#to think about for the maria au perhaps

[tigertale]

A/N: I… I need to write this… Before the Rollo fever is gone…

• F!Reader; Rollo

• 〔　！ 〕Smut; Yander-ish theme (Not sure it is, anyways idk how to write yandere); Slight non-con? Not sure it can be even considered so; Grammatical errors; Not proofread

• 3.1k words

"Will you be okay?" He flinched as he felt his fingers accidentally grazing hers when he went to grab another croissant, immediately recoiling back and trying to keep his detached persona up. She stared at him worryingly, tilting her head to the side, not thinking much about the slight and almost unnoticed touch she felt on her hand. But right now, he looked distressed as he coughed in his hands before he took his handkerchief and pressed it against his nose.

She saw him take a deep breath —probably to cool himself down, and with that supposition she went to grab her cup, a pinky up and her other hand under the decorated porcelain to support it as she brought it to her mouth. She should play his sudden awkwardness off, casually drinking her café au lait with closed eyes as she savored the warm drink, the one they always had together, as to allow him to pick himself back-up without the awkwardness of someone staring intensely at you.

After a while, she heard the sound of a cup being taken from its plate, signaling to her that he had taken his own beverage. "Sorry for this unsightly display." She hummed dismissively, pulling her cup down enough for her to shake her head. But her answer was not enough to dispel the shame overtaking him, she was dear to him after all, and he didn't want to risk blowing up the image he had tried so hard to build, the one he had worked hard on just for her. "As for your question… I do think that it'll be alright." Of course it'd be. It wasn't an event planned on the spur of the moment.

She breathed out with relief, putting her cup down and smiling at him with a fondness that he had grown to appreciate. Right, everything he had planned to do was all just for the two of them, even if she was unaware of the most important of his plans. But oh was she as sweet as the mercy Maria had offered him, and he knew that she would not hold any grudge towards him when she'd discover it — or perhaps was it his delusional wish whispering those sweet words in hopes that he wouldn't back down. "I'm glad to hear that. Although you seem a bit unsure, I trust you, Rollo." She pressed a hand against her chest, empathizing on the trust she had for him.

It was hard not to look up to him. For the Student Council President of the Noble Bell College to take her under his care despite her lack of magic, helping her with the consequent amount of school work given to them, and even allowing her to help him clean the gargoyles early in the morning before they would sit and enjoy the view with a cozy silence. Such kindness was rare, and she was grateful. This world may have been confusing for her, but with his presence, it was more than bearable, and she quickly got adjusted to it. If anything, she was glad that she ended up here instead of any other place.

She leaned her cheeks inside her palm as she closed her eyes with a dreamy smile. "Aah, I can't wait for that ball…" By the way she whispered the last word, it was clear that she looked up to the grand show he had planned and wanted to propose to the headmaster. "I've never been to one. You'll keep your first dance for me, right?" It was obviously a joke as she laughed and waved her hand dismissively right after, but Rollo couldn't help her proposition from lingering in his mind as he cut a piece of the croissant in his hands before eating it. While the ball was only a decoy for the much greater plan he had been working on for a while already, he only grew shy at the thought of dancing with her. Imagining her body cladded in the most beautiful gown as she would press her chest against him, the two of them partaking in that vile tradition under the gaze of those miscreants who would envy them.

"I'll take your request into consideration." Although he had already made up his mind. But she didn't know that and was only left with her mouth agape with surprise.

As if out of instincts, or more like he acted before thinking, he stretched out his hands and closed her mouth with a frown, which only made the two of them blush like teenagers experiencing their first love story. He didn't mean to do so, he just thought that her expression was unsightly, not fit for someone as merciful as her, and before he knew it one finger was under her chin and his thumb caressing her cheek. He quickly moved away, once again taking his handkerchief out and hiding the expression on his face. As for her, she timidly looked to the side, touching the spot where his thumb used to lay on her face. "Please, I'm sorry for this inappropriate gesture."

She turned back towards him, and he knew that the blood coloring his cheeks wouldn't go anytime soon as she nervously licked her bottom lips before biting on it. "It's okay, you didn't do anything wrong." She meant it innocently, honestly expressing that she didn't take the gesture in a bad way, but his mind couldn't help but reel into much ill-suited thoughts.

"Is that so? Then I humbly thank you for your leniency." He held a small smile, not letting through the depraved wishes growing inside him. He had been holding himself for so long, the affection he held for her these past three years, only growing and twisting to fit those new immoral needs only sinners indulge. And unaware of that, she smiled back at Frollo, rejoicing in his change of facial expression, only managing to feel proud for making him smile.

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The same day, the news that Rollo's idea had been accepted was in everyone's mouth. All talking excitedly about the ball and wondering if bigger and more influential schools would accept their invitation and partake in the party. It was exciting, for a gathering of this size to be held on the very ground of their school, and the pride that came with it made them work hard for the entire month. The preparations went smoothly, both students and teachers alike enjoying the jovial atmosphere, enjoying the harmony in which the school seemed to have fallen into.

And the night before the ball, the students made one last round to check if everything was put together and ready to be shown to the foreign students coming to their school, all under the supervision of Rollo who looked over them diligently. The decorations were all put up, ingredients for the meals prepared and meticulously counted, and the clothes for the guests neatly folded and placed in a small chest by the Student Council President's office.

Everyone let out a deep breath once Rollo concluded everything was alright, wishing a restful night to one another as they parted ways to their dorms. She was about to do so, removing the dust in her hands by clapping them soundlessly, but was stopped by her friend who had stepped closer to her when she was focusing on something else. "Are you busy right now?" She blinked a few times, surprised by the question, but when she saw how his skin creased between his eyebrows, she immediately answered back.

"N-No, I—... I was just planning on going to bed." While stuttering at first, she managed to breath and calm herself down enough for her to say her sentence. Unlike how he would usually answer, a simple nod and called it a day, he instead approached her, closer than usual but not quite to the point that it would be indecent.

"Then I need you for a moment. Please follow me." She blinked a few times but immediately followed him once she saw that he had already started to move towards his office. She didn't know what he possibly needed, but she couldn't say no to him when he so rarely asked things out of her. She could at least do so.

And so, cluelessly, she walked behind him until they reached the room the headmaster had bestowed upon him so he could diligently performed his duty as the President of the Student Council. Once they stepped inside the office, her attention immediacy switched to the decorations in the room. While few in quantity, it was still her friend who chose them, and she was fascinated to see just what he had done to make the room more comfortable for him. By doing so, she failed to see him still standing by the door with tight lips, she could neither hear the soft click as he locked the door. She could not run away now, her fate sealed by his very hands, and it did not fail to make his heart skip a beat with excitement. Hopefully she would understand him. And if she couldn't, well... He'd just force her to.

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦

Chest now pressed against the table, face flushed and drooling on the table, he admired the way she seemed just pitiful under his administration. If he had known that he only needed his fingers to render her into this stupid and thoughtless state, he would have done so much earlier. How pathetic she appeared before him, wet both up and down there with that dumb look stuck to her warm face as she breathed heavily from the numerous climaxes she had had. And while he should be disgusted by this sinful sight… It only prompted him to slam a hand against her ass once more, watching as a colorful show of purple and red bloomed on her skin due to his ring scratching her skin, enjoying the cry leaving her lips, too tired to properly voice her complaints like when he had first done it.

But it wasn't enough, not for him who felt anger coursing through his body at the mere thought of all those mages —sinners— who'd step foot inside his domain, knowing that those fools would most definitely try to taint the purest being he had been given to seen to this day. And he couldn't let them do so. She was his. His to worship and protect. And with the fire growing inside him, he bent down so his chest could touch her back, his lips hanging right above her neck, breath hot and heavy against her skin.

Another whine left her mouth, but he didn't stop to listen to it as he pressed his lips on her neck, enjoying the way she was shivering under him, unaware of what he wanted to do. The first few seconds passed slowly as he merely kissed her skin over and over again as if addicted, but when he reached a spot right on her jugular, his lips switched with his teeth. What was a soft and sensual moment quickly morphing to something else as pain coursed through her body. Instead of a pleasured moan, one could hear the confusion and pain in her voice as she hissed and tried to move out of his grasp, but his weight was pinning her down and he held her hands back with fingers as strong as steel. She was lost, not knowing why he decided to make such a painful hickey where everyone could see it, but it was exactly what he had planned. He wanted for those mecreants to see that she was owned, for them to think twice before entertaining the thought of getting close to her. And the mere idea of it, imagining them with conflicted face as they would see the mark on her neck, only reminded him of the painful ache between his legs. Right, he had forgotten about that.

He didn't want to defile her just yet, wanting her to stay pure —for his twisted mind filled his brain with dreams of her standing before the altar and waiting for him in a white gown that hugged her chest perfectly, or the two of them in a dark room with only the setting sun seeping through the window and emphasizing her shapes. Or even her greeting him back from work with only a thin nightgown that teased him shamelessly— but maybe that he could try something else before claiming her body both inside out. They had gotten this far, she was creaming his fingers so mindlessly, even bucking into his hands despite him having told her not to seconds before with how fucked and cloudy her mind was.

So when he drew back from her neck, allowing her to finally breath, she was lost in her thoughts and didn't feel the hand moving between her hips and his, not feeling the way his fingers were struggling with his dress, not even sensing how his hips would buck clumsily. It wasn't until he moved his dick between her thighs did she realise what was happening.

She tried to turn around to see just what was going on, but the hand he used to free himself went to her head, keeping her face to the side. She was confused, maybe even scared as she felt something unsetlling growing in the pit of her stomach, but when she heard his heavy breath as he started to lazily rub his cock between her walls, it quickly got replaced by that familiar feeling of arousal. Maybe that she was as twisted as him, or maybe that her mind was still not in the right place after all those times she had cummed on his fingers, but she couldn't help it.

His breath stuttered when he felt her hips rolling back to his, trying her best to angle him so be could penetrate her once and for all instead of playing around. But he had none of it, continuing to tease himself but never once switching for something more intimate (although it was quite intimate already.) He was a stubborn man after all, if he ever set his goal on something, it was hard for him to ever abandon it. That was why he had even planned this ball, it was the very execution of a life-long idea he held close to his heart.

She whined under him, writhing as his cock was not enough to please her. The few times he would bump against her clit not stimulating enough for her to come just yet. And his pride swelled under her cries, growing and mixing with the pleasure he felt, effectively driving his mind off. The only thing that mattered was the growing heat in his stomach and the voice desperately calling for him to fuck her, and it only blurred out his vision, forcing him to close his eyes to better feel the assault of feelings moving his body against his will. It felt good, the softness of her skin surrounding his hard cock and her warmth teasing him each time he thrusted closer to her, smacking his hips against her ass and numbing their tender skin.

The coil inside him, the sudden warmth spreading from his lower stomach and haphazardly spreading inside his body down to his toes, threatening to spring free at any given moment drove him closer to the edge of the hill that his insanity was. It would only be a matter of time before this unhealthy fixation he had on her for these past years would finally eat him whole. And it did make him ponder whether he should come inside her, taking her off guard and offering her a life by his side — or more like forcing upon her. But when he felt the spasms slowly growing in force, he threw this idea away, instead hugging her close to him as his cum painted her stomach, still thrusting, albeit with a more sluggish pace, between her fold.

The shuddering of his body transferred to hers, making her pant as she felt the hot white droplets burning her skin. She whined, her numerous climax had successfully made her mind muddy, and tried to gain more friction from the limp cock between her legs. But she couldn't get much as a bright red hand mark appeared on the flesh of her ass cheek, a pained cry leaving her lips after he had slapped her with a frown on his face. She was too greedy, he had already made her come multiple times already yet constantly asked for more. He sighed as he took the band panties still hanging around her ankles, and pulled it up for it to hug her waist, trapping the cum clinging around her folds with it, her mewling and tired voice continuing to beg him in hopes of changing his mind. But when he set the skirt of the dress back in place, hiding any of the sinful traces of their activities, she eventually stopped, knowing that there was no need to try anymore.

His arm wrapped around hers, pulling her body up by tugging on it, but a hand immediately went to catch her shoulder as she fell into his chest. Her brain was still not properly functioning and her legs were aching, stopping her from keeping herself upright. Much to his dismay, instead of trying to walk, she nuzzled her face against his clothes, hugging herself closer to him. Although he was delighted to see the way she clinged to him — after all these countless nights wishing for her to finally realize that he was the only one she needed in this life, how couldn't he? — he couldn't help but be annoyed that she refused to move from their spot when they needed to get some kind of rest before greeting their guests in the next few hours.

Taking a deep breath to call his nerves, he pulled her arm around his shoulder and with the other pulled her waist closer so their sides could be pressed flush against one another. "Come sleep with me." He tried to compromise with her as a resort to move her somewhere. Not only was his room the closest right now, but a part inside him also rejoiced in sleeping with her even if doing so meant tainting them two. She hummed joyfully and followed quietly as he began to walk out of the office.

The casual intimacy falling between them didn't fail to create new fantasies inside his mind. If anything, he hoped that this school year would end fast so that the two of them could walk down to the altar. He couldn't wait anymore for her to finally become his.

(The fact that I'm posting a Rollo fic after Malleus made me laugh ngl lol)

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst rollo #twisted wonderland rollo #rollo flamm #rollo x reader #twst smut #rollo smut #rollo flamm smut #twst rollo smut #smut

[lucysarah-c]

Do you have any plans for a LevixReader longfic that you would like to write about plot-wise (going back to seasons 1 and 4) besides Holy Ground or after you finish Holy Ground?

Hi, dear! How are you?

Oh, that's such a good question! Yes, I do! Actually, I have the first chapter written, but I will post it once I finish 'Holy Ground.' My idea is to finish writing it before even posting the first chapter. It's not going to be as long as 'HG,' no no. 'Holy Ground' is my baby; I planned that story for years, and it's long because I created a whole universe about it haha. Chapters are long, and they are already cut out of plenty of scenes before they get posted. I think that once 'HG' is done, it may be 500k, and that's a lot.

The new fic would only be five chapters; the titles and everything are already decided. Because who am I if not an obsessive controller and planner? The story will be a canon time but AU about what would have happened if Levi, Farlan, and Isabel would have succeeded in killing Erwin, and now they live in the capital city. The title will be 'Suburban Legends,' with one prologue and four chapters. Levi X reader.

I can even give you a sneak peak:

Snow crunching underfoot, cobblestones slippery, skies open and flamingo pink, the screams of newspapers and old brooms sweeping streets. Head down, dark locks dusted with snowflakes, hands in pockets, calloused, tired feet in a worn uniform. Elaborate sighs, eyes glued to the floor, shop owners opening their stores, boulevards closing. A shaking figure paces down the streets, curious eyes following its path as some recognize him.

The ferry wasn't scheduled for its first trip for at least two to three hours more. He needed to pass the time; his meeting with the higher-ups and Historia had lasted until dawn. The early mornings downtown hold a melancholy that deeply affects him. As he reaches a small plaza, his sigh rises and he admires the view. Sheena's Wall exhales an air of foreignness he can't comprehend, like visiting an ex's house - familiar yet tinged with unease and foreignness. A place once called his own, now recalled with flashbacks of bad dreams.

The overwhelming desire to be alone consumes him, perhaps hidden in a forest outside the walls where nobody could see or expect him. Unusual for him, but he feels on the verge of tears. What could be the reason? The stress of the Wall Maria retake expedition? Erwin's unwavering determination and wavering intentions? The reasons he joined the scouts now disturbed like a distorted dream? Kenny? The kids from the underground reminding him of his own and, once again, Kenny? His mother?

Desolation and doubts cloud his mind; the streets teem with strangers, and the wash of loneliness shivers his body in a way it hasn't before. He can almost believe that at 31, he wishes Kenny were around again, to guide him, to ask him questions, to show him the way. Joining the scouts seven years ago, knowing more at 24 than at 31. Pacing the streets like an abandoned dog, wondering where to return, never thinking they'd one day be left to fend for themselves in the empty fields, seeking civilization by the scent of food and the hope of love.

Thank you for passing by! I can't help but wonder what made you want to ask that question! Feel free to return haha.

Have a lovely day/night!

#levi ackerman #aot #attack on titan #levi #snk #shingeki no kyojin #captain levi #levi aot #snk levi #attack on titans #levi x reader fic #levi x reader #levi x y/n #levi x you #aot levi #levi heichou #levi attack on titan #snk levi ackerman #levi ackerman snk #levi ackeman #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman x you #levi ackerman smut #levi ackerman x female reader #levi ackerman fanfiction #captian levi x reader #captain levi fanfiction #captain levi/reader #captain levi x reader

[acciotherapists]

Little Sparrow: Chapter One

Loki x Reader Mafia AU

When Tony Stark's little sister wakes up deep in enemy territory she assumes her life is over. She'll be killed or worse: used as a bargaining chip against her estranged brother. What happens when the mafia leader, Loki Laufeyson, offers her a deal she can't refuse? No sentiment. Only revenge. What happens when the truth is revealed? Will she betray her only family or betray the man she loves to hate? Little Sparrow is an enemies to lover's fic riddled with betrayal and spice!

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I hadn’t expected to wake up this way, bloody and bruised, deep in enemy territory. I was the princess of the Avengers gang. Protected. Safe. Though that all seemed a distant memory now. I blinked a few times, trying to clear the fog from my mind as I took in the room around me. The last thing I remembered was a pair of hands lifting me off the forest floor and a deep voice telling me everything would be okay.

“Tony Stark’s perfect little sister,” a deep voice chuckled, the same voice from the woods.

My eyes widened as they fell on the owner of the voice. Loki Laufeyson.

“You’re a long way from home, little one.”

My heart was racing as I struggled to sit up. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I should be asking you the same question, darling. Tell me,” he began, taking a seat next to me, spreading his legs slightly, before crossing his arms over his chest and continuing. “How did the Avenger’s little princess end up here?”

“That’s none of your business,” I spat, my eyes closing tight at the memories flashing through my mind.

“Oooh,” he chuckled darkly. “Seems there’s a story there, little princess. So, tell me… how did you end up in my territory looking like that?” He gestured to the cuts along my skin and I looked away from him.

“Why do you care, Laufeyson?” I hissed, turning to face him.

“Oh, I don’t, little one… but when I send word to your little Avenger friends that I have you here… I think they’ll want to know how this pretty little canvas got all marked up… and I’m afraid I can’t take credit for it.”

“Why not?” I spat, my voice dripping with venom. “It was your men that did this.”

“Darling, my men answer to me and I’m not foolish enough to attack the Avenger’s little princess. There lies no gain for me in that.”

“Then why am I still here?”

“It’s as I said, darling. There’s no gain for me in attacking you but seeing as I found you… well, I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to watch your brother squirm.” His sickening smirk sent a chill running down my spine.

This time it was my turn to smirk. “It seems I’ve found a flaw in your plan, Mr. Laufeyson. My brother cares about the Avengers far more than his little sister. He made that clear.”

He leaned forward, pressing his forearms against his thighs. “Oh? Then perhaps you might be useful in other ways.”

“Go to hell.”

“Now, now, darling,” he said, placing a hand over his heart as he feigned hurt. “You truly think so little of me that I would request that of a lady such as yourself?”

“I know your reputation, Laufeyson, and I want no part of it.”

He slowly stood up, leaning over the bed. “You know nothing about me. You’ve lived a perfect little life, princess. You know nothing about the struggles of the real world.” HIs face was inches from mine, his lips slightly parted as his warm breath ghosted my face.

I chuckled. “It appears you are the one who knows nothing. I may be Tony Stark’s little sister,” I hissed, mocking his tone of voice. “But my brother cares nothing for what happens to me and as for my perfect little life… you know nothing.”

He stepped back, his brow furrowing in confusion as he regarded me curiously. “Don’t I?”

He chuckled darkly before continuing. “Y/n Stark. Born to Howard and Maria Stark. Never sent on dangerous missions and always the face of the Avengers. Pretty and perfect.”

“You think I'm pretty?” I asked him, my voice dripping with mockery.

He rolled his eyes and moved away from me, running a hand across his face. “What am I supposed to do with you, hm?”

“Let me go,” I tried, as I stood from the bed, staring him down.

He chuckled darkly. “Darling, what would be the fun in that?”

“There’s nothing to gain from keeping me here!” I spat. “My brother will never give you what you want.”

He stood up once again, towering over me as he leaned in close. “Darling, you have no idea what it is that I want.”

“Power… money,” I answered, trying to keep my voice steady.

He chuckled darkly. “A chance to make your brother squirm, little one… to make him understand what it is to feel helpless.”

“And how would you do that?”

He moved closer, his lips brushing my ear. “By forming an alliance with his little sister.” His hand slowly slid down my back, stopping just a few inches above my hip.

“I have a need for revenge… just as you do, little mouse. I think we could work together.”

“I don’t have a need for revenge,” I hissed which only made his smile grow wider.

“No? I think you do, little one. After all… you’re here with me and your brother hasn’t come for you.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, setting my jaw as I stared him down.

“Feisty, little one.” He sighed, trying again. “I’m simply suggesting an alliance… a false relationship, if you will.”

My eyes widened. “You want me to pretend to be your girlfriend?” I scoffed. “Can’t get a girl of your own?”

His eyes flashed with anger and he pushed me against the wall. “I can get whatever I want,” he growled, wrapping a hand around my throat. “I simply have no interest in sentiment. I am not suggesting a love match, pet,” he chuckled darkly. “I am merely suggesting an alliance… and perhaps, if you are agreeable,” he smirked. “...a pleasurable alliance.”

“That will never happen.” I pushed him away from me and he nodded.

“I would never do anything you didn’t explicitly request of me. Despite everything… I do consider myself a gentleman.”

I scoffed. “You’re no gentleman.”

He chuckled, slowly moving closer. “If I wasn’t a gentleman I would’ve bent you over my desk, filmed myself fucking the brat out of you, and sent the video to your brother.”

I swallowed thickly and he chuckled.

“I think you’d like that, little one.”

I rolled my eyes and he laughed once again. “Well, little one. What do you say to our little deal? I’ll keep you safe and ensure this never happens to you again.” He gestured to the fresh bruises on my skin. “And in return you’ll help me irk your brother while also getting some delicious revenge of your own.”

“What makes you think I need your protection?”

“Darling, do you really want me to answer that?”

Cocky bastard.

He moved his lips to my neck. “Your brother left you to die in my territory, little one. Now’s your chance to get him back.” He pressed a surprisingly gentle kiss to my collarbone and I carefully pushed him away.

“That can’t possibly be all you want,” I hissed. “What’s your play here? What do you get out of this?”

“My reasons are my own, little pet. You can simply rest assured one of those motives is to irritate your brother.”

I rolled my eyes and he said nothing more, simply waiting for my answer.

“You’ve got a deal, Laufeyson.”

*************

Taglist:

#loki x y/n #loki laufeyson #loki x reader #lokixreader #marvel mcu #marvel #avengers #mafia #mafia au #mcu x reader #mcu #mcu loki #mcu au #mcu x you #loki marvel #loki x female reader #loki x you

[good--merits-accumulated]

OK, SEVERELY rambly post incoming but - Anderperry Stardust (2007)/ The Little White Horse AU, anyone?

Rundown: I think many of us are familiar with Stardust, originally a Neil Gaiman book but also a great film, starring Claire Danes as a falling star and That Guy Who Plays Daredevil as the lad who promises to bring her to the girl he's infatuated with. The Little White Horse is, to the best of my knowledge, more unknown, but equally very good (for sentimental reasons, I think of it much more highly than Stardust). Published in 1946 by Elizabeth Goudge, it tells the story of thirteen-year-old orphan Maria Merryweather, who moves to her cousin Sir Benjamin's Moonacre Manor in the West Country, where she finds a) a thriving cosy community and a long family history, b) the little white horse of the title, c) a longstanding family feud cutting off Moonacre from the sea, d) her imaginary best friend Robin, real and in the flesh, and e) some of the most deliciously-described food that has ever been or will be. It's a great book even past the rose-tinted glasses of my childhood. Go read it. (The one (1) marring is that you can't find a bloody edition that doesn't have a JK Terfling quote pasted onto the cover, because apparently it was one of her favourite books, but fuck OFF, I'm reclaiming it now. Thou shalt not keep the cosy low fantasy from me.)

Anyway even though I mention Stardust this isn't really part of the AU I have in my mind, except for the bit with the Star, because Todd as a main character who thinks he's a very forgettable bland boy-in-the-corner until he finds out he's a star is a great thought to me. Particulars on /how/ he's a star to be fleshed out later! (I only thought of this AU about two hours ago, lol.)

In my mind this is how it goes - nebulously Olden Times setting (TLWH is set in 1842, so perhaps then). Todd is around seventeen/eighteen and Geoff has just graduated from university, and gone off around Europe, accompanied by their parents. Months go by. Something happens - he's never given the liberty of knowing, but Geoff and their parents stay in Europe, and the townhouse in London is sold, and Todd is packed off to stay at a distant relative's - Keating, as it turns out. It's a blessing in disguise, because Todd is finally away from his family for the first time in his life and around people that appreciate him. He begins to bloom under this new care - but there are strange family secrets only now being revealed to him, and dark forces beyond the valley which threaten to disrupt the haven he's found...

The rest is very cosy fantasy, featuring Mr Perry as the local uptight vicar locking horns with Keating at every opportunity, Neil as his withdrawn but friendly son just longing for a rebellion, and more! (Read: Charlie is here and he is Outrageous as usual. Read also: Pitts as a sailor because I think he'd like it.) Right now I'm thinking of adding an equivalent of Monsieur Cocq de Noir for a villain (Mr Perry is NOT the villain), and Cameron can play a part there so I can give him a good redeeming! Here are a couple of extracts from TLWH to show the kind of mood/tone we're working with:

Thematically, I REALLY like the idea of Todd as a star because it allows me to work in a very fun trope, of "not of the rose but near the rose" - when a character perhaps is shy and a little quiet and reclusive, but inspires other people around them to brilliance and greatness. (Honestly I do think this kind of goes in with the film, where it's not just Keating's teaching but Todd's reaction to it and his presence that galvanise Neil to continue.) This ties in really well if Todd's a star and adds to the overall self-confidence journey - plus I was really thinking about the sun/moon motifs! They're very prominent in TLWH (Maria is a "moon" Merryweather and Robin is a very sunny boy), and I really want to implement them here with slight twists. I think of Todd as a sunny moon; yes he's warm and caring and cheerful but once you go a little closer it's more of a luminosity rather than a blaze, there's a coolness and quietness to him I like. You know, a quiet character doesn't always have to be quiet because there's something "wrong" with them, sometimes they're just like that. For Neil it's the opposite, he's a moony sun; under the thumb of his father he's polite and decorous and demure but somewhere under all of that there's a very loud and booming laugh and a healthy sort of ruddiness. I don't know, I just like sun/moon motifs!!!!!!!!!!

(On a more personal note: this AU, which I already love very much despite not having known very long, would be above all a careful love letter to the West Country. It's been lovely living around here almost all my life and by this time in September I'll be hopefully up very far north at uni, so I'm pre-emptively kind of :') about it. Mutuals who are at uni/college how on earth did you cope?)

#story time! the little white horse was actually the first book i ever read #all by myself in english. i'd only just learnt it #and a friend's grandparents gave me a copy as a present - i must have been four or five #thanks phyllis and peter. i miss you :( #anyway i revolved around that book for the better part of a year #even years and years later sometimes i walk home from school #down the big hill that looks over the valley with the lightning-burnt tree stump at the bottom #and when it gets green and bowery in the summer #and the little hollow at the foot gets very thick with cow parsley i always think i could find the entrance to moonacre #in it. if i really really looked #:') #maybe i will write this over the summer #anderperry #dead poets society #dps #tristan writes #ah. can you tell i'm feeling so so sentimental.

[queenoffishingandcookies]

Umineko AU Ramblings - Genderbent Ushiromiya Family

If You Do Not Like Genderbending, Please Look Away. I'll Try My Best To Avoid Spoilers, But Please Read At Your Own Risk.

Sometimes I think about genderbending Umineko and how fucked up the dynamics would be. For the sake of simplicity and avoiding spoilers for anything during/post Alliance, I'm just looking at the Ushiromiya Family, here.

This is just me rambling here, not a true deep analysis of the characters. There'll probably be lines of thought that go nowhere.

For reasons, Kinzo would remain the same sex. However, everyone from the main family down, wouldn’t be. (Gender, on the other hand, is potentially a different story and an AU of a genderbent AU).

Krauss, Eva, Rudolf, and Rosa would be the opposite sex they are in canon. As would George, Battler, Jessica, Maria, and Ange.

This alone would massively change the family’s dynamics. Considering Kinzo’s misogynistic outlook and the fact that Japan is a primarily patriarchal society - the upbringing of the adult generation as kids, their adolescence and young adulthood, to their marriages and the birth of the cousin’s generation is all made different.

Krauss, as a girl, wouldn’t have the same sense of superiority over the rest of Kinzo’s children as he does in canon. As eldest, sure she’d have some power - but as a girl, in Kinzo’s eyes - and depending on the circumstances, even the family elders who named Kinzo as a puppet head - what use was she as an heiress?

She’d marry out of the family - or in normal cases, should have - to supply the Ushiromiya family with further connection in the upper class’s world of riches and politics.

You know who would actually, in their youth, have the most ‘power’?

Eva.

As a boy, even if Kinzo didn’t care much or pay much attention to his kids, again depending on how involved the elders were - influencing or alternatively abusing their mother with high expectations, because Kinzo had to have learned some prejudices and bias from somewhere, in turn leading to the mother’s strict expectations - Eva would have been raised as heir, not Krauss.

Whereas both Fem! Krauss and Fem! Rudolf would be expected to learn domestic skills and the basics of academics, focus on thought of child rearing and homemaking household management, becoming deft hostesses able to keep keen eyes on connections and silent lips for others but their husbands when requested -

Out of them all, it would be Eva who was expected to carry on the illustrious name of the Ushiromiya’s after Kinzo, have it soar to heights which surpassed that of its former wealth lost to the quakes. For some time, he’d be the only son in a household of three children, a single boy between two daughters.

If not by Kinzo, Eva would have been raised by his mothers - by the elders, potentially - that he was going to be the heir over his sisters, that he would continue the family name and was expected to bring them greatness through his intelligence, something that his sisters could only do in marrying well to wealthy, well-connected men.

While his sisters would be allowed to attend high school, it was Eva who would be afforded a higher education - a proper gentleman’s education. The girls wouldn’t be, had no need to be given such a thing.

Krauss, as a girl, would marry out of the family. So would Rudolf. Eva was going to be the heir, as his mother and the elders said - in this way, they would make the family - make their father - proud.

He was going to the heir.

(Which would really burn when he wasn’t, when Krauss didn’t marry out of the register, when Kinzo, for whatever damned reason, had her spouse marry into the Ushiromiya family rather than his eldest daughter out of it).

(By all means, legally he never even declared a direct heir. It’s assumed at first that it goes to Eva, and then, after Krauss’ marriage and remaining on the register, to the oldest child - strange, but not unheard of).

(I haven’t though much on it, except, perhaps, to say that Kinzo’s reason would be pure spite towards the elders - and then, simply, a lack of caring. What did it matter to him, any of it? The family, the wealth, the prestige…it was his only in name, his body forced to sow the crops the elders got to reap for their own profit).

Like their canon counterparts, though:

It’s not just Eva who is extremely prideful. Both Krauss and Rudolf are prideful, stubborn, as well.

All of the haughty superiority that Krauss throws into being the eldest, being the heir? This gets burned down into a need to prove herself as the perfect young lady, the most desirable, proper bachelorette of the upper echelons of society. The inner economy of running a household, rearing children, being a hostess - that is what she would strive for. But, similar to Eva in canon, I don't think Fem! Krauss would settle for, on several accounts, being deemed lesser than her younger brother.

She'd fight in becoming the most perfect, lovely lady - so that Kinzo and the elders could hold nothing against her, if she wished to achieve further education. What she would look into learning, I'm not sure - but it's still something to at the very least consider, whether she would strive for higher education or not.

(lowkey thinking of Eva and Krauss attending the same university or college, just to potentially get on the other's nerves and show how they are 'that much more' superior to the other).

It wouldn't give much leverage over Eva, no - why would he even deign to give the thought of a girl's know-how time out of his day? an attitude that later bites him in the ass because his only child is a girl - but leverage over Rudolf? Potentially. There, there we have things to look at.

Rudolf, as a lady, is still an incorrigible flirt. Still able to charm the pants off of literally most people - a lady by her sex, and a cougar, a carnivore, otherwise. A smoky mafia lady vibe. Flirtatious and brusque, almost. Her etiquette and the snubbing of it (examples being smoking, a bit rough and lackadaisical in regards to housekeeping and being a hostess).

Different from Krauss and Eva, Rudolf would just barely toe the line of societal propriety of an upper class lady - quite the modern woman. She'd know it all, embroidery and all that - but she'd utilize it like a spider building a web, snakes coiling around prey and paralyzing them with venom. Charming, skilled if a bit lazy at it - and deceptively clever, but deadly.

Something Krauss had reason to chide her on, at least.

A cunning flirt, to make up for Krauss' cutting etiquette and Eva's blindingly superior holier-than-thou everything. Lusting to make up for a lack of love, or affection - which, while I can't say it wasn't there, there likely wasn't much of it in the Ushiromiya Household. Just, pride and expectations and cold limitations put down as law.

That behavior they grew into is comprised of their upbringing, and attempts to - at least in part - fill voids left in them by fair lack of warmth from certain people (elders, parents, you know), and filled only with harsh and high expectations and strict limitations. Which isn't to say that at least their mother didn't care, but I still have to think on that since we get zero information of the Ushiromiya Matriarch.

Rosa would get the short end of the stick, born with a pretty decent age difference between Rudolf, who is the 'baby' of the older siblings - and all of his siblings would have their own issues by this point, learned to weaponize haughtiness and a sharp tongue and intellect and charm and lust as shields and tools.

This poor kid would be so soft, so defenseless, compared to them. Up until the circumstances involving a stuffed animal, the forest, and Maria's mom (in this case). This is me trying to avoid spoilers, because I've been there and it sucked.

I can't really say much about Rosa, here, because I just don't have a good grasp on her character. Like I said, I was spoiled for Umineko just after finishing watching Banquet - and that was some time ago, it's only recently I've begun rewatching a no-commentary playthrough (and it's primarily through the fanfiction on A03. That, more than anything else, it what inspired me to pick Umineko up again).

The siblings alone, the ways they were raised along with the expectations for them, how they coped with it - all of it is very complex in canon, and it changes with their sex, in some ways minutely and in other ways, majorly.

Then we get to look at their marriages. Which occurs after Kinzo's miraculous revival of the Ushiromiya Family's wealth - after slowly loosening and severing the puppet strings of the elders (those alive, at least?) wrapped around his limbs - and the dynamics of the family change.

Kinzo remains silent, as to the matter of naming the heir - and while Eva holds tight to the belief, and even taunts his elder sister for not yet having married...there's a sort of unstability in the air, only furthered by worsening tensions between Kinzo and his wife - and Kinzo, often, disappearing on business trips from their home.

Then comes the acquisition of Rokkenjima by Kinzo, the construction of the mansion....for reference, the Ushiromiya Mansion is built in the 1950's - '52?

The Ushiromiya family is elite, having a personal island and the head of them all is a man infamous for his sheer luck in investing and gaining great wealth in a fairly short amount of time post-war. Still, Kinzo is silent about a heir - silent about his eldest marrying outside the family....

Usually, usually, woman in japan marry outside of the family register. So first and foremost, looking at a genderbent AU, why wouldn't Krauss and Rudolf marry into the spouses' family register?

Starting with Krauss:

Canonically, Krauss marries Natsuhi because he needs a wife to have a child. Natsuhi is essentially forced into this marriage, because her family is in dire financial straits. The marriage is an arranged one, essentially meant to solve two issues. The money issue for Natsuhi's family, and the heir issue for the Ushiromiya's.

In a genderbent AU, things would work...considerably differently.

Natsuhi's family would, quite likely, be in a similar situation - but this is a demerit on their end, because it holds no benefit to Kinzo or the Ushiromiya family. By marrying Krauss off to a member of Natsu's family, a line of shinto priests (and, if I'm not wrong, once-nobles?), there's no connections in other circles of society, no wealth awaiting his daughter or a boon to the family. From a utilitarian viewpoint, it would be a worthless match...

Considering Kinzo had already thrown off the elders by now, unless he was still in the process of trying to do so, it wouldn't be even enough to spite them (unless he was going down the whole 'spite their memory' route).

So, why Krauss and Natsuhi in this au? Why would they still be Ushiromiya's? Unless, even branch family's who no longer carry the name would be there - as in Eva = heir - but I'm aiming for somewhat close to canon here, working off the assumption that Krauss + Natsuhi are still the main household - not Eva + Hideyoshi.

Then again, it could be that Kinzo compares both Natsuhi and Eva. Eva having been groomed by the elders, but Natsuhi...Natsuhi, possibly, untouched by them. Perhaps throwing a bone to an old business partner, or even just lack of really caring...that bares a lot of thinking on, trying to get more insight as to Kinzo's point of view.

That would imply a projection of disdain, of hate or anger, upon his kids though. I'm...pretty sure Kinzo just, didn't care about them much, canonically? I'm aware he was physically abusive, and the effects that had on the siblings lasted their whole lifetimes - but for Kinzo, the abuser himself? Would you remember stepping on an ant, if it was just another pest to deal with, a minor worry in a sea of major ones?

Other then stating in the episodes that they failed to live up to expectations, being vultures...not mentioning Everything Else regarding the episodes that I know the bare minimum of, so I can't give a more in-depth look into the matter.

Anyway, Krauss would be the first to marry. Krauss should have left the family register -

and it's a blow to the system, to Eva personally, when she does not. When a man comes to the mansion as his sister's husband, unable to bear the family crest, and yet it's him who will be the next family head, for all that it is Krauss who is the actual heiress.

(Really wonder what Natsuhi would find work as, though...has more common sense than Krauss though, so the disatrous application of the Ushiromiya Money by Krauss in canon wouldn't come up...)

Oh, feeling particularly evil. Eva, going to Kinzo and wondering why Kristine is still there, bring up that it was him who was the heir - and Kinzo just musing if he, himself, had ever called Eva the heir.

It was always the elders, always mother -

But never father.

Goddamn, that's crushing.

That would also possibly be a major power trip on Krauss' end, one massive 'who is superior to whom now?' type situation. And poor Natsu would get caught in the brunt of the fallout.

Two extremely prideful, extremely intelligent men. The family crest worn by one, forbidden to the other - and it was the other, and the sister, who had been chosen by the father.

...I'm picturing some pretty achillean showdowns between Natsuhi and Eva, not going to lie. Eva being angry and wondering what made Kinzo deem him worthy over his own blood son (not even factoring in his sister here), this man he didn't permit to wear the one-winged eagle. Imagine the (toxic) kabedon to be had here...

Imagine the tension, possibly causing Eva to leave the mansion - or Kinzo or his wife to arrange a marriage for him because of the growing aggression and antagonistic attitude he began to take - worse than the past. If he was fixated on being a good 'heir', why didn't he take a wife and sire a child himself, too?

Which, then leads to the consideration of Hideyoshi's character. Canonically, I believe he started making money by rolling cigars and selling them - even if his business later was a restaurant chain. This post goes into the implications that he started this around the second world war, and was an orphan or old enough to be on his own at that time. Though I think I have slightly different headcanons pertaining to age, that doesn't have much bearing on the likelihood that, canonically, he was older than Eva and decently well-off at the time of their marriage.

Eva would likely already be running his own business, in a genderbent au. I can potentially see Hideyoshi still running a business here, but...man, oh man, wouldn't a pairing like that be a smack to Eva's sensibilities and belief system. His father, pairing him up with a woman just a bit older than him - a woman who works like a businessman, too? Imagine the sheer amount of times he'd put his foot in his mouth.

Assuming, of course, Kinzo would deem a woman 'like that' who was staunchly different from how he expected women to behave, as a good match. Another possibility was that, although not officially a big part of some company or other's success, Hideyoshi was the brains behind the operation - and that's what made her a fitting wife. We don't get much of Hideyoshi's backstory, in canon. We don't get much of any spouse's backstory, really - except in specific circumstances.

...Eva and Hideyoshi, I need more time to think about.

But, in a turn of events, it's ultimately not Krauss who leaves Rokkenjima. It's Eva.

and then there's Rudolf and Rosa.

Rudolf is complicated because there are two marriages. Asumu, and Kyrie. Mentioned in the post I linked above, it's likely that they all met around college and are close in age - Kyrie knew Rudolf first, I believe. Rudolf ended up marrying Asumu though, after he unintentionally got her pregnant - though he carried on an affair with her, and likely other woman throughout it all.

In a genderbent au, Rudolf's flirtatious nature and infidelity bites back on the ass. hard. namely in the form of a pregnancy. Considering she'd be sleeping with (at least) two men, Asumu and Kyrie, either one could be the baby daddy - meaning her father would either force her to marry one of them, or Rudolf could abort the child and cover it up so no one has to know it happened at all.

Rudolf is a selfish person, who thrives off gambling to fill endless vices - namely, lust in place of love and affection, though she gets that too. A child would get in the way of that, her bed frolicking when put bluntly - not to mention Krauss and her mother scoldings and haughty attitude and Rudolf's blatant snubbery of ladylike things - no one, least of all herself, believed her fit to be a mother. abortion would come to mind, no doubt.

shit like this could get her disowned. Unlike rosa in canon, she wasn't tricked or abandoned - doesn't really have a good excuse. Rudolf literally fucked around, and found out.

In canon, this led to a blitz wedding binding him and Asumu. In a Genderbent verse, assuming an abortion couldn't be done - either because the pregnancy wasn't noticed until it was too late or for some other reason, a similar event could occur.

If Kinzo got wind of it, it would be a matter of Kyrie's family vs Asumu's - and we know more about Kyrie than Asumu's. Guess who'd possibly win out, in Kinzo's eyes? A low-middle class family, or an upperclass household with shady potential yakuza connections? I say this, because I'm pretty sure Kyrie's summary screen mentions that she and Rudolf have shady dealings or connections or something and that's how they make bank.

And she doesn't know who the baby's daddy is, had to make a choice between men she was pulling along on a string. She works with one on a regular basis, and possibly the other. Hell of a proposal, that she was pregnant.

Considering even Rudolf in canon thought that Asumu knew about the affair, there's probably always the wonder of 'is this my child?' Which is fucked up all around, because not even Rudolf would know, unless she had a little black book where she wrote down when she slept with who - but especially for Kyrie and Asumu.

If Rudolf hid it, no doubt Kinzo would suspect the truth behind the sudden wedding - if he didn't find out, during preparations or just after.

Put simply, it's a total clusterfuck of drama.

Rosa - she didn't even have the chance to get married in canon. Her boyfriend got her pregnant, and then fucking left her with debt after she took out a loan for him.

In a GB AU, this gives me several ideas. Rosa gets a girlfriend pregnant, and she leaves him with the baby. Rosa does get married, or they're forced to, but they have a divorce somewhere along the line. Darkest of all, Rosa's girlfriend/wife dies.

The lives of the Ushiromiya siblings are like a soap opera.

It's one in morning, so I'll give just a quick rundown of the cousins. Going in order of age: George, Battler, Jessica, Maria, Ange.

George is Eva's only child, and a daughter. In his younger years, what he'd deem useless as a heir - useful only in marriages. His daughter is also the most precious thing he'd ever seen or held, while also being a nail in his coffin. He might have had a child before Krauss, but it wasn't a boy - useless to Kinzo, useless to securing Eva as heir.

George is raised strictly. Very strictly, to be the perfect lady - while also educated far beyond the standards of what he'd once thought a young lady should be held to. Eva, in a genderbent world, would be a bit like Natsuhi...he'd want his daughter to be capable of standing as a powerful heiress in her own right, even if it would have been better for them both if she'd been born a boy. She'd also be held accountable for achieving impossible standards - appearances, grades... not a material want in the world, but a deep need for space to breathe.

Battler, or in this case Valor, is Rudolf and Asumu's daughter. Quite a ways down the line of succession, isn't quite raised like Eva raises George. She gets raised a bit closer to a normal child, behave in school, try to get at least a B in classes...she is cosseted by her father. Kyrie would be a little less cool to her, I think, a little warmer - namely because she could very probably be his daughter and they just didn't know - DNA testing emerged in the 80's and Valor was born in '68 or '69 I think. Heightened tensions in the Rudolf Love Triangle, though.

Would still be raised with higher expectations, though. Good etiquette, good handwriting, maybe dancing...? (these are, admittedly, more stereotypes than what I actually know of a member of the upper crust's education and extracurriculars).

I can't tell if Rudolf would be fiercely protective of Valor, a bit uncomfortable with her, or something else entirely. Fiercely protective because - possibly - Kinzo wanted her to get an abortion, uncomfortable because she had planned to get an abortion herself - and also, what Valor meant between Asumu and Kyrie and herself.

But at the same time, I feel like she'd be done to commit fraud to ruin the father of a kid who teased her daughter on the playground. Maybe because I have a broken sense of humor.

Rudolf is a selfish man, would be a selfish woman - but cares for their kids. They might not be willing to be their neck on the line for them, maybe, but also have the potential to go ballistic for them.

Jessica would be raised strictly - not as intense as 'the world will end' schooling like with George, but pretty damn close. As the next head of the family, one allowed to wear the one-winged-eagle, he has to be above and beyond reproach. Natsuhi is the strict one of his parents, more often than not dealing with the worst of Eva being Eva, but...both of them are prone to wanting to spoil him.

It took so long to conceive Jessica, for Krauss. So, so, so very long. Considering a woman's worth in the family amounted to the connections she could bring and her womb's ability to carry a child - preferably a son - it was...hard for her, especially with Eva.

Though, he did shut up for a bit after George was born.

Maria...there's a lot for Maria, and I don't actually I could analyze his upbringing and how it changes in a GB verse right now. A big aspect is Rosa's abuse and neglect, and I think a large bit of it would remain the same but....I want to read more Umineko, especially turn and banquet, to get a better grasp on it.

It's about 1:20 in the morning, and the way she's raised touches kind of close to home. Not in terms of physical abuse, or the fact that it's very very very heavily implied that Maria is neurodivergent - just some parts of it.

anyway, yeah, this is my rambling on how genderbending stuff would change a lot of things in umineko - not getting heavily into the cousin's upbringing and mental state because my laptop is about to die and I'm not well-rested enough fpr this, nor are my ideas quite as fleshed out.

Please don’t flame me if you don’t agree with this or don’t like it, but if anyone has ideas they’d like to add, I’m all ears.

#umineko no naku koro ni #umineko #umineko au ramblings #rule 63 #genderbend #their names would be different but I kept them the same here for my own sanity #seriously though #everyone needs therapy

[daleelahwrites]

Thoughts on Mikasasha?

Can be Romantic and/or Platonic

Anon!!! I'm so sorry it take this long to answer your ask, I totally forget to log on on Tumblr 🤦 I'm so so sorry o)-(

But finally MikaSasha!! I love them, as a couple or close friends! In the canon, I imagine them growing close after the scouts reachs the sea. I think at first they're awkward toward each other. Mikasa was always with the boys, Sasha either (of course she used to be friends with Ymir and Historia, but yeah, she will never have them close anymore). Mikasa don't know how to approach with other girls-while training days, it was the other girls who talks to her first-, and Sasha wasn't really an expert in relationships. Perhaps, Sasha feels like Mikasa is so strong and smart she didn't think on talk more than just the necessary with her.

But then one day they're living in the same room. There's no other girls around like when they used to be trainees, no other person they could be talking to avoid each other. The reason they're still this awkward none of them knows. But as soon as the first one starts to talk (they don't remember who started), is like they have been friends for YEARS. And it's so natural for them to talk about how they see the world and how they see themselves, that sharing their deep secrets become só natural. Sasha knows Mikasa's tragic past, and she doesn't hesitate to talk about her own egoistic feelings, the fear that surrounded Dauper when Maria fell. She ask for Mikasa forgiveness (how could Sasha be so egoistic when so many people perished and die in such horror attack?), but the girl don't have to say anything to Sasha knowing she's already been forgiven.

Since then, they become each other confidants. I like to think that Sasha take Mikasa with her when she's going to visit her family, and they all loves her. Arthur takes the kids with him to hunt and of course Sasha drags Mikasa with them. To Mika, it's like the past, when she would hunt with her father, and when the whole family sits to eat, it's like Mikasa's other past, when Carla used to call them and everything was a mess of laughs and talks, just like Sasha's family. Seeing another family felts like being part of it too. Sasha does everything she can to Mikasa felt like a Braus too. :')

Now, as a modern AU, I can see Sasha being the first one to approach Mikasa. Everybody has goosebumps about the goth girl who is always glued with some dark book, but Sasha is like ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ what could happen, right?

Sasha probably starts to compliment her eyeliner, after all she can't even apply mascara without turning into a panda, so it would be nice if Mikasa could help her with a tip or two.

Their friendship start with makeup tips, until Mikasa finds out Sasha likes visual kei and it's a HUGE fan of Versailles. Since then, they start to hang out together even more, going to those really weird and highly questionable places Mikasa knows (surprisingly a good place to find rare CD’s and out of stock albums). Their favorite places to visit is karaoke, where they can sing Versailles, The Cure, and Sisters of Mercy, while eating a lot of goodies. And, of course, shopping! Sasha it's always trying to make Mikasa wear something pink (Sasha favorite color), while Mika is always trying to make Sasha do a new piercing. Who knows who's gonna give up first? 👀

Anon, thank you again for your ask, and again, I'm so sorry it takes forever to answer :’/ Hope you're having a good time and may 2024 be a great year to you! 🥰❤️

#Anon #ask anon #sasha braus #mikasa ackerman #mikasasha #mikasa x sasha #mikasasha canon #mikasasha modern!au

[drurrito]

enough

a/n: still working on my other stories, here’s a college au in the meantime

summary: Natasha does everything, but is it ever enough?

warnings: suggestive themes, cursing

————————

Natasha doesn’t believe this is happening.

“I just think we’re better off as friends,” there’s a flash of Steve’s signature All-American smile and she fights every urge to slap it into next Tuesday.

Natasha feels the familiar buzzing of anger under her skin, there’s another emotion swirling around too but she can’t quite name it. Maybe it’s relief that she doesn’t have to entertain his teammates when they crash his apartment for another 2k tournament anymore. Perhaps it’s sadness, knowing that he’s going pro after graduation and she can’t cash in on his sizable contract to fund her own ventures and make a future for herself.

She just knows she’s angry, why would anyone break up with her?

Natasha has been the perfect girlfriend, let alone the perfect girlfriend for a student athlete. Food prepping, massages, early bedtimes and long game days that started at the ass-crack of dawn. She did it all while balancing her own coursework and commitments.

She did everything he wanted and it still wasn’t enough.

“Anyway,” Steve’s voice cuts through her inner monologue, “I got practice, maybe I’ll see you around?”

“Sure, Steve,” she does her best impression of a smile and he gives her a big, genuine one.

Asshole.

“I knew you’d understand,” he turns on his heel and she watches as a girl flanks him, arm wrapping around his waist.

“Fucking hell,” Natasha mutters, she heads over to the coffee shop on campus, thinking the worst part of her day is behind her.

“Hey Nat.”

Shit.

“Hey Sharon,” Natasha turns away from the counter, coffee will have to wait.

“So Tony hasn’t done shit on the paper or the presentation.”

“Big surprise there,” Natasha crosses her arms and Sharon lets out a huge sigh, Natasha braces for incoming bullshit-

“Do you have time to meet tonight so we can wrap up this project without him?”

“You mean do his work for him?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Aren’t you friends with his girlfriend? Tell her he’s dragging ass.”

“Pepper hardly has control over what he does, plus she’s out of town so he’s without a handler.”

“Shit, fuck!” Natasha’s fingers furiously card through her hair, “fine, I’ll be there.”

“You’re the best, I owe you one,” Sharon’s shoulders relax a bit, she re-adjusts her bag and makes up an excuse about having a study group to leave Natasha alone.

Natasha grabs the drink on the counter and only gets two steps away from her spot when someone is already talking to her again.

“Excuse me.”

“What?” Natasha bites, your hands shoot up a bit in front of you, like you’re approaching a caged, feral animal.

“That’s mine,” you say, pointing to her drink, “here, Natasha, right?” you hand her the drink that was in your hand. She takes a moment to look at the cup in her own hand, her name isn’t on it, the cup you’re holding out in fact does, oops.

“Y/N?” she mumbles, gingerly handing over the cup.

“You don’t look like much of a tea drinker anyway,” you shake her cup in your hand a bit, she finally takes it with a less than gentle swipe of her hand.

“Thanks, sorry-” she doesn’t stick around for a second longer. You’re thoroughly amused as you watch Natasha trudge through a small horde of students, you’ve never seen a more prime example of someone having a rough day.

You take a sip of your tea before heading to class.

________________

Nat: He dumped me.

Hill: Aw, wanna talk about it?

Nat: No.

Hill: I’ll be there in 20?

Nat: See you then.

Natasha tosses her phone onto her bed with a sigh. Intimacy is last on her list of things she wants right now, but it will be nice to shut her brain off for a bit.

________________

“This was fun,” Maria purrs, pressing her lips to Natasha’s temple.

“You have to go, don’t you?” It was nice while it lasted, at least.

“Study group,” Maria flashes a guilty smile and slips out from under the sheets. Natasha barely watches her, fiddling with the sheets between her fingers while Maria gets dressed.

“I’ll see you later?” Natasha asks, she knows the answer already.

“Ah, actually I’m visiting my folks this weekend,” Maria grabs her backpack and heads for the door.

“I’ll text you when I’m back in town, later!” she skips out the door and Natasha just lays there for a while until she picks herself up to go to the next thing on her schedule.

________________

Natasha is halfway through doing damage control with Sharon when she gets a call from her sorority house.

“Yelena’s trashed, come be a big sister.”

“Can’t you just lay her down somewhere? I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Not a chance, and if she pukes anywhere but the toilet then you both are paying for it,” she lets out a groan as soon as the call ends.

“I’ll be right back,” Natasha starts to get up.

“Can I just send you what’s left? I have to head out soon too.”

“That’s fine,” Natasha tenses, of course she’ll have to finish this project on her own. She leaves the study room and only gets a few yards before she sees Steve talking to a table full of girls, his perfect smile glints under the dim library lights and it makes Natasha’s stomach do a barrel roll.

Natasha quickly ducts into another study room and stays against the door for about a minute, exhaling one shaky breath after the other.

“Coffee girl,” she turns to see you sitting at a desk with your head buried behind a laptop.

“Sorry-”

“No worries, I was just about to pack up,” you get up and follow Natasha’s line of sight.

“Steve Rodgers, what a babe magnet,” Natasha smiles just a bit at your sarcastic-lite tone.

“Until he opens his mouth,” Natasha mutters against the glass of the door, “terrible in bed too.”

“Oof,” you breathe out, “you just break up?”

“Only,” Natasha checks her phone, “12-ish hours ago.”

“Wow,” you stand there and watch him flirt with the table of girls, “he’s an idiot.”

That makes Natasha take her eyes off of the scene behind the door, a bigger smile on her face now.

Steve finally leaves and she takes that as her cue to leave.

“Gotta go, thanks for letting me camp out here.”

“Anytime,” you smile softly, watching her go.

________________

Natasha hunches over her laptop while Yelena snores loudly on her bed, at least she hasn’t puked yet.

She thinks about how Steve is the scum of the Earth for ruining her plans more so than hurting her feelings.

Then she thinks about you. It’s a small enough campus that it’s not uncommon to see the same person a few times a day in different places.

She just wonders why she hasn’t seen you sooner.

Deadlines, classes, meetings, and extra-curriculars pulling her in so many different directions--it’s no surprise why she wouldn’t notice you anyway.

Until she did.

Now you’re sticking in her brain like the day after a cram session.

You were a break in her day, moments where she didn’t feel the need to make herself useful, she just had to exist around you and it was enough, for you and for her.

With a jaw finally unclenched with a significant slack in her shoulders, she submits the project and goes to bed, dreaming about you.

____________

Natasha finds you by the cafe.

You’re in line when she walks up to you with a determination in her eyes and a sway in her hips that makes you flinch inwardly but you swallow your nerves.

“Hey.”

“You again.”

“Me again,” that gets you a half smile.

“Here to steal my tea?”

Natasha playfully scoffs, “actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to go somewhere else…for tea, or whiskey or…whatever. On me?”

“Oh, uh,” you exasperatedly suck in your teeth and she watches your eyes dart around for a few beats, her shoulders sink just a bit, maybe this was a-

“Absolutely, definitely, yes,” you grin, Natasha tilts her head in disbelief.

“You did that on purpose,” she points a perfectly manicured but accusatory finger at you. You don’t answer, instead your grin just grows wider.

“You dick, come on, before I change my mind.”

“You wouldn’t,” you feign offense, falling in step with her. She turns to look at you and the sight makes her lungs swell with a second wind and her bones settle into something new but comfortable—peace.

“No, I wouldn’t.”

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha x reader #works

[sparkykitsune]

Lackadaisy X Persona 3 AU

Been thinking about doing an AU with this idea since I think my P3 cat designs can pass off as Lackadaisy designs for the most part

little premise of this AU: SEES is a speakeasy set during the Roaring 20s (haven't figured an abbreviation for this SEES), and they have to compete with the Marigolds and the eponymous Lackadaisy (canon Lackadaisy cat cameo perhaps)

Notable character name changes (I haven't decided on new surnames yet): Makoto -> Michael Yukari -> Yvonne Junpei -> Juniper Mittens (Mitsuru) -> Maria (but she's still called Mittens; I can't call her Mitzi for obvious reasons) Akihiko -> Andrew Fuuka -> Flora Aigis -> Angela (but called Aigis as a play on "I guess") Koromaru -> Shiro Ken -> Kenneth (but called Ken for short) Shinjiro -> Shane

Some other tidbits (contains some canon stuff from Persona 3 but altered to fit the Lackadaisy world):

All characters are aged up to adults to fit the Lackadaisy theme (Ken is the youngest, he's 18)

Michael's parents died when he was young, so he lived with his extended family before leaving home at age 18 and somehow managing to land himself in the position as a rum runner

Yvonne's father was killed by a drunk driver when she was little, and she didn't think she'd end up as a rum runner many years later much to her dismay (as she detests alcohol combined with her father's death)

Juniper works as the bartender for the speakeasy, and he does consider it as an "escape" from his insecurities and such while talking with patrons at the bar. He seems to have a crush on one of the bar's regulars

Maria's family runs SEES (Ikutsuki isn't here in this AU), but she's the sole heir of the speakeasy as her father passed away

Andrew's backstory is the same as canon (him, his sister and Shane were living in an orphanage but his sister died), he doesn't dare tell his foster parents that he's working as a rum runner

Flora's parents are doctors in this universe but Flora ran away from home because of pressure and wound up working at the speakeasy (her medical knowledge does come in handy, and she has some mechanic skills as well that she learned in her spare time growing up)

Angela suffered from a brain injury and damaged her amygdala, so she's rather "robotic" and emotionless, she's most certainly "enigmatic" as she's rather shut in about her past (she's just a regular of the bar that ended up as part of the speakeasy staff)

Shiro and his owner came from Japan* but his owner was killed on the job as a rum runner. Shiro is currently a stray dog that's looked after by SEES and Shane (dogs do exist as pets in Lackadaisy)

Kenneth's mom was killed (as a bystander) when Shane shot her, and he joins the speakeasy as a ploy for revenge. Kenneth is also 18 in this AU (but much like Freckle, he's short and has a babyface)

Shane left the speakeasy and lives on the streets homeless out of guilt on what happened

A lot of character dynamics are mostly the same as in the actual game (like Juniper and Yvonne bantering etc)

Strega doesn't exist in this AU but the three members of Strega still appear as characters (homeless trio)

*I'm aware that shiba inus didn't come to America until the 1950s but like, Lackadaisy itself does contain a few minor anachronisms so it probably won't affect anything

#lackadaisy #persona 3 reload #persona 3 #makoto yuki #yukari takeba #junpei iori #mitsuru kirijo #akihiko sanada #fuuka yamagishi #aigis #koromaru #ken amada #shinjiro aragaki #lackadaisy cats #purrsona 3 reloaf au

[fromriches-tosin]

War au(which one it's actually canon)and forgotten first meeting? Since eren in basement scene don't remember how he said Reiner that he would kill him maybe Jean don't remember his first meeting and thoughts about Reiner but Reiner remember that very cleary! (Sorry for my english 🙏it's broken)

My sincere apologies for the delay!!

Ohh, this made me think about taesunghcd’s crossover fanart.

Maybe Jean hit his head too hard in Shiganshina. Maybe his memory in general isn’t as great as it used to be or maybe he lost some of his memories from the Cadet Corps. 

Reiner gets captured during the Raid on Liberio and is brought to Paradis for questioning. The interrogation quickly turns into a series of tortures – the Scouts don’t have to worry about Reiner dying in the process, after all. They don’t have to worry about going too far. None of the faces around Reiner are familiar. They belong to people who joined the Regiment after Shignashina. After Reiner had helped to kill their predecessors. He can’t expect them to go easy on him after something like that.

Maybe that’s why his heart skips a beat when Jean enters his cell. He can always count on Jean to pity him. Jean will want to spare Reiner some pain or try to put him out of his misery. But something is wrong, as Reiner quickly realizes. Because Jean is looking at him, but not really seeing him; his nose is scrunched up in slight disgust and there is no recognition in his eyes. It’s like they don’t know each other. 

To Jean, Reiner is just another enemy. The monster responsible for breaching Wall Maria. Nothing more.

Reiner wasn’t expecting much. He definitely didn’t expect to be saved again, not by Jean, not by anyone else. But he was expecting… something. Maybe some kind word or perhaps some merciful gesture hidden under a layer of theatrical annoyance. Jean was always the softest, the most caring of them all. Even when he was pretending not to be. 

Jean is the very reason Reiner is still alive.

But there is a wall of indifference between them now, and Reiner thinks that perhaps he has simply run out of luck. Just like Jean ran out of mercy.

It’s late at night, and Reiner is lying in a puddle of his own blood and vomit, chained to the wall, when Jean enters his cell again. He sits on the cold floor, not far from where Reiner is curled up, and looks at him with interest.

“Why were you so disappointed when I came in earlier?” he asks. “You looked like you wanted to call out to me.”

Reiner can’t reply – his tongue hasn’t grown back yet. He’s just looking at Jean with his watery eyes, hoping not to get hit again. Jean eventually tilts his head and gives him a small smile.

“They told me you’re a monster, but… I’m not one to blindly trust other people’s opinions.” He smirks and makes himself comfortable on the floor. “So, Reiner Braun. Are you a monster or not?”

Thank you!!

FanFiction trope MASH-UP

#thanks for the ask ✨ #reijean #reiner x jean #veecanons

[neutral-emerald]

SWAP AU SUMMARY BLITZ GO

I have had this Roleswap AU sitting around half-told because I (genius) thought it would be a good idea to tell the adapted plot of Sonic Heroes through little comic snippets, and then realized that the points I wanted to cover could not be easily conveyed through comic snippets. Well, NO LONGER! I am now going to write up a summary of most of the games I have notes on, with doodles interspersed where I see fit!

Firstly, a summary of games I've previously covered! Mostly covering Sonic and Shadow, because they're kinda the centerpiece(s).

Sonic Adventure

Not a lot to say about this one, actually. It's kinda just a prelude to SA2. Rest assured that it DID happen, though.

Sonic Adventure 2

Sonic gets taken out of stasis and tries to blow up the Earth, much like canon!Shadow does. I go into the details of his motivation in this post, and kinda nudge at some of his interactions with Shadow in this one. Relevant to note is that Sonic mistakes Shadow for a Prototype of the Ultimate Lifeform, and then eventually concludes that Shadow is the real Ultimate Lifeform, rather than Sonic.

Sonic Heroes

There's two comic snippets I've made of this, here and here. To summarize/explain:

The first follows up on SA2, with Shadow still bothered by the stuff Sonic said to him about being a prototype, and being unaware that Maria found and has spent all this time reviving Sonic.

The second comes in two parts: First, Tails finds Sonic (and Knuckles, who was trapped in this vault as a casualty of the Shadow Androids having taken over (reminder: the Shadow Androids are swapped with Metal Sonic)), and discovers that Sonic has lost all his memories. Second, Team Sonic bump into Team Shadow, which Shadow isn't terribly pleased about seeing as he's spent all this time thinking Sonic was dead.

It is at this point that I left this whole AU sitting on a cliffhanger for several years. But NO LONGER! I will now elaborate on what happens next... under this readmore bc this is gonna be a long post.

So the main conflict between Sonic and Shadow would be based on the fact that Shadow desperately wants Sonic to elaborate on what he was talking about when he implied Shadow was artificially created like him. Sonic, who might I remind you has amnesia, doesn't know any more about it than Shadow does. Shadow thinks this is a cheap attempt to dodge his questions, they fight, you know how it goes with temperamental hedgehogs.

Now, as I mentioned, the Shadow Androids have been swapped with Metal Sonic. I don't feel like figuring out the details of what that means for the Androids, but what it means for Metal Sonic is this: Maria wasn't sure if she'd be able to save Sonic's life, so she drafted plans for a robotic body to transfer his consciousness into as a last resort. Whether she actually has the technology to do such a thing isn't entirely relevant; what matters is that Tails discovers the blueprints for this and perhaps even a half-built prototype, and it raises the question of whether or not the Sonic he found Knuckles guarding is the real deal, or just a robotic doppelganger.

And that all covers what I have to say about Sonic Heroes, which leads us into...

Shadow the Hedgehog

The Black Arms attack. Alien invasion, y'know the drill. Due to his swapped status, Sonic is the one with Black Doom's DNA in him, so Sonic is the one who gets approached and told to come help take over the planet.

While Sonic is getting seduced to the dark side to varying levels of success (I do NOT know how to adapt the multiple routes system and I'm not even going to try), Shadow is having an absolute time of it. He's started experiencing intense intrusive thoughts/compulsions directly in response to the aliens, driving him to A: Destroy the Black Arms at all costs, and B: Gather the Chaos Emeralds. Not that he wouldn't be doing those things regardless, it's just that some previously dormant part of his brain has switched on and is forcing him to do those NOW, RIGHT NOW, RIGHT NOW IMMEDIATELY. NO TIME TO THINK ABOUT OTHER THINGS DO IT NOW.

This leads him into conflict with Sonic, who may or may not be tentatively on Black Doom's side for the promise of answers about who he really is, and/or who is also trying to gather the Chaos Emeralds. Again, Shadow the Hedgehog's story has way too much going on all at once to coherently adapt within the purview of this post.

The TL;DR for the ending is this: It turns out that just like Sonic accused back in SA2, Shadow is an artificial being created by Gerald Robotnik, but he's got nothing to do with the Ultimate Lifeform project. Rather, he was created with the express purpose of destroying the Black Comet when it would return 50 years later. He was put in stasis as a baby and unfrozen some ~35 years later by Maria's parents, to be raised as their own and prepared for his eventual purpose of fighting off an alien invasion. Unfortunately, Maria's parents died when they were still young, so he just kinda stumbled ass-backwards into a bundle of sleeper-instincts and has to figure things out as he goes along.

Does a pretty good job in the end, though.

I could get into Sonic 06 too, but that one's pretty disconnected from the arc that these games form, so I think I'll save it for another time. Sorry for the long (long, LONG) wait for all this!

#swap au #dot txt #my art

[littlecactiguy]

@yellowmagicalgirl

Rather than add onto our post again, I decided to write out what's been simmering in my thoughts in a Harrow the Ninth-inspired study, with Penny in Gideon's position in Ruby's head.

Ruby, like Harrow, locked her Cavalier away in her head with help (I sort of imply the brain surgery, but don't actually describe it here).

ngl I'm not entirely sure how the end of HtN would go in this au. I do like Penny ending up in a position similar to Kiriona at some point, though that's also largely due to me really liking the idea of inserting Copper in as a Nona (which I can concede is partial bias toward my own oc for Reasons) and them perhaps interacting.

Except that begs the question of, if Ruby's not in her body, then where'd she go? (talk to Maria in the Tomb maybe...)

(I also really like your idea about Ruby being speedy, especially bc it also kind of reflects her semblance. Though I'm not as well-versed in tlt theories - I have never been more frustrated that I left my copies of the books back with my family some states away.)

Anyways, here's a short(ish) study in the 2nd Person from Penny's POV (also the first time I think I've tried 2nd person pov, so that was fun)

Ruby.

I love you. I have always loved you. I always will.

I will do anything for you. I did everything for you.

I would do it all again.

So, why did you lock me away?

I know I’m not…I was never as good as you, as good as the others. I tried my best, but I…

I thought…

Do you not love me back?

I don’t understand. It was enough. My soul. We did it. You became a Lyctor, and it was enough. You lived.

Cinder didn’t.

It was worth it.

Then you sought her out. The one who helped Cinder, who lied to our faces, pretended to be our friend, and—

I don’t understand, Ruby. I’ve been trying to. It’s all I can do, inside this tomb you’ve made for me. Emerald tried to—

She and Cinder almost succeeded in—

And yet you—

She could have killed you. I watched. I fought her. I fought you.

You looked in the mirror when it was done. After they found you where you lay unconscious in that cold, dark prison. After they interrogated Emerald on what she had done and she replied, only what she asked me to do. After they healed you. After they tried, and failed, to free me.

You looked in the mirror. My eyes looked back at you.

You didn’t remember me. You still don’t.

We were together almost our whole lives and you threw it all away.

I loved you.

I still do.

But I…

Everyday since they brought you here, you struggle. You may have been faster, but you never had my strength, and now you’ve rejected it. You lift the blade they gave you, but it’s not enough. Not to deflect the General’s attacks. Not to parry his sword away. Your speed has kept his blade from your heart so far, but it can’t forever.

I know you fear he will kill you. I can feel it. I could have protected you. I swore I’d always protect you. Even before the vow left my lips.

You were the first thing I ever saw on the Ninth. I was alone. My father put in me in that pod and sent it away. He didn’t even put in coordinates. He didn’t know of anywhere I’d be safe. He hoped.

And I arrived on the Ninth. Months and months later. I mapped the stars that passed outside the only window I had on the journey. I wondered if they’d be the last thing I ever saw before my body finally deteriorated enough that I would be lost.

Except I arrived on the Ninth. I remember seeing its form grow bigger and bigger in that little window. I remember being relieved I would crash, because the journey would finally be over then, and I wouldn’t be lonely anymore.

And I wasn’t, just not how I thought.

It was terrifying, seeing the entry panel of the pod be jostled, my father’s last work, his sealing of it, being broken. Then, you got it open, and our eyes met.

You commented on mine being so bright so quickly I didn’t have the chance to say the same about yours.

No one had ever said anything like that to me before then. No one besides my father had ever talked to me before then either. No one on the Ninth would talk to me, not like you did. Not even your Uncle Qrow, though he was a little better than most.

You meant the world to me, Ruby. You still do. You always will.

I was meant to protect you.

Why won’t you let me?

My strength could be yours. My resilience. Every sword I wielded, I did for you.

Your arms tremble as you try to hold one now. You look at the General across the training arena. We both see the cold calculation in his eyes. They’re green, like mine. They aren’t his. We’ve both wondered who they once belonged to.

I wonder if that soul is like me. I hope they aren’t.

You told me, once, my world would never be a the littlest of windows ever again.

You lied.

#rwby #nuts and dolts #ruby rose #penny polendina #locked tomb au #im going to need a writing tag arent i #a little cactus wrote this

[meirimerens]

hello and excuse me if this was asked before, but do you think Burakh would still adopt Murky and Sticky in your modern AU, and if he would — how? because with the sort of circumstances he has in the original setting he sort of. had to. take them in. but in a modern setting i doubt a 26 year old would willingly adopt two kids who better serve as his younger sibling in terms of their age (because he should've been at the club. etc). so i suppose he would do it later but then again the question is where would he even found them. also a somewhat related question, do you have any headcanons for what their real, parent-given names would be? as i understand they most likely wouldn't be want to called them (due to trauma), but my friend personally came up with Maksim and Tanya (Tatyana) for them, and i'd like to know your thoughts on that matter.

hiii bestie no one's asked this before and i very much agree He Should Be At The Club. i think even in the canonverse he really struggles with adopting + raising the kids. i know many people love to indulge in #famly and him being a loving father and i don't disagree at all but i also thinks he Many, Many times feels like he cannot cope with that + his grief anymore etc. he loves them very much. but also he's not even 30, lost his parents, has no one to ask for help in raising kids because none of his friends are doing it, etc. Anyways this is canonverse we modern AUing in here.

first of while i think both kids would still be orphan i don't know how much of the canon circumstances i'm keeping. canonically murky's parents fell from the Sand Pest, and Sticky's iirc we just don't know, we just know he's been alone for a while. considering the Mother Dying In Childbirth thing is recurrent in orphans of the town (including like. Burakh himself. also notkin) that might be his thing. and this, for example, i'm not sure how much would be present in a modern AU. maternal mortality is still a problem, but one of the main reasons for lethal pregnancy outcomes is like. not..... pregnancy-itself-related. and as for the sand pest, while i think it still Would Be a thing in modern AU, idk how it'd pan out with modern medicine, vaccination schemes, etc, so 1) i have no idea how the two would be orphaned in a modern au 2) i don't know how it would interact with/inform their behavior towards burakh and burakh's behavior towards them. being honest i don't think about the orphans too much in the modern au. as you might have noticed. being an orphan (especially this young) in nebulous 1910s-1940s (pre-war) and being an orphan in 2020s is a Vastly different experience. even in bumfuck nowhere eurasian steppe. methinks if burakh was to take on a guardian role over the two, it would be a guardian role, closer indeed to a sibling, rather than a father. & i think more collective work would be here to help the kids navigate being orphaned. like ToG is in some ways the wild, wild west east, but in the 2020s they..... would probably have more structures and regulations for like. orphaned minors. yknow. but also. burakh should be at the club. and in modern AU, he is. he's keeping an eye on dankovsky who agreed to come with the twins and has been sulking in his corner with a migraine for 15 minutes.

also i'm so fond of real names and nicknames having auditive similarities (typically the first letter/syllable) because that's how many of them work in most languages i'm familiar with so i'm seeing Mishka have a name in M and Spichka one in S or Sh... perhaps Masha (as derivated from Maria, but no one calls her Maria, not even her own parents, because well. got one already) and Sasha or Stepan... but mostly in the Orphaning, their legal names didn't really get to stick.

#ring ring (answers) #many things to think about! #sorry late reply was being nervous driving and also drinking a very good tea. busy day. #patho modern au #<- goddess willing that's the right tag

[sage-nebula]

arcane au you say? :eyes:

Well, not a full AU, but more like "ideas for what an AU could look like while keeping the characters true to who they are, rather than forcing them to fit the characters from the show."

Like for instance . . . Sonic does have some things in common with Vi, and Tails does have some things in common with Powder. But while I can see some exchanges between Vi and Power working between Sonic and Tails (e.g. I could see Tails' borrowing Powder's line: "Just that you were 'twice the person at half my age'. You heard them, I'm not a fighter"; as well as Sonic borrowing Vi's, "What makes you different makes you strong. Remember that"), I can't see their relationship breaking apart in the same way that Vi's and Powder's did at the end of episode three. It's probably my unbreakable bond bias speaking, but—actually, no, you know what? It's not, because I didn't come up with "unbreakable bond" for them. Sega came up with that. It's their team-up name in Sonic Advance 3. Sonic and Tails literally have an unbreakable bond, so I just can't see their relationship fracturing or falling apart like Vi's and Powder's did in Arcane. It just doesn't work, on numerous levels:

1.) Tails' inventions work. RIP to Powder, but he's different. So already, there's a critical difference in how the story would play out.

2.) Unless he was mind controlled or otherwise out of control of his own body, I really cannot see Sonic hitting Tails. I definitely can't see him continuing to manhandle Tails as Tails sobs and cowers and pleads with him to stop. Not only is Sonic a pretty private person with his more painful emotions (this is why Sega says he can't cry), but even in a situation where some of Tails' tech malfunctioned or was used against them, and their other friends died . . . seeing Tails breaking down into hysterics over what happened would quell Sonic's own rage. Yeah, of course he'd feel some kind of way about it. He might bench Tails for a while. But he wouldn't smack him, wouldn't manhandle him, wouldn't scream at him, wouldn't storm off and leave Tails screaming and crying after him. That's just not who Sonic is.

So already, the thing that separates the two before the timeskip would have to be different. To keep it in-character, I think it would make much more sense for there to be an intense situation, perhaps a face-off against Eggman or something. The situation is really bad, they're being overwhelmed, maybe a few of their friends have already been killed. And Sonic, because he always makes Tails' safety a priority, shoves Tails out of a window or something to get him out of the proximity of the danger. And then, before Tails can get back in there to help Sonic escape, the building explodes and Tails is made to believe that Sonic perished in the explosion.

(Sonic didn't. Instead, he was captured by Eggman and imprisoned for the next five or six years. But Tails doesn't know that.)

And then that brings us to the next change. Because while Eggman would still be the big bad in this, I can't see any scenario where he takes in and genuinely comes to love Tails. And that's a pretty big thing for Silco and Powder/Jinx; Silco saw himself in the little girl sobbing over her feelings of betrayal by a sibling, which is why he took her in. And he truly came to love her as his daughter. It wasn't a ploy, or an act. He really loved her. But Eggman only loves himself and I can't see that changing / don't want to drastically change the characters for an AU to work. So although he's still the primary villain in the story, he can't be the Silco equivalent when it comes to the brothers.

But you know who could? Shadow.

Because in this scenario, Tails wasn't abandoned; instead, his big brother sent him away from the danger, and then was killed basically right in front of him (or so Tails thinks). And what do you know, but the same thing basically happened to Shadow. His older sister-figure, Maria, sent him away from the danger, and then was gunned down herself as a result. It's something that, in canon, fucks him up to this day, to the point where in the Twitter Takeovers not even Eggman will taunt Shadow with it. So in this case, when Tails is sobbing his heart out in the street because he thinks that Sonic just got blown to pieces while he, Tails, could do nothing but watch, well . . .

Shadow: "You're a heartbroken younger sibling whose older sibling died in front of you in an effort to protect you?"

So in this scenario, perhaps Shadow knew Sonic and Tails a little before this, and so he still asks Tails where his brother is. And Tails, like Powder, launches himself at Shadow, still sobbing, and says that his brother died, he's dead and Tails could do nothing, because Sonic sent him away before he could help. And Shadow remembers the this-AU-version of how Maria died, and so he slowly hugs Tails back, and Silco's line changes just enough so that it's:

"It's okay. We'll avenge them. We'll avenge them both."

And that's how he adopts Tails as his new little brother and teaches him such things as "revenge feels awesome" and "murder is okay."

Sonic's in for a big surprise when he gets busted out of jail, let me tell you.

#anonymous #sonic arcane au #miles tails prower #sonic the hedgehog #unbreakable bond #shadow the hedgehog #Tails: ''Things changed when you left. *I* changed.'' #Sonic: ''I know Tails - I know. You did what you had to do to survive. Me too. All that matters now is we're together.'' #[five minutes later] #Sonic: [horrified] ''Tails!!'' #Tails: [having just gunned down some fuckers] ''I told you things changed!!!'' #(that said - again I can't see it leading to a dinner party / Monster You Created situation) #(that's just taking it too far for them) #(plus Tails doesn't have the mental illnesses that Powder/Jinx has - & yes she was sick even before the incident) #(so the whole thing would play out differently but. still. a Tails-raised-by-Shadow would be willing to shoot to kill I think) #(and Sonic would Not Like That) #sth

[duckdoeswords]

To Earn Ones Favor Ch.1 - For Your Favor

Summary: Weiss was suffocating in her life as royalty. Suffocating to the point where she could barely breathe. So, when the chance to leave, to run away from her duties, from her Father who wants to marry her off, she takes it. Leaving with two silver-eyed women her life changes but whether for the better or not, well, only time will tell.

Words: 3,057

Main Relationship: Weiss Schnee/Ruby Rose/Maria Calavera

Rating: T

Notes: A commission for @powertaco to write a Deaths WhiteRose AU. Hope other people enjoy it as much as they do!

Fic:

The capital city of Atlas was a hive of activity as the birthday celebration for the King’s youngest daughter was in full swing and all were excitedly enjoying the festivities. All except for the youngest daughter whose celebration this was in honor of. She sat in the shade of a tent near the front of the tournament grounds watching as the servants set up for the main draw of the day. 

Weiss leaned into her hand, letting out a heavy sigh. “Is something wrong, Your Highness?” Klein spoke as he poured tea from a porcelain pot into a matching cup. “Are you not enjoying your birthday celebration?” 

“Did anyone even think to ask me if this was something I wanted?” Weiss grumbled as she took the tea, bringing it to her lips she took a deep breath of the black tea before taking a small sip. “Did anyone think to ask if this was how I wanted my 21st birthday to be celebrated?” 

Klein was silent nodding as he returned to standing at attention. “Well,” He spoke slowly. “Perhaps you can try and find something to enjoy? Even just something small maybe?” The butler smiled, eyes crinkling with the action. 

“Maybe.” Weiss sighed as she set her cup back on the table, watching as the servant continued to put up the tournament brackets. Standing up she moved to look at the finalized brackets. A lot of men had signed up. Of course, they had. After all, this was a chance to show off and earn a favor from the King and Queen. It didn’t make Weiss feel any better about what she was being forced to endure. Not much to enjoy when her birthday was being used as a way to try and find a suitor. 

As Weiss dragged her eyes over the names, two suddenly jumped out at her because they were women's names. Ruby and Maria. Maybe this would be a little less of a sausage fest than she originally thought. ‘Interesting. This will be…interesting.’ She thought as she returned to the shade of the tent, collapsing back into the wooden seat. She reached for her tea, watching as people moved back and forth past the opening, putting the finishing touches on the tournament grounds. Erecting the stands where spectators would sit observing the combatants and a stage where the announcements would be made. 

Speaking of announcements, as the preparations finished the announcer climbed on the stage and spoke into a cone, voice echoing through the grounds. “Will all combatants please make their way to the tournament grounds!” 

“Shall we?” Klein spoke leaning forward, smiling brightly.

Continued on Ao3

#duck does words #rwby fanfiction #deaths whiterose #ruby rose #weiss schnee #maria calavera #young maria calavera obviously #my fanfiction #commission #Deaths White Rose

[goldeneyedgirl]

Oh boy, this is probably so irrelevant to you, but I've read the little piece you made for Babyverse about Jasper having to leave Alice and their son to go hunt and I swear I wept, thinking that's exactly how my baby brother gets everytime I leave. Literally the cutest AU ever made!!! Also, I have a weak spot for Damage Alice. May I ask for some of any of these two masterpieces?

This is absolutely not irrelevant - I'm not around small children, so I am relying entirely luck and vague memories to make any depiction of Ollie convincing, and I am SO glad that I am on the right track!

You caught me in a weak moment, so have a little of both <3

babyverse.

It’s been six fucking weeks since he’s seen them, and he’s trying to convince himself that this is another false lead, another dead-end, even as he presses his foot further on the accelerator. 

He knows the old motel he’s going to - it’s been abandoned for decades, with a cracked sign caked in filth declaring it the Rose Spring. It’s a thrice condemned shit-hole, untouched because of alleged chemical leaks or something that the government don’t want to have to clean up to sell the land off. It’s irrelevant though; the Rose Spring, like all the other falling-down, forgotten motels across the country, is a regular haunt for vampires looking to avoid the sun, to meet other travellers, to pass messages back and forth. 

He pulls into the motel, barely shutting off the ignition as he gets out. The back is laden with supplies, and he pauses only long enough to grab the bag that Esme has labelled with a big red cross. 

The stairs are flimsy and buckle under his step - no place for a human. Half the balcony has collapsed, and at least two of the rooms have crumbled in on themselves - probably in the last storm. 

Room 37 is tucked in the corner, and he doesn’t bother to knock as he throws open the door. 

Ollie is sitting on the first rancid, rotting bed and his face lights up as he sees Jasper, his arms stretching out towards him. He’s wearing filthy, mismatched clothing that aren’t his, and is sucking on a pacifier again, and for some reason that’s more upsetting than anything else to Jasper - he was just beginning to give it up before everything happened. And now it’s back. 

Maria is seated on the bed with Ollie, looking equally as filthy and surprisingly solemn. 

“You made it faster than I anticipated,” she says, standing up and motioning to Ollie as the bed tilts slightly without her weight. “He’ll be hungry, but he’s unharmed.”

Ollie makes a whining noise as soon as he’s in Jasper’s arms; a reassuring weight, but Ollie is about to start crying. 

“Where’s Alice?” He demands, rubbing his son’s back and hoping they can get out of here, and back north tonight; somewhere they can clean up and talk and he can make sure that they’re okay. 

Maria looks grimmer and motions for him to follow her out the door and into the next room. 

Ollie gets agitated, straining towards Alice the second they set foot in the second room. 

The scent of blood saturates the air.

Alice is lying on the bed, unconscious. There’s an angry wound on her head, and bother her arms. Some rough bandages have been wrapped around her leg, and it’s obvious that someone - perhaps Maria - tried to clean her up. 

“Alice?” His alarm is evident in his voice, and he almost hands Ollie off to Maria to go to her side before his brain clicks back into place. “Alice, can you hear me?”

Ollie’s reaching more and his whimpers are turning to wails as Alice doesn’t flinch.

“For god’s sake, give me the child, and deal with your mate,” Maria says, almost crossing. “I didn’t eat him before, I’m not going to eat him now.”

damaged alice.

The race to the ballet studio is the longest journey of his life.

Alice can’t defend herself. She’s never fought in her life. When Maria came to Calgary, Alice had been carefully protected by Esme and Emmett. 

He’s never run faster in his life. 

The scene that he finds in the ballet studio is one that fills him with anger and terror, and his first instinct is to get Alice out. 

Not Bella bleeding out on the floor and screaming (oh god, he knows that scream) with an extremely broken leg. 

Or to destroy James, with his joker-smile.

Alice is standing over Bella, blood on her face and dress and hands, and she’s getting upset about it, a thin cry coming out of her mouth as she stares down at her maybe-future-best-friend’s blood smelling so tempting…

But when James laughingly steps forward towards Bella, Alice growls protectively. 

He swoops in, barely pausing as he grabs Alice and gets her out of James’ reach, smoothing her hair as he tries to look her in the eyes; but Alice’s eyes dart, never meeting his. Not a surprise that today would become a bad one, that Alice can’t communicate right now. 

(James was alone with her for too long; he hates himself for that. He’s terrified she’s been hurt in some way, that the damage is worse than being slathered in her maybe-friend’s blood. )

“Are you okay?” 

As soon as the words are out, James slams into him from nowhere, and he can’t worry about Alice or Bella in that moment. 

But all he can hear are Alice’s soft cries from where she’s standing in the corner. 

#my fic: damaged alice #my fic: hybrid baby-verse #babyverse alice will recover #damaged alice has a little more trauma first #didn't mean for both of these to be jasper-rescue snippets #maria is a bamf #and she's not going to kill jasper's 'wife' and kid #that's beyond tacky and completely inefficient and just not necessary #why harm them when helping them might get you a Future Favour? #i'll put a post up last but i'm not doing any more snippets for a hot minute so that I can get on top of ficmas and all my wips #i'll go through the existing ones that I've got in my ask box #but anything else will be politely set aside until I've got the priority stuff done

[shivunin]

Sleight of Hand

(Maria Hawke/Fenris | 7374 Words | AO3 | No warnings)

Here's the magician AU I have been talking about. I may write more in this AU at some point, but for now this is the whole story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it c: (and here is what I was listening to as I wrote this)

In the hours before showtime, Hawke sometimes liked to come to the stage and stand just behind the curtains. Nothing else. Just—stand there, eyes closed, and listen. 

There was a heartbeat to the old theater. In quiet moments, she could almost feel the pulse of it. There: the echo of past applause, the soft swish swish of years of push brooms across the empty stage, the murmurs of a thousand chorus girls and backup dancers. There—the hush as bows rising over violins, hovering over still strings. And there—spots squeaking as they pivoted to the correct position, just before the light inside was lit. It was like a sharp inhale, like the twitch of a muscle about to contract, like toes pressed to the very edge of a precipice. 

Or maybe that was just her own fanciful thinking. 

“Hawke,” the dry voice of her stage assistant called from the wings, “It is four thirty.”

One breath: in and out. 

It was time.

“Coming,” she called back, stepping away from the dusty velvet. “Say, Fenris, do you ever stand onstage and hear the echoes of performances past?”

A pause.

“No,” he said. 

When she turned to look at him, she found him already dressed for the show in the customary snow-white shirt, black vest accented with lines of silvery embroidery, and deep black trousers. From the audience, the watchers would not see the many-times-mended seams, the shabby cuffs, nor most of the pale tattoos covered by each. He’d told her there was no sense in covering them—and he was right, for they showed through his shirtsleeves in the stage lights—but at least covering them gave the impression that they weren’t up for casual discussion. 

The illusion provided by both was for the best. Most people learned the hard way that Fenris did not like to talk about the markings, and the shabbiness of his clothes was her fault, for she’d had little spare money to spend on fixing it. 

“Really?” Hawke asked, walking toward him. “Not even a peep?”

“No,” he said again, but this time the corner of his mouth twitched. 

Ah; he was in a good mood tonight. One could never tell. 

“I suspect you invent these things for your own entertainment,” he went on, uncrossing his arms and shifting from one foot to the other. “Or perhaps you simply enjoy asking me nonsensical questions.”

“Oh, it’s both,” she said earnestly, widening her eyes. “You’re ever so attractive when you look at me like I’ve gone mad.”

That garnered a snort, which from him might as well have been uproarious laughter. Fenris fell in step beside her as she passed him, and they began to make their way from the wings to her narrow dressing room. 

She’d been desperate when they’d first met, facing down an hour and a half to showtime and an assistant who’d delightedly told Hawke she was running off to Rivain with her beau. Hawke had gone to the portion of Lowtown where folk looked for work, and there she’d found him. 

Fenris had been scowling and plainly exhausted, clearly the worst possible choice for the task. Hawke had asked him to come anyway, because there was something about him that she’d seen then and saw now, some intangible quality that made her want to do something for him. If the show went poorly, it was just one show. She’d offered him the job on the spot and—well, three months (or was it four?) later, here they were. He hadn’t given her reason to regret it yet, though he’d be the first to admit that he’d tried. 

Hawke didn’t have to think very hard to find the next topic of conversation. Work was always easy to fall back on. 

“So,” she said, “about the trick before the cups—”

“Absurd,” he murmured, then gestured gracefully, “but go on.”

“The box is an audience-pleaser and I’ve adjusted the swords better this time. Please reconsider.”

He sighed. 

“Fenris,” she said, and the pair of them paused before her dressing room door. 

“Hawke.”

Maria grinned at him, delighted as ever by the dryness in his voice, then turned the doorknob and walked inside. The lamps were already lit—his doing, no doubt—and both of them politely pretended that there wasn’t a dent in the couch roughly the size and shape of his body. 

“I do not believe that this trick is—is that another bruise?” he asked, darting in front of her. Hawke drew up short and angled her chin upward, neither hiding nor stepping away. His fingertips hovered just above her cheekbone for a moment before he took a step back. 

“Yes,” she said brightly, and edged around him to sit at the dressing table. She would still need to change, and Honeybun needed to stretch her legs, and—

“How?” he asked. When she glanced at him in the mirror, his brows had drawn tightly together. 

There had been a time not very long ago—perhaps three months now—when he’d scowled at her like that all the time. She hadn’t even noticed when his expression had started to soften. 

“Picked a fight, as usual,” she said, lifting the first of many makeup brushes. “But good news: the idiot won’t be stealing from the coffee seller again. Oh, also I got paid.”

She smiled at Fenris in the mirror, but he wasn’t having it. He rolled his eyes and turned away instead, reaching under the rack of costumes to flip the cage door open. 

“Come on, then,” he said, irritation underscoring his voice. 

A rabbit, carmel-patched and floppy-eared, hopped from her enclosure and wiggled her nose at him. Fenris took a berry from the bowl on the side table and placed it gravely before Honeybun, who set upon it with leporine delight. 

Hawke smiled to herself. When he’d first arrived, he’d regarded the rabbit with the narrow-eyed suspicion usually reserved for snakes. She supposed he must see more of Honeybun than she did these days, given that he was quietly occupying this room for most of the hours that Hawke herself was not in it. Even so, there was something sweet about the way he gingerly leaned down and ran a hand over the rabbit’s head. 

Maria looked away before Fenris could catch her watching and began to get ready for the act as if she’d never noticed anything at all. 

|

Fenris would be the first to acknowledge that it was a ridiculous situation. 

Once, he had been a feared living weapon, chained at a magister’s side as a deterrent to the mage’s enemies. Once, he had left a trail of heartless bodies from Tevinter to Seheron. Now, he donned a sparkly vest and stood on stage in front of a crowd, pretending that Hawke’s sleight of hand meant the same thing as magic. 

It was not without purpose. He told himself this often, when he lay on the lumpy couch in the dressing room at night, when he worked through fighting forms in the quiet of the morning, when he straightened his vest and readied himself to step onstage yet again four evenings a week and twice on Saturdays. 

This was not without purpose—but that did not make it any less ridiculous.

“Alright there, Rog,” Hawke was saying to their audience volunteer for the night. “You see that all the cups have nothing in them, yes? No sticky honey on the inside, no secret bottom?”

The boy, freckled and gap-toothed, nodded and fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. 

“They look alright,” he agreed. “Nothing funny inside.”

“Wonderful,” Hawke said, bestowing the full force of her smile on the poor boy, who flushed red enough to mask his many orange freckles. “Now, I am going to put the ball under one of the cups and move them around. Then, you’re going to tell me which cup the ball is under. Alright? If you pick the right one, we have a prize.”

She gestured to Fenris, who sighed and displayed the prize in question: a “wand” of black-painted wood with a white tip. The boy’s eyes widened at the sight of it. 

“Alright!” he said, rubbing his hands together. 

“Wonderful,” Hawke said, displaying the ball with a flourish before tucking it under the first cup. 

This part was always fast by necessity, but Fenris was familiar with it by now. He could see the blur of the ball when she angled the cup just so and it shot into her sleeve. The first few times, though—he might have wondered if it was some sort of magic, though he knew it wasn’t. He could often feel the echo of magic through the tattoos, like the ripples thrown by a rock cast into a still pond. He’d never felt them during her act; whatever she did onstage, it did not involve the Fade at all. 

The rest of the scene went precisely as anticipated: the astonished boy picked an empty cup. Hawke revealed that they were all empty, produced the ball from behind the boy’s ear to the audience’s delight, and then sent him off with the little ball even though it was the last of their current stock. Fenris had found this routine absurd at first; he hated to admit to himself now that he thought it was…endearing, perhaps, that she insisted on doing this for the young audience participants even though it inconvenienced her. The boy, stunned, wandered back offstage with many a backward glance at the magician herself. 

For her part, Hawke grinned at the audience, bowed with a flourish that scattered light over her red coat, and moved smartly on to the next trick: producing Honeybun from her tophat. 

It was as Fenris found his place behind the table that hid the rabbit that he looked up at the audience and saw them. 

There: at last, a half dozen fighters dressed in Tevinter garb. 

It was almost a relief to see them here, when he’d been expecting them from the first moment he stepped onstage. It wasn’t a trap he’d placed, so to speak, but these performances had been a lure of sorts. And now—now his pursuers would show their hand at last, in the time and place of Fenris’s choosing. 

One of the fighters smiled to Fenris and stood, walking toward the rear doors in the audience. The others followed, leaving a large section of the back row empty. Fenris’s blood thrummed in his ears, adrenaline pouring into his system. It was an effort not to call on the markings, but there would be no fight in the moment. They would be waiting outside instead, perhaps with some sort of conveyance to stuff him into. A cage was always easier to begin with; it allowed them to deprive the occupant of food and water, to control their sleep without needing to worry about danger to the slave hunters, and—

The kick to his shin brought him back to himself. 

“—must be feeling shy today. Well folks, how about a hand for Her Serene Fluffiness? Maybe we can coax her out from the mysterious beyond.” 

The audience cheered accordingly and Fenris realized he’d missed his cue. Of course he had; he’d finally gotten what he wanted, hadn’t he? He could walk off the stage right now and it would not matter one bit. 

Only—only Hawke had found him in that alley, hungry and cold, and offered him a job on the spot. He’d never been anything but dry and skeptical during these performances, but she’d never once faulted him for it or suggested he leave. In fact, she seemed to enjoy it—though why continued to elude him. She’d slipped the key to her dressing room into his pocket that first day and she’d never once walked in on him there no matter how wary he’d been in the early days. 

Fenris owed her nothing. He performed a job and she paid him for it. But—if this was to be his last evening with her here, he owed it to her to finish this well. 

Fenris found the catch under the table without looking and flipped it, opening the trap door to the hidden rabbit cage within.

“And—Abracadabra!” Hawke said, tapping the brim of the top hat with a flourish. When she reached into the hat and scooped Honeybun from the depths, Fenris felt a pang. 

It was an absurd trick. It had always been an absurd trick. 

But—he would miss the cursed creature. 

He’d…miss the way Hawke smiled at the rabbit every time she lifted it from the hat, as if surprised and delighted to find it there. 

“Oh, dear,” Hawke said, cuddling Honeybun in her arms. “But you can’t help me do any of my tricks, can you, darling? Perhaps my lovely assistant can keep track of you for the moment. Let’s see—ah! A treat for your troubles, my little friend.” 

With a flick of her fingers, she produced a strawberry seemingly from thin air and smiled down at the rabbit. Honeybun took the berry from her hand, nose wiggling furiously, and Hawke held the creature out to Fenris.

Hawke must have seen something in his expression; her eyes searched his face as Fenris took the rabbit from her. He looked right back, taking in the wink of the gold tucked in amongst her curls, the scar that crossed one eyebrow and fell just below her eye, the bruise she’d barely managed to cover with powder, the way her upper lip was just slightly larger than the lower one, and the determined set to her chin. 

There was much he would have liked to say to her in that moment. The words crowded in his throat, chokingly thick, but—well. The show must go on, as she often said. Fenris settled Honeybun in his arms instead, noting absently the warm softness of the fur, the soft movements as she went on nibbling her strawberry, and nodded once to Hawke to indicate that all was well enough. 

“Alright, folks,” she said, turning and spreading her arms wide. “You’ve seen wonders tonight, haven’t you?”

A cheer from the audience. 

“You’ve been delighted and entertained, amazed and awakened to the possibilities of the world—well, now it’s time for the grand finale.”

Fenris stroked his hand once over the rabbit’s back, tension riding the base of his neck. 

Yes, it did seem like it was time for a finale. 

|

There was something wrong with her assistant. 

Maria had noticed it most of the way through the act, but the oddness in his manner hadn’t gone away when they’d returned to the changing room. She set the last of the baubles in her hair aside and turned at last to look at Fenris. He was keyed up in a way he hadn’t been for months, shifting from foot to foot and tensing at every sound from the hall beyond. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked, and Fenris flinched. Hawke half-rose at the sight of it, but sat again when he took a step back. 

“If something’s happened—” she began, fingers curling around the arm of the chair, but he gestured sharply. 

“It is nothing,” he said. “You need to go.”

“I need to go?” she asked, brows rising. “Forgive me, serah, but I was under the impression that this is my dressing room. I have no intention of walking home in this.”

She gestured to her outfit—still the stage costume—and Fenris grimaced. 

“Here, then,” he said, taking the stack of her street clothes from the couch arm, “change and go.”

Hawke took them, but she didn’t go. 

“Fenris,” she said quietly, “please. Whatever this is—let me help.”

There was sweat along his forehead, and his hair had fallen out of the neat quiff he wore during the act. They weren’t quite friends—he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested in getting attached to this place—but the two of them worked very well together. And…well, she’d never say it to him aloud, but here and onstage with him was the only times she felt she could simply be herself. Not a sister or a daughter, not the glue that held her friend group together, but Maria the Magician and only that. 

“No,” he said, just as quietly, but iron-firm. 

Right. 

Hawke turned away and went into the back section of the room, where the tiny bathroom was located. It was quick, silent work to change out of her costume, to set aside the tuxedo shirt, the red coat, the matching skirt and shiny shoes. It was quick work, but she worried the whole time and her hands were unsteady on the buttons of her trousers when she did them up. 

Returning to the room didn’t help. Fenris watched her while she hung up her clothes, and he was waiting with an extended hand when she was finished. 

Hawke looked down at his hand, and then at his face. He’d made it abundantly clear that he did not want her to touch him on the first day they’d met. She’d moved to do the simplest of tricks—pull a coin from behind his ear so he could buy himself lunch—but he’d caught her wrist lightning-fast and forbade her to try it again. They passed things back and forth onstage, but that was the closest they’d ever come to touching skin to skin. 

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. 

She took his hand anyway and sucked in a breath when she felt the hard metal hidden there. Fenris clasped her hand between his, pressing the key to the dressing room into her palm. His hands were callused and warm around the smooth, cool metal he held. There was absolutely no reason to feel the way she did about touching him—they were hands, for the Maker’s sake—but she felt something nonetheless, a bubbling sensation in her chest. It wasn’t helped by the knowledge that he was…he must be…

“Thank you,” he said in that low, serious voice. “For—everything, Hawke.” 

She didn’t let go when he did. For a moment, they lingered there, the key pressed between their palms. 

What could she say? He’d already refused to explain himself, had already made it clear that he didn’t want her here. What more could she possibly say if he would not allow her to help? 

“You need to go,” he said, extricating his hand from her grasp. When he stepped aside, there was a clear path to the door. 

Fine. 

Fine, she would go—but she’d be damned if she left him to the jaws of whatever fate he’d resigned himself to. Hawke nodded, passing him closely enough that she felt the heat radiating from his body. She paused only once, the door held open in her hand. He was still watching her when she looked back. 

“I’ll see you later,” she said, the words not quite a question. 

Fenris hesitated. His mouth firmed and he half-nodded, an angled bow of the head that might have been assent or disagreement. 

Hawke turned away and shut the door behind her. She strode toward the back door at a clip, taking her staff from the umbrella stand where she’d hidden it. She had people to find and not much time to fetch them here. 

She could only hope that whatever Fenris was going to do, he would take his time doing it.

|

Fenris waited onstage, hands loose at his sides, dressed in the clothing he’d worn when he fled Seheron. Unfortunately, it remained the sturdiest he owned; whatever could be said about Danarius, he’d wanted his pet bodyguard to be properly attired. 

The theater around him was quiet. He’d waited until the crew were all gone, until the lights were doused, and then he’d crept from a hiding place along the catwalk and propped the back door open with a brick. They would be here soon; he had little doubt of that. At least here Fenris had the advantage of knowing precisely where everything was—especially given that the stage had already been prepared for Hawke’s show tomorrow evening and all of the usual props were positioned precisely where they’d be needed for the performance.

Fenris clenched his fist, eyes closed, listening. Do you ever stand onstage and hear the echoes of performances past? Hawke had asked him just that afternoon. 

An absurd question—she seemed to enjoy being absurd—but standing here now, Fenris felt he almost understood what she meant. The past seemed to live in the empty spaces here, in its way. 

Two steps to the left—that was where she’d first tapped his wrist with her so-called wand and drawn a full bouquet from his sleeve. There—just to the right, beside the table—that was where he’d first asked her if anyone fell for this farce of an act. She’d laughed in his face, then announced to the crowd that every performer should have a skeptic on hand, lest they become too full of themselves. She’d given him a cut of the excess tips tossed into the hat after the show that night and every night since—had that been the first night or the second?—and told him he had a job as long as he wanted it. 

Odd—because he’d only half-believed her at the time—but in his memory she looked uncharacteristically solemn when she’d said it. “Stay as long as you wish, Fenris,” she’d told him, and when he’d put his hand in his pocket later he’d found the heavy brass key inside. 

Tonight, the stage curtains had been left open, as was usual after the audience was gone. If he opened his eyes, he would see all the way to the back of the theater where Hawke’s friends sat during weekend performances. They were loud—would always shout when she pulled off a trick, even if they’d seen it a dozen times before—and Fenris had always taken their presence as his cue to disappear swiftly after the show. 

He wondered now if it would have been better to allow himself attachment to this place; if he had reached out sooner, would it have been easier to stay? He didn’t know. He was weary of running—and that was precisely what he would be doing when he left this place. Months ago, he’d thought to take a stand here and make an end of it, but—did he really think this would be the end of Danarius’s pursuit? 

No. No, he knew better than that. Perhaps it would be worth it to consider staying here after—

A soft squeak: the hinges of the back door, perpetually overused and under-oiled. 

Fenris took a deep, slow breath and released it, feeling along the lines of the lyrium markings. He was ready; he hadn’t spent these past months in idleness. He’d spent them eating properly and practicing in the privacy of Hawke’s dressing room. He was not the shell-shocked slave who’d escaped from Seheron, nor was he the desperate creature on the run through the hills and dales of the Free Marches, striking back just enough to survive before running again. Fenris would fight, and fight well—on his own behalf, for once. 

It was a simple thing to turn and face backstage, to wait for them to come. It had been the work of months to reach a place where he would want to.

“Well, well, well,” an accented voice drawled from the wings, “would you look at that? The master’s stray dog, fresh from doing its little tricks onstage. How d’you think the magister will take it out of your hide when he finds out how you’ve been spending your time—little wolf?”

Little wolf. The disgust Fenris felt when the words crawled across his skin was so potent it was almost a physical sensation of its own.

“Come on, then,” the voice drawled. “Heel, boy. It doesn’t have to be a fight; you know it’s all over now, don’t you? Why make this hurt more than it has to?” 

Fenris still couldn’t see the speaker, but he could see a dark shape on the catwalk above, moving quietly in the shadows. That was not good; he would need to remember to be especially wary of the space above his head. 

“No.” 

No. How easy it was to speak a denial of his own volition; how good it felt, even after months of running. 

No, he would not go back without a fight. No, he was not Danarius’s little wolf anymore. 

The speaker stepped from the wings at last, dressed in sturdy clothes—fighting clothes. Others revealed themselves, four on one side, six on the other. If he wasn’t mistaken, the man in robes to the left was a mage. Fenris was grossly outnumbered, even before he counted the ones hiding on the catwalk. 

No matter. He would fight and die before he would allow himself to be dragged back to Tevinter. It could be—would be—that simple.

“You should know better,” the speaker said with a grotesque smile. “The magister never lets go of what belongs to him. Why bother running in the first place, slave?”

“Fenris is a free man.”

No. 

Hawke’s voice came from behind him, somewhere in the audience. Fenris didn’t turn to look at her—he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off the slave-hunters—but the man he’d been speaking to angled himself slightly to look down at her. 

“How lovely,” he said. “And harboring an escaped slave. Stay back and we won’t take you with us when we haul this one off.” 

Footsteps behind him; hard-heeled shoes on the stairs up to the stage. Fenris’s hands curled into fists at his sides. 

“Hawke…” he said, and felt the stir of air beside him.

“You’re sorely mistaken,” she said in her stage voice, bright and loud, “He’s my stage assistant, not a slave. If you think I’m going to let you—”

“Let us?” the leader barked, laughing. “Let us? You don’t have to let us do anything, Pretty; you can’t stop us.” 

Hawke still stood just behind him where Fenris could not quite see her. Fear tangled with the anger in his chest. Had he not told her to go? Had he been anything less than perfectly clear? She—foolish, impulsive—she had put herself in harm’s way for what?

“Hawke,” Fenris said, “I do not want your help. Leave.”

One step. A second, sharp against the black stage floor. 

She came to a stop at his side, back straight, chin angled up. When she stood like this, the top of her head was level with his eyes.

“No,” she said pleasantly. 

“Suit yourself,” the leader said, drawing a saber from his belt. “You’ll still look pretty enough in chains, girl.”

No. 

“How sweet of you to say,” she said. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

He’d missed the staff in her hand—how, he didn’t know—but Fenris did not miss the wash of fire that poured from it when she struck it against the stage floor. It consumed the first of the slave-hunters all at once, so quickly that Fenris had not yet processed the fact that Hawke was a mage before everyone else was moving and it was too late to think. 

Fenris darted toward the leader first, half because he presented the most immediate obstacle and half because of the threat he’d just made. It was one thing to risk himself and another entirely to risk—

No; not now. He did not have space to think of it now. 

The spell caught him when Fenris called on the markings, ready to rip the man’s heart from his chest. A cage of light; he’d seen its like many times before, had been caught between its bars more than once. It crushed the air from his lungs, lifted his bare feet from the ground, and stopped his hand mid-motion. Fenris gritted his teeth against the pressure, bracing against the pain to come. 

Instead, the spell ended, dropping him neatly back on his feet. 

“No, thank you,” Hawke said cheerfully, “Why don’t you try it yourself and see what you think?” 

Fenris felt the ripple of magic in a pulse across the markings, but again he had no space to think of this. The leader still stood nearby, thrusting the saber toward him, and Fenris caught the flat of it on his bracer, redirecting it harmlessly away. The others closed in quickly, and it would mean death or worse to be surrounded. Fenris reached into a man’s chest and crushed his heart in one smooth motion, ducked another blow, and thrust the dead man’s body in the way of another combatant. 

He’d planned this; it did not matter that Hawke had arrived to upset all his strategies. Fenris snapped one man’s neck, caught another blade with the now-limp body, and slipped backward again, to the place where Hawke had stored his least favorite of her tricks. 

The sword thrust into the box was usually dull for his protection, but he’d replaced it this afternoon. The one he pulled from the wood now was much wider and longer than her usual stage blades, and when he swung it before him it knocked back three of his opponents. Only two stood before him now, but the leader was nowhere to be found. Where—

Hawke cried out behind him and Fenris spun around, his chest tight. The slave-hunters’ leader held her tightly, an arm around her waist. There was a long cut across her cheek, spreading a curtain of blood over the freckled skin. It dripped from her jaw, making a darker patch on the collar of her red coat. 

“You see?” the man panted. “Look what you’ve done. Now I won’t get near as much for her; she’s damaged goods.” 

Hawke’s lips were pressed so hard together that they’d gone pale and her eyes were fixed on him. Fenris’s hands tightened on the hilt of the sword as he watched the scattered light of his markings dance across her dress. She should never have involved herself; he’d made it perfectly clear that she needed to go. And now—and now—

More of the fighters stepped from the wings in his periphery. Fenris stepped to the side to keep them and the leader in his view, but he was already calculating how he could possibly get her out of this with her neck intact. He was too far to rush the man; too slow to stay his hand. He could reach through her for the slave-hunter’s heart—but this was not something he’d done before without intending for both parties to die. Six more stepped onstage, then eight, then ten. 

There was no way out of this. He could feel the certainty of that knowledge, rising with the sense of dread. Fenris would rather be dead than taken, would have gladly fought to that end alone. But she—how could he barter her own lifeblood the same way? 

How could he do anything else? 

“Drop the sword or I give her a matching set,” the leader said, angling the sword up until it rested across Hawke’s cheek and jaw.

Fenris looked at her again, his knuckles gone white on the hilt, desperate for anything—some sign—of what she’d rather he do.

Hawke looked back, raising her chin very slightly despite the blade resting against her skin, and quirked one eyebrow. That was precisely the way she looked at him when he was about to miss a cue, but what cue could she possibly be reminding him of now? 

Her arms were held tight to her sides, too immobile to move much, but as he watched one wrist flexed, flicked, and a small wooden ball flew out of her sleeve, rolling across the floor. 

“What—” one of the other fighters said, eyes following it, and an arrow sprouted soundlessly from the man’s neck. 

As the arrow hit, the man holding Hawke grunted with pain and let her go. At once, she slammed her head back into his nose and ducked, neatly missing the blade he’d tried to bring back around. 

“That’s no way to treat a lady,” a silken said behind the two of them, and the leader made a wet choking sound before collapsing to his knees. A woman in a pale dress stood in his place, spinning a bloody blade in one hand while she smiled down at the body. 

“Sorry we’re late, Hawke!” a voice called from the catwalk. 

As if the voice had reminded them what was happening, the fighters sprang into action again, rushing either Hawke or Fenris. Only—now they were not fighting alone. Arrows and bolts struck the slave-hunters as they rushed forward, and a fist of stone swept another off his feet and into the table where Honeybun’s cage was kept when she was onstage. Fire sparked out of the corner of his eye—Hawke’s doing—and lightning danced through the knot of people who’d tried to surround Fenris. A dark-haired man who closely resembled Hawke stepped into the breach, nodding once to Fenris before turning away and engaging a fighter with twin daggers clutched in her hands. 

They made short work of the rest in the end; there were seven of her friends, as far as he could tell, and when they fought together even the largest of their opponents fell before them. As the final slave hunter slipped from Fenris’s blade, Hawke sighed and braced a hand on her knee, breathing hard. 

“That was bracing,” she said between breaths. “Maker, what a mess. I’ll be weeks fixing all of this.”

“You could let the stage crew do their jobs for once,” a dwarf said, sliding down the ladder to the catwalk and swinging a crossbow onto his shoulder. “They do fix things like this, you know.”

“But if I don’t do it myself, how will I know they put things in the right place?” Hawke asked, waving a hand. Fenris was close enough to hear the breath she sucked in between her teeth just before she reached up to clear some of the blood from her face. 

“Well, don’t touch it,” another man said, stepping over several fallen bodies to peer at her. “What a bloody mess. Hold still and let me fix that, won’t you?” 

Hawke rolled her eyes, but straightened so the taller man could see. 

“Mother hen,” she told him, and her eyes angled to Fenris at last. 

“Alright?” she asked. 

Fenris lowered his sword, searching for the words. He found some at last, though they were not the ones he’d been looking for. 

“Why do this,” he said, gesturing to the box with swords in it, “if you can do real magic?” 

Her brows raised, but she flinched before they would have reached their usual apex. 

“Sorry,” the man leaning over her murmured. A soft light spilled from his hands, closing the edges of the cut across her cheekbone. 

“They’re both real magic,” Hawke said after a moment, “The only difference is that one makes people clap and the other gets you tossed in the Gallows. And besides—if a templar ever reported me, what would their fellows think except that they were too foolish to realize a good sleight of hand when they saw it? Hiding in plain sight was the best way to go.”

“I still think it’s a horrible idea,” the healer muttered, still frowning down at her face.

“I think it’s genius,” the woman with the daggers announced, neatly sidling around two collapsed slave-hunters and crouching to check one’s pockets. “Hello—look at this.” 

“Is that a golden tooth?” an elven woman asked, wandering over the bodies as if she didn’t notice them, “I don’t think those are supposed to be in one’s pockets, Isabela.”

“Ouch—Flames, Anders, if I’d known it was going to hurt, I’d have done it myself,” Hawke snapped. Fenris turned back to her, ignoring the others for the moment. The healer—Anders, she’d said—let his hands fall away at last and shrugged. 

“You’d’ve scarred if you had,” he said. “Done now. You may still want to clean up; you’re a mess.”

Blood still streaked her neck and coat. Hawke grimaced again and tipped her head back. 

“Alright up there, Sebastian?”

“Of course,” someone called back. Fenris squinted and spotted a bowman in the catwalk. “Didn’t you say Aveline was coming?”

“No, I said Aveline wasn’t coming. She was on patrol when I sent word—but, as it turns out, that’s probably for the best. Can’t imagine she’d love the amount of dead bodies involved in this one. Ah, well. Maybe Merrill can make them toddle off and lie down somewhere less conspicuous.”

“I can’t actually do that, Hawke,” the elf said, looking mildly distressed, “But I do know a carrying spell—if we stacked them all onto something, perhaps I could make them float or—”

“It was just a joke, dear,” Hawke said, crossing to the woman and resting a hand on her shoulder. “Technically speaking—legally speaking—this was self defense. Wasn’t it?” 

As one, they turned to look at Fenris, who’d been standing wordlessly at the edge of the stage. He looked back, taking in the lot of them. What would it be like, he wondered, to have so many people who’d come in an instant when one needed help? 

What would it be to answer a call like that? To choose to step forward and fight, even before one knew the circumstances of the battle? 

What would it be like to…stay?

“Yes,” he said after a moment.

“You see?” Hawke said. “Now, I’ve promised Carver that drinks are on me—”

“Ah, you remembered after all,” the dark-haired man said, tucking a bloody cloth back into his pocket and sheathing his sword. 

“—so why don’t you finish frisking their pockets and pop off to the Hanged Man? I’ll meet you there in a bit. I think we need to sort out a few things here first.” 

|

Hawke stood in the bathroom of her dressing room, hands braced on the sink, eyes fixed on the mirror. 

Effort and focus had not helped her remove an ounce of the anger from her face. 

Really, she was angry often—people didn’t seem to notice if it was covered by a broad enough smile—but it had been a very long time since she’d been this angry. 

Breathe, she reminded herself, and closed her eyes to focus on that instead. It was no use. Behind her eyelids, she still saw the bastards on her stage, threatening her friend, demanding he submit to—

“Hawke?” Fenris asked from the other side of the door. 

Tears of the Bride, she’d come in here so he wouldn’t have to see this. 

“I’ll be just a moment,” she said, and it was an effort to keep her voice even. 

Silence. After a moment, she heard the sound of the cage door swinging open again. 

Alright. Alright. She could do this. 

Maria fumbled the trousers up and over her pantalets, fastened the blouse over her stays, and took another moment to look herself in the eyes and breathe.  Fenris had spilled the tale while she’d cleaned up in here, for she’d rightly guessed that he’d be more comfortable explaining if he didn’t have to look at her. Now, she was glad she’d arranged things that way because—well. What good would it do him for her to be mad now? If there was one thing she knew, it was this: people who were hurt, people who’d been tormented and hunted halfway across the continent? Those people were not the ones who needed her to be upset on their behalf.

Not where they had to see it, at least.

Hawke hesitated only a moment longer, hand thrust into her pocket, but then she swung the door open and stepped out. Fenris had chosen to sit on the floor and was regarding Honeybun solemnly as the rabbit investigated the space beneath the dressing table. He rose gracefully when Maria stepped into the room, but didn’t immediately do anything more than that. Hawke paused in the doorway, surveying the scene, and Fenris looked back. 

“She doesn’t like to stay in the cage for too long,” he said finally, spreading a hand in the rabbit’s direction, “She seems to prefer the room.”

“I agree,” Hawke said, setting a hand on the back of the nearest chair. “Before you came, I would leave her door open overnight and a sign on the door not to open it without checking first. The amount of times she’s been loose in the theater is…well. Notable.”

They stood for a long moment, looking at each other. Her fingers curled in her pocket. What could she say to him? He hadn’t wanted her help earlier, would have died rather than involve her. Now…Well. 

Both of them were far too proud; she knew that for a fact. One of them would have to reach out first. 

Maria stepped closer—close enough to touch if she’d intended to—and raised her chin to look him in the eyes. 

“Usually,” she said, “the purpose of the stage assistant is to draw attention. The first trick to stage magic, you see, is misdirection. If the audience is looking at the assistant, they miss part of the trick. The assistant is meant to smile and look pretty and charm the ones watching into wanting to believe, just a little, in the idea of magic that cannot hurt or possess or pose a danger to them.”

Fenris regarded her steadily. He really had the most lovely eyes—not that she’d told him as much; she knew better than that. Looking at them made it easier to take another breath, to let some of the anger go. 

“You are really, really bad at that. The worst I’ve ever seen, honestly. But—what you are good at is asking exactly the question that they’re thinking instead. Why would you want to pull a posy from your pocket? How would a rabbit even fit inside a hat?” 

The smile came easy enough now. She didn’t have to work at it anymore. 

“What could possibly be the purpose of levitating two feet in the air and staying there?”

“It is a perfectly reasonable question,” he said, but his brow had unfurrowed slightly. 

Stay, she thought at him, smiling, stay with me. Don’t run. 

No; too soon for that. There were other things to say first, in any case. 

“They like you,” she said instead. 

Now came the hard part. She’d practiced this on Merrill for days after she’d first met him just in case. Fenris did not like things in his periphery, and he seemed to dislike being touched on the shoulders or neck in general. So, rather than pulling something from behind his ear, she tapped his chest and produced the thing she’d been clutching in her pocket. 

“Stay as long as you wish, Fenris,” she said, holding the brass key to the dressing room between two fingers. “The job is still yours.” 

Fenris looked at the key, then at her. His mouth firmed, as if he, too, was holding words in. After a moment, his shoulders relaxed slightly. 

“I am done with running,” he said, still not taking the key, “and—I had thought to ask you if you would allow me to remain here. After everything—well. I did not think you would offer. You understand that there could be more of them. This isn’t over.”

Hawke shrugged one shoulder. 

“So we’ll fight them again.. You’re not the only one of my friends with a skeleton or two in your closet, Fenris. I could tell you things that would turn your hair—well. Too late for that, I suppose.”

Fenris snorted, but a smile crept up the corner of his mouth. 

“In addition to the key, I am inviting you to drinks. The others will hound me for it if I don’t, but I think you might like at least some of them. They’re loud and cantankerous, they cheat at cards and half of them hate each other, but they’re family. If you’re going to stay, that’s something you might like to have.”

Honeybun hopped over her feet, and presumably over Fenris’s, too, for he looked down and away for a long, silent moment. 

“Yes,” he said at last, straightening, “I will stay. I…would like to stay.”

“Wonderful,” Hawke said, beaming at him. The key gleamed in the air between them. 

Readily, Fenris reached out and took it.

#maria hawke #fenris #fenris dragon age #da2 #fenhawke #my writing #da fanfic #this was the hardest to tag on ao3 haha. it isn't any of the usual categories i write and (unsurprisingly) there is no magician au category #also. it didn't fit in this but bethany is alive and in a coma jsyk #hence hawke being broke. all of her spare money goes to pay the healers etc. #shivunin scrivening