Your posts abt trigaze has been one of the few things that has saved me from feeling like I’m losing my mind abt this adaptation btw. So thank you for your service
smiles at you all cool , mysterious,and nonchalant like this
where's that post about i don't wanna be mean it's bad for my health so you all have to stop being stupid so i don't have to be mean to you... me right now
Re: ur boss sharing ur cell phone number w/out ur consent—that’s super fucked. I’d be exceptionally pissed. What makes it worse is “he’s not comfortable giving his number, so he gave urs.” I don’t see how any of this could be written off as okay. Granted, I have my own anxieties about talking on the phone and block spammers regularly. Talk with your boss about it. Be firm in telling him it wasn’t the correct move. Tell him he needs to ask permission first. If u deny permission and he does (1/2?)
give it out anyway, I’d probably go to HR, assuming you have an HR department. ESPECIALLY because you’ve had past issues with stalkers. No one should feel uncomfortable because of their job. (2/2)
Thank you!! I don’t have anxiety about talking on the phone but I evidently really, really have anxiety about strangers calling me on my personal phone. I’m not sure what the difference is to my anxiety but boy howdy there sure seems to be a difference (Idk where that “boy howdy” came from but once I thought it no other phrase works there)
I emailed them today and very clearly said they do not have my permission to share my number going forward, and that if I had known sharing it was even an option I would never have given them my number. My boss’s boss replied (too late) that he’d be willing to call all the contractors and ask them not to call me, but I said “thanks no thanks I already changed my number”.
I mean, not in those words. I did word it professionally, but the vibe was very “too late, dude” which is better than the wording I initially wanted of “fuck all of you very much. I resent this deeply. I will not forget it.” lol. I think my boss’s boss realized if I changed my number they were not going to get my new number. My boss, judging by his responses, very much did not realize that and will not be pleased when he figures it out. My boss’s boss also realizes that the flexible scheduling I had previously done, where I worked when it was busy and didn’t when it wasn’t (still 29 hours a week, but schedule changed day to day as I work from home and my former boss was my boss at the previous company I worked for and I didn’t mind him calling me), won’t be an option any more. I will work scheduled hours even if they are slow and will not work unscheduled hours even if they are busy.
We’ll see how this goes. I am extremely lucky to be able to work from home and I just have to keep telling myself that, because my last job was definitely an outlier in terms of how flexible my boss was about scheduling and personal preferences in contacting and like changing office policies when I got asthma and could no longer be around perfume or essential oils.
The good news is this company doesn’t have any offices in the state I live and hired me as part of their attempt to break into working in this state, so even without the virus I’d be able to work from home.
simon riley husband x shy and quiet wife who doesn’t know how to tell him that she bought a kitten 🫢
concur your timid tendencies
pairing: husband!simon “ghost” riley x shy wife!reader
summary: you surprise your husband with a new family member— if you can find out how to tell him
masterlist!
a/n: soooo cuteeee, anon :))) had soo much fun writing!! requests are open!
“awww, who’s the cutest girl in the world?” you quietly say in your best baby voice, “you are! that’s who!”
while your husband was away at work today, you decided to go to your local animal shelter, finalizing the adoption process for the precious kitten you’ve been bonding with over the last month.
it took you a while to muster up the courage to actually go to the animal shelter four weeks ago, your shyness getting the best of you.
simon usually helped you concur your timid tendencies, having you order takeout food over the phone, schedule his and your doctor appointments— some of his forms of exposure therapy. but, the brute happened to be absent from home daily, having to spend most of his days at work, meaning he couldn’t assist you all the time.
wanting to try your own form of exposure therapy, you started visiting the animal shelter, especially whenever you got too lonely. the puppies and kittens were always great company! animals were easier to be around than other humans— except for your si, of course.
and you may have gotten too close to one— an adorable kitten began following you everywhere you walked. she even started to yowl when you left the animal shelter, tugging at your heart strings. “she seems to really like you,” the vet said, squatting down beside you to pet the kitten, “would you be interested in adopting her?”
you were nervous about adopting your new pet, especially since you didn’t know how to tell your husband. you didn’t start going to the animal shelter with the goal of adopting, it just happened.
if anything, simon should be excited you added a new addition to your little family. she could help with your loneliness on the days he’s working, notably when the man gets deployed— his deployments were always excruciating to deal with alone. you needed this kitten.
“dada’s gonna be home soon, kitty!” you lifted the feline, snuggling her in your arms. “how am i gonna introduce you two?” you mumbled more to yourself, awwwing at your girl’s sweet purrs.
you played with your kitten in different rooms around the house, migrating from the living room, up the stairs to your bedroom, and even the bathroom— she had so much energy for such a tiny kitty.
placing a bowl of water and food down for her, you watched her consume it. “you’re probably really hungry, huh?” you giggled, petting along her back.
then, “hon? m’ home!”
it must’ve been a funny sight— you paused any movements, your kitty doing the same at your husband’s deep, thick accent.
“that’s him! we have to go kitty!” you scooped her up, lightly jogging up the stairs. hope si doesn’t hear me, you thought, placing the kitten in your bedroom. talking to her now, “please stay here and don’t leave! i have to prepare simon to meet you. i love you,” you kissed her, exiting the bedroom.
“sweet’eart?” you heard your husband again.
rounding the corner, “hi, si!” sweetly leaving you. throwing your arms around your husband’s neck, “how was work today?” just gotta act normal.
simon responded, encircling his arms around your waist, “same ol’, same ol’.” he kisses your cheek, pulling away, “wha’ were ya doin’? took ya a bit to come.”
thinking, oh great, questions! while putting on your best poker face. “you know, just listening to music in my headphones! i couldn’t hear you at first,” you replied, grabbing his hand to pull him towards the kitchen. “heard. jus’ don’ have it too loud next time, yeah fawn? could be dangerous for ya if it’s not m’ comin’ in,” he squeezed your hand in response. “yes, si! i didn’t even think about that!”
you ate dinner with your husband, chatting about the activities you both did today— you purposely leaving one out. simon was surely gonna find out about the kitten sooner or later, and you were okay with it being later! you just didn’t know how to tell the brit.
“luvie’?” your husband pulls you out of your thoughts, “wha’ are those doin’ agains’ tha wall?”
following where he was pointing, your eyes widened, landing on the kitty’s food and water bowls. shit, how could i forget to put those away!
“i-i don’t—” you stuttered, trying to come up with an excuse, but nothing.
simon raised an eyebrow, “mhmm?” vibrating deep in his chest. the man was having fun with this. “have somethin’ ya needa tell m’?” “n-no, si—”
meow.
a beat of silence.
“wha’ was tha?”
you winced, turning to look at the culprit in the doorway. “surprise!” you waved, walking to grab your kitten, she always follows me everywhere. i should’ve known better.
To my Canadian followers, here is a petition on the House of Commons website aiming to revoke permissions that would allow ICE offices to operate on Canadian soil, and to cancel funding and subsidies to Canadian companies who are arming ICE agencies with services, goods, and surveillance technologies that would further enable the lawlessness and abuses that ICE has committed. When you sign, you must click on the confirmation email link that will be sent to the email you sign with in order to verify your signature, otherwise it will not be counted.
For my non-Canadian followers, please share this petition and hopefully this will further the reach to other Canadian users on this platform. It is abominable that any company in this country help or in any way facilitate the unconstitutional and dehumanising acts that ICE has done.
In my city of Vancouver, we have been protesting and boycotting Hootsuite, a social media platform that has a $2M USD contract with DHS providing them with social media services from 2024 to 2029. Hootsuite claims they don't use tracking or surveillance with their tools, but the mere fact that they have chosen to work with the violent group in whatever social media capacity, despite previously *turning down* a contract with them back in 2020, is egregious.
Jim Pattison Group is a enormous conglomerate also based in Vancouver, owned and run by one man, Jim Pattison. Pattison previously considered selling an industrial building in Virginia to ICE for them to use as another "holding and processing facility," or more accurately, a goddamn concentration camp, but because of backlash he reversed that decision. Thank fucking god for that, but that does not mean he won't consider it again in the future.
In Ontario, ICE ordered 20 armoured vehicles from a Brampton firm called Roshel to the tune of $7.3M USD. Canada should not be arming a violent group that has shown itself to be nothing more than a racist group of masked kidnappers and power-tripping thugs that has violated the rights of US citizens and immigrants and violated numerous court orders.
I'm disgusted that there are Canadian companies that are willingly partnering with DHS and ICE despite the carnage that has been documented over the last year. It is exactly why I've signed this petition and am sharing it with you. Do not let any Canadian companies think they can rest easy by choosing to work with a violent group that is terrorising, abusing, and murdering US citizens of all walks of life, all at the orders of a fascist government run by abusers and tyrants.
There was no explanation, no warning. One minute, I was in an immigration office talking to an officer about my work visa, which had been approved months before and allowed me, a Canadian, to work in the US. The next, I was told to put my hands against the wall, and patted down like a criminal before being sent to an Ice detention center without the chance to talk to a lawyer.
I grew up in Whitehorse, Yukon, a small town in the northernmost part of Canada. I always knew I wanted to do something bigger with my life. I left home early and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where I built a career spanning multiple industries – acting in film and television, owning bars and restaurants, flipping condos and managing Airbnbs.
In my 30s, I found my true passion working in the health and wellness industry. I was given the opportunity to help launch an American brand of health tonics called Holy! Water – a job that would involve moving to the US.
I was granted my trade Nafta work visa, which allows Canadian and Mexican citizens to work in the US in specific professional occupations, on my second attempt. It goes without saying, then, that I have no criminal record. I also love the US and consider myself to be a kind, hard-working person.
I started working in California and travelled back and forth between Canada and the US multiple times without any complications – until one day, upon returning to the US, a border officer questioned me about my initial visa denial and subsequent visa approval. He asked why I had gone to the San Diego border the second time to apply. I explained that that was where my lawyer’s offices were, and that he had wanted to accompany me to ensure there were no issues.
After a long interrogation, the officer told me it seemed “shady” and that my visa hadn’t been properly processed. He claimed I also couldn’t work for a company in the US that made use of hemp – one of the beverage ingredients. He revoked my visa, and told me I could still work for the company from Canada, but if I wanted to return to the US, I would need to reapply.
I was devastated; I had just started building a life in California. I stayed in Canada for the next few months, and was eventually offered a similar position with a different health and wellness brand.
I restarted the visa process and returned to the same immigration office at the San Diego border, since they had processed my visa before and I was familiar with it. Hours passed, with many confused opinions about my case. The officer I spoke to was kind but told me that, due to my previous issues, I needed to apply for my visa through the consulate. I told her I hadn’t been aware I needed to apply that way, but had no problem doing it.
Then she said something strange: “You didn’t do anything wrong. You are not in trouble, you are not a criminal.”
I remember thinking: Why would she say that? Of course I’m not a criminal!
She then told me they had to send me back to Canada. That didn’t concern me; I assumed I would simply book a flight home. But as I sat searching for flights, a man approached me.
“Come with me,” he said.
There was no explanation, no warning. He led me to a room, took my belongings from my hands and ordered me to put my hands against the wall. A woman immediately began patting me down. The commands came rapid-fire, one after another, too fast to process.
They took my shoes and pulled out my shoelaces.
“What are you doing? What is happening?” I asked.
“You are being detained.”
“I don’t understand. What does that mean? For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
That would be the response to nearly every question I would ask over the next two weeks: “I don’t know.”
They brought me downstairs for a series of interviews and medical questions, searched my bags and told me I had to get rid of half my belongings because I couldn’t take everything with me.
“Take everything with me where?” I asked.
A woman asked me for the name of someone they could contact on my behalf. In moments like this, you realize you don’t actually know anyone’s phone number anymore. By some miracle, I had recently memorized my best friend Britt’s number because I had been putting my grocery points on her account.
I gave them her phone number.
They handed me a mat and a folded-up sheet of aluminum foil.
“What is this?”
“Your blanket.”
“I don’t understand.”
I was taken to a tiny, freezing cement cell with bright fluorescent lights and a toilet. There were five other women lying on their mats with the aluminum sheets wrapped over them, looking like dead bodies. The guard locked the door behind me.
For two days, we remained in that cell, only leaving briefly for food. The lights never turned off, we never knew what time it was and no one answered our questions. No one in the cell spoke English, so I either tried to sleep or meditate to keep from having a breakdown. I didn’t trust the food, so I fasted, assuming I wouldn’t be there long.
On the third day, I was finally allowed to make a phone call. I called Britt and told her that I didn’t understand what was happening, that no one would tell me when I was going home, and that she was my only contact.
They gave me a stack of paperwork to sign and told me I was being given a five-year ban unless I applied for re-entry through the consulate. The officer also said it didn’t matter whether I signed the papers or not; it was happening regardless.
I was so delirious that I just signed. I told them I would pay for my flight home and asked when I could leave.
No answer.
Then they moved me to another cell – this time with no mat or blanket. I sat on the freezing cement floor for hours. That’s when I realized they were processing me into real jail: the Otay Mesa Detention Center.
I was told to shower, given a jail uniform, fingerprinted and interviewed. I begged for information.
“How long will I be here?”
“I don’t know your case,” the man said. “Could be days. Could be weeks. But I’m telling you right now – you need to mentally prepare yourself for months.”
Months.
I felt like I was going to throw up.
I was taken to the nurse’s office for a medical check. She asked what had happened to me. She had never seen a Canadian there before. When I told her my story, she grabbed my hand and said: “Do you believe in God?”
I told her I had only recently found God, but that I now believed in God more than anything.
“I believe God brought you here for a reason,” she said. “I know it feels like your life is in a million pieces, but you will be OK. Through this, I think you are going to find a way to help others.”
At the time, I didn’t know what that meant. She asked if she could pray for me. I held her hands and wept.
I felt like I had been sent an angel.
I was then placed in a real jail unit: two levels of cells surrounding a common area, just like in the movies. I was put in a tiny cell alone with a bunk bed and a toilet.
The best part: there were blankets. After three days without one, I wrapped myself in mine and finally felt some comfort.
For the first day, I didn’t leave my cell. I continued fasting, terrified that the food might make me sick. The only available water came from the tap attached to the toilet in our cells or a sink in the common area, neither of which felt safe to drink.
Eventually, I forced myself to step out, meet the guards and learn the rules. One of them told me: “No fighting.”
“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” I joked. He laughed.
I asked if there had ever been a fight here.
“In this unit? No,” he said. “No one in this unit has a criminal record.”
That’s when I started meeting the other women.
That’s when I started hearing their stories.
And that’s when I made a decision: I would never allow myself to feel sorry for my situation again. No matter how hard this was, I had to be grateful. Because every woman I met was in an even more difficult position than mine.
There were around 140 of us in our unit. Many women had lived and worked in the US legally for years but had overstayed their visas – often after reapplying and being denied. They had all been detained without warning.
If someone is a criminal, I agree they should be taken off the streets. But not one of these women had a criminal record. These women acknowledged that they shouldn’t have overstayed and took responsibility for their actions. But their frustration wasn’t about being held accountable; it was about the endless, bureaucratic limbo they had been trapped in.
The real issue was how long it took to get out of the system, with no clear answers, no timeline and no way to move forward. Once deported, many have no choice but to abandon everything they own because the cost of shipping their belongings back is too high.
I met a woman who had been on a road trip with her husband. She said they had 10-year work visas. While driving near the San Diego border, they mistakenly got into a lane leading to Mexico. They stopped and told the agent they didn’t have their passports on them, expecting to be redirected. Instead, they were detained. They are both pastors.
I met a family of three who had been living in the US for 11 years with work authorizations. They paid taxes and were waiting for their green cards. Every year, the mother had to undergo a background check, but this time, she was told to bring her whole family. When they arrived, they were taken into custody and told their status would now be processed from within the detention center.
Another woman from Canada had been living in the US with her husband who was detained after a traffic stop. She admitted she had overstayed her visa and accepted that she would be deported. But she had been stuck in the system for almost six weeks because she hadn’t had her passport. Who runs casual errands with their passport?
One woman had a 10-year visa. When it expired, she moved back to her home country, Venezuela. She admitted she had overstayed by one month before leaving. Later, she returned for a vacation and entered the US without issue. But when she took a domestic flight from Miami to Los Angeles, she was picked up by Ice and detained. She couldn’t be deported because Venezuela wasn’t accepting deportees. She didn’t know when she was getting out.
There was a girl from India who had overstayed her student visa for three days before heading back home. She then came back to the US on a new, valid visa to finish her master’s degree and was handed over to Ice due to the three days she had overstayed on her previous visa.
There were women who had been picked up off the street, from outside their workplaces, from their homes. All of these women told me that they had been detained for time spans ranging from a few weeks to 10 months. One woman’s daughter was outside the detention center protesting for her release.
That night, the pastor invited me to a service she was holding. A girl who spoke English translated for me as the women took turns sharing their prayers – prayers for their sick parents, for the children they hadn’t seen in weeks, for the loved ones they had been torn away from.
Then, unexpectedly, they asked if they could pray for me. I was new here, and they wanted to welcome me. They formed a circle around me, took my hands and prayed. I had never felt so much love, energy and compassion from a group of strangers in my life. Everyone was crying.
At 3am the next day, I was woken up in my cell.
“Pack your bag. You’re leaving.”
I jolted upright. “I get to go home?”
The officer shrugged. “I don’t know where you’re going.”
Of course. No one ever knew anything.
I grabbed my things and went downstairs, where 10 other women stood in silence, tears streaming down their faces. But these weren’t happy tears. That was the moment I learned the term “transferred”.
For many of these women, detention centers had become a twisted version of home. They had formed bonds, established routines and found slivers of comfort in the friendships they had built. Now, without warning, they were being torn apart and sent somewhere new. Watching them say goodbye, clinging to each other, was gut-wrenching.
I had no idea what was waiting for me next. In hindsight, that was probably for the best.
Our next stop was Arizona, the San Luis Regional Detention Center. The transfer process lasted 24 hours, a sleepless, grueling ordeal. This time, men were transported with us. Roughly 50 of us were crammed into a prison bus for the next five hours, packed together – women in the front, men in the back. We were bound in chains that wrapped tightly around our waists, with our cuffed hands secured to our bodies and shackles restraining our feet, forcing every movement into a slow, clinking struggle.
When we arrived at our next destination, we were forced to go through the entire intake process all over again, with medical exams, fingerprinting – and pregnancy tests; they lined us up in a filthy cell, squatting over a communal toilet, holding Dixie cups of urine while the nurse dropped pregnancy tests in each of our cups. It was disgusting.
We sat in freezing-cold jail cells for hours, waiting for everyone to be processed. Across the room, one of the women suddenly spotted her husband. They had both been detained and were now seeing each other for the first time in weeks.
The look on her face – pure love, relief and longing – was something I’ll never forget.
We were beyond exhausted. I felt like I was hallucinating.
The guard tossed us each a blanket: “Find a bed.”
There were no pillows. The room was ice cold, and one blanket wasn’t enough. Around me, women lay curled into themselves, heads covered, looking like a room full of corpses. This place made the last jail feel like the Four Seasons.
I kept telling myself: Do not let this break you.
Thirty of us shared one room. We were given one Styrofoam cup for water and one plastic spoon that we had to reuse for every meal. I eventually had to start trying to eat and, sure enough, I got sick. None of the uniforms fit, and everyone had men’s shoes on. The towels they gave us to shower were hand towels. They wouldn’t give us more blankets. The fluorescent lights shined on us 24/7.
Everything felt like it was meant to break you. Nothing was explained to us. I wasn’t given a phone call. We were locked in a room, no daylight, with no idea when we would get out.
I tried to stay calm as every fiber of my being raged towards panic mode. I didn’t know how I would tell Britt where I was. Then, as if sent from God, one of the women showed me a tablet attached to the wall where I could send emails. I only remembered my CEO’s email from memory. I typed out a message, praying he would see it.
He responded.
Through him, I was able to connect with Britt. She told me that they were working around the clock trying to get me out. But no one had any answers; the system made it next to impossible. I told her about the conditions in this new place, and that was when we decided to go to the media.
She started working with a reporter and asked whether I would be able to call her so she could loop him in. The international phone account that Britt had previously tried to set up for me wasn’t working, so one of the other women offered to let me use her phone account to make the call.
We were all in this together.
With nothing to do in my cell but talk, I made new friends – women who had risked everything for the chance at a better life for themselves and their families.
Through them, I learned the harsh reality of seeking asylum. Showing me their physical scars, they explained how they had paid smugglers anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000 to reach the US border, enduring brutal jungles and horrendous conditions.
One woman had been offered asylum in Mexico within two weeks but had been encouraged to keep going to the US. Now, she was stuck, living in a nightmare, separated from her young children for months. She sobbed, telling me how she felt like the worst mother in the world.
Many of these women were highly educated and spoke multiple languages. Yet, they had been advised to pretend they didn’t speak English because it would supposedly increase their chances of asylum.
Some believed they were being used as examples, as warnings to others not to try to come.
Women were starting to panic in this new facility, and knowing I was most likely the first person to get out, they wrote letters and messages for me to send to their families.
It felt like we had all been kidnapped, thrown into some sort of sick psychological experiment meant to strip us of every ounce of strength and dignity.
We were from different countries, spoke different languages and practiced different religions. Yet, in this place, none of that mattered. Everyone took care of each other. Everyone shared food. Everyone held each other when someone broke down. Everyone fought to keep each other’s hope alive.
I got a message from Britt. My story had started to blow up in the media.
Almost immediately after, I was told I was being released.
My Ice agent, who had never spoken to me, told my lawyer I could have left sooner if I had signed a withdrawal form, and that they hadn’t known I would pay for my own flight home.
From the moment I arrived, I begged every officer I saw to let me pay for my own ticket home. Not a single one of them ever spoke to me about my case.
To put things into perspective: I had a Canadian passport, lawyers, resources, media attention, friends, family and even politicians advocating for me. Yet, I was still detained for nearly two weeks.
Imagine what this system is like for every other person in there.
A small group of us were transferred back to San Diego at 2am – one last road trip, once again shackled in chains. I was then taken to the airport, where two officers were waiting for me. The media was there, so the officers snuck me in through a side door, trying to avoid anyone seeing me in restraints. I was beyond grateful that, at the very least, I didn’t have to walk through the airport in chains.
To my surprise, the officers escorting me were incredibly kind, and even funny. It was the first time I had laughed in weeks.
I asked if I could put my shoelaces back on.
“Yes,” one of them said with a grin. “But you better not run.”
“Yeah,” the other added. “Or we’ll have to tackle you in the airport. That’ll really make the headlines.”
I laughed, then told them I had spent a lot of time observing the guards during my detention and I couldn’t believe how often I saw humans treating other humans with such disregard. “But don’t worry,” I joked. “You two get five stars.”
When I finally landed in Canada, my mom and two best friends were waiting for me. So was the media. I spoke to them briefly, numb and delusional from exhaustion.
It was surreal listening to my friends recount everything they had done to get me out: working with lawyers, reaching out to the media, making endless calls to detention centers, desperately trying to get through to Ice or anyone who could help. They said the entire system felt rigged, designed to make it nearly impossible for anyone to get out.
The reality became clear: Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit.
Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies. It’s a lucrative business: CoreCivic made over $560m from Ice contracts in a single year. In 2024, GEO Group made more than $763m from Ice contracts.
The more detainees, the more money they make. It stands to reason that these companies have no incentive to release people quickly. What I had experienced was finally starting to make sense.
The script is currently at 45 pages and almost finished. Basically, there are at least 3 more scenes left to write. After that, I’ll begin the revision and editing process!
As I mentioned before, this is the stage where I organize everything for programming, and I usually end up adding or cutting some scenes. Once the revision is complete, I’ll finally be able to start programming!
The good part is that there are already many sprites done to use, so it might not be too difficult. (The bad part is...you guys know me, I’ll probably make more to improve immersion >.>)
To help myself stay organized, I also made an imagemap to separate the routes. It’s VERY difficult to organize all the routes so that one doesn’t interfere with another. (Just like last time, when Harlequin showed up in scenes he wasn’t supposed to…)
Yep! it's completely blur just to give you guys an idea of the scale of things, and it's not even finished yet, since I haven't finished writing the script to tie the final scenes together and wrap everything up! There are also lots of unique dialogues, like on Day 2, that need to be arranged in the right order!
In the meantime, I’m also working on their monster designs, since I plan to show them in the game. The current silhouettes will gradually gain more details until the right moment!
about the shop:
I was planning to launch it this week or next, but I decided to wait due to some legal concerns.
Many products from my game have been sold without authorization, because of that, I’m looking for professional guidance to better understand copyright and the proper steps to protect my work now and in the future. With this knowledge, I’ll make sure that any future agreements or permissions are in the best interest of myself, the game, and the characters!
About Pierrot Plush:
It seems there were delays due to the end-of-year holidays, and now they’re having some difficulties getting Pierrot’s hat just right. The company told me they’ll send photos as soon as they have a more accurate sample for me to show you all!
I’m a bit concerned about these delays… but as a last resort, if things don’t go as planned, I can still request a full refund for everyone and try another campaign.
Pairings: Aerion Targaryen x f!reader, Maekar Targaryen x f!reader, Daeron Targaryen x f!reader
Summary: A brothel opens in the small town on the road to Summerhall, offering a unique freedom to its workers to draw them in: they can come and go as they please and don't have to make whoring their profession. You, like many other commoners, decide to give it a try when you run low on coin. But as fate wills it, you keep encountering princes while on the job. Warnings: SMUT, Targaryen princes being messy, working in a brothel obviously, trust the process pls.
The dust of the King’s Road still clung to the hem of your dress, a fine red-brown powder that you would have to beat out before your husband saw it. Not that Merrett would mind. He might even smile, that slow, tired smile that deepened the lines around his eyes, and ask if the silks were comfortable. He had always been a curious man, more interested in the workings of things than in passing judgment on them.
As a seamstress in a town whose name the maps barely deigned to acknowledge, tucked into the sun-bleached folds of the Dornish Marches, your life was stitched as tightly and predictably as the hems you set. Your husband was a man of ledgers and accounts, a keeper of numbers for the local grain merchants. He was older, his beard more grey than brown, with a quiet, pragmatic affection for you that had less to do with fiery passion and more to do with a profound, settled contentment. He had given you a good life, a safe one, and when the whispers of a strange new establishment rippled through the town, it was with his weary, logical blessing that you first considered it.
The place called itself the Moonblooms, a name of a flower and an innuendo. It had been a dying chandler’s shop before two enterprising brothers from Planky Town bought it for a song. Their proposition was peculiar, and the talk of the market square for a solid week. They couldn’t afford a stable of proper, kept whores, not with the slow trickle of travelers on the Summerhall road. Their idea, scrawled on a placard outside their freshly painted, garish red door, was simple: any woman could come, use their beds and their silks and their cheap, sweet wine, and they would take only a modest cut of whatever she earned.
They provided the seductive scene: the candlelight, the music, the platters of olives and hard cheese, and the women provided the company. It was a business proposition, nothing more. The town, being closer in spirit and geography to the warm, live-and-let-live sands of Dorne than the rigid pieties of the Stormlands, merely shrugged and found it a curiosity.
You paid it little mind at first. You had your husband’s doublet to mend, the gray wool one he insisted on wearing even when the seams gave way at both elbows, and three orders for summer-weight gowns from the factor’s wife that would keep your needle busy well past sundown.
But coin was coin, and in a town this small, perched halfway between the Stormlands and Dorne and the Reach and belonging properly to none, the coin did not exactly flow. Your husband Merrett kept the ledgers for the grain merchants and the customs officers who rarely bothered to visit, and he kept them honestly, which was perhaps why you never had quite enough. He was a good man. When he looked at you across the supper table, there was still a kind of wonder in his eyes, as if he could not quite believe a woman with your looks had agreed to marry a man who spent his days bent over columns of numbers.
“I hear they let any woman walk in,” your neighbor Bethany said one afternoon, leaning over the low stone wall that separated your garden plots. She was kneading bread dough on a wooden board, her forearms dusted with flour. “The Moonblooms. They take a cut of whatever the man pays.”
You had laughed at that, shaking your head. “I am no whore, Beth.”
“Neither am I. But I went twice last month. My Tom doesn’t mind. We bought a new plow blade and a suckling pig for the harvest feast.” She had shrugged, utterly unashamed, and you remembered that she was Dornish on her mother’s side. “The men who come through don’t know you, and you don’t know them. It’s cleaner than rolling in a haystack behind the tavern, which is what the stable boys expect for nothing.”
The winter had been lean, and Merrett’s cough, a dry, rattling thing that came with the cold winds, needed more than just herbal teas. A little extra coin. That was all.
That night, you spoke of it to Merrett. You expected him to frown, to furrow his brow and shake his head and remind you that you were a respectable woman, a wife. Instead, he set down his quill, rubbed at the bridge of his nose where his spectacles pinched, and considered you for a long moment.
“You are beautiful,” he said simply. “Far too beautiful for a man like me, and I’ve always known that. If you wanted to run off with some young knight from the prince’s household, you could have done it a dozen times over. But you’re here, mending my shirts and cooking my meals.” He reached across the table and took your hand. “If you want to earn a few extra coppers, or even silver, I won’t stop you. We could use a new oven. The bread’s been burning on the left side since winter.”
So it was that you found yourself, three evenings later, standing at the back door of the Moonblooms with your heart hammering against your ribs. The establishment was finer than you expected. Someone had spent money on it, even if the business was struggling. The windows were shuttered with carved cedar screens that let the lamplight spill out in honey-colored patterns. Inside, the air was thick with incense: sandalwood and jasmine, and the floors were covered in Myrish carpets in deep crimson and gold. A woman named Margot ran the place for the owners, a stout, efficient creature with henna-stained hair and a merchant’s eye for value. She looked you over, assessed the curve of your hip beneath your plain wool dress, your hair, the clarity of your skin.
“You’ll do,” she said, and pressed a bundle of fabric into your arms. “Wear this. The blue rooms are empty tonight. If a man comes, smile at him. If he asks your price, tell him a silver for an hour, three for the night. We take three coppers from every silver. Don’t drink more than two cups of the wine, and don’t let anyone strike you. Those are my only rules.”
The fabric turned out to be a gown of Dornish silk, cut low at the bodice and slit high at the thigh, the color of a twilight sky. When you put it on in the little curtained alcove, you barely recognized yourself. The woman in the polished bronze mirror was not a seamstress with calloused fingertips and a perpetual ache in her lower back. She was someone else entirely, dangerous and luminous, someone who might bring a prince to his knees.
The irony was not lost on you later.
Your first hour in the common room was quiet. A few men drifted in, local merchants mostly, men you recognized from the market square but who did not recognize you beneath the paint Margot had applied to your eyes. They chose other women, younger girls with practiced giggles and experienced hands. You sat on a cushioned bench near the back, sipping a cup of watered wine, and wondered if you would simply go home empty-handed and a little humiliated.
Then the door banged open.
Three men in the white cloaks of the Kingsguard entered first, their armor gleaming even in the dim lamplight, their hands resting on the pommels of their swords with the easy readiness of men who had drawn them many times before. Behind them came a fourth man, younger, slighter, with silver-gold hair and eyes the color of violet glass. He wore no crown, no circlet, but he did not need to. The arrogance in the set of his jaw, the casual way he surveyed the room as if it were a livestock auction and he was the only buyer worth considering, that was royalty enough.
Prince Aerion Targaryen.
Even here, in a town that saw more Dornish traders than Stormland lords, word of the princes at Summerhall had spread. They were the sons of prince Maekar, grandsons of the old king, and their reputation preceded them. Prince Daeron the drunkard, prince Aerion Brightflame, prince Aemon the scholar, and the youngest, who went by Egg. The town was close enough to Summerhall that everyone knew the stories. Everyone knew to tread carefully.
The prince’s gaze swept the room as his companions started to wander around the room, lingering here and there on a bare shoulder, a painted mouth, a curve of breast. The whores preened and posed, sensing coin, sensing the kind of patron who might toss a gold dragon as carelessly as another man might toss a copper. But Aerion did not seem impressed. He looked bored, that particular brand of noble boredom that was more dangerous than outright anger, because it demanded to be alleviated.
One of the Kingsguard, a broad-shouldered man with a handsome, weathered face and short hair, crossed the room and lifted you bodily from your bench. You let out a startled gasp as he settled you on his lap, his armored thighs hard beneath you, his gauntleted hands closing around your waist.
“This one’s pretty,” he said. “Quiet, too. I like them quiet.”
You knew his face from the occasional processions through town. Ser Ronald Crakehall, a knight of some renown. He was handsome enough, not old, perhaps forty, with laugh lines around his eyes that suggested he was not entirely humorless. His fingers found the curve of your hip and squeezed, not painfully, but with a proprietary confidence that made your stomach tighten.
“How long have you been here?” he asked, his breath warm against your ear. “And what’s your rate, sweetling?”
You swallowed hard, acutely aware of the prince’s gaze on you. Aerion had turned from his survey of the room and was watching the two of you with an expression you could not quite read. Appraisal, certainly.
“It’s my first night,” you said, and your voice came out steadier than you expected. “My first time here.”
Ser Ronald’s eyebrows rose. He looked at you more closely, taking in the slight tension in your shoulders, the way your hands had instinctively clasped together rather than reaching for him. He was not an unobservant man, it seemed.
“Truly?” he said. “A virgin to the trade. How novel.”
But before he could say more, prince Aerion was there, standing over the two of you with his arms crossed, his violet eyes bright with sudden interest. Up close, he was even more beautiful than the stories suggested, with the sharp, delicate features of old Valyria, high cheekbones and a mouth that looked made for cruelty. There was something feverish in his gaze, something hungry and not entirely sane.
“I’m bored, Ronald,” he announced, as if the knight’s name were an inconvenience. “These painted slatterns have nothing I haven’t seen a hundred times. But a new one…” His gaze dropped to you, lingering on the exposed curve of your breast above the silk gown. “I have always preferred to break things in myself. It’s the only part that’s any fun.”
Ser Ronald’s hands loosened on your waist immediately. He did not argue, did not even protest. You saw something flicker in his eyes, resignation, perhaps, or a long-practiced survival instinct, and then he was lifting you off his lap as easily as he had placed you there.
“She’s yours, my prince.”
Aerion’s hand closed around your wrist, his grip much tighter than Ser Ronald’s had been, and he hauled you to your feet. His fingers were long and elegant, but the strength in them was surprising. He did not speak to you as he dragged you through the common room, past the curious stares of the other whores and the careful blankness of the Kingsguard. He simply walked, and you stumbled after him, your heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat.
The room he chose was one of the larger ones, with a bed draped in amber silk and a brazier burning low in the corner. The air smelled of roses. He released your wrist only when the door was bolted behind you, and then he turned to face you, his head tilted slightly to one side like a hawk examining a mouse.
“How many men have you really had?” he asked. His voice was soft, almost conversational, but there was an edge to it that made the hair on your arms stand up.
“One,” you said. “My husband.”
Something shifted in his expression. Amusement, maybe, or disbelief. “Your husband lets you whore?”
“He lets me earn coin however I see fit.” You lifted your chin slightly, meeting his gaze. “We’re not starving, but we’re not rich. And you’d be surprised what a new oven costs.”
For a long moment, he simply stared at you. Then he laughed, a short, sharp sound like a blade being drawn. “You’re not lying. How refreshing. Every woman in this place has been trying to convince me she’s the most experienced courtesan from here to Lys, and you stand there and tell me about your oven.” He stepped closer, close enough that you could smell the wine on his breath and the faint, clean scent of some expensive soap. “What’s your name?”
You told him. Your real name, not the false one Margot had suggested. You did not know why. Perhaps because he seemed like the kind of man who would know if you lied.
“I am prince Aerion Targaryen,” he said, as if you might not have known. “And since you’ve been honest with me, I’ll be honest with you. I am not about to be gentle with you.” His hand came up, and one finger traced the line of your jaw, feather-light, a startling contrast to his words. “But I pay well, and I don’t leave marks where they can be seen. Will that do for you, little seamstress?”
You should have been afraid. Part of you was afraid. But another part, a part you had not known existed until that moment, was curious, thrilled.
“Yes,” you said. “That will do.”
He did not waste time after that. There was no more conversation, no more teasing. He took what he wanted, and he wanted everything. The silk gown was torn, he would later toss three gold dragons at Margot to pay for it, more than the dress was worth by a factor of ten, and you were bent over the bed, pressed against the wall, pulled onto his lap on the single velvet-covered chair. He was rougher than Merrett had ever been, rougher than you had imagined a man could be, but there was a precision to it, a control. He wanted to see you gasp, wanted to see your fingers clench in the sheets, wanted to hear the sounds you made when pleasure and pain blurred together until you could not tell one from the other.
It was a siege. He fucked with a detached, methodical cruelty, his every touch was a calculated experiment. He’d pinch the soft skin of your inner thigh until you gasped, then soothe the sting with a lazy, swirling tongue. He’d take you right to the trembling edge of a pleasure you’d never known existed and then stop, holding perfectly still inside you, his smile a slash of white in the gloom, while he watched the frustration bloom in your face. He wanted your reactions, your raw, unpracticed honesty, and he took them, one by one, until you were a shuddering, overwrought mess of nerve endings and confused ecstasy. When he was finally spent, he didn’t collapse. He simply withdrew, stood, and adjusted his clothing as if he were alone in his private chambers. Then dropped a small leather purse on the table by the door.
“That’s for the hour,” he said. “I’ll be back. Teach yourself something new before then.”
The purse contained five gold dragons. More than your husband earned in a season.
You did not tell Merrett the details. You told him only that a wealthy patron had taken a liking to you, and that you would be returning when the opportunity arose. He looked at the gold dragons, looked at you, and asked only if you were all right. When you said yes, and meant it, he kissed your forehead and said he would speak to the baker about the oven.
Aerion returned four nights later, and then again the week after that. Each time, he paid more, stayed longer. And each time, you learned a little more about what he liked.
He liked resistance, so you gave it to him, arching away from his hands so he would have to pull you back. He liked begging, so you learned to plead, not for mercy but for more, words tumbling from your lips in a desperate litany that made his violet eyes blaze. He liked to talk, sometimes, in the aftermath, lying in the tangled sheets while the candles burned low. He talked about dragons, mostly. The ones that were gone, the ones that might return. He talked about fire and blood and the way the world had been before the Dance, when his ancestors were gods among men. He never talked about himself, not really, but you learned to read between the lines. You that his older brother Daeron was a disappointment, that his younger brother Aemon was weak, that the youngest, Egg, was a nuisance. You learned that his father prince Maekar was a hard man to please, and that Aerion had stopped trying long ago.
You learned that he was cruel, but you also learned that cruelty was a kind of armor. He expected the world to hurt him, so he hurt it first. It did not excuse anything he did, but it explained it, and understanding was its own kind of power.
The third time he came, he brought a small velvet box. Inside was a pendant, a silver dragon with ruby eyes, delicate and beautiful and worth more than everything you owned.
“Don’t read into it,” he said, his voice clipped. “I simply don’t like my whores to look cheap.”
You wore it anyway, and when he saw it against your throat, something in his expression softened for just a moment before the mask slid back into place.
Aerion kept returning. Each time, he taught you something new, how to use your mouth in ways you had never imagined, how to position your body to drive him to the edge and keep him there, how to read his moods and respond to his unspoken demands. He was a demanding lover, capricious and intense, but there was a strange intimacy in it, a knowledge of each other that went beyond the physical.
“You are the only woman who does not lie to me,” he said once, in a rare moment of something almost like tenderness, his head resting on your shoulder, a finger tracing down your spine. “Do you know how exhausting it is to be surrounded by liars? Everyone wants something from me. Everyone simpers and flatters and tells me what they think I want to hear. But you, you just tell me the truth. An oddity. An honest whore with an honest cunt.”
You did not tell him that you were lying, too, in your way. That you were playing a role just as much as any courtesan. That the truth was simply another strategy, one that happened to work on him. Some truths were too dangerous to speak aloud.
It was perhaps two moons into this arrangement when prince Daeron found you.
When he stumbled in one evening with a retinue of laughing friends and a decidedly unsteady gait, you recognized him immediately. Daeron was softer, his features blurred by drink, his eyes holding a sorrow that even the wine could not entirely drown.
He did not choose you at first. He chose two other girls, giggling things who fawned over him and called him “my prince” in breathy voices. But you watched him throughout the evening, and you saw how he flinched at their simpering, how he drank to drown out their empty flattery rather than to enhance his pleasure. He was a man who was running from something, though you did not know what.
The third time he came, Aerion had been gone for a fortnight, off to some tourney or other, and the brothel was quiet. Daeron arrived alone, which was unusual, and he sat in the corner with a flagon of Dornish red and a face like a man attending his own funeral. The other whores gave him a wide berth. A drunk prince was unpredictable, and unpredictable patrons were bad for business.
You approached him anyway.
“My prince,” you said, sitting down beside him on the bench. “You look like a man who could use a kind word more than a warm body.”
He looked at you, and for a moment, surprise flickered in his bloodshot eyes, quickly replaced by suspicion.
“And what would a whore know of kind words?” he asked, but there was no venom in it. Only weariness.
“I’m not a whore,” you said. “I’m a seamstress. I mend things.”
He stared at you for a long moment. Then he choked on a bitter laugh. “A seamstress. Of course. Why not? The world is absurd enough already.” He took a long drink from his flagon. “Do you know what it’s like to have dreams that don’t stop? Dreams that feel more real than waking?”
“No,” you said honestly.
“Lucky you.” He set the flagon down with a thump. “I dream of dragons. Every night. They’re calling to me, but I can’t understand what they’re saying. It’s like a word on the tip of my tongue, but I can never quite reach it.” He rubbed a hand over his face, and when he looked at you again, his eyes were wet. “My father thinks I’m a disgrace. My brother Aerion thinks I’m a joke. And the dragons won’t stop screaming.”
You did not know what to say to that. So you did not say anything. You simply reached out and took his hand, holding it in both of yours, and you sat with him in silence while the candles guttered and the other patrons came and went.
Eventually, he led you to a room. It was not like it was with Aerion. Daeron was gentle to the point of apology, his touches hesitant, his movements slow. He kept asking if you were all right, if he was hurting you, if you wanted him to stop. He was not a bad lover, exactly, but he was a sad one, and when it was over he wept silently into your shoulder while you stroked his hair.
He came back the next week, and the week after that. He never talked about dragons again, but sometimes, when he was lying beside you in the dark, you could feel him trembling.
He liked to be held. He liked it when you ran your fingers through his hair. He liked to fall asleep with his head on your chest, and he always left a pile of coins on the nightstand when he woke, far more than the hour was worth, and never counted.
“You’re kind to me,” he said once, his voice slurred and sleepy. “Do you know how rare that is? People are always bowing and scraping and wanting things. But you’re just..kind.”
You did not tell him that kindness was part of the service. You did not tell him that you pitied him, this sad, drowning prince who was trying so hard to destroy himself. You just held him a little tighter and let him sleep.
The gifts from Daeron were different from Aerion’s payments. Aerion’s gold was a transaction. Daeron’s was careless, extravagant, almost an afterthought. He would empty his purse onto your dresser without counting, wave off your attempts to give him change, press jewels into your palm with a vague, “Here, this matches your eyes,” even when it didn’t.
You never told Aerion that his brother visited you. And Daeron never asked if others from Summerhall came to the Moonblooms. It was an unspoken agreement, a delicate balance that you maintained with the same care you used when stitching fine silk.
Then prince Maekar came.
That was a shock. The prince of Summerhall, the King’s own son, a man who could have summoned any woman in the Seven Kingdoms to his bed with a snap of his fingers, walked into the brothel on a rainy evening with his shoulders hunched and his jaw tight and a fury simmering behind his eyes that made the air itself feel charged. He was not as beautiful as his sons: his jaw was heavier, his brow more prominent, his hair a lighter shade of silver, but he had a presence that filled the room, a weight of authority that made even Margot’s practiced composure falter.
He did not want the simpering girls. He did not want the ones who draped themselves over him and whispered empty compliments. He wanted silence, and he wanted release, and when his gaze landed on you sitting quietly in the corner with your sewing, you had taken to bringing small mending projects to work on during slow nights, his eyes narrowed.
“You,” he said, pointing. “Come here.”
You set aside the tunic you had been hemming and rose, approaching him with the same calm you had learned to project with Aerion, with Daeron, with all the men who passed through looking for something they could not name.
“My prince,” you said, curtsying.
“Do not simper,” he snapped. “I’ve had enough simpering to last a lifetime. What is your name?”
You told him. Your real name. It felt important, somehow, to be honest with these silver-haired men who could have you killed with a word.
“I am prince Maekar,” he said, though you already knew. “I have spent the day listening to my sons disappoint me in increasingly creative ways, and I have a headache that could fell an ox, and I do not want to talk. Can you manage that? Can you just be silent and let me fuck you without pretending you’re enjoying it?”
“Yes,” you said. “I can.”
He blinked, clearly not expecting such a straightforward answer. Then he nodded and led you to the room.
It was different with him. Not rough like Aerion, not sad like Daeron. It was desperate, almost frantic, as if he were trying to outrun something inside his own head. He did not speak, and he did not want you to speak, but when it was over he did not leave immediately. He lay beside you, breathing hard, staring at the ceiling. Then he reached for the pitcher.
He drank the wine in one long swallow and set the cup aside. Then he looked at you again, his gaze more assessing than it had been before. “How long have you been doing this?”
“A few moons. I was a seamstress before. I still am, during the day.”
“A seamstress.” He seemed to find this amusing. “And what does your husband think of your…second profession?”
“He doesn’t mind. He trusts me.”
Maekar’s eyebrows rose, the same expression of surprise his son had worn. “A remarkable man.”
“He is,” you agreed.
Something in him seemed to crack. He lay beside you, his breathing harsh, and you saw his hands were trembling. Without thinking, you reached out and covered one of them with your own.
He flinched, but he did not pull away.
“Are you all right, my prince?” you asked softly.
“No,” he said, and his voice was raw. “I am not all right. I have not been all right for a very long time.”
He turned his head to look at you, and for a moment, he was not a prince. He was just a man, tired and weighed down by responsibilities and disappointments he could not escape.
“My sons are a trial,” he said quietly. “Daeron drinks because he dreams of things he cannot understand. Aerion burns because he feels things too deeply and has no outlet for them. Aemon hides because the world is too sharp for him. And Egg…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Egg is too young to be a disappointment yet. But he’ll get there. They all do.”
You did not know what to say, so you said nothing. You kept your hand there. He did not pull away.
Maekar came back. Not as often as Aerion, not as regularly as Daeron, but every few weeks, when the pressures of Summerhall became too much, he would appear with a face like a thundercloud and seek you out. He never wanted conversation, but sometimes, afterward, he would talk. About his father the king, about the weight of a crown that would never be his, about the sons he loved and did not understand. He brought you gifts: a bolt of Myrish lace so fine it looked like seafoam, a pair of silver hairpins set with sapphires, a small enameled box filled with Dornish spices that must have cost more than your house.
“For your husband,” he said gruffly when he gave you the spices, as if that explained anything.
You never told him about Aerion. You never told him about Daeron. And they never told him about you. It was a dance, a delicate, dangerous dance, and you were the only one who knew all the steps.
The Moonblooms prospered. Word had spread, somehow, that the establishment was favored by the princes of Summerhall, and custom increased tenfold. Margot hired more girls, expanded into the building next door, started serving food in the common room. She never asked you about your patrons because you had warned her that the princes would stop coming if she advertised you as their favorite, but she gave you the best room, the one with the feather mattress, and she never took more than her agreed-upon cut.
Your husband got his oven, his medicine, a new roof, a set of copper pots that gleamed like sunset. He never asked questions, and you never offered answers, and somehow, improbably, your marriage remained intact. Merrett still looked at you with wonder across the supper table, still reached for you in the night with a gentleness that none of your patrons possessed, still made you laugh with his dry observations about the townsfolk and their creative approach to accounting.
“You seem happy,” he said one evening, as you sat together in your small garden, watching the stars come out.
“I am,” you said, and you were surprised to realize it was true. “Are you?”
He considered the question with the same careful attention he gave his ledgers. “I am. We have good food, a sound roof, and each other. What more could a man want?”
A dragon, perhaps, you thought but did not say. A crown. A kingdom.
You had learned that princes were not happier than commoners. They were richer, certainly, more powerful, more dangerous. But happiness was a currency which did not care about bloodlines.
The summer stretched on, golden and hot, and the princes of Summerhall continued to visit.
You kept their secrets. You took their coin. And in your own way, you cared for them, each in their turn, each in the way they needed.
Part 2: pending...
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