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#bash Would betray the person he loves without second guessing.
beartsar · 3 years
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letting ivan live in the verse where tolya doesn’t kill him and he’s taken by sturmhond is me just scrambling to figure out motive and whether or not he would figure out how to pass along inside information and then wonder if he’d harbour any guilt after the end of s&s.
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after-witch · 3 years
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Take Flight [Yandere Nikolai Gogol x Reader]
Title: Take Flight [Yandere Nikolai Gogol x Reader]
Synopsis: You’re a fantastic actress when you’re on the stage. But your captor isn’t fooled when there’s no stage magic to hide your real feelings.
For request: request for anything with BSD!Gogol please!
Word Count: 1772
notes: Yandere, kidnapped, noncon implications, implied torture/physical abuse
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You look so beautiful when you’re immobile. Especially when you don’t know what you’ve done to deserve it, when your eyes are widened in fear, your mouth whimpering behind the tight cloth gag; your mind no doubt racing, searching for what you’ve done and why this is happening.
You look especially beautiful when he opens his coat and pulls out a few tools. He deliberately lays the hammer on the far end of the table, next to your feet. Now that makes you beautiful, as you cry out as much as possible behind the gag, some drool making its way past the increasingly soaked cloth your chin. Your muffled “no” is music.
He hates to clip your wings like this. But it’s only temporary. And, really, you’ve brought it upon yourself. Not by acting up--oh, no, definitely not that. He smiles to himself as he thinks about what a good birdie you’ve been lately. How obedient. How submissive. How sweet.
It took a lot of effort. A lot of punishment. A lot of pain. But on the surface, you’ve transformed into the sweet swan that he’s dreamed about keeping in a gilded cage. Literally and otherwise. Of course, he’s not that easily fooled--he knows you still hate him, fear him, on the inside. No matter how much you embrace him or let him have his way with you, no matter how much you try to please him with words and kisses, you’re still fighting him in your heart. Beating against your cage with your wings when his back is turned, as it were.
And you know something? It’s just not good enough. His life is already a game of duality. And he wants only a singularity with you, a single reality where you are broken and his for however long he wants to keep you. What would be the point of throwing you away when you’re still fighting him?
And thus, it’s only fitting that you’re currently bound to the table where you’ve received your other punishments. He’s not much of a cleaner, and there’s still the odd blood stain lodged in the wood grains. A handy table with straps on each end that keep your wrists and ankle immobile. He’s even given you a pillow, because why not, why not?
It’s easier when you’re tied up to see the real you underneath, the desperate, terrified person that only wants to stay alive. That only wants to avoid pain. The remnants of blood stains underneath you are a testament to that.
You do put on a good show, otherwise. But not quite up to par, he admits, hence his critical review. If he was a theater critic, he might call your efforts “valiant, but not worthy of the highest acclaim.” Or perhaps “They clearly need a little more time to develop, but it’s a good effort.”
You can kiss him. You can perform for him. You can let him touch you and hurt you, when he wants, without complaint. But you can’t hide all of the little things that give you real state of mind away. The way your jaw trembles ever so slightly when you stand up on your toes (so precious) to give him a kiss. The quarter-second that your eyes drift away before you tell him you love him, you adore him, you never want to leave him. The slight hint of revulsion, always covered with a smile in an instant, when he enters your cage at night. 
Did you think you’re fooling him? He hopes you did. He loves the idea of snatching the rug from underneath your feet, nimble as they may be. You’re good at acting on the stage--he could wax poetry about how ethereal, how in-the-moment you look when you’re dancing; when you’re practically flying across the stage, your tulle skirts swishing and the thin soles of your shoes slapping against the hard floor.
But when you’re off the stage? The magic is lessened. There are no stage lights to cover up your occasional tired expression, no swelling music to add emphasis to your movements if they become too strained. No stage tricks to hide your face from the audience for a moment of reprieve. It is no good, after all, for Odile to seduce the prince with her arms, her legs, the fierceness of her fouettes--if her face gives away that she finds him repellent.
Without the trickery of the stage, you give yourself away. Which is one reason why he’s decided to be oh-so-cruel to you today. The other? He’ll never tell you. Maybe you’ll guess it someday, if you happen to glimpse the expression he holds as you pirouette across the stage, no limits, no boundaries, only the music and the motion and the buzz of the audience to lift you up high.
But, he muses, picking up the hammer--the noises you’re making, oh, how fun!--it’s time to get back to the task at hand.
“Or at foot,” he says, giggling. But you don’t get the joke. He approaches the head of the table and your muffled pleas grow louder. They’re so soft, so confused. What did you do? What did you do? Please, please, please. He’s heard it all before, but it’s still enjoyable to take in. Like a comforting book.
He trails a gloved finger along your cheek, spreading your tears around like a child tracing lines on a foggy car window.
“I know you want to fly away from me.” He keeps his tone light and teasing. You immediately shake your head in denial, and Christ in heaven is that fantastic, the way you want him to believe you no longer desire escape, no longer desire true freedom.
He tuts at you, wagging the tip of his gloved finger in front of your face before leaning in closer. “If I let you fly away, would you still be my pet? If you fly away on your own, would you be free?” It’s rhetorical, and your expression betrays your lack of understanding behind his words.
He does want to hear your voice behind the gag, so he swiftly undoes the tight knot and tosses the soaked fabric aside.
“Please, I love you,” you say immediately, voice weak and pleading. “Nik--Nikolai, I don’t understand. What did I do wrong?” You hesitate for a moment, but then you continue. “I’m so sorry, whatever it is. I must have… disappointed you.” You lower your eyes and the downcast expression, the defeat in your gaze, makes him wish he had a camera on hand.
You’re so submissive. It really is beautiful. But you’re submissive because you want to avoid being hurt. You’re submissive because he’s got a hammer resting next to your precious feet and you don’t want him to lift up that hammer and bash your bones until they break.
Where’s the fun in that?
He hums to himself as he begins a deliberately slow walk back to the end of the table. He trails his fingers down your body and enjoys the sight of little goosebumps rising on your flesh, enjoys the way you squirm, just a bit, when he pokes at your sensitive side.
When he picks up the hammer, you begin to babble. The words aren’t important--he’s listening to the tone, the way your voice is thick with sadness and fear. Please, no, don’t, I’ll do anything; all words that run from your mouth like water through a stream. He ignores them and instead holds one of your feet still with his hand. There’s a power in your feet, thanks to the years of dancing and even more years of training. He thinks about taking that power away. About what that would mean. About what it would do to you.
When he rubs the end of the hammer against the top of your foot, you groan, a guttural sound of pure horror. The sound of someone whose entire reason for living, whose heartbeat, rests on the ability to dance. 
Your breath is sharp and scratchy when he suddenly lifts the hammer up and brings it crashing down on your ankle--where it immediately compresses and squeaks, high and childish.
It’s rubber. It’s a rubber toy. Nothing more.
Your breath comes out in short, harsh puffs. He takes in your expression, which is at once horrified and confused and relieved and even a bit angry.
“What--”
His sharp, pleased laughter interrupts you. And when he laughs, you laugh, just a little. He’s surprised that he can’t tell if it’s a genuine laugh of pure relief, an attempt to mimic him to stay in his good graces, or a sign that you’re losing your mind. Maybe it’s a mixture of all three.
He wastes no time in undoing your straps, and he pulls you into a sitting position. Your entire body is trembling, an adrenaline crash turning your legs to rubber as he helps you to your feet and loops your arm around his shoulders for added support. 
You don’t even have time to process the fact that he didn’t hurt you before he starts leading you out of the room and back to your pretty little cage and your pretty little bed. He drops you on the bed with a flourish, and you bounce slightly on the mattress--face still in shock, still processing.
“That was fun, right?” he says, voice once again teasing. “Now let’s play a little more.” He begins undoing his belt buckle, and what would have been the normal flash of revulsion on your face is replaced by something new: relief. Relief that you can dance? Relief that you didn’t earn any new scars, any new injuries, any new pain? He’s not sure that the exact reason matters. It’s something new, and it’s a step closer.
He grins and begins making quick work of his clothes. You’re already on your knees in front of him.
Relief, after all, comes in many forms.
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just-a-creep-babe · 3 years
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Hello, I am here with a request if that is ok, I was thinking about how would Eyeless jack, BEN Drowned, and our three favourite proxies react to an S/O who is very quiet and shy yet out of no where she defends herself easily out in the woods by herself without even knowing her lover was there, then when they ask her about how she did it she says that she got it from watching them
Oki poki so I’m not sure if this is what you wanted, but I hope it’s ok!! Also I changed like,,, the verb tense (is that even what you call it? Idk skdhdkdjdk) but I changed it a couple times n ahhhh I just don’t know, it might read kinda weird, I sowey 🥺👉👈 But I hope you enjoy nonetheless!!
~Requests are closed~
Masterlist: x
BEN Drowned
“Woah”
Is that his s/o he just witnessed??
His adorable little reserved s/o that just beat the crap out of some rando who was bugging her?
Boy’s absolutely amazed
He jumps out of her phone & immediately has a ~shit ton~ of questions because he’s blown away 
“Are you ok? Did he hurt you!? Holy shit, that was sick, (y/n)! Where’d you learn to do that?!”
When she explains herself, he honestly gets kinda flustered & bashful
But then his regular shit-eating grin returns and he tries to play it off like it’s nothing
“Of course you got it from me, I’m pretty badass” he scoffs
Honestly though, he’s super flattered & honored and just??
Like wowie, he doesn’t know what he did to deserve such an amazing s/o
A very proud ghost bf uwu
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Eyeless Jack
Boy was following her scent through the forest so they could meet up & hang out
And, having lived in the mansion for quite some time now, he’s grown to be pretty unfazed by all manners of things that happen around him
But he really wasn’t expecting to stumble in on his shy little s/o pressing her foot into someone’s neck on the ground
And then she gives what sounds like a warning before letting them go, and the stranger scrambles off into the woods
His first instinct is to immediately race over & check her for any injuries—and he’s bIG TIME relieved when it turns out she’s fine
When she finally explains herself after, like, the 12th time of reassuring him she’s fine skdjdkl, his black heart swells with pride
He’s pretty stoic, so it’s hard to read what he’s feeling, but his protective instincts definitely have him sticking closer around her for the rest of the night
And later that evening, when he thinks back to what happened, he gets mad at himself for not being better for his little mate
He knows he can’t actually be there for her 24/7, but he wants to try to put in more effort to assure her overall safety
He’s super proud she defended herself this time, but what if the next creep is much stronger??
The whole thing just makes him stalk follow her around a lot more tbh, even when she might not realize it
He also starts second-guessing himself a lot more than he already did
Is he a bad influence? If she gets used to seeing his eating/hunting habits, will it affect her in the long run?
Boy ends up with lots of existential questions, and she has to reassure him a lot tbh :/
But honestly, homeboy should know by now that she doesn’t want a normal life if it means not being with him uwu
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Masky
He sees his s/o pining someone down, and for a split second, he almost gets the wrong idea
Maybe she isn’t who he thinks she is—maybe she’s a lot more brazen and open and… unashamed
But then he realizes that she isn’t, in fact, cheating on him or anything like that, and he’s immediately ashamed of ever even thinking she’d betray him like that
He walks up to them and he is pissed
The stranger doesn’t stand a chance
After he deals with them, he pulls her impossibly close to him and asks a million questions all too suddenly
“Who was that? Where did they come from? How long have they been following you? How did you learn to do that?”
When she explains, he gets quiet for a moment, and again, because of the mask, it’s kinda be hard to tell what he’s thinking
It’s almost,, kinda scary ngl
But he just gets that way because he’s crazy worried for her
And he’s super proud she could defend herself, but he understands the risks of fighting almost better than anyone else
So he definitely wants to teach her more about self-defence—while also lowkey feeling soft that she originally learned from him without him even teaching her in the first place
He honestly feels kinda bad for not teaching her sooner—oop
Overall starts being more protective of her too, while also seeing her in a new light
Guess his cute little s/o is actually pretty damn badass, huh?
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Hoodie
He‘d be trying to find his s/o when he hears someone else in the forest
So naturally, he decides to check it out
And when he sees his s/o kicking the shit out of some shady person, he gets this huge grin tugging at his lips because damn, that’s my babe
Like he’s pretty amused ngl skdjdjsls
He sticks around in the shadows for a while, watching until the creep eventually scrambles away with their tail between their legs
And then he sneaks up behind her & wraps his arms around her to nuzzle into her neck
Almost earning a punch to the gut but, c’mon, what’d he expect? Skdjdkl
When she tells him what happened & how she knew what to do, he offers teaching her more right away
Will arrange plenty of training/workout sessions, no further questions asked
He’s probably the most chill about what he saw tbh
Like he knows quiet people have it in them to be scary, being quiet himself, so it isn’t much of a cause for concern
And he doesn’t stress over it because, hey, they managed to beat them up, so she’s probably already stronger & better at fighting than most
Sprinkle in some extra prep & tips from a skilled stalker/killer?
Whew, boy knows his precious little s/o will become a force to be reckoned with
And he’s damn proud of it, too
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Ticci Toby
Boy sees shit going down & immediately rushes over to knock the other person tf out
He acts on impulse cause not only is that what he’s used to doing—but also how dare someone even think of harming his perfectly adorable little s/o??
He has to stop himself from chopping them up right then & there
The only thing stopping him is his s/o, who he doesn’t wanna end up traumatizing :/
Like BEN and EJ, he asks a shit ton of questions while frantically looking her over for any kind of injuries
“Oh my f-fucking God, are you alright?! What ha—what happened?! Jesus, (y/n), y-you know I love you—I love you so fucking much, right!? Holy shit, you—you fucking kicked ass!!”
She earns the biggest bone-crushing hug ever combined with an excited squee! when she explains where she learned moves like that
He’s so damn proud that he has to resist smothering her in countless bouts of affection
Definitely finds some kind of way to celebrate later on that evening :3
And it’s only after his initial rush of joy that he realizes it could’ve ended badly
He’s lost a lot of people throughout his life & he doesn’t want the same thing happening to his s/o, so he’d ask around for advice on how to protect them better
He ends up teaching them more self defence stuff while also watching them a lil more closely too
But he’s sO damn proud, it honestly gives him a happy high for a good few days ngl <33
It’s like he’s your hero!!
The thought alone motivates him to keep treating you better because you really are one in a million uwu
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Marauders and Kate’s (Lack of) Leadership:
One more salt post, partially inspired by this issue, but something I’ve been thinking about the series for awhile.  Not bashing on Kate here, just feeling that Duggan is, to some extent, doing her dirty just like the rest of the group.
So, Kate is the Captain of the Marauder, but much like Bobby and Christian’s relationship, or Pyro’s reputation as the violent wildcard of the crew, it’s more an informed trait than something we actually see play out in the story.  Duggan really isn’t giving Kate all that much to do as “team leader.” 
I’d expect a team leader to be dealing with strategies and giving orders during battle, as well as dealing with conflicts and issues within the team itself.  Except we see Kate do next to none of that.  Most battles the group all seems to do their own thing.  We see Kate jump in to rescue her people occasionally, especially in the fight with Donald Pierce and the racist anti-mutant group, where she pulls both Iceman and Pyro out of danger.  But we don’t really see her stop and strategize mid-battle, like, “Okay, Pyro, you draw the Sentinel’s attention with fire creations, Bishop, cover him, while I phase the hostages free and Iceman freezes it’s feet.“  I think the King in Black Marauders is one of the few times where we really see Kate giving orders and making decisions during a battle.  Most of the time, the battles just kinda happen, and either they’ve been strategized beforehand or someone else has the idea (Callisto in issue 19) or people just charge in and fight.
And to be fair, Kate certainly acts like a captain in terms of their general mission.  She decides where they’ll go and what they’ll do, and she does give orders out at sea.  But she doesn’t seem to make good use of her teams abilities during battles - mostly because Duggan doesn’t really want to write about anyone but Kate and Emma (and occasionally Callisto), so he lets the potential of the rest of the crew just sit there and rot.  He’s too focused on Kate running around doing badass things to actually show her using her crew in an intelligent fashion and making proper use of everyone.
On the second matter - Kate doesn’t really have to deal with inter-team conflict because there isn’t any.  At most, there’s some friction between Storm and Emma in the beginning, and they make up after Kate’s death.  Kate’s crew just kind of automatically forms around her with no real effort on her part.  Storm and Iceman are there specifically to protect her, Bishop has his own agenda, but he is willing to work with the Marauders to do so.  Pyro is the only one who Kate would arguably have to win over as leader, and he’s been surprisingly well-behaved.  He’s never challenged her leadership or even pushed back or argued that we’ve seen.  I guess we can assume that Kate has earned his respect, or that he really enjoys the Marauders’ gig and is toeing the line so as not to get kicked off. 
It makes a certain amount of sense, but the lack of friction also feels unrealistic.  It’s hard to believe that former villain Pyro, even with his affably evil personality, will just settle right in with the crew and not clash with anyone beyond getting on Storm’s nerves.  It’s hard to believe that Bishop, who has his own agenda to follow as a Captain of Krakoa, would never run into a situation where his mission and Kate’s mission clash and he has to walk away or disobey orders.  (That was touched upon during King in Black, but then immediately fizzled out like so many other Duggan plotlines.)  Hell, even Bobby and Storm, who are Kate’s friends and love her dearly, might disagree with a course of action at some point.  But they never do.  All is well aboard the Marauder, everyone is best friends or at least willing to tolerate each other, and they all follow Kate’s orders without question, and it feels very unearned.
But to my mind, the worst issue of Kate’s leadership is the lack of information passing down to certain members of the team.  Marauders doesn’t feel like a tight-knit team, because most of the time, half the crew has no idea what the fuck is going on.  So much of Duggan’s story is focused on Kate and Emma having adventures, making back-room deals and doing sneaky Hellfire stuff, and we’re expected to just accept that Bishop, Iceman and Pyro will be kept in the dark.
As far as I know, Iceman and Pyro have no idea that Sebastian murdered Kate.  And BIshop only knows because he did his own investigation and figured it out, then had it confirmed by Storm.  I understand the need for secrecy since Emma is trying to smack Sebastian down without making it a Council matter, but surely the rest of the crew should know about this?  Bishop is a Captain of Krakoa working with the Marauders, he should absolutely know that Sebastian is playing power games.  I can understand keeping some things from Pyro, he’s a new team-mate and former villain who joined under suspiciously convenient circumstances (fell asleep on the boat?  Really?).  But surely Pyro should at least be warned that Sebastian is not their friend.  Otherwise, what’s to stop Sebastian from inviting Pyro up for a poker night at Blackstone Keep, plying him with whiskey and cigars, and getting him to spill the beans about all the Marauders latest missions?  As far as Pyro knows, Sebastian is part of the Hellfire Co, AND a Council member, he’s got no good reason to distrust him.  Because he doesn’t know that Sebastian betrayed them.
But Bobby is the worst, I think.  He’s Kate’s good friend (they even dated briefly, although it didn’t work out for....obvious reasons).  They are supposed to be close.  And Bobby straight up mutilated a guy who he thought was part of the group responsible for Kate’s death.  (To be fair, no one knew at the time that they raided that ship).  Bobby was both devastated and furious at Kate’s death, and they’re still keeping him in the dark?  Imagine how Bobby will feel knowing that the man he maimed was....not innocent, exactly, but not guilty of what Bobby believed.  How is Bobby going to feel knowing that it was Sebastian, and Kate herself kept it from him?  Bobby deserves better than to be treated like an underling like Pyro. 
Probably the worst example, though, was this latest issue of Marauders (24), where we find out that Emma Frost conned the Mercury away from a shady alien, and that alien has it in for her.  (I don’t remember the dude’s name, so I’m calling him Fake Greedo.)  Fake Greedo tries to kill both Emma and Kate, they get saved by Sebastian (?!), which is a nice moment for him.  Sebastian suggests they solved the problem with money, and Fake Greedo accepts.  Then the whole group assembles in the Mercury for dinner, and Fake Greedo double-crosses them and sends the entire group, including Sebastian, Iceman, Bishop and Pyro, out the airlock into space. 
The problem here, is that as far as I can tell, Bishop, Iceman and Pyro had NO idea about the deal or Fake Greedo’s grudge with Emma.  Pyro literally has a line when he’s handing payment over to Fake Greedo: “I dunno who you are, or what you did to get paid, but you happy?”  In other words, Pyro doesn’t know a damn thing about the deal or the Mercury.  And I don’t think that’s just a joke about Pyro being clueless.  He, Iceman and Bishop were off doing their own thing during most of the issue.  (What were they doing?  Who knows, Duggan couldn’t be bothered to show it.)  It seems like Emma and Kate just....didn’t bother to tell half the crew about what happened.  So they ride back to Earth with an alien who has a serious grudge against Emma, and the three of them have NO idea what’s going on, and they get sucked out of the airlock to possibly die, with without knowing what’s happening or why.  They deserve better than that.  If nothing else, Bishop is a security guy, he should know what’s going on. 
If this book was written by someone better than Duggan, I would expect some repercussions from this.  I’d expect Bobby, Pyro and Bishop to be angry that they were killed (or almost killed) because of one of Emma’s backroom schemes that they didn’t even know about.  I’d expect Bobby to be especially angry that his friend Kate keeps not telling him things.  I’d expect maybe some kind of splintering of the group or at least conflict that isn’t resolved immediately, because secrets have been kept that they deserve to know.  But what will probably happen is that next issue Emma will do something cool, and any dead Marauders will get resurrected, and everyone will be totally fine with everything.
Anyways, like I said, this is not meant to drag Kate as a character, this is me discussing how Duggan is really doing her dirty by not giving her a chance to be an actual team leader.  Because he wants her to be “in charge,” but he also doesn’t really want to write a team book, he wants to write her running around in pirate cosplay having swashbuckling adventures, so she winds up looking like a negligent, unnecessarily secretive leader.  And I know she can be much better than that. 
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sachigram · 3 years
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I know Halloween has long passed (*sob*) but what do you think of Izaya as a Witch? 🤔 (maybe with a side order of Shizuo being his beastly but also angry familiar? 😂😂😂)
((Okay so I went rogue on this one. It’s funny because @lateniteslacker and I have an rp going where Izaya is a witch right now so I wanted this one to be darker and wanted Shizuo to be a beast for real.))
The thing about humans is, they really do have more in common with wild animals than they'd like to believe. Izaya has always studied human behavior extensively, obsessively, and he's always excited when a completely civilized person gives into their instincts, usually in a moment of complete desperation. The four f's really are a universal truth, and while Izaya is captivated by humanity as a whole, he can't deny he feels a certain...thrill in knowing society could topple at any moment, with only the slightest push, and then people would show their true colors and what lengths they would go to in order to survive.
Thinking this over, Izaya lifts his eyes to the beast pacing around his apartment. It's late at night, obscenely early morning, actually, but neither of the occupants in the apartment have slept yet. It's close to sunrise, Izaya realizes, and Shizuo has still yet to kill him.
“You're letting me live again? How generous of you, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, and when Shizuo growls at him in answer, Izaya's lips curl into a small smile. Shizuo can't reply at length, of course. No werewolf in existence can speak when they're transformed.
Shizuo's body could be considered grotesque, but Izaya's never been squeamish, and he doesn't mind watching the huge monster walk in circles, his features lit only by the city lights streaming into the windows. His skin is dark and leathery, only some of it covered in thick, wiry fur. Shizuo's mouth is gaping and filled with sharp, jagged teeth, so many that it seems to be hard for Shizuo properly close it, thus making him leave drops of saliva in his wake. His eyes are the same color as normal, so dark they're practically a mirror for anyone who looks into them, but they're filled with bloodlust and hunger, instincts Shizuo would be acting on if not for Izaya's potion keeping him in his own mind.
“You could sleep, you know,” Izaya continues, watching with glee as Shizuo's ears perk towards Izaya, hearing him whether Shizuo wants to or not. “I'm not going to do anything to you. We seem to be in a truce, don't we? Unwilling companions.”
Shizuo snarls openly at that and makes his way over to the desk, looming over it and salivating onto Izaya's papers. Izaya merely looks up at him pleasantly, knowing Shizuo won't actually kill him. Shizuo is too afraid of being left alone to do so.
“Is it some kind of atonement? You think keeping yourself sleep deprived will help you feel better about what you are? It's actually only making it worse.” Izaya listens to Shizuo's deep, rumbling growl, and hears it for the question it really is. “I'm not awake because I want to be, Shizu-chan! It's not the same. You know I have insomnia. At the very least, I'm grateful for your company.”
Shizuo huffs and turns away from him then, going back to pacing. Izaya knows how cruel it is of him to act as if Shizuo has any choice to be here, but it hardly matters to Izaya why Shizuo is here. He's here. That's all Izaya needs.
It was months ago, another full moon. Izaya was fed up with Shizuo, wanted him gone for good. Shizuo wasn't rising to Izaya's challenges anymore, would actually ignore Izaya if they crossed paths on the street. More and more of Shizuo's time was spent with that woman, that doe-eyed assassin, and Izaya decided he was done playing around. He hired some men, some higher-ups in the Yakuza, actually, and Shizuo fought as he always does, but he couldn't avoid the sharp teeth when they broke his skin and infected him with something that could never be cured.
It took two weeks for Shizuo to come to Izaya. Shizuo was pale, haggard, looked as if he hadn't slept in days. He stormed into Izaya's apartment and demanded to know what was wrong with him, why he wanted to bite and tear, why his dreams were filled with blood and viscera— “guts” is what Shizuo actually said, but that's besides the point.
“Why did you come to me?” Izaya had asked. “What makes you think I know?”
The answer was more than Shizuo could put into words. All monsters make their way to Izaya sooner or later, all of them knowing Izaya can help if he chooses to. It's why Shinichi made contact with him, why the more beastly members of the Yakuza put up with him. Izaya is stronger than he looks, smarter than is good for him, and filled with a constant boredom that makes him dangerous. To top it all off, he's one of the only witches in Japan, and an incredibly powerful one at that.
Izaya explained that Shizuo was bitten by a werewolf, and he would succumb to his desires during the next full moon unless he relented to trusting Izaya to help, and at first, Shizuo stormed out, cursing, threatening to bash Izaya's head in. A week later, one week before the next full moon, Shizuo was back, looking worse than before, and he had a tired sort of acceptance about him that let Izaya know the monster had already worked through all the other stages of grief.
Now, they can be around each other for extended periods of time, but never without underlying malice and contempt in their words and actions. Shizuo refuses to take the potion home and be alone in this, and Izaya hardly minds being subjected to Shizuo's transformation, despite the fact that Shizuo keeps promising to kill him before sunrise. They're at an impasse, and like all shaky alliances, they're waiting for the other one to break it first.
The next time Izaya looks up from his computer, Shizuo is back to normal, curled into a ball in the floor, panting at the strain of his return to humanity. Izaya stands and goes to his side, offering him a blanket to cover his trembling, naked body, and Shizuo swats him away, sending Izaya toppling to the floor. Izaya only laughs, pleased Shizuo still has some fight in him. It's so much more fun this way.
“Fuck,” Shizuo hisses, lifting his head to glare openly at Izaya. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” Izaya asks earnestly.
“Like you love this.”
Izaya opens his mouth to respond, but he decides Shizuo has suffered enough for one night. He stands and goes back to his desk, leaving Shizuo to his own devices. Normally Shizuo will dress and leave immediately, but he lingers this time, hovering almost uncertainly by Izaya.
“Your mind is a mess,” Izaya says, hating that he can hear the majority of Shizuo's thoughts. Izaya tries not to read minds very often, feels like it's an unfair advantage in his line of work, and he so loves an actual challenge. But Shizuo's mind is different; it's loud and demanding, wanting more than anything to be heard.
“Why are you helping me?” Shizuo asks.
“I help many members of this world and the next, Shizu-chan,” Izaya replies without looking up. “It's part of my job.”
“Why wouldn't you want me to lose my mind and kill someone? Everyone would know then, wouldn't they? That I'm a monster. Isn't that what you want?”
Izaya looks up at him at last, a bored expression on his face. “It's enough that I know it.”
“Bullshit,” Shizuo snaps. “I keep waiting for you to sell me out, to tell everyone what I am. Why the fuck haven't you? I wouldn't help you if the tables were turned.”
“I know that,” Izaya says, shrugging. “I guess you could say I've been touched by how pitiful you are. How helpless.” Izaya's smile stretches into a leer, and he can see the way it makes Shizuo's skin crawl. “You need me.”
“I could find someone else,” Shizuo says. “Celty could know another...magic person.”
“By all means, go find them,” Izaya says. “Go explore the country and beyond on your measly second rate bodyguard salary. Better yet, go to Kasuka and tell him what you are and beg him for help in finding someone else to give you the same potion I give you for free every month.”
Shizuo flinches at that. He's obviously terrified of Kasuka finding out, which is hilarious in itself, as Kasuka is dating Ruri, another of Izaya's clients. It's true she doesn't have much vampire blood in her veins, but she has enough to feel the bloodlust. Izaya hasn't told Shizuo any of that, though. If nothing else, Izaya is loyal to his clients until they give him reason not to be, even if those reasons are nothing more than being more interesting once they find out Izaya betrayed them.
“You could go to Celty, see if Shinra and his crazy father can help you look for a cure. You could do a lot of things, but you come to me every month.” Izaya rests his chin on his hand and watches Shizuo carefully. “Is it because you already hate me, so you don't mind me seeing you at your lowest?”
“Fuck you,” Shizuo says, and he marches towards the door. Izaya rolls his eyes and goes back to typing, but he looks up again when he realizes Shizuo hasn't left yet.
“Say whatever the hell you have to and then leave me alone,” Izaya huffs. He needs to finish this assignment soon, and he'd like to do it within the next few hours so he can sleep afterwards.
“I know how rare it is. What you are,” Shizuo says, his back still to Izaya. “Celty told me.”
“I'm surprised you spoke to her about any of it.”
“I didn't tell her what I am. I know she wouldn't judge me for it, but still, I just...” Shizuo trails off, and he turns to face Izaya. “But she knows what you are, and she told me. That's why I came to you.”
“And what did she say about me?” Izaya asks, amused. He knows the courier despises him, but he doesn't care much for her either aside what she can do for him.
“She said there's a reason witches are so rare, and it's because most of them have been killed off.” Shizuo moves closer. “She said the majority of them abused their powers, the same way you do, and that's why they're targeted so often.”
“She neglected to mention the part where it was everyone else who came to us first,” Izaya says sharply, remembering the first time he saw members of the other world. Ghosts, demons, monsters of every kind flocking to him, asking for help. He was a child then, a neglected one at that. He was on his own with no one to help him, and that was when he realized how unfair the world could really be. “You're always barking about how you can't control your strength, well I can't control this. I didn't ask for this either.”
“You did this to me,” Shizuo accuses. It's not the first time he's said it, but Izaya has never admitted to it.
“And if I did?” Izaya asks, annoyed by this entire exchange. “What are you going to do about it?”
Shizuo roars with rage and lurches towards Izaya, lifting him up and slamming him against the wall. He breathes into Izaya's face, his sharp teeth bared.
“Why can't you just leave me the fuck alone?!” Shizuo shouts, and suddenly it seems as if he's being deflated, like all the strength is leaving him. He drops Izaya's feet to the floor, but he doesn't step away from Izaya's space. “Why can't you leave me alone?” he asks again, defeated.
“Because you're interesting,” Izaya says, and when he lifts his fingers to Shizuo's face, Shizuo only flinches slightly at the touch. “Because you're right, I'm alone in this, and you were alone, too. You were surrounded by people, but you were alone. No one knows better than me how that feels.”
“You ruined my life,” Shizuo says, no ire to it.
“You ruined mine first,” Izaya says, not bothering to elaborate. Shizuo doesn't seem confused, just tired, and when Izaya tucks his face into Shizuo's neck, the beast only growls softly before allowing it.
The thing about wolves is, they always protect their necks. It's one of their most vulnerable areas. Shizuo is allowing this, and that speaks volumes in itself. Izaya smiles and wraps his arms around Shizuo, clenching his fingers in the fabric of Shizuo's shirt.
“It'd be easier for you, wouldn't it? If you actually hated me,” Izaya murmurs. He presses his lips to Shizuo's neck, and he can feel the tremble of Shizuo's body before Shizuo's arms wrap around him in return.
“You won't die, right? You can't,” Shizuo says, his voice muffled in Izaya's hair.
“Wouldn't it be better for you if I did?” Izaya asks.
“Yes. No. Fuck.” Shizuo kisses the top of Izaya's head, and he makes a disgruntled noise when Izaya pulls away, growling until he realizes what it is Izaya wants. Their lips brush together gently, a complete contrast to all their harsh words and usual actions. “Izaya,” Shizuo breathes, clinging tight enough to Izaya to hurt.
“You won't be alone, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, sighing sweetly when Shizuo kisses him again. They wind up on Izaya's couch, their clothes scattered around them as they give into their basic instincts, showing each other just how beastly they can be.
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floralseokjin · 4 years
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;decalcomania 1. (m)
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no matter how hard you both try, the past will never return 
pairing; jeon jungkook x reader  genre/warnings; angst, mature content, cheating mentions, vomit mentions  words; 2,669
part 2 found here
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He was torn. To close his eyes and try his best to lose himself in the past, where you were both so happy and content, so in love that the world could never hurt you, or to keep his eyes open, savouring your beauty. The way your eyelashes cast downwards, painting shadows across your cheekbones in the dim lighting. The way your mouth parted, pleasure etching its way across the rest of your face as you moaned softly. Quietly. Like you didn’t want to give all of yourself to him. Not anymore. 
You had once upon a time. He was the one you trusted the most. The one who had always been there for you. Loved you unconditionally. The one who would never hurt you. 
He’d ruined that the night he’d fallen into another’s bed. 
It was a miracle you still wanted him after such a betrayal. But you did. Forgiveness was a work in progress. Had been for so long now, and as the weeks dragged into months, he was beginning to think it was impossible. He didn’t blame you. He hadn’t forgiven himself yet. He didn’t think he ever would. 
But it was easy to kid himself when you reached for him in the dead of night. Wrapping your arms around him, lips hesitant but in need against his. Sick of the gap between the both of you. The cold sheets. The silence. You were hungry for some love. The love he’d ruined. Because even though you were finding everything so difficult, and rightfully so, you still craved him badly. He was all you’d ever known after all. Likewise, until he’d fucked it all up. 
Each time he had you like this, spread so beautifully and under him, it always felt like it was the last time. Like he had to prepare himself for the inevitable. For the end. 
It never was. 
You were both too weak to let go. You, because you thought you needed him, and him, because he was selfish. 
He chose to keep his eyes open. Only because yours were closed tight. You were lost in the past for the both of you, hanging on for dear life. That, and he knew you couldn’t dare look at him when you were like this. He didn’t know what you saw, but he could guess. Visions of him with someone else. He didn’t know what you felt, but he could guess. 
And he hated himself. 
He hated himself for fucking up your life. 
It hadn’t always been like this. You’d been happy for a long time, young and in love. But like everyone, age caught up with you both, and with age came change. Jungkook hated to admit it, even now, after everything, but he wasn’t who he used to be. That was where all your troubles began. Where it all went wrong. 
One argument. Brewing for God knows how long, about how he’d changed. Work had skewed his mind, that’s what you’d said. He’d lost himself along the way. He wasn’t the Jungkook you knew, and you wanted him back. He was stubborn, always had been, so he’d venomously denied it. He’d shouted. He’d slammed his fists against counters and thrown things. If he had changed then so had you. He wasn’t solely to blame, and he wouldn’t let you turn it all on him. 
Looking back, he knew he had been wrong. He was deflecting. Scared and hurt. You hadn’t changed at all. Not even one little bit. But maybe that was the problem. You were both moving in different directions but still tied so tightly together. Unable and unwilling to cut the cord loose.
That evening he’d watched you throw his things into trash bags, hearing the same words over and over again. It’s over. It’s over. It’s over. He still heard them four hours later, the bags at Jimin’s place while he sat in a shitty bar somewhere. Alone, seething and heartbroken. He got drunk to the rhythm, it’s over, ordering one drink after the other. In the midst of it all he saw a woman making eyes at him from across the room. It was obvious what she wanted. He probably reeked of self pity, wallowing in his sorrows, glass after glass. Some people got off on that. 
She made her way over and listened to him. It was nice talking to a stranger. Someone who wasn’t biased. Someone who didn’t know you. He called you a bitch at some point. He remembered that vividly. The rest he’d tried to block out. The woman had been nice to him, rubbed his shoulder as she comforted him, stroked his arm, squeezed his leg. She’d told him all the things he’d needed to hear. To make himself feel better. About how you didn’t deserve him and how much this seemed like an excuse to ease your own guilt for not loving him anymore. That tore at his heart. He hadn’t realised you might not love him anymore. He wondered how long you could have possibly felt like that. You seemed selfish, that’s what she had said, but that couldn’t be right. He was the selfish one, always had been, and definitely right now. 
He’d let the woman kiss him, whisper things in his ear that got his dick hard. It made him sick to try and remember, but that’s what had happened. That’s how he’d found his way into her bed, repeating the same words in his head as he stripped and fucked the stranger. You didn’t want him anymore. It was over. You didn’t love him. 
The guilt ate him up as soon as he woke up in the early hours of the next morning. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, not quite making it to Jimin’s place as he threw up in an alleyway a block away. He couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or revulsion at himself. It just kept coming, heave after heave, even when the contents of his stomach had been stripped. Memories of last night warping their way behind his eyes as he clenched them tight. It was clear then. 
It was a deep self loathing that made him spill his guts. 
When his phone buzzed in his pocket, he ripped it out, seeing your name. His heart dropped when he read the messages. About how you couldn’t sleep at all last night without him there, about how much you regretted what you’d said and how you couldn’t let him go like that. You loved him too much, and you wanted to try and make things work, if he would let it. You were just so damn sorry. 
It made him heave again, a fresh sickness spreading, even though there was only sour, yellow bile left. 
Jimin had heard him rush through the apartment, calling out to him, wondering where he’d been and assuming it was back home, making up with you. One look at Jungkook dismantled that. He had no choice but to confess, beside himself, and Jimin listened in horror, unable to understand why he would do such a thing. One thing was for certain though, he needed to tell you. He knew that even before Jimin demanded him to. If he wanted to try to salvage this, he needed to confess. The thought made him feel sick, but he knew if he didn’t, he would never be able to live with himself. He didn’t think he could live with it even after confessing… 
He’d showered in scalding hot water, until his skin was red and sensitive, desperate to wash off his sin, yet it didn’t feel enough. He was still dirty. He was still a cheat. 
You’d looked relieved when he’d turned up at the door, clutching him, whispering desperately about how sorry you were. He wanted more than anything to be able to reassure you it didn’t matter. To hold you tight and promise things would go back to how they were. But he couldn’t. It was a lie. You had nothing to be sorry about, while he had everything, weighing down on his heart, his body. 
He would never forget the look on your face as he told you. The floor disappeared from under your feet, and you looked like you might pass out. First there was a shocked silence, denial following soon after. Then the anger consumed you. You’d shouted at him, screamed at him, until your throat was raw. The hate in your eyes almost made him cower. You demanded he gave you all the nasty, sordid details. He tried to fight, he tried to beg, but it was to no use. You wanted to know everything, and he had to fight through the haziness and his shame to recall the night previous. You listened silently, no expression on your face, eyes dead. He tried desperately to emphasise how much he hadn’t enjoyed it, but you had just sneered at him. He knew it was all just excuses. Nothing could change. He had done it. He couldn’t take it back. 
Finally, you cried. You cried so hard it brought you to your knees, took your breath away. He had ruined your life in a few simple words. He remembered how helpless he’d felt. Unable to comfort you because he was the reason for your misery. He’d spent so long protecting and cherishing you and now this is what he had done. All because his pride had been bashed. All because he was selfish. All because he was a fool. 
You cried until no more tears would come. Rough sobs continued to rattle your chest, tore at your throat, but with a strength he found admirable, you were finally able to compose yourself. It could have been minutes, hours, his head was too much of a mess to judge time. You looked him dead in the eyes and told him you hated him. He was the person you trusted most in this world and he’d betrayed you. He was the one you’d loved for so long, but he was the one who had hurt you so easily, without a second thought. 
He tried to hold you. He tried to make you see how sorry he was, but you wouldn’t listen. He’d wanted you to so badly listen. Instead, you screamed at him to get out, and he couldn’t bear it. 
He’d finally broken down. He’d sobbed, falling to his knees as you stood before him. Wrapped his arms around your legs and hugged himself to you like a scared little child. He was so scared. The reality of losing you was too much to stand. You were his life. He was nothing without you. He needed you to believe that, but now you no longer trusted anything that came out of his mouth. You were unemotional as you watched on, not an ounce of sympathy on your face. Not that he deserved it. He knew that. 
So, he had no choice but to listen. To leave, dazed and distraught, aimlessly walking around town like he was lost until he somehow found his way back to Jimin’s apartment. 
But like he’d said, he was selfish. He couldn’t leave it like that. He could make everything right again, make it better. He knew it.
Each day he tried to contact you. For the first week you didn’t pick up his calls, ignored his voice messages and his texts, but he didn’t give up. He just tried harder. When he finally heard your voice again, he broke down once more, plea forgotten for a moment. To his surprise you seemed moved by his reaction, voice almost gentle, just like it had always been. He didn’t deserve it. You asked him to talk about anything. Anything and everything that wasn’t about what he’d done. You just wanted to pretend for a little while. Pretend he was away for work and you were catching up. 
He could do that for you. He could do anything. 
Pretending came easy at first. He was just so thankful. But you’d been doing it for months now and it wasn’t getting any better. Instead of acknowledging his betrayal and trying to work past it, you’d both ignored it completely. He’d let it happen because he was a coward, just so, so happy you were giving him a chance. Slowly letting him back into your life, back into your house, and back into your bed. 
Only there was something missing. 
You weren’t letting him back into your heart. He had tried so hard, he was still trying so hard, but he was beginning to realise it might not work. That this was it. 
He’d ruined everything. One mistake that he couldn’t take back, couldn’t forget, and couldn’t make up for. Yes, you still loved him, but it was also so more than that. Something unhealthy and consuming. Your attachment to one another had grown so much over the years, that you both couldn’t imagine life without the other. It was impossible. So, you kept holding on no matter how unhappy it made you, and he had to live every waking moment hating himself. He did not want pity, but he wished this feeling would stop one day. Without your forgiveness he didn’t think it ever would. 
The most selfish need of them all. 
He was long used to looking at his reflection and not recognising the person in front of him. He wasn’t who he used to be. Not even just before the betrayal, but further than that. When you were both so young and in love. Naïve, but happy that way. 
He wanted to be the boy you’d fallen in love with again so badly. For you. For him. But as each day passed, he understood it was impossible. 
Tonight, he tried his best. If this was the night you’d finally had enough, finally gained the courage to let him go, then he would accept it. It would eat him whole, but he’d accept it. He just wanted to make everything perfect for the last time he got to hold you like this, and then he would leave if you requested it. 
Parting was always the hardest during nights like these. When he had to slip from your warmth and lose the only way he felt attached to you anymore. It killed him. His mind whirred, agonising over whether you were going to end it right then and there. He kissed your mouth softly like he always did, but so deeply tonight, like he wanted to sink and get lost. 
He waited for your reaction. 
Some nights everything would be okay, and you would open your eyes and smile, wrapping your arms around him, hugging him to your body. Nights like those gave him a false hope. When he thought true forgiveness was coming. Reality hit him hard again the next day. Other nights you’d roll onto your side, shaking him off. Separating you both. Instant cold back again. Those nights made him hate himself even more. He could only imagine you felt the same way about yourself. 
Tonight however, was something different entirely. He watched as your face contorted, expression crumbling before you wept. It stunned him for a moment, not having seen you cry this hard since he’d confessed, but quickly he took you in his arms, cradling you to his body as you sobbed. Tears pricked his own eyes as he kissed your head and shushed you. Words on the tip of his tongue that he hesitated to get out. Finally, he did. 
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. 
Over and over again, like he was begging to make things right, begging to be heard. He would hold you all night if he had to, repeating the same apology until you fell to sleep. 
He was scared. Head swarming with thoughts of the unknown. 
This had not happened before. He prayed it was a good sign. 
Only morning would tell. 
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Written 2019-20. Reworked/Edited 2021 Please refrain from posting my work elsewhere. No translations allowed. © floralseokjin 2021
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stephanie perkins: ‘anna and the french kiss’
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SPOILERS AHEAD!
Then again, if you’ve read any YA book, ever, it’s fairly obvious what’s going to happen.
I was going to go easy on this book; I really was. It’s really unfair how media aimed at a female demographic is seen as frivolous and vapid, and more often than not bashed and bullied when it comes to reviews. “People actually enjoy this crap?” ask the powers that be. “It’s worthless! Pulp! Dreamy-eyed nonsense only complete nimrods could ever like!”
And I take offense to that. There’s nothing wrong with liking romance or happy endings or stories about cute European boys. I was ecstatic when I stumbled across Anna and the French Kiss upon a chance trip to the bookstore. The cover was… meh (Century Gothic? Really? There were no other fonts?). But I’d heard nothing but praise about the book, and I was prepared to stay up all night and into the wee hours of the morning to finish it.
Admittedly, I was far from impressed upon the first reading. The characters were unlikable, the plot would’ve worked better for less shitty characters, honestly fuck these characters am I supposed to like them, fuck Anna, fuck Étienne, fuck Bridgette, fuck Toph, fuck Dave and Meredith and Amanda and Seany and every other stupid character in this stupid book.
The second time around, I expected to not hate it as much as I did when I first read it. It’s happened- I hated Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda when I first read it, and when I read it again, all that red-hot anger simmered down into an overall dislike. I thought To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before was trash at first, and then I read it again, and it got promoted to recyclable waste matter.
I found Anna and the French Kiss horrendous the first time I read it, and then I read it again, and… yeah, it’s still pretty awful.
Le Sommaire:
Anna Oliphant is a seventeen-year-old wannabe film critic who is #NotLikeOtherGirls – so she’s exactly like every other female YA lead. To her credit, she never explicitly says she’s special… everyone around her does.
She has a pretty meh life in Atlanta, Georgia with her mum and little bruv Sean- and then her dad decides to ship her off to France for her final year of high school. I’m not judging Anna for bawling her eyes out on her first day; I’m a huge mummy’s girl myself and I’d probably (definitely) do the same.
Meredith is Anna’s next-door neighbor, who does that thing which only happens in YA where she’s like “Oh, newbie? Let’s be friends!” (Or maybe it does happen irl and I tend to make a bad first impression which is why no one has ever approached me.)
Meredith’s friends are: Rashmi and Josh (who are a couple), and Étienne St. Clair. Guess which one is the love interest.
Étienne is cultured in that white person way where he’s half American, one quarter French and one quarter British. A true international.
But- *gasp*- American-British-French boy has a girlfriend, Ellie.
Anna has an absolutely gorgeous punk rocker (yum) boy with sideburns (yikes) back home named Christopher. Also, Christopher’s nickname is ‘Toph’ instead of ‘Chris’ because he too is #NotLikeOtherGirls. Anna tells us that nothing will happen between her and Étienne.
Anna is wrong.
Meredith has a crush on Étienne. So does the Regina George of the school, Amanda.
Étienne and Anna have some moments ™.
♫ Everyone else in the room can see it, everyone else but Anna ♫
I tear my hair out in frustration.
Several other white boys vie for Anna’s heart. Anna remains blissfully unaware (♫ that’s what makes you beautiful ♫). Étienne (who is still dating Ellie, mind you) is unreasonably agitated by this.
Étienne’s mum has cancer btw, which excuses all the shitty things he does, because he’s just a poor, misunderstood boy.
Ellie dresses up as a, quote unquote, ‘slutty nurse’ for Hallowe’en, though- so it’s perfectly okay to dislike her (even though, in the first interaction she had with Anna, where Ellie meets Anna and Étienne, after Étienne takes Anna to the movies, Ellie is perfectly sweet).
Anna, however, is NOT a slut. Amanda is, though. And Rashmi’s cold. And Meredith’s desperate. And Emily’s a slut, too. And her friend Bridgette from Atlanta is a traitor. Anna has an intense case of internalized misogyny.
Anna’s friend Bridgette from Atlanta is screwing Toph, and Anna throws a fit.
Étienne and Anna have some more moments ™.
A truly chaotic series of events befall Anna. She somehow winds up dating Dave (one from the harem of white boys who likes her) to spite Étienne, she gets into a fight with Amanda, more drama ensues, there’s a hint for a spinoff, Étienne and her kiss, Meredith sees and feels betrayed… several misunderstandings and more bullshit later, Étienne and Anna wind up together, because true love conquers all.
Mes Réflexions:
(If the French is off, blame Google Translate.)
Usually, it takes me half a page of my notebook to scribble down my thoughts about the book I’m reading. This motherfucker took me almost an entire page.
Granted, a solid 30% of those notes are me throwing insults at Étienne, but still. ‘STOP STOP STOP YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND YOU DICK’ counts, right?
(That was #17 in my notes, by the way.)
For the record, I like Stephanie Perkins’s writing. It’s not as over-the-top and unnecessarily introspective as Jenny Han’s in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and the interactions between Anna and her classmates were natural and not the “How do you do, fellow kids?” style of Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. The pacing is decent- I didn’t feel like it was too rushed; not the insta-love trope most YA romances unfortunately fall prey to.
And yet. AND YET.
Anna: “What’s your problem?” Amanda: “You.”
Same, Amanda, same.
Anna Oliphant is one of my least favorite leads in a book, ever. Étienne’s even shittier. And it’s not like Nick or Amy Dunne from Gone Girl, or any of the main characters from The Secret History, where readers pretty much unanimously hate them. You’re meant to relate to Anna, you’re meant to find Étienne charming and dreamy. I literally had to put the book away and calm myself down several times- especially in the last quarter of the book.
One of my main gripes with Anna is how… dumb she is. I guess Anna’s “Oopsies, silly me, I don’t know French!” is meant to be relatable to the readers. And some parts (like her not knowing how to order food because she can’t speak French) are plausible, but- sis, you didn’t know how to spell oui? And my idea of a cinematic masterpiece is Kung-Fu Panda, but even a dumbass like me knows that France is the film appreciation capital of the world. And yet Anna, a self-professed film freak, doesn’t?
Of course, Anna’s gorgeous, but she has no clue, because of course she doesn’t- even though she has multiple guys falling head over heels for her.
I’m in a short skirt. It’s the first time I’ve worn one here, but my birthday seems like the appropriate occasion. “Woo, Anna!” Rashmi fake-adjusts her glasses. “Why do you hide those things?”
Étienne is staring at my legs. The scales covering them throb under his intense gaze, and the pincers sticking out of my thighs start clicking rapidly in arousal. My hooves shiver in ecstasy.
… sorry, that’s not funny.
Her friends think Anna’s weird for wanting to write film reviews (which is the most contrived thing I’ve ever heard) instead of being the next Margot Robbie or whatever, but of course Étienne doesn’t and he thinks it’s not weird and cool and that Anna is such a special snowflake.
(Man, I sound like Amanda.)
And then we have this spiel by Anna about how she got into film critiquing (?), because we the readers need to know how special and #NotLikeOtherGirls Anna is.
To this, I say, “Piss off, you pretentious fuck.”
Of course, Anna’s a virgin and she’s never gotten drunk before or worn short skirts- she’s not a slut, she shaves below the knees only.
And would YA really be YA without several hearty helpings of internalized misogyny?
First up, we have the bimbo; the Barbie doll archetype whose only goal in life is acquiring the main guy (who is quite obviously uninterested in her), and making life hell for our protagonist. Amanda Whatsername (is she ever given a surname?) has this coveted role in Anna and the French Kiss. She’s blond (because of course she is); the first time we meet her, she’s in a, quote unquote, ‘teeny tank top’, and she also ‘positions herself for maximum cleavage exposure’. She’s always flipping her hair, getting her grubby paws on Étienne, giving Anna the stink-eye, being homophobic and a grade-A bitch.
Meredith goes batshit when Anna and Étienne kiss, and is very pouty and unhappy during prior Anna x Shittiene moments. Honey… he’s just not that into you. Rashmi’s the Ice Queen reincarnate and halfway to bitchdom. Anna doesn’t go as hard on them as she does on literally every other female her age in the book, though.
Rashmi looks at me for the first time, calculating whether or not I might fall in love with her own boyfriend.
Anna, hate to break it to you, but not everyone’s a possessive fucking weirdo.
About Cherrie, her ex-boyfriend Matt’s new girlfriend:
And maybe Cherrie isn’t as bad as I remember. Except she is. She totally is. After only five minutes in her company, I cannot fathom how Bridge stands sitting with her at lunch every day.
Her lifeless laugh is one of her lesser attributes. What does Matt see in her?
Even Bridgette, Anna’s best friend from Atlanta, isn’t immune to Anna’s anti-female propaganda. She’s screwing the guy Anna used to like, and Anna, the hypocrite, throws a huge fit.
For context: Bridgette and Toph are in a band called the Penny Dreadfuls (why is it with YA books and horrible band names? ‘Emoji’ from Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda was bad enough), and Anna + Matt + Cherrie go to a bowling alley to see them perform. After the performance, Toph announces that he’s sleeping with Bridge, and Anna confronts Bridge… onstage.
“… You’re welcome to move in when I leave again, because that’s what you want, right? My life?”
She shakes with fury. “Go to hell.”
“Take my life. You can have it. Just watch out for the part where my BEST FRIEND SCREWS ME OVER!” I knock over a cymbal stand, and the brass hits the stage with an earsplitting crash that reverberates through the bowling alley. Matt calls my name. Has he been calling it this entire time? He grabs my arm and leads me around the electrical cords and plugs and onto the floor and away, away, away.
Everyone in the bowling alley is staring at me.
I duck my head so my hair covers my face. I’m crying. This would have never happened if I hadn’t given Toph her number. All of those late-night practices and… he said they’ve had sex! What if they’ve had it at my house? Does he come over when she’s watching Seany? Do they go in the bedroom?
I’m going to be sick.
Give me a goddamn break.
Anna, about Ellie:
To my amazement, Ellie breaks into an ear-to-ear smile. Oddly enough, it’s this moment I realize that despite her husky voice and Parisian attire, she’s sort of… plain. But friendly-looking.
That still doesn’t mean I like her.
“Anna! From Atlanta, right? Where’d you guys go?”
She knows who I am? St. Clair describes our evening while I contemplate this strange development. Did he tell her about me? Or was it Meredith? I hope it was him, but even if it was, it’s not like he said anything she found threatening. She doesn’t seem alarmed that I’ve spent the last three hours in the company of her very attractive boyfriend. Alone.
[about Ellie’s Hallowe’en costume] Slutty nurse. I don’t believe it. Tiny white button-up dress, red crosses across the nipples. Cleavage city.
If I didn’t like Ellie before, it’s nothing compared to how I feel now. It doesn’t matter that I can count how many times we’ve met on one hand.
I fantasize about their break-up. How he could hurt her, and she could hurt him, and all of the ways I could hurt her back. I want to grab her Parisian-styled hair and yank it so hard it rips from her skull. I want to sink my claws into her eyeballs and scrape.
It turns out I am not a nice person.
YOU DON’T FUCKING SAY.
Emily Middlestone bends over to pick up a dropped eraser, and Mike Reynard leers at her breasts. Gross. Too bad for him she’s interested in his best friend, Dave. The eraser drop was deliberate, but Dave is oblivious.
One of the juniors, a girl with dark hair and tight jeans, stretches in a move designed to show off her belly button ring to Paul/Pete. Oh, please.
And I’m meant to like this character? I’m supposed to root for her?
I’m not saying every girl in the book should be perfectly sweet and friendly- that’s just not realistic. But when Anna has something judgmental to say about every other young female character… maybe she’s the problem.
In fact, the only girl I recall getting a pass is Isla Whatsername. And why do you think?
Brilliant.
And now we have the amalgamation of almost every fanfic boyfriend trope from 2014, Étienne St. Clair. Brown-eyed Harry Styles. I can’t fucking wait.
Étienne could’ve discovered the cure for cancer, or abolished poverty, or volunteered at animal shelters in his spare time. He could’ve been the most virtuous guy around (fret not; he decidedly isn’t). And I still wouldn’t’ve thought of him as the man of my dreams because HE HAS A BLOODY GIRLFRIEND.
I mean, which girl doesn’t want her boyfriend to say:
“I cheated on her every day. In my mind, I thought of you in ways I shouldn’t have, again and again.”
Fuckin’ smooth, bro.
“No matter what a terrible boyfriend I was, I wouldn’t actually cheat on her. But I thought you’d know.”
Such a gentleman!
“So you can keep dating Ellie, but I can’t even talk to Dave?”
Étienne looks shamed. He stares at his boots. “I’m sorry.”
I don’t even know what to do with his apology.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. And this time, he’s looking at me. Begging me. “And I know it’s not fair to ask you, but I need more time. To sort things out.”
And this gem:
“If you liked me so much, why didn’t you break up with her?”
“I’ve been confused. I’ve been so stupid.”
*me, banging pots and pans together* F U C K Y O U
“Ellie’s not like you, Anna; she’s a slut and a whore even though I’m the one who’s been thinking about another girl inappropriately and I’m the one who gets my knickers in a twist when another man glances in your direction because my masculinity is extremely fragile and I’m a total hypocrite and a dickhead.”
I mean, he didn’t actually say that, but that’s the gist.
WHILE DATING ELLIE: he gets Anna a book of sexual love poems, he calls her attractive (“Any bloke with a working prick would be insane not to like you.”) multiple times, he gets jealous whenever another guy so much as breathes in Anna’s direction and constantly interrupts such interactions, he’s been ditching his friends for his girlfriend but suddenly decides he prefers a new girl over said girlfriend, he thinks bread pudding tastes good- in conclusion, he is a Massive Fucking Prick. Though in hindsight, him and Anna deserve each other. They’re awful.
I had loads more notes taken down (Anna using Dave; “The important thing is this: Dave is available. St. Clair is not.”); the implication that cheating is okay because Ellie is bad or whatever, even though the sudden change in her character seems contrived because she was perfectly okay with Étienne and Anna hanging out before; how my blood boils whenever I read an American book and American girls are like “oOoOh AcCenT!!!1!!1!!”; me reading “DAVE SAYS YER A SLUTBAG” in Hagrid’s voice; the sheer atrocity of the name ‘Étienne St. Clair’ (sounds like a caricature of a French person)… but this ‘review’ is already pushing 3k and I can’t be fucked to expand on any of those points.
Verdict (which is apparently the same in French):
Who needs Christopher when Étienne St. Clair is in the world?
Speak for yourself.
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jasmine2042003 · 4 years
Text
Beware the Spirits of the Vengeful ~ pt 2
So the reception of the first chapter was pretty good so I started writing the second part! I am hoping to drag this out as long as I can, hopefully making it a ten to twenty part series... Anyway, I hope you enjoy! xxx
part 1 /
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Ten Years Ago~
3rd Person pov
Happy giggles filled the garden as (y/n) sat watching the birds and the squirrels, smiling widely as they ran up to her and dropped nuts and berries on her lap. Creatures seemed to do this often with (y/n), as well as her mother (m/n). Residents of Beacon Hills would often see the pair walking around town or the park with big smiles on their faces, hands intertwined and a trail of woodland critters scuttling behind them.
Of course, it had been months since anyone had seen the two, (y/n) being taken out of public school early and (m/n) stuck in a hospital bed. “(y/n),” A calm voice was heard from inside the house, the little girl turned around, continuing to giggle as there was a sparrow nesting in her hair. “Lunch is ready sweetheart!” The (h/c) girl lifted her hand as the sparrow fluttered onto her finger, lifting her hand further, the bird then fluttered from her finger to the birdhouse before she ran into the house for lunch.
“Hi, Lissa!” (y/n) practically shouted as she rushed into the kitchen and into the arms of the awaiting Melissa McCall. The woman smiled and hoisted the girl into her arms. (y/n) was rewarded with a kiss on the forehead and a sandwich and the two of them watched as (y/n)’s father came through the front door, a grim look on his face.
“Dad!” The young girl cried, running up to her father and circling his legs. Her father tried to smile and looked over at Melissa with an even darker look. The woman covered her mouth in shock and realisation of the event that had transpired. Tears began to fill her eyes as she grabbed her purse, stroked the girl’s hair, hugged the distraught widower and swiftly left the now broken household.
“Hi pumpkin,” (d/n) began shakily, holding his daughter close to his chest, “Come sit down darling, I need to tell you something.” He said, tears filling his eyes as he looked at his precious baby who looked so similar to his precious wife. His precious (m/n) who was due to be added to the (l/n) mausoleum in a week.
Present day~
3rd Person pov
The Library of Beacon Hills High School was quiet, for the most part. Other than the crowd of teenage boys trying to get a look at the new girl, the tall teen werewolf and said new girl and the two boys following her. Whilst (y/n) and Isaac huddled close in front of a textbook as he tutored her, Scott and Stiles were hiding behind nearby bookshelves trying to get a peek at the girl and compare her to some pictures they’d found.
“So, from the research I did,” Stiles began, trying his hardest to keep his voice from jumping in volume in his excitement, “Her mom died when she was five or six and then a few months later, her babysitter reported her missing. You’ll never guess who her babysitter was Scott.” The mentioned Beta was staring at the girl, wondering if she seemed familiar, he was also trying to ignore the odd anger bubbling inside him as he saw Isaac inching closer to her. Stiles sighed and finished, “Melissa McCall.”
“What?” Scott asked, rather loudly, causing a few students, including (y/n) to turn and look at them. The boys barely managed to hide behind the shelves. The attention eventually went away and Scott continued, “Why was my mom babysitting her? Why have I never heard of her?” He asked. Stiles jumped a bit and showed his friend the police report from his bag.
“Yeah, see here,” He said, pointing at some typed text, “Your mom was recorded and they took her statement as the last person to see her and the person who reported her missing, for a while, the cops actually thought it was her that did it.” Scott couldn’t believe it. His mother, his loving, caring mother, was a suspect in potential child abduction.
Ten Years Ago~
Sheriff’s Office
The young mother sat sobbing in a rigid chair, her knees were shaking and her son was sat in the waiting room, playing with Stiles and a few toys. “Melissa, you need to calm down,” The Sheriff told her, pressing record on a tape recorder. “I need you to calm down and talk to me, okay?” He asked, the terrified woman nodded and breathed slowly. “Okay, can you tell me exactly what you are reporting?” He asked.
“A m-missing child,” Melissa sputtered, “Maybe an ab-abduction.” She whispered.
The Sheriff wrote everything down in an official report, “Alright, were you the last one that saw her?” He asked.
Melissa continued shaking and began, “I-I’m not sure. I think so. Her dad was at work and I was watching (y/n). We watched television, had some dinner, read some books and then I put her to bed. Her dad came home so I went back to my house with Scott, who I had brought with me.” Her voice began to waver again as she looked out at her son, sat happily without a care in the world, the same way (y/n) had been not twelve hours ago.
The Sheriff nodded and asked, “So, other than Mister (l/n), you were the last to see the victim?” The weeping woman nodded, “Alright, did you see anything strange between (y/n) and her father? Or her father in general?” He asked, offering Melissa a box of tissues.
Melissa wiped her tears and, through sniffles and hiccups, tried to relay what she had seen recently. “Well, when (m/n) p-passed away, (y/n) became a bit quieter, she didn’t smile as much but was still... well (y/n). (d/n) was destroyed when his wife died, he became really secluded, he stopped going to work and locked himself in his office for days at a time, leaving (y/n) with me.”
Sheriff Stilinski continued noting everything down, thoughts running through his head, ‘I have a feeling I know who did this and it wasn’t sweet Melissa McCall.’ He thought. Melissa’s whimpers brought back his attention.
“I know that (d/n) went back and forth between the house and visiting (m/n) in the mausoleum, he’s refusing to take (y/n) with him though, saying it would hurt and confuse her. I’m sorry but can we finish this now,” She continued, looking over at Scott and Stiles, “I feel awful enough already.” Melissa looked down into her lap.
The Sheriff nodded and stood to open the door for her, watching as she and Scott left the station, leaving Stiles to play on his own. ‘He’s going to wind up getting bored and bugging me so I best finish this quick.’ He thought, walking back to his desk and continuing the recording.
“I think it is safe to say that Melissa McCall had nothing to do with this, she had a strong relationship with (y/n), there are many people who can testify for her. The top suspect needing to be questioned now is her father (d/n) (l/n). It struck many people as odd that he wasn’t the first to report his daughter missing, unless of course, he knows where she is.” He finished, pressing stop on the recorder, taking the tape and adding it to the evidence.
Present Day~
3rd Person pov
“Dude,” Scott said, after reading the transcript of what was recorded that day. He was shocked that his mother was so close to the girl, that he was supposed to remember her too, but he didn’t. Why couldn’t he remember her? He looked back over at the girl, holding her picture up to see the comparisons.
Their face shape was the same, same nose, eyes, smile. That gorgeous, bright smile. Scott shook his head, ‘I have a girlfriend!’ He thought, thinking about Allison. Allison, the girl he hadn’t been able to see in public because of who her family is. Her family could kill him. In fact, they wanted to and tried to. They could turn on him in the snap of a finger. He saw a side of Allison at the Hale house that he had never wanted to see. She was going to kill Derek. Derek might be an ass but he was still a living being.
Then there was this, new girl. She seemed to be something special, something... inhuman. He couldn’t quite figure out what she was, something he would talk to Derek about, but whatever she was, it was incredible. Allison, well she was just human. He still liked her, but he wasn’t sure if he still loved her.
(y/n) pov
“What?” I heard, looking up from the textbook to see the two boys from my first class duck behind some bookshelves. I raised a brow before looking back at the textbook I was sharing with Isaac. Being so close to him was driving me crazy. I knew he had some sort of connection to the Alpha, but Isaac was just a Beta, a Beta that had Derek Hale’s scent vaguely on him. I could smell Hale from the mausoleum that night. I needed to find him.
Anyway, I tuned back in to my study session with Isaac as he began running through things, “I still can’t believe you’ve never read Romeo and Juliet!” He chuckled, oh that laugh, that smile. “It’s a classic, basically, two families in the city of Verona Italy, they each have one child, Romeo and Juliet, they meet, fall in love and wind up in a forbidden romance.” He told me in a purposefully deep voice to be funny.
I laughed as he made kissy faces at me, “Well, I never really went to school, I was home-schooled.” I told him, a lie yes, but I doubt he could tell. As far as I know, he hasn’t been turned for that long, this may even be his first full moon tonight. I was excited to see what would happen, I knew what happened to me in the full moon, I grew more powerful because more people called upon my kind.
We quickly finished out study session, after getting some dirty looks from the librarian about being noisy. We packed our books away and stood to leave, “Hey,” Isaac began, suddenly switching from his impish grin to a bashful smile. How is he this cute!? “I have Lacrosse practice now, but would you maybe wanna come watch? Cheer me on?” He asked, hopeful. I smiled, maybe it would be nice to take a break from the plan right now.
If I’m lucky, Derek might be there and I can speak to him, he knows the feeling of being betrayed by family. I looked into deep blue eyes and smiled, “Yeah I’d love to!” I told him, wishing him luck with a peck on the cheek and walked off to my locker, leaving the poor boy smiling a goofy smile in the middle of the hall.
Ten Years Ago~
3rd Person pov
(d/n) held his daughter’s hand as they walked slowly to the cemetery, “Let’s go visit your mama,” He said to her, watching as her smile lit up the room. Tears began to drip down his face as he slipped his other hand into his pocket and clenched his fist around the mausoleum key, contemplating his next moves.
He sat in front of the mausoleum for a while, watching as (y/n) picked flowers to give to (m/n), she insisted that she would love them, he knew deep down that whilst she would love the flowers, she wouldn’t like what he was about to do.
He watched his little girl smiling as she picked daisies and dandelions, watched her (e/c) eyes sparkle, her eyes. He watched as her cheeks turned a rosy hue as she thought of her mother, her rosy cheeks. Watched as her smile faded when he took her hand and brought her into the mausoleum when she hadn’t finished picking flowers, her smile.
He listened as her precious little voice shrieked when the door shut behind her, her dad no where to be found as he was locking the mausoleum from outside. “Dad!” She cried, her father blinking tears down his sallow face as she kicked and scratched the doors.
“Papa!” She screamed even louder, her eyes becoming used to the darkness to see the coffins surrounding her. She shook her head rapidly, refusing to believe what had just happened. Her dad would never do this, he’ll be back for her. Tears streamed down her now pale cheeks as she cried harder and louder until her throat hurt.
“Dad!!!”
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I hope you guys liked this instalment! Exciting news, when I was writing this chapter, I got my first re-blog! Thank you so much to @originalwitchsworld for re-blogging!
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ranibell · 3 years
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Disney Fairies Shipping Rant
(Warning: unpopular opinions ahead. You may disagree, but I’ll defend my opinions! I don’t mean offense to any of the people who like certain pairings in this series--what you like isn’t a reflection of you as a person, or your intelligence or heart, it’s that simple--I just have a hard time understanding why it is some of these are as popular as they are.)
I marked 4 “NOTPs” on that shipping meme, and...let’s talk about it, I guess!
I’ll start simple. Tink/Bobble:
This was particularly big back in the day with the first couple of TB movies before the majority latched onto Tink/Vidia. I never really “got it” but for the most part I wouldn’t have ever had reason to dislike them as a ship if it hadn’t been for the shippers themselves...
I liked Terence as a character, as well as his relationship with Tink, and the Bobble/Tink fans were very vocal about disparaging Terence in favor of Bobble, when that’s really unnecessary. It’s possible to like an underrated character without the need to bash a popular one just because you’re personally not interested in them.
I basically won’t go into it any more than I have in the past--after I did a two-part video reading of comments on this one Tink/Bobble fan art piece, I wrote up my feelings here and it still stands up. Basically the sight of the ship leaves a bad taste in my mouth not because of the characters involved themselves, but by the attitude the ship seemed to be entirely based on.
The only thing I would add is that I ship Bobble/Clank and to me, they’re as good as an old married couple that just wasn’t confirmed because it’s Disney :(
Clarion/Milori:
What can I even say? I’ve ranted extensively on my old blog, but to rehash, here’s the deal: There was no reason Milori’s character needed to be invented in the first place. The major plot holes and inconsistencies in The Secret of the Wings seemed to have prompted his becoming a character, but I think more importantly it was for the cliche, forced “forbidden romance” sub-plot between him and Clarion.
They didn’t need to replace the female Minister of Winter from her position to bring in this Lord of Winter, his role and existence wasn’t properly set up, and his backstory + relationship with Queen Clarion wasn’t developed at all, they just relied on the fact that having a tragically star-crossed love interest who’s attractive is enough for people to accept at face value.
And they were right, I guess... 🙄
So again, for me it’s not that the pairing of these two characters in inherently a bad thing, but it has never tracked for me that such an underdeveloped, boring pairing is one of the most popular in the fanbase, like most people just accepted it because it was canon and I’m like “we’re allowed to....NOT ship canon pairings, if they add nothing to the characters and story...you don’t have to just accept it”
Zarina/James:
This is another one that is a majorly popular ship in the fanbase, and to me it’s similar to shipping Anna with Hans, but possibly even worse. He manipulated her and tried to get away with murdering her. In James’ case, he emotionally/psychologically manipulated Zarina for A YEAR before betraying her and then tossing her into the sea to die.
There are a lot of people who think Hans should be able to have a redemption plotline, and I’ll make no comment about that, but the big difference between him and James is that we KNOW Hook will never be redeemed. We know he has never and will never feel remorse about his actions or treatment of Z.
He goes on to become the most fearsome pirate of all time, murdering without second thought--and still goes on to manipulate Tink and capture her in a lantern, because, I quote, “a jealous female can be tricked into anything.” His line in TPF mirrors this attitude (“Fairies are such gullible creatures”) so like....he is and will always be a misogynist who never held respect for Z or Tink or any fairy/female.
Also, The Pirate Fairy was as poorly written as SotW if not more so, and Z herself wasn’t a well-developed character, so I should say “to each their own” for anyone who wanted to believe there was chemistry between Z + James and ship them, but it’s gross and disgusting and wrong. (no offense)
Tink/Vidia:
Back to something much less sinful, but even more heretical within this fanbase. Vidia is one of THE most popular fairies from the movies, and Tink/Vidia is one of the most popular ships. That’s fine. My stance happens to be different, because I guess I don’t view things the exact same way.
Vidia was cruel to Tink at first--and she’s nowhere near as bad as James; she’d never seriously want to hurt/kill somebody. But even after she is redeemed from her antagonist position....she’s honestly still pretty b*tchy to her so-called “friends.” I won’t be forgetting the scene in Legend of the Neverbeast anytime soon when Gruff sneezes/gets snot on them, Rosetta says “ew, my mouth was open!” and Vidia replies “It’s always open.” Like, there’s just no need for that, ever, it’s mean-spirited and didn’t need to be said, it didn’t help anything.
People seem to love sarcastic characters with a secret heart of gold, but I just can’t dig the way Vidia is treated like this amazing character just because she didn’t turn out to be genuinely evil, no matter how her attitude stayed. In the books, her character is more interesting to me--and she’s portrayed as a mean person, but also she knows it and the narrative doesn’t treat her like one of the girls who, oh, it’s just okay that she treats her friends poorly!
So yeah, Tink/Vidia never sat right with me. Also, within the books, they actually hate each other, not even like a sassy frenemy relationship, they can’t stand each other. Tink does NOT have a lot of patience--she would never stand for Vidia’s nasty attitude and just not call her out on it every time. They would never work in a relationship.
So, the reason people will hate me for having this opinion is because many seem to embrace Vidia as this lesbian icon (like those posts about how if she was your favorite fairy growing up, you’re gay) and Tink/Vidia as this natural pairing to come from their interaction in the movies. Lots of people automatically ship it, and I can see the distaste toward Tink/Terence as if it’s the boring, straight ship with no merit besides being basically canon.
Nobody has to ship Tink/Terence if it’s not their thing--I happen to like them, but they objectively have a LOT of development throughout the books, films and other media. More so than any of the canon ships like Clarion/Milori which people ATE UP even though they had NO development. If you ship Clarion/Milori and think Tink/Terence is boring, ya basic and hypocritical, but I digress.
What I mean to say is that if you’re not into Tink/Terence or basic, overhyped “straight” ships in general, your other option is not immediately Tink/Vidia. I’m bisexual myself, so it’s not like I’m anti-Vidibell because of homophobia or something. I really enjoy and appreciate f/f and m/m ships as well, and there are so many amazing fairies to ship Tink with who would have a more healthy and beautiful dynamic--which I think...good representation is better? Just me??
Tink had a lot of chemistry with Silvermist, in fact, someone who is genuinely kind and caring for Tink and vice versa. Tink/Sil is probably the most beautiful and natural pairing in the whole movie series, and it’s like no one has ever even CONSIDERED it because it’s so much more entertaining to have an enemies-to-lovers dynamic with the fairy who was mean to Tink, rather than the one who objectively cared the MOST.
Also, Tink and Zarina--they had a helluva dynamic in TPF. Stay hydrated with a drinking water game every time there’s a potential moment to read into wrt shipping them in that film. But then people want to ship Zarina with a man who tried to kill her instead.
So that’s the thing--I’m not mad at Tink/Bobble and Tink/Vidia because they go against Tink/Terence, but because of the attitude about it when arguably there are way better options than the ones people promote and those ones get entirely ignored and overlooked. It just grinds my gears. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you ship these pairing, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings by calling them out like they’re these awful things--tbh the only one of these that I genuinely think is entirely and inherently bad in concept, is James/Z and I have no remorse if I offend anyone who ships that. Unfollow me, nasty.
To explain that in practice: if a picture of Clarion/Milori, Tink/Vidia or Tink/Bobble is cute, I’m still gonna reblog it and even tag it for those who enjoy the ships, because it doesn’t hurt me or anyone even if it’s not my taste. If J/Z is ever even implied I’m blocking people XD
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doof-doofblog · 3 years
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"Our Family's Alright - That's All That Matters!"
Friday 21st May 2021
Hello again everyone! Hope you're all doing well! Today I'll be reviewing Friday's episode, before I do however I know I missed Thursday's episode so I'm going to give you a quick debrief on what happened during that episode. Needless to say that everyone was more than excited when they learnt that Sonia's Dad, Terry, had arrived on the Square! It seemed that he had made quite an impression on Tiffany specifically, she seemed more excited than anyone. But I do have to mention the iconic quote she said to Dotty, after over a decade since she last quoted it, Tiffany told Dotty where to go ... "You're NFI - Not Flippin' Invited!" ... absolutely iconic!! However, after Terry making a good impression with Sonia's family, Sonia couldn't help the feeling that it was too little too late for her Dad to be walking back into her life. As politely as she could, she informed Terry that a simple drink isn't going to make up for long lost years without her Dad. Understanding her completely, Terry left informing her that Jack has his number if she ever wanted to call him and reach out to him to possibly rekindle their relationship. Sonia watched as Terry turned away and walked off into the night.
Meanwhile, Martin makes a fool of himself and lashes out Zack after believing Lily's lies about Ruby cheating on him with Zack. After punching Zack in front of Sharon and Ruby in the club, Ruby puts him straight that his daughter is lying to him and how it hurts that he believed his child without even talking to Ruby first. Is Martin now in the dog house? What is he going to do make it up to Ruby? But also, how are they going to deal with Lily and her lies?!
Elsewhere Mick was preparing himself for court, Frankie still feeling the pressure of her Mum asking her to give a character reference for her. Although I can understand how Frankie must be feeling like piggy in the middle at the moment, she wants to be there for Mick, but I don't know, even though she loves her Mum, she can't stand by her after what she's learnt.
--
Anyway focusing on Friday's episode, I'm going to begin with Sonia and Dotty. I guess it's fair to say Dotty and Sonia have always had a rocky relationship, they've never really seen eye-to-eye. Does Dotty really get a thrill out of slagging off Sonia? I feel there is more to it really and in this particular episode, I think Dotty gives Sonia some food for thought.
After having a bit of a row at home, Dotty leaves and heads to the club, but Sonia follows to check if she's alright, it here that Dotty admits to her that she'd give anything to have one last chat with her Dad, how can she stand there and watch willingly as Sonia just let's her Dad walk out of her life. At the beginning of the episode, Sonia claims that she's surprised that Tiffany believed everything that Terry had said about his life, in Sonia's eyes - why should she believe this man who, even if he is her Dad biologically, he is a bit of a stranger to her. She knows nothing about him and he knows very little about her, as far as she was concerned, it's too little too late to make up for lost time.
But I think after Dotty admitting that she's give anything to be with her Dad again, Sonia takes these words on board. I think she probably will reach out to her Dad and slowly begin to build a relationship with him. What do you guys think? I'm not 100% sure whether Terry is going to be a permanent role in the soap, but it'll be interesting to see what he brings to the Square, what friendships he'll make and whether we'll find out anything about is past?
--
Elsewhere, Sharon has informed her brother that regardless of him not actually sleeping with Ruby, he's not as innocent as he makes out, as he has been continuously flirting with the married woman, purposefully winding Martin up and instructs him to apologise and take him for a pint. But, Ruby seems less than impressed with her husband's actions as we see he has been sleeping on the sofa. As he wakes, Ruby walks in informing him that she's been up since the early hours of the morning looking after his children, almost kind of giving them guilty treatment. She mentions how she was looking forward to him coming home from Dubai, how much she had done for his children whilst he was away and he throws it back in her face by listening to Lily's lies. It's fair to say that Ruby is deeply hurt and informs Martin that he has to confront his daughter and stop her from saying all these horrible lies, otherwise Lily or Ruby herself will be moving out.
Realising the seriousness of his mistake, he gives his word to Ruby and eventually gets his chance to speak to Lily. I believe that Lily is still holding a grudge against Ruby for putting her Mum in prison for something she didn't do, so feels she needs to get her own back in some way. Is she really trying to split her Dad and Ruby up to maybe teach Ruby a lesson? However, even though she's a kid and she's missing her Mum, what she is doing is really out of order, making up lies about Ruby just to get back at her.
Martin confronts his daughter and informs her that she needs to stop the lies and give Ruby a break. But it's not just the lies she's been saying, even cutting up her deceased Mum's wedding dress. Even though Lily claims she didn't know it was Ruby's Mum's, she still shouldn't have done it. This is an interesting one though, who's side are you on? Ruby's or Lily's? As Martin instructs his daughter to be more respectful to his wife, Lily leaves the house without saying a single word, although it's clear she's not very happy about it. Later we see her sat at the allotments calling her Nan, asking whether she can move back in with her.
Of course Jean isn't going to see her Granddaughter out on the streets, but I feel that maybe Jean will start to ask questions about why Lily is wanting to return to live with her. Actually speaking of Jean, I happened to notice that maybe two or three times in this episode, she complained of stomach pains - although she used the excuse of having prunes for breakfast and it has made her slightly windy. But something is telling me it could be more than that. Could it be the cancer? I have to be honest, I am still stunned to realise that no one in her family knows about her cancer and only Ruby is aware about how terminal she is. If Jean takes a turn for the worse, surely Ruby is going to have to inform them about what she knows? I swear though if EastEnders come to the decision of killing Jean off, I will be deeply upset!!! (Let's hope it won't come to that!)
--
Now of course the main focus of the episode was Mick and his family. Today was the day that they had been dreading, but yet they had all been waiting for. It was the day that Mick would finally face Katy in court. Even though he is twitching his leg with nerves, he's looking as ready as he'll ever be as the cars pull up outside the Vic, ready to take him and the family to court.
As everyone gathers in court, Frankie is trying to tell both Mick and the rest of the family something, whatever it is it seems really important, but she's never given the opportunity to say what she needs to say. As The Carter family make their way into the court, you can't help but feel for Mick as he comes face-to-face with Katy, the person who abused him as a child, one last time. Frankie is sat beside her Dad as she tries one last try to attempt to tell him something really important, but unfortunately the moment is taken from her a second time.
As statements are read out in the court, it becomes clear what Frankie was so desperately trying to tell her Dad and his family. It turns out that Frankie did give her a Mum a character reference, regardless of what she did in her past, Frankie cannot deny that she was a good Mum to her. Katy looks over to her daughter with a smile as the Carter family look over to Frankie in shock. Frankie almost looks as if she feels she's betrayed her Dad's side of the family, but Mick does the most honest and decent a thing a Dad could. He takes a firm hold of Frankie's hand, informing her that he completely understands her giving her statement, at the end of the day, Katy is her Mum and she gave her a happy childhood, regardless of her crimes.
As the court goes into recess, The Carter's confront Frankie about her decision, informing her that she could've jeopardised the length of sentence that Katy could receive for her crimes. Shirley more so than anyone is voicing her disappointment in Frankie, but Frankie defends herself. Do they really have wanted her to be a victim of Katy's also? Frankie cannot deny that her Mum gave her a good childhood, and Mick interrupts the discussion claiming that Frankie did the right thing and he completely understands and supports his decision.
During this whole interaction, Nancy makes herself scarce and gets some fresh air. But as the court is called in to hear the final statement and the verdict, Mick goes to search for Nancy as the rest of the family enter the courtroom. As he makes his way outside, he's faced with the terrifying scene of Nancy having a vicious epileptic fit in the middle of the road. Mick acts fast and stays with his daughter, putting his jacket under her head so she doesn't get any lasting brain damage from bashing her head against the gravel. Devastatingly, the rest of the Carter family have no idea what's happening as they're waiting for Mick to return to give his victim statement.
But Mick knows he cannot leave his vulnerable daughter in this state and desperately calls an ambulance. Linda then informs the judge to read out Mick's statement on his behalf. Now I have to say how this moment played out was really powerful, the words used in Mick's statement were so moving that it brought both Linda and Shirley to tears. But hearing these words about how much he was made to feel embarrassed and how it affected his anxiety and relationships with his family, he claims that without Linda and the strength of his family he wouldn't have been able to carry on. While hearing these words, Mick stays with his Nancy until she slowly comes round from her seizure.
Eventually Nancy is helped by paramedics and she slowly comes round from her horrific seizure. Together they walk back into the courtroom, just in time to hear the sentence Katy is given. A total of 10 years in prison! Now I have to be honest, how this episode ended was absolutely perfect, touching and powerful. As the Carter's leave the court and step out into the fresh air, Mick grabs each daughter, Frankie and Nancy, from both sides and hold them ever so tightly. The air is blue and bright, the birds are singing and Mick takes huge breath in. I absolutely LOVE that Julia's Theme was used for this ending, after a horrendous couple of months that Mick has had to endure, it's all over. Katy has been put away for her crimes of child sexual abuse and Mick can now sleep easy knowing justice has been done.
Together as a family, Mick, Linda, Shirley, Nancy and Frankie leave the court together. A untied front showing full well that nothing could ever bring The Carter Family down! With Katy now behind bars, the can carry on with their lives as a family. An absolutely beautiful and moving ending to a deeply devastating storyline! I can't applaud everyone enough for their performance in this storyline - Danny Dyer, Kellie Bright, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Linda Henry and Simone Lahbib! They've all been absolutely incredible!
What did you guys think of the episode? Was it a satisfying ending for you or do you think Katy should've got a longer sentence? Did you enjoy the use of Julia's Theme? I'm really excited to see what happens with the Carter family now, I'm hoping and praying that Frankie will now become a firm member of the Carter family. Thank you all for reading! Please feel free to leave me any comments or messages regarding any of the current storylines happening in EastEnders right now. I'd love to hear your thoughts! Love you all xXx
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pug-bitch · 4 years
Text
That’s not why I’m staying (8)
The world at your feet
Book: The Royal Romance, Book 2
Pairing: Drake Walker x Amara Suarez
Rating: some foul language, some extremely suggestive, and an inappropriate conversation in the first scene :D. This is absolutely NOT appropriate for people under 18.
Word count: about 3,500
Notes: This picks up pretty much where we left off, during Michael’s last night at the cabin, starting with Drake’s POV.
*****
Drake comes out of Sav’s old bedroom, his arms full of party games. She had always loved entertaining the young ladies of court at the cabin, however mean they were to her. Sav never lost hope that she would, one day, fit in. Only Maxwell was loyal to her. Drake shakes the idea off. Soon, he thinks, he can reconnect and, hopefully, make amends for not being there enough.
‘Table topics!!’ Maxwell exclaims.
Drake smiles. ‘Yup. Remember?’
Liv sighs as she pours herself another glass of wine. ‘As if you needed inspiration on weird topics, Beaumont!’
Maxwell laughs. ‘You may be right but it’s a fun game! Come on guys, grab some more dessert and let’s GO!’
Drake steals a kiss from Amara on his way to grab another slice of the apricot cake she and Hana made. Dinner was a success and they were now on to the second part of the mini Bash, with games, music, and booze.
Not that the whole evening wasn’t filled with booze. Drake can barely stand without swaying around like he’s on a boat. Weird how treacherous margaritas are.
‘You ok babe?’ Amara asks, her words slightly slurred.
Drake puts his hand on her hip and brings her closer. ‘Better than ever.’ He gives her another kiss, deeper this time. ‘Well, maybe I’m drunk.’
Amara giggles. ‘Yeah, so am I.’
‘Guys, gather around!’ Maxwell yells out as he stumbles down on a cushion. ‘Bertrand, get some more wine, you filthy animal!’
‘Okay, okay,’ Bertrand concedes. ‘It IS delicious wine, Olivia. Thank you for bringing it.’
Olivia bows. ‘Of course. Anything to get you drunk, Beaumont.’
Bertrand blushes. ‘Oh well. It doesn’t take much,’ he chuckles.
They all gather around the coffee table, and Hana draws the first card. She immediately giggles. ‘Oh, that one’s intense!’ She clears her throat. ‘Describe the worst sex you’ve ever had.’
‘Wow,’ Drake chuckles. ‘Not pulling any punches, huh?’
Maxwell raises his almost empty glass. ‘I’ll start! It was my first time. It was horrible. I got confused, and I forgot how close I was to the edge of the bed. I fell down and hurt my chin on my belt buckle. I had a bruise for days!’
Bertrand shudders. ‘Good lord, Maxwell, that’s where that bruise was coming from? I’d rather not know!’ He downs his entire glass of wine at once, which Olivia quickly refills, an evil smirk on her face.
She asks, ‘So, I take it you want to pass your turn, Beaumont?’
Bertrand grimaces. ‘If it’s alright, yes.’
Olivia shrugs. ‘Yeah, it’s your one pass. I’ll go next. My worst fuck was this guy I met at the derby 2 years ago. The Croatian, remember, Walker?’
Drake frowns. ‘Oh yeah. He worked for the Ambassador?’
Liv nods. ‘Well, he didn’t work for me. He cried as he orgasmed and said ‘I love you’ through his tears.’ She takes a sip of her wine. ‘Weak bastard.’
Amara makes a disgusted face. ‘Yikes. Um, my turn, I guess. The worst sex I’ve ever had is when I studied abroad in Québec, and this hot guy I met at a party turned out to have a lot of trouble getting a boner. He may have been drunk, but it was still very pathetic and sad for me.’
Drake strokes Amara’s hair and says ‘What a loser, who wouldn’t have a boner for you?’
Michael snorts, ‘Um, brother in the room, thank you very much. I’m with you on that one, Bertrand, I think I’ll pass.’ He downs his margarita. ‘Im traumatized.’
Drake’s eyes widen. ‘Did I say that out loud?’
Amara nods. ‘Yes. And thank you.’
Maxwell wipes a tear from laughter. ‘You guys, this is so much fun! Drake, your turn, then you draw!’
Drake nods seriously, as he tries to focus his eyes on a static point. ‘Um, for me, it was that Italian woman I had met, and she kept calling me Daddy, and trying to get me to spank her. Which, coupled with the ‘Daddy’ thing, well…’ he laughs. ‘It’s pretty fucked up.’
Maxwell shrugs. ‘At least you don’t lose your boners like Amara’s Canadian. Ha!’
Michael shakes his head. ‘Too soon, Maxwell. Too soon.’
Drake laughs and draws a card. ‘Alright, here we go. What’s your biggest regret?’
Olivia snorts. ‘Deep. Alright, I’ll go. My biggest regret is to have been hung up on Liam for too long.’
They all cheer. ‘Amen, sister,’ Amara yells. ‘For me, I don’t want to spoil the mood, so I’ll just say that I regret not talking to Michael for so long.’ She holds out her hand, which Michael lovingly takes. ‘Also to have spoken about the Canadian’s soft penis in front of him.’
Michael takes his hand back abruptly and bursts out laughing. ‘You little bitch,’ he giggles. ‘Alright, same for me—to have withdrawn from people who love me, such as my lovely sister here, and also I regret my skater phase in high school.’
Maxwell’s eyes widen. ‘You were a sk8er boi??’ He gasps as Michael nods cheekily. ‘Michael, my biggest regret is not to have seen any pictures of little skater you...yet!’
Hana raises her hand, all giggly from too many margaritas. ‘My biggest regret is not coming out to my parents.’
‘Yet!’ Michael adds, as he squeezes Hana’s arm gently.
Hana smiles. ‘You’re right! I will do it one day. Soon.’
Amara nods enthusiastically. ‘Yes you will! You’re a strong woman who knows who she is, and if they can’t see that, well… they better take time to reflect upon themselves.’ She frowns decidedly.
Drake chuckles. ‘Yeah, babe, that wasn’t harsh enough. What Amara means is… if they can’t accept you for who you are, fuck them, Hana!’
‘Yeah!’ Hana chimes in, as she frowns adorably. ‘Ok, your turn, Bertrand!’
Bertrand sighs heavily, his eyes glued to the Walker family portrait on the wall. ‘Oh guys,’ he says longingly, ‘I have so many regrets. The one I can’t stop thinking of is—‘ Olivia sneakily refills his wine glass as Amara shoots her daggers— ‘thank you, Olivia,’ he adds, ‘what I can’t seem to stop thinking of, every day almost… is not telling Savannah how I felt. Letting her go, without a proper declaration of love.’ He sighs and takes a big gulp of his wine.
Drake feels as though he sobered up at least 3 drinks. He and Maxwell make eye contact, and he notices that Max looks equally sad. ‘Hey man,’ Drake says comfortingly, ‘it’s not too late. It’s never too late to tell someone how you feel.’
Maxwell nods and puts a reassuring hand on his brother’s arm. ‘Yeah, he’s right, you never know what the future holds.’
Bertrand shakes his head. ‘I don’t know, guys. She has been gone two years. I don’t think I’ll ever see her again.’
A silence weighs on the room. Drake looks at Amara, who is biting her lip and looks like she’s about to say something. Drake tries to shake his head at her discreetly, but she takes a big breath and blurts out, ‘I found her.’
*****
Amara can’t believe she said this. She certainly didn’t plan on it. Can she blame the margaritas, if she’s the one who made the margaritas? She’s gonna go with yes.
All eyes are on her, especially Drake’s, who are pleading her to stop talking. But she has to fix this, right?
She looks at Bertrand, who looks utterly destroyed by the news. She opens her mouth again. ‘I know how sad Drake has been because of his sister’s disappearance, and I wanted to make sure she was ok. We had very little leads, just an email address she had given her mom, and a bank account—‘ she stops in her tracks. She can’t betray Maxwell. She takes another deep breath. ‘That she had also given Bianca, and I found her. We’re gonna try to establish contact.’
Amara feels Drake relaxing next to her. She looks into his eyes, and he gives her a relieved smile. Phew, she thinks. She didn’t blow it all.
Bertrand gasps for air. ‘Oh wow. That is very impressive of you, Amara. You must be a wonderful detective. Um, Olivia, can I have some more wine?’
Olivia hurries to the bottle and empties it in Bertrand’s glass. ‘Of course,’ she says, in shock.
Bertrand takes a gulp and says, ‘Thank you for telling me. I hope that, when you do find her in person, she agrees to talk to me.’ He pauses. ‘In fact—no.’
‘No no, go ahead,’ Drake says.
Bertrand sighs. ‘Do you think you could give me that email address you were speaking of?’
Drake pauses for a second, looks at both Amara and Maxwell, and finally says, ‘Of course. I’ll give it to you tomorrow.’
Bertrand nods, determined. ‘Thank you. I have something in my drafts that is aching to be sent.’
*****
Table Topics died down with that second card—way too loaded, but also necessary, as Drake is starting to think. ‘Hey guys, let’s finish those chocolates, ok?’ He yells out on his way to the kitchen to refill his cocktail.
As he pours himself another delicious margarita, he feels Amara’s hand squeezing his arm. She makes her way into his arms and pulls him closer. ‘Oh my God I’m sorry, babe,’ she whispers, her eyes digging deep into his. ‘I have no idea why I blurted it out. I shouldn’t have.’ She bites her lip.
Drake’s heart melts. ‘I know why you did.’ He strokes her face gently. ‘Bertrand looked miserable and we have been withholding crucial info from him.’ He smiles as he cups her face. ‘I’m glad you told him. I’m also glad you kept quiet about the—‘ his voice grows quieter— ‘the baby. We want to talk to Sav before involving him.’
Amara lets out a sigh of relief. ‘I was so scared you’d be mad at me. I promise you it just came out….the poor schmuck was laying his heart on the table, like ‘she’s my biggest regret and now she’s gone forever,’ when we all know she’s not, and—‘
Drake squeezes her hand. ‘I know. My heart broke for him, too. Believe me, I get it.’ He hands Amara the margarita pitcher. ‘Here, have another drink. This sobered us up way too quickly.’
She chuckles and obliges. ‘You got that right.’
Drake smiles softly as he looks at Amara try not to spill her margarita. He would never think that love would soften him this much. When he looks at her, his heart turns into a gooey substance that alters all his senses and decisions. It’s frightening, yes. But it brought so much joy into his life, too.
‘What?’ Amara asks, amused.
He shrugs. ‘Nothing. Just thinking. If Bertrand really does email Sav, maybe it will convince her to come back. More than I ever could.’
*****
Liam pours himself another vodka. He’s never been one for hard liquor—much more of a white wine drinker—, but desperate times call for desperate measures. After spending the afternoon drafting a treaty with Greece, he had to go have dinner with his father, who had been in worse shape than ever. Liam shudders as he thinks back on his father’s weak movements, and slower speech.
He knows that Constantine is not one to admit weakness. He’s the King, after all. But if there ever was a time…
He shakes it off. He’ll think about all this after the Engagement Tour. Constantine is surrounded with the best doctors in Europe, there is no reason to worry as of yet. Right?
Liam found the perfect excuse to escape from Madeleine tonight. He has to work late on that treaty, and needs to get up early. So, unfortunately, no sleepover, darling, you will be better off in your own room. Madeleine had pouted and acted like she was disappointed, but he could tell that even she was relieved that tonight was providing her with an out. An out from this forced charade they called an engagement. Maybe, just maybe, if he could just convince her from sheer boredom and lack of chemistry, to just...let go, maybe everything could go back to normal.
But he’ll have to take the crown soon. There’s no out for that.
He sighs and downs his vodka. He pours another. In front of him, the business card he was handed a few weeks back. Should he…?
No. It’s almost eleven. It wouldn’t be proper.
She did say that he could write whenever… He takes a deep breath and starts typing furiously on his phone.
This is Liam. May I take you up on your offer?
He puts the phone down, and grabs his glass again. As soon as he takes a sip, his phone vibrates.
Of course. Is everything ok?
He lets out a sigh of relief as he starts typing again.
Just a hard night. Hope all is well with you. Would you be free for a drink? Unless it’s too late.
His heart races. It’s been a while since he’s made a new friend. Someone who really listens to him, and whose presence calms him down.
Sure. I just need to finish a brief. How about the Orchard Way Tavern in half an hour?
Liam types a quick response and speed dials Bastien. ‘Bastien, are you available to drive me downtown?’
‘Sure thing, Your Majesty, but I can call Thierry—‘
‘No need. Please pick me up in 15.’
*****
You were workin' as a waitress in a cocktail bar
When I met you
I picked you out, I shook you up and turned you around
Turned you into someone new
Now five years later on, you've got the world at your feet
Success has been so easy for you
But don't forget, it's me who put you where you are now
And I can put you back down too
Don’t—Don’t you want me
Drake drunkenly looks on as Maxwell and Amara duet on Don’t You Want Me. They’re having the time of their lives, who needs a karaoke machine when you can just sing as loudly as you can over the actual singers?
Michael comes to sit next to him on the floor, and smiles at him. ‘This is awesome, Drake,’ he slurs. ‘I’m having such a good time. Thank you.’
Drake smiles back and clinks his drink to Michael’s. ‘You’re welcome. It’s a pleasure to have you here, Mike.’
Michael grows pensive, and Drake appreciate how much of a quiet drunk he is, compared to the others. ‘You know, I’m gonna have a hard time leaving tomorrow.’
Drake nods. ‘I don’t blame you. Wish you could stay longer and come on the tour. I would appreciate the company, and so would these two,’ he gestures at Maxwell and Amara.
Michael chuckles. ‘Yeah. Well, maybe it’ll be good for everyone to…’ he makes a calming gesture with his arms, ‘take some time. You know.’ He sighs. ‘Dammit. Is it that obvious?’
Drake shrugs, amused. ‘I didn’t say anything, man.’
Michael shakes his head. ‘You didn’t need to.’ He takes a sip of his wine. ‘I just don’t know what happened to me in the past few days. I feel… different. Calmer. More serene.’
Drake nods. ‘Yeah. Like you’ve made peace with some shit, right?’
Michael nudges Drake with his elbow. ‘Exactly. That’s exactly right. I’ve made peace with some shit. Some really deep shit.’ He chuckles. ‘Look at her.’
Drake looks at Amara. ‘Oh, I am. She’s a sight to behold.’
Michael nudges him again. ‘You love her. I love that. She’s so loveable, man, it’s unreal.’ He pauses. ‘You know, when I look at my kid, who’s the spitting image of Sergio, it doesn’t hurt. I love it, because he lives on. But for a long time, when I looked at Amara, it did hurt. A lot. Because not only is she basically the female version of her brother, but these two were so close. So fucking close.’ He shakes his head. ‘They were like twins, if twins could be six years apart, you know. This one over there, she’s an old soul. When I met her, she was a little eighteen-year-old, but she didn’t take shit from anybody, and she was already introspective, and observant, and good with people—all of it.’
Drake smiles. ‘That’s my Amara.’
Michael holds his hand to his heart. ‘Ugh, stop it, you guys are so cute.’ He takes another sip. ‘My point is, she’s such a complex and precious little soul. Always has been. And Sergio always told me how strong she is, but also, sensitive at the same time, because she loves so wholly, you know. She gives her all. Well, when we lost him—when this all happened, two years ago, and she withdrew into her own shell, it hurt so fucking much, because I knew, I just knew that it would have killed him even more, to see her like that.’ He pauses and bites his lip. ‘Nope,’ he adds, ‘I’m not gonna fucking cry on my last night.’
Drake puts his hand on Michael’s knee and gives it a reassuring squeeze. ‘It’s ok, man. I get it. She is getting better, now, and you can let go a little bit.’ He smiles. ‘She will be ok.’
Michael nods. ‘Because of you. Because of you, and Max, and Hana, and Olivia, and Bertrand… because she found people to love again.’
Drake has to make a conscious effort in order not to tear up as well. ‘Mike, I’m glad you’re here. And please tell me we can see you in New York when we go there after the bullshit Ball we have to attend.’
Michael nods furiously. ‘I’d love nothing more.’
*****
Liam fidgets with his glass of water as he waits. She insisted on getting the second round, not that he needed to drink more, but when the company is this nice, what can you say.
‘Here you go,’ she says as she puts his glass of wine in front of him. ‘Cheers!’
He clinks his glass to her martini. ‘Thank you, Ioanna, and cheers to you.’
‘So,’ she says as she sets her glass safely on the table. ‘You were saying that you’re totally into Amara Suarez, even though she has never given you any indication that she likes you romantically?’
Liam arches an eyebrow. ‘Did—did I say that?’
Ioanna chuckles. ‘Not in so many words, but that’s what I understood.’
He holds his hand to his chest, feigning being shot in the heart. ‘Ouch, that was harsh, Ms. Papadakis!’
She shrugs playfully, as she tugs a brown curl behind her ear. ‘Hey, you said you like honesty. I’m just trying to have your back.’
Liam takes a sip. ‘You have a point. Come to think of it, I may never have known what honesty is.’ He pauses. ‘You know everyone wants to kiss the prince’s ass.’
Ioanna snorts. ‘Classy, Your Majesty.’
He laughs. ‘You know what I mean. The only person who’s ever been honest with me—I think—is my best friend. And maybe Amara, well, I hope.’
Ioanna drinks quietly.
Liam smiles, ‘And, clearly, now, you.’
She nods, pleased with his response. ‘Well, you said it yourself. She was honest with you, she told you she doesn’t want anything romantic with you. Why do you choose not to believe her?’
He pauses, taken aback. ‘Um. Maybe because she barely knows me, and I’m still hoping that—‘
‘Forgive me for being straightforward,’ she interrupts, ‘but maybe it could be because you’ve always gotten what you want?’
He opens his mouth to protest. Gotten what he wants? Really? As he is forced to take the crown, as his father is dying, as his mother is dead and buried? He closes his mouth.
‘Liam,’ she adds, ‘I’m not saying you’ve never been through anything. I’m not. But you said it yourself, everyone is kissing your ass, so maybe you can’t recognize it when people are actually...not?’
Damn, he thinks, is she reading his mind? ‘Well, you got me there,’ he says, defeated.
Ioanna shrugs in victory as she takes another sip of her martini. ‘And don’t get me started on your plan to unveil your fiancée’s evil nature during the Engagement Tour,’ she adds. ‘This plan has more holes than gruyère cheese. With all due respect, everyone knows she’s not a very good person, and no one cares.’ Her eyes dig into his, deeply. ‘The only person who can break your engagement is you.’
*****
Taglist:
@drakeandcamilleofvaltoria @andy-loves-corgis , @jovialyouthmusic , @mariahschoices , @drakesensworld , @thequeenofcronuts , @notoriouscs , @drakewalkerisreal , @nikkis1983​ , @simsvetements , @alesana45 @iplaydrake @emceesynonymroll @lily1999love , @silviasutton1989 @dcbbw @texaskitten30 @furiousherringoperatortoad @hollygirl1269 @sirbeepsalot @ladyangel70 @thisperfectmemory @drxkewalker @i-bloody-love-drake-walker @mrsmairstanley @axwalker @msjpuddleduck @kimmiedoo5 @furryperfectionlover @princessleac1 @katedrakeohd
Thank you for your encouragements, everyone! Let me know if you want to be added to the taglist :)
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wolfflock · 4 years
Text
Please, Keep Love Hole (Chapter 19)
What can one lonely nerdy teacher do when he just loves sucking cock? The lone bathroom stall in a gay bar seems like the perfect place for him.
What can one hyper college student with a sports scholarship do when his friends are jerks? The lone bathroom stall in a gay bar seems like the perfect place for him, too.
Summary: The much needed discussion happens finally! And with that, we can start to see the light at the end of the (very dark) tunnel.
xxx
Derek tries his best to hide what has just happened when he walks out the hospital door. Erica stands up as soon as she sees him and they walk to the parking lot. He hugs her, but doesn’t say anything, because his voice would betray him, he knows. He says goodbye, kisses her cheek, promises to call tomorrow and drives away.
He shouldn’t feel as crestfallen as he does, really, because nothing he heard in that hospital room was news to him. He knew Stiles was just after a trophy but it still hurt. Sometimes you wish things you believed to be true were actually not.
This is why he is surprised when, come the new semester, he sees Stiles’ name among the students attending his classes. He doesn’t let himself read anything into it, and just forces himself to go on as normal.
---
When the date of the first lecture comes, he is somewhat nervous, he admits. He’s done this class countless times but he convinces himself that it isn’t because Stiles will be there, because that would be just childish.
He arrives 10 minutes early to the class to set up, and when he’s ready, he sits down and takes out his Kindle. Trying to pretend that he is not waiting for someone to enter, he looks up every time someone enters and greets them with a smile.
And then he enters. And Derek’s jaw almost drops. If he thought Stiles was handsome before, that doesn’t compare to this. His usually pale skin is tanned, standing in perfect contrast to his teal right –too tight - shirt. He seems stronger, more toned than before when he was all lean.
He looks up at Derek and smiles a little. Derek tries his best to smile back but he isn’t sure that it looks all that genuine. It’s hard to keep his mouth closed when he feels like his jaw is somewhere by his knees.
As the class starts, he composes himself and focuses on his work, not letting his mind – and eyes – wander. He survives without humiliating himself by repeating things or losing his train of thought, although he feels like he was way too stiff and not as funny as he usually is. He will still take is a victory.
When the class ends, the students start to leave as he begins packing his things up. As he’s just about to stand up to leave, there’s a quiet cough, making him look up.
The room is empty now, except for Stiles standing awkwardly in front of him.
“Hi,” he says softly.
“Hi,” Derek replies. “You look better,” he blurts out, but immediately cringes.
“I am better,” Stiles smiles and leans against Derek’s desk. “I just wanted to say thank you for taking me to the hospital back then. You didn’t have to, but it was nice of you.”
Derek feels uncomfortable by the politeness of this conversation but awkwardly smiles up at Stiles anyway. “You’re welcome.”
There’s a long pause where both of them realize that you can’t really keep this going with niceties only so they either need to steer this conversation somewhere or just walk away.
“I was thinking I could tell you why it happened over coffee,” Stiles breaks the silence and Derek just stares.
He looks honest, and open, opening up for rejection. Derek doesn’t have the heart to say no.
Stiles leads them to that godforsaken coffee place where the whole thing started, the place where Stiles works. His coworkers greet them when they walk in, and Derek could swear he gets a few looks that seem just a bit judgemental. It must be his insecurities, he tells himself. 
They take a seat my a big window facing the street, which makes Derek feel incredibly exposed. He just doesn’t like people looking at him through glass like he’s part of an exhibition or something. But this isn’t about him, he reminds himself. This is about Stiles who is about to share personal information with him, and if he wants the window table, so be it, he can suck it up.
When one of the waiters comes over, Stiles, smiling at them,  orders a chai latte for himself and Derek gets an Americano. As soon as it’s just the two of them, though, the boy looks anxious, fiddling with a piece of paper he found on the table.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, you know,” Derek says, trying to sound reassuring.
“No, it’s… it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, it’s just hard to admit it, you know?” Stiles looks at him for a second but he averts his eyes almost immediately. “Not many people know about it but I have told my closest friends and my therapist. It still doesn’t mean it’s easy to say out loud.”
He takes a deep breath but before he could say anything, there order arrives. He flashes a grateful smile at the waiter, and takes a fortifying sip of his drink. Derek tries to suppress his need to squirm in his seat as Stiles’ introduction didn’t leave him with the best ideas about what Stiles wants to reveal. The tension in his shoulders just grows with every passing second as his mind unhelpfully provides various scenarios, one more horrible than the other.
“So…” Stiles starts and Derek stills himself and takes a deep breath to focus on the jittery young man in front of him. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have ADHD.”
Well, Derek kinda didn’t, he was too busy noticing other things about Stiles, if he wants to be honest. The realisation makes him feel like an ass, that he was too busy ogling a student to pay attention to his behavior.
“Growing up it got better but there are certain situations when it is more difficult to manage. Well, getting good grades is one of them. So when I went to your office and you sent me away… I really freaked out. I wasn’t sure what you were going to do… well, honestly, I was convinced you were going straight to the dean to have me suspended. Which would mean I would have lost my scholarship and my grades were just atrocious at the time so I decided that I needed to get my ass in gear to stay here, you know?” He looks up at Derek who just stares, eyes the size of saucers, wishing for the ground to open up and swallow him, chair, coffee and everything included. 
That thought has never crossed his mind, ratting out Stiles. Even when he believed him to be an asshole who just wanted in his pants, he never thought about actually making an official complaint. Without interrupting Stiles, he just nods and hopes the boy will continue.
“And I did,” Stiles goes on, taking another sip of his drink and licking his lips, which Derek tries not to stare at. “I kept myself busy with classes and practice, and did my best to improve my grades. The thing is, you see, concentrating for an extended period of time is fucking hard.”
He looks up at Derek, eyes wide, and mumbles an apology. It eases some of Derek’s nervousness, to see him get bashful about swearing.
“But I had to do it, there was no other way, so I went back on medication. It was alright for a while but then it started to feel like a never ending cycle of just focusing on things all the time and that shit really drains you, you know? And… well alcohol helped. It colored the boring, grey days, you know? Gave them some details and accents. It wasn’t bad, not at first, anyway. Just one more drink when going out, or a drink after a workout. But… from one day to another, it got to a point where I was hiding several empty bottles under my bed, hiding them from my roommate. And I know what it looks like, my dad was a heavy drinker after my mom died, so I should have realised that I had a problem. Of course, it’s so much easier to see it when someone else does it, but fucking impossible when you’re the one drinking cheap crap out of plastic glasses and hoarding empty bottles just so you can get rid of them when no one is looking. So things got out of hand. God knows how long things would have kept going if things at the bonfire don’t happen.”
Stiles looks up at Derek and anxiously rakes his hand through his hair. He looks tired just from reliving it and Derek wishes he could just reach out and put his hand on Stiles’. As it is, though, he needs to relax his grip on the table because his knuckles are going white. He licks his lips and takes a sip of his coffee.
“What happened that day?” He asks quietly, and braces himself for the answer.
“You can probably guess what happened. Quite the cliché. IIt was a busy day and I didn’t have time to eat, really. And then I mixed my drinks. Alcohol and my medication don’t mix well together.” He hangs his head and scratches the slight stubble on his cheeks. “If you hadn’t been there that night, I don’t know what would have happened to me,” he whispers and looks straight into Derek’s eyes.
“I’m glad I was there,” Derek confesses and reaches out to touch Stiles’ hand. 
A slow smile stretches across the boy’s face and it’s like the first ray of sunshine after a storm, it warms Derek’s heart.
“Thank you for telling me all this. It couldn’t have been easy,” he returns Stiles’ smile.
After this, they just sit there in comfortable silence and eventually start talking about more lighthearted things.
---
Next week after class, Stiles is leaning against the classroom door waiting for Derek to finish packing up. When he starts walking out of the room, Stiles only asks “Coffee?” And then they head to the place they have been to last time. This time Derek feels like he owes it to Stiles to return his honesty with his own. He tries to psych himself up to it, kinda hears Erica’s voice in his head saying “You’ve got it, Hale” as they order and take a seat at the same spot as last time.
After a few minutes of chatting about Stiles’ courses and some of Derek’s more memorable students, he takes a deep breath and leans forward. 
“I think I, too, owe you an explanation for my behavior that time in my office.”
And even though he feels ridiculous confessing that he thought Stiles was after him to brag to his mates, he trudges on and talks to Stiles about his previous relationships. Only in vague terms, as he doesn’t feel comfortable with sharing intimate details, but Stiles seems to get it. He tells him how those past relationships have affected, or destroyed, more like, his confidence and how, for years, he was quite self-destructive. He doesn’t go into details much, only mentions torturing himself with diets and workout routines, but thinks about his Thursday night activities with bitterness. 
This is probably the first time in a while when he feels ashamed about it, that maybe doing it was hurting him more than was helping him. He pushes these thoughts to the back of his mind to examine later, as their conversation, once again, flows to a more neutral ground. 
---
It becomes a habit, that after class they grab a coffee together. The third time there’s no heartfelt conversation as they just chat about movies, games, music and hobbies. Stiles has a wicked sense of humor, he learns, and being around him just feels natural. Slowly they start to get to know each other and with that their coffee breaks start getting longer and longer.
---
After having coffee four times, Derek suggests Stiles transfer from his class. This time Stiles doesn’t do it to get away from him. It’s the exact opposite: so that he can be with Derek.
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xsparklingravenx · 4 years
Text
lily of the valley
Title: lily of the valley
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Characters: Yuri, Balthus, Hapi, Constance, Yuri’s Mother
Rating: T
Word Count: 1783
Summary: Yuri’s mother had always said that makeup was her shield.
AO3
Yuri’s mother had always said that makeup was her shield.
 It was something he remembered strongly even now, standing at her side as she sat by a worn-down vanity, the poor thing barely standing up under the weight of its own age. His tiny hands would rest on her knee as she powdered her nose, applying her eyeshadows before finally painted her lips. Lilac hair would tumble from the messy bun she always put it in, and when he would ask what she was doing, she would always say the same; “Putting on my mask, little flower.”
 “But why do you need a mask?” he asked once, curious. She never had elaborated, after all.
 “To become someone else,” was her response as she painted black lines across her lids. They made her look so glamorous, he’d always thought. Powerful, even, like a sorceress who could cast incredible magic, someone who could chase anything terrible away. “When I work, it’s sometimes better to not be me.”
 He hadn’t understood—of course he hadn’t, not then, he’d been too young, too innocent—but he remembered reaching for the brush that she’d used for her eyes then, his fist small around it. It was an old thing, bristly and well-used, just like the vanity. They had taken up residence in a beaten-down tavern, and his mother had been working to the bone to pay for the roof. Since then, it had been night after night of him being left alone, all while she went out, the moon sitting high in its lofty throne as she did whatever it was that required her mask.
 As time went on, he realised she was selling herself to do it, making men pay for the best of her so she could give the best she could for him in return. But back then, with his hands around that brush, he only knew that she wanted to feel strong, to feel untouchable. He took the tool for himself and closed his eyes, brushing the bristles against his own eyelids.
 His mother had chuckled at that, delicately taking it from him. “Oh? And who are you hiding from, little flower?”
 “Nobody,” he said, puffing out his cheeks. “I just wanted to try too, to look like you do. Beautiful.”
 She laughed at him anew, reaching out to brush a hand through his short, messy hair. “Oh, you charmer! I fear you will only make a dreadful mess of yourself if I let you loose with my products, but I can teach you, if you’d like. When I get home in the morning, I’ll show you exactly how to do it.”
 “So I can be just like you?”
Her smile fell at that. Later, when children of Abyss said the same, he would understand why. He and his mother, they both felt the same about themselves—she was the strongest person he knew, and she said herself that she was so, so, proud of him, but they knew the real darkness that they both harboured. He was a murderer, a liar, a cheat. She considered herself nothing more than a worthless whore. They were identical at the core; both never wanting to be a role-model, both never wanting to pass on their shadowed ways.
 She took his small face in her thin hands and shook her head. “No, my little love, not to be like me. I’ll teach you so, if you ever need it, you’ll have your own shield to use. The world can be a dangerous, frightening place, and sometimes, a little paint on your face is enough to make you think you can face it. You will stand up to anything, I promise you that.”
 In Abyss, in the present, Yuri sat at his own vanity with his powders open on the surface, his eyeshadows sat in their palette. The mirror reflected his image back at him, bare-faced, shadows being cast over his skin by the flickering of the candle he had set beside him. A potted lily-of-the-valley sat on the vanity’s edge, its white flowers nearly tipping right over the edge.
 He scowled. How weak he looked without the purples at the edge of his eyes, without the gloss at his lips. His hands were in fists as they rested on his knees, his jaw clenched tight. His heart still beat a humming-bird’s pace in his chest, furious.
 The threat still felt present in the air. Aelfric had barged into his room and caught him unawares a clock’s pace beforehand. He’d whispered threats into his ear while they had been alone, to make sure he was keeping up his own part of their twisted charade. Yuri’s fingers had itched for his blade, to slit the man’s throat before he’d been able to blink, but he’d been powerless in truth. The man had his mother as a hostage for one, and Rhea wanted more information on his faction’s movements.
 Killing him was not an option—and, as much as Yuri wished to gut him, he equally knew that he could not. Aelfric was much more than a kidnapper; he was also one of the few caretakers that Yuri had trusted before he’d betrayed him, and part of him still did, unfathomably, love him.
 He reached for his brush, sweeping it up in the purple powder that he usually coated his eyelids in. Constance had procured this particular colour for him after he’d complained that most of Abyss’s wares were not to his tastes. Purple was the colour for nobles, expensive and difficult to find. Where she’d gotten it from was anybody’s guess, but he had a strong suspicion that it was regular, brown powder that she’d infused with magic. She’d managed to change the colour of tea before—he was certain that powder would be no issue for someone of her talents.
 He set to work, an artist with his brush as he painted himself into the person he wanted to be. First, he scoped out the shape of his eyelids, filling them in with colour before blending it outwards. Memories of his mother’s movements, her guiding hand, his own muscle memory—all of it made up his morning routine. A shame Aelfric had seen him with his mask off, with his face nothing but himself. Another thing he would pay for eventually. The lily-of-the-valley that sat in the pot, it was poisonous. One day, Aelfric would realise that he was too.
 A knock at his door had Yuri turning halfway, his hand stilling. “Who’s there?”
“Yo, pal, you still in there?” Balthus’s voice was gruff through the door. “We were heading to grab a bite for breakfast, but you hadn’t shown up yet.”
 We, he said, implying that the others were there. His suspicions were confirmed when Hapi’s voice came next. “Still putting your face on, Yuri-bird?”
 “Why, of course he is! Do you know how much time it takes to look this magnificent! I can assure you, it doesn’t just happen in seconds!” Constance’s voice was high and airy despite the early hour. “We just need to wait, and he shall appear at any moment.”
 They were so respectful, his friends. He was reminded of a time when they’d been in Abyss’s bar and someone had loudly, drunkenly, made a comment on how improper it was for a man to be wearing woman’s makeup. Yuri hadn’t even been able to make it out of his seat before Balthus had smashed his fist into the man’s face, sending him bowling over into Hapi, who had bashed her head into his all while Constance cackled behind her hand, claiming, “Serves you right, you piggish swine!”
 The man hadn’t known who he was at the time, hadn’t realised he’d been picking a fight with the leader of the Ashen Wolves, but it made no difference to Yuri. “I’m not so delicate that I need you to fight my battles for me,” he had snapped at Balthus afterwards, but Balthus had only laughed. “I’m serious. If you start breaking the jaws of every man who makes a jab at me, soon it’ll get around that I’m going soft, that I need a bodyguard. I’m not weak.”
Balthus only carried on laughing. “Oh, I know that. You’re a conniving bastard, you’d stab a man before he even saw it coming.”
 “So why did you do it?”
 “‘Cause we’re the Ashen Wolves, and nobody gives our pack leader any kind of shit.” Balthus had smirked at that, punching one hand into his waiting palm. “Ain’t just about you, Yuri. It’s about all of us.”
 How he wished they wouldn’t trust him so blindly. How he wished he didn’t trust them so either. The truth was that; he loved them as much as he did his rogues, his mother, the people that Aelfric had taken hostage to control him.
 But his mission was to gather his friends together and help Aelfric kill them alongside himself.
 He didn’t deserve their devotion. His hands were tied, he had nothing to do except pray. His mother had always asked the goddess for her help, had always claimed that Yuri had been her gift from Sothis herself. Unexpected, she’d said, but the best thing she’d ever received. Maybe, if he begged the goddess enough, she would give him the way out he needed, help tip his luck a fraction more in his favour.
 He finished applying his eyeliner to his lids and painted his lips in shiny gloss. When it was done, he pushed the brushes aside and looked into the mirror, his reflection staring back. When he smirked, it was a knife’s edge. That was what he wanted; that was who he wished to be more than anything.
 Beneath it all, he was many things. A liar, a cheat, the son of a whore, a whore himself, the bearer of Aubin’s Crest, Aelfric’s pawn, Rhea’s informant. But that was the beauty of what his mother taught him; with his mask on, he was whoever he wanted to be.
 She’d been right. Sometimes, the world was dangerous, but she’d given him the gift of her paints to provide him the shield he needed. He pushed his chair away from the desk and opened the door, finding all three of his friends standing around, Balthus leant against the opposite wall, Hapi mid-stretch, and Constance mid-yawn.
 “Thanks for waiting,” he said.
 Aelfric’s time would come. Like the lily-in-the-valley, Yuri was as dangerous as he was beautiful. As soon as he had his way out, he would take it, his mother’s shield guarding him the entire way.
 But for now, he would bide his time. It was on his side, after all.
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valasania-the-pale · 4 years
Text
A Healer’s Dilemma
Author: Valasania the Pale
Rating: K
Words: 1289~
Pairing: Mipha/Zelda/Link
Notes: I personally loved Mipha. While I am a devout Zelda/Link shipper, I can’t help but feel sad that there aren’t many, if any stories that really explore the potential between these three. I guess you could call this my OT3 BoTW story. Takes place during Memory #9. Enjoy!
The sound of running water ought to have been comforting for a Zora. They were born of the water. Lived within it for much of their lives. Its sweet serenade was found within the pulsing of their blood, underlaying every thought, every dream, every emotion.
Mipha felt nothing of the sort, enclosed within the immaculately quarried walls of the Spring of Power.
In fact, it felt rather claustrophobic.
But perhaps that wasn't really the fault of the spring – it was a beautiful thing, a testament to the sophistication of Hylia's chosen people, carving their mark into the world. The spring was masterfully sculpted to guide the clear waters up and around, spilling back down into its center. A perfect cloister made of nothing but the lifeblood of the land.
Those waters fed the vegetation – the gentle oaks that towered in the water, somehow never drowning, as well as the water flowers and grasses and algae, before disappearing through cleverly hidden channels to the lakes miles away.
No Sheikah had a hand in this glade – none of the Sheikah responsible for the Beasts, at least. No impossible technology. No gods. Just time, just patience, just creativity and care. In that sense, it was a marvel to behold, and perfect for the servants of Hylia to conduct their devotions to her.
Mipha dipped her hand into the water, letting it flow past the webbing of her fingers, over her scales. It was freezing, even in summer. Some of it probably came from runoff from Death Mountain. She had no idea how Zelda tolerated it without the biology of a Zora, in that thin gown of hers.
The princess of Hyrule prayed in spite of the cold. Her knight, holding his vigil with his back toward her, did not look at Mipha where she sat near the entrance.
Neither of them had looked at her much once they passed into the green lands of Akkala. They'd pretended before then, on their way from the domain, but she'd quickly realized that their minds were far away from her.
Link would prepare sumptuous meals from his simple pot over the fire, and she might draw some banter from him if she were lucky. His blue eyes would flash with amusement – only a moment stolen from whatever dour thoughts settled over him like storm clouds – before they'd dip away and hide from her again. Zelda had asked her more than once – pitching her voice so the whispers would assuredly reach her knight over the pop and hiss of fat and moisture – how she managed to slip between the cracks of Link's demeanor so simply.
It was no secret – Link was not so different from a normal man that he couldn't laugh when surrounded by good company. Familiarity was the way to his heart. Familiarity that the princess had long since earned.
Mipha'd hoped those words would prove as comforting as she intended, but the flush that stole over Zelda's cheeks, rising from her neck to her ears, was not bashfulness, but shame. Link's smile became strained, and his focus became wholly dedicated to the task before him.
Mipha hadn't understood why until they made camp outside the chiseled gates of the spring. Her every attempt to correct her mistake met with empty air – she could not connect, could not comfort.
Couldn't even meet their eyes, for when she tried, they would not let her in. Would not let her heal, would not let her help.
"I come seeking help…"
Mipha's eyes narrowed, her lips curving into a frown.
Let me help you.
Moonlight alone illuminated the spring, turning the waters white and the weathered stone of the Goddess statue to marble… but Zelda was, to Mipha's eyes shrouded by shadow. Hair that ought to have shone molten silver merely glittered golden, garments that ought to be radiant white were sodden and grey. It was as though nature itself sought to deny Zelda the very image she'd been promised… she ought to have been a goddess incarnated, but she remained merely a girl.
A scared, lonely girl.
"Mother heard them, the voices from the spirit realm…"
When Link turned his head to not-look at Zelda, Mipha's jaw tightened. The two locked eyes for the merest seconds, and past his carven features Mipha saw kin to the frustration brewing within her chest, saw the pain he found in failing in his duty to protect.
Link's jaw tightened and he looked away, listening, eyes locked upon the walls with an intensity that would've shaken a Moblin.
"But I don't hear… or feel anything!"
Mipha eyes would not still; they were engines she could channel the restless energy building in her bloody into. Her hands itched to clench, so she clasped her ankles and held still. Zelda's hands rose, cupping together in supplication – "Father has told me time and time again…" – and Link's clenched around the pommel of the Master Sword, as though to throttle an unseen foe.
"'Quit wasting your time playing at being a scholar!'"
His teeth did not grind, his gaze did not waver, nothing in his body betrayed him. Mipha felt the energy in his body, restless, protective, angry – felt it in him, as she felt it in herself, for they were of one mind.
"Curse you!"
Splash.
…Who? Her father, who asked too much, or Hylia, who gave too little?
Us, who cannot give her the help she needs?
Enough.
Zelda looked away from the statue and Mipha pushed herself to her feet and Link's eyes flickered between them. The energy had reached a fever pitch. He could not move, could not act. Someone had to break this stalemate, someone. She would not sit, she would not let Zelda—
"What's wrong with me?!"
Mipha's breath caught in her chest. Link's face betrayed him, naked pain, failure – the rage of an animal defending – and then he was stone, and he was turning, Master Sword rising from the stone. Mipha trotted forward to his side, and—
And Zelda turned and began to slosh towards them, her dress hiked up to her knees and sandaled feet steady upon the slick stones under the water. Link proffered his hand to her silently and hoisted her out of the spring, face unreadable once more.
And Mipha extended her hand, almost touching Zelda's shoulder, but could not close the distance. It was beyond her in that moment to encapsulate everything she wished to say in a few words, or a single gesture. It was impossible for her to express what the smoldering coil within her demanded she speak – what she felt, what—
Their eyes met, the Hylian's a green akin to new leaves, the Zora's an amber tranquil like the coming of twilight, and Mipha found the courage to reach further – the other shoulder, pulling the shivering girl closer until she was snug at Mipha's side.
A moment passed – a moment punctuated by the girl's surprised inhalation – and then Link's arm was around her shoulders and she was held between them.
A moment. A moment. A moment of courage.
And it passed, and her exhalation was almost a sob, and Mipha could only hold tighter as they walked away from spring and the cold stone statue.
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insanityclause · 5 years
Link
The Playbill doesn’t tell us in what year the new production of BETRAYAL is set, so theatergoers have every reason to believe it’s taking place in 2019 — and earlier.
For Harold Pinter’s incisive ring-true play goes back in time — well, at least more often than not.
The famous (or infamous) Stephen Sondheim musical that opened 22 months after BETRAYAL has a similar device. Both reiterated that life doesn’t merrily roll along.
So helpful projections are displayed on the back wall to tell us the subsequent scene took place “Two years earlier” or a few hours “Later.”
These are not helpful enough. When the play opened as Broadway’s first new play of the ‘80s, its projections instead showed actual dates. They “started” in 1977 and “ended” in 1968.
Even then, almost four full decades ago, many theatergoers must have winced when Robert happened to disclose a fact about his wife to best friend Jerry.
“I’ve hit Emma once or twice,” he said before admitting that the beating “wasn’t to defend a principle” stemming “from any kind of moral standpoint. I just felt like giving her a good bashing.”
In 1980, Roy Scheider said these lines matter-of-factly, as if he were telling of an incident of no importance. But long before then, even the unfortunate slang expression for a sleeveless T-shirt — “a wife beater” — was being damned into justifiable obscurity. Surely by 2019 in the much-welcomed era of #MeToo, the Pinter estate and director Jamie Lloyd would excise the lines from this revival.
They’re still there.
Who knows? Perhaps Lloyd did urge the estate’s trustees to use a blue pencil and they declined. Certainly the way Lloyd has directed the moment suggests he doesn’t approve of it. He has Tom Hiddleston say the lines in almost a whisper; those beyond Row J will probably miss it.
Let’s hope so.
These lines are reason enough to have the years from 1977 to 1968 shown in each projection. Not that any husband in the ‘60s or ‘70s should have been excused for hitting his wife; no spouse should have done it in 60 or 70 B.C. But if the lines had to be retained (again: did they?), at least the audience could rationalize “Well, thank God that isn’t happening today … as much.”
Perhaps devoting a review’s first 11 paragraphs to what amounts to a fraction of a fraction of the show is unfair considering that this is a splendid revival. It’s the best of the four productions seen on Broadway in the past 39-plus years.
The betrayal in question is the infernal eternal triangle; Robert and Emma have been married for a while when Jerry comes onto her.
(Some best friend!)
Emma succumbs. Soon the elephant in the room will be another person in the room.
The three betray each other in different ways. More than once will characters pretend not to know information that they’ve actually learned. There’s many a fishing expedition — nay, deep-sea fishing expedition — to see what the other will say.
Hiddleston is especially adept here; the metaphor that “he holds his cards close to his vest” should in his case be changed to “he holds his cards inside his shirt.”
The actor reaches his apotheosis in the magnificent scene when Robert and Emma are vacationing in Italy. A desk clerk has told Robert that a letter for his wife has arrived; would he like to take it to her?
No, he wouldn’t, for he recognizes Jerry’s handwriting on the envelope. So he’ll let Emma pick it up and then see if she mentions it.
She doesn’t, so he brings it up – not in the way you might assume, though. He off-handedly mentions that Italian desk clerks handle such matters differently from Americans. Pinter wouldn’t have considered having Robert say “What was in that letter from Jerry?”
That brings us to “The Pinter Pause,” which became an idiom after the playwright started his rise to fame in the ‘50s. He hadn’t abandoned these breaks-in-the-action when he wrote BETRAYAL; the play’s first scene alone calls for 36 of them.
In each, Pinter wanted his performers to fill in the blank. Zawe Ashton does just that after Robert mentions the letter to Emma. He stares at her and waits for her to incriminate herself.
He’s in for a long wait in the production’s most heart-stopping moment. During these interminable seconds, the tension is as taut as watching a high-wire walker perform the morning after he’d imbibed a fifth of Bacardi 151.
(One could argue that a lover would never dare send a letter to his mistress when she’s on a trip with her husband – and one would be on solid ground to infer that. This scene does bring us into he-wanted-to-get-caught territory.)
Pinter was the master of sublime subtext in his dialogue, too. When BETRAYAL takes us to the day when Jerry and Emma will end the affair, it doesn’t show a dish-breaking upturned-table fight. Instead, Emma casually happens to ask when she and Jerry last inhabited their secret hideaway. This implies that an inordinate length of time has passed and that the two have grown apart.
Jerry guesses “Summer” and Emma rebuts with “It was the beginning of September” only to have Jerry respond “Well, that’s summer.” It’s a clever way of showing us that the two are no longer on the same wavelength – and Lloyd ensures that Charlie Cox says his factually accurate line without any rancor.
Lloyd has overdone only one scene. Robert is seeing Jerry for the first time since he’d learned what was going on. He exhibits such loud and anti-social behavior that Jerry would know something’s wrong and would quickly guess what it is.
Those who love flashy sets will be disappointed when seeing only three walls, two chairs, one table that makes a late appearance and some fluorescent lights above it all. It’s so spare that one could say it’s as simple as A, B without the C. Some will feel they’d shelled out more when they paneled their downstairs basement.
Those two chairs, though, make their own statement. These three people are playing a silent game of musical chairs where one person will always be out.
But wait! There’s more! Set designer Soutra Gilmour has provided a turntable. It may seem to be a mere novelty at first, but Gilmour and Lloyd have found a way to make it really mean something.
Still, with not all that much to look at, Lloyd was wise to play virtually all of the action close to the lip of the stage. The performers are so near the audience that if they didn’t brush their teeth before they went on, the front-row-center attendees would run the risk of smelling the halitosis.
If so, that would be their only imperfection. Finding a trio of performers this accomplished would seem tantamount to winning the lottery three days in a row.
Hiddleston has a quiet moment of triumph when Robert finally gets the better of Jerry; the cuckold has been literally waiting for years for this confrontation, and he’ll play it elegantly, which will unnerve Jerry even more. Cox excels at having Jerry trying to discern what does the husband know and when did he know it.
When all is not going well for Emma, Ashton gives a smile that is able to convey that the situation is actually tragic. However, when the three are together and Robert mentions “what bright young men” he and Jerry were, Ashton smiles with pride. But which is the man of whom she is more proud?
Incidentally — no, not so incidentally — an actor named Eddie Arnold appears only in the seventh of the play’s nine intermissionless scenes but makes a strong impression as a waiter.
We’re now in an era where believing “There are no small parts, only small actors” is harder for performers to buy (for in high schools, only leads get cheek microphones). Arnold has all of 71 words and winds up getting about a half-dozen laughs out of them.
Of course this sequence proves something else about Pinter. The man respected comic relief, too.
It’s Arnold’s Broadway debut, but for that matter, all three actors and the director are here for the first time, too. Each of them is a revelation.
If only we didn’t have to hear Robert’s revelation ...
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crimsonxrogue · 4 years
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( Zoe Kravitz, 29, cisfemale, she/her ) Have you seen VIVIAN SINCLAIR around ? I hear they’re an ANTIQUES DEALER who can sometimes be MERCURIAL & DECEITFUL. But I also heard they can be COURAGEOUS & CLEVER if you catch them on a good day. They’re usually hanging around HISTORIA & EDEN in their spare time. I sure hope they’re alright !
Hey hey people! I’m bringing you this very smol wildcard girl who deals in art and antiques (owner of Historia) and works at Eden as a dancer/singer and also is never up to any good. But she’s pretty nice otherwise, I promise - feel free to drop a like and I’ll pop into your DMs or you just pop straight into mine!
BASIC STATS
➤  NAME: Vivian Anais Sinclair ➤  AGE: 29 ➤  DOB: November 2nd ➤  BORN: Paris, France ➤  HEIGHT: 5′2′’ ➤  SIBLINGS: sister ➤  MBTI: ENTP-A ➤  ORIENTATION: bisexual ➤  OCCUPATION: owner of Historia, art and antiques dealer/thief and con-artist, singer/dancer at Eden ➤  EDUCATION: BA in Art History and English Lit ➤  TATTOOS: a sword and a flower entwined near her hipbone, small tattoos of DOBs of her mother and Astor, a faded tattoo of the gang that had taken her, covered with scars and bracelets  ➤  SCARS: amorphous scars that cover the tattoo given to her by the gang, a few marks from a cattle prod that was used on her when she was young (on her back and stomach), an old, silvery gunshot wound on her left shoulder  ➤  AESTHETICS: expensive dresses and black lace, agent provocateur and dior, the scent of chanel lingering in the air when she passes by, black leather gloves and deft fingers, small diamonds glinting on her neck, a fiery red ferrari, the glow of marble statues in distant lamplight, scent of old books and reflections in ornate, old mirrors, soft pearls and eyes hidden behind sunglasses, black nat shermans and nails painted red, knuckles wrapped in cloth the sound of them hitting a punching bag, a small figure riding wildly on the back of a towering horse, something quaint and scholarly about Historia, and her house, and her, hands messy with paint and whatever material she’s working with, skintight black clothes, a dark figure slinking through the expensive houses looking for her prize, something elegantly haphazard about her movement just like there’s something haphazard about her, careful eyes and red lips stretched into a delighted smile, laughter and eyes looking up beneath her lashes, hands pulling you after her, something careless and lively when she dances for herself, something dark and enticing when she dances for others, a soft french accent when she lets it through and when she’s tired, poems and books quoted ➤  VICES: tobacco, alcohol, sex, pretending to be someone else for fun  ➤  PETS: yes, a borzoi named Achilles - Vivi had rescued him after Achilles’ career in racing had ended and they discarded him, and a dobermann named Artemis that looks way meaner than she actually is (spoiler, she’s an even bigger puppy than Achilles) whom she’d gotten from Nate, also there’s a throughbred named Ares who was a gift from her parents, but obviously he doesn’t live at her house but rather she visits him almost every day to take care of him where he’s stationed a bit outside of the city (in order to be able to roam free)
QUICK RUNDOWN
Listen, this shit got long so here’s a quick rundown of Vivi so you don’t have to waste time unless you want to hahaha
Born in Paris, France to affluent parents - her mother was a politician and her father a real estate magnate. 
She was raised to be the picture-perfect daughter, mild and timid and set to follow in her parents’ footsteps. Let’s just say she was not thrilled with that. 
She was kidnapped at the age of 7 and held for ransom, it messed her up and she still has nightmares from that shit. 3 weeks later her parents got her back, but then put her under a bell jar and threw away the key.
She rebelled, ran away from home, hid away at the Louvre, generally did not obey especially when they forced her hand. 
They moved away to the US when she was 14 and she coped with it by creating her own game of play pretend - she figured out she had a penchant for pretending to be someone else, changing both her mien and looks, and it was her way of taking control over herself. 
At 18 she met Astor, a con-artist, at a banquet her parents attended and figured out what he was when they’d both tried to play each other by pretending to be something they weren’t. He wanted something from her parents’ house and she just gave it to him bc girl was SMITTEN. 
She ran off with him and the two bounced around the world for about two years, growing into their infamy as someone who could get their hands on anything you possibly wanted. 
They were on a mission in New York when shit went down, Astor disappeared (she still doesn’t know if he betrayed her or he got killed and it’s TORTURING her) and Vivi was kidnapped by a gang, branded as their property and had to live through hell on earth for almost a year. 
There was a raid and she escaped during that raid (she guesses it was someone from Chicago who was involved, and is still looking into who tf it was bc she owes them her life), took Astors Ferrari and got back to her parents. 
Studied Art History and English Lit while living with them, and then a few years later (after dealing with her trauma) she eventually moved to Chicago to open Historia. 
She nurtured her reputation as someone who could get shit for you that wasn’t even on the black market, as well as her connections to both the O’Sheas and the Fausts while remaining starchy neutral.
Started working at Eden a year in, as a dancer/singer - it was a way for her to take control of her body back and deal with her trauma from New York. 
HISTORY 
Born in Paris, France to parents who were affluent in their respective fields - her mother, working in politics, and her father, a real-estate magnate. She was coddled from early on, raised to be this picture-perfect daughter, with her destiny set in stone. Even though she was born the younger daughter, it didn’t mean anything less was expected from her. 
She showed an affinity for art and literature and music early on - and her parents let her focus on it, for now anyway. But she’d always been a wild child, interested in anything and everything, from running through museums to ballet to horseback riding.
When she was 7, she was kidnapped and held for ransom by a group that didn’t like her mother’s ideas, but liked her father’s money. Her parents would get her back after almost 3 weeks of a tug of war that was heavily publicized, but not without permanent scars that would mark Vivian for life, both mentally and physically. 
From then on her home life took a grim turn - her parents, terrified after what had happened to her little girl, decided to put her under a bell jar and keep her inside. Though terrified herself, Vivi was a social, lively kid that whithered away once cut off from the rest of the world, home-schooled and monitored at all times. 
She would perform rebellions of her own, little at first - unsatisfied with being locked up and told what she was supposed to do with her life. She would not be shoved into politics, or forced to take on her father’s business, or even worse - marry a wealthy, affluent man who would then take on her father’s business. She would be wild, and no one could take that away from her.
These rebellions escalated with age - from running out and hiding in the gardens, to running out and hiding in the Louvre. The one rebellion she couldn’t perform at 14 was staying in Paris when her parents packed up and decided to move to the US, taking away what little agency she still had in a city that held so many familiar hiding spots. 
There she learned she had a penchant for pretence - she could morph herself into whatever she wanted to be. All she had to do was tweak her make up, what she wore, the way her eyes would burn with indignance or be downcast in delightful bashfulness, the lines of her smile, lips painted a seductive red or charming pink. It was an art form in itself, this game of make-believe. 
By the time she was 18, it had become almost second-nature to her - she was all of it, both the lonely girl trapped beneath the bell jar and the characters she would come up with. It would not be until she met Astor that she’d realise she was not alone in this game - he too knew how to play this game, and played it well. But neither of them played well enough to not call each other out by the time the banquet was over. 
And while she did it for the freedom of being someone else, he did it because it was a way to attain connections, find his way into houses that held something he wanted, a precious jewel, an antique, information. Vivi would become enthralled by him - and how could she not? He was a wildcard, a creature of freedom, everything she ever wanted. 
It was not long before she was running away with him, leaving behind in her room only a promise that this time she was disappearing of her own volition. It would not be easy at first, with her parents organizing a manhunt - for her daughter, and the man who had ‘taken her away’ from them. But Astor had a way with avoiding notice, even if he was the type of person to attract all eyes towards him, and the two would bounce around the world, drunk on their exhilaration, young and in love and at the top of the world. 
Vivi, raised with this romantic ideal of love and destiny, thought it would never end. They would always be this, infamous for their ability to attain what no one else could, legends in making, young and beautiful and brilliant. But it did. It was a mission gone wrong, out there in New York - and the two of them would get separated, Vivi left behind to be dragged away once again, and Astor to never be seen again. 
Her abilities were only useful when she was free, but now - kidnapped and abused into submission, she was once again stripped of her agency, her beloved freedom snatched away, her spirits shattered into a million tiny pieces. She was marked, her wrist tattooed, made into nothing but property. And she’d almost believed them, she’d almost let them take her soul away. 
There was a raid eventually, and in the midst of the commotion, she did what she did best - slipped away, unnoticed. She’d steal Astor’s car from their garage (they’d taken that too), a fiery-red 250 GT California that made her soul ache, and fled. Through diplomatic channels, she’d manage to reach her parents, and return home after being gone for almost three years. 
Back home she refused to be put under control once again - the bargain was struck, her return for her freedom. But freedom, after everything that had happened to her, was a dainty, broken thing. She was terrified of her own shadow, her soul bruised, wondering what had happened with Astor - unsure whether to mourn his betrayal or his death. She would live with her parents for the next few years, learning to be whole again, studying Art History and Literature, immersing herself in that experience. 
She’d find eventually that not all of her was taken away in those months she’d spent trapped in New York - and eventually, she would move to Chicago, to open Historia, her antiques shop, to find out who was behind that raid in New York that had let her escape, to find herself again. 
She’s been in Chicago for a few years now - building up a name for herself, as someone who’s able to attain anything your heart might desire, building up connections with both the O’Sheas and the Fausts. Illicit antiques or antique weapons - you name it and she will find it, even if it’s not readily available on the black market. 
It was almost a year into her stay that she’d joined the Eden crew as a dancer and a singer both. That was a rash decision, made because something broken still ached in her chest - a way to take control of her body back. She would be seen and admired under her own conditions, and no one could take that away from her ever again. A strange way to deal with her trauma, some would say, but she’d always liked doing things the way she felt was right.
HEADCANONS
Drives a fiery red Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder that was originally Astor’s. She loves that car like it’s a piece of her soul and in a way - it is. It was stolen from them when their operation was busted in NYC but she literally risked her life during he raid just to get it back. She knows it’s a wild cliché, but she would protect that piece of metal with her life. Sure, it’s a pretty thing, and she likes the way she feels behind the wheel – but there is a certain amount of sentimentality involved. When she’s not in that car she’s got a motorcycle to get around and loves dressing up for it. 
Even though Historia looks innocent enough at first glance, and it mostly is (you can just walk in and buy stuff from the shelves), if you’re aware of Vivi’s capabilities you can ask her to get anything for the right price. She works to get stuff that’s not even on the black market for both the O’Sheas and the Fausts (artefacts or antique guns, depending on the request). She will straight up walk into someone’s house and steal that shit if necessary hahaha
Despite her reputation as being very reliable and getting the original stuff for her usual customers, she will sometimes con rich assholes she doesn’t’ like into buying something that’s actually a forgery. She has a talent for making those and does an impeccable job at making them look legit - from forging them to look worn and aged to making the documents look legit. But if she likes you or if you’re a familiar customer she’ll straight up tell you don’t buy this, it’s fake af. Like she won’t do this unless she has a secret bone to pick with someone.
She will rather stand on precarious stacks of various items or chairs, than admit she can’t reach something – which happens often, given her height, and has been the culprit behind a few bruised elbows. 
 Absolutely loves horseback riding, and has since she was a child and took her first lessons. She actually owns an Arabian thoroughbred named Ares whom she’d gotten from her parents as a gift, and has brought him along with her to Chicago. Whenever she is feeling stressed or lonely it’s where she can be found, either just tending to Ares, or taking him for a ride.
She has in the past, and still does - give out a fake name and a persona when she’s feeling like doing it. She’ll tweak her accent and her personality and dress appropriately and just play along - it’s not done out of malice, just an old habit she’s had since she was a teenager. If she likes you she’ll probably admit to it eventually and say who she really is. 
Does have a faint French accent that slips through when she’s irritated, tired or distressed - or when she feels like being extra. Words like mon cher and merde are used often enough though. 
Dances and sings at Eden as a way of taking control of her body again - it’s a way of coping with trauma, even if most people don’t know it is.
When she was kidnapped and imprisoned by a gang in New York, they tattooed her wrist to mark her as their property. She doesn’t like to speak of everything she’d endured there, from being forced to work in one of their clubs to being abused, and the scars she’d made over the tattoo are usually hidden beneath bracelets or long sleeves or gloves.   
She’s still a lively persona that refuses to be chained down by her trauma - she’s that person that’ll grab your hand and drag you on stage with her to sing karaoke, or refuse to leave when you’re dealing with something tough. She just loves people, and is willing to give herself away for them - it’s why she suffered so much and rebelled when her parents tried to lock her away to keep her from harm.
Loves painting/photographing people and animals, nature is fine - but she prefers to paint the living things, mid-movement and gilded with life. 
You can count on her to randomly quote shit, from poetry to literature. Her love for it has always been about escapism, but even now she can’t let go of it - she’s always caught up in some story unfurling in her mind. 
Her favourite things in Historia are old books and first editions - she’s hesitant to sell them sometimes, especially when she’s doubtful they’ll end up in good hands.  
Can’t fight properly - I mean she’s better than the average person, but there’s no way she could hold her own against someone who actually knows how to fight. Which is probably why she’s always on the lookout for someone who could train her, both to fight and to handle a gun. There’s a certain desperate need in her to learn how to protect herself - she doesn’t like feeling powerless.
Has killed someone when trying to escape from New York - she still hasn’t entirely gotten over it. It’s a struggle because she liked doing it - taking control back and avenging what they’d done to her. 
Will hide her scars the best she can - she doesn’t think they take anything away from her beauty but she also doesn’t like to be reminded of what was done to her, and tries to avoid curious glances and questions.
Loves playing the piano, and has one right in the middle of her living room - it’s all a very pretentious affair at first glance, but she actually does it because it’s familiar and soothing.
PERSONALITY
+     courageous, loyal, charming, caring, clever  -      stubborn, mercurial, guarded, deceitful, rebellious 
WANTED CONNECTIONS
The Sister - I’ve intentionally left her sister kinda unspecified because I want to leave room for the player to shape her and her story the way they want! But I would love to see this connection happen and I think Vivi absolutely adores her older sister, and while she hasn’t had problems rebelling against their parents, I think she’s always feared disappointing her sis. ksdfmlsdk I just need this in my life ngl 
Astor - The name isn’t set in stone btw, I can just change his name in the intro so you’re free to do with him what you like! (like the name, age, where he’s from, why he is who he is etc.) But basically, I would love to see this connection happen because the idea was that he didn’t die (even though Vivi isn’t sure if he’s alive or dead) and instead managed to get away. Why he did it can definitely be discussed and the connection has a looot of potential for being angsty. They haven’t seen each other in years but Vivi was once absolutely smitten with him - I think it would be interesting to see what their dynamic would be after all those years have passed and the trauma they both suffered. She will not give him back their Ferrari though. Might agree to shared custody and that’s only if he can bribe her hahah Anyway this doesn’t have to be a romantic connection - I mean that entirely depends on how they deal with what happened and if Vivi can even forgive the betrayal, but it can still be angsty either way. 
The one that set her free - Okay so there was a raid in New York, and someone didn’t bat an eyelid while she escaped, or actually helped her escape when they figured she was held against her will (we can tweak this, again it’s not set in stone) She’s figured out they are somewhere in Chicago, but it can be anyone really - from gang members to unaffiliated charries to police. She just wants to figure out who it is and thank them for saving her life tbh This can be legit anything - the charrie could recognize her but not say anything and she’d have to figure it out on her own, or she could actively seek them out, or they could tell her, anything works! 
Fake persona/name victims - Honestly this bitch be out there pretending to be a British art curator or a French duchess or a member of a rock band or some shit like that. It’s open to more than one charrie and she’s been all around the world so this could work for anyone, any age or location. There could have been an affair, but tbh it could have also been a business deal or a friendship or anything really. I would love to have these connections and have her have to explain who tf she really is. 
Someone who recognises her from New York - pretty self-explanatory. I would love to explore that part of her history and tbh this could force her to explain what had happened to her. She could’ve admitted to them that she needed help but they couldn’t do anything to help her, or she could’ve just played her part there (not to get punished) and they could think that was the real her, she could’ve probably danced for them or smth and maybe resents them for it? Honestly, this could be as positive or as negative as we want it to be (whatever fits your bby i’m down for it)  
Historia customers - Tbh your bby could be just a casual visitor or someone who’s privy to her connection with the black market. She could’ve gotten something from them that they couldn’t get otherwise. This can be anyone since she’s on neutral territory but it can also be a member of O’Sheas or Fausts bc she does work with them and tbh prefers them to the Vasiles - she’d like her market to stay free and open and not for someone to have a monopoly over it. 
Historia employees - She def needs help with Historia, so your charrie could be working there! Esp if they’re a fan of art and old things and old books - we can figure out the position! They could be aware of her more... illicit dealings or they could be completely clueless and there could be some drama when they find out! Also, they can nerd out over this stuff together...
Partner in crime - This could be set at any point in time - perhaps they worked together on a mission to get something, they might be an art trader or a con-artist themselves, or she asked (maybe even paid) for their help when there was a particularly tough mission and she needed backup and protection. skdfjosodl I would love this so much, like we can even do a present thread for it - she’s still in the business after all. 
Someone she duped/stolen from - again, pretty self-explanatory, but this could be anyone that might have had something she wanted - I’d love to see her get called out on it. It could but doesn’t have to be a dark and resentful connection, it can always be amiable and she can be like ok I’m sorry I was just doing my job - do you want me to get smth for you pro bono?? Or they could call out her thieving ass in a darker way hahaha
Friends - past and present both! Someone she knows from her travels, someone she’s been friends since she was kid, and especially someone she’s friends with now. She’s amiable and loves people so it’s not that far fetched and it could work for anyone, she’s not picky or judgy haha 
Her squad - please?? We stan that stuff in this household. Doesn’t matter who they are and what their gender is, but Vivi would straight up die for these people, and she really likes being alive so that says something. They could even be neighbours or something! Ooh they could also work at Eden, I’d love to see that! She’s very protective of them probs. 
Eden customers - people who know her from Eden (they can know her from Historia too), they might be friendly with her, or she might have even danced/flirted with them or slept with them. She’s not above it if she particularly likes someone and would do it anyway, even though she’s not an escort. 
ALL OF IT - exes, friends from the past, enemies, people she flirts with or has had a one night stand with (still does maybe?), frenemies esp, someone who works in the same field as her and she doesn’t like them getting in the way, or people who work a legit job in the industry (antiques, art, etc.) and she asks for their opinions and loves discussing things with them...... Take your pick! Or if you have some other idea, don’t be shy and reach out to me, we can work it out! 
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