#this is like the writing equivalent of a figure study

[laundrybiscuits]

(Continued from this snippet! Content notes: police interrogation, homophobia)

“You don’t look gay.” The detective gives Steve a very obvious once-over. Steve tries to look gayer as subtly as he can. 

“Sorry,” he says. “Guess I’ll have to let my boyfriend know you don’t think I look gay enough to fuck him.”

The detective’s face twists slightly, like he’s smelled something bad. “No need to be like that. I’m just saying, I bet a good-looking guy like you could get a girlfriend pretty easy.”

“You’re not my type,” says Steve. He smiles with his teeth, even though his heart is going fast and he can feel his palms starting to sweat. 

The detective’s hands tense, and Steve wonders if he’s about to get hit, but they relax again and the detective sits back.

“Just doing my job,” says the detective. “Because, funny enough, we asked around with all your little friends, and it seems like you used to be a bit of a ladies’ man.”

“Things change,” says Steve. 

“In fact…seems like none of your friends ever even saw you talk to Munson before. Moved in different circles and everything. I remember what high school was like.”

The detective leans close. 

“So why would the captain of the swim team, a nice normal boy from a good family with a string of pretty girlfriends, ever—ever—stick his neck out like this for some murdering scum like Munson? That’s what I’m trying to figure out, here.”

“Don’t fucking talk about him like that,” says Steve. His mouth is dry. His pulse is thundering in his ears. “He didn’t kill anyone. He was with me the whole time. He’s—he didn’t kill anyone.”

“Hm,” says the detective. 

It takes a while for them to stop interrogating him. They keep asking him the same questions over and over, trying to trip him up. He asks for water and doesn’t get it. In the back of his mind, a hysterical little voice is shrieking Scoops Ahoy! I work for Scoops Ahoy!, but he manages to keep it locked down. Doesn’t let himself get baited, just keeps repeating that Eddie was with him the whole time and neither of them know anything. 

It takes a while, but it’s over eventually.

When he leaves the station, Eddie’s standing outside with Hopper and Joyce Byers, wearing a shirt and jeans that definitely belonged to Jonathan at some point. Eddie’s got his hands tucked into his armpits, looking antsy and tense, but he’s free and standing on his own two feet. It’s a pretty big upgrade from when Steve last saw him about a week or two ago. 

It’s almost too easy to go straight over to him, wrapping him up in a tight hug like they’ve had their arms around each other a million times. 

“Oof. Easy there, tiger,” laughs Eddie. “I’m, uh, still a little fragile.”

“Sorry,” says Steve, and loosens his hold. He doesn’t let go all the way.

“Come on, boys,” says Joyce. “I’m taking you two home. Steve, Eddie’s been staying with us, but we’re a little short on spare beds and it’s not great for his recovery. We’re moving him to your place until we can figure out something better, okay?” 

———

Joyce drops them off and helps carry in a few garbage bags full of Eddie’s stuff. There’s not that much.

And then the door closes behind her, and Steve’s alone with Eddie for the first time since—actually, maybe ever. 

“So,” says Eddie. “What…the fuck, Harrington.”

“Is that an actual question?” Steve says. He rolls his shoulders, trying to get some of the stiffness out. “I mean, didn’t Hopper and Mrs. Byers explain everything to you?”

“Kind of? I mean, I still think this is probably the worst idea of all time, but they told me—anyway, what I meant just now was a much more personalized and individual what the fuck. As in, why the fuck would you agree to any of this? You know you’re never gonna get another girl in this town to look at you now.”

“Dumping me already? Ice cold, man.”

Eddie groans and actually throws his hands in the air in frustration. Steve hadn’t known people did that in real life. 

“Jesus christ.” Eddie wheels around and grabs two of the garbage bags. “I can’t do this right now, I need to take a fucking nap. We will be discussing this later.”

“Still don’t know what there is to discuss,” says Steve, but he picks up the last garbage bag and leads the way to the spare room. 

Eddie pitches forwards onto the bed, arms outstretched and face mashed into the pillow. “Fuck yes, I am going to marry this goddamn mattress. Hit the lights when you leave,” he says, slightly muffled. 

For a second, Steve finds himself stepping forward with a hand outstretched to—do something. He’s not sure what. Touch Eddie’s hair, or something dumb like that. His face warms. He’s really glad Eddie isn’t looking at him and doesn’t see how he’s kind of just standing there with a hand out for no reason. 

He turns around, flicking the light switch on his way out, and doesn’t look back.

#steddie #the document title for this is literally “2 cakes” #bc again...there is already a fic with this premise. by bonitabreezy. as I have already said: please go read that instead! #this is like the writing equivalent of a figure study #don't know where it's going or if it's going anywhere. I truly am just vibing with increasingly dubious historical accuracy.

[dexaroth]

first draft of xor (logic gate placeholder name, im gonna try to incorporate techy stuff into their design) + a past testing ref sheet where half of the lineart is original and half is reused from other drawings + the current pose and overall shape im gonna use for his actual ref whenever i get to finish it lol

#i hope my um. uh. sort-of anatomy studies show through :3c #there are like. not exaggerating here. about 20 krita files that are just test sheets like these with some repeat poses in between #mostly bc after a certain amount of layers it gets very taxing on my laptop's ram so i gotta make a new file #i am so insane abt his design im the equivalent of a mad scientist measuring liquids by the drop to find the exact perfect formula #except its me testing every relevant angle and stylization of his design #his monkey feet are so hard to conceptualize bc theyre not like real life ones so i have to wing it every time basically #my ass is literally flat from the amount of time ive spent erasing and fixing and polishing that last pose my spine is gonna crumple rn #<its 5 am as of writing this teehee. queue time is gonna be like 8hrs from now or something #posting these bc auugh i have so much stuff i havent posted!! most arent either good or finished but i Need. to show Someone #i can only bottle my 'lookie what i made' feelings for so long. unlike my chronic illnesses this one is easily alleviated instead so woo! #q #wips #oh also its gonna be hell to figure out the lineart on daron's ref. razor thin looks rlly good but i hate drawing thin so fucking much #its like. beyond my knowledge level. girl i cant detail the knees that much -3- just make this easy for me pleasz. cmon

[rboooks]

DPxDC fic idea: The Infinite Realms Hobby Store

Danny Fenton drops out of school on his sister's recommendation to aim for a GED. Then two weeks after he does receive his high school equivalence document, Danny and his sister Jasmine pack up and move to Gotham, where they promptly open their own business. A small hobby store that's during rather well for itself, especially with offered classes to learn said hobbies.

The instructors of the classes are all a rather colorful bunch that don't seem from Gotham but aren't bad like outsiders usually are.

The siblings continue their education through online courses and attend Gotham University. Jasmine studying psychology and Danny studying engineering.

They don't seem like up-and-coming villains who may be behind the strange changes in the city. Nothing terrible has happened so far but that's just it. Nothing has happened, and if that doesn't make every citizen's skin crawl, nothing else will.

It's like the core of Gotham is breaking away, and no one knows what it is or if it's a good thing.

Tim Drake, disguised as Alvin Draper, signed up for the offered Photography class to prove they were and stop them before it's too late.

Danny and Jazz are aware there is something strange about Alvin Draper.

Still, they have thier hands tied, prepping Danny to take the Ghost Throne, keeping up with college, trying to fix a crumbled relationship with their parents after the Big Reveal, and keeping all of Danny's ex-Rouges satisfying their obsessions by having them express it through a hobby.

Ember teaches guitar on Mondays.

Technus does coding an hour before her.

Lunch lady has a cooking lesson on Tuesday.

Poindexter does miniature models on Wednesdays.

Kitty got Photography and modeling on Thursdays.

Johnny, who is never too far away from her, runs his crocheting class at the same time.

And Ghost Writer does creative writing on Fridays.

Saturdays is a surprise course by whichever ghost is free that week, and Sundays they are closed.

They just can't find the time or energy to figure out that guy's deal. Best to leave Alvin alone.

They hope to stay out of Batman's radar long enough to break all the curses Gotham is dosed in. It's one of Danny's first real jobs as Ghost King, so he's trying his best, but come on, this place is a mess.

Not to mention the people generally seemed unhappy to have the curses gone. Apparently it doesn't feel right or something.

(Johnny insists Alvin is just a bisexual disaster who has a crush on both of them but Johnny is also a bisexual disaster so the Fenton siblings don't listen to him.)

#dc x dp #random fic idea

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

hi it's the good omens mascot here's some shit about me that might be relevant

I appear to have accidentally caused chaos so I figured you might as well know about me since I'm responsible for it. And also so that you know who you broke, thanks ineffable fandom.

I have been called the prophet by some of you all. This is not entirely untrue, but I would like to add as I did in one post, that Apollo also gave me the curses of art, (very emotional) music, (sometimes good mostly dreadful) poetry, (same parentheses apply, except that the dreadful is on purpose) writing and (used to be good now dreadful) medical knowledge, and so yes, you did accidently adopt a messenger of an ancient Greek god.

Yes, this entire entry into your cult happened from start to now happened in 48 hours.

This will seem less bizarre when I give you context about me and fandoms. I changed career paths (after three years of intense study that cost me my sanity) from science to the arts because I was inspired by drarry fanfiction of them leaving their ministry jobs and following their dreams. Yes I tossed three years and my loss of sanity away in one week of decisions. I'm now a designer. Thanks Draco.

I read so much drarry fanfiction that my mum had to take me to the hospital for injured wrists. I wore wrist and elbow supports and was in constant pain for a few months. I was only later introduced to autoscroll. Yes, I am a fool. Yes, I am unaware of how to human.

I'm broke and cheap enough that I feel guilty buying bottled water, but for Christmas I spent the equivalent of around 150 bottles of water getting a Bakewell tart custom made (they don't sell them where I live). Why? Because in one single fanfiction, it is Draco's favourite food. I would never spend that kind of money on a dessert for any real human being.

That is to say, you all are not ready for when I REALLY fall for Crowley. I don't saunter vaguely downwards for people. I bypass earth and crash into hell, leaving a smoking pit in its infernal ground.

I swear I'm not as dumb as I seem, I just have ZERO general knowledge, and am terrible with faces. I can tell you what the graffiti on the walls of Pompeii from before 70 AD said but I don't know who my previous president was, and personally I think that's very classy of me.

Some of you seem concerned about my sleep schedule. Worry not, I sleep in four installments, night, morning nap, afternoon nap, evening nap. I sleep more than you all, that I can promise. I sleep more than my doggy sister.

About the streams and the timezones, I have no idea how to make it so people can watch, because I frequently mix up east and west and last morning I mixed up the Pacific and Atlantic ocean. I don't know at what point the Eastern hemisphere becomes the Western or how any of it works. I also thought Wakanda was a real place.

But hey fun fact, in 2020 diclofenac sales were dropping in Iceland. I know this because I wanted to make sure to use the correct painkiller in one sentence of a story I was writing. It was completely irrelevant. But hey any of you writers here probably feel my pain. I don't write fanfiction, but I am an author and I write original stories. And honestly what is more useful, Icelandic diclofenac sales from three years ago or timezones?

A career test once told me to be a standup comedian.

Yes that's me Asmi, just your regular dumbass lad who is slightly unhinged, serving himbo twink energy, hello hi nice to meet you all. PS: the poll results are out and Doctor Who won, so tremble, DW fandom.

#good omens fandom #good omens mascot #asmi #weirdly-specific-but-ok #this is me y'all #good omens brainrot #thanks for breaking me i figured you should know about me #crowley #just crowley i'm going to shatter soon #drarry #draco malfoy #fandom culture #fandom things #doctor who #dw fandom #more inaccurate summaries coming up #good omens #fanfiction #and how it ruined and saved me

[feartoxinjelloshot]

clipsverse SWAP AU! for fun! character elaboration under the cut because it gets kind of wordy:

selina's deal is pretty straightforward: she has the typical “saw parents die as a child" backstory, but she’s obviously not a millionare so she’s operating out of some kind of condemned underground parking lot... somewhere. authentic gotham grunge i guess. she’s a functioning alcoholic and i am obsessed with her. she's a hardboiled detective like batman, but tends to be a bit more cynical - sort of like if rorschach from watchmen was a normal person and also didn't hate sex. firefly is her "guy in the chair" similar to what alfred is to batman in canon, minus the surrogate parent part, obviously. public opinion is pretty split on if the bat is a man or a woman under there. i don't really have swap ideas for the robins ironed out, but i'm thinking that cass and stephanie are her robin and red hood equivalents (cass being dick, stephanie being jason). cass would have an allblack bird theme going on, so she might be "crow" or "blackbird" instead of robin. dunno what stephanie's red hood rendition is like. purple hood? i'll figure it out eventually.

bruce’s parents are alive, but he has a terrible relationship with them and with his own wealth so he mitigates the guilt complex by dressing up as a cat to steal and redistribute resources to people who actually need it. he could probably do that in daylight but there is something very wrong with him. i don't think his dumb slutty playboy persona is entirely genuine even without his parents' deaths, but he does lean into it more and incorporate parts of it into his vigilante persona over time. i think this version of bruce is just generally very lonely under the surface. he tries to be normal in his daytime life and he's very bad at it - theft aside, in a certain sense being the cat(man? woman?) is his own break for freedom; he felt a need to plunge himself far into the deep end of what normal society calls a 'freak'. ...writing it out like this, we're probably lucky he didn't start killing people. fortunately batman isn't really that kind of guy in any universe.

meanwhile on the other side of the rails: ivy! her deal is slightly unformed right now due to the fact that the hatter and the joker also swap places in this au - so the hatter is a dangerous, evil mastermind intent on controlling gotham to suit their whims, and the joker is... just a harmless silly little guy. yeah. i don't have swap-hatter's exact personality ironed out yet, so detailing his and ivy's dynamic would be difficult, but i can say that while she is his loyal second-in-command at his table of advisors, she is also plotting against him. ivy is a consistent loner in both mainline cv and here, and while she doesn't have the same tumultuous, antagonistic, emotional relationship with him as harley does with the joker, she is also frankly not interested in being his number one until the end of time. she wants to do it herself and she wants to do it right. this is an ivy who, in lieu of her own world-altering gift, is scraping tooth and nail to successfully supersede the most powerful entity she can her her hands on. the hatter is blissfully unaware of this - we can't all be perfect.

harley, for her part, is very tame in comparison. she mirrors ivy's canonical backstory pretty closely: an esteemed scientist studying stem cell relations who was denied funding, mocked, and forced to experiment on herself to prove a point, unwittingly connecting herself to a worldwide hive-mind of plantlife. this version of harley, while still dressed as a scientist, is far more surface-level emotionally volatile than mainline ivy, more impulsive and irrational, and probably willing to lean much farther into the classic poison ivy reputation as a villainous seductress, to varying degrees of honesty and success. it takes ivy an incredible degree of patience and control to maintain the mental and physical balance she strikes with the green, and this version of harley has far less of both. she lets it use her body as a conduit of earthly rage and she lets the poison infect her skin and organs until mottled and decaying. she's not unhappy, but she's not exactly stable, either.

jonathan is a mysterious, faux-sleazy lounge singer who lost his left arm to a snake bite infection as a child and thereafter became obsessed with the symbolism of the balance of life via games, tricks and questions - winning and losing, birth and death, etc. the ouroboros is a common symbol in his theatrics. he possesses a certain degree of social confidence that the mainline jonathan has never quite been capable of - while he doesn't have the same fervent need for attention as edward, he takes a compulsory delight in the mental influence he achieves on small crowds and will employ many avenues to get ahold of it. he's certainly not outgoing: he keeps almost entirely to himself offstage, uninterested in fame outside of his show persona. unlike mainline jonathan who views the scarecrow as a genuine self-inflicted diety, this jon sees his persona as more of a mantle or responsibility that he must take on in order to discover new truths about the world. like his canon counterpart he is asexual and uninterested in sex, but i imagine that he has less qualms about leading people on as an act to get what he wants from them. he's not terribly famous in his singing career, but he's become a bit of an underground legend for his resolute 1920s-inspired style and occasional genuine debonair charm.

edward in comparison is not nearly as ritualistically compelled as mainline scarecrow, but he’s far less cagey about his own machinations and his mental relationship to them: he lives in a tricked-out barn somewhere on the far outskirts of gotham, and he spends his time as a propmaster creating elaborate saw-trap-esque haunted houses and escape rooms to invoke panic in his “guests”. he wanders the halls of his own houses along with the guests, repairing and tinkering, or just scaring the shit out of them. he also makes a genuine living by making and selling cosplay props and other related objects online; he's developed a bit of an internet presence through this channel, though he's not as fixated on it as the mainline riddler would be. he still craves spectacle and attention, but he's more of a "quality over quantity" guy according to his own standards and is rarely happy with the work he creates, hence the endless roundabout of creation and reinvention.

#that got long mamma mia #edit: fixed some typos. my personal hell #scribbles #clipsverse #swap au #batman rogues #batman #catwoman #poison ivy #harley quinn #jonathan crane #edward nygma #cvswap

[writingforatwistedworld]

Self-aware isekai'd househusbands, what a great idea that was. The Vil piece was so fun that I wasn't more!

Can you write Riddle as an isekai'd househusband? Thank you!

Self-aware au

I do not take any responsibility for you reading this no matter which age group you are from!

WARNINGS: Yandere themes, blood, murder, death, violence, stalking, unhealthy relationship, obsession

Your totally normal isekaid househusband

Imagine, you are the male equivalent of a magical girl in villain version who got isekaid into the normal world

One would think that world domination or something to that would follow, right?

Well no.... said magical girl is right now starting holes into a cookbook

And he kinda likes it- no, he loves to study the culinary arts

Not just for anyone of course

Riddle has become a little helping hand in your home after you found him one day drenched to the bone outside of your little safe haven

But at this point the two of you might be married with you being the breadwinner

In the morning he wakes you up, makes you breakfast, hands you your lunch when you are heading out, cleans the house, spends his time doing... things, greets you when you return gives you food and does more things that would stereotypically be considered as stay-at-home-partner activities

How calm... how sweet... how-Riddle, what are you doing?

Riddle wakes up one hour before you usually do. So what does he do in that hour?

So, half an hour before you wake up he prepares breakfast but the thirty minutes before...

Well he is just standing there, staring at your sleeping figure

Ok. Creepy but at least the time from breakfast till him being done with chores is normal

So uh... remember those “things” I mentioned earlier? Well...

There are those noisy neighbors everyone has, right?

So uh... please don't mention them annoying you in any way. Please don't. Just don't. Oh why? Hehe... don't think too much about what I just said, yes?

When you return Riddle emerges from the kitchen, asking you if everything is alright

Following to that he scolds you for staying out too late

That crazy maniac is running freely out there! All those poor souls lost to them

Your neighborhood might have a... uh... “spontaneous death through decapitation” problem

The crime scenes are clean or rather they are until you enter the room in which “that” happened and you find a surprisingly clean you-know-what sitting there in a chair with their you-know-what laying in their lap, a white rose tucked somewhere in that meat pile as well

Of course Riddle knows that his actions aren't good in any way but when you good him that the old creepy neighbor next door had been scaring you for so long he saw red and...

Let's just say that magic makes it incredibly easy to leave a crime scene without any trace

Ah yes, roses! Let's talk about something easier on the stomach!

Riddle plants of course roses. White ones

Sometimes you even get a few of them, them now being red

You once asked why the roses are red considering that he always plants white ones which he answered with him painting them red just for you

Ah yes, you totally forgot that little thing about his dorm. And isn't it cute? Such a pretty red as well... although the paint is a bit fragile and falls off in flakes if you aren't careful

His pastries are a bit dangerous to eat, he adds sometimes odd things because someone wrote a tip in a baking forum as a joke, but his lunches are pretty good

When you try to help him though he is strictly against it. Especially when it's about doing the laundry

Meh. Probably nothing. Although... you have found splatters of that red paint once or twice on a piece of clothing of his before... probably go it on there the last time he painted the roses red

Though, you do wonder... where is that cleaver that had been missing from the kitchen?

#yandere twisted wonderland #yandere twst #yandere twisted wonderland x reader #yandere twst x reader #self aware au #twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst riddle #twisted wonderland riddle #yandere x reader #yandere riddle rosehearts #yandere riddle #riddle rosehearts x reader #yandere riddle x reader #riddle rosehearts #riddle x reader #tw: yandere #tw: blood #tw: murder #tw: death #tw: violence #tw: stalking #tw: unhealthy relationship #tw: obsession

[pastafossa]

Hi, let's talk gatekeeping fanfic. First, if you bully teenage girls out of the fandom for writing like teenagers who're still learning, you are a terrible person. Because you were that teenager. I get some of us fic writers like to pretend we came out of the womb clutching a bloody, sticky 250k word in-depth character study fic that would rank in the top ten most kudos'd fics in the fandom ever if only our eyeballs and coordination were developed enough to transfer it to a screen, but that's a massive pile of horseshit, and you know it. You wrote with mashed paragraphs and mispellings and clunky dialogue. You used the same tropes you like to mock young writers for. So maybe have a flashback and then chill.

And just in case you don't care about that, you're also literally shooting yourself in the face, because a TON of writers (which often includes you) generally follow this trend:

Get excited about a character or fandom when you're younger and/or not a Leveled Up Writer yet

Decide to try writing fanfic for the first time

Bang something out and excitedly post it

Either get good or helpful/encouraging reactions that make you want to keep keep writing, or you get a bunch of sneering comments about teenagers by grownass gatekeepers who, for some reason, feel smug about mocking excited novices who're trying to write a fun story, thus chasing you away from writing.

And there's where you fuck yourself over if you pick the shit-covered Door #2. Because a writer can't improve unless they write. Oh, you might not see the effect immediately, but after a few years, the fanfic scene will die down as writers move on to less toxic spaces (or give up entirely). And you will have no one to fill the void. YOU are the reason you'll get less fic. Imagine mocking and making fun of a new piano player whose first song on piano is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. "Ugh, I hate this basic teenage crap, are you just banging on keys? Come back when you can play Moonlight Sonata."

I literally do not give one single shit if you 'approve' of some teenager's (or adult's!) fic. If they're happy creating the equivalent of a cake with a stick figure design, that's awesome cause they made themselves a cake they enjoy. Alternatively, they're practicing making cake and no cake is perfect the first time, unless you learn something, in which case it's served its purpose and is a great cake due to fulfilling that purpose.

Tell you what - you want to gatekeep? Here's who you can gatekeep in fanfic:

Plagiarists.

There. Go nuts.

And if you're a novice writer, be it teenager or adult, deciding to try writing fic for the first time, please, please don't let them tear you down. Please don't stop writing. Don't stop learning. Don't stop creating. Don't stop being so filled with love for a story and its characters that you have to create just so you can breathe a little easier without your words and story filling up all that space around your lungs. I promise you, I promise, that every single writer you love has been at where you're at now, and the only reason they write like they do now is that they kept going, kept trying, kept writing. People will talk about talent but it plays a far smaller role than you think - this is 90% practice. And that means you can learn this.

You can do this.

So do it.

#fanfic #fic #i have seen waaaay too many gatekeepers lately bitching about teens writing fic #and then usually segueing into mocking adult novice writers too #stop being a shithead you were a novice writer too #you know how you got better? by practicing #not by being shit all over by writers who want to pretend their first work was Shakespeare level #please keep writing

[prince-liest]

Re: that one anon,

You and Tzafael live rent free in my head fr, I am going insane over your fics 24/7 and have to stop myself from talking about your fic with uninterested parties who wouldn't understand why I'm so obsessed ALL THE TIME. I am cursed.

Do you have anymore interesting Tzafael lore?

-☠️

Ps. Why does art take so long I wanna post my painting already

I just hope you're half as feral about my writing as I am about the fact that you're out here being interested in my Hazbin Hotel OC, because the sound this ask prompted in me is best described as the verbal equivalent of a keyboard smash. U bring me so much joy, spirits.

Ahem!!!!! AN EXCUSE TO TALK ABOUT TZAFAEL!

@spoondrifts, who knows and has studied significantly more about the subject than me, helped me figure the name "Tzafael"! To paraphrase them: The suffix -el means "of god". The hebrew word for eyes is einayim, which in its construct state would be something like eineiel/ayneyel, roughly transliterated "tzafah." It also means to watch/observe but also to predict or foresee, so "Tzafael" could mean a witness or beholder of god.

Tzafael is younger than Lucifer and knew him only a little prior to his fall. Their relationship with him is akin to how you would see the queer uncle who got kicked out of the family because he came out when you were like ten years old and didn't really understand much, except now you're also queer, twenty-nine, have established your own life, and suddenly realized you're living in the same city. Do you reach out? Do you duck behind a corner when you see him?

They... have not technically fallen. Nobody kicked them out. There's nothing physically stopping them from returning to heaven. That said: they do not often return to heaven, and heaven puts a lot of effort into not talking about why or what, exactly, they might be doing, but surely it's better that they stay gone. Nobody wants another Lucifer situation. And it's not like that! Really. Really. They haven't officially done anything wrong. Don't say the word "rogue," not even quietly.

This does mean that their halo still works and they still receive exorcist broadcast communications, though! You'd be surprised at how far the signal goes. It makes for a very interesting tea time, and they fucking love to gossip. It comes with being the Witness.

Their cardinal sin is pride. They enjoy the fact that they're almost the heaviest hitter possible in hell purely by courtesy of being a seraph so much. They like to think they stay classy about it, but those who know them also know that the best way to get a favor from the fallen seraph is to be polite and stroke their ego.

#ask #personal #spirits anon #my ocs #tzafael #my writing #they're below the royal family on the power tier list but above the seven deadly sins #basically: a seraph but a rogue one rather than one with any actual dominion over hell #thank you so much for asking Q^Q #I LOVE. TALKING ABOUT TZAFAEL. #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel oc

[piffany666]

Ok just one more punk progeny won't hurt~

Chapter 2: barging in

(Ftm Bright eyes - he/him)

Bright eyes thought about what he'd say to William as he ran down the hallway, up to his study.

He had never met him officially but its not as if he's worried about making a good first impression, I mean he's on his way to accuse him of the vampire equivalent of adopting him without consent.

He didn't exactly have long to think about this though as it only took him a couple of seconds to get to his study. He still wasn't exactly used to (or particularly good at) this whole super speed thing, anytime he'd train with Sam Bright would get upset that he wasn't as fast as Fred and that just made Sam mad at him.

Losing no momentum, Bright burst into William's study.

"Hey!-" he was about to begin but was shockingly taken aback by William and his appearance.

He didn't look up at him when Bright burst through the door, he just continued writing. He had long light blonde hair that elegantly flopped forward, covering his eyes slightly as his head leaned forward over his desk.

Bright wasn't sure what came over him, it was as if a wave of respect washed over him as soon as he opened the door.

Then he snapped out of it.

"Hey!" He repeated, he managed to finish his sentence this time only he was louder.

Either William didn't hear him the first time or he was ignoring him but his eyes looked up at Bright, however he kept his head down.

As mentioned before, Bright didn't have a lot of time to prepare a speech and he'd already lost his composure, so he just figured he'd say whatever came to mind.

But before he could start, William began, with a welcoming and soft tone that almost made Bright eyes completely at ease. Almost.

"Ah Bright, I've been meaning to talk with you~ actually we've never officially met have we? I'm William solaire and you're the one they call 'Bright eyes' ? I'd love to know where that name came from. Please sit."

Bright had to shake his head around just to convince himself not to comply.

"Cut the crap! I know what you and Sam plan on doing with me. That you're supposed to 'take me off Sam's hands' cos crist knows that southern bastard can't handle me on his own.

But before you seal the deal....

Could you at least give me a chance to think about it?"

You'd think William would be confused at this but he's smart enough to figure out what's happened here.

He looked to his antique clock on the wall beside him that looked like if you sold it you could buy a house with it.

He sighed and pinched the skin between his eyes.

"Damn it Vincent, its been less than 20 minutes and you're already gossiping about matters that barley concern you"

He took a deep breath and looked at Bright with his silver eyes that seemed to illuminate his face.

"I can understand why you'd think that is the case, however im sorry to inform you that there has been a slight miscommunication. Either Vincent misinterpreted what I told him in the meeting or you heard him wrong, in any case that is not what my intention with you was".

Bright gave a look of disbelief, then looked down.

"R-really?"

He had no idea what it was about this man that made him want to respect him almost instantly but William still smiled and answered him.

"No. The plan was that I'd ask for Vincent's council on the matter, then ask if you'd like to be transferred as my progeny and IF you agreed I'd go to Sam and ask for his consent to 'take you off his hands' as it where"

Brights eyes widened

"It was always going to be your decision, Bright, I apologise for any hardship this mistake may have caused you"

Bright looked to the floor for guidance. He felt so stupid now. He didn't know what to do.

But William did.

"So now that we have that out of the way, please sit."

Bright would be exaggerating if he said that William's tone was sturn but he had a feeling that he didn't want to know what would happen if he declined.

So he hastily sat down at one of William's chairs facing his desk.

"This meating is certainly happening faster then i has expected, but I suppose there's no point in sending you away now".

Bright stayed silent.

"Well you've already told me your decision on the matter so I suppose this could be a way for me to get to know you before you make your final decision".

"W-what?"....

"When you came in here you said you'd like to think about it, so while you 'think about it' I'd like to get to know you

For instance, your name".

Bright's brown thurowed "what about it?"

William smiled and closed his eyes in a way that reminded Bright of when he was alive, when the sun would wake him up by blinding him and he'd have to choose between a warm bed and eyesight. Eventually he'd always close the blinds....

Damn it why I this French f*k making me spit poetry?! Thought Bright eyes to himself.

"It's very interesting~ where dose it come from? I think its safe to say that you weren't born with it and it's not uncommon for young vampires to change their name upon being turned. So

Where did you come up with a name like that?"

Bright felt more at ease at this, maybe it was the fact that he was no longer being blinded by his piercing eyes.

He thought about this question for a second and was briefly brought back to a time befor he died, before he got top surgery and when there was literally no part of his body that he didn't hate.

Apart from his eyes. And the only reason for that......was Fred telling him basically every other week just how "bright his eyes where".

He stopped himself from smiling at this. Because that wasn't the reason why he called himself that.

He called himself "Bright eyes" to remind himself of what Fred had taken from him that night. When he first looked in the mirror after being turned he was met with the loss of the one thing he actually liked about himself, he also hated the irony of the one who made him love his eyes was the one who took the light from them away.

He then looked at William with his usual cocky smirk that had become like a resting face for him.

"You know when someone complements you and then you make that one complement your whole personality?"

Bright regretted this question immediately after asking it. How was he supposed to know if William understood what he was telling him? Dudes like a thousand years old!

But then William gave a short giggle, still keeping his eyes closed.

"Oh yes~ there's a woman from the house of Benit that was once told that she 'looked good in red' and I honestly can't recall a single time she's worn anything else In the last century".

They both laughed at this.

"So there was somone in your life that complimented your eyes?~ and now you call yourself Bright eyes?"

Bright gave a sturn "yes" hoping that he wouldn't ask anymore of him.

William was about to ask him about his realationship with Sam and why HE thinks William wants to take him in but then he got a sharp wiff of something that made his eyes go sharp.

It was blood. Vampiric blood.

Bright was bleeding.

William shot up from his desk, making Bright jump in the prosses. He didn't mean to scare him as much as he did but he had to know what was hurting him.

He went around his desk to where Bright was sitting and bent down. It was coming from his palms.

"What happened?" His voice didn't contain pity as much as it did concern, that combined with a sturn look made Bright feel weak. Like he was about to cry.

Not from the pain, he hadn't noticed he was bleeding until just now. No.

He was just surprised to hear somone caring about him again...

"O-oh i-i scrunched up my fist up kinda tight when I heard what Vincent said, i-i guess I squeezed a little to hard huh? Haha...." his voice was braking up.

He needed to get out of here before William noticed the state he was in.

But he already knew.

He grabbed him softly by the shoulders and said "stay here"

Upon turning Bright's hand over for inspection, he noticed that there wasn't just blood coming from his palms, there was marks on his knuckles that implied blunt force trauma.

Maybe now wasn't a good time to tell William that he punched his wall so hard he cracked it, thought Bright.

William pondered whether or not using healing magic was a good idea. Bright wasn't used to magic just yet, not only that but his bad realationship with Sam may have made him not exactly....partial to healing magic.

But then he looked up at Bright, he had THAT look.

The same look Vincent gave him that convinced him to save him.

The look he historically couldn't resist.

He took Bright's hand and it flinched as if he had electrocuted him.

But then Bright took a deep breath and gingerly placed his plam in William's hand.

William gave a look of reassurance and began working on his hand.

Bright winced and hissed and tried to pull away, but William didn't waver in his attempt to heal him. He squeezed his hand to keep him still in a way that didn't hurt him but so that he couldn't let go.

Afterwards, William let go and Bright's hand shot away from him,he began breathing heavily.

Now William DID have a look of pity on his face but he didn't let Bright see it.

Bright looked up at him and for a moment the two sat there in silence just looking at each other softly.

Bright was then the one to brake the silence.

"Right well...now that that mishap is all figured out I really should get going" he didn't exactly have an excuse but he didn't want to talk to William any longer.

Not because he had any problem with him, he actually felt better and more comfortable than he had been In ages after spending less than 10 minutes with him.

But William said that he wanted to "get to know Bright" and he liked William to much already to let him realise just how terrible he really was and the mistake he was making.

If William wanted him as a progeny now....better keep it that way.

So he left after making a motion with his body that resembled an awkward excuse for a bow, his face was bright red (ha!) After that.

William smiled to himself and finally opened his eyes.

"It seems I have my work cut out for me with this 'Bright eyes'"

He was disappointed that their time was so short but he shrugged it off.

He picked up his phone and began to make a call to Samuel.

"Hello Samuel, I like to request a meeting with you"

.............

"In a few days"

..........

"Alright~ alright~"

When he finished his call he made a new one directly afterwards.

"Hello, yes it's good to hear from you!~ do you have any free time to come by the house and fix a crack, presumably also a hole, in one of my walls?~"

..............

"Thank you, goodbye~".

(Credits go to @darlin-collins for the idea and thanks for proof reading and all the complements 💙🧡)

#redacted asmr #redacted audio #redactedverse #redacted bright eyes #redacted listener #redacted solaire clan #redacted william #redacted vincent #redactedsam #redacted fanfic #trans mc #trans masc #ok just one more punk progeny won't hurt~

[adarkrainbow]

Romanian witches: Baba Cloantza

Last time I talked about Muma Padurii, the Forest Mom. And I promised you Baba Cloantza...

The whole idea of the Baba Cloantza is quite fascinating. When I read the article about the Romanian translations of Frau Holle which prompted me to do this series about Romanian witches (I'll talk more about this in the third part of the series), they evoked Baba Cloanta (yes, without the "z") as the traditional wicked witch and child-eating hag of Romanian fairytales. If you do research about Muma Padurii as I did before, you will sometimes find that "Baba Cloanta" can be an alternate name or identity for the Muma, especially in her "creepy wicked witch eating children soup" fairytale self. But if you research Baba Cloanta/Cloantza on her own, most of the time all you'll find is a mention saying "Baba Cloantza is the Romanian name of Baba-Yaga" or "Baba Cloanta is the Romanian equivalent of the famous Russian witch / she is the Carpathian Baba-Yaga".

Now... I do understand why everybody loves Baba Yaga, but I also understand why having Baba Yaga everywhere can be a problem. There is a reasoning behind saying "Baba-Yaga is a character present throughout all Slavic fairytales" and "Baba Yaga is a character of Eastern Europe fairytales"... But this oversimplification can cause a problem when it sweeps under the rug national "cousins" of the Baba Yaga. Again, remember that the Baba Yaga we know today was defined and shaped by Afanassiev's Russian Folktales... It is a specifically Russian character. Yes she does answer to and manifests an archetype present throughout Eastern Europe, and you have several Eastern European manifestations of a local Baba-Yaga... But then you have characters like Baba Cloantza. Who is indeed an equivalent to the Russian Baba Yaga... But she is still her own character, a specific Romanian entity, and saying she is just "Baba Yaga with a different name" can be a quite problematic claim...

So today I invite you to discover Baba Cloantza, a Romanian witch which yes, can be the Romanian translation of "Baba Yaga", but is also an alternate identity of Muma Padurii, as well as her own character with specific roots in Romanian folklore.

For this post I will rely onto an article written in French by Simona Ferent, "Baba Cloantza, la Yaga édentée" (Baba Cloantza, the Toothless Yaga) - it was published as part of a collection of studies and articles around the figure of Baba Yaga for a Sciences and Literature journal (it was called "Baba Yaga en chair et en os", "Baba Yaga in flesh and bone"). I literaly translated the article a long time ago and I do regret doing so because it might have made it quite unreadable... But if you can read French go check it out because it is one of the most complete resources I could find about Baba Cloantza online.

It is also because of this article that I write Baba Cloantza instead of "Cloanta", which Ferent highlighted as a better transliteration of the Romanian Cloanţa.

Baba Cloantza is one of the central witches of Romanian fairytales, and a well-known figure of the Carpathian folklore. But there is already a difference established between her and the Russian Baba-Yaga by her very name. Indeed "Cloantza" means an old woman, an ugly woman... a toothless woman. Hence the name of the article, "the toothless Yaga". Not only does this name evokes as such a toothless hag, it also insists upon her mouth, because "cloantza" is a pejorative name for a mouth. So the Baba Cloantza is a figure associated with the mouth - as much the decrepit toothless hole of an old ugly woman, as the devouring maw of the fairytale monster... and as the mouth from which ancient wisdom and magical secrets comes from. She is the "frightening wisdom", as Ferent says. Because, as a "baba", she is this ambiguous figure between the demon in human shape and the spiritual guide: the baba is the witch and the wise-woman, the isolated and lonely old woman that lives outside of the village, near or into the woods, the one who holds power over love, healing, divination and the weather... As such in fairytales she is the monster to fight and avoid, as much as the magical woman that will help the hero in his fight against a supernatural power, guide a lost traveller, or assist a woman with a tragic love story.

Ferent's article covers a wide range of sources and domains, as a testimony of the Baba Cloantza's huge presence in Romanian culture. The works of Vasile Alecsandri, where she is a prophet, a healer and a demon ; the ones of George Coşbuc where she is a leftover of an ancient Dacian goddess ; the modern, caricatural, buffoon-like depictions of Tudor Arghezi and Gelu Vlaşin ; and finally the great and iconic fairytale collections of Romania, those of Petre Ispirescu and Ion Creange, where the Baba Cloantza is a needed element within the hero's initiation and journey into the world/otherworld...

Given there is a lot of info, I will put this under a cut.

Simona Ferent identifies seven "faces" or seven "aspects" of the figure of the Baba Cloantza.

First, the Cloantza as the "village's oracle". In 1843, Vasile Alecsandri created a poem called "Kraiu-Nou" taking inspiration from the folktales surrounding the Sburător, a night-haunting supernatural entity embodying the "malevolent seduction", a sort of vampire preying upon sleeping women. This works depicts a countryside dominated by the moon - the "Kraiu-Nou" itself corresponds to the first phase of the moon, which is the most effective moment to formulate wishes (especially love wishes). The story describes Zamfira, which is a Romantic incarnation of the "beautiful, virgin, Romanian peasant girl", whi makes her own love wishes to the moon and becomes the prey of the Sburător. In this story, Baba Cloantza appears as a wise-woman who warns the girl of the danger that threatens her. She performs a divination ritual by looking into forty-one grains of corn, and by doing so she tells him she must flee a beautiful stranger with a soft voice (the vampire). [The poem notably opposes the frightful prediction of the baba with the predictions of the "wise men" and elders of the village who said Zamfira would have a happy life] The Cloantza even appears on a sort of mount that later turns out to be the very grave of the vampire... But despite all those warnings, Zamfira follows the eroticism and charms of the mysterious "lover of the shadows", who ends up stealing her life-force... Here Baba Cloantza is still the "old woman at the limit of the village", the physical margin of the community, and her role as an oracle highlights her ambiguity as the one who warns of the danger, but seems to cause it, since her prophecy is self-fulfilling. She is the first to mention the vampire before it appears, and she sits on what seems to be its grave... She tries to scare the girl away from the monster, but the way she describes him makes him appear seducing and conjures up the first fantasies of romance within Zamfira. As such, the baba Cloantza warns the girl of her doom... while throwing her (accidentaly?) in the arms of her killer. (There is also a whole thing to say about how the first crescent of the moon is strongly associated with the manifestation of ghosts and the apparition of malevolent beings ; and how the baba Cloantza embodies here an archetypal fear and archaic warning of sexuality, that the vampire embodies, as the one who preys upon the pure virgin girl...)

Second, the Cloantza as the "healer". In the folk-poem "Burueana de leac" ("the weed that heals"), we have a traditional depiction of the peasant man adressing a prayer/request to the village baba - in this case, we have the story of a man in love in such a desperate way he is ready to curse. The man, overtaken by a desire that strongly looks like a demonic possession (there are motifs of the extinguished sun , and the grave calling for the man), calls for the "mama Ileana", the only one able to "put out the fire" of his heart. The folklorist Alecsdandri explained that "mother Ileana" is another name for the "village baba" - more specifically it is the name of the healer of Romanian villages, who uses both plants and magical words, and bases her craft on the various times of the folk-calendar which mixes Christian celebrations with pagan feasts. This is all the ambiguity of this specific baba. On one side she refers to the Christian religiousness: she uses religious icons, the village's church, she sings in honor of the Virgin Mary or of God... On the other, her rituals are distinctively pagan: she uses flowers and weeds, she carries a supposedly magical water, her incantations are said to be "witchcraft" and she uses wands made of hazel-tree...

Third, the Cloantza as a caricature. The Romanian poets heavily relied on the figure of baba as the "village healer" - Tudor Arghezi depicted in 1948 a baba performing miracles within her village - said to know the spells of love that unite or separate lovers, as well as the remedies for various aches (from tooth-aches to heart-aches). But the portrait he makes of her is a caricature of a witch: she is a hunchback, who heals everybody with "two coal pellets and three lies", and refuses her services to the poor (due to being a greedy woman). This is no mistake that the poet makes "miracle" (minuni) rhyme with "minciuni", "lie". This baba is a scam. If we move to Gelu Vlaşin, we see baba Cloantza as an hallucination, or a psychological projection. The poet is half-drunk half-delirious, he wants to pay prostitutes but is too poor, so he goes looking for the "baba cloantza" so she can cast a "spell of wealth" onto him. And she appears in a middle of a series of very revealing symbols (dwarfs, circuses, prostitutes, spiders), in what the poet ultimately describes as a "fairytale for morons".

Ferent notably studies here a "variation" of the baba Cloantza, called the Baba Hârca. The Baba Hârca is a folktale character, an old witch who lives alone in a cavern within the depths of the woods, because she is afraid of humans, and who typically uses skulls (human or animal) for her magic rituals. "hârca" is a depreciative term for an old woman, an ugly woman or a wicked woman (or all three at once) - but it also means "skull", hence why the witch uses them to perform her spell. In the fairytales collected by Romanian folklorists we see that Baba Cloantza and Baba Hârca often appear as synonymous, in fact the two names can be used alternatively within a same fairytale. And in a Romanian "small-opera" of Romania created in 1848, by Matei Millo and Alexandru Flechtenmacher, it is under this name that the witch appears. "Baba Hârca, a small opera of witchcraft in two acts and three tableaux". Here the Hârca is actually a comical character appearing as a caricature of a gypsy woman, as well as a transvestite role (since the witch is played by Matei Millo himself).

Fourth, the Cloantza as a "ritualistic sorceress". Ferent reminds her reader that most of what we know of the Baba Cloantza has been "degraded" because it went through the literary imagination of a pastoral world disappeared (by authors who sang in a Romantic way the countryside of old), and through the prism of fairytales simplified for children - but she also reminds the reader of how the Romanian folklorists (such as Alecsdandri in his collect of "Cucul si Turturica") tried to identified the older roots of the folk-beliefs and superstitions. For example, in "Cucul si Turturica", the dialogue between the "cucul", the "cuckoo", a mysterious-dangerous bird son of a wicked witch, and the "turturica", the turtledove, the symbol of angelical love, we see a transcription of rural witchcraft. The "baba" preserved throughout the many proverbs of Romanian language is a supernatural entity within the village, a witch tied to the world of the demons. Baba Cloantza is recognized as different from regular human beings, but still accepted within the system of the community - because the witch is the intermediary between the living and the otherworld, and the catalyst of magical rituals. The baba, as the talented healer, "takes the ill upon her" - she is the mouth, as we saw, but the mouth that "sucks up" the evils to expel them in a symbolical way. The ritual is a manifestation of this "devouring" of the bad things, with an insistance on the power within the baba's words. The Cloantza, the "toothless", performs her magical as a ritualistic digestion (at least according to Ferent): she literaly feeds of the fears of the peasants, and uses as a magical "substance" her very words. This is why, while reflecting a distant, archaic form of hedonism and animism, the character of the baba always causes fear and fatalism... Let's return to the dialogue. The cuckoo is a playful, mischievious, jovial spirit who sings his desire and his determination, and will use the not-so-moral means his witch-mother taught him to seduce and have sex with the one he wants. Here, the malevolent influence of the Cloanta in romance becomes the game ; but a game of seduction filled with dangers, as symbolized by the objects the babas use. When a baba must bewitch a young man, she uses the bones of a bat trapped on Christmas Eve and buried alive in an anthill. With these bones, the Cloantza makes a hook to "hook" the heart of the one we want, and a small shovel to keep away those that are unloved.

Most of the powers of the baba seem to be tied to the element of water. The witch uses the water of rivers ; she can control the rain ; she uses holy water to cast spells, or she uses a "virgin water", "untouched water" (a term for enchanted water). Other elements can be used in baba rituals (the hazel-tree wand, the corn grains, the traditional "batic", the scarf around a peasant woman's head), and all they all call forward the society of the countryside, the world of the peasants where any everyday item can be filled with magic. Ferent reminds here of the importance of the communion with nature in the Romanian countryside. The peasant can sing a "doïna", a melancholic song, to his "spirit-brother", which can be a tree, a flower, a bird, an animal or the entire forest. All sorts of magical beings fill the countryside, such as the ielele (the "sirens of the woods") that inhabit hills and mountains. And if a young man is not careful when walking among the plains or choosing his travel-staff... he might get bewitched by the voice of a Cloantza, wandering forever, or snatched away in the sky "like an arrow flying". Only a knife stuck into the ground can break the spell of wandering.... Ferent also heavily insists upon the importance of recitation in spells: the baba always uses the "descântec", a form of invocation whose name means "a word, sung or recited, which can bewitch or break a spell". We have preserved a lot of these incantations, which were created for many various situations - there was a spell to heal snake-bites, there was another for people who feared to be alone... Or rather the fear of the "urât", a term quite difficult to translate, which literaly means "ugly", but explains a form of anguish towards the idea of being abandoned, mixed to a fear of the "other". Ferent proposes the idea of being "alone in a haunted house": that's the urât. To return to Baba Cloantza: she embodies all of the traits that were given to the village witch. Like them, she was here to offer magical solutions and answers to the very real needs and fears of the peasants.

Fifth, the Cloantza as the "shapeshifting female". The baba is also a manifestation of the archetype of the "Dreaded Mother" and the "Witch-Goddess" (or "Dreaded Goddess/Witch Mother ; or Mother Goddess and Dreaded Witch, however you like to arrange things). [Ferent highlights how there's always a multi-faced archetype of the "female", such as how the witch at the same time recalls ancient figures of priestesses or women initiated to the secrets of nature, and mythological characters such as Gaia, Maia, Circe, Demeter, Isis or Lilith]. The baba Cloantza is what happens when the "supreme female principle" becomes uncanny. For example, a recurring element in folk-mythology is that the baba can give birth to extraordinary physical beings. George Cosbuc, in "Atque nos!", reminds how the baba is the mother of a young man who was said to grow "in one year as much as others did in ten". George Cosbuc notably wrote texts celebrating the "magico-religious alchemy" that give birth in Romania to a rich gallery of female mythical beings: the baba Dochia (with probably Dacian origins), the Mama-Noptii (Mother of Night) surrounded by vampire-being, as well as the female Saints Tuesday, Friday, Wednesday and Thursday (described as pagan phantasm born of a Christianization of the deities of the Greco-Roman pantheon that were Mars, Zeus, Venus and Mercury). In fairytales, the baba usually appears as the embodiment of a wild elemental power.

The writer Ion Creangă, in the famous fairytale "Povestea porcului" (The tale of the pig), fragments the "baba" in three steps. First, she is the elderly peasant-woman who, despaired by her own sterility, adopts a pig she raises as a son (and will turn out to be a Prince Charming under a curse). Second, she is the Three Saints (Saint Wednesday, Saint Friday and Saint Sunday), three witches that will guide the heroine in her initiation-journey to find back her husband (the pig/prince she lost by throwing his pig-skin/pig-disguise into the fire). In a third time, the baba is "baba Cloantza the Toothless", the hag that keeps the prince her prisoner with malevolent powers. The pig-prince-hero not only will manage to outwit the Cloantza and find back his beloved, he will also free her from the spell that prevented her from givng birth (a four-year spell!). This story is haunted by the idea of the "cursed procreation", declined in three aspects. 1) the sterility of the old woman 2) the spell that prevents the heroine from giving birth to the child she is pregnant with 3) the idea of giving birth to a demon. When the pregnant heroine travels to the baba Cloantza's domain, she goes through a hellish-landscape filled with dragons and 24-headed otters, but especially in a world ruled by greed, cunning and wickedness. Here the wicked witch is formed as the antithesis of the naive young princess. The fairytale calls baba Cloantza "Hârca" (the name is invoked when the narration insists upon her old age, her crooked mind, and ugliness), but it also gives her the name Talpa Iadului (The Mole of the Devil). And the Mole of the Devil is actually one of the most evil beings of Romanian mythology, because it was believed to be the mother of all the demons, and renowned for its intelligence and treacherous nature. In the end of the fairytale, the Toothless baba/Skull/Mole of the Devil ends up punished by being tied to the tail of a horse - bringing back the comical and extravagant tone that opened the fairytale, and prevents it from falling into too much darkness.

But this structure of the youngest daughter of a king undergoing an initiation journey can be found in many fairytales. Petre Ispirescu, a great fan of Romanian folklore, published in 1676 "Porcul cel Fermecat" (The bewitched pig), a story that his own mother had told him, and that reuses the antithesis of the Baba Cloantza (here, a mother of dragons) with a young women (who discovers against her will the magical powers and the devious tricks of the witch). In this fairytale, the baba embodies a trial of Fate that the heroine must overcome to reach happiness (symbolized by a wedding out of love). The story tells the story of the youngest daughter of a king who, following her two older sisters, enters a room of the castle his father had forbidden her to go into. The princesses discover there an oracle-book which predicts royal weddings for the older sisters, a wedding with a pig for the third. The prophecy will come true and the princess is forced to leave her house to follow a pig, with a human voice so beautiful everybody suspects a spell is at work. The princess comes to love her strange husband, who removes his pig skin every night to become a man, but right as she was getting used to her new life she meets baba Cloantza who tells her she can break the spell by tying up her husband to the bed with a magical rope. Trusting the hag, the young bride uses the rope, but it breaks and her husband disappears - but not without telling her that, had she not obeyed the witch, he would have been set free from his curse in three days. The young wife, her newborn child in her arms, undergoes a quest to find her husband. Throughout hostile lands she obtains the advice and gifts of 1) the Moon and her sisters 2) the mother of the Sun and 3) the mother of the Wind. Arriving at the house of the cursed prince, the girl proves her intelligence and determination by making a ladder out of the magical chicken bones the three supernatural women gave her, and even cuts her own little finger to complete it. When she finds back her husband, he reveals her the full truth, and how his curse was caused by the Cloantza, because he had killed a dragon that was the baba's son. As we can see with all those stories, the idea is the same: to obtain her happy end and eternal bliss, the young woman must journey through a desert that symbolizes a journey outside of the real world ; the strange journey always begins with the girl breaking the law imposed by the father, and each time the baba Cloantza appears as the embodiment of the crime the girl must expiate/the evil she must vanquish.

Petre Ispirescu also depicted the baba Cloantza as the mother of a dragon in another fairytale, where the prince must kill it to free an enslaved princess. In this fairytale called "Poveste Taraneasca", "Peasant tale", the character of the Cloantza lives within a hellish world, with her courtyard surrounded by impaled human heads. In this tale, the Cloantza shows a trait that makes her close to the vodou sorcerers: she gains her strength and her immortality by swallowing, or rather "drinking", spirits that she keeps locked up in a barrel. By extension, we see that in this tale, the main threat of the story are the various vampires that live within her domain, and who try to steal away the soul of the old king.

Sixth, the Cloantza as the "devilish witch". An old proverb of Romania recalled by Alecsandri says "Baba-i calul dracului". Literaly "the Baba is the horse of the devil". Literary: "Old witch, bearer of Satan!". This proverb notably opens a poem of Alescandri called "Baba Cloantza" and written in 1842 - a folklore-inspired work that Alecsandri considered one of his best improvisations. In this text, the baba is reconstructed in the style of a Shakespearian witch. The Cloantza appears mad with lust for a beautiful young boy. The poem drifts into an infernal rural night, where malevolent ghosts fill the night-clouds, and snakes slither among the flowers of bewitched ponds. In this perverse Eden, under a "pale and blond moon", the Cloantza invokes several demons while threatening the young man with the worst torments if he ever resists to her charms. However, when the demons fail to perform their deed, the old Cloantza uses Satan himself, and offers him her soul without thinking about the consequences. The deal with the devil makes her act in a way that recalls a possession or insanity (running around, jumping, flying in the sky, screaming exorcism rituals). The "mad Kloantza", surrounded by the "thousand infernal spirits", fails to notice the laugh in the woods that announces her doom. Right as she arrives "two steps" away from her beloved, the Cloantaza's dream becomes a nightmare: the rooster's chant wakes up the village-folks, the ghosts of the night fade away, and we conclude on an aquatic final scene: Satan snatches his prey, the baba, and the two jump away into the depths of the pond... Nature returns to a seren and calm state, but the danger is not gone, because the poem adds that a "melancholic voice" can still be heard by the pond, calling and seducing the men that walk near it late in the evening, promising them to protect them "by my exorcisms of the evil eye, of cruel fate and snake bites." Critics have pointed out a dual reading of the poem. On one side, it is the epic depictions of an unhealthy love, the inappropriate passion of an elderly woman for a woman, doubled by the fairytale figures of the wicked witch in love with the Prince Charming ; on the other side, there is an humoristic reading of the poem as a display of petty feuds, vain quarrels annoying demands and bothersome requests. As such, the baba's original duality returns: a devilish character, and a spirit of mischief.

Seventh, the Cloantza as "the avatar of Death". In a very old folk-song of Romania, "Holera" (Cholera, collected by Alecsandri in 1853), the Cloantza appears with the imagery of the Roman Furies, with snakes in her hair. We find back around the witch another syncretism of Christianity and paganism, mixing the Furies of Ancient Rome with the vengeful angels of the Bible: wild hair, a dry skin, a "venomous" body, a sword of fire in one hand... Here, the Cloantza is the embodiment of death. More precisely, she represents the deadly disease of the cholera that appears on the path of the carefree and joyful young man Vâlcu. No negociation is possible: the Cloantza is a Grim Reaper. In fact, in the song she is exclusively referred to as "cloantza", the term "baba" disappears, removing any form of humanity.

In conclusion, Baba Cloantza throughout the Romanian folktales is a multi-faced, multi-voiced entity. She is the baba that heals or mutilates, she is the old woman that makes people cry or laugh. She is an oracle who sometimes has to work to make sure her prophecies come true. And Ferent concludes that somehow, the baba Cloantza acts as a double of the storyteller itself, as an entity that represents the "power of fiction". Because one of the main powers of the Cloantza is to turn the fears and anxieties of those that seek her into prophecies - aka into tales that will orientate the person's mind towards the future and force them to think about their own role in the world. The storyteller lacks a "real" power, and as such is as "toothless" as the Cloantza, but they still are the owner of a form of magic - a magic of illusions that can nourish or poison. As such, when the storyteller describes the baba, somehow they are describing themselves, presenting their own self within their fictional world. And as such, the baba kept evolving and changing throughout the centuries, going from a mystical therapeutic character in ancient days to a subversive but harmless entity in contemporary fiction.

#romanian mythology #romanian fairytales #romanian folklore #baba cloanta #baba cloantza #romanian legends #romanian literature #romanian witches #legendary witches #fairytale witches #baba yaga #witch

[mihrsuri]

How old was Thomas Cromwell when he married Liz Wykes and had Gregory? Did Liz ever know about Norwich?

(with the caveat that I have done some handwavey magic math to make this work and also that I’m still figuring out this part of the backstory).

He was fifteen, she was sixteen and it was very much a whirlwind love and first sight thing going on (I really do know though that if Liz had lived it would have been one of those beautiful loving marriages) - partly they were able to be married because (a) Thomas got befriended by the son of a Florentine Banker (prominent) and (b) Liz’s parents saw he was bright/promising etc and (c) Liz was entirely capable of just Getting Married Regardless (Liz very much was the one to kiss him/equivalent of going ‘is anyone going to put a ring on the hot boy with dark curls?’ and not waiting for an answer.

I think he told her the story, maybe because he got triggered by something. Maybe before they married because he felt he was too tainted to be married and she was like ‘FUCK THAT FUCK HIM I’LL KILL HIM MYSELF’

(In universe historically it’s not known if she knew - mostly because Thomas’ first marriage is kind of not a huge topic of study - pre reveal mostly people focused on his career in England rather than Florence because that’s when the records really start - so they know he was in Florence in the household of [probably a Medici] and they know he was married and had three children but there’s very little else).

(Maya’s work may in fact include having found that Liz Wykes could both read and write - possibly in at least two languages - because there’s a record somewhere of her having signed contracts/replied to a letter and that letter/some of Thomas and Gregory’s papers is where we get a sense of her but they were both very private about their feelings).

#ot3: political power trio #lil and her ridiculous aus #fic #tudors ot3 verse reference #thinking about it like they are the teenage couple who make it #they would have been just as in love in their 90s as they were when they first met #(the ot4 potential though) #there���s a historian somewhere in universe who goes hunting down information in Florence (Liz was in this case born there) and in England

[acosmicblizzard]

Hello hello? How's your day going? I will also participate in un-desolating the inbox-

I had this idea and I hope that you would like it!

Survivor Luchino with also a Survivor S/O that is also was bitten by some creature! Let it be scorpion, I love them-

And, like, they bond because of it, science buddies!

I realised that they May be like "same hat!!" meme-

Take your time to write it and feel free to decline! Have a nice day, don't forget to stay healthy and hydrated!

Hello there! Thank you for the requests and efforts to un-desolating my inbox! Hope you enjoy!

Luchino with a Scorpion like Survivor S/O

Warnings: Possible ooc, mentions of scorpions and reptiles

Story type: Fluff

Pairings/Characters: Luchino Diruse x reader

At your first arrival to the manor Luchino was incredibly curious about you, you looked completely human other then the strange scorpion like features you had, some covered by articles such as clothing or hats, some not. For awhile the scientist observed you from afar and didn't directly confront you, plus he was focused on researching his own reptiles in his lab so he didn't have much extra time.

It's equivalent to the spiderman meme whenever you first see Luchino in the manor with your own eyes, you immediately being drawn to him due to his similar features to you despite being influenced by different animals. Luchino is pretty solitary and doesn't really talk to others within the manor unless someone approaches him first. So you'd have to be the one to strike up a conversation.

After awhile of chatting with the professor you two seemingly instantly hit it off and became each others designated science buddies. It doesn't really matter if you understand a lot of what Luchino is trying to explain to you or not as he works on studying more about his reptilian friends, Luchinos just happy that theres someone that will listen onto his rambling about his research.

Once you do get into a relationship with this loveable part lizard man you basically get constant access to his lab and you're practically the only person he'll pause his research for unless it's a emergency, anyone else though for any other situation he's most likely ignoring.

Due to being in a relationship with you Luchino feels more comfortable about asking about your scorpion like features, wondering if it was similar to his. Do the mutations increase your speed? Do they increase your senses? Do you have a sort of poison like most scorpions do? The man is completely curious of you and wants to know more, even willing to shift his research away from lizards for awhile to focus on scorpions. That's when you know the man is dedicated to figuring all of this out cause this man has been studying reptiles his entire life.

If you two were to get into a match together he wouldn't even be decoding, he would be studying you to see if theres any scorpion like traits that show up in the match, carrying a notepad with him to jot down every interesting thing he finds. You eventually have to get him to stop and just straight up tell him that you can display your abilities to him in his lab.

Most days end with the two of you dosing off in his lab, your head situated on his chest hearing his heartbeat. Scorpions are known to be heartless hunters, but maybe even they can be pacified with just the right person beside them.

#idv #identity v #idv headcanons #identity v headcanons #idv x reader #identity v x reader #idv scenarios #identity v scenarios #cosmics inbox #idv luchino #idv luchino diruse #idv luchino x reader #identity v luchino #identity v luchino x reader #luchino x reader #luchino diruse #luchino idv #idv professor #identity v professor #idv professor x reader #identity v professor x reader

[waffletimeart]

SPLATOON OC ASKS ARE OPEN!

Because I have brainrot and am writing a big ol’ OC story, I’ve decided to open up asks for any of my characters! Below will be some rules for asks, and under the cut will be brief descriptions of all the characters available for questions, because I don’t expect anyone to remember all of them or go scrolling through all my posts to figure out who is who.

This will be updated if/when I create more OCs and their references are posted.

RULES:

* You can ask them any questions, give them things, dare them, and other stuff!

* Please specify if you are asking a certain character(s), so I don’t get confused on who to have answer. If I’m not sure who it’s meant for, it’ll likely go unanswered.

* The only things I won’t allow are NSFW questions. As a general rule, if you wouldn’t ask a person irl about this/to do this, don’t ask them. If it's really bad, you might end up blocked.

* If you have questions about my characters/story meant for me, you can ask those as well! Please just specify if it’s a question for me! Please note that questions for me will likely be answered before questions for characters, as I plan to draw characters' answers.

All asks take place after the story mode of Splatoon 3!

CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS (in order of left to right, top to bottom)

Katrina: red haired Inkling. Big of heart, dumb of ass. Loves fried food. Usually gets herself injured in stupid ways doing stupid things. Agent 4 of the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Older sister of Rook, and best friends with Neil, Lora, and Hydra. Queer platonic partner of Capri.

Neil: teal haired Inkling. Stoic and serious. Keeps Katrina in check (while arguing with her all the while). Always dragged into doing Katrina’s stupid ideas. Best friends with Katrina, Lora, and Hydra. Agent 5 of the New Squidbeak Splatoon.

Waffles: yellow and purple haired Inkling. A fun-loving and naive kid who probably shouldn’t be allowed to participate in Turf War but does so anyways. Will befriend you (threat). The younger brother of Pancakes, and friend of Hydra.

Lora: purple haired Octoling. Aspiring fashionista and the median for Neil and Katrina. Sweetest person you’ll ever meet, but also a bit harshly sisterly. Former Octarian army soldier turned spy and Agent 6 of the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Best friends with Katrina, Neil and Hydra.

Pancakes: yellow and purple haired Inkling. Seemingly untrusting and cold, but actually a big softie who just doesn’t really understand how to express his emotions. Giant tactician nerd who rigorously studies Turf War maps. Older brother of Waffles, and boyfriend of Hydra.

Capri: orange haired Inkling. Seemingly stoic and serious, but really they’re just tired. Secretly mischievous and silly. Probably watches whatever the Splatoon equivalent of TikTok is all day. Former Agent 3 and Captain of the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Queer platonic partner of Katrina. Friends with Neil, Lora, Hydra, and Harper.

Hydra: (he belongs to @austin-the-creechur, but as he’s very important to my character’s stories, he is available for questions!) cyan haired Octoling. Loud, extroverted, and confrontational, but has a heart of gold. Loyal friend and anarchist. Raised in the Splatlands. Has a Smallfry companion lovingly named “Little Buddy”. Agent 3.0 of the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Best friends with Katrina, Neil, and Lora. Friends with Waffles and Rudy. Romantic partner of Pancakes.

Egg: light orange haired cephalopod. A formerly fuzzified cephalopod, who was rescued by the New Squidbeak Splatoon and later cured. Shy and timid, but tries to be friendly and will probably do anything you ask without questioning it. Friends with Capri, Katrina, Neil, Lora, and Hydra.

Rook: red haired Inkling. Raised by the Salmonids before being reunited with her older sister Katrina, and now resides in Splatsville with her Smallfry friend, Puck. Local "I-lived-under-a-rock" who doesn’t understand inkfish culture. Takes everything too seriously, but is trying to be a little more lax, as per requested by her sister. Friends with Neil, Lora, and Hydra.

Kouser: light yellow haired Inkling. Lives in the desert of the Splatlands that surrounds Splatsville. Another person who doesn’t understand Splatsville culture. Runs on a “dog eat dog world” mentality, and regularly mugs people for food and money. Self conscious about their scar. Has history with Hydra.

Harper: blue haired Octoling. Sassy lil bitch with a talent for rap and music. Will do what she believes is right until the bitter end, and will fight for it too. Cares deeply for her friends and loves doing things with other people. Hates being alone. Throws herself into risky situations without thinking first. DJs for a job as DJ D33P-C. Has seen The Horrors. Agent 8 of the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Friends with Capri, Katrina, Lora, and Neil.

Rudy: teal and pink haired Octoling. Part of a motorbike gang. Sassy and rude to everyone, including her friends, but is only joking towards people she actually likes. Holds grudges like her life depends on it. Fiercely protective of her friends, and is not afraid to throw hands at anything. Friends with Hydra.

Chipper: orange haired Octoling. Runs a restaurant named Aloha Eats, which Katrina is a regular of. Uses various Salmonid ingredients in her food, collected by striking a deal with and working at Grizzco occasionally. Technically doesn’t have a license for it, but can provide ability-boosting food and beverages.

#feel free to reblog this! #splatoon #splatoon oc #waffles splatoon ocs #splatoon 3 #splatoon art #splatoon fanart #splatoon 2 #octoling #salmonid #inkling #oc ask #oc ask blog #ask ocs #splatoon ask blog

[stealingyourbones]

Bones, get my other kneecap, I can let the family have that.

Groundhog day type of time loops happens when a minor event gets the time stream a little bit "muddied", not enough to bring the darkest timeline, but bad enough that the future would be mildly inconvenient. They manifest on Clockwork as hiccups.

What would be an inconvenient situation, that has to be relived for many loops, would be the most interesting to be setting of a story like that? What could be trigger to end it?

For me, it could Jack going to the DMV and trying to successfully renew his driver's license.

(Groundhog day is an old movie, so in case anyone doesn't know, a dude has to relive a specific day, and whenever he sleeps or dies, he wakes up in the morning of the same day, he spends the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of years reliving the same day, remembering everything. And believe it or not, this movie is considered to be a comedy)

ooooo there are SO many interesting situations that are minor and could be used to create an interesting story...

Could be an interesting 5 + 1 fic situation. people just go through really minor situations over and over and then the one time that they realize wth is going on or one time that it's a BIG reason the time loop is occurring.

Dick got the wrong coffee order on his way to work in BCPD.

Flash vibrated his molecules in the wrong way

Jason stopped at a red light

Connor listened into the wrong convo while flying around Metropolis

Bruce simply woke up at the wrong time

Danny kicking a pebble that he wasn't supposed to on his way to school

Jazz sitting down to study for a test and writing something down that she shouldn'tve

They all could have solvable reasons for fixing it. Possibly just figuring out the "Right" way to do said action, Fighting a Big Bad or finding a Magic User/Ghost that can fix the issue, or simply that there is no real way to fix it. It just fixes itself on a random loop with no explanation. The curiosity and wondering why the loop didn't end on that specific iteration would haunt them forever.

#oh i am a hoe for Groundhog day loop AU's #danny phantom #dp x dc #dc comics #writing prompts #dpxdc #dp x dc prompt #bones replies #metaldog564

[magicspace114]

Bird in the wrong nest

Writing this story from this post. Basically a continuation but in third person now and they have a name.

Part 1 | Part 2

Syd skipped a lot of classes. Teachers didn't even bother to look for them anymore. It wasn't like they could do anything in those classes anyway. They couldn't turn into an animal or cast spells. Even things they didn't think they'd need magic for like potion brewing failed when they tried. That was just the witch equivalent of home economics!

Anything they were ever interested in was in a book in the library anyway and they didn't have to worry about bullies there. They usually stayed there until Ida got out of her classes. She knew to meet Syd there.

"Did you go to any classes today?" Ida asked as her familiar jumped from her shoulders to perch on theirs.

"I went to potion brewing," Syd said, nearly shrugging before remembering Balthazar.

"Make anyone's pot flair up?" She grinned.

"Hey, we still don't know if that's me, ok? There's no proof. These could be coincidences."

"You know, my father had a saying about those."

"Oh what? Three's a pattern?"

"No. He doesn't believe in coincidences. He said 'coincidences are excuses'" She rolled her eyes, clearly not sharing the sentiment. "You ever thought we should figure out what you are?"

"Sounds like a lot of existential soul searching that I don't want to do," Syd rolled their eyes.

"Look, if we know what you are, we can help with your magic flares. No magic flares will get the principle off your back."

"That bitch hasn't come near me since I broke every light bulb in the north side of the school."

"Syd, I'm trying to help you here."

"Well don't." Syd said a lot more forcefully. Their eyes glared into Ida's soul. They saw the tinge of fear that snuck into Ida's features before it could be carefully hidden. Syd sighed, "I just want to at least pretend that I'm normal for a bit longer, ok? I hate all of this." They sat down on a chair in the library.

Ida sat down beside Syd, leaning her whole head on their shoulder. Balthazar bat her face with his paw, making Syd laugh at the competition for their shoulder.

"How about we go back to my dorm and order pizza. You can help me study for this duel that's coming up." Ida blinked innocently at Syd, grinning widely.

Syd caved. "Fine. But I'm not participating in your stupid full moon rituals again."

~

"I hate you." Syd stared down at the bowl they were carrying. The night left a chill that clawed its way through their jacket and into their bones. They just sat there pouting as Ida piled more ingredients into the bowl.

Syd recognised a few from potion class but they had no idea what they did or even what this spell was. Ida never really explained it all that much.

"Oh don't be like that, you know I need to do these rituals every full moon."

"No, I don't. Can't you just skip one? Literally no one else in the school does these." Syd huffed.

"Because they all have their own deities. Celeste is very particular about her followers. I must do these every full moon and never have a lover."

"Why does she get a say in your personal life? Like, as long as you worship her, it shouldn't matter how you conduct yourself outside of worship."

"She's the one with the power here, Syd."

"Can't you just get a new deity?"

"If I was a regular witch, probably."

"What do you mean a regular witch?"

"Later. The moon's at its peak now." Ida took the bowl off Syd, lighting the contents up and sitting down in the grass, cross legged. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and centring herself like Syd had seen her do on a few full moons now.

Syd sat down beside her, keeping an eye on her. While the blood from the nose was only the one time, Syd was still very cautious about this practise. They stared for a while, their friend unmoving in the moonlight.

Balthazar was very still also. Though not participating, he sat upright next to the bowl, tail swishing from side to side. He usually watched over his witch too but something in his stiff posture made Syd nervous.

Did it usually take this long?

This ritual never lasted more than a few minutes, practically a prayer with extra steps. The minutes ticked on and the moon started moving off. Balthazar made no moves yet so perhaps this was just a longer prayer than usual.

Thirty minutes went by.

By now, Syd and Balthazar were looking between each other, both fidgeting in their own way but staying sat beside the witch. The Moon was no longer at its peak. There was no movement from Ida, no blood or convulsions.

Somehow, the remnants in the bowl was still on fire despite no extra fuel being added. Balthazar's front paw pat the ground near it, ready to tip it over at the first sign of trouble. Syd had been fiddling with the dirt around them, practically waiting to throw it into the bowl.

One hour later.

"We have to stop this now, right? This is way too long." Syd broke the silence between them. Balthazar just meowed quietly, looking at Ida but still not calling it quits on the ritual. Would she really get in so much trouble by hanging up on her goddess?

The first movement from Ida in over an hour and a half came in the form of silent tears sliding down her face. A small whine scraped up her throat as her eyes squeezed where they were shut.

"Ida?" Syd dropped the dirt in their hands, taking Ida's shoulders but not shaking her. "Can you hear me?"

No reply.

Syd looked at Balthazar and he stood up, pacing side to side. He only knocked the pot over after the pair of them were deafened by a high pitched scream that came from Ida's mouth. It pierced the silent forest surrounding them, startling a few nearby animals and a couple birds flew out of the trees into the night air.

The moon hid behind clouds and Ida continued screaming even after Syd and Balthazar put out the flame. The only thing that changed after the flames died down was that Ida started fighting with the air around her, hands clawing at nothing. Her eyes never opened.

"Ida! Ida! It's ok! You're fine. It's Syd, it's Syd! Easy, you're ok." Syd took her clawing arms, pulling her into their chest.

Ida still struggled, fingers outstretched like claws, fighting with everything to get out of Syd's hold. Her nails dragged down Syd's clothed arms, digging into any exposed skin she could feel as she continued to fight blindly.

Balthazar meowed loudly to get the witch's attention too but Syd just continued to hold on, waiting for Ida's fight to drain. They caught a sharp nail to the face, scratches drawing pinpricks of blood on their cheek but they continued to speak, voice quieting.

"You're safe, you're safe, I'm here. Both me and Balt are here. You're ok. Please just open your eyes, please." Syd wasn't even paying attention to what they said, just pleading with anything to get Ida to wake up.

Ida didn't do that. Her fight did eventually drain and she just sobbed. She broke down into incomprehensible babbling, some mixture of apologies and pleas. Eventually she tired of that too, going limp in Syd's arms and falling silent.

Syd continued to hug, their body trembling after such a violent reaction from their friend. The screaming left their ears ringing in the resulting silence and they felt weak for a brief moment of stillness. It wasn't until Balthazar meowed again that they snapped out of their shock, still hugging their friend to look at him.

"What just happened?" They whispered.

Balthazar's silence spoke volumes as he stared back with wide eyes, ears pointed back as his tail swished more.

Syd looked down at Ida, the witch was completely out of it and even trying to shake her awake proved ineffective. "W-we... we should take her back to her dorm, right? She should maybe sleep this off. Maybe she'll be better in the morning?" They looked at Balthazar who simply nodded, blinking slowly and nudging Syd's hand with the side of his face.

He turned back to the bowl that was completely forgotten about. Syd put the bowl in Ida's lap before hauling her up into a bridal carry and turning back to the path they took into the forest. With the moon hiding behind clouds, it was dark and a long way back with such a weight.

Balthazar padded out in front of Syd, shaking his coat out as he walked. Small bubbles of light seemed to shake off the ends of his fur as he did, lighting the way for Syd to walk back to the school. Syd groaned as already their arms ached in protest but it was their only way back and the night was growing chilly with the wind picking up.

Balthazar led the way though the forest, the light from his coat picked out eyes in the foliage. Syd watched them carefully, deeming them to be just some animals like deer or rabbits. They could never be too careful of the fauna in this woods, especially so close to a school for magic and monster.

Breaking out of the treeline, Balthazar bolted for the dorm building, jumping as best he could at the handle but the door was heavy. Despite his efforts, Syd was the one who had to push down on the handle with their elbow and push against the weight.

They adjusted their grip, jostling Ida a little but the witch showed no signs of waking up. Even being put down on the stairway so Syd could rest their arms briefly, Ida did not stir.

Balthazar meowed from the landing above Syd. They sighed, "I know, I'm coming. Just give me a second." Syd picked Ida up again and trudged up the stairs, growing more and more out of breath the longer they had to keep going.

Eventually, Balthazar jumped up on the handle to Ida's dorm and the door swung open. Syd dropped Ida down on her bed a little too rough for Balthazar's liking, the cat giving a scolding meow with his ears pointed back.

"I didn't see you carrying her up two flights of stairs," Syd breathed out. They eventually settled beside the bed, pushing some hair out of Ida's face as they pulled her shoes off her feet and held her wrist, feeling for her pulse. Balthazar jumped up onto the bed beside her. "She's going to be ok, right Balt?"

Balthazar blinked slowly, rubbing his chin over Syd's hand before settling down next to Ida on her pillow. He meowed loudly when Syd stood up, walking towards the door.

"I'm not going anywhere, Balt. Just closing the door so no draft gets in." Syd called back, closing the wide open door and heading into Ida's bathroom, filling a glass at the sink and coming back to place it on her bedside table.

Syd sat back down on a chair next to the bed, wiping a couple tears that had started to dry on Ida's face. They left one hand on one of Ida's wrist, keeping focus on Ida's settling pulse. The pulse was slow now but not threateningly slow. If it stayed at this pace, she'd be fine. Syd would monitor her through the night.

#writing #creative writing #fantasy oc #fantasy character #fantasy #writers

[adrianasunderworld]

Asha x Falena headcanons

Some stuff about the royal couple 👑

They're the classic childhood friends to lovers. Have known each other all their lives. Their mothers had always wanted to arrange for them to marry but never put it to paper or really brought the matter up till they were much older. As a result they grew up very close.

When Asha was away attending WAI, Falena used to write, call, send packages, everything he could. He heard horrors of long distance relationships not working and the fear of Asha finding someone else was real for him.

But whenever he was able to visit her or Asha came home for breaks, they spent whatever time they could together.

When they were younger, Asha was the more rebellious of the two and used to sneak Falena out to all sorts of places from conventions to clubs they also had to sneak into.

The only time they took any sort of break was in the couple years Asha was away doing her internship and studying law, while Falena found he had to take on more and more responsibilities to aid his father. They were both so busy that it was a mutual agreement to focus on themselves for a bit.

It wasn't until Asha went home for the coronation of Falena after his father had stepped down did they come back together. They were talking one night at the palace and Falena mentioned how the advisors wanted him to find a queen and produceing an heir soon. Ashas only reply was that she was right here. Falena, figuring she would say that, brought out a ring from his pocket he had been carrying since hearing she was coming home, and proposed then and there.

They are, without exaggeration, the Sunset Savannah equivalent of Gomez and Morticia. Falena is obsessed and madly in love with his wife and vice versa.

They are very affectionate. In public it's a lot more laid back. Falena usually has a hand on Ashas waist or shoulders. Or Asha is holding onto his arm or them holding hands. There's is a whole side of Magicam that is just pictures of them out and about. With captions like "He doesn't look at me with this level of adoration I don't want him" amoung other things.

In the privacy of their residence though, it is cranked to a ten. Asha always sits on Falenas lap. Falena lays on her chest. Hugging each other from behind. It's like they always need to be around each other. Leona is especially sick of it, especially when Asha smacks Falenas butt right in front of him. He is appalled.

They do couples costumes every year for Halloween. Gomez and Morticia. Frankenstein and the bride. Sailor moon and tuxedo mask. Even when Asha just feels like dipping her toes back into cosplay, Falena will dress up with her, she doesn't even need to ask. Or at the very least, be on the sidelines holding her stuff while the photographer takes pictures.

They are both equally very affectionate with Cheka. But he is a mamas boy through and through. He always wants to snuggle with Asha for a nap or if he can't sleep and Falena has a whole folder on his phone of just them sleeping or cuddling. His background is a photo of Asha and Cheka napping.

#twisted wonderland #twst oc #asha kingscholar #falena kingscholar #cheka kingscholar #leona kingscholar