#he's the one who poisoned the sheep in the second book where they go to Australia

[eddie-van-munson]

Love, Hate, and Judas Priest (Eddie Munson x Reader)

***********

Requested by: @bobcatbaker @they-ignoreme (Requests for a Reader that acts just like Eddie, and Something Inspired by 'Ten Things I Hate About You'.)

Summary: A classic Enemies to Lovers fic. Eddie Munson has hated you ever since you strolled into Hellfire wearing the same Judas Priest shirt as him. But there's a thin line between love and hate.

Warnings: Enemies to Lovers (Hurt/Comfort, Arguing, Angst, Pettiness), Cursing, Spicy Kisses, Fluff, She/Her pronouns. I think that's it??

(Requests are open but the waitlist is long!)

***********

Eddie Munson did not like you.

He knew that from the moment he laid eyes on you. No. Before that, even. He knew it from the moment Dustin had started gushing to him about you.

He was far too excited, vomiting information at him like there was going to be a quiz. "She's just moved to Hawkins from New York, dude. It's her second time doing Senior Year."

Eddie bristled. Flunking senior year was his thing.

"I'm telling you, she's wicked. She knows everything about DnD and she likes metal! You should've heard her talking about the last campaign she ran with her party in New York!" Eddie clenched his jaw a little, quickly realizing how dead set Dustin was on you joining the party. "You've got to meet her. It's like you're the same person! It's crazy! You're gonna love her, man."

Eddie decided right then and there that the two of you were, in fact, nothing alike.

Hellfire that night only cemented his opinions.

"Henderson!" Eddie called from his throne, dramatically. "You are tired. You are injured... You have but one night before an attack is unleashed on your lands. What say ye?"

Dustin nodded solemnly, contemplating his depleted health, "I take a long rest." He crosses his arms decidedly over his chest.

Eddie hummed in agreement, looking back at his book. "Wise choice, Sir Nog-"

"Actually, he can't do that." Mike cut in from across the table. "A long rest lasts twenty-four hours. He won't recuperate and regain spent abilities until a full day has passed."

Eddie frowned, "Who the hell decided that?"

"...The rules?" Mike shrugged, scratching his neck awkwardly. "Y/N says that-"

"Y/N?" He felt a flash of anger, annoyance churning his stomach. "And since when do I give a shit what Y/N says?"

Mike blanched, stuttering.

"Tell me Wheeler, what does your shirt say?"

He sighed, "Hellfire."

Eddie hummed in mock surprise, "Hellfire! And who's king of Hellfire, remind me? Who's Dungeon Master?"

Mike went quiet, crooking an eyebrow, "You?"

"Me. Not Y/N." He crossed his legs over the arm of his throne, "If she has something to say about how I play, she can take it up with me."

Who does she think she is? He ranted to himself in his head as he gathered his things after club. Showing up from god knows where and telling him how to run his own goddamn club. Poisoning his little freshmen sheep.

Mike relayed the whole thing to you in study hall the next day. "I didn't realize he'd flip out!" He laughed at the thought. "Like, shit!"

Dustin dragged you with him to the drama room the next week, your book in tow.

The moment Eddie saw you, he opened his mouth to argue with Dustin. You beat him to it, "What the fuck, Henderson?"

Eddie scoffed. That's what he called Dustin.

This detail, however, was easily the least of the concerns swimming in his head as he looked you up and down. You were wearing the same Judas Priest shirt as him. The exact same one. 

Eddie swung a leg over the arm of his throne, staring you down, "Who is this?"

He knew exactly who the fuck you were.

Dustin sighed, realizing neither of you were going to make this easy on him. "Eddie, this is Y/N. She's joining Hellfire."

You both whip around to look at Dustin, speaking in Unison, "And who the hell decided that?"

Eddie scowled, looking over at you. Your gaze shot daggers at him. Embarrassing.

Dustin held back a smile. Jesus, you both were to stubborn for your own good. Only Eddie Munson would find a way to not like someone who was exactly like him. Dustin soldiered on, "She knows a shit ton about DnD, dude. She'd make a great member in our party."

Eddie hummed smugly, sarcasm dripping from his tone, "Mhm. Yeah. Ok."

You clenched your jaw at his sarcasm as he stood, sliding one of his thick game books down the table to you.

"Do me a favor. Crack that open and come back when you know the difference between an elf and a tiefling, princess."

Dustin opened his mouth to scold him, but he didn't get a chance to. Wordlessly, you pulled off your backpack and unzipped it, pulling out a well-loved copy of the same book. You slammed it down on top of Eddie's with a smug smile, "Your edition is out of date. I'd think about an upgrade."

He glared at you from the head of the table. Yeah. You knew what kind of guy this was. You were all too familiar with this brand of douche bag. You hadn't even wanted to join his stupid ass club, but now? Now you wanted to join just to piss him off.

Eddie crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowed. You rolled your eyes, turning your back to him without a word, and march off, confidently.

"See you next Wednesday, Freddie."

***********

Things got better. You and Eddie tolerated each other. Sometimes.

In the beginning, it was all out war all the time. By your third club meeting, Dustin was already having to hold an intervention.

"You're acting like fifth graders, guys. You're supposed to be the grown ups!"

"I'll start acting like a grown up when she stops-"

"Eddie!" Dustin cut him off, shooting him a look. The Freshman sighed, rubbing his temples. "I'm not asking you two to be nice to each other. I'm not even asking you to talk anything out. I'm just asking for mutual respect."

Neither you or Eddie looked at Dustin, just glared at each other. You crossed your arms. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" 

"You know exactly what that means." Dustin took a deep breath. He turned back towards the throne. "Eddie, Y/N knows her shit. She's a good player. You can at least admit that."

Eddie was silent. Dustin turned to you.

"Y/N, Eddie's a damn good Dungeon Master. He writes awesome campaigns. You know that's the truth."

You went quiet.

"You both have traits that the other can respect. So stop acting like children and be good sports, ok?"

You and Eddie nodded.

Dustin sighed in relief, "Now shake hands."

You made it to a point of good natured mutual-dislike. Sure, you still teased one another mercilessly and argued about stupid shit, but there was respect. A silent agreement that ok...maybe you didn't actually mean everything you said.

Today was different though. Eddie wasn't putting up with shit today.

He'd woken up with a splitting head ache, already fifteen minutes late to his first period. The van broke down on the way to school, and he'd had to put up with bullshit from his teachers and Jason Carver all day. His head still hurt, and on top of all that? Wayne had just taken a pay cut.

You got to the drama room a few minutes after he did. He nodded, acknowledging you, and you watched for a minute as he stiffly laid out fresh character sheets over the table. Something was wrong. Damnit.

You debated whether you should say anything, scratching your neck awkwardly. Finally, you spoke, your voice sounding too loud in the silence of the room. "Are you ok?"

He paused, looking at you, and both of you were quiet for a moment. He cleared his throat, "Yeah. Just...you know. Headache."

You hummed, nodding, and pulled your book from your bag. There was another long silence. "Do you want some Tylenol?"

He turned to you again, looking confused. Surprised, even. "What?"

You played with the hem of your pants, pointing at the door to the drama room. "I just...I keep Tylenol in my locker for cramps. I thought maybe...if you were hurting or something-"

Something in him bristled, "Can you just leave me alone?"

You froze, looking hurt. Eddie's chest ached, now along with his head, guilt bubbling in him. He swallowed thickly, "Look, I-"

"Just, forget it." You snapped.

He opened his mouth to say something. To apologize. But the door to the drama room swung open.

"Eddie!" You both jumped as Lucas ran in, trailed by the other boys. "I won! I made the winning shot!"

His expression immediately brightened, "Holy shit, Sinclair! Are you serious!?"

The room erupted, each club member bouncing off the walls with excitement as they tried to recount the glorious details of the game all at once. You sat at the table, smiling weakly. As proud as you were of Lucas, you didn't feel like celebrating.

You took a deep breath as The Sheep finally settled at the table, pulling their game pieces from their backpacks and finding pencils.

Eddie cleared his throat, ignoring the pain in his skull as he read. "Sir Nog..."

Dustin looked up, his eyes going wide.

"When we left you last week, you were headed for the desert, fleeing an army of Drows. You casted 'Find Greater Steed' and summoned a Griffin to carry you far from the enemy. When your 'steed' grew tired, you stopped for the night a top a large hill and took a long rest to regain your strength."

 Dustin nodded, recounting his last turn from the week before.

"But now, Sir Nog..." Eddie's tired face cracked with mischief. "You've awoken. It's been twenty four hours, and the army of Drows has caught up to you."

Dustin groaned, covering his eyes. The other boys shouted advice.

Eddie laughed softly at their enthusiasm, ignoring the throbbing of his head, and  continued. "You can hear them around you, yelling to one another, but they can't see you yet. You were smart enough to hide yourself and your steed in a desert cave for the night."

Dustin sighed in relief.

"You aren't out of the woods yet though, Henderson. You don't have much of a stealth bonus...Would you like to attack or stay hidden?"

Dustin thought, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Stay hidden."

Eddie smiled, "Alright. Roll the twenty for me."

Dustin steadied himself, cracking his knuckles as he plucked the die from his collection. He shook it, blowing on it for good luck, and let it tumble across the table. The room held its breath as it came to a stop. 13.

The boys looked to Eddie, expectantly, crossing their fingers. Eddie raised his brows. "It's not enough. They see you."

Dustin hit his fist on the table as the group groaned. "Shit."

You swallowed thickly, "That's not right."

A silence. Eddie clenched his jaw. "What?"

"I said, you're wrong. That is enough."

He shook his head, trying to keep his cool. "It's not. His stealth is too low. There's not enough of a bonus."

You stood your ground, "Drows are at a disadvantage in the sunlight. When subterranean species are on land, they lose Optical Aucity unless they have shaded goggles. I don't remember you mentioning any goggles."

Eddie groaned, "Are you fucking serious?"

"I'm trying to help the kid, Munson. What, do you want him to lose? It's in the damn book. You should have read it."

"I did read it! I've read it a million times. Why do you rake me over the coals over every-"

"Because you're an asshole! You treat me like I'm stupid!"

Eddie snapped, "Then why the hell do you come? Why do you come every goddamn week if you hate it so much, huh? Just stop! Stop coming! Because you're ruining it for all of us!"

You could've heard a pin drop in the drama room.

 It hurt. It really hurt. You would have preferred it if he'd punched you in the stomach. You weren't sure why it hurt so much.

That was lie. You did know why. It was because deep down, you liked Eddie. You'd grown to like him a lot.

You liked it when he teased you and you teased him, both of you knowing it didn't mean anything. You liked it when he'd congratulate you for beating his campaigns, even though it drove him crazy to do it. You liked that you lived in the same trailer park, and he'd drive you home from Hellfire if you asked. He'd always put on your favorite Iron Maiden tape, too, just because he knew you liked it. You liked Eddie. For as much as you shouted the opposite from the rooftops, you really really liked him. He knew you did. And you'd thought he liked you too.

There was immediate regret in his eyes the moment he said it. He felt sick when he saw the look on your face, but the damage was done. You couldn't even look at the other boys. Your throat tightened, and you fought the tears welling in your eyes.

"Fuck you, Eddie Munson."

You grabbed your book from the table and marched out the door. He started towards you, but his head spun a little when he stood up too fast. You ignored him when he called after you, slamming the front doors of the building and making your way to the parking lot.

Eddie cursed under his breath, trying to steady his dizzy, aching head. "Shit...shit. Goddamn it." He tugged at his own curls, angry with himself. His eyes and nose were red when he finally turned to the club. His voice was hoarse, "You guys go on home, ok? I'll find her. I'm gonna talk to her. Just...we'll pick up next week."

***********

Eddie stood awkwardly at your front door for a little bit before he finally mustered the courage to knock. He didn't hear anything, and he'd begun to think you hadn't made it home yet when you opened the door.

You slammed it shut in his face the moment you saw who it was, locking it.

Eddie sighed, guilt swimming in his belly. There'd been two obvious mascara tracks running down your cheeks. "Oh, Come on, Y/N. I just want to talk."

Your voice was hoarse when you yelled back, "I don't have anything to say to you."

"Well, I have something to say to you!"

"Well I don't fucking care!"

"Y/N!...Damn it!" He groaned, thumping his fist on the door in annoyance. "Goddamnit, Y/N, why do you act like this? You drive me fucking crazy! You know that?"

"Good!" You yelled, biting back a sob. You leaned your back against the door, sinking down to sit with your knees pulled to your chest.

"Christ, You're go damn headstrong, Y/N! You won't ever let shit go! You never stop when you should. You just push and push. You're so fucking irritating."

Anger burned in your chest as you listened. What, you ran off crying and he sought you out to berate you some more?

You could hear him panting. He rested his forehead against the door. "I don't get you. I don't. Because you do all this...you talk so much shit and act like you rule the fucking world and the boys eat it up every time. They absolutely love it and I do too."

You caught on his words, your brow furrowing with confusion.

"I do too, Y/N."

You went silent, trying to make sense of whatever the hell was happening. Again, he spoke. His words were soft this time. Croaky and tired. Like he'd given into it.

"I...I do too. I really do." He swallowed. "That's what drives me batshit crazy. I can't get enough of you. I can't get you out of my stupid head."

 He could feel your presence, almost. Sitting on the other side of that door. He wanted to step through it and hold you. Tell you he was sorry.

His voice broke, "I've wanted you from the moment I saw you in that stupid fucking Judas Priest shirt. I wanted you so bad. And it scared me. It scared the shit out of me. It still does. Because I still want you."

He turned his back to the door and leaned against it, sliding down to sit, as well.

"I guess in the beginning I felt like it was easier to reject you before you could reject me and that is such an asshole move. I know it is and I'm sorry. I'm just terrified of you, Y/N." He gave a humorless laugh, burying his face in his hands.  "You're perfect. You're literally perfect. You know that right?

Eddie had almost forgot you were listening. There was a long silence. He'd been about to stand up and walk away. To leave you alone like you probably wanted him to. But he heard you turn the deadbolt.

He stood as you opened the door, feeling like his heart was going to fall out of his chest. There you were, eyes red and glossy. You looked so small there. What remained of your mascara was running down your flushed cheeks, staining the collar of your pajama shirt. You were pitiful, and god his whole body ached in knowing he'd made you cry. He wanted to gather you up in his arms.

You stared up at him. "Get inside, Eds. It's cold."

*********

He was taller than you remembered. You noticed this now as he stood in the middle of your bedroom. Eddie stared at you awkwardly, looking around your room as you paced. You were still unsure of what exactly you were going to do with him.

He watched you as you rubbed the bridge of your nose, your cheeks flushed with anger. You muttered something to yourself.

Eddie finally cut in, "Just yell at me."

You froze, turning to him. "What?"

"Just yell at me." He crossed his arms casually, brows raised. "I deserve it! Get it all out!"

You bit your lip.

He could tell you were tempted. "I'll start if you want." You crooked your brow. Eddie shrugged, walking over to the mirror on your wall. He stared at his reflection, and you flinched a little when he yelled, poking his finger against the mirror accusatorily, "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Your eyes went big as you watched him. He yelled again.

"You're a piece of shit! That's what you are! And you should've just accepted the Tylenol! Why'd you have to be an asshole about it, huh?"

He turned to you, his grin spreading at the sight of a tiny smile on your face. "Your turn."

You pursed your lips, wracking your brain. Finally, you threw something at him, still sounding unsure. "You...You're a son of a bitch, Eddie Munson!"

He jumped excitedly, beaming, "Hell yeah I am! C'mon!"

You hesitated, "You're arrogant! And you...You act like you know everything!"

"That's right! Let me have it!"

You laughed, furrowing your brow and giving him a shove as you jumped up onto your bed. You were taller than him, now. "You...I...How dare you?!"

"How dare I?!" He threw up his hands, exasperatedly.

"You're obnoxious! And entitled! How dare you embarrass me in front them like that! And then you show up here with your pretty brown eyes and tell me you love me? What is wrong with you?"

He was beaming now as he took your hands. "Sweetheart..." His voice went softer. Fond. "I've been asking myself the same question for years."

You dropped to your knees on the mattress, making yourself the perfect height to pull him into a hug. He went stiff, surprised. Oh. Oh. You were hugging him.

His fingertips laced in your hair as he held you right back. Tightly. He exhaled, letting himself relax into you as he gave an amazed laugh.

You pulled back, searching out those big brown eyes. "What is it?"

His face was split with a blinding smile, "I've just...I've never gotten to hug you, before."

God he was beautiful. He looked at you with the most starry eyes, the tip of his nose bumping yours. You brought a hand up to cradle his face, grazing your thumb over one of his dimples. His expression faded, and you were almost sure you saw him glance down at your lips for a moment.

"Eds..." You swallowed thickly, letting yourself admire his pretty mouth just as he had yours. "You are so fucking irritating."

He laughed loudly, but the sweet sound was muffled as you pulled him into a kiss. It was chaste, as was grinning against you, but the moment you knit your fingers through his curls he groaned softly, pulling your body close against his. His kisses were desperate and messy. God, he'd been wanting this for months. Wanting you for months.

Ever since he'd laid eyes on that stupid fucking Judas Priest shirt.

***********

Tensions were high the next week at Hellfire.

You were late, and the boys were sure things had gone to shit. Worst case scenarios crowded their heads all week. What if you and Eddie had gotten into a literal fist fight? What if you were plotting wicked, vile revenge as they spoke? And worst of all...What if you quit Hellfire?

Eddie had been non-descript with Dustin all week, answering his two hundred questions with useless things like, "It went fine."

You were no better, only offering eye rolls and "Stop worrying about it, Henderson."

The boys toyed with their figurines and pencils as they waited nervously. Club had started six minutes ago and still, you were no where to be seen. The room was quiet, the only sound being the nervous whispers between Freshmen. Finally, the drama room door opened, and you strolled in. The room sighed a silent sigh of relief.

You tossed your backpack to the side, pulling a chair out from the table next to Eddie, "Sorry I'm late."

" 's ok." He smiled at you, fondly.

This in itself was an anomaly. Eddie? Neglecting a chance to tease you about something?

Any thoughts of this being odd were quickly forgotten, though, when you pecked his lips quickly and mussed his hair, taking your seat at the table. You quietly searched out your character sheet from your bag, as if you hadn't just done something so out of character that it was making five teenage boys question their sanity.

They were frozen, jaws dropped, as if Luke Skywalker himself had just walked through the drama room door.

Eddie cleared his throat, "Sir Nog! It's come to my attention that due to the ocular disadvantage working against the army of Drows, they are, in fact, unable to see you in the desert cave."

***********

@stardancerluv @grace--03 @fightmevecna @ietss @blanket-anime-infos @padawansubscription @grungegrrrl @theoriginaldoll87

#eddie munson #eddie the freak munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #stranger things #stranger things imagine #stranger things imagines #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson imagines #eddie imagine #eddie imagines #eddie x reader #eddie x you #stranger things x you #stranger things x reader #eddie munsen x reader #eddie munsen imagine #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munsen

[krowbby]

Hogfather footnotes poll, Part 2!

Since it's Hogswatch season, I'm back with another footnote poll! Hogfather has a ton of footnotes, so this has to be split into 2 parts :P Part 1 linked here!

Full text of each footnote plus a little context for each is below the readmore so this post isn't a mile long. Enjoy!

There had been people dressed up as pixies, and a picket outside the shop by the Campaign for Equal Heights.* *The CEH was always ready to fight for the rights of the differently tall, and was not put off by the fact that most pixies and gnomes weren’t the least interested in dressing up in little pointy hats with bells on when there were other far more interesting things to do. All that tinklywee stuff was for the old folks back home in the forest—when a tiny man hit Ankh-Morpork he preferred to get drunk, kick some serious ankle and search for tiny women. In fact the CEH now had to spend so much time explaining to people that they hadn’t got enough rights that they barely had any time left to fight for them.

Wizards didn’t go to bed early in any case,* *Often they lived to a time scale to suit themselves. Many of the senior ones, of course, lived entirely in the past, but several were like the Professor of Anthropics, who had invented an entire temporal system based on the belief that all the other ones were a mere illusion. Many people are aware of the Weak and Strong Anthropic Principles. The Weak One says, basically, that it was jolly amazing of the universe to be constructed in such a way that humans could evolve to a point where they make a living in, for example, universities, while the Strong One says that, on the contrary, the whole point of the universe was that humans should not only work in universities but also write for huge sums books with words like “Cosmic” and “Chaos” in the titles. †The UU Professor of Anthropics had developed the Special and Inevitable Anthropic Principle, which was that the entire reason for the existence of the universe was the eventual evolution of the UU Professor of Anthropics. But this was only a formal statement of the theory which absolutely everyone, with only some minor details of a “Fill in name here” nature, secretly believes to be true. †And they are correct. The universe clearly operates for the benefit of humanity. This can be readily seen from the convenient way the sun comes up in the morning, when people are ready to start the day.

[...] although no one now knows why, or why an extant bequest pays for one small currant bun and one copper penny to be places on a high stone shield on one wall every second Wednesday.* * The ceremony still carries on, of course. If you left off traditions because you didn’t know why they started you’d be no better than a foreigner. 

What Ponder was worried about was the fear that he was simply engaged in a cargo cult. He’d read about them. Ignorant* and credulous† people, whose island might once have been visited by some itinerant merchant vessel that traded pearls and coconuts for such fruits of civilization as glass beads, mirrors, exes, and sexual diseases, would later make big model ships out of bamboo in the hope of once again attracting this magical cargo. *Ignorant: a state of not knowing what a pronoun is, or how to find the square root of 27.4, and merely knowing childish and useless things like which of the seventy almost identical-looking species of the purple sea snake are the deadly ones, how to treat the poisonous pith of the Sagosago tree to make a nourishing gruel, how to foretell the weather by the movements of the tree-climbing Burglar Crab, how to navigate across a thousand miles of featureless ocean by means of a piece of string and a small clay model of your grandfather, how to get essential vitamins from the liver of the ferocious Ice Bear, and other such trivial matters. It’s a strange thing that when everyone becomes educated, everyone knows about the pronoun but no one knows about the Sago-sago. †Credulous: having views about the world, the universe and humanity’s place in it that are shared only by very unsophisticated people and the most intelligent and advanced mathematicians and physicists.

[...] and there’s this museum I read about where they found a pocket calculator under the altar of this ancient temple, you know what I’m saying? but the government hushed it up…* *It’s amazing how good governments are, given their track record in almost every other field, at hushing up things like alien encounters. One reason may be that the aliens themselves are too embarrassed to talk about it. It’s not known why most of the space-going races of the universe want to undertake rummaging in Earthling underwear as a prelude to formal contact. But representatives of several hundred races have taken to hanging out, unsuspected by one another, in rural corners of the planet and, as a result of this, keep on abducting other would-be abductees. Some have been in fact abducted while waiting to carry out an abduction on a couple of other aliens trying to abduct the aliens who were, as a result of misunderstood instructions, trying to form cattle into circles and mutilate crops. The planet Earth is now banned to all alien races until they can compare notes and find out how many, if any, real humans they have actually got. It is gloomily suspected that there is only one—who is big, hairy and has very large feet. The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.

The singers were halfway down Park Lane now, and halfway through “The Red Rosy Hen” in marvelous harmony.* *“The red rosy hen greets the dawn of the day.” In fact the hen is not the bird traditionally associated with heralding a new sunrise, but Mrs. Huggs, while collecting many old folk songs for posterity, has taken care to rewrite them where necessary to avoid, as she put it, “offending those of a refined disposition with unwarranted coarseness.” Much to her surprise, people often couldn’t spot the unwarranted coarseness until it had been pointed out to them. Sometimes a chicken is nothing but a bird.

I’m waiting for the Hogfather, thought Ponder Stibbons. I’m in the dark waiting for the Hogfather. Me. A believer in Natural Philosophy. I can find the square root of 27.4 in my head.* *He’d have to admit that the answer would be “five and a bit,” but at least he could come up with it. 

He’d always promised their mother that he’d look after Banjo,* *It had been Ma Lilywhite’s dying wish, although she hadn’t known it at the time. Her last words to her son were “You try and get to the horses, I’ll try to hold ‘em off on the stairs, and if anything happens to me, take care of the dummy!”

Wizards know when they are going to die.* *They generally know in time to have their best robe cleaned, do some serious damage to the wine cellar and have a really good last mea. It’s a nicer version of Death Row, with the bonus of no lawyers.

The Senior Wrangler hummed cheerfully to himself as he ran a comb through his beard for the second time and liberally sprinkled it with what would turn out to be a preparation of weasel extract for demon removal rather than, as he had assumed, a pleasant masculine scent.* *It was, in fact, a pleasant masculine scent. But only to female weasels.

“A whole sheep!”* *Which had died in its sleep. Of natural causes. At a great age. After a long and happy life, insofar as sheep can be happy. And would probably be quite pleased to know that it could help somebody as it passed away. 

The man went to shut the door but Arnold Sideways was ready for him and had wedged his boot in the crack.* *Arnold had no legs but, since there were many occasions when a boot was handy on the streets, Coffin Henry had affixed one to the end of a pole for him. He was deadly with it, and any muggers hard-pressed enough to try to rob the beggars often found themselves kicked on the top of the head by a man three feet high. 

#discworld #terry pratchett #hogfather #polls #gnu terry pratchett

[celticbarb]

Book: Delighting Her Highland Devil

Author: Maeve Greyson

Series: (Time To Love A Highlander, Book 7)

Publisher: Dragonblade

Book Length: 295 pages

Overall Rating: 5/5 Stars

Blog Rating: 5/5 Saltire Flags

1760 Finnich Glen, Scotland

Jovianna Jacobs and her mother Amarantha Jacobs are both Scottish history professors at the University of Glasgow, from the twenty-first century, in the current year of 2023. Her mother is hilarious as a widow and always checking out well endowed men no matter how young they are. Now her daughter will not date any men from the office no matter how attractive they might be. It does not matter how attractive or braw they might be, she has seen from experience and from other co-workers how ugly this experience might be when the relationship ends which makes it awkward for everyone in the workplace not just the broken up couple but all their co-workers too. Unfortunately Jovianna’s new research assistant Sam just doesn’t get the hint no matter how many times she says no!

Jovianna is the daughter and is an extremely tall beauty being five foot eleven inches, but an absolute klutz as she is always breaking their department's expensive electronic equipment in the classroom. However when she is on one of her favorite field trips or in her zone on one of her dangerous archeology journeys, she is calm, cool and collected. Furthermore with a clear head and totally focused on whatever Scottish subject she was currently studying. However, on her latest trip things definitely don't go as planned and are nearly drowned while exploring the gorge this time where both mother and daughter get a touch of food poisoning from her new research assistant and are swept away and end up in Scotland in the year 1760. Now due to their extensive research on Scotland both professors always felt that time-travel was a definite possibility, yet both knew how bad this time period is for the Scottish people.

This is where Jovianna meets the handsome highwayman who introduces himself in gaelic as Diabhal Dubh-Chridhe, as the “Black Hearted Devil” and is shocked she knows their home language gaelic! It is fourteen years after the battle of Culloden being history professors Jovianna and her Mum know things are only going to get worse as their way of life is only going to get worse for the Scots not better.

Even though Jovianna was English she actually understood why this man Tobias Risk and his small group of men Fitch is his second in command the the other men are Cade, Donnor, Pag and Silas who were holding up these wealthy English Nobles. After all Scotland was suffering some were starving and even dying some even betrayed by their own people for sheep! It was devastating time for the Scottish people! Plus he is only trying to protect his people and lands from his black hearted brother. Who wants to clear his lands for sheep and demanding for outrageous rents. Plus burning his lands, the crofters homes and murdering his people. He is a bit like a Scottish Robin Hood, stealing from the rich wealthy Englishmen and giving to his people to feed, clothe and make the necessary repairs to his crumbling castle.

For Tobias he is doing everything he can. for his clan to live and survive. He discovers two Englishwomen in unusual men’s clothes. He is instantly attracted to the distrustful and disrespectful younger woman. A woman who calls her mother by her first name which he finds very rude. Plus she wants him to call her by her Christian name, a sassenach stranger. He needs to make sure she is not a spy after all the stealing he is doing. After all, he and his lads would be hanged by all of their recent unlawful activities. Yet Tobias falls for her instantly as does his people.

Soon he discovers this woman who owns his heart has betrayed him and his people. Now Jovianna had only been trying to help him. She had been afraid to tell him about her plan because he has a short fuse when it comes to his temper. He does not trust easily plus what will happen if these untrusting and superstitious Scots discover these two Englishwomen are from the future? Will they end up burned as witches? Will Tobias open his heart and let love in? Will Jovianna trust Tobias and finally discover true love? Will she forgive Tobias for his short temper and tell him about Scotland’s future and the clearances? Can these two star crossed lovers even have a chance at happiness or go their separate ways? Read and find out.

Again Ms. Greyson pens another phenomenal masterpiece. This is her time- travel finale in the incredible Time To Love A Highlander series that I absolutely loved! A book readers will be gasping for air with so many twists and turns in this spectacular read! You can read an of the books in this series as a stand alone book.

A book I highly recommend!

Time to Love a Highlander” Series by Maeve Greyson

Book 1 - Loving Her Highland Thief

Book 2 - Taming Her Highland Legend

Book 3 - Winning Her Highland Warrior

Book 4 - Capturing Her Highland Keeper

Book 5 - Saving Her Highland Traitor

Book 6 - Loving Her Lonely Highlander

Book 7 - Delighting Her Highland Devil

Disclaimer: I received an advance reader copy from Dragonblade publishing. I voluntarily agreed to do an honest, fair, review and blog through netgalley. All words, thoughts, ideas are my own.

BUY LINKS:

https://www.amazon.com/Delighting-Highland-Devil-Time-Highlander-ebook/dp/B0C471X4BZ

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/delighting-her-highland-devil-maeve-greyson/1143492936?ean=9781960

[chonkycorgi826]

Another post-

Nicky: Ah, Vissia. My arch nemesis!

Mortimer: I thought I was your arch nemesis!

Nicky: I have a life outside of you Mortimer

#thea stilton #geronimo stilton #thea sisters #he's the one who poisoned the sheep in the second book where they go to Australia

[prismadog]

Found Family AU character facts (part 3)

apparently, I can't just leave this at one or two, I have to do more than is required for this au - such is the way of life I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

for these, I'm only doing a sort of pre-story type thing, ya know, like their origins, who the characters were before they all knew each other. if I didn't condense these down to that point, well, we'd be here all day reading practically an entire book on one single character [I think I'm exaggerating here?]

this one got a bit long so I'm putting it under the line.

hey uh, are any of you actually interested in their backgrounds? idk if that's something that interests people or not but I'm writing these and it just makes me wonder, y'know? [of course, now that I've started, I can't just stop, there's still so many characters. but still...curiosity and all's got me wondering]

Sausage

Sausage is a dwarf of Mythland who was born a single child to the Dwarf King. ever since he was a child, he dreamed of being a mighty sorcerer that could use all kinds of magic but being a dwarf, magic comes a lot harder to him than it would a human or another magical creature - such as his good friend Gem.

the kingdoms of Mythland and the Crystal Cliffs were close allies and have been for generations - the Grimlands does not exist at this time. Sausage grew up alongside Gem and fWhip of the Crystal Cliffs - he revered Gem and her magical abilities, and found a close friend in fWhip due to neither of them being able to wield magic. Gem did try to teach Sausage magic despite the lessons never producing even a spark of magic - that of course didn't stop him.

he and fWhip would often get into trouble, playing pranks and whatnot on the people of the two kingdoms, and sometimes they could convince Gem to join in with them.

the trio stayed close friends through the years, and when Sausage's father was slain in battle against a pillager raid the siblings were there mourning alongside their friend. he took vigil at his father's final resting place for an entire day, as is tradition, then the next day he held a celebration in honor of the fallen King, with a feast to finish off the night.

Sausage was crowned the new Dwarf King within the week and his friends were there for his coronation - fWhip, ever the tinkerer, set up a firework display for him, and Gem gifted him with an old spell book written by a Mythlandian and enchanted rings that provided protection.

things became hectic around this time, what with being a new king with new duties and protecting his empire from pillagers, and he can't see his friends as often. Gem also gets busy with her studies and fWhip starts exploring the mountains - something that the people of the Crystal Cliffs don't do. in this time, he also adopted a pup that he named "Bubbles" and she became his second in command.

several months later, he gets word that his friend fWhip has gone missing. he drops everything to travel to the Cliffs and be at Gem's side - she tells him that fWhip has been missing for quite some time and she blames herself that she never noticed. he comforts her and they go out on a search for him, which unfortunately results in nothing but a few belongings found deep within the mountain and a journal.

Gem holds a funeral for her brother and Sausage stands vigil once again for a loved one. he offers Gem any aid that Mythland can provide and she graciously accepts. he visits her from time to time after the event but eventually, he just gets busy and more time drags between each visit.

his kingdom prospers with a plethora of new buildings - an iron farm, a forge, new docks, bigger and better homes for the people, and all kinds of other things. one thing that stands out from the rest is a summoning circle - this, he uses to sacrifice the crimson sheep of the land in the hopes, not for power, but for knowledge and guidance, and that one day the gods - whoever may be listening - will return his friend to him.

he gains quite a bit of knowledge in the ways for forging weapons imbued with magic and using anothers' magic to alter ordinary everyday things - such as a dark oak tree or even a mushroom. this is all for the benefit of his kingdom so he doesn't see a problem with his sacrifices, despite what his advisors may believe.

he met with other rulers, some he'd been neglecting to talk to, and others who were just coming into power. one of the first new rulers he met was Pearl of Smallholding - a chaotic girl with flowers in her hair and a grin that never fades. another was the Codfather, Jimmy Solidarity-Shadow - one of the merfolk who's kingdom rose slowly from the swamps and without anyone seeming to notice. months after meeting these two, another kingdom arose, this time practically overnight, and the ruler was none other than fWhip of the Crystal Cliffs - his best friend - but this time, fWhip was the Count of a near-barren plains dubbed the Grimlands.

the trio celebrated fWhip's return and Sausage, once home, thanked whatever gods that had brought his friend back. visits between the three kingdoms became commonplace again, as well as visits to the new Cod Empire - though, those were to pick on the new ruler there.

Sausage did learn not to take things too far in teasing the Codfather because one day, he and fWhip had set up a "minor, harmless" trap and when the Codfather got injured and bedridden for a few days, well, they found out that Queen Lizzie of the Ocean Empire was not someone you wanted to anger. after, they did continue their teasing but they kept it well below danger levels.

a year or so after fWhip's return, Sausage met another new ruler who had just come into power and who's kingdom had been lost to the world for ages - King Joey Graceffa of the Lost Empire. Joey took interest in his sacrifices and his borrowed magics, maybe a little too much interest if the bloodlust in his eyes was anything to go by.

Joey

Joey is born the youngest of three children to the Emperor of the Maztec Empire - his siblings being the princesses.

he, like all others of the royal family, are born with parrot wings to match the local parrots of the jungle. he often used his wings to escape his lessons, though being third in line for the throne, he was allowed lenience to goof off and have fun anyway since the throne always went to the eldest.

but, Joey was the jealous sort as well and would often play dirty pranks on his sisters, and most times, they ended in some injury. though, he was also quite intelligent and could almost always pin the blame on another, usually on someone of the lowest class - the mudbloods who were more of a hybrid of cat and human.

one such dirty prank went horribly wrong and his eldest sister lost her life. it had involved a cave, the cave collapsed, and she got caught in it. he watched her struggle for some time, oddly curious about it, but eventually went and got help. the healers tried to help her but she soon passed on.

a funeral was held for the princess days later and she was cremated - as is tradition for royalty. life moved on, as it does, and the second princess became next in line.

after the death of the first princess, he became a little more interested in the act of dying than a boy should. he was curious and wanted to find out more about death, and the mudblood people were right there for him to experiment with. he made sure to only take one person every so often for experiments - the jungle could be a dangerous place and was often unkind to wanderers so if one or two people went missing every few months, then who was to know?

aside from secretly pranking his sisters and stealing away the lower class, he would spend time with the gentlemen of higher standing - the purebloods who were humanoid cats and certainly looked it. he would pick one to mess around with, or two or three if he so desired, until he eventually grew bored and discarded them like they were yesterday's trash.

his remaining sister, nearing her adulthood, started dreaming of leaving the kingdom to explore the world - she'd always wanted to but their parents would never permit it, nobody entered the kingdom and nobody left. he would stay up late with her on the nights he grew bored of gentlemen, and talk to her about her dreams.

with her becoming an and their parents getting older, he worried that soon, she would be taking the throne. so, he thought up a plan and talked with her about it - he could get things set up and all she would have to do is follow through, and before she knew it, she'd be exploring to her heart's content.

she was nervous, of course, but Joey is a charmer and used that to his advantage. he convinced her it was the best option for her if she didn't want to be tied down, and she could always return if she wanted. she agreed, wrote a farewell scroll that she gave him for safekeeping, and followed him one night to a secret area where a boat and some supplies were waiting, as well as one of his callers.

this she was confused about at first until Joey showed his true colors and killed her in cold blood. he then casually sent the gentleman off in the boat with his sister's body, promising him great rewards for his return if he got rid of the evidence.

he then returned home and set out the farewell letter in her room where it would be found, and went to bed. he awoke to the news late the next day, and also with a visit from his accomplice.

a few weeks later and there was no word from the princess and the guards sent out to search for her found no trace. though his parents prayed she was well, they still mourned her leaving. Joey was to be next in line should the Emperor and Empress pass and he celebrated in secret with the gentlemen who helped him - then when he got bored shortly after, he killed him too in the same cave his eldest sister died in and left his body to the mobs.

when he neared adulthood - only months away - he started his next plan for his rise to the throne. he acquired a poison that would imitate a deadly disease but not be curable by any known remedies. he used this on his father over the next several weeks and watched with secret glee as the Emperor grew weaker and weaker and the healers floundered about trying to cure him.

preparations were made, the Emperor passed on with few final words, and days later a funeral was held for him as well. his urn was placed next to the eldest princess' once everything was done. the Empress mourned the loss and Joey stood at her side.

he watched as her grief began to consume her, she spoke of loss and wishing she could join her husband, Joey listened to her words and wondered about what Maztec would do if she left too. she said it would be in good hands - he was a capable young man and if he ever needed help, there was a council of advisors at his side.

over a week later, the Empress took her own life, leaving behind a letter to her only remaining child. a third funeral was held, his mother cremated and laid to rest beside his father and sister, and he was crowned Emperor of the Maztec Kingdom.

Joey was free to do as he wished and he gladly accepted the freedom - everything was good and he was King.

but over the next several years, he found himself growing bored - not even building new temples kept his attention for long. he eventually started exploring, just a little ways, from his home and eventually came across the edge of the jungle which met the edge of a more barren land.

he visited the boarder a few times, curious about this other land, but never crossed it. then one day he met Count fWhip of the Grimlands - the name of the barren land. they spoke for some time at the boarder of their kingdoms, and set up a couple future visits to one another's kingdoms - fWhip visited his first, then he visited fWhip's.

at the visit to the Grimlands capitol, fWhip invited him to the next Gathering of Empires - apparently there were 9 other rulers out there besides the two of them, and one even had wings too!

he accepted the invitation without a moment's hesitation and at the next Gathering, his kingdom - the Lost Empire as it was written in old history books that an ally of fWhip's had found - became known to the rest of the world.

he found that the other winged ruler - Scott Smajor of Rivendell - was a very cold and distant person. but, the others were friendly enough, especially the Dwarf King - J Sausage of Mythland - and he took an interest in the man and the magics he was studying.

they became friends, and he by default joined an alliance with fWhip and Gem who were allied with Sausage.

#empires smp #found family au #xornoth adopts child!shubble au #mythical sausage #joey graceffa #these are getting to be so long now #i'm trying to keep them condensed but it's so difficult! #there's just so much to tell about these characters #ugh #i don't even know if anyone really wants to know this stuff about all these characters #but I can't just stop now that I've started

[lost-in-the-80s]

Bloodletting Part III - Y/N

Words: 2,245k.

Summary: Guns n Roses are already known for being dangerous, but how dangerous would they be if they were vampires? Would it be a wiseful decision to fall for one of them?

A/N: This part is more focused on explaining the Vampire world and introducing Y/N. 

Part II | Bloodletting Masterlist | Playlist

2020 - New York - 02:40 am

Duff walked through the dark streets of the city, the cold wind hitting his face as his feet touched the floor with an almost inaudible sound. He had just closed his bar, leaving a ton of glasses and utensils to be cleaned the next day.

It was autumn, and he took the opportunity to go walking towards the bar, ironically called Bloodletting, which now meant he’d have to walk back home, or more precisely, Izzy’s home. He didn’t mind walking though, being a vampire had its advantages, and not getting tired was one of them.

He stopped abruptly when a familiar smell got his nostrils, vampire smell, or more specifically, the lack of any smell accompanied by the slowly fading away human scent, mixed with a small hint of embalmed corpse. 

His head snapped towards the smell, curiosity taking a hold of him. It was someone new, he knew it because he was familiar with the scent of every vampire who lived in the city.

Over the years he learned how to identify each one of them based on the smell of things that constantly stayed around them. Like the smell of Slash’s snake, or the smell of cigarettes in Izzy’s clothes. And he was sure, this vampire, whoever it was, was someone new. 

Turning left he walked down a couple of streets until he found a dark alley, the smell of blood was strong and fresh, and coming closer, his eyes adjusted to the light, allowing him to see you on top of a man, his body laying on the ground.

Focusing on his hearing Duff realized that the man was still alive, and judging by the expensive clock on his wrist, he knew that you had made a huge mistake in choosing your prey.

“That wasn’t very smart of you.” He said, entering the alley.

You turned towards him and he realized that you were around his age. Your hair was all messed up and you were wearing party clothes. There was blood dripping from your lips and your pupils were dilated.

You ran towards Duff, pushing him against the wall, your mouth moving towards his neck as you got on your tiptoes. But Duff was older, which allowed him to be stronger than you. One of his hands grabbed your neck, pulling you away from him and inverting your positions, making you hit your back hard against the wall.

“Yep, you’re definitely not smart!”

Your eyes widened in shock.

“I’m gonna let you go, ok?” He said after a few seconds.

You nodded slowly, and so he removed his hand from your neck, taking one step back.

“You shouldn’t have chosen him.” Duff said, starting to walk towards the man, who by now was dead.

“Why?” You finally spoke.

“See this watch?” He removed the accessory, throwing it towards you. “Costs 30 thousand dollars.”

Duff searched for personal belongings in the man's pockets, throwing his wallet and his car keys towards you. Standing up, he threw the body over his shoulder, walking a few steps towards a dumpster and throwing the body inside of it. 

“Take the money and the credit cards from inside of it and then throw the wallet in the dumpster too.” He said, taking a pocket knife out of his leather jacket.

“Why?” 

He rolled his eyes. Is that all you know how to say? He thought.

“We need to make it look like it was a robbery.” He answered, stabbing the man’s neck where two small holes used to be. 

You did as he said, running weirdly with only one shoe on towards the dumpster and throwing the wallet there. You turned around realizing that Duff was nowhere to be seen.

“Stranger?” You shouted.

“Here.” 

You followed his voice, finding him leaning against a black Porsche. “You don’t need to yell you know.” 

He took a cigarette out of his pocket, lighting it up. “Here!” He threw the car’s keys towards you. 

“Find a junkyard and use that money to pay for someone to destroy the car.” 

You looked at him dumbfounded as he started walking away.

“Wait!” 

He stopped, turning around.

“I- I…” You tried to think of what to say, but nothing came out of your mouth.

Duff eyed you for a while, before realizing what was going on. “When did you wake up?”

“This- today... a few hours ago.” You looked so lost.

“Shit.” He mumbled. “It’s normal, most of us don’t remember anything personal after the transition, it can take you some days to remember everything.”

“Transition?”

“You weren’t like this before, honey.” 

You frowned.

“You used to be a human, like him.” He pointed towards the alley. “Now you’re a vampire, like me.” 

“Why?”

“Because someone wanted you to.”

“Who?”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t fucking know! But clearly wasn't decent enough to raise you.” 

“What- What do I do?”

“There’s nothing you can do, this is your life now.”

You stared at him as he heard your heart racing and could see the tears that started to form in your eyes. 

“Do you remember something? Anything?... Your name, maybe?”

You nodded slowly. “It’s Y/N.”

Duff threw away his cigarette, before opening the driver’s door of the car. 

“Come on, Y/N, let’s get rid of this car, and then I’ll find somewhere for you to stay.” 

---

The sun was rising on the horizon when Duff and Y/N entered the house, everyone showing up as soon as they smelled your scent, curious about the new guest.

“Brought some company, Duff?” Axl asked, walking down the stairs, stopping in front of you and picking up your hand, taking it to his lips, pressing a delicate kiss on it. “All yours or will you share with us?” A smirk appearing on his face.

Duff said nothing, putting his coat on the hanger and walking towards the library, finding Izzy reading by the window. 

“It's a new-born, doesn’t remember anything, I think it’s better if you give the lecture.”

Izzy lifted his eyes from his book, thinking for a second before closing it and exiting the room with Duff on his track. 

“Y/N, these are Axl and Izzy, Steven is the guy looking at you through the backyard windows and Slash is the one up there.” He pointed towards each one of them, stopping at Slash who was on the second floor, looking at them.

You looked to your side quickly, a little startled by Steven’s presence, but soon you saw curiosity in his eyes and his figure waving at you, and you realized he wasn’t creepy. You slowly waved back at him, before having your attention caught by Duff again.

“Izzy is gonna explain to you some things, since he’s older than me.”

Izzy motioned for you to follow him, walking further into the house.

You looked at Duff hesitantly, but he nodded, reassuring you, making you walk behind the brunette until you were inside a fancy office, filled with wooden shelves and expensive furniture. 

Izzy sat behind the desk, making a gesture for you to sit in front of him.

You eyed each other for a few seconds, in an awkward way before Izzy spoke up.

“What is it that you’re curious about?” 

You took a moment to reply as his accent hit your ears. "I don't know…"

"You don't know?" He raised one eyebrow.

“What am I?”

“You’re a vampire.”

“Yeah, but Duff said that I wasn’t- he said I was a human before.”

“All of us were, until we transitioned.”

“Transitioned?”

“It’s what we call it. A vampire transformed you.” 

“How does it happen?”

He leaned against his chair, taking a long breath before replying. “They give you their blood, which is poisonous to a human, as soon as it touches your stomach, you die. After a few hours you wake up, and you’re no longer a human.”

“Why me?”

“I don’t know, the only one who can answer that, is who transformed you.”

There was a pause before you spoke up again.

"Why can I remember random things, but not my birthday?"

He shrugged. "No-one knows, it's just how it is."

You looked at one of the walls, observing a big old map on it, the once white paper was now in a dark shade of beige. “So it is like in those movies?”

“Pretty much.”

“Will I shine in the sun?”

He chuckled lowly, “No. You’ll most probably burn.”

You looked back at him, widening your eyes. “Like, catching on fire?”

“No," He chuckled again. "More like going to the beach on a very sunny day without sunscreen. Of course, if you stay underneath it for too long your skin will start to look like barbecue and it won't be a pleasant feeling… but, on a cloudy day, sunscreen and hats do the job for you.”

“What about sunny days?”

“Forget about those. We usually isolate during summer, just going out during the nights.”

“So I- I really am a monster?”

“A monster, a god, a beast… there are many definitions, depending on the culture, but we usually go by vampires.”

You took in a long breath. “So my heart stopped beating?” You touched your chest.

“Of course not, nothing survives without a beating heart." He smiled, trying not to laugh again. "It's just beating slower… if we stay silent and you pay attention, you'll hear it”

“That- that’s a lot of information.” You gulped.

“Yeah, but it’s better for you to learn it in the beginning.”

He crossed his own fingers, eyeing you.

“Why do we drink blood?”

“Why do cows eat grass? Why does a wolf eat the sheep?... It's the food chain ... we are predators." 

You looked at his Persian rug for a while before coming up with another question.

“Do we still eat normal food?"

“We don’t actually need food anymore, but food gives your body energy and we can make good use of that.”

“So you guys still eat?”

“Sometimes… the same goes for drinking anything.”

“We don’t need water anymore?”

“Technically, no. But if you spend too much time without drinking it you’ll look like a raisin.” He smiled faintly.

She nodded slowly. “Garlic?”

“That’s bullshit, you can eat garlic if you want.”

“Crosses?”

“Another lie. Some of us are still religious, so no, crosses don’t do anything to us.”

“Who was the first?”

“No one knows… There are many legends and stories, but nobody knows exactly.”

“Legends like Dracula? Do you think he was the first one?”

Izzy chuckled at you. “Axl is older than Dracula, so no, I don’t think he was.”

“He is… older than Dracula? That ginger?” You pointed towards the living room with your thumb.

“I am!” You heard his voice coming from there.

“As you probably noticed, we don’t age.” He got a cigarette from his vintage cigarette box on top of his table, lighting it.

“And what is this? Is it like a fraternity, or something?”

He shrugged again. “There isn’t a correct definition for the collective of vampires, we usually call them clans.”

“Are there too many clans?”

He looked at you for a second, and you could tell that he was annoyed by the number of questions you had. But he answered anyway.

“Not really… Vampires aren’t the most sociable species, we hardly hang around each other."

“And why do you guys do?”

He shrugged, blowing out some smoke.

“What should I do now?”

“You need to wait.” He placed the remains of his cigarette on his ashtray. “As soon as your human blood is replaced by the vampire, you’ll remember your personal information and will start to have full access to your new abilities.”

You nodded, fixing your eyes on a black-covered book on his desk.

“Where will I stay?” Your posture changing with discomfort.

“You can stay here until you remember everything, then you’ll have to leave.”

“But what will I do alone?” You bit your bottom lip, trying not to cry for the second time that day. 

Seeing the tears forming in your eyes, he stood up. “That is not something you should be worried about now. Go upstairs and sleep for some hours, it will help with your mood swings.” 

“So we can sleep?” You got up, walking past the door.

He didn’t answer, stopping by the door and looking up. “Slash, can you find a room for Y/N?”

The man still on top of the stairs nodded, and so you walked towards him, following him down the corridor.

“Here, this room ain’t taken.” He opened a door to his left.

“Thank you.” You entered. 

“If you need anything, just say it, we can hear you easily.”

You nodded and he closed the door behind him, leaving you alone in the room. Your mind racing and aching with all the information you had gathered.

Loneliness and sadness soon hitting you like a train. You removed your shoe, laying on the bed and closing your eyes as silent tears left them.

You hated not knowing what was happening, or more precisely, what had happened, and even if you tried to remain calm, you couldn't help the frustration that started to build up in your chest.

So you laid on your side, squeezing your pillow closer to you as you tried to sleep, hoping that when you woke up, everything would have been just a dream.

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Thanks for reading <3

#harley writes #bloodletting #guns n roses #guns n roses as vampires #guns n roses fanfic #guns n roses imagine #guns n roses x reader #guns n roses fic #gnr #gnr imagine #axl rose #axl rose fanfic #Izzy Stradlin #izzy stradlin fanfic #duff mckagan #duff mckagan fanfic #slash #slash fanfic #saul hudson #saul hudson fanfic #steven adler #steven adler fanfic #classic rock #classic rock imagine

[sherrybaby14]

All the Same

This is for the wonderful @lancsnerd​ 1K challenge (Sorry I am so late)!

Pairing:  Geralt x female reader

Warnings:  Domestic Violence, Smut, Angst, Violence, Blood

Words: 6k

Prompt:  “I was your assignment, and then you fell in love with me”. (Changed it a little)

Summary:  The Witcher is coming to your village and you have been tasked with finding out why.

   The drunkard on the piano was playing the same song he did every night and you rolled your eyes as you filled another pitcher of lager.  

   Some nights you wished more than anything you got moved off the graveyard shift, but others you were grateful the drunks would leave soon and your time at work would consist of watching the empty bar.  

   “Best to keep an eye out tonight.”  Your boss leaned against the doorway to the kitchen.  

   “Why’s that?”  You glanced to the dagger kept underneath the bar.  

   “Word is, a Witcher is on the road. Stopping here.”  He flung the rag over his shoulder.

   “Here?”  You about overfilled the pitcher.  “In our tiny village?  Why?”

   “That’s what I want to know.”  He glanced across the barroom, watching the dwindling crowd.  “Find out for me, would ya Love?”

   “Not my job Sir.”  You had never met a Witcher, but your heart raced at the idea.

   “How about now?”  Your boss tossed a bag of coin next to you.  “Still trying to get on your feet aren't ya? I’ll double it if you give me anything worth my while.”

   You did not hesitate as you picked up the bag and shoved it in your pocket.  A pang of guilt hit your heart, you were no spy, but were desperate.  You needed to get back on your feet.  Besides, this was the first bonus your boss had ever offered.

   “Consider me hired.”  You turned to drop off the pitcher, the customer closing out their tab.  

   The piano player abandoned the instrument and you could tell the mood had shifted.

   “Witchers are bad for business.”  Your boss kicked off the door and went to the kitchen.  “I want him gone.”  

   “Monsters are worse.”  Of course the idea of a monster in this town was silly, the only one who lived here was your ex.

~~

   The crowd was gone by one.  It was strange, you were used to forcing people to their rooms around two, this was the earliest you could remember the place being empty.

   You picked up your current book and tried to read, but every thought went to your boss’ warning.  Why would a Witcher come here?  You hadn’t heard a single rumor of anything off.  Maybe he was passing through?  If memory served you right there was a sheep slaughtered a few weeks ago.  People said it was a wolf, but maybe more, would a Witcher come for that though?  

   The door opened and your breath caught in your throat.  There he was, pale skin with pale hair that stood out against the vibrant oranges of the wooden walls dancing with firelight.  

   You shook your head and shut your mouth, trying not to show your awe for the man.  

   The mug you grabbed shook as you turned and poured him some mead.  

   “I heard you were coming.”  You spun back around and set the drink on the counter.  

   “You did?”  He blinked in confusion and glanced around the empty room.

   “Oh, I’m not a psychic or anything.” You gave a nervous laugh.  “My boss, he told me.  He said you were coming here though and I never asked how he knew that part.  It’s been bothering me all night.”  

   The man walked slow, his eyes taking in everything.  You cringed as you grabbed a smaller glass and poured yourself a bit of wine, hoping to drown your embarrassment.  

   “I am sorry.  I should not have been so forward.”  You smiled as you drank it down.  “I should have played it much more smooth.  May I start over?”

   “Please.”  The man grabbed the handle of his sword and you turned around, half expecting a vicious beast behind you. “Now it is my turn to apologize.”

   You looked back to him as he let go of the handle, holding his hands in the air.  

   “I am not used to hospitality.”  He pulled out the chair and had a seat.  “This is most unusual.”  

   “You are most welcome here.”  You poured another shot of wine and took it down.  “So, did my superior mean here as in this bar or here as in the town?  I mean, we are the only bar in the town and it is no secret Witchers like to indulge, but there is a much nicer inn not far from here, but we do have a few rooms if you would like to stay the night?  All are vacant, we are not frequented, occasionally a drunkard needs a spot for a few hours, our rates are reasonable but for you it will be gratis of course and have I mentioned I babble when nervous?”  

   Worst spy ever.  You grabbed the bottle of red and brought it to your lips, this time taking a chug as the Witcher smiled.  

   A warmth spread through you at the sight.  A Witcher smiling.  You never knew such a thing was possible.  

   “I am not sure what your supervisor was aware of, but it’s no secret Witchers indulge?”  He picked up the mug in front of him and looked inside, his eyes wide as if he were studying.  

   “My father, he used to tell tales of fairies and dragons and warlocks and vampires.”  Your eyes flashed as you pictured his face.  “And Witchers too.”  

   “Did he tell you how we strike down the wicked? Or how we are sell swords?”  The Witcher took a drink and then brought the mug away from his face, staring at what you poured him with shock.  

   “He told me how easy it would be to poison your drinks.”  You smiled but the man almost fell out of his chair as you burst out laughing.

   You clapped as he grabbed for his sword handle, hesitating as you grinned at him.  Then he relaxed in his seat as his eyes looked over your face.  

   “I am sure you have far better insight into a Witcher than my father, enlighten my poor soul?”  When you sat down the coin in your pocket jingled, reminding you of your mission for the night.  There was no harm in getting to know the man in the process though.

~~

   “I have not spoken as many words this night as I have all of the past year.”  Geralt’s eyes continued to dance on your face.  

   It would have been easy to shy under his gaze, but as the dawn grew near your mind was being tugged elsewhere.  

   “Does the sun rising bother you?”  His brows furrowed.  

   “Not in the slightest.” In fact, you frowned, wishing you were just waking up instead of readying for bed.  “I would give anything to not sleep in a tiny bed upstairs, not work overnights at a place where the bulk of my wages go to room and board.  I am saving up.  This is temporary.”  

   “Then why do you keep glancing at the door?”  Geralt shifted, you watched his hand shift toward his weapon once again, but this time he did not come close to grabbing it.  

   “Fell in with a bad lad.” You shook your head.  “Controlling type.  He works overnights as well.  Only I am off at eight and he is off at six.  I expect him any second.  He will sit down, beg for me to come home, lament about his problems, like I give a fuck.  It’s been almost a year since we split, or should I say since he split my head open and I had the common sense to leave him.”  

   Tears started to form, but you blinked them away.  

   “Whatever monster you are here to kill.  I hope it is him.”  You smiled at your joke, hoping to break the tension, but Geralt didn’t find any humor in your statement.  

   Now the air grew thick between the two of you, all the good will and fun turned to awkwardness.  

   “What are you here to kill by the way?”  The subject needed to be changed.  “A banshee? A ghoul? A Bailisk?”  

   “Your father taught you well about the supernatural.”  Geralt swirled his drink.  “He must have been well researched.”

   “Right after he died, I wanted him back.  I was broken.  He was all I ever knew.”  This time you let a tear fall.  “I even tried to find a Witcher or a Mage or anything.  But his books, the legends he told me, they all said the same thing.  The dead,  even if they do come back, they can’t understand the living anyway.”

   “Very well researched.” Geralt grunted.  

   The door opened and relief flooded your body as the opening bartender walked in.  

   “Well, my shift is over. Kolly is here.  I am sure she can keep your attention.”  You stood up and wiped your tear.  “Unless you have changed your mind and want a room?”

   Your coworker’s eyes went wide as she looked at the only patron.   You were sure she was as shocked as you were not to walk in on your ex sitting there.  

   “Where do you sleep?”  Geralt rose from his stool.  

   Kolly stopped walking and glared at you. As immoral of a question it was your body heat flared and you clenched your thighs at the thought.  The last you wanted was rumors flying around the town.  

   “I sleep alone.”  You gave Kolly a side glance and she nodded in approval before walking into the kitchen.  “But thank you for the company, though my boss will be disappointed.”  

   “Why is that?”  Geralt narrowed his eyes.

   “Well, you were my assignment.”  It didn’t feel right to lie.  “Find out why you are here, but after our night I believe I am more likely to fall in love with you than deceive you.”

   The same smile you caught earlier washed over his face.  This was the first time since Robert you’d felt any connection with another person.

   “Tell your boss,  I am passing through, there is wraith in Sehalsberg, but given the warm reception I received I will return for the hospitality.”  Geralt’s eyes focused on you again.  

   The way he looked at you fluttered your stomach, how you wished Kolly was not here to judge.  

   “Goodnight then.  I hope you return soon.”  You tried to hide the smile as you turned and walked to the stairs, feeling his eyes on your back as you headed to your small room.  

~~

“That’s it?”  Your boss scoffed.  “Passing through?  And how much free mead did you give the man?”

”I...I was trying to get information.”  You should have known better than to think your boss was going to pay you a dime.

“Well, that will be coming out of your wages.”  He shook his head.  “Plus I heard Mister and the boys did not arrive in the morning, you know how much coin they drop here! Sometimes I swear it's the only reason I keep you on.”

All the frustration you were feeling you bit down.  You needed this job.  So you nodded.

“Kick you out on the street.”  He threw his hands in the air.  “A Witcher, passing through.”

~~

The bar emptied out at the normal time.  You kept the fires going, trying to read your book and hoping Geralt would stop in again, memories of your night before making you smile non stop.  

But as the hours went on your heart broke more and more.  You told yourself it was unreasonable to think he would be back the next night.  Then when the door opened and your ex stepped inside with his group of coworkers your heart shattered.  

His eyes locked with yours and there was a fury as he strolled up to you.  

“What did you say to him?”

You moved back against the bar, but he reached out and grabbed the hair above your ear yanking you forward.

“You know I love you?  Why would you betray me?”  

As you tried to twist away he slammed your head down against the bar.  Monster.  You should have made that clearer to Geralt.  Then maybe he would have saved you.  

~~

   There was no warning from your boss, no rumors.  But you had not forgotten of Geralt. Months had past, but when the doors opened at two in the morning one night and he walked in your heart went a flutter.  

   “Passing through?”  This time the shake was worse.  You had played this conversation out over and over in your head.  “There cannot be a second monster in a nearby town.”

   “I never caught the first.”  Geralt sat down, making no attempts for his sword.  “I thought you might have forgotten me.”

   “A girl never forgets her first Witcher.”  You poured him a jug of mead.  “Now please, tell me where you have been.  What you have seen.”

   “I would rather hear about you.”  He took a drink without looking.  “Tell me, has your monster returned?”  

   Your chest struggled to breath.  Now was your chance to ask what you had been hoping for.

   “Every day since the last you were here.”  This was not how you practiced.  “He was violent once, nobody cared.”  

   Geralt stood and you ran around the bar to him, this stranger from one night.  You broke down against his chest, sobbing.  His arms came around you, his body stiff.  

   “There’s no comfort in you.”  You pushed off of him, glaring up.  

   “What?”  He looked surprised.  

   “I can feel it.”  You put your arms to his chest, palms against his leather top.  “You don’t care either.  I am trapped here.”

   “Untrue.”  Geralt pulled you back, cradled you.  Then you felt it, his stiffness relax, his hands pulling you tighter, rubbing your back.  “I care more than you know.”  

   “I think about you.”  Shame and embarrassment over your confession vanished.  “Just one night talking and I think about you non-stop.  I wonder where you are, how you are feeling, what mundane tasks you must be doing.  Curious why you have cast such a spell on me.”  

   Geralt’s hands found your shoulders and pushed you back.  He gazed at you with the studying look that should have made you melt, but his eyes would not stay still.  

   You tried to focus on what he was looking at when he pulled you closer, upwards and his lips crashed into yours.  Heat seeped into your veins.  A burning as your mouth opened and his tongue drove inside.  

   You drank him down.  Shuddering against his chest as you attempted to keep up.  The warmth turning to a burn as you kissed him back, your brain going dizzy as all the liquid in your body gathered between your legs.  

   Just as you started to give in, the feeling vanished.  Your eyes blinked several times, seeing the warm hues from the room and the greys from him turn into one.   His purple eyes were aflame.   His chest moving faster than your own as he struggled for breath.  

   “What’s wrong?”  Every problem in your orbit had vanished with that kiss.  

   Anger returned your gaze as Geralt let go of you and vanished out of the bar.  You wanted to follow but were too stunned.

   You hunched over and your struggle for air turned into tears.  What were you thinking?  A Witcher would never be your savior.  You were doomed.  

~~

   It was hard to tell the passage of time.  Your savings depleted with every broken glass.   You were beginning to think your boss and your ex were in on this together, keeping you trapped here.  

   Memories of your one night with Geralt kept you going.  But then you remembered the second night, the kiss and look of disgust on his face.  Witchers could not fall in love.  And who fell in love with anyone after one night?  Oh, that’s right.  You did.

   “Best to keep an eye out tonight.”  Your boss leaned against the doorway to the kitchen.  

   “Why’s that?”  You remembered the last time you heard this.

   “Word is, a Witcher is on the road. Stopping here.”  He flung the rag over his shoulder.

   “He won’t stop here.”  You knew the hospitality ran out.

   “Find out why he is here.”  Your boss flung a bag of coin at you.  “More when you get the reason?”  

   It couldn’t have been that long ago that Geralt was here.  You looked up at him with confusion.

   “Witchers are bad for business.”  He kicked off the wall and walked away.  

   Much like the last time you had this conversation, the bar began to empty.  A weird echo ran down your spine, but you brought your fingers to your lips and felt the tingle.  This time a pit formed in your stomach as you never expected to see Geralt again.

~~

   The last patron left and you started to wipe down the counters, thinking of reasons to lock the door.  Sure your boss would find out and then slash your earnings, but that happened anyway.  You had confessed your feelings to a Witcher on the second time you saw him.  Why would he come back anyway?  To torture you?  

   You sighed and went to close up early, not caring if you got fired.  But before you rounded the bar the door opened.  

   Pale hair.  Pale skin.  A different face looked up at you.  Not Geralt.  

   The man drew his sword in one hand and a dagger in the other.  

   “There is no need for those weapons.”  You went back to the bar.  “Can I offer you something to drink?  I promise you have nothing to fear here.  We welcome Witchers.”  

   “You…..what?”  The man looked at you and then stalked into the kitchen.

   “That’s not a public area…” You followed behind him, but he spun and moved into a defensive stance.  “I am sorry.  Please, do what needs to be done.”

   You thought about Geralt’s first night, how he kept going for his sword.  Cautious, hesitant.  This must have been normal.  Inspecting for enemies.  

   Without thinking you poured him and yourself a drink.  Visions of your kiss with the previous Witcher tried to dash in front of your eyes, but you pushed them away.   Should you bring up his name?  Ask where he was?  Where he had been?  What he was thinking about?  Had he mentioned you? Is that why the new one was here?  

   But before your nervousness made you blab he came out of the kitchen.  His eyes and stance toward you as he circled the bar.  

   “I poured you a drink.  Please,  sit and relax.”  You took your own and slammed it back.  

   “How odd.” He looked at your face with the same scrutiny as Geralt, studying and curious, but there was no spark.  It was more like he glared as if you were a dead animal he was attempting to dissect. “Where is your crypt?”

   “Crypt?”  You gave a nervous laugh.  “We are a bar with a few spare rooms upstairs.  No crypt.”

“Take me to your room.”  The man pointed the dagger at you.

You stared at him with your mouth open, unsure what the threat was or his intentions.

“Do you know Geralt?  He is a Witcher who has passed through here.  Are you looking for him?  He has not been here in ages, but he mentioned a monster a few towns over.”  You started to back up against the mugs, but the Witcher spun behind the bar, turning you with his sword and dagger out until you were in the open area.  “This must be a misunderstanding.”  

“These are pure silver.”  His eyes flashed with anger.  “Do not think of trying anything smart.  Now take me to your resting place.”  

“They look lovely, I can tell the fine craftsmanship.”  You tried to hide your nerves, and remembered what a gentleman Geralt was.  “A lady’s bedroom is no place for an uninvited man.”

“NOW!” His voice roared as he lunged forward.  

“ALRIGHT!”  You jumped back.  “Please don’t hurt me and put those things away.”

All the fear you had been bottling since the man walked in came rushing forward.  Your instincts took over and you ran to the front door.  He dropped his sword and reached out, grabbing your shoulder, and spinning you to face him.

“I can touch you.”  His face was featureless as he recoiled his hand with a look of horror.

“Not tonight.”  You slapped him across the face as hard as possible before turning to run again.  

You didn’t make it three steps before he shoved you forward, your knees hit the hardwood with a clunk as your body bounced.  

“STOP!”  You kicked at him as he dropped down on top of you, the weight of him heavy as he flipped you over.  

You struggled while he straddled you pinning you down.   You continued to claw, bite, kick, whatever you could.  The dagger was still in his hand when a slice sounded through the air.  

An inhuman scream left your lips as your arm flooded with white hot pain.  You vision began to blacken as your chest heaved.  It felt as if your arm was starting to rot off from the inside.  You cried and winced, unable to gasp for air.  

The Witcher let go of your hands and you cradled your arm.  Confused as to how this could hurt that badly.  

“I am sending you back to where you belong.”  He lifted the dagger high in the air.  

Your head rolled as if an infection was spreading, your brain and muscles oozing with hurt.  You shut your eyes and opened them again.  The warm orange against the brown wood was gone.  You saw grey and decay.  Spiderwebs and a rundown bar.

“What?”  You pinched your eyes shut, thinking it was a fever dream.  “Have you poisoned me?  What treachery is this?”

The bar you spent each night cleaning was covered in dust and mildew.  There was a broken beam in the ceiling and a hole in the roof.   Your head lulled back at the piano.  

“Someone was playing that all night.”  You didn’t undrestand, the beautiful polished keys were missing, chipped.  Strings were hanging out the top.  “What is happening?”

“You will haunt this place no more you evil beast.”  The Witcher puffed his chest and raised the dagger even higher.  

“NO!”  You braced yourself, shielding your body with your arms.  

“SHES’S NOT EVIL!”  Geralt’s voice filled the room.  

“Geralt….?”  You tried to twist and look at him, but your eyes couldn’t focus.  “What is happening to me?”  

“Have you forgotten your creed?”  The weight on your hips lifted as you rolled on the floor. “She must be destroyed.”  

“Have you forgotten yours?”  The sound of a sword being drawn echoed and you looked up at the moonlight, seeing the rotted bannister to the upstairs.  “We don’t kill innocents.”

“Innocent?”  The other Witcher scoffed.  “She killed Robert Blanton.  The son of the man who hired us!”

“She is stuck in a time loop.  She does not know what she is.”  Geralt’s voice began to fade.  “How is that her fault?”  

“So you want to what?  Save her?”  The stranger laughed.  “You are insane.”  

“I won’t let you kill her.”  Geralt grunted as he stepped over you.

“She is already dead.”  The man let out a roar and you heard the clashes of blades.  

“Dead?” It came out as a whimper and you rolled on to your side.

The sounds of the men fighting faded away as you lifted your hand.  The flesh looked real, the color the same it had always been, but then you caught sight of the wound.  The scratch from the dagger was spreading decay.  You could see your bone as the skin pulled away, as if you were struck with fire that would not burn out.  

“MmMmmpph!”  You looked up and spotted a man on his side, bound and gagged.

There were tears running down his cheeks, he was older, you would guess at least sixties, he was bald with a white beard, nothing but fear in his eyes.  Those eyes.  

“That’s the monster you are after.”  Geralt’s voice came back.  “He did this to her.  He is responsible for Robert Blanton’s death.”  

“Stander?”  It was him, your ex who taunted you every morning, who hurt you physically and mentally, but he was so much older even though you just saw him that day.  

“He is a human being.” The other Witcher laughed.  “We do not kill humans.”

“You are correct.”  The banging of the sword continued until you heard a grunt and a slice followed by a gasp.  “We kill monsters.”  

There was a groan and a thud against the floor.  Everything hurt.  

“Are you alright?”  Geralt came to your side and pulled you close.  “It’s over.  I’m going to take you from here.”  

With a swirl, everything clicked.  Time loop, two Witchers, Robert being dead.  The way your boss was so mechanical, the way every day felt the same.

“I was your assignment.”  You reached up and cupped his face.  “But you fell in love.”  

   Geralt’s eyes flashed in the moonlight.  He opened his mouth to speak, but then shut his lips.  You pinched your eyes shut as your chest started to shake.  

   “No...no...I won’t let you die.”  He set your head on the ground.

   “Fix her.”  Geralt stomped over to Stander and kicked him in the gut.  “Fix her and I will spare your life.”  

   The objection hung on your lips.  You were ready to cross over, but before you could get the word out consciousness left.  If you had to leave, at least it was being loved.

~~

   The bustling of the dinner crowd woke you up.  You had more of a headache tonight than you’d had in months.  Nothing you could do about it now.  You took a drink of water from your bed stand and then readied for work.  

   When you walked out of your room you ignored the crowd and smiled, a vision of Geralt in your head.  Of course it turned into a frown, remembering the kiss.  You were destined to be alone.  

   “Good evening.”  The voice echoed across the crowd as you made your way downstairs.  

   Your heart wanted to leap out of its chest at the familiar voice.  You locked eyes with the Witcher and the headache intensified.  

   The colors and sounds of the bar started to blur.  You shut your lids to take the flashes out and sat on the stairs.  The noises flared and your headache intensified.

   “Hey.”  A warm hand touched your knee.  “It will be alright.”  

   The background noises left and you looked up with a shake to see your Witcher standing in front of you.  

   “What?”  The bar was dilapidated, dust and holes and rotted wood.  

   Memories came crashing back.  The second Witcher, Stander.  

   “What am I?”  It felt like all the air was sucked out of your lungs as you looked to your arm.  There was no scar, but the searing hot pain echoed in your bones.  “Am I dead?”

   “In a sense.”  Geralt’s finger came under your chin.  “Twenty five years ago, you were murdered here.  Your killer could not let you go.  With the help of a Mage he trapped your spirit in this, a fake recreation of your body.

   “He sets you with a time loop, you can break through and when that happens he murders you again and resets.  It makes you see things that aren’t there.  But some memories don’t get erased.”

   “Like you?”  You looked around in the moonlight.  “My boss?”

   “After your murder, he let the business go into shambles.  Everyone in the village knew who the killer was, but nobody would speak up.  It was the perfect spot to reset you. Some of the things he said, knowing they would be erased did not.  That’s how the image of your boss knew I was coming.”  Geralt hid nothing.  “Stander was the only one who set foot in here over the years until…”

   “Until Robert.”  You gasped.  

   Memories that had been lost came forward.  The way he walked in, shocked to see you.  The way he kept coming back, how you looked forward to it.  Then the one kiss and he was gone.

   “I killed him?”  You thought of the heat from your kiss with Geralt.  “I drain the life force with my touch.”

   “Not your touch.”   Geralt ran his fingers over your lips, it sounded like an echo of sorrow spread across the bar.  “The murderer showed me the spell, I brought you back one final time.  Silver will destroy you. Once it spreads to your heart you will be free.”  

   Geralt set a dagger on the step next to you.  You looked at the metal, the thought of crossing over.  

   “So am I gollum?”  You didn’t look away.  “An unnatural recreation, do I even have a soul?”

   “You are a soul.”  Geralt gave a squeeze to your knee.  “But you can cross over now.  Be with your father.”  

   “And what if I am not ready?”  You looked at him.  “Am I trapped here?  Tethered?  It feels like months, but its been years?”  

   “Tethered to this realm yes, but not this place.”  Geralt bit his lip.  “You are free to leave, just did not know you had the option.”

   “The fake time loop.”  You glanced at the door, never thinking of walking through it because every night had felt like an average night at work.  All the years you had wasted.  When you could have walked away.

   A creak in the floor made both of your heads snap.  There was Stander, tied to a chair.

   “I promised I would spare his life in exchange for the spell.”  Geralt stood.  “I am a man of my word.  I thought you might want the final one with him.”  

   The final word.   Dragging your killer, your tormenter to the bowels of hell.  It was tempting.  

   “I need more than a word.”  You stood up from the stairs and took a brief pace.  “I think my former lover needs a kiss goodnight.”

   You ripped off the cloth bound over his mouth and he let out a scream as you pushed your lips to his.   It was slow, not the burning passion you felt with Geralt.  But the heat intensified as your lips pressed to his.  You gripped his cheeks, holding his head in place while you felt his life source draining into you.

   The heat turned into a scorch, but unlike your arm the night before it was pleasant.  You wanted that burn.  He tried to scream, but it was muffled by your lips as his body began to jerk.   You sucked in air and pulled away, taking him with you, your body glowing with warmth as his corpse twisted into the chair.  

   “I promised nothing.”  You wiped your lips as pure energy ran through your veins and you turned to Geralt.  “Tell me, am I a monster now?”  

   “No.”  Geralt walked forward.  

   “And was I a monster for killing Robert?”  You pushed your shoulders back.

   “No.”  Geralt took another step.

   “And if I kill again,  will that make me a monster?”  You swallowed.

   “Not if they deserve it.”  Geralt came closer.

   “And if they do not?”  You reached out and grabbed his hand.  “Will you end me?”  

   He hesitated, his lips trying to think of the words.

   “I do not believe that day will come.”  His hand moved to your waist and he brought you closer.  “I saw you, that first night.  You will never be a monster.”

   “But if it does, do I have your word that you will kill me?”  You tilted your chin and looked him in the eye, watching his iris swirl.  

   “No.”  His lips dropped to your neck as you let out a moan and clawed at his back.  

   He sucked and nipped as he guided you until your back hit the bar.   You dropped your head and kissed his cheek as your fingers found the hem of his shirt.  You untucked the garment from his pants and tugged it upward.  He pulled away and stripped the top off before crashing back against you, guiding your legs to spread.  

   Strong hands gripped your bottom and guided you on to the bar.  You gathered your skirts and spread your legs, baring yourself to him.  

   Both of your fingers went to his trousers and undid the lacing.  His cock sprung free and your chest heaved with excitement.  How long had it been?  Who was your last?  Was there ever a first?  Not with this body.  

   Geralt ran the tip of his cock up your slit, you were soaked and ready for him.  He lined up and you gripped his shoulder.  

   “Ah!”  Your head fell back as he pushed inside of you.  The pain made your thighs shake as your head fell against his shoulder.  “It hurts.  Too much.”  

   He stilled and with gasped breaths looked at you, steadying himself.  You could feel him pulsing inside of you.  

   “This body, whatever it is, it’s new.”  You brought your hand to the back of his neck.  “I want to kiss you.”  

   His fingers traced down your cheek and he bit his lips as he shook his head.  With shut eyes you leaned against him and nodded. Then brought your lips to his collarbone and began to make your mark.  

   Geralt followed your lead, pulling out a bit before diving back in, bracing himself against the bar with one hand, the other digging into your hip.  

   Each stroke replaced the pain with pleasure.  Your winces turned into coos that turned into moans.  

   A rhythm formed as you lifted your hips, welcoming him inside of your.  The movements hit your core and you felt yourself tense.  

   “Too much?”  He kissed your head as his hand ran up the back of you neck.

   “Not enough.”  You started rocking faster.  “Please, go, go.”  

   Your fingers wound in his hair as he honored your request.  The tightness in your chest spread to the apex between your legs and you ground down harder.   Geralt picked up his pace and your vision began to blur.  

   You fisted his hair and yanked as your release came over you, pleasure filling your body, no your soul as the cry left your mouth.  

   He followed you into the oblivion.  Filling you with his seed in the process.  Both of you started to kiss each other’s necks, moving up the cheeks until you were almost at the lips.  

   Foreheads dipped and you pressed them together.  A few times you saw him go to pucker, but pull away.  There would never be a real kiss between you.  

   You stayed like that for a moment.  Both of you gathering your bearings.  When he slipped from you, you almost collapsed, but his hand stayed on your hip.  

   “We need to leave.”  Geralt tucked himself away and picked up his shirt.  “There is a dead Witcher and a dead villager.”  

   “To hunt monsters?”  You stood up from the bar, your legs shaking.  “That is my life now?”

   You looked at the door, ready to venture into the world.

   “Not your life.”  Geralt smiled.  “Never forget,  you’re already dead.”  

   You stared at him before a big grin crossed your face.  

   “And you love me all the same.”  

A/N:  Thank you for reading!! I so appreciate every comment and like!  

#the witcher #the witcher x reader #geralt x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #the witcher fanfic #the witcher fanfiction #witcher fanfiction

[shyrose57]

Shadow over snowchester au!

I’d like to imagine that Tommy and Purple tell the girl’s fairytales and other story’s right before going to sleep for the night, Clementine alway’s fall a sleep first while Clara stay’s awake till the end to ask questions about the stories like, ‘why did the queen poison Snow White?’ Or ‘why did Snow White eat something a stranger gave her! Didn’t any one tell her how dangerous that is!’.

Tommy alway’s checks on his daughters while at night because A: neither of them can hear or see him coming, so he always catches them awake past bed time, and B: he’s a bit paranoid something might come and take his little girl’s ;-;

Because no one know’s Clara’s birth day they just asume she’s a year younger then Clementine, which she’s okay with!

Clementine get’s jealous easily, even with Michael if he spends enough time with either of her dad’s, so she was pretty upset and moody when Clara showed up and suddenly Clara got everyone’s attention, including daddy and papa! Thus she end’s up running away only to be found by techno and Phil, who both end up bonding with her especially techno because he’s like ‘been there done that’ and return her to her father’s who were worried sick.

Thing’s turn out better in the end with Clara and Clementine bickering constantly, just like Tommy and Wilbur.

Clara enjoy’s the garden/greenhouse and even convinced her Papa (Tommy) to put some sort of play area for the kid’s considering how much of their time is spent in the garden, the area has a marble path and is completely filled with the friendliest of all the flower’s on the garden, any harmful ones are completely forbidden, the area has a huge marble gazebo with no-throned rose’s and vines, it has tables, book’s, Paper, pencil’s, even a chalkboard, fridge, and maps! It becomes more of a kindergarten/ school for the kid’s but overall a hangout place for tea and date’s. ( who work’s / teaches is up to you!)

Tubbo take’s Michael around snowchester as a way to get him to exercise yet they almost alway’s find themselves at the garden hanging out with Tommy, Clementine, and Clara. Clementine and Michael are running around playing l’manburg, and other game’s, while Clara is all cozy and snuggly on Tommy's lap as he tends to a bunch of blue flower’ (courtesy of ghost ur) and Tubbo complains about Michael growing too fast and how it’s not fair Tommy has two children, not to mention fawning over Clara’s adorable way’s.

Clementine and Michael call themselves the together duo, though other’s joke about them being clingy duo the second, especially after they started three repetitive fire’s, pranked almost everyone, and overall created absolute chaos, no one thinks Clementine or Michael had a part in them, instead, this feeds into Tubbo being some sort of god theory.

Ponk, Punz, Quackity, Techno, and Wilbur all have competition on who can spoil their nieces the most. (it never ends well ;-;)

Fairy tales are a very important part of growth! 

Clem and Clara are like day and night, so while Clementine’s always very energetic and bright in the day, Clara’s a night owl-they thought she might be nocturnal for awhile there. So the former’s usually out like a light pretty quick, but Clara takes longer to ease to sleep. 

Tommy’s fear is valid. Seriously, his past history with caring for things hasn’t ended well, with so many fights and grudges. He completely abuses his phantom powers to do this-both because he enjoys sneaking up on them, and because if they’re actually asleep, he doesn’t want to wake them-Clem’s a light sleeper. 

Clara is very mature for her age, and quiet, but the baby fat on her cheeks betrays her true youth, and Puffy’s adopted enough kids to be able to tell their ages easily enough, so they reckon she’s got to be at least a year younger. Maybe more, but who knows? 

Clementine’s an independent child, so I imagine originally, she doesn’t mind Clara that much. Everyone tends to hover over the kids, because it’s dangerous, and they worry, which is perfectly valid, but she’s a free spirit, and she’s never liked being stifled.

Then Clara starts taking more of their time, and they stop being with her so much, and it’s not as great as Clem thought it would be. So she decides to go on an adventure, all by herself, because she doesn’t need her dads to worry over her anymore-in fact, she’ll bring back something cool, just to prove it. 

Of course, Clem gets a bit in over her head. Luckily, Techno and Phil are nearby, realize ‘isn’t that Tommy’s kid?’ and help her out. Techno, much to his dismay, is left alone with the small child while Phil goes to get one of her parents.

It’s not so bad though, once past the initial awkwardness. The kid reminds him of Phil and Tommy, with that adventurous spirit. And she’s got a surprising enjoyment of fighting(cause Purpled and Tommy teach it to her as a bonding activity, and Purpled and Ranboo spar to impress Tommy and Tubbo, and Tommy and Tubbo train together. Just, positive associations with it), which he can get behind.

So Phil comes back with Clem’s worried parents, and Clem has a new sword. Techno insist she took it. But, he has too many anyway, and they’re cluttering up the area, so she can keep it, he guesses.

Tommy, who’s gotten many of his own childhood weapons from that very sentence, just raises an eyebrow. 

After that whole thing, and thinking back to some of Uncle Techno’s stories about his own sibling, Clementine decides she’ll be a good older sibling, and protect Clara like Uncle Tech did Uncle Wilby, and everyone in Snowchester protects each other.

Clara takes it it stride, and Clem makes her act a bit more her age, which is nice for everyone to see. 

The garden is a good place for the kids to hang out, because even the most dangerous of plants know better than to touch any of the kids. But them having their own little area in there away from it all definitely makes the parents feel better. 

Tommy tends to be the go-to house-parent a lot, with Purpled out doing jobs, Ranboo being the voice of reason in the Syndicate, and mining, and Tubbo doing his job as leader of Snowchester. When he wants to go and help Purpled out or otherwise, Tubbo and Ranboo will watch the kids. If not them, then Puffy, or somebody else. The kids usually end up outside drinking cocoa with whoever’s watching them while waiting for their parents to finish up. It’s nice.

Tubbo and Ghostbur coo over Clara a lot. She’s adorable, they can’t help it. But they’re also very helpful. Clara seems pretty happy to hang out with Tubbo when one of her dads can’t watch her, and Ghostbur has experience with taking care of young kids, so that’s really useful. 

Tubbo constantly complains that Michael’s gonna be the one carrying him around eventually, and he dreads the day(he doesn’t, he’s very proud of his son, but he misses being able to tot him around and having to help him reach the counter). 

The Together Duo! Very cute. The first time they proclaim themselves as such, everyone’s hearts just completely melt. Ranboo snapped a picture of Tommy and Tubbo holding their respective kids, and titled it ‘Second generation’s duo’, and it hangs on the wall in both their homes. 

Michael and Clem are a very chaotic duo. How did this end up getting blamed on Tubbo? Who knows, honestly. At this point, somebody could probably say Tubbo invented sheep, and nobody would blink. 

All the kids are very, very spoiled. To the point where their parents have limited the amount of spoiling that can be done-and no, they won’t change it, the last time they let you guys go wild, you nearly crushed poor Tubbo under a gift avalanche! 

An avalanche!

#Shadow Over Snowchester AU #dream smp #dream smp au #tubbo #purpled #ranboo #tommyinnit #captain puffy #ghostbur #technoblade #philza #michael the zombie pigchild #clementine #clara

[sonicasura]

Balan Wonderworld Review: Favorite Costumes Part 2

Before we get started, I like to say something. I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE TIM TRAPS. If you don't know, there is a specific plant that tends to appear in certain levels called Tim Traps. A carnivorous orange flower that's favorite meal is TIMS. If you kick the plants, you can free your Trapped Tim or prevent one from getting trapped for a short period of time. Problem is if the Tim is trapped for too long, your baby is gone for good. Chapter 3 and Chapter 5's Act 3 are loaded with these annoying plants. To the point if I can't find the trapped Tims, I exit out of the game just to save my poor fluffballs. Ain't sacrificing my little birds for Drops and Trophies! Mini rant over.

Rules are the same as before. I'd be ranking both a Common Costume and Rare Costume. Common Costumes are easily to find whether it be in multiple levels and Rare Costumes are those that rarely appear or are difficult to get.

I'll be doing my favorite Secret Costume after playing all Act 3s for each chapter. Now let's begin.

Chapter 7

Common Costume- Floaty Flower

The Flower Fairy and greatest glider found in the main story. Floaty Flower is a costume that can be found in the Act 1, 2 and the Boss Act, it offers a slower descent but faster movement than the hover for Soaring Sheep.

I love this costume not for its aesthetic but a cute Easter Egg I found in Chapter 7 Act 1. On rare occasions, this costume is an NPC that actually flirts with you! Some NPCs in certain chapters act differently from their standard counterpart. They often try to disguise themselves or runaway. Catching them grants you a free costume of the one you caught.

Floaty Flower will appear and follow you, similar to a shy school girl with a crush. If you go to her, she will run which is a similar action to any shy person getting approached by their crush. Also... I think there is some lore hidden in this one that might be quite sad if it's directly linked to Cal, the human whose heart created this particular world. If so then... OOF.

Rare Costume - Paladin Puncher

A knight fights with his fists than a sword. This costume can be found in Act 2 and is a stronger version of the Pumpkin Puncher that can break iron or ice blocks. He's a bit slower than his Chapter 6 counterpart but perfect breaking the more blocks and defeating spiky enemies.

I also love the fact this costume goes against the traditional tools of a knight. Knights often fight using swords, shields, lances and rare occasions bows or axes. If you give me one who PUNCHES or straight uses martial arts to fight then you got my vote in seconds.

Chapter 8

Common Costume - Snow Fairy

Elegant dancer of ice and snow. The Snow Fairy costume allows the wearer to walk on air for a short period of time and can in found in Act 1 and Act 2. This costume does have a shorter usage time than Air Cat but makes up for it with the added elevation.

I absolutely adore how elegant and beautiful this particular costume is. You can compare the Snow Fairy to myths often related to fae or hidden in the freezing mountains. An otherworldly beauty that makes any hardship worth seeing just a being before your eyes. Being a reindeer type Faun just adds to the mystique and creating snowflakes to walk on is a perfect extra touch.

Rare Costume - Amadeus

Sophisticated pianist. A costume that can only be found in Act 1 and is a performing costume. Now I am a big fan of piano covers, whether it be covers of game osts or actual songs, there is rarely any piano music I don't like.

I love the fact he's wearing piano keys as a collar and even has a tutu made out of those very keys. A very creative take to a normally grounded instrument. And the big white wig is a nice touch since it's often portrayed with pianists in various media.

Chapter 9

Common Costume- Iron Panda

Adorable crusher. Iron Panda is a costume found in Act 1 and Act 2 with the ability to break iron blocks using both its jump and weight. This costume is surprisingly fast for a rather large and heavy form, perfect for fast stomps on enemies or quick getaways if you have rare costumes you don't want to lose.

This costume reminds of a rolling Russian Doll with a panda theme. Very adorable, the bluish purple color suits the white very nicely and I love that sleepy look on its face. The large blue dots on its sides are actually the arms too, they mimic panels! Only thing that unnerves me is when the costume turns their head by a 90 degree angle. Super creepy when using it.

Rare Costume- Merry Ghost

Cute and Spooky! The Merry Ghost is a costume that can be found in Act 2 and gives the ability to constantly float. It's main purpose is to avoid ground hazards like poison swamps and has a larger slightly floaty jump. The only downside is that you can't harm enemies with this, it's only for quick mobility.

Very adorable especially with the stitched rag cloak covering the body. It has this Mimikyu sort of vibe but also a Casper the Friendly Ghost aura too. Friendly spirits are often tossed aside for more vicious or antagonistic ones in a lot of media. Getting an adorable friendly one just adds points in my book and a good pal for Casper.

Chapter 10

Common Costume - Inky Blaster

Yuji Naka's take on a squid kid. This costume can be found in Act 1, Act 2 and the Boss Act. She allows the wearer to throw fast globs of rainbow paint at opponents or targets and is decently agile.

Love that her hands are paintbrushes and is based on the octopus. Tentacles mimicking the frills of a dress and used for hair and feet? A very creative take and splattering rainbow paint on the annoying types of Negati (looking at you ya divebomb happy Pelican and destroyer of most of my good costumes) is very therapeutic.

Rare Costume- Air Unicorn

The first unicorn I like?! This costume can only be found in Act 1 and allows the user to walk on air farther than Air Cat. The practical godfather of mobility, and recovery. You won't believe how many times this costume has gotten me to very difficult areas and saved me from death via falling into the abyss.

It is a very tricky costume to find but if you turn around, there's a large paintbrush on the wall. You need the Double Jumper to get on top but you'll be able to see a hidden mirror. That is where the Air Unicorn is located.

I won't lie that unicorns are not my preferred mythological creature. I live in America where unicorns tend to be oversaturated to oblivion and don't get me started on My Little Pony. The show isn't my cup of tea but I do have some followers and friends who are fans. People have their own opinions and it's rude to question them about it.

I honestly love the elegant but cute design, the purple, pale pink and cyan just fit well with the white, I also love that the mane mimics a paintbrush tip and the large light purple collar of fur is a perfect touch to this fine design.

Chapter 11

Common Costume - Bulldozer

A man's punny best friend! This costume can be in Act 1, Act 2 (?), and the Boss Act. It lets you push special construction blocks and you can boost the push speed by button mashing.

They definitely took a lot of creative for costumes in Chapter 11 amongst the other ones in my opinion. Fire Stations tend to have some animal companions with dogs being the most common but instead of a Dalmatian for the design they used a Bulldog! 😍

Like the aforementioned machine, this good boy is bulky, has the appropriate color scheme and even the hands turn into bulldozer's shovel when using the ability! I love the fact his tail is wagging when you push a block and it wags faster if ya button mash!

Also the name is a pun!

Rare Costume - Fiery Blaster

Pyromancer of Lions. The Fiery Blaster costume can only be found in Act 2. It gives the wearer that ability to throw large fireballs alongside fire and lava immunity. If you hate lava levels or have difficulty with this Chapter's boss then I recommend getting this Costume.

First thing I like to say about this particular design is how they use the colors. Looking at the mane, you can see how the red and darker red are patterned in a way to mimic flames. The dark red fur on the feet are even in fire like a pattern. The outfit such as the yellow and brownish kilt alongside the gloves spewing fire around the wrists just reminds me of a fire dancer.

I can see this fella wielding one of the torches a fire dancer uses and just put on a spectacular show.

Chapter 12

Another loveable version of a beloved icon. The Invisible Man costume can be found in Act 1, Act 2 and the Boss Act. It has the power to turn the wearer invisible for a period of time and become undetected to enemies that aren't bosses.

Agile and perfect to deal with enemies who are very annoying or are difficult snipers. You don't know how satisfying it is to give the more aggravating Negati an invisible middle finger by sneak attacking them. I have lost many costumes whenever enemies got the drop on me so it's fair to dish out payback.

I love how this design takes aspect from the popular icon but also have it relate to their human counterpart. Bandages were used by the original Invisible Man to cover skin his normal clothing couldn't cover in public and made it easier for him to disappear when needed.

The shoes and arms being covered in bandages and some of the bandages being used as bangs for the hair is a nice touch.

Rare Costume - Jolt Tiger

Immovable Taser. This costume can only be found in Act 2. It grants electricity immunity and create a barrier when you stand still. One of the better costumes for baiting particular enemies. You do have to be careful because a single itch will stop the barrier.

If you don't know, the Tiger is my Chinese Zodiac and electricity is one of my favorite elements. Love the yellow lightning bolt flairs and even the black stripes mimic lightning too! I also like the will o' wisp pattern on the stomach and the large tuft of grayish fur around the chest. The design puts it above the Sun Walker.

And that is it! The next thing I will cover is the level design and it's music. The bosses will be done last since it's good to save the best for last!

Until next time folks, see you back in Wonderworld.

#balan company #balan wonderworld #fuck square enix #balan company's innocent #sonicasura #mun sonicasura #game review #my personal opinion #fucksquareenix #balan wonderland #balan wonderworld costumes #favorite costumes #personal favorites

[know-the-way]

I know it’s really stupid of me but I was kind of hoping for a redemption arc for Faustus. 😅😢

It’s not stupid, not at all! It’s natural to want to see the best in people, particularly when you believe they can be better than what they are now, so it’s completely understandable.

And, ya know, if the show gets picked up - he may have one yet still, we don’t know!

To me, this season really highlighted what the purpose of Faustus’ character is supposed to be, imo. Thinking of episode 4, we’re shown three different levels of corruption through three different characters.

The first is Harvey. Pure, sweet, golden boy Harvey is revealed to have some deep-seeded hatred of witches. Does he have any reason to hate witches? Well, let’s check - he lost a brother, got manipulated, controlled, and lied to by his first love, and has been in an endless cycle of extreme danger for the past year of his life. I think it’s fair to say we all understand that prejudice is not okay, but is it equally understandable why Harvey has some hang-ups about magic and witches? I personally think it is. (Not to the point of joining a literal witch hunt or angrily accusing your distressed best friend of killing your dad at her 17th birthday party 🙃, but understandable nonetheless.)

I personally think the intention with Harvey’s character being a cadet in Blackwood’s army was to demonstrate how, even when we believe someone to be morally good and just, they can become someone else when they endure pain and that pain is never properly addressed.

Did Sabrina apologize to Harvey for everything that happened between them? Yes. But did she repeat the same troublesome behaviors in different ways after that? Also yes. She didn’t demonstrate change in her actions, and a loootttt more happened with Harvey and the witch world in a negative way beyond his relationship with Sabrina, so the mistrust he feels isn’t entirely unjustified.

Then - “oh wow, oh my God, my second love has also hid being a witch from me, can I catch a fucking break here? Why should I ever trust another witch in my life?”

Answer: because they are humans, none being wholly good or bad, and they love you.

Roz talks to Harvey, tells him she believes he’s good, and demonstrably proves her own “goodness” by sacrificing herself to save others at Dr. C’s. Roz shows Harvey that she means what she says and her feelings for him are real - that she is a scared, broken human like him, just trying to do her best with what life has given her. Hence, when the moment of truth comes - Harvey remembers his humanity and proves his own “goodness” by saving her. But if Roz had never spoken to him, never acknowledged what he’d been through and that his feelings were valid... if no one had ever truly cared about his pain? It seems apparent that Harvey would have continued down a very dark path.

Which brings us to...

Mary. Mary has been literally murdered, had her identity hijacked by a demoness, her fiancé is dead, she doesn’t remember several months of her life, and her previous favorite student is a witch who has seemingly performed magic more than once on her.

Mary has every right to fear witches at this point. She has had zero trustworthy interactions with the witch world and from her perspective - her entire life has been stolen and no one cares. No one checks in on Mary, no one validates her pain, and as a result - no one in the witch world seems to have any compassion, humanity, or kindness in them. Enter the Pilgrims of the Night, who recognize her pain and fear without even knowing her, acknowledge it, and offer her solace in their congregation on the basis that her experience with witches is shared by the Reverend Lovecraft and his flock.

They prove themselves to her when the advice the Reverend/Faustus gives her (“let the dark in”) saves her life. My God, someone finally seems to care if she lives or dies!

People who care about others are good, so the church and the reverend’s mission must be good, too. Therefore, she is absolutely invested in whatever is asked of her and will blindly follow their lead in order to protect others from experiencing what she has. To me, Mary in the perverted universe represented the crossroads of corruption - where you truly believe what you’re doing is the right thing, even if it hurts others because those “others” have hurt you... and they will surely hurt again if you don’t stop them.

However, I think if Mary was finally told the truth - the full truth - and Lilith herself apologized for being the first piece in the puzzle... along with all the other witches... AND they showed that they actually cared about her well-being... Mary could find her way back through forgiveness. Or, at the very least, she could understand and process everything so that she could find a way to heal that doesn’t involve persecuting others.

And now, there’s Faustus. We aren’t entirely clear on Faustus’ history altogether, but we do know he’s had many experiences of being slighted by the churches of darkness (despite following the rules to a T).

He was rebuked by Edward for wanting to marry Zelda after mentoring him for who knows how many years, lost the office of high priest to him, and when he finally gets the title - here comes Edward’s self-righteous brat to fuck him over again. There he is trying to carry out the Dark Lord’s request to get Sabrina to sign her name in the Book of the Beast, even though she insults their doctrines and faith at every turn, and the coven and academy he’s had working like a well-oiled machine for the past 16 years is being slowly ripped apart. Why is the Dark Lord allowing this? Why is he having to endure a meddlesome child’s antics? Why is he not being rewarded for doing exactly as he’s been asked and returning the Church of Night to stability after Edward nearly destroyed it altogether? Like hello Dark Lord, can you throw me a fucking bone here?

Small victories - he finally secures Zelda’s hand in marriage and an audience with the anti-pope. This is what his life should’ve looked like two centuries ago, but no matter. He’s correcting it all now and by Satan, nothing is going to stop him this time.

But then...

Oh cool, Sabrina is here to intervene again and has presented the text of his old rival for consideration along with his (clearly superior) manifesto. What’s that, you say? Oh, she’s also gonna crash my wedding, accuse me of murder, and spread claims about my manifesto without having even read it? Wow, ahaha, sounds hilarious... except why am I not laughing?

He arrives in Rome and gets an inkling that the Dark Lord may finally be taking action about this heretical little monster because he’s offered the title of anti-pope by the unholy high council themselves. Finally, some appreciation! He just needs to hang on a little longer, eliminate these small meddlesome threats, and soon he will reside over a peaceful kingdom far removed from anymore mortal nonsense.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, what do you mean Sabrina convinces the council he’s unfit to be anti-pope? This is bullshit, man! You know what? Fuck this place, I’m gonna make my own damn church and ensure no other headstrong witches like Sabrina Buzzkill Spellman can ruin it. That’ll finally return things to ord- MY WIFE KEPT MY OWN CHILD A SECRET FROM ME?! WHAT THE FUCK?! Alright, that’s it, The Spellmans are clearly here to poison others (ironic foreshadowing) - time to wash my hands of them completely, I am so over thi- what’s that? The Dark Lord’s here? GOOD. About time this asshole showed up to set people straight and remind them that the values of his unholy church, which Faustus has exemplified perfectly, must be respected.

You mean for me to bow down to whom now? The halfbreed brat who has been directly and willfully wreaking havoc on the congregation he’s patiently and painstakingly lead back to greatness? Are you fucking serious, m8? No. Absolutely not. No. I’m getting out of here, and since I won’t have the little twat poison anyone else, I will literally poison them instead. Be free, sheep!

It’s up until this point that I believe Faustus was still mostly at the crossroads stage, same as Mary. He believed everything he was doing was the right thing, based on the teachings from the religion he devoted his entire life to, and that he’d be rewarded for serving the Dark Lord so faithfully - until the Dark Lord proved several times in succession that his religion was all a lie. That three+ centuries worth of groveling and abiding and waiting has meant absolutely nothing.

So now we have the Eldritch terrors. Beings more powerful than the oldest gods. He spends 15 years isolated in a time bubble purifying himself, devoting everything to them, and won’t it be so glorious when they welcome him into his ranks? He’s set them free now, after all, they owe it to him.

But doing the same action over and over and expecting a different result is what? The definition of insanity, friends. Of course the Eldritch terrors reject him, too... of course Sabrina gains their attention and veneration instead... of course he should have tried to seize their power for himself a long time ago... so, fuck it all, he’ll do that now. There is no right and wrong, there is no observed justice - if there was, he would have been rightfully recognized for all the time, effort, and pain he’s endured only to receive nothing in return.* No one ever acknowledged his pain... no one ever even considered it. Over time, that takes its toll.

(*Clearly, I mean this to be from Faustus’ perspective and not my own.)

Of course, he has inflicted more than his fair share of pain himself and I am of the personal belief he needed to pay for that, but... equally imagine being hurt over and over and watching those who did it walk away, not only without reprimand, but with the belief that they were right and just to do it? Could it slowly drain on one’s soul to watch the rules apply to some and not others? Debatable, I suppose, but I personally think yes.

So... I say all of this only to point out that there is still potential to acknowledge his pain. And thus, there is imo still potential to understand, communicate properly (I am very interested in any conversations he and Sabrina may have had during their training - I know he said she took a vow of silence, but clearly some talking occurred for Sabrina to learn so much about the void from him), grow, and finally - for him to be given the chance to repair everything he had a hand in breaking. It wouldn’t be an easy or painless task to get to that point, and no one would be faulted for not trusting him to do so, but I think there is potential for it. If they get picked up and they want to finally allow the characters some time to reflect and process shit, they could include Faustus in that.

#faustus blackwood #mary wardwell #harvey kinkle #caos #caos spoilers

[cordonian-literature]

The Aftermath - Ch. 27

Apples and the Doctor’s Office

Summary: After the first day of the Apple Blossom Festival and Drake’s birthday, Riley, Liam, and the kids visit a doctor

Word Count: ~4.8k

Warnings: mention of character death, mention of addiction/drug abuse

*All characters belong to Pixelberry, except those that are unique to my story (I’ve also used some characters and fictional instances from Donna Tartt’s book “The Goldfinch”)*

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✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧

- Eleanor - 

Mama woke us up extra early the morning after the beach party. While she helped bring my stuff to the car that was waiting outside, I decided to go back onto the bed and take a nap until it was time to actually leave. But when I opened my eyes, I was already in the car, my head on Mama’s leg. 

Mama and Daddyo were sitting next to each other and talking quietly while Gabe was sleeping on the other seat. I looked out the window to find that we were driving by large fields. There were trees surrounding little farms, and I saw animals that looked like sheep or goats, but I couldn’t tell from the distance. 

We eventually reach a large house and Daddyo wakes up Gabe to eat breakfast. When we walk into the kitchen there are already waffles, omelets, and fruits waiting for us. During the meal, Daddyo tells Mama that he’s worried about some investigation but Gabe and me are too focused on eating to pay attention.

After that, Daddyo asks us what we want to do today, and Gabe suggests soccer. I didn’t really want to play, but I still follow the two of them outside. 

While we walk through the large house, there are people working and cleaning like crazy. I ask Daddyo why they’re doing that, and he tells me it’s because the court is going to show up in a few hours.

Daddyo leads us far away from the building and towards a bunch of apple trees. I skip alongside him, humming whatever tune came into my head. Him and Gabe find four sticks and push them into the ground. Another person walks out of the house with a soccer ball, and Daddyo gives it to me to start out the game. 

I kick it, trying to get it back towards him, but the ball goes to Gabe instead, who kicks it into the goal and gets a point. He goes to get the ball and gives it back to me. When I try and kick it towards the goal to get myself a point, I kick it in the wrong direction again and it ends up at Daddyo’s feet, who manages to kick it into the goal to get us a point. 

The three of us play around for a few hours until some servants come out and tell us that the court has started to arrive, and Daddyo told us we needed to go get ready for the Apple Blossom Festival.

Mama helped us get dressed, but Daddyo had to leave to get ready for something. I was upset since I wanted to spend more time with him, but Gabe said that we would probably see him later. 

After everyone is dressed, Mama, Gabe, and me walk back over towards the apple trees with Duchess Olivia and Countess Hana. I ask Mama if Uncle Boris and Aunt Rowan would come, too. She tells me that Aunt Rowan is with Lord Maxwell, and comments that she hasn’t seen Uncle Boris since the horse race. 

We keep walking until we reach a small area where there aren’t that many trees, but a lot of people were gathered. There were photographers and people who I recognized from other events. I see Daddyo walk towards the front of the crowd, with Bastien and some other guards walking behind him. 

He faces the crowd and asks for everyone’s attention. I notice Heather out of the corner of my eye and walk up to her. Uncle Leo gives me a high-five when he sees me and Hunter walks towards my brother.

“Welcome to the annual Apple Blossom Festival!” he calls out. People clap lightly, and I see Lord Maxwell start cheering. “Traditionally, the Queen Mother and other ladies of the court would taste the first apples of the season, so in her memory, I propose we all take a bite.” 

There are some nods, and servants begin passing out apples to the adults. When a servant gives an apple to Uncle Leo and Aunt Katie, Uncle Leo takes both apples to give to Hunter and Heather. The same servant gives Gabe and me apples, and someone shoves a camera into my face.

“Go on, kiddos,” the person behind the camera says to me and Gabe. “Take a bite of the apple.” 

I look at the fruit in my hand, which is probably one of the brightest and reddest apples I’ve ever seen. Gabe takes a bite of his apple, but before he can even start chewing, he starts coughing again. The cameraman angles his camera away and asks Gabe if he’s okay. 

“Yeah, sorry if I coughed on your camera,” Gabe says. 

“That’s fine,” the man says. “Were you choking?” 

“No, my chest just started hurting.” 

“Gotcha. Wanna take another bite?” The cameraman looks over at me, and I take a large bite of my apple. 

It’s sweet and sour at the same time. I hate sour things, and I feel like my cheeks are burning. I force myself to swallow the apple and smile at the cameraman, because spitting it out would probably look gross. “Yummy!” I manage to say.

“Adorable!” the man says, then turns to take a picture of Gabe, who smiles while chewing. 

“That was delicious,” Gabe comments. The cameraman thanks us and walks away. 

“That was sour,” Hunter says, wiping some juice off his chin.

My brother shrugs. “I like sour foods.” 

Gabe finishes his apple and asks for another one. When the rest of the court has also eaten at least one apple, Daddyo asks for everyone’s attention again. 

“As everyone has taken a bite of their apples,” he begins. “I would like to thank our farmers, ones whose families have provided for Cordonia for generations.” He clears his throat, then starts talking again. “There is something else I wish to speak about. I know that recently Cordonia has faced many challenges. There have been natural disasters, economic recessions, international disagreements, and uprisings by anti-monarchist organizations. But Cordonia and her people have always been resilient. We’ve always stood together in unity. 

“Some of you I’ve known since my early childhood,” he continues, “and you’ve held my trust above all others. But this is a very unique issue we are facing, and Cordonia has learned from experience that her allies are not always who they are said to be. 

“My security team has reason to believe that the late Queen Mother did not die of a heart attack, but was actually poisoned, just as my own mother was more than thirty years ago.” People in the crowd gasp and begin whispering with each other. “Investigations are being led, but my team has suggested furthering those investigations by searching the belongings of certain members of the court. Do not fret, your privacy will be respected and if need be, the search may be done while you are present.”

The crowd of photographers and reporters start yelling questions towards Daddyo, and Uncle Leo leads us all back towards Mama and Duchess Olivia. 

“Did you know Regina was poisoned?” Uncle Leo asks. 

“Yes,” Duchess Olivia answers him. “Jacob told me what he discovered this morning. I didn’t know if Liam would tell the people, and I’m surprised that he did.”

“He was worried about it this morning,” Mama adds. All the adults turn to look back at Daddyo, who still has microphones being pushed in front of his face.

“I hope he’s doing okay,” Uncle Leo says.

“I’m sure he is.” Duchess Olivia turns back to Uncle Leo when he speaks, and there’s an angry tone in her voice. 

Jessica walks up to the group, pulling Drake behind her. She greets everyone and pinches Gabe’s cheek. Drake starts talking with Uncle Leo, and Jessica turns to Mama. 

“I wanted to ask if you would join Drake and I for dinner tonight,” she says. “I made a reservation at a restaurant for his birthday. It would be lovely if you all attended.” 

“That’d be nice,” Mama says. “We could all go.”

“No, thank—” Duchess Olivia begins, but Mama gives her a look, and instead says, “Fine.” 

“I’ll go fill in Hana and everyone else,” Mama says, walking away. 

“Hey, do you wanna go pick some apples?” Heather taps my shoulder to ask. 

I search the crowd for Daddyo, but can’t see him anymore. I tell Heather sure, and our brothers follow us towards some trees. 

Hunter and Gabe are the ones who want to climb up, and Heather and me are left near some baskets. Gabe tells us to catch the apples they throw down at us and to count them. 

For a second I think it’s not a good idea, since I don’t think I’ll be able to catch the apples and am a little scared that I would drop them, but Gabe already sends one down and I throw myself at it. 

I catch it, but land face-forward in the grass. Gabe calls to me from the top of the tree, saying that I had to get up. 

Heather and I continue to catch apples until our baskets are full. I had lost count around twelve, but Heather counts my basket, too, and says that the four of us collected about fifty apples altogether. 

Hunter frowns, complaining that we could have done better. Heather looks around for where we have to bring the baskets. And Gabe reaches down to eat another apple. 

I see Aunt Katie call for Hunter and Heather. The two of them walk away from us, and we wave goodbye to them. Gabe and I start walking away to go look for where Mama is, but Hunter and Heather call to us again to say that we’re all going somewhere together. 

Gabe and I are led in a car that has Lord Maxwell, Aunt Rowan, Duke Bertrand, Duchess Savannah, and Bartie. They tell us that everyone is headed to the same place, and that we would be celebrating Drake’s birthday. 

“I wonder what Jessica has planned,” Maxwell wonders aloud. 

“Probably cake?” Gabe asks. 

“Naturally,” Maxwell replies. “But do you think there’s a chance she didn’t get balloons?” 

“We can bring some!” I suggest. “In case Jessica forgot.” 

“I like the way you think, baby blossom,” Maxwell says. 

He crawls over towards the driver and asks him to bring us to a place we could get balloons. Duke Bertrand tries to stop Maxwell, but he refuses to sit down and the driver has already parked in front of a store. 

Me and my brother follow Maxwell into the store, who goes straight to the counter. 

“Do you have balloons?” he asks. There are balloon designs on display right on top of our heads, and I pull Maxwell’s sleeve and point at them. “Hmmm...” he stares at them for a while, then turns back to the person at the counter. “Do you maybe have a balloon that’s shaped like a whiskey bottle?” 

“No, but I got champagne ones,” the old man says. 

“Good enough, we’ll take ten,” Maxwell requests. 

“Ten?” my brother and me ask in union.

“Do you think we should get more?” he turns to us and asks. “What if we get forty and say ‘Happy Fortieth Birthday’? He’s not forty yet but it would be funny.”

“I mean, I don’t know,” Gabe starts. “If Lady Jessica already got balloons, then bringing forty more would seem like a little too much.”

Maxwell sighs. “Fine.” 

“Gabe is now the bossy blossom,” I point at my brother to announce. 

“What? No—” he tries to protest.

“Are you gonna tell me not to call you bossy?” I question, crossing my arms in front of me.

“That would make you extra bossy,” Maxwell states. 

“But—” he tries again.

“Stop being bossy, bossy blossom!” I cry. 

Gabe turns away from me. Maxwell pats him on the head and says, “It’s okay, bossy blossom.” 

Maxwell and I laugh while Gabe stares at the balloons. 

We all hold three balloons, and Maxwell holds an extra one. When we get back into the car, Duchess Savannah and Aunt Rowan laugh, and I can tell that Duke Bertrand is upset, but he doesn’t say anything.

For the rest of the ride we punch the balloons at each other until we have to get out of the car. Aunt Rowan ties some balloons to my wrists because she was worried they would fly away. 

When we enter, there’s a guy in a fancy suit who greets us. 

“This is not the kind of establishment you bring childish balloons into,” Duke Bertrand whispers loudly to Maxwell.

The three of us ignore him and follow the fancy man through the restaurant until we reach a very big table. Everyone else is already seated, including Uncle Leo, Aunt Katie, Hunter, and Heather. 

Except for the ones me, Gabe, and Maxwell hold, there are no balloons in the room. And there aren’t any decorations either. 

“Happy Birthday, Drake!” Maxwell cries, walking over to where Drake was sitting. 

“Tie ‘em to his chair,” Uncle Leo comments, pointing at the balloons. 

While Maxwell works the knot of the balloon tied to my wrist, Drake grabs the string and pulls it close to his face. “You know these are champagne bottles, right?” 

“Imagine that it’s whiskey,” Maxwell tells him. 

I follow Gabe towards a few seats. I got to sit on Mama’s right, while Gabe was on Daddyo’s left, with the both of them in between us. Thankfully Heather was next to me. Gabe feels far from us, and when he tries to say something to me, I couldn’t really hear him. I wave at him to exaggerate the distance.

The adults talk steadily throughout the meal. Mama and Daddyo were sitting close to each other, mostly whispering. Countess Hana was talking with Maxwell and Aunt Rowan. Duke Bertrand laughed with Uncle Leo, and sometimes I saw Daddyo send looks in their direction.

As time went on I got more and more tired, and I wanted to ask Mama when they would finally cut the cake, but then Drake and Jessica stand to thank everyone for coming, and we all head outside.

“No cake?” I whisper at Gabe when we take a seat in Daddyo’s limo. 

He shrugs. Mama and Drake join us in the car, and I wonder where Jessica is. I spend the drive back looking out at the streets we passed. 

“Do you think they’re already done with the search?” Drake asks. 

“Perhaps,” Daddyo answers. “I don’t believe it should have taken the entire day, especially if no one resisted.”

“Do you really think it could have been someone from the court?” asks Mama.

Daddyo shrugs. “I’m not sure. I certainly hope not.” 

When we get out of the car, we see Lord Maxwell and everyone else walking into the big house. They wave at us, and we begin to follow, but someone walks up to Daddyo. 

“Your Majesty,” the man says. “There is something you need to see.” 

The five of us follow the man up the stairs and down dark hallways. I don’t even hear people talking, and the big house suddenly feels spooky. 

The man leads us into Gabe’s room, where there’s Bastien and some other people in similar suits. Bastien stands over Gabe’s open suitcase, and he looks down at something on his bed. 

“What is it?” Mama asks. She rushes forward to lean over the thing that Bastien was looking at, then gasps. 

Drake and Daddyo follow Mama, and their faces frown when they inspect the object.

“I...” Mama tries to speak. “I saw this at the Met. Before the bomb went off.” 

Gabriel and I look at each other, confused. 

“What on Earth was it doing in Gabriel’s belongings?” Daddyo questions Bastien.

“I don’t know. We didn’t even know this was the prince’s room,” Bastien tells everyone. “My team believed it was the room of another Lord or Lady, so we decided to inspect it. We only realized it was His Highness’ room after we had already found the painting.”

What painting are they talking about? I turn to look at Gabriel, but his chin starts to shake. All the adults are still questioning each other, and since they aren’t really paying attention to me, I make my way over to the edge of Gabe’s bed to look at what the problem was.

It was a painting of a bunch of dancers. They were wearing bright-pink pointe shoes, and I figured they were ballerinas. The whole thing looks like it was recently painted, but I tap the painted flower in the painted girl’s hair, and my finger comes away dry.

“What’s the commotion?” Duchess Olivia comes into the room. She towers over me to look at the painting. When she looks back at everyone, she’s just as confused. 

“This painting,” Mama begins to explain, “was in the Met the day of the bombing. The Dance Class. There was ash on it, and... look, they’ve painted over it to make it look new.” Mama points to certain places on the portrait.

“Weren’t the missing paintings around Europe connected to the incident at the Met?” Drake asks.

“They were,” Duchess Olivia speaks up. “And there was some evidence that the perpetrators were from Europe, but nothing came of it.” 

“So that means it is someone at court,” Drake states.

“I’m still concerned as to how the painting got into Gabriel’s room,” Daddyo states.

“Mom, I didn’t do anything,” Gabe goes to our mother. Tears are falling down his face and he’s having a hard time breathing. 

Mama holds his head in her hands. “Baby, I know you didn’t.”

She holds Gabriel while he cries. Duchess Olivia and Bastien continue their conversation. 

“Everyone whose belongings were searched showed no suspicious behavior or resisted in any capacity,” Bastien tells us. 

“Give me the names of whose rooms were checked,” Duchess Olivia demands. “I’ll have Jacob look into it.” 

Gabe starts to cough roughly into Mama’s side. He tries to take in a breath, but a cough, vibrating from his chest, forces its way out. Gabriel’s face goes pink, and Daddyo and Bastien kneel in front of him.

“Your Majesty,” Bastien says. “Perhaps the prince should see a doctor.” 

Daddyo’s focused on making sure Gabe can breathe, and once he’s calm and Mama wipes the tears from his face, Daddyo nods at Bastien. 

“I’ll schedule an appointment for you early in the morning, Your Majesty.” 

“C’mon, you two,” Mama says to us. “Let’s get you both to bed.” 

... 

Mama woke us up extra early again, but this time I wasn’t so tired. Her and Daddyo fussed over Gabe while we ate breakfast in a small dining room. 

They brought me to the doctor’s office with them. I didn’t like that I was back in the hospital, but when we were brought to the waiting room, I was glad that I didn’t see any patients or sick people. 

Once a nurse tells us that the doctor will be here in a few moments, Gabe comments, “I ate two whole apples yesterday but we still ended up at the doctor’s.”

Mama laughs. “Really?”

“That’s a lie,” I add in. “He ate three.” 

“The extra apple didn’t save me,” he states.

The doctor arrives and shakes Mama’s and Daddyo’s hands. She says that she wants to bring Gabriel into another room to run some tests and ask some questions. Mama follows Gabe, and Daddyo and me are left in the waiting room. 

“Is Gabe sick?” I ask him after Mama and Gabe have left. 

“I’m sure your brother is fine. There’s nothing to worry about, angel.” 

His phone rings, and I expect him to walk away and answer it, but he stays in his seat and talks. I spend the next few minutes walking around the waiting room, picking up magazines and staring up at the television. I grab three booklets from the stands and hand two of them to Daddyo, who is still on the phone. 

He leans back in his seat and watches me flip through the magazines while talking. When I’ve gone through all of them and sniffed more than twelve perfume samples, he’s finally done with his call. 

“What are we doing tomorrow?” I ask him. I was hoping that we could go to the movies again so we could all spend time together. Even though we had fun yesterday morning, the moments felt too short.

“The fox hunt is tomorrow. We’ll be visiting an ancient village.” 

“We’re gonna hunt?!” I cry.

He gives a deep laugh. “No, no, we’ll just ride horses to get to a village.” 

“Phew,” I voice, making him laugh again. “Wait, I don’t know how to ride a horse! Do you?” 

“Yes. Perhaps after the baking contest today, I can teach you and your brother.”

I wanted to ask him what the baking contest was for, but the doctor finally comes back to tell us that we can come into the room now. 

Gabe is sitting on the examination table, and Mama stands next to him. I take a seat next to the table and Daddyo stands next to the doctor.

“So I’ve taken a physical exam,” the doctor starts explaining, “and a lung function test. We’ve been able to determine that Gabriel has asthma.”

Mama and Daddyo both frown. 

“How?” Mama asks. “He’s not allergic to anything, doesn’t have allergies...”

“Sometimes,” the doctor starts again, “asthma can be triggered in children by cold air, excessive exercise, or air pollutants.” 

“Air pollutants?” Daddyo questions. 

“Like tobacco smoke.” The doctor pretends to hold up a cigarette to her lips. 

“Oh, God,” Mama whispers, putting her face in her hands. 

“What is it?” Daddyo asks. 

Mama lifts her head again. “Theo smoked. A lot. While I was pregnant and during Gabe’s first year. I think he only fully stopped before Ella was born.” 

Daddyo’s mouth falls slightly agape and his eyebrows furrow.

“Well, that explains it,” the doctor states. “I’ll give you some treatment options so it doesn’t get worse, but if it does, make sure to give us a call.” 

Gabriel jumps off of the examination table. We walk together out of the hospital and back into the car. 

No one says anything while we drive back. Mama and Daddyo both seem tense. I want one of them to start talking, but I’m afraid to speak. 

“I thought that Theo would go outside to smoke,” Mama finally says. “I didn’t even consider...” She trails off and puts her head back in her hands. 

“Didn’t consider that you were putting my son in the care of a drug addict?” Daddyo says quickly. We all turn to him. He looks at Mama like he’s angry. I’ve never seen him or heard him like that. I don’t understand why talking about Daddy made him mad.

“What?” 

“Instead of bringing him to me, where I could have kept him safe, you decide to bring my son into the hands of a stranger?” 

“You’re saying that as if I had a choice.”

“You’ve always had a choice, Riley!” 

“Not then, I didn’t—”

“You always did.” Their voices get louder. I think they’ve forgot that we’re still in the car with them. “If you had refused to depart with him, what was the worst that could have happened?” 

Mama’s voice breaks. “I did refuse!”

“Truly? Look where we are now.”

“Do you really think that I left that day with no intention of coming back? I tried for years to convince Theo!” 

Daddyo doesn’t say anything for a few moments. He looks away from Mama, but not at us, until he finally says, “Riley, we were the ones who had to bring you back, and that was when you were on death’s door.” 

“So you’re assuming that I never even tried to come back?”

“Clearly, Riley, you didn’t!” he screams. “You told me that you traveled to Europe numerous times, but not once did you try to contact me.”

“I wasn’t allowed to!” 

“So you voluntarily let that man determine my son’s health and your life?”

They’re both leaning forward in their seats. Mama looks like she’s ready to cry. I can’t tell how Daddyo’s feeling, but the tone of his voice kinda scares me. 

“You’re blaming me for all this, aren’t you?” Mama asks. “He’s still just a kid, his asthma hasn’t gotten into anything worse—”

“And if it did? If it had gotten worse before we realized it? Tell me, Riley, what would have happened then?” 

Mama pauses for a moment. She looks helpless. I want to hug her, but I was still too frightened to move a muscle. 

Daddyo breathes out and leans forward, looking down at his shoes with his elbows on his legs. 

“My father battled lung cancer for the last few years of his life,” he continues. “How do we know if Gabriel’s condition won’t worsen into something similar?”

“We can talk to the doctor about it,” Mama suggests in a small voice.

Daddyo doesn’t say anything. We all fall into silence again. I turn to look at Gabe, who seems like he’s trying to melt back into the seat. Craning my neck, I try to see what’s out the window, wondering how long it would take us to get back to the big house.

I turn to look at Mama. My mother’s face is slightly pink, and there are tears streaming down her face. I get up out of my seat to hug her, wrapping my arms around her waist, but she doesn’t react. 

Daddyo looks at her, but he doesn’t have the same face on from when he usually talked to Mama. He looked mean and angry.

“What about Boris?” Daddyo speaks up. He turns to Mama again, but she just stares at him. “He was with Theodore when he forced you to leave New York?”

“Yes.”

Daddyo sighs and leans back in his seat. “Did he also forbid you from returning to Cordonia?”

“No,” Mama answers simply. 

“So it was just Theodore?” 

Silence again. Daddyo doesn’t look away from Mama. 

“What did he say about me that... inspired you to leave?”

She doesn’t answer him. 

Someone opens the door to the car. I didn’t even realize we had stopped driving. Mama wipes her tears and gets out of the car, rushing into the big house. As soon as Daddyo steps out, some people surround him and start talking to him. His expression changes quickly, and it’s almost like he was never mad. 

Gabe and me get out of the car, and we follow people back towards the apple trees. My brother stays quiet, and I don’t try to talk to him, either. I knew the both of us were thinking about what had just happened. 

When we reach the crowd of people, Lord Maxwell and Aunt Rowan call us over to them. “Baby blossoms! Come bake some apple pie with us!” 

I ran over to them, hoping that the apple pies would make me feel better. Gabriel still walks slowly. 

“Hey, Gabey,” Aunt Rowan says to him. “Everything okay?” 

He shrugs. “They had a fight...”

“Who?” Lord Maxwell asks, putting down the knife he was using to cut apples. 

“Mama and Daddyo,” I tell them. 

“About what?”

Gabe shrugs again. “The doctor said that I have asthma, and then they started talking about... about Dad.” 

“Aw,” Rowan says. She pulls Gabe into a hug.

“They’re both probably worried,” Maxwell wonders aloud. Him and Rowan give each other a look, but then we go back to making apple pie. 

Lord Maxwell had forgotten to tell the judges that he wanted to be a part of the competition, so our pie was not judged, which meant that we got to eat the entire thing. Countess Hana and Lady Kiara’s pie won, and we cheered them on from the sidelines. 

I didn’t see Daddyo for the rest of the day, and Lord Maxwell told us that he was probably really busy. I wanted to go find him and ask him to teach me how to ride a horse, but I was worried that he was still mad. 

So instead, a little after sunset, Lord Maxwell brought me, Gabe, and Rowan to the stables and taught us about horses for a little bit. I learned how to sit and stay balanced, and was excited for the hunt tomorrow. I just hoped that Mama and Daddyo weren’t still mad at each other.

#the royal romance #choices trr #choices the royal romance #choices trr fanfic #king liam #king liam x mc #trr king liam x mc #trr king liam #liam x mc #trr liam x mc #trr fanfic #trr fandom #trr fanfiction #trh fanfic #trh fandom #trh liam #the royal romance fanfic #choices stories you play #the royal heir fanfic

[radramblog]

Putting Chicken Little in Mid instead of Shit is my hot take- a Disney animated tier list

Was talking about this shit with some mates and I had my laptop about with a blank page so why the FUCK not. It’s my blog, I make the fucking rules.

For the purpose of this tier list, Pixar does not exist. It’s fake news. Buzz Lightyear fucking who?

(see now I’ve gone after both dreamworks *and* Disney, you cant complain I’m biased)

First of all: the tier of things I haven’t seen and have no intention to do so. The absolutely fucking not tier.

A bunch of the old ones that no-one remembers are on here. Considering nobody talks about them, and they’re fucking Disney, how good could they possibly be? In addition to that, we have Frozen, something I considered watching at the time, and then it got huge, and I just got sick to death of fucking seeing it everywhere. It’s a universality poison, an oversaturation complex, and I absolutely have no interest in seeing us build a snowman. Can people please let this movie go already? (I think I’m very funny). Also, Dinosaur looks fucking awful (y’all know Land Before Time already existed right), and the trailers for Ralph Breaks the Internet did too. Which is a real shame, because the first one slaps. Wait that’s spoilers FUCK

Anyway next is the ones I haven’t seen but could possibly be convinced to.

The classics I haven’t seen live here. But it’s one of those things where like, am I gonna go out of my way for this? Am I deadass gonna go sit my ass down and watch fucking Sleeping Beauty as a 22+ year old bloke? Not unless someone drags me into it. I could be more easily convinced for like, Aristocats or Great Mouse Detective, because cute animals good, but you don’t have the same easy in for Aladdin or Princess and the Frog. Also, Tangled and Moana are there because like, I really cannot be bothered watching those, not my kinda jam, but if I put them in the fuck no category certain friends of mine would be quite upset.

Next is Shit Tier! Shit Tier has one member.

Home on the Range was. A movie. A lot of the time when you talk about the really bad movies, what gets brought up is a bad film (or other property) that’s just the sheer absence of good. And that is what I have to say to describe Home on the Range. A deathknell for Disney’s 2D animated division, and honestly American 2D animation as a whole. I don’t know how the fuck Princess and the Frog got made after this, because this movie was just genuinely devoid of anything memorable or entertaining. Man, it’s just cows.

The Bad tier has a lot more of the “absence of good” style- like, Cinderella isn’t atrocious, but what does it actually have going for it? I genuinely don’t remember. I only have vague memories of the Black Cauldron, but I believe the general consensus is that its Not Good. Pocahontas and Tarzan are messy and not in the fun way, and the Jungle Book is something I found exceptionally annoying as a kid. Probably because my brother likes it, nothing he likes is ever good (love you bro).

Mid tier is mostly just shit I don’t really care about one way or the other. Like, Beauty and the Beast is fiiiiiiine. I gueeesss.  I don’t particularly care for Lion King either way, and please attempt to name a single thing that happened in Bambi after the mum got shot. One thing. I suppose I should attempt to explain my having Chicken Little here, even though everyone understands it’s a bad movie. And yeah, it is, but this is my Nostalgia Pick. I’m allowed one of those. I really loved that movie as a kid, And I don’t know why, I have no justification for this. It’s not that bad, surely. I refuse to watch it again to find out.

Also The Rescuers is pretty ok? I think? I remember very little about it. But The Rescuers Down Under has a motherfucking Goanna as the villain’s pet and she’s gorgeous. Movie aint great apart from that but the goanna gets it a whole bunch of bonus points.

Finally, some good fucking film.

Okay, let’s run this one down the list. Big Hero 6 was pretty good? I watched most of it on the plane, but I never finished is and I sure haven’t been assed to fix that yet. Wreck-it-Ralph was honestly really good, and the retro game shit was a direct target square at my face. Not top tier, but extremely solid. Hercules was a beautiful disaster, and Robin Hood was a disastrous beauty (and too many folks’ furry awakening for me to be comfortable with it (says the Pokemon fan))

Hunchback is genuinely quite good, athought you really need to skip past the gargoyle bits to get the best out of it. Zootopia gets a lot of credit, goes on top tier for a lot folks, but not for me- controversial opinion, but the second half was too heavyhanded for my taste. Like, I get that you had to hammer in that metaphor for the kids, but it really did it too hard for me. Also, they really made the villain a sheep, huh. Rude.

Alice in Wonderland is a beautiful creative classic with a healthy dollop of creepy, and I have too much nostalgia for Winnie the Pooh to put it any lower than this. Fox and the Hound and Mulan are the good shit, and I don’t have much more of a comment than that.

Finally, the top tier! Good movies allowed only.

You may notice that all these movies come from that era in the 90s where they actually let the creative minds behind the 2D animation team at Disney make the things they want to? And they cranked out the best 4 movies in the entire list. Like, goddamn. Treasure Planet is a fun as fuck adventure movie that’s criminally underrated and looks gorgeous, and Atlantis is just a more refined version of such (but I’m not quite as nostalgic for that one, sorry, also the second one exists). Emperor’s New Groove is just, such an incredible comedy flick, holy shit, they really did the nonstandard plot framing and fourth wall humour in this one, and they did it well. And Lilo and Stitch is, again, a perfect movie. I never know what to say about those. It’s so much less interesting to talk about things that don’t have flaws compared to something that does. It’s a perf fuckin film, fam.

And uhh, that’s the lot of them. Okay, that’s all the time I’ve got. I’ve got to get back to watching Shrek the Third on my friend’s TV.

(it’s not especially good)

#ramble #film #disney #tier list #i feel like a lot of people have stronger opinions on these that I do

[linklethehistorian]

Randou and the Sins of Season 3's Fifteen Adaption (Part 17/???)

Episode 28 — Only a Diamond Can Polish a Diamond (1/5)

Ah…this episode — what can I possibly say about it without giving in to my complete and utter frustration and just going on a rant right here and now about what they did to someone who is quite possibly one of the sweetest and most pure-hearted characters in the entire series…? Well, let me try to put it in this more positive way for now, until I get to the appropriate section in which I can talk about that; in spite of the fact that the entire first 12 minutes and 20 seconds of this episode consisted of what was, for me, undoubtedly the absolute worst, least accurate, and most disappointing “adaption” of any scene in the entire series to date, the remainder of the story following that point was, as a whole, very well done — with only a few small, barely noticeable hiccups throughout. Now, that obviously doesn’t take away its mistakes or fix any of what they did beforehand even in the slightest, but it’s at least something I can say sincerely about it with some form of positivity.

Still, I did say I would point out any and all significant changes I could remember between the two versions, so here’s what I have to share with you about the latter half of the episode.

Shirase, the Sheep’s Betrayal of Chuuya, and Dazai’s Deal

Given that a full translation for this part of the book wasn’t readily available at the time when I started writing this article, in the first and second drafts of this section, a lot of speculation went on regarding the ins and outs of how well this scene was carried over from one medium to another; tonight, however, as I sit down to review and rewrite this section just once more, that all has drastically changed, for now there exists one fan translation of the entire novel from start to finish, and all that guessing is no longer required. Now, I can be confident in stating those conclusions which turned out to be accurate, and addressing the singular one which was not, before finally getting around to properly debunking a common misconception which I’ve been wanting to dispel for quite some time now. So, without further ado, let’s get started, shall we?

While it was once hard for me to give a fair assessment of this scene myself without being entirely dependent on the opinions of others whom had actually been able to read the full story, such as Lea, I can now say with the utmost certainty and firsthand knowledge all my own that the beliefs I had held back then and the verdicts I had come to based on those testimonies were indeed largely correct; that is to say, that everything from the point of Chuuya’s second (and last) encounter with Shirase on within this scene was almost entirely true to its source material in every possible way. Granted, as is to be expected, it was shortened a bit in length in regards to the dialogue from the original tale, but I am happy to report that despite this fact, there was actually nothing of any real importance which was lost in the process — for once.

Originally, I had theorized that either the kind or the amount of rat poison that Shirase had rubbed on the knife which he stabbed into Chuuya was different in the novel than it was in the animation, but this was only due to the fact that, at that time, I was greatly under the impression that in the original Fifteen, Chuuya had thrown himself directly into the ocean to escape Sheep and then had to swim to shore, based solely upon some things which Lea had said in her summary — an event which, obviously, would have been rather impossible if his limbs had been made completely numb and immobile just prior to doing so. Nevertheless, this, as I recently learned when reading the entire thing for myself, is not actually the case, and there is really no difference in how or even to where the teen flees between either rendition — definitively laying that debate and all which came from it to rest.

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#linklethehistorian #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd spoilers #spoilers #bsd season 3 #bsd novels #fifteen #Arthur Rimbaud #bsd arthur rimbaud #Randou #justiceforrandou2k19 #justiceforrandou2k20 #justiceforrandou2k21 #fifteen article #Randou and the Sins of Season 3’s Fifteen Adaption #writing #My writing #my thoughts #Episode 28 — Only a Diamond Can Polish a Diamond #Shirase the Sheep’s Betrayal of Chuuya and Dazai’s Deal

[nicklloydnow]

"In 1910, the last year of his life and only a few years before World War I put an end to the long European peace, William James wrote a pamphlet for the Association for International Conciliation, one of the many pacifist groups whose prominence in that period convinced many people that war between nations, being so obviously irrational, was therefore impossible. James’s essay, titled “The Moral Equivalent of War,” is a work of supreme pathos and wisdom. James himself was a pacifist, a founding member of the Anti-Imperialist League, a group formed to protest America’s military interventions in Cuba, Haiti, and the Philippines, and one of the most humane and generous spirits America or any other nation has ever produced.

James understood perfectly the folly—the “monstrosity,” as he called it—of war, even in those comparatively innocent, pre-nuclear days. But he also acknowledged the place of the martial virtues in a healthy character. “We inherit the warlike type,” he pointed out, “and for most of the capacities of heroism that the human race is full of we have to thank [our bloody] history.” “The martial virtues,” he continued, “although originally gained by the race through war, are absolute and permanent human goods.... Militarism is the supreme theater of strenuousness, the great preserver of our ideals of hardihood; and human life with no use for strenuousness and hardihood would be contemptible.” “We pacifists,” he wrote with characteristic intellectual generosity, “ought to enter more deeply into the aesthetic and ethical point of view of our opponents.” To militarists, a world without war is “a sheep’s paradise,” flat and insipid. “No scorn, no hardness, no valor any more!” he imagines them saying indignantly. “Fie upon such a cattleyard of a planet!” This, remember, was the era of Teddy Roosevelt, preacher of the strenuous life and instigator of splendid little wars. James’s pacifism may be common sense to you and me, but when he wrote, the common sense of Americans was mostly on Roosevelt’s side.

How to nourish the martial virtues without war? James resolved this apparent dilemma with a suggestion many decades ahead of its time: universal national service, every youth to be conscripted for several years of hard and socially necessary physical work, with no exceptions and no class or educational discrimination. This army without weapons would be the moral equivalent of war, breeding, James argued, some of the virtues essential to democracy: “intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command.” I am sure James would have agreed that these are not the only virtues essential to democracy—he himself, with his anti-imperialist activism, exemplified an equally essential skepticism and resistance to authority. But I wonder if our contemporaries, who mostly need no convincing about the necessity of skepticism and resistance to authority, would also agree with James about the importance of valor, strenuousness, and self-sacrifice.

James wrote in America before World War I, a situation of almost idyllic innocence compared with that of the next writer I want to cite, D. H. Lawrence. The Great War, as contemporaries called it, was a soul-shattering experience for English writers. The complacent stupidity with which Europe’s governing classes initiated, conducted, and concluded that war, the chauvinism and bloodlust with which ordinary people welcomed it, and above all, the mindless, mechanical grinding up of millions of lives by a war machine that seemed to go of itself—these things infuriated Lawrence almost to madness. Like many others, Lawrence saw the facelessness, the impersonality, the almost bureaucratic character of this mass violence as something new and horrifying in human history. But more than all others in the twentieth century, Lawrence was the champion of the body and the instincts against the abstract, impersonal forces of modernity. Like Nietzsche, he marshaled torrents of impassioned prose against the apparently inexorable encroachments of progress. Here is a passage from “Education of the People,” published posthumously in the two volumes of Phoenix.

We are all fighters. Let us fight. Has it come down to chasing a poor fox and kicking a leather ball? Heavens, what a spectacle we should be to the ancient Greek. Rouse the old male spirit again. The male is always a fighter. The human male is a superb and god-like fighter, unless he is contravened in his own nature. In fighting to the death, he has one great crisis of his being.     

What is the fight? It is a primary, physical thing. It is not a horrible, obscene, abstract business, like our last war. It is not a ghastly and blasphemous translation of ideas into engines, and men into cannon-fodder. Away with such war. A million times away with such obscenity. Let the desire of it die out of mankind.... Let us beat our plowshares into swords, if we will. But let us blow all guns and explosives and poison-gases sky-high. Let us shoot every man who makes one more grain of gunpowder, with his own powder.     

And then let us be soldiers, hand-to-hand soldiers. Lord, but it is a bitter thing to be born at the end of a rotten, idea-ridden machine civilization. Think what we’ve missed: the glorious bright passion of anger and pride, reckless and dauntless.

(...)

Modernity imperils another set of virtues, which are a little harder to characterize than the martial virtues, but are even more important. I don’t mean the bourgeois virtues, though there’s some overlap. I suppose I’d call them the yeoman virtues. I have in mind the qualities we associate with life in the early American republic—the positive qualities, of course, not the qualities that enabled slavery and genocide. In 1820, 80 percent of the American population was self-employed. Protestant Christianity, local self-government, and agrarian and artisanal producerism fostered a culture of self-control, self-reliance, integrity, diligence, and neighborliness—the American ethos that Tocqueville praised and that Lincoln argued was incompatible with large-scale slave-owning. Today that ethos survives only in political speeches and Hollywood movies. In a society based on precarious employment and feverish consumption, on debt, financial trickery, endless manipulation, and incessant distraction, such a sensibility seems archaic.

According to the late Christopher Lasch, the advent of mass production and the new relations of authority it introduced in every sphere of social life wrought a fateful change in the prevailing American character. Psychological maturation—as Lasch, relying on Freud, explicated it—depended crucially on face-to-face relations, on a rhythm and a scale that industrialism disrupted. The result was a weakened, malleable self, more easily regimented than its pre-industrial forebear, less able to withstand conformist pressures and bureaucratic manipulation—the antithesis of the rugged individualism that had undergirded the republican virtues.In an important recent book, The Age of Acquiescence, the historian Steve Fraser deploys a similar argument to explain why, in contrast with the first Gilded Age, when America was wracked by furious anti-capitalist resistance, popular response in our time to the depredations of capitalism has been so feeble. Here is Fraser’s thesis:

During the first Gilded Age the work ethic constituted the nuclear core of American cultural belief and practice. That era’s emphasis on capital accumulation presumed frugality, saving, and delayed gratification as well as disciplined, methodical labor. That ethos frowned on self-indulgence, was wary of debt, denounced wealth not transparently connected to useful, tangible outputs, and feared libidinal excess, whether that took the form of gambling, sumptuary displays, leisured indolence, or uninhibited sexuality.     

How at odds that all is with the moral and psychic economy of our own second Gilded Age. An economy kept aloft by finance and mass consumption has for a long time rested on an ethos of immediate gratification, enjoyed a love affair with debt, speculation, and risk, erased the distinction between productive labor and pursuits once upon a time judged parasitic, and become endlessly inventive about ways to supercharge with libido even the homeliest of household wares. 

Can these two diverging political economies—one resting on industry, the other on finance—and these two polarized sensibilities—one fearing God, the other living in an impromptu moment to moment—explain the Great Noise of the first Gilded Age and the Great Silence of the second? Is it possible that people still attached by custom and belief to ways of subsisting that had originated outside the orbit of capital accumulation were for that very reason both psychologically and politically more existentially desperate, more capable, and more audacious in envisioning a non-capitalist future than those who have come of age knowing nothing else?

If this argument is true—and I find it painfully plausible—where does that leave us? An individual’s or a society’s character cannot be willed into or out of existence. Lost virtues and solidarities cannot be regained overnight, or even, perhaps, in a generation. Even our ideologies of liberation may have to be rethought. A transvaluation of values may be in order: faster, easier, and more may have to give way to slower, harder, and less—not only for ecological reasons but also for reasons of mental and moral hygiene. And even if we decide, as a society, to spit out the poisoned apple of consumerism and technological addiction, is there a path back—or forward, for that matter? If individual self-sufficiency and local self-government are prerequisites for human flourishing, then maybe it is too late.

(...)

Do my apparently disparate-sounding worries have anything in common? Possibly this: they all result from one or another move on the part of the culture away from the immediate, the instinctual, the face-to-face. We are embodied beings, gradually adapted over millions of years to thrive on a certain scale, our metabolisms a delicate orchestration of innumerable biological and geophysical rhythms. The culture of modernity has thrust upon us, sometimes with traumatic abruptness, experiences, relationships, and powers for which we may not yet be ready—to which we may need more time to adapt.

But time is short. “All that is solid melts into air”—Marx meant the crust of tradition, dissolving in the acid bath of global capitalism. Now, however, the earth itself is melting. Marx’s great metaphor has acquired a terrifying second meaning."And so has Nietzsche’s. If we cannot slow down and grow cautiously, evenly, gradually into our new technological and political possibilities and responsibilities—even the potentially liberating ones—the last recognizably individual men and women may give place, before too many more generations, to the simultaneously sub- and super-human civilization of the hive."

#nietzsche #zarathustra #marx #modernity #virtues #values

[vaultofqueenorion]

It is time to introduce you all to my favorite series of all time by my favorite author of all time, that is the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. 

This also means that the whole review will basically be one giant hype-train, even if I will keep spoilers to a minimum. 

So let’s take a deep dive into the story of Adarlan’s greatest assassin, Celaena Sardothien, the most sassy character that I have ever met, and one of the badass women in the series.

The Title

The title is dramatic, it’s got flair, and it also portrays something entirely terrible that had me actually getting chills when I started reading about the villain of the story. 

The castle is made completely of glass. That doesn’t seem particularly practical you say? Well you would be right, and Celaena would agree with you. It’s extravagant, just like the nobles of Adarlan who give no thought to the people that the King of Adarlan has oppressed for a while now. 

It’s also kind of the perfect metaphor for Celaena - extravagant and beautiful, but hiding a fragility, a fear that could bring it all crashing down. 

The Characters

See Celaena might be the Adarlan’s (and maybe even the world’s!) greatest assassin with blood on her teeth and a sharp tongue, but there are hints to her fear, to her utter self depreciation and escapism throughout the whole book.

She is, simply, a hero who doesn’t want to be one.

It’s quite aptly summed up in the picture above. She doesn’t believe that she’s fated for anything - not after having been through what she’s been through. 

But she puts on a mask and smiles through it all, ridiculing those around her and lavishing in the finer things in life. 

This was one of the things that made me connect so much with her (not the lashing out part, the hiding your true self part - the fear). Her past has left her so broken, so afraid of failure and of the world around her that she simply stopped trying to save it all. 

And yet.

Because as the above shows, she still does save people. She saves a puppy from being killed for being the ‘runt of the litter’, and she saves a man from falling to his death. She keeps saving those around her, keeps trying even after she says that she’s done.

Even though she has troubles surviving on her own as it is.

That’s also what’s so interesting about Celaena - she manages to be vibrant while hopeless, kind while self-preserving. She’s a full-blooded killer, but she doesn’t kill those who don’t deserve it. There are so many opposites within her, and they all serve to make her an incredibly fun character to follow. 

She’s also very flawed, and she’s got a horribly fiery temper that leaves her with thoughts such as the ones below.

See? That’s not the voice of a kind and soft spoken woman. That’s the voice of a fighter that has walked through hell and yet still manages to come out the other side. 

A Nehemia so aptly puts it:

Her spirit remains as it once was - she is scarred and she is hurt, but she kept her defiance going. She kept getting up after being knocked down.

I think that is one of the things that had me relating to her the most. All of those feelings, all of the despair and fear and pain and yet she still manages to get onto her feet one more time after she gets knocked down.

Celaena is a hero who had me getting back on my own two feet long after I finished her story. 

Nehemia is the second character that I want to talk about. The princess of Eyllwe, the land that the Kind of Adarlan has practically enslaved for their rebellion against his power, Nehemia Ytger is stuck in an enemy capital, walking around the torturer of her people at all times. And yet she still manages to keep her chin up, her spine erect.

She’s a powerful woman, the light of her people, and the dearest friend of Celaena. She’s fierce and Celaena has the idea that she’s fighting to free her people, even as she walks among her enemies, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 

She’s also the one to bail Celaena out at many points, their friendship deepening with each horrifying secret that they uncover. She’s clever enough to keep her things relatively hidden, but there’s also a hint of sadness to her whenever she talks about her people. As if she knows that she cannot ever do enough.

Chaol is the captain of the Royal Guard. He’s cold, he’s calculating and he’s suspicious of Celaena and her intentions. That is, until you get to know him. He can seem stand-offish - imagine an old grumpy man with a golden heart. The thing is that this old man’s heart (he’s young in the book btw, so don’t take the metaphor too seriously) has been encased in ice and it takes him a while to thaw.

He does, however, appreciate hard work, and I have the sneaking suspicion that he’s proud of Celaena after a while as she goes from hollowed out husk to powerhouse again.

The above is not a particularly nice part of the book, but it does signify their relationship at first. Chaol sort of tolerates her, he doesn’t really praise her, but he comes to care for her. A lot.

And it was really really nice to have a hero that had to be retrained again, because that is the most realistic thing that I’ve seen in regards to a hero who has come back from a long time of inactivity.

Dorian Havilliard, the Crown Prince of Adarlan, is a softie. At least he seems like that - naive, doesn’t go against his fathers wishes, womanizer. The standard douchey no-good straight guy who has it all.

It’s shown in the dumb question below (which makes Celaena have the most amazing response later on the page, but go read the book to see that one!).

Because Endovier is the Death camp. It’s been made to kill and to be unescapable. And yet he asks her the unthinkable. Celaena, with her sass and smart assery, gives the perfect response and her escape plan was almost perfect. 

Dorian learns, slowly, to stand up to his father. He learns what it means to care for someone other than himself and his best friend Chaol, and he actually seems to maybe not despise it, but at least rein back on the courtly stuff. But boy oh boy there’s a lot of character development here, and the potential is amazing.

The King of Adarlan was terrifying. He’s a peripheral character, most of the time, but he’s very much prevalent in all of their minds. Sort of a dark presence that never moves, never blinks, he seems to watch their every movement. 

He’s cruel, he’s dark and we have no clue how much he knows. That lack of knowledge is terrifying and it was nice to have a hero that actually feared their adversary rather than felt like they could defeat them, because Celaena, Dorian, everyone feels powerless against him. 

The quote below from Celaena is one that I am especially fond of.

Cain is ... wow. Don’t even get me started. He’s a brute and he’s just plain cruel for fun. I didn’t like him because he was a bully, but he was never that prominent for me. He was a villain like any other. 

Elena, who is another pretty good but also a bit meh character for me, warns Celaena of this regarding Cain and whatever is going on.

Elena is not a character that I will go into. She’s sort of the friendly ghost that hangs back and swoops in once in a while, and she seems to want to help Celaena, but you have to take a look at her for yourselves.

The Plot

Ever wanted to read a murder mystery slash assassing tournament slash love and friendship story that takes place in a fantasy world that once held magic but is now dried out? Then this is the one for you.

That is a huge simplification, of course, because reality is so much better. I was in suspense until the end - not about who was the evil one, but rather what is going on. There’s a whole level of suspense going on in figuring out what in the world is happening alongside Celaena, who needs to discover everything for herself.

And gosh. The whole retraining programme in which Celaena finally gets to eat like the noble she feels like, and the way she has her sassy spars with Chaol. 

Just everything.

Also the ball seen at the Yule ball is so worth it and her dress description gives me life.

Then we move on to the tournament. I was in love with the challenges and whenever one presented itself, my eyes were glued to the pages. The way Celaena can easily outmaneuver most of them, but she needs to keep it a secret is priceless.

Also the poison challenge in which the participants need to rank the poisons from the most deadly to the most harmless and then drink whatever they placed as ‘without poisons’ is amazing. Partly because Celaena actually doesn’t identify all of them, and partly because there is just so much confusion among everyone but one (who’s basically a poisoner) and when they drink it. Man did I enjoy watching all the characters that Celaena hated writhe on the ground before they could get the antidote.

Next comes the murders. They are gruesome and terribly well written, and the worst part is that no one can figure out what is doing it. Organs are removed, brains carved out and they are surrounded by strange marks. 

Of course Celaena finds out, which results in one of the most intense scenes in the book, which I very much loved.

The last part of the plot is the actual tournament. It is tense, and it is glorious. A hero who struggles so much at the end will always be appealing to me, and then the scene where she thinks I will not be afraid (below) is one of the most character defining moments for me.

Because that is who she is. She denies her fear room, she fights on through it, and she says that she is Celaena Sardothien, and she will not be afraid.

It gave me courage, too.

The Language

Gorgeous, stunning, fierce. Can I end the segment there? That’s not enough to convince you? Alright, then let’s take a deep dive.

This is my absolute favorite quote, so much so that I got a version of it tattooed, so the below is really the star of the book.

It’s got fate in it and it’s got power and it is so beautifully written that I am in awe. The fear part got me - that she is so powerful that she would be able to change the course of the world, but she is too afraid to do it, because of her past, because of the world around her.

Geez that hits right in the feels. 

The stars and darkness and unknown is a huge part of this book and there are so many beautiful quotes that it is hard to narrow it down. The thing is that while the characters carry the book, the language is paced perfectly with snippets of these gems hidden between the pages and it just makes you want to keep coming back, again and again and again.

I found myself trying to emulate her writing style after I had read it (I quickly dropped that again because I kept slipping back into my own style which is honestly the best), and it stuck with me long after I put down the book. 

In conclusion

Do you get the feeling that I could talk for days and days and days about this book? You are very much right. It is my all time favorite, and I devoured it whole in one sitting when I first got it. I simply couldn’t tear my eyes away from the pages and the wonderful world that Sarah J. Maas has built within. 

So do yourself a favor and check it out. I’ll be giving it five paws, in any case.

#throne of glass #tog #celaena #chaol #chaol westfall #celaena sardothien #adarlan #dorian #nehemia #review #book review #book #fantasy #badass #sassy #cain #perrington #kaltain #kaltain rompier #sarah j maas

[elleonmybeloved]

Field Day

Title: Field Day Author: PinkPerfume Fandom: Shall We Date? Obey me! Pairing: Asmodeus/MC Rating: Teen & Up Chapter: 1/? Tags: Demon & Angel Blood AU, Demons are slightly larger than in cannon by about a foot or two each, Secret Crush, Awkward pining, Asmodeus is hoe-rny as usual, Flirting, Leading up to that explicit rating in the second chapter cause you know me Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25145122/chapters/60926767

Summary:

Once a week, the human exchange students, accompanied by the seven demon brothers as well as Lord Diavolo and a few of his subordinates make a trip to a rocky place out in the wilderness of the Devildom to conduct physical testing on the humans’ developing abilities. Mary-Catherine and her fellow once-humans aren't sure why Lord Diavolo injected them with the demon and angel blood that gave them their abilities, but participation in the testing is mandatory. But if you forget the part where they're being tested like lab rats, it feels a lot like a fun school field day! Complete with packed lunches and a friendly sense of competition.

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“I hope you’re ready to eat my dust this time. I’ve grown two inches since last week.”

“Don’t get a big head. You got dog demon blood, not speed demon. Besides, not being able to spit acid at obstacles in your way is gonna slow you down.”

“I’d really appreciate it if you stopped doing that. Just because you look a lot more like a snake now doesn’t mean you need to act like one.”

“- Demon cobra. Not just a snake.”

“I know you’re proud of that, but honestly, I’m more jealous of the girl who got hawk demon blood. You know she has wings now, right?”

“What?! They shouldn’t let her participate in the race, it’s totally not fair.”

“It’s not actually a race, you guys.”

“Just because they’re testing us doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with it. Lord Diavolo encouraged us to be competitive.”

Excited chattering and the rumble of the vehicle’s engine made for a charged atmosphere that Mary-Catherine was enjoying listening to, leaning her head against the glass of the window to hide her amused smile at the antics. Choosing to survey the odd shapes of plants and pigmented rock passing by outside as she listened, she angled her head so that the small tightly curled horns at her forehead weren’t scraping against the glass.

Once a week, the human exchange students, accompanied by the seven demon brothers as well as Lord Diavolo and a few of his subordinates made the trip to a rocky place out in the wilderness of the Devildom to conduct physical testing on the humans’ developing abilities.

Piled into some kind of all-terrain vehicle with such ridiculous ground clearance that Mary-Catherine had needed assistance to haul herself up into it, they were shuttled to the testing site. The vehicle was huge and had several rows of seats, so everybody just called it “The Bus.” Before them on the long straight road, the Demon lord’s sleek black limo - driven by Barbatos - led the way down the path.

Turning off on the dirt path, they pulled up to the site. As the passengers - twenty-five strong, counting the brothers - filed out of the vehicle, they cordoned off into groups like a separation of oil and water.

Mary-Catherine confidently placed herself next to the people she knew best. Donte - a young man with horned-toad demon blood who she’d never seen not dressed up in attractive punk outfits that suited his dark brown curls and yellow-green striped horns perfectly. Despite all the purple dust out here, she had yet to see any of it attach itself to his outfit.

Meanwhile, both her thick cargo pants and her usual red tank top already had a few purple smudges.

To his left, Emma, a curvy young woman in all black whose sharp feline teeth glinted against her dark lipstick, and though the pair of furry black ears at the top of head twitched invitingly, you’d have to be stupid to touch them - or any part of her - without her explicit say so. Her claws were just as sharp as her eyeliner and stung quite badly.

Mary-Catherine had never heard her give anyone that say so. Only repeated threats to anybody who would listen about just exactly the kind of dark apocalypse she would continuously rain on Diavolo and the demon brothers & co. until they returned her cat Lucy to her, or vice versa.

Standing aloof with a familiar thoughtful expression to her right, a picture of elegance and maturity that M-C only hoped she’d one day achieve, was Annika. The blonde witch had a silent strength and seemed the least phased about her residency in the devildom of all the humans Mary-Catherine knew. She even stood up to Lucifer on a regular basis.

Mary had to avoid flinching like a startled lamb every time he looked in her mere direction. In her defense, she was part sheep now, and she had no reason to believe demon sheep were any braver than those in the overworld. Though as recent months had attested, they had the same urge for salt and were about 5 times faster than a regular one running at full tilt.

Once given their instructions, and oddly-shaped “evaluators” to attach to their D.D.D.s, the four of them plus a few she was less familiar with made off for the climbing ground. As usual, the groups moved around three areas in a rotation. A rock-littered circuit of road for testing speed, agility, and endurance, a level field of purple grass and several small, dead-looking trees with painted orange Xs on them that served as a combat ground for testing offensive abilities, and a large outcropping of porous green rock to test their ability to scale rough vertical terrain.

Something of a makeshift security team, the demon brothers spread out to stand their usual guard over the three groups. Considering their powers and how each demon towered at least a foot over any regular human even in their “human” forms, on their very first outing Mary-Catherine had foolishly assumed none of the other occupants of this realm would dare try to attack the group.

Grimacing as she tied up her hair and prepared to climb, she tried to blink away the image of the explosion of goop and gore and the charred remains that had been left of the few dissenting demons who’d scarcely touched her human companions before Satan had reduced them to pulp. Though unsure of how Lucifer had torched the ones who’d gone after his group, she was pretty sure she’d never get the image of their blackened skulls out of her mind.

“What’s with the long face? You’re still the reigning champion of this rock, goat-girl.”

Looking up, she recognized the self-proclaimed “cobra” guy from earlier on the bus. Despite his competitive statement, the grin on his face was friendly. His curly black hair and olive skin tone made for a vivid contrast against his vertical pupiled green eyes. She’d seen him a few times at breakfast and wasn’t certain but she thought his name was Kevin?

“Oh nothing. I was just wondering if they were going to make me lick more rocks today. Kind of reminds me of when I used to chaperone church summer camp and all the kids would collect rocks and dare each other to hold it in their mouth for twenty seconds or eat a worm.”

Mary-Catherine paused, “-But my horns alone would’ve been even more scandalous than the time one of the adults caught someone with a Harry Potter book sooo I guess it’s not really that similar!”

“Oh trust me I doubt my mamá would be happy to see what I look like now, but that doesn’t mean I would say no to a chance to become spiderman.”

“Hey, if anybody is becoming spiderman, I think it might be me.” Donte spoke up from behind them, looking incredulously at his hand which was pressed against the wall of rock. “Check this out.”

He then demonstrated how with an odd suction noise, his hands clung to the rock of their own accord. Prying them off and then repeating the motion, he got better at the detachment process with each press.

“Maybe poisonous demon frogs can stick to things?” Mary-Catherine mused. “I watched this discovery channel episode on tree frogs once that explained how their secretion of toe pad mucous-”

“-Mucous?!?” Donte scrutinized his hands in dismay, but after finding no such secretions he breathed a sigh of relief. “The only thing getting on my hands is this rock while I climb it’s ass. See you at the top!”

Pressing the start button on her evaluator, she climbed up after him, hearing Kevin start his descent as well. She’d gotten a bit of experience with this sort of outdoors stuff at previously said church-camp, but that was nowhere near her current condition, as she easily overtook both of her human companions with no regard for the steepness of her path. Back then, she’d needed a hardness and ropes. Now, she sought out each handhold instinctively like the top of the rock was calling her.

“At least I’m not bleating.” She sighed, and from below her Kevin barked out a laugh.

“I imagine it would come out sounding more like a warbled growl.” He said. “I’ve seen the pictures you know.”

“Hey- don’t go looking at a girl’s demon pictures!” A girl lower down on the rock called up to them.

Mary-Catherine blushed and hastily pulled herself up the remaining few feet of the rock and rolled to the side as she clicked stop on her evaluator.

“Not her pictures, the pictures of whatever they injected her with!” Kevin complained, but M-C could hear the mirth in his voice.

Walking over to a smoother patch of rock, she sat down to wait for the rest of them to finish their climb. Gazing at the ground far below her, she noticed Emma and Beelzebub talking next to a couple of camp-chairs.

She had noticed before that as an act of cat-less mutiny, Emma often refused to take part in the tests, but as M-C watched her speaking amicably with the demon beside her, who was eating… something round and dripping a brightly colored liquid she could make out from here, Emma gestured towards the rock several times with a wistful expression.

Rising to get a better look, Mary-Catherine began absent mindedly stretching, catching her ankle and bending her leg with a gentle pull.

It was a bit too far for her to make out exactly what they were saying - though some of her genetically enhanced fellow humans probably could - but M-C imagined that Emma was saying something along the lines of how much she wanted to climb the ‘actual shit outta that rock’ but wouldn’t budge an inch until they gave her back her precious Lucy. Beel seemed to nod sympathetically and despite not halting in his eating process, continue the conversation.

And then he moved to grab another of whatever it was he was eating, revealing the other demon who had come to watch over the climbing group. Having used the absolute swole unit of his demon brother’s body to provide him with shade, the Avatar of Lust reclined elegantly in - well it wasn’t really a camping chair, but it looked like it could be collapsed and relocated - his seat, meticulously painting his nails.

Freezing awkwardly midstretch, both arms clasped high above her head, she was for the hundredth? thousandth? time struck by just how gorgeous of a man Asmodeus was. Not a man, she reminded herself, a demon. Good Lord in Heaven, those arms… he had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows to avoid getting nail polish on his shirt, and it exposed the beautiful lean muscle of his forearms. Burnt amber eyes focused intensely on his handiwork, his pale perfectly shaped lips pursed in concentration… he had an angular face that made him look like both like the dangerous being he was, and a sculpture of an angel at the same time.

As if aware he was being ogled, he paused his preening and turned his head, looking up her way at the top of the rock. Panicking, she hastily looked elsewhere, pretending to continue her stretches as if she hadn’t been meaning to glance in his direction…

Nothing to see here!

Soon the others joined her at the top of the rock, and with the protection of anonymity, Mary-Catherine risked another gaze his way.

Oh good, he’s back to working on his nails.

Getting caught looking at people was so awkward, hopefully he hadn’t thought anything of what he saw of her brief gaze. She was pretty sure she was safe, it was unlikely he was that interested in any measly humans anyways.

“So what was your score?”

Mary-Catherine spooked so hard she jumped, turning to give Kevin a wounded look.

“You’re a jumpy one, huh? Must be those prey instincts. Well, what was it?”

“A minute and forty three seconds.” Mary-Catherine said, wondering what kind of predator hunted sheep demons. Probably had lots of teeth.

“Guess I just need to be a minute and fifteen seconds faster next time.”

“I’m sure you can do it.” She said, giving him an encouraging smile. “If they ever decide to hand out a prize, you’ve got it in the bag.”

“Now there’s an idea.” Donte piped up, moving into step beside them as the group began to descend the smooth sloped side of the rock. “I already know what I want as a prize.”

“What do you want?” She couldn’t really think of anything a demon would have to give as a good present. She’d seen their food. And the mall. They had weird taste.

“Not telling.” Donte said in a cheeky tone that even she could read as being… salacious in nature. Annika gave him one of her disapproving mother looks and it just made him sprout a mischievous little grin.

“I’ve had my eye on a spellbook in Satan’s library I would very much like to have.” Annika said, as if trying to steer the conversation off the downhill path it was otherwise going. It was a good thing Emma wasn’t here or that’d be a moot effort.

“Uhhh, boring!” Kevin crossed his arms. “Come on guys, we’re practically in hell. I want a weapon or something with strong dark magic powers.”

One of the other girls agreed with him, and began a very enthusiastic conversation about swords and axes and other sharp pointy things. Mary-Catherine considered the question herself for a few moments, but the only thing she could think of was for Lucifer to give her her Bible back. He’d taken it away a couple weeks ago after she’d done something he hadn’t approved of and used it as an excuse to confiscate the book. She wasn’t even sure how he’d known she had it, but maybe he’d been under the false impression that she was religious?

Normally she wouldn’t have been upset about such a thing, but even though she was no longer the good devout Catholic girl her parents had raised her to be, her grandmother had given her that Bible. They’d been quite close before she passed away five years ago to lung cancer. She was much too terrified of the fallen angel to even try to get it back though. Regardless, as far as prizes go that was a bit more personal than she was comfortable with sharing.

“I think a week off school would be nice!” She said instead, and was met with a resounding murmur of agreement from the crowd.

“How about a whole month?”

---

Under the protection of Belphegor and Leviathan this time, Mary-Catherine and her group took turns sprinting on the track. Unsurprisingly, Kevin’s dog demon-blooded friend blew all competition out the water. Once that guy got started he was like Usain Bolt on steroids. Though she put in the effort expected of her to avoid getting chided, M-C didn’t bother to run full tilt. She didn’t really like this part anyways. It was the most like a test, grueling and repetitive instead of fun, and reminded her of how she was here against her will.

She was grateful when they broke for lunch, gathering around a few hastily erected plastic tables. Taking the brown bag and two water bottles, she found a somewhat shady spot to sit under a scary looking tree and redid her sagging ponytail, lamenting the state of her side braid. She downed a whole bottle of water before getting into her food.

It was kind of funny, it was the same typical sandwich chips and apple combo she was used to on outdoor events like these, but the meat was purple and the lettuce that poked out at the sides was bright red. The fruit looked like an apple, but tasted like an orange and was the color of a banana.

She’d learned to just trust Lord Diavolo to know what humans could eat, and didn’t ask what everything was anymore. One of the transfer students had been curious at breakfast and as a result she had become aware of the fact that on several occasions she had ingested eggs from a reptilian demon species called an angiphore which looked like a cross between a platypus and one of those monstrous looking fish that lived really deep in the ocean.

The thought made her choke on her mouthful of water and most of it escaped out her lips down her throat to soak into the fabric of her top above her breast.

“Oh, gosh darn it.” Of course she had nothing to dab at it with. Well, at least the cool water felt kind of nice dripping down her neck, as hot as she was after such rigorous exercise.

“Oh my, looks like someone overestimated how much they could swallow~”

Mary-Catherine scarcely had time to process that someone had managed to approach her so silently before, bending elegantly at the waist, Asmodeus himself was already pressing a handkerchief against her neck with a chiding tut.

At her stiff reaction, he smiled, looking very much like the cat that ate the canary. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of sweetie, you’re not the first one to do such a thing.”

Mary-Catherine flushed and searched for a sufficiently indignant reply, realizing he was making fun of her. But before she could come up with something, he moved in closer, dragging the cloth against her bottom lip. It was such a shamelessly demanding motion, silencing her with ease.

“You must’ve been thirsty, poor thing.” He crooned, and M-C decided to swallow her pride and just enjoy the opportunity to get such a close up look at his gorgeous face. At this angle, she could see how long his strawberry-blonde eyelashes were as they brushed the smooth, immaculate skin of his cheeks.

“It’s… pretty hot.” The words were already on her mind, so unfortunately that’s what came out of her mouth instead of denying such an obvious trap.

It was worth it for the delighted, full-teeth grin he made. “I agree.”

His fingers skirted the hem of her tank top, and with a gentle pluck, he lifted the fabric to dab a few times at the wet top of her breast. But instead of lingering, with a simple wink, he retracted the handkerchief and stood up before she could even begin freaking out about it.

“Thanks.” She said when her brain caught up, as he started to leave.

“Any time, honey.~” He replied without turning back, and was soon out of sight.

Mary-Catherine gave a dry swallow and reached for her water bottle.

~~~

The rest of the afternoon proved uneventful. Oviumalum, or the certain species of demon sheep blood she’d been injected with, apparently had the ability to rapidly elongate and thrust out their 4 sets of horns in front of them like some kind of projectile impaler. Their horns were also a key ingredient in a certain type of hallucinogenic drug, when ground to a powder.

The meager set of horns on Mary-Catherine’s forehead was sharp, and made of the same components, but so far showed no signs of developing any projectile abilities. As such, she simply had to hold still while they took a sample of her horns, ears, and tail and then was free to sit on the sidelines for most of the hour.

Lucifer had handed her a textbook about the properties of various demonic plants and encouraged her to study during the downtime.

“Like many here, you would do well to improve your academics. Here.” He’d said in that aloof tone, like she was some filthy human bug under his boot.

“Oh…” She’d said. “Well, actually, that’s-”

“You’re welcome.” He’d cut off her attempt to decline with a glare. “I hope I see an improvement in your grade reports soon.”

Mary-Catherine couldn’t help but shut up after that and bitterly open the book in obedience. His crimson stare, like the blood she was sure he was not hesitant to shed, was just too frightening. But, more interested in watching the increasingly bizarre developing abilities of her fellow humans, she’d just skimmed the pages and pretended to read.

Beside Lord Diavolo’s delight at Donte’s newfound ability, nothing else of note happened. It was amusing to watch Emma claw several inch deep scores into a variety of materials she’d never assume could even be scratched, so that’s what she’d done until they’d blown their whistle to announce that it was time to return to the House of Lamentation.

Now, she was trailing after the gaggle of tired, test-tried students, thinking about whether she was going to bathe, sleep, or eat first when they got home.

“Heeyyy, M-C!”

Looking up from where she’d been zoning out staring at her D.D.D, she glanced around. Had somebody called her name?

“Mary-Catheriiiine!!” A girl was jogging towards her, waving a hand to get her attention. It took her a moment, since it wasn’t someone she was very familiar with, but she connected the face to a name before the girl reached her.

“Yes? - Um, Hoya, right?”

“Yeah.” The girl said, smiling with a - ah. Shark demon blood. - large set of teeth. “Can I ask you a favor?”

“Of course! What is it?”

“I lost my ring up on the rocks.” Hoya said, pointing to the climbing wall. “I can see where it is but I can’t reach it myself. Can you get it for me?”

“Sure!” May-Catherine chirped, but then bit her lip. “Uh, did you tell Lucifer? It’s time to go and I’ll be fast but we’re going to make them wait…”

“Don’t worry, I told him. He said it’s fine as long as I hurry.”

“Oh. Okay!” M-C said, but couldn’t help squinting a little skeptically.

“...He said they’re leaving in ten minutes with or without us.” Hoya admitted. “But it won’t take us that long!”

Mary-Catherine was already moving. “Oh gosh, well I hope you didn’t mention my name…”

Hoya jogged next to her, long smooth grey tail wagging oddly like a dog. “Uh, I did. Sorry!"

Mary-Catherine groaned and high-tailed it to the rock.

#obey me! #shall we date? obey me! #asmodeus #asmodeus x mc