#'oh you look so much better/healthier now!' or something along those lines.

[lunarsapphism]

.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 49

"What - err, who are you?" you ask the flying creature, making it grin wider.

"Thank you for dialing back the rudeness," the monster says. "I'll answer the second question first. My name is Iriel."

Shuffling a bit on its perch, the creature repositions its wings behind its back, giving you a better look at its furry torso. "As for what I am, well, your kind has a name for mine, though I suppose you forgot that, if you ever knew it at all. You call us Mothmen." Indeed, you feel a flicker of recognition at the term, though of course you can't recall when you heard it before or in regards to what.

"You might just as accurately call us mailmen, though. My kind travels between worlds, you see, and ensures that the lines of communication stay open between them." The mothman shakes more glitter off its wings, and once again plants grow where it falls. "It's a much healthier world that way, you know."

"So that's what you're doing here, then?" you ask the mothman. "Keeping this world healthy?"

"In a general sense, yes," the mothman says. "But right now, specifically? I'm here to watch you."

A chill runs down your spine. "Oh."

"Yes, you're very interesting," the mothman says. "Most humans that end up here don't last too long - they wander, meet something nasty, and get eaten. But every now and then one comes along to break the mold, and the way they do it is always interesting." The mothman's multi-colored eyes glow intensely as it gazes at you. "Making friends with monsters - I haven't seen one of you do that before. And look how far you've come doing it - you're almost at the finish line!"

You're not sure if you should feel flattered or worried. "You said I have a few critical choices to make yet. What did you mean by that? Can - can you see the future or something?"

"The future isn't set in stone," the mothman answers enigmatically. "But let's say I'm a pretty good guesser. As I've said, you're close to the end - the way home is so close now, just a drop down and a few final trials to go. And when you get there - well, I think we both know now what choice you'll have to make. Though I don't know where you'll land on that coin flip - as I said, I've never seen a human make the choices you've made before. It should be very interesting."

Unfortunately you do know what choice the mothman is referring to, and like it, you don't know what you'll decide when it comes time to make it. You look about for something to distract you from that conundrum, and your eyes fall upon the plants growing beneath the mothman's feet. "I haven't seen a lot of greenery here - the last trees I saw turned out to be birds."

"I remember, I was there," the mothman says.

"Oh yeah." You smile as if this was a fond memory - maybe it was? "I didn't think plants grew here."

"Of course they do," the mothman says. "The Sea of Monsters safeguards the conception of seas, but a sea is not water and monsters alone. It needs to work with the rest of the world. There must be islands, there must be open sky, they must be flora for the fauna. This is why my kind's job is so important - we make sure places like this know how to work with places like your home." It looks down at the grass growing on its perch. "Would you like to add to it?"

"What?"

The mothman grins and winks. "Come on, add a little spice to the island - a taste of home, before you leave us."

Your eyes go wide. "Spices!" You rush below deck and grab some of the spices from your ship, then hurriedly bring them back and sprinkle them over the ground on the island. Sure enough, new plants begin to grow where you set them.

Calibani, who till now had been content to let you talk to the mothman alone, watches you dump the spices with mild panic. "Why are you throwing those out?!?"

"Look!" you tell her, pointing to the plants growing on the island. "Now whenever you want garlic, or paprika, or any of the other spices I showed you, you can just go to this island and collect them!" You smile at her. "It's a taste of home."

The mothman watches you closely. "Time's running out," it says. "You can fit in a few more questions, but soon you'll need to leave."

Your heart races. "Where do we need to go?" you ask.

"Deep down. You'll know when you've gone far enough."

Enigmatic, but workable. "What problems will we face on the trip?"

"A shipbreaker, a true leviathan, and worst of all, human ambition." The mothman shifts on its perch. "Time's almost up."

"But I've got so many more questions! Where are there others like Calibani? What's up with Spindle Inc? Is there any way a human can survive out here without cutting their brain out of their skull?"

The mothman opens its wings. "You'll find out below."

"Wait!" you shout as it begins to take off. "Can I ever get back once I leave? And if I do... is there a map I can use to find my friends?"

Despite how alien its facial features are, you detect pity in the mothman's glance as it looks at you while spreading its wings. "Can you get back? Perhaps, but unlikely. As for a map... none exists." With a beat of its wings, the mothman takes to the air. "But perhaps you could make one. Depends on the choice you make, doesn't it? Time's up, Sailor. Go take the plunge - home is waiting."

As the mothman flies away, you take a deep breath and consult your compass.

[myherowritings]

PART 1. A VERY WELL-DESERVED TIP

SUMMARY. Todoroki Shouto was a wealthy, young CEO who inherited his father’s enterprise. You were a barista at a local cafe who wouldn’t mind some extra cash. One day, Shouto came in during an early morning shift and tipped you such a large sum of money, you were certain it had to have been an accident. To your surprise and complete pleasure: It was not.

PAIRING. ceo!todoroki shouto x barista!reader

WORD COUNT. 2.0k

GENRE. ceo/barista au, fluff, eventual smut

WARNINGS. none in this chapter

A/N. my brief work as a barista is finally paying off. i suffered at sbux all to write this fic ✌︎('ω'✌︎ ) LMAOOO i frl had so much fun writing this and i’m very excited to share the next parts ;) i hope you enjoy this fic as much as i do!! xx sof

SERIES MASTERLIST

© myherowritings — all rights reserved. reposting, modifying, copying, or translating of any kind is not allowed. do not read my writing as asmr. do not plagiarize.

You were not looking forward to your new work schedule for the next month. 

The employee who usually came in for opening shifts at four in the morning gave her two weeks notice...two weeks ago. And since you had your availability open (you knew you should’ve blocked it off and said you had morning class), your manager asked you to fill her place. 

The night before your first—of many—morning shifts, you tried tricking yourself into thinking it was a good idea. And it almost worked! Sort of. 

You told yourself waking up early when the sun rose worked with your body’s natural circadian rhythm and this experience may adjust your sleep schedule for a healthier one in the long run. Better health and wellbeing and lower risks of cardiovascular disease. Or something. You weren’t too sure exactly; you never paid much attention in biology but it sounded like something you’d find in a textbook, right?

When you arrived on your first day, the morning shift was just as hectic and chaotic as you expected. People in business suits with name brand bluetooth earphones in their ears and the latest new smartphone in their hand filled the shop and waited for their online order. It was as if they wanted the least amount of social interaction possible, which would be fine if being able to make connections with customers wasn’t the most interesting part about being a barista. 

Although the cafe you worked at was a small business who actually (tried) to pay their employees fairly and wasn’t a purely money hungry franchise like the certain green siren, it surprisingly had gained enough traction in the area to rival one of those cheap, chain stores. 

Good for the business, bad for sleepy workers who could barely function in the mornings.

But you enjoyed working here and the owners were kind, so you did your best to shove away the tiredness and put a bright and cheery smile on your face. The customers were grumpier than you were used to, but who wouldn’t be a little ill-mannered having to go to work at 5 a.m. and probably not leaving until 6 p.m. or later because of bosses who overworked them? Trying to get them their morning coffee with an amiable attitude to start off their day right was something you were more than happy to do. 

It was too bad barely any of them gave you the time of day. They just wanted to get their caffeine and leave with as little human interaction as possible. It was understandable, of course, but it wasn’t the lively cafe environment you were used to during later shifts. You sighed, hoping the atmosphere would be friendlier when it wasn’t a major rush hour. 

“Hi! I can help the next person in line,” you called for the twentieth time this hour. When they moved forward towards the cash register, you gave them a smile. “Good morning. I hope your day has been going well!”

“It’s been okay, thank you. And yours?”

Your eyes widened in surprise and you almost sputtered over thin air. Someone who actually replied back to what you said and asked about you in return? Even if the intent was a courtesy conversation that was meant to be quick and brief, the sentiment was there—the upholding of the values of common courtesy and human decency. Something too many people seemed to lack. 

“I’m good as well! A little tired but what’s to be expected a quarter ‘til 6 a.m.?” you said with a laugh. “Thank you for asking.”

The customer gave a small smile in return and you internally celebrated for finally seeing your first pleasant expression this morning. “Must be even more tiring dealing with all these people. Doesn’t seem easy. I have to commend you for it.”

He was a tall, handsome man with a pretty face, soft-looking hair, and genuinely nice? There was no way this was real; you had to be dreaming. 

You twiddled with the pen in your hands, taken aback and mildly embarrassed by the praise. “Just doing my job,” you said with a bashful look. “Thank you, though.” You cleared your throat, not wanting to hold the line up for too long, even if the customer was one you would rather keep talking to than the others. “Now, what can I get started for you today?”

“Right. Can I get a flat white in the medium size?” 

“Of course.” You typed in his order into the register before asking, “And is there anything else I can get for you? Like a pastry? Today we have some freshly baked cheese danishes that are really yummy if you’d like to try!” 

He thought for a while before shrugging. You weren’t sure if it was your eyes playing tricks on you or he actually had an amused look on his face. “Sure, I’ll take a couple dozen of those as well.” 

“A couple dozen—?” your voice faltered. The suggestion of a fresh pastry was one you made to almost every customer, though most turned it down on the spot. 

The cafe had a little weekly competition between workers to see who could sell the most pastries in the week and the one who sold most got...well, a free pastry and bragging rights. Admittedly, it wasn’t much, but nothing revved up sales like friendly rivalries. An order of a couple dozen was sure to land you in the top spot this week! Still, you had to make sure he meant it. You’d feel bad if he was just spending all his hard-earned office work money because he was trying to be courteous. (Or at least, you assumed he was some office employee.) 

You cautiously asked, “Are you sure?”

Either your eyes were playing tricks on you yet again, or the look of amusement on his face grew even more than before as he said, “I’m sure. One medium flat white and, say, three dozen boxes of cheese danishes, please.” 

“C-Coming right up!” you said, quickly entering his order and celebrating your free end-of-the-week pastry in advance. “That will be $42.81. Would that be card or cash?” 

“Card.” He pulled out a sleek, black card with gold detailings on it and you never knew you could be sexually attracted to a credit card until now. 

“Perfect! Go ahead and swipe, insert, or scan your card now. In the meantime, can I get a name for your order please?” 

He scanned his card over the machine before looking back up at you. “It’s To— Ah, Shouto.” 

“Shouto?” you asked in confirmation. You assumed it wasn’t ‘Toahshouto’. That sounded too much like the abbreviation used to remember how to find sine, cosine, and tangent.

“Yeah. Shouto.” 

You smiled. “Well, Shouto, your order will be ready in a few minutes. Please wait over to your right to pick it up!”

He nodded. 

“It was nice meeting you!” you called, waving goodbye. “I hope you have a good rest of your day.”

“Thank you,” he glanced at your nametag, “Y/N.” 

Oh, how nice it felt to be treated like a human by a customer and have them actually address your name— And not to say it in a condescending way either. 

“Do individual baristas get to keep the tips here?”

You blinked, feeling your face warm up slightly. “We do, actually.” One of your favorite parts of the job, you had to admit. 

“Glad to hear.” Shouto pulled out some crisp-looking bills from his wallet and placed one in your hand that said ‘100’ to you. “Thank you for your kind service, Y/N.” 

“Wha—” Your eyes widened. You were expecting something along the line of three dollars. Maybe five at most. But a hundred? By the time you had processed what had happened he was walking away from the cash register. “Wait— Shouto...sir! I think you accidentally gave me the wrong amount.” 

He shook his head, only briefly turning back to face you. “Nope. It’s for you,” he said simply. “I’m looking forward to the cheese danishes.” 

His words left you stunned, but the next customer in line tapped their foot impatiently, signaling it was now time for you to take their order. You hoped the line died down before Shouto left the cafe so you could return the tip, but seeing as how the queue almost extended out the door, you had the sinking feeling that wouldn’t be a possibility. 

“Hello, I can take the next customer in line!” you recited cheerfully, mind still occupied by thoughts of your last encounter. 

The next few orders went along uneventfully (though you did manage to sell two more cheese danishes) and by the time Shouto got his coffee and pastry boxes, you still had a handful more customers to get through. 

“Pardon me real quick,” you said apologetically to the woman in front of you. “Please give me one moment?” 

She graced you with a nod and you thanked the stars above for an understanding patron. 

“Wait— Excuse me, sir!” You waved in Shouto’s direction before he could exit the cafe. He glanced at you curiously but walked over. In a hushed voice, you said, “I really appreciate the tip, but there’s no way I could accept this much money from you!” 

For the first time today, you say the hints of a frown on his face. “You cannot?” 

“No! $100 is a lot! You already bought $40 worth of cheese danish pastries— Are you sure you meant to give that big of a tip?”

“Of course.” He took a sip of his coffee with a satisfied hum. “You getting up at such an early hour to take people’s orders with a kind attitude isn’t easy. Plus, trying to build rapport with each of them all while keeping the interacting swift is a difficult task itself. And it’s probably worth more than your current pay, the $100 tip, and then some.” 

You blinked, stunned by his words. This man kept surprising you so many times in just one morning. 

“I find it ridiculous how certain occupations are paid an ungodly amount more than others, especially when a lot of it comes from privileges you were born into.” Shouto seemed to mumble the last bit to himself, but you were still able to understand what he said. “It’s bullshit.” Before you could respond, he recollected himself. “Eat the rich, right? All that to say, please accept the tip. You deserve it. And I promise it’s of no detriment to me, so please don’t feel bad.”

Seeing the determined look on his face, you couldn’t help but stare at him before nodding. He didn’t say anything you didn’t already believe yourself, and if someone really wanted to give you $100, you weren’t going to fight them on it. Think of all the dumplings you could buy, you told yourself.

“T-Thank you then.” You gingerly placed the folded bill back into your pants pocket. “I think that was really insightful of you and I’m very grateful.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled before glancing towards the exit. “I’m running a bit late for work now, so I should be going. Have a good day, Y/N.”

“You too, Shouto. And… Thank you again!”

With a glowing expression on your face, you walked back to the cash register ready to face the day and talk to more lovely customers!

“Hey, little barista!” a gruff voice called from the line, snapping you out of your stupor. “Hurry it up already before you force me to complain to your manager.” 

You internally sighed. You understood they were in a rush, but they still had no right to be that rude. 

“Can you even hear me? Or are you too incompetent?”

Cue another internal sigh. 

Yeah, okay. Maybe you did deserve this $100 tip.

Regardless of the rude customers that may have come in, at least you had your thoughts of a cute, kind businessman who went by the name of Shouto to get you through your shift. And you could only hope you’d be able to see him again.

a/n: the end of part one folks!! oh what i’d give to have gotten a tip like this when i worked as a barista BAHAHA only in my dreams. i hope you enjoyed this little intro part and are excited for what’s to come !! :3

what to expect in the next part:

~maybe~ y/n will see shouto again and,,perhaps,,get more tips from him idk who knows 

old lady imparts some...helpful(?) advice 

we briefly get to see shouto’s pov! ;D

[silenteyes]

If Wei Wuxian Grew Up In Different Sects (or with our lovely Rogue Cultivators)

ft. fanfictions I’ve read for each of them - excluding Yunmeng Jiang Sect

Warnings: Spoilers for MDZS, Canon-typical Yu Ziyuan and her treatment to WWX, a few uncensored cursing

Yunmeng Jiang Sect

Clearly, we know that he and the Jiangs have a- complicated relationship. With Jiang FengMian it’s on a thin line, and though it’s clear he cares for WWX - JFM still sees WWX as just a disciple, not a son because the last words he says to WWX are “A-Ying, A-Cheng... you must look after him.”

With Madam Yu it’s clear that their relationship is unhealthy, she basically abuses him. With Jiang Cheng it’s also unhealthy - as much as I loathe to say it, they will NEVER get the reconciliation we want because WWX has done too much for JC to forgive and JC and his anger issues are not safe for WWX. The only ACTUAL healthy relationship he’s got in the Jiang Sect is with Jiang Yanli. She forgives a lot and it’s clear she loves WWX.

Gusu Lan Sect

Ah - yes, this one. In all honesty, if he WERE to be found by the Lans he would’ve probably be well-behaved since he was just a child and easy to, how do I say it - teach. 

He might still have his playfulness but it would be toned down quite a lot. I also like to think that he would get along with Madam Lan and most probably prevent her death. This may be an unpopular opinion, but he and Lan Xichen would get along well, and LXC would be the one to make him comfortable first. WWX would still grow close with Lan Wangji of course, but if anything happens he would not go to LWJ first.

If they grew up together, I’m sorry - but I can’t imagine that he would date LWJ then. But, you can think the other way around! I don’t boss you and tell you who to ship and who not to ship! 

Fanfiction: ‘Some call it kidnapping. The Lan Clan call it adoption.’ by IceBreeze 

Summary: “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, look!” Wei Ying did a twirl. “I’m the same as you now! Am I pretty? Say Lan Zhan, am I pretty?”

Huan muffled a laugh behind his sleeve as A-Zhan said “Mn,” eyes never once leaving Wei Ying. There was something a little like awe in his stare, like Wei Ying was the only one in the world to him at that moment, and if Huan hadn’t already known that his little brother cared deeply for Wei Ying then that look would have been all the confirmation he needed.

(If A-Zhan knew what marriage and romance was beyond the vague explanations he’d heard then he’d probably already be courting Wei Ying, with all the dogged determination he shows everything he puts his mind to. It’s adorable, and Huan supports it wholeheartedly, no matter what direction it heads in the end).

Or: an AU Wei Wuxian is taken in by the Lan clan instead of the Jiangs.

Qishan Wen Sect

Hm, this one is quite complicated. To be honest, WWX would probably fit in well in the sect, and Wen Ruohan most possibly cares about power, and WWX is powerful so he’d care for him AND Wen Xu. Wen Chao is just there in the background being bullied, I like to think.

WWX would make Wen Qing their head doctor and give her more power, while he would also help Wen Ning with archery. All and all he would be alright in the Wen Sect, but there would still be a couple casualties here and there, because of Wen Chao’s jealousy.

Fanfiction:  ‘ He was brighter than the Sun’ by AncientOceanmelody

Summary:  Wei Wuxian was the head disciple of Yunmengjiang Sect, he was the pride of Yunmeng. Jiang Fengmian see him like a son, everyone (except Madam Yu) love him.

He would do everything for those who were dear to him.

So why do is feel horrible when Uncle Jiang didn't hesitate when he offer himself to the Wens instead of Jiang Cheng?

Why is he crying?

After all, he was just the son of a friend, the son of a servant, is was obvious his Uncle would prefer his Sect over him.

Qinghe Nie Sect

Again, I’m gonna be honest, but this sect would be the BEST one for WWX to grow up in. Nie Mingjue would get along great with WWX (we’re ignoring canon GROWN WWX) and Nie Huaisang has another brother :D

NHS and WWX would use their time to cause mischief and plot stuff while NMJ is like “These are my brothers. They’re annoying. Don’t you fucking dare lay a finger on them.”

Just - THEY WOULD BE THE HEALTHIEST RELATIONSHIP EVER IN ALL THE SECTS! NMJ taking care of WWX and NHS, NHS constantly worrying over WWX and NMJ because they fight (you know- war I mean) and WWX just being the self-sacrificing moron he is and protecting NMJ and NHS

Fanfiction: ‘shades of grey’ by cl410

Summary: This was why he didn’t like to leave the Unclean Realm, Nie Mingjue thought with dismay. Guileless dark eyes blinked up at him, tiny hands clutching at his robes.

Or: Nie Mingjue comes across Wei Wuxian before Jiang Fengmian, and decides Nie Huaisang could use a friend.

Lanling Jin Sect

OH BOY! I just love Jin Zixuan getting along with WWX and being an older brother to him. I would think that if JZX (Not Zixun, I despise him) grew up with WWX they would definitely get along and have a healthier relationship than the Yunmeng Bros. Jin Guangshan would definitely not see the point in having WWX in there, and Madam Jin is much more empathetic and she would be the on to take care of WWX.

You may be wondering - Jin Zixuan is Jin Zixuan. Wouldn’t his pride get in the way of things? He’s not called a peacock for no reason, and yes! I can see why you think that! But look at MianMian! She’s JZX best friend BECAUSE she probably grew up with him, and it’s clear in terms of temperament she’s better than JZX and she might even rival him in swordsmanship. If given the choice to grow up with him, WWX would have an amazing brotherly relationship with JZX, and would most likely accept the fact that WWX is amazing and would be PROUD of him. 

Also JZX’s relationship with Jiang Yanli may improve JUST BECAUSE WWX is there

(I might just be biased, idk)

Fanfiction: ‘Twin Treasures’ by crossdressingdeath

Summary: When Madame Jin happens to come across Cangse Sanren's orphaned son on a trip to Yiling, she can't bring herself to leave him there. Wei Wuxian finds a somewhat different family. Jin Zixuan finds a little brother. The course of history changes accordingly.

(Some things are written in fate, but even fate itself changes.)

Rogue Cultivators - Song Zichen and Xiao Xingchen

Let me point out first that Xingchen is ETHEREAL! HE’S THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PERSON ON THE PLANET! (Song Jiyang is amazing istg I’ve never watched The Untamed but I’ve SEEN clips of them like 哥你怎样那么美). 

ANYWAYS, BACK TO THE POINT! Xiao Xingchen and Song Zichen would be amazing parents, don’t deny it. SZC would be rocky at taking care of WWX at first but he would get the hang of it and be the most over-protective person on the planet and would KILL ANYONE who hurts his family. Xiao Xingchen on the other hand would be the doting and loving parent. He spoils WWX but not as much as SZC (though he would never admit it). SZC and XXC would be the best if you want WWX to have parental figures.

Fanfiction:  ‘Frost moon's sun’ by RenaFair

Summary: Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan had dreamed of founding a sect together, that is until Xingchen heard what happened to his shijie. The two then decides to put their little dream on hold as they care for a pair of tiny hands between them, protecting the little boy with a sunshine smile as best as they can.

Alternately; Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan adopted Wei Ying after his parents' death.

[qqueenofhades]

Hi. I’m curious. What did you mean by “women who read fiction might get Bad Ideas!!!” has just reached its latest and stupidest form via tumblr purity culture.? I haven’t seen any of this but I’m new to tumblr.

Oh man. You really want to get me into trouble on, like, my first day back, don’t you?

Pretty much all of this has been explained elsewhere by people much smarter than me, so this isn’t necessarily going to say anything new, but I’ll do my best to synthesize and summarize it. As ever, it comes with the caveat that it is my personal interpretation, and is not intended as the be-all, end-all. You’ll definitely run across it if you spend any time on Tumblr (or social media in general, including Twitter, and any other fandom-related spaces). This will get long.

In short: in the nineteenth century, when Gothic/romantic literature became popular and women were increasingly able to read these kinds of novels for fun, there was an attendant moral panic over whether they, with their weak female brains, would be able to distinguish fiction from reality, and that they might start making immoral or inappropriate choices in their real life as a result. Obviously, there was a huge sexist and misogynistic component to this, and it would be nice to write it off entirely as just hysterical Victorian pearl-clutching, but that feeds into the “lol people in the past were all much stupider than we are today” kind of historical fallacy that I often and vigorously shut down. (Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone can ever write the “omg medieval people believed such weird things about medicine!” nonsense again after what we’ve gone through with COVID, but that is a whole other rant.) The thinking ran that women shouldn’t read novels for fear of corrupting their impressionable brains, or if they had to read novels at all, they should only be the Right Ones: i.e., those that came with a side of heavy-handed and explicit moralizing so that they wouldn’t be tempted to transgress. Of course, books trying to hammer their readers over the head with their Moral Point aren’t often much fun to read, and that’s not the point of fiction anyway. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

Fast-forward to today, and the entire generation of young, otherwise well-meaning people who have come to believe that being a moral person involves only consuming the “right” kind of fictional content, and being outrageously mean to strangers on the internet who do not agree with that choice. There are a lot of factors contributing to this. First, the advent of social media and being subject to the judgment of people across the world at all times has made it imperative that you demonstrate the “right” opinions to fit in with your peer-group, and on fandom websites, that often falls into a twisted, hyper-critical, so-called “progressivism” that diligently knows all the social justice buzzwords, but has trouble applying them in nuance, context, and complicated real life. To some extent, this obviously is not a bad thing. People need to be critical of the media they engage with, to know what narratives the creator(s) are promoting, the tropes they are using, the conclusions that they are supporting, and to be able to recognize and push back against genuinely harmful content when it is produced – and this distinction is critical – by professional mainstream creators. Amateur, individual fan content is another kettle of fish. There is a difference between critiquing a professional creator (though social media has also made it incredibly easy to atrociously abuse them) and attacking your fellow fan and peer, who is on the exact same footing as you as a consumer of that content.

Obviously, again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t call out people who are engaging in actually toxic or abusive behavior, fans or otherwise. But certain segments of Tumblr culture have drained both those words (along with “gaslighting”) of almost all critical meaning, until they’re applied indiscriminately to “any fictional content that I don’t like, don’t agree with, or which doesn’t seem to model healthy behavior in real life” and “anyone who likes or engages with this content.” Somewhere along the line, a reactionary mindset has been formed in which the only fictional narratives or relationships are those which would be “acceptable” in real life, to which I say…. what? If I only wanted real life, I would watch the news and only read non-fiction. Once again, the underlying fear, even if it’s framed in different terms, is that the people (often women) enjoying this content can’t be trusted to tell the difference between fiction and reality, and if they like “problematic” fictional content, they will proceed to seek it out in their real life and personal relationships. And this is just… not true.

As I said above, critical media studies and thoughtful consumption of entertainment are both great things! There have been some great metas written on, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how it is increasingly relying on villains who have outwardly admirable motives (see: the Flag Smashers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) who are then stigmatized by their anti-social, violent behavior and attacks on innocent people, which is bad even as the heroes also rely on violence to achieve their ends. This is a clever way to acknowledge social anxieties – to say that people who identify with the Flag Smashers are right, to an extent, but then the instant they cross the line into violence, they’re upsetting the status quo and need to be put down by the heroes. I watched TFATWS and obviously enjoyed it. I have gone on a Marvel re-watching binge recently as well. I like the MCU! I like the characters and the madcap sci-fi adventures! But I can also recognize it as a flawed piece of media that I don’t have to accept whole-cloth, and to be able to criticize some of the ancillary messages that come with it. It doesn’t have to be black and white.

When it comes to shipping, moreover, the toxic culture of “my ship is better than your ship because it’s Better in Real Life” ™ is both well-known and in my opinion, exhausting and pointless. As also noted, the whole point of fiction is that it allows us to create and experience realities that we don’t always want in real life. I certainly enjoy plenty of things in fiction that I would definitely not want in reality: apocalyptic space operas, violent adventures, and yes, garbage men. A large number of my ships over the years have been labeled “unhealthy” for one reason or another, presumably because they don’t adhere to the stereotype of the coffee-shop AU where there’s no tension and nobody ever makes mistakes or is allowed to have serious flaws. And I’m not even bagging on coffee-shop AUs! Some people want to remove characters from a violent situation and give them that fluff and release from the nonstop trauma that TV writers merrily inflict on them without ever thinking about the consequences. Fanfiction often focuses on the psychology and healing of characters who have been through too much, and since that’s something we can all relate to right now, it’s a very powerful exercise. As a transformative and interpretive tool, fanfic is pretty awesome.

The problem, again, comes when people think that fic/fandom can only be used in this way, and that going the other direction, and exploring darker or complicated or messy dynamics and relationships, is morally bad. As has been said before: shipping is not activism. You don’t get brownie points for only having “healthy” ships (and just my personal opinion as a queer person, these often tend to be heterosexual white ships engaging in notably heteronormative behavior) and only supporting behavior in fiction that you think is acceptable in real life. As we’ve said, there is a systematic problem in identifying what that is. Ironically, for people worried about Women Getting Ideas by confusing fiction and reality, they’re doing the same thing, and treating fiction like reality. Fiction is fiction. Nobody actually dies. Nobody actually gets hurt. These people are not real. We need to normalize the idea of characters as figments of a creator’s imagination, not actual people with their own agency. They exist as they are written, and by the choice of people whose motives can be scrutinized and questioned, but they themselves are not real. Nor do characters reflect the author’s personal views. Period.

This feeds into the fact that the internet, and fandom culture, is not intended as a “safe space” in the sense that no questionable or triggering content can ever be posted. Archive of Our Own, with its reams of scrupulous tagging and requests for you to explicitly click and confirm that you are of age to see M or E-rated content, is a constant target of the purity cultists for hosting fictional material that they see as “immoral.” But it repeatedly, unmistakably, directly asks you for your consent to see this material, and if you then act unfairly victimized, well… that’s on you. You agreed to look at this, and there are very few cases where you didn’t know what it entailed. Fandom involves adults creating contents for adults, and while teenagers and younger people can and do participate, they need to understand this fact, rather than expecting everything to be a PG Disney movie.

When I do write my “dark” ships with garbage men, moreover, they always involve a lot of the man being an idiot, being bluntly called out for an idiot, and learning healthier patterns of behavior, which is one of the fundamental patterns of romance novels. But they also involve an element of the woman realizing that societal standards are, in fact, bullshit, and she can go feral every so often, as a treat. But even if I wrote them another way, that would still be okay! There are plenty of ships and dynamics that I don’t care for and don’t express in my fic and fandom writing, but that doesn’t mean I seek out the people who do like them and reprimand them for it. I know plenty of people who use fiction, including dark fiction, in a cathartic way to process real-life trauma, and that’s exactly the role – one of them, at least – that fiction needs to be able to fulfill. It would be terribly boring and limited if we were only ever allowed to write about Real Life and nothing else. It needs to be complicated, dark, escapist, unreal, twisted, and whatever else. This means absolutely zilch about what the consumers of this fiction believe, act, or do in their real lives.

Once more, I do note the misogyny underlying this. Nobody, after all, seems to care what kind of books or fictional narratives men read, and there’s no reflection on whether this is teaching them unhealthy patterns of behavior, or whether it predicts how they’ll act in real life. (There was some of that with the “do video games cause mass shootings?”, but it was a straw man to distract from the actual issues of toxic masculinity and gun culture.) Certain kinds of fiction, especially historical fiction, romance novels, and fanfic, are intensely gendered and viewed as being “women’s fiction” and therefore hyper-criticized, while nobody’s asking if all the macho-man potboiler military-intrigue tough-guy stereotypical “men’s fiction” is teaching them bad things. So the panic about whether your average woman on the internet is reading dark fanfic with an Unhealthy Ship (zomgz) is, in my opinion, misguided at best, and actively destructive at worst.

[heart-stomper]

Unspoken Trust, Unspoken Fears

Gathering my thoughts on Sasha and Marcy’s dynamic before S3 proves me wrong shows us what’s going on with these two.

It’s time to look at The Dinner and Battle of the Bands, and then use it as a guide to read the room in True Colors.

No worries! You just gotta speak their language. - Sasha, Reunion

Or in this case, know when to stay quiet. 

Sasha gets really really frustrated this episode. Like, so bad, that if that Volcakeno didn’t erupt, she might have been the one to end the friendship. Even Marcy and Grime couldn’t calm her down. But that’s the thing, before this point, they were the only ones to get through to Sasha without provoking her.

Grime keeps Sasha in line; she rolls her eyes and is clearly annoyed every time she has to hold herself back, but her willingness to keep it cool shows she ultimately agrees with Grime’s plan and sees it as the best path to success.  When Marcy chimes in, it’s with a helpful answer to Sasha’s question. She reminds Sasha of why they stopped Doing Thing by explaining how their plan failed. She avoids judging Sasha for it, and frames it as the repercussions of their actions, as a group. Marcy is on Sasha’s side, so Sasha doesn’t put up any defenses. When Sasha decides to avoid arguing with Anne however, it isn’t for Anne. It’s for the plan, for her and Grime.

Marcy has enough faith in Sasha to believe she’d never want to purposefully hurt Anne, but is careful about broaching the subject. Sasha feels attacked very easily, and will quickly trivialize or downplay things if she feels the other person is being unreasonable or doesn’t ‘get’ her.

And that is the only time Marcy speaks up besides The Big Argument. She only jumps into actual conflicts if things get too heated. Otherwise, she just lets Sasha do her thing, and lets Anne argue with Sasha... sort of.

This isn’t collaboration. It’s a hostile takeover. Why do things always have to be your way?

Now, for the bait and switch. Let’s talk about Marcy’s behavior in Day at the Aquarium and New Wartwood, and Sasha’s in Toadcatcher and Barrel’s Warhammer… while tying it all back to Battle of Bands!

You didn’t tell me you were writing a song! Let’s do it! I mean, if that’s okay with you, Sasha.

In A Day at the Aquarium, Marcy’s first instinct to Anne saying she’s going back with the Plantars is to make a plan. To show that it isn’t actually what will benefit Anne’s Goals. She doesn’t even consider opening up as an option, and avoids saying anything that could cause conflict. New Wartwood, Marcy tries to chat with the citizens of Wartwood and get to know them. But when that doesn’t work, she decides that impressing them with her knowledge and usefulness is bound to make them like her. It has to.

It does seem simpler.

Trying to win people over by claiming a plan is of mutual interest and necessary, carefully choosing which words to use, viewing relationships as a puzzle to be solved… this isn’t the sort of thing Marcy needs to do to get along with someone like Anne. It’s how Marcy copes with Sasha. Sasha lashes out and belittles bad ideas. Sasha has to be convinced the plan benefits her, suits her. Vulnerability and love aren’t enough to make her care, so Marcy does what she can to prove she’s worth being around. She might even sometimes wonder if Sasha actually likes her, or just likes what she can do for her. She rather not find out.

Whenever she’s afraid of people not liking her, or is worried that she’ll lose them, she dives right into those bad habits. She can give her opinions, but they aren’t supposed to get in the way of what Sasha wants. She’s supposed to say “That’s amazing! What do you think Sash’?” not “Let’s do it!”

Listen. There’s another reason why I’ve been training so hard. To protect the one person I know I can count on right now. You. You’re right, I already lost one friend. I’m not about to lose another. - Sasha, Toadcatcher

In Toadcatcher, there’s that scene, where Sasha looks at the BFF picture and the wind cuts off Anne for a second so it’s just her and Marcy. This is where Sasha is at. Anne might have rebelled, but when Sasha reunites with Marcy? Oh, she’ll show Anne, one way or another. They’ll get her back (like, joining the team or revenge wise, depending on Sasha’s mood.)

Listen here you buffoon! What’s it gonna take to prove that you should follow us? - Barrel’s Warhammer

Aaaand Sasha freaks out royally when she learns the two are alone together and doing just fine. On some level, she fears Anne and Marcy “getting along without her” because it means they might decide they don’t actually need her to make plans; that she isn’t necessary to have fun. In the The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers, we see that isn’t as big a catastrophe as Sasha seems to think it’d be. As time goes on, the girls do gain a healthier relationship to their feelings about Sasha, but that doesn’t mean they’d want her gone even if they don’t need her there. But Sasha doesn’t know that, she doesn’t even consider it till reuniting in The Third Temple. All she knows for now, is that she can be a bit... much... so if she isn’t in control, if her way isn’t “the best”, why would Marcy put up with her either? 

Listen. If things get too wild out here, just give me a signal and I’ll call the whole thing off. 

 For sure, teach it to us Anne. 

Every Sasha plan starts with an empty reassurance. So much of Sasha’s dialogue follows a pattern where she says stuff like “we’ll call it off” (she did not call it off) and “for sure, I don’t mind” (she did mind) that it could be it’s own game. Sasha talks the talk, until it gets in the way of what she wants.

Sorry guys, but we’re way to close to bail. I am not going back empty-handed.

It’s good. I just have a few tiny notes that I think could make it even better. ... Boom! Fiixed it! 

If they just��follow her lead and let her fix it, everything will work out. They should believe in her and trust her. After all...

That’s not true! Besides, we did it. ... You’re not actually gonna throw this all away are you?

I just wanted all of us to succeed. I was just being a good friend. Why couldn’t they see that?

It all worked out, right? Percy and Braddock made it out okay even if she didn’t follow through on her promise. They won, she’s reliable. But of course, Sasha lost something more important than their belief in her abilities, she lost their trust. In Battle of the Bands however, Sasha recognizes that Anne and Marcy don’t want to follow her ambitions and will be pushed away by them just like Percy and Braddock were. So she takes it upon herself to end things, accepting that she’s lost.

Sorry it took so long.

Except this time, she manages to realize that maybe “what she wants” is to be there for her friends. Sasha’s finally had the space to relax and really think about what she wants, at least a little. This isn’t a real battle after all. Doing things her way all the time isn’t as important as she thought. Maybe she should trust in her friends more. A change of pace isn’t “wrong”, just different. It’s fun.

Sorry we lost, Sash’.

Just like Percy and Braddock, Marcy knows Sasha is capable. She understands that Sasha just wants the team to succeed. That’s why she apologizes when Grime beats them in the competition. She wants Sasha to know she appreciates what she did, but keeps it a bit indirect. She gets Sasha probably didn’t want to push them away. Marcy tried to catch herself and back Sasha up, but when Sasha had her argument with Anne, she stayed quiet. She couldn’t bring herself to go against Anne. 

That was ultimately for the best, as Sasha learned a valuable lesson. Except... She’s in too deep with the rebellion to back out now. This is the episode she’d spill the truth and give up on the whole thing, except... Grime. A part of her knows leaving would make Grime her enemy. She can’t risk that. So, she keeps going with the plan. She decides she’ll somehow win it all back. Because the thing she’s actually most afraid of, is losing another friend. 

Sorry things got a little crazy back there. You guys good? ... Sheesh, don’t be a sore loser. Look, I’m gonna stay here and get this toad regime off the ground, but I can totally send you two home if you want. Or, you can stick around and give me a hand! So what’d’ya say?

Sasha’s final offer; the last chance she’s giving the girls to stop acting weird and go back to being her obedient friends who do what she wants. Sasha lost at Toad Tower, but now she’s won. So Anne should go back to normal, she’s supposed to, like some unspoken “rule”.

And Marcy is supposed fall back in line too. The offer and apology are just as much a plea directed at her. Sasha’s trying to be generous, in her own awkward way. She has bit her tongue so far. She’s thrown a temper tantrum or two, but she hasn’t been this forward in asking Marcy for help till now. She wants Marcy to say that everything’s okay. Make it clear she doesn’t think she’s the bad guy, and that she forgives her and wants to be there for her. That they’re on the same page again. She wants Marcy to help make Anne look overly dramatic and silly for making such a big deal of all this. Sure, if Anne figures that out by herself, that’d be great, but if Marcy could just speak up.

But she doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t.

Marcy’s too busy worrying about Anne’s reaction. Knowing that she’ll be upset about this. She doesn’t dare side with Sasha, and is disappointed and betrayed that she actually did something like this. Marcy already has her own secret plans, so when she finally tries to calm things down, all she can give is a non-descript “we can still fix this”. And then, she’s once again shocked when she sees Sasha threaten Anne and the Plantars. Seeing Sasha act so willing to actually hurt people rather than just push them around... it finally hits her just how serious “tried to kill them” was. And of course, losing Anne or being sent home with her would completely mess up her own plans.

Sasha’s isn’t a vulnerable person. She’ll go on about loving her friends if it makes her look good, but she actively avoids doing anything that could be seen as “weak”. She wouldn’t dare ask Marcy to drop Anne and choose her. If Marcy isn’t speaking up, she can take the hint. She still isn’t on her side, and so she gets sent to the dungeon along with the rest of them.

Marcy accepts that Sasha has become an obstacle, but a part of her still hopes the three of them can work through all this. If they do things her way, nobody has to get hurt. She'll figure out a way hold everything together, fix everything, like always.

And then Andrias betrays her.

Yeah, what plan?

Sasha stops talking once she realizes what’s going on. Quietly fuming as Marcy explains herself. The music box, the suggestion to take it back to Andrias... that wasn’t Marcy being the sweet, supportive friend who Sasha thought she could always rely on, who believed in her... that was Marcy using her. It was never going to become their plan; Marcy never trusted her and was actively working against her. Sasha lost Anne, and she never had a chance at getting Marcy back, either. 

Sasha smacks Marcy away when she desperately tries to justify herself. She doesn’t want to hear it anymore. She’s furious that Marcy thinks they could be friends after something like this, after she’s manipulated them and claimed it was for their sakes. This whole time, her goal had been avoiding the move with her parents. And coming here has only torn them apart even worse.

Marcy reaches out to both girls. And when Sasha rejects her, she clings to Anne, hoping at least she’ll find it in her to forgive her. That she’ll understand she cares about them even if she messed up. Marcy knows they’d probably never pick her over their families or ambitions, so she told herself this place offered those things too. Made them all better people. But as she says her excuses out loud, she can’t find a single one that feels right. She was just afraid of losing them, and now, she’s managed to hurt them on top of that. 

But the thing is. After all that. Despite how betrayed and hurt and angry Sasha was, she looks like this:

Sasha realizes this must be exactly how Anne felt about her betrayal. It isn’t just an abstract “hurt” or “bad thing” anymore. She can also sympathize with how Marcy feels and why she did it, at least a little. She can’t imagine being able to forgive this, and yet... when she looks to Anne with that apologetic look, she isn’t just hoping Anne will forgive her. She’s also asking for permission to forgive Marcy. Pleading that they all still have a chance to move past this together.

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Not So Serious

Prompt: ayoooo I’m like-obsessed with your writing style omg if your requests are open I’d love to see some good good logince hurt/comfort where Roman has a crush on Logan and gets this idea that he’s not serious enough for Logan to like him at all so Roman completely changes himself only for Logan to wonder where the man he’s in love with went.

Thanks for the prompt, babe!

Read on Ao3

Pairings: logince, as on the tin

Warnings: roman’s a little bit of a self-doubting and self-depricating boi but other than that none! we are happy now!

Word Count:  5340

Roman knows he’s the least important of the Light Sides. Or at the very least, the one that Thomas listens to the least.

 That’s okay.

 It’s not, not really, but that doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that most of it can be chalked up to the fact that he’s the least serious Side. He’s the dreamer, the fanatic, the one whose head is permanently in the clouds. He sings, he dances, he acts, he plays. And that’s his job! He’s Creativity, for Shakespeare’s sake, and if he’s not, well, what good is he?

 Well, he’s not much good when he is Creativity, but that’s beside the point.

 But Thomas needs him to be serious. Patton, for all his lightheartedness, knows how to be serious when the time calls for it. And behind all those jokes and smiles and corny lines that make all of them want to cringe a little, he’s talking about, arguably, the most serious thing there is. What’s right and what’s wrong. No matter how you slice it, that’s serious. And he’s Thomas’s heart! How can you not take that seriously?

 Then there’s Virgil, who Roman considers a Light Side. Virgil demands to be taken seriously. Not verbally, but come on, he’s Anxiety. Mental stuff is no joke, and they’ve had enough close calls to know that for sure. Virgil’s a snarky bastard, but he rarely says something he doesn’t actually mean. He keeps them safe when none of the others know what to do and honestly? That’s serious stuff. Virgil’s got enough on his plate.

 Then there’s Logan.

  Logan.

 Roman could go on for days about Logan. He won’t, but he could.

 Logan is Logic. Perhaps more than anything else, Thomas needs Logic. And Logan. Logan is always present, whether he’s there physically or not, and his voice is always going to be heard in the conversation sooner or later. He breaks down the biggest problems Roman’s ever seen until they’re manageable chunks, so much so that it’s ridiculous that they were ever big in the first place. He talks them through everything, slowly and surely. He makes everything look easy.

 And that’s all the more impressive because Roman knows it’s not.

 It’s not easy to do what Logan does. It’s not easy for Logan to always make himself heard. It’s not easy to carry the single brain cell in any given conversation.

 But he does and it’s wonderful.

 Logan is serious. His job is serious. That doesn’t mean he’s serious all the time, no, Roman’s seen him snap a quip faster than anything with a smirk on his face, and their bond over Crofter’s is legendary. And he knows the gleam that means Logan is immensely satisfied with whatever insult he’s come up with to shut Roman down. Even through the hurt of a new bruise forming on Thomas’s ego, he has to smile because it’s so satisfying to watch someone just be very good at something.

 He’s also incredible at calming them all down. He’s so sweet and kind and gentle in all the right ways and you will never convince Roman that Logan knows nothing about emotions. Come on, he’s the most intelligent Side, that extends to emotional intelligence too. The amount of times he’s been able to rip them out of some horrible spiral with just a simple touch or a word is too high for Roman to count. And he never asks for anything, he just does it. Because he’s good like that.

 Roman would be an utter, utter fool if he didn’t take Logan seriously. He doesn’t dare underestimate him, never again, not after that rap battle. He doesn’t try to speak over him, not once everyone’s actually paying attention and Logan’s clearly trying to say something. He listens, he tries, he takes him seriously.

 But sometimes Logan needs to not be serious! He can see when the strain gets a little too much and he needs to cut someone down to size.

 Well, here’s Roman!

 And yes, it’s worth it. It’s always worth it. Logan smiles and it’s like the sun comes out. Yes, that’s a cliché but we all know clichés are cliché for a reason. Logan smiles, the sun comes out, and Roman wants to bathe in it. Wants to sit and listen to Logan talk about anything just so he’ll keep smiling, keep talking, keep being Logan. Logan is serious, but serious isn’t always Logan.

 Isn’t always.

 Most of the time, though…

 Most of the time, it looks like Logan is thrilled to not have to stand next to Roman.

 Most of the time, it seems like every time Roman opens his mouth, Logan’s trying not to roll his eyes or is just listening out of politeness. And every time he pitches an idea, it seems like Logan’s getting just as much enjoyment out of leaving the meetings as he does when he doesn’t find anything wrong with it.

 Most of the time, that 0.5% hangs in the air between them like a moat.

 Roman doesn’t want that. Roman doesn’t want Logan to view him as a diametrically opposed foe, he doesn’t want to be Logan’s other side of the coin, he doesn’t want Logan to think he’s only worth 0.5% of a day.

 But 0.5% is all he gets if he stays Roman.

 It’s not big changes, nothing that would compromise Thomas, but they’re noticeable. At least he hopes so.

 He stops singing out loud in the common areas and instead has a headphone in when he wants to listen to something. He reads in the chair—sitting properly, not with his limbs haphazardly thrown about like he’s a newly made life form with no idea how muscles work—and keeps his comments to himself, written down in a notebook or in his head. He asks politely if Logan wants to come on a walk through the Imagination and conjures up something simple. A forest path, or a garden, or a small town road. None of the fantastical woods, magic castles, or treacherous mountains that he’s so fond of, because those are daydreams.

 He’s quieter outside of videos. Sure, he’s still as obnoxious as ever when the cameras are on, but they tend to exaggerate themselves when they’re being filmed anyway. So it won’t be too much of a surprise when he’s not like that when the cameras are off. He doesn’t speak as much—well, he doesn’t monologue as much. He speaks when spoken to, he’s as courteous as he knows how to be, and he tries to be serious. Even if his job is anything but.

 He could tell you it’s exhausting what he does for the videos and he’d rather not do it when he doesn’t have to.

 He could tell you it’s because it would be better for Thomas if they all got along well. 

 He could tell you it’s because he wants a healthier and more productive working relationship with Logan.

 He could tell you all of these things.

 Whether or not you believe him is up to you.

 …because Roman might be the actor, but he’s never been a particularly good liar. And deep down—not that deep down—we all know why he wants to be more serious, don’t we?

 Logan doesn’t like fantasy. Logan doesn’t like excessive noise. Logan doesn’t like someone who can’t be serious.

 Logan is kind and perfect and wonderful and smart and so many things.

 And above all, Logan is serious.

 Roman can work with that.

———————————————————————

“Hey, Specs! Do you have time to brainstorm?”

 “It will have to be quick, Roman, I’ve not much time to spare.”

 “Oh. That’s alright, then, we can do it later.”

 “Are you certain?”

 “Of course! I know how important your schedule is for you, please, don’t worry about it.”

 “Ah. I see. Well, thank you, Roman.”

 They never do end up having that brainstorm. Not alone.

 “Logan?”

 “Yes, Roman?”

 “Would it be alright if I played music? I’ll keep it low.”

 “…we can try, though I usually prefer working in silence.”

 “Oh, in that case, I’ll just go—“

 “Let’s try?”

 “If you’re sure.”

 Roman ends up getting his headphones after a few minutes.

 “Roman?”

 “Yes, my d—Logan?”

 “…were you going to say something else?”

 “No, no, I got lost in my head again, I thought you were…someone else.”

 “It may be worth practicing getting out of your head, Roman.”

 “I know.”

 He never quite manages, but he’s trying.

 “Ro—oh.”

 “Logan? Is something wrong?”

 “You’ve changed your room. Your…your paintings, your drawings, they’re…where did you put them?”

 “Oh, I got rid of them.”

 “Got rid of them?”

 “Yes. Surely you know how difficult it can be to work in a crowded space?”

 “…yes, I suppose I do.”

 Logan doesn’t comment on the fact that Roman’s room isn’t quite so red anymore either.

 “Roman?”

 “Yes?”

 “This idea, it seems…quite…realistic.”

 “Is that not the point, Sp—Logan?”

 “Well, yes, I suppose so.”

 “Besides, from a practical standpoint, we’re operating with a limited budget here. The scope of the videos has to be adjusted accordingly.”

 “Yes, I suppose you’re correct.”

 Logan doesn’t mention that it doesn’t necessarily feel like Roman’s idea.

 “Roman?”

 “Yes?”

 “Care to comment?”

 “Oh, no, I’m perfectly content.”

 “Are you certain?”

 “Of course.”

 Logan doesn’t ask again.

———————————————————————

Logan is really confused.

 Something’s wrong with Roman, that much is obvious, but he can’t figure out what. Roman’s been quiet lately, outside of the videos, but even in the videos, he’s been different. He’s not talking as much anymore, not going on his incredibly passionate rants that one can feel if they just listen hard enough. He’s not risen to the bait for weeks now, preferring instead to…talk. Or listen. His room is suspiciously absent of his paintings and drawings that make Logan want to sit and stare and lose track of time.

 And he’s stopped singing.

 That’s a definite indicator that something’s wrong.

 But he can’t figure out what.

 None of them are fighting; Patton and Virgil have noticed that something is different, certainly, but they don’t know—they can’t figure out exactly what. They would have told him if they had a disagreement with Roman, but they haven’t.

 Thomas isn’t being affected by it. In fact, he hasn’t noticed that anything’s wrong.

 And on the surface, Roman seems fine, but Logan knows better.

 He stops in front of his whiteboard, staring hard at the pieces of information he has written down.

  Roman is no longer singing or playing music out loud outside of his room.

Roman is changing the ideas that he brings to the brainstorming sessions. He claims they are meant to be more ‘practical’ and easier to budget.

Roman does not insist that we spend time with him anymore.

Roman is quiet and no longer engages in ‘banter’ exchanges with me.

Roman no longer brings me to the elaborate places in the Imagination.

Roman no longer gives me nicknames.

 Has…has Logan done something to Roman?

 He doesn’t think he has. He hasn’t—he hasn’t shot down any ideas lately, and certainly none so much as to trigger such a drastic change. There have been no arguments. There have been no big changes for Thomas.

 He finds himself twisting the cap of the marker back and forth as he focuses on the period at the end of the last sentence written. Perhaps…perhaps Roman is simply going through a rough patch? Occasionally the prince will lapse into a ‘grayer’ state, for lack of a better term, where he exhibits fewer of his energetic tendencies, but none have gone on for such a duration. Additionally, his behavior in videos has not altered as significantly as would indicate this as the cause.

  Perhaps I should try to talk to him about it.

 Logan nods sharply to himself and turns, walking out of his room toward Roman’s. The red door looms there, slightly ajar. Frowning, Logan raps on it gently with his knuckles.

 “Roman? May I come in?”

 No response.

 “Roman?” Logan eases the door open. “Roman?”

 No sign of Roman. The bathroom door isn’t locked, his laptop isn’t open, his phone is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps Roman simply forgot to close his door all the way. Logan shuts it carefully and turns to head downstairs.

 “Virgil? Patton?”

 Virgil glances up from his phone. “What’s up, L?”

 Ignoring the little flutter in his chest at the first nickname he’s been called in a while, Logan adjusts his glasses and glances around. “Have you seen Roman?”

 Virgil shakes his head. “Pat? Have you?”

 “I think he said he was going into the Imagination but he’d be back for dinner?”

 Logan nods. “Thank you both.”

 “Logan?”

 “Yes?”

 “Can you, uh—“ Patton wrings his hands for a moment— “can you ask him what’s wrong for us?”

 “Princey’s been off for a while, we wanna know why but he won’t tell us.”

 Logan blinks. “Considering I was on my way to ask him the same thing, I take it he’s been as…hesitant to share any information with you as he has with me?”

 Their nods make something twist in his chest.

 “If he’s gonna tell anyone,” Virgil mutters as he turns to go, “it’ll be you.”

 Logan pauses. “Excuse me?”

 Virgil shrugs. “You’re his favorite, L. He thinks the sun shines outta your face.”

 Despite himself, Logan feels heat rush to his cheeks. “I’m quite sure you’re confusing me for Patton, Virgil.”

 “Oh, no, Princey’s got it bad f—“

 “Virgil!”

 “Oh come on,” Virgil groans, his head lolling on the couch as he turns to look at Patton, “you’ve noticed it too.”

 “But that’s not our secret to tell!”

 “Shit. Yeah, you’re right. Oops.”

 “Wait, wait,” Logan stammers, quickly trying to get a grasp of the situation, “you—Roman what?”

 Virgil shakes his head. “Nope. Sorry, Logan. I already fucked up. You’re gonna have to ask him. And hey, you were on your way to do just that!”

 Logan narrows his eyes but Virgil shrugs, undaunted. He turns and pointedly does not run up the stairs.

 The door to the Imagination is ajar. He takes a deep breath and pushes it open, expecting to meet some fantastical landscape, a village, or a castle, perhaps.

 He doesn’t expect to wander into what looks like the grand foyer of some Victorian mansion.

 The door shuts behind him with a thud that echoes gently around the room. His shoes aren’t particularly loud but his steps make resounding clicks as he walks through the halls. The walls are elegantly crafted, with artful splashes of color here and there. He comes to a grand staircase and has to swallow heavily at the richness of the wood under his fingers as he climbs slowly, slowly up.

 There’s something here, he decides, that’s not been here for a while. Not since he started accompanying Roman more often. He remembers the first time, where he’d wearily said he didn’t have the patience for an adventure and had been pleasantly surprised by Roman’s offer of a simple walk. Each walk after that had been lovely, truly, but it was always painfully obvious that it was in the Imagination.

 Now, though? Now the walls seem to curve about Logan as he walks, like petals of a flower curve about its center. The house seems to hold him, cradle him almost as he walks slowly through it. He can almost feel a gentle hand at the base of his spine, between his shoulder blades, under his chin. It takes no effort to keep walking, to discover more and more of this truly beautiful house, to look and look and look without fear of his eyes hurting or his head growing weary.

 It feels like Roman, he realizes with a giddy bubble in his chest, this is Roman’s work. Roman is here.

 That realization gives him enough courage to call out.

 “Roman? Roman, are you here?”

 “Logan?”

 “Roman!” He turns around, trying to trace the echoes to their source. “Where are you?”

 “I’m in the library, keep walking toward the back of the hall.”

 Logan’s steps beat out an eager pace as he begins to hurry towards Roman’s voice. He meets a wide set of mahogany doors and pushes them open, looking for—

 “Oh,” he murmurs as the doors swing wide, “oh, this is…magnificent.”

 If he were—well, if he were Roman, he’d compare this to the library the Beast gifts Belle. The shelves tower over his head, two full floors of books stretching out almost as far as he can see. As he looks closer, he realizes this is a theatre, with the seats replaced with shelves. At the back of the library stands the stage, converted into a seating area with as many plush couches and overstuffed armchairs as one could ever want. Curtains drape themselves across a vast window, golden sunlight streaming inside. And on the window seat, standing as the doors fly open, is Roman.

 “Roman, my goodness—“

 “Whoa, easy, Logan,” Roman chuckles, catching Logan carefully by the elbows as he rushes through the library, “you’ll knock yourself over at this rate.”

 “This is magnificent,” Logan manages, still looking around in awe—goodness, there are some books here that he’s only seen in passing— “how—how did you do this?”

 “I’ve always had it,” Roman says, guiding him to sit on the window seat and crouching in front of him, “it’s my library.”

 “This—this is yours?”

 Half of Roman’s mouth tugs up into that crooked smile. “Yeah, Logan. This is mine. You didn’t think I just let my books lie around, did you?”

 “But you—you—you’ve never shown this to me. To anyone.”

 The smile falters. “Well, no.”

 Logan takes a moment to actually look at Roman. Roman quirks his eyebrow as he notices the questioning gaze. His costume is a little less pristine than normal. There’s something slightly different about his expression. And his sword is nowhere to be seen.

 “May I—can I ask why not?”

 Roman smiles ruefully, glancing over Logan’s shoulder before dropping his gaze to the ground.

 “When I need to think,” he says after a moment, “or just…sit for a little, I come here.”

 He rests his hand on the seat next to Logan.

 “I sit right here, and I think. I look outside into the garden. I watch the clouds. Or I stare at the shelves, and think about the books.”

 He gestures behind him.

 “Sometimes I’ll see people bustling through them, or characters diving in between pages.” The smile becomes a touch more wistful. “Or I’ll hear water rushing, or wind howling.”

 He looks back. Logan’s mouth drops open at the openness of Roman’s expression.

 “But mostly,” he finishes in a near whisper, “I just sit. And think. Because I can.”

 “…this is your space,” Logan mumbles as he puts it together, “that’s…that’s why you haven’t shown anyone.”

 Roman nods.

 Logan should apologize. He should apologize and leave. He should never have expected that this would be alright.

 But the thought of leaving this library, this house, Roman feels…so, so heavy.

 “It’s alright, Logan,” Roman says patiently, sitting on the floor, “what did you need? Am I late for dinner?”

 He shakes himself, sternly reminding his brain that he’s being rude now. “No, no, nothing of the sort, I simply needed to find you.”

 Roman spreads his arms wide. “Well, you found me. Congratulations.”

 It’s so close to the banter Logan misses that he finds himself smiling. “Thank you. Shall I assume to claim my prize now, then?”

 “Mm, and what prize would that be?”

 Roman blinks up at him expectantly when he doesn’t answer right away. There are several questions on the tip of his tongue and they war with each other.

  What’s wrong?

Are you alright?

  Did something happen?

  The others and I have noticed changes in your behavior, could you explain them?

  Did I do something wrong?

  Can I stay here?

  What did Virgil almost tell me?

 “I’ve lost something,” Logan blurts instead, swallowing the lump in his throat when Roman blinks again, startled, “and I need you to help me find it.”

 “Oh. Well, that should be easy enough. Where did you last see it?”

 “Wait!”

 Logan catches a startled Roman by his sleeve as he’s in the middle of getting up. He sits back down slowly, still staring at Logan.

 “I don’t know where I lost it,” he says, because it’s the truth. Even for all his immaculate time-keeping, he can’t pinpoint the moment he lost Roman.

 “That does make it more difficult,” Roman muses, tapping his fingers on his chin, “well, can you tell me what it is? Maybe I’ve seen it.”

  I’m sure you have.

 Logan takes a deep breath.

 “I didn’t realize it was gone, at first,” he begins, “only that it—something changed. It was quieter. Rooms felt less…I believe ‘alive’ is the only word I can use to adequately describe it.”

 Roman catches on to the fact he’s speaking about something abstract quickly. Though, of course he did, he’s very intelligent. He sits up a little straighter and takes Logan’s hand in both of his. That in itself is enough to make Logan swallow again.

 “It was more difficult to continue working,” he says after a moment, looking at the ground, “because I didn’t know what was missing. I didn’t know whether the fault lay with myself or with Thomas or how to go about fixing it. I couldn’t think of anything.”

 Roman makes a noise of sympathy, squeezing Logan’s hand.

 “Of course, once I realized it was missing, I did all I could to find it.” He adjusts his glasses. “I gathered all the information I could to see what had gone wrong.”

 “And,” Roman prompts gently, “what did you find?”

 “It’s not in my room. It’s not in the kitchen. It’s not in the Imagination, or at least it wasn’t when I was there.”

 Logan closes his eyes.

 “It doesn’t make me fight back a smile every time I see it, because I am only concerned. It doesn’t make me look forward to seeing it, because it doesn’t seem to be happy to see me. It doesn’t make me want to say how important it is to me, because it doesn’t—“

 “…doesn’t what, Logan?”

 “…it doesn’t even give me a nickname anymore.”

 Roman freezes.

 Logan opens his eyes and looks at Roman, seeing his face turn pale.

 “I’ve lost the one I love,” he confesses, “and I don’t know where he’s gone.”

———————————————————————

Roman’s heart stops.

 Logan—Logan—L—

 Logan loves him?

 Logan loves him?

 “Please,” Logan says in that soft, soft voice that makes Roman want to combust, “can you help me find him?”

 “Wait, wait, Logan, you—you what?”

 Logan shifts forward, cupping Roman’s hand. “Where did you go, Roman? Something happened, you left.”

 “N-no, Logan, I didn’t go anywhere.”

 “You did,” he corrects, “you…you’ve been different. You’ve been quieter, you haven’t taken me on any adventures—“

 “I’ve taken you into the Imagination!”

 “—and you stopped singing,” Logan finishes. Roman’s chest throbs with the way Logan’s voice cracks on the last word. “You left, Roman, where did you go?”

 “I—I was trying to—to—“ Roman swallows heavily. “Wait, you love me?”

 Logan blinks, tilting his head. “Of course, yes, I love you, Roman.”

 Roman’s face flares. “You can’t—you can’t just say that, Logan.”

 “Why not?”

 “I’ll believe you. I’ll—“ the urge to bury his face in his hands burns but he can’t, can’t pull away from Logan—“I’ll believe you.”

 Logan hums. “And why shouldn’t you believe me?”

 An incredulous laugh forces its way out of his throat. “Because you can’t love me.”

 He slams his eyes shut as Logan starts to move away. He’s ruined it. He’s ruined so much of his hard work. He’s destroyed it. He’s hurt Logan. How could he?

 “And why can’t I love you, Roman?”

 He laughs again, though this one might be technically considered a sob. “Because I’m loud! I’m obnoxious, I want to spend all my time daydreaming, I’m so out of touch with the real world, I never want to be serious, I’m—I’m—“

 “Passionate,” Logan interrupts quietly, something still cupping his hand, “optimistic. Hardworking.”

 Roman huffs. “That’s not special.”

 “Intelligent.”

 Now he does laugh. “Not compared to you.”

 Logan’s stifled noise is enough to make him open his eyes. He frowns up at Logan. He looks…heartbroken.

 “Roman,” he murmurs, “do you honestly believe that?”

 He squirms uncomfortably on the floor. “…it’s not like it isn’t obvious. El principe es estupido.”

 “It’s far from obvious, Roman,” Logan insists, “why do you think I enjoy our verbal sparring so much?”

 “You what?”

 “I respect and admire your intelligence. You’re—well, not to insult the others when they’re not here to defend themselves, but you’re the only one who really keeps up with me.” Logan smiles at him. He smiles at him. “And you’re kind, Roman. Relentlessly so, sometimes.”

 Roman can only gape at him.

 “Don’t think I haven’t noticed everything you do,” Logan chides gently, “I do notice. And I am so thankful for it. But this…” He gives Roman’s hand another squeeze. “This I don’t understand. Where did you go, Roman?”

 “I—I…” Roman swallows. “I thought I was doing it for you.”

 “For me?”

 “Y-you like serious things! You don’t want to be seen as a joke and I’ve never seen you as a joke, Logan, you have to believe me, and I thought that—that I—“

 “Roman—“

 “I make fun of the things I love, Logan!” Roman’s throat almost aches from the strain of saying it out loud. “And you—you don’t like it when we’re not serious and I’m not serious so I—I thought if I—if—if—“

 “You changed so I would…love you?”

 Roman shakes his head shamefully. “So you would tolerate me.”

 “Oh, little star—“

 Roman lets out an oof as Logan tugs him forward, his knees hitting the ground roughly as he pulls Roman into a hug. He’s warm, he’s so warm and so Logan…the frames of his glasses are cool against the side of Roman’s face, the knot of his tie pressing into the hollow of his chest. And he’s being so sweet, so tender as he holds Roman on the floor of the library.

 Roman clutches him back. It’s been agony, not being able to touch him, not even the barest brush of shoulders or knocking their elbows together. But now Logan is here and he can have this.

 “I don’t want serious,” he hears Logan murmur, “not from you. Alright, sometimes, yes, I want you to listen but never to be that serious. You’re—you’re you, Roman. That’s what I want.”

 Oh.

  Oh.

 He laughs as the tears start to fall onto Logan’s collar. “You found me, Logan.”

 Logan just gives him a squeeze. “I did, little star.”

 Oh, Roman was not prepared for that. Instead, he can hear Logan chuckle as he tenses for a moment.

 “No?”

 “Yes,” Roman blurts out quickly, fumbling with his clumsy tongue, “yes. So much yes.”

 “Yes, it is then, little star.”

 He hums contentedly, burying his nose in the crook of Logan’s neck. “You found me,” he whispers, rocking them back and forth, “and I found you.”

 “Yes, little star, you found me.” Logan pulls back to cup his face, a comforting noise escaping him at the evidence of drying tears. “And now…please, don’t leave me?”

 “Never, Logan,” he swears, “never again.”

 He gets to see that wonderful soft glow on Logan’s face for a moment longer before that gleam—oh, that wonderful gleam—comes back as he arches an eyebrow.

 “No? Then why am I still ‘Logan?’”

 Oh. So that’s how this is going to go, hmm? Roman lets a little more darkness slip into his smirk than he normally would. It only grows wider as Logan looks a little surprised.

“My dearest darling nerd,” he purrs, “if you wanted me to lavish you with pet names, you know you need only ask.”

 “That is not what I meant,” Logan says firmly, undone a little by the blush now fanning his cheeks.

 Roman chuckles. “Oh, what’s wrong, my sweet little pi, is this not what you wanted?”

 “R-Roman!”

 “Goodness, Logan, your face is so warm.” Roman’s arms come up to hug him as he buries his face in his neck. “What, you can dish it out but you can’t take it?”

 “You’re one to talk,” comes the slightly muffled reply, “you were blushing from my pet name too.”

 “Ah, yes, how could I forget? ‘Little star,’ well…” Roman cups the back of Logan’s neck and brings that darling face back out to smile at. “If I’m the star, then you must be the whole galaxy.”

 Logan tries to frown. Bless him, he tries, but he’s so flustered that it turns into this adorable pout as he leans back to get up.

 “Oh, no, no, no,” Roman chuckles, wrapping his arms and legs tightly around him, “you stay right here in my lap.”

 “Roman!”

 “What?” He tilts his head. “Can you think of anywhere better to be than right here, in my lap…with me?”

 He can’t help the note of vulnerability that slips in at the end. Maybe Logan doesn’t want this, maybe he is too much, maybe he just ruined it…

 “No,” Logan murmurs after a moment, “I guess I can’t.”

 And really, it is marvelous, there on the floor, golden sunlight streaming over them, in the library, surrounded by the quiet shelves and safe hallways of the house.

———————————————————————

“I have to ask,” Roman says, giving Logan a little shake after a moment, “how did you…?”

 “Find out?”

 “Mm.”

 “Well…” Logan toys with Roman’s collar. “I was coming to ask you about it anyway, but Virgil—“

 “Virgil?” Roman raises an eyebrow. “He said something now, did he?”

 Logan squints at him. “…why do I have a feeling there’s more to this than you’re telling me?”

 Roman shrugs. “It doesn’t really matter, not really.”

 “Now that I don’t believe for an instant.”

 “It got me my Logan,” Roman says softly, leaning forward to rub their noses together, “didn’t it?”

 “…well yes, I suppose it did.”

 Roman hums contentedly, cuddling into Logan like a lazy cat, sprawled out in the sunlight to nuzzle its kitten. A…surprisingly sweet image. The Imagination—Roman’s Imagination must be affecting him.

 There are worse fates.

 “But I can’t imagine,” he says after a moment, “that a prince such as yourself can allow such a slight?”

 The grin on Roman’s face is priceless.

 “Virgil,” Roman sings as they fling open the door to the rest of the Mindscape, and goodness Logan can’t tell you how much he’s missed that voice— “I have a question for you!”

 Logan hears muffled cursing coming from the living room.

 “What’s up, Princey?”

 “Well our dearest Specs here just told me something very interesting—“ he winks at Logan— “and I would love to hear your side of the story.”

 “Oh, uh, really? Well, that’s cool. On an unrelated note, I’m gonna be in my room for the foreseeable future.”

 “Hmmm…not if I get there before you!”

 “Shit!”

 “My darling,” Roman says softly, pressing a kiss to the back of Logan’s hand, “will you excuse me one moment, please?”

 And what is Logan supposed to do but agree? Roman is back.

 “I’ll be with you shortly.”

 Roman tears off down the hallway after Virgil, their shouts filling the Mindscape once more.

General Taglist:@frxgprince @potereregina @reddstardust @gattonero17 @iamhereforthegayshit @thefingergunsgirl @awkwardandanxiousfander @creative-lampd-liberties @djpurple3 @winterswrandomness  @sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes  @iminyourfandom  @bullet-tothefeels  @full-of-roman-angst-trash  @ask-elsalvador @ramdomthingsfrommymind @demoniccheese83  @pattonsandershugs @el-does-photography @princeanxious  @firefinch-ember  @fandomssaremysoul  @im-an-anxious-wreck  @crazy-multifandomfangirl  @punk-academian-witch  @enby-ralsei  @unicornssunflowersandstuff  @wildhorsewolf @thetruthaboutthesun @stubbornness-and-spite  @princedarkandstormv  @your-local-fookin-deadmeme  @angels-and-dreams  @averykedavra  @a-ghostlight-for-roman @treasurechestininterweb  @cricketanne  @aularei @queerly-fluid-fan @compactdiscdraws @cecil-but-gayer  @i-am-overly-complicated  @annytheseal  @alias290  @tranquil-space-ninja  @arxticandy @mychemically-imbalanced-romance @whyiask @theaceofcrows @emilythezeldafan @frida0043 @ieatspinalcords @snowyfires @cyanide-violence @oonagh2 @xxpanic-at-the-everywherexx @rabbitsartcorner

[mirkwoodshewolf]

A heavenly reunion pt. 1; Queen x reader

*Author's note*

This is it guys. After almost 3 years of writing this series it's FINALLY come to the end.  Like all good things, they must end eventually so here it is. The LAST chapter of my Rock Angel series.

I first want to point out the YEARS (except Freddie's death date) DON'T MEAN ANYTHING. I'M NOT TRYING TO PREDICT THE FUTURE OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. I just picked these random years to represent when the remaining members of Queen will pass, AGAIN THESE AREN'T REAL DATES AND I HOPE THEY AREN'T.

Pt. 2 will be up in just a few minutes so until then, enjoy this first part.

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@ixchel-9275

@simonedk

@queensdivas

@queendeakyy

@queen-paladin

@sparkleslightlyy

@starswin

@labessieisallama

@isabella-bby

@naturalswifty89

@onebigfangirlworld

@ssa-sadboi

@5sos-wdw

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@geek-and-proud

@wormzteef

@bohemiansweede

_______________________________________________________________

*3rd Person POV. June 23rd, 2051*

Rock star, animal rights activist, founder of organizations like ANGELS CURING AIDS, WORDS CAN HURT TOO; Victims and survivors of emotional and verbal abuse, and the ANGELS AGAINST STALKING that helps protect people from violent stalkers. Also apart of charities like the Mercury Phoenix Trust foundation. The Rock Angel (Y/n) Kline had lived a full life.

She continued to tour with Queen as they got many other partnerships throughout the years. But she most enjoyed collaborating with Adam Lambert as he reminded her of him, bright and ambitious just wanting to share his music with the world and he knew he could never fill in Freddie's shoes but he sure as hell made a name for himself in his own way.

She was also a part of the "Bohemian Rhapsody" film that had been made and got to know the actors playing the men that she had grown up with and came to see them as her true family. Ten years after the film released, her own story got to be told thanks to the rights of Paramount and the brilliant mind of Dexter Fletcher, who had directed the story of her boys and Elton John, another one of her dearest friends and mentors.

But now at the crippled age of 90, the Rock Angel now lived in the privacy of her home in London. She was forced to stop touring because just 3 years ago she was diagnosed with a form of dementia.

It was hard on her family and her 4 children and dozens of grandchildren even great-grandchildren to see the once strong woman they had once admired for so long and looked up to as a role model not only in music, but life.

In their current home of London, her husband of over 70 years Jack who had made a name for himself. After the whole stalking incident, Jack joined the ranks of the LAPD. He worked himself all the way to the top and became Chief for over 30 years before he retired by the time he was in his 60's.

He sat there by his wife's bedside stroking her long white hair as she lay there forced into bedrest. She looked up at him and whispered.

"Jack?"

"I'm here baby."

"Where are they? Where are my boys?" she asked.

"Our sons? They're just downstairs."

"No, no. I meant my boys." At those two words, Jack's heart broke as he looked at his wife sympathetically.

"Baby they've—they died. It's been so many years since they all left this world." At hearing her boys were dead, tears fell down her face but Jack held onto his wife and kissed the top of her head. "But I can show you their videos, if you'd like."

"Please. I need to see them. To tell them goodbye." Jack then reached for the I-pad and opened up the Youtube app and began typing in the very song that he knew he would need.

He knew his wife didn't have long and he wanted her to have one last happy memory of hearing the perfect song written by her boys.

Together they held the I-pad and soon the music video "These are the days of our lives" came on.

"Why does Fred look so sick?" she asked worriedly. Jack swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to explain.

"He was suffering from AIDS, and it—really affected him love."

"I wish I could've taken care of him." She said as she stroked the screen every time Freddie came on screen. At the instrumental break as she watched Brian skillfully play the guitar, she smiled and said. "Bri....he was such a good guitar player."

"He was, but nothing compared to you." Jack praised obviously playing favorites. He then took notice of his wife growing tired as the song ended.

It was time.

"It's okay baby, you can rest now." And she did just that. Her breathing slowed right as Freddie spoke the last 'I still love you' line and the video ended. "Goodnight my Rock Angel. Be with your boys once again." He then let out a sob as he leaned against his deceased wife.

At 10:45am on June 23rd, 2051 (Y/n) Kline was pronounced dead at the old age of 90.

Everyone who had collaborated with the Rock Angel or had looked up to her all gathered at her funeral. Close friends and family all came to mourn at the loss of the last of the greatest Rock and Roll singers. She was buried in her birth town of Leicestershire, right next to her real parents.

*My POV*

I felt peaceful. My mind was no longer hazy. I could remember everything once again, but what confused me was where I was. I found myself walking through a long corridor but as I passed a mirror, I stopped and backed up to find a shocking surprise.

I was young again.

I looked to be about the age of 19, when I first met the guys. My hair was in the same long wavy fashion I once had before I cut it. I stroked along my cheek just to see if this was real or a dream, but as I stroked it I found that it was. Suddenly a door opened before me and I don't know why but I found myself walking toward it.

Now I was in what looked like an office with everything you would see. Filing cabinets, a large desk filled with paperwork but what caught my attention was the abacus that stood at the front center of the desk.

"Ahh (Y/n) Kline, please come forward." I turned to see a man around his 60's with short black hair, a grim like face with sharp cheekbones and icy blue eyes. He wore a black business suit and he was intimidating but for some reason I came forward toward the desk.

He sat down and pulled out a file and began reading through it humming to himself then he said.

"Place your hand over the abacus." I looked at it to see that the color code was white and black. White at top and black at the bottom.

"What is this?"

"This shall determine your next step. Just place your hand over it and let fate do the rest." I didn't know what this was gonna mean but again I saw myself place my hand over it and the second I did, it started going frantic.

Moving up and down frantically with no one even touching it. It was mostly balanced most of the way until it finally majority of the counters went white. The man smiled and said.

"Give my regards to those Rockstar friends' of yours. I'll be looking forward to your next concert." He then snapped his fingers and everything went bright.

Next thing I knew, I heard the sound of birds chirping and felt the sun beaming down on me. I was then greeted with wide open fields and a giant house along with several barn-like homes. It was like Garden Lodge and Rockfield farm mixed into one.

As I stood a few feet away from the main mansion-like house I swore from the second window of the white satin curtains I saw movement. I walked towards the house and placed my hand on the doorknob, I paused for a few seconds before I finally opened the door. I walked in and it was exactly like Freddie's home of Garden Lodge.

I walked through the threshold to see the grand staircase to my right, the long corridor ahead of me and the entrance to the living room to my left.

"Hello?" I said as I stood there. It was then I felt something nuzzle between my legs and I heard a meow. I heard it again and I looked down to see a very familiar face. "Hey, Delilah." I picked her up and held her as she purred and nuzzled my face. I scratched under her chin and she lowered her head to lick my hand.

"No it should be more like this." I heard a low, smooth baritone voice say.

"No, no and no Mr. tuxedo! Bernie has it like this and it shall remain this way. He and I are the genius piano and songwriting duo and it'll stick to this rhythm and timing." Another voice boasted out.

Oh my god.....It can't be. I set Delilah down and she took off running up the stairs as I crossed the living room into the parlor where Fred kept his piano to see two men that I had not seen in forever.

"David? Elton?" I spoke up. The two men turned toward me. David looked so much healthier than last I saw him and he looked younger just like me, in fact he looked about the same age he was when he did Live aid as well as working on the Jim Henson project 'the Labyrinth'.

Elton on the other hand looked about the age from when he was first starting off, back before he began experimenting with all the drugs and all that. The vibrant ginger hair but he still had on those flamboyant sunglasses he always loved to wear.

"Is that—really you?" I asked bewildered.

"Oh shit it can't be. The high angel herself, the Rock Angel?" Elton dramatic tone.

"Yes, it's me."

"Ohh darling. Welcome home." David greeted me with a wide smile and open arms as he walked up to me. He embraced me as he chuckled warmly and said, "Did you have a good life darling?"

"Uh-huh. I had the best life." I said, my voice muffled within his blue suit.

"It looked like you did love." We separated and I couldn't help but admire just how healthy he was.

"How have you been David?"

"Much better darling. No more chemo, I can finally breathe again."

"That's good."

"Alright you overgrown smooth talker, let me at her now." Elton proclaimed as he shoved David aside and immediately came up and kissed both of my cheeks before embracing me. "Oh darling we sure have missed you."

"And I you Elton. Life just hasn't been the same without your music."

"Been practicing those scales I taught you?" he asked pointedly.

"Yes, whenever I could."

"That's my girl." He hugged me again and I buried my face into his shoulder.

"(Y/n)?" a choir of voices soon rang up. I felt my heart stop as I lifted my head, not believing what I was hearing. Elton let go of me and both he and David with soft smiles on their faces told me to go and see who it was. The four voices called out my name again.

I crossed through the parlor, ran across the living room until I came to the door and just halfway up the staircase, I felt my smile widen and tears fill my eyes.

"My boys."

"You're finally here!" Freddie proclaimed. My legs raced directly up the stairs and Freddie, Brian, Roger and John all gathered me at the center in a long awaited Queen group hug.

All I felt were arms wrapped around me tightly, kisses all over my head and face and gentle hair and back strokes. I don't even know how long we were in that hug for but I didn't care, all I cared about was the fact my boys were here all together. When we finally separated I finally got a good look at all four of them.

They were all so young and vibrant just like how I first saw them back in concert long before I became an intern, I would like to think they were now the same ages they were when they first played at the Rainbow back in 1974. Long hair and all.

"I can't believe you four are here." I praised.

"And we can't believe you're here. And with your long hair again, was this when you were most happy?" asked Brian.

"If by that you mean when I first became Miami's intern? Yeah, best day of my life. Do you guys hate it?"

"No darling we've loved you no matter what your hair length is." Freddie said as he stroked the ends of my hair.

"I only just hope you didn't bring along any extreme surprises. Belly button rings, more tattoos." Deacy teased me. I chuckled but felt tears fall down my face.

"Aww lovie what is it?" Roger cooed as I felt him rub my shoulder. All four of them looking at me with those concerned puppy dog eyes they all knew how to do.

"I'm sorry. It's just—I missed you four so much." They all awed as Freddie first took me in his arms and said with his head leaning against mine.

"I know darling. It seems like it's been forever since the five of us were together."

"Coming from you Fred you have no idea." I wept as I gripped onto him as tight as I could, burying my face into his long black hair which softly tickled my face.

God if there's anything I missed about Freddie, it was his warm hugs. They were always so warm and inviting, anyone who was lucky enough to be given any sign of affection from this loveable man was considered lucky, and I was fortunate to be one of those people, and now finally after almost 60 years, I was able to feel that affection once more.

We were now upstairs in the master bedroom to do some private catching up.

"Alright sister dear, come here you." Deacy said. I smiled and immediately went into his arms and he embraced me. As all of you know, after Freddie's death, Deacy was the one to take it the hardest. So much so that he hardly played at any Queen gigs except for maybe three occasions then by 1997 he officially retired and no one had heard from him since.

The guys and I respected his decision so in order to make sure he was alright, I kept in contact with Veronica and would occasionally ask how Deacy was doing as well as the kids. I had learned that the two of them had two more kids, Luke and Cameron and the two of them had been successful in their own ways, all of the Deacy kiddies had, especially Luke who followed in his dad's footsteps and played in a band of his own.

In fact with the permission of the parents, I had allowed my nephew Luke to play at a few of my tours, and god just seeing him play reminded me so much of his dad, not to mentioned he looked so much like him.

And it was an honor to play with a second generation of Deacon.

The sad news of Deacy's passing came to Jack and I from Laura on a cold November day in 2035. Out of the two of us, Jack was the most heartbroken because he not only lost a brother but his idol and mentor.

We were invited to the burial by decree of the Deacy clan but I made sure that through some makeup and wigs that Jack and I weren't recognized by press because we wanted this to be private. As Deacy would've wanted that.

"Ohh I've missed you so much (y/n)."

"Not as much as I missed you brother mine."

It was then my attention turned towards the last 2 members of Queen, the remaining members I kept working with till the end. Brian May and Roger Taylor.

Together in our lives after Freddie's death and Deacy's retirement, I had been there for everything Queen got to accomplish, and they did the same for me. In fact it was Brian who bestowed upon me my plaque to be initiated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before I was given my star right above Queen's.

I was also involved with some of the work they did for a little movie called "Bohemian Rhapsody", and they helped become a part of my movie "Set it all free Angel". I first turned my attention to Brian.

It had been almost 10 years since my movie came out and 20 for Queen's film Bohemian Rhapsody. I was in my home studio working on my next upcoming album when I had received a call from Anita telling me that Brian had passed away at the age of 93. It was a peaceful passing so he wasn't suffering or in pain which I was thankful for in a way, he's suffered through so much that if I wanted him to go out, it would have to be peacefully in his sleep.

The world was devastated at losing such an inspiring man. Not only in the music industry, but for his work in astrophysics, as well as the animal programs that he's helped funded and laws he helped raise awareness for.

When he died, I took over the business in his name and within 3 years; I finally helped get laws of abusing, harming or killing animals to be illegal and anyone caught doing that wouldn't get misdemeanors. They would face legal full sentencing of 20-50years in Federal prison. On the night the laws passed and I along with Brian's partnering animal rehab centers signed off on the law, I went to Brian's grave and told him everything.

I immediately glomped him into a hug and held onto his waist tightly. He embraced me back just as tight as I was holding him, me humming lovingly as I buried my face into his chest feeling him stroke down my hair. After what felt like forever, he separated from me and stared down at me with those loving hazel blue eyes of his as he placed both his hands at the top of my head before stroking them downward against each side of my head and ending by cupping my face in his hands.

"I am so proud of everything you've done (Y/n). I saw it all, thank you for continuing my legacy for animal rights."

"You taught me everything I needed to know about being kind and caring towards all creatures, so much so you helped inspire me to do my own animal rehabilitations and rescues. I just—wish I could've been there for you when you......"

"It was beyond your control love. But I didn't suffer. I knew you loved me, and would've done anything to come see me had you known. I never blamed you, so stop blaming yourself." I nodded as tears slipped down my face but with his thumbs he wiped them away before hugging me once more. I felt him kiss my temple before cupping the side of my face once more to kiss my nose.

Even as I got older and we were both in our senior years, he never once stopped with the nose pecks. I smiled and Eskimo kissed him before he pressed his forehead against mine. It was then I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned to my right to see Roger standing before me.

Besides Freddie's death, I think the most devastating thing for me was when Roger died. It was about a year after Brian's death when I had gotten a frantic call from my godson Rufus that Roger had been taken to the hospital because of a stroke. Without hesitating, I got into the car and raced to West London Medical Hospital, where I met up with the Taylor pride.

I was frantic with anxiety and fear that I would lose yet a 3rd member of Queen. Over 48hrs passed when Rog finally regained consciousness and I was sitting right there by his bedside holding his hand. He spoke so softly it was like whispers on the wind and the only thing he wanted to do was go outside.

Reluctantly the doctors allowed it so my godchildren, and his wife Sarina took him out to the hospital garden and allowed me some one on one time with him. But I didn't know that that would be the last time they would ever get to talk to him. The last words he ever spoke to me were and I still remember it to this day, even up here in heaven.

"Brian and Freddie have come to collect me, they send out their love to you and Deacy. Look after the old bastard for us." And I literally felt his life slip away from my hand as he died right there in front of me.

For months I was depressed. I was allowed to go to the funeral and speak my eulogy and I sang at his funeral, this time my own rendition of Phil Collins' song 'You'll be in my heart.' It was also because of his funeral that Deacy and I got even closer than we had in years.

He had secretly gone to both Brian and Roger's funeral but it didn't take till Rog passed for him to physically approach me and we both just wept and cried from losing a father, a brother, a great friend together.

Finally when I finally gained the strength, me and the Taylor children all took a picnic up where Roger was born and just looked out beyond the fields of where his childhood home was and reminisced on all the wonderful memories we had of our father.

And it was from his death I produced my album 'Papa Lion' and dedicated it to him; 'To my Papa Lion, and all the other father lions out there. Keep protecting your children no matter what'.

"You gonna get into these arms or what love?" he asked me. I spoke not a word but felt tears in my eyes as I raced up and buried myself into his neck and dirty blonde almost brunette hair. He held me and spun me around, kissing all over my face humming and moaning lovingly.

When he finally set me down, he cupped my face just like Brian did but he gently leaned forward and very gingerly headbutted my forehead and the two of us nuzzled each other, rubbing our noses together.

Like a father lion and his cub reuniting with each other at last.

I held onto his wrists which still cupped the sides of my face and just allowed my tears to fall out but I couldn't stop smiling.

"I hope those are happy tears." He said to me. I sniffled and nodded.

"Yeah the—these are....ha-happy tears." I choked out.

"You know you don't have to be so strong around me, right lovie?" It was then I just broke down and wept as I embraced him. "Shhh, shh. I'm here my lion cub, I'm here. Papa lion is here." He whispered in my ear.

"God I have waited so long for you to say that." I whimpered out to hear him softly laugh and just hug me tighter.

"Oh my darlings.....my heart.....it's too full!" We heard Fred exclaim out dramatically. We both laughed as I nuzzled deeper into my papa lion's chest, happy to finally be reunited with them.

After finally calming down, we were all just sitting around the master bedroom. I was up against the couch leaning against Deacy's legs as he was currently brushing and braiding my hair.

"So you guys continuing to rock it out here in Heaven?" I asked.

"Don't you know it darling. Every good singer who has helped made a difference comes up here and we continue to live a peaceful eternity doing what we were born to do. Be performers." Freddie stated.

"In fact we just had our concert the other night. We got to perform alongside the Beatles." Said Roger.

"Shut up! The Beatles?!"

"You know it love, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr." Said Brian.

"Wow, I wish I could've seen it." I said.

"You will darling, we perform our concerts every single night. And it's always a mix mash of artists and bands collaborating together to perform the Greatest Heavenly Rock 'n Roll concert." Said Fred.

"Now that you're here poppet, you'll get the chance to perform with the best of the best." Said Deacy. I was flabbergasted.

"Holy......" I couldn't even finish it because I was just so shocked to think that I would be performing with the greatest artists long before my time and bands I wish I had the chance to record or perform alongside with. The guys all chuckled at me and I said.

"So that's why David and Elton were here."

"Mm-hmm. We're all performing together in tonight's show. Three artists of the 70's decade for the first time ever sharing the stage together." Said Brian.

"Ohh man what people would've killed to see that in person. I mean yeah you guys performed at the same venue like we did with Live Aid or did some recordings together but never all three of you guys on stage at once." I said.

"That's how it works around here." Spoke Deacy as he finished the last strand of my braid. I thanked him and observed the braid he had done and I commented.

"You've gotten better Deacy."

"Laura was good practice. My baby girl always wanted her hair braided."

"She may have gotten that from me, sorry." He playfully scowled at me but I cheekily stuck my tongue out at him. "Say Fred, where's Jim at? I figured if you were here, he would be too."

"Oh that man of mine, he's out tending the garden, come have a look." He escorted me to the back window and there I saw a field of flowers as far as the eye could see.

"Whoa. He's done all of that?"

"Been doing it since 2010 darling. Always a hard worker my husband. When he first came, I was worried he wouldn't like this appearance of mine, after all I didn't have my tache and my hair was much shorter than when I first met him."

"Jim loves you Freddie. He loves you no matter what you'd look like."

"And I did know. Turns out he's got a long hair kink." He whispered to me which made me choke out a laugh.

"Seriously?" He nodded ecstatically and that's when Deacy spoke up.

"We're still here Fred, no need to hear any of that."

"Oh god Deacy don't act so innocent. After all you were the one who wrote a song about pre-ejaculation." Deacy's mouth just gaped before turning stoic, and of course Rog and Bri were laughing their asses off. He turned to me and I shrugged saying.

"He's got a point."

"Okay yeah ha-ha fuck all of you."

"Oh come off it John. We mean no harm by it." Roger teased

"At least it's better than a car fucking song." Deacy fired back.

"That's not funny!" Roger proclaimed.

"It is kinda funny." Deacy sassed back.

"Okay, okay enough both of you. I had enough of your arguments to last an entire lifetime. I don't need to relive it now when I just got here." I stated.

"Sorry love." They both choired out.

"Oh (y/n), I do have a surprise for you though." Brian spoke up. I looked at him and said,

"What kind of surprise?"

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise now would it?" He said as he walked right up to me.

"If you tell me, I'll still act surprise." He chuckled and wrapped an arm around me.

"C'mon love, let's head outside." We soon went down the stairs and headed out of the house.

Brian lead me to an open field about a half mile away from the house. There was nothing but green for miles ahead.

"Brian what's this about?"

"You'll see." He then took his index finger and thumb and curled them inward like pinchers before placing them against his lips letting out a loud whistle. We stood there for a moment that was until I heard a bark. A very familiar bark. No it—it couldn't be.

Soon jogging up the hill about a mile away was a German Shepherd. His familiar traditional fur coat shined under the sun as he looked right at me. He let out a couple of barks and soon several more dogs came running up beside him.

They consisted of a golden retriever, 2 pit-bulls, 3 huskies (1 traditional black and white, another grey and white and the last one an auburn coloring), a collie, and 4 Labradors (2 blacks, a tan and one brown).

With each dog that this pack had, I knew every single one of them. I turned to Brian baffled and he just grinned at me before nodding telling me that they were who I thought they were. I turned back around and the German Shepherd let out a bark. I then let instinct take over and ran as I cried out.

"Bucky!" He soon came running after me, as did all the other dogs barking and panting as they all ran down the hill towards me. "C'mon kids! Come on!" I proclaimed. Each dog was running as fast as they could but Bucky and the black and white husky Shasta were leading the pack. "C'mon kids!" Bucky let out some barks as he raced ahead of Shasta and we met half-way.

Bucky leapt with both paws to my shoulders knocking me down onto the ground.

"Ohh Buck. I can't believe it's you! Ohh look at you boy! Good boy Buck!" A second later Shasta came up to me whimpering happily as his tail wagged. "Oh Shasta baby boy look at you! Hi~ Hi baby boy~." Soon enough my entire dog pack was all up on me grunting and whimpering happily as they all began to tackle me, wanting my attention and love.

Now while you all know I've had Bucky and Sammy as the family pets for Jack and the kids. The other dogs have a different story. The two pitbull brothers that I had named Titan and Bear were rescue dogs when I was a part of an actual rescue mission with one of my animal charities in saving dogs from a Mexican dogfight.

Whenever I was free from touring and recording, I made sure they were well taken care of and even let them stay at my home for awhile before they were finally adopted by a good family.

My triple threat huskies Shasta, Maya (the grey and white) and Eevee (auburn) were actually Kelly's dogs. Shortly after she left for college, she wanted to fill her house with dogs so she adopted these three and very often when she would visit or we would visit her, these troublemakers were always there. Sweet and loveable but stubborn little buggers but I wouldn't take them either way.

The Labradors were also rescue dogs that I helped out. The black one Raider and white one Rowdy were just left abandoned tied up in the backyard of their owners homes. The owners had abandoned them and left them for dead in the hottest summer of the year. But thanks to my team we got them out, sheltered and good homes but I occasionally checked in on them since I couldn't let them go.

The brown lab Cleopatra and the other black lab Midnight were once stray dogs till my son Freddie found them and gave them some food and water. Since he didn't have the heart to turn them to the shelter he adopted them. They even started their own little family since Midnight and Cleopatra were mates together and had many puppies together.

And finally the beautiful Collie was Jezebel. Jezebel was something special because she was actually my nana's dog. I hadn't seen her since I was probably five years old, she was already an old girl growing up but from what I remember, she was so maternal with me.

Whenever my nana was busy with something, she knew she could trust Jezebel with me.

After giving every single dog my attention I finally managed to stand up and see all the dogs in my life standing in a row.

"Jezzy, Bucky, Sammy, Titan, Bear, Shasta, Maya, Eevee, Cleo, Midnight, Rowdy and Raider. I don't believe it. Good doggies. My lucky dog pack. I can't believe you're all here. How did you find them all?"

"I was out strolling wanting to observe the stars when I found Bucky and Sammy. They immediately recognized me and just came running right for me. Soon enough they brought me to meet the rest of the dogs you've known and rescued. I was surprised about the collie but I knew she wouldn't be among them if she wasn't a part of your family."

"Yeah, Jezebel was my nana's dog. I called her Jezzy cause I couldn't quite pronounce her name. She was like my guardian dog angel. Always maternal until she passed away of cancer when I was just 5 years old." I walked up to her and pet her head and she leaned up against me. "She even saved me from almost being attacked by a stray dog one summer."

"Well I'm very glad she did." Brian said as he walked up and stroked her head and she gave his hand a friendly sniff and lick.

"And you took care of all of them?"

"Well I'm an animal activist through and through. If Freddie takes care of every cat that comes to Heaven, I thought I should take care of the animals I've grown fond of, but also the animals my little protegee has taken on herself. As well as the family dogs." I smiled and Brian and thanked him with a hug and he gratefully hugged me back.

As the day drew to a close and nightfall came, the boys had escorted me over to the Heavenly Concert hall. If we want to look at it scale wise, imagine it as Wembley Stadium during the time of Live Aid back in 1985. We drove in a royal golden carriage fit only for her royal majesties themselves.

"Wow, it's just like Wembley stadium."

"It is in a way, but it can fit an infinite amount of people. Any and all are welcome to watch us perform." Said Deacy.

"And we won't need to do soundchecks or anything?"

"Nope. This is heaven darling. Up here everything works to the full capacity and capability. No have to worry ever again about sound checks or power outages." Freddie stated. Our carriage soon stopped at the back entrance and the doors magically opened.

I stepped out first followed by Deacy, Roger, Brian and Freddie. Deacy wrapped his arm around me and guided me into the building and the five of us followed the sign down to the basement level where the dressing rooms were.

And it was like they said, I saw dozens of stars with the names of so many artists and bands before and during my time. Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, the Beatles, David, Elton, Led Zeppelin, REO Speedwagon, George Michael, Phil Collins, Bob Dylan, and everyone and anyone you could think of.

"And here we are darling, your dressing room awaits." Roger said as he stood before a red door with a golden star with wings on each side that read in bold black letters my stage name ROCK ANGEL. He opened it up and I was in awe.

Inside was a very large room filled with furniture, a huge makeup station with large mirror decored with lamplights around the perimeter of it.

On the left side of the dressing room were hundreds of different outfit's I've worn throughout the years. Everything was there on hangers along with some of the hats I wore, fedora's, cowgirl, and my famed flat caps of various different colors and styles.

While on the right; I could see just music instruments like the Red Special Brian had made for me up against a special holder up along the wall right by my makeup stand.

"Is this my....."

"Go on and have a look darling." I heard Freddie say in my ear.

"Okay. I finally have my own mall." I walked in and was just in awe at everything. It looked like heaven had taken my master bedroom from my first home I had after becoming the Rock Angel and just put it all here.

I walked inside and said.

"Ooo, very nice shoes." I pointed out on the shoe wrack seeing some of the styles of shoes I've worn. From combat boots, to Adidas', flats, and even the high-heeled boots that Deacy always wore during the 1970's.

"We're glad you like them darling. Why don't you go around that corner and press the black button along the dresser." Deacy said. I walked further in and reached a dresser and found the black button. When I pressed it, a couple of shelves slowly opened up revealing almost every pair of sunglasses I've always worn.

"Oh my god! I've missed wearing these." I picked up a pair of my ray ban black and gold framed sunglasses. "Didn't I make these look good?" I quickly turned to see the guys were gone. "Guys?"

"Over here love." I heard Brian's voice say. I walked towards the right to see my boys standing or sitting along some of the foot stools.

"Oh there you all are. Ohh nice amps." I couldn't help but see the amps up along the wall. "I—I'm just...." Before I could continue a remote was tossed over at me by Roger as he said.

"Before you even say anything else. Type in combination 2-1-2." I muttered the combination to myself as I pressed the numbers and soon the closet before us opened and soon revolving around were various guitars and bass guitars, shelves soon opened revealing several pairs of drumsticks each imprinted with my name on them.

I had no words.

"Umm....this is.....I can't—" I jumped back a bit as the top shelves suddenly opened revealing two different microphones. One was a basic black but it was bedazzled with red gems while the other one was pure gold with golden gems.

"Elton and I had a little hand of having your microphones designed." Said Freddie with a modest shrug.

"I mean....guys this is......unbelievable. And this is all mine?"

"Oh darling you should see ours. It's practically the entire mansion back home."

"Each star that comes here is given the full custom of what they've enjoy back on Earth. And since you've favored how you once had your rotating dressers back in 2011, it's all here for you but advanced into your instruments as well." Said Roger.

"And if anyone has any suggestion like if they're close to another artist, they can submit some suggestions of what should be in said artists dressing room." Brian spoke up.

"Aww you guys, I love you." I said as I came up to them and we got into a group hugged.

"We love you too (Y/n) darling. Now hurry up and get ready, the concert is about to begin." The boys left me to my own business. I walked up to my clothes rack and went through every style and decided that if I was to do my first concert in Heaven, I might as well wear exactly what I wore for my first concert as the Rock Angel.

After getting ready and doing my makeup the same way Freddie had done for me that day in Madison Square Garden, I picked up my Red Special and put it around my neck and left my dressing room.

"The Rock Angel is back." I looked up to see the boys standing across me in front of their dressing room, dressed to the T like they had at the they did at the Odeon theater Christmas Eve 1975. I smiled and said.

"Well look at you guys, it seems like only yesterday I was sneaking my friends into the house while Joanna and Graham were at their Christmas party just to watch you guys live at the Hammersmith Oden theater." I sassed.

"Thank you love, now c'mon time to head to the stage." Roger said. The lads cheered and I followed behind as we all walked back up the stairs and went through the corridors of backstage. Hundreds upon hundreds of artists were getting themselves ready to go up and perform.

I watched as the boys did their typical body warmups to get themselves pumped up when I felt a nudge at my arm.

"You seem quiet poppet, everything okay?" I looked up to see Deacy standing beside me.

"You said anybody whose anybody comes to see these shows right?" He nodded and I said solemnly, "Do....do you think my family, like my mum and dad know that I'm here now? That I'm here performing?" I felt him wrap his arm around my shoulder and he said.

"It's possible. Anytime a new artist or band comes here, it's fully announced far and wide throughout Heaven. So there's a good chance they might be out there in the audience."

"I hope so. I just want to show them what I've achieved, I want them to be proud of me."

"They are poppet. Just like we are." He embraced me in a one armed hug leaning his head against mine.

"I really have missed these moments between us Deacy."

"So have I. And I've got a hell of a lot of comforting to catch up on."

"Well now's a good start."

"Oi you two! Are we going to perform or not?" The two of us smiled as we heard Roger's voice cry out to us. My brother looked down at me and he said.

"C'mon, let's go do our thing." I nodded and we headed towards the guys.

*3rd Person POV*

Once again it was concert time. Every soul that had passed into heaven that was a fan of Rock and Roll or music in general came from far and wide to come to the concert of concerts, even bigger than the Earthly event that Live Aid gave the world.

Generations of artists and musicians that had come from around the world from many different backgrounds came to this very stadium to give the performance of their afterlives. Thousands, almost a million people poured into the stadium as the lights were flashing and doing their test run for each artist that would perform that night.

Soon Bob Geldof came onto the stage and everyone applauded for him.

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome once again to the Heaven's Rock and Roll concert." Everyone applauded and cheered holding up signs of their favorite artists or bands that would be performing tonight. "It gives me great honor to announce that we recently were given a new arrival, but I won't give it away on who it is." The audience crowd because they wanted to hear who it was as Bob continued, "I'll leave that to the band who know her best. So without further ado I would like to bring up on stage the first band performance of this evening's festivities. These lads I knew personally and they helped make one of the biggest rock concerts even greater than I could ever imagine. These four individually talented young men rose to the stardom in the early 1970's before exploding into the worldwide phenomenon by the 1980's. Ladies and Gentlemen please bow before her royal majesties that is Queen!"

The crowd roared with applause as Bob left the stage and the stage grew dark. Soon the opening notes for "Now I'm here" began playing and everyone cheered louder as they began clapping in rhythm. Those who have seen and grew up seeing Queen live, knew exactly how to react and behave during a Queen concert and those who got to know Queen up here in heaven got a taste of what it would've been like had they seen them in person with all four of them up on stage.

Soon Freddie's silhouette and voice echoed through the speakers as he began to sing the song. When the song began to pick up, the lights on stage exploded as did fire from the sides of the stage as all four members of Queen were finally revealed to the crowd.

Freddie lead with the vocals and his mates and brothers backed him up on not only the vocals but their instruments, and ever the frontman he was, strutted the stage like it was his as his voice overpowered and reached out into the audience with a force unlike anything.

By the end of the song, Freddie proclaimed into the microphone.

"Thank you! Thank you, good evening everybody!" The crowd cheered as Freddie continued, "Oh it looks magnificent out there tonight. Okay my darlings, right now. Right now, we're going to take you for the first time ever we're taking you all to the battlefield. This is called Ogre Battle!"

The boys continued to play a few more songs like 'White Queen', 'Killer Queen', 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'Don't stop me now' and 'Son and Daughter' included with Brian's famous guitar solo giving Deacy and Freddie enough time to change clothes for the next half of the performance. Freddie now wearing the famed black satin outfit with his chest exposed and diamond fingernailed glove as well as the chain glove on the other.

"Yes thank you, thank you very much. Featuring Brian May on guitar!" Brian took a bow as the spotlight shined on him and the crowd cheered. "Now then my darlings, as I'm sure everyone's heard we have a new arrival. A very special girl to all four of us. How would you all like to meet her?"

The crowd roared with applause and soon Roger began doing one single rhythmic beat. Hearing the beat made the entire audience clap in that single beat rhythm.

"She first rose to the spotlight in the summer of 1981. A bright, charismatic young woman whose music has touched the lives of millions. To us she wasn't a shadow of our fame, she was an equal partnership. The like of which we had never knew we could ever ask for. Ladies and gentlemen and everyone up in the balcony give it up for Heaven's very own Rock Angel, Mrs. (Y/n) Kline!"

From up on the catwalk above the stage, the silhouette of the Rock Angel herself came up and it appeared that she actually had angel wings sprouting from her back as she began the first verse of her famed song "Set it all Free".

By the chorus, the screen lifted up and she hopped off the catwalk and gratefully fell from the 10ft catwalk onto center stage playing her Red Special as her boys backed her up as they always did whenever they performed this song together.

And seeing the two artists perform together, Queen and the Rock Angel, the crowd was in pure excitement bouncing up and down and crying out the lyrics to the well known song that the Rock Angel's 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.

But none were more happy to perform once again than the artists that were on stage. It had been forever since it was the five of them together up on stage and they couldn't help but look at each other. As the guitar solo came up, it turned into a guitar battle between the Rock Angel herself and Brian May which got the crowd really pumped up.

By the end of the song, everyone was chanting out 'Angel! Angel! Angel!'

"Hello Rock and roll heaven how's everyone doing tonight!?" The crowd welcomed her with a roar of applause. "God I can't believe I'm here performing with my boys once again. And right now we'd like to bring out a special guest for this next number." She turned to Deacy who nodded and began playing his bassline for "Under Pressure" which got the crowd applauding louder.

"This man is a well-known legend and the birth of a true 'flamboyant' hard rocker. And a very close friend of mine." Freddie started.

"Six time Grammy award winner, 4 time Brit award winner, actor, musician. Everyone put your hands together for Mr. David Bowie!" (Y/n) proclaimed into the mic.

It was then Freddie and (Y/n) began singing the first part of the song as at the center stage a circular hole began to open and soon rising up onto the stage was David Bowie himself. He wore a royal blue suit with a black undercoat suit shirt as well as the business white shirt. A light blue tie and black shoes.

He soon began his line of the first bridge as Freddie and the Rock Angel backed him up. When the second part of the song came up after Freddie's little vocalization, David gave the gesture for (Y/n) to take the second part of the song. And as she always performed it, she would lowly sing in her alto range before suddenly belting out to the perfect volume as she would hold the note out for as long as she could letting the two legends back her up.

Just like the record Freddie and Roger softly sung the first part of the break, then David came in before (Y/n) belted out the why vocals before the song picked right back up. It was something that could only be seen in Heaven. Three legendary singers performing one song.

David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and (Y/n) Kline the Rock Angel.

The three lead singers stood side by side with each other with David on the left, Freddie in the middle and (y/n) to the right. The three in almost rehearsed synchronicity began to sidestepped across the stage as all three voices blended the bridge that it could give one an eargasm.

Agreeing with each other and knowing what she could do to close the song, both David and Freddie stepped back with (y/n) completely unaware as she just allowed the song to consume her.

At the final note, she let out a proud controlled belt that was first heard at Freddie's tribute concert and it almost seemed like the sun was rising as the stage was lit up in a heavenly glow as she held the note. The entire audience was in an uproar as they gave a standing ovation to the Rock Angel herself.

She turned around and saw the five older men smiling at her and applauding her for a phenomenal performance that they have missed so dearly.

The concert continued as Elton John soon came up on stage and together he, Freddie and (y/n) sang 'I'm still standing' a song that was personal to all three of them in some shape or form but they knew this was the perfect song for them all to sing.

After a few more Queen songs, with the allowance of their beloved Rock Angel since her set was about to come up after theirs, she allowed them to stay and be her band as she would perform her hit songs before the souls of Heaven.

Songs like 'Who I am', 'So good,' 'Bridge of light', 'Rock angel', her rendition of 'Somebody to love', 'We'll be together', and with her boys already up there with her they did a few more duets of Queen songs like 'Friends will be friends', 'Spread your wings', 'Fat Bottomed girls', and 'Jailhouse Rock'.

Finally their time was up and as 'God save the Queen' played through the speakers, all five of them stood side by side each other and bid the crowd a goodbye and thank you.

After watching several performances from backstage, and when the concert finally came to a close it was time for the after party. So just outside in the back a beautiful garden was set up with refreshments and plenty of drinks to fit everyone's needs and all the performers of the night came out to talk amongst one another and to celebrate another well-performed concert.

As well as to welcome their newest achievement.

*My POV*

Oh my god. That was a thrill rush, and now being here at the after party I saw literally everyone. Elvis, Janis, the Beatles, Little Richard, Elton, David, Hendrix, everyone in rock and roll big names were gathered around this beautiful garden.

As I went to go grab some water I felt a hand tap my shoulder and there stood John Lennon himself.

"So you are the famous Rock Angel?" I swallowed my water and was completely star-struck.

"Y-yeah I.....Mr. Lennon I....."

"Please call me John."

"Okay, John. Can I just say.....just between us that you were always my favorite Beatle out of the group."

"Coming from you that's a huge honor. And now I can finally rub it into Paul's face the bugger." I laughed and that's when I heard a female voice say.

"Alright let me at her, where is she?" And there donned with her famous fur coat, tall Russian-like hat and red circular shades was Janis Joplin herself. "And there she is. The one female rocker better than me." She spoke as she came up to me.

"Oh no Mrs. Jop—"

"Ah-ah. Mrs. Joplin is not my name. Call me Janis baby girl." I blushed and she wrapped an arm around me and said, "You know, you and I aren't so different kid."

"How so?"

"Well we both struggled in our families and personal lives, got together with some male rockstars to form a partnership before splitting off to have our freedom. The only difference is, is that I wish I had your strength. I decided to call it quits with heroin being my way to kick the bucket."

"You were someone I did look up to. I mean yeah you had your struggles, but hell you didn't take shit from no one. When conservative minds at the time wanted you to do it their way, you said....."

"'Fuck you. I'm doing it my own way!'" She finished off which made the two of us laugh. "Yah know something baby girl, I like you. Promise me for Lady's night you'll do a song with me?"

"It would be an honor Janis." She smiled and hugged me tightly.

"Alright my darlings, may we have everyone's attention?" Freddie's voice soon spoke up as he was now standing on top of a table. Everyone looked up and as the boys of Queen stood up front Freddie continued, "First of all magnificent show all of you. So cheers my lovely darlings." Everyone of us raised our glasses in the air saying 'cheers'.

"We'd also love to specifically say a wonderful show for our newest arrival," Brian spoke up. He turned to me and extended his hand out for mine. I took it and he gently pulled me up front so that everyone could see me.

"Our beloved Rock Angel herself, (Y/n) Kline." Roger spoke up as he smiled warmly down at me.

"To the Rock Angel!" Deacy stated as he raised his cocktail glass in the air.

"To the Rock Angel!" Everyone choired at me. I bashfully smiled and said.

"Thank you, it was an honor to see most of you perform tonight, and it was great to perform with someone of you once again after so many years. I hope I have the privilege to perform with every single soul here." I said.

We then raised our glasses once more and the mingling and partying continued long into the night.

[bubonickitten]

Fic summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Chapter summary: An examination of endings and how to realize them.

Previous chapter: AO3 // tumblr

Full chapter text & content warnings below the cut.

Content warnings for Chapter 24: brief claustrophobia; some RSD/fear of abandonment stuff; extensive discussion of death (this chapter’s all about Terminus, babey); allusions to past suicidal ideation on Jon’s part; mentions of eye gouging/blinding (not graphic); some internalized victim blaming; anxiety symptoms; spider mentions; swears. Let me know if I missed anything!

Chronic fear has been Jon’s baseline for so long, it’s difficult for him to conceptualize what he would be were it to abandon him. In some ways, he’s become acclimated to it. On the other hand, fear is a volatile, prolific thing, its many shades relentlessly coalescing and mutating to form new strains. It all but guarantees that the Eye will never truly be sated: there will always be some heretofore unknown species of terror to discover, experience, and add to its collection.

Sprinkled in amongst the more noteworthy moments of abject terror and the constant background pressure of existential dread, there are smaller fears: everyday anxieties; pervasive insecurities; acute spikes of panic and adrenaline. Each discrete instance may pale in comparison to life-threatening peril, but muddled together and given time to ferment, they compound. They feed into one another. Sometimes, they come to attract the attention of larger, far more forbidding monsters.

In this way, Jon is no different from the average person – and one of the oldest, most deep-rooted of those comparatively banal fears is his fear of rejection, of disappointing, of being seen and found lacking. It guided his path long before his first supernatural encounter, and in many ways, it still does. His self-awareness of that fact does little to dampen its influence.

So it’s vexing, but not surprising, that the foremost concern vying for his attention right now is whether this might be that final straw that chases Georgie away for good. She sits with her hands clasped in front of her mouth, eyes closed and brow furrowed as she gathers her thoughts. The longer she remains silent, the more time Jon has to run through all the worst-case scenarios.

It’s already difficult for him to capture a full breath under the crushing weight of anticipation. It doesn’t help that his intermittent claustrophobia has decided that right now is the perfect time to manifest. A tunnel collapse would probably damage the Archives above it, though, and there’s no way Jon would be so lucky. He isn’t sure whether to consider that a consolation or not.

Finally, Georgie takes a breath, opens her eyes, and leans forward.

“Okay.” She tilts her folded hands towards him in an indicative gesture. “Explain, please.”

“Right,” Jon says, rubbing one arm nervously. “S-so, Oliver –”

“I knew his name wasn’t Antonio,” Georgie mutters.

“No. That was an alias he used when he first came to the Institute to give a statement, back in 2015.”

“The prediction about Gertrude’s death?” Martin asks.

“The same.”

“And what was a harbinger of death doing looming over you while you were in a coma?” Georgie presses.

“I don’t know that I’d call him a harbinger –” Jon’s mouth snaps shut immediately when Georgie shoots him an impatient glare. “He wasn’t – he wasn’t trying to – to reap my soul or anything like that, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Then why was he there?”

“He was called there,” Jon says. “By the Web, according to him.”

“Oh, and you don’t think that makes him dangerous?” Martin says, throwing one arm out in a surge of exasperation.

“He isn’t allied with the Web,” Jon replies, fiddling with the hem of his jumper. “It just… got into his head, and it was easier for him to go along with it, rather than fight it indefinitely. Oliver tends to have a fatalistic outlook. If he sees something as inevitable, he’s not inclined to try to stop it.”

“So, what – he’s serving an evil power not because he’s sadistic but because he’s just apathetic?” Georgie couldn’t sound any more unimpressed if she tried. “How is that any better?”

“It’s, ah… it’s really not that simplistic,” Jon says, adopting a delicate tone. “And I don’t think I’d call it apathy so much as…”

“Acceptance,” Georgie says stiffly. “Everything has an ending.”

“Yes. Oliver is an Avatar of the End, and the End is characterized by its certainty–” Jon pauses when he catches a glimpse of Georgie’s hands, fastened to her knees and trembling with tension. “We don’t have to talk about this.”

“No, I –” Georgie sighs, relaxes her grip, and flexes her fingers. “Just – tell me why you invited him here.”

“It’s like I said upstairs – there were things I couldn’t tell him about outside of here.”

“Why do you feel the need to tell him anything?” Martin asks.

“I just thought… he might be able to help us.”

“Why would he,” Georgie asks, “if he’s so fatalistic?”

“Because, he…” Jon hesitates, biting his lip. “I suppose I thought that maybe – maybe he’s like me.”

“He’s nothing like you,” Martin says vehemently.

A flicker of a smile crosses Jon’s face. “You don’t even know him.”

“What, and you do?”

“Not well,” Jon admits. “But I do think I understand him.”

Martin crosses his arms, transparently miffed. In an attempt to suppress his amusement, Jon presses his lips tightly together. It doesn’t work, evidently.

“What?” There’s a flat, defensive edge to the demand, highlighted by a suspicious scowl. “What’s with the smirk?”

Jon already knows the answer to the question he wants to ask, but he can’t help himself: “Are you jealous?”

“No!” Martin yelps. “Why would I be jealous?”

Jon shakes his head, chuckling softly. “Well, you don’t need to be.”

“I’m not!”

“If you say so,” Jon says with a shrug and a sly grin.

“I am not jealous,” Martin insists – and now Georgie is snickering, one hand clamped over her mouth to (unsuccessfully) stifle the sound. Martin glowers at her, betrayed.

“Sorry, sorry,” she says. “Just – didn’t realize you were quite so jealous.”

“I’m not,” Martin says for a third time. “But – but even if I was, I would be completely justified.”

“Because he woke me up,” Jon says, toning down the smugness now.

There is an uneasy boundary between affectionate teasing and perceived mockery, and here in the past, he hasn’t quite mapped the shape of that line. Between seeing one another in the Lonely and anchoring each other through the apocalypse, he and Martin had been forced to confront long-held insecurities about themselves, both as individuals and as a unit. That shared history no longer applies. While Jon has no desire to repeat that chain of events – there are happier, healthier pathways to a relationship than bonding via trauma, or so he’s heard – it does mean that this version of Martin hasn’t yet had the same epiphanies.

Much like Jon, Martin struggles to take a declaration of love at its word. People lie; they mislead; they say what they think others want to hear – whether out of self-interest, sympathy, or simple social ineptitude, the results are the same. Sometimes they start out sincere, but little by little, their tolerance dwindles and they recognize their mistake: what they thought was genuine affection was at best a passing fancy for someone who turned out to be far more trouble than they were ever worth. Or worse: a caring façade born of pity or guilt or obligation, only to turn rotten and toxic when the burden grows too tiresome.

Add all of those deep-seated convictions to the lasting influence of the Lonely, and Martin needed proof before he could entertain the possibility of being loved. Following him into and then leading him out of the Lonely was a fairly convincing statement. Absent another life-or-death gesture to act as a catalyst, Jon suspects that this time around, building that confidence will come down to time, practice, and repetition.

“Okay, yeah, about that – what does that – what does that mean, he woke you up?” Before Jon can get a word out, Martin barrels on: “I mean, what makes him so special? I spent weeks – weeks – begging you to come back, and nothing. He visits you once and suddenly you’re fine?”

“I really did try to come back on my own,” Jon says – not accusing, not pleading, not even self-flagellating. Just plain, sincere assuredness. “I heard you calling me. Not at first, but – the last time you visited. It was the first time I’d heard your voice in… in so long, I – I never thought I’d hear it again, and then you were there, and I was – I was so relieved, so… so elated.”

Martin sulks quietly, glaring at the floor, but there’s a noticeable flush staining his cheeks now.

“And then – and then I heard you on the phone with Peter, and…” Jon swallows hard, the despair he felt in that moment still stark in his mind. “I tried to call out to you, but you couldn’t hear me. The Lonely was drawing you in, just like before, and there was nothing I could do. I wanted to wake up more than anything, but I just… couldn’t figure out how. I still don’t know why – I don’t know the exact mechanics of it all – but for whatever reason, I wasn’t able to wake up until Oliver’s visit. Same as the first time.”

At that, Martin seems to deflate somewhat, finally looking up to meet Jon’s eyes.

“If I could have come back sooner,” Jon continues, smiling sadly, “I would have. In a heartbeat.”

Martin pouts for a moment longer before surrendering, his rigid posture slackening as the rancor drains out of him.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “Yeah, I know.”

“So you think you owe him,” Georgie guesses. “For waking you up.”

“Partially,” Jon admits. “But that’s not why I invited him, really. He just seems… I don’t know. Lonely, I guess?” Georgie rolls her eyes. “He never – he never asked to be a death prophet. No more than I wanted to be a – a trauma leech. And arguably – arguably he was even less to blame for what happened to him than I am for what I’ve become –”

“Jon,” Martin says warningly.

“No, just – just listen.” Jon takes a measured breath as he puts his thoughts in order. “Oliver started having prophetic dreams several years ago. Just – out of the blue. As far as I know, he did nothing to tempt fate. Eventually, those dreams carried over into the waking world. Everywhere he went, every single day, he could see the evidence of imminent death. There was no escaping it.

“In the beginning, he tried to help people. But it never worked. When he was unable to save his own father, he stopped trying to change fate, for the most part. I think the last time he tried was when he dreamed of Gertrude. He saw how far-reaching her death would ultimately be, and he tried to warn her, even though he didn’t have much hope that it would make a difference. And he was right, in the end. He couldn’t save her, and he couldn’t prevent what came after.”

“So he just… gave up,” Martin says flatly.

“When you fail over and over again to do good in the world, when you witness horror after horror with no recourse to stop it, when you try again and again and again to escape and never even come close… at some point, you burn out,” Jon murmurs. “Lose all hope. It becomes your new normal. Exist like that long enough and you start to become numb to it all.”

“You lived through an apocalypse and you didn’t give up,” Martin counters.

“I did, though,” Jon says quietly.

Martin frowns. “What?”

“After I lost you.” Jon averts his eyes and folds his arms tight against his middle, holding his elbows. “I was lost. I couldn’t save anyone, I couldn’t change anything, I couldn’t even look away. I wasn’t allowed to sleep. I wasn’t allowed to die. So I just… survived, even though I wanted anything but.” When he glances up, he sees that Martin’s expression has softened. “You were my reason. Then you were gone, and I was alone.”

Jon hadn’t known that the world could end a second time, but there it was. With Martin gone, what little that remained of Jon’s own microcosm shattered. Yet the Ceaseless Watcher’s world dared to continue turning, to go on churning out horror after horror as if nothing at all had changed. And Jon was just another cog in that machine, going through the motions and fulfilling the purpose for which he was cultivated.

It wasn’t truly ceaseless, of course. Everything has an ending. But it felt like an eternity – and for Jon, indefinite waiting has always been a special kind of torture.

“So what changed?” Georgie asks, her tone gentler than before.

“For a while, nothing,” Jon says. “I sort of… drifted. Wandered aimlessly through the domains for… I don’t really know. When nothing ever changes, keeping track of time becomes pointless. The Panopticon kept trying to draw me in, of course, but I – I suppose there was still enough spite left in me to make a show of ignoring it.

“At some point, I got lost in a Lonely domain. Which was fine, really. Or – it would have been fine, had I been allowed to succumb to it. I wanted to just – fade into it, let it in, but” – Jon breathes a bitter laugh – “it wouldn’t take me. Wouldn’t let me go numb, wouldn’t let me forget – didn’t have the decency to let me disappear, no matter how long I stayed.”

No one got what they deserved in that future, but this was a rare exception to that rule: to be allowed to simply forget his role in creating that nightmare world, to sink into blissful ignorance, would have been a miscarriage of justice. Not that the Eye cared about what was just or fair, of course. No, it simply would not – perhaps could not – deign to relinquish its hold on its Archive.

“But the longer I stayed,” he continues, looking at Martin now, “the more I thought about you. In retrospect, maybe that’s why I didn’t want to leave. And maybe that’s part of why it wouldn’t have me – I couldn’t let you go. But being there, it kept reminding me of the first Lonely domain we came across after the change. We were separated, and I was – I was so afraid you wouldn’t come back to me. But you did.” Jon smiles to himself, remembering the relief and gratitude and awe he felt in that moment. “You rejected the Lonely all on your own. Found your own way out – found me, and… every time I thought about that, I imagined your voice in my head. Telling me off for wallowing. For giving up.”

“Sounds like I would have been justified,” Martin says delicately.

“You would have,” Jon confesses with a contrite half-smile. “I was in peak brooding condition. Eventually I wore myself out wallowing there, though, so I left to go wallow somewhere else. I needed a change of scenery, and – well, I got one. Stumbled into a Spiral domain. Ran into Helen, and… funny enough, that was the last straw.”

Jon can still recall the encounter down to the smallest detail.

‘Still drifting aimless, are we?’ Helen bared an unsettling number of teeth as her grin stretched – literally – from ear to ear. ‘Exactly how long do you plan on moping about, Archivist?’

Jon did not answer; did not even meet her eyes, instead staring vacantly over her shoulder. The incessant reel of horror scenes playing in the back of his mind made it difficult to focus on any one thing at a time, and there was nothing he cared to see so much that it was worth the effort it would take to grant it his undivided attention.

‘You know,’ Helen said, tapping an elongated, crooked finger against her lips, ‘I wonder what he would say, if he could see you now.’

It didn’t matter. Martin was gone. Those parts of the world that hadn’t already been thoroughly razed were slowly but surely withering. There was nothing left to salvage.

‘Disappointed, I imagine,’ Helen continued, distant and muffled by the din of a splintering world. (Somewhere deep below their feet, a man was screaming himself hoarse in a labyrinth made of mirrors and fog.) ‘But not surprised. It’s not the first time you’ve let him down, is it?’

Jon gave a listless shrug. Her words stung, certainly, but they were a far cry from some of her more artful jabs. A pointed insinuation to send him spiraling into his own self-destructive conclusions would always be more corrosive than outright disparagement.

(The man in the maze gazed into mirror after mirror, hoping to find himself within. In every one, his reflection had no face.)

That said, Helen wasn’t wrong. Even as a child, Jon had always been a burden. He never did manage to prove himself worthy of all the many unwilling sacrifices made on his behalf. Never measured up; never put nearly enough good into the world to balance out the cost of having him in it.

(The man in the maze had misplaced his name. Did he drop it somewhere? He checked his pockets only to find holes. Yet another eyeless reflection stared back at him from beneath his feet.)

‘You were always headed here, weren’t you?’

Yes.

(The man in the maze tried to retrace his steps, but everything looked the same: an endless, recursive corridor of mirror images. He asked one of the doppelgängers for directions, only to realize that the man in the mirror had no mouth with which to answer.)

‘To think – all that time he spent coaxing you along, and you crumble the moment you don’t have a prop to coddle you.’ Helen cackles, high and cruel. ‘What a waste.’

She wasn’t telling him anything that he didn’t already know.

(The man in the maze was scouring the mirrored ground, searching for… something he’d lost; he couldn’t quite remember, but he knew that it was important. He checked his pockets, only to discover that he had no pockets.)

‘Although, I guess the blame doesn’t fall squarely on your shoulders. He was naïve. It isn’t your fault he was foolish enough to hope for–’

The words jolted Jon back to the present like an electric shock. Whatever else Helen had to say, he’d never know. He tuned her out, and he started walking.

“She was having a go at me – nothing new there – but then she brought you into it, and…” Jon shrugs. “I don’t think it was her intention, but it nudged me back on track. You and I had a plan, before, and… honestly, I didn’t have much hope that it would work, but you had. That made it worth trying.”

It wasn’t like Jon could break the world more by parleying with the Eye. At worst, it made no difference, but at least Jon did something to honor Martin’s memory; at best, it put Jon out of his misery, one way or another.

“I’m glad I did, because… well, it changed things, obviously. You were right.”

“Sorry,” Martin says with unmistakable self-satisfaction, “could you say that again?”

“You were right, Martin.” Jon rolls his eyes, but the effect is undercut by an indulgent smile he can’t quite repress. “You often are. All of this is to say – I’m only here because you gave me a reason to be. If not for that, then… well, I meant what I’ve said before, about needing a lifeline in order to stand any chance against the Fears. I was – I am lucky enough to have one.”

More than one, he thinks with a sense of wonder. The support he has now is such a far cry from the ostracism he experienced the first time he was here. It still gives him pause every time he dwells on the contrast. Sometimes, it almost seems too good to be true.

“Oliver didn’t,” Jon continues. “It’s hard to begrudge him for resigning himself to fate, especially considering how the power that claimed him is defined by fatalism. He never asked to be chosen, he was given no hope of escape, and he had no one to reach out to, let alone anyone to reach back. It’s unsurprising that he would come to accept the inescapable when the only anchor he had was the certainty of oblivion.”

“‘The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one,’” Georgie says quietly.

Jon nods. “And without a dependable reason to see the moments in between as significant, it’s… well, it’s hard to see the point in anything. I’ve been there.”

As has Georgie, Jon knows. She exhales heavily, massaging her temples, visibly conflicted.

“I still don’t think you should trust him,” Martin says.

“I’m not suggesting we trust him wholesale,” Jon says, “but I’m certain that he isn’t an enemy. He might not resist the End, but he doesn’t work to end the world in its name, either. He’s… thoroughly neutral.”

“Then what makes you think he’ll lift a finger to help?” Martin asks.

“I doubt he’ll go out of his way to help,” Jon admits. “He might be willing to trade information, though. I just thought… Avatar of the End – he would have more insight into the limits of Jonah’s supposed ‘immortality’ than I do.”

“You think he can tell you something about the dead man’s switch,” Georgie guesses, rubbing at her forehead.

“That’s my hope, yes. He can see the route that a person will take to their end. Or, he can when their death is imminent, at least – I’m not sure how far into the future his foresight stretches these days.”

In the hospital, Oliver implied that he could see something in Jon’s vicinity. Whether that suggests Jon’s own end is near enough for Oliver to foresee it, Jon does not Know. Given his proven resilience, he suspects it’s just as likely to be a quirk of his strange existence. There’s no shortage of idiosyncrasies that may mark Jon as an outlier: he’s the Archivist; he’s traveled through a rift in time; he’s the primed and practiced focal point of the Watcher’s Crown, and the fate of the world hinges on his ability to keep that potential in check.

And if his situation is an exception to the rule, perhaps Jonah’s is as well.

“Maybe he’ll be able to see whether our routes flow into Jonah’s, so to speak,” Jon says. “When Oliver dreamed of Gertrude’s impending death, he saw how much of the world’s fate was intertwined with hers –”

“– the veins, whose domination of the dreamscape had only ever been partial before, had thickened and now seemed to cover almost the whole space of every street – the destination – into which all the veins flowed – The Magnus Institute – choked with that shadowed flesh – following that red light that would now pulse so bright that I knew were I to see it awake it would have blinded me – and every one of those veins – where they ended – a person sitting at that desk and it was them that all of this scarlet light was flowing into.”

“Gertrude,” Martin says.

Jon nods, then holds up one finger: Wait. The Archive has more to say; Jon can practically feel the words bubbling up his throat and crowding behind his teeth. As discomfiting as it is to have it hijack his voice, sometimes it’s easier to ride out that compulsion than to tamp it down.

“I have no responsibility to try and prevent whatever fate is coming for you – such a thing is likely impossible – but after what I saw I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try – there is something coming for you and I don’t know what it is, but it is so much worse than anything I can imagine. At the very least, you should look into appointing a successor.”

Statement ends, Jon thinks, working his jaw to soothe the unnatural tension that has taken root there. Happy now? Anything else to add?

As expected, it doesn’t answer. He’s well aware that addressing the Archive essentially amounts to talking to himself, but carrying on an internal dialogue with the more frustrating aspects of himself was a habit long before he took on the mantle of Archivist.

After a few seconds, he feels the Archive’s imposing presence start to recede, releasing him from the compulsion. It’s still there, of course – it’s always there, looming over him like a vulture, as impossible to ignore as a knife to the throat – but for now it seems content to fall back and observe once more.

Georgie sighs. “That’s why you’re sympathetic to him.”

“He tried.” Jon shrugs. “He didn’t have to, but he did.”

“That still doesn’t mean he’s going to help this time,” Martin says.

“No, but he has no incentive to hurt us, either. There’s no harm in asking him questions. He’s not going to run to Jonah to inform on us. The worst that happens is he says ‘no’ and goes back to minding his own business. But if he agrees to talk… well, it might be our best chance to determine how much of what Jonah says is true.”

Georgie chews on her thumbnail for a few seconds before looking back up at Jon, a pensive frown on her face. “Why’d he go out of his way to come here at all, if he has no motivation one way or the other?”

“Honestly? Curiosity, I think. But… I suppose I’m also hoping that there’s a part of him that might sympathize.”

“Do you really think there is?” Martin asks.

“I don’t know. In my future, probably not. He wasn’t enjoying himself like some of the other Avatars – I mean, he was feeding on the fear produced by his domain, but even then, he didn’t strike me as cruel. It was just… acceptance in the face of a conclusion at ultimately stayed the same regardless of the path leading up to it, and…”

And maybe it speaks to Jon’s mental state at the time, but there were a few points in Oliver’s statement that struck him as almost merciful. After all, in the face of seemingly endless torment, death was a covetable escape.

“I have no power to stop it,” the Archive recites, “and even if I did, I would not do so. For to rob a soul of death is as torturous as its inevitable coming – I fear the annihilation you would gift me as little as I desire it – perhaps once it might have horrified me, or given me some sense of pursuing the ultimate release of the world that you have damned – I am now, as the thing I feed, a fixed point, that has neither the longing nor ability to change its state of existence – even you, with all your power, cannot keep the world alive forever. All things end, and every step you take, whatever direction you may choose, only brings you closer to it.”

“That Oliver again?” Martin mutters tetchily. “Doesn’t sound to me like he’ll be particularly inclined to help.”

“Well–” The word comes out as a rasp, and Jon has to pause to clear his throat before continuing. “That was – that was the Oliver of the future. After the change, he was too much of the End not to live its truth, just as I was too much of the Eye not to walk its path and archive its world. We were both conduits, inseparable from the powers that laid claim to us. Here and now, though, I’m hoping he might still be…”

“What, benevolent?” Martin says incredulously.

Jon is quiet for a long moment, trying to find the right words to explain.

“At my most hopeless,” he says slowly, “I still cared, even though there was no meaningful way for me to put it into practice. I don’t think I ever managed to reach the level of acceptance that Oliver did – and sometimes I envied him for that. But embracing the End as a foregone conclusion doesn’t necessarily mean he’s completely unmoved by what happens in the interim. Not yet, anyway. And as of right now, whether it’s out of curiosity or compassion, obviously he still interacts with the world from time to time, even if he prefers to exist in the background for the most part.”

Martin and Georgie both look unconvinced.

“I’m not asking him to help us change fate,” Jon goes on. “In his view, there is no obstructing fate – not in any way that genuinely matters to his patron. Oliver isn’t particularly concerned about when the End will come – he’s just secure in the knowledge that it will happen eventually, with or without the interference of any mortal actor. Passive or active, nothing he does or doesn’t do will change that. But I’m thinking it’s been a long time since someone has asked him for help that he actually has the power to provide, and… I know what that’s like.”

Despite the immense power that Jon could exercise after the culmination of the Watcher’s Crown, he was ultimately powerless to change things for the better. It’s why he leapt at the chance to help Naomi in her nightmare: even a small, low-effort act of kindness after so long without the opportunity was overwhelmingly liberating.

It was insignificant against the vast backdrop of the universe, perhaps, but it still left a mark. It prompted a cascade of little changes that completely rewrote their dynamic; it curtailed some of the suffering in which Jon had previously been so unwillingly complicit; it's even acted as an inoculation against the loneliness that had permeated both of their lives during this stretch of time when Jon was last here. Those little changes mattered to him, and they mattered to Naomi – not only in that first moment, but in all the time since.

All of that had to count for something, right? It took fourteen ill-fated marks to end the world, after all. With any one of them missing, the Ritual wouldn’t have worked and the world at large would never have noticed. But that didn’t make any one of those marks wholly insignificant on its own. They scarred him and the people around him; every encounter changed him, whittled away at his sense of self, left him progressively vulnerable and set him up for successive marks.

The repercussions still linger. They probably always will.

In his sporadic moments of cautious optimism, Jon cannot help but wonder: If a series of little cruelties can create such a perfect and terrible storm, is it really inconceivable that a pattern of little rebellions could keep it at bay? And Jon has long since come to the conclusion that compassion in the face of unimaginable cruelty is its own form of rebellion.

“As much as Oliver talks about fate and inevitability,” Jon says, “he still seems to believe in free will to an extent. That we all make choices. When he last spoke to me, he offered me a choice. Now I’m offering one to him.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…” Georgie releases a weary exhale and tosses her head back to stare at the ceiling. “You’re sure this won’t come back to bite you?”

“We have nothing to lose by asking,” Jon says. “And he has nothing to lose regardless of what choice he makes, but… it feels right to at least give him the option. Whatever he decides, I won’t begrudge him for it.”

“Fine,” she says tersely. “Do what you want.”

Jon just barely suppresses a wince. “Georgie?”

“Sorry, that came off as –” Georgie heaves another sigh. “I’m not angry with you. I get it. It makes sense. I just don’t like it.”

“I know.”

“Just… be mindful, alright? You don’t owe him any answers you don’t want to give. And he doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt just because you relate to him.”

“I know,” Jon says again.

“I mean it, Jon,” she says sharply. She takes a steadying breath before continuing, more diplomatically this time. “It’s… sweet, I guess, that you want to empathize with him, but you have a tendency to…” Georgie pauses, weighing her words. “I mean, I’ve seen you compare yourself to Helen, too. And Jonah.”

“Well, I don’t think anyone would deny that there are certain… similarities,” Jon says, not quite under his breath.

“Yeah, you’re always going to have something in common with other people if you look hard enough. But sometimes you see the worst in people and you fold it into how you see yourself. Like you’re looking into a funhouse mirror, but you can’t see how the reflection is distorted.” Jon avoids meeting her eyes, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear it, but you have a history of comparing yourself to your abusers. Sorry,” she adds when he flinches, “but it’s the truth, and you need to hear it. Just… think about it, okay? Ask yourself whether this is compassion or if it’s just another way to dehumanize yourself.”

“I –” Jon swallows around the lump in his throat, his mouth gone dry. “Okay, I – I get your point, but – I swear that’s not what this is. With Helen, and – and – and Jonah, it’s – they’ve actually gone out of their way to – to manipulate, to cause real harm. Oliver is different.”

“You were marked by the End,” Georgie says pointedly.

“Yes, but that wasn’t Oliver’s fault. He didn’t hurt me, never tried to trap me or trick me – never pressured me into making one choice over another, even at the end of the world. I really don’t think he’s evil, or sadistic, or – or scheming, weaving some grand web. He’s just watching things unfold, because he had a crash course in the stages of grief forced onto him and the end result was… well, acceptance. He doesn’t fear the End, but he doesn’t worship it, either. He just embodies it, openly and authentically.”

Georgie is silent for nearly a full minute, scrutinizing Jon intently, before she capitulates.

“Alright. I’ll… trust your judgment, I guess,” she says, but she shares a knowing glance with Martin – who looks just as leery as she does – when she says it. “Still, be careful.”

“I, uh… I imagine you don’t want to be here when I talk to him?” Jon ventures, though he’s certain he already knows the answer.

“No,” Georgie says summarily.

Jon releases a breathless chuckle. “Fair enough.”

“I really should be getting home to Melanie, anyway. It’s stay-home date night. Pizza and a movie.” Georgie offers a tentative grin, her shoulders relaxing minutely. “She hasn’t seen the new Ghostbusters yet, somehow – something about having been preoccupied with real paranormal bullshit for the last few years – but I checked and the DVD version has audio description, so I bought a copy. She’d be cross with me if I stood her up for the grim reaper.”

“I imagine so.” Jon tilts his head. “Although, Oliver isn’t actually the–”

“Jon,” Georgie sighs, “I was being facetious.”

When the three of them leave the tunnels, they find Oliver still waiting awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs out of the Archives, Basira standing sentinel nearby. Daisy leans against a far wall, eyeing him from a distance.

Georgie gives a long, doubtful look at Oliver before turning to Jon and offering a hug that he gladly accepts.

“Text me later tonight?” Georgie says. “And keep me updated on your travel plans.”

“Will do. Tell Melanie I said hello. And tell the Admiral he’s a national treasure.”

Georgie snorts at that, shaking her head in amusement before turning towards the stairs. Oliver nearly jumps out of the way as she strides in his direction, but she doesn’t stop to confront him beyond a glare as she passes. A prolonged, awkward minute of silence passes after she leaves, charged with suspicion and tension.

“Tunnels,” Basira says eventually, her tone and expression giving nothing away. She doesn’t wait for a response before stalking off down the hall, Daisy falling in line behind her.

Basira barely waits for the others to take their seats before she launches into her interrogation. Although her eyes remain fixed on Oliver, her first question isn’t directed at him.

“Why is he here, Jon?”

“Like I said, I invited him.” Jon glances at Oliver, apologetic. It feels odd to talk about him as if he isn’t present.

“Why?”

“Mutual curiosity, I expect,” Oliver cuts in, inclining his head towards Jon. “You have questions for me.”

Jon returns a nod. He has ulterior motives, and Oliver knows it. To pretend otherwise would be pointless, not to mention insulting.

“Oliver is an Avatar of the End,” Jon tells the others. “There might be a chance he could tell us how much of what Elias says is true.”

“And what’s the price tag?” Basira asks.

“He has questions of his own. He could tell in the hospital that there’s something… wrong about me. Obviously, I couldn’t talk about it where Elias could hear.”

“You shouldn’t disclose it at all,” Basira says. “If any of it gets back to him –”

“Oliver has no reason to betray our confidence.” Jon’s gaze flicks to Oliver. “Right?”

“Consider me a neutral party,” Oliver replies.

“You’re going to just… take him at his word,” Basira scoffs.

“The End has no Ritual,” Jon says, “and it has no reason to prevent any of the other Entities from successfully pulling off their own Rituals. No matter what happens to this world, the End will claim everything eventually. The when and how are irrelevant to it. In the meantime, the world as-is suits it just fine. It has no desire to postpone or hasten the end of all things.”

“Terminus is what it is,” Oliver agrees. “I have neither the power nor the desire to contradict it.”

“Then why would you help us?” Basira asks.

“I never said that I would.”

“I’m not asking you to actively intervene,” Jon says before Basira can offer a retort. “I just want to talk. That… is why you came here, isn’t it?”

Oliver hesitates for a moment before answering. “Your curiosity must have rubbed off on me.”

Unbidden, Oliver’s statement rushes to the forefront of Jon’s mind: I still remember the first time I tried to touch one…. I don’t know why I did it; I knew it was a stupid thing to do. But I just… maybe I wanted it this way.

“Don’t know about that,” Jon says quietly. “Curiosity is only human.”

And the worst part was that, somewhere in me, I – I liked it, the statement plays on. Underneath all that awful fear, it felt like… home.

“Perhaps,” Oliver says, noncommittal.

“So you’ll tell us what we want to know,” Daisy finally speaks up. Despite her veneer of calm – leaning back in her chair, arms crossed – her bouncing leg belies her agitation.

“It makes no difference to me.” Oliver shrugs. “Though I can’t promise my answers will be satisfying.”

“I still don’t like this,” Basira says, glaring askance at Oliver.

“Look,” Jon says, “this is the only way I can think of to figure out what stakes we’re working with. Jonah has been cheating death for centuries–”

“Jon!” Basira hisses.

“It’s important context,” Jon argues back. “And anyway, it’s going to come up when I tell him my story. It’s not exactly a detail I can gloss over; it’s central to the plot.” He sighs and looks at Oliver. “Elias is Jonah Magnus, the original founder of the Institute.”

Basira throws her hands up with a frustrated snarl. She turns to Daisy for support, but Daisy only offers a sympathetic grimace and a half-shrug.

“I thought there was something odd about him,” Oliver says blandly. “He’s long past his expiration date.”

Daisy snorts at that. Judging from the bemused, almost startled expression on Oliver’s face, he hadn’t expected to garner anything other than aggression from her.

“Whenever one of his vessels is… compromised,” Jon elaborates, “or nearing the end of its usefulness, he takes a new one.”

Recovering from his fleeting bewilderment, Oliver turns his attention back to Jon. “He wouldn’t be the first.”

“Maxwell Rayner and Simon Fairchild,” Basira says.

Oliver nods. “Among others.”

“Does that… I don’t know – offend the End?” Martin asks.

“No,” Oliver says. “They can’t outrun it forever, as so many have discovered firsthand.”

“Like Rayner,” Daisy says.

Once again, Oliver looks thrown off-kilter by Daisy’s diminishing hostility, but he does offer a wary nod in response to her contribution to the conversation. “And in the meantime, their fear of their own mortality ages like a fine wine.”

“Is an unnaturally long life somehow tastier for the End, then?” Martin asks. “I think most of the statements I’ve read about it involved somehow cheating death.”

“Perhaps. If my patron has a conscious mind, it has never spoken to me directly. Everything I know to be true is just… feeling.”

“So it’s as cagey as the other Powers, then,” Daisy says with a derisive chuckle. “Good to know.”

Oliver smooths his hands across his coat, draped across his lap, before glancing at Jon for guidance.

“I gave you a story,” he says reticently. “I would like to hear yours. Then I will answer your questions.”

“Fair enough,” Jon says – and abruptly realizes that he has no idea where to start. “You, uh… you don’t need to hear my whole life story, do you?”

“I did give you an outline of mine,” Oliver says with just a hint of amusement. “I admit I’m curious as to what led you here, but I imagine if you went into detail, we would be here for hours.”

“Much of it doesn’t bear repeating, anyway,” Jon says. “Just the highlights, then?”

“If you please.”

“Right,” Jon mumbles. He takes a deep breath. “Had my first supernatural encounter when I was eight, never got over it, and a combination of lifelong obsession and unchecked curiosity brought me to the Institute. After Gertrude died, Jonah chose me as her replacement because he knew I would be easily molded into the catalyst for his Ritual, and I was.” He looks up. “Is that enough?”

“Which of the Powers marked you first? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“The Web.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you seemed… entangled.”

There’s something… off about you, Oliver had told him when they last spoke. The roots, they look… sick. Wrong. And the threads are – tangled.

It’s possible that Oliver was speaking in metaphor – alluding to the threads of fate, so to speak – but the question has been simmering in the back of Jon’s mind for months…

“When you visited me before,” he blurts out. “You said the Web sent you.”

“Yes,” Oliver says candidly. “Not an explicit command, of course. It was more a… well, a feeling. A tug. The Web usually prefers subtlety, but there are times when it wants its marks to know the hand that moves them.”

“S-so, when you said the threads around me were tangled, was that figurative, or could you… see the Web’s influence?”

“The Spider might make its presence known sometimes, but Terminus doesn’t give me the ability to see the shape of its web any more than the Eye does you.”

“Not unless the Web allows itself to be Seen,” Jon says absently.

Despite how much he could See in his future, the Web always remained something of an enigma. It wasn’t until after his standoff with the Eye that he was able to follow the Spider’s threads.

But then, the Eye hadn’t been the only watcher lurking in the Panopticon. The Web had woven itself into the foundation of that place from its conception, and the Spider made no effort to hide. More than once, it stationed itself where he was sure to notice it. The more he thinks on it, the more he suspects that the ensuing ability to See its threads, to Know where they converged, was as much an allowance by the Web as it was due to his communion with the Ceaseless Watcher.

“When I spoke of threads, I meant more…” Oliver opens and closes his mouth a few times as he struggles with his phrasing. “Well, I’ve not yet found a perfect description for it. Think of a life and fate as… a jumble of intersections. Some people feel like thread-and-nail art. Others feel like a snarled ball of yarn. You,” he adds, looking at Jon appraisingly, “are something of a Gordian knot.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Martin demands, a protective edge in his voice.

“It’s not a compliment or an insult,” Oliver says mildly. “Only an observation. Come to think of it, Gertrude was much the same way. The fates of many hinged on the routes she took. Less of a butterfly effect and more of a hurricane.”

“So you can see fate?” Basira asks. A genuine question, but the flat skepticism in her tone makes it sound rhetorical.

“To a limited extent,” Oliver says haltingly. “I see the near-future as it relates to death specifically. When people near the ends of their routes, I can make out the details of their–”

“Seeing those awful veins crawling into them, into wounds not yet open, or skulls not yet split – they sneak up and into throats about to choke on blood, or lurch into hearts about to convulse – webbed over the face of a drunk old man stumbling into his car – one snaking along the road, over towards the railing – I’ll never forget seeing a field of cows the week before they were sent to the abattoir…”

Jon trails off with a tired groan, rubbing his eyes furiously.

“You have a good memory,” Oliver says.

“Sorry,” Jon mumbles. “Archivist thing. Can’t always control it.”

“S-so,” Martin redirects, “if any of us were about to die, you would be able to see it, right?”

“Yes. But I don’t make a habit of telling fortunes,” Oliver clarifies before Martin can ask. “Knowing your end is coming does nothing to prevent it. It only ensures that you will live your final days in fear.”

“Wouldn’t your patron like that?” Daisy asks.

Basira immediately latches onto that thought. “We have a statement here about a book that tells you how and when you’ll die.”

“Case number 0030912,” Jon cites. “Statement of Masato Murray, regarding his inheritance of an untitled book with supernatural properties. Each time the reader rereads their entry, they’ll find that the recorded date of their future death draws closer and the cause more gruesome.”

“Thanks, spooky Google,” Basira says sardonically. “Who needs an indexing system when we have a walking, talking card catalogue on staff?”

“One of my predecessors in ancient times once filed a complaint with the Eye, aggrieved by all the terrible powers it foisted upon him,” Jon says matter-of-factly, not missing a beat. “Being a benevolent patron, it granted him and all future generations of Archivists a convenience feature as compensation.”

“Smartass,” Basira says, but it sounds almost amiable, and Jon allows himself a tentative smile.

His tolerance for making light of this part of himself tends to be variable. Unpredictable, even. On good days, shared gallows humor is a balm, bringing with it a sense of solidarity and camaraderie; on bad days, even the gentlest dig feels like a barb.

He also tends to be selective about whose teasing he can weather. Martin and Georgie are safe more often than not. Daisy can usually get away with it; she’s prompt to let him in on the joke whenever he doesn’t pick up on her sarcasm. Given how blunt Melanie can be, it at least tends to be obvious when her pointed comments are meant in jest or in umbrage; and anyway, he hasn’t yet spoken to her directly since she quit.

Basira, though – she’s always been difficult to read. They have a similar sense of humor, but part of his brain is still living in a time when she saw the worst in him. No matter how many times he tells himself that things are different now, he can’t quite shake that feeling of being on indefinite probation. Hostile attribution bias, he recognizes, but having a label for it doesn’t make it any easier to silence those perennial fears. It’s only recently that he’s been able to take such joking from her in stride. Not always, but sometimes.

“Anyway,” Basira says, looking back to Oliver, “I take it that book is affiliated with the End. It feeds on the reader’s fear of knowing the details of their death.”

“Almost everyone has some degree of fear regarding mortality – their own or that of others,” Oliver says. “For some, that primal fear permeates their entire lives. Others only spare it any thought when it closes in on them. Terminus feeds on all of it equally. I suspect that active encounters with it are more about…”

“Flavor?” Basira suggests.

“So to speak,” Oliver says. “Welcome variety in its diet, but not necessary to sate it.”

“Which is why its Avatars have such wildly different methodologies,” Jon says, nodding to himself. “Justin Gough was allowed to survive a near-death experience, but acquired a debt that had to be paid in the lives of others, killing them in their dreams. Tova McHugh was granted the ability to prolong her own life by passing each of her intended deaths onto others, adding their remaining lifespans to her own. Nathaniel Thorpe was cursed with immortality after trying to cheat his way out of death. He was only one of many gamblers who played such games of chance–”

“Jon,” Basira sighs, “you don’t have to go through the whole roster of personified death omens.”

“Sorry.”

“So what kind of Avatar are you?” Basira asks, looking Oliver up and down. “How do you feed your patron?”

“For me, Terminus has not been particularly demanding. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because I never attempted to cheat my way out of death. It simply… chose me – or I wandered across its path – and it never left. Thus far, it seems content to have me play the observer.” He glances at Jon. “You can probably understand that.”

“The Beholding isn’t satisfied to have its Archivist simply observe. It wants its knowledge actively harvested, recorded, curated.” Jon huffs, not bothering to contain his disgust. “Processed.”

The conversation lapses into a tense silence for several seconds before Basira changes tack.

“About Gertrude,” she says. “You tried to warn her about her death.”

“Yes,” Oliver replies.

“Why?”

“The evidence of her death snaked its roots all across London – as far as I could see, and perhaps further. At the time, I’d never seen anything like it. Such a sprawling web of repercussions stemming from a single death – I felt like I had to say something. As I expected, it made no difference in the end.”

Jon worries his lower lip between his teeth. “You said the roots surrounding me seemed sick.”

“You saw roots around Jon?” Martin says urgently, jolting up ramrod-straight in his seat.

“They’re… different from the ones I’ve grown accustomed to,” Oliver says slowly. “There’s no light pulsing within them, no life flowing to or from them. And looking at them, it’s almost like…” He frowns, squinting down at the floor as if it might offer up the words he needs. “It’s like they’re there and not there simultaneously. Faded, like an afterimage – one that can only be seen from a certain angle.”

“Okay, and what does that – what does that mean?” Martin asks.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I was hoping Jon could shed some light on it,” Oliver says, raising his head to meet Jon’s eyes. “I may not have the same drive to know that you and yours do, but I find myself returning to the question frequently over the past few months.”

“R-right,” Jon says. “Let me just, uh… where to start…”

Jon rubs at this throat with one hand, the other clenching into a fist where it rests on his knee.

“Jon,” Daisy says, “are you sure about this?”

“Yes, I just, uh –” Jon breathes a nervous laugh. “This never gets any easier.”

“Do you want me to say it?” Martin offers, schooling his tone into something approaching calm. His posture remains rigid, though, hands balled into white-knuckled fists in his lap.

“No, it’s fine.” Jon takes a few deep breaths and then looks Oliver in the eye. “In the future, I ended the world.”

Oliver raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t think the Beholding gave you any precognitive abilities.”

“It, uh – it doesn’t. I didn’t foresee the future, I lived it. For… for a long time, actually, so I –” Jon exhales a humorless chuckle. “I probably meet your definition of past my expiration date.”

Oliver tilts his head, considering.

“Hard to say,” he settles on. “You’re… a bit of a paradox. Feels as if you exist in multiple states at once, and it’s difficult for me to tell which one is true.”

“Maybe all of them are,” Jon says distractedly. “But, I, uh – I eventually found a way to come back to before the change – or, to send my consciousness back, anyway. But only as far back as the coma. I… I wish it had taken me back further – back to the very beginning, though I” – Jon huffs – “I suppose it’s hard to say what counts as the beginning.”

“It depends on how you want to define a beginning,” Oliver says. “In a way, the advent of existence marked the beginning of the end. Everything since then has been just another domino.”

“Well,” Jon begins, but Daisy cuts him off.

“Nope,” she says bluntly. “You go down that semantic rabbit hole and we’ll be here forever.”

“Fine,” Jon says with a petulant sigh. “Anyway, I couldn’t figure out how to wake up on my own, so just like the first time I was here, I had to wait for you to come along and help.”

“I still don’t understand why,” Oliver says.

“Neither do I, I’m afraid.”

“Not to encroach on your sphere of influence, but I think in this case, not knowing the answer might bother me even more than it does you.” Oliver releases a quiet sigh. “So you came back to stop yourself from starting the apocalypse.”

“It’s not like he chose to end the world,” Martin says, immediately leaping to Jon’s defense once more.

“Apologies,” Oliver says with an earnest nod in Martin’s direction. “I didn’t intend to imply otherwise.” He glances at Jon. “I’ve known of many who seek to bring on the end in the hopes that they will be able to choose what shape it takes. You don’t strike me as the sort.”

“No. But Jonah is.” Jon ducks his head as he speaks, fingers twisting in his jumper. “He wanted – wants to rule over a world reshaped in the Beholding’s image. He needed an Archivist with particular qualities to serve as the linchpin of his Ritual. So he created one. By the time he showed his hand, it was too late. I was the key, and Jonah didn’t need my consent in order to open the door.”

“I imagine it didn’t go as he planned,” Oliver says.

“No,” Jon says with a grim laugh. “No, it didn’t. He suffered as much as anyone else did in that reality. It all started because he was afraid of his own mortality, and yet – in the end, he met a fate worse than death.”

“Whatever it was, he deserved it,” Martin mutters.

“Maybe so,” Jon says. “But it was never about deserving. There was some poetic justice there, seeing him brought down by his own hubris, but… at the end of the day, he got the same treatment as anyone else. Just – pointless suffering, utterly divorced from the concept of consequences. Had a way of… diluting the schadenfreude, honestly.”

Martin’s spark of vindication appears to fizzle out as Jon speaks, his shoulders slumping and his eyes softening.

“Regardless,” Jon continues, “Jonah wanted to be a god, but at his core, he was no different from any other human. Fodder for the Fears. And the one he feared the most – it was in no hurry to finish the meal. I imagine by the time Terminus finally came for him in earnest, he would have welcomed it.”

“Those who seek immortality always come to see it as a curse in time,” Oliver says sagely. “When they come to terms with the fact that there is no such thing as a truly immortal existence, it comes as a relief.”

“I walked through your domain once,” Jon says after a pause. “You gave me a statement about the End’s place in that world. The domains were reluctant to let their victims die – they’d bring them to the brink, then revive them and repeat the process – but the Fears are greedy. Eventually, they would suck their victims dry –”

“– bones – every one of them – picked clean and cracked open – desperately gnawing – trying to reach whatever scant marrow might have remained inside – sucked from them to leave nothing but dry, white fragments – the hunger he saw in their eyes–”

Jon bites down on his tongue. That’s quite enough of that.

“You alright?” Martin says, leaning over and putting a hand on Jon’s knee.

“Sorry,” Jon says gruffly. “That one was…”

“Grisly?” Daisy says.

“Yeah,” Jon huffs. “But – not necessarily inapt? That reality was a closed economy. No new people were being born. The ones who already existed were destined to die, no matter how unwilling the other Fears were to grant that release.”

“As has always been the order of things,” Oliver says.

“You predicted that eventually the Fears would start poaching victims from one another’s domains – and they did. There were…” Jon grimaces. “There were a lot of territorial disputes, towards the end there. Domains encroaching on one another, monsters fighting over scraps. The Eye got its fill Watching it all play out, of course, but given enough time, it would have starved, same as all the rest.”

“And once the world was rendered barren,” Oliver says, understanding, “Terminus itself would die.”

Jon nods. “And until that happened, both you and your patron were content to let things play out.”

“Terminus is patient.”

Too patient, Jon thought at the time.

“I don’t think it was your intention,” he says, “but your statement did come as a relief. I already expected as much – that eventually it would all end – but having it corroborated by an authority on the matter was… very welcome.”

“People may fear death,” Oliver says, “but anyone who outruns it long enough finds that there is a much deeper fear hiding underneath – that of having the release of death withheld from them.”

“We have a lot of statements to that tune,” Basira says.

“I imagine so.”

“So,” Daisy says brusquely, “is that enough of a story for you?”

“I suppose,” Oliver says. “Although it raises more questions than it grants answers.”

“Our turn for questions, then?” Basira asks. She doesn’t wait for an answer. “The… veins, or… roots you saw around Gertrude. You’re saying they didn’t just foretell her death, but showed how it would impact everything else. So, what about the ones you saw around Jon?”

“It’s difficult to observe them for any length of time, but they do seem… more sprawling.” Oliver studies Jon for a moment, considering. “Like you are the heart of a watershed moment destined to happen.”

“So that’s it, then,” Jon says dully. “I’m still the spark for it all.”

Pandora’s box with a ‘use by’ date, he thinks to himself, somewhat hysterically.

He already knew it to be true, but that doesn’t make the confirmation any less harrowing. Everything hinges on his ability to keep his head above water, but the fate of the world weighs ever more heavily on his shoulders, pressing down, down, down –

“Does that mean…” Jon hugs his middle, slowly curling in on himself. “Does that mean it’s going to happen again?”

“I cannot say.” If Jon’s not mistaken, Oliver sounds… almost sympathetic. “This is unprecedented. I can only theorize. It’s possible that you’re like Gertrude, and what I see is a premonition. Or maybe the reality you came from still exists, parallel to this one, and it still clings to you. Perhaps it’s a Schrödinger’s cat, and it both does and does not exist, right up until the point where you do or do not bring it into being. Or maybe it doesn't exist, and the roots I see are only… imprints, so to speak. Echoes of a time and place that this world will never overlap.”

“Like trace fossils,” Jon murmurs. “Ghosts.”

“If you like.”

“Could you – could you follow them?” Jon can feel his pulse quicken, his heart thrumming in his throat. “See where they originate?”

“They originate from you.”

“O-oh.” Jon’s gaze darts uncertainly around the area before fixing on Oliver again. “Then, uh – can you see where they end?”

“You have a suspicion,” Basira says, watching Jon carefully.

Jon swallows around the breath caught in his throat. “What if they go back to Hill Top Road?”

“As far as I can tell, they reach out in all directions,” Oliver says. “There may not be a single end point. Regardless, I have no desire to visit Hill Top Road.”

“Oh,” Jon says despondently. It’s not like he expected Oliver to go out of his way to help, but…

“Would it really tell you anything of value anyway?” Martin asks.

“I don’t know,” Jon says, running a hand through his hair, one finger getting caught in a knot and pulling hard at his scalp. “But – but it feels like something I should at least check –”

“To what end?” Daisy asks. Jon looks at her blankly. “No offense, Sims, but the most likely outcome is you get no real answers, you lose yourself obsessing over theories, each more catastrophic than the last, and you spend the next few weeks compulsively checking yourself for spiders. Some things aren’t worth chasing after.”

“I just – I feel like I should know one way or the other –”

“Is that you or the Eye talking?” Martin asks.

“What’s the difference?” Jon says flatly. He immediately regrets it when he glimpses the expression on Martin’s face – a very familiar mixture of concern and frustration. “I’m sorry. Just… I don’t know. I don’t Know.”

Jon tugs on his hair once more, focusing on the dull ache it produces. He’s always had trouble letting things go. Letting questions go unanswered; letting mysteries go unsolved. The Beholding just nurtured that obsessiveness, encouraged that impulse to proliferate in his head like a weed and choke out his inhibitions.

“You’re here now,” Martin says firmly. “You can’t go back, so you may as well go forward.”

“Yeah,” Jon says, guilt heavy and searing in his chest.

“Like I said,” Oliver says, rubbing the back of his neck, “my knowledge of the future is narrow. I can’t tell you anything about parallel universes, or branching timelines, or the ability to alter history. The only certainty is that anything that begins will have an end, one way or another. All the rest is just… details.”

Martin folds his arms across his chest, examining Oliver with narrowed eyes. “You say that like the details are irrelevant.”

“I wonder about that,” Oliver says softly.

“Well, I think our experiences matter,” Martin says. “The fact that we were here at all, it’s… it’s not nothing.”

“Even those who make the greatest impact are forgotten in time.”

“So what? It will always have happened, even if no one is alive to remember it. And – and you never know when something little will have an impact on someone, which contributes to them doing something that makes a greater impact – that changes history.”

“Even time itself will end eventually. History will be forgotten, and nothing will remain to register its loss.”

“And?” Martin persists. “We won’t be around to see it. In the meantime, we’re here. We’re alive. If we’re going to end no matter what, why not make it worthwhile? Sure, there are no equivalent powers of hope and love to counter the Fears, but – but who cares? That just means that we have to make up for that absence.” Jon smiles to himself as Martin builds momentum – shoulders pushed back, chest thrust out, head held higher, speech growing more impassioned as he argues his point. “If a few mistakes and some asshole with a god complex can end the world, who’s to say a few deliberate kindnesses can’t save it?”

“Am I the asshole with the god complex?” Jon says drily. Judging from Martin’s disapproving scowl, he is not in the mood for self-deprecating humor. “Sorry, sorry. But, uh – in all seriousness, I think it was more than a few mistakes on my part–”

“You know what I meant, Jon,” Martin snaps. “And – and fine, maybe a few kindnesses can’t save the whole world, but – but they can save someone’s world. They can save a person. Doesn’t that mean something?”

“Yes,” Jon says with a small smile. “Yes, it does.”

“R-right.” Martin blinks several times, momentarily stunned by the lack of resistance. “It doesn’t change the world – except for how it does. Just – the universe might not care, but we can, and that’s exactly why we should. It’s… it’s what we owe to each other. That’s what I think, at least.”

Martin goes quiet then, arms still folded with a mixture of self-consciousness and sullen defiance.

“How long have you had that rant queued up?” Daisy teases.

“A while,” Martin says, rubbing his arm sheepishly.

“You’re quite the romantic,” Oliver says. He says it like a compliment, albeit somewhat wistful.

“Yeah, well.” Martin blushes at the praise in spite of himself. “Someone has to counter the fatalism around here.”

If you ask Jon, there are many reasons to love Martin Blackwood. This is doubtless one of them.

“Besides,” Martin recovers, apparently on a roll now, “it seems to me there’s as much evidence for fate being changeable as not. Yeah, sure, eventually everything dies, but who’s to say that the details are set in stone? Like – like that book, the one where the details of a person’s death change every time they read it.”

“But does their fate actually change, or is it just the book messing with their heads?” Basira says, tapping her fingers against her lips and looking down at the floor pensively. “If the End has foreknowledge of a person’s death, maybe the last entry a person reads before dying was always their fate, and all the previous accounts were just lies intended to seed fear.”

When Jon opens his mouth to chime in, the Archive seizes the initiative, unceremonious as ever.

"When did it change?” comes the cadence of Masato Murray. “Was it when I turned back to read it again? Or perhaps when I had made the decision to never visit Lancashire? If the book knew the future, then how much did it know me? My decisions and choices were my own, so was it responding to them or simply to the fact that I opened the book again? Perhaps it changed every time I opened it, even if I didn’t read the page, every interaction changing my fate…. When I close the book I wonder: are those same words still there, squatting and biding their time, or have they already changed into some new unknown terror that I can neither know nor avoid, waiting to spring on me.”

Jon holds his breath in anticipation. After a few seconds of suspense, the pressure recedes, the Archive having spoken its peace.

“Archive’s talkative today,” Basira observes.

“Apparently,” Jon grumbles. “What I originally meant to say was that I’ve wondered the same thing – whether the book was really telling the future or simply playing on the fears of the reader.”

“Maybe offering textual support is another convenience feature?” Daisy keeps her tone carefully neutral, gauging his mood.

“The Beholding is known for being exceedingly generous,” he retorts.

Basira ignores the banter and speaks directly to Oliver. “Do you know?”

“I’m unfamiliar with the book in question,” he replies. “All the deaths I’ve personally foreseen have come to pass so far. That says nothing about whether or not the End always reveals the truth to all who cross its path.”

“Right.” Basira shakes her head. “Not sure why I expected a straightforward answer.”

“Maybe there isn’t one,” Martin says. For a fraction of a second, Basira tenses. Jon suspects she’s just as repulsed by such a prospect as he is.

“Whatever,” she says curtly. “It isn’t important right now. What I want to know is how to deal with Jonah Magnus. So” – she pins Oliver in place with sharp, unblinking eyes – “what can you tell us about his mortality?”

“In short? He won’t live forever, regardless of how much he wants to deny that reality.”

“Yeah, you’ve said,” Daisy says, tossing her head back with an impatient groan. “Him dying eventually doesn’t help us now.”

“I’m not a mind-reader,” Oliver says. “If there’s more to your question, you’ll need to elaborate. What are you actually asking? How to kill him? For me to tell you whether his death is on the horizon?”

“Jonah claims that he’s the ‘beating heart of the Institute,’” Jon explains. “He says that if he dies, everyone else who works here dies as well. You were able to see the ripples created by Gertrude’s death. I suppose I thought – maybe you could tell us if there’s something similar with Jonah.”

“If his death was imminent, perhaps.” Oliver averts his eyes as he twists a ring around his finger, growing increasingly tense under such concentrated scrutiny. “But as I said before, I don’t make a habit of telling fortunes.”

“So you won’t tell us,” Martin says.

“To be frank, this place is rife with potential.” Oliver casts his gaze around the area, as if seeing something the others cannot. “It would be… difficult to untangle it all.”

“Fine,” Basira says tartly. “Then can you tell us whether it’s possible for him to set up a dead man’s switch in the first place? Seems to me something like that would be the End’s domain, wouldn’t it?”

“It would.”

“Then would he be able to exercise any real power over it?” Basira persists. “There’s nothing inherent to the Eye that suggests its Avatars should be able to bind others’ lives to them. Even the Archivist doesn’t work like that – we’re linked to Jon as far as being unable to quit goes, but we won’t die if he does. I think it’s more likely that Jonah did something extra to bind the Institute to himself.”

“Assuming he’s even telling the truth,” Daisy says.

“So, is there an artefact that could let him do it?” Basira asks, still staring Oliver down. “A ritual? A favor from an affiliate of the End, maybe?”

“Terminus has a variety of ways in which it operates,” Oliver says cagily, “same as all the other Powers. I don’t seek out instances of those manifestations. Given the sheer number of statements collected here, it's likely you’re all more familiar with the breadth of its influence than I am.”

“You’re very helpful,” Daisy scoffs.

Oliver hunches his shoulders, chastised. It’s an odd sight – Jon wouldn’t have expected him to be particularly affected by such an accusation. Oliver never promised to be helpful; does not owe them his cooperation. Before Jon can pursue that thought any further, though, Oliver continues.

“I will say that Terminus is its own master. Those who believe they have tamed it are only fooling themselves. Orchestrating their own misery. The moment in which they finally realize that fact – that they have never had the upper hand, that the entire time they have never strayed from the route to which Terminus binds them…” Oliver chews the inside of his cheek, considering. “The existential terror that moment creates – I wonder sometimes whether it’s a delicacy to my patron.”

“Sounds a lot like the Web,” Basira says. The suggestion must pique his interest, because Oliver sits up straighter and leans forward ever so slightly.

“Except the Web reviles its extinction as much as the other powers, and as much as any mortal mind,” he says – not quite excited, but more engaged than before. “Terminus, on the other hand – its eventual oblivion is part and parcel of its existence. It does not fear the conclusion of its story. The Web will never surrender to such a fate. It will always seek an escape route, some way to appoint itself the weaver of its own ends. Its threads can never stray from the confines of the routes dictated by Terminus, but the concept that it may itself be under the guidance of another… such a thing is incompatible with its definition. Still, the shape of the Spider’s web will always mirror the blueprints of a greater architect.”

“And you think the same is true for Jonah,” Jon says.

“I know it is.”

“Okay, but – but Jon changed fate,” Martin protests. “In a million little ways – some we probably don’t even know about – and some big ones, too. So who’s to say that every step of the route is part of the End’s blueprints? What if – hold on.”

Martin stands and moves to Jon’s makeshift desk, rummaging around for a few seconds before coming up with a pen. He snatches one of Melanie’s therapy worksheets from the top of the pile and turns it over to the blank side.

“What if the only things set in stone are – are certain points along the route,” he says, scribbling a scattering of dots across the page, “but all that matters is that the route eventually intersects with those points?” Martin connects two points with a wavy, sine-like line. “Maybe it doesn’t even matter how convoluted” – he draws another line, this time with several loop-de-loops – “or long” – yet another line, this one traveling all the way up to the top of the page and making several winding turns before plunging back down to connect with the next dot – “the path is.” He holds up the finished product for everyone to see. “As long as the dots connect, the rest is free reign.”

“I like to think that choice plays a role,” Oliver says. “That fate is less of a track and more of a guideline. But honestly, there’s no way to know for certain. I only know the end point. The rest is speculation.”

“It’s also possible that the rift brought me to an alternate reality,” Jon says, eyes downcast. “If the reality of my original timeline still exists, I haven’t changed fate at all. I’ve just jumped to a different track.”

“Okay, and if that’s the case, and this is a different dimension,” Martin says heatedly, “then that means it has its own timeline and its own future, and whatever happened in your future has no bearing on ours.” Martin glares, daring Jon to argue. He doesn’t. “So it’s a moot point. If we can’t know one way or the other whether the future is already written, then let’s just act as if it isn’t. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. At least then it will feel meaningful.”

“The worst isn’t something you can prepare for,” Jon says darkly. “Trust me, I know.”

“If I want ominous proverbs, I’ll let you know,” Martin immediately counters – and Jon loves him for it. Daisy chokes on a startled laugh; Martin ignores her, instead pivoting to face Oliver. “We want to kill Jonah Magnus. Or, at least make it so he can’t perform his Ritual. But preferably kill.”

“Never realized you were so bloodthirsty, Blackwood,” Daisy says approvingly.

“The world will be a better place without him in it,” Martin says without a hint of indecision, not looking away from Oliver. “Jonah’s original body is in the center of the Panopticon. Except his eyes, because apparently transplanting them into innocent people is how he cheats death, because of course it is, why wouldn’t it be some messed up–”

“Martin,” Basira sighs.

“Okay, fine, moving on,” Martin sasses back. “It makes me wonder, would destroying his original body hurt him, or do we need to destroy his original eyes as well, or would destroying just his eyes be enough? And – and would it kill him, or just – blind him, disconnect him from the Beholding? Or – or would that kill him, because the Beholding is what’s keeping him alive?”

“Your guesses are as good as mine,” Oliver says. “Much of this really does come down to speculation and thought experiment, and it seems you’ve done plenty of that amongst yourselves already. I’m afraid that the only certainty I can offer is the certainty of an ending, and I don’t think that’s as much of a consolation to you as it is to me.”

“No, it’s not,” Martin says.

“But, uh – thank you for your honesty,” Jon jumps in. “For trying.”

“I really do wish I had better answers for you,” Oliver says, not quite meeting his eyes. “The End is… somewhat of an echo chamber at times. When you’re already on the inside looking out, it can be… difficult, to shift perspective.”

“I wouldn’t be able to offer many straightforward answers about my patron, either,” Jon admits.

“Wait,” Martin says. “Could you… could you at least tell us whether you can see anything about our deaths?”

Oliver draws in a deep breath and releases it slowly. “In my experience, there’s nothing to be gained from such knowledge.”

“Tell us anyway,” Basira says.

“Why?” Oliver says tiredly, his hands curling into loose fists. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because if you can see something, it could help us narrow down possibilities,” Basira replies. “If you see all of us dying in the same way, maybe it means we all die when Magnus does.”

“Or it just means you all die in the same freak accident.”

“Wait, do we?” Martin asks, his voice pitching higher in alarm.

“It was just an example,” Oliver says, scrubbing one hand down his face. “I’m just saying that this kind of knowledge doesn’t tend to give people the answers that they want.” Met with nothing but four determined stares, his shoulders sag in defeat. “Are you all certain you want to know?”

Everyone nods. Oliver equivocates for a full minute, rubbing at his forehead in complete silence. Eventually, he releases a long, low sigh.

“Right now,” he says, “I don’t see death closing in on any one of you.”

“Shit,” Martin says on a heavy exhale. “The way you were putting it off, I was sure you were going to predict a massacre.”

“Honestly,” Daisy mutters. “Bury the lead much?”

Jon ignores them, preoccupied with the implications of Oliver's revelation. If they were planning on killing Jonah tomorrow, it would say nothing about whether they were to succeed, but it would suggest they don’t die in the process, which would at least offer some reassurance going in. But Jon has no idea when they’ll be able to execute any sort of plan. This only confirms that none of them are likely to die in the next few weeks – and that’s assuming that Oliver’s premonition is accurate. Up until now, his predictions have come true, but there’s a first time for everything.

Judging from the contemplative frown on Basira’s face, she’s running through the same calculations.

“How far out can you see?” she asks.

“It varies,” Oliver says. “Weeks, usually. Sometimes months.”

“And it could change in a few weeks,” Daisy says.

“It could change tomorrow. It could change an hour from now.” Oliver looks between the four of them with a faint, melancholy smile. “I did warn you that it wouldn’t offer much sense of security. It only makes you want to know more.”

“Look where you are,” Basira scoffs.

“Point taken,” Oliver says with a startled laugh. “But honestly, ask yourself whether it’s all that different from Masato Murray and his book. If it’s worth living your life around the question of when and how – especially when the answer, should you receive one, will never put your mind at ease.”

“Just to be clear, ah – was I included in that prophecy? Or do you still see the veins around me?” Jon asks. Oliver raises his eyebrows. “I know, I know – the answer won’t satisfy me. Just – humor me?”

“Yes,” Oliver sighs, “I can still see them, if I look for them, but as we covered quite exhaustively, they look atypical and wrong and I don’t know what to make of them.” A tinge of indignation breaks through Oliver's characterisic mild manner – and then the moment passes. “I don’t think they indicate an imminent demise, but much about you is an enigma.”

“And there’s nothing else you can tell us about Jonah Magnus?” Basira asks.

“It isn’t a matter of if he can be killed, but how. Unfortunately, you’ll have to figure that part out for yourselves. As for whether or to what extent he could bind his fate to the rest of the Institute… there are any number of strange phenomena and improbable feats in this world. I would never claim to be an authority on the scope of it all.” Oliver offers another wistful ghost of a smile. “I’m afraid you might just have to take a leap of faith.”

Again, Jon thinks with an inward sigh.

But at least he can say he’s had practice.

End Notes:

Citations for Jon’s Archive-speak are as follows: MAG 011; 011; 168; 121; 156; 070. The “I still remember the first time…” & “And the worst part was that…” Oliver quotes are from MAG 121.  

Yes, “what we owe to each other” is a nod to The Good Place.  

So. This… was a beast of a chapter, and the last half of it really kicked my ass, which is why it’s taken so long to finally finish it. Still not sure how I feel about it – it’s a bit of a digression, but I’m hoping it still fits in thematically. Either way, next chapter we’re moving on to Ny-Ålesund.

Hopefully it won’t take me an entire month this time to write the next chapter, but… we’re down to two episodes left, folks. Chances are, next time I update, we’ll have heard the series finale. Are you all ready? Because I categorically am NOT. aaaaaaaaa

(That said, I already have a handful of epilogue standalone fics planned for this AU once the main story is done. Because hurt/comfort and recovery fics are going to be at the top of my hierarchy of needs once Jonny Sims destroys me in two weeks, I s2g.)

Thanks for reading!

[itsclydebitches]

Discredit Part Three! (Click on each pic for something resembling quality!) 

Part One---contains translations, podfic, and related works---Part Two

Tagging, credit, and transcript all below the cut 💜

First off, people who specifically asked to see more of this nonsense may God in all Her glory bless you accordingly: 

@internet-or-sleep, @just-some-girl-on-the-internet, @readytoocomply, @vocallsama, @fellowshipofthegay, @lucky-leafeon, @alph4centauri, @sumoranges, @diaphanedreams 

Aziraphale’s profile pic is courtesy of good old Neil, found here. All others are from Creative Commons. 

Sorry it took so long to produce more stupidity. YOU ALL ROCK  🎊🎊🎊 Here, have a messy transcript. 

Abdou G. 

Have you ever walked in on a conversation and, despite clearly missing the majority of it, feel like you could reconstruct it, word for word if necessary? That happened at Fell’s today. The ‘talk’ had obviously been going on for a while, but I can give you a perfect summary here: rude fuckboy thinks he gets to say who God is, Fell was having none of it.

Best response? Turn around, walk back to your apartment (pro-tip: this only works if you’re just a few blocks away), and change your shirt. I walked back in with my I MET GOD, SHE’S BLACK tee and had the pleasure of seeing Fell do a double-take.

“Yes, thank you, that’s what I’ve been trying to say!”

***

Doug E. 

Scout’s honor: I once saw that Crowley dude unhinge his jaw and eat a large pizza in one goddamn bite.

Update: you heathens read about this gay abomination with his dislocated jaw and what you decide to question is whether I was acTUALLY A SCOUT? 

***

Mary L. 

I came in with my four-year-old last week fully intending to keep him within sight at all times. Yes, I bought one of those kiddie leashes and no, I don’t regret a thing. You try holding down two jobs as a single mom to the bonefide antichrist. I love my boy, but the devil got to him, telling him things like, “Yes, Freddie, permanent marker would look just great on Mum’s only work jacket!”

I said as much to the owner because this mom needs to vent sometimes.  

I wish I could give this place a higher rating, but the ownership is frankly terrible. Inconsistent hours, no help when you’re trying to find a book, just basically all around bad customer service, BUT it still gets five stars because when I told the guy I was raising the antichrist?

“Oh yes. I did that myself not too long ago!”

We parents need to support one another. Otherwise the world is going to burn. So here’s a good review for you, Mr. Bookshop Guy. A part of me hopes you’re a better dad than you are a bookseller. The other part? The bigger part? It’s very aware that Ms. Pot here just met Mr. Kettle.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Freddie just got into the flour.

***

Alfred B.

I hereby nominate Mr. Fell as the British Steve Irwin. I’ve never seen anyone handle a red bellied black snake like that. I mean yeah, they’re a chill species overall, but there’s a difference between casually handling a snake and fucking chucking one onto the chair because it’s in your way. (Okay. Maybe Irwin was a little nicer.) 

Renee K. 

whos steve irwin?

Alfred B. 

...How old are you?

Renee K. 

15

Alfred B. 

You existed on this planet for two years with him and you dare to ask me this? Go boil your head and then use google. Good god.

***

Mark F. 

overheard the owner telling his boyfriend that last they met his brother tried to set him on fire? and succeeded?? actually now that I think about it, not sure which brother they were talking about---his brother or boyfriend’s brother--but WHOEVER has the brother needs to... i don’t even know. do something about that? ring the police or go to therapy or SOMETHING. i mean maybe they already have, i’m just an eavesdropping tourist, but the idea of someone setting that bow-tie cutie on fire—DID I MENTION THAT? PERSON ARSON. MURDER—makes my blood boil

***

Shiefa N. 

People aren’t joking about overhearing weird conversations here. I walked in on two men (owner and husband? owner and escort?) debating Seven Minutes in Heaven. You know, that stupid kissing game the better looking kids got to play in middle school. It got pretty heated at one point (pun not intended), arguing about whether seven minutes of making out was divine or damning behavior. I hung out long enough to catch the segue into a lust vs. love debate and then had to skedaddle. Nice couple. I support their weird flirting habits.

***

Chang Z. 

Is it legal to visit a store for things other then what it sells? I realize that makes me sound druggie or something but I swear I’m dealing with a much healthier addiction. (Ha. Maybe.) I cosplay (yeah, yeah, move along, trolls) and Mr. Fell has an absolute wealth of historical clothing. It’s astounding! I thought they were particularly detailed costumes at first, but no. I’m majoring in Textile and Apparel Studies. I know a naturally worn piece of fabric when I see it. Mr. Fell is always cracking jokes about how he wore this frock in the 19th century, this shirt in the 17th, oh don’t you just love my old vest? (He has... so many vests...) I indulge him because anyone who lets me borrow this stuff for free deserves all my attention and fake laughter.

Yeah. You read right. Artifacts borrowed for free. He’s even let me alter some of the stuff because I’m not exactly his size. Should this stuff be in a museum somewhere? Probably. Am I calling anyone to take my personal cosplay supply away? Noooope.

***

Leah M. 

Helping to spread the word here because I’m not sure how much foot traffic this place actually gets.

I pass Fell’s every morning on my way to work and yesterday there was a new sign in the window. This might not seem very interesting to most people on here, but you’ve got to understand that Fell’s never changes. None of it. I’ve lived in Soho since I was a boy and this place has always had the same placard with his insane times listed, same stripped paint on the door he’s never gotten around to fixing, same spiderweb in the corner I absolutely swear. My dad used to pop in there when he was in college and I swear he’s taken me through the stacks, points out books that haven’t moved in 30+ years. It’s nuts and more than a little bit impressive.

So you can imagine my shock when I passed by and saw not one, but four new papers in the front window. They’re drawings and I recommend going and taking a look for yourself. I don’t think I can accurately describe the utter chaos of crayons and glitter that’s displayed there, let alone what it’s trying to depict. A dystopia? The end of the world? If so the apocalypse features a surprising number of dogs.

There’s a fifth paper off to the side, written in Fell’s messy penmanship. It just says, “My god-children drew these!” and if that’s not the cutest things you’ve ever heard get out of my face.

***

Gabriel A. 

azirfell

alzaphral

azzzzzirafal

i’m a litttle drunk but azifjkaafha’s place is good he just needs a name easier to spell

***

Aziraphale 

Dear Gabriel A,

My partner Crowley told me about this site and the many lovely well-wishes you all have left us here. I have come to express my thanks and to offer a bit of advice. You are hardly the first person to struggle with my name, dear girl! I recommend the following three step process:

A - simple, yes? + zira - a nickname I’ve adopted over the years, easy enough to recall + phale - this is admittedly more difficult as our ending, “phale,” is neither spelled in a way nor presumed to be pronounced like the “fell” sound we end up with. In truth my name is more along the lines of Azz-ear-raf-AE-el, but change is inevitable and you needn’t hear about that transformation, nor the etymology involved in getting “fell” out of “phale.” I say this not because I don’t wish to teach you, but because my partner has reminded me--in a rather rude tone I should add--that this site has a word limit. Suffice to say you should simply memorize the “phale” portion and you shall be, as the expression goes, in tip top shape!

Best regards,

Aziraphale

P.S. Nothing personal, dear boy, but I fear I’m not terribly fond of your name either. I would highly recommend changing it if you’re ever of a mind to do so. Cheerio!

[you-did-well-moon]

Sf9 reaction to s/o on their period

Type: fluff uwuwuuwu

A/n: oh god, fun fact, I got my first period on Halloween. I think I laughed too hard and it just- Moving on. I don't have a lot of cramps, but when I do, they’re bad T-T. I remember rolling around the floor screaming “I don't want to be a girl anymore” while my mom watched from the kitchen. She then told all my aunts. ahaha actually moving on now. On to the reaction. Don't be afraid to talk to me or to request - Moon

Youngbin

Youngbin strikes me as the type of person to make sure he really wants a relationship with someone before confessing, so you’re basically his ride or die and he’d do anything for you. That being said, congratulations, you have this boy wrapped around your finger. Your boyfriend is now your personal maid. He’s the type to make you feel good. Your tummy hurts? He’s trying to make it better by massaging it. You're suddenly upset with him because of a mood swing? Youngbin will take it like a champ smiling softly at you and crushing you into his arms while wondering how you can be so cute while pouting at him for accidentally leaving your favorite cup too high for you to reach. Youngbin already showers you in compliments, but he always manages to take it up a notch while you’re on your days of the month. Youngbin will surprise you with cute little things like a bath with a bath bomb and rose petals, your favorite flowers, or proposing to bake a cake together and making a mess of the kitchen. 

“Your pants don't fit because your tummy is bloated babe. It’s normal. Just wear some sweatpants. You look beautiful either way”

Inseong

Every time, Inseong will be a bit awkward with you. Not because you’re on your period, but because he wants to do nice things for you. He’s just worried he’s doing too much or that he’s being clingy. Eventually, (after some reassurance from you because he will end up talking to you about it) he’ll grow comfortable trying to take your mind off things by doing sweet random gestures. If you’re craving something, you’ll find it on your bed by the end of the day with a sticky note accompanied by a cute pick-up line on it. If you’re on your way to work/school, Inseong will send you a text to check your gallery where you find silly selfies he took while you were probably getting ready. He will make you lay your head on his lap with tinted cheeks, and he'll read to you even exaggerating some of the dialogue parts to make you laugh. If you’re having a particular bad day, you will get met with Inseong’s unsure smile with a blanket fort behind him and your favorite movie ready to play on his laptop.

“Eh? Those cookies on your bed? Me? No no, you got it all wrong. It was probably Casper trying to make one of the most angelic people in the world show her lovely smile again”

Jaeyoon

Jaeyoon’s energy will literally sky rocket every time you're on your time of the month. Homeboy is probably preparing jokes for you two weeks prior to your period (yes, he will keep track of your period that's just how much of a boyfriend he is). He loves seeing his girl laugh, and he wants you to spend the week your mood usually gets bought down happy. Especially because of him. This dude will not be afraid to tease you. Nothing about your period like staining the bed. He teases you about things he’s always teased you about like tripping on nothing. If you’re having a particularly bad day and Jaeyoon’s lighthearted teasing gets to you, he won’t hesitate to smother you in kisses. If you’re still mad at him, he’ll follow you around pouting and acting cute for your forgiveness. You of course, give in. Something cute I think Jaeyoon would do is sit you down, your hands clasped in his and his forehead pressed against yours holding eye contact with you making you tell him all the good things that happened in your day. He’ll give you a little kiss for every good things you tell him.

“Come on y/n, you know I didn't mean it when I laughed at the toilet paper stuck to your shoe. I can't have your cute little butt slipping because of toilet paper. I know! I’ll impersonate Dawon when he accidentally ate nail polish for you.”

Dawon

Did someone order a koala? That’s basically what he becomes every time your time of the month comes around. He’ll act a bit clingier than usual (okay maybe a lot), but if you ask for space, he won’t falter in taking a step back and letting you breathe. The only reason Dawon goes into koala mode when you’re on your period is because he wants to be there in case you need/want something. Honestly, he’ll probably do something stupid like draw on your face while you were taking a nap. He will be whiny the rest of the day when you scold him. In his defense, he thought you could both laugh about it when you eventually did get up. He makes it better by letting you do something he normally doesn't let you do because he gets flustered and blushes a lot. He lets you cuddle him trace and touch his tattoos with a limited time offer of cuddles (it's not that limited). Of course you've seen his tattoos a hundred times before, but he’s usually asleep for it. In turn, he will trace lines across the slopes of your face mumbling how his day went against the crown of your head.

“What do you mean you have to go to the restroom? The restroom can fit two people. Ouch- okay I’ll get off of you just come back ASAP. I don't think I can take being too far away from you for too long”

Zuho

Juho will make sure you’re having the time of your life the whole time you're on your days. He invites you to his studio where you have crazy dance parties singing and rapping to one of his songs while you dance around with colorful wigs and other wacky accessories.  He plays stupid games with you like paper rock scissors sticking out his tongue at you when you lose but still handing you his last Skittle. If you don't want to go out, that's perfectly fine for him too. He snuggles up to you on the couch while watching a scary movie spilling popcorn everywhere and screaming in an unbelievably high pitch. He’s just trying to make your period as not miserable as he can. He becomes even softer for you (if that’s even possible). He lets you play with his hair or put crazy makeup on him. Although he may look grumpy while in the process, he goofily laughs posing ridiculously when you tell him he looks pretty. He’s even letting you distract him in the studio tickling you when you grab his attention for too long.

“I never thought I'd look this good in long pink hair. You got the lyrics wrong but I'll let it pass since you’re cute.. and I love you”

Rowoon

Seokwoo usually teases you a lot, but he eases up on it when you’re on your period.He will bring you tea and pills when you’re having cramps watching worriedly as you curl up in pain. He runs his hands though your hair softening the crease between your eyebrows and shushing you softly when you whine out in pain. He will push you to eat saying the healthier your body is the better you will feel after your period ends. He contentedly smiles watching you fondly when you eat what he made. He will bring you outside and make you play something simple such as catch telling you he read on the internet that moving around will help ease up the pain in your lower abdomen. He is very patient with you when you get overly sensitive over something listening to you talk waving your arms around while internally thinking of how cute you look crying at Finding Nemo. He then eventually herds you to the bed telling you take a nap tucking you in and leaving a kiss against your forehead rubbing his nose against yours playfully before leaving to shower promising to join you later.

“Come on love, let's take a nap. I promise you’ll feel better when you wake up. See your beautiful self later babe, rest up”

Taeyang

Taeyang will also be one to tease his girlfriend, but he will change up his teasing. Instead of teasing you to annoy you, he'll do it more to bring up your mood and make you laugh. He pinches your cheek and calls you cute. Actually, you didn't advise him when you were on your period until you were sure the relationship was serious. When you first told him, Taeyang was a bit awkward, but he quickly shook it off smiling and nodding asking if you needed anything. Knowing how sensitive you can get during your time of the month, he’ll get a bit protective (not overbearing) of you. If a member teases you, he sends them a small sharp glare. He will make sure you don't watch that movie that makes you cry every time. He will make sure you spend your days while on your period as relaxed as you can. Taeyang would take you on walks with beautiful flowers and plants along the path smiling as you take everything in beaming in delight. He will stay at home with you playing his guitar while conversing about random topics with you.

“This isn't the first time you've seen those flowers jagi, yet you still stop to look at them every time. You're too adorable for your own good sometimes angel”

Hwiyoung

Hwiyoung will be the member who will be the shyest when you first tell him you're on your period. He’ll probably also freak out the most when you start curling in on yourself because of some painful cramps. He probably runs around the house looking for something that can help you until you eventually tell him what kind of pills to get you and to heat up a water bottle. There’s nothing to worry about, he will definitely be more prepared for next time. He will constantly ask you if he can do anything for you, and he gets a hang of what helps you out the most. Hwiyoung spends a lot of time with you goofing off and playing around. He draws with you purposefully giving you a big nose while drawing you and cackling when you lightly throw a pencil in his direction. Something you guys would probably do is intentionally get movies many say are bad and laugh while watching them. When you fall asleep on his shoulder tired of the day’s activities, he will fondly gummy smile at you before gently shaking awake to go to bed.

“What do you mean your uterus is murdering you? Is that normal? Oh- please don't cry. Tell me what I can do to take the pain away love”

Chani

Early in the relationship, when you first tell him about your period, he will observe you quietly. He just wants to see how he can help you out, so he doesn't do anything wrong when he’s trying to take care of you while you’re on your days of the month. After getting a good look at what he can do to help you out, he will be more active around you when you’re on your period. He will take many naps with you softly singing you to sleep and resting your head in the crook of his arm lightly running his hands up and down your arm. He will act cute only for you when he sees you’re having a hard time. He sits next to the bathtub when you’re in the bath he prepared for you, and he even massages your shoulder before throwing a towel at your face telling you to finish so you could go watch some movies. He’s playful with you chasing you around your apartment spinning you around when he catches you. He smiles warmly at you and chuckles lowly when you give him those puppy eyes asking if you can go to the corner store to get snacks. He just ruffles your hair agreeing a second later.

“So what if this is the fifth nap we’ve had this day. We both need our rest. Now go to sleep and dream of me”

[the-moon-prince]

The Last Of us~Kurapika x Reader ~Chapter VIII

AN: Hi my lovely fellows!

I’m sorry for the delay! However this weekend I’ll be posting frequently! I’m working already in the next chapters and a request! Thank you so much for your patience and support! I love you all!

I wish you a pleasant read, and I hope you’ll enjoy the new chapter of my story.  (Chapter I) (Chapter II) (Chapter III) (Chapter IV ) (Chapter V) (Chapter VI) (Chapter VII) (Chapter IX coming soon!)

Paring: Kurapika Kurta x GN! Reader

Word count: 2 144

TW: None!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"They can't die." 

(Y/n) heard a brittle voice from another room. It was late at night. Not knowing the exact hour. But they were supposed to be slipping a time ago. They could not. They felt especially exhausted and craved sleep. No, they needed to sleep. Normally they would simply hug their stuffed animal or pillow and sleep to the sound of one of their records. But their chest ached loads. And although they had already gotten accustomed to that sensation, that night the IV bothered them. Except that was not what disturbed them the most. 

(Y/n) knew that voice. It troubled them to hear the state of distress in which they were. What if something bad happened to them? What if they were in trouble?

Perhaps at that time, it was (Y/n) who was most scared.

They had to go check. They sounded afflicted; As if they were on the verge of crying, or maybe already crying. (Y/n) couldn't just know they weren't okay and remain stationary. Even if the uncertainty was enormous, the fear that loved ones were wrong was greater. It was not correct to do nothing. 

They moved the blankets that embraced them and got up. They fixed their pajama bottoms, and, as they took the first step forward, they felt a sting in their right arm.

-"Right..."-they muttered to themselves, to turn to the metal pole holding the serum and medicine. They slowly approached the big white door of their bedroom, opening it doubtfully and carefully. They could see a glow from under the door of the room at the edge of the long corridor. (Y/n) led towards it with feline-like gaits, quiet and attentive. The closer they got, the nervous. They didn't want to get in trouble or disturb, but they didn't want to wait still. What if they needed their help? How could they resist? How could they ignore it? They tightened their grip on the metallic pole, leaning on it. They stared at the poorly closed door for a moment, doubtful. The brittle voice was heard again.

"It's not fear, they're only 4, it's not fear."- Even more troubled that time.

Which prompted them to sneak through the door. They opened the door wider and carefully slinked their head in to observe. The room was large, the garden could be seen from the glass door of the balcony and the large window next to the bed. An older, rather large, and stocky man dressed in pajamas and a thick sweater sat in a single chair in front of a television. He was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. He was covering his face to hide his tears and try to deafen his sobs. A woman, equally older, in a disordered aspect and a pajama nightgown was at his side, hugging him and rubbing his back to calm him. The woman had a frown and a depressed glower on her face, cheeks also stained in tears.

"They won't, they can't. I'm praying, I have faith, no god can be that cruel with such a lovely child."-her kind and crumbled voice told, with a fusion of comfort and conviction in those words with a touch of fear and doubt as well.

If they were crying like this, it was because something serious had happened. 

"Papi, why are you crying?"- the kid muttered, clutching to the tip of their clear pajama shirt. They were scared. They had never seen their grandfather cry before, less so desperately. They felt that they were trembling and twitching their toes. Even with their serious expression, his eyes were saturated with concern. 

"(Y/n)..."-The man raised his head to see them. A tear leaking from his dilated reddish eyes.

They advanced slowly and vacillating, but its presence had already been announced, and could not, as much as they wanted to, plainly leave.

"Nothing... why are you awake?"-The man rubbed his eyes and quickly wiped his face.

(Y/n) was clutching and rubbing their clothes with both hands now. They looked away for a moment, slightly swaying side to side in uncertainty.

"Were you sad because I'm sick?"-they hinted, as they looked the old man in the eye. Which was not extremely frequent. Ignoring the question.

The man looked back at them, softening their gaze.-"Why-why are you saying that?"- he blinked a few times to disperse the tears and worry.

They looked away once more, rubbing the textile of their shirt in between their fingers.

"Because... if you were sick... I'll cry too."-the kid mumbled, but quickly looked back at the man in front of them with a soft smile.-"But don't be sad! Because I'm fine now. Since the doctors let me come home, it means I'm healthier now!"- The man stared at them as not knowing that he could answer. 

"Sugar, why are you still awake?"- the old lady asked this time. Leading towards them.

"I... eeh... woke up and couldn't go back to sleep."-they promised, looking down.-"Are you mad?"

"No! Of course not, but it's still late. Let's go to bed, fine?"-The older woman took their hand and the metal pole and proceeded to accompany them back to their bedroom. Her hold was secure as if they were going to vanish at any given moment as if he were going to transform into sea foam and never see them again.  She did not stop holding their hand until (Y/n) tuck back into bed. The woman arranged the beddings and stared at them for a moment. (Y/n) wouldn't forget that regard easily. The stares their grandmother gave her were usually happy and sweet, like when you receive your favorite candy. This time, it was charged with despair, like that of a helpless animal once cornered.

"Mami... don't be sad. I'm getting better! So don't worry, I'll be fine! Okay?"-They declared with a smile. They were a touch fearful, but they preferred to know that their grandparents were fine. Of everything that was occurring to them at that time, seeing them desperate was the most damaging.

"I know you will be (Y/n), I'm sure of it."- the elder gave her best effort to smile and gently petted their hair. 

At no poinT (Y/n) did believe that she was lying to them. Except, deep down, they knew they still needed comfort. They inclined forward, sat down, and hugged her. It was the best they could do at the moment. Most adults, who knew them superficially, though they were cold and formal children. Most adults, who knew them superficially, thought they were a cold child. It was not true, not at all. They did have certain emotional problems. Although, their grandparents knew how sweet they truly were. They may not be clingy in public or hug everyone, that was true. Simply once that person felt comfortable adequately, they would talk to you all day and follow you everywhere, like a puppy follows its owner. They were calm but loved with intensity and passion. The single problem was that only a few had that privilege.

The woman hugged them back, easing into the contact. She was not alone, and they were still with her.-"Goodnight (Y/n)."

~ 

For those who were once inhabitants of that house, it had been a difficult night. The couple continued to feel bad. The man commonly knew how to act wisely, thanks to his years of experience. Just he felt inexpert that time.

(Y/n) was sitting on a soft sofa, reading one of the many books they had in the library. They adored those books and would read as many as possible. There were all kinds: from fantastic fairy tales, to their personal history, to academic studies that they half understood. They were a little too small for the chair, and their legs dangled. Something characteristic of them from an early age was that they were more attentive than they might seem. In addition to high sensitivity to auditory stimuli. It was not strange they overheard a conversation.

"It's outrageous, mum! Their only child is sick, and neither of them shows up to even get notice!"- it was his voice.-"I'm not sure what to do. The other doctors said it was better if he had a few last quiet moments at home ... It's cruel, mum... very cruel."

They put the book on a small table next to the sofa and moved to the counter that was at the entrance, where the phone was.

"Papi, who are you talking to?"-They asked one they were right behind the man. Another thing about them was that they were imps. They liked to play, but they did not do things out of evil.

The sir jumped in surprise. The kid was good at sneaking around; you could tell they were a cat.

"You scared me, I'm on the phone with your Grand-mami."- the elder turned around to them to reply, moving the phone a bit away from his face.

Oh! That sweet old wolf!

"Grand-mami?! Let me talk to them!"- They raised their hands, happily rocking from side to side. The man brought the phone closer to his face and spoke.

"They want to greet you, I'll pass them to you."-And he passed the device to the child in front of him. They crawled up to the long chair beside them to be at a good height and not stretch the strings too much.

A slightly raspy voice, but no less kind and diligent for that, spoke from the other line-"(Y/n), love! How are you?"

"Grand-mami! I'm much better, thank you! Do you know? I'm pretty sure I'll be as good as new for the Solstitium! And I want a dress just like yours for the celebration, because you look so pretty in it! You always embroider the best flowers."-they sang with plenty of enthusiasm and joy.

"So you want a dress this year?"-the voice asked them.

"Yes! Cute dresses are for everyone!"-they stated-"Plus, I plan to dance with ribbons along with the rest! You will see that this year, I will endure all the dance and be Spring's Monark! Also, tell Julian I say hi, please."

"It's good to hear you're happy. Anything else, sugar?"-The sweet voice chuckled a bit with the kid's excitement and hopes.

-After a moment of reflection, they added-"Yes! I want us to eat Frangipane!"

~

"(Y/n)! Here you are!"-A voice naming them drew their attention. Pulling them out of their daydreaming.

They adored that voice and the person it came from. It had been so long since just hearing a voice made them so joyful.

"Kurapika, do you need something?"- they drawled with their soft smile.

"I know this is your recess, but Neon is looking for you with a tantrum."-he alleged with a sigh.

Outside of the fatigue that Neon's childishness sometimes caused him, he was a tad troubled. (Y/n) was spending their rest alone on a bench in the immense gardens of the Mansion Nostrade. He had been looking for them throughout the interior of the house for some time. And when he found them, they resembled so immersed in their dreams he couldn't avoid worrying a little for his lover's wellbeing.

"Are you all right?"-Kurapika inquired.

"Yes, yes! I was just remembering something!"-they assured with a smile and tilting their head. They got up and headed back inside the mansion.

"Kurapika."- they called him after some seconds.

"Yes?"- he questioned, glancing at them.

"Would you wish to accompany me tonight? It's a... special date for me."-inviting him at their house was not unusual, except that desiring to share with him some variety of particular holiday had something very personal and loving on it. 

Kurapika felt special and privileged to receive that offer.-"It would be lovely. I will gladly be with you."-his voice was soft and had a warm smile on his face.

(Y/n)'s face lit up with pure joy and bubbled-"Fantastic! I will do my best to make it pleasant!"- he sensed a hint of nervousness. They probably were unsure if he would like the celebration.

"I'm sure it will be."-he encouraged.

Their shoulders lessened and sheepishly added-"Would you like to stay overnight along with that?"

"I'll willingly stay."- it was a grace for him to be so loved. He was able to see a warmhearted intimate side of someone like (Y/n) and receive so much appreciation and love.

[creek-cryptid-deluxe]

Oh man. So I just watched a documentary HBO released. It was fantastic but there's a TON of talk about violence & s*xual assault because it was a documentary about...

Woodstock 99.

Now when this happened I was 14. I liked a lot of those bands & thus watched it on MTV (because back then MTV still played music, although MTV2 played more music up my alley, less pop) so I watched this all happen in real time over the course of 3 days. It was bananas.

The documentary was a lot of footage from the event, interviews with attendees, music journalists, the event creators (who still somehow maintain it was a success & 'not as bad as the media made it out to be'), random staff (security & emt), and some artists.

Now, I must retract a statement made yesterday on my Queen of the Damned rant, as Jon Davis was interviewed on this doc. Jon, I apologize for & retract statements made yesterday. You have cleaned it up & it was good to see you looking healthier than I've seen you look in the better part of 2 decades. Proud of you man. Glad you're flourishing. Sorry I was an asshole yesterday.

Can't say the same for my boy Dexter Holland from The Offspring. I wouldn't have known it was him if not for the text onscreen identifying him. He legit looked like someone made a massive overly tanned balloon caricature of him. Holy shit. And this isn't just some "getting older" weight that most people get. This is like... Don Vito from Viva La Bam (rip) level shit. Like...wow.

Moby was interviewed & they showed footage of his bus coming into the venue and I gotta say... dude is still a pretentious piece of shit. I don't understand how he can have his head so far up his own ass & still be able to speak audibly for cameras. Dude wasn't even that good for his genre, much less in general!

Don't get me wrong, I grew up listening to a ton of different genres. Still do. That's what you get when your dad is a musician & your mom is schizoaffective & your stepmom is an 80s new wave/pop person who loves fucking John Hughes movies. Tons of variety. At the 'height' of his career, I was listening to The Prodigy (RIP Keith Flint♡), Chemical Brothers, Crystal Method, and Daft Punk. But jesus christ Moby was crap.

Moby: fuck you. You're a shit artist & a garbage person. If I ever meet you, you're getting a cane to the nuts just because of who you are as a person. Then probably again for assaulting the public with your crap electronic music. Wanker.

So the present day interviews did just talk about the events of the festival but also things that were happening in the world at the time because a huge part of why it became the shit show it did was that it catered to & drew in a very specific demographic: angry white dudes between 20-25. They probably weren't sure why they were angry but they absolutely fucking were.

So in talking about what was happening at the time they obviously touched on the Clinton/Lewinsky thing, the fears about y2k, and the like.

The best part of this entire documentary for me:

They talked about the napster thing & the stance Lars Urlich from Metallica took on it. There were actually a number of artists who disagreed with his stance. There was footage of a round table style interview with him & Chuck D from Public Enemy. Lars is over there looking pissy while Chuck D was saying "I think this is a great thing because it puts the music back into the hands of the people." The idea being that they can easily share it with friends & it ends up gaining them new fans. Hell, that was the entire basis for Dashboard Confessional's career. Their vocalist has openly stated that if not for sites like Napster, Limewire, & Kazaa, nobody would have ever heard their music.

Cut to an interview with present day Dave Munstaine (formerly of Metallica but has been the front for Megadeth for far longer. He may also be the reason behind my thing for redheaded dude. Hm.) Let me just say, for being a 59 year old rockstar who just survived throat cancer, that man is still fucking gorgeous. And the hair is still long & red, bless him.

Anyway, his interview is my favorite fucking part because this man said something along the lines of:

"I remember back when I was with Metallica trading mixed cassette tapes. That's how we found new music. This isn't different. Why did Lars do what he did? I mean, who knows why someone does something like that. Doesn't he have enough money? I certainly think so..."

Y'ALL. I legit had to pause it & out loud said "BROOOOOOOOO. That is the most serious but legit shade I've ever seen thrown IN MY LIFE."

Then text my dad (because Metallica is his favorite & he tries to tell me all the time how Lars was justified) & didn't quote it but told him the Dave just threw serious fucking shade at Lars for the Napster thing & that he HAS to watch this doc.

His response was: "lol yeah there's definitely no love lost between Dave & Metallica. You hear Megadeth is putting out a new album despite Dave having just recovered from throat cancer?"

(I had not known about the album or the cancer. I hope Dave is doing well. Love him.)

But yes, that was the absolute highlight of my fucking week much less the documentary.

A warning: the low point of the doc is when attendees & journalists are talking about the instances of the aforementioned assaults & they cut to one of the even organizers present day interview & he says:

"I mean, we aren't talking about thousands of instances or even hundreds. There were maybe 50 or so." (At which point I scream "THAT WERE OFFICIALLY REPORTED YOU SCUMBAG!" This was later confirmed for me by an attendee who set up an anonymous site for attendees to report if they had been assaulted at the event so they wouldn't feel alone & have there story heard. There WERE 1000s.) Then he went on to say: "All those women who were walking around topless or wearing body paint, expecting not to be touched, they are partly to blame."

EXCUSE SIR, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY ON CAMERA FOR A DOCUMENTARY?!?!

Then he keeps talking about the event was an overall success & blames the artists for riling up the crowd (bruh you booked a load of bands that are angry. Korn. Dmx. Rage Against the Machine. Limp fucking Bizkit. What did you expect them to do? Come out and play fucking folk music? No. Their brand is fucking anger.) & of course the media for 'blowing it way out of proportion & scewing the narrative by only interviewing artists who were upset/angry.'

But every artist who was interviewed in present day was like "Yeah the energy of the crowd was fucking insane & hostile." Artists kept having to begin sets or stop mid-set to be like "Hey man! I'm seeing a lot of chicks getting groped while they crowd surf or out there enjoying the music. That shit is unacceptable. They deserve to enjoy themselves without getting groped. Ladies, if a dude crowd surfs by you, grab his fucking balls! Equality, right ladies?!" (This particular quote was from Dexter Holland mid-set with The Offspring. God love him.)

In short, good doc if you aren't triggered by such things, especially if you watched it in real time back in 99. Absolutely worth it for the Dave Munstaine shade. I'm still reeling about that. Fucking brilliant.

Dave, I know you're nearly my dad's age, but call me. I've loved you since i was like 6 yrs old.

(I also loved Sebastian Bach of Skid Row at the time, but let's keep that on the down low. What can I say, I love musicians with good hair.)

[zrtranscripts]

Home Front, Mission 5: Peter’s Movie Nights (And Days)

Cinematic Masterpiece

~

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: Hello, runners! Peter here, broadcasting from the gorgeous Princess Louise Theater, an independent cinema a few miles outside Abel. We're going to start working out in a minute, so whilst I'm talking, I suggest doing some light warm-up exercises. Jogging on the spot, stretching, anything that gets your heart rate up.

Right. So muggins here thought it'd be a brilliant idea to loot some cinema equipment for Abel movie night, but the moment I got here, the horde descended, so I've barricaded myself in the projection box and the auditorium is full of zoms. Although as long as there's a film playing, they're too fixated on the screen to come looking for me, but uh, I am trapped for the foreseeable. Still, I can think of worse ways to pass the time than watching The Fantastic Light Trip.

Do you remember this? The uh, sci-fi jukebox musical, came out a few years before the apocalypse. I know everyone made fun of it for having a totally nonsensical plot, but it ruled the box office for months! The Princess Louise actually hosted sing-along screenings, which um, even the zoms appear to like, clearly. Um, sorry. Anyway, uh, Janine thought it would help everyone who's in a similar state of stuckness if I used my impressive fitness experience to lead some Ministry-approved exercises, so let's start with a dance warm-up. Sam said if I plug this cable into – yep. [cable zaps] You should then be able to hear the music from the film when I press this button! Right. Get ready everyone, and dance!

~

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: Well, that's not the first song I'd think of to soundtrack an inter-species dance-off, but yeah, I think it works. Er, kind of. I wanted us to watch the Fantastic Light Trip as a group. You cry with laughter at the Dance of the Seven Tentacles. You cry with, I mean, just cry at the ending. The song right before they go into hyperspace always gets me. I came to the cinema to bring people together and now everyone's apart. Except for the zombies, obviously. Well, they've got loads of company. Just because we're not in the same place doesn't mean we can't exercise together. We're a team, runners, even if we're far apart.

So now that we're all warmed up, let's do some jumping jacks. Right, you stand with your feet together and your arms by your sides. Then you jump, spreading your legs whilst you're in the air so that you land with them about shoulder-width apart. Now jump back to the starting position. Got that? Great. Now do it again, except this time, swing your arms up over your head at the same time as you spread your legs, then swing them back down as you bring your feet back to the center. Let's give that a go. Good job, runners! I assume. Let's keep it going.

If you're not able to jump right now, keeping your blood pumping with some dance moves is a great alternative. You could uh, walk from side to side instead of jumping, but keep up those arm movements and if you're the sort of person who likes a challenge, Janine, why not try spreading your arms and legs and moving them back to the center whilst you're still in the air? Right, now keep whatever you're doing up as long as you can whilst I turn the music back on for the next song.

~

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: Nice work, runners! Tell you, you really jumped the hell out of those jacks. Oh, great, this is the feast scene. You know, where all of the um, the alien food starts singing. Um, I tell you what. Speaking of which, how's everyone eating? I know we've had to improvise ever since the apocalypse, but we have to be especially creative now. For example, I have several sacks of popcorn and, thank God, a jar of vitamins I happened to loot on my way here. Would be nice to have something green, but lately I’ve found it's healthier not to worry about having the perfect diet and instead just notice how the food makes me feel. And it turns out munching a little popcorn whilst watching a movie feels pretty damn good.

Still, it's gonna feel even better to kick back and relax after releasing some endorphins, so let's do 60 seconds of squats. Was that a band? Or have I just been indoors too long? Uh, anyway, right. Squats. So squats, they build your leg muscles, which is handy if you ever need to, uh, just thinking off the top of my head here, carry a popcorn machine up two flights of stairs. So start by placing your feet just wider than hip-width apart, toes pointing only slightly outwards. Now stretch your arms out in front of you. Look straight ahead so that will help you engage your core and maintain good form. So you now send your hips down and back until they're just lower than your knees, as if you're about to sit down in a chair, and raise yourself back up. Nice. That's it.

So we're going to do that for one minute, or as long as you can comfortably manage, that's fine, and that's going to start now! Excellent! I'm assuming you're all doing this great. Uh, probably need to just slow down. Don't get carried away. Right, we're 15 seconds down. So I want you to try to really sit into the squat, right? Don't lead with your knees, sit into it. Halfway there. Right. Remember to keep your thighs in line with your feet. Don't let your knees start pointing inward or go over your toes because you're gonna be feeling that burden now, it's gonna make you sloppy. Don't do it. Right, 15 seconds to go. Just try and breathe in time with the movements if you can. [loudly inhales and exhales] In, out. Keep on going, and we're done! Oh, perfect, this is the time for the space cadets to do their musical training montage. Right, you take a dance break, or if you're up to it, just keep on squatting. I think I had a T-shirt with that on for a while.

~

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: Yeah, I'll admit it. Before the apocalypse, I was pretty proud of my body. And also after the apocalypse for a while. Some strange body things. I'll tell you about that later. Um, but lately I've learned that the best thing you can do for your body is actually just have a good relationship with it. You know, at the end of the day, it really is the only thing that will ever truly be yours. We runners, we can get quite utilitarian about our bodies, so if something stops us using it to get supplies such as an injury, or again, I'm just thinking off the top of my head, a horde of zombies, that can really get you down. But I'm here to tell you to be kind to your body, even if you can't do exactly what you want with it right now.

So why not start by giving it some exercise? This next move is the extremely nifty chair dip. So first, locate an armless chair. I'll just give you a couple of moments. Oh, there we go. Oh, that one looks great. So that-that should be a chair without arms. I wasn't saying a harmless chair, but I definitely would prioritize a harmless chair over a harmful one. Right, so now perch on the front edge of it, hands gripping the edges on either side of you. Lovely. So put your feet flat on the ground a little way in front of you and then you slide yourself down off the chair, lowering further down and then back up again, really using your arms.

Right, I'm going to believe that was a good job. So if that is too much or if you're worried about the flexibility in your shoulders, actually, punching the air is a genuine great upper body alternative. You do have to be careful not to fully extend or or lock your elbows, but whichever exercise you're doing, you are about to keep it up for as close to a minute as you can, starting any moment... now!

Excellent! Okay, again, don't get too over excited. We've got a whole minute to get through. Ease your way in, keep on breathing in and out. 15 seconds in. If you happen to want to make these chair dips more challenging, you can extend your legs further away so they're actually taking less of your weight. See? Makes it much harder than you thought, doesn't it? And we're halfway through! You really should be feeling that burn in your shoulders. Now that burn is what lets you know you're actually doing something. You're stretching yourself, pushing it. Keep on pushing it, but breathe! Nearly done, runners. Just 15 seconds left, in and out. Keep on going. You're almost at that finish line. You can see it, you can taste it, and time's up!

Nice work, everyone. And now you can reward yourself with a nice relaxing bop as the alien queen leads her subjects in their beautiful synchronized dance, or you could keep doing those chair dips if they're feeling particularly good.

~

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: So The Fantastic Light Trip, it did get just terrible reviews when it came out, but I love that the marketing team like, genuinely leaned into that mockery and that's helped it become a cult classic. And you know, just like them, we've gotten used to making the best of things. You know, looking for the good in every situation. We're just gonna have to look a bit harder for a while. Here, for example, I've only got access to one tiny window and it's in the toilet. It's just big enough for me to stick my arm out and get some delicious vitamin D. And it just means I don't have to worry about SPF. [laughs] Oh, nice try, sun. No skin damage for me!

Course, not everyone's lucky enough to even have a tiny window, or a toilet for that matter. I'll tellyou what. If your situation feels overwhelming, which it might, sometimes the last thing you honestly want to do is exercise, so here's something I used to tell people who came into one of the gyms I was in when they were feeling low. Just concentrate on being in your body and the physical sensation of moving.

And with that in mind, let's raise our heart rates and our moods with some high knees. So we're going to march vigorously on the spot for one whole minute, just like those plucky space cadets out there. Aim to bring your knees to waist height with each step, and begin!

Yes, excellent! Although I did say waist height. No compromise, all the way up. Keep on going. 15 seconds down. Pump the arms, too. It's not all about the knees. There we go, the blood's pumping. Feel it! Halfway there, runners. Lift those knees like you're trying to impress your cadet leader, which in this context is me, and I'm not yet impressed! Keep on going, pushing it. Only 15 seconds left. Keep the core engaged, keep yourself upright, keep the breath and the blood flowing. Feel the energy! And we're done! Just in time for The Fantastic Light Trip’s romantic leads to do their, let's be honest, just gorgeous duet. So take a dance break, or if you're up to it, keep on marching.

~

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: [sighs] I know, I know. It's a bit silly, since it is a romance between a wide-eyed space cadet and an exiled alien prince. But it's just, The Fantastic Light Trip, it's so sincere. We're never sincere, and you can't help but root for them. At least, I can't. You can't see, runners, but the whole cast is on screen now getting ready for the big finale. They're all smiling and yeah, actually, it reminds me of something else that I tried to tell people when I was leading classes. Did you know that studies show that if you smile while you exercise, it genuinely makes you feel better?

And listen, I know, I know. Really annoying when someone else tells you to smile. Boy, did I learn that the hard way with Janine. Won't be doing that again in a hurry. But it really is different if you're smiling for yourself. Just trust me and give it a try. I mean, the last song from The Fantastic Light Trip, it's so uplifting. We're gonna have a cool down dance to it. And while you're dancing, I just - you don't have to - I just encourage you to smile. Because you are here, and you are alive, and you deserve to feel good. And yes, you smile too, Janine, if you're listening. No one can see you, I promise.

~

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: [sighs] And here we go. It's the uh, the part where the alien queen and the leader of the cadets, they finally agree to work together. So all that remains is uh, just to assemble the hyperdrive. Turns out all you need to end an intergalactic war is 20 rousing song and dance numbers. Need to remember to mention that to Janine the next time she's brainstorming our defense strategy.

See, it's now the whole cast and they're together and dancing onto the ship. And you know, they really did have that much fun doing it and, and they're arm in arm. Or well actually, to be fair, arm in tentacle. But then the hatch is closing. Blast off. [laughs] Oh, brava. Well, that raised the spirits! I suppose that's gonna be all from me for now, runners, because I'm gonna have to go find another film before the credits finish rolling and all the zoms start looking for something a little bit meatier to entertain themselves, i.e. moi. So until next time, look after yourselves please, and keep on smiling.

~

[cannibal-wings]

It took me a long time to unlearn a lot of the gross things I had taken as truth with regards to the queer and lgbt+ communities.

Many of those things I learned on social media, in fact, all of them came from social media. I won’t discount the importance of social media and even fandom in opening up young people’s minds to the queer and lgbt+ communities. Especially if you were, like me, raised in an era that went without common internet access until late middle school or high school. For me, my first introduction to any of this in positive manner came from fandom on social media. My family was openly not safe for that kind of exploration, and I didn’t have the resources early in my life to gain better knowledge.

But that’s the thing, I don’t think people should be using social media as their only resource for learning about the queer and lgbt+ communities. The amount of toxic misinformation I took in took a long time to sort out and toss out. And I’ll be open about this, right now. On tumblr I learned a lot of false things. I was told by friends, even my ex boyfriend some of these things. I was told that bisexual people are transphobic, and that you have to ID as pansexual to not be transphobic. I took this as truth for years and changed my identity over to pansexual to avoid being transphobic. Now I know that that is false, and that bisexuality is not transphobic. I’ve since changed my identity back to bi. When I was younger, this was probably around 2012 or 2013 so eightish years ago, I was told that in order to be trans you had to have some form of dysphoria. At the time, that made sense to me, and I nodded my head and agreed and got angry at anyone and everyone who insisted differently. I know for a fact I had said something along the lines of “oh if that makes me a truscum then I guess I am! Put me down for that!” to a group of friends at a party. I was not corrected and some of the people I was with agreed. No doubt because they were reading the same posts on social media I was. I’ve long, long, since changed my views and am incredibly disappointed in the person I used to be. The person who decided that since someone else’s life experience didn’t match mine, then they must be wrong.

For a long time I hated people who identified as demi, thinking demiboys and demigirls were just normal people, because, “hey, who always feels like their gender right?” they just want a cool label to join the club. They aren’t trans, they aren’t genderqueer, they’re normal. I was wrong. Again, because I personally couldn’t understand or relate, I decided they were in the wrong.

I used to make fun of noun pronouns. Viciously sometimes to other friends I had. I thought all these tumblrites were going to ruin the name of the trans community and make us all a joke. As if the cis people who hate us would suddenly like us if I was mad enough at the “right” people.

Something I’ve learned over the years is that I don’t have understand each and every identity to respect it. And that it is much healthier mentally for me to focus on kindness and not anger. If I don’t understand why someone would ID as something, I should take the time to listen to their side and see if that helps. And if it doesn’t? Then I sit down and really think, “Are they hurting anyone? Honestly? Is their ID in their bio actively harming people?” If the answer is no, then I just ignore it.

I don’t have to completely understand he/him lesbians and she/her gays. I don’t have to know the personal appeal of each person with a noun pronoun. I don’t need the life story of every person with a long list of identities. New identities will continue to pop up because that’s how life is. Everyone is always changing, and the queer and lgbt+ communities are always growing. It costs me exactly 0$ to be nice to a person. It costs zero dollars to shut the fuck up and ignore it if it’s not hurting people.

And it’s taken me a lot of years to separate out the things I took as truth but were peddled to me by exclusionists of one form or another. The major takeaway here, from me dumping all the stuff I took as truth that actually wasn’t is this: Be careful with what you read. Really look at who is saying it and why. Because toxic rhetoric can be spread covertly. And I know from personal experience, that if you’re young and eager to be as “correct” and “unoffensive” as you can, that you’ll fall for it hook, line, and sinker. It’s not always going to be obvious, and that’s the scariest part.

Growing as a person never stops. Learning new things never stops. Adjusting your point of view and evaluating yourself is normal. I encourage everyone to stop and think about if any of the views you currently hold are hurtful. And if they are? Why do you hold them? Why do you focus any amount of energy on making someone feel bad for an identity that makes them feel whole? Why are you so eager to strip them of that and shove them into a different label? Could that energy be used on something kinder?

And to steal a quote from Anthony Oliveira, “Be brave enough to be kind.” That’s all I ask. 

[the-river-person]

I really appreciate how much you've expanded on jerry's *ahem* Seamus' personality. You've made him such a compelling three dimensional character. Especially that part about him always complaining but only about small insignificant "issues" to cope with everything else around him. That really stuck with me. What was your inspiration for that?

*We stan introspective mature papyrus and a sans that deals with his issues and overcomes them*

Oh that? Yeah that's because I do that a bit. Not nearly as much as Seamus does, but I like to grumble quietly about minor inconveniences as I move about and talk to inanimate objects, telling them to stay put or else, or to not be ridiculous you silly thing. My favorite bit is while at work I run the self checkout computers and whenever anything goes wrong (about once every three minutes) I mutter under my breath and call them the "Thrice accursed fiends". I'm not really a very technologically inclined person and those computers in particular are going to spell my death one day, I know it. So when I played Undertale and saw Burgerpants working in MTT's Burger Emporium.... I somewhat hated him. I think it was the purposefully horrific sprite art that might have put me off. But as I took a closer look at him for this fic, I really started to see more there. And obviously most of his real problems have their source in Mettaton, and could easily be rectified if he put any real effort into it. But he doesn't. Nobody in the Underground fixes their problems. Why bother? Asgore is just going to get the Human Souls and free everyone. And nobody wants to think about working long term solutions because that would mean having to admit that they might be down there for a very long long time. As I got to like Seamus more and more he evolved his character, and I saw his exaggerated reactions to relatively minor and totally fixable problems in his life, and knew exactly what it reminded me of. Of course, its not a very healthy coping mechanism when used his way. It's best to have a balanced approach to things, grumbling and complaining can be cathartic, but also going out of the way to find the positives in addition to that can help you achieve a healthier mindset. The relation to Seam from Deltarune... wrote itself somehow. I'm not really sure. I guess they're both sort of cats (cat-monsters?). But it seemed right and suddenly to my surprise, Burgerpants, now renamed as Seamus, was the grandson of Seam. And the rest I just tried to think of how someone with that personality might change and grow with time and certain people around them. The same sort of thing applies to Jerry, actually. He's written in the game as the person nobody likes. Arrogant, narcissistic, having atrocious hygiene, disregard for the feelings of those around him (or unawareness of it), and just general obnoxious behavior. But the thing is, he's not an evil person. Unlikable perhaps, at least in that state, but not evil. He's also quite strong as revealed when you fight him in the genocide route, being a support character he has no attack of his own but only serves to increase the offense of other npcs, yet when attacked he has strong defense. It occurred to me to wonder what would happen to a person who everyone ditched all the time, who everyone hated and mistreated. They might stop taking care of themselves, they might stop caring about other people and their feelings, they would just harden their hearts (souls in this case) and push through with whatever they want, because everyone hates them anyway. And I started to realize that exactly that is a possible reason why Jerry is already the way he is, and the only thing I could do was continue unraveling him to the natural consequence of that. Someone who can't keep themselves from causing trouble and violence, who finds themselves in the same screw up situations again and again, who knows what they are but don't care because they're just...angry. Really the only way someone might be able to break out of that kind of downward spiral is if someone else stepped in and forced a change that might lead to a better way. I didn't cover the rest of his story, but I'd like to hope that Papyrus found a job that suited Jerry. That he was given a job he liked, but was also challenged at and had to work hard. I suspect Papyrus got him some kind of job that has to do with maintenance for the Underground's version of a Radio Tower. Jerry seems to like his phone, its probably up his alley. And it might even be good for

him. (I've no idea what "stan" means exactly, but I assume its something along the lines of "I generally support this character and/or person". So yes, we absolutely do "stan" an introspective mature papyrus and a sans that deals with his issues and overcomes them.)