#mayhaps ill write something with them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

huramuna · 1 month

Text

banshee's lament - chapter 7.

aemond targaryen x stark ofc minor jacaerys velaryon x stark ofc masterlist prev | next

wordcount: 2.5k

@huramuna-fics - follow & turn on notifications for just my fic postings! no taglists right now, sorry.

a/n: a short chapter, but very important! the next 3 after this will be very action packed! and then it is the end of act 1!

content: smut, angst, fluff, disabled ofc, aemond being delulu & obsessive, major canon divergence, ofc has a service direwolf, i'm taking canon rules and putting them in a blender and taking a shot, arranged marriage, graphic depictions of violence, my terrible, terrible combat writing, descriptions of injuries, allusions to suicide, talk of chronic pain and illness

story playlist

Shera had never rushed before so much in her life. She needed out. Out of Viserys’ room, out of the tunnels, out, out, out. As she pushed a stone backing, her knees skidded across the cobbled ground, skin ripping from them violently. Oh, how adept she’d become at injuring herself. She haphazardly wiped a few tears away.

The crisp night air whipped against her face before the smell changed– her other senses other than sight had become so keen since her loss of sight in her eye, so she was especially sensitive to even the most minute change in scents. She smelled the distinct aroma of fire– ashes to ashes, wafting along the breeze, mingling with a familiar smell of sandalwood and white cedar musk.

A pair of polished black boots, now a bit dull in their pallor from soot, stood in front of her.

“Lost, little banshee?” Aemond cooed. She could practically see the grin on his face, once again not of joy but something akin to self-assuredness and beastly callousness.

“I told you…” she croaked, putting her now bloodied fingertips up to her throat, the pain reverberating through every word. “Don’t… call me that, nūmāzma zaldrīzes.” Mean dragon. She didn’t look up, or lift herself in any sort of way. Shera was all too aware she was not wearing her veil, nor her choker– and Aemond’s comments at the dinner (that he had still not apologized for, the cad) were festering in her mind, stinging and infecting like a plague. They hadn’t spoken since her almost ill-fated swan dive. He probably thought she was still suicidal.

It was all too quick for her to register, her vision was still spinning, but he had picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, or perhaps a bale of hay. He didn’t say anything further as he began to walk down the hall, deeper into the Keep.

Shera’s face went beet red as she sniffled, kicking her legs against him. “Put me down,” she growled, her voice raising more than it should, her tone becoming skewed and cracking. She resorted to trying to bite him then, her teeth fastening down on the leather jerkin he was wearing. It was so thick, that her attempt to snap her jaws upon his skin was hardly even registered to him.

“No.” he responded flatly, an arm fastened around her waist that was slung over his shoulder, his other hand coming up to swat her bottom. “Stop trying to bite me.”

“This is demeaning.” she hissed, now resulting in hitting her forehead on his shoulder blade, hoping to hide the fact that her face was burning scarlet at the fact that he had swatted her bum like an insolent child, no less carrying her like one.

“Yes– well, mayhaps you shouldn’t be sneaking around at night, much less without your mutt guiding you.”

She grumbled a noise of discontentment, burying her face into his shoulder blade as a means to hide herself further, lest anyone see the absolutely precarious position that Aemond– and herself– had put her in.

They didn’t speak much as he took her back to her chambers. Moongeist was awake in an instant when he opened the door, growling and snarling.

“... s’okay,” Shera mustered as Aemond planted her on the ground next to the wolf, who immediately calmed at his owner’s presence– not without a wary look towards the prince, though. She put her hand on his head, her fingertips shaking.

“You’re bloody, Shera.”

“Fell.”

“You can’t go to bed bloody. You’ll stain the sheets.”

“I can.”

“You can– but the maids would most certainly report it to my mother, or worse, to Rhaenyra. It’s not exactly a good look for a supposed maiden bride-to-be having bloodied sheets?”

Shera sighed, putting her head in her hands as she sat at her boudoir. “Get on with it.”

“Tell your mutt to not bite me, then.” Aemond returned in an equally annoyed tone as he wet a cloth at the washing basin, swathing it over her skinned knee, while keeping his eye trained on Moongeist– who in turn, was staring back at him.

“Have half a mind to… you were… quite mean.”

“Mean? I helped you back to your room.”

“At the dinner, when I came back. And you have been quiet since the… Kingswood.”

“Ah.”

“... ‘ah’? That’s it?”

“Tell me truthfully; are you being coerced into this? If you are, I will cut that Strong bastard from stem to stern like a roasted pig. I see what it's doing to you. You’re frayed at the ends.”

He’s noticed? She glanced at him waywardly, fists squeezing in her lap. “I’m not some helpless little creature with no power… I still have some voice.”

“Hardly.”

“Jacaerys has been… cordial and proper,” she said. When he isn’t fucking my brother, that is. “He even has written me letters when not visiting. What a novel idea that is, hm?”

“You’re still upset about that?”

Shera peeked through the hair fallen in front of her face, scowling. “Yes. I am.”

He reached his hand up to pry one of hers from her face. “I’ll need to clean these, too. Even so, I do believe it requires two people to have a conversation through letters, does it not? I don’t recall receiving anything addressed to me from you over the years. I heard Helaena got quite a few.”

Shera pressed her marred side of her face into her shoulder as she let Aemond clean the blood from her fingertips. She didn’t want him to see– she couldn’t. She didn’t quite understand the confidence that Aemond had, his scar proudly on display above and below his eyepatch. The tips of her ears went red at his insinuation. “... I suppose we both could’ve sent letters, then. I just…” her fingertips twitched as he pressed the cloth underneath her nails, scraping the dried blood from under them. “I wasn’t sure you would want to…” her hands strayed from his grasp, to which he grunted at, taking them back. “Cregan wrote the response for the first one. It… I’m sure you know it was a lie now. He is such an idiot– I am the opposite of fine. I don’t think I’ve been fine in nearly a decade.” her bottom lip wobbled slightly as she rambled on, saying all the things she’d always wanted to say to someone– no, not someone– to him.

“... it was callous of me,” he finally offered, “To say… what I did at the dinner. It was mostly to rile Jacaerys.” he finally responded, putting the cloth to the side and examining her to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. “I’m sorry.” Aemond spoke his apology quietly, but looked directly at her face, then. His face was… surprisingly open. Not guarded.

“... ‘twas not far from the truth.”

“May I see?”

Shera shook her head vehemently. “You can’t.”

“Please.”

She made a noise of disagreement, pressing her face further to her shoulder. She didn’t, however, account for the visibility of the scar on her throat, jagged and raised against the soft flesh of her neck. She felt one of Aemond’s fingers trace it, across slowly, then upward. His hand went to her chin and he turned her face towards him. And she let him. She didn’t have much energy to stop him, anyhow.

His touch was soft, which surprised her greatly– she thought him unhewn and rough in all places– but this was something reminiscent of how he used to touch her as children. He was always gentle with her before. Her face was turned to him completely now, unveiled, unhidden– she braced herself for the look of humor or pity on his face, her heart stopped beating for a moment, her breaths caught in her chest.

Brushing an errant hair aside, he traced the scar over her eye. It wasn’t an entirely clean cut, like he had guessed, jutting out into two diverging lines, like branches of a tree going downward. His violet eye, the hue hardly visible from how large his pupil was, was trained on her blind one. The milky blue, her own pupil long gone. The edges of his lips curled into something akin to wonder. There wasn’t a look of pity and it didn’t seem like he was about to make another poor jest about her face– he just looked, as if to study it, to commit it to memory.

“Blue?” he murmured. “How curious.”

The way he said it had Shera perking her brow– it sounded like an epiphany to him, his voice taking a lighter note than she’d heard. There was no trace of callousness that had been exuding from him previously. He was calm.

“Yes, it's blue,” she muttered in response, his taut (but not uncomfortable) grip on her chin keeping her facing him. She desperately wanted to hide away, hide, hide. She’d never felt so exposed in her life, so naked– and she was fully clothed. It felt like her soul was on display to him, cracking from her ribcage.

“Let me formally apologize,” he cleared his throat. “‘Tis not mangled at all, nor a mess. I now wonder, even more than before, why you persist with the veil.” Aemond let go of her chin, but not before giving it a little tug in an almost playful manner. Aemond? Playful?

“I like them– it's… to hide.”

“Hide? To make oneself obscured, to conceal and fade into the background,” he pondered it for a moment. “You make yourself a spectacle with that thing, Shera. You are doing the opposite of hiding.”

Shera puffed out her chest, arms crossed over defensively. “A spectacle?”

“You chastised me for calling you a banshee, when you dress the part,” he leaned back in his chair, hands laced together over his stomach. He was relaxing.

She puffed, rolling her eyes. She mimicked his body position, leaning back with her hands on her stomach. It felt… odd to be looking at him without any inhibition. It felt almost normal. Normal– normal. When was the last time she felt normal?

“I want to clarify,” she cleared her throat, fingertips paused on her throat from speaking up too fast, too loudly. “I was not trying to kill myself. It… I… I’m not suicidal.”

Aemond’s expression didn’t change, he merely focused his gaze even more onto her. He didn’t say anything.

“The… disassociation is new, like Hela told you,” Shera’s hands wrought over one another slowly. “But it isn’t… unusual, given my… conditions.”

“Conditions?” he asked finally. His face still didn’t give away any emotion.

“... no one else knows except for Cregan and the maesters at Winterfell. Jace probably knows from Cregan… telling him all the things that are wrong with me, to look out for when we’re married.” she took a breath before continuing. “The maesters don’t exactly know what to call it— but it is… I lose control of my body and fall to the ground, convulsing— it's terribly painful and then everything goes black. We have referred to it as my… fainting spells, but it surely feels like more than fainting. It’s… quite violent.”

Aemond blinked. Hard. He took a beat to absorb the information before speaking. His position shifted as he leaned forward. “When was the last time you had one of these… spells?”

“… not since Winterfell.”

“I don’t remember this being an issue when you were younger— is it… relatively new?” he asked then. His lips were pursed together in a tight line, in tandem with his furrowed brow.

“Since Driftmark.”

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly at the mention. “Another thing for us to bear, isn’t it?” he gave a low, bitter chuckle. “The Gods weren’t satisfied in our mutilation alone and had to… bestow us with lasting gifts, hm?”

Shera stayed silent, sitting up to where their knees were touching. Her eyes were wide as she took him in. His melancholic smile and the dullness of his eye as he looked off somewhere in the distance.

“The pain is bad most days. And on its worst days, it’s unbearable. The… the nerve damage, the maesters said. I’ll live with it forever— a constant thrum and reminder of it. There’s a few medicines that help temporarily but…” his voice trailed off, his gaze returning to her. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Aemond.”

“I do and I do not— I should’ve protected you. I should’ve killed them.” he gave an ugly sneer, lip curled.

Shera’s heart felt like it was in her throat. She wanted to cry, to scream for his pain, for her pain. She couldn’t speak, her voice coming out in unintelligible, choked sobs.

He looked sad, too. The depth of his despair laid bare in front of her for only a moment. The mask slipped back on, his proverbial walls back up.

But she knew.

They were so alike— even now.

–

Aemond had always prided himself on his resilience, on his ability to mask his emotions into stone.

Why did he become so unraveled with Shera? He confided in her so easily, as if it was second nature.

His boots stomped down the corridor of Maegor’s Holdfast without much care. He was coming apart at the seams, like a thread pulled from an old doublet, letting the structure of the garment fall away.

All it took was one thread.

He found himself at his desk, candles lit. The piece of fabric she’d gifted to him, with her silly note, was still there. He clutched it in his hand, bringing it to his face and taking a breath.

Lavender, rosemary, chamomile. The scent of her on it still lingered, if not a bit faded.

He would smell it in the halls, coming back from training. He knew she’d been watching him in secret for the past moon. Whenever it wafted near him, he had half a mind to follow her, to confront her, to hold her—

Fuck. He was fucked. He was fucked the moment she came to King’s Landing— the very first time.

His hand glided through his hair as he snapped off the leather cord holding it back from his face. Strands of it fell over his vision as he tossed his eyepatch to the settee behind him.

Taking out the sapphire was a tedious task. And painful.

But damn the Gods, if he wasn’t vain. Even if he was the only one who saw it most of the time. He clenched his free fist, white knuckled as he prised the gem from his socket, setting it aside.

He picked up the note that had been attached to her fabric favor, looking over it again. Her handwriting was terrible— but so inevitably her. Pulling a key from under a stack of innocuous papers, he unlocked the third drawer that fell down the side of the oak desk.

In it, were letters. Penned by him. Unsent, unseen.

All for her. Everything he’d wanted to say to her for years, everything he’d ever written with her in mind.

Everything he never could confess— not even now.

There were at least a hundred letters in the drawer, dated from those ten years apart.

He placed the favor note on the top and locked it back in place. The favor fabric, however, stayed in his hand.

After some careful cutting and somewhat haphazard stitching— Aemond had sewed a small segment of the fabric to the inside of his eyepatch.

He stowed the remainder of it in his nightstand.

He was so fucked.

#aemond fic #aemond x oc #aemond fanfiction #aemond targaryen #hotd aemond #house of the dragon aemond #prince aemond #aemond one eye #hotd fanfic #aemond fanfic #aemond fandom #my writing #banshees lament #aemond targaryen smut #aemond smut #hotd #house of the dragon #aemond x original female character #aemond x ofc

121 notes · View notes

theygotbitchesinmedia · 11 days

Note

okay so here is her review: https://arkadymartine.wordpress.com/2015/09/27/the-traitor-baru-cormorant-a-reviewresponse/

admittedly its from 2015- i haven't poked around to see how she may have changed how she feels about it, and i know she did blurb seth's recent scifi novel (Exordia), so there's no bad blood there or anything. it's also a positive review, in general- she ends with this sentence: "I highly, highly recommend this book; I have not thought so much about something I read in a long time."

i am also coming into this as someone who has read all of seth dickinson's work for the game destiny, where he was near-singlehandedly responsible for a good oh… 80% of the interesting women (& overall interesting concepts lol!) in the game, and his writing of one of those characters in particular as a complex and flawed character got him bullied viciously off of all social media. if you've tried to find his social media presence and havent found anything, that's why. so i mayhaps have a little more emotion in the game.

THAT SAID. here are some specific parts from her review i find really fucking annoying! and color the way i feel about Memory & Desolation, despite them being so incredibly targeted at me as a classics person AND someone who fucking loves the specific sub-genre of scifi her novels are.

"[Traitor] asks a question which I find compelling as a student of an empire and as a queer woman. That question is: what do we gain by complicity? What do we – we barbaroi, we women, we queer people, we imperialized – what do we get when we say yes? When we say yes I will hide my true nature? When we say yes I will subsume myself into the beautiful machine? When we say can we speak English? Or the literature I love just happens to be written by straight white men – and mean it, too, mean it with the kind of depthless love that a person can have for a text that speaks to them, which holds up a mirror to them?"

i dont think the use of the greek word for barbarian does anything here (she also keeps coming back to the greek term orthos in her review, which also pisses me off lol), i dont think empire is a "beautiful machine," and i don't think the invocation of identity politics is useful. like. i know she's a byzantine scholar but if your first association with empire is purely a finite Historical Empire instead of, like, modern US imperialism, or British colonialism, you are going into this discussion with a certain set of values and opinions! a set of values and opinions that let you call an empire a "beautiful machine" in all earnestness. this claim probably seems unsubstantiated and nitpicky now just from this excerpt but ill come back to it with more i promise. on the idpol front, she also says immediately after this that she does believe that straight people can and should write queer people, but that they should listen to queer people when they point out those errors. she then continues:

"But then, critique: there are two points on which I think Dickinson’s portrayal of a queer protagonist has faltered, and I think both of these errors arise from the fact that he isn’t part of – as far as I know at the time of writing this review – a queer community. Firstly, I disbelieve Baru’s awareness of her own desires… …For the first portion of the book, her queerness felt more like a character trait assigned to her for reason of plot than a naturally built part of her as a person… Secondly, I wonder where queer people in Falcrest are…"

theres more to these excerpts, but. i personally didnt find the depiction of baru's desire to be unrealistic, and also this was a review of Traitor, specifically, so where on earth would baru have heard about queer people in falcrest? and more importantly, why should we care so much about queer people in the imperial core? moreover i think the way seth does it with svir is very very well done, and illustrates the hypocrisy of empire in a way that does NOT seem like what martine is asking for here!!!

"Why am I invested? I myself am a student of empire. I’m a Byzantinist. My academic work is about empire and its seductions; it is the animating principle of my professional life. And: I am myself someone who loves order over disorder. Who looks for systems in all things. Who is comforted by structures; who is concerned deeply with propriety. But here’s my real criticism of this book: I don’t buy the seduction of the Masquerade. And I think if this book fails, it’s there: in that its empire is too easily read as undesirable. As profane, unethical, fundamentally wrong. It is really overtly evil." … "The Masquerade isn’t civilized. It’s civilization, but I don’t recognize it as civilized, and this is a problem with a constructed empire. An empire relies on itself as the definition of civilization – I would footnote here Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch as a SFnal example of an empire which is built on this principle, and which, for this reader at least, achieves the facsimile. (But then my ancestors were not enslaved, we were exterminated; not annexed, but exiled. Perhaps I like the Radch better than the Masquerade because I can find a place for myself in it, and cannot imagine a place within the Masquerade someone like me would ever be safe –)"

and THIS. THIS RIGHT HERE IS MY BIGGEST PROBLEM. critiquing the masquerade as not "seductive" enough, calling it too evil to have people join it- how does someone miss the point THIS badly??? like. are you FUCKING serious??? how do you read a book about the immense violence of colonialism and your problem is that it is boohoo too violent for people to join willingly. google literally fucking anything the US has done ever!!! and the invocation of the concept of "civilized" as an objective quality, despite the recognition that the empire constructs what counts as "civilization" is so fucking unserious/simplistic/juvenile! why do you need to imagine yourself a place in the empire? in the imperial core specifically!

and i think this particular approach bleeds into her books. i read them at Least 2 years ago, so this is mostly vibes-based, and i will avoid spoilers.

there is such a focus on the allure of the imperial core, on the "beautiful machine" of the empire as she calls it. there is violence done, but it is abstracted away from the wealth of the imperial core. there are no economics there. the empire sees her independent station as a backwater, and there is some cultural tensions there, but there is no realistic violence and exploitation! it is not clear at all what maintains the empire, besides some abstract idea of trade. i also don't know what her Point is with the naming & language conventions, which are very clearly inspired in part by ancient Mayan- e.g. the empire and core planet are called Teixcalaan. and idk this may be reductive of me but i think if you are going to pull features from civilizations that have been colonized and use them to inspire fictional colonizing forces, you ARE saying something there! idk! and like, the ancient Mayan

and on the ~representation~ front, i also don't think she does a better job than seth tbqh!!! i felt like the characters getting together came out of nowhere and felt anticlimactic- there is also not the tension i think there should be with the main character being an ambassador-ish and the love interest being… idr. junior intelligence officer iirc? idk! and for all her critique of baru's desire for women not feeling "real" or present enough, i do not remember the main character in Memory having any real focus on it!

i enjoyed Memory just fine, but i don't think it says anything interesting or novel or even critical about empire, and i found her review of Traitor extremely shallow and useless, if very revealing about her own outlook on empire lol!!!

this has been at best Minorly proofread and edited but im not like, writing an academic essay on the matter and so i apologize for any inconsistencies.

oh man thanks for this this is really interesting. i went and read the whole thing and i agree a ton with your critique. i'm going to stick my thoughts below the cut because i went on for a bit here, in typical fashion.

i personally didnt find the depiction of baru's desire to be unrealistic, and also this was a review of Traitor, specifically, so where on earth would baru have heard about queer people in falcrest? and more importantly, why should we care so much about queer people in the imperial core?

NO BUT EXACTLY... for starters this is explicitly a novel about colonized people taking place in a colony where none of the major characters are from the empire. where, when, and how would we take the time to explore what queerness looks like for them and more importantly, like you've asked, why the hell should that be a priority for the narrative in this case.

in terms of 'i found this to be an unrealistic depiction of queer desire' 9/10 times i feel like what that means is 'i found this to be an unrelatable depiction' which is an entirely different critique. i know i'm working with two additional books worth of context that martine isn't working with here. but even taking into account just the characterization we have for baru in traitor i think this is suuuuch an unfair complaint. i'm gonna pull the entire quote she says about baru's sexuality here because i have additional specific gripes with it.

Firstly, I disbelieve Baru’s awareness of her own desires. In the first portion of the book, I do not ever feel the weight of Baru’s own awareness of her sexuality; there is an absence of carnality, a kind of intellectual version of lesbian desire which is, to me, inconsistent with the sort of desire I expect. Not until the introduction of Baru’s eventual lover Tain Hu do I get a sense of Baru as a woman who loves women. Further, considering how very much the Empire of Masks and Increastic philosophy criminalizes the sin of queer desire, I wish Baru had struggled more with the nature of her desire. For the first portion of the book, her queerness felt more like a character trait assigned to her for reason of plot than a naturally built part of her as a person. This markedly improved in the second half, where Baru notices women in a way she does not notice men.

For starters, it is insanely hypocritical to me to complain that her desire both isn't carnal enough and she processes it too intellectually, but that she isn't struggling enough with it. Baru intellectually processes things! That's her entire character from the getgo! She also has a difficult time conceptualizing other people as fully realized beings with their own agency. These character traits paired together don't make for a particularly passionate and carnal relationship to her sexuality. She is also, at her absolute oldest in this book, 21! (Or 22? I can't remember. I know she spends 3 years in aurdwynn) and has spent her entire youth being groomed to be a scholar. Of course detached intellectualism is her primary way of navigating all things. Why wouldn't it be?

Baru primary motivation is to save taranoke, she wants to save the taranoki way of life, and part of that way of life includes an acceptance of nonhetero nonmonogamous relationships. Sure, a different character arc may have involved baru actually internalizing and then having to break free of the trappings of race, gender, and sexuality that the empire tries to impose upon its citizens. but that's not baru and acting like this is a writing flaw rather than a character choice is insane to me.

There's absolutely no reason for Baru to lie awake at night pontificating about how wrong and dirty of her it is to want to have sex with women because we are never lead to believe even for a minute that Baru puts any emotional weight in incrasticism. She doesn't conceptualize it as sinful she conceptualizes it as illegal!

And "Not until the introduction of Baru’s eventual lover Tain Hu do I get a sense of Baru as a woman who loves women. " is killing me in particular because like. Yeah. Tain Hu is baru's first love. thats the point. But beyond that this is just not being able to see anything other than what she's looking for because i think the chapters covering baru's childhood make it pretty clear that her feelings for aminata and cousin lao (im not double checking the name but im pretty sure it was this) are deep and strong. the fact that they're not as explicitly and straightforwardly romantic and sexual as her relationship with tain hu doesn't change that, and in fact, points to baru's struggle with/development of her sexuality that she claims was somehow missing in this book.

like i just simply can't see anything here but someone who is seeing an emotional landscape they can't relate to and assuming that means it's flawed writing. skill issue frankly.

She's also fucking insane for acting like the masquerade is too cartoonishly evil to be appealing. once again im going to post her full quote here because i think its important to see

its empire is too easily read as undesirable. As profane, unethical, fundamentally wrong. It is really overtly evil. It punishes sexual “deviants” with mutilation and death. It murders children callously. It inflicts plague and withholds vaccines. It lobotomizes its own emperors for the sake of convincing its populace that the emperor is just. Most of all, the Masquerade is a eugenicist empire: it is explicitly founded on not purity of bloodline but on purification of bloodline, on making people useful to it. It makes people: it breeds them carefully, it indoctrinates them through schools, it uses drugs and operant conditioning to transform their minds and make them into automata tools. It commits every atrocity that a modern Western reader recognizes as abhorrent. This is a problem. It is a problem because we are asked, as readers, to believe that there are reasons besides blackmail that a person would willingly become an agent of the Masquerade. We are asked to imagine that the Masquerade is a beautiful machine.

for starters. "It commits every atrocity that a modern Western reader recognizes as abhorrent." MODERN WESTERN EMPIRES DID, AND OCCASIONALLY STILL DO, MOST OF THESE THINGS!!! THIS IS US! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!!! I FEEL INSANE!!!!

I think the book makes it more than explicitly clear why the empire is appealing??? it has all of the capital???? its building schools and sewage systems and importing food and goods and teaching reading and writing??? baru's own internal narrative often shows her own strife at the fact that the empire has made genuinely incredible scientific advancements that offer significant improvements in quality of life to many, many people. martine actually acknowledges this in the next paragraph of her review, and then brushes it away as not being good enough. why? what about that doesn't convince you?

she is seeming to hugely ignore the fact that in the case of aurdwynn specifically, the bureaucracy of the empire is coming in to unseat feudal aristocracy! what the masquerade offers may not be particularly tempting to most of that ruling class, but its economic opportunities are more then believably appealing to the common people. i think this is made pretty clear when baru's ploy to use the fiat bank to make loans to the aurdwynni people and basically lessen the massive tax burdens from the duchies wins her huge favor with the public.

and frankly even for the ruling class the potential economic benefits are massive too if you're willing to participate in the empire properly. yes the empire doesn't have Moral appeal. it doesn't fucking have to. it owns pretty much every economy outside of the oriati mbo. the fact that that's not enough for her is as you've pointed out really really showing her biases and blind spots. 'no reason besides blackmail' MONEY!!!! MONEY! IT'S MONEY! THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT ACCOUNTING! HOW DID YOU MISS THAT!!!

and the invocation of the concept of "civilized" as an objective quality, despite the recognition that the empire constructs what counts as "civilization" is so fucking unserious/simplistic/juvenile! why do you need to imagine yourself a place in the empire? in the imperial core specifically!

And this is really it for me too, yeah. It's gross. It's absolutely gross. "An empire isn't believably appealing unless I, personally, find it appealing" there are people alive who are eugenicists, who love community policing, who believe in race science. the masquerade is an empire for them. the thing about empires is that they are only actually empowering for an incredibly small subset of people, and the fact that You, Specifically, Arkady Martine can't imagine being one of those people in this instance doesn't make it not believable. This is a shatteringly individualist way of engaging with a work.

As for your points about the way she handles empire in her own book obviously i can't have anything to say there because i haven't read it yet, but i do absolutely agree with you on this bit:

and idk this may be reductive of me but i think if you are going to pull features from civilizations that have been colonized and use them to inspire fictional colonizing forces, you ARE saying something there! idk! and like, the ancient Mayan

1000% i don't think this is reductive of you. whether or not you're consciously saying anything is one question but it's a choice that absolutely doesn't exist in a vacuum. out of curiosity i googled her to see if she was of mayan descent or anything and maybe she chose that due to some personal ties to the subject matter but she doesn't seem to be. which of course i don't think means she can't or shouldn't draw any inspiration from there but i do think all of these sorts of choices are meaningful

i don't really have much to say here to round off a conclusion but. wow. deeply deeply telling review that does not particularly make me want to read anything she has written beyond this.

#long post #lb baru cormorant #ask

70 notes · View notes

yanderu-deredere · 7 months

Note

THE SLASHER COUPLE IS SO GOOD 😍

Pretty please, if you feel like writing some for them, would love to read more about Emm tying Casimir to the autopsy table… or maybe them tying their darling to it 🤭

a/n: thank you so so much for the awesome ask! heehee, i've been wanting to write about this since i offhandedly mentioned it and im so glad there's someone else that wants to hear abt it too!

i decided to write for darling instead of cas becos i felt like there wasn't enough major yandere vibes on this blog so have this alternate ending to. will i ever write the canon ending? mayhaps

you can read this as a stand alone but it will refer to some stuff from the original series here! but! this is an alternate ending to that original series. i still have plans for how i want that to end heehee

warning: gender neutral reader but mentions of cock going into an entrance, major yandere vibes, non-con to dub-con, mentions of semi-descriptive gore, bondage? definitely bondage LOL, emm wears strap-on and it's referred to as her cock

word count: ill add this later cus im on mobile

emm fiala ★ casimir fiala

You should've known something was wrong the moment the couple had treated you with such kindness, such sweetness.

It had been too good to be true and you were the fool that fell for it.

"Now, darl', you need'ta understand--"

"I don't need to understand anything." You snapped at her, body tense and ready to run as she faced you like one would face a feral animal "Where are my friends?"

"Your friends? You mean those people that demeaned you and talked behind your back?" Casimir scoffed from beside Emm, his face both mocking and angry.

You had no clever retort to that but, still, you answered, your eyes darting from them to the door "I at least know that they wouldn't leave me here."

"You are definitely right about that, my love." Casimir sneered and it made you both flushed and nervous

You tried to put the puzzle pieces together. You couldn't find your friends or their things but the tire hadn't been fixed yet and you knew that they'd never leave you behind.

If they wouldn't leave you behind, what did that mean?

"You did something to them." The words left your mouth the exact moment the thought entered your brain.

From the way Emm's expressions shifted, you knew you were right.

You needed to get out of here.

Without hesitating, you ran for the door, legs fast and anxious thoughts even faster. It almost felt like you could hear your heart beating in your ears.

You managed to grab the door knob and open the door but, before you could slip out, someone slammed the door in front of you.

You cursed just as someone's arms wrapped around your torso.

You heard Casimir click his tongue and you looked up to see him shaking his head at you, his palm pressed against the door "Naughty, naughty. We can't have you doing that, now can we?"

Emm, on the other hand, sounded less haughty and more desperate "Please, please, darl', you gotta understand--"

"Oh, I understand alright!" You started struggling earnestly, kicking your feet and trying your best to pry Emm's arms away from you "I understand that this was a mistake!"

Emm's arms only seemed to tighten around you even more "Don' say that."

You wanted to spite her so you said it louder "This was a mistake!"

Casimir grabbed your face before you could say anything further, his fingers digging into your cheeks as he turned you to face him "You have a mouth on you, don't you, my love?"

Then, he glanced at Emm, knowing expression on his face "Perhaps we should teach our darling a little lesson, hmm?"

"You so do love teaching lessons, don't you, my wife?"

Emm didn't even answer; she just flipped you over, carrying you over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, like you didn't even weigh a single ounce.

It had been sexy last night and you'd be lying to yourself if you said it wasn't sexy now but, instead of your heart fluttering, you felt like your stomach was tying itself in knots.

"Let me go!" You beat on Emm's back, kicking your legs in an attempt to maybe hit the side of her face. She held on fast, her grip on you not even faltering for a second.

"You'll like this, my love, I'm sure of it." Casimir followed the two of you, a certain skip in his step "I certainly do."

Just as he said that, Emm walked into a doorway and you frantically looked around, confused where the three of you were headed.

You tried to think. You were able to see out the door just as Casimir closed it and you guessed that this was the door under the stairs. Wasn't that a closet? Apparently not.

Your nose suddenly stung with the smell of chemical cleaner--bleach?--and the lights seemed dimmer than outside. Casimir saw your frantic glancing and simply threw you a smirk.

Before you could open your mouth to ask where you were, you were slammed onto something cold and hard. You could feel the icy surface even through your clothes.

You sat up in an attempt to get away. Just as you did, you managed to catch a glimpse of what was right next to you.

Your brain fizzled and your throat seized. You were caught between a gag and a dry heave. Immediately, you stopped struggling. Hell, not just you. It felt like the entire world stopped.

Your mind seemed to only swim with thought after thought, none of them lingering long enough for you to really dwell on it.

"Cas, I tol' ya' to clean up after y'rself." Emm grabbed your wrists and you couldn't find it in yourself to snatch them back.

Casimir simply shrugged and went somewhere else. Emm was so close to you, locking your wrists into something soft and furry, that you couldn't track where he went.

"Lay down, darl'." She placed her hand on your chest and pushed you down. You followed, eyes still glued on the still figure next to you.

It was Bran. You knew it was him but you weren't sure.

His face was gored beyond recognition. Blood caked around his mouth and his eyes had been carved out. Very clumsily, you mentally noted. As if that mattered. There was so much viscera and splatters everywhere.

Was this what they had planned for you?

You started to struggle again as Emm started buckling your legs down. The straps didn't hurt your wrists at all, unlike how they formed red bleeding welts on Bran's wrists.

"Please, I don't-- I uhm-- oh god--" Tears sprang to your eyes as you tried to kick your legs "I'm sorry-- I'm sorry-- please, don't--"

Despite your fussing, Emm finished buckling you in. "Shhh, don' worry, we won't do nothin' to you that you won't like, hmmm?"

You heard the sound of a cloth or something being waved and then spread out next to you.

You glanced over and Bran had been covered with some medical blanket of some sort. You couldn't help but recognize it from the various medical dramas you've watched. It was what they put over dead bodies.

The gravity of the situation seemed to weigh more and more heavily over you.

The two people you'd fucked only last night, the two people you'd thought you could've had a future with, were going to murder you.

As soon as Casimir finished laying out the cloth over Bran's dead body, he came over to you, scissors in hand. They were odd scissors that looked bent but on purpose. Without saying much else, he started scissoring through your clothes.

"Cas." You whimpered, fear still wracking your body as you tugged and pulled at your restraints.

Casimir didn't even try to look sympathetic. In fact, he looked like he was enjoying the situation a bit too much.

He pressed a kiss against your temple as he pulled the scraps of your clothes off of your now naked body "Why don't you listen to Emm, huh? We won't do anything that'll hurt our little darling."

Just as Casimir mentioned Emm, your eyes darted to her, frantic to find some sort of sympathy or even some weakness you could take advantage of.

Instead, you were met with the image of Emm, her shirt suddenly gone but that lacy bra you'd seen before still on. She was tightening something around her waist, rather sober expression on her face.

You glanced lower down and your entire face flushed searing hot.

She was tightening a harness on and hanging from it was the most intimidating plastic cock you'd ever seen.

Casimir followed your gaze and snickered, breath brushing against your ear "You know, I only get that when I've been especially bad."

The unprompted insight into the couple's sex life only made you even more flustered. Casimir laughed rather meanly at that too before straightening, his job of getting rid of your clothes completely done.

"When did we get these anyway?" Casimir's fingers ghosted over the inside of your arm before nudging against the cuffs that wrapped around your wrists.

"I made 'em myself." Emm got on top of the medical table in one smooth motion, "Didn' wanna hurt our darling's wrists."

Casimir snuck a finger underneath, wiggling it around "Huh, fur-lined and everything. She already loves you more than me."

"Can't say I feel any differently but it still stings." He added jokingly, pressing another kiss against your temple, hand wrapping around your wrist while the other cupped your chin and made you look at him "See? We'll take perfect care if you here."

You honestly didn't know what to say to that. Though it did make your heart flutter, you knew how fucked up your situation was. These two killed your friends.

And you were especially aware of how fucked up it was that you were really turned on.

Emm took your silence for acceptance. At least, that's how it seemed from how the corners of her lips tilted up into a small smile. Though your legs were cuffed, she pulled your thighs up and wrapped them around her waist.

As she did, her plastic cock thumped against your torso, the tip practically reaching your belly button. And it was thick too, heavy against your skin.

Before you could protest or at least beg for mercy, Casimir pressed his lips against yours, bringing your attention back to him.

The kiss was messy, searing, with his tongue slipping in and pressing against yours, his teeth clashing against your lips.

It made your eyes flutter close as you returned the kiss. You fell into it easily, like it was natural to kiss him like that, like there was nothing else that would feel good.

Then, just as suddenly as the kiss started, you felt something wet and cold dribble against your entrance. Your legs jerked, trying to get away from the sensation.

You couldn't get away, though. You were trapped; not just between the couple but also in the cuffs they'd put you in. All you could do was lay there and take whatever they gave you.

Just like last night but even worse.

And give it to you they did. Emm slicked her fingers up and pushed two of them in at once. Her fingers were already pretty thick so having two of them, scissoring inside of you, pressing against your walls, felt like too much.

Your hips jerked and your brain swam. You didn't know whether you were pulling away from her or pushing your hips down to take more of her fingers.

Casimir, on the other hand, kept kissing you, his breath ragged and his grip on your wrist tightening more and more. His free hand traveled to your neck, wrapping around but not choking you.

You didn't know what it was but the gentle caress of it, firm but not too firm, his fingers pressing against the skin above your beating veins, made your heart flutter even more.

"Gonna prep you up to take me, baby." Emm muttered as she pushed in another finger, her hips rutting and the rubber of her cock rubbing against your skin.

"Gonna show you exactly how we'll be taking care of ya' fr'm now on."

#yandere oc x reader #yandere x reader #oc x reader #yandere #male yandere #male oc #drabbles #female yandere #lemony content #female oc #casimir #emm

53 notes · View notes

mrvilschoenheit · 3 months

Note

how does it feel to know how much people love you? I imagine you certainly have had your fair share of crazed fans, although mayhaps Rook has desensitized you to that. Or, like hes your crazy friend, who scares off all the other crazy people. But really, all those people who are obsessed with you, or write self inserts about you, now im curious, do you ever pop your head into such forums? whats the biggest ick youve ever gotten from it? (gross smut, crazed fan rant, something like that cutting for Bieber thing that happened way back when)

This either speaks to my arrogance or how long I have been in show business, but it would be more concerning if people weren't grossly obsessed with me. Could I truly be the fairest of them all if I did not drive my audience to madness? When someone finds themselves enamored, they yearn. When the one they yearn for is untouchable and larger than life, of course they would feel safe publishing and voicing their fantasies- Especially when a large portion of the population is doing the same... in a way, I view it as evidence of my impact.

As for whether or not I purposefully seek it out, absolutely not. Avoiding certain fan spaces to keep your sanity is something that you learn early on as a public figure... but stumbling across it is inevitable. The only thing that has made me downright ill is seeing edited photos of myself and a "peer" being intimate. Honestly, I don't understand why him of all people!

#I wouldn't be caught dead with a man shorter than me #disney twst #twisted wonderland #twst #vil schoenheit #ask blog #pomefiore #vil

11 notes · View notes

dilatorywriting · 10 months

Note

hello ~ hello ~

Hope you're feeling better! I, personally, have been a bit dead to the world since late April. This past May was kinda odd, honestly. I think everyone I know and know of just. died for the month. Collectively. At once.

I actually wanted to slide in here and pick your brain about your ongoing Monster Mayhem stuff, if you're up for it? Just like a general status overview question, since I feel kinda out of the loop 😭 And also because I know that I tend to like talking about my feelings on my current wips, so I figured maybe you might too? If not, dw!

I'll put these in bullet points since it's kinda easier for me to organize my thoughts that way

Jack: I remember you saying awhile back that you expect Part 2 to be the final part. Is that still holding up, or does it feel like it'll be longer?

Rook: From the pacing, I'm getting the vibe that this one might be another 4 part story? mayhaps? Or maybe Rook isn't like the other girls TM and gets something different.

Vil: I haven't read this one yet, but I'm excited to sit down with it soon! What's the overall length/number of parts you're planning for at the moment?

I'm pretty sure this was asked at some point before, but what's your stance on epilogues? There has been... discussion. about a Leona epilogue before, I recall, but are you considering epilogues for all of them, or only specific characters?

What's like. your vibe, rn? With each of the stories? Like in terms of "I'm really feeling this, so I'm working on it and it might be posted in the nearish future, assuming no disasters" to like "I plan to continue this, but not rn. I've got a different worm chewing on the brain lettuce atm". Ik you literally just answered an ask similar to this, and said Leona part 4 & Vil part 2 are the one's you're focused on, so I guess this is more so geared towards the Jack and Rook ones? Or other stuff you're secretly planning. I have a vague memory of a "forgot your birthday" scenario that was on a poll a few months back

I'm honestly just curious, really. Back from the dead and wanted to catch up

Also I. have a third Monster Mayhem Azul brainrot. It's not a fluffy one. If I can wrangle it into something more coherent, I may send it your way. Not dissimilar to the fashion of throwing a pebble at someone's window to get their attention, but accidentally putting a hole through the glass, and taking off running.

-Reaper

I'm gonna put this all under a little cut thing just because I feel like there's quite a lot! So here we go~

Jack -- It would still only be two parts I think! I only had short plans for that going forward, and it's currently at the bottom of my bucket list so to speak, not for any big reason just because Jack isn't one of my favorites so he falls behind on what I actually want to write.

Rook -- Was a bit more up in the air in terms of what I wanted to do. Had started writing a third part for it, but Rook's in particular felt very like, episodic? If that makes sense? Rather than an overarching cohesive arc. So I could write so much more little random side stories! But aside from a bit I had sort of planned regarding Riddle, there wasn't too much specific I had in mind.

Vil -- Probably one or two more parts to wrap up what I wanted with him; most likely one of the same length as the first. But that one of all of them may get a separate little piece because I am such a sucker for mermaids/sirens soooo that may get some special love

Epilogues -- bit of a mish mash. Really depends how I'm feeling tbh. If I want to write something, I'll word vomit like no one's business, but if I'm not overly invested then I probably won't bother writing one. But again

Vibe Check -- I’m absolutely wiped. Not with these stories, because I do genuinely love them. But like, back to back tough placements on top of illness is a trip. So I’m a bit more tired and less motivated than I normally am, just because most of my brain is chewing on actual school work and case reports and trying to not make myself look like an idiot every time I’m asked for a diagnosis list and go “uuuuhhhhhhhh.” But! I have some brain worms. Right now — big thing I’m working on is the second half of a very long commission. Which is loads of fun but also there’s so much to chew over there, so that takes a lot of my brain. On the side, I was really also writing my Vil Siren Part 2. Because that’s also a lot on the brain and it’s very different Vibe to the commission, so like it’s a good one to go back and forth between depending on what mood I’m in. Jamil is also very On My Brain right now oddly enough. I think because I read a short little Naga piece a while ago and it reminded me how much I love them. So that's on my brain a lot. As for the others, Jack has sorta fallen to the wayside admittedly. Mostly because I adore him as a Bro, but he’d just not usually a character my brain swoons over, so he’s sort of just… existing. I also wasn’t entirely sure where I wanted to go with that other than just “oh wow we fixed it together!” And that’s a factor too. As for other things, the birthday one comes back and forth depending on my mood, but idk if that’ll ever go up. I have lots of it written, but not enough to post or really toss together straight away. If that makes sense

#Asks

35 notes · View notes

yandere-daze · 2 years

Note

Greetings bestie! Could I perhaps bother you with a request for yandere Epel with a darling who confronts him abt a bunch of their friends falling suddenly ill recently. We know that those in Pomefiore are great with making potions so perhaps he’s been making some less savoury ones and giving them to darlings friends as warnings. How would he react to darling confronting him w some evidence of it? Either hcs or a scenario, I will leave the choice up to you!

Tysm in advance bestie 💕💕

Heya bestie!! Always glad to have you in my inbox!! Thank you so much for the request, I really enjoyed writing this ^^

I decided to make it so Epel and reader aren´t in a relationship yet for maximum unwarranted jealousy kcsasnjsbkhg

This ended up being way longer than I thought it would be but I can´t help myself when it comes to the best boy! It´s also once again a weird mishmash of headcanons and a scenario. A scenario on bullet points? Mayhaps

Gender neutral reader as always!

tw yandere, drugging ( not reader), jealousy, obsession, possessiveness

Confronting Yandere! Epel about all of your friends falling ill recently

For once in his life, Epel was actually happily that he had been sorted into Pomefiore instead of Savanaclaw as he had always wished. Otherwise, he would have never known about all of these handy potions his dorm was so well known for

He had stood by idly for way too long now. Day in and day out he had to see you spend time with these other people you called friends. Time you could be spending with him! He knows he´s far away from being the perfect man for you but it still bothers him to no end to feel your attention shift away from him whenever someone else enters the room

It just makes him so frustrated! Epel truly wishes he could curse out the whole lot of them with some colorful insults but he fears your reaction if he were to do that. Surely it would destroy the kind and gentle image you have of him!

Sure, it bothers Epel quite a bit to be seen as innocent and weak but he doesn´t really mind it as much if it means you continue to keep him close

So if the direct way of getting them to leave fails, Epel has to get a bit more creative if he wants your friends to stay away from you

The idea comes to him when you´re both in Alchemy class together. You´re partners on a project and you´re supposed to brew a potion that causes symptoms of slight nausea and fever in the victim that drinks the potion. For this you´re supposed to brew the potion in pairs and then fill the finished product into bottles

Brewing potions is a Pomefiore specialty and as such it´s something Epel himself is quite talented at. Vil has given him countless lessons on what little details you have to take into consideration when making these potions so he´s pretty confident in achieving his goal

What is his goal, you ask? Why, to use this opportunity to get rid of his competition of course! Well, not permanently sadly, Epel doesn´t think he could get away with outright killing your friends. And it would make you so sad too, he doesn´t think he could take it to see you cry desperately over the death of your friends

No, an outright poision is out of the question

But it wouldn´t be too bad if Epel simply made a mistake and added a little too much of the ingredients they were supposed to be using, right?

He even thought a bit ahead and uses plants he had grown himself in addition to the ones they were provided in class so no one would notice that he had taken too many. Epel can be quite devious when he wants to, you know?

But of course, while you asking to be his lab partner is something Epel greatly appreciates and makes him blush all cutely because you chose him, him, him! - it´s kind of inconvenient when he´s trying to (nonlethaly) poison your friends

That doesn´t mean he´s going to refuse of course! He could never reject you when you´re trying to spend time with him, he would honestly rather die than miss out on a chance to get even closer to you

So he tries to do it discreetly when you´re not looking. Maybe he asks you to watch the fire under the cauldron so it won´t accidentally go out in the middle of the process or he makes you fetch something else for him. Just anything to distract you for a while so he can slip in the additional herbs he had brought to increase the effects of the potion

There´s a proud but oddly sinister smile on Epel´s face when you turn back to look at him after having completed whatever task he had assigned you

“Are we doing okay?”, you ask him to which he only replies with “Everything is going according to plan”

You can´t quite explain why you suddenly feel uneasy when you look back at your friend

It´s the end of class and while you stay around to show your results to Professor Crewel, Epel slips a few of the completed potions into his bag while no one is looking

He has something to take care of, he tells you as he leaves in a hurry

Epel then walks out into the hallway where students are leaving their classrooms and walks over to some of your friends

He offers the newly brewed potion to them with a sweet smile on his face, taking advantage of his acursed soft features for once. He knows your friends would never see someone as weak-looking as him as a threat but maybe they would reconsider after this incident

With a promise to drink the potion later, they all part ways. Epel can´t stop the twisted smirk appearing on his face as he turns their back on these pests that dare take away your time. Maybe this will serve as a lesson for them to not think of him lightly and to stay away

It´s not long before the news reach you that almost all of your friends are sick in the infirmary. You´re shocked to see their bad condition, they had all looked so healthy when you had last seen them this morning, how could they all have fallen sick so suddenly? It would be one thing if one of them was coming down with a fever and there just hadn´t been any symptoms earlier but all of them? At the same time? With the same symptoms as well? There had to be something wrong

There was simply no other explanation than someone having messed with them somehow so you asked them if anything suspicious happened today. You felt a shiver go down your spine when each of them told you that after classes, Epel had visited them and given them something to drink. And all of them had suddenly fallen ill after drinking it

Alarm bells where ringing in your head, especially when you recalled the alchemy lesson you had both had that day. They were supposed to be brewing a potion that had the same symptoms of nausea and fever. But it shouldn´t have been strong enough to put someone in the infirmary, surely!

Now that you think about it, Professor Crewel did say that they had messed up the potion somehow. The wrong amount and some additional herbs in it, he had said? And you did also notice that you both ended up having less bottles of potion than the other groups...

You didn´t want to believe it but with all of this evidence it was hard to deny that there´s a high possibility that Epel has something to do with the sudden sickness of your friends. But why would he ever do something like that? It doesn´t make any sense to you! He was always so nice whenever they hang around you both so what reason would he have to do something like this?

None at all, as far as you knew. Which is why it was of utmost importance to question Epel himself to find out the truth about this incident. You just hoped despite everything that it just turned out to be an honest mistake or coincidence and that your best friend had not tried to make your other friends seriously sick

Epel was pleasantly surprised when you came to visit him in Pomefiore that day. You had not made any plans to hang out today so imagine his joy when you knocked on his door. You came to see him out of your own volition, how wonderful!

Maybe you do like him the best after all! Or maybe his plan had succeeded and the obstacles that called themselves your friends were finally out of commission. Serves them right for trying to steal you away from him!

He greets you with a bright smile but his gentle expression quickly morphs into a concerned frown when he notices how tense you look. Why are you looking at him with distrust in your eyes?

“Epel”, you begin and he quickly focuses all of his attention on you after you called his name.

“Do you have anything to do with my friends getting sick suddenly?”, you ask him with a stern tone and for a second, Epel felt his heart freeze. Were you onto him? But he tried his best to hide it from you!

He realizes that he needs to reply quickly and quell your fears before you find out the truth. Time to put on the innocent act again

“Oh no! Your friends are sick? I had no idea! I really hope they´ll feel better soon, fevers are not easy to get rid off.... I really don´t understand why you would think I would have a hand in that though, I would never do anything to harm someone”

There, that should be enough to reassure you, right? So why can´t the both of you just let go of this topic and move onto having fun together again?

Hearing his explanation, a dark pit opens in your stomach as you process the words your friend had just uttered. These damning words

“How do you know that?”

That is all you say after 10 tense seconds of silence

“Huh? What do you me-”

You cut Epel off before he could finish his sentence

“How would you know they have a fever? I never said anything about that. And don´t tell me someone else told you about it, you said you didn´t even know about them being sick a few minutes ago. Explain yourself!”

Epel internally curses at his own carelessness. How could he have let that slip! He was trying to act compassionate and worried for these pests but instead he had just doomed himself. You must be sure that he had something to do with it and he couldn´t think of anything to explain his slip-up either! What was he supposed to do now?

“Staying silent won´t help you either, Epel. I know that you messed with the potion we brewed in alchemy class today and that you stole a few bottles to give them to my friends. I just want to understand why you would do something like that. You´re my best friend!”

Ah, so he truly had messed up now. You knew all about what he had done and you also saw through his innocent act. How could the two of you ever go back to how you used to be?

No, he didn´t want that. Though he was still panicking, something you had said struck a cord with Epel and it made him laugh humorlessly

Your best friend? That´s not who he wanted to be. That´s not who he was. Your relationship was more special than that, Epel was sure of it! You just couldn´t see it yourself, you were blinded by...by...!

“These pests had it coming”

Is what he says in the end, visibly unsettling you

“Pests...? Excuse me?! They are my friends, why would you say something so cruel, Epel? This isn´t like you at all!”

Oh Epel wanted to keep laughing but he also felt like crying. Not like him? No, this is him showing his true nature to you for the first time. He´s done trying to pretend to be happy with just staying your friend, done with staying to the side while everyone else crowds around you. He´s done with letting this biting jealousy keep chipping away at him whenever you´re not looking at him and him alone

“They´re not your friends! They can´t even appreciate you the way I do! I care about you way more than they ever could and it hurts when you pay attention to them and not me!”

“Epel where is this coming from? I-”

“No, you´re going to let me talk! I´m sick of pretending to like you as a friend! I love you!”, he´s basically screaming at this point, the gentle tone of his voice long gone and replaced by a truer, more agressive one

You on the other hand, are rendered speechless. It´s a far cry from when you were trying to interrogate Epel about the situation of your friends. Never could you have imagined that he secretly felt that way about you

You´re shocked to say the least, but he´s not yet done with his rant

“I´m not the sweet person you think I am, I only acted that way because I thought you might like me more then. I wanted you to fall in love with me as well but nooo, these other people had to just keep getting in my way and I had to act like I was happy to see them when I wanted nothing more than rip them apart! I´m sick and tired of it all, I can´t take it anymore!”

You´re getting more and more concerned by the second but it seems like there is no end to Epels rather passionate rant. It´s like he had been bottling up all of these feelings for a long time and now the damm is broken and it´s all flooding out at once

“ So I had to do something! I had to teach them a lesson that they should take me seriously and stay the hell away from you! It´s what they deserve for taking up your time with their mindless drivel that no one really cares about, they´re not worth your time! And I´ll prove to you that I can be a better partner than any of them could ever dream to be! I´m stronger than all of them and their weak bodies laying in the infirmary after one measly little potion is the proof of that!”

Epel is panting heavily afterwards, completely out of breath from having screamed his heart out to you just now. You couldn´t do anything aside from watching him slowly calm down, you were too shaken to do anything else

Then, after a few more seconds, the harsh expression on Epel´s face softens up again and is replaced by a sickly-sweet smile and a heavy blush on his face

“Hah, I guess I just confessed to you, didn´t I? I always thought I could be way cooler and smoother when I did it but this should suffice, I guess?”

Epel, takes your hand in his and gently places it against his cheek as he leans into your warm touch. There´s a dark and twisted glint in his eyes as he stares at you and you can´t help but feel uneasy with how lovesick he looks

“I love you more than anyone else, y/n and I´ll destroy anyone that tries to get between us, okay? I´ll show you how strong and reliable I am and then no one will ever split us apart. I´ll never let you go”

It seems like you´ve finally found the answer to the sudden sickness that had befallen all of your friends, but at what cost?

289 notes · View notes

variousqueerthings · 5 months

Note

hii do you mayhaps have any good poems youd recommend to read?

gosh this had me going through my bookmarks and my poetry tag

it's a funny thing about poems, I feel like such a private thing to me that I almost don't want to share my feelings on them, because they're too telling, so let's resist that for a second and see what happens if I do share a bit. also I'm quite obvious in a lot of my favourites like Wendy Cope or Mary Oliver, I read them again and again, they're the ones to make me feel grounded

I did get into a big phase with the anti-war poets of WWI, especially Wilfred Owen, and that comes around again every year around the remembrance Sunday pageantry

I like poems about not dying, I like poems about knowing you're going to die and living until that moment I like poems about mundanity (see Oliver and Cope) I like poems about mythologies and religion, I like queer poems but I can never tell you which ones speak to me why (see the poetry tag), I once saw a 2 hour concert of Kae Tempest doing their spoken word music/theatre/hip-hop/poetry while never even stopping to take a sip of water and I'd recommend hearing them speak, I have been reading a lot of poems about war and genocide I have yet to find a poem about mental illness that really speaks to me, but maybe that's because I've been afraid to look too hard, but this one speaks to something

and although I haven't saved a single one on here, I require and need poems about nature and should take a look where I've stashed all of those, but also those are perhaps the most private to me, but I think we don't write about nature enough and I should do that

and then there's the ones that aren't intended to be poems until they are through their recontextualisation like the one on here about the stars on the ceiling, which shockingly it seems I have not reblogged on either of my blogs, or the children's answers to what love is, which I do have at the bottom of this page which generally has a lot of these

and I like this one poem I wrote one time that's not on here where I had a conversation with Joan of Arc. I think a lot of us trans people have conversations with people from the past from time to time asking them what the thread from them to us looks like and it's good to voice them

#poetry #hope there's something forya there friend #hope it's not too rambly #im feeling odd today and looking at these is hitting me harder

5 notes · View notes

cringelordofchaos · 5 months

Note

You asked Berry this so I am asking YOU out of spite for not asking ME

YOUR SONIC HEADCANONS??

IFHASHFKAJHVKAHDKC

uhmm ill be my own attorney in the court; in my defense, your honour, i saw berry reblog a post specifically about sonic sexuality headcanons and berry shared their hcs in the tags but also put in the tags abt how their 'headcanons may change'. and i wanted to see if their headcanons changed so i asked them

ANYWAY

uhh these r all pretty much identity + nd hcs so sorry if u were lookin for more

(edit:wait actually im gonna sort this into two parts:: queer + nd headcanons and then like. backstory and personality hcs)

SONIC: adhd, used to hc him as bi ace but fuck it hes romance repulsed oriented aroace, also me likes the idea of him being genderqueer in some way, moreso specifically either transmasc nonbiney or transmasc trigender. also adhd (side note i heard someone sayhe couldnt possibly have adhd cuz "he can focus on missions" and. wjhat.) also maybe ptsd from thecountless traumatic experiences hess had to endure

AMY: sappho. i have also adhd'ed her in the past but im not so sure npw. i also saw someone hc her as bipolar and thas valid

TAILS: i know he can definitely represent as an autistic stereotypce but look at him :(( (but i genuinely think his backstory is sort of a metaphor for the nd experience. and also i think theres a lot of things that may make him autistic codedthough albeit many of them r stereotypical). special interest in engineering

KNUCKLES: bisexual as ffffff, though he doesnt give a shi abt labels

and ofc STTICKS:: demirose lesbiian. . also female but she rlly doesnt care abt gender. also autistci mayhaps

now for the more interesting hcs:

SONIC: something traumatic happened to him that made him scared of water in the first place, thas for sure methinks. he also just doesnt really show his negative emotions and he moreso just tries to 'dealw it' instead. i have headcanoned this for years as many others have and it appears to be somewhat canon in frontiers which is pretty great. he plays the electric guitar and is a pretty skilled singer and yeah. chilli dawgs r his comfort food....... loves rock electric and heavy metal and sometimes listens to it on his runs. pretty comfortable w being independent . also this is not a headcanon but i dont think his idw iteration is that out of character. he sees pretty much everyone (rivals and frenemiesalike) as friendos

AMY: has some form of abandonment issues which is what makes her as clingy as she is. generally used to feel left out and misunderstood from sonic n others in games like adventure and adventure2 but their relationshipsget better. listen. listen i heard someone on tumblr hc amy having abandonment issues and it hasnt left my miind since. she used to feel embarrassed by herself and her personality but became much more expressive of herself as time went on bc she starrted feeling more accepted. DEFINITELY writes fanfiction and fancomics and draws fanart and likes theatre(this is canoon actually). has meetings w the girlsTM where she just reads their fortune n everything. she also said in one game that she aspires to BE LIKE sonic and i have hcs abt that as well. can b mischievious and sneaky. has a tarot card reading BUSINESS this girl earns money for this !! shes very magiical girl bc she can pull her hammer out there, tell the future, turn invisible, has a 'sonic snese' but this is not a headcanon this is canon. plays the violin. loves to create fun outfits. into knitting and crocheting. . yeah i have more

TAILS: he can get pretty insecure of himself at times, heholds high expactations of himself and feels like if he doesnt meet them he might as well be a failure. ooopslol. he also hates when ppl misinterperets who he is as a person and when they undermine how skilled he is. he sometimes doesnt really let others know how he feels and hides it w a positive attitude. his gizmo is his comfort item. sonic was his first friend. the reason why he acted cocky in lost world and constantly pointed out how they shouldnt trust eggman (although it was super ooc) is bc of how insecure he was and he felt like sonic didnt trust himenough. and he feels bad abt it. hm. he also likes to draw sometimes and is generally skilled and precise, partly bc he has to draw blueprints for his creeations. one of them orphans. wags his tails/unintentionally starts flying when hes excited (stimming woag). hes not really SCARED of thunderstorms but they ARE a sensory nightmare for hiim (loud, bright/0). sonic sort of 'taught him how to make friends'. he still has cosmo in the form of a plant inside his house. he has many bunkers/ Sometimes he has a hard time accepting help (inherited from his older brotherlol). his tails are an nd allegoryOK ILL SHUT UP NOW

KNUCLES: icoud rambllea lot about him whenever im in the mood especially when i seeppl misinterperet him but i dont really have much HEADcanons bc everything i say abt him is canon

STICKS: ok this is gonna sound wild and its definitely not original but. she has abandonment/truusst issues relatedto her former parents that have something to do w the government which is one of the reasons she became so hateful of th egovenrment. dont ask (actually do if you want to). generally feels free to be herself but there are times when she feels ashamed of her wild side ig you couldcall it. very creative.

the reason why theres not shadow even though hes one of the more popular ones is bc im just not obsessed w him at the moment sorry :(

I HAVE MORE but these are all FOR NOW

now YOU TELL ME YOUR SONIC HEADCANONS SO I DONT LOOK AS DELUSIONAL [[POINTS FINGER AT YOU]]

#asks #sth #sonic #sonic the hedgehog

3 notes · View notes

hebezunet · 6 months

Note

ive been going fuckin crazy over your chipjinka content. youve made me stim all fucking week dude and i fucking appreciate you for that!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

the au is one of the only things ive been thinking about this week. the jinks (especially vosim + dee but we all know that LOL) make me so fucking happy, no words can describe the fucking joy i get from them OUUUUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 <3 <3 2022 me would be going mad over the fact that these babeys actually have a story to them now......... :]c

YAAAY AND IM SO GLAD ^__^ i def have more stuff cooked up for them i just haven't had time to share. ill draw more things and maybe make some bullet lists of a buncha stuff lol. been wanting to write a fic or something too mayhaps...

#lore tidbit for the day: vosim is nuts about pinball #reasoning: i went to play pinball yesterday. i think hed be really into it #something something oinball wizard by the who #chris blabs #chipspeech

4 notes · View notes

auralina33 · 10 months

Note

Opal and Mari for the ask game? Mayhap?

OPAL VALLE (acesophiewalten's AU Mrs. Afton- They're allowed to ask this because we've discussed these characters in DMs!)

First impression: Stoic mom... She's funky. I like her design (Her design proceeded to stick in my head the way it was forever even though you changed it)

Impression now: She's still kind of stoic to me but I also see now that she's more just calm, composed, and autistic. I don't think I'd say I was expecting her to be uncaring, but how loving and affectionate she is was a nice surprise and warms my heart... I'd trust her with my life.

Favorite moment: Write her confronting William. Do it. I require it. /j but what you've implied about that lives in my head rent-free. Asides from that, her trying to protect Mari so badly in our first AU still makes me sob.

Idea for a story: Honestly if I were to write her, it'd be something with either Mari or my William... Probably Mari, my William's character is wobbly. And also I've pretty much never written Mari and that's a crime. Hurt-comfort between them real perhaps...

Unpopular opinion: I don't know what the popular opinion on her is so unpopular opinion, she's my mom, here I can show you the adoption pape-

Favorite relationship: Actually, I LOVE her relationship with your Elizabeth... I don't even remember many of the specifics, but I remember a feeling of both comfort and sadness when I heard you talking about them. Also biased one, but her relationship with Mari is so sweet to me too.

Favorite headcanon: Opal with a prosthetic still lives in my head sometimes... Otherwise, Opal also having ADHD and being aspec makes me insane.

THE MARIONETTE (I'm gonna take it like you meant the canon character because. Mari's mine I made him up at this point)

First impression: I LOVE THIS DESIGN SO MUCH. And you're telling me this character is actually secretly super important and has some kind of ghost powers? yoooooooOOOOOOOO (<- Sound of 11 year old Aura experiencing the mix between an special interest and an hyperfixation for the first time)

Impression now: Everyone is wrong about this character except for me (I am completely detached from reality and I do not want to acknowledge it). The Puppet has such an interesting characterization there is DEPTH there is INTRIGUE there is THE POTENTIAL FOR ANGST guys please come back guys gu

Favorite moment: "The others are under my protection." is a line that still makes me batshit insane. It literally confirmed the headcanon I'd had for this character for YEARS prior.

Idea for a story: Mari being mentally ill as a character exploration. I'm leaving it at that because I don't feel like slapping TWs on this post. More complicated one that may get outdated, but sometimes I still think about that fic I wanted to write centered around Mari finding out that William's keeping him and the other Toys from telling Henry what's going on.

Unpopular opinion: Please guys... Please spare some non-Charlie and non-CC Puppets again... I know that's been blasted by canon but I loved it so much... PLEASE. SammyPuppet or Puppet kid who wasn't connected to William or Henry gang rise up. Also for a less niche opinion, I'm completely convinced that the Puppet's wracked with immense amounts of Survivor's Guilt by FFPS and I cannot be convinced otherwise.

Favorite relationship: Puppet and Henry and Puppet and William as actual developed dynamics make me insane. Also despite the above statement, I'm not immune to propaganda and Puppet and Charlie in AUs where the Puppet itself is sentient can hit so well sometimes.

Favorite headcanon: The Puppet's based off or connected to the Fredbear's animatronics but is formally a Toy animatronic.

Can you tell I never moved on from the 2010s FNAF fandom

#asks #aura answers your inquiries

2 notes · View notes

huramuna · 4 months

Text

flowers for my lover - oneshot.

alicent hightower x healer ofc

my sapphic heart bleeds for alicent.

wordcount: 1.6k

follow & turn on notifications for @huramuna-fics for notifications about my postings!

content: smut (specifics under cut), fluff, angst, alicent experiencing happiness, mentions of rhaenicent, graphic depictions of death (specifics under cut), implied murder, i hurt my own feelings by writing this

i bet on losing dogs - mitski • time to say goodbye - sarah brightman & andrea bocelli

warnings: thigh riding (non-descript), death by hanging

“Shh, Alicent— you’ll get us caught,” she giggled softly as the two women were pressed up against one another in the corridor. “It is highly inappropriate for my queen to be so close to me so late at night.”

“Inappropriate? I find it adequately appropriate,” Alicent hummed, pressing a kiss to her ear. “You don’t wish to displease your queen, do you, Lady Primrose?”

“May the Gods strike me down if I ever displease you, my love.” Primrose returned her kiss in earnest, their lips melding together like two puzzle pieces. They slipped into Prim’s chamber and locked the door.

It had been four years since Driftmark, four years since Aemond had lost his eye, four years since Alicent had wielded the Catspaw blade and cut Rhaenyra, four years since Viserys had all but denounced the children he had with Alicent in favor of Rhaenyra.

It was a hard four years indeed. Aemond had to relearn to do everything and then some. Lady Primrose had been hired at the Keep to help with his adjustments, being half-trained as a septa traditionally with all the wit of a maester.

She had honey blonde hair— not white blonde like Rhaenyra— and a soft figure. Primrose and Alicent had fallen into a quick companionship with their shared resiliency to help Aemond. Her eyes were a soft green, one being a bit more faux forest green than the other. She had one fake eye, a prosthetic forged from the Citadel. It was almost unnoticeably different unless one knew her intimately. She lost her eye at a young age due to an accident, but was a bit touchy with the details.

The companionship between the queen and her son’s counselor flourished over the years. They couldn’t exactly pinpoint when it became more than just friendship— or if it even ever was.

Alicent loved Rhaenyra. She always would in some form or fashion, no matter the ever deepening rift between them. She still thought of her, when she would smell something or hear her voice in the wind. Alicent felt haunted by Rhaenyra’s ghost, even though she wasn’t dead.

Primrose helped pull Alicent from her depression, just as she helped Aemond. The incident at Driftmark made the queen feel so alone, truly and utterly. Her father cited understanding and wrote off her explosion as a moment of clarity— but it was one of the worst nights of Alicent’s life. Mayhaps it was a moment of clarity in its own way, as she saw she was truly solitary. She had been since she married Viserys. Until Primrose.

Primrose’s fingers wafted through Alicent’s hair in soft, soothing motions as they laid in the tub together, the steam rising around them, pinkening their skin. Alicent laid her head against her lover’s chest, drawing little circles against her skin with her pointer finger. They didn’t speak for a while, just happy to be in one another’s presence uninhibited, uninterrupted. Moments like these for them were few and far between.

The queen’s brow furrowed softly as she focused on one spot in particular, wriggling her bottom lip in thought.

“What is it, love?” Primrose asked, stilling her ministrations on Alicent’s scalp.

“… nothing— I just…” Alicent let out a tiny breath, suppressing the urge to pick at her cuticles. Primrose caught the small micro-expression that she would give before doing so, entangling their fingers together. “I’m afraid… for the future. The King is… more and more ill each day. I fear what will happen after.”

“If everything stays the course as it has been for the last two decades, Rhaenyra will ascend the throne,” Primrose responded, using her free hand to hoist Alicent against her a bit more, pushing her up at her bottom, earning her a snort. “Are you afraid of that?”

“I’m afraid to see her again. I’m afraid she will be… different. More than she was before. I fear what ideas Daemon has been putting in her head.”

“People change over the years, sweetling. Mayhaps she’s grown more, matured. You did say she was always smart and driven when she needed to be— do you think Daemon could poison her so easily? Surely she’s more clever than that.”

“He’s always had a hold over her for reasons I don’t understand. It… it likely has something to do with their blood. Something we wouldn’t understand– all my years and I just… don’t… understand.”

“Some things aren’t meant for us to understand, my love,” Primrose murmured, pressing a soft kiss to Alicent’s forehead, “Things may be tumultuous in the future— so let us just enjoy our brief respite now.”

“Hmm,” Alicent hummed, “An apt idea, a truly novel one.”

The water swirled between them as Alicent slotted her thigh between Primrose’s legs, pressing softly at her core. When they had first begun their illicit affair, the queen was increasingly shy, never having found pleasure in the act of sex before. It took a year for her to loosen up and let go of her premonitions.

Primrose undulated her hips against the queen’s firm leg, murmuring sweet nothings into her auburn hair.

They stayed together in the bath for long after the water turned tepid and cold.

—

It was the days leading up to Rhaenyra’s arrival to King’s Landing that had Alicent in a tizzy. She was constantly flitting up and down corridors, meeting with her father and making sure everything was in line.

She was so supremely stressed, her nails were red rimmed once more, like in her youth. She longed for just a moment’s reprieve with Primrose— something to take the edge off. The Queen didn’t even crave sex at that moment, just the overwhelming, soul wrenching need for her lover’s skin against hers, to be held like a child and weep against her soft body and not be the queen for just an hour.

All she wished to be was Alicent. Primrose gave her that, Alicent’s title and regality stripped away once she stepped into her chambers. She felt something akin to freedom and wondered if this was the same elation her children felt atop dragonback.

What Rhaenyra wished for all those years ago— to ride Syrax across the narrow sea and eat nothing of cake and share frosting tasting kisses.

Alicent’s heart clenched, wept still at the thought. She wished they would’ve done it— she wonders if Rhaenyra wishes the same.

The queen knocks upon Primrose’s door late in the eve. It isn’t unsightly for her to check in on her son’s therapist, it was quite normal.

No answer.

She knocked three more times before returning to her own solar. A sinking feeling was within her gut.

—

The morn of Rhaenyra’s arrival was a storm, the keep bustling with servants and courtiers alike.

Alicent bustled up to her father’s tower, the Tower of the Hand, at his behest.

“Daughter,” he said, hands placed neatly behind his back as he stood near the window, adjusting a telescope. “I much appreciate your quick arrival.”

“Of course,” Alicent replied. “Though, what could possibly be so pressing to summon me this morn? I hardly have a moment to spare otherwise.”

Otto turned to her, his face grave. “You were fond of her, I know.”

“… father? What are you speaking of?” she asked, her voice almost inaudible.

He gestured to the telescope with a nod of his head.

Alicent looked at him, then looked through the lens. The image she saw horrified her more than anything. Bile rose in her throat as she stumbled back, vomiting the contents of her breakfast onto the floor.

Her father held her upright, drawing soothing circles upon her back.

What the queen had seen, she would never forget. The telescope was aimed at a dead tree over the hill, near the cliffs to the bay. She was wearing white, her blonde hair swaying in the wind, her face purple and bruised.

Primrose. Her Primrose— swinging from a ratty rope. Hanged upon the tree like a rag doll. Around her were City watchmen, ready to cut her down and take her to the Silent Sisters.

“Wh… who—,” Alicent murmured, her mouth tasting of acid and sorrow, burning her throat. “Who did this?”

“… we are unsure. There will be a full investigation into her death, I assure you.”

—

There was no such investigation. Primrose’s death was thrown to the wayside and forgotten about, as the events of Rhaenyra’s arrival and the subsequent death of the King made her murder a mere smudge at the bottom of a page, scratched over and blotted out.

Alicent tried to forget, she did.

And at the point in her life where all of her children were dead, everyone she’d known, save for her granddaughter, were rotting in the ground, scattered to ashes in the wind, or decomposing underwater— she still couldn’t forget.

She couldn’t forget Primrose’s face as she swung from the tree.

On a rare outing, she ventured to the cemetery. Primrose’s remains weren’t here, of course, she had been burned en masse with those who perished at the Dragonpit during Aegon’s crowning.

But, there was an almost unmarked headstone. There was no name, no indication on who it was— save for a crude chiseled depiction of a rose with an eye above it.

Alicent, wracked with fever, demanded to be taken. She laid one last flower, this one fresh amongst the hundreds below the stone, which were now withered and barren— one last fresh flower.

Alicent Hightower died that same night of winter’s fever.

She had been murmuring, wanting to see her sons, her sweet Helaena— Princess Rhaenyra, too.

And Primrose.

#alicent hightower #alicent fanfic #alicent x reader #alicent x oc #hotd fic #hotd #hotd fanfic #my writing #flowers for my lover

63 notes · View notes