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#had unsuccessfully killed Elena
highlifeboat · 9 months
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Alcina: -Calmly eats her dinner-
Mia, Max and Melony: -Freaking out because they just ate some very tasty human-
Bela, Daniela and Cassandra: -Trying to, unsuccessfully calm them down-
Elena: -Continues to eat her meat- My sanity is too far gone. That might as well happen.
I like this idea that Mia starts freaking the fuck out, and Alcina just keeps eating like nothing's wrong. As if she wouldn't be incredibly concerned over Mia getting upset and going into a panic out of no where. Like, Mia's had some strange reactions to certain food, and has definitely refused to eat things because of PTSD or sensory issues, but to actively cause a scene is unprecedented. (Also just the general trauma that would come back to her in the aftermath.)
I don't think Elena would keep eating it, but I do think she's the only one who doesn't have a long standing freak out over it. Like, it's disgusting. It's morally wrong (for whatever that counts for). But she hasn't like... lost an appetite for meat in general or anything. It's just another thing she'll bury in the back of her mind with her other trauma.
Max is... He definitely freaks out, but I think it's more of a silent "Oh shit oh fuck" type of freak out. Like, it's more of a look of horror and everything turing to white noise before it really hits him and he has to beeline to the bathroom to throw up. He's sick off of it. His mental health takes a hit, his insomnia gets bad again for a while, it kills his sex drive for a bit. He gets Daniela to check his meat now.
And Melony's just fucking done. Like, she freaks out as much as Mia does. Probably cries and/or gets sick. She won't touch red meat anymore (she never liked it anyway). Even chicken is iffy. Kinda makes her go quiet.
And the thing is the girls and Alcina reassure them it's not that bad. Literally they are dating women who eat humans and drink their blood. But all the partners just have this sense of morality they feel is gone and it clearly causes a bit of a shift.
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infinitewhore · 2 years
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A small one-shot abt achlys past since i am sick and am NOT in the mood to continue the marrige fic or Arcas fic so yup<3
Also warning?
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Italics are thoughts
"Hey Mike!"
"Ah Jordan, Everything alright?" Spoke the older operator turning around go look at the FBI Op, "Ah yeah, i just cannot find Achlys!" He chuckled while rubbing the back of his neck, "I need her for some Testing. Since Elena is busy doin stuff!"
"For elena stuff meaning Doc.."
"What was that?"
"Nothing!" As jordan was readjusting the bandages on his forearm, Mike pointed down the hallway towards the Gym, "Last time i heard 'er was the Gym" he spoke turning his back towards the younger OP again, "Thanks Mike!" Spoke jordan walking off, not before Mike spoke again, "Careful would ya? The Lass lost the plot last time i heard 'er" Jordan turned his head over his shoulder to look at mike "Lost the plot?" Mike just Chuckled, "it Means Angry" Jordan just nodded and walked off toward the gym.
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A Shout was heard comming from the gym bathrooms. None would know i just eavesdrop. Right? Jordan slowly put his ear against the bathroom door, "Я не вернусь домой Папа!" Achlys shouted. Russian?! Seriously Achlys! Let me text glaz.
J.T: Hey Glazkov!
T.G: what is it Trace?
J.T: just wondering if you'd like to play translator
T.G: depends..
J.T: Achlys is on a phone call at the gym and i cannot understand what she's saying?
T.G: You do know if she finds out you're eavesdropping she will kill you. And me if i help you
J.T: I'll order you new drawing stuff?
T.G: Gym you said да?
glaz head jerked away from the door after eavesdroppingand translating for jordan for about half a hour, "you good?" Jordan whisperd to him, "Shes talking to her father. I dont know if its smart to continue." He looked at jordan, glaz's eyes showing a bit of sadness, "Why?" Glaz sighs, "If we leave her alone, and i tell you apart of her story. Do i still get the Art stuff you promised?" Jordan nodded at the russian, "Definitely."
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"Her Father is... A very Abusive man." Glaz readjusted his beanie before continuing, "Last time i talked with her about it she said that-
'I joined the Spetsnaz program for 2 reasons. 1 to get away from my dad and 2, so i can train better' "
"Abusive, how?"
"The most common injuries he'd give her were broken arm's, gun- and Stab wounds she'd even pass out from exhaustion from time to time." While Glaz looked at the floor of the cafeteria, jordan put a hand on his shoulder, "you said the most common injuries, whats the worst?" Glaz balled his hands into a fist, knuckles going white, "When she was 16 he..
*Flashback *
(Just imagine everything said is in russian)
"Wake up, bitch!" Her father grabbed achlys by her ankle dragging her out of the bed, "Wh-Whats wrong dad?" Achlys just now waking up, realized what she said, "I- i meant sir! Im so sorry!" Her fear from the older man was noticeable, through her stuttering, "Shut it! Good for nothing slut!" He let go of her ankle, Now grabbing her arm instead to lift her up and tie her to a metal chair, "Sir? What are you doing?!" She tried to pull her arms and ankles free from the chains, unsuccessfully. "You are going to learn how to torture someone now, And your going to learn through pain" Hooking up a car battery to the metall chair he stroked her cheek, "you can only learn through pain dear~" and with that he stepped away, turning on the car battery. Achlys screams beaing heard through the whole compound.
After a hour of being shocked, with breaks in between, her father took away the battery, "have you had enough?~" he moved a strand of hair out of her face as the younger girl nodded, "Too bad" turning his back to the younger Girl he walked up to a table, "whats next.." he whisperd to himself. "Thats it.." grabbing a pair of tongs and a carton box he turned towards the girl, "this is going to hurt. "He chuckled, "but you know that of course" he pulled of her shoes and started to pull her toenails out with the tongs. "come on, you can handle this. Or are you Weak?", Achlys bit down on her lip shaking her head No, through a strained voice and gritted theeth she spoke quietly, "No-Not weak!", he chuckled. "And were done! Wasn't that bad hm deary?" He put a hand on her head, as he stood up from the kneeling position. "Ready for more?" he opend the box, The female started crying, "No.. please no" her please falling on empty ears as he lifts her ankels enough to put them in the box. "These are all of my broken glass bottles are you excited?" he laughed, "Yo-Your a Maniac!" She screamed at him, the words falling on deaf ears again as he applies pressure to her knees so the soles of her feet get cut by the glass. After 10 minutes he lets go of her knees, "No..No more please... i beg you." He head hung low, "fine. You'll clean yourself up tho." He untied her restrains and left.
*end if Flashback*
"What the fuck.." glaz just chuckled, "Yes, and that happend maybe three times per month" Jordan's mouth was agape, "the next day Sasha, Visited her base since he was supposed go pick a recruit up for the spetsnaz program" he Chuckled, "Слава Богу he picked her"(thank god) Jordan's broes furrowed, "Is he still a General?.." he looked at glaz in fear of other recruits he might torture like that. Glaz sighs and nodds, "No.." he coverd his mouth in a shock, "He hasn't been reported yet?!" Jordan slammed his fits into his lap, "Russia is... kinda wierd when jt comes to that stuff.." glaz rubbs the back of his neck, "But atleast shes free of his grasp?"
A pair of hands snaked themselves to Thermite and Glaz's Throats, "Where you pretty boys talking about me?"
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Ok but I'm over here thinking about that one time Klaus talked in an American accent and how that was the first time he sounded like an actual douchebag.
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livlepretre · 3 years
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Hey so this is something I meant to ask a while ago, but I totally forgot about it until like five minutes ago. A few chapters ago, Klaus told Elena he hadn’t slept with anyone in years. Is this a head canon you have about Klaus? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought I remembered you saying you thought he would have been sexually reckless in his very early vampire years. If you do think he’s been celibate more recently, is this because he was kind of a paranoid reclusive for a while there? I feel like what I’m asking has different responses based on which universe we are speaking about—whether that be canon, FE canon, or SWBS canon. Cuz like I could see you needing to add that in there so there’s no possibility Klaus has gotten other women pregnant recently in the SWBS narrative. Long story short, I guess I just want to know if there was a reason for this specific line and how you head canon Klaus’s sex life has been over the course of a thousand years.
oh my God YESSSS I love this ask haha
I think that Klaus lost his virginity to Tatia Petrova, and she was the only woman he ever slept with as a human. (She was also sleeping with Elijah, but I do think she was in love with both of them but Elijah was the one who offered that shot at getting married/having a better life, and Tatia was enough of a realist to try-- unsuccessfully-- to break it off with Klaus, but that’s a whole other headcanon.) 
Her death fucked him up pretty much permanently. I think his whole “love is a vampire’s greatest weakness” thing is a result of this tragedy-- this was him turning his heart to stone after having it utterly broken. And of course... also turning his heart to stone in the wake of not even knowing how Tatia felt about him in the end-- was she using him? Stringing him along? Did she really love him back? He’ll never know, because his parents murdered her in the most gruesome and terrifying way possible. 
This doesn’t mean he doesn’t indulge his appetites though. He and his siblings quickly descend into lusts of every sort-- their bloodlust and their sexual appetites intermingle, get confused-- Klaus dabbles with women, playing games with consent and seduction using compulsion, egged on by Kol, and even Elijah, and egging them on in turn. His lovers are often his victims, especially in those early days, when he had less control over his appetites and left a lot more bodies in his wake. It wouldn’t be very long before the list included men as well as women, and those early years would have been almost like a kind of frenzy-- a savagery fueled by the madness of the curse, the fact that their lives had been ripped apart by their parents whom they should have been able to trust, by the dark maw of his grief. 
I think he and Rebekah would have become lovers sometime around 10, 20 years into being vampires-- the subtext of the show supports their incest-- they’re just too weird together!-- and I headcanon that he would have been the one to take her virginity. It would have to be far enough into their curse that by then all of the social mores prohibiting various cruelties and abominations like sibling incest would have been stripped from them-- they were already delighting in murder, torture, rape, etc by then for some time, slaves to their own damnations-- but soon enough after the turn that Rebekah wouldn’t have fallen in love with someone/had the opportunity to have a lover. I could see this being something that would spur Klaus’s possessiveness-- and he’s very possessive of Rebekah. I don’t even see it as romantic in any way-- I think sex for Klaus is largely a mechanism of control and dominance, and he exerts it over Rebekah, his favorite sibling, his pet, the very most. Any hint that she’s going to stray from him, or give her heart, loyalties, and affection elsewhere, and he uses his sexual hold on her to keep her there, and kills the lover for good measure. (Why just Rebekah? Because I don’t actually think the incest extends elsewhere... except maaaybbeee Kol/Rebekah... well, because 1) she’s the only girl and Klaus is definitely misogynistic enough to view this as a weakness or something he can control 2) she’s younger, and her personality is easier to control than Kol, who is a wild child and bucks authority on top of being as suspicious and paranoid as Klaus, or Elijah, who is Klaus’s equal and whose wrath Klaus is always always wary of.) 
So, for a very long time, I think that Klaus sleeps around in a casually vicious way, with Rebekah as his only long-term, on again-off again lover (although, there are probably some mistresses here and there, and probably some witches too, who might last a bit longer, or who might make it out alive), until we get to Katerina. 
Katerina. The woman with Tatia’s face. A duplicate, body and soul. She’s the greatest danger Klaus has faced since his turning, because she’s the one girl his heart might be vulnerable to. So he shores himself up even more. Strengthens that wall of stone around his heart, and keeps himself cold to her. He can’t resist taking her as his lover, of course, or keeping her as his mistress while he gathers the resources necessary to sacrifice her. But all the while, even while he has her in his bed every night, even as he’s plotting her murder, he’s seething with fury and jealousy. He’s envious of Elijah, who falls in love with her, plain and simple; envious of Trevor, even, for the same reason... because she is the one woman he wants, but he’s also too selfish to ever contemplate doing anything other than murdering her for the sake of obtaining his power, so she is also the one woman he cannot have. And he cannot ever allow himself to love her, because he will definitely kill her. And he’s furious when Elijah comes up with a plan to save her, because Klaus is also afraid of Katerina. Afraid of that possibility that if he falls in love, it will be a weakness, just like his love for Tatia was a grave weakness. The thing that was his undoing oh so long ago. 
Of course, Katerina runs, and Klaus feels this proves him absolutely right about her. 
A few more centuries pass. I think with time we see his bloodlust slaked, and more and more of his bedmates survive the encounters. He grows bored, and restless. There’s no more hope for ever breaking the curse, and so his life feels very static. He has nothing to look forward to specifically. He takes lovers here and there, and he falls in and out of Rebekah’s bed, but nothing touches that stone heart of his. 
This changes pretty significantly in the 20s. By then he’s suffered a harrowing blow. The family is broken apart, and it’s just him and Rebekah-- really just him and Rebekah, indefinitely-- for the first time he can ever recall. 
This is when Stefan joins the picture... Stefan, whom Rebekah adores, but who can be something different than every other lover Rebekah has had-- he can be that missing brother for Klaus-- who is looking for someone to fill the void now that Elijah (and Kol, and Marcel, but honestly not Finn because he’s been daggered for eight centuries) is gone. And because Klaus’s ideas about sex and power and sibling love are all screwed up, and because Stefan is charming and handsome and fun, Rebekah and Stefan’s affair quickly becomes Rebekah and Stefan and Klaus’s affair-- the three of them all tangled up together. And it’s precarious but Rebekah will take whatever she can have and Klaus is greedy for emotional fulfillment and Stefan is high all the time and having a great time having great sex so he doesn’t take any of it as seriously as he definitely should. 
Then of course there is the separation. 
I think during this long time period Klaus probably continues his pattern of casual sexual flings, but I doubt he really gets close to anyone. In fact, other than Rebekah or Katerina, I have the feeling that Stefan is the only other person he was sexually involved with that he really cared about. That’s why he wanted him back in 2010 when he ran into him again and the timing seemed right. 
I guess this now gets into the present-- my feeling isn’t so much that Klaus has been celibate as a matter of choice or paranoia or anything (although, he is paranoid, which is why he hasn’t fallen in love again in a thousand years), just that he is simply so old that years might pass between flings and he doesn’t really notice. It doesn’t seem like that long for him necessarily-- years can feel like weeks at this point-- and he’s grown pickier as he’s gotten older-- someone has to interest him for him to pursue, and it takes more and more to interest him now than it did before. 
Like, the show does suggest to me that Klaus may have been sleeping with Greta Martin, and that would fall directly in line with his MO-- we’ve seen him sleep with witches before, and we know that power does interest him. He’s not exactly upset by her death though, even though he seemed to like her-- also in line with how he refuses to become emotionally invested in his lovers. 
I do think though that he was sleeping with Stefan in that summer they spent together-- again, Stefan is an exception to the rule, although he’s not in love with Stefan-- Stefan slides into that weird Klaus category of “brother,” which is a gray area muddled in with lover for him-- essentially the same place that Rebekah occupies, but without the same levels of (faint) protection that actually being Klaus’s blood sibling provides. It’s fascinating to me that Klaus would reinitiate the affair with Stefan without returning Stefan’s memories-- it implies that he wanted Stefan’s devotion pure and simple, like making him fall into his orbit again to see if it will happen again, but it also implies a selfishness and greed for Stefan’s devotion, because he wants it focused on himself and not at all to share with Rebekah. 
I’m sure there was a wild week or two where they all resumed their relationship when Rebekah was reawakened before Klaus discovered Stefan had been lying all summer about Elena. 
My last thought on all of this is to do with Klaus and Elena. I’ve pondered and pondered and pondered why Klaus would choose to kill Jenna when Elena had already promised to go along with him willingly, obviously for the sake of her loved ones, and I had to think he was angry with her and taking it out on her that he had to kill her at all-- because there was a part of Klaus that wanted her for himself, and he couldn’t have her because, once again, he’s way too selfish to ever consider doing anything other than securing his own power. 
I suppose this takes us up to the present.
I put that line in SWBS but left it intentionally easy to misconstrue-- Klaus says he hasn’t had a woman in years, which makes it clear that there’s been no one  he could have gotten pregnant, but there’s been some subtext with Stefan’s responses to Elena sleeping with Klaus that imply that he has that history with Klaus himself-- I think the only fic I have where I wrote it without assuming that Stefan and Klaus were sleeping together that summer was After the Fire, But Before the Flood, but that was only because I wrote most of it before season 3 aired/before that season 3 promo ignited the Klaus x Stefan alarm bells in my brain. So anyway, in SWBS, Klaus and Stefan have that recent sexual history, and Klaus was probably sleeping with Rebekah a bit before Mystic Falls too, but does Klaus even see her as a woman? Doubtful, honestly. There’s something else going on there. 
I’m pretty fluid though in terms of what I think Klaus’s recent sexual history is-- sometimes like in Just A Glimpse, he’s been sleeping with Greta, sometimes the affair with Rebekah and Stefan is full steam ahead like in Fairytale Ending, and sometimes it all fizzles on him like in SWBS. 
I do still think it’s hilarious and amazing that the only time Klaus canonically sleeps with someone in TVD it’s because Hayley negs him into oblivion with her (entirely fair and accurate) assessment of his artwork. 
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axwalker · 4 years
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Now and Then 4: Unrequited
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I’m participating in @wackydrabbles and the prompt this week is # 45: “I don’t hate you” and will appear in bold.
Synopsis: Synopsis:   The story of Alexis’s and Drake’s friendship since they met when they were 10 years old until they become roommates after college. (AU)
In this chapter: Lexie tries to reconnect with her father while she deals with her feelings for Drake. 
Warning: Teen angst, A very bad father, Unrequited love. THE CONTENT OF THIS BLOG IS NOT SUITABLE FOR UNDER 18
Word count: 1700 🙈
Tagging wacky drabblers: @texaskitten30​ @bebepac​ @pedudley​ @sirbeepsalot​ @burnsoslow​ @ravenpuff02​ @loveellamae​ @oofchoices​ @emceesynonymroll​
Permatag: @ac27dj​ @twinkle-320​ @kimmiedoo5​ @marshmallowsandfire​ @mskaneko​ @pug-bitch​ @princessleac1​
2012. (17 years old)
Drake parked the Jeep that he had spent all summer repairing in front of Lex's house. While he waited for her, he turned on the radio and raised the volume at AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long. On his rear mirror, he saw Lexie leaving her house with a cherry Pop-Tart in her mouth, and her backpack half-opened; she was tying up her hair in a messy bun as she approached his car.
"The alarm didn't sound again?" Drake asked teasingly when she got into the car.
"It did." She chewed the last bit of Pop-Tart. "I got in an argument with my mom. My dad wants to see me, but she doesn't want me to go."
Drake frowned. "Out of the blue? Isn't that a little weird?"
"It's for my birthday, Drake."
"Lex, your birthday was more than two weeks ago."
"He was busy. He said he tried to call me, but you know this thing never works," Lexie said, pointing at her old cellphone.
Call me, Maybe start playing on the radio. She smiled mischievously.
Drake rolled his eyes, "Don't you dare, Lex."
Lexie looked at him mockingly and raised the volume.
"Just don't do the dance, please don't do the dance," he pleaded, knowing that it was pointless.
"Do you mean this dance?" she grinned as she sang along with the radio, dancing and mimicking the song's dance moves with her hands.
"You're such a dork." Drake chuckled.  
Lexie laughed. "Come on, Walker, I know you want to too." She kept singing. "Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy …" She threw Drake a mischievous look and pointed finger guns at him.
"… But here's my number, so call me maybe," Drake talked more than sang as he shook his head smiling. They both burst into laughter.
When the song ended, Drake lowered the volume and asked, "Are you going to see him?"
"My dad? Well … maybe …" She bit her lip.
He saw the gesture. "What?"
"I thought that maybe you could come with me?"
"Hard pass."
"Please, Drake! I really want to see him, but it's been a while. Plus, Cindy and Sean will be there too, they make me so nervous." Lexie grimaced at the thought of her stepmother and stepbrother.
Drake had never met George O'Brien. In their six years of friendship, Lexie's father had called her for her birthday a total of three times -always late- and she rarely saw him. Drake loathed the guy, but for some reason, Lexie was desperate to reconnect with him. Drake couldn't understand, if Bianca came back, he wouldn't even give her the time of day.
"If Elena doesn't want you to see him, she must have her reasons," Drake said as he parked the car.
"Dad was a crappy husband, but he loves me; he wants to have a relationship with me." She sighed. "You don't have to come if you don't want to, though."
Drake detected the hint of vulnerability in her voice. "Don't worry, Lex; I'll be there. When is it?"
"Tonight," Alexis replied as they walked to the school.
"Shit! I had a date with Haley."
The mention of Drake's girlfriend made Lexie nauseous. She had been unsuccessfully fighting her feelings for Drake for over a year. As much as she tried, she couldn't avoid the flip on her stomach when she saw him, or her heart racing every time he smiled at her.
"I know. I tried to change the day, but he refused."
"It's okay, Lex. I'll talk to Haley; I can always find ways to make it up to her later." Drake smiled.
"Eww! Disgusting, Walker”.  
"Drake!" Haley yelled with her sickly-sweet tone of voice
Alexis rolled her eyes. “And that's my cue to leave.”
“You could give her a chance, you know? She’s nice.”
“Right. See you at lunch?"
"Yeah.”
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The rest of the morning passed quickly. At lunch, Lexie threw a glance towards her regular table in the cafeteria. Liam, Olivia, and Max were talking while Haley and Drake were kissing each other. Alexis wondered if there ever came out for air. She was about to leave the cafeteria with an empty stomach when Max yelled her name.
Shit. Lexie waved back and sat next to Max across the two happy couples. She slammed her tray on the table, crashing it against Drake's.
"Is everything alright, Lexie?" Liam asked.
"Yeah," Lexie answered angrily.
Olivia and Max exchanged a look. They knew perfectly what the problem was.
"Penelope is having a party Sunday night. Would you like to come? She has a pool," Haley said, smiling.
"Sunday is GOT night, and we all watch it at Li's house, sorry," Lexie said dismissively.
Drake glared at her.
"You can come too; It's actually pretty fun," Liam invited Haley before Olivia could kick him under the table.
"What's GOT?" Haley asked.
Drake was about to answer, but Lexie beat him to it. "Are you serious? Game of Thrones. Best show ever," she replied, annoyed.
"Oh! I hate it!' Haley grimaced. "So much blood and killing. Totally a boy's show."
Lexie snapped at her, "I guess Liv and I didn't realize that we needed a penis to watch a TV show. Maybe, you can give us a list of the things girls are supposed to like." When she saw Haley blushing embarrassed, Lexie knew she had gone too far. She bit her lip, ashamed of herself.  
Drake shot her a furious look and stood up from the table. "Come on, Haley. We have Algebra in 10 minutes."
Oliva smirked. "Remind me not to piss you off."
"What? She was sexist!" Lexie defended herself.
"Right, that's why you scolded her, feminism," Maxwell laughed. “Nothing to do with Dr-” Max stopped talking when Lexie elbowed him. Liam didn’t know anything.
"Why do you dislike her so much?" Liam asked before finishing his cheeseburger.
"I don't. I have to go; I have class too." She left in a hurry. She was feeling angry and frustrated, specially with herself.
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After class, she ran to the locker rooms to change for Gym when she stumbled upon Haley.
"I was looking for you," Haley said, tucking her hair behind her ear.
"I'm sorry, Haley I have Gym like in five minutes," Lexie replied, trying to be more agreeable than she was at lunch.
"It's going to be fast. I just wanted to tell you that I'd like it if we could be friends. I know you hate me, but I think you're cool, and it would be best for Drake if we all got along."
Haley was a tall, green-eyed gorgeous blond. As if that wasn't threatening enough, she was kind and friendly too.
Lexie sighed. "I don't hate you. I'm sorry about this morning, that wasn't about you." Or not entirely.
"It's fine." Haley gave her a perfect smile. "I know Drake loves Game of Thrones. Would you explain it to me? So, I can watch it with him?"
Lexie suppressed her urge to roll her eyes. "You don't have to like it only because he does, you know?" Trying to make amends for her earlier behavior, she added, "but, if you want to, yeah, I'll explain it."
Haley almost jumped. "Thank you, Lex."
"Uhm, only Drake calls me Lex," she said but added apologetically, "but you can call me Lexie if you want though, all my friends do."
"Got it, thanks, Lexie. I better run; I have class too." Haley waved her god-bye.
Lexie was about to enter the gym when she got a text message from her father. It turned out that he couldn't have dinner that night, but he asked her to go to his lawyer's office and sign some papers related to her grandfather's inheritance next week. That was the real reason he wanted to see her, not to reconnect with her. Elena was right about him.
After typing a quick text to Drake telling him that he was free for his date, Lexie decided to skip Gym, she wasn't in the mood. She walked around for a while until she reached the football field. She sat on the stands with a framed photo of her father in her hands, she had planned to give it to him that night as a gift. In the picture, she was 8 years old and was looking at her father adoringly as they decorated a Christmas tree. Lexie hated to cry but couldn't help herself. Everything in her life was upside down. A father that didn't love her and a crush that would never be anything else. Lexie was well aware that Drake only saw her as his best friend.
"Lex," Drake said, startling her.
Lexie tried to wipe the tears off her face so he wouldn't see them. "What are you doing here? I thought you had a date."
"You're worried about Haley now?" He said, handing her a Coke, her comfort drink.
"Hey! I apologized!" Lexie exclaimed after taking a sip of the drink.
Drake chuckled. "Yeah, only because she went looking for you."
"Can we count this as a win? I apologized to one of your girlfriends, that's unheard of."
"You're so damn stubborn that yes; we'll count this as a win." He couldn't explain it, but Drake sort of liked how possessive Lexie was with him.
They sat in silence for a moment. Drake had seen her crying when he sat next to her, but he knew his best friend better than anyone, she needed a little space before talking about her problems.
After a while, he finally asked, "Are you okay, Lex?"
"Uh-huh," she replied.
"Lex, look at me."
Her big brown eyes looked up to him. Drake's heart tightened with her sadness. "He's not worth it. You know it, right?" He put his arm around her shoulders. “If he doesn’t appreciate to have a daughter like you, then he’s a piece of crap.”
"He's my dad. He's supposed to love me no matter what," Lexie cried despite herself. "If he doesn't, who will?"
"I'm always going to be here, Lex. No matter what."
She looked at him. "You say that now, but you will fall in love and forget all about me."
Drake raised her chin with his fingers, she almost melted when she met his deep gaze. "Never. No matter what happens you’ll always be my best friend Lex." He placed a friendly kiss on her forehead. "I swear.”
“Me too,” she answered sadly as she placed her head on his shoulder.
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blackmissfrizzle · 4 years
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Hey Hey! Just wondering if you have any Klaus Mikaelson x Black reader fics?? They're like non existent along with Kol fics with a Black reader. But if you're doing requests, can you do one where the reader is long time friends with benefits with Klaus and he's always wondered how she's never loved him back or had feelings and finds out that she had someone compulse her to not have feelings for him in fear of being hurt by him? Thank you love!
Ahhhh! My first request!!!! Thank you for this request!!! I’ve been racking my brain for a plot for a Klaus x black!reader, but couldn’t think of anything. Also, sorry for posting it so late after the request. I struggled with the ending but I hope you like it! @ourquicksilvered
Title: Beauty and the Beast
A/N: Fluff. Some angst. And then back to the fluff.
A/N:I really hope I got the characterization of Klaus right. 
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“Stay,” Klaus ordered as you rummaged the room for your discarded clothes. It was becoming more frequent that Klaus would ask you to stay after hooking up, but you couldn’t or more like you wouldn’t. No sleeping over unless you had feelings for them, was one of your personal rules and you wouldn’t break it for anybody, even Klaus Mikaelson. However, you did wonder how you didn’t fall in love with Klaus, he was exactly your type. Bad boy who secretly had a heart a gold. It had to be that he could be a raging, murderous psychopath at times that stopped you from developing feelings for him.
Shimming your jeans over your wide hips you answered your former enemy turned best friend. “You know I can’t Klaus. Sleepovers only for boyfriends. Anyways, I’m meeting with Marcel. He’s helping me with a history paper.”
Klaus clenched his jaw, struggling to keep his anger at bay. Why would you leave his bed just to visit another man? He thought you had to be the most infuriating woman and he was hopelessly in love with you.
The day he met you, he was occupying Alaric Saltzman’s body and you were an aide delivering something to his class. It was the way your brown skin gleamed against the sunlight and your melodic voice that had caught his eye, and when you were the first person to figure out that he was Klaus and not Alaric, he was intrigued. That was why he had you along with Stefan agree to come with him in exchange of his blood to cure Damon from a werewolf bite.
He knew he fell in love with you when you unsuccessfully tried to thwart every one of his attempts to turn werewolves into hybrids and he didn’t try to kill you. It was your fierceness, bravery, and kindness that you displayed that made him open up. With each little tidbit of information about himself and how horribly his parents treated him, you understood him more and your heart began opening up to him, until one night you both were craving the touch of someone and you ended up in his bed. Thus, began your friends with benefits relationship.
When you got back to Mystic Falls you noticed you were falling in love with the notorious hybrid, but when you noticed how Klaus paid no regard to your feelings in his choices, you had Damon compel away your feelings for him.
Now it’s almost been three years and there was no change in your dynamic. The two of you would text while he would try to distract you from whatever diabolic plan he had going on, you find out about the plan and try to discourage him from going through with it, sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don’t, and when you don’t, you fuss at him for being an asshole then you two end up in a screaming match only for you to end up face down ass up in Klaus’ bed as he goes to pound town. Klaus was tired of it, he wanted more. He wanted a relationship, but he knew if he pushed you, he would lose you altogether.
“I’m hurt, love. You know I’m older than Marcel, I can help with that pesky paper of yours.”
You took in a gasp of disbelief and clutched your invisible pearls. “What? Klaus Mikaelson wants to help with homework? Hell must’ve frozen over.” Klaus gave you a fake chuckle as he dangled your shirt. You snatched it from him and worked its way over your torso.
“When I need help over Viking history, I’ll call you. But if you have a first-hand account on how black men were used as cannon fodder on the front lines during the war, then by all means help a girl out.”
He rolled his eyes, because he knew you needed Marcel’s help and had to accept defeat. “Please be careful. You know my psychotic parents are on the loose. And remember last time you didn’t fair too well against Michael.”
You grabbed one of the pillows that fell onto the floor and threw it at Klaus, but thanks to his vamp speed he caught it. “Asshole.”
“Don’t be a sore loser, love!” He called out as you exited the room.
--
Klaus and Elijah were standing before the woman they hated the most, Esther Mikaleson. Currently, she was occupying the body of a local witch, Lenore and she once again was trying to convince her sons to become human.
“Give it up, mother. We’ll never change our minds.” Klaus exhaustedly stated.
“Not even for your precious, Y/N, Niklaus?”
Rage consumed Klaus at the mention of your name and grabbed and lifted Esther by her throat. “What have you done with her,” he bellowed as he threw his mother across the room.
With the flick of her hand, Esther had Klaus on his knees agonizing in pain. “I’ve done nothing. I just gave her a little potion to get into that mind of hers. And by the way son, that was a struggle, she’s strong. You’ve chosen a good one.”
“The theatrics are unnecessary, mother.” Elijah rolled his eyes, obviously wanting to be done with the little game his mother was playing.
“Ah, yes back to what I had to say. Like I was saying, I went deep into Y/N’s mind and found a buried memory. She’d been compelled.”
Clenching through his teeth, Klaus responded, “Impossible. She wears a vervain bracelet and mentally trains herself against it.”
“But what if it was her choice to be compelled, my dear boy?” Klaus stood there in silence, he knew you hated the thought of compulsion, because it took away control. “I found a memory of her asking Damon Salavtore to compel her. You want to know why?”
“I’m sure you’ll let us know either way,” the boredom filled Elijah’s tone.
“My dear sweet Niklaus, she asked for him to make her forget her feelings for you. She’s afraid that you would break her heart, because you would never change, and she wouldn’t be able to survive. The poor girl is in love with you.”
“LIES!” Niklaus yelled, he refused to believe Esther. You were not one to shy away from your feelings and wouldn’t agree to such a thing.
He tried to attack his mother again, but she incapacitated him with her powers. “I suggest you take my offer, Niklaus. I doubt Y/N would have hesitated to confess her feelings if you were human, just remember that.” And just like that Esther disappear.
Noticing he was on the edge, Elijah preemptively tried to calm Klaus down. “Brother, she was lying. Don’t do anything rash.”
“Get out of my way, Elijah. I have a trip to Mystic Falls I must make. I’ll be back within a day.” Klaus turned his back to his brother and went out in search for the truth.
--
After threatening the life of Elena Gilbert, Damon finally told Klaus the truth. You did in fact ask Damon to compel you to forget your feelings about Klaus. Now, Klaus was in a mix of fury and joy, mad that you had your feelings compelled away, but happy that you had feelings for him in the first place.
“This isn’t gonna work. You actually think Y/N is gonna let me compel her to break a compulsion. You’re delusional.” Damon tried to convince Klaus from the passenger seat.
Thankfully, the ride to Marcel’s place was short, because Klaus was seconds away from ripping Damon’s heart out. He and Damon were welcomed to the sight of you sitting next to Marcel, a little too close for comfort for Klaus. Both of you were too focused that neither one of you noticed the two new guests. Klaus loudly cleared his throat to gain your attention.
Lifting up your head, you saw two of your best friends standing next to each other.
“Damon! What are you doing here?” You ran over to him and pulled him into a tight hug.
“Helping out your psychopathic hybrid friend.”
“Careful Salvatore, I could easily rip out your heart if need be.” Klaus threatened through gritted teeth.
Damon wagged his finger at Klaus, “Except you need me.”
Tired of their pissing contest you got in between them, putting a little bit of distance between the two. “Ok that’s enough. What’s the problem? Is it Esther or Michael?”
“Esther. She somehow got a hold of you and revealed a secret you had Damon compel away.”
Laughter bubbles from your throat. There’s no way Esther could’ve gotten to you and you let Damon compel you.  “You’re joking right?”
Klaus stepped up towards you and gripped your arms to grab your attention. “Luv, it’s not a joke and I need you to let Damon undo the compulsion.”
Soon your disbelief turned into worry. How the hell did Esther get ahold of you and why can’t you remember. But a more important question you had to ask yourself was, what was so damn important or secretive that you had Damon compel you.
All three in the room could sense your panic. Each knew you were a control freak, especially being the human friend of a bunch of supernatural creatures. So, for you to not know anything had your anxiety on the rise.
“Listen, Y/N. I know if you had yourself compelled you had it done for a good reason, but if you want that control back that Esther took from you, I think your best option is to reverse the compulsion.” Marcel offered.
You stared at your friend’s warm brown eyes and shook your head yes. Even if you didn’t agree, someone else knew a secret of yours that you couldn’t recall on and you didn’t want to give anyone that power.
“Okay, Damon let’s do this.”
“You sure,” Damon asked with a quirk of his eyebrow.
“Yes! I can’t let that bitch have something over me.”
Damon had to remind you to take off your vervain bracelet and let all of your mental guards down, since you were so easily resistant to compulsion. To help relax your mind you took three shots of Marcel’s good bourbon, which annoyed him a just a little.
Once you felt your guard slipping, you gave Damon the go ahead. His blue eyes peered into your brown ones as he commanded you to remember.
One word. Three syllables. That was all it took for all the feelings to come rushing back. It was bittersweet. You remembered the immense love you have for Klaus, but you also remembered knowing it would never work out.
Tentatively, Klaus walked over to your hunched over form and reached out to you. “Luv, are you okay?”
Instantly you slapped his hand away from you. Feeling betrayed by his dubious act. “Get away from me.”
Finally gaining your strength, you stood up to your full height. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew exactly what you were looking for?” You accusingly asked the love of your life.
Klaus didn’t trust his voice, so instead he just shook his head yes.
“And you had to have threatened Elena’s life, huh? Because Damon would have never done this if you hadn’t.” You could feel yourself getting angrier as you put the pieces together. “Did Esther even kidnap me or was that part of the lie?”
“It was the truth! I just needed to know if your feelings were true!” Klaus yelled back at you.
Old insecurities bubbled up and you responded, “Why? So, you can make fun of me or use them to manipulate me?”
“No! You completely oblivious and infuriating woman. Its because I LOVE YOU!”
That proclamation got you to shut up. The only thing that broke the silence was Damon whispering a ‘finally’.
“We’ll let you have the room. I just ask Y/N, if you do decide to kill him be mindful of the furniture,” Marcel said as he and Damon exited his loft.
Awkwardly you stood there staring at Klaus in disbelief. Did the original hybrid you’ve been secretly pining for have feelings for you? It couldn’t be.
“Stop overthinking, luv,” Klaus called out, interrupting your inner dialogue.
“I wasn’t overthinking.”
“Sure, you were. Its what you do best. Anyway, your face scrunches up when you’re thinking too much. It’s cute.”
You looked at Klaus as if he grown a third head. “How do you know that?” You asked skeptically.
“Because I love you. I loved you ever since our first summer together.”
“You mean the summer where you held me hostage as you killed multiple packs of wolves trying to sire hybrids?”
Klaus shrugged his shoulders, “Not the ideal beginnings of a love story, but yes. And I do remember you coming on your own free will.”
“That’s because you were gonna let my friend die if I didn’t go with you!”
Again, there was another moment of silence. Both of you retreating into your own minds, remembering that summer. It had to be one of the best worst summers ever. On one hand you were falling in love and on the other you were falling in love with a homicidal maniac.
As you reminisced on that summer, you began to laugh at a random thought you had.
“What’s so funny, little hunter?” Klaus asked, curious of your sudden outburst.
“I just realized I probably have a worse case of Stockholm syndrome than Belle,” you responded between giggles.
“Belle?”
“From Beauty and the Beast. C’mon I had you watch that movie like a thousand times.”
Disregarding you describing your relationship as Stockholm syndrome, Klaus horribly joked, “Well you’re the Beauty to my Beast”
“Wowwwww. That’s was horrendously corny. I thought Kol was the only Mikaelson with such horrible jokes.” You replied as you looked up to the man of your dreams.
“Besides we wouldn’t work anyway,” you said, steering the conversation in another direction.
“How,” he asked in a whisper, pulling on one of your tight coils.
Knowing Klaus was using his closeness to you as a distraction, you moved towards Marcel’s tumbler to pour yourself another drink. “Most likely, you’ll be a manipulative asshole or go on one of your psychopathic tirades without any regards to my feelings. And I’m a hunter and you’re a vampire.”
“Well, luv, I hate to break it to you. You’re not a very good hunter, considering almost a good portion of your friends are vampires.” Klaus pointed out.
Automatically you flipped the bird at Klaus, and he responded by throwing his head back in laughter, causing the butterflies to flutter around in your stomach. It was one of the most glorious sounds you heard, and it was one that you didn’t get to hear too often.
“I’m serious, Niklaus. It’ll never work. No matter how hard I try to get you on the straight and narrow, somehow you still end up doing something devious and breaking my heart in the end.”
Klaus knew the conversation was getting serious when you used his full name. He took every word you said in consideration, but he was ready with his rebuttal. “Y/N, I’m trying to change. If Damon can change for Elena, then I damn sure can change for you.”
Smacking your forehead in frustration, you argued back. “That’s the problem, Klaus. I don’t need you to change for me. I need you to change for yourself.  Change for Hope. Don’t use me as your emotional and moral crutch. You have to do this on your own.”
You were walking to the door when Klaus vamp ran in front of you. “No. You don’t get to leave until you hear me out. Then you can decide if you want this to happen or we can just remain friends.”
Following Klaus as a sign of agreeance, you sat down on the couch. You at least owed him this explanation.
Klaus grabbed your hands and encased them in his. “What I meant is I do want to change. I want to be a better father for Hope, and I want to be a better friend and lover to you. You deserve that. Hope deserves that. It just helps to have that reminder when your right by my side. I can’t promise to always be the better man. I’m still working on that temper of mine. But I promise to you and Hope, you’ll get a different Niklaus Mikealson than the one from centuries ago. Hell, a different one than from a year ago. Just let me love you the way you deserve until you tire of me, please.”
By the end of his speech, tears were on the cusp from falling from the both of you. Klaus was right that he was a different man than he was a year ago. So, how different could he be in another five? Also, you were pretty sure that if you really hated Klaus’ decisions you wouldn’t be friends with him, and you would’ve been long gone.
“I could never get tired of you. I love you too much for that,” you admitted, finally declaring your love to Klaus.
A smile crept on his face and he leaned his forehead against yours. “Really,” he whispered against your lips.
“Yeah, really. You’re my always and forever,” you whispered back, quoting the Mikaelson family motto.
Klaus pulled you into a kiss, marking you as his. Promising you a future full of love and passion.
When his lips did release yours, he replied back, “I love you, too. Always and forever.”
@twistedcharismaaa
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Not Her Nature
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Unwrapping the MRE with the outdated, from her perspective, S.H.I.E.L.D. logo, Daisy couldn't help a little grimace. She was hardly a fussy eater – growing up in the system, living in a van and now dealing with a semi apocalyptic crisis every Wednesday really taught the value of adaptability – but the damn things had enough bad associations to make her regret not spending a few more minutes in the pantry, digging for something else.
They looked exactly the same as the ones they had found in storage in the Lighthouse when they had traveled back from the post-apocalyptic future to their then present, which was actually their past now, but in the future, except maybe not anymore, and wow, if that train of thought didn't do a number on her already developing headache.
Time traveling-induced headache or not, the field ration was just as tasteless as its decades old counterparts they'd had around those very frayed weeks she really preferred not to think about.
It hadn't been the years, then. Just their nature.
Noticing the coffee pot in this new but actually old Lighthouse's command center was cold, she casually used her powers to heat it up in seconds and poured herself a cup.
“So that's your gift.”
Daisy jumped. Some super spy she was. Good thing May wasn't here to see it.
Her mother was standing behind her, a serene expression on her unmarred visage, with just a hint of curiosity and amusement. God, this was weird.
“Forgive the intrusion, I didn't mean to startle you.”
“No, it's alright. I'm supposed to guard you, anyway”. Daisy shrugged, sipping on her newly re-heated coffee. Almost as bad as the field ration. She fished for more sugar.
“It didn't help the taste, did it?” said Jiaying, with the faint of a smile. Daisy chuckled.
“Nope. I probably should have made a fresh batch. There's tea, though...I can heat up the water if you'd like?”
“How do you do that?”
“It's vibrations. I can sense them and manipulate them”, she explained, keeping it basic, because it was a fair bit more than that.
“You vibrate the water molecules and that produces heat” her mother nodded, understanding not quite replacing curiosity. She didn't follow up on her offer of tea, so Daisy went back to her unappealing meal. Jiaying's presence wasn't improving it.
Logically, she understood, and better than ever now, how what her mother had gone through had broken her... but, five years later, the betrayal still felt raw. As the nagging doubts. Her biological parents had been monsters. She had told herself they had become that way, that it wasn't their nature and therefore not hers, either. Yet the part of her that never really dealt with heartbreak and just run away from it, sometimes literally, hadn't fully moved past it.
“Any word from your friends?”, Jiaying asked, bringing her back to their present situation, hunkered down at the Lighthouse while the team was flying to Afterlife.
“Not yet. They should be landing in about an hour”.
Worry and frustration revealed the lie of Jiyaing's serene countenance.
“I wish we didn't stay behind. My people are in terrible danger and I'm hiding”. She said, as much to Daisy as to the empty room.
“Generals don't fight on the front lines.”
“We are not an army.”
“We were meant to be.”
As soon as she said it, Daisy mentally kicked herself. She shouldn't even be mentioning any of this but the entire situation was throwing her off balance and then some. Meeting her own mother, five years before she was supposed to be born. Her own mother, who she had wished for the first 26 years of her life. Her own mother, who had tried to kill her. Her own mother, whose skeleton she had dug up in a desperate attempt to save the person dearest to her. Sometimes, Daisy seriously wondered how her life was even real.
She was also not a fan of the “staying behind” thing. As she had told Mack. Repeatedly. Unsuccessfully.
She refocused on Jiaying.
“It's not what we chose to be. Our people have lived secluded for centuries. We have kept ourselves from the world, never involving in its troubles. The world is not inclined to return such courtesy, it seems.” Her mother's piercing gaze found hers again. “You and Elena, is that what you are, though? Soldiers?”
“We help people.” If the older woman recognized the defensiveness in her tone, she didn't comment on it. Her eyes once again turned to the room that was buzzing with 1980s computer noises and a cacophony of contrasting vibrations Daisy was becoming acutely aware of.
“When I was younger – Jiaying started, her tone more wistful than Daisy ever remembered – I thought our gifts should be shared, used to help the world. We can do so many wonderful things.... but they are also dangerous in the wrong hands, and there are always wrong hands. Yet, it is comforting – she added, looking back to Daisy with a smile – to know that our people can be warriors for the benefit of all”.
Daisy felt herself nodding. That sounded...nice. Or maybe it did because of who was saying it. Jiaying's smile turned pensive.
“I have lived a long life and I could live an even longer one. Experience is important but so are new perspectives. My daughter... when she was born, I had wished it for her. To one day lead our people where I couldn't take them. I feel so naive now. I did everything wrong”.
Daisy wondered idly when it had become so hard to control her heart rate. Or breathe.
“I don't think you should blame yourself”, she offered tentatively.
“Shouldn't I? I wasn't able to help her control her gift and I couldn't make her believe she was safe with me, that I would protect her, that I loved her too much for anything else. It is my failure. It is my responsibility”.
“People are responsible for their own choices.” Daisy shot back brusquely, perhaps too much so. If the conversation had been uncomfortable before...
“What if the choice they have isn't fair? Her gift hurt her when she kept it inside and hurt others when she couldn't. What would you do if that was your choice?”
Daisy bit her tongue, holding back the snarky reply – I wouldn't follow a sadistic bastard looking to destroy everything – on the tip of it. She stared at Jiaying, seeing the pain of a parent who feels they have failed their child. A whirlwind of conflicting emotions – bitter hurt, anger, hopeful relief, longing – engulfed her and almost overwhelmed her. Compassion won out.
“When I first got my powers, I wasn't able to control them and it would hurt me to try. My... family... they didn't know how to help me. Eventually I found people who could – and she was my family, too – but they weren't as... well-meaning... as I had thought – you manipulated me, lied to me – I was blind to it for a time – until someone had to die for me to see the truth – but it wasn't too late – not for me, at least – it's not too late for your daughter, either”.
“Thank you, Agent Jones. You have a kind heart”.
Daisy felt herself staring again, rooted in place, her meal forgotten. The blaring of sirens broke the spell.
“We've been breached”.
***********************
Nathaniel Malick was dead. His body, twisted, broken and shriveled, was currently stored in a black bag, in the Lighthouse's morgue. The battle had been brutal, laced with a yearning to hurt her foe Daisy hadn't felt since facing Hive. In the end, she hadn't killed him. Towering over him, his limbs broken, she had hesitated, questioning her reasons. Then Jiaying, who she had thought he had murdered, had touched him. And it was over.
“This is how I heal”, she had explained, apologetic. Daisy had just nodded, focusing on slowing her heart down.
Later, before the Afterlife survivors were flown to the village in Hunan where Jiyaing had been born and where Daisy would, too, if the events of the past few days hadn't irreparably altered her mother's life trajectory, they met again – for the last time? – in the Lighthouse's hangar.
“I knew your gift felt familiar”, Jiaying told her, no physical trace of her recent brush with death. Malick had spilled the beans, one last attempt to fuck with her life.
“I'm sorry I lied to you. We are trying to protect the future” What's left of it, anyway.
“I understand... but I am glad to know the truth. And to have met you. Your story, about your powers...”
“I made it up”, Daisy replied, too quickly. “I'm sorry. And please don't ask me... anything else. ”
“You were being kind. Thank you. And I won't. It's enough to feel hopeful again”.
Daisy stayed very still, willing her face into the kind of unemotional mask May was a master at but she had never quite managed.
Jiaying didn't question it, letting her eyes linger on her surroundings. “I had never taken an unwilling life before. It's... worse.”
Daisy understood that feeling. “The world is better without him. Believe me.”
Her mother nodded, mirroring her conviction. “I do. Your sister... I won't ask you what I know you cannot promise me. Just... she is young and she is lost.”
“I know. I will try.”
“Thank you.”
Watching the Quinjet take off, Daisy felt a measure of hope, too. It wasn't nature. And maybe not being born wouldn't be so bad if it meant it wouldn't be life, either.
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ks-caster · 4 years
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Gone Fishing
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Characters: Caroline, Klaus
Summary: The trauma of Bill’s conditioning begins to catch up to Caroline, and as a result of his choice of stimulus, she can no longer tolerate bagged blood. Saddled with the vampire version of an eating disorder thanks to her dad’s idea of being the “good guy,” Caroline resorts to desperate measures, interpreting some advice from Klaus in the darkest and most violent way possible.
Basically, Caroline becomes a serial killer out of necessity - and Klaus wishes he could love it, but mainly he finds he’s just upset that her dad was such a dick.
Chapter 1, part of chapter 2 and my partial outline are available under the cut.
It wasn’t that he intended to stalk her.
Even Klaus knew how incredibly fake that sounded, but really, he didn’t keep tabs on where Caroline Forbes was and who she was with at all times—just, you know, when there was clear and present danger in Mystic Falls.
Which was practically always.
Whatever. Niklaus Mikaelson, hybrid king feared across the supernatural world for centuries, was not one to show chagrin at the accusation that he had merely stalked someone.
He really wasn’t watching her on this particular occasion, however; he was just out for a walk to clear his head in the night air after a particularly useless day of Jeremy Gilbert being Jeremy Gilbert, and her street wound and turned back on itself and basically made for a longer route than its neighbors. He hadn’t intended to listen in on the goings on inside the Forbes residence either, but when he noticed the Sheriff's squad car was missing but Caroline’s car was present and the lights were on, he smiled a little, and tuned his ears in, wondering if she was listening to music or watching TV or on the phone with Elena hearing the “team good-guy” perspective of Jeremy’s day.
What he did not expect—and what took him a moment to recognize because it was so unexpected—was uncontrolled, shattering sobs. He frowned, crossing the lawn in an instant to hear more accurately. A moment more told him that not only had he heard correctly the first time, but it was indeed Caroline sobbing, and it sounded like she was wailing in pain around something that had been shoved into her mouth.
Images of unknown attackers and Caroline with a gag in her mouth blossomed crimson across Klaus’s vision, and he was inside the house and standing in her bedroom doorway before the ragged, stifled cry had ended. However, a millisecond’s scan of the room with his eyes revealed her to be completely alone, curled up tightly on her bed and rocking back and forth in distress, her own hand clamped between her teeth. Her face was a mess of makeup rivulets and puffy eyes—she looked worse than when she’d run to him in Tyler’s body, believing him dead and her boyfriend about to follow, and that was easily the worst he’d ever seen her, including the time she’d nearly died of werewolf venom. 
“Caroline?” he found himself whispering, not sure what to do. Her head jerked up, and he barely had time to register the trickles of blood along her wrist from where she’d bitten through her own skin before she was on her feet, hands shoving him back. In his surprise, she caught him off balance, and he stumbled a little before regaining his footing.
“Get out!” she shrieked, her voice cracking painfully in the middle as she lashed out, punching him in the chest with about as much force as the average human who’d had too much to drink and was therefore unsteady to begin with. It didn’t hurt him, but he caught her fist when she drew her other hand back all the same. She screamed again—not words this time, just a primal shriek as she tried unsuccessfully to wrench her hand free, before successfully backhanding him across the face. He caught her second hand and sped her up against the wall, pinning her there as she struggled and tried to kick him.
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” he growled. Even in such a state, she ought to have had the sense not to physically attack an Original, especially a hybrid. Verbal barbs or slamming of doors he’d expect out of a distraught Caroline Forbes, or if she was going to attack him (for whatever blinkered reason) slightly more skill. Shifting forward, he leaned into her, holding her against the wall, impervious to her struggles. She thrashed in his hold, kicking at his legs and feet, but when he was about as responsive as stone, she gave up, and fell limp in his grasp, head down, face shrouded by her unkempt hair as crying became her primary focus again.
After waiting a few moments to ensure that she wasn’t faking it (only to whoosh away as soon as he loosened his grip) Klaus released her wrists, picking her up in the same instant. She fell limp against his chest, the last of her energy going into curling up into herself and pressing the heels of her hands into her watering eyes. For all her violent rejection moments before, now she seemed completely unconcerned about his proximity. 
As he moved to return her to her bedroom and deposit her in bed—he’d signed up for rescuing her from attackers, not this, and for all his age and experience he’d never yet figured an effective way to deal with this—he assumed she’d simply given up on getting him off her. But when he moved to set her down, he realized that one of her hands had fisted into his jacket, tightly enough that she was stretching the leather. Perhaps giving up wasn’t quite it, he thought, as he maneuvered them so that he could sit down, then leaned back against her pile of pillows so that they were reclining with her only halfway on top of him. He did know enough to guess that no matter what he said or did, she would be unable to give a coherent response in this state, but he could be patient. 
He’d wait her out.
And then she’d damn well tell him what was wrong, and point him towards who he could kill to make it right, whether she wanted to divulge or not.
The hysterics lasted nearly an hour, and after that, she seemed to lose energy, but continued quietly weeping into his shirt for over an hour after that. By midnight she’d apparently run out of tears, but she lay limp against him, face buried in his chest, and he got the impression she’d fallen into the twilight of half-consciousness. He’d started rubbing circles into her spine with his thumb, and some time after that, she’d released his jacket, although she hadn’t retracted her hand; it lay on his chest, her cold palm flush against his heartbeat. 
-0-
Half past four in the morning appeared seconds after one, and Klaus realized to his shock that both he and Caroline had drifted off. He regained consciousness for long enough to confirm that she was, in fact, deeply asleep, and his arms were still resting securely around her such that if she tried to get up it would wake him. 
Her hand was still resting against his chest, and to his mild confusion, it was still cold. While vampires didn’t generate as much of their own heat as humans—or wolves—but they would still pick up heat from resting against warm objects, same as anything else. Slowly, not wanting to wake her and provoke another fit so soon, he wrapped her hand in his; long artist’s fingers picking up the telltale signs that he’d missed earlier. Her skin was unnaturally cold, and a little rough to the touch, with a subtle hardness which, coupled with how light and slow her heartbeats were, could mean only one thing—something he’d never expected to find in a vampire who wasn’t chained up and locked in a dungeon.
Caroline Forbes was beginning to desiccate; dry up and starve surrounded by blood-filled humans. 
What the hell was happening?
He knew she had plenty of access to blood; Meredith Fell used her medical license to stockpile it on the Salvatores’ considerable dime, and the Sheriff looked the other way as long as Caroline was provided-for in the process.
So what the hell was going on? Had someone bled her out in the last 24 hours without him noticing? She did know to drink a lot after that, right? 
His mind spun, inventing horrible possibility after horrible possibility, and he had to fight to keep his arm from tightening around her and waking her. His burning need to know who he had to kill to make it better intensified with each passing second. Caroline wouldn’t just stop eating of her own accord, so someone or something was doing this to her, and he’d be damned—well, again—if he didn’t find out what.
The arrival of 4:45 announced itself rudely as Caroline’s alarm blared, echoing against the walls in a way only a vampire would notice. Caroline’s right hand remained resting in Klaus’s deliberately loose grip, but her left reached over him and unerringly turned off the alarm, ignoring the large snooze button. Klaus must’ve been more asleep than he’d thought, because the blonde pillowing her head on his chest had to have been awake to do that, and he hadn’t noticed. 
Caroline’s arm rested back on his chest immediately, and she lay still, seeming quite unbothered to find him still in her bed. Perhaps, even, trying not to wake him up. Testing his theory, he shifted a bit, re-adjusting his hold on her. She stiffened. Yeah, she’d been hoping he wasn’t awake yet. But she hadn’t made a move to pull away or get up when she thought he was still asleep; he wasn’t sure what to make of that.
“Morning, love,” he greeted her quietly, pressing a kiss to her temple.
“Klaus,” she grumbled in a warning tone, but still made no move to extricate herself.
“What happened last night,” he asked as calmly as he could manage.
“Don’t worry about it,” she sighed, but her heart-rate picked up and he heard her swallow. He sat up, pulling her with him and ignoring her glare of protest as he held her hand between his own, thumb running gently over her desiccating fingers.
“Don’t play that game with me,” he warned, ignoring her glare of protest. “I have never seen you in so much pain, Caroline, and I can see the what,” here he nodded towards her hands, “what I don’t have is the why. Why aren’t you eating?”
“I am,” she hissed, yanking her hand out of his and turning to put her feet on the floor. “I said don’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, I heard you, and I’m going to need a bit more than that,” Klaus responded evenly. Her pulse was racing, and the last thing he needed was to push her so hard that she had another panic attack.
“It’s none of your business,” she snapped, whirling to glare at him over her shoulder.
“Sweetheart you’re starving in a stocked kitchen,” he listed, gesturing at her mini fridge with his thumb, “I heard you from down the street last night and came up because I legitimately thought you were being kidnapped and tortured, and you—who have made it perfectly clear that you find my presence irksome in the highest degree—grabbed onto me for dear life last night and are making no real effort to dislodge me now. I am not an idiot, love,” he growled. “I know that means something is desperately wrong.”
Caroline swallowed, breathing deeply and rubbing her eyes. Her shoulder dropped, and she looked deflated.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she finally gritted out.
“I can help,” he insisted.
“No, you really can’t,” she sighed, and although he could tell she was trying for huffy hostility, all he could hear was sorrow and exhaustion.
“Try me,” he demanded, working hard to keep the snarl out of his voice. Wasn’t it just like her to protect the person hurting her?
“No,” she responded flatly, standing up and rustling around in her dresser for some clothes. Her movements were slow and clumsy, and he saw her lips purse together as her dry, painful skin whacked the side of the drawer.
“Not doing a very convincing ‘fine,’ darling,” he commented, laying back and folding his arms behind his head casually.
“What do you want from me?” she demanded, tossing her outfit on the bad so she could throw her hands up expressively. “There’s no one for you to murder, Klaus!”
“Then there's no harm in telling me, is there?” he countered cleverly.
“What are you going to do; kidnap and torture it out of me?” she demanded, voice dripping sarcasm. “A bit counterintuitive if you ask me.”
“I would never hurt you, love,” Klaus responded, knowing she was baiting him and refusing to rise. “But,” he added, “I'm not leaving until you tell me.”
Caroline scoffed wordlessly, grabbed her clothes and flounced into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. As the shower turned on, Klaus surveyed the house with his senses, noting that Liz Forbes hadn't yet arrived home. He lay there comfortably, listening to the water run in the shower—and Caroline try and fail to control her breathing—for nearly half an hour. She dried off, blow-dried her hair (for less time than Klaus thought that ought to take, but then what did he know about blow-drying long hair) and he heard the rustle of clothes being pulled on for a moment before she let out a hiss of pain and froze in place. 
He frowned, then realized that she’d grabbed skinny jeans, and if they were nearly as hard to get into as he imagined, and her feet were in the same state as her hands, that forcing the denim over her skin would likely be extremely painful. He rubbed a hand through his hair in frustration. If she’d just tell him what the problem was, he could figure out how to fix it; in a thousand years he’d learned quite a few facts about vampires, and was confident that he could resolve the issue, whatever it was. 
Unfortunately, the vampire in question was being terribly stubborn; both in her determination not to let him help and, apparently, in her determination to wear that pair of jeans. He winced every time she made a sound of pain, which was quite a few times in the interminably long six minutes it took her to get dressed.
Finally, she exited the bathroom, doing a brief and irritated double-take when she saw him still lounging on her bed.
“You really don’t have anything better to do than sit there and wait for me to change my mind?” she grumbled as she sat down at her makeup table.
“Depends,” he countered, “like I said I’m not leaving you until you tell me, so I suppose I’ll be sitting around your high school at some point.” She whirled to glare at him in disbelief. “Or at the grill, oh, do you have cheerleading practice today?” he added with a bit of a leer. She flipped him off and he laughed. “I’m a very patient man when I want something,” he reminded her, and she wasn’t sure if that was supposed to sound like a threat or a promise.
“We’ll see about that,” she muttered, picking up her phone and sending a text message before turning back to the mirror.
“Is that a challenge, love?” he demanded playfully, wondering which of her troupe of friends she was enlisting to help her shake him off.
“Yes,” she responded coolly. “Because as you’ve noticed, I’m under the weather, so my mom is calling me out of school today. I’m going to sit here and watch makeup tutorials for the next six hours, then go downstairs, eat a tub of ice cream and watch telenovelas. If you really want to glue your immortal, hybrid ass to my bed and try your hand at boring yourself to death, be my guest.”
Chapter 2 Snippet
Apparently Klaus was incapable of getting bored.
She’d thought that the threat of endless makeup videos would scare him off (her boyfriends had always run for the hills when she’d spent more than two minutes talking about contouring) but in short order she realized that he was actually paying attention. She’d follow along with the videos, and at first he just laid on her bed, eyes boring into the back of her head, but after a little while he sat up (she could see him in the mirror) and murmured “turn your wrist a bit.”
She’d frowned, looking back at him, certain she’d imagined that.
“I know my way around brushes, sweetheart,” he’d reminded her with a smirk. 
“This is how she’s holding it in the tutorial,” Caroline had shot back, running the video back and trying again. 
To her frustration, upon a second watching, she noticed that the vlogger had indeed turned her wrist a little more. She adjusted her grip, pointedly ignoring Klaus’s expression of triumph, which was visible in the mirror.
After twenty minutes, he’d moved to the end of the bed to sit directly behind her, commenting on tone differences and blending techniques and natural shading. 
After forty minutes, he had a brush in his hand and was carefully painting over Caroline’s challenging expression—only on one side so she could see the difference. 
After an hour, he was telling a story about a hilarious mishap involving Leonardo Da Vinci, and Caroline was leaning back against her makeup table, laughing so hard her sides hurt.
“And how long did it take Elijah to realize he was flirting?” she asked, tears in her eyes from uncontrollable mirth.
“He’s still in denial,” Klaus shook his head. “The way he tells it, they had a remarkably ordinary modeling session, other than Kol’s interference. Kol swears to this day that if Rebekah hadn’t come in when she did, he could have properly set the two of them up.”
“I can see that, I can definitely see that—but what happened to the sculpture?” Caroline demanded, wiping her eyes.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Klaus checked. “He was the model for David.”
Outline
Klaus is walking by Caroline’s place during season 4 and he notices that he hears crying. She refuses to tell him why she’s desiccating. He gives her an ultimatum—he won’t hurt her, they both know that, but he won’t leave until she tells him what’s happening. She sits down at her makeup table and says “fine—game on.”
Caroline decides to practice makeup techniques all day, and when she get bored of that to watch crappy reality television—he may think he can annoy her into submission, but she thinks he may have underestimated her ability to bore him. However, it turns out that he is apparently incapable of being bored—in fact he winds up  commenting on her technique—artist and all—and then actually picks up a brush at one point—and that’s when Liz gets back to the house and walks right in on them. Caroline cracks up while Klaus just shrugs and admits that there is no reasonable explanation. Caroline realizes that he easily could have told her mother why he was really there—to save himself a great deal of embarrassment in fact—but without missing a beat he hid it. He can keep a secret. And of all the people who won’t think that being hurt makes her weak, he certainly won’t.
She explains the situation; Klaus initially offers to go into her head and fix the problem, which she vehemently refuses, of course. He suggests, since she can drink no “innocent” blood, that she try his—he is, as she has pointed out repeatedly, the opposite of innocent. She is able to drink blood from him easily, and gulps it down in desperation. He says that until she finds another solution, he is more than willing both to keep her secret and supply her with blood. She asks why and he says it’s for the pleasure of her company.
Over time, Caroline and Klaus’s clandestine relationship starts resembling exactly that—now that they’re spending quality time together, she finds she does enjoy his company, and feels like she can be really open with him; she knows he’ll never judge her, as he has no room to do so.
Elena eventually learns of said relationship, and they have a huge fight over it. Caroline, whose confidence has vastly improved after months of unconditional love from someone who wouldn’t dream of putting Elena before her, reminds Elena that Damon raped and abused her, and that their solution had been to drug her and wait for him to kill her so they could poison him. Elena asks if she’s dating Klaus as revenge, and Caroline tells her she’s missing the point. Elena isn’t the only person in Mystic Falls permitted to dispense divine forgiveness. Caroline is with Klaus because she loves him.
Caroline also discovers that the blood of any criminal will do the trick, so she starts going into the city, walking around the seedy parts, and eating the assholes who follow her down dark alleys. She sort of accidentally becomes a serial killer. Then once Elena basically excommunicates her, she decides to go on a trip. Klaus is hoping she means Paris, but no, she wants to eat her way through the FBI’s most wanted list. Which she does.
Caroline becomes such a successful killer of killers that the FBI starts looking for her; while they don’t know what she looks like, her codename is now top of the most wanted list. (How ungrateful! I did your job for you and this is how you thank me?) 
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fedtothenight · 4 years
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The woman was jittery, heel rhythmically tapping against the marble floor, eyes downcast. Elena noticed she was busy playing with the small, cheap golden loop on her ring finger, and asked, playfully, “Having second thoughts already?”
The woman startled. “No, I’m--No.” Her eyes moved quickly from her to Mother, still busy working the dough. If Elena could hear her whispers, the hushed, faint rhymes, so could the woman. “No, I’m sure. I do want him to suffer. I’m just wondering if this will come back at me somehow.”
 “We don’t refund,” said Elena. “And it may. Most things come back at you, sooner or later. You need to loosen up, though. You’re not killing him, because that would have been excessive. He cheated on you, he didn’t kill your firstborn. You’re giving him a serious case of unluckiness for a while, erectile dysfunction, and the shits. No need to be so nervous.”
“No, I know, but... I...” the woman inhaled. “I want him to suffer like I did. I want him to feel the pain I felt.”
“Oh, he will,” Elena said. “The first time he’ll unsuccessfully try to get it up with the mistress and shit himself at the same time will be atrocious.”
The woman was quiet for a moment. Then, she whispered: “He always comments on my weight. He makes me feel like I’m nothing.” Then: “Sometimes I think I want him dead.”
“Don’t we all want at least one man dead,” Elena said. She checked Mother, who had stopped working the dough and was now only praying. She also checked the time.The good thing of being a witch in Sicily was that you had a steady stream of clients: luckily, that also meant you couldn’t drone on with any of them. “Now,” she added, pointing at the dough. “Mother is almost done. I need you to spit in that. Make it a good one.”
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I was just telling myself... Vampire fiction bonanza
I’m not gonna say I’ve seen it all, but I’ve almost seen it all. The Vampire Diaries show is one of my all-time favorite vampire stories to be made. I saw the show numerous times and then went on to read the books. I reviewed the fourth installment because it brought the story to a full circle and later books just don’t feel like TVD, which is why I discontinued reading after this one. I’m thinking of rewatching the show once again, together with The Originals. Here’s the review of book #4 from 2014: 
This review may contain spoilers to the book and television series, so if you haven't read the first three book installments and haven't seen the 5 seasons of TVD and season 1 of The Originals, you should maybe skip it :) I started reading this series because a) I love all things vampire (continually re-watching Buffy since elementary school), b) I absolutely adore the TV series, and c) my baby bro gave me "The Awakening" for my birthday. I believe L.J. Smith is a fine author and I really look forward to reading her other series, especially "The Secret Circle". Before I started reading "The Vampire Diaries", I had decided to distance myself from the TV show, but who was I kidding, that would have been impossible since I'd seen all the seasons at least three times and I pretty much remembered everything that had ever happened there :))) Review of "Dark Reunion": I'll start with what I didn't like about this book. First, Bonnie's POV. I freaking hate Bonnie, both McCullough, and Bennett! She is a well-written character, but I strongly dislike her personality and the whole story could have maybe had more depth to it if it wasn't for Bonnie's immature thoughts and observations. The whole journal writing aspect only accentuated this for me. I kinda like my vampire diaries to belong to Elena or Stefan. This addition of Bonnie's felt a bit unnecessary. Second, the storyline is sometimes incomplete and inconsistent, and this is true for all four books. Elena goes from being crazy about Stefan in "The Awakening", then at the end of "The Struggle" and the beginning of "The Fury" to suddenly loving Damon (when did that happen? is there a switch inside Elena, or are those only reserved for vampires' humanity?), to finally adoring Stefan again in this book. This kind of stuff happens in the show as well, but there we get to see the development of these emotions for Elena. Also, where does Klaus come from, if Katherine said in "The Fury" how she had killed him in, like, the 16th or 17th century?! There isn't any notion of how he had maybe survived a possible attack by Katherine or anything. What bothered me the most though, was the way Elena came back to life at the end of this book. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?? It felt like they all wanted it very badly, and so she just appeared alive again. That was a little disappointing. Now on to what I did like about "Dark Reunion". My absolute favorite thing is the descriptions, whether of people, places or things. The author used such beautiful language in depicting, for example, the woods and rivers of Fell's Church, that I felt like I was actually there! Hats off to L.J. Smith! Descriptions of people are very detailed and precise, which I liked oh so much since imagination is the key when reading. If you don't have a lot to go on, well then, what's the point? Also, I liked all these powers vampires possess. We saw Damon kind of "controlling" that crow in season 1 of the show, but they never explained how he did what he did. Here, we have vampires transforming into different animals, controlling the weather and imprinting thoughts into humans' heads (or rather, "compelling" them, if you wish). I reeeeeally loved that we got to see Klaus a bit more in this book since I find him the most complex character on the show, as well as my absolute favorite one ;) The scene where all those soldiers rose from their graves to defeat him kinda reminded me of the scene in The Originals, where the vampires lead by Marcel unsuccessfully tried to "contain" Klaus in the Mikaelsons' compound. Me like :) All in all, I gave a five-star review to each of these first four books, because I did actually love them, even if there were certain aspects I disliked. For me, that's a standard occurrence in reading. Again, L.J. Smith is definitely a gifted author and I would recommend reading this series, whether you've seen the TV show or not.
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Being Klaus’s first hybrid and being in love with him would include...
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it’s been months since you realized you loved Klaus Mikaelson
nobody had yet to figure it out and you were hellbent on it staying that way
you constantly found yourself thrown between him and your friends and it was starting to increasingly hard to keep him safe from their ridiculous plots while not letting your secret slip
Klaus had no idea
you were terrified that Elijah suspected
for the past week you’ve been by Klaus’s side non-stop and though you worried he was starting to get annoyed with you following him around like a lot puppy, he had yet to do or say anything about it
every morning you got a text with a time and place that usually led you to tag along with him while he took care of one task or another
you helped where you could but him being the hybrid and you being just a wolf, he usually took care of things a little faster, cleaner, and more efficiently
not to mention his reputation proceeded him and that took care of a lot of things rather quickly 
Klaus was always hyper-aware of your need to check in with your friends and their insistence to interfere with his plans
he started spending more and more time with you outside of task running to spite them
it all came to a massive and truly spectacular end when Damon Salvatore tried to kill him, unsuccessfully, while you were having lunch together and talking about which city in the world would be best suited to turn into a hybrid hotspot
you knew it was stupid, you really did, but in a rage over his stupidity as you watched Klaus temporarily desiccate, you bit Damon
things got worse before they got better
Stefan came at you to avenge Damon
Elena was screaming incoherently as you defended yourself and in the process snapped Stefan’s neck
Bonnie hit you with a spell so forceful that you went through the wall into the back supply closet of the Mystic Grill
Caroline carried a temporarily dead Stefan away as Damon ran after them with Elena in his arms and Bonnie walked calmly out the door as Klaus still lay dead over the table and you lay bleeding to death by some rustic potatoes before the world disappeared
the taste of blood brought you to and you opened your eyes to Klaus kneeling before you with his bleeding wrist to your mouth
apparently, Bonnie’s magic packed a real anti-wolf-healing punch
the blood was too late and as the wound healed and Klaus smiled down at you, you took your last breath
the next time you came to you were laying on a bed in a very plain looking room with minimal furniture
“Sorry about the lack of decor but the house has not been finished yet,” Elijah’s voice came from a chair by the window as he didn’t look up from the book he was reading
Elijah informs you that the Mystic Grill will be closed for the foreseeable future due to his brother’s response to your death
apparently, he thought his blood hadn’t worked
the living room isn’t really in any better shape
apparently, it’s been four days and they were all beginning to think you weren’t coming back and Klaus has gone into several... intense... mourning periods
he is currently seeking revenge and plans on murdering The Witch (Bonnie) and Damon Salvatore
Elijah suggests you make a call and the look on his face is obvious as to who that first call should be to
Klaus is home before you even hang up with Elena to let her know she can tell her friends (which they are no longer to you) that they should really check if the person they tried to kill is actually dead before walking off
Elijah disappears from the room and Klaus is suddenly sitting by your bed with a glass in hand with a very dark red and thick looking liquid
“drink it”
you’re highly aware it isn’t a request but there is a part of you that wonders if you want this
you’d be the first hybrid he made and on one hand, he would have completed something he’s wanted to do (make more of him) and he wouldn’t be alone in that regard but on the other, you weren’t sure if there was a point to living forever
especially when Klaus’s need to hang around Mystic Falls ends and your company’s whatever it is that it gives him (amusement? simply not being alone?) runs its course and he leaves
“please”
you’re genuinely surprised by the plea in his eyes and figure maybe, just maybe, you are friends after all
and friends don’t want friends to die usually, right? (ex-friends excluded)
you agree but before you take a sip you joke that you’re doing it for the furniture’s sake as Elijah told you how he handled your death
“I’ve already lost enough people I love”
he says it so easily that for a second you think you imagined it
Klaus tips the glass into your mouth and as the blood slides down your throat, you’re sort of in this weird locked-gaze state where you’re not sure what he’s trying to convey and he’s not sure what you’ve understood
with your transition complete, Klaus grins and calls you “his little hybrid”
you’re pretty sure you’re not going to manage to live forever without telling him the truth and you might as well do it now because you don’t want to carry this around on your chest for centuries
“I should probably let you know that I love you”
it’s not as tactful or romantic as it has been put in your dreams but the clumsy admission at least got out of your mouth before you chickened out
Klaus wipes a drop of blood from the corner of your mouth and leans in
“I should probably do the same”
Elijah is downstairs having a celebratory drink because he’s been waiting for you two to tell each other that for months
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ellnaturae · 5 years
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Children of the revolution
CHARACTERS: Elliott Gilbert, Elard, Elena, Elham, Bob and Lazarus Black.
TIME & LOCATION: September 18th, 2019. Elard’s hidden place.
NOTES: Elliott goes to meet Elard again in hopes that they can get to talk.
Content Warning: Mentions of violence, abuse, slavery, death and murder. Very much Karin self-pandering right at the end.
Elliott knows the place, he has been there before once, when unsuccessfully he tried to start a conversation with Elard about the future of the magical community and what they could do to change it, if they did it together. But Elard had always been very proud, very strong headed, and even if he wouldn’t admit it, Elliott was too. He walks downstairs to a basement, the room is big, there is a table, some chairs, a couch, a tv, and a fridge, it looked like a nice home, a bit shabby, with a feel of improvisation and possibly stolen furniture,though oddly comfortable and warm, but at the same time Elliott felt cold, maybe because he was unwelcomed. It seemed like music plays somewhere, he isn't sure where it comes from, but he notices the tap of a foot to the rhythm.
"Ras Algethi" Elard deep voice calls him as he stands up from a chair and takes a few steps towards him stopping Elliott from entering more in the room, behind him still sitting on the table there is a blonde brawny woman, another shedim, he recognizes her from the last time he talked with Elard.
“My name is Elliott” he simply says in response.
Elena doesn't move but her eyes are fixed on Elliott, and he knows this, but he tries to seem confident. Next to her a new face calls his attention, a very thin man, with curly hair, dark skin, glasses and a tartan three piece suit, he drinks a glass of milk with a straw, as a crow rest on his shoulder. He is another shedim, Elliott can tell but he seems to not care much for the unexpected visit. Over the couch there is someone else lying down, their face is partially covered by their hoodie so he isn't sure if he already knows this person or not, they may be asleep he thinks and tries to step a little closer into the room.
Elard shows a smirk, but he doesn't really seem happy to see him, more like amused.
"Are you here to fight?" he says as if any other motive of his presence wouldn’t be satisfactory.
“I’m here to talk” Elliott answers.
“Ugh…” Elard complains “You always want to talk, but all you talk is none-sense” he directs a disgusted look towards Elliott.
“Caw! None-sense!” the crow speaks as if it was a parrot, and even if this confuses Elliott for a moment he then directs his eyes to Elard.
“You never want to listen, I’m surprised you know what I want to talk about at all...” even if he promised himself to be calm, so things didn’t end in a fight like last time, Elliott can’t avoid showing how upset he is.
“Oh, really? Enlighten me with your peaceful protests and your respectful debates” Elard mocks him “I’m tired of that garbage, and I’m tired of you coming here every time there is a big crisis in the magical community, like trying to convince me I should be on your side” Elard frowns “I’m not on your side, I’m not on those idiots sides either, I’m not going to be controlled by anyone, not by them, not by you, I plan to make my own revolution”
“Your own revolution? By joining forces and ending other people’s lives?” Elliott asks concerned “Didn’t you see what happened with the Fae? How is that going to end well? Who is going to benefit from that?”
The figure on the couch moves and sits up, his hoodie no longer covers his face but Elliott has yet to look at him and realize who that person is.
“Don’t you understand?” Elard speaks loud “We won’t have real freedom until the last one witch who knows the spell is dead and gone”
“We can be better than that” Elliott insists “We can find a way to break the spell, to destroy it, to erase it, there must be a way” even though he knows it has been a long process that someone has to still yet find a solution to “and we can fight together for our rights, for a better future, so this community grows stronger and evolves.”
“Don’t be naive, who is going to give us the answer to that? There is no book, no person, who is going to be giving us the information, that knowledge is passed down from one son of a bitch to the next, and man, you know how much they don’t want us to know” Elard expression turns dark, hurt “not even you in your fancy school have the answer, do you?”
Elliott looks down to the floor, partially ashamed that even if he wanted to dedicate all his time to that task, in all these years he hasn’t found anything truly relevant for it. Elard was right in that, whoever, if someone, had the answers to the defeat of that spell they weren’t going to give it away to shedim, and definitely won’t let them have access to anything that would even allude to it.
“I don’t… but that doesn’t mean that-” Elliott tries to rush because he knows Elard will try to interrupt him and he does.
“See, you have nothing, you just have fake hopes, a nice speech and a handsome face, some people may listen to you because of that, but that doesn’t make you right” Elard complains “These are the options, you are with us or you are with them” he says bitterly.
“You know is not that simple, and you know I’m definitely not on their side” Elliott frowns, suddenly even if Elard had always been taller than him he seems even bigger, intimidating, but he stands his ground “If we don’t stand together, we fall apart”
“Are you a pop song? Give me a break” Elard mocks “I’m not going to stand next to you knowing you are going to leave me behind”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Elliott asks annoyed, Elard and him are face to face, standing each a bit closer to each other as if trying to intimate just by standing there “Me? Leaving you behind? That’s rich”
“You were such a fierce warrior!” Elard shouts “I wanted you by my side, when I started making plans you were there, you wanted to join me, we could have made great leaders for the revolution” his tone shows anger but his facial expression shows sadness.
“I never wanted that” Elliott says sorrowfully “I admired you, what you wanted to achieve, the freedom of our people, it was a dream, the hope I needed” he admits, “but then you killed and run, and justified your action as the first step of revolution, and I just couldn’t follow that… that wasn’t what you said we would do, the revolution I imagined would never be built over the bodies of other people... you left me behind”
Elard stays in silence, the whole room does, even the soft music coming from nowhere stops playing. Elliott was looking at Elard the whole time, but when he looks away, he does the same, perhaps, for a moment all those memories are too much to bare. It is then when he notices the man on the couch and recognizes him as the shedim he helped escape from the Erhenthal home. He barely can react when Elena talks.
“We all killed to be free” she says bothered by Elliott’s words “You think you are better than us?” she stands and looks at Elard then at Elliott again “You got it easy, fancy boy” she says with disdain “Whatever way you got out of that place, you got lucky and got a life, and now you are in a witchy school getting pampered, i guess being their pet is better than being their slave” she mocks “while you are assimilated and made to believe life can be good, we are seeing it for what it is, being on the run…. we are never going to be part of your utopia, because you already don’t want us there”
“Is that so?” Elliott asks looking at her then looking at Elham, and finally looking at Elard. The other shedim with the crow, hasn’t spoken a word, in fact hadn’t even looked up, however, he seems to be talking in whispers with the crow from time to time “that’s not true” he says to Elena “you know that’s not true” he then looks at Elard.
Elard shakes his head.
“You are among them, you call them your friends, people who let us suffer, who see us being used and abused and don’t move a finger, people whose families are proud to say they own us” Elard says “You will change your mind… eventually, and maybe we will be okay with you joining us” he chuckles.
Elliott shakes his head, disappointed but partially feeling like for once they could talk and maybe that meant something.
“Or maybe you will change your mind” he says though not very convinced as he walks to the door.
“Or maybe none of you will” the silent shedim finally talks.
“Caw! None of you will” the crow repeats and for a second Elliott feels like he is smiling.
The curly-haired shedim moves to the door and opens it, moving aside as if waiting for Elliott to step out.
“Are you going out? I’m going out” he looks at Elliott very seriously as if nothing that happened had to do anything with him. The crow looks at Elliott too and now it makes him feel uneasy.
“Yeah…” as he leaves feeling now kind of out of place and awkward, he walks slowly upstairs and notices the other man follow. He turns his head around a little, just curious, and notices how the crow slowly flies away from his shoulder and then lands on the stairs, in an instant a figure appears wearing a long black feather coat, with long thick deep black hair, and a prominent nose. Elliott almost trips as he gets distracted by this.
“Caw” they say mockingly and showing a sharp smile.
When they are at the end of the stairs, Elliott starts moving away to look for the perfect place to teleport back to NYADA without being noticed, however as he does he can’t avoid to eavesdrop the others conversation.
“I don’t eat” the shedim says.
“You can order a glass of milk if you want” the trickster complains “Do this one for me, Robert, I really want to try that restaurant”
“Bob” Bob corrects.
“Robert” Lazarus teases.
The small discussion as they leave the abandoned building makes Elliott smile, though it quickly goes away as confusion takes over by the mundane conversation and the calm attitude of the couple, after what was discussed just moments ago in front of them. Maybe they just made up their minds, or maybe just no one will ever take him seriously, he sighs and then teleports back to his room.
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widvile-blog · 6 years
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WOMEN IN BULGARIAN HISTORY :: Elena Asenina, Empress of Nicaea
Elena Asenina (also known as Elena of Bulgaria) was born in the 13th century, possibly in 1224. The daughter of tsar Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria and his second wife Anna Maria of Hungary, she was probably named after her paternal grandmother Elena.
Elena’s grandfather was Ivan Asen I, who, together with his elder brother Peter founded the Second Bulgarian Tsardom in 1185. After the two brothers were successivly assassinated, their youngest brother Kaloyan became tsar in 1197. After Kaloyan himself was assassinated 10 years later, his supporters tried to secure the throne for Ivan Asen II, however, his cousin Boril seized the throne instead and he and his brother Alexander were forced to flee to “the lands of the Russians”. Boril, however, never managed to strenghten his rule, which enabled Ivan Asen II to muster an army and return to Bulgaria, capturing the capital Turnovo and blinding his cousin Boril in 1218. Once tsar, Ivan Asen II tried to conclude alliances with the neighbouring powers through marriages - the first one being his marriage to Elena’s mother - Anna of Hungary, followed by his daughter and Elena’s older sister Maria’s marriage to Manuel Komnenos Doukas, brother of the ruler of Epirus, Emperor of Thessalonica and self-proclaimed Byzantine Emperor Theodore Komnenos Doukas.
Another advantageous marriage would be that of Elena. In 1228, the neighbouring Latin Empire’s ruler, Robert I, died, leaving the Empire to his underaged brother Baldwin II. The Latin aristocrats offered the regency to Ivan Asen II, who agreed. Elena was betrothed to the Latin Emperor to strenghten the new alliance and was most likely sent to Constantinople. However, feeling threatened by Ivan Asen II’s increasing influence, the Latins soon started secretly negotiating with the former King of Jerusalem, John of Brienne, offering him the regency instead. Once John of Brienne was ceremoniously crowned as co-Emperor in 1231 and Elena was sent back home, Ivan Asen II was furious, tearing the treaty and the union with the Catholic Roman Church (signed by his uncle Kaloyan) down.
Ivan Asen II then turned to the Nicaean Empire (founded by the Byzantines after Constantinople was occupied by the crusaders in 1204), signing a treaty with Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes. To strenghten this alliance, Elena was betrothed to the emperor’s son, Theodore Laskaris in 1234. Ivan Asen II also sent envoys to the Ecumenical Patriarch Germanus II to start negotiations about the position of the Bulgarian Church. In the following 1235 Ivan Asen II and John III Doukas Vatatzes met to conclude a former alliance. According to George Akropolites
“Then Asen and his wife, the Hungarian Maria, and his daughter Elena came to Kaliopolis and met the Emperor there. Both did the necessery in terms of friendship. Ivan Asen did not go to Hellespont but stayed within the borders of Kaliopolis. Emperor John went to Lampsacus with his [Ivan Asen’s] wife and daughter, where Empress Irene was. There the children were married by Patriarch Germanus. It was then decided by the Emperor’s decree that the Archbishop of Turnovo, who was subordinate to Constantinople, should be named Patriarch, as the rulers thanked the Bulgarian ruler Asen for his friendship. After everything was done, Empress Irene took her son and his bride and lived in the eastern lands. Asen’s wife also returned to her lands. Emperor John and Asen took with them troops and attacked the western lands that were under the yoke of the Latins.”
This alliance, however, worried Ivan Asen II’s son-in-law’s brother, Theodore Komnenos Doukas, who hoped he would be the one to restore the Byzantine Empire. Thus Theodore invaded Bulgaria but was decisively defeated by Ivan Asen II himself in the battle of Klokotnitsa and was later captured and deposed. Epirus was now ruled by his brother Manuel, who swore fealty to his father-in-law Ivan Asen II.
Bulgarian and Latin troops unsuccessfully laid seige on Constantinople twice. The unsuccess and the death of John of Brienne (which was a possibility for Ivan Asen II to finally become regent of the Latin Empire) in 1237 made Ivan Asen II put an end to the alliance with the Nicaean Empire. Elena returned to Bulgaria.
“As his [John III Doukas Vatatzes’] son Theodore was a child - he was, as we said, 11 years old when he married princess Elena - the marriage remained formal. They were taken and educated by Empress Irene, for she was of good characted and inclined to everything good. And so the Latins’ situation was very difficult and they were humiliated by the intermarriage of the two Autocrats. King John [of Brienne], having lived a little longer, died and left the power in Constantinople to his son-in-law Baldwin and Asen, regretting, as it turned out, the treaties with Emperor John, sought a way to free his daughter from her marriage to Emperor Theodore and to marry her to another. Because as the ruler of a nation that was once subordinate to the Romans, he was afraid of a favourable turn for them. And so he was looking, as it seemed, for an excuse, although this was not a secret to those who knew the situation. He sent envoys to the Emperor and the Empress, to tell them that because they were close to Adrianopolis, he and his wife wanted to see their daughter and give her paternal embrace. They would do this and then immediately send her back to her father-in-law and her husband. Although Emperor John and Empress Irene realized what could happen, they sent Asen his daughter. They knew that if he keeps his daughter and takes her away from her lawful husband there is a God who sees everything and punishes those who break the oaths and treaties made before God. And so the Bulgarian took his daughter and left, sending those who accompanied her back. He headed for Turnovo but his daughter wept for her mother-in-law - Empress Irene - and grieved because she was separated from her husband. Then, it is said, Asen took her to sit on his saddle, hit her with [his] hand on her head and threatened to kill her if she did not silently bear what he had decided for her.” - George Akropolites
Ivan Asen II then concluded an alliance with the Latin Empire against Nicaea. Bulgarian and Latin troops laid seige to Tzurulum. Ivan Asen II was there himself, when news of the simultaneous deaths of his wife Anna Maria of Hungary, his youngest son Peter and the Patriarch reached him. He took these events as signs of the wrath of God for breaking the alliance with John III Doukas Vatatzes, abandoned the seige and sent Elena back to Nicaea at the end of 1237.
And so Elena stayed with her husband, Theodore Laskaris. The two had 6 children:
Irene - married Constantine Tikh Asen of Bulgaria
Maria - married Nikephoros I Komnenos Doukas of Epirus
Theodora - married Mathieu de Mons, baron of Veligosti
Eudoxia - first married Pietro I, Count of Ventimiglia and then Arnaud Roger, Count of Pallars-Subirà
a daughter whose name is unknown - married Yakov Svetoslav, a Bulgarian despot
John IV Doukas Laskaris - Emperor of Nicaea
In 1254, after John III Doukas Vatatzes’ death, Theodore Laskaris became Emperor and thus Elena became Empress of Nicaea. 4 years later, in 1258, Theodore II Laskaris died and Elena’s son John became Emperor.
The date of Elena’s death is not known. It is believed that she was alive when her son was blinded on the orders of Michael VIII Palaiologos on his eleventh birthday. It is possible she died shortly afterwards.
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plus-size-reader · 6 years
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The Accident
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Stefan Salvatore x Plus size!reader
Word Count: 1458 words
Warnings: reader draws first blood as a fledgling. 
Summary: Reader is a friend of Elena’s from school who gets turned, so Stefan takes her under his wing (Feat. Damon being the devil’s advocate and being sort of domestic) 
———————————————————————————————————
Stefan looked confused, lost, but above all he was calm. 
Whatever happened to lead to your change, you were a vampire and right now, all you needed was help. You were covered in blood when he found you, shaking and crying. 
The bodies that surrounded you were fresh and drained, scattered among your frame randomly. "Y/N?" he called, he kept his distance from you for a moment, trying his hardest to think through what was going on inside your head. 
Your head snapped up at the sound of his voice, finding him instantly in the dark. He could see the fear shining behind your eyes, and it crushed him.
"I did a bad thing Stefan" you muttered, your eyes welling with tears at the very thought of your actions moments prior. 
"No you didn't, it was an accident" he replied, closing the gap between your bodies instantly, wrapping you up in his arms. You let him hold you for a moment but guilt was eating you alive. 
You killed so many people, and that wasn't who you were...or at least you didn't think it was. 
"They're dead, they're dead" you repeated, burying your head into his shoulder as if he could take it all away.
You knew better than to think he could, though it seemed to ease the ache you were feeling deep down to let yourself accept that. 
"They're going to kill me aren't they?" you asked, letting your mind drift to the council for a moment, they hated vampires and you'd just given them a reason to put on an epic hunt. 
"No, no one is going to hurt you, I won't let them" he assured, helping you stand from your heap. 
Your clothes were drenched in blood but luckily, you'd killed them far away from where everyone else was, so they didn't notice you.
It didn't take very long at all for him to get you to a bathroom, where he started cleaning you up and getting the now dried blood wiped from your flesh. 
"I'm sorry Stefan, I shouldn't have killed them" you whisper, looking away from your reflection in the mirror. You didn't even recognize who you were looking at anymore, all you saw in that image was a monster.
 "Don't apologize, we're going to get it under control" he promised, focusing still on getting you presentable again. 
The last thing he needed was for someone to see you wearing six of your meals simultaneously.
"Maybe we should let them kill me...that way I can't hurt anyone anymore" you said, after a few moment of sitting in silence, your eyes drained of life as you thought it over. 
Instantly, Stefan was filled with a familiar nauseous he always felt when you were in danger, he couldn't handle that idea. 
"That isn't going to happen, I'm never going to let anything happen to you" he started, titling your head up a bit with his finger under your chin so you would meet his eyes. 
You didn't know what to say, so you simply stood silent.
"Do you believe me?" he hummed, that small smirk finding its way onto his face in a teasing way. 
He knew just how to get to you, even in your lowest moments. "Yeah, of course" you allowed the words, though it didn't do much to raise your mood. 
"Then don't even think I'd let that happen" this time the smirk was gone, he was dead serious. "You are the most important person in the world to me" he muttered, almost more to himself than to you as he pulled you into him.
He knew first hand how hard getting clean would be but you were too important not to help. There was no doubt in his mind that you would eventually be able to do it, getting used to animal blood as a health substitute. 
"Alright, you're clean now...do you want to go home?" he asked, you knew he wasn't talking about your house, and still you nodded. Before you knew it, you were standing inside the boarding house, not feeling emotional or guilty, you just felt empty. 
"What's up with you?" Damon wondered, wandering into the living room with a glass of whisky in hand.
You didn't really want to get into it with him but Stefan had went out to get some rabbits, so he was all you had. 
You didn't want to be alone right now, so he was just going to have to be a close second. "I slipped, and people got hurt" the words leaked from your lips slowly, and plagued with shame, though Damon almost seemed unfazed at your confession. 
"That's it? People get hurt kid, it happens" he shrugged, crossing the room quickly, offering you a seat on the couch beside him. 
You allowed his request, plopping down next to him on the cushion.
"Tell me about it" he suggested, after unsuccessfully waiting for you to take the hint. You looked at him for a moment, clearly shocked at his offer, usually Damon was distant with you so his behavior was a tad suspicious. 
"Seriously? If I didn't mean it, I would have left by now" he urged, giving you a wave and handing over his glass. 
You took it slowly, sipping from it and beginning the tale. "I thought I would be alright to go hang out at Caroline's party-" You started only for Damon to stop you with a snort. 
"Spoiler alert: You were wrong" he grinned, grabbing the glass back to finish it.
"Yeah, well one of the guys got a nose bleed and left with a couple of his friends" Damon already knew where this was going, but what he couldn't piece together was where Stefan came into play. 
"And my brother? What was Saint Stefan doing during this whole thing?" he wondered, Damon apparently couldn't let you get through one line of your story without interrupting but you allowed his input.
"Stefan didn't come to the party, but Caroline must have called him when she smelled all the blood" you shrug, it was the best you could come up with.
Damon nodded, seeming to accept your theory. It was strange to you how friendly he was being about all this. 
Stefan had never made you feel guilty about a slip but you wanted to make him proud so you couldn't help it, it was different with Damon. 
You didn't feel like you owed him anything and it made you feel better, even if just for a moment.
“Don’t stress it, Stefan hasn’t had a slip in fifteen years...but he won’t hold it against you if you do” Damon assured, you knew deep down that he was telling the truth but for some reason, it didn’t really make you feel better. 
“How can you be so sure? I killed them Damon, six guys outside the party in the woods” you groaned, part of you felt good admitting that but mostly, it was far too much for you handle.
As usual, Damon didn’t react in the way you would have expected. He took your hands in his own and looked down at them. 
There was still blood beneath your fingernails, though most of it had been scrubbed from your flesh. “I’ve killed a ton more than that, that’s nothing Y/N” he tried, his eyes still focused on your fingers which were perfectly clean save from the underlying offender. 
“Hold on” he muttered, though he was gone and back before you even knew where he went.
Next thing you knew, he was sitting in front of you with your hands in his lap. You weren’t sure what to think about it, as far as you could tell, Damon Salvatore was going to paint your nails. 
The polish was pitch black and invaded your senses with its offensive odor but before you could complain, the raven haired man was already at it, holding your hand delicately in his own. 
It was amusing to watching his face screw up in confusion as he worked, focusing as if painting an incredible piece of art.
“The color masks the stains, and the nail polish stink masks the odor of blood, learned this trick in the ninety's” he explained, letting his eyes flick up to meet your own. 
It was a good tip but you were shocked as to why he was helping you. Damon didn’t have any reason in the world to be going this far, but still, he continued painting your nails until each and every one was completely covered.
 “There...and Y/N, don’t stress” he suggested, leaving you so your nails could dry. There was something in his eyes that told you this wasn’t the end of your encounters with the other Salvatore.
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orbemnews · 3 years
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How a Stabbing in Israel Echoes Through the Fight Over Online Speech WASHINGTON — Stuart Force says he found solace on Facebook after his son was stabbed to death in Israel by a member of the militant group Hamas in 2016. He turned to the site to read hundreds of messages offering condolences on his son’s page. But only a few months later, Mr. Force had decided that Facebook was partly to blame for the death, because the algorithms that power the social network helped spread Hamas’s content. He joined relatives of other terror victims in suing the company, arguing that its algorithms aided the crimes by regularly amplifying posts that encouraged terrorist attacks. The legal case ended unsuccessfully last year when the Supreme Court declined to take it up. But arguments about the algorithms’ power have reverberated in Washington, where some members of Congress are citing the case in an intense debate about the law that shields tech companies from liability for content posted by users. At a House hearing on Thursday about the spread of misinformation with the chief executives of Facebook, Twitter and Google, some lawmakers are expected to focus on how the companies’ algorithms are written to generate revenue by surfacing posts that users are inclined to click on and respond to. And some will argue that the law that protects the social networks from liability, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, should be changed to hold the companies responsible when their software turns the services from platforms into accomplices for crimes committed offline. “The last few years have proven that the more outrageous and extremist content social media platforms promote, the more engagement and advertising dollars they rake in,” said Representative Frank Pallone Jr., the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which will question in the chief executives. “By now it’s painfully clear that neither the market nor public pressure will stop social media companies from elevating disinformation and extremism, so we have no choice but to legislate, and now it’s a question of how best to do it,” Mr. Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, added. Former President Donald J. Trump called for a repeal of Section 230, and President Biden made a similar comment while campaigning for the White House. But a repeal looks increasingly doubtful, with lawmakers focusing on smaller possible changes to the law. Altering the legal shield to account for the power of the algorithms could reshape the web, because algorithmic sorting, recommendation and distribution are common across social media. The systems decide what links are displayed first in Facebook’s News Feed, which accounts are recommended to users on Instagram and what video is played next on YouTube. The industry, free-speech activists and other supporters of the legal shield argue that social media’s algorithms are applied equally to posts regardless of the message. They say the algorithms work only because of the content provided by users and are therefore covered by Section 230, which protects sites that host people’s posts, photos and videos. Courts have agreed. A federal district judge said even a “most generous reading” of the allegations made by Mr. Force “places them squarely within” the immunity granted to platforms under the law. A spokesman for Facebook declined to comment on the case but pointed to comments from its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, supporting some changes to Section 230. Elena Hernandez, a spokeswoman for YouTube, which is owned by Google, said the service had made changes to its “search and discovery algorithms to ensure more authoritative content is surfaced and labeled prominently in search results and recommendations.” Twitter noted that it had proposed giving users more choice over the algorithms that ranked their timelines. “Algorithms are fundamental building blocks of internet services, including Twitter,” said Lauren Culbertson, Twitter’s head of U.S. public policy. “Regulation must reflect the reality of how different services operate and content is ranked and amplified, while maximizing competition and balancing safety and free expression.” Mr. Force in 2009, when he graduated from West Point. His parents sued Facebook over his death.Credit…U.S. Military Academy, via Associated Press Mr. Force’s case began in March 2016 when his son, Taylor Force, 28, was killed by Bashar Masalha while walking to dinner with graduate school classmates in Jaffa, an Israeli port city. Hamas, a Palestinian group, said Mr. Masalha, 22, was a member. In the ensuing months, Stuart Force and his wife, Robbi, worked to settle their son’s estate and clean out his apartment. That summer, they got a call from an Israeli litigation group, which had a question: Would the Force family be willing to sue Facebook? After Mr. Force spent some time on a Facebook page belonging to Hamas, the family agreed to sue. The lawsuit fit into a broader effort by the Forces to limit the resources and tools available to Palestinian groups. Mr. Force and his wife allied with lawmakers in Washington to pass legislation restricting aid to the Palestinian Authority, which governs part of the West Bank. Their lawyers argued in an American court that Facebook gave Hamas “a highly developed and sophisticated algorithm that facilitates Hamas’s ability to reach and engage an audience it could not otherwise reach as effectively.” The lawsuit said Facebook’s algorithms had not only amplified posts but aided Hamas by recommending groups, friends and events to users. The federal district judge, in New York, ruled against the claims, citing Section 230. The lawyers for the Force family appealed to a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and two of the judges ruled entirely for Facebook. The other, Judge Robert Katzmann, wrote a 35-page dissent to part of the ruling, arguing that Facebook’s algorithmic recommendations shouldn’t be covered by the legal protections. “Mounting evidence suggests that providers designed their algorithms to drive users toward content and people the users agreed with — and that they have done it too well, nudging susceptible souls ever further down dark paths,” he said. Late last year, the Supreme Court rejected a call to hear a different case that would have tested the Section 230 shield. In a statement attached to the court’s decision, Justice Clarence Thomas called for the court to consider whether Section 230’s protections had been expanded too far, citing Mr. Force’s lawsuit and Judge Katzmann’s opinion. Justice Thomas said the court didn’t need to decide in the moment whether to rein in the legal protections. “But in an appropriate case, it behooves us to do so,” he said. Some lawmakers, lawyers and academics say recognition of the power of social media’s algorithms in determining what people see is long overdue. The platforms usually do not reveal exactly what factors the algorithms use to make decisions and how they are weighed against one another. “Amplification and automated decision-making systems are creating opportunities for connection that are otherwise not possible,” said Olivier Sylvain, a professor of law at Fordham University, who has made the argument in the context of civil rights. “They’re materially contributing to the content.” That argument has appeared in a series of lawsuits that contend Facebook should be responsible for discrimination in housing when its platform could target advertisements according to a user’s race. A draft bill produced by Representative Yvette D. Clarke, Democrat of New York, would strip Section 230 immunity from targeted ads that violated civil rights law. A bill introduced last year by Representatives Tom Malinowski of New Jersey and Anna G. Eshoo of California, both Democrats, would strip Section 230 protections from social media platforms when their algorithms amplified content that violated some antiterrorism and civil rights laws. The news release announcing the bill, which will be reintroduced on Wednesday, cited the Force family’s lawsuit against Facebook. Mr. Malinowski said he had been inspired in part by Judge Katzmann’s dissent. Critics of the legislation say it may violate the First Amendment and, because there are so many algorithms on the web, could sweep up a wider range of services than lawmakers intend. They also say there’s a more fundamental problem: Regulating algorithmic amplification out of existence wouldn’t eliminate the impulses that drive it. “There’s a thing you kind of can’t get away from,” said Daphne Keller, the director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, “which is human demand for garbage content.” Source link Orbem News #Echoes #Fight #Israel #Online #speech #Stabbing
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axwalker · 4 years
Text
Now and Then 1: Beginnings
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This will be a mini-series (4 or 5 chapters), and I’ll be using the weekly prompts of the lovely  @emceesynonymroll​  WACKY DRABBLES.
This week’s prompt is  #40: “Don’t you ever do that again” and will appear in bold.
Synopsis:  The story of Alexis’s and Drake’s friendship since they met when they were 10 years old until they become roommates after college. (AU) Fluff with a tad of angst. 
MASTERLIST
Warning: This is a +18 blog. Maybe NSFW in the future 
Pairing: Drake x ?, Alexis x ?
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Pixelberry
Word count: 1496
Thanks to my beautiful beta reader @pedudley​
Permatag list: @pedudley​ @pug-bitch​ @burnsoslow​ @mskaneko​ @twinkle-320​ @kimmiedoo5​ @ac27dj​ @marshmallowsandfire​ @loveellamae​
One shots: @princessleac1​
Now and Then: @ravenpuff02​ 
September 2005
Lexie O’Brien and Drake Walker’s friendship started when they were 10 years old and she had challenged him and his friends to a soccer game. Lexie was fed up. The boys never wanted to play with her or her girlfriends, but they hogged the school’s soccer field every afternoon. She decided to fix it with a simple bet. If the girls won, the coach would have to create mixed teams.
At the end of the match, they were tied 4-4, but the coach was impressed by them and had accepted her proposition.
That afternoon, Drake found himself waiting with her for their parents to pick them up. Lexie sat with her chin resting on her knees, her orange backpack next to her. Drake noticed that it had a badge of Barcelona’s soccer team.
“Barcelona?” He asked, curious.
Lexie beamed at him. “Best team ever!”
“The best team ever is Liverpool,” he said, smugly.
She stood up excited. “What are you talking about?  Barcelona has Ronaldinho!” She took the ball and tried to dribble, unsuccessfully. “One day, I’ll dribble like him,” she declared in a dreamy voice.
He looked at her stupefied. “You’re really intense.”
“That’s what my mom says.” She shrugged.
“Why isn’t she here?”
“She’s working. My abuelita has a Mexican restaurant. Sometimes they’re too busy so she’s late. And your mom?”
Drake lowered his eyes, embarrassed. “She’s not in Cordonia. I live with my dad.” And he’s always late.
She nodded empathetically; adults were a mystery to her. She kneeled down and put her hand over his shoulder. “My dad left too.”  
Drake didn’t reply. He hated to talk about his family. After a silent moment, Lexie kicked a stone, angrily. They had been waiting for more than 30 minutes.  
She suddenly had an idea, she hoped he’d be onboard, but she wasn’t sure. Drake wasn’t the friendliest boy she had met. “Do you live far from here?”
Drake frowned, she sure was nosey. “Like fifteen minutes. Why?”
“Me too! In Valtoria Avenue. We can walk together.”
Drake was angry with his dad for being late. And leaving would teach him a lesson. But he didn’t want to go with her. She was only a girl.
“I’ll go, but you stay here. Your mom will come soon.” He threw his bag over his shoulder and started walking.
She ran and stood in front of him her hands on her hips. “Hey! It was my idea. I want to come too.”
He rolled his eyes, annoyed. “Whatever, just don’t get ran over by a car or something.”
“I know how to cross the street, smarty-pants,” she sassed, annoying him even more.
They walked silently for ten minutes when her stomach growled. “I think I’m hungry,” she admitted as she placed her hands on her belly.
“Yeh, I’m hungry too.”
“Look, Ben and Jerry’s!” She pipped pointing to their left.
He hesitated for a minute; His dad would be furious if he didn’t come home fast. But she seemed really hungry, and he could bet his entire collection of Pokémon cards that she was going to nag him all the way back to their houses, if she didn’t eat something. He had his allowance money in his pocket, so he decided to go for the ice cream.
They chatted all the way back, mostly about Harry Potter. Both of them liked the books more than the movies but they were both waiting the release of the ‘The Goblet of Fire’ frantically.
Her heart stopped when she saw a police car in front of her house. “My mom called the police. She’s going to kill me.”
Drake felt a knot in the pit of his stomach. “That’s my dad’s car, he’s a policeman.”
She widened her eyes. “Wow! That’s cool!”
“Not as much as you think, he’s never there,” he said with a small voice.
Soon, they saw a fuming Jackson and a furious Elena coming out of the house.
“Alexis! What were you thinking?” Elena was enraged but she hugged her daughter tightly. “What you did is so dangerous, Lexie.”
Lexie blushed furiously; she didn’t want to be scolded in front of Drake. “I’m not a little girl, mom.”
“Yes, you are, mija (my daughter). We’ll talk later. Now, go inside, I have to talk Mr. Walker.”, she said pointing her finger to the house
Lexie was about to protest, but her mother was the only human on earth that scared her. She entered the house obediently.
Jackson turned to his son. “You know how irresponsible this was, Drake?”
Drake refused to be reprimanded, it was his father’s fault. “You were late, dad. Again.”
Jackson knew his son was right, since Bianca had left with Savannah, he juggled to maintain a balance between his work and his fatherly duties. And he had to admit that he wasn’t doing a great job.
“That’s not an excuse, Drake. You can’t leave like that.”
Drake wanted to reply, but Jackson interrupted him, raising his hand. “No excuses. Don't you ever do that again. Understood?”
His son nodded and got in the car.
Jackson turned to Elena. “Is everything okay now, Ms. O’Brien?”
“Everything is fine now, thanks for coming with me to the house. I thought I was going to die when I didn’t see her at the school.” She nodded towards the car where Drake was waiting. “I bet he’s hungry. Poor little thing. You can eat with us. I brought tacos dorados from the restaurant. I don’t like to brag but they’re the best in the city” Without giving Jackson time to think, she went to the car and opened the door. “Come on, kid. Let’s go eat.”
Jackson considered his options. He could serve his son a frozen pizza and a bag of salad, or he could let him eat something cooked for once. “Thank you, Elena.”
Elena took Drake to Alexis’s room where she was still brooding. Her face lit up when she saw him. “Drake! I thought you left!”
“Your mom invited us to diner. Well, she actually didn’t give my dad a choice.” He grinned. “It was pretty cool. Usually, no one tells him what to do”
Lexie smiled, proudly. “That’s my mom. She’s very bossy.”
Drake looked around. Her room was chaotic. His dad complained a lot about his mess, but it was nothing compared to this.
He had expected a room like Savannah’s but, it actually was more similar to his own. She had soccer posters everywhere, of the wrong team, but still. She obviously hadn’t lied about loving Harry Potter, she had Hermione Granger’s and Ron Weasley’s pictures all over the walls.
“I thought you were a Harry’s kinda girl, Lex.”
No one had called her Lex before, but she liked it. “I like Harry, but my fave is Hermione. She’s so cool!”
He teased her, “the best friend? You do know that Harry is the main character, right?”
She shrugged. “I like Harry, but I prefer Ron and Hermione. He’s a good friend and she’s the smartest witch. Plus, I bet they’re in love.”
Drake grimaced before speaking. “The coolest is Sirius Black.”
She beamed at him as she pointed to the wall. There was a framed quote:
‘We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.’ Sirius Black.
Drake made the desk’s chair spin as he declared, “You’re cool for a girl.”
She squinted at him. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, you don’t like Barbies and you play soccer.” He shrugged.
She opened a trunk in the corner of her room. “I do like Barbies. A lot. I just like soccer too. My mom says there’s no girl’s and boy’s stuff. Just stuff”
He sat on the floor, crossing his legs. “My dad wouldn’t agree with that.”
She took out a game of Monopoly. “Is this guy enough for your dad? I have Battleship too,” she said, teasingly.
Drake shook his head; she was a huge pain in the ass, but he kind of liked her. “Monopoly is okay.”
From that day on, Drake and Jackson would often have dinner in the O’Brien’s house. Elena didn’t mind watching Drake when Jackson had a late shift, so the boy spent a lot of afternoons in their restaurant playing and doing homework with Lexie. Jackson took them camping as often as he could. The three of them loved stargazing, so Jackson built with them a homemade telescope to teach them everything he knew about the stars and the constellations. Elena took them to all the Harry Potter movies and book signings. They both loved the sea so one of their parents took them to the beach every weekend. They discovered a hidden cove and named it their place. They used to go there to share their secrets or build forts and sandcastles.
When they were at school, they had other friends as well, but no matter how much Olivia or Liam teased them or how often and fiercely they fought each other, their friendship grew older with them.
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