shining softly through the thin curtain of clouds and the humidity deciding to be a little forgiving today but too bad you're stuck inside your room, folding clothes and making sure all your necessities are packed in the luggage.

"Well, this is not how I expected my last day at home to turn out, " you complain to your mother who sits across from you on the bed, helping you pack your things, "But it is what it is, I guess."

Your mom chuckles, placing your folded clothes into huge black suitcase spread open on the floor. "This isn't bad. You're alone with your family and friend, what more do you need?"

A fancy Bachelorette party with your friends and a few male strippers didn't sound like a very appropriate response so you decide to just shake your head.

"Aren't you angry though? Even just a little bit?" She asks. You scowl at the unexpected, out of context question. You are scared and anxious and nervous but angry? Not at all.

"What do you mean? Why would I be angry?" You reply, crossing your arms in front of your chest, "I'm fine."

She sighs, momentarily pausing her actions to face you. Her eyes are a little moist, you notice, and her lips pressed into a sad line. "Your grandmother betrothed you to Prince Yunho when you guys were just nineteen. It is an arranged marriage, to a person you don't know and a family which holds so much power. She didn't give you freedom to choose your own partner. Aren't you angry about that?" She elaborates.

You feel a soft tug in your heart at her words. You've been so preoccupied with worrying about how you'd handle yourself after marriage that you never really thought about this. Even so, when you really think about it, you can't find it in yourself to be angry at your grandmother.

"Granny and Prince Yunho's grandmother were best friends, mom. They made a promise and I respect that. Plus granny never forced me to say yes. I did that on my own account. " you explain yourself, your hand slowly reaching over to squeeze your mom's shoulder, "Don't worry about me. I'll manage. I always do."

Its rather funny how you were the one needing assurance from Maya a few nights ago and here you are, repeating the same words of encouragement to your mother. A part of you is obviously still terrified of the future, but that's not your mom's problem to deal with. It's entirely yours.

Your mom sniffs, but a tear manages to roll down her cheek, "I'll miss having you around. Why couldn't she have arranged your marriage to a normal person who lived in the same city?"

And then it finally dawns on you. It really is your last day at home. Your last day in the city you so dearly loved, your last day in the house which has seen you grow from a little baby to a beautiful, young woman. It's your last day as y/n y/l/n, your parents' only child and your grandmother's favorite grandchild. Tomorrow, you would be a Princess, a wife, a person of political importance. And your heart breaks a little at the thought of never getting this life back again.

"Mom.." you mutter, your eyes tearing up as well. Words fall short when it comes to describing how much you'll miss everyone and everything here. Starting from your friends to your family to the smallest of decorative items in your room that you've managed to collect over the years. It's like a piece of you would just cease to exist. As the night grows darker and the day crosses over to the next one, you hold your mother close as the both of you let out the quietest of sobs and realise that this might be the last time she'd have you all to herself.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

The journey from your parents' old house to Prince Yunho's ancestral palace is short - not with respect to time but with respect to the fact that amidst tearful eyes and memory flashbacks, the car ride gives you little to no time to settle your hurricane of thoughts.

As your dad's car slowly pulls over in front of a huge black metal gate, you are welcomed with a view that seems right out of a fairytale. The Royal palace is located in the most beautiful locations you've ever been to, a place you never thought could exist in real life. It almost feels like you are in a dream. With the beautiful backdrop of lush green mountains in the back, the Palace stands tall on the foothills of the mountains. The pastel pink walls and the carefully carved window panes look ethereal with contrast to the tall black gates that securely surround the palace. A group of servants are rowed in front of the man main entrance, with warm smiles and trays full of welcome drinks.

But you're far too mesmerized by the place to bother consuming anything at the moment.

This place - this breathtakingly gorgeous palace with the biggest gardens and tallest fountains- would be your home. For a long time, home meant your crammed little apartment which always smelt like cinnamon and bread. It had no big gardens, no servants, no fountains but it was your home. Your safe place. You wonder if this place could ever feel like home.

"Geez, y/n, I'm so jealous." Maya whisper-squeals in your ear as the servants lead you inside, "Do you want to exchange husbands?"

You nudge her gently with your elbow, "Shut up. Or I'll have you thrown out."

You are made to walk through a quiet hallway that has a huge wooden door at the end. On both sides of the hallway, pictures and paintings and vintage weapons are displayed like in museums and the marble floor beneath you shines like water under the sun. Every nook and corner of this place is a treasure waiting to be discovered, you realise.

The servants open the wooden door and lead you inside into what appears to look like a Throne Room. Now, you'd never really been to one before but movies and books have taught you that this is what a Throne room probably looks like - with a Grand Throne placed at the very center and numerous chairs placed on either side of it. The walls in this room are graced with more pictures and paintings of kings and queens and common people and soldiers. You wonder if your picture would ever be up there somewhere in the future.

"Oh, hello lovely people!" A manly voice booms through the hall, "I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."

A few quick taps of feet on the floor and there stands in front of you a very familiar face - as if you'd almost seen him in a dream.

Black tuxedo, perfectly styled hair, a walkie-talkie in his hand, the man before you looks right out of a James Bond movie. "I'm Choi San, Prince Yunho's personal secretary and the royal family's representative for the day."

He claps his hands together, "Her Highness the Queen Regent, Her Highness the Queen Mother and His Highness Crown Prince Yunho sadly couldn't be here since they have some important charity event to attend. I deeply apologize for that. In their place, allow me to welcome you to the Jeong family's Grand palace!"

"You'll all be taken to your rooms now because you must be tired from the journey. If you need anything, just tell one of these servants."

The servants nod at San and signal you and your family to follow them.

"Uh, lady Y/n. Mind if I have a word with you?" San interrupts.

Although surprised, you nod as you let your family walk off to their rooms.

"Yes?" You ask San.

San's eyes are focused on your frame - every movement, every expression, every word - he's observing you as if to make sure you're the right person for Prince Yunho. You feel self conscious all of a sudden.

"Yunho did say you're a charming person. I just didn't think I'd agree with him before, but now..I definitely do." San giggles, offering you his hand, "I'm Choi San at your service, madam. Your wish is my command."

You bow gently at him, "I'm y/n y/l/n. It's nice to meet you too, sir."

San chuckles, "Please don't call me that, your Highness. I'm your employee. Besides I have something important to talk to you about. "

The last few words form a tight knot in your stomach, fear finding it's way through your veins.

"Y-yeah?"

"You have a coronation ceremony tonight. I hope you know that. We've already hired a stylist who will take care of all you from now on. She'll meet you immediately after lunch." San explains, "And here's my business card. Contact me if anything comes up, okay?"

You gulp as you accept the shining business card from him, "Thanks. I'll do that."

San smiles sympathetically, as if he understood the fears swimming inside you. He offers you a gentle, encouraging pat on the shoulder.

"I know how you feel. A palace is a scary place, I won't deny. But if I can survive here, so can you. Plus you have Yunho. He's the nicest man a person could ever ask for, I'm sure." San says.

Your whole body relaxes a little as a soft breeze of comfort washes over you with the words leaving San's mouth. This is what you'd been wanting to hear for a long time - a reassurance that you'll be safe and okay as a member of the Royal family and that Prince Yunho might be a person you could love. But for now, you focus on keeping your self calm.

"Now, do you mind walking me to my room? I find myself a bit lost." You giggle.

San finds himself chuckling in response, "Of course, your majesty."

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

When San had told you that you'd have your own personal stylist, you did not expect this . Even in your wildest dreams, this is not something you'd catch yourself wanting.

The beautiful blue gown clutches to your upper body at just the right places and then flows down your waist like a beautiful waterfall under the sunlight. A diamond necklace graces your otherwise empty neck complimented with matching earrings. The stylist - Alisa - puts your hair up in a pretty bun and then places a beautiful diamond tiara on your head. And when your eyes finally land on your reflection in the mirror, your mouth hangs open with no words but just air slipping out of it as response.

"Do you like it, your Highness?" Alisa asks with hopeful eyes. Her shy smile giving away the fact that she wants you to like what she's done, her efforts and ideas.

You have to blink hard for a few more seconds before coming to terms with the fact that you look so beautiful right now. A part you is in denial while a part of you is jumping around, doing a victory dance in happiness. You weren't used to seeing yourself look this good. Your heart leaps at the thought of Prince Yunho seeing you like this - almost like a princess who's lived in castles all her life. And then you realize that you would be one ; in only a few minutes.

"I love it, Alisa. You're brilliant!" You exclaim, wrapping your arms tightly around the stylist in happiness. By Lisa's stiff response, you are sure you'd taken her by surprise. Royals do not go around hugging normal stylists yet this hug was a symbol of your thankfulness towards her for putting so much effort into you, to make you feel special. Alisa's proud smile reaches to her eyes as she quickly works on placing the brooch pin in the right place on your dress.

A knock on your room's door attracts your attention and you are quick to fix yourself in case it was someone from the Royal family.

"I'll get that." Alisa jogs quickly towards the door.

When the door creaks opens, you see a familiar face standing there - familiar enough to know it was your fiancé, the most handsome man you'd ever laid eyes on, with the kindest smile and brightest eyes. Your heart stops beating for a dangerous second.

"Oh, hello your Highness. " Alisa greets him, bowing slightly, "Miss y/n is ready to go."

And when Yunho looks at you, your soul as if escapes your body. "H-hi, Prince Yunho."

He walks towards you with warm, red cheeks and perfect black hair and a stylish black tuxedo and offers you his hand, "It's nice to finally meet you, my lady."

How does one ever respond to that? How does one ever behave in front of an actual, real life prince, who also happens to be your fiancé? He presses his lips to your fingers ever so gently.

The butterflies in your stomach go wild.

"Shall we go now? Everyone's waiting for you, my lady." He asks.

You nod, wrapping an arm around his, "Yes."

The short walk towards the throne room is mostly filled with a comfortable sense of silence, except for the times when Prince Yunho points at some random picture on the wall and talks about it. Your eyes seem to be following every movement of his, and everytime your eyes meet, you find yourself melting under his gaze. You are smitten by him and there's no denying in that.

On entering the throne room, all heads turn towards you - ministers, relatives, your family, Yunho's friends, San and all servants present there observe you as Yunho walks you down the flowery aisle leading to the Throne. You could feel everyone's eyes on you, scary yet exciting, they follow your every movement and every word and every expression.

And when they bow down slightly as you stand on the right side on the Throne, you realise these people weren't just bowing at Yunho, there were also bowing down at you. Because you'll be his wife tomorrow, a princess, a figure that should be loved by the people. The only thing keeping you grounded is Yunho's gentle hand softly clutching yours. It's as if he could sense your inner turmoil before even you do it yourself. "Are you nervous?" He whispers in your ear.

"Yes, a little. "

"Don't be. I'm here with you."

The main door to the hall opens and two women walk inside, at least ten soldiers walking in front and behind them, guns at ready and eyes critically scanning all the faces.

The older woman, who you assume to be the Queen Mother and Yunho's grandmother, wears a sweet smile and walks as gracefully as ever even in this senile age. She waves gleefully at the crowd bowing down to her. On her left stands a slightly younger woman, Yunho's aunt and the Queen Regent who has been the ruler of this kingdom after Yunho's parents passed away in a tragic accident ten years ago. Rumor has it that the Queen Regent is a strict, emotionless ruler who has no mercy for criminals and is harsh with all the employees of the palace. You notice her serious gaze fixed in your direction and shudder in fear even though you've barely ever talked to her before.

"May the Queen Mother live long! May the Queen Regent live long!" Someone chants and the others follow suit in the blink of an eye.

You suddenly feel as if you are in some period drama.

The Queen Regent takes her place on the throne while the Queen Mother takes a seat on the left side of the Throne. A single wave of the Queen Regent's hand and the crowd goes completely silent.

"Hello to everyone gathered here today. I am very, very glad to welcome a new member of the family - lady y/n y/l/n. She is to be the wife of my beloved nephew Yunho and the future Queen of this kingdom. Please give her a warm welcome!"

The hall erupts into claps and cheers and your name being repeated as if in a chant. Your grip on Yunho's arm tightens.

"I'm there, my lady." He says again, "Don't be afraid."

San brings out a huge sword and places it in the Queen Regent's hands. This sword is what you assume to be the Jeong family's old, sacred sword used by generations and generations of brave kings and queens to protect themselves as well as the citizens of their beloved country. This sword is a symbol of pride and victories. And a lost history.

"As per ancient traditions, I will now be crowning miss y/n as a princess before her wedding with the prince tomorrow. From now on she will be called her Highness Crown princess Y/n. She is an important member of our family from this day forth."

"Y/n, go on and kneel in front of my aunt." Yunho whispers, nodding at you with a proud smile, "You're doing so great already."

You comply by his words and kneel in front of the throne, your head hanging low and eyes squeezed shut with anxiousness of what is to come.

"Welcome to the family, y/n." You hear the Queen Regent's voice before she gently taps your right shoulder with the tip of the sword and then the left one. You feel a few droplets of water being sprinkled on your face.

"Rise, Crown Princess. Face your people and let them welcome you with open arms."

It is done. You are a princess now. This can never be undone, this name, this title will stick with you till the end of time. You're no longer a normal girl with small dreams and basic requirements, you're a future Queen now.

Rise, Crown Princess.

And you do.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

Every person has dreamt about their own wedding at least once in their life - whether it is in the peak of their teenage or in the innocent wonders of their childhood or the wildest dreams of their adult years, this thought found itself in everyone's mind.

You had one such dream too.

But your dream had always been very simple. A nice man, your closest friends and family, a cheap and beautiful wedding dress, a small party with limited people - that is all you've ever wanted. You didn't want a gathering of four hundred people who you barely knew, the new reporters shoving their cameras into your face, heavy make up or expensive jewelry, or a husband who you barely knew. But guess that is what the Gods had written in your fate. And you have no option now than to accept things the way they are.

You don't remember much from the wedding ceremony or the huge party that follows, really ; you only remember Yunho's lips pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead when the priest asks the groom to kiss the bride(probably the best part of the day), your grandmother's tears of happiness and Alisa and San winking at the two of you after the ceremony was over. Everything else felt like a blur, as if your head had been underwater all this while.

An hour or so into the party, Prince Yunho asks you to walk with him. Alone. Though reluctant, how could you ever say no to those innocent eyes? The discomfort from being surrounded by hundreds of unknown people slowly disappears as the two of you walk around the garden, your eyes never meeting but a sense of familiarity settling between the two of you.

"I'm not used to this, you know." He says with a shy smile.

The sky is beautiful, decorated with stars and a full moon but nothing compares the glow on Yunho's face when he turns to glance at you.

"Used to what?" You enquire, "Having so many people here?"

He shakes his head, "No. I'm used to having a lot of people here. That's all I've ever seen. What I'm not used to is this. Having a partner or someone else live in my room with me."

"So...?"

"I'm happy about it. I really am. But I know you're new to this royal lifestyle and we barely even know each other that well but I hope you don't regret this marriage. Because I'm sure that I won't. " Yunho sighs, "And if you ever feel like it's not worth your time anymore, you are more than free to leave. Forget about everyone else, do what your heart says. "

The last phrase catches you off guard. It is very, very rare to find people who give you this sort of freedom in any arrangement. The fact that he opens up his thoughts to you makes your heart leap with happiness. And a little sadness too that he'd think you'd leave him so easily.

"Hey," you pat his arm, "I'm not leaving anytime soon. I promise. We made a vow, didn't we?"

Yunho blushes at your words, but under the bright moonlight it goes unnoticed by you.

"Do you mind if I hold your hand?" He suggests after a few seconds of silence.

The butterflies in your stomach are seemingly having the time of their life these past few days.

"I don't." You slide your hand into his and your fingers intertwine almost instantly. His warm palm presses against your cold one, bring a sense of comfort you never thought you'd ever experience. In the midst of a chaotic royal gathering and the paparazzi trying to sneak in through the gates, you and Yunho find a small world for yourselves that no one else can ever have access to.

And for the first time in months, you realise that this marriage might be worth more than what you thought it would be.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

You've always wondered what the people in royal palaces do. Do they spend all their time greeting the citizens and walking in the gardens? Do they keep dancing in the ballroom all the time? Or do they busy themselves with war conspiracies?

Sadly you realise that royal life sounds very exciting and extravagant only when you're not the one actually living a life like that. And this conclusion dawns on you only after ten days of the wedding.

The first week is packed with activities, alright. Visiting the common people and distant relatives and going to various public events. Your curiosity was at its peak till a few days ago, but now here you are, sitting on the edge of your soft bed, phone in lap and eyes drooping with sleepiness, wondering how to keep yourself occupied.

"Y/n?" The door creaks open as Yunho peeks inside shyly, "Can I come in?"

You nod, "It's your room, Yunho. You don't need my permission to enter."

"Oh, I was just making sure you weren't doing anything you didn't want me to see."

Oh. Your cheeks turn into crimson fruits as his words finally hit you.

"Anyway, I actually came to get my file. But I saw you sitting here. Are you bored?"

Are you? Heck, yes!

"Yes." You reply almost guiltily.

Chuckling, he leans down to press a loving kiss on top of your head, "Come on. I'll show you something."

You took pride in the fact that after only a week of staying here, you knew the palace fairly well. The corridors and paintings and artifacts and the workers weren't as foreign to you anymore. Yet the path Yunho takes you to seems weirdly unfamiliar.

Guess new surprises await everyday.

Soon enough, your steps halt in front of a huge wooden door labeled as ' library '.

Rows and rows of books welcome you the moment you step inside, Yunho leading the way into the most beautiful library you'd ever seen in your life. As always, paintings grace the wooden walls and a huge crystal chandelier hangs from the middle most point of the ceiling.

"Yunho...is this..what heaven looks like?"

The smell of old and new books hit your nostrils as you run a gentle hand over the book kept in the shelves, feeling the various materials of book covers brush past your fingertips.

"Maybe." Yunho responds with a grin.

Yunho's heart feels full with adoration and content at the sight of you dancing around the books shelves, gleefully taking notes of the books you plan to read on the days to come. Your eyes curl up into crescent moons as your toothy smile seems to have taken Yunho's breath away. Beautiful is what you look. Simple and elegant and so innocent.

All his life he's spent among royal people, people with political intentions and lots of money. But you make him feel differently. Being with you feels like a breath of fresh air for Yunho. And who wouldn't like that?

"Earth to Yunho." You click your fingers in front of his face after you catch him staring at you. Not that you didn't like it, but you had to do something before you turn into a mush before his eyes, "What are you thinking?"

"Oh, um..nothing." you. He was thinking about you, "How about I ask the workers to bring my office stuff over here? I can work here while you read. I don't want you to be alone."

A shameless grin plasters over your lips.

"I'd like that, Yunho. I'd like that very much. "

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

"How's the married life treating you?" Your granny asks you this question every damn time she decides to call you.

And surprisingly somehow, you always answer positively to her query.

"Well, good. I think so at least. " you smile to yourself, remembering the soft kiss Yunho had placed on your head as he left for an official trip this morning. Even in your half asleep state, your cheeks had turned bright red, "Prince Yunho is a nice man. "

"Oh, of course he is! I wouldn't have asked you to marry him otherwise, you idiot." She yells at you although you know she's smiling through the phone, "Anyway, I can't talk for long today. I have a doctor's appointment so I'll need to dress up for that."

That comes as a surprise, "What? Are you sick ?"

"God, no. I'm not a weakling, okay? It's the regular check up. Don't worry." She says, "Bye now. "

The line goes silent.

Sighing, you put your phone down on the night stand. On times like this, when the room is too quiet and you are too lazy to walk out and talk to other people, you start missing home. A lot more than usual. Your house, though only consisting of four people was way too noisy from sunset till sundown and somehow, you'd gotten used to it. The quietness has yet to grow on you.

A slight knock on the door attracts your attention and you immediately allow whoever it is to come inside.

"Oh, Alisa. It's you!" You exclaim as relief washes over you on seeing a familiar face.

"Yes, your Highness. How have you been?" She bows down to you, "Are you able to adjust to this new life?"

"I've been okay, you could say. Still a little overwhelmed whenever I have to face people but I think I'm getting there." You laugh a little.

Alisa gives you an understanding nod, "I totally understand. But I'm glad you're feeling more comfortable. By the way, I came here to ask you if you wanted to visit my boutique in the town nearby. It's a new one and I wanted you to come see it before the inauguration. "

Your heart jumps at the offer. You remember back in your college days, you would often go shopping with Maya, especially on weekends. The two of you would wait for months for a sale or special offers because online shopping sometimes just doesn't do it for you. You smile, nostalgic, "I'd love to go."

"And then maybe we could go and eat in the pizzeria nearby. It serves the best pizza in the world, I swear."

This is just beyond tempting at this point, a literal trap to have you step out of the role of a royal Princess and embracing the careless city girl inside of you and who are you to keep her hidden for too long?

"What are we waiting for then?"

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

Yunho surprises you every now and then.

On the outside, he is a strict man with the sharpest of brains and the most observant eyes. The title of being a crown prince sits heavy on his shoulders and with every passing day, the weight just get heavier.

On the contrary, the Yunho you get to see everyday is very different. Soft and cheerful and smiley, he's the literal embodiment of the sunshine and your heart doesn't seem to rest everytime you see him.

It must have been roughly a month since the wedding when he makes an impromptu plan of visiting your city and your parents' house since it had been a long time you last saw them.

"Heard you were going to your parents house?" You had gotten ready to go before Yunho did, so instead of sitting in your bedroom, you decided take a short walk outside in the gardens. And as you strolled around aimlessly among the flowers and bushes, deep in thoughts, you had come across the Queen Mother sitting by the water fountain.

"Yes, your majesty." You reply, rather intimated by her aura.

It's hard to accept sometimes that this person is best friends with your grandmother, when the both of them are as different from each other as the two poles! Your grandmother is the ever so sweet, smiling, supportive person. You would never see her angry or upset. But on the other hand, the Queen Mother is uptight, very quiet and rarely ever smiles. Just like her daughter, the Queen Regent. Maybe it's a royal thing but you're glad you don't have to see this serious side of Yunho on a daily basis.

"Good. The farther from here, the better." She mumbles.

You are alarmed at her words, "I'm sorry?"

She sighs, her walking sticking tapping the marble wall of the fountain, "Y/n, I adore you. I might not show it but I'm glad my grandson has someone like you to make his life less lonely. But you have to be careful. Not everyone is appreciative of a person of common birth being crowned as a Crown Princess. "

Fear slowly clutches you in its palms. You had gotten very occupied with Yunho and being a crown princess and making new friends, you admit. So occupied that you let your guard down. And the Queen Mother's words sound more like an advice than a threat.

"Should I be worried?" You ask, your skin going cold at the thought of someone actually wanting to hurt you.

"Not yet, no. But be very, very careful. You cannot trust anyone here. Not even me. The only person you can lean on is Yunho. Why? Because he might be as much in danger as you."

Have you ever seen how people start panicking when any sort of alarm goes off? Yeah, thats exactly how you feel at that moment.

"Y/n, let's go!" You hear Yunho call you from the front gate, already taking his seat inside his car.

You bow at the Queen Mother before jogging towards Yunho, your heart no longer into the trip as it were a few minutes ago.

Yet seeing your parents and granny after so long did comfort you.

They had prepared this small barbeque party in your backyard, your dad playing guitar and purposely singing badly to embarrass you while your mother shows Yunho your childhood pictures. And the food, oh, the food! The five star chefs from Yunho's palace could never replace this comfort food you had at your parents house. It might not be well decorated with garnishes or spices or fancy plates but it made you feel like everything will eventually be okay - which is exactly what you needed at the moment.

The entire evening you try hard to talk to Yunho but when your house is full of three excited adults, it is hard to do that. Around one am in the morning, you finally find yourself in your old bedroom, Yunho's fascinated eyes roaming around the room that feels like it were straight out of some teenage romance movie. Where in reality you'd honestly been too lazy to change the room's layout once you outgrew your teenage obsessions and interests.

"You seem to be liking my room a little too much. " you chuckle, scrolling aimlessly through your phone, your face partly squished into your favorite pillow.

The boyband posters, old polaroids from your school functions, romance novels stacked up neatly by the nightstand - all of this is as foreign to him as his palace is to you.

Yunho lies down beside you, still in awe of the room, "Yeah, it literally mirrors your personality. "

"How?"

"I can't explain it, you know," he clicks his tongue, "But everything in this room screams y/n. Like everything here is made only for you."

You raise your eyebrow at his words. He's very observant, that you've noticed, but the fact that he knows you this well in barely a month warms your heart.

"What about our bedroom in the palace? Is it not made for me?"

"Oh, it is. Of course it is. But you're staying there because you have to, right? Because we're married and all that." He replies.

"No, I'm not. I told you Yunho - I'm staying there because I want to." You say, now no longer in a mood to joke around.

Suddenly, the words from The Queen Mother swim back into your mind, as you start seeing her words in a completely different light.

Yunho has somehow always expressed how he is unable to believe your presence around him and how he acts like you're doing a favor by doing that. And you find yourself wondering if Yunho knows what she'd said to you. The danger that looms above both of your heads must not be as much of a secret to him than you thought it would be. So instead of confronting him, you decide to comfort him.

"We'll be fine, Yunho. " you drag your hand towards his, your body relaxing the moment he squeezes it back, "Both of us."

Yunho looks at you with love and desire clear in his eyes, his free hand slowly dragging towards your face. You could see it now- the loneliness from the loss of his parents and the negligence from his aunt and grandmother throughout his childhood still very much exists behind the mask of a happy prince. You do not know the language of royal people or politics but you do know the language of love and more than a stupid gold crown, he needs someone to love him. And thats exactly what you intend to do.

Was it too soon? You didn't care anymore. And you know for a fact that he didn't either.

You lean in close and press your forehead to his, "You're not alone anymore. Okay?"

You see him smile from your hooded gaze, your breath mixing with his in an intoxicating mixture. "Thank you, y/n. You have no idea how much I appreciate it."

And that in itself are a combination of words much more heavier than a simple 'I like you.'

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

"The Queen Regent wishes to see you."

San runs up to you the first thing the next morning, right after breakfast.

"Why?" You ask, your eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

You had a plan to accompany your granny and the Queen Mother to their small tea party in a nearby Farmhouse but you couldn't obviously say no to meeting the Queen Regent. Because well, she's the Queen.

"I don't know, your Highness. I try to stay away from her as much as possible but whenever our paths do cross, she always assigns some work to me." He whines, "Go on, I'll tell the Queen Mother that you're occupied. I will be heading out with Yunho right now anyway."

Shaking your head in annoyance, you make your way to the Queen Regent's office.

Her office smells like expensive cigars the moment you step inside, and the full ashtray on her table only feeds into your conclusions.

"You asked for me, your majesty?" You ask in a low voice.

When she looks up from writing in her journal, your heart skips a few beats in fear. Her eyes hold no resemblance to Yunho's angelic ones or even The Queen Mother's serious ones. They look like two deep, bottomless black holes that swallow everything and anything in its vicinity. Her long hair is tied in a braid and her lips quiver passively upon seeing you.

"Ah, yes." She replies, "Please have a seat."

You take the chair in front of her desk, uncomfortable at the close proximity between you and the one person who everyone tries to avoid.

"How are you?" She begins, closing her journal and keeping her pen inside the drawer, "How are things going with Yunho?"

"I'm good, thank you for asking. And yes, things are going well with Yunho."

Her question seems odd, but you let it pass.

"Okay. That's really great to hear. Anyway, I met your husband a little while ago. And he asked me to tell you that he intends to see you on the rooftop alone later tonight." She raises an eyebrow, a gentle smile playing on her lips, "Looks like he has a date planned."

Her words seem too far fetched to be true. Too unrealistic. Not the date part though, but the part where he specifically ask her to pass on the message to you. He could have easily asked San or Lisa or even told you in first person, so why would he choose the Queen Regent out of so many people when he you've barely seen him talk to her?

But you're a Crown Princess, and she's the Queen and you cannot question her. "Okay, I'll be there." You get up from your seat and bowing gently, "Thank you for letting me know, your majesty. By the way, did he mention what time I am to go ?"

"Oh um...Around seven in the evening?" She's fumbling on her words, and you're sure she's lying about something.

Still you suppress your doubts and walk back to your room, hoping to find the truth behind her words this evening at seven.

The entire day goes by in the blink of an eye, but to you it feels like an eternity. The curiosity has you sitting at the edge of your bed, ready to make a run for it if any danger ever comes your way.

Yunho, who was out with San for some official work has surprisingly not texted you today at all. And it only adds to your doubts of the Queen Regent being a liar.

And when night finally falls, you find yourself tense up more than you'd done the entire day.

The night is quiet, calm but beautiful and as you step into the terrace and the soft wind kisses your face, you almost believe the Queen Regent's words. Maybe Yunho did really plan a surprise date for you. Because this is everything that Yunho likes. A beautiful night and a company he loves.

The terrace stands high giving you a beautiful view of the entire palace complex, the gardens and everything beyond. And for a moment, your worries diminish as you step near the railing, inhaling the fresh air and you feel safe.

But, you see, that's where you are wrong. This imaginary cloud of safety that you'd thought was around you was never there in the first place. Since the first time you stepped into the palace, all eyes have been on you - on every action, every activity, every word. You'd always been swimming in a dangerous sea. One wrong move, and you realise the shark is right behind you. And just how the Queen Mother had told you, you were only ever safe with Yunho by your side. But he isn't here anymore.

So it doesn't come as a when a pair of rough hands give you a single, harsh push, sending you falling right down five floors.

"You will never be our queen." Is what you hear before your vision dissolves into a black hole.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

When you were six years old, you fell down your bike once while trying to copy some stupid stunt you'd seen people on television shows do. The excruciating pain that followed the fall was something which you thought you'd never have to experience again. That was the kind of pain which hurts you down to your very bones, sending waves of shock through your body with a single movement of your hands.

And that is exactly how you expect to feel the moment you open your eyes and come face to face with a familiar ceiling. But all you feel is sore, like how you feel the morning after exercising after a long while.

The bandages on your arms and abdomen indicate that your fall wasn't as bad as you thought it'd be but it was, nevertheless, a fall which was very much done on purpose.

"Y/n, honey, are you awake?" You hear Yunho's groggy voice coming from somewhere near the foot of the bed you lie on.

"Y-yeah. What happened?" You manage to sit up even though your body feels heavy with fatigue, "How did I fall?"

Yunho appears by your bed side in the blink of an eye and your heart clenches with relief when he bends down to kiss your head.

It feels like you hadn't seen him in days, years, where as it had only been around two days since you passed out. Yunho had rushed back home the moment he found out about it, leaving all his stupid official work for some other day. Hell, he would happily give up all his responsibilities if it means he could see you and keep you safe. He'd cried for nights and days, never leaving your side even when the nurses would change your clothes or bandage dressing. The mere thought of you never waking up again was too dark for him, especially when he'd found such a happy place in you. You are the owner of his heart and everything else that he could give you. You are, literally, his only family member. His whole world. And if he loses you, he would lose himself with you.

"A-are you okay?" He sits down on the bed, holding your hand so tight as if he was afraid you'd disappear if he let's go, "does it hurt anywhere?"

"Just a little bit, but I'm okay. I feel fine." You say, smiling through your busted lips.

Your smile as if breaks a wall he'd been holding onto for days, and his eyes immediately tear up.

"I'm so so sorry, y/n. I should have been there. I should have been protecting you. I keep forgetting I'm not a stupid guy with a normal life and that people I associate with might get into trouble anytime. I'm so sorry, I should have protected you from my Aunt and Alisa. I'm so fucking sorry."

Aunt? And Alisa? What is he taking about?

"Yunho, what are you -"

"They planned it. The entire thing. They purposely sent me and grandma away so no one would doubt them. Aunt had supposedly promised my hand in marriage to Alisa a long time ago but Grandma got us married instead. They were angry. So angry that they went ahead and tried to k-kill you. " he sobs into his hands, the tip of his nose turning bright red, "Alisa was the one who pushed you. They forgot to remove the CCTV footage."

You freeze for a second, Alisa's betrayal hurting you worse than The Queen Regent's. You almost thought you could find a friend in her, just like Maya. You trusted her. You felt safe around her when in reality, she'd only been a time bomb - waiting to blow up.

"Alisa did?" You mutter, your lips drying with fear, "I-I don't know what to say. Yunho, I- I can't believe Alisa would do this."

"I didn't either. But both of them have admitted to it. The police took them. I'm so sorry, y/n. " Yunho rubs his tears away, "I talked to your granny and parents. They said you could move back in with them. The divorce will take about a year or so to get finalized but you don't have to stay here till then. You can go back home whenever you want."

Your heart crushes in your chest. The fear of abandonment Yunho carries within himself yet he has the guts to let you go is something you would forever admire and hate in him. How could he think this way, especially after you've reassured him countless number of times that you're here to stay.

"I didn't agree to a divorce. What the fuck are you even cooking up in that mind of yours?" You say, stern and angry.

He looks up at you, his guilty eyes making the pain in your chest more painful.

"Y/n, please, you cannot stay with -"

"Shut up. Just shut up. I don't care. I don't care what you think. I am an adult and the crown princess of this kingdom and I will do as I please. " you almost yell, "I am staying here, with you, for better or worse. I told you I wouldn't leave. "

Yunho bursts into tears, wrapping his arms gently around you, hiding his face in the crook of your neck as you gently pat his back, reassuring him that you'd always stay. No matter what.

"Y-you might get hurt again, y/n. I don't want you to stay and get hurt again." But his tight hold on your body tells you otherwise.

"We're both in danger for the rest of our lives. Does that mean we stop living?" You whisper, pulling away from the embrace only to grab his chin, "Does that mean we stop loving?"

He shakes his head as his lips curve down and a shaky sob escapes his mouth, "Nothing will ever happen to you again, I swear. I will keep you safe. You will not have a reason to complain again."

You nod, dabbing his tears away with your thumb, "I know. I believe you. "

You stare into his eyes - his beautiful eyes made of the finest stardust that make your brain go hazy every morning that you wake up and find them right beside you. And that's exactly how you choose to wake up every morning till the end of your days.

"Is this the part where we kiss or what, because I've waited a long time -" he cuts your blabbering off by finally placing his plump, peachy lips on yours ever so tenderly.

He steals all the air from lungs, driving you breathless and crazy with every movement of his lips on yours and the gentle touch of his fingers on your face only adds to the unbounded euphoria you feel at the moment. He's beautiful. Even with your eyes closed, you know that he is beautiful. And not just with his face, he is a beautiful man inside out. He is yours and nothing in this world can ever change that. So when he pulls away, panting and out of breath, and gently kisses your forehead, you say, "I love you, my prince."

These words. These damn words that he'd waited for months to hear, nights he spent dreaming about hearing them. And he has to mentally slap himself to make himself believe this all to be true.

Stealing a quick kiss from your lips again, he whispers, "I love you, too, my princess. "

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alex-r-v · 3 years

Text

Yes James- Bucky x Reader Drabble

Pairings: fwb!Bucky x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Angst, kinda cheating but not really, crying, swearing, smut for a quick second

A/n: This is the first fic I'm posting on Tumblr, I'm sorry for spelling/typing errors. Or if I switch between using 'you' and 'I'. ~Alex

The plan was simple, but movies should've taught me it never is. Bucky, and you had been struggling to find someone so you went to each other. You laid out rules with him the morning after your first time-

You're simply friends that fuck

If the other started seeing someone everything stopped

And no feelings

You and Buck had been friends for years, and the talk of having sex had come up multiple times. Only now- now it was really happening. Days turned to months, turned to almost a year. Neither of you had tried to find someone else, what you two had was enough for the time. The only issue was as time did go by, you started to catch feelings. Getting naked infront of him got harder, and acted like nothing happened the morning after hurt. You started falling in love with your best friend, and the only thing left to do was tell him. It seemed like you two had gone exclusive at this point. Anytime you were out Bucky would somehow find you, and pry whoever's hand were on you off.

So, with shaky legs you walked up to his apartment door knocking lightly on it. You knew he was home, so when he didn't answer you knocked once more. When the door still didn't open, you naturally assumed he was in the shower. After a long day at work he always liked to rid his body of any dirt or grime. He'd even given you a key, so you could come be there when he got out. Fumbling to get the key in because of nerves caused you take a few tries before getting the door open.

The place was silent which only started to worry you. Pulling out your phone, and dialing Bucky's number as you walked further in. The sound of his phone ringing sounded off from his room. With quick strides you threw the door open to calling out his name to see your worst fear. Bucky's head was in between a women's thighs, and a gag was pushed into her mouth. Both pairs of eyes shot to you as hot tears rimmed your eyes.

How could you be so naive? Neither of you ever specified you couldn't fuck other people. You quickly shut the door and ran out of his apartment. Of course Bucky was seeing other people, he's Bucky Barnes. The guy that had sex with almost everyone he could- leading him to make the agreement with you. Without realizing it the tears had started to pour down your cheeks, as you continued to run out of the building.

Only once you were in your car did you really start to sob. Had stupid could you have been? Falling in love with you best friend, the man that jokingly made a rule about catching feelings. Countless movies, and tv shows should've prepared you for this heartbreak. Minutes passed as you sat in your car sobbing, before the tears finally started to calm giving you a chance to drive home.

When you finally got home too barley made it to the couch. Plummeting onto it, and pulling yourself into a little ball. You stayed like this for hours, tears coming and going as time passed. Soon you fell asleep, all the crying wearing you out. When you woke back up the door to your home was opened, and you jumped up.

"It's just be doll."

Rubbing your eyes, you tried to focus on the figure in the doorway. When they finally did, the voice also registered in your mind. More tears than you knew you had filled you eyes, as you tired your hardest to hold them back.

Bucky stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. "Thought we should talk."

Clearing your throat trying to make sure you voice didn't waver- though it did- you answered, " 'Bout what?"

Bucky sighed, setting his key on the little table next to the couch. He sat down putting his elbows on his knees and looking straight ahead at the tv.

"Sit."

His tone was soft, but still demanding. Against your better judgement you sat on the opposite end of the couch. Bucky looked you over, talking into account your bloodshot eyes, and puffy cheeks.

"What happened to 'no feelings'?" He tried to joke, but it fell flat. He sighed again, running a hand through his hair. "What happened Y/n?"

All you could do was shrug, knowing if you spoke a fresh wave of tears would flood over you.

"Come on doll, you gotta talk to me." Bucky practically pleaded, silently asking you to also look at him.

You look straight ahead like he had been doing, "There's nothing to talk about Buck."

He huffed getting annoyed, "Yes there is. You saw me with someone else, and ran away crying. You also showed up to my apartment unannounced, and I know you weren't looking for sex."

"Can't a friend go to see their friend?" You blew off his first statement.

"We aren't just friends though, and you know that."

There was no getting out of this now. You contemplated trying to lie more, but decided against it.

Your voice was quiet, and he had to strain his ears to hear you properly.

"I didn't mean to Buck."

"Didn't mean to what?" He questioned, even though he already knew the answer.

You looked down to your lap, "Fall in love with you."

Yeah he knew, but hearing it. Damn, it hit him like a ton of bricks.

"You love me?"

Slowly more tears slid down my cheeks, "I was gonna tell you, because I thought- I thought you might feel the same. I didn't really think about us seeing other people in a non serious way." A small sob left my mouth as I continued, "You've been so good to me, and I guess I got lost in that."

He was silent for a second, and I felt my heart shattering.

"You really love me?"

You nodded yoir head, finally making eye contact with him. "Yes James... I love you."

The tears started falling faster, and everything hurt in the worst way possible.

"I'm so sorry Y/n."

You close you eyes, trying to will the tears to just stop. You kept them closed as you heard your best friend stand up, and walk to your door. You shut them tighter when when he left, and cried harder when you opened them to see his key still sitting where he set it down.

And that how it ended.

That's how you lost you best friend, and the man you fell in love with.

@dulceslibrary @balenciagabucky

#bucky barns x y/n #bucky fic #fwb!bucky #x y/n #mcu #angtsy #balenciagabucky3k

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softboywriting · 3 years

Text

Valentine | Nathan Bateman | Ex Machina

Summary: Valentine’s Day is approaching and you’d like Nathan to do something for you. Too bad he’s not good at taking hints. Or is he? [Fluff] [Established Relationship] [No Use of Y/N]

Word Count: 1k

|Masterlist In Bio|

Nathan Bateman and Valentine's Day go together like cotton candy and water. Trying to make it work out will leave you with nothing but a sad mess of nothing. You never expected much from him on the holiday, he never was much for any holiday really, but it would be nice. You'd like to receive a small token of affection. Giving is your love language and you give a lot to him, your time, your heart, your life essentially. It is time to receive something in return. But bringing it up to him without a lecture on how it's a fake holiday manufactured by corporations, well, that's a feat on its own.

"What's today?" You ask from across the lab where you're testing an arm for mobility.

"Thursday."

"Yes but the date?"

Nathan looks up from his work and peers at you over his glasses. It's as if he's caught on to your game. "The eleventh."

"Ah. Right."

"Why?"

"No reason. I just have some things to do soon."

"Uh huh." He returns to his work and says nothing more. He won't bait you like you hoped. Fucker. He is too smart for his own good.

_____________________

You try again to get him to say something about Valentine's day. This time you decide to mention the roses you saw at the store during your shopping trip.

"There were orange roses at the store. They were beautiful, unlike anything I've seen. I didn't even know that orange was an option."

"Uh huh."

"I should have gotten them." You sigh, placing the last box of lo-carb pasta into the cabinet over the counter. "I don't know why I didn't."

Nathan leans on the counter and folds his arms. "What's your point?"

"Huh?"

"What's your point of all this? You want something for Valentine's Day?"

"It'd be nice." You shrug and turn to face him. "I know it's stupid and cliché. That you should love your spouse or partner every day of the year but-"

Nathan's hard stare stops you dead in your tracks. "Go on?"

"Nothing. Forget I said anything."

"Yeah." He pushes away from the counter. "I thought so. I'll be boxing if you need me."

You lean on the counter, head in your hands. That didn't go as well as you hoped. Why does he have to be so fucking stubborn and difficult and hard headed. He's such a dick sometimes. God if you didn't see past all that shit you would never have fallen for him. But you did, and you got to the soft gooey center and fell in love with the man in the middle. Well. It'll be another year of treating yourself to the day after candy sales. Yipee.

_____________________

Sunday. Valentine's day. You wake up in your bed, the soft lights coming up along the walls to signify it's morning in the subterranean room. You didn't sleep with Nathan last night. The feeling of being unwanted was strong after the conversation about the roses, you knew how to catch a hint. The bed is warm, and you don't want to get up. Somehow you had convinced yourself you could get Nathan to do something for you. That you could get into his head and plant the idea that maybe you'd like a gift for the first time in two years. Well, one year of being together as a couple and two of living with him. What a ridiculous thing to lie to yourself about.

Against your better judgement you get up. Your bladder is screaming, threatening to pop and you aren't about to ignore it. After reliving yourself you're fully awake and you decide to go make some food.

The second you open the door to the bedroom you're caught off guard. The lights in the hall are red, like the emergency back up lights. You glance back into your room and it's normal. Had something happened in the night? Was the house supposed to be on lockdown?

"Nathan!" You call out, peering up and down the hall. "Is something broken?!"

You look around once more. Should you go back into the bedroom? Maybe something has gone wrong. You slip back in and grab the bat that Nathan left for you ages ago. All the note attached to it back then said was that in case of emergencies, swing first ask questions later.

There is no sign of anything wrong as you walk down the hall toward the living areas. Everything is quiet and the doors are not on lock down like the security lights may seem to portray. At the entryway to the kitchen there are rose petals on the ground. Orange rose petals. Your heart stops.

"Nathan? Where are you?" You peek into the kitchen and on the table is a bowl of fruit, pancakes, and a clear cup with iced coffee in it. Your favorite treat is this exact coffee when you go into the city. "Nathan?"

With no reply you grab the cup and carry it with you as you follow the trail of petals to the living room. You drop the bat at the sight of what you can only guess to be about two hundred roses in the living room. All of them orange and white. Every surface is covered in bouquets. There are little heart boxes all over the coffee table and a blanket on the couch with a heart on it, a heart shaped pillow and even some sultry music playing. It's suffocating-ly Valentine's Day. You must be dreaming.

Hands come up and cover your eyes and you know it's Nathan. There is no one else it could be. But his body is familiar, his warmth, those hands. "Hey, Kitten."

"Guess who?" You chuckle and he presses a kiss to your head.

"No, I know you know the touch of a God."

You smack his leg and he chuckles. He lowers his hands and wraps his arms around your chest instead, tucking his face into your neck. "What is all this?"

"It's roses, and chocolate and heart shaped shit. All the cliché things you have been dying to receive." He kisses your neck and gives you a little bite. "I knew you wanted something. So I got you everything."

"Maybe I tried to hint at it."

"Mmhmm. I caught on right away." He reaches down and takes your iced coffee. "I went through so much to get all these. And this," he holds the straw to your lips. "This was the hardest part."

You take a sip and it's perfect. "How? The flight is 2 hours in. How did you do this?"

"Cargo helicopter."

"The drink?"

"I had them make it, take the ice out and I kept the ice in a cooler next to the drink so it wouldn't get watered down. It was a whole process."

You turn in his hold and kiss him softly. "I know you hate Valentine's Day. Thank you."

"I do.” He holds your face, kissing your nose. “But I love you more."

end

---------

Header by delicate-venus

Thank you for reading! Please reblog if you read or enjoyed and support content creators like myself - A

*****Note: none of my works should be posted anywhere outside of my linked accounts. I do not give permission to repost with or without credit to my accounts. Please notify me of any reposted works.*****

#nathan bateman #nathan bateman fic #ex machina fic #ex machina #nathan bateman x reader #Oscar Isaac #oscar isaac character #oscar isaac characters

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momo-de-avis · 2 years

Text

you have got to be fucking kidding me

So, I created me e-mail at the ripe age of 16, as you would be able to immediately tell upon looking at it because it literally has the number 16 on it. It’s the most generic thing possible, though with a little twist because God willed I’d be named with the first and last name more common not just in the Iberian Peninsula, but the entirety of Latin America, so getting emails for myself is a bit of a task. The issue is, this email has a dot in it. And Gmail, in its compelling wisdom, understood that people often forgot the dot. So they decided that whether your email has the dot or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s the same email with or without the fucking dot.

This, I was told several times, and concluded after looking online a bajilion times, might be the reason why I’m getting absolutely FLOODED with random subscriptions, American Airlines accounts and that one woman named Anna Cunningham who IS STILL trying to log into her apple account. It’s because people most likely use my email, but the version without the dot, because they think it’s two different emails, but Gmail, infinite in its wisdom, decided that it’s not. And I find it really fucking ironic because this was a solution to a common problem in goddamn 2003 that in 2021 is a fucking headache.

Now I was like, I wanna log back into my old wattpad account and nuke it. Except. It wouldn’t recognise my email. It was that old problem of “email already exists” immediately contradicted by “email does not exist” when you try to recover your password. I sent in tickets, but from my experience, they’re either too busy or pretty useless over there, don’t want to cast my judgement in public. I tried every email ever created under my eyes and known to man kind. I read online. I found out there was a massive privacy breach in 2020 which resulted in automatic password resetting. My problem remained. Kept trying. No answer. I kept thinking “oh my fucking god, I don’t want my shit to be online anywhere, I need to get that crap OUT of there”.

Then. I stumbled into one reddit thread. Someone, in this whole world, three years ago, had my exact same problem.

The first comment: have you tried typing your gmail account without the dot?

Guess what. It worked.

FUCK gmail and its stupid dots, I’m going to nuke this fucking account

#momo speaks #once I learn how to change my email from the national health service I'm going to nuke this thing #tired of this fucking thing #fuck the dot #come ON man #MAKE NO MISTAKE THO I AM LAUGHING LIKE HELL RN

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clumsyclifford · 3 years

Note

“I got my ass kicked but you held the ice” jalex?

sure thing, anon. i've been watching a lot of bones lately so maybe that explains...i dunno. the vibe here.

tw for minor blood & injuries, mentions of alcohol

read here on ao3

There’s blood on Jack’s face.

“Jesus Christ, what happened to you?” feels like the right first question.

Jack staggers into the open seat across from Alex. “Got slugged.”

“You sound proud.”

“I am.”

“But you’re bleeding,” Alex says, aghast. He’s out of his seat and sliding in beside Jack before he can even really think. “Why— why are you bleeding? From getting punched?”

Jack shrugs and winces. Alex looks closer, hesitant to touch him. “Dude had rings or something. Hurt like a bitch.”

“You got scratched,” Alex says. Even he can hear the concern seeping into his voice, but if Jack notices he doesn’t seem to care. “Jack, you should clean this. We— you should let me clean this.”

“No, it’s cool.”

“Uh, I actually wasn’t giving you the option,” Alex says. He wraps an arm around Jack’s forearm and pulls him out of the booth. The seating area is far enough from the bar that Alex can justify somehow missing whatever scuffle Jack got into when he was supposedly getting them both drinks, but he wishes he hadn’t. Trust Jack to get into a fight the moment he’s left to his own devices.

“This isn’t necessary,” Jack says once they’ve reached the bathroom, though he’s letting Alex manhandle him anyway, which Alex appreciates. On account of the fact that it feels extremely necessary.

“You’re fucking bleeding from your face, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to do that,” says Alex, casting a glance around for anything to wash Jack’s face off with.

“And I’m supposed to bleed from other places?”

“No! No places.” Alex hits him on the arm. “No bleeding at all. Wanna tell me what happened? You were gone for like five minutes. I thought you were getting another round.”

“I was.”

Alex raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Well you obviously didn’t succeed, so what the fuck gives?”

“Got into a fight,” Jack says.

“That’s unlike you.”

“Do not use your fucking shirt to clean my bloody face,” Jack says, ignoring Alex, and Alex stalls in his motion lifting the hem of his shirt.

“Why not?”

“Oh my God, think rationally? You’ll ruin your shirt?”

“You got into a bar fight and you’re telling me to think rationally?”

“It hardly counts as a bar fight,” Jack says, and then sighs heavily. “Use mine. It’s black, it won’t show up, and I’m pretty sure there’s blood on it already anyway.”

Alex presses his lips together and frowns. The blood on Jack’s face isn’t really dripping. “How could there be blood on your shirt?”

Jack lifts his shoulders, shrugging off his leather jacket into Alex’s outstretched hand. “Dude pushed me.”

“...You said he punched you.”

“He did. And then pushed me, you know, with his fists, you know.”

“So he punched you again.”

“No, no, he—” Jack frowns. “I don’t know, who cares?”

“Me! I care! Who the fuck did you fight with? And why? And can I kill him?”

“No, it was stupid, and it doesn’t matter,” Jack says. “Answered your questions in reverse order.” He crosses his arms across his chest and tugs his shirt up over his head, offering it up to Alex inside-out.

“Well, at least you recognize that it was stupid,” Alex mutters. He steers Jack towards the sink counter. “Sit.”

“Come on,” Jack complains. “This is ridiculous. It’s just blood.”

“Everything you say makes me more worried about your well-being. Do you have no sense of self-preservation? Can I never actually leave you alone again?”

“It’s blood, I’ve bled a million times,” Jack says, exasperated. “And for the record, it was noble.”

“Really? Or was it stupid?”

“Can’t it have been both?” Jack sighs, and tilts his head back to look at the ceiling.

Alex grabs his chin and pulls his head back down. “Maybe. Can’t make a judgement until I know what you got into a fight about. And you have to look at me so I can clean your fucking face, which is bleeding, which is generally regarded as bad.”

“Sorry, mom.”

Alex runs Jack’s shirt under the faucet until it’s soaked through. He wrings out the excess water. “Sit still.”

“Okay, mom.”

Alex rolls his eyes. If it gets Jack to listen, Alex will accept being called mom. He’d like to think that cleaning a friend’s injuries is a thing that any decent human being would do, not just a mother. Not that it really matters. The point is it’s an Alex thing that he’s now doing for Jack.

It’s not something he’d ever anticipated doing. Jack’s not the type to get into fights. He’s a little bit of a thrill-seeker, sure, but he’s not an idiot. Which is why Alex really does kind of believe the fight may have been noble. Jack wouldn’t pick a fight for a stupid reason, but for a noble reason? Sure. Why not.

Jack hisses as Alex starts dabbing the wet t-shirt at his bloody face. His jaw tenses under Alex’s fingertips until finally he mutters, “Okay, ow, stop, stop it, that really hurts, can’t I do it myself?”

Alex’s hand drops from Jack’s face. “I’ll be more careful.”

“You’re not the problem. It’s— I got fucking decked. Everything hurts.” Jack casts a sidelong glance at Alex and exhales loudly. “Give me your hand, I’ll just do the squeeze-when-it-hurts thing.”

Alex offers up his left hand. “You sure?”

Their fingers interlace. Jack nods slowly. “Yeah. Go. I did this to myself.”

“Technically speaking, that dude you fought with did this to you,” Alex mumbles absently as he resumes his task. Jack groans and his grip on Alex’s hand becomes viselike. Alex does what he can, but it’s hard without another hand to keep Jack’s head stable. It’s also hard when his hand is being literally crushed.

“Ow,” Alex says, snatching his hand away. “Jesus, JB, you’ve got a fucking grip.”

“Sorry.”

“I need this hand,” Alex says, semi-apologetically. He’d be more apologetic if Jack hadn’t just been liquifying the bones in his hand. “You keep moving.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“No, I know that. I just—”

“Okay, it’s fine,” Jack mutters. “It’s fine.”

As delicately as he can manage it, Alex settles his fingers along Jack’s jaw, tilting his head in the most convenient direction. Jack continues bemoaning how painful this is, and Alex tunes it out. If it gets desperate, he’s sure Jack will hit him or something.

No assault occurs. Alex gets all of the blood off Jack’s face without further incident. “Okay,” he finally breathes. The sigh of relief that escapes Jack makes his posture fall. Slumped over with his elbows on his knees, he looks suddenly exhausted.

“I think that hurt more than being punched.”

“I doubt it,” Alex says. He rubs a sympathetic hand over Jack’s shoulders. They’re secluded, as much as they can be in the bathroom of a bar. Underwater by the way the walls muffle the music and chatter. Dim light washes over Jack. “Let’s go home.”

“No, we don’t have to.”

“I’m ready to leave and I think you are too.”

“Sorry,” Jack says quietly. “I wasn’t trying to ruin the night.”

“You didn’t.”

“We were just supposed to be getting a drink.”

“I have to say, I think I’m more impressed that you got into a fight while mostly sober.”

“I think I regret it.” Jack winces and curls further into himself. “And now I’m also cold.”

“Here,” Alex says, tugging his arms out of his flannel. “We can go back to my place. Watch a movie. Throw your bloody shirt into the laundry.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack says again.

Alex shakes his head. “I’m sure you had your reasons.”

“It was stupid.”

“You know, I want to believe that, but I just don’t,” Alex says, sighing deeply. “I actually believe it was infuriatingly noble, because you are just that kind of person.”

Jack glances at Alex as he begins buttoning up the flannel. Looks back at the floor. “I don’t know if it was noble. I could have left it alone. That would’ve been the smart thing to do.”

“Hey, I didn’t say it was smart. I’m sure it wasn’t.” Alex squeezes Jack’s knee and Jack looks up at him, surprised at the gesture. A small, almost indiscernible smile tugs at his lips.

“Some creep at the bar hitting on the bartender,” he admits. “Being really gross, really loud. Clearly making her uncomfortable. I said I was her boyfriend. Told him to back off. Guy didn’t like that.” He shrugs. “I pushed him, he punched me. Guess that was cause enough to get him kicked out. I mean, they should probably have kicked me out, too, but…the bartender seemed grateful.”

A soft smile crosses Alex’s face despite himself. “So I was right. It was noble.”

“Worth it,” Jack mumbles. “I hate creepy guys in bars. Ruining the experience for all of us. And look, I get hitting on a bartender, but don’t push it when she says no, you know? Anyway. I’d do it again.”

Alex reaches up and flips the collar of the flannel down, and his eyes meet Jack’s. “Did you get her number?”

Jack looks confused. “I didn’t want it. I was just being decent, you know.”

“Oh.” That’s new. Jack loves to collect phone numbers. Feeds his ego or something.

“‘Oh,’ what?”

“No, nothing, I’m just surprised,” Alex says, adjusting the collar. Jack shifts his shoulders. “You’re usually all over that shit.”

“Yeah, well. I’m…otherwise preoccupied. Not interested in a random hookup.”

“What?” Alex fakes a gasp, pretends to be positively scandalized. “What have you done with Jack Barakat?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Well? Preoccupied with who? I won’t tell.”

“That’s true, you won’t,” Jack says. “Because I’m not telling you.”

“What? Jack! I swear.”

“It’s not that I think you’re going to tell anyone,” Jack says, rolling his eyes and his sleeves. “What are we, eleven? I just don’t want to say. It’s complicated. I’m still thinking about it.”

Alex squints. “Someone I know?”

“Declining to answer any of your questions starting now.”

“Sure, sure. But is it someone I know?”

“Alex.”

“Okay, fine,” Alex says. “Don’t tell me.”

“Same page,” Jack says dryly, gesturing between them. Alex steps away and gives Jack a critical once-over.

“Let’s go home,” he says. “You should put ice on that.”

Jack slides off the sink counter. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s go.”

They’d anticipated being drunk on the way home, so they have to catch a cab. Jack winces when he thinks Alex isn’t looking, and Alex does him the courtesy of pretending not to see. It’s not until they’re back at Alex’s apartment, under the bright living room lights, that the bruise on Jack’s face becomes apparent.

Even Alex winces. “Oh, shit,” he says. He reaches for Jack without thinking and only stops himself just before his fingers graze Jack’s face. “That’s…damn. That’s a shiner.”

“Thank you,” Jack says. “People find this kind of thing hot, right?”

“Uh, damaged people, I guess,” Alex says. Like he’s not, at that exact moment, trying to suppress the thought that it is hot. So is Jack in his flannel. Alex already knows he’s damaged.

“Cool,” Jack says.

Alex wraps an ice pack from the freezer in a dish towel — not that anyone’s counting, but he’s fairly certain it belongs to Rian — and brings it back to the couch. The TV is on. Jack is flicking through titles on Netflix.

“Here,” says Alex. He sits next to Jack and Jack makes as if to take the ice pack, but Alex shakes his head. “I’ve got it.”

“You don’t have to. I’m a big boy. I can hold my own ice pack.”

“I know,” Alex says. He can’t quite figure out why he’s so dead set on doing it anyway, but Jack must read it in his tone, because he turns back to the TV without arguing.

“What are we watching?”

“Dunno, what’s on?”

“The entire Netflix library.”

“A constantly-changing selection,” says Alex, and braces the back of Jack’s head with his free hand. Jack leans into the touch. “Criminal Minds?”

“Great choice,” Jack says. He flinches when Alex holds the ice to his face, but only for a second. Alex is steady and then Jack is too. The Criminal Minds cover fills the TV screen. “Not a movie, but arguably better.”

“I don’t think that’s arguable,” Alex says quietly. Even with the dish towel, the ice is starting to make Alex’s hand cold. He doesn’t mention it.

Jack hits play on whatever episode of the show has come up. They’ve both watched this show all the way through, but it’s nice to have a show like that to share. On the one hand, neither of them ever tire of it. On the other, they’ve seen it all before, which means they don’t have to become invested or pay close attention.

Jack leans into Alex as the episode starts. Alex’s arm wraps around Jack’s shoulders. They stay that way until the episode ends, and Alex would call it convenient for holding the ice pack, but he sets the ice pack down about six minutes in, whispering that he can’t feel his fingers.

In response, Jack sandwiches Alex’s hand between his own without a word. Alex doesn’t say anything.

He sort of doesn’t think he needs to.

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queencamden · 3 years

Text

So it’s (in Canada) 11:45 on February 13. I suppose it doesn’t really matter because the day’s over in England anyway, and because the event itself happened in England, so too is the memorial. The day’s practically over here anyway. But I felt I ought to say something.

Today, roughly 478 years ago, Katheryn Howard was executed for adultery and treason.

I’m struggling to figure out what to say. I have to say something, and now. I’m running out of time. For someone that has formed a solid year of my life (before my blog completely changed), got me through quarantine, inspired me creatively in a way no other fixation has done before, I should say something. But I feel like, I have been over everything so much that there’s nothing more to add. Last year I had a lot. Last year I wrote an entire book about Katheryn, beginning a few days before this one. This year, perhaps because my fixation on her has been replaced.... there’s nothing. I don’t have any more anecdotes, any more defenses, any more pleas, any more explanations. I’ve discussed it all. The dangers of a short life I guess. The stories run out faster.

So today I will not be speaking about Katheryn herself. I will be discussing why she is still relevant today.

Katheryn Howard did not have the reach, the staying power, or the instant memorable or history making qualities and events surrounding her that others, such as Anne Boleyn, did. Overall, her role in history is significantly less.

So why must she be discussed?

I’d say Katheryn has more to say about us, as we live, now, than the times in which she lived.

Pick a portrayal of Katheryn. Any portrayal of Katheryn. Some things jump out. She’s frequently slut-shamed, deemed stupid or silly, seen as materialistic. However the differences in these characterizations show us more about the time they were written than the times of the Tudors.

In the early 1960’s teenagers began to have a voice. Noticing this, the older crowd portrayed them as delinquents, hormone-crazed juveniles without a thought in their head. Uncoincidentally, this was the common portrayal of Katheryn at the time. Earlier, the Victorian era thrived on melodramatic morality tales. Katheryn became a corrupted innocent, whose death serves to, in a morbid way, “reach her a lesson.” The early 2000’s and 2010’s had a hatred for valley girls. Thus Katheryn became the 16th- century equivalent.

The one thing these all have in common? The teenage girl.

We do not know much about Katheryn. What we do know is based on her youth. Everything about her is therefore filtered through that youthful lens. And with it comes a deluge of virulent hatred of the sort often seen leveled at teen girls for liking boy bands and Twilight. Mocking, jeering, subtle quips about being “a nitwit” and “in over her head.”

This treatment has persisted in every portrayal because we arrive at Katheryn with preconceived biases. We look at her, and do not see a young woman of the 16th century, struggling to stay afloat in a difficult situation, graced with kindness, openness, and skills in etiquette. We see.... a teenage girl. Worse still, an impulsive, reckless, sexually active, teenage girl. Even worse. And we filter her through that lens- whatever the lens is at the time.

I first discovered Katheryn when I was 15, before I had this blog. I instantly connected with her, on account of our ages and just feeling sorry for her. She resonated with me. And she made me realize how misunderstood teenage girlhood is, and will continue to be. The stereotype of the dumb teen has clouded our judgement. It is why we ignore or mock things teen girls like. It is why we see them as evil, gossip-mongering, “slutty”, stupid. It is why we refuse to forgive Katheryn Howard for her mistakes.

In short, Katheryn Howard is historically relevant, but not in a way specific to her personal life, or indeed her personally at all. She is a representative of a larger societal problem, and a reflection of our attitudes.

Katheryn Howard- and particularly her historiography- of the teenage girl in the eyes of academia, society, and media. And seeing it through that light, we unearth a lot of uncomfortable truths about our views on these still-developing young women

#Katheryn howard #Katherine howard #Tudor tea #Tudor history #Tudor dynasty #six the musical

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akkalafuru · 3 years

Text

Let’s talk about today.

Today I was involved in drama. Yes. I know. Surprisingly, that’s not a common thing in my life (at least not that I’m aware of—unless I’m the subject matter of a conversation that I never heard of or participated in. Does that count?) All this situation made me reflect a little bit on how I've been approached in today's discussion and I think it deserves to be addressed.

I honestly don't even know where to start... Anyway.

Yes. I agree that harassments, bullying, threats to an author are absolutely inexcusable and unjustifiable. It many countries they're considered a crime and the offender must deal with legal consequences. So Yes! It’s wrong and not supported by me. PERIOD.

It is also true the fact that authors should get criticisms/audience feedback in order to sense where their next steps should be, especially in a serialized franchise (which yeah, it can be a curse but also an opportunity). Even if your favorite author may not change their story main plot, it's quite naive to believe they wouldn't consider the audience response at all; like never ever.

With that out of the way, the story is that someone wanted to call me out because I replied to Suetsugu's post telling I was upset because of her tweet. Other fans weren't happy either, but I was the only one who mentioned "taichihaya", so I guess i became an easy target. (Also, it's worth comment that the fan-police scrutiny is much harsher and aggressive when it comes to Taichi fans and taichihaya shippers. That’s a fact.)

My post was not positive, but it can't be considered offensive either. And of course, the same way I was able to express my opinion, others have the same right to do so. I don't think, though, that singling me out, comparing me to actual harassers and bullies, and insulting me, are smart ways to address my or any other situation. The level of response I got was disproportional and extremely rude.

I was also accused of being a repeating offender and infamous for doing that, which puzzled me. I'm curious to know the sources and past proofs because those are very serious accusations. I honestly haven't been aware of this kind of behavior of mine, but if they're true, I need to understand what's going on so I can work on that on myself. As an advice, though, making plain false or baseless accusations only weakens one’s argument, so when accusing someone, they better be true.

And with this out of the way, I want to address some other points that I cannot let go of.

I understand that we're all behind screens. All we see are profile pictures, nicknames and a bunch of text. But behind each account ( I’m not counting bots and fakes here) there's a person with actual feelings and their own circumstances. Unfortunately, the internet allows for the dehumanization of the "others", resulting in situations where the lack of respect is too evident.

Going back to the drama part, as soon as I started the conversation, I was said "if you can't see your mistake, I won't waste my time with you" and then I was blocked after a couple of exchanges. What's the reason of calling someone out if they want to immediately cut off the communication? If this person was face to face to me, would they talk to me like that? If I am that waste of a time, why summon me to this situation to begin with?

The words used were very rude and if I was in a vulnerable mental state, I would definitely take them more than personally and start questioning my self-worth. That’s a personal attack and a very destructive one. If anyone receives a response like that, please (PLEASE!) understand that it’s not about you! That’s a defense mechanism people use to mask their own weak arguments! Not only that, it also sounds entitled af.

I also understand that many people want to take action and show service for their causes and beliefs, and I'm very admired by that pro-activeness. There's definitely value when it comes to bringing change in the world to move our society to a better path. However, the ability to discern the actual threat/harm and make a proper judgement are as important as acting on it. That’s why actions should be taken with purpose and reason after proper evaluation and reflection about a situation.

In theory, it’s easy to tell the difference between what’s right or wrong as we get a lot of black-and-white examples; in reality, there are a lot more grays than one expects. This person was absolutely convinced they were right, and that’s fine. Again... it’s their right to believe so. It’s a shame they weren’t open for dialogue and basically treated me as the unredeemable, unforgivable perpetrator for something I didn’t do (?), throwing unfounded accusations after accusations at me; in addition to pointing fingers exclusively at me because I mentioned my preference, which seems to offend them.

At the end of the day, I believe that I at least have the right to express my take on this mess and my view on this person. I thought their judgement was poor and their action was extremely offensive. They lacked maturity, reason and critical sense. This situation was embarrassing, humiliating and completely unnecessary. Calling someone out just for the sake of calling them out without expecting or foreseeing a counter-argument is naive, plain stupid and immature. Giving a “last” word before blocking someone doesn’t automatically grant any victories to any arguments. So... I’m sorry if your attempt to “own” me failed.

I don’t care if people are frustrated or has a lot of time in their hands, but if it’s the latter, at least go find something useful to do instead of wasting everyone’s time by trying to give hot takes online in exchange of likes. All these attempts to make justice with your own hands—by exposing others and bringing them involuntarily to your mess—feels like you’re massaging your own ego, especially if you’re not open to communicate, nor educate, nor talk about this in a non-confrontational and rational manner. I was gonna mention cancel culture and online lynching (maybe online inquisition! that sounds pretty fitting!), but let’s not go there.

I know that I should’ve let that go and not incite drama. However, I had to stop someone from trying to look good in front of their friends (tell more me about virtue-signaling. Ok let’s not go there.) at my expense by exploiting a situation that barely applies to their argument. The more they get away with it, the more they believe it’s right to repeat the same action. The more we become silent, the more they step on us.

Lastly, I don’t want to accuse this person for targeting specifically me for petty reasons. I want to quote this, though: “tell me who your friends are and I will tell who you are.”

There’s a reason why this saying exists. Let’s leave at that.

Cheers!

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imaginingsoftly · 3 years

Text

Wedding Date Pt 4 - Tyler Seguin

Type: strangers-enemies-lovers, series

Requested: no

Warnings: swearing

Three weeks. Melissa made it three weeks in Dallas before she ran into any members of the Dallas Stars. Her brain, paranoid as it was, had convinced her it would be Tyler that she ran into. Everyone else she could skate by unnoticed, but not Tyler. He’d tried to message her on Instagram a few times after the wedding, though he gave up after a couple of weeks when her messages remained short and detached or nonexistent.

It wasn’t that she was uninterested; if anything, she was a little too interested in him. She also knew that he wasn’t the type to do a relationship, and despite all of her joking that weekend of the wedding Melissa wasn’t the type for a hookup. Kirsten was still pissed at her for ghosting him. Actually, pretty much everyone that had seen them together was upset.

Melissa strode out of a coffee shop and directly into what felt approximately like a brick wall. Said wall made a small “oof” noise, like her shoulder had knocked the wind out of it, and she squinted up to see it was a person, not a wall. Most of the team should have still been out of the city; training camp wasn’t due to begin for another month or so. Instead of being on vacation like a normal NHLer, however, Jordie Benn was standing in front of her. One of his hands came up to Melissa’s shoulder to steady her as she stumbled backward slightly. “You’re Melissa. You were in that wedding Segs went to.” It was impressive that he had recognized her from one Instagram post, and Melissa knew that lying to him would get her nowhere.

“I am. How the hell do you know who I am?” She hadn’t meant to sound so combative, but Jordie just laughed.

“Segs hasn’t shut up about you for weeks. Plus, he posted those photos.” True. He’d even tagged her in them, despite her best efforts to convince him not to. She’d been deleting follow requests on her private Instagram account ever since. “Segs was under the impression that you live outside DC, but I’m gonna guess you moved?” He waited for Melissa to nod. Damn, he was good. “C’mon.” Jordie gestured at his car. “I’ll bring you to my place to meet my wife. Make a friend your age, and maybe you can get her out of the house on occasion so that I can have baby time without her hovering over me?”

Melissa laughed. She wouldn’t normally just follow some random person, but this was Jordie. Tyler had talked about him that night he word-vomited and made her coffee, and he sounded like her kind of people. Plus, it’s hard to resist a bear of a man talking about wanting one-on-one time with his baby. “Lead the way, then. I’ll never say no to friends and babies.”

He led her to an SUV that didn’t fit what Melissa expected him to drive at all. She’d almost expected a jacked-up truck or a Jeep. “He hasn’t shut up about you, you know.” Melissa fumbled with her seat belt when Jordie spoke again. Sure, he’d been messaging her, but she hadn’t expected him to talk about her with his friends. Melissa didn’t respond, and the pair fell silent as they drove to the outskirts of the city.

The outside of the Benn house looked cozy, mostly natural woods and an all-American type front yard. Melissa felt a jolt of nerves as Jordie pulled into the driveway, like it had finally hit her that she let some random stranger drive her to his house without a second thought. It was probably the dumbest thing she’d ever done. “Hey. I promise you and Jess will get along. And everybody loves babies, yeah?” He sounded like the older brother she’d never had, and his voice was more reassuring than she expected.

Jordie led Melissa inside, calling out a quiet “babe?” as he shut the front door. They walked down a long hallway into the kitchen, where a woman was shuffling coffee and a baby. “Jess, I brought a friend of Segs’ home with me. Melissa just moved to the city, needs some female friends.” It was a little embarrassing to hear Jordie lay it all out there like that, but he was right. Melissa had been in the city for almost a month now, and she’d yet to meet anyone outside of the other professors in her department. Introversion a million, Melissa zero.

“It’s nice to meet you, Melissa. I’m Jess and this,” she bounced the baby on her hip slightly, “is Billie.” Billie made grabby hands at Melissa, and she laughed. Jess put out her other hand for Melissa to shake, and she gripped the other woman’s hand gratefully. Jordie slung an arm around Jess’ waist, pulling her in so he could plant a kiss on her forehead. Melissa made faces at Billie while Jordie whispered in his wife’s ear, and Jess nodded. “You up for burgers and drinks?” she asked. “We’ve moved Billie completely to baby food, so I can actually consume more than one drink a day now.” Melissa nodded in agreement. It would be stupid to pass up such a good opportunity to make a new friend. And one with a cute baby, no less.

They made their way out to the patio, when Jordie turned on the grill and Jess handed Billie over to Melissa. “So,” the other woman said with a smirk, “you and Tyler?” Melissa groaned. Not even ten minutes. She looked over at Jordie for help, practically begging him with her eyes to step in, but he leaned back against the railing of the patio like he wanted to know as well.

Melissa turned her gaze down to Billie and ran her fingers through the baby’s hair. “My best friend Kirsten is his cousin. She got it into her head that Tyler and I both needed a good person to be in a relationship, and that meant we should be in a relationship with each other. She spent most of her wedding weekend trying to set us up, and that included putting us in the same hotel suite.” Jordie groaned in sympathy, muttering something about Tyler as a roommate. “We got along really really well, actually. It was fun to talk to him. He made me laugh harder than any guy has been able to in a long time.” She smiled down at Billie gently. “The night of the wedding he got me to dance with him, and then we went back to the hotel suite. We hooked up, it was awkward the next morning, and then I kinda ghosted him.” That was where it all went wrong, really. It was a pretty asshole thing on her part, and she knew it.

She didn’t get a chance to continue before Jordie was stepping in. “He doesn’t even know you’re in the city, and he’d been talking about how much he wants to see you again. He talked about trying to get you to see him when the team plays in DC this season.” Melissa’s stomach dropped. She didn’t see the judgement in either Benn’s faces when she looked up at them, though Jordie’s face still made her feel bad. He looked almost disappointed in her, and it hurt a surprising amount for someone she had literally just met. “He really liked you too.” Melissa didn’t have anything to say to that, and Jess quickly changed the subject.

It was nice to just sit and talk with Jess and Jordie, especially as the conversation moved to how they’d met and stories about Jordie’s career. Hours passed as they sat there and talked, and Melissa and Jess managed to work through a bottle and a half of white wine together. For once she was relaxing and just enjoying the flow of conversation without the crutch of a familiar face alongside her.

She was still holding Billie when Tyler appeared. Billie giggled sleepily on Melissa’s shoulder as she swayed along to the country song playing softly on the patio, though Melissa froze when she saw Tyler staring at her in the doorway. “Tyler,” she breathed. Her words broke the spell that held him in place, and Tyler strode back into the house without a word. “Shit.” Melissa handed Billie back to Jessie and took off in Tyler’s direction. She could hear Jordie arguing with Tyler near the front door, and then a thud as Tyler threw the door open.

Jordie stared at Melissa as she ran past him and out the front door. She threw an apology at the larger man over her shoulder, though she didn’t stop. Tyler was almost at his car. “Tyler!” He didn’t stop. If anything, it looked like he sped up. “Ty, stop.” He froze at the sound of his nickname. Melissa’s breath came out slightly ragged when she finally reached him, taking in the set of his shoulders and the way the muscles in his neck clenched. “I’m sorry.”

Of all the things she could have said in that moment, it seemed like those were the worst words she could have chosen. “Oh, you’re sorry?” Tyler whipped his head around. His eyes were angry, but there was more there. Frustration? Embarrassment? She couldn’t place it. “What are you sorry for, exactly? Sorry that you hooked up with me? Sorry that you ghosted me?” He gestured shortly at the house, where Jordie was standing outside with his arms crossed. “Sorry that you showed up at my friend’s house after ignoring me for weeks, acting like nothing happened? Sorry for what, Melissa?” He was breathing heavily, arms spread out on either side of his body, and the guy standing in front of her was nothing like the Tyler she’d seen on television or the one that had made her laugh so much over that weekend.

She didn’t get a chance to say anything else. “I really don’t want to talk to you right now.” Tyler jumped into his car and slammed the door shut before Melissa even got a chance to open her mouth.

“You deserved that, you know.” Jordie’s voice sounded from beside Melissa. “I’m sure that’s not what you want to hear, but you do.” Melissa looked over at the larger man to see him staring down at her with something akin to sympathy. “Doesn’t mean I won’t help you fix it though. You’ve got friends in Jessi and I now, and Segs is one of my best buddies. We’ll help you work it out, if that’s what you want.” Was that what she wanted? Tyler leaving her alone had been the goal, or at least she’d thought it was, so why did him leaving bother her so much?

Jordie put a hand on Melissa’s shoulder when she nodded. “Alrighty then. We’ll start tomorrow. I’m hosting a barbeque, and Segs will be there. For now, let’s get you home, yeah?”

#nhl imagines #nhl imagine #wedding date ml #tyler seguin imagine

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latter-day-saint-nick · 4 years

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I heard that the BBC Dracula adaptation written by Stephen Moffat was really bad, and it made me curious to see just how bad it was, so I decided to watch it for myself. It was not one of my smarter decisions.

But in order that my suffering won’t have been completely in vain, I’ll recap it here for those who are curious as well, to spare you the pain of actually having to watch it. You’re welcome!

Let me describe the viewing experience as best I can.

I have a BBC iPlayer account, so I could watch the show legally. My wife tells me to pirate it instead to avoid giving Moffat the views. She is right. I click on the first episode.

Episode 1

We start with a framing device of a severely ill Jonathan Harker in a Hungarian monastery, telling his story to two nuns. I do not hate this framing device. The original novel was told through diary entries, newspaper articles and letters, so having different characters tell the story of what happened to them to others is a neat way to adapt this type of literary device. The dialogue quickly takes a turn for the ridiculous, though, when one of the nuns, Sister Agatha, asks Jonathan in a silly accent if he had sexual intercourse with Count Dracula. Because queerbaiting? Is vampirism an STD now?

Still, the show tricks us into thinking that it’s going to be a fairly straightforward adaptation of the story as Jonathan recounts how he arrived at the castle, met the Count and became his prisoner. Later, this will turn out to be a sweet, sweet lie, but I don’t know that yet. At first, Dracula looks about a hundred years old and has a bad Romanian accent, but the more he feeds on Jonathan, the younger he gets, and the more refined and posh his British accent. Because this Dracula does not just absorb his victims’ lifeforce but also their knowledge. I find that stupid.

Dracula says the famous “I do not drink... wine” line. Badly. Still, the reference is mildly cute the first time. He repeats the line several times throughout the show, and it gets progressively less funny each time.

Jonathan reads a letter from his fiancee, Mina. In it, she jokes about how she’s going to sleep with all the cute men in the neighbourhood while he’s gone, as well as the adorable bar maiden, if she needs some variety. I sigh as I realize that this is probably what Moffat considers good queer representation.

At one point Jonathan talks about falling asleep, and Sister Agatha proceeds to ask him if he had dirty dreams about his fiancee. She persists with the question, even after Jonathan tells her that that’s private. It doesn’t seem like a pertinent question, but I guess Sister Agatha is just a pervert. Or maybe Moffat is.

Jonathan finishes his story about how he escaped from the castle. He bemoans that he can’t go home to England, because he is such a changed man and he can’t even remember his fiancee’s face. Sister Agatha reveals that the other nun with her is actually Mina. What a tweest! Apparently even before Jonathan told his story, Sister Agatha managed to figure out that he is English, tracked him down, found his fiancee and had her brought over to Budapest. The show is clearly hoping that the unexpectedness of this twist is going to distract us from the fact that it makes no damn sense at all.

It also turns out that Jonathan has become a vampire, and the sight of blood nearly makes him attack Mina. Of course, being one of the main heroes, he was never turned in the novel, not that that matters.

At this point Dracula shows up at the gates of the monastery in the form of a wolf. And I don’t mean that he shapeshifts like an Animorph. He is literally inside the wolf’s body, and he claws his way out of it, emerging at the gates naked and covered in wolf blood. I really don’t know why.

He and Sister Agatha proceed to have a sass-off. My wife makes fun of the dialogue by saying that it’s basically this:

“I’m a badass sister!” “Yeah, but I’m Dracula!” “Yeah, but I’m a badass sister!” “Yeah, but I’m Dracula!” “Yeah, but I’m a badass sister!” “Yeah, but I’m Dracula!” “Yeah, but I’m a badass sister!” “Yeah, but I’m Dracula!”

By the time my wife has finished the joke, the banter is still going on. It feels like it’s never going to end.

The Mother Superior tells the nuns to arm themselves. My wife starts wondering if we’re actually watching a Mel Brooks movie. Also, Sister Agatha is revealed to be Van Helsing. This is not as meaningful as the show seems to think it is, as she and Dracula haven’t had any past encounters. So it’s really just, “Oh, she’s actually a gender-swapped character from the book. That’s cool, I guess.

Finally, Dracula slinks off because he can’t get inside the monastery without being invited. He manages to find Jonathan, now fully a vampire, at a window and gets him to invite him in. You’d think this would be the end of the stupidity, but clearly I haven’t suffered enough yet.

Jonathan finds Mina and Sister Agatha. Sister Agatha tries to fend him off, since he’s, you know, a vampire and tried to feed off of Mina earlier. Mina, however, believes that the power of love can save him, so she approaches him. I point out that in the book, Mina was characterized as being very intelligent, not that that matters. As it turns out, it wasn’t Jonathan at all, but Dracula, wearing Jonathan’s skin, which he rips off, like something out of Hellraiser. He never uses this power again in the rest of the series.

The episode ends with him attacking the two women. Against my better judgement, I decide to watch the next episode, because while this was bad, it was bad in a fascinating way. Almost like something Tommy Wiseau would make. Okay, maybe not. Tommy Wiseau as Dracula would have been a lot more entertaining.

I click on the next episode.

Episode 2

We start with another framing device. This time Dracula is telling the story of his voyage to London to Sister Agatha while they’re playing chess. See, it’s symbolic, because they’re having a game of wits where they’re trying to outsmart each other! Okay, to be honest, I have no idea what Sister Agatha is trying to do. I guess Moffat is too clever for me.

Sister Agatha asks Dracula how he got to England. He tells her that he went on a ship. Inexplicably, this is not the end of that, but he proceeds to tell her about everything that happened on the ship, including conversations between characters that he wasn’t there for. Maybe he was listening at their doors.

I sense impending doom when I realize that this boat journey is going to take up the entire episode. In the book, it only took up a few pages, not that that matters.

Rather than staying in his coffin in the hold during the day, as he does in the book (not that that matters), Dracula mingles with the passengers. When Sister Agatha expresses surprises at that, he comments on how stupid it would be to stay in his coffin in the hold. You know, more adaptations should have lines about how stupid the source material is. It makes you look so smart.

How does Dracula avoid the sunlight during the day, though? Never fear, he simply spits out a pall of fog that surrounds the ship at all times and blocks out the sunlight, because I guess that’s a power he has. Like his wearing of other creatures’ skin, it’s not one he ever uses again, though. He tells Sister Agatha, “Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you.” Because referencing songs from a hundred years in the future is apparently also a power that he has.

We are introduced to the other passengers, who are a surprisingly diverse bunch. I can’t get too excited about this, however, as I know that they are all going to die. One of the passengers is an Indian doctor who has encountered the undead in the past. That would probably make for a more interesting story than this one, but then again, I don’t really want Moffat to tell it, so I don’t know why I’m complaining.

Dracula starts killing off crew and passengers one by one. I keep expecting the show to cut back to the chess game, with him telling Sister Agatha, “To make a long story short, I killed them all.”

The passengers begin to fear a killer on board, but never seem to suspect Dracula, who plays them against each other. They also discover that they’re all travelling to England at the behest of the same mysterious benefactor, who of course is Dracula, using a pseudonym. Because he hand-picked all of them for the special qualities he would gain from drinking their blood or something. It is way more convoluted than it needs to be. Is Moffat capable of writing a protagonist who is not an arrogant white man too clever for everyone around him? We may never know...

Throughout the episode there’s references to an unseen invalid staying in cabin 9. It turns out to be Sister Agatha, whom Dracula has been steadily draining. The chess game is just a hallucination that he induces in her while he drinks her blood. What a tweest!

Just like in the previous episode, the framing device is dropped about two-thirds through and we are now seeing the story in present tense. Dracula frames Sister Agatha as being the mystery killer, but she manages to reveal that he is a vampire just as she is about to get hanged by the crew. They manage to fend him off, but not before a few more characters die by being incredibly stupid.

One of the characters is a young English lord who just got married to a rich heiress, but is secretly having an affair with an African man pretending to be his servant. I can never remember his name, so I call him Gaylord (I’m allowed to make jokes like this). Gaylord is Dracula’s new business partner and he betrays the rest of the humans, because he thinks Dracula is his BFF and values his skills as a businessman. As it turns out, Dracula only chose Gaylord because of his wife’s wealth. Now that he has killed her, her money goes to Gaylord, and by draining Gaylord, it goes to Dracula. I was unaware that being someone’s business partner entitles you to inherit all their money after their death, so I assume that Dracula acquires people’s money by drinking their blood, just like he acquires their skills and attributes.

Sister Agatha assumes command over the ship, using her divine nun powers, I guess, and she prepares for Dracula to return and finish off the rest of the humans. I get bored and finish a chapter in a book I was reading earlier.

Eventually Sister Agatha blows up the ship to prevent Dracula from ever reaching England, which they keep referring to as “the New World”. That’s not what that term means, but who cares at this point? Dracula, encased in one of his boxes, sinks to the bottom of the ocean, only to break out and walk the rest of the way to England along the ocean floor. There he is greeted by cars and helicopters and someone who looks like Sister Agatha, but wearing modern clothes. What a tweest! Did it take him a hundred years to break out of his casket, or is this like The Village, where we were in modern times all along? The episode ends here, so I guess I’ll have to watch the next one to find out.

I am curious to see this stupidity unfold, but not sure I can take any more right now. But my wife applies some peer pressure, and I put on the final episode. Pray for me!

Episode 3

The previous two episodes were pretty bad, yes, but mostly in a way I can handle and even laugh at. They have not at all prepared me for what I am about to witness.

This episode doesn’t have a framing device, which makes me wonder why we bothered with those in the other two.

The Sister Agatha clone turns out to be her great-grandniece, Zoe. So it’s like Back to the Future where people keep having relatives who look exactly like them. Except Back to the Future is a comedy, and this is meant to be taken seriously.

Dracula escapes from the Anti-Dracula Brigade on the beach and breaks into some poor woman’s home after killing her husband and stuffing him in the fridge. I’m not sure if this is meant to be funny or scary. It ends up being neither. Dracula kills the woman as well, after lecturing her for taking all her modern-day luxuries for granted. Social commentary, I guess?

We are introduced to Seward, a young medical student who makes up for his lack of personality with a creepy obsession with his friend, a vapid, selfish party girl. Yes, this is Lucy Westenra. I found her a likable character in the novel. Not that that matters. I call this Lucy a slut, only for Lucy to make a comment on slut-shaming, which makes me feel bad. The irony is that I’m pretty sure we’re meant to see Lucy as slutty and shallow.

We’re also introduced to Quincey. He’s a douchebag. In the novel he was kind, brave and heroic. Not that that... whatever.

Seward is contacted by the Anti-Dracula Brigade, which is actually called the Jonathan Harker Foundation, but I prefer Anti-Dracula Brigade. It was formed by Sister Agatha’s relatives and Mina Murray with the goal to find Dracula and then to keep him alive to study him. I honestly would have thought that Mina would want Dracula dead, after he terrorized her and murdered her fiance, rather than sticking him in a cage for science, but it’s not like character motivations have to make sense. After all, this is Moffat, bitch!

Van Helsing explains to her students that Dracula was in suspended animation for over a hundred years at the bottom of the ocean until she accidentally woke him by sticking her fingers in his mouth, which allowed him to draw blood and be renewed. She doesn’t explain why her Anti-Dracula Brigade consists of medical students, rather than experts in their fields. She also doesn’t explain why he didn’t grow old again, like he was at the start of episode 1, after not having had anything to eat for over 120 years.

Dracula has been caught and is contained in a cell at the Brigade’s headquarters. I honestly don’t remember how that happened. Did they forget to show us that or did I just black out? Both seem like likely options. The cell contains what I assume is a Kindle, to keep Dracula occupied. Van Helsing comes to talk to him, and he scoffs at the idea of a woman being in charge. She tells him that he slept through the women’s rights movement. I am paralyzed with fear that Moffat is going to attempt to explain women’s rights to me. Why would God test me like this? My relief knows no bounds when the characters change the subject immediately. God is good after all.

This reprieve doesn’t last long. My faith is once again tested when I am forced to witness one of the most idiotic scenes I have ever had the misfortune to watch on screen. It begins when Renfield is brought in. I know that a Dracula adaptation turning silly when Renfield is introduced is not unusual, but Moffat always strives to exceed expectations of ridiculousness. In this version Renfield is Dracula’s lawyer, working for the same firm that he hired 120 years ago when Jonathan was their representative. They have been Skyping, using what I thought was a Kindle, but turns out to be a proper tablet. It wasn’t supposed to be connected to the internet, but all Dracula had to do was guess the WiFi password. Which was his own name.

I cannot deal with this. This scene has broken me. I am a broken man. I cry out in anguish and despair, for what else can I do? My wife, who has gone to the kitchen to get herself a drink, comes to see if I am okay. I am not. I may never be okay again. Moffat has marred my soul forever.

Renfield argues that the Anti-Dracula Brigade is keeping Dracula against his will and that he hasn’t actually done anything illegal, so they are forced to set him free. On the way out, Dracula finds Seward’s phone and uses it to meet up with Lucy. There’s also something about Van Helsing having cancer and drinking some of Dracula’s blood in the hopes that it will cure her. I don’t really care about this, but it’s important to the plot.

There’s a time-skip of a few months. Lucy is engaged to Quincey, but still sneaks off regularly for dates with Dracula where she lets him feed off her. I suspect that this is Moffat’s attempt at making the character more feminist. You see, instead of just passively being attacked by Dracula in her sleep at night, she actively goes out to find him and chooses to be drained by him! This does not make her a better character. Really, it just makes her seem stupid as well as callous, since she doesn’t give a damn about any of Dracula’s other victims who don’t give him consent to drink their blood.

There is a very annoying reference to the novel when a vampire child calls Lucy “Bloofer Lady”. Like the wine line, it sounds more stupid every time the show repeats it. Also, the vampire kid shows up in one more scene before Dracula kills him. Glad he served a point.

Dracula finally drains Lucy. Her family holds a funeral, thinking that she’s dead. But as she’s been infected with vampirism, she is fully conscious while she is being cremated. So we get to watch her burn alive, screaming in pain all the while. Hey, did I mention that Lucy is played by a black actress? Remember in season 10 of Doctor Who when something terrible would happen to Bill Potts every other episode, like having a hole shot through her chest or being turned into a Cyberman? Now, I’m not saying that Moffat enjoys having horrifying things happen to his black female characters... but I’m not not saying it either.

Lucy escapes from her coffin and takes revenge on the crematorium workers. During this scene we only see her reflection, in which she looks normal, which makes it painfully obvious that this is only how she sees herself, and in reality she’s going to be revealed to be horribly burned. The show plays coy with this for an annoyingly long time.

Van Helsing, still dying of cancer, breaks out of the hospital with help from Seward and they go visit Dracula in his flat. Yes, Dracula has a flat. It’s not hidden or anything. It’s even listed in the phone book. Look, it’s almost over, so who cares?

Lucy shows up as well and after more pointless build-up, we finally get to see her real appearance, which, surprise, surprise, is horribly burned. She is oblivious to this, because vampires’ reflections are weird in a way that is never really explained. Dracula sees himself in the mirror as old and decaying, whereas Lucy sees herself as being still pretty. I don’t know what it means, apart from that Moffat doesn’t understand vampire mythology and feels that it needs to be made more interesting.

Seward encourages Lucy to take a selfie, which reveals her true face. Why the rules for cameras are different from the rules for mirrors is not explained either. Lucy breaks down crying because being ugly is a fate worse than death. Seward tells her that he still wants to kiss her, because I guess this was meant to be the message? Something about true love? She begs him for death. They kiss and he mercy-kills her. In the book the people who loved Lucy had to kill her to save her immortal soul and to protect the world from the monster she had become, which has a bit more emotional resonance than saving her from having to be ugly for eternity. But, you know. NOT THAT THAT MATTERS.

Van Helsing sends Seward away for her final confrontation with Dracula, because she has him figured out. Having the memories of her great-aunt Agatha within her, which she gained from drinking Dracula’s blood, which he gained from drinking Agatha’s blood, she exposits that Dracula isn’t actually harmed by sunlight or crosses. He just fears death more than anything and so he doesn’t like the sight of the cross which represents someone being willing to die. Okay, but that doesn’t explain his aversion to sunlight! What does that have to do with death? She also spouts off some nonsense about how his fear of death originated from being the weakest in a family of noblemen and soldiers. Um, Moffat? You do realize that Dracula is based on Vlad the Impaler, right? Someone who was known for, well, impaling his enemies? But, again, it’s almost over, so let’s just get on with it!

Van Helsing tells Dracula that because she is dying of cancer, she is accomplishing the one thing he is afraid of doing, which somehow convinces him to kill himself by drinking her cancerous blood, which is poison to him. To make this experience painless for her, he creates an illusion for her where they’re, um, tenderly making love? What the hell? Is that what all their previous scenes were leading up to? Okay, if you say so.

Wait, is that the real reason why Moffat made Van Helsing a woman? Screw you, Moffat! Screw you so much!

Credits roll. This ends one of the worst television viewing experiences I’ve ever had. I go on YouTube to rewatch Sherlock Is Garbage, and Here’s Why. It is deeply cathartic.

#bbc dracula #flipping moffat

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