#correction: just the eyes of the dead rat king

[robinsdearest]

What some circumstance stole

Jason Todd x Reader

(idea brought to you by "Orpheus" by Vincent Lima)

What does a human do at the feet of a god?

As a child, he had spat at the withered man’s feet. Granted, Jason was eight when he first met Hades. 

The throne room was small, no bigger than the apartment he shared with his mother. The throne seemed so large in comparison, almost as if it weren’t made to be there. There were cracked and crumbling columns on either side of it, and two more barely standing behind him. Jason felt a little claustrophobic- there was more breathing room in an alleyway. 

So many questions had run through his head, but he knew where we was. He remembered counting a few sets of ribs just that morning; he didn’t remember the last time he had eaten something, or the last time he had seen his mother. 

Jason was a smart kid. But just a kid: he didn’t understand why he had died but she hadn’t. 

A swirling mist descended from the ceiling, materializing into the form of a body on the throne. The form seemed much larger than the average human. 

“Kneel before the King of the Underworld.” A voice boomed from seemingly all directions, but Jason stood tall. He was a thief and a street rat. His mother was a drug addict and had not rightfully taught him manners. He would not be bullied. 

The being stared at Jason, and Jason stared right back. More smoke drifted around the body, a man fully emerging from the shadows of it. He had appeared much older than Jason, nearly ninety years old. He had red eyes that gleamed like the rubies Jason had read about in books from the dumpsters. 

The man, or the King as he called himself, would not budge. He was probably waiting for Jason’s compliance. 

The King would have anything but compliance. 

“Send me back.” Jason demanded. 

“You starved, boy.” His voice croaked and creaked with age, and it grated against Jason’s sensitive ears. “A promised soul does not get sent back.”

Jason scoffed. “I could have lasted another day or two. I would have gotten something from the old lady across the hall.”

The old man tutted, standing to his full height. Jason had seen the Batmobile a few days ago in the alley, and this thing was definitely larger than that. As the man moved, the scent of decay and death rushed through Jason’s small nose. It smelled better than his mother’s apartment, he knew for sure. 

“Do you know who I am?”

Jason crossed his arms. All those other adults in the slums of Gotham had tried to get Jason to answers questions like that, tried to make him look stupid. He never answered them, and he wasn’t about to answer this guy. It didn’t matter though, because the man seemed more amused than anything.

“My name is Hades: Ruler of the Dead, eldest son of Kronus, the Rich One, the King-“

“I don’t care.” Jason interrupted in utter defiance. “It doesn’t matter who you are.”

Hades chuckled to himself and murmured a few words too low for Jason’s ears to hear. Rather, he heard a hissing noise from behind him. He turned in circles to try and find the source, but the marble floor was only filled with smoke, dense and gray. The noise grew louder as Hades walked closer to him. Jason would always stand his ground. He would always fight if given the chance. 

“Answer my riddle, boy.”

“Jason.” He corrected, indignant until the very end. 

“Jason.” The old man parroted and then smiled. A grotesque thing: a gummy mouth with few yellow teeth. “Some will hide, others will cheat. I can be of pride, or I can be of defeat. What am I?” 

The hissing noise seemed to creep along his spine, a slick bug crawling along his skin. Jason tried to swat at it while Hades loomed over him, watching with his ruby eyes. Jason refused to cower, refused to give in. 

“You’re Death.” Jason announced with a deep-seated courage. He was Jason Todd, and he would not be afraid. 

Hades smiled again, the yellow of his teeth becoming more prominent while hair fell from his scalp. “That I am.” 

More smoke descended from the ceiling, wispy and thin, this time only surrounding Jason. An icy cold washed over his body, threading through the skin between his fingers, like someone holding his hand in a winter night. The hissing and the bug disappeared, and the smoke blurred his vision until he only saw Hades before him. 

“I will see you again soon, Jason.” Hades’ voice boomed, a thunder clap and a lightning crash, and Jason was swallowed by the mist. 

____________________________________

What would a human do at the feet of a god for the second time?

As a teenager, he folded into himself and waited to wake up. Jason was fifteen; his sixteenth birthday wouldn’t have been too far away from this second death. He knew he was still a kid- the Joker had told him plenty of times behind a crowbar. 

He was still seated upright against a wall, arm slung over his eyes. He brought his knees to his chest, cradling his body while the shaking of his bones subsided. 

The throne room was bigger somehow, shaped like a crumbling warehouse with onyx columns and ivy plants stretched thin across the walls. The old man sitting on the throne was smaller now, as if more of his muscle mass had deteriorated. He was now more bones than body. Jason recalled the many names the man gave himself, the riddle he answered as an eight-year-old. It didn’t matter where he was, who he was with. Bruce was going to get him from here. 

Right? 

“Do you remember me, boy?” The man asked. 

“Jason.” He corrected in a small voice he failed to recognize as his own. His eight-year-old self had more courage than his present self. He had no more courage left to give. 

“I have no riddles for you this time, Jason.” 

Jason nodded his head. His bones ached, his entire body still thrumming with aftershock. His throat was sore from screaming, asking for forgiveness he might not have deserved. Tears stung at his eyes as he tried to blink them away. He hadn’t cried once during his time in that warehouse. Now, sitting on the cold marble floor of the Underworld, Jason was more embarrassed than anything with a sickening realization. 

Bruce wasn’t coming at all. Bruce never made it to the warehouse in the twelve hours the Joker had held him. Some detective, that bat. He didn’t care about Jason, just as his mother hadn’t cared. He was a thief and a street rat; he didn’t deserve that kindness, that love. 

Jason let out a long sigh. He knocked his head back against the wall to stare above him. There wasn’t a ceiling, but a silent, star-filled sky resting above his head. The columns disappeared into the inky night, fading away into the blackness such as death does. 

By this time, he remembered the story of the Greek Gods from Diana, remembered where dead souls wander to. 

He had broken each of the bones in his right arm, his collarbone, and his shoulder blade in a fall during a mission. The fourth time Jason was caught trying to sneak out of the mansion while Bruce was on patrol, Alfred had called in red, white, and lasso reinforcements. Diana had sat with him for the next few weeks describing the stories and history of Greek Mythology. She brought her sidekick, a small aspiring hero created in the same way Diana was created: formed of beach clay and brought to life by Zeus. Hippolyta had wanted a child, and so Diana also wished the same. You were small and frail, but you looked at Diana like she had hung the moon, and you looked at Jason like he had drawn the stars. 

Diana told the two of you that the gods were in fact real. She emphasized the importance of the gods and their jobs, how they interacted with mortals, how they dealt with them. She told the stories of the Harpies and the Fates, the trials of the demigods, and even the bards of the Argonauts, led by his namesake and the descendent of Hermes, Jason. 

You had hated the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. A death no one prepared for and how Orpheus failed his test; the gods playing with the lives of mortals they didn’t care about. 

“It’s not fair that for all their love they still failed at the end. I thought stories were meant to have happy endings?”

Jason had huffed out a breath. “Not everyone gets a happy ending.” You chucked a water bottle at his head in response. 

Diana had a soft look on her face as she patted your head. “To love is to look, young ones. Orpheus loved Eurydice so much he lost her. It is not a happy ending, but a warning to those who would follow in the footsteps that Orpheus made. He was never going to win.”

Diana refused to tell him if the tales of heroes and demigods were true. 

Jason blinked, the star-studded ceiling coming back into focus. He rubbed the tears away from his face with the back of his hand. The room smelt of jasmine and siena-colored earth, much more comforting than last time. 

He forced himself to stand. He’d just get this over with, go shake Hades’ hand and accept his death or whatever the god wanted. He was tired. Too tired.

Hades still sat on his throne, a solid black seat that reached into the mist above. Two hellhounds sat on either side of the god, both watching Jason’s every movement. Hades held out a hand, beckoning Jason to come forward. Black mist poured out from behind the throne, the smell of it overwhelming with rotting fruit. 

Jason took a single step before halting. A green mist, viscous and murky, sprouted from beneath his feet, the smell of briny water pouring with it. He spun in a circle, his mind racing. Was this one of Hades’ tricks? He didn’t want to play any of the god’s games. His head whipped towards Hades, whose face mirrored his own confusion. Jason tried to take another step but couldn’t. He could feel something along his back: not a bug but a tether, some type of chain attached to the middle of his spine that stopped him from moving forward. 

The green mist quickly clouded his vision, climbing up his body and painting everything in an emerald hue. Jason watched as Hades stood from his throne and thrust a hand forward. The black mist and the hellhounds raced forward in a feeble attempt to grab Jason. He was too far away from the throne for it to matter. A warm breeze swept against the scruff of his neck, the feeling of someone calling his name, calling him back. 

Something had grabbed on to the chain and yanked. His body folded in on itself, the tether to his spine wrenching him backward. Jason went flying through the air, pulled sideways and up and down, and Hades could do nothing but watch as his prize was taken from him. 

Bruce hadn’t come to save him then. But something else had snatched Jason from the hands of Death, and Death would neither forgive nor forget. 

____________________________________

What would a human do at the feet of a god for the third time?

As an adult, he would beg, if need be. He was now twenty-six. Matured, stronger, wiser than the previous times standing before the lone throne of the empty room. 

The room was larger than he remembered, deeper and more menacing. The onyx columns surrounding him were twice as thick as he was now. The ceiling was still a starry night sky, the throne still thrusted itself upward, not breaking the inky picture. And instead of an old man sitting on the throne, Death appeared to him as a ghastly skeleton clothed in tattered robes. 

“You come before me now, Jason? After years apart, you wish to stand here of your own free will?” Hades clicked his tongue, or whatever the skeleton kept in his mouth. “That’s not like you at all.” 

Jason had escaped Hades twice before. He would do whatever Hades asked of him this time. 

Jason shook his head. “I’m not here for my soul.” 

“Whose soul would you like to bargain for then?”

Jason didn’t hesitate before saying your name. The second it left his lips, the King of the Underworld smiled. A genuine smile, as if your name was funny to him. As if this moment was going to be amusing. Nothing about losing you from the Land of the Living was amusing. Nothing. This third time, it wasn’t his soul that needed saving. It was yours. 

Yours: child to Diana, fellow hero, fellow friend. And you were so much more than that. Brilliant, beautiful, steadfast, passionate, selfless, and helpful. Sunlight personified. A friend to all and stranger to none. Taken, stolen from this life as if you weren’t the most important in Jason’s. 

He didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to you, he didn’t get the chance to tell you how much you truly meant to him. 

You had been friends since you were pulled into his room with Diana. Diana and Bruce’s friendship meant the two of you would always be seen together, but it was more than that. 

You were the calm to Jason’s storm, you mellowed him out in ways he never dreamed anyone could. The two of you worked seamlessly together on missions, where he failed you succeeded, the perfect dynamic duo. 

Dick had joked several times how in a room full of people, you would only smile at Jason.  

Jason would tell you that he was sorry more than was needed, he would fix this. You were coming home, sweet home, and he swore home had never been so sweet before you. 

He had begged Diana for a traditional obol, an Ancient Greek silver coin used as payment to cross into the Underworld. You were already buried with one, but Jason needed his own. He needed to bribe the ferryman, yet Diana had told Jason it wasn’t worth it. 

“You do not play games with Fate, and you most certainly do not play games with a god.” She had said. 

She refused to hand it to him. He wanted to yell, to scream at Diana for not wanting to do anything to get her child back. Maybe she knew better than to fight this way; maybe she knew better than to play games with your soul. 

It was a good thing he used to be a thief and a street rat. You’d probably never forgive him for this, but he had to try. He stole the obol the day of your funeral. He wouldn’t attend something he could make right. He would bring you back. 

“A mission gone wrong,” every other hero seemed to call it. Everyone except for Jason. 

He felt the weight on his shoulders, forced to carry the burden of your death, a mirror image of Atlas holding the world and the heavens. A story made real. Bruce and Diana told him it wasn’t his fault, but Jason couldn’t shake the guilt.

If only he had been stronger, faster, more proactive rather than reactive. If he weren’t a loose cannon and had been more reliant on waiting, more patient. If you hadn’t taken that shot that would have been placed directly over his heart. If only you weren’t something some unfortunate circumstance stole. 

You had told Jason for years how important he was, how his life, his soul, had purpose and meaning. You showed Jason all the kindness and love he didn’t think he deserved. The look of hope in your eyes as you tried to convince him. He had just started to believe you. 

In those final moments, you acted as if his life were more important than yours. You wasted your last breaths telling Jason that you were in love with him, always had been. It wasn’t fair you didn’t last long enough to hear him tell you the same. 

And Jason would soon rectify that mistake. 

“What do you wish to bargain?” Hades’ smile seemed to grow more menacing, as if he was expecting Jason to offer his own soul as a trade. 

You had hated the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The dedication of his love, the hubris of believing he had won, the failure of his one goal. The loss of trust that Eurydice was behind him. The panic that ensued- what if it were a lie? Is it true ‘to love is to look’?

Would he make the same mistake for you? He’d like to believe not. There was no doubt that Orpheus loved Eurydice; he loved her so much he lost her. But Jason hadn’t been given the time to show you that same love. He lost you before he could love you.

Grief was a terrible, funny thing. 

“I request Orpheus’ trial.”

The smile instantly vanished from the god’s face. The withering sack of bones pointed a finger at Jason, no muscles or tendons, just a sapphire ring that sucked in the surrounding light. 

“Fool.” The slithering voice was both booming and soft, old and young, singular and many voices at once. A god who had lived for thousands of millennia. Was Death itself. Jason might have forgotten that fact until now. “It is not a trial but a blessing. Do you believe that you, a mortal, could bear the weight of a god’s blessing that so few demigod’s have managed to achieve- winning against me?” 

“Well, maybe being a demigod was their downfall to begin with.” 

The hissing air might have been a laugh, it could have been a chastisement. 

The two stared at one another for what felt like eons. A flash of the memory of eight-year-old Jason also staring down the god. Jason’s resolve was concrete, he would not back down, he would not be afraid. You were taken from him too soon, too early. He would fight for you. He would do anything for you. 

The resolve must have shown in his face. Hades rapped his fingers against the arm of the throne, contemplating, thinking. Jason wouldn’t put it past the god to be scheming. 

“I shall grant you the trial of Orpheus. Make it to the Land of the Living without looking, and I shall restore to you what was taken. You have my word that no harm will come to your loved one while you walk the path. This oath I swear.” Hades smiled at Jason again, this one not as genuine. Ruby eyes sunken into a gray and brown skull, rotting teeth coated in grime and misery. Gold flecks could be seen between the gaps, as if the creature couldn’t help but dine in the assumption of his wealth. 

No questions, no more bargaining, and no other promises. And so Jason turned and began walking. 

It was easy, at first. He knew that you were there. He knew there was no other option.

He trusted that you were there, but he still pleaded with any deity that would listen just in case.

What had Diana told him years ago? Orpheus was never meant to win? He wouldn’t allow history to repeat itself. Diana was wrong. To love you was to save you, to fight his urge to look. He would not look.

But, he had to make sure; Jason shouted your name. His voice bounced off the walls- the only answer was the echo of his voice. He hoped that you could hear him. Jason shouted your name again. He hoped that you would just say something to ease his racing heart. Yet he was met with silence. 

He trusted that you were there, but you never responded. He could trust that you were there.

Right? 

What if it were a lie? What if your soul couldn’t be fought for? What if the trial was to look, to follow Orpheus’ footsteps? What if Hades had tricked him and you were- no. Jason remembered the story Diana had told him. Hades had sworn an oath that no harm would come to Eurydice. It was Orpheus’ fault for not staying the course. Jason would do it. He would stay the course and not look back for you. 

If only you would respond to him. 

Why weren’t you responding to him? 

Could you not speak? Had Hades done something to you? Had the god hurt you- tortured you? Jason remembered his own torture all those years ago, and his blood ran cold. 

The panic was rising faster, harder, more incessant now. Jason finally understood Orpheus. He finally understood the hopelessness of not knowing, of needing to ensure your presence. Just to be sure. 

To love you was to look. He could ruin his resolve to be sure. 

No. 

It felt like days, weeks, as he walked forward. His resolve was concrete. He had spat at the feet of a god and had escaped Death before. He could do this for you. 

Sunlight peaked out from the mouth opening. He heard rocks falling as if someone had tripped. He gritted his teeth. 

Jason kept walking. 

Jason stood on the green grass, the proof of the Land of the Living. The sun was beautiful- it was setting, your favorite time of day. He knew you would be thrilled to see it. But Jason would not turn. Both of you needed to be out of the Underworld for this to work. He took a few more steps, distancing himself from the cave, and he would wait for you to stand next to him. He had to take every precaution. 

So Jason waited. Tears coated his cheeks as a soft wind twirled around him. He pictured the life he would give you, how he would love you every day for the rest of his life. His vows to protect you would never be broken. He needed this torment to be over, he needed to hold you, to kiss you, to give you the time to be loved by him. 

A hand softly brushed across his neck. The light breeze brought your smell to his nose- perfect and alive and- Jason had never been happier. He would tell you every day how happy he was. He would buy you anything, say anything, do anything- 

He finally- finally- turned around to see your face, tears blocking most of his vision. 

But you were not there. 

Jason’s head swiveled from the Land of the Living to the cave to the Underworld. There were only his footprints. He had waited. He did not look back once. He had done what was asked and now-

Howling laughter echoed from the cave to the Underworld. As if a hundred crows were cackling at him and his failure. A black mist crawled along the cave floor. It inched past the mouth and into the grass. Where the smoke touched, grass died and a trail of brown made its way towards Jason. As the mist gathered in mass across the walls of the cave and onto the ceiling, two glowing red eyes could be seen. Jason could just barely make out the silhouette outline of the death god. 

“Liar!” Jason bellowed. He reached for a gun holster that was not there. “You swore an oath!” He would tear Hades to pieces- no matter if he were a god, this creature would be mauled by his bare hands. 

“You thought you were clever all those years ago. Escaping the death that was rightfully mine to take. Now, I will keep the soul you thought was rightfully yours. Forever now promised to me.” Hades taunted. 

Jason raced forward to the cave. The mist receded with each of his thundering steps. Hades was mocking him. Hades had tricked Jason just as he thought the bird had done so many years ago. 

“A walk from the depths of a world down below, in which you failed. You escaped me years ago, boy. Even if you had looked, you would have failed.” A yellow smile broke through the smoke, the red eyes glinting in the setting sun. “Give Diana and Bruce my blessings.” Then Hades disappeared. Jason pushed himself harder, ran faster. 

Your silhouette could be seen through the mist, your hand reaching out to Jason’s as he dove for you. He would grab you and take you far away and- 

Jason slammed into a wall of rock as the cave was sealed before him. He pounded his fists, screaming until his voice gave out. 

Jason bloodied his hands as he continued to hammer on the rock, praying to his strength that he would break through. It wasn’t fair- Jason knew the gods did not play fair, but they had rules. A god would not break their oaths by committing perjury. Hades believed he had righted a wrong done on to him all those years ago when Jason was brought back to life from the Lazarus Pit. Your soul for his was not a fair trade.

You were kind, and good, and everything Jason wasn’t. You had loved him for years, mourned him during his death, and welcomed him after his rebirth. You brought the sun and the moon and the stars to him, how your love for him was sacred and needed to be explored. You accepted all of him and made him a better human. The mere human that he was. 

Jason slid to his knees before the rock, blood pooling as his aching fists rested on the grass. His lungs were on fire, his breaths coming in short spurts. The air smelt of burnt sugar, like nitroglycerin waiting to explode. His head emptied out all thoughts besides you. His blood was mixed with electricity, the adrenaline- the anger- still pumping through his system. 

He was a human, not a demigod. 

Jason no longer cared what a human would do at the feet of a god. 

Jason had escaped Death twice before. He had completed Orpheus’ trial, had walked the entire route from the Land of the Dead to the Living without looking back. To love was not to look, but to fight. He fought for you, he would always fight for you. He was just a human, but he would do anything to get you back. His resolve was concrete. But now? His resolve was steel. 

That anger pumped harder. Jason was wrath, he was fury. 

What will a god do at the feet of wrath and fury?

#dc fanfic #robinsdearest #jason todd x reader #jason todd #red hood #red hood fanfic #have been obsessed with the tragedy of orpheus #orpheus by vincent lima #please send me asks or dms about if you like my work or not!! i promise i read them #extra long to make up for me being gone

[carol-effing-danvers]

the scent of a man 

(yes this is about BIlly’s cologne)

Alright, so last week I reblogged a post about Billy’s cologne after an impulse purchase of both items and since they have arrived and I’ve actually worn them each for an entire day, I feel ready to discuss them For Real. 

Firstly, I enjoy scents. I have a decent nose, and a minor talent for stringing words together. I am not, however, an expert on perfume-making. I am a novice at best. 

Also, in the interest of self-honesty, I will admit that I was initially enthusiastic about Aramis and more skeptical about the Paco Rabanne

These were both somehow exactly as described and very different from what I expected, and they both have a very strong, kind of cheap alcohol top note that thankfully disappears quickly after spray/application. And since fragrance involves chemistry, the scent will also change depending on your own body chemistry - which is why you might really enjoy that perfume strip you smelled at Victoria’s Secret but realize you hate the way you smell 2 hours later when you get home. 

Aramis was the second one I tried, but it is depicted as Billy’s ‘main’ - you know, the one he wears like an actual human instead of rubbing it all over his dick like a fucking animal in heat. But I really have to level with you guys: you cannot convince me that Billy picked this shit out.

How do I describe this smell? 

Familiar, was my first impression, actually. Followed immediately by the horrified realization of why it was so familiar, even though the person this reminded me of has been dead for nearly twenty years. If you blindfolded me and told me “this is the canonical cologne choice for one of your favorite male characters” before I knew this belonged to Billy, my real honest answer would have been “...Steve?”

Not Steve Harrington. STEVE ROGERS. 

“...Steve? Steve, right? This is Captain America’s cologne?”

Because, theydies and gentlethems, this smells like my fucking grandfather. 

Come here, come in close. Let me describe the man who wears this to you. 

This man opens your car door for you. He has tea with your mother and talks to your father about fucking...baseball or stocks, or whatever will get him chatting. He helps your younger sibling get their merit badge for making their own campfire. He fingerbangs you like a goddamn champ but won’t fuck you in his car because he wants it to be ‘special’ for you. He lets you wear his own jacket on chilly nights and this is what that jacket smells like. I would suck this man’s dick with genuine enthusiasm and would have to immediately ghost him afterwards because he’s very sweet and a real catch, but he has stars in his eyes about marriage and three kids with a house and that shit gives me hives.

In other words, this is not our local disgusting feral rat king. Like...I love him so much but he is not That. 

This was kinda confusing to me, because it’s somehow spicy and ‘cold’ at the same time. ‘Spicy’ notes in scent are generally associated with a ‘warm’ vibe - cinnamon, clove, etc. This is not. Actually, having him wear this at night in winter is absolutely correct, because it has exactly that vibe. But in no way do I believe that Billy knowingly picked this particular fragrance out of his own agency.

I have two theories about this and you can select whichever one you like depending on how much pain you’d like to cause yourself. 

Either this was 1) a random bottle selected from a shelf - possibly because it was discounted, maybe he liked the appearance of the bottle - and Billy is not in an economic bracket to be able to just throw away perfectly decent cologne OR 2) this was originally a gift from his mom and Billy either can’t bring himself to get rid of it or maybe even purchases it himself now out of habit.

The Paco Rabanne - the dick cologne - on the other hand, I really, really enjoyed. Curiously, this had one characteristic I REALLY hadn’t expected, especially considering that this literally has ‘pour homme’ (for men) in the name. 

The intended gender for this fragrance is not readily apparent. 

I mean, gender is a construct, etc, but generally, fragrances are classified for marketing purposes. There is a decent amount of them that are explicitly not categorized on the binary, though. But this one is not supposed to be one of them - again, it says ‘for men’ in the name.

I enjoyed both but kind of thought the Paco Rabanne suited me better as a female presenting person, since Aramis is more distinctly and traditionally male - even more interesting implications there since as I pointed out before, Billy literally rubs this all over his genitals. (Almost as though Billy wears the Aramis as a mask concealing what’s really going on at his...center...) 

From the description, I was expecting something more fresh and herbal, maybe even ‘watery’ but this was actually something kind of woody and spicy, almost smoky, more subtle than the Aramis (again, more interesting implications there). 

It also wears off much more quickly - or maybe my own body chemistry just doesn’t blend with this as well? I will say I really, REALLY enjoyed the way that the Aramis combined with my natural chemistry on the dry down - about six hours after application, it was a sweeter almost nutty spice smell, like brown butter toffee - I loved it, it was EXCELLENT. But the Paco Rabanne just becomes slightly more powdery and creamy, almost soapy, and a little more piney - picture a quiet dark forest at night, in the dead of winter.

On the standard approval scale for male fragrance, would I suck this man’s dick? Yeah, but the fucking slut would tell all of his friends afterward.

Alright guys! Hope that was interesting/helpful for you, I’m gonna go finish my coffee and pray for the weekend to arrive.

#billy hargrove #that's some tasty meta right there #stranger things

[brighth0pe]

The devourer of worlds have almost won the war against the variants from another world, she have wiped out both lunarian and the variant population alike with all her dark power. However the goddess of makai's plot for revenge will now be her undoing for she have predicted that one day all of gensokyo and Koishi will appear wanting retribution all for the thousand deaths and the chaos the entity have caused, and the kidnapping of the boy Jaaku. She is correct, they tore into the outside world by force. All of the most powerful factions arrived immediately claim all of south germany than soon after all over the land with fury and rage as the horrors of makai once more suffer the might of both Koishi and gensokyo. What is worse that the military factions such as maquis, the tooth and claw, new moon, chronos and phobos are not along. Behind them are a legion of monsters, Koishi and Yukari's children born by blood have appeared waiting for the time to strike fear into the dead world and strike fear into the goddess of makai and everyone involve in Shinki's plans. Monsters that are comprised of Dai satan, Gigan, Destoroyah, Orga, Zetton, Balton, Red King, MAGA-Type Organisms, the dark Oborojime Spawns, the tragic space kaiju and so much more.

All of the monsters born from them are all ruled by the dragon king herself though in this war she isn't the kind hearted individual she is as of now. Koishi right now is cruel as well as unforgiving, thirst for Shinki's blood and the revenge for ached for. She had take both her sons away, she will kill her and save her sons from this nightmare as the woman is under such dark influence of the demon she had hope to keep contained that is the fallen king Belial.

" 私の美しい子供たちを救ってくれるように、彼らの神に身をよじらせて���願しているのを見てください... "

{ " Look at them squirming and pleading for their god to save them my beautiful children... " }

Turning around towards her legion of giant monsters she gave a sadistic crooked smile and her third eye turned from blue to a dark grey and a blood red showing the darkness of Koishi's heart has taken over for the time being, Belial is finally free from his prison as the girl started chuckling.

" 私の美しい子供たちよ、楽しいゲーム、喜びのゲーム、ネズミのゲーム、腺ペスト、戦争、飢饉、果てしない絶望をする時が来ました! "

{ " It's time my beautiful children it's time to play a game of fun, a game of joy, a game of rats, the bubonic plague, war, famine, and endless despair! " }

" KEH HEH HEH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH ! ! ! "

Koishi finally shed away her own body outcame the demon Belial toss aside her putrid skin and then his Giga Battle nizer manifested into the palm of his clawed left hand as the fallen king raised it up commanding his unholy legion of children to do one thing, attack.

" 攻撃！"

{ " A T T A C K ! " }

With that upon his command the monsters charged into battle letting out their battle cries of war as the monsters appeared all over the world from South Germany, japan, america, washington, Russia everywhere all over the planet. Not even the moon full of mado horrors is safe from the wrath of the dragon.

The fallen king watched his children spread fear and terror upon the horrors showing the might of gensokyo upon shinki's unholy and unrelenting horrors. Belial deep down inside his wretched heart, despite his cruelty and harsh lessons to those who did not follow orders he is still Koishi and just like her the monster Belial is proud of his children, all of them including his ( her ) people who stand up, band together as an unrelenting force to be reckon with to fight back against those who dare threatened their existence. If the woman Koishi is the gentle parent who love and taken great care of her children with all love, peace, and kindness her demon is the harsh parent who used his harsh cruel acts with good intentions the weakness sicken him to the very core using everything in his dark power to show the world that in his or his children's eyes is him and them against the world. Hence why he is a complex alter ego of Koishi, and why he now thirst for the blood of Shinki. For the revenge of taking his child away from him, and for traumatize his first son Koaru his family will come first in every second. Shinki is his prey to break, to tear apart and to mutilate for her horrid actions. His vengeance will be his.

#{ @brighth0pe } #{ The legion Of Monsters } #{ Koishi's vengeance } #{ Gensokyo's Retribution } #{ The War For The Entire Planet! } #SoundCloud

[thedelusionreaderbitch]

Kaz Brekker x Reader - Your What?! Part 1/2 (Soulmate au)

A/n: So I can't believe I'm doing this but... This a soulmate au! With Kaz fucking Brekker! I'm just going to cry in the corner now... I also decided to split this into two parts, so part 2 will be out tomorrow!

Warnings: language, mentions of trauma, mentions of the menagerie, mentions of death, I think that's it? You have been warned!

Summary: You and the crows are on a mission and your soulmate mark starts burning

All rights go to Leigh Bardugo, Netflix, and you! I just own the plot!

Soulmates are the bane of my existence.

You can say otherwise, tell me that I live in a wonderful world to have a chance to even meet my true love or whatever. Personally, I think it's bullshit.

Come on! Most people probably don't even meet their soulmate because the whole system is stupid! Maybe it was different billions of years ago when people couldn't have the same initials but now it's not about the initials.

It's about the pain.

Knowing the initials is just a slight sign to help you along your journey. The pain where those initials are is what it really is.

When your soulmate is hurt or in danger you mark will burn. Depending on the level of how much pain or danger they will be in it could feel like a mosquito bite... Or feel like your getting stabbed multiple times.

In my opinion well really... I don't give two fucks about it. It is what it is but the worst part about soulmate marks is when the person dies.

So when your soulmate is going to die, or is VERY close to death your soulmate mark fill start to flicker. Apparently it's worse then the normal pain you face with soulmates. When the person dies though...

In the case that your soulmate dies, the mark will slowly fade away causing you excruciating pain that could last YEARS. (Dramatic I know.)

That's what I used to think anyways.

When my sister finally escaped the menagerie I was ecstatic, but then she got dragged into the whole 'ice court heist,' so that was fun. In the time that everything happened I eventually got dragged down with her when Ketterdam was on lock down looking for criminals.

Then I found my soulmate.

Kaz fucking Brekker. Or Kaz Rietveld would be more correct, I guess.

After the whole heist was finally over we decided that fine, we could bond and we did. Being us, we didn't tell anyone not to stir up trouble, (we both had enemies) and because Inej Ghafa was my sister. Her and the others would be very protective of me.

Not like they can stop me though.

"Y/n." I snapped my head to look up to Kaz and he raise's an eyebrow at me.

"Don't kill Pekka." I roll my eyes at him. Since Kaz did tell me about his past I told him if he wouldn't kill Pekka I would.

Or at least his son.

I sigh. "Fine but don't expect me to give him a fucking birthday present."

"I never said you had too." Kaz says blankly and I almost grit my teeth together at the thought of Kaz having no emotions. Wow, people really don't know him. Though I guess that's the point.

The Crows and I start walking towards the warehouse-club and Kaz walks with me step by step. That must means he's worried because most times he doesn't even look at me when we're on a job to not show weakness.

Shit.

I brush my hand quickly up against Kaz's gloved ones and I give him a nod.

A promise.

A promise to make it out alive as long as he does. I step back and lower my pace so I'm not leading with Kaz anymore and I fall into pace with Inej and Nina.

My mind goes to when Kaz found out I was his soulmate. I had found out on when he went on a mission one time and I just... Didn't tell him.

*Flashback*

The walls of the Crow club all the sudden become suffocating as I stare intently at Kaz. I spin on my heels and dash out the doors tears filling my eyes. I don't even know where I'm running, I just needed to escape out of the Crow Club.

I need to escape the disappointment.

I slide down onto the wall of the alleyway feeling like a fool. How could I have ever thought someone like Kaz could love me. Regardless of the soulmate mark he didn't even know about.

I sense a someone is in front of me and I go to lift my head up and a man has me at gun point. I go to grab my knives. Shit. I curse every saint ever in existence. They aren't there. I don't even have a gun.

Bare fists I guess it is for me.

We turn in a circle and he clicks the safety off his gun and in a split second I duck when I hear a short, boom!

I growl in pain as a bullet goes through my shoulder and he goes to shoot again and...

BANG!

The man drops dead to the floor.

I turn around and behind me is Kaz holding a gun, but his face is in pain and worry is there as well, spread across his face more plainly then I had ever seen before.

"Your my soulmate." He mutters and I barely hear it. My chest heaves and I just nod my head not being able to speak.

He come's over and pause's right in front of me, just a foot away. Slowly, he takes off his gloves and he nervously takes my hand and laces our fingers together.

Then we start walking back to the Crow Club.

To a new future. Together.

*Flashback over*

"What do you even have against Pekka Rollins anyways, Y/n?" Inej questions me as we speed-walk to the warehouse where some Dime Lions are stirring up trouble.

My brain scrabbles to put something together but I have always been a efficient liar. No offense to my sister she's fantastic at what she does, but lying had never really been her thing.

"Rollins is a barrel boss." I shrug my shoulders seemingly uncaring even though there is so much more layers to it. But I guess I'm not lying.

Yet.

"So is Kaz." Nina points out but I already planed for that response.

"And we're dregs. Pekka is a big barrel boss, he scares off people from coming to the dregs. It's a problem and it's getting on our ass's." I grumble.

"I didn't know it mattered to you that much." Inej states. I wanted to scream in her face. He killed Kaz's brother! He almost killed Kaz! He creates monsters where ever he goes and tries to control them like caged lab rats! But I couldn't do that, so furiously I snap at her.

"Well it should to me, it's my job."

Nina and my sister both look at me weirdly, oh crap. They don't know I have basically the same authority as Kaz. Fuck.

*Flashback*

"Why give me a promotion? Isn't there other people who could use it? Who would do better than me?" I ask Kaz as he goes through the papers on his desk.

"I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it." He looks up to me and starts to get out of his desk. He goes to the door but before he can open it I grab his arm.

"I basically have the same power over the dregs that you do. I don't think that's a good thing."

Kaz just shrugs his shoulders and opens the door.

"What's a king without his queen Y/n?"

*Flashback over*

"Wait what?" Nina asks confused.

At least it goes off the topic of me hating Pekka Rollins with everything I have. Internally I sigh at my foolishness, I had only accepted Kaz's request recently, so no one really knew who was helping him out all the time.

*Flashback*

"Nemesis." The man whispers as I circle around him using the blinding light and the darkness to my advantage.

"Yes, and I get to decide if you live or die. Tell me, did you kill that little girl - Oh what was her name? Sarah was it?" I say loudly my voice confident and dangerous.

"No-no!" The sleaze ball yells and I throw one of my knives at his hand. The knife goes through his hand sticking it to the wall. The man screams out in pain.

"Liar." I hiss.

"Fine! Fine! I killed her!" He manages to scream out. "I killed her." He sobs as he says those three words again.

"Good." I say as I secretly pull a knife out behind my back into my right hand.

"I will grant you mercy." I whisper into his ear.

"Oh thank you!" The man sobs. "Thank you!"

I quickly slit his throat and he chokes on his blood for a few second and horror frames his face, before he falls to the ground.

Dead.

I hear a click of a cane and I whip my head around to face the one and only Dirtyhands.

"You know killing him was accepting my offer, right?"

"I know." I don't have to look at him to know a small smile that has become reversed for me, is sitting on his face.

Then I remember what he said to me when he first gave the offer. I turn to face him as I try to hide my smirk, and I look at him right in the eye.

"My Crow king."

And I turned and walk away.

*Flashback over*

"Well-" I start to say but I'm cut off from Jesper's very excited 'we're here!' Thank the saints though, because it gives me time to escape they're questions for now.

"You all know the plan."

Nina puts her hands on her hips. "Only the parts you deem important enough for us to know."

I nearly snort and a small smile grace's my lips. They really have no idea, well obviously some idea being that the ice court heist existed.

Kaz rolls his eyes and makes a go motion.

Inej goes to slip through the shadows but before she's totally gone I make eye contact with her before she leaves. It clearly says our conversation is not over and stay safe.

I suck in a breath, I always hate it when I have to say goodbye to anyone. Especially when that some person could die.

Running over to back of the warehouse, I pull my hood up trying to be the most concealed that I can be.

Wylan is going with Jesper to go make a distraction so they'll be going through the front doors. Nina will be going to go flirt to go get some extra info, perhaps steal some things on the way and wiggle her way into the top floor where the Dime Lions are. Matthias and Kaz will be going together with them posing as the warehouse-club guards. Inej will be going through the roof, while I'll be going through the back.

In the end everyone will get to the top floor so we can exterminate some Dime Lions, and get into the vault where a whole bunch of kruge is. Hopefully there will be enough so I can put my share's with Inej's so she can get that upgrade on her boat that she needs. It's not like I'm going to use the money to do anything useful, she deserved it and plus I intended to stay with this city.

I silently slide sneakily into the window, coming out of the other end with a knife in my hands. If I have learned one thing from living in Ketterdam, it's that you can never be too prepared.

I stay close to the wall as I see someone roll down the rope-ladder. I grin to myself,

Right on time Inej.

I climb up the ladder without fear of falling down even if the ladder was just made out of rope. I get to the top and Inej offers me a hand and I take it.

The top floor is basically empty except for some Dime Lions henchmen that are laying around, dead or knocked out.

Then, I guess there is also the vault full of kruge.

I look around the room everyone is here except for-

Kaz.

"Where's Kaz?"

Matthias looks a bit uncomfortable and guilty as he shifts nervously on his two feet.

"He said he had to take care of something and to just go."

I sigh, well I know he isn't in danger... Yet. My heart is screaming for me to go after him, but it wouldn't look good for Dirtyhands or Nemesis. Knowing Kaz he's probably fine, he would just want me to open this vault I guess.

The fact that my soulmate mark isn't burning is probably also a clear sign that he's fine.

Get yourself together Y/n.

"Can we open the vault without him?"

The others look mildly surprised at my response (excluding Nina, and my sister).

"You might be able to do it, your one of the best lock pickers there is. Only second to Brekker." Nina states.

I bit my lip and start to walk over to the vault. I let my hand fall over the lock. I let it feel the certain gears and the parts that make up the lock.

The shank of the lock would be easy enough to undo with some man strength to help pull that open. Though that would be the last step - I need to stop thinking too far ahead.

It's a very simple lock that any petty thief could probably do in 32 seconds flat. Besides the fact that it was absolutely ginormous to fit over a fucking vault.

"Inej I'm going to need some help!" I yell across the room to my sister who is in the shadows on a look out, to make sure no ones coming here.

She comes and strolls over to stand beside me. I put my hand up the lock, and I grab one bar and I move it to the side but I hold it there with my hands.

"Can you find the bar to the left and pull it up once?"

Inej does and I hear a huge click! ring through the room.

"We should wait for Kaz till we open it." Inej states and I nod my head in agreement.

"So while we wait." Nina start's talking... Oh no, that can't be good. "We should maybe share the fact that Y/n is Kaz's second hand!"

Angry courses of what! come throughout the room.

"The fuck does Kaz think with putting you in all that danger!" Jesper yells and I see Matthias nod along with him.

"I'm already in danger most of the times I'm Inej's sister!"

"You should have told us!" Nina shoots back.

"You guys are really talking about this while were on a heist!" I shoot back.

My soulmate mark starts to tingle a bit but I ignore it, being that this conversation will most likely take a lot of energy.

"It still puts you in unnecessary danger." Inej and Wylan point out.

Fury rakes through my body. Who are they to tell me that's it's 'dangerous'?! I live in fucking Ketterdam!

"I don't know if you haven't noticed, but I'm not a doll! I can take care of myself! And you can't say anything because 60% percent of you guys don't even fucki- Ahhh!" A string of curse leave my mouth as I collapse against the vault.

"Y/n!"

To be continued...

Words 2480

-thedelusionreaderbitch

Shadow and bone taglist: @kaqua @rika90 @thefandomplace

#shadow and bone #six of crows #SoC #Soc #Inej ghafa #Kaz brekker #kaz brekker #ghafa reader #x reader #kaz brekker x reader #Nina zenik #wylan van eck #inej my beloved #soc #the crows #shadow and bone show #grishaverse #kaz #jesper fahey #the crow king #nina zenik #inej #mathias helvar #the crow club #a heist #crooked kingdom

[kellyvela]

There was one person who commented on grrm blog about Dany being their most hated character and hoping she would die. Grrm replied 'tsk tsk'. Do you know about that post?

This one?

The comment, now deleted, is from this post: Dany and the Dragons - Jul. 8th, 2013.

What about it? Is this about targies clinging to that "tsk tsk" for their lives?

I remember that the user belomor555 wrote that comment as an answer to another user mentioning them, as you can see here:

I like the conversation under grrm's comment, because those users didn't assume that George was saying he won't kill Dany:

We also know that when someone said to George that he’s not allowed to kill Dany, he answered that "Parris has proclaimed that Arya cannot die!" [Source]

Classic George!

But what is that "tsk tsk" compared to all this:

July 21, 2018

In the earlier published Targaryen family tree as found in The World of Ice & Fire, Princess Daenerys did not exist. In her place was Prince Aeryn Targaryen, Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s sixthborn son who died young. Besides Aeryn having been exchanged for Daenerys, several other children of Jaehaerys and Alysanne were shifted in their order of birth.

Regarding these changes, Elio Garcia has stated the following:

… George had some new ideas for some of the names and the stories of the children who died young, and corrected some issues that came out of his original birth order (we actually got the names of all the kids quite late in the production of TWoIaF—literally a month before we had to finalize the book—so there was not much time to interrogate it). However, the stories of those who live to adulthood, as published in TWoIaF, do remain the same (just, of course, much more detailed).

[Source]

November 20, 2018

Jaehaerys loved all three children fiercely, but from the moment Aemon was born, the king began to speak of him as his heir, to Queen Alysanne’s displeasure. “Daenerys is older,” she would remind His Grace. “She is first in line; she should be queen.” The king would never disagree, except to say, “She shall be queen, when she and Aemon marry. They will rule together, just as we have.” But Benifer could see that the king’s words did not entirely please the queen, as he noted in his letters.

(…)

It was the hour of the owl when Queen Alysanne was awoken by her daughter shaking her gently by the arm. “Mother,” Princess Daenerys said, “I’m cold.”

There is no need to dwell on all that followed. Daenerys Targaryen was the darling of the realm, and all that could be done for any man was done for her. There were prayers and poultices, hot soups and scalding baths, blankets and furs and hot stones, nettle tea. The princess was six, and years past being weaned, but a wet nurse was summoned, for there were some who believed that mother’s milk could cure the Shivers. Maesters came and went, septons and septas prayed, the king commanded that a hundred new ratcatchers be hired at once, and offered a silver stag for every dead rat, grey or black. Daenerys wanted her kitten, and her kitten was brought to her, though as her shivering grew more violent it squirmed from her grasp and scratched her hand. Near dawn, Jaehaerys bolted to his feet shouting that a dragon was needed, that his daughter must have a dragon, and ravens took wing for Dragonstone, instructing the Dragonkeepers there to bring a hatchling to the Red Keep at once.

None of it mattered. A day and a half after she had woken her mother from sleep complaining of feeling cold, the little princess was dead. The queen collapsed in the king’s arms, shaking so violently that some feared she had the Shivers too.”

—Fire & Blood - Volume I

May 19, 2019

Standing before the Iron Throne, Dany steps forward and kisses the man she loves. A perfect kiss, an expression of pure love and passion.

We push in on them until we’re tight on their faces – their eyes closed, his hand behind her head, her hand on his cheek.

Dany’s eyes open suddenly as she draws a sharp breath.

Jon’s eyes open as well, already filling with tears. For a moment, neither moves, as if moving will make this real.

In a wider angle, we see Jon with his hand still on the hilt of the dagger he just lodged in Dany’s heart.

Her strength leaves her and she collapses to the marble; he keeps her in his arms as she falls, kneeling down to the floor beside her.

He looks down at what he’s done. Terrible. And necessary. He hopes for one last moment with her.

But her eyes are already glazing over. Winter has come to the Throne Room. Dany lies dead in his arms, Pieta-style, as the snow drifts down.

—GAME OF THRONES “The Iron Throne” - Written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss - Based on A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

January 19, 2020

WELT: Again: We know what will happen to the Mother of Dragons. How do you want to surpass that in a novel – with an alternative literary version?

GRRM: Counter question: How many children did Scarlett O'Hara have? In Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind” she had three children. But in the cinema version of the novels she only had one child. Which version is the only one valid - the one with one or the other with three children? The answer is: neither. Because Scarlett O'Hara never existed, she is a fictional character, not a real person, who would have had real children. Or take “The Little Mermaid”. We know her from the fairytale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen and from the Disney movie. Which one is the true mermaid? Well, mermaids do not exist. So you can chose the version that you personally like the best. Changes are inevitable in this process. Even if the adaption is as faithful to the literary source material as it was the case with “Game of Thrones”.

—GEORGE R. R. MARTIN “Die Leute kennen ein Ende – nicht das Ende” - WELT 2020 - (Translation)

April 18, 2021

Q: It is my impression that there are parallels between Westeros history and current events in ASOIAF. so in your opinion to what degree is George martin’s history cyclical? Because we have a lot of parallels. For example with the current history and the dance of the dragons.

Elio: You know George even uses that line from talking about the the arms of house Toland, the dragon eating its tail, but it was from the Archmaester Rigney which is a reference to Robert Jordan the writer of the wheel of time, that history is a wheel or time as a circle. I think George certainly deliberately sees, creates parallels. I mean this is a very obvious example, you know if you read The World of Ice and Fire, you saw the family tree of the Targaryens, and the family tree for Jaehaerys and his offspring changes quite a lot when fire and blood comes out. Because George realized that he wanted to create a kind of parallel by introducing another Daenerys. and he said like, i like the symmetry of it, I like the the sort of the way. You could perhaps read it as reflecting on Daenerys’s story, maybe. I wish it was true. I mean I think fans of Daenerys need to be really worried about what’s going to happen to her. Although I guess Game of Thrones maybe has revealed kind of where things may possibly end. Again the journey is going to be very different. I think you know circumstances, things are going to be very different. So there’s a journey that matters. But in any case, so yes I think George uses cycles and things a bit. He likes setting up parallels of events, he likes paralleling characters, he likes paralleling events, and he likes paralleling the past and the present as well.

Linda: I think certainly that when he fleshed out the details of Fire and Blood, even when he first did the sidebars for The World of Ice and Fire, and they just grew. We could see that, okay here he’s looking at foreshadowing or commenting on current events by doing a similar scenario in the past and he definitely likes to play around with those aspects.

[Source]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#anon asks #targies gonna targ #tsk tsk #chronicle of a death foretold #grrm #daenerys targaryen

[mrsblackruby]

Hey👋🏿 hope you’re having a nice day 😊

Sorry for cross tagging but the harassment is getting out of hand. Okay I’m a Billy Hargrove fan willing to make a cross tag post [which turned into a 5 part series ] discussing how to treat and respect fans in the strangers things community. I’m hoping to showcase behavior we shouldn’t engage in when we see someone who likes a character who we dislike. I’m also hoping to start a respectful discussion to help anyone on tumblr who doesn’t understand Billy fans but wants to understand them.Let’s hope this doesn’t become overwhelming 😳

I’m open to fair criticism. Let me know if you interpret a post differently than me if you want. Please let me know your opinions if you have them.

Don’t worry I also want to be respectful to those who don’t like Billy because you have ur reasons to not like his character and connect to fiction however you want to connect to fiction. I want to make things clear I’m not trying to make a moral condemnation of anyone who has engaged in the behavior I critic in this post. There are much bigger problems in the world but I’m so passionate about this one because I’m a person of color who connects to Billy’s story arc and the way some antis treat Billy fans is just cruel. Billy fans are real people who exist and their stories have real life consequences. Online harassment in fandom is not excusable because it is still harassment.

This post is long as FUCK and will have different parts but even tho it’s long I find the conversation to still be interesting so keep that in mind if you read I’ll try to reblog it and pinned it on my blog for ease. There’s a lot to discuss and this conversation should be dealt with care. I will also have the different parts linked at the end of each post. ( I’m also a stupid teenager pls be kind)

I worked so hard on this.

Please share this if you want because I believe our fandom can combat the environment of harassment online we see. Nobody deserve this type of treatment for hyper-fixating on a fictional character that gives them comfort!

Tw for all parts// harassment, racism, discussion of abuse, and abuse apologia, death threats, spoilers for strangers things season 1-3

Tw for this part// harassment, racism, fictional suicide mentioned

I have taken screenshots to reference and prove the behavior I critic but I have gotten rid of all identifying content as to avoid further harassment. Please don’t go out looking to harass anyone. Let me know if I need to add any warnings. this is a somewhat serious, heavy, and layered discussion. We are talking about how humans connect to fiction here so it’s bound to be complex.

[important Note for entire series] All these posts are recent by the way just to show case the harassment is still and ongoing issue even tho Billy has been “ dead” for quite a while now. He might have killed him self but Billy is still my rat man. let me love 😍him.

The Harassment of Billy Hargrove Fans #1

“Okay let’s get started”

Assumptions and cruel judgments of Billy fans

In this Twitter post someone makes the assertion that being a Billy Hargrove fan is a red flag. I’m aware that this is not a tumblr user but I have seen some of this sentiment on tumblr. I will begin by criticizing this post because someone being a fan of a fictional character doesn’t make them and inherent threat to anybody’s personhood. I get that the person who posted this may even agree with what I just argued, that Billy fans aren’t a real life threat, but that’s not what is being communicated at all when someone reads this especially when a fan of Billy reads this. And if someone out there does believe this for one reason or another I’m going to continue to dispute your claim. Some Billy fans might engage in problematic behavior but to hold a layer of apprehension towards all fans of a character because of this might be something you need to reevaluate. Making a moral judgment on real human beings because they like a character is not okay especially if you don’t even know the reasoning.

Just because someone likes a character that might be a mass murderer in fiction doesn’t mean that now they support massacres, correct? Same logic applies here if someone does interpret Billy as racist but still likes his character that does not mean they think racism in the real world is okay ( or bullying, harassment, or anti feminism either) and that does not mean they can’t organize against real world problems effectively.

This is a crude assumption

First things first not every who likes Billy ships Harringrove

As a Harringrove shipper I can only speak for myself and say I could give less of a fuck if Billy is “good” or “bad”. That’s doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to smash king Steve. That’s also doesn’t mean he can’t be queer and it doesn’t mean I can’t like the ship. And it doesn’t mean that I can’t connect to Billy on a disastrously queer level ( got that phrasing from a grade A post on this hell site)

Believing Billy can see the errors in his ways and can heal and become a “good” person… doesn’t have to be a byproduct of being a shipper. it can just be a read someone has of a character so “anon” no disrespect to ya but your thinking is wrong.

Okay this is gonna be lengthy

Fine some Billy fans ignore the shit he did… but that’s not inherently bad. Fans can headcannon Billy into a completely different portrayal than what we see on screen and love him I don’t see a problem with that especially when they aren’t excusing any abuse.

The Duffers brothers failed at exploring racism in their show if that was their intention. Point blank period since this is a form of art it can be interpreted in many different perspectives. Especially if it is not tied to any explicit themes on racism in the text. I interpret Billy’s actions as racist but no one has to do so if they connect to the story in a different manner. I felt the weight of Billy’s “ certain type of people” comment. However it was only and implication not a confirmation. Stop being mad at people for not interpreting something left up to interpretation.The writers didn’t explicitly tackle the issue they wanted to tackle.

This might be helpful 2 know …I interpret Billy as racist, I’m also black, I also Stan Billy Hargrove.

Okay here we go… no-one has to interpret Billy’s actions as being racist so why assume that if someone likes Billy it’s because they’re racist just like him… if they don’t even think he’s racist. I hope that makes sense

I think Billy is racist 4 sure the story flows better for me that way and it makes a lot of sense to me. Now let’s talk about racism in the real world … racism is something that is taught. Racism is a big large system we are all conditioned into. Racism is something we must all unlearn in the real world. So in the fictional world I think there is an entertaining plot line that Billy can go down and unlearn his racism +stop beating up on children Billy 🤦🏿‍♀️. Because I see that potential growth that is why I like his character. Oh and no one ever talks about this but I head cannon Billy as fat phobic because of the “lard- ass” comment so my version of Billy is working through that as well.

I don’t wanna sound all high and mighty I can understand why someone might express this sentiment. I’m not gonna demonize someone who is black like me (black people have dealt with that enough). I also get why you would not even like Billy if you interpret him as racist. [Someone could have the same analysis of Billy as me and still not like him because how we connect to fiction is somewhat irrational.] I would just ask that we don’t jump to conclusions about anyone’s politics because of how they like a fictional character. That we treat other members in our fandom with respect.

I can never and will never excuse racism because if I do I would be turning a blind eye on a system that kills my loved ones. Your allowed to not like Billy Hargrove honestly I don’t see any Billy fans who care? Stop making crude assumptions about people who do Stan Billy Hargrove ur “ joke” is a hurtful misrepresentation.

Lol like #notallbillyfans am I right guys 👉🏿

*crickets sounds and booing*

okay sorry let’s move on…

The problem I hope i highlighted is that you can not make inherent claims to thy morals of a human being because they like a fictional character.😂

Stand alone post: Me reading to much into the politics of Billy Hargrove/ Harringrove

THE 5 PART SERIES ON HARASSMENT:

#2 #3 #4 #5

#billy hargrove #harringrove #anti harringrove #anti billy hargrove #will byers #byler #elmax #el hopper #jane byers #bob newby #kali prasad #jonathan byers #nancy wheeler #jim hopper #max mayfield #robin buckley #stranger things #mike wheeler #lucas sinclair #joyce byers

[number-one-jew]

Journey to Babel

I watched Jurney to Bable for the first time in 2 years. I decided to document my thoughts.

1. Bones has sensory issues

2. Why am I shocked that Spock is wearing the same dress uniform as everyone else?

3. These people are just talking in the hallway? Is there no place for them to go?

4. Why do they need so much security? It's just a grumpy old man.

5. Ohhh It's because it's fancy.

6. If I was greeted like that I would be so uncomfortable.

7. You had time to practice Bones this is a little last minute.

8. How does the Vulkan salute hurt, Bones?

9. Damn kirk didn't even try to do it.

10. It's happening.

11. Sarek: why are you introducing my son to me? I already know him (wish I didn't tho).

12. Omg not even a hello? This man can hold one hell of a grudge.

13. Bones noticed it

14. Oh but he says hi to Bones? 🤨

15. Sarek, you cant introduce people who are 8 feet away from you that’s ridiculous

I had a lot of thoughts so more under the cut!

16. How is Amanda not hugging Spock against his will? She hasn’t seen him in 4 years.

17. Yall make those kisses sound like the equivalent of a hand job and I think yall need to get layed.

18. Everyone: this bitch is human?

19. So petty!

20. Aren't their arms tired?

21. [Everyone disliked that]

22. Spock looks so sad!

23. It's happening!

24. The Vulkan aides in the background like: ???

25. Amanda looking at her son putting the pieces together immediately

26. I love how that just elevates the conflict so much. Like

"oh weird that the ambassador doesn't seem to like Spock…”

"ohhhhh that's so much worse".

27. Opera

28. Ambassadors first

29. Yall got sectors? Since when?

30. How big is this ship?

31. Sit down bitch

32. You could have thought him to smile

33. Yasss get that guilt

34. My father? Like she doesn't know him. Just say, dad.

35. Don't let him tell you what to do Amanda!

36. Kirk: tensions are already high for the delegates on the ship... let's make it worse.

37. Kirk: I'm going to make your dad interact with you whether you like it or not

38. Dun dun dun

39. Saerek: This is my villain origin story... and I’m smarter than him.

40. Spock: caption I need to go for reasons that arent crying In my room.

41. Kirk: I did not mean to offend (translation: fuck you).

42. If it's a human emotion then why are you feeling it 🤔

43. Like Father like son

44. this lady can't even pronounced her own last name

45. That doesn't sound logical but go off I guess

46. Don't lie

47. Amanda: You're not wrong

48. A couple of DMs having an argument

49. The food is so colorful

50. Open bar

51. That correction wasn’t needed Sarek, but ok.

52. Why do their eyes look like that?

53. Damn no need to insult people. what kind of ambassador are you/

54. Proud wife

55. Mrs. Seeraak

56. Betrayal

57. This is the best moment of bones' life

58. Spock: I see where your loyalties lie mother

59. At least Sarek is good for something

60.Spock: It was a vicious beast- I was never a kid- Shut up!

61. Chekov!

62. Disney spinny Light thing

63. Already did it bitch

64. A mother is 100% allowed to embarrassed her son! But it's nice that he cares.

65. He's like: please don't insult me, dear.

66. LOOK AT THAT LITTLE SMILE!

67. damn, I will say that kiss looked pretty intimate.

68. That ship is going to crash into them like a space bullet

69. TOO CLOSE!

70. Dun dun dun

71. UFO

72. Pigman

73. The Vulcan has a name

74. This man is a terrible choice for a delicate

75. Sarek kinda looks like my grandma. So does Larry king. (did he’s apparently dead)

76. It's the nose

77. Silence

78. Bro he barely touched you How did you fall back at all let alone get slammed into the fucking wall

79. Oh his nails are painted

80. If Vulcans were really all about logic they would be much lazier for the sake of efficiency. They’d say yall and I’ll die on this hill.

81. Kirk's just happy to yell at Sarek a bit

82. What does that even mean

83. Oh my fuckin' God he fuckin' dead

84. Close up

85. Bitch just ratted on his whole planet

86. Why do they still know it???

87. "Interesting"

88. Spock: I’m not saying my dad did the murder but if he did, it would be for a good reason.

89. We are here to arrest your husband

90. Sarek: He's dead!? ...weird

91. Sarek: Yeah I probably did it

92. Damn he fuckin' dead

93. That can't be good for Spocks back

94. Someone gets him a standing desk for Chanukah

95. Kirk: I'm sorry about your father 😔. Spock: I'm not.

96. See #42

97. He finally sat down

98. ♬♩Prolonged eye contact♫♪

99. Worf

100. Goddess

101. The threat is inside the ship!

102. Why are you asking Spock? That's not his job.

103. Spock: It is alien 👽

104. Que sad music

105. That dress does not match the atmosphere, Amanda

106. Spock would also fail to mention to his spouse that he had 3 heart attack

107. Ok, that's illogical! her knowing could be helpful my dude.

108. I'm sorry these all happened in the past 3 days?! My dude what?

109. I couldn't have killed this man I was in the middle of a heart attack... allegedlys

110. That was the first time he talked to him this whole episode

111. Amanda: how about you don't estimate anything

112. Great minds think alike

113. Mom if you don't let me sacrifice myself then you killed dad.

114. Fight! Fight! Fight!

115. Blood

116. He fuckin' dead

117. Are you stupid?! There are other people on the ship my dude you don't have to do anything!

118. The Andorian ambassador: Yeah I'm not shocked that he attacked someone that's just what we do.

119. I love this guy. He’s wise. Wish we saw him more.

120. That's what I'm saying, Amanda!

121. Be careful. I heard a little emotion in your voice Spock

122. If humans know one thing it's emotional manipulation. You go, Amanda.

123. Damn even I felt that slap

124. You could tho

125. A trick!

126. He's suspicious 🤔

127. God, she's so pretty

128. Bones! You should know whether that's good or bad! That's like basic shit!

129. You could have like taken a message instead of knocking him unconscious

130. Omg fake ear

131. Little bullet boy

132. Does no one sit in that chair?

133. The Ambassadors: what's happening?! Kirk: guess bitch 🙄

134. Imagine doing a risky experimental operation on a moving ship experiencing turbulence for murder related reasons

135. BOOM!

136. Damn these bitches got no aim 😒

137. Spocks awake

138. Smirk

139. Head of Security: here's the plan. We bring the murderer to the most important room on the ship with the most important personal and let him stand next to the caption who he tried to kill just hours ago. Random Ensign: should we leave him unrestrained as well? Head of Security: ...your a fucking genius

140. the fake Andorian looks kinda remorseful

141. I wouldn't call that speculation but ok

142. Why are we whispering?

143. The Andorian: what's happening? Kirk: speculate bitch 🙄

144. Chekov! You can't cheer when you kill people!

145. Surrender? That ship was in pieces! He's dead!

146. He's definitely dead now damn

147. Damn another person for bones to save

148. …nvm

149. Kirk: is my husband and his dad ok? Bones: Can't tell you gotta kvetch first.

150. Luck?

151. Kirk: Shut up Spock I did it already 😤

152. How is Kirk all better now?

153. Spock: Why didn't I figure that out earlier? Kirk: maybe it's because your dad was dying? Spock: lmao God no

154. I love that they have all these useless traditions but they draw the line at saying thank you

155. Spock: Dad, why did you marry her? Sarek: I thought it was a good idea at the time 😔.

savage

156. AMANDA FUCKING DECK THAT MAN!

157. nvm, Kirk is not ok.

158. Good for you Bones 👏

159. It's what he deserves.

#star trek the original series #star trek #journey to babel #spock #sarek #amanda grayson #bones #kirk #react

[fanficparker]

A GAME OF DIAMONDS AND HEARTS // H.O.

>> CHAPTER TWO

"The reward of sin is death? That’s hard." - Doctor Faustus, Marlowe

(Frenemies to Lovers! Mob AU! ) Harrison Osterfield x Fem!OC

Word count: 2.45k words

Warning: Swearing, jerk behaviour, keeping hostage, guns, blood and violence, sexual tension.

Synopsis: After the sudden death of his uncle and the eccentric multi-millionaire mafia king Lufian Clarke, Harrison Osterfield’s almost decent life is mostly devastated especially when half of what should be rightfully his fortune is transferred to their immediate rival for reasons he doesn’t know. What’s remaining is him trying to figure out how to deal with this collaboration of two rival corporations that don’t belong together and work on the side of the woman he never knew would ever be referred to as his partner in crime while they are dragged into a mess bigger than what they were trained to handle.

<< ONE [ MASTERLIST ] THREE >>

"Kill her."

Harry coughed. Twice.

"You know that's not possible," because if it was, wouldn't they have eliminated all their rivals already? The mafia was no easy business. It was equivalent to living on the edge without a rope tied to your waist to pull you back in case you fall off the cliff. Rather there was a rope tied to your ankle, waiting for the perfect opportunity to pull you down.

Harrison licked his dried lips as he rose from the desk, stepping closer to him. "Yeah and that's why Tom should be here, not you." He paused for a moment before mumbling: "Kid," amusement crossing his sharp features.

Harry's stomach rumbled with anger. Oh, and you are an obtuse twenty-four-year-old crazy old man who is also a big ass jerk.

He wanted to punch that grimace off his face.

The only reason he was a part of the mafia was that he believed in Clarke's philosophy, his ideology, his way of dealing with things but with Harrison on board, was it even the same anymore?

Harrison crossed the nineteen-year-old, barging into the door to exit the room. "Ask Tom to meet me in the car at seven. And until then I don't want a single soul near myself." He stated before putting a foot out of the door.

Harry expected to hear his departing footsteps but Harrison rather took a foot back, meeting the redhead's eyes with a steady gaze.

"And from next time," He warned, "knock before you enter." And with that he left, his footsteps echoing behind him.

All Harry could do was clench his fist.

***

It was a business agreement but it felt more like a marriage. An unwanted, forceful one. One where you hated your spouse to the moon and back and yet had to lose a part of your bed, life and love.

Why would you ever do this to me, Clarke? Why would you?! The anger and frustration bubbling inside his chest were too much to handle. He had left along with Tom and had captured one of Dino's closest men.

Dino was one of their new clients and had lately caused a lot of trouble from not paying the amount he owed to actually trying to fly off Europe.

If it was for any other day, Harrison wouldn't even bother handling Dino or any of his men by himself but today he needed a punching bag. A punching bag on whom he could pour all his pent up rage out. Beat his torment off another person's bones. That made sense to him.

He had dragged the man in the dark of the abandoned warehouse— the place Dino once used as a storage for his illegal weapons. The place he had tried to erase, pretend that it never existed.

Tom tied him to the chair for enquiry but Harrison was in no mood for that. He had already made up his mind. He didn't even let the man lift up his head to comprehend what was happening before Harrison's fist made a sharp contact with his jaw, knocking him to the floor along with the chair.

Tom watched from the side as Harrison grabbed the man's shirt, now dusty and violated with stains of fresh blood mixed with spit, establishing the chair back on the cemented floor with a thud. "Ask your boss to show up, will you?" He raised his voice several octaves as if to mock him for being so weak and helpless.

With blood sputtering between the guy's teeth, he tried to speak, "I--"

But Harrison instantly cuts in, circling around his chair, "Oh wait. What can you even do? You are useless for both me and Dino. That's why Dino left you here. He doesn't give a fuck if you live or die." He halted his steps and pulled the man's hair, sharply forcing his head back, jarring his neck, painfully stretching the muscles of his throat before spatting into his face, "You hear that? You. Are. Worthless."

And then he again swung his fist across his face, just this time he didn't stop. His knuckles throbbed with the sharp collision of bone against bone. His skin turned bright blue hidden by red. God, it felt good.

"We don't wanna kill him." Tom reminded, voice laced with disgust. This was brutal even for Harrison.

"I want to." He groaned, fisting his hands in the man's shirt.

"And here I wondered, Clarke's scion would be smarter."

His neck snapped at the voice. The source of the words— the silhouette emerged from the door, her heels hitting against the cemented floor as she strolled towards the blue light that filled the otherwise dark room.

Harrison recognised the voice well, he didn't need to wait for it to materialise into human form but he also didn't want to hear it, let alone see the person whom it belonged to. Somethings are inevitable, anyway.

"What are you doing here?" Tom was the first one to speak, his eyes focused on the woman who stood just a few feet apart from them, her shoulder-length dark hair sitting as a tight ponytail, high on her head, giving her the illusion of height.

She crossed her arms over her midsection, one foot slightly ahead of the other and let out a breath. "That's not a question, you ask your boss. Especially in that tone." Her words were sharp but not her voice or tone for that matter. For an outsider or an amateur, it would appear as if she was just there to ridicule the two boys. Yeah, in some way, it was true except for the 'just' part. Both Tom and Harrison were neither an outsider nor amateurs to read into that. They knew why she was here.

Harrison asked anyway, swallowing his boiling rage, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Her lips twisted into a half grin. "Well, you can ask that though."

The small laughter that followed her words made a muscle tick in his jaw. He was this close to snapping. Snapping to no avail. Snapping for vain. She had won. She had won his prize and there was nothing he could do to reclaim it. He couldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing that she got him. No, she didn't. He reminded himself. No one could.

"I just came to check on you guys. Also, considering the fact that none of you noticed me standing right outside this room..." She looked over her shoulder, pointing a finger at the door, "Anyone could have shot you dead right there."

"And oh my god!" She gasped upon turning back to the scene, her voice infused with fake concern, "What have you done to this poor soul?"

The tension that hung between them had managed to make the muffled cries of the fourth person inaudible to the three pair of ears in the room. Maybe because he was the rat rather than the conventional elephant, people were so used to address.

"He is my client," Harrison growled, low in his throat— a thinly veiled attempt at trying to keep things civil.

"Not just yours." She corrected, flashing a small smile in his direction, more of a grimace, walking towards the man tied to the chair. The two guys watched her with narrowed, questioning eyes as she removed her coat, the draping neckline of her red top doing the bare minimum to cover anything.

She slouched across his chair, wiping the blood from the corner of his lip, softly smearing it across his cheek.

"Is this bad boy bullying you?" She momentarily shot a glance at Harrison. The man nodded, too afraid and too injured to speak.

Clicking her tongue in disdain, she gripped his chin tightly, her nails digging into his skin as she pushed the chair to the back, supported only by one of her heels. He jerked in his bonded state.

She leaned near his face, her breath tickling in his ear. "Why not better start behaving then?" She whispered, her lips brushing against the side of his face. "I don't like pretty faces as yours harmed."

Her finger traced over his lower lip, her nail scratching his wound in ways more sensual than painful. "Will you comply?" Her eyes flickered down to his lips.

He nodded instantly and desperately. He was charged up; her scent was filling his senses. When her eyes were back to his face, his slid to take a peek at her cleavage, a mixture of fear and excitement dotting his sweltering forehead with beads of sweat.

"Good boy," she muttered and dragged her foot away from the chair, installing him back to where they had started.

"P-Please..." The guy managed to utter when she moved away, urgency evident in his voice. A triumphant grin got pasted over her face in response, making her laugh at his needy request.

Harrison could bet that the guy had a mild erection even in his blood ridden pathetic state. The scene almost made him puke. Where he was using force and blood, she was using her body, sex as a weapon. Definitely not his way of working. Yet, he failed to suppress the dull tightening sensation in his abdomen—and the part below it.

She walked up to him, pulling her hair down, brushing them with her fingers. Her laughter had long subsided but its residue was still echoing in his head. He hated that. He hated her.

"Doesn't it spark old memories, Osterfield?"

His face flickered with annoyance. It was in his best interest to ignore her words.

"Let's talk over at dinner." She offered, carrying her coat on her elbow. Yeah, they very much needed to talk even when he didn't prefer it. So, he walked out of the room, waiting for her to follow.

"You should seriously take him back to wherever you picked him from." She instructed Tom as if Harrison wasn't enough for him to deal with.

***

"We had a reservation," she smiled at the hostess, "by the name of Sandhya Omar." Harrison, on the other hand, was somehow managing not to kill. Her, specifically.

The hostess smiled back, taking a glance at the register in her hand, "Welcome, Ms. Omar. Let me escort you to your table." She smiled at Harrison too. He didn't appreciate the gesture.

She led them to a table perfectly designed for two, for a date perhaps, placed on a quiet, dimly lit balcony. Harrison removed his blazer, hanging it over the chair before folding the sleeves of his beige-coloured shirt over his arms and occupying the seat. The hostess dragged Sandhya's chair, letting her sit.

She mumbled a quiet thank you.

"A waiter will be here shortly." She informed and left. She didn't lie; not a minute had passed and the waiter was already there, passing them two menus and pouring clear champagne into their flutes. Before he could proceed to light the candles decorated over the table, Harrison interrupted:

"We don't need that."

"Of course we need that, darling." She cuts in, smiling so pleasantly at him, just like a cat would smile at a canary.

It was the waiter who smiled back, at both of them, actually. "I will come back for the orders when you both are ready."

"Thank you. We will take some time, though."

"No worries, Ms. Saan—dha—ya."

"Just call me Sandy, it's fine." She shrugged away his absurd pronunciation of her name. The waiter just passed her an apologetic smile, walking away, leaving them in solitude, surrounded by nothing but luxury and privacy.

"Talk?" Harrison began.

"What?" She pretended to be clueless.

It was a game for her.

Not for him.

"You wanted to talk."

"You don't?"

He wasn't having it. So, she simply rolled her eyes, choosing to initiate. "Okay... I will start," she let out a breath, "My mob wants me dead because they want what I have inherited."

Funny, they and Harrison were on the same page.

"And you walked here alone?" He quirked a brow.

She slumped in her chair, one foot crossed over her knee, "You see, I am not alone." Her hands gestured at him.

He snorted. Ridiculous.

"You seriously think that I want you any less dead than them?"

"Yeah."

"That's foolish." He leaned across the table, elbows pressing against the wood, "I'd kill you the second I'd get the chance." He stressed certain syllables, gritting his teeth in fury. His tone dripped scorn.

"No, you won't. You need me." She stated as a matter-of-fact, straightening her back.

"You wish." He replied quickly, scoffing at her misplaced confidence.

Her phone on the table vibrated, providing them with the much needed break from cocking their verbal guns at each other. The sneer on her face vanished in a heartbeat, quickly replaced by fear as soon as her eyes scanned the glowing screen. She tapped the dial on her watch before leaning across the table.

"Listen carefully..."

He didn't.

Her hands grabbed his collar, pulling his face closer to hers, tautly stretching the fabric of his shirt, "Your life is at threat too!"

Her eyes glanced at her watch again.

"Four minutes and they'll be here." The slight flicker of the candle burning across the table animated a dance of shadows on their faces, projecting the fearful vibrations in her stomach onto the surface. "For both of us," she clarified, their face centimeters apart.

He laughed pulling himself back, not considering her words any worthy of his contemplation, smoothening the creases she had created on his otherwise crisp shirt. But she was quick to pull him again, not allowing his eyes to focus on anything else but her.

"This is no drill, Harrison." She warned, her dark eyes cold and hard and locked on his blue ones.

"In four--three minutes, there will be a smoke bomb thrown below our table, and that's our only chance to escape. Take the left side, use the pipes to climb down as quickly as possible. A car will be waiting for you at the side of the street."

He squinted his eyes in disbelief, an expression of boredom covering his face. "Why would I trust you?"

She sighed, pulling a compact case, keeping it between them, the mirror facing his side. His pupils dilated noting the reflection on it. It was the reflection of a person, holding a sniper rifle, standing on the rooftop of the building across them.

A chill crept through his heart. Their eyes met again.

In a tone that lacked any hesitation and provided no explanation, she gave away the second part of the answer, "Because Clarke didn't die... He was murdered."

Yeah, people like Clarke don't just die.

____________________

_____________

…TO BE CONTINUED…

>> Send me an ask or just reblog/comment this post with ‘Tag me’ or fill this NEW TAGLIST to get added to the taglist of AGODAH.

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#Harrison osterfield #haz osterfield #harrison osterfield fanfiction #harrison osterfield fanfic #harrison osterfield imagine #harrison osterfield series #harrison osterfield fic #haz osterfield fanfiction #mob!haz #mafia!haz #mob au #mafia au #haz osterfield imagine #haz osterfield series #haz osterfield fic #haz osterfield fanfic #agodah fic #agodah #harrison osterfield x oc #harrison osterfield x reader

[hanadolphieron]

princess!hyejoo; chapter one~

warnings; none

genre; fluff, slight angst

pairing; son hyejoo x female reader

word count; 1.3k

summary; a disguised handmaiden catches your attention and spins you into a whirlwind of adventure (that was dramatic)

training to be a handmaiden was a highly respected field of education- at least to some. i mean, you didn’t mind it, you’ve never been one to feel resentful about waiting on others. in fact, you’re quite the opposite, and have issues with saying no, even if you don’t mean it when you say yes.

but still, waiting on a royal’s hand and foot was not exactly ideal. it paid well and got you a spot in the kingdom’s gossip circle, but you’d much rather be off on some adventure, saving the world or something more exciting than sitting here, in heredia castle’s ballroom, learning how to sit properly.

“y/n, are you listening?” your instructor breaks into your thoughts. you look at her. everyone else in the class has stood up, while you are still plopped on a stool, one ankle over the other, hands clasped in your lap.

“yes,” you rush out, hurriedly righting yourself.

she sighs, muttering about you “being off in your wonderland again.” 

still not focusing, you stare straight ahead at the tapestry-adorned wall in front of you. however, out of the corner of your eye, you watch the other girls. they’re doing the same routine as you, which consists of curtsies, a few dance steps, walking in the “correct” way, and other intricate moves used in formal situations.

they’re dressed in flowing ball-gowns, all colors of the rainbow: crimson, emerald, magenta, royal blue, lavender, along with shiny leather heels. gems are clipped into their hair, sparkling in the light emitted by the candles along the walls. they look perfect, the definition of conventional beauty.

your heart hurts knowing that some of the girls, the people that are your sisters, your family, will succumb to the grooming the handmaiden system puts them through. some will stop thinking for themselves, so stressed from the pressure of materialism and appearance that they begin to live only for others.

and you can only pray you won’t reach that same fate.

one of the handmaidens catches your eye. you don’t recall her being there before. she must be new. however, she seems to already know her way around court etiquette. interesting, considering most handmaidens come from poor families that have never stepped foot in a castle before. you make a note to keep an eye on her.

something in her eyes feels off to you. you can’t explain it, but she doesn’t act like the other girls. there’s a certain nervousness, mixed with an heir of superiority almost, like she knows something everyone else doesn’t. 

the formation changes, and said handmaiden is now standing next to you. it’s your cue to step up to an imaginary suitor and accept an invitation to dance.

it’s quite a unique sight, twenty girls dancing alone in an empty ballroom, the only noise is the sound of heels tapping against the floor and echoing against the marble walls.

the familiar waltz plays in your head, even if you can’t hear it aloud. you’ve listened to it so many times, it’s as familiar as the voices in your mind.

as you twirl and step, your eye glances to the suspicious handmaiden beside you. her skirt flies up a teensy bit as she whirls around, and you catch sight of something shiny against her leg. a knife, you realize. why would she carry one of those? it’s quite an aesthetic, you must say, one that you have coveted for the longest time, but have never gotten around to playing with. there’s never been a need for weaponry inside this castle. and besides, your role is to run squealing to the nearest guard and faint in their arms if danger ever comes your way.

the dance ends swiftly, leaving you and the rest of your class panting slightly and fanning yourselves. it’s around 8:00 p.m., time for your evening repast. however, you opt to go to your room instead, in order to relax for a while and watch the night sky.

walking out of the ballroom and turning to the left, you catch sight of someone’s shadow. it can’t be any of the girls, they unanimously decided to eat dinner in the hall. the logical side of your mind tells you it’s probably just a guard, not the suspicious dark figure your mystery-loving self wants to believe. however, you quiet your footsteps as you follow the silhouette down the hallway.

you trail the person for quite a ways, down a couple corridors and through some turns. they’re making their way towards the edge of the castle, in the direction of the western gate. interesting, you think again. no one uses the western gate, it’s main purpose is as a backdoor that servants travel through in order to take out the trash and do other tasks. 

suddenly, you lose sight of the figure. quickening your pace to try to catch up with them again, you lightly jog down the last hallway you saw the shadow. it’s a dead end. no one’s there. 

however, taking your chances with accidentally alerting someone and looking like an absolute fool, you call out, “who are you? i know someone’s here.”

the corridor remains silent for a couple moments, before you feel a presence a few feet behind you. 

“why did you follow me?” a feminine voice asks.

turning around, you come face to face with the owner of the voice. they’re the girl from your class earlier, the one with the dagger strapped against her calf. hyejoo, if you recall what the teacher addressed her as.

“i was wondering who you were. the only people around were the rest of the girls, and they’d decided to go to dinner.”

hyejoo seems a little surprised at this, crossing her arms across her chest, although you don’t know what other kind of answer she was expecting.

“looking for trouble?” she inquires. the intention of being intimidating was there, but the execution was a little too gentle.

“maybe,” you respond, “but it seems not as much as you are. what are you doing down here?”

“i was lost, that’s all. in fact, i’ll be heading back to my quarters right now,” hyejoo defends, avoiding eye contact and making to turn around and scramble like an egg.

you don’t buy it. “why were you running then?”

“running? i wasn’t...” hyejoo glances at you, seeing the expression on your face and realizing that she’s not going to fool you easily.

“tell me what’s going on,” you say gently, “i’m not going to rat you out of or anything.”

“i can’t tell you what i’m doing, all i need is some answers,” she looks pleadingly at you.

“alright, ask away,” you say. you’ve hit the jackpot~ your think giddily to yourself, this is how storybooks start.

hyejoo hesitates, before quietly inquiring, “where is the king’s office?”

not what you were expecting, but you tell her, “the second right turn in the main corridor near the dining hall.”

she nods. “and the queen’s?”

“adjourning the king’s.”

her eyes glaze over slightly, she’s thinking about something. you don’t question her, knowing she doesn’t really want to be interrogated right now. however, your mind is still itching for more information.

“is there a secret way to get there?”

“yes,” you respond slowly, “but if you want me to tell you, i need to know why first.”

sighing under her breath and tensing up, hyejoo is silent for a while. “can i trust you?” she finally asks. you reassure her that you won’t pass up an adventure like this, to which she seems to relax a little.

somehow feeling guilty about making you do something risky like this, hyejoo makes you confirm your agreement, “yes, hyejoo, i do want to do this. besides, we’re handmaidens- we get caught and all we have to is play dumb. they’ll accept our excuses without batting an eye. it’ll be a piece of cake.”

she nods solemnly, a slight smile dawning on her face. “meet you at your rooms tomorrow evening?”

next | masterlist

#me trying to destroy gender roles while also uplifting feminine women #femifics #loona #son hyejoo #loona imagines #loona fluff #loona reactions #loona x reader #loona angst #loona scenarios #loona ff #loona series #loona fanfiction #loona fanfic #hyejoo x reader #olivia hye x reader #olivia hye fluff #olivia hye angst #son hyejoo fluff #hyejoo loona fluff #loona hyejoo fluff #son hyejoo angst #son hyejoo x reader

[julyzaa]

The Clouds and the Birds

(Title taken from an autumn haiku by Matsuo Basho)

Sesskaede is a crack ship that suddenly inspired me to write this.

Summary: the Priestess Kaede was eight and ten when she first met the infamous Sesshōmaru of the West. And despite only seeing him a handful of times, her fondness for the cruel demon does not disappear even after forty years.

Rated: T for mentioned and non explicit violence

---

In this autumn,

Why I get older?

The clouds and birds.

---Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

>>>----------> ♡ <----------<<<

When Kaede was eight and ten and a fully realized Miko, she first saw him.

The most feared Dog Demon in all of Japan with hair the color of a moonbeam and an almost maidenly beauty standing as regal as the Tree of Ages.

He was Inuyasha’s half-brother, Sesshōmaru of the West. He had only known him by reputation, but seeing the demon stand in front of his brother, she did not need to ask him who he was.

“Are you so weak that a human woman was able to defeat you?” He spoke to the sleeping boy struck in the tree. He tugged on the arrow and held onto it even when the seal stung him.

Kaede readied an arrow, one of Kikyo’s, to kill the demon before he did anything else.

“Do not waste your arrows on me, girl.” The dog demon did not even look her way and Kaede did not heed his advice before shooting him.

The demon simply moves out of the way and laughs at her like she was some stupid little girl and ot the daughter of a famed archer and the protector of this village.

“Were you the one who sealed Inuyasha?” he asks as if she had not just shot an arrow at him.

“Nay, my sister did and only she can remove the arrow in your brother’s chest.” Kaede said.

“Half-brother.” The demon corrects. “Your sister must have been very strong if she could do this to someone stronger than the average half-demon.”

“No one, not even I, can ever come close to her.” Kaede said proudly.

The demon lord said nothing and left.

----

Kaede was four and twenty when she saw him again.

This time he had come hunting down the same pack of rabid dog demons attacking a small fishing village just on the other side of the forest where Inuyasha still slumbered.

He looked the same and she had just grown into a grown woman powerful enough to take on stronger demons.

He moved swiftly and with grace, he had no mercy for even for his own kind. His snow-white kimono seemed to absorb the blood and grime the moment it stained the silk. Silk from a demon silkworm was worth kingdoms as it was so incredibly rare.

His kimono and armor had torn and as such his chest and left shoulder were exposed. Had she been as a vulnerable as Kikyo, she would have blushed and fallen victim to the ridiculous notion that demons could love.

Sesshōmaru, as the demon lord of the West, seemed to have been one of the lucky few to afford such luxury while his brother had to make do with the common fire rat’s robe that grew alongside with him.

Kaede readied another arrow and kept her distance from the demon.

“You again. You must be very stupid to think a one-eyed priestess can kill a demon as strong as I.” the eternal youth mocked.

Kaede shoots to the mongrel trying to run away from the car age.

“I am no fool, Lord Sesshōmaru.” The young woman says proudly even though inwardly she was blushing like the stupid girl she was.

---

Kaede was thirty when she made the worst mistake in her life.

A simple excursion to the demon slayers' village had become a fight and out of nowhere a familiar gigantic dog  tore through the crowd of bandits like a knife through butter.

“It is dangerous for a mortal like you to travel alone.” He shifts back into his handsome and youthful form.

“I did not need your help.” Kaede collects her things and gets back on her horse. She had appreciated that he had saved her from men planning to r*pe her, but he did not need to know that.

“I did not need to stop this attack on a woman I have only seen twice, and yet here we are.” He rolls his eyes. He hated humans, everyone knew that, so why had he helped her?

“What makes I, a one-eyed Miko, so special that ye must come to my rescue?” she asks reminding him of that insult four years ago.

“You are tolerable, but not enough to tempt me.” He says and she snorts. “Despite your prejudice against demons and your lack of education, you do not repulse me enough to kill you, Priestess.” He says with a smirk when she rolls her eyes at him.

“Kaede, my name is Kaede.”

---

Kaede is fifty when he shows up at the burial place of a company of dog demons murdered by the Asano Clan almost seventy years past.

She had heard that Sesshōmaru’s father and spouse had been killed while the young demon was away. The demoness whom Sesshōmaru loved must have been strong and beautiful. Somehow, she does not see him with a weak and plain wife even if she were a princess or a demoness.

“Are you so desperate for my attention that you come to where my mate and comrades are buried?” he says anger in his voice making it apparent that he does not like her presence here.

“The burials of dog demons have been looted and the King of Asano asked me to make sure no one disturbed this one.” She said laying down her weapon on her lap.

“How thoughtful him.” Sesshōmaru says bitterly. “His grandfather murdered my mate and comrades as well as my father all because he couldn’t stand that his sister married my father and mother.”

“My condolences, my lord.” She said earnestly.

“I killed Izaburou and Izayoi erected this mausoleum for her husband and mine.” He continues his story.

Husband? Kaede had not assumed that Sesshōmaru was solely interested in women ---and most men all--- but her imagined rival --- a stupid thing that occupied her mind even though she had sworn a vow of chastity--- had never been a man.

“His name was Yusuke, Izaburou hated that I wanted men just the same as I wanted women in my bed.” He touches the name engraved next to that of the Inu no Taisho with such devotion that Kaede can’t help but feel jealous of the dead demon.

---

Kaede is eight and sixty when Sesshōmaru --- two and twenty-- entrusts her with his human daughter.

“There is no one else I can trust with Rin, Kaede.” He says when the little girl talks him into joining them for tea.

“I am honored, my lord.” She says respectfully.

“None, of that, call me Sesshōmaru.” He looks at her like she was her equal and deep inside those secret fantasies she once had about the demon before her let out a girlish giggle.

“It has been fourty years and you have finally given me leave to use your given name.” the old woman chuckles and the stoic demon purses his lips in embarrassment.

“And you are almost recognizable since you foolishly wasted your sister’s arrow on me, my friend.” He says which surprises the little girl trying to impress them with a tea serving ceremony.

“You shot an arrow at my papa?” Rin asked.

“Yes, I shot him when he came to try to unseal Inuyasha fifty years ago.” The old woman nods and Sesshōmaru winces when they hear Inuyasha barge into her hut.

“I can’t believe it, you, of all the people in Japan, came to see me?!” Inuyasha yelled at the unflappable demon.

“I am not the monster you think I am, Inuyasha.” Sesshōmaru rolls his eyes.

#inuyasha fanfiction #sesskaede #sesshomaru fanfic #kaede #kaede inuyasha #one sided attraction #crack ship #inuyasha #sesshomaru #sesshomaru is rin's dad #sesshomaru is bi #anti sessrin #antisessrin

[fitzs-trained-monkey]

Chapter Three: If We Have Each Other.

~When the world's not perfect When the world's not kind If we have each other then we'll both be fine. I will be your brother and I'll hold your hand. You should know I'll be there for you. I will always be there for you~

"Dude, we are in some serious jelly," I proclaimed as I paced around the small perimeter of the tree house.

"And that jam!" Isaac added from where he remained sitting at the table.

"Tight spot."

"Indeed!"

"Up a tree!" I supplied.

"Lost in the grass!" He offered. I swung around, shaking my finger at him.

"I'll tell ya what's grass, our- AAH FRACKLES!"  I had stepped on a stray nail in one of the floorboards. Hobbling my way back into my chair, I thunked my head against the table.

"But look at the bright side." Isaac leaned back in his chair. "Seeing as how our grand-theft-hairbrush is going viral and all, there is still a chance that me flipping the camera off could become a meme!" He pointed out. Slowly, I raised my head to stare at him.

"Are you kidding me right now?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

"Consider it, Marty! All it took was five years being dead and now I'm finally fulfilling my life-long dream! If I'd known it was this easy, I would have killed myself a long time ago and spared me all that drama and emotional damage," Isaac smirked. I shook my head, my gaze drifted back to the Vader figure and snow globe sitting side-by-side on the shelf.

"Please don't talk like that Isaac," I sighed. Isaac's face fell.

"Sorry, I-I wasn't thinking," He apologized. I nodded.

"It's okay." It wasn't, but what more could be said when you didn't want to speak?

"Hey," Isaac spoke softly, ducking his head to get me to look at him, "Even if things go sour, I'm gonna be here for you. Just like I promised. Through thick and thin, remember?"

"Through thick and thin."

Smiling weakly, I repeated our life long mantra. I took a deep breath and focused back in on the problem.

"Alright, man. We gotta figure out a game plan. That video is gonna bring every hunter and their mom up here to ice our, or my, gluteus maximus. And if they know about the minimart then they know about the hospital. So, what's our play?"

"Well, I say you use your Sweet-Talkin' thing and talk any o'those alcoholic weirdos out of it," Isaac suggested. I shook my head.

"Isaac, you know how much I hate doing that."

Although it was a tempting idea, that wasn't something I wanted to mess with. If you start playing with the dark things, the dark things start playing with you. That wasn't a concept I liked, but Isaac would never understand that.

"I'm just saying it’s an option! And an easy one at that," Isaac pushed. I glared at him.

"I'm not doing that."

"It might come to it, Marty. I'm just saying as a plan C it-"

"The answer is no! Moving on." My tone killed and buried the subject. Isaac raised his hands in surrender.

"Fine. But misinformation is still our strongest tool. We should use it. Tell anybody who asks that it was all done on a computer," He conceded.

"Alright, that's plan A. What's plan B?"  Isaac's face twisted in thought. I let him do any and all planning when it came to telling a lie because he was so much better at making it convincing than I was. Isaac was the king of spouting believable bull crap. In fact, he would have made and excellent demon. That guy could probably get an angel to sell its soul for a box of holy doughnuts. When the idea hit Isaac's brain, I could almost see a light bulb light up above his head. He leaned forward, exited.

"Okay, I got it. We make up some BS story about a gay black dude who got chopped up by the ferry or something and the hospital wouldn't help him because all the doctors were racist homophobes, and it was the 50's." He nodded at me very seriously. Like I said, Isaac was king.

"That's is the worst, most ridiculous and stupid story I have ever heard," I told him. Isaac's nodding grew more excited. "It's perfect. They'll buy every word. Just one thing though, what about the mini-mart?" I pointed out.

Isaac opened his mouth before closing it again. Then he opened it. Then he closed it. Open. Closed. Open. Closed. This happened several more times before he finally came up with something good.

"So, our gay black guy was also a nice hobo dude and after he died he started stealing crap to give to his hobo buddies." Isaac gave me a thumbs up. I nodded.

"Okay, sounds good, sounds good. How do we explain me?" I splayed my hands. Isaac huffed and rolled his eyes, leaning back again and tucking his hands behind his head.

"Well, that’s easy. The camera never even caught a glimpse of your face, so you're his anonymous theft buddy slash item distributer!" He explained. I grinned at my fantastic phantasmal co-conspirator.

"Excellent, and of course nobody knows who the thief is. Especially not, innocent little me!" I chuckled at his brilliance.

"Exactly!" Isaac smirked.

"It's perfect! Except one last thing. We're gonna need some eyes and ears in on this. Someone to alert us when someone fishy comes lurking about," I said. Isaac nodded seriously.

"You're right. But who can we trust around here?" He asked. I could feel the smile split across my face.

"I can think of only one man for this job. A man as trustworthy as he is slimy. A man scrubbed clean by his own filth. A man so wonderful, words do him no justice!" I declared dramatically. Isaac was confused for a moment before realization dawned. His face fell.

"Please tell me you're not thinking what I think you're thinking."

"I think I am." I grinned. Isaac just sighed.

"Marty, no."

"Marty, yes!"

- 45 minutes later-

"Yo! Danny, my man! How's life?" I called out. Dan-the-Dope-Man looked up from...whatever it was he was doing outside Copper Harbor's one and only pharmacy. The pharmacy which he, in fact, owned. Honestly, I didn't want to know exactly what he had been doing behind the pile of cardboard boxes that were stacked up against the moldy brick. I figured it was better if I didn't. Dan smiled a grin that was missing two teeth.

"Marty! My worst customer and only friend! Life's good!" He greeted me, kicking a few of the boxes over to hide whatever suspicious activity it was that he had been up to. He winked and walked over to me, pushing his absolutely disgusting blond hair out of his face. "But, you know, business is betta'," He concluded.

I could never tell how tall Dan was, in this form especially. See, Dan-the-Dope-Man was a shapeshifter, though of course, no one else in the town knew that. That's how he was the owner of the pharmacy as well as a drug dealer. His other form, Jonathan De’ Santos, was the tall, 40-year-old, honest-looking Hawaiian man that ran the pharmacy. In this form, however, Dan was a somewhere-in-the-upper-five-foot-range Caucasian guy from Brooklyn with a thing against bathing. He said that the grungy, sewer-rat look was better for his side business. I wasn't sure how much of that I bought, but then again, who's gonna buy drugs from the guy who's supposed to make sure you don't destroy yourself with them.

"I bet it is!" I said, taking a step back when he reached me because, like I said, the guy had a thing against hygiene.

"This is a terrible, terrible idea," Isaac muttered, leaning on the wall to my left. I couldn't reply to him because although Dan knew what I was he didn't know about Isaac. So all I could do was give him a rude gesture behind my back. He saw it and stuck his tongue out at me.

"What can I do fo' ya, Marty?" Dan always pronounced my name as 'Mawty' at least in this form as it had a Brooklyn accent.

"Well, o' Danny boy, I have some rather bad news to deliver," I continued, "There might be some hunters coming to town soon."

Dan frowned; his eyes narrowed at me as he folded his arms over his chest.

"Well, that ain't good. Whatt'id ya do, Marty?" He asked. Sometimes Dan could be like my older brother, even if he didn't realize it.

"Woah, woah, woah! Who said I did anything?!" I defended. Dan just raised an eyebrow.

"You're always showin' off and ya know it," He said simply.

"He's right, you know," Isaac interjected. I wished I could tell him to shut his eidolic cake hole. It wouldn't have made much of a difference if I could, as he would still have continued talking, but the principle remained the same. Isaac was annoying. He needed to shut his mouth now and again. But I couldn't say that right now because he was a flipping ghost and ghosts are invisible. Mostly.

Ignoring Isaac, I opened my mouth to try to argue with Dan but quickly closed it again when found that I couldn't, because he was absolutely right. Now, I couldn’t admit that to him because Isaac was right here and that would be saying that he was right about something, and that was a thing I would never hear the end of.

"In regards," I started again.

"You'd just say 'regardless'," Isaac chimed in. I had to physically bite my tongue to keep from screaming at him to shut up.

"Regardless," I corrected. Isaac chuckled. I really needed to get myself some iron gauntlets or something so I could give his apparitional arse an involuntary appendectomy. Or just an iron ring so I could punch him in the face.

"Regardless, it wasn't me. This time. It was some attention seeking moron with a computer. That combined with my little hospital trips and you get something fishy looking." I finally managed to finish my sentence without Isaac chiming in.

"Well then ya betta' keep ya head down, Marty. I don' wan' ya gettin hurt." A dark look crossed over Dan's usually upbeat face. "Or worse," He finished.

"I know Danny, which is why I need you to do something for me," I said. Isaac sighed and face palmed but I ignored it.

"What?" Dan asked.

"I need you to watch out for any newcomers asking weird questions. I've got a plan if any hunters get too close to us, I just need to know who and where they are," I told him.

See, the pharmacy, the mini-mart, the bar, and the barber shop all sat across from each other at a four way intersection. Thus, Dan would have an excellent view of any hunter's first two targets. The origin of the supernatural activity, in this case the mini-mart, and the bar. He would be the perfect spy. Dan looked at me strangely.

"Say, Marty, you ain't plannin' on gankin' any a' dose' suckas' now are ya?" He asked, caution evident in his voice. I sighed, shaking my head internally. This was just another downside of being what I was. Everybody thinks you're a murderer. Though I knew I was far from innocent, I had never killed anyone. At least, anyone who didn't deserve it.

"Come on, Danny. In all the time you've known me, have I ever, er, ganked anyone?" I asked him, spreading my hands as if to catch the obvious answer.

"Well, no. But people can change," Dan pointed out. I rolled my eyes.

"Dan, I'm not gonna kill anyone. There, ya happy?" I said, only mildly aggravated. Isaac decided it was time to speak up again.

"You may not. But I will. If it comes to that. I won't let anybody hurt you, Marty. Not again. Not when I can do something about it."

I knew he was saying this now so I wouldn't be able to argue with him. Then I would forget and if he did kill someone Isaac would say he'd said he would. I ground my teeth together and reminded myself that it wasn't going to come to that. I wouldn't let it.

Meanwhile, Dan thought about what I'd spoken aloud.

"Yeah okay, but if anybody comes sniffin' I'm skippin', kay?" He agreed. I nodded.

"Okay, take care of yourself, Danny."

"You too, Marty." I smiled at him and began to walk away. Isaac pushed himself off the wall and trudged behind me, complaining loudly.

"Make sure you take care of yourself too, Issac! I'd hate myself if anything happened to you, Isaac! I wouldn't be able to survive without you, Isaac! Thanks Marty, your friendship means everything to me!" He said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Ugh! Why do I even bother?"

I smirked giving him the sign for 'I love you' behind my back.

"Aw shut up!"

But I knew he was smiling.

~So, I'm thankful for my sister even though sometimes we fight When high school wasn't easy, she's the reason I survived. I know she'd never leave me and I hate to see her cry. I just wanna tell her that I'm always by her side. I just wanna tell her that...

The worlds not perfect, but it’s not that bad. If we've got each other and that’s all we have I will be your brother and I'll hold your hand You should know I'll be there for you When the world's not perfect When the world's not kind If we have each other then we'll both be fine I will be your brother and I'll hold your hand You should know I'll be there for you.

I will always be there for you.~

Lyrics from: If We Have Each Other by Alec Benjamin

#jack kline x oc #jack kline #jack kline fanfiction #jack kline x reader #spn #spn fanfiction #superntural #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #alexander calvert #alex calvert #jensen ackles #jared padalecki #jack is baby #the writing gets better #jack kline humor #jack kline fluff #fluff #my name is cas and i write stuff #fanfic #thanks for reading #have a nice day

[theyearoftheking]

Book Seventy-Nine: If It Bleeds

“There’s an underlying truth in it which I believe you will grasp even at your current age Films are ephemeral, while books- the good ones- are eternal, or close to it. You have read me many good ones, but others are waiting to be written.” 

This is it... the second to last book in the challenge. I’m really dragging my feet reading Later (although it is a spectacular book). But this challenge is over, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have a ton of books on my shelves and Kindle to read, and writing that needs to be done (characters are all but screaming for me to come back to them); but this project really gave me purpose in a rudderless time. 

I had started this project as a fun conversation piece, but quickly turned into something bigger. During quarantine, this challenge gave me a purpose. I’d challenge myself to read one hundred pages a day, and remind myself to drink water between chapters. Sometimes writing these posts dragged me out of bed. In winter months I’m extremely agoraphobic, and it’s tough for me to leave the house some days. And other days it’s all I can do to wash and brush my hair. Mental health is a bitch, sometimes. But I didn’t mean to make this about me... although I’m sure some of my readers can relate, a lot of us took a hit to the mental health during 2020. While I will look back on quarantine fondly (it gave me excuses not to leave the house, or change out of my pajamas), my mental health will not. But just as it’s time to leave the house, I suppose it’s also time to start focusing on new projects once this one is complete. I have no idea what that will look like. Maybe I’ll start with Steve’s movies. Maybe I’ll re-read Joe Hill. Who knows. But I do know I’m going to indulge in some trashy fiction reading. 

Ok! 

If It Bleeds is a collection of three novellas, and a Holly Gibney story. I shouldn’t discount the other three stories: they’re extremely well written, and thought provoking. But the real star of the book is the Holly story. 

The first story, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone turns grief on it’s ear. A lot of people call their loved one’s cellphones after they pass... they want that experience of hearing their voice just one more time. But what happens when the phone is buried with your loved one and continues to ring? And what if you get a text from them after their death? It’s a sweet story, with your typical Steve twist. 

The second story, The Life of Chuck is told backwards, and “contains multitudes”. It also has a post-apocalyptic vibes, with California falling into the ocean, and the Midwest burning. It also has college kids storming the White House looking for answers, which is just another example of Steve predicting the future. 

Steve was inspired by a random billboard that read, “Thanks Chuck!” along with a guys picture and “39 Great Years”. Again, something mundane with a great Steve twist. He’s proven this is his sweet spot. 

The third story is If It Bleeds, which picks up almost immediately where The Outsider left off. There’s a tragic bombing that takes place inside an elementary school, and Holly can’t stop watching the television news reports. There’s something tickling at her brain, and she can’t figure out what it is. 

Eventually we find out there are more monsters like the one Holly killed in The Outsider. Jerome makes the best comparison, and says evil is like a bird that randomly flies from person to person, infecting them as it goes. There’s one section of the book when a character refers to the monster as, “It”. So it makes you wonder if this is one big tie-in, where we find out Holly is killing pieces of the monster that plagued Derry for so long. 

The mystery itself is secondary to Holly’s larger-than-life character. She is dealing with family issues; her Trump-supporting mom needs Holly’s help putting her uncle in a care facility, and Holly is struggling to cut herself out of the co-dependent relationship she has with her mother. But Holly has grown. She knows her worth, and she doesn’t let people talk down to her anymore. Her evolution is best described as, “Holly would do well to remember...who she is. Not the child who nibbled Mr. Rabbit Trick’s ears. Not the adolescent who threw up her breakfast most days before school. She  is the woman who, along with Bill and Jerome, saved those children at the Midwest Culture and Arts Complex. She is the woman who survived Brady Hartsfield. The one who faced another monster in a Texas cave. The girl who hid in this room and never wanted to come out is gone.” 

The final story is Rat. And I’m just going to tell you... an actual rat quoting Jonathan Franzen is perfect. He’s problematic enough to be an actual rodent. Yeah, I’m going to say it. The Corrections was absolute garbage, and I don’t know why it was lauded the way it was. He’s a condescending misogynist and he’s not nearly as good a writer as he thinks he is... says the girl writing a blog on her Stephen King musings. But whatever! I own what I’m doing, and the significance of it.

I will gladly re-read all of Steve’s books again before picking up another Jonathan Franzen book. If you want to dive into all the reasons he’s disgusting, this Bustle article will explain it to you. Like, legit explain it. Not mansplain it. 

Anyway, Rat explores why it’s not a great idea to make deals with rodents during major weather events. And when you’re at your isolated cabin and a major snowstorm is on the way- heed your wife’s advice and come back to civilization. 

This collection included plenty of Constant Reader mentions:

Derry

Shawshank Prison

Castle Rock

Gunslinger

It was an excellent collection, and I can’t get enough Holly. Steve talked about how she started out as a small, minor character and her presence just grew and grew. I don’t know about the rest of the Constant Readers, but I’d totally read another Holly book. Hell, I’ll take a whole series at this point. 

So, my final book is Later. I’ve got about 100 pages left to read and then that’s it... until April. 

Total Wisconsin Mentions: 48

Total Dark Tower References: 76

Book Grade: A+

Rebecca’s Definitive Ranking of Stephen King Books

Doctor Sleep: A+

The Talisman: A+

Wizard and Glass: A+

11/22/63: A+

Mr. Mercedes: A+

End of Watch: A+

Under the Dome: A+

Needful Things: A+

On Writing: A+

The Green Mile: A+

Hearts in Atlantis: A+

Full Dark, No Stars: A+

The Outsider: A+

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: A+

If It Bleeds: A+

Just After Sunset: A+

Rose Madder: A+

Misery: A+

Different Seasons: A+

It: A+

Four Past Midnight: A+

Stephen King Goes to the Movies: A+

The Shining: A-

The Stand: A-

Finders Keepers: A-

Bag of Bones: A-

Duma Key: A-

Black House: A-

The Institute: A-

The Wastelands: A-

The Drawing of the Three: A-

The Dark Tower: A-

Dolores Claiborne: A-

Blaze: B+

Hard Listening: B+

Revival: B+

Nightmares in the Sky: B+

The Dark Half: B+

Joyland: B+

Skeleton Crew: B+

The Dead Zone: B+

Nightmares & Dreamscapes: B+

Wolves of the Calla: B+

‘Salem’s Lot: B+

Song of Susannah: B+

Carrie: B+

Creepshow: B+

From a Buick 8: B

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: B

Sleeping Beauties: B-

The Colorado Kid: B-

Storm of the Century: B-

Everything’s Eventual: B-

Cycle of the Werewolf: B-

The Wind Through the Keyhole: B-

Danse Macabre: B-

The Running Man: C+

Cell: C+

Thinner: C+

Dark Visions: C+

The Eyes of the Dragon: C+

The Long Walk: C+

The Gunslinger: C+

Pet Sematary: C+

Firestarter: C+

Rage: C

Desperation: C-

Insomnia: C-

Cujo: C-

Nightshift: C-

Faithful: D

Gerald’s Game: D

Roadwork: D

Lisey’s Story: D

Christine: D

Dreamcatcher: D

The Regulators: D

The Tommyknockers D

Until next time, Long Days & Pleasant Nights, Rebecca

#stephen king #if it bleeds #constant readers #derry #the dark tower #holly gibney #jonathan franzen #pennywise #it

[goodmeowningcols]

could you list your top ten jonrya moments?

Hi Anon and thank you for the question! 🥰 I love the question because Jonrya is chockful of canon content straight from the books, and this isn’t even including George’s 1993 original outline. We have to thank George RR Martin for that. And surely, with Jon’s death, Arya will be thinking of him a lot in TWOW. In the 5 released books, they have so many moments and memories about one another that serves as a firm foundation for both of them to be each other’s favourites and the person they love and miss the most with all their heart. Let’s do a countdown, shall we? Not necessarily in order.

10. At the crypts

Robb took them all the way down to the end, past Grandfather and Brandon and Lyanna, to show them their own tombs. Sansa kept looking at the stubby little candle, anxious that it might go out. Old Nan had told her there were spiders down here, and rats as big as dogs. Robb smiled when she said that. "There are worse things than spiders and rats," he whispered. "This is where the dead walk." That was when they heard the sound, low and deep and shivery. Baby Bran had clutched at Arya's hand.

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb's leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. "You stupid," she told him, "you scared the baby," but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too.

9. The closest of their siblings and defending each other

...A dozen spectators, man and boy, were calling out encouragement, Robb’s voice the loudest among them. She spotted Theon Greyjoy beside him, his black doublet emblazoned with the golden kraken of his House, a look of wry contempt on his face. Both of the combatants were staggering. Arya judged that they had been at it awhile.

“A shade more exhausting than needlework,” Jon observed.

“A shade more fun than needlework,” Arya gave back at him. Jon grinned, reached over, and messed up her hair. Arya flushed. They had always been close. Jon had their father’s face, as she did. They were the only ones. Robb and Sansa and Bran and even little Rickon all took after the Tullys, with easy smiles and fire in their hair. When Arya had been little, she had been afraid that meant that she was a bastard too. It had been Jon she had gone to in her fear, and Jon who had reassured her.

...

Reluctantly, Arya surrendered her sword, wondering if she would ever hold it again. Her father turned it in the light, examining both sides of the blade. He tested the point with his thumb. “A bravo’s blade,” he said. “Yet it seems to me that I know this maker’s mark. This is Mikken’s work.”

Arya could not lie to him. She lowered her eyes.

Lord Eddard Stark sighed. “My nine-year-old daughter is being armed from my own forge, and I know nothing of it. The Hand of the King is expected to rule the Seven Kingdoms, yet it seems I cannot even rule my own household. How is it that you come to own a sword, Arya? Where did you get this?”

Arya chewed her lip and said nothing. She would not betray Jon, not even to their father.

...

"Lumpyhead," corrected Lommy. "He prob'ly stole it."

"I did not!" she shouted. Jon Snow had given her Needle. Maybe she had to let them call her Lumpyhead, but she wasn't going to let them call Jon a thief.

8. The woman is important too!

She watched her little brother whack at Tommen. “I could do just as good as Bran,” she said. “He’s only seven. I’m nine.”

Jon looked her over with all his fourteen-year-old wisdom. “You’re too skinny,” he said. He took her arm to feel her muscle. Then he sighed and shook his head. “I doubt you could even lift a longsword, little sister, never mind swing one.”

Arya snatched back her arm and glared at him. Jon messed up her hair again. They watched Bran and Tommen circle each other.

“You see Prince Joffrey?” Jon asked.

She hadn’t, not at first glance, but when she looked again she found him to the back, under the shade of the high stone wall. He was surrounded by men she did not recognize, young squires in the livery of Lannister and Baratheon, strangers all. There were a few older men among them; knights, she surmised.

“Look at the arms on his surcoat,” Jon suggested.

Arya looked. An ornate shield had been embroidered on the prince’s padded surcoat. No doubt the needlework was exquisite. The arms were divided down the middle; on one side was the crowned stag of the royal House, on the other the lion of Lannister.

“The Lannisters are proud,” Jon observed. “You’d think the royal sigil would be sufficient, but no. He makes his mother’s House equal in honor to the king’s.”

“The woman is important too!” Arya protested.

Jon chuckled. “Perhaps you should do the same thing, little sister. Wed Tully to Stark in your arms.”

“A wolf with a fish in its mouth?” It made her laugh. “That would look silly. Besides, if a girl can’t fight, why should she have a coat of arms?”

Jon shrugged. “Girls get the arms but not the swords. Bastards get the swords but not the arms. I did not make the rules, little sister.”

7. Seeing one another in other people

"NO!" Arya and Gendry both said, at the exact same instant. Hot Pie quailed a little. Arya gave Gendry a sideways look. He said it with me, like Jon used to do, back in Winterfell. She missed Jon Snow the most of all her brothers.

And...

Ygritte watched and said nothing. She was older than he'd thought at first, Jon realized; maybe as old as twenty, but short for her age, bandy-legged, with a round face, small hands, and a pug nose. Her shaggy mop of red hair stuck out in all directions. She looked plump as she crouched there, but most of that was layers of fur and wool and leather. Underneath all that she could be as skinny as Arya.

...

"If you kill a man, and never mean t', he's just as dead," Ygritte said stubbornly. Jon had never met anyone so stubborn, except maybe for his little sister Arya. Is she still my sister? he wondered. Was she ever?

And...

Jon turned to Alys Karstark. “My lady. Are you ready?”

“Yes. Oh, yes.”

“You’re not scared?” The girl smiled in a way that reminded Jon so much of his little sister that it almost broke his heart.

“Let him be scared of me.” The snowflakes were melting on her cheeks, but her hair was wrapped in a swirl of lace that Satin had found somewhere, and the snow had begun to collect there, giving her a frosty crown. Her cheeks were flushed and red, and her eyes sparkled.

“Winter’s lady.” Jon squeezed her hand.

6. Missing each other the most

He missed his true brothers: little Rickon, bright eyes shining as he begged for a sweet; Robb, his rival and best friend and constant companion; Bran, stubborn and curious, always wanting to follow and join in whatever Jon and Robb were doing. He missed the girls too, even Sansa, who never called him anything but "my half brother" since she was old enough to understand what bastard meant. And Arya … he missed her even more than Robb, skinny little thing that she was, all scraped knees and tangled hair and torn clothes, so fierce and willful. Arya never seemed to fit, no more than he had … yet she could always make Jon smile. He would give anything to be with her now, to muss up her hair once more and watch her make a face, to hear her finish a sentence with him.

...

As he rode, Jon peeled off his glove to air his burned fingers. Ugly things. He remembered suddenly how he used to muss Arya's hair. His little stick of a sister. He wondered how she was faring. It made him a little sad to think that he might never muss her hair again. He began to flex his hand, opening and closing the fingers. If he let his sword hand stiffen and grow clumsy, it well might be the end of him, he knew. A man needed his sword beyond the Wall.

...

No one talked to Arya. She didn't care. She liked it that way. She would have eaten her meals alone in her bedchamber if they let her. Sometimes they did, when Father had to dine with the king or some lord or the envoys from this place or that place. The rest of the time, they ate in his solar, just him and her and Sansa. That was when Arya missed her brothers most. She wanted to tease Bran and play with baby Rickon and have Robb smile at her. She wanted Jon to muss up her hair and call her "little sister" and finish her sentences with her. But all of them were gone. She had no one left but Sansa, and Sansa wouldn't even talk to her unless Father made her.

...

She went back to the window, Needle in hand, and looked down into the courtyard below. If only she could climb like Bran, she thought; she would go out the window and down the tower, run away from this horrible place, away from Sansa and Septa Mordane and Prince Joffrey, from all of them. Steal some food from the kitchens, take Needle and her good boots and a warm cloak. She could find Nymeria in the wild woods below the Trident, and together they’d return to Winterfell, or run to Jon on the Wall. She found herself wishing that Jon was here with her now. Then maybe she wouldn’t feel so alone.

...

"I'm a girl," Arya said, exasperated. If the old man was down from the Wall, he must have come by way of Winterfell. "Do you know my brothers?" she asked excitedly. "Robb and Bran are at Winterfell, and Jon's on the Wall. Jon Snow, he's in the Night's Watch too, you must know him, he has a direwolf, a white one with red eyes. Is Jon a ranger yet? I'm Arya Stark." The old man in his smelly black clothes was looking at her oddly, but Arya could not seem to stop talking. "When you ride back to the Wall, would you bring Jon a letter if I wrote one?" She wished Jon were here right now. He'd believe her about the dungeons and the fat man with the forked beard and the wizard in the steel cap.

...

"My lady?" Ned said at last. "You have a baseborn brother . . . Jon Snow?"

"He's with the Night's Watch on the Wall." Maybe I should go to the Wall instead of Riverrun. Jon wouldn't care who I killed or whether I brushed my hair . . . "Jon looks like me, even though he's bastard-born. He used to muss my hair and call me 'little sister.'" Arya missed Jon most of all. Just saying his name made her sad. "How do you know about Jon?"

"He is my milk brother."

5. Keeping her secret identity as Arya of House Stark in the House of Black and White: Needle was Jon Snow’s smile.

At the water’s edge she stopped, the silver fork in hand. It was real silver, solid through and through. It’s not my fork. It was Salty that he gave it to. She tossed it underhand, heard the soft plop as it sank below the water.

Her floppy hat went next, then the gloves. They were Salty’s too. She emptied her pouch into her palm; five silver stags, nine copper stars, some pennies and halfpennies and groats. She scattered them across the water. Next her boots. They made the loudest splashes. Her dagger followed, the one she’d gotten off the archer who had begged the Hound for mercy. Her swordbelt went into the canal. Her cloak, tunic, breeches, smallclothes, all of it. All but Needle.

She stood on the end of the dock, pale and goosefleshed and shivering in the fog. In her hand, Needle seemed to whisper to her. Stick them with the pointy end, it said, and, don’t tell Sansa! Mikken’s mark was on the blade. It’s just a sword. If she needed a sword, there were a hundred under the temple. Needle was too small to be a proper sword, it was hardly more than a toy. She’d been a stupid little girl when Jon had it made for her. “It’s just a sword,” she said, aloud this time …

… but it wasn’t.

Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell’s grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan’s stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow’s smile. He used to mess my hair and call me “little sister,” she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

4. After breaking his Night’s Watch vows for her alone, Jon’s dying thought is of Arya: Stick them with the pointy end.

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …

3. I want my bride back... I want my bride back... I want my bride back...

Jon walked to the edge of the Wall and gazed down upon the killing ground where Mance Rayder’s host had died. He wondered where Mance was now. Did he ever find you, little sister? Or were you just a ploy he used so I would set him free?

It had been so long since he had last seen Arya. What would she look like now? Would he even know her? Arya Underfoot. Her face was always dirty. Would she still have that little sword he’d had Mikken forge for her? Stick them with the pointy end, he’d told her. Wisdom for her wedding night if half of what he heard of Ramsay Snow was true. Bring her home, Mance. I saved your son from Melisandre, and now I am about to save four thousand of your free folk. You owe me this one little girl.

...

Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand. The Night's Watch takes no part. He closed his fist and opened it again. What you propose is nothing less than treason. He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair. Kill the boy and let the man be born. He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey. Of Rickon's breathless laughter. Of Sansa, brushing out Lady's coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird's nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back …

"I think we had best change the plan," Jon Snow said.

2. What do you know of my heart priestess? What do you know of my sister?

“The heart is all that matters. Do not despair, Lord Snow. Despair is a weapon of the enemy, whose name may not be spoken. Your sister is not lost to you.”

“I have no sister.” The words were knives. What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister?

Melisandre seemed amused. “What is her name, this little sister that you do not have?”

“Arya.” His voice was hoarse. “My half-sister, truly…”

1. Needle!

“I have one more farewell to make,” Jon told him.

“Then I haven’t seen you,” Robb replied.

Jon left him standing there in the snow, surrounded by wagons and wolves and horses. It was a short walk to the armory. He picked up his package and took the covered bridge across to the Keep.

Arya was in her room, packing a polished ironwood chest that was bigger than she was. Nymeria was helping. Arya would only have to point, and the wolf would bound across the room, snatch up some wisp of silk in her jaws, and fetch it back. But when she smelled Ghost, she sat down on her haunches and yelped at them.

Arya glanced behind her, saw Jon, and jumped to her feet. She threw her skinny arms tight around his neck. “I was afraid you were gone,” she said, her breath catching in her throat. “They wouldn’t let me out to say good-bye.”

“What did you do now?” Jon was amused. Arya disentangled herself from him and made a face. “Nothing. I was all packed and everything.” She gestured at the huge chest, no more than a third full, and at the clothes that were scattered all over the room. “Septa Mordane says I have to do it all over. My things weren’t properly folded, she says. A proper southron lady doesn’t just throw her clothes inside her chest like old rags, she says.”

“Is that what you did, little sister?”

“Well, they’re going to get all messed up anyway,” she said. “Who cares how they’re folded?”

“Septa Mordane,” Jon told her. “I don’t think she’d like Nymeria helping, either.” The she-wolf regarded him silently with her dark golden eyes. “It’s just as well. I have something for you to take with you, and it has to be packed very carefully.”

Her face lit up. “A present?”

“You could call it that. Close the door.”

Wary but excited, Arya checked the hall. “Nymeria, here. Guard.” She left the wolf out there to warn of intruders and closed the door. By then Jon had pulled off the rags he’d wrapped it in. He held it out to her.

Arya’s eyes went wide. Dark eyes, like his. “A sword,” she said in a small, hushed breath.

The scabbard was soft grey leather, supple as sin. Jon drew out the blade slowly, so she could see the deep blue sheen of the steel. “This is no toy,” he told her. “Be careful you don’t cut yourself. The edges are sharp enough to shave with.”

“Girls don’t shave,” Arya said.

“Maybe they should. Have you ever seen the septa’s legs?”

She giggled at him. “It’s so skinny.”

“So are you,” Jon told her. “I had Mikken make this special. The bravos use swords like this in Pentos and Myr and the other Free Cities. It won’t hack a man’s head off, but it can poke him full of holes if you’re fast enough.”

“I can be fast,” Arya said.

“You’ll have to work at it every day.” He put the sword in her hands, showed her how to hold it, and stepped back. “How does it feel? Do you like the balance?”

“I think so,” Arya said.

“First lesson,” Jon said. “Stick them with the pointy end.”

Arya gave him a whap on the arm with the flat of her blade. The blow stung, but Jon found himself grinning like an idiot. “I know which end to use,” Arya said. A doubtful look crossed her face. “Septa Mordane will take it away from me.”

“Not if she doesn’t know you have it,” Jon said.

“Who will I practice with?”

“You’ll find someone,” Jon promised her. “King’s Landing is a true city, a thousand times the size of Winterfell. Until you find a partner, watch how they fight in the yard. Run, and ride, make yourself strong. And whatever you do …”

Arya knew what was coming next. They said it together. “… don’t … tell … Sansa!”

Jon messed up her hair. “I will miss you, little sister.”

Suddenly she looked like she was going to cry. “I wish you were coming with us.”

“Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle. Who knows?” He was feeling better now. He was not going to let himself be sad. “I better go. I’ll spend my first year on the Wall emptying chamber pots if I keep Uncle Ben waiting any longer.”

Arya ran to him for a last hug. “Put down the sword first,” Jon warned her, laughing.

She set it aside almost shyly and showered him with kisses.

When he turned back at the door, she was holding it again, trying it for balance. “I almost forgot,” he told her. “All the best swords have names.”

“Like Ice,” she said. She looked at the blade in her hand. “Does this have a name? Oh, tell me.”

“Can’t you guess?” Jon teased. “Your very favorite thing.”

Arya seemed puzzled at first. Then it came to her. She was that quick. They said it together:

“Needle!”

The memory of her laughter warmed him on the long ride north.

Bonus: Only her father had ever called her pretty. Him, and Jon Snow, sometimes.

#asoiaf #jon snow #arya stark #jonrya #a song of ice and fire #jonarya #the purest love #thank you grrm #house stark #edited: supple as sin

[kellyvela]

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

July 21, 2018

In the earlier published Targaryen family tree as found in The World of Ice & Fire, Princess Daenerys did not exist. In her place was Prince Aeryn Targaryen, Jaehaerys and Alysanne's sixthborn son who died young. Besides Aeryn having been exchanged for Daenerys, several other children of Jaehaerys and Alysanne were shifted in their order of birth.

Regarding these changes, Elio Garcia has stated the following:

... George had some new ideas for some of the names and the stories of the children who died young, and corrected some issues that came out of his original birth order (we actually got the names of all the kids quite late in the production of TWoIaF—literally a month before we had to finalize the book—so there was not much time to interrogate it). However, the stories of those who live to adulthood, as published in TWoIaF, do remain the same (just, of course, much more detailed).

[Source]

November 20, 2018

Jaehaerys loved all three children fiercely, but from the moment Aemon was born, the king began to speak of him as his heir, to Queen Alysanne’s displeasure. “Daenerys is older,” she would remind His Grace. “She is first in line; she should be queen.” The king would never disagree, except to say, “She shall be queen, when she and Aemon marry. They will rule together, just as we have.” But Benifer could see that the king’s words did not entirely please the queen, as he noted in his letters.

(...)

It was the hour of the owl when Queen Alysanne was awoken by her daughter shaking her gently by the arm. “Mother,” Princess Daenerys said, “I’m cold.”

There is no need to dwell on all that followed. Daenerys Targaryen was the darling of the realm, and all that could be done for any man was done for her. There were prayers and poultices, hot soups and scalding baths, blankets and furs and hot stones, nettle tea. The princess was six, and years past being weaned, but a wet nurse was summoned, for there were some who believed that mother’s milk could cure the Shivers. Maesters came and went, septons and septas prayed, the king commanded that a hundred new ratcatchers be hired at once, and offered a silver stag for every dead rat, grey or black. Daenerys wanted her kitten, and her kitten was brought to her, though as her shivering grew more violent it squirmed from her grasp and scratched her hand. Near dawn, Jaehaerys bolted to his feet shouting that a dragon was needed, that his daughter must have a dragon, and ravens took wing for Dragonstone, instructing the Dragonkeepers there to bring a hatchling to the Red Keep at once.

None of it mattered. A day and a half after she had woken her mother from sleep complaining of feeling cold, the little princess was dead. The queen collapsed in the king’s arms, shaking so violently that some feared she had the Shivers too.”

—Fire & Blood - Volume I

May 19, 2019

Standing before the Iron Throne, Dany steps forward and kisses the man she loves. A perfect kiss, an expression of pure love and passion.

We push in on them until we’re tight on their faces -- their eyes closed, his hand behind her head, her hand on his cheek.

Dany’s eyes open suddenly as she draws a sharp breath.

Jon’s eyes open as well, already filling with tears. For a moment, neither moves, as if moving will make this real.

In a wider angle, we see Jon with his hand still on the hilt of the dagger he just lodged in Dany’s heart.

Her strength leaves her and she collapses to the marble; he keeps her in his arms as she falls, kneeling down to the floor beside her.

He looks down at what he’s done. Terrible. And necessary. He hopes for one last moment with her.

But her eyes are already glazing over. Winter has come to the Throne Room. Dany lies dead in his arms, Pieta-style, as the snow drifts down.

—GAME OF THRONES "The Iron Throne" - Written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss - Based on A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

January 19, 2020

WELT: Again: We know what will happen to the Mother of Dragons. How do you want to surpass that in a novel – with an alternative literary version?

GRRM: Counter question: How many children did Scarlett O'Hara have? In Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind” she had three children. But in the cinema version of the novels she only had one child. Which version is the only one valid - the one with one or the other with three children? The answer is: neither. Because Scarlett O'Hara never existed, she is a fictional character, not a real person, who would have had real children. Or take “The Little Mermaid”. We know her from the fairytale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen and from the Disney movie. Which one is the true mermaid? Well, mermaids do not exist. So you can chose the version that you personally like the best. Changes are inevitable in this process. Even if the adaption is as faithful to the literary source material as it was the case with “Game of Thrones”.

—GEORGE R. R. MARTIN “Die Leute kennen ein Ende – nicht das Ende” - WELT 2020 - (Translation)

April 18, 2021

Q: It is my impression that there are parallels between Westeros history and current events in ASOIAF. so in your opinion to what degree is George martin's history cyclical? Because we have a lot of parallels. For example with the current history and the dance of the dragons.

Elio: You know George even uses that line from talking about the the arms of house Toland, the dragon eating its tail, but it was from the Archmaester Rigney which is a reference to Robert Jordan the writer of the wheel of time, that history is a wheel or time as a circle. I think George certainly deliberately sees, creates parallels. I mean this is a very obvious example, you know if you read The World of Ice and Fire, you saw the family tree of the Targaryens, and the family tree for Jaehaerys and his offspring changes quite a lot when fire and blood comes out. Because George realized that he wanted to create a kind of parallel by introducing another Daenerys. and he said like, i like the symmetry of it, I like the the sort of the way. You could perhaps read it as reflecting on Daenerys's story, maybe. I wish it was true. I mean I think fans of Daenerys need to be really worried about what's going to happen to her. Although I guess Game of Thrones maybe has revealed kind of where things may possibly end. Again the journey is going to be very different. I think you know circumstances, things are going to be very different. So there's a journey that matters. But in any case, so yes I think George uses cycles and things a bit. He likes setting up parallels of events, he likes paralleling characters, he likes paralleling events, and he likes paralleling the past and the present as well.

Linda: I think certainly that when he fleshed out the details of Fire and Blood, even when he first did the sidebars for The World of Ice and Fire, and they just grew. We could see that, okay here he's looking at foreshadowing or commenting on current events by doing a similar scenario in the past and he definitely likes to play around with those aspects.

[Source] (*)

(*) Thanks to @istumpysk and her friend for sending me this link!

#asoiaf #game of thrones #grrm #elio garcia #daenerys targaryen #the world of ice and fire #fire and blood

[jonathanvik]

Starlight Dream - Chapter 2

A cruel chuckle escaped Lilha’s lips as she watched her prey walk down the street with her ridiculous friends. Her fairy companion circled around her, chatting away useless nonsense. Above the vampire queen, the sun rained down its hateful light. While not dangerous to a higher vampire like herself, it still significantly weakened her. At this hour, most vampires were asleep, hiding in terror from this magical girl menace.

She’d been planning this attack for days, studying the girl’s habits and moods. A predator needed to understand its victim before destroying them. Since the return of the sun, Seina had spent an unhealthy amount of time outside. This park was one of her most favorite places to visit. It wasn’t difficult to devise the perfect plan to kill this pathetic, naive girl. Once Lilha’s plan was complete, vampires would return to their correct position as the world’s undisputed masters, now and forever! Darkness would reign again for all eternity!

“Uh, excuse me, but could I have a scoop of chocolate ice cream?” A young child asked, interrupting Lilha’s victory gloating.

Reality crashed down on the vampire queen, forcing her to return to her job. When Seina had devastated her vampire masters, Lilha had lost everything, a queen in name only, forced to work at an ice cream stall to pay the bills! Her uniform was a tacky red hat and an ugly striped shirt.

Before, she had lived in a palace that even the richest of kings would envy. Now, she dwelled in a one-room apartment with a leaky roof and rats. In happier days, her late husband delighted in making humans live in utter squalor for his amusement. It didn’t leave her with many suitable places to live. Her pride made her refuse to live in the sewers like other displaced vampires.

“Here,” Lilha said, handing over the boy’s orders with little enthusiasm. Her excitement had drained away, making her feel dead inside. This brought back too many terrible memories of working at a McRonald's before her queenhood. Back then, Lilha had sworn she’d possess only the best in life.

Curse that magical girl! Curse her! From the corner of her eye, Lilha watched Seina get into position. She bubbled with excitement, eager to see herself avenged.

“I love this view!” The magical girl said, looking over the bridge, watching the clear sky and the cars driving beneath them. After the vampire’s downfall, humans were working hard to return to their lives pre-darkness. While there were fewer cars than in ages past, it was a solid return to normalcy.

“Really?” Colten asked, tilting his bulbous head. To him, it wasn’t that extraordinary. “Oh right. You seldom saw the sun.”

Seina shook her head. She closed her eyes and extended her arms, soaking in the sun. “I could stand here all day!”

The magical girl’s brainless friend laughed. “You’re so silly, Seina!”

The fairy, however, seemed touched, lips extending into a slight smile. “Stay as long as you like.”

Idiot, you’re making this so much simpler! With a slight flick of her hand, the vampire queen signaled the beginning of her plan. In a few moments, the meddlesome magical girl would be dead.

From the darkness behind a trash can, Cugo, the fifth greatest vampire assassin, struck. He pulled out a long green tube and placed it over his shoulder. After closing one eye, Cugo aimed his rocket launcher and unleashed the missile. The target struck home, and Seina’s friends screamed in horror. The projectile exploded, sending the magical girl flying upon impact. Lilha cackled in delight as the girl’s body rag dolled in the air, landing in the busy street.

“Seina!” The fairy’s voice cracked, eyes widening in horror.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Lilha’s mirth increased as the magical girl’s lifeless body landed before a heavy truck carrying construction equipment. The vehicle couldn’t avoid the girl in time and bumped as its enormous tires ran over her.

I did it! Lilha did a victory dance, heartened by the gruesome death of her most hated enemy. Freedom at last!

“Oh, she’s fine. T-thank goodness.” Colten said, throwing cold water at Lilha’s celebration.

I-Impossible. The vampire’s queen stomach twisted in dread, running towards the railing. Sure enough, Seina was sitting up, rubbing the back of her neck. Except for her charred and burned dress, the girl seemed otherwise unhurt. The truck driver exited his cabin, relieved to discover the girl he’d struck unharmed.

“You have to got to be %@$&* kidding me.” Several more curses escaped the vampire queen’s lips. How, why? How did she survive without her magical powers?!

“Change Change, Magical Love Dress Up!” Moments later, Seina leaped to the bridge above to confront her attacker.

“Aiko, are you okay?” Seina asked, concerned.

“I’m fine, just a little scared.” While a little bruised, the girl appeared alright.

“What a dirty trick! Vampires.” The fairy used the name like a curse.

A new voice snorted in derision. “Lucky. I've heard you weren’t easy to kill.”

“So, you’re my attacker.” Seina glared towards the newcomer. Her friend yelped in surprise and fear, hiding behind a nearby bush.

The vampire cackled. “Correct, little girl. My name is Cugo, and I will be your death!”

The vampire was a gruesome sight. Over his pale bare-chested pasty body, tiny bones protruding from his body, each from his many victims. Cugo enjoyed claiming tokens from the people he killed. The sight made the magical girl recoil in disgust.

“Like my prizes?” Cugo purred. “I have so many. It’s my goal to one day kill a billion people!” The vampire assassin cackled again.

Colten snorted in amusement. “You already look like a pincushion. How the heck will you fit a billion?”

“Yeah, I don’t really see how that works,” Seina added. “Why kill a billion? And doesn’t it hurt?”

“Pain is my power! I revel in slaughter and blood! Death is my constant companion.” Cugo withdrew a knife, licking the blade with his tongue. Blood oozed from where he’d sliced its surface. The blood muffled the next words pouring from the assassin’s mouth. “Hurt me more! The more pain you cause me, the more invincible I become!”

“Okay,” Seina replied, nonplus. “And that doesn’t really answer my questions.”

“Why’d I even bother?” Lilha returned to her ice cream cart, discovering several more children impatiently awaiting their treat. While she served her customers, the ex-vampire queen heard her hired assassin’s screams. Moments later, the park was silent. That sneak attack had been their best opportunity to kill the hated magical girl. Lilha wasn’t under any illusion that the idiot had any chance otherwise.

Is this my life now? A single tear slid down her face. Fate had thrust Lilha back into the horrible existence she lived before her turn. The ex-vampire queen wiped her face and pretended to smile as more brats demanded ice cream. She could at least maintain some dignity.

---

“I’m fine, don’t fret, Colten,” Seina said, both annoyed and amused by her fairy friend’s attention. He was examining her for injuries, making sure everything was okay.

“I’m just worried. I was so scared I’d lost you!” Tears welled in the fairy's eyes.

Moved by her friend’s distress, she gave Colten a hug. “I’m not going anywhere, okay.”

Colten sniffed and nodded. “Yeah, I’m just being silly.”

“That was something. How did you survive that?” Aiko asked. “I’m glad, but I thought your brooch gave you power.”

“Yeah, what happened?” Siena asked.

In the month since they’d first met, he’d been vague about this magical girl business. The fairy only stated he’d arrived from somewhere beyond her universe. He’d mentioned magical girls were common where he came from, but revealed little beyond that tidbit. Seina pressed him for more information, but the fairy was sparse on more details.

“It’s your magic, Seina,” Colten replied. “It protects you even when you aren’t transformed.”

“What happens if she loses the brooch? Will she be vulnerable then?” Aiko asked, curious.

“Nope, it’s part of her soul now,” Colten replied smugly. “She’s a magical girl forever.” Despite this simple explanation, Seina got the distinct impression that was something else her fairy friend wasn’t telling her. What was with these secrets? Did Colten enjoy just being obtuse?

Whatever, she’d press him for more answers later. Seina just wanted to enjoy the walk with her friends. Vampires or other problems could wait. They deserved the peace. Besides, she could handle any trouble that could arise, even if she hadn’t learned how to cast spells with her staff yet. The trio was laughing and joking as they headed back home.

After the fall of the vampires, Seina had taken residency in an apartment building uptown. The new prime minister had insisted that she live with him after multiple assassination attempts. With no other place to go, she’d readily agreed. Seina still wasn’t on speaking terms with her parents. They’d disappeared since the incident in the colosseum. Not that she needed them, anyway. She was a big girl, almost an adult! Besides, she had Colten, she didn’t need anyone else.

“Seina, thank goodness you’re okay.” The guard, Ryo, said. “We heard about the assassination attempt. We’ve been looking for you!”

“I’m fine.” Seina waved a dismissive hand. “I’m not even scratched. Prime Minister Ogawa doesn’t need to worry.”

“No, the Minister insists on seeing you, now.” Ryo pushed Seina towards the elevator leading to the Prime Minister’s office, leaving a waving Aiko behind.

“Seina, it’s so good to see you safe!” Uncle Kenji batted his head with a handkerchief. He wasn’t really her uncle, but she’d known him since childhood, and the nickname stuck. After Lothaire’s fall, people had thrust him into a leadership position, taking advantage of his natural talent. Taking the position hadn’t given him much pleasure, but someone needed to be Prime Minister.

“I’m fine,” Seina said, annoyed. “Like I keep telling everyone.”

“If we ever lost you…” The Prime Minister coughed into his hand, embarrassed. “Well, I suppose you magical girls are tougher than you look. Lothaire learned that the hard way.”

“So, what’s for dinner?” Seina had wanted some ice cream, but Colten had insisted it would ruin her dinner, leaving her starving. “Is it true they’d finally caught some fish?”

The darkness had devastated the earth’s wildlife, not leaving much food for humanity. Still, life persisted, and fishermen had already constructed new boats, hoping to return to their old profession and feed their families.

“That can wait. There’s something I wish to discuss first.” Uncle Kenji said.

“About what?” Colten asked, landing on Seina’s shoulder.

“It worries me every time you leave the safety of this building.” The prime minister sat behind his desk and steepled his fingers. “I realize you’re young and you can’t stay cooped up here. After some consideration, I decided it would be wise to assign you a guardian. Come in.”

Moments later, a scary-looking man with intense, piercing eyes entered the room. His brown hair was wild, and silver earrings pierced both of his ears. A small goatee ordained his face, adding to his rough features. He gave the Prime Minister a bow and studied Seina with interest with those terrifying eyes of his.

“This is Masato Kiyojiro, and he’s going to be your bodyguard.”

The man in question gave a polite bow. “I will protect you with my life.”

Seina gave her own awkward bow. After a moment’s hesitation, she gained the courage to speak her mind. “Um, I don’t need a bodyguard. I’m pretty powerful by myself. Not even a rocket launcher can kill me!” What if he attempted fighting something beyond his ability to beat? He couldn’t really protect her, so she hated putting him to the trouble of watching over her.

“This isn’t only about having someone to protect you. You’re a ten-year-old girl, Seina. You need someone to watch over you, and Kiyojiro is the man.” Kenji replied.

Colten snorted and puffed out his chest in pride. “She doesn’t need a protector. Seina has me!”

“Didn’t you say you’re nine?” The prime minister said, amused by the fairy’s bravado.

“A very mature nine!” Colten shot back.

Seina gave Mr. Kiyojiro a polite bow, who only replied silently with a cold-eyed stare. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kiyojiro, but I don’t think this will work. You’re just, well, a guy. It’s best if I worry about my own protection.”

“Seina, we aren’t arguing this. Kiyojiro is accompanying you from now on.” The Prime Minister’s voice brooked no argument. “And that’s final.”

“But!”

“Seina.” Uncle Kenji’s expression hardened.

“Fine.” Seina looked away, surrendering to the adult’s argument. Still, why this man? The prime minister could have found someone nicer.

Might as well face it now. “Hi, I’m Seina. It’s nice to meet you.” Seina gave her best, winning smile. It did little to improve her bodyguard’s mood, he only gave a slight nod in acknowledgment.

Seina's smile turned awkward, but she wanted to make a good impression.

“This is so dumb!” Colten flew around in circles in agitation. “Well, I suppose it’s nice to have someone around to carry our bags or something.”

The fairy flew into the bodyguard’s face. “But know this. Seina’s protector is me! Got it? We’re partners, after all.”

Mr. Kiyojiro scowled, giving a snort of irritation. Colten quickly flew behind Seina for protection from his magical girl’s thuggish bodyguard. Seina sighed, knowing this change would be difficult to adjust to. She only hoped her new guardian wouldn’t scare her friends away. Her life had enough complications!

“Anyway, I’m famished,” Seina said. “Let’s get something to eat.”

Mr. Kiyojiro nodded. “I’ll prepare something for you. How does curry sound?”

“That would be great,” Seina replied, taken aback.

Truth be told, she’d never eaten curry before. For most of her life, before the sun’s return, Seina had spent her days eating nothing but slop and the occasional rat for a special treat. It was hard to know what exactly she liked with such little experience with actual food. Still, curry sounded interesting, and why not? She’d taste anything once.

“Mr. Kiyojiro is an excellent chef.” Uncle Kenji said in amusement. “It’s one reason I hired him. He isn’t just muscle, you know.”

“Huh, I suppose that somewhat justifies keeping him around,” Colten replied.

---

“So, this is the place? You’re certain?” Takako tilted her head, studying her surroundings. She watched as a couple walked down a park. Despite the park’s dead trees and general ugliness, they held hands, smiling without a care in the world.

“It should be. The universal coordinates are correct.” Nier said, landing on her shoulder. “Something’s not right here. Can’t you feel it?”

“Yeah.” Takako flicked her skull-shaped earrings.

People approached, and she hid behind a tree before they could notice her. These folk dressed in thick overalls, picking up trash, cleaning graffiti, and marking trees they found too hopeless to live. She’d seen people like this all around the city. They were ordinary folk attempting to restore the broken pieces of their lives and repair their broken world. It seemed almost everyone had volunteered to restore the city to its former glory.

“This wasn’t how they described this world to us at all!” Nier’s flying became more erratic as he got frustrated.

“Something huge happened here.” A jogger passed her, each step filled with effort and determination. The general wrongness was making Takako’s stomach queasy. While faint, her senses detected something. A presence that shouldn’t exist.

“We should find the source before this gets worse!” Nier said, and Takako couldn’t agree more.

With a gesture, she returned to normal. Her transformed state would draw unwanted attention. Whatever had caused this radical shift might learn of her existence, and that would be bothersome. Nier flew into her handbag. His head popped out, watching his surroundings with a keen eye. While still flashy, Takako’s outfit wasn’t as noticeable as her magical girl form. Takako briefly considered disguising herself in the local rags but decided against it. She had standards.

With a flick of her hand, a black umbrella plopped open and placed it over her shoulder. The shade it provided was a great comfort. The sun’s rays were almost oppressive as it shined down on them.

“Come, let’s investigate!"

#fiction #anime #anime stories #written story #parody #Starlight Dream #magical girl #humor #vampires #Adventure

[29-pieces]

Whumptober day 8 - The Musketeers

Day 8: Abandoned Fandom/setting: The Musketeers (BBC) - AU S3 where Aramis stayed with the others - war era Read on AO3 Read on FF.net

~*~

"Your friends have abandoned you to us, Frenchman. Comprende?"

He hears the voice, head lolling vaguely in its direction. Eyelids flutter open against the haze of whatever they've been dosing him with. Everything hurts. They haven't hurt him too badly, at least not that he can tell. Nothing worse than an acceptable level of getting a little roughed up by guards with too much time and not enough oversight. But he's been sitting or laying on this cold stone floor for- actually, he doesn't know how long it's been. How can he mark the passing of time in a windowless cell when he's spending half of his time drugged?

"No, they haven't," he slurs out loud in French. At least one or two of the Spaniards know the language; they're the ones who've been asking him questions.

A face swims into focus, offering a smile that's meant to be rendered as sympathetic but more resembles scorn. Someone grabs his hair and wrenches his head back and he can't help but hiss in discomfort and surprise. His reflexes are dulled by drugs and hunger.

"We hadn't intended on keeping you," the soldier speaking to him says, also in French but with a foreign accent. "The price for your freedom isn't much. Anything that might be helpful. How many battalions are held in reserve? Which direction will reinforcements be coming from? Who's in charge of the sabotage to our supply chain?"

His mouth clamps shut. He doesn't have much information anyway; he's not the captain. The soldiers who've interrogated him seem to know he has friends more important than himself, though, convinced that he has details to share.

The Spaniard tsks and shakes his head with artificial pity. "As you like. But I can't receive authorization to release you without something to show for it." And then he nods to whoever is gripping him.

Knowing what's coming, he thrashes, but he's manacled and fettered and drugged and he can't evade the hand that shoves a rag over his face. There's no fighting it, though he tries—of course he does.

It doesn't matter. Everything goes black.

.o.O.o.

"Why are you protecting them? Your friends left you to die."

The voice is back. It's grating. It's cold. Not as cold as the cell he's in, and he shivers uncontrollably, knees drawn up to his chest.

"They'll find me."

The Spaniard's face is full of that artificial pity again. "They aren't even looking."

He doesn't answer; his stomach growls. He can't remember if they've fed him today, isn't sure when yesterday ended and today began. He doesn't know how many todays there have been since he was taken.

The soldier in charge of his interrogation hears the sound and tuts. Waves a hand to someone in the doorway. Magnanimously hands over a crust of moldy bread.

He wants to decline but he's starving and growing weaker by the day. In his mind, he hears Porthos reminding him there's no chance of escape if he can't even move, has to keep his strength up and be prepared at his first opportunity. He grabs the bread before the Spaniard can change his mind. It's vile, almost a taunt more than a kindness, but he eats it anyway.

"Now, be reasonable," the soldier says, spreading his hands. "Surely that's worth something. A morsel for a morsel. How many musketeers remained in Paris to guard the king?"

He doesn't answer, just barely refrains from licking the crumbs off his fingertips—he's not that desperate. Not yet. He will be soon.

The Spaniard sighs. "Why carry on this way? It's been three weeks. You were never supposed to be here so long. We can't afford to keep feeding you so often. Give me something I can turn over to my capitan so he'll order your release."

...Three weeks? He turns his head in a refusal to respond, but also to hide the sudden pain. How could it have been so long... he has no way of knowing the passing of time, but it can't have been that long, surely? At the same time, it feels like it's been even longer.

"They won't leave me here," he whispers to the cold, dripping walls, the stench of sweat and waste, the rats in the corner with glowing eyes.

His captor sighs, gestures.

The cursed rag descends over his mouth and nose yet again to flood his mind with the pungent fumes.

Darkness grows darker, and hope begins to fade.

.o.O.o.

"I'm done playing games." The Spaniard is in a foul temper today, accompanied by several other guards.

He knows that's not good. He wants to climb to his feet, to have some chance of defending himself, but he can't even sit up by now, lying half dead on the freezing floor with chattering teeth and growling belly. If the sweat dripping down his face is any indication, fever has started to set in.

There's questions, but he only half hears them. Questions about troop movements and supply chains and other things he isn't privy to just by virtue of being in Athos's inner circle. Even if he had the answers, he wouldn't give them up. Perhaps they thought keeping him mostly drugged for all this time would weaken his mind and they're probably right, but not so weak that he would ever betray his brothers and his country.

Perhaps they've decided if the cold and the hunger and the drugs won't do the trick, their fists and their boots will. The blows descend and everything hurts even worse, until merciful blackness descends once more.

.o.O.o.

"You're a strong one, I'll give you that. But surely you must be hungry by now?"

Hungry? No, he was hungry before. Now he's starving, ravenous, half-mad with the emptiness in his belly. He thinks he might even sell his soul for another moldy crust of bread, but of course he wouldn't really. Not his soul. Aramis wouldn't approve. Can't disappoint Aramis.

"They aren't coming for you," he's told again and again. He wants to keep doubting but it's getting harder.

How long has it been? Weeks? Months? He's lost count of how many times he's been drugged into blackness. For all he knows, it's been years. Everything's foggy. Everything hurts. And now he barely feels the cold. It's been so long, why haven't they come for him yet?

...Are they coming at all?

"We'll let you go," he's promised. "But first some information. Then we'll release you."

But he stays silent, until his captor loses patience, lashes out, grips his jaw.

"You weren't even supposed to be here this long," he's told again. "You were only taken as a means to bargain. An exchange. But when we sent word of your capture, and our hopes of a trade..." The Spaniard grins, cruel and cold. "They declined."

He feels like this is some kind of trap, deep down, but he's weak and sick and oh God he's so hungry, and he finally despairs. Maybe they had no choice. Maybe the Spaniards wanted to trade him for someone worth far more than he is. Maybe Athos was ordered to decline. Maybe they abandoned him.

"Understand," his captor says, "that this underground prison is your life now. You will die here, today or years from now, forgotten and abandoned. Or... deny the so-called friends who left you to your fate, and help Spain end this bloody war. It's been two months, Frenchman. If they wanted you back, they would have come for you by now."

They haven't even brought out that vile rag and the awful drugs, but already his mind is starting to slip away without it. Abandoned...

A door thuds open so hard it cracks like a whip, like thunder, like his heart, but he barely hears it. Cheek resting on a cold, damp floor, he closes his eyes against the shouting and the steel. In the distance, everything soon goes quiet and then he's being lifted, sitting against something strong.

"D'Artagnan! Come on, pup, open yer eyes..."

"He's burning with fever," another voice growls, a cold hand pressed to his forehead. "Porthos, the chains."

Metal clinks, his wrists feel lighter. He's pulled up the rest of the way from the freezing stone, held tightly against something solid and comforting. Porthos, his mind supplies. His eyes blink and flutter, seeing a worried face gazing back at him. Aramis.

"Th'y said y' left me," he manages to say. "Be'n two months..."

"You've been missing for two weeks," Aramis corrects. "Athos has been out of his mind. There was no word... we thought you'd been killed."

Porthos was cursing. "Talk later, escape now."

He tries to move his feet, but two months or two weeks, he only remembers a few sorry excuses for food and he collapses instead, right into Porthos's waiting arms. His Gascon stubbornness urges him to walk out of there on his own power, but everything's fading again and he can't protest as his brother carries him out of that wretched cell.

"You're safe now," Aramis offers from somewhere directly at his side. A hand squeezes his. "You're safe, d'Artagnan."

He's slipping from consciousness, but he's safe. D'Artagnan thinks his lips are pulling into an exhausted smile.

"Y' came to fin' me..."

The supporting arms squeeze tighter.

"Aways, pup. Always."

#whumptober2020 #no.8 #abandoned #the musketeers #BBC musketeers #fanfiction #d'artagnan whump #captured d'artagnan #brothers to the rescue #poor pup