#you can do advanced forms of magic without ANY MONEY. even if you live in a city and cant forage or anything.

[witch--tips]

you NEVER need to wait “until you have the money” to start practicing witchcraft. you do not need ANY money for witchcraft. you can have all the money in the world and practice witchcraft every single day without spending a single cent on it. everything you need you already have, inside of you and around you as well.

#i mean this literally. incredibly literally. #you can do advanced forms of magic without ANY MONEY. even if you live in a city and cant forage or anything. #you have YOURSELF. and you are a powerful being. #energy work! look at that! you need nothing for it! #you can INCLUDE ANYTHING in your craft #you dont even need to though #witch tips #witchblr #beginner witch #baby witch #closeted witch #closet witch #this is from a secular witchcraft perspective btw ik there are religious practices that require specific tools etc. but i know nothing abou #those because i am a pantheist pagan lmao #but i mean. i know a little bit about deity work so im also gonna say you don’t necessarily NEED anything to work with them either! #unless its a specific tradition youre following #but offerings can be actions instead of physical goods. you can do divination using like.. the clouds. #AND TECH MAGIC! if you can see this right now then you have every form of tech magic available to you right now. #txt

[giaourtopita]

Hello! I’m a sucker for that sweet angst and I’m sorry in advance!😭So can I request the brothers with an Mc who has a few months to live because of an illness they were born with? How do they send their time with Mc? How do they react when Mc dies?

mc dies due to a congenital disease

first of all, thank you for requesting!! i didn't really expect a request tbh. and i really hope i did this justice, i even started listening to a sad playlist to get even more in the mood to write this!! i hope you'll like it <333

warnings; gn mc, angst, death, unhealthy habits, sad just so sad, slight medical talk, alcohol used as a coping mechanism but not to an unhealthy amount, lesson 35-36 spoilers in asmo's and beel's part, lesson 16 spoilers in belphie's part.

(first of all i would like to say that none of them would react well but all of them would try to spend as much time as possible with mc)

lucifer

- would not believe them at first, he would think this is just belphie and satan playing a sick joke on him.

- believes it only after seeing the mc talking to doctors and trying to find a course of treatment.

- throws himself into work, trying to convince himself the situation will resolve itself.

- once he comes to term with it, he would try to spend as much time as possible with them

- he would take them to as many new places he can, and try to give them many new experiences before it happens.

- would even ask barbatos if he can go back in time to find them a cure.

- when the inevitable happens he thinks his father is the one to blame, it's his fault for everything. them falling, lilith dying and now this. "why can't he just leave us alone?".

- throws himself into work again but only this time he's working so hard his brothers and friends had to talk some sense to him.

- diavolo gives him some time to pull himself together, and because he has so much time on his hands, he locks himself in the comfort of his room and drinks to feel just so he can stop feeling for a little while.

- only gets better when he sees mammon trying to take care of him and be responsible with money and around the house.

mammon

- "mc you're joking right? you're my human, you can't die! ya hear me?"

- he would be attached at the mc's hips. even starts staying in their room to watch them.

- acts like he's fine when they're around but when he's alone he gets overwhelmed, he can't imagine how his life will be after mc is gone.

- also gets mad at his father "why do you hate us so much?" *he yells at the sky while sobbing*

-he's so frustrated with this situation because who will be nice to him when mc is gone?

- will try to get the witches to help him but it's a lost cause, there's no cure magical or not.

- when it happens, he blames himself. he blames himself because he failed to help them, even tho they always helped him.

- his scheming will get insufferable, he will try to get as much grimm as he can so he can buy things that remind him of the mc.

- he hoards all those things he buys all around the house actually. and if anyone anyone tries to throw those things away he gets agitated and turns into his demon form to fight them.

- will get better once he sees levi trying to pick all the things mammon left in his room.

leviathan

- "what? why? no, you can't die! stupid normie, you can't just leave me all alone like that" ... "we need more time!"

- he feels useless because there's nothing he can do, "the lord of shadows would have find a way to help his henry".

- hates it when his brothers take away the mc from him and starts throwing tantrums when they're not around, the rest of the brothers can't imagine how it will be in the future.

- tries to go outside more with them so he has memories with them that don't include sitting in his room and watching anime, those times he went outside he actually appreciated being there.

- also makes them stay in his room, they sleep in his arms and he starts sleeping in his demon form, wrapping his tail around the mc so they can't go anywhere, he knows this is pointless.

- still tries to watch as much anime as possible but when a character he likes dies, he finds himself sobbing like a baby not because he's sad for the character but because he knows this will happen to his henry.

- when they pass away he feels numb, he did all the crying when they were still there with him, he becomes an even bigger shut-in doesn't want to meet any new people especially not humans, not because he hates them but because they remind him of the mc.

- the only reason he leaves his room is to go swimming, he does that even more than he used to. his younger brothers were worried but lucifer thinks this is a healthier alternative to anything else he could do.

- is so angry at his father that he threatens war to the celestial realm using the devildom's navy.

- only got better when lucifer tried to reason him, he knows the mc wouldn't want him to do that but he doesn't know what else to do or how to mourn the human.

satan

- does not believe them, they look healthy to him so what are they talking about?? only believes them when they start talking about symptoms or he sees the symptoms himself.

- starts looking for a magical remedy to make them feel better, or even a cure. but it's no use, he can't find anything helpful other than pain relief magic. he even asks solomon but he wasn't able to give him something useful to work with.

- reads to them books about characters who feel how he feels because he can't bring himself to actually tell them how awful he is feeling.

- tries to spend as much time as possible with them even if it's for the silliest, most insignificant things there are.

- is barely able to keep himself together, he gets agitated by the smallest things you can imagine.

- after their death he feels as if a big part of his identity vanished, he feels how he used to feel about himself before he made up with lucifer and he hates that.

- going to a cat cafe or a library don't cheer him up as much as they used to, he just wishes to be with them and nothing else.

- is angry at himself and at god. he's angry at himself because even tho he knows so many things he wasn't able to save them and he's angry at god because everything is his fault.

- asmo suggests he writes a book about them and their shared memories, since he loved them and he loves books satan finds this idea excellent, however it doesn't help much because whenever he starts writing he gets so into it that he neglects himself.

- is able to kinda pull himself together when he sees lucifer bringing him a cat for emotional support, they both know this is not a permanent solution but it will help him cope for now.

asmodeus

minor lesson 35 spoiler!!

- "what?? no no no!! this isn't happening mc!! we will find a solution i promise!"

- asks solomon and his fans to help but there's nothing they can do to help.

- buys them as many pretty outfits he can and takes photos of them to remember.

- is actually the first one to accept what is going to happen, after all he's used to losing the people that he loves, some leave due to jealousy and others die.

- does even more sleepovers in his room with the mc so they can have lots of fun together, even if this situation is very sad he tries to be positive and make the best memories he can with them

- though he still looks cheerful, he's so sad internally he doesn't know what to do after his mc is gone. he feels as if he won't be the same without them because he's one of the very few people who didn't care about his looks and loved him for him, he will miss this feeling so much that he's trying cling onto it as much as time allows him to.

- after it happens, he is also numb. not because he grieved before they died but because he tries to shut down his feelings by indulging in his sin, going clubbing and spoiling himself even more than before.

- though none if the above are as fun now that he can't do them with them, he gets to the point where he stops listening to lucifer and starts talking to everyone in a sarcastic tone.

- clings to solomon because even though he knows that solomon can't die, he can't help but feel like he needs to. solomon was able to talk some sense to him after lucifer told him about his behaviour. gets better when his brothers start aggressively pointing out his awful behaviour and how much they care about him and his well-being.

beelzebub

lesson 36 spoiler!!

- "NO! this can't be happening again! you stole lilith from us and now you're doing it again with mc!" *is sobbing while yelling*

- will also camp in their room to watch them and spend time with them.

- will take them to every single one of his games, and will try to take as many pictures as possible.

- takes them to every restaurant he knows of and makes them do taste testing, he notes everything they like in a cookbook, filled with every food the mc likes, and makes it for them when they're hungry.

- sad that there's nothing he can do to help and even sadder that mc was always able to help him when he needed to.

- feels guilty about this situation because mc had to use their life essence, their already limited amount of time, to save his life.

- he cuddles them to sleep, but most of the time it's not because they need it. he actually does it because he needs it and mc knows this.

- when mc passes away he goes out of control, always going on a rampage when someone from his team mentions how he's a free demon without a pact now, he misses mc so much.

- he is constantly in a bad mood and sometimes he's so sad that he forgets to eat even if he's starving.

- only starts to pull himself together when belphie tries to take care of him by cooking and forcing him to eat when he doesn't at least try to eat the most important meals of the day.

belphegor

lesson 16 spoiler!!

- "did lucifer made you say this? i know our last prank was a bit over the top but this is inappropriate" mc explains to him while showing him their test results.

- drags them to attic and cuddles them while yelling and sobbing, not wanting to believe it.

- he would stay awake more than his normal self so they can spend more time together, even if it's just cuddling or talking.

- he tries to find a spell to at least make them live a little longer, but it's hopeless there's nothing he can do.

- also feels guilty, not only does mc get to experience their death for the second time but so do his brothers.

- clings onto them as much as he can.

- when they die it's like he falls into a coma, when people try to wake him up he doesn't even flinch it's like he wants to be in a coma.

- has made it so that he gets such vivid dreams that he can visit mc in them and that's the reason he won't wake up.

- wakes up when he hears beel cry about him, mc and lilith. tries to get over it for beel.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me asmo #obey me beel #obey me belphie #obey me leviathan #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me satan #obey me x mc #obey me x reader #obey me headcanons #obey me angst #i broke my heart so many times trying to write this

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How the IMF loan-sharks the global south

When you take out a loan or get a credit card, the headline figure is the “APR” — the annual percentage rate of interest. But anyone who’s ever borrowed because they were poor and needed money has learned the hard way that APRs are pure fiction.

To get the true APR (what economists politely call the “effective” APR) you have to factor in the fees, penalties and other gotchas that turn reasonable seeming interest rates into perennial, inescapable debt-traps.

Take student debt. During the 2020 presidential campaign, we had a debate about student debt forgiveness, whose opponents frequently cited the “unfairness” of allowing people to “escape their responsibilities.”

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#strike-debt

In their telling, student debt forgiveness would reward fecklessness, allowing people who got the benefit of an expensive education to duck the costs.

Now, even if you ignore the farcical inflation in university tuition and expenses (for example, the 1000%+ hike in textbooks driven by ed-tech monopolists), that’s still a highly selective account of how student debt works.

Student debt is negotiated from a position of weakness and naiveté, which allows lenders to attack the poorest grads with incredible fees and penalties. “Chris” took out $79k in student loans in 1982. He’s paid back $190k. He still owes $236k.

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/student-loan-horror-stories-borrowed

That’s not the magic of compound interest. It’s the magic of loan-sharking. If you’ve ever used a payday lender (aka a “fintech startup” AKA a “loan shark”), none of this will be the least bit surprising. This form of usury is as old as Christ casting out the money-changers.

The payday lending industry didn’t invent these tactics, but they refined, automated and industrialized them, then they spent millions at Trump hotels and (in a stunning coincidence) all those tactics were blessed by the US finance regulators.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-payday-lenders-spent-1-million-at-a-trump-resort-and-cashed-in

The normalization of loan-sharking sent the entire finance sector into a race to the bottom. America’s largest banks saw their profits soar during the pandemic due to record overdraft and other fees — in other words, collecting fines for being poor.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#usurers

The sums are jaw-dropping. In 2020, Jpmorganchase made $1.5b on overdraft fees, Bank of America made $1.1b and Wells Fargo made $1.3b. The biggest rake came from the worst months of the pandemic.

https://prospect.org/economy/big-banks-charged-billions-in-overdraft-fees-during-pandemic/

78.3% of all overdraft fees come from just 9.2% of bank customers. At $35 a pop, these fees turn the banks’ overdraft facilities into loans with an “effective APR” of 3,500%.

Three thousand.

Five hundred.

Percent.

These are the cold, bloodless numbers of the debt trap. They conceal a vicious cycle in which those with the least pay the most, a cycled that can’t even be outrun in death.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation

Take a moment to (re)read Molly McGhee’s Paris Review essay from May 2021, “America’s Dead Souls,” about her mother’s death. McGhee’s mom made less than $10k/year and suffered “debilitating depression while caring for aging parents.”

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/05/17/americas-dead-souls/

Her mother was haunted by two warring clans of ghouls: debt collectors who harassed her through legal and illegal means, and con artists who located her through databases of struggling debtors and tried to sell her predatory consolidation loans.

48 hours after her mother’s death, these blood-suckers switched to harassing McGhee, as she grieved her loss. Unlike her mother, McGhee had the resiliency and wherewithal (a credit card) to hire a lawyer, whose boilerplate letter reduced the debt by 90%, over $250k, poof.

If you can afford a lawyer, your parents’ debts don’t become yours. If you can’t, you enter a cycle of intergenerational poverty, with each generation sinking deeper into debt.

When you have nothing and owe everything, debt collectors know that they have to terrorize you into putting their bills ahead of the others. The cruelty is literally the point — without it, you might pay your rent ahead of your mother’s old credit-card bills.

To quote Umair Haque, “America is the the world’s first poor rich country.” an “advanced economy” where a sizable portion of the population lives in conditions typical of the global south.

https://eand.co/the-worlds-first-poor-rich-country-c411afc68539

Not for nothing. The same tactics that impoverish the vast American underclass also work to keep the world’s poorest countries — rich in resources and talent — poor. The loan shark here is far more powerful than a payday lender or even JP Morgan — it’s the IMF.

A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research dissects the way the IMF uses fees and penalties to trap the poorest countries in the world in unbreakable cycles of debt — fees that drive up the IMF’s notional APR to dizzying, usurious heights.

https://cepr.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMF-Surcharge-Report-2.pdf

Like any predatory loan, these “surcharges” are levied against the countries that have the least ability to repay. They target countries whose debt:GDP ratio passes an arbitrary line. For the poorest IMF debtors, surcharges account for 45% of all non-principle repayment.

These numbers add up. In Egypt, surcharges gobbled up $1.8b between 2019–24 — triple the cost of fully vaccinating the whole country. Small wonder that the world’s 64 poorest countries spend more on external debt payment than they do on their own health care.

In its defense, the IMF offers the same tissue-thin responses that any arm-breaker offers. The claim that penalties and fees are a way to “incentivize” debtor nations not to overborrow, and to seek their credit from the private finance sector.

But these countries are borrowing to pay off their debts — often debts that date back to colonial times, in which the rich (white) world mercilessly looted their resources and fomented destabilizing political divisions.

This undermined domestic resistance to imperialism and allowed kleptocratic, corrupt leaders to thrive — leaders who borrowed heavily to finance vanity projects, corrupt enrichment of domestic elites, and militarized suppression of opposition movements.

All of that was funded by debts, often from the IMF, who tied lending to the dismantling and sell-off of state enterprises, from power to water to sanitation — which is how the world’s poorest get gouged by the world’s richest to drink their own water.

These countries don’t borrow because they want to live outside their means — they borrow because they want to live. They don’t borrow from the IMF because they’re too lazy to ask a multinational bank for credit — they borrow because they can’t get credit elsewhere.

But the IMF has another excuse for this: they claim that the fees they extract allow them to originate more loans, creating a virtuous cycle. But as the report makes clear, this is absurd on its face.

The IMF went into the pandemic boasting about $1 trillion in “firepower” (that’s creepy-cutesey IMFspeak for “cash reserves”). Meanwhile, the annual revenues from these fees is $1b — that’s three orders of magnitude less than that “firepower.”

That means that the IMF could simply give up on these punitive fees, levied against the poorest people in the world, at an annual cost of 0.01% of its reserves. Literally, the cruelty is the point.

The point of all of this? The victims of usury are all in the same boat — in the USA and around the world. The same tactics, the same excuses, the same misery, from Cairo to the Caribbean to Cleveland.

Not all debt is created equal, of course. If you’re Elon Musk or Peter Thiel, you can get sweetheart loans and roll overs that let you avoid almost all taxation through the fiction that you earn no income, even as you amass hundreds of billions.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#eat-the-rich

And of course, if you’re a government with debts denominated in the currency you issue, it’s not really “debt” at all — the only way the US government can run out of dollars is by ordering its employees not to type more dollars into existence in a central bank spreadsheet.

Indeed, you couldn’t ask for a starker example of the difference between monetarily sovereign nations and postcolonial countries that owe debts in the currencies of their former conquerors. Venezuela can’t spend its way out of US dollar debt by creating bolivars.

Like McGhee’s mother, whose debts turned out to be fictions that disappeared as soon as a professional with credentials and access to the levers of power printed out a boilerplate letter, these countries’ debts are cruel fictions.

The powerful and wealthy can indulge these fictions or ignore them, as they choose. For example, finance-friendly politicians can insist that the “debt ceiling” must not be raised, for political purposes.

When the US declines to do the trivial data-entry that would make the money to pay its sovereign “debts,” the consumption that the money would have funded still takes place — financed not by the democratic state, but rather by a loan-shark.

National financial “prudence” interrupts the normal and benign process of sovereign money-creation, opening space for usury — private borrowing from the vampires and ghouls whose 3,500% APRs are redeemed through terror.

The cruelty is the point.

Image: Sbw01f (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Developed_and_developing_countries.PNG

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Image: А. Н. Миронов https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%98%D0%B7%D0%B3%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B3%D1%83%D1%8E%D1%89%D0%B8%D1%85_%D0%B8%D0%B7_%D1%85%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B0._XXI_%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BA.jpg

CC BY-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

[gotnofucks]

Congruence

Written for @holylulusworld 10k follows challenge!

Pairing: Stephen Strange x Reader, Loki x Reader

Trope: Love Triangle

Summary: Stephen and Loki want you. You are confused. Wong is an angsty person.

Words: 4.5k

Warnings: None? Strong language, I think. Fluff and bad English (not my first language)

A/N: This is my first time writing something like this so please bear with me. Also, I’m a sucker for happy endings so…yeah.

MASTERLIST

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Wong was losing his fucking mind. He was one more broken vase away from cursing in Vedic Sanskrit and spent every hour cursing Thor for sending his miscreant brother to live at the New York Sanctum. He could have gone to Hong Kong, or maybe London where he would have fit right in with that English accent. But no! He had to send him here in New York with Wong and Stephen and you.

You had been living at the sanctum for only two months when Thor literally dropped Loki here. Wong and Stephen had been sitting in the living room when the ceiling cracked open and someone fell from the sky with a resounding THUD. Loki had looked up from the floor with utter contempt in his face at his brother who landed solidly on his feet.

“Hey there, doctor!” Thor bellowed, patting Stephen roughly on the shoulder and gave Wong a bear hug.

The sorcerers had stared at the two Asgardians with absolute shock on their faces until Wong exploded.

“Can you please for fucks sake use the door like a normal person!? Every time you are here you break something! The ceiling for god’s sake! Do you have any idea how much time and effort it takes to repair that?”

Thor looked at the ceiling with no remorse while his brother dusted himself off.

“Can’t you just, you know, reverse time with the stone and fix it?” Thor asked, taking a seat without being offered one.

“What are you doing here? And why, if I may ask, is your brother here?” Stephen asked rolling his eyes. Thor made the occasional stop at the Sanctum from time to time just for the fun of it. Banner bet him 10 bucks it has a lot to do with Wong being recently single, Stephen disagrees and says its because their kitchen is always stocked with Pop Tarts.

“Ah, you can keep my brother” Thor said nonchalantly, stretching his legs out and being comfy in his chair.

“Excuse me? Who the hell do you think you are, trying to treat me like an object?” Loki spat.

Before Thor could retort, Stephen banged his hand on the table. “I have no plans to keep your brother, Odinson. Pray, take him and leave. And while you’re at it, put some money on the table for the ceiling. We may have magic, but we don’t use it to put splintered wood back together.”

“You must keep him doctor, for the good of the nine realms.” Thor said, raising his hands slightly in resignation.

“Have you started another war already?” Wong asked curiously, eyeing the God of Mischief who looked about ready to stab his brother.

“He hasn’t, yet. But I’m leaving Midgard for some time and Valkyrie doesn’t want him around. They will end up killing each other by the end of the week. He’s got magic, you can make use of him here. Hell, make him fix that ceiling.” Thor said.

Loki was seething at having been treated like a naughty child while the adults talked around him. They hadn’t let him utter a word in his defense and he doubted it would matter if they did hear him out. Whatever, he didn’t want to stay with Valkyrie either. Before Thor dragged him here, he’d switched all her alcohol with fruit juice. She would be spitting fire for days and he was safer here. And so, it was decided that Loki would stay at the sanctum until Thor returned. What he would do here remains to be seen. Stephen wasn’t pleased with the situation, but he’d rather Loki stay here than cause some other world ending event that would drag him and other Avengers out to clean up his mess later.

You were in the library when this weird turn of events was happening, so you hadn’t had the chance to meet Loki yet. You were a new recruit at the sanctum, chosen personally by Wong who felt they needed more than just two sorcerers to protect this place. Until then you were under training with both of them and were still getting your feel of this space. You had so far met no one other than your two mentors so you were rightfully surprised to stumble on man wearing green cape and eating your cereal in the kitchen. You stopped in your tracks and looked at him curiously while he did the same, chewing slowly.

“Y/n meet Loki. He’ll be staying with us for some time”, Wong said as ways of introduction. Wong adored you since he saw you in Kamartaj and had you brought here as soon as your preliminary training there was over. You were still very young, only in your 20s, so you brought with yourself a light and life that had previously been lacking in this sacred place. Ever since you came here, the sanctum had flower vases in almost every room and soft music could be heard at odd times. You didn’t take long to adjust to your life in New York and often forced both Stephen and Wong to eat something other than take out. You laughed and smiled and brought with yourself a woman’s touch to this dreary place. Wong wasn’t the only one affected. Stephen, who had initially been very against the idea of another sorcerer in the sanctum warmed up to you quick enough. So warm in fact that Wong could almost call it affection.

“Hi Loki, does your cape float too?” You asked and sat across him, pouring some cereal and milk into your bowl. Loki stopped eating and bent his head a little to the side, curious.

“It doesn’t.” He said at last.

“That sucks, I love flying cloaks. Stephen’s cloak – I call it Levi – loves to take me on rides. If your cape were a sentient too, maybe they could have been friends. Everyone should have friends, even clothes.”

Loki was looking at you with a small, amused smile.

“I can enchant it for a few hours; however, it won’t remain animated forever.” Loki said. He didn’t like talking to strangers, but you were so sweet, so unafraid of him that it pleased him. You had no awkwardness when you spoke, and no note of hatred in your voice, something that didn’t happen often in his conversations with people.

Your eyes brightened and you launched into a discussion about animation enchantments, something that the masters at Kamartaj had steered clear off. They were very adamant about how to use magic, and walking furniture was somewhere they drew the line. Loki’s magic was very different to yours and it fascinated you. This was how Stephen found you, deep in conversation with an amused Loki who looked at you softly. He scowled.

“What’s happening here?”, he asked, coming to stand behind you.

“Did you know it’s possible to morph your body in someone else’s completely? Solid illusions!”, you prattled on.

“Of course, I know, I just don’t use it.” Stephen said and took the seat beside you.

“You never said! You’ll teach me?” Your eyes were bright as you asked this, and it was with great restraint Stephen shook his head and said no. He found it difficult denying you anything and if he ever admitted it to himself, he would say he’s fond of you. Very fond.

Your face fell at his denial.

“You won’t teach me? Why?”

“Some magic is too advanced for you right now. We’ll build it up and maybe someday I’ll teach you, although I’m not fond of it. Some magic is just…silly.”

Loki was looking at your exchange with a small smirk and as you lowered your face in dejection, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table and looked straight at you.

“I can teach you.” He said and watched your eyebrows raise before a small smile formed on them. You looked happy until you remembered your mentor sitting beside you and looked at him with a forlorn expression. Stephen’s hands clenched and he resisted the urge to mash Loki’s face in his cereal.

“Like hell you would! I’m her instructor and the only thing you’re doing is staying out of trouble.” Stephen said, one hand leaning over the back of your chair, a gesture not lost on Loki.

“Didn’t Thor say I could be of help here? Well, this is it. I could help teach Y/n and we can compare notes on our magic. Wouldn’t you like that, Y/n?” Loki asked you in a sweet voice and you nodded eagerly, eyes pleading with Stephen to agree. You looked so earnest, so willing to learn, that Stephen couldn’t find it in himself to say no. He wanted to, he wanted to shout that he will teach you all you needed to know and more, that he is someone you can rely on. But he simply said yes.

Throughout this whole conversation, Wong, who was busy cooking hadn’t said a thing but if the stiffness in his shoulders was to go by, he was not a happy man. He knew some shit was about to go down, and lord did he not want to be a part of it.

From that day, what happened in the Sanctum was something Wong could only call an over glorified dick-measuring contest between Stephen and Loki. They did all but whip their tools out and boink each other on the head with it.  

It started from little things like teaching you something new and praising you about it. You loved to have your work being acknowledged and would blush a deep red at being praised. Loki had fumed for hours watching you and Stephen work and you giggling with a red face as Stephen told you what a good job you had done. In retaliation, Loki started teaching you enchantments and when you got them right, he would pat your hand and tell you that you were a good girl. That blush, and the glare he received from Stephen was a treat.

It didn’t stop with academics. The men started vying for your attention in the kitchen, each trying their hardest to win you over with more and more complicated dishes. Wong put his foot down when Loki made a Nutella sandwich that was a foot high and dripped with toasted marshmallows that took hours to scrub off. Stephen had laughed outrageously when Wong scolded Loki, telling him to clean up his mess and if he ever did something like this again, he’ll be using his toothbrush to clean the sanctum. Stephen stopped laughing however when Wong turned to him with a spatula in his hand. “And you! You’re banned from cooking too. I can’t go shopping every day to get you ingredients because you want to make Y/n pastries and pies and stupid Turkish delights three times a day. Out of my kitchen! Now!”

The antics continued, more often than naught resulting in skirmishes between the two men which in turn resulted in a lot of broken vases, furniture, and in some rare events, bones. They fought over who you spent more time with, smiled wider at, and laughed harder at. It drove Wong crazy, an unfortunate bystander to the playground tricks of two boys fighting over a toy. But you were more than a toy, that he could tell.

You weren’t oblivious to what was happening. You were young, not naïve and so you spent your days very amused. You didn’t mind this attention, far from it in fact. Two very handsome and powerful men, for reasons best known to them, were trying their best to impress you. It made you giddy and feel wanted, but also confused because while you weren’t in love with either of them, you didn’t think you’d be able to choose one when the time came for it. Surely, they can’t keep doing this forever and will one day give you the ultimatum to make a choice. You dreaded that day because with each passing day, with each sweet gesture and praise, with each hug lasting a little longer and each eye contact being a little hotter, you were reminded that with choosing one you would lose the other. That didn’t seem like the happy ending you wanted.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Loki was at his wit’s end and knee deep in books and ancient relics. He had scrounged every storeroom and tome trying to find what he wanted to no avail. His hair was disheveled from running his hands through it too many times and he wished you would braid it like you’d done a couple nights ago. What had begun simply as an amusing prank to show up Stephen Strange ended up being a true gamble in the game of love. He didn’t really expect to start liking you like this. Sure, you were different, and he acknowledged that fact within minutes of meeting you. But he didn’t know that he would seriously start considering his intentions towards you. At most he had hoped he would find a friend in you, but he didn’t just want to be a friend anymore. He wanted you with your tinkling laugh and ability to cast spells far above your level. He wanted to see you defend him against Thor and to tell you stories of Asgard as you took a walk through New Asgard by his side. He wanted you so bad and he’d be damned if that red cloak wearing second rate wizard took you from him.

“What in the world are you doing?” Wong asked as he entered Loki’s room to find it strewn with books and odd ornaments. Loki was sitting on the floor looking quite frustrated, and well, a little pathetic.

“I can’t find it. I’ve searched almost every book and every relic you have here. I can’t find it!” Loki moaned. Wong didn’t know what he was looking for, but he felt a small spark of pity for the god.

“What are you looking for?”

“Aladdin’s lamp”

There was a pregnant pause in the room.

“Excuse me?”

“Aladdin’s lamp. Y/n was talking about how Strange’s cloak – Levi as she calls it – would have loved having the flying carpet as his friend. And I asked her about this carpet, and she told me it belonged to the Genie who came out of Aladdin’s lamp when rubbed. I want that lamp so I can ask this Genie fellow to loan me his carpet”

It was a tough battle between laughing and patting the god on his head like a small child. Wong fought the impulse to do either and sat down on a chair after depositing the books on it on the table. “You won’t find it here”, he told Loki whose head shot up at this.

“Why not? Is it at some other sanctum? London?”

“It’s…nowhere.”, Wong said and raised a hand to stop Loki from interrupting. “Aladdin is a fictional story, so is the lamp and the genie and the carpet. Y/n loves reading about them and watching the movie adaptations. She likes to see how morals have interpreted magic.”

Loki’s mouth dropped open and for a moment he looked about ready to cry for having wasted so many hours searching for something that didn’t exist. Then, he miraculously started laughing.

“Norns! This woman drives me up a wall! She mentions one thing and I just want to do that for her. I’m not even mad at her or myself, just disappointed that I’ll have to search for something else to get her now. What the hell happened to me?”

Wong looked at a man who was very nearly, if not already in love with you. He didn’t like Loki very much, but he didn’t want this man to go through a heart break either. He would have to talk to you, soon.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Stephen fancied himself a step ahead of Loki because he had known you a little bit longer, but if he was being honest, there wasn’t much to go by. His insecurities had a lot to do with that, for he believed you would prefer Loki, a handsome man over a scarred man like him. But you had never mentioned anything about his slightly trembling hands. You had taken to his life without a hitch and so seamlessly blended into a routine with him, Stephen felt like you had always been a part of his life. He couldn’t remember when you’d started helping him tie his robes, or necktie when the occasion called for it. He couldn’t remember when he’d started eating home cooked meals instead of takeout at the deli Wong preferred. One day he was living without you, and the other you had taken over every aspect of his life and made it ten times as beautiful. He didn’t know if he could go back to living life as he did before you, and he’d be damned if some green-bean god tried to take you away from him.

“I am going to regret asking this but what are you trying to do?”, Wong asked Stephen who was standing in the middle of his meditation room holding his cloak. Well, holding might not be the correct term. Dancing…with his cloak.

“I am teaching Levi how to waltz”, Stephen said and continued to guide the piece of fabric through the leg movements. Wong watched this with morbid fascination before sputtering incredulously.

“Why?”

“Y/n loves to waltz and as I don’t always have enough time to indulge her, I’m teaching my cloak how to do it so it can keep her company. You’ll do that won’t you, Levi?”

To Wong’s utter astonishment the cloak seemed to nod and was almost elegant in his movements. For a good few minutes Wong watched this scene before sighing. Smitten, both of them. Absolutely wrapped around your finger and most definitely on their way to fall in love. Stephen was his best friend and he looked so happy since you got here, it warmed Wong’s heart to finally see Stephen smile and be genuinely happy.

He really really needed to talk to you and ask you whom you planned to be with, if any of them at all. This is exactly the sort of drama Wong hated and he was sure no matter what you said, someone was going to get their heart broken.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You were going to do it. You were going to do it today and tell them your decision because you couldn’t take it anymore. The hostility between Loki and Stephen was getting on your nerves and you couldn’t spend a minute in one’s company before being interrupted by the other. In the end, you just left them both, hence losing the joy of both their presence. And poor Wong. You could see him trying to summon courage for what you knew was going to be a very uncomfortable talk. The past few months Loki had lived here had been the best and worst months of your life. But now that things were starting to affect not just your friendship but also your academics (because both your instructors ended up attacking each other and spent two days in the sick bay), you needed to make a choice. So, you did what you did best and got to baking.

“It smells like Valhalla here, Y/n”, Loki said as he watched you work.

“Why won’t you let us see what you’re making?” Stephen asked, trying to look around you but you glared at him and he sat down again.

“Will you both for god’s sake ask the important question? Why the hell are we wearing these outfits?” Wong grumbled.

You looked at the three men seated around the table in Harry Potter robes, each holding a handmade wand and pointy hat you’d forced them to wear. They had protested and whined (I’m not a witch for Norn’s sake!) but had given in easier than you thought. You really did have them wrapped around your little finger.

“Could you wait for like two minutes? This needs to be perfect!” You chirped and got back to your tray.

“I’m too old to be doing cosplay”, Wong said with a huff.

“Shut up”

It took you another ten minutes to perfect your stuff, a tray lined with identical muffins with Hogwarts logo and the sorting hat on top. Picking it up you sat it down on the table before the three men and then sat down yourself.

“These are the sorting muffins but with a twist”, you declared. Loki looked on with interest. He’d watched and read all the Harry Potter books and movies at your behest.

“I hate this, and I hate twists. The last time I saw a twist was when this one-”, Wong pointed at Stephen “-annoyed a cosmic being into accepting defeat. I still get nightmares about that”

“Oh, don’t be so dull Wong. These are compatibility muffins. We don’t need sorting, we’re already sorted. You are obviously a Ravenclaw because you’re the librarian, Stephen is of course Gryffindor because Levi is red, similarly Loki is Slytherin because that cape is definitely a Slytherin green. And I am a Hufflepuff because I am the best.” Your speech did not have the jubilant response you expected, and you crossed your arm with a deep disappointed sigh. Stereotypical as your sorting had been you expected something more than blank faces.

“So, what are these muffins for?”, Stephen asked.

“We all take one and see what color filling we find. The person whose house we get, that’s the person we’re most compatible with.” Now you had your expected response. Both Loki and Stephen sat at attention eyeing the muffins critically, trying their hardest to guess which one had the yellow icing in the middle. Beside them Wong groaned and facepalmed. Of all the ways for you to choose a partner, trust you to play a game of luck involving a children’s fantasy book. He was regretting putting that talk off now.

“So, if I get blue…” Loki trailed off

“Yeah, you and Wong can go make out in the corner” You answered. “But of course, Wong must get green too you know, or you’d have to find another Ravenclaw. Consent is important after all”

It was the dumbest shit you had ever come up with. You knew it, everyone else knew it. But if this was how it was supposed to go so be it. Everyone ignored Wong’s complain of ruining a good desert and set out to choose their most perfect muffin. They were all identical to the last crumb, and it took an annoyingly large amount of time for both your suitors to choose their pieces. After they had deliberated and finally chosen their muffins, you casually selected one and motioned for Wong to do the same.

Finally, with muffins in all your hands and eyes full of anticipation and trepidation, you all took a bite.

Stephen’s face broke out in a grin as he showed off his bitten muffin with a yellow center. That smile however turned into a frown as Loki showed a yellow centered muffin too. Wong, feeling utterly stupid showed his red centered muffin and then all eyes turned to you. With a straight face you turned your muffin and-

“Motherfucker!”, Wong cried and with his head in his hands began laughing and crying simultaneously. Loki and Stephen looked stunned, staring open mouthed at the two-colored center of your muffin. Red and green.

“What?” They both said.

“I can’t choose. I just can’t. That’s not who I am.” You said and looked them both straight in the eye, hoping they’ll see reason in what you’re saying. “How do you choose between two people who love so much? You can’t quantify that feeling, you can never tell if its greater for someone or not. Call me a coward or a bitch, I don’t care. This is the truth. I love you Stephen. I love all your music references and stupid movies you make me watch. And I love you Loki, with that English accent and your horrible cooking. I love you both and I am here if you’ll have me. This is what I can offer you, because I sure as hell can’t break either of yours heart.”

You didn’t know what was going to happen. You hadn’t exactly meant to drop the L-word, but well, it was true. You couldn’t break their hearts, so you put the ball in their court and allowed them to break yours instead. It was much better than going through with the pain of choosing one of them, especially when your heart beats simultaneously for two. You braced yourself for rejection, because sharing a person you love is never easy. But if you have to share it with a person you hate, well, its almost impossible.

Loki and Stephen looked at you and then at each other. They seemed to be having some sort of wordless conversation and the longer they remained silent, the more you felt like you’d made a mistake and lost them both. Finally, they nodded at each other and then looked at you.

“I hate this second-rate wizard”

“I hate you too, green puny god”

“But we love you more.”

You blinked once and then again. It took a minute to register what they said but then you were flying and the next second you were in their arms, one man at your front while the other at your back. Sobs whacked your small body as the tension of past few months left you in your lovers’ embrace and you could finally breath easy. You pulled away and looked up with a tear stained face at Loki and Stephen, a watery smile that they reciprocated.

“So, we can finally have sex now after months of violent foreplay”, you remarked making them both laugh and pull you in their arms again. This was it. This was your safe space, your heaven.

Wong was forgotten as the three embraced and he was as baffled as he had ever been. Only you could have pulled off something so crazy. He was so glad he almost joined the group hug himself. No more broken furniture, no more shouting and no more messy kitchens. Life could go back to normal. As soon as he said that thunder rumbled outside and the ceiling cracked, depositing Thor in front of them wearing his armor and red cape.

“What’s happening here?” He boomed, looking around as if he hasn’t just vandalized their home again.

“You’re such a Gryffindor!” You cried, still delirious with joy and hugged Thor who had till now never met you. “I need to shave my whole body!” And saying this you ran away leaving the men staring at your back.

“Who’s that? And what’s a Gryffindor?” Thor asked, sitting at the kitchen table, and stretching his legs. He spotted the muffins and picked one up, taking a huge chunk out. It was blue from within. Both Loki and Stephen turned to look at a red-faced Wong who was cursing in Sanskrit.

“Looks like Banner was right. I owe him 10 bucks”, Stephen laughed.

#lulu's 10k follower challenge #stephen strange x reader #loki x reader #stephen x reader #dr strange x reader #love triangle #loki x you #stephen strange x you #stephen x reader x loki

[eveningoftheempires]

Evening of the Empires Worldbuilding - Excerpts from "Wonders of Uria" by Levari Karrius

Some claim that Uria is broken; that, shortly after its creation, it was torn to pieces as an act of rage by the Lunar Mother. She swallowed most of the lands and left only scrumbles to the mortal beings. All of them have descended from The Depth, the heart of all creation, born out of Alania’s endless burning love. Scattered among what was left, the countries we know today started forming.

“But those are simply telltales,” you, my dear reader, might claim - and for a good reason. I do specialize in fantastic stories after all, but this time I shall make an exception and reach towards the truth.

And the truth is - despite all the work put into research by various scholars of all origins, we do not know much of our beginnings.

[…]

Previously mentioned Depths are mostly inhabited by dwarves, whose society flourishes despite not having a strong head of the state. They live in numerous cities, each carved in a mountain and one more impressive than another. Many among them work in mines, supplying their trade partners with either the materials or already made equipment - some dwarven merchants proudly claim that their steel is unbreakable. 

Since the Depths are commonly assumed to lay above the heart of the world, many dwarves choose the path of knowledge, seeking to learn about the creation of Uria. Their expeditions go far down, to places that would never see the sunlight if it was not for these curious individuals. Most of their discoveries have shaken the very foundations of what we call science - minerals and plants never seen before or ancient underground settlements among those wonders. Gremmal Thernik, the curator of the House of the Forgotten, believes that only the surface has been scratched of what lies beneath.

[…]

Nushkan Congregation gathers numerous smaller countries, led by Nushka, a coastal kingdom ruled by the orcish dynasty of the Unbroken. However, many different races may be found among the Nushkan citizens - including humans, halflings, tieflings, and even a big population of elves. Each state governs itself, but they unite when it comes to foreign politics. The current high king, Xugash V, granted all of his vassals more power than his predecessors ever, all in return for their help in strengthening the army. This fragmentation of power may seem foolish at first glance, but it was a necessary move after a series of revolts in the region.

In the past decade, this western backwater of a country truly grew into an enemy to behold. The Unbroken Dynasty strongly focused on technological advancement, turning away from the ineffective agriculture. The harsh climate no longer stops the economy. Future Units, formed from scholars, mages and generals of all local races, became pioneers in engineering, mixing ages old magics with whole new inventions. Though, these wonders are granted to only the ones that can afford them.

[...]

Karathny Republic, built on remnants of the Ruby Empire, is a place of grand traditions. It is home to some of Uria’s greatest leaders and warriors, a place where many glorious battles occured - and, with all those legends, it should be no surprise that storytellers thrive in such an environment. The art of rhetorics is considered the most noble, which is one of the reasons for local politics being so interesting. The power here is fluid, and the people of the republic choose their representatives every five years. 

The culture has always been the most important factor in this hot, deserted region with little to no natural resources. The trade routes are full with caravans transporting breathtaking paintings and sculptures or delicate, hand-woven fabrics. Along with the merchants travel various artistic troupes, lone bards and circuses. Although mostly inhabited by humans, elves and half elves native to this land, other races are seen as well - there are even a few purely orc and tiefling settlements. 

[…]

The Free City-State of Ienow can be simply described as a curiosity unlike any other in the world - not only it is a melting pot of all races and cultures of Uria, it is also the smallest country that survived without being ingrained with one of the powers in the region. And the strangeness does not end at that! The politics of Ienow are dominated by the leaders of the most influential guilds in the city - Guild of Traders, Guild of Mages, Guild of Bankers, Guild of Fighters, and even… Guild of Assassins. The coastal islands are a common hideout of the pirates roaming the seas, since the system of justice is nearly non-existent. All of this makes for a rather dangerous - albeit always interesting - place to live.

Everything in Ienow revolves around two things: freedom and money. All is fair when either of those values are involved. Murders of political or economical opponents are a common practice, so are fights between gangs hired by guilds to keep the citizens in check. Those who come here seeking a new start are bound to be disappointed; it is nearly beyond possibility to climb up the social ladder. The poor immigrants are mostly employed in factories.

[...]

Queendom of Lunaris is the cradle of all things magical. This primarily elven, secluded country hosts a great entourage of mages, one more powerful than another. They are gathered in the Sorcerers’ Assembly, and the most influential members rule alongside queens from the Liaquen dynasty. Enchanters and alchemists are the backbone of the country’s economy, providing it with stable income - although the Guild of Mages offers arcane goods as well, it cannot compete with the lunarian quality.

The warm, forested islands are clearly prosperous under the reign of queen Cithren and Grand Sorceress Amarille, and one can see it even through the lense of everyday life. The roads crossing the islands are well maintained and protected, the villages and cities are all truly a sight for sore eyes, and even peasants are hospitable and content people. The only scar on Lunaris’ image is a faction led by a human preacher who calls himself Doom. Those people believe magic to be heresy, and claim that its users will bring doom upon Uria.

[…]

Soleil Hegemony thrives off conquests. What started off as a small northern county is now the grandest of the empires, and it is aiming to eventually be the only one. It was not always this ambitious, though - until recently, its sleazy aristocracy was content being stuck in the previous era, profiting off of peasants’ hard work on the fertile fields. These very devout people put their faith in the kings, believing them to be beloved sons sent by Watchful, the chief of their pantheon. No one dared to rebel against them, until recently.

After a foul murder of king Degarmo IX by a Ienowan assassin, another prominent figure rose to power - that is, General Chastain, a well respected leader of the soleilan army. Once he announced himself a dictator, everyone knew what his next step would be. He started a relentless war with what used to be the Gornorth Kingdom, and then quickly conquered the Lokei Republic. The empire grows, the nobles host decadent parties in order to celebrate victory, and countless soldiers die on the battlefields. The future seems rather unsteady.

[…]

The Monarchy of Sabal is quite a good definition for the word “underestimated”. This small country of seemingly no consequence has been around for too little time to build itself a decent reputation - it was only in the last era when a secessionist group of lunarian citizens, mostly tieflings and half elves, managed to tear them away from the Queendom. The newborn monarchy with still destabilized power attracted (and still attracts) numerous criminals, being a good alternative for the already crowded City-State of Ienow. Others have seen it as a great place for a fresh start and chose occupations of fishmongers and sailors. 

The current monarch, Zarramine the Witful, truly lives up to their name. Rumor has it that the web of sabalan spies reaches far beyond the islands, all thanks to the monarch’s quite… liberal approach to outlaws. Many of them are forgiven in the local law’s eyes if they agree to work for the crown. Besides gathering information and manipulating the events from the shadows, Sabal has been building up its navy for quite some time. They would make a good operational base for soleilans if they wished to attack north and west - and many believe that soon General Chastain will turn his focus there...

#evening of the empires #interactive fiction #if wip #cog wip #hosted games #eote #writeblr #worldbuilding

[sitp-recs]

hey, do have any bratty/snobish/spoiled draco fic recs? preferably established relationship (drarry obvi) or sum similar? i'm in the mood for smitten!harry lmao, thanks in advance, love :)

Hi lovely! I’ve only read a few, hope they work for you. I highlighted the ones that feature established relationship in some capacity :)

Let Me Have You and I'll Let You Save Me by Frayach (2012, Mature, 6k) - est relationship

Draco keeps coming back, and Harry keeps letting him. Draco can’t stay away, and Harry can’t live without him.

Reparatio by astolat (2016, Explicit, 17k) - est relationship

Draco snorted. “I’m not reduced to penury. I want something considerably beyond money, and I rather think you’re the only one can give it to me.”

amid this warm and steady sweetness by warmfoothills (2019, Explicit, 21k)

Harry is not living in a period drama, no matter what his friends or his new house or Malfoy’s sudden affinity for horse-riding might suggest, and if one more person uses the word courting, he’s going to start hexing people.

Touch Me Fall by @lqtraintracks (2014, Explicit, 24k)

Malfoy was such a ponce. And he was a complete snob. And he was so fucking fit Harry wanted to jump him where he sat. It would be too easy to forget his objective tonight: to really, really, really get Malfoy out of his system.

Burn the Curtains and the Wine by @nerdherderette (2019, Explicit, 24k) - est relationship

There are two versions of Harry Potter: the wizard who is the Ministry of Magic's most dangerous and successful assassin, and the husband who leads a staid life of domesticity with a reformed Death Eater. And never the twain shall meet.Until, one day, they do.

Slithering by astolat (2016, Explicit, 27k)

Draco found the nest down in the Manor’s cellars, while he was clearing them out.

The Gentlewizard Club by Sophie_French (2014, Explicit, 28k)

Draco wants what Draco wants. And if he has to snuggle up to Harry to get it, well, surely, Draco can handle that. Problem is, not sure Harry can.

Stain of Silence by brummell (2013, Explicit, 28k) - eventual est relationship

After the war, Draco serves out his sentence in Harry Potter's house.

Headway series by orphan_account (2017, Explicit, 31k) - est relationship (Ron/Harry/Hermione, Harry/Draco)

“It’s called courting,” Draco spat suddenly, livid and red in the face. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand a single thing about it, actually Potter, since it’s formal, and there are rules, and neither of those are concepts you’d know anything about even if they took on human form and kicked you right in the fucking dick.”

In Our Blood by @secretsalex (2018, Explicit, 37k) - est relationship

Draco is an accomplished pure-blood curse breaker, and Harry is tasked with accompanying him on his latest job—cleaning up the Van Boer mansion, which has been under a devastating fertility curse for seven generations.

Shine, Even in the Darkness by raitala (2014, Explicit, 41k)

Harry hasn’t seen Draco for over fifteen years, but now he’s showing up everywhere and Harry is sort of weirdly attracted to him, but that can’t be right?

Bite Me, Hate Memes by pir8fancier (2007, Explicit, 44k) - eventual est relationship

Draco Malfoy is incensed to realize that someone is trying to usurp his position as the premier Harry Potter hater.

The Trouble with Wanting by waldorph (2021, E, 60k)

Draco Malfoy is cleared of all charges; this is what happens next.

What We Pretend We Can't See by gyzym (2017, Mature, 131k)

Seven years out from the war, Harry learns the hard truth of old history: it’s never quite as far behind you as you thought.

#anon #asks #drarry reclist #posh Draco #smitten harry

[rosesloveletters]

I am going to gush about Jacob some more, so if you are not here for that, then please ignore this post. This post also contains spoilers for The Brothers Grimm (2005). Onwards:

I have found that I have the best relationships with F/Os whom I share an immediate connection with; within two whole minutes of Jacob’s initial screen-time, I knew. It did not take long for us to single each other out and form a connection. He is the only F/O I have who is similar to me in the simplest of terms. He is a writer, he is sensitive, he is adventurous, he is wise. He is also resourceful and full of ambition and zeal. 

He is the only F/O of mine who wears glasses without it being a trope or fetishized; never once does his canon mention anything about him being vision impaired or label him a “nerd” “prude” or xyz. He simply is who he is and the script does not tear him apart for what he looks like, which is extremely uncommon. 

Jacob is such an imaginative soul and I would give anything for him to have every bit of love the world has to offer him. I am in awe of how passionate he is about his work and how often he finds the time to work on his book and the importance of it to him. It ripped me apart when he had to leave his book to burn in the forest fire and he thought that it had been destroyed; the amount of time it had taken him to craft such a lengthy work must have been years in the making. I cannot fathom the soul-crushing weight of believing all had been lost. I could see how much pain was held in his eyes when Will forced him to leave it behind like that; he deserved to be able to grab it. The fire had not spread to it yet and he was only a few feet away from it. Will should have let him grab it quickly and then they could have escaped. Jacob deserves to be valued for his talents and skills, even though they are different from Will’s. Jacob is focused on what he wants to achieve and there is nothing wrong with the fact that he has a more child-like spirit. 

I detest that his brother countlessly reminded him of the time when he bought those “magic beans” whenever his sister needed medicine. Jacob was aware of how silly he had been; he felt remorse, apologized, not only that but he also had to live with the consequences of his actions on his conscience day in and day out, but he had been just a child. He was not old enough to fully understand the consequences of his actions at the time because he was not mature enough to process that far in advance. Will was still a child as well, but he was older and should not have used this horrible example as a way to torture his brother and make him question himself for years and years and years. 

Jacob never meant harm to anyone; he is always content to work on his stories and I like to believe that the only reasons he went into business conning people with his brother are because he wants to, hopefully, encounter real folklore and because he has to have money to survive. He is proud of his work and he writes down everything that he can so that he can process through various ideas for his book. I admire him so very much for how much effort he puts into the things that are important to him and I wish I could help him with his writing. Collaborating with Jacob would be a dream come true. 

Every action of his and every twist and turn of his story arc were incredible; he is fascinating and gentle and irrisistably cute. He was constantly living in the shadow of his brother and women rarely paid any attention to him at all. Even in the bar scene when Will told him to come to bed with them (Will and the two girls), Jacob did not want to and I can only imagine it was partially because he knew he would be sidelined, but also because he wants something more like in his storybook. He deserves a kind of love that puts the stories to shame. 

The only thing that Jacob and I do not see eye to eye on (as far as we know as of yet) is that he has no fear of heights. Whenever he was atop the castle tower, I felt my heart lurch. Watching him totter across those uneven shingles on the rooftop made my legs turn to jelly and I wanted nothing more than to scoop him up and hold him close so he would not fall; I could not have been as brave as him. I admire his bravery for entering the castle tower by swinging in through the window. I never could have done so myself; Jacob is more than capable of taking care of himself and I love that about him. 

For once, Jacob deserves to share a love wherein he does not feel it will be threatened by his brother. He knows Will means well, but it is shown time and again that Jacob falls into second place when placed next to his brother. Even with Angelika, after Jacob shared a kiss with her, Will did the same and she seemed to prefer it that way; the ending showed neither of them “winning her heart” (which is fine lmao more Jakey for me😂), but that she again kisses them both, so it seems to me that even though Jacob bared his soul to her and gave her a real kiss, she still entertained a love for Will and for that reason do I feel that Jacob could always do better. He loves so entirely that even in a life or death moment, he did what he did for his brother. Do I think that he kissed Angelika because he loved her? No. Do I think it still worked because the brotherly love he has for Will is just that strong? Yes. My point: all brothers fight with each other, but nothing can ever stand in the way of familial love which is that strong. Even though I do not agree with every decision Will has made in terms of how he treats Jacob, but I do think that their love for each other is pure and that they need each other to coexist. 

Jacob deserves to know the other side of love in a relationship with someone who wants to hold his hands, kiss his lips, hug him tight and treats him like first prize, because Jacob is a prize, not because he is an object but because anyone would be lucky to find someone as perfect as him.  

And Jacob cuddling his pillow is my favorite picture ever:

#I did not mean to write an entire book I am so sorry I put you all through this #self-shipping #my stuff #will tag all my Jacob stuff once I know what to call us #🌹grimmrose

[ricinbach]

honor him. | chapter 1 - wolf to man

sword practice takes a turn as tensions rise under the gray skies of the Flooded District.

Ego homini lupus.

Man is wolf to man. The dark, twisted, plague-ridden world you had to be a part of brought this brutal law of nature to the spotlight - in all of its twisted ways man could think of.

Sometimes it took form in letting swarms of rats crawl and devour a poor soul in a matter of minutes, only leaving the gut-wrenching sounds of human tissue getting chewed on while you watched and did not lift a single finger to rescue the man. It was just the way the world worked, the way the cogs turned and clicked. It had been a challenge to shut down your sense of pity and helpfulness as a good human being - when your entire life revolved around killing and letting it be killed, finding time for remorse did not come so easy between the death contracts.

Often times it was a bloody blade twisting in yet another soul’s heart, tearing arteries and ribs apart. Traveling to the deepest, grittiest corners of the once-great city of Dunwall, slicing countless noble and Weeper throats for coin that would only be enough to barely get by, days and days of living on cold and ruthless rooftops to scout for missions had all shown you many horrors that your humankind could commit. In times of distress, of misery and sometimes, times when one succumbs to selfish intentions.

This time, the simple combination of Latin words was showing its' gnarly thorns into killing an Empress.

The piercing sound of steel clashing steel echoed through the bricks and the damaged rooftops as it got mixed with the filtered huffs and groans thrown in the duel through the whaler masks. He pressed on with another attack, taking a quick forward step along with a low groan of effort as he threw out an expert dash that would have taken your dainty little beating heart out of your chest if you had not anticipated it, a little spark flying out as your trusted blade clashed against his yet again.  

The shadows in your hands became prominent, engulfing your fingers with the familiar warmth of smoke and magic until the sensation was blocked. The dark but enticing songs of the whales muted for the time being, powers taken away from you momentarily as the cool and cold surface of the steel felt harsh against your palms again.

“Flesh and steel. The way I trained you,” the Knife of Dunwall sneered, almost reprimanding you, a familiar spark of adrenaline in his darkened eyes.

A man of enigmas stood before you wielding a knife, but there was only one certain truth eminent on him - when Daud fought, it had been with the only intention of killing.

The man rose strong yet scarred from the slums when all odds were against him, killing to fight for his life, later for coin, for reputation and much to your gratefulness, to keep his underlings alive and fed and equipped. It had been easy to him, taking lives as he did not even bother for a split second to watch the light dim out in their eyes, blood washing over his leather overcoat and steel only to dry off till the next target appeared in his eyesight. Whoever saw the Knife in front of their mere mortal eyes, with his blade drawn and ready, begged to pay him tenfold whatever his patron paid, collapsed without a hint of pride left.

Only this time, there was something else lurking in there, some sort of unknown. Uncertainty reflecting off of his irises as they met yours on the opposite sides of locked steel, neighbored by the reflection of the old and battered down Rudshore Financial buildings.  Almost as if those dark eyes of his were looking for answers to questions you could not fathom, questions you did not dare ask yourself in the first place.

The shadow magic unavailable from your disposal for the time being, you fueled your pent up adrenaline into a violent push to break out of the agonizing lock, sending your Master’s blade slide off of yours with a screeching sound from the friction.

Taking a step back and catching your breath, the blade was flipped with years ease in your hands as you watched his movements - taking in every step, every little reflex, even the single movement of his fingers clasping the metal handle. The two of you moved in accustomed unison, albeit on opposite sides, like two wolves circling in the snow, waiting to bite each other’s throats off but only waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

The Serkonan scanned your every movement with his rugged but dangerously handsome face - you knew he knew your next ten steps, what you wanted for dinner, and then some. His moves and tricks were no surprise to you either, after all, you had been by his right hand, under his wing for many painful years.

Locked in that tense moment, eyebrows furrowed in concentration and knuckles almost white from all that clutching, you lunged forward in a swift but graceful attack which got countered by none other than the blade master himself and a series of slashes, groans and sickening clangs began echoing in the air.

What had been an ordinary daily sword practice on the rooftops of the Flooded District had turned into the rather interesting sparring of the Knife of Dunwall against one of his most-trusted lieutenants. Whalers knelt and stood on surrounding buildings, some watching behind the brick remnants of destroyed walls, some choosing the more traditional approach and staying on the rooftops. Wherever the Whalers were, it did not matter - there was only one focal point, one spectacle to follow.

“Is the old man trying to kill her or something?” the assassin clad in navy leather spoke in a surprised tone beneath the mask. “Always thought Daud had a soft spot for her - how did this happen?”

The woman clad in red leather shrugged, with her arms crossed, eyes dead focused on the clinging blades further down below, following every moment and every flick of the leather-covered wrists. “Daud knows what he is doing,” she spoke, sounding fairly confident in contrast to the fact that, frankly, Billie Lurk did not have an inkling of an idea of what fueled the almost emotional duel she was witnessing.

Sure, it was common occurrence for Daud to try one of the assassins in a duel every now and then, but the magic running through her veins sourced by none other than her Master himself told another tale - he was desperate. As if he was looking for a way out, or for someone to reassure him. Someone to tell him that everything would fall into place in the end. A trapped soul he was, signals of doubt lingering in the ebbs and flows.

The Daud she knew never crumbled against the unknown.

Panting mixed in with angry throes of war with the side of sickening metal clashes were all you could hear as your footwork did not let you down for the time being.

By the time you could count the ways you fought against Daud, it would take you an entire trip around the Isles and maybe more. After all, he had been the one to pull you out from the gutter, from the decrepit, bloodfly-infested back alleys of the slums of Karnaca. Taught you how to slit your first throat in exchange for money. Sailed across the Isles and brought you to capital of the Empire, where he trained you relentlessly. Told you how to exploit the weaknesses of each and every victim. How to find the shady stuff under everyone’s name, even the cleanest, the most noble. How to stick a blade in one rich bastard in the Estate District to please another rich bastard somewhere else, long as gleaming coin went in your pouch at the end of the day. How to confront the most dangerous, most reckless and the most wanted of Dunwall - only equipped with one of his old swords he had stolen from the Grand Guard.

“Always go for the head,” he had always said as his leather-clad hands tutored yours, teaching you the ruthless ways of fighting. The feel of that calloused texture still fresh under your fingertips.

True to his advice, that was exactly what he did to send you reeling back in a loud groan - his undefeated blade knocking yours out of your grip in a sharp flick of his large hand, sending it sprawling against the old bricks and cement.

Your panting and aching body was then left without a solid defense, he seized the opportunity as well as any - the cold hard steel rested dangerously on your covered throat, the victorious master assassin’s larger frame close to yours as his dark eyes sparked in some sort of emotion you could not discern. Shivers running down your body, a lump in your throat so evident it made the blade angle as a defeated gulp passed through.

It was as if the world had stopped. You wondered if this is what being summoned to the Void felt like - cold, uninviting, tiring, frightening, daunting. Unknown and unexplored. He had told you about his encounters with the black-eyed bastard once, years after when he first received the wretched mark on his left hand that seemed to haunt him in his nightmares to every single dawn.

Now it seemed to be that Daud himself was recreating the Void for you, for all of the eyes to watch as the Whalers held their breaths.

“You better not fight like this when we take the Empress,” Daud scolded you, his fierce eyes locked into yours even through the covers that your whaler mask provided. As his mouth uttered the last word, your entire body was begging you to give up, to collapse as your heart dropped. Your body under the heavy tactical gear stood as rigid as can be, though, even with a blade looming on your precious neck and all you could give to your mentor as an answer was a short nod.

Was this one of those usual duels he would pick up with you just to show the other Whalers what failure could cost them? Beat you on purpose, take the shared powers away from you for the duration of the fight so that the others would train like they would die in the next hour?

No - this had been a message for you. Every single footstep he took as he advanced on you, every little spark that flew into thin air as metal hit metal.

Much to your demise, the Knife of Dunwall knew you to your core. By the Void, he could piece together details about you that the old soul of the Outsider maybe did not even consider looking for.

Daud knew this one contract, the biggest job his Whalers were asked to pull off would strike a nerve deep within you, hit a buried spot concealed within your emotions, your morals and memories. The same spot in him that was struck, that made him do a double-take on the grand scheme of things, what they implied. What this particular death implied.

It terrified him, as much as it terrified you. He knew the mere prospect of it, considering the looming deadline as you steadily approached into Month of Earth, shook you to the very core. It was natural instinct for you to read through his irises, but some experience to see the hesitance lay in them.

“Understood, sir,” your throat gave out in a hoarse voice filtered through the mask, your head tilted upwards to his towering figure as he grew satisfied with the answer, loosening his grip on the blade slowly, then sheathing it to the holster on his belt with habituated ease. Your chest heaved with deep, lingering breaths as the remnants of the adrenaline emptied themselves in your veins, slowly dissipating after the sparring. The man in front of you tilted his muscular neck, as the mark on his left hand glowed orange ever-so-visible even through his thick gloves as he raised his palm lightly - making the familiar warmth of power surge through you once again, the return of the bond making you gasp lightly, finding some sort of much-needed comfort as you nodded your thanks.

With yet one more stare thrown your way, his jaw clenched as his feet carried him across the rooftops away from your figure, walking in between his assassins, his loyal gang of misfits and killers alike. Taking this as a signal that practice for the day being was over, the Whalers began to vanish into the shadow one by one, leaving a more vast, open sight of the gray skies contrasting the beige-white ruins of what once used to be a booming financial hub.

It was at that moment of defeat that your weakened body fell on the knees next to your sword, millions of possible scenarios filled with blood and screams running through your mind. Head leaning forward as you breathed in and out, in an attempt to calm yourself down.

And it was at that moment when your heart and body and mind fell in unison - you could never spill the blood of an Empress, even if the man who swore to protect your life ordered you to.

#oh boy here we go #hope this one starts out alright #dishonored #dishonored fic #honor him #corvo attano #corvo attano x reader #corvo attano / reader #dishonored 2 #mild daud x reader #daud x reader #val writes

[emsartwork]

Sorry if you’ve already answered this but J was wondering if you could talk more the girls childhood/growing up? Love what you’re doing btw, absolutely adore how you’ve basically recreated the Winx world! 💗

Thank you!!! and sure thing! long post ahead

BLOOM: she never really had any problems family wise, Vanessa and Mike told her she was adopted at like…. Age 7 or so (in a positive affirming way obvi) and even if any kids teased her about it she never doubted her parent’s love for her. Even with Daphne’s spell helping her blend in with earth life, Bloom still had a nagging sense she didn’t “fit”, and got lost in fantasy books and art whenever possible. Growing up she deals with some body image issues that probably stem from the whole wrong fit feeling. Bloom grew up an artistic and quiet kid, Mitzi and Selina were her best friends from childhood, and because they both had really strong personalities, Bloom often repressed her own feelings in order to play peace maker. Up until high school, where Mitzi, who was always the leader, slowly started to turn into a bully in order to gain the approval/fear of her peers, targeting Selina specifically. Bloom was more of a follower at the time and just didn’t want to loose her friends so she didn’t stand up to Mitzi but tried to treat Selina as if nothing had changed, which was not cool with Selina and she not-so-subtly started to reject Bloom as a friend. Bloom, for her part, did get her shit together and stand up to Mitzi, loosing her only other friend right before her senior year of highschool (she was still technically friends with Andy but they had also just broken up and everything was awkward lmao). Bloom regrets not standing up to Mitzi sooner, and wants to rekindle her friendship with Selina (and Mitzi if she’s willing to tone down the bitchiness).  

STELLA: So Stella’s childhood is a little more complicated. Stella is the first SoLuna heir in Solarian history, and a very loud minority protested her very existence. Stella also had to stay close to the Second Sun of Solaria as a child, so she had a very solitary and confined early childhood in a wing of the Solarian castle. When she did figure out how to sneak out she was only 10 or so, and spent most of the time just wandering around the capital city. She didn’t have any problems in the city, but an off duty guard recognized her and took her back to the palace. Stella was then sent to an elite boarding school under a false name (Sasha), she formed close friends with Nova and Varanda, but the trio was the target of the rest of the school’s bullies (for various reasons). Junior high was peak nerd Stella, but she “princess Diary-ed” herself when starting high school and started placing all of her value in her appearance and status as a sex object. Her parents’ marriage was also starting to crumble and Stella felt like she had lost their love. Because Stella craves validation and affection, this lead to a couple bad relationships because the only way she could get people to “love her” in her brain was through physical intimacy, even if it didn’t really fill the void she felt. Nova and Varanda were her rocks during this period and Stella was able to learn to love herself first with their help. Stella was insanely nervous to leave her friends and go to Alfea, and tried to force friendships with other people originally, (this mostly lead to people thinking she was annoying and getting multiple censures from Griselda), and her first genuine connection on Magix was with “Prince Sky” (Brandon). Nova and Varanda were VERY worried when Stella first told them about “Prince Sky”(Brandon) and how fast they had gotten into a relationship and they may have stalked/threatened him on a visit to Stella but they eventually came around and started to like him. Stella being expelled was only kind of an accident, Varanda texted Stella in the middle of a Chemancy class her application to Alfea for the next year had been accepted and Stella got SUPER excited and blew up the classroom. She probably could have stayed in school but her response to Fraragona and Griselda’s “now what do you have to say for yourself young lady” was *giddy laughter* and “ i only wish the explosion had been big enough to send me forward to next year!!!!!” and griselda was like “either she goes or I go” and Stella was like “ya gurl i gone” of course her time back on Solaria didn’t go exactly as planned as her parents were just fighting every time they tried to do something together making her people pleasing/self blaming tendencies worse. 

FLORA: ahhh my baby So Flora does remember her father, not a lot and she feel guilty she doesn’t remember more, but she was only 7 when he died. Alyssa remarried when Flora was 13, and eventually she adjusted to having a younger sister who she loves very much now. Due to Rhodos’s nature preservation needing a lot of room for study Flora and Miele grew up pretty far away from any town and didn’t have a lot of friends. This is primarily why Flora and Miele are so close despite their age difference, and why Flora took her role as protector so intensely; she was the only one there (I mean besides the parents obviously). Flora did well in school though she was quiet and reserved, which made making friends even harder than living in the middle of nowhere. She figured out the best way to make people like her was to give them what they wanted, and this snowballed into Flora becoming kind of doormat not comfortable with voicing her true feelings and faking a lot what people expected from her. Flora has a lot of repressed…… everything (Bloom mostly just has a lot of repressed anger she’s good with other emotions lmao) she has trouble identifying what she’s feeling and for the most part is content to leave her feelings buried as long as the surface remains calm. The Winx do help her start to access her feeling more, and encourage her whenever she does voice an opinion. Helia is a perfect match for her in the sense that his quiet nature leaves Flora to express herself without trying to mold herself into whatever she thinks he wants (of course on the flip side this also means Flora and Helia have issues with communication and repression but that’s another topic). 

AISHA: hoo boy another complicated one. Aisha was raised in a strict environment, this mostly stems from her parents and their more…. anxious natures, but royalty on Andros is not as free as some of the other planets. Aisha’s world consisted of lessons and adults and rules and she had very little control over her own life. Aisha met Anne in a rare moment of freedom in the tidal gardens where Anne’s father worked. Anne was biding her time waiting for her dad to get off work so they could grab some dinner and was dancing. Aisha just watched her for a while before Anne noticed her and asked her if she wanted to play. The two formed a fast friendship, and Aisha finally started to feel like she had some sort of influence in her own life as she snuck out of lessons to play with Anne every evening she could(obviously their favorite thing to do was dance lol) Unfortunately Anne and her father disappeared one night. Aisha lost her only friend, the only social outlet she had, her one source of freedom, and couldn’t even figure out what had happened. Feeling so out of control lead to a pretty bad anxiety disorder for most of her teens, primarily triggered by the dark or being trapped in some way. She also has issues trusting others and letting people help her. Aisha started to act out, trying to exert any kind of control and relieve some of her anxiety. Her risk taking behavior got pretty bad, but she had started to tone it down after she met and bonded with Piff(royal business trip to Magix she skipped out on). Of course when the pixies went missing she wasn’t going to let her friendship vanish again and tracked them down with a not so healthy single minded determination.

TECNA: born to higher class parents, Tecna had greatness thrust upon her from an early age. She received extra training and education basically from birth, which she was fine with for the most part. Tecna grew up being able to handle academic pressure very well and met all of her teacher’s and parent’s expectations.  She and Riven had a brief collision as preteens in a school before Riven got expelled. Tecna’s one issue was that of her emotional intelligence, Zenith doesn’t really place an emphasis on that, so she was able to advance through high school very predictably until she attended a non-Zenith based workshop for magic. She found herself socially ostracized and very very confused. Of course Tecna had never met a subject she couldn’t master and emotions wouldn’t be an exception right??? Wrong. Zenith’s information about the brain and the chemicals produced was of no help, her teachers and parents didn’t understand why Tecna suddenly had this new interest in such an illogical subject, and worst of all, Tecna realized she didn’t understand her own brain chemicals. Tecna had a mini existential crisis, realized she had no idea what she even wanted to do with her life or why it mattered and applied to the Alfea Fairy program because “FAIRY MAGIC EMOTION MAGIC HELP” also it would offer her strong emotional experiences(transformations basically require it), the opportunity to work closely in groups, and personally obverse her dorm-mates emotional states. She got way more than she bargained for but doesn’t regret it a bit.

MUSA: my angst child T-T so basically, the first half of her childhood is p good, her parents work really hard and don’t always have enough money but the family unit is pretty stable. At around 12, Musa’s mom gets sick. Nobody is too worried at first, but she never seems to get better and she takes a big turn for the worse when Musa is about 16, Matlin is finally diagnosed with Core Failure Syndrome. CFS is similar to Core Fatigue, but while Core Fatigue can be remedied fairly easily with rest and magic, CFS is virtually incurable unless it’s caught really early. The causes are still unknown, and the symptoms (fatigue, nausea, cognition issues, and muscle weakness) can be prolonged but mild until it’s too late. In the later stages (extreme fatigue, numbness in the extremities, chest pain, joint pain, memory/focus issues, inability to keep food down)  all you can do is try to make the afflicted comfortable. Ho-boe is understandably distraught, and tries to freelance write for music but goes into a pretty bad depressive state. Musa has a few odd jobs here and there, and thats mostly what’s keeping them afloat among heavy medical debt. Musa latches on to her mother for emotional support as Ho-boe is super dissociated. When Matlin does pass as Musa turns 18, Ho-boe finally breaks, and violently destroys every last reminder of Matlin because he can’t deal with the pain. Musa, who has suddenly had her one emotional anchor cut off, is super freaked out and scared by this and it really damages their relationship going forward. Musa becomes incredibly anxious, and can’t really process her mother's death because her father won’t talk about it with her and is still shut off emotionally. Moving to Magix only worsened it as Musa rebelled and went after music with a desperate passion. Applying to Alfea was a way for Musa to get out of the house, and she and her father weren’t on speaking terms when she did leave for the college. Musa had planned on learning more magic to further her career as a musician, special effects infusing magic into a song rubbing shoulders with rich and well connected people who could possibly get her connected to the big shots in music….. The winx situations had her change some of her long term plans a little, but her connection with the group + her separation anxiety and fierce loyalty didn’t really leave any other choice lol 

[ninjakitty15]

Chapter 22: Deader is Better (Loki x OFC Pairing)

It was exactly one day before the greatest holiday of all time, and not just because I was the most powerful I'd ever be that year. The streets were packed with people, every parking lot was booked solid, every parking space even, residents were even renting out some of their spaces for pocket money. Loki and I helped out Zari with her little store in exchange for letting us crash at her place, Loki was both surprised and delighted by how accepting people were of him even after asking if he was who he was. I explained to him that while the country as a whole has a longass way before it can be completely progressive and welcoming, Salem, being one of the first historical places here that destroyed itself in fear and intolerance, was probably the first to turn that around. It went from burning, hanging, crushing, and torturing people that were considered different and therefore dangerous to welcoming the different and weird as one of their own. No one even cared he took over New York, what they saw was an alien army attacking the city and a god that brought a bunch of heroes together to stop them.

"If Asgard were still around, I wish it had a city like this, celebrating magic and welcoming the weird as you'd say," mused Loki.

"Isn't there a realm entirely like that? Where the Light Elves live?"

"Look at you, trying to learn my culture," he teased. "It was where my mother learned magic and passed it onto me, yes. But we didn't go there often enough for me to call it another home. Most of the time, if we went anywhere it was to beat the natives into submission thanks entirely to Thor."

"For all the advancements your people had on us, the technology, the magic, the fuckton more years in a lifespan, you're not that far off in some idealogies from us. Rarely does peaceful methods end a dispute between peoples. Oh sure, there's been tons of times we tried that, it rarely works in our favor though. Peaceful rallies or marches are usually ended with police brutality they claim is the right way even when they're throwing tear gas grenades at unarmed civilians, tazing random protesters they later claim as dangerous, or just blasting them with high pressured firemen hoses. It always ends badly, with injuries, false claims, and injustice. I'd seriously love to meet Odin just to tell him he ain't special."

Loki smiled at this and kissing the top of my head. "I shouldn't be proud of you despising him like I did, but I am anyway. I am glad you met my mother in some form though, I had a feeling she'd like you."

"She told me to trust you and that in doing so, you'd stay with me as no one else besides Thor if even that, has trusted you since you came here indefinitely. A lonely existence that is, everyone keeping you at arms length. I can understand that, outside of Salem, skin color alone is an excuse not to trust someone, people see someone that looks like they're past their expiration date like me and they go running. Hell, even hair color or skin ink can keep you from getting jobs here, we're still an extremely regressive country. Not worth saving anytime soon."

"Then why bother?"

"Because unfortunately I'm one of the idiots inhabiting it with no way to some place better."

"I asked Thor why he fought so hard to protect this speck of a planet once, don't recall him giving me a good answer but yours shall suffice, if nothing else, because you're part of it."

"Whoa, hold your eight legged horses, you really don't need to do that...at all. Just find a way out of here if we can't at least save this city, the Avengers can handle this planet and if they can't...well at least they tried right? We don't need to get involved when neither of us signed any kind of hero contract like they did."

"You sure?"

"I'm not just sure...I'm HIV positive."

"You'd have to be alive to contract that disease and I'm not quite sure it would transmit to something already dead."

I opened my mouth to retaliate but something else stayed my tongue for a moment, something felt wrong, unnatural even. "Listen...do you smell that?" I asked curiously. Loki didn't get a chance to answer as a great surge of necro-power struck me full force and I was sent flying back several feet away, breaking several trees of the park we were enjoying till then along the way before my back slammed against a particularly thick one and I stopped flying. A dull pain exploded from my chest mere inches from where the stone was protecting my important bits and cool black blood lightly dripped from my lips. I looked down at where the pain came from and blinked in surprise.

"Oh look I've been impaled," I mused before breaking off the branch sticking out of my body and stepped away from the tree behind me. I looked for the source of the power surge and glared as I spotted the culprit walking toward us.

"Are you hurt?" asked Loki warily.

"Just a flesh wound," I assured him, gathering power from behind into my arms and fists. "You might wanna sit this one out though."

"No no, let him try," the attacker taunted as he got closer to us.

"I knew I smelled something rotten in the wind," I muttered. "What is it this time? First the heart, now the brain rotting away, would make sense if it was you that sold us all out."

The man before us glowered at me then flashed rotting, blackened teeth, while for the most part he looked alive, he was essentially rotting from the inside out. "You aren't the only one with a stone organ, my head will remain just as much as your heart does till I rip that out of you."

I arched an eyebrow. "Lemme guess, one of your Hydra buddies was a brain surgeon or so he claims. They all think themselves doctors of something that organization, not one medical degree posted when I was with them though, kinda makes you wonder."

"They don't need doctors for corpses," he snapped.

"You sure you're not braindead? Cuz I'm sure coroners and morticians both require a medical degree to be licensed with the job."

"Have a few run-ins with those folks have you?" he sneered. "You know the best part about you was at the very least being a warm body at the end of the day, now you don't even have that."

I snorted at his attempt to insult me. "Oh hun, the best part of you ran down your mother's legs. You gonna bark all day, you little bitch, or are you gonna bite?"

He held his hands to his head and another ball of smoke and lightning came hurtling at us but this time it was aiming for Loki at breathtaking speed, he was essentially pulling an Azula on me thinking I'd either let Loki get hit or take it myself but I saw his Azula and raised him a Dumbledore, telling my guiding spirits to yank him away from the path of the ball as I wouldn't be fast enough to help myself. I waved my hand toward Loki and he was suddenly swept aside and away from the direct battle ahead. Loki scrambled to his feet, a dagger in each hand and returning to his battle armor swiftly, glancing at me in shock. I mouthed a sorry to him before focusing all my attention to the rotten necromancer in front of me.

"Targeting what's mine isn't your best move when you really don't need to give me more motives to decapitate you than you already have," I warned.

"I know he's your weakness though. I want to see just how weak he really makes you," he sneered. "If what doesn't kill you makes you strong, what about when you're already dead."

"You're well on your way to finding that out yourself, hun. I can help answer that for you though." I thrust out a hand and black lightning flew from my fingertips. My rival managed to shield some of it with his own magic but as he wasn't a demi god the impact of that much power still sent him flying back. I didn't wait for him to get up though as I charged at him with a ball of power around each fist.

He rolled away right before I could punch in his head and destroy the stone inside it and got to his feet as I stood up, charging at me as I straightened up so we were suddenly toe to toe trying to kill each other. For a solid few minutes it was just dodging and exchanging blows and balls of energy before he decided to get sneaky and tried to slash me with his ceremonial dagger hidden in his boot. I dodged it just enough to not actually cut me but it did do some damage to my hoodie which had me glaring at him as I loved my hoodies. From there, it was throwing either each other, balls of power, or punches at each other with him occasionally trying to throw power at Loki who quickly learned to keep an eye on his attacks as much as I was without interfering, this wasn't his fight anymore. The ground around us was starting to look barren and dead from the effects of our powers used against one another, the grass brittle and brown. We both paused for a moment, both battered and frustrated neither of us were getting the upper hand with what we were doing.

"Why won't you stay down?!" he demanded.

I scoffed. "What is dead can never die. What's your dilemma here? What did Hydra even offer you to make you switch sides?"

"A chance to be something greater than this, the other necromancer, to be a demigod."

"And how's that working out for you?" I asked in bemusement. "They aren't higher powers, they're hired powers, there's a difference. There's no cutting corners on that one, ask nicely or die trying. How did you know where to find me? On the plane?"

"I had a spook tail you, not all the spirits are on your side you know."

"The good ones are, the rest are usually locked or exorcised so kudos on finding one of the select few willing to help a brother out."

He narrowed his eyes at me, collecting powers as he did. "If I'm not given what I want, then I'll have to take it myself just like I did with the other necromancers that went against me."

"And that's why no matter where that stone is surgically implanted in you, you will never be one of us, going against your own kind for something you'll never get." I lowered one hand to the ground and reached into the earth with just death magic alone, calling for something very specific as I waited for him to make the first move this time. "Especially not from me."

"And what makes you so special?" he demanded.

"Come here and find out." He lunged forward, taking the bait and I dropped to one knee at the last second, dodging his power-fist at the same time a rotted hand burst from the ground with my own dagger I snatched up and sliced into my enemy's rotted guts. He stumbled back, his free hand going to his stomach as he was weakened but not done for, the stone keeping him barely alive inside him. "Almost seems pointless since you're already decaying inside."

He looked at the wound I gave him from my dagger and glared at me as it was already speeding up the process. "You little cunt."

"Let me guess, you're gonna kill me, right? Join the line of people with empty threats they never finish."

Black lightning danced around his head and down to his body, staving off the spreading death from reaching his neck but not healing the blade wound either. "Should I rip out your soul first or your stone?"

"You say that like you've actually gotten the upper hand in this fight but who here has the unhealed wound and who here has survived worse?" I retorted.

He sneered at me with his rotten teeth and lunged forward once more but being the slimy little bastard he was, pulled his dagger apart so there were actually two identical ones and threw one at my leg while making a bee line around me with the other dagger at Loki. I gritted my teeth as the dagger hit its mark in my thigh and not wasting time even to take it out of me, threw a power ball at him from behind so he couldn't dodge it and sent him off his course to my lover. I then took out the dagger in my leg and limped over to the bastard despite the agony burning through the entire limb. I didn't wait for him to get up and kicked him hard in the head right where I guessed the stone was before aiming for the wound I gave him with my blade. "Silly asshat, kicks are for ribs." His snapped under my leather boots. He tried to throw the other knife he still had at Loki but I caught it this time and dissolved the twin dagger like I did the one in my leg. I grabbed him by the throat, lifting him up, and slamming into another park tree while holding him in place.

"You really wanna know why you can't kill me after all this time?" I challenged.

"You don't scare me, Nell," he choked out.

I recalled what the Wiccan seer had told me and let go of everything holding me back. "I can fix that. You can't kill a Horsemen." A different kind of power rippled throughout my body, not necromancy, but something stronger, eternal and deadly and incomparable. The entire arm and hand holding him up was skeletal as was half my face and that's when fear started to leak into his. He fought and wiggled in my grasp, trying to pry my bones off his neck but my finger bones just dug in deeper while he kicked at me. I raised my free hand, also all bones, and went for his head, aiming for the stone still managing to keep him alive when his throat was slowly being punctured and torn. And then the world seemed to pause, everything went silent and still, everything was frozen even including most of me as I couldn't seem to reach the stone in his head but was poised to grab it out of his forehead. And then something else happened, something that only happened to me when something very specific was coming. I got what Peter Parker would call the "the Peter tingle" and chills ran up and down my body despite the whole lack of nerves and feelings thing I had being a skeleton.

#loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #loki romance #avengers #zombies #necromancy #necromancer #nell the necromancer #loki x ofc #loki x original female character #loki x nell

[silasblvthe]

Silas Blythe is known as the Coin (tails). In Summerset they work as a bar owner but this is only one side of their life. They are also a 127 years old, demon. They identify as cis male and use he/him. Some people even say they resemble Chris Wood, but they wouldn’t be caught dead on the isle. 

heeey everyone, i’m gray !! this disaster child of mine is silas and i’d like to apologize in advance for any havoc he may cause ... i am so excited to start writing with all of u !! this will probably be a bit of a mess bc i am still figuring him out just a bit but here we go

name: silas blythe age: 127 (appears to be a little over 30) species: demon occupation: bar owner label: the coin (tails) song: the guardian by shawn james

backstory

the sun gazes fondly down on you in the clear blue sky. flowers of every color grow as far as the eye can see. there’s a waterfall just ahead, flowing rapidly from great heights ; the sound brings you peace. the calm breeze blows gently through your lover’s hair as she smiles back at you. the warmth makes you feel safe, loved --- like nothing sinister could ever reach you. not here. not when you’re with her. this is your favorite place in the world--no--- in the infinite expanse of the universe. you close your eyes, drink it all in. you’ve stopped walking and she stops with you, turning to kiss each of your eyelids so tenderly that you wonder if you’ve imagined it. when you open your eyes to look, she’s there, still only inches away from your face and you can’t help the smile that forms on your lips. if you could live in this moment forever, you would -- but nothing lasts. nothing this good. not for you. 

if you had known that your life would come crumbling down around you in the next few moments, you would have never ventured to this beautiful place. one second you’re basking in the bliss of being with the one who has your heart in her palm, the next she’s lying cold in your arms as she takes her last breath ( or so you think ). it all happens so fast --- your memory is muddled, you can’t quite put the pieces together anymore. you never imagined that this place would be dangerous, but someone must have followed you. a storm forms above you in all your grief as you hold her close to you, vowing that you’ll see her again. ‘don’t worry,’ you say. ‘ i’ll find a way, i’ll find a way, i promise. this is temporary. i’ll do anything to get you back.’

you and your broken pieces return to avalon, and instead of giving yourself time process what had happened, you immediately begin your search. a way to bring her back home to you. you read every spell book you can get your hands on. your friends and family see your grief and they’re supportive at first, simply because they don’t want to lose you. he’ll stop eventually, right? you overhear them saying to each other. but you don’t stop. you try anything and everything. you ask around in high places, and when that leads to nothing but dead ends, you resort to the lowest of low places. surely someone has to know how to bring someone back to life without using dark magic. you promised yourself a long time ago that you would never go down that path. you’ve lost too many people to darkness already. loss after loss, you start to lose sight of yourself. your family worries about you, and you don’t blame them, but you can’t possibly understand when they tell you to quit. how could you just give up on the one thing that is holding you together? 

you get desperate --- so desperate, you find yourself sneaking around, combing through forbidden spell books filled with nothing but the darkest of magic. the kind that requires pieces of your soul just to cast them. you put the consequences at the back of your mind, unable to think about anything else except the possibility of getting the love of your life back. you also looked into ways to protect her once she was back in your arms, a way to make her invulnerable. you wouldn’t lose her again. never again. 

bit by bit, spell by spell, your soul is chipped away, but nothing is working. the darkness starts to consume you, and cannot stop. you won’t. your fraternal twin sees you struggling, hurting, and the only solution that they see to save you from yourself is to tell the fae queen. you see this as the worst kind of betrayal imaginable.  you’ve damned yourself beyond the point of redemption, so you’re not surprised when they banish you to earth. back to where it all started. perhaps if you were not so far gone, this would have made you realize that it was time to stop, but you were lost in the pursuit for power now. although you give away the last piece of your soul, you feel no remorse. you feel more in control than you ever have in your life, and as time passes, your past feels farther and farther away. you never grieved the loss of your lover, instead you locked the pain away in the darkest corner of your mind. you don’t think about her much now, but every once and a while, you swear you see her likeness in passersby and a twinge of guilt rises inside of you. 

currently 

it’s been a little over 50 years since his descent into darkness ... he is thriving as a demon tbh 

he’s the owner of the most poppin bar in summerset. the employees range from demons to vampires and even some humans ... if anyone acts up he takes care of them immediately , u could say he fires them ... but make it ~ literal ~ 

he has most of the authorities in his back pocket, so if anything goes awry with a human, he gets someone to cover it up < 3 

the bar itself has kind of a modern speakeasy theme to it, with a cool hidden entrance n everything. there’s also private rooms that only some people know about, mostly supernaturals but some humans are aware of them too ... a room to make deals w/ demons when u need a spell cast, a room for vampires to bring humans to drink freely (as long as they don’t drain them), a room with a witch that you can ask favors from -- all for a price, of course, whether it be money or favors. although, silas prefers to be paid in the latter. 

he thrives on chaos, so you won’t catch him breaking up a bar fight unless there’s a human involved and it looks like they might actually end up dead

yes, he is absolutely still bitter about his twin snitching on him to the queen even tho he thinks he’s better off as a demon ... 

he does not often let himself care about others bc of the fear of losing them, but he is loyal to those who are loyal to him 

anyone who gets on his bad side is dealth with ... without mercy 

wanted connections

his main bartender ... preferable a witch or a demon, someone who can enchant drinks upon request !! 

other employees at the bar ; bouncer, cocktail waitresses, cook(s), managers, etc.

i’ll probably make this an actual WC but i’ll put it here for now... hear me out... in a horrific twist his lover is actually indeed still alive but faked her death (for reasons that can be discussed!!) like maybe she was human and got turned into a vampire so thats how shes still alive after all these years or something ... so this becoming a demon has all been for nothing how fun !!! but just imagine all the angst and pain <33 

someone who will stir up trouble with him for funsies ... mess with people just for the hell of it 

alrighty that’s it for now !! please let me know if any of these interest you OR if you want to plot out something else, i am down for pretty much anything tbh ?? 

#summersetintro #summerset intro #shows up late w starbs #im sorry here's my boi

[c-is-for-circinate]

Who wants a little Cinderbrush AU on this quarantine evening?

A while ago, @brightandshinynewstories and I were chatting about what would happen if the Cinderbrush four lived in Exandria (and also relatedly, if the M9 were Monsterhearts characters, but that is a digression y’all should take up with her).  We figured it would start, at least, a little like this:

There’s a phrase Sasha's history tutor used once, when she was thirteen or fourteen and didn’t have a way to stop her parents hiring all her tutors and arranging her schedule for her.  Her history tutor was a stuttery little halfling man fresh out of Vasselheim, and half of what he said was deadly boring, but he was less brutally awful than her etiquette and protocol tutor, which was probably why he got fired before she turned fifteen.  That one conversation, though, has stuck with her for all these years.

“Everyone thinks they live at the end of history,” he’d said.  They’d been talking about the end of the reign of Uriel Tal’dorei at the time, how his decision to abdicate five minutes before he unexpectedly died in a massive dragon attack hadn’t accomplished much of anything except for making life massively difficult for his son fifteen years later.  “This is it, the final form of the world.  All the aeons of existence have led up to this moment right now, and finally we’re living in the future.”

“Isn’t everybody always living at the end of history, then?” Sasha had asked.  “If you look at it that way?”

“Not...not quite,” Kempler had stammered, a little off-balance the way he always was when she asked questions she actually wanted to know the answers to.  “Usually it means more like..the idea that everything, societal structures, social mores, everything has fallen into place in such a way that it doesn’t need to change any more.  Does that make sense?”

“Of course,” Sasha had said, and let him go on talking about dragons and heroes and the politics of non-existent emperors and kings.  She’d thought about it all afternoon.

This isn’t quite the end of history, Sasha figures now, half a dozen years later.  If it were, there’d be a better way to work her way up in the government of Emon besides playing personal aide to Arbiter Ethna for the next ten years in hopes of getting appointed to a magistrate’s position someday.  Some kind of school for barristers and politicians, at least, instead of everything coming down to her parents’ names and polite tolerance for her existence.  Her advancement wouldn’t depend so much on this awkward noble apprenticeship system where she’s more tied to Ethna’s reputation than her own skills.

It’s got to be getting pretty close, though.  It’s 853 PD.  Emon’s a miracle of government and engineering.  Uriel Tal’dorei’s been dead for forty years, there haven’t been dragons around to ravage anything since Sasha’s parents were children, and every day law, order, and the modern age prove a little more how they triumph over chaos.

It’s good to live at this end of history, Sasha tends to think.  There’s just enough still to do in the world to give her a chance to do something really special about it.  Just enough wiggle room left to let her...bend the rules.  Just a little.

Nobody says arbiters and politicians can’t have a little magic on their side to...smooth things along, just a little.  Nobody says aides like Sasha can’t spend their free time however they like.  Nobody tells Sir Murasaki’s daughter she can’t go where she wants, besides Sir Murasaki himself.  If she likes to sit auditing classes in the back of the room at the Alabaster Lyceum--if she happens to enjoy practicing classical violin or running vocal exercises in her tiny little office behind Arbiter Ethna’s courtroom--well.  The bardic arts might be a relic of the past, when people had to go out slaying monsters and dealing with dragons every other day, but history hasn’t quite left them useless yet.  Anything can be a tool if you’re clever and charming enough to use it right.

Living at very-nearly-the-end of history might be the best tool there is.  The best thing about it, Sasha thinks, is the chance to make sure she’s the one who decides how it ends.

.

Sasha told Cam about her end-of-history theory once, some starlit evening on the rooftop balcony of his parents’ townhouse, looking out over the sparkling lights of the Cloudtop District and enjoying the quiet.  He’s not sure he’s smart enough to really understand it, but that’s Sasha for you.  There’s a reason she’s going to be on the Tal’Dorei Council someday, while Cam’s going to be...whatever Cam’s going to be, by then.

Probably running the family business, one way or another, if his dad hasn’t actually killed him instead of letting him inherit.  It’s basically fine, as life plans go.  Parts of it don’t suck.  That’s something.

It’s why everyone was so in favor of him courting around with Sasha in the first place, anyway.  The Murasakis are nobility and all, but they’re from some island in the middle of the Lucidian Ocean on the other side of Exandria.  The Solomons were nobodies, until they just happened to own the only still-operating stone quarry in a hundred miles in the wake of the destruction of Emon forty years ago.  Sasha’s parents have influence, Cam’s have money.  Even Cam knows putting that combination together is a recipe for power.

Real power, probably, not the magic kind.  Fewer rules.  Fewer restrictions.  Fewer demons, whispering in the back of your ear when you’re trying to sleep.

If this is really the perfect future that everything’s always been trying to lead to, then shouldn’t they have wizard magic or some shit that would just get the stone out of the ground without needing miners and overseers and crap like that?  And then, like, nobody would send some stupid human kid with no darkvision into the back end of the quarry just because he’s the boss’s son and some fucker thinks he needs to be hazed for “company morale” or whatever.  Just for example.

So maybe the world’s not getting better, it’s just that the bullshit that piles up a little deeper every year has just about reached a critical maximum.  That’s fine.  No wonder Sasha’s looking forward to the future so much, gets along with the world so well.  He used to watch her weave her own web of total crap every time she worked a room, catching eyes and shaking hands and making everybody fall in love with her as soon as they met.  It’s kind of the most impressive thing Cam’s ever seen.  He kind of hates her for it, right at this moment.

Cam’s just not built for that much shit.  He's charming, sure, people trust him, people like him, but he can’t talk his way out of any- and everything like Sasha can.  Probably that’s a nobility thing.  The Solomons aren’t nobility, everybody knows that, especially Cam’s dad, and he’s never let Cam forget it for two seconds in a row his whole life, so right, no wonder Cam’s useless in Sasha’s kind of world.  No wonder he lets himself get into such shitty situations sometimes.  No wonder he can’t get Anukirai to leave him--to leave Sasha--alone.

If that’s what he wants.  Which--it is, of course, it should be, it has to be, it’s just.  Hard, sometimes, when Cam’s father decides if he can’t be the normal born kind of nobility, he’d better just prove he’s the High Lord of All Assholes.  When Cam’s trying not to be the kind of guy who just up and punches his problems in the face.  When Anukirai starts making promises, and Cam--when Cam can feel the power behind them, the weight of thousands of years of lurking underground, lying in wait, full of so much more patience than Cam’s ever had himself.

He’s pretty sure he could Command his dad to do just about anything, once.  Just once.  So far he hasn’t tried.

The worst thing about living this close to the end of history, Cam knows for damn sure, is feeling the weight of all of it crushing down on top of you all the time.

.

Jamie’s heard about it, too, somewhere along the way.  Lunch with Sasha at the Lyceum is always interesting, one way or another.

It’s bullshit, of course, but it’s the sort of bullshit that always appeals to people like Sasha.  As though there are other people in the world like Sasha Murasaki.  Things don’t end, they just die occasionally, and leave stinking corpses of whatever they used to be there to entertain passers-by.  Witness the inside of poor Cameron Solomon’s head these days after that particular breakup, case in point.

But of course it’s enticing to picture the world as just half a step short of perfection, all the for pretty, perfect people who think they might just be that last piece of perfection Exandria’s waiting for.  That, at least, isn’t exactly an uncommon attitude around the Alabaster Lyceum.  Everybody thinks they’re going to be the next Allura Vysoren, or whoever it is they’re all idolizing these days.  Everybody thinks they need just that little bit of extra edge to get there.

Jamie’s done with that particular race, which doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy spectating it.  There’s a lot of benefits that come from staying enrolled as a student of the arcane arts at the Alabaster Lyceum of Emon.  Greg Wrenly keeps paying tuition, room, and board, for one.  There’s a handful of cantrips and a couple of halfway decent wizard spells in Jamie’s back pocket now, too, which is never a bad thing.  It’s always good to have options.

For instance: now the desperate, overachieving would-be wizards of the Lyceum don’t have to fight their way through years of arduous study and spend enormous reserves of magical energy to cast True Seeing.  A little bit of druidcraft, a couple of exactly the right mushrooms, and for a handful of gold coins Jamie can provide a direct line of sight to the Ethereal Plane with negligible side effects to follow.  Options.  They’re practically a public service.

Jamie prefers to keep as many options open as possible; gods know nobody in this fucking city seem to realize they have any.  That’s what needing to be the best will do to you.  If a quarter of their classmates realized how much power the average archdruid has at their command, there’d be a mass exodus of ex-arcanists desperate to be the next fucking Voice of the Tempest, every one of them desperate to live up to thousands of years of legends and heroes and complete fairytales.  Every single one of them would miss the entire point.

Jamie doesn’t need to be the best.  They just need to maintain their own, extremely specific skill set, market it in the right way to the right people, and not get caught up in everyone else’s everything.  Stay a minimum safe distance away from Sasha.  Enjoy Cam’s company without getting too invested in the pretty and the trauma.  Enough wizardry to mess with peoples’ heads and not be too bound to the whims of nature, enough druidry to keep in good supply and not be too bound to some fucking hand-scribed spellbook.  Enough alchemy to keep in business.  Enough business to make sure they don’t completely lose touch with reality, the way so many mages tend to do.

Of course it’s not exactly traditional, or historical, or Respectful of the Great Arts, or whatever the fucking line is.  What the hell would be the point of that?

The best thing about living on this end of history, whatever the fuck that means to anyone, is getting to pick and choose exactly which parts of it you want to keep.

.

Aff gets the whole history thing in pieces, in passing at first, but it makes more sense the more they think about it.  You can learn a lot slinging pints of ale in your dad’s tavern on a regular old Grissen weeknight.

It’s not like they’re friends with Sasha Murasaki of all people.  Aff hadn’t even known who she was until Amanda from the livery stable down the street explained it, and apparently there’s an actual member of a titled noble family on her way up the ranks in the Watchful Hall who comes out to Aff’s dad’s tavern, like, a lot, which is just crazy.  It’s just that sometimes when Sasha’s waiting for somebody, or she and her trio of Emon’s Who’s Who are bored or whatever, they invite Aff to sit down and talk for a while.  Cameron Solomon’s... whatever, he’s cool, Aff’s mom doesn’t live too far from his dad’s mine these days, so maybe they’d helped him out while he was puking in an alleyway once or twice before even moving to Emon, out in the countryside where being a super-rich merchant prince didn’t matter that much.  And Jamie...Aff doesn’t really get Jamie, but they’re in here a lot, alone at a table where a whole rotation of people sit down to join them and then leave ten minutes later.  You learn a lot about someone when they drink by themselves while they’re doing some kind of weird shady business in your bar at least once a week.  That’s all.

Aff doesn’t even really think any of them are friends with each other, either, anyway.  Sasha and Cameron used to come in on dates, a couple of kids from the Cloudtop slumming it in Diamond Liquor out in the Central District, but they don’t really do that any more.  The one time Sasha showed up when Cam was already here, he got up and left.  Sometimes Sasha goes and sits at Jamie’s table in the corner, and she’s usually there for a lot longer than ten minutes when she does, but she still always goes back to the rest of her crew and Jamie goes back to drinking alone.  Jamie and Cam have come in together a couple of times, and it seems like Jamie doesn’t even do business on those nights, but like, who even knows what’s up with that, right?

Not that Aff’s being creepy or anything.  They’re the bar...not-maid.  Bartender?  No, that’s their dad, ruling over the land of kegs behind the actual physical bar.  Bar...server?  Is that a thing?  Whatever, it is now.  Aff’s the bar-server, they hear things.  They notice things.  That’s all.

Like Sasha talking about the end of history, which, it took Aff a couple of different conversations to realize she didn’t mean the end of the world, which is probably good.  Aff’s pretty sure she means the fact that they live now, in modern times, which don’t really have dragon attacks or cool heroes or crazy adventures any more, because all the cool heroes already went on all the crazy adventures and killed the dragons so that modern times could happen in the first place.  Which is great!  Right, that’s totally for the best, dragons are definitely bad news.  Aff’s seen a couple of places where Emon got rebuilt forty or fifty years ago after half the city...melted, they guess?  So like, it’s good that that’s not happening nowadays.  That’s a good thing.

It’s just...

Look, Aff’s a good bar-server, or whatever you want to call it, and they like living here with their dad, and Emon’s not a bad place to be, it’s just.  Hard, sometimes.  It’s hard, when they get so angry they just want to hit something, again.  Like, a lot.  Again.

If there were still adventurers and dragons and shit, then maybe Aff would have a use for all that pent-up aggression or whatever.  Maybe they could, y’know, kill monsters or whatever, and it would make them a hero instead of a fuckup.  If it were still the old days like that, maybe Aff would be good for something.

If this really is the end of history or whatever, Aff thinks that maybe the hardest part is feeling like they got smacked down in the wrong part of it.

.

The trouble, of course, is that history is nowhere near through with them.  Or with its own twists and turns, which is how history tends to work, really, even when you think it’s all just about settled down.

The third week of Fessuran is...confusing, more than anything.  Everything happens so fucking fast, in a blur of blood and fear and sleep-deprivation, washed over with a little extra haze from Jamie’s very good berries, and a couple of days go by in either about two hours or two weeks, and this is never going to make a good story to tell any kids they ever have, if they ever survive long enough to have kids.

Half a dozen people are very dead, that’s very clear, well beyond the help of any cleric or reasonably-ethical necromancer.  Amanda from the livery stable down the street from Diamond Liquor was pale and streaked in blood, breathing shallowly and barely alive, last time they saw her.  That might be worth something, if they could figure out or agree on what.

The four of them are not dead.  They are not under arrest.  They’re not in Emon any more, either, but since staying away might be the only chance they have to keep being not-dead and not-arrested, that’s probably a win, too.

They look at each other, hollow-eyed and dazed, across the table at the only inn in the tiny nowhere town of Cinder Hills, where they didn’t dare sleep last night and had better leave the minute they finish breakfast and also decide what the hell comes next.

“What,” Cam says, speaking for them all, “the fuck?”

.

“Look,” Sasha says.  “It’s fine.  We just…go to another city, and wait for things to die down.  Come back when it’s all over and pretend none of it ever happened.  Nothing to do with us at all.”

It’s fine.  It has to be fine, because if it’s not then Sasha’s lost everything.  Jail isn’t the only way to be trapped.  Freedom costs so much.

“You cannot possibly think that’s going to work,” Jamie says scathingly.  “You think there’s anybody in Emon who doesn’t know who the great Sasha Murasaki is?  We run, and we do not come back.”

Fuck Jamie, fuck them, just…fuck.

She’s spent years building herself a future in Emon.  Years, fighting to make herself a place in history.  Scrounging for every fucking scrap her parents would let her have, every fraction of respect or freedom that couldn’t just be taken away on a whim because she didn’t lower her eyes enough on any random night.  And now she’s going to lose it to this?

“Um,” Aff says.  “I have family in Emon?  I’m not just going to disappear on my dad.  And like, what about Cam’s dad, or Sasha’s family, or–”

“I can’t see my dad right now,” Cam interrupts quickly.  “Leaving actually maybe sounds good.”

“Oh, and leaving where, Jamie?” Sasha demands, because she’s ignoring Cameron right now until she can handle looking at him.  “Are we all going to stay with your little forest friends?  Sleep on leaf mattresses and learn to be druids, then?”

Jamie snorts.  “I’m not taking any of you within ten fucking miles of any druid circle I’ve ever met.  You, they’d eat alive,” and he gestures dismissively at Aff, “and you, they’d never forgive me for.  Luckily the world’s pretty fucking big.”

“So, what, you just want to–what, get on a ship and go to Wildemount?” Cam asks, interrupting Sasha again before she can get started on what even she knows is going to come out sharp and bitter and useless.  “Never come home?”

“You can do whatever the fuck you want.  I’m going to Kymal as soon as I can get on the fucking road, to see if I can rebuild even a third of what I just left behind.” Jamie says, like it’s just…that easy.  “Maybe Westruun, eventually, depending on how that goes.”

Sasha cannot start over in fucking Kymal.  She can’t.  She’s going home.  She’ll get this straightened out.

Everybody knows who her parents are.  They could smooth the whole thing over, probably, if she went down on her knees and begged hard enough.  If she agreed to let them ship her off to whatever cloister or rich husband they chose, and lost everything to spending the rest of her life under her mother’s thumb and her father’s commands anyway.

Fuck.  Fuck.  It feels like the walls of this tiny shitty tavern room are closing in on her already.  Sasha is so fucked.

It was supposed to be perfect.  She was almost done.  She was on her way.  It was going to be perfect.

“We should probably stay together,” Cameron says worriedly, looking between Sasha and his precious Aff and Jamie fucking Wrenly.

“Westruun,” Sasha says.  It’s too small to build anything worth having and it’s too far away from everything she’s ever built so far and it’s too big for her to matter at all and it’s too close for her to really be safe.  Westruun’s nothing.  But at least it’s better than fucking Kymal.  “We can go to Westruun.”

Or Vasselheim.  Or Rexxentrum.  Or Ank’harel.  Or Port Damali.  Sasha’s a little afraid to start running.  She’s a little afraid that once she gets going, she won’t be able to stop.

.

Notes on Level 2:

Sasha, human bard 2 Cantrips: Message, Prestidigitation L1 spells (3/day): Charm Person, Sense Emotions, Disguise Self, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic

Cameron, human warlock 2 Patron: Fiend Cantrips: Mage Hand, Friends L1 spells (2/day): Command, Charm Person, Hex Invocations: Beguiling Influence, Devil’s Sight

Jamie, human wizard 1 druid 1 Cantrips: Friends, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Druidcraft, Infestation L1 spells (3/day) : Cause Fear, Color Spray, Silent Image, Charm Person, Sleep, Identify, plus any druid spells prepared that day

Aff, human barbarian 2 Rage (2/day): +2 damage

#C writes stuff #cinderbrush #critical role #yes I know what happens next #look y'all #I ALWAYS know what happens next #but this is as much as I had written and good #and I wanted to share something today

[themuzzleofnemesis]

5–Memory of Flames; Scene 2

The Muzzle of Nemesis, pages 178-193

“What—is the meaning of this!?” I demanded of Gammon, with the burning mansion in my sights. “Didn’t I ask you to wait until I arrived?”

“That’s what we were planning, but…Some of the militia men went against orders. It was hard even for me to hold them back.”

“Even so…”

--I had headed for the Dark Star Bureau after killing Tony, but it had already fallen to the militia.

Apparently they had captured Bruno. He had been brought to the militia’s main headquarters, and so was no longer at the Dark Star Bureau.

Also not at the bureau…was Gallerian. From the looks of things he had abandoned Bruno and escaped via a secret passageway.

They told me Gammon and some of the soldiers had followed after him, and so I had immediately left the building to rendezvous with them.

What I ultimately arrived at was here…Gallerian’s home—

I had asked Gammon ahead of time not to lay a hand on Gallerian.

And yet, they had already set fire to the mansion.

…According to Gammon, it was our opponent who attacked first.

“One of the soldiers suddenly caught fire. His body was consumed by blue flames.”

“Was he fired at by some fire arrow or bottle bomb?”

“…I don’t know. It didn’t look that way, at least. It was as though he’d had some spell put on him—”

…A spell, huh.

Thinking on the people Gallerian had known—my mother, and Nikolay, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary if he knew how to use magic.

Mr. Ziz, currently my mask, spoke up.

<Blue flames…In the past I have seen a sorceress who could use those>

“Who?”

<Irina Clockworker. The red cat sorceress, who lived an eternity manipulating other people. As far as I know she’s the only one who can use blue fire. I don’t know how Gallerian can do it>

“Is there…a chance that this red cat lady taught it to him?”

<She’s gone now. She died long ago>

“…”

<Perhaps Gallerian has also contracted with a demon>

“Just like…me?”

<Though even if he has—you can still kill him. As long as you use that golden bullet, there’s no way you’ll lose>

Appearing to believe I was muttering to myself, Gammon peered at my face with a doubtful expression.

“—Nemesis? You alright?”

“Huh? Yeah…I was just thinking aloud. –Gallerian is inside. You’re certain of that?”

“He can’t get outside with these flames. If we leave the mansion be, eventually—”

“…That’s not good enough.”

I couldn’t just let him die without having ever confronted him.

I slowly started to walk towards the mansion.

“Hey, Nemesis! It’s too rash to go in there! Stop!”

Gammon cried out to me from behind, but I ignored him and pushed on ahead.

--As I got closer to the mansion, I could feel the temperature around me rising.

When I reached the entrance the flames were almost touching my skin.

<…Hey hey, don’t do anything excessive, Nemesis>

The moment Mr. Ziz spoke, the fire suddenly parted around me.

“Woah…So a demon can do that too.”

<You won’t die even if you’re fried to a crisp, but it’ll still take a while for you to heal, and more importantly your clothes will burn off. You don’t want to reunite with your Papa naked and charred black, do you?>

“Thanks for your concern towards my being a lady.”

Then I stepped foot in the mansion. Unlike the outside, the fire had yet to really reach the interior of the house.

I could hear someone talking from further in.

I advanced in that direction.

.

From what I could glean from the doorway, this room was the study.

Inside a single man was sitting at a desk, talking to a doll clutched in his arms.

“—The bat’s gone now.”

“…”

“Don’t worry, Papa isn’t going anywhere.”

“…”

“I wonder what kind of place hell will be.”

“…”

Is this…

So this man was my father?

This man with such girlish interests as to talk to dolls?

…The doll he was holding looked familiar.

It was that doll Mr. Ziz had taken from the ocean. They must have handed it off to him after it was recovered by PN.

“Mr. Ziz—now that I think about it, there’s something I’ve always meant to ask you.”

<What is it?>

“Why you went to such lengths to collect that doll.”

<Because that is…another “Vessel of Deadly Sin”, like Grim the End>

“Then there is…a demon inside it after all.”

<--Maybe>

Then did that mean that the “Will of the Forest” I had spoken to—was the voice of a demon?

I emptied out the cylinder of my revolver.

And in place of the regular bullets, I loaded in the golden one from my ammo case.

<Oh, you’re finally using it! That’s good. If he has a Vessel of Deadly Sin then it’s most likely that Gallerian is himself a contractor>

While listening to Mr. Ziz speak, I entered the room—gun at the ready.

“Dark Star Bureau Director Gallerian Marlon.”

When I spoke to him he finally noticed me.

“And you are…Ah yes, you’re finally here. The one who will kill me.”

Gallerian stood from his chair, boldly smiling.

While still clutching the doll.

“You’re alone. What happened to the others? Did they not come inside?”

“…I’m perfectly able to kill you on my own.”

I aimed the gun at his forehead.

Despite that, his faint smile didn’t waver.

“That’s a good gun. It smells a bit like gunpowder smoke—and blood.”

“I’ve recently used it to kill someone. Tony Ausdin…Your friend.”

“I see. So you’re the one who killed Tony. And now you’re going to put me down with that gun—”

“It’s the gun you sent to me—‘Master’.”

When I said that name to him, finally Gallerian’s expression wavered.

“…That you know that form of address—Heheh, so that’s it. You’re—‘Number 8’.”

“Yes, exactly. Nice to meet you—Though we’ll soon be parting forever.”

“I don’t understand. You were my ally, so why are you threatening me now?”

“Because you…are evil. You’ve ruined so many people just to fill your own pockets. This gun that will soon shoot you is the face of everyone’s anger—Come, repent!”

The Dark Star Bureau—the organization that managed the USE’s judicial system.

Gallerian who was the director at its top had used his position to commit evil deeds, time and time again.

His goal was to accumulate money. As long as he received a bribe he would reduce the sentencing of any sort of villain, and conversely would charge those who went against his will with false crimes to bring them down.

That wasn’t all. He would also secretly erase those who might get in his way using assassins like I had once been.

And I guess he plays with dolls at home…

I couldn’t find with a single redeeming quality.

He didn’t deserve to live.

Even if—he was my father.

“…I have one thing I want to ask you. Why did you have me made into an assassin?”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“Don’t try to bullshit me. I know that you run PN’s shadow organization—Pere Noel. The man Bruno always called ‘Master’…That is you, isn’t it?”

“You are correct on that. I am ‘Master’. I don’t mean to try to deceive you on that point now. But—the last member that I hired personally was ‘Number 7’, Eater.”

“…Huh?”

“To tell the truth, the only things I know about you are your codename of ‘Number 8’ and that you’re an assassin. Until just now, I mean. You were inducted as a member through Bruno’s discretion alone. He has always worked very well on my behalf, you see. I had no reason to object.  I was just grateful to him that he had obtained another asset for me.”

Gallerian hadn’t known anything?

Not even that I…was his daughter?

--So what if he didn’t. That didn’t change the fact that this man was a villain.

I didn’t come here out of a personal grudge. I was here as a mouthpiece for the world’s righteous fury.

I moved yet closer to Gallerian.

“…Select either path. Whether your brow will be shot through, or burned up in this hellfire.”

“Let me give you some advice as a judge. Don’t leave your choice of verdict up to the defendant. If you want to kill me, then you select the method yourself.”

If he had wailed and begged for his life I would have still shot him without hesitation.

But as I was growing irate at his arrogant behavior, at the same time I was beginning to have some unwelcome doubts.

Gallerian showed no sign of reflection. Even if he fell down to hell, he likely wouldn’t regret any of what he had done.

--Was I really satisfied with that?

Maybe I had wanted him to apologize to me.

For throwing away his own daughter. For making her unhappy.

But…Gallerian hadn’t known that “Number 8” was his daughter.

On the contrary, there was a possibility that he hadn’t even been told that my mother—Kayo Sudou, had given birth to a child at all.

I thought about asking him. About whether or not he knew about me…About the daughter named Nemesis.

…What would happen if I learned the answer?

We weren’t eating at some refined restaurant right now. This was a warzone, and I was pointing a gun at him.

Even if I went as his daughter in this situation—it wouldn’t gain either of us anything.

If he didn’t know, that was fine with me.

I would have Gallerian die without knowing of Nemesis.

I pulled back the firing hammer of my gun.

All I had left to do was pull the trigger.

…

But no matter how I tried I couldn’t carry out that last act.

<My my, are you hesitating at the last moment, Nemesis?> Mr. Ziz said mockingly, but I ignored him.

Yet even so he continued to speak to me.

<So then…How about this? You give him a chance for “atonement”>

Atonement?

<If he sincerely regrets his sins, then save his life>

He couldn’t seriously be suggesting that at this stage—

<Naturally, that comes with the condition that you do so right here. As long as you have my power, you will be able to slip through the flames with him. After that you should hand him over to Gammon. Even after everything’s said and done, the Tasan Party is a proper political organization. If Gallerian surrenders himself they aren’t likely to kill him then and there—the fact that they captured Bruno alive is proof enough of that>

“…”

<Whatever the case, Gallerian will be ruined…But if you want him to feel any remorse for his deeds, this option would probably be better than killing him>

In a sense, that suggestion was very appropriate for a demon to give.

It wasn’t based off of any benevolence, but rather a simple desire to see Gallerian suffer more.

But—perhaps it would be good to give him a chance, in order to make my decision.

“Gallerian—if you have any thoughts of repentance…Relinquish your fortune.”

“Oh?”

It wouldn’t be enough for him to just turn himself in. Even if the Tasan Party pardoned him, the world would most certainly still wish for his death.

In order to weaken the pressure of society against him even a little bit he would need to show some self-reflection with a tangible act.

“You stole a great deal of money and goods from people…If you promise to give it back, then I will spare your life at least.”

Gammon seemed to also want back the sword that had been stolen from him. Maybe if he learned it was in this mansion he would even move to stop it from burning down.

Gallerian had run away too readily from the Dark Star Bureau. His fortune probably wasn’t there.

Then the only other place I could think of—was his home.

“You would…spare my life?”

“Yes, Gallerian. You must have something you’ve still yet to do. If you live then maybe you’ll be able to obtain the chance to achieve it. If you die then that’s it for you!”

I tried to persuade Gallerian now in much the same way as Mr. Ziz and Gammon had done for me.

In response to their arguments, I had chosen to live.

Even Gallerian would surely—

“…My fortune—”

Yes, as long as you let it go, I will save you.

“—I won’t ever hand it over to the likes of you!” he…replied without a trace of doubt on his face.

“Everything…All of it, it’s mine! Why would I need to give anyone what I worked so hard to obtain? You lot…don’t even know why I gathered all of it in the first place!”

“…”

“And let me say up front, my fortunate isn’t even in this mansion! My precious money and items, they’re all hidden somewhere else! Somewhere you’ll never find! And if living means giving it to others, then let it sleep there for all eternity!”

“…You’re trash that can’t be helped.”

I had known it well. This man had no notion of “atonement”.

Even if he were to survive and go to prison, he would go the rest of his days without renouncing his acts.

So it’s as I thought—I had to end him here, by my own hands.

I thrust the muzzle of my gun at Gallerian’s forehead.

“Let mine and the people’s hatred wash over your body…and then sleep.”

“Oh? So, it seems you’ve chosen to kill me with the gun. …If you’re going to do it, then hurry up. You’re scaring my daughter.”

“—Your daughter?”

“Can you not see her? She’s right here.”

He looked at the doll that he was carrying.

“It’s alright, don’t be afraid.”

He patted the doll’s head.

“This young lady here only has business with your Papa. You have nothing to worry about.”

Gallerian spoke to the doll with kind eyes that he had most certainly never directed at me.

.

Could he honestly think this doll was his daughter--?

Did he think it was me?

Then…he really did know about me.

He'd thought I died.

And then went insa--

.

"--Don't worry, it'll be over soon…Michelle."

.

…

…Heh.

……Ha ha ha.

That's right.

Of course not.

Gallerian had had a daughter with his proper wife.

Her name was Michelle.

She--had been aboard the ship that I sank.

She was already gone.

.

…And yet.

You don't look at me.

Just at the doll.

You just keep looking at that dead girl.

Even though--I'm still alive, right here.

.

Hey, Father.

Look at me.

.

Look at me too.

.

--With this it's truly over.

Let's make everything end.

At some point Gallerian had quit speaking to the doll, and was gazing at my face in utter stillness.

In his eyes there was neither the affection he had directed at the doll.

Nor any fear of death.

Nor anger at me.

There was none of that.

Merely—the empty eyes of a madman.

.

"--Farewell."

You sinful “evil”.

My father.

.

I pulled the heavy trigger.

And then—the golden bullet was fired from the muzzle.

.

Ordinarily this would kill instantly, with no time for words.

But as he collapsed backwards--

He murmured in the end:

"I'm fine with this…Thank you--Nemesis."

.

………Huh?

<<prev------directory------next>>

[judgmentofcorruption]

Episode 9–House of the Undead; Scene 2

Judgment of Corruption, pages 247-258

It was nighttime on Gallerian’s estate. Gusts of snow blowing in from the crosswind continued to slam against the windows. It seemed the blizzard wasn’t going to let up for some time.

The red wineglass that he had retrieved from the ‘Graveyard’ restaurant sat on the table. Bruno took it up in his hands, bringing it closer to his eyes.

“…So this is a ‘Vessel of Deadly Sin’. To me it just looks like an ordinary glass—”

“You probably shouldn’t touch it. There’s supposed to be a demon lurking within it. Apparently, those who contract with it become ‘evil food eaters’ who can eat whatever they want,” Gallerian informed him, wiping his face with a napkin after having finished his meal.

“A demon of ‘Gluttony’, huh…Perhaps you ought to contract with this one instead, sir. You haven’t been eating as well lately.”

“It’s not that I can’t eat. I’m just trying not to eat as much. I did just put away an entire full course meal at ‘Graveyard’, you know.”

The phone started to ring. Bruno picked up the receiver and began to speak to the other person.

After a moment he set the receiver back down and said to Gallerian, “It’s Ma. She’ll have to come over here tomorrow morning.”

“I see. Well, that’s understandable, with this blizzard.”

“She says that we must make sure to keep the glass under observation until she can apply her sealing magic to the demon.”

“You say that, but it’s not like it can do anything right now. Just put it in an interior room with the sword.”

Bruno once again gazed at the wineglass in his hand.

“…I’m thinking that perhaps it isn’t so wise to leave these items in the house. I don’t know much about demons, but what is clear to me is that these are items you have obtained via unlawful means. You never know if the people who run the bureau’s storage might betray you someday.”

“I do have an idea for that. Ma’s made a certain request of me recently. My idea could not only grant that request, but also provide me a place to store the vessels—Though it requires a bit of money.”

“Ma’s greed isn’t a recent development. Perhaps she thinks that she can withdraw any amount of money from you. …I’m not sure you should be hearing out any of her whims.”

“But—"

There was the sound of something breaking in the living room.

Gallerian stopped talking and looked in that direction.

“What was that?”

“Maybe the window glass shattered from the force of the wind. I’ll go check.”

“…Take care. We don’t have anyone on guard for tonight.”

“—I’ll take the gun with me.”

Bruno took a pistol that had been left in a cupboard and set the wineglass there in its stead.

But in the very next moment—There was a loud crash, and a window right near him exploded inward.

“--!?”

Then something pure white entered from there—and it wasn’t snow. It was the arm of a human being, with skin that was unnaturally white.

Bruno fired at the spot without thinking. But the creature pulled its body into the dining room without flinching away.

The moment his eyes locked on its form, Bruno shouted in surprise, “It’s—a dead soldier?! Sir, run!”

Gallerian shot to his feet, and fled into the hallway from a door further in.

--But then he immediately whirled back inside, closing the door and locking it.

“It’s no use, Bruno! They’re already swarming the hallway!”

“What!? …Dammit, how did dead soldiers get into a mansion in the middle of town—”

As Bruno fired at the dead soldier that had come in from the window, he once more picked up the wineglass with his other hand and backed towards a corner of the dining room, moving as though to shield Gallerian.

From the other side of the door they could hear vicious blows. They were likely trying to break the door down. Before they knew it there were three dead soldiers in the dining room, and they were steadily advancing on the two men.

And then—an even worse invader leaped into the room from the broken window.

“GWAAAAAARRR!”

--And that was an enormous giant human over two meters tall. No, they couldn’t even tell if he was truly human. He was wearing a uniform. A faintly sullied chef uniform. They couldn’t tell if the red fluid that was splattered across it was animal blood from cooking or human blood. In his right hand he held a large cleaver, and his skin was a quicklime white like the rest of the dead soldiers around him.

“—So, you Gallerian?”

The man thrusted the cleaver before Gallerian’s eyes.

“Give back our master.”

“Master…!? What are you talking about? Just who are you in the first place? Are you—not a dead soldier?”

“Urgh…Don’t give me questions! Don’t ask me anything hard! Hand back our master now!”

The man grew enraged, and lifted the cleaver high.

“--!”

Bruno shot him twice in the stomach.

--But that only seemed to make his target angrier.

“That hurt! Whadda you doing, asshole!?”

After clutching at his stomach with his left hand, he then reached out and grabbed Bruno by the neck.

“Bruno!”

“Grk…”

While in clear suffering, Bruno pointed the muzzle of the gun at the man’s head and pulled the trigger.

But the gun only made a hollow click, appearing to have run out of bullets.

All the color steadily drained from Bruno’s face.

“—Cut it out, ‘Eater’.”

At that moment, a voice called out from the window to stop the man.

“…”

The man obeyed the voice, and released Bruno.

The owner of the voice gracefully jumped in from the window, clearing away snow from his shoulders.

“Sigh…I’ve spoiled my best tuxedo.”

It wasn’t to the degree of the man called Eater, but this one was extremely tall. He wore a black tuxedo and silk tophat, gripping a walking stick in his left hand. Additionally, he too had skin far whiter than was humanly possible.

Upon seeing his figure, the dead soldiers all ceased moving and stood in place.

The noise from outside the door had also died down.

“I apologize for my colleagues, Mister Zero. And—” The man in the tuxedo peered at Gallerian’s face with great interest. “—I see, so you are Mister Marlon…The ‘collector’.”

“Collector?”

“Yes, that’s right. I have heard you are gathering the ‘Vessels of Deadly Sin’, are you not? That is what I would call someone with such capabilities—Oop, do forgive me.” The man took a step backward and then neatly bowed. “I should introduce myself. I am the proprietor of ‘Graveyard’—My name is Lich Arklow. This one beside me here is Eater Sabear. He is my chef.”

“The—proprietor of Graveyard!?”

“Correct. You can surmise the reason for our having come here tonight, I expect? …We came to request the return of the vessel you stole from my establishment—the ‘Glass of Conchita’—and the immediate release of my waitstaff, ‘Waiter’.”

“Ho, and is this what you call a ‘request’, to break in the windows of a person’s home and strangle their servants?”

Lich replied to Gallerian’s provocation with an unruffled expression, “Oohoohoo, I could say the same for you. Thanks to you my establishment is in shambles. There’s no way we can open for business again.”

“You called me the ‘collector’ earlier. You said that was someone who is capable of holding onto the Vessels of Deadly Sin. –So then there shouldn’t be any problem with me owning the ‘Glass of Conchita’, right?”

“You might have the capability, but that doesn’t mean you can just steal someone’s property. –I’ll be taking it back now,” Lich said, snatching back the wineglass from the fallen Bruno’s hand. “Relax, Mister Marlon. As long as you obey my demands we won’t make any more trouble for you.”

“You’re telling me to listen to the kind of person who comes accompanied by dead soldiers?”

“…Oh my, this puts me in a bind. How can you take such a stubborn position in a situation like this…?” Lich pushed his index finger into Gallerian’s throat. “Don’t you forget. Your life is currently in our hands.”

“…”

“—Oh?”

Lich noticed a change in the wineglass that he was holding.

The glass was giving off a red light, flickering repeatedly.

“…Eater. Hold this for a bit.”

Lich handed the ‘Glass of Conchita’ to Eater.

And then in that next moment—before their eyes Lich’s body was swallowed up inside the glass.

“--!?”

Gallerian watched on this with an expression of shock.

--After a few seconds, Lich once more flew out of the glass, sporting an expression of slight dissatisfaction.

“…Honestly, that one’s willfulness is quite vexing.” Surprisingly, Lich turned to Gallerian and kneeled, adopting a subservient posture. “Our master has accepted you becoming the owner of the ‘Glass of Conchita’, Mister Marlon. And as such, I must acquiesce to your decision. This very night, I, Lich Arklow, and Eater Sabear shall become your servants.”

“Wh-wha!?” Gallerian was dumbfounded. “What’s with this sudden development?”

“—However, our master has some conditions. That you not bring the ‘Glass of Conchita’ anywhere near your companion, Miss Ma, and additionally—that you look for the ‘grave yard’.”

“The ‘grave yard’? You mean your restaurant?”

“No, they’re different. The restaurant ‘Graveyard’ originally took its name from that. The discovery of the ‘grave yard’ is our master’s fondest wish. Our master has told me that if you are able to collect all of the Vessels of Deadly Sin, Mister Marlon, then that location will naturally become clear to you—And also that if you do not agree to this demand, then Eater is to lop off your head with his cleaver.”

“…So in the end, the fact that I’m being threatened hasn’t changed.”

“I don’t think it’s such a bad proposal. You will be able to come into possession of one of the Vessels of Deadly Sin. And…you will obtain a loyal unit of dead men.”

“You must be joking! Having dead soldiers as my underlings will only make me an enemy of the army!”

When Gallerian cried out in anger, Lich merely shook his head in disappointment. “You appear to be under a misconception; the dead soldiers that are laying waste to the territory of the USE have nothing to do with us. Rather, they are an annoyance. Thanks to them we wound up being attacked by the military once.”

“You say that, but to the average person a dead soldier is just a dead soldier.”

“Well then, let’s do this. Outside of emergencies, we will have all of the dead soldiers outside of myself and Eater sleep in their graves. As you can see, there is little different between us and normal humans at a glance, and we are able to communicate. If I may, I heard that you were being targeted by the Yarera Zusco Conglomerate. If you leave your security to us, then we will be able to ensure your safety.”

“Just to be sure…You and the big guy there are both dead soldiers after all?”

“Yes. Though our origins are different from these others. You may even refer to Eater and I as--‘dead gods’.”

“…What an extremely unpleasant designation.”

“Come then, what will it be? Decide quickly. Come on, quickly now!”

“…”

As Gallerian struggled to make a decision, the fallen Bruno finally stirred.

“…I think it best you quietly go along with them, sir.”

“Bruno, you’ve come to. How much did you hear?”

“Everything from around the point where this man said he would become your servant. Whatever the case, this situation doesn’t leave much room for us to decide.”

“True enough—I guess there’s no helping it.” Gallerian turned to Lich again. “Very well, Lich Arklow. From this point on, you will be tasked with the security of this mansion as members of PN…Make sure not to go around telling other people your true identity.”

“Oohoohoo, don’t worry. I did manage to run a restaurant for several years, after all. Although, well…Most of the actual serving of customers was done by ‘Waiter’.”

“Now that you mention it, what should I do about this ‘Waiter’? You did demand her release earlier—”

“Ah, that will be unnecessary. There’s no need to rush, now that we’ve become your servants. She’ll be let out in six months anyway; let her remain in prison for now.”

“…That’s quite cold of you.”

“Eater may have worked with her in the restaurant, but I had no real acquaintanceship with her.”

“…I see.”

And in this way, the uninvited Lich and Eater were forcibly added into Gallerian’s circle of allies.

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[fleckcmscott]

Watch What Happens - Chapter 15

Chapter links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Summary: Arthur, an aspiring comedian, has struggled to find normalcy and compassion his entire life. Y/N, a hard-working paralegal and transplant to Gotham, has just been put on a case for the Wayne Foundation. When they meet, unexpected sparks fly.

Chapter warning: Swearing, Angst

Words: 3,671

All he had wanted to do was meet his father.

Arthur had always wondered what he'd done to make him leave. Maybe it had been his condition. Or, somehow, his father had instinctively known he was mentally ill. Penny had been right when she’d said he was an unwanted bastard. But Arthur still longed to find out who his father was. After his mother's confession, he'd been determined to meet him as soon as possible. Nervous excitement had filled him as he searched all his pockets until he scrounged up enough money to take a train to Wayne Manor.

A copy of City Metro News had lain on a nearby empty seat, and he’d grabbed it to study during the ride. There'd been a photo of Wayne's other son. Arthur recognized him from the news. He didn't look happy, almost hiding behind his father's form. His dark hair and apparent shyness reminded Arthur of himself. There wasn't much he remembered from when he was that age. But the boy's posture had evoked a time when Arthur had hidden in a teacher's closet because his laughter wouldn't fucking stop, even after he'd gotten a ruler across the knuckles.

Walking from the train station to the mansion, he'd done his best to make sure he looked presentable. He'd fixed his hair and looked to see if he'd missed any buttons on his dress shirt and brown cardigan. If he was going to meet his father after thirty-five years, he was going to make him proud. He'd checked his pockets for the red clown nose and magic wand he'd brought to entertain his half-brother with.

Arthur's gait had turned into a stroll as he walked along the brick wall surrounding the perimeter of Wayne Manor. He'd peered over the barrier, astonished at the size of the place. If he had been allowed to grow up with his father, he was sure his life would have been different. It certainly would have be easier to care for his mother. And he'd have his own bed to sleep in.

Even as he’d thought about these possibilities, he’d realized he didn't want anything from Thomas Wayne. He hadn't gone there to ask for money the way his mother always did. Warmth and decency were what he’d sought. If he pressed his luck, maybe he could get a hug, too.

And answers. Penny's history had always been a mystery to him. It would be nice to learn more about her.

He'd felt some solace when he spotted the boy from the photo. Younger children were easy for him to interact with. Usually, they accepted him without question. When the child had spotted him, Arthur ducked behind the wall and put his red nose on, then peeked back up and smiled, continuing towards the entrance. The boy had followed, leaving his backyard jungle gym to take a closer look.

The boy and Arthur had stopped about ten feet from each other, on either side of a closed, wrought iron gate. After performing a magic trick, which the kid didn’t seem to understand, Arthur had knelt down on his side of the barrier. He hadn’t expected to be so moved at meeting his half-brother. Hands on the bars, Arthur had asked the boy's name. The boy hadn't hesitated to give it; Arthur gave his name, too. He thought he may hugged Bruce if he could have. But the gate prevented that. He'd had to settle for pushing Bruce's mouth into a smile with his thumbs. The boy had still been smiling when Arthur let go.

Then the butler had ruined it.

Thinking back on it, Arthur grew despondent. When the man said there was nothing to tell, Arthur had been confused. Why would Penny lie about who his father was? She didn't have anything to gain from that. But when the man had called his mother delusional and sick, he felt anger burn in him. It had grown while the butler continued denying everything.

Arthur's darker impulses had gotten the better of him when the man had told him not to make a fool of himself and laughed. It had happened too fast to stop it. Rage coursed through his entire frame as he'd reached through the bars and grabbed the man by the tie, then the neck, and squeezed. "He left me!" he'd yelled, feeling pathetic even as the words left his mouth. He'd been shaking, watching the man struggle to drag his hand away.

A movement over the man's shoulder had caught Arthur's attention. The boy, his brother, was standing there, staring at him with wide-eyed horror. His heart lurched. He'd made Bruce smile two minutes ago, and now he was afraid of him. Arthur had stopped suddenly, letting go of the butler. Then he'd run. As fast as he could, he'd run away from the gate, the manor, and the terrible idea to go there. Distressed, he'd hopped on the next train home, not even thinking to buy a ticket.

Now it was calm outside of Gotham General's emergency room. Arthur was glad for the silence. Sitting with his legs crossed on the metal bench, he brought his cigarette to his mouth and took a long breath. He adjusted his legs, as they'd started falling asleep. It was getting harder to stop his outbursts - today had been particularly tough. What would Y/N think if she knew what happened? Her eyes, which had seemed to reflect want and affection that morning, would instead be filled with fear. Like his brother’s. He couldn't stand the possibility. He screwed his eyelids shut.

Footsteps were approaching. Arthur felt his body relax a little, relieved Y/N was finally there. He straightened his legs and looked up, ready to spring to his feet and take her into his arms-

But two police officers were approaching him.

Fuck. The butler must have called Gotham PD after all.

"Mr. Fleck. Sorry to bother you,” one policeman started. “I'm Sargent Eckhard.” Eckhardt gestured towards the other officer as they stopped about a yard in front of Arthur. “This is my partner Officer Corrigan."

Arthur didn't move, looking up at them, trying to conceal his nerves.

Eckhardt continued. "We had a few questions for you, but you weren't home. So...we spoke to your mother."

It took a few moments before Arthur understood. "Oh..." His brows knit together. "What did you say to her? Did you do this?"

Corrigan spoke, waving his hand. "No, no, no. We just asked her some questions and she got hysterical - hyperventilating - then she collapsed. Hit her head pretty hard."

Arthur punctuated his words with a shake of his head, his voice strained with aggravation. "Yeah, the doctor said she had a stroke."

"Sorry to hear about that." Eckhardt said with some sympathy. "But like I said, we still have some questions for you." He looked down at his notes. "Were you at Wayne Manor earlier today?"

There was no point in denying it. He'd been stupid enough to give the butler his name. He focused on the ground as he answered. "Yeah."

Eckhardt continued. "They said you bothered their son."

"I didn't bother him." Arthur looked up at them. "I did a magic trick. Part of my act. I'm a party clown." Trying to keep his anger from growing, he puffed on his smoke.

"I see." Eckhardt paused. "They also said you assaulted the butler when he told you to leave."

Before Arthur could come up with an answer, a car pulled into the parking lot and stopped. After a few moments, Y/N exited it, waving goodbye to whomever the driver was. Anxiety made his shoulders ridged. It would only take a couple seconds for her to be next to him. The cops needed to leave before she saw them. She was too smart - she'd know something was up. "I wouldn't. That's horrible." He pushed himself to stand.

Y/N walked around the policemen and hugged him immediately. The relief he'd hoped to feel when he saw her was spoiled by his annoyance. She'd really shown up at the worst time. But her voice quieted him. "I'm sorry," she said. "How is she?"

He gave a quick nod. "She's sleeping."

She turned to the policemen, a confused look on her face. "Can I help you? Were you the ones who called the ambulance?"

Corrigan shook his head. "We just needed to speak with Mr. Fleck." He turned his attention to Arthur. "Don't go near the Waynes or Wayne Manor again. All right?"

"Yes. Okay." Arthur flicked his cigarette away, avoiding Y/N’s gaze as he grabbed her hand. "Now, if you don't mind, I have to go take care of my mother."

~~~~~

The hospital room was small and dimly lit, but he was glad his mother had gotten a room with a single bed and a window. Arthur sat on the twin padded chairs at Penny's bedside, staring at his clasped hands. It was all his fault. His mother being in the hospital, maybe dying. He'd selfishly neglected her. He hadn’t just left Penny alone all night so he could finally fuck a woman (something he'd been planning to do again), but he'd also left most of the day after they'd fought. What if she died before he could apologize? What if yelling at her was the last interaction they would have?

After he and Y/N had gone inside, they’d headed to the nurse's station to grab the paperwork he hadn't been able to complete on his own. Thankfully, they’d been able to find a quiet, private space to work on it. There had been so many questions about Penny's medical history. Y/N had been surprised at how little he knew. He tried to explain that Penny never liked going to doctors and didn't talk much. All he could say with any certainty was that she didn't take medication and needed help at home.

There were a lot of phrases he hadn't heard before. And it was hard for him to pay attention, his mind filled with guilt and questions of when he could bring Penny home. But Y/N had been patient as she clarified what a living will was, what advanced care directives were. Even after he'd understood, he didn't know the right answers. He'd felt like an idiot. But his mother had never discussed it. They never discussed anything.

Y/N was running her hand up and down his back soothingly. The beeping of the monitors and sound of the ventilator were deafening. Worry gnawed at him. And he felt awful. "I've been the man of the house for as long as I can remember," he said quietly. "I- I've never lived alone before."

Y/N scooted closer to him and put her other hand on his thigh. "You won't be alone, Arthur. She's going to be all right."

After a minute, he moved to slowly put his arm on the back of her chair, grazing her shoulders. With the wall heater right behind them, the position felt awkward, but good. She snuggled up to him and sighed. It didn't take long for her head to grow heavy on him, her body to slump against his side. He looked at her sullenly. How could she have fallen asleep when he needed her so badly?

He frowned at himself in disgust. She must have had a long day, he thought. And I didn't ask about it. Carefully, he tucked a stray hair behind her ear, then adjusted himself so he was in the corner of the chair. Looking back and forth between Y/N and Penny, the only two people who mattered to him, more than even himself, he sighed. Losing either of them would tear him to pieces. He hoped he had the strength to prevent it.

~~~~~

When she blinked awake, it took Y/N a few bleary seconds for her to realize she wasn't at home. No. Her back ached because she was laying on a set of chairs at the hospital. Arthur and Ms. Fleck were there. And policemen had talked about the Waynes. She swept her hair back from her face and pushed herself up, wincing, and looked at her watch. Damn. She'd been asleep for almost an hour. Looking around, she didn’t see Arthur. His jacket was draped over her, though. He couldn't have gone far. Stretching, she stood and looked around the room.

She'd spent a lot of time in hospitals in the year before she'd moved to Gotham. They were all quite similar: florescent lighting, tiled walls, that same anti-septic smell. There was a strange comfort in the familiarity. Ms. Fleck's form was small in the bed, her arms stuck with IVs, face almost entirely enveloped by the ventilator mask. The electrodes for the heart monitor were visible through her hospital gown. Y/N wondered if she was cold. She stepped to her and pulled the cover further over Ms. Fleck, bringing it to the top of her chest.

As Y/N continued to observe her, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest, she felt the urge to talk. It was silly. She barely knew this woman. And the one time she'd met her, Ms. Fleck had hurt her son. But maybe talking would help her recover. For Arthur's sake, at least. "I hope you don't mind me being here," she started. "Arthur's here, too. But you probably know that. He hopes to see you again soon." Her brows lifted as she continued. "I want you to know your son is a wonderful man. I'm fortunate to have met him. I-"

When she saw Arthur enter the room out of the corner of her eye, she stopped and turned to him. He approached the foot of the bed, two paper cups in his hands. "I got some coffee," he said, offering her one. "They didn't have any creamer. Sorry."

She took it gratefully and sipped at it. "Thank you. I'm sorry I fell asleep. You should have woken me up."

He dismissed her apology with a wave. "Has anything changed?"

"No. But she seems stable."

"That's good," he said, taking a drink.

After some silence, save for the sound of a monitor, Y/N decided to try to lighten the mood. "Well, tonight didn't turn out how we'd planned, huh?"

Arthur stared at her. First she thought she'd misjudged the timing of her remark, but then he chuckled, blushing, and brought his hand to his face. "No."

His laugh relieved her. It was good to hear before she had to start questioning him. Y/N put a hand on one of the bed's safety railings and closed her eyes. The policemen who'd been talking to Arthur when she arrived had been in the back of her mind since she'd gotten there, as well as their comment about the Waynes. "Arthur, I need to know. What were those officers talking about?"

His brow furrowed. After half a minute, he responded. "My mother wrote Thomas Wayne another letter. She keeps asking me why he isn't answering. I wanted to give it to him." His eyes darted to hers, then back down to Ms. Fleck.

"They called the police because you wanted to drop off a letter?" Y/N asked.

He went back to the chairs they had shared and sat stiffly. "I don't know why," he said softly, studying his coffee. "I didn't go inside. I waited at the gate." He pursed his lips, his face still pensive.

She suspected there was more to it - she'd have to find out the rest later. But his explanation was enough for the moment. Her thoughts went to the newly filed motion and a lump formed in her throat. Patricia was right: there was no way she could tell him about it now. Not with the stress he was experiencing. She would be needlessly piling on. Maybe Renew Corp. wouldn't send their letters his way, and she could continue to work in the background.

But she still felt the need to warn him. "Stay away from them, Arthur. They're powerful people. Gotham depends on them for too much." His only response was a nod and his eyes fluttering shut.

Music from the television appeared to suddenly draw his attention. Though she wasn't a regular viewer, Y/N recognized it as the opening theme to Live! With Murray Franklin. She watched his features soften, his eyes light up. The break from the tension he'd displayed most of the night would do him good, she thought. She settled next to him and finished her coffee as the monologue went on, more interested in Arthur's reactions than the show itself. When he scooted forward and reached out to hold his mother's hand, she gave him a smile, half-listening to the TV.

"...in a world where everyone thinks they could do my job, we got this videotape from Pogo's comedy club right here in Gotham. Here's a guy who thinks if you just keep laughing, it'll somehow make you funny. Check out this joker."

At the sound of Arthur's laugh, Y/N's eyes shot to the television, a hollow ache forming in her chest. There was Arthur, almost completely washed out by the spotlight on his pale skin, stumbling his way through his opening. Who had recorded this, she wondered, and which asshole had given it to NCB studios?

"Oh my god." Arthur said, then moved to stand in front of the TV. He was smiling. And when the clip was done, he let out a short, genuine laugh and clapped once. The joy on his face hurt her heart. He didn't seem to understand he was about to be mocked, that he was going to be laughed at, not with.

Murray spoke, then, mugging for the camera. “You should have listened to your mother.”

Y/N felt remorse for every time she had laughed at an oddball being made fun of on television.

"Let’s see one more," Franklin said. "I love this guy."

She closed her eyes, wishing she could shut her ears, too. If only the television had been broken or the antenna was out.

"It’s funny. When I was a little boy, and told people I was gonna be a comedian, everyone laughed at me," the recording of Arthur said. "Well, no one's laughing now."

Franklin didn't miss a beat. "You can say that again, pal." The audience roared.

Y/N got to her feet and went to Arthur. The corner of his mouth twitched; his whole frame was frozen, his jaw clenched. She reached out to take his closed fist in one hand, wrapping her other arm around his back. "You didn't deserve that."

He went to grab his jacket from the chair and hurriedly put it on. "We should go," he said. "It's late."

Y/N turned to him, squinting. "Are you sure? I don't mind staying long-"

"No, please. Let's just go," his said lowly. He left the room, not waiting for her, his coffee cup on the windowsill.

Buttoning her coat, she followed, catching up to him as he waited for the elevator. "Arthur-"

"You should go home," he said, leg bouncing.

She tried to take his hand, running her thumb over the back of it. "Come back with me. You shouldn’t be alone right now."

"I'll be fine."

"You don't have to push me away," she said, shaking her head. Though she spoke tenderly, it was impossible to keep her frustration out of her voice. "I wish you wouldn't."

His expression turned crestfallen. After they went into the elevator, he took her face in his hands and kissed her lightly. "I'm sorry." he said, pressing his forehead to hers. "Please don't be mad at me."

"I'm not mad." She held onto his wrists. When she looked up at him, his eyes were shining and wet. The usual puffiness under them had gotten worse. "You look exhausted. Have you slept?" she asked.

"No."

She traced one of the bags with her thumb. "Is there anything you can take that will help?"

A snort left him and he backed away from her. "You don't have to worry about that."

"What does that mean?"

He bit his lip, frowning. "I- I wanted to tell you this morning, but-"

She winced. That was deserved. "Tell me now."

After a little while, he closed his eyes. "I stopped taking my medication. The city cut the funding for it."

Y/N sighed, feeling as though she should have known, given her affected cases. Gotham Department of Health budget cuts had been all over the news, too. He had been moody, but she’d chalked it up to all that had happened with Pogo’s, his mother, and herself. Now she didn’t know where to attribute it. Her mind began working on how to help. She knew a few doctors through work. Maybe there were other programs. If she could-

"Please. Just go home. I'll be all right," he insisted. He was gazing into the distance, his hands in his pockets. Y/N cocked her head, torn between respecting the boundary he was drawing and letting out the pushy side she'd warned him of. But she didn't want to scare him off.

After they stepped out of the elevator, then exited the hospital, she grabbed his arm and pulled him towards her. He nearly stumbled but caught himself on her shoulder. He looked at her in consternation. She ignored it. "Come by if you want to,” she said. “I'll be at work all day, but tonight and tomorrow after the benefit I'll be home. Hell, stop by my office for a break."

Arthur lowered his head and nodded. "Okay."

"I’m here if you need me." She pressed her lips to his cheek. "And if you don't call me when you get home, I swear-."

"I will." The answer was so quiet, she almost didn't hear it. His eyes flicked to hers long enough to know he would. Then he withdrew gently, the corner of his mouth lifting before he turned and walked away.

Tag list (Let me know if you want to be added!): @harmonioussolve​ @clowndaddyfleck​ @sweet-nothings04​ @stephieraptorr​ @rommies​ @invisiblewispofwhimsey @let-the-stars-fall-in-the-abyss​

#arthur fleck #arthur fleck fanfic #arthur fleck x reader #arthur fleck x ofc #arthur fleck x female reader #joker 2019 #watchwhathappens

[uniquepoison]

Juliet Wesson my MC in OBEY ME with profile info

Name: Juliet Wesson

Birthdate: August 14

Height: 5’5”

Race: Cambion (half-human and Half-Demon)

Eye color:

Sclera : black

Iris: silver / gun metal grey

Parent/s:

Dean Wesson ( Foster father)

Original Parents UNKNOWN

Powers:

When dormant:

Supernatural strength and speed can summon weapons at will

Healing injuries faster.

Awakened: (demon form)

Increased speed and strength and healing

Weapon summoning increased with element properties

Powers of duplication (doppelgänger effect)

Use of magic unlocks

Flying

Skin color changes in this state with red to maroon patches covering her fore arms and legs. Her hair, eyes stay the same her hands become sharp claws as her feet remain the same until her powers increase which turns them in to claws too further on.

She has a pair of demon wings which sprout from her back.

Weapon/s:

Ring blade

Daggers

Spear / lance

knowledgeable about gun use too

Bio/ About :

Dean Wesson found Juliet as a baby alone on an abandoned road. He took her home. With connections to some detectives and police there was never a missing file of a baby or record of her. He decided to adopt her as his own and raised her up with a friend a succumbs named Sera.

Juliet grew up learning from her dad, not just about the usual daily tasks and house chores but also to keep herself safe from intruders.

Dean taught her how to use a gun and several weapons. He knew that she was different from others.

Juliet loved her time to herself or with her dad when they would go to town to watch movies or go shopping or simple lunches out. Her hobbies Include singing, video games, dancing, cooking and gymnastics.

When she was a kid she found doing kart wheels and bending her body backwards fun so when she saw a tv show about gymnastics she asked dean if she could learn those moves. She went to gymnastics classes for 6 years. Sadly the studio she was learning from had to close cause of not too many people go to it. She kept herself practicing what she learned even after the closing of the studio even adding new stunts and parquor to her list. This made her body very flexible.

Schooling was a different experience since her classmates would ask her all sorts of questions as to why her eyes were that way or why she has red hair. Some would keep away and some would just be around her just to say they know her without really getting to know her.

She had several incidents of being bullied by other girls but she never acted upon fighting but instead used her wit and cunning powers to keep her bullies in line.

They would trap her in the toilet stall which she can get out off easily by climbing up then jumping off, running back to the classroom before the girls got back quietly smiling at them as they came back leaving them in utter shock and silence they knew if they said anything Juliet would put them and what they had done.

After finishing her studies in grade school and high school Juliet took on jobs that would take her in. Which she had pretty easy offers and she would try them as much as she can. Made her learn how to deal with crazy customers and whiners which didn’t seem to phase her much.

During one day out in the town by herself she wanted to check out the open air festival shops sale,then after buy food for dinner.

As she was checking out the outdoor bargain stalls, She was washed with a sense of eyes peering at her. She noticed two men in her peripheral vision looking at her, without letting them notice she planned to leave the current shop she was looking at. As she walked away the two men followed.

She ran out from the crowd loosing them as she entered the ally. She stood there trying to catch her breath.without warning a hand covered her mouth and nose with a handkerchief with a weird-scent that knocks her unconscious.

She was brought to an abandoned hospital, tied into a straight jacket and locked in a padded room. The men that brought her there were not alone. she noticed several of them guarding her door. She noticed that she could not move her legs much. The only thing she saw was a blood mark staining her legs bandages wrapped around them. With her senses heightened she heard the men talking. They talked about their boss and a client.

Turns out she was kidnapped for a reason. Her rare breed was a wanted item in the underground black market, according to her father’s friend who is a underground bounty hunter they met before a Cambion can sell for a crazy amount of money alive. She heard that she was going to be sold to an important client. She knew she had to get out of there and get out as fast as she can.

One day passed from when she was kidnapped. According to her captors it seems their client wanted to view her personally before buying her yet he was abroad when the deal happened. So they have to wait for him to come back on the third day.

As time of the second day was running out Juliet planned to escape before the men shot her legs again with anesthesia.

Around ten she heard noise coming from outside her cell, shouts and guns firing. She heard a male voice unfamiliar to her call her name. She replied calling which cell she was in. She saw the door break from its hinges as it flew across the room falling near her. She looked up and saw a man with dark raven hair with glowing red eyes looking at her.

“I’m here to rescue you” he said as he knelt down in front of her.

“ I... I can’t move. The effect of the anesthesia is still present in my blood.” She replied to him struggling with the jacket around her.

“I see. So for you not to escape they did this... don’t worry I will carry you”

With one swift move the man picked her up in his arms.

She looked around noticing her captors were on the floor unconscious.

Juliet tried moving her legs she knew it was almost time for the anesthesia to wear off. More gun shots were heard from outside along with a huge explosion.

“ crap! Diavolo seems to be having fun out there..” the man muttered.

She looked at him. “ Diavolo?”

“ yes. My friend. Forgive me I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Lucifer. A woman friend of yours came to ask us to save you.”

“ save me.. a friend oh! You mean my aunt Sera! Dad must be worried”

Before Lucifer can reply their way was blocked with more men with guns ready to charge them.

Juliet began to have feeling in her legs once again.

“Shit ! I was told not to fully kill them... “ he said as he stopped in his tracks.

“ Lucifer I think my legs are getting feeling once again. Listen... I have an idea. Once you charge at them throw me I can knock them unconscious.”

“ ok, I‘ll take the right you take the left. “ he agreed.

“No time for games! Give us back the girl!”

The man in the middle shouted. Lucifer smirked.

“ want her? HERE TAKE HER” with that signal Lucifer threw Juliet at the man.

She then jumped up high doing a back flip she launched her self at him kicking him in the face. Gun fire roared as they tried to aim at her and Lucifer. With her fast reflexes she round house kicked the remaining men down. Lucifer was impressed with her moves. She walked towards him with a smile. “ it’s nice to use my legs again.” He nodded as they both headed outside.

There outside stood a man with maroon hair his yellow eyes glowing from the moons reflection. “ Lucifer, there you are. Ah! So you found her.”

“Yes, Juliet this is Lord Diavolo. Prince of the Devildom.”

“Nice to meet you” she replied.

“I’d shake your hand but it seems your still tied up.”

“Um..Diavolo we better get a move on before more men come.” Lucifer said looking around.

“ Oh right! Barbatos is waiting for us in a van we can continue this else where.... your dad is waiting for you..”

The three of them ran off into the dark to a van waiting.

“My Lord, Mr. Wesson sent me the coordinates to his home. And he also wants to speak to miss Juliet.” Barbatos said as they entered the van.

“Wow! Dad really did send you guys... “

“ Yes. He went to great Lengths to find you.” Diavolo smiled.

After speaking to her father on the phone. Juliet was relieved to be going back home.

Lucifer helped Juliet take off the straight jacket while in the van.

They had food and water for her take from the days she was gone.

She explained to them how it all happened. And she was worried that they could hunt her down.

As they finally reached Juliet’s home they were greeted by Dean and Sera waiting outside. Juliet ran towards them hugging them both emotions ran high as she cried in her dads arms. Sera thanked the three demons.

Dean invited them in the house the three agreed following them in.Sera and Juliet went upstairs for her to shower and change into fresh clothes.

Dean led the three into the kitchen. Thanking them once again. Offering them food and drinks. They talked about the people behind the kidnapping. Dean was worried about what the men can do now that Juliet is gone. He was afraid that she could get kidnapped once again. Or even worse things. Diavolo offered a suggestion, of Juliet living in the Devildom. Sean felt that he had no other choice but for Juliet to go. He felt she could be in danger in the human world as it is. She needed a safe place. They came into an agreement but the end result will of course be Juliet’s decision.

When Juliet joined them they told her their ideas and options. She opened up about being scared to go out of her house and what could happen. She didn’t want her dad to get in trouble too. She made a final decision to live in the Devildom.

With that Diavolo requested Barbatos for specially made DDDs. One each for dean, Juliet and Sera. They agreed for her to live in the House of Lamentation along side Lucifer and his brothers. They agreed for Juliet to visit her father any day she wants but with accompany of Lucifer or his brothers. Dean is allowed to go to visit Juliet too as long as he calls Diavolo in advance.

Diavolo also promised a charm of protection (works for humans and demons) around Dean’s house just in case these people track him down. He also vowed to investigate this client and black market seller and buyer to put an end to it .

That night Juliet packed some clothes with the help of Sera and Barbatos.

She hugged her dad tightly. Promising to visit him as soon as she can.

He told her to not worry. And to just be safe.

They opened a portal to the Devildom in the basement Dean and Juliet hugged and he kissed her forehead “ get stronger my sweet pea”

“I will dad. I’ll come back stronger.” She followed the three demons to the open portal And with a flash the four were gone.

They entered into a room with so many doors. Diavolo chuckled and opened the door in front of them. “Welcome to your new home Ms. Wesson, Welcome to the Devildom!”

#obey me #obey me mc #obey me oc #obey me original character #digitalart #oc #original character